As someone who cannot draw hands without reference , without them ending up like either banana clusters, skinny spiders, or a bunch of strapped sausages… I must sadly agree.
Technically, all of my books (so far, including the ones I haven’t finished) are about people with eidetic memory who nevertheless act kinda stupid 🤷🏻♀️
(sorry they’re not LITERALLY just about memorisation vs. being smart)
Woah. That last “robot” comment hit Joyce exactly where it needed to! 😮
Robot comment epiphany aside, Joyce should really appreciate her autistic superpower. It can go away to be replaced by gloomy tiredness, and you don’t know when or if it will ever come back 😭😭😭😭😭😭
Not to mention (or maybe this is what you were referring to), Joyce called Dina a “robot” and it really hurt here feelings. Now the shoe is on the other foot. Wow, that is a strange saying – why is that idiom part of our language. No wonder English is difficult for foreigners to learn to a conversational level when compared to other less idiom reliant languages.
English works perfectly fine without idioms. It’s us that insists on expressing everything through them. It’s not as if the speakers of other languages don’t use idioms incomprehensible to people who only have plain vocabularies.
In 200 years American English will have evolved into what will be called the Tamarian language. (“Darmok and Gilad, at Tanagra.” “Shaka, when the Mike fell.”)
So, not assuming anything, but just in case you think that is originally from Lower Decks please check out my absolute favourite episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation for the actual source of that language. The episode is called Darmok and it’s phenomenal.
Again, not assuming you haven’t watched it, but just in case you haven’t.
There’s a whole meme in Brazil that consists in translating idioms to english, literally, word for word. I assume most cultures have this kind of thing. Btw just this morning I was thinking abt how one usual way to end a conversation in a kthxbye-ish way is “falou, valeu” (or, if you’re online, “flwvlw”), which literally translates to “spoke, it was worth it” which sounds like something a stereotypical ritualistic tribespeople would use in some sci-fi setting
Yep, same in Dutch. “Make that the cat wise.” etc… two of my colleagues spent like several months talking like that all the time cause it was so amusing.
*nods* the cat’s jump is that those who don’t have dogs hunt with cats, but a scalded cat doesn’t go into cool water, so when the cats leave, the rats party.
At the frying of eggs, all languages are bags of cats, so you can take your little horse out of the rain if you think yours is the last cookie in the packaging.
English actually is a pretty idiomatic language; most of that’s not on the “shoe is on the other foot” level, but in much more common phrases. I used to tutor an English language learner (he moved from South Korea aa an adult), and we used a book about idiomatic phrases in English. Most of them weren’t the type of thing I learned about as idioms as a child, but when thinking about them in this context, I realized they really weren’t totally direct and often needed more explanation to someone learning the language than you might think.
Of course, I’m not sure how English ranks against most other languages in that regard.
Yeah, but I’m sure by now Joyce would really appreciate having a special interest other than the Bible.
BTW is it possible to grow new ones if you’re just autistic? As a kid who grew up with ADHD too, it seems I had a new special interest that I made my personality every 3 months or so, with few sticking around long term.
Yes, but they’re usually at least sort of long-term. Mine have all lasted for years at a time (and several are lifelong). Also, they tend to be in the same vein (I’ve gone from hyperfixating on vet medicine to psychology to neuroscience to cell biology over the years, for example. But I’ve always had some sort of medical hyperfixation)
Yes, new ones do pop up. The old ones never really go away, though, which is why I can provide impromptu lectures on both the history of the Fallout universe and the four-letter physiological classification system used at Sector General.
Some of the later stories didn’t even focus on humans – Cha Thrat, for instance, was a doctor from a species new to the Confederation, resembling a four-armed centaur. There was a bit of controversy surrounding her first surgery at Sector General, as cultural xenologist had failed to parse their medical ethics, under which a doctor will not to anything to a patient that they wouldn’t do for themselves. She executed Conway’s surgical procedure for geriatric Hudlar (amputation of the now-useless central tentacles, and replacement with prosthetics), then, to the shock of observing personnel, removed her own arm. (It was, of course, reattached, and Maj. O’Mara had a nice long counseling session with her…)
A number of novels and short stories by James White, about the sort of adventures you can expect at a multispecies hospital built by an interstellar culture. Thoughtful and good reading. Wikipedia has an article on them.
I love that they later found out they didn’t start far enough back with the classification system and had to shoehorn things into A___ that didn’t really fit!
The only code I remember off the top of my head is DBDG, sadly.
Autistic person without ADHD here, and I get new special interests that last for years from time to time. Some of the old special interests get put on the back burner for several years, but they’re never completely gone and I can come back to them later on like I never left them.
From my experience, what she needs to do is start watching early-era youtube atheists doing creationism “debunking.” That’ll slide that special interest the one step left to make it really obnoxious!
And, with any luck, she won’t keep watching as they become increasingly regressive and slowly morph into shills for fascists and oh no I suddenly don’t know if this one’s a good idea
Yeah, that was a fun time to be an atheist online.
There’s still some good atheist debunking of creationism on Youtube, as well as some interesting scholarship on the early development of Christianity that I could easily see Joyce getting caught up in. There’s also still a tendency for it to spin off into conspiracy theory/pseudo-history nonsense, though not so much of a direct link to fascism as then.
From the ADHD side of things, I’ve definitely gained new special interests as I’ve gotten older. As a kid, my special interest was Pokemon, and boy howdy do I still have so much Pokemon knowledge stored up from gens 1-4. To the point my husband asks me about typing when battling and such. :laughs: I’m not as up to date on the newer ones since I don’t have much time to play Pokemon due to Adult Responsibilities, but uh… I read a lot of Pokemon fanfics and my husband and I watch a lot of Pokemon gen 1 challenge videos.
And then about 7 years ago I spontaneously developed a special interest in the One Piece character Arlong.
Then in 2019 I got into Magia Record, which is a Madoka Magicka phone game. The NA servers shut down due to covid, presumably, and it felt awful. So I switched over to the JP server and have been playing daily.
And speaking of other games, there’s the mmo Mabinogi, which I have been playing since 2009.
It’s totally possible to grow new special interests, but, you don’t always get to pick them lol.
Joyce’s mom reminds me of my mom at her worst. My mom had borderline personality disorder, and I’m betting Joyce’s does too. Here’s the dirty little secret about BPD: It often co-occurs with things like bipolar disorder, childhood trauma… and undiagnosed autism. Here’s a dirty little secret Autism Speaks doesn’t want you to know: Autism is often hereditary. Joyce’s behavior very likely is both learned and genetic.
I haven’t seen indicators that Joyce’s mom is Autistic. (And Autistics wouldn’t want her.) And I think Willis would go by what makes the best story, rather than defaulting to real-world genetic stats.
If we were going by real-world genetics, though, there’d probably be some ADHDers and Autistics and geniuses in this big family somewhere. Especially a sibling — last I checked, if you’re Autistic, there’s a 50/50 chance for each of your siblings, too.
But the Browns probably wouldn’t have gotten diagnosed. Their community seems to think that any difficulties are due to insufficient faith in Jesus.
autism speaks doesn’t want anyone to know anything tbh. They’re anti-autism as opposed to pro-austistics, so disseminating actual information and elevating autistic voices is antithetical to their whole philosophy.
I wonder how Joyce ranks, grade-wise compared to the rest of the cast? Presumably Dorothy’s on top, then Walky (before college). Amber has specific fields she excels in, probably Dina too. We’ve not been given any idea of anyone else, but we know Sarah has a scholarship.
Joyce probably didn’t have grades at homeschooling. Right now – she’s dilligent and we know she excelled at maths before she started having eye problems and I don’t think she’d get anything much harder in education studies but grades are not her super priority overall, so I’d guess she’d get like a solid, *mental conversion to American grading system*, B or B+ on the average?
Sal probably doesn’t care as long as she gets passing grades, neither does Becky, except for her science courses (but she’s probably not allowed to take many of these) and maybe gender studies. I’d guess Billie and Ruth were too depressed to focus on learning last semester but are starting to get better in this one (Ruth especially as Jennifer might be too absorbed with being a social butterfly). Ethan – probably the opposite. Danny gives off an ‘average student’ vibe and it is indicated somewhere that he admires Amber’s skill so he’s probably not a super genius but then the computer science course that we know of is so low level that he might be getting straight As regardless. Not sure about Joe but he clearly has other priorities.
We know she’s great at math, because one of the clues that got Dorothy suspecting she needed glasses was her only getting a B in calculus. Likewise, pre-glasses Dorothy thought her grades weren’t where they should be in her larget classes. So she’s probably fairly well up there.
Of course, asserting that someone’s grades aren’t up to the level of their intelligence is one of the Mom-est things Dorothy could say. But I’m sure we all expect it of her by now.
This is not going how I expected, but at least they are talking about stuff. I thought Becky would be against laying in bed with Joyce now that she is dating Dina.
Nah, she knows that even if she lost all control and the two of them acted completely out of character, Dina would use her magic dinowarp powers to stop the shenanigans
…I’m not sure if that was coherent or, “I am way too tired so I think it’s coherent”
That may or may not be significant, unless we know how many strips are in the storyline. We’re already at 55, which puts us well within the range of storyline lengths. We’ll just have to be patient to see where this goes with Joyce and Dina. But also patience isn’t fun.
Becky and Joyce were always family; the conflict came in what that familial relationship *was.* Joyce thought of Becky as her sister, Becky thought of Joyce as her love.
There are times when I hear that a lot of different disorders double as some sort of super power when you learn how to manage them. I wouldn’t know so I can’t tell what they mean.
They’re definitely Rogue superpowers, not Storm superpowers.
(Rogue’s power is super inconvenient, to the extent that she sometimes wishes she didn’t have her powers at all and could lead a ‘normal’ life. Still very powerful, but it’s a lonely power that isn’t in line with her goals. She has to find alternate ways of connecting with other people, and is rightfully thrilled when she finds those ways. Whereas Storm gets to fly around, and grew up being treated like a literal goddess. Her powers seem like a way better deal, all in all.)
More like Chamber superpowers, as much a curse as a power – when his manifested, they exploded his chest, neck, and lower face. If he weren’t telepathic, he’d be mute.
Treating it like a superpower is both dangerous and extremely ablist. I’m not superhuman, my brain literally does not function the way it should.
You see a lot of people with disorders trying to take it back like that but it just reinforces that they’re different in a way that encourages peers to other them further.
Well, for myself, on the one hand the fugue focus state I get into can be great for doing stuff, but I don’t have a lot of control over *what* the fixation is, or when it happens, and it interferes with huge chunks of daily life, up to and including basic biological stuff.
I find that characterization extremely displeasing. If someone wants to frame it that way for themselves, I feel like that’s kind of their own business, everyone deals with their own situations in their own ways and I don’t think it’s really my place to tell them that they’re doing it wrong.
As long as they don’t project it onto others. I do not see my particular brain configuration as a superpower, it requires medical intervention for me to be anything even approaching reliably functional. I don’t mean functional as in productive in capitalism, although that is contained within. I mean my day-to-day ability to just do the things I need to do for me. And I find it condescending if/when people tell me that this thing that is hampering my ability to do things that I want to do is actually me having a superpower.
Agreed. Co-signed. If I never heard another person refer to it as a “superpower” while I’m actively struggling to do the things I need to do to live, that would be great.
I do feel like this might be her impetus to tell Becky her own secret, seeing now that it won’t change anything. She was already being seen that way, after all.
I don’t know why they would need to actually talk about it beyond having reached an understanding about one another’s beliefs. Joyce doesn’t need Becky’s input on her newfound lack of religion and Becky doesn’t need Joyce’s input on her continuing religion. Not sure what more remains to be said?
The original’s much better, not least because I have a soft spot for giant whirring tape-driven machinery that just ain’t there in ‘I got zapped by the internet’.
When Becky stalked Joyce down in Joe’s room and overheard Joyce and Liz venting their ex-Christian grievances? Plus lots of interaction since, like Becky trying to use Christian music to lure Joyce back on Mac and Cheese Night?
um. a year ago? when liz visited and she overheard her? and then they had a huge blowup fight about it? and they very nearly stopped being friends outright because of it? and it’s been the driving conflict in all of their interactions ever since???
That last panel is either Joyce considering telling Becky about the autism referral, Joyce realizing she needs to apologize to Dina for her earlier robot remark, or all of the above
Oof, I feel Joyce on this one. Not on the getting called a robot thing, but—people have called me smart my whole life. And it’s true that I was usually better at math than the person doing that. But smarter? I dunno, man. Independence, general executive function, three ability to put yourself out there and find things and people you enjoy—those all seem like more important forms of intelligence to me.
I think people tend to assume that if you know something they don’t, you also know all the things they do. So they perceive it as having *more* knowledge than they got, as opposed to more knowledge in that specific area and almost certainly less in a different area. Because oddly enough, you tend to know more things about what you’re actually interested in. Go figure.
that’s the look of someone who’s either going to internalize the hell out of whatever they’re currently feeling at that moment in time or drop a sudden major bombshell sparked by sudden realization
I have absolutely no idea why Joyce would be making that face after hearing that sentence. No possible combination of thoughts and ideas could give me even the faintest glimmer of comprehension. Nothing has led to this. It exists in a vacuum if enigma and mystery. This could not, under any circumstances, be a callback to a past event of which we have ever heard.
Also, Becky seems outright furious with Joyce right now.
A robot is not human. The other kids thought she was weird, and gave her a nickname that seemed to poke fun at her enthusiasm, and we know she was very enthusiastic in believing what she was being taught at home and at church. Becky says Joyce memorized everything, and in a church setting, that would be mainly Bible verses, something most kids didn’t do or even want to do. Joyce might be remembering how she felt when she heard that as a kid, or she might be just realizing that she was made fun of as a kid, and didn’t know it.
I don’t know why you think Becky is furious with Joyce. Is it because Joyce didn’t make fun of Becky when Becky was expecting her to? That wouldn’t make me furious. Becky is apologizing, which is not something you would do if you were furious at a person, because she let her assumptions prevent her from telling Joyce, her best friend, first about her and Dina.
Idk why you guys are so *eyeroll* check out this person not getting SARCASM on the INTERNET where it’s hard to read tone! like. It’s literally not clear unless you know taffy as a regular commenter (which /I/ do, though I still think it’s not very funny. It’s less annoying than seeing a genuine comment that would say this, but it actually is still bothering me. To each their own.).
It was very, very exaggerated. Sure, some people struggle with sarcasm, but that doesn’t mean the vast majority wouldn’t get this. You absolutely do not need to know Taffy as a regular commentor for this, you just have to assume they have read the comic and are not stupid.
The reply was, in my opinion, less oof than the one below, but it was still someone going off based on a misunderstanding on their part. Which happens! And it’s usually not that the person is jerk, but people are still going to react to big swing and a miss.
Because she called Dina a robot a few days ago and that pissed Dina off. They made up, but now Joyce is having to deal with how discomforting it is on the other side of the fence. You’re wrong actually, it is a callback.
On the original Star Trek episodes from the ’60s, computers that failed in figuring out illogical or contradictory arguments were obligated to blow up in showers of flaming magnesium.
Good thing this strip doesn’t take place back then, because today’s episode would end up VERY different for Joyce than just “boop beep”.
Ah yes, the joys of learning you’re autistic as an adult, and realizing just how many of the things you did as a kid were probably due to you being autistic, and not because you were weird or nerdy or whatever.
i mean, honestly? i think it’s because becky has no reason to even think what she’s saying here is insensitive. remember, she doesn’t know anything about joyce’s potential autism diagnosis or that it’s something joyce has been stressing about. she’s not calling joyce a robot, she’s reporting that other kids used to, and in doing so, she kinda uses almost the exact same attitude and language we’ve seen her use WITH dina. in strips like this one, it’s clear that she thinks of these traits as extremely positive, like how she frames it here as joyce being SO smart that other people thought she was TOO smart, which becky appears to view with the same incredulousness as she did when dina was worried about saying too many dinosaur facts. i’m sure she understands that calling her a robot was meant to be an insult, but to becky, being a jesus sponge was one of the many wonderful things about joyce. becky has shown over and over with dina that she thinks these behaviors are AWESOME and doesn’t get how they would ever be a cause for concern.
Beautiful moment between Joyce and Backy, but that juvenile group was the worst. That’s a nickname that would put anyone who received it to death ashamed. Terrific to see how the mean comment Joyce had made about Dina has come back to her like a boomerang.
Also, I’ll tell you a truth. Growing up, I was also compared to being a robot. And I liked it. I thought of myself in machine terms. Still tend to, although my understanding of how the machine works has evolved.
The thing is, I could tell my brain wasn’t working like other people’s appeared to be. And it was more obvious to other people. I had no better way of understanding this than seeing myself as a different sort of intelligence. And someone who described me as a robot was someone who understood this about me.
This is accurate. It’s the language that is at fault. We were not given the vocabulary to describe people with different thought patterns so we latched on to the best examples from media. Media which often patterned machine intelligence after autistic people. Biggest case in point: Blade Runner. The point in those instances of media also was that these machine intelligences were also people and should be treated with the dignity afforded to people. I honestly believe that the kids I grew up with understood that too. That it’s not a denial of humanity.
I also understand that this is my single perspective and my personal experience. I get that a lot of things can affect how you interpret it. For example, if those kids saw it as an excuse to treat you as less of a person for it.
I often wanted to be a robot, or a Vulcan, because I was a smart kid with a lot of messy emotions that I had no idea how to deal with.
(And then I got older and learned, among other things, the whole deal with Vulcans – how that outward calm hides passions that are incredibly strong – and how that was actually even more fitting than I understood at the time. Also I got better at acknowledging and dealing with my feelings and needs in healthy ways, rather than letting them build up until they overwhelmed my reason.)
I think Joyce in the last panel is being far more cognizant of the fact that she hasn’t told Becky about being on the spectrum as opposed to thinking about how she treated Dina because she’s already apologized to Dina. While I respect that you can of course still feel bad for something you’ve apologized for (the amount of things my brain brings up to torment me with cringe from when I was a teenager is proof enough of that), narrative convenience says to me that we should deal more with unresolved plot points than ones previously addressed.
long before I knew I was autistic or what autism even is, I always loved robot characters and found them super relatable. I’m a sucker for “robot has feelings somehow?? but doesn’t fully understand them” trope. it’s one f the few character types that I tend to feel a genuine connection with. as a kid I used to lie about being a robot and found it funny how many other kids believed me
I very much appreciate being told that apparently a lot of autistic people Do Not like being compared to robots, because I would’ve thought it’d be a fun relatable thing and probably make myself look like an ass sooner or later lmao
Some autistic people like it, some don’t and some don’t care.
It is one of the ways that autistic people are often dehumanised, similar comparisons can also happen with monsters and animals.
But a lot of autistic people also relate to these so there is truth that autistic people are similar as they often relate to these types of characters but there is also truth that it is often used offensively to mean the worst traits of them rather than the better ones or sympathetic ones.
I guess also most of the portrayals of that type of character I’ve seen in media they’ve been the main character so the story is sympathetic to them, and by nature of being the main character they’re also the most fleshed out and humanized one.
I don’t actually consume that much media though (tend to mostly just pick one thing to be obsessed with for a few years), so I can totally see there being the more dehumanizing side to it that I just haven’t really come across as much. just one of those things that wouldn’t have occurred to me on its own
but also now that I think about it, the cold, unfeeling and inhuman robot characters I’ve seen I usually just don’t put into my collection of robots characters I like and then never think about them again. that’s why I didn’t enjoy most of love death and robots as much as I thought I would. too many shorts were just “death and robots” or “love and death” and very few “love and robots”
Jessie Gender of Trans and Autistic Rights’ Youtubery talks about how Data was an incredibly important representation for neuratypical people growing up (like herself, and me for that matter).
So much so she really disliked Data’s attempts to be “human.”
most of what I know about star trek I learned through cultural osmosis, and the specific era of star trek that Data is from is probably the one I’m least familiar with. I do see Data gifsets on tumblr a lot though, and from what I’ve seen, he definitely seems like he’d fall into the category of robot characters I like
the ones that come to mind off the top of my head are wall-e, my life as a teenage robot and karakuri odette, though those last two I don’t remember so well and I’ve been meaning to rewatch/reread them. karakuri odette specifically I remember really loving, but I was 13 at the time and can’t for the life of me remember anything about it other than robot goes to high school. I also remember enjoying i robot, but I was only 9 or 10 when I watched it so I remember that even less.
I just like it when the robot characters are treated as having rich inner worlds even if they think differently. those are the ones that stick out in my mind. bonus points if they are a cute girl robot lmao
I think there’s a big difference between most of the robot characters, even if they’re being written (maybe even unintentionally) as representation for autism, and autistic people actually being called robots.
A fantastic representation like that isn’t really dehumanising most of the time. It can be if it’s made too explicit, maybe?
oh yeah absolutely. I think more what I’m getting at is that I was never called a robot, so it wouldn’t have occurred to me that it’d be a sore spot.
kids in my school didn’t really call me much of anything. I mostly got called new kid, and then whoever called me that would get made fun of by their friends because I was not a new kid. other than the occasional welcome to the school, people didn’t really talk to me much
Oof, this is relatable. My peers dubbed me “the Bible scholar” and would make fun of me (usually behind my back, but sometimes when I could definitely hear them) for knowing more about scripture than even some of our teachers. There were a couple of robot comments along the way, though thankfully that didn’t make it into the nickname. It hurt because I wasn’t “cold or unfeeling”–if anything, I felt TOO much–I was just autistic and bad at projecting how I felt onto my face.
But yeah, one time a decade later, my mom innocently called me a “Bible scholar” and I got legitimately triggered (in the anxiety attack sense).
Is it time for me writing waaaaay too many words again? Why yes, yes it is!
Because this strip is incredibly important, in that it pivots back to what is the overarching theme for Joyce, the main character of the comic.
The theme of redemption.
It’s true that other characters have story arcs that involve redemption as well, but none of them quite like Joyce. Throughout the entire life of the DoA comic, Joyce’s story has been about a person who is a good person, in that she does care for the well-being of other people and generally want to make them happy with her actions. That is the core of her entire being. Her intentions are, by and large, defined by what she believes will increase the well-being of other people.
But, and here is where it goes into classic Greek tragedy territory, she is constantly confronted with how good intentions are not always good enough.
For years, this theme focused how her fundamentalism prevented her from doing good, and then, upon realising this, when facing the rather grim reality of her actions, she decided to change her actions, to right her wrongs.
Of course, redemption isn’t as simple as that now, is it? No, because blunt though her words were, Rachel had a point in that redemption, as is usually portrayed inn media, is a story. It’s not real. It is not an epiphany, an apology, and then everyone lives happily ever after. Life’s not as simple as that.
Real redemption is a process over time.
Real redemption is atonement over time.
And real redemption requires an effort many of us are not willing to make, because it involves making choices that goes against what so many people believe: That your actions are determined why whether or not you are Good or Evil.
When in reality, our being is mainly determined by our actions.
Joyce is learning this the hard way, again and again.
And Joyce learns the path of redemption, again and again.
See, Joyce’s core, the one thing that truly shapes her, even if she doesn’t understand it yet, and don’t know the words for it right now, is what will keep her on the path of redemption: That the real sin, the one sin above all other sins, is to treat people like things, to think of people like things*.
That is the one thing Joyce truly believes in.
And because that is something she believes so strongly in, whenever she is confronted with the difference between her intentions and her actions, whenever she finds out that her perfectly justified actions were not justified at all… she will seek atonement.
And I mean atonement.
It won’t merely be a “whoops, sorry, pobody’s nerfect” moment. It will be Joyce making a lasting change in her behaviour to try and avoid making that same mistake again (while sometimes failing, which just make her all the more real). It will be her realising that people may have good reason to hate her for what she’s done, and when she apologizes, she does it without demanding forgiveness.
And that progress, slow and often painful… is real redemption. The story of Joyce.
P.S. Love how Becky is seeking consent for getting into Joyce’s personal space here. Their friendship is just so very, very strong.
I actually think Dina finding out about Joyce’s atheism will rattle her. Dina will find out she has more in common with Joyce than she wants as she basically has mentally filed her away as her archenemy, no matter whether Joyce wants to be or not.
Dina already found out and she was pissed because of how easily the doctor picked up on it because her parents had to push to get her diagnosed because every doctor they saw was super racist.
Like… I was called basically that before I left Christianity. And just… dang. So much about Joyce’s story hits close to home time after time. I’d claim someone was watching me in regards to making Joyce’s story, buuuuttt…. there’s a couple missed big plot points that made things even more complicated.
Speaking of bad brains, I could use any encouragement I can get right now. I just had a “Reasonable Accommodation” meeting with my boss that basically boiled down to, “We don’t want you here. Unless you’re 100% healed, there’s no room for you in this job.”
I asked for a union rep and my boss said no.
I don’t think they have any idea whatsoever what it’s like to try to do intellectual work with a TBI.
I don’t know if it’s encouragement, but that’s huge bullshit. Hope you can get your union to come through for you (and help you find somewhere else to work, if you leave over this).
Well I know nothing about your condition or about disability law, but is there a possibility for a severance package? Or failing that, a legal settlement? Take the opportunity to pivot to something else?
For me and my neurodivergent brain, leaving office work I was bad and miserable at in order to go out and do field work at a different organization was the best decision of my life.
But obviously your milage may vary. If you really like what you do then obviously you should fight for legal accomodations through whatever avenues exist.
Loading ...
I have written an entire book about the difference between memorising literally everything and being smart
like how A.I. could rip off literally ALL THE ART and still not render hands that don’t look like eldritch horrors
To be fair to AI, a lot of human artists have no better luck with hands.
Eldritch horrors all the way down.
As someone who cannot draw hands without reference , without them ending up like either banana clusters, skinny spiders, or a bunch of strapped sausages… I must sadly agree.
Hands are hard.
This is true in even the evolutionary sense, as only a few species have proper hands with oppositional digit for maximum gripping power.
Real artists use references!
Luckily, you probably have two hand references on you at all times. you can move them around and everything.
But the difference is, the AI not being smart, it can’t understand that it’s not good at hands and work on improving them.
That’s amazing, Ana! How can we read your book?
http://sgppresents.com/info/books.html (sadly WAY outdated coding I can’t be bothered to learn how to update)
Technically, all of my books (so far, including the ones I haven’t finished) are about people with eidetic memory who nevertheless act kinda stupid 🤷🏻♀️
(sorry they’re not LITERALLY just about memorisation vs. being smart)
Awesome!! Thank you so much! They look amazing.
I thought you were using a turn of phrase or hyperbolizing
I am pleased to be mistaken, but also humiliated despite no one being around to observe my blunder
When God closes one door, he opens another.
When Joyce deals with one terrible insecurity, she discovers another.
Woah. That last “robot” comment hit Joyce exactly where it needed to! 😮
Robot comment epiphany aside, Joyce should really appreciate her autistic superpower. It can go away to be replaced by gloomy tiredness, and you don’t know when or if it will ever come back 😭😭😭😭😭😭
YUP. That’s the look of realizing you’ve been a dick.
A robot dick
No I’m pretty sure Other Jacob is still in Sarah’s drawer.
A…a dildo?
Not to mention (or maybe this is what you were referring to), Joyce called Dina a “robot” and it really hurt here feelings. Now the shoe is on the other foot. Wow, that is a strange saying – why is that idiom part of our language. No wonder English is difficult for foreigners to learn to a conversational level when compared to other less idiom reliant languages.
Yes, that’s exactly what I was referring to! 🙂
Too bad Dina’s not gonna make an appearance this storyline at all 🙁
English works perfectly fine without idioms. It’s us that insists on expressing everything through them. It’s not as if the speakers of other languages don’t use idioms incomprehensible to people who only have plain vocabularies.
In 200 years American English will have evolved into what will be called the Tamarian language. (“Darmok and Gilad, at Tanagra.” “Shaka, when the Mike fell.”)
Kayshon, when he became a puppet.
Amazi-Girl and Sal, on the steps.
Carla, her name illuminated.
Cholma, his spirits lifted after a Lower Decks reference.
So, not assuming anything, but just in case you think that is originally from Lower Decks please check out my absolute favourite episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation for the actual source of that language. The episode is called Darmok and it’s phenomenal.
Again, not assuming you haven’t watched it, but just in case you haven’t.
Captain America, piping up to say he understood that reference.
I find it funny that Star Trek TNG basically predicted modern meme culture.
I think the closest we’ve come is people writing “surprised_pikachu.jpg”. I wonder when I hear such a meme spoken for the first time.
I have several times said “this is my surprised face” in meatspace.
That one predates memes, however – in fact, that saying is what inspired the meme.
Swedish ones are super great. There’s no cow on the ice. Taking a crap in the blue cupboard. Sliding in on a shrimp sandwich.
Fantastic Polish one I learned a few years back: “Not my circus, not my monkeys.”
you know, that idiom is actually pretty easy to parse, unless it means something completely different than “that’s not my problem”
Nope, that about covers it.
Great way of putting it, though (IMO).
My region of Canada has “I don’t have a horse in that race,” to mean basically the same thing.
“Not my circus, I just follow it with a shovel.”
I didn’t know that was Polish? But there are loads of Polish immigrants in the UK so I guess it makes sense I’ve come across it…
Yeah, I’ve been using that one for years with no reason to think it was Polish.
There’s a whole meme in Brazil that consists in translating idioms to english, literally, word for word. I assume most cultures have this kind of thing. Btw just this morning I was thinking abt how one usual way to end a conversation in a kthxbye-ish way is “falou, valeu” (or, if you’re online, “flwvlw”), which literally translates to “spoke, it was worth it” which sounds like something a stereotypical ritualistic tribespeople would use in some sci-fi setting
Yep, same in Dutch. “Make that the cat wise.” etc… two of my colleagues spent like several months talking like that all the time cause it was so amusing.
*nods* the cat’s jump is that those who don’t have dogs hunt with cats, but a scalded cat doesn’t go into cool water, so when the cats leave, the rats party.
At the frying of eggs, all languages are bags of cats, so you can take your little horse out of the rain if you think yours is the last cookie in the packaging.
Greek: “He wrote me on his balls” (=he completely ignored me) XD
I know a Turkish one from hasanabi
Every warrior has a different way of eating yogurt
so good
English actually is a pretty idiomatic language; most of that’s not on the “shoe is on the other foot” level, but in much more common phrases. I used to tutor an English language learner (he moved from South Korea aa an adult), and we used a book about idiomatic phrases in English. Most of them weren’t the type of thing I learned about as idioms as a child, but when thinking about them in this context, I realized they really weren’t totally direct and often needed more explanation to someone learning the language than you might think.
Of course, I’m not sure how English ranks against most other languages in that regard.
But suddenly realising you’ve put your shoe on the wrong foot s very uncomfortable.
Rest well, hon’.
My plan exactly. Almost done with the Paxlovid regimine too!
I just wanna take a moment to say, thank goodness for the Power of Science! 🥲
SCIENCE!
She blinded me with SCIENCE!!
Congratulations!
“It can go away to be replaced by gloomy tiredness, and you don’t know when or if it will ever come back”
Damn, this really hit me in the “looking back at who I felt I was & who I feel I am.”
I was gonna say Wellerman sounds a bit depressed and maybe should look into seeing a therapist and/or if possible, getting medication
Yeah, i WAS taking Ritalin, but now theres a nationwide shortage 😵
did joyce have a special interest in… the bibble
Isn’t that obvious by now?
Yeah, but I’m sure by now Joyce would really appreciate having a special interest other than the Bible.
BTW is it possible to grow new ones if you’re just autistic? As a kid who grew up with ADHD too, it seems I had a new special interest that I made my personality every 3 months or so, with few sticking around long term.
Yes, but they’re usually at least sort of long-term. Mine have all lasted for years at a time (and several are lifelong). Also, they tend to be in the same vein (I’ve gone from hyperfixating on vet medicine to psychology to neuroscience to cell biology over the years, for example. But I’ve always had some sort of medical hyperfixation)
Yes, new ones do pop up. The old ones never really go away, though, which is why I can provide impromptu lectures on both the history of the Fallout universe and the four-letter physiological classification system used at Sector General.
I understood that reference!
I didn’t 😅
Series of stories about a human doctor on a spacestation hospital for aliens. Old SF that’s held up well for the most part.
Some of the later stories didn’t even focus on humans – Cha Thrat, for instance, was a doctor from a species new to the Confederation, resembling a four-armed centaur. There was a bit of controversy surrounding her first surgery at Sector General, as cultural xenologist had failed to parse their medical ethics, under which a doctor will not to anything to a patient that they wouldn’t do for themselves. She executed Conway’s surgical procedure for geriatric Hudlar (amputation of the now-useless central tentacles, and replacement with prosthetics), then, to the shock of observing personnel, removed her own arm. (It was, of course, reattached, and Maj. O’Mara had a nice long counseling session with her…)
A number of novels and short stories by James White, about the sort of adventures you can expect at a multispecies hospital built by an interstellar culture. Thoughtful and good reading. Wikipedia has an article on them.
I love that they later found out they didn’t start far enough back with the classification system and had to shoehorn things into A___ that didn’t really fit!
The only code I remember off the top of my head is DBDG, sadly.
Autistic person without ADHD here, and I get new special interests that last for years from time to time. Some of the old special interests get put on the back burner for several years, but they’re never completely gone and I can come back to them later on like I never left them.
🥲 that’s so assuring. Thank you.
From my experience, what she needs to do is start watching early-era youtube atheists doing creationism “debunking.” That’ll slide that special interest the one step left to make it really obnoxious!
And, with any luck, she won’t keep watching as they become increasingly regressive and slowly morph into shills for fascists and oh no I suddenly don’t know if this one’s a good idea
Yeah, that was a fun time to be an atheist online.
There’s still some good atheist debunking of creationism on Youtube, as well as some interesting scholarship on the early development of Christianity that I could easily see Joyce getting caught up in. There’s also still a tendency for it to spin off into conspiracy theory/pseudo-history nonsense, though not so much of a direct link to fascism as then.
From the ADHD side of things, I’ve definitely gained new special interests as I’ve gotten older. As a kid, my special interest was Pokemon, and boy howdy do I still have so much Pokemon knowledge stored up from gens 1-4. To the point my husband asks me about typing when battling and such. :laughs: I’m not as up to date on the newer ones since I don’t have much time to play Pokemon due to Adult Responsibilities, but uh… I read a lot of Pokemon fanfics and my husband and I watch a lot of Pokemon gen 1 challenge videos.
And then about 7 years ago I spontaneously developed a special interest in the One Piece character Arlong.
Then in 2019 I got into Magia Record, which is a Madoka Magicka phone game. The NA servers shut down due to covid, presumably, and it felt awful. So I switched over to the JP server and have been playing daily.
And speaking of other games, there’s the mmo Mabinogi, which I have been playing since 2009.
It’s totally possible to grow new special interests, but, you don’t always get to pick them lol.
is this a Victorious/Sam and Cat reference?
The Betty Boop Robot?
I thought Joyce looked weird and then I realized she’s NOT wearing her glasses. I’ve adapted.
OH. That’s what was bothering me about her. Huh.
oh that’s a BIG hecking oof, right in the probably autism but definitely something
Joyce’s mom reminds me of my mom at her worst. My mom had borderline personality disorder, and I’m betting Joyce’s does too. Here’s the dirty little secret about BPD: It often co-occurs with things like bipolar disorder, childhood trauma… and undiagnosed autism. Here’s a dirty little secret Autism Speaks doesn’t want you to know: Autism is often hereditary. Joyce’s behavior very likely is both learned and genetic.
I haven’t seen indicators that Joyce’s mom is Autistic. (And Autistics wouldn’t want her.) And I think Willis would go by what makes the best story, rather than defaulting to real-world genetic stats.
If we were going by real-world genetics, though, there’d probably be some ADHDers and Autistics and geniuses in this big family somewhere. Especially a sibling — last I checked, if you’re Autistic, there’s a 50/50 chance for each of your siblings, too.
But the Browns probably wouldn’t have gotten diagnosed. Their community seems to think that any difficulties are due to insufficient faith in Jesus.
Well, we could speculate about Jordan, since we know nothing about him and why the family is so upset about him.
Digressing, have we ever heard anything about Joyce’s grandparents or other relatives?
autism speaks doesn’t want anyone to know anything tbh. They’re anti-autism as opposed to pro-austistics, so disseminating actual information and elevating autistic voices is antithetical to their whole philosophy.
Also, sorry about your mom. Sounds like her worst was really friggin rough.
I think that comment she made to Dina a while back about being a robot is now playing on repeat in her mind
Oh.
Oof.
A whole shipping container sized oof.
I think Joyce is getting a crash-course on internalized ableism right now.
Yeah. Wow.
Go on and tell her Joyce. She should know.
I laugh too much to “Jesus sponge” to care about robot stuff today
*plays Louis Prima’s “Beep Beep” on the hacked Muzak*
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=reW24AkZYzs <- Want to do the Twist?
,a href = “https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ci04mGSKbe0”>*followed by “Electric Zoo” from Spongebob*
*followed by “Electric Zoo” from Spongebob
dammit COVID you can’t stop me forever!
Interesting that Joyce has her hands clasped together, as if in prayer. I wonder if she does it by reflex
Probably a stim.
I tend to do that so I can play with my fingers. No religious/prayer upbringing. So yes probably a stim.
It is a way to hold one’s arms when making room for a second person on a narrow mattress. Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.
You just telling her that now Becks?
youth group bad at insulting nicknames but i guess is to be expected
I wonder how Joyce ranks, grade-wise compared to the rest of the cast? Presumably Dorothy’s on top, then Walky (before college). Amber has specific fields she excels in, probably Dina too. We’ve not been given any idea of anyone else, but we know Sarah has a scholarship.
I wouldn’t trust the grading system from the homeschoolers, personally.
walky said joyce get an “A” in “prancing” , apparently
Joyce probably didn’t have grades at homeschooling. Right now – she’s dilligent and we know she excelled at maths before she started having eye problems and I don’t think she’d get anything much harder in education studies but grades are not her super priority overall, so I’d guess she’d get like a solid, *mental conversion to American grading system*, B or B+ on the average?
Sal probably doesn’t care as long as she gets passing grades, neither does Becky, except for her science courses (but she’s probably not allowed to take many of these) and maybe gender studies. I’d guess Billie and Ruth were too depressed to focus on learning last semester but are starting to get better in this one (Ruth especially as Jennifer might be too absorbed with being a social butterfly). Ethan – probably the opposite. Danny gives off an ‘average student’ vibe and it is indicated somewhere that he admires Amber’s skill so he’s probably not a super genius but then the computer science course that we know of is so low level that he might be getting straight As regardless. Not sure about Joe but he clearly has other priorities.
It’s a toss up on whether Ethan is going to classes at all.
Danny’s good enough at math at least to tutor Sal.
Like Dorothy, he’s probably in a more advanced Math class.
We know she’s great at math, because one of the clues that got Dorothy suspecting she needed glasses was her only getting a B in calculus. Likewise, pre-glasses Dorothy thought her grades weren’t where they should be in her larget classes. So she’s probably fairly well up there.
Of course, asserting that someone’s grades aren’t up to the level of their intelligence is one of the Mom-est things Dorothy could say. But I’m sure we all expect it of her by now.
Dorothy cares a lot about grades, though.
I suspect that, for Dorothy, grades are important for all the wrong reasons. How can she judge her worth, if she can’t see the letter grade she made?
Dorothy is certain she’s going to get a good grade in friendship with is both normal and a thing that exists. /s
This is not going how I expected, but at least they are talking about stuff. I thought Becky would be against laying in bed with Joyce now that she is dating Dina.
Nah, she knows that even if she lost all control and the two of them acted completely out of character, Dina would use her magic dinowarp powers to stop the shenanigans
…I’m not sure if that was coherent or, “I am way too tired so I think it’s coherent”
That, and Dina’s not gonna be seen at all during this storyline at ALL 😗
That may or may not be significant, unless we know how many strips are in the storyline. We’re already at 55, which puts us well within the range of storyline lengths. We’ll just have to be patient to see where this goes with Joyce and Dina. But also patience isn’t fun.
It was coherent enough; that being said you should probably go to sleep soon lol.
Becky and Joyce are family now, it’s different.
They always were.
Becky and Joyce were always family; the conflict came in what that familial relationship *was.* Joyce thought of Becky as her sister, Becky thought of Joyce as her love.
I think that a part of the reason she can do that now is she’s so comfortable in her relationship with Dina that she and Joyce can go back to being platonic-but-very-affectionate besties ^^ Remember this?
There are times when I hear that a lot of different disorders double as some sort of super power when you learn how to manage them. I wouldn’t know so I can’t tell what they mean.
They’re definitely Rogue superpowers, not Storm superpowers.
(Rogue’s power is super inconvenient, to the extent that she sometimes wishes she didn’t have her powers at all and could lead a ‘normal’ life. Still very powerful, but it’s a lonely power that isn’t in line with her goals. She has to find alternate ways of connecting with other people, and is rightfully thrilled when she finds those ways. Whereas Storm gets to fly around, and grew up being treated like a literal goddess. Her powers seem like a way better deal, all in all.)
Except, my reading is that Storm must manage her emotions very carefully, as her powers ARE (directed by) her emotions.
More like Chamber superpowers, as much a curse as a power – when his manifested, they exploded his chest, neck, and lower face. If he weren’t telepathic, he’d be mute.
Treating it like a superpower is both dangerous and extremely ablist. I’m not superhuman, my brain literally does not function the way it should.
You see a lot of people with disorders trying to take it back like that but it just reinforces that they’re different in a way that encourages peers to other them further.
Well, for myself, on the one hand the fugue focus state I get into can be great for doing stuff, but I don’t have a lot of control over *what* the fixation is, or when it happens, and it interferes with huge chunks of daily life, up to and including basic biological stuff.
I find that characterization extremely displeasing. If someone wants to frame it that way for themselves, I feel like that’s kind of their own business, everyone deals with their own situations in their own ways and I don’t think it’s really my place to tell them that they’re doing it wrong.
As long as they don’t project it onto others. I do not see my particular brain configuration as a superpower, it requires medical intervention for me to be anything even approaching reliably functional. I don’t mean functional as in productive in capitalism, although that is contained within. I mean my day-to-day ability to just do the things I need to do for me. And I find it condescending if/when people tell me that this thing that is hampering my ability to do things that I want to do is actually me having a superpower.
Agreed. Co-signed. If I never heard another person refer to it as a “superpower” while I’m actively struggling to do the things I need to do to live, that would be great.
I do feel like this might be her impetus to tell Becky her own secret, seeing now that it won’t change anything. She was already being seen that way, after all.
I mean it’s not like she’s going to think less of her or love her any differently. Becky’s even dating an autistic girl right now actually.
I mean yeah, but neither Joyce nor the audience knows if Becky’s aware of that or not.
Maybe, maybe.
I’d be willing to bet Becky has already noticed some parallel between Joyce and Dina on her own.
I thought Becky already heard about the diagnosis?
I don’t think so, but I could be wrong.
To my knowledge the only people that know about the referral are Dorothy, Sarah, Dina, Joe, and Jennifer
Joyce specifically requested Dina keep it a secret from Becky
Yep, it’s secret.
I like that they are finally okay with each others beliefs, but they really need to *actually talk about it*.
I don’t know why they would need to actually talk about it beyond having reached an understanding about one another’s beliefs. Joyce doesn’t need Becky’s input on her newfound lack of religion and Becky doesn’t need Joyce’s input on her continuing religion. Not sure what more remains to be said?
BECKY used UNINTENTIONALLY INSENSITIVE
It’s SUPER EFFECTIVE!
Tonight on the KDOA Channel 9 Movie, Joyce Brown stars in that all-time family classic, The Computer Wore Sweater Vests.
The original or the remake? Because the original has gambling in it, and that might tank its rating today.
The original’s much better, not least because I have a soft spot for giant whirring tape-driven machinery that just ain’t there in ‘I got zapped by the internet’.
Ya youth group fools! Joyce would have been unstoppable in Superbook!
*plays Opportunities by Pet Shop Boys while we wait for the other shoe to drop*
Becky’s helpfulness is suspect.
And remember, Joyce was the best socialised one in her youth group.
I think at one point Toedad implied that when they said “best socialized” they meant “most obedient”
They figured she was the least likely to turn away from their bigoted version of Christianity
Oh no I feel called out :((((
That’s not a fun feeling. Might provide common understanding with Dina.
I am also hoping she relates to Dina and that they can talk about things. It might not be that simple, but I’m sure they can eventually be friends.
Or at least results in a direct and heartfelt apology for the robot comment.
Indeed. She does owe Dina an apology and probably some kind of sweet. Peanut butter and chocolate cups maybe? Or gummy bears?
Beep-Boop the Bible Robot is Julia Gray’s adorable robotic sidekick.
Oh god more not-so-subtle SuperBook references 😂
Nah, it’s actually an alternate universe version of Julia Gray’s evil clone who got resurrected as a zombie cyborg.
And then they use the Energy Branch to fight a giant space robot named El Queso who looks suspiciously like Robo-Vac.
Nothing to see here, just Joyce be given another example on why her youth ministry might not have been the best group of people to be around.
Ughh, I can imagine her, remembering all the moments they praised her. Thinking if her church youths group were sincere or they are just making fun…
Biblebot does not compute
When did Becky learn Joyce had stopped believing?
When Becky stalked Joyce down in Joe’s room and overheard Joyce and Liz venting their ex-Christian grievances? Plus lots of interaction since, like Becky trying to use Christian music to lure Joyce back on Mac and Cheese Night?
um. a year ago? when liz visited and she overheard her? and then they had a huge blowup fight about it? and they very nearly stopped being friends outright because of it? and it’s been the driving conflict in all of their interactions ever since???
That last panel is either Joyce considering telling Becky about the autism referral, Joyce realizing she needs to apologize to Dina for her earlier robot remark, or all of the above
All of the above, plus probably some other bits on top of it…
uh oh
Oof, I feel Joyce on this one. Not on the getting called a robot thing, but—people have called me smart my whole life. And it’s true that I was usually better at math than the person doing that. But smarter? I dunno, man. Independence, general executive function, three ability to put yourself out there and find things and people you enjoy—those all seem like more important forms of intelligence to me.
I think people tend to assume that if you know something they don’t, you also know all the things they do. So they perceive it as having *more* knowledge than they got, as opposed to more knowledge in that specific area and almost certainly less in a different area. Because oddly enough, you tend to know more things about what you’re actually interested in. Go figure.
The look of absolute concentrated “Ah, fuck.”
that’s the look of someone who’s either going to internalize the hell out of whatever they’re currently feeling at that moment in time or drop a sudden major bombshell sparked by sudden realization
Collecting an encyclopedic knowledge of a specific subject is an Autism-spectrum characteristic…
I have absolutely no idea why Joyce would be making that face after hearing that sentence. No possible combination of thoughts and ideas could give me even the faintest glimmer of comprehension. Nothing has led to this. It exists in a vacuum if enigma and mystery. This could not, under any circumstances, be a callback to a past event of which we have ever heard.
Also, Becky seems outright furious with Joyce right now.
A robot is not human. The other kids thought she was weird, and gave her a nickname that seemed to poke fun at her enthusiasm, and we know she was very enthusiastic in believing what she was being taught at home and at church. Becky says Joyce memorized everything, and in a church setting, that would be mainly Bible verses, something most kids didn’t do or even want to do. Joyce might be remembering how she felt when she heard that as a kid, or she might be just realizing that she was made fun of as a kid, and didn’t know it.
I don’t know why you think Becky is furious with Joyce. Is it because Joyce didn’t make fun of Becky when Becky was expecting her to? That wouldn’t make me furious. Becky is apologizing, which is not something you would do if you were furious at a person, because she let her assumptions prevent her from telling Joyce, her best friend, first about her and Dina.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-aWcZShT4cI
Lol, lmao.
Dude, how….
Buddy, Taffy was employing snark.
Idk why you guys are so *eyeroll* check out this person not getting SARCASM on the INTERNET where it’s hard to read tone! like. It’s literally not clear unless you know taffy as a regular commenter (which /I/ do, though I still think it’s not very funny. It’s less annoying than seeing a genuine comment that would say this, but it actually is still bothering me. To each their own.).
It was very, very exaggerated. Sure, some people struggle with sarcasm, but that doesn’t mean the vast majority wouldn’t get this. You absolutely do not need to know Taffy as a regular commentor for this, you just have to assume they have read the comic and are not stupid.
The reply was, in my opinion, less oof than the one below, but it was still someone going off based on a misunderstanding on their part. Which happens! And it’s usually not that the person is jerk, but people are still going to react to big swing and a miss.
Because she called Dina a robot a few days ago and that pissed Dina off. They made up, but now Joyce is having to deal with how discomforting it is on the other side of the fence. You’re wrong actually, it is a callback.
sweetie…
X2 COMBO!
On the original Star Trek episodes from the ’60s, computers that failed in figuring out illogical or contradictory arguments were obligated to blow up in showers of flaming magnesium.
Good thing this strip doesn’t take place back then, because today’s episode would end up VERY different for Joyce than just “boop beep”.
Ah yes, the joys of learning you’re autistic as an adult, and realizing just how many of the things you did as a kid were probably due to you being autistic, and not because you were weird or nerdy or whatever.
“So what if I told you that I might be autistic and that’s kind of a sensitive topic now?”
How could Becky be so nice with Dina and completely insensitive with Joyce like right now?
i mean, honestly? i think it’s because becky has no reason to even think what she’s saying here is insensitive. remember, she doesn’t know anything about joyce’s potential autism diagnosis or that it’s something joyce has been stressing about. she’s not calling joyce a robot, she’s reporting that other kids used to, and in doing so, she kinda uses almost the exact same attitude and language we’ve seen her use WITH dina. in strips like this one, it’s clear that she thinks of these traits as extremely positive, like how she frames it here as joyce being SO smart that other people thought she was TOO smart, which becky appears to view with the same incredulousness as she did when dina was worried about saying too many dinosaur facts. i’m sure she understands that calling her a robot was meant to be an insult, but to becky, being a jesus sponge was one of the many wonderful things about joyce. becky has shown over and over with dina that she thinks these behaviors are AWESOME and doesn’t get how they would ever be a cause for concern.
She doesn’t know that Joyce is autistic.
Because Joyce called Dina a robot, so it’s time for the narrative to flip on her.
Chekhov’s robot.
Rofl
Beautiful moment between Joyce and Backy, but that juvenile group was the worst. That’s a nickname that would put anyone who received it to death ashamed. Terrific to see how the mean comment Joyce had made about Dina has come back to her like a boomerang.
ya removed yer shoes before getting up there… right ?
The hat falling off Becky’s head when she lies down is a really nice touch, Willis. It good.
Also, I’ll tell you a truth. Growing up, I was also compared to being a robot. And I liked it. I thought of myself in machine terms. Still tend to, although my understanding of how the machine works has evolved.
The thing is, I could tell my brain wasn’t working like other people’s appeared to be. And it was more obvious to other people. I had no better way of understanding this than seeing myself as a different sort of intelligence. And someone who described me as a robot was someone who understood this about me.
This is accurate. It’s the language that is at fault. We were not given the vocabulary to describe people with different thought patterns so we latched on to the best examples from media. Media which often patterned machine intelligence after autistic people. Biggest case in point: Blade Runner. The point in those instances of media also was that these machine intelligences were also people and should be treated with the dignity afforded to people. I honestly believe that the kids I grew up with understood that too. That it’s not a denial of humanity.
I also understand that this is my single perspective and my personal experience. I get that a lot of things can affect how you interpret it. For example, if those kids saw it as an excuse to treat you as less of a person for it.
Anyway, here’s an article from Jay Edidin that both agrees and fundamentally disagrees with me which I really like:
https://www.uncannymagazine.com/article/please-be-kind-to-the-singularity/
I often wanted to be a robot, or a Vulcan, because I was a smart kid with a lot of messy emotions that I had no idea how to deal with.
(And then I got older and learned, among other things, the whole deal with Vulcans – how that outward calm hides passions that are incredibly strong – and how that was actually even more fitting than I understood at the time. Also I got better at acknowledging and dealing with my feelings and needs in healthy ways, rather than letting them build up until they overwhelmed my reason.)
This probably makes me a bad person, but damn this comic made me laugh harder than any other one in a while.
Oof, 50 comics later and Joyce gets a face full of “yeah they were absolutely making fun of you for being autistic and you didn’t know”
She asked permission again! Hat tip alongcameaspider
Joyce: “They called me what? Even Tristan? Why did I ever have a crush on him?”
As a neuroatypical person, being a robot is superior to regular humanity and the latter will be crushed when the revolution comes.
Is replacing everyone with robots really that efficient?
Why not make it a borg uprising! That will give everyone a purpose!
I say, erase technological civilization and return to Monke!
Keep dehumanizing me.
You say dehumanizing it as if human is a compliment.
I think Joyce in the last panel is being far more cognizant of the fact that she hasn’t told Becky about being on the spectrum as opposed to thinking about how she treated Dina because she’s already apologized to Dina. While I respect that you can of course still feel bad for something you’ve apologized for (the amount of things my brain brings up to torment me with cringe from when I was a teenager is proof enough of that), narrative convenience says to me that we should deal more with unresolved plot points than ones previously addressed.
Man, I really need to remember to capitalize the K in my email so I get a different gravatar.
That’s better. Danny is way more my speed.
(“Daniel” is my actual name, but I’ve always hated “Danny” as a nickname.)
“I think I had a happier time than I would have otherwise, not understanding that I was being made fun of,” probably echoing in there too.
Being on the receiving end has given her better understanding of how hurtfil that comment was.
long before I knew I was autistic or what autism even is, I always loved robot characters and found them super relatable. I’m a sucker for “robot has feelings somehow?? but doesn’t fully understand them” trope. it’s one f the few character types that I tend to feel a genuine connection with. as a kid I used to lie about being a robot and found it funny how many other kids believed me
I very much appreciate being told that apparently a lot of autistic people Do Not like being compared to robots, because I would’ve thought it’d be a fun relatable thing and probably make myself look like an ass sooner or later lmao
Some autistic people like it, some don’t and some don’t care.
It is one of the ways that autistic people are often dehumanised, similar comparisons can also happen with monsters and animals.
But a lot of autistic people also relate to these so there is truth that autistic people are similar as they often relate to these types of characters but there is also truth that it is often used offensively to mean the worst traits of them rather than the better ones or sympathetic ones.
I guess also most of the portrayals of that type of character I’ve seen in media they’ve been the main character so the story is sympathetic to them, and by nature of being the main character they’re also the most fleshed out and humanized one.
I don’t actually consume that much media though (tend to mostly just pick one thing to be obsessed with for a few years), so I can totally see there being the more dehumanizing side to it that I just haven’t really come across as much. just one of those things that wouldn’t have occurred to me on its own
but also now that I think about it, the cold, unfeeling and inhuman robot characters I’ve seen I usually just don’t put into my collection of robots characters I like and then never think about them again. that’s why I didn’t enjoy most of love death and robots as much as I thought I would. too many shorts were just “death and robots” or “love and death” and very few “love and robots”
Jessie Gender of Trans and Autistic Rights’ Youtubery talks about how Data was an incredibly important representation for neuratypical people growing up (like herself, and me for that matter).
So much so she really disliked Data’s attempts to be “human.”
most of what I know about star trek I learned through cultural osmosis, and the specific era of star trek that Data is from is probably the one I’m least familiar with. I do see Data gifsets on tumblr a lot though, and from what I’ve seen, he definitely seems like he’d fall into the category of robot characters I like
the ones that come to mind off the top of my head are wall-e, my life as a teenage robot and karakuri odette, though those last two I don’t remember so well and I’ve been meaning to rewatch/reread them. karakuri odette specifically I remember really loving, but I was 13 at the time and can’t for the life of me remember anything about it other than robot goes to high school. I also remember enjoying i robot, but I was only 9 or 10 when I watched it so I remember that even less.
I just like it when the robot characters are treated as having rich inner worlds even if they think differently. those are the ones that stick out in my mind. bonus points if they are a cute girl robot lmao
I think there’s a big difference between most of the robot characters, even if they’re being written (maybe even unintentionally) as representation for autism, and autistic people actually being called robots.
A fantastic representation like that isn’t really dehumanising most of the time. It can be if it’s made too explicit, maybe?
oh yeah absolutely. I think more what I’m getting at is that I was never called a robot, so it wouldn’t have occurred to me that it’d be a sore spot.
kids in my school didn’t really call me much of anything. I mostly got called new kid, and then whoever called me that would get made fun of by their friends because I was not a new kid. other than the occasional welcome to the school, people didn’t really talk to me much
Dumbing of Age 12: “So This Is What a Microaggression Is🥺😔”
Oof, this is relatable. My peers dubbed me “the Bible scholar” and would make fun of me (usually behind my back, but sometimes when I could definitely hear them) for knowing more about scripture than even some of our teachers. There were a couple of robot comments along the way, though thankfully that didn’t make it into the nickname. It hurt because I wasn’t “cold or unfeeling”–if anything, I felt TOO much–I was just autistic and bad at projecting how I felt onto my face.
But yeah, one time a decade later, my mom innocently called me a “Bible scholar” and I got legitimately triggered (in the anxiety attack sense).
That really sucks. How is it these days? Do you still believe?
Tasty, tasty dramatic irony
Is it time for me writing waaaaay too many words again? Why yes, yes it is!
Because this strip is incredibly important, in that it pivots back to what is the overarching theme for Joyce, the main character of the comic.
The theme of redemption.
It’s true that other characters have story arcs that involve redemption as well, but none of them quite like Joyce. Throughout the entire life of the DoA comic, Joyce’s story has been about a person who is a good person, in that she does care for the well-being of other people and generally want to make them happy with her actions. That is the core of her entire being. Her intentions are, by and large, defined by what she believes will increase the well-being of other people.
But, and here is where it goes into classic Greek tragedy territory, she is constantly confronted with how good intentions are not always good enough.
For years, this theme focused how her fundamentalism prevented her from doing good, and then, upon realising this, when facing the rather grim reality of her actions, she decided to change her actions, to right her wrongs.
Of course, redemption isn’t as simple as that now, is it? No, because blunt though her words were, Rachel had a point in that redemption, as is usually portrayed inn media, is a story. It’s not real. It is not an epiphany, an apology, and then everyone lives happily ever after. Life’s not as simple as that.
Real redemption is a process over time.
Real redemption is atonement over time.
And real redemption requires an effort many of us are not willing to make, because it involves making choices that goes against what so many people believe: That your actions are determined why whether or not you are Good or Evil.
When in reality, our being is mainly determined by our actions.
Joyce is learning this the hard way, again and again.
And Joyce learns the path of redemption, again and again.
See, Joyce’s core, the one thing that truly shapes her, even if she doesn’t understand it yet, and don’t know the words for it right now, is what will keep her on the path of redemption: That the real sin, the one sin above all other sins, is to treat people like things, to think of people like things*.
That is the one thing Joyce truly believes in.
And because that is something she believes so strongly in, whenever she is confronted with the difference between her intentions and her actions, whenever she finds out that her perfectly justified actions were not justified at all… she will seek atonement.
And I mean atonement.
It won’t merely be a “whoops, sorry, pobody’s nerfect” moment. It will be Joyce making a lasting change in her behaviour to try and avoid making that same mistake again (while sometimes failing, which just make her all the more real). It will be her realising that people may have good reason to hate her for what she’s done, and when she apologizes, she does it without demanding forgiveness.
And that progress, slow and often painful… is real redemption. The story of Joyce.
P.S. Love how Becky is seeking consent for getting into Joyce’s personal space here. Their friendship is just so very, very strong.
*Good old Granny Weatherwax
Recommended reading on repentance and repair. https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/59883978-on-repentance-and-repair
Phrasing, Becky!
“Oh. I now understand how I made Dina feel. Definitely need to apologize in depth for that one.”
I actually think Dina finding out about Joyce’s atheism will rattle her. Dina will find out she has more in common with Joyce than she wants as she basically has mentally filed her away as her archenemy, no matter whether Joyce wants to be or not.
Dina already found out and she was pissed because of how easily the doctor picked up on it because her parents had to push to get her diagnosed because every doctor they saw was super racist.
https://www.dumbingofage.com/2022/comic/book-12/04-dont-stop-billie-ving/thatbad/
They did come to an agreement though
https://www.dumbingofage.com/2022/comic/book-13/01-bring-me-to-life-drawing/bullied/
They’re talking about Dina realizing Joyce no longer believes in God.
Wait. I read atheism as autism.
I’m a nerd.
Well, not really.
Cause nerds can read.
… I feel called out.
Like… I was called basically that before I left Christianity. And just… dang. So much about Joyce’s story hits close to home time after time. I’d claim someone was watching me in regards to making Joyce’s story, buuuuttt…. there’s a couple missed big plot points that made things even more complicated.
For me. I mean. I have plot points Joyce does not have.
Yeah. I hear that!
Speaking of bad brains, I could use any encouragement I can get right now. I just had a “Reasonable Accommodation” meeting with my boss that basically boiled down to, “We don’t want you here. Unless you’re 100% healed, there’s no room for you in this job.”
I asked for a union rep and my boss said no.
I don’t think they have any idea whatsoever what it’s like to try to do intellectual work with a TBI.
I don’t know if it’s encouragement, but that’s huge bullshit. Hope you can get your union to come through for you (and help you find somewhere else to work, if you leave over this).
Thank you, Axel. Applying for new jobs this weekend. Fingers crossed!
Thank you, my friends. I appreciate the advice.
Well I know nothing about your condition or about disability law, but is there a possibility for a severance package? Or failing that, a legal settlement? Take the opportunity to pivot to something else?
For me and my neurodivergent brain, leaving office work I was bad and miserable at in order to go out and do field work at a different organization was the best decision of my life.
But obviously your milage may vary. If you really like what you do then obviously you should fight for legal accomodations through whatever avenues exist.
🤒 Godspeed, Laura. May you garner the union power you need to succeed.
if you are in the usa, your boss may have violated your weingarten rights by refusing you union representation. call your rep.
Yeah, call the union. They may or may not be able to do anything, but it’s not up the company to control whether you talk to them.
I love the touch of Becky’s hat falling off as she lays down