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“These are great, Joyce! I can!t wait to expel the post-digested version out my butthole. Heh heh.”
“Jeepers H. Crackers, Becky! Eww!”
“Heh heh heh. PLOP.”
Well, Mike was a bit of an extreme variant, but his role in that date ALREADY HAD A NAME (and a purpose) long before any of us were even born (and let’s put it this way, my stepdaughter is older than these freshmen)
…maybe we SHOULD bring chaperones and chaperoning back? :S
I think she might be trying to probe the issue a little bit (with a surprising amount of subtlety), but mostly I think she’s just making conversation. ‘Course, it might be about to get kinda serious, cuz Joyce has some pretty heavy reasons for not wanting to talk about boys.
I think she’s being a good friend: she noticed that Joyce’s behaviour was significantly different so she asked what’s up with that in an open and non-judgmental manner.
*scoff* Everyone knows you can’t TURN lesbian. You TRANSFORM into a lesbian. Through like a magical girl sequence with less skirts and more flannel. Gosh. Some people.
I still remember the family watching Sailor Moon and seeing that attack being used for the first time (I had purchased the complete series DVD box set for my daughter as a Christmas present and we were binge watching, and were up to the episodes we had never seen before). My reaction was: “Wait, what did I just hear?” followed immediately by a rewind, followed by laughter by the whole family.
Where’s our Magical Lesbian Joyce transformation sequence already, Yotomoe? Seems like the kinda thing a fella’d draw the instant he thinks of it, is all.
Nanoha and Chrono? Haven’t noticed that, apart from one tease scene in TOS. I thought Yuuno was the usual trolling.
I’m not aware of canon that uses any of the usual markers for shipping, like “she is my girlfriend”, partner, lover, wife, etc. Or kissing. Granted, the sharing a bed marker seems blatant in its own way. But, they could be cuddly friends who are asexuals.
Was Yuuno his name? If so, then yes, the Drama CDs ship that. I can’t recall which name goes to which character of the side folks.
But I mean, you want more explicit canon? Besides sharing a bed and both being mothers to their collective child? That’s pretty much ‘text’. It’s like ‘guessing’ that Vader/Anakin did what he did out of love of his son. Technically, they’re never stated out loud, but it’s the best explanation that fits the available evidence.
Madoka and its yuri are great, but I was actually making a pure reference to Mahou Shoujou Lyrical Nanoha, which has its own yuri subtext, if “sleeping in the same bed in lingerie and adopting a kid together but hardly holding hands” is still subtext…
Well, Shinbo doesn’t really do his own direction. He runs an animation mill and has sub directors who are held to extraordinarily strict limits so they don’t rock his die-hard fanbase. But he does not, himself, direct. Which is why everything where he has a direction credit lately comes out *incredibly* samey on that end, to a scary degree.
I especially love seafood tacos. Some are a bit clammy, but they get my seal of approval. I’m just a bit Crabby when people Tuna blind eye to great food like that bason just the taste! Anyway enough Fish Schtick.
Holy mackerel, I though I Smelt something fishy in the comments.
I’m sorry to carp at you, but I’m not sure I sea what the porpoise of your comment is? I’m floundering due to your abyssal puns, which have cod me off guard and left me unmoored.
I think you Betta get back to your school …
I should Goby more productive, but this is my Sole entertainment right now.
Damn it
The Mexican place doesn’t open for another few hours, and I’m already late for predawn classes. Taco Bell needs to start selling fish tacos already.
Why would it? It’s still not conformed she likes girls. I don’t care if you’re excited about the possibility, or if you wanna ship for funsies, but acting like it’s an established fact is just wrong.
Still no confirmed in the comic, no matter how much anyone wants to read things that way.
People just see what they want to see, and then think they’ve been “vindicated” when their unjustified assumptions turn out to be true, and subconsciously ignore all the times they were wrong.
Ryan’s a complete piece of shit, sure, but what’s tragic about Joyce meeting Joe or Walky? Joe is obsessed with sex, but he wants it to be consensual. Walky started out not being interested in any kind of intimacy at all, until he met Dorothy.
Apart from Ryan-the-date-rapist, Joyce hasn’t met any bad guys at all so far. Her big problem isn’t men and their desires, it’s her own hang-ups, and she got those hang-ups before college.
From Joyce’s perspective, Walky constantly insults her intelligence and values and Joe is pretty much a classic horny douche. Joyce doesn’t have the perspective to see that Joe is a respectful, honest, consentual dude, or that Walky is opening up to Dorothy, she just sees Joe’s libido as a threat and Walky as a jerk. Since Joyce can only see Walky’s jerkitude and can only understand that Joe is intimidatingly horny, they don’t have to be bad men for Joyce to get the wrong ideas from her experience of them.
Put another way, it’s not the dudes’ fault exactly, it’s that their attributes intersect with Joyce’s upbringing in a negative manner, and then Joyce thinks that boys are probably ‘awful and horrible’.
If by gentleman you mean the only one to actively lie to her and use her for his own purposes. Yes, she’s in on it now, but only because Amber caught him and forced him to confess.
Thing I will never have the courage to do:
Order a chicken dinner
Take a photo of said chicken dinner
Post it with the caption LOOK AT ALL THE COCKS I’M EATING
Oh, God… Becky, I know what you’re thinking… Don’t do it! Whatever you do, don’t do what you’re about to do! JOYCE IS NOT TALKING ABOUT THAT KIND OF TACO!!!
But Arank11, all tacos are delicious.
Fish Tacos, Chicken Tacos, Spicy Tacos, mild tacos. Why would what kind of taco Joyce likes be bad?” I say, sarcastically.
Pan-seared ono or mahi-mahi makes for an excellent taco filling. Y’all jerks’re reinforcing my hunger’s resistance movement against the stimulants that are keeping my eyes open.
Tacos used to all be made with fish, it was a So-Cal way of taking care of the bits trimmed off fish at canneries way back when. Then beef and other meats were introduced as the technique migrated away from the coast.
Ah I don’t see where her best friend asking her why she is no longer boy crazy is an automatic lead in to ‘hey are you a lesbian’. If my best friend changed notably and this was first chance we had to talk, yeah I’d ask.
When Joyce arrived on the campus that really was her major topic of conversation, each and every male she saw was a possible MR. and she made no excuses-she was there for a husband.
The near rape frightened her, of course. And made her hide behind Ethan. If she isn’t screwed up in one way, she gets it in another. Joyce may be afraid to talk to Becky thinking Becky will tell her parents. That was her biggest fear when Sarah tried to get her to go to the police.
Guess we will just see. Mr. W. will likely surprise the crap out of us at any rate.
I agree with all of this. Asking about Joyce’s major change in priorities doesn’t necessarily mean anything except that Becky’s a decent friend.
I really hope that Joyce can talk a bit about her trauma. Girl needs support, and it’s looking like Becky can totally be trusted with keeping it secret from Joyce’s folks as needed.
I concur.
That said, where do you think we are? The shipping will not be stopped, diverted, or reasoned with. Like a ferocious beast, it is ever hungry for its next pairing. And besides, it’s funny.
That’s not where you’re supposed to put it. And Ortega is baby food mild, so unless you got a bad batch or are extremely sensitive to capsaicin I wouldn’t blame it for any post-taco digestive difficulty you may have experienced. Now if you want to talk REALLY hot spicy food I have just the girl for you. http://grrlpowercomic.com/archives/192 Sidney Scoville master of spicy food, consumer of food that would be a warcrime if administered to civillians involuntarily/
I was about to make some stupid joke about tacos, then I remembered the attempted rape. Maybe the whole lesbian thing is just Willis fucking with us. Maybe this is a story of one friend helping another deal with trauma the best they can.
We will definitely have that story sometimes down the line – personally I think it will be Becky’s next appearance rather than this one – but the big question will be which friend is helping which one. We still don’t know Becky’s big secret.
She’ll have to hear it from Joyce. Nobody who knows about it will break Joyce’s confidence, esp. not to somebody from her life before college. Joyce has expressed that she needs to keep it from her family or they’ll pull her out of school, and her friends don’t know that Becky won’t tell Joyce’s parents and make that happen.
Who else knows about it? Sarah, Billie, Dorothy, and Amber/Amazi-girl; a bunch of background characters from the party (who were attracted by the commotion when Sarah showed up with her Louisville Slugger), and someone identified only as “Ron” who drove Joyce and her friends back to campus. I don’t think any of the main characters would say anything, but there’s ample opportunity for someone else who was at the party to just be talking about it within earshot of Beckie and it slips out that way.
I, for one, heartily endorse the concept that the next Slipshine episode feature these intrepid young women exploring their preconceived notions of love and sexuality.
They can also explore orifices..orifii?
Technically, it’s orifices. But, language is ever evolving and I think there would be so many more poetic possibilities if the long “I” sound was an equally valid plural for so many words. So, go ahead and say orifii. Keep saying it. Maybe it’ll catch on.
Once it does, we’ll celebrate by doing shots and drying different vodkii.
Orifices, sometimes pronounced with a long ‘E’ (or-a-fih-CEEZ) — although according to Dorland’s Medical Dictionary, ‘orificia’ is also an accepted plural.
Smooth transition from “cool naked chick statue” to “so boys are icky now, huh?”
Either Becky’s into girls or Willis really wants us to think she is. (Or he’s FtM preop? Possibly genderfluid?)
And yet… As much as Willis will try to trick us, surely he wouldn’t pull another “you thought they were gay? actually trans*” like Joc. So I guess this means lesbian, GQ, or decoy. Or possibly more than one.
And, frankly, we’ve already got two trans characters, and while it would be nice to see one who’s going in the other direction (hope that’s not an insensitive way of phrasing it, but I do notice a distinct trend of finding MtF easier to deal with, viz. two characters in DoA and one in QC), statistically speaking, how many such characters can we expect among such a relatively restrained cast? (‘Restrained’ in terms of numbers rather than behaviour, of course.)
Outside of my experience (which I have discovered have been highly atypical, almost as if Willis was writing the script for my life) F2M are scarce to vanishingly rare. The fact that I know personally as many F2M as I do M2F is a statistical anomaly almost as unlikely as my survival from the next to last time I got hit by a truck (the last time I just knocked the drivers side view mirror off the truck).
Just for sensitivity’s sake, many transfolk find the term preop offensive. It focuses people as gender being genital-based, and transpeople explicit reject that. Stick to “presenting as,” as in “Carla is a transwoman presenting as female” and “Joycelyn is a transwoman presenting as male.”
‘Talking Tacos’ (a take-off on nachos, lettuce, cheese, etc. in a plastic baggie called ‘Walking Tacos’, which are IMNSHO are an abomination on all things taco)
My only hope (assuming Becky is a lesbian or bi*) is that even if Joyce declines she doesn’t have an extremely negative reaction (as slim a hope as it is).
am I the only one who reads this in part as an allusion to Willis’s earlier works and depiction of boy-crazy Joyce as an author apology? (and in part of course to the horrible frat party events in DOA).
This of course is in no way to critique Willis’s early years, as 1) I was a jackass well into my mid twenties, and 2) Willis critiques his earlier works far more than I ever would.
I don’t know if you are the only one, but I sure don’t read it that way.
I don’t think there is anything for Willis to apologize for. (Well, there maybe be some issues in Roomies or parts of It’s Walky, but that’s a very long time ago and another issue. And if you read those on the new site, you see he acknowledges problematic issues very well)
But his writing of Joyce early on seems quite reasonable, from what I can tell there are people who are very like that (never met them myself, but my experience is limited). It was a natural progression from how she was to how she is now, indeed partly because of that party. And why apologize for writing that? It is (quite unfortunately) something that happens (or worse) at colleges. Many different social issues are dealt with in this comic, no reason for that not to be one of them. And the characters didn’t necessarily handle it in the best ways, but that is often true in real life, of that or any other situation. And that was a acknowledged at the time those strips were done.
There’s a small Mexican restaurant across the street from my college. Their veggies are fresher & juicier than most trucks,’ but their meat lacks that tenderness and flavor that the trucks’ fresh fare can boast.
They get a lot of competition from the Taco Bell tucked by the corner of the parking lot.
Here in Seattle we have pretty great food trucks, though of course the are great small restaurants too. There is a really nice Mexican food truck a few blocks from me in fact.
I always find it odd that Taco Bell could be competition (except just in the sense of being food). I personally hate Taco Bell, but we have Taco Time, which is really really good. I try not to eat a lot of fast food, but when I do Taco Time is one of my favorites. But I don’t consider it Mexican any more than I do Taco Bell. If I am in the mood for Mexican food, I am probably not in the mood for Taco Time and vice versa.
Washington’s Taco Times are the one thing I miss about Washington. They’re okay here in Oregon, but for the most part, they’re kinda just the fucking worst.
There’s an incredible one in Maple Valley that I miss more than any fast food restaurant on the planet.
Hey, Mister Pornlord sir!
I keep getting an ad from Movado.com that plays an automatic fullscreen video the second any page on this site loads up. I was on ethe home page, clicked the comments and loaded this page, clicked a link to a two year old comic and it showed up each time.
I hope I’m the only one with this annoyance but would you please remove it?
A) There are too many Mikes recently
B) I didn’t want to wait for Becky to (hopefully) join the main cast and get an official avatar portrait.
C) in the reshuffle I might not get Becky. Oh no!
see if this works… the images are actually just transparent. I don’t know how to erase a color selection in gimp, so I had to zoom in and get down to the pixels.
Damn, I really want Becky to be a lesbian. I will be so disappointed if she isn’t. But it just seems too obvious right about now! Agghhh Becky Becky what is your deeeeal
Currently wondering how many female friends’ attitudes to men or sex are influenced by harassment or rape.
It was seeing this in such a casual context when I hadn’t even noticed the change in Joyce. I wasn’t prepared for something about rape culture and so I understood it in a disturbingly personal way as opposed to other strips.
People are saying “But she only had ONE bad experience with boys, so that can’t be the reason she’s not boy crazy anymore.”
No.
Not true.
I’m going to get a little personal here, so trigger warning.
After my rape I buried my trust in men. I feared going on dates with men, because in the back of my mind I thought “what if.” I used to ID as pansexual, but since my rape, I am still romantically attracted to men, but sexually I freak out. (no it didn’t ‘turn me lesbian’ to those curious. i have always liked girls) Being alone with men worries me. I see intent where intent isn’t present because of my trauma.
My rape was years ago. Joyce’s attempted assault was only a few weeks ago. I think that this occurrence is plenty reason for her to not be boy crazy anymore.
I agree, a single bad experience can go a long way with this sort of thing.
Fortunately for Joyce, it wasn’t as bad as it might’ve been- a failed attempt that she and Sarah put an end to pretty quickly- but that’s definitely enough to make it hard to trust others. And then combined with Joyce’s upbringing-related hangups about sex being immoral, it’s doubly understandable on her part to be a lot more hesitant and freaked out about this subject than she was when she was a bit younger (in the psychological-experience sense as well as the literal aging sense), and to have nightmares and such.
Thank you for sharing your experience. It sounds like you lost half of your pansexual expression, and that blows, but it’s great that you feel good with women. Did anything in particular help you get to where you are now?
That is a reasonable explanation for why Joyce is so sexually repressed. If your heart’s telling you a different thing than your brain/faith, ya might be a bit confused.
Hey Joyce, got a moment to hear about the Goddess..?
David, I was curious about Slipshine– if it’s subscription based (pay one fee, read whatever you want), how do they figure out your royalties? Or is it split diminishingly amongst all the comics they read?
I don’t know why, but I’ve got this crazy feeling that Becky isn’t the “good Christian girl” Joyce makes her out to be. Eh, I’m probably just imagining it.
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Aw crap, Becky struck a nerve.
Yeah, who’s she gonna make tacos for if she doesn’t marry a boy??
[besides Becky loading up for a poop]
“These are great, Joyce! I can!t wait to expel the post-digested version out my butthole. Heh heh.”
“Jeepers H. Crackers, Becky! Eww!”
“Heh heh heh. PLOP.”
Hmm…tacos…
I… I just… I just really want tacos.
Its probably cause she didnt meet Danny first thing.
or, you know, the whole “well i was at a party, i got roofied and almost raped, so i got trust issue toward heterosexual men” thing
There was also the “date” with Joe. That didn’t exactly go over well. Though yes, the party incident is definitely the prime factor here.
That date was doomed to fail. Both were looking for different things: One for marriage material, the other for easy-laid material.
The only different is that one started getting hit in the face when things didn’t go the way the other one expected.
Which, I might add, is probably the best idea ever for semi blind dates: designated emergency face-puncher. Break glass in case of douchebag.
Right, because if you don’t get along with someone they deserve to have physical violence inflicted upon them.
No. If you don’t get along with someone, they deserve to have physical violence inflicted upon *you* :/
…. but what if the designated emergency face-puncher is the douchebag?
Because honestly, he was.
Well, Mike was a bit of an extreme variant, but his role in that date ALREADY HAD A NAME (and a purpose) long before any of us were even born (and let’s put it this way, my stepdaughter is older than these freshmen)
…maybe we SHOULD bring chaperones and chaperoning back? :S
This Joyce is a lot less two dimensional than that one was when that happened.
That one didn’t realize she had other dimensions to acknowledge.
INCOMING PLOT BOMB
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=onfWeSqJ6qs
Yup. I’m just wondering which one.
….Does Joyce know that “Taco” is another word for lady-parts?
There really is nothing you people won’t turn into an innuendo, is there?
You know what they say —
“A dirty mind is a terrible thing to waste”.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yhtFKNNd04A
As long as nothing ends up in my endo, it’s all good.
The comic is called “Dumbing of Age,” not “Not Finding Innuendoes Everywhere…of Age.”
Wait, thats a thing?! Never before have I heard someone refer to it as a taco!
Here you go.
http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Taco
She probably doesn’t …
I-is Becky hoping that Joyce is turning lesbian?
I think she might be trying to probe the issue a little bit (with a surprising amount of subtlety), but mostly I think she’s just making conversation. ‘Course, it might be about to get kinda serious, cuz Joyce has some pretty heavy reasons for not wanting to talk about boys.
I think she’s being a good friend: she noticed that Joyce’s behaviour was significantly different so she asked what’s up with that in an open and non-judgmental manner.
If she does, we already know that Joyce prefers a Size 6 strap-on.
*scoff* Everyone knows you can’t TURN lesbian. You TRANSFORM into a lesbian. Through like a magical girl sequence with less skirts and more flannel. Gosh. Some people.
Yeah! And then you totally get to call out the name of each attack when you use it.
<3 STAR GENTLE UTERUS!! <3
I still remember the family watching Sailor Moon and seeing that attack being used for the first time (I had purchased the complete series DVD box set for my daughter as a Christmas present and we were binge watching, and were up to the episodes we had never seen before). My reaction was: “Wait, what did I just hear?” followed immediately by a rewind, followed by laughter by the whole family.
Where’s our Magical Lesbian Joyce transformation sequence already, Yotomoe? Seems like the kinda thing a fella’d draw the instant he thinks of it, is all.
Maybe it’s final’s week and I’m kinda really friggin’ behind! Also I’ve just felt lazy lately. I’m outta steam right now.
Don’t worry, other fans have got you covered.
http://ladyloveandjustice.tumblr.com/post/90399997842/speaking-of-doll-makers-this-is-embarassing-but
But where is Sailor Amber?
Killing spiders.
Sorry, that seemed like it’d be funnier in my head, and now it just looks mean.
Maybe I’ll draw my own Magical Lesbian Joyce. With blackjack! And hookers!
I’m not at all offended, I don’t want you to get that impression. You weren’t mean no worries.
Best comment friends 4 eva
Mahou Shoujo Lesbian Nanoha!
Many, many people ship it. And post commendably cute yuri of it.
They’re shipping canon, says the canon that isn’t the Drama CDs (Who’s writers ship Nanoha and Chrono, for reasons that elude me).
They’re both Vivio’s momma, even.
Nanoha and Chrono? Haven’t noticed that, apart from one tease scene in TOS. I thought Yuuno was the usual trolling.
I’m not aware of canon that uses any of the usual markers for shipping, like “she is my girlfriend”, partner, lover, wife, etc. Or kissing. Granted, the sharing a bed marker seems blatant in its own way. But, they could be cuddly friends who are asexuals.
Was Yuuno his name? If so, then yes, the Drama CDs ship that. I can’t recall which name goes to which character of the side folks.
But I mean, you want more explicit canon? Besides sharing a bed and both being mothers to their collective child? That’s pretty much ‘text’. It’s like ‘guessing’ that Vader/Anakin did what he did out of love of his son. Technically, they’re never stated out loud, but it’s the best explanation that fits the available evidence.
Yotomoe and drs I love you. I love the Madoka Magica references. You both deserve “Fan of the Year” awards. Like, yes.
Madoka and its yuri are great, but I was actually making a pure reference to Mahou Shoujou Lyrical Nanoha, which has its own yuri subtext, if “sleeping in the same bed in lingerie and adopting a kid together but hardly holding hands” is still subtext…
Huh. Akiyuki Shinbo was director for both. Though also for lots of other things.
Well, Shinbo doesn’t really do his own direction. He runs an animation mill and has sub directors who are held to extraordinarily strict limits so they don’t rock his die-hard fanbase. But he does not, himself, direct. Which is why everything where he has a direction credit lately comes out *incredibly* samey on that end, to a scary degree.
Well, maybe Becky figured it was only a matter of time since Joyce talked so much about tacos
Tacos are a worthwhile topic. Joyce has a point here, I think.
I thought Mexican food was Walky’s shtick, though. (And Willis’s.)
That’s what Walky and Joyce have in common.
Please, tacos transcend schticks (which I now know has two spellings, thank you for alerting me, -Sentinel-). Tacos belong to the world.
I especially love seafood tacos. Some are a bit clammy, but they get my seal of approval. I’m just a bit Crabby when people Tuna blind eye to great food like that bason just the taste! Anyway enough Fish Schtick.
I get the feeling you really like Fish Schtick.
Holy mackerel, I though I Smelt something fishy in the comments.
I’m sorry to carp at you, but I’m not sure I sea what the porpoise of your comment is? I’m floundering due to your abyssal puns, which have cod me off guard and left me unmoored.
I think you Betta get back to your school …
I should Goby more productive, but this is my Sole entertainment right now.
TACOS HAPPENED
Damn it
The Mexican place doesn’t open for another few hours, and I’m already late for predawn classes. Taco Bell needs to start selling fish tacos already.
Tacos, this chick has priorities. I can dig it.
THE BAD THING HAPPENED! LET’S NOT TALK ABOUT THE BAD THING!
Hey. He has a name. It’s DANNY.
Danny is so bad that he gets blamed for his evil clone, Ryan!
Which was created when Danny made a desperate soul-pact with the Trucklords so as to redirect their wrath.
Eh? Is this like “One More Day”? Man I hate that, even without reading it! What was Marvel thinking?
I wonder if Becky has a thing for ‘tacos’ too, hmmmmmm…
Ah Yisss
Mothafuckin taco crumbs.
Becky…put your eyebrows back on, young lady; now.
And how you take those tacos apart?
(Also, no alt-text aaaaaaaaaaaa)
And now there is…. and it answers the first part of my comment? The heck… That is creepy.
Alternate answer: carefully, with judicious use of tongue.
…This comment section is a bad influence.
There’s little alt-text.
Oh boy, this should be interesting…
maybe this will shut up all those people who showed up yesterday to argue about how becky was totally not confirmed for liking girls?
Why would it? It’s still not conformed she likes girls. I don’t care if you’re excited about the possibility, or if you wanna ship for funsies, but acting like it’s an established fact is just wrong.
It continues to look more like that all the time, but it still is definitely not confirmed.
The fact that the evidence seems to point more and more towards that makes me more suspicious than confident.
Yeah, just consider all the things Joyce has said that imply something sexual or otherwise not what she meant.
This is also true
She actually likes the destroyed bookstore where Short Circuit 2 was filmed.
He’s just setting you up for the biggest punk out since Jocelyne. It’s too obvious.
Why would it?
Still no confirmed in the comic, no matter how much anyone wants to read things that way.
People just see what they want to see, and then think they’ve been “vindicated” when their unjustified assumptions turn out to be true, and subconsciously ignore all the times they were wrong.
The reason that Joyce isn’t talking about boys all the time is because now she’s actually MET some.
Pretty much all the male students have some moments of douchiness. Except for Danny, who’s more of a dumbass than a douchebag.
I don’t think that Joyce has ever had a conversation with Danny to find out that he’s a nebbish, which is like the anti-douche.
It’s kinda tragic that Joyce has been learning what men are like from Walky, Joe, and Ryan. At least Ethan’s been a gentleman.
Ryan’s a complete piece of shit, sure, but what’s tragic about Joyce meeting Joe or Walky? Joe is obsessed with sex, but he wants it to be consensual. Walky started out not being interested in any kind of intimacy at all, until he met Dorothy.
Apart from Ryan-the-date-rapist, Joyce hasn’t met any bad guys at all so far. Her big problem isn’t men and their desires, it’s her own hang-ups, and she got those hang-ups before college.
except for the “hang-up” that is so massive and repressed she gets nightmares about it at night…
From Joyce’s perspective, Walky constantly insults her intelligence and values and Joe is pretty much a classic horny douche. Joyce doesn’t have the perspective to see that Joe is a respectful, honest, consentual dude, or that Walky is opening up to Dorothy, she just sees Joe’s libido as a threat and Walky as a jerk. Since Joyce can only see Walky’s jerkitude and can only understand that Joe is intimidatingly horny, they don’t have to be bad men for Joyce to get the wrong ideas from her experience of them.
Put another way, it’s not the dudes’ fault exactly, it’s that their attributes intersect with Joyce’s upbringing in a negative manner, and then Joyce thinks that boys are probably ‘awful and horrible’.
(Well except Ryan’s contribution, that IS entirely his fault. And then her trauma colours all of her further experience with Joe, Walky, etc.)
If by gentleman you mean the only one to actively lie to her and use her for his own purposes. Yes, she’s in on it now, but only because Amber caught him and forced him to confess.
Sounds like a member of the gentry to me.
Becky is into the clams, Joyce is into tacos…what are you trying to tell us here, Willis? WHAT?
That, or Becky is, “Hey, now you think boys suck, you startin’ to think girls are more fun to play with? ‘Cause I got some ideas….”
Becky is into the clams, Joyce is into tacos…what are you trying to tell us here, Willis? WHAT?
That, or Becky is, “Hey, now you think boys suck, you startin’ to think girls are more fun to play with? ‘Cause I got some ideas….”
Whoa…3D commenting system. I swear I did nothing to make that double up.
That boys are gross but food is where it’s at. Just eat and be fat and forget all about boys. That’s what I do!
Thing I will never have the courage to do:
Order a chicken dinner
Take a photo of said chicken dinner
Post it with the caption LOOK AT ALL THE COCKS I’M EATING
Unless you are eating more than one chicken that would be “cock”, singular. Still appropriate for the picture…
Three drumsticks or wings would qualify the meal as cocks.
Oh my god she’s gone Mabel
Oh, God… Becky, I know what you’re thinking… Don’t do it! Whatever you do, don’t do what you’re about to do! JOYCE IS NOT TALKING ABOUT THAT KIND OF TACO!!!
But Arank11, all tacos are delicious.
Fish Tacos, Chicken Tacos, Spicy Tacos, mild tacos. Why would what kind of taco Joyce likes be bad?” I say, sarcastically.
I still cannot believe that fish tacos are a real thing as well as being ‘Nudge, nudge, wink, wink, say no MORE!’.
Pan-seared ono or mahi-mahi makes for an excellent taco filling. Y’all jerks’re reinforcing my hunger’s resistance movement against the stimulants that are keeping my eyes open.
Tacos used to all be made with fish, it was a So-Cal way of taking care of the bits trimmed off fish at canneries way back when. Then beef and other meats were introduced as the technique migrated away from the coast.
Tacos didn’t originate in California.
Becky is lesbian?
That seems to be the direction of the wind, but nobody knows for sure except Willis.
Holy shit, Joyce is turning into preformed walky those are the same ideals he had before he met Dorothy.
I think Becky might be up to something. I like that in a girl.
Becky’d also like being in a girl.
BUTT TACOS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
We need 10cc alt-text stat!
I thought I was the only one who noticed!
And fixed! That was a close one!
Shit’s about to get real. The question is: will be near-rape real, or lesbian real?
Ah I don’t see where her best friend asking her why she is no longer boy crazy is an automatic lead in to ‘hey are you a lesbian’. If my best friend changed notably and this was first chance we had to talk, yeah I’d ask.
When Joyce arrived on the campus that really was her major topic of conversation, each and every male she saw was a possible MR. and she made no excuses-she was there for a husband.
The near rape frightened her, of course. And made her hide behind Ethan. If she isn’t screwed up in one way, she gets it in another. Joyce may be afraid to talk to Becky thinking Becky will tell her parents. That was her biggest fear when Sarah tried to get her to go to the police.
Guess we will just see. Mr. W. will likely surprise the crap out of us at any rate.
I agree with all of this. Asking about Joyce’s major change in priorities doesn’t necessarily mean anything except that Becky’s a decent friend.
I really hope that Joyce can talk a bit about her trauma. Girl needs support, and it’s looking like Becky can totally be trusted with keeping it secret from Joyce’s folks as needed.
I concur.
That said, where do you think we are? The shipping will not be stopped, diverted, or reasoned with. Like a ferocious beast, it is ever hungry for its next pairing. And besides, it’s funny.
Oh man, I forgot how much Joyce used to talk about boys in the earlier strips. That’s some subtle character development right there.
Yeah, man. She pretty much stopped after Ryan.
Joyce used to be non Bechdel compatible.
I hear that Ortega taco sauce makes your taco pop.
At least that’s what Shawn Johnson told me.
If by taco, you mean anus, then yes!
That’s not where you’re supposed to put it. And Ortega is baby food mild, so unless you got a bad batch or are extremely sensitive to capsaicin I wouldn’t blame it for any post-taco digestive difficulty you may have experienced. Now if you want to talk REALLY hot spicy food I have just the girl for you. http://grrlpowercomic.com/archives/192 Sidney Scoville master of spicy food, consumer of food that would be a warcrime if administered to civillians involuntarily/
Joyce just wants tacos.
To dissect them.
tacos, or BUTT TACOS?
yes
Well, when you think of it
scissoring involves butting tacos together
Best of friends – communicating with meaningful pauses
tacos tacos tacos https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O5Naz1Lluhg
OK I know people are using tacos as a metaphor right now but now I really want some tacos
I get irritated by the taco as female genitalia metaphor thing. Too gross for my taste.
Ladies’ junk deserves better than that.
Dude junk gets “sausage,” lady junk can deal with being “taco.”
‘taco’ is better than ‘bearded clam’.
I was about to make some stupid joke about tacos, then I remembered the attempted rape. Maybe the whole lesbian thing is just Willis fucking with us. Maybe this is a story of one friend helping another deal with trauma the best they can.
We will definitely have that story sometimes down the line – personally I think it will be Becky’s next appearance rather than this one – but the big question will be which friend is helping which one. We still don’t know Becky’s big secret.
Double entendre tuesday!
*plays “Mexican Radio” on the Muzak*
…followed by the 1980s remake of “Puttin’ On The Ritz”*
I get it! 8D
-cough- ….I actually get it.
and in the unseen sixth panel, Becky’s eyebrows break through the atmosphere and enter orbit
oof i wonder if Becky will hear about the rape attempt though… and who she’ll hear it from.
She’ll have to hear it from Joyce. Nobody who knows about it will break Joyce’s confidence, esp. not to somebody from her life before college. Joyce has expressed that she needs to keep it from her family or they’ll pull her out of school, and her friends don’t know that Becky won’t tell Joyce’s parents and make that happen.
good point. I don’t think anyone in DoA is terrible enough to do that.
Though I’m not sure if Joyce will be able to talk about it with Becky for a while, at least. I don’t think she’s ready.
Who else knows about it? Sarah, Billie, Dorothy, and Amber/Amazi-girl; a bunch of background characters from the party (who were attracted by the commotion when Sarah showed up with her Louisville Slugger), and someone identified only as “Ron” who drove Joyce and her friends back to campus. I don’t think any of the main characters would say anything, but there’s ample opportunity for someone else who was at the party to just be talking about it within earshot of Beckie and it slips out that way.
I, for one, heartily endorse the concept that the next Slipshine episode feature these intrepid young women exploring their preconceived notions of love and sexuality.
They can also explore orifices..orifii?
The plural is just orifices. But that does make me think that the singular should be “orifix.”
Orifix: allegedly the greatest lover in a certain Gallic village.
Technically, it’s orifices. But, language is ever evolving and I think there would be so many more poetic possibilities if the long “I” sound was an equally valid plural for so many words. So, go ahead and say orifii. Keep saying it. Maybe it’ll catch on.
Once it does, we’ll celebrate by doing shots and drying different vodkii.
A vodkii in my kissing orifix does sound quite corking just about now.
Orifices, sometimes pronounced with a long ‘E’ (or-a-fih-CEEZ) — although according to Dorland’s Medical Dictionary, ‘orificia’ is also an accepted plural.
“See my eyebrows? These are Not Complaining eyebrows. Like, the polar opposite of complaining.” ÔwÔ
Smooth transition from “cool naked chick statue” to “so boys are icky now, huh?”
Either Becky’s into girls or Willis really wants us to think she is. (Or he’s FtM preop? Possibly genderfluid?)
And yet… As much as Willis will try to trick us, surely he wouldn’t pull another “you thought they were gay? actually trans*” like Joc. So I guess this means lesbian, GQ, or decoy. Or possibly more than one.
And, frankly, we’ve already got two trans characters, and while it would be nice to see one who’s going in the other direction (hope that’s not an insensitive way of phrasing it, but I do notice a distinct trend of finding MtF easier to deal with, viz. two characters in DoA and one in QC), statistically speaking, how many such characters can we expect among such a relatively restrained cast? (‘Restrained’ in terms of numbers rather than behaviour, of course.)
Outside of my experience (which I have discovered have been highly atypical, almost as if Willis was writing the script for my life) F2M are scarce to vanishingly rare. The fact that I know personally as many F2M as I do M2F is a statistical anomaly almost as unlikely as my survival from the next to last time I got hit by a truck (the last time I just knocked the drivers side view mirror off the truck).
Just for sensitivity’s sake, many transfolk find the term preop offensive. It focuses people as gender being genital-based, and transpeople explicit reject that. Stick to “presenting as,” as in “Carla is a transwoman presenting as female” and “Joycelyn is a transwoman presenting as male.”
Was Carla born with a carburetor?
I have been so far removed from the trans community for so long, I had no idea pre-op was wrong now.
Iiiiiiii’m just gonna go back to being a genderqueer hermit now.
I’d heartily watch a taco talk show.
Pending names: Taco Tuesdays (only on Tuesdays) or Taco Talk Show.
Taco Tuesdays is taken, I’m afraid.
‘Talking Tacos’ (a take-off on nachos, lettuce, cheese, etc. in a plastic baggie called ‘Walking Tacos’, which are IMNSHO are an abomination on all things taco)
Oh boy, just what I always wanted, cold soggy nachos. Yum.
Oh Becky, do not fall for Joyce
*If* that is the direction things are going (and not just a Willis decoy), I figure it happened a long time ago…
Hoo boy, Becky has no idea the can of worms she’s attempting to open.
My only hope (assuming Becky is a lesbian or bi*) is that even if Joyce declines she doesn’t have an extremely negative reaction (as slim a hope as it is).
Eyebrow waggle waggle waggle waggle
For some reason when I see you post, I think of Joseph Campbell. Just thought I would say that.
Tacos, hm?
*remembers a certain NSFW Walky pic*
AHAHAHAHA!!!
Stuck in the hospitable (again) so I can’t do much, but I concur! Taco’s rule!
Was that auto-correct changing hospital, or are you really stuck in an hospitable? And WTF is a hospitable that you could be stuck in it?
That was Auto-Correct. xD. I wish my fucking Kidneys where Hospitable, because I wouldn’t be in the hospital if they were :p
Taco Tuesday, anyone?
am I the only one who reads this in part as an allusion to Willis’s earlier works and depiction of boy-crazy Joyce as an author apology? (and in part of course to the horrible frat party events in DOA).
This of course is in no way to critique Willis’s early years, as 1) I was a jackass well into my mid twenties, and 2) Willis critiques his earlier works far more than I ever would.
I don’t know if you are the only one, but I sure don’t read it that way.
I don’t think there is anything for Willis to apologize for. (Well, there maybe be some issues in Roomies or parts of It’s Walky, but that’s a very long time ago and another issue. And if you read those on the new site, you see he acknowledges problematic issues very well)
But his writing of Joyce early on seems quite reasonable, from what I can tell there are people who are very like that (never met them myself, but my experience is limited). It was a natural progression from how she was to how she is now, indeed partly because of that party. And why apologize for writing that? It is (quite unfortunately) something that happens (or worse) at colleges. Many different social issues are dealt with in this comic, no reason for that not to be one of them. And the characters didn’t necessarily handle it in the best ways, but that is often true in real life, of that or any other situation. And that was a acknowledged at the time those strips were done.
Taco Bell or Del Taco?
Preferably a Mexican food truck run by Mexicans. Yum!
There’s a small Mexican restaurant across the street from my college. Their veggies are fresher & juicier than most trucks,’ but their meat lacks that tenderness and flavor that the trucks’ fresh fare can boast.
They get a lot of competition from the Taco Bell tucked by the corner of the parking lot.
Here in Seattle we have pretty great food trucks, though of course the are great small restaurants too. There is a really nice Mexican food truck a few blocks from me in fact.
I always find it odd that Taco Bell could be competition (except just in the sense of being food). I personally hate Taco Bell, but we have Taco Time, which is really really good. I try not to eat a lot of fast food, but when I do Taco Time is one of my favorites. But I don’t consider it Mexican any more than I do Taco Bell. If I am in the mood for Mexican food, I am probably not in the mood for Taco Time and vice versa.
…now I want Taco Time…
Washington’s Taco Times are the one thing I miss about Washington. They’re okay here in Oregon, but for the most part, they’re kinda just the fucking worst.
There’s an incredible one in Maple Valley that I miss more than any fast food restaurant on the planet.
Hey, Mister Pornlord sir!
I keep getting an ad from Movado.com that plays an automatic fullscreen video the second any page on this site loads up. I was on ethe home page, clicked the comments and loaded this page, clicked a link to a two year old comic and it showed up each time.
I hope I’m the only one with this annoyance but would you please remove it?
Oh, I bet Beck would love to talk about tacos, if you know what I mean.*
*In case you do not know what I mean, here’s a handy-dandy guide:
“tacos” are a double entendre for vagina. Hope that helps!
Testing new gravatar for DOA
A) There are too many Mikes recently
B) I didn’t want to wait for Becky to (hopefully) join the main cast and get an official avatar portrait.
C) in the reshuffle I might not get Becky. Oh no!
So here we are.
Nice choice! You planning on bluing out the background to match the randomized defaults?
hm, could
see if this works… the images are actually just transparent. I don’t know how to erase a color selection in gimp, so I had to zoom in and get down to the pixels.
OMG the floating eyebrows.
Damn, I really want Becky to be a lesbian. I will be so disappointed if she isn’t. But it just seems too obvious right about now! Agghhh Becky Becky what is your deeeeal
Currently wondering how many female friends’ attitudes to men or sex are influenced by harassment or rape.
It was seeing this in such a casual context when I hadn’t even noticed the change in Joyce. I wasn’t prepared for something about rape culture and so I understood it in a disturbingly personal way as opposed to other strips.
read the last word bubble in starfire’s voice
… But are they powerful tacos?
http://youtu.be/DM8krWnU0uQ?t=2m50s
(I don’t even know if URLS are allowed here, only one way to find out …)
The punchline is food.
So I guess this is a bad time to bring up the gay boyfriend she’s trying to “fix”, huh?
Hehehehe… “Tacos”.
A friend of mine drew this re: yesterday’s comic. Posting with their permission:
http://c-willey.deviantart.com/art/Velma-de-Milo-499389416
Aww. ‘Tis cute. That is a splendid substitute for sexy any day of the week! My compliments to your friend.
…come to think of it, they nailed that subtle ‘Velma’ allure, too. I harbor perverse sexual lust after all.
Ha, nice! Good job, Lanval’s friend.
People are saying “But she only had ONE bad experience with boys, so that can’t be the reason she’s not boy crazy anymore.”
No.
Not true.
I’m going to get a little personal here, so trigger warning.
After my rape I buried my trust in men. I feared going on dates with men, because in the back of my mind I thought “what if.” I used to ID as pansexual, but since my rape, I am still romantically attracted to men, but sexually I freak out. (no it didn’t ‘turn me lesbian’ to those curious. i have always liked girls) Being alone with men worries me. I see intent where intent isn’t present because of my trauma.
My rape was years ago. Joyce’s attempted assault was only a few weeks ago. I think that this occurrence is plenty reason for her to not be boy crazy anymore.
I agree, a single bad experience can go a long way with this sort of thing.
Fortunately for Joyce, it wasn’t as bad as it might’ve been- a failed attempt that she and Sarah put an end to pretty quickly- but that’s definitely enough to make it hard to trust others. And then combined with Joyce’s upbringing-related hangups about sex being immoral, it’s doubly understandable on her part to be a lot more hesitant and freaked out about this subject than she was when she was a bit younger (in the psychological-experience sense as well as the literal aging sense), and to have nightmares and such.
Thank you for sharing your experience. It sounds like you lost half of your pansexual expression, and that blows, but it’s great that you feel good with women. Did anything in particular help you get to where you are now?
And about boys with tacos.
What happened to Joyce? She discovered reality.
Oh god. Becky is gonna assume Joyce is a lesbian and will probably try to kiss her at some point after some double entendres.
That is a reasonable explanation for why Joyce is so sexually repressed. If your heart’s telling you a different thing than your brain/faith, ya might be a bit confused.
Hey Joyce, got a moment to hear about the Goddess..?
Good fucking work, Chengrel.
Whoa there Becky I think your eyebrows are escaping
http://i.gyazo.com/2441a1e4bc4c9761503e820e272d3e74.png
yes
Those flying eyebrows.
*whispers* potential lesssbiaaaaannn
David, I was curious about Slipshine– if it’s subscription based (pay one fee, read whatever you want), how do they figure out your royalties? Or is it split diminishingly amongst all the comics they read?
I don’t know why, but I’ve got this crazy feeling that Becky isn’t the “good Christian girl” Joyce makes her out to be. Eh, I’m probably just imagining it.