Dina is off the hook! She doesn’t use Google safe search, she plays Wii without using the safety strap and she also defends her girlfriend from bad fathers.
I read that as “defends her girlfriend from bad feathers“ and instantly pictured Dina defending Becky from a particularly-ruffled-up cassowary (technically, they are theropods…).
From now on, I will use “bad feather(s)” to refer to angry birds and other dinosaurs of the theropod lineage.
(and if interpreted literally my thought was more along the lines of the toddlers in the Sunday School classes not being as supervised as they should be)
Okay, so, I’ve heard some rumblings about shippin Jacob and Joyce together.
Is that really safe? I mean, Jacob is a great guy, but would Joyce really be able to heal through her issues with a guy who is afraid of his own penis? Sorry, tried to make a joke but that comes off insensitive to people with sex addiction.
On that note: I’ve heard people claiming that Jacob is Asexual? Where does THAT come from? Willis has said, repeatedly, that despite other things being different one of the key things that stay the same between the dumbiverse and the walkyverse is Sexuality, in which case Jacob is on the other extremeof the libido market, he’s a sex addict…
Okay, fair enough, poor choice of words by someone uneducated, but the sentiment stays, in the walkyverse he basically ruined his own life for quite a while by shtupping any woman willing for quite a long while. And the attraction was there too.
Sex addiction is not remotely to do with sexuality. SP!Jacob had an addictive personality and a deeply rooted tendency to self-sabotage. We haven’t seen any signs of either from him here.
But otherwise, he is indeed not asexual. He is (presumably) heterosexual.
I don’t agree with BBCC. I think a lack of libido would be included, although perhaps not necessary, in most definitons of asexuality. There are other terms, such as aromantic, to cover for more specific aspects (which may or may not be inclusive of libido).
Seconded – asexuality is diverse. AVEN (the Asexuality Visibility & Education Network) explains: “An asexual is someone who does not experience sexual attraction […] For some sexual arousal is a fairly regular occurrence, though it is not associated with a desire to find a sexual partner or partners. Some will occasionally masturbate, but feel no desire for partnered sexuality. Other asexual people experience little or no arousal […] Asexuality is like any other identity- at its core, it’s just a word that people use to help figure themselves out.” There is also “grey asexuality” for the wide world of further intricacies.
You would be wrong. Most people define asexuality as someone who does not experience sexual attraction or only experiences it weakly or at certain times. Libido or sexual arousal has nothing to do with that. Someone without a libido might id as asexual they might not. In the same way, someone who is asexual might have any level of libido, as moo said.
Also aromantic means the same thing as asexual but with romantic attraction, not sexual attraction.
It really doesn’t. A lot of people with low libido don’t ID as ace and a lot of ace people don’t have low libidos. Those are two separate things. Sure, a lot of folks with low libido will ID as ace, but not everybody does.
huh. Funny thing, last line of the post, “no Sex addiction. Maybe when he’s like 25, so at least not within the comic’s timeframe” (Paraphrased). It MAY still happen to him, just when he is older, maintaining the “Sexual hijinks are contant between universes”.
As I understand it, sex addiction isn’t a sexuality per se, and I believe Willis is on record as stating on his tumblr that Jacob’s wait-for-the-long-term stance in this ‘verse is an attempt to steer in the opposite direction from Jacob’s sex-addict depiction in the Walkyverse.
Jacob’s sexuality has been addressed nearby in tonight’s comments.
I’m an on-again, off-again Jacob/Joyce shipper. And between yesterday’s strip and today’s, I’m off again.
I liked that, when Jacob said, “tell me how you really feel,” and Joyce said “It was fine,” and then Jacob said, “Joyce.” And he was clearly seeking seeking honesty.
And then she gave him an honest answer. And his response was not to acknowledge her honest answer, but to try to persuade her that, maybe her answer might have been wrong?
To me, Jacob’s behavior over this story arc has been less about him caring for Joyce and more about him trying to bring her into his worship community. And these two things are not incompatible — from Jacob’s point of view, they are totally compatible — but at the moment, Jacob seems to be more about “can she become comfortable being part of my community,” and less about “can I become comfortable being part of her community.”
Also, he seems to think that the fact that his church welcomes people like Becky automatically makes his church the only obvious choice for people like Joyce. It’s not a binary choice. Bad Jacob, no cookie. (And at least for now, no Joyce.)
And only now am I flashing on when Dorothy and Walky were introducing Joyce to “Dexter and Monkey Master” and saying “Isn’t this awesome?” and Joyce was like, “Yes this is awesome!” and it wasn’t like they had to persuade her how awesome it was.
If you have to work to persuade a new friend that something is awesome, and that person’s response is polite but not enthusiastic, maybe it’s not awesome to that person, and maybe you should accept that, and maybe accept the fact that your new friend doesn’t necessarily share your enthusiasm but might still be okay as a friend.
And yes, I know that the previous paragraph is gibberish to Walky. But I was expecting more from Jacob.
I think Becky cleared that up for him a lot more clearly than Joyce ever could. I wouldn’t be surprised if there isn’t a similar experience where Joyce and Becky take Jacob out of his comfort zone. Though I doubt he freaks out like since that not really how Jacob does things.
Maybe he skipped a step in his reaction because he cannot relate to Joyce experience.
It seems like he has a basicly cerebral approach to his faith and like some commenters yesterday didn’t understand why “feeling god” was such an important factor (if you can feel god, it’s not faith but knowledge, no😉?)
To “Mr D”:
Wow, that was a bit dense and I’m not sure I understood it all…
um…
he seems more aromatic than asexual, or perhaps, like kinky for power dynamic comprehension or in SOME way “queer” (aka not heteronormative, aka “different than standard deviation via some mystical mythical judgement from some speaker of such standard”).
If you aren’t the author, be careful in how you throw out assumptions about MENTAL ILLNESS LABELING, and doubly consider not making jokes about it ever again. I dont know about so-called “sex addiction” whatever that means (can’t ANYTHING involving hormones, aka literally everything we do as biologic entities, become physiologically addicting? isn’t singling out sex in this just being sex-negative? talking to you, all medical/psych researchers..), but anyway mostly it isn’t really acceptable to make jokes about struggles that you are not personally going through. Just pointing out…
I’m sorry I’m just so happy. It really hit me that Jacob and Becky are INTERACTING and TALKING, and Joyce is trying new things and talking with people. And feels SAFE around Jacob.
Idk, it’s nice seeing more of the cast interact with more than their immediate circle.
And I love Joyce
Becky, seemingly lacking in self-awareness, paints a pretty clear picture of how Joyce and Jacob’s churches have helped raise them. And I’m wondering if this is an indicator that someone from La Porte is going to visit the school in this book.
She had to be. Being able to read her father’s wild mood swings was literally critical to her survival. As such, it has also lead her to quietly reading a lot of other people too.
Yech. The only kind I like is the 50/50 lemonade mix, the rest are just disgusting. I’m hooked on coffee, even the cheap instant stuff is more palatable to me than tea is.
Coffee is the finest organic suspension ever devised.
I think it was about keeping the pinkies up while drinking tea.
At least that’s what I immediately thought, but I live in a country where everyone drinks tea…
A dimetrodon was placed in the dinosaur bin? What are we, to believe that toy-store workers don’t have PhDs in Paleontology? Boy, I really hope somebody got fired for that blunder.
Sadly, it’s been known to happen in museum gift shops.
(Also, y’know, it doesn’t really take a PhD to know synapsids aren’t dinosaurs…but it’d still be hitting the jackpot to hit a stockperson who was interested in paleostuff, and cared about the bins being accurately delineated, and was allowed to care.)
Which is one of the reasons it’s so galling that Dimetrodons still end up among the dinos, even there.
(The other reason being that the stocker’s knowledge/interest shouldn’t be a factor…museums should have their stock laid out with such things explicitly laid out!)
There’s a really easy answer. People who are looking for dinosaur toys are probably more interested in Dimetrodon than they would be in dinosaurs like sparrows. And people who are looking for Dimetrodon toys are probably more interested in tyrannosaurs than synapsids like pugs.
This is because the categories most people are actually sorting by is “prehistoric life”. Instead of trying to sort everything by taxonomy, just label your section that and you’ll do just fine.
The problem that even “accurate” theropod figurines still tend to be featherless is a harder one.
Because they’ve still labeled the ‘prehistoric creatures’ section as ‘dinosaurs’, which, in a toy store, is slightly twitch-inducing for geeks like Dina and myself, but is actively against the goal of an educational organization like a museum.
If a museum wants to jumble them all together, they really need to throw in the mammoths and smilodons and call it ‘prehistoric creatures’ (which should logically be subdivided either by time period or major clades, but that would require the gift shop to have more room than is really reasonable to expect). If they’re going to have a section labeled ‘dinosaurs’, it behooves them, as an educational organization, to only put dinosaurs there.
Sorry, that was my easy answer: throw in the mammoths and smilodons and rename it “prehistoric creatures”. It’s probably what most places really mean.
If they could, I like the idea of subdividing by time period and geography. Once you have your T. rex, what goes better with it? A Spinosaurus from way before and the other side of the world, or Triceratops and Quetzalcoatlus?
None of those groups had feathers. (Well…pterosaurs would be fuzzyish, and the jury’s still out of the derivation of pycnofibres, so far as I know, but even then, pycnofibres aren’t actually feathers.)
Actually, from what we know, the most likely case is the earliest feathers superficially resembled fur or hair. The stiff, pennaceous, feathers are a later evolution. And losing the barbs, thus becoming spine-like, would be later still.
The positive view of this is: some toy company actually made a dimetrodon figurine? Woot!
(Alas, the spellcheck I am using doesn’t recognize “dimetrodon.” And I just now realized it doesn’t recognize “spellcheck.” (My chequer tolled mi sew!)
Dimetrodons are actually one of the more popular prehistoric creatures to make into toys. (Especially the cheap ones, where the sail always ends up rolling up because the cheap plastic can’t hold up to being handled.) Them, the most popular dinosaurs, pterodactyls, and sabertooth tigers. Then plesiosaurs, less popular dinosaurs, and other pterosaurs.
Panel 1: This feels weighty. Like, we don’t know much about Jacob and we know that some things are very different from the other universe, but I’m starting to suspect he might have similar worries about addictive behavior or at least about the potential of losing control.
Like, he’s structured and likes that structure but there’s an element of fear there that letting go completely would result in a terrible crash he doesn’t even want to skate near.
And I feel that. I didn’t struggle with an addictive personality, but I had a very recently stabilized DID brain in early college and avoided alcohol and drugs like the plague out of fear that “going wild” would lead to the merry-go-round breaking down as it were. So I get the idea of imposing a sort of structure out of fear that too much chaos will rip you apart.
Panel 2: This panel is so sweet, because it’s both what she loves about Joyce, why she was so drawn to her, as well as what drew her to the church that threw her away. And one’s irredeemable, but the other isn’t. And that matters to Becky.
And of course she’d favor that model of freedom. She may characterize her church as more free-wheeling, but the environment she grew up in was one of oppressive control and structure, where her every activity and action and thought were policed 24/7 by a violent bigot with an unshakable idea of “what was right” and that nearly lead to her kidnapping, torture, and/or death.
Structure is an enemy to Becky because it was freedom that finally let her live and breathe and be herself. Joyce let her live and breathe and be herself. So yeah, rock out on an electric guitar and tune out the priest because she’s busy talking to her personal God instead who answers lesbian prayers.
That’s pretty my understanding of Jacob as well. He recognizes his addictive personality, and is trying to focus it on positive goals like exercise and schoolwork. Hopefully things work out better for him in this universe.
Other data point: we don’t know if Jacob’s parents came to Freshman Family Weekend. We know very little of his home life.
I know it’s a harmful stereotype about POC that gets horribly misused, but I wonder if Jacob came from a broken home or other chaotic family situation, maybe being bounced between parent-figures and/or foster care.
Panels 3-4: Again, it definitely feels in Jacob’s facial expressions here a confirmation that his structure is not merely a matter of habit or preference but also of fear of breaking down or losing control over his life in a negative way. That structure is his way of finding order in the unending chaos.
And it makes me think if he didn’t come from a more chaotic background, where order was his freedom from that whereas Becky was the opposite, finding the freedom of chaos to escape her order.
And I think that’s also why she glares. Order has not treated her well. And I feel that. I still side-eye a lot of ordered systems naturally because of how many organized systems have found nasty cracks for me to slip down. It helps me bond with the Becky style students who have that edge of anti-authoritarianism to their actions.
Panel 5: Dina is joy.
But also, yes, of course she’s a maverick and a badass. Like, everyone underestimates her because we infantilize asian people and women and those who exhibit spectrum-like traits.
But this is a woman who jumped on the back of a man at least twice her size, carrying a gun and wanting to kill her and her girlfriend and bit and clawed him and would have kept going if she didn’t get thrown off and pinned and presumably knocked out.
This is a woman who fights for what she loves whether it be her girlfriend or accurate taxonomy and representation of prehistoric creatures. Who will never think about what is appropriate or disciplined and who will follow her heart as much as Becky does.
And yeah, Becky of course, knows that power. It’s what led her here. It’s what’s saved her life. It’s what’s made her whole. Following her heart wherever that leads, regardless of what others say has been everything to her and it’s beautiful to see her so at peace with that fact now that the terror of discovery is finally past.
Telling someone they are very structured is a two-edged sort of compliment. The path from structured to rigid seems rather short, so how should one take it?
I’m not sure how to read Jacob here. It’s could be “my idea of structured is much more structured than I am” – might be projecting here – or “hey, I’m still flexible!”.
There is also the possibility that Jacob would like to not think of himself as a boring person. From experience, being accurately characterized as structured is not that comfortable.
Also, I’d tend to guess Jacob is trying to give Becky and Joyce an alternative place or worship and trying to understand why they aren’t enthused.
I’d guess J&B (is there a Paul in the script? Maybe Dina could adopt the name of a flying reptile…) are just used to a different form of worship.
I think it is important to realize the we, as people, are slightly more different inside than allows for peaceful coexistence. As such, the expectation of understanding or well-honed empathy is unrealistic. Sometimes this is because of lack of shared experiences. Sometimes it is because of an inborn lack of empathy. Jacob’s maybe a little insensitive here and meddling a tad, but it is fine. I would enjoy seeing him at Joyce’s church. Or possibly a Joyce-like church.
Ten points for Becky for managing to work in her rad girlfriend into the conversation! You can’t let them forget about the fact that you HAVE A GIRLFRIEND!!!
Jakes is SO going to be a thing and BECKY. BECKYYYYY.
I LOVE YOU SO MUCH BECKYYYYYY you are so good and so clever and so clever and good. and tuff. tuff like a mutha
Mission fail? Not so sure. Jacob suddenly has a touch of defensiveness about him. When someone blindsides you with an assessment, it can through you off. “I’m not that structured. Wait. Am I? ‘Safely civilized?’ That’s not how I view myself. Should I change? Maybe I should change. What would be not structured? Unpredictable? Not safe?”
Becky sure is smug about her church who’s “rough edges” included doing it’s level best to ignore her to her face and talk about her behind her back. It isn’t even the heart on her sleeve place she seems to be saying it is.
I am surprised at her defense of their church. It more than ignored her and talked behind her back: it taught that what she is is some kind of manifestation of evil.
Becky seems uncharacteristically nasty to Jacob in these strips. It sounds to me like she doesn’t like Jacob and is taking swings at him under the guise of “just being Becky.”
I think it’s not a defense of their church specifically as a defense of their style of church / services.
I Cerberus’s comments above explain where Becky’s probably coming from really well, and also how it was the structured part of her religious upbringing that was hurting and stifling her while growing up, which I think is what Becky is reacting hostilely to, not Jacob himself.
Plus, she’s only been back to their old church the one time with Joyce since anyone knew she was a lesbian, so Becky probably has plenty of fairly happy memories at that church, hanging out with her mom and Joyce, where her dad couldn’t be a complete butthole because there were too many other people around.
Possible, but really, really unlikely in my opinion. It doesn’t seem like she really intended to insult Jacob, since she’s saying the same thing is true of Joyce, and she’s clearly not insulting Joyce
Joyce is somewhat uncomfortable, and so Becks is moving the truth around to make her feel better. (Making Joyce feel better is still a main priority, wild couch-staining girlfriend be damned.)
I don’t read any smugness into that. I mean, I recognize that a lot of people don’t want to give recognition to this kind of thing, but people appreciate things that have hurt them all the time.
For instance, I was nearly driven to suicide by someone arguing for hardline feminism. That doesn’t mean I reject the principles she based her arguments on, tempting as it was; it just meant that I had to spend the effort to disconnect that pain from the foundations they came from. Really, if I always rejected things that felt like I was some kind of manifestation of evil, I would have turned my back on everyone in the world by now.
So, we get strip after strip of Joyce freaking out at the slightest, most superficial differences between her church and Jacob’s, all of which is played for comedy…and now Jacob is the one who’s out-of-touch and doesn’t understand because he suggests that the surface details of religion are less important than faith? Jacob seriously has the patience of a saint. Telling someone who’s gone out of their way to be inclusive that their church doesn’t have any God in it is incredibly insulting.
He’s a mature young man, settled in his faith, and open to others’ perspectives, evidenced with his relationship with Raidah. He understands not everyone has had exposure to more diverse points of view, and from what we’ve seen, he genuinely wants to Be There for other people.
Those differences are superficial to you (and to me), but they aren’t superficial to her. If she didn’t feel God, she didn’t feel God. Anyone who cares about Joyce (I’m talking to you, Jacob!) has to start with that, and take it seriously.
I get things wrong all the time, but as an enthusiastic cruciverbalist and a sometime lexicographer, I tend to get my words right.
There is some overlap — both words involve making changes in a document — but “emend” generally has the sense of fixing something that is wrong or unclear, while “amend” has the sense of modification for some specific purpose.
I think that Becky makes an interesting argument. I’d take it one step further: Some people don’t look for God in their church but something that validates their own personality and attitudes towards certain things. Some people need the costumes, the chants and the like. Some people just need to be told that the way to heaven involves sitting on a pew for two hours ever Sunday. Some people want and need a strongly charismatic preacher who is as much the focus of their faith as the concept of God.
Of course, with Joyce and Becky, having been raised by this group, it’s an obvious inversion of the rule. Joyce and Becky were shaped by their childhood spiritual experiences. Because of that, it’s hard for them to adapt to anything else.
Off-topic:
You know those “Me too” posts/hashtags that are going around Facebook and the like? I’ve been wondering about participating myself, because of gender things mostly. I’m a NB, AFAB person and a survivor of sexual assault. And anyway, the initial “Me too” posts I saw would all say “women” in the explanation, so I didn’t…feel like it was my place? To join in. Now I’m seeing some of these posts, mostly when posted by queer friends, that say “people” in place of women, and that’s something I’d feel more ready to be a part of, but I also wonder if that takes away from the original purpose of the hashtag? Or perhaps those who originated the hashtag weren’t thinking of the diversity of gender experiences.
I also saw someone on Facebook share something about not saying “Me too” because survivors shouldn’t have to feel the expectation to out themselves, which is an important point too. At the same time, I personally already have, having posted a poem about an experience of mine to Facebook back in April. So maybe that makes posting “Me too”…more redundant? Less needed? I don’t know. I’ve just been thinking about this a lot throughout the day.
I don’t actually know what these “Me too” posts are, but I just want to say that I support you. I used to identify as just gay, but in recent months I’ve realized I’m non-binary and also pan/polysexual. Non-binary people high five!
I’ve seen non-female friends posting “me too.” I don’t think it was intended to exclude other genders but just reflects how we think of it as a women’s problem.
I keep looking at Jacob’s uneasy expression in Becky’s analysis of him, and thinking, what’s going on inside there?
I know Willis said that he doesn’t have the same addiction that Shortpacked! Jacob did. That doesn’t mean that he’s some perfect person. No one in Willis’ universe is a completely awesome character; they’ve all got faults and flaws. If they appear like they’re a completely good, perfect character with no problems, it just means that we haven’t gone too deep into the character yet.
So as Jacob starts being less of a background macguffin character and more of a recurring character, what dirt will we eventually see in him?
Well, he definitely has a history of being openly objectified, which has really hurt him. That we know. Yes, that’s not his fault, but who knows how it shaped his persona
My nephew has a figure which clearly resembles a Dimetrodon in overall morphology (though with one of those stupid generic “monster” heads) but for some reason is labelled “Spinosaurus”. I have no idea how to react, but I fear for my nephews future if that’s the sort of standard his parents have for his toys :/
“It’s just children’s toys. I thought it wasn’t that big a deal.”
“YOU ARE LYING TO CHILDREN, YOU ARE ROBBING THEM OF THEIR FUTURE”
“But we DO teach them that dinosaurs are awesome, isn’t that a noble goal.”
“Do you suggest that children would like toys with a taxonomically correct label less?”
(…)
Three ours later, the manager places the single dimetrodon toy in an otherwise empty bin labelled “Non-mammal synapsids”. Dina nods in approval.
Since everyone and their alts are commenting on it, I’m pretty sure that “crap on the sofa” was not a regular thing in their church community. Becky chose not to refer to some stuff explicitly, and instead decided to couch that shit in a euphemism.
OK, this is coming from a place of ignorance, I just wanna admit that up front. And this has probably been addressed/discussed in these comments before so I just want to apologize for any redundancy. But why is Becky still a practicing/believing Christian even after becoming so accepting of her own homosexuality? I mean, how can she believe in or tolerate a god that calls her an abomination? Like, is that common, are there many gay christians?
I’m not trying to be insulting, I just don’t understand.
Yes, there’s a huge number of gay Christians in the world. A lot of them finding the idea there is something wrong with being gay according to SOME branches of Christianity to be ridiculous. It should also be noted there’s evidence of gay weddings in early Christianity and the “homosexuality is an unforgivable sin” is a fairly new idea. Salvanarola and modern Biblical Fundamentalists were down on it but it was generally considered a venial sin like premarital sex historically.
The American Religious Right and some African branches have hopped on the train because it’s an “Easy” target and they generally function on pointing at “enemies” of the faith from video games to abortion versus trying to be pacifists or helping the poor.
Fandom always has it’s shitty segments that take things way too seriously that doesn’t necessarily mean there’s anything wrong with the source material.
And when the source material is a blueprint for a theocratic society and glorifies genocide (Hello, Old Testament!) then the fandom gets reeeeeeeally not cool.
God-Man — “The superhero with omnipotent powers!” — is a recurring character in Ruben Bolling’s strip “Tom the Dancing Bug.” I don’t want to trigger the two-link moderation, but one of the top Google results is God-Man trying to get his side-kick Fan-Boy to understand his instructions.
I think it can be argued that “homosexuality is bad” was just an idea ancient Jews had and they slapped it on their mythology. I’m no Bible expert but the only bits of anti-homo stuff I remember is… Book of Priests I think where it says that a man laying with a man as he would with a woman is abomination and in New Testament it was one of the Apostles who scribbled something about it in one of his letters.
Basically we have no God or Jesus saying directly that homosexuality is evil. It’s just the priests/apostles who slapped that part on.
Also it can be argued that it’s not Homosexuality but Sexuality itself that is the problem. Since the bit about laying with man is clearly about having sex and not loving a person of the same gender. Judaism-originated religions in general have a real hatred for anything sexual, hetero or homo. You are only supposed to have sex to make babies and even then you are supposed to feel bad about enjoying yourself.
And since homosexual sex cannot make babies then it’s even more sinful than already hella sinful hetero sex.
Ok, maybe Christianity has a problem with Sexuality, but Judiasm recognizes it as a natural, Hashem-given urge. Sure, it should be indulged in moderation like any other urge of the flesh, but that doesnt mean we think it’s evil. Its one really damn pleasurable way Hashem gave us to express love and companionship.
Not denying that there was a ban on “Man laying with another man” in the Hebrew Bible, just saying arguing with G-d is a big part of Judaism.
And before you give me something from one Hasidic or Ultra-Orthadox sect contradicting this, refer to ” Hashem is Good, his fandom has some assholes”
To be fair by Judaism-originated I did not mean Judaism itself. I don’t know much about it. But the impressions I got from Christianity and Islam showed me that these people are Really afraid of sexuality.
sorry, it sounded like you were saying Judeochristian and that’s a word that neither I nor spellcheck like, seeing as I’m getting lumped in with my age-old persecutors. Its a common mistake. But yeah, Christianity and Islam have had a couple thousand years to diverge from Judaism, to the point where our attitudes are not really comparable.
It’s not like Mormonism and Christianity. It’s more like Hinduism and Buddhism for a really bad spur of the moment comparison.
And yes, I sound hella offended because I hate when people dump Christianity’s shit on my people. We’re not responsible for your fundies, only our own, and they at least don’t proselytize outside the faith.
“Except I’m pretty sure it actually says that in the old testament. Or do people just ignore that now?”
Jesus’ ministry includes a substantial section about how we should ignore parts of the Old Testament. Which means John Calvin was a real piece of work insisting it all fit together somehow. Notably, also, homosexuality getting singled out is massively hypocritical as we ignore plenty of the other stuff too.
Also, the part of the old testament you mention is one interpretation of the Bible, generally based on a many-times translated text.
So yes, there are gay Christians. And there are many churches and branches of Christianity that are accepting. And neither Becky nor Joyce at this point believe that the God they believe in views Becky as an abomination.
Her dad kidnapped her and intended to ‘fix’ her through whatever nightmarish methods he deemed necessary in the name of God. And she was rescued by her best friend and a superhero in a car chase straight out of an action movie. Now her abusive dad is in prison, while she’s free to express her individuality and be honest without fear of repurcussions (for now at least) and on top of it all she’s got an awesome girlfriend.
To quote the character, Varric Tethras from Dragon Age: “One of those things would be impossible. All of them together? That’s a miracle.”
To Becky, the extraordinary circumstances around her rescue is proof that God not only exists, but that he loves her no matter what the Bible says. That God made his stance on her sexuality clear through divine intervention, not through words written in a book made by humans with all the flaws and imperfections that come with being human. At most, from Becky’s perspective, the Bible is wrong and God is right. And God answers lesbian prayers.
Beautifully put. The only way God could have been clearer would be if Alexander Anderson appeared out of nowhere on the front mask of her dad’s car and nailed the engine block into the road with bayonettes while yelling “Amen!”
If god answers lesbian prayers, it’s a pity Becky didn’t find out she was one until after he mum committed suicide – a well-placed prayer back then might have sent a suicide prevention hotline flyer flying through an open window, or something.
It might have. But Dad thought that they didn’t need that godless bullshit and tried prayer or something. It’s like in that joke where a guy during a flood was approached by three boats offering help but declined because he was waiting for help from God. When he finally drowned and stood before God he asked why he was abandoned “I sent three boats to you, you idiot!”
Except it’s really not, is it? It’s more like there were TWO people to be rescued, and the big one just sat on the small one and waved everything away, and when the second said they WANTED to take help, god just looks at them and goes, “yeah, I noticed, I WAS going to move the big guy, but then I though, ‘eh, fuck it’.”
I think it’s more the case you can’t assume the fact she was depressed is something that you can automatically “rescue” people from. I bring this up in a fictional cartoon not to defend God (who is WIllis after all) but because Becky might wonder, “Could I have done more” or “Could ANYONE have done more.”
I am specifically thinking of the Van Gogh episode of Doctor Who that depression isn’t that easily treated–you can sometimes just do your best and it doesn’t always work–especially if it’s not treated.
I get that part. The part where she defends her shitty church, and even seems smug about how much better it is then Jacob’s everything is where I’m lost.
Because even though she’s turned against much of the message, she still likes the form of it better. Jakes’ church seems all sterile and lifeless, even though the message is better.
Speaking as a man who grew up in a Joyce-esque church but attended twelve years of Catholic Schooling, I generally take the view the Protestant churches are a lot more laid back and more informal but that’s not necessarily superior to the Catholic version. The Catholic version has the advantage of stressing THIS IS IMPORTANT AND YOU SHOULD BE RESPECTFUL. The point of Church is to get you in a mood where you revere God and your own life and how you get there is going to vary. Some people like their temples to be wild and ectastic while other people like somber as well as reflective.
The Church of Surak on Vulcan for some, the Church of Kahless on Kronos for others.
And sometimes, which one you need depends on your mood and maybe even which holiday it is. I know a wild, ecstatic Yom Kippur wouldn’t fly and a somber Rosh Hashanah or Simchat Torah just ain’t Kosher
The thing about that is Protestantism is quite literally a broad church, mostly defined by “not being Catholic”. So it encompasses Joyce’s electric-guitar fundamentalism, but also everything from acoustic-guitar happy-clappy-ism to any-kind-of-music-is-a-sin puritans like the Wee Frees.
And y’know, High Churchy Episcopalians like Jacob.
But, as Sherlock Holmes once observed, “Now that you have told me, I shall do my best to forget it! You tell me we travel around the sun. I tell you, if we travelled around the moon it would not make one whit of difference to me or to my work!”
Fun fact – William Barton and Michael Capobianco once wrote a Sherlock Holmes fanfic that nearly got the great detective killed in the most dramatic fashion possible because of him lacking in astronomic knowledge.
Spoiler 1: Professor Moriarty once wrote a book titled “The Dynamics of an Asteroid”
Spoiler 2: The climax of the story takes place in the remote Russian outback of Tunguska…
He had whatever knowledge was necessary to solve cases.
He did comment several times about not wanting to be bothered by information not related to his focus. OTOH, he also occasionally displayed knowledge of details not obviously linked to criminology, but critical for that particular deduction. Schrodinger’s knowledge.
I remember my first visit to a Catholic church after being raised in the United Church (a down-the-middle please everyone kinda church in Canada) and I had no idea what was going on. I was there following my girlfriend and had no idea when to sit or stand or what to do when we went up for the wafer and wine. I still cringe today thinking about my naiveté! I like Becky’s take on church choices – I like the guitars too! That’s as good an answer as any, in picking a church, if you choose to follow Jesus somehow and some way. (which I do 🙂
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“Do you not like dimetrodons, little girl? I know, I bet pterodactyls are your favorite dinosaurs!”
His head was later found three miles away in a tree.
“Excuse me, did you call for a manager?”
“Yes, this human head was in your tree’s branches.”
Is the joke that humans are related to trees the same way a dimetrodon is related to a dinosaur?
Humans are more closely related to dimetrodon than dinosaurs are.
And dimetrodons, humans, dinosaurs, and pterodactyls are more closely related to each other than to trees.
….
…. you know, since the conversation branched out that way.
That pun was so bad, I dino whether to laugh or cry.
One more pun and I may have to leaf.
I love you all.
Never change.
Change is a sign of enthusiasm.
Change is another word for “up and autumn”.
I think you winter pun contest.
I dunno. Someone might be able to spring a surprise contender on us.
Well yes, summer you are awfully clever.
(Sorry, rather poor but it felt incomplete without finishing off the seasons!)
I will not fall for your tricks!
“also this QUETZALCOATLUS”
Ohhh Snapo, somebody is taking Ana’s number one place!
Figures it would be the time traveler.
Do dragons count as dinosaurs?
No, varanids are part of Squamata, not Saurischia or Ornithischia.
….
*flees before anyone realizes he’s just cribbing from Wikipedia*
Yes, if we’re talking Yi qi.
Oh that’s a familiar outfit right there..
Is that the best she could do for her outfit, though?
…is crapping on the sofa something Becky’s regularly witnessed?
Joyce’s family dog, probably.
Or maybe Ross is somehow even worse than we thought.
I bet he did it just to spite Carol.
What a good boy.
The best pupper of all time.
I thought this was a reply to the comment above, and that Ross was pooping on sofas to spite Carol…
Ross is not a good boy.
This is also the question foremost in my mind…
Becky is great.
In related news, water is wet.
And is extremely relevant news, dimetrodons are not dinosaurs.
It’s the dinosaur you have when you don’t have a dinosaur.
hunter!
i name manager guy hunter!
Man, I wish we could all have a wild maverick girlfriend like Becky does.
Dina is off the hook! She doesn’t use Google safe search, she plays Wii without using the safety strap and she also defends her girlfriend from bad fathers.
I read that as “defends her girlfriend from bad feathers“ and instantly pictured Dina defending Becky from a particularly-ruffled-up cassowary (technically, they are theropods…).
From now on, I will use “bad feather(s)” to refer to angry birds and other dinosaurs of the theropod lineage.
i thought synapsids were the things that make movie virtual reality work
that or a doctor who species
I can neither confirm nor deny that.
Silurians?
The hot mess that is the naming history of the Silurians would drive Dina up a wall.
…do…do people tend to crap on the sofa at your church, Becky? I am concern.
they ended up investing in a steam cleaner; it was more cost-effective in the long run.
(and if interpreted literally my thought was more along the lines of the toddlers in the Sunday School classes not being as supervised as they should be)
Dina, don’t be a butt.
Is this the first time we’ve seen Dina in the OG khaki outfit?
yup afaik
And the encounter is clearly taking place in an SP!-compatible setting. A Willisverse trifecta!
(On the downside, Soggies may rule.)
Okay, so, I’ve heard some rumblings about shippin Jacob and Joyce together.
Is that really safe? I mean, Jacob is a great guy, but would Joyce really be able to heal through her issues with a guy who is afraid of his own penis? Sorry, tried to make a joke but that comes off insensitive to people with sex addiction.
On that note: I’ve heard people claiming that Jacob is Asexual? Where does THAT come from? Willis has said, repeatedly, that despite other things being different one of the key things that stay the same between the dumbiverse and the walkyverse is Sexuality, in which case Jacob is on the other extremeof the libido market, he’s a sex addict…
Asexuality has nothing to do with libido. It has to do with attraction.
Okay, fair enough, poor choice of words by someone uneducated, but the sentiment stays, in the walkyverse he basically ruined his own life for quite a while by shtupping any woman willing for quite a long while. And the attraction was there too.
Sex addiction is not remotely to do with sexuality. SP!Jacob had an addictive personality and a deeply rooted tendency to self-sabotage. We haven’t seen any signs of either from him here.
But otherwise, he is indeed not asexual. He is (presumably) heterosexual.
I don’t agree with BBCC. I think a lack of libido would be included, although perhaps not necessary, in most definitons of asexuality. There are other terms, such as aromantic, to cover for more specific aspects (which may or may not be inclusive of libido).
Seconded – asexuality is diverse. AVEN (the Asexuality Visibility & Education Network) explains: “An asexual is someone who does not experience sexual attraction […] For some sexual arousal is a fairly regular occurrence, though it is not associated with a desire to find a sexual partner or partners. Some will occasionally masturbate, but feel no desire for partnered sexuality. Other asexual people experience little or no arousal […] Asexuality is like any other identity- at its core, it’s just a word that people use to help figure themselves out.” There is also “grey asexuality” for the wide world of further intricacies.
You would be wrong. Most people define asexuality as someone who does not experience sexual attraction or only experiences it weakly or at certain times. Libido or sexual arousal has nothing to do with that. Someone without a libido might id as asexual they might not. In the same way, someone who is asexual might have any level of libido, as moo said.
Also aromantic means the same thing as asexual but with romantic attraction, not sexual attraction.
I see your point, but I still find it quite a bit of a stretch to say that (lack of) libido has NOTHING to do with (a)sexuality.
It really doesn’t. A lot of people with low libido don’t ID as ace and a lot of ace people don’t have low libidos. Those are two separate things. Sure, a lot of folks with low libido will ID as ace, but not everybody does.
Word of Willis is that in this universe, Jacob is not a sex addict, he just believes in waiting til marriage (and so is avoiding casual stuff).
No idea about the second bit, but headcanons happen.
Willis has also said that Jacob in this universe ISN’T a sex addict, soooo…
What really? Where?
Still looking for the exact comment, but you can also refer to this comic:
http://www.dumbingofage.com/2014/comic/book-4/02-i-was-a-teenage-churchmouse/sniffing/
Okay, found it:
http://itswalky.tumblr.com/post/81366789633/dumbing-of-age-the-new-normal-let-me-tell-you-a
huh. Funny thing, last line of the post, “no Sex addiction. Maybe when he’s like 25, so at least not within the comic’s timeframe” (Paraphrased). It MAY still happen to him, just when he is older, maintaining the “Sexual hijinks are contant between universes”.
Mm, fair enough point. But libido and sexuality aren’t necessarily an either/or thing. You can have a sex drive while not wanting sex.
As I understand it, sex addiction isn’t a sexuality per se, and I believe Willis is on record as stating on his tumblr that Jacob’s wait-for-the-long-term stance in this ‘verse is an attempt to steer in the opposite direction from Jacob’s sex-addict depiction in the Walkyverse.
An attempt by Willis? Or Jacob? Not trying to be coy here, actual question.
By Willis, sorry if that wasn’t clear. I’ll try to rustle up the exact tumblr post as soon as I’m able.
Jacob’s sexuality has been addressed nearby in tonight’s comments.
I’m an on-again, off-again Jacob/Joyce shipper. And between yesterday’s strip and today’s, I’m off again.
I liked that, when Jacob said, “tell me how you really feel,” and Joyce said “It was fine,” and then Jacob said, “Joyce.” And he was clearly seeking seeking honesty.
And then she gave him an honest answer. And his response was not to acknowledge her honest answer, but to try to persuade her that, maybe her answer might have been wrong?
To me, Jacob’s behavior over this story arc has been less about him caring for Joyce and more about him trying to bring her into his worship community. And these two things are not incompatible — from Jacob’s point of view, they are totally compatible — but at the moment, Jacob seems to be more about “can she become comfortable being part of my community,” and less about “can I become comfortable being part of her community.”
Also, he seems to think that the fact that his church welcomes people like Becky automatically makes his church the only obvious choice for people like Joyce. It’s not a binary choice. Bad Jacob, no cookie. (And at least for now, no Joyce.)
And only now am I flashing on when Dorothy and Walky were introducing Joyce to “Dexter and Monkey Master” and saying “Isn’t this awesome?” and Joyce was like, “Yes this is awesome!” and it wasn’t like they had to persuade her how awesome it was.
If you have to work to persuade a new friend that something is awesome, and that person’s response is polite but not enthusiastic, maybe it’s not awesome to that person, and maybe you should accept that, and maybe accept the fact that your new friend doesn’t necessarily share your enthusiasm but might still be okay as a friend.
And yes, I know that the previous paragraph is gibberish to Walky. But I was expecting more from Jacob.
I think Becky cleared that up for him a lot more clearly than Joyce ever could. I wouldn’t be surprised if there isn’t a similar experience where Joyce and Becky take Jacob out of his comfort zone. Though I doubt he freaks out like since that not really how Jacob does things.
Maybe he skipped a step in his reaction because he cannot relate to Joyce experience.
It seems like he has a basicly cerebral approach to his faith and like some commenters yesterday didn’t understand why “feeling god” was such an important factor (if you can feel god, it’s not faith but knowledge, no😉?)
I don’t think “healing your issues” is a good reason to start or not start a relationship with someone.
To “Mr D”:
Wow, that was a bit dense and I’m not sure I understood it all…
um…
he seems more aromatic than asexual, or perhaps, like kinky for power dynamic comprehension or in SOME way “queer” (aka not heteronormative, aka “different than standard deviation via some mystical mythical judgement from some speaker of such standard”).
If you aren’t the author, be careful in how you throw out assumptions about MENTAL ILLNESS LABELING, and doubly consider not making jokes about it ever again. I dont know about so-called “sex addiction” whatever that means (can’t ANYTHING involving hormones, aka literally everything we do as biologic entities, become physiologically addicting? isn’t singling out sex in this just being sex-negative? talking to you, all medical/psych researchers..), but anyway mostly it isn’t really acceptable to make jokes about struggles that you are not personally going through. Just pointing out…
I’m sorry I’m just so happy. It really hit me that Jacob and Becky are INTERACTING and TALKING, and Joyce is trying new things and talking with people. And feels SAFE around Jacob.
Idk, it’s nice seeing more of the cast interact with more than their immediate circle.
And I love Joyce
Panel 2 Becky gives me life. ‹3
Crap on the sofa… was that a Robin thing? ‘Cause that sounds like a Robin thing.
maybe not on the sofa
Well, that explains why Leslie wanted her out.
Leslie wanted her out for a different reason.
…. though maybe this was Reason Number Two.
HA
We may think Robin did it, but Aide Lamp You was there to confess.
That’s how ya get to be a “made man” in politics.
When Robin gets that cadbury egg cereal anything could happen
*plays the Lewis Grizzard skit about the Reptile Farm on the hacked Muzak*
I didn’t even know about dimetrodons until I heard the Doubleclicks’ song. And I laughed like fuck when I came to the last panel.
“They ate sharks and were ten feet long.”
Becky, seemingly lacking in self-awareness, paints a pretty clear picture of how Joyce and Jacob’s churches have helped raise them. And I’m wondering if this is an indicator that someone from La Porte is going to visit the school in this book.
Becky seems to be the kind of person with a great ability for extrospection, she just doesn’t flaunt that ability like a Sherlock wannabe.
She had to be. Being able to read her father’s wild mood swings was literally critical to her survival. As such, it has also lead her to quietly reading a lot of other people too.
Jocelyne? Maybe? Please?
She DID want to have a follow-up talk with Joyce (and maybe Becky) at a later date….
So I tried posting with my name as Jocelyne but it wasn’t working. Anyway here I am, I’m Jocelyne. See my picture? I’m definitely Jocelyne.
I will visit Joyce at IU soon!! 🙂
Jocelyne visits ftw
Me too!
“Oh, I’m terribly sorry, ma’am! I’ll place this in our Synapsid Bin right away!”
I wish I could upvote this comment.
…I don’t know if Dina would want to upvote it though.
“Good. I WILL BE WATCHING. Any further transgressions will be… NOTED.”
Don’t even get Dina started on the Plesiosaurs…
Or the pterosaurs, or the ichthyosaurs, or the…
What’s wrong with drinking tea? Picard drank tea and he was pretty badass.
Cant stand Earl Grey Tea, tastes like someone let one of those pine-tree car-freshener soaking in a cup of black tea.
Yech. The only kind I like is the 50/50 lemonade mix, the rest are just disgusting. I’m hooked on coffee, even the cheap instant stuff is more palatable to me than tea is.
Coffee is the finest organic suspension ever devised.
Odd fact: every single badass girl I know (there are plenty) also regularly drink tea. I had not correlated these facts before now.
Wait, no. I found a counterexample. Nevermind. The evidence is only overwhelming now, and not universal.
So…. it’s steep?
I think it was about keeping the pinkies up while drinking tea.
At least that’s what I immediately thought, but I live in a country where everyone drinks tea…
(You need to change your Grav to one who’s holding up his pinkie finger)
Becky’s actually making some good points here, I like it
It seems we have a case of mis-identity, so everybody follow me, repeat these words respectfully: ‘Don’t mean to hurt your feelings, That’s not a dinosaur, that’s not a dinosaur, that’s not a dinosaaaaur.
(Trying again, since I think being just a link caused the first try to be moderated into oblivion…)
A dimetrodon was placed in the dinosaur bin? What are we, to believe that toy-store workers don’t have PhDs in Paleontology? Boy, I really hope somebody got fired for that blunder.
Sadly, it’s been known to happen in museum gift shops.
(Also, y’know, it doesn’t really take a PhD to know synapsids aren’t dinosaurs…but it’d still be hitting the jackpot to hit a stockperson who was interested in paleostuff, and cared about the bins being accurately delineated, and was allowed to care.)
To be fair, you’re more likely to find someone like that working a museum gift shop than stocking shelves at a regular toy store.
Which is one of the reasons it’s so galling that Dimetrodons still end up among the dinos, even there.
(The other reason being that the stocker’s knowledge/interest shouldn’t be a factor…museums should have their stock laid out with such things explicitly laid out!)
There’s a really easy answer. People who are looking for dinosaur toys are probably more interested in Dimetrodon than they would be in dinosaurs like sparrows. And people who are looking for Dimetrodon toys are probably more interested in tyrannosaurs than synapsids like pugs.
This is because the categories most people are actually sorting by is “prehistoric life”. Instead of trying to sort everything by taxonomy, just label your section that and you’ll do just fine.
The problem that even “accurate” theropod figurines still tend to be featherless is a harder one.
That’s not actually a good answer, though.
Because they’ve still labeled the ‘prehistoric creatures’ section as ‘dinosaurs’, which, in a toy store, is slightly twitch-inducing for geeks like Dina and myself, but is actively against the goal of an educational organization like a museum.
If a museum wants to jumble them all together, they really need to throw in the mammoths and smilodons and call it ‘prehistoric creatures’ (which should logically be subdivided either by time period or major clades, but that would require the gift shop to have more room than is really reasonable to expect). If they’re going to have a section labeled ‘dinosaurs’, it behooves them, as an educational organization, to only put dinosaurs there.
Sorry, that was my easy answer: throw in the mammoths and smilodons and rename it “prehistoric creatures”. It’s probably what most places really mean.
If they could, I like the idea of subdividing by time period and geography. Once you have your T. rex, what goes better with it? A Spinosaurus from way before and the other side of the world, or Triceratops and Quetzalcoatlus?
Ah, OK, we’re agreed, then. (Oh, man…separated by time period and geography…that’d be great.)
What’s Dina’s stand on Plesiosaurs, Ichthyosaurs and Pteranodons?
That they need moar feathers perhaps?
None of those groups had feathers. (Well…pterosaurs would be fuzzyish, and the jury’s still out of the derivation of pycnofibres, so far as I know, but even then, pycnofibres aren’t actually feathers.)
These early ‘feathers’ look more like spines.
Actually, from what we know, the most likely case is the earliest feathers superficially resembled fur or hair. The stiff, pennaceous, feathers are a later evolution. And losing the barbs, thus becoming spine-like, would be later still.
Still need to be kept out of the dino bin, but relabeling as the archosauromorph bin is acceptable.
Also not dinosaurs, or as cool as dinosaurs
http://www.dumbingofage.com/2016/comic/book-6/04-it-all-returns/security/
“Pteranodon is a specific genus of Pterosauria, much like Zhenyuanlong is a specific genus of Dinosauria.”
That’s basically what Dina would most likely say, at least as regards your last thing.
The positive view of this is: some toy company actually made a dimetrodon figurine? Woot!
(Alas, the spellcheck I am using doesn’t recognize “dimetrodon.” And I just now realized it doesn’t recognize “spellcheck.” (My chequer tolled mi sew!)
Dimetrodons are actually one of the more popular prehistoric creatures to make into toys. (Especially the cheap ones, where the sail always ends up rolling up because the cheap plastic can’t hold up to being handled.) Them, the most popular dinosaurs, pterodactyls, and sabertooth tigers. Then plesiosaurs, less popular dinosaurs, and other pterosaurs.
Comic Reactions:
Panel 1: This feels weighty. Like, we don’t know much about Jacob and we know that some things are very different from the other universe, but I’m starting to suspect he might have similar worries about addictive behavior or at least about the potential of losing control.
Like, he’s structured and likes that structure but there’s an element of fear there that letting go completely would result in a terrible crash he doesn’t even want to skate near.
And I feel that. I didn’t struggle with an addictive personality, but I had a very recently stabilized DID brain in early college and avoided alcohol and drugs like the plague out of fear that “going wild” would lead to the merry-go-round breaking down as it were. So I get the idea of imposing a sort of structure out of fear that too much chaos will rip you apart.
Panel 2: This panel is so sweet, because it’s both what she loves about Joyce, why she was so drawn to her, as well as what drew her to the church that threw her away. And one’s irredeemable, but the other isn’t. And that matters to Becky.
And of course she’d favor that model of freedom. She may characterize her church as more free-wheeling, but the environment she grew up in was one of oppressive control and structure, where her every activity and action and thought were policed 24/7 by a violent bigot with an unshakable idea of “what was right” and that nearly lead to her kidnapping, torture, and/or death.
Structure is an enemy to Becky because it was freedom that finally let her live and breathe and be herself. Joyce let her live and breathe and be herself. So yeah, rock out on an electric guitar and tune out the priest because she’s busy talking to her personal God instead who answers lesbian prayers.
That’s pretty my understanding of Jacob as well. He recognizes his addictive personality, and is trying to focus it on positive goals like exercise and schoolwork. Hopefully things work out better for him in this universe.
Other data point: we don’t know if Jacob’s parents came to Freshman Family Weekend. We know very little of his home life.
I know it’s a harmful stereotype about POC that gets horribly misused, but I wonder if Jacob came from a broken home or other chaotic family situation, maybe being bounced between parent-figures and/or foster care.
Panels 3-4: Again, it definitely feels in Jacob’s facial expressions here a confirmation that his structure is not merely a matter of habit or preference but also of fear of breaking down or losing control over his life in a negative way. That structure is his way of finding order in the unending chaos.
And it makes me think if he didn’t come from a more chaotic background, where order was his freedom from that whereas Becky was the opposite, finding the freedom of chaos to escape her order.
And I think that’s also why she glares. Order has not treated her well. And I feel that. I still side-eye a lot of ordered systems naturally because of how many organized systems have found nasty cracks for me to slip down. It helps me bond with the Becky style students who have that edge of anti-authoritarianism to their actions.
Panel 5: Dina is joy.
But also, yes, of course she’s a maverick and a badass. Like, everyone underestimates her because we infantilize asian people and women and those who exhibit spectrum-like traits.
But this is a woman who jumped on the back of a man at least twice her size, carrying a gun and wanting to kill her and her girlfriend and bit and clawed him and would have kept going if she didn’t get thrown off and pinned and presumably knocked out.
This is a woman who fights for what she loves whether it be her girlfriend or accurate taxonomy and representation of prehistoric creatures. Who will never think about what is appropriate or disciplined and who will follow her heart as much as Becky does.
And yeah, Becky of course, knows that power. It’s what led her here. It’s what’s saved her life. It’s what’s made her whole. Following her heart wherever that leads, regardless of what others say has been everything to her and it’s beautiful to see her so at peace with that fact now that the terror of discovery is finally past.
my first thought was that becky was unintentionally making him sound boring.
Telling someone they are very structured is a two-edged sort of compliment. The path from structured to rigid seems rather short, so how should one take it?
I’m not sure how to read Jacob here. It’s could be “my idea of structured is much more structured than I am” – might be projecting here – or “hey, I’m still flexible!”.
Dina sure is badass. Or to quote the official paperworks
“CHECK IT, DORKS, THE VICTIM’S BADASS GIRLFRIEND MOTHEREFFIN BIT THE ASSHOLE WHO ASSAULTED THEM IN HIS STUPID FAAAAAACE!”
http://www.dumbingofage.com/2015/comic/book-6/01-to-those-whod-ground-me/fought/
“Panel 5: Dina is joy.” Not the very best recap you ever made, but I’m certain it’s in the top-10. ^_^
There is also the possibility that Jacob would like to not think of himself as a boring person. From experience, being accurately characterized as structured is not that comfortable.
Also, I’d tend to guess Jacob is trying to give Becky and Joyce an alternative place or worship and trying to understand why they aren’t enthused.
I’d guess J&B (is there a Paul in the script? Maybe Dina could adopt the name of a flying reptile…) are just used to a different form of worship.
I think it is important to realize the we, as people, are slightly more different inside than allows for peaceful coexistence. As such, the expectation of understanding or well-honed empathy is unrealistic. Sometimes this is because of lack of shared experiences. Sometimes it is because of an inborn lack of empathy. Jacob’s maybe a little insensitive here and meddling a tad, but it is fine. I would enjoy seeing him at Joyce’s church. Or possibly a Joyce-like church.
I would enjoy seeing him at Joyce’s church. With Joyce. In the (at least assumed) role of boyfriend.
Just to see all the heads explode.
Jakes is not going to be a thing, Becky.
It will be HER thing though.
Synapsida do not belong with dinosaurs.
Ten points for Becky for managing to work in her rad girlfriend into the conversation! You can’t let them forget about the fact that you HAVE A GIRLFRIEND!!!
Gotta rub that fact into other people’s faces when she isn’t rubbing it into her own.
It’s the low-key GWIAL!. I believe Becky is required to do that once a day.
Explain the acronym please
GUESS WHAT, I AM A LESBIAN!!!!
http://www.dumbingofage.com/2015/comic/book-5/02-threes-a-crowd/justbecky/
It’s kinda been a thing
http://www.dumbingofage.com/2017/comic/book-7/03-the-thing-i-was-before/babygay/
thank you for the explanation and those heartwarming comic strips
It doesn’t ALWAYS work the way she wants…
http://www.dumbingofage.com/2016/comic/book-6/04-it-all-returns/message/
More between-panel Becky GWIAL hijinx..
http://www.dumbingofage.com/2016/comic/book-6/03-when-god-closes-the-door/roundtheclock/
Jakes is SO going to be a thing and BECKY. BECKYYYYY.
I LOVE YOU SO MUCH BECKYYYYYY you are so good and so clever and so clever and good. and tuff. tuff like a mutha
Clever girl…. (I’m sorry I couldn’t resist)
Oh! It’s Safari Dina, didn’t see that coming.
Never change Dina. Never change.
Jake is wondering to himself just how literal Becky is being
Nice to see Dina in her SEMME outfit again.
It’s a Syn.
Sarah’s still gonna call this mission a Fail, Dina-brag or no Dina-brag.
Also, Becky lost me at the couch thing. Ew.
Mission fail? Not so sure. Jacob suddenly has a touch of defensiveness about him. When someone blindsides you with an assessment, it can through you off. “I’m not that structured. Wait. Am I? ‘Safely civilized?’ That’s not how I view myself. Should I change? Maybe I should change. What would be not structured? Unpredictable? Not safe?”
Becky sure is smug about her church who’s “rough edges” included doing it’s level best to ignore her to her face and talk about her behind her back. It isn’t even the heart on her sleeve place she seems to be saying it is.
I am surprised at her defense of their church. It more than ignored her and talked behind her back: it taught that what she is is some kind of manifestation of evil.
Becky seems uncharacteristically nasty to Jacob in these strips. It sounds to me like she doesn’t like Jacob and is taking swings at him under the guise of “just being Becky.”
I think it’s not a defense of their church specifically as a defense of their style of church / services.
I Cerberus’s comments above explain where Becky’s probably coming from really well, and also how it was the structured part of her religious upbringing that was hurting and stifling her while growing up, which I think is what Becky is reacting hostilely to, not Jacob himself.
Plus, she’s only been back to their old church the one time with Joyce since anyone knew she was a lesbian, so Becky probably has plenty of fairly happy memories at that church, hanging out with her mom and Joyce, where her dad couldn’t be a complete butthole because there were too many other people around.
It’s also possible she doesn’t like Jacob because she senses Joyce is attracted to him and vice versa.
Possible, but really, really unlikely in my opinion. It doesn’t seem like she really intended to insult Jacob, since she’s saying the same thing is true of Joyce, and she’s clearly not insulting Joyce
Joyce is somewhat uncomfortable, and so Becks is moving the truth around to make her feel better. (Making Joyce feel better is still a main priority, wild couch-staining girlfriend be damned.)
I don’t read any smugness into that. I mean, I recognize that a lot of people don’t want to give recognition to this kind of thing, but people appreciate things that have hurt them all the time.
For instance, I was nearly driven to suicide by someone arguing for hardline feminism. That doesn’t mean I reject the principles she based her arguments on, tempting as it was; it just meant that I had to spend the effort to disconnect that pain from the foundations they came from. Really, if I always rejected things that felt like I was some kind of manifestation of evil, I would have turned my back on everyone in the world by now.
Does….does someone crap on Becky’s sofa? Does BECKY crap on sofas?
I am exceptionally disturbed by her choice of metaphors.
Speaking of sofas… should we be worried about LESLIE’s sofa?
…or about Robin who licked the entire thing.
No cromposaurs in the bin?
Dina would be exceptionally horrified if so.
I mean, just look at her reaction to Walky’s Indominus rex attack…
So, we get strip after strip of Joyce freaking out at the slightest, most superficial differences between her church and Jacob’s, all of which is played for comedy…and now Jacob is the one who’s out-of-touch and doesn’t understand because he suggests that the surface details of religion are less important than faith? Jacob seriously has the patience of a saint. Telling someone who’s gone out of their way to be inclusive that their church doesn’t have any God in it is incredibly insulting.
He’s a mature young man, settled in his faith, and open to others’ perspectives, evidenced with his relationship with Raidah. He understands not everyone has had exposure to more diverse points of view, and from what we’ve seen, he genuinely wants to Be There for other people.
Those differences are superficial to you (and to me), but they aren’t superficial to her. If she didn’t feel God, she didn’t feel God. Anyone who cares about Joyce (I’m talking to you, Jacob!) has to start with that, and take it seriously.
Are the words “what” and “sure” swapped in the first panel?
They are at the moment. Willis has been know to emend egregious errors after they are pointed out.
He fixed yesterday’s.
I think you mean either amend or e-mend.
I do like “e-mend”, but “emend” is indeed the correct word.
…. huh. That IS an actual word.
I get things wrong all the time, but as an enthusiastic cruciverbalist and a sometime lexicographer, I tend to get my words right.
There is some overlap — both words involve making changes in a document — but “emend” generally has the sense of fixing something that is wrong or unclear, while “amend” has the sense of modification for some specific purpose.
I just really love dimetrodons.
They’re a thing that I can count on!
Dina’s teeth are ready. I hope that manager made peace with his worldly affairs, because he’s soon going to find his throat ripped out.
Jeez, Becky. Lay off Jacob
the fuck is her point?
That Joyce and Jacob want/need different things from their church services and that her girlfriend is rad?
I don’t think you have to be that civilized to have a crap free sofa.
I think that Becky makes an interesting argument. I’d take it one step further: Some people don’t look for God in their church but something that validates their own personality and attitudes towards certain things. Some people need the costumes, the chants and the like. Some people just need to be told that the way to heaven involves sitting on a pew for two hours ever Sunday. Some people want and need a strongly charismatic preacher who is as much the focus of their faith as the concept of God.
Of course, with Joyce and Becky, having been raised by this group, it’s an obvious inversion of the rule. Joyce and Becky were shaped by their childhood spiritual experiences. Because of that, it’s hard for them to adapt to anything else.
Off-topic:
You know those “Me too” posts/hashtags that are going around Facebook and the like? I’ve been wondering about participating myself, because of gender things mostly. I’m a NB, AFAB person and a survivor of sexual assault. And anyway, the initial “Me too” posts I saw would all say “women” in the explanation, so I didn’t…feel like it was my place? To join in. Now I’m seeing some of these posts, mostly when posted by queer friends, that say “people” in place of women, and that’s something I’d feel more ready to be a part of, but I also wonder if that takes away from the original purpose of the hashtag? Or perhaps those who originated the hashtag weren’t thinking of the diversity of gender experiences.
I also saw someone on Facebook share something about not saying “Me too” because survivors shouldn’t have to feel the expectation to out themselves, which is an important point too. At the same time, I personally already have, having posted a poem about an experience of mine to Facebook back in April. So maybe that makes posting “Me too”…more redundant? Less needed? I don’t know. I’ve just been thinking about this a lot throughout the day.
I don’t actually know what these “Me too” posts are, but I just want to say that I support you. I used to identify as just gay, but in recent months I’ve realized I’m non-binary and also pan/polysexual. Non-binary people high five!
I’ve seen non-female friends posting “me too.” I don’t think it was intended to exclude other genders but just reflects how we think of it as a women’s problem.
If you want to, go for it. Diversity; represent.
I keep looking at Jacob’s uneasy expression in Becky’s analysis of him, and thinking, what’s going on inside there?
I know Willis said that he doesn’t have the same addiction that Shortpacked! Jacob did. That doesn’t mean that he’s some perfect person. No one in Willis’ universe is a completely awesome character; they’ve all got faults and flaws. If they appear like they’re a completely good, perfect character with no problems, it just means that we haven’t gone too deep into the character yet.
So as Jacob starts being less of a background macguffin character and more of a recurring character, what dirt will we eventually see in him?
Well, he definitely has a history of being openly objectified, which has really hurt him. That we know. Yes, that’s not his fault, but who knows how it shaped his persona
My nephew has a figure which clearly resembles a Dimetrodon in overall morphology (though with one of those stupid generic “monster” heads) but for some reason is labelled “Spinosaurus”. I have no idea how to react, but I fear for my nephews future if that’s the sort of standard his parents have for his toys :/
So Dina is the kind who’d actually do something when seeing hentai DVDs in Children Cartoons section huh?
Alphabetize them?
That seems like a hilarious misunderstanding, and I don’t know that I can condone anyone correcting it.
At least until/unless you have children and one day your kid asks you “Daddy/Mommy, why is that monster putting that tentacle into that lady?”
FWIW, when scientists start objecting to toys on the grounds that it is marketed with the wrong terminology, I fear for the future of childhood.
Explain acronym
FWIW = For What It’s Worth
Thank you.
FWIW, when people start objecting to properly educating children, I fear for the future of childhood.
“It’s just children’s toys. I thought it wasn’t that big a deal.”
“YOU ARE LYING TO CHILDREN, YOU ARE ROBBING THEM OF THEIR FUTURE”
“But we DO teach them that dinosaurs are awesome, isn’t that a noble goal.”
“Do you suggest that children would like toys with a taxonomically correct label less?”
(…)
Three ours later, the manager places the single dimetrodon toy in an otherwise empty bin labelled “Non-mammal synapsids”. Dina nods in approval.
Conveniently cleared by dumping a bunch of bird toys into the dinosaur bin.
Since everyone and their alts are commenting on it, I’m pretty sure that “crap on the sofa” was not a regular thing in their church community. Becky chose not to refer to some stuff explicitly, and instead decided to couch that shit in a euphemism.
*flees for dear punning life*
OK, this is coming from a place of ignorance, I just wanna admit that up front. And this has probably been addressed/discussed in these comments before so I just want to apologize for any redundancy. But why is Becky still a practicing/believing Christian even after becoming so accepting of her own homosexuality? I mean, how can she believe in or tolerate a god that calls her an abomination? Like, is that common, are there many gay christians?
I’m not trying to be insulting, I just don’t understand.
Yes, there’s a huge number of gay Christians in the world. A lot of them finding the idea there is something wrong with being gay according to SOME branches of Christianity to be ridiculous. It should also be noted there’s evidence of gay weddings in early Christianity and the “homosexuality is an unforgivable sin” is a fairly new idea. Salvanarola and modern Biblical Fundamentalists were down on it but it was generally considered a venial sin like premarital sex historically.
The American Religious Right and some African branches have hopped on the train because it’s an “Easy” target and they generally function on pointing at “enemies” of the faith from video games to abortion versus trying to be pacifists or helping the poor.
Or to summarize a very old idea, “God is good, his fanclub is a bunch of assholes.”
i say that as part of said fanclub. Also, odd fact, that’s a paraphrasing of Gandhi. 🙂
The quote is probably apocryphal, though.
(Also, I prefer the common wording. ‘I like your Christ. I do not like your Christians, they are so unlike your Christ.’)
To quote Holly Near: I ain’t afraid of your Jahwe/Allah/Jesus – I’m afraid of what YOU are doing in the name of your god.
Fandom always has it’s shitty segments that take things way too seriously that doesn’t necessarily mean there’s anything wrong with the source material.
You can tell the shitty elements in any fandom because they’re always “we’re the ONLY TRUE FANS.” Also true of Godfandom.
And when the source material is a blueprint for a theocratic society and glorifies genocide (Hello, Old Testament!) then the fandom gets reeeeeeeally not cool.
The fanclub makes an appearance here: Is God-Man Good?
God-Man — “The superhero with omnipotent powers!” — is a recurring character in Ruben Bolling’s strip “Tom the Dancing Bug.” I don’t want to trigger the two-link moderation, but one of the top Google results is God-Man trying to get his side-kick Fan-Boy to understand his instructions.
the “homosexuality is an unforgivable sin” is a fairly new idea
Except I’m pretty sure it actually says that in the old testament. Or do people just ignore that now?
I think it can be argued that “homosexuality is bad” was just an idea ancient Jews had and they slapped it on their mythology. I’m no Bible expert but the only bits of anti-homo stuff I remember is… Book of Priests I think where it says that a man laying with a man as he would with a woman is abomination and in New Testament it was one of the Apostles who scribbled something about it in one of his letters.
Basically we have no God or Jesus saying directly that homosexuality is evil. It’s just the priests/apostles who slapped that part on.
Also it can be argued that it’s not Homosexuality but Sexuality itself that is the problem. Since the bit about laying with man is clearly about having sex and not loving a person of the same gender. Judaism-originated religions in general have a real hatred for anything sexual, hetero or homo. You are only supposed to have sex to make babies and even then you are supposed to feel bad about enjoying yourself.
And since homosexual sex cannot make babies then it’s even more sinful than already hella sinful hetero sex.
Ok, maybe Christianity has a problem with Sexuality, but Judiasm recognizes it as a natural, Hashem-given urge. Sure, it should be indulged in moderation like any other urge of the flesh, but that doesnt mean we think it’s evil. Its one really damn pleasurable way Hashem gave us to express love and companionship.
Not denying that there was a ban on “Man laying with another man” in the Hebrew Bible, just saying arguing with G-d is a big part of Judaism.
And before you give me something from one Hasidic or Ultra-Orthadox sect contradicting this, refer to ” Hashem is Good, his fandom has some assholes”
To be fair by Judaism-originated I did not mean Judaism itself. I don’t know much about it. But the impressions I got from Christianity and Islam showed me that these people are Really afraid of sexuality.
sorry, it sounded like you were saying Judeochristian and that’s a word that neither I nor spellcheck like, seeing as I’m getting lumped in with my age-old persecutors. Its a common mistake. But yeah, Christianity and Islam have had a couple thousand years to diverge from Judaism, to the point where our attitudes are not really comparable.
It’s not like Mormonism and Christianity. It’s more like Hinduism and Buddhism for a really bad spur of the moment comparison.
And yes, I sound hella offended because I hate when people dump Christianity’s shit on my people. We’re not responsible for your fundies, only our own, and they at least don’t proselytize outside the faith.
God on the other hand flooded the freaking world once because men were marrying women and having sex with them.
“Except I’m pretty sure it actually says that in the old testament. Or do people just ignore that now?”
Jesus’ ministry includes a substantial section about how we should ignore parts of the Old Testament. Which means John Calvin was a real piece of work insisting it all fit together somehow. Notably, also, homosexuality getting singled out is massively hypocritical as we ignore plenty of the other stuff too.
Should you get bored, you might want to do a google search on “God Hates Shrimp”.
Also, the part of the old testament you mention is one interpretation of the Bible, generally based on a many-times translated text.
So yes, there are gay Christians. And there are many churches and branches of Christianity that are accepting. And neither Becky nor Joyce at this point believe that the God they believe in views Becky as an abomination.
there are also christians who wear polyester and eat cheeseburgers, somehow
Polyester is okay, but mixed polyester and cotton in your shirt will put you on the fast track to perdition.
Because her God answers lesbian prayers. What else does she need to know?
Yes, there have been many Gay Christians. W.H. Auden is a rather famous example.
Her dad kidnapped her and intended to ‘fix’ her through whatever nightmarish methods he deemed necessary in the name of God. And she was rescued by her best friend and a superhero in a car chase straight out of an action movie. Now her abusive dad is in prison, while she’s free to express her individuality and be honest without fear of repurcussions (for now at least) and on top of it all she’s got an awesome girlfriend.
To quote the character, Varric Tethras from Dragon Age: “One of those things would be impossible. All of them together? That’s a miracle.”
To Becky, the extraordinary circumstances around her rescue is proof that God not only exists, but that he loves her no matter what the Bible says. That God made his stance on her sexuality clear through divine intervention, not through words written in a book made by humans with all the flaws and imperfections that come with being human. At most, from Becky’s perspective, the Bible is wrong and God is right. And God answers lesbian prayers.
Beautifully put. The only way God could have been clearer would be if Alexander Anderson appeared out of nowhere on the front mask of her dad’s car and nailed the engine block into the road with bayonettes while yelling “Amen!”
If god answers lesbian prayers, it’s a pity Becky didn’t find out she was one until after he mum committed suicide – a well-placed prayer back then might have sent a suicide prevention hotline flyer flying through an open window, or something.
She might have.
It might have. But Dad thought that they didn’t need that godless bullshit and tried prayer or something. It’s like in that joke where a guy during a flood was approached by three boats offering help but declined because he was waiting for help from God. When he finally drowned and stood before God he asked why he was abandoned “I sent three boats to you, you idiot!”
Except it’s really not, is it? It’s more like there were TWO people to be rescued, and the big one just sat on the small one and waved everything away, and when the second said they WANTED to take help, god just looks at them and goes, “yeah, I noticed, I WAS going to move the big guy, but then I though, ‘eh, fuck it’.”
Assuming Becky’s mother wanted or asked for help…
Ah, yes, I almost forgot the victim blaming that always comes paired with god-defending: “he’d have helped, you just didn’t WANT IT enough.”
I think it’s more the case you can’t assume the fact she was depressed is something that you can automatically “rescue” people from. I bring this up in a fictional cartoon not to defend God (who is WIllis after all) but because Becky might wonder, “Could I have done more” or “Could ANYONE have done more.”
I am specifically thinking of the Van Gogh episode of Doctor Who that depression isn’t that easily treated–you can sometimes just do your best and it doesn’t always work–especially if it’s not treated.
Well, I’m an atheist and as such, I don’t feel I’m able to answer questions to what God could or couldn’t have done. I only presented my interpretation of Becky’s perspective on the subject, based on this page:
http://www.dumbingofage.com/2016/comic/book-6/04-it-all-returns/remembrance/
I get that part. The part where she defends her shitty church, and even seems smug about how much better it is then Jacob’s everything is where I’m lost.
Because even though she’s turned against much of the message, she still likes the form of it better. Jakes’ church seems all sterile and lifeless, even though the message is better.
Speaking as a man who grew up in a Joyce-esque church but attended twelve years of Catholic Schooling, I generally take the view the Protestant churches are a lot more laid back and more informal but that’s not necessarily superior to the Catholic version. The Catholic version has the advantage of stressing THIS IS IMPORTANT AND YOU SHOULD BE RESPECTFUL. The point of Church is to get you in a mood where you revere God and your own life and how you get there is going to vary. Some people like their temples to be wild and ectastic while other people like somber as well as reflective.
The Church of Surak on Vulcan for some, the Church of Kahless on Kronos for others.
+10
And sometimes, which one you need depends on your mood and maybe even which holiday it is. I know a wild, ecstatic Yom Kippur wouldn’t fly and a somber Rosh Hashanah or Simchat Torah just ain’t Kosher
The thing about that is Protestantism is quite literally a broad church, mostly defined by “not being Catholic”. So it encompasses Joyce’s electric-guitar fundamentalism, but also everything from acoustic-guitar happy-clappy-ism to any-kind-of-music-is-a-sin puritans like the Wee Frees.
And y’know, High Churchy Episcopalians like Jacob.
Honestly, this is something I did not know.
https://io9.gizmodo.com/all-together-now-dimetrodon-is-not-a-dinosaur-1580344011
But, as Sherlock Holmes once observed, “Now that you have told me, I shall do my best to forget it! You tell me we travel around the sun. I tell you, if we travelled around the moon it would not make one whit of difference to me or to my work!”
Fun fact – William Barton and Michael Capobianco once wrote a Sherlock Holmes fanfic that nearly got the great detective killed in the most dramatic fashion possible because of him lacking in astronomic knowledge.
Spoiler 1: Professor Moriarty once wrote a book titled “The Dynamics of an Asteroid”
Spoiler 2: The climax of the story takes place in the remote Russian outback of Tunguska…
I always thought Holmes had a lot of knowledge, an astronomic amount of knowledge …
He had whatever knowledge was necessary to solve cases.
He did comment several times about not wanting to be bothered by information not related to his focus. OTOH, he also occasionally displayed knowledge of details not obviously linked to criminology, but critical for that particular deduction. Schrodinger’s knowledge.
Honestly, I think Sherlock Holmes would hate quantum mechanics.
If it were the quantum mechanics of a Trichinopoly cigar, he’d be all over it
It’s a good thing we have that punchline panel to demonstrate the inaccuracy of Becky’s analysis lol
I remember my first visit to a Catholic church after being raised in the United Church (a down-the-middle please everyone kinda church in Canada) and I had no idea what was going on. I was there following my girlfriend and had no idea when to sit or stand or what to do when we went up for the wafer and wine. I still cringe today thinking about my naiveté! I like Becky’s take on church choices – I like the guitars too! That’s as good an answer as any, in picking a church, if you choose to follow Jesus somehow and some way. (which I do 🙂
Hey is Asma on the “Fave character” poll and I’m just not seeing her or have we made history’s greatest error?
Yeah Becky lets try and take down that arrogance assumption down a notch shall we
That last panel cracks me up.
I once told off a Waterstone’s employee for putting W.G.Sebald’s Austerlitz in the History section.
Born to be wild!
I’m sure the lowly paid manager of the toy store and the minimum wage Waterstones employee both enjoyed the tellings off they received
The demons that drive us … I went through a couple years to therapy to realize my misdemeanors.
I’m guessing a dimetrodon is not considered a dinosaur?
Not even closely-related. Dimetrodon is closer to humans than to dinosaurs.
Of course a dimetrodon is a dinosaur. When I was a tiny child (last millenium), my bag of plastic dinosaurs included a dimetrodon and a pterodactyl.
Dang, Becky sure assumes a lot about Jacob…
His life, that is.
well she also admits she barely knows him, so I doubt she thinks it’s supposed to be taken that seriously