There's ghosts at your heels and fairy tale worlds ahead. What do you do? Jump down the rabbit hole!
Empowered
Adam Warren
A sexy superhero comedy (except when it isn't) about the never-ending struggles of a plucky but very unlucky young superheroine.
Not Drunk Enough
Tess Stone
Logan Ibarra is possibly the unluckiest repairman in the world. A late night job should not have landed him in the middle of a mad scientist's squabble, but he soon finds himself surrounded by monsters and further madness with little tools to get out.
The Messenger
indui
In a ruin-abound town cursed with bad luck, Kai and Kalla--a young boy and a fledgling dragonbird spirit--take on a quest in hopes the reward will solve all of their problems.
Barbarous
Ananth Hirsh, Yuko Ota
A crummy wizard and an anxious monster have to get over themselves and bring order to an apartment building full of misfits.
Angel's Orchard
Harry Bogosian
After the events in Demon's Mirror, Gerda has accepted her role as a Demon Hunter, and Cezar has traveled back to the Demon City. Demons have existed alongside humans for millennia, so things begin to return to normal. But an impossibly powerful Relic has been taken by one of the Demon Masters, and a silent war enters its final stages.
Sister Claire
Yamino
In the troubled aftermath of a great war between Witches and her fellow Nuns, novice Sister Claire just wants a purpose.
Saint for Rent
Ru Xu
Saint Halliday runs an inn for Time Travelers. Unfortunately, he seems to attract other supernatural "guests," too.
Blindsprings
Kadi Fedoruk
Tamaura, wrested into a world 300 years in the future, must find a way to save the magic fading from her country.
Darkling Bright
Chris Hazelton
Kieran Bright is a college student home for the summer and roped into an online reunion with his old neighborhood friends in the most recent update of their favorite childhood MMORPG.
At least, he was, and that was the idea...
Join Kieran and his friends as they are pulled into another reality that may or may not be real and are forced to confront their own identities, the nature of simulated universes and reality itself.
Little Tiny Things
Clover
What are the little things that move us? The simple joys that warm our bodies and hearts? The micro life of insects that influence our world more than we think? The tiny steps we make everyday to have a happier tomorrow?
Guilded Age
T Campbell, John Waltrip, Florence Machina
Welcome to the saga of the working-class adventurer! Enjoy the complete story with new annotations daily!
Three Panel Soul
Matt Boyd, Ian McConville
It's a pretty rigid format but we keep the content loose, you know?
Nigh Heaven & Hell
Scotty
Heather Vodihn is on a simple mission: find her father. However she becomes entangled with two strangers with mysterious powers being stalked by a group with bizarre demands. Heather must learn to trust her new traveling companions, even if she is untrustworthy herself.
The Golden Boar
Magnolia Porter Siddell
A young woman joins a group of summoners who call forth Guardian Beasts to protect their isolated magical island. Unfortunately, her Guardian Beast is nothing like she'd imagined, and he's about to change her life, and everything she thought she knew about herself...
The Weave
Rennie Kingsley
A young woman pursued by bad luck is witness to the murder of the Fairy Queen of Summer. Can she get to the bottom of this mystery?
Novae
KaiJu
A historical romance with a touch magic and a dash of astronomy. It chronicles the romantic adventures of Sulvain, a sweet tempered necromancer and Raziol, a passionate 17th century astronomer.
Monster's Garden
Ash G.
Champion pit fighter Kilo Monster was content to spend the rest of his days tending to his quiet garden alone... until he met a curious robot girl and her human family.
ARISE, YE SKELETON KING
Brian Clevinger, Escher Cattle, Lee Black
A troupe of wandering "adventurers" down to their last silver "acquire" a map only to find the real treasure was the fiend they dug up along the way.
Dumbing of Age
David M Willis
Joyce has been homeschooled her entire life until now, when she's suddenly a freshman in college! Things don't go well.
Nerf Now!!
Josué Pereira
A cute webcomic about fanservice, video games, and... love. Mostly video games, though.
Ozzie the Vampire
Eric Lide
Ozzie and her best friend Kimmy are your average everyday normal art students – except one is an immortal vampire with superpowers and the other possesses a magic talking grimoire. Also they have to save their town from a demonic invasion.
Freakshow
Scotty
A festival of broken people, blood flows in the center ring. Come one and come all, to the greatest show in all of Paris.
Cyanide & Happiness
Explosm
Satire, dark humor and surreal humor.
Peritale
Mari Costa
A fairy godmother with no magic tries her best to successfully fulfill a Fairytale and win the respect of her peers.
Lies Within
Lacey
Lysander's aimless and carefree life is turned upside down when he accidentally discovers that the cute boy next door, Simon, is a literal monster
Sakana
Mad Rupert
Our heroes must navigate a hazardous dating scene, overcome personal anxieties, and wrangle unruly seafood in order to find love, peace of mind, and a paycheck.
Stand Still, Stay Silent
Minna Sundberg
A few generations after the end of the world, a small, poorly financed research crew is sent out to rediscover whatever is left of the forbidden old world in the south.
Augustine
Winter Jay Kiakas, Windy
August and her ragtag group are just like everyone else, simply surviving in the treacherous Crater... When they stumble into what may be an artifact of the ancient past, their lives are thrown into a much bigger loop as they trifle with bounty hunters, monsters and gods.
Edison Rex
Chris Roberson
The adventures of the world’s greatest villain who, after defeating his superheroic nemesis, decides that he’s the only one left to defend the world.
Heroes of Thantopolis
Izzy Strontium Hall
A living boy fights to save the City of the Dead.
Sleepless Domain
Mary Cagle (Cube Watermelon)
In a world where magical girls and their battles are commonplace, loss has become all too common as well.
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I guess. Is that the same as “taking the name of the Lord in vain”? I had a hard time even saying “gosh dammit” as I knew it was just substitution. Nowadays, I say “goddammit” all too frequently, and would actually like to remove it from my vocabulary since I don’t believe in a deity anymore it seems stupid to keep invoking the name of one. (which I guess is a weird thought process to have) “Odindammit!” “Zeussdammit!” or even “Tymoradammit!” just doesn’t have the same ring to it.
Sometimes I reference gods’ body parts if I’m trying for a curse and the usual “goddammit” doesn’t quite cut the mustard. “Odin’s left nut!” “By thor’s sweet beard!” That kind of thing.
Eh, I was dragged to church as a child (Methodists in particular), but I was never a religious person myself, and the swearing was always there. In everyday speak, I do blurt out swear words fairly frequently, whenever I bollocks something up, for instance, or accidentally injure myself. Of course I’m quick to alter these to more family-friendly utterings when working as a Scout Leader. xD (Such as “Fu…or crying out loud!”)
Fun fact: that’s how most Hungarian curses involving god work. Although the curses usually involve more… private body parts: god’s manhood, backdoor entrance, etc.
You started to type “swearing”, decided to use “cursing” instead, tried to delete the “s” but accidentally hit the equals key next to backspace and didn’t notice.
“God” isn’t his name, though, it’s his job title. So technically saying “god dammit” or some variation thereof isn’t actually taking the Lord’s name in vain.
I felt like that too (not wanting to refer to a god I no longer believed in) until I realized that just using the names of the weekdays requires me to name five gods in whom I don’t believe (Tyr, Wodin, Thor, Frigg, Saturn).
So I quit worrying about it, and just say it whenever I goddamn well feel like it.
Yeah, but it doesn’t stop the idiots that say “Ha! You say you don’t believe in god, but your subconscious knows better!”, which is why I trained myself to say “gods” instead of “god” (it’s more noticeable in Spanish, which is my first language).
Something I find interesting is that while I will use “Jesus Christ!” and “God dammit!” if I drop something on my foot, if I’m in having a painful medical procedure, am sedated, but in pain, I exclusively call on my actual gods, so I end up calling out to Odin and Thor in real situations.
So apparently my subconscious is fine with me calling on gods I don’t follow anymore, as per my upbringing, for everyday use; I guess it doesn’t see a reason to call for help for realzies unless it figures I really mean it, lol.
I had a weird thing about taking the Lord’s name in vain for a long time myself, and I was never even raised to be particularly religious. My neighbors, on the other hand, were, so when little tiny five-year-old me was playing with my friends from next door and they reacted to me saying “oh my God” with a gasped “God doesn’t like when you say that!” I was pretty worried about making God unhappy. Aaaand then it turned into A Thing that followed me into my twenties.
Hearth, in my own words. I unknowingly reposted it,but it’s amazing enough to see twice. I don’t like the concept of anal, but the raw need demonstrated is beyond a simple act or idea.
Sadly, no one has as of yet informed the cast that it’s terminal.
For their eyebrows, I mean. If something shocking enough happens, the eyebrows will detach and float too high to come down. The victim will be eyebrow-less forever.
Sentient eyebrows which live a parasitical life on top of eye brow sockets. They survive by digesting emotional brain-waves. Of course, when they receive a shock they tend to leap off.
“Rugged, self-assured, adult. These are the words that describe the man who wears a mustache. Yes, it says to the world: I’m a man of action! Ah, but action tempered with maturity. Like…a fireman! Or…or somebody’s dad!”
Becky’s still all religiositied. Such a person wouldst likely indeed think of religious cussing as way fucking worse than sex cussing and shit. Kinda 19th century of her, really.
Truth. My whole family’s pretty lax on the religion thing, but my mom and aunt will sit and listen to me drop a hundred f-bombs without a word, then flip the hell out if I saw Goddammit.
Saying fuck: Using a word that we as a society at some point decided was a swear.
Saying Goddammit: Taking the Lord’s name in vain, which is against the 10 commandments.
It’s the same reason that they censored the word ‘God’ in ‘Goddamn’ in I Write Sins, Not Tragedies, instead of censoring ‘Damn’. God = word that should be respected and not used in such context, Damn = word that people use all the time and occurs as used here in the Bible itself, and therefore does not need to be censored.
That’s… really, *really* not what the biblical “Taking the Lord’s name in vain” means, but it’s a very common mistranslation among English-speakign Christians.
It’s always freaked me out that so many English-speaking people take even things like “Jesus!” of “For God’s sake!” as blasphemy. I used to think it was a Protestant thing, but I’ve seen Irish Catholics get riled up about it too. Where I’m from, though, even priests say stuff like that and think nothing of it O_o
Agreed – it’s not like ‘God Damn It’ is saying ‘Damn God’. It’s usually saying, “God, this person/thing is being an asshole, please damn it to some horrible fate!”
The Jewish version of that commandment is “Thou shalt not swear falsely by the name of Adonai your God”.
Which I always understood to mean: if you swear by God’s name, you better be legit. Don’t say “I swear to God, I didn’t run over your cat” if you actually ran over the cat.
Of course, due to the rich Jewish tradition of building fences around the law, nowadays Jews don’t swear oaths at all, and will “affirm” instead if called to testify in court.
nowadays Jews don’t swear oaths at all, and will “affirm” instead if called to testify in court.
As do Heathens, Pagans, atheists, and anyone else who feels that swearing to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth by a god they don’t follow is inappropriate and non-binding for them.
It is how a lot of Christians take it, though, and how some of them are taught it. And remember, many of the Covenant-type Christian churches teach that the KJV is the “perfect” manifestation of their deity’s word, a better translation than the original texts they came from. (Yes, really.)
I’ve been to a variety of religious schools/ camps, for various reasons. I’ve been taught everything from, “It’s disrespectful;” to “God might take it as an actual prayer and send you to hell for trying to get Him to send the kitten that just kamikazi’d your leg to burn for all eternity;” to “God is literally the Word. ‘Goddamn fucking piece of shit,’ is the same misuse of words/ God’s power in your life as ‘drat!’ or ‘ouch!’ and they are all equally damning (pun intended) in God’s eyes.”
I, meanwhile, am in a community where both the F-bomb AND any number of “in vains” are just fine, but you’ll get in trouble for anything that could be considered a slur (even “crazy” or “idiot” is out of bounds.)
Because those words actually hurt people, reflecting and perpetuating oppression? Wow, fancy that, caring more about material harm to other people than abstract profanity.
Even if you know you’re not solely responsible, you can still feel bad if you suspect you might have made a bad situation worse. Becky’s response is perfectly normal, aside from being tempered with not wanting Joyce to treat her like a victim in her own right.
Continuing the thought, she’d probably be perfectly accepting of Joyce’s explanation if she didn’t already know that joyce was treating her with kid gloves.
She wants things normal. She doesn’t want Joyce walking on eggshells and assuming every bit of acting out is because of lesbian coming out trauma. It may not be a recognized prejudice, or as severe as the hateful kinds, but excessive sympathy for a person’s “plight” is still unpleasant.
Joyce got a dollar just for trying really hard and failing. If Joe’s offer extends to other fundamentalist-raised persons, he’s gonna have to drop a Jackson when Becky swears in front of him (or at him, which will also probably happen at some point).
It kinda fits with Joyce’s ‘When I curse, it will be intentional, and because I’m REALLY upset about something’ philosophy, which Becky seems to share. In Panel 4, Becky is worried about her friend, and wants to drive that fact home. In Panel 6, she’s just frustrated with Joyce perpetual sunniness – no need to break out the ‘big guns’ for that.
Would Joyce feel more scandalized by the Elder Swear because its the most profane swear ever crafted by wizard kind, or because its about Harry Potter stuff?
I’m going to say ‘because Harry Potter’. She doesn’t seem to be bothered per say by swear words (at least, not anymore), and as long as the Elder Swear does not contain the word ‘God’ it’s doubtful she’d have a strong moral objection. I forget if it does or not, it’s been a rather long time since I watched that particular PPP video. However, Harry Potter is witchcraft, and therefore sinful.
We know Joyce has seen the Twilight movies, so fictional magic probably isn’t that big of an issue for her, though her parents’ stance on it is really anybody’s guess.
Lets be honest. If Becky went as far to trap Joyce showering she would keep that for herself. She would consider it a treasure. A creepy creepy treasure
Me, unless I’m explaining the origin of the filter. I figure that, should the filter ever be removed, I’d like my comments to be coherent – but with bongos in them!
I’m torn between horror and hilarity at the prospect of Becky on 4chan. That place would corrupt her so hard… I can already picture her posts on /r9k/. *shudders*
I fully expect a multi-page “FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU- [etc.] -CK!” like that one time in Gunnerkrigg Court, for when Joyce finally snaps and discharges spotty words out of her head.
Bwuh? Is this comic trying to imply that Becky’s behaviour the past day has been a reaction to the overwhelming emotional duress she’s going through? Who could have possibly seen this shocking development happen? I am completely blindsided, I tell you.
I can’t tell if your serious, but if you are, I called it three days ago. It helped that I read S. E. Hinton’s The Outsiders in 6th Grade English, where rebelling against a permissive authority figure was the major motive for one of the villains. Practically the minute I saw Reaver’s comment that day, I thought of that character.
I know it’s almost as if Becky has serious issues and everyone’s been writing her off for being a jerk even though there’s been a lot of jerks in this comic.
That is completely awesome. Kudos. I’m really surprised Walky, of all people, only has one.
I suppose you avoid giving half-points for the sake of statistical clarity. Just thinking of that one time Dorothy barely switched to “effing” while talking to Joyce through a bathroom stall door.
Walky doesn’t actually swear much. Like Joyce, he uses a lot of not-quite-swears and bowlderized swears, though his aren’t as funny as hers. Willis actually said in the hovertext for that strip that he thought it was Walky’s first f-bomb ever. He made it through the entire existence of the Walkyverse without ever dropping one.
And, yeah, my rule for getting on the chart is that all four letters need to be present and legible, I only gave Sal 30 for that strip where the DS died, even though Joyce counted 77, because most of them were partially or even completely obscured. Similarly, I didn’t count Dorothy’s effing or Joyce’s attempt when Sal promised her motorcycle rides for it, or a couple others where people cut themselves off partway through.
I did a recount to check my numbers while I was compiling the timeline recently, and PHPized it so I wouldn’t have to do the math manually every time I updated it, and in the process added more information to make it easier to doublecheck, and since I had the information handy, I added a feature where hovering over the bars in the upper chart will pop up hovertext giving the date and quote responsible for each section of the bar.
“And, yeah, my rule for getting on the chart is that all four letters need to be present and legible, I only gave Sal 30 for that strip where the DS died, even though Joyce counted 77, because most of them were partially or even completely obscured.”
———
If a fuck is given in a forest but no one is there to hear it, then it never happened?
are you suggesting that every curse from every character be recorded since each character began talking regardless of whether it was in any way related to a scene in the comic?
No, but if a character or something in the foreground obscures a text balloon that is clearly and plainly containing a quantity of F-bombs, I feel that all F-bombs should be counted. I mean, I doubt like hell that Sal switched to “Fudge” or even “Firetruck” during the middle of that outburst, and therefore all 77 “fudge-bombs” (as was noted by Joyce a few strips later, which would make that number canon) — the stand-alone in panel 2, and the “saturation bombing” in panel 4 — should be included in the potty-mouth placings.
I think that’s just that Willis is aware that I did. He tumbld it when I first posted it, and this is the second time he’s mentioned it in the hovertext. The first time was when the DS battery died.
Not showing Dorothy or Walky in this one is pure genius. It is so much more fun to just imagine their facial expressions.Walky, if all three girls are too distracted to notice him, is probably miming eating popcorn right now.
I bet he’s stuffing himself with sushi in an effort to keep his mouth shut, then realizing it’s delicious and eating all of it while Becky and Joyce (and Dorothy) are distracted.
Not everybody. Amber has them, but Amazi-Girl doesn’t, which is the visible indicator of her switching personae – the costume is not a 100% reliable indicator, but the cheek blushes are. Some of the other characters also lack them; the twins, Jacob, Ruth IIRC, a couple others.
The fourth panel has made me understand why Becky annoys me so much. Its not so much her behavior towards Joyces friends (or even towards Joyce herself) as it is the way she speaks, more fourth panel speaking Becky please.
Whats funny though is in the last panel Joyce sounds like a lot posters on here…
Tch. I beat Willis at his own game awhile ago by thinking of her as a pretty decent middle of the road sorta character. A nice addition to the cast, but nothing world shaking.
Somehow, I think Becky will calm down a little after this. Kind of feel for her here, actually. Know exactly how it is to have something bottled up for so long and then be able to “yell it to the mountains without blow back”. Not just with coming out but with other things too, like self censoring for years and then deciding to take the filter off. It’s both a massive relief but it can be a little embarrassing to put a foot in the mouth once in a while.
I think you’re dead right, Spencer. I think Becky thinks that her argument with Joyce earlier (justified as Becky was to be upset with Joyce) should have super-duper upset her, and she’s been feeling rotten about it since. If Joyce is angry, then she’s less hurt, and just pissed. But when she’s all forgiving and puppy-doggy, it makes all that guilt feel worse.
Maybe Becky justs wants Joyce to stop putting on a happy face for her. Joyce is convinced that she needs to be totally accomodating to Becky without fail right now, but that requires hiding all her thoughts & feelings from Becky. And hiding your thoughts & feelings from a friend puts up a barrier, and sends a message that you don’t trust them.
Long story short, I think Becky is concerned that Joyce has become distant to her, and it hurts.
I am convinced that all her life, Joyce has been a very permissive person with regards to Becky (and everyone else, actually, but most importantly Becky). Becky’s gotten tired of it, as people in permissive relationships are apt to do, and is doing everything she can make Joyce YELL at her, to switch into an authoritarian mode, to which she is no doubt used, given her father.
I have little experience with it myself, but I imagine that people who have come out of the closet, or have otherwise liberated a previously repressed section of their personality, become sensitive to repression in the people around them. Becky, I think, is worried that Joyce is repressing her anger towards her, and would rather she expressed it.
“As Daniel the Human once told me, “don’t talk with your mouth half full. Fill up & shut up!”. He then shoved more stuff in my mouth so I couldn’t eat it. Guess I shouldn’t have pissed him off deliberately, huh…?
Man, Joyce is trying really hard to be Christ-like. Becky’s right, she -should- be pissed, but I love how Joyce’s guilt over how she’s treated Ethan overrides everything else. Such a sweety. No wonder Becky (still best character ever) is in love with her.
Not that I don’t appreciate your reasoning here, but…Becky is just plain wrong in her assumptions here! Joyce isn’t angry because she basically decided during that class to break up with Ethan. Becky really had nothing to do with that decision beyond being the cause of the original epiphany regarding homosexuality.
Before today’s (3/16) comic, I believed that she felt that their argument was something to feel guilty over. Now I’m seeing that more and more, all of Becky’s actions were an attempt to upset and anger Joyce to the point where she freaks out at her friend. I guess Becky didn’t quite ‘get’ how much her friend was growing as a person.
For people being confused about this, keep in mind that Joyce has been accommodating, which Becky is fine with. What she is not fine with is Joyce overcompensating for past guilt by now being kind of a doormat about everything. She wants Joyce to be honest with her, to be mad when she’s mad, to treat her like a person. At least, that’s how I’d feel in her position. She wants Joyce to be her friend, good and bad, and not treat her like a saint. Accepting the homosexuality, awesome, but that doesn’t need to change their friendship. Joyce can pout, puff up her cheeks and utter minced oaths, etc, and that’s how it’s always been for them and what she wants out of her.
Come to think of it, that’s how their relationship in Joyce & Walky! played out too, with Joyce hiding aspects of herself because she thought it would harm their friendship, when Becky just wanted honesty.
My thoughts exactly. Joyce thinks she’s being accomodating, while Becky thinks that Joyce isn’t being forthcoming. The truth, of course, is that Joyce is being accomodating by not being forthcoming. And once your friend realizes that you’re putting on your happy face regardless of how you actually feel, then they can’t really trust the emotions you display.
Yeah. Like, Joyce’s acceptance of Becky is genuine, and Becky knows that, but she needs Joyce to know that she’s not above reproach. Friends hold friends to things and need to feel free to voice conflicts or differences, and Joyce needs to let herself do that for both their sake.
This is why I dislike ‘nice’. ‘Nice’ is a repression of feelings, and while useful around people you don’t know well, that repression is actually harmful to people who care about you. ‘Nice’ is like a bubble around yourself. It prevents people from harming each other, but it also prevents them from touching one another, and close relationships require contact.
Good-busy. Where you’re not over you’re head, but not bored, pretty much going at a pace that’s good for you. I have learnt of the good-busy, & have accepted it happily…
*Eyebrows get so high they slice through an engine of a passing plane causing an emergency landing. Witnesses looking out the window claim UFOs, namely a black streak that shot past so fast it was hard to see…*
Becky is so self-centered that she doesn’t even consider the possibility that a relationship is more complicated and other things happened. Now Joyce is gonna indulge it for some reason.
Or maybe she was trying to be funny, is mistakenly assuming that her zany irreverence has ruined her best friend’s relationship, and is now trying to apologize.
Knowing Joyce for as long as she has she probably finds it impossible that Joyce would break off a relationship. And she probably wouldn’t have if Ethan wasn’t gay.
I can’t help but think Becky is trying, if only subconsciously, to get Joyce to reject her, thinking that she’s going to do it sooner or later, so they might as well get it over with.
Yep, complete rejection. After all the fact she’s there would seem to indicate anyone else in her life either has already rejected her, or Becky can reasonably guess they will reject her.
As much as it seems like a dumb strategy, pretty much anybody would do this. Becky has had her father and her entire community just reject her utterly, and she wants to know if she can trust Joyce not to do the same. It’s fair weather now, but Becky needs to make sure now rather than later that Joyce won’t run when the storm hits – when the parents show up, or when Joyce inevitably gets angry at Becky about something, or when the dorm finally gets to trying to kick Becky out, or when Joyce is stressed out with prelims and also hungry because she’s skipped breakfast too many times. Accept her at her worst in the worst circumstances and all that.
I mean, it doesn’t make Becky saying rude things to Joyce’s friends less annoying, but perhaps it does make it more understandable.
Ok so you know that accusatory “ummmmmm” with the slight upturn in tone at the end that (American?) kids do? Totally imagining Joyce mentally vocalizing like that…”ummmm Becky said a bad woooord”
I’ve noticed a weird trend in Willis’ comics that a character can do objectively horrible things, but it’s okay as long as they’re honest about themselves. Joe can treat women like masturbation sleeves, but as long as he’s up front with it, it’s alright. Becky can drive a wedge in her best friend’s relationship (a good deed for completely reasons completely unknown to her), but as long as it’s in the midst of her coming out party, it’s still heroic. Marry makes petty judgements, but it’s under a cloak of religious self-service, so she’s a villain. And Mike… fucking Mike…
I’m not saying I disagree. I’m certainly not gonna stop reading. But it’s a weird little wrinkle in the comic’s morality.
The idea isn’t that what Becky is doing is heroic; it’s that Joyce has been so obsessed with feeling bad about Becky’s sexuality that she’s stopped treating her as Becky. If you look in previous strips, Joyce would actually respond to Becky doing and/or talking shit; but recently, because she feels awful about how she’s treated homosexuals, she’s overcompensating with Becky (and, to an extent, Ethan. see: releasing him like a wild animal).
And that’s completely normal and understandable of Joyce, esp. with what she’s lived through, but Becky is facing part of the same dilemma Ethan’s been running from: she wants Joyce to see that her sexuality is part of her but isn’t all she is. Becky wants to be treated as a person. It’s a pretty normal part of coming out in general: you want people to acknowledge your sexuality and shout it to the roof as you accept it yourself, but you don’t want that to change people’s view of you as a person. You’re the same person. You’re just more you.
… or anyway that’s what I got from these strips and hey maybe I’m projecting :T
(and even outside of all this none of those are presented as being good things. when has joe been accused of being a gr8 person by any narrative ever???)
Note: Treating Becky as more than her sexuality will become 1000% easier in general if she continues her current trajectory of not making it the focus of every interaction she has with other people and also continues to not introduce herself to new people by screaming ‘I’m a LESBIAN’ in their faces.
This is mostly a joke, but Becky’s spent the last few strips being a human among other humans, and it’s been nice.
Okay but like… If you’re not some flavor of LGBTQIA, just… don’t?
Because you have no idea what it feels like to have to throw off heteronormativity, or how many reaaaaal people have gone through that phase of “screaming” their sexuality to everyone they meet.
Also known as coming out, which must be done with every person you want to know with beyond a surface level, because the assumption is still straight unless you “scream” otherwise, and it is painful to be assumed straight.
Straight cis folks think we should be less “in your face” about it. Straight cis people, who don’t have to bring up their straight cisness because it’s the “default”, really don’t get to judge.
next time you make a comment, notice the “Get a Gravatar” link right next to the NAME blank. You have to make an account there on wordpress, sign in, go to “add a new image”, upload a pic (either from the computer or online), and whenever you use your email in gravatar-enabled sites the same little pic will come up. It’s pretty straightforward really, but if you’re asking for exactitude chances can’t be taken P:
Becky has been rude beyond excuse to Joyce’s friends. And while she did just arrive (in doa world), she has not made an effort to move out of the dorm by looking for work, checking into temp. shelter to help her get started, checking into scholarships, grants or on campus jobs.
She’s been rude, overbearing, and of course made a totally unwanted move on her best friend.
Sticking her noise between Ethan and Joyce seems to have been the wake up call … maybe now she will come down off her ‘me high’ and use her common sense to start living.
So, maybe she’s feeling a bit guilty. If Joyce will just take a poke at her, she would feel so much better.
Look… I’m not a fan of Becky, but the things you’re talking about take days. Plural. Sometimes months. Which have not passed yet. I don’t think it’s fair to even say she’s actually noticed her feet are beneath her yet.
Yeah, she’s annoyingly rude, but she stops being a character when most of her waking hours are spent waiting in lines and filling out paperwork.
All of which implies she knows these things you speak of exist.
Not to mention, that’s days and months of work if she can even get it to happen at all. These aren’t things that are guaranteed in this country, and lots of shelters will discriminate against LGBT people. But nope, it’s all “Becky annoys me and I don’t possess the critical thinking skills required to understand her advance on Joyce was simply a misguided act of desperation and not an actual predatory and manipulative action. So eff her. She can rot on the streets. Bad lesbian. Baaaaaad.”
Like honestly, I don’t really care for Becky’s behavior one way or another. I’d much rather see more Sal and Carla shenanigans, but I will defend the fact that Becky deserves a couple days of a “me high.” She just lost her family, her lady friend roommate, her education, and her finances, and now she’s worried that she’s done something that put a wedge between the only person who remained supportive of her. What she’s gone through goshdang traumatic, and to say it isn’t, you are being disgustingly insensitive to real life LGBT+ people who have gone through similar misfortunes when outed to their parents.
Just so long as she doesn’t continue what I dearly hope isn’t a pattern of trying to isolate her romantic interest from others in her life. It didn’t get disturbing until she lampshaded it, a red flag for abusive behaviors, IMHO.
Let’s also keep in mind that in the DOA timeline this is only the day after Becky showed up on Joyce’s doorstep, and is still reeling from her flight. Also Joyce had planned on dragging Becky to all her classes so it’s not like she could have planned on looking for a job. If Sarah was in class after Joyce’s math class she wouldn’t have been able to get back into the room, and there isn’t too much she could do without access to a computer since most on campus machines require student login to use.
Wait, why wouldn’t Becky have been able to get back in if Sarah was in the room? Not like Sarah is going to explicitly ban Becky when Joyce isn’t around. And most of the cast seem to pretty much leave their doors unlocked at this point anyway, bar Ruth (and I’m guessing Amber because of identity).
Ah, so that’s it. Becky is guilty about her feelings. She’s been acting like a heel in order to provoke the reaction she believes she really deserves. I wondered, given that I see this almost every day. It’s a self-esteem thing. I have a student who has none at all, always believes the worst of himself. We have to be really careful how we praise him, because telling him something good about himself can trigger a huge tantrum; he has this view that he should always be in trouble and will try his best to make it true. Becky’s behaviour and reaction today looks just like that.
Interesting analysis. I ended up coming to a similar, but not identical theory. I think that Becky is still very much in love with Joyce, and Joyce doing her best to be “the supportive friend” is exactly what Becky DOESN’T need right now. It’s just reminding her even more strongly of what she can’t have.
What Becky trying to do now is force Joyce to push her away, so she can have an excuse to leave and never see Joyce again. (Which is also the wrong course of action. What Becky needs now is time and space away from Joyce, but breaking things off in such a permanent fashion will leave major regrets down the line.)
Ah hell.
I have a theory that the next page might kick off some truthbombs without Becky doing it on purpose:
“Nothing ever upsets you, Joyce! You’re so much BETTER than me and-”
“That’s not true.”
“What?”
“Things upset me. Things upset me so badly I can’t go outside and I’m afraid they’ll make me think worse of people, because people can be *monsters* but they look just like us, Becky, just like you and me and they talk our language and make us trust them and-“
I post my thoughts on the comics here every so often because it feels good to do so. That being said, are we all seriously arguing Becky’s merits knowing the awful “REAL WORLD” **** she’s going through? Especially considering it’s within the last day, two days she’s been living in Joyce’s dorm?
Some of you take moments of weakness far too seriously and make it seem taboo.
Hah, I was just replying the same thing! I feel you, little commenter. Becky hate started out kind of as an ugly but understandable misinterpretation of the crush on Joyce situation and has gotten way, way out of hand.
And the emphasis on “REAL WORLD ****” is key here. It just really bothers me because we’re not just talking about a fictional character. People are being insensitive to a struggle REAL people go through and judging from their lofty positions of their keyboard what behavior makes the people who go through what Becky did good and bad victims of that situation.
Yes, this. I am so effing sick of commenters saying that no one should be bothered by thing they say about Becky (or whoever the recipient-of-hate of the day is) because she is a fictional character. Yes, she is a fictional character, we all know that, but she (and other occasionally-hated characters) is also going through real-world **** that other readers have gone through or are going through and some of the hurtful things that commenters say absolutely hurt real people in the real world.
And I bet some of you are arrogant first year college students who believe they already know everything about life. Here’s a fact; you have NO CLUE unless you went through what Becky is right now.
I have predicted the opposite since Becky first showed up – that Joyce would try to get a reaction out of her for her transgressions, but Becky would show her pity rather than judgement, Joyce’s endless frustration. This is not quite what I expected, but it’s an important step forward for their relationship.
Joyce, you could afford to tell Becky that you had broken up with Ethan before she even met him. Unless you had second thoughts, in which case she REALLY did you a favour.
I also didn’t expect Becky to be this forthcoming about her guilt and insecurity this quickly, especially not in public, and very especially not in front of her “competition” for best friend status. Not that I”m complaining; it’s a good way of being thrown for a loop.
On your second point, I dunno, it seems like Joyce didn’t really have a chance to tell Becky she and Ethan had broken until just now. I mean, unless she wanted to say it right there in front of him and involve him in making up vague reasons why, right after her brain short-circuited from her first sighting of rad haircut.
If you wanna make your best friend feel better then how ’bout being honest with her instead of saying things like “not really” or “didn’t really“. She could just state it confidently that it’s not Becky’s fault at all without having to mention Ethan’s gayness. This is making me seriously frustrated but I never liked Joyce so whatever.
Yeah, this. “It has nothing to do with what you said, Becky; I’d broken up with him before that.” I’m honestly confused as to why she’s hedging, except to maintain drama in the comic. (Or unless she’s not sure she wants to be broken up, which, please no.)
But Joyce is clearly not trying to punish Becky for what she said by allowing her to think it actually had an effect on the relationship. She wants Becky to feel good, she’s made that plain. And yet.
She told Joyce’s boyfriend that it wasn’t okay that he wasn’t sleeping with Joyce, despite that a) she knows perfectly well that Joyce doesn’t believe in sex outside of marriage, so I don’t know why she was even surprised, b) they’ve been dating for, what, a month at most?, c) Ethan specifically phrased it as respecting Joyce’s boundaries, so she was basically telling him to stop doing that, d) she’d just met Ethan and so the remark wasn’t coming from any place of established intimacy, or even knowledge about the relationship, and e) it’s none of her damn business whether Joyce chooses to have sex with her boyfriend.
It was an obnoxious thing to say, no question, but I don’t think Joyce is holding her to account for it. (I’m not sure Joyce even knows what she said, although the gist of it should have been clear from last strip.) Though Winter’s suggestion that she’s subconsciously angry at Becky for changing her worldview does seem like a possible explanation.
Do people take things this seriously in general? I don’t know about others, but I saw Becky’s remarks about them not fucking yet as mostly a joke. It’s not like if someone tells you you are “fired” for not fucking your gf you’re bound to take it completely seriously because it’s just ridiculous. It’s a joke.
Becky obviously did not think she could fire Ethan, but she did genuinely want to get him to have sex with Joyce. Which, again, none of her business. And even if she meant nothing by it, didn’t care about Joyce’s sex life at all, that wasn’t an appropriate thing to say to Ethan, who she does not know. “It’s a joke” is not a defense for making personal judgments about a stranger’s sex life to their face, especially when nothing about your expression suggests you’re actually kidding and when you apparently expect it to have driven them away.
And I feel the need to add that lots of people in DoA have been just this rude, many many times; I don’t think Becky is a terrible person or that either Joyce or Ethan are particularly worked up about this. But you asked.
Maybe it’s because, on some level, Joyce does blame Becky for their break-up. If Becky hadn’t come along and shaken up Joyce’s worldview by coming out, Joyce would still be lusting over Ethan’s butt right now after all.
I think Joyce is astute enough to realise that actually getting pissed at Becky for the break-up is way unfair. But since Joyce is quashing all her upsetness about sushi, how her friend’s changed, etc. with guilt right now, it’s understandable that she might be unintentionally stalling on reassuring Becky.
Good God Joyce you are just too precious for this world sometimes.
Good to see Becky catching on, this was actually a rather nice time to lay it down for her.
Why is it when someone says to someone else that it’s not their fault the other person assumes it’s their fault? Can’t take words at face value anymore?
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Becky is a code-shifter, easily switching between Fundie and English.
Meh. I could say “fuck” loooong before I could let “God” slip past my lips. Took years for that restriction to fade away.
That just a blasphemy thing?
I guess. Is that the same as “taking the name of the Lord in vain”? I had a hard time even saying “gosh dammit” as I knew it was just substitution. Nowadays, I say “goddammit” all too frequently, and would actually like to remove it from my vocabulary since I don’t believe in a deity anymore it seems stupid to keep invoking the name of one. (which I guess is a weird thought process to have) “Odindammit!” “Zeussdammit!” or even “Tymoradammit!” just doesn’t have the same ring to it.
Sometimes I reference gods’ body parts if I’m trying for a curse and the usual “goddammit” doesn’t quite cut the mustard. “Odin’s left nut!” “By thor’s sweet beard!” That kind of thing.
“By Loki’s twisted grin, you vex me so!”
This makes me think of Hiddles!
(Just watched Thor: The Dark World last night…)
Goshdangit to heck, Joycy! *_*
Eh, I was dragged to church as a child (Methodists in particular), but I was never a religious person myself, and the swearing was always there. In everyday speak, I do blurt out swear words fairly frequently, whenever I bollocks something up, for instance, or accidentally injure myself. Of course I’m quick to alter these to more family-friendly utterings when working as a Scout Leader. xD (Such as “Fu…or crying out loud!”)
Fun fact: that’s how most Hungarian curses involving god work. Although the curses usually involve more… private body parts: god’s manhood, backdoor entrance, etc.
If Odin’s left nut isn’t private, I really don’t want to go to any of his speeches.
Well, most ‘gods’ seem to have no problem with exposing their testisness …
i saw your avatar first and was like ‘man that’s really familiar’ and then i saw your name and i was like oh that’s why. hi j.
“Thor’s teeth” is a good one, but yeah, “By Odin’s hairy left one!” is also extremely useful, lol.
I find Zuuldammit to be my go to deity invoking curse nowadays
There is no s=cursing, only Zuul…
Well that was a weird typo, don’t know how that got in there…
You started to type “swearing”, decided to use “cursing” instead, tried to delete the “s” but accidentally hit the equals key next to backspace and didn’t notice.
You could try Zuul damnit?
You could try Zod dammit? Or is that only applicable for Kal-El?
“God” isn’t his name, though, it’s his job title. So technically saying “god dammit” or some variation thereof isn’t actually taking the Lord’s name in vain.
I felt like that too (not wanting to refer to a god I no longer believed in) until I realized that just using the names of the weekdays requires me to name five gods in whom I don’t believe (Tyr, Wodin, Thor, Frigg, Saturn).
So I quit worrying about it, and just say it whenever I goddamn well feel like it.
So many of the words we use have lost contact with their original meaning, I feel fine using stuff like “goddamn” as nothing more than an intensifier.
Yeah, but it doesn’t stop the idiots that say “Ha! You say you don’t believe in god, but your subconscious knows better!”, which is why I trained myself to say “gods” instead of “god” (it’s more noticeable in Spanish, which is my first language).
Something I find interesting is that while I will use “Jesus Christ!” and “God dammit!” if I drop something on my foot, if I’m in having a painful medical procedure, am sedated, but in pain, I exclusively call on my actual gods, so I end up calling out to Odin and Thor in real situations.
So apparently my subconscious is fine with me calling on gods I don’t follow anymore, as per my upbringing, for everyday use; I guess it doesn’t see a reason to call for help for realzies unless it figures I really mean it, lol.
Cheese damn it!
HOW DARE YOU TAKE THE NAME OF OUR MILK-BASED SAVIOUR IN VAIN!!!
Goudammit
I had a weird thing about taking the Lord’s name in vain for a long time myself, and I was never even raised to be particularly religious. My neighbors, on the other hand, were, so when little tiny five-year-old me was playing with my friends from next door and they reacted to me saying “oh my God” with a gasped “God doesn’t like when you say that!” I was pretty worried about making God unhappy. Aaaand then it turned into A Thing that followed me into my twenties.
I recommend reading “Small Gods” by Terry Pratchett for an interesting and entertaining view on gods, followers, and religion in general.
Also useful if you need a couple of new deities to call upon in times of stress, anger, or ecstasy.
imagine that!
“Well, ding-dang darn-tootly tootin’!”
Love your gravatar, elsanna for the win!!!
Eh. Even if it’s yuri, incest is awfully squicky IMO.
Wait… How can you tell that’s Anna?
It’s actually Elsa, nuzzling Anna’s ear.
Elsa’s plainly visible; I was expressing suspicion that they recognized an ear.
Well, Anna is pretty much the only option, given the hair. Too long to be Hans, too red to be Kristoff, too extant to be Olaf, too human to be Sven.
Ah. Fair ball then.
It’s also possible they were familiar with the picture it came from.
Well, considering the preceding comment, this is gonna be a little awkward, but… What comic is that?
It’s an art piece I found on Reddit/r/elsanna.
Suuuuure… In front of a fireplace right?
Hearth, in my own words. I unknowingly reposted it,but it’s amazing enough to see twice. I don’t like the concept of anal, but the raw need demonstrated is beyond a simple act or idea.
Agreed
Now I want to see the original…
‘Goshdangit’ is a worse curse word in my books that ‘fucking’ if I’m honest
And in the world of “Leave It To Beaver”.
It lacks the same versatility, if nothing else.
“Fuck those fucking fuckers for not fucking knowing what the fuck they were doing.”
“Gosh dang those gosh dangers for not gosh danging knowing what the gosh dang they were doing!”
That unfortunately and hilariously inserts “dangers” into the middle of it, though.
Missed two at the end.
“Fuck those fucking fuckers for not fucking knowing what the fuck they were fucking around with. FUCK.”
“Gosh dang those gosh danging gosh dangers for not gosh dang knowing what the gosh dang they were gosh danging around with. GOSH DANG”
(I took the liberty of dropping the ‘ing’ from one ‘gosh dang’ because it sounded better that way.)
Becky scared the eyebrows off of Joyce. Literally.
They hit the ceiling fan above her, got flung across the restaurant, and landed in somebody’s soup.
Oh no that’s just a disease that everyone in Willis’ universe has that causes eyebrows to occasionally detach from the face.
Sadly, no one has as of yet informed the cast that it’s terminal.
For their eyebrows, I mean. If something shocking enough happens, the eyebrows will detach and float too high to come down. The victim will be eyebrow-less forever.
I woke up this morning with a bad hangover
And my eyebrows were missing again
This happens all the time
They’re detachable
Those aren’t eyebrows. It’s where she keeps her noodles.
Quick! Get them back before someone canoodles them pre-maritally!
Sentient eyebrows which live a parasitical life on top of eye brow sockets. They survive by digesting emotional brain-waves. Of course, when they receive a shock they tend to leap off.
Reminds me of ‘That Moustache Feeling’:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-e6cetQBawE
“Rugged, self-assured, adult. These are the words that describe the man who wears a mustache. Yes, it says to the world: I’m a man of action! Ah, but action tempered with maturity. Like…a fireman! Or…or somebody’s dad!”
The Tick is the best.
The Tick is TOTALLY the best.
Becky’s got a fucking pottymouth. What the hell, girl. Where do you get off with that vulgar shit.
Aye. That girl’s a motherfucking disgrace, someone ought to teach her some goddamn manners :c
You’re going to censor goshdangit??
Becky’s still all religiositied. Such a person wouldst likely indeed think of religious cussing as way fucking worse than sex cussing and shit. Kinda 19th century of her, really.
Truth. My whole family’s pretty lax on the religion thing, but my mom and aunt will sit and listen to me drop a hundred f-bombs without a word, then flip the hell out if I saw Goddammit.
Saying fuck: Using a word that we as a society at some point decided was a swear.
Saying Goddammit: Taking the Lord’s name in vain, which is against the 10 commandments.
It’s the same reason that they censored the word ‘God’ in ‘Goddamn’ in I Write Sins, Not Tragedies, instead of censoring ‘Damn’. God = word that should be respected and not used in such context, Damn = word that people use all the time and occurs as used here in the Bible itself, and therefore does not need to be censored.
That’s… really, *really* not what the biblical “Taking the Lord’s name in vain” means, but it’s a very common mistranslation among English-speakign Christians.
Ignoring, or being ignorant of, the meaning in favor of the form and ritual (property translated or not) is very common, period.
It’s always freaked me out that so many English-speaking people take even things like “Jesus!” of “For God’s sake!” as blasphemy. I used to think it was a Protestant thing, but I’ve seen Irish Catholics get riled up about it too. Where I’m from, though, even priests say stuff like that and think nothing of it O_o
Even Joyce’s parents were like “Holy Lord, those are nice lofts.” http://www.dumbingofage.com/2010/comic/book-1/01-move-in-day/loft/
Agreed – it’s not like ‘God Damn It’ is saying ‘Damn God’. It’s usually saying, “God, this person/thing is being an asshole, please damn it to some horrible fate!”
The Jewish version of that commandment is “Thou shalt not swear falsely by the name of Adonai your God”.
Which I always understood to mean: if you swear by God’s name, you better be legit. Don’t say “I swear to God, I didn’t run over your cat” if you actually ran over the cat.
Of course, due to the rich Jewish tradition of building fences around the law, nowadays Jews don’t swear oaths at all, and will “affirm” instead if called to testify in court.
nowadays Jews don’t swear oaths at all, and will “affirm” instead if called to testify in court.
As do Heathens, Pagans, atheists, and anyone else who feels that swearing to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth by a god they don’t follow is inappropriate and non-binding for them.
Quakers, too (I mostly know this because I went to Quaker school for 14 years)
It is how a lot of Christians take it, though, and how some of them are taught it. And remember, many of the Covenant-type Christian churches teach that the KJV is the “perfect” manifestation of their deity’s word, a better translation than the original texts they came from. (Yes, really.)
I’ve been to a variety of religious schools/ camps, for various reasons. I’ve been taught everything from, “It’s disrespectful;” to “God might take it as an actual prayer and send you to hell for trying to get Him to send the kitten that just kamikazi’d your leg to burn for all eternity;” to “God is literally the Word. ‘Goddamn fucking piece of shit,’ is the same misuse of words/ God’s power in your life as ‘drat!’ or ‘ouch!’ and they are all equally damning (pun intended) in God’s eyes.”
I, meanwhile, am in a community where both the F-bomb AND any number of “in vains” are just fine, but you’ll get in trouble for anything that could be considered a slur (even “crazy” or “idiot” is out of bounds.)
you talkin bout tumblr?? pretty sure you’re talkin bout tumblr
*shudder*
We can’t stop here, this is batshit country.
Because those words actually hurt people, reflecting and perpetuating oppression? Wow, fancy that, caring more about material harm to other people than abstract profanity.
Jeepers H. Crackers!
Jiminy Cricket!
…Weird to think that Disney named a beloved character after a euphemism.
It took me so embarrassingly long to get that.
Jim Casey in The Grapes of Wrath I got though. That really is such a heavy-handed thing that people do.
D’awww Beck wants some honesty.
Pretty self-centred of her to think it was solely her. Joyce did say yesterday they were doomed from the start, sounds like other crap was going on.
Maybe she sees it as the final nail in the coffin (which it was but it was like a vampire in the coffin that hated gay people).
Willis dang it I’m a girl now
Even if you know you’re not solely responsible, you can still feel bad if you suspect you might have made a bad situation worse. Becky’s response is perfectly normal, aside from being tempered with not wanting Joyce to treat her like a victim in her own right.
Continuing the thought, she’d probably be perfectly accepting of Joyce’s explanation if she didn’t already know that joyce was treating her with kid gloves.
She wants things normal. She doesn’t want Joyce walking on eggshells and assuming every bit of acting out is because of lesbian coming out trauma. It may not be a recognized prejudice, or as severe as the hateful kinds, but excessive sympathy for a person’s “plight” is still unpleasant.
Well that was anti-climactic.
Does this mean Becky gets a dollar?
Joyce got a dollar just for trying really hard and failing. If Joe’s offer extends to other fundamentalist-raised persons, he’s gonna have to drop a Jackson when Becky swears in front of him (or at him, which will also probably happen at some point).
Then Becky can have two haircuts! Because haircuts totally work that way, right?
(please don’t use this joke as an excuse to start up the arguments again)
then she’ll be finally be able to afford getting the other side of her head buzzed!
(please don’t undercut both sides of you head, that only makes your hair look like a poorly glued on wig)
You don’t want to get the Joyce angry…you wouldn’t like her when she’s angry.
Last guy who did it got glassed in the face.
True fact.
Becky is a true wordsmith.
Who else could say the phrase ‘fucking pissed’ then immediately after say the word ‘goshdangit’.
Loads of folks, actually, but it’s still priceless every time.
True. It’s one of those things that never gets old. Kinda charming, honestly.
It kinda fits with Joyce’s ‘When I curse, it will be intentional, and because I’m REALLY upset about something’ philosophy, which Becky seems to share. In Panel 4, Becky is worried about her friend, and wants to drive that fact home. In Panel 6, she’s just frustrated with Joyce perpetual sunniness – no need to break out the ‘big guns’ for that.
I’m expecting when the whole thing dies down, Becky will be a bit embarassed at having her curseginity taken.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6AGDkHYe22Q
It’s hard to push somebody’s buttons when they’ve done such an intensive job of removing them.
Would Joyce feel more scandalized by the Elder Swear because its the most profane swear ever crafted by wizard kind, or because its about Harry Potter stuff?
I’m going to say ‘because Harry Potter’. She doesn’t seem to be bothered per say by swear words (at least, not anymore), and as long as the Elder Swear does not contain the word ‘God’ it’s doubtful she’d have a strong moral objection. I forget if it does or not, it’s been a rather long time since I watched that particular PPP video. However, Harry Potter is witchcraft, and therefore sinful.
We know Joyce has seen the Twilight movies, so fictional magic probably isn’t that big of an issue for her, though her parents’ stance on it is really anybody’s guess.
Can’t watch Scooby Doo because it promotes witchcraft.
Not that much of a guess.
I thought Scooby-Doo promoted meddling? Where’s the witchcraft come in; is it implied in the existence of a talking dog? (“Zombie Island” excluded.)
What it actually does is discourage drug use. Really, do you want to drive around in a decades-old van with a floral print on it?
Because I know someone’s going to take offence at my comment if I don’t say this, I think it’s worth mentioning that I was joking.
And Becky’s quest to make Joyce mad at her begins.
Becky: “I called your parents, imitated your voice, and told them you are quitting school to join a satanic cult”
Joyce: “I understand. You’ve been through a lot recently.”
Becky: “I hid a camera in your shower and posted the pictures on 4chan.”
Joyce: “You must be so upset with me. It makes sense that you’d lash out.”
Becky: “I de-alphabetized your Dexter and Monkey Master DVDs”
Joyce: “YOU bongo THEY’LL NEVER FIND YOUR BODY!!”
Lets be honest. If Becky went as far to trap Joyce showering she would keep that for herself. She would consider it a treasure. A creepy creepy treasure
Except Joyce probably would use the word “bongo”
I didn’t. I forgot about the amusing filter we have. Gotta start using that word more, so I’ll remember.
Or.. you could you know, not use it and just use bongo?
That’s what I’ve been doing up until today, actually.
Fun fact: that’s where “weeaboo” came from.
I wonder how many of us actually type B O N G O now.
Me, unless I’m explaining the origin of the filter. I figure that, should the filter ever be removed, I’d like my comments to be coherent – but with bongos in them!
“…and Bongo was it’s name, Oh!”
I’m torn between horror and hilarity at the prospect of Becky on 4chan. That place would corrupt her so hard… I can already picture her posts on /r9k/. *shudders*
Just hope she doesn’t go to /b/.
Be neat if she went on /m/, though.
I’d assumed she’d end up on /b/ at some point, given the sleazy nature of the aforementioned ‘sharing.’ /m/ would be a nifty hobby for her, though.
Anyone who browses 4chan frequently will eventually visit /b/. Whether or not they stay is uncertain, however.
I do like the idea of Becky liking GIANT ROBOTS and HOT BLOODED SCREAMING.
You know, Mike probably frequents /b/ in canon… a truly terrifying thought
Surely /u/ is her natural home?
The idea of Becky posting on 4chan is pretty hilarious.
Willis, make it canon.
I just had a thought.
Are characters in the comic subject to the ‘bongo’ censor?
Nope. Though Joyce has her own filter.
This storyline will end with Joyce finally snapping and cursing and Becky not sure if shes happy with that or not.
I fully expect a multi-page “FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU- [etc.] -CK!” like that one time in Gunnerkrigg Court, for when Joyce finally snaps and discharges spotty words out of her head.
…I apparently have to catch up on Gunnerkrigg Court.
It’s actually a “Phhhhhhbbbbbbb t” in GKC but y’know, same concept.
I did an archive crawl and the page in question is somewhere prior to chapter 39 of Gunnerkrigg.
Did so too cos I’m a bit obsessive, it’s /?p=995
It’s always fun watching the dam break on someone that uptight.
And then she sucks a billion dicks.
Nah, she’ll probably get tired half way through.
Bwuh? Is this comic trying to imply that Becky’s behaviour the past day has been a reaction to the overwhelming emotional duress she’s going through? Who could have possibly seen this shocking development happen? I am completely blindsided, I tell you.
As am I, Spencer, and rightly so! This show of humanity is unprecedented in good Mr. Willis’ comics.
Odd. For a moment I thought I detected a note of insincerity from you two. Clearly I am imagining things.
I can’t tell if your serious, but if you are, I called it three days ago. It helped that I read S. E. Hinton’s The Outsiders in 6th Grade English, where rebelling against a permissive authority figure was the major motive for one of the villains. Practically the minute I saw Reaver’s comment that day, I thought of that character.
I know it’s almost as if Becky has serious issues and everyone’s been writing her off for being a jerk even though there’s been a lot of jerks in this comic.
Eyebrow jump AND hand to shocked mouth! She’s STUNNED.
And it was clearly really, really hard for her to curse, look at that stuttering.
C’mon Becky it’s like you don’t know her boyfriend was gay!….wait?
In her 69th appearance, the Beckster is on the scoreboard!
That is completely awesome. Kudos. I’m really surprised Walky, of all people, only has one.
I suppose you avoid giving half-points for the sake of statistical clarity. Just thinking of that one time Dorothy barely switched to “effing” while talking to Joyce through a bathroom stall door.
Walky doesn’t actually swear much. Like Joyce, he uses a lot of not-quite-swears and bowlderized swears, though his aren’t as funny as hers. Willis actually said in the hovertext for that strip that he thought it was Walky’s first f-bomb ever. He made it through the entire existence of the Walkyverse without ever dropping one.
And, yeah, my rule for getting on the chart is that all four letters need to be present and legible, I only gave Sal 30 for that strip where the DS died, even though Joyce counted 77, because most of them were partially or even completely obscured. Similarly, I didn’t count Dorothy’s effing or Joyce’s attempt when Sal promised her motorcycle rides for it, or a couple others where people cut themselves off partway through.
I did a recount to check my numbers while I was compiling the timeline recently, and PHPized it so I wouldn’t have to do the math manually every time I updated it, and in the process added more information to make it easier to doublecheck, and since I had the information handy, I added a feature where hovering over the bars in the upper chart will pop up hovertext giving the date and quote responsible for each section of the bar.
Darn, Willis’ phone-compatible hovertext has spoiled me. Time to find that Walky bomb the old-fashioned way…
Well, that was quick. Sleep is now.
What’s your graph code? I ask for unrelated reasons regarding a play I’m working on.
“And, yeah, my rule for getting on the chart is that all four letters need to be present and legible, I only gave Sal 30 for that strip where the DS died, even though Joyce counted 77, because most of them were partially or even completely obscured.”
———
If a fuck is given in a forest but no one is there to hear it, then it never happened?
are you suggesting that every curse from every character be recorded since each character began talking regardless of whether it was in any way related to a scene in the comic?
No, but if a character or something in the foreground obscures a text balloon that is clearly and plainly containing a quantity of F-bombs, I feel that all F-bombs should be counted. I mean, I doubt like hell that Sal switched to “Fudge” or even “Firetruck” during the middle of that outburst, and therefore all 77 “fudge-bombs” (as was noted by Joyce a few strips later, which would make that number canon) — the stand-alone in panel 2, and the “saturation bombing” in panel 4 — should be included in the potty-mouth placings.
Oh my god. This is a thing? I did not know this was a thing.
69 appearances by Becky marking the 69th non-Sal curse?
*gives Becky the 69 award* Take this trophy, Becky-san, and go get laid!
Oh hey, has anyone nice ‘n obsessive actually compiled a master f-bomb list of the cast?
Look up one comment.
Or just click on my name in this one, I guess.
Wowwwww
Thanks
Didn’t you read the title text? Obviously the Willis has.
I think that’s just that Willis is aware that I did. He tumbld it when I first posted it, and this is the second time he’s mentioned it in the hovertext. The first time was when the DS battery died.
Not showing Dorothy or Walky in this one is pure genius. It is so much more fun to just imagine their facial expressions.Walky, if all three girls are too distracted to notice him, is probably miming eating popcorn right now.
“Shuttingup, shuttingup, doing the smart thing and not getting involved, forcing mouth not to smartass, shuttingup”
I bet he’s stuffing himself with sushi in an effort to keep his mouth shut, then realizing it’s delicious and eating all of it while Becky and Joyce (and Dorothy) are distracted.
So that just happened.
This is the first time I’ve noticed that Becky doesn’t have those little blush circles that everyone else does.
Not everybody. Amber has them, but Amazi-Girl doesn’t, which is the visible indicator of her switching personae – the costume is not a 100% reliable indicator, but the cheek blushes are. Some of the other characters also lack them; the twins, Jacob, Ruth IIRC, a couple others.
The fourth panel has made me understand why Becky annoys me so much. Its not so much her behavior towards Joyces friends (or even towards Joyce herself) as it is the way she speaks, more fourth panel speaking Becky please.
Whats funny though is in the last panel Joyce sounds like a lot posters on here…
Once again, Willis messes with our minds regarding how we’re “supposed” to feel about Becky.
“Becky is the greatest character ever! Wait, no, she’s the worst character ever! Wait, now she’s great again–” *collective head explosion*
Tch. I beat Willis at his own game awhile ago by thinking of her as a pretty decent middle of the road sorta character. A nice addition to the cast, but nothing world shaking.
Spoilsport!
Dark Joyce is growing.
yesss..yes….
Though wit hthe lack of scif in this world.. it’ll just be her being a goth…
also those two are the cutest friends
Somehow, I think Becky will calm down a little after this. Kind of feel for her here, actually. Know exactly how it is to have something bottled up for so long and then be able to “yell it to the mountains without blow back”. Not just with coming out but with other things too, like self censoring for years and then deciding to take the filter off. It’s both a massive relief but it can be a little embarrassing to put a foot in the mouth once in a while.
Wait…Does Becky WANT Joyce to get mad at her? Is she looking for a fight? An excuse to leave?
I don’t think she wants an excuse to leave so much as she can’t understand why Joyce isn’t mad at her for running off her first boyfriend.
Her guilt is unsatisfied without Joyce’s anger.
Does that make sense?
Sometimes when you think you’ve done something wrong, you tend to want people to get mad at you to validate your guilt.
I think you’re dead right, Spencer. I think Becky thinks that her argument with Joyce earlier (justified as Becky was to be upset with Joyce) should have super-duper upset her, and she’s been feeling rotten about it since. If Joyce is angry, then she’s less hurt, and just pissed. But when she’s all forgiving and puppy-doggy, it makes all that guilt feel worse.
Thank you for phrasing it better. Dunno why I was having such trouble.
There’s also not believing they can actually not be mad and trying to avoid letting it fester so they hit you with REAL rage later on down the line.
Maybe Becky justs wants Joyce to stop putting on a happy face for her. Joyce is convinced that she needs to be totally accomodating to Becky without fail right now, but that requires hiding all her thoughts & feelings from Becky. And hiding your thoughts & feelings from a friend puts up a barrier, and sends a message that you don’t trust them.
Long story short, I think Becky is concerned that Joyce has become distant to her, and it hurts.
I am convinced that all her life, Joyce has been a very permissive person with regards to Becky (and everyone else, actually, but most importantly Becky). Becky’s gotten tired of it, as people in permissive relationships are apt to do, and is doing everything she can make Joyce YELL at her, to switch into an authoritarian mode, to which she is no doubt used, given her father.
I have little experience with it myself, but I imagine that people who have come out of the closet, or have otherwise liberated a previously repressed section of their personality, become sensitive to repression in the people around them. Becky, I think, is worried that Joyce is repressing her anger towards her, and would rather she expressed it.
Awww they’re bot so precious right now. Wait until one of them says “shit” and falls over laughing at the other.
Well, it won’t be Joyce that says it. The way she was brought up she wouldn’t say the word even if she had a mouthful of it.
Well duh, talking with your mouth full is beyond rude.
“As Daniel the Human once told me, “don’t talk with your mouth half full. Fill up & shut up!”. He then shoved more stuff in my mouth so I couldn’t eat it. Guess I shouldn’t have pissed him off deliberately, huh…?
Okay is it just me or does Becky’s hair look like it’s wrapping around her head?
Becky is now a futakuchi-onna. It’s eating the sushi neither Joyce nor Walky wants.
*Or rather, her hair is eating the sushi.
It took me a while to realize what had happened there.
This comic is the best.
Man, Joyce is trying really hard to be Christ-like. Becky’s right, she -should- be pissed, but I love how Joyce’s guilt over how she’s treated Ethan overrides everything else. Such a sweety. No wonder Becky (still best character ever) is in love with her.
Not that I don’t appreciate your reasoning here, but…Becky is just plain wrong in her assumptions here! Joyce isn’t angry because she basically decided during that class to break up with Ethan. Becky really had nothing to do with that decision beyond being the cause of the original epiphany regarding homosexuality.
What are Becky’s assumptions, anyway? I’m confused what Becky thinks she did.
Before today’s (3/16) comic, I believed that she felt that their argument was something to feel guilty over. Now I’m seeing that more and more, all of Becky’s actions were an attempt to upset and anger Joyce to the point where she freaks out at her friend. I guess Becky didn’t quite ‘get’ how much her friend was growing as a person.
For people being confused about this, keep in mind that Joyce has been accommodating, which Becky is fine with. What she is not fine with is Joyce overcompensating for past guilt by now being kind of a doormat about everything. She wants Joyce to be honest with her, to be mad when she’s mad, to treat her like a person. At least, that’s how I’d feel in her position. She wants Joyce to be her friend, good and bad, and not treat her like a saint. Accepting the homosexuality, awesome, but that doesn’t need to change their friendship. Joyce can pout, puff up her cheeks and utter minced oaths, etc, and that’s how it’s always been for them and what she wants out of her.
That be deep, mah man.
Come to think of it, that’s how their relationship in Joyce & Walky! played out too, with Joyce hiding aspects of herself because she thought it would harm their friendship, when Becky just wanted honesty.
My thoughts exactly. Joyce thinks she’s being accomodating, while Becky thinks that Joyce isn’t being forthcoming. The truth, of course, is that Joyce is being accomodating by not being forthcoming. And once your friend realizes that you’re putting on your happy face regardless of how you actually feel, then they can’t really trust the emotions you display.
Yeah. Like, Joyce’s acceptance of Becky is genuine, and Becky knows that, but she needs Joyce to know that she’s not above reproach. Friends hold friends to things and need to feel free to voice conflicts or differences, and Joyce needs to let herself do that for both their sake.
This is why I dislike ‘nice’. ‘Nice’ is a repression of feelings, and while useful around people you don’t know well, that repression is actually harmful to people who care about you. ‘Nice’ is like a bubble around yourself. It prevents people from harming each other, but it also prevents them from touching one another, and close relationships require contact.
I certainly hope my college exerience is this interesting.
No, I don’t think you do. Gotta study, no time for drama.
Eh, good point.
Pretty much. School will provide you with enough stress as it is, so there’s no point in adding on to that if you can help it.
Mine was. Not good for the grades, and those are what really matter. Hope for boring, but not so boring you create drama for entertainment.
Good-busy. Where you’re not over you’re head, but not bored, pretty much going at a pace that’s good for you. I have learnt of the good-busy, & have accepted it happily…
Real college is like Dumbing of Age but flip the time spent doing class work and time spent not doing class work ratio.
FINALLY!
But I was hoping Joyce would curse before Becky.
Joyce reminds me of Ned Flanders. He drove himself to a mental institution when he flipped his lid. Mental-diddly instituta-roony.
anyone else remember the scene “Laugh at thy Neighbor”?
“You are my brother. I love you. And yet I have a strange sadness… in my bosom.”
Opinion of Becky steadily rises. She’s still absolutely wonderful for funny dialogue.
Also, Joyce’s face in the penultimate panel is wonderful.
*eyebrows fly up into the heavens*
*Eyebrows get so high they slice through an engine of a passing plane causing an emergency landing. Witnesses looking out the window claim UFOs, namely a black streak that shot past so fast it was hard to see…*
Nope, still can’t stand Becky.
Becky is so self-centered that she doesn’t even consider the possibility that a relationship is more complicated and other things happened. Now Joyce is gonna indulge it for some reason.
Or maybe she was trying to be funny, is mistakenly assuming that her zany irreverence has ruined her best friend’s relationship, and is now trying to apologize.
Knowing Joyce for as long as she has she probably finds it impossible that Joyce would break off a relationship. And she probably wouldn’t have if Ethan wasn’t gay.
I can’t help but think Becky is trying, if only subconsciously, to get Joyce to reject her, thinking that she’s going to do it sooner or later, so they might as well get it over with.
I thought Joyce already did…? Or do you mean as a friend too?
Yep, complete rejection. After all the fact she’s there would seem to indicate anyone else in her life either has already rejected her, or Becky can reasonably guess they will reject her.
And pissing off your lifeline is a brilliant strategy.
As much as it seems like a dumb strategy, pretty much anybody would do this. Becky has had her father and her entire community just reject her utterly, and she wants to know if she can trust Joyce not to do the same. It’s fair weather now, but Becky needs to make sure now rather than later that Joyce won’t run when the storm hits – when the parents show up, or when Joyce inevitably gets angry at Becky about something, or when the dorm finally gets to trying to kick Becky out, or when Joyce is stressed out with prelims and also hungry because she’s skipped breakfast too many times. Accept her at her worst in the worst circumstances and all that.
I mean, it doesn’t make Becky saying rude things to Joyce’s friends less annoying, but perhaps it does make it more understandable.
Joyce’s face in panel 5 is absolutely adorable.
Ok so you know that accusatory “ummmmmm” with the slight upturn in tone at the end that (American?) kids do? Totally imagining Joyce mentally vocalizing like that…”ummmm Becky said a bad woooord”
I thought that was “oooooooooooOOOOO”.
Ya, it’s more of an “ooooOOO” sound like in the word “ooze.” I pictured it as more of a long, quiet gasp. Like a deep inhale of shock.
GOSHDANGIT JOYCE !
Darn it to heck!
I’ve noticed a weird trend in Willis’ comics that a character can do objectively horrible things, but it’s okay as long as they’re honest about themselves. Joe can treat women like masturbation sleeves, but as long as he’s up front with it, it’s alright. Becky can drive a wedge in her best friend’s relationship (a good deed for completely reasons completely unknown to her), but as long as it’s in the midst of her coming out party, it’s still heroic. Marry makes petty judgements, but it’s under a cloak of religious self-service, so she’s a villain. And Mike… fucking Mike…
I’m not saying I disagree. I’m certainly not gonna stop reading. But it’s a weird little wrinkle in the comic’s morality.
The idea isn’t that what Becky is doing is heroic; it’s that Joyce has been so obsessed with feeling bad about Becky’s sexuality that she’s stopped treating her as Becky. If you look in previous strips, Joyce would actually respond to Becky doing and/or talking shit; but recently, because she feels awful about how she’s treated homosexuals, she’s overcompensating with Becky (and, to an extent, Ethan. see: releasing him like a wild animal).
And that’s completely normal and understandable of Joyce, esp. with what she’s lived through, but Becky is facing part of the same dilemma Ethan’s been running from: she wants Joyce to see that her sexuality is part of her but isn’t all she is. Becky wants to be treated as a person. It’s a pretty normal part of coming out in general: you want people to acknowledge your sexuality and shout it to the roof as you accept it yourself, but you don’t want that to change people’s view of you as a person. You’re the same person. You’re just more you.
… or anyway that’s what I got from these strips and hey maybe I’m projecting :T
(and even outside of all this none of those are presented as being good things. when has joe been accused of being a gr8 person by any narrative ever???)
Note: Treating Becky as more than her sexuality will become 1000% easier in general if she continues her current trajectory of not making it the focus of every interaction she has with other people and also continues to not introduce herself to new people by screaming ‘I’m a LESBIAN’ in their faces.
This is mostly a joke, but Becky’s spent the last few strips being a human among other humans, and it’s been nice.
Okay but like… If you’re not some flavor of LGBTQIA, just… don’t?
Because you have no idea what it feels like to have to throw off heteronormativity, or how many reaaaaal people have gone through that phase of “screaming” their sexuality to everyone they meet.
Also known as coming out, which must be done with every person you want to know with beyond a surface level, because the assumption is still straight unless you “scream” otherwise, and it is painful to be assumed straight.
Straight cis folks think we should be less “in your face” about it. Straight cis people, who don’t have to bring up their straight cisness because it’s the “default”, really don’t get to judge.
I made this bad Photoshop just for this comic:
http://i60.tinypic.com/j8jokn.png
No one has taken that Joyce face as their gravatar yet? I’m disappointed in all of you.
Up to you, then. *nudge*
*sigh* I liked my old gravatar but whatever…
It looks good on you.
Exactly how do you change the gravitar?
next time you make a comment, notice the “Get a Gravatar” link right next to the NAME blank. You have to make an account there on wordpress, sign in, go to “add a new image”, upload a pic (either from the computer or online), and whenever you use your email in gravatar-enabled sites the same little pic will come up. It’s pretty straightforward really, but if you’re asking for exactitude chances can’t be taken P:
This chapter should have been named LIMITER RELEASE, because that’s what Becky is doing every time we cut back to her plot line, and it’s awesome.
It’s just like in my animes! “There is a level above Super Worldly… I call it Super Worldly 2. Allow me to show it to you…”
I had to look up what Limiter Release was a reference. It helped remind I need to go git gud at Armored Core 2.
“And this… is to go even further beyond…!”
She had Joyce off balance there for a momment. Quick Becky, start talking about vaginas in plain direct English. Keep the momment.
Becky has been rude beyond excuse to Joyce’s friends. And while she did just arrive (in doa world), she has not made an effort to move out of the dorm by looking for work, checking into temp. shelter to help her get started, checking into scholarships, grants or on campus jobs.
She’s been rude, overbearing, and of course made a totally unwanted move on her best friend.
Sticking her noise between Ethan and Joyce seems to have been the wake up call … maybe now she will come down off her ‘me high’ and use her common sense to start living.
So, maybe she’s feeling a bit guilty. If Joyce will just take a poke at her, she would feel so much better.
Look… I’m not a fan of Becky, but the things you’re talking about take days. Plural. Sometimes months. Which have not passed yet. I don’t think it’s fair to even say she’s actually noticed her feet are beneath her yet.
Yeah, she’s annoyingly rude, but she stops being a character when most of her waking hours are spent waiting in lines and filling out paperwork.
All of which implies she knows these things you speak of exist.
Not to mention, that’s days and months of work if she can even get it to happen at all. These aren’t things that are guaranteed in this country, and lots of shelters will discriminate against LGBT people. But nope, it’s all “Becky annoys me and I don’t possess the critical thinking skills required to understand her advance on Joyce was simply a misguided act of desperation and not an actual predatory and manipulative action. So eff her. She can rot on the streets. Bad lesbian. Baaaaaad.”
Like honestly, I don’t really care for Becky’s behavior one way or another. I’d much rather see more Sal and Carla shenanigans, but I will defend the fact that Becky deserves a couple days of a “me high.” She just lost her family, her lady friend roommate, her education, and her finances, and now she’s worried that she’s done something that put a wedge between the only person who remained supportive of her. What she’s gone through goshdang traumatic, and to say it isn’t, you are being disgustingly insensitive to real life LGBT+ people who have gone through similar misfortunes when outed to their parents.
Just so long as she doesn’t continue what I dearly hope isn’t a pattern of trying to isolate her romantic interest from others in her life. It didn’t get disturbing until she lampshaded it, a red flag for abusive behaviors, IMHO.
Let’s also keep in mind that in the DOA timeline this is only the day after Becky showed up on Joyce’s doorstep, and is still reeling from her flight. Also Joyce had planned on dragging Becky to all her classes so it’s not like she could have planned on looking for a job. If Sarah was in class after Joyce’s math class she wouldn’t have been able to get back into the room, and there isn’t too much she could do without access to a computer since most on campus machines require student login to use.
Wait, why wouldn’t Becky have been able to get back in if Sarah was in the room? Not like Sarah is going to explicitly ban Becky when Joyce isn’t around. And most of the cast seem to pretty much leave their doors unlocked at this point anyway, bar Ruth (and I’m guessing Amber because of identity).
If Sarah WASN’T in the room, is what they were saying. Becky can’t get into a dorm room which she doesn’t have the key for, get it?
Heck, as it is a lot of schools have keyfobs to even get into the BUILDING, but it tends to be less of an issue during the day.
That makes me confused as to why Joyce expected Becky to be in her room after lunch: http://www.dumbingofage.com/2015/comic/book-5/02-threes-a-crowd/morebecky/
She likes Twilight. Do you think little details like “she might not be able to get into my room” would even register?
Man, I thought people had some unreasonable hatred of joyce before, but the reasons for the hatred of becky are completely fuckin’ bonkers
LANGUAGE, MISSY!
I swear, kids today with their bizarre swoopy haircuts…
And somewhere in Heaven, an angel is coughing up blood.
Whose brilliant idea was it to let an Ebola virus into heaven? Those things aren’t even alive!
Don’t be ridiculous, there’s no ebola in heaven. It’s avian flu.
Well, duh, Rycan. You can’t go to heaven when you’re alive. That’s why they call it an “afterlife.”
Ah, so that’s it. Becky is guilty about her feelings. She’s been acting like a heel in order to provoke the reaction she believes she really deserves. I wondered, given that I see this almost every day. It’s a self-esteem thing. I have a student who has none at all, always believes the worst of himself. We have to be really careful how we praise him, because telling him something good about himself can trigger a huge tantrum; he has this view that he should always be in trouble and will try his best to make it true. Becky’s behaviour and reaction today looks just like that.
Interesting analysis. I ended up coming to a similar, but not identical theory. I think that Becky is still very much in love with Joyce, and Joyce doing her best to be “the supportive friend” is exactly what Becky DOESN’T need right now. It’s just reminding her even more strongly of what she can’t have.
What Becky trying to do now is force Joyce to push her away, so she can have an excuse to leave and never see Joyce again. (Which is also the wrong course of action. What Becky needs now is time and space away from Joyce, but breaking things off in such a permanent fashion will leave major regrets down the line.)
Ah hell.
I have a theory that the next page might kick off some truthbombs without Becky doing it on purpose:
“Nothing ever upsets you, Joyce! You’re so much BETTER than me and-”
“That’s not true.”
“What?”
“Things upset me. Things upset me so badly I can’t go outside and I’m afraid they’ll make me think worse of people, because people can be *monsters* but they look just like us, Becky, just like you and me and they talk our language and make us trust them and-“
I post my thoughts on the comics here every so often because it feels good to do so. That being said, are we all seriously arguing Becky’s merits knowing the awful “REAL WORLD” **** she’s going through? Especially considering it’s within the last day, two days she’s been living in Joyce’s dorm?
Some of you take moments of weakness far too seriously and make it seem taboo.
Hah, I was just replying the same thing! I feel you, little commenter. Becky hate started out kind of as an ugly but understandable misinterpretation of the crush on Joyce situation and has gotten way, way out of hand.
And the emphasis on “REAL WORLD ****” is key here. It just really bothers me because we’re not just talking about a fictional character. People are being insensitive to a struggle REAL people go through and judging from their lofty positions of their keyboard what behavior makes the people who go through what Becky did good and bad victims of that situation.
Yes, this. I am so effing sick of commenters saying that no one should be bothered by thing they say about Becky (or whoever the recipient-of-hate of the day is) because she is a fictional character. Yes, she is a fictional character, we all know that, but she (and other occasionally-hated characters) is also going through real-world **** that other readers have gone through or are going through and some of the hurtful things that commenters say absolutely hurt real people in the real world.
And I bet some of you are arrogant first year college students who believe they already know everything about life. Here’s a fact; you have NO CLUE unless you went through what Becky is right now.
Thaaaaaat’s a lie. A lot of experiences are a lot more universal than that.
Too good for this world, too pure TwT
And just like that, you make me feel sympathetic for Becky again Mr. Willis. Well played.
I have predicted the opposite since Becky first showed up – that Joyce would try to get a reaction out of her for her transgressions, but Becky would show her pity rather than judgement, Joyce’s endless frustration. This is not quite what I expected, but it’s an important step forward for their relationship.
Joyce, you could afford to tell Becky that you had broken up with Ethan before she even met him. Unless you had second thoughts, in which case she REALLY did you a favour.
I also didn’t expect Becky to be this forthcoming about her guilt and insecurity this quickly, especially not in public, and very especially not in front of her “competition” for best friend status. Not that I”m complaining; it’s a good way of being thrown for a loop.
On your second point, I dunno, it seems like Joyce didn’t really have a chance to tell Becky she and Ethan had broken until just now. I mean, unless she wanted to say it right there in front of him and involve him in making up vague reasons why, right after her brain short-circuited from her first sighting of rad haircut.
I meant right now. “Actually, we broke up earlier today.”
i refuse to start liking becky again, if she starts to apologise. it’ll take more than that to convince me again >_>
I see a new avatar to appropriate.
I will get on that later.
Well now that Becky has dropped the F-bomb she can ride with Sal on her motorcycle. (Not a euphemism)
If anything would kill Becky and Joyce’s friendship, it would be Becky getting to ride that bike when Joyce can’t.
Becky is already Rad. It’s a small step to Cool
Gotta love that scandalized Joyce panel.
Dorothy is waiting to jump in, but can’t til one of them says ‘vagina’.
If you wanna make your best friend feel better then how ’bout being honest with her instead of saying things like “not really” or “didn’t really“. She could just state it confidently that it’s not Becky’s fault at all without having to mention Ethan’s gayness. This is making me seriously frustrated but I never liked Joyce so whatever.
Yeah, this. “It has nothing to do with what you said, Becky; I’d broken up with him before that.” I’m honestly confused as to why she’s hedging, except to maintain drama in the comic. (Or unless she’s not sure she wants to be broken up, which, please no.)
Well, what Becky said is still unacceptable so whatever discourages that behaviour is good.
But Joyce is clearly not trying to punish Becky for what she said by allowing her to think it actually had an effect on the relationship. She wants Becky to feel good, she’s made that plain. And yet.
What did she say that was unaccaptable?
She told Joyce’s boyfriend that it wasn’t okay that he wasn’t sleeping with Joyce, despite that a) she knows perfectly well that Joyce doesn’t believe in sex outside of marriage, so I don’t know why she was even surprised, b) they’ve been dating for, what, a month at most?, c) Ethan specifically phrased it as respecting Joyce’s boundaries, so she was basically telling him to stop doing that, d) she’d just met Ethan and so the remark wasn’t coming from any place of established intimacy, or even knowledge about the relationship, and e) it’s none of her damn business whether Joyce chooses to have sex with her boyfriend.
It was an obnoxious thing to say, no question, but I don’t think Joyce is holding her to account for it. (I’m not sure Joyce even knows what she said, although the gist of it should have been clear from last strip.) Though Winter’s suggestion that she’s subconsciously angry at Becky for changing her worldview does seem like a possible explanation.
Do people take things this seriously in general? I don’t know about others, but I saw Becky’s remarks about them not fucking yet as mostly a joke. It’s not like if someone tells you you are “fired” for not fucking your gf you’re bound to take it completely seriously because it’s just ridiculous. It’s a joke.
Becky obviously did not think she could fire Ethan, but she did genuinely want to get him to have sex with Joyce. Which, again, none of her business. And even if she meant nothing by it, didn’t care about Joyce’s sex life at all, that wasn’t an appropriate thing to say to Ethan, who she does not know. “It’s a joke” is not a defense for making personal judgments about a stranger’s sex life to their face, especially when nothing about your expression suggests you’re actually kidding and when you apparently expect it to have driven them away.
And I feel the need to add that lots of people in DoA have been just this rude, many many times; I don’t think Becky is a terrible person or that either Joyce or Ethan are particularly worked up about this. But you asked.
Maybe it’s because, on some level, Joyce does blame Becky for their break-up. If Becky hadn’t come along and shaken up Joyce’s worldview by coming out, Joyce would still be lusting over Ethan’s butt right now after all.
I think Joyce is astute enough to realise that actually getting pissed at Becky for the break-up is way unfair. But since Joyce is quashing all her upsetness about sushi, how her friend’s changed, etc. with guilt right now, it’s understandable that she might be unintentionally stalling on reassuring Becky.
Because a little aggression is leaking out from underneath piles of guilt, I mean.
That’s a good take on it. There are lot of conflicting emotions for everyone involved.
That’s a really good explanation.
Sometimes when you aren’t a confident person in general, it’s really hard to say things confidently.
I’m just waiting for Joyce to point out that she had ALREADY broken up with Ethan before that all happened.
Good God Joyce you are just too precious for this world sometimes.
Good to see Becky catching on, this was actually a rather nice time to lay it down for her.
Alright, I’m cool with Becky again. She was endearing and fun and then she became kind of a dick. Recognizance is a good thing.
Except you really didn’t do anything.
Why is it when someone says to someone else that it’s not their fault the other person assumes it’s their fault? Can’t take words at face value anymore?
Poor Beckie. We love you. Don’t try to get your friends to be mad at you. Dang it. She can’t hear me.
I’m a little surprised that Joyce hasn’t mention that SHE was the one who dumped Ethan, and not vice versa.
I’m starting to think you WANT us to dislike Becky, Willis.
But WHY…………….