I heard Jill Sobule’s version long before Katy Perry released hers, and when I heard the inferior one I was highly disappointed. Jill really made an excellent song there.
And the Jill Sobule video was shown once during the commercial break for an episode of Mighty Morphin’ Power Rangers — on network TV, in the 90s. I had already seen it elsewhere, but my mind was a little blown that they showed it on a mainstream channel in the middle of the afternoon, during a show aimed at minors. 🙂
The other far superior version. It is Katy Perry’s song… with just a few words changed… and one other change that changes everything. It’s almost worth the original existing, so that this could be done to it.
(anyway the next Willis Kickstarter isn’t gonna be for months yet, and finished commissions run even later than that, and why change anyway when someone else is just gonna take Panel 4 first)
A week to a year is about a 1:50 conversion factor. So if they’ve known each other for about 10 years in-comic, that’d correspond to meeting in about 1500 AD.
I’m pretty sure it’s been…four weeks? I don’t know if the days are being tracked exactly, but I think the parent week was about the third week in, so…yeah, not very long.
I don’t know if Mary has plans to destroy all lesbian relationships, but if so, Mary would probably be down for the count in seconds in a giant lesbian pileup.
Well, there was a school of thought that said it was a bit too obvious, and thought Willis might have been misdirecting us for the old switcheroo, like what happened with Joceline.
To be fair, the inference that Jocelyne was attracted to guys (including Ethan) was correct. It’s just that the way we (and Ethan) interpreted it failed to take into account another factor.
So the precedent doesn’t give anything to suggest that the whole deal with Becky being suggested to like girls and particularly Joyce would fail to pan out; it just meant that Becky might not identify as a girl/lesbian. Which in fact still hasn’t changed.
Jocelyne might not be attracted to guys still. There are people who define bisexual as attracted to two genders, not necessarily women and men. So Jocelyne could be attracted to women and agender people for example, and she still wouldn’t be “gay,” as she said.
Yeah, I completely missed it, too. Not sure if it’s because Becky is always seen and spoken of through Joyce’s lens, or just the length of time since we’ve seen the character, but today was a “WHAT” moment.
What was really unexpected is that she’s being as forward as she is. I was expecting this result, but was expecting it to take a bit longer to get to this direct a stage.
Which begs the question, “Why now? Becky’s probably had feelings for Joyce for a while now. Throwing all her cards on the table like this could alienate Joyce forever. Why make this hail-Mary move at this point in her life?” There’s some pressure in her life, that’s pushing her to make this move now. I’m very curious as to what that pressure is.
Becky practically states her reasoning in the previous comic. At least, part of it. She’s noticed that Joyce isn’t all boy crazy anymore. She doesn’t know it’s because of the incident at the party, but she’s thinking that college has started to open up her mind to different possibilities. That, and there’s no chance of being caught by their super religious families here. In the last comic, she did also seem a bit down about SOMETHING at Anderson, but that something could very well be that she’s been separated from Joyce for so long.
This. Becky’s been fishing for clues throughout her entire visit over whether it’s okay to come out to Joyce. The kiss feels like something she’s been working up to. There’s been a lot of inadvertent subtext in their prior conversations, some of which Becky could have taken as code for “I’m gay, but not comfortable talking about it”.
My guess is that Becky now thinks Joyce has a thing for Dorothy (from Walky’s insinuations and Joyce blatantly avoiding Dorothy) and is crushed that Dorothy chose Walky over her.
There’s a lot more “evidence” for Becky to pull from: Joyce clearly considers Billie a close friend despite her sexuality, and really small actions on Joyce’s part like being willing to share her ice cream. Hell, this scene alone has been peppered with homoerotic and vulvic metaphors, from the obvious “naked chick in a clam being spit on by fish” to Joyce saying she “sometimes talks about tacos”.
…or maybe my mind is just always in the gutter, and I’m glad that the plot at least corroborates the evidence I percieve? 😛
Anderson’s a Christian college, and well… even Joyce thinks that any orientation other than hetero would be a thing that should be “cured.”
Becky doesn’t know about Joyce’s stance on gay people! Becky might believe Joyce is the ONE person who will accept her for who she is. (Maybe Joyce WILL accept her for who she is. Her time with Ethan taught her that “gay people” are still “people.”) This could go any number of ways.
I just know that if it weren’t for weekend-update Kickstarter rewards, this page would’ve been carefully scheduled to land on a Friday just to drive us completely insane waiting for Monday.
Gonna guess that if they were both homeschooled and went to church together, that Becky knows exactly how Joyce feels about same-sex lovin’. She’s probably banking on lesbianism being a blind spot in the fundamentalist no-fly zone.
You realize that Becky either dropped out of her Christian college or got kicked out, right? I mean she might have HAD a girl friend there, but there’s a reason she’s here with Joyce when she should be in her classes.
Yeah, I figured she had. I hadn’t quite put the whole “girls who kiss girls get expelled” thing, however. At the small liberal arts college I attended, you couldn’t throw a shoe without hitting a gay or lesbian couple.
It may not be the ‘kissing girls’ thing that’s forcing her out of college. Then again, it’s a Christian college, maybe it has rules about ‘indecency’. Or, it could be that her parents found out, and cut off her funding. It could be that her grades simply didn’t cut the mustard, or maybe she hasn’t been attending classes. Don’t jump to conclusions. We’ll learn more.
Gs are easy enough with your mouth full. But unless she’s got untapped potential as a ventriloquist, she should avoid phrasing it as “I don’t dig delectable damsels”. She just can’t handle that many Ds.
Catastrophic indeed. From Joyce’s point of view, this is another unconsented sexual advance. Everyone’s exulting over this one-sided “ship,” but it just makes me sad. Throw in the fact that she’s losing a friend in the process and it’s a double burden for her.
It’s possible she won’t lose her friend–IF this pushes her to actually talk about what happened at the party, which will let Becky realize just how badly she’s overstepped here, and put her back to, “Support my good friend Joyce” and away from, “Ooh, now we can do that ‘scissors’ thing I keep hearing rumors about.”
I agree with Reflex and everyone who responded to this post above me. I feel terrible for Joyce right now.
I don’t completely blame Becky. She went through the same upbringing Joyce did and it’s obvious something happened back at Anderson. This is still a bad decision. She knows Joyce has a boyfriend.
I mean, it’ll probably work out in the end, as friends or girlfriends (probably friends). Who knows, maybe not giving Joyce time to think about it will end up provoking a better reaction than giving herself time to psych herself out. But that doesn’t make it right to randomly kiss people you aren’t involved with, without their consent.
To clarify: I say “She knows Joyce has a boyfriend” to add to the “catastrophic misreading” idea. As in, some of Joyce’s actions may be evidence of her being not-heterosexual, but Becky should still know better because Joyce has told her about Ethan. So Becky is not justified in thinking Joyce may have given up on guys, if that is what she is thinking.
Regardless of Joyce’s sexuality or relationship status it’s still not okay to kiss her without permission.
If I recall correctly- which I may not- ALL Joyce has told Becky is that they held hands in church, but when Becky turned up she didn’t want to introduce her to ANY guys. I would guess that that is all Becky knows. Given Joyce’s 180 attitude, it’s not unreasonable to think that one brief hand holding is all that happened- and that does not a boyfriend make.
That is what I recall too…
Just checked the Becky tag, yep, last time Joyce talked to her was indeed the church hand holding case. After that, she tried to call her, but never got through.
Ohhh… yes, of course. That was probably the catalyst for Becky pulling her now-or-never stunt – believing that Joyce had found or was about to find a boyfriend. I can imagine that bringing her to a crisis point and deciding she had “one last chance” at what she wanted.
Not a good decision, nor a smart or unselfish one, and we don’t yet know how many bridges she burned behind on on the way out, but certainly understandable, especially in the general context of the strip. And it makes more sense than “hey, I got bored after a few weeks and thought I’d come make a pass at the girl I’ve secretly loved for years”.
I’m expecting more of a horrified Joyce face and then a hasty retreat. Or Joyce looks at her all sexy and goes, “Oh Becky… I didn’t know you cared…” and then surprise premarital slipshine
And the sky split and the mountains trembled and the moon shook in its orbit, with the vibrations as a million million souls across a million million universes at once cried “CALLED IT.”
I was going to say that I don’t think set theory applies here, but now I’m not as certain. In fact, sets of possible lesbian ships might define a topology. At least, if they are open relationships. Which, incidentally, would make them open sets.
Do we actually have that many lesbians? There’s Leslie, of course. Carla’s homoromantic. Pretty much all the rest of the girls are either straight or bi. (Or pan, I guess.)
We don’t have enough information about them to tell in this universe, but in the Walkyverse they (and the rest of Squad 48 – Marcie and Sierra, and Guns, who hasn’t shown up in DoA) were apparently bi.
You’re all forgetting the ‘bi’ option. Both Billie and Ruth have had boyfriends, and Billie at least seems to like boys, so I’m filing her as bi. Becky is probably straight les, but she’s so focused on Joyce right now, I could be misreading her. Joyce can’t be classified as anything right now – she’s a traumatized fundie virgin, if anything – but she seems attracted to guys, if her past guilty fantasies mean anything. And honestly, at their ages, all of this could easily change, depending on experiences. So, stop slotting them, and just let things roll out as Willis has planned. It’s sure to be a fun ride.
For anyone curious I used the Wayback Machine to get the old cast page that had Becky on it, this is what it said:
“Becky is Joyce’s best friend and accomplice from back home. Of the pair, she’s the more irreverently tempered, and Joyce sort of lives vicariously through her. Becky loves Joyce more than like anything in the whole world, so she’s a little broken up that she has to go to school somewhere else.”
Yeah, but this is a lot. Her whole world is turning upside down. I mean, when your one best friend turns lesbian on you, who do you talk to about it? Your other best friend, the atheist? Your other other best friend, the alcoholic (WHOOPS! bisexual-in-a-same-sex-relationship-who-knew??!!) friend??
…to be honest, I’m hoping she is so confused and off-balance that she inadvisably goes with it, but then, I am totally biased towards the sexuality-questioning dramas.
Hm, I agree that Becky’s behaviour is extremely uncool, so I can definitely understand not wanting to see it rewarded. I wasn’t considering that it could be seen as a reward, I’m just hoping for maximum turbulence, because I like fictional chaos.
If they were real people, then I guess I would hope that they’d stop, have a heart to heart, and make mutually responsible/supportive decisions. Then Joyce goes to PFLAG, and eventually she brings Becky’s parents along too, and everyone is nice to Becky. Then Joyceline sees that Joyce is an ally, which empowers her to come out of the trans-closet, and, and, and…
Indeed, that is pretty much my thinking here. With all of the new and crazy stuff going on here, in her mind’s eye Becky was probably the one constant she felt she could count on. Her anchor to keep her world view secure.
Now, all bets are off. Anything could happen! Her brother could suddenly become her sister! I know, crazy, right? Cats and dogs, living together. Mass hysteria!
Hover text may be misleading. Becky is a lesbian. But she may have her signals totally misread here.
On the other hand, Joyce sure couldn’t get any safer from male relationships, if she has any sort of feelings to give back to Becky that would be at least honest.
If not and just uses Becky like she’s using Ethan, that would not be right.
The only reason I’m not seconding this is that Becky’s reasons for not expressing her feelings directly were likely less, “I fear rejection,” and more, “I don’t want my best friend to think I’m going to Hell and trying to drag her down with me.”
How she copes if Joyce starts freaking is going to be a key element in assessing Becky going forward.
I’m inclined to think this is more of a flaw in the XKCD analysis than anything else, in that it fails to recognize that this pattern of actions could be caused by genuine insecurity instead of cynical manipulation.
Except the XKCD comic was not an analysis of the scenario in today’s DoA, or of any scenario except the specific one presented in the XKCD comic itself. It doesn’t “fail to recognize” something just because it’s not about that something.
Relax, cause we are bound to rotate to another relationship tomorrow. We have at least four going on now, and Willis wouldn’t miss an opportunity to make us wait in suspense a week, or so while we look in on them.
What kinda makes it worse is that Becky is one of only two people in the entirety of DoA who has found Joyce attractive, and the other one was Joe. Ethan can’t be attracted to her, since he’s gay, Walky irritates the crap out of her and she irritates him too, Mike is… Well, Mike, Danny barely knows her since the one time they’ve talked so far that I can think of has been Joyce warning him of Sal’s sleeping attire, and Jacob only knows her as Ethan’s girlfriend/the girl Sarah told funny stories about. Even the gay/bi women in DoA don’t find her attractive (That we know of, but still). Kinda sad when you realize the only two people who have been attracted to Joyce are her old best female friend, the realization of which will probably destroy her, and Joe
I don’t know about that — I find many women attractive, but if they present as straight fundamentalist Christians then I will definitely not hit on them.
Sarah also thought Joyce was objectively pretty in her yellow dress, in a protective manner (she thought Joe was gonna eat her alive.)
They’ve had consistent interaction and moments since their disaster date, and Willis was always talking about what a great dynamic they had in Bring Back Roomies.
Joe and Joyce are great together. I think Joe may be the only guy in DoA I could ship Joyce with. But that’s an endgame scenario… they’ve both got a looooooooonnnnng way to go before they’re ready for that.
There is a definite deficiency of guys to ship Joyce with in this comic, now that you mention it. I suppose Walky or Jacob would be okay in another universe.
Calling it now: Joyce goes along with it because she’s horny and confused and wants to climb into boobs and be safe and warm forever, even though she’s not really attracted to Becky.
I never understood when people just…lean in for a kiss on someone. Like is that a thing that people do? I can’t imagine it going well very often in the real world.
I’m married to a wonderful woman who did just that. I was too full of my own ‘not going to take advantage of woman who just moved away from home’ to kiss her, so…yeah.
I have no idea how often that kind of thing turns out well in the real world, but I do see why this is something that turns up in fiction a lot.
I remember a moment where I was working as a lab assistant, and helping a really attractive freshman, both of us male, never having met before, and I felt the urge to lean in just those final few inches further and plant a kiss on his lips.
I think I made the right call not doing that, but it is a moment that I’ve relived in my mind, with happy intimacy occurring and everything, plenty of times since.
This is the kind of inspiration for sexy fiction. 🙂
I leaned in for a kiss once, but only because the sexual tension was crazy intense. But leaning in for a kiss when there isn’t any signals? Not brave enough.
I did that. We’d been seeing each other (without either of us calling it dating) for some weeks and I felt pretty sure that we were both interested in each other. He had come over for dinner, we had been sitting on my couch talking for at least an hour or two, it was getting pretty late. I had been moving closer and closer until in the end I had my hand on his leg, and when he *still* didn’t make a move, I leaned in to kiss him.
He immediately pulled back, so I immediately leaned out again. He explained he had never kissed someone before, I said well, would you like to try? He said that yes he did, but if it didn’t go very well, I’d know why. And then we did kiss.
Four months and counting 🙂 But yeah, you want to make fairly sure the other person is into you before you try that.
Wow, that was so obviously going to happen that I thought Willis would throw us a curveball and not make it happen. But it happened! BLESS YOU, WILLIS!
BECKY NOOOOOOOO!
(I mean, not bi/lesbian part. You keep doing that. I mean more specifically.)
(Man, this kind of thing is what got you kicked out of Anderson, isn’t it? Geez Becky, learn some pattern recognition.)
Don’t know if anyone else has said it yet, but perhaps this is leading into the big thing Joyce does at the end of the year that Willis was talking about?
The big thing that apparently decides which Joyce, the Walking or Dumb, that Willis prefers?
There are only half enough to go around, so you’ll have to share. Pick a partner, and squeeze in. Oh, and you will have take off your clothes, first, obviously.
Okay, so prediction: as much as I love this pairing right now and holy shit I really do. Joyce probably wont react well. While their friendship will stay it will be awkward for them for a while. However respect for her best friend along with already place doubts will cause her to break up with Ethan.
I dearly hope we don’t have anything negative come out of this.
I mean, I’m looking forward to the panicked sexual orientation questioning because that’s always really fun, but having a sad Joyce at the end ruins that.
Well, I am sure she will be upset, but I am not sure it will be that bad. Granted this is directed at her, from her friend, but she has gotten a lot calmer about things like homosexuality in general.
I mean, she pretty much took the revelation that Billie had had pre-marital hanky-panky with a girl in stride…
Oh, that’s true! Joyce sure has grown a lot — remember when learning her new friend was an atheist made her gasp so hard she got the hiccups? But she had no big reaction to Billie/Alice, even when it was spelled out right in front of her, and was properly kind to Billie in the aftermath.
This bar’s a great deal higher, though. How will she deal??
Coke will work, but aspartame lowers the surface tension and make it more dramatic than the sugar version. The sugar version is also much messier to clean up…
I love both DoA and GC, but in such totally different ways that I don’t think I could rank them.
GC’s art progression is kind of unusual, in that there’s a major shift, but it doesn’t start out crappy and get better as the artist practices like most webcomics do. It’s competently drawn from the start, but it starts out stylistically weird, and gets less so as time goes on. I’m not sure whether that was a deliberate effect, or just natural evolution.
I know a dude who was having anal sex with a man, stopped suddenly and said “oh noo!” And his concerned partner was like “What? What??” and he says “our balls touched! That makes it gay!!” D:
Now watch as Joyce goes off her nut, stops being friends with Becky and calls her a sinner. Or calls her a sinner, has a big rant then tries to change her to being straight.
So your saying setting up a known gay person and either a bi or lesbian person together is not trying to make them straight? She should just work at helping them be happy, not trying to change them to suit her beliefs.
Slipping & squeaking as we speak….
Nah, I reckon Becky is just screwing around because she may not know who she likes, & by running away from her college (which is obvious) she plans to drag whoever’s emotionally invested down with her trainwreck. Joyce is the prime target for such a thing. There’s almost every other kind of stapled characterisation & subplot covered, anyway.
For me it’s kind of disappointing. I WAS expecting Becky to have a Thing for Joyce – most conservative-raised people I know got over their homophobia because a friend turned out to be gay (if not themselves), and Becky being gay seemed like the most obvious, realistic way for Willis to make Joyce have to start confronting and dismantling her own homophobic tendencies.
I was just hoping that Becky – being Joyce’s best friend and, up until now, having seemed really cool and savvy – would have revealed this in a more sensitive, non-forceful way.
Well I don’t think going to a Christian school necessarily taught Becky good ways to handle her feelings.
I don’t know. I almost prefer that characters screw up sometimes. Yes it would be tremendously positive if she had a mature and respectful way to come out to Joyce, but that’s an ideal situation. Those don’t survive contact with reality.
I think that excusing such behavior instead of calling it what it is and letting the chips fall where they may from there is a really sketchy way of interpreting it. OF COURSE young people are gonna do bad and wrong stuff, but I think it’s incredibly patronizing and also gross to just shrug it off with an “EH, KIDS, AMIRITE?”
There’s so much “OMG YAASSS!! BECKY/JOYCE YAAASSSS!!!” going on here that I do think that it needed to be said that what Becky is doing is Actually Not Okay and not cute at all. It’s sad and wrong. My hope is that the writing will reflect that, and that both Joyce AND Becky learn important lessons in respecting each other.
Honestly though the “surprise kiss” is a pretty dick move, especially for someone you know probably won’t appreciate it! Also, as flimsy as Joyce and Ethan’s relationship is, Becky knows Joyce is IN a relationship…. :[
After rereading since Becky returned there have been many conversations that could be misinterpreted by Becky. Sometimes we see what we want to see. While it makes sense why Becky would go for it, I think the surprise kiss is totally out of line. It’s likely going to devastate Joyce considering in one of the first return strips Sarah mentions that Becky is the reason Joyce grew up somewhat normal.
“mammals are weird” to me make it seem even more likely she could be asexual. Or could just be a late bloomer, or demisexual… but yeah, I wouldn’t put her firmly in the “straight” camp at this point at all.
And Roz clearly likes guys, but she could be bi or pan. Granted her comment to her sister seems to dismiss that somewhat, but it was her sister after all. I don’t know why she would be totally honest with her. I’d say she is likely straight, but not certainly.
I can’t imagine that Roz would be closeted about anything. She’s been all over Joe and Jacob without propositioning any women. She does look great in a vest, though.
“hasn’t shown any kind of romantic or sexual interest in anyone” hardly means anything. People who’ve known me for years might be forgiven for thinking I’m asexual, but I know I’m attracted to women – I just don’t express it.
I mean, more than half so far seem straight. Hmmm…now that you mention it, we could do better. Somebody lock Dorothy and Amazi-girl in a room for a few hours, we need to test this.
Well, I’m not sure if we’ve proven any of them aren’t attracted to other females. (also, do random background characters count? Are we the MLP fandom all of a sudden?)
Also, yes, we need more Dina. We need a Dina story arc.
Dina is a carefully managed resource. If Willis needs more page views than girls smooching can bring in, he will combine Dina with Joyce for an extremely exothermic reaction.
Considering that the sexual orientation of characters has staid the same compared to It’s Walky!, Dina is most definitely not asexual. Definitely hetero (or perhaps bi), though.
I figure Dina as a late bloomer who mostly finds romance confusing. Plus, Walkyverse-Dina was into maturity, which hasn’t exactly been present in this environment.
yeah, yeah. But her reactions to Sal (least, just hair brushing and cool factor), Billie (stay safe and warm forever), and Dorothy (most, stuck to her like glue) open up at least a small possibility that she isn’t 100% straight. Maybe she is, and those were just innocent reactions. Just dunno yet.
Hmm thinking on what your saying, what if she is into girls, but her strong beliefs are keeping her from being herself/happy with who she is? Given how she acts about Ethan being gay, its fair to say she is one of those “If you aren’t breeding, your sinning” kinds when it comes to peoples sexuality, even if her own is buried deep in the closet.
Of the 9 girls on the cast page, only 3 are known to be not straight (Billie and Ruth are bi, Carla is [I think] homoromantic asexual).
Sarah, Amber, Dorothy, Sal and Joyce are all known to show attraction to guys, and haven’t shown any signs of actual attraction to non-dudes (outside of people joking about Joyce’s infatuation with Dorothy). Dina is kind of a wildcard, but she probably likes guys, too (based on the Walkyverse, and maybe her love of Walky’s dino drawing?)
I think there are fewer secondary straight girls, but even then there’s at least Mary (more than likely).
Though this could go good places. Joyce is losing her idea that her old life was really any different and if she gains a more in depth view of homosexuality she may become less willing to be Ethan’s beard.
Sooooo, time for Joyce’s sexuality crisis! Especially with the whole keeping Becky and Dorothy separated part (and given Walky’s comments I’m betting that gave Becky some hope) and delicious, delicious angst.
This storyline is going so much better than we expected from its title. Which is to say, there will be sobbing within twenty four hours.
No, at the end of the storyline she’ll leave, be absent for four more years, and then show up to reveal to Joyce that she’s masterminded all of the shenanigans at Indiana University the whole time.
As much as I wanted them to kiss, I’m kinda worried that since it was non-consensual it might freak Joyce out. On top the whole “lesbian” thing, I mean.
I actually bet Becky’s messing around. Panel three is total jokey best friend stuff, which just makes panel four total jokey but really cool best friend stuff.
Man, if my best childhood friend romantically kissed me and then said she was just kidding around, I would feel so confused and disrespected and mad. That is not cool best friend behaviour!
I want them to be canon so badly. The thing is at Joyce’s current state they couldnt become a couple until much much later. And I am willing to wait for that time to come into fruition.
Her strong beliefs are what make her worse, purely because she seems unwilling/unable to have an open mind and accept other peoples free will choices. That in effect is why she is unprepared for any relationship.
Except that she does have an open mind and accept other people’s choices. Her best friend is an atheist. She’s only dated jewish guys and her thing with Ethan is more about how she feels safe around him than any genuine desire to change who he really is.
She doesn’t actually accept Dorothy as an Atheist, otherwise she wouldn’t have really tried hiding her. She has stated that she’d “help” Ethan be into girls, a very clear point of saying she’ll change who he really is. And I predict that after this incident, she’ll either drop Becky as a friend, or try to change her into being only into guys, if Becky is Bi, or changing her to be into guys if she is gay.
Is it bad that I’m kind of disappointed that everyone called it so quickly?
I mean Becky has been build up as an awesome character by the author from the second we have seen her (see the Poll) and now is in Lesbians with the Main character. I don’t know, it all sort of seems so… ehn.
I guess I preferred cheering it on as a fan theory?
I tend to support couples that personally amuse me because they are so wierd. Typically if one of the couples I was cheering for happen, I double take and re-read it.
Unless it’s done really well, then I’m usually skeptical of it and wary of the work for actually pushing that angle.
Oh, I’m not saying he did it because he heard the fans pandering for it. Just Becky is walking a thin line for me between “Fun enough kind of light hearted character” to “Author favourite” (the poll feels like a demonstration of that, even if it’s mean comedicially. It’s literally “This new person I wrote; Best or BESTEST?”) and this is sort of a nudge towards the deep-end of that.
Having fans latching on to a relaxed and easy going character? Sure, fan favourites are often born by that.
But when it feels like the Author is sort of helping them along and doing what they can to make us feel like they are great (the JOYCE IS GAY FOR DOROTHY is going back a few months so pandering here isn’t infeasible) it feels awkward and forced.
So, I’m in between looking at Becky as an easy going character who’s a nice change of pace and a character Willis picked off to specifically to hit what the Fandom wants.
It all comes down to how the next few strips play; I just don’t have a strong feel yet. Something about her irks me and feels pandery though, even if I want to like her.
There is nothing good that Joyce can do here. If she doesn’t reciprocate Becky’s affection, she’s going to hurt Becky. If she does, then she’s going to have to deal with a bunch of self-hate. I don’t look forward to tomorrow’s strip.
JOYCE. JOYCE. BE A GOOD FRIEND. I KNOW THIS IS SHOCKING AND UNWANTED. AND SHE SHOULD NOT HAVE KISSED YOU. ALTHOUGH THE KISS DELIGHTS ME. BUT JOYCE. DO NOT BREAK HER HEART ENTIRELY OUT OF SHOCK.
Aw man, did not expect this! And it makes me squee with delight, but I’m so afraid of tomorrow! Its like, this is great but it is going to hurt so bad in 24 hours. I don’t see Joyce reacting well to this.
Man we didn’t get to bask in the Ruth/Billie happiness for very long did we. Sigh.
Damn. Poor Joyce. Has she even had a consensual smooch, yet? I totally get where Becky is coming from, but, damn, this might end super badly. (I hate feeling bad for Joyce.)
Yeah baby let’s fight prejudice and stereotypes and common misconceptions by putting only short haired lesbians in the comic.
Oh wait.
(We’re stirctly talking about DoA here so Robin doesn’t count)
So we have Daisy, Becky, and Leslie, with long, medium-length, and short hair. Oh, and I guess the two girls on their hall whose names and hair lengths I can’t remember.
What the hell? The important part isn’t the length of their hair, it’s how the short hair is used to signify someone who’s trying to be unfeminine in the particular. Given Becky’s behavior, that’s actually not entirely an unjustified reading of what we’ve seen so far of her (Wrong, but not unjustified, I think. She just likes puerile humor, she doesn’t engage in anything else coded masculinely except liking girls), but that’s *just* Becky.
I hadn’t even noticed that they were short haired, because they weren’t butch. Not even a little bit, really. It’s actually been nice that nobody approaches either ‘butch’ or really ‘femme’ (Maybe Daisy?)
I didn’t call it!!! I really thought it was a red herring. I’m so glad I was wrong.
I guess Becky started to freak out after Joyce told her about her dates and boyfriend. Now or never. Now, to reread all the Becky strips with the knowledge that she has been working up to this moment.
And a week of Amber, Ethan and Danny. Next time we see Joyce Becky will not be around and she will go on as usual. After about a week she will make an offhand remark that Becky went back to Andersson’s. They will not reunite for three years real world time and we will not find out what happened until then.
Well my thoughts are since Joyce wants to be loved honestly to the point of ninja stalking into Ethan’s to fill the void, she might actually let it heppen. I mean she freak for a moment and maybe even think about god, but then she will think of her bro and anything else she’s learned and has been feeling and maybe just dive right in. Could be wrong, and i know i left out other factors but yeah this is a possible path.
In one of the first few strips Becky said something like “don’t let anyone change you” I don’t think she meant her politics or religious beliefs. She knew Joyce was a fundamentally good person. Joyce has always been my favorite character. I relate to her on so many levels. She’s the kind of person I want to be someday. She’s strong and kind and loyal to her friends. I know I must be the last one to figure this out, but I think that’s what she meant when she said she didn’t want her to change.
But I have no idea what happens next and it could go horrible because of the whole ‘homosexuality is sinful’ thing and it’s one thing to help a guy who is gay try to live virtuously by being in a sorta-relationship but this is the gal Joyce basically grew up with, right? So how does she process that?
This is going to be interesting, and quality-wise it is pretty much guaranteed to be great.
I think you underestimate Joyce’s loyal, loving and forgiving nature. Sadly I don’t really see the ship working out, but I don’t see Joyce excessively pushing Becky away or anything.
CANON LESBIANS AND A REALIZATION THAT THIS CHAPTERS TITLE IS REFERENCING JESSE FROM TOY STORY 2’S FAMOUS SONG THAT SOUNDS LIKE ITS ABOUT GAY GIRLS. A BIG WIN XD
YESSSSSSSSSSSsssssssssssssssssss. Oh man. I know they’re gonna fall out from this and it’s going to break Becky’s heart but YES. You GO BECKY. AGGH. I’m squeeing and grinning all over the place and oh my goodnessss yesssss
Even though this is happening and I see it a part of me is wondering if Becky is just messing with her. It’s ridiculous to think- but I have trust issues.
Probably not though.
In any case sadly a ship which will never work out, given Joyce. Still- that never stopped me shipping her with Dorothy.
That would be kind of something I know people would do harmlessly and it would be interesting in comic. Interesting, but in universe not good, because I think that would be even more confusing for Joyce than her friend actually liking girls.
So it wasn’t a fakeout. Ugh I’m worried for Joyce’s reactions in the next comics. Also, a surprise kiss might not be the best transition from accidentally bringing up Joyce’s date rape, not that Becky knows that. I dunno whether I’m expecting confusion from Joyce, or anger, or terror (see above). I mean, I know it’ll be a combination, but what the main thing is.
I mean, insofar as it’s better when you’re kissing someone who’s totally not into your sex after swearing to convert him.
They do get the faces-melting-into-each-other thing going there, which she’s got a little bit with Becky today, and had none of the first time she kissed Ethan.
Gotta disagree with you there. The chapter title, “When somebody loved me” is speaking past tense. Someone loved this person, once in the past, with the implication that they don’t love them any longer. Or possibly that no one loves them any more, or that they feel no one does.
Regardless, I feel like Dorothy and Walky’s confession was a red herring. They have already patched things up super easily. Dorothy forgave him and that was that. Walky has not, it turns out lost his love. He’s not gonna be sad about having lost the love of someone he cares deeply about. Becky on the other hand……
This Becky/Joyce situation……… There’s no way it can end well. Everything we know about Joyce, about her thoughts on homosexuality, to her near rape ptsd that Becky doesn’t know about, tells us that this is gonna shake things up for them, and probably not well, at least in the short term.
Plus, one listen to that song and i cant unhear it being a song about Becky’s feelings for Joyce. That song from Toy Story 2 has always been known as one where, if you listen to it out of context, it sounds like a song about a gay women’s feelings for another lady. Which I’m sure was intended when Willis picked that chapter title, since the chapter title is directly quoting a line from that song.
SO, TLDR: Walky/Dorothy already got resolved angst free, so i think they were a red herring and this Becky/Joyce drama is what the title was referring to since it perfectly fits that song.
While I knew this was coming, I really don’t approve of the way Becky handled it. Just screams sexual assault to me. Had an ex male friend do this to me a few years back, just kiss me out of nowhere. When I said I didn’t see him that way, he got a little… unhappy with me to say the least.
Maybe I’m just overreacting based on past experiences, but if I ever had a second person do this to me again, I would call the police with zero hesitation.
P.S. Every person who knows me IRL knows what happened, and what I would do if it happened again, so I’m not too horribly worried, but still, just the way I feel.
No, I agree. It’s totally uncool. It’s one of those things we learn from fiction that is good for drama but simply doesn’t translate well into reality.
I don’t think you’re overreacting at all, Becky is WAY off on this. Part of me wants to feel sorry for Becky because she’s likely about to experience something I’ve always worried about, losing a friend because of a sexual/romantic interest in them (like her, I’m a lesbian with the nasty habit of falling for friends; at least I’ve always known to talk things out first and see how they react), but her actions in this strip are making it hard for me to sympathize at all. Sure, losing her friend/crush will hurt, but she has nobody to blame but herself.
It all makes sense now… It all makes sense now… Willis… Willis I’m about to come out of the hospital… Please don’t put me back in with your stressful story arcs…
I’m curious to see Joyce’s reaction, will she jump back and act confused/hurt (most likely), as someone who has been in a gender reversed version of this I would understand, also if Joyce is an autobiographical character does that mean he’s been there too? (Looks at Willis). Also 10 bucks says she came out as Bi or homosexual and that’s the reason for her impromptu visit.
you know, way back when, Willis told us there would be a slipstream featuring two people of the same gender from DOA. and that we wouldn’t expect who it was… and I totally said to myself “I dunno, Becky and Joyce?” When I saw Ethan and Danny getting a thing I figured it was gonna be them… but now… I think I know which pair he meant…
How “way back when” was the Willis comment mudakthemultiplier is referencing? Because I think Ruth and Billie has been expected for quite a while, at this point. But if it was a very old Willis comment, I suppose it could have been them…
If she came out, Becky might well have left school. A Midwestern Christian university does not strike me as the most supportive of college environments to be gay, bi, or otherwise anything other than 100% straight.
She might have visited because of A) her feelings for Joyce, and B) she might have been hoping that Joyce would be more supportive of her best friend than people at Anderson were of her.
Ah, so that’s the reason she got ejected from her Christian college.
I doubt she’ll fare that much better with Joyce, though. Joyce is, like, really into Ethan. And as long as she is in the totally-fawning-over-him phase, her attention span is basically monogamous. The hete/bi/hom question does not even come into play here.
A conversation between my wife and I when I got home:
Her: Did you read today’s Dumbing of Age?
Me: Not yet!
Her: You’re gonna liiiiiiiike it…
Me: Why? Does Becky come out to Joyce oh hey, I was right! She kinda did!
By the way, y’all: I don’t know just how relevant it is, but check out Joyce and Becky in that poster of the gang at Galasso’s that went up not too long ago:
Hmm I suppose it all depends on if the poster is supposed to be a cannon snapshot (even if it isn’t one directly from a scene that is presented in the narrative of the comic itself) or just a fanciful “what if?”
The description says,”It’s late night on campus, and everyone’s hanging out at Galasso’s, waiting for their pizza (and subs).” Becky and Joyce are both wearing the same outfits they are now, and today’s comic is still during the daytime… And even if the Galasso scene isn’t the same day, and it is just a coincidence that they are in the same outfits, it has to be the future, as there is no day in the past that it would have been possible for Becky to be together with this group.
And in this picture, Joyce’s demeanor towards Becky is very friendly, with both of her hands on Becky, and both she and Becky both have smiles on.
So, assuming this is a canon scene, this gives me hope that, at the very least, Becky and Joyce will be able to talk about this and come to a comfortable decision to remain friends. (Or who knows… Maybe Joyce will shock us all and decide to actually go with it! And they shall be more then friends!)
Or, it could just end up being a “what if?” and everything is about to go straight to hell, in which case, the poster was just a red herring to get us off our guards. If that turns out to be the case, then, “Damn you, Willis!”
A) Look at Danny, Ethan, and Amber’s positions/expressions, too.
B) Weren’t Danny, Ethan, and Amber hanging out at Galasso’s earlier today? (Also all wearing the same outfits) If Walky, Joyce, and Becky met up with them off-screen, that puts the scene before Amazi-girl met up with Dorothy.
Oh, you’re right about a few things. One, I forgot that it was already evening, as evidenced by the lighting in the exterior scene when Amazi-girl and Dorothy met.
Two… oh yes, those three were at Galassso’s earlier today… but that scene was definitely during the daytime, and the poster description clearly says, “It’s late night on campus…”
I suppose it still could have been a dinner before this infamous kiss takes place, but I still have hope it is afterwards…
Yes; or on her back, at least. Their body language makes me hopeful, in that the posters seem to be (semi-)canonical and they’re all in today’s outfits. Although I can’t look at it for too long, because Ethan’s face kind of weirds me out…
some sort of ‘corruption of the innocent’ thing I’m sure – that being said, I feel bad for Joyce ): she can’t catch a break long enough to sort things out.
OK, worried theory time. Exactly what is Becky’s motivation. She knows that Joyce is likely to freak out, especially when she just kisses her without warning. She has also spent the day building up to one of the scariest moments of her life – coming out to and on to her childhood friend and crush/love in defiance of their religious and cultural norm, and she’s been acting chill as a bean the whole time.
It may be that she is just a good actor, but for me it sounds more like a now-or-never moment, possibly coupled with bridge-burning. And we have those hints that things are not going well at Anderson’s. I think there is more drama here than we see.
Someone on Patreon cast a theory: perhaps Becky was outed in the few short weeks these two have been apart, and this is a desperate, last chance sort of thing.
no,m surprise is the best way… get it over, then sit back… “well??? how was it?” – joyce will either have dreamy eyes, or go running off into the night, never to be seen again.
I disagree. Never kiss someone (or perform any sexual/semi-sexual contact) if you have no idea whether your kiss/contact is welcome or not (and it should go without saying that if you know the contact is unwelcome, don’t go forward). This isn’t a RomCom (a genre of movies with nothing approaching romance, and less approaching comedy), even if it is a comedy-drama representation of real life. Becky would be far more likely to get a positive reaction (as small as the chance was to begin with) by stating her interest, not forcing herself where she’s potentially very unwelcome.
I agree. Surprise/non-consensual kissing is not ok. It doesn’t matter the gender of the person forcing a kiss. There’s so much forced kisses like this in manga that it gets romanticized which i think is detrimental to people in general.
Now Joyce has had affection forced on her by woman as well as a man. I think this is going to really trigger her sense of lacking safety. One of the few people she trusted the most violated her sexual space.
In this situation, I could understand it. Becky doesn’t know about what happened with Joyce and Scarface, but she does know that Joyce has a hella-enforced religious upbringing to the point that she wouldn’t even consider attraction to someone of the same sex to be a possibility. This kiss, as by surprise as it is, will cause her to at least think about it. As long as it’s just a kiss. Becky’s one of her best friends and as long as it doesn’t go beyond a simple kiss, I don’t see the harm in this. Kissing in general isn’t all that harmful.
That is of course not taking into account Joyce’s completely reasonable issues with sexual contact right now, which if Becky was aware of would change my response quite a bit.
I have to disagree. The spontaneity and thrill of random acts of romance are one of the joys in life. I’ve been on the giving and receiving end of such probing gestures several times in my life. Sometimes they worked out, sometimes they didn’t, but this belief that there’s some massive, scarring harm in them is really quite alarming. I’m waiting for the day when people will be required to fill out legal forms in front of witnesses or possibly with lawyers present before they can so much as ask someone out, much less give a physical display of affection. If you give such a kiss and the person backs off, so be it. They’re not interested. You haven’t harmed them, and if you have they are in for a long life of pain in misery if something that simple causes them anguish. If they do reciprocate then great, you both get those little butterflies at the realization of your feelings. Some people function this way. Others don’t. But this society we seem to want to head for where everyone keeps their eyes to the ground and behaves as meekly as possible is one I’ll be sorry to see.
Uh, he’s on a seven-day-per-week schedule. So unless your entire weekend is spent banging the living daylights out of whomever, this being a Friday comic should not be all too bad. And if that’s indeed your plan for the weekend, you get a 3-comic start into Monday, softening its impact.
The fallout from this is gonna be horrific and painful…in the short term. In the long term, though, it could end up a very good thing. I don’t think Joyce will (or should) become a lesbian/bisexual (unless you know…she is and just hadn’t realized it), but she might learn some valuable life lessons and become a wiser, more balanced and open-minded person. It’s gonna be painful getting there though.
That is the exact thought I had when Becky showed up unannounced after not responding to Joyce’s texts, and I’m happy to see this come together, but oh boy these are going to be some difficult strips for the foreseeable future.
Zealot: a person who is fanatical and uncompromising in pursuit of their religious, political, or other ideals.
Joyce has been compromising left and right. Throwing around the word “zealot” to describe fundamentalist Christians is, frankly, pretty offensive, especially given the let’s-go-lynching connotations of the word.
The Zealots were a group of Jewish folks from the first century who wanted to overthrow Roman rule and reestablish God’s kingdom on Earth. Simon the Zealot was one of the apostles. Jesus himself was likely a Zealot, or at least someone who shared similar views, as he preached constantly about how the Kingdom of Heaven was nigh, and how the first would be last and the last would be first. He was executed for insurrection. Those were all very Zealoty things.
If a Christian thinks the word “zealot” is offensive, maybe they should know their Jesus better!
Well now, that’s a whole ‘nother conversation about modern interpretations, historical ignorance and dubious claims of authenticity! Suffice to say that I’m not defending fundamentalists, just harping on a pet peeve about linguistics – that language evolves, and appealing to what a word used to mean doesn’t change what it means now. Anyway, peace out, and back to the strip. 🙂
I don’t really care about offending fundamentalist christians in the general. Joyce, in particular, maybe (If she were real, I mean). She’s making baby steps to not being a complete asshole to people like me, yeah. That’s hard given her upbringing. But that’s all they are, baby steps. You see the compromises, and so do I. But for pity’s sakes, she told her gay friend a few hours ago (Or maybe 12 hours ago, I suppose) that obviously Billie’s gay problems are solved now that she’s fallen in love.
If “Zealot” has connotations with murder right now, I’d say that’s because the Christian majority (not all fundies, true) has given it to them, so they can slam Muslims all the harder. It’s certainly most of where I see it used.
I had to reread the previous strips with Becky and I completely missed the signs. Everyone else’s drama preoccupied my attention. I hope this does not end badly, but I am not optimistic. I have a feeling that Becky’s visit comes at the heels of some falling out with her Christian university regarding her sexuality and she has no one to turn to at this point. If Joyce reacts badly then it could be the straw to break the camel’s back.
What the hell? Is Indianapolis just ground zero for the first test of the gay bomb?! Not to mention that kiss was too sudden, & with Joyce’s upbringing, she’s probably going to infarge!
It is indeed a bad idea, for health reasons in addition to personal ones. However, it is also one of those ‘not good at talking about it, so taking an action instead’ kinds of reactions that tend to come up when you’re having trouble expressing. Or, like in Becky’s case, you have a pretty strong reason to think that trying to ask to do it first will provoke a bad reaction (she’s pretty close with Joyce on a friends level, but knows Joyce is very strict about her moral stuff, so she has reason to think Joyce wouldn’t be willing to experiment. Of course, that’s also disrespectful to Joyce in some ways, but at least it’s not intended maliciously?).
But yeah, it’s surely in the “probably don’t try this at home” category.
You know what’s an even worse idea? Say you see someone’s car about to get hit by a truck, and you’re in a car, so you ram into their car full speed to push them out of the way (somehow not killing them, but getting you hit by the truck instead). Never, ever do that. Not even for a nickel.
I see a lot of them jumped onto the Patreon bandwagon to see this strip early so I bet a bunch commented there instead where they would usually comment here.
Even if this is a Willis creation, I can honestly say I SO did not see this coming AT ALL, especially since she was all over Walky like that. Oh dear God, Joyce implosion explosion imminent.
Of the 15 folks on the current cast page, 8 are female, and 7 are male. Also, 9 are, to my knowledge, straight. Of the other 6, 3 are bisexual, 1 is gay, 1 is heteroflexible, and 1 is asexual. Also also, those numbers are fairly evenly split among both sexes.
I’m assuming Mike, who at least in the Walkyverse has dated (and married) only ladies, but has shown a willingness to stick it anywhere that’ll cause drama and angst. I’m not sure that’s how I would’ve described him, but I have to admit that I haven’t got a better description. Except for maybe his own words: He’s whatever you don’t want him to be.
Heteroflexible is a term used by some people who are mostly straight, but under some circumstances might swing the other way. Typically, someone who registers around 1.5 – 2 on the Kinsey scale, but does not identify as bisexual per se.
This is the best label I can find for Mike, who in the Walkyverse has only been in relationships with women, but *SPOILER* nailed Ethan once just to cause drama between him and Amber.
I wonder if Becky isn’t… *trying* to ‘break’ Joyce. To release her from the straitjacket of her upbringing. But because she didn’t bother to dig into why Joyce is so comparatively non-boy-happy, she’s going about it in entirely the wrong way. And the ‘break’ that could potentially result from this is not the kind that Becky would appreciate.
“People just see what they want to see, and then think they’ve been “vindicated” when their unjustified assumptions turn out to be true, and subconsciously ignore all the times they were wrong.”
That took me a read through or two to get what you were saying, but it clicked. In my experience you’re not wrong. It’s a thought I’ll be thinking about…
In other words, you turned a blind eye to the sheer amount of foreshadowing this strip was given, are mad other people didn’t, and are trying to vindicate yourself by talking about confirmation bias.
He did the same thing with Sara’s coming out in Penny and Aggie. Right up until Sara actually said the words, “I’m gay” for the first time, he was in adamant denial about it in the forum.
‘the fans’ as an aggregate will say everything and nothing. Plenty of fan speculation agreed with you that this was crazy. This time, *you* were wrong.
I could say anything and it would support your point,w hich seems to be “Look at you plebes and your guessing”. Maybe someday, you’ll even learn the not-so-hidden truth that a text can support wrong guesses, and that’s okay, and often makes for good storytelling and doesn’t speak ill of the fans XD
I saw what other people saw as foreshadowing, but I didn’t jump to the conclusion.
The reaction here demonstrates the point I was making — people will trumpet their correct GUESSES and claim that their premature speculation is vindicated, and mentally just not register all the times they were wrong.
What you’re doing is constructing a no-lose game for yourself, where you look at the fans as a collective whole then decide every individual is wrong without even bothering to consider context. Let’s say people aren’t talking about how they were wrong (I mean, they are. You can see a reasonable number of ‘I didn’t see that coming’ or ‘I called that wrong’ in the comments. But let’s ignore that). Whether or not I was correct on, let’s say, Ethan liking Danny but it being a one way crush isn’t relevant to whether or not Joyce likes Becky. Why would I talk about that? That’s making the conversation even more about me than “I guessed this right” is, and I think I’m boring. I didn’t necessarily forget that fact, but it isn’t relevant. Heck, even if I was wrong literally every single time, it is not, itself, relevant to the next guess (Thinking otherwise is the actual definition of an ad hominem fallacy – you’re confusing the identity and past of the person speaking with the validity of their argument).
You’re also, conveniently, getting tot hrow out the actual textual support by saying “fans will say anything” and you get to ignore how those guesses were, in fact, a guess that the text supported. And hey, maybe you, personally, didn’t hold a guess at all. But if that’s the case, it’s pretty clearly out of a superiority complex where everyone else is just ‘jumping to conclusions that aren’t supported, but you are a superior person who doesn’t do such silly things. Even, no, ESPECIALLY, when they’re right. Because apparently, every time a person wrong is super relevant, but when they’re right? Nah, that’s not important.
The text supported many very different guesses, and crowing that one of those guessing happened to be right doesn’t mean that that guess was retroactively any more justifiable than any of the others were.
Personally, I don’t guess, I want for Willis to tell his story.
“The text supports many guesses”, but not all of them equally. as to this “none of this crowing is more justifiable” nonsense, most of what I’m seeing is closest to “Eat me, people who said she COULDN’T be gay”, not “Eat me, people who thought she was into Walky!”. And there’s not even very much of /that/.* So really, people aren’t actually tooting their horns about how everyone was wrong.
And that’s horse hockey. You might not commit to a guess much, and you might not guess out loud often, but I’ve definitely seen you make guesses on the comic before, because you have done it out loud. Even given that, I refuse to believe you don’t have expectations for a given arc *at all* (Since you can have expectations without worshipping them and feeling betrayed if they’re not met) Nothin’ wrong with that either though. Personally, I was beginning to think this was too obvious and there was a growing possibility it’d be something more out of left field – perhaps being verbally abused for a poor showing on an early test and losing faith in the whole thing? But I had not committed to thus, yet.
*Their guesses might not be much more justifiable, but htey *were* perfectly justifiable in this case. And considering that a common strain amongst “Huh, I got that wrong” was “This is so obvious it can’t be this”, there’s good cause to say that the “She’s gay” guess was, in fact, more justifiable. And even if they weren’t more justifiable? It’s cool to be happy with a right guess.
You’ll notice, however, that I always phrase my guesses as acknowledged speculation.
This is very different from the people who’ve been saying, for days now, things like “Since it’s been confirmed that Becky is a lesbian”. When no, in fact, it had not been confirmed in any way until today, and even know, it’s still technically possible that something else is going on here, because Willis.
If by that you mean “confidently stated them as facts with not a single bloody mention of the possibility that you were wrong”, then yes, you did do that. Because you didn’t couch your guesses as guesses from what I recall. Because that’s not what people fucking do in speaking colloquially, especially not about fiction. You’re not stating it for an academic review board, you’re talking to other fans.
Yes, if you said prior to today that ‘She’s confirmed lesbian’, you were wrong. She wasn’t. Technically still isn’t, but the whole “I’m not interested in Walky at all” thing does help (If Willis says she’s bi, I won’t be surprised, ditto with other possibilities). That was, by no means, the majority of what everyone had to say about her being gay though.
Yes, but some things were foreshadowed harder, and ‘nothing’ is a very, very, VERY poor guess (Because this is a lot of pages to burn at this point, so the idea that they wouldn’t advance ANYONE’S plot is very unlikely – especially when there is, in fact, foreshadowing. Which there was.)
Advancing the plot and foreshadowing are not mutually inclusive of each other… neither requires that the other also be occurring.
As for the foreshadowing — well, hindsight is 20/20. It looked like something was going on, but it could have been one or more of many somethings.
Someone who guesses the correct outcome based on inconclusive evidence has done nothing more than exactly that. As someone else said, a broken clock is still right twice (or at least once) a day.
“Advancing the plot and foreshadowing are not mutually inclusive of each other… neither requires that the other also be occurring.”
No, but when nothing else is happening, you’re not advancing the plot *unless* you include some foreshadowing. Some of it wasn’t really establishing character or setting either, so there was one good guess as to why it was there.
[quote]Someone who guesses the correct outcome based on inconclusive evidence has done nothing more than exactly that. As someone else said, a broken clock is still right twice (or at least once) a day.[/quote]
Really. Conclusive evidence is the only thing that matters, is it? Correctly putting together the pieces in advance based on the available evidence at the time is pointless and not worthy of satisfaction? One assumes that Einstein coming up with the theory of relativity, nor Darwin laying down the basis for evolution, was similarly unpraiseworthy. And yes, I’m aware that both made mistakes in the final product, before you try that.
I mean, I assume you also hate it when people enjoy a mystery by indulging in thinking about whodunnit, based on the evidence they have, but I figured I’d point out the sacred cattle of nerds you’re goring first.
Based on the number of characters in this strip and the number of people that are gay or ‘curious’, is the majority of the world gay or curious? I feel outnumbered when I read Dumbing. Not that there’s anything wrong with that, just surprised. I don’t recall any gay or curious shenanigans happening around me in college. I’m not entirely clueless, I would have noticed…
>I don’t recall any gay or curious shenanigans happening around me in college.
Probably because you weren’t looking for them/interested in them. As a gay guy hanging out with other gay people, sometimes it feels like half our conversations are gossip about who is sleeping with who, who might be curious, who we think is closeted etc.
I wouldn’t say you have blinders on so much as you probably are using an exclusivly strait translator for processing behavior. I mean, if you see two girls flirting, pretty often it will be a playful way of socializing. Subtlety isn’t my stronf sute, but gays are NOT only 2% of the population.
(Just commented about this) Of the 15 folks on the cast page, 9 are straight and 5 are “other” with only 1 being strictly gay. It does kind of feel very gay-heavy lately, what with the “Finally” SlipShine strip, the recent Danny/Ethan stuff, and now this Becky/Joyce thing, but those statistics are not too far from the truth according to more liberal estimates.
Ive seen other people saying things like this and it doesn’t make sense. There’s a big difference between:
A) Sarah arrives at a party where she had a feeling something bad might happen to Joyce and she’s a guy dragging her towards a bathroom with his hand over her mouth and saying he’s going to do horrible things to her
and
B) Sarah comes back to her room to find Becky, Joyces best friend, worked up the nerve to kiss her
one provokes the reaction of “bat to the head” and the other would most likely provoke a reaction of “oh huh so that’s whats up with Beck. Thought i noticed something she was hiding earlier.”
Not saying that joyce wont (most likely) freak out, or that Sarah wont support her, but Sarah is not gonna attack Becky for this, sheesh people.
Eh it’s not really ok to just kiss someone out of the blue without consent. Not as bad as other forms of sexual assault maybe, but still sexual assault.
No, seriously, I don’t believe in just a couple of weeks she could go from closeted Christian existence to open queerness with someone who knows her and her family and would initiate this contact with an unannounced kiss.
*facepalm* It’s a couple of weeks from OUR PERSPECTIVE. It’s “From however long ago she discovered she was gay til now”, so probably months or years in the coming. You have to break out of the closet SOMETIME (Well, okay, no you don’t, but still). Once you break out, it’s from when you discovered your sexuality or whatever else you held in the closet, not from when an outside observer met you.
I can believe it, in the sense that I can believe kids do stupid things when they think they get the right signals. It’s what runs a lot of the plot.
This has not been my experience. For her to be brought up in a world where she has been told her queerness is wrong and had to hide it all times to being confidently and openly queer in such a short space of time doesn’t scan.
A lifetime of being told something seldom washes away so fast. Also there’s not some magical divide between between the internal knowledge and the external behaviour, they effect one another. If logic and facts could overcome emotions we’d have no need for therapists.
Compounding this is the fact she is doing this with someone from that closeted world. If it was someone who didn’t know her Christian world or who she had been before then sure, there’s an information lockout and a divide. It’s why Joshua/Jocelyne confides her assumed trans-identity in Ethan but not in Joyce.
Also, I wouldn’t say this is Becky being ‘confidently and openly queer’ – she’s absent from her conservative college for reasons she avoids talking about, she’s dropping hints rather than saying anything out loud, she’s resorted to trying to make Joyce jealous of her interest in someone else, and now she’s finally worked herself up to take an all-or-nothing shot that I read as a combination of misread signals, wishful thinking and near-desperation. Certainly I think there’s more mask than truth to her breezy confidence.
Also complicating this is that Joyce, in particular, is someone she romantically loves and wants to get involved with ANYWAY. And she’s not being openly queer in general. She’s telling exactly one person. But even then, this isn’t ‘the space of a few weeks’, because from her perspective, it is from when she first came to terms with those feelings (Which is probably not ‘when she got to Anderson’).
Yes but she’s probably assumed that joyce’s recent boys are icky philosophy is from dealing with her own closeted sexuality. Tack on top of that the fact that walky was talking about following around your female friend like she wants to get in her pants, and you can see how becky might think joyce is lesbian. We don’t have anything to suggest she is especially insightful, so her having poor explanations for people’s behavior isn’t out of character.
If from that evidence she reached that conclusion and thinks this is a good move… I’m not sure how low the bar is set for her Uni’s entry requirements but it must be pretty damn low.
Also she’s known Joyce for years, it’s not like she doesn’t have something to compare this to.
He tacked me after trying clubsly to flirt and I shut him up by telling him he was sexy. He later asked me to come to his prayer group where they speak in tongues.
– Becky is asked to leave by Joyce
– Becky transfers to IU
– Becky gets a girlfriend
– Becky’s girlfriend is always texting Joyce with things like “it tastes like cotton candy” and Joyce pretends that she has no idea what the GF is referring to, but she knows, oh how she knows
Improbable? They laughed at me before. Who’s laffin’ now?
Thought process: “Well… I’ll be… All those ‘must ship all the things’ commentators were right. I honestly did not see that coming.”
…
“Oh jesus fuck -how- many comments?!”
There’s yer problem, Beachfox – the people who ship EVERYTHING are eventually going to be rewarded at least once. Even a stopped clock is right twice a day.
People who ship everything? I’m confused. Are these people who ship literally everyone with everyone? Well yes, by definition they’d have to be right some of the time, but how many people do that?
The sour grapes from people who assume all shipping is madness except their own ships have actually become as delicious as warlock tears, now that I’ve had a bit to savor them 😀
Despite how much I wanted this to happen, there is no way it ends well. Someone with Joyce’s background and mentality is NOT going to react well to this.
Im just here to read the comments -munches popcorn-
I anxiously await the fallout of Becky engaging in Pre-marital, non-consentual, homo-erotical Hanky-panky.
Wow – 802 comments and counting. Since I’m not going to read them all and it’s doubtful this will be read I will just say in the incomparable words of Nelson Muntz – “hA-haH”
A lot of people have been speculating that Becky has dropped out or been kicked out of Anderson. I’m going to say here and now that I don’t think that is the case, because Becky is still wearing an “Anderson University” hoody.
One would think that if she was no longer affiliated with them she would feel somewhat uncomfortable wearing that, especially if she had been given the heave-ho for “moral turpitude” or “inappropriate behavior” or whatever term they might have used, and would be in more casual clothes.
I’m hoping, hoping and hoping that tomorrow’s strip is just 3 still panels of joyse and Becky in lip-lock, first with Joyce’s eyes open in total shock, then a glowing blush, and finally closing and her hands on Becky’s shoulders as she just dives in. 😀
No, Joyce is the kind of person that will resist harder if she finds herself wanting it. (See her conversation with Ethan a little while back, and that’s concerning STRAIGHT hanky-panky.)
Her not being into Becky is actually probably is actually probably the best case scenario, here.
She’ll react less negatively (see above), but it’d give her another reason to rethink her beliefs on the matter, giving her a chance for growth.
Unfortunately, that’s not likely to be the case, since she just kissed her without warning, which is not likely to get a good reaction from someone just weeks after an attempted rape that she still hasn’t been able to process properly. She’d probably react badly even if it was Ethan (a boy she actually wants to kiss), but taking Joyce as a whole package, this is likely to be spectacularly bad.
20 bucks says the next strip isn’t even going to be Joyce and Becky, fucking Willis is probably going to pivot to another character for a few strips to build up the anticipation 😛
And Jocelyn will maintain the gold medal in comments unless 500 comments spontaneous appear with in 40 minutes. I’m not doubting that can happen. I’m challenging you to let that happen.
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So does Joyce’s playlist match Becky’s yet??
*everyone in the WORLD links to the same video*
No, most people would link to he far superior
Jill Sobule version.
The far superior version.
I heard Jill Sobule’s version long before Katy Perry released hers, and when I heard the inferior one I was highly disappointed. Jill really made an excellent song there.
Agreed.
And the Jill Sobule video was shown once during the commercial break for an episode of Mighty Morphin’ Power Rangers — on network TV, in the 90s. I had already seen it elsewhere, but my mind was a little blown that they showed it on a mainstream channel in the middle of the afternoon, during a show aimed at minors. 🙂
I hate to be that guy but I Prefer Katy Perry’s
First thing that came to my mind was the cover by Travis.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kqAysAhc_to
Me, I kinda failed at HTML
The other far superior version. It is Katy Perry’s song… with just a few words changed… and one other change that changes everything. It’s almost worth the original existing, so that this could be done to it.
I feel that this song may be a touch more fitting.
ThatTimeAgain, Ooh! Good choice! I wish people would sing this song at me instead of 867-5309 or Forrest Gump quotes. 🙂
i think you win the best choice of song for this situation
Jill Sobule’s is good, and certainly much better musically than Katy Perry’s garbage, but IMHO this is the best version ever:
http://youtu.be/AL5low-TqV8
Tualha, ha! That was great! 😀
Chris Phoenix, that version was AMAZING. Thanks so much for sharing.
That is quite good. This cover had a similar idea, sort of.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aVzlYTVhOPA
Yes, I would never link to she far inferior.
I legit thought that was going to be Ani Difranco’s “In or Out”.
So I see what you did there with your icon, Jen. Is it going to need to change again now?
I’m not Plasma Mongoose
(anyway the next Willis Kickstarter isn’t gonna be for months yet, and finished commissions run even later than that, and why change anyway when someone else is just gonna take Panel 4 first)
“Everyone in the world” should stop encouraging Katy Perry.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CsbYx6hevoQ
You really did it. DAMN YOU ALL TO HELLLLL!
This can only end badly.
CUE THE MUSIC!
Four years, Becky. Four god-damned years. Was it worth the wait?
Has it even been that long?
In the real world it has.
right. 4 weeks and change I believe in universe.
Then again, how long have they known each other before college? Surely at least four years.
I think a lot longer than that even
How many years is that in DoA years?
A week to a year is about a 1:50 conversion factor. So if they’ve known each other for about 10 years in-comic, that’d correspond to meeting in about 1500 AD.
In 1492, Columbus sailed the ocean blue, and Becky met Joyce
So what you’re saying is, Columbus shipped them long before we ever got around to it.
Kelly and jpic, I award you each one full Internet for your awesome comment series.
Jpic, you’ve won the Internet’s, what’re you going to do now?
I’m pretty sure it’s been…four weeks? I don’t know if the days are being tracked exactly, but I think the parent week was about the third week in, so…yeah, not very long.
SHES IN LESBIANS WITH HER!!!!
AND THE FANDOM EFFIN’-WELL REJOICED
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHH!!!!
FLASH!
SAVIOR OF THE DUMBIVERSE!
SHE’LL SAVE EVERYONE OF US!
Send out War Vessal Ajax to bring back her body.
Becky’s alive?!
Thank you… Thank you for that.
Not if she doesn’t watch out for trucks!
Not enough ALLCAPS and exclamation points.
LOOOOOOOOUD NOIIIISES!!!
SHE’S A KILLER
QUEEEEEEEEEN
GUNPOWDER AND GELATINE
STAND FOR EVERY ONE OF US!
Becky, I love you, but we only have fourteen hours to save the Earth!
Well, that answers that.
I really really can’t say I saw that coming. I was on the Becky/Walky ship train and closed myself off to any other possibilities.
HOW FOOLISH AND NAIVE.
I was on the Becky/Joyce train, so I’d say I saw it coming.
But I didn’t see THIS coming
comment about the “naked lady in a Clam” was Checkovs … naked lady in a clam ..
I had assumed the important part was “getting spit on by fish” and it meant Becky had an archerfish fetish.
*obligatory squirting reference*
I thought it was more polite to swallow rather than spit
Chekov’s lips: Becky’s lips were in the very first DoA, and now they’ve been used.
Mary delenda est
I don’t know if Mary has plans to destroy all lesbian relationships, but if so, Mary would probably be down for the count in seconds in a giant lesbian pileup.
Billie could drop her single-handed. She’s done it before.
My money was literally on Becky batting for the other team.
Literally? You mean you printed out the page and piled some coins on her?
So, is this a home run? With RBI’s?
It remains to be seen if she’s even safe at first.
There’s still a chance she’s not a lesbian, but a totally hetero man in a woman’s body.
It might be too much of a coincidence if Joyce’s brother and best friend are both trans though.
…Sister.
And no it wouldn’t be.
There is, yeah.
heh.
The entire population of the internet: “Calllled iiiiiittt”
Pretty much!
I have a friend who didn’t call it. I’m not sure how.
Well, there was a school of thought that said it was a bit too obvious, and thought Willis might have been misdirecting us for the old switcheroo, like what happened with Joceline.
since he’d already done that once he decided to fool us even more bu going with the obvious option
To be fair, the inference that Jocelyne was attracted to guys (including Ethan) was correct. It’s just that the way we (and Ethan) interpreted it failed to take into account another factor.
So the precedent doesn’t give anything to suggest that the whole deal with Becky being suggested to like girls and particularly Joyce would fail to pan out; it just meant that Becky might not identify as a girl/lesbian. Which in fact still hasn’t changed.
Jocelyne might not be attracted to guys still. There are people who define bisexual as attracted to two genders, not necessarily women and men. So Jocelyne could be attracted to women and agender people for example, and she still wouldn’t be “gay,” as she said.
While possible, that is pretty incredibly unlikely.
Unlikely in real life or in the story? because a. it’s really not and b. when a story has this many gay people, there is always hope.
That just goes to show the Willis genius. He knew we were expecting the switcheroo, so he 180’d the switcheroo, and made it a 360.
Even those who had never read/even heard of Dumbing of Age.
And that is the master stroke of Willis’s scheme to expand his readership a hundredfold.
I didn’t call it. I admit that I was wrong.
Wrong but happy to be wrong. 🙂
Yeah, I completely missed it, too. Not sure if it’s because Becky is always seen and spoken of through Joyce’s lens, or just the length of time since we’ve seen the character, but today was a “WHAT” moment.
This is why I’m single. Total obliviousness to what is apparently super-obvious.
That and probably other reasons.
I approve of this ship. The catering is excellent.
I like “Finally” better. Ruth runs a tight ship.
LOLOLOLOL
Right now she’s running a wide bottom girl.
Wow, is this whole comment thread gonna keep calling Queen songs?
We can hope!
Don’t Stop Me Now!
Do you use that thing in you avatar pic for a Bicycle Race?
not legal for bicycle racing, it’s strictly built for comfort.
I got to really them in action during STP (not a race, of course). They *fly*! And make it look easy!
The Fat bottomed girls, they’ll be riding today. So watch out for those beauties, oh yeah.
We’re just having a good time.
Becky obviously wants to tell Joyce that she’s her best friend.
Well, that was unexpected.
Was it though? Was it really?
What’s really unexpected is that it took this long.
No kidding, right?
What was really unexpected is that she’s being as forward as she is. I was expecting this result, but was expecting it to take a bit longer to get to this direct a stage.
Which begs the question, “Why now? Becky’s probably had feelings for Joyce for a while now. Throwing all her cards on the table like this could alienate Joyce forever. Why make this hail-Mary move at this point in her life?” There’s some pressure in her life, that’s pushing her to make this move now. I’m very curious as to what that pressure is.
Becky practically states her reasoning in the previous comic. At least, part of it. She’s noticed that Joyce isn’t all boy crazy anymore. She doesn’t know it’s because of the incident at the party, but she’s thinking that college has started to open up her mind to different possibilities. That, and there’s no chance of being caught by their super religious families here. In the last comic, she did also seem a bit down about SOMETHING at Anderson, but that something could very well be that she’s been separated from Joyce for so long.
This. Becky’s been fishing for clues throughout her entire visit over whether it’s okay to come out to Joyce. The kiss feels like something she’s been working up to. There’s been a lot of inadvertent subtext in their prior conversations, some of which Becky could have taken as code for “I’m gay, but not comfortable talking about it”.
My guess is that Becky now thinks Joyce has a thing for Dorothy (from Walky’s insinuations and Joyce blatantly avoiding Dorothy) and is crushed that Dorothy chose Walky over her.
There’s a lot more “evidence” for Becky to pull from: Joyce clearly considers Billie a close friend despite her sexuality, and really small actions on Joyce’s part like being willing to share her ice cream. Hell, this scene alone has been peppered with homoerotic and vulvic metaphors, from the obvious “naked chick in a clam being spit on by fish” to Joyce saying she “sometimes talks about tacos”.
…or maybe my mind is just always in the gutter, and I’m glad that the plot at least corroborates the evidence I percieve? 😛
Becky might not have realized she’s gay until the last four weeks. (Hell, even Joyce might not even be 100% hetero, and this discovery terrified herself.)
Anderson’s a Christian college, and well… even Joyce thinks that any orientation other than hetero would be a thing that should be “cured.”
Becky doesn’t know about Joyce’s stance on gay people! Becky might believe Joyce is the ONE person who will accept her for who she is. (Maybe Joyce WILL accept her for who she is. Her time with Ethan taught her that “gay people” are still “people.”) This could go any number of ways.
I just know that if it weren’t for weekend-update Kickstarter rewards, this page would’ve been carefully scheduled to land on a Friday just to drive us completely insane waiting for Monday.
Gonna guess that if they were both homeschooled and went to church together, that Becky knows exactly how Joyce feels about same-sex lovin’. She’s probably banking on lesbianism being a blind spot in the fundamentalist no-fly zone.
Which, to be fair, it often is.
Willis was careful enough to establish Joyce’s stand within the storyline tho
Ah! Missed that. I stand corrected!
No, it doesn’t “beg the question.”
I, for one, thought Becky was a lesbian, but that she had a girlfriend back at her school.
You realize that Becky either dropped out of her Christian college or got kicked out, right? I mean she might have HAD a girl friend there, but there’s a reason she’s here with Joyce when she should be in her classes.
These kids go to classes?
Yeah, I figured she had. I hadn’t quite put the whole “girls who kiss girls get expelled” thing, however. At the small liberal arts college I attended, you couldn’t throw a shoe without hitting a gay or lesbian couple.
It may not be the ‘kissing girls’ thing that’s forcing her out of college. Then again, it’s a Christian college, maybe it has rules about ‘indecency’. Or, it could be that her parents found out, and cut off her funding. It could be that her grades simply didn’t cut the mustard, or maybe she hasn’t been attending classes. Don’t jump to conclusions. We’ll learn more.
And if you did you’d immediately be kicked out for hate crimes!
Your avatar makes that all the more ironic. Shoe-thrower.
It was so expected that people thought it couldn’t be true so it wrapped back around to unexpected!
^ This.
love the apropo gravitar 😉
Well I guess y’all called it! It seemed to obvious to me but I guess y’all were right.
Same here. This was so obvious, well-foreshadowed, with so much anvilicious subtext, that I am actually surprised it’s happening.
Let the anvils ring!
When I first read that, I thought you said “Let the Avrils sing!” and thought you were making a Girlfriend reference.
Joyce is gonna suck, like, a billion dicks now.
While muttering “I’m not gay. I’m not gay. I’m not gay” (which is difficult to do while repeatedly putting dick after dick into your mouth.)
Hey girl stop mumbling during this blowjob
Actually, go back to what you were doing, I was digging it.
the tongue rolling around adds to the experience.
Haven’t you ever heard of a “hummer”? Feels good man.
Gs are easy enough with your mouth full. But unless she’s got untapped potential as a ventriloquist, she should avoid phrasing it as “I don’t dig delectable damsels”. She just can’t handle that many Ds.
Thank you, thank you! I’m here all week!
tip your veal, try the waitress
That’s funny, because thats probably exactly what Danny does too
She has to get rid of the taste somehow. 😛
eventually she will realize she can suck girldicks and her life will be great
holy SHIT.
So, catastrophic misreading of Joyce’s post-rape-attempt PTSD.
Delightful, yes.
Yeah, in light of that, things are probably going to go…
suboptimally.
Don’t exaggerate…
Joyce *really* doesn’t need people walking all over her boundaries right now.
Catastrophic indeed. From Joyce’s point of view, this is another unconsented sexual advance. Everyone’s exulting over this one-sided “ship,” but it just makes me sad. Throw in the fact that she’s losing a friend in the process and it’s a double burden for her.
It’s possible she won’t lose her friend–IF this pushes her to actually talk about what happened at the party, which will let Becky realize just how badly she’s overstepped here, and put her back to, “Support my good friend Joyce” and away from, “Ooh, now we can do that ‘scissors’ thing I keep hearing rumors about.”
I agree with Reflex and everyone who responded to this post above me. I feel terrible for Joyce right now.
I don’t completely blame Becky. She went through the same upbringing Joyce did and it’s obvious something happened back at Anderson. This is still a bad decision. She knows Joyce has a boyfriend.
I mean, it’ll probably work out in the end, as friends or girlfriends (probably friends). Who knows, maybe not giving Joyce time to think about it will end up provoking a better reaction than giving herself time to psych herself out. But that doesn’t make it right to randomly kiss people you aren’t involved with, without their consent.
To clarify: I say “She knows Joyce has a boyfriend” to add to the “catastrophic misreading” idea. As in, some of Joyce’s actions may be evidence of her being not-heterosexual, but Becky should still know better because Joyce has told her about Ethan. So Becky is not justified in thinking Joyce may have given up on guys, if that is what she is thinking.
Regardless of Joyce’s sexuality or relationship status it’s still not okay to kiss her without permission.
If I recall correctly- which I may not- ALL Joyce has told Becky is that they held hands in church, but when Becky turned up she didn’t want to introduce her to ANY guys. I would guess that that is all Becky knows. Given Joyce’s 180 attitude, it’s not unreasonable to think that one brief hand holding is all that happened- and that does not a boyfriend make.
That is what I recall too…
Just checked the Becky tag, yep, last time Joyce talked to her was indeed the church hand holding case. After that, she tried to call her, but never got through.
Ohhh… yes, of course. That was probably the catalyst for Becky pulling her now-or-never stunt – believing that Joyce had found or was about to find a boyfriend. I can imagine that bringing her to a crisis point and deciding she had “one last chance” at what she wanted.
Not a good decision, nor a smart or unselfish one, and we don’t yet know how many bridges she burned behind on on the way out, but certainly understandable, especially in the general context of the strip. And it makes more sense than “hey, I got bored after a few weeks and thought I’d come make a pass at the girl I’ve secretly loved for years”.
DANGIT I LOOKED AT THE LAST PANEL FIRST
This is why I can’t read manga anymore. For days afterward, I keep reading everything else from right to left, starting from the last page!
It ruins mystery novels!
? You don’t have to start with the last page: it’s there any time you feel the need/urge 🙂
There are other panels…?? =o
This is why I zoom in to the first panel on my phone. Or shrink the browser window on a laptop.
I kind of sort of caught a glance in the corner of my eye, and then I was like
— Did she actually…
— NOOO, DON’T LOOK! DON’T CONFIRM! SAVE IT FOR LAST!
— FUCK THAT, I’M LOOKING!
— AAAAAAAH I LOOKED!
— She did actually.
DID NOT CALL IT
HOW?!
I DON’T KNOW.
But what I do know is that aT LAST I SEEEE THE LIIIIIIGHT
AND IT’S LIIIIIKE THE FOOOOG HAS LIFTED
THE WORLD HAS SOMEHOW SHIFTED
Yeah, teach us your ways of not-knowing!
There’s this dude you should meet who somehow was UNSPOILED and watched Empire Strikes Back RECENTLY.
like… HOW D=
well yeah
Furious giggling. That’s the only sound I’m gonna be able to make for the next several hours.
I’m just grinning. A bit of light squeeing.
…I’m really looking forward to Joyce’s reaction. Whatever it is, it’ll be gold.
CONFIRMED CONFIRMED CONFIRMED AAAAHH
Well now I await the slap.
(tho i ship it)
I’m expecting more of a horrified Joyce face and then a hasty retreat. Or Joyce looks at her all sexy and goes, “Oh Becky… I didn’t know you cared…” and then surprise premarital slipshine
That’s gonna be my new thing.
“Surprise premarital slipshine”.
I own it now.
Kiss kiss slap slap!
Kiss kiss fall in love?
Unfortunately Joyce is no Haruhi.
Hahahaha this made my evening
That song has been stuck in my head for days.
My favorite version.
You know, I don’t think she’s confirmed for liking girls yet.
Joyce isn’t a girl. Joyce is made out of rainbows and kitten farts.
Joyce is made of everything I dislike. Except boobs. I guess I like all of those.
I wonder what Becky sees in Joyce.
Herself, if all goes as planned
OOOOOOOOOOOH!
http://media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/originals/2e/a5/b9/2ea5b9ce14726ff984806ee85f07e81d.jpg
lol
Joyce is more of a state of mind than a person.
Wish I could “like” this.
Not talking about this for 24 hours due to patreon has been incredibly hard.
[exhales breath] LESBIANING OF AGE!
Same.
If it’s been incredibly hard for more than four hours, you should consult your doctor.
Or at least visit your sex partner of choice, no point wasting it.
See, that’s just a good way to convince me not to get the early strips.
no you totally should…. we uhhh. we had a pretty lively freaking out session together.
Ok, but I want my helmet back.
And now I know what you mean!
I’m surprised there hasn’t been any spoilers yet (that I’ve noticed, anyway).
Silly Becky, Billie is the girl who gets all the unsolicited lesbian smooching not Joyce.
It’s a disease. Why do you think so many DOA characters are gay. It’s spreading. Walky and Sal just carry a unique gene that makes them immune!
Wild Ass Theory: IU was a test site for various forms of gayioactive assotopes.
It was a Biological Gaydiation experiment. To create the perfect gay school. But what they didn’t realize is that all the students dumb as shit.
Ass Theory?
Is that a strain of butts disease?
What makes you think Sal is immune?
Because for joke’s sake if Walky is immune Sal probably is too!
She’s been rooming with Billie for a whole four weeks and hasn’t attempted to kiss her yet.
What if Billie isn’t her type and she’s being true to Marcie?
That I can support, Marcie is pretty cool after all.
No, but Billie’s tried to kiss her – disastrously.
They are the carriers
I’m still not convinced that it’s not a delayed effect of primary school.
I’m kinda stunned right now.
I mean, so many of us guessed it, but seeing it now
We guessed her being into Joyce, but. Not handling it in quite this way.
Awww, my Walky/Becky ship takes another hit. Clearly Farters was not a ship in the cards.
Don’t scuttle it just yet.
And the sky split and the mountains trembled and the moon shook in its orbit, with the vibrations as a million million souls across a million million universes at once cried “CALLED IT.”
People seriously thought there weren’t enough lesbians?
Rule #1: You can never have too many lesbians.
You can ALWAYS have too much of a good thing.
You can never have enough lesbians. You CAN have too many lesbians. But even then, that’s not enough lesbians.
See also: Dakka.
If everyone’s lesbians then nobody’s lesbians.
I was going to say that I don’t think set theory applies here, but now I’m not as certain. In fact, sets of possible lesbian ships might define a topology. At least, if they are open relationships. Which, incidentally, would make them open sets.
I like the idea of unions and intersections of lesbians…
So you are proposing to fire lesbians at the enemy as ammo? Hmm, aren’t they low on . . . penetration.
Great splash damage though.
+1
Assuming Becky’s a lesbian, we got two, and one of them’s Daisy.
Do we actually have that many lesbians? There’s Leslie, of course. Carla’s homoromantic. Pretty much all the rest of the girls are either straight or bi. (Or pan, I guess.)
Oh, right, Daisy. So that’s three. Three lesbians. Which is now four.
Mandy or Grace?
We don’t have enough information about them to tell in this universe, but in the Walkyverse they (and the rest of Squad 48 – Marcie and Sierra, and Guns, who hasn’t shown up in DoA) were apparently bi.
Willis has said sexualities are the same as in the Walkyverse re: Ethan, and he reaffirmed that statement later with Danny, so I’d say probably yes?
You’re all forgetting the ‘bi’ option. Both Billie and Ruth have had boyfriends, and Billie at least seems to like boys, so I’m filing her as bi. Becky is probably straight les, but she’s so focused on Joyce right now, I could be misreading her. Joyce can’t be classified as anything right now – she’s a traumatized fundie virgin, if anything – but she seems attracted to guys, if her past guilty fantasies mean anything. And honestly, at their ages, all of this could easily change, depending on experiences. So, stop slotting them, and just let things roll out as Willis has planned. It’s sure to be a fun ride.
HAHAHAHAHAHA I told you!
I told you about glares!
And, yeah, I know, everyone called it. But did anyone call it earlier than October of last year?
OH WHAT THE HELL!? How did you DO that?
Oy! We got a time traveler here!
For anyone curious I used the Wayback Machine to get the old cast page that had Becky on it, this is what it said:
“Becky is Joyce’s best friend and accomplice from back home. Of the pair, she’s the more irreverently tempered, and Joyce sort of lives vicariously through her. Becky loves Joyce more than like anything in the whole world, so she’s a little broken up that she has to go to school somewhere else.”
John, I still think of her as Hurricane Becky because of your post.
Nice. Thank you, Willis.
Joyce-scream in 3…2…1
People in Siberia will hear her.
People in Siberia will hear her.
In space, you can still hear Joyce scream!
Weeeeell, if her voice goes up in the Terahertz range, you might be able to see her scream from space. [/probablyNotHowThatWorks]
flight commander to base, drama bomb is away, repeat, drama bomb is away
YAY (please don’t let this backfire too badly).
you must be new to the ways of the willis
Don’t worry, the surprise fart will be a modest one.
Actually, where is the Jeph Jaques fart version of this strip?
We’re secretly replaced Joyce’s best friend with her best friend who has the hots for her.
Let’s see if she notices the difference….
Wait, there is a-
Oh, right, there’s Joyce’s best friend she has the hots for and her best friend who has the hots for her, riiight.
I FUCKING KNEW BECKY WAS A LESBIAN!
Well to be precise we know Becky is lesbians for Joyce, not in general.
“You never cared about boys” makes me think that it’s probably general.
Well, seems everyone’s speculation was correct. Alas, I don’t see Joyce responding well to this…
This could just possibly break her.
(The only hope is that when the pieces are put back together, they form a better, stronger Joyce.)
The first rule of Joyce is that she’s always stronger than people expect.
(The second is no weird-flavoured chex mix.)
Yeah, but this is a lot. Her whole world is turning upside down. I mean, when your one best friend turns lesbian on you, who do you talk to about it? Your other best friend, the atheist? Your other other best friend, the alcoholic (WHOOPS! bisexual-in-a-same-sex-relationship-who-knew??!!) friend??
No, your other other best friend, the gay heathen reclamation project.
Oh, no question that this is a lot. Most likely response is she’ll freak the hell out and make lots of epic faces. I’m just saying she won’t *break.*
…to be honest, I’m hoping she is so confused and off-balance that she inadvisably goes with it, but then, I am totally biased towards the sexuality-questioning dramas.
I hope she won’t. I mean, she just got kissed without permission. I don’t think that’s right, as much as many of us want Becky to have what she wants.
Hm, I agree that Becky’s behaviour is extremely uncool, so I can definitely understand not wanting to see it rewarded. I wasn’t considering that it could be seen as a reward, I’m just hoping for maximum turbulence, because I like fictional chaos.
If they were real people, then I guess I would hope that they’d stop, have a heart to heart, and make mutually responsible/supportive decisions. Then Joyce goes to PFLAG, and eventually she brings Becky’s parents along too, and everyone is nice to Becky. Then Joyceline sees that Joyce is an ally, which empowers her to come out of the trans-closet, and, and, and…
oh, I just made myself sad!
Indeed, that is pretty much my thinking here. With all of the new and crazy stuff going on here, in her mind’s eye Becky was probably the one constant she felt she could count on. Her anchor to keep her world view secure.
Now, all bets are off. Anything could happen! Her brother could suddenly become her sister! I know, crazy, right? Cats and dogs, living together. Mass hysteria!
And, no Sierra Mist! Stuff’s nasty.
I don’t drink it, but their Holiday Hawk ads were great (do they still run them?)
I’m a little more worried about Becky. She put herself out there, and now Joyce is gonna reject her hard. I feel bad for her.
This is true. Based on what I feel Joyce’s reaction will be, I actually feel bad for everyone in this situation…
Yes, we can rebuild her. Better, Stronger, Faster. She will be the six million dollar Joyce.
Though tomorrow will inevitably bring heartache and feels, let us savor this moment.
(Alsocalleditbye)
Hover text may be misleading. Becky is a lesbian. But she may have her signals totally misread here.
On the other hand, Joyce sure couldn’t get any safer from male relationships, if she has any sort of feelings to give back to Becky that would be at least honest.
If not and just uses Becky like she’s using Ethan, that would not be right.
Joyce, bastian of christianity, dating two gay people at the same time.
If Joyce was a beard, you could wrestle bears with it.
She must have been educated from the Wicked Bible.
Aww, sorta let down with that. I was sorta hoping for a Bostonian fratboy “girl’s kissing is fuckin’ WICKED” kind of Bible for some reason.
Afraid to admit her attraction, pretending to be friends, waiting until Joyce was vulnerable and weak: Becky is XKCD’s Nice Guy.
http://www.feministe.us/blog/archives/2008/12/05/xkcd-explains-nice-guys-in-comic-format/
The only reason I’m not seconding this is that Becky’s reasons for not expressing her feelings directly were likely less, “I fear rejection,” and more, “I don’t want my best friend to think I’m going to Hell and trying to drag her down with me.”
How she copes if Joyce starts freaking is going to be a key element in assessing Becky going forward.
I’m inclined to think this is more of a flaw in the XKCD analysis than anything else, in that it fails to recognize that this pattern of actions could be caused by genuine insecurity instead of cynical manipulation.
Except the XKCD comic was not an analysis of the scenario in today’s DoA, or of any scenario except the specific one presented in the XKCD comic itself. It doesn’t “fail to recognize” something just because it’s not about that something.
Ohhhhh noooooo
Willis has done it. He’s actually broken Mr Campbell as well.
Ohhhhh yesssss
And there goes the Kool-Aid man.
Joyce will freak the fuck out next strip.
Yeah we’re all high on lesbians right now but the aftermath could be a downer.
“When Somebody Loved Me”
maybe not: http://www.dumbingofage.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/webcomicrampage2014larger1.png she doesn’t look very freaked out.
Still don’t know if that pics canon or where it fits chronologically but I’d like to hope for the best. It would at least mean they’re still friends.
Half of it is canon.
Joyce, Becky and Walky are not!
Yeah, when we got to that scene, I half expected for Joyce, Walky and Becky to show up. But NOPE.
Man I kind of don’t want to read the inevitable fallout in tomorrow’s strip.
I want it to be forever today.
Time to delete the bookmark, clear your browser history, and hit yourself in the head until you forget the name of the strip.
Me too!
Your gravatar is far too perfect for this.
On one hand you don’t want to read it on the other hand the story is just getting good.
“Just”?
*Looks across the room to the first three print books.*
Relax, cause we are bound to rotate to another relationship tomorrow. We have at least four going on now, and Willis wouldn’t miss an opportunity to make us wait in suspense a week, or so while we look in on them.
YAY I WAS RIGHT….CRAP JOYCE IS GOING TO BE DEVESTATED AND PROBABLY DEVESTATE BECKY!
That’ll totally happen
“When Somebody Loved Me”
What kinda makes it worse is that Becky is one of only two people in the entirety of DoA who has found Joyce attractive, and the other one was Joe. Ethan can’t be attracted to her, since he’s gay, Walky irritates the crap out of her and she irritates him too, Mike is… Well, Mike, Danny barely knows her since the one time they’ve talked so far that I can think of has been Joyce warning him of Sal’s sleeping attire, and Jacob only knows her as Ethan’s girlfriend/the girl Sarah told funny stories about. Even the gay/bi women in DoA don’t find her attractive (That we know of, but still). Kinda sad when you realize the only two people who have been attracted to Joyce are her old best female friend, the realization of which will probably destroy her, and Joe
I don’t know about that — I find many women attractive, but if they present as straight fundamentalist Christians then I will definitely not hit on them.
Sarah also thought Joyce was objectively pretty in her yellow dress, in a protective manner (she thought Joe was gonna eat her alive.)
Three. You forgot about pastor boy.
Joyce and Walky!
I still ship them, old school.
Joe finds *every* woman attractive under the right circumstances.
Joe/Joyce is so happening.
They’ve had consistent interaction and moments since their disaster date, and Willis was always talking about what a great dynamic they had in Bring Back Roomies.
Joe and Joyce are great together. I think Joe may be the only guy in DoA I could ship Joyce with. But that’s an endgame scenario… they’ve both got a looooooooonnnnng way to go before they’re ready for that.
There is a definite deficiency of guys to ship Joyce with in this comic, now that you mention it. I suppose Walky or Jacob would be okay in another universe.
But, yeah, agreed. Not for a loooooooong time.
I am guessing you mean, devastated in a bad way. Cause, they are in the right place to deviate each other, in the good way.
Joyce could use some recreational devastation.
…Must…. see… next… strip…
A patreon patron need only donate $5 a month in order to see the next strip a day early. Well worth the price if you ask me.
Caution: extended (or even brief) exposure to Patreon strips may cause severe heart palpatations, profuse sweating, and acute “Shipper’s Rage”.
I knew it. You knew it. We all knew it. Let’s just skip ahead to Joyce freaking out
I did not actually think Willis would do it damn, there was an easy set up but here I thought he would just tease us.
… I did not know it…. this came as a legit surprise…. But then, I’m bad at detecting that sort of thing… Retrospect – shoulda seen it.
That will be in a week or two after she regains consciousness.
Pro tip: there’s never enough lesbians. Also, I KNEW IT!!
Welp. But I think it”s for the best! I can honestly say I was not expecting a kiss! This had better not be a cliffhanger…
I’m kind of surprised that anyone’s surprised. (Or maybe they’re just surprised Becky ACTED on it?)
Anyway… this is NOT going to make for a happy Joyce in the near future. Like her life wasn’t confusing her enough…
Yes my surprise was not her being gay, but that she was so forward with Joyce!
So of course my eyes dart to that last panel and make me cry out.
I think I woke my dog up.
Fuck yeah!
Tomorrows strip isn’t going to be pretty…
realistically I don’t see any good way this can turn out.
Ideally however… 😉
Calling it now: Joyce goes along with it because she’s horny and confused and wants to climb into boobs and be safe and warm forever, even though she’s not really attracted to Becky.
In the morning there are tears.
Ooh, yeah, I had totally forgotten about that…
I knew it!
Well, you asked God to send a sign, Joyce. He did.
The sign is a freckly redhead who is into you. We should all be so lucky.
Dude seriously
I want me some freckled redheads
Well that was fast!
I was slightly nodding off when I read this strip and then BAM! Now I’m awake…I mean yeah, we all kinda guessed it but still.
And now the afore-mentioned plot bomb goes nuclear.
*slow clap*
Bravo Mister Willis, bravo.
I’d bet a whole lot of money that if weekend updates had never happened that this would have been a Friday cliffhanger.
huh. well that escalated quickly.
huh. well that escalated quickly.
Well, this is going to end in tears. Probably both of theirs.
Bet she runs out repeatedly screaming, no no no no no no no no.
Yeah, Joyce, you add them tacos to yo’ playlist. guuuuurlllll
stupid internet posting it twice.
you could say it escalated twice as quickly 😛
I think my heart exploded. I just wanted to tell you all that while I still have some life in m-
One, two, three, CLEAR! ::zap::
(defibrillating of age)
Hey, remember how Joyce is autobiographical?
Hey, yeah! I had totally forgot that! Thanks for reminding me!
This is how Joel Watson and Willis first kissed.
Seriously?!
no, that was a joke.
But Joel and Willis do appear to be at least a little married.
I never understood when people just…lean in for a kiss on someone. Like is that a thing that people do? I can’t imagine it going well very often in the real world.
Brave(?) people who feel like they have nothing to lose by doing it will do it.
also, drunks
Yeah, I’ve had a lot more success with “Did you know, I totally want to kiss you”.
I have no idea. It’d be really uncomfortable to be kissed by someone randomly, but then I’m asexual and probably aromantic, so…dunno?
I’m married to a wonderful woman who did just that. I was too full of my own ‘not going to take advantage of woman who just moved away from home’ to kiss her, so…yeah.
It happens. And it works out.
If you’ve read the signals right.
Becky…hasn’t, I’m afraid. 🙁
I have no idea how often that kind of thing turns out well in the real world, but I do see why this is something that turns up in fiction a lot.
I remember a moment where I was working as a lab assistant, and helping a really attractive freshman, both of us male, never having met before, and I felt the urge to lean in just those final few inches further and plant a kiss on his lips.
I think I made the right call not doing that, but it is a moment that I’ve relived in my mind, with happy intimacy occurring and everything, plenty of times since.
This is the kind of inspiration for sexy fiction. 🙂
In the wrong circumstances (i.e., like here), it’s an unconsented sexual advance. Not a good thing to attempt on a sexual assault survivor.
I leaned in for a kiss once, but only because the sexual tension was crazy intense. But leaning in for a kiss when there isn’t any signals? Not brave enough.
I did that. We’d been seeing each other (without either of us calling it dating) for some weeks and I felt pretty sure that we were both interested in each other. He had come over for dinner, we had been sitting on my couch talking for at least an hour or two, it was getting pretty late. I had been moving closer and closer until in the end I had my hand on his leg, and when he *still* didn’t make a move, I leaned in to kiss him.
He immediately pulled back, so I immediately leaned out again. He explained he had never kissed someone before, I said well, would you like to try? He said that yes he did, but if it didn’t go very well, I’d know why. And then we did kiss.
Four months and counting 🙂 But yeah, you want to make fairly sure the other person is into you before you try that.
Wow, that was so obviously going to happen that I thought Willis would throw us a curveball and not make it happen. But it happened! BLESS YOU, WILLIS!
I think Becky is going to play this off as a joke when Joyce doesn’t
react positively, and then brood about it in pain later 🙁
PLOT TWIST. I DID NOT SEE THIS COMING.
Well this was-who am I kidding, we all knew this was how it was gonna be revealed.
Really? I didn’t guess it. But of course, I can’t speak for everyone! I thought she was going to have a conversation about it.
BECKY NOOOOOOOO!
(I mean, not bi/lesbian part. You keep doing that. I mean more specifically.)
(Man, this kind of thing is what got you kicked out of Anderson, isn’t it? Geez Becky, learn some pattern recognition.)
*the
While I’m happy for this right now, I’m just going to preemptively say this for what will inevitably happen tomorrow or very soon:
DAMN YOU WILLIS
Amen!
Don’t know if anyone else has said it yet, but perhaps this is leading into the big thing Joyce does at the end of the year that Willis was talking about?
The big thing that apparently decides which Joyce, the Walking or Dumb, that Willis prefers?
The Walking Dumb?
any link? I don’t remember that…
The gaydiation from Billia nd Ruth is starting to affect the rest of the dorm.
Break out the protection suits! (a.k.a. the person-sized condoms)
…and suffocate to death?
There are only half enough to go around, so you’ll have to share. Pick a partner, and squeeze in. Oh, and you will have take off your clothes, first, obviously.
No, I doubt it. It’s hard to bi gaydiation.
Yeah, I don’t bi it either.
YES! Until I realise unwelcome kisses can be a form of sexual harassment and then it’s all frowns.
You see the comment section blowing up real fast what’s going on-oooooooooooooooohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!
http://i.imgur.com/78bEUSk.jpg
Good choice there, especially since both “ooohhhh”s were for the same reason, including the gender of the subjects.
It’s never a good sign when it’s 5am PST and there’s already 500+ comments…
Oh god. Those Internet breadcrumbs were true?!
Yessssss. I mean. This is gonna end in heartbreak and tears. But still. Yessssssssssssss. Y’know what I mean? xD
Man. I am SO glad I’m not that age any more. So much drama and confusion.
I can’t believe I actually gasped at this.
Okay, I guess now it’s confirmed.
And tomorrow Sarah smacks Becky with her bat ‘I can’t leave her alone for five minutes without someone forcing themselves on her.’
Okay, so prediction: as much as I love this pairing right now and holy shit I really do. Joyce probably wont react well. While their friendship will stay it will be awkward for them for a while. However respect for her best friend along with already place doubts will cause her to break up with Ethan.
I dearly hope we don’t have anything negative come out of this.
I mean, I’m looking forward to the panicked sexual orientation questioning because that’s always really fun, but having a sad Joyce at the end ruins that.
Prepare for APOCALYPTIC freakout in 3…2…1….
Joyce’s first F-bomb in 3… 2… 1…
Well, I am sure she will be upset, but I am not sure it will be that bad. Granted this is directed at her, from her friend, but she has gotten a lot calmer about things like homosexuality in general.
I mean, she pretty much took the revelation that Billie had had pre-marital hanky-panky with a girl in stride…
Wait, when did she do that? I thought Joyce only knows that Billie’s in love, and she assumed that Billie loves a man.
http://www.dumbingofage.com/2013/comic/book-3/03-answers-in-hennessy/inevitable/
Well that explains where Willis got the censor bar for the Slipshine preview a few days ago.
But, Joyce didn’t expressly put two and two together and see that Billie and Ruth are a thing…
Well, she doesn’t *know* (about Billie’s HS GF) but she gathered it from what Walky said:
http://www.dumbingofage.com/2014/comic/book-5/01-when-somebody-loved-me/mistakes/
http://www.dumbingofage.com/2014/comic/book-4/04-the-whiteboard-dong-bandit/dramahurricane/
Oh, that’s true! Joyce sure has grown a lot — remember when learning her new friend was an atheist made her gasp so hard she got the hiccups? But she had no big reaction to Billie/Alice, even when it was spelled out right in front of her, and was properly kind to Billie in the aftermath.
This bar’s a great deal higher, though. How will she deal??
Someone just won a coke somewhere.
Now for the Mentos…
That only works with Diet Coke
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn14114-science-of-mentosdiet-coke-explosions-explained.html
Coke will work, but aspartame lowers the surface tension and make it more dramatic than the sugar version. The sugar version is also much messier to clean up…
All we need now is for Ethan and Dotty to walk in on them at this moment.
… I did not realize I desperately want that to happen until I read your comment.
GAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHH!!!!!! I… I DONT’T…. WHAT IS HAPPENING RIGHT NOW IN FRONT OF MY EYE HOLES!?!?
Is this like in Gunnerkrigg Court, where Zimmy sees that one girl as a giant metal woman?
That’s Kat!
“that one girl” indeed, sheesh
“that one techno-goddess”?
In case you haven’t read the last pages there: do it now! Glorious heroines all over the place.
I’m unfamiliar with that series, but that’s about to change.
It can start a little rough, as webcomics do, but it is glorious! Willis is my favorite, but Tom is probably second
I love both DoA and GC, but in such totally different ways that I don’t think I could rank them.
GC’s art progression is kind of unusual, in that there’s a major shift, but it doesn’t start out crappy and get better as the artist practices like most webcomics do. It’s competently drawn from the start, but it starts out stylistically weird, and gets less so as time goes on. I’m not sure whether that was a deliberate effect, or just natural evolution.
And just like that the Becky/Walky ship sinks to the bottem of the ocean.
I told you, the project should have never been funded! It was doomed from the start!!
All hands were lost XD
no survivors of the hetero baiting. bless
I guess we’re already getting another slipshine. That was quick!
Man, don’t get my hopes up by saying that. It’s far too soon.
*Farnsworth* a man can dream, a man can dream… /Farnsworth
Don’t worry, Joyce. The balls didn’t touch, so it’s not gay.
*Scrolls back up* Yep, boobs are safely separated by an arm. Yaaay
I know a dude who was having anal sex with a man, stopped suddenly and said “oh noo!” And his concerned partner was like “What? What??” and he says “our balls touched! That makes it gay!!” D:
True story, use this on your boyfriends.
Thank you for sharing, I’m dying xD
Don’t freak out Joyce, don’t freak out Joyce… Damn it she’s going to freak out. 🙁
Or close her eyes and imagine it’s Dorothy.
But no, more likely it’ll be a Homer-esque “HAS THE WHOLE WORLD GONE GAY?!?”
Now watch as Joyce goes off her nut, stops being friends with Becky and calls her a sinner. Or calls her a sinner, has a big rant then tries to change her to being straight.
Or maybe she just tries to set Becky up with Ethan.
So your saying setting up a known gay person and either a bi or lesbian person together is not trying to make them straight? She should just work at helping them be happy, not trying to change them to suit her beliefs.
Nah, it’ll be a menage a triEthen.
You forget, that very thing is happening elsewhere, at this very moment.
Do I hear another Slipshine?
Damn, what do I have to pay to get audio added?
Slipping & squeaking as we speak….
Nah, I reckon Becky is just screwing around because she may not know who she likes, & by running away from her college (which is obvious) she plans to drag whoever’s emotionally invested down with her trainwreck. Joyce is the prime target for such a thing. There’s almost every other kind of stapled characterisation & subplot covered, anyway.
STRONG ATTACK NO GUARD
Okay, but forcing a kiss on someone out of the blue is kinda shitty? C’mon, Becky.
College freshmen aren’t exactly known for their impulse control and sound judgment?
That doesn’t make it less wrong??
For me it’s kind of disappointing. I WAS expecting Becky to have a Thing for Joyce – most conservative-raised people I know got over their homophobia because a friend turned out to be gay (if not themselves), and Becky being gay seemed like the most obvious, realistic way for Willis to make Joyce have to start confronting and dismantling her own homophobic tendencies.
I was just hoping that Becky – being Joyce’s best friend and, up until now, having seemed really cool and savvy – would have revealed this in a more sensitive, non-forceful way.
Well I don’t think going to a Christian school necessarily taught Becky good ways to handle her feelings.
I don’t know. I almost prefer that characters screw up sometimes. Yes it would be tremendously positive if she had a mature and respectful way to come out to Joyce, but that’s an ideal situation. Those don’t survive contact with reality.
and it called “dumbing of age” for a reason.
I think that excusing such behavior instead of calling it what it is and letting the chips fall where they may from there is a really sketchy way of interpreting it. OF COURSE young people are gonna do bad and wrong stuff, but I think it’s incredibly patronizing and also gross to just shrug it off with an “EH, KIDS, AMIRITE?”
There’s so much “OMG YAASSS!! BECKY/JOYCE YAAASSSS!!!” going on here that I do think that it needed to be said that what Becky is doing is Actually Not Okay and not cute at all. It’s sad and wrong. My hope is that the writing will reflect that, and that both Joyce AND Becky learn important lessons in respecting each other.
I’m not expecting this to go down without consequences. Don’t get me wrong here, I’m by no means excusing it.
I just don’t think there’s any virtue in avoiding these pitfalls. It’s unrealistic, and it robs characters of growth.
I did a metric crapload of dumb stuff with relationships at that age. It’s how you learn.
It is, but sometimes you have to go for it and hope for the best. Still this is pretty unfair to Joyce. A friendship will be tested.
Honestly though the “surprise kiss” is a pretty dick move, especially for someone you know probably won’t appreciate it! Also, as flimsy as Joyce and Ethan’s relationship is, Becky knows Joyce is IN a relationship…. :[
Yeah, seriously.
After rereading since Becky returned there have been many conversations that could be misinterpreted by Becky. Sometimes we see what we want to see. While it makes sense why Becky would go for it, I think the surprise kiss is totally out of line. It’s likely going to devastate Joyce considering in one of the first return strips Sarah mentions that Becky is the reason Joyce grew up somewhat normal.
Are there even any straight girls in this comic?
Well…
*ponders for a second*
Dorothy! And likely Sal.
Also, Roz. Probably Dina.
I wonder why people assume Dina is straight. She hasn’t shown any kind of romantic or sexual interest in anyone, male or female.
“mammals are weird” to me make it seem even more likely she could be asexual. Or could just be a late bloomer, or demisexual… but yeah, I wouldn’t put her firmly in the “straight” camp at this point at all.
And Roz clearly likes guys, but she could be bi or pan. Granted her comment to her sister seems to dismiss that somewhat, but it was her sister after all. I don’t know why she would be totally honest with her. I’d say she is likely straight, but not certainly.
I can’t imagine that Roz would be closeted about anything. She’s been all over Joe and Jacob without propositioning any women. She does look great in a vest, though.
“hasn’t shown any kind of romantic or sexual interest in anyone” hardly means anything. People who’ve known me for years might be forgiven for thinking I’m asexual, but I know I’m attracted to women – I just don’t express it.
There was the time in the student union, with the youngest of the sisters, but it didn’t go far
Don’t forget Amber!
I mean, more than half so far seem straight. Hmmm…now that you mention it, we could do better. Somebody lock Dorothy and Amazi-girl in a room for a few hours, we need to test this.
What a scoop!
And it shall be titled, “Walky or no Walky?”
Yes, yes there are. Dorothy, Amber, Sarah, Sal, Dina (though she’s more asexual), and any other random female who we haven’t seen kiss another girl.
And speaking of Dina, where’s my favorite ASD girl been lately? I’m rooting for her to get some action soon.
Well, I’m not sure if we’ve proven any of them aren’t attracted to other females. (also, do random background characters count? Are we the MLP fandom all of a sudden?)
Also, yes, we need more Dina. We need a Dina story arc.
Dina is a carefully managed resource. If Willis needs more page views than girls smooching can bring in, he will combine Dina with Joyce for an extremely exothermic reaction.
ASD = Asian Single Dinosaur
Considering that the sexual orientation of characters has staid the same compared to It’s Walky!, Dina is most definitely not asexual. Definitely hetero (or perhaps bi), though.
I figure Dina as a late bloomer who mostly finds romance confusing. Plus, Walkyverse-Dina was into maturity, which hasn’t exactly been present in this environment.
also Joyce
Let’s not be too hasty. Let’s see where this goes first.
yeah, yeah. But her reactions to Sal (least, just hair brushing and cool factor), Billie (stay safe and warm forever), and Dorothy (most, stuck to her like glue) open up at least a small possibility that she isn’t 100% straight. Maybe she is, and those were just innocent reactions. Just dunno yet.
Hmm thinking on what your saying, what if she is into girls, but her strong beliefs are keeping her from being herself/happy with who she is? Given how she acts about Ethan being gay, its fair to say she is one of those “If you aren’t breeding, your sinning” kinds when it comes to peoples sexuality, even if her own is buried deep in the closet.
This comment is made hilarious because of the typical ship fans put the character in this person’s avatar in.
The Vinyl Scratch Tapes is my favorite. XD
Of the 9 girls on the cast page, only 3 are known to be not straight (Billie and Ruth are bi, Carla is [I think] homoromantic asexual).
Sarah, Amber, Dorothy, Sal and Joyce are all known to show attraction to guys, and haven’t shown any signs of actual attraction to non-dudes (outside of people joking about Joyce’s infatuation with Dorothy). Dina is kind of a wildcard, but she probably likes guys, too (based on the Walkyverse, and maybe her love of Walky’s dino drawing?)
I think there are fewer secondary straight girls, but even then there’s at least Mary (more than likely).
Also, none of the confirmed non-straight main characters are lesbians.
So no, there aren’t enough lesbians.
Of the 9 girls on the cast page, 9 of them are known to be not Becky – this is totally unacceptable!
Joyce’s sexuality has not been confirmed.
Though this could go good places. Joyce is losing her idea that her old life was really any different and if she gains a more in depth view of homosexuality she may become less willing to be Ethan’s beard.
Oh dear this can’t end well…
Wow, reached yesterday’s comment count in 21 minutes
Sooooo, time for Joyce’s sexuality crisis! Especially with the whole keeping Becky and Dorothy separated part (and given Walky’s comments I’m betting that gave Becky some hope) and delicious, delicious angst.
This storyline is going so much better than we expected from its title. Which is to say, there will be sobbing within twenty four hours.
Hrm, try 72.
Tomorrow’s gonna be a hard cut to a minor character one off, then we’ll check up with Dorothy, then back to this :p
Patreon?
DAMN I wish I had money.
Joke. I was thinking of the most troll thing Willis could do after this. I hope I’m wrong I need resolution here.
Can Becky stay forever and for always, please?
No, at the end of the storyline she’ll leave, be absent for four more years, and then show up to reveal to Joyce that she’s masterminded all of the shenanigans at Indiana University the whole time.
Call it her nest egg.
So, does Joyce kiss on and angst later, or punch and/or run away from Becky and angst now (bonus points if she kisses someone else not Ethan)?
It will be Walky. And everything will become much worse.
Hoo boy. Can’t wait to see her reaction.
Femurs may be removed, & ding dongs definitely etched.
As much as I wanted them to kiss, I’m kinda worried that since it was non-consensual it might freak Joyce out. On top the whole “lesbian” thing, I mean.
There may be a BSOD incoming, or worse.
Specifically, a divide by zero error.
I keep reading erektion…
Well, that too. :3
NOPE NOPE NOPE
Joyce, I’m in lesbians with you
Nuts, I was hoping she dropped out of school because she turned atheist or something.
She could do that too! Nothing stopping her from being a lesbian/bi atheist!
Quite probable, given how I imagine that the way they treated her was fairly alienating.
(Not that all Christians are like that, of course. There are plenty of gay/bi Christians).
I actually bet Becky’s messing around. Panel three is total jokey best friend stuff, which just makes panel four total jokey but really cool best friend stuff.
Man, if my best childhood friend romantically kissed me and then said she was just kidding around, I would feel so confused and disrespected and mad. That is not cool best friend behaviour!
Oh-my-god BECKY! Look at your lips!
Guys! Guys! It’s too easy! There’s gonna be another twist tomorrow!
“But Joyce, you see. I’m also…a man”.
https://31.media.tumblr.com/5db1287f620f480e73603558e44a960d/tumblr_inline_ndst02OvTj1qjop0x.png
I don’t know, Willis might not be able to top this not even he can catch us off guard twice in a row after something like this.
This is what I get for being staunchly aboard the Wecky ship…. That said…. Poor Becky… She’s about to get the wrong kind of tongue lashing….
I want them to be canon so badly. The thing is at Joyce’s current state they couldnt become a couple until much much later. And I am willing to wait for that time to come into fruition.
Becky, hun, you can do way better. I mean, I know the heart wants what it wants, but Joyce? You know it’s not going to work. :C
I don’t think Joyce is “better” or “worse” than anyone.
I just think she’s woefully unprepared for any relationship, let alone this one.
Not a bad person, but has a damn lot to learn.
Agreed
Her strong beliefs are what make her worse, purely because she seems unwilling/unable to have an open mind and accept other peoples free will choices. That in effect is why she is unprepared for any relationship.
Except that she does have an open mind and accept other people’s choices. Her best friend is an atheist. She’s only dated jewish guys and her thing with Ethan is more about how she feels safe around him than any genuine desire to change who he really is.
She doesn’t actually accept Dorothy as an Atheist, otherwise she wouldn’t have really tried hiding her. She has stated that she’d “help” Ethan be into girls, a very clear point of saying she’ll change who he really is. And I predict that after this incident, she’ll either drop Becky as a friend, or try to change her into being only into guys, if Becky is Bi, or changing her to be into guys if she is gay.
Did I call it or did I call it? :C :C :C
@o@!!!!!!
HELL YEAH! FINALY! I coudn’t take the suspense anymore. Also, willis, is this part autobiographical?
I am voting ‘greatest character’ over and over and over again as hard as I can! But it’ll only let me do it once! D:
and…. where is Sarah like, right when Joyce starts screaming? Maybe she is just down there with a bat in one hand and a toy in the other, hessitant?
Is it bad that I’m kind of disappointed that everyone called it so quickly?
I mean Becky has been build up as an awesome character by the author from the second we have seen her (see the Poll) and now is in Lesbians with the Main character. I don’t know, it all sort of seems so… ehn.
I guess I preferred cheering it on as a fan theory?
Well, we’ll see where this goes.
Subtext is better as subtext than maintext?
I tend to support couples that personally amuse me because they are so wierd. Typically if one of the couples I was cheering for happen, I double take and re-read it.
Unless it’s done really well, then I’m usually skeptical of it and wary of the work for actually pushing that angle.
Remember, Willis wrote this all out months ago. Any correlation between what the fans pray for, and what actually happens, is entirely coincidental.
Or perhaps intentional – I’m pretty sure Willies could see the fan theories coming a mile away
Oh, I’m not saying he did it because he heard the fans pandering for it. Just Becky is walking a thin line for me between “Fun enough kind of light hearted character” to “Author favourite” (the poll feels like a demonstration of that, even if it’s mean comedicially. It’s literally “This new person I wrote; Best or BESTEST?”) and this is sort of a nudge towards the deep-end of that.
Having fans latching on to a relaxed and easy going character? Sure, fan favourites are often born by that.
But when it feels like the Author is sort of helping them along and doing what they can to make us feel like they are great (the JOYCE IS GAY FOR DOROTHY is going back a few months so pandering here isn’t infeasible) it feels awkward and forced.
So, I’m in between looking at Becky as an easy going character who’s a nice change of pace and a character Willis picked off to specifically to hit what the Fandom wants.
It all comes down to how the next few strips play; I just don’t have a strong feel yet. Something about her irks me and feels pandery though, even if I want to like her.
And he had the general idea (Becky loves Joyce) from before DOA actually started. (confirmed on tumblr)
I’d be lying if I said I didn’t see it coming.
Dammit, where’s my popcorn? I’m gonna need it for the next few strips.
Freaking CALLED IT
I just saw Willis’s tweet about the Patreon , I will not forget this outrage Willis !
There is nothing good that Joyce can do here. If she doesn’t reciprocate Becky’s affection, she’s going to hurt Becky. If she does, then she’s going to have to deal with a bunch of self-hate. I don’t look forward to tomorrow’s strip.
Which means, you can’t wait for the next strip. Amirite?
JOYCE. JOYCE. BE A GOOD FRIEND. I KNOW THIS IS SHOCKING AND UNWANTED. AND SHE SHOULD NOT HAVE KISSED YOU. ALTHOUGH THE KISS DELIGHTS ME. BUT JOYCE. DO NOT BREAK HER HEART ENTIRELY OUT OF SHOCK.
wow, I was expecting a lot more angry people with full diapers, ppl must be cooler with this than bi danny
also: computer, take me to patreon website now
Aw man, did not expect this! And it makes me squee with delight, but I’m so afraid of tomorrow! Its like, this is great but it is going to hurt so bad in 24 hours. I don’t see Joyce reacting well to this.
Man we didn’t get to bask in the Ruth/Billie happiness for very long did we. Sigh.
Damn. Poor Joyce. Has she even had a consensual smooch, yet? I totally get where Becky is coming from, but, damn, this might end super badly. (I hate feeling bad for Joyce.)
All her kisses have been with gay people.
Maybe this will make her see some sense about Ethan, like “Oh, that must have been how he felt when I did this to him!”
I’m in favor of this sentiment.
That’s what I’m worried about too.
Yeah baby let’s fight prejudice and stereotypes and common misconceptions by putting only short haired lesbians in the comic.
Oh wait.
(We’re stirctly talking about DoA here so Robin doesn’t count)
What about Daisy? Daisy’s her name, right?
also becky’s hair is… not especially short?
So we have Daisy, Becky, and Leslie, with long, medium-length, and short hair. Oh, and I guess the two girls on their hall whose names and hair lengths I can’t remember.
oh wait
if you’re gonna be snarky, try not to be wrong
I can’t help noticing that all your lesbian characters are women. STEREOTYPE?
I giggled, at least.
Forgot about her existence, I apologize.
Ruth’s hair is shoulder-length. That’s hardly short.
Ruth is bisexual.
Mea culpa. My memory is frazzled after midnight.
What the hell? The important part isn’t the length of their hair, it’s how the short hair is used to signify someone who’s trying to be unfeminine in the particular. Given Becky’s behavior, that’s actually not entirely an unjustified reading of what we’ve seen so far of her (Wrong, but not unjustified, I think. She just likes puerile humor, she doesn’t engage in anything else coded masculinely except liking girls), but that’s *just* Becky.
I hadn’t even noticed that they were short haired, because they weren’t butch. Not even a little bit, really. It’s actually been nice that nobody approaches either ‘butch’ or really ‘femme’ (Maybe Daisy?)
I’m so happy. I love you all for being here with me for this. Everyone here is the best. Love and happiness to you all.
RIght back at you, Swoop. Joy and liberty be your friends on this day.
<3
There is no bad in today’s strip.
And the penny drops. FINALLY.
#LOLDoctorWhoReference
Can a totally generic and common turn of phrase really be a reference?
Yes, if you say it is.
I like that Abe Lincoln reference there.
I didn’t call it!!! I really thought it was a red herring. I’m so glad I was wrong.
I guess Becky started to freak out after Joyce told her about her dates and boyfriend. Now or never. Now, to reread all the Becky strips with the knowledge that she has been working up to this moment.
Not the best decision Becky.
At least their hair differences will give them away in-costume.
“Well, there’s no way anything else tonight will have an “oooooh” moment like Arrow did with the final scene- oh wait, nevermind, DoA just topped it.”
Hooray, It’s just like Corpse Party; although hopefully it will turn out better then it did for Seiko and Naomi.
Becky needs a new popularity poll, in light of this development. Becky now best character.
wrong, she already was the best. And she will continue to be the best.
Your gravatar sold that comment.
Get this, and all of my previous porns on slipshine!
XD Auu.. this is going to go badly for Becky
Though.. it would be interesting if this Joyce ended up being homosexual.
She seems either clueless or bi so far though.
but yeah…… this is going to go south at least mostly
Joyce looks more jealous of Becky lately and seems less panic faced in the last panel than in previous situations…
But not a good face either. I think it’s not panic or disgust (thankfully), but a little more than just shocked/what is happening
Joyce is certainly not a lesbian. We’ve seen some of her beefcake fantasies. Bi is a possibility, though.
“Oh shit!” out loud. GF probably thinks I’m crazy.
now that I think about it becky has been making power moves nonstop since she arrived
One hour since the comic went live… over 330 comments. Damn Willis. Not damn you – just damn!
And they’re not all just “AAAAAAAHHHHH!!!!”. Some of them are “AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!”
But Becky and Walky were meant to be. I was gonna call it Gasshipping.
The Methane Tanker.
but Becky IS Walky.
IF Anything, this is Willis’s way of telegraphing that Joyce and Walky are meant to be.
DOA is like the Smallville of they get together , but without Superpowers
We think Becky is so great, but in fact she is a liar. A lying liar that lies.
http://www.dumbingofage.com/2014/comic/book-5/01-when-somebody-loved-me/inseparable/
What she said was true, from a certain point of view.
It’s 1am during finals week, I have a paper to write by like two hours ago, and I’m sitting on the floor of my room clapping at my computer screen.
On the one hand: YEAH! I CALLED IT. (I and everyone else, but still.)
On the other hand: This interferes with my Joyce/Dina ship.
>Joyce/Dina ship.
Wait, what? O_O
Never heard that one before…
I will sail that ship towards the sun and never come back if I have to.
Foe Yay, yo.
Not a ship, a sub… Because you can never sink what wasn’t floating in the first place.
My new motto.
But the parlance for destroying a sub is indeed “sinking”. Also they do technically float, just not above the water line 😀
And… SCENE CHANGE!!!
And a week of Amber, Ethan and Danny. Next time we see Joyce Becky will not be around and she will go on as usual. After about a week she will make an offhand remark that Becky went back to Andersson’s. They will not reunite for three years real world time and we will not find out what happened until then.
All fans will go nuts.
Well… This is a twist… O.O
Well my thoughts are since Joyce wants to be loved honestly to the point of ninja stalking into Ethan’s to fill the void, she might actually let it heppen. I mean she freak for a moment and maybe even think about god, but then she will think of her bro and anything else she’s learned and has been feeling and maybe just dive right in. Could be wrong, and i know i left out other factors but yeah this is a possible path.
I don’t know if Joyce has quite reached her breaking point in that respect as of yet.
I just know that when she does, it will be visible from space.
Now that I think about it though, Joyce might not like the sudden sexual contact for more reasons than “Becky, what the hecky!?”
Oh, someone worded this way more briefly than me. I would love if that was the first line to tomorrow’s comic though
That would be a neat curveball. “Becky, what the hecky, kissing each other all the time was something we did as kids”
In one of the first few strips Becky said something like “don’t let anyone change you” I don’t think she meant her politics or religious beliefs. She knew Joyce was a fundamentally good person. Joyce has always been my favorite character. I relate to her on so many levels. She’s the kind of person I want to be someday. She’s strong and kind and loyal to her friends. I know I must be the last one to figure this out, but I think that’s what she meant when she said she didn’t want her to change.
“Same old Joyce”
I want to say “D’awwwww, that’s great”
But I have no idea what happens next and it could go horrible because of the whole ‘homosexuality is sinful’ thing and it’s one thing to help a guy who is gay try to live virtuously by being in a sorta-relationship but this is the gal Joyce basically grew up with, right? So how does she process that?
This is going to be interesting, and quality-wise it is pretty much guaranteed to be great.
I hope it goes actually great, as well.
I see another twist coming.
The next 45.5 strips are going to be Joyce’s shocked face.
Willis’ answer to the Best Page Of Gunnerkrigg Court!
Yes! haven’t even opened the link…
Mhm, okay, I’ll stick with it.
I think this one is more to the point, in this case. Kat, that is. http://www.gunnerkrigg.com/?p=519
…it’s kind of good that Joyce doesn’t have anything sharp handy, isn’t it?
I think you underestimate Joyce’s loyal, loving and forgiving nature. Sadly I don’t really see the ship working out, but I don’t see Joyce excessively pushing Becky away or anything.
Joyce has attempted rape trauma and an inherent rage about unwanted sexual activity to begin with.
Yeah, I’m not thinking conscious act so much as reflex.
“Damn You Willis” doesn’t even begin to cover ending a strip like this. This is far to much
Well Joyce will deal with this poorly, but I wonder how poorly.
HELL YES I DOUBLED DOWN ON MY BET THAT BECKY WAS GAY TWO STRIPS AGO AND I WAS RIGHT! HELL YE THIS IS AWESOME
What did you win for your bet?
CANON LESBIANS AND A REALIZATION THAT THIS CHAPTERS TITLE IS REFERENCING JESSE FROM TOY STORY 2’S FAMOUS SONG THAT SOUNDS LIKE ITS ABOUT GAY GIRLS. A BIG WIN XD
That song made me cry.
Oh geez, I just looked up the video on youtube. I think I’m going to cry.
I literally gasped.. Can’t wait to see how this turns out!
Wow. The amount of comments in that amount of time is astounding.
By the way, Damn you Willis.
I do have to say I have a small crush on Joyce. I don’t care if nobody likes it.
I understand
Thank you
Says the Becky Gravatar…
I now understand why Robin had to use a Chalkboard to keep track of these relationships.
And My Gravatar’s face does not reflect my own.
I was wondering if this was the case from the moment that Sarah started to put two and two together.
Ooh, yes! 😛
When you squee and OH SHIT at the same moment… Yeah, that.
Death! By the Machine God, Death is HERE!
WOAH. WAIT.. WHAT. WHAAAT.
YESSSSSSSSSSSsssssssssssssssssss. Oh man. I know they’re gonna fall out from this and it’s going to break Becky’s heart but YES. You GO BECKY. AGGH. I’m squeeing and grinning all over the place and oh my goodnessss yesssss
Oh no. OH NO. There is no way this ends well. GOD DAMN IT.
Delicious, delicious drama and suffering is mine, I just have to wait for it. Mmmm, suffering.
Even though this is happening and I see it a part of me is wondering if Becky is just messing with her. It’s ridiculous to think- but I have trust issues.
Probably not though.
In any case sadly a ship which will never work out, given Joyce. Still- that never stopped me shipping her with Dorothy.
That would be kind of something I know people would do harmlessly and it would be interesting in comic. Interesting, but in universe not good, because I think that would be even more confusing for Joyce than her friend actually liking girls.
Man, look at all these comments in such a short time. It’s almost like something special happened.
I partially blame Walky for this blunder. He made the “Joyce wants to go down on Dorothy” joke and gave Becky the entirely wrong impression. <_<
I’m pretty sure Becky trusts her own evaluation of her best friend more than Walky’s. She just liked the insinuation.
I knew it! Yesterday, when she said something like singing a different tune about boys.
Also, *Jesse Cox voice* Jesus, I need you now more than evaaah…
New Head canon ! : Making Joyce Jealous is the reason why Dorothy’s dating Walky !
WOAAAAAH. Willis has thrown me some curve balls before but EARTH JEEGUS, THAT WAS A TOTAL BLINDSIDE
So it wasn’t a fakeout. Ugh I’m worried for Joyce’s reactions in the next comics. Also, a surprise kiss might not be the best transition from accidentally bringing up Joyce’s date rape, not that Becky knows that. I dunno whether I’m expecting confusion from Joyce, or anger, or terror (see above). I mean, I know it’ll be a combination, but what the main thing is.
And in panel 4, you can just hear Joyce’s brain snap.
Joyce’s head will implode in …5…4…3…2…WHOOMPF!
This will end in tears.
I have a bad feeling about but I am also SO HAPPY
Wait, was this…was this Joyce’s first kiss!?
No. She kissed Ethan at lunch the once and then ran and hid in the ladies’ room.
So Joyce has only kissed gay people so far.
(Assuming Becky identifies as gay, and not bi, pan or straight with an exception, for example.)
She got a better kiss from him a little later.
I mean, insofar as it’s better when you’re kissing someone who’s totally not into your sex after swearing to convert him.
They do get the faces-melting-into-each-other thing going there, which she’s got a little bit with Becky today, and had none of the first time she kissed Ethan.
And also all those Becky-kisses when they were kids. [hedcanon]
I JUST REALIZED THE CHAPTER TITLE IS A REFERENCE TO THAT SONG FROM TOY STORY 2
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A3qBbLyRixg
BECKY SINGING ABOUT JOYCE????
This song makes me cry. Jerk. >:(
im sorry jesus i had to share my feels with the world. 😛
The chapter titles usually have multiple meanings. The obvious one here being a reference to Dorothy and Walky’s confession of feelings.
Gotta disagree with you there. The chapter title, “When somebody loved me” is speaking past tense. Someone loved this person, once in the past, with the implication that they don’t love them any longer. Or possibly that no one loves them any more, or that they feel no one does.
Regardless, I feel like Dorothy and Walky’s confession was a red herring. They have already patched things up super easily. Dorothy forgave him and that was that. Walky has not, it turns out lost his love. He’s not gonna be sad about having lost the love of someone he cares deeply about. Becky on the other hand……
This Becky/Joyce situation……… There’s no way it can end well. Everything we know about Joyce, about her thoughts on homosexuality, to her near rape ptsd that Becky doesn’t know about, tells us that this is gonna shake things up for them, and probably not well, at least in the short term.
Plus, one listen to that song and i cant unhear it being a song about Becky’s feelings for Joyce. That song from Toy Story 2 has always been known as one where, if you listen to it out of context, it sounds like a song about a gay women’s feelings for another lady. Which I’m sure was intended when Willis picked that chapter title, since the chapter title is directly quoting a line from that song.
SO, TLDR: Walky/Dorothy already got resolved angst free, so i think they were a red herring and this Becky/Joyce drama is what the title was referring to since it perfectly fits that song.
Welp. Did not see that coming. Prolly cause I had no idea who Becky was… I never coughed up for the “paid” IW strips. :/
Not that much Becky there either. And pretty sure this is all DOA Becky
IT’S TACO THURSDAY!
I will laugh if she has the same reaction as Ruth.
Did not see this coming! Thought we had our lesbian limit, but THEY LIVE AMONG US.
While I knew this was coming, I really don’t approve of the way Becky handled it. Just screams sexual assault to me. Had an ex male friend do this to me a few years back, just kiss me out of nowhere. When I said I didn’t see him that way, he got a little… unhappy with me to say the least.
Maybe I’m just overreacting based on past experiences, but if I ever had a second person do this to me again, I would call the police with zero hesitation.
P.S. Every person who knows me IRL knows what happened, and what I would do if it happened again, so I’m not too horribly worried, but still, just the way I feel.
No, I agree. It’s totally uncool. It’s one of those things we learn from fiction that is good for drama but simply doesn’t translate well into reality.
I don’t think you’re overreacting at all, Becky is WAY off on this. Part of me wants to feel sorry for Becky because she’s likely about to experience something I’ve always worried about, losing a friend because of a sexual/romantic interest in them (like her, I’m a lesbian with the nasty habit of falling for friends; at least I’ve always known to talk things out first and see how they react), but her actions in this strip are making it hard for me to sympathize at all. Sure, losing her friend/crush will hurt, but she has nobody to blame but herself.
By the way, this is where Becky re-entered the story.
http://www.dumbingofage.com/2014/comic/book-5/01-when-somebody-loved-me/angel/
Note the previous strip for context. Hmm.
angel achieved
It all makes sense now… It all makes sense now… Willis… Willis I’m about to come out of the hospital… Please don’t put me back in with your stressful story arcs…
I’m curious to see Joyce’s reaction, will she jump back and act confused/hurt (most likely), as someone who has been in a gender reversed version of this I would understand, also if Joyce is an autobiographical character does that mean he’s been there too? (Looks at Willis). Also 10 bucks says she came out as Bi or homosexual and that’s the reason for her impromptu visit.
Okay let’s be honest.
Is anyone REALLY surprised by this development.
I’m disappointed you didn’t say “lesbi honest…”
Hahaha 😀
I couldn’t bother to go through the tribble.
I half-expect the next comic to be a “oooooh it was all just a dream” scene.
I also half expect it to be a Slipshine. Work, you pornlord Willis!
Justin: “…Somewhere around ninety percent of people are heterosexual.”
Grace: counting on fingers “That can’t possibly be right.”
Haha, nice!
you know, way back when, Willis told us there would be a slipstream featuring two people of the same gender from DOA. and that we wouldn’t expect who it was… and I totally said to myself “I dunno, Becky and Joyce?” When I saw Ethan and Danny getting a thing I figured it was gonna be them… but now… I think I know which pair he meant…
AAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHH
Not counting Ruth and Billie?
How “way back when” was the Willis comment mudakthemultiplier is referencing? Because I think Ruth and Billie has been expected for quite a while, at this point. But if it was a very old Willis comment, I suppose it could have been them…
It was when the Slipshine with Robin x Lisle came out. I figured that we were going to get one for Ruth x Billie, so they didn’t really count.
Indeed. By that time, Ruth and Billie were an eventual inevitability. So there must be some other lesbian coupling to look forward to.
Who says we won’t get all three?
That escalated faster than I thought it would.
I’ll be super happy to be wrong about this, but….hope you love the smell of burning friendships Becky. Your about to get a lungful tomorrow.
And she knows it.
http://www.dumbingofage.com/2014/comic/book-5/01-when-somebody-loved-me/fart-joke/
So that happened.
Congratz,..
That caught me Totally off guard.
Didn’t see it coming,.. just thought her friend was ditching school because it was too strict, and Joyce was a fresh breath from home.
Meh,.. Poor Joyce,.. her world was already rocking back and forth,..
If she came out, Becky might well have left school. A Midwestern Christian university does not strike me as the most supportive of college environments to be gay, bi, or otherwise anything other than 100% straight.
She might have visited because of A) her feelings for Joyce, and B) she might have been hoping that Joyce would be more supportive of her best friend than people at Anderson were of her.
Which means this might get really, really ugly.
*Crosses fingers and hopes for the best, against all odds.*
Ah, so that’s the reason she got ejected from her Christian college.
I doubt she’ll fare that much better with Joyce, though. Joyce is, like, really into Ethan. And as long as she is in the totally-fawning-over-him phase, her attention span is basically monogamous. The hete/bi/hom question does not even come into play here.
Ok, I’ll grant you that I did not see that one coming. Well played, Willis.
well. this happens a lot.
Oh gosh, rereading and
http://www.dumbingofage.com/2014/comic/book-5/01-when-somebody-loved-me/bestpossiblething/
if Becky follows this up with a confession, Joyce is going to be the world’s most conflicted person
What’s the record for most comments on a strip? I’m feeling fairly confident it will be broken.
I’m certain that it was over 1000. Still a long way to go yet.
I think it was the reveal of Jocelyn, currently at 1411 comments.
Well, by noon we got to about half of that. So if we can keep up that pace, we might just make it!
Good lord.
A conversation between my wife and I when I got home:
Her: Did you read today’s Dumbing of Age?
Me: Not yet!
Her: You’re gonna liiiiiiiike it…
Me: Why? Does Becky come out to Joyce oh hey, I was right! She kinda did!
By the way, y’all: I don’t know just how relevant it is, but check out Joyce and Becky in that poster of the gang at Galasso’s that went up not too long ago:
http://shortpacked.bigcartel.com/product/dumbing-of-age-galasso-s-poster
(Apologies for just posting a link; I don’t know how to HTML on here.)
OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO foreshadowing….. Ethan and Danny next to each other, and Amber wearing my favorite shirt. What’s Walky doing there? comic relief??
Walky x Amber confirmed?
Hmm I suppose it all depends on if the poster is supposed to be a cannon snapshot (even if it isn’t one directly from a scene that is presented in the narrative of the comic itself) or just a fanciful “what if?”
The description says,”It’s late night on campus, and everyone’s hanging out at Galasso’s, waiting for their pizza (and subs).” Becky and Joyce are both wearing the same outfits they are now, and today’s comic is still during the daytime… And even if the Galasso scene isn’t the same day, and it is just a coincidence that they are in the same outfits, it has to be the future, as there is no day in the past that it would have been possible for Becky to be together with this group.
And in this picture, Joyce’s demeanor towards Becky is very friendly, with both of her hands on Becky, and both she and Becky both have smiles on.
So, assuming this is a canon scene, this gives me hope that, at the very least, Becky and Joyce will be able to talk about this and come to a comfortable decision to remain friends. (Or who knows… Maybe Joyce will shock us all and decide to actually go with it! And they shall be more then friends!)
Or, it could just end up being a “what if?” and everything is about to go straight to hell, in which case, the poster was just a red herring to get us off our guards. If that turns out to be the case, then, “Damn you, Willis!”
A) Look at Danny, Ethan, and Amber’s positions/expressions, too.
B) Weren’t Danny, Ethan, and Amber hanging out at Galasso’s earlier today? (Also all wearing the same outfits) If Walky, Joyce, and Becky met up with them off-screen, that puts the scene before Amazi-girl met up with Dorothy.
Oh, you’re right about a few things. One, I forgot that it was already evening, as evidenced by the lighting in the exterior scene when Amazi-girl and Dorothy met.
Two… oh yes, those three were at Galassso’s earlier today… but that scene was definitely during the daytime, and the poster description clearly says, “It’s late night on campus…”
I suppose it still could have been a dinner before this infamous kiss takes place, but I still have hope it is afterwards…
Is that Joyce’s other hand on the back of Becky’s neck?
Yes; or on her back, at least. Their body language makes me hopeful, in that the posters seem to be (semi-)canonical and they’re all in today’s outfits. Although I can’t look at it for too long, because Ethan’s face kind of weirds me out…
Aha!!
I foresee a rehash of panels #3-7 in this strip!
http://www.dumbingofage.com/2014/comic/book-5/01-when-somebody-loved-me/detritus/
Becky has claimed her. She is part of Becky now.
We can only hope that to be the case.
Stating the obvious:
This will not end well.
I kinda think it will, one way or another.
The road there though, will be ugly.
If you come to a fork in the road, take it.
But leave the spoon
There is no spoon.
It’ll be alright in the end. If it’s not alright, then it’s not the end.
Shouldn’a done that, Becky :/
Predictions for events in the next couple comics include Joyce staring, confused arguing and projection, leaving, and then sobbing in the bathroom. ):
So that’s why there was a glorious calm the last weeks, the Joyce-will-utterly-broken-storm is coming.
What is it about people forcing themselves sexually on Joyce?
some sort of ‘corruption of the innocent’ thing I’m sure – that being said, I feel bad for Joyce ): she can’t catch a break long enough to sort things out.
Like Howard Stern said, “EVERYBODY LOVES LESBIANS!!” That said, this ain’t gonna end well.
Joyce: “I wish you’d stop doing that. .. I told you last time that I was straight. ”
Beckt: “Just checking. .. *sad face*”
Joyce: “I still love you.”
Beckt: “I know.”
“That kissing game we used to play was for kids anyway. We’re adults now.”
“…I noticed.”
OK, worried theory time. Exactly what is Becky’s motivation. She knows that Joyce is likely to freak out, especially when she just kisses her without warning. She has also spent the day building up to one of the scariest moments of her life – coming out to and on to her childhood friend and crush/love in defiance of their religious and cultural norm, and she’s been acting chill as a bean the whole time.
It may be that she is just a good actor, but for me it sounds more like a now-or-never moment, possibly coupled with bridge-burning. And we have those hints that things are not going well at Anderson’s. I think there is more drama here than we see.
Someone on Patreon cast a theory: perhaps Becky was outed in the few short weeks these two have been apart, and this is a desperate, last chance sort of thing.
Sarah called it already more or less: there likely is a bunch of burning bridges collapsing behind Becky already.
I think you’ve hit the nail on the head.
Becky, NO! Don’t go in for a sudden kiss. TALK ABOUT YOUR FEELINGS FIRST, and see how she responds! D:
no,m surprise is the best way… get it over, then sit back… “well??? how was it?” – joyce will either have dreamy eyes, or go running off into the night, never to be seen again.
I disagree. Never kiss someone (or perform any sexual/semi-sexual contact) if you have no idea whether your kiss/contact is welcome or not (and it should go without saying that if you know the contact is unwelcome, don’t go forward). This isn’t a RomCom (a genre of movies with nothing approaching romance, and less approaching comedy), even if it is a comedy-drama representation of real life. Becky would be far more likely to get a positive reaction (as small as the chance was to begin with) by stating her interest, not forcing herself where she’s potentially very unwelcome.
I agree. Surprise/non-consensual kissing is not ok. It doesn’t matter the gender of the person forcing a kiss. There’s so much forced kisses like this in manga that it gets romanticized which i think is detrimental to people in general.
Now Joyce has had affection forced on her by woman as well as a man. I think this is going to really trigger her sense of lacking safety. One of the few people she trusted the most violated her sexual space.
In this situation, I could understand it. Becky doesn’t know about what happened with Joyce and Scarface, but she does know that Joyce has a hella-enforced religious upbringing to the point that she wouldn’t even consider attraction to someone of the same sex to be a possibility. This kiss, as by surprise as it is, will cause her to at least think about it. As long as it’s just a kiss. Becky’s one of her best friends and as long as it doesn’t go beyond a simple kiss, I don’t see the harm in this. Kissing in general isn’t all that harmful.
That is of course not taking into account Joyce’s completely reasonable issues with sexual contact right now, which if Becky was aware of would change my response quite a bit.
I have to disagree. The spontaneity and thrill of random acts of romance are one of the joys in life. I’ve been on the giving and receiving end of such probing gestures several times in my life. Sometimes they worked out, sometimes they didn’t, but this belief that there’s some massive, scarring harm in them is really quite alarming. I’m waiting for the day when people will be required to fill out legal forms in front of witnesses or possibly with lawyers present before they can so much as ask someone out, much less give a physical display of affection. If you give such a kiss and the person backs off, so be it. They’re not interested. You haven’t harmed them, and if you have they are in for a long life of pain in misery if something that simple causes them anguish. If they do reciprocate then great, you both get those little butterflies at the realization of your feelings. Some people function this way. Others don’t. But this society we seem to want to head for where everyone keeps their eyes to the ground and behaves as meekly as possible is one I’ll be sorry to see.
Oh, and yes, there is a difference between attempting this with someone you know and running up to an attractive stranger on the street.
or run to Ethan.
For comparison.
Huh, that was fast. I thought they were going to play with the subtext a bit more.
Someone get a slow-mo shot of the impending trainwreck.
Now convinced NO ONE in the Dumbiverse has a Kinsey score of Zero.
That’s HOT.
Now if Willis really wanted to screw with us, tomorrow he’d cut back to Walky and Dorothy. Let us wonder what happens next.
That’s Joe England levels of screwing with your audience. I’m not sure Willis is that evil yet.
yes he is…. tomorrows friday… he SOOOOOoooooo is.
Uh, he’s on a seven-day-per-week schedule. So unless your entire weekend is spent banging the living daylights out of whomever, this being a Friday comic should not be all too bad. And if that’s indeed your plan for the weekend, you get a 3-comic start into Monday, softening its impact.
Nah, he’ll cut to Steve from Questionable Content eating a bowl of cereal.
Ha! As absolutely frustrating as that would be, it would be awesome if that were the case. And since he does update on weekends, I would forgive him.
Willis! Do it! Do it, Willis! You know you want to! Do it! Do it! Do it!
Ah, what the heck, Willis probably won’t do it… So I did! So here’s your Steve comic:
http://i.imgur.com/JmUoALH.png
Well, in universe, it would make more sense if the cut was to Dina or Riley eating cereal
YOOOOOOOOO!
Like we all didn’t see this coming from a million and two miles away.
no, i seriously thought she was going for Walky… totally threw me.
Speak for yourself. I only saw it from a million and one miles away. (I need to clean my glasses, I suppose.)
DUN DUN DUNNNNNNNN!
SO MUCH WIN!! 😀
WHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAT
you can always tell how hot the strip is by how many comments… over 500… yep, that got everyone going. hahahaha
This shouldve been called FINALLY!!!!
entire fan base: *called it*
There are no brakes on the Willis sex train.
None. None at all.
Well, that explains the resemblance to Peppermint Patty.
No fair. Patty, while a tomboy, was in love with Charlie Brown. Marcie on the other hand…
…was created by a Conservative Christian, like the other characters.
Did NOT see that one coming! Lol!
And that one kiss made Joyce realize the joys of being a woman and abandon her Christianity forever.
Heh, the Joyce of being a woman
The fallout from this is gonna be horrific and painful…in the short term. In the long term, though, it could end up a very good thing. I don’t think Joyce will (or should) become a lesbian/bisexual (unless you know…she is and just hadn’t realized it), but she might learn some valuable life lessons and become a wiser, more balanced and open-minded person. It’s gonna be painful getting there though.
That is the exact thought I had when Becky showed up unannounced after not responding to Joyce’s texts, and I’m happy to see this come together, but oh boy these are going to be some difficult strips for the foreseeable future.
What future? The comic has peaked. Its over. Every time I check the comic I will just go to this page and read it fondly.
OMG. What just happened?
Kissing people who don’t bat for the same team is generally considered a bad idea.
Especially if they’re religious zealots.
Maybe she’s just messing with Joyce, like when Bugs kisses Elmer Fudd.
Zealot: a person who is fanatical and uncompromising in pursuit of their religious, political, or other ideals.
Joyce has been compromising left and right. Throwing around the word “zealot” to describe fundamentalist Christians is, frankly, pretty offensive, especially given the let’s-go-lynching connotations of the word.
She’s deluded, but she’s trying.
The Zealots were a group of Jewish folks from the first century who wanted to overthrow Roman rule and reestablish God’s kingdom on Earth. Simon the Zealot was one of the apostles. Jesus himself was likely a Zealot, or at least someone who shared similar views, as he preached constantly about how the Kingdom of Heaven was nigh, and how the first would be last and the last would be first. He was executed for insurrection. Those were all very Zealoty things.
If a Christian thinks the word “zealot” is offensive, maybe they should know their Jesus better!
I agree with everything you said about the origins of the word, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t have primarily negative connotations today…
If they cared about what things have negative connotations in modern times, they wouldn’t be fundamentalists.
Well now, that’s a whole ‘nother conversation about modern interpretations, historical ignorance and dubious claims of authenticity! Suffice to say that I’m not defending fundamentalists, just harping on a pet peeve about linguistics – that language evolves, and appealing to what a word used to mean doesn’t change what it means now. Anyway, peace out, and back to the strip. 🙂
(I really really need to change my Gravatar.)
Oh, I totally agree about linguistics.
Huh, that I did not know (I knew it had something to do with the Roman empire around that era, but that was all). Thanks for the history!
I don’t really care about offending fundamentalist christians in the general. Joyce, in particular, maybe (If she were real, I mean). She’s making baby steps to not being a complete asshole to people like me, yeah. That’s hard given her upbringing. But that’s all they are, baby steps. You see the compromises, and so do I. But for pity’s sakes, she told her gay friend a few hours ago (Or maybe 12 hours ago, I suppose) that obviously Billie’s gay problems are solved now that she’s fallen in love.
If “Zealot” has connotations with murder right now, I’d say that’s because the Christian majority (not all fundies, true) has given it to them, so they can slam Muslims all the harder. It’s certainly most of where I see it used.
To say this was predictable is an understatement.
I had to reread the previous strips with Becky and I completely missed the signs. Everyone else’s drama preoccupied my attention. I hope this does not end badly, but I am not optimistic. I have a feeling that Becky’s visit comes at the heels of some falling out with her Christian university regarding her sexuality and she has no one to turn to at this point. If Joyce reacts badly then it could be the straw to break the camel’s back.
Well, kissing her isn’t going to make her jealo–BUHWAAAAAAAAH?!
What the hell? Is Indianapolis just ground zero for the first test of the gay bomb?! Not to mention that kiss was too sudden, & with Joyce’s upbringing, she’s probably going to infarge!
“What else can I say? Everyone is gay.
What else should I write? I don’t have the right.
What else should I be? All apologies.”
Indianapolis? I thought they were in Bloomington, IN.
I accounted for the fabulous fallout.
WHAT THE HELL HAPPENED?!
You don’t just randomly go around kissing people, I don’t care WHO you are or what your feelings are. It’s impossibly rude. >>
It is indeed a bad idea, for health reasons in addition to personal ones. However, it is also one of those ‘not good at talking about it, so taking an action instead’ kinds of reactions that tend to come up when you’re having trouble expressing. Or, like in Becky’s case, you have a pretty strong reason to think that trying to ask to do it first will provoke a bad reaction (she’s pretty close with Joyce on a friends level, but knows Joyce is very strict about her moral stuff, so she has reason to think Joyce wouldn’t be willing to experiment. Of course, that’s also disrespectful to Joyce in some ways, but at least it’s not intended maliciously?).
But yeah, it’s surely in the “probably don’t try this at home” category.
You know what’s an even worse idea? Say you see someone’s car about to get hit by a truck, and you’re in a car, so you ram into their car full speed to push them out of the way (somehow not killing them, but getting you hit by the truck instead). Never, ever do that. Not even for a nickel.
Only 634 comments? I’m surprised, I expected more – oh well, I suppose there’s hours in the day yet.
Also oh god, Becky, what have you doooone… this will not end well.
I see a lot of them jumped onto the Patreon bandwagon to see this strip early so I bet a bunch commented there instead where they would usually comment here.
Called it! Guys, this is a David Willis comic, why are you surprised.
If you’ll excuse me, I’m going to be attempting to break through the fourth wall so I can give Becky the Biggest Hug Of All Time.
She is kinda busy right now.
Even if this is a Willis creation, I can honestly say I SO did not see this coming AT ALL, especially since she was all over Walky like that. Oh dear God, Joyce implosion explosion imminent.
Well it’s one of the quickest advances ever, and while I personally ship the Joyce + Dorothy combo, I’m still very curious how Joyce will handle this.
BECKYXJOYCE BECKYXJOYCE
about damn time.
So, is this Joyce first kiss?
Nope, she’s definitely kissed Ethan multiple times…
No. She kissed Ethan earlier… And it was terrible for everyone.
Of the 15 folks on the current cast page, 8 are female, and 7 are male. Also, 9 are, to my knowledge, straight. Of the other 6, 3 are bisexual, 1 is gay, 1 is heteroflexible, and 1 is asexual. Also also, those numbers are fairly evenly split among both sexes.
…who’s asexual?
Carla. Don’t remember if it’s come up on the page, but it’s word of god.
(I’m actually confused by the ‘heteroflexible’ mention…partially because I have no idea what it means.)
I’m assuming Mike, who at least in the Walkyverse has dated (and married) only ladies, but has shown a willingness to stick it anywhere that’ll cause drama and angst. I’m not sure that’s how I would’ve described him, but I have to admit that I haven’t got a better description. Except for maybe his own words: He’s whatever you don’t want him to be.
Some people make love. Mike makes hate.
Heteroflexible is a term used by some people who are mostly straight, but under some circumstances might swing the other way. Typically, someone who registers around 1.5 – 2 on the Kinsey scale, but does not identify as bisexual per se.
This is the best label I can find for Mike, who in the Walkyverse has only been in relationships with women, but *SPOILER* nailed Ethan once just to cause drama between him and Amber.
Well, that was both surprising and expected.
I wonder if Becky isn’t… *trying* to ‘break’ Joyce. To release her from the straitjacket of her upbringing. But because she didn’t bother to dig into why Joyce is so comparatively non-boy-happy, she’s going about it in entirely the wrong way. And the ‘break’ that could potentially result from this is not the kind that Becky would appreciate.
Holy cow!! I wasn’t expecting that at that precise moment. O_O I was in the “Becky is lesbian but has a girlfriend back at Anderson” camp.
O_O
I’m calling it. In the next strip, she’s going to laugh it off as a joke. He’s just trolling us.
Alternate theory, Becky is trolling Joyce. Becky knows Joyce well enough to know that Joyce is going to freak out.
Alternate, alternate theory: I’ll be so glad I subscribed to Slipshine.
Why am I the only person who didn’t expect this?
Didn’t really expect it, but not terribly surprised, either.
So, are you from the Spanish Inquisition? I didn’t expect that, either.
Apparently not the only one, but definitely in the minority. Don’t know why, I have the social awareness of a potato, and even I picked up on it.
cue sitcom woo
OK — NOW it’s confirmed in the comic.
Wow, didn’t see it coming, but so awesome
Okay, so Becky confesses to what I expected, but so NOT in the way I expected. Tomorrow’s comic is going to be interesting.
This will not end well, which is a real shame because I like Becky a great deal. Sigh.
I FUCKING KNEW IT
I ABSOLUTELY FUCKING KNEW IT
ALSO BECKY
coming on just… just a TIIIIIINY bit too strong.
just a smidgen.
a mite.
a microscopic bit.
Y’know, the more and mre I read this, the more I think College isn’t THAT dramatic for me.
Word. But at the same time, it did feel like 4 weeks took 4 years to get through, so… it evens out?
Mine certainly isn’t. I wonder what I am doing wrong. Not living in a dorm for one.
You’ve never had a spontaneous lesbian kiss? That was, like, the first thing we did in intro to philosophy.
Damn, I knew I picked the wrong subject.
And had the wrong chromosomes.
Saw that coming a mile away!
To quote myself from yesterday:
“People just see what they want to see, and then think they’ve been “vindicated” when their unjustified assumptions turn out to be true, and subconsciously ignore all the times they were wrong.”
That took me a read through or two to get what you were saying, but it clicked. In my experience you’re not wrong. It’s a thought I’ll be thinking about…
In other words, you turned a blind eye to the sheer amount of foreshadowing this strip was given, are mad other people didn’t, and are trying to vindicate yourself by talking about confirmation bias.
Silly.
He did the same thing with Sara’s coming out in Penny and Aggie. Right up until Sara actually said the words, “I’m gay” for the first time, he was in adamant denial about it in the forum.
And conveniently ignore the massive majority of fan speculation that turned out to be wrong.
‘the fans’ as an aggregate will say everything and nothing. Plenty of fan speculation agreed with you that this was crazy. This time, *you* were wrong.
Thank you for continuing to demonstrate my earlier point.
I could say anything and it would support your point,w hich seems to be “Look at you plebes and your guessing”. Maybe someday, you’ll even learn the not-so-hidden truth that a text can support wrong guesses, and that’s okay, and often makes for good storytelling and doesn’t speak ill of the fans XD
I saw what other people saw as foreshadowing, but I didn’t jump to the conclusion.
The reaction here demonstrates the point I was making — people will trumpet their correct GUESSES and claim that their premature speculation is vindicated, and mentally just not register all the times they were wrong.
What you’re doing is constructing a no-lose game for yourself, where you look at the fans as a collective whole then decide every individual is wrong without even bothering to consider context. Let’s say people aren’t talking about how they were wrong (I mean, they are. You can see a reasonable number of ‘I didn’t see that coming’ or ‘I called that wrong’ in the comments. But let’s ignore that). Whether or not I was correct on, let’s say, Ethan liking Danny but it being a one way crush isn’t relevant to whether or not Joyce likes Becky. Why would I talk about that? That’s making the conversation even more about me than “I guessed this right” is, and I think I’m boring. I didn’t necessarily forget that fact, but it isn’t relevant. Heck, even if I was wrong literally every single time, it is not, itself, relevant to the next guess (Thinking otherwise is the actual definition of an ad hominem fallacy – you’re confusing the identity and past of the person speaking with the validity of their argument).
You’re also, conveniently, getting tot hrow out the actual textual support by saying “fans will say anything” and you get to ignore how those guesses were, in fact, a guess that the text supported. And hey, maybe you, personally, didn’t hold a guess at all. But if that’s the case, it’s pretty clearly out of a superiority complex where everyone else is just ‘jumping to conclusions that aren’t supported, but you are a superior person who doesn’t do such silly things. Even, no, ESPECIALLY, when they’re right. Because apparently, every time a person wrong is super relevant, but when they’re right? Nah, that’s not important.
Keep going though, shit’s delicious.
The text supported many very different guesses, and crowing that one of those guessing happened to be right doesn’t mean that that guess was retroactively any more justifiable than any of the others were.
Personally, I don’t guess, I want for Willis to tell his story.
“The text supports many guesses”, but not all of them equally. as to this “none of this crowing is more justifiable” nonsense, most of what I’m seeing is closest to “Eat me, people who said she COULDN’T be gay”, not “Eat me, people who thought she was into Walky!”. And there’s not even very much of /that/.* So really, people aren’t actually tooting their horns about how everyone was wrong.
And that’s horse hockey. You might not commit to a guess much, and you might not guess out loud often, but I’ve definitely seen you make guesses on the comic before, because you have done it out loud. Even given that, I refuse to believe you don’t have expectations for a given arc *at all* (Since you can have expectations without worshipping them and feeling betrayed if they’re not met) Nothin’ wrong with that either though. Personally, I was beginning to think this was too obvious and there was a growing possibility it’d be something more out of left field – perhaps being verbally abused for a poor showing on an early test and losing faith in the whole thing? But I had not committed to thus, yet.
*Their guesses might not be much more justifiable, but htey *were* perfectly justifiable in this case. And considering that a common strain amongst “Huh, I got that wrong” was “This is so obvious it can’t be this”, there’s good cause to say that the “She’s gay” guess was, in fact, more justifiable. And even if they weren’t more justifiable? It’s cool to be happy with a right guess.
You’ll notice, however, that I always phrase my guesses as acknowledged speculation.
This is very different from the people who’ve been saying, for days now, things like “Since it’s been confirmed that Becky is a lesbian”. When no, in fact, it had not been confirmed in any way until today, and even know, it’s still technically possible that something else is going on here, because Willis.
If by that you mean “confidently stated them as facts with not a single bloody mention of the possibility that you were wrong”, then yes, you did do that. Because you didn’t couch your guesses as guesses from what I recall. Because that’s not what people fucking do in speaking colloquially, especially not about fiction. You’re not stating it for an academic review board, you’re talking to other fans.
Yes, if you said prior to today that ‘She’s confirmed lesbian’, you were wrong. She wasn’t. Technically still isn’t, but the whole “I’m not interested in Walky at all” thing does help (If Willis says she’s bi, I won’t be surprised, ditto with other possibilities). That was, by no means, the majority of what everyone had to say about her being gay though.
*wait for
At any rate, http://www.dumbingofage.com/tag/becky/page/4/.
Everything we see there could foreshadow a lot of things, or nothing.
Yes, but some things were foreshadowed harder, and ‘nothing’ is a very, very, VERY poor guess (Because this is a lot of pages to burn at this point, so the idea that they wouldn’t advance ANYONE’S plot is very unlikely – especially when there is, in fact, foreshadowing. Which there was.)
Advancing the plot and foreshadowing are not mutually inclusive of each other… neither requires that the other also be occurring.
As for the foreshadowing — well, hindsight is 20/20. It looked like something was going on, but it could have been one or more of many somethings.
Someone who guesses the correct outcome based on inconclusive evidence has done nothing more than exactly that. As someone else said, a broken clock is still right twice (or at least once) a day.
“Advancing the plot and foreshadowing are not mutually inclusive of each other… neither requires that the other also be occurring.”
No, but when nothing else is happening, you’re not advancing the plot *unless* you include some foreshadowing. Some of it wasn’t really establishing character or setting either, so there was one good guess as to why it was there.
[quote]Someone who guesses the correct outcome based on inconclusive evidence has done nothing more than exactly that. As someone else said, a broken clock is still right twice (or at least once) a day.[/quote]
Really. Conclusive evidence is the only thing that matters, is it? Correctly putting together the pieces in advance based on the available evidence at the time is pointless and not worthy of satisfaction? One assumes that Einstein coming up with the theory of relativity, nor Darwin laying down the basis for evolution, was similarly unpraiseworthy. And yes, I’m aware that both made mistakes in the final product, before you try that.
I mean, I assume you also hate it when people enjoy a mystery by indulging in thinking about whodunnit, based on the evidence they have, but I figured I’d point out the sacred cattle of nerds you’re goring first.
I for one am disappointed that every girl we’ve seen with a non-feminine haircut has ended up being a lesbian.
…Like Dotty and Amazigirl?
Based on the number of characters in this strip and the number of people that are gay or ‘curious’, is the majority of the world gay or curious? I feel outnumbered when I read Dumbing. Not that there’s anything wrong with that, just surprised. I don’t recall any gay or curious shenanigans happening around me in college. I’m not entirely clueless, I would have noticed…
>I don’t recall any gay or curious shenanigans happening around me in college.
Probably because you weren’t looking for them/interested in them. As a gay guy hanging out with other gay people, sometimes it feels like half our conversations are gossip about who is sleeping with who, who might be curious, who we think is closeted etc.
I wouldn’t say you have blinders on so much as you probably are using an exclusivly strait translator for processing behavior. I mean, if you see two girls flirting, pretty often it will be a playful way of socializing. Subtlety isn’t my stronf sute, but gays are NOT only 2% of the population.
Depends on who you ask…
(Just commented about this) Of the 15 folks on the cast page, 9 are straight and 5 are “other” with only 1 being strictly gay. It does kind of feel very gay-heavy lately, what with the “Finally” SlipShine strip, the recent Danny/Ethan stuff, and now this Becky/Joyce thing, but those statistics are not too far from the truth according to more liberal estimates.
Ah boy…if Sarah catches this, Becky has some explaining to do before she goes “Big Sister” on her…
Ive seen other people saying things like this and it doesn’t make sense. There’s a big difference between:
A) Sarah arrives at a party where she had a feeling something bad might happen to Joyce and she’s a guy dragging her towards a bathroom with his hand over her mouth and saying he’s going to do horrible things to her
and
B) Sarah comes back to her room to find Becky, Joyces best friend, worked up the nerve to kiss her
one provokes the reaction of “bat to the head” and the other would most likely provoke a reaction of “oh huh so that’s whats up with Beck. Thought i noticed something she was hiding earlier.”
Not saying that joyce wont (most likely) freak out, or that Sarah wont support her, but Sarah is not gonna attack Becky for this, sheesh people.
Eh it’s not really ok to just kiss someone out of the blue without consent. Not as bad as other forms of sexual assault maybe, but still sexual assault.
KAY, DIDN’T SEE THAT COMING.
Literally unbelievable.
No, seriously, I don’t believe in just a couple of weeks she could go from closeted Christian existence to open queerness with someone who knows her and her family and would initiate this contact with an unannounced kiss.
*facepalm* It’s a couple of weeks from OUR PERSPECTIVE. It’s “From however long ago she discovered she was gay til now”, so probably months or years in the coming. You have to break out of the closet SOMETIME (Well, okay, no you don’t, but still). Once you break out, it’s from when you discovered your sexuality or whatever else you held in the closet, not from when an outside observer met you.
I can believe it, in the sense that I can believe kids do stupid things when they think they get the right signals. It’s what runs a lot of the plot.
This has not been my experience. For her to be brought up in a world where she has been told her queerness is wrong and had to hide it all times to being confidently and openly queer in such a short space of time doesn’t scan.
A lifetime of being told something seldom washes away so fast. Also there’s not some magical divide between between the internal knowledge and the external behaviour, they effect one another. If logic and facts could overcome emotions we’d have no need for therapists.
Compounding this is the fact she is doing this with someone from that closeted world. If it was someone who didn’t know her Christian world or who she had been before then sure, there’s an information lockout and a divide. It’s why Joshua/Jocelyne confides her assumed trans-identity in Ethan but not in Joyce.
Also, I wouldn’t say this is Becky being ‘confidently and openly queer’ – she’s absent from her conservative college for reasons she avoids talking about, she’s dropping hints rather than saying anything out loud, she’s resorted to trying to make Joyce jealous of her interest in someone else, and now she’s finally worked herself up to take an all-or-nothing shot that I read as a combination of misread signals, wishful thinking and near-desperation. Certainly I think there’s more mask than truth to her breezy confidence.
Also complicating this is that Joyce, in particular, is someone she romantically loves and wants to get involved with ANYWAY. And she’s not being openly queer in general. She’s telling exactly one person. But even then, this isn’t ‘the space of a few weeks’, because from her perspective, it is from when she first came to terms with those feelings (Which is probably not ‘when she got to Anderson’).
Yes but she’s probably assumed that joyce’s recent boys are icky philosophy is from dealing with her own closeted sexuality. Tack on top of that the fact that walky was talking about following around your female friend like she wants to get in her pants, and you can see how becky might think joyce is lesbian. We don’t have anything to suggest she is especially insightful, so her having poor explanations for people’s behavior isn’t out of character.
If from that evidence she reached that conclusion and thinks this is a good move… I’m not sure how low the bar is set for her Uni’s entry requirements but it must be pretty damn low.
Also she’s known Joyce for years, it’s not like she doesn’t have something to compare this to.
If you’ve never made a stupid decision for love, I don’t know what to tell you.
He tacked me after trying clubsly to flirt and I shut him up by telling him he was sexy. He later asked me to come to his prayer group where they speak in tongues.
Me and my ???’s best friend.
Do you think they’ll still be friends after this?
I think this week in the comic will end with Becky attempting suicide after being rejected.
I dunno about suicide, but 100% tragedy and no more friends, oh yes.
No.
– Becky is asked to leave by Joyce
– Becky transfers to IU
– Becky gets a girlfriend
– Becky’s girlfriend is always texting Joyce with things like “it tastes like cotton candy” and Joyce pretends that she has no idea what the GF is referring to, but she knows, oh how she knows
Improbable? They laughed at me before. Who’s laffin’ now?
The girlfriend is Daisy
i’d ship it.
Daisy… Daisy… (looks her up) Yes.
What? What?! WHAT?!?!?!?!?!?!?!
TOOOT.
(It’s about the allons-y Doctor, n’est-ce pas?)
Thought process: “Well… I’ll be… All those ‘must ship all the things’ commentators were right. I honestly did not see that coming.”
…
“Oh jesus fuck -how- many comments?!”
There’s yer problem, Beachfox – the people who ship EVERYTHING are eventually going to be rewarded at least once. Even a stopped clock is right twice a day.
People who ship everything? I’m confused. Are these people who ship literally everyone with everyone? Well yes, by definition they’d have to be right some of the time, but how many people do that?
The sour grapes from people who assume all shipping is madness except their own ships have actually become as delicious as warlock tears, now that I’ve had a bit to savor them 😀
DING! We have a winner.
I honestly admit that I never saw this coming… Seems like many people did figure it out though!
I wasn’t expecting Becky’s announcement of lesbianhood to be such a mouthful. 😀
Honestly I expected her to be more tight lipped. 🙂
…and maybe more tongue in cheek. 😀
This shall be known as “The Day the Shippers Won”.
Hahaha I clicked on random and the comic that popped up was one of the last times we saw Becky:
http://www.dumbingofage.com/2011/comic/book-1/03-men-are-from-beck-women-are-from-clark/change/
suuuuure you’re worried about Joyce dating non-christians….
Despite how much I wanted this to happen, there is no way it ends well. Someone with Joyce’s background and mentality is NOT going to react well to this.
Yep. Willis sure has a thing for incredibly broken lesbian relationships.
Also is it just me or does this seem really, really inconsistent with Becky’s character as seen at the beginning of the comic?
You mean being brazen about it? She has been crushing on Joyce for a long time, this is just the first explicitly SEXUAL incedent.
You know, if not for the sexual aspect, this would just be an old fashioned idlization of friendship for women.
How do you know she’s been crushing on Joyce for a long time?
We saw for for two or three panels at the start of the comic.
Unless you mean “Whatever happens don’t change” which I assume is going to be invoked ironically be Willis.
Y’know… I figured Becky had thrown off her religious indoctrination, but I wasn’t expecting it to go quite that way.
from zero to lesbians in .6 seconds
And so the great ship Jecky sets sail.
Has to be Jecky, ‘cuz Becky isn’t into Boyce.
lmao
+1
Aaaaand THAT is how Becky learns about Joyce getting roofied by gashface! 😐
Well, then.
*goes to look for off-switch for the Internet*
Im just here to read the comments -munches popcorn-
I anxiously await the fallout of Becky engaging in Pre-marital, non-consentual, homo-erotical Hanky-panky.
Yeah, let Joyce (the victim of a near rape already) actually get raped by her friend. Because that solves everything. *eyeroll*
Wow – 802 comments and counting. Since I’m not going to read them all and it’s doubtful this will be read I will just say in the incomparable words of Nelson Muntz – “hA-haH”
I’m going to make a bold prediction (so I can boast about my foresight/hide in shame later): this will not en in tears.
“I kissed a girl …. and I (liked / did not like) it”.
Choose one, Joyce.
“But choose wisely…”
Which pun should I throw in at this point…
“Like two ships who pass in the night…”
“The face that launched a thousand ships…”
A lot of people have been speculating that Becky has dropped out or been kicked out of Anderson. I’m going to say here and now that I don’t think that is the case, because Becky is still wearing an “Anderson University” hoody.
One would think that if she was no longer affiliated with them she would feel somewhat uncomfortable wearing that, especially if she had been given the heave-ho for “moral turpitude” or “inappropriate behavior” or whatever term they might have used, and would be in more casual clothes.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tmrWeliK4fk
Is this the most commented strip in DoA history or something else got even more replies?
There was a strip during the Joshua/Jocelyne revelation story arc that got over 1400 comments. This one has a long way to go.
Ya know, I kinda saw this coming
Well…THIS will certainly challenge Joyce’s world view. 😀
HOLY SHIT…this is only going to convince Joyce even more that EVERYBODY IS GAY IN COLLEGE. Hahahaha…
Poor Becky though, I hope Joyce lets her down easily.
Bad move Becky. Can’t you tell from panel 2, and previous events, that it’s Dorothy she wants?
Slashfic writers are going to be out of a job at this rate. 🙂
DAMN. I mean….wha…buh…but she………………………………DAMN.
It would be a hell of a twist if this was *Joyce’s* daydream.
Well, as of this post, there are 876 comments.
Guess it’s safe to say this is the most commented on strip of DoA since the inception of the series.
Makes you wonder what’s going to be the comment count TOMORROW doesn’t it?
It’s not safe to say that at all! Comments have far surpassed 1000 at least twice.
Nah, not much more than half way…
I doubt Jocelyne’s getting toppled any time soon.
I’m hoping, hoping and hoping that tomorrow’s strip is just 3 still panels of joyse and Becky in lip-lock, first with Joyce’s eyes open in total shock, then a glowing blush, and finally closing and her hands on Becky’s shoulders as she just dives in. 😀
No, Joyce is the kind of person that will resist harder if she finds herself wanting it. (See her conversation with Ethan a little while back, and that’s concerning STRAIGHT hanky-panky.)
Her not being into Becky is actually probably is actually probably the best case scenario, here.
She’ll react less negatively (see above), but it’d give her another reason to rethink her beliefs on the matter, giving her a chance for growth.
Unfortunately, that’s not likely to be the case, since she just kissed her without warning, which is not likely to get a good reaction from someone just weeks after an attempted rape that she still hasn’t been able to process properly. She’d probably react badly even if it was Ethan (a boy she actually wants to kiss), but taking Joyce as a whole package, this is likely to be spectacularly bad.
Ultimately so. I’m dreading the inevitable feels that will be inbound for this arc. 🙁
and another Slipshine comic is seeded…possibly an elseworlds story…
20 bucks says the next strip isn’t even going to be Joyce and Becky, fucking Willis is probably going to pivot to another character for a few strips to build up the anticipation 😛
Who knows?
The Shadow knows!
(The Shadow is a Patreon subscriber)
Who smells what evil lurks in the hearts of men? The Shadow Nose!
Joyce: “I can’t believe I’m the only straight person I know.”
I certainly didn’t see this coming, I just assumed her friend realized she did NOT want to be around Joyce anymore.
I WILL call this though; Tomorrow, Joyce is going to give a scream like she’s watching her WHOLE FAMILY being brutally murdered!
I don’t think show, the Poster of them in Galasso’s hasn’t happened yet.
Will it, though? Couldn’t it just be a more general setting-implicator/show:er-off:er? or somesuch? 🙂
Finally, I’ve been waiting for that one since the comic started
Holy crap comments.
The only thing that would top this is if Joyce returned the kiss. I’m expecting someone to walk in or a scene change though.
well i mean yeah it was obvious but i didnt think shed just
kiss her
thats never actually a good idea
907 comments (including mine). Will we break one-thousand before next comic…? (dun-Dun-DUN!)
Also, on the comic: omgz :} .
Lesbians! Lesbians everywhere!
Oh shi—
So now Ethan and Joyce can both be secretly battling their inner sexuality while pretending furiously that they’re totally straight for each other?
There is the part of me who would want to see that.
Like… “Hey Joyce/Ethan, how about a kiss? I’m totally not going to be imagining Danny/Becky the whole time”.
Watch it just be a daydream…
And Jocelyn will maintain the gold medal in comments unless 500 comments spontaneous appear with in 40 minutes. I’m not doubting that can happen. I’m challenging you to let that happen.
…I have people I care about in real life who go on their first date and I am not left this nervous.
Is this the most comments any page has ever gotten? 0-0
Damnit. Got to breathe before turning the page.
Huh.
Uh. This is not going to go down well, is it?
AAAAAAAAAHHHHHH YEEESSSSS!!!
In the words of Scott Pilgrim “I’m in lesbians with you
YES!! DEAR GO YES YESSSS!
*Correction* God.
[screams internally]
HAH!!! I knew Becky was full of yuri goodness!