Somewhere, Becky’s ears prick up, she immediately stops work on the large wooden box she was propping up with a stick with a textbook for bait, and her eyes narrow. A new challenger has appeared.
I mean… you’re not wrong. Becky seems to at least be partly worried that Dorothy is going to seduce Joyce.
Joe… actually might.
Speaking of Joe… wait, was HE the role model she mentioned yesterday?
Admittedly, I’m not sure how exactly…
I think she’d be less bothered by Joyce being seduced by a guy – assuming Joyce was happy with it. That’s confirmation that Joyce is straight and her lack of romantic interest in Becky isn’t personal.
That said, I think she’s more bothered by Dorothy’s best friend status than seduction.
is it really a surprise? even with the trouble he got into with the ‘do list’ Joe’s whole approach has been “it’s on the packaging”. He answers her honestly even when it’s not tactful, he listens to her.
lemme repeat that last bit for you;
HE LISTENS TO HER. not to who he thinks she should be, not to who he imagines she is, he listens to HER.
It’s performative in the sense that Joyce wouldn’t otherwise engage with it, but she’s doing it now because she wants to sound cool around Liz.
It’s different than her lashing out at Joe because he questioned her identity so she went all in like “I will say the penis word because God isn’t real and neither is anything I believed in!”
It’s like, Joyce choosing to let go of something, if only for a day, versus throwing everything out all at once out of aggressive, nihilistic backlash not just towards her faith, but towards the person she used to be, and that person is someone Joe understood was still great.
Also also: a part of me expects this to end badly. The other, main part of me presently riding a ship to see wants this to go really well to surprise Sarah.
I mean if a girl asks if you want to hook up and you do indeed want to hook up, I don’t know why agreeing to a hook up would be particularly “shitty”. (Lord knows I wouldn’t be able to turn down Liz <3)
I feel like Joe doing that would not be “wrong”, per se, they are both adults, I believe, but it’d have a lot of collateral damage between Joyce and Sarah alike. It’s not worth it.
Considering that Sarah kicked Joe’s door open waving a bat and threatening to kill him a few chapters ago, I feel precious fuck-all in the way of sympathy for her if any of that damage occurs.
It starts to become shitty if you know your friend’s feelings will be hurt. And Joe has had a lot of sex, this one last encounter isn’t going to be life-changing to him.
Sarah, deep down inside, does genuinely care about Joyce. And therefore, cares that Joyce doesn’t go hide under a rock in embarassment after her brain catches up to her liberal swearing around Becky.
“Well, it started badly and it tailed off a little in the middle and the less said about the end the better, but apart from that, excellent.” – Blackadder IV
I know for a fact Joyce has sworn in front of both of them. Hard swears too, not 4th grade stuff like “damn” or “ass”….I joke. That’s not 4th grade stuff. They swear more than most adults.
Joyce. You’re presenting the guy you have a deniable crush on, who happens to use casual sex to denigrate himself, to a girl who is apparently quite thirsty and willing to get some casual boning.
Joyce, this is what we call “Self Sabotage”. Or “setting yourself up for suffering”
I disagree. He’s moved from “shallow friend who can’t talk about feelings and feels uncomfortable going to Becky’s mom’s birthday party” to “best friend.” That is a huge increase in emotional attachment.
– was actually ogling the hell out of him when he was in his boxers yesterday.
– had an Actual Tsundere moment where Joe was refusing to tell her he’d care for Amber (after we already saw he was trying to have her engage with his and his dad’s faith) and angrily noted that he did care but refused to show it, leading Becky to ask why Joyce cared if he cared leading to Joyce to yell back that she doesn’t.
This is pretty reminiscent of their Walkyverse counterparts, where Joyce was constantly trying to prod out the Joe she saw, but the difference there is that Walkyverse Joe did like her but not enough that he wanted to stop being himself, whereas here we’ve got a Joe with a much shakier foundation for his identity and who isn’t mature enough to be the person he wants to be. A lot of his returns to his established persona have been transparently performative, but we haven’t really seen how he’d act while backsliding or indulging in that old persona when around Joyce, who spelled out for him that his behaviour was deeply triggering for her.
Sooooo I think it’s less that Joyce has a crush on him and more Joyce gets really attached to people really quick, and Joe is in a frustrating middle ground where he keeps almost proving himself to be good all along before letting Joyce down, but he’s only able to let Joyce down because Joyce does actually have a high opinion of him, even if last chapter she herself tried to dismiss him as not “that kind of friend” who “doesn’t care about family.”
Because Joe is Joyce’s only friend who knows she’s an atheist, and she can let loose with swearing around him because she doesn’t care as much, for one reason or another, how she comes off to him.
Well, Joyce may have THOUGHT it, Sarah, but she didn’t say “Fuck God” (or anyone else). Not yet, anyway.
And when she finally does — there will be, to quote Obi-Wan Kenobi, “… a great disturbance in the Force, as if millions of voices suddenly cried out in terror and were suddenly silenced.”
I am a little surprised Joyce wouldn’t simply be able to tell Liz “I am introducing you to friends who don’t know I’m an atheist.”. After all, Liz herself posts bible quotes to fool others into thinking she’s still a christian, so she would recognize that it is sometime necessary to hid part of your life.
But then, without a little drama it wounldn’t be the comic strip we all like.
This is going to get ugly. And hilarious, of course.
I suspect that Joyce is going to end this interaction having had two people express what are, for her, genuinely surprising opinions on who ‘Joyce Brown’ is and in what ways she is most likeable.
Oh no! Poor, innocent Joe has jet to recover for the surprise of his best friend going out with one of the hottest girl in the campus and is now involved in a very weird situation by his really insicure friend Joyce!!! This will probably end bad! Sarah already hates him, what will her reaction be if Liz and Joe start getting along? And what will Joyce’s reaction be? Will this reunite the two friends against Liz?
Joyce, in an amazing show of friendship and solidarity, will now get Liz laid, and then sob into Sarah’s arms later about how Sarah was right. Truly, she contains multitudes.
Very astute of you, Sarah. And VERY clever of you, Joyce. Palm off Liz on somebody who you know will appreciate the attention AND both of them will enjoy themselves.
I agree. I also suspect that Joyce is going to be arguing with Joe for a while about how his rejection made her break off contact with Liz and he’s cost her a friend! She’ll just not be trying to think too much why Joe’s disapproval should have moved her to action.
Joyce is obviously lying, Joe is just her closest non-Sarah friend who knows she’s an atheist and she doesn’t have this super specific Joyce imagery to live up to in front of him that she does with Dorothy and Becky.
Plus she’s not into him the way he’s got it bad for her. She does actually like him and believes he’s capable of being a good person, but he’s also let her down enough times that Joyce doesn’t trust him fully yet the way she effortlessly makes friends with everyone, because she doesn’t know when he’ll backtrack on that.
Also she has observed his dump truck ass and found it appealing.
Joe’s Brain: Waaaait… my hot ‘best friend’, her hot (and angry) roommate, and her roommate’s hot sister?? This is porn, right? I’ve fallen asleep, and I’m having a porn dream…
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LOOK SARAH YOU ASKED
Somewhere, Becky’s ears prick up, she immediately stops work on the large wooden box she was propping up with a stick with a textbook for bait, and her eyes narrow. A new challenger has appeared.
Joe’s life expectancy has dropped considerably. Especially since Becky already greatly dislikes him.
Becky was so focused on Dorothy she could never conceive the arrival of her true enemy.
I mean… you’re not wrong. Becky seems to at least be partly worried that Dorothy is going to seduce Joyce.
Joe… actually might.
Speaking of Joe… wait, was HE the role model she mentioned yesterday?
Admittedly, I’m not sure how exactly…
Yesterday, it was Sarah. I am 99.7% sure.
It was Sarah yeah. Joyce was so rueful because Sarah keeps falling back into grumpy pissgoblin mode.
Which come to think of it, that “I know you can be better” mindset is what she applies to Joe.
Secon~~~ Thirded.
I think she’d be less bothered by Joyce being seduced by a guy – assuming Joyce was happy with it. That’s confirmation that Joyce is straight and her lack of romantic interest in Becky isn’t personal.
That said, I think she’s more bothered by Dorothy’s best friend status than seduction.
> confirmation that Joyce is straight
I think it only eliminates 7 on the Kinsey scale.
Fair, but I’m speaking from Becky’s viewpoint.
“reinforcement” might be better.
is it really a surprise? even with the trouble he got into with the ‘do list’ Joe’s whole approach has been “it’s on the packaging”. He answers her honestly even when it’s not tactful, he listens to her.
lemme repeat that last bit for you;
HE LISTENS TO HER. not to who he thinks she should be, not to who he imagines she is, he listens to HER.
This is an excellent plan. Nothing could possibly go wrong
The logic behind this plan is sound, if Liz hooks up with Joe she can’t hook up with Dorothy, some 4D chess going on here.
The possible motive you’re suggesting had crossed my mind.
And then she just hooks up with both. You underestimate her powers.
Are you questioning the success rate of Joyce’s sitcom-level lie schemes?
She’s been surprisingly successful with them, but that doesn’t mean they’ve actually succeeded.
I guess 0% is technically still a rate.
This will go well. While all kinds of things could go wrong, it is an excellent plan.
What’s the worst that could happen?
What are the haps, my friend?
A hockey team in Quebec.
Oh wait… “The Haps” not Habs. Je ne sais pas.
I unreservedly endorse it.
Didn’t Joe say that he hated seeing Joyce curse? That’s a low blow.
Joe deserves it.
He didn’t like her cursing out of a belief that nothing mattered. If Joyce was swearing because she wanted, like she is now, that’d be different.
I dunno even this cursing feels kinda performative to be honest.
It’s performative in the sense that Joyce wouldn’t otherwise engage with it, but she’s doing it now because she wants to sound cool around Liz.
It’s different than her lashing out at Joe because he questioned her identity so she went all in like “I will say the penis word because God isn’t real and neither is anything I believed in!”
It’s like, Joyce choosing to let go of something, if only for a day, versus throwing everything out all at once out of aggressive, nihilistic backlash not just towards her faith, but towards the person she used to be, and that person is someone Joe understood was still great.
This is really insightful and I just wanted to say that 🙂
Yeah, he’s mostly against the cursing when she’s forcing it. I don’t think it’s a categoric dislike.
*Gets popcorn*
Popcorn? I just want someone to give Joyce a hug and tell her it wi be ok.
Sarah, you’re trying to trap an extrovert by saying certain friends aren’t appropriate in this mindset.
It was never going to end well.
…wait, is panel 2 Sarah implying that Joyce has dropped f-bombs offscreen that we never saw? WE’VE BEEN ROBBED
If people on Patreon get to see Joyce’s f-bombs and we didn’t I’m going to be extremely disappointed.
It’s in the secret $10 tier.
That’s also the secret tier that lets you read two days ahead, right?
No that’s the $20 tier.
That one spins off into the AU series, Ultimate Dumbing of Age.
I thought that was Dumbing Age, the high fantasy AU
Of course, not being on Patreon you’ll never know. *evil giggle*
I know I said I was okay with Liz and Joe meeting, but I change my mind now!
And the Monkey’s Paw curls another finger.
Oh, it certainly wasn’t a wish for them to meet, I just thought I wouldn’t be vehemently against it if they did.
Random Fan: How bad could this pairing be?
*Willis grins evilly*
Too late.
Best part is an iota of that isn’t wrong.
Also: Joe!
Also also: a part of me expects this to end badly. The other, main part of me presently riding a ship to see wants this to go really well to surprise Sarah.
Somewhere out there Becky has sensed a great disturbance in the force!
Well hopefully Joe turns Liz down. He’s be doing so well to not be shitty.
But I’m a Joe Joyce shipper…
I mean if a girl asks if you want to hook up and you do indeed want to hook up, I don’t know why agreeing to a hook up would be particularly “shitty”. (Lord knows I wouldn’t be able to turn down Liz <3)
I feel like Joe doing that would not be “wrong”, per se, they are both adults, I believe, but it’d have a lot of collateral damage between Joyce and Sarah alike. It’s not worth it.
Considering that Sarah kicked Joe’s door open waving a bat and threatening to kill him a few chapters ago, I feel precious fuck-all in the way of sympathy for her if any of that damage occurs.
But he explicitly offered himself as a hate receptacle.
It starts to become shitty if you know your friend’s feelings will be hurt. And Joe has had a lot of sex, this one last encounter isn’t going to be life-changing to him.
It’s not shitty in the abstract, but it’s potential damage to whatever it is he’s got going on with Joyce.
Of course, he’s likely to do it partly to sabotage whatever that is.
It’s probably not gonna outright happen buuuuuut I have no doubt it’ll get brought up.
badger-NOPE.gif
Personally, I would have railroaded Joyce into saying all that in front of Becky and Dorothy. The fireworks display would have been fantastic.
Just me? Anyone else?
Sarah, deep down inside, does genuinely care about Joyce. And therefore, cares that Joyce doesn’t go hide under a rock in embarassment after her brain catches up to her liberal swearing around Becky.
Oh this is not going to end very well
Did it START very well?
This will end as well as it started.
“Well, it started badly and it tailed off a little in the middle and the less said about the end the better, but apart from that, excellent.” – Blackadder IV
This is going to get worse before it gets worse.
Yep, this seems good and fine.
Yep.
Yep.
Nuclear reactor fuel rod, meet nuclear reactor fuel rod.
It’s okay, so long as we don’t pull out all the control rods at once.
Joe strikes me as one who uses protection rather than pulling out.
Maybe he does both.
Well of course, a neutron moderator is a critical component.
3.6 roentgen, not great not terrible.
Lets hope Joe’s tip isnt graphite.
Here’s the thing. I know she’s lying her pretty blonde little head off but fuck it. As a Jojo shipper I will take what I can get.
I’m imagining Joyce dressed up Jotaro Kujo and it’s fantastic.
I’ve drawn that.
How in the world did I miss that.
The link, for posterity.
And also this.
I paid for it!
You are a public benefactor.
I know for a fact Joyce has sworn in front of both of them. Hard swears too, not 4th grade stuff like “damn” or “ass”….I joke. That’s not 4th grade stuff. They swear more than most adults.
Joyce. You’re presenting the guy you have a deniable crush on, who happens to use casual sex to denigrate himself, to a girl who is apparently quite thirsty and willing to get some casual boning.
Joyce, this is what we call “Self Sabotage”. Or “setting yourself up for suffering”
You could call it that, or you could call it “Being a great Wingman”. It’s all a matter of perspective :P.
Let’s look at it from Joe perspective.
He’s just been friend-zoned.
I disagree. He’s moved from “shallow friend who can’t talk about feelings and feels uncomfortable going to Becky’s mom’s birthday party” to “best friend.” That is a huge increase in emotional attachment.
I’m reminded that Joyce:
– was actually ogling the hell out of him when he was in his boxers yesterday.
– had an Actual Tsundere moment where Joe was refusing to tell her he’d care for Amber (after we already saw he was trying to have her engage with his and his dad’s faith) and angrily noted that he did care but refused to show it, leading Becky to ask why Joyce cared if he cared leading to Joyce to yell back that she doesn’t.
This is pretty reminiscent of their Walkyverse counterparts, where Joyce was constantly trying to prod out the Joe she saw, but the difference there is that Walkyverse Joe did like her but not enough that he wanted to stop being himself, whereas here we’ve got a Joe with a much shakier foundation for his identity and who isn’t mature enough to be the person he wants to be. A lot of his returns to his established persona have been transparently performative, but we haven’t really seen how he’d act while backsliding or indulging in that old persona when around Joyce, who spelled out for him that his behaviour was deeply triggering for her.
Sooooo I think it’s less that Joyce has a crush on him and more Joyce gets really attached to people really quick, and Joe is in a frustrating middle ground where he keeps almost proving himself to be good all along before letting Joyce down, but he’s only able to let Joyce down because Joyce does actually have a high opinion of him, even if last chapter she herself tried to dismiss him as not “that kind of friend” who “doesn’t care about family.”
Joyce what have you done!? Why bring her to Joe of all people!?
Ruth was probably busy.
Grinding Jason’s dick down to a nub, no doubt.
Like an angle grinder cutting a twist-tie.
Because Joe is Joyce’s only friend who knows she’s an atheist, and she can let loose with swearing around him because she doesn’t care as much, for one reason or another, how she comes off to him.
goddammit joyce xD
When I said “throw Joe at her”, I did not mean it. I swear.
Too late.
We require someone to blame,
Dumbing of Age Book 12: You’ve Had Your Fun
Dumbing of Age Book 12: Shit Yeah, Fuck God, Shitty Shit
Oh no
Joyce has a Christian best friend, an athiest one, a Jewish one… she’s a collector. Definitely an author avitar.
Now they just have to walk into a bar together.
This is the first time in a long time that a comic has made me audibly go “Oh, no…”
I don’t think Joyce is ready for that just yet but I have been wrong before.
This is going to hurt Joe, and not just because Becky must destroy am challengers to the title.
Joe: I’m your best friend? I didn’t know that your standards were so low. (Is actually super touched)
Joyce: You’re my best *guy* friend. So don’t worry about my standards whatever they are. (Recognizes that he was touched and appreciates that fact).
very tsundere
Solid win for about one panel there, Sarah
Yeah, but her face in the last panel makes up for it. Well, for us readers.
This is all kinds of ridiculous, but it’s got some potentially interesting side effects. Let’s see how it goes.
Oooh! And folks, we see a great brain breaker volley launched by Big Sis, seemingly spiked by Little Sis, we’ll see what happens next, folks.
After Sarah leaves, an unexpected threesome ensues.
Last panel Joyce is drawn rather cute I think. Much floof!
I love her turtleneck!
Joyce introducing Liz to one of her friends is like playing a game of Press Your Luck. Whammied.
Couldn’t even be Joe, who we last saw a LONG time ago
(assuming you meant to say “Jacob” at the bottom, since you linked to his last appearance)
Well, Jacob did say that he needed “a different girlfriend checklist, and it’s gonna sound a lot like [Joyce].” I don’t think he and Liz would actually be compatible, though.
oh no
Well, Joyce may have THOUGHT it, Sarah, but she didn’t say “Fuck God” (or anyone else). Not yet, anyway.
And when she finally does — there will be, to quote Obi-Wan Kenobi, “… a great disturbance in the Force, as if millions of voices suddenly cried out in terror and were suddenly silenced.”
Oh, Joe. This won’t end well.
Joe: Well, THIS I did not see coming. When did I become her best friend?
love it when i come in here to read the new strip and theres a new 9 chickweed lane on the twitter feed. call it a double feature.
Oh jeez 9CL is such garbage. I can’t even believe the author of that thing is somehow still published in newspapers.
Yeah, but reading Willis reacting to it is fun.
Are we to believe that Joyce has never discussed her *real* Best Friend with Liz on the Book o’ Faces?
Liz is in on it. Joyce will introduce her to Fuckface after Sarah’s finally grumbled off back to their room.
this can only end well
Everything is coming up Liz!
My icon is Joe !!!!!
That comment couldn’t have been more perfect!!
I am a little surprised Joyce wouldn’t simply be able to tell Liz “I am introducing you to friends who don’t know I’m an atheist.”. After all, Liz herself posts bible quotes to fool others into thinking she’s still a christian, so she would recognize that it is sometime necessary to hid part of your life.
But then, without a little drama it wounldn’t be the comic strip we all like.
I think she doesn’t want her cool persona that swears all the time to be revealed as an act.
I’d put Liz ‘on’ Joyce’s left shoulder and Sarah ‘on’ her right for some extra religious allusions, but it’s funny the other way round too.
i am never going to get over how wonderful joyce’s glasses look
They do look good, especially with that sweater she’s wearing in the last panel.
This is going to get ugly. And hilarious, of course.
I suspect that Joyce is going to end this interaction having had two people express what are, for her, genuinely surprising opinions on who ‘Joyce Brown’ is and in what ways she is most likeable.
oh no. no no no no. I have a bad feeling about this. Noo
Oh no! Poor, innocent Joe has jet to recover for the surprise of his best friend going out with one of the hottest girl in the campus and is now involved in a very weird situation by his really insicure friend Joyce!!! This will probably end bad! Sarah already hates him, what will her reaction be if Liz and Joe start getting along? And what will Joyce’s reaction be? Will this reunite the two friends against Liz?
Joyce, in an amazing show of friendship and solidarity, will now get Liz laid, and then sob into Sarah’s arms later about how Sarah was right. Truly, she contains multitudes.
I was hoping that Joe would refuse and it would escalate the relationship between him and Joyce, but your version sounds more likely.
This seems quite possible. Once again Sarah will be right and, once again, her victory will leave a very bad taste in Sarah’s mouth.
And then Sarah will knock on Joe’s door with a baseball bat again. This time with no intentions of going to the batting cages.
“You banged my sister!”
“Which one?”
I don’t know. Joyce just called Joe as “friend”. Not seem like she into him..
Oh my, I thought for a moment that Sarah will get Joe for herself to keep him away from Liz. I hope I’m wrong.
hee hee hee hee
Very astute of you, Sarah. And VERY clever of you, Joyce. Palm off Liz on somebody who you know will appreciate the attention AND both of them will enjoy themselves.
Joe is Joyce’s hot friend who is also single. This is gonna backfire spectacularly.
What could possibly go wrong?
Only Joyce’s idea of what classifies a ‘role model’. Again.
Sarah, no, no, that’s perfect, really
My inner agent of chaos is thrilled to see where this will go
creative problems requires creative solutions
and it’ll probably be the first time since year started that Joe is gonna actively regfret letting 3 women into his room
DAMN. YOU. WILLIS.
Once more, with feeling.
Oh shit. This worries me as a Joeyce shipper.
Don’t worry, if anime has taught me anything it’s that Joe flirting with Liz will inspire Comedy Antics in Joyce.
aww, sarah said “OUR friends”!
[smiles and politely ignores the rest of the strip]
Something tells me that Joe is going to be even more disappointed in her than Dorothy or Becky would have.
I agree. I also suspect that Joyce is going to be arguing with Joe for a while about how his rejection made her break off contact with Liz and he’s cost her a friend! She’ll just not be trying to think too much why Joe’s disapproval should have moved her to action.
Joyce delivering Joe to Liz as her “best friend” just blew up any Joe-Joyce ship.
So I’ll return to Joyce-Dorothy ship again.
Not really.
Joyce is obviously lying, Joe is just her closest non-Sarah friend who knows she’s an atheist and she doesn’t have this super specific Joyce imagery to live up to in front of him that she does with Dorothy and Becky.
Plus she’s not into him the way he’s got it bad for her. She does actually like him and believes he’s capable of being a good person, but he’s also let her down enough times that Joyce doesn’t trust him fully yet the way she effortlessly makes friends with everyone, because she doesn’t know when he’ll backtrack on that.
Also she has observed his dump truck ass and found it appealing.
And Joe and Liz have already started hooking up….
Joe’s Brain: Waaaait… my hot ‘best friend’, her hot (and angry) roommate, and her roommate’s hot sister?? This is porn, right? I’ve fallen asleep, and I’m having a porn dream…
PLEASE GOD DON’T LET ME WAKE UP
This one might show up on a seismograph.
*continues to ship*
I hope I’ve done this right; I made a art:
Hm, guess not. Trying again:
Dammit! Third times the charm?: https://ibb.co/JC0SVQS
Hee hee
I’m so excited for this to go wrong in so many ways
I am very much looking forward to this epic meeting.