Welcome to the Fuck Zones feature canon-only couplings as a self-imposed rule, but for April Fool’s Day, I thought I’d draw a non-canon coupling. Because if April Fool’s gags are good for anything, they’re for doing something fun and different in a way that “breaks the rules” without pissing you off, hopefully. Long story short, that NSFW graphic over on the left of Dorothy and Joyce IS REAL. I mean, it’s not canon, but it’s, like, a real Slipshine page. You don’t click through it to be tricked. The full image is actually there.
I figure in this AU, it’s still fairly early in the school year, as evidenced by Joyce being in one of her earlier sweatervests. Becky hasn’t visited yet. And I guess both of them are into ladies and they become the bestest friends possible. Best episode of Sliders ever.
(oh right and the book 6 kickstarter‘s still going, if i don’t link to this here every day i have failed as a businessman)
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….Wot?
What Wot?
Clearly Joyce is in a Quantum excited state. Thus she is in superposition, shipping both Sarah/Jacob with her conscious mind but Jacob/herself with, well, everything else. If the wave function collapses then entanglement may follow.
Copenhagenist! The wave function does not collapse. Do you imagine that quantum erasure causes the wave function to uncollapse?
stealth “author doesn’t actually have to go into said details” attack WOO
This concept of ‘friendliness’ confuses and infuriates us!
Yes futurama!
Let’s not forget the true besties at the heart of this comic: Joyce and Sarah. They’re destined to do thing forever.
Is…is this Joyce having a crush? :D?
Probably. I mean Jacob is like the perfect guy. Or maybe she’s just being friendly. I like Sarah don’t understand that behavior.
She’s being friendly, and trying to be Sarah’s friendliness-wingman because she ships them.
So she hasn’t realized yet that she has a crush
That is extremely plausible.
Is it normal to bite your lower lip like that when looking at a friend?
Nope, which is why an unknowing crush is super likely!
Oh yeah, she has zero idea she has a crush, which makes her reaction to Sarah all the more heartbreaking. She thinks she’s doing the friendly shipping thing with Sarah and Jacob and has no idea why Sarah’s looking at her like additional competition.
I don’t know that she’s worried about Joyce as competition, so much as Joyce flirting with him right in front of her can’t feel great, even if Joyce doesn’t realize she’s doing it.
Oof, yeah. Yeah, I see that. And she can’t even call it out cause Joyce is totally unaware that she’s doing it.
That’s really rough.
Wha-a-at? She can’t have a crush! He’s clearly destined for Jacob, I mean, since they’re so perfect for each other! Because they’re both … in the same class! Yeah, and cuz Sarah has told Joyce she had a crush on him! And anyway it’s not like Joyce would have a crush on… I mean… what would her mom say?! Haha, why would she be attracted to someone so diverse hahaha it’s not like her to have such ethnic tastes
Yup. She’s definitely got a crush. And she is also in major denial — as much as she has decided to question the church, it’s hard for her to differentiate between her healthy beliefs and the ones that were a product of her society. Which is probably why her first reaction after becoming disillusioned with the church was to hate everything, leaving her sorely depressed. Everything she knows comes from the church, and she can’t just step away from all of it in such a short time. She still has a lot of internalized bigotry to confront, and a lot of it is only affecting her subconscious decisions. She’s got an arduous road ahead of her before she can conquer all her demons.
Oops, my fake code at the end of the first paragraph got eaten…
I don’t know that trick to make angular brackets and I’m too lazy to go to the effort of looking it up, so I’ll restate it with square ones.
*ethic tastes. [/Joyce’s rationalization]
@Cerberus my reaction to all this is kinda “Poor Sarah”. It seems at this point that she’s realized she (Sarah) and Jacob wouldn’t make a good couple, but that can’t stop her from feeling a bit hurt that now even Joyce is flirting with Jacob and since Sarah is probably still hateful or at least spiteful towards Radiah, she might also realize that if Jacob and Radiah split then Jacob and Joyce would probably be a more compatible couple than herself and Jacob…which probably really sucks for her. Because human hearts (er I mean…I think frontal lobes handle attraction so let’s just go with frontal lobes) are really stupid things that we can’t control as much as we would like. Add to this the fact that Sarah really does have issues with properly understanding friendship, and this is probably really painful for her. I’ve also really gotten the vibe that she (Sarah) was bullied for her social awkwardness before college and became used to being a social outcast as a result, which messed with her ability to form friendships even more. I know that happened to me until halfway through high school, until I met the best seven friends a person could ask for. And then…well they started dying three years ago. Out of the eight of us there are four left. And I think I’m the one taking it the worst out of us. The main point is that I really get where Sarah is coming from here as I legit didn’t understand how to make friendly small talk (or knew that was a thing) until I was about 16.
Joyce may also like discussing religion with another churchgoer she’s on friendly terms with, like Jacob.
Yes, but she’s biting her lip and touching her hair (again), and as Sarah has noted, asking him questions about the class Sarah is also in, but that Joyce never expressed interest in until now, as well as asking questions she already knows the answer to.
She’s crushin’ hard on Jacob right now
Yep. If I coulda edited mine I’d have said Joyce is the “why not both?” girl.
I can imagine she’s crushed on some of her fellow homeschool and church friends who know how to talk religion, and Jacob’s knowledge of the Bible is something that will impress her especially wrapped up in a kind, thoughtful,cute male who obvs takes faith and natural urges seriously.
(After the whole Gashface thing it’s good.to.see her swapping Bible verses with a good man. She does need to discover boundaries, as others have said.)
Jacob is way better suited to Joyce than to Sarah. He wants a monogamous committed relationship, he respects Joyce’s decision not to have sex, he sees her as a compelling badass who punches kidnappers. Plus we know that he’s kind of Joyce’s type, physically. Good job, Joyce’s libido.
If DoA was an animated series, this is where we’d have an Inside-Out referencing zoom-in to Joyce’s mind. We start in the control room, and hear a faint commotion from one corner. The camera follows the source down a dimly lit, cluttered hallway to an unmarked door. As we approach it, and the commotion grows louder, it’s clear the door has been barricaded shut from the outside. The camera shoots through the keyhole and reveals what looks like a hotel room or dorm. Joyce’s current view of Jacob is on the television. The camera turns around to reveal the source of the noise: a Mind-Joyce in lingerie with “libido” embroidered across the back desparately trying to force the door open and call for attention.
I think the only reason her conscious mind hasn’t considered Jacob as a potential partner for herself, is her unconscious lingering racism.
Growing up in the community she did, she probably hasn’t even realized this issue she has, it’s more unconscious, since her parents weren’t overtly racist, but I’m sure there’s this lingering note of seeing black people as ‘other’ and ‘not like them’, even if they were part of their church community. Good enough to be friends with, but God help you, if you bring One of them home as a potential partner;
I think that’s a bit of a stretch when we haven’t really seen any indication of that (she’s shown a bit of the stereotypical sheltered white girl racism, but nothing to indicate she or anyone else has a problem with black people) and we already have a plausible reason for being in denial already: Her friend likes Jacob, so she can’t like Jacob, because that would be wrong.
I think Liliaeth’s point is that Joyce doesn’t have to “have a problem with black people,” just that she may not even realize she’s incorporated into her perceptions her society’s portrayal of good white Christian girls marrying good white Christian boys as ideal, which itself may not even be intentional white supremacy, just a leftover from the more intentional type. Racism’s insidious like that.
It’s not that she has a problem with having a crush on/dating black people as it is her “sheltered white girl racism” has prevented the experience of even considering it as a possibility for herself.
Right. Just like when she first saw Jacob, she immediately assumed he’d be a good match for Sarah, despite, as she realized almost at once, having no reason to think that other than that they’re both black.
“Sheltered white girl racism” -> baseline assumption that blacks marry blacks and whites marry whites.
Okay
so
Joyce’s mum is kind of a bad person but, I don’t remember ever seeing any member of joyce’s family being racist?
Here’s the thing about racism. It comes in many flavors. One of the most common, that even the most liberal of white people will fall into is the “unconscious racism that isn’t overt and you don’t know it’s racist until it happens”. Also, there’s the strip near the beginning where Joyce’s mom was super excited that Sarah was black and she and Joyce were getting along because that meant they (Hank and Carol) had actually succeeded in not raising a racist daughter. Which was messed up on it’s own, but then you realize “Oh shit the Brown parents don’t know if they’re racist or not or if their children are racist or not, and were legitimately worried Joyce would turn out racist with a capital R and maybe a white hood. That’s not a good sign.”
Look I’ll be completely honest with you, I have a hard time wrapping my head round racism because of a few issues here and there, such as me being a bit on the sperg side and more importantly I live in a pretty homogenous country, sso I don’t deal with the whole “race” thing on a day to day basis. [To put this in perspective, I think that in my whole life I’ve seen less than 50 black people in person, and have never had a whole conversation with one].
So, with that background in place…
uhhh…
Saying what basically ammounts to “all white people are racist” seems a bit… I dunno, racist in itself?
Let’s say it’s deeply ingrained in US culture and it’s very difficult to be raised here without absorbing some of it.
Since I can totally see Carol going ballistic about Joyce dating a black person, and Hank initially being extremely uncomfortable (especially with the left over “Black Men are rapist who want our white women” mentality that a good number of white churches still unconsciously have, and some fundie churches still fully consciously have) at the initial propspect, I full heartedly agree with you.
She totally has a crush
The lip bite says “yes”.
That’s a purely platonic starry-eyed-lip-bite-and-running-greeting, I’m sure.
Joyce is doing something that happens to women all the time, ignoring the woman while talking to the man.
yoooooooooo
Also, pretending not to know things, so that the man can tell her, and feel good, and like her.
Don’t forget caring to be interest in what they are interest in (I’ve done that(especially with musicians (so full of themselves)))
As a musician, I’m offen- who am I kidding, it’s completely true.
I resemble that remark:)
pretty sure she got classes and grades in that growing up XD
Jacob would shout “Get a room already!” but he knows they already do have a room.
*claps hands while cackling madly* Oh my god that’s good!!!
That deserves all of the cookies.
That’s very efficient.
Joyce, to be honest, that is kind of all the creepy, why the hell did you memorise her schedule at the first opportunity. Normal people slowly learn it over time, not all at once.
Joyce is not a normal people. 😛
Joyce has heard of boundaries… wait, no, those are evil feminist demon things, so she hasn’t actually heard of them yet.
But yeah, seriously, she’s really bad about not doing creepy boundary-pushing stuff with people, see also waking up Sal each morning by hovering over her. I think a lot of it comes from coming from a culture where “privacy” is seen as trying to hide things from the Lord.
Oh, she KNOWS about boundaries. Like how you’re supposed to leave room for Jesus at a dance. That’s a boundary, right?
For Joyce boundaries are only for different types of food and hair on the shower floor.
Wouldn’t be surprised if my first roommate memorized my schedule pretty early on so she knew when she could have sex without me being around…until that time class ended early and I walked in on her…
I don’t even care about this strip. Joyce x Dorothy is REAL…….ish.
It’s real somewhere in the multiverse.
Of course, so is Joyce x Dina, Joyce x Mike, Joyce x Monkey Master…
Our universe is kinda boring sometimes.
Joyce and Mike would break the universe.
I mean, evil Joyce did sleep with Mike in it’s walky. But this universe it would be interesting as well.
Hey, universes have to end somehow. Proton decay there, Big Crunch on that one, heat death here, and of course the reality-breaking act of sex between Joyce and Mike.
Fortunately, even reality-breaking travels at the speed of light, so civilizations in other galaxies have a few billion years left to go.
Oh god, now I’m thinking about Joyce x Monkey Master.
*jumps out window screaming*
Somewhere over the rainbow…
*Hey, she needs to be a real friend of Dorothy in some universe, right?
……. okay, I started making up a quip about how that Dorothy was gay cast as straight and this Dorothy was straight being cast as gay, and then I thought, “wait, I think that’s true about Judy Garland but am I sure?” so I did a bit of research and I found out both that I was apparently wrong about Garland and also that “friend of Dorothy” actually has an additional meaning I was unaware of and…
…. short story, I’m an idiot, but researching it less obvious that I’m an idiot, except when I go ahead and tell everyone anyway.
*researching MAKES it less etc.
Stupid typos.
One of the interesting things about Oz is not only has Wizard of Oz developed this huge meaning for gay men, but in the original books, there’s a canon trans woman character that was written in the early 20th century and was not written as a joke for the other characters to make fun of, but as someone who was accepted as and treated as the woman they were for the rest of the series. Hell, she’s even the central character for the majority of the series.
Huh. That’s right, Ozma. I mean, I remember her from when I was a kid but I never made the connection with my adult knowledge of transgender issues.
Ah, see, I thought that was the other way around. Like a Joan of Arc kind of thing. Then again, I read it when I was super young and haven’t read any Wizard of Oz books anytime recently…
Well, I for one would not be surprised if it turns out Joan of Arc was trans. Hell, there’s already one Saint who was a trans man, why not make it two?
(Bet that’s something you never heard before, but there is indeed a Saint from around the eighth century who was born as a woman, lived as a monk, was accused of having broken his vow of celibacy by having a child with and innkeeper’s daughter (it was actually a Byzantine soldier who was the father, but he and said innkeeper’s daughter blamed the monk), was kicked out of the monastery, adopted the kid, got back into the monastery when the abbot and other brothers realized there was no way for him to support himself and the kid because he had no skills aside literacy, died fifteen to twenty years later, the brothers discovered he had a woman’s body and thus could not have possibly had the kid, the abbot prayed for forgiveness for the initial unjust expelling from the monastery, immediately marched to the innkeeper and threatened both said innkeeper and daughter with excommunication if they didn’t fess up, the daughter broke down and said everything, the initial soldier was excommunicated and then later died of sickness, and about two centuries later the monk was made a Saint, although with two different names depending on the preference of the person praying. Up until about the twelve hundreds, Saints had really messed up life stories even if they weren’t martyrs.)
Well, yeah, but Joan of Arc would be a transman if anything? Is that the right term? Assigned female but identifying as male?
There was another French person who was the opposite direction, a Chevalier by the name of D’eon who was a spy for the French government and later on in life claimed to have been a woman raised as a man. Apparently at that point they were tired of burning people at the stake for that sort of thing, so basically they told D’eon that they’d accept that as long as D’eon started wearing dresses and forsook men’s clothing entirely from that point on.
Some time after her death historians or scientists or something dug up D’eon’s body and found out that D’eon was actually born male, but for D’eon being an assigned male at birth trans person who was able to be socially accepted as being actually female in the 1800s, thats pretty impressive.
Rukduk, I’d love to learn more about that — what’s the saint’s name?
@Murgatryod I believe it was Saint Marianna (odly enough that was the male name, with the female name being Miriam or something like that). I don’t remember exactly though. And because he’s not a very mainstream Saint (due to originally being an obscure Eastern Orthodox Saint who came into the group of Catholic recognized Saints by way of the Eastern Rite Catholic Church), and I initially only found out about him in a college class about Catholic Hagiographies (big fancy word for “lives of saints”). It’s actually quite hard to find good information on him, you have to look under either 8th century or 9th century saints, and comb through the list. There’s also the fact that due to the fact that we’ve lost a descent amount of records from Anatolia during the period from about 750-1300 CE and as a result about half of the story is pieced together from folklore. What is known for certain (well, as certain as you can be with saints) is that he (the Saint) did live as a man in a monastery after entering as a late teen, was accused of breaking the monastic vow of celibacy, and then was discovered after his death to be biologically female from birth.
Last I was aware, Word of Willis was that sexualities were eternally constant across the multiverse.
Therefore the ‘real’ Joyce and Dorothy are definitively proven to be, at minimum, Kinsey 1+.
And I’m fine with that.
SQUEEEEEEEE!!!!!
Now i’m not one for catching on to subtle things when it comes to romance. BUT, if my calculations are correct, I think perhaps Joyce may have developed a small crush on Jacob (and also might be projecting it onto Sarah a little).
I don’t think it’s gonna come up into much, or at least not until a wayyyyy later, but I think it’s nice all the same.
also neat AU there willis
An AU where everything is better. All the parents are actually good parents. Amber wasn’t traumatizee as a teen into become psychologically fractured violent vigilante. Ryan was born paralyzed from the waist down. Mary is an atheist. Dina figured out a way to make Jurassic park real without the carnivorous dinosaurs. Other things that are good.
dina would assure you that the carnivorous dinosaurs are the best part
B-but what if a T-rex gets set loose in San Diego?!
The best part.
That’s only a problem for those who like people better than dinosaurs!
It is quickly discovered that T-Rexes lack a respiratory system capable of processing smog. Purely in the interests of public safety to protect the public from the tremendously-frequent (one) cases of attacks by invading dinosaurs from places with Mexican-sounding names, Trump signs an executive order outlawing catalytic convertors.
Can’t the T-Rex just fly over the smog?
Welp, time to resubscribe to Slipshine… Thanks for April Fools’ goodness.
Sub for a year, get the next one “free” ish.
*plays “I Fought The Law And The Law Won” on the hacked Muzak*
Which version? I like this one by the Bobby Fuller Four, but I also like the versions by The Clash and Green Day.
Nanci Griffith with Sonny Curtis, who wrote the song.
Sarah has apparently never heard of this human thing called “small talk”.
The lip bite is telling.
Joyce would make a terrible poker player.
Not least because she’d keep telling everyone how naughty gambling is, handing them Chick tracts on the subject, and throwing them off their game.
…I take it back, Joyce would make an amazing poker player.
If only because she would be the only person at the table when the game ends
Joyce actually has so many tells that everyone else would spend forever trying to figure out which tell was the “real” tell. This gives her a paradoxical advantage when playing any card based game. Or luck-strategy hybrid game.
Yesterday in the comments there were some questions relating to non-binary gender identities such as being agender. I’m posting on today’s comic because I only just saw those and wasn’t sure if others would see if I replied there. As someone who identifies as agender, I’d be open to answer any (appropriate) questions, if I’m able to.
Agender is a term I haven’t been quite been able to wrap my head around yet. Do you just not identify with any particular gender expression, or is there more to it than that?
See, I would definitely qualify as that…not that I really am someone who understands it enough to explain?
For me its basically just never really fitting into any of the “rules” and getting fed up and deciding to “throw it all out because its all just a socially constructed concept anyways”.
I dunno, maybe for other people there’s better ways of describing it than that, but honestly on my end its mainly just not caring what pronoun people use towards me (Except ‘it’ cause that sounds rude and dehumanizing), and not really identifying with either of the two ‘acceptable options’ fully.
I mean, not that I’m ‘out’ about it, because I’d been picked on for not acting my assumed type before, with people going on to make other unrelated false assumptions because of it as well.
Personally, I don’t really understand transgender stuff, cause even figuring out gender from the cis angle that gets taught made me want to just throw it all in the trash out of confusion.
I mean….I’m somewhere on the ACE spectrum anyways, where I’m into the romance angle, but the stuff beyond that tends to be stuff I have trouble being into and seems like it’d be super confusing and awkward and what if I end up deciding its gross, and I only ever start to consider it for someone who is both aesthetically really stylish to me and also has a good personality to be around and a super cute smile really helps too.
But yeah, so I usually used to wonder if my issues understanding gender was not really understanding the sex stuff, but Carla maybe just makes things more unclear by being trans and ace so now I really don’t get how people decide to identify themselves.
For me it’s in part that I don’t really get what male and female are.
Like I have some dysphoria and there are definitely parts I want to lose and nothing I want to gain, but mentally I don’t really get the difference between women and men. I think I can spot some patterns in thinking but they’re not really universal and most don’t apply to me. Though me being autistic and ace may have an effect there.
It does bother me when people think of me as (insert gender here) but that’s mostly because it feels like I’m being pigeonholed into an inaccurate label and I don’t mind any pronouns (including It) outside of that.
For an example of how it can kind-of exclude from both groups, back when I was a kid in like 3rd grade I was asked to ‘translate’ between the boys and girls a lot (‘what did she mean when she said’, ‘why did he do that’, etc.) and it was because I had a weird outsider perspective of both groups and other kids noticed that and were young enough that it mostly wasn’t a bad thing. But I still was very much not part of any group, and not welcome to act like I was, even if I was fairly well liked.
Yeah, I really get where you’re coming from with most of that. I mean, I don’t know if the autism part applies to me, but I have similar issues on that end sometimes so with how much thats being talked about now I sometimes have people wonder if I might be.
I’m…able to act close enough to whats expected that I can hang out with the sort of weird people anyways, but I’m basically always a little worried I’d scare people off if I opened up completely, so I’m always super careful about what sort of things I say to which people.
And a lot of my dysphoria is kind of related to my physical health issues, so its easy enough to pass that off as just a rough day healthwise, though I guess I kind of disassociate my identity from my body anyways due to the whole combinations of the issues, so that can help as long as I can keep my mind distracted enough anyways at times.
For me, it’s definitely not about gender expression– my gender expression can vary greatly from day to day, but my identity is a constant.
When I was younger, I had a period where I questioned my gender because I realized I didn’t really feel like a girl– but then, when I thought about it, I was like, “But I don’t feel like a boy either… okay, guess I’m a girl after all!” I had a pretty binary view of gender identity at the time, and while I knew of non-binary genders, I really only saw them as different combinations of the binary genders I was familiar with.
A couple years later, my understanding of different gender identities had grown, and I was once again questioning. I was fortunate enough to be able to do this in a very welcoming space, at least for a couple weeks, which helped greatly. It was around this time that I realized not identifying with a gender could be okay, and it actually fit for me.
The way I’ve tried to explain it to binary people, especially cis binary people is like this: think about the extent to which you identify as the other binary gender. It’s probably not very much, if at all, right? Maybe thinking of yourself that way even feels kind of wrong. Now imagine that you felt that way about identifying as either binary gender. That’s sort of how I feel all the time.
As for me, I do care about pronouns– I like they/them, though there are only some people/spaces where I feel able to expect to be referred to that way (properly).
I’d probably care a little more if it wasn’t so hilarious the way people tend to freak out and correct themselves, cause my body’s assigned sex is a lot more obvious when I start interacting with them than it is when they first see me from the back.
I live in a pretty rural area though, and kind of went through multiple phases like you of trying to figure things out before finally just getting frustrated and basically giving up on the classifications before I even found out agender was a thing. Well, that and I’m too much of a coward to be socially open about it in a rural city in a Red colored state. So I just settle for anything that doesn’t sound like its meant as an insult.
And well, I can just fake cis well enough cause I’m close enough for that, as long as I act standoffish anyways. I’m pretty half and half anyways and don’t mind being a bit reclusive. It is nice knowing I’m not the only one like this though.
That is exactly where I got stuck trying to understand what it meant. Being cisgender, I don’t often think about my own gender identity, separately from the external societal expectations associated with it, so non-binary genders being some sort of mix-and-match of binary ones was how I was thinking about them as well.
You’ve made it much clearer for me now, so thank you!
A while ago I was questioning my feminity.
I had this ideal of being human before being anything else and a theory about how human experience had been weirdly fractured into “male” and “female” point of views, and I actually tried to cultivate both in order to take the better course of action in any given circumstances.
Hell, I imagined a boy and a girl voice in my head and I let them debate over the best thing to do, regardless of gender expectations. I had this fantasy of being perfect.
Then a man did to me one of those horrible things a man can do to you, and the boy’s voice in my head shut up. Never heard of it since. The girl’s voice got tired of speaking to herself and just became, well, just me.
So, eh, I guess I went from questioning girl to non-questioning girl. This world is tough, so best of luck to you gender-questioning, non-conforming, and other trans folks.
Uh, sorry I sidetracked all over your post. It’s pretty cool that you willingly open a discussion about enby issues for curious people. 🙂
Well, I mean ‘Generally’ the comment section here is really ‘friendly’ when it comes to this stuff, so it feels like a safer area to talk about it than basically any of the groups I’m in otherwise, personally.
I’m sorry about the horrible experience you had that lead to your paradigm shift, but hopefully you are at least happy with the person you are now. *appropriate gesture of concern*
“Oooh, we have something in common – most of *my* favorite things are means to an end!”
Also, I want to demand to colleges that they have a “pre-law” major, who supports me? 😛
And I def agree with the idea that Joyce, because of her biting her lip and being as friendly as she is to Jacob, is crushing on him a little. At the same time, she seems to have a lot of trouble distingushing romantic and sexual attraction, and her fear of the latter means that she might be projecting that crush onto her older Sarah + Jacob ship, demonstrating itself in being the friendly wingman. I’m curious to see how she develops emotionally and tries to deal with these differing ships (with her feelings vs. a dear friend’s) and how she discerns that, by Jacob’s example, romantic does not equal sexual attraction.
Meanwhile, after Joyce and Sarah have gone on like this for five minutes…
Jacob (to Becky): Is this normal for these two?
Becky: I’m not quite sure. I only really got introduced to their dynamic a little while ago. You worried?
Jacob: A little bit. At the same time, I find myself quite entertained.
Becky: Yeah, it is kinda enthralling.
…so Jacob and Becky are the comments section?
So Jacob and Becky are about to get banned? xD
Only if they suddenly start having a hard time not being giant assholes
Oh right, Jacob’s support of Joyce’s chastity and now Sarah is all annoyed with this budding friendship (and the very concept itself).
Isn’t Shara annoyed in general?
Hence the nickname “Human Sandpaper”.
People could get on Sarah’s case for getting on Joyces for liking a guy witch makes since…but then again said guy is the person she once saI’d she hook her up with so that makes her a shitty wing man soooo 50/50 I don’t know where to stand on this.
Okay I just have to say this, I’m a drunk dyslectic and even I don’t screw up that badly.
It’s “sense” not “since”. (English is also my second language.)
Friendly? What is this pactice? It is as if they are speaking !Kung, and I am no good at all those clicking sounds. Although I can at least remember the proper name for the language of the San Bushmen.
There are so many languages spoken by the Khoi and San peoples. !Kung is just one of more than a dozen languages spoken by the San.
Yes, this. Now if they just start talking about religion it will make my week.
Yes, Religion Comix please!
Here’s one: http://m.webtoons.com/en/comedy/adventures-of-god/ep-1-answering-prayers/viewer?title_no=853&episode_no=1
I laughed harder at this strip than any in a while.
The Slipshine preview broke my brain. Totally sent it into “Marinette trying to talk to Adrien” mode from ML. >_>
Comic Reactions:
Panel 1: Is today going to be Joyce wandering around checking up on all her ships, because I’m actually reasonably okay with that.
Panel 2: I know the circumstances are vastly different, but Sarah, things just being a means to an end in education tends to be a bad sign. Like the last time I felt like I had to put up with certain classes as a means of getting to what I wanted to do, I was stuck in a major I hated and ended up dropping out of less than a year later.
So… as Jacob notes, there’s a lot of majors and they don’t care as long as your grades are high and it’s in a vaguely social science-y field, so use this to explore your passions…*glances over at Jacob* Okay, bad phrasing.
Panel 3: Yeah, the system is kinda weird for that. Though I think most pre-law folks I’ve known tend to drift to things like political science or government or something related to the specific field of law they want to go into (knew one who was taking women’s studies and another in an environmental sciences bio degree).
So yeah, the casualness of their conversation throws me off. Like, having a blank check to explore one’s passion? I dunno why they’re throwing that away treating it like something to grumble through doing classes they hate or even merely tolerate.
Panel 4: Oh dear… the lip bite is back. And she’s doing the ignoring Sarah while talking with Jacob. I don’t think Joyce has realized she’s developing a crush on Jacob, but Sarah has definitely noticed. Poor Joyce.
A quantum shipper can never rest!! I wouldn’t mind a Joyce-shipping-day at all, especially when she and Becky discuss Dina.
That’s the one I’m hoping to see and it’d be awesome to get a “Becky is given space to gush about her girlfriend and relationship with her best friend” strip.
They already got a good start! Joyce may be out of her depth, and Becky may sail off to wacky-land occasionally, but Joyce is a good friend and Becky trusts her with some girl-talk
http://www.dumbingofage.com/2016/comic/book-7/01-glower-vacuum/physical/
I think that the thing that maddens Sarah more than anything is that Joyce doesn’t realise she’s developing a crush and is sending out all these signals!
When I was in high school, the law school at the local university put on a concert every year, and it was FANTASTIC, because a significant percentage of the law students had done a music major, and then thought, “I can’t get a job in music! Guess I’ll do law…”
It doesn’t have to be a social science – various hard science and engineering degrees are also useful, although at that point there’s pretty much an expectation that you’re going in to law to deal with the legal side of highly technical work.
Okay I’m just throwing this out there because of hope.
Maybe AU DOA is linked to DC Rebirth.
An argument between Harley Quinn and Mary would be awesome!
Asking people for information that you already have seems pretty unfriendly to me. It’s dishonest and, in this case at least, manipulative.
There’s a thing where it’s not INFORMATION that you want but THEIR VIEWPOINT. You want to hear THEM talk about it. And sure, it might be a little dishonest to pretend you don’t know a lot about it already, but many people are much more eager to talk when they don’t have to doublecheck themselves like ‘…wait did you know that already?’
Not just dishonest, but also manipulative… it’s basically like walking up to someone and telling them to dance with the implication that it’s for a good cause when really it’s just for your amusement. It’s even worse when someone is just trying to get you to talk about yourself so they can make a show of being interested – the ever detestable fake rapport builders…
See, I kind of agree with you, just because there’s a lot better ways to honestly ask the question without being sneaky and asking things you already know.
Like asking them what they learned about in the class today in particular. “Learn anything interesting in class today?” seems a lot better than just trying to get the course description out of someone.
Joyce is Joyce, Sarah is Sarah.
I’m frankly surprised we don’t see this sort of things more often.
Oh it’s just offscreen because everyone else has even wackier hijinks and shenanigans.
It’s Jake’s POV; to enhance boob view.
Also, because he’s 6’yikes”.
If Jacob’s POV is a slight bird’s eye view, does that make him an Animorph? Or a Thanagarian?
I think we’re overlooking the most obvious inconsistency in this comic.
How can Joyce bite her lip when we’ve seen over and over that her upper and lower teeth are fused together?
(Ignore the Slipshine panel, Willis says that’s non-canon).
Might be a suspenders thing, or a nostrils thing.
Panel 5: 8o Joyce’s boundary issues are somewhat scary sometimes…
But it’s understandable why. One of the things about that pre-millennial dispensationalist rapture-believing Christian sects is that they tend to have a very… hostile attitude to the notion of “privacy”.
Especially for kids. After all, the most important thing for a parent to do is ensure their child is “morally correct” so they don’t miss out on the Rapture that is clearly going to happen any second now and don’t get corrupted by all the evil demons out there that just look for good Christian kids to corrupt into secular atheists and homosexuals.
So what this creates is a culture where the kid pretty much has no real privacy in their homes and pretty much grows up to expect that their parents will try and snoop through all the parts of their room to find “signs of sin” and often that all of their attempts to interact with the world will be heavily monitored and ended if deemed “spiritually dangerous”. We’ve seen signs of that with Carol and Toedad and their interactions with their daughters, but that really also ends up messing with the kids that are raised.
For kids like Jocelyne, you learn to bury deep and find elaborate hiding schemes (my best friend in high school had a complex system of hiding some of his contraband (mostly anime, video games, and SFF books) under floorboards or in the backs of random friends’ cars and would sneak out in the middle of the night to play games that were banned for “magic”).
For kids like Joyce, you learn that expectations of privacy are nonexistent or that they are wrong or signs of corruption. And so you learn how to snoop on the people in your life, to overstep bounds of friendships (including trying to minister to folks about their “life choices”), and to do things that would seem creepy and invasive to someone raised more secularly or in a different sect.
And we see signs of that here, in her answer to Sarah. She doesn’t see this response as odd or offputting, that’s just doing right by a person to make sure you know enough about them to be friendly in her eyes.
And we see it in Becky sometimes, like in her surprise kiss on Joyce or in her digging through the bottom of Joyce’s closet to find the blood-stained sweater. And I think we see signs that both are slowly starting to heal with that, with Becky healing faster because her raising was so much more traumatic and her break so much cleaner.
Panel 6: … the sad part is Sarah isn’t really lying here. Like, yeah, it’s exaggerated grump for comedic effect, but she really doesn’t understand friendliness or really trust it. Like, she spent a year going through hell and then being tormented by the people who came to her acting super friendly and nice to her at first and had her own attempts at friendly support with Dana end in a disaster that may have put Dana in a worst place (through no fault of Sarah’s, she had no way of knowing what to do or the extent of the situation).
And while we have no real picture of Sarah’s family, we do get signs that it’s a bit contentious and likely involves a lot of angry fighting and shouting given her reaction to Dina’s parents. So it’s certainly possible that she didn’t have the most friendly environment to grow up in.
And that’s really her main arc. Recovering to the point where she can recognize and accept friendliness and see it not as a red flag for future abuse.
I read panel six more as Sarah doesn’t understand *how* to be friendly. Like, it wouldn’t occur to her to ask someone something that she already knows the answer to just to make small talk. We’ve seen before when she’s tried to talk to Jacob that she has no idea how to carry on light conversation with him (except for ragging on Joyce, which couldn’t last forever).
But maybe I’m projecting here because that honestly wouldn’t have occurred to me either. I’d have had her reaction of “why are you asking when you already know”. In Joyce’s place I would have asked what he was majoring in since pre-law isn’t its own major.
Re-reading it, I think I really was projecting.
“You have nothing to fear, if you have nothing to hide.”
I think the line “if your thanksgivings are quiet I’m up for adoption” is more of a throwaway dark humour joke for Sarah than a serious implication that her family has angry fighting, yelling or abusing.
We know Sarah likes peace and quiet even when she’s not studying, so if her family thanksgivings are large and loud it would annoy her (heck, having to make small talk with relatives that ask your when you’re graduating/getting married is annoying even if they’re perfectly friendly). Remember Sarah bristles at being offered HUGS.
Not a bird’s eye view, the last 3 panels are clearly from a Jacob’s eye view. You know. Because he’s so tall. And Joyce literally and figuratively looks up to him.
As a tall person(6′ 3″) this seems exaggerated. According to the first two frames he’s not that much taller than sarah.
I amused myself by pretending it was an Amazi-Girl eyes view. She is up in the tree watching this.
“And I guess both of them are into ladies and they become the bestest friends possible.”
So what you’re saying is that they’re just… gals being pals? 😉
Has anyone made the “Friend of Dorothy” joke already?
*checks*
OK, fine.
Dorothy is such a “Friend of Joyce”, if you know what I mean.
I don’t. Why don’t I get this? What reference am I missing to properly understand the joke? I need to know.
Um… There was this show, with a girl named Joyce and another girl named Dorothy and they met in college and become friends and really clicked despite their different backgrounds, and then they clicked A LOT and there were ALL THE KISSES.
It’s a totally real show.
Rukduk- Wizard of Oz, Judy Garland as a gay icon, ‘friend of Dorothy’ is slang for gay
yo if anyone writes fanfic of that au hit me uppppp
I MIGHT have posted a little something down below…
You are way too mean to Sarah.
I think that all Jacob needs to do to completely blow Joyce and Sarah’s minds is to say something like: “Man, you two really are like sisters, aren’t you?”
PLEASE
Hmmm. He’s the one who told Joe and Danny that they bickered like a married couple.
Now I also want it to happen.
If Joyce had ever seen Legally Blonde she would know that about Law schools (well American law schools). But I guess Legally Blonde is not proper Christian media?
Asking people what you already know : an interesting concept.
Its a good way to make sure you like the answer.
But…maybe not a good approach for communicating with others.
At least she’s pretty honest about it when questioned.
Basic cross examination technique for pre-law: Never ask a question you don’t know the answer to.
And our host here is making a subtle legal joke and showing off how well-read he is at the same time.
It’s a reference to a principle of cross-examination, referenced in To Kill A Mockingbird.
Please don’t fight over the guy who’s already in a relationship
May I direct you to the first word in this webcomic’s title? I do believe it explains everything.
I dunno, I actually have generally taken that to be an explanation for why all the grownups are so dumb than anything else.
Well… yeah. I did the convoluted wording thing because I have conversed with this Man(!!!) of Scars previously, and figured he’d know that I know he knows what’s up with the themes, not because I don’t believe that it covers most everything fiction and non.
I try to sail the flippant-sea aboard a well rigged craft.
Thank you for remembering the !!!
They are essential, obviously. (That things tend to be obvious when you’ve been corrected before.)
Have you visited Wolfen and the rest of the Kourt recently?
I’m gonna pretend the “That” was supposed to be a “These,” even though I meant to start that bit from “things.”
A true conversation I have overheard:
First woman (in a sad tone of voice): “…but he’s taken.”
Second woman: “Is there a ring on his finger?”
First woman: “No.”
Second and third woman, in unison: “Then he’s not taken!”
*waiting for Stephen Bierce to queue up “The Tennessee Waltz” on the hacked Muzak*
Of course, committed relationships come in a variety of flavors, not all of which announce themselves with jewelry or other wearable tokens (and not all of which are monogamous). But Jacob is in a dating relationship with Raidah, apparently one that is mutually monogamous but not yet committed. In other words, he’s fair game.
I’d say “mutually monogamous” is pretty well out of the fair game category. I’ll grant that breaking up a dating couple is a fair step below breaking up a marriage, but it’s still far from “fair game”.
I agree with you. He’s not fair game in the slightest. If you know someone is in a romantic relationship and you know they’ve agreed to be exclusive with their partner, then they are not fair game.
It honestly doesn’t matter if they are just started dating, if they’ve done 80 different private ceremonies of commitment or if they never do any big special moment and just casually remain committed for a long time – if you know they have a partner and are monogamous, you back the hell off because they are not available for taking.
If someone says they have a partner, you back off, it is just that simple.
I respectfully disagree. Anything short of committed is, by definition, not committed.
I am not saying Joyce should Walkyverse-Evil-Joyce-like seduce Jacob. But there is no person yet introduced in the Dumbiverse who is more perfect for Joyce than Jacob. And unless and until Jacob is in a committed relationship with Raidah, there is no ethical reason why Joyce should assume he is off limits.
(Note: the only reason I am assuming Jacob and Raidah are mutally monogamous is because of an elevator conversation that Joyce was not privy to.)
Of course, that doesn’t mean Joyce won’t come up with other reasons. She seems to be unaware that she has a crush on him, to the point that she is still trying (in her own mind at least) to hook Sarah up with him.
And Jacob is the first person at IU that she has been able to debate the Bible with on equal footing. Based on that alone, it’s hard not to ship them.
Coming back to the start of this thread, as long as Jacob doesn’t cheat on Raidah — as long as he explicitly ends the relationship with her before he starts another one — I don’t see where the moral problem is.
If you are asked or told to back off, directly or indirectly, by the person in question, then certainly you back the hell off. You should also be aware that if the other person is in a committed relationship and still willing to explore their options, then they are quite likely to be willing to do so again if in a relationship with you. But if you think someone going steady is out of the game, pffft. (Please allow for generational differences. Going steady may no longer be a thing)? ((It’s also possible by committed relationship you actually mean marriage equivalent relationship which has always been a thing.))
If we’re going to have a Slipshine that’s not canon….
*pushes Danny into Ethan*
Now KISS!
Jacob is taller than either Joyce or Sarah. Maybe the slight birds-eye view is Joyce’s imagination of Jacob’s eye view.
…I ship it.
That picture of Becky in Willis’ Twitter feed:
Is this a view from the future? Are we to assume that Becky no longer works at Galasso’s but has found employment elsewhere? Because that blue vest looks suspiciously like the ones the ‘associates’ at Mall-Wart wear.
“What are we doing now?”
“Waiting.”
“I grow weary of this thing called ‘waiting’.”
“Yeah, that tends to happen.”
The bird’s eye view makes Jacob seem like he’s towering above them at 7 feet or taller.
Last panel Sarah = me.
Wait, these things on the side lead to real comics? All I get when I click on them is just the front page of Slipshine, which doesn’t give me any indication that there are actually comics from Willis there.
All this time, I thought he was just advertising this other site that he might sometimes post to.
There are indeed Slipshine comics that are canon to Dumbing of Age. The current installment are single panel pictures, so there is not a lot of plot going on (there ARE some very interesting other things going on, though), but there are also some full length comics that find time to look into characters such as Amber, Roz, Billie and Dorothy.
Nothing crucial to understand the main comic, but they add some nice points here and there.
Ah. I thought it was just him advertising where he put those occasional one-offs.
It would be nice if the link took you to something like “David Willis’s Slipshine page” but then like blurred everything out, saying you could get X number of comics from him if you subscribe.
Maybe even have an opening little teaser comic but with the nudity covered up, saying “subscribe for more.”
“What is this being friendly thing you speak of??”
Yes, I’m writing Joyce/Dorothy AU slash fanfic now. You brought this upon yourself, Willis. You have no one to blame but yourself.
“It’s perfect,” Joyce said, slightly out of breath. Dorothy couldn’t help herself and chuckled ever so slightly.
“You surprise me, Joyce.”
“Not bad for a stupid little bible girl, huh?”
“I can’t believe you never saw Dexter and the Monkey master before.”
Joyce smiled, and when Joyce smiled, she radiated. Dorothy did not believe in angels (given the available data), but seeing Joyce happy, she understood where people might get the idea.
“My parents didn’t approve of it… there were lot of things my parents didn’t approve of.”
“But you still agreed to watch it with me. I’m surprised. Not everyone dares to push their boundaries like that”. Joyce shrugged and pulled back a strand of hair that had fallen in her face.
“Your godless ways scared me at first, but pushing boundaries with you is not so bad” Dorothy was pretty certain the innuendo was unintended. “It makes me feel… adventurous!” Dorothy was FAIRLY certain the innuendo was unintended.
A certainty that rapidly evaporated as Joyce gave her an impulsive hug.
“I just LOVE doing these things with you!!!” kinda certain… sort of certain…
“What else do you want to show me?” Joyce whispered, her mouth oh so close to Dorothy’s ear, the smell of her hair filling Dorothy’s nostrils, her warm body oh so close to Dorothy’s own. And there were so many answers Dorothy wanted to give to that question, especially as she could feel Joyce’s strong hands on her back, holding her in an embrace that maybe went on a few moments more than… strictly necessary.
Instead she forced herself to back off and to her mortification she realized that she was blushing. Dorothy was nothing if not honest with herself, and right now her analytical mind was racing, coming to a lot of very interesting conclusions indeed.
Stalling for time (and finding an excuse not to let Joyce see her face right now) she reached to the top shelf and took down the little figurine she had brought from home to stay in touch with her inner child even as she embarked on the path to an adult and refined life that would one day bring her all the way to presidency.
“Here, this is from the show. It is Monkey master. The character who is a monkey. In the show we just watched.” If Joyce noticed her babbling, she didn’t show it. Instead, her full attention was on the little monkey.
“It is… magnificent. There never were toys for Hymmel.” She gave Dorothy a wistful look. “You are so much cooler than me.” That made Dorothy chuckle again (Joyce DID believe in angels, and when she saw Dorothy happy, she was very much reminded of why).
“I’m not cool, Joyce. I’m the biggest dork ever.”
“Well, then it’s about time you meet a challenger to the throne! I’ll show you just as big a dork I can be! I’m getting myself a Head Alien HAT.” That got another chuckle out of Dorothy (completely unintended, of course). Then her face grew serious and she did that adorable thing with her mouth she did when she was about to say something serious.
“Joyce, I never thought of you as a ‘stupid little bible girl'” Joyce put her hands on Dorothy’s.
“That’s good, because I quickly learn the ways of the world. Look at me – I already watch secular media. Who knows what will be next?”
“What do you think will be next?” Dorothy heard herself ask. Joyce made a show of pondering the question.
“I think I would like to watch another episode with you. But first I want you to play with your toys with me! Catch!”
And she tossed the monkey at Dorothy.
What, nobody else has any love for Sliders? Dang.
Nice! Great way to imply without getting explicit, including a reference to the comic.
I imagine that, in this universe, Becky comes back, kisses Joyce, and Joyce at first says she doesn’t feel that way about Becky, but then it turns into a real love triangle, and not the fake friend triangle in Becky’s head.
Uhm wait what? I have never pretended to not know something to be friendly. Am I being friendly wrong? Should I pretend to know nothing?
I have. Usually because I wanted to continue the conversation but suck a small talk and needed something to say. I don’t often do it on purpose, though. I occasionally end up asking questions I know the answer to because I’d already asked them earlier in the same conversation :/
But it’s the “attempting to continue the conversation and show interest in the other person’s life” that’s supposed to be friendly, not pretending not top know things