She can have the tie, though. Damn strangulation devices have always been one of those sartorial inventions that I’ve never understood the reasoning behind.
So, I got curious whether this is true and looked it up. And apparently they were worn by Croatian mercenaries in the 17th century who were in the service of France. The word “cravat”, according to Wikipedia anyway, comes from a portmanteau of “Croates”, the French word for “Croatians”, and “Hrvati”, the Croatian word for Croatian. So that’s interesting. I did not know that Croatia was like Germany, Hungary, Finland, and Japan in having a name in English that sounds nothing like its actual name, for whatever reason.
Magyarorszag to Ellas as a road trip. I should go to bed now, before any more brain cells disintegrate. (Although perhaps I just subconsciously wanted to type “Shqiperia” one more time.)
“Eesti” isn’t that far from “Estonia”—the root seems the same, with the English version mostly having added a few syllables. The rest, though, yeah. The sad thing is that the real name usually sounds way better; “Suomi” sounds better than “Finland”, “Magyar” sounds *way* cooler than “Hungarian”, and “Hrvati” sounds so much better than “Croat” that it’s just silly. Oh well.
What I find particularly interesting about Deutschland/Germany is the sheer number of names it has. If you’re Deutsch, you’re:
German in English
Alemán in Spanish
Tedesco in Italian
Nemetskiy in Russian <- this one basically means "people that don't talk like us"
Tysk in Denmark
Saksa in… one of the Baltic countries (don't remember which exactly atm)
Probably others that I'm forgetting about!
The answer seems to be that Germany as a state didn’t come into existence until 1871. Before that, they were a group of loosely aligned mid European peoples..
A Finn here butting in… Saksa means Germany in Finnish (and the word for German/Deutsch is saksa/saksankieli (when talking about the language) or saksalainen (when talking about a person who is German)).
Which isn’t to say though that it couldn’t be used in Baltic countries as well. Especially in Estonia, Finnish has quite a lot of similarities with Estonian language. But I can’t say for sure.
Several of the European names for German derive from Germanic tribes who encountered the Romans, like the Alemani and the Saxons (the Gaelic “Sassenach” for “Englishman” does, too).
Hrvati –> Croatia also makes sense because of the way certain sounds are related in Indo-European languages. Squeeze your tongue to the roof of your mouth just a bit when making the “Hr” sound and it becomes “Kr.” There’s also a relationship between v and w. So Hrvati –> Cravati (like cravat) –> Crawati –> Croatia. Oh, and take it in a different direction and Hrvati –> Srvati –> Srbati (or more likely started as b and the v shift came later in the north) –> Serbia. Hrbati –> Hrbatni –> Botni –> Bosnia. All a single group 1000 to 1500 years ago. Less than that for the Bosnian-Croatian split, actually, as that was driven by the area being split by competing empires that pushed competing religions.
Ties do not strangulate. Off-the-rack dress shirts in half-inch increments frequently do.
If you have the money to have tailored shirts, you can afford to wear shirts that have a neck size that matches your actual neck size, and the tie is just an accessory.
Otherwise, you have to choose between a shirt a with neck size that is slightly smaller than your neck size, or a shirt with a neck size that is slightly larger than your neck size…and the tie is still just an accessory.
Culturally and visually, gaps are noticed and derogated, so most men, when they wear dress shirts, wear shirts with a too-small neck size, and they hate it. And every woman who is reading this is making that little forefinger-and-thumb gesture that says, “the world’s tiniest violin is playing.”
Okay, okay, any appropriately-shaped piece of fabric can be the proximate cause of strangulation. Fictionally, there’s Dollar Bill and his cape; non-fictionally, there’s Isidora Duncan and her scarf.
But my point remains: most men who experience discomfort from the wearing of ties are actually experiencing discomfort from the wearing of shirts with neck sizes that are too small.
…That said, I can’t be the only person who saw that video of the nun using a chainsaw to clear hurricane damage, and thought, “Operating a chainsaw with loose clothing? Please…just don’t.”
Dollar Bill wasn’t strangled by his cape; he got it caught in a (revolving?) door, and was shot by bank robbers.
I also don’t think that any of Edna Mode’s “No capes!” examples were strangled. Instead, their capes pulled them into deadly situations. Valuable lesson.
I’m pretty positive that the reason Trump’s presidential ties are so weirdly long is that they’ve given him ties long enough to do the fancier knots (found out when doing a fancier one for my husband for a Mess dinner that you need like half a foot more than for the basic one I know how to do, so I left it far too short on my first attempt), but he’s insisting that he tie them himself–and then does a very basic knot.
Stuff like this was why it was always hilarious in like 16th and 17th century plays when the servant dresses up to play their social superiors; there’s differences in donning and moving in the upper-class clothes (especially when hoops and/or heels are involved) that the servants would not necessarily be able to pull off (definitely not if it’s a comedy), and so things like the tie ending up ludicrously long from not knowing how to tie that kind properly would result, with hilarity ensuing.
I love every single panel of bantering here. It’s funny, it’s endearing, and they do a good job probing sensitive topics.
Becky and Joyce gently tease each other for their… less than godly goals with the church visit (Joyce attracting cute boys, even if Becky don’t know the intricacies; Becky telegraphing her identity).
Joyce bites back against the constant belittlement against her fashion sense, which gives Becky a chance to air their mutual embarrassment/guilt and turn it into a joke (“Wacky Becky got the wrong idea due to Joyce’s fashion sense. Wasn’t it hilarious? Ahahahaha. Water under the bridge.”)
Becky and Jacob get some banter and bonding in (and it’s no mistake that basically the first thing Jacob says is an affirmation of Becky’s sexuality. He’s a nice sort). I’m about 75% certain Becky realizes just WHICH boy Joyce is dressing up for, and does the wacky!Becky routine to get some pressure off Joyce. She is a WINGMAN after all.
It was a puppy. All puppies are bad.
It’s not really their fault, but they piss on everything they don’t chew to bits.
Adorable, perhaps, but not good.
I think if he has a flaw so far it’s how characterless he is, he’s a perfectly nice guy and behaves well in every way but if I’m being honest I can’t see myself talking to him for more than a couple minutes, just think about how he expected Sarah come up with topics when he was tired of Joyce bashing
This seems most likely, since characters seem to, for the most part, keep the same flaws they had in previous continuity. We just haven’t really seen any contexts in DoA where Jacob’s previous-continuity character flaw could rear its head.
…Yet. This is one of Willis’ comics, which means Jacob’s emotional distress is all but assured, since he seems to be getting more panel-time of late.
They’ve met briefly a few times. Joyce’s party, the pizza place, when Becky and Joyce ran into Sarah after their class.
You can see the strips here: http://www.dumbingofage.com/tag/becky+jacob/
Now I just want to be able to subtract people. “jacob+joyce-becky” to get all the jacob and joyce appearances without Becky. Trivial example, since there aren’t a lot to start with, but there are times when the initial search gets you pages and there aren’t other good ways to narrow it down.
That could be surprisingly tricky to do depending on how tags work behind the hood. Manipulating datasets of variable/arbitrary size (such as tags) often leads to bizarre errors and intricacies in the world of computer programming, since computers need all of that data to basically stay right next to itself, but they can’t move it around freely either since the data isn’t intrinsically connected to its meaning, so there are a whole bunch of strictures in place in any high-level programming environment, and in any operating system, to prevent or mitigate overmuch access to the way data is stored via interfaces accessible to people further down the line, which often means efficient handling of this data requires more low-level programming, which is often counterintuitive and finnicky. Anyone who has used the word “pointer” more than three times knows what I’m talking about.
Er… What.. do people just not do raw SQL queries any more? Because my SQL is pretty rusty but iirc it should just be a matter of tacking on an extra condition with a NOT in it.
I’m not sure where the data storage format even enters into it. If you can search for entries where the tag is foo, you can also search for entries where the tag is not foo.
Of course, persuading whoever wrote the tagging system to implement such a feature is a whole other matter.
I hope autocorrect didn’t mangle that too badly, I *think* I caught all the errors.
” If you can search for entries where the tag is foo, you can also search for entries where the tag is not foo.”
… unless you’re using an interface that helpfully prevents that, which is probably what the commodore was talking about.
uugggggggh I *hate* all of what little I’ve seen of such interfaces. they always sound like such a good idea and then the implementation turns out hideous.
I’m still not sure what data structures have to do with this particular brand of hideousness, though.
Data structures aren’t directly relevant, they’re just the indirect reason why these kinds of systems aren’t always as robust as they intuitively seem like they should be.
It’s just that due do the fact that the underlying data needs to be moved around sometimes in order to remain readable by the machine, doing anything that changes the size of a list requires specifically being supported, so every individual function one might include is that much extra work a programmer might not be willing to put into a lightweight system for a very low end user utility (most users of the site will never use the tag system, and only a few of them will experiment with tag arithmetic).
moved around? I’m thinking of a query that you run, use, and discard. not writing records to disk. or resizing anything. what exactly do you mean by “moved around sometimes”? why are you talking about resizing lists?
I grew up in an American Lutheran church family (which is fairly laid back) and this is exactly how my dad dressed every Sunday. Us kids also had to dress up.
Something I hadn’t thought of until just now, but…
We see what Jacob is wearing right now, but we didn’t see him dressing for church, or discussing with his friends/roomates how he should dress for church.
A two-piece suit and tie is normal male dress-up. But a three-piece suit and tie? Maybe while Joyce is dressing to impress him, he’s also dressing to impress Joyce?
I guess we’ll just have to wait and see what the rest of Jacob’s church’s congregation is wearing. And we all know how Willis just loves to draw background characters in detail…
Agreed, women look just as great in a full suit and tie. Also I’m a male that enjoys suit and ties as well. Just bummed my job isn’t made for wearing them. B
It really bothered me once I had my son and I realized that little girls get to dress up in nice clothes for things; but little boys have to dress up in nice clothes for things. 🙁
I have worn a kilt, I have worn a lungi, and I have worn a sarong. In a masculine-off between kilt-wearers and sarong-wearers and lungi-wearers, I honestly think that sarong-wearers would win, but it would be a close competition.
When I wrote this, I guess I took it for granted, but just to make it clear: Trousers-wearers are not even in the competition. Sorry, trousers-wearers.
I think she’s just got a race hangup.
Especially now, with hindsight- you remember how almost the second thing she said to Sarah was ‘I’ve found this great guy I think you’ll be so good together’
It wasn’t just that Jacob was Black and Sarah was Black. It was that Jacob IS perfect, but Joyce’s brain just kind of slides off the idea of interracial couples- but he’s perfect, so who can he be with?
I bet if you asked her she wouldn’t ‘have a problem’, it’s one of those ingrained background things that goes unexamined. But until it’s really posed as a direct question, it won’t even be a thing she considers. =(
I feel like Becky couple find a way up on Joyce’s shoulders and make that outfit work. Dressing up in ways your not meant to is all about spunk and daring
All of these comments about dressing up for church are kind of throwing me, because if anyone were going to get incredibly fancy for church, I would expect it to be uber-religious people like the group Joyce and Becky were raised in. But apparently evangelicals don’t get dressed up for church? Which I really can’t believe they don’t think is “disrespectful to god” or some shit.
Yeah, as an African-Methodist church goer, the way Jacob’s dressed seems pretty accurate and not overdressed at all, I’ve only been around an Episcopalian church once and the churchgoers exiting seemed to be pretty dressed up, but I can’t say if that’s because that’s how most Episcopalians dress or if it’s more of a cultural thing to dress up for church.
On another note, even Catholics (which I know are far different entirely but bear with me) will wear blouses and skirts/button ups and khakis to mass, which is kinda right between the super casual style of Joyce’s church and the super formal style of Jacob’s.
Where I was the Episcopalians (Anglo-Catholic) never bothered, but Church of Scotland (Presbyterian, more Calvinist) tended to (possibly because they had more old people). A friend from Northern Ireland told me there the Catholics were casual and the Protestants were formal too.
Second, one of DoA FAQs ends with, “get your kinds of Christians sorted out!” As a sort-of-culturally-but-not-really-Christian, this is something that requires a lot of research for me and I still often don’t get right, but I’m trying.
Anyway, this gets to one of the core issues of Christian theology. Should Christians worship Him with ceremony, or should they worship Him with simplicity? If you are all, “who cares?”, you might be an ecumenicist.
But I gather that for Joyce, what you wear to church is not nearly as important as what you feel while you are in church.
Becky is right; suits and ties are wasted on the masculine. They should all just… take them off… that’d make things all… better… *sweats nervously*
Though on a marginally more serious note, guys need more fancy clothing options. And sexy clothing options. And just clothing options that aren’t palette swaps of the same five articles of clothing.
Feminine clothes got all the prettiness and diversity, and guys clothes got all the functionality and practicality. That’s a ridiculous and forced dynamic that makes both clothes weaker! GIVE THE WOMEN’S AISLE POCKETS! GIVE THE MEN’S AISLE STYLE! MAKE A GENDER NEUTRAL AISLE WHILE YOU’RE AT IT, CAUSE IF THAT’S WHERE THE PRACTICAL YET FASHIONABLE CLOTHING IS THEN IT WILL BE THE MOST POPULAR AISLE IN ANY CLOTHING STORE!
Fewer options also means fewer opportunities to commit fashion crimes. As someone with zero fashion sense* I like my assortment of pallet-swap polo shirts! They’re interchangeable! Makes choosing a pair of pants a boolean decision. (“Are they relatively clean? Y/N”)
*Though in this age of “graphic tees everywhere” is it really that difficult?
* jeans/cargo pants and graphic tee
* jeans/cargo pants and graphic tee with 80s suit-style leather jacket
* jeans/cargo pants and Hawaiian shirt
* jeans/cargo pants with plain tee with Hawaiian shirt over the top
* jeans/cargo pants and hippie shirt
I blame Beau Brummel. Men’s clothing was just as interesting and colourful as women’s until he came along and, sure, was all stylish; but then that fashion just got stuck for, like, two and a half centuries. Give me a break.
Joyce-Becky interaction is always cute and I reiterate that they’re like sisters in all but blood in their behaviour towards each other. Today’s strip makes me wonder just how much influence Becky has over Joyce’s sartorial sense. I’m starting to think that ‘easy to influence’ is possibly a key part of her personality!
Meanwhile, Willis has ruined me for the day with his alt-text. I won’t be able to stop seeing Becky struggling to manage wearing Jacob’s suit!
I seriously cannot. You’d get pretty much the same effect from putting an evening gown on a wolf.
It doesn’t help that it’s basically impossible for me to find an off-the-rack dress shirt that stretches across my shoulders and allows me to button the top button, but isn’t way too big in every other respect.
On the other hand, throw a fur cloak over my shoulders, and I could walk into Winterfell and no one would blink an eye.
nah look sounds good. Wolves look good in suits.
Like, maybe it’s prohibitively expensive to get a custom-tailored suit for a wolf.
But if you could pony up the cash, it’d look good
He’s the hairy-handed gent
Who ran amok in Kent
Lately he’s been overheard in Mayfair
You’d better stay away from him
He’ll rip your lungs out, Jim.
Heh – I’d like to meet his tailor…
Check out Moore’s, if you have them where you are, or Mr Big and Tall. Either one will take one of their off-the-rack suits that fit you closest and adjust it to fit, and for a reasonable price, so far as suits go. Considering how much mileage one can get out of a suit, it’s a good idea for every guy to have one, even if it only gets hauled out for, like, weddings and funerals and Remembrance Day.
–Incidentally, there is something super hot about a huge bear of a guy in a really well-fitting suit. Rowr. Suits for everyone! 😀
Too many people shift their body language to stiff and formal in a suit. That kills rocking the suit. You should relax in a suit like you are wearing pajamas. That rocks a suit.
You wanna see someone just rocking a suit, check out Christopher Lee here (as a bonus, enjoy his voice, eee! Crank your speakers right at the end to hear him soar on that last note at 3:20):
I mean, the rest of the guys look good in their suits as well; but you can tell that, unlike them, he owns that suit (metaphorically as well as literally ha ha) and is perfectly comfortable in it. <3
I wind up looking like a child playing dress-up, or, like, being forced to go to my aunt’s wedding who I’ve never met and will be the only kid there, or something. Men’s suits make me look like a prepubescent boy, and women’s suits only even take me to about 10th grade. I’ve tried. I’ve tried SO HARD. But there’s a very, very narrow subset of clothing that actually makes me look my age, and suits, regardless of fit, are not them. Vests are the worst. I want them to work so bad, but I just look like I’m going to my own bar mitzvah.
The more we see Jacob, the more I like him. Also, PLAID TIE AND SHIRT? Becky, this is the gayest look. I know that’s what youre going for, but damn girl.
Anyone can rock a suit, anyone. Doesn’t matter what gender, age, size, height…. If it looks wrong, you’re just not wearing the right one for you. They’re are so many styles and cuts and colors… The possibilities for perfection are endless!!!!
As someone possessing the stereotypical neckbeard physique RL, I kind of doubt that. Now, I will concede that perhaps I’ve merely never been able to find/afford a suitably (ha) bespoke and well-tailored suit; or perhaps my self-image is sufficiently poisoned that I’m incapable of a positive assessment.
That said, I tend to agree that suits are very flattering to those of the right body type, whatever their gender.
Having grown up around both, I really need to know if, by Episcopal, we’re talking Anglican or CME. Those are not at all the same thing, either doctrinally, liturgically, ceremonially, culturally, or sartorially. In an Anglican/Episcopal congregation, I would expect a lot more men to wear shirt and tie with slacks and maybe a sportcoat. In a CME congregation–at least where I grew up–I wouldn’t be at all surprised for over half of the men to be in three-piece suits. Of course, my information is probably outdated, since I haven’t darkened the door of either in at least 20 years except the occasional wedding or funeral.
That’s for Willis to know, and for us to idly speculate about. Here’s what we know about Jacob’s church:
1. He refers to it as “Episcopalian.”
2. His church “has female pastors.”
3. His church is “cool with gay people.”
I don’t know anything about the CME church, but if it meets those criteria then it’s a possibility. We’ll find out in, maybe, a month? depending on what how much concurrent subplots (Danny and Eef, the Moving of Billie, etc.) get interpolated.
CME? Coronal Mass Ejection? No. Chicago Mercantile Exchange? Unlikely.
Christian Methodist Episcopal? Yeah. Probably that.
Oh, this is gonna be even better than I thought. I’d wondered about a black church, but connected Episcopal to Anglican and didn’t know anything about this Episcopal branch.
Looks like they do ordain women, but they don’t look great on LGBT issues, so maybe not?
Everyone I see wearing a suit looks like they’re playing dress up to me. Like when you’re a kid and you sneak into your parents room and try on their “adult” clothes.
I see suits as a uniform. They are no more dressy or classy than a Taco Bell shirt. I don’t look at someone in a suit and think “daaaayum” or any other equivalent.
I think that most people don’t look good in suits and dresses. They look out of place and uncomfortable.
Panel 1: Fundie subcultural is a really interesting thing. Much like America, it is loud, bombastic, but it has a major chip on its shoulder about being the scrappy underdog who isn’t like those fancy “elites” in the cities.
And so you get things like this, where you better dress up “nice” to church, but not “too nice” lest you think you’re getting airs that you’re better than everyone else and where you look down on the other congregations for being “fancier” than you, even if you hold worship in a megachurch with its own stadium seating.
Panel 2: This is so adorable on so many levels. The realness of Becky only having a couple of outfits, but finding enough stability where she’s feeling self-conscious about rewearing outfits again and her feeling safe enough to show that intense vulnerability with her best friend.
But also, just we know the reason she kitted out on Saturday. That that was the first full day with her new not-a-mom and that she wanted to impress her with how gay she could be. It’s like a scrappy puppy trying so hard to show off for a parent that she’s scrabbling on the hardwood floors and puts her Wacky Becky antics in a much clearer context.
Plus, also, just the fact that she made sure she was still wearing her butchest duds when her girlfriend came over to her new house for the first time. Which is just awww.
Panel 3: Heh, I love Becky feeling more and more comfortable talking about aspects of this, even though her attraction and rejection by Joyce is a fairly fresh wound. But sharing some of the false positives and Joyce in turn noting how her friendship with Becky skewed her presentation growing up is just a nice soft touch of how strong their friendship is and how that wound is closing up and healing.
Also I love how accidentally queer-presenting Joyce manages to be on a consistent basis.
She ALSO wore her butchest duds in order to help her adoptive mom pick up girls in the grocery store. Multi-tasking, thy name is Becky.
Ooooh, Oooooh. I just realised. Becky still doesn’t know how to tie a tie. She had to ask Leslie to make her ready for church AGAIN this morning. And that is adorable.
I LOVE how Becky and Joyce are confident enough in each other to probe the mutual sore spot of Becky coming onto Joyce and Joyce rejecting her. Their friendship survived, and they are both so relieved by it.
Or she just loosened it enough to take it off without untieing it. I work in a job where I have to wear one daily, I can’t tie em for the life of me. I keep em hung up pre-tied.
Panel 4: Oh no, Joyce, you are 100% over the moon for Jacob. Like that soft smile and slight blush. Yeah, that perfectly captures that completely oblivious crush feeling. Also I love how gentlemanly Jacob manages to be on a consistent basis. He regularly shows a straight masculinity that is non-predatory and positive and that’s so needed.
Plus, him complimenting Becky is just adorable and important. Like, Becky doesn’t necessarily “need” that outside confirmation, but she’s definitely getting and going to get all sorts of death glares for her presentation, so it’s nice to see someone openly highlighting her outfit as something that makes her look good specifically because she is comfortable in it.
Panel 5: And that gets confirmed and expanded here, with Jacob letting her know she could rock his suit if she wanted. It’s just a nice affirmation without going out of its way to be a deliberate affirmation and it’s part of what makes Jacob such a positive person and why Joyce is so smitten with him.
Also, I know I’m probably reaching here, but I gotta say this. I really think this Becky lady might be a little queer. I know. I know, it seems like a stretch, but I dunno, I think there might be something there.
It’s a perfectly platonic soft smile and slight blush, I’m sure.
Aaaaalso, I kinda get the sense that Jacob is crushing on Joyce. It’s a bit more subtle, and it COULD be just platonic (no joke this time), but I would not be TOO surprised.
Jealous-Joe seem to think so at least.
In any case, Jacob is a perfect gentleman. Complimenting Jocye’s best friend and Joyce in the same breath is part of it.
Jacob is handsome, smart, honest, emotionally mature and understanding, just this really nice by to everyone, and essentially oozing charisma. He’s everybody’s friend. He’s like, the perfect guy, and he’s showing that here with Becky. His one flaw is that he’s fairly non-confrontational about things he probably should be (for example, Joe harrassing Radiah with the whole list thing). He really doesn’t like the idea of conflict, and that can be both a good and a bad trait. Good if you try to diffuse conflict, bad if you just try to ignore it. That having been said, I love how he’s being nice in small but meaningful ways. It’s something a lot of guys fail to do, but for Jacob it’s second nature.
As an Episcopalian I gotta say nobody at my church dresses up quite like this. Then again, I’m also on the west coast, so maybe that makes a difference.
It’s not Joyce’s clothes that are sending out false positives.
It’s Joyce’s fashion sense that are sending Joyce false positives. As in, her fashion sense tells her that the clothes she’s wearing are fashionable, when they’re not.
This is true and for all the people talking about Joyce and Becky being all sisterly Becky still probably holds some less than sisterly feelings towards joyce
In any other corner of the Internet this comment would start a flurry of flames and death threats over whether or not queer people have a right to express their queerness. Here, however, the worst that will happen is a flurry of flames and death threats over whether or not plaid is a color.
My perspective? Color is a social construct. And also a sandwich.
I would like to second Becky. As a guy, I firmly believe suits (aside from the Zoot-suit) are wasted on the masculine. You know what we should try bringing back? Tunics and or Cloaks. I mean I guy wearing a tunic with some leggings and a shirt equivalent to leggings underneath can look really good. Especially if you add a proper cloak or hat.
Nah I disagree, suits looks better on men although I’m biased in that my wife pretty much picks and chooses out of my wardrobe what she wants to wear, except for the suit, the suit is mine and mine alone
So Jacob is basically the perfect man and Joyce has a wee crush on him (easy to understand why) but for all those who think Jacob and Joyce should be together just consider who Jacob has been portrayed as
Hes someone that doesn’t want to be seen as a piece of hunka-hunka burning love (my words), who wants to concentrate on his studies and to be a straight up guy
So why would he ditch Raidah? Shes giving Jacob what he wants (probably also what he needs as well), Jacob doesn’t seem the type to ditch a girlfriend because something better comes along and considering he wants to study probably wouldn’t appreciate being dragged into the drama vortex that is Joyces current life
Yeah he’d help and be supportive but, much like Sarah, he’d probably rather be studying so Joyce and Jacob together would be good for Joyce but it wouldn’t be good for Jacob
Having said all that the upcoming train wreck will be fun to watch
Put on your Sunday clothes when you feel dooown and ouuut.
Stand on the street and have your picture took.
Dressed like a dream your world seems to tuuuurn abooout.
That Sunday shine! is a certain sign! you feel as fine as you look!
Another Episcopalian here. When I was younger dressing up at church was considered the norm and I’d often wear suits. Though when serving on the altar; was a lay eucharistic minster; I’d just wear t-shirts and jeans under the robes as no one could tell the difference. While I’m not as regular anymore most of the churches I’ve been to since tended to be more causal. There is a bit of a divide in high church (favoring rite I) and low church (more often using rite II). With the former more likely to dress up compared to the later. Some churches will offer both services, with rite I being the early service for the older members and rite II being the later service often geared towards families with children.
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Becky rocks the vest too. Very dapper.
Very true.
Becky could make a paper bag into high fashion if she had the chance
she will rock it like raquel welch rocked a potato sack back in the day
She can have the tie, though. Damn strangulation devices have always been one of those sartorial inventions that I’ve never understood the reasoning behind.
They were a good luck charm for a French battalion and some people though they looked good. So we are stuck with them.
Also they were convenient portable napkins until people started getting finicky about them. See also: Tablecloths.
So, I got curious whether this is true and looked it up. And apparently they were worn by Croatian mercenaries in the 17th century who were in the service of France. The word “cravat”, according to Wikipedia anyway, comes from a portmanteau of “Croates”, the French word for “Croatians”, and “Hrvati”, the Croatian word for Croatian. So that’s interesting. I did not know that Croatia was like Germany, Hungary, Finland, and Japan in having a name in English that sounds nothing like its actual name, for whatever reason.
The word for this type of country name is “exonym.”
Deutschland=Germany is the most well-known example for Americans.
Here’s a hypothetical exonym Itinerary I have made up:
Suomi
Eesti
Magyarorszag
Hrvatska
Crna Gora
Shqiperia
Ellas
Misr
Sak’art’velo
Hayastan
Best part? You can do Magyarorszag to Shqiperia as a road trip (with one additional country — or a car ferry — in the middle),
Magyarorszag to Ellas as a road trip. I should go to bed now, before any more brain cells disintegrate. (Although perhaps I just subconsciously wanted to type “Shqiperia” one more time.)
“Eesti” isn’t that far from “Estonia”—the root seems the same, with the English version mostly having added a few syllables. The rest, though, yeah. The sad thing is that the real name usually sounds way better; “Suomi” sounds better than “Finland”, “Magyar” sounds *way* cooler than “Hungarian”, and “Hrvati” sounds so much better than “Croat” that it’s just silly. Oh well.
What I find particularly interesting about Deutschland/Germany is the sheer number of names it has. If you’re Deutsch, you’re:
German in English
Alemán in Spanish
Tedesco in Italian
Nemetskiy in Russian <- this one basically means "people that don't talk like us"
Tysk in Denmark
Saksa in… one of the Baltic countries (don't remember which exactly atm)
Probably others that I'm forgetting about!
You piqued my curiosity about Germany as well.
The answer seems to be that Germany as a state didn’t come into existence until 1871. Before that, they were a group of loosely aligned mid European peoples..
https://www.quora.com/Why-is-Deutschland-called-Germany-in-English-What-do-Germans-call-themselves
A Finn here butting in… Saksa means Germany in Finnish (and the word for German/Deutsch is saksa/saksankieli (when talking about the language) or saksalainen (when talking about a person who is German)).
Which isn’t to say though that it couldn’t be used in Baltic countries as well. Especially in Estonia, Finnish has quite a lot of similarities with Estonian language. But I can’t say for sure.
Several of the European names for German derive from Germanic tribes who encountered the Romans, like the Alemani and the Saxons (the Gaelic “Sassenach” for “Englishman” does, too).
Hrvati –> Croatia also makes sense because of the way certain sounds are related in Indo-European languages. Squeeze your tongue to the roof of your mouth just a bit when making the “Hr” sound and it becomes “Kr.” There’s also a relationship between v and w. So Hrvati –> Cravati (like cravat) –> Crawati –> Croatia. Oh, and take it in a different direction and Hrvati –> Srvati –> Srbati (or more likely started as b and the v shift came later in the north) –> Serbia. Hrbati –> Hrbatni –> Botni –> Bosnia. All a single group 1000 to 1500 years ago. Less than that for the Bosnian-Croatian split, actually, as that was driven by the area being split by competing empires that pushed competing religions.
Hm, the phonetic link between “Hrvatska” and “Croatia” is much more apparent than many of the other cases that Marsh Maryrose listed.
Huh. I always thought they were just for hiding shirt buttons. (Or maybe as a marketing gimmick by the Father’s Day racket.)
Ties do not strangulate. Off-the-rack dress shirts in half-inch increments frequently do.
If you have the money to have tailored shirts, you can afford to wear shirts that have a neck size that matches your actual neck size, and the tie is just an accessory.
Otherwise, you have to choose between a shirt a with neck size that is slightly smaller than your neck size, or a shirt with a neck size that is slightly larger than your neck size…and the tie is still just an accessory.
Culturally and visually, gaps are noticed and derogated, so most men, when they wear dress shirts, wear shirts with a too-small neck size, and they hate it. And every woman who is reading this is making that little forefinger-and-thumb gesture that says, “the world’s tiniest violin is playing.”
“ties do not strangulate”
Tell that to R.K. Maroon!
Okay, okay, any appropriately-shaped piece of fabric can be the proximate cause of strangulation. Fictionally, there’s Dollar Bill and his cape; non-fictionally, there’s Isidora Duncan and her scarf.
But my point remains: most men who experience discomfort from the wearing of ties are actually experiencing discomfort from the wearing of shirts with neck sizes that are too small.
…That said, I can’t be the only person who saw that video of the nun using a chainsaw to clear hurricane damage, and thought, “Operating a chainsaw with loose clothing? Please…just don’t.”
Yes! Bad chain saw technique. Fashion over-ruling safety. Kept waiting for a charming story to turn into a bloodbath, because, well… its 2017.
Dollar Bill wasn’t strangled by his cape; he got it caught in a (revolving?) door, and was shot by bank robbers.
I also don’t think that any of Edna Mode’s “No capes!” examples were strangled. Instead, their capes pulled them into deadly situations. Valuable lesson.
The biggest problem with ties isn’t that they inherently strangle people. The problem is that we wear them wrong, and think that we have to.
I’m pretty positive that the reason Trump’s presidential ties are so weirdly long is that they’ve given him ties long enough to do the fancier knots (found out when doing a fancier one for my husband for a Mess dinner that you need like half a foot more than for the basic one I know how to do, so I left it far too short on my first attempt), but he’s insisting that he tie them himself–and then does a very basic knot.
Stuff like this was why it was always hilarious in like 16th and 17th century plays when the servant dresses up to play their social superiors; there’s differences in donning and moving in the upper-class clothes (especially when hoops and/or heels are involved) that the servants would not necessarily be able to pull off (definitely not if it’s a comedy), and so things like the tie ending up ludicrously long from not knowing how to tie that kind properly would result, with hilarity ensuing.
Think that sentence was too long. I would go with: The problem is we wear them.
“other than the whole ‘you’d look like a baby wearing her dad’s clothes’ part if you rocked mine, but yeah”
Yeah, but DROWNING IN JACOB
no such thing
Will be when I liquefy his tall ass.
His ass doesn’t seem to be particularly taller than average though
Oh Jacob, you say just the right things!
I came here to say that!
And we have now determined Jacob and Becky is a very good dynamic
I love every single panel of bantering here. It’s funny, it’s endearing, and they do a good job probing sensitive topics.
Becky and Joyce gently tease each other for their… less than godly goals with the church visit (Joyce attracting cute boys, even if Becky don’t know the intricacies; Becky telegraphing her identity).
Joyce bites back against the constant belittlement against her fashion sense, which gives Becky a chance to air their mutual embarrassment/guilt and turn it into a joke (“Wacky Becky got the wrong idea due to Joyce’s fashion sense. Wasn’t it hilarious? Ahahahaha. Water under the bridge.”)
Becky and Jacob get some banter and bonding in (and it’s no mistake that basically the first thing Jacob says is an affirmation of Becky’s sexuality. He’s a nice sort). I’m about 75% certain Becky realizes just WHICH boy Joyce is dressing up for, and does the wacky!Becky routine to get some pressure off Joyce. She is a WINGMAN after all.
Jacob is the most gentlemanly guy at the school apparently.
I’m still waiting for him to reveal some massive character flaw.
Maybe he spends an hour talking about how funny The Big Bang Theory is, or puts his toilet paper on the roll wrong. There has to be something.
I’m sorry to be the one to tell you this, but… he once told a puppy he wasn’t a good boy.
To be fair, that puppy was indeed a Bad Puppy.
Yeah, I don’t know what that puppy’s deal was.
It was a puppy. All puppies are bad.
It’s not really their fault, but they piss on everything they don’t chew to bits.
Adorable, perhaps, but not good.
I think if he has a flaw so far it’s how characterless he is, he’s a perfectly nice guy and behaves well in every way but if I’m being honest I can’t see myself talking to him for more than a couple minutes, just think about how he expected Sarah come up with topics when he was tired of Joyce bashing
Super addictive personality, like in Shortpacked?
This seems most likely, since characters seem to, for the most part, keep the same flaws they had in previous continuity. We just haven’t really seen any contexts in DoA where Jacob’s previous-continuity character flaw could rear its head.
…Yet. This is one of Willis’ comics, which means Jacob’s emotional distress is all but assured, since he seems to be getting more panel-time of late.
So, how are he and Joe friends (buddies; bros; compadres)?
There was that one time he called Joyce ‘certifiable’ due to her religious beliefs.
Ladies in suits and ties are gorgeous and the world needs more of them.
Honestly, I think suits look better on ladies than on most guys.
Seconded
Especially Pearl. 🙂
I must admit
(You must admit)
It’s a perfect fit!
(You look great in it!)
To be fair, everything looks better on ladies. But that’s just my own person bias talking.
I prefer them without anything on, but to each their own i guess. 😛
“Who’s to know,
what she’ll show of herself,
in what measure?
When what she reveals or what she conceals is the KEY…
to…
our pleasure…”
Nudity looks better on women, too.
Basically, just having boobs ups Charisma by, like, 4.
Well-fitting suits and ties are just generally fantastic on pretty much everyone. It’s one of my many favourite things about Steampunk. <3
For me it’s the hats, longcoats, and steampunk gauntlets. Goddamn but the Victorians knew how to make a fine longcoat and a fine hat.
OMG right?
How does Jacob know Becky again? Not sure if I forgot something somewhere.
Becky works at the pizza place now. I’m pretty sure in the strips where Joyce & Jacob end up talking, Becky is their server.
And even if he did get dragged away from the dorm party almost instantly, she met him when she did the invitations.
HAHA I understand your username! 😀 Got my own ham license a while back.
Completely OT but I just wanted to say.
They’ve met briefly a few times. Joyce’s party, the pizza place, when Becky and Joyce ran into Sarah after their class.
You can see the strips here:
http://www.dumbingofage.com/tag/becky+jacob/
Wow, never knew you could search multiple tags here. So many possibilities have opened up to me…
I had the same reaction when I learnt that. It’s a gold mine when you tries to remember a specific strip
Now I just want to be able to subtract people. “jacob+joyce-becky” to get all the jacob and joyce appearances without Becky. Trivial example, since there aren’t a lot to start with, but there are times when the initial search gets you pages and there aren’t other good ways to narrow it down.
…remove Becky?
Strange, I understan the words, but they don’t make any sense in combination 🙂
To be less silly – agreed – that would be very useful.
That could be surprisingly tricky to do depending on how tags work behind the hood. Manipulating datasets of variable/arbitrary size (such as tags) often leads to bizarre errors and intricacies in the world of computer programming, since computers need all of that data to basically stay right next to itself, but they can’t move it around freely either since the data isn’t intrinsically connected to its meaning, so there are a whole bunch of strictures in place in any high-level programming environment, and in any operating system, to prevent or mitigate overmuch access to the way data is stored via interfaces accessible to people further down the line, which often means efficient handling of this data requires more low-level programming, which is often counterintuitive and finnicky. Anyone who has used the word “pointer” more than three times knows what I’m talking about.
Disclaimer: I have used the word “pointer” exactly twice.
I have to admit, there’s a part of me that misses the Good Old Days of insane pointer math. 🙂
Ah, the Good Old Days.
Or, as those of us in embedded systems like to call them: Tuesday.
Er… What.. do people just not do raw SQL queries any more? Because my SQL is pretty rusty but iirc it should just be a matter of tacking on an extra condition with a NOT in it.
I’m not sure where the data storage format even enters into it. If you can search for entries where the tag is foo, you can also search for entries where the tag is not foo.
Of course, persuading whoever wrote the tagging system to implement such a feature is a whole other matter.
I hope autocorrect didn’t mangle that too badly, I *think* I caught all the errors.
” If you can search for entries where the tag is foo, you can also search for entries where the tag is not foo.”
… unless you’re using an interface that helpfully prevents that, which is probably what the commodore was talking about.
uugggggggh I *hate* all of what little I’ve seen of such interfaces. they always sound like such a good idea and then the implementation turns out hideous.
I’m still not sure what data structures have to do with this particular brand of hideousness, though.
Data structures aren’t directly relevant, they’re just the indirect reason why these kinds of systems aren’t always as robust as they intuitively seem like they should be.
It’s just that due do the fact that the underlying data needs to be moved around sometimes in order to remain readable by the machine, doing anything that changes the size of a list requires specifically being supported, so every individual function one might include is that much extra work a programmer might not be willing to put into a lightweight system for a very low end user utility (most users of the site will never use the tag system, and only a few of them will experiment with tag arithmetic).
moved around? I’m thinking of a query that you run, use, and discard. not writing records to disk. or resizing anything. what exactly do you mean by “moved around sometimes”? why are you talking about resizing lists?
I was thinking the same, but like you say, she’s been there for most of the development of Joyce’s unacknowledged crush.
When Joe and Jacob were having pizza at Galasso’s, and Joyce and Sarah sat down in their booth. Becky waited on them.
These three are good. I likes this. how will it all go wrong
The Preacher is Ryans father.
Oh god I hadn’t even though of that XD
Unlikely. I suspect Ryan comes from a more conservative religious background.
The tree doesn’t always fall close to the apple.
Alt-text several sizes in two dimensions.
Oh my god, someone who can draw, drawn Becky wearing Jacob’s outfit, exact size it is so that she is, as the hovertext says, “[drowning] in it.”
…See, this is why I can’t be trusted with any artistic talent. I’d always draw the darkest interpretation of these sorts of requests.
for that, you can go to recent Wilde Life strips.
Is it about well-dressed people drowning in water?
Mostly casual dress, but I think most readers would agree Oscar wears it well.
I notice you didn’t deny the drowning part. I will assume every character dies by drowning.
Just Percy Bysshe Shelly while on holiday with his wife and boyfriend
Every.
Character.
But what about-
Oh well Beckys back, had to happen sometime I guess and I’m sure Becky won’t inadvertently put her foot in her mouth or something
Also not being a noted church goer is Jacob over dressed?
Depends on how stuffy his Episcopal congregation is. Or what might be going on that day.
Fair enough
I grew up in an American Lutheran church family (which is fairly laid back) and this is exactly how my dad dressed every Sunday. Us kids also had to dress up.
I’m COMPLETELY SURE he doesn’t dress up to impress a cute, churchy girl he talked into following him to his church or anything.
…I’m almost sure.
And for whom he had previously expressed a bit of admiration.
Nah, not really overdressed. At my Methodist church even kids would wear something like this but usually forego the jacket once inside.
Something I hadn’t thought of until just now, but…
We see what Jacob is wearing right now, but we didn’t see him dressing for church, or discussing with his friends/roomates how he should dress for church.
A two-piece suit and tie is normal male dress-up. But a three-piece suit and tie? Maybe while Joyce is dressing to impress him, he’s also dressing to impress Joyce?
I guess we’ll just have to wait and see what the rest of Jacob’s church’s congregation is wearing. And we all know how Willis just loves to draw background characters in detail…
If he really wanted to impress Joyce he should have left the jacket and shirt at home and just worn the vest. The tie is optional.
Jakes.
Who else would call him rhat? Becky just can’t help but be outgoing in a way others like, can she?
And who else but Joyce says “quite fetching” and makes it sound like she’s not trying to sell clothing at Harrod’s?
I am the only male I know IRL who actually likes wearing suits and ties. But I 100% agree with both 4th-panel Becky and 4th-panel Jacob.
Agreed, women look just as great in a full suit and tie. Also I’m a male that enjoys suit and ties as well. Just bummed my job isn’t made for wearing them. B
I occasionally like to dress up as well.
It really bothered me once I had my son and I realized that little girls get to dress up in nice clothes for things; but little boys have to dress up in nice clothes for things. 🙁
Language matters.
Joyce is verrrrrrry focused on Jacob in the last few panels. And I am too (eeeee he’s so cool and friendly). XD
How long until there’s either fan art or something from Willis depicting Becky in that suit in her size?
Or that suit in the current size?
Joyce’s expression in panel 4 makes me happy.
*plays David Bowie’s “Fashion” on the hacked Muzak*
I have worn a kilt, I have worn a lungi, and I have worn a sarong. In a masculine-off between kilt-wearers and sarong-wearers and lungi-wearers, I honestly think that sarong-wearers would win, but it would be a close competition.
Try a dhoti before making these judgements.
I think that might depend on the kilt?
When I wrote this, I guess I took it for granted, but just to make it clear: Trousers-wearers are not even in the competition. Sorry, trousers-wearers.
I’m wondering about Joyce’s expression in the last two panels. She looks lovely.
She seems to have a thing for tall, well built guys, add in religion and good manners and its all on
Jacob is almost exactly what she was looking for in the beginning of the comic.
I think she’s just got a race hangup.
Especially now, with hindsight- you remember how almost the second thing she said to Sarah was ‘I’ve found this great guy I think you’ll be so good together’
It wasn’t just that Jacob was Black and Sarah was Black. It was that Jacob IS perfect, but Joyce’s brain just kind of slides off the idea of interracial couples- but he’s perfect, so who can he be with?
I bet if you asked her she wouldn’t ‘have a problem’, it’s one of those ingrained background things that goes unexamined. But until it’s really posed as a direct question, it won’t even be a thing she considers. =(
She’s bloody cute to begin with; that’s only compounded by that dress and tying her hair up.
I feel like Becky couple find a way up on Joyce’s shoulders and make that outfit work. Dressing up in ways your not meant to is all about spunk and daring
Finger guns from Becky at Jacob.
Finger guns from Joyce about Jacob. http://www.dumbingofage.com/2017/comic/book-8/01-face-the-strange/wooingarts/
Over/under on how many more finger guns jacob inspires today?
All of them.
Can’t keep their fingers off him.
stupid sexy Jacob
I like how it seems like Becky and Jacob have hit it off as friends rather quickly even with the small number of interactions between them.
I feel like Becky hits it off quickly with pretty much everybody.
Except Toe Dad, of course.
Jacob, you are illegally handsome.
All of these comments about dressing up for church are kind of throwing me, because if anyone were going to get incredibly fancy for church, I would expect it to be uber-religious people like the group Joyce and Becky were raised in. But apparently evangelicals don’t get dressed up for church? Which I really can’t believe they don’t think is “disrespectful to god” or some shit.
When I think of people dressing up for church I think of predominantly African American churches. Never been to one though.
Yeah, as an African-Methodist church goer, the way Jacob’s dressed seems pretty accurate and not overdressed at all, I’ve only been around an Episcopalian church once and the churchgoers exiting seemed to be pretty dressed up, but I can’t say if that’s because that’s how most Episcopalians dress or if it’s more of a cultural thing to dress up for church.
On another note, even Catholics (which I know are far different entirely but bear with me) will wear blouses and skirts/button ups and khakis to mass, which is kinda right between the super casual style of Joyce’s church and the super formal style of Jacob’s.
Where I was the Episcopalians (Anglo-Catholic) never bothered, but Church of Scotland (Presbyterian, more Calvinist) tended to (possibly because they had more old people). A friend from Northern Ireland told me there the Catholics were casual and the Protestants were formal too.
First, I love the May grav.
Second, one of DoA FAQs ends with, “get your kinds of Christians sorted out!” As a sort-of-culturally-but-not-really-Christian, this is something that requires a lot of research for me and I still often don’t get right, but I’m trying.
Anyway, this gets to one of the core issues of Christian theology. Should Christians worship Him with ceremony, or should they worship Him with simplicity? If you are all, “who cares?”, you might be an ecumenicist.
But I gather that for Joyce, what you wear to church is not nearly as important as what you feel while you are in church.
Depends on the Evangelicals.
Joyce and Becky were in a nondenominational church and they’re all pretty different, which I imagine also stands for wardrobe.
I love all of this, all of this is feel good
Enjoy it. It won’t last.
They all look super fancy and I like it.
Becky and Jakes – EpiscoPALS.
My grandmother used to joke that she’d be an Ecopalian if she got the piss scared out of her.
I’m with Becky on this one.
Aww, last panel Becky & Jacob interaction looks like the start of a beautiful friendship.
Becky is right; suits and ties are wasted on the masculine. They should all just… take them off… that’d make things all… better… *sweats nervously*
Though on a marginally more serious note, guys need more fancy clothing options. And sexy clothing options. And just clothing options that aren’t palette swaps of the same five articles of clothing.
Feminine clothes got all the prettiness and diversity, and guys clothes got all the functionality and practicality. That’s a ridiculous and forced dynamic that makes both clothes weaker! GIVE THE WOMEN’S AISLE POCKETS! GIVE THE MEN’S AISLE STYLE! MAKE A GENDER NEUTRAL AISLE WHILE YOU’RE AT IT, CAUSE IF THAT’S WHERE THE PRACTICAL YET FASHIONABLE CLOTHING IS THEN IT WILL BE THE MOST POPULAR AISLE IN ANY CLOTHING STORE!
Whoa whoa whoa slow down there.
I like not having options. It gives me an excuse to be incredibly boring
Fewer options also means fewer opportunities to commit fashion crimes. As someone with zero fashion sense* I like my assortment of pallet-swap polo shirts! They’re interchangeable! Makes choosing a pair of pants a boolean decision. (“Are they relatively clean? Y/N”)
*Though in this age of “graphic tees everywhere” is it really that difficult?
* jeans/cargo pants and graphic tee
* jeans/cargo pants and graphic tee with 80s suit-style leather jacket
* jeans/cargo pants and Hawaiian shirt
* jeans/cargo pants with plain tee with Hawaiian shirt over the top
* jeans/cargo pants and hippie shirt
What more options would any sane person need?
but like…. enabling people to have more diverse options doesn’t mean you personally are forced to use all of the different options
aka a lesson that can be applied to so many more things than just fashion 😛
Undershirt
Long-sleeve dress shirt (white or light blue, maybe cream yellow or sage green if you want to mix it up a bit)
Black slacks
Done.
Yes, I am a real life example of the Limited Wardrobe trope, by choice.
Bring back robes for men!
Yes please!
And while you’re at it suits that fit nicely over the well endowed last would be wonderful 😀
Argh. Lady.
I know based on what I know about nature we somehow got clothe gender dynamics backwards.
AMEN!
HEAR HEAR!
I blame Beau Brummel. Men’s clothing was just as interesting and colourful as women’s until he came along and, sure, was all stylish; but then that fashion just got stuck for, like, two and a half centuries. Give me a break.
Woad’s the stuff to show them!
Woad to fright your foemen!
Boil it to a brilliant blue–
And rub it on your chest and your abdomen!
Silk suit…
Black tie… (black tie)
I don’t need a reason whyyyyy
They come runnin’ just as fast as they caaaan…
‘Cause every girl crazy ’bout a sharp dressed maaan!
*spins fluffy, faux-fur covered guitar*
“False positives”? Tee hee, I see how Dina’s language is beginning to rub off on Becky…
Oooooh! I didn’t catch that. That’s adorable!
You mean adorkable, right?
Right.
I like Jacob’s reaction 😃
He is a perfect gentleman.
Joyce-Becky interaction is always cute and I reiterate that they’re like sisters in all but blood in their behaviour towards each other. Today’s strip makes me wonder just how much influence Becky has over Joyce’s sartorial sense. I’m starting to think that ‘easy to influence’ is possibly a key part of her personality!
Meanwhile, Willis has ruined me for the day with his alt-text. I won’t be able to stop seeing Becky struggling to manage wearing Jacob’s suit!
Becky is Joyce’s de facto sister, much like Billie is pretty much the third Walkerton twin.
I’ve always been of the opinion that anyone could rock a suit. Just classes you up, regardless of who you are.
I seriously cannot. You’d get pretty much the same effect from putting an evening gown on a wolf.
It doesn’t help that it’s basically impossible for me to find an off-the-rack dress shirt that stretches across my shoulders and allows me to button the top button, but isn’t way too big in every other respect.
On the other hand, throw a fur cloak over my shoulders, and I could walk into Winterfell and no one would blink an eye.
nah look sounds good. Wolves look good in suits.
Like, maybe it’s prohibitively expensive to get a custom-tailored suit for a wolf.
But if you could pony up the cash, it’d look good
He’s the hairy-handed gent
Who ran amok in Kent
Lately he’s been overheard in Mayfair
You’d better stay away from him
He’ll rip your lungs out, Jim.
Heh – I’d like to meet his tailor…
Check out Moore’s, if you have them where you are, or Mr Big and Tall. Either one will take one of their off-the-rack suits that fit you closest and adjust it to fit, and for a reasonable price, so far as suits go. Considering how much mileage one can get out of a suit, it’s a good idea for every guy to have one, even if it only gets hauled out for, like, weddings and funerals and Remembrance Day.
–Incidentally, there is something super hot about a huge bear of a guy in a really well-fitting suit. Rowr. Suits for everyone! 😀
Too many people shift their body language to stiff and formal in a suit. That kills rocking the suit. You should relax in a suit like you are wearing pajamas. That rocks a suit.
You wanna see someone just rocking a suit, check out Christopher Lee here (as a bonus, enjoy his voice, eee! Crank your speakers right at the end to hear him soar on that last note at 3:20):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z93SdirnzTw
I mean, the rest of the guys look good in their suits as well; but you can tell that, unlike them, he owns that suit (metaphorically as well as literally ha ha) and is perfectly comfortable in it. <3
Now that’s a man with presence
I shift my body language to “Oh God, I’m uncomfortable, I look like an idiot, why am I wearing this.”
Of course, I basically live in t-shirts and jeans/shorts depending on the weather.
I wind up looking like a child playing dress-up, or, like, being forced to go to my aunt’s wedding who I’ve never met and will be the only kid there, or something. Men’s suits make me look like a prepubescent boy, and women’s suits only even take me to about 10th grade. I’ve tried. I’ve tried SO HARD. But there’s a very, very narrow subset of clothing that actually makes me look my age, and suits, regardless of fit, are not them. Vests are the worst. I want them to work so bad, but I just look like I’m going to my own bar mitzvah.
I’m now shipping (well not exactly shipping but…) Jacob and Becky being elegant, sophisticated bros.
Platonic ships exist too, you can ship them as friends that look stylish together for all of eternity.
Yey
Friendshipping.
Perfect.
The more we see Jacob, the more I like him. Also, PLAID TIE AND SHIRT? Becky, this is the gayest look. I know that’s what youre going for, but damn girl.
Anyone can rock a suit, anyone. Doesn’t matter what gender, age, size, height…. If it looks wrong, you’re just not wearing the right one for you. They’re are so many styles and cuts and colors… The possibilities for perfection are endless!!!!
….No, YOU have a suit fetish.
As someone possessing the stereotypical neckbeard physique RL, I kind of doubt that. Now, I will concede that perhaps I’ve merely never been able to find/afford a suitably (ha) bespoke and well-tailored suit; or perhaps my self-image is sufficiently poisoned that I’m incapable of a positive assessment.
That said, I tend to agree that suits are very flattering to those of the right body type, whatever their gender.
No way. There’s a suit for you and you’d look hot in it
Having grown up around both, I really need to know if, by Episcopal, we’re talking Anglican or CME. Those are not at all the same thing, either doctrinally, liturgically, ceremonially, culturally, or sartorially. In an Anglican/Episcopal congregation, I would expect a lot more men to wear shirt and tie with slacks and maybe a sportcoat. In a CME congregation–at least where I grew up–I wouldn’t be at all surprised for over half of the men to be in three-piece suits. Of course, my information is probably outdated, since I haven’t darkened the door of either in at least 20 years except the occasional wedding or funeral.
That’s for Willis to know, and for us to idly speculate about. Here’s what we know about Jacob’s church:
1. He refers to it as “Episcopalian.”
2. His church “has female pastors.”
3. His church is “cool with gay people.”
I don’t know anything about the CME church, but if it meets those criteria then it’s a possibility. We’ll find out in, maybe, a month? depending on what how much concurrent subplots (Danny and Eef, the Moving of Billie, etc.) get interpolated.
CME? Coronal Mass Ejection? No. Chicago Mercantile Exchange? Unlikely.
Christian Methodist Episcopal? Yeah. Probably that.
Oh, this is gonna be even better than I thought. I’d wondered about a black church, but connected Episcopal to Anglican and didn’t know anything about this Episcopal branch.
Looks like they do ordain women, but they don’t look great on LGBT issues, so maybe not?
Becky and Jacob have the best dynamic <3
Everyone I see wearing a suit looks like they’re playing dress up to me. Like when you’re a kid and you sneak into your parents room and try on their “adult” clothes.
I see suits as a uniform. They are no more dressy or classy than a Taco Bell shirt. I don’t look at someone in a suit and think “daaaayum” or any other equivalent.
I think that most people don’t look good in suits and dresses. They look out of place and uncomfortable.
Comic Reactions:
Panel 1: Fundie subcultural is a really interesting thing. Much like America, it is loud, bombastic, but it has a major chip on its shoulder about being the scrappy underdog who isn’t like those fancy “elites” in the cities.
And so you get things like this, where you better dress up “nice” to church, but not “too nice” lest you think you’re getting airs that you’re better than everyone else and where you look down on the other congregations for being “fancier” than you, even if you hold worship in a megachurch with its own stadium seating.
Panel 2: This is so adorable on so many levels. The realness of Becky only having a couple of outfits, but finding enough stability where she’s feeling self-conscious about rewearing outfits again and her feeling safe enough to show that intense vulnerability with her best friend.
But also, just we know the reason she kitted out on Saturday. That that was the first full day with her new not-a-mom and that she wanted to impress her with how gay she could be. It’s like a scrappy puppy trying so hard to show off for a parent that she’s scrabbling on the hardwood floors and puts her Wacky Becky antics in a much clearer context.
Plus, also, just the fact that she made sure she was still wearing her butchest duds when her girlfriend came over to her new house for the first time. Which is just awww.
Panel 3: Heh, I love Becky feeling more and more comfortable talking about aspects of this, even though her attraction and rejection by Joyce is a fairly fresh wound. But sharing some of the false positives and Joyce in turn noting how her friendship with Becky skewed her presentation growing up is just a nice soft touch of how strong their friendship is and how that wound is closing up and healing.
Also I love how accidentally queer-presenting Joyce manages to be on a consistent basis.
She ALSO wore her butchest duds in order to help her adoptive mom pick up girls in the grocery store. Multi-tasking, thy name is Becky.
Ooooh, Oooooh. I just realised. Becky still doesn’t know how to tie a tie. She had to ask Leslie to make her ready for church AGAIN this morning. And that is adorable.
I LOVE how Becky and Joyce are confident enough in each other to probe the mutual sore spot of Becky coming onto Joyce and Joyce rejecting her. Their friendship survived, and they are both so relieved by it.
Adorable false-positive Joyce is adorable!
Or she just loosened it enough to take it off without untieing it. I work in a job where I have to wear one daily, I can’t tie em for the life of me. I keep em hung up pre-tied.
Sure, you CAN do that. But if she did, she wouldn’t have to bug Leslie to tie her tie again, and Becky REALLY want Leslie to mom on her right now.
(cont)
Panel 4: Oh no, Joyce, you are 100% over the moon for Jacob. Like that soft smile and slight blush. Yeah, that perfectly captures that completely oblivious crush feeling. Also I love how gentlemanly Jacob manages to be on a consistent basis. He regularly shows a straight masculinity that is non-predatory and positive and that’s so needed.
Plus, him complimenting Becky is just adorable and important. Like, Becky doesn’t necessarily “need” that outside confirmation, but she’s definitely getting and going to get all sorts of death glares for her presentation, so it’s nice to see someone openly highlighting her outfit as something that makes her look good specifically because she is comfortable in it.
Panel 5: And that gets confirmed and expanded here, with Jacob letting her know she could rock his suit if she wanted. It’s just a nice affirmation without going out of its way to be a deliberate affirmation and it’s part of what makes Jacob such a positive person and why Joyce is so smitten with him.
Also, I know I’m probably reaching here, but I gotta say this. I really think this Becky lady might be a little queer. I know. I know, it seems like a stretch, but I dunno, I think there might be something there.
First person to explicitly call out that smile. =) Isn’t it adorable?
Pffft, what do you know about queer people.
It’s a perfectly platonic soft smile and slight blush, I’m sure.
Aaaaalso, I kinda get the sense that Jacob is crushing on Joyce. It’s a bit more subtle, and it COULD be just platonic (no joke this time), but I would not be TOO surprised.
Jealous-Joe seem to think so at least.
In any case, Jacob is a perfect gentleman. Complimenting Jocye’s best friend and Joyce in the same breath is part of it.
Jacob is handsome, smart, honest, emotionally mature and understanding, just this really nice by to everyone, and essentially oozing charisma. He’s everybody’s friend. He’s like, the perfect guy, and he’s showing that here with Becky. His one flaw is that he’s fairly non-confrontational about things he probably should be (for example, Joe harrassing Radiah with the whole list thing). He really doesn’t like the idea of conflict, and that can be both a good and a bad trait. Good if you try to diffuse conflict, bad if you just try to ignore it. That having been said, I love how he’s being nice in small but meaningful ways. It’s something a lot of guys fail to do, but for Jacob it’s second nature.
<ducktales>“Hi, I’m Jacob, I’m everyone’s friend!”</ducktales>
If she tried to wear that suit, she’d look like David Byrne in “Stop Making Sense”, or the kid at the end of “Big”.
As an Episcopalian I gotta say nobody at my church dresses up quite like this. Then again, I’m also on the west coast, so maybe that makes a difference.
Nobody really dresses up on the West Coast. Easterners visiting SoCal should hit the thrifts for good dress jackets and suchlike.
I’ve not noticed Joyce dressing in way that would send out false positives. Am I missing something?
It’s not Joyce’s clothes that are sending out false positives.
It’s Joyce’s fashion sense that are sending Joyce false positives. As in, her fashion sense tells her that the clothes she’s wearing are fashionable, when they’re not.
I thought it was that her clothes are. If she has cute vests and all.
At the very least, it’s a statement I’ve gotten kind of a lot..
Becky wanted Joyce to be gay.
This is true and for all the people talking about Joyce and Becky being all sisterly Becky still probably holds some less than sisterly feelings towards joyce
Plaid is the official color of queerness.
In any other corner of the Internet this comment would start a flurry of flames and death threats over whether or not queer people have a right to express their queerness. Here, however, the worst that will happen is a flurry of flames and death threats over whether or not plaid is a color.
My perspective? Color is a social construct. And also a sandwich.
I would like to second Becky. As a guy, I firmly believe suits (aside from the Zoot-suit) are wasted on the masculine. You know what we should try bringing back? Tunics and or Cloaks. I mean I guy wearing a tunic with some leggings and a shirt equivalent to leggings underneath can look really good. Especially if you add a proper cloak or hat.
Nah I disagree, suits looks better on men although I’m biased in that my wife pretty much picks and chooses out of my wardrobe what she wants to wear, except for the suit, the suit is mine and mine alone
So, with this strip, I gotta ask:
Does everyone hear Khary Payton for Jacob, or is it just me?
(Yes, I know there are many many black (voice) actors, but… he just seems to fit so well.)
I don’t think I’ve ever seen a flat waist on a single-breasted waistcoat. Is that a thing these days?
Come for the drama and well stay for the drama
So Jacob is basically the perfect man and Joyce has a wee crush on him (easy to understand why) but for all those who think Jacob and Joyce should be together just consider who Jacob has been portrayed as
Hes someone that doesn’t want to be seen as a piece of hunka-hunka burning love (my words), who wants to concentrate on his studies and to be a straight up guy
So why would he ditch Raidah? Shes giving Jacob what he wants (probably also what he needs as well), Jacob doesn’t seem the type to ditch a girlfriend because something better comes along and considering he wants to study probably wouldn’t appreciate being dragged into the drama vortex that is Joyces current life
Yeah he’d help and be supportive but, much like Sarah, he’d probably rather be studying so Joyce and Jacob together would be good for Joyce but it wouldn’t be good for Jacob
Having said all that the upcoming train wreck will be fun to watch
darnit, I keep meaning to play avatar roulette with my regular comments, and then forget. every time. let’s see if I can remember now.
…doh. my attempt at avatar roulette went to moderation. that wasn’t happening before…
oh well, at least I’m not mary any more 🙂
…oh, that would be because I changed the address instead of just the capitalization.
Put on your Sunday clothes when you feel dooown and ouuut.
Stand on the street and have your picture took.
Dressed like a dream your world seems to tuuuurn abooout.
That Sunday shine! is a certain sign! you feel as fine as you look!
Like a ginger Ellen Degeneres. An Ellen Degingeres, if you will.
we need becky in that Jacob’s suit but more her size cuz I’m mentally seeing it and she is indeed rocking it!
Another Episcopalian here. When I was younger dressing up at church was considered the norm and I’d often wear suits. Though when serving on the altar; was a lay eucharistic minster; I’d just wear t-shirts and jeans under the robes as no one could tell the difference. While I’m not as regular anymore most of the churches I’ve been to since tended to be more causal. There is a bit of a divide in high church (favoring rite I) and low church (more often using rite II). With the former more likely to dress up compared to the later. Some churches will offer both services, with rite I being the early service for the older members and rite II being the later service often geared towards families with children.