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Oh, haha… Last panel. They way Joyce’s arms were up and the face she was making sorta suggested something at first glance before I fully read through the whole thing.
… nevermind that it was Joyce’s hand, it would make no sense, and it was the wrong skintone. But the heart wants what it wants…
When I think of Ethan and Joyce’s relationship, I’m picturing Spore, in the second stage of the game where you get legs and stuff, only they decided to skip the legs and arms and eyes and just made a shapeless blob that wiggles around in a tiny colorless world, hoping to maybe bump into something it can eat before it starves to death.
I completely forgot about it myself. Then I read this and I’m like “Oh yeah…that happened too!”. MEANWHILE Blaine is teaching Danny how to devour children and throw force lightning.
Hey now, Amber’s life was already:
A) fucked up in the first place and
B) She fucked it more by forcing him into an uncomfortable position while he was already “dating someone else (amazigirl). In this situation, Danny is no more than a very poorly placed chess piece in her broken brain.
Yeah, it’s more that Amber is actively using Danny to fuck her own life up. It’s sort of like he’s the bull she brought into her china shop – though suffice to say, he’s very good at spinning around and unknowingly and unintentionally smashing everything in sight.
I now demand that when Dumbing of Age ends whenever, the sequel be this universe’s equivalent of “It’s Walky” about an older Riley fighting the Soggies.
It’d be called “Nomming of Age”. It’d just be four identical panels each day of Riley eating cereal with clear “-crunchcrunchcrunch-” sound effects. Then there’d be a plot twist where she got up and walked off-panel to get more cereal.
The final comic would be of Cap’n Crunch joining her with a bowl of congratulatory cereal for killing all of the soggies by eating delicious Cap’n Crunch, only, PLOT TWIST, she was eating Lucky Charms the whole time, so Soggies may still rule. Then the next sequels “Riley and Cereal!” and “Unboxed!” follow up on very loose plot threads still hanging from her cereal eating adventures.
Yes, Joyce, Ethan loves Amber more than you. Ethan loves penis more than you. You’re merely a means to regain control. try dating Danny instead, it’d be funny.
except for the part where jacob is a heterosexual male who–and this may not become a relevant plotpoint in THIS universe–in another universe was a sex addict. or someone with an addictive personality which focused on sex. one of those.
what i’m getting at is jacob probably likes sex, which is totally not what joyce is emotionally equipped to handle in a guy at this point.
Actually knowing about Shortpacked! Jacob’s sex addiction made me think this would make sense, at least in a way. Both Joyce and Ethan are in this relationship to avoid having to deal with sexual urges (“mutual aversion to fucking”, if you will), but their end goals or at least ideal end goals aren’t served by it. Joyce’s ideal end game is marriage, and for Ethan that would mean a lifetime of pretending to be something he’s not for the sake of others, mainly his parents. And Joyce would be in a marriage with a man who could never give a full romantic and sexual relationship. If Ethan and Joyce were in some kind of agreement whereby Joyce just hangs out with him as beard, that would be one thing, but that’s not what this situation is exactly. Joyce has an expectation that with enough patience and prayer Ethan will one day be her perfect Christian husband instead of a gay jewish man.
Now consider a recovering sex addict Jacob and this Joyce. Joyce isn’t comfortable escalating to anything sexual yet. If Jacob entered into the relationship respecting that, then it would actually give Jacob the chance to engage with someone emotionally for a long time without the expectation of sex. The difference between this and the Ethan scenario is that eventually they could have mutually compatible end goals. Once Jacob has worked on his relationship to sex enough that he can engage it in a healthy manner, he would have an strong, established relationship to have it in a with a person who would know where he’s coming from if he needs to stop. Joyce would have a romantic relationship with someone of a compatible orientation when she herself felt ready to move on to sexual contact.
Obviously, this all hypothetical and would riddled with it’s own problems, but it’s what I thought of at the idea of Joyce/Jacob.
Did… did I just make the longest post in the comments section with a meandering bunch of speculation only tangentially related to today’s comic? I, I think I may need to lie down.
I dunno. If that was something MY boyfriend just said in front of me I’d be pretty mad too. Of course…I’d be in the same boat as him because I’m ALSO not gay.
Point taken, Yotomoe. It’s just that Joyce’s concern is overlooking that she’s dating a closeted gay guy. Plus does she even recall what Amber said about defending him when he came out? She’s not just an ex-girlfriend, Joyce.
Then again Joyce is overly love-crazy. Marriage priorities and all that.
Have Ethan ever told Joyce that he came out? From Joyce’s perspective, Amber is the complete crazy who flipped a table, tried to physically assault her and then yelled about some stuff Joyce knew nothing about?
Yeah I put the vast majority of the blame for Joyce and Ethan’s relationship on Ethan. Way to screw up two girls, dude. What to go for a third?
I share that sentiment on the relationship blaming. I don’t think anyone should say that the blame should be equal. Joyce’s reasoning is understandable. Annoying, but understandable. Ethan’s reasoning is so infuriating.
I get that people are scared. But he was already out, he had a support system from Amber and he crapped on it at (pretty much) the first opportunity. I still find it pretty crappy that he never stood up to his mother regarding Amber.
This relationship will never work out. I’m willing to bet that Joyce will be the one hurting more, depending on the situation and what happens of course.
Haven’t you ever experienced *~true love~* ? Basically what I’m saying is Joyce is like a 13 year old girl who thinks her first boyfriend is the most perfect boyfriend ever and they’ll be happy foreverrrr.
Well, second boyfriend. She was talking about kids with Joe before this though, so there’s that.
Really I think she’s just been very hardwired into thinking of dating as the pursuit of a Happily Ever After, and thinking of Married with Children as that happily ever after. I personally bet that if you asked her why somebody might date in a scenario where marriage was not being considered, she would only be able to imagine sinful motivations.
at first i thought you were referring to Married… with Children, which i grew up watching, but never confused with the ideal marital state. although al and peggy, for all the bickering, were happy together as a couple, i guess.
Joyce has very specific ideas about how love and romance work that aren’t really grounded in anything real.
If Amber was an ex-wife Joyce would have trouble processing the notion that Ethan and Amber aren’t still soulmates forever. Came up when she found out about Joe’s divorced parents.
“They stopped dating so they must not love eachother” actually seems like a much easier and more intuitive mistake to make as she initially enters the dating scene. Pretty sure that one’s been made by people in much better situations than her.
Aside from that, seems like the sort of thing that might be pretty hard to hear even when you understand why it is.
Well sure. She’s probably aware of familial love and love between friends, but she seems pretty committed to the notion that romantic love is the one you direct towards your significant other. I can see why “I love you more than anyone” directed towards an ex-girlfriend might not immediately sound like “You’re my bestest friend in the whole wide world” to Joyce’s ears.
Really I don’t think that’s what most people would hear in that scenario. The whole statement reads quite intuitively as an exchange between a madly in love couple who have simply come against irreconcilable differences. It’s pretty close to the case, too. Ethan really would’ve married Amber if he thought there was same way he could circumvent the bedroom issues. Amber’s pretty much his nonsexual soulmate. Even if romance isn’t quite the right word for it that’s something that would intimidate a lot of people.
I’m pretty sure 152 hours is the number of hours they’ve actually spent dating, rather than the number of hours that have passed since they started dating.
Yeah, something along those lines, back when they were at Galasso’s with Dorothy and Walky. I think Willis said in the alt-text that she started counting from when they held hands in church.
I suspect that most people don’t spend more than 8 hours on a single date (because they have other obligations, and also have to sleep some time), so at least 19 dates.
I’m not sure, considering she has the dating maturity of a 14 year old I would think she would count it as “hours I can say I’ve had a boyfriend” rather than “time spent with Ethan.”
On that note, even if you averaged 6 hours of them spending time together whenever they see each other (which is pretty generous), math doesn’t add up.
Did anyone else think this would end with a “Joyce doesn’t know how to interact with black people” gag, and not a “Joyce doesn’t know how to deal with adult relationships” punchline?
She’s a maniac, maniac on the floor
And she’s dancing like she’s never danced before
She’s a maniac, maniac on the floor
And she’s dancing like she’s never danced before
Huh, forgot that Ethan said that within earshot of Joyce. I wonder if this will begin to make her realize that she won’t be able to change Ethan’s sexuality, when Amber’s is evidence of Ethan being unable to do so for someone he actually knew and loved (non-sexually) for a long time.
To this Joyce’s credit, she is trying to channel her impulses into helping someone else, instead of plotting ways to destroy Amber or keep Ethan away from everyone else he might be interested in forever.
I’m gonna be honest. For a second there, I forgot about what just happened with Ethan and Amber and thought that Joyce was somehow remembering her college experience in another universe.
Ok ok joyce, here what you do: go out, buy the most sexy night gown you can find, the go and wait in his room till he gets back, the try to sadduce him. Its full proof how he possibly resist?
i honestly don’t remember. i made it umptymillion internet years ago (so maybe 14 actual years) when i was a regular patron of a shoujo-centric fanscan site. it might be marmalade boy, but it could just as easily be from a manga with a similar art style.
This only hurts Joyce if she expects reciprocation, which suggests that 152 hours has been enough time for her to fall in love with Ethan further than she’s loved any man before. As sad as this is, it makes sense; this is the girl who has been trained from childhood to latch on to a godly groom and use him to give god a quiver full of little blonde arrows.
It didn’t have to be Ethan. Joe didn’t work out because he’s Joe: honest, straightforward sexuality is far more than Joyce can bear. Still, that leaves so many possibilities. There are plenty of dudes subtle and manipulative enough to take advantage of Joyce for more than simply a gay-denying sham relationship.
What I’m getting at is that she could have easily gotten this attached to -Mike-. It would have fallen into place perfectly, and he would have destroyed her life in any number of ways just for the hell of it, and the alcohol thing, and, and, and…
Thank you Willis. This is far from the darkest timeline.
This is probably the best thing for Joyce and Ethan. Maybe Joyce will realize she shouldn’t latch onto people in love (since you don’t know who they are right away), and maybe Ethan will realize if he DOES want to be intimate on a level we’re pretty sure he does, he can’t really be happy trying to be “normal.”
They’re both trying to shrug off what their parents did to them, and they probably are the best people for each other right now… in a strange way.
They’d be the best people for each other in that regard if they could open up and admit how much their parents did to control them. From my experience, it really helps to have someone with similar parental manipulation to talk to about it. That’s not enough to build a relationship, but a good friendship sure. They’d still need to talk about it, too.
At the rate that Joyce is discovering real happenings in the real world, and being messed with by Ethan, I can only see one of a few scenarios finally come to fruition.
First, Joyce just snaps and hides in the nearest church, having them call her family to bring her back to the fantasy world she lived in.
Second, perhaps going crazy street pastor and telling everyone how they’re scum in the eyes of god, and generally trying to convert everyone to her brand of extremism.
Third, perhaps a murder/suicide of Ethan or someone else close to her at the college.
No matter how it goes I don’t think she’s going to come out of this college experience any saner than before, in fact she’ll be even more crazy when the real world doesn’t work like the few ideas she’s been given by her whole town.
Joyce has shown a willingness to learn and grow past her ignorance of the world outside the narrow views she learned during her long years of homeschooling. Her acceptance and defense of Dorothy’s beliefs – while still maintaining her own – shows that while she holds strong beliefs, she possesses open toleration and respect for those who don’t agree with her.
There have been dumb things she’s done (read the comic title) either out of naivete or what others might see as a misguided belief, but Joyce has already proven to persevere in much fiercer tragedy than this (the Ryan date-rape attempt). True, she hasn’t sorted out her feelings in an ideal way, and she will likely have several difficult, painful moments before she really comes to grips with that (and the presumably inevitable collapse of the Ethan relationship), but Joyce, the girl who shines with positivity and brings together people who would never anticipate finding friendship with someone like her, will use these as teaching moments, and her friends won’t her fall into such despair.
Where you see only an extremist with religious views, there is a full, complicated character, with motives and emotions that you are too blinded by your distaste for her religious views to see.
Joyce has an open, friendly side, which will inevitably crowd out and subsume her religious side. Sometime in the next five DoA years I’d say, which is around, um, two hundred fifty or so real-world years? But Joyce’s biggest problem isn’t her religion. It’s the fact that she has this core of rage, wrapped in a creamy marshmallow coating of crazy. And neither her religious upbringing nor her friendly personality have prepared her to deal with things that cause her to snap. And when she snaps, watch out – she’s out of control and can and will hurt you.
In real life, rather than becoming subsumed by religion, I’d instead expect her to be arrested and possibly sent to prison sometime in the near future, as a result of one of these outbursts. (Amber would be in a similar boat, only moreso.) But this is a comic book world, so they’ll probably both escape any societal consequences of their ragey outbursts and violent actions.
I was just thinking that if Ethan had an interest in ladybits, he would be frozen out for a year after such a comment.
But since the only ladybits he has shown a possible interest in belong to Jocelyn, the freeze isn’t likely to happen.
today in #9chickweedlane i learned we have to be shown children learning and relearning what sex is, for Reasons, even though they already clearly know and have prepared nuanced questions about it!
also that Gran must hate, if she's still alive, how Old Juliette is the same but with gray hair
one of my favorite things is when a commenter explodes WHEN DO THESE CHARACTERS GET THERAPY but directed towards a character who canonically has a regular therapist
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btw if you're one of those rando bluesky weirdos who doesn't know me but sees me in the wild being sarcastic and don't know i'm being sarcastic because you haven't taken like 30 seconds to, like, maybe look at my user profile or something, keep walking, you're not going to score internet points here
Here's an entertaining cite at the bottom of the first page
Josh Gerstein@joshgerstein.bsky.social ⋅ 2d
JUST IN: Milwaukee Judge Hannah Dugan moves to dismiss federal criminal case against her for allegedly helping immigrant hide from ICE. Her lawyers say she's protected by official acts & judicial immunity and 10th Amendment. Doc: storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.us...
Where did Hollywood go so wrong? I thought movies were supposed to be an escape from reality, a chance to put your worries aside and not have to think about any underlying ideas or concepts. Well, not anymore.
theonion.com/you-can...
It's not a new argument, of course, but Chesterton dismissed it effectively in 1908.
"You will hear everlastingly... this argument that the rich man cannot be bribed. The fact is, of course, that the rich man is bribed; he has been bribed already. That is why he is a rich man."
Aaron Rupar@atrupar.com ⋅ 2d
Hawley dismisses Trump lining his pockets with his memecoin: "Listen, I think nobody believes that Donald Trump can be bought. I mean, what does Donald Trump need more money for?"
wilbur, savvy enough to know he's in a comic strip but still not a great actor, awkwardly lifts a muffin up into frame so that we, the audience, understand that he has a muffin right now, which is very important narratively, but he's not really selling it well as an organic, human action
preternia @preternia.com ⋅ 1d
Josh Gerstein @joshgerstein.bsky.social ⋅ 2d
Aaron Rupar @atrupar.com ⋅ 2d
Pavel
@spavel.bsky.social ⋅ 11d
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wow uh Joyce… calm down
She’s going critical!
MINI-CRITS!
This would have never happened if she dated Dotty instead.
Or Sal’s bike.
Or her magnificent hair
Your avatar is strangely suited to that comment.
Sorry Joyce, did you say crazy *ex*-girlfriend?
forms a nice match set with his crazy current girlfriend
One day, Joyce, YOU’LL be the crazy ex-girlfriend, and you’ll look back on all of this and laugh.
Maniacally laugh
And then stab everything.
Best gravatar.
But with WHOSE femurs?
and laugh and laugh and laugh hooo boy
At first I thought Sarah was totally coppin’ Joyce’s boob.
W-…where?
I think he means the final panel
Oh, haha… Last panel. They way Joyce’s arms were up and the face she was making sorta suggested something at first glance before I fully read through the whole thing.
… nevermind that it was Joyce’s hand, it would make no sense, and it was the wrong skintone. But the heart wants what it wants…
Attractive a thought as that is, which panel gave you that idea?
And Joyce just had a stroke, great :/
Poor Sarah. Always looking our for Joyce, never vice versa.
Joyce said she’d do this before the whole Ethan drama bomb exploded.
Hell, she was trying to do it even before she knew Sarah was familiar with Jacob.
And look how it all worked out!
Hey look at it from a certain perspective Joyce! Your gay boyfriend says he loves a woman more than anyone else. That’s progress!
It’s just not you! But he likes you enough to date you. Just doesn’t love you enough to not want to dissapoint you!
And really that’s all you really need in a marriage!
YEahhhh, Ethan _has_ kneecapped the relationship doing that, hasn’t he?
When I think of Ethan and Joyce’s relationship, I’m picturing Spore, in the second stage of the game where you get legs and stuff, only they decided to skip the legs and arms and eyes and just made a shapeless blob that wiggles around in a tiny colorless world, hoping to maybe bump into something it can eat before it starves to death.
So, like, what kneecap.
Hold my breath as I wish for death~ Oh please, God, wake meeee!
Heh, yeah, we never saw Joyce’s reaction to this…
I completely forgot about it myself. Then I read this and I’m like “Oh yeah…that happened too!”. MEANWHILE Blaine is teaching Danny how to devour children and throw force lightning.
Or maybe throwing children and devouring lightning. Either is really possible.
Well, he doesn’t need to teach Danny how to fuck up Amber’s life — Danny’s got that part down already.
Hey now, Amber’s life was already:
A) fucked up in the first place and
B) She fucked it more by forcing him into an uncomfortable position while he was already “dating someone else (amazigirl). In this situation, Danny is no more than a very poorly placed chess piece in her broken brain.
Yeah, it’s more that Amber is actively using Danny to fuck her own life up. It’s sort of like he’s the bull she brought into her china shop – though suffice to say, he’s very good at spinning around and unknowingly and unintentionally smashing everything in sight.
Eat lightning and crap thunder!
Shit fire and save matches.
Devour lightning and throw up children.
I thought that said “chicken” and I did not understand.
I actually had to reread the last month to figure out what she was talking about. >_>;;
“Don’t worry, you’ll be totally sexy! Now where do you keep your sweater-vests?”
Love this!
I was wondering if anyone was going to comment on what Joyce thought would constitute a “hot outfit”
Something heavily insulated, obviously.
oh, so she’s taking it quite well after all
so did Riley ever get her Cocoa Puffs? i feel like we’re lacking closure on that important point
I think she had them in the strip Dina introduced her to Amber.
In my fanon, Riley always has plentiful Cocoa Puffs. And Cap’n Crunch, if she so desires.
With Riley DeSanto on the case, Soggies will never rule!
Correction: “Soggies may never rule”
I now demand that when Dumbing of Age ends whenever, the sequel be this universe’s equivalent of “It’s Walky” about an older Riley fighting the Soggies.
Awesome though that would be, it still probably couldn’t live up to Breakfast of the Gods.
It’d be called “Nomming of Age”. It’d just be four identical panels each day of Riley eating cereal with clear “-crunchcrunchcrunch-” sound effects. Then there’d be a plot twist where she got up and walked off-panel to get more cereal.
Later, LAWsome crossover!
The final comic would be of Cap’n Crunch joining her with a bowl of congratulatory cereal for killing all of the soggies by eating delicious Cap’n Crunch, only, PLOT TWIST, she was eating Lucky Charms the whole time, so Soggies may still rule. Then the next sequels “Riley and Cereal!” and “Unboxed!” follow up on very loose plot threads still hanging from her cereal eating adventures.
Oh my god I love this so much.
Nomming of Age, with delicious cereal every day forever.
I’m sure in the alternate universe she is allowed to marry a Cereal Tycoon.
Which of the series would have her facing a cereal killer?
(slinks off in shame after that abominable pun)
Your joke is bad and you should feel bad!
Fallout intensifies
That’s some Fallout, Boy.
Yes, Joyce, Ethan loves Amber more than you. Ethan loves penis more than you. You’re merely a means to regain control. try dating Danny instead, it’d be funny.
Or Dorothy. We all know you want her.
Or Sal. We all know you want her as well. Because you have a pulse.
Everybody wants Sal. Even herself.
Why not all of the above? XD
You are tool in the saddest way, Joyce.
Like, pliers sad.
try dating Danny instead, it’d be funny.
Ohhhh, no. Not that again!
She’s never dated Danny before. They’d be a swirling vortex of ever expanding bad decisions and obliviousness. It will be beautiful.
It happens in the Walkyverse. Your prediction is fairly accurate, too!
That wasn’t dating, that was stalking.
Hell, she might even be better off with Mike.
A Joyce and Mike pairing?
…Perish the thought!!!!
Maybe Joyce should go out with Jacob instead.
That… might actually make some kind of sense
except for the part where jacob is a heterosexual male who–and this may not become a relevant plotpoint in THIS universe–in another universe was a sex addict. or someone with an addictive personality which focused on sex. one of those.
what i’m getting at is jacob probably likes sex, which is totally not what joyce is emotionally equipped to handle in a guy at this point.
I’m sure Jacob could… change her mind.
Actually knowing about Shortpacked! Jacob’s sex addiction made me think this would make sense, at least in a way. Both Joyce and Ethan are in this relationship to avoid having to deal with sexual urges (“mutual aversion to fucking”, if you will), but their end goals or at least ideal end goals aren’t served by it. Joyce’s ideal end game is marriage, and for Ethan that would mean a lifetime of pretending to be something he’s not for the sake of others, mainly his parents. And Joyce would be in a marriage with a man who could never give a full romantic and sexual relationship. If Ethan and Joyce were in some kind of agreement whereby Joyce just hangs out with him as beard, that would be one thing, but that’s not what this situation is exactly. Joyce has an expectation that with enough patience and prayer Ethan will one day be her perfect Christian husband instead of a gay jewish man.
Now consider a recovering sex addict Jacob and this Joyce. Joyce isn’t comfortable escalating to anything sexual yet. If Jacob entered into the relationship respecting that, then it would actually give Jacob the chance to engage with someone emotionally for a long time without the expectation of sex. The difference between this and the Ethan scenario is that eventually they could have mutually compatible end goals. Once Jacob has worked on his relationship to sex enough that he can engage it in a healthy manner, he would have an strong, established relationship to have it in a with a person who would know where he’s coming from if he needs to stop. Joyce would have a romantic relationship with someone of a compatible orientation when she herself felt ready to move on to sexual contact.
Obviously, this all hypothetical and would riddled with it’s own problems, but it’s what I thought of at the idea of Joyce/Jacob.
Did… did I just make the longest post in the comments section with a meandering bunch of speculation only tangentially related to today’s comic? I, I think I may need to lie down.
Welcome to the club! Food and drinks are available.
I misread the 1st panel as “Sarah, I’m gonna find you a hotdog suit”
“Then Jacob will finally notice your buns!!”
+1 LIKE
“Afterwards I’ll wear it. Ethan loves wieners, after all!”
Ahahaha!! This comment wins.
That’s something you save for the wedding night.
Well, that does get attention from boys… and girls… and passing animals. A walking hot dog is hard to ignore.
That’s how I start every conversation with my friends.
Good thing all your friends are named Sarah.
I almost thought that two, I was about to say.
So, she heard that, did she?
It would be pretty hard to have missed, you know, since Ethan was talking to Amber and Amber only being held back from Joyce by Sarah.
Sooooulcrush~
MIND CRUSH!
Candy Crush!
The Crushinator!
Ah Joyce, always worrying about the wrong flippin’ thing.
I dunno. If that was something MY boyfriend just said in front of me I’d be pretty mad too. Of course…I’d be in the same boat as him because I’m ALSO not gay.
Have you and your boyfriend thought about seeing other people?
I see other people all the time. There’s one. There’s another. I see like three across the room. What’s your point?
Are any of them dead?
they will be
Not very helpful; we all will be.
Very soon if Sageress has anything to do with it.
Point taken, Yotomoe. It’s just that Joyce’s concern is overlooking that she’s dating a closeted gay guy. Plus does she even recall what Amber said about defending him when he came out? She’s not just an ex-girlfriend, Joyce.
Then again Joyce is overly love-crazy. Marriage priorities and all that.
Joyce only latched onto the whole love comment. NOTHING ELSE MATTERS. I mean, it’s not like Ethan flirted with another man at all. …*shifty look*
Have Ethan ever told Joyce that he came out? From Joyce’s perspective, Amber is the complete crazy who flipped a table, tried to physically assault her and then yelled about some stuff Joyce knew nothing about?
Yeah I put the vast majority of the blame for Joyce and Ethan’s relationship on Ethan. Way to screw up two girls, dude. What to go for a third?
OH NO NOT DINA!
I share that sentiment on the relationship blaming. I don’t think anyone should say that the blame should be equal. Joyce’s reasoning is understandable. Annoying, but understandable. Ethan’s reasoning is so infuriating.
I get that people are scared. But he was already out, he had a support system from Amber and he crapped on it at (pretty much) the first opportunity. I still find it pretty crappy that he never stood up to his mother regarding Amber.
This relationship will never work out. I’m willing to bet that Joyce will be the one hurting more, depending on the situation and what happens of course.
God creates man. Man creates Monkey Master. Dina loves dinosaurs. Dinosaurs eat God.
Dinosaurs eat Mary. Mary destroys dinosaurs.
Is the intensity of her perpetual rage enough to overcome the stomach acids of a dinosaur? I think it would depend on which dinosaur.
Dinosaurs become smarter, creates an underground empire and create Mechasaurus to rule Man.
Man builds Getter Robo to defeat smart dinosaurs.
Either way, women inherit the earth.
Someone hug poor Joyce. Someone hug her now.
Not sure that’s safe at the moment. We should probably plop her in front of the TV and turn on cartoons instead.
Nah, I’d rather watch her go into meltdown.
Munch, Munch, Munch. Want some popcorn?
Of course he does, even if he wasn’t gay, they’ve grown up together and you’ve only been dating for like less than a week.
Yet she already talking about marriage. How does somebody think like that?
Haven’t you ever experienced *~true love~* ? Basically what I’m saying is Joyce is like a 13 year old girl who thinks her first boyfriend is the most perfect boyfriend ever and they’ll be happy foreverrrr.
Well, second boyfriend. She was talking about kids with Joe before this though, so there’s that.
Really I think she’s just been very hardwired into thinking of dating as the pursuit of a Happily Ever After, and thinking of Married with Children as that happily ever after. I personally bet that if you asked her why somebody might date in a scenario where marriage was not being considered, she would only be able to imagine sinful motivations.
at first i thought you were referring to Married… with Children, which i grew up watching, but never confused with the ideal marital state. although al and peggy, for all the bickering, were happy together as a couple, i guess.
Like Anna in “Frozen”
Joyce is ALWAYS thinking marriage. it’s the whole reason she’s here and the motivation behind every interaction with a new guy.
152 hours! That’s practically married!
Common law married is only 61,360.7 hours! So, close enough, right?
But it’s still shorter than Carmen Electra/Dennis Rodman’s marriage.
But longer than Britney Spears and Kevin whats-his-face.
The only thing he was worse at then relationships was rapping.
Britney and K-Fed lasted longer than that. Now Britney and Jason Alexander, that was a five-minute marriage.
I’m still eternally sad that it wasn’t Seinfeld’s Jason Alexander she married.
well that jason alexander was certainly WAY more talented than kevin federwurst or whatever his name was.
Joyce has very specific ideas about how love and romance work that aren’t really grounded in anything real.
If Amber was an ex-wife Joyce would have trouble processing the notion that Ethan and Amber aren’t still soulmates forever. Came up when she found out about Joe’s divorced parents.
“They stopped dating so they must not love eachother” actually seems like a much easier and more intuitive mistake to make as she initially enters the dating scene. Pretty sure that one’s been made by people in much better situations than her.
Aside from that, seems like the sort of thing that might be pretty hard to hear even when you understand why it is.
I get the unreasonable expectations, but surely Joyce also recognises that there’s more forms of love than just romantic.
Well sure. She’s probably aware of familial love and love between friends, but she seems pretty committed to the notion that romantic love is the one you direct towards your significant other. I can see why “I love you more than anyone” directed towards an ex-girlfriend might not immediately sound like “You’re my bestest friend in the whole wide world” to Joyce’s ears.
Really I don’t think that’s what most people would hear in that scenario. The whole statement reads quite intuitively as an exchange between a madly in love couple who have simply come against irreconcilable differences. It’s pretty close to the case, too. Ethan really would’ve married Amber if he thought there was same way he could circumvent the bedroom issues. Amber’s pretty much his nonsexual soulmate. Even if romance isn’t quite the right word for it that’s something that would intimidate a lot of people.
So she hasn’t changed at all, just hiding it.
I’m glad to realize they’ve been dating less than a week.
I feel like Joyce and my 14 year old Xanga entries would have common ground.
I’m pretty sure 152 hours is the number of hours they’ve actually spent dating, rather than the number of hours that have passed since they started dating.
I think it’s probably the number of hours since they’ve been dating. Joyce strikes me as an ‘I’ve had a boyfriend for x hours now’ type…
She’s literally said something along the lines of “my boyfriend for 48 hours.”
Yeah, something along those lines, back when they were at Galasso’s with Dorothy and Walky. I think Willis said in the alt-text that she started counting from when they held hands in church.
No, they’ve only been dating a few days at this point.
152 hours of actual dates is… A lot of dates.
Ah, good point then. Nevermind.
Or one really awesome date…
152 hours is a little over 6 days, I doubt it’s that many dates.
I suspect that most people don’t spend more than 8 hours on a single date (because they have other obligations, and also have to sleep some time), so at least 19 dates.
152 hours in actual dates, not time elapsed since they first started dating, is either many many dates or more than a few overnighters.
I’m not sure, considering she has the dating maturity of a 14 year old I would think she would count it as “hours I can say I’ve had a boyfriend” rather than “time spent with Ethan.”
On that note, even if you averaged 6 hours of them spending time together whenever they see each other (which is pretty generous), math doesn’t add up.
25 1/3 days, so slightly under a month for 6 hours each day. It is possible, but only if there has been a lot of time ‘off screen.’
No it’s not. It’s been stated they’re on their third weekend, and you still have to count for the days before she first went to church with Ethan.
On her first weekend she went to church with Dorothy, Mary and Sierra. On the second she took Ethan there. So the “less than 1 week” count holds up.
Did anyone else think this would end with a “Joyce doesn’t know how to interact with black people” gag, and not a “Joyce doesn’t know how to deal with adult relationships” punchline?
I thought it was gonna end in a “how do you expect to land a man if you have no denim jumpers” punchline.
Maybe she just doesn’t know how to deal w black people and adult relationships at the same time. She can do either one if it’s one-at-a-time.
You know who would probably bring order to all this, or make it more entertaining? Mike.
Nice paraphrase on Jurassic Park Wonder Wig
Oh dear, have you still not found the Reply links? They’re right under the commenter’s names next to the date and time stamps. See ’em???
Given all the drama that’s been happening lately, I wonder what the next surprise will be. Maybe Joe and Roz come out as Asexuals?
Jacob arranges an intervention for Joe’s sex addiction.
Dina confesses her love for Amber.
…As they ramp off of an uncompleted elevated highway during the climactic car chase?
Worth it!
Sad part is this is a nice change of place from the stealth racism storyline.
Or Blaine…
Or Family Weekend in general…
Or the universe hating Amber!
She’s a maniac, maniac on the floor
And she’s dancing like she’s never danced before
She’s a maniac, maniac on the floor
And she’s dancing like she’s never danced before
Great jorb!
Huh, forgot that Ethan said that within earshot of Joyce. I wonder if this will begin to make her realize that she won’t be able to change Ethan’s sexuality, when Amber’s is evidence of Ethan being unable to do so for someone he actually knew and loved (non-sexually) for a long time.
Within earshot = right in front of, in a conversation that included her
Yes, Sarah, well you would be wrong about that.
WE’VE GOT A DRAMA CORE BREACH
MANUALLY EJECT!
FIRMLY GRASP IT!
WE NEED TO PATCH THIS ASAP! (Where’s McGuyver?)
I have some bubblegum and paper clips, but that only builds a bomb…
REVERSE THE POLARITY OF THE POSITRON FLOW!
But if you reverse the polarity of a positron, then it’ll definitely become A NEGATRON!
If Joyce is Goldblumming, she didn’t do the ummms and uhhhs.
“
LifeLove finds a way”You see uhhhh uhhh…ethan uhhh is…uhhh…a manwhore…yes. I have uhhhh studied them haaaah hmm..
And you know what happens next? -in a whispering tone- Checkmate!
… Aaaaaand THERE’S the relationship-obsessed, slightly psychotic Roomies!Joyce we all know and fear!
To this Joyce’s credit, she is trying to channel her impulses into helping someone else, instead of plotting ways to destroy Amber or keep Ethan away from everyone else he might be interested in forever.
I’m gonna be honest. For a second there, I forgot about what just happened with Ethan and Amber and thought that Joyce was somehow remembering her college experience in another universe.
This is a recurring theme with Joyce…
Here’s how you Goldblum: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bx5dJPy8XUg
Ok ok joyce, here what you do: go out, buy the most sexy night gown you can find, the go and wait in his room till he gets back, the try to sadduce him. Its full proof how he possibly resist?
(Enjoying Joyce’s suffering )
It’s funny because it’s a typo that could instead be looked at as a portmanteau of “sad” and “seduce”!
I hereby vote that if Joyce ever tries to seduce someone and it’s a very sad attempt at it, we should call it a “sadduce!”
It would be funnier than her attempts to swear.
But wouldn’t that just be Joycing it?
I’d just kinda like to see, at this stage in her development, what Joyce would consider “the most sexy nightgown you can find”.
(I bet it would totally show ankle)
And wrists, and possibly her neck.
I wonder what Sal and Amber are doing? Hopefully each other.
sal’s joyriding with marcy and amber’s probably on a path that will lead her to direct eyesight of danny conversing with her OTHER nemesis.
i can’t wait for the danny/amber conversation that includes him commenting on how blaine seemed like an alright guy to him.
This is really off-subject, but holy shit, is that a Marmalade Boy gravatar?
i honestly don’t remember. i made it umptymillion internet years ago (so maybe 14 actual years) when i was a regular patron of a shoujo-centric fanscan site. it might be marmalade boy, but it could just as easily be from a manga with a similar art style.
It’s just an excuse for Joyce to dig through Sarah’s closet and nose into Sarah’s life.
She’s a total stalker.
I think knowing off hand the number of hours she’s been dating her gay boyfriend is very much evidence to this point.
She’s stalking herself!
I heard this tremendous cracking sound, thought we were having an earthquake, but nope it was just Joyce.
Guess it doesn’t matter what universe it is: there is core of crazy at the center of Joyce’s being. The difference is how it manifests.
Hilariously, the moment I scrolled over the alt text, Abed on community at the same exact time said “Jeff, you’re Goldblumming”
This only hurts Joyce if she expects reciprocation, which suggests that 152 hours has been enough time for her to fall in love with Ethan further than she’s loved any man before. As sad as this is, it makes sense; this is the girl who has been trained from childhood to latch on to a godly groom and use him to give god a quiver full of little blonde arrows.
It didn’t have to be Ethan. Joe didn’t work out because he’s Joe: honest, straightforward sexuality is far more than Joyce can bear. Still, that leaves so many possibilities. There are plenty of dudes subtle and manipulative enough to take advantage of Joyce for more than simply a gay-denying sham relationship.
What I’m getting at is that she could have easily gotten this attached to -Mike-. It would have fallen into place perfectly, and he would have destroyed her life in any number of ways just for the hell of it, and the alcohol thing, and, and, and…
Thank you Willis. This is far from the darkest timeline.
On behalf of Joyce i would like to thank God for this as well…
This is probably the best thing for Joyce and Ethan. Maybe Joyce will realize she shouldn’t latch onto people in love (since you don’t know who they are right away), and maybe Ethan will realize if he DOES want to be intimate on a level we’re pretty sure he does, he can’t really be happy trying to be “normal.”
They’re both trying to shrug off what their parents did to them, and they probably are the best people for each other right now… in a strange way.
They’d be the best people for each other in that regard if they could open up and admit how much their parents did to control them. From my experience, it really helps to have someone with similar parental manipulation to talk to about it. That’s not enough to build a relationship, but a good friendship sure. They’d still need to talk about it, too.
That’s almost a week, isn’t it?
Six days and eight hours.
Before reading the last panel, just glancing at Joyce’s face made me think she found some hotter outfits than she expected… or Sarah’s “toys”.
I don’t think Joyce would know what those toys were if she came across them visually.
Rub it on my tummy!
“It’s a back massager! Mom had one of these! Hey, would you use it on me?”
Hehe… You said “came.”
Curlers….in the walkyverse
Oh no, the madness got to Joyce!
Ok wow….Joyce is still Joyce alright. Silly Sarah, thinking otherwise.
Crazy Joyce is BACK!
Too be fair, Joyce, Ethan loves Amber like a sister.
His love for you is more like that of a security blanket.
What love? He’s never said anything close to that.
He didn’t have to. He said it with his EYES.
He did kinda make out with her a couple times.
Somebody prepare the panic room!
Done!
I’m glad Sarah didn’t get her hopes up too much. Doesn’t seem to buy it for a minute.
Aww, be easy on Amber, Joyce. She’s going through a really hard… life.
No, really. Her life is pretty screwed.
For some reason, I’m imagining Joyce singing ‘This Nearly Was Mine’ and Ethan singing ‘ I Wish I Was An Oscar Meyer Wiener’. Hee,hee,hee.
At the rate that Joyce is discovering real happenings in the real world, and being messed with by Ethan, I can only see one of a few scenarios finally come to fruition.
First, Joyce just snaps and hides in the nearest church, having them call her family to bring her back to the fantasy world she lived in.
Second, perhaps going crazy street pastor and telling everyone how they’re scum in the eyes of god, and generally trying to convert everyone to her brand of extremism.
Third, perhaps a murder/suicide of Ethan or someone else close to her at the college.
No matter how it goes I don’t think she’s going to come out of this college experience any saner than before, in fact she’ll be even more crazy when the real world doesn’t work like the few ideas she’s been given by her whole town.
You really don’t seem to “get” Joyce.
Joyce has shown a willingness to learn and grow past her ignorance of the world outside the narrow views she learned during her long years of homeschooling. Her acceptance and defense of Dorothy’s beliefs – while still maintaining her own – shows that while she holds strong beliefs, she possesses open toleration and respect for those who don’t agree with her.
There have been dumb things she’s done (read the comic title) either out of naivete or what others might see as a misguided belief, but Joyce has already proven to persevere in much fiercer tragedy than this (the Ryan date-rape attempt). True, she hasn’t sorted out her feelings in an ideal way, and she will likely have several difficult, painful moments before she really comes to grips with that (and the presumably inevitable collapse of the Ethan relationship), but Joyce, the girl who shines with positivity and brings together people who would never anticipate finding friendship with someone like her, will use these as teaching moments, and her friends won’t her fall into such despair.
Where you see only an extremist with religious views, there is a full, complicated character, with motives and emotions that you are too blinded by your distaste for her religious views to see.
Joyce has an open, friendly side, which will inevitably crowd out and subsume her religious side. Sometime in the next five DoA years I’d say, which is around, um, two hundred fifty or so real-world years? But Joyce’s biggest problem isn’t her religion. It’s the fact that she has this core of rage, wrapped in a creamy marshmallow coating of crazy. And neither her religious upbringing nor her friendly personality have prepared her to deal with things that cause her to snap. And when she snaps, watch out – she’s out of control and can and will hurt you.
In real life, rather than becoming subsumed by religion, I’d instead expect her to be arrested and possibly sent to prison sometime in the near future, as a result of one of these outbursts. (Amber would be in a similar boat, only moreso.) But this is a comic book world, so they’ll probably both escape any societal consequences of their ragey outbursts and violent actions.
Willingness to learn and grow past her ignorance of the world? http://www.dumbingofage.com/2013/comic/book-3/02-guess-whos-coming-to-galassos/proven/
*now playing Requiem For A Dream*
I know no one will likely see this down here, but doing a archive binge I found this strip: http://www.dumbingofage.com/2012/comic/book-2/04-time-keeps-on-slippin/transformers/
After the “Girlfr— BEST friend” slip, oh, yeah, Joyce has PLENTY of reason for upset right now….
I was just thinking that if Ethan had an interest in ladybits, he would be frozen out for a year after such a comment.
But since the only ladybits he has shown a possible interest in belong to Jocelyn, the freeze isn’t likely to happen.
Shoulda known.