As I recall, Willis was tweeting the other day about how sometimes their art style just leaves out an eyebrow on occasion (specifically pointing out that Liz isn’t even the first DoA character they’ve done this for) and that it’s not supposed to be anything special…and how then suddenly this time, certain readers snagged on to this seemingly-insignificant detail and immediately deduced that it must have a Deep and Hidden Meaning behind it. 😛
It had been fairly consistent on one particular eyebrow, and as he pointed out t he’s recently been drawing eyebrows thicker in general, making them more noticeable (especially with a new character model as opposed to, say, Walky or Dina.) So the absence was likewise noticeable.
I feel like I know the line “you see, I said “yawn” because when I actually yawned you kept talking” but I cannot recall where from.
Possibly Donna to Josh in The West Wing, but a few other possible character combinations from popular culture do spring to mind.
Once you say shit for the first time, it’s easier to say shit a second time. But, shit, not as easy as the third time you say shit. I mean the fourth shit, wait, shit, no, this shit’s getting the shit shit shit. Oh, shitty shit!
I feel like “I’d be excited if I had a sister and she showed up” just has to be dramatic irony. Foreshadowing. Please, Willis, I’m dying to see Jocelyne have a happy coming out experience with Joyce, and Joyce being happy about having a sister!
They ease you for 10 years and you go right back to first name basis after divorce? If the ex-stepmom is involved enough to still be on her case, good on her!
Yeah, it depends A LOT on the relationship, the length of the marriage, and how involved they were with Liz’s life specifically. If it was only a year and their parent only had weekends and vacations, that’s very different from joint or primary custody and a marriage lasting five years or more. (And then there’s awkwardness like ‘my parent remarried as an adult and I have minimal contact with them, do I call her my stepmother when we barely even see each other?’ Blended families can be complicated, especially when multiple remarriages are in play.)
Then you do the math and find that Cher’s dad must have been Josh’s legal stepdad for like nanoseconds when Josh was very young. So, good job, Mr. Horowitz.
I could be wrong but I THINK some people say “moms” when referring to a singular mom, it’s a slang thing? That could be it. BUT I’m not really sure about that, I haven’t bothered to look it up, just something I’ve seen on TV and pieced together with context.
Think an Ebonics thing is being used here, where a parent is being used in plural to mean one person (e.g. “My moms wants me home by five”). Was confused for a few minutes when I first encountered it years ago and thought it referred to two moms.
Yeah, could be that or two stepmoms, but I am thinking of it as being plural in the same sense as someone calling a singular man “my mans!”. It happens.
Wait, is Ebonics slang, or more of a dialect? <——- thought that stopped me from saying that.
Wait, aren't dialects ALSO needless confusing compared to just a single language? <———— Next thought in sequence
But dialects arise because natural language is a kluge, evolving parallel to each other and not beholden to any standard or central management other than whether it works for communicating with those around you. By keeping language both natural and freely-evolving, we avoid various costs and lost opportunities associated with centralized control of the language, which probably can't be made to work too well anyway. If having confusing dialects is a preferable tradeoff compared to some restrictive dialect-preventing system, then that isn't needless. <———- Thought #3
Yes it is. <——- Thought # 2n + 4
No it isn't. <——- Thought # 2n+5
[Loop through all natural numbers n.]
What the hell? How is it past midnight and why do I have twelve wikipedia tabs on linguistics, opportunity costs, and various types of necessity open? <—- thought # whoknows
i have several thoughts about your thoughts, but i’ll just say that one reason we shouldn’t try and curtail dialectal diversity is because that’s an inherently authoritarian thing to do. your language is more than a tool for transmitting information. it’s a major part of who you are.
I’m going to put a no here, bc defining a culture by a common language is also a no-go that resulted in many shits like sudete germans conflicts (today still).
I’m confused about the “stepmoms.” I’m assuming Sarah’s parents are divorced. Does that mean both parents are married to women? Is one of her parents poly and have two wives? Someone who knows the lore please clear it up for me. Thanks! (Not being sarcastic or smart; genuinely asking)
Sarah’s parents were confirmed to be divorced shortly before the time skip. It was by all accounts not amicable. That’s about all we knew about Sarah’s family apart from ‘Cool Nana’ and one Walkyverse appearance of Liz back in Roomies until this arc.
The answer is currently unknown, but the simplest of many possibilities is that both of Liz’s parents married women after the divorce. The fact that Joyce is not shown to be surprised suggests that Liz has filled her in on the situation.
Sarah has said her parents are divorced. Stepmoms imply both her parents went on to partner with women or one is poly with two or more female partners. We know little more than this at this time.
It is still entirely possible that both their parents decided they are poly and there is a whole web of stepmothers. There could be 8 stepmothers for all we know.
There has been no indication so far that Jocelyne is out to her family. She is currently being kept in reserve on Patreon bonus strip voting (that is, we can nominate and vote for her but if she wins, Willis just goes down to the next-most-voted character who ISN’T considered guarded information – Ethan and Jacob are likewise off-limits), and has been since the timeskip.
My bet’s that after the kidnapping, Jocelyne has a really good excuse for getting things out of the family house, and also siding with Joyce automatically means distancing herself from Carol. Unfortunately, Carol’s also shown very unambiguously that she cannot ever be trusted with the information that Jocelyne is trans. And also, therefore, does not get to be trusted with things like ‘any cosigned paperwork that could remotely give Carol some form of financial control over her daughter’ or ‘Jocelyne’s address.’ In short, I suspect that whatever timeline she had for eventually coming out has moved up, but she’s also not taking any unambiguous steps until she’s confident Carol won’t be able to retaliate when she finds out.
Yeah, it’s become a problem every month since the time skip, though it started earlier with Mike post-fall (and also allowed Willis to put in a ‘don’t nominate Jordan, guys, you’re not making me reveal Jordan’s deal here!’) The line in nomination posts is now something to the effect of ‘you won’t get me to reveal guarded information early’. Immediately post-timeskip, this meant a lot of the core cast weren’t being featured ahead of their new looks being revealed, but that was only for a month or two. By now, I think the big names who’ll be passed over are just Jocelyne, Ethan, Jacob, and maybe Hank but I’m not certain he’s gotten enough votes to know. My assumption is that if they’ve played a major role in a storyline and they haven’t appeared post-skip, they’re probably guarded information.
(Mike has also been in a weird spot where he’s been nominated – and won – after his confirmed death, so he got a Lawsome comic. I wouldn’t expect more than that. Also notable, pre-timeskip we DID get a comic featuring Becky’s ex-roommate at Anderson, showing what she’s doing at Anderson. As such, it can be assumed she’s still eligible now because her place in the story is done. It remains to be seen what would happen if Sarah’s ex-roommate Dana ever won a vote, since there’s been speculation among the commentariat about how she’s doing. Could be she’d be eligible, could be she’s not because she’s not intended to show up again and her status isn’t being saved for a big throwdown between Sarah and Raidah. Also, I’d assume we could vote for Howard or Riley – probably not Faz, though – even though they haven’t appeared post-timeskip, because we have no reason to believe they’ve undergone massive life changes since then and might be being held in reserve for a big reveal.)
* Er, with Dana: If she gets a bonus strip, it should be assumed her status is NOT being held in reserve for a reveal. If she ever won a vote and was skipped over, we could conclude that she is in fact considered guarded information for some reason or another (even if that reason is ‘to keep the comments guessing and leave an opening if Willis ever DOES want to bring her up again.’)
Bit characters like Asma or the like have generally always been fine. Unnamed ones like Joyce’s optometrist are fringe but have proven okay if it’s shortly after their appearance.
Kind of surprised Jocelyne is on the classified list. Not that she isn’t important but it does imply she’ll be a major player in the story soon, since before now she hasn’t really been a huge factor just a side character that pops up from time to time.
The thing is that Jocelyne has a specific extenuating circumstance post-timeskip (she was fine up to that point,) in that she’s Joyce’s sister, and she’s trans, and we have reason to believe Jocelyne was already thinking about coming out (and maybe taking more concrete steps to prepare herself for estrangement from her parents) BEFORE ‘Mom bailed out someone who wanted to degay his daughter by force if necessary, and then he kidnapped Joyce to try and kidnap Becky, and also he’d previously pointed a LOADED GUN at both of them, and now he’s dead because the rest of the bail was paid by a literal mobster trying to abuse his own daughter.’ All of that makes it possible Jocelyne’s going to show up again having radically changed (because she took major steps to transition offscreen, or because she’s in contact with Jordan, or whatever.) Either way, she’s wrapped up in Joyce’s family drama that is DEFINITELY being saved for the main storyline, which is why I wouldn’t expect anything from a big push for Hank or Carol, either. (I could maybe see an outside chance John is acceptable since we largely expect him to have chosen Carol, but I certainly wouldn’t bet on him or spend my vote there.)
That would be great if she could somehow join the cast full-time! I hadn’t even considered that possibility. Which is odd, since it wouldn’t be the first time.
Only problem I can think of is that Carol is probably likely to come around snooping as usual at some point, and Jocelyne definitely wouldn’t be safe if Carol found her. There is basically no doubt whatsoever in my mind that Carol would attempt to pull a Ross if she found out, and we’re down both a superhero and a motorcycle…
…I don’t know if a life where you don’t feel it’s safe to even tell your immediate family your own name– and are probably genuinely correct in that assessment– can really be called a “normal life.”
Is it pleasant? No. Does it happen to some people? Absolutely. And there’s definitely plenty of room between ‘lives in the immediate vicinity of Joyce’ and ‘is still living in easy distance of Carol, where she knows Jocelyne’s address and may well have a key because Jocelyne couldn’t come up with a suitable reason to deny her that kept cover.’
If she moved in the intervening time I wouldn’t be shocked, but if I were planning to permanently cut ties with a toxic family member who can be expected to react badly, I’d probably save that one for one of the last steps before coming out, along with ‘complete and total block on all digital points of contact.’ The key is to minimize interactions and make them as drama-free as possible without Carol knowing something is wrong. Good news is that, even with the implications Jocelyne shares a temper with her sister, she’s had much more practice disengaging and keeping her head down. Still, I’d want to ensure I wasn’t alone in the house with Carol and John while picking up whatever may be left there.
No offense but I do not think Carol’s that dangerous. Like she’ll probably disown Jocelyne but I highly doubt she’s capable of pulling off a Ross stunt. Ruth whipped her ass.
The thing is, we don’t know. Ross surprised Becky by bringing the gun to campus – she expected trouble, she may even have expected the threat of violence, but she didn’t expect the gun even knowing Ross had it. The problem with abusive people is that they’re at their most dangerous when you leave, and you don’t know just how dangerous that’ll be until it happens.
While Carol may or may not be a physical threat to Jocelyne (who has shown no proclivity towards violence, and as a freelance writer is likely not to be particularly strong because good protein is expensive and her job involves typing,) she can certainly do a lot of things that are seriously harmful. Breaking into Jocelyne’s apartment and stealing or breaking things, for example, or draining bank accounts she still has access to. Since Jocelyne has a cat, she could steal or harm said cat. Hell, even just entering and refusing to leave the apartment could be problematic, as the Robin/Leslie incident showed.
She may not be Ross-level dangerous but she strikes me as one hundred percent the sort of parent who would do things like out her daughter to a boss, or to random strangers on the street, or organize some kind of church event to make a big fuss, or do other things which could put Jocelyne in direct danger.
Frankly I don’t want her to move to Bloomington because I don’t think being in the same state is far enough away. Certainly not if she has family members in the same city who wouldn’t go no-contact- that would just lead to Carol leaning on Joyce to try to bring Jocelyne “back into the fold”, and when Joyce inevitably told her to go fuck herself, things might escalate.
I suspect Joyce may already be no-contact, honestly – we saw already that she didn’t want to talk to her parents in the aftermath of the kidnapping, and Carol did nothing to earn trust back while also bailing out the man who proceeded to kidnap Joyce. We know she spent the holidays at Becky’s place.
Bloomington is probably too close to be safe, especially if Joyce is already there so Carol could go after two kids at once, but I can dream and suspend disbelief for cute sibling interactions. I wanna see Joyce and Jocelyne and Becky go clothes-shopping together as sisters!
Damn you Willis, you continue to taunt me with the possibility of Jocelyn coming out to Joyce and then not doing it. The title of this chapter had me sure we’d finally see Jocelyn, but now I’m wondering if it only refers to Liz.
Hey bcb/bgb. I hit your link/tumble and had some q’s about your top story. Chiefly i was hoping for source/methodology of danger determination. But:
Are you sure alcohol danger shouldn’t be higher? Is there a source? How was their danger determined? And what if John Wick is holding the carrot like a pencil?
Don’t kid yourself, Liz. Parents have always had ways of knowing what’s going on, even in the days before social media and smartphones, no matter how diligently you tried to keep it from them. The reason they’re not all up in your face constantly is that THEY make the decisions as to which battles are or are not worth fighting.
They did apparently have some suspicions Lil Jocelyne was ‘not properly gender-conforming’, per Joyce’s recollections about their youth pastor stressing the importance of appropriately gendered toys or the like, but that’s just it: a suspicion, and one that was treated as a problem to be solved rather than something about their child to embrace. Which proceeded to teach Jocelyne that some things were to be actively hidden from her parents (and siblings) at all costs, because they couldn’t be trusted with it. Kids who have to learn how to hide things from their parents get very, very good at it, because they have to to stay safe.
Yeah, my wife was into CCC when we first met, but she decided that she would rather live in the real world by Spring quarter. The kicker was she was on a trip when their van got a flat and she and another person changed the flat while everyone else stood around and prayed for it to be fixed.
Evangelical world technicality: it hasn’t been called Campus Crusade for Christ in a long time. It’s Cru. They decided to distance themselves from the worst Crusade, for obvious reasons.
That the name started all with hard ‘C’s was enough for me to only see them as the KKK every time I’ve met them. 3 different campuses in 2 provinces and they’ve all been aryans every time.
That’s cool to know! It was definitely still “Campus Crusade for Christ” when I went to University. Which leads to the question of “Who thought the CCC was a good acronym for an organization of evangelists trying to recruit?”
I’m still a little annoyed about them, overall. Just something about getting to a new environment and having “HAVE YOU HEARD ABOUT OUR LORD AND SAVIOUR JESUS” immediately shoved into your face is particularly grating, and unwelcoming to the hundreds of kids who have just finally found themselves somewhere they thought they could be themselves.
Of course now I am nerding out about the old parody sci-fi story “Space Rats of the CCC” by Harry Harrison. Which had nothing to do with Cru or religion, but never gave a clear answer about what CCC stood for.
(Real world there was also the Civilian Conservation Corp, a jobs program during the Great Depression.)
Yeah but if he had just said Cru I’m guessing a significant portion of readership (at least myself, I’m guessing a good number of others) would have no idea wtf he was talking about. I’ve never heard of either name before but at least the long one is self-explanatory.
Sounds like Liz is going to be a great “say the right things to keep the peace” mentor for Joyce, since they both can’t completely sever until after college.
The good news is that with the specific circumstances of the divorce (that is, ‘if you’re still backing the man who KIDNAPPED MY DAUGHTER you’re dead to me,’) Hank’s almost certainly broken with the congregation already, and things with Carol are irreparably strained. (It’s also VERY likely that Hank was the one financially supporting the whole family, though we don’t know that for sure.) The question now is what he does when he finds out 1) Jocelyne’s trans and 2) Joyce is an atheist. It’s also up in the air whether he tries to seek out another fundamentalist congregation recognizing Becky’s a member of his family now or not. Both of those reveals are likely to shake him, and Jocelyne in particular is going to test just how much of a redemption arc Hank’s on, but I do think we have reason to hope Joyce won’t have to cut ties with him entirely – the estrangement with Jordan clearly REALLY hit Hank hard, and as we saw after the kidnapping, he’s terrified of another kid making the same choice. This means he might push for contact still with John to keep the peace, but it’s very possible he recognizes when Jocelyne shows up that this is another potential ‘screw up here and it’s over’ moment.
I don’t think he’s going to push any of the kids to talk to Carol more than absolutely necessary. The beauty of her going so far beyond the pale is that they don’t have to justify estrangement beyond ‘she bailed out a man who kidnapped Joyce, and then kept siding with him’. Anyone who has a problem with that is immediately the unreasonable one here.
I tottaly understood Liz.
I also share some christian memes and speak not so much to family, to anybody discover I’m pretty far for christianism. I’m little afraid I’m speaking it here, but nobody speaks english. So…
I’m just gonna consider this comic confirmation that poor Jocelyne still has not come out, but understandable with divorce incoming, don’t need to add more gas to a blazing fire. May she some day bask in the sun in her full glory one day.
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This is a fun arc!
You beat Ana! A toast of toast for your first post!
**looks at third word**
**slowly smiles**
I am so fuckin mature right now.
how classy of you! let us save this moment in the annals.
hey notice how as you get older how you get more into annals?
or is it just me.
I could only hear choose goose as I read this.
… and now, I can only hear milu’s comment as Choose Goose.
Adventure Time!
Thank you! I was quite surprised myself!
That’s a confirmed sighting of the other eyebrow.
As I recall, Willis was tweeting the other day about how sometimes their art style just leaves out an eyebrow on occasion (specifically pointing out that Liz isn’t even the first DoA character they’ve done this for) and that it’s not supposed to be anything special…and how then suddenly this time, certain readers snagged on to this seemingly-insignificant detail and immediately deduced that it must have a Deep and Hidden Meaning behind it. 😛
I’m pretty sure I kicked that off. The only reason I noticed was because she’d been missing the eyebrow in all her panels up until this strip.
It had been fairly consistent on one particular eyebrow, and as he pointed out t he’s recently been drawing eyebrows thicker in general, making them more noticeable (especially with a new character model as opposed to, say, Walky or Dina.) So the absence was likewise noticeable.
You people thinking you’ve seen the other eyebrow when clearly it’s the same eyebrow leaping from side to side.
Holy crap! I’ve seen Schroedinger’s Eyebrow! Procter & Bergman were right. “How can you be in two places at once, When you’re not anywhere at all?”
the Good Doctor says…
“Roll up your arm and bend over.”
JOYCE SHIT
…
I mean she said it
(again)
…I genuinely didn’t even process that that was Joyce’s line until I read your comment. Wow.
My money’s still on her first f-bomb being directed at Carol.
That’s her fourth shit now, right?
For those who keep count, that is.
Tut tut. You’re off your game Ana. Is everything ok? 😉
Also, why am I reading this like Sarah is actually saying, “groan” instead of making the groaning noise?
I feel like I know the line “you see, I said “yawn” because when I actually yawned you kept talking” but I cannot recall where from.
Possibly Donna to Josh in The West Wing, but a few other possible character combinations from popular culture do spring to mind.
That definitely sounds like a Sorkin line
That (or something close to that) was said by Jordan in Scrubs.
If it were inside a word bubble, maybe. As it’s not, it’s meant to be a non-verbal utterance.
Once you say shit for the first time, it’s easier to say shit a second time. But, shit, not as easy as the third time you say shit. I mean the fourth shit, wait, shit, no, this shit’s getting the shit shit shit. Oh, shitty shit!
Oh no by which I mean oh yes!
TWO evidences I am gonna need from Joyce now
OH SNAP
“I’d be excited if I had a sister!”
…Damn you, Willis! whyyyyyy…
Indeed.
I have to assume she’ll show up sooner or later. They can’t keep her out of the Patreon voting forever!
But still, the waiting hurts. No Jocelyne also means no Jocelyne’s cat.
Is that a slipshine, or does Jocelyn have a felinus domesticus house pet?
https://www.dumbingofage.com/tag/miss-sakaki/
The accepted binomial name is Felis catus
Is that like a catinus housus?
No, more like a Catus hattensis
I feel like “I’d be excited if I had a sister and she showed up” just has to be dramatic irony. Foreshadowing. Please, Willis, I’m dying to see Jocelyne have a happy coming out experience with Joyce, and Joyce being happy about having a sister!
There’s foreshadowing and then there’s a getting hit on the face with a giant clown mallet spelling out the next development in big letters.
Joyce has a sister already, she’s just not aware yet that one of her siblings is her sister, not her brother.
But if I recall correctly, she has always been excited when her sister comes to visit, so it still tracks.
Btw, that was all I really came to say. Any other shit I just happened to say while I was here was just shit. I mean, sometimes shit just happens.
good news, everyone!
That swearword dropped quickly, Joyce
gotta fit in with new friend!
Wait, stepmoms? I guess both of Sarah’s parents remarried women after the divorce?
By this train of logic that would imply both parents married women. Sarah’s mom gay confirmed?
Not necessarily gay, but definitely WLW at any rate.
(note: not an expert on terminology, please feel free to correct me if I screw up)
Potentially the same parent remarried twice? Or it’s a typo.
This would imply a WLW stepmom who is pleased to see Campus Crusade for Christ Jesus memes.
Not necessarily. Could be the stepmom married to their dad.
Wait, no never mind. Realized as soon as I hit send.
Or her father divorced and remarried multiple times?
I guess she’d have little reason to call someone a stepmom if they were an ex-stepmom.
They ease you for 10 years and you go right back to first name basis after divorce? If the ex-stepmom is involved enough to still be on her case, good on her!
Yeah, it depends A LOT on the relationship, the length of the marriage, and how involved they were with Liz’s life specifically. If it was only a year and their parent only had weekends and vacations, that’s very different from joint or primary custody and a marriage lasting five years or more. (And then there’s awkwardness like ‘my parent remarried as an adult and I have minimal contact with them, do I call her my stepmother when we barely even see each other?’ Blended families can be complicated, especially when multiple remarriages are in play.)
Clueless: “We divorce wives, not children”
Then you do the math and find that Cher’s dad must have been Josh’s legal stepdad for like nanoseconds when Josh was very young. So, good job, Mr. Horowitz.
Or maybe it’s a polygamous marriage.
Yes, that is too Biblical. (If it’s remarriage after becoming a widower rather than after a divorce.)
I could be wrong but I THINK some people say “moms” when referring to a singular mom, it’s a slang thing? That could be it. BUT I’m not really sure about that, I haven’t bothered to look it up, just something I’ve seen on TV and pieced together with context.
Wait stepmoms? Plural?
Think an Ebonics thing is being used here, where a parent is being used in plural to mean one person (e.g. “My moms wants me home by five”). Was confused for a few minutes when I first encountered it years ago and thought it referred to two moms.
Yeah, could be that or two stepmoms, but I am thinking of it as being plural in the same sense as someone calling a singular man “my mans!”. It happens.
That seems needlessly confusing
Most slang is. <——— what I wanted to say.
Wait, is Ebonics slang, or more of a dialect? <——- thought that stopped me from saying that.
Wait, aren't dialects ALSO needless confusing compared to just a single language? <———— Next thought in sequence
But dialects arise because natural language is a kluge, evolving parallel to each other and not beholden to any standard or central management other than whether it works for communicating with those around you. By keeping language both natural and freely-evolving, we avoid various costs and lost opportunities associated with centralized control of the language, which probably can't be made to work too well anyway. If having confusing dialects is a preferable tradeoff compared to some restrictive dialect-preventing system, then that isn't needless. <———- Thought #3
Yes it is. <——- Thought # 2n + 4
No it isn't. <——- Thought # 2n+5
[Loop through all natural numbers n.]
What the hell? How is it past midnight and why do I have twelve wikipedia tabs on linguistics, opportunity costs, and various types of necessity open? <—- thought # whoknows
ADHD sucks. <——- thought # whoknows+1
i have several thoughts about your thoughts, but i’ll just say that one reason we shouldn’t try and curtail dialectal diversity is because that’s an inherently authoritarian thing to do. your language is more than a tool for transmitting information. it’s a major part of who you are.
I’m going to put a no here, bc defining a culture by a common language is also a no-go that resulted in many shits like sudete germans conflicts (today still).
Did not need to get to the end there to recognise the ADHD!
Perhaps Sarah’s dad has remarried more than once? So she has more than one stepmom?
I’m confused about the “stepmoms.” I’m assuming Sarah’s parents are divorced. Does that mean both parents are married to women? Is one of her parents poly and have two wives? Someone who knows the lore please clear it up for me. Thanks! (Not being sarcastic or smart; genuinely asking)
Sarah’s parents were confirmed to be divorced shortly before the time skip. It was by all accounts not amicable. That’s about all we knew about Sarah’s family apart from ‘Cool Nana’ and one Walkyverse appearance of Liz back in Roomies until this arc.
Stepmoms plural is new info.
Thanks!
That said, watch as ten minutes from now the comic’s reuploaded because there was supposed to be an apostrophe.
That wouldn’t be grammatically correct.
Naw, it would be. Stepmom’s case=The case of Stepmom, this is the possession of Stepmom. Stepmom case would not be grammatically correct.
I am not an expert, but I am fairly certain that “Keep my stepmom’s off my case” would be incorrect grammar
Yeah, I just wasn’t reading very well last night.
Or an s removed.
The answer is currently unknown, but the simplest of many possibilities is that both of Liz’s parents married women after the divorce. The fact that Joyce is not shown to be surprised suggests that Liz has filled her in on the situation.
Thanks!
We know that both of Sarah’s parents came to visit her after the kidnapping, so it’s possible that Joyce has met them already.
It makes sense. I’m sure it will be funny when everybody discover Joyce know more of Sarah’s family than Sara itself.
I think the simplest explanation is that she’s using the common AAVE thing of calling your mom ‘moms’, as mentioned above.
Sarah has said her parents are divorced. Stepmoms imply both her parents went on to partner with women or one is poly with two or more female partners. We know little more than this at this time.
It is still entirely possible that both their parents decided they are poly and there is a whole web of stepmothers. There could be 8 stepmothers for all we know.
This made me giggle 🙂
That would be a whole new take on “octomom”.
Or her parents were both women and both remarried women.
I forget if this is the case of Joyce not knowing yet or simply not remembering?
Doesn’t know yet as far as we know. Joyce still thinks she has only brothers to our knowledge.
If you’re talking about Jocelyne, then she doesn’t know.
There has been no indication so far that Jocelyne is out to her family. She is currently being kept in reserve on Patreon bonus strip voting (that is, we can nominate and vote for her but if she wins, Willis just goes down to the next-most-voted character who ISN’T considered guarded information – Ethan and Jacob are likewise off-limits), and has been since the timeskip.
My bet’s that after the kidnapping, Jocelyne has a really good excuse for getting things out of the family house, and also siding with Joyce automatically means distancing herself from Carol. Unfortunately, Carol’s also shown very unambiguously that she cannot ever be trusted with the information that Jocelyne is trans. And also, therefore, does not get to be trusted with things like ‘any cosigned paperwork that could remotely give Carol some form of financial control over her daughter’ or ‘Jocelyne’s address.’ In short, I suspect that whatever timeline she had for eventually coming out has moved up, but she’s also not taking any unambiguous steps until she’s confident Carol won’t be able to retaliate when she finds out.
Wait? I’m not a patron. There are actually characters that are locked out of the patreon vote?
Yeah you can’t vote for Ethan for example.
Yeah, it’s become a problem every month since the time skip, though it started earlier with Mike post-fall (and also allowed Willis to put in a ‘don’t nominate Jordan, guys, you’re not making me reveal Jordan’s deal here!’) The line in nomination posts is now something to the effect of ‘you won’t get me to reveal guarded information early’. Immediately post-timeskip, this meant a lot of the core cast weren’t being featured ahead of their new looks being revealed, but that was only for a month or two. By now, I think the big names who’ll be passed over are just Jocelyne, Ethan, Jacob, and maybe Hank but I’m not certain he’s gotten enough votes to know. My assumption is that if they’ve played a major role in a storyline and they haven’t appeared post-skip, they’re probably guarded information.
(Mike has also been in a weird spot where he’s been nominated – and won – after his confirmed death, so he got a Lawsome comic. I wouldn’t expect more than that. Also notable, pre-timeskip we DID get a comic featuring Becky’s ex-roommate at Anderson, showing what she’s doing at Anderson. As such, it can be assumed she’s still eligible now because her place in the story is done. It remains to be seen what would happen if Sarah’s ex-roommate Dana ever won a vote, since there’s been speculation among the commentariat about how she’s doing. Could be she’d be eligible, could be she’s not because she’s not intended to show up again and her status isn’t being saved for a big throwdown between Sarah and Raidah. Also, I’d assume we could vote for Howard or Riley – probably not Faz, though – even though they haven’t appeared post-timeskip, because we have no reason to believe they’ve undergone massive life changes since then and might be being held in reserve for a big reveal.)
* Er, with Dana: If she gets a bonus strip, it should be assumed her status is NOT being held in reserve for a reveal. If she ever won a vote and was skipped over, we could conclude that she is in fact considered guarded information for some reason or another (even if that reason is ‘to keep the comments guessing and leave an opening if Willis ever DOES want to bring her up again.’)
Bit characters like Asma or the like have generally always been fine. Unnamed ones like Joyce’s optometrist are fringe but have proven okay if it’s shortly after their appearance.
Kind of surprised Jocelyne is on the classified list. Not that she isn’t important but it does imply she’ll be a major player in the story soon, since before now she hasn’t really been a huge factor just a side character that pops up from time to time.
The thing is that Jocelyne has a specific extenuating circumstance post-timeskip (she was fine up to that point,) in that she’s Joyce’s sister, and she’s trans, and we have reason to believe Jocelyne was already thinking about coming out (and maybe taking more concrete steps to prepare herself for estrangement from her parents) BEFORE ‘Mom bailed out someone who wanted to degay his daughter by force if necessary, and then he kidnapped Joyce to try and kidnap Becky, and also he’d previously pointed a LOADED GUN at both of them, and now he’s dead because the rest of the bail was paid by a literal mobster trying to abuse his own daughter.’ All of that makes it possible Jocelyne’s going to show up again having radically changed (because she took major steps to transition offscreen, or because she’s in contact with Jordan, or whatever.) Either way, she’s wrapped up in Joyce’s family drama that is DEFINITELY being saved for the main storyline, which is why I wouldn’t expect anything from a big push for Hank or Carol, either. (I could maybe see an outside chance John is acceptable since we largely expect him to have chosen Carol, but I certainly wouldn’t bet on him or spend my vote there.)
Also, soon is a relative term.
Absolutely within two decades! Calling it now.
Bonus: If Jocelyne’s moving to make sure Carol has no idea where she lives and such, she can move to Bloomington! Pretty please, Willis?
That would be great if she could somehow join the cast full-time! I hadn’t even considered that possibility. Which is odd, since it wouldn’t be the first time.
Only problem I can think of is that Carol is probably likely to come around snooping as usual at some point, and Jocelyne definitely wouldn’t be safe if Carol found her. There is basically no doubt whatsoever in my mind that Carol would attempt to pull a Ross if she found out, and we’re down both a superhero and a motorcycle…
See, joining the full cast means getting involved in drama. I’d like to think she’s living a normal life out there with her writing and her cat.
…I don’t know if a life where you don’t feel it’s safe to even tell your immediate family your own name– and are probably genuinely correct in that assessment– can really be called a “normal life.”
Is it pleasant? No. Does it happen to some people? Absolutely. And there’s definitely plenty of room between ‘lives in the immediate vicinity of Joyce’ and ‘is still living in easy distance of Carol, where she knows Jocelyne’s address and may well have a key because Jocelyne couldn’t come up with a suitable reason to deny her that kept cover.’
If she moved in the intervening time I wouldn’t be shocked, but if I were planning to permanently cut ties with a toxic family member who can be expected to react badly, I’d probably save that one for one of the last steps before coming out, along with ‘complete and total block on all digital points of contact.’ The key is to minimize interactions and make them as drama-free as possible without Carol knowing something is wrong. Good news is that, even with the implications Jocelyne shares a temper with her sister, she’s had much more practice disengaging and keeping her head down. Still, I’d want to ensure I wasn’t alone in the house with Carol and John while picking up whatever may be left there.
Well as for a key there is always, “sure mom, i’ll send/give you one.”
…
“it doesn’t work? Weird, I’ll look into that.”
…
…
Also, changing locks.
No offense but I do not think Carol’s that dangerous. Like she’ll probably disown Jocelyne but I highly doubt she’s capable of pulling off a Ross stunt. Ruth whipped her ass.
The thing is, we don’t know. Ross surprised Becky by bringing the gun to campus – she expected trouble, she may even have expected the threat of violence, but she didn’t expect the gun even knowing Ross had it. The problem with abusive people is that they’re at their most dangerous when you leave, and you don’t know just how dangerous that’ll be until it happens.
While Carol may or may not be a physical threat to Jocelyne (who has shown no proclivity towards violence, and as a freelance writer is likely not to be particularly strong because good protein is expensive and her job involves typing,) she can certainly do a lot of things that are seriously harmful. Breaking into Jocelyne’s apartment and stealing or breaking things, for example, or draining bank accounts she still has access to. Since Jocelyne has a cat, she could steal or harm said cat. Hell, even just entering and refusing to leave the apartment could be problematic, as the Robin/Leslie incident showed.
She may not be Ross-level dangerous but she strikes me as one hundred percent the sort of parent who would do things like out her daughter to a boss, or to random strangers on the street, or organize some kind of church event to make a big fuss, or do other things which could put Jocelyne in direct danger.
Frankly I don’t want her to move to Bloomington because I don’t think being in the same state is far enough away. Certainly not if she has family members in the same city who wouldn’t go no-contact- that would just lead to Carol leaning on Joyce to try to bring Jocelyne “back into the fold”, and when Joyce inevitably told her to go fuck herself, things might escalate.
I suspect Joyce may already be no-contact, honestly – we saw already that she didn’t want to talk to her parents in the aftermath of the kidnapping, and Carol did nothing to earn trust back while also bailing out the man who proceeded to kidnap Joyce. We know she spent the holidays at Becky’s place.
Bloomington is probably too close to be safe, especially if Joyce is already there so Carol could go after two kids at once, but I can dream and suspend disbelief for cute sibling interactions. I wanna see Joyce and Jocelyne and Becky go clothes-shopping together as sisters!
Damn you Willis, you continue to taunt me with the possibility of Jocelyn coming out to Joyce and then not doing it. The title of this chapter had me sure we’d finally see Jocelyn, but now I’m wondering if it only refers to Liz.
Hey bcb/bgb. I hit your link/tumble and had some q’s about your top story. Chiefly i was hoping for source/methodology of danger determination. But:
Are you sure alcohol danger shouldn’t be higher? Is there a source? How was their danger determined? And what if John Wick is holding the carrot like a pencil?
I have a feeling Liz is misdirection/foreshadowing. Looking at Joyce’s “if i had a sister…”
Oh no…or oh yes? I don’t know how to feel about this.
*pictures other readers throwing slices of bread at their screens like they did at showings of Rocky Horror*
*If* Joyce had a sister?
I’d almost forgotten that Joyce doesn’t know what we know regarding her sister
Yup!
Thankfully I’m reading this as foreshadowing and I think we get some Jocelyn before long!
Oh, they’ll “get each other” alright…
i don’t want to call liz “better joyce” because i actually do like joyce but
i am really liking liz right now xD
Don’t kid yourself, Liz. Parents have always had ways of knowing what’s going on, even in the days before social media and smartphones, no matter how diligently you tried to keep it from them. The reason they’re not all up in your face constantly is that THEY make the decisions as to which battles are or are not worth fighting.
that’s not a universal truth. the Browns don’t know one of her children is trans.
*their
They did apparently have some suspicions Lil Jocelyne was ‘not properly gender-conforming’, per Joyce’s recollections about their youth pastor stressing the importance of appropriately gendered toys or the like, but that’s just it: a suspicion, and one that was treated as a problem to be solved rather than something about their child to embrace. Which proceeded to teach Jocelyne that some things were to be actively hidden from her parents (and siblings) at all costs, because they couldn’t be trusted with it. Kids who have to learn how to hide things from their parents get very, very good at it, because they have to to stay safe.
I’d say Liz is being a good influence.
Ahhhh, new Sarah info makes me smile!
Yeah, my wife was into CCC when we first met, but she decided that she would rather live in the real world by Spring quarter. The kicker was she was on a trip when their van got a flat and she and another person changed the flat while everyone else stood around and prayed for it to be fixed.
I bet that they got a bunch of “You’re a blessing, thank GOD!” at the moment and still were expected to feel prised
I wonder how long it would have taken for the van to be fixed if they all had stood around praying.
hum, wow, this is going in an interesting direciton suddenly XD
Either she has something terrible or she’s just an adventurous Joyce
Really liking Liz’s design and expressions here.
Evangelical world technicality: it hasn’t been called Campus Crusade for Christ in a long time. It’s Cru. They decided to distance themselves from the worst Crusade, for obvious reasons.
The name change officially began in 2011.
https://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2011/julyweb-only/campus-crusade-name-change.html
That the name started all with hard ‘C’s was enough for me to only see them as the KKK every time I’ve met them. 3 different campuses in 2 provinces and they’ve all been aryans every time.
n.b. I’m near-aryan in appearance myself, which maybe why they’ve approached me.
Cam Cru Chri doesn’t sound like an improvement.
*from the word crusade. Ads covering my screen and autocorrect aren’t a good combo.
Just change ‘crusade’ to ‘inquisition.’ Fixes everything.
Nobody will expect it!
That’s cool to know! It was definitely still “Campus Crusade for Christ” when I went to University. Which leads to the question of “Who thought the CCC was a good acronym for an organization of evangelists trying to recruit?”
I’m still a little annoyed about them, overall. Just something about getting to a new environment and having “HAVE YOU HEARD ABOUT OUR LORD AND SAVIOUR JESUS” immediately shoved into your face is particularly grating, and unwelcoming to the hundreds of kids who have just finally found themselves somewhere they thought they could be themselves.
Of course now I am nerding out about the old parody sci-fi story “Space Rats of the CCC” by Harry Harrison. Which had nothing to do with Cru or religion, but never gave a clear answer about what CCC stood for.
(Real world there was also the Civilian Conservation Corp, a jobs program during the Great Depression.)
Yeah but if he had just said Cru I’m guessing a significant portion of readership (at least myself, I’m guessing a good number of others) would have no idea wtf he was talking about. I’ve never heard of either name before but at least the long one is self-explanatory.
Which Crusade was the Worst? The Children’s Crusade?
Oh! You meant they didn’t want to use the word Crusade.
Well it’s not like any of them were good
Yeah wars are never pretty.
DOA Book 15: Joyce And Liz Do Not Have Patience For All That Shit
It’s book 12, and it needs to take the form of one sentence of dialogue, so it would be:
Dumbing of Age Book 12: Yeah, I Don’t Have Patience for All That Shit
DOA 12: I’d be Excited if I Had a Sister and She Showed Up
Or failing that, DOA 12: GROAN
depending how important Jocelyn’s arc becomes in this book that first title might be PERFECT ^_^
Both strong.
we will make a rebel of you yet, Joyce
Rebel Leader Crush with Sal ended, now Liz is Joyce’s Rebel Leader
She’s already swearing and skipping class. Who knows what rebellious things Joyce might do next?
Maybe <a href="https://www.dumbingofage.com/2016/comic/book-6/03-when-god-closes-the-door/christi/" not eat from the children's menu?
Screwed up the link.
Dunno if Liz is s bad or a good influence for Joyce. But she sure is an influence i like for her♡.
Ooh, foreshadowing!
Sounds like Liz is going to be a great “say the right things to keep the peace” mentor for Joyce, since they both can’t completely sever until after college.
The good news is that with the specific circumstances of the divorce (that is, ‘if you’re still backing the man who KIDNAPPED MY DAUGHTER you’re dead to me,’) Hank’s almost certainly broken with the congregation already, and things with Carol are irreparably strained. (It’s also VERY likely that Hank was the one financially supporting the whole family, though we don’t know that for sure.) The question now is what he does when he finds out 1) Jocelyne’s trans and 2) Joyce is an atheist. It’s also up in the air whether he tries to seek out another fundamentalist congregation recognizing Becky’s a member of his family now or not. Both of those reveals are likely to shake him, and Jocelyne in particular is going to test just how much of a redemption arc Hank’s on, but I do think we have reason to hope Joyce won’t have to cut ties with him entirely – the estrangement with Jordan clearly REALLY hit Hank hard, and as we saw after the kidnapping, he’s terrified of another kid making the same choice. This means he might push for contact still with John to keep the peace, but it’s very possible he recognizes when Jocelyne shows up that this is another potential ‘screw up here and it’s over’ moment.
I don’t think he’s going to push any of the kids to talk to Carol more than absolutely necessary. The beauty of her going so far beyond the pale is that they don’t have to justify estrangement beyond ‘she bailed out a man who kidnapped Joyce, and then kept siding with him’. Anyone who has a problem with that is immediately the unreasonable one here.
Wow, she is speedrunning Joyce into the fall!
hell yeah, I’ll love this arc so much.
I tottaly understood Liz.
I also share some christian memes and speak not so much to family, to anybody discover I’m pretty far for christianism. I’m little afraid I’m speaking it here, but nobody speaks english. So…
Gay Luigi?
Found new friends in internet through ff14 to go online clubbingwoth very open about non biney now not that ask
Joyce got no patience for that ßit lmao
Hah! This is pretty much all I hoped for with the Lucy/Joyce interaction.
…Lucy?
Joyce! Language! I’m shocked!
One toast
And down the hole we go
It seems to take
No time at all
One toast over the line, Sweet Jesus, One toast over the line…
I’m just gonna consider this comic confirmation that poor Jocelyne still has not come out, but understandable with divorce incoming, don’t need to add more gas to a blazing fire. May she some day bask in the sun in her full glory one day.
If this keeps up Sarah is going to groan so loudly and often that she causing a zombie panic.
Sarah: Stop corrupting my little sister!!
Joyce: I wasn’t-
Sarah: WASN’T TALKING TO YOU
Is Joyce EVER going to meet her sister?
I’m sure she will, in due time. Probably after the dust from the divorce settles and Joyce comes out to her as an Atheist.
In the meantime, I hope we get more hints like this:
https://www.dumbingofage.com/2016/comic/book-6/03-when-god-closes-the-door/india/
(Also, feel free to laugh at our giving John Brown the benefit of the doubt at this point. He hadn’t demonstrated his Carol side yet, okay!)
One (1) stepmom(s)?
“garaaage”
aewghhfev thats so cute
Does she want butter or jam on that toast?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ea6OET3Zi20
AAAAAAAAA FORESHADOWING I HOPE JOCELYNE WHAT