I don’t think she has, certainly not directly like that.
However, that is (more or less) the basic logic required to be an atheist. And Joyce is aware of that fact, which would color any in-depth conversation they could have about religion.
It is true that most atheists believe that, since most atheists these days are very specifically reacting to some form of fundamentalist Christianity. But having that opinion is by no means a requirement of atheism. Not having Christian parents is incredibly helpful for not developing that kind of reactionary belief system.
Definitely, but I think that leads to another problem where Dorothy doesn’t really have a basis for faith being this Big Important Thing, either. At least an atheist with a Christian background would understand Joyce’s crisis because they have a shared background.
(that’s part of why Dorothy is so healthy for Joyce, though, bc she pokes holes in the logic without even trying)
And hey, it’s not like we feel that way exclusively about Christianity; we think that about every religion. And while they were made up by long dead men, it’s living ones who are handing down the superstition.
Also, if the original creators of Christianity could see what subsequent generations have done with their faith, the planet could go completely renewable, just by harnessing the power of their spinning corpses.
I don’t see how you be atheist and not fundamentally believe the Dorothy superstition line. You might not put it that way normally, or go picking fights with believers. But you’re atheist, you don’t believe in God. So nothing in the religion came from God. Where did it come from? It was made up by humans, whether deliberately or in response to ‘visions’ or as some cultural accretion. Might not use the word ‘superstition’ as denigrating, but it refers to belief in supernatural forces that don’t exist, which has got to be the atheist view of religion.
(Well, taking ‘atheist’ as the standard more or less scientific materialist atheist. In theory you could disbelieve in God but believe in souls and psychic powers. Though that still doesn’t help respecting any claims of religion coming from God.)
Counterpoint: Atheist Jews.
I teach Torah Studies to adorable 4th Graders. Developing little Jewish children is my fulltime job; I’m very pro-religion.
And, I don’t believe in God at all.
You definitely don’t have to be anti-religion to be an atheist.
(I know Dorothy isn’t Jewish. I’m just using myself as an example, to say, being an atheist definitely doesn’t necessarily equal being anti-religion! Religions are way more than beliefs. Christianity is weird that it centers around belief at all, instead of, say, actions or community or history or identity or helping the world or etc. etc.)
It’s more an issue of what exactly Joyce wants from the conversation and if the conversation is, “I want to believe in God and that he/she is good” then that is something Dorothy can’t help with.
Oooh, as an atheist Jew I’m qualified to answer this one!
I believe that the Torah (aka the Five Books of Moses, aka one of three sections of the Jewish Bible) is a collection of formerly oral stories that were gradually codified by whomever had the power to do so at the time, the same way that the non-Hebrew translations were codified by a king who declared that 70-something rabbis had all independently come up with the same translation and therefore it must be divinely approved.
Now, if you’re like me, you read a legend like that with some suspicion of that king, whose word was law and couldn’t be challenged on such things but who had an interest in asserting a specific translation that suited his interests. By the same token, when you’re me, you read with skepticism any story that features a single character speaking to God without a witness. You may personally choose to trust God, but that doesn’t mean you can necessarily trust everyone who claims to have spoken to God and whose story was included in the Torah. Because I believe it possible for the Torah to be written by humans, I have no urge to believe it was written by anyone other than humans, especially when the use and spread of religion is otherwise explained by power and politics, even to the modern day.
So! Are there useful lessons in the Torah? Sure! I think Jewish law handles the grieving process brilliantly and with great compassion. Are there harmful ones too, that reflect the prejudices and power dynamics of the times in which they were written? You betcha – like stories that assert that it’s possible for Egyptian wizards to turn staves into snakes. I believe you could do that as a magical illusion, with a lot of practice; I don’t believe that a person can actually transmute matter that way, as Exodus claims. But it was certainly a useful story for asserting the Israelites’ God’s superiority when Moses’s staff-snake ate the Egyptians’ staff-snakes!
Unrelated because not in the Torah, the story of Chanukah is recent enough that there are historical records around what happened from the perspective of the government, and it is so much more interesting than the version of the Maccabeean Revolt that I learned as a kid. There’s the politics of imperialism and assimilation and traditionalists vs secularists and it’s super interesting as an example of more recent claims of divine intervention during an era when there were contemporary government records of what was going on from the imperialists’ perspective.
This went long, sorry! Anyway, yeah, that’s what I think as an atheist Jew. 😀
Ok, that was legitimately fascinating 😀 I was born Jewish and at this point tend to refer to myself alternately as an atheist and as “Jewish culturally but not religiously.” I realize there are some differences between the labels, but I consider them to be equally valid descriptors of my views.
Uh, I don’t know if you’re aware of this, but the basic mode required to believe in any religion, even the most syncretic one you can imagine, is to say ‘I believe that my specific set of beliefs is correct, even when it conflicts with your own’. By this logic, the only person who can actually help is one of her former co-religionists. And they can explicitly not help.
That is a very bleak view of religion, and as religious person, I don’t think that is at all accurate.
For many, myself included, religion is about one’s own personal experience and interpretation which will not – in fact, cannot – truly be the same as anyone else’s. We can all worship the same general set of gods, but we won’t worship them the same way or view all of those deities equally. Religion needs to be personal and up to interpretation or it loses all meaning – or, at least, that’s my view on it.
While not the only view clearly, it does bring up a counterpoint to yours. Not every religious person is taught to see things in such a rigid fashion – and this applies to Pagans (like myself), Jewish people, and even many Christians. I have a Catholic friend who was just as flexible about adapting her faith to the modern era as I was, and she is awesome. We have the best discussions.
I’m using a joke format to demonstrate that Dorothy can’t help Joyce with her problem because Dorothy believes the problem is not one. She can’t help Joyce through her crisis of faith because she believes the faith is misguided.
An atheist who’s gone through a crisis of faith themselves can help though because they can relate and isn’t necessarily opposed to someone else continuing believe, if that ends up the outcome of their crisis. Joyce may not realize this, but Dorothy could still point it out.
If some mad scientist ever creates a version of Dorothy with Billie’s chest and Sal’s hair, Joyce is gonna switch teams so hard that Becky will tell her to tone it down a bit.
Its weird because in I WAS A TEENAGE WEREDEER (a YA book I wrote) the protagonist is bisexual whose friend has been in love with her for years. The problem isn’t their sexualities, it’s the fact that she just doesn’t see her like that.
Thank you, I was unaware of that cover.
It rocks, but in my (admittedly old fashioned) opinion there is no way it could ever rock as hard as the Eurythmics with Annie Lennox on vocals. YMMV of course.
She freaked out about Agatha’s Mormonism when Joyce was still a fundamentalist Christian, though, not when she was doubting the existence of God at all and after accepting the humanity of LGBT+ people. At this point, I’m not sure she’d bat an eye at Mormonism anymore.
I suppose she could talk to Becky about it, but she’s wanting a different perspective, and Becky’s background is so similar to her own.
I guess she could talk to Danny, but in addition to not really having much interest in talk to Danny outside of this, I don’t know how into the theology of it he is. He wouldn’t necessarily debate it with her like Jacob has in the past.
Which, let’s be honest, was a large part of what Joyce wanted. I mean, she likes talking through the religion stuff anyway, but that it was also a means of flirting with Jacob made it special.
Joyce needs to meet up with Leo. Not only so that they can exchange Christian viewpoints and give Joyce that outlet she desperately needs; but also so that we can finally find out which one is really the reverse-gendered clone of the other.
Jacob Harrison relationship: not ruined. It did make Jacob think about how approval hungry he is, which as needed.
Jacob Bridge Burned: I doubt it. Keeping in mind he was heated up from the stress of having to break up and evaluate his bro relationship. In the moment he might have felt “You FORCED me into this with your lie!” But he’s honest enough I expect that will evolve into “You didn’t force anything. I went along with it of my own free will. I secretly wanted this, Raidah was stiflingly, but I couldn’t admit it to myself. Your fib to Harrison wasn’t great, but I get you didn’t want to let him down when he seemed about who he thought you were, I’ve done that a lot myself too.”
Maybe not that last part exactly, but I can see him forgiving her. “Promise not to do it again?” “I wasn’t happy with myself after I did that, I don’t want to be her again. Do you forgive me? ::more heartfelt kiss without guilty undertones::
Joyce mentions three things she ruined: Harrison’s visit, Jacob’s relationship (presumably with Raidah), and Jacob’s relationship with Joyce (that’s the bridge she burned). Your point is valid, Norah, but Shane did not mention it.
Purely religiously? Probably the best term right now is “searching for a deity she can believe in”. Can go many different ways.
Culturally? Still a yes on that, if less than before. Her Julia Gray stories (at least the first one) make sure that the characters are properly married after a long courtship, before the hanky-panky happens. Sure, she was skipping ahead a bit, but marriage is definitely still an important institution. Just that now it is including LBGQAT+ marriages.
Strips like this one leave me pretty sure Joyce is not a 0 on the Kinsey scale. Also the one where Mike asked if Sal was the one girl she’d switch for (after Sal beat Walky up for teasing Joyce about Dorothy) and her response was basically “I wish”.
I’m pretty sure she’s so deep in the closet she can’t see the doors – but I also don’t think she’s 100% straight.
Eh, I’d put that more as a “Kinsey 0.5 I mean look what guy doesn’t look at Chris Evans and go Hmmmmmm…” type thing. She’s pretty clearly going “oh i wish she had boy bits” in that comic.
And it’s an admirable piece of restraints by Mike that he didn’t start bringing up some of the more… unconventional genres of porn >_>.
Sonetimes, the characters just insist on going in their own direction.
Which is both very rewarding and sometimes frustrating for an author. I personally think that this is when a character usually becones “alive”; when they start surprising their own creator.
It’s from the webcomic “Go Get A Roomie” (https://www.gogetaroomie.com/).
Be warned the comic has been going for a number of years, and both the style and content has shifted with experience and age. It can (frequently) be NFSW, and non-hetronormative, so it that bothers you, it’s probably not your thing.
Awww, not that it’ll help with Jacob, but you could trying talking with your sister more Joyce. You already know she’s excited to see you questioning how you were brought up, you could try to find out more about more about how her own journey down that path went.
*cue Joc’s thousand yard stare on the other end of the phone everytime she needs to decide whether Joyce has reached a point where she can share everything with her yet.*
As a very femme Jocelyn, I’m just going to mention that I abhor the nickname “Joc” for my name. It comes off as too stern and masculine for my personality. I prefer Josie or Jocelyn only. I’m going to guess that it’s very possible The character Jocelyn feels similarly. As a general rule I try to figure out if people are okay with a shorter name before using one.
Don’t diss the atheist perspective so easily, Joyce. Idon’t believe in Christianity, but I have considered many times the existence of god in a pantheistic way, as some cosmic principle, or as humanity’s collective will… Okay, be aware that a possible collective will could create Yaldabaoth and humanity would be doomed unless we get the help of cool looking teenagers.
Other non theistic beliefs that can help you in time of need:
1)Transhumanism, for the elitists that want to be cyborgs and live for centuries.
2)Secular humanism, for those that care about humanity independetly of their faith.
3)SCIENCE! For people that like to burn electronic components during experimentation.
4)ART! ART IS INSPIRED BY LIFE AND LIFE CAN BE INSPIRED BY ART!
5)Unitarian Universalism, for people that want to be inclusive.
6)Fandoms, for people that are enthusiastic about comics and video games.
7)Neopaganism, for peoole wanting to practice ancient tradition and mix them with modern stuff.
8)The Fight Club. We don’t talk about the Fight Club.
9)Satanism, for hedonists and metal musicians.
10)Warhammer 40k, for edgelords and people that want to play for fun.
11)Homestuck, for everyone who wants to create fan content.
12)Environmentalism, because humans aren’t the only living beings.
I like to joke (yeah, ha ha… joke) that I’m a militant agnostic: I don’t have all the answers, I don’t have the evidence to prove anything 100% for certain, and neither does anyone else.
(If you claim that you, a mortal finite being, fully understand the Creator’s plan and know Their Will and who they do and don’t approve of, then either you’re lying, you’re delusional, or you believe in a very small god.)
Atheists don’t claim to prove anything. They merely disbelieve the theistic assertion. Theist: There is a god. Atheist: Evidence? No? Then I don’t believe you.
Look, I’m agnostic as fuck, and yeah, there’s all sorts of non-religious spiritual perspectives out there…
…but come on, someone looking to share and discus God Stuff is not going to enjoy it the same way they would with a Christian of a different denomination, just because of how I come at the issue. I get Joyce’s feeling here…
…look, to use a metaphor? For me, a giant Star Trek nerd and DS9 fan in particular… it’s the difference between talking with someone who thinks TNG is the best Star Trek ever, and talking with someone that says “Oh, yeah, I guess I kinda enjoyed that Star Trek movie with Doctor Strange as the bad guy”…
Warhammer 40k is for people who like SKULLS. After all, in the grim darkness of 40th millenium, there is only grim and dark and lots of skulls. And also some war, but mostly grim and dark and skulls.
Poor Dotty, she is getting this a lot lately. With Danny she was too straight. With Joyce she is too atheist. With her floor mates she was too “momish”. about her only win is Billie in the murdercave.
It’s hard to be the team mom when the team don’t let you mom on them.
Y’all ever get super-duper inebriated and randomly blurt out really personal identity stuff to your friend and your SO? The kinda stuff that you’ve never once brought up with them, and you’re just recently starting to understand for yourself, but now that it’s in the air and you’ve sobered up, you don’t feel any need to retract?
Yeah, so Joyce is havin’ a rough day. Maybe some pizza and platonic makeouts with Dorothy will help.
Well Joyce destroyed her relation with Jacob, maybe it’s time to have the mandatory crazy one time girl x girl college drunk party adventure with Dorothy now to get a set?
This is why this whole story just rings so falsely to Dorothy. I mean, since when has Joyce been able to dissemble, let alone lie in a way that’s plausible to even total strangers?
Seriously, it bothers me how a lot of people assume that Joyce MUST be bisexual because of the stuff like this. Yes, she CAN be bisexual, but just because she expresses deep feelings for someone doesn’t have to mean that this feelings are romantic or sexual. When people do this, I feel like they are completely dismissing that friendships can be strong too. I love my closest friends a lot and there is not a hint of sexuality in it.
We’re not saying she has to be bi, any more than some of us are saying she has to be autistic. We just happen to get very strong reads of those traits from Joyce, and a lot of us are very excitable in general.
Yeah, I agree with that. It’s just as annoying as when people immediately ship two characters of different genders who have said some nice things to each other.
Simple friendships exist, y’all.
It’s not just stuff like this, it’s the whole context set up by Willis.
* She’s the very bestest “friend of Dorothy”.
* She invoked a Bible quote commonly used in lesbian weddings.
* She’s fascinated by other female bodies
Yes, it could all be straight (including the last, “I want to be pretty and I’m interested in how other girls are pretty”, or such). But Willis is clearly teasing/baiting us, and we respond to the author’s invitation.
Yeah.
FWIW, Happilychaotic, I am normally very much in your corner. It’s a thing that fandom everywhere does that bugs the HELL out of me, even if I (think I) understand why a lot of them do it.
But in this case, my read is that the author is very much teasing and hinting.
I do hope Jacob and Joyce make up and can be friends again. Their friendship was one of the best relationships in this comic. (But realistically, that would probably take a number of years in real time.)
I really don’t see this as a mistake that takes YEARS to rebuild trust after. I can see Jacob not feeling a need to repair the relationship at all, because friends come and go and he’d only known Joyce a few weeks before she pulled this crap. I can see them repairing things over the course of several weeks and being okay again a few months from now. But the idea of Jacob wanting to be friends again, but taking YEARS to heal seems ridiculous to me.
Joyce wasn’t exactly lying that she was Jacob’s girlfriend. I mean, to the extent that we all live in two realities; the one outside our heads, and the one inside. After a lifetime of magical and wishful thinking, how distinct can the line between them be?
Every Instinct with me He’s hoping they kiss in the next 30 seconds.
So, since that’s not entirely realistic with the narrative, can anyone recommend me like cute romantic comedies that are like this? Doesn’t have to be atheists/fundie lesbians, but I sure wish it was. Books I assume, Since Hollywood doesn’t have the guts to make these kind of movies.
So… This recommendation is nothing like this. But for cute lesbian romance with comedy elements, I super-strongly recommend Almost Human, a completed, free webcomic on Webtoons with a far-future lightly-scifi setting (I say lightly scifi because it does not get in the way of the character story). https://www.webtoons.com/en/romance/always-human/list?title_no=557
It is the most heartwarmingest.
(while on Webtoons you might also consider Mage & Demon Queen, which is completely different but also lesbian comedy romance. That one is an ongoing, with a fantasy setting, and much more emphasis on comedy)
((I might recommend Rain (another webcomic, not on Webtoons, has its own site), but that’s… A lot heavier and has some downright heartwrenching parts, and the focus is more on trans than on lesbian (though lesbian also happens) so I don’t know that it’s really what you’re looking for))
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I love creepy Dorothy-loving friend Joyce
Joyce has been in love with Dorothy ever since she saw her faaaaaaaaaaace 😀
And she’s a believer
Not a trace
Of doubt in her mind (about Dorothy, anyway)
Just when I thought we had beaten that to death.
You know what’s really easy to flog? A dead horse…’cos it can’t run away. 😛
She echos a creepy Penny-loving friend Amy Farrah Fowler, although I doubt Joyce was allowed to watch ‘Big Bang’.
*slowly mutes the Monkees CD I’m playing*
Honesty ain’t much, but on the right situation, it helps.
But …
Spoken like a true future politician, Dorothy.
Joyce: I’d like to discuss doubts I have about religion and reconciling my faith.
Dorothy: I think your religion is a bunch of superstition made up by long dead men.
Joyce: Yeah, this is why.
Dorothy: Oh.
When has Dorothy ever denigrated Joyce’s religion like that?
I don’t think she has, certainly not directly like that.
However, that is (more or less) the basic logic required to be an atheist. And Joyce is aware of that fact, which would color any in-depth conversation they could have about religion.
It is true that most atheists believe that, since most atheists these days are very specifically reacting to some form of fundamentalist Christianity. But having that opinion is by no means a requirement of atheism. Not having Christian parents is incredibly helpful for not developing that kind of reactionary belief system.
Definitely, but I think that leads to another problem where Dorothy doesn’t really have a basis for faith being this Big Important Thing, either. At least an atheist with a Christian background would understand Joyce’s crisis because they have a shared background.
(that’s part of why Dorothy is so healthy for Joyce, though, bc she pokes holes in the logic without even trying)
And hey, it’s not like we feel that way exclusively about Christianity; we think that about every religion. And while they were made up by long dead men, it’s living ones who are handing down the superstition.
Also, if the original creators of Christianity could see what subsequent generations have done with their faith, the planet could go completely renewable, just by harnessing the power of their spinning corpses.
Would that be because the world as it is now is totally inconceivable to them or because of differences is interpretation of dogma?
Yes.
I don’t see how you be atheist and not fundamentally believe the Dorothy superstition line. You might not put it that way normally, or go picking fights with believers. But you’re atheist, you don’t believe in God. So nothing in the religion came from God. Where did it come from? It was made up by humans, whether deliberately or in response to ‘visions’ or as some cultural accretion. Might not use the word ‘superstition’ as denigrating, but it refers to belief in supernatural forces that don’t exist, which has got to be the atheist view of religion.
(Well, taking ‘atheist’ as the standard more or less scientific materialist atheist. In theory you could disbelieve in God but believe in souls and psychic powers. Though that still doesn’t help respecting any claims of religion coming from God.)
Not knowing religions are still real today until 7th grade made things very confusing for awhile.
Counterpoint: Atheist Jews.
I teach Torah Studies to adorable 4th Graders. Developing little Jewish children is my fulltime job; I’m very pro-religion.
And, I don’t believe in God at all.
You definitely don’t have to be anti-religion to be an atheist.
(I know Dorothy isn’t Jewish. I’m just using myself as an example, to say, being an atheist definitely doesn’t necessarily equal being anti-religion! Religions are way more than beliefs. Christianity is weird that it centers around belief at all, instead of, say, actions or community or history or identity or helping the world or etc. etc.)
It’s more an issue of what exactly Joyce wants from the conversation and if the conversation is, “I want to believe in God and that he/she is good” then that is something Dorothy can’t help with.
But as an atheist, where do you think Torah came from?
Oooh, as an atheist Jew I’m qualified to answer this one!
I believe that the Torah (aka the Five Books of Moses, aka one of three sections of the Jewish Bible) is a collection of formerly oral stories that were gradually codified by whomever had the power to do so at the time, the same way that the non-Hebrew translations were codified by a king who declared that 70-something rabbis had all independently come up with the same translation and therefore it must be divinely approved.
Now, if you’re like me, you read a legend like that with some suspicion of that king, whose word was law and couldn’t be challenged on such things but who had an interest in asserting a specific translation that suited his interests. By the same token, when you’re me, you read with skepticism any story that features a single character speaking to God without a witness. You may personally choose to trust God, but that doesn’t mean you can necessarily trust everyone who claims to have spoken to God and whose story was included in the Torah. Because I believe it possible for the Torah to be written by humans, I have no urge to believe it was written by anyone other than humans, especially when the use and spread of religion is otherwise explained by power and politics, even to the modern day.
So! Are there useful lessons in the Torah? Sure! I think Jewish law handles the grieving process brilliantly and with great compassion. Are there harmful ones too, that reflect the prejudices and power dynamics of the times in which they were written? You betcha – like stories that assert that it’s possible for Egyptian wizards to turn staves into snakes. I believe you could do that as a magical illusion, with a lot of practice; I don’t believe that a person can actually transmute matter that way, as Exodus claims. But it was certainly a useful story for asserting the Israelites’ God’s superiority when Moses’s staff-snake ate the Egyptians’ staff-snakes!
Unrelated because not in the Torah, the story of Chanukah is recent enough that there are historical records around what happened from the perspective of the government, and it is so much more interesting than the version of the Maccabeean Revolt that I learned as a kid. There’s the politics of imperialism and assimilation and traditionalists vs secularists and it’s super interesting as an example of more recent claims of divine intervention during an era when there were contemporary government records of what was going on from the imperialists’ perspective.
This went long, sorry! Anyway, yeah, that’s what I think as an atheist Jew. 😀
Ok, that was legitimately fascinating 😀 I was born Jewish and at this point tend to refer to myself alternately as an atheist and as “Jewish culturally but not religiously.” I realize there are some differences between the labels, but I consider them to be equally valid descriptors of my views.
Uh, I don’t know if you’re aware of this, but the basic mode required to believe in any religion, even the most syncretic one you can imagine, is to say ‘I believe that my specific set of beliefs is correct, even when it conflicts with your own’. By this logic, the only person who can actually help is one of her former co-religionists. And they can explicitly not help.
That is a very bleak view of religion, and as religious person, I don’t think that is at all accurate.
For many, myself included, religion is about one’s own personal experience and interpretation which will not – in fact, cannot – truly be the same as anyone else’s. We can all worship the same general set of gods, but we won’t worship them the same way or view all of those deities equally. Religion needs to be personal and up to interpretation or it loses all meaning – or, at least, that’s my view on it.
While not the only view clearly, it does bring up a counterpoint to yours. Not every religious person is taught to see things in such a rigid fashion – and this applies to Pagans (like myself), Jewish people, and even many Christians. I have a Catholic friend who was just as flexible about adapting her faith to the modern era as I was, and she is awesome. We have the best discussions.
I’m using a joke format to demonstrate that Dorothy can’t help Joyce with her problem because Dorothy believes the problem is not one. She can’t help Joyce through her crisis of faith because she believes the faith is misguided.
Fair enough. I didn’t get that this is a ‘what Joyce would hear’ kinda thing. My bad.
I could have done better with my intro.
An atheist who’s gone through a crisis of faith themselves can help though because they can relate and isn’t necessarily opposed to someone else continuing believe, if that ends up the outcome of their crisis. Joyce may not realize this, but Dorothy could still point it out.
Dorothy feels like she grew up atheist. Conversely, atheists who turned away from Christianity are often the most allergic to Christianity.
Dorothy, Joyce and Jacob seemed to enjoy talking religion almost like they were flirting. You can’t possibly expect Joyce to want that fr–
Cheer up, Joyce! You still have… uh… maybe Jaime will listen
Now that Joyce is a goshless heathen, she can sing any kind of song she likes to little Jaime. This seems like an appropriate start.
Joyce: Also, I have unresolved bisexual feelings toward you but nothing to Becky because she’s like my sister.
Dorothy: Uh…
Joyce: Are you sure about that 0 on the KS?
If some mad scientist ever creates a version of Dorothy with Billie’s chest and Sal’s hair, Joyce is gonna switch teams so hard that Becky will tell her to tone it down a bit.
Its weird because in I WAS A TEENAGE WEREDEER (a YA book I wrote) the protagonist is bisexual whose friend has been in love with her for years. The problem isn’t their sexualities, it’s the fact that she just doesn’t see her like that.
For some reason I read that as a version of Dorothy with chest hair.
Now I’m picturing a sort of Shadow the Hedgehog-style tuft on Dorothy, and… I guess it’s not the worst thing in the world.
*Dorothy takes Joyce in for a make-out*
Becky: “OH HELL NO”
In the words of E.A. Poe, “Those are the facts stated sufficiently plainly.”
Actually Dorothy said she was a 1 didn’t she?
Nope I am bo bo the fool she did say 0
There is just one thing you must understand
You can fool with your brother…
But don’t mess with a Missionary Man!
Today’s strip is sponsored by American Girl dolls.
Eurythmics! Respect sir. True respect!
I mostly know this from the Ghost cover.
Thank you, I was unaware of that cover.
It rocks, but in my (admittedly old fashioned) opinion there is no way it could ever rock as hard as the Eurythmics with Annie Lennox on vocals. YMMV of course.
the Missionary Man
He’s got God on his side
He’s got the saints and apostles
Comin’ up from be-hind!
*squees Satanically*
(… The hell have I turned into Papa Nihil?)
Stop what you’re doin
Get down upon your knees
I’ve got a message for you
That you’d better believe, believe, believe, believe…
Aww, cheer up, Joyce. There’s a bunch of Christians in this comic. How many do you know that would be happy to talk theology with you?
….Ah. I see the problem.
Oh! Wait! Sierra and Agatha! You can talk to them. It’ll be their backdoor into the main cast.
Yes! Bring on the Sierrathoyce Theology Session!
Agatha’s Mormon, which Joyce has… kind of freaked out about before.
That puts her in a not-very-exclusive club.
Yeah, but it also means she’s a different denomination which is one of the things that gave Jacob that different perspective.
She freaked out about Agatha’s Mormonism when Joyce was still a fundamentalist Christian, though, not when she was doubting the existence of God at all and after accepting the humanity of LGBT+ people. At this point, I’m not sure she’d bat an eye at Mormonism anymore.
I suppose she could talk to Becky about it, but she’s wanting a different perspective, and Becky’s background is so similar to her own.
I guess she could talk to Danny, but in addition to not really having much interest in talk to Danny outside of this, I don’t know how into the theology of it he is. He wouldn’t necessarily debate it with her like Jacob has in the past.
Danny ‘cares’ about church as much as Billie does.
Don’t forget Lucy! Although I think Joyce already has.
Awww, but Lucy has her back door into the main cast. 😛
I had a similar conversation about this in terms of what I wanted in a person, and a friend volunteered herself as a good candidate
“unless you mean someone with outdoor plumbing” she added
Which, let’s be honest, was a large part of what Joyce wanted. I mean, she likes talking through the religion stuff anyway, but that it was also a means of flirting with Jacob made it special.
Yeah, cheer up, Joyce. Next week or so, your crisis of faith will be 100% resolved. By force.
Joyce needs to meet up with Leo. Not only so that they can exchange Christian viewpoints and give Joyce that outlet she desperately needs; but also so that we can finally find out which one is really the reverse-gendered clone of the other.
Is it bad to say Joyce is stanning for Dorothy?
How about Joycing?
If she repeats it over and over, it’s re-Joyceing.
Heh!
fuck i just saw the alt-text XD
faaaaaaaaaaaaace
(man, that’s a long callback)
Found it. First page of the archive, even.
Jacob Harrison relationship: not ruined. It did make Jacob think about how approval hungry he is, which as needed.
Jacob Bridge Burned: I doubt it. Keeping in mind he was heated up from the stress of having to break up and evaluate his bro relationship. In the moment he might have felt “You FORCED me into this with your lie!” But he’s honest enough I expect that will evolve into “You didn’t force anything. I went along with it of my own free will. I secretly wanted this, Raidah was stiflingly, but I couldn’t admit it to myself. Your fib to Harrison wasn’t great, but I get you didn’t want to let him down when he seemed about who he thought you were, I’ve done that a lot myself too.”
Maybe not that last part exactly, but I can see him forgiving her. “Promise not to do it again?” “I wasn’t happy with myself after I did that, I don’t want to be her again. Do you forgive me? ::more heartfelt kiss without guilty undertones::
I think she meant the Jacob-Raidah relationship. While what she did hastened the ending, it probably couldn’t have lasted that long anyway.
Joyce mentions three things she ruined: Harrison’s visit, Jacob’s relationship (presumably with Raidah), and Jacob’s relationship with Joyce (that’s the bridge she burned). Your point is valid, Norah, but Shane did not mention it.
PS Joyce- are YOU a believer either?
Two strips ago it sounded like she wasn’t anymore to me.
Yes.
Just because someone’s going through shit doesn’t mean their entire religious perspective has changed.
Her religious perspective is certainly changing. I doubt she really knows where she stands right now, much less where she’s headed.
Purely religiously? Probably the best term right now is “searching for a deity she can believe in”. Can go many different ways.
Culturally? Still a yes on that, if less than before. Her Julia Gray stories (at least the first one) make sure that the characters are properly married after a long courtship, before the hanky-panky happens. Sure, she was skipping ahead a bit, but marriage is definitely still an important institution. Just that now it is including LBGQAT+ marriages.
Oh just go and do something that causes another Slipshine, you two.
I think they’re both really low Kinsey number, ie very het.
I sometimes wonder about Joyce.
Strips like this one leave me pretty sure Joyce is not a 0 on the Kinsey scale. Also the one where Mike asked if Sal was the one girl she’d switch for (after Sal beat Walky up for teasing Joyce about Dorothy) and her response was basically “I wish”.
I’m pretty sure she’s so deep in the closet she can’t see the doors – but I also don’t think she’s 100% straight.
I read that there is also a Kinsey rating of ‘X’, for people with “no socio-sexual contacts or reactions”.
The strip is this one. (Did you know there are 10 pages of Joyce+Mike?)
Eh, I’d put that more as a “Kinsey 0.5 I mean look what guy doesn’t look at Chris Evans and go Hmmmmmm…” type thing. She’s pretty clearly going “oh i wish she had boy bits” in that comic.
And it’s an admirable piece of restraints by Mike that he didn’t start bringing up some of the more… unconventional genres of porn >_>.
While I’m not sure how aware Joyce is of the Kinsey scale, Dorothy is on record describing herself as “probably a zero, best I can tell? I guess that estimate could change.” There’s also the hovertext two days later which calls Dorothy “superheroromantic heterosexual”.
Maybe Willis doesn’t know his characters as well as he thinks!
Sonetimes, the characters just insist on going in their own direction.
Which is both very rewarding and sometimes frustrating for an author. I personally think that this is when a character usually becones “alive”; when they start surprising their own creator.
Dorothy is straight, but we’ve been building up to Joyce being bi for a long time.
Maybe. We’ve also seen that Joyce’s expectations for platonic girl friendships are somewhat warped by her best friend’s long crush on her.
That may be Joyce rationalizing.
Or as the old folks used to put it, “That’s her story.”
There’s something about the fact your avatar is Lillian that makes that comment very very strange. 🙂
Where’s that character from? I don’t recognize the artwork.
It’s from the webcomic “Go Get A Roomie” (https://www.gogetaroomie.com/).
Be warned the comic has been going for a number of years, and both the style and content has shifted with experience and age. It can (frequently) be NFSW, and non-hetronormative, so it that bothers you, it’s probably not your thing.
I read that comic, and I still didn’t recognize your avatar.
Never mind, I just realized I misinterpreted what you were saying.
Well, she herself wrote some Legolas/Gimli slashfic once upon a time.
Awww, not that it’ll help with Jacob, but you could trying talking with your sister more Joyce. You already know she’s excited to see you questioning how you were brought up, you could try to find out more about more about how her own journey down that path went.
*cue Joc’s thousand yard stare on the other end of the phone everytime she needs to decide whether Joyce has reached a point where she can share everything with her yet.*
As a very femme Jocelyn, I’m just going to mention that I abhor the nickname “Joc” for my name. It comes off as too stern and masculine for my personality. I prefer Josie or Jocelyn only. I’m going to guess that it’s very possible The character Jocelyn feels similarly. As a general rule I try to figure out if people are okay with a shorter name before using one.
Don’t diss the atheist perspective so easily, Joyce. Idon’t believe in Christianity, but I have considered many times the existence of god in a pantheistic way, as some cosmic principle, or as humanity’s collective will… Okay, be aware that a possible collective will could create Yaldabaoth and humanity would be doomed unless we get the help of cool looking teenagers.
Other non theistic beliefs that can help you in time of need:
1)Transhumanism, for the elitists that want to be cyborgs and live for centuries.
2)Secular humanism, for those that care about humanity independetly of their faith.
3)SCIENCE! For people that like to burn electronic components during experimentation.
4)ART! ART IS INSPIRED BY LIFE AND LIFE CAN BE INSPIRED BY ART!
5)Unitarian Universalism, for people that want to be inclusive.
6)Fandoms, for people that are enthusiastic about comics and video games.
7)Neopaganism, for peoole wanting to practice ancient tradition and mix them with modern stuff.
8)The Fight Club. We don’t talk about the Fight Club.
9)Satanism, for hedonists and metal musicians.
10)Warhammer 40k, for edgelords and people that want to play for fun.
11)Homestuck, for everyone who wants to create fan content.
12)Environmentalism, because humans aren’t the only living beings.
Let Joyce crawl before she runs.
Joyce: Wait, Muslims believe in God? Our God?
And unfortunately, that is a real line from someone I know with Joyce’s background.
Joyce: Wait, Catholics believe in God? Our God?
*repeat for all denominations of Christianity but Baptist*
That people say things like “Our God?” with a complete lack of self-awareness floors me.
13) Discordianism, for people who can’t decide if they want a joke disguised as a religion or a religion disguised as a joke.
I like 1, 2, 3, 4, 6, and 12 from that list.
There’s also many non-theist religions and secular Christianity. Buddhism, Hinduism, and Daoism have traditions without literal divinities.
Or maybe you will recover your faith and realize that you, all along, were the avatar of the God WIllis.
So Tanya the Evil was the will of God to kill themselves?
I like to joke (yeah, ha ha… joke) that I’m a militant agnostic: I don’t have all the answers, I don’t have the evidence to prove anything 100% for certain, and neither does anyone else.
(If you claim that you, a mortal finite being, fully understand the Creator’s plan and know Their Will and who they do and don’t approve of, then either you’re lying, you’re delusional, or you believe in a very small god.)
There’s possibly no such thing as atheists.
I assure you there are. Lots of us.
Atheists don’t claim to prove anything. They merely disbelieve the theistic assertion. Theist: There is a god. Atheist: Evidence? No? Then I don’t believe you.
Look, I’m agnostic as fuck, and yeah, there’s all sorts of non-religious spiritual perspectives out there…
…but come on, someone looking to share and discus God Stuff is not going to enjoy it the same way they would with a Christian of a different denomination, just because of how I come at the issue. I get Joyce’s feeling here…
…look, to use a metaphor? For me, a giant Star Trek nerd and DS9 fan in particular… it’s the difference between talking with someone who thinks TNG is the best Star Trek ever, and talking with someone that says “Oh, yeah, I guess I kinda enjoyed that Star Trek movie with Doctor Strange as the bad guy”…
I thought you were going to talk about the OTHER ST movie. You know, the one where Thor is a spaceship captain.
That one is at least entertaining and filled with excited, energetic actors.
Into Darkness is a pile of crap.
That is a really good analogy.
Warhammer 40k is for people who like SKULLS. After all, in the grim darkness of 40th millenium, there is only grim and dark and lots of skulls. And also some war, but mostly grim and dark and skulls.
And dakka.
Any time you have Becky and Joyce at the same party it’s even money who’ll say the gayest thing. Don’t tell Joyce.
Subjects made aware of external observation exhibit altered behavior.
Please, she’ll get flustered and get worse(/better).
It’s the sociologist’s version of Heisenberg’s Principle.
(No, not that guy, that’s chemistry.)
Poor Dotty, she is getting this a lot lately. With Danny she was too straight. With Joyce she is too atheist. With her floor mates she was too “momish”. about her only win is Billie in the murdercave.
It’s hard to be the team mom when the team don’t let you mom on them.
Good call.
And even Walky was reluctant to let her mom on his grades, way back when
Y’all ever get super-duper inebriated and randomly blurt out really personal identity stuff to your friend and your SO? The kinda stuff that you’ve never once brought up with them, and you’re just recently starting to understand for yourself, but now that it’s in the air and you’ve sobered up, you don’t feel any need to retract?
Yeah, so Joyce is havin’ a rough day. Maybe some pizza and platonic makeouts with Dorothy will help.
*play’s “I’m a Believer” by the Monkees (and then the Smash Mouth cover as well) on the hacked muzak*
THANK you. I was afraid I’d have to do it myself!
Well Joyce destroyed her relation with Jacob, maybe it’s time to have the mandatory crazy one time girl x girl college drunk party adventure with Dorothy now to get a set?
Nah, last time they had a drunk party it was the sober girls that hooked up.
http://www.dumbingofage.com/2015/comic/book-5/03-the-butterflies-fly-away/safe-2/
Sooooo you’re saying Joyce and Dorothy are exactly as inebriated (i.e. not at all) as they need to be in order to snog?
Now when you mention it…
This is why this whole story just rings so falsely to Dorothy. I mean, since when has Joyce been able to dissemble, let alone lie in a way that’s plausible to even total strangers?
If Dorothy hasn’t yet understood how artful of a liar Joyce can be, she hasn’t been paying attention.
http://www.dumbingofage.com/2018/comic/book-9-comic/01-flyin-to-the-red/tattler/
At some point, Joyce will drop her mask and then whisper, “Yes, Dorothy, you were in the Bad Place all along.”
I mean, Dorothy is an atheists. Up until very recently, Joyce has been sure of exactly that.
take a deep breath everyone.
I’ll breathe as shallow as I want, and you can’t do a single thing to stop me.
…. TECHNICALLY not true, but we’ll let you have it.
*hides respirator behind his back*
Hey Willis,
the RSS feed has been broken for a while – it’s stuck to more than a week ago.
Seriously, it bothers me how a lot of people assume that Joyce MUST be bisexual because of the stuff like this. Yes, she CAN be bisexual, but just because she expresses deep feelings for someone doesn’t have to mean that this feelings are romantic or sexual. When people do this, I feel like they are completely dismissing that friendships can be strong too. I love my closest friends a lot and there is not a hint of sexuality in it.
We’re not saying she has to be bi, any more than some of us are saying she has to be autistic. We just happen to get very strong reads of those traits from Joyce, and a lot of us are very excitable in general.
Yeah, I agree with that. It’s just as annoying as when people immediately ship two characters of different genders who have said some nice things to each other.
Simple friendships exist, y’all.
It’s not just stuff like this, it’s the whole context set up by Willis.
* She’s the very bestest “friend of Dorothy”.
* She invoked a Bible quote commonly used in lesbian weddings.
* She’s fascinated by other female bodies
Yes, it could all be straight (including the last, “I want to be pretty and I’m interested in how other girls are pretty”, or such). But Willis is clearly teasing/baiting us, and we respond to the author’s invitation.
Yeah.
FWIW, Happilychaotic, I am normally very much in your corner. It’s a thing that fandom everywhere does that bugs the HELL out of me, even if I (think I) understand why a lot of them do it.
But in this case, my read is that the author is very much teasing and hinting.
Woah! First time I thought of the “friends of Dorothy” reference! Great catch!
I had to double back to remember when that happened. She did it on a bagged lunch that she made for Dorothy. That’s straight out domestic.
Oh, come on, Happy Chaotic. “As we breathe the same air”? That’s sex talk.
I do hope Jacob and Joyce make up and can be friends again. Their friendship was one of the best relationships in this comic. (But realistically, that would probably take a number of years in real time.)
I really don’t see this as a mistake that takes YEARS to rebuild trust after. I can see Jacob not feeling a need to repair the relationship at all, because friends come and go and he’d only known Joyce a few weeks before she pulled this crap. I can see them repairing things over the course of several weeks and being okay again a few months from now. But the idea of Jacob wanting to be friends again, but taking YEARS to heal seems ridiculous to me.
I like this true analysis made by Joyce.
It’s times like this that I have to ask “Are we sure Joyce isn’t bi?”
Nah, she’s perfectly straight and normal.
Just like Billie.
Joyce wasn’t exactly lying that she was Jacob’s girlfriend. I mean, to the extent that we all live in two realities; the one outside our heads, and the one inside. After a lifetime of magical and wishful thinking, how distinct can the line between them be?
Every Instinct with me He’s hoping they kiss in the next 30 seconds.
So, since that’s not entirely realistic with the narrative, can anyone recommend me like cute romantic comedies that are like this? Doesn’t have to be atheists/fundie lesbians, but I sure wish it was. Books I assume, Since Hollywood doesn’t have the guts to make these kind of movies.
So… This recommendation is nothing like this. But for cute lesbian romance with comedy elements, I super-strongly recommend Almost Human, a completed, free webcomic on Webtoons with a far-future lightly-scifi setting (I say lightly scifi because it does not get in the way of the character story). https://www.webtoons.com/en/romance/always-human/list?title_no=557
It is the most heartwarmingest.
(while on Webtoons you might also consider Mage & Demon Queen, which is completely different but also lesbian comedy romance. That one is an ongoing, with a fantasy setting, and much more emphasis on comedy)
((I might recommend Rain (another webcomic, not on Webtoons, has its own site), but that’s… A lot heavier and has some downright heartwrenching parts, and the focus is more on trans than on lesbian (though lesbian also happens) so I don’t know that it’s really what you’re looking for))
Always Human is a heart-warming wholesome comic with two completely adorkble DOOFUSES as the main characters.
Mage and Demon Queen is so cute, love that one.
Joyce has always assumed that without God, people would behave selfishly with no guilt, shame, or regret.
And… it’s not true. People can be moral without God. And she doesn’t know how to reconcile that with her upbringing.
It’s painful. But it’s growing pains.