You can’t tell without a time machine, but it is clearly from the early thirty-first century. ana is going to be a popular name and chronistic is what all the meta-post-neo-hipsters will change their last names to in the late thirtieth century.
Oh man, I got halfway through the comments before I got that joke, and now I am going to hear “Butthole Dad” instead of “Black Hole Sun” every time that song plays. For the rest of my life.
Yeah, and when that particular revelation hits the fan, I’m expecting Joyce to BSOD badly enough that she’ll need therapy or medical attention because of the violence of her reaction. It’s even money if the Brown family will be able to survive intact.
Suggested materials: A yardstick (soemtimes free from hardware stores with the store’s name printed on it), a printer for printing out character faces, scissors, glue, your own judgment.
Yeah, she is learning fast. Which suggests to me that she doesn’t have any real difficulty with interpersonal skills. She just somehow didn’t learn them at the usual time. Perhaps that’s because her parents lack them?
Oh god, I feel you, Sarah. I NEVER know what to do when people cry. I love a good crying scene in a movie or something, but irl when people near me cry I am just always so overwhelmed^^
Everyone can talk the talk when it comes to being a good person but its much hardier to walk the walk and Sarah most definately is a good person even if it means her actions cause people to dislike her
Ruth hates herself and thus does her level best to make everyone else hate her. She wants to have a clear board when she finally psychs herself up to the point where she can start throwing ethanol down her throat and not stop until the lights go out for good.
The hopeless romantic/shippy part of me wants to believe that they’re going to end up sustaining each other in a really weird way until they both quit alcohol and sober up together and reacquire some sort of stability in life…
…while still having angry slam-each-other-around-in-a-suitably-aroused-manner sex of course.
I don’t think she’s mean. Yeah, she’s brash and honest and maybe lacks tact a little, but she rarely does anything maliciously and she helps her friends. She’s not mean.
Sarah: look I know you’ve had a lot to deal with in the last month but come on please don’t do this to me-REALLY your choosing right now to have this emotional break down!? Fuck everything …
I’m so proud of Joyce… it’s hard to come to terms with a large part of your worldview being wrong, but she’s honestly trying so hard to fix her behavior and deserves a hug and an ‘It’s OK to be Takei’ shirt.
I dunno, Walky might at least be able to distract her from being sad. If his awful joke doesn’t make her laugh, it could at least make her groan and roll her eyes. Or chase after him in a blind rage.
I want to say he’s grown enough by now to handle this like an adult, but we all know that’s neither true nor the fun way to handle it.
I’m not good at these situations myself. There have been times I’ve tried to comfort someone, and was told to back off, because I was making things worse. I feel for both of them right now.
All I can say to Joyce is, “I know you’re upset and overwhelmed right now. If you want to talk, I’m willing to listen.”
Yeah, I suck at this. I’m even worse in person with actual people.
Joyce has had a lot to process lately. I hope she finds someone to talk to about all of this soon.
I don’t know if I could forgive Joyce for what she said, were I Sarah.
But, Sarah is a good person.
She is going to hug Joyce unless someone walks by and beats her to it which she is fervently praying for right about now.
Dina is learning to interact at an amazing pace. Horay! But, what is she going to do if she does spot Toedad. (Agree, I like Toedad better than Buttholedad myself. But both fit).
Yeah, I was really impressed by how quickly Sarah was interacting with Joyce again after that exchange. They really do feel like sisters in that way; there’s a pseudo-familial love that empowers them to forgive and forget and move forward.
Is it wrong that I desperately wanna show Joyce a comic called “Satan and Me” and the fan base that is shipping Satan with the protagonist? I mean, I know she’s a fictional character and all, but her face would be priceless.
Well, Dina is either a) ace spectrum and warming up to cuddles as her bases or b) not ace, but also not much experienced with physical intimacy (she had to be taught sympathy via light physical contact after all) and as such working up to public displays of cuddly affection.
And Becky is probably VERY focused on respecting boundaries and consent after learning what happened to Joyce and worrying that her surprise kiss was triggering for her. I doubt Becky wants to risk anything like a repeat of that without making double and triply sure (note that she was careful not to initiate any contact the last few strips, waiting for Dina to initiate first).
As such, they might be a bit lighter on the public displays of affection than most new couples.
As others have said, they just started this relationship. Plus there’s no rule that a relationship needs constant physical contact. On the other hand, Becky had her arm around Dina in the previous strip before this one.
Total lack? They walked into the room with Joyce and Sarah with their arms all around each other, and last page they were holding each other in front of toedad’s car. I’m a bit confused.
…
There are advantages to walking separately. Holding hands and other forms of physical contact are common, but even for couples they’re not the norm while traveling. Linking with another person like that means having to synchronize to a greater degree than just adjusting your rhythm to match paces.
At this point I’m reasonably sure that a substantial chunk of comments around here are baiting. Maybe as high as five or six percent.
Goddamnitt, I was so close to having an excuse to start breaking away from this deeply entangled emotional relationship, but noooooo, you just had to earnestly apologize and trigger all my big sisterly engagement, didn’t you? Fuck, well, all right, reluctant comforting Sarah it is, then.
Aw, come on, Sarah! Try to learn a little empathy! Joyce is having the structure of her world with which she was raised until it became an unconscious patter that she relied on instinctively undermined. She’s having to confront all these emotional stresses including her sisterly love for Becky and fears for her safety because of the behaviour of the one person that she should be able to trust without question to do the right thing! What she needs is some emotional support right now.
She doesn’t need you to go out of your comfort zone, you just need to be human and be there!
I think it’s pretty clear from Sarah’s various actions that lack of empathy isn’t her problem. It’s that her empathy has had costs that have scarred her (caring for Dana at the expense of her academic performance and risking her scholarship, making a dramatic action with Dana out of deep concern that may or may not have been the right choice, but definitely cost her all her friends and crucially important contacts in the field she wants to enter, and everything she has done with Joyce).
Despite her prickliness and crankiness, she wants to do right by those in her life, but she’s only ever associated that with losing important things herself and so is not fully trusting that there can be an emotionally supportive relationship that doesn’t drag her down in some important way or ends with someone turning on and rejecting her.
I feel like we’re being stacked too heavily against toedad. I want to hear his side of the story, the more full version (as opposed to the ‘summary to a stranger’) version. I’m certain it will do nothing to improve our opinion but he seems more like a disjointed plot element rather than a person. And his ridiclous… Everything, doesnt help. Even blain was a person, albeit a complete nutcase. I just feel we have been told to dislike him more than he has given us direct reason to hate him.
I wonder how her mom is taking all this. Does she have one of those? I dont knoe if I remember her in any exposition.
Pretty much. Much like the other parents, Toedad only exists to provide drama and motivation for Becky. He doesn’t need his own side of the story; he doesn’t really have his own story. Much like Blaine, the Walkertons and Wilcoxen, Toedad McIntyre only exists to be an obstacle for Becky to overcome, because he’s a fictional character existing in a greater story.
Note: This isn’t “toedad is so two dimensional willis hates christians” whining. Just kind of want to preempt that in case this ends up coming off that way.
Given this apparent “parents = drama drivers” rule, I am not confident in the Browns’ ability to accept, let alone handle, Jocelyne’s decisions vis her gender identity. I’m pretty sure that a mortal familial crisis of that nature would pretty much shred what little emotional stability Joyce has left.
It’s an extremely sad and painful reality that should not be. Jocelyn even describes herself as their favourite specifically because they know the least about her.
Fortunately Jocelyn is out of college and self sufficient, so she isn’t reliant on outside support like Becky is now. As for the Browns… yeah. The best we can hope for is a Shortpacked!Leo “oh I just hate the sin” brand of religious fundamentalist bullshit.
I know you’ve already retracted your statement so please don’t take this as jumping on you, but I want to highlight one part of your statement as Willis’s tumblr post (here) makes it clear that there are a lot of people who hold the opinion referenced in it earnestly.
“I just feel we have been told to dislike him more than he has given us direct reason to hate him.”
To all those who earnestly believe that we haven’t been given a direct reason to dislike toedad, that he hasn’t done anything wrong yet, that he’s the real sympathetic one in this tale, let me just say this as emphatically as I possibly can:
Reparative therapy is not a neutral action. Reparative therapy is abuse.
And no, I’m not being hyperbolic here. Reparative therapy is an unbelievably gross action to commit against a child as any perusal of Truth Wins Out will reveal. Frequently these camps, especially the one servicing youth engage in sexual assault and physical assault and at their very best, can only ever succeed in making someone despise themself so much that they willing go back into the pain of the closet*, usually through terroristic threats regarding housing, community support, and access to family.
*Going back in the closet intentionally when you have figured yourself out might be one of the most excruciating emotional experiences on the planet. The daily feeling of living a lie for economic of familial survival. The self-hatred. Having been through it for a year to not starve on the streets, I would not wish that shit on my worst enemy.
Sending someone to one of these camps, wanting to send someone to one of these camps is not some misguided bit of religious difference and awkwardness around the Thanksgiving table. It’s a terroristic threat. It’s a statement that either the queer child hides who they are and lives a lie or bad things will happen to them and a firm breaking of any kind of loving bond in exchange for this emotional blackmail.
It is an act of abuse and control, threatening something monstrous in order to bully the child into protecting the parents’ fictional worldview that their property of a progeny is straight.
Even if Toedad was as awesome as Other Universe’s Steven, it wouldn’t forgive this action. That one action would be enough. Would be an action that has incurably broken any hope of amicable reconciliation and would have been an act of violence and abuse against his daughter.
And personally, the fact that people seem to be genuinely willing to overlook that and assume he’s a great guy even when he’s doing that. And stalking her. And being super controlling. And being a general asshole who is cruel and petty to everyone he meets is really disturbing to me**.
**As stated before, I’ve actually had a father threaten me with reparative therapy. Who tried and succeeded in poisoning my relationship to most of the rest of the family and trying to leave me no other action than to “come home at once and renounce this trans delusion once and for all so we can start healing you and getting you on the right path”. This is central to why that relationship to that whole side of my family which includes almost everyone who raised me is dead and why I literally have no safety net if anything ever goes pear-shaped in my future. For many people, this sort of father is an “unfair” and “unrealistic” depiction of some “strawman”. To me, this was the period of my life extending from two years ago to last year.
Toedad doesn’t need another reason for us to hate him, for that relationship to be irreparably broken, reparative therapy is enough.
Oh, and for those out there who think homophobia in familial relationships that don’t rise to the level of threatening reparative therapy is fine. That it’s just a difference of religious opinion and not like “really bad, yanno”, I’m also going to have to say no.
See, I’ve run meetings for queer kids in college the week after Winter break when everyone’s been home with their totally loving and supportive families. I’ve seen tough fucks break down into tears because a relative said something spiteful or hateful about their sexuality or said they wouldn’t support them. I’ve seen the resigned fetal body position of students firmly aware that their parents have straight up said they will not support their relationships or allow them back in the house after college unless they “change”. I’ve held onto the bottles of pills of students who’re suicide risk because dealing with their uncle’s homophobic tirade about how all people like that should be burned triggered their depression in the worst way. I’ve bailed out on holiday functions because a student was just thrown out of the house for coming out and I need to get them back to campus and sit with them as they agonize over what’s to become of their housing and education now that their parents have disowned them. I’ve been part of support networks doing regular check-ins with students going to abusive households to make sure they haven’t been disappeared to a reparative therapy camp and are still, yanno, alive and holding in there.
At the risk of sounding like a 90s PSA, homophobia kills and when it doesn’t kill it harms and maims.
Even if Toedad wasn’t an abusive reparative theapy threatening stalking asshole and was just some shitty homophobic parent unwilling to accept his queer daughter’s sexuality like say Ethan’s mom or Leslie’s mom in the other universe, that’d still be reason enough to hate him.
That would still be something he did “wrong”.
So yeah, long winded, not at all at you comment to just politely request to all the people in the world ready to write yet another comment along the lines of “aww, is Toedad really bad, it’s not like he’s done anything wrong yet” to please for the love of Bob stop. Just stop.
Cause speaking as someone for whom Toedad is lived experience? It’s really dismissive and shitty.
Because someone has to be the R2D2, drive through the burning cargo bay and explain it to Ross, that EVERYONE may have the opportunity to grow and move on.
I’m so much in awe of you. Thank you again for taking the time and energy to explain these things – and for making things better for the real life Becky’s out there.
I feel like I’ve read your story before, and I want so much for that to have been you, because it would mean fewer people have gone through that hell. Sadly, there are prolly so many more than we may ever know…
More that Joyce said that Sarah wanted to get rid of her, like she did Dana, based on the assumption that Sarah just has no time for people and gets rid of them if they start to inconvenience her, like how Raidah thinks of Sarah. Joyce immediately apologized, but it was pretty damn hurtful.
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Joyce, you take all the fun out of being right
all that realizing the error of your ways and shit
Crying is the biggest buzz kill.
Really sucks out any hope that you could say “I told you so”. Gotta go dispense hugs and all.
I’ll be the surrogate hugger for Joyce right now. She’s adorkable, and I like hugging adorkable. :3
Willis, You Take All The Joy Out Of Being RightAll That Being The Seer Of Hope And Shit
…Sue Aside, is that you?
am I a horrible person for enjoying seeing Joyce (and most others) cry?
I won’t judge the general case, but in today’s comic she’s being so gosh darned cute with it, how could you not?
Probably.
…
??
No, Sue’s her cousin. This is Ana Chronistic.
Oh come ON, that name is right out of the 1800s! It has no place here!
Could be worse.
. . . That was a joke, you know, because of the pun.
I prefer her good friend, Sarah N. Dipitous.
Yeah could be worse we could have ended up with an Anne-Emma.
You can’t tell without a time machine, but it is clearly from the early thirty-first century. ana is going to be a popular name and chronistic is what all the meta-post-neo-hipsters will change their last names to in the late thirtieth century.
there’s a secret joke, too, but I’ll let y’all work that one out
dang, I just realized a better approach to that joke
ehhh, I’ll figure something out in a few days
I’m gonna guess that the gravatar is from a future strip?
Dammit, you’re gonna use up all the good pun names. Then what will 1001 Joke Books fail to come up with?
Holy.
Fucking.
Shit.
I JUST figured it out.
JenAside.
SueAside.
Ha! Me too…
He who laughs last, didn’t get the joke.
This post, and “Wait, there’s HOVERTEXT? Since when?” will keep getting reposted until long after Willis is dead and his buffer runs out.
the Earth will have fallen into the sun before then
Willis will be the L. Ron Hubbard of buffered comics.
Knock knock jokes.
I’m a little annoyed, actually, because a cosplayer is ACTIVELY using the name, vs. my passive “I made up a character once”
(not that I haven’t cosplayed, but not to the degree of setting up a Facebook page for it)
((maybe I’ll try a different spelling…?))
From what I see of your role here, the current name is a sweet fit. The others should be seconds to this one, if not minutes.
I totally know what this comic is referencing, but could someone explain to my ‘friend’ here what Joyce snapped at Sarah about?
Yesterday was Joyce’s party; towards the end of that she was snapping at pretty much everyone except Becky.
I actually think it was the part BEFORE her party, where she snapped at Sarah about treating Becky like Dana.
http://www.dumbingofage.com/2015/comic/book-5/03-the-butterflies-fly-away/healthy/
I’m wondering what time it is now. (how long until the dorm’s doors locks)
tbh the way DoA time works, it’s probably 3pm and the 5th day of freshman year
If you look close in the distance, you can still see parents driving away from helping their kids move in.
Trolled me good.
I spent a good two minutes scanning the backgrounds for cars that were “clearly there somewhere”.
The Questioning meeting was between 13:00 and 15:00.
hmm.
Dina didn’t stay ’til the end, but it took a certain time to get Tow Dad on the bus.
Maybe the time will match. One can hope.
It is likely that Ethan and Danny stayed for a good portion of the meeting, depending on exactly what was going on.
With our luck they just went back directly to their dorm
Hope hope hope hope
Come on Joyce, you know compassion makes Sarah unfortable.
I’m glad the Lord of Atlantis feels this way. Go give Islandwalk.
Weird, that was supposed to be “uncomfortable” …
I thought that avatar was the Prodigal Sorcerer.
It is now, but it was Capn’ Islandwalk earlier.
But, you can call me…. Tim?
But can she castle? 8D
Butthole dad doesn’t have the same ring as Toedad
won’t you come, and wash away the raaaain
We already went through that.
It’s gonna come up again every time he’s referred to as ‘butthole dad.’ It’s just too perfect.
Personally, i think it works better with “asshole dad”, but my knownledge of english pronounciation is pretty terrible.
But Dina would not say asshole dad
Dina’s just repeating how Becky alled him verbatim, after all.
In song, English syllables are very pliable.
The thing is: HOW would a butthole wash away rain…?
How would a black hole sun do it?
The answer to both is sucking it all into themselves.
Oh man, I got halfway through the comments before I got that joke, and now I am going to hear “Butthole Dad” instead of “Black Hole Sun” every time that song plays. For the rest of my life.
It’s cool. Due to misheard lyrics, Muse’s Supermassive Blackhole is eternally super magic whack-a-mole.
For me, I mean. It was a very confusing car trip that day.
Crying is worse than snapping.
Yes; anger you can brush off. Sadness is harder to disclaim responsibility for an ignore.
I get the feeling that this is going to go down as the best day ever
depend for who, really.
It would be a really good time for Ethan and Danny to get out of their meeting near and see Joyce (well especially Ethan)
+1 Ditto. Ethan, especially, has practically become Joyce’s surrogate big brother figure.
Which is handy as Joyce has one less big brother than she thinks she does.
Yeah, and when that particular revelation hits the fan, I’m expecting Joyce to BSOD badly enough that she’ll need therapy or medical attention because of the violence of her reaction. It’s even money if the Brown family will be able to survive intact.
I think the kids will be all right… Whether or not the parents are part of that all right will depend on some family evolution.
But . . . they don’t believe in evolution!
Let them fall, Joyce. They are only tears.
Sorry, I re-read Jungle Book the other day.
But are they as drinkable as male tears? I THINK NOT! 😛
Don’t diss it until you try it~
What if they’re on a no sodium diet then?
That can’t be healthy.
*plays Elton John’s “I Guess That’s Why They Call It ‘The Blues'” on the Muzak*
Lovin like children, livin like lovers…
Odd…. I just realized Dina is now better at human interactions than Sarah.
Dina is comfortable with and understands the people she is interacting with. Sarah is probably still better with strangers.
Well, understand some of them, anyway.
Low bar, but yeah, she cleared it.
Wait, do we have a social interaction measuring stick with DoA character faces on it?
I might need that… for ‘reasons’.
Suggested materials: A yardstick (soemtimes free from hardware stores with the store’s name printed on it), a printer for printing out character faces, scissors, glue, your own judgment.
Yeah, she is learning fast. Which suggests to me that she doesn’t have any real difficulty with interpersonal skills. She just somehow didn’t learn them at the usual time. Perhaps that’s because her parents lack them?
Remeber when Amber started teaching her about how to people? Well the week since, she has been doing a lot of independant research.
Yeah, I remember when I first learned how to people. The first time I person didn’t turn out to well.
I didn’t quite know how to hands…
Sarah all looking around desperately, looking for anyone else who can handle this.
Luckily, Faz walks by wearing his Free Hugs shirt.
“And that, children, is how I met your father.”
oh FUCK no
The kids will have a nightmarish combination of Joyce’s Triangle Grin and Faz’s Smirk.
On the plus side, their aunt will be Amber.
On the down side… Amber’s dad.
That’d be a Blight unto the World that needs to be prevented at all costs.
I got a face-hugger, will that do? 😀
No; Joyce isn’t supposed to be impregnated until after marriage.
+1ed
That explains the virgin birth thing
https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/736x/f1/6f/0e/f16f0e3403cf851369c5a6c8cbb6bfbe.jpg
There’s a tree and a metal railing, hug one of those.
Joyce would never hug a tree. That’s how you become a hippie.
Well, the railing then.
That’s how you become a pole dancer ~_~
…is there something wrong with being a hippie?
Is there something wrong with being a pole dancer?
Poles are lousy dancers. They don’t move very well.
Hey, the Poles invented the Polka. Stop at any Polish wedding and you’ll see that they dance non-stop.
That’s because someone didn’t mount them to the floor and ceiling very well.
Must be loose screws…
Joyce (or, maybe better put, Joyce’s family) seems to think so
http://www.dumbingofage.com/2010/comic/book-1/01-move-in-day/hitimes/
Oh god someone needs to show up and hug Joyce right now. A lot.
I volunteer as tribute!
Hugs. Sarah’s kryptonite.
Also mine.
*dutifully notes down in Plasma Mongoose’s file*
Oh god, I feel you, Sarah. I NEVER know what to do when people cry. I love a good crying scene in a movie or something, but irl when people near me cry I am just always so overwhelmed^^
I was under the impression that hugs fix everything.
I should have included that you should just automatically hug people when they cry.
Sympathy via awkward avoidance of physical contact.
She can only get away with that if she says that phrase it loud. Then Joyce is obligated to stop crying
Just do what I do Sarah. Back away slowlh, and if she comes in for the hug, accept it for a few seconds, then bail.
Heh. At first I read that as “curl up into a ball” but I soon realized that that wouldn’t work. A ball is too easy to hug
No, no, no. I’m sure it was ‘accept it then, ball.’
You have to run off somewhere and dunk…
Pretty sure Joyce is a first class master clinger.
She’s revolutionized the sport, I would imagine.
Man, even when Sarah’s trying to be nice, she’s mean. She may want to work on that…
Everyone can talk the talk when it comes to being a good person but its much hardier to walk the walk and Sarah most definately is a good person even if it means her actions cause people to dislike her
Her and Ruth
Ruth enjoys tormenting people..
Ruth hurts people to make her feel better about herself. She’s an abusive fuck.
Ruth hates herself and thus does her level best to make everyone else hate her. She wants to have a clear board when she finally psychs herself up to the point where she can start throwing ethanol down her throat and not stop until the lights go out for good.
This. Her abuse of others is step 1 of a suicide plan that is already in motion.
Stupid Billie derailing the plan by actually being attracted to her and getting into a relationship.
Not relationship.
Suicide pact.
You forgot the words “Sexy” and “Lesbian”. 😉
Except it is neither sexy due to the horrific implications and not lesbian as they are both bisexual.
The hopeless romantic/shippy part of me wants to believe that they’re going to end up sustaining each other in a really weird way until they both quit alcohol and sober up together and reacquire some sort of stability in life…
…while still having angry slam-each-other-around-in-a-suitably-aroused-manner sex of course.
Yup.
I don’t think she’s mean. Yeah, she’s brash and honest and maybe lacks tact a little, but she rarely does anything maliciously and she helps her friends. She’s not mean.
Abrasive maybe. I still won’t say mean.
At least she’s smart.
What if Dina and Becky go back to Dina’s room and Dina mentions seeing both Ethan and Danny at the questioning group and Amber freaks out and…
I see more drama ahead.
Also, this is my first ever comment here. Hi.
*Welcome to the Jungle starts playing*
…We got “DAMN YOU WILLIS!”, not fun and games!
Unlikely, considering that Danny explicitly requested she not inform Amber, but possible.
She was eating Pizza at the time, and might not have noticed…
Look at when she woke up.
Amber wouldn’t be surprised about Ethan but, yeah, the news of Danny would certainly hit Amber’s trauma-induced neuroses triggers.
Not necessarily. She might assume he was there supporting Ethan.
Sarah: look I know you’ve had a lot to deal with in the last month but come on please don’t do this to me-REALLY your choosing right now to have this emotional break down!? Fuck everything …
It’s not a choice, she was born neurotic
“So, let go,/Jump in/Oh well, what you waiting for?/It’s alright/’Cause there’s beauty in the breakdown”
I’m so proud of Joyce… it’s hard to come to terms with a large part of your worldview being wrong, but she’s honestly trying so hard to fix her behavior and deserves a hug and an ‘It’s OK to be Takei’ shirt.
And y’know, that’s been one of my favorite parts of this comic so far; seeing her face and adapt to the world around her.
Its right up there with the chaotically sexy mess that is Ruth/Billie.
What does Sarah expect to happen?
“Quit this!”
“Oh, sorry, right away.”
Mah feels have been healed with the power of deadened sarcasm, can I get an amen?
She doesn’t expect her command to work. She’s just verbally flailing.
That sums up quite a lot of her dialog.
And hope neither Joe, Mike, nor Walky show up. Ethan can probably handle it.
I dunno, Walky might at least be able to distract her from being sad. If his awful joke doesn’t make her laugh, it could at least make her groan and roll her eyes. Or chase after him in a blind rage.
I want to say he’s grown enough by now to handle this like an adult, but we all know that’s neither true nor the fun way to handle it.
Where’s Mike’s mom when you need her?
Baking pies, probably.
For a nickel
You almost had it. You missed the “She’ll come” part! 😀
I’m not good at these situations myself. There have been times I’ve tried to comfort someone, and was told to back off, because I was making things worse. I feel for both of them right now.
All I can say to Joyce is, “I know you’re upset and overwhelmed right now. If you want to talk, I’m willing to listen.”
Yeah, I suck at this. I’m even worse in person with actual people.
Joyce has had a lot to process lately. I hope she finds someone to talk to about all of this soon.
And she wanted a drama-free roommate.
She should ask for a unicorn while she’s at it.
If MLP has taught me anything, it’s that unicorns tend to be the biggest drama queens.
Hell, Twilight’s meltdowns are on par with Joyce’s.
On the other hand, if you’re ever in need of a fainting couch…
But Sarah, Joyce could never quit you (Becky’s got like $30 riding on it)
I don’t know if I could forgive Joyce for what she said, were I Sarah.
But, Sarah is a good person.
She is going to hug Joyce unless someone walks by and beats her to it which she is fervently praying for right about now.
Dina is learning to interact at an amazing pace. Horay! But, what is she going to do if she does spot Toedad. (Agree, I like Toedad better than Buttholedad myself. But both fit).
Yeah, I was really impressed by how quickly Sarah was interacting with Joyce again after that exchange. They really do feel like sisters in that way; there’s a pseudo-familial love that empowers them to forgive and forget and move forward.
Quick, get Dina back, she’s an expert at ‘sympathy via light physical contact’.
And a few pages back she learned ‘sympathy via heavy physical contact’ as well!
Not to be confused with eympathy via heavy physical impact.
That’s Ruth and Billie.
I wish “surrogate hugger” was a real job. I’d be real awesome at that.
The Sal avatar just makes that sound sarcastic.
Or incredibly perspicuous about what Sal may be under all the armour plate and spikes!
That just makes me think that Sal would do well in a Mad Max style world
The trick is being in the right place at the right time. I’ll bet Sarah would even tip reasonably well.
Sarah looking uncomfortable is 23% of the reason why I read this.
She forgave her quickly. LET THE HUG BEGIN.
Its sunday now.
When did Joyce snap at her saturday?
Joyce snapped at her Thursday night ( i think ), After becky Kissed Joyce.
Before the dorm party, Joyce got into an argument with Sarah and brought up her previous room mate
You forgot the whole “You want to get rid of her just like you did Dana!” incident?
http://www.dumbingofage.com/2015/comic/book-5/03-the-butterflies-fly-away/healthy/
The progression of time in the Dumbiverse astounds me, and today is a perfect example of it. Hard to believe that outburst was just yesterday.
Is it wrong that I desperately wanna show Joyce a comic called “Satan and Me” and the fan base that is shipping Satan with the protagonist? I mean, I know she’s a fictional character and all, but her face would be priceless.
For a second there I though you were referring to the look on Satan’s face…
Need to go to bed now…
‘Wrong’? No. ‘Bizarre’? Certainly. Your mind clearly goes to strange places!
Noooo, vulnerability, get away!
Considering they’re supposed to be in a relationship, the total lack of physical contact between Dina and Becky is really odd.
Not really. Not everyone likes to be touched, and I feel like Becky is trying to respect Dina’s boundaries.
Also, they got into a relationship all of about 30 minutes ago.
The rational part of me says the points above are valid.
The shippy part of me says “just wait, the next page is going to have Becky trying to instruct Dina on how to hold hands in public.
Final panel will be Dina smiling happily and thinking “so is THIS first base?”
And they’ve only known each other for like what 3 or 4 days?
Yeah, by Fifty Shades of Grey standards, that’s like YEARS!
[omg don’t use 50SOG as a relationship guidebook holy fuck]
Well, Dina is either a) ace spectrum and warming up to cuddles as her bases or b) not ace, but also not much experienced with physical intimacy (she had to be taught sympathy via light physical contact after all) and as such working up to public displays of cuddly affection.
And Becky is probably VERY focused on respecting boundaries and consent after learning what happened to Joyce and worrying that her surprise kiss was triggering for her. I doubt Becky wants to risk anything like a repeat of that without making double and triply sure (note that she was careful not to initiate any contact the last few strips, waiting for Dina to initiate first).
As such, they might be a bit lighter on the public displays of affection than most new couples.
As others have said, they just started this relationship. Plus there’s no rule that a relationship needs constant physical contact. On the other hand, Becky had her arm around Dina in the previous strip before this one.
Total lack? They walked into the room with Joyce and Sarah with their arms all around each other, and last page they were holding each other in front of toedad’s car. I’m a bit confused.
…
There are advantages to walking separately. Holding hands and other forms of physical contact are common, but even for couples they’re not the norm while traveling. Linking with another person like that means having to synchronize to a greater degree than just adjusting your rhythm to match paces.
At this point I’m reasonably sure that a substantial chunk of comments around here are baiting. Maybe as high as five or six percent.
is alt text down? i’m on my laptop and it isn’t working on any page.
nvm it works on microsoft edge.
Panel 4 Sarah’s inner monologue:
Goddamnitt, I was so close to having an excuse to start breaking away from this deeply entangled emotional relationship, but noooooo, you just had to earnestly apologize and trigger all my big sisterly engagement, didn’t you? Fuck, well, all right, reluctant comforting Sarah it is, then.
“But I’m NOT HAPPY ABOUT IT!”
grumblemutterhug
Sarah is a big softie
Heh, Sarah understands people hating her, and has no idea what to do with other reactions.
Free hugs for Joyce!
Aw, come on, Sarah! Try to learn a little empathy! Joyce is having the structure of her world with which she was raised until it became an unconscious patter that she relied on instinctively undermined. She’s having to confront all these emotional stresses including her sisterly love for Becky and fears for her safety because of the behaviour of the one person that she should be able to trust without question to do the right thing! What she needs is some emotional support right now.
She doesn’t need you to go out of your comfort zone, you just need to be human and be there!
*Sigh* C’mon, Joyce. Hug time!
I think her big sister impulses will get the better of her and she’ll do something.
I think it’s pretty clear from Sarah’s various actions that lack of empathy isn’t her problem. It’s that her empathy has had costs that have scarred her (caring for Dana at the expense of her academic performance and risking her scholarship, making a dramatic action with Dana out of deep concern that may or may not have been the right choice, but definitely cost her all her friends and crucially important contacts in the field she wants to enter, and everything she has done with Joyce).
Despite her prickliness and crankiness, she wants to do right by those in her life, but she’s only ever associated that with losing important things herself and so is not fully trusting that there can be an emotionally supportive relationship that doesn’t drag her down in some important way or ends with someone turning on and rejecting her.
This.
Jim, Jiiim, this is awkward. Jim, someone who is not me needs to hug her. Jiiiiiiim
Willis, damn you, stop making Joyce cry
This ship is like on its way to Andromeda right now.
Prediction for tomorrow’s strip:
EITHER
1) We’re going to have a whole strip of Sarah and Joyce heart-to-heart reality check
OR
2) We’re going to join Dina and Becky and, in the first panel, we’ll see Joyce and Sarah hugging in the background.
There… I think I’ve covered all the bases there!
Nope. We’re gonna cut back to Danny and Ethan not making out, to our ultimate frustration. Probably because Danny danny’d it all up.
IT’s supposed to stay centered on Dina tho.
Dina needs to reclaim her hat…
I feel like we’re being stacked too heavily against toedad. I want to hear his side of the story, the more full version (as opposed to the ‘summary to a stranger’) version. I’m certain it will do nothing to improve our opinion but he seems more like a disjointed plot element rather than a person. And his ridiclous… Everything, doesnt help. Even blain was a person, albeit a complete nutcase. I just feel we have been told to dislike him more than he has given us direct reason to hate him.
I wonder how her mom is taking all this. Does she have one of those? I dont knoe if I remember her in any exposition.
This should answer both your questions
http://www.dumbingofage.com/2015/comic/book-5/04-walking-with-dina/pokeman/
OH YEAH.
Nevermind, screw that guy.
His more expanded perspective is probably very boring and brainwashy anyway.
Pretty much. Much like the other parents, Toedad only exists to provide drama and motivation for Becky. He doesn’t need his own side of the story; he doesn’t really have his own story. Much like Blaine, the Walkertons and Wilcoxen, Toedad McIntyre only exists to be an obstacle for Becky to overcome, because he’s a fictional character existing in a greater story.
Note: This isn’t “toedad is so two dimensional willis hates christians” whining. Just kind of want to preempt that in case this ends up coming off that way.
Given this apparent “parents = drama drivers” rule, I am not confident in the Browns’ ability to accept, let alone handle, Jocelyne’s decisions vis her gender identity. I’m pretty sure that a mortal familial crisis of that nature would pretty much shred what little emotional stability Joyce has left.
It’s an extremely sad and painful reality that should not be. Jocelyn even describes herself as their favourite specifically because they know the least about her.
Fortunately Jocelyn is out of college and self sufficient, so she isn’t reliant on outside support like Becky is now. As for the Browns… yeah. The best we can hope for is a Shortpacked!Leo “oh I just hate the sin” brand of religious fundamentalist bullshit.
0_0 I have a feeling that wold be an original Joyce mindwipe level breakdown.
I know you’ve already retracted your statement so please don’t take this as jumping on you, but I want to highlight one part of your statement as Willis’s tumblr post (here) makes it clear that there are a lot of people who hold the opinion referenced in it earnestly.
“I just feel we have been told to dislike him more than he has given us direct reason to hate him.”
To all those who earnestly believe that we haven’t been given a direct reason to dislike toedad, that he hasn’t done anything wrong yet, that he’s the real sympathetic one in this tale, let me just say this as emphatically as I possibly can:
Reparative therapy is not a neutral action. Reparative therapy is abuse.
And no, I’m not being hyperbolic here. Reparative therapy is an unbelievably gross action to commit against a child as any perusal of Truth Wins Out will reveal. Frequently these camps, especially the one servicing youth engage in sexual assault and physical assault and at their very best, can only ever succeed in making someone despise themself so much that they willing go back into the pain of the closet*, usually through terroristic threats regarding housing, community support, and access to family.
*Going back in the closet intentionally when you have figured yourself out might be one of the most excruciating emotional experiences on the planet. The daily feeling of living a lie for economic of familial survival. The self-hatred. Having been through it for a year to not starve on the streets, I would not wish that shit on my worst enemy.
Sending someone to one of these camps, wanting to send someone to one of these camps is not some misguided bit of religious difference and awkwardness around the Thanksgiving table. It’s a terroristic threat. It’s a statement that either the queer child hides who they are and lives a lie or bad things will happen to them and a firm breaking of any kind of loving bond in exchange for this emotional blackmail.
It is an act of abuse and control, threatening something monstrous in order to bully the child into protecting the parents’ fictional worldview that their property of a progeny is straight.
Even if Toedad was as awesome as Other Universe’s Steven, it wouldn’t forgive this action. That one action would be enough. Would be an action that has incurably broken any hope of amicable reconciliation and would have been an act of violence and abuse against his daughter.
And personally, the fact that people seem to be genuinely willing to overlook that and assume he’s a great guy even when he’s doing that. And stalking her. And being super controlling. And being a general asshole who is cruel and petty to everyone he meets is really disturbing to me**.
**As stated before, I’ve actually had a father threaten me with reparative therapy. Who tried and succeeded in poisoning my relationship to most of the rest of the family and trying to leave me no other action than to “come home at once and renounce this trans delusion once and for all so we can start healing you and getting you on the right path”. This is central to why that relationship to that whole side of my family which includes almost everyone who raised me is dead and why I literally have no safety net if anything ever goes pear-shaped in my future. For many people, this sort of father is an “unfair” and “unrealistic” depiction of some “strawman”. To me, this was the period of my life extending from two years ago to last year.
Toedad doesn’t need another reason for us to hate him, for that relationship to be irreparably broken, reparative therapy is enough.
Oh, and for those out there who think homophobia in familial relationships that don’t rise to the level of threatening reparative therapy is fine. That it’s just a difference of religious opinion and not like “really bad, yanno”, I’m also going to have to say no.
See, I’ve run meetings for queer kids in college the week after Winter break when everyone’s been home with their totally loving and supportive families. I’ve seen tough fucks break down into tears because a relative said something spiteful or hateful about their sexuality or said they wouldn’t support them. I’ve seen the resigned fetal body position of students firmly aware that their parents have straight up said they will not support their relationships or allow them back in the house after college unless they “change”. I’ve held onto the bottles of pills of students who’re suicide risk because dealing with their uncle’s homophobic tirade about how all people like that should be burned triggered their depression in the worst way. I’ve bailed out on holiday functions because a student was just thrown out of the house for coming out and I need to get them back to campus and sit with them as they agonize over what’s to become of their housing and education now that their parents have disowned them. I’ve been part of support networks doing regular check-ins with students going to abusive households to make sure they haven’t been disappeared to a reparative therapy camp and are still, yanno, alive and holding in there.
At the risk of sounding like a 90s PSA, homophobia kills and when it doesn’t kill it harms and maims.
Even if Toedad wasn’t an abusive reparative theapy threatening stalking asshole and was just some shitty homophobic parent unwilling to accept his queer daughter’s sexuality like say Ethan’s mom or Leslie’s mom in the other universe, that’d still be reason enough to hate him.
That would still be something he did “wrong”.
So yeah, long winded, not at all at you comment to just politely request to all the people in the world ready to write yet another comment along the lines of “aww, is Toedad really bad, it’s not like he’s done anything wrong yet” to please for the love of Bob stop. Just stop.
Cause speaking as someone for whom Toedad is lived experience? It’s really dismissive and shitty.
I’m legitimately going to link to this post every time someone talks about poor old toedad doing nothing wrong.
Do it, they need to learn.
Thank you! Like. This is so good, thank you, I’m so glad you put what I felt into words.
I wish so much this had been part of the story.
Because someone has to be the R2D2, drive through the burning cargo bay and explain it to Ross, that EVERYONE may have the opportunity to grow and move on.
I’m so much in awe of you. Thank you again for taking the time and energy to explain these things – and for making things better for the real life Becky’s out there.
ur a role model. stay righteous & strong
Thank you.
I feel like I’ve read your story before, and I want so much for that to have been you, because it would mean fewer people have gone through that hell. Sadly, there are prolly so many more than we may ever know…
So sorry you had to have lived that shit =(
Come on, Sarah. Embrace the Joyce. You know you want to ÒwÓ
I could crawl up into them and be safe and warm forever
and ever Ô///Ô
I’ve taken that as evidence Joyce is not a pure 0…
I know the feeling, Sarah. I can’t handle crying people either. I just stand (or sit) there all awkward, going “o-okay. what’s up.”
Poor Joyce, she just can’t seem to catch a break. Horizons being widened everywhere she looks. Welcome to the world Joyce Brown.
Can someone remind me what Joyce said to Sarah that she’s apologizing about? I can’t recall anything that would have led to the public crying.
She implied that Sarah was going to send Becky away like Dana.
More that Joyce said that Sarah wanted to get rid of her, like she did Dana, based on the assumption that Sarah just has no time for people and gets rid of them if they start to inconvenience her, like how Raidah thinks of Sarah. Joyce immediately apologized, but it was pretty damn hurtful.
Yup, she hit the Dana button which is a major source of trauma for Sarah.
Oh bless, Sarah. “You can be as horrible as you want, just don’t make me be emotionally available or comforting!”
Quick, sympathy via heavy physical contact!
Sarah sympathizes with a bat
and Old Testament God
Geez Sarah, you raging misogynist. Don’t you know that telling a woman to stop crying is like, worse than punching 10 kittens?
I hadn’t noticed this before, but dinosaur costumes bestow super powers. Not just on Dina, but also apparently on others. See Allie Brosh for details: http://hyperboleandahalf.blogspot.co.uk/2013/10/menace.html