WARNING: This comic often ignores the Laws of Physics
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Numbers 22:27 And when the ass saw the angel of the Lord, she fell down under Balaam: and Balaam’s anger was kindled, and he smote the ass with a staff.
The question is how long will it take for her to admit it? Especially since Joyce knows Sarah has a crush on him too and Joyce was trying to set Sarah up with him (which might have even worked if Sarah hadn’t self-sabotaged). Also, Joyce and Jacob are a really good match personality and interest wise.
Eh, lately Valve has had to use most of the sacrificial energy to keep the dark lord of the Microsoft Unified gaming initiatives at bay. If you thought Satan was a guy to keep at bay, you haven’t seen Microsoft. That’s Elder God of Madness to uncreate reality territory right there.
They are definitely racist. Remember when Joyce called home and mentioned her black roommate? Though I suspect they’ll be more of the “you’re one of the good ones” sort than the overt hatred. It’s easier to justify to yourselves.
I agree, much more likely incredibly ignorant than straight-up hateful, at least in the abstract. (Still really obnoxious tho.)
And I suspect we’d find the line for Carol if this was a fellow actually dating her own daughter.
They seem like the kind of condescending racists that treat Sarah like a shiny novelty or a ‘look, this african american girl agrees with us’ type thing rather than the screaming slurs type.
And worse, the wrong flavor of Christian. We know she is a Christian, and John basically said she’d been raided such, but since she is from India the odds are that she was originally either Episcopalian, Roman Catholic (who are somewhat common around Goa and Mumbai given the old Portuguese colonies) from a different evangelical sect such as 7DA or LDS, or one of the old Eastern Catholic sects such as the Nestorians. How much the Browns displeasure with the marriage stems from sectarianism and how much from good old fashioned racism :rolleyes: isn’t clear, but both are probably involved.
They are indeed, so if she’s Catholic, she’s boned.
That said, they seem the kind of racists who are more condescending and ignorant than maliciously throwing slurs everywhere, so they’d probably accept the marriage…..and then promptly use her as ‘proof’ their family can’t possibly be racist because this Indian girl here agrees with them.
Although if she’s Catholic too, well, that’s a whole other thing. Then there might be a storm coming for John.
I felt that it was more likely that she was a missionary. If she was from India but (presumably) moving to where her husband lives like a good dutiful wife, surely she should consent to marry there too. Like a good dutiful wife.
Plus, the way Carol made a big deal of Sarah gave me the definite impression that there isn’t a person of colour closely connected to the family.
But maybe I’ve missed something. I never assume to know where a webcomic is going until it’s confirmed.
Yeah, they’re probably not that type of church. Fundies hate a lot of things, but the kind that hate Black people usually are rarer, most of the time its just gay people, atheists and other religions (plus a lot of arbitrary popular culture).
Also remember that Joyce’s parents were thrilled that Joyce had a black friend so they could tell everyone at church how she wasn’t racist. They’re not the type who hates black people and miscegenation, just more typical middle class conservative Americans that try a little too hard to not come off as racist around black people and maybe say a few things that are still kind of racist.
So if she brought him home they’d probably be surprised and act kind of awkward for as long as he was there, but it’s not likely they’d get mad or prevent Joyce or anything, at least until he started espousing his Hippie Church beliefs.
You are probably right. My town is very Christian and there is a lot of racism from every side, but since almost all of them aren’t the over the top neo natzi types, they don’t think they are.
In my family alone, most think the majority of black men are criminals, most think the n word is okay to use as long as you only use it against n words and not black people, they like to point out they aren’t racist because they have black friends, they know too many racist jokes, some of them “pity” biracial kids, and a lot of them think that most things that they see as fashionable in the black community (like unnaturally colors for hair) is tacky. My best friend in grade school was black and when our parents found out he had a crush on me, they blew the roof that it was allowed to happen and forbid us from ever seeing each other again. When I moved back in with my dad at 30 years old, he said I could date, but only white men (so no females or blacks). My nephew used some racist/sexist insults on the job as foremen even not firing a guy that spouted racist jokes all the time (which he laughed his ass off at). He commented how n words and women couldn’t cut it in his line of work. Most of them keep it closer to the vest, but it still comes out every great once in a while. None of them think they are racist. My dad is always nice to black men he fishes with. My nephew has had black friends. They can’t see they are racist (and sexist and homophobic and transphobic and xenophobic…) because they aren’t the obvious overtly racist stereotype. I’m the weird one seen as a bleeding heart buzz kill whom a lot of people don’t believe could have possibly been born and raised here (I get asked a lot where I’m from immediately followed by “I mean where were you born/raised”).
Not “obvious overtly stereotypes”. That’s where the issue is. To anyone who frequently reads this comic, I hope, it’s obvious that everything on that list is blatantly racist. The point is that it’s not racist according to the stereotypes of that community. If the stereotype is someone who refuses to have a black surgeon to fix their heart then a person whose favourite televangelist is black won’t realise that they’re racist to believe all drug dealers are black.
(Note: By person I’m not referring to individuals who are fortunate enough to get the hell out of these toxic environments and smart enough to adapt to new information.)
I mean in mixed company or around strangers, they act mostly normal. Unless you are around them a LOT, you wouldn’t notice. That’s what I mean by not obvious. They think they are reasonable people seeing patterns in the black community and don’t realize that it’s tainted with bias.
Hell, this minute right now I’m getting insulted for justifying the Standing Rock Sioux pipeline protest. The words “free ride”, “get over it”, and “entitled” were used and he talk about how progress sometimes requires dealing with a few hiccups (response to the leak later on).
What color is this page? White? If you look REALLY closely, it’s a light greenish blue. It isn’t obvious, however, and only really noticeable because the outer edge is #FFF white..
We tend to judge color in relation to other things. We see the light of our yellow sun as white. We see the light of our purple fluorescents as white. It’s only when we come in from the outside into the fluorescent light that we notice the purple hue.
When in an echo chamber, you don’t notice that the things you’re saying might not be agreeable to those outside that echo chamber.
Yes, their reaction was definitely from the “we seldom meet and they are not real people” kind of mindset. Sarah was just a prop to show Joyce in favorable light there. That “knowing a black person and not having a problem with that” is though of as favorable shows there are not indoctrinated against black people by their religion- not in the way Joyce was indoctrinated against gay people or atheists.
Just the run of the mill racism of white people in a white bubble.
You don’t have to be the one who goes out and bashes people because of their skin color to be racist.
BTW: Transparency International just reported that when populists come to power by promising less corruption, you just get a brand new set of curruption (the article garbled ranking and the point system used to determine the ranking, I’ll have to look it up).
*irony on*
Just who would have though that?
The conversation before this one he approved of Joyce and Ethan dating. Regardless of his reasons that still validates the decision for Joyce, and I’m not sure that’s good for her.
Huh. Yeah, I can see that.
The question is how well Jacob can withstand Mike and how much effort Mike will go to to break Jacob. There are a few ratios of that that’d work rather well, but most of the rest result in either a breakup or Jacob going down in flames.
Personally I think they mean ‘they’d be a good match’ more in a general sense of ‘they click well and could be a good future pairing’, not that they should do it right this second as that would be cheating on Raidah and cheating is wrong.
Personally still waiting for Raidah to learn Jacob and Sarah are still friends to see if she reacts poorly because of her hatred of Sarah.
Jacob’s already seen Joyce dissecting a taco because the foods can’t touch, and eat pizza with the toppings taken off. He’s seen first hand that she is… quirky.
But yeah, he’d definitely be more tactful than that, if his behaviour so far is the slightest bit of evidence.
What, a sweet, sensitive, engaging dude whom she doesn’t have to worry about sexual pressure from (which IIRC was part of why she was drawn to Ethan?) and is willing to help her explore her religious views in a healthy, stable environment during a time when stability is the one thing she needs most in her life right now?
Man, I can’t possibly see why Joyce would be smitten with him. It’s just too unrealistic a ship! /s
Yeah, Jacob may be in for a bit of a shock, if that happens. Joyce is definitely not immune to the temptations of the lust wolves. Remembering an Ethan dream or two. And Joyce has actually loosened up since then.
I really hope what I say will not come off as rude or racist, but I’m very relieved that Joyce doesn’t seem to be thinking twice about liking Jacob. Like obviously she doesn’t realize she has a crush yet, but she’s feeling SOMETHING towards him. Compared to Joe and Ethan, who she kinda of fretted over being jewish, and then acting as if having a roomie who happened to be black was like this major, nifty cool little thing (along with certain kinda racist comments along those lines)! Like I really am proud, that is some good progress. Good job Joyce!
Just kinda sucks about Raidah and Sarah though. Ah Joyce…one day you will crush on somebody who will actually reciprocate it.
I think the thing about him being Jewish was more of a religious thing than an ethnicity thing, but I did forget about the whole “black roommate novelty” thing.
Good point. I guess in a religious sense Episcopalian is closer to her brand of religion than Judaism is(…possibly? maybe? I honestly have no idea, I was raised with Baptism and Pentecostal and even then I couldn’t tell you much about the minutiae of their practices).
*BapTIST not baptism I’ve actually never been baptized. Hence why my grandma fretted over me when I was little because if I died I wouldn’t go to heaven in her eyes.
Ahhh, the minutiae of religion. I’m being raised Pentecostal (father’s a minister), though I’m personally agnostic. Even though I don’t believe most of it now, I find the study of religion interesting because of trying to reconcile the inconsistencies and such and looking at how all the minutiae form.
I am pretty sure not. Everyone seemed surprised when Jacob showed up to the room party with Raidah. I don’t think Sarah or Raidah knew that the other knew Jacob before then.
Yeah I’m with Slartibeast. Raidah and Jacob were getting close/sorta dating before she ever showed up for the party with him, so she was unaware of Sarah’s crush on Jacob. She might still be unaware of it. However I WILL say that Raida fed Jacob a very biased and slander-y account of her altercation with Sarah that thankfully doesn’t seem to have changed Jacob’s opinion of Sarah. Jacob, you’re a saint.
As someone who’s witnessed the “oh yeah this person is SO AWFUL AND REPREHENSIBLE, allow me to give you a one-sided account and just label them TOXIC” argument, that really doesn’t sit right with me. Sarah punched Raidah, okay that was not right. But Sarah apologized afterwards, which is a hell of a lot more than Raidah and her goons have done for all the shit they’ve pulled on Sarah. Who’s the toxic one, somebody who’s antisocial and cynical or the woman who keeps cycling around the same drama and bugging/harassing somebody else for it even after a year to the point of trying to ‘warn’ people away from her ‘for their own good’?
Oooh that could be fun.
Raidah potentially getting jealous of JoyceJacob’s friendship, accuses Sarah of sick-ing her roomate on Jacobfor revenge purpose.
Well, fun to read. Probably not fun for anyone involved (except Mike)
Nope, that was Sarah’s initial post-party thought of why she should go seduce him. As far as has been presented, it seems like Raidah and Jacob just met and have been developing a nice relationship. It’s not even clear if Raidah even knows that Sarah was interested.
It is some major progress. What’s that line she has early on of “I’m not accustomed to diversity!”? Well, she seems to be getting more and more comfortable with it now and seeing it as less and less something to freak out over.
Fun fact: when my baby sister was a year old, the movie she fixated on (all kids have one, afaict) was Shrek, and she would happily listen to All Star on repeat for as long as we could tolerate it.
I read it as… not so much being “very upset”, that definitely a sad disappointment rather than anger in the last panel. Second to last looks like it’s being concealed with irritation, but yeah, definite change in the last panel.
Sarah’s brain panel 6 (read with biting sarcasm): “Great, now I know they really get along.”
Sarah’s brain panel 7: “And now she’s doing the goddamn hair twirling thing!”
I don’t know how she’d have been taught it. This is a girl, the youngest with all those brothers growing up, who at 18 can still get away with sticking her tongue out at people.
I know, but there’s “mass media” and there ‘s a fundie home-schooled teen contextualizing. How? Via reading secular teen magazines (“how to get a boy to like you” articles) or slumber parties where talk of…PG-rated things abounds?
(This is what my teen years, as a het male who gave up the church at 14, can’t answer.)
And I don’t think Joyce knowingly does that in front of Sarah while also saying “Sarah he definitely likes you”.
For a lot of people fidgeting isn’t a conscious thing it’s a reflexive tick they don’t really control, and this particular type of fidgeting is one our society pretty heavily conflates with “flustered girl” so it makes sense that she’d have picked it up at some point especially seeing as she’s described as being particularly well socialized for their community.
Doesn’t Joyce have an affinity for math?
As a woman who was discouraged from STEM subjects in high school, I’d be pretty happy to see Joyce explore that interest further.
not fond of Joycob ship, it doesn’t have the dynamism and energy that all the other DoA pairings have had thus far. But that might be because we don’t know enough about Jacob yet. He seems pretty flawless at this point.
Tbh: hooray for a potential Joyce ship that isn’t Joe! (I’m not sure if Ethan even properly counts.) The Joe thing would… uhm… I mean honestly I’m super into the whole enemies -> friends -> lovers thing with deeply flawed people, but it seems like for that to work in this comic’s timescale, we’d be seeing it in the last fleeting moments before the survivors retreated into the mountains to avoid the glacier-melt tidal waves.
Plus this would mean Jacob ascending to “first tier character” status, and I am all for that. just imagine the pg-rated slipshines with fancy undies and roaring fireplaces and feeding each other strawberries or something- is it okay if the food touches if it’s dipped in chocolate okay this line of thought is going off the rails
Could she also just be super happy that she met someone she can relate to on some level? I mean, one who isn’t just openly evil like my automatic-avatar? I may be drastically underthinking this.
But bobcats have short hair, so it makes sense that hair-twirling isn’t a thing for you. (Also in real life it is more difficult to tell whether hair-twirling is flirting or just fidgeting than it is in fiction.)
I have fantastic hair and if I’m not fiddling with my beard I’m fiddling with my hair. I do not, however, want to fuck everyone I interact with all day.
Oh, me too. I fiddle with my hair constantly. Fictional hair-twirling is way more likely to mean attraction than real-life hair-twirling is. Especially when accompanied by lip-biting. Mostly, I just wanted to imagine a really-real bobcat trying to understand human flirtation. I apologize for the confusion I caused. (Bobcats would also not be into lip-biting as flirtation.
Don’t hate on your avatar. There’s a delicious irony in seeing sensible non-bigoted sentences attached to that face. We’re unlikely to ever see it in the comic.
Joyce/Jacob? I don’t think that anyone foresaw that?
FWIW, I don’t think that Sarah is mad at Joyce for making a connection with Jacob; Joyce certainly isn’t consciously aware of her newborn crush at this point. No, Sarah’s reason for being mad at Jacob is a lot simpler – She’s mad that Joyce could make the connection; that Joyce could talk to him and be easy around him, something that Sarah simply cannot do.
So, yeah, Sarah is jealous of Joyce’s peaople skills.
Also, not only did this connection happen but it happened because Joyce kind forced herself in on their conversation in the first place, and Sarah felt she couldn’t say no to Joyce since Jacob was fine with it.
So now if Joyce does end up being close friends with Jacob or somehow they end up together romantically (which I think is less likely) Sarah would be set back so much from the hurt of it until she finally gets over him.
Yes, and something tells me that this is what annoys Sarah the most – She’s got something Sarah’s been looking for for ages and doesn’t realise it yet.
Yup. She can’t get mad at Joyce for stealing her (fantasy) man, because Joyce is completely unaware of the mutual chemistry and flirting (because she was raised in a highly regimented fundie environment with unrealistic ideas about courtship and love and so doesn’t recognize things like chemistry as much).
Not that Sarah would have had any right getting mad at Joyce if she did realize it either. Crush does not denote ownership.
I don’t know about “right”, but she is likely to be hurt by it and it would definitely be an uncool thing for Joyce to do, had she been doing intentionally.
Again, I’m so happy for Joyce being stable enough to crush on cute boys again. Her Becky is safe, her family is under control, she is increasingly cool with her changing faith… THIS is the Joyce from the beginning of the comic. Happy, smiley, falling in love on the drop of a hat (and being maybe just a tad bigotted, but she is getting better).
Jacob basically is the guy Joyce was looking for at the start of the comic. Religious, willing to put sex off until “the right moment”, more interested in talking about feelings, has a great ass. The works.
Let’s face it: Jacob is a handsome young man with a kind and charming personality and has been able to engage with Joyce’s beliefs on her own level with respect and good humour. She’d have to be made of stone not to be attracted to him.
Similarly, Sarah would need to be made of stone not to be jealous of this fact. I fully expect her to try to work through this by trying to persuade Joyce to pursue Jacob openly (as sort of a ‘turnabout’ kind of revenge on Joyce as well as a passive-aggressive attack on Raidah). However, I’m also expecting a few nasty arguments first; you see, unintentionally, Joyce has just broken Sarah’s heart.
I don’t think Sarah would go that far, though. I could see her going so far as to resent Joyce a little for it, and feel jealous, which would be a natural feeling for anyone in that situation, even if the jealousy is brief. I don’t think she would set Joyce on Jacob, seeing as she didn’t even want to pursue him herself since he has a girlfriend. She can be callous and petty sometimes, but Sarah is definitely not a fundamentally selfish and awful person, as much as she would like people to believe.
Broken Sarah’s heart? I don’t think so. She’s never shown interest in more than sex (other than revenge on Raidah) with him. Her reaction when he spoke of being sexualised backs up that that’s kind of what she was doing- not trying to see him as a person.
She’s obviously still very attracted to him and she seems to be upset that he and Joyce have connected, but I don’t think that’s because she’s emotionally invested in being with him to call it “heartbreak”.
I don’t think Sarah cares enough about Jacob and/or cares too much about Joyce to cause too much conflict about it. Sarah seems to realize that her and Jacob are very different and it’s almost exclusively physical attraction. I mean, she’s probably going to be annoyed, but I think probably more at how Joyce pushed her into it and then had it backfire so royally. She knows Joyce meant no ill will and that she would never purposely hurt Sarah.
But judging from Joyce’s expression in the last panel, she’s not fully aware of the connection between Jacob and her yet. So that might annoy Sarah even more.
Hey people: miscegnation is a really fucked up racist word! Would not reccomend using it, even if it is fun to have a word that means a complex phrase. It’s like calling someone a mongrel. I suggest mixed marriages or interracial marriages instead.
If yer looking for a fun word that means a complex phrase, try using defenestration in a sentence. Very satisfying.
I understand what you’re saying and why: The whole concept is something tied up in the worst excesses of 19th-century racial ‘science’. However, at least in the context I’ve seen it used in this thread, it has been in a context that demonstrates the poster’s intent to see the concept de-legitimised as any reasonable viewpoint.
My general rule with fucked-up racist words is I only use them when 1) talking about the word in question, or 2) said by a racist character in a story. Others may have a different approach but that’s mine.
Angelica and Eliza Schuyler have things to say about that kind of sharing! (This is a Hamilton reference. I am simultaneously apologetic and gleeful for making it. It feels weird.)
I just thought of it. Do yall think Joyce’s mom is the type to be ok with interracial couples? At least with her own daughter? I imagine she’d probably be more upset about the hippy church but idk
She seemed ‘okay’ (i.e. condescending) when Joyce had a black friend. I imagine she’ll use Jacob as more ‘proof’ Joyce isn’t racist and loudly talking about how adorable mixed grand babies would be.
I don’t know if there’s a growth path for Joyce’s mom. What kind of thing would happen to snap her to it? So many politicians who are socially conservative don’t seem to tolerate or broaden their thinking on “x” until someone very close to her is “x”. Is Carol even going to clear that low bar?
Could her “x” be Jocelyn?
Contrast with Joyce where the “x” was an athiest, then a lesbian. Also Hank trusting Joyce as an adult.
Maybe. Might be a clue. OTOH, Joyce wasn’t taken to the wedding and hasn’t yet met the wife, though they’ve apparently been back in the states.
All we really know is that her name is “Christi”, the wedding was in India and Joyce didn’t go and hasn’t met her.
If she is Indian, then the whole “hasn’t met the family” thing is suspicious.
She hasn’t met JOYCE. Doesn’t mean his parents didn’t go to the wedding. She might have stayed with Jocelyne or Becky for a few days while her parents were at the wedding. Maybe they felt Joyce was too young? Or, if Christi is Indian, they may have served Indian food, which Joyce would hate.
Sure. I assume that’s what happened.
They even joked about Joyce starving to death if she’d gone to India.
OTOH, they’re back now and still haven’t had any kind of get together with the family? It’s a weirdness and a suggestive one.
Mind you, we don’t know when the wedding was or when they got back, so it’s possible the explanation is completely innocent. OTGH, it was brought up and emphasized, so it’s probably significant.
Joyce says they got married a year ago in India – I’d not be shocked if the wedding were in the middle of their missionary work and then they returned around the time Joyce were heading to university – and now they’re preparing for a new mission, hence the time crunch.
oh boo frickin’ hoo Sarah.
Let Joyce have a crush that’s not gonna send her into waves of self doubt… probably. Well, maybe some since Jacob’s with Raidah and coveting’s a sin… damn you, strict religious upbringing!
it’s not that Joyce has a crush. It’s that she’s trying to set Jacob up with her largely because they’re both black. And this is after Jacob pointed that out to her
Which she did properly feel guilty about and backed off on – until Sarah actually met Jacob. Joyce is currently trying to set Sarah up with Jacob because Sarah was (and really still is) openly lusting after him. Sarah was on board with that, until she found out a) Jacob would want something more serious and b) was dating Raidah.
Now she’s mostly just nervous and uncomfortable and still attracted.
And now not at all happy that Joyce seems to have hit it off better with Jacob than she ever did.
Yep, which why shouldn’t she feel some type of way about it? I don’t get why she shouldn’t. Is she being held to some invisible higher standard than everyone else in this story, some of whom are way messier than she is (see: Joyce)?
All she’s doing is frowning. Sarah is not having an unreasonable reaction here. Joyce was the one who insisted they go over and talk to them and that she was still going to help get Sarah with Jacob. Instead Joyce has a religious discussion with Jacob.
People do generally get irritated when you insist they do something they don’t want to “for their own good” and “good” part doesn’t happen.
Yes, how dare she have any resentment over being forced into a “meeting” with her crush she didn’t want, followed by seeing said crush connect with the very person who forced her into that meeting. She is allowed no other reaction but happiness for Joyce.
Joyce is spectacularly bad at reading people, isn’t she? First she hooks up with a gay man, nearly gets raped by a preacher’s son she foolishly trusts and now she’s imagining a crush on the wrong person. How can anybody be this clueless? Is it her religion that gives her such a skewed view of the world or is something else at work here?
Yes, there’s at least in theory a tiny minuscule spec of a grey area that some don’t think exists, or don’t want to talk about. A vanishingly small space in which fault and blame become ambiguous.
99.99whatever% of incidents don’t fall anywhere near that space.
Joyce, at that party, was in no way in that spec. She was no where near that grey area. She wasn’t in the same ZIP code. Or in the same state. Or on the same damn planet. She wasn’t even in the same galaxy as that itty bitty spec of a grey area.
100% of what was wrong that night was on the subhuman filthbag who tried it, and I eagerly await the strip in which he gets his comeuppance.
You mean the preacher’s son who, from what little we know of him was an exceptionally smooth operator? The one freakishly good at putting up a good face, adept at manipulation, and just generally competent in their vileness? That’s not on Joyce. To a very limited extent she may have been targeted because she was a religious conservative, but that’s just indicative of what sort of targeting Ryan was good at. It’s in no way a failure on Joyce’s part.
I don’t know how this is need to you but WOMEN DON’T DESERVE TO BE DRUGGED. It is not on Joyce that someone DRUGGED her drink, that’s on the rapist.
I don’t even know where to start with the idea that not only should you be able to tell someone sexuality just by looking, but someone’s orientation is also indicative of their *character*. Do I really have to explain why that’s awful? Because it’s horrible and wrong.
Don’t worry. it’s actually a loading bar. Once the hoodie is fully off we’ll know she’s finished and judging by what’s going in today’s comic, Jacob might be the one to err… finish the loading process.
Panel One: Yeeeeeeesssss, midterm mentions finally! This’ll be the key for quite a bit. For example, people worrying about grades, Dorothy will probably hit burnout about that point, and Walky…..oh, he has a motherfucking STORM coming.
And awww, Joyce, you’re so cute. Stumbling over her words, big ass eyes. Baby has a crush. <3
And nice of you to remember Sarah is here, Joyce.
Panel Two: THAT FACE. Joyce Nicole Brown. Too cute. You've passed the legal limit. Stop that at once.
And yeah, I can see where this is going.
Panel Three: Okay, good, that's a real offer. I want to see Joyce interact with a hippie church now that she won't break out in hives over it. Please let this be good. Or funny. Or both. Both is good.
Jacob's got strong reach out game, by the way. He's made really good offers based on known common interests to get closer to Joyce and this seems to be a good way to get her to open up. Kinda like with Sarah and the Joyce jokes. Good man, Jacob.
Panel Four: Awwww, yay! This is going to be a good experience to watch Joyce grow. Hopefully open her mind to a little more pluralism, religion wise, for something other than "no religious belief whatsoever".
Panel Five: Jacob, you are a very snappy dresser. Just gonna mention that here.
Panel Six: Okay, yeah, hair twirling, lip biting, big ass eyes, yeah. Joyce has a crush. And…Sarah ain't happy. Because, sure, she knows in her head she and Jacob probably won't work out, but that still hurts knowing she's not good for the guy she likes, and yeah, jealousy when she sees someone else (especially someone she's close to – Joyce – or hates – Raidah) is better for him. Hopefully she doesn't go too far with it and gets over it relatively peacefully without wrecking her friendship with Joyce.
And tbh, I can see her being mad – Joyce dragged her into crashing their lunch over her objections on the basis it'd be 'good for her' and then spent the whole time chatting with the guy and developing a crush herself, with very little actual wing manning other than shoving out things she is very clearly not. If you say you're going to do something over someone's objections, Joyce, at least do the thing you say you will. I can definitely see Sarah being irritated.
Panel Seven: Aw, no, Sarah. I think she looks very upset here. Still angry and jealous, but its giving way to just plain old fashioned 'my crush doesn't like me back and someone else is much better for him' sad. She looks miserable – and a little bit like she wants to go 'really'? at Joyce here.
Also, Joyce, really? You're not that bad at reading people, so I can only assume you've not realized your own feelings yet and so haven't put two and two together yet. Also, she still ships this and doesn't see the problems, but Sarah clearly does. Sucks </3
I have this feeling that Joyce is going to handle this budding crush with denial and shipping Sarah/Jacob even harder, to compensate for her failure as a wingwoman. She’s probably going to be stuck in “no no you’re perfect for each other and I’m going to set this up because I’ve decided I should and I can’t have these feelings I can’t get in the way of this” and… it won’t work very well.
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btw if you're one of those rando bluesky weirdos who doesn't know me but sees me in the wild being sarcastic and don't know i'm being sarcastic because you haven't taken like 30 seconds to, like, maybe look at my user profile or something, keep walking, you're not going to score internet points here
Here's an entertaining cite at the bottom of the first page
Josh Gerstein@joshgerstein.bsky.social ⋅ 1d
JUST IN: Milwaukee Judge Hannah Dugan moves to dismiss federal criminal case against her for allegedly helping immigrant hide from ICE. Her lawyers say she's protected by official acts & judicial immunity and 10th Amendment. Doc: storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.us...
Where did Hollywood go so wrong? I thought movies were supposed to be an escape from reality, a chance to put your worries aside and not have to think about any underlying ideas or concepts. Well, not anymore.
theonion.com/you-can...
It's not a new argument, of course, but Chesterton dismissed it effectively in 1908.
"You will hear everlastingly... this argument that the rich man cannot be bribed. The fact is, of course, that the rich man is bribed; he has been bribed already. That is why he is a rich man."
Aaron Rupar@atrupar.com ⋅ 1d
Hawley dismisses Trump lining his pockets with his memecoin: "Listen, I think nobody believes that Donald Trump can be bought. I mean, what does Donald Trump need more money for?"
wilbur, savvy enough to know he's in a comic strip but still not a great actor, awkwardly lifts a muffin up into frame so that we, the audience, understand that he has a muffin right now, which is very important narratively, but he's not really selling it well as an organic, human action
confirming that the reason there's been no Galaxy Version female characters in Blokees until now is that they felt they needed to make Round Lady Thighs For Ladies
preternia @preternia.com ⋅ 6h
Josh Gerstein @joshgerstein.bsky.social ⋅ 1d
Aaron Rupar @atrupar.com ⋅ 1d
Pavel
@spavel.bsky.social ⋅ 10d
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hey now Joyce, don’t try to blame your DAT ASS face on Sarah
more like “dat religious connection”
(both. it’s both)
Jesus: Dat religion to get you to the door, Dat Ass to get you in and praying for your mortal soul!
Numbers 22:27 And when the ass saw the angel of the Lord, she fell down under Balaam: and Balaam’s anger was kindled, and he smote the ass with a staff.
So much for Dat Ass being useful for getting in.
As the Holy Book says in the Book of Holes, Chapter 1: “And they knew not their holes, from an ass, on the ground.”
Hey, dat ass saved his life!
The Son of God did not come to be served, but to serve… DAT ASS!
See, THERE’s the face of the Sarah we know and… tolerate.
….yeah, tolerate works..
Fortunately tolerance and affection aren’t mutually exclusive… or mutually inclusive, really, but some of us like Sarah.
That’s a face that’s three inches from murder if ever I saw one :v
Hey, Sarah, you got a little RESENT on your face, there…
I love Sarah’s eyes!
Yep, saying, “Worst. Wingman. Ever!”
To be fair, Sarah was her own worst enemy here. She and Jacob want totally different things out of a relationship right now.
yeah. As in, he wants to keep the relation he already has and she can’t stop herself from wanting to tap that like it’s a deep-water shale oil
Joyce’s eyes last time were quite the thing, too. That playful smirk. Wow, quite some character development.
Awww, Joyce has a crush
Tristan is gonna be heartbroken.
The question is how long will it take for her to admit it? Especially since Joyce knows Sarah has a crush on him too and Joyce was trying to set Sarah up with him (which might have even worked if Sarah hadn’t self-sabotaged). Also, Joyce and Jacob are a really good match personality and interest wise.
Joyce is now mentally comparing Ethanbutt with Jacobbutt.
A side-by-side comparison is obviously called for.
That’s not the worse pairing that could happen… not sure how the congregation back home would feel about it >.>
Miscegnation?!? That’s the Devil’s work!!
Dorothy’s congregation may be basket-case fundies but they don’t strike me as the super-racist type.
I take it you mean Joyce’s, since Dorothy almost certainly doesn’t have a congregation.
She’s an atheist. so she has a congregation down at the Satanic Temple, duh.
really, i don’t know why more people don’t show up, the blood orgies are a ton of fun and child sacrifice is a great bonding experience
We are out of children. Black goat this week.
Awww man, *again*?
We used the last batch for the monthly sacrifice to the great Gaben for half life 3. We’re about 3 percent of the way there though
Gaben laughs at your sacrifice and uses their power to make more hats for Team Fortress 2.
Hats and random nerfs for Pyro.
I think that last goat went into the UI localization files.
Eh, lately Valve has had to use most of the sacrificial energy to keep the dark lord of the Microsoft Unified gaming initiatives at bay. If you thought Satan was a guy to keep at bay, you haven’t seen Microsoft. That’s Elder God of Madness to uncreate reality territory right there.
Joyce‘s congregation probably includes at least a few.
They are definitely racist. Remember when Joyce called home and mentioned her black roommate? Though I suspect they’ll be more of the “you’re one of the good ones” sort than the overt hatred. It’s easier to justify to yourselves.
I agree, much more likely incredibly ignorant than straight-up hateful, at least in the abstract. (Still really obnoxious tho.)
And I suspect we’d find the line for Carol if this was a fellow actually dating her own daughter.
This could be the issue Joyce’s parents finally split up over.
They seem like the kind of condescending racists that treat Sarah like a shiny novelty or a ‘look, this african american girl agrees with us’ type thing rather than the screaming slurs type.
There’s been speculation more than once that Jordan, the as yet unseen Brown sibling, might have married someone with the wrong skin colour.
Oops, now that I think about it was John, who we know got married in India, who was speculated to have married someone not white.
And worse, the wrong flavor of Christian. We know she is a Christian, and John basically said she’d been raided such, but since she is from India the odds are that she was originally either Episcopalian, Roman Catholic (who are somewhat common around Goa and Mumbai given the old Portuguese colonies) from a different evangelical sect such as 7DA or LDS, or one of the old Eastern Catholic sects such as the Nestorians. How much the Browns displeasure with the marriage stems from sectarianism and how much from good old fashioned racism :rolleyes: isn’t clear, but both are probably involved.
Raised, not raided. Also, I seem to have dropped a comma.
Also, I’m not sure if they are the sort of Protestants who insist that Roman Catholics aren’t really Christian at all.
They are indeed, so if she’s Catholic, she’s boned.
That said, they seem the kind of racists who are more condescending and ignorant than maliciously throwing slurs everywhere, so they’d probably accept the marriage…..and then promptly use her as ‘proof’ their family can’t possibly be racist because this Indian girl here agrees with them.
Although if she’s Catholic too, well, that’s a whole other thing. Then there might be a storm coming for John.
Joyce isn’t Catholic; she’s whatever strain of Protestant that David Willis was.
Not Joyce, John’s mystery wife. Who might be Indian. And if so, might be some other version of Christian.
Of course, it’s also possible she’s another missionary like he was, in which case, she’s likely close to their version of non-denominational.
I felt that it was more likely that she was a missionary. If she was from India but (presumably) moving to where her husband lives like a good dutiful wife, surely she should consent to marry there too. Like a good dutiful wife.
Plus, the way Carol made a big deal of Sarah gave me the definite impression that there isn’t a person of colour closely connected to the family.
But maybe I’ve missed something. I never assume to know where a webcomic is going until it’s confirmed.
@ tbf – I meant they’re the kind of protestant that doesn’t consider catholics christian.
Yeah, they’re probably not that type of church. Fundies hate a lot of things, but the kind that hate Black people usually are rarer, most of the time its just gay people, atheists and other religions (plus a lot of arbitrary popular culture).
Also remember that Joyce’s parents were thrilled that Joyce had a black friend so they could tell everyone at church how she wasn’t racist. They’re not the type who hates black people and miscegenation, just more typical middle class conservative Americans that try a little too hard to not come off as racist around black people and maybe say a few things that are still kind of racist.
So if she brought him home they’d probably be surprised and act kind of awkward for as long as he was there, but it’s not likely they’d get mad or prevent Joyce or anything, at least until he started espousing his Hippie Church beliefs.
“Also remember that Joyce’s parents were thrilled that Joyce had a black friend so they could tell everyone at church how she wasn’t racist.”
I can’t say I remember that incident, but that would be absolute proof of pretty noticeable racism.
Here.
Looking at it again, I am wondering if Carol said that in front of Sarah, or hopefully waited until Sarah was too far away to overhear it.
The emphasis on ‘our’ suggests that other daughters in the neighbourhood are racists to me.
You are probably right. My town is very Christian and there is a lot of racism from every side, but since almost all of them aren’t the over the top neo natzi types, they don’t think they are.
In my family alone, most think the majority of black men are criminals, most think the n word is okay to use as long as you only use it against n words and not black people, they like to point out they aren’t racist because they have black friends, they know too many racist jokes, some of them “pity” biracial kids, and a lot of them think that most things that they see as fashionable in the black community (like unnaturally colors for hair) is tacky. My best friend in grade school was black and when our parents found out he had a crush on me, they blew the roof that it was allowed to happen and forbid us from ever seeing each other again. When I moved back in with my dad at 30 years old, he said I could date, but only white men (so no females or blacks). My nephew used some racist/sexist insults on the job as foremen even not firing a guy that spouted racist jokes all the time (which he laughed his ass off at). He commented how n words and women couldn’t cut it in his line of work. Most of them keep it closer to the vest, but it still comes out every great once in a while. None of them think they are racist. My dad is always nice to black men he fishes with. My nephew has had black friends. They can’t see they are racist (and sexist and homophobic and transphobic and xenophobic…) because they aren’t the obvious overtly racist stereotype. I’m the weird one seen as a bleeding heart buzz kill whom a lot of people don’t believe could have possibly been born and raised here (I get asked a lot where I’m from immediately followed by “I mean where were you born/raised”).
NOT Obvious?
No , thats screaming obvious. Is the bar set at ‘we arent lynchng?’
Prolly.
Where I grew up, the bar is basically “I don’t have white robes, mask and dunce cap in my closet.”
Not “obvious overtly stereotypes”. That’s where the issue is. To anyone who frequently reads this comic, I hope, it’s obvious that everything on that list is blatantly racist. The point is that it’s not racist according to the stereotypes of that community. If the stereotype is someone who refuses to have a black surgeon to fix their heart then a person whose favourite televangelist is black won’t realise that they’re racist to believe all drug dealers are black.
(Note: By person I’m not referring to individuals who are fortunate enough to get the hell out of these toxic environments and smart enough to adapt to new information.)
I mean in mixed company or around strangers, they act mostly normal. Unless you are around them a LOT, you wouldn’t notice. That’s what I mean by not obvious. They think they are reasonable people seeing patterns in the black community and don’t realize that it’s tainted with bias.
Hell, this minute right now I’m getting insulted for justifying the Standing Rock Sioux pipeline protest. The words “free ride”, “get over it”, and “entitled” were used and he talk about how progress sometimes requires dealing with a few hiccups (response to the leak later on).
What color is this page? White? If you look REALLY closely, it’s a light greenish blue. It isn’t obvious, however, and only really noticeable because the outer edge is #FFF white..
We tend to judge color in relation to other things. We see the light of our yellow sun as white. We see the light of our purple fluorescents as white. It’s only when we come in from the outside into the fluorescent light that we notice the purple hue.
When in an echo chamber, you don’t notice that the things you’re saying might not be agreeable to those outside that echo chamber.
Well. It looked like a light greenish-blue on my other monitor…
Guess that’s part of why it was only forty bucks.
Yes, their reaction was definitely from the “we seldom meet and they are not real people” kind of mindset. Sarah was just a prop to show Joyce in favorable light there. That “knowing a black person and not having a problem with that” is though of as favorable shows there are not indoctrinated against black people by their religion- not in the way Joyce was indoctrinated against gay people or atheists.
Just the run of the mill racism of white people in a white bubble.
You don’t have to be the one who goes out and bashes people because of their skin color to be racist.
BTW: Transparency International just reported that when populists come to power by promising less corruption, you just get a brand new set of curruption (the article garbled ranking and the point system used to determine the ranking, I’ll have to look it up).
*irony on*
Just who would have though that?
Mission… successful?
This day did result in one amazing achievement: Sarah somehow got even crankier.
But, her face hasn’t changed…
Remember last strip? Her face froze like that.
feint and a dodge
ALL ACCORDING TO PLAN!
What a perfect opportunity to show Asma some love by giving her panel time.
Surely she can’t man the desk 24/7
Asma is actually identical quadruplets.
Anky, Sinky, Minky, and Ayde.
so THAT’s how she (they) is always up there ?
you’d be surprised at the hours they made me when I was manning the desk
…I was not expecting to ship this, but here we are.
Hm, well this is an interesting development.
I feel like Jacob would be a good match for Joyce
I don’t know, their previous conversation makes me think he might be a little bit too much of an enabler for her.
Do tell?
The conversation before this one he approved of Joyce and Ethan dating. Regardless of his reasons that still validates the decision for Joyce, and I’m not sure that’s good for her.
How so? He’s showing her to think of theology outside the rigid interpretation she was taught, that’s a positive if anything.
I meant the one before it, where he approved of Joyce and Ethan’s relationship.
Jacob didn’t know the full details. All he saw was that Ethan and Joyce had a strong bond with each other that wasn’t about sex.
Except he has to know he’s gay from Joe’s comment about Ethan’s sexuality, and how Jacob didn’t challenge that.
Yeah, but that doesn’t mean he knows Joyce just been trying to de-gay Jon.
I also think his response was intended to counter Joe mocking Joyce for having dated a gay dude.
* had been trying to de-gay Ethan.
Honestly Jacob would probably be a good match for anyone except Mike.
Gonna ship Jacob and Mike out of spite now. Thanks.
Huh. Yeah, I can see that.
The question is how well Jacob can withstand Mike and how much effort Mike will go to to break Jacob. There are a few ratios of that that’d work rather well, but most of the rest result in either a breakup or Jacob going down in flames.
Luckily, Mike only does anything out of spite, so it still works.
I don’t know if it has long-term potential, but it’s exactly what both of them need right now.
already in one
How quick people walk all over Raidah.
Personally I think they mean ‘they’d be a good match’ more in a general sense of ‘they click well and could be a good future pairing’, not that they should do it right this second as that would be cheating on Raidah and cheating is wrong.
Personally still waiting for Raidah to learn Jacob and Sarah are still friends to see if she reacts poorly because of her hatred of Sarah.
“It’s not technically swiping if you never had a chance, right?”
Prepare for murder in three… two… one…
“must not murder little sister…”
*eyetwitch*
I’m pretty sure that every elder sister has had that experience at least once. :-p
I would find it hilarious if Joyce wound up with the guy who may or may not be a sex addict in this universe.
Official word is definitely not.
shh.
*may or may not become
I’m now shipping Joyce and Jacob. And Sarah’s face seems to be stuck in that frown.
Just remembered that Sarah’s badmouthed Joyce a LOT to Jacob. This could go downhill very quickly…
Jacob: Wow, you’re really cool Joyce! You’re not nearly as neurotic as Sarah told me you were!
Joyce: …wait, what?
I’m…hoping Jacob has a liiittle more tact than that.
Yeah, somehow I can’t imagine him putting his foot in his mouth like that.
Sarah has told Joyce directly. Just this morning, in fact. And worse.
Jacob’s already seen Joyce dissecting a taco because the foods can’t touch, and eat pizza with the toppings taken off. He’s seen first hand that she is… quirky.
But yeah, he’d definitely be more tactful than that, if his behaviour so far is the slightest bit of evidence.
Okay Joyce has an adorable crush on a not gay guy she has a nice chemistry with: )
(I mean yeah he’s got a girlfriend but this is still progress.)
So, you are saying Joyce is right and this is one of the first signs of the coming Apocalypse?
What’s the name for this ship? Joycob?
Joycob.
Joy on the cob oooh slipshine
The alternative would be Jayce, and that would require bringing in Carla, Sal, and Marcie as the closest things we have to Wheeled Warriors.
AS I PREDICTED. There’s some chemistry to be had from debate.
oh I DIDNT EVEN CONSIDER THIS
Sarah knows what Joyce’s expression is all about.
Jacob knows that Joyce was caught swinging Sarah’s vibrator around playing Star Wars with it, and he can never let on that he knows this.
But not even he knows what its name is.
*gives it a break for the day: the first song that came to mind was from Donny & Marie!*
You’re . . . not very good at this helping thing, are you, Joyce?
Oh, once Sarah heard Jacob talk about how people mostly saw him has a mere body, there weren’t much to help with.
I know I should feel bad for Sarah but her last panel face gives me life.
What, a sweet, sensitive, engaging dude whom she doesn’t have to worry about sexual pressure from (which IIRC was part of why she was drawn to Ethan?) and is willing to help her explore her religious views in a healthy, stable environment during a time when stability is the one thing she needs most in her life right now?
Man, I can’t possibly see why Joyce would be smitten with him. It’s just too unrealistic a ship! /s
(Hahahaha whoops I ship it.)
Yeah, Jacob may be in for a bit of a shock, if that happens. Joyce is definitely not immune to the temptations of the lust wolves. Remembering an Ethan dream or two. And Joyce has actually loosened up since then.
And the fact that they clearly have mutual chemistry, even if just in a friend capacity.
Yep, I’m right there with you, it’s really hard to see why Joyce would be smitten. /s
Joyce’s true and unfiltered innocence is what protects her from being slapped sometimes
Sarah is tired of your shit.
So everything’s normal then.
Yeeep.
I really hope what I say will not come off as rude or racist, but I’m very relieved that Joyce doesn’t seem to be thinking twice about liking Jacob. Like obviously she doesn’t realize she has a crush yet, but she’s feeling SOMETHING towards him. Compared to Joe and Ethan, who she kinda of fretted over being jewish, and then acting as if having a roomie who happened to be black was like this major, nifty cool little thing (along with certain kinda racist comments along those lines)! Like I really am proud, that is some good progress. Good job Joyce!
Just kinda sucks about Raidah and Sarah though. Ah Joyce…one day you will crush on somebody who will actually reciprocate it.
I think the thing about him being Jewish was more of a religious thing than an ethnicity thing, but I did forget about the whole “black roommate novelty” thing.
Good point. I guess in a religious sense Episcopalian is closer to her brand of religion than Judaism is(…possibly? maybe? I honestly have no idea, I was raised with Baptism and Pentecostal and even then I couldn’t tell you much about the minutiae of their practices).
*BapTIST not baptism I’ve actually never been baptized. Hence why my grandma fretted over me when I was little because if I died I wouldn’t go to heaven in her eyes.
Ahhh, the minutiae of religion. I’m being raised Pentecostal (father’s a minister), though I’m personally agnostic. Even though I don’t believe most of it now, I find the study of religion interesting because of trying to reconcile the inconsistencies and such and looking at how all the minutiae form.
Isn’t Raidah just dating him to get back at Sarah though? I don’t think this relationship will last.
I am pretty sure not. Everyone seemed surprised when Jacob showed up to the room party with Raidah. I don’t think Sarah or Raidah knew that the other knew Jacob before then.
Yeah I’m with Slartibeast. Raidah and Jacob were getting close/sorta dating before she ever showed up for the party with him, so she was unaware of Sarah’s crush on Jacob. She might still be unaware of it. However I WILL say that Raida fed Jacob a very biased and slander-y account of her altercation with Sarah that thankfully doesn’t seem to have changed Jacob’s opinion of Sarah. Jacob, you’re a saint.
As someone who’s witnessed the “oh yeah this person is SO AWFUL AND REPREHENSIBLE, allow me to give you a one-sided account and just label them TOXIC” argument, that really doesn’t sit right with me. Sarah punched Raidah, okay that was not right. But Sarah apologized afterwards, which is a hell of a lot more than Raidah and her goons have done for all the shit they’ve pulled on Sarah. Who’s the toxic one, somebody who’s antisocial and cynical or the woman who keeps cycling around the same drama and bugging/harassing somebody else for it even after a year to the point of trying to ‘warn’ people away from her ‘for their own good’?
Oooh that could be fun.
Raidah potentially getting jealous of JoyceJacob’s friendship, accuses Sarah of sick-ing her roomate on Jacobfor revenge purpose.
Well, fun to read. Probably not fun for anyone involved (except Mike)
“Sarah you bongo, you totally sent your roommate after my boyfriend with that innocent christian act!”
“Raidah I would NEVER try to get in the middle of your relationship. …Using Joyce.”
Nope, that was Sarah’s initial post-party thought of why she should go seduce him. As far as has been presented, it seems like Raidah and Jacob just met and have been developing a nice relationship. It’s not even clear if Raidah even knows that Sarah was interested.
It is some major progress. What’s that line she has early on of “I’m not accustomed to diversity!”? Well, she seems to be getting more and more comfortable with it now and seeing it as less and less something to freak out over.
Character Development~!
Soooooome~one’s smiiiiiiit~ten~
SoooooomeBODY ONCE TOLD ME THE WOOORLD IS GONNA ROLL ME
Fun fact: when my baby sister was a year old, the movie she fixated on (all kids have one, afaict) was Shrek, and she would happily listen to All Star on repeat for as long as we could tolerate it.
She was in the Shrek fandom before it was cool.
My kid sister fixated on Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story. I swear she’s seen that film like 30 times.
I ain’t the sharpest tool in the shed
Ahem. Let’s try this again. SomeBODY someBODY someBODY someBODY…
Hilarious. And now, a Disney version!
SomeBODY’s getting married!
Lmao
Now Sarah has become the Danny!
The subtle changes in Sarah’s expressions
Panel 3: Hatred, and hatred unrelenting
Panel 4: she is literally about to cry
I mean panel 6 and 7 shutup you know what I mean shutup
Is she really going to cry? I rescind my giggles then.
nah.
I didn’t think it was tears, I thought it was baseline annoyance in panel 6, an extra added layer of “really, how are you this dense” in panel 7.
Okay, good, I’m not the only one who read that expression as ‘looking very upset’, not angry (or at least, more sad than angry).
I read it as… not so much being “very upset”, that definitely a sad disappointment rather than anger in the last panel. Second to last looks like it’s being concealed with irritation, but yeah, definite change in the last panel.
So is her sect of evangelicals fine with miscegenation or families upset with it like the ones down here in Bama?
Seems like Joyce found a guy that can meet everything she wants and I’m hoping Jacob sees the same in her.
Ha, she broke the glare.
Sarah’s brain panel 6 (read with biting sarcasm): “Great, now I know they really get along.”
Sarah’s brain panel 7: “And now she’s doing the goddamn hair twirling thing!”
I thought the hair twirling was a pretty nice addition here.
It’s got to be reflexive on Joyce’s part, right?
I don’t know how she’d have been taught it. This is a girl, the youngest with all those brothers growing up, who at 18 can still get away with sticking her tongue out at people.
Presumably from mass-media, it is a pretty stock mannerism.
I know, but there’s “mass media” and there ‘s a fundie home-schooled teen contextualizing. How? Via reading secular teen magazines (“how to get a boy to like you” articles) or slumber parties where talk of…PG-rated things abounds?
(This is what my teen years, as a het male who gave up the church at 14, can’t answer.)
And I don’t think Joyce knowingly does that in front of Sarah while also saying “Sarah he definitely likes you”.
For a lot of people fidgeting isn’t a conscious thing it’s a reflexive tick they don’t really control, and this particular type of fidgeting is one our society pretty heavily conflates with “flustered girl” so it makes sense that she’d have picked it up at some point especially seeing as she’s described as being particularly well socialized for their community.
Yeah, culture is pretty osmotic, there’s a lot of places for her to pick it up.
We don’t want Osmotic culture here! All those Osmosians should go back to Osmosia!
I hadn’t thought about Joyce as flustered here, but I like your read on that.
Panels 6 and 7: All the faces.
Don’t be sad, Sarah. Even if it will not be exactly how you wished it would be, Joyce can still make your dream come true.
http://www.dumbingofage.com/2015/comic/book-6/01-to-those-whod-ground-me/determination/
yeah, I’ll ship this.
More like REproductive trip.
Maybe soon. (so, a few years for us)
(not)
Looking forward to mid-terms. I wanna see Joyce show off her world-class critical thinking skills. LOL
She has them. She’s just been discouraged from using them
Doesn’t Joyce have an affinity for math?
As a woman who was discouraged from STEM subjects in high school, I’d be pretty happy to see Joyce explore that interest further.
She wants to be an elementary teacher, but I kinda wanna see her go into math teaching.
She’s supposed to be an elementary teacher.
She wants to be a fighter pilot.
not fond of Joycob ship, it doesn’t have the dynamism and energy that all the other DoA pairings have had thus far. But that might be because we don’t know enough about Jacob yet. He seems pretty flawless at this point.
Tbh: hooray for a potential Joyce ship that isn’t Joe! (I’m not sure if Ethan even properly counts.) The Joe thing would… uhm… I mean honestly I’m super into the whole enemies -> friends -> lovers thing with deeply flawed people, but it seems like for that to work in this comic’s timescale, we’d be seeing it in the last fleeting moments before the survivors retreated into the mountains to avoid the glacier-melt tidal waves.
Plus this would mean Jacob ascending to “first tier character” status, and I am all for that.
just imagine the pg-rated slipshines with fancy undies and roaring fireplaces and feeding each other strawberries or something- is it okay if the food touches if it’s dipped in chocolate okay this line of thought is going off the railsCould she also just be super happy that she met someone she can relate to on some level? I mean, one who isn’t just openly evil like my automatic-avatar? I may be drastically underthinking this.
The hair-twirling tells all, IllogicalBobcat!
But bobcats have short hair, so it makes sense that hair-twirling isn’t a thing for you. (Also in real life it is more difficult to tell whether hair-twirling is flirting or just fidgeting than it is in fiction.)
I have fantastic hair and if I’m not fiddling with my beard I’m fiddling with my hair. I do not, however, want to fuck everyone I interact with all day.
Yeah, I fiddle with my hair too when I’m nervous, it doesn’t necessarily mean attraction. Especially as I don’t experience sexual attraction.
The lip biting on the other hand…
Oh, me too. I fiddle with my hair constantly. Fictional hair-twirling is way more likely to mean attraction than real-life hair-twirling is. Especially when accompanied by lip-biting. Mostly, I just wanted to imagine a really-real bobcat trying to understand human flirtation. I apologize for the confusion I caused. (Bobcats would also not be into lip-biting as flirtation.
Don’t hate on your avatar. There’s a delicious irony in seeing sensible non-bigoted sentences attached to that face. We’re unlikely to ever see it in the comic.
LOOK AT THAT SARAH! CAN’T YOU SEE HOW MUCH HE LIKES YOU? HE LIKES YOU SO MUCH. WHY CAN’T YOU SEE?
Wow. Never thought I’d say this but I kind of ship it…
Whatever makes the girl smile, is fine by me.
Joyce/Jacob? I don’t think that anyone foresaw that?
FWIW, I don’t think that Sarah is mad at Joyce for making a connection with Jacob; Joyce certainly isn’t consciously aware of her newborn crush at this point. No, Sarah’s reason for being mad at Jacob is a lot simpler – She’s mad that Joyce could make the connection; that Joyce could talk to him and be easy around him, something that Sarah simply cannot do.
So, yeah, Sarah is jealous of Joyce’s peaople skills.
Also, not only did this connection happen but it happened because Joyce kind forced herself in on their conversation in the first place, and Sarah felt she couldn’t say no to Joyce since Jacob was fine with it.
So now if Joyce does end up being close friends with Jacob or somehow they end up together romantically (which I think is less likely) Sarah would be set back so much from the hurt of it until she finally gets over him.
This is full of possibilities!
I so like it!
I think that you’re mistaking who likes who, Joyce
Yes, and something tells me that this is what annoys Sarah the most – She’s got something Sarah’s been looking for for ages and doesn’t realise it yet.
Yup. She can’t get mad at Joyce for stealing her (fantasy) man, because Joyce is completely unaware of the mutual chemistry and flirting (because she was raised in a highly regimented fundie environment with unrealistic ideas about courtship and love and so doesn’t recognize things like chemistry as much).
Not that Sarah would have had any right getting mad at Joyce if she did realize it either. Crush does not denote ownership.
I don’t know about “right”, but she is likely to be hurt by it and it would definitely be an uncool thing for Joyce to do, had she been doing intentionally.
Again, I’m so happy for Joyce being stable enough to crush on cute boys again. Her Becky is safe, her family is under control, she is increasingly cool with her changing faith… THIS is the Joyce from the beginning of the comic. Happy, smiley, falling in love on the drop of a hat (and being maybe just a tad bigotted, but she is getting better).
Jacob basically is the guy Joyce was looking for at the start of the comic. Religious, willing to put sex off until “the right moment”, more interested in talking about feelings, has a great ass. The works.
Yup, which is what will make it more interesting to see if that’s who she ends up wanting after some more character development.
Yahbut, she still thinks she’s setting Sarah up with him.
I mean it. I’m pretty dang sure that she’s still working that scenario in her head and doesn’t see herself as hooking up with Jacob at all.
I’m pretty sure Sarah will pull her out of that illusion VERY soon.
Let’s face it: Jacob is a handsome young man with a kind and charming personality and has been able to engage with Joyce’s beliefs on her own level with respect and good humour. She’d have to be made of stone not to be attracted to him.
Similarly, Sarah would need to be made of stone not to be jealous of this fact. I fully expect her to try to work through this by trying to persuade Joyce to pursue Jacob openly (as sort of a ‘turnabout’ kind of revenge on Joyce as well as a passive-aggressive attack on Raidah). However, I’m also expecting a few nasty arguments first; you see, unintentionally, Joyce has just broken Sarah’s heart.
I don’t think Sarah would go that far, though. I could see her going so far as to resent Joyce a little for it, and feel jealous, which would be a natural feeling for anyone in that situation, even if the jealousy is brief. I don’t think she would set Joyce on Jacob, seeing as she didn’t even want to pursue him herself since he has a girlfriend. She can be callous and petty sometimes, but Sarah is definitely not a fundamentally selfish and awful person, as much as she would like people to believe.
Broken Sarah’s heart? I don’t think so. She’s never shown interest in more than sex (other than revenge on Raidah) with him. Her reaction when he spoke of being sexualised backs up that that’s kind of what she was doing- not trying to see him as a person.
She’s obviously still very attracted to him and she seems to be upset that he and Joyce have connected, but I don’t think that’s because she’s emotionally invested in being with him to call it “heartbreak”.
But that’s just my take on it.
I don’t think Sarah cares enough about Jacob and/or cares too much about Joyce to cause too much conflict about it. Sarah seems to realize that her and Jacob are very different and it’s almost exclusively physical attraction. I mean, she’s probably going to be annoyed, but I think probably more at how Joyce pushed her into it and then had it backfire so royally. She knows Joyce meant no ill will and that she would never purposely hurt Sarah.
But judging from Joyce’s expression in the last panel, she’s not fully aware of the connection between Jacob and her yet. So that might annoy Sarah even more.
If looks could kill Joyce and her next nine reincarnations would turn to ash…
Hey people: miscegnation is a really fucked up racist word! Would not reccomend using it, even if it is fun to have a word that means a complex phrase. It’s like calling someone a mongrel. I suggest mixed marriages or interracial marriages instead.
If yer looking for a fun word that means a complex phrase, try using defenestration in a sentence. Very satisfying.
I understand what you’re saying and why: The whole concept is something tied up in the worst excesses of 19th-century racial ‘science’. However, at least in the context I’ve seen it used in this thread, it has been in a context that demonstrates the poster’s intent to see the concept de-legitimised as any reasonable viewpoint.
My general rule with fucked-up racist words is I only use them when 1) talking about the word in question, or 2) said by a racist character in a story. Others may have a different approach but that’s mine.
Sarah please try not to ruin this for her.
It will do so itself without help.
Huh, just clicked with me. I get the feeling Joyce is attempting to vicariously live through Sarah, attempting to set her up with Jacob and such.
Joyce’s encounter with Ryan probably left deep wounds, where she WANTS a future husband deal, but is afraid of that as well.
Oh, absolutely, and not just Sarah. She is shipping EVERYONE.
Her relationship with Dorothy and Walky has shades of that as well, as touched upon here
http://www.dumbingofage.com/2013/comic/book-3/02-guess-whos-coming-to-galassos/afraid/
A secular form of saving people?
Kinda secular
http://www.dumbingofage.com/2012/comic/book-2/06-strange-beerfellows/skywizard/
I can see that. She’s trying to help everyone except herself so she doesn’t focus on her own emotional issues.
Come on, Sarah. Sisters share things with each other, right?
http://www.dumbingofage.com/2014/comic/book-4/03-up-all-night-to-get-vengeance/share-2/
Going back to that sequence of strips just reminds me of how F-ed up that whole “shame complex” culture is, and not just about sex.
Angelica and Eliza Schuyler have things to say about that kind of sharing! (This is a Hamilton reference. I am simultaneously apologetic and gleeful for making it. It feels weird.)
I just thought of it. Do yall think Joyce’s mom is the type to be ok with interracial couples? At least with her own daughter? I imagine she’d probably be more upset about the hippy church but idk
I don’t think she’ll ever say it out loud, but she’s probably one of those people who get really uncomfortable, fidgety and nervous around them
She seemed ‘okay’ (i.e. condescending) when Joyce had a black friend. I imagine she’ll use Jacob as more ‘proof’ Joyce isn’t racist and loudly talking about how adorable mixed grand babies would be.
I don’t know if there’s a growth path for Joyce’s mom. What kind of thing would happen to snap her to it? So many politicians who are socially conservative don’t seem to tolerate or broaden their thinking on “x” until someone very close to her is “x”. Is Carol even going to clear that low bar?
Could her “x” be Jocelyn?
Contrast with Joyce where the “x” was an athiest, then a lesbian. Also Hank trusting Joyce as an adult.
There are plenty of growth paths for Carol. She just keeps walking right by them.
Isn’t her son married to an Indian woman? They don’t seem to hate that, might be a clue.
Maybe. Might be a clue. OTOH, Joyce wasn’t taken to the wedding and hasn’t yet met the wife, though they’ve apparently been back in the states.
All we really know is that her name is “Christi”, the wedding was in India and Joyce didn’t go and hasn’t met her.
If she is Indian, then the whole “hasn’t met the family” thing is suspicious.
She hasn’t met JOYCE. Doesn’t mean his parents didn’t go to the wedding. She might have stayed with Jocelyne or Becky for a few days while her parents were at the wedding. Maybe they felt Joyce was too young? Or, if Christi is Indian, they may have served Indian food, which Joyce would hate.
Sure. I assume that’s what happened.
They even joked about Joyce starving to death if she’d gone to India.
OTOH, they’re back now and still haven’t had any kind of get together with the family? It’s a weirdness and a suggestive one.
Mind you, we don’t know when the wedding was or when they got back, so it’s possible the explanation is completely innocent. OTGH, it was brought up and emphasized, so it’s probably significant.
Joyce says they got married a year ago in India – I’d not be shocked if the wedding were in the middle of their missionary work and then they returned around the time Joyce were heading to university – and now they’re preparing for a new mission, hence the time crunch.
oh boo frickin’ hoo Sarah.
Let Joyce have a crush that’s not gonna send her into waves of self doubt… probably. Well, maybe some since Jacob’s with Raidah and coveting’s a sin… damn you, strict religious upbringing!
it’s not that Joyce has a crush. It’s that she’s trying to set Jacob up with her largely because they’re both black. And this is after Jacob pointed that out to her
Which she did properly feel guilty about and backed off on – until Sarah actually met Jacob. Joyce is currently trying to set Sarah up with Jacob because Sarah was (and really still is) openly lusting after him. Sarah was on board with that, until she found out a) Jacob would want something more serious and b) was dating Raidah.
Now she’s mostly just nervous and uncomfortable and still attracted.
And now not at all happy that Joyce seems to have hit it off better with Jacob than she ever did.
Yep, which why shouldn’t she feel some type of way about it? I don’t get why she shouldn’t. Is she being held to some invisible higher standard than everyone else in this story, some of whom are way messier than she is (see: Joyce)?
All she’s doing is frowning. Sarah is not having an unreasonable reaction here. Joyce was the one who insisted they go over and talk to them and that she was still going to help get Sarah with Jacob. Instead Joyce has a religious discussion with Jacob.
People do generally get irritated when you insist they do something they don’t want to “for their own good” and “good” part doesn’t happen.
Sarah’s mainly mad that Jacob’s not attractive as he used to be now that she knows his faith and beliefs.
Yes, how dare she have any resentment over being forced into a “meeting” with her crush she didn’t want, followed by seeing said crush connect with the very person who forced her into that meeting. She is allowed no other reaction but happiness for Joyce.
no stop that
every situation ever has a clear hero and villain it is the law
But Judge Dredd is the law! And that means Judge Dreed is the clear hero and villain in every situation! Including this one!
British dude is the most bored-looking pin-up model I’ve ever seen, man, woman or otherwise
This might be the fewest panels to ship I’ve ever seen. Jacob managed it in like 10 panels. Hot damn.
Sarah, smile, for Joyce reel-eth in dat ass for thee.
aaahhh! Joyce playing with her hair!
Joyce is spectacularly bad at reading people, isn’t she? First she hooks up with a gay man, nearly gets raped by a preacher’s son she foolishly trusts and now she’s imagining a crush on the wrong person. How can anybody be this clueless? Is it her religion that gives her such a skewed view of the world or is something else at work here?
Are you seriously blaming Joyce for nearly being raped?
If so, that is FUCKED UP.
Saying a person has a weakness which leaves them susceptible to being victimized is not the same thing as blaming the victim.
Indeed it isn’t, but saying that she nearly got raped because she’s bad at reading people is bullshit.
Joyce nearly got raped because Ryan tried to rape her.
Dude. Seriously? What in the hell?
Yes, there’s at least in theory a tiny minuscule spec of a grey area that some don’t think exists, or don’t want to talk about. A vanishingly small space in which fault and blame become ambiguous.
99.99whatever% of incidents don’t fall anywhere near that space.
Joyce, at that party, was in no way in that spec. She was no where near that grey area. She wasn’t in the same ZIP code. Or in the same state. Or on the same damn planet. She wasn’t even in the same galaxy as that itty bitty spec of a grey area.
100% of what was wrong that night was on the subhuman filthbag who tried it, and I eagerly await the strip in which he gets his comeuppance.
You mean the preacher’s son who, from what little we know of him was an exceptionally smooth operator? The one freakishly good at putting up a good face, adept at manipulation, and just generally competent in their vileness? That’s not on Joyce. To a very limited extent she may have been targeted because she was a religious conservative, but that’s just indicative of what sort of targeting Ryan was good at. It’s in no way a failure on Joyce’s part.
I don’t know how this is need to you but WOMEN DON’T DESERVE TO BE DRUGGED. It is not on Joyce that someone DRUGGED her drink, that’s on the rapist.
I don’t even know where to start with the idea that not only should you be able to tell someone sexuality just by looking, but someone’s orientation is also indicative of their *character*. Do I really have to explain why that’s awful? Because it’s horrible and wrong.
It’s going to be fun seeing Sarah in church
Is that a crophoodie? On Joyce?? What have you done to her???
Don’t worry. it’s actually a loading bar. Once the hoodie is fully off we’ll know she’s finished and judging by what’s going in today’s comic, Jacob might be the one to err… finish the loading process.
Panel One: Yeeeeeeesssss, midterm mentions finally! This’ll be the key for quite a bit. For example, people worrying about grades, Dorothy will probably hit burnout about that point, and Walky…..oh, he has a motherfucking STORM coming.
And awww, Joyce, you’re so cute. Stumbling over her words, big ass eyes. Baby has a crush. <3
And nice of you to remember Sarah is here, Joyce.
Panel Two: THAT FACE. Joyce Nicole Brown. Too cute. You've passed the legal limit. Stop that at once.
And yeah, I can see where this is going.
Panel Three: Okay, good, that's a real offer. I want to see Joyce interact with a hippie church now that she won't break out in hives over it. Please let this be good. Or funny. Or both. Both is good.
Jacob's got strong reach out game, by the way. He's made really good offers based on known common interests to get closer to Joyce and this seems to be a good way to get her to open up. Kinda like with Sarah and the Joyce jokes. Good man, Jacob.
Panel Four: Awwww, yay! This is going to be a good experience to watch Joyce grow. Hopefully open her mind to a little more pluralism, religion wise, for something other than "no religious belief whatsoever".
Panel Five: Jacob, you are a very snappy dresser. Just gonna mention that here.
Panel Six: Okay, yeah, hair twirling, lip biting, big ass eyes, yeah. Joyce has a crush. And…Sarah ain't happy. Because, sure, she knows in her head she and Jacob probably won't work out, but that still hurts knowing she's not good for the guy she likes, and yeah, jealousy when she sees someone else (especially someone she's close to – Joyce – or hates – Raidah) is better for him. Hopefully she doesn't go too far with it and gets over it relatively peacefully without wrecking her friendship with Joyce.
And tbh, I can see her being mad – Joyce dragged her into crashing their lunch over her objections on the basis it'd be 'good for her' and then spent the whole time chatting with the guy and developing a crush herself, with very little actual wing manning other than shoving out things she is very clearly not. If you say you're going to do something over someone's objections, Joyce, at least do the thing you say you will. I can definitely see Sarah being irritated.
Panel Seven: Aw, no, Sarah. I think she looks very upset here. Still angry and jealous, but its giving way to just plain old fashioned 'my crush doesn't like me back and someone else is much better for him' sad. She looks miserable – and a little bit like she wants to go 'really'? at Joyce here.
Also, Joyce, really? You're not that bad at reading people, so I can only assume you've not realized your own feelings yet and so haven't put two and two together yet. Also, she still ships this and doesn't see the problems, but Sarah clearly does. Sucks </3
I have this feeling that Joyce is going to handle this budding crush with denial and shipping Sarah/Jacob even harder, to compensate for her failure as a wingwoman. She’s probably going to be stuck in “no no you’re perfect for each other and I’m going to set this up because I’ve decided I should and I can’t have these feelings I can’t get in the way of this” and… it won’t work very well.
My best friend in high school used to do to me what Joyce is doing to Sarah ALL THE TIME
well, without the christianity part.
Quick, Sarah! Do some bible study!
Jacob is a spectacular choice to enter the Brown family! He’s already got the J name!
and he’s already brown? XD
hmm wait
Hahahahaha
Sarah: “Joyce… where do I start?”