That said, as noted below, while I like her less now as a person, you have to give it to her for that comedic timing. That exit line is Mike worthy. Bravo.
Oooh, Dorothy being mad too was not something I really expected.
Think she’ll stay and talk Joyce through it? Will anybody? Or will Joyce just compress this down and hate herself more for the single moment she started to unpack her trauma?
All I know is, this is the first time I’ve ever waited refreshing the homepage right at midnight.
Joe is also in three of these panels, doing nothing but looking at everyone. Feels like he has a reason to be there — honestly, yeah, Joe does almost make the most sense to be the one she talks to. Especially given their recent bio homework talk.
Right, plus she’s come to him in the past for a lot of stuff, most recently the Becky’s mom stuff. She did also in the past come to him when her parents were divorcing, so, even if Joe’s not exactly the most comfortable at talking feelings, he does obviously rise to the occasion for her, historically.
I kind of think maybe Joe should be the one to go talk to Becky, and Dorothy stay to talk to Joyce.
Joe knows about Joyce’s deconversion and has more context for what happened, and so is in a better position to explain to Becky that Joyce was angry and venting about her own past beliefs rather than Becky – Dorothy isn’t aware, from what I recall.
Joyce coming clean to Dorothy immediately about what’s been going on is likely to be helpful for their relationship as well, and Dorothy can then provide support whilst also making her disappointment clear to hopefully head off this kind of thing happening again.
I definitely don’t think Joe is close enough to Becky to be the one to have a talk with her. I don’t know what Dorothy would tell her either, but I could see them growing closer over this.
Dorothy really mastered the disappointed mom vibe. Joyce is mortified, and with good reason.
They are friends, though, and Joyce and Becky are friends. Eventually, they’ll talk it out and forgive. Maybe not right this second. Becky needs some time to cool off, and possibly Dorothy needs some too.
Yeah, I think that Joe is the best person to talk to Joyce right now. Maybe Sarah can help too. They are both more or less atheists as well, the apathetic kind, or perhaps rather they are agnostics. They can guide Joyce to a decent middle where she can respect others’ faith, and even defend others’ faith, even as she doesn’t share it. Just like Dorothy has.
Sarah and Joe being any kind of atheist has nothing to do with their ability to talk to Joyce about having just (accidentally/obliviously) shit all over her friend. Joyce knows that she fucked up *hard*. Honestly, her getting past her own mortification with some self-compassion, will allow her to be a better friend sooner, rather than wasting time raking herself over ghe coals. (n.b. I don’t mean absolution, but she’ll move along faster by owning and forgiving herself for her mistake). Sarah’s had to live with people being angry with her (despite her having good cause), and Joe had the list. They’re both experienced coaches to help Joyce navigate this.
I think Sarah’s and Joe’s atheism would be relevant in this situation. Joyce’s atheism is new, and she still doesn’t know how to be as an atheist. The people she would usually talk about these things she didn’t dare. Liz ended up being a very bad role model, but it’s clear Joyce just wanted to test things out, and wasn’t entirely comfortable saying all these mean things, even when she thought nobody was there to hear her say them.
Dorothy is clearly a very good model of how an atheist can be, and I’m sure that’ll be pointed out to her, but also Dorothy was never raised religiously. Sarah and Joe may have been, though not necessarily in as repressive a way as she was. This experience might help them relate to Joyce, understand what she’s going through and help her find a way forward.
Or maybe, and hear me out on this, JOYCE should talk to Becky.
I think it’s entirely unfair of Dotty to be “disappointed” in what Joyce was saying about her own feelings on a religion she was heavily indoctrinated into as she tries to shake it off. I think it’s entirely unfair of half the comments section yesterday to get up in arms about Joyce “lying” to Becky or “being mean to christians” because as far as Joyce knew, there wasn’t anyone but herself in the room to be mean to!
Joyce wasn’t required to let anyone in on her mental state until she was ready to, and if Becky hadn’t been hunting her down for daring to have another friend (and Dotty along for the ride to apparently be “disappointed” in her for skipping class) they wouldn’t have been around to hear Joyce ripping her own beliefs apart.
Both Becky and Dorothy need to get over this idea of Who Joyce Is they have in their head and let her grow. Skipping one day of class for a friend who is in town for One Day Only isn’t disappointing, it’s normal. Not telling someone about your changing beliefs because the last time you did they dumpstered your feelings as “just a phase” and childish…is healthy.
Joyce is allowed to change. She’s allowed to grow in ways which aren’t fun for other people. She wasn’t intentionally being hurtful and it’s gross that she’s apparently the only one in their friend group not allowed to move forward without being treated like she’s doing it to be cruel.
To be fair, at first he’s doing the same thing as Dorothy (looking after Becky in concern as she leaves), then switches to do the same thing as Sarah (looking at Joyce in concern). I think he reads the room just fine here in order to help Joyce *possibly* fix this in the future.
Joe’s problem (or, well, one of) is that he doesn’t WANT emotional intelligence. He actively avoids things getting “real”, almost certainly because of his emotional intelligence. But if someone is refusing to use the intelligence they have they’re still behaving in a way which is unintelligent. When he lets himself use what he has we see someone capable of great caring, understanding and empathy and a desire to be and do better- but it’s wrapped up in his own fears, hesitation and I honestly think a good pinch of self-loathing.
My point is, it’s easy to not expect emotional intelligence from Joe.
I’m not sure that she’s mad, necessarily, but it definitely makes sense.
While she didn’t shy away from the fact that she disagreed with Joyce’s now-former beliefs on a fundamental level, and was often horrified of some of the messages contained within (ex: all the good things we do are God working though us), Dorothy was never dismissive of Joyce’s beliefs, and always treated her first and foremost as a human being instead of something to be mocked. And she was… pretty much the only one who didn’t do that, early on, which was crucial to the development of their friendship. (need to stop myself from writing a wildly-off-topic shipping manifesto.)
Seeing Joyce, of all people, seemingly treating Becky the way everyone else treated Joyce at the beginning of the comic has got to be hard for her to watch, because this is exactly what Dorothy strove so hard to be better than.
Except Joyce had no way of knowing Becky was there to witness Joyce giving voice to the ugly pent up feelings she’s been keeping bottled up. That’s distinct from the mockery Joyce experienced to her face when she first started the previous semester. Joyce’s ire was not targeted towards Becky in this instance.
I get it, I do, and I’ve mentioned how I empathize with Joyce both yesterday and today. But Joyce is still responsible for the words she says, even when venting in a public dorm room, even if she never meant for Becky to hear it. I don’t ascribe her much blame or hold it against her, but she’s still responsible for saying it.
Oh Joyce is most certainly responsible for her actions/words. But that doesn’t mean Dorothy being harsh, and essentially rubbing salt in a just opened sound is helpful either. Now Dorothy being somewhat is a perfectly reasonable reaction and in-character for Dorothy, like Joyce’s venting, it’s understandable Dorothy isn’t going to have the perfect response every time either. But I think people commenting that Dorothy was harsh is perfectly fair too, especially since it’s not a condemnation of Dorothy.
Eh, it still comes off as harsh to me, considering the context and phrasing. Perhaps if it wasn’t the first thing Dorothy said or she phrased with an “I” statement it wouldn’t come off as harsh to me.
I don’t think Joyce meant to insult Becky– as you said, she had no idea that Becky was there– but I’m pretty sure that both Dorothy and Becky think that she was talking about Becky. And it’s not like an explanation would make it hurt that much less.
I think it depends on how much Becky and Dorothy heard. If the door was open this whole time, they might have heard her from down the hall and followed her voice. (Why else would they be looking for them in the guys’ wing?)
Granted, Joyce openly mocking believers in general is only slightly less shitty than Joyce openly mocking Becky specifically for being a believer, but still.
I don’t think Joyce was mocking believers in general though- although she’s actively painting it that way to avoid what she’s actually doing being so obvious to Liz, which is actively mocking herself. There’s a lot (by my read) of self-loathing for everything she swallowed without ever actually examining it until she hit the first breaking point (Becky coming out to her). My own childhood “teachings” weren’t religious but it was awful and I definitely went through a massive stage of “how could I have been such an idiot, why didn’t I see this” self-loathing that still comes back up sometimes. I’m seeing something I REALLY relate to in Joyce- anger and bitterness and resentment and a massive, completely disproportionate amount of it being directed at herself.
I might be reading it wrong since it does resonate with my personal experiences but that’s my take.
I’m pretty certain you’re very spot on here. She would never mock Becky, even behind her back. She’s expressing her anger at herself for spending so much of her life living in a way that she now sees as ridiculous. I can’t blame her in any way, honestly ; it’s hard enough for her, she’s got the right to figure herself out and a few mishaps here and there are bound to happen. I love Dorothy, but reacting like she did isn’t great.
Yeah, I agree with this, too. It felt mostly self-directed, with a healthy dash of “trying to fit in with new friend” energy.
Joyce is pretty desperate for approval; she was previously very vocal about her previous religious beliefs, and it became a large part of the identity people associated with her. Casting aside those beliefs, that identity, is scary. Especially when she is FULLY aware that being open about her burgeoning atheism opens her up to a lot of mockery, which she suspects/fears she will deserve. Joyce has shown a habit of trying to avoid the consequences of her words and deeds – at least initially.
With Liz, she felt like she could come out of that “closet” as it were. And as a number of people do when they’re leaving their “closet,” they may over-express themselves, exaggerate their feelings or expression of their hidden self, like the backswing of a pendulum. It’s like a release of pressure, and, sadly, Liz basically egged it on. Liz still lives in her own closet, of sorts, but she also has probably carved her own exit from it far before now. She probably thinks it’s good Joyce is cutting loose like this, but also probably doesn’t realize how Joyce is struggling to keep the facade up, let alone the fact that there are people Joyce cares about and wants close to her that also don’t know her truth.
Also, Liz probably doesn’t realize how uncharacteristically Joyce is acting right now. She’s only seen the face Joyce shows her; probably doesn’t know Joyce isn’t like that with her other friends.
No, I can understand that. I was raised as a good little Church-going Republican and I occasionally look back on that with deep cringing. I can absolutely see Joyce’s actions as being self-condemning, not directed at anyone else. The timing was just really, REALLY bad for her venting.
It is really shocking how patient Dorothy was with Joyce early on. I agree, it must’ve made seeing Joyce hurt her childhood friend like this even more painful to watch.
Dorothy meant what she said. She’s not mad. She’s disappointed.
Sure, that’s a common misleading statement, but when most people say that kind of thing, they actually mean “frustrated”, because they were attempting something and it isn’t working and the frustration is building into anger.
Dorothy wasn’t trying anything. She just witnessed a scene, and she’s disappointed in Joyce.
I suspect that Dorothy has had an inclination that something was going on with Joyce for a while and I reckon her thought process when she showed up was “so Joyce really is questioning/abandoning her faith after all and instead of coming to talk to me about it she’s talking shit with somebody she’s only ever met online even though she knows her best friend still believes in God.” It seems like she might be feeling a little betrayed but she’s probably mostly mad that Joyce said something so vicious and thoughtless just because she thought Becky wasn’t around
Well, if she put together the plan the moment she realized Joyce was deconverted and closeted… yeah, she probably could have. Timed things for when classes were letting out and people were likely to come back to the dorms and trust that SOMEONE would overhear.
I have no basis for thinking she did, but she could have.
Getting Joyce to inadvertently out herself as an atheist? Maybe, it’d require a degree of malice we haven’t really seen from Liz but I guess it’s not impossible.
Getting Becky/Dorothy specifically to hear Joyce calling people like Becky idiots when she thinks nobody can hear? No. That’s maybe something Mike could have done, with significantly more preparation and understanding of the marks than Liz would reasonable have.
I don’t think its the fact that Joyce outed herself as an atheist that is the issue. I think its the fact that she did it incredibly disrespectfully by calling people who believe idiots in a very mocking manner. Especially in front of a believing friend who believes her mother is in paradise?
She didn’t know she was in front of that friend. That friend hunted her down for hanging out with someone because she’s wildly jealous and way, way too possessive of Joyce.
Joyce wasn’t talking To or About Becky, and Becky has said similarly hurtful things without ever being called out about it.
Joyce is allowed to change, grow, and do it painfully if necessary. She shouldn’t have to consider other people’s feelings at all times while dealing with her own trauma, particularly when that person wouldn’t even have been around if she wasn’t treating Joyce like a chew toy she didn’t want to share.
You’re just covering for the fact that you let slip a hint to Willis having shown you a future strip from twelve years into the future ahead of schedule. We’re on to you!
Okay, but… Joyce HAS those feelings. She needs to work through them yes, and it’s not great that Becky got them raw, but it shouldn’t be disappointing that she has them in the first place.
Sure. But rather than work through those feelings with her friends – not even Becky directly, but Dorothy, who would have absolutely no issue with her new beliefs – she’s bottled them up and walled them away… until Liz arrived, at which point she ditched all of her friends and her class in order to pull this.
And this isn’t even genuine. It’s Joyce backsliding heavily in character growth in order to just appeal to the oh-so-cool new girl. It’s the same kind of dishonest, selfish, short-sightedness she was pulling with Jacob that caused him to burn bridges with her.
Yeah but unlike with Jacob, Joyce was indulging her in worse tendencies away from the people she knew it would hurt. That’s not quite the same as her making a consciously decision to do Raidah wrong for her own gratification.
Yeah, choosing to hang out with Sarah and Joe instead of her actual “best friends” is a clear sign that Joyce wanted to try out being a different person, maybe pretend that she never fell for the fundamentalism as hard as she did, maybe imagine a different upbringing for herself. I can follow the logic here, even if it’s still stuck in Joyce’s weird tendency to lie her way into a sitcom premise (“This is Joe and we boink all the time, also I’m an atheist! This will never backfire!”)
Joyce pretending to be a different person is not a good thing. She frequently does this as a form of denial, or when she’s trying to be manipulative. Dorothy has disapproved of this behavior every time it’s come up, because of how unhealthy it is.
She also has never turned her back on Joyce for that flaw and has always been willing to be there for her anyway. So after everything they’ve been through, it’s actually very disappointing that Joyce would open up about her struggles not to her close friends who share much of her new beliefs and wouldn’t hate her for them, but purely as a result of trying to impress someone by deceiving them.
It’s quite a common thing to open up about troubling stuff to strangers, as almost any bartender will tell you.
Liz seems to be the atheist and less responsible double of Becky, blow in unexpectedly, act devil may care. But, where Becky would have started stuff to pull the attention and anger on herself to protect Joyce, Liz slinks out like a coward.
Still, how could Joyce voice her anger on her fundie upbringing to the people who see her as a result of it?
Only Sarah is there, still being the older sister, I thought she‘d left but there she is..
Woah now. Joyce was definitely partly influenced by wanting to appease to Liz, but part of her venting was genuine. She is spiteful towards religion.
I’m not saying her words were acceptable, but she’s exiting basically years of suppression and lies. They’re understandable, the question is if Becky will find them forgivable.
Again: it’s really, really telling that she is doing this venting to Liz, and not anyone else within her group. And I do NOT mean Becky. But like… literally almost anyone else.
That, combined with her past history of deceitful behavior, puts this conversation in a VERY different light than just “Joyce ranting to someone she can safely talk to”.
Bonus points that her friend group has gone to hell and back with her. They’ve gone to bat – pun intended – to protect her. She -should- feel safer and more well-loved by them than you’d expect in a typical group of college friends that have known each other for half a year or so. It’s still understandable that she’d want to hide this resentment from Becky, but…
And also, Dorothy has a pretty good handle on how Joyce thinks and acts. It doesn’t mean she’s necessarily correct at all times, but that when she sees Joyce acting in an exaggerated manner similarly to ways she’s acted before… she’s going to immediately see it as backsliding to those kinds of behaviors.
But who in Joyce’s circle could Joyce talk to about deconversion? Not unbelief generally, but deconversion specifically? Dorothy never went through that, Sarah tries her hardest NOT to be the person people turn to…
Except this isn’t a genuine talk about deconversion, is it? It’s an exaggeration of her thoughts, being said in order to impress a Facebook friend, despite the fact that it throws a lot of shade on Becky. And she’s been deceitful about so much in relation to this situation – Liz’s beliefs, for example. There’s really no reason to lie about Liz’s beliefs to Becky, when Becky has quite happily befriended Dorothy (even if she constantly needles her).
I’m not sure how much of it was about impressing Liz. Maybe some, maybe none, maybe a lot.
But I am sure a lot of it was Joyce venting about her own situation. She’s pissed off that she was (in her mind) stupid enough to ever believe this stuff, and that others got her to believe it. Those are emotions that she’s been unable to be open about for months. So the moment she finds someone she CAN vent around, of course she’s going to vent. Ditto for actually being able to swear without even Joe telling her off for it.
That’s part of why I’m not sure how much of it was to IMPRESS Liz. I’m thinking it was more wanting to emulate Liz (specifically how Liz is able to be open about this stuff and has overcome her fears), plus a bit of euphoric overenthusiasm about finally clicking with someone regarding deconversion.
Also, when did Joyce lie to Becky about Liz? Joyce hasn’t said anything to Becky since finding out Liz was a fellow deconvert. Becky only recognized Liz’s name from Facebook (presumably Joyce’s friends list).
i mean this scene was set up with Joyce saying lots of extremely edgy stuff specifically in order to impress Liz. So i think yes, she IS in fact trying to impress her now, but why do we try to impress people? we want them to validate that we are like them in some way, right? we want them to see that we value the same thing.
you’re right, she finds Liz aspirational. She needs to rebuild herself around being a deconvert. it’s going to take a while, and it won’t be easy. it will be awkward, and painful, and just an overall bummer most likely. And Liz is so confident, she makes it look easy. at this moment, Joyce wants to be her.
(Actually Liz is performing coolness too, maybe she’s had a bit more practice i guess, or she’s better at it. but this is what 18 looks like, certainly what i and everyone around me was like at 18. just constant, exhausting, attitude games)
I guess the point of disagreement here boils down to Joyce’s motive. Everyone keeps saying it’s to impress, while I’m thinking it could be just to emulate.
I don’t view venting as a fully healthy thing to begin with. When venting turns into full-on mockery of a group of people one of your closest friends belongs to, I think you’ve definitely crossed a line into ethical failing. I’m not sure what Joyce really expected here anyways. Did she think Joe and Sarah would never utter a word about the stuff she was saying, especially when she later acts as though she never said those things?
Well the debate about whether venting is healthy or not, it’s a little different when the group of people Joyce is mocking is one she herself used to identify with. And yeah I think it would be reasonable for Joyce to expect that Sarah and Joe wouldn’t be gossiping about her to other people without her knowledge. I’m sure Sarah and Joe would bring it up directly with Joyce before doing something like going behind he back.
yes. I don’t think it’s reasonable to expect someone not to express frustration at something they regret about their past selves. Like all this is a difficult path to navigate, because you can’t be honest with a friend, because they expect you to still be like them. And then you’re not allowed to be honest out loud with just yourself?
Joyce can’t process these emotions healthily if she’s not allowed to express them. Harsh words about something that has hurt her to the extent that religion has are totally understandable, and suppressing those feelings because others might be hurt if they heard them put so bluntly isn’t healthy.
Yeah, it sucks that Becky heard this, and I don’t think anyone involved wanted that to happen. But saying Joyce should never voice feelings like this feels a lot like the really problematic tone policing often used to shut down people trying to voice things that are problematic in society.
Especially when this is part of a pattern of shitty lashing-out on Joyce’s part that Dorothy has already been being patient with, on top of the other things she’s very patient with Joyce on, as a friend.
She didn’t do that at all, no. She said exactly one thing about being disappointed. But hey, it’s illegal to have even a mild problem with a friend’s behavior, so.
I used to be like Dorothy. Sometime in life she’ll learn that it’s not appropriate to try to fix her friends but she can channel those urges towards mentoring her subordinates (or students) and other appropriate contexts. She’s still learning and growing too.
In my experience friends like Joyce drop friends like Dorothy when they pull themselves together. And Dorothys learn to socially avoid people who show signs of hero worship and clinging and stuck to friendships that are more equal.
I’m hoping the part Dorothy means is the ‘I believe in god, I’m an idiot’ type stuff. While it may be how Joyce is feeling, without the context of this being a venting thing, it sounds like it applies to Becky too, and Becky’s understandably hurt and insulted by that.
Why? She’s has no context for this. It would be insanely understanding for her to sympathize with Joyce in this situation without some explanation first.
This honestly sums it up nicely. Joyce has valid feelings, but she also got walked in on acting like a total jackass. It’s understandable to say, “Joyce didn’t know she’d be heard”, etc etc, obviously, but it’s also reasonable to be put off if you heard someone you care about and thought highly of say really repulsive things.
No one’s going to jail over it or anything, they’re just experience social consequences. That’s just how it is.
Jlyce may not have expected to be walked in on but…she still said those things.
One might need to legitimately complain about something a loved one has done, but if that loved one overhears they have every right to feel hurt. Even if they were never meant to hear it hurtful things were still said
It’s actually what I was trying to get at when I said Joyce’s words and attitude weren’t genuine.
This is Joyce being deceitful to try to impress someone. Again. It’s an attitude Dorothy has expressed disapproval for, only this time it’s also mixed in with resentment that would badly sting someone very close to Joyce – resentment that Joyce has seemingly failed to try to work through with her friends, but will now open up about simply because she’s trying to impress someone.
It’s kinda shitty, but more than that, it’s backsliding.
Yeah but Dorothy casting judgement on Joyce, when Dorothy can obviously see that Joyce was unawares of Becky being within earshot and knows Joyce has been raised with religious trauma, should recognized the harshness that chastising someone who knows that they hurt someone they cared about unintentionally seems a bit like kicking someone when their already down.
Huh? The issue is not that I don’t understand what she’s doing. The important bit is /why/ she is doing it. This is not how she normally acts. Even as, now, a foreigner to her once religion, she is a considerate person who can respect it for the sake of her best friend. But now that she got a chance to impress someone else, she’s acting uncharacteristically. Again, that’s disappointing.
Agreed. There’s like twelve different things going on here and some of them are terrible, some of them are things the audience gets as a nasty part of an unpleasant process but still somewhat necessary and unfortunate (and Dorothy, whose experience with atheism did not involve religious trauma, wouldn’t get,) some of them are just general teenage messiness. Often multiple things at once!
From Dorothy’s perspective, she just overheard Joyce pretty much saying that anyone who believe in religion is an idiot. Despite knowing her best friend is Christian. It doesn’t matter if she intended Becky to hear that, that’s still a shitty thing to say.
I think a lot of people are missing the point that I’m sure Becky is *way* more hurt by that than by Joyce actually being Athiest. Imagine having a heartfelt conversation with your best friend about you dead mother, then realizing later that they were just thinking you were an idiot the whole time.
Seriously. It sucks that Becky overheard, but Joyce did nothing wrong here. (Hell, even the skipping class- skipping one class in college is not the end of the world.)
Well, she lied about Joe being her best friend, lied about fucking Joe, lied about habitually taking drugs, and behaved as though she were in private while yhe door was open.
Okay, but Dorothy doesn’t know any of those first three things, and Joyce probably didn’t know the door was open (and it might not have been, it could be that Joe or Dorothy/Becky opened it)
Here’s the thing- yes, I entirely agree that Joyce is working through self-directed anger and is talking about herself, and while her behaviour this arc has been… highly imperfect (the lying, dragging Joe into it, pretending she’s basically what she was raised to think atheists are despite now knowing otherwise) she’s venting. She’s venting about herself and her combinations of long-suppressed self-loathing and anger and guilt and very likely more. She needs to vent.
BUT Dorothy and Becky almost certainly don’t know that. Which is part of the problem- Joyce has had so little opportunity to work through this socially (and has very likely had to actively suppress it). So it comes out in this bitter, angry venting, and that is what Becky and Dorothy walked in on, without the context of everything she’s been working through with her deconversion. It could possibly be construed as Joyce saying hurtful things to fit in with her new friend which is obviously untrue with the context we have, but… it’s not a great look.
Right now nobody is looking good imo, but I don’t think anybody is really that much at fault here. The closest is Sarah and Joe for enabling Joyce’s lying instead of pulling her aside and trying to talk about all of this but they’re also not actually responsible for her behaviour- and that’s not really relevant at this moment.
It is a good look actually, it’s just not one to two people who stalked after Joyce because “oh no she has a friend over, that can’t be I own Joyce’s ass.”
I don’t care what Becky and Dorothy think right now because this conversation isn’t for them and has nothing to do with them, but they’ve made it about them and are judging Joyce for it.
Like maybe Becky and Dorothy are showing right now exactly why Joyce was incapable of sharing this worldshaking viewpoint shift to them, but she could for two people who don’t need Joyce to exist in a glass case.
I take much more issue with Becky’s actions overall tbh, a couple of scenes back I nearly commented on how… distasteful I find Becky’s possessiveness over Joyce. To me there is no possible version of their relationship where I’d be chill with Becky literally deciding she had a feud with one of Joyce’s closest friends seemingly BECAUSE she was one of Joyce’s closest friends and apparently freaking out over Joyce spending time with someone else. And she did make it all about her when Joyce tried to talk to her about her realising she was losing her faith.
I don’t think we’ve ever seen Dorothy be dismissive of Joyce trying to work out who she is or what she believes, I personally think it’s more that Joyce puts Dorothy on a bit of a pedestal AND probably finds her a painful reminder of how she was when they first met, and I can see her not feeling able to talk to Dorothy about it without it being due to Dorothy being unaccepting. I really see Dorothy’s immediate reaction here being “you’ve just really hurt your best friend and I don’t have the full picture so it looks bad”.
I 100% agree that the conversation (or rather venting) wasn’t for them, but again- they don’t know that it actually had so little to do with Becky. And I respect that, to you, the fact that it was nothing to do with them is much more important than their perception of the event.
How are Sarah and Joe closest to fault here? Joyce showed up at Joe’s doorstep unannounced and made herself at home. He hasn’t said or done anything which is actually a remarkable show of restraint. And Sarah did pull Joyce aside and warn her about Liz. Specifically stating Liz is not a great role model. Thus not someone to parrot or imitate like Joyce just got caught doing. https://www.dumbingofage.com/2021/comic/book-12/01-sister-christian/aticking/
Admittedly this is a tangent but they aren’t at fault at all.
They’re not at fault at all. That was… kind of what I was trying to say? I think? They’re enabling Joyce lying and using Joe to do so but they’re not actually in any way responsible for her behaviour. By “closest at fault” what I meant was “nobody is at fault in this exact moment imo”. Didn’t phrase it well though.
Her expression of disappointment lacks any empathy for what Joyce has been through at the hands of religion. Both her own personal worldview and others’ actions against her motivated by religion have done huge amounts of harm to her. Being disappointed because someone isn’t 100% diplomatic when discussing something they have strong feelings about in private, away from those who might be hurt by said words, is just tone policing, and it’s not okay.
Honestly, I feel bad for Joyce. Like, how was she supposed to know Becky was in earshot? Sometimes, the path to healing from almost 2 decades of religious trauma starts with making fun of the thing that used to hold so much sway over you, and she does have every right to be bitter toward it. I feel like the derogatory things she was saying were directed at her past self, and definitely not at Becky (even if I understand why she’ll definitely interpret it that way, and I feel bad for Becky too).
And Dorothy can feel however she wants about it, but as someone who was raised as an atheist, she has no idea the kind of deeply rooted trauma that Joyce is dealing with and trying to figure out how to express in *any* way. Seriously, being raised in fundamentalist Christianity is a nightmare and I don’t think Dorothy realizes just how huge a bullet she dodged.
If I can “No True Scotsman” your statement for a sec: we’re talking about people who were raised in fundamentalist/evangelical Christian homes, under parents for whom even the *concept* of “allowing” your child to “choose” a religion is comparable to the concept of slitting their throat in the name of Satan.
Dorothy’s parents are not “religious” when compared with the kind of shit Joyce grew up with. She has no possible way of understanding that world.
Dorothy’s grandparents are religious. One side is Catholic and the other is Jewish and Catholic, but she’s said herself that her parents are pretty nonreligious.
I think Sarah’s probably got the best handle on this situation. Dorothy’s being judgy x2. Not just not understanding what it’s like, but the dig about skipping class too. It’s a freshman level math lecture. In-class participation is not required.
I feel bad for both of them, but without the proper context, I can easily see why Dorothy might think that Joyce was saying something cruel that can apply to Becky. I’m HOPING an explanation is upcoming.
I’m worried about her Feinting from the lack of blood flowing to her head…. or that she is going to have a panic attack so bad she is sent to the hospital from a heart attack.
Dotty is weaponizing her mom friend status here in TERRIFYING fashion. Joyce is realizing she has a lot of work to do to repair the damage that just happened.
Given how up-in-Dorothy’s-business Becky has been so far this semester, I have the strong suspicion that Dorothy has an even deeper understanding than Joyce does of just how fragile Becky’s trust is right now.
I’m not particularly sympathetic for Becky here, who pushed Joyce away the last time she tried to broach this topic. And I am *SUPER* sympathetic for Joyce’s situation for personal reasons.
But I can also empathize with Dorothy, who had to parry a billion little Christian Microaggressions from Original Flavor Joyce at the start of first semester, being none too pleased with how aggressively unpleasant Joyce’s edgelord statements were just now, and the collateral damage they’ve caused.
Kind of HOPE Joyce snaps and nearly does something prison worthy til Sal stops her and Sal tears into Dorothy. Dorothy deserves to have this thrown back into her face
Like cripes, Joyce fucked up, sure, but she DID NOT DO THAT KNOWING BECKY WAS THERE
She kept it bottled up BECAUSE she knew this would happen to Becky
She feels religion has failed her and had to deal with feeling like a bad person. Just as she starts to recover, bam, she is told something that implies she’s a bad person
You don’t tear into somebody like that when you are one of her only supports. She meeds guidance and to come to terms with her feelings as they are complicated now
She may legitimately do bad things now because, “Nothing matters so why the fuck not?”
Okay, it’s good to have this sympathy for Joyce, but do you have a teaspoon of that to spare for Becky and Dorothy?
If you walked in on someone you thought you knew saying some really repulsive shit, would you blink and say, “Huh, how about that”, or would you feel hurt?
Like, they’re human beings too and also allowed their own emotional reaction to this. Situations are not black and white, good guy vs bad guy, especially ones like this.
^yes, this, x100. It’s very weird that people are demanding that Becky and Dorothy act like Joyce’s therapists and not like normal human people with normal feelings.
Right? Everyone getting mad at DOROTHY here is insane to me. Who did Joyce freak out on nonstop over her atheist beliefs? Who respected Joyce’s belief system, who WENT TO CHURCH with Joyce, who happily discussed these things with Joyce and tried to help her? Dorothy! And yet here she is, ranting on in an awful manner.
I’ll be brave and say it. I don’t care that Joyce has religious trauma here. Join the club, get your sticker. She isn’t “venting” she is going down a self deprecating circlejerk and spewing awful things about people she supposedly loves, without any consideration of their feelings. I don’t care she didn’t know Becky was in earshot – she was saying it in front of Joe, Sarah, Liz, any of whom it could have gotten it back around back to Becky. And she was saying really awful stuff. Of course Dorothy is disappointed. Of course she is hurt by this. Who fucking wouldn’t be?
It’s Dorothy I’m most ticked with – This was not the time to lay on the guilt. It will backfire. It mostly comes from Dorothy being on a moral high a lot, however – If she didn’t have that, then there wouldn’t be a hypocritical edge to it that really drives me up the wall. Only way I will retract this is if this ended up being caused by her own stress laid on by Becky being obnoxious at times
Yes, I do. But it’s no more than a teaspoon because of what they came here to do. They heard Joyce was spending time with a new friend and came here to prosecute a rivalry and drive Joyce and Liz apart.
There’s sympathy to go round. Also plenty of blame to go round.
It seems like a lot of people are missing the point that talking shit about someone behind their back isn’t any better just because you don’t intend for them to hear it. Like, yeah, Joyce is talking more about herself than anyone else here, but Becky has no way of knowing that. Becky thinks she just learned her best friend has no respect for her or her beliefs.
“I’m sorry that I said all religious people are stupid. I didn’t intend for you, my religious friend, to hear that!”
Yeah, imagine this had been pretty much any other category. “I thought I had a sympathetic audience and didn’t expect any of my other friends to hear.”
It felt more like Joyce was shit talking herself – It all seemed directed internally. Having dealt with self loathing over feeling stupid and how I should have known better before, it feels that’s the angle, and why I think Becky should get an apology later, when Joyce has recovered from the shock
Was going through shit myself last night so my points weren’t the clearest or most empathetic, but it’s that part and Dorothy’s tendency to high ground that are ticking me off – Joyce did not need that now. Later, yes, as tearing herself down is also unhealthy, but not now when her emotions are clearly raw
Well, just to be fair, she assumed it was just Liz, Joe and Sarah listening, and only ever wanted a safe space to process her deconversion and other issues.
But regardless, this is one hell of a mess with no easy fixes.
I’m glad Dorothy said something. It’s important for Joyce to learn that the way she was talking isn’t acceptable for reasons beyond her relationship to Becky.
I think this might be the first time Joyce has really actually done something really bad in a place where Dorothy had an opportunity to comment.
Like, by the time she figured out the Ethan’s-beard thing, Joyce dropped it before she could actually react. Most of the other bad stuff from Joyce has been carefully hidden away by indirection, like… Dorothy probably doesn’t know about the Jacob stuff.
Dorothy knows about the Jacob stuff. She had lunch with them when Joyce was flirting with him, she had class with Joyce when Walky was getting on her for being horny, and Joyce told her about the girlfriend lie at the Dina/Sarah birthday party.
I have gone looking and you are correct. However, I would still say Dorothy found out after Joyce had basically done what could be done to make the situation right again, so there was no further reason to encourage her to do anything but forgive herself.
That’s been a theme of their relationship. Dorothy is a conscience for Joyce, but she’s always too preoccupied with her own aspirations to really spend time on Joyce. She always finds out about the crazy hijinks after the dust has settled. Here, Dorothy’s at ground zero.
Ok, telling Becky to her face that “You have to be a moron to believe what is in the bible” wouldn’t be acceptable.
But Joyce was having what she THOUGHT was a private conversation, where the only people she thought were privy were either atheist at least secular. Given the fact that she has spent her life being indoctrinated with biblical hogwash, she may want a cathartic experience of talking about how badly religion messed with her mind.
Mocking and deriding others we disagree with, even in private, is both tacky and trashy behaviour. Joyce’s demeanor and words are acrid and condescending. I wouldn’t want to spend time with anyone who would act this way, in private or not. It’s simply not acceptable.
I don’t disagree that Joyce is in the wrong here, but some viewpoints deserve mockery and derision. Not all disagreements are over reconcilable issues.
If this private conversation is Joyce’s actual thoughts and feelings, then she thinks Becky is an idiot. While we can infer that Joyce is talking about herself, ultimately the net she’s casting does snare Becky, and that matters.
Joyce has plenty of trauma to work through, but polite society usually asks you don’t lash out at your best friend while working through it.
“I’m sorry that I said all religious people are stupid. I didn’t intend for you, my religious friend, to hear that!”
Joyce isn’t having some deep, introspective conversation about her upbringing here, she’s just going, “religious people are stupid lol”. Saying you think all Christians are dumb, while you still have friends and loved ones who are Christian, is shitty. Saying it only behind their backs doesn’t make it any better, it just makes you two-faced.
I think that line was a projection of the way she feels like she’s been ‘had’, slightly exaggerated by her getting caught up in the moment. “I feel like an idiot for believing this for so long” became “everyone who believes is an idiot”.
And that’s largely because it wasn’t a deep introspective conversation, but her feelings coming up filtered through Liz starting to mock believers and Joyce playing along, as she was doing earlier with the sex and drugs talk.
If this had come up in a different context, with someone not so openly edgy, it likely would have been directly about her feeling dumb for having believed it, rather than that being subtext behind mocking those how still do.
i don’t know, i think Joyce absolutely loved talking trash with Liz and pretending like everything was black and white there for a minute. she may not care that Liz in some sense got her into this then bailed, as balanced against getting another hit of that sweet sweet edginess again.
She’s absolutely for real, she has no idea anything just went down. She’s had a fun day hanging out with her sister and her cool buddy Joyce and Joyce’s hot friend, everything is coming up Liz!
I disagree. While Liz may not know the details of Joyce’s relations with Becky and Dorothy, she most likely senses that the fun has stopped and that she doesn’t want to be caught up in whatever is happening.
Honestly, if Liz doesn’t have some idea that Joyce is faking the funk on a lot of what she’s said today, then I’d expect her wisdom score must be pretty low and she is not proficient in insight.
Could be a bit of both really. I don’t think Liz knows entirely what just happened as I’m pretty sure she’s never met Becky and we don’t know if Joyce talked with her about Becky online, but I’m assuming she’s at least noticed that things just got really awkward. And it probably actually is time for her to leave anyway.
Let’s just say that when the first Harry Potter movie came out, the toy stores included vibrating broomsticks that were unexpectedly popular with teenage girls. I’m sure you can extrapolate from there…
omg i wasn’t aware of that, some of the amazon reviews are so funny, like
GREAT TOY!, June 11, 2002 – Amazon.com Reviewer:
“My 12-year-old daughter is a big Harry Potter fan and loved the part with the Nimbus 2000, so I decided to buy her this toy. I was afraid she would think it was too babyish, but she LOVES this toy. Even my daughter’s friends enjoy playing with this fun Harry Potter broomstick toy. I was surprised at how long they can just sit in her room and play with this magic broomstick! A great buy for any Harry Potter fan!” Ashley from TX
Excellent!, June 11, 2002 – Amazon.com Reviewer: “When my 12-year-old daughter asked for this Nimbus 2000 vibrating broomstick for her birthday, I kind of wondered if she was too old for it, but she seems to LOVE it. Her friends love it too! They play for hours in her bedroom with this great Harry Potter broomstick toy. They really seem to like the special effects it offers (the sound effects and vibrating). My oldest daughter (17) really likes it too! I recommend this for all children.”
I initially misread it as “I never got Hermione vibes from Dorothy ever until now”, and then I read it again as “I wasn’t getting Hermione vibes from Dorothy in this particular comic until now”, and now you posted and I’m wondering if maybe it was the first one after all.
And Liz lost some points. She’s awfully thoughtless. I’m getting how Sarah can be iffy about her. Sure, she doesn’t have context but this is your online friend that you’ve known for a bit and you were hanging out for a while.
Oh well. I’m sure she won’t be a major character to see again.
I’m kind of surprised people are mad at Dorothy here. This is a lot more than Joyce just working out her feelings and insulting Becky in the process.
This is also that Joyce hid her process from Becky and went to a stranger to work through her feelings instead. And this is the fact that just last night she was using what Becky thought was their *shared* religious beliefs to comfort Becky about missing her dead mom. Now, Joyce is effectively saying that Becky is an idiot for coping with her grief by believing her mom is in heaven.
Yes, Joyce needs to process this. I’m not sure processing it with someone who doesn’t have any investment in her other friendships and relationships is a great option though.
As a mutual friend of both Becky and Joyce, who will likely have to deal with the emotional fall out of this by nature of being Becky’s roommate, and the person who respectfully helped Joyce work through some of her Religious Issues from the start of the school year, yeah Dorothy is fully within the right to be disappointed.
If you walk in on someone who you thought was your best friend calling you an idiot to a stranger you are allowed to be upset about it!
And if you walk in on someone who you thought was your best friend calling another one of your friends an idiot to a stranger you are ALSO allowed to be upset about it!
Joyce has a lot to process and a lot of issues to work through but that doesn’t give her a blanket pass to be a dick.
Methinks Joyce needs a good therapist to process her feeling that *she* used to be an idiot for believing all those things. She needs some compassion too, but it leads to misunderstandings if you process all those awkward painful feelings in public. Liz is not the right person to process with! Or at least not in public. Holy cow.
I love that Dorothy said this. This is Good Dotty Content, and I retroactively retract any scoffing comparisons to any extremely centrist political figures I may have put on herz
This is Dorothy being ironclad about ethics and Doing The Right Thing. She knows what Joyce says was fucked and she’s saying it rather than coddle her. She still cares about Joyce, but she’ll tell a girl the truth, too.
A lot of people seem to miss the point that talking shit about your friends is still bad even if you don’t intend for them to hear it. Or even if you “don’t mean it”.
Like, that’s the definition of being two-faced.
I feel like a lot of people are giving Joyce a pass because they agree with her and Liz’s rant, tbh.
I’d say it’s different if by ‘don’t mean it’, you’re literally not talking about them. Joyce was clearly talking about herself – due to the kind of talk she was having with Liz, the language used could have applied to Becky, but I think it’s fair to say that’s not what Joyce was talking about or meant.
Or, those of us who have also torn into ourselves, realize she was tearing herself down. I have nearly committed suicide over this sort of stuff
So yeah, instead of trying to help the depressed, self loathing girl, let’s all dogpile
Yeah, I see why I am pissed over this. Because in my eyes, this would be like coming to me at my lowest and going, “Woah, that’s not like you, what’s wrong?” it’s instead going, “You’re a piece of shit” and then discovering me dead the next day from slitting my throat
I hope Willis locks comments for a while, I’m genuinely pissed with MANY commenters right now and this is going to devolve into bad places soon
Sure. I’ve also nearly committed suicide after tearing into myself for years. Still on that edge, frankly, though I’m better at not thinking about it. I’ve also been a zealous Christian fundamentalist. I’ve also walked away from that.
I’m not angry at Dorothy, because I don’t actually know where Dorothy’s coming from here. Hopefully, she’ll tell us next strip.
I don’t see a dogpile. From the commenters, yes. But not from Dorothy. Quite frankly, you want a dogpile, wait for Sarah to chime in.
The last time we saw, in-comic, that Joyce tried to broach the issue of her doubts about her faith with Becky, at the pre-timeskip birthday party, Becky totally shut her down. And Becky has done nothing to indicate that she’d be, like, understanding about this? She loves Dina, but she’s never really shown that her stance on atheism as ridiculous has changed, and has demonstrated on numerous occasions that her and Joyce having a shared religious background is important to her. Why would Joyce have gone to Becky about this? It isn’t a conversation Becky seemed particularly open to, or one that she would receive well.
Joyce calling all religious people stupid is probably more of the problem than Joyce not believing in religion. Plus, in-universe, Joyce just used their “shared” religion to comfort Becky about her dead mom literally the day before this. Now Becky thinks that the entire time that happened, Joyce was just thinking she was a huge idiot.
Considering how Becky reacted the previous time Joyce came close to talking about her problems with her former religious beliefs, I’m can’t blame Joyce for hiding her atheism from Becky and talking about it with people she’s sure will be more understanding first. https://www.dumbingofage.com/2019/comic/book-10/01-birthday-pursuit/beeessin/
The last time Joyce even poked at the idea of this subject with Becky, Becky essentially said that Joyce’s feelings were stupid and that she should get over it and go back to believing in god. If Becky is going to shut down Joyce’s feelings like that then Becky doesn’t have any right to be upset when Joyce starts hiding her true feelings from her and maybe even resenting her for it.
Dorothy can be *hurt* that Joyce decided to talk about this to a stranger and not her friends, but being disappointed is bullshit. Joyce doesn’t *owe* her or Becky some kind of first right pf refusal for crises.
God Dorothy can be so annoying. First of all it was none of your business in the first place if she skipped class, second it isn’t Joyce’s fault if someone OVERHEARS her say something negative about a religion she just got out of that’s been insanely traumatic to her. Like she might owe Becky an apology but why is it Dorothy’s instinct to pile on the judgment when Joyce clearly already feels bad??
Timeline wise from Becky’s point of view just the night before Joyce was comforting her by using their “shared” faith to tell her that her mom is watching over her. And now Becky is hearing her oldest and closest friend mock those very idea and anyone who believes in them.
Whether or not someone is meant to hear it, if you call someone an idiot (or imply it) they are going to be hurt if they hear that.
Sure, but that’s for Becky and Joyce to work out, not for Dorothy to scold her over. It’d be one thing for Dorothy to intervene if Joyce refused to apologize to Becky, but it literally just happened! For me that’s a little out of bounds.
If I said something that cruel about a core belief of a friend of mine, I truly hope my other friends would tell me off. Dorothy thinks highly of Joyce, and Joyce just showed her ass in a way that’s bound to come off as hypocritical considering how much Joyce hated being mocked for her religion a few months prior. Friends aren’t, like, disinterested passers-by.
I mean, Dorothy’s allowed to be disappointed, and hearing your friend shitting on your other friend’s beliefs is disappointing, and hurtful.
Someone else would have said “Wow Joyce, that was mean” or even “Wow Joyce, you’re mean”. Dorothy being Dorothy, she made an effort to articulate it not as “Joyce, you’re X” but as “this behaviour triggered feeling X in me (and possibly other people around you)”. I think it’s not a bad reaction, when you take into account the fact that right now, it’s anything but unreasonable to be disappointed and/or hurt.
I mean if we were going to do the “ Its none of your buisness” game, then it wasnt Becky’s buisness Joyce was making new friends and invited herself over… Dorothy is allowed feelings and opinions
Ugh. I got a feeling this is gonna take some time to resolve. It’s gonna be salt, salt, salt, all around for these ladies until a parent decides to plant a bomb in the school or something and they realize their petty misunderstandings mean nothing in the grand scheme of things.
Be proud of your flippers, and the flies you can catch,
And the logs that you leap and the eggs you will hatch,
We’re under the stars and we’re smaller than men,
But you don’t have to deal with your best friend’s disappointment if you’re one of the frogs in the glen!
*Bagpipes*
… I have very, very few opportunities to bring up one of my favorite Sesame Street songs. I take them when presented.
Yes it is. I find it quite interesting looking at this after ten years and realizing how immature these characters still are. Like it’s easy to take sides on this one way or the other but basically everyone in this situation except maybe Joe and Sarah have acted like a unique flavor of asshole.
Eleven years our time, but less than six months have passed for the characters.
The first strip takes place in late August, the rooftop finale scene was mid to late October, then there was the off-screen time skip, and now it’s mid-January.
There are some pretty juvenile moments (Jennifer and Asher’s We’re So Mature Now thing last storyline was impressively ‘oh, you sweet children. No.’ in its 19-year-old naivete,) but yeah, everyone in this one is very much being a disaster teenager.
Including Joe and Sarah, who have done nothing wrong (Sarah’s not her sister’s keeper and both of them seem to have been bowled over by Joyce and Liz playing off each other and amplifying in ridiculousness and Newfound Atheism Assholery,) but were in the very awkward position of Not Wanting To Be Here But Unable To Leave.
That Joe and Sarah are the adults in the room says everything about how dire the situation is. By the way, all this storyline points to a closer relationship between both of them, at least as a big bro/big sis team, but maybe Willis is brewing something more radical here.
Yeah, that’s also my read on the situation. She’s being so harsh, because she’s thinking about parts of herself that she feels embarrassed about. It’s unfortunate that her mockery could be equally applied to people other than herself, and that’s always kind of a risk with self-deprecating statements like that. But like… I thought it was pretty clear, at least to the reader, that that’s what Joyce was doing. She’s never been half as harsh in her judgement towards other people, as she is towards herself.
If an atheist thinks “I myself was silly to believe a bible written by sheepherders 2 millennia ago is relevant/accurate”, then you are implying that anyone else who believes in that bible is likewise silly. From a logical point of view, you can’t disbelieve ANY religion without casting at least some negative views about the believers in that religion.
When someone decides to abandon specific beliefs, it’s nothing unusual to be a lot harsher on those beliefs (and those who hold them) than people who never held them at all. It’s classic “Wasn’t there, guv” behaviour. Having to prove to yourself that you’re reaaaally not a part of it anymore.
I think we can allow her some time to bounce back to a more reasonable “not my belief but you do you” stance, right now she’s still reeling from leaving a cult that would gladly have killed her and her friend for doing so.
The fact that said friend managed to leave the cult while still retaining part of the beliefs changes nothing.
Similarly, you can’t believe in any one religion without implying some negative views about other religions. Many Christians consider John 3:16 to be the most beautiful expression of a beautiful truth — but to a devout Muslim it is a shocking blasphemy. Other people’s religious views include the belief that our views are wrong, and we can’t take offence at that without disrespecting their beliefs.
We all have to come to terms with the fact that most other people hold various negative views of our religious beliefs, and just all chill out about it. Respecting other people’s religious beliefs includes respecting their belief that our beliefs are horribly wrong.
That’s true to an extent, but phrasing matters. You can describe your own disbelief without mocking those who believe, while still being honest about it.
You can even talk about how you now feel foolish for having believed those things, without mocking those who still do.
What Comic.phile said. Joyce wasn’t mocking anyone but herself, not yet. Like, remember that this is Joyce, whose entire reason for a shaken faith is because she cares about others so much.
Out of context, yes. What she said is pretty terrible. She shouldn’t have said it. She needed to, but that need could have been met in other ways: ways that she effectively denied to herself.
But you don’t become an asshole by being angry with yourself. You become one when you take it out on others. She hasn’t done that.
Except she was mocking others.
While I’m sure that Joyce was thinking about herself and her past beliefs, she was using language that targeted others, likely to distance herself a bit from the self mockery. Laughing at those who still believe as you used to is a way of addressing your own feelings about having believed that, but not doing so as directly as talking about how you feel about it.
Her phrasing uses “I”, but in the context of taking on a character to mock, not directly referring to herself.
I’d say that using a character to mock yourself is still about yourself. THAT SAID, Becky and Dorothy can’t be expected to know that and I’m hoping some explaining and contextualizing is upcoming. Knowing Joyce, it’ll also include an apology for hurting Becky, accidental or not.
It CAN do that, especially if the person who hears you doesn’t realize what you’re doing, but in this case I find it hard to read as Joyce referring to anyone but herself. Not that Becky or Dorothy could be expected to understand that.
And I find it very hard to read it that way. I think she’s channeling her own feelings, but reading her words, I don’t get “I was an idiot”, I get “believers are idiots”. She’s projecting it outwards because she’s not comfortable enough in this context to admit her own feelings about having believed.
And I can’t read it any other way. It sounds like “I was an idiot” to me. She’s putting it in this ‘look at me’ phrasing because it’s what Liz was doing, but those are her feelings about herself. I think if, say, Sarah asked her if she felt that way about Becky, she’d have said no.
You know, I feel like that’s really fucking uncalled for. Joyce went through some really traumatic stuff, and she’s still reeling from it. She never would have said that stuff to Becky’s face. She wasn’t talking about Becky, she was talking about *herself.* And she should be allowed to vent and work through things to people.
I mean…I might not tell my friend that I hate her haircut but if I tell other people I have to be prepared that she might hear it and be upset.
Not intending someone to hear the rude things you are saying does not absolve you of blame if they hear it and are upset. It’s just a lesson to think before you speak.
Is Joyce being THAT rude though? Becky basically told Joyce she had no right to voice her real feelings. Becky stated directly that because Joyce hasn’t been through as much as Becky has then Joyce doesn’t have the same place to be as critical or angry at the religion thus basically commanding Joyce to maintain a religion equivilant to Becky’s level.
Joyce cares about her friend thus doesn’t externally voice these feelings until they come bubbling out.
Both characters have been through alot of unique trama but Becky has perhaps unwittingly cut Joyce off from voicing or dealing with her trama thus you end up in this type of situation.
This is how religion works though it commands you always act in a certain way or another will be offended. This would almost be more akin to not just disliking your friends haircut but your friend commanding that they always cut your hair.
Joyce was definitely being pretty thoughtless, but she wasn’t actually directly talking about Becky. To follow your analogy, it’s more like saying you hate bangs and then your friend with bangs walks in. To me those things aren’t on the same level!
To stretch the analogy a little further, she’d cut off her bangs and is saying “Oh look at me, I have bangs, I think I look so pretty” when her friend with bangs walks in.
While it’s definitely directed at herself underneath, on the surface level she’s mocking all believers, which definitely hits her best friend.
The analogy does not really work tho. Because as Comic.phile said this is not Joyce talking about Becky behind her back.
Yes it is something she and Becky used to share but she is talking about how she feels about her own former believes. And for the first time she met somebody who understands her because they are ex fundie to. Did she get riled up? Yes. Did she take it to far? Maybe. But her fustration and hurt are very understandable.
Sure, the thing is it comes off as her mocking Becky behind her back.
So it’s a misunderstanding and we readers have no reason to be super angry, but Becky has all the reasons in the world to be hurt and angry, and Dotty to be disappointed, because they’re not us readers.
This this this, a hundred times this. Joyce is talking about herself. She is viciously mocking and beating up on her own past self, because she is angry at herself for ‘letting herself’ be deceived and manipulated, and for the things she’s said and done in support of her former beliefs. This is not something she could do with her actual friends, because they would try to comfort her, and she doesn’t want to be comforted right now, but Liz’s presence and attitude gives her the perfect excuse to do so with no one stopping her. Until she causes collateral damage.
I doubt it? IIRC, Dorothy was raised in a non-religious manner, where faith was shown to her at points but she wasn’t told to believe in any way, she was allowed to explore and discover her own path to faith.
While there’s exceptions all over the place, that tends not to create the kind of baggage needed for the sort of lashing out that Joyce and Liz were doing, where you start to associate non-belief as a mark of superiority.
That said, definitely can see Dorothy having bad experience dealing with that sort of Atheist, where “being an atheist” is a moral righteousness that must be expounded upon and preached to all believers everywhere…
Personally, I doubt it. Joyce being as… extra as she is here is clearly coming from a place of genuine hurt and anger over having ever believed things as horrible as she did. Dorothy was raised areligiously, so there was probably never anything in her own past for her to be this angry about having believed.
Seems likely.
I mean, both of them hate Drama and Feelings, but they also have that annoying streak of caring (about Joyce in particular), which means it keeps happening no matter how they try to avoid it.
A lot of people keep talking about Liz being so willing to dip after everything that’s happened. But guys, Liz thought that vitamin gummies were edibles, I don’t think she has any idea what’s going on.
Plus, there is the possibility that she really does have to leave. She doesn’t have her own vehicle, and missing a ride to school might be problematic for her.
Interesting to see how many people are defending Joyce’s temporary descent into toxic behavior. Because what the past few comics have shown is not someone who is starting the path to healing.
It is someone who was starting on the path to being the flippant a**hole that Liz has just shown herself to have become.
Joyce does need to ‘decompress’ what she is feeling, but she also needed the wake-up call that flipping to the juvenile level of mockery displayed by Liz which she was copying isn’t going to solve things, and how harmful that attitude can be.
The amount of people here who think that toxic language is totally fine if you believe the people that you’re talking about can’t hear you… really disturbing.
I’ve seen a bunch of people saying this.
Do you think she literally was talking about herself? Or that like Madock345 says the words were directed at others, even though her own feelings are underpinning them.
I don’t see how to read the language otherwise, but enough people have said it that I’m wondering if we’re just reading it very differently.
To me it seemed like she was hating on herself for believing that God loved her and how stupid she felt for believing that personally, I know I went through that phase when I lost my faith 🙁
That’s probably true, but not quite what I was asking. That’s likely the motivation behind what she said, but I read the actual language as mockery of believers not of herself.
I think that the “I/me” she used in “Look at me. I believe in God. I’m an idiot”, while it is expressing her feelings about her past belief, isn’t literally talking about herself. It’s speaking from the point of view of a stereotypical believer. (Sort of, since the believer wouldn’t call themselves stupid for it.) It’s actually a parallel to what her kind of fundamentalist churches often do with atheists or evolutionists.
I have no idea how any of you are reading it otherwise. As in I physically cannot grasp how anyone read those strips where Joyce is being contrasted to Liz actually doing that exact thing, and Joyce specifically reflects on her own old views and upbringing and brings up the danged sky sea as anything but an indicator of “this is what Joyce Brown used to believe.”
Yeah, so we are reading it completely differently. I can’t read it your way either.
I mean, sure on one level she is talking about herself, but she’s doing so indirectly. Sure, she’s using examples from her faith – but why wouldn’t she? That’s what’s familiar to her.
She’s essentially saying “religious people are stupid” as a way to deal with her own feelings of being stupid for being religious, but she’s still saying “religious people are stupid”. If that’s what Becky hears, it’s not surprising how she reacts. If that’s what Joyce thinks of her, that’s going to hurt. A lot.
I don’t think it is actually what Joyce thinks of her, but I do think it’s what she says.
What do words mean if the feelings you are conveying through them are separate from “what is actually being said”?
And it doesn’t really matter what Becky heard. Becky is irrelevant to why Joyce thinks the way she does.
Becky being upset that her lifelong best friend/emotional anchor/object of permanent unrequited love/actual savior from homelessness made a sudden and jarring shift from what Becky views as deeply personal to her, to the point where Joyce just said “yeah I don’t think your mom is in Heaven” and Becky needs Joyce to think that? Yeah that’s fine.
But they’re separate conversations and we’re using the same words to have like five of them at once.
One can be upset about something and say a thing that they don’t really mean, right? The feeling is there and valid, but the words that come out go farther or say something different.
But again, I read her as broader mocking of religious people generally, not just as about herself, even if it’s her feelings of being foolish for believing that are driving her to say them. She’s getting into the mocking of believers as cover because it’s easier to say than to say “I feel like I was an idiot.”
We read that differently, so obviously we’re going to have different takes on it.
I think she thinks “I feel like I was an idiot”, but once it was goaded out of her and she got caught up in the moment, that projection got extrapolated to “how could those idiots believe in something so stupid”.
I decided to double check when this started and Joyce does say “believing it does seem kinda silly. I guess you’re not dumb anymore if you’re now entirely rational” in response to Liz saying her atheism makes her a brain genius.
So I’m coming at this from the opposite point. That was projection, that was more “Joe and I did the sex because we’re friends with reward programs while smoking the mary jane” and once she got into specifics in the following two strips that’s when it became lashing out at her upbringing and all the bullshit she was taught.
Joyce’s complaints are too specific to her lived experience, juxtaposed with Liz’s incredibly basic “God is dumb lmao” takes.
People will make excuses for characters they like when said characters do awful things. Instead of just owning the fact that they did a bad thing and that sucks, lots of people will explain away a justification for the bad thing. They might even blame the victims harmed by the bad thing. Like how dare the other character be disappointed and say something.
I see that all the time with this webcomic’s comment section.
Does seem that way sometimes, but I like Joyce and think Raidah’s a nasty piece of work and still thought Joyce was way out of line with Jacob. Mostly liked how that arc played out – especially with the later revelation about Joyce’s mental state at the time. The “atheists can do anything” bit.
I like Joyce, as well as Becky and Dorothy, but I think Joyce is screwing up here. Understandably perhaps, but not purely in the right as some seem to think.
My issue is Dorothy tried that now. Right now, Joyce needs some assurance – She’s already clearly affected by fucking up with Becky. I honestly see her going, “I am a bad person. Becky and Dorothy think so. I have no friends” etc. and potentially going off the deep end
Yes, she needs to apologize later – even though it was by accident, she still did hurt her friend (hopefully it teaches Becky to stop being entitled to folk’s time, however), but right now she needs to be taught this was a mistake, not have her Christian Guilt get hammered
@Icalasari And the two people that Joyce is close with in the room can’t do the same? Why should the onus be solely on Dorothy? And why she shouldn’t be disappointed in her friend’s behavior and call it out? She can say her piece then decide to assist with this blow up.
Remember, Dorothy doesn’t know Joyce is an atheist. She just heard her say something deeply hurtful and completely out of character for the person she thought she knew.
I’m going to be nice to Liz and read that as a panicking plus “thank god I’m out of here” grin and not a “I’m leaving and I don’t care about what just happened to my ‘friend'” grin
Dorothy isn’t helping here, but of all the options for how to handle this situation, she doesn’t have the necessary life experience to understand it.
Dorothy has been an atheist all her life, and has been raised to be kind and respectful of everyone’s beliefs, so OF COURSE she’s going to be down on anyone talking shit about other peoples’ beliefs.
The fact that she doesn’t understand the whole “how could i have believed such stupid bullshit/everyone i trust lied to me!” is part of deconversion – because she’s never had to deconvert out of religion. Or knew anyone else who did, apparently. So yeah, she’s not helping. She doesn’t know how.
On the bright side, she IS staying in character; and hasn’t become an annoying author-insert, so the story’s intact at least.
I think Dorothy could be helpful in deconversion if Joyce were capable of being fully honest with her and not putting her on a weird pedestal full of unresolved one-way sexual tension.
Which is to say, you’re right, she wouldn’t be helpful.
Well, if deconversion has to involve dumping on believers, Joyce is going to be losing some friends over this.
If on the other hand, she could keep it focused on “how could I have believed” rather than “everyone who believes is stupid”, then she’s got a better chance.
I think this is one where Joyce may genuinely need the space to talk about religion, possibly in some really unflattering ways… but that space should have been with a therapist experienced in religious trauma, who could push back on the edgelord ‘how dumb is anyone for believing’ and unpacked that to the underlying ‘I feel dumb, myself, for believing this.’ (And also likely wouldn’t be egging her on with the zeal of the likewise-recently deconverted the way Liz is.) Said therapist would also be a confidential space where there’s no chance of her religious friends hearing the unfiltered trauma reaction Joyce is having here – yeah, it’s a garbage statement to say even if Becky doesn’t hear it, but it’s also pretty clear that it’s not straightforwardly ‘what Joyce thinks about religious people’ and it can help to say the shitty thing out loud with someone who’ll challenge that without judging so you can reach the ACTUAL belief that’s covering. Joyce probably wouldn’t have said it quite that way with a therapist to begin with, but I can see Becky also taking ‘how stupid was I for believing?’ badly since it implies those who still believe are also and still stupid. (To which a good therapist could say ‘you’re not stupid for taking every word of the Bible as absolute, inviolable truth when every adult in your life told you it was.’ Which note, Becky doesn’t believe, and which has clearly been a key factor in Joyce’s faith breaking rather than bending – Joyce spent a lot of time and energy and anxiety reconciling contradictory statements so that Absolutely Everything could be correct, and so removing one pillar brought the whole Jenga tower crashing down.)
The problem is, the campus therapists aren’t very good and so Joyce has been sitting on this shame and anger and realizing she DOESN’T like the idea of ‘we’re all imperfect except Jesus, who died for us because He Knew Better’ for months. And that’s let it fester, too, which made it more liable to come out in pretty explosive (and therefore terrible) ways. Liz is the cool new recently-atheist girl she wants to impress, sure, but also, Liz will leave. (As she does here.) Which makes her lower-stakes (so Joyce thought) for starting to talk about all of this stuff she’s been keeping pent-up… but another recently-deconverted person isn’t going to be the best sounding board for your messy feelings about religious trauma, because they may ALSO be working through some messy feelings about religious trauma, and it’s really easy to enter a self-sustaining feedback loop of increasingly shitty statements you might not actually support when you think about them as more than messy angry id.
None of which makes the statements less shitty, but saying them out loud to someone who’ll ask ‘is that what you actually think? Do you think Becky’s dumb for being religious?’ can be a genuinely helpful step in going from ‘secret feelings of shame for ever believing’ to ‘saying it out loud in the most reductive, hurtful way possible because you’re hurting yourself as much as anyone who hears and you’ve been keeping it bottled up for too long’ to ‘you did and thought harmful things because the adults in your life failed you, and while that doesn’t erase the harm you may have caused other people, you were a victim here too.’ Joyce is currently in stage two. I’m skipping quite a few intervening steps. But I think she does need some kind of outside help to get her to that acceptance. Just, that outside help clearly was not Liz that she needs.
Absolutely agreed. It doesn’t even have to be a therapist, though that would likely be best. Anyone she could talk to without provoking a crisis (like Becky) or goading her farther (like Liz) would probably help a lot.
Yeah, other people could work, but I think Joyce also worries about talking openly to her friends about these things because she worries so much about what they think of her. A therapist’s not a friend, and their job says they don’t tell anyone what you told them (outside certain specific circumstances.) That might make her more comfortable than telling, say, Dorothy or Sal. (Or Booster, who’s a psychology major but whose psychoanalysis as a party trick at the hall meeting seems unlikely to build trust in the ‘whatever you say here is safe and I won’t judge you’ department. Aaaah, freshman psychology majors.)
That, and like AmbG’s self-loathing feedback loop, I think this particular issue’s reaching the point where it’s above the cast’s paygrade. Not that that’s ever stopped Willis, but still, none of these kids have great tool kits for their various traumas, much less someone else’s.
Man I just kinda feel bad for Joyce here. Like, don’t get me wrong – Becky and Dotty have every right to feel mad/hurt about these nasty comments, especially Becky who Does Not Need This Right Now in Her Life – but Joyce has also been very badly hurt by fundamentalism through her childhood, and doesn’t feel like she has a lot of people to go to about this.
Dorothy is Becky’s roommate and is hard to physically catch up with due to being busy, Sarah is emotionally hard to catch up with after a certain point, Becky is a no-go, Joe has frequently claimed he can’t be relied upon for these discussions, aaaand with that we’re out of the list of people who Joyce feels she can have these deeper convos with.
While yeah, this wasn’t a kind thing to do regardless, it’s been shown multiple times that Joyce does have smaller toolkit when it comes to processing her own issues, and it tends to reliant on others, and like, I dunno. She’s not in the right but I still feel bad for her.
“Joe has frequently claimed he can’t be relied upon for these discussions”
I think that’s more “please don’t get me wrapped up in this” than “I can’t be there for you”. Joe’s more capable of having deep discussions with Joyce than he realizes, even when she’s doing most of the talking and he’s mostly a shoulder to lean on.
I am SO glad that this is what happened instead of Dorothy just being like “let’s just talk about this”/”we can fix this”/having a neutral reaction (I think most people expected something like that, including me). It’s way more interesting! Like is this helpful? No! Is she out of bounds telling her she’s disappointed? Maybe. It’s fun though
An unfortunate part of deconversion can be sometimes falling into patterns and behaviours which got you through as a former believer, such as following the crowd even if the crowd is different. Towards the end it can be like wearing a mask for a while and you’re swapping between them sometimes unsure of what’s really you. And like sometimes you’re not sure yourself what’s really you or not if you’re been raised in that environment and broken away. Like some of the anger is genuine but tinged and mixed with something else at other people’s encouragement. Like sites like ex Christian.net helped me vent years ago but looking at it a few months ago now… yeesh. There are issues let’s just say I saw at a quick glance.
I’d say generally Joyce might need a therapist but like given the high likelihood of said therapist being religious personally that might also not work.
Anger in deconversion can be complicated because here’s the feeling you were lied to your whole life but the truth is everyone else believed the lie so that can get messy.
Like this comment is a mess right now but I think what Joyce has been saying is a mix of her real emotions but also tinged with the desperate of following someone as a toxic leftover of how she believed for so long too. Not really Liz’ business and Joyce is not some wee innocent led astray but it is what it is.
I feel sorry for a lot of people in this scene here and I like that, it’s good writing and not clear cut. I feel sorry for Joyce but really get everyone else’s reactions and feelings.
> but the truth is everyone else believed the lie so that can get messy.
On just this one part I will disagree. While likely there were some amount of True Believers, I’d say it’s likely quite a lot of Joyce’s church was made up of people who chose to ignore/propogate obvious hypocrisies because it gave them power, money, and/or excuses for their bigotries.
Joyce was processing genuine anger and betrayal talking with Liz.
Joyce was exaggerating her feelings and opinions to impress Liz.
Joyce was “going with the flow” Liz was establishing instead of standing up for her friends.
Joyce doesn’t feel she has many friends who she can confide in who understand deconversion.
Joyce doesn’t feel her closest friends either have emotional bandwidth to support her through this (Dorothy) or will be supportive of loss of faith and her trauma at all (Becky).
Becky is hurt by Joyce’s behavior – specifically Joyce’s mockery of her beliefs the day after her mom died.
Joyce didn’t intend for anyone other than Liz, Jacob and Sarah ( none of whom are particularly religious except in a cultural sense) to hear her.
Joyce didn’t intend to hurt Becky.
Becky feels betrayed not only by Joyce’s words but by that Joyce didn’t confide in her.
Dorothy is disappointed to see Joyce belittling their friends (including Becky, but also other religious people on the floor) and acting out to impress people she sees as cooler than her instead of accepting and owning her true self.
It’s a complicated situation and Joyce probably could benefit from therapy, and I see Joyce as probably more in the wrong than anyone else but not irredeemably so. Her actions are very understandable, as someone who went through deconversion in my teens. The first time you meet a fellow deconvert, especially as someone who has a lot of people pleasing tendencies (and Joyce DOES), you’re so desperate to connect and not feel alone you can very easily overlook toxic beliefs & behavior.
And tbh even Liz is understandable here because once you finally break the seal on it, especially if you come from a super religious environment where they’d rather you be a sex offender than an atheist (literally, the parent of one of my classmates who I had thought of as a friend at the time said as much in so many words when talking about why she wouldn’t let her kids around an atheist, people like that exist and they are not rare given how many church predators get the blind eye turned to them in communities where atheists are pariahs), it all comes erupting out, very much like Becky’s “I literally scream my orientation from the tops of rooftops” phase. Is it pretty or kind? Absolutely not. But I see a lot of my teenage self in both Liz and Joyce right now.
They both got a lot of shit to process and aren’t coping in the best way.
yeah, well put, i especially like your point re: Joyce being a people pleaser and this being a very believable way for her to connect with someone else with a similar experience, to reach for some form of community just as she’s having to lose almost everyone she grew up with.
The reality we get to see here is that Joyce, just like Becky, is supressing some serious darkness behind her sunny, friendly facade. though she’s been through this before, she still can’t believe in a moral universe where actions have consequences, because nothing in her upbringing has ever prepared her to ascribe value to her actions outside of religious rules.
in fact, she’s been primed to believe that if she were to ever leave the church she’d turn into an amoral monster. and she still believes it. so once the levee breaks, she’s convinced there is no way for her to exist as a godless yet moral person. those two things are not compatible in her worldview. faith has always been synonymous with a functioning moral filter, so no faith = no filter.
is that what we call a self-fulfilling prophecy or what…
Deeply agreed, to this whole chain. This is a situation where what Joyce and Liz were saying was obviously very shitty and Becky and Dorothy have a right to be upset, but also Joyce and Liz are clearly playing off each other and religious trauma, like all trauma, can manifest in some really ugly ways. Doesn’t make it good to say, does make it understandable, and the ugliness is often covering some further emotions that are hurting THEM as well and need a place to safely be unpacked and defused. Joyce burying the anger at her upbringing isn’t going to help her. But she doesn’t have the space or the toolkit to articulate the nuances of that anger (the energy she spent reconciling things; the anxiety making herself believe and Think The Right Thoughts caused; the anger at ALL the adults in their lives, even Hank; the fact that she now sees such a clear throughline from ‘Jesus died for our sins’ to ‘I would die for you, Becky’ that she can’t take comfort in the former; the shame of knowing she said things to Becky that probably hurt her before Joyce knew; the shame of having participated in some way in the homophobic system that hurts people like Becky), so instead we get ‘everyone who’s religious is dumb.’
Well, at least Liz has enough self-awareness to know that she’s got her own bit of responsibility here and to want to flee as quickly as possible.
There are certain people who just being around them somehow induces people of certain personaliities to act in a thoughtless and hurtful way to please them. Liz is one of them for Joyce so, yeah, it may not be a good idea to continue this ‘friendship’.
I don’t think so, but I also think Dorothy just thought Joyce was being exceptionally rude, and whether she’s “selling her own faith out” or attacking a group she’s no longer a part of is basically irrelevent.
Dorothy is, herself, an atheist, and has always been fairly respectful of others’ beliefs. (Try to imagine Liz’s reaction to Hymie the Humming Hymnal…)
Although, as jmsr7 says above, always being an atheist means she doesn’t have much experience of what deconverting is like. (And the same goes for me.)
Maybe it’s me but I think that Joyce was simply saying what she’d thought would please Liz and was feeling sicker and sicker the more she dove into the false position.
I think it was a mix of both. She was saying what she thought would please Liz, realizing it applied to herself, and quintupling down on saying all of these hurtful edgy things to impress Liz … and castigate herself for her own ‘stupidity.’
Someone Help Joyce! Her heart is slowly stopping!!!! To be sincere, this is a terrible situation. She was talking with a friend, others friends came, heard her and take that as a personal insult… Way too much! Joyce is broken! BROKEN!!!!
something to consider:
Becky is finding out that her “super amazing honest friend” is a. doing something she would never Ever Ever Do (as normally established) and b. making fun of a group she belongs to in the process
there’s… a number of reasons why the lesbian who dealt with recent violent homophobia would be twitchy as heck about this, and certainly even if that’s not why Becky’s reacting, it’s *certainly* why Dorothy’s reacting.
even though “making fun of Christianity” in and of itself is punching up, the tone and mockery of the comments + who Joyce’s “Christian friend” actually is + the context lying behind a lot of other stuff (Becky’s mom’s birthday the previous day) = oh boy Joyce even without intending it that way, that was Nasty.
It’s true that it’s not the most *helpful* comment, but Dorothy’s human, likes Becky (despite herself) and it sucks feeling disappointed in people especially when they startle you *that* badly
It’s a very human reaction but I do hope that Sarah tells Liz that she needs to learn to read the room in future. No encouraging people to go beyond their comfort zone.
To be fair to Liz, once it got started both her and Joyce were egging each other on, I think. If we followed Liz more, I’d bet we’d see that this was as much of a chance for her to vent about her deconversion as it was for Joyce.
Hopefully without nearly so much trauma behind it though.
I think it’s high time for both Becky and Dorothy to grow the F up and accept Joyce for who she really is and stop expecting her to be what they want her to be.
Of course, Joyce has no idea who she is, she’s right now tearing off all the layers of christianity that have bulldozed over her true character, forcing her to be a bubbly smiling nice obedient little robot.
But Becky and Dorothy have both refused to even accept that Joyce is in a process of change. So it was expected to explode into their faces one day.
Also, Becky should stop making everything about herself. Everything Joyce said was aimed at her own past self, not at Becky. And the way she didn’t even talk TO Joyce in yesterday’s strip but right over her was pretty childish and just as mean as Joyce’s unintentional insult.
Maybe I’m reading this wrong but Joyce seemed to be making a deliberate effort to hide how much she had changed from Becky and Dorothy. It isn’t their fault they haven’t figured out the thing Joyce has been hiding from them.
And this isn’t just Joyce being a different person, it’s Becky and Dorothy (not unfairly) perceiving Joyce’s words as derisively mocking Becky and the things she believes when Joyce thinks she isn’t listening.
No, no, clearly the characters are supposed to be psychic and immediately understand what’s going on even when another character is actively hiding things from them.
Joyce has tried to talk to Becky about how she feels, Becky told her it eas a dumb phase and she needed to grow up, and that she’s suffered waaaay more and hasnt lost faith.
It’s not like Joyce didnt try, but she got rebuked for doing so.
Joyce extremely has not tried to bring this up in good faith with Becky.
She has either a.) lied her beautiful little face off to Becky and pretended everything is okay now, she’s resolved her crises, or b.) lashed out in full
edgelord McLiz-style form, like she just got caught doing.
Becky rebuked her for what seemed like having a shitty attitude, not for having a crisis of faith, which she isn’t really aware Joyce is having because Joyce has been lying to her.
Joyce has never been “a bubbly smiling nice obedient little robot”. Her faith has been part of who she is, but she had a perfectly functioning personality, which was often smiling and bubbly. At the moment, she seems to have decided that every part of her personality was a lie and she needs to destroy all of it and become the absolute worst kind of New Atheist edgelord.
Yeah, they need to grow the fuck up and act on information Joyce actively has not shared with them. Sure. Of course, how could they be so inconsiderate. 🙄
I mean, Sarah figured it out. Maybe that’s just a result of them being roomies, but if either of these two are supposed to be her “best friend” at this point, you’d think they’d have noticed as well.
It could still be worse. Remember what Sarah said earlier to Joyce? Joyce could still break out in a “Shit shit shitty shit SHIIIIIITTTT!!!” outburst in front of Dorothy for more “It’s like I don’t even know you anymore” awkwardness. ;P
I feel like there’s an unstated assumption that Dorothy and Becky are making: That Joyce was pretending to be something she isn’t to be cool. Which, I mean, she *was*, but not in the way they probably assume. And most readers probably assume that Dorothy and Becky know that, and I don’t think there’s evidence of that.
So Becky has every right to be hurt naturally but Joyce who is just coming to terms with the fact that God jsnt real or exists probably genuinely needed to just mock it.
Not necessarily the people who still believe it though that was how it sounded.
As someone who used to be a pretty devout catholic I really relate to that. Kinda had to come to terms with the shittu things that the religion kinda had me believe which came out as mockery for it in general.
Joyce obviously doesnt think Becky is stupid, but this is one of those moments where it was more directed inward, and she has met someone who gets where she is coming from in that. I do think she needs to apologise and talk with Becky tho because it’s still hurtful.
AN IMPORTANT NOTE FOR ANYONE WHO BELIEVES JOYCE HAS TRIED TO BRING THIS UP BEFORE WITH BECKY
She has not. What actually happened there was Becky wanted help with her feelings about Dina’s sexual availability, Dorothy offered her sex-positive perspective but looked to Joyce, understandably, for a different one…
…and Joyce said, and I quote, “do WHATEVER. Everything else we were raised to believe in was a lie, so why not throw the concept of sexual purity on the pile?!”
Is it totally understandable that she said that? Sure, but it’s not honestly coming to Becky with doubts, it’s, uh, exactly the kind of shitty behavior we see doubled down on here.
This is what Becky wanted Joyce to grow out of, was this shitty lashing out.
thank you for that, that was bugging me too. (here’s the scene, it’s that strip and the next)
Becky wasn’t reacting to the lack of faith, she was reacting to the edgy nihilism. She doesn’t tell Joyce to not become an atheist, she’s saying her attitude lacks nuance and compassion (a fair assessment i think).
Becky understands that, sure, you need to drop a lot of beliefs and patterns of thought, and what’s worse, cut ties with well-nigh everyone you’ve ever known, but those beliefs and that community happen to be the building blocks of your entire self at the moment. You need to at least respect that fact and treat yourself with care, or you might hurt yourself bad.
Joyce was angry so Becky treated it like it was a tantrum. You’re misreading that conversation.
No Joyce has never directly tried to talk about her lack of faith with Becky, what ended up happening at Dina’s birthday party is that Joyce briefly did not give a fuck so Becky told her it was a stupid phase she needed to grow out of.
Why the hell is Joyce not permitted the same ability to just be fucking angry about bullshit in her life? Why’s she always gotta be sunshine and sparkles and never ever inconvenience dear sweet “unapologetically me” Becky? Why are we desperate to hold a character accountable for saying deeply held feelings in a kinda angry way?
i do think ideally Becky, or better yet Dorothy, might have filed that interaction for later then made time to talk to Joyce in a peaceful moment and asked her what was going on with her faith. but they didn’t, probably, or Joyce just clammed up and pretended like nothing had changed, and here we are.
First off, can I say it’s pretty fucking rude to invalidate someone else’s reading of events because of what you’ve decided is the one true exegesis of a text, thanks? Your reading of the scene is not magically better than mine, buddy, unless you’re David Willis pulling an undercover act.
Second of all, I don’t know why you’re so desperate to defend what was literally Joyce having a Heated Gamer Moment. No one is saying that Joyce has to be sweet all the time, or even encourages her to keep, you know, lying to people she considers friends, least of all me. Is Joyce allowed to be mad at her faith? FUCK yeah. Is she allowed to ne an asshole about it, even? Sure! But the thing about being an asshole is you hurt people, even if you didn’t intend to! Intent isn’t magic! It doesn’t matter that she didn’t mean to hurt someone who shouldn’t have been there, because guess what, she did, and now she has to deal with the consequences of that, like “looking like an
And I’m sorry, I know it’s rude or whatever and it’s not letting Joyce live her new truth, but I admire that Dorothy doesn’t fucking bend her moral code backwards because this is her friend who Means Well. She has to live with them both, she cares for them both, and she’s put up with a lot (which, yeah, Becky is responsible for a bunch of minor stresses and could stand to Work On Herself, herself).
…you know that post of yours started with “hey everyone who thinks this is what happened that time Becky and Joyce talked; here’s what actually happened” right?
Anyway Joyce didn’t do anything that can be considered assholish because she’s talking about her personal relationship with faith and the only reason this is a problem now is that Becky needs Joyce to remain as she is. We know this because the last time Joyce got even slightly contemplative about her faith Becky said she was going through a stupid phase.
I said that because people were making the deeply untrue statement that “Joyce tried to share her feelings and got rebuked”, which is both a party line you managed to hew to while trying to scoff at me, AND something that never fucking happened.
She did not get contemplative. She lashed out and was a bitter jerk for understandable reasons that she completely failed to communicate.
Also, no! No, that isn’t the only reason it’s a problem! How in the world are you incapable of getting the idea that just because someone SINCERELY HOLDS THESE FEELINGS and they’re all about their personal beliefs, that shit can’t hurt someone else? Like, what the fuck part of “intent isn’t magic” don’t you get??
And nah I’m not saying Joyce didn’t intend to hurt Becky so it’s fine, I’m saying Becky’s pain is completely out of Joyce’s hands beyond Joyce never ever affirming her lack of faith in God anymore.
If Joyce calmly sat down and said “I don’t believe anymore” Becky would still get like this.
Joyce was RIGHT in that conversation. Sexual purity IS bullshit and her community DID bullshit to them their entire lives about far too much. She’s allowed to think her community are assholes for bullshit they actually spewed and the harm it did to her, even if they were well meaning like Hank and Becky’s mom.
I get why Becky was upset there – it felt like an attack on part of her support network, and she was looking for support on one of the values she still had because she was clinging to sexual purity as a principle when she felt she’d been changing too much. That doesn’t make what Joyce said wrong though. It might not be the nicest or most charitable thing to say, but fuck it, Joyce isn’t obligated to be nice or charitable about a community that spewed harmful bullshit her whole life, however well intended they were. Becky didn’t like her answer so she got pissy. She was more wrong than Joyce was there.
THAT being said, Becky’s definitely entitled to be hurt here. I’m pretty sure that Joyce was being more literal in her use of ‘I’ than Liz was being and was using the context of the conversation (mockingly using characters) to refer to herself, but Becky and Dorothy can’t possibly know that and of course it sounds like she means….well, every believer including Becky.
You keep saying Joyce was right to attack the faith she used to share with Becky. And you keep saying it as if Joyce was arguing in good faith about sexual purity at all.
She wasn’t doing either of those things.
Joyce wasn’t talking about sexual purity. She was talking about giving up on being a moral person, at least as far as she’d been taught what morality constitutes.
First, that isn’t what I said at all. I said she was right that sexual purity is bullshit. That IS true. Were Joyce to attack faith in general, as opposed to her own, I’d say she was being overly harsh. Were she attacking BECKY, that’d be out of line. That’s not what happened in that conversation. Becky asked Joyce what she thought and when Joyce answered honestly and Becky didn’t like the answer (for understandable reasons) she got pissy.
Second, that was the OPPOSITE of her problem that day. She said that she’d been taught that being an atheist MEANT you got a get out of caring about morality free card and that that ended up being yet MORE bullshit peddled by their community. People still had feelings and she still cared about those feelings. She was upset both because she screwed up with Jacob and because she was realizing yet another cornerstone of what her community taught her – that you need faith to be a moral person – was WRONG. So, yes, she was in a bad mood that night when Becky asked what she thought and she responded that since everything else that their community taught them was bullshit, why not sexual purity? Which, while it’s not very nice, isn’t bad faith. It’s pointing out that since their community taught them bullshit, there’s no good reason to assume the need for sexual purity. And, again, even if she didn’t put it in the nicest way possible, she is correct in her instincts there. Sexual purity IS bullshit.
That her first instinct is to leap to judgment, as if nothing Joyce says matters and this is just one more example of Joyce needing to be handheld to adulthood, that ain’t something you say if you actually respect your friend. I can’t believe someone who’s been constantly attacked by her destructive upbringing would have the gall to say something mean about that religion. Joyce’s feelings don’t matter, actually, she’s being mean to Becky* and therefore she’s the one causing the problem.
*she wasn’t actually being mean to Becky and while Becky is certainly allowed to be deeply upset and hurt by this, she’s literally only here because she felt entitled to Joyce’s time.
But that don’t matter. It’s way more important for the lecture to kick in.
Also viewing skipping a class as worthy of disappointment is so square I’m convinced Dorothy uses a ruler for precise measurement when cutting the corners off of her mayo and cream cheese sandwiches.
Nah, Dorothy’s right, what Joyce said was kinda stupid. Understandable, but still stupid, and kind of hurtful to Becky.
The skipping class aside, because I dunno how important that actually is, doesn’t seem THAT important.
Also, saying something Joyce said was mean does not mean her feelings don’t matter. That’s not a black-and-white thing. Your feelings can be totally valid, and you can still express them badly and hurt someone else’s feelings, and that’s not okay, no matter how much you’re hurting.
Doesn’t make it any less valid that you’re hurting. Obviously both needs to be adressed.
Nothing Joyce said was stupid nor did it have anything to do with Becky.
Becky doesn’t actually matter in the specific context of “Joyce is angry at her faith.”
The only way Joyce has let down Becky is if she’s not allowed to hold beliefs contrary to those of Becky’s.
Why we gotta be so courteous to Becky hurting and not that Joyce was having a private conversation where she got to vent about her stupid bullshit upbringing with a likeminded individual for the first time in her life?
Your error is assuming that Joyce was “having a private conversation”. I think that she was actually loudly shouting things that she may or may not believe because she wanted to impress Liz ad make her like her. That’s why she’s reacting so strongly – She didn’t realise that you can hurt people by expressing angry atheism as easily as you can by loudly expressing religious dogma.
Your error is not knowing what a private conversation is.
It was a conversation that Becky and Dorothy mean nothing to. Joyce can say things contradictory to what Becky and Dorothy want to hear from her. She wasn’t fucking cutting either of them up.
Do y’all seriously, like actually legitimately, not see that Joyce saying this shit isn’t her putting a fedora on, it’s her angrily lashing out at all the bullshit she used to believe? Do you seriously think it’s as simple as “Joyce is being a mean atheist”?
But she obviously also did mean those things because she was talking to Liz before she even got there about the detours from faith. She might be trying to impress Liz but Liz is also the only person besides Jacob and Sarah that know she’s been struggling with this atheistic turn and I’m pretty sure they see it for what it was… so Joyce was right that she can experiment and say those things for whatever reason whether it’s to try them on, impress Liz or grapple with it herself.
Liz is making super surface level commentary you’d find on a reddit shitpost. She’s mocking the existence of God itself and the belief in him as well as religious cultural practices.
Joyce? Everything she’s saying is about her and her alone.
The sky sea? Pshah!
Bad shit happens to me and God did it to teach me a lesson? lmao no
That you insulted them behind their back probably isn’t going to make the person you insulted feel better about themselves.
Joyce wasn’t trying to hurt Becky and probably wasn’t even thinking about her in this moment, but that isn’t how it seems to either Becky or Dorothy. Their reactions are entirely reasonable given what they know at the moment
Loudly saying how people who believe in god are stupid doesn’t have anything to do with her Christian friend? Maybe, but it sure sounds like it to everyone who can’t read Joyce’s mind. Of course Becky would be hurt.
She didn’t MEAN to hurt anyone, but you don’t have to mean it to acciadentally hurt people. I mean, Becky is obviously hurt. Joyce didn’t want that, of course, she is working through her emotions and new feelings, and this *wasn’t on purpose* – Becky was never supposed to find out. That she did find out wasn’t Joyce’s fault, either.
But she still hurt Becky, and she’s gonna have to face that, and at least explain herself.
If you feel bad and lash out and acciadentally hurt someone, you still hurt someone, even if it was an acciadent. And you gotta own up to that.
You SHOULD own up to that, especially if it’s your friend.
Because, again, intent does not always translate perfectly into words.
Even if she MEANT what you said, that’s probably not WHAT IT SOUNDED LIKE
TO BECKY.
Joyce hurt Becky’s feelings (quite badly) by accident, and already felt so bad about it that she looks physically ill.
Dorothy leaped to judgement without ascertaining the circumstances, when she has no authority to judge anyway. And then she laid the condescending and sanctimonious smack on a ‘friend’ who was in a vulnerable state and who in no way needed telling that she had fucked up.
While we are in “plenty of blame to go around” mode: Becky was stalking Joyce to interfere with Joyce’s socialising with anyone else, Sarah was passively enabling Joyce’s lies about Joe, and Joe was wrong not to give Joyce the lie at once and shut the damned door.
It is outrageous to me that Joyce has, unintentionally or otherwise, somehow done wrong to Becky because she said powerful feelings in a private conversation that Becky only became privy to because she’s stalking her.
Joyce is only responsible in the most surface level, uncomplicated view of morality imaginable.
Y’all have taught me the word “deconversion”. Us Catholic-raiseds mainly just “lapse”, ie passively ignore increasing parts of the religion while feeling slightly (or more) guilty about it.
I’m not mad at Dotty here, btw. She’s been patiently respectful of Joyce’s beliefs and related crappy treatment of others since they met. Yes, Joyce was raised in a shitty web of lies and deserves to process that with support. But also we know Dorothy is very regulating of her own emotions. I feel like this is the closest Dorothy can realistically get to expressing “I’m upset and hurt by you.” Dots is still Dumbing of Age too, even if she talks like an adult.
The phrase I heard a lot back in my college days was “recovering Catholics”.
I’d think “lapsed” might refer more to those still nominally Catholic, but just not going to church regularly, as opposed to those who’ve actually left the religion.
Having a hard time even understanding why this is a debate.
Joyce was talking about her true feelings (perhaps openly and honestly) for the first time.
And ultimatley, what does that have to do with anyone else?
She had her back to the door – so it certainly wasn’t done to *hurt* anyone.
Becky’s upset? Yeah, of course she is, she thought she knew Joyce as well as herself. So she’ll be upset, confused… but was Joyce *mean* to her?
Not remotely.
And I’m noticing Joe hovering in the background now…
This could be an interesting next few strips….
Yeah, I don’t get it. She wasn’t aiming it at Becky, but Becky’s not wrong to be upset after hearing it. Maybe she shouldn’t have said it at all, but that’s splitting hairs.
I don’t know how to say this in a funny and cheeky way but we use words to express feelings like “I used to believe there was a god who loved me and I don’t anymore.”
but words aren’t feelings. they will be heard differently from person to person. i guess we’re hearing Joyce’s words differently you and i, not to mention Dorothy’s words. maybe Dorothy is being a jerk, maybe not, she’s certainly being very Dorothy, and Joyce chose her as her friend for the very Dorothy-ness, i think she values her moral rectitude. but i hear you, this is a really brutal thing to say right now.
That’s not what I said, though. I don’t personally care if Becky is upset by what Joyce said, to be honest. The specific way she’s saying it is dumb as hell to me, because it reminds me of the annoying, reactionary, contrarian kids I grew up around. Sure, she’s 18, blah, that’s the point of the comic. Whatever, it’s still irritating in this instance, and I don’t think Dorothy having a problem with hearing her friend act like an edgy little asshole is a moral failing on her part. That’s all I’m saying, here. It’s an annoying behavior and I’m not about to send a character to Twitter Jail for disliking it.
Idk, going “Look at me, I’m an idiot who thinks a magical wizard loves me” feels pretty teen-edgy. And I’m not saying she’s not entitled to be an ass about it or nothin’, but it can still be irritating to listen to.
Like Joyce was the actual person edgy teenage atheists think of when they say that line.
More specifically, the magical sky wizard loving her is the important part: Joyce is bitter and resentful that she believed an all-powerful being loved her unconditionally and she lived according to that, until eventually she realized she never heard God’s voice when she prayed and that love she was so convinced was there, that was an inerrant fact of life, never existed.
Look, we’re reading the same comic, I know what happened and I understand the text and subtext. I just don’t agree with you about this part, and I’m not particularly in the headspace lately to spend more of my limited energy arguing or even just trying to articulate my point in a way I think you might find more palatable. Not without escalating and getting irritable.
So, whether you agree to it or not, we’re just gonna have to disagree.
How did Joyce fuck up? Other students have skipped from time to time and she obviously needed to get stuff out. She’s in her version of a safe place in Joe’s room and is with her roommate and her roommates sister who know what’s going down. Joyce does NOT need to apologize for an emotional sort through when Dotty and Becky were not even supposed to be there.
“Becky’s an idiot who thinks there’s some magical wizard who loves her.” More or less. Joyce fucked up by saying idiot shit like that behind her back. And it’s not “her” safe place. It’s Joe’s room. With friends. Like Dorothy and Becky. And the door open.
Joyce had an understandable conclusion that she was hanging out with people she could comfortably discuss being an atheist without Becky and Dorothy getting possessive.
Yes, it is. Previous post may have contained traces of irony.
Joyce only hurt Becky by accident, and already feels badly enough about that. Becky was genuinely wounded, and can’t help that. Dorothy is being a sanctimonious prig. Her patronising slap at Joyce in a vulnerable state may be quite harmful.
People who aren’t Moms can be disappointed, it’s a real emotion. It’s when you thought better of someone and they proved you wrong, but you don’t blame yourself for having expectations.
It’s not the first time Dorothy decided to behave like Joyce’s guardian. The one that did irk me before that was with the eye exam where she just made an appointment for Joyce. And in this case, what is she even disappointed about? Joyce fucked up, but “disappointed” doesn’t make sense in that situation.
I can’t even with y’all going “oh Joyce did such a no-no she has to apologize!”
God forbid a newly minted atheist is given the first chance to be angry for the first time in her life at a religion that spent her entire life molding her into a hateful piece of shit whose entire ability to break out of that hate was contingent on her own morality, and it has the unintended consequence of making someone completely uninvolved feel sad.
No, actually, that’s not true. Y’all are fine with Joyce being angry at her upbringing and entire previous worldview if she’s punching Toedad or telling her mom off. That’s cathartic. That’s badass and heroic. That’s the only acceptable way for Joyce to process her anger because if she does it otherwise she’s “being an asshole” because, I dunno, Becky just matters so much that Joyce needs to check behind the door every day for the rest of her life that Becky isn’t hiding there stalking her (but in a funny and goofy way like she says it is) so she doesn’t overhear Joyce saying anything contradictory to the chiseled from stone picture Becky has of her in her head.
We need to hold this cartoon character to higher standards of morality than we do actual people.
As much as Becky is also a victim, yeah Becky needed a shock too. Her behaviour is out of control, and she finally got a punishment for it – Hearing something not meant for her to EVER hear because she’s not ready
And Dorothy is so disgusting to me right now. I’m willing to bet Joyce starts going nuts – “I am a bad person, even Dorothy and Becky think so. So I guess I should start being the bad person I am. I actually predict it’ll be Sal or Danny that snaps her out of that and tears Dotty a new one (Sal would be great for that, but Danny doing it may extra drive home the point – Imagine pissing off one of the few always nice people on campus?)
Imagine Danny getting to pull the moral high-ground on Dorothy…
Though I guess he already kinda got to do that over the whole “We have to break up because I don’t have time to keep dating and that’s not fair to you, except I’m going to start dating someone new within a week or two (I can’t remember how long it took) who’s even more childish than you, it’s for the best” arc.
Because some people only believe and remember Danny’s version of events being “I’m breaking up with you because I don’t have time to date” rather than the real version that was “I’m breaking up with you because you said something deeply upsetting that demonstrates a fundamental misunderstanding of my life goals, which are important to me. This also shows that our long term goals for this relationship are not compatible. It is the better option for both of us, even if it was painful and better done even sooner.”
One of those is complicated, was how Dorothy put things (and what actually happened if you read *what she says at the time*), and involves recognizing Dorothy’s later relationship based on fun as valid. The other is simple, the guy’s version of events (which is generally considered more believable), and plays into the societal pressure to invalidate any sexual relationship that isn’t a monogamous romantic relationship that’s intended to lead to marriage and starting a family.
And yes, I have strong feelings about this even now, mostly because this is my first time thinking about this since realizing I’m aromantic, which makes that response hit home even more personally than it did before.
Yeah, all of that.
Though it’s probably reinforced because that was why she broke up with Walky, so if you don’t go back and check the early strips it seems reasonable.
God forbid people with issues are responsible for their hurtful actions, too.
And yeah, no shit people care more about Becky than about her actual kidnapper homophobic POS Dad or Joyce’s homophobic fundie Mom.
Because Becky doesn’t deserve this, character flaws aside, she is really not comparable to either of those other two characters.
But pointing fingers doesn’t really help in situations like these anyway – talking does.
If Joyce revealed she had converted to a different religion, would Becky at any differently?
Moreover, what hurt is Joyce responsible for when she is talking about her personal relationship with her upbringing? Why does Becky have to matter to that? Why does Becky have some kind of emotional weight in a private conversation Joyce was having with someone who lets her vent about her stifling upbringing for the first time in her life with someone who will let her be angry and vengeful, when Becky herself doesn’t factor into this in the slightest and is in fact only here because she learned Joyce had a friend over and had to assert her dominance?
Like actually yeah Becky deserves this. She’s a hell of a lot more responsible for the pain she’s feeling right now than Joyce.
Joyce only hurt Becky in the most basic, absolutionist, no room for nuance way possible, where a vague ‘hurt” was caused by Joyce’s actions as if there aren’t a thousand asterisks to why this is happening, and I ain’t about that kinda thought process.
And keyword is personal responsibility. If someone’s best reaction to acciadentally hurting someone is: I didn’t mean it! – then that would not make them a very good friend, imo.
Like… okay, they’re in a bad place, and that EXPLAINS how they act, and that they lash out and hurt someone, but it doesn’t EXCUSE it.
And someone acciadentally finding out about their friend basically shittalking an important part of their lives, which you thought they shared with you (they actually pretended to share with you yesterday) – then that’s still shitty of the friend.
Deconversion is very, very lonely. You know you will be outcast from your old group, and are beginning to understand you will not be fully accepted by atheists – who are just as fractious as religious people. You will be years rewiring the connections that make up how you understand the world. Even small personal connections, moments when you can be honest about your feelings, can cause a rush of feelings that are difficult to manage.
Then you’re gonna get judged as if every word you say is the outcome of years of stable relationships and understanding of the world. People you hold in esteem might say how disappointed they are in you.
Also, yeah, this would be a good time for Liz to exit.
Joyce hurt Becky’s feelings (perhaps very badly) by [i]accident[/i]. What she was saying was crass and perhaps insincere, but it wasn’t mean.
Meanwhile, Dorothy is not Joyce’s mother, teacher, or therapist and ought to can the sanctimonious judging. I get that the main adult role models she has seen so far have been her parents and teachers, people with authority over others and a responsibility to correct them. But she has to learn sometime that most of being an adult has to do with relating appropriately to people who you are neither the boss nor the subordinate of, and start treating her friend as an equal.
Whoever said yesterday that Dorothy was going to be a judgmental asshole was right on the money. I wonder if she thinks Joyce was just trying to impress Liz. Because otherwise I’m not sure why it would be “disappointing”. She didn’t expect Becky to overhear. I expected Dorothy to be more sympathetic to a Joyce who is clearly mortified.
Indeed not. But she might have to do it nevertheless, as a practical necessity of having to live in the same room with Becky. It’s not as though she has the option of doing what Sarah did about her room-mate problem.
Has Becky ever had the guts to ask Dina what she thinks about Christians? Because I guarantee the concept (if not the word) “idiots” is going to come up.
Becky is dating an atheist and was ostracized by (and kidnapped by) her church for being a lesbian, yet she’s pissed that Joyce thinks Christians (of that particular brand) are idiots?
Becky, bad news–you are an idiot. And a hypocrite for getting pissed at Joyce for dropping a truth bomb. The truth is, everyone has idiotic beliefs. While its generally polite to ignore said idiot beliefs when its a friend, sometimes the truth has to be said. Becky’s got some serious cognitive dissonance going on right now, that’s the sort of thing that leads to dark places.
Yeah, compartmentalization like this is really unhealthy. There’s a big difference between actual tolerance of other’s beliefs and compartmentalizing your issues with those beliefs. One is a mature acknowledgement and acceptance that others around you are different from you and that sometimes those differences are serious disagreements. And then choosing to coexist with those people anyway. The other is willful ignorance of other’s thoughts and feelings.
There seems to be a cycle to Dorothy’s friendship with Joyce that I’m wary of: Joyce desperately wants attention from her (in her mind) very good friend. Dorothy occasionally gives her some attention, but doesn’t seem to try engage on anything but a surface level (you should try running, how are your classes going, isn’t it funny how you keep ending up in the middle of seriously dramatically traumatic events at our school, etc). Something starts eating at Joyce, or she starts doing something questionable/shitty out of desperation. Dorothy sidelines Joyce for the things she seems to care about more, allowing said something to fester/run out of control. Dorothy is confronted with what Joyce has been up to while she’s been disengaged. Dorothy chides her “Friend” like a disappointed mother. Rinse and repeat.
I’m not saying Dorothy is under any responsibility to give time to Joyce’s problems, I just hope she doesn’t consider herself a good friend of/to Joyce these days. Being someone to hit you with the truth is often helpful, but helping you process that truth is what makes a good friend.
Ultimately, I find it really telling that Becky keeps “fighting” Dorothy for “best friend” status with Joyce, and yet neither of them have seemed to spend much time/energy on the actual friendship.
There are a lot of moments when Dorothy panics a little when she realizes she’s basically been ignoring Joyce and bad stuff is happening while she’s not around. It’s more to do with Dorothy’s need to be responsible for everything than being a particularly bad friend or anything, but yeah, I agree that there’s a kind of cycle thing happening.
Honestly, the mass kidnapping bit was the only time terrible stuff happened to both of them. So of course Joyce got double-kidnapped, in plain view.
In total agreement with you on why Dorothy ignores/checks out on Joyce, I just want to clarify that I think that’s what makes her less of a good friend here. Like, she’s not intentionally setting out to be a bad friend by doing these things, I just think that her priorities are such that she’s not being a good friend to Joyce (not that she has to be, it’s totally okay for Dorothy to have other priorities, it just seems to fuel this cycle) and certainly not what I’d consider a CLOSE friend.
Dorothy didn’t choose and doesn’t much value Joyce’s friendship. Joyce might benefit from realising that Dorothy is not really into her, and spending more friendship on, say, Lucy, or even Joe.
That’s the conclusion I’ve drawn from what we’ve seen (the number of times she TOLERATES Joyce seem to outweigh the number of earnest expressions of FRIENDSHIP I’ve seen, especially once you set aside the number of interactions where Dorothy is being diplomatic/casual, or they’re just in a group of people). It reminds me of my first “relationship” that was really “someone was suuuuuper into me and I was kinda just okay with them.” It did not go well when it became clear how imbalanced things were.
I get that Joyce probably did need a way to get out her pent up emotions around god and shit. But Becky literally walked in on her saying “Lookit me! I believe in god! I’m an idiot!!” in an assumed mocking tone.
As far as Becky’s concerned, they were talking about her behind her back. She didnt have the full context of the conversation, and hell even if she did, Joyce has been pretending to be a theist to Becky’s face this entire time. She just got caught in the fact that she was lying and mocking something that Becky believes in, in a tone that might mean she was making fun of Becky specifically (Becky being Joyce’s closest theist friend at this point).
And as someone who has had people be nice to my face, only to then overhear them mocking me later, uh. Yeah. Becky has every right to be upset.
So yeah. I don’t get the people mad at Becky or Dorothy in this situation. What Joyce did kind of sucks.
…Yes, I do, because Becky is dating Dina, an atheist?
Becky overheard Joyce mocking something she cares about, not Joyce admitting in an honest way how she feels about religion. Those are two different scenarios.
Becky might have different expectations for her lifelong best friend she’s always been in love with who has been the only constant amidst a desperate sea of chaos and the girlfriend she met a little while ago and just thinks is outright wrong about the origin of life but rolls with it.
Christ, what the fuck is this projection?? When the actual fuck has Becky implied she still believes in motherfucking young-Earth Creationism? Please cite some fucking strips on that, ones where she actually says dialogue that implies it if possible, rather than like, ABJECTLY misconstruing her actual interest in science and evolutionary theory and all that jazz, which she has repeatedly shown a genuine interest in learning about.
Becky retaining any level of faith doesn’t mean she secretly buys into every Evangelical lie. What the fuck.
You didn’t say “YEC”, but I read your post above as saying she thinks Dina is “outright wrong about the origin of life”. Young earth or not, I don’t recall any indication she thinks that. She likely has more bullshit she was taught to unpack, but every time it’s come up, she’s gone with Dina’s version with enthusiasm.
That might be what Joyce means, but it’s not what Joyce says. It’s obviously coming out of her personal struggle, but on the surface she’s not saying “I was an idiot for believing”, she’s making a straw character to say that for her. She’s mocking believers, probably because that’s easier than opening up more directly about how bad she feels for believing so long.
This might be sensible with an actual human being and less so with a cartoon character where as observers from beyond the fourth wall we can re-read words and find the meaning in them enough times that we can come to a reasonable conclusion.
Also, again, and I will say it till I am blue in the face, she’s calling herself an idiot for believing in dumb bullshit like the sky sea and a God who loves herself and only lets bad things happen like kidnapping and attempted rape happen to teach her a lesson.
Why the fuck does she need to find a polite way to phrase that? She’s angry. This is the first time she’s had a chance to be angry.
sure yes Joyce is angry, and she has a right to be angry, but Becky doesn’t have the full context of the conversation that we do. The words Joyce used were mean and out of line.
So she’s upset because she doesn’t understand the context. And Becky’s perfectly in her right to think that Joyce was directing that at all theists, and thus herself.
Joyce never said Becky’s name, though, so it wasn’t talking about a person behind their back. Talking about a belief others have isn’t equivalent. Someone criticizing or even mocking a belief you have while they don’t think you are around isn’t fun to witness, but isn’t something you can blame them for. Not if you’re a mature adult who understands that other people around you have totally different beliefs and that some of those beliefs are going to be upsetting to you if you hear them stated bluntly. You have to be either extremely privileged or have your head under a rock to avoid this.
I feel for Becky because hearing this would certainly hurt, and I hope Joyce acknowledges and validates those feelings. But Joyce saying “I’ll never again utter a harsh word about beliefs that have hurt me personally” is not a healthy outcome. Dorothy seemingly leaning towards that is really sad to me because I thought she’d understand the situation better than that.
Hot take: People get to lash out at being raised toxically and having baggage wrapped up in an idea of a god and this time it wasn’t directed AT anyone, so it isn’t even shitty behavior because Joyce thought she was in a safe place to sort it and that didn’t include those two friends. It’s also not their business because she obviously wasn’t ready for that conversation with them, and friends are obviously not told everything or else Dotty would have talked about her letter and Becky would have told Joyce her mom committed suicide.
You can be worried about friends- sure. Send a text. Tracking them physically down because of the reasons they had to do so and thinking they have a right to the conversation they over heard just because they barged into her current safe space? Nyet. Unless you were seriously thinking skipping is a self harm or kidnapping thing again due to trauma. Joyce has skipped before- for Becky, to make further messes with Jacob. This isn’t like it was a one off.
Everyone gets to feel what they feel in this situation because emotions aren’t rational, but no one owes any apology for things not their fault, even when feelings getting hurt. At most a clearing the air “let me explain what was going on with ME and why I said that, because it wasn’t about YOU” when Joyce is ready and if she wants to because she loves Beckty an “I’m sorry I hurt you” But absolutely no apologies for what she actuallh said…. because Becky might be hurt and think it’s about her but it’s not, and not everything should be and you cant even really say this is an “oops accident” because Joyce was tracked down. Not that Joe consented to the safe place but that’s between him and the ladies.
This is also a consequence of Becky comparing her faith and where she is on her journey to everyone else’s. She told Joyce to grow up for lashing out but that was only because BECKY had dealt with more and had come to terms with it over a longer course. She dismisses it because Joyce is entering this stage while she was 5 steps ahead. Becky didn’t tell Joyce things until she was ready or forced. from lesbianism to suicide to her history with her parents… and I’m not even really sure she did all that because one revelation was from Mr.Brown and the other we saw in flashbacks. Besties apparently don’t share everything and that’s a precedent Becky set in this relationship… plus her reaction to her mom’s death and her mommy is eating cake? Yeah. Becky might date an athiest but with those reactions, I wouldn’t feel safe to have that conversation right now either.
They are “kids.” They’ve been through hell. They get to have whatever kind of therapy they need even if it’s just video games. It isnt called Smarting of Age as the comeback used to go in the comic section.
And what is up with you Dotty? You slept through class for sex and this was decompression. You might have been upset with it, but Walky obviously wasn’t and skipped from time to time and you never said you were disappointed in him.
It’s pretty standard to apologize if you hurt your friend’s feelings, even if it was an accident. One might even go so far as to say an apology is owed, in that case. I do think this was an accident because Joyce didn’t intend for Becky to hear this, and Becky didn’t track her down knowing this would happen.
I agree about Dorothy, though. That reaction was uncalled for.
Joyce is angrily snarking about shit she used to believe. She is angrily expressing her resentment of things she was taught to believe she now thinks of as bullshit.
Becky’s mad that Joyce isn’t her Joyce anymore. Joyce can’t apologize for that.
While I agree people are being way too harsh at Joyce (and starting to get nasty to people who may be like Joyce – IE Depressed and feeling isolated), I do think she needs to apologize to Becky, when Joyce has recovered more. Right now her and Becky both need support
Becky also owes an apology back – She pushed her best friend away and made her feel like she couldn’t talk to her own friends about this, and by the looks of things, Joyce was damned right
It’s a really unfortunate situation where they’ve both been traumatized by the last semester, but in subtly different ways, and the things they need or expect from each other seem like they might be incompatible right now. Becky’s got no remaining ties to her life pre-college except Joyce, because both her parents are dead, her dad tried to kidnap her twice, and the congregation bailed him out. Joyce is her lifeline, the one thing that hasn’t changed, and incidentally I bet knowing that the person who was the absolute best with Scripture and followed all the rules is on her side was a big confidence boost, even if she also knows God answers lesbian prayers. She had to get tuition paid for by being the campaign manager for a homophobic (but also queer) Congresswoman, and now she has to major in something she doesn’t particularly care for to keep that scholarship. Joyce has had Hank backing her plays for as long as Becky’s seen that dynamic since college started.
Meanwhile, I don’t think Becky knows quite how bad the congregation failed them, not just backing Ross but as a whole. Critically, she hadn’t arrived at the Basement of Doom when Joyce called Ross on his hypocrisy and he told her that she was the one most fit for secular college because she was the most obedient, not the most social. (Given the shit avalanche that ensued, I can see Becky not hearing about that part because even Joyce might not have dwelled on it in the immediate aftermath.) And Becky’s faith was always more flexible than Joyce’s BECAUSE she wasn’t memorizing every single word and taking it literally and coming up with elaborate explanations for the contradictions to soothe her anxiety because she’s not questioning the Bible! She’s a good girl! I don’t think Becky’s gotten that yet – she hadn’t by their morning at Jacob’s church where they talked about feeling God or not in the service – and she definitely doesn’t know that when she told Joyce to knock it off at the birthday party because she’d been in conflict with their parents for way less time than Becky was (subtext: and Becky’s fine,) that was a pretty dead ringer for Rich Mullins Dream-Becky pointing out that SHE still feels God when she prays despite having a dead mom and an evil dad. Even if Becky didn’t mean it to be about doubting God as a whole, and I think she was going to take Joyce’s loss of faith badly no matter what, Joyce definitely read it as that… and as it being something wrong with Joyce that she’s been worried about, apparently for some time, and buried under trying to be The Best and Most Christian to compensate. It’s really easy to see why Joyce is ashamed and feels stupid about this, and why she CAN’T have a healthy relationship with Christianity anymore – that’s a lot of anxious energy to cover for not having that feeling of proper Godness, and that’s setting aside the fact that ‘no one’s perfect except for Jesus, who died for our sins’ has become directly associated in her mind with the ‘I will die for you’s Ross and then Carol pulled after the first kidnapping. Or that Joyce met a supposedly Good Christian Boy who knew his Bible verses as well as she did, figured she was safe with him, and it was her new friends who get into fights or are atheists or sexually active who came to her rescue. I think she internalized too much that people who didn’t perfectly obey the rules were hellbound for it NOT to shake her worldview when the Good Christian was the danger and Sarah and Jennifer and Dorothy all got her home okay.
She can apologize for the ‘I believe in God! I’m an idiot!’ line though. That wasn’t aimed at Becky, yeah, but it was reasonable for Becky to misunderstand and be hurt by it and it’s reasonable to apologize for that hurt.
Why are you equating Becky taking offense to something that has nothing to do with her and everything to do with Joyce lashing out at her own lived experience with a mistake you’re making through your own negligence.
Because the hurt is real. Even though Becky got offend through her own misapprehension of what Joyce was saying, and perhaps even a little through her self-centrism, she nevertheless feels real pain.
Joyce was careless, and her friend got hurt. Apologising is normal and appropriate in such circumstances.
I don’t think that’s a fair way to characterize what happened. It’s perfectly understandable Becky, not knowing what was going on, would think ‘Hey, I believe in god, I’m an idiot’ would apply to her. It’s not what Joyce meant, but the misunderstanding did cause real hurt for Becky and I can see Joyce apologizing for that misunderstanding. Not for her feeling like an idiot and I don’t think it needs to be some big, guilty, contrite thing here. Just a ‘I’m sorry, Becky, I wasn’t talking about you. I was mocking myself.’ is fine.
I mean, an apology is an admission of guilt or responsibility, right?
Maybe I would have been more helpful explaining my view on this earlier: For Joyce to say “sorry I said that because it hurt you” would imply that Joyce is responsible for Becky bulldozing her way into a conversation that has nothing to do with her and being hurt because Joyce talked about something painful and intimate to her and Becky just decided it meant something it doesn’t.
Like I don’t think there’s anyway Joyce can be an atheist in front of Becky because Becky needs Joyce to be the same person she always was and Becky needs her to be the one part of her life she has left, on top of the fact that Becky idolizes Joyce so much to the point that she can’t square the idea that Joyce thinks Becky’s mom is gone forever and she’ll never see her again.
It’s okay that Becky’s upset because this conversation would be hard in even the gentlest of circumstances, but that Joyce has done anything worthy of guilt or remorse? I can’t accept that.
Okay, I think I found our disconnect – I don’t see an apology as an admission of wrongdoing. Like, if you hear someone is ill and you say ‘Aw, I’m sorry’, that doesn’t mean you made them ill.
That said, I do think Joyce is SOMEWHAT responsible – without context, “Look at me, I believe in God, I’m an idiot” DOES sound like she’s making fun of Becky. That hurt her. It was an accident and unintentional, but that doesn’t mean you don’t apologize for hurt caused. In this case, the apology comes with an explanation of what happened. Like, if I step on someone’s foot because I didn’t see them and it hurts them, I still apologize even though it was an accident.
Yeah but if someone sees you walking forward and deliberately shoves their foot under yours, is it still your fault? Do you still have any responsibility?
Because here’s how I see it: If Joyce outright said “yeah believers are idiots” and Becky came across that I’d be a lot less on Joyce’s side, because she’s using a private conversation to be a dick and boom bada boom luck wasn’t on her side. Jacob once told Sarah Joyce would “snap and suck a billion dicks” and that was wrong, but I’m not gonna care about it the rest of my life and let it colour their interactions.
That Joyce is, specifically, harping on her own upbringing, that she draws to the sky sea and a God who let bad things happen to teach her a lesson and who always loved her, that isn’t something Joyce needs to apologize for. It’s something she feels, strongly and profoundly, as a result of her lost faith, and Becky isn’t allowed to take that from her no matter who she is or what importance she has to Joyce. She’s not allowed to hold Joyce’s feelings hostage on the grounds that Joyce will make her sad.
That is something Becky deserves to be upset about, because everyone deserves to be upset about whatever because feelings are Like That, but Becky being sad doesn’t make her right. It doesn’t make her the victim. She’s here because Liz is was visiting and she decided that since she is “unapologetically me” she’d just rush on in and be a loud dorkface and the possibility of Joyce privately enjoying herself without Becky and Dorothy in the room was completely alien to her.
Like I honestly can’t think of a comparable example so let’s pretend ice cream is, like, the most important thing in the universe. My friend only likes strawberry and I like strawberry but not as much as vanilla, except my friend will only like me as long as I keep up with strawberry.
I spend time with another friend, we have vanilla. My first friend decided they had to come see me because they felt like it and they see me with a vanilla ice cream cone in my hand.
My friend is betrayed. They are devastated. I was vanilla all along.
Did I do the bad thing, or is my strawberry-loving friend more at fault for putting me in a scenario where our friendship was contingent on strawberry ice cream, and the only way I’d be able to keep that friendship is to never enjoy vanilla ice cream in the company of anyone else?
well but on an emotional level if Joyce cares about Becky as i think she (still) does, she’ll want to if not apologize certainly find a way of repairing what has been damaged here today.
now you’ve also said you don’t think Joyce ought to stay friends with Becky. i guess we’ll just have to see how that plays out
I don’t think so. I think an apology is an expression of sympathy, often implying a statement of innocuousness. “I am sorry. That was careless of me. I didn’t mean to hurt you and feel bad that I did.” is not an admission of guilty intent.
I don’t see this as Becky deliberately sticking her foot under Joyce’s, for the purposes of this metaphor. She wasn’t rushing in to be hurt so she could then blame Joyce. This is more like she saw Joyce walking forward and ran up from behind to surprise her and then Joyce stumbled and stepped on her foot. An apology in that scenario is fine, even though it’s not 100% Joyce’s fault.
“Because here’s how I see it: If Joyce outright said “yeah believers are idiots” and Becky came across that I’d be a lot less on Joyce’s side, because she’s using a private conversation to be a dick and boom bada boom luck wasn’t on her side. Jacob once told Sarah Joyce would “snap and suck a billion dicks” and that was wrong, but I’m not gonna care about it the rest of my life and let it colour their interactions.”
Okay, but in my reading, that IS what Becky thinks happened. That’s not what Joyce meant but I think it’s what Becky thinks she meant and she’s hurt by it. That doesn’t make her a ‘victim’ of anything but a painful misunderstanding and an apology in that circumstance STRICTLY for the misunderstanding isn’t necessarily a thing about wrongdoing.
Allow me to use your ice cream metaphor – You say ‘Look at me, I like strawberry, I’m an idiot’. She SOUNDS like she’s making fun of people who like strawberry, but her use of ‘I’ here is more literal than her wording sounds like it here. She means herself and herself only. BUT your strawberry hears you and is hurt not because you’re secretly Team Vanilla, but because they now think you consider them an idiot. An apology to assure them you DON’T consider them an idiot while still maintaining you like vanilla is fine.
To be clear- road to hell paved with good intentions and not meaning to do the harm that you do and still owning it us different to me than someone being harmed by their own actions because they inserted themselves into a situation. Becky intentionally pried so this is on her. Accidental harm doesn’t also have to be a fault. Someone can be hurt you didn’t tell them something or that you can’t go to an event they planned but that isn’t something they are owed. This following up on her very much feels like an owed thing.
“You weren’t SUPPOSED to be here” is different than “I didn’t know you were going to be here” to me. One implies you had a reasonable amount of privacy and did due diligence on making sure you were avoiding the collateral. The other is you done goofed by doing that where there was a reasonable expectation you could be stumbled upon or overheard.
She’s talking loudly in a open dorm room in a hall that her friends traverse regularly. Becky isn’t hunting her down in some secret meeting spot.
While Becky’s motivations are suspect, they wouldn’t have to be for her to show up here. If she’d heard that Joyce was skipping because Liz was visiting and just wanted to meet her and hang out with Joyce that would have been perfectly reasonable and still would have led to this encounter.
I don’t think it’s fair to frame Becky as being “ahead” of Joyce in processing things. I’d argue the opposite. Becky has largely responded to these situations by suppressing and compartmentalizing her feelings. She does seem to have processed her feelings about her mom’s death, but I haven’t seen anything I’d view as healthy processing from her with regards to the events within the comic. Just evasion via humor and compartmentalization.
Gonna say this again. Stuff this bad only happens to Jpyce when she’s not wearing the sweatervest and dress shirt combo. Willis does this everytime it seems lol.
While there’s un-processed and hurtful feelings coming to the surface, Becky needs to remember who went out of her way to shelter her, help her recover from getting kicked out of school, who came after her like an avenging angel when she was kidnapped, and who didn’t run away in a gay panic when she confessed romantic attraction for her. If actions speak louder than words I think Joyce has earned a bit of slack here.
I mean, also technically sexually assaulted her with that kiss, but emotions, kids, how they want to deal with it as individuals. I don’t mean to harp so much on Becky but for all we talk about Joyce just dumping on people, she’s not alone in that regard. Becky needs to learn some boundaries too and not be so possessive.
Right? Room taken over without warning, video games commandeered, one of his close friends from high school entering the equation. The true victim and I’d never thought I’d say that about Joe.
I feel like Dorothy doesn’t have the right to use the mom card in this situation. She hasn’t been paying enough attention to Joyce more than surface level stuff. And if Dorothy was really on the ball, she might be able to figure out this was a cry of internal suffering and a rage against the forces that hurt her. Instead, Dorothy is mad that Joyce is having feelings. And is judging her for what the situation appears to be without doing any confirmation. Truly, poor mom-friending. -15 points from your Hogwarts house, Dorothy.
I need an aerial view of Joe’s room, because his position in some of the frames is making my brain go ???
I mean, Dorothy was also an outrageously stupid and wrong person with her AG hero worship in general, and also by immediately blaming Danny for the AG/Danny break-up.
It never went anywhere, natch (maybe it was supposed to?) but it’s pretty sensible that Dorothy would walk away from AG going “Danny did The Wrong Thing” by thinking “ah yeah makes sense he’s like that.”
Joyce isn’t in the wrong for verbalizing her frustrations over how she feels dumb and duped for her past beliefs. Sure, the self-criticism that she’s voicing is in such broad strokes that it can be applied to other believers, but she’s trying to process losing her entire belief system, her mom’s betrayal in the name of faith, Toedad’s betrayal in the name of faith, being sexually assaulted by a pastor’s son, being kidnapped twice in one night, watching Toedad die right in front of her… That’s like, two lifetime’s worth of trauma in a few months, most of it tangled inextricably with Joyce’s faith. Cut a gal some slack.
Becky is 100% justified for being devastated over walking in on this, especially given the context of her interactions with Joyce yesterday regarding Becky’s mom. She’s been through an unreal amount of trauma as well. I feel bad for both of them.
Dorothy, your lack of empathy for a friend who has been through hell is far more disappointing than anything Joyce has done today.
Like sure, a lot of what Joyce has been saying to Liz has been weird, immature, dishonest things meant to impress Liz and portray herself as a totally different person. Being disappointed about that is understandable. The venting about religion, though? That is almost certainly coming from the heart, and as far as we know, that’s all that Dorothy has seen.
And really, I don’t even blame Joyce that much for that dishonesty. She was raised in a culture where you fell in line with expectations or you were ostracized. She barely has a concept of getting along with people very different from you. It’s just what she’s seen in this strip interacting with Dorothy and others. 18 years of being trained to fall in line culturally with whatever others expect even if that means being dishonest or insincere isn’t going to evaporate overnight. She probably consciously or subconsciously expected that Liz would reject her and no longer be friendly if Joyce didn’t meet the projected expectations of being a promiscuous druggy who hated religion. I do hope she grows out of that, but considering how closeted she’s been, I don’t think she’s had the time to figure this out, so I understand and empathize with her.
If I prove to be wrong about Joyce’s motivations, that she’s saying “religious people are stupid” instead of “I hate this bullshit I was taught to believe for how it made me believe it until it started betraying and hurting me” then:
I, Spencer, will wear an embarrassing gravatar for a whole month after this reveal of Joyce’s motivations have occurred.
When Ryan first showed up with his knife, it wasn’t entirely clear it WAS a knife and Delicious Taffy kept swearing up and down it was his phone. They said if it was wrong, they would have an embarrassing gravatar (Don’t remember what it was) for….I think it was a week?
That’s going to be hard, since I think it’s both. In my reading she’s saying “religious people are stupid”, but she’s saying it because she feels stupid for believing it. It’s just easier to let it out this way rather than breaking down sobbing about how dumb she was. At least in this context.
If Joyce tells Becky “yeah I mean you too” then I lose.
But I will give myself a single handicap by saying that if the scene plays out as Becky going “do you think I’m stupid?” and then Joyce looks at the ground, that doesn’t count.
You may or not be right about Joyces actions (though I lean towards Joyce doing a bit of self-loathing) but you’re definitely right about Becky and trying to assert her dominance over Joyces new friend being a bit creepy and stalkerish and also right about Dorothy
Which is hard for me because I am a big Dorothy fan
Maybe lock comments for a while. People are getting nasty and this hits so close it might set off some suicidal people (heck, if my mental health wasn’t better now, I’d probably start eyeing a knife about now, knowing how Joyce feels)
ouch, yeah the reactions to this strip are so polarized, i can imagine it being quite affecting if you strongly identify with a character.
my sympathies, take care of yourself
We commenters are at different places; deconversion was a long time ago for me, possibly quite recent for a couple others. Given the sense of loss and betrayal when you realize what religion has done if you invested a lot in it, no surprise it’s a lot to process.
The strip today show to everybody whats happens when 2 or more people are in the same room, and these people are hurt or with conflictive and not-adressed feelings.
I say it as personal experience.
Not really going to look at all the comments today but this is an interesting page because you can read it a lot of ways and have a lot of feelings about it.
Joyce has a lot of trauma about her religion and really wanted to vent about how stupid she feels. That is valid. But it’s also obviously being done in a way that would hurt any religious person that could hear it – the anger is really more directed at herself and the trauma, but she is expressing it outwardly. And that means she called people like Becky idiots and she overheard.
It is valid for Becky to be hurt by that because it would come across as talking smack about her behind her back. That she really thinks she is an idiot and a fool. And because this is another thing that is changing around her which after so much abrupt change is not always what you want or can easily cope with. I don’t think Joyce really feels Becky is an idiot. But that is absolutely how Becky would have taken it and that’s the only way someone in Becky’s position really would take it.
Dorothy’s feelings are interesting because she is disappointed in Joyce. Is that because she thinks she was just playing at atheism with Liz just to impress her here? Because she hurt Becky and couldn’t even bring herself to retract it and explain? Because she has met atheists like Liz before and she’s disappointed to hear Joyce expressing things in such a condescending way when one of her closest friends is still religious and many of those on her floor are Christian as well?
Another thing I keep coming back to is “how is Joyce interpreting Dorothy’s disappointment?” because I can absolutely take it to be about the wrong thing and sending her on a spiral.
Yeah, this is going to be messy and I’m looking forward to hearing exactly WHAT Dorothy found disappointing there – I can easily see it being that she’s met edgy atheists, and because she only caught the end and her experience with religion was way less traumatic than Joyce’s upbringing, she doesn’t have the same read on ‘oh there’s some serious self-loathing here’ that we can intuit partly from having seen this whole talk. (And incidentally, so has Sarah.)
Quick take on how I think everyone in this strip fits into the plot thread here:
BECKY: Right to feel hurt, she was just insulted by supposedly her best friend. How long as the Joyce she knows been a lie? She’s probably just as hurt to know Joyce kept this from her as she is stunned that she said it in the first place.
DOROTHY: No need to be judgmental, but at the same time she’s on the back foot from what she just heard. Like Becky, she’s stunned by what Joyce said and hurt she kept it a secret, but the jab against the religious doesn’t hit her personally. She’ll play both sides, but lean a bit toward Team Becky (who basically only has her, Dina, and Leslie to fall against).
JOE: I think the story brought the other three to his room in order to tie him to this event. As one of Joyce’s closest (but most reluctant) confidantes, he’s going to be important to her recovery process and clawing back out of the hole she just dug herself.
JOYCE: Right to feel betrayed by her upbringing, wrong to take it out by casting a wide net. I don’t think she would’ve gone there if she hadn’t been goaded. May have severely damaged her friendship with Becky, if she didn’t completely destroy it.
LIZ: Pizza cutter: all edge, no point. She’s here to help drop a drama bomb on the plot and then skedaddle. As a one-off character with an “in” to the main cast (as Sarah’s sister and, conveniently, Joyce’s Facebook friend), she’s perfect for the task.
SARAH: Probably won that round of Mario Kart or Smash Bros. or whatever it was they were playing. Will chastise Liz, and give Joyce her usual tough love support. “You messed up, I can’t fix this for you”, that kind of thing.
When eventually Joyce comes out to Becky and frankly explains her new view on religion, it is going to be interesting to compare Becky’s reaction to that with Joyce’s reaction to Becky’s coming-out and frank expression of her crush on Joyce.
I feel like at a certain point (maybe your 30th comment?) you could realize some people just have a different read of the comic/the characters than you and thats like, ok. I promise.
Not about any particular commenters. Just like in general.
That aside, I do actually hope this isn’t Liz’ only appearance. Not that I particulary like her but to me it’d be kind of a bummer if she only got introduced to get this particular plot rolling and nothing else. Plus I love learning anything at all about Sarah, she probably comes closest to being my favourite character (next to Sal).
That doesn’t seem to make sense. Wouldn’t one be more sympathetic to someone breaking out of a real cult than out of a more reasonable church? While I can see being sick of such groups being called Christian, the more cultlike a group is, the more support and sympathy those getting out need.
You might not like that they label/think of themselves as Christians, and there’s certainly some arguments to be made in that direction, but… you don’t get to declare they aren’t.
No True Scotsman is creating arbitrary exceptions or additions to a group definition in order to exclude a person or people.
Scotsmen are by definition citizens and/or residents of Scotland or people who are of Scottish ancestry/ethnicity.
But, anyone who isn’t fluent in both Scottish Gaelic or Broad Scotts is No True Scotsman. /S
Or, anyone who likes King Arthur is No True Scottsman /S.
In the same way, any church that preaches the Prosperity Gospel, which Joyce’s explicitly does is not Christian. In scripture, Christ repeatedly tells his followers to give away their wealth and belongings to the poor and he repeatedly criticizes the rich and wealthy going so far as to imply it is functionally impossible for them to enter heaven. He and the apostles also preach welfare to the poor and to strangers.
Prosperity Theology claims that wealth and social status are signs of God’s favor and that poverty and sickness are curses brought about by sin and/or lack of Faith.
The latter of which is literally refuted by Christ himself in Scripture.
A “Christian” Church that preaches in direct contrast with the teachings of Christ is no more Christian than the Nazis were Indo-Iranians.
Or for a less controversial example, you can’t open a coffee shop and say it’s a Starbucks, even leaving aside copyright.
That is the no true scotsman fallacy, and also like.. even if you don’t believe in all of Joyce’s beliefs, she hit all the requirements for being christian- she believed in god, christ as a saviour, considered herself to have a personal relationship with god, believed in the teachings of the bible, etc. Some of those teachings were warped, and added onto, but she was definitely trying to follow christ’s teachings.
I don’t think your comparisons above apply; it feels like you’re just adding some extra steps to exempt christianity with prosperity gospel from other christianity. Also, even if it is unintentional, this situation feels very much when people use no true scotsman to exempt themself from examining their community’s responsibility in something- ie saying no true man would abuse someone, or no true LGB person would be transphobic, etc
I. I don’t understand. How is saying people who don’t follow the teachings of Christ are not Christian a fallacy?
If you think believing in God is enough, then I’m sorry to tell you, but most Christians do not consider nontrinitarians Christian. And I cannot imagine anyone who considers the Bahá’í to be Christian.
Religion isn’t Gender identity. You have to meet criteria.
Another “example”.
You don’t to say you’re an adherent of …Rev. MLK Jr.’s teachings and that’s why you support racial segregation.
I should’ve mentioned earlier, but I’ve been Joyce more than a few times before. Freezing up when something horrible happened that you caused? And reinforced by a witness?
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and Liz was never seen again
and not just bc Comic Book Time
gone, like an angel’s kiss
Tonight, on a very special episode.
Hm. The popcorn doesn’t taste nearly as good as I thought it would.
She must go. Her planet needs her.
i just hope she doesn’t get hit by a truck on her way to her
planetcollegeI’ve been stuck in a TV Tropes loop for a week now. Screw you.
Meh. I haven’t been that impressed by Liz.
I was more impressed earlier.
She did not age well.
That said, as noted below, while I like her less now as a person, you have to give it to her for that comedic timing. That exit line is Mike worthy. Bravo.
“The party’s over and you need help cleaning up this mess I helped make, you say? WHOAH! IS THAT FERRIS BEULLER OVER THERE?!” *runs off*
I was not impressed when Sarah wasn’t impressed. She may be caustic, but damn if she doesn’t seem to be a decent judge of character. Liz /is/ trashy.
Oooh, Dorothy being mad too was not something I really expected.
Think she’ll stay and talk Joyce through it? Will anybody? Or will Joyce just compress this down and hate herself more for the single moment she started to unpack her trauma?
All I know is, this is the first time I’ve ever waited refreshing the homepage right at midnight.
Depends. Dorothy might go and try to talk to Becky about it.
Joe would probably be down to talk, I’m sure he’s got a few pointers on “so you stuck your foot in your mouth” situations.
Joe is also in three of these panels, doing nothing but looking at everyone. Feels like he has a reason to be there — honestly, yeah, Joe does almost make the most sense to be the one she talks to. Especially given their recent bio homework talk.
Well. Of course he has a reason to be there. It’s his room.
But like, narratively, too.
Right, plus she’s come to him in the past for a lot of stuff, most recently the Becky’s mom stuff. She did also in the past come to him when her parents were divorcing, so, even if Joe’s not exactly the most comfortable at talking feelings, he does obviously rise to the occasion for her, historically.
Well, here’s hoping he’ll rise to the occasion for her, once again.
And then again, much later on, in a different context. *waggles eyebrows*
*waggles eyebrows*
*doesn’t say whose*
Hey, I was looking for those!
I kind of think maybe Joe should be the one to go talk to Becky, and Dorothy stay to talk to Joyce.
Joe knows about Joyce’s deconversion and has more context for what happened, and so is in a better position to explain to Becky that Joyce was angry and venting about her own past beliefs rather than Becky – Dorothy isn’t aware, from what I recall.
Joyce coming clean to Dorothy immediately about what’s been going on is likely to be helpful for their relationship as well, and Dorothy can then provide support whilst also making her disappointment clear to hopefully head off this kind of thing happening again.
But is Dorothy down to talk to Joyce? That matters too.
Just as likely she’ll talk down to Joyce
The only problem with that is that Becky doesn’t like Joe and is likely not in the mood to hear a single word out of his mouth.
From her perspective, Joe could very well have been encouraging it. He didn’t say anything, but they were definitely in his room when it happened.
I definitely don’t think Joe is close enough to Becky to be the one to have a talk with her. I don’t know what Dorothy would tell her either, but I could see them growing closer over this.
Dorothy really mastered the disappointed mom vibe. Joyce is mortified, and with good reason.
They are friends, though, and Joyce and Becky are friends. Eventually, they’ll talk it out and forgive. Maybe not right this second. Becky needs some time to cool off, and possibly Dorothy needs some too.
Yeah, I think that Joe is the best person to talk to Joyce right now. Maybe Sarah can help too. They are both more or less atheists as well, the apathetic kind, or perhaps rather they are agnostics. They can guide Joyce to a decent middle where she can respect others’ faith, and even defend others’ faith, even as she doesn’t share it. Just like Dorothy has.
Sarah and Joe being any kind of atheist has nothing to do with their ability to talk to Joyce about having just (accidentally/obliviously) shit all over her friend. Joyce knows that she fucked up *hard*. Honestly, her getting past her own mortification with some self-compassion, will allow her to be a better friend sooner, rather than wasting time raking herself over ghe coals. (n.b. I don’t mean absolution, but she’ll move along faster by owning and forgiving herself for her mistake). Sarah’s had to live with people being angry with her (despite her having good cause), and Joe had the list. They’re both experienced coaches to help Joyce navigate this.
I think Sarah’s and Joe’s atheism would be relevant in this situation. Joyce’s atheism is new, and she still doesn’t know how to be as an atheist. The people she would usually talk about these things she didn’t dare. Liz ended up being a very bad role model, but it’s clear Joyce just wanted to test things out, and wasn’t entirely comfortable saying all these mean things, even when she thought nobody was there to hear her say them.
Dorothy is clearly a very good model of how an atheist can be, and I’m sure that’ll be pointed out to her, but also Dorothy was never raised religiously. Sarah and Joe may have been, though not necessarily in as repressive a way as she was. This experience might help them relate to Joyce, understand what she’s going through and help her find a way forward.
Or maybe, and hear me out on this, JOYCE should talk to Becky.
I think it’s entirely unfair of Dotty to be “disappointed” in what Joyce was saying about her own feelings on a religion she was heavily indoctrinated into as she tries to shake it off. I think it’s entirely unfair of half the comments section yesterday to get up in arms about Joyce “lying” to Becky or “being mean to christians” because as far as Joyce knew, there wasn’t anyone but herself in the room to be mean to!
Joyce wasn’t required to let anyone in on her mental state until she was ready to, and if Becky hadn’t been hunting her down for daring to have another friend (and Dotty along for the ride to apparently be “disappointed” in her for skipping class) they wouldn’t have been around to hear Joyce ripping her own beliefs apart.
Both Becky and Dorothy need to get over this idea of Who Joyce Is they have in their head and let her grow. Skipping one day of class for a friend who is in town for One Day Only isn’t disappointing, it’s normal. Not telling someone about your changing beliefs because the last time you did they dumpstered your feelings as “just a phase” and childish…is healthy.
Joyce is allowed to change. She’s allowed to grow in ways which aren’t fun for other people. She wasn’t intentionally being hurtful and it’s gross that she’s apparently the only one in their friend group not allowed to move forward without being treated like she’s doing it to be cruel.
To be fair, at first he’s doing the same thing as Dorothy (looking after Becky in concern as she leaves), then switches to do the same thing as Sarah (looking at Joyce in concern). I think he reads the room just fine here in order to help Joyce *possibly* fix this in the future.
Yeah, Joe has a lot more emotional intelligence that he lets on or the comments tend to want to grant him.
Joe’s problem (or, well, one of) is that he doesn’t WANT emotional intelligence. He actively avoids things getting “real”, almost certainly because of his emotional intelligence. But if someone is refusing to use the intelligence they have they’re still behaving in a way which is unintelligent. When he lets himself use what he has we see someone capable of great caring, understanding and empathy and a desire to be and do better- but it’s wrapped up in his own fears, hesitation and I honestly think a good pinch of self-loathing.
My point is, it’s easy to not expect emotional intelligence from Joe.
I don’t think muffins are going to fix this.
But suppose they were really good muffins.
ah well in that case, sure.
What if they’re divine?
*badum-dish*
Too soon?
“So, you stuck your foot in your mouth” starts Joe, one foot up on a chair like a camp counselor trying to be cool.
I don’t know why, but i feel Joe would sound like Troy McClure if he did that.
“I’m Joe Rosenthal, you may remember me from such mortifying escapades as ‘The List Dude’ and ‘Being in a porn with Roz'”
TBF the second one was neither porn, nor mortifying. They were neither paid nor embarrassed to be bare-assed.
nice 👌
I’m not sure that she’s mad, necessarily, but it definitely makes sense.
While she didn’t shy away from the fact that she disagreed with Joyce’s now-former beliefs on a fundamental level, and was often horrified of some of the messages contained within (ex: all the good things we do are God working though us), Dorothy was never dismissive of Joyce’s beliefs, and always treated her first and foremost as a human being instead of something to be mocked. And she was… pretty much the only one who didn’t do that, early on, which was crucial to the development of their friendship. (need to stop myself from writing a wildly-off-topic shipping manifesto.)
Seeing Joyce, of all people, seemingly treating Becky the way everyone else treated Joyce at the beginning of the comic has got to be hard for her to watch, because this is exactly what Dorothy strove so hard to be better than.
Except Joyce had no way of knowing Becky was there to witness Joyce giving voice to the ugly pent up feelings she’s been keeping bottled up. That’s distinct from the mockery Joyce experienced to her face when she first started the previous semester. Joyce’s ire was not targeted towards Becky in this instance.
Try telling that to Becky.
I get it, I do, and I’ve mentioned how I empathize with Joyce both yesterday and today. But Joyce is still responsible for the words she says, even when venting in a public dorm room, even if she never meant for Becky to hear it. I don’t ascribe her much blame or hold it against her, but she’s still responsible for saying it.
Oh Joyce is most certainly responsible for her actions/words. But that doesn’t mean Dorothy being harsh, and essentially rubbing salt in a just opened sound is helpful either. Now Dorothy being somewhat is a perfectly reasonable reaction and in-character for Dorothy, like Joyce’s venting, it’s understandable Dorothy isn’t going to have the perfect response every time either. But I think people commenting that Dorothy was harsh is perfectly fair too, especially since it’s not a condemnation of Dorothy.
I wouldn’t say that she’s being harsh. She’s expressing her feelings of disappointment with her friend, to her friend.
She’s not yelling, she’s not scathing, she’s not browbeating.
People who are friends need to be able to express their feelings with each other can’t call each other on perceived crap.
Eh, it still comes off as harsh to me, considering the context and phrasing. Perhaps if it wasn’t the first thing Dorothy said or she phrased with an “I” statement it wouldn’t come off as harsh to me.
I don’t think Joyce meant to insult Becky– as you said, she had no idea that Becky was there– but I’m pretty sure that both Dorothy and Becky think that she was talking about Becky. And it’s not like an explanation would make it hurt that much less.
I think it depends on how much Becky and Dorothy heard. If the door was open this whole time, they might have heard her from down the hall and followed her voice. (Why else would they be looking for them in the guys’ wing?)
Granted, Joyce openly mocking believers in general is only slightly less shitty than Joyce openly mocking Becky specifically for being a believer, but still.
I don’t think Joyce was mocking believers in general though- although she’s actively painting it that way to avoid what she’s actually doing being so obvious to Liz, which is actively mocking herself. There’s a lot (by my read) of self-loathing for everything she swallowed without ever actually examining it until she hit the first breaking point (Becky coming out to her). My own childhood “teachings” weren’t religious but it was awful and I definitely went through a massive stage of “how could I have been such an idiot, why didn’t I see this” self-loathing that still comes back up sometimes. I’m seeing something I REALLY relate to in Joyce- anger and bitterness and resentment and a massive, completely disproportionate amount of it being directed at herself.
I might be reading it wrong since it does resonate with my personal experiences but that’s my take.
I’m pretty certain you’re very spot on here. She would never mock Becky, even behind her back. She’s expressing her anger at herself for spending so much of her life living in a way that she now sees as ridiculous. I can’t blame her in any way, honestly ; it’s hard enough for her, she’s got the right to figure herself out and a few mishaps here and there are bound to happen. I love Dorothy, but reacting like she did isn’t great.
Yeah, I agree with this, too. It felt mostly self-directed, with a healthy dash of “trying to fit in with new friend” energy.
Joyce is pretty desperate for approval; she was previously very vocal about her previous religious beliefs, and it became a large part of the identity people associated with her. Casting aside those beliefs, that identity, is scary. Especially when she is FULLY aware that being open about her burgeoning atheism opens her up to a lot of mockery, which she suspects/fears she will deserve. Joyce has shown a habit of trying to avoid the consequences of her words and deeds – at least initially.
With Liz, she felt like she could come out of that “closet” as it were. And as a number of people do when they’re leaving their “closet,” they may over-express themselves, exaggerate their feelings or expression of their hidden self, like the backswing of a pendulum. It’s like a release of pressure, and, sadly, Liz basically egged it on. Liz still lives in her own closet, of sorts, but she also has probably carved her own exit from it far before now. She probably thinks it’s good Joyce is cutting loose like this, but also probably doesn’t realize how Joyce is struggling to keep the facade up, let alone the fact that there are people Joyce cares about and wants close to her that also don’t know her truth.
Also, Liz probably doesn’t realize how uncharacteristically Joyce is acting right now. She’s only seen the face Joyce shows her; probably doesn’t know Joyce isn’t like that with her other friends.
No, I can understand that. I was raised as a good little Church-going Republican and I occasionally look back on that with deep cringing. I can absolutely see Joyce’s actions as being self-condemning, not directed at anyone else. The timing was just really, REALLY bad for her venting.
It is really shocking how patient Dorothy was with Joyce early on. I agree, it must’ve made seeing Joyce hurt her childhood friend like this even more painful to watch.
Dorothy’s not mad, just disappointed. (Once again, being the classic Mom Friend.)
Dorothy meant what she said. She’s not mad. She’s disappointed.
Sure, that’s a common misleading statement, but when most people say that kind of thing, they actually mean “frustrated”, because they were attempting something and it isn’t working and the frustration is building into anger.
Dorothy wasn’t trying anything. She just witnessed a scene, and she’s disappointed in Joyce.
And I suspect she’s going to check on Becky here in a sec. I think that it would serve the narrative more to have them talk, too.
Hopefully she won’t come to feel guilt for unpacking trauma or even looking after herself in general.
I suspect that Dorothy has had an inclination that something was going on with Joyce for a while and I reckon her thought process when she showed up was “so Joyce really is questioning/abandoning her faith after all and instead of coming to talk to me about it she’s talking shit with somebody she’s only ever met online even though she knows her best friend still believes in God.” It seems like she might be feeling a little betrayed but she’s probably mostly mad that Joyce said something so vicious and thoughtless just because she thought Becky wasn’t around
I mean Sarah might be able to help her understand getting self-hatey and grouchy after disillusionment.
RIP Joyce.
20??-20??
…Liz planned this, didn’t she.
What? How could she possibly have planned this? Especially Becky skipping class and overhearing them?
I don’t think so, I think she just really doesn’t want to be at ground zero of whatever’s happening.
This would not a foreseeable outcome with the information Liz is likely to have
Well, if she put together the plan the moment she realized Joyce was deconverted and closeted… yeah, she probably could have. Timed things for when classes were letting out and people were likely to come back to the dorms and trust that SOMEONE would overhear.
I have no basis for thinking she did, but she could have.
Getting Joyce to inadvertently out herself as an atheist? Maybe, it’d require a degree of malice we haven’t really seen from Liz but I guess it’s not impossible.
Getting Becky/Dorothy specifically to hear Joyce calling people like Becky idiots when she thinks nobody can hear? No. That’s maybe something Mike could have done, with significantly more preparation and understanding of the marks than Liz would reasonable have.
so what you’re saying is, Liz is Mike?
I don’t think its the fact that Joyce outed herself as an atheist that is the issue. I think its the fact that she did it incredibly disrespectfully by calling people who believe idiots in a very mocking manner. Especially in front of a believing friend who believes her mother is in paradise?
She didn’t know she was in front of that friend. That friend hunted her down for hanging out with someone because she’s wildly jealous and way, way too possessive of Joyce.
Joyce wasn’t talking To or About Becky, and Becky has said similarly hurtful things without ever being called out about it.
Joyce is allowed to change, grow, and do it painfully if necessary. She shouldn’t have to consider other people’s feelings at all times while dealing with her own trauma, particularly when that person wouldn’t even have been around if she wasn’t treating Joyce like a chew toy she didn’t want to share.
I… genuinely don’t know what made me from thirty minutes ago think Liz planned this. Like, no way does she have the info. Was I making a joke?
I think it was something that popped into my head for some reason. Liz planning this makes no sense.
You’re just covering for the fact that you let slip a hint to Willis having shown you a future strip from twelve years into the future ahead of schedule. We’re on to you!
That’s right. You can’t fool us.
Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, you won’t get fooled again.
Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.
oh no, Rassilon is now trying to fool us even more by leading us believe that they have insider info!!! truly an evil 4D-chess mastermind.
oh wait, Rassilon is Mike now??? my god, this explains, um, so little. if we’re being honest
That seems like a bit of a paranoid assumption.
Please explain how she could’ve done so
Liz is an agent of chaos. “I’m like a dog chasing cars. I wouldn’t know what to do if I caught one.”
Okay, but… Joyce HAS those feelings. She needs to work through them yes, and it’s not great that Becky got them raw, but it shouldn’t be disappointing that she has them in the first place.
Sure. But rather than work through those feelings with her friends – not even Becky directly, but Dorothy, who would have absolutely no issue with her new beliefs – she’s bottled them up and walled them away… until Liz arrived, at which point she ditched all of her friends and her class in order to pull this.
And this isn’t even genuine. It’s Joyce backsliding heavily in character growth in order to just appeal to the oh-so-cool new girl. It’s the same kind of dishonest, selfish, short-sightedness she was pulling with Jacob that caused him to burn bridges with her.
Yeah but unlike with Jacob, Joyce was indulging her in worse tendencies away from the people she knew it would hurt. That’s not quite the same as her making a consciously decision to do Raidah wrong for her own gratification.
Yeah, choosing to hang out with Sarah and Joe instead of her actual “best friends” is a clear sign that Joyce wanted to try out being a different person, maybe pretend that she never fell for the fundamentalism as hard as she did, maybe imagine a different upbringing for herself. I can follow the logic here, even if it’s still stuck in Joyce’s weird tendency to lie her way into a sitcom premise (“This is Joe and we boink all the time, also I’m an atheist! This will never backfire!”)
Joyce pretending to be a different person is not a good thing. She frequently does this as a form of denial, or when she’s trying to be manipulative. Dorothy has disapproved of this behavior every time it’s come up, because of how unhealthy it is.
She also has never turned her back on Joyce for that flaw and has always been willing to be there for her anyway. So after everything they’ve been through, it’s actually very disappointing that Joyce would open up about her struggles not to her close friends who share much of her new beliefs and wouldn’t hate her for them, but purely as a result of trying to impress someone by deceiving them.
It’s quite a common thing to open up about troubling stuff to strangers, as almost any bartender will tell you.
Liz seems to be the atheist and less responsible double of Becky, blow in unexpectedly, act devil may care. But, where Becky would have started stuff to pull the attention and anger on herself to protect Joyce, Liz slinks out like a coward.
Still, how could Joyce voice her anger on her fundie upbringing to the people who see her as a result of it?
Only Sarah is there, still being the older sister, I thought she‘d left but there she is..
Woah now. Joyce was definitely partly influenced by wanting to appease to Liz, but part of her venting was genuine. She is spiteful towards religion.
I’m not saying her words were acceptable, but she’s exiting basically years of suppression and lies. They’re understandable, the question is if Becky will find them forgivable.
Again: it’s really, really telling that she is doing this venting to Liz, and not anyone else within her group. And I do NOT mean Becky. But like… literally almost anyone else.
That, combined with her past history of deceitful behavior, puts this conversation in a VERY different light than just “Joyce ranting to someone she can safely talk to”.
Bonus points that her friend group has gone to hell and back with her. They’ve gone to bat – pun intended – to protect her. She -should- feel safer and more well-loved by them than you’d expect in a typical group of college friends that have known each other for half a year or so. It’s still understandable that she’d want to hide this resentment from Becky, but…
And also, Dorothy has a pretty good handle on how Joyce thinks and acts. It doesn’t mean she’s necessarily correct at all times, but that when she sees Joyce acting in an exaggerated manner similarly to ways she’s acted before… she’s going to immediately see it as backsliding to those kinds of behaviors.
But who in Joyce’s circle could Joyce talk to about deconversion? Not unbelief generally, but deconversion specifically? Dorothy never went through that, Sarah tries her hardest NOT to be the person people turn to…
Except this isn’t a genuine talk about deconversion, is it? It’s an exaggeration of her thoughts, being said in order to impress a Facebook friend, despite the fact that it throws a lot of shade on Becky. And she’s been deceitful about so much in relation to this situation – Liz’s beliefs, for example. There’s really no reason to lie about Liz’s beliefs to Becky, when Becky has quite happily befriended Dorothy (even if she constantly needles her).
I’m not sure how much of it was about impressing Liz. Maybe some, maybe none, maybe a lot.
But I am sure a lot of it was Joyce venting about her own situation. She’s pissed off that she was (in her mind) stupid enough to ever believe this stuff, and that others got her to believe it. Those are emotions that she’s been unable to be open about for months. So the moment she finds someone she CAN vent around, of course she’s going to vent. Ditto for actually being able to swear without even Joe telling her off for it.
That’s part of why I’m not sure how much of it was to IMPRESS Liz. I’m thinking it was more wanting to emulate Liz (specifically how Liz is able to be open about this stuff and has overcome her fears), plus a bit of euphoric overenthusiasm about finally clicking with someone regarding deconversion.
Also, when did Joyce lie to Becky about Liz? Joyce hasn’t said anything to Becky since finding out Liz was a fellow deconvert. Becky only recognized Liz’s name from Facebook (presumably Joyce’s friends list).
i mean this scene was set up with Joyce saying lots of extremely edgy stuff specifically in order to impress Liz. So i think yes, she IS in fact trying to impress her now, but why do we try to impress people? we want them to validate that we are like them in some way, right? we want them to see that we value the same thing.
you’re right, she finds Liz aspirational. She needs to rebuild herself around being a deconvert. it’s going to take a while, and it won’t be easy. it will be awkward, and painful, and just an overall bummer most likely. And Liz is so confident, she makes it look easy. at this moment, Joyce wants to be her.
(Actually Liz is performing coolness too, maybe she’s had a bit more practice i guess, or she’s better at it. but this is what 18 looks like, certainly what i and everyone around me was like at 18. just constant, exhausting, attitude games)
I guess the point of disagreement here boils down to Joyce’s motive. Everyone keeps saying it’s to impress, while I’m thinking it could be just to emulate.
and i’m saying that’s essentially the same thing in this situation. i think.
Here’s the distinction.
Trying to impress is principally about wanting the other person (in this case Liz) to think positively about you (Joyce).
Trying to emulate is principally about trying to make yourself more like the other person (maybe for a moment, maybe for longer).
They can work out the same way, functionally, and it’s possible for them both to be motives simultaneously, but they’re distinct.
Yeah, like Joyce was obviously venting. Seems a little harsh of Dorothy to put that as a huge ethical failing on Joyce’s part.
I don’t view venting as a fully healthy thing to begin with. When venting turns into full-on mockery of a group of people one of your closest friends belongs to, I think you’ve definitely crossed a line into ethical failing. I’m not sure what Joyce really expected here anyways. Did she think Joe and Sarah would never utter a word about the stuff she was saying, especially when she later acts as though she never said those things?
Well the debate about whether venting is healthy or not, it’s a little different when the group of people Joyce is mocking is one she herself used to identify with. And yeah I think it would be reasonable for Joyce to expect that Sarah and Joe wouldn’t be gossiping about her to other people without her knowledge. I’m sure Sarah and Joe would bring it up directly with Joyce before doing something like going behind he back.
yes. I don’t think it’s reasonable to expect someone not to express frustration at something they regret about their past selves. Like all this is a difficult path to navigate, because you can’t be honest with a friend, because they expect you to still be like them. And then you’re not allowed to be honest out loud with just yourself?
Joyce can’t process these emotions healthily if she’s not allowed to express them. Harsh words about something that has hurt her to the extent that religion has are totally understandable, and suppressing those feelings because others might be hurt if they heard them put so bluntly isn’t healthy.
Yeah, it sucks that Becky heard this, and I don’t think anyone involved wanted that to happen. But saying Joyce should never voice feelings like this feels a lot like the really problematic tone policing often used to shut down people trying to voice things that are problematic in society.
There’s a difference between voicing your feelings and angry venting.
Just like there’s a difference between mocking a religion in general and deriding it’s believers as all idiots.
Where did Dorothy put that as a huge ethical failing on Joyce’s part? She said she was disappointed. Dorothy can be disappointed if she wants to be.
Especially when this is part of a pattern of shitty lashing-out on Joyce’s part that Dorothy has already been being patient with, on top of the other things she’s very patient with Joyce on, as a friend.
She didn’t do that at all, no. She said exactly one thing about being disappointed. But hey, it’s illegal to have even a mild problem with a friend’s behavior, so.
I used to be like Dorothy. Sometime in life she’ll learn that it’s not appropriate to try to fix her friends but she can channel those urges towards mentoring her subordinates (or students) and other appropriate contexts. She’s still learning and growing too.
In my experience friends like Joyce drop friends like Dorothy when they pull themselves together. And Dorothys learn to socially avoid people who show signs of hero worship and clinging and stuck to friendships that are more equal.
I’m hoping the part Dorothy means is the ‘I believe in god, I’m an idiot’ type stuff. While it may be how Joyce is feeling, without the context of this being a venting thing, it sounds like it applies to Becky too, and Becky’s understandably hurt and insulted by that.
Wow I’m so mad at Dorothy
Why? She’s has no context for this. It would be insanely understanding for her to sympathize with Joyce in this situation without some explanation first.
Dorothy also knows that Joyce has been through religious trauma and betrayal.
Becky still being religious after everything she’s been through is honestly probably an exception.
She doesn’t need context to keep her shaming attitude to herself
also she has no stake in Joyce going to class or not and if she thinks that’s disappointing thats a her problem, not a Joyce problem
Witnessing your friend acting like a totally different person to impress someone else *is* disappointing though.
Yes, Joyce has been through religious trauma.
Yes, Joyce needs to vent and discuss her feelings on religion with a formerly religious person.
Yes, Joyce is pretending to be more rude and “badass” to impress someone.
All of these things can be true at the same time.
This honestly sums it up nicely. Joyce has valid feelings, but she also got walked in on acting like a total jackass. It’s understandable to say, “Joyce didn’t know she’d be heard”, etc etc, obviously, but it’s also reasonable to be put off if you heard someone you care about and thought highly of say really repulsive things.
No one’s going to jail over it or anything, they’re just experience social consequences. That’s just how it is.
!!!! Yes!
Jlyce may not have expected to be walked in on but…she still said those things.
One might need to legitimately complain about something a loved one has done, but if that loved one overhears they have every right to feel hurt. Even if they were never meant to hear it hurtful things were still said
this is the first comment of the thread that clicks for me. everyone else seemed off the mark but I couldn’t figure out better myself
It’s actually what I was trying to get at when I said Joyce’s words and attitude weren’t genuine.
This is Joyce being deceitful to try to impress someone. Again. It’s an attitude Dorothy has expressed disapproval for, only this time it’s also mixed in with resentment that would badly sting someone very close to Joyce – resentment that Joyce has seemingly failed to try to work through with her friends, but will now open up about simply because she’s trying to impress someone.
It’s kinda shitty, but more than that, it’s backsliding.
Yeah but Dorothy casting judgement on Joyce, when Dorothy can obviously see that Joyce was unawares of Becky being within earshot and knows Joyce has been raised with religious trauma, should recognized the harshness that chastising someone who knows that they hurt someone they cared about unintentionally seems a bit like kicking someone when their already down.
Joyce is clearly falling for peer pressure, trying to be a “cool atheist kid” to impress her new cool atheist friend. That IS disappointing behavior.
How in the world do you read the last two strips and not see that Joyce is specifically mocking shit she used to believe?
She brought up the sky sea in direct contrast to Liz making cartoon faces and saying God was dumb! This isn’t subtle!
Huh? The issue is not that I don’t understand what she’s doing. The important bit is /why/ she is doing it. This is not how she normally acts. Even as, now, a foreigner to her once religion, she is a considerate person who can respect it for the sake of her best friend. But now that she got a chance to impress someone else, she’s acting uncharacteristically. Again, that’s disappointing.
Agreed. There’s like twelve different things going on here and some of them are terrible, some of them are things the audience gets as a nasty part of an unpleasant process but still somewhat necessary and unfortunate (and Dorothy, whose experience with atheism did not involve religious trauma, wouldn’t get,) some of them are just general teenage messiness. Often multiple things at once!
From Dorothy’s perspective, she just overheard Joyce pretty much saying that anyone who believe in religion is an idiot. Despite knowing her best friend is Christian. It doesn’t matter if she intended Becky to hear that, that’s still a shitty thing to say.
I think a lot of people are missing the point that I’m sure Becky is *way* more hurt by that than by Joyce actually being Athiest. Imagine having a heartfelt conversation with your best friend about you dead mother, then realizing later that they were just thinking you were an idiot the whole time.
Joyce is talking about herself.
If Joyce was saying Liz’s dialogue than yeah.
But she was talking about herself and not Becky.
And she is processing anger after a lifetime of being conditioned and lied to by her religious upbringing.
Dorothy can go pound sand.
Seriously. It sucks that Becky overheard, but Joyce did nothing wrong here. (Hell, even the skipping class- skipping one class in college is not the end of the world.)
Well, she lied about Joe being her best friend, lied about fucking Joe, lied about habitually taking drugs, and behaved as though she were in private while yhe door was open.
Okay, but Dorothy doesn’t know any of those first three things, and Joyce probably didn’t know the door was open (and it might not have been, it could be that Joe or Dorothy/Becky opened it)
Here’s the thing- yes, I entirely agree that Joyce is working through self-directed anger and is talking about herself, and while her behaviour this arc has been… highly imperfect (the lying, dragging Joe into it, pretending she’s basically what she was raised to think atheists are despite now knowing otherwise) she’s venting. She’s venting about herself and her combinations of long-suppressed self-loathing and anger and guilt and very likely more. She needs to vent.
BUT Dorothy and Becky almost certainly don’t know that. Which is part of the problem- Joyce has had so little opportunity to work through this socially (and has very likely had to actively suppress it). So it comes out in this bitter, angry venting, and that is what Becky and Dorothy walked in on, without the context of everything she’s been working through with her deconversion. It could possibly be construed as Joyce saying hurtful things to fit in with her new friend which is obviously untrue with the context we have, but… it’s not a great look.
Right now nobody is looking good imo, but I don’t think anybody is really that much at fault here. The closest is Sarah and Joe for enabling Joyce’s lying instead of pulling her aside and trying to talk about all of this but they’re also not actually responsible for her behaviour- and that’s not really relevant at this moment.
It is a good look actually, it’s just not one to two people who stalked after Joyce because “oh no she has a friend over, that can’t be I own Joyce’s ass.”
I don’t care what Becky and Dorothy think right now because this conversation isn’t for them and has nothing to do with them, but they’ve made it about them and are judging Joyce for it.
Like maybe Becky and Dorothy are showing right now exactly why Joyce was incapable of sharing this worldshaking viewpoint shift to them, but she could for two people who don’t need Joyce to exist in a glass case.
I take much more issue with Becky’s actions overall tbh, a couple of scenes back I nearly commented on how… distasteful I find Becky’s possessiveness over Joyce. To me there is no possible version of their relationship where I’d be chill with Becky literally deciding she had a feud with one of Joyce’s closest friends seemingly BECAUSE she was one of Joyce’s closest friends and apparently freaking out over Joyce spending time with someone else. And she did make it all about her when Joyce tried to talk to her about her realising she was losing her faith.
I don’t think we’ve ever seen Dorothy be dismissive of Joyce trying to work out who she is or what she believes, I personally think it’s more that Joyce puts Dorothy on a bit of a pedestal AND probably finds her a painful reminder of how she was when they first met, and I can see her not feeling able to talk to Dorothy about it without it being due to Dorothy being unaccepting. I really see Dorothy’s immediate reaction here being “you’ve just really hurt your best friend and I don’t have the full picture so it looks bad”.
I 100% agree that the conversation (or rather venting) wasn’t for them, but again- they don’t know that it actually had so little to do with Becky. And I respect that, to you, the fact that it was nothing to do with them is much more important than their perception of the event.
How are Sarah and Joe closest to fault here? Joyce showed up at Joe’s doorstep unannounced and made herself at home. He hasn’t said or done anything which is actually a remarkable show of restraint. And Sarah did pull Joyce aside and warn her about Liz. Specifically stating Liz is not a great role model. Thus not someone to parrot or imitate like Joyce just got caught doing.
https://www.dumbingofage.com/2021/comic/book-12/01-sister-christian/aticking/
Admittedly this is a tangent but they aren’t at fault at all.
They’re not at fault at all. That was… kind of what I was trying to say? I think? They’re enabling Joyce lying and using Joe to do so but they’re not actually in any way responsible for her behaviour. By “closest at fault” what I meant was “nobody is at fault in this exact moment imo”. Didn’t phrase it well though.
Her expression of disappointment lacks any empathy for what Joyce has been through at the hands of religion. Both her own personal worldview and others’ actions against her motivated by religion have done huge amounts of harm to her. Being disappointed because someone isn’t 100% diplomatic when discussing something they have strong feelings about in private, away from those who might be hurt by said words, is just tone policing, and it’s not okay.
I mean yeah tone policing is a good way to put it.
Hear! Hear!
Honestly, I feel bad for Joyce. Like, how was she supposed to know Becky was in earshot? Sometimes, the path to healing from almost 2 decades of religious trauma starts with making fun of the thing that used to hold so much sway over you, and she does have every right to be bitter toward it. I feel like the derogatory things she was saying were directed at her past self, and definitely not at Becky (even if I understand why she’ll definitely interpret it that way, and I feel bad for Becky too).
And Dorothy can feel however she wants about it, but as someone who was raised as an atheist, she has no idea the kind of deeply rooted trauma that Joyce is dealing with and trying to figure out how to express in *any* way. Seriously, being raised in fundamentalist Christianity is a nightmare and I don’t think Dorothy realizes just how huge a bullet she dodged.
As a correction, Dorothy chose atheism. Her parents are religious, if I remember Family Freshmen weekend right.
Huh, I’ll admit my memory is fuzzy. Either way, she wasn’t raised in fundamentalism.
Didn’t Dorothy’s parents say they are godless to Joyce’s dad though?
I think Deborah knows how she comes off to Joyce’s parents. It was a joke.
They raised her areligiously to let her decide and she chose atheism.
If I can “No True Scotsman” your statement for a sec: we’re talking about people who were raised in fundamentalist/evangelical Christian homes, under parents for whom even the *concept* of “allowing” your child to “choose” a religion is comparable to the concept of slitting their throat in the name of Satan.
Dorothy’s parents are not “religious” when compared with the kind of shit Joyce grew up with. She has no possible way of understanding that world.
Dorothy’s grandparents are religious. One side is Catholic and the other is Jewish and Catholic, but she’s said herself that her parents are pretty nonreligious.
I think Sarah’s probably got the best handle on this situation. Dorothy’s being judgy x2. Not just not understanding what it’s like, but the dig about skipping class too. It’s a freshman level math lecture. In-class participation is not required.
I feel bad for both of them, but without the proper context, I can easily see why Dorothy might think that Joyce was saying something cruel that can apply to Becky. I’m HOPING an explanation is upcoming.
I’m worried about her Feinting from the lack of blood flowing to her head…. or that she is going to have a panic attack so bad she is sent to the hospital from a heart attack.
They serve oatmeal at hospitals. Joyce has a “Do Not Resuscitate” card for exactly that reason.
Yes, I’m pretty sure they did.
Dotty is weaponizing her mom friend status here in TERRIFYING fashion. Joyce is realizing she has a lot of work to do to repair the damage that just happened.
Everyone knows the Mom Friend is not to be trifled with. And Dorothy’s Mom Energy is off the charts.
Which I imagine may come in handy, considering some of the actual Moms in this comic.
Wtf Dorothy, get off your high horse.
The horse ain’t high until it’s had some of Joe’s Multivitamin Men’s Gummies™!
This is not Dorothy’s business at all and she can keep her judgemental attitude to herself.
Given how up-in-Dorothy’s-business Becky has been so far this semester, I have the strong suspicion that Dorothy has an even deeper understanding than Joyce does of just how fragile Becky’s trust is right now.
I’m not particularly sympathetic for Becky here, who pushed Joyce away the last time she tried to broach this topic. And I am *SUPER* sympathetic for Joyce’s situation for personal reasons.
But I can also empathize with Dorothy, who had to parry a billion little Christian Microaggressions from Original Flavor Joyce at the start of first semester, being none too pleased with how aggressively unpleasant Joyce’s edgelord statements were just now, and the collateral damage they’ve caused.
Kind of HOPE Joyce snaps and nearly does something prison worthy til Sal stops her and Sal tears into Dorothy. Dorothy deserves to have this thrown back into her face
Like cripes, Joyce fucked up, sure, but she DID NOT DO THAT KNOWING BECKY WAS THERE
She kept it bottled up BECAUSE she knew this would happen to Becky
She feels religion has failed her and had to deal with feeling like a bad person. Just as she starts to recover, bam, she is told something that implies she’s a bad person
You don’t tear into somebody like that when you are one of her only supports. She meeds guidance and to come to terms with her feelings as they are complicated now
She may legitimately do bad things now because, “Nothing matters so why the fuck not?”
Okay, it’s good to have this sympathy for Joyce, but do you have a teaspoon of that to spare for Becky and Dorothy?
If you walked in on someone you thought you knew saying some really repulsive shit, would you blink and say, “Huh, how about that”, or would you feel hurt?
Like, they’re human beings too and also allowed their own emotional reaction to this. Situations are not black and white, good guy vs bad guy, especially ones like this.
^yes, this, x100. It’s very weird that people are demanding that Becky and Dorothy act like Joyce’s therapists and not like normal human people with normal feelings.
Right? Everyone getting mad at DOROTHY here is insane to me. Who did Joyce freak out on nonstop over her atheist beliefs? Who respected Joyce’s belief system, who WENT TO CHURCH with Joyce, who happily discussed these things with Joyce and tried to help her? Dorothy! And yet here she is, ranting on in an awful manner.
I’ll be brave and say it. I don’t care that Joyce has religious trauma here. Join the club, get your sticker. She isn’t “venting” she is going down a self deprecating circlejerk and spewing awful things about people she supposedly loves, without any consideration of their feelings. I don’t care she didn’t know Becky was in earshot – she was saying it in front of Joe, Sarah, Liz, any of whom it could have gotten it back around back to Becky. And she was saying really awful stuff. Of course Dorothy is disappointed. Of course she is hurt by this. Who fucking wouldn’t be?
Yeah I’m not getting the Dorothy hate, she is allowed to be disappointed, but Dorothy gets yelled at for like everything….
I do have some sympathy for Becky, yes
It’s Dorothy I’m most ticked with – This was not the time to lay on the guilt. It will backfire. It mostly comes from Dorothy being on a moral high a lot, however – If she didn’t have that, then there wouldn’t be a hypocritical edge to it that really drives me up the wall. Only way I will retract this is if this ended up being caused by her own stress laid on by Becky being obnoxious at times
Yes, I do. But it’s no more than a teaspoon because of what they came here to do. They heard Joyce was spending time with a new friend and came here to prosecute a rivalry and drive Joyce and Liz apart.
There’s sympathy to go round. Also plenty of blame to go round.
It seems like a lot of people are missing the point that talking shit about someone behind their back isn’t any better just because you don’t intend for them to hear it. Like, yeah, Joyce is talking more about herself than anyone else here, but Becky has no way of knowing that. Becky thinks she just learned her best friend has no respect for her or her beliefs.
“I’m sorry that I said all religious people are stupid. I didn’t intend for you, my religious friend, to hear that!”
Yeah, imagine this had been pretty much any other category. “I thought I had a sympathetic audience and didn’t expect any of my other friends to hear.”
It felt more like Joyce was shit talking herself – It all seemed directed internally. Having dealt with self loathing over feeling stupid and how I should have known better before, it feels that’s the angle, and why I think Becky should get an apology later, when Joyce has recovered from the shock
Was going through shit myself last night so my points weren’t the clearest or most empathetic, but it’s that part and Dorothy’s tendency to high ground that are ticking me off – Joyce did not need that now. Later, yes, as tearing herself down is also unhealthy, but not now when her emotions are clearly raw
Dorothy will be dealing with the fallout from this for a while, some irritation is pretty understandable.
Got a lotta balls to just dip after that. An entire STATES worth of balls.
Well those were some pretty powerful men’s gummy vitamins she took, she’s clearly all kinds of altered right now.
Just walk out. If it sucks, hit the bricks!
[NODS IN SKELETON]
*plays Aerosmith’s “Rag Doll” on the hacked Muzak*
fun song
Well, just to be fair, she assumed it was just Liz, Joe and Sarah listening, and only ever wanted a safe space to process her deconversion and other issues.
But regardless, this is one hell of a mess with no easy fixes.
The state of these balls.
Am I a bad person for loving Liz?
Nah, I mean, I’m sure all of us like at least one character who drops a drama grenade and then skedaddles once it’s gone off.
A bit less mature, but she DEFINITELY wants to be elsewhere.
Like everyone else in yesterday’s comic.
Kinda disappointing how she may not be seen again after this.
I was actually kinda liking her.
Especially those adorable faces of hers!!!
I mean, I liked Mike.
Liz is Mike’s new identity (I mean, when he’s not impersonating “Jennifer”).
Naw. She is comedy gold.
And that comic timing – I like her less as a person, but I love her more as a character. So cold yet so charming.
I’m glad Dorothy said something. It’s important for Joyce to learn that the way she was talking isn’t acceptable for reasons beyond her relationship to Becky.
Yeah, not going to say it isn’t harsh, obviously, but this is honesty, and Joyce kinda needed a wakeup call.
I think this might be the first time Joyce has really actually done something really bad in a place where Dorothy had an opportunity to comment.
Like, by the time she figured out the Ethan’s-beard thing, Joyce dropped it before she could actually react. Most of the other bad stuff from Joyce has been carefully hidden away by indirection, like… Dorothy probably doesn’t know about the Jacob stuff.
Dorothy knows about the Jacob stuff. She had lunch with them when Joyce was flirting with him, she had class with Joyce when Walky was getting on her for being horny, and Joyce told her about the girlfriend lie at the Dina/Sarah birthday party.
I have gone looking and you are correct. However, I would still say Dorothy found out after Joyce had basically done what could be done to make the situation right again, so there was no further reason to encourage her to do anything but forgive herself.
That’s been a theme of their relationship. Dorothy is a conscience for Joyce, but she’s always too preoccupied with her own aspirations to really spend time on Joyce. She always finds out about the crazy hijinks after the dust has settled. Here, Dorothy’s at ground zero.
Why isn’t it right to talk that way?
Ok, telling Becky to her face that “You have to be a moron to believe what is in the bible” wouldn’t be acceptable.
But Joyce was having what she THOUGHT was a private conversation, where the only people she thought were privy were either atheist at least secular. Given the fact that she has spent her life being indoctrinated with biblical hogwash, she may want a cathartic experience of talking about how badly religion messed with her mind.
Mocking and deriding others we disagree with, even in private, is both tacky and trashy behaviour. Joyce’s demeanor and words are acrid and condescending. I wouldn’t want to spend time with anyone who would act this way, in private or not. It’s simply not acceptable.
I don’t disagree that Joyce is in the wrong here, but some viewpoints deserve mockery and derision. Not all disagreements are over reconcilable issues.
Yes but mocking a religious belief that your best friend still holds dear is still tacky and trashy.
Not disputing that.
If this private conversation is Joyce’s actual thoughts and feelings, then she thinks Becky is an idiot. While we can infer that Joyce is talking about herself, ultimately the net she’s casting does snare Becky, and that matters.
Joyce has plenty of trauma to work through, but polite society usually asks you don’t lash out at your best friend while working through it.
“I’m sorry that I said all religious people are stupid. I didn’t intend for you, my religious friend, to hear that!”
Joyce isn’t having some deep, introspective conversation about her upbringing here, she’s just going, “religious people are stupid lol”. Saying you think all Christians are dumb, while you still have friends and loved ones who are Christian, is shitty. Saying it only behind their backs doesn’t make it any better, it just makes you two-faced.
I think that line was a projection of the way she feels like she’s been ‘had’, slightly exaggerated by her getting caught up in the moment. “I feel like an idiot for believing this for so long” became “everyone who believes is an idiot”.
That doesn’t justify saying it, of course.
And that’s largely because it wasn’t a deep introspective conversation, but her feelings coming up filtered through Liz starting to mock believers and Joyce playing along, as she was doing earlier with the sex and drugs talk.
If this had come up in a different context, with someone not so openly edgy, it likely would have been directly about her feeling dumb for having believed it, rather than that being subtext behind mocking those how still do.
When the going gets tough, Liz runs for the hills.
Time to just… sink into the floor and die before things get any worse, huh.
Considering Liz’s response to the situation, I’d be surprised that Joyce ever wants to spend time with her again
i don’t know, i think Joyce absolutely loved talking trash with Liz and pretending like everything was black and white there for a minute. she may not care that Liz in some sense got her into this then bailed, as balanced against getting another hit of that sweet sweet edginess again.
Is Liz aware of the situation and bailing out or is she for real
Honestly, she’s come across as pretty oblivious throughout a lot of this. She legitimately might have no real stake in this.
She’s absolutely for real, she has no idea anything just went down. She’s had a fun day hanging out with her sister and her cool buddy Joyce and Joyce’s hot friend, everything is coming up Liz!
I disagree. While Liz may not know the details of Joyce’s relations with Becky and Dorothy, she most likely senses that the fun has stopped and that she doesn’t want to be caught up in whatever is happening.
I dunno, I read her vibe as more “Wow, bongoes are mad, huh Joyce? I gotta run but we should hang more later! Peace out!”
Like, she’s still a shithead, but she’s not a *malicious* shithead.
Honestly, if Liz doesn’t have some idea that Joyce is faking the funk on a lot of what she’s said today, then I’d expect her wisdom score must be pretty low and she is not proficient in insight.
Could be a bit of both really. I don’t think Liz knows entirely what just happened as I’m pretty sure she’s never met Becky and we don’t know if Joyce talked with her about Becky online, but I’m assuming she’s at least noticed that things just got really awkward. And it probably actually is time for her to leave anyway.
That is 100% the face of someone who realizes they’re at least 50% responsible for creating a situation and is noping out of it.
ACKCHYUALLY, Dotty, that was WAY MORE satisfying than I’ve ever thought it could be!
More disappointing than SKIPPING CLASS?
Coming from Dorothy, that’s HARSH.
(Not it it’s coming from anyone else, though.)
After your comment, I’m now getting major Hermoine vibes from Dorothy that I hadn’t noticed before.
… you’ve never noticed Dorothy’s Hermione vibes before?
(Yes, I know how you meant it, I just parsed it wrong on the first read and wanted to share the funny.)
…i’m not getting what you misread, to me it sounds like you’ve just rephrased cbwroses’s statement as a question?
which btw i also hadn’t made the connection between Dorothy & Hermione but now i do and so, i don’t get the joke!
Let’s just say that when the first Harry Potter movie came out, the toy stores included vibrating broomsticks that were unexpectedly popular with teenage girls. I’m sure you can extrapolate from there…
omg i wasn’t aware of that, some of the amazon reviews are so funny, like
GREAT TOY!, June 11, 2002 – Amazon.com Reviewer:
“My 12-year-old daughter is a big Harry Potter fan and loved the part with the Nimbus 2000, so I decided to buy her this toy. I was afraid she would think it was too babyish, but she LOVES this toy. Even my daughter’s friends enjoy playing with this fun Harry Potter broomstick toy. I was surprised at how long they can just sit in her room and play with this magic broomstick! A great buy for any Harry Potter fan!” Ashley from TX
Excellent!, June 11, 2002 – Amazon.com Reviewer: “When my 12-year-old daughter asked for this Nimbus 2000 vibrating broomstick for her birthday, I kind of wondered if she was too old for it, but she seems to LOVE it. Her friends love it too! They play for hours in her bedroom with this great Harry Potter broomstick toy. They really seem to like the special effects it offers (the sound effects and vibrating). My oldest daughter (17) really likes it too! I recommend this for all children.”
I initially misread it as “I never got Hermione vibes from Dorothy ever until now”, and then I read it again as “I wasn’t getting Hermione vibes from Dorothy in this particular comic until now”, and now you posted and I’m wondering if maybe it was the first one after all.
Uh oh
We passed “uh oh” a long ways back.
Why is Joe the Confused Travolta meme?
That’s Joe all throughout this arc
And Liz lost some points. She’s awfully thoughtless. I’m getting how Sarah can be iffy about her. Sure, she doesn’t have context but this is your online friend that you’ve known for a bit and you were hanging out for a while.
Oh well. I’m sure she won’t be a major character to see again.
You don’t ned context to take a look at Joyce’s face and, I don’t know, ask if she’s okay at least.
Liz is being shitty.
I’m kind of surprised people are mad at Dorothy here. This is a lot more than Joyce just working out her feelings and insulting Becky in the process.
This is also that Joyce hid her process from Becky and went to a stranger to work through her feelings instead. And this is the fact that just last night she was using what Becky thought was their *shared* religious beliefs to comfort Becky about missing her dead mom. Now, Joyce is effectively saying that Becky is an idiot for coping with her grief by believing her mom is in heaven.
Yes, Joyce needs to process this. I’m not sure processing it with someone who doesn’t have any investment in her other friendships and relationships is a great option though.
Cosigned.
More like Dorothy isn’t helping here. If Joyce looked smug and uncaring? Yeah, give her a verbal smack.
Joyce looks aghast. Assuming Dorothy can see her face, it’s just rubbing it in.
As a mutual friend of both Becky and Joyce, who will likely have to deal with the emotional fall out of this by nature of being Becky’s roommate, and the person who respectfully helped Joyce work through some of her Religious Issues from the start of the school year, yeah Dorothy is fully within the right to be disappointed.
If you walk in on someone who you thought was your best friend calling you an idiot to a stranger you are allowed to be upset about it!
And if you walk in on someone who you thought was your best friend calling another one of your friends an idiot to a stranger you are ALSO allowed to be upset about it!
Joyce has a lot to process and a lot of issues to work through but that doesn’t give her a blanket pass to be a dick.
Methinks Joyce needs a good therapist to process her feeling that *she* used to be an idiot for believing all those things. She needs some compassion too, but it leads to misunderstandings if you process all those awkward painful feelings in public. Liz is not the right person to process with! Or at least not in public. Holy cow.
I love that Dorothy said this. This is Good Dotty Content, and I retroactively retract any scoffing comparisons to any extremely centrist political figures I may have put on herz
This is Dorothy being ironclad about ethics and Doing The Right Thing. She knows what Joyce says was fucked and she’s saying it rather than coddle her. She still cares about Joyce, but she’ll tell a girl the truth, too.
Respect, Dorothy Keener.
People are mad because they saw themselves in Joyce’s venting and now they’re being chastised.
y u p
A lot of people seem to miss the point that talking shit about your friends is still bad even if you don’t intend for them to hear it. Or even if you “don’t mean it”.
Like, that’s the definition of being two-faced.
I feel like a lot of people are giving Joyce a pass because they agree with her and Liz’s rant, tbh.
This, also, is correct
I’d say it’s different if by ‘don’t mean it’, you’re literally not talking about them. Joyce was clearly talking about herself – due to the kind of talk she was having with Liz, the language used could have applied to Becky, but I think it’s fair to say that’s not what Joyce was talking about or meant.
Or, those of us who have also torn into ourselves, realize she was tearing herself down. I have nearly committed suicide over this sort of stuff
So yeah, instead of trying to help the depressed, self loathing girl, let’s all dogpile
Yeah, I see why I am pissed over this. Because in my eyes, this would be like coming to me at my lowest and going, “Woah, that’s not like you, what’s wrong?” it’s instead going, “You’re a piece of shit” and then discovering me dead the next day from slitting my throat
I hope Willis locks comments for a while, I’m genuinely pissed with MANY commenters right now and this is going to devolve into bad places soon
Good point about Joyce’s self-loathing, and the cruelty and danger of chastising her while she is feeling awful her herself.
Dorothy is being a sanctimonious prig.
Sure. I’ve also nearly committed suicide after tearing into myself for years. Still on that edge, frankly, though I’m better at not thinking about it. I’ve also been a zealous Christian fundamentalist. I’ve also walked away from that.
I’m not angry at Dorothy, because I don’t actually know where Dorothy’s coming from here. Hopefully, she’ll tell us next strip.
I don’t see a dogpile. From the commenters, yes. But not from Dorothy. Quite frankly, you want a dogpile, wait for Sarah to chime in.
+1. Man, I wish there was a like/dislike system here.
The last time we saw, in-comic, that Joyce tried to broach the issue of her doubts about her faith with Becky, at the pre-timeskip birthday party, Becky totally shut her down. And Becky has done nothing to indicate that she’d be, like, understanding about this? She loves Dina, but she’s never really shown that her stance on atheism as ridiculous has changed, and has demonstrated on numerous occasions that her and Joyce having a shared religious background is important to her. Why would Joyce have gone to Becky about this? It isn’t a conversation Becky seemed particularly open to, or one that she would receive well.
Joyce calling all religious people stupid is probably more of the problem than Joyce not believing in religion. Plus, in-universe, Joyce just used their “shared” religion to comfort Becky about her dead mom literally the day before this. Now Becky thinks that the entire time that happened, Joyce was just thinking she was a huge idiot.
Considering how Becky reacted the previous time Joyce came close to talking about her problems with her former religious beliefs, I’m can’t blame Joyce for hiding her atheism from Becky and talking about it with people she’s sure will be more understanding first.
https://www.dumbingofage.com/2019/comic/book-10/01-birthday-pursuit/beeessin/
The last time Joyce even poked at the idea of this subject with Becky, Becky essentially said that Joyce’s feelings were stupid and that she should get over it and go back to believing in god. If Becky is going to shut down Joyce’s feelings like that then Becky doesn’t have any right to be upset when Joyce starts hiding her true feelings from her and maybe even resenting her for it.
Dorothy can be *hurt* that Joyce decided to talk about this to a stranger and not her friends, but being disappointed is bullshit. Joyce doesn’t *owe* her or Becky some kind of first right pf refusal for crises.
^ This ^
God Dorothy can be so annoying. First of all it was none of your business in the first place if she skipped class, second it isn’t Joyce’s fault if someone OVERHEARS her say something negative about a religion she just got out of that’s been insanely traumatic to her. Like she might owe Becky an apology but why is it Dorothy’s instinct to pile on the judgment when Joyce clearly already feels bad??
Right?! THANK YOU!
Timeline wise from Becky’s point of view just the night before Joyce was comforting her by using their “shared” faith to tell her that her mom is watching over her. And now Becky is hearing her oldest and closest friend mock those very idea and anyone who believes in them.
Whether or not someone is meant to hear it, if you call someone an idiot (or imply it) they are going to be hurt if they hear that.
Oh god, yesterday was Becky’s mom’s birthday, I forgot about that.
Yeah, this scene hits even harder in that context.
Sure, but that’s for Becky and Joyce to work out, not for Dorothy to scold her over. It’d be one thing for Dorothy to intervene if Joyce refused to apologize to Becky, but it literally just happened! For me that’s a little out of bounds.
If I said something that cruel about a core belief of a friend of mine, I truly hope my other friends would tell me off. Dorothy thinks highly of Joyce, and Joyce just showed her ass in a way that’s bound to come off as hypocritical considering how much Joyce hated being mocked for her religion a few months prior. Friends aren’t, like, disinterested passers-by.
Dorothy’s intervention here is “I think that was shitty of you”
She is stating an opinion. That’s allowed.
I mean, Dorothy’s allowed to be disappointed, and hearing your friend shitting on your other friend’s beliefs is disappointing, and hurtful.
Someone else would have said “Wow Joyce, that was mean” or even “Wow Joyce, you’re mean”. Dorothy being Dorothy, she made an effort to articulate it not as “Joyce, you’re X” but as “this behaviour triggered feeling X in me (and possibly other people around you)”. I think it’s not a bad reaction, when you take into account the fact that right now, it’s anything but unreasonable to be disappointed and/or hurt.
I mean if we were going to do the “ Its none of your buisness” game, then it wasnt Becky’s buisness Joyce was making new friends and invited herself over… Dorothy is allowed feelings and opinions
Ugh. I got a feeling this is gonna take some time to resolve. It’s gonna be salt, salt, salt, all around for these ladies until a parent decides to plant a bomb in the school or something and they realize their petty misunderstandings mean nothing in the grand scheme of things.
i mean, there’s hardly any problem a good bombing won’t help de-prioritize.
Dude! Spoilers.
Joyce, if you get any greener, I think Kermit’s gonna have an initiation package for you.
Be proud of your flippers, and the flies you can catch,
And the logs that you leap and the eggs you will hatch,
We’re under the stars and we’re smaller than men,
But you don’t have to deal with your best friend’s disappointment if you’re one of the frogs in the glen!
*Bagpipes*
… I have very, very few opportunities to bring up one of my favorite Sesame Street songs. I take them when presented.
Don’t make me sing ‘Rubber Ducky’.
And I applaud your willingness to see your chances!
This may actually be some of the most teenager behaviour I’ve seen over this series.
Joyce is in a place where she can express newfound beliefs, until someone overheard them.
Dorothy expressing disappointment when she can (presumably) see Joyce’s expression doesn’t help, just rubs salt in the wound.
Liz bailing when she sees the damage she’s caused by the waltz.
Joe and Sarah being uncomfortably in the middle.
Yes it is. I find it quite interesting looking at this after ten years and realizing how immature these characters still are. Like it’s easy to take sides on this one way or the other but basically everyone in this situation except maybe Joe and Sarah have acted like a unique flavor of asshole.
Eleven years our time, but less than six months have passed for the characters.
The first strip takes place in late August, the rooftop finale scene was mid to late October, then there was the off-screen time skip, and now it’s mid-January.
There are some pretty juvenile moments (Jennifer and Asher’s We’re So Mature Now thing last storyline was impressively ‘oh, you sweet children. No.’ in its 19-year-old naivete,) but yeah, everyone in this one is very much being a disaster teenager.
Including Joe and Sarah, who have done nothing wrong (Sarah’s not her sister’s keeper and both of them seem to have been bowled over by Joyce and Liz playing off each other and amplifying in ridiculousness and Newfound Atheism Assholery,) but were in the very awkward position of Not Wanting To Be Here But Unable To Leave.
So much disaster. So little time.
Yup. The comic is truly living up to its name this week.
That Joe and Sarah are the adults in the room says everything about how dire the situation is. By the way, all this storyline points to a closer relationship between both of them, at least as a big bro/big sis team, but maybe Willis is brewing something more radical here.
So is this JoyceFreakOutFace in lieu of the old JoyceFreakOutFace, or just a the a preliminary to the standard JoyceFreakOutFace?
https://www.dumbingofage.com/2010/comic/book-1/01-move-in-day/femurs/
That freak out face was pure fear. Femurs are semi-required to live. This freak out face is, I believe, a mixture of fear and shame.
I preferred the old Joyce freakout faces. They were funny, while this one is more sad.
Damn, Liz ruins Joyce’s life and bounces.
Nicely done.
Liz did nothing wrong.
Even bailing is not wrong, although she could do better. Maybe Sarah will tackle her before she leaves.
I don’t know. Liz’s whole transparent “I’m such a cool rebel” shtick is pretty lousy to start with and led into this whole mess.
oh man I told myself I was done with commenting but:
get her ass, Dorothy, I have never loved you more
But like, gently, I think Joyce feels awful enough on her own.
Sometimes, people need to be reminded that being an atheist is not license to be an asshole. No position on faith is. Period.
And, yes, mocking a friend behind their back? Primo asshole territory right there.
I don’t think Joyce was talking about Becky at all. Just all those other “Christian” goobers that she doesn’t personally know.
I think Joyce was mocking herself, the way she used to be.
Yeah, that’s also my read on the situation. She’s being so harsh, because she’s thinking about parts of herself that she feels embarrassed about. It’s unfortunate that her mockery could be equally applied to people other than herself, and that’s always kind of a risk with self-deprecating statements like that. But like… I thought it was pretty clear, at least to the reader, that that’s what Joyce was doing. She’s never been half as harsh in her judgement towards other people, as she is towards herself.
Ah, Becky is one of the “good ones”, then?
Its… complex.
If an atheist thinks “I myself was silly to believe a bible written by sheepherders 2 millennia ago is relevant/accurate”, then you are implying that anyone else who believes in that bible is likewise silly. From a logical point of view, you can’t disbelieve ANY religion without casting at least some negative views about the believers in that religion.
When someone decides to abandon specific beliefs, it’s nothing unusual to be a lot harsher on those beliefs (and those who hold them) than people who never held them at all. It’s classic “Wasn’t there, guv” behaviour. Having to prove to yourself that you’re reaaaally not a part of it anymore.
I think we can allow her some time to bounce back to a more reasonable “not my belief but you do you” stance, right now she’s still reeling from leaving a cult that would gladly have killed her and her friend for doing so.
The fact that said friend managed to leave the cult while still retaining part of the beliefs changes nothing.
Similarly, you can’t believe in any one religion without implying some negative views about other religions. Many Christians consider John 3:16 to be the most beautiful expression of a beautiful truth — but to a devout Muslim it is a shocking blasphemy. Other people’s religious views include the belief that our views are wrong, and we can’t take offence at that without disrespecting their beliefs.
We all have to come to terms with the fact that most other people hold various negative views of our religious beliefs, and just all chill out about it. Respecting other people’s religious beliefs includes respecting their belief that our beliefs are horribly wrong.
That’s true to an extent, but phrasing matters. You can describe your own disbelief without mocking those who believe, while still being honest about it.
You can even talk about how you now feel foolish for having believed those things, without mocking those who still do.
What Comic.phile said. Joyce wasn’t mocking anyone but herself, not yet. Like, remember that this is Joyce, whose entire reason for a shaken faith is because she cares about others so much.
Out of context, yes. What she said is pretty terrible. She shouldn’t have said it. She needed to, but that need could have been met in other ways: ways that she effectively denied to herself.
But you don’t become an asshole by being angry with yourself. You become one when you take it out on others. She hasn’t done that.
Except she was mocking others.
While I’m sure that Joyce was thinking about herself and her past beliefs, she was using language that targeted others, likely to distance herself a bit from the self mockery. Laughing at those who still believe as you used to is a way of addressing your own feelings about having believed that, but not doing so as directly as talking about how you feel about it.
Her phrasing uses “I”, but in the context of taking on a character to mock, not directly referring to herself.
I’d say that using a character to mock yourself is still about yourself. THAT SAID, Becky and Dorothy can’t be expected to know that and I’m hoping some explaining and contextualizing is upcoming. Knowing Joyce, it’ll also include an apology for hurting Becky, accidental or not.
But by doing so you’re expanding the mockery to everyone who matches the character. That’s the problem with it.
It CAN do that, especially if the person who hears you doesn’t realize what you’re doing, but in this case I find it hard to read as Joyce referring to anyone but herself. Not that Becky or Dorothy could be expected to understand that.
And I find it very hard to read it that way. I think she’s channeling her own feelings, but reading her words, I don’t get “I was an idiot”, I get “believers are idiots”. She’s projecting it outwards because she’s not comfortable enough in this context to admit her own feelings about having believed.
And I can’t read it any other way. It sounds like “I was an idiot” to me. She’s putting it in this ‘look at me’ phrasing because it’s what Liz was doing, but those are her feelings about herself. I think if, say, Sarah asked her if she felt that way about Becky, she’d have said no.
You know, I feel like that’s really fucking uncalled for. Joyce went through some really traumatic stuff, and she’s still reeling from it. She never would have said that stuff to Becky’s face. She wasn’t talking about Becky, she was talking about *herself.* And she should be allowed to vent and work through things to people.
I mean…I might not tell my friend that I hate her haircut but if I tell other people I have to be prepared that she might hear it and be upset.
Not intending someone to hear the rude things you are saying does not absolve you of blame if they hear it and are upset. It’s just a lesson to think before you speak.
Is Joyce being THAT rude though? Becky basically told Joyce she had no right to voice her real feelings. Becky stated directly that because Joyce hasn’t been through as much as Becky has then Joyce doesn’t have the same place to be as critical or angry at the religion thus basically commanding Joyce to maintain a religion equivilant to Becky’s level.
Joyce cares about her friend thus doesn’t externally voice these feelings until they come bubbling out.
Both characters have been through alot of unique trama but Becky has perhaps unwittingly cut Joyce off from voicing or dealing with her trama thus you end up in this type of situation.
This is how religion works though it commands you always act in a certain way or another will be offended. This would almost be more akin to not just disliking your friends haircut but your friend commanding that they always cut your hair.
Joyce was definitely being pretty thoughtless, but she wasn’t actually directly talking about Becky. To follow your analogy, it’s more like saying you hate bangs and then your friend with bangs walks in. To me those things aren’t on the same level!
To stretch the analogy a little further, she’d cut off her bangs and is saying “Oh look at me, I have bangs, I think I look so pretty” when her friend with bangs walks in.
While it’s definitely directed at herself underneath, on the surface level she’s mocking all believers, which definitely hits her best friend.
The analogy does not really work tho. Because as Comic.phile said this is not Joyce talking about Becky behind her back.
Yes it is something she and Becky used to share but she is talking about how she feels about her own former believes. And for the first time she met somebody who understands her because they are ex fundie to. Did she get riled up? Yes. Did she take it to far? Maybe. But her fustration and hurt are very understandable.
Sure, the thing is it comes off as her mocking Becky behind her back.
So it’s a misunderstanding and we readers have no reason to be super angry, but Becky has all the reasons in the world to be hurt and angry, and Dotty to be disappointed, because they’re not us readers.
^^^^ Bingo.
This this this, a hundred times this. Joyce is talking about herself. She is viciously mocking and beating up on her own past self, because she is angry at herself for ‘letting herself’ be deceived and manipulated, and for the things she’s said and done in support of her former beliefs. This is not something she could do with her actual friends, because they would try to comfort her, and she doesn’t want to be comforted right now, but Liz’s presence and attitude gives her the perfect excuse to do so with no one stopping her. Until she causes collateral damage.
Weird thought, but I wonder if Dorothy used to be anything like Liz, and now she’s worried about Joyce falling into that same trap.
I doubt it? IIRC, Dorothy was raised in a non-religious manner, where faith was shown to her at points but she wasn’t told to believe in any way, she was allowed to explore and discover her own path to faith.
While there’s exceptions all over the place, that tends not to create the kind of baggage needed for the sort of lashing out that Joyce and Liz were doing, where you start to associate non-belief as a mark of superiority.
That said, definitely can see Dorothy having bad experience dealing with that sort of Atheist, where “being an atheist” is a moral righteousness that must be expounded upon and preached to all believers everywhere…
Personally, I doubt it. Joyce being as… extra as she is here is clearly coming from a place of genuine hurt and anger over having ever believed things as horrible as she did. Dorothy was raised areligiously, so there was probably never anything in her own past for her to be this angry about having believed.
Sarah have you ever considered bullying your sister more
Sarah could you please bully your sister now please
So it looks like it’s gonna fall to Sarah and Joe to help Joyce work through this
Seems likely.
I mean, both of them hate Drama and Feelings, but they also have that annoying streak of caring (about Joyce in particular), which means it keeps happening no matter how they try to avoid it.
Part of me hopes one of them calls Becky out for how she’s treated Joyce
What, such as trying to drive off any new friend that Joyce makes?
A lot of people keep talking about Liz being so willing to dip after everything that’s happened. But guys, Liz thought that vitamin gummies were edibles, I don’t think she has any idea what’s going on.
Plus, there is the possibility that she really does have to leave. She doesn’t have her own vehicle, and missing a ride to school might be problematic for her.
Thank you. It’s important to recognize that while Liz is an edgelord, she is also a dumbass.
You’re saying she can’t read Joyce’s face?
She might recognize that something’s going on… and that she has no idea what it is, and no stake in it.
That first panel today shows she can.
She might not even know that Joyce has been lying to her about being out as an atheist. Sexually active with Joe. A drug-user.
Perhaps Liz is enough of a ditz to belief the only evidence she has been presented with.
I suspect she believes Joyce just about as much as Joyce believes her and for much the same reasons.
Interesting to see how many people are defending Joyce’s temporary descent into toxic behavior. Because what the past few comics have shown is not someone who is starting the path to healing.
It is someone who was starting on the path to being the flippant a**hole that Liz has just shown herself to have become.
Joyce does need to ‘decompress’ what she is feeling, but she also needed the wake-up call that flipping to the juvenile level of mockery displayed by Liz which she was copying isn’t going to solve things, and how harmful that attitude can be.
The amount of people here who think that toxic language is totally fine if you believe the people that you’re talking about can’t hear you… really disturbing.
She was talking about herself though?
She was directing her feelings at herself, absolutely, but her actual words were directed at others.
Her actions are understandable, but not acceptable.
I’ve seen a bunch of people saying this.
Do you think she literally was talking about herself? Or that like Madock345 says the words were directed at others, even though her own feelings are underpinning them.
I don’t see how to read the language otherwise, but enough people have said it that I’m wondering if we’re just reading it very differently.
To me it seemed like she was hating on herself for believing that God loved her and how stupid she felt for believing that personally, I know I went through that phase when I lost my faith 🙁
That’s probably true, but not quite what I was asking. That’s likely the motivation behind what she said, but I read the actual language as mockery of believers not of herself.
I think that the “I/me” she used in “Look at me. I believe in God. I’m an idiot”, while it is expressing her feelings about her past belief, isn’t literally talking about herself. It’s speaking from the point of view of a stereotypical believer. (Sort of, since the believer wouldn’t call themselves stupid for it.) It’s actually a parallel to what her kind of fundamentalist churches often do with atheists or evolutionists.
She’s literally talking about herself yeah.
I have no idea how any of you are reading it otherwise. As in I physically cannot grasp how anyone read those strips where Joyce is being contrasted to Liz actually doing that exact thing, and Joyce specifically reflects on her own old views and upbringing and brings up the danged sky sea as anything but an indicator of “this is what Joyce Brown used to believe.”
Yeah, so we are reading it completely differently. I can’t read it your way either.
I mean, sure on one level she is talking about herself, but she’s doing so indirectly. Sure, she’s using examples from her faith – but why wouldn’t she? That’s what’s familiar to her.
She’s essentially saying “religious people are stupid” as a way to deal with her own feelings of being stupid for being religious, but she’s still saying “religious people are stupid”. If that’s what Becky hears, it’s not surprising how she reacts. If that’s what Joyce thinks of her, that’s going to hurt. A lot.
I don’t think it is actually what Joyce thinks of her, but I do think it’s what she says.
Joyce only thinks Becky is stupid for believing in God the way Dorothy and Dina as atheists think any theology is wrong.
It’s not about Becky. It’s not about anyone other than Joyce.
That’s probably right about what she really thinks.
In my view, it’s not what she said and it’s definitely not what Becky heard.
What do words mean if the feelings you are conveying through them are separate from “what is actually being said”?
And it doesn’t really matter what Becky heard. Becky is irrelevant to why Joyce thinks the way she does.
Becky being upset that her lifelong best friend/emotional anchor/object of permanent unrequited love/actual savior from homelessness made a sudden and jarring shift from what Becky views as deeply personal to her, to the point where Joyce just said “yeah I don’t think your mom is in Heaven” and Becky needs Joyce to think that? Yeah that’s fine.
But they’re separate conversations and we’re using the same words to have like five of them at once.
One can be upset about something and say a thing that they don’t really mean, right? The feeling is there and valid, but the words that come out go farther or say something different.
But again, I read her as broader mocking of religious people generally, not just as about herself, even if it’s her feelings of being foolish for believing that are driving her to say them. She’s getting into the mocking of believers as cover because it’s easier to say than to say “I feel like I was an idiot.”
We read that differently, so obviously we’re going to have different takes on it.
I think she thinks “I feel like I was an idiot”, but once it was goaded out of her and she got caught up in the moment, that projection got extrapolated to “how could those idiots believe in something so stupid”.
I decided to double check when this started and Joyce does say “believing it does seem kinda silly. I guess you’re not dumb anymore if you’re now entirely rational” in response to Liz saying her atheism makes her a brain genius.
So I’m coming at this from the opposite point. That was projection, that was more “Joe and I did the sex because we’re friends with reward programs while smoking the mary jane” and once she got into specifics in the following two strips that’s when it became lashing out at her upbringing and all the bullshit she was taught.
Joyce’s complaints are too specific to her lived experience, juxtaposed with Liz’s incredibly basic “God is dumb lmao” takes.
People defend Beckys rudeness all the time, they bitterly defended Joyce when she wooed a taken man too. Shouldnt be that surprising.
People will make excuses for characters they like when said characters do awful things. Instead of just owning the fact that they did a bad thing and that sucks, lots of people will explain away a justification for the bad thing. They might even blame the victims harmed by the bad thing. Like how dare the other character be disappointed and say something.
I see that all the time with this webcomic’s comment section.
It’s right up there with “Oh you’re mad at Becky/dislike something she’s doing? OKAY HOMOPHOBE”
x.x
Character conflict works like Dragon Ball Z where you can objectively measure which character is correct by how much you like them.
Joyce had a bigger power level than Raidah, ergo it was fine that she totally snaked her way into Jacob’s life as his fake girlfriend.
Becky and Dorothy are Pure Wholesome Smol Beans, therefore Joyce is wrong and can go to hell.
Does seem that way sometimes, but I like Joyce and think Raidah’s a nasty piece of work and still thought Joyce was way out of line with Jacob. Mostly liked how that arc played out – especially with the later revelation about Joyce’s mental state at the time. The “atheists can do anything” bit.
I like Joyce, as well as Becky and Dorothy, but I think Joyce is screwing up here. Understandably perhaps, but not purely in the right as some seem to think.
My issue is Dorothy tried that now. Right now, Joyce needs some assurance – She’s already clearly affected by fucking up with Becky. I honestly see her going, “I am a bad person. Becky and Dorothy think so. I have no friends” etc. and potentially going off the deep end
Yes, she needs to apologize later – even though it was by accident, she still did hurt her friend (hopefully it teaches Becky to stop being entitled to folk’s time, however), but right now she needs to be taught this was a mistake, not have her Christian Guilt get hammered
@Icalasari And the two people that Joyce is close with in the room can’t do the same? Why should the onus be solely on Dorothy? And why she shouldn’t be disappointed in her friend’s behavior and call it out? She can say her piece then decide to assist with this blow up.
Remember, Dorothy doesn’t know Joyce is an atheist. She just heard her say something deeply hurtful and completely out of character for the person she thought she knew.
https://memes.getyarn.io/yarn-clip/2be79cff-c1ff-4480-959e-b43c632e2247
I’m going to be nice to Liz and read that as a panicking plus “thank god I’m out of here” grin and not a “I’m leaving and I don’t care about what just happened to my ‘friend'” grin
Option C: it’s a “I’m the Joker and I’m leaving Harley to be caught by Batman” grin.
entirely likely
I feel a connection to joe on a primal level here.
Dorothy isn’t helping here, but of all the options for how to handle this situation, she doesn’t have the necessary life experience to understand it.
Dorothy has been an atheist all her life, and has been raised to be kind and respectful of everyone’s beliefs, so OF COURSE she’s going to be down on anyone talking shit about other peoples’ beliefs.
The fact that she doesn’t understand the whole “how could i have believed such stupid bullshit/everyone i trust lied to me!” is part of deconversion – because she’s never had to deconvert out of religion. Or knew anyone else who did, apparently. So yeah, she’s not helping. She doesn’t know how.
On the bright side, she IS staying in character; and hasn’t become an annoying author-insert, so the story’s intact at least.
Speaking from experience, it is not a required part of deconversion.
But no, I don’t think Dorothy would actually be of much help for deconversion, either.
I think Dorothy could be helpful in deconversion if Joyce were capable of being fully honest with her and not putting her on a weird pedestal full of unresolved one-way sexual tension.
Which is to say, you’re right, she wouldn’t be helpful.
Well, if deconversion has to involve dumping on believers, Joyce is going to be losing some friends over this.
If on the other hand, she could keep it focused on “how could I have believed” rather than “everyone who believes is stupid”, then she’s got a better chance.
I think this is one where Joyce may genuinely need the space to talk about religion, possibly in some really unflattering ways… but that space should have been with a therapist experienced in religious trauma, who could push back on the edgelord ‘how dumb is anyone for believing’ and unpacked that to the underlying ‘I feel dumb, myself, for believing this.’ (And also likely wouldn’t be egging her on with the zeal of the likewise-recently deconverted the way Liz is.) Said therapist would also be a confidential space where there’s no chance of her religious friends hearing the unfiltered trauma reaction Joyce is having here – yeah, it’s a garbage statement to say even if Becky doesn’t hear it, but it’s also pretty clear that it’s not straightforwardly ‘what Joyce thinks about religious people’ and it can help to say the shitty thing out loud with someone who’ll challenge that without judging so you can reach the ACTUAL belief that’s covering. Joyce probably wouldn’t have said it quite that way with a therapist to begin with, but I can see Becky also taking ‘how stupid was I for believing?’ badly since it implies those who still believe are also and still stupid. (To which a good therapist could say ‘you’re not stupid for taking every word of the Bible as absolute, inviolable truth when every adult in your life told you it was.’ Which note, Becky doesn’t believe, and which has clearly been a key factor in Joyce’s faith breaking rather than bending – Joyce spent a lot of time and energy and anxiety reconciling contradictory statements so that Absolutely Everything could be correct, and so removing one pillar brought the whole Jenga tower crashing down.)
The problem is, the campus therapists aren’t very good and so Joyce has been sitting on this shame and anger and realizing she DOESN’T like the idea of ‘we’re all imperfect except Jesus, who died for us because He Knew Better’ for months. And that’s let it fester, too, which made it more liable to come out in pretty explosive (and therefore terrible) ways. Liz is the cool new recently-atheist girl she wants to impress, sure, but also, Liz will leave. (As she does here.) Which makes her lower-stakes (so Joyce thought) for starting to talk about all of this stuff she’s been keeping pent-up… but another recently-deconverted person isn’t going to be the best sounding board for your messy feelings about religious trauma, because they may ALSO be working through some messy feelings about religious trauma, and it’s really easy to enter a self-sustaining feedback loop of increasingly shitty statements you might not actually support when you think about them as more than messy angry id.
None of which makes the statements less shitty, but saying them out loud to someone who’ll ask ‘is that what you actually think? Do you think Becky’s dumb for being religious?’ can be a genuinely helpful step in going from ‘secret feelings of shame for ever believing’ to ‘saying it out loud in the most reductive, hurtful way possible because you’re hurting yourself as much as anyone who hears and you’ve been keeping it bottled up for too long’ to ‘you did and thought harmful things because the adults in your life failed you, and while that doesn’t erase the harm you may have caused other people, you were a victim here too.’ Joyce is currently in stage two. I’m skipping quite a few intervening steps. But I think she does need some kind of outside help to get her to that acceptance. Just, that outside help clearly was not Liz that she needs.
excellently put as always Regalli.
Absolutely agreed. It doesn’t even have to be a therapist, though that would likely be best. Anyone she could talk to without provoking a crisis (like Becky) or goading her farther (like Liz) would probably help a lot.
Yeah, other people could work, but I think Joyce also worries about talking openly to her friends about these things because she worries so much about what they think of her. A therapist’s not a friend, and their job says they don’t tell anyone what you told them (outside certain specific circumstances.) That might make her more comfortable than telling, say, Dorothy or Sal. (Or Booster, who’s a psychology major but whose psychoanalysis as a party trick at the hall meeting seems unlikely to build trust in the ‘whatever you say here is safe and I won’t judge you’ department. Aaaah, freshman psychology majors.)
That, and like AmbG’s self-loathing feedback loop, I think this particular issue’s reaching the point where it’s above the cast’s paygrade. Not that that’s ever stopped Willis, but still, none of these kids have great tool kits for their various traumas, much less someone else’s.
“AND DOROTHY KEENER WITH THE ASSIST, JUST DUMPING SALT INTO THE OPEN WOUND. I DON’T THINK BROWN IS GONNA PULL BACK FROM THAT ONE EASILY, FOLKS!”
Man I just kinda feel bad for Joyce here. Like, don’t get me wrong – Becky and Dotty have every right to feel mad/hurt about these nasty comments, especially Becky who Does Not Need This Right Now in Her Life – but Joyce has also been very badly hurt by fundamentalism through her childhood, and doesn’t feel like she has a lot of people to go to about this.
Dorothy is Becky’s roommate and is hard to physically catch up with due to being busy, Sarah is emotionally hard to catch up with after a certain point, Becky is a no-go, Joe has frequently claimed he can’t be relied upon for these discussions, aaaand with that we’re out of the list of people who Joyce feels she can have these deeper convos with.
While yeah, this wasn’t a kind thing to do regardless, it’s been shown multiple times that Joyce does have smaller toolkit when it comes to processing her own issues, and it tends to reliant on others, and like, I dunno. She’s not in the right but I still feel bad for her.
1. Oh snap, also forgot that yesterday was when Becky mom comfort was happening. So yeah that’s extra rough.
2. Oh lol, this is not uh, the person I imagine saying this.
Yeah, same. I’ve definitely been there. Probably not this grave of a thing, but I’ve put my food in my mouth before and that’s just never fun.
“Joe has frequently claimed he can’t be relied upon for these discussions”
I think that’s more “please don’t get me wrapped up in this” than “I can’t be there for you”. Joe’s more capable of having deep discussions with Joyce than he realizes, even when she’s doing most of the talking and he’s mostly a shoulder to lean on.
Appreciation for Joe who has carefully positioned himself to clarify that there is no Nice Guy in the room.
Oh, Joe was still here
It is his dorm room.
I am SO glad that this is what happened instead of Dorothy just being like “let’s just talk about this”/”we can fix this”/having a neutral reaction (I think most people expected something like that, including me). It’s way more interesting! Like is this helpful? No! Is she out of bounds telling her she’s disappointed? Maybe. It’s fun though
There is no recovering from this. Joyce will never forgive herself, even if Becky & Dorothy get over it (& I’m pretty sure at least Dorothy will).
An unfortunate part of deconversion can be sometimes falling into patterns and behaviours which got you through as a former believer, such as following the crowd even if the crowd is different. Towards the end it can be like wearing a mask for a while and you’re swapping between them sometimes unsure of what’s really you. And like sometimes you’re not sure yourself what’s really you or not if you’re been raised in that environment and broken away. Like some of the anger is genuine but tinged and mixed with something else at other people’s encouragement. Like sites like ex Christian.net helped me vent years ago but looking at it a few months ago now… yeesh. There are issues let’s just say I saw at a quick glance.
I’d say generally Joyce might need a therapist but like given the high likelihood of said therapist being religious personally that might also not work.
Anger in deconversion can be complicated because here’s the feeling you were lied to your whole life but the truth is everyone else believed the lie so that can get messy.
Like this comment is a mess right now but I think what Joyce has been saying is a mix of her real emotions but also tinged with the desperate of following someone as a toxic leftover of how she believed for so long too. Not really Liz’ business and Joyce is not some wee innocent led astray but it is what it is.
I feel sorry for a lot of people in this scene here and I like that, it’s good writing and not clear cut. I feel sorry for Joyce but really get everyone else’s reactions and feelings.
yes to all of this, dang
> but the truth is everyone else believed the lie so that can get messy.
On just this one part I will disagree. While likely there were some amount of True Believers, I’d say it’s likely quite a lot of Joyce’s church was made up of people who chose to ignore/propogate obvious hypocrisies because it gave them power, money, and/or excuses for their bigotries.
Big time this.
All of these can be true:
Joyce was processing genuine anger and betrayal talking with Liz.
Joyce was exaggerating her feelings and opinions to impress Liz.
Joyce was “going with the flow” Liz was establishing instead of standing up for her friends.
Joyce doesn’t feel she has many friends who she can confide in who understand deconversion.
Joyce doesn’t feel her closest friends either have emotional bandwidth to support her through this (Dorothy) or will be supportive of loss of faith and her trauma at all (Becky).
Becky is hurt by Joyce’s behavior – specifically Joyce’s mockery of her beliefs the day after her mom died.
Joyce didn’t intend for anyone other than Liz, Jacob and Sarah ( none of whom are particularly religious except in a cultural sense) to hear her.
Joyce didn’t intend to hurt Becky.
Becky feels betrayed not only by Joyce’s words but by that Joyce didn’t confide in her.
Dorothy is disappointed to see Joyce belittling their friends (including Becky, but also other religious people on the floor) and acting out to impress people she sees as cooler than her instead of accepting and owning her true self.
It’s a complicated situation and Joyce probably could benefit from therapy, and I see Joyce as probably more in the wrong than anyone else but not irredeemably so. Her actions are very understandable, as someone who went through deconversion in my teens. The first time you meet a fellow deconvert, especially as someone who has a lot of people pleasing tendencies (and Joyce DOES), you’re so desperate to connect and not feel alone you can very easily overlook toxic beliefs & behavior.
And tbh even Liz is understandable here because once you finally break the seal on it, especially if you come from a super religious environment where they’d rather you be a sex offender than an atheist (literally, the parent of one of my classmates who I had thought of as a friend at the time said as much in so many words when talking about why she wouldn’t let her kids around an atheist, people like that exist and they are not rare given how many church predators get the blind eye turned to them in communities where atheists are pariahs), it all comes erupting out, very much like Becky’s “I literally scream my orientation from the tops of rooftops” phase. Is it pretty or kind? Absolutely not. But I see a lot of my teenage self in both Liz and Joyce right now.
They both got a lot of shit to process and aren’t coping in the best way.
yeah, well put, i especially like your point re: Joyce being a people pleaser and this being a very believable way for her to connect with someone else with a similar experience, to reach for some form of community just as she’s having to lose almost everyone she grew up with.
The reality we get to see here is that Joyce, just like Becky, is supressing some serious darkness behind her sunny, friendly facade. though she’s been through this before, she still can’t believe in a moral universe where actions have consequences, because nothing in her upbringing has ever prepared her to ascribe value to her actions outside of religious rules.
in fact, she’s been primed to believe that if she were to ever leave the church she’d turn into an amoral monster. and she still believes it. so once the levee breaks, she’s convinced there is no way for her to exist as a godless yet moral person. those two things are not compatible in her worldview. faith has always been synonymous with a functioning moral filter, so no faith = no filter.
is that what we call a self-fulfilling prophecy or what…
Deeply agreed, to this whole chain. This is a situation where what Joyce and Liz were saying was obviously very shitty and Becky and Dorothy have a right to be upset, but also Joyce and Liz are clearly playing off each other and religious trauma, like all trauma, can manifest in some really ugly ways. Doesn’t make it good to say, does make it understandable, and the ugliness is often covering some further emotions that are hurting THEM as well and need a place to safely be unpacked and defused. Joyce burying the anger at her upbringing isn’t going to help her. But she doesn’t have the space or the toolkit to articulate the nuances of that anger (the energy she spent reconciling things; the anxiety making herself believe and Think The Right Thoughts caused; the anger at ALL the adults in their lives, even Hank; the fact that she now sees such a clear throughline from ‘Jesus died for our sins’ to ‘I would die for you, Becky’ that she can’t take comfort in the former; the shame of knowing she said things to Becky that probably hurt her before Joyce knew; the shame of having participated in some way in the homophobic system that hurts people like Becky), so instead we get ‘everyone who’s religious is dumb.’
it’s a disaster (well, a mess) all around, yep.
Liz Clinton has been removed from your friends.
Has Joyce lost her place in the world, and trying too hard to find a place to fit in?
That’s what I’m seeing, yes.
Well, at least Liz has enough self-awareness to know that she’s got her own bit of responsibility here and to want to flee as quickly as possible.
There are certain people who just being around them somehow induces people of certain personaliities to act in a thoughtless and hurtful way to please them. Liz is one of them for Joyce so, yeah, it may not be a good idea to continue this ‘friendship’.
So I’m guessing Dorothy thinks Joyce was selling her own faith out to make friends?
But… actually IS she aware that Joyce has been having doubts forna while?
I don’t think so, but I also think Dorothy just thought Joyce was being exceptionally rude, and whether she’s “selling her own faith out” or attacking a group she’s no longer a part of is basically irrelevent.
Dorothy is, herself, an atheist, and has always been fairly respectful of others’ beliefs. (Try to imagine Liz’s reaction to Hymie the Humming Hymnal…)
Although, as jmsr7 says above, always being an atheist means she doesn’t have much experience of what deconverting is like. (And the same goes for me.)
I think Dorothy thinks Joyce just put her foot firmly in her mouth.
Dorothy knows Joyce is having a crisis of faith, but she didn’t know she went full Reddit Atheist until now.
How long will Joyce be stuck like this?
I give it a week.
She may not be coming back
“The smiles are gone.”
Kiiiiinda want a gif of Joe flickering back and forth between his concerned/axious spectator positions
A bit harsh from Dorothy. Does she understand that most of Joyce’s comments were self-directed?
Maybe it’s me but I think that Joyce was simply saying what she’d thought would please Liz and was feeling sicker and sicker the more she dove into the false position.
I think it was a mix of both. She was saying what she thought would please Liz, realizing it applied to herself, and quintupling down on saying all of these hurtful edgy things to impress Liz … and castigate herself for her own ‘stupidity.’
No, and she hasn’t had enough time to piece it together
Someone Help Joyce! Her heart is slowly stopping!!!! To be sincere, this is a terrible situation. She was talking with a friend, others friends came, heard her and take that as a personal insult… Way too much! Joyce is broken! BROKEN!!!!
something to consider:
Becky is finding out that her “super amazing honest friend” is a. doing something she would never Ever Ever Do (as normally established) and b. making fun of a group she belongs to in the process
there’s… a number of reasons why the lesbian who dealt with recent violent homophobia would be twitchy as heck about this, and certainly even if that’s not why Becky’s reacting, it’s *certainly* why Dorothy’s reacting.
even though “making fun of Christianity” in and of itself is punching up, the tone and mockery of the comments + who Joyce’s “Christian friend” actually is + the context lying behind a lot of other stuff (Becky’s mom’s birthday the previous day) = oh boy Joyce even without intending it that way, that was Nasty.
It’s true that it’s not the most *helpful* comment, but Dorothy’s human, likes Becky (despite herself) and it sucks feeling disappointed in people especially when they startle you *that* badly
“woops I made a mess, time to eff off”
It’s a very human reaction but I do hope that Sarah tells Liz that she needs to learn to read the room in future. No encouraging people to go beyond their comfort zone.
To be fair to Liz, once it got started both her and Joyce were egging each other on, I think. If we followed Liz more, I’d bet we’d see that this was as much of a chance for her to vent about her deconversion as it was for Joyce.
Hopefully without nearly so much trauma behind it though.
I think it’s high time for both Becky and Dorothy to grow the F up and accept Joyce for who she really is and stop expecting her to be what they want her to be.
Of course, Joyce has no idea who she is, she’s right now tearing off all the layers of christianity that have bulldozed over her true character, forcing her to be a bubbly smiling nice obedient little robot.
But Becky and Dorothy have both refused to even accept that Joyce is in a process of change. So it was expected to explode into their faces one day.
Also, Becky should stop making everything about herself. Everything Joyce said was aimed at her own past self, not at Becky. And the way she didn’t even talk TO Joyce in yesterday’s strip but right over her was pretty childish and just as mean as Joyce’s unintentional insult.
Maybe I’m reading this wrong but Joyce seemed to be making a deliberate effort to hide how much she had changed from Becky and Dorothy. It isn’t their fault they haven’t figured out the thing Joyce has been hiding from them.
And this isn’t just Joyce being a different person, it’s Becky and Dorothy (not unfairly) perceiving Joyce’s words as derisively mocking Becky and the things she believes when Joyce thinks she isn’t listening.
No, no, clearly the characters are supposed to be psychic and immediately understand what’s going on even when another character is actively hiding things from them.
Joyce has tried to talk to Becky about how she feels, Becky told her it eas a dumb phase and she needed to grow up, and that she’s suffered waaaay more and hasnt lost faith.
It’s not like Joyce didnt try, but she got rebuked for doing so.
Joyce extremely has not tried to bring this up in good faith with Becky.
She has either a.) lied her beautiful little face off to Becky and pretended everything is okay now, she’s resolved her crises, or b.) lashed out in full
edgelord McLiz-style form, like she just got caught doing.
Becky rebuked her for what seemed like having a shitty attitude, not for having a crisis of faith, which she isn’t really aware Joyce is having because Joyce has been lying to her.
When did Becky say she suffered more and haven’t lost faith? I mean, she isn’t even aware Joyce actually lost hers…
Joyce has never been “a bubbly smiling nice obedient little robot”. Her faith has been part of who she is, but she had a perfectly functioning personality, which was often smiling and bubbly. At the moment, she seems to have decided that every part of her personality was a lie and she needs to destroy all of it and become the absolute worst kind of New Atheist edgelord.
Yeah, they need to grow the fuck up and act on information Joyce actively has not shared with them. Sure. Of course, how could they be so inconsiderate. 🙄
God forbid Joyce deals with the consequences of her actions and having people be genuinely disappointed and upset with her.
Maybe we are seeing the reason Joyce could not bring herself to tell these two when she could Sarah and Joe.
I think we saw the reason she didn’t tell Becky.
I’m unconvinced we’ve seen the reason she didn’t tell Dorothy.
I mean, Sarah figured it out. Maybe that’s just a result of them being roomies, but if either of these two are supposed to be her “best friend” at this point, you’d think they’d have noticed as well.
That…went poorly.
It could still be worse. Remember what Sarah said earlier to Joyce? Joyce could still break out in a “Shit shit shitty shit SHIIIIIITTTT!!!” outburst in front of Dorothy for more “It’s like I don’t even know you anymore” awkwardness. ;P
She could’ve dropped her very first F bomb back there…
I feel like there’s an unstated assumption that Dorothy and Becky are making: That Joyce was pretending to be something she isn’t to be cool. Which, I mean, she *was*, but not in the way they probably assume. And most readers probably assume that Dorothy and Becky know that, and I don’t think there’s evidence of that.
Liz read the room
Liz has read the room and Liz is out of there.
All these strips I’ve been like “This Liz sure reminds me of someone… but who?” And today I had a Panel 5 Revelation: It’s Walky!
So Becky has every right to be hurt naturally but Joyce who is just coming to terms with the fact that God jsnt real or exists probably genuinely needed to just mock it.
Not necessarily the people who still believe it though that was how it sounded.
As someone who used to be a pretty devout catholic I really relate to that. Kinda had to come to terms with the shittu things that the religion kinda had me believe which came out as mockery for it in general.
Joyce obviously doesnt think Becky is stupid, but this is one of those moments where it was more directed inward, and she has met someone who gets where she is coming from in that. I do think she needs to apologise and talk with Becky tho because it’s still hurtful.
AN IMPORTANT NOTE FOR ANYONE WHO BELIEVES JOYCE HAS TRIED TO BRING THIS UP BEFORE WITH BECKY
She has not. What actually happened there was Becky wanted help with her feelings about Dina’s sexual availability, Dorothy offered her sex-positive perspective but looked to Joyce, understandably, for a different one…
…and Joyce said, and I quote, “do WHATEVER. Everything else we were raised to believe in was a lie, so why not throw the concept of sexual purity on the pile?!”
Is it totally understandable that she said that? Sure, but it’s not honestly coming to Becky with doubts, it’s, uh, exactly the kind of shitty behavior we see doubled down on here.
This is what Becky wanted Joyce to grow out of, was this shitty lashing out.
Instead, uh, this happened.
So yeah. Dorothy is right and she should say it.
thank you for that, that was bugging me too. (here’s the scene, it’s that strip and the next)
Becky wasn’t reacting to the lack of faith, she was reacting to the edgy nihilism. She doesn’t tell Joyce to not become an atheist, she’s saying her attitude lacks nuance and compassion (a fair assessment i think).
Becky understands that, sure, you need to drop a lot of beliefs and patterns of thought, and what’s worse, cut ties with well-nigh everyone you’ve ever known, but those beliefs and that community happen to be the building blocks of your entire self at the moment. You need to at least respect that fact and treat yourself with care, or you might hurt yourself bad.
Joyce was angry so Becky treated it like it was a tantrum. You’re misreading that conversation.
No Joyce has never directly tried to talk about her lack of faith with Becky, what ended up happening at Dina’s birthday party is that Joyce briefly did not give a fuck so Becky told her it was a stupid phase she needed to grow out of.
Why the hell is Joyce not permitted the same ability to just be fucking angry about bullshit in her life? Why’s she always gotta be sunshine and sparkles and never ever inconvenience dear sweet “unapologetically me” Becky? Why are we desperate to hold a character accountable for saying deeply held feelings in a kinda angry way?
i do think ideally Becky, or better yet Dorothy, might have filed that interaction for later then made time to talk to Joyce in a peaceful moment and asked her what was going on with her faith. but they didn’t, probably, or Joyce just clammed up and pretended like nothing had changed, and here we are.
First off, can I say it’s pretty fucking rude to invalidate someone else’s reading of events because of what you’ve decided is the one true exegesis of a text, thanks? Your reading of the scene is not magically better than mine, buddy, unless you’re David Willis pulling an undercover act.
Second of all, I don’t know why you’re so desperate to defend what was literally Joyce having a Heated Gamer Moment. No one is saying that Joyce has to be sweet all the time, or even encourages her to keep, you know, lying to people she considers friends, least of all me. Is Joyce allowed to be mad at her faith? FUCK yeah. Is she allowed to ne an asshole about it, even? Sure! But the thing about being an asshole is you hurt people, even if you didn’t intend to! Intent isn’t magic! It doesn’t matter that she didn’t mean to hurt someone who shouldn’t have been there, because guess what, she did, and now she has to deal with the consequences of that, like “looking like an
And I’m sorry, I know it’s rude or whatever and it’s not letting Joyce live her new truth, but I admire that Dorothy doesn’t fucking bend her moral code backwards because this is her friend who Means Well. She has to live with them both, she cares for them both, and she’s put up with a lot (which, yeah, Becky is responsible for a bunch of minor stresses and could stand to Work On Herself, herself).
…you know that post of yours started with “hey everyone who thinks this is what happened that time Becky and Joyce talked; here’s what actually happened” right?
Anyway Joyce didn’t do anything that can be considered assholish because she’s talking about her personal relationship with faith and the only reason this is a problem now is that Becky needs Joyce to remain as she is. We know this because the last time Joyce got even slightly contemplative about her faith Becky said she was going through a stupid phase.
I said that because people were making the deeply untrue statement that “Joyce tried to share her feelings and got rebuked”, which is both a party line you managed to hew to while trying to scoff at me, AND something that never fucking happened.
She did not get contemplative. She lashed out and was a bitter jerk for understandable reasons that she completely failed to communicate.
Also, no! No, that isn’t the only reason it’s a problem! How in the world are you incapable of getting the idea that just because someone SINCERELY HOLDS THESE FEELINGS and they’re all about their personal beliefs, that shit can’t hurt someone else? Like, what the fuck part of “intent isn’t magic” don’t you get??
Yeah lashing out is getting contemplative.
And nah I’m not saying Joyce didn’t intend to hurt Becky so it’s fine, I’m saying Becky’s pain is completely out of Joyce’s hands beyond Joyce never ever affirming her lack of faith in God anymore.
If Joyce calmly sat down and said “I don’t believe anymore” Becky would still get like this.
That’s a reach so elastic Stretch Armstrong covets, but you know what, sure, at this point. Why fuckin’ not.
Lmao no she wouldn’t
lmao yeah she would
Thanks, Willis?
Gosh, I wish I could favorite or like posts.
Joyce was RIGHT in that conversation. Sexual purity IS bullshit and her community DID bullshit to them their entire lives about far too much. She’s allowed to think her community are assholes for bullshit they actually spewed and the harm it did to her, even if they were well meaning like Hank and Becky’s mom.
I get why Becky was upset there – it felt like an attack on part of her support network, and she was looking for support on one of the values she still had because she was clinging to sexual purity as a principle when she felt she’d been changing too much. That doesn’t make what Joyce said wrong though. It might not be the nicest or most charitable thing to say, but fuck it, Joyce isn’t obligated to be nice or charitable about a community that spewed harmful bullshit her whole life, however well intended they were. Becky didn’t like her answer so she got pissy. She was more wrong than Joyce was there.
THAT being said, Becky’s definitely entitled to be hurt here. I’m pretty sure that Joyce was being more literal in her use of ‘I’ than Liz was being and was using the context of the conversation (mockingly using characters) to refer to herself, but Becky and Dorothy can’t possibly know that and of course it sounds like she means….well, every believer including Becky.
You keep saying Joyce was right to attack the faith she used to share with Becky. And you keep saying it as if Joyce was arguing in good faith about sexual purity at all.
She wasn’t doing either of those things.
Joyce wasn’t talking about sexual purity. She was talking about giving up on being a moral person, at least as far as she’d been taught what morality constitutes.
First, that isn’t what I said at all. I said she was right that sexual purity is bullshit. That IS true. Were Joyce to attack faith in general, as opposed to her own, I’d say she was being overly harsh. Were she attacking BECKY, that’d be out of line. That’s not what happened in that conversation. Becky asked Joyce what she thought and when Joyce answered honestly and Becky didn’t like the answer (for understandable reasons) she got pissy.
Second, that was the OPPOSITE of her problem that day. She said that she’d been taught that being an atheist MEANT you got a get out of caring about morality free card and that that ended up being yet MORE bullshit peddled by their community. People still had feelings and she still cared about those feelings. She was upset both because she screwed up with Jacob and because she was realizing yet another cornerstone of what her community taught her – that you need faith to be a moral person – was WRONG. So, yes, she was in a bad mood that night when Becky asked what she thought and she responded that since everything else that their community taught them was bullshit, why not sexual purity? Which, while it’s not very nice, isn’t bad faith. It’s pointing out that since their community taught them bullshit, there’s no good reason to assume the need for sexual purity. And, again, even if she didn’t put it in the nicest way possible, she is correct in her instincts there. Sexual purity IS bullshit.
So here’s the thing, Dorothy sucks.
That her first instinct is to leap to judgment, as if nothing Joyce says matters and this is just one more example of Joyce needing to be handheld to adulthood, that ain’t something you say if you actually respect your friend. I can’t believe someone who’s been constantly attacked by her destructive upbringing would have the gall to say something mean about that religion. Joyce’s feelings don’t matter, actually, she’s being mean to Becky* and therefore she’s the one causing the problem.
*she wasn’t actually being mean to Becky and while Becky is certainly allowed to be deeply upset and hurt by this, she’s literally only here because she felt entitled to Joyce’s time.
But that don’t matter. It’s way more important for the lecture to kick in.
Also viewing skipping a class as worthy of disappointment is so square I’m convinced Dorothy uses a ruler for precise measurement when cutting the corners off of her mayo and cream cheese sandwiches.
Word.
Nah, Dorothy’s right, what Joyce said was kinda stupid. Understandable, but still stupid, and kind of hurtful to Becky.
The skipping class aside, because I dunno how important that actually is, doesn’t seem THAT important.
Also, saying something Joyce said was mean does not mean her feelings don’t matter. That’s not a black-and-white thing. Your feelings can be totally valid, and you can still express them badly and hurt someone else’s feelings, and that’s not okay, no matter how much you’re hurting.
Doesn’t make it any less valid that you’re hurting. Obviously both needs to be adressed.
Nothing Joyce said was stupid nor did it have anything to do with Becky.
Becky doesn’t actually matter in the specific context of “Joyce is angry at her faith.”
The only way Joyce has let down Becky is if she’s not allowed to hold beliefs contrary to those of Becky’s.
Why we gotta be so courteous to Becky hurting and not that Joyce was having a private conversation where she got to vent about her stupid bullshit upbringing with a likeminded individual for the first time in her life?
Your error is assuming that Joyce was “having a private conversation”. I think that she was actually loudly shouting things that she may or may not believe because she wanted to impress Liz ad make her like her. That’s why she’s reacting so strongly – She didn’t realise that you can hurt people by expressing angry atheism as easily as you can by loudly expressing religious dogma.
Your error is not knowing what a private conversation is.
It was a conversation that Becky and Dorothy mean nothing to. Joyce can say things contradictory to what Becky and Dorothy want to hear from her. She wasn’t fucking cutting either of them up.
Do y’all seriously, like actually legitimately, not see that Joyce saying this shit isn’t her putting a fedora on, it’s her angrily lashing out at all the bullshit she used to believe? Do you seriously think it’s as simple as “Joyce is being a mean atheist”?
No, I legitimately think it was her saying things she didn’t mean to impress Liz.
But she obviously also did mean those things because she was talking to Liz before she even got there about the detours from faith. She might be trying to impress Liz but Liz is also the only person besides Jacob and Sarah that know she’s been struggling with this atheistic turn and I’m pretty sure they see it for what it was… so Joyce was right that she can experiment and say those things for whatever reason whether it’s to try them on, impress Liz or grapple with it herself.
Go back two strips.
Liz is making super surface level commentary you’d find on a reddit shitpost. She’s mocking the existence of God itself and the belief in him as well as religious cultural practices.
Joyce? Everything she’s saying is about her and her alone.
The sky sea? Pshah!
Bad shit happens to me and God did it to teach me a lesson? lmao no
There’s a God who loves me? Fat chance of that!
How the hell is this eluding so many of you?
That you insulted them behind their back probably isn’t going to make the person you insulted feel better about themselves.
Joyce wasn’t trying to hurt Becky and probably wasn’t even thinking about her in this moment, but that isn’t how it seems to either Becky or Dorothy. Their reactions are entirely reasonable given what they know at the moment
Joyce isn’t talking about Becky.
Becky doesn’t know that. Her reaction is entirely reasonable given what she knows at the moment.
Yeah sure.
Doesn’t make Joyce wrong.
Loudly saying how people who believe in god are stupid doesn’t have anything to do with her Christian friend? Maybe, but it sure sounds like it to everyone who can’t read Joyce’s mind. Of course Becky would be hurt.
She didn’t MEAN to hurt anyone, but you don’t have to mean it to acciadentally hurt people. I mean, Becky is obviously hurt. Joyce didn’t want that, of course, she is working through her emotions and new feelings, and this *wasn’t on purpose* – Becky was never supposed to find out. That she did find out wasn’t Joyce’s fault, either.
But she still hurt Becky, and she’s gonna have to face that, and at least explain herself.
If you feel bad and lash out and acciadentally hurt someone, you still hurt someone, even if it was an acciadent. And you gotta own up to that.
You SHOULD own up to that, especially if it’s your friend.
*She didn’t mean = Joyce didn’t mean.
SHE’S TALKING ABOUT HERSELF AND HER EXPERIENCE WITH HER FAITH
SHE SPECIFICALLY CITES DUMB BULLSHIT LIKE THE SKY SEA IN CONTRAST TO LIZ MAKING REALLY BASIC COMMENTARY
GOSH
Did you actually read what I wrote, or…?
Because, again, intent does not always translate perfectly into words.
Even if she MEANT what you said, that’s probably not WHAT IT SOUNDED LIKE
TO BECKY.
OR Dorothy.
Because they don’t have the context.
That sounds like a Them problem.
Joyce hurt Becky’s feelings (quite badly) by accident, and already felt so bad about it that she looks physically ill.
Dorothy leaped to judgement without ascertaining the circumstances, when she has no authority to judge anyway. And then she laid the condescending and sanctimonious smack on a ‘friend’ who was in a vulnerable state and who in no way needed telling that she had fucked up.
While we are in “plenty of blame to go around” mode: Becky was stalking Joyce to interfere with Joyce’s socialising with anyone else, Sarah was passively enabling Joyce’s lies about Joe, and Joe was wrong not to give Joyce the lie at once and shut the damned door.
It is outrageous to me that Joyce has, unintentionally or otherwise, somehow done wrong to Becky because she said powerful feelings in a private conversation that Becky only became privy to because she’s stalking her.
Joyce is only responsible in the most surface level, uncomplicated view of morality imaginable.
Oh god damn it I thought you were responding to me. My bad.
Y’all have taught me the word “deconversion”. Us Catholic-raiseds mainly just “lapse”, ie passively ignore increasing parts of the religion while feeling slightly (or more) guilty about it.
I’m not mad at Dotty here, btw. She’s been patiently respectful of Joyce’s beliefs and related crappy treatment of others since they met. Yes, Joyce was raised in a shitty web of lies and deserves to process that with support. But also we know Dorothy is very regulating of her own emotions. I feel like this is the closest Dorothy can realistically get to expressing “I’m upset and hurt by you.” Dots is still Dumbing of Age too, even if she talks like an adult.
What I love about “lapsed” is how it inherently assumes that you’ll come back to it eventually.
The phrase I heard a lot back in my college days was “recovering Catholics”.
I’d think “lapsed” might refer more to those still nominally Catholic, but just not going to church regularly, as opposed to those who’ve actually left the religion.
“Lapsed” means “fallen”, Lucipher is a lapsed angel.
Liz is like, “Oops I stirred drama, time for a tactical retreat!”
Is incredible Joe didn’t said it first…
Well, it’s his room, would be a bit silly.
He could hide in the closet. Or slip off into the half-bath.
Having a hard time even understanding why this is a debate.
Joyce was talking about her true feelings (perhaps openly and honestly) for the first time.
And ultimatley, what does that have to do with anyone else?
She had her back to the door – so it certainly wasn’t done to *hurt* anyone.
Becky’s upset? Yeah, of course she is, she thought she knew Joyce as well as herself. So she’ll be upset, confused… but was Joyce *mean* to her?
Not remotely.
And I’m noticing Joe hovering in the background now…
This could be an interesting next few strips….
Yeah, I don’t get it. She wasn’t aiming it at Becky, but Becky’s not wrong to be upset after hearing it. Maybe she shouldn’t have said it at all, but that’s splitting hairs.
Idk maybe we shouldn’t morally condemn people for not liking the stupid bullshit their friends say, whether it was aimed at them or not.
Joyce’s feelings aren’t stupid bullshit because they have the unintended consequence of making Becky sad.
Taffy didn’t talk about feelings but words.
“Lookit me! i believe in god! i’m an idiot who thinks there’s some magical wizard who loves me”
leaving Becky out of it, wouldn’t you call that stupid bullshit on the face of it?
I don’t know how to say this in a funny and cheeky way but we use words to express feelings like “I used to believe there was a god who loved me and I don’t anymore.”
but words aren’t feelings. they will be heard differently from person to person. i guess we’re hearing Joyce’s words differently you and i, not to mention Dorothy’s words. maybe Dorothy is being a jerk, maybe not, she’s certainly being very Dorothy, and Joyce chose her as her friend for the very Dorothy-ness, i think she values her moral rectitude. but i hear you, this is a really brutal thing to say right now.
Dorothy and Joyce’s dynamic was predicate on Dorothy being Joyce’s smart wordly friend who gently guided this silly nutbar to adulthood.
Now she’s seeing Joyce grow in a way she doesn’t want.
She’s being a rect-something alright.
ok then
Ah, yes. Joyce the nutbar.
Truly you are a voice of reason.
I mean, yeah I am.
Did you miss the hundreds of strips where Joyce’s total lack of socialization outside her bubbles would throw her into constant loops?
That’s not what I said, though. I don’t personally care if Becky is upset by what Joyce said, to be honest. The specific way she’s saying it is dumb as hell to me, because it reminds me of the annoying, reactionary, contrarian kids I grew up around. Sure, she’s 18, blah, that’s the point of the comic. Whatever, it’s still irritating in this instance, and I don’t think Dorothy having a problem with hearing her friend act like an edgy little asshole is a moral failing on her part. That’s all I’m saying, here. It’s an annoying behavior and I’m not about to send a character to Twitter Jail for disliking it.
How’s she being edgy in any of the stuff Dorothy and Becky have overheard?
Idk, going “Look at me, I’m an idiot who thinks a magical wizard loves me” feels pretty teen-edgy. And I’m not saying she’s not entitled to be an ass about it or nothin’, but it can still be irritating to listen to.
Okay but that is literally what Joyce was.
Like Joyce was the actual person edgy teenage atheists think of when they say that line.
More specifically, the magical sky wizard loving her is the important part: Joyce is bitter and resentful that she believed an all-powerful being loved her unconditionally and she lived according to that, until eventually she realized she never heard God’s voice when she prayed and that love she was so convinced was there, that was an inerrant fact of life, never existed.
Look, we’re reading the same comic, I know what happened and I understand the text and subtext. I just don’t agree with you about this part, and I’m not particularly in the headspace lately to spend more of my limited energy arguing or even just trying to articulate my point in a way I think you might find more palatable. Not without escalating and getting irritable.
So, whether you agree to it or not, we’re just gonna have to disagree.
Again, Joyce fucked up, but Dotty ain’t nobody’s mom. Disappointed? Just say you’re pissed off. Bloody hell.
But … I don’t think she is pissed off. I think she’s being completely honest here.
Her facial expression says pissed off
It’s possible to be both angry with and disappointed in someone.
Yeah that’s because Dorothy is a morally absolutionist child convinced she’s always the smart and righteous one in any conversation.
Dorothy does not get mad, Dorothy gets disappointed because she thinks Joyce needs a fussy mom.
Dude. Stop projecting.
I solemnly vow that.projecting about Dorothy is the lat thing on my mind.
How did Joyce fuck up? Other students have skipped from time to time and she obviously needed to get stuff out. She’s in her version of a safe place in Joe’s room and is with her roommate and her roommates sister who know what’s going down. Joyce does NOT need to apologize for an emotional sort through when Dotty and Becky were not even supposed to be there.
“Becky’s an idiot who thinks there’s some magical wizard who loves her.” More or less. Joyce fucked up by saying idiot shit like that behind her back. And it’s not “her” safe place. It’s Joe’s room. With friends. Like Dorothy and Becky. And the door open.
She was talking about herself. Becky has nothing to do with it.
Becky and Dorothy do not know that.
That sounds like a Them problem and yet here we are.
You can’t expect them to know that. They’ve come to understandable conclusions based on the things they can see.
Joyce had an understandable conclusion that she was hanging out with people she could comfortably discuss being an atheist without Becky and Dorothy getting possessive.
She didn’t shut the door.
Also, she lied about her relationship to Joe and put him and Sarah it a difficult situation, but that’s separate.
Leaving the door open is the exact same as inviting Becky and Dorothy to come hunting after you because a friend is in town.
Yes, it is. Previous post may have contained traces of irony.
Joyce only hurt Becky by accident, and already feels badly enough about that. Becky was genuinely wounded, and can’t help that. Dorothy is being a sanctimonious prig. Her patronising slap at Joyce in a vulnerable state may be quite harmful.
People who aren’t Moms can be disappointed, it’s a real emotion. It’s when you thought better of someone and they proved you wrong, but you don’t blame yourself for having expectations.
It’s not the first time Dorothy decided to behave like Joyce’s guardian. The one that did irk me before that was with the eye exam where she just made an appointment for Joyce. And in this case, what is she even disappointed about? Joyce fucked up, but “disappointed” doesn’t make sense in that situation.
I can’t even with y’all going “oh Joyce did such a no-no she has to apologize!”
God forbid a newly minted atheist is given the first chance to be angry for the first time in her life at a religion that spent her entire life molding her into a hateful piece of shit whose entire ability to break out of that hate was contingent on her own morality, and it has the unintended consequence of making someone completely uninvolved feel sad.
No, actually, that’s not true. Y’all are fine with Joyce being angry at her upbringing and entire previous worldview if she’s punching Toedad or telling her mom off. That’s cathartic. That’s badass and heroic. That’s the only acceptable way for Joyce to process her anger because if she does it otherwise she’s “being an asshole” because, I dunno, Becky just matters so much that Joyce needs to check behind the door every day for the rest of her life that Becky isn’t hiding there stalking her (but in a funny and goofy way like she says it is) so she doesn’t overhear Joyce saying anything contradictory to the chiseled from stone picture Becky has of her in her head.
We need to hold this cartoon character to higher standards of morality than we do actual people.
As much as Becky is also a victim, yeah Becky needed a shock too. Her behaviour is out of control, and she finally got a punishment for it – Hearing something not meant for her to EVER hear because she’s not ready
And Dorothy is so disgusting to me right now. I’m willing to bet Joyce starts going nuts – “I am a bad person, even Dorothy and Becky think so. So I guess I should start being the bad person I am. I actually predict it’ll be Sal or Danny that snaps her out of that and tears Dotty a new one (Sal would be great for that, but Danny doing it may extra drive home the point – Imagine pissing off one of the few always nice people on campus?)
Imagine Danny getting to pull the moral high-ground on Dorothy…
Though I guess he already kinda got to do that over the whole “We have to break up because I don’t have time to keep dating and that’s not fair to you, except I’m going to start dating someone new within a week or two (I can’t remember how long it took) who’s even more childish than you, it’s for the best” arc.
its been like nine years how are we still mad at dorothy about this
I mean, I’m not mad about it, I was just saying it wouldn’t be the first time.
Memories and grudges are the same thing.
Because some people only believe and remember Danny’s version of events being “I’m breaking up with you because I don’t have time to date” rather than the real version that was “I’m breaking up with you because you said something deeply upsetting that demonstrates a fundamental misunderstanding of my life goals, which are important to me. This also shows that our long term goals for this relationship are not compatible. It is the better option for both of us, even if it was painful and better done even sooner.”
One of those is complicated, was how Dorothy put things (and what actually happened if you read *what she says at the time*), and involves recognizing Dorothy’s later relationship based on fun as valid. The other is simple, the guy’s version of events (which is generally considered more believable), and plays into the societal pressure to invalidate any sexual relationship that isn’t a monogamous romantic relationship that’s intended to lead to marriage and starting a family.
And yes, I have strong feelings about this even now, mostly because this is my first time thinking about this since realizing I’m aromantic, which makes that response hit home even more personally than it did before.
Yeah, all of that.
Though it’s probably reinforced because that was why she broke up with Walky, so if you don’t go back and check the early strips it seems reasonable.
God forbid people with issues are responsible for their hurtful actions, too.
And yeah, no shit people care more about Becky than about her actual kidnapper homophobic POS Dad or Joyce’s homophobic fundie Mom.
Because Becky doesn’t deserve this, character flaws aside, she is really not comparable to either of those other two characters.
But pointing fingers doesn’t really help in situations like these anyway – talking does.
Let me put it this way.
If Joyce revealed she had converted to a different religion, would Becky at any differently?
Moreover, what hurt is Joyce responsible for when she is talking about her personal relationship with her upbringing? Why does Becky have to matter to that? Why does Becky have some kind of emotional weight in a private conversation Joyce was having with someone who lets her vent about her stifling upbringing for the first time in her life with someone who will let her be angry and vengeful, when Becky herself doesn’t factor into this in the slightest and is in fact only here because she learned Joyce had a friend over and had to assert her dominance?
Like actually yeah Becky deserves this. She’s a hell of a lot more responsible for the pain she’s feeling right now than Joyce.
Joyce only hurt Becky in the most basic, absolutionist, no room for nuance way possible, where a vague ‘hurt” was caused by Joyce’s actions as if there aren’t a thousand asterisks to why this is happening, and I ain’t about that kinda thought process.
No, Becky really doesn’t deserve this.
And keyword is personal responsibility. If someone’s best reaction to acciadentally hurting someone is: I didn’t mean it! – then that would not make them a very good friend, imo.
Like… okay, they’re in a bad place, and that EXPLAINS how they act, and that they lash out and hurt someone, but it doesn’t EXCUSE it.
And someone acciadentally finding out about their friend basically shittalking an important part of their lives, which you thought they shared with you (they actually pretended to share with you yesterday) – then that’s still shitty of the friend.
IDK what else to tell you.
Joyce isn’t shittalking an important part of Becky’s life, she’s talking hers.
The only way Joyce did something wrong is if she’s never allowed to vocalize her hate and distrust for her religious upbringing.
Or if she should have shut the door.
Deconversion is very, very lonely. You know you will be outcast from your old group, and are beginning to understand you will not be fully accepted by atheists – who are just as fractious as religious people. You will be years rewiring the connections that make up how you understand the world. Even small personal connections, moments when you can be honest about your feelings, can cause a rush of feelings that are difficult to manage.
Then you’re gonna get judged as if every word you say is the outcome of years of stable relationships and understanding of the world. People you hold in esteem might say how disappointed they are in you.
Also, yeah, this would be a good time for Liz to exit.
Joyce hurt Becky’s feelings (perhaps very badly) by [i]accident[/i]. What she was saying was crass and perhaps insincere, but it wasn’t mean.
Meanwhile, Dorothy is not Joyce’s mother, teacher, or therapist and ought to can the sanctimonious judging. I get that the main adult role models she has seen so far have been her parents and teachers, people with authority over others and a responsibility to correct them. But she has to learn sometime that most of being an adult has to do with relating appropriately to people who you are neither the boss nor the subordinate of, and start treating her friend as an equal.
Whoever said yesterday that Dorothy was going to be a judgmental asshole was right on the money. I wonder if she thinks Joyce was just trying to impress Liz. Because otherwise I’m not sure why it would be “disappointing”. She didn’t expect Becky to overhear. I expected Dorothy to be more sympathetic to a Joyce who is clearly mortified.
I’m hoping that’s the case- that, I could understand being disappointed in.
Dorothy is Joyce’s friend but she’s also Becky’s roommate. She’ll have to go back to their room and try to rebuild Becky after this.
Actually she doesn’t have to, its not her role or her responsibility
Indeed not. But she might have to do it nevertheless, as a practical necessity of having to live in the same room with Becky. It’s not as though she has the option of doing what Sarah did about her room-mate problem.
Has Becky ever had the guts to ask Dina what she thinks about Christians? Because I guarantee the concept (if not the word) “idiots” is going to come up.
Becky is dating an atheist and was ostracized by (and kidnapped by) her church for being a lesbian, yet she’s pissed that Joyce thinks Christians (of that particular brand) are idiots?
Becky, bad news–you are an idiot. And a hypocrite for getting pissed at Joyce for dropping a truth bomb. The truth is, everyone has idiotic beliefs. While its generally polite to ignore said idiot beliefs when its a friend, sometimes the truth has to be said. Becky’s got some serious cognitive dissonance going on right now, that’s the sort of thing that leads to dark places.
Yeah, compartmentalization like this is really unhealthy. There’s a big difference between actual tolerance of other’s beliefs and compartmentalizing your issues with those beliefs. One is a mature acknowledgement and acceptance that others around you are different from you and that sometimes those differences are serious disagreements. And then choosing to coexist with those people anyway. The other is willful ignorance of other’s thoughts and feelings.
There seems to be a cycle to Dorothy’s friendship with Joyce that I’m wary of: Joyce desperately wants attention from her (in her mind) very good friend. Dorothy occasionally gives her some attention, but doesn’t seem to try engage on anything but a surface level (you should try running, how are your classes going, isn’t it funny how you keep ending up in the middle of seriously dramatically traumatic events at our school, etc). Something starts eating at Joyce, or she starts doing something questionable/shitty out of desperation. Dorothy sidelines Joyce for the things she seems to care about more, allowing said something to fester/run out of control. Dorothy is confronted with what Joyce has been up to while she’s been disengaged. Dorothy chides her “Friend” like a disappointed mother. Rinse and repeat.
I’m not saying Dorothy is under any responsibility to give time to Joyce’s problems, I just hope she doesn’t consider herself a good friend of/to Joyce these days. Being someone to hit you with the truth is often helpful, but helping you process that truth is what makes a good friend.
Ultimately, I find it really telling that Becky keeps “fighting” Dorothy for “best friend” status with Joyce, and yet neither of them have seemed to spend much time/energy on the actual friendship.
Just curious about when this has happened before?
Well, the whole Ethan fiasco comes to mind.
There are a lot of moments when Dorothy panics a little when she realizes she’s basically been ignoring Joyce and bad stuff is happening while she’s not around. It’s more to do with Dorothy’s need to be responsible for everything than being a particularly bad friend or anything, but yeah, I agree that there’s a kind of cycle thing happening.
Honestly, the mass kidnapping bit was the only time terrible stuff happened to both of them. So of course Joyce got double-kidnapped, in plain view.
In total agreement with you on why Dorothy ignores/checks out on Joyce, I just want to clarify that I think that’s what makes her less of a good friend here. Like, she’s not intentionally setting out to be a bad friend by doing these things, I just think that her priorities are such that she’s not being a good friend to Joyce (not that she has to be, it’s totally okay for Dorothy to have other priorities, it just seems to fuel this cycle) and certainly not what I’d consider a CLOSE friend.
Dorothy didn’t choose and doesn’t much value Joyce’s friendship. Joyce might benefit from realising that Dorothy is not really into her, and spending more friendship on, say, Lucy, or even Joe.
That’s the conclusion I’ve drawn from what we’ve seen (the number of times she TOLERATES Joyce seem to outweigh the number of earnest expressions of FRIENDSHIP I’ve seen, especially once you set aside the number of interactions where Dorothy is being diplomatic/casual, or they’re just in a group of people). It reminds me of my first “relationship” that was really “someone was suuuuuper into me and I was kinda just okay with them.” It did not go well when it became clear how imbalanced things were.
I get that Joyce probably did need a way to get out her pent up emotions around god and shit. But Becky literally walked in on her saying “Lookit me! I believe in god! I’m an idiot!!” in an assumed mocking tone.
As far as Becky’s concerned, they were talking about her behind her back. She didnt have the full context of the conversation, and hell even if she did, Joyce has been pretending to be a theist to Becky’s face this entire time. She just got caught in the fact that she was lying and mocking something that Becky believes in, in a tone that might mean she was making fun of Becky specifically (Becky being Joyce’s closest theist friend at this point).
And as someone who has had people be nice to my face, only to then overhear them mocking me later, uh. Yeah. Becky has every right to be upset.
So yeah. I don’t get the people mad at Becky or Dorothy in this situation. What Joyce did kind of sucks.
Nah see the difference is that you were dealing with two-faced jerks who’d be nice to you in person.
Joyce is talking about herself and not Becky. Becky doesn’t matter here.
Like, do you think if Joyce worded her atheism like Dorothy Becky would be any less outraged?
…Yes, I do, because Becky is dating Dina, an atheist?
Becky overheard Joyce mocking something she cares about, not Joyce admitting in an honest way how she feels about religion. Those are two different scenarios.
Becky might have different expectations for her lifelong best friend she’s always been in love with who has been the only constant amidst a desperate sea of chaos and the girlfriend she met a little while ago and just thinks is outright wrong about the origin of life but rolls with it.
Christ, what the fuck is this projection?? When the actual fuck has Becky implied she still believes in motherfucking young-Earth Creationism? Please cite some fucking strips on that, ones where she actually says dialogue that implies it if possible, rather than like, ABJECTLY misconstruing her actual interest in science and evolutionary theory and all that jazz, which she has repeatedly shown a genuine interest in learning about.
Becky retaining any level of faith doesn’t mean she secretly buys into every Evangelical lie. What the fuck.
Is this a misquote? I think you meant to quote someone else.
‘Cause if it was me, then I ain’t gonna argue my way out of you thinking I said Becky is a YEC.
You didn’t say “YEC”, but I read your post above as saying she thinks Dina is “outright wrong about the origin of life”. Young earth or not, I don’t recall any indication she thinks that. She likely has more bullshit she was taught to unpack, but every time it’s come up, she’s gone with Dina’s version with enthusiasm.
Oh my god
Seriously
Becky thinks God made the universe
Dina would describe it as something yet known to modern science
That is what I meant
Gosh
Also Joyce is talking about her relationship with her religious upbringing, not all religion ever.
That might be what Joyce means, but it’s not what Joyce says. It’s obviously coming out of her personal struggle, but on the surface she’s not saying “I was an idiot for believing”, she’s making a straw character to say that for her. She’s mocking believers, probably because that’s easier than opening up more directly about how bad she feels for believing so long.
This might be sensible with an actual human being and less so with a cartoon character where as observers from beyond the fourth wall we can re-read words and find the meaning in them enough times that we can come to a reasonable conclusion.
Also, again, and I will say it till I am blue in the face, she’s calling herself an idiot for believing in dumb bullshit like the sky sea and a God who loves herself and only lets bad things happen like kidnapping and attempted rape happen to teach her a lesson.
Why the fuck does she need to find a polite way to phrase that? She’s angry. This is the first time she’s had a chance to be angry.
sure yes Joyce is angry, and she has a right to be angry, but Becky doesn’t have the full context of the conversation that we do. The words Joyce used were mean and out of line.
So she’s upset because she doesn’t understand the context. And Becky’s perfectly in her right to think that Joyce was directing that at all theists, and thus herself.
She’s allowed to be angry too.
Yeah totes.
Joyce isn’t responsible for that, but totes.
Joyce never said Becky’s name, though, so it wasn’t talking about a person behind their back. Talking about a belief others have isn’t equivalent. Someone criticizing or even mocking a belief you have while they don’t think you are around isn’t fun to witness, but isn’t something you can blame them for. Not if you’re a mature adult who understands that other people around you have totally different beliefs and that some of those beliefs are going to be upsetting to you if you hear them stated bluntly. You have to be either extremely privileged or have your head under a rock to avoid this.
I feel for Becky because hearing this would certainly hurt, and I hope Joyce acknowledges and validates those feelings. But Joyce saying “I’ll never again utter a harsh word about beliefs that have hurt me personally” is not a healthy outcome. Dorothy seemingly leaning towards that is really sad to me because I thought she’d understand the situation better than that.
Hot take: People get to lash out at being raised toxically and having baggage wrapped up in an idea of a god and this time it wasn’t directed AT anyone, so it isn’t even shitty behavior because Joyce thought she was in a safe place to sort it and that didn’t include those two friends. It’s also not their business because she obviously wasn’t ready for that conversation with them, and friends are obviously not told everything or else Dotty would have talked about her letter and Becky would have told Joyce her mom committed suicide.
You can be worried about friends- sure. Send a text. Tracking them physically down because of the reasons they had to do so and thinking they have a right to the conversation they over heard just because they barged into her current safe space? Nyet. Unless you were seriously thinking skipping is a self harm or kidnapping thing again due to trauma. Joyce has skipped before- for Becky, to make further messes with Jacob. This isn’t like it was a one off.
Everyone gets to feel what they feel in this situation because emotions aren’t rational, but no one owes any apology for things not their fault, even when feelings getting hurt. At most a clearing the air “let me explain what was going on with ME and why I said that, because it wasn’t about YOU” when Joyce is ready and if she wants to because she loves Beckty an “I’m sorry I hurt you” But absolutely no apologies for what she actuallh said…. because Becky might be hurt and think it’s about her but it’s not, and not everything should be and you cant even really say this is an “oops accident” because Joyce was tracked down. Not that Joe consented to the safe place but that’s between him and the ladies.
This is also a consequence of Becky comparing her faith and where she is on her journey to everyone else’s. She told Joyce to grow up for lashing out but that was only because BECKY had dealt with more and had come to terms with it over a longer course. She dismisses it because Joyce is entering this stage while she was 5 steps ahead. Becky didn’t tell Joyce things until she was ready or forced. from lesbianism to suicide to her history with her parents… and I’m not even really sure she did all that because one revelation was from Mr.Brown and the other we saw in flashbacks. Besties apparently don’t share everything and that’s a precedent Becky set in this relationship… plus her reaction to her mom’s death and her mommy is eating cake? Yeah. Becky might date an athiest but with those reactions, I wouldn’t feel safe to have that conversation right now either.
They are “kids.” They’ve been through hell. They get to have whatever kind of therapy they need even if it’s just video games. It isnt called Smarting of Age as the comeback used to go in the comic section.
And what is up with you Dotty? You slept through class for sex and this was decompression. You might have been upset with it, but Walky obviously wasn’t and skipped from time to time and you never said you were disappointed in him.
It’s pretty standard to apologize if you hurt your friend’s feelings, even if it was an accident. One might even go so far as to say an apology is owed, in that case. I do think this was an accident because Joyce didn’t intend for Becky to hear this, and Becky didn’t track her down knowing this would happen.
I agree about Dorothy, though. That reaction was uncalled for.
There’s nothing to apologize for, though.
Joyce is angrily snarking about shit she used to believe. She is angrily expressing her resentment of things she was taught to believe she now thinks of as bullshit.
Becky’s mad that Joyce isn’t her Joyce anymore. Joyce can’t apologize for that.
While I agree people are being way too harsh at Joyce (and starting to get nasty to people who may be like Joyce – IE Depressed and feeling isolated), I do think she needs to apologize to Becky, when Joyce has recovered more. Right now her and Becky both need support
Becky also owes an apology back – She pushed her best friend away and made her feel like she couldn’t talk to her own friends about this, and by the looks of things, Joyce was damned right
It’s a really unfortunate situation where they’ve both been traumatized by the last semester, but in subtly different ways, and the things they need or expect from each other seem like they might be incompatible right now. Becky’s got no remaining ties to her life pre-college except Joyce, because both her parents are dead, her dad tried to kidnap her twice, and the congregation bailed him out. Joyce is her lifeline, the one thing that hasn’t changed, and incidentally I bet knowing that the person who was the absolute best with Scripture and followed all the rules is on her side was a big confidence boost, even if she also knows God answers lesbian prayers. She had to get tuition paid for by being the campaign manager for a homophobic (but also queer) Congresswoman, and now she has to major in something she doesn’t particularly care for to keep that scholarship. Joyce has had Hank backing her plays for as long as Becky’s seen that dynamic since college started.
Meanwhile, I don’t think Becky knows quite how bad the congregation failed them, not just backing Ross but as a whole. Critically, she hadn’t arrived at the Basement of Doom when Joyce called Ross on his hypocrisy and he told her that she was the one most fit for secular college because she was the most obedient, not the most social. (Given the shit avalanche that ensued, I can see Becky not hearing about that part because even Joyce might not have dwelled on it in the immediate aftermath.) And Becky’s faith was always more flexible than Joyce’s BECAUSE she wasn’t memorizing every single word and taking it literally and coming up with elaborate explanations for the contradictions to soothe her anxiety because she’s not questioning the Bible! She’s a good girl! I don’t think Becky’s gotten that yet – she hadn’t by their morning at Jacob’s church where they talked about feeling God or not in the service – and she definitely doesn’t know that when she told Joyce to knock it off at the birthday party because she’d been in conflict with their parents for way less time than Becky was (subtext: and Becky’s fine,) that was a pretty dead ringer for Rich Mullins Dream-Becky pointing out that SHE still feels God when she prays despite having a dead mom and an evil dad. Even if Becky didn’t mean it to be about doubting God as a whole, and I think she was going to take Joyce’s loss of faith badly no matter what, Joyce definitely read it as that… and as it being something wrong with Joyce that she’s been worried about, apparently for some time, and buried under trying to be The Best and Most Christian to compensate. It’s really easy to see why Joyce is ashamed and feels stupid about this, and why she CAN’T have a healthy relationship with Christianity anymore – that’s a lot of anxious energy to cover for not having that feeling of proper Godness, and that’s setting aside the fact that ‘no one’s perfect except for Jesus, who died for our sins’ has become directly associated in her mind with the ‘I will die for you’s Ross and then Carol pulled after the first kidnapping. Or that Joyce met a supposedly Good Christian Boy who knew his Bible verses as well as she did, figured she was safe with him, and it was her new friends who get into fights or are atheists or sexually active who came to her rescue. I think she internalized too much that people who didn’t perfectly obey the rules were hellbound for it NOT to shake her worldview when the Good Christian was the danger and Sarah and Jennifer and Dorothy all got her home okay.
She can apologize for the ‘I believe in God! I’m an idiot!’ line though. That wasn’t aimed at Becky, yeah, but it was reasonable for Becky to misunderstand and be hurt by it and it’s reasonable to apologize for that hurt.
Does Joyce need to be contrite because Becky decided her words meant something other than what they do?
If I accidentally drop a brick and it hits my friend on the foot I certainly apologise. Apologising for causing accidents is completely normal.
Why are you equating Becky taking offense to something that has nothing to do with her and everything to do with Joyce lashing out at her own lived experience with a mistake you’re making through your own negligence.
Because the hurt is real. Even though Becky got offend through her own misapprehension of what Joyce was saying, and perhaps even a little through her self-centrism, she nevertheless feels real pain.
Joyce was careless, and her friend got hurt. Apologising is normal and appropriate in such circumstances.
Not all pain is created equal.
Especially when you blame someone when you’re causing it to yourself!
I don’t think that’s a fair way to characterize what happened. It’s perfectly understandable Becky, not knowing what was going on, would think ‘Hey, I believe in god, I’m an idiot’ would apply to her. It’s not what Joyce meant, but the misunderstanding did cause real hurt for Becky and I can see Joyce apologizing for that misunderstanding. Not for her feeling like an idiot and I don’t think it needs to be some big, guilty, contrite thing here. Just a ‘I’m sorry, Becky, I wasn’t talking about you. I was mocking myself.’ is fine.
I mean, an apology is an admission of guilt or responsibility, right?
Maybe I would have been more helpful explaining my view on this earlier: For Joyce to say “sorry I said that because it hurt you” would imply that Joyce is responsible for Becky bulldozing her way into a conversation that has nothing to do with her and being hurt because Joyce talked about something painful and intimate to her and Becky just decided it meant something it doesn’t.
Like I don’t think there’s anyway Joyce can be an atheist in front of Becky because Becky needs Joyce to be the same person she always was and Becky needs her to be the one part of her life she has left, on top of the fact that Becky idolizes Joyce so much to the point that she can’t square the idea that Joyce thinks Becky’s mom is gone forever and she’ll never see her again.
It’s okay that Becky’s upset because this conversation would be hard in even the gentlest of circumstances, but that Joyce has done anything worthy of guilt or remorse? I can’t accept that.
Okay, I think I found our disconnect – I don’t see an apology as an admission of wrongdoing. Like, if you hear someone is ill and you say ‘Aw, I’m sorry’, that doesn’t mean you made them ill.
That said, I do think Joyce is SOMEWHAT responsible – without context, “Look at me, I believe in God, I’m an idiot” DOES sound like she’s making fun of Becky. That hurt her. It was an accident and unintentional, but that doesn’t mean you don’t apologize for hurt caused. In this case, the apology comes with an explanation of what happened. Like, if I step on someone’s foot because I didn’t see them and it hurts them, I still apologize even though it was an accident.
Yeah but if someone sees you walking forward and deliberately shoves their foot under yours, is it still your fault? Do you still have any responsibility?
Because here’s how I see it: If Joyce outright said “yeah believers are idiots” and Becky came across that I’d be a lot less on Joyce’s side, because she’s using a private conversation to be a dick and boom bada boom luck wasn’t on her side. Jacob once told Sarah Joyce would “snap and suck a billion dicks” and that was wrong, but I’m not gonna care about it the rest of my life and let it colour their interactions.
That Joyce is, specifically, harping on her own upbringing, that she draws to the sky sea and a God who let bad things happen to teach her a lesson and who always loved her, that isn’t something Joyce needs to apologize for. It’s something she feels, strongly and profoundly, as a result of her lost faith, and Becky isn’t allowed to take that from her no matter who she is or what importance she has to Joyce. She’s not allowed to hold Joyce’s feelings hostage on the grounds that Joyce will make her sad.
That is something Becky deserves to be upset about, because everyone deserves to be upset about whatever because feelings are Like That, but Becky being sad doesn’t make her right. It doesn’t make her the victim. She’s here because Liz is was visiting and she decided that since she is “unapologetically me” she’d just rush on in and be a loud dorkface and the possibility of Joyce privately enjoying herself without Becky and Dorothy in the room was completely alien to her.
Like I honestly can’t think of a comparable example so let’s pretend ice cream is, like, the most important thing in the universe. My friend only likes strawberry and I like strawberry but not as much as vanilla, except my friend will only like me as long as I keep up with strawberry.
I spend time with another friend, we have vanilla. My first friend decided they had to come see me because they felt like it and they see me with a vanilla ice cream cone in my hand.
My friend is betrayed. They are devastated. I was vanilla all along.
Did I do the bad thing, or is my strawberry-loving friend more at fault for putting me in a scenario where our friendship was contingent on strawberry ice cream, and the only way I’d be able to keep that friendship is to never enjoy vanilla ice cream in the company of anyone else?
well but on an emotional level if Joyce cares about Becky as i think she (still) does, she’ll want to if not apologize certainly find a way of repairing what has been damaged here today.
now you’ve also said you don’t think Joyce ought to stay friends with Becky. i guess we’ll just have to see how that plays out
I WAS BEING SARCASTIC
oh well. paint me whooshed.
i know i can’t handle tense conversations, and yet i engage. ugh. see ya
I don’t think so. I think an apology is an expression of sympathy, often implying a statement of innocuousness. “I am sorry. That was careless of me. I didn’t mean to hurt you and feel bad that I did.” is not an admission of guilty intent.
I don’t see this as Becky deliberately sticking her foot under Joyce’s, for the purposes of this metaphor. She wasn’t rushing in to be hurt so she could then blame Joyce. This is more like she saw Joyce walking forward and ran up from behind to surprise her and then Joyce stumbled and stepped on her foot. An apology in that scenario is fine, even though it’s not 100% Joyce’s fault.
“Because here’s how I see it: If Joyce outright said “yeah believers are idiots” and Becky came across that I’d be a lot less on Joyce’s side, because she’s using a private conversation to be a dick and boom bada boom luck wasn’t on her side. Jacob once told Sarah Joyce would “snap and suck a billion dicks” and that was wrong, but I’m not gonna care about it the rest of my life and let it colour their interactions.”
Okay, but in my reading, that IS what Becky thinks happened. That’s not what Joyce meant but I think it’s what Becky thinks she meant and she’s hurt by it. That doesn’t make her a ‘victim’ of anything but a painful misunderstanding and an apology in that circumstance STRICTLY for the misunderstanding isn’t necessarily a thing about wrongdoing.
Allow me to use your ice cream metaphor – You say ‘Look at me, I like strawberry, I’m an idiot’. She SOUNDS like she’s making fun of people who like strawberry, but her use of ‘I’ here is more literal than her wording sounds like it here. She means herself and herself only. BUT your strawberry hears you and is hurt not because you’re secretly Team Vanilla, but because they now think you consider them an idiot. An apology to assure them you DON’T consider them an idiot while still maintaining you like vanilla is fine.
Someone being collateral damage doesn’t make an apology less necessary if you want to continue having a positive relationship with them.
Or are you for real arguing that Joyce and Becky should stop being friends now?
That is exactly what I am saying and to prove my sincerity I will sign an affidavit in my own blood proclaiming as much.
To be clear- road to hell paved with good intentions and not meaning to do the harm that you do and still owning it us different to me than someone being harmed by their own actions because they inserted themselves into a situation. Becky intentionally pried so this is on her. Accidental harm doesn’t also have to be a fault. Someone can be hurt you didn’t tell them something or that you can’t go to an event they planned but that isn’t something they are owed. This following up on her very much feels like an owed thing.
“You weren’t SUPPOSED to be here” is different than “I didn’t know you were going to be here” to me. One implies you had a reasonable amount of privacy and did due diligence on making sure you were avoiding the collateral. The other is you done goofed by doing that where there was a reasonable expectation you could be stumbled upon or overheard.
She’s talking loudly in a open dorm room in a hall that her friends traverse regularly. Becky isn’t hunting her down in some secret meeting spot.
While Becky’s motivations are suspect, they wouldn’t have to be for her to show up here. If she’d heard that Joyce was skipping because Liz was visiting and just wanted to meet her and hang out with Joyce that would have been perfectly reasonable and still would have led to this encounter.
I don’t think it’s fair to frame Becky as being “ahead” of Joyce in processing things. I’d argue the opposite. Becky has largely responded to these situations by suppressing and compartmentalizing her feelings. She does seem to have processed her feelings about her mom’s death, but I haven’t seen anything I’d view as healthy processing from her with regards to the events within the comic. Just evasion via humor and compartmentalization.
Gonna say this again. Stuff this bad only happens to Jpyce when she’s not wearing the sweatervest and dress shirt combo. Willis does this everytime it seems lol.
excellent take
It’s just a weird pattern I’ve noticed with almost everyone of her major incidents that she is involved in.
While there’s un-processed and hurtful feelings coming to the surface, Becky needs to remember who went out of her way to shelter her, help her recover from getting kicked out of school, who came after her like an avenging angel when she was kidnapped, and who didn’t run away in a gay panic when she confessed romantic attraction for her. If actions speak louder than words I think Joyce has earned a bit of slack here.
I mean, also technically sexually assaulted her with that kiss, but emotions, kids, how they want to deal with it as individuals. I don’t mean to harp so much on Becky but for all we talk about Joyce just dumping on people, she’s not alone in that regard. Becky needs to learn some boundaries too and not be so possessive.
I mean she did take it real hard.
Once she found out about Ryan Becky immediately apologized hard because she associated her kissing Joyce out of the blue with what had happened.
Man, poor Joe.
Right? Room taken over without warning, video games commandeered, one of his close friends from high school entering the equation. The true victim and I’d never thought I’d say that about Joe.
and so many feelings, ew
I feel like Dorothy doesn’t have the right to use the mom card in this situation. She hasn’t been paying enough attention to Joyce more than surface level stuff. And if Dorothy was really on the ball, she might be able to figure out this was a cry of internal suffering and a rage against the forces that hurt her. Instead, Dorothy is mad that Joyce is having feelings. And is judging her for what the situation appears to be without doing any confirmation. Truly, poor mom-friending. -15 points from your Hogwarts house, Dorothy.
I need an aerial view of Joe’s room, because his position in some of the frames is making my brain go ???
Yeah it’s because Dorothy processes morality and human interaction as “just do the right thing all the time.”
Because she’s stupid.
I’m so for it, honestly. I’m all in on Dorothy just being an outrageously stupid and wrong person for the first time in the whole comic.
I mean, Dorothy was also an outrageously stupid and wrong person with her AG hero worship in general, and also by immediately blaming Danny for the AG/Danny break-up.
Kiiiiiinda
It never went anywhere, natch (maybe it was supposed to?) but it’s pretty sensible that Dorothy would walk away from AG going “Danny did The Wrong Thing” by thinking “ah yeah makes sense he’s like that.”
Joyce isn’t in the wrong for verbalizing her frustrations over how she feels dumb and duped for her past beliefs. Sure, the self-criticism that she’s voicing is in such broad strokes that it can be applied to other believers, but she’s trying to process losing her entire belief system, her mom’s betrayal in the name of faith, Toedad’s betrayal in the name of faith, being sexually assaulted by a pastor’s son, being kidnapped twice in one night, watching Toedad die right in front of her… That’s like, two lifetime’s worth of trauma in a few months, most of it tangled inextricably with Joyce’s faith. Cut a gal some slack.
Becky is 100% justified for being devastated over walking in on this, especially given the context of her interactions with Joyce yesterday regarding Becky’s mom. She’s been through an unreal amount of trauma as well. I feel bad for both of them.
Dorothy, your lack of empathy for a friend who has been through hell is far more disappointing than anything Joyce has done today.
Like sure, a lot of what Joyce has been saying to Liz has been weird, immature, dishonest things meant to impress Liz and portray herself as a totally different person. Being disappointed about that is understandable. The venting about religion, though? That is almost certainly coming from the heart, and as far as we know, that’s all that Dorothy has seen.
And really, I don’t even blame Joyce that much for that dishonesty. She was raised in a culture where you fell in line with expectations or you were ostracized. She barely has a concept of getting along with people very different from you. It’s just what she’s seen in this strip interacting with Dorothy and others. 18 years of being trained to fall in line culturally with whatever others expect even if that means being dishonest or insincere isn’t going to evaporate overnight. She probably consciously or subconsciously expected that Liz would reject her and no longer be friendly if Joyce didn’t meet the projected expectations of being a promiscuous druggy who hated religion. I do hope she grows out of that, but considering how closeted she’s been, I don’t think she’s had the time to figure this out, so I understand and empathize with her.
I will put up or shut up.
If I prove to be wrong about Joyce’s motivations, that she’s saying “religious people are stupid” instead of “I hate this bullshit I was taught to believe for how it made me believe it until it started betraying and hurting me” then:
I, Spencer, will wear an embarrassing gravatar for a whole month after this reveal of Joyce’s motivations have occurred.
And one of you gets to pick it.
Oh wow, a “I think that’s his phone” oath.
I don’t know what this is but I assume it is powerful.
When Ryan first showed up with his knife, it wasn’t entirely clear it WAS a knife and Delicious Taffy kept swearing up and down it was his phone. They said if it was wrong, they would have an embarrassing gravatar (Don’t remember what it was) for….I think it was a week?
Aye, and what a week it was.
You stabbed?
Oh so that’s why you said stabbed
I felt confused and somewhat threatened
For what it’s worth I’ve read all your comments and you are so real on the feelings in deconversion and relationships around it
If that was the only thing you were arguing, I’d be in 100% agreement with you.
I am right about multiple things but this is the one I feel would be the most interesting to get utterly annihilated in if I turned out to be wrong.
That’s going to be hard, since I think it’s both. In my reading she’s saying “religious people are stupid”, but she’s saying it because she feels stupid for believing it. It’s just easier to let it out this way rather than breaking down sobbing about how dumb she was. At least in this context.
I ain’t no coward.
If Joyce tells Becky “yeah I mean you too” then I lose.
But I will give myself a single handicap by saying that if the scene plays out as Becky going “do you think I’m stupid?” and then Joyce looks at the ground, that doesn’t count.
Otherwise it’s fair game.
She’s not going to say that, because she doesn’t actually think Becky’s stupid.
That doesn’t mean she wasn’t mocking all religious people, even if she was just lashing out.
You want in?
You can roll the dice too.
You may or not be right about Joyces actions (though I lean towards Joyce doing a bit of self-loathing) but you’re definitely right about Becky and trying to assert her dominance over Joyces new friend being a bit creepy and stalkerish and also right about Dorothy
Which is hard for me because I am a big Dorothy fan
Oh shit, Joyce’s moms are mad *and* disappointed D:
Maybe lock comments for a while. People are getting nasty and this hits so close it might set off some suicidal people (heck, if my mental health wasn’t better now, I’d probably start eyeing a knife about now, knowing how Joyce feels)
ouch, yeah the reactions to this strip are so polarized, i can imagine it being quite affecting if you strongly identify with a character.
my sympathies, take care of yourself
Hugs if wanted and appropriate gestures of support if not. <3
Can relate and hope you are OK.
We commenters are at different places; deconversion was a long time ago for me, possibly quite recent for a couple others. Given the sense of loss and betrayal when you realize what religion has done if you invested a lot in it, no surprise it’s a lot to process.
(Brilliant work, Willis, damn you)
Her work here is done.
The strip today show to everybody whats happens when 2 or more people are in the same room, and these people are hurt or with conflictive and not-adressed feelings.
I say it as personal experience.
Not really going to look at all the comments today but this is an interesting page because you can read it a lot of ways and have a lot of feelings about it.
Joyce has a lot of trauma about her religion and really wanted to vent about how stupid she feels. That is valid. But it’s also obviously being done in a way that would hurt any religious person that could hear it – the anger is really more directed at herself and the trauma, but she is expressing it outwardly. And that means she called people like Becky idiots and she overheard.
It is valid for Becky to be hurt by that because it would come across as talking smack about her behind her back. That she really thinks she is an idiot and a fool. And because this is another thing that is changing around her which after so much abrupt change is not always what you want or can easily cope with. I don’t think Joyce really feels Becky is an idiot. But that is absolutely how Becky would have taken it and that’s the only way someone in Becky’s position really would take it.
Dorothy’s feelings are interesting because she is disappointed in Joyce. Is that because she thinks she was just playing at atheism with Liz just to impress her here? Because she hurt Becky and couldn’t even bring herself to retract it and explain? Because she has met atheists like Liz before and she’s disappointed to hear Joyce expressing things in such a condescending way when one of her closest friends is still religious and many of those on her floor are Christian as well?
Another thing I keep coming back to is “how is Joyce interpreting Dorothy’s disappointment?” because I can absolutely take it to be about the wrong thing and sending her on a spiral.
Yeah, this is going to be messy and I’m looking forward to hearing exactly WHAT Dorothy found disappointing there – I can easily see it being that she’s met edgy atheists, and because she only caught the end and her experience with religion was way less traumatic than Joyce’s upbringing, she doesn’t have the same read on ‘oh there’s some serious self-loathing here’ that we can intuit partly from having seen this whole talk. (And incidentally, so has Sarah.)
Joyce has not yet learned how to protect herself from mob mentality.
Quick take on how I think everyone in this strip fits into the plot thread here:
BECKY: Right to feel hurt, she was just insulted by supposedly her best friend. How long as the Joyce she knows been a lie? She’s probably just as hurt to know Joyce kept this from her as she is stunned that she said it in the first place.
DOROTHY: No need to be judgmental, but at the same time she’s on the back foot from what she just heard. Like Becky, she’s stunned by what Joyce said and hurt she kept it a secret, but the jab against the religious doesn’t hit her personally. She’ll play both sides, but lean a bit toward Team Becky (who basically only has her, Dina, and Leslie to fall against).
JOE: I think the story brought the other three to his room in order to tie him to this event. As one of Joyce’s closest (but most reluctant) confidantes, he’s going to be important to her recovery process and clawing back out of the hole she just dug herself.
JOYCE: Right to feel betrayed by her upbringing, wrong to take it out by casting a wide net. I don’t think she would’ve gone there if she hadn’t been goaded. May have severely damaged her friendship with Becky, if she didn’t completely destroy it.
LIZ: Pizza cutter: all edge, no point. She’s here to help drop a drama bomb on the plot and then skedaddle. As a one-off character with an “in” to the main cast (as Sarah’s sister and, conveniently, Joyce’s Facebook friend), she’s perfect for the task.
SARAH: Probably won that round of Mario Kart or Smash Bros. or whatever it was they were playing. Will chastise Liz, and give Joyce her usual tough love support. “You messed up, I can’t fix this for you”, that kind of thing.
nice! good point about this all happening in Joe’s room specifically so that he can be a big part of what comes next probably!
pizza cutter. hehe
Joyce: “Oh no, how do I fix this?”
Joe: “OK, first, we need to get you a box of donuts…”
When eventually Joyce comes out to Becky and frankly explains her new view on religion, it is going to be interesting to compare Becky’s reaction to that with Joyce’s reaction to Becky’s coming-out and frank expression of her crush on Joyce.
I feel like at a certain point (maybe your 30th comment?) you could realize some people just have a different read of the comic/the characters than you and thats like, ok. I promise.
Not about any particular commenters. Just like in general.
That aside, I do actually hope this isn’t Liz’ only appearance. Not that I particulary like her but to me it’d be kind of a bummer if she only got introduced to get this particular plot rolling and nothing else. Plus I love learning anything at all about Sarah, she probably comes closest to being my favourite character (next to Sal).
I like Joe in the background here, just trying to process everything.
And by process, you mean asking himself “How the hell do I get dragged into this drama crap while Danny gets to make out with the hot biker chick?”?
By the way, Willis, if you’re going to use drive-by assholery to drive the plot at points, you might as well have kept Mike alive.
Mike was high-maintenance. much less work to just throw in an agent of chaos every so often then retire them, and bam, story juice for months
Mike wasn’t high-maintenance, he only ever used nickels. That’s dirt cheap, that is.
You no what. I’ll say it.
I don’t sympathize with Joyce’s choice in deconversion methods because as far as I am concerned she was never Christian.
And this is NOT the “No True Scotsman” fallacy. That only applies to arbitrary exceptions.
Their church was a prosperity gospel spouting, white nationalist cult.
And I am sick and tired of such groups, however small or large, being called Christian.
That doesn’t seem to make sense. Wouldn’t one be more sympathetic to someone breaking out of a real cult than out of a more reasonable church? While I can see being sick of such groups being called Christian, the more cultlike a group is, the more support and sympathy those getting out need.
I am unsympathetic to her going, “my home church is an evil cult and thus Christianity is a lie and it’s adherents are idiots”.
Isn’t that pretty much exactly No True Scotsman?
You might not like that they label/think of themselves as Christians, and there’s certainly some arguments to be made in that direction, but… you don’t get to declare they aren’t.
No True Scotsman is creating arbitrary exceptions or additions to a group definition in order to exclude a person or people.
Scotsmen are by definition citizens and/or residents of Scotland or people who are of Scottish ancestry/ethnicity.
But, anyone who isn’t fluent in both Scottish Gaelic or Broad Scotts is No True Scotsman. /S
Or, anyone who likes King Arthur is No True Scottsman /S.
In the same way, any church that preaches the Prosperity Gospel, which Joyce’s explicitly does is not Christian. In scripture, Christ repeatedly tells his followers to give away their wealth and belongings to the poor and he repeatedly criticizes the rich and wealthy going so far as to imply it is functionally impossible for them to enter heaven. He and the apostles also preach welfare to the poor and to strangers.
Prosperity Theology claims that wealth and social status are signs of God’s favor and that poverty and sickness are curses brought about by sin and/or lack of Faith.
The latter of which is literally refuted by Christ himself in Scripture.
A “Christian” Church that preaches in direct contrast with the teachings of Christ is no more Christian than the Nazis were Indo-Iranians.
Or for a less controversial example, you can’t open a coffee shop and say it’s a Starbucks, even leaving aside copyright.
That is the no true scotsman fallacy, and also like.. even if you don’t believe in all of Joyce’s beliefs, she hit all the requirements for being christian- she believed in god, christ as a saviour, considered herself to have a personal relationship with god, believed in the teachings of the bible, etc. Some of those teachings were warped, and added onto, but she was definitely trying to follow christ’s teachings.
Please see my above response.
I don’t think your comparisons above apply; it feels like you’re just adding some extra steps to exempt christianity with prosperity gospel from other christianity. Also, even if it is unintentional, this situation feels very much when people use no true scotsman to exempt themself from examining their community’s responsibility in something- ie saying no true man would abuse someone, or no true LGB person would be transphobic, etc
I. I don’t understand. How is saying people who don’t follow the teachings of Christ are not Christian a fallacy?
If you think believing in God is enough, then I’m sorry to tell you, but most Christians do not consider nontrinitarians Christian. And I cannot imagine anyone who considers the Bahá’í to be Christian.
Religion isn’t Gender identity. You have to meet criteria.
Another “example”.
You don’t to say you’re an adherent of …Rev. MLK Jr.’s teachings and that’s why you support racial segregation.
I should’ve mentioned earlier, but I’ve been Joyce more than a few times before. Freezing up when something horrible happened that you caused? And reinforced by a witness?
Joyce is gonna have a rough time.