Next weekend I’m gonna be in Seattle, Washington, for Emerald City Comicon! You can find me in the usual spot, which is labeled booth 112 this year. I’m in the directory, but coupled with “Cyanide & Happiness” so you’ll find me under the Cs and not the Ds. See y’all there! I’ll have all four books, a new print and poster, and a handful of character magnets.
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“YOU SHOULD’VE THOUGHT ABOUT BEING A WOMAN BEFORE GOING AND BEING A VICTIM, ALSO ABOUT BEING ANGRY AND SHATTERING THE ILLUSION OF THE INFALLIBLE PATRIARCHY”
“hey that E.coli sounds awfully good about now”
(psst John your privilege is showing)
Could you elaborate? John’s definitely playing victim and showing privilege, but what does any of this have to do with the patriarchy?
Patriarchy says women aren’t supposed to be angry, that’s exceedingly inconvenient for the people they’re angry at and women are supposed to be good and giving and accommodating and never trouble the people (read: men, because like hell women are people) around them.
Huh, okay, thanks for clarifying.
Damn, I guess Carol hasn’t been angry, just a mean lady who deserves eternal darnation.
It is worth pointing two additional things out.
1) Patriarchy also dictates how MEN are supposed to behave. The idea that those born physically male are supposed to behave a certain way can be just as problematic.
2) The concept of patriarchy is sometimes (mistakenly) assumed to be composed of a cabal of menfolk. It isn’t. Patriarchy only means society’s overall expectations. Both men and women enforce the patriarchy by peer pressuring individuals who don’t conform to “normal” definitions of male and female to do so.
I bring this up because poor Jocelyne is an example of why this is an issue. The patriarchy says that physically male individuals must be men. However, that doesn’t mean that Jocelyne can turn to her female relatives and expect acceptance – her mother, for example, embraces the patriarchy just as much (possibly even more) than her male family members.
Yikes! That took a stupidly long time to write!
^^;; Guess I got carried away. Ahem. Anyway, I only went into that because I was so happy to see such a good explanation about what “patriarchy” means in context. Too often people talking about the patriarchy like it’s a conspiracy between powerful men. It isn’t – it’s a societal trend built on thousands of years of human culture.
Hmm, so if Patriarchy and Feminism aren’t supposed to be gender exclusive phenomenon, why are they gendered by name?
Because patriarchy overwhelmingly benefits (cis) men over women. A man who goes to a job interview doesn’t have to worry that his interviewer might be subconsciously discounting his qualifications just because he’s male – in fact, he’s more likely to get the job than an identically-qualified woman of the same race. At work, his ideas are more likely to be listened to – even if a woman said them first. If he behaves badly, but his misbehavior is in line with assumptions of how a man “should” act, he will have little fear of reprisal and may even be praised. (See also: a woman who sleeps with more than one man, or enjoys sex, or declines to sleep with a certain man, is called a “slut”, while a man who cheats on his girlfriend with multiple other women is a “player”.) And men almost never have to feel unsafe walking home alone at night. Patriarchy isn’t purposely put in place by men, but men are overwhelmingly privileged by it. Thus, it receives a gendered name to describe what it does.
Feminism, conversely, is a reaction to patriarchy. There are as many forms that reaction takes as there are people who identify as feminist, but the core idea of feminism is that patriarchy is Not Cool and seeks to create a better, freer, more humane society by bringing those most disadvantaged by patriarchy – women – up to the same level of respect, social status, safety, etc. as those who are most advantaged. It is a targeted response aimed at helping women, thus it also receives a gendered name to describe what it does.
This comment space cannot hope to contain all the subtleties of feminist philosoph(ies) or provide a thorough grounding in the subject, but them’s the bare bones as I understand them.
Because it’s about focusing on a particular issue. Patriarchy focuses on men, socially. Feminism focuses more on women, socially. Men who realize that women get a bad rap under Patriarchal ideas can absolutely support the idea of giving them equality, and hence… be Feminists. Women can be raised to believe that the old-fashioned ways are the only good ways, and hence… not be feminists, because they support the old Partriarchal ways.
A vast simplification, I know… and my apologies. Modern feminism, especially, is more about equality across the board, for all genders and types. The fact that it’s a “gendered” word does not, and should not, mean it is meant to exclude any gender, be it male, female, intersex, etc.
But it may just contribute to the fact that many men *do* feel excluded by it, because of the gendered nature of the word. Living so long in the Patriarchy, the opposite-sounding word can feel like a bit of an attack.
But we’ll get over it. Many individuals have, and we just need the rest of the mass population to realize that it’s not about us, and that’s okay.
I’d say it’s an artifice of history. The early fights of feminism were largely waged to secure rights for women — notably things like the right to vote, own property, divorce a spouse, and so on. Here the proponents of the movement were feminists in a very definite sense of campaign for women as a group, and the opponents WERE largely for men being specially-privileged.
Names often attach early and linger after they stop being entirely accurate. Witness, for one example, the “windmills” — wind mills — that generate electricity or pump water rather than milling grain. These are, of course, not mills at all. However, they take their name from wind-powered mills that were the earliest use of the design, and the name stuck around long after it became inaccurate.
Similarly, while the definitions of feminism and patriarchy have evolved into something a lot closer to the nature of the ills and solutions in play, the early and settled conflicts (most of which are no longer in dispute) still define how they are named.
They are gendered in their name because cis men have gotten the best of a situation that is bad for everyone. While patriarchy robs us all of a certain measure of agency, it has pushed men into asserting political and economic power and pushed women away from it. Men are generally expected to put their careers ahead of their families and women to sacrifice their careers for their families. Those expectations aren’t good for any of us, but it definitely gives men the advantage.
I try to avoid using terms like patriarchy, feminism, and privilege when discussing these issues with people who are not already on board with the idea, though. It’s not that I don’t understand the ideas they are meant to convey or why we use the terms, it’s that they bring certain cultural and linguistic baggage that often needs to be deconstructed (as LeslieBean4Shizzle did so magnificently above).
When trying to explain that rigid gender norms pressure people of either gender into behaviors that may not be right for them and trans and non-binary people into roles that are definitely not right for them and punishes anyone who chooses to place their own autonomy above cultural expectations, people tend to get hung up on the language. My hope is to sidestep their assumption that that feminism is a “men v. women” movement and that patriarchy is something evil men impose on helpless women and, if I am lucky, avoid the “not all men” argument.
As far as I know, patriarchy at the very core just means a society ruled by a male fatherfigure (as opposed to a matriarchy). But since an overabundance of patriarchies in the world causes these problems, the term got a broader use to describe the tendency in a larger society to view the patriarchy as the only viable form in all smaller societies within it. The patriarchy is always supposed to be in effect, no matter what group of people you form, the male(s) are supposed to call the shots, and no jumping between the male/female border, that’s cheating. In other words: It developped from a description to a rule.
As for Feminism, this is a movement specifically tailored to empower women. That’s why it has a female-coded name, even though obviously male and female people can follow it.
The big difference between the original and modern feminism, as i see it, is the focus on suffrage – the movement specifically focused on womens right; equal pay and job opportunities, the right to vote and (though to my knowledge in less extend in the early suffragette movements in the UK, france and the US) control over their own own bodies regarding pregnancy, abortion, rape and prevention like the use of condoms and such. Not that the latter few werent important topics of the day, it just that its, ridicolously enough, still debated today. Those topics are the focus of the modern feminism movement today, as is things such as LGBQT issues, the inclusion and acceptance of men into into feminist movements, and a break from traditional gender roles, e.g. women cant be tough and men cant be sensitive and much more. That is to say, that is the focus in the western world. There is still a need for suffrage in other places. I heard in passing that such movements are starting in Saudi Arabia, but dont quote me on that. Theres a lot more detail to it all, as it is a massive topic, but if anyone want to know more, id say Emma Watson’s feminist speech is a good place to start. I havent read extensively on the topic myself, so i cant really point to any litterature, but i did find it, how to say this, helpfull? Reassuring? Comforting at the very least, to get this some of this information from such a fixture from my childhood(she played Hermiony Granger in the Harry Potter movies for those confused).
**BEAMS**
I accidentally started a thoughtful intellectual discussion! Yay!
I’m used to accidentally starting shitstorms, so this is a very pleasant surprise. **HUGS EVERYONE**
I think you did a great write up of two hugely important points. (But I’m not one to judge? Other day i wrote to tell some journos on a podcast that they had missed half the story because they were talking about Trump’s mysogeny as if it was only a concern/issue for women.)
Yup, hell, Jocelyne runs into this problem in a big way because A) she isn’t a guy, but also B) she’s expected to be as toxically masculine as John. And John can’t back down to Joyce without being regarded as “gay” by society. And has been trained that way his whole life. And it’s also why Jocelyne runs real risks with her displays of compassion and why she’s got a rough road if she wants to speak up for her sister. Because that could lead to her being teased for being a “girl” and being “gay” in addition to potentially leading her to snap and say “something she can’t ever take back”.
Yup, I was thinking about that as I was going to bed last night…that’s probably why Jocelyne is reacting like this, a lifetime of peacemaking instead of saying what she actually thinks.
Which she learned from… her dad.
*sigh* When Joyce called him “the good one” (or maybe I’m hallucinating this) and he showed up with Jocelyn I just assumed that when their parents thought John came out the best it really meant he was the best at placating them without actually outright disagreeing with them on anything. I was hoping he would actually be “the good one” and that his initial reaction was due to him being in India this whole time and only hearing about the Becky situation second-hand from his mum, who probably wouldn’t mention Toedad chasing women down in public on a college campus with a gun.
But with every word he says, this is looking less and less likely and it makes me sad, not because I want to just assume all people are good or whatever but cause I was hoping by being “the good one” this would be a safe environment for Jocelyn to be able to be her real self. Sadface.
Well if he was genuinely the “Good One” there’d be no drama or conflict. Not a very good Narrative if you ask me.
My advice is to wait for it. We haven’t met his marriage partner yet. John could have lots of interesting secrets.
Is there a way to upvote the thing LeslieBean4Shizzle said? Because I would like to.
I love this whole thread.
Yeah, DandiAndi made my day with
“When trying to explain that rigid gender norms pressure people of either gender into behaviors that may not be right for them and trans and non-binary people into roles that are definitely not right for them and punishes anyone who chooses to place their own autonomy above cultural expectations, people tend to get hung up on the language.”So true, so well put.
YES, all of this.
Geat answer.
Its worth pointing out that patriarchy isnt “all men against women”
Men cant unmake Patriarchy without women’s help and assistance.
In an fundie environment like this Patriarchy is more overt. In a modern secular culture its not a conspiracy of men-against-women, its far more insidious.
Its a System of Privileges and Punishments for BOTH genders which ultimately work to the benefit of a few elite men to detriment of most men and most women.
Its my opinion, ( and its just my opinion from my personal life experiences ) that in modern secular cultures ( NOT Joyces family per se or the fundie culture ) women are the police agents of Patriarchy. the middle-managers.
( Although in story you see this with Mrs Brown and Mary.)
And they first must transmit these values early on to their sons . Patriarchy works through carrots and sticks. It sets up an insidious social and economic value system in which classic Feminine-troped or types behaviors , and skillsets are economically and socially devalued than ones Male-typed.
This has been demonstrated with multiple studies both economic and social. When enough women enter a field the prestige drops and so does the pay. Computer Programming was largely seen as a female secretarial skill, when Men entered in greater numbers the pay rose. The pay for General Practitioners has fallen , as more women enter the field. Its really fucked up!
So even equal pay for equal work, doesnt necessarily guarantee fairness or equality. The Gendering-itself of skillsets and environments plays a role.
Because Patriarchy is also a Hierarchical system that benefits the few at the expense of the many, it also objectifies men and treats them as only valuable as their utility. Men are taught early on that their worth is as a mean-to-an-end, their utility, and outside that , they are disposable. The more unequal a society is the more everyone scrambles for their little piece of privilege.
People see whos above them on the totem pole, and see how profoundly unfair privileges not aimed to them are on their level, but are Blind to everyone below them.
( Anyone who doesnt think women also enforce and fight for Patriarchy, google Phyllis Schlafy and how she killed the ERA. )
Feminine Privilege is also real. The system cant work without carrots. Because Male Privilege is also hierarchical it can hurt women as a class overall, even if its to the detriment of the majority of individual men. Even in the most progressive cities in America, you do not want to be :
(1)Homeless (2) physically sick / disabled and (3) Male. Healthy women get housed and helped , way ahead of sick men. And its much more a male problem.
( You dont have to believe me, call your State statistics, find out the numbers of homeless men versus women. Then find out how many empty or open slots their are for women-only. ( Cis-women only ? )
Then find out how long a wait-list it is for men. Then look for exceptions , for men with a severe acute or chronic illness. )
John stated she should grab her own number. Joyce contradicted him. Which busts the Infallible Patriarchy of man knowing the truth and woman accepts it.
Also helpful, thanks
Yup. He’s bristling because he’s wrong and out of place, but he’s been raised his whole life in the idea that he’s right because he’s the oldest and he’s a boy and he’s the adult while the rest of them were children.
His pride can’t accept that someone as lowly as his little sister throughly debunked his half-thought out crap, so he lashes back at her with some emotional shit and then blames her for being emotional because he runs out of legs to stand on.
You really are amazing at analyzing these comics. Your presence in these threads is truly a benefit to those of us who read them, and I thank you for it.
the dina avaratar makes your thanks so much more in universe to me themammarylegionary, so thanks for that
also ‘runs out of legs to stand on’ sounds like a visual gag from thnat old betleguese cartoon
The patriarchy is ALSO the reason Becky is in this situation in the first place. Her dad’s need to maintain his role as head of the family and force Becky into traditional gender roles is a huge part of it. Additionally, the idea that Becky never needed to know her SSN is probably part of that. He took care of everything so she never needed to know it, and her not knowing it allowed himt o maintain control.
Yeeep. John’s stance of “well you should have taken care of the minutiae BEFORE your father came after you with a gun” is so fucking toxic and victim blaming and just… ugh. If Toe-dad were a good parent who enabled Becky to be self-sufficient, this wouldn’t be a problem. But it is.
This is what I meant to say, but like, more coherent. A+
Seriously!
It’s some standard bog sexist shit mixed into the lovely stew of casual homophobia.
Actually he has a point. She has to get her own SSN, naturally.
Becky is angry because he is acting like it’s no biggie. Actually it isn’t.
This argument is ridiculous on all sides.
Becky has several options:
Write to her states Dept. of Statistics and get a stamped copy of her birth certificate. About $12 and 2 to 3 weeks to get it.
Take the certificate to the SS Office and get a copy of her SS card. I think it cost me $6 but can’t remember.
Or she could contact the old college and request transcripts of her records, which very likely have her ssn included.
She is in her rights to do all of this without parential consent.
All of this info. is on the internet also, with clear instructions. And most colleges have student ID no’s, allowing access to their student information.
I just did the bc and ss card myself.
If her college is still using SSN for student ID numbers then they’re hugely irresponsible and way behind the curve. NO institution should use SSN as I general purpose ID, nor ask for it if there isn’t a valid, specific reason. And for what reason would it be needed on a grade transcrpt?
I think most schools have stopped using SSN’s for student ID numbers, but most of them still ask for it as part of the application. Anderson, however, doesn’t require it to apply, probably because they cater to the sort of Christians who homeschool their kids to keep the government from “tainting” them.
I think it became illegal in 2005.
I say that because my SSN was my student ID number (and the preset password on my school-issued laptop) when I started college in 2004; it’s the reason I quickly had it memorized after barely being aware it existed (typing it into the computer several times a day helped!).
This was quite suddenly forbidden at the start of my sophomore year (well, not the password which I was now allowed to set as I liked) when we were all issued new IDs with new, unique numbers.
‘Course, that might have been new NJ law rather than federal.
It might have been NJ. At the community college in IL in 2006-2008, you had to type in your SSN to use the school computer lab and to access your pay account if you were a student employee.
Right, but the point is that Becky has zero knowledge of any of this, and not by her own fault. John’s not just acting like it’s no biggie, he is not sparing a thought for what Becky’s situation might be. The reason for Joyce’s anger isn’t “finding out your own SSN is THE HARDEST THING EVER”, it’s “if you are not going to help her with this thing she has had no reason to know or know how to get, then you need to stop talking instead of condemning her”.
Oh, come on. I really don’t think it is asking a lot to expect someoe to know their own SSN. I have known mine since I was 10, because i went digging and found it. No one told me where it was, I just started digging. I knew where my parents kept their important documents, whether it was in the house or in the safe deposit box. Maybe I was nosy, maybe intelectually curious.
Way too many people just glide along, expecting someone else to “take care it” for them. That is crap; part of growing up is accepting that people arent always going to do for you, you need to start getting your basic dossier in order. If you have regular parents, they will help you with this, if not, then start snooping.
(Sorry – not mad at you personally. Just heard that “how was I supposed to know?” riff a little too often.
Because everyone’s situation is exactly the same and if it’s not, they’re just being lazy dicks amirite?
What? No. It’s totally not victim-blaming garbage to presume that everyone is the same and that those who don’t randomly suss out that it’s necessary at 10 are just being lazy and presuming life will take care of everything and to presume that someone who grew up in an ultra controlling abusive fundie environment is going to have the same freedoms, opportunity, and relationship with one’s parents as someone who grew up in a supportive modern family.
Seriously my parents are fine and it STILL took me until well into college to have access to my own Social Security card because I didn’t need it or know I would.
Hell, I still don’t have it memorized now because half the time when it’s needed for forms my mom’s the one writing. (Dysgraphia, it is fun.)
I think I was 12 or so when my parents had me memorize mine. One thing I found helped was to make a tune out of it. It’s the same reason people can remember phone numbers from radio jingles 20 years ago.
If I didn’t need to memorize it for work once (We used the last 4 digits as a register code to sign on in addition to a password) I’d probably be in the same boat. I never fill out my own paperwork due to the same issue.
You didn’t grow up with a Toedad. You didn’t grow up being groomed to be handed off to some father approved man to have babies for. You didn’t grow up being prepared to never have any responsibility for your own life.
This. Becky was literally banned from most of the skills most people need as an adult because she was deliberately being kept “pure” for her future husband.
Also, the sheer number of people pretending like most teenagers know their social security number by heart clearly haven’t met most teenagers. Even the kids I have from supportive backgrounds don’t have their SS card memorized because they haven’t yet had to do the rigmarole of adult tasks that require it and so it isn’t high on their radar yet.
Hell, I’m old enough that I think I didn’t actually have a SSN until I was close to working age. Maybe when I first got a bank account. I think you didn’t need it to claim a dependent child back then.
Don’t think I went to much effort to memorize it until I started applying for jobs and had to write it down a lot.
This never caused me any problems because my parents aren’t abusive controlling assholes.
Yup. It’s just a thing you don’t think about much (which doesn’t preclude learning early, but rather just means there’s little pressure to learn it early because the point of it all isn’t as apparent yet) until you get your first application blitz and realize it’s a crucial part of adulting. I think I knew about its existence in high school and referenced it for apps, but didn’t get to work memorizing it until college.
How many 10-year-olds have eve heard of social security numbers? And none of them have the ability to get into safety deposit boxes, you’re just lying there.
I didn’t have my SSN memorized until I was applying for colleges, because I had to put it on so many applications. Someone else posted here that Anderson doesn’t require SSN on their application, and it’s not hugely likely that Becky would have used it too often before then. I’d like to think I’m a reasonably “intellectually curious” person from a supportive family, but most people don’t go around memorizing numbers they’ve never needed to use, and Becky has likely almost never needed her SSN for anything. Maybe you’re just *that* special. Was she just supposed to predict that her dad would get sent to jail for chasing after her with a gun and get this stuff in order beforehand?
Heck, I did memorize my SSN six years after graduating from high school, when I applied for my first few jobs and registered for community college and financial aid. Then I promptly forgot about it after never needing to use it after that, until the point in time I did again: when I had to apply for work over ten years later.
And I’m probably going to forget it in short order again, because I just don’t need to know it off the top of my head in order to do most of my adulting.
I didn’t know my SSN until college. The issue just didn’t come up, and while I was a curious kid, that wasn’t one of the things I was curious about. And I was not raised in a controlling fundamentalist authoritarian household. Becky was. If Ross wouldn’t let Becky have a cell phone or watch Seinfeld, why in the blue blazing heck would he let her know her Social Security number?
The other ting to remember is that John is probably still a little miffed about Becky starting the conversation by insulting him, which only juveniles some one who he proably still thinks of as a child there was I believe 20 years between John and Joyce. Not to mention none of Becky’s input into the conversation has really shown that he shouldn’t think of her as a child. He is still probably in the wrong when he finishes that sentence but no one is as he sees it helping him understand.
Even if he does think Becky’s a child, that doesn’t excuse his comments toward her. Yes, maybe she is childish in some ways–after all, she is only 18 and away from home for the first time after leading an extremely sheltered existence. Why doesn’t he try to help her by giving her a few suggestions as to how she could get her SSN?
The fact that she insulted him is the best defense I can come up with really shows just how far in the wrong he is.
That wasn’t even an insult, just a bad taste joke. To get offended by it in the way of ‘hOW DARE YOU COMPARE ME TO’ (as opposed to ‘this is disrespectful to so many people in so many ways even if im not one of those still ew’) is just… not even kindergarten level shit, I’m pretty sure I had a better sense of humor in kindergarten, and I’m autistic.
Yeah, although your average bank or university will know your SSN, they usually won’t share that info with you. More likely, they’ll ask /you/ for your SSN when you call in, to confirm that it matches their records, so they can proceed with business. And they may print the last four digits on your forms, but rarely the entire number.
I don’t mean they’re aren’t exceptions, but that’s certainly how it’s been on all my transcripts and bank statements. And for good reason – they’re trying to prevent your identity from being stolen.
Yes, and John should be giving Becky some of these suggestions instead of making snide comments to her. Joyce is angry because John chooses to criticize instead of help.
Uniqueantique, we’d all be thinking John was awesome if he’d said “Hey Becky, finding out your SSN isn’t really so hard. Here’s what you can do”, and then giving her the suggestions you just made.
I had to replace my SS card several years ago. They did it for free. I just had to go to their office for it. Now not having a legal address might hamper that somewhat, but as long as you have someone willing to let you use their address to receive mail, you’re good.
(Okay, thinking about it, I still had other valid ID on me – drivers license, birth certificate. Might be a bit harder if you’ve got nothing to use as identification, but isn’t that what Child Protective Services are for?)
She’s 18. CPS won’t do shit for her.
Anderson* would still have her information (including SSN) on file, and with her old student ID she shouldn’t have trouble getting copies of her own record. Enrolling was probably the most recent time she was definitively identified. With her SSN, she should be able to get a certified copy of her birth certificate.
Or maybe they can request access to her father’s house from the state police. After all it’s still her legal residence.
There are options they can follow, but that doesn’t excuse John’s talking down to them for not knowing about them.
*Remember, neither Becky nor Kaitlin were expelled. Ross pulled Becky on his own volition.
The reason Joyce is mad is because John is being an asshole to Becky. He is not showing even the slightest bit of emotional awareness. He is belittling her difficulties. And now he’s trying to attack Joyce for getting angry at him for doing so.
I’m just gonna flat out ask: are you on the autism spectrum, Uniqueantique? Because the way you read social situations is so completely off. You read everything Carla said as being literal. And now you don’t understand what John is actually saying.
How easy it is to get the SSN has no relevance when he’s belittling her as he is right now. And he thinks he can tell Joyce that she’s wrong for defending her friend.
Even if it turns out to be some weird misunderstanding, John is being an actual asshole here. This is what it means to be an asshole.
And that’s not an attack. I’m trying to understand how you can be so completely off in all these evaluations. If you are on the autism spectrum, then I understand and sympathize.
So simple reasoning/common sense is autism now?
Becky has no way of supporting herself in those weeks of waiting. Every day where she can’t finish her applications – for jobs, for school, for loans – is another day where she risks being found out and getting herself and Joyce kicked out of the dorm.
You can say John has some amount of the right of it all you want, but he’s being intensely insensitive to the plight of a girl who he’s known for YEARS. He’s showing he doesn’t care about Becky’s well-being (as his youngest sister so fervently does), but also that he wants her to feel ashamed of all these little things that were never her fault instead of doing anything constructive.
My money’s on his next words being “Running away from home”.
Nonono, he’s realized he’s in the hole and will double-down on turning it around on Joyce and criticizing her for being angry. Good-ole subject changing.
I once had an 18yo coworker tell me that women choose to be born into this world, and to this day I have no words to describe exactly how much bullshit is packed into that statement.
This was after I complained about the wolf whistles some of our other male coworkers chose to broadcast over our department’s walkytalkies. And I mean, yes I chose the job and yes I chose to advance within my department because I was good at my job and they knew and respected that, but that doesn’t mean I had to choose to put up with that kind of nonsense.
(My attempts to get management to put a stop to it fell flat because of bro culture and our boss not wanting to do anything to damage his image as the cool boss, but. Anyway.
No you little twerp I did not “choose” to be born into any of this hot mess, and if choice was a factor I would sure as shit have lobbied for a less disastrous body chemistry.)
Wuuuuuuut? That’s redonkeylus, I would have laughed
I mean, it’s like saying that you choosed the questions put in your exam
Could this have been a religious doctrine? Sounds almost like one of the more fringe Christian sects — I want to say Mormons but it might be the Witnesses — who believe that pre-baby souls get to choose which parents they’ll be born to.
That’s Mormons IIRC, sounds like their ‘pre-birth’ stuff, where you choose your parents and future spouse and blahblah.
Well…sure. There’s some Mormons who believe that and tell other people that, but it’s not doctrine or taught by the church. Although, if we’re allowing a larger group of people to connote a smaller subset of people, then we could say that it’s everybody that believes this.
What I want to know now is that if women can choose to be born, why does this coworker think men can’t choose? This means women have superior mental abilities, right? So after a couple of generations, women should gain psychic superpowers (the evolution is accelerated by the ability to choose to be born, which then leads to the ability to choose which DNA to have, which leads to selecting certain traits. How can we communicate to this general ethereal consciousness of “woman” that gets to choose to be born, made up of all past and future women? Do we pray to it? Wait, does this mean that this “womanhood” consciousness is actually God? This coworker thinks that woman is god? Plz help. I want to understand.)
That’s not Mormons, Mormons have ‘chose to be born and get a physical body’ but choseing where to whom and who you’ll marry in the future is not a Mormon thing. I want to say that sounds like something from anti-Mormon literature but people can have weird personal beliefs that don’t reflect the religion as a whole and converts tend to bring in other groups weird ideas like young earth crap so I couldn’t say no Mormons believe that but it’s not a Mormon thing.
I’ve seen similar things in some variations of Hindu and Buddhist philosophy – where you (your real aware between lives self) chooses the situation for your next life based on what struggles and trials will help you grow closer to enlightenment.
“I once had an 18yo coworker tell me that women choose to be born into this world”
Why do some people choose to be born into horrible lives?
Why do some people choose to watch horror movies?
+1
you actually have bought into the idea of a patriarchy in the west… that makes AC too cold for us girls, and men spread their legs too much on subways, and what are we fighting for again? JOHNS TEARS of course!
Goddammit.
Thicker menu for protection? Or for extra reading material?
Not even a bunker can protect you from Joyce’s wrath.
Time to raise your AT Field.
*Sighs* I’ll go get the blast shelter ready…
Fuckin’ damnit John…
An Ubercharge would work, but since they’re at a restaraunt she should have a Sandvich on hand to recover with.
If it was thicker you can go on the offensive.
Thicker menu to use to smack someone upside the head.
Wow, John is an asshole.
The word I’d use is Autobot.
No one cares what you think, MEGATRON.
C’mon guys, let’s all settle down and have a couple glasses of Engex at Swerve’s
I think Steve Urkel would be a better holoavatar for you.
I mean, that’s why you are one, right?
Sick buuuuuurn for the traaaaaitor.
Not Starscream?
Well, he’s a bit of an ass, but who isn’t?
Hopefully he’s not actually an asshole, and just wasn’t considering variables.
Jocelyne would rather be anyplace else right now.
You think she’d have a happy place to go to in situations like these.
I think anytime she has to interact with family and shove herself back in the closet she wishes she was anyplace else.
After reading your comment last night I got thinking about all the ways she has to edit herself around her family, from the general to the very specific. It would be incredibly fatiguing.
I don’t blame her.
Things are starting to get a little tense at that table.
I am hearing the fuse burn down….
Hell’s about to break loose, better grab enough popcorn to last several days!
*plays “Your Secret’s Safe With Me” on the Jukebox*
Of course, if she gives Becky her number she’d have to take away her name.
I am not a number! I am a free woman!
(Ask Stephen if he’ll play that theme song on the muzak, I love that!)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6iaR3WO71j4 <- As long as you got change for the Jukebox…
That was 10 cents per play and 3 for a quarter when that one came out in ’66, right? Lemme see if I have dime …
I can spare a dime, buddy. Especially after I built this tower.
So, how many DOA followers are old enough to get that reference.
BTW – I am not a number, I am a free man.
Apparently, by the time I remembered to hit the post button – at least 2.
“Apparently, by the time I-”
Aye!
Aye!
Aye!
Aye!
Aye!
Thanks to reruns and other things, my pop culture memory extends back decades before I was actually born.
Oh,and, I am not a hat!
*Mocking Laughter*
And here’s another who gets the reference … Be seeing you.
“Elections, in this place?”
“Of course. Everyone has a choice. Are you going to run?”
“Like blazes, first chance I get.”
I wouldn’t be surprised if Galasso uses Rover to make sure employees don’t leave before their shifts are over. Or at all.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ve3vqMg8xhk <- This song.
This is why I can’t go out to eat with my family. No one is willing to consider/listen to the other side of the arguement.
In this case John doesn’t really have much of a side to consider.
Finally, the food safety comic I’ve been looking for all these years.
Tomorrow, potentially hazardous food and temperature ranges.
Or, “Why not to slow-cook fugu”.
I…i was not expecting this thread of comments. I choked on my ginger ale! XD
*Food safety thread fail*
Just a wild guess here, but she probably sounds angry because she is angry… because you’re being an ass, John…
That’s silly. Joyce is a girl. Girls aren’t allowed to be angry. Ho ho, what a thought. Girls being angry and thinking they are allowed to have full opinions instead of respecting their elders and their betters. What jolly amusement! (/John and Joyce’s fucked up culture)
Of course girls aren’t allowed to be angry. Girls are to be quiet and demure property for their fathers, until the day they can be betrothed to their husbands. Then they can be safely disappeared and kept away from the menfolk, possibly doing “projects” to further their husband’s ministry rather than being taken out to eat and meeting the family, like the good help-meets they were made to be.
Every girl a beautiful princess. Every princess helpless until her white knight saves her. And then they will be so cute together, and she will have so many babies…
More traditional gender rolls? They’re unlimited at Round The Clock!
Huh, for whatever reason I started to see a montage of Joyce interacting with Ryan and Ross. “What a sweet little prince… NOT THE FACE!!!”
John is talking to Joyce as though he was her father.
I hope that’s at least partly due to their age difference and that he hasn’t realized how much she’s grown up in the last few months. It would be extremely depressing if it’s entirely cultural.
I’m sure it’s partly the age gap -sometimes I feel more like an aunt than a sibling around my littlest sister- but even if that’s the case, he’s being incredibly rude.
i swear that if this leads up to a joke about the gender rolls i will be…VERY HAPPY.
Ugh, I hate gender rolls. They’re so hard and firm and it takes seventeen dunks into the soup broth to make them even remotely edible.
Not nearly as nasty as social-justice salad dressing, however.
“Joyce, do you realize how angry you sound?” Well when you say something that is inflammatory, pretty sure anger is an appropriate response. John, buddy you really need to think.
Given that his first acknowledgement of Becky is to dismiss her concerns, I’m not sure that thinking is high on his list of priorities.
He seems to be way too used to Joyce being the ‘good little Christian girl’ to realize that her reactions to Becky’s situation, while out of that character, have been perfectly reasonable and signs of great personal growth. The fact that she’s hiding behind a menu after being accused of being angry (like that’s a BAD thing) kinda makes me cringe, because she’s standing up for the right things and I worry about how easy it is for her brother to pull the ‘hysterical woman’ card.
Wait, never mind, apparently that’s Jocelyne behind the menu… That feels a lot more relatable, actually, being the one trying (uselessly and with poor strategy) to calm things down.
That was my initial reaction, too, before I noticed that Jocelyn was taking cover behind health and safety information.
You should have thought about the consequences before existing!
Seriously, Becky! What the fuck! Learn how to pre-plan for your entire life being turned to shit because your asshole father tried to send you to an abuse camp to be fixed before literally hunting you down like an animal.
Gah, it’s common sense! So stupid!
Just don’t be a lesbian! Why is this so hard for everyone not me!
Your attempts at changing the subject is futile, sis
She gave it her best shot. Not her fault if John is getting hit in the face.
Putting Joyce’s other hand in a cast.
Joyce just can’t catch a break, today…
But she can be badass in response to it, which she is definitely doing.
Which could result in her catching another break.
“…And if I contract said foodborne illness, I can escape this conversation.”
File under: thoughts that go through my head constantly.
If nothing else, he and Becky can still try to escape through the windows.
She*
But yes.
Jocelyne has never more wanted a cyanide capsule hidden in her teeth.
Barring that, a vomit capsule to break the tension. Heavens, I’d keep a case with me at all times.
She’s desperately trying for food poisoning, but it’s just not fast enough.
COME ON, E. COLI, I TRUSTED YOU
When they first got to the restaurant John wanted to order appetizers, but Joceylne said they should wait for Joyce and Becky. If only she hadn’t been so polite, she could have some convenient salmonella brewing in her gut right now.
Or, even better, *John* could have salmonella right now.
I was willing to give John the benefit of the doubt yesterday. Now all that doubt has dissipated.
Yeah, that’s a problem with the discussion sometimes. I have access to the patron strips and KNEW what would happen to that benefit of doubt the next day, but of course I couldn’t bring it up.
Sometimes the best course of action is to just scream FUDGE at fictional characters.
I do wonder about those Patreon subscribers and how hard it must be for Willis to delete spoilers, combing through all the comments.
I was hoping John would turn out to be more reasonable than his mother. But, it appears the brown-eyed Browns are the hard-nosed Browns.
Douche, asshole, AND fuckwit?
Nooo, Joyce! You are totally justified in being super angry right now. I totally feel for you, like, at your age I didn’t realize I was allowed to be angry, to demand respect for myself and my friends, to take up that social space without guilt (no matter what asshole dudes said)…but damned if I don’t want to jump in and shout that at John myself right now.
Oh wait, somehow I missed the shirt and thought that was her hiding behind the menu. In that case, fuck yeah, rhetorically kick his ass Joyce!
Yeah, I think her Dad’s reaction to her admission of Rosspunching went a long way towards affirming her confidence in her anger, and even before that she was unstoppable once she got really steamed up.
I have to wonder what John expects to accomplish by pointing out that she’s angry. Does he think she hadn’t noticed, and is trying to gently let her know so she can try to control it? If so, is it because being angry in public is undignified, or ‘unladylike?’
He is trying to get her to “realize” that, as per his view, she is getting worked up over something stupid. That her emotions are on the fritz and if she’d just calm down she’d understand that everything is Becky’s fault, for being the way she is.
Because he’s an asshole.
I’m probably going to catch an ungodly amount of flak for this but I don’t think John is completely wrong. He does have a good point. Yes it’s not going to be easy but it’s certainly not as impossible as Joyce is making it out to be. Keep in mind John grew up in a different time than both Becky and Joyce. What I don’t get is why in one strip everyone’s jumping on the “John is a total asshole” bandwagon. I don’t see that. John has a point he actually has a few points. I realize the last thing runaways probably think about would be their SSN but still. Honestly I don’t see anything in this strip that screams JOHN IS AN ASSHOLE. Also to massive feminism/patriarchy thread at the beginning of the comments, no offense but I think most of y’all are overanalyzing this strip. Interesting conversations though, makes me happy to see people actually having proprler conversation on the internet without insulting or demeaning others.
I think after Ross and Carol there’s a lot of wariness of other members of their community, so when John makes a bit of an ass of himself the worst conclusions are drawn.
Before the “she should have thought of that before…” remark he was just being mildly insensitive.
But between that and “you sound angry” your defense doesn’t have a leg to stand on tbh
It is still her house. She must know how to get into it.
The odds are good she doesn’t have a key because her father didn’t want her leaving on her own.
Didn’t take a key to get into my house, if you knew you way around. That isnthe fun thing about houses.
That really depends on the house. I live in a basement suite, there’s no way I’m leaving something possible to jimmy open. My parents’ house is 20 years old, and there is no way in when it’s locked without breaking a window or door down.
There’s, um, cops around her place… so sneaking in is probably not the best idea she could have. Especially here where the cops are much less like than Bloomington to be on her side.
Probably not. No point guarding the place when the guy’s in jail.
But she could probably just SAY to the cops, “hey, my documents are inside”. They’re technically her property. They might do some fact-checking to make sure she is who she says she is, but they’d help her retrieve them, ESPECIALLY after learning why she was locked out in the first place.
+100
That’s a good way to commit suicide by cop.
No, it’s an IFFY way to commit suicide by cop. For it to be a good way to commit suicide by cop, you’d need to running up to them while pulling your ID out of your pocket and wearing a hoodie.
Depends how friendly the cops are. They might have gone to the same church ad toedad or Carol. Its a small town.
I wonder if they could recruit Hank for a “Let’s see if we can legally get into the house” approach – whether that’s just using a key Becky has or knows about or asking the cops for access, which would certainly be needed if the cops have the place sealed off for the investigation.
Having a respected local adult along does a lot to smooth things over. Essentially piggybacking on his privilege.
Getting Hank involved would be the optimum choice … then again, he’d probably have to go against the wishes of Carol.
Carol doesn’t have to know.
That is pretty much what I was thinking.
That depends on what has happened since Ross’s arrest. If he has relatives they may have changed the locks. And given that Becky isn’t staying with relatives it’s a reasonable guess that if there are any locally they don’t approve of her coming out any more than he does.
Changed the locks? He was arrested, not pickpocketed. And it has only been a couple of days.
I think a full week has passed
It’s been like a week and a half or something since the arrest. There was a minor timeskip.
It was on Monday; this is a Saturday so 5 days.
He wasn’t pickpocketed, but Becky might have had her own key when she was ‘stolen by Satan.’
I’m not sure she would. Toedad was brutally controlling. Becky had no means of non-public transportation other than his car so he would probably have assumed that the only way she would be going home would be with him and that she’d only lose his keys if he left a copy with her. So I could easily see her having literally nothing except maybe her school ID (assuming Anderson has those [she might only have been given the number rather than an actual card]).
I’d be surprised to find a university that didn’t issue an actual card. I know the one in my town uses their ID’s to unlock certain buildings and give everyone access to their dining hall accounts. Local businesses sometimes give student (or staff) discounts, too, and they’d need cards to qualify for those.
Yeah, but Anderson is not like most campuses. It’s not some state school. Instead it’s a religious school for the fundie set, a set that presumes that most form of mass IDs is a form of the Mark of the Beast designed to turn their children to the anti-christ. So I could definitely see them avoid an actual card due to parent freakouts.
I wish someone had personal experience of Anderson to draw on. I’ve been trying to scour their site, but all I can find is that there is a student ID number, but no word yet on whether it comes with a card. Seeing as how I had a student ID number without a card in one of my schools, I could easily see that being a thing, but who knows?
It’s sort of a roundabout confirmation but you can use their Wellness center with a valid ID Card.
Looks like they have one.
From what I can tell on the internets, Anderson’s a fundie religious school, but it’s a pretty well respected one. You actually can get a good education there, at least for the things they teach. (They don’t seem to have a biology program, as you’d expect. Any hard sciences, really.)
I went to a small secular school, so not the same as Anderson, but we did have ID cards which acted as a key card for the dorms and also stored the meal plans and things like laundry money.
So while idk if Anderson might not do that for religious reasons, it’s worth noting that it’s not just a state school thing.
thejeff- Thanks! I was looking for something like that. Okay, so she might still have that at least which will make things considerably easier, but still stressful and bureaucracy-heavy. The birth certificate is probably going to be the trickiest part.
I went to college part-time and worked two jobs part-time (one on campus). Maintained a 3.0+ GPA, drove my own car, all of it. Wasn’t allowed to have a house key. Either had to use a hidden key, or a garage door code.
I know a good way to get in! its called Joyce’s foot + the window
Or locksmith. It is her home, after all.
Is it? Does she have any proof of residence? It’s her dad’s house. Maybe. If he even owned it.
Yes, it is.
Except she doesn’t have a key to copy and most locksmiths aren’t exactly going to be keen on going to her home and messing with the lock to determine what key would fit in it.
Locksmiths don’t have a set of keys they jiggle and hope for the best. They have lockoick guns. Opening doors for lost or stolen keys is routine for them.
The house could be soundproofed, or even just the windows reinforced. Given everything else we know about Ross I would totally peg him as the kind of guy to make his home a perfect suburban fortress of godliness.
Well, actually, she probably cannot legally enter the premises right now. The door is probably sealed. Her dad committed this crime about a week and a half ago, which means he’s still awaiting trial/formal charges. Considering the nature of the crime, his house could be under investigation as they search for more weapons (possibly illegal) and paraphernalia that could support/dismiss evidence of a hate crime, or whether or not the kidnapping of Becky was premeditated, whether Ross is mentally ill, etc.
And for that matter, Ross is paranoid enough he probably keeps legal documents, such as birth certificates and SS cards in a safe. Since Becky was home-schooled, never had a job, and does not have a driver’s license, she likely never had need to ever even have access to those documents in the past, which explains why she doesn’t know her SSN. Even if Becky could get into the home under police escort to retrieve her legal documents, she still would likely not know where the safe is, and/or the combo.
And again, because she never needed those documents, she probably doesn’t know about how to legally obtain them. (She was also probably joking with Jocelyne) Hopefully Jocelyne and/or the guidance counselor at the school can help her actually get these things.
John could have just said these things, of course, instead of being a jerk.
At the very least, her docs should be in a firesafe box. And while that’s not impenetrable, still needs another key.
Also, I picture Ross’s house to be like one I grew up near, a cement bunker with a chain link fence and sandbags in the yard.
The firesafe box could be useful. If she can’t get in she could burn the house down and then recover the box.
Do we know that Becky doesn’t have a license? We obviously know that she doesn’t have a car, but she still could have a license, just like Joyce.
This is my question as well. Becky’s comment in http://www.dumbingofage.com/2016/comic/book-6/02-that-perfect-girl/get/ is certainly suggestive that she’s driven a car before, which suggests at least lessons, and why teach someone to drive if they’re not going to get a license?
Speaking of being a jerk. Does anyone here not just say things for the sake of typing. The house is not a crime scene. Do you seriously think that, if some guy is comvicted of assault with intent in a bar they kick his family i to the street?
Suddenly this guy lives on a compound, in a basement flat, in a bunker and has death traps surrounding his tax receipts.
Somehow, I imagine their home is a lot like the Brown’s, only messier because a guy like that wouldn’t know how to pick up after himself.
TIL Joyce is not allowed to be angry.
It’s not that Joyce isn’t allowed to be angry. In the worldview he’s been raised in, WOMEN aren’t allowed to be angry. Any of them.
Hell, in most places and in most cultures, women aren’t allowed to be angry. It’s one of the reasons why I admit that I have raised as if male privilege even if I don’t have male privilege, because at least I was raised to be able to express anger without instantly being abused for it.
Yeah this.
Dude gets angry over injustice, it’s righteous fury.
Women gets angry over injustice, she’s a hysterical b**** who is sabotaging the movement by “alienating potential allies” and don’t you know you’d catch more flies with honey than vinegar?
+1
I hate when people aren’t allowed access to feelings. Women aren’t allowed to be angry/powerful, men aren’t allowed to be sad/vulnerable. It’s the worst.
Yup. I got that both ways being trans. Growing up it was all “boys don’t cry” and “don’t be a sissy” and being older its all “why are you so angry” and “stop being a (word that is frequently replaced with a percussion instrument)”.
Is it wrong I was expecting a more server word there?
I’m in love with angry Joyce
I’m pretty fond of her myself.
I don’t like angry Joyce. Actually, let me rephrase that; I don’t like WHY Joyce has a reason to be angry. Her anger is perfectly justified (and to this point, I’d say even helpful) and I love that she isn’t afraid to let it out. But I want things to start going right for her and Becky, so that we can have the old, happy, triangle-grin Joyce back.
Dorothy agrees with you.
Yeah. It’s like PTSD in a lot of ways. Her being angry all the time is a perfectly valid and good reaction to the situation she’s in, but it’s still not healthy for her, but eventually you learn to be that way as a normal state and you can’t stop when things change.
I want the situation to change so that she can legitimately be happy and not angry all the time. Before it becomes reflexive.
But I want things to start going right for her and Becky, so that we can have the old, happy, triangle-grin Joyce back.
Unfortunately, it seems like that will have to happen away from her family. Except maybe Hank.
I guess I’m totally sad that she had to experience this, she is clearly in distress. But there is this sense that she has transcended her programming out of love. The desire to protect her friend meant more to her then her ego. And that’s kinda beautiful.
should’ve foreseen your father kicking you out and then kidnapping you and getting arrested before you decided to be gay
Things are about to go way down. I am loving this!!!
Dumbing of Triangle: DAY 17
http://imgur.com/NyIIAe0
*Gasp!* John said the B word!
Old strips still being ported: http://imgur.com/a/7FHYX
Like the face on the menu. Is she projecting?
Panel five in this version is totally Amazi-Girl praying that he’s not careful. I love it.
Yeah… About that….
You never did find the body, did you?
Unfortunately, no. Now all her memories haunt me as I will never live up to her.
The good news is that she lived a good life. Although Mike….
I’m not wrong.
Panel five is the Bond Villain Joyce that I never knew I wanted till this day.
On the one hand, he’s not wrong that borrowing someone else’s Social Security Number isn’t really gonna help you.
On the other hand, yeesh, John is really being an (seemingly unintentional) ass.
The unintentional is what’s causing these comments to be hard to read. People are forgetting he doesn’t exactly have the full story, and has also been raised by, well, the same mom Joyce has
Yeah, he’s screwing up a fair bit, but it seems like he’s trying, and is attempting to somewhat catch himself
I’m reserving judgement on him for now as right now it seems more like people want to hate him, and I don’t want to get caught up in that by mistake
He’s not trying. Not even a little. He’s digging a hole and when he’s called out on it, he’s digging deeper. That’s a bit different than Hank trying to figure out how to support his daughter and practically his third daughter and messing up because he’s not fully sure how to do it.
I saw ‘third’ and was momentarily confused cause I was thinking from Hanks perspective. Now that plotline is gonna be a read.
There’s no trying involved. He’s filtering everything through his horribly screwed-up worldview.
I do have a lot of sympathy for him. I’ve been in that position. I’ve been the fundamentalist who would have likely said almost precisely the same things as John (if anything, I would have been even less empathetic).
It’s easy to say it’s not his fault, that he’s as much a victim as Joyce was. But victim or not, his actions are still bad. He’s not trying to change. Like Joyce at the beginning of DoA, he’s blithely convinced that he is right. Only more condescending and paternalistic than Joyce, since he’s a man.
And like Joyce, it would probably take a major crisis that hits close to home for him to change.
Exactly! That’s the core of it. John is acting very stupid here, because he IS very stupid. He is raised to be stupid, he is expected to be stupid. His culture has rewarded him to be stupid his entire life.
Just like Joyce. (and Hank)
The difference is that Joyce is forcing herself to be better than that. John is not trying, and he is not smart enough to take a step back and figure out what he’s missing (like Hank).
Understandable? Yes. Excusable? Maybe. Good? Hell no.
Both of all of these.
This is the culture working as intended.
Hmmm…. What could that be?
Pretty sure she could go to a records place or wherever the government stores that information. Joyce is overreacting, this isn’t impossible.
It isn’t impossible, but if she doesn’t have access to the required documentation – including her birth certificate, which she may not have due to the house and her father being locked up – it could be very difficult.
https://faq.ssa.gov/link/portal/34011/34019/Article/3755/How-do-I-apply-for-a-new-or-replacement-Social-Security-number-card
Things get more complicated if she doesn’t have a photo ID (school or government) or a passport.
As Mrs. Brown pointed out, her house is still there. All she needs to do is go in (If she doesn’t have a key she could break in without much issue with the cops who would be able to look up the situation with her father) and grab whatever she needs, which she needs to do before she goes back or else living on her own is going to be tough.
Not sure how US universities work but my old ID was valid until the semester ended, so she might be able to use that.
Um… no, cops would arrest her for property damage and/or harass her for being that “dyke that got her daddy locked up”. Small town cops are not friends to queer kids. Far from it. And Becky would get caught. She’s got a practically 100% record of getting caught doing literally everything she’s tried to do.
She may be able to go through the process with the government assuming her parents weren’t complete paranoid fucks who didn’t file stuff with them, but that’s a lot of work, a lot of stress, and a lot of research into things she’s not at all sure what she needs to research.
It’s a scary and difficult thing even if it’s more doable than Joyce is assuming here. And John is deliberately minimizing that like a jackhole.
Sounds like Joyce’s Christian privilege can come in handy as far as the cops are concerned.
If John was helpfully suggesting methods by which Becky might retrieve her SS number that would be one thing. But he’s not. He’s jumping down Becky’s throat for making a stupid (and, this time, unoffensive) joke, belittling the difficulty of her situation, and refusing to back down when Joyce lets him know he’s gone too far.
Well said! +1 Internet for you. Also cookies.
dammit! I’m sick of people promising cookies they have no way of delivering! The dark side doesn’t have shit!
But he did back down, even before Joyce called him out he stopped himself in the middle of the sentence, realising how dumb it was.
Also he is right, she put very little thought into this and apparently didn’t even consider going to her house, which should have been her main goal this weekend, and grabbed all the necessary documents she would need to live on her own. Something she easily could have done this morning.
I think you’re being unrealistic. The exact legal details are unclear to me, but Becky doesn’t own the house and could easily get in trouble for breaking and entering. And if she commits a crime, I doubt the police will let her off just because she was also recently the victim of another crime. (And they shouldn’t, in my mind.) Becky’s priority should be researching a way to contact the authorities and obtain identification and a replacement SS card.
But, more to the point, I’m definitely reading John’s tone as belittling and hostile, and I may be off base but I don’t think I am. We’ll see. *shrugs*
She doesn’t own the house but it is her legal residence until Ross gets the legal paperwork to throw her out done. And she’d have a right to remove her possessions.
The house is being foreclosed. It makes sense to me that she would have a window of time during which she could retrieve her possessions, but I doubt it’s a show-up-anytime kind of thing.
Also are they really /her/ possessions, or are they Ross’s possessions and she just borrowed them most of her life? I know that sounds dumb – but Becky does live in fundie central, and it’s entirely possible that everyone in the neighborhood will pull out shit like that just to cause her trouble.
I’m not saying that Becky can’t find a way to get her stuff, or find her SSN in her old paperwork, but I think it has to be planned better than just stopping in one morning.
I was under the impression that the default situation is US citizens under the age of 18 are not legally capable of owning anything except in part, signed with someone 18 or older. I could be entirely wrong, though.
The house is not being foreclosed. It’s been less than a week. Even if a payment has been missed (only about a 1/4 chance even if he doesn’t have a automatic payment set up), it’s still in the “we’ll charge you a fee for late payment” stage, not the “We’re taking the house” stage.
It will be eventually, Becky can’t just move in indefinitely because of that. (and power & heat and all the other bills she wouldn’t be able to pay) As she said in that strip. Which, by the way, implies that Carol at least thinks she could get in.
If I was there, I would definitely suggest checking it out – especially if she had a key or knew where the spare might be hid. And assuming it’s not marked off with police tape. If it is, or she doesn’t have a key, I’d go to the police. They might not be queer friendly, but even so, they’re not likely to arrest her for asking for access to her stuff & id.
Of course, they’re 18 and that approach might not even occur to them.
And John’s being an ass, so he’s not gonna help.
Actually, it’s might not be. Her house is legally her parents, or rather her dad’s, as you note. But her legal residence was probably actually the Anderson dorms, where she was thrown out. And since her dad is not dead, just in jail, she has no inheritance to the place and might not even be allowed a legal sale in its fate if her dad refuses to cooperate with her. So she might not be able to make any claim to the property at all.
She certainly wouldn’t have any inheritance or claim to the property. Most of the time though, unless you take action to change it (like for voting purposes) a college students legal residence remains their parent’s home.
Normally, she really should still have access to the house, unless Ross has taken legal steps to change that.
What would happen in different circumstances? Assume Ross had been arrested for something unrelated to her while she was staying at home – over Christmas or summer break, so that she’d still be 18. She wouldn’t be instantly barred from the house, though she’d still have the same long term problems paying the bills.
I doubt the legal situation is any different. Yet. And frankly, I doubt Ross actually would disown her – that would mean admitting he didn’t control her.
Of course, whether the local cops are sympathetic to that or not is a big question. And since she can’t afford a lawyer, that’s likely to matter more than her actual legal rights.
winter- All of this. John is not backing down, he’s doubling down and being very belligerent and assholic.
And the police would not take kindly to some “trouble-maker gay punk” “starting trouble and breaking into people’s homes”. Especially since she got a “good man in the community” locked away for “some bullshit”. The cops here are very unlikely to be friends.
David-
“Also he is right”
No, no he really isn’t. There’s no aspect of that where he’s even partially right. She had no obligation to pre-plan for her life being ruined and being rendered homeless and undocumented. And to suggest otherwise is some stone cold callous shit.
And I’m sorry to be firm on that, but having dealt with having a sudden disownment and unsafe home sprung on me out of the blue, I’m a little sensitive to apologetics on that score.
“she put very little thought into this”
She put very little thought into being disowned and hunted like an animal, yes indeed. It’s not usually one of those things you plan. Also, she’s put a lot of thought into things actually. She’s managed to secure a roof and a support network, reacquire her meager belongings and clothes from her old college, secure semi-permanent lodgings, look for employment, start prepping for attending school next semester, and even identify her major stumbling blocks. Within a fucking week.
Becky’s way more impressive than most anyone else thrust into a similar situation. Fuck, she even managed to record her dad threatening her and thus get the cops to her location quick enough to secure his arrest.
“apparently didn’t even consider going to her house, which should have been her main goal this weekend, and grabbed all the necessary documents she would need to live on her own.”
Her home is a police-guarded castle in an unfriendly neighborhood full of people that would like to hurt her or send her to reparative therapy that she might not even have a key to and probably stings like a motherfucker even to think about as it was the cage of her abuse for 18 years and is full of the family she fully lost.
She has no driver’s license, no car, no independent means of reaching the house. Her stated goal for the weekend is keeping her best friend stable and sane and her best friend has spent all morning terrifying her by grabbing her in early morning and driving her around town while telling her nothing of what is going on.
And she has no fucking clue where the documents would even be or even if there would be documents given that she was literally never allowed to look at them at any point in her life. Which means days of searching through filing cabinets and paper stacks, in a house ransacked by police, watched by paranoid suburbanites, and where she would likely have the cops called on her the second she broke in.
So, politely, no, that’s some deep minimization of what a visit home would represent, mean, and what her barriers are.
“Something she easily could have done this morning.”
Bullshit.
Have you ever tried to find important papers in a passed on loved one’s house? It takes fucking days of all-day pouring over paperwork and filing cabinets. This isn’t going to be the type of shit that’s just sitting on the kitchen table next to the Wheaties box. And that’s assuming it even exists in the first place, which means going over literally every piece of paper in the house and hoping.
Holy fuckballs am I kind of done with all the people minimizing just how much of a pain in the ass both the accessing her old house would be and replacing her old documents would be. And how much of an emotional roller-coaster either process will entail. Especially since restarting her life depends on it.
Like her life is reset to fucking ground zero here people. That’s not some minor scratch on the emotional knee that can be bandaged up in a weekend.
This.
Also: She “should’ve thought about this” before coming out? Are you folks forgetting the fact that she didn’t so much come out as was outed accidentally when someone walked in on her and her roommate at Anderson making out? It’s not like she was intending to come out when and how she did – sure she decided to nuke the closet from orbit once the cat was already out of the bag, but at that point Toedad already knew and her life was already ruined. It’s not like she called him up like, “Hey, my abusive jackass dad with a head like a toe, guess what? Know how you really hate the gays? Well guess who’s a lesbian?!”
YES!!! Beckys literary best shot at getting into the house would have been to ask Carol to drive her there at dinner yesterday when the topic came up. Mayyyyyybe a good thing she didn’t ask her.
+another 1
And I thought it was awful when people were yelling at Becky for not planning ahead when she used twenty dollars to cut her hair instead of…renting an apartment or whatever they wanted her to do. Heaven forbid she be struggling to get back on her feet after she was disowned, attacked, and left homeless and destitute.
Actually, given that Joyce and Becky may have had some offscreen free time after they left the house, it’s possible they attempted. That could be why Joyce knows the house is inaccessible.
And also, Becky did not choose this situation by any remotely reasonable definition of the term. She was outed, remember?
winter- This!
If you don’t have an ID, getting the information necessary to get an ID is tough.
And if you don’t have an ID, the government is going to be really chary about handing you all the information needed for identity theft.
The government is aware of her situation, though, aren’t they? The police did get involved, after all.
Police != State Government != Federal Government
Different agencies don’t play together very well. It might mitigate the difficulties but it won’t make them go away.
And no matter what, Becky will have to fill out paperwork that she isn’t equipped to handle. Honestly, if she’s got a family friend that’s a lawyer, that’d be super handy. But something tells me that’s not gonna happen.
Do we know what Robin’s background is like? As a Senator, she might have a legal background and be able to refer the kid to someone if she somehow finds out about Becky’s situation when Roz lures her back to Leslie’s class.
Not really the most probable way for it to happen, but it makes sense to me.
Leslie was hinting at getting Becky some help, but Joyce didn’t trust her.
Representative, not senator. (We know she has a district from when she visited Leslie’s class, which rules out US senator, a statewide office. While she could still be a state senator – they have districts – she was in the US House of Representatives in the other ‘verse, so it’s likely the same here.)
And none of this was actually relevant to anything, of course.
Also, she runs as a conservative here so she might think helping Becky would hurt her political chances.
Well, they were on a state highway when Ross was apprehended.
This. I am in the process of changing my legal name. The sheer number of places I need to talk to for that and the sheer number of forms for each of them I needed to acquire and put together means the process will probably take 6 months or so by the time its all done.
No one takes to anyone else less you bring in the proof to get them to talk to each other. And the cops are not going to help a bit in all of this as its very much “not their problem”.
At the end of the process, you will be who you are and want to be. Here’s hoping it will have been worth it.
Yeah, it takes about that long. I thought I had everything done, and then I realize my student loans and my guide’s license are still in my old name, and changing that will likely involve phone calls and mailing the official document out for weeks at a time, and my name change was finalized in August. And that’s if I don’t go revise my birth certificate as well, which at this point I just don’t care enough to do so because I’m sick of filling out paperwork.
The government is not on speaking terms with itself.
FINALLY a paradigm that explains the Republican primaries.
I believe that John might have been about to say that Becky should have gotten her ID in order before escaping from Toedads plans to “fix” her, which would have been FUBAR in multiple ways: he’s a dick and Joyce’s response is proportional (and bad ass).
Hell, I think he was probably going to say she should have thought about that before deciding to become a lesbian, but his self preservation instinct caught the look in Joyce’s eye and choked the words off before they could escape.
That’s what I thought, too.
This stance would also echo Carol’s instant sentiment of ‘are you sure you’re a lesbian and is it really worth getting your father locked up’ or whatever. The serious majority of the community will blame Becky for being a lesbian, including the local cops. (That’s why being born this way was such an important basic concept – it’s trying to prevent this kind of victim-blaming.)
@thejeff, Leorale: I withdraw my interpretation and join yours. (My mistake was just accepting that she’s gay, not that it’s a choice or something that can be fixed; thinking like these “fundies” is still alien to me)
The Social Security Administration should have an office near by that is if she even has an SSN.
Unfortunately, she does not, leading to a bunch of applications with a very important line left blank.
She had to have a SSN to file the paper work with her old college and she could get her transcripts just by asking for them.
Actually, not.
Anderson is a private religious organization that mostly serves the paranoid fundie set, so is not legally required to demand SSN. Additionally, even if it did, I guarantee you she did not fill out her application for college, her dad did, because that’s his role as man of the house.
Also, funny thing. She wouldn’t have transcripts. She didn’t complete a single semester of classes and was dropped out of the school after a month. She literally has no credits and thus no transcripts. She might be able to demand her application from the school, but the school might dick her around on that for twice “causing drama” with her “unauthorized fraternization” with her roommate.
Depends on how much the school wants to be a dick about it.
So yeah, Becky could be very very screwed depending on Anderson and how paranoid her dad was.
And even if Anderson had been a public school, she still wouldn’t necessarily have needed her SSN to apply. My old college used your SSN as your Student ID Number when I attended (2000-2004), but now, giving your SSN on their application is optional unless you’re applying for financial aid or seeking employment from the school.
Another thing to keep in mind is the time it takes. Someone mentioned above that she could get a new birth certificate in 2-3 weeks. If she then uses that to get a new social security card, that’ll take 2 weeks to be mailed to her.
Having to wait 4-5 weeks before you can even begin applying for jobs feels like an eternity when you’ve become unepectedly unemployed and homeless. Even if the ball were rolling, Becky would be understandably anxious to get at least one job app in.
If she’s got the necessary ID and $10, she could go to the county records office in person for a copy of her certificate, which would knock that first 2-3 weeks off at least. That requires transportation and a Monday, though. Also, I’m assuming she was born in La Porte, which may not be the case.
Ah damn, John is now canonically a complete schmuck. I really really wanted him to be on the side of the angels. I guess we just have to hope Jorden is decent.
Not that he’s a pure and perfect angel, but Joyce wasn’t very aware of this crap before IU, and while John’s had more exposure to the world, he still seems pretty sheltered from these kinds of problems.
…it’s really not everybody else’s job to educate John on the problems of the world. Like, after a point, ignorance stops being an excuse and starts being an active barrier, especially in today’s world when all you have to do is google in order to start understanding in a non-invasive way.
John, u mad bro? Wait no, it is Joyce who is mad.
I’m with John right now. They’ve got to be getting this down and Joyce is kind of coddling Becky right now
…wait, what? How in the world did you get THAT from what John said?
Through the magic of victim-blaming. After all, Becky is winding up people’s empathy again, so time to minimize her problems, blame her for not magically fixing them, and otherwise hold her and thus all people who’ve had very similar experiences to Becky to an impossibly high standard.
Even John thought twice about however he was planning to finish that sentence.
It’s not coddling when she’s the one being realistic. Becky is always sarcastically doing things, maybe to always stay positive? Who knows. John is responding as if he’s been living under a rock and doesn’t realize what it means to be gay, without family, and without a house. I’m sure Becky would be able to make it somehow without Joyce, but Joyce is lifting a veil of delusions that she had been wearing since birth. She’s taken in a LOT of new information about what real life is like in less than a year, and she’s doing amazingly well with it.
So no, I don’t think John is right, especially since he’s the oldest brother. Jordan on the other hand seems smart! He’s supportive and can read the room very well. I think we’ll see him being a strong pillar of support for Joyce.
Joclyne*
Jordan’s not in this scene, we haven’t met him yet. The lady in the white shirt with the big baby blues is Jocelyne, Joyce’s older sister. Other than that, agreed, she’ll probably be of great help to Becky. 😀
Abzilla, we haven’t actually seen Jordan yet, so I think you’re referring to Jocelyne. She is awesome and my current co-favorite Brown.
And @AnvilPro, just no. John isn’t offering constructive suggestions, merely poorly-founded criticism based (most likely) on his fundamentalist viewpoint. Yes, Joyce is purposefully cushioning Becky a bit right now; frankly, if I had a friend who had been outed, forcibly withdrawn from school, been forced to run away from her family to avoid being sent to a “pray the gay away” camp, and HAD HER OWN FATHER KIDNAP HER AND THREATEN HER WITH A GUN within the span of about a week, I’d be trying to cushion her, too. Wouldn’t you?
And that’s without Joyce’s current fear that her childhood upbringing somehow caused her to hurt Becky unintentionally.
Whoops, sorry Abzilla, you caught that while I was typing. Sorry!
Now if John’s line in the 4th panel had been something more like: “Right. Hadn’t thought that through. There’s got to be a way to get it though. Let’s see if we can come up with something.” Then at least he’d be trying to help.
But no, that’s not what he’s doing. He’s assuming the problem is trivial and condescending to them.
*And that’s all ignoring all the previous clues to his attitudes and just considering this particular strip in isolation.
“I’m with John right now. They’ve got to be getting this down and Joyce is kind of coddling Becky right now.”
Last 2 panels of: http://www.dumbingofage.com/2015/comic/book-6/01-to-those-whod-ground-me/unlimited/
And sorry if that’s rude, but holy fuck is that a douchetastic victim-blaming horseshit thing to say.
It was pretty vomity.
I thought AP has a different worldview than presented, and this comment is OOC. Maybe just a bad joke?
And this is why I doin’t find the “it’s fictional” excuse to mean anything. This is literally what people actually say about gay people and treating them with respect–that it’s coddling. The idea that being nice to someone to someone when they’ve been through a tragedy–or even in general–is beyond them.
Show of hands: anyone think that post would be different if this were a real life documentary? And, remember, it sorta is, since Joyce is autobiographical. So I fully expect that Willis had a gay friend, realized that they were okay, and defended them to his family.
Pretty sure she sounds angry because she’s kind of fucking angry, dude.
Five bucks says that her family’s particular branch of Christianity states that getting angry or “bitter” is a sin.
More likely they were taught gender roles where women are supposed to be demure and cheerful and never display “negative” emotions or stand up to men.
If that’s the case, the amount of backtalk their mom was giving their dad is a fascinating double standard. 😀
Ah, but she wasn’t angry, she was filled with the righteousness of the holy spirit and defending her only begotten daughter from vile lesbian temptresses.
It’s not a double standard through the magic of religious bullshit.
God can do anything!
You’re out five bucks.
In that kind of situation often the males are entitled to their anger, including the sons, and the daughters are told their anger is sinful and unfeminine. Same thing holds true in many dysfunctional families. Mom also gets to be angry, but not at Poppa.
Yup. Societal sexism is a fuckball and a half.
Ooooh, bonus points if they believe that Jim Logan/Bill Gotherd nonsense about roots of bitterness allowing Satan to claim portions of your mind, leading to possession and evil.
Because let me tell you, being told as a child that getting angry would lead to literal demonic possession did WONDERS for my psychological balance.
damn, and I thought the Jedi way was messed up.
The Jedi have nothing on fundamentalists. I could tell some stories.
At least the Jedi actually train you in meditative techniques and other ways to handle anger and negative emotions. They don’t just say “That’s bad” and punish you.
Leaving aside the question of whether the goal is bad or not.
Unless you’re named Anakin?
if you’re named Anakin your prior life experience as a slave is ignored in favor of wondering why you’re not just like the other Jedi padawans who grew up in the Temple. but you’re the Chosen One so that’s apparently okay
Oh shit, forgot about that bag of awful and how it was consistently used against my fundie friends when they got upset about parental awfulness.
Nonono. That’s not angry.
Tune in tomorrow* to see angry.
(And by tomorrow, I mean in two weeks, which is when Willis will finally return to this plot arch after leaving us with a cliffhanger.)
John, sitting alone in a pine forest somewhere. *dejectedly*: I needed to leave.
This is the first time one of these conversations have seemed contrived.
Not least because a know it all, like John would just tell her how to get an SSN, as condescendingly as possible.
Unlikely. Most know it alls do not know it all. John probably hasn’t the foggiest idea how to recover an SSN without any documentation. Too sheltered. Yes, he’s been in the real world for decades, but he seems like the kind of person who doesn’t accept other people’s problems as his, and he’s organized enough to not lose his state-issued ID (usually driver’s license), his SSN, and birth certificate at the same time.
I envy you if you’ve never had this conversation before. John has no idea how to get a social security number. That’s why he turned it around as a problem with Becky for not knowing it.
And it sounds weird to hear him refer to Jocelyn as “my brother” — jarring/grating.
That’s because the person behind the menu is his brother Joshua … presumably to becomes Jocelyn in the fullness of time, but that time is yet to develop … or so I have inferred.
She is already Jocelyne, at least to herself. She hasn’t let her family in on this yet, but it doesn’t invalidate her identity. We readers are privy to her true self, hence why we refer to her by her chosen name.
But most of us can’t be bothered to spell it correctly, because Internet.
Also because human. It’s amazing how many different ways people can misspell a name on official paperwork.
No kidding. My first name has like four or five valid spellings, and my surname is a German tongue twister. Past a certain point, I’d imagine one either develops a ridiculous oversensitivity, or just sighs and responds to anything that sounds remotely right.
I chose option B. I like it so far.
I tried Option A for a decade and a half. It gets old.
My surname is also surprisingly easy for officialdom to get wrong. For along while I’ve automatically spelled it out during any dealings I’ve had with them.
I’m a man with a hyphenated last name. It still surprises me the amount of confusion that causes people, after having it for nearly 28 years…
Russian has nearly exactly phonetic spelling, I have a very common name, fairly common patronymic and not unique / derived from common words surname, and I still instinctively spell it all out every time I name it for any paperwork.
(Seriously, why the hell would you think Barodina is a more likely spelling than Borodina? And yet…)
I can’t seem to type it without trying to make it a longer version of ‘Joyce’.
In John’s defence (there’s a phrase I didn’t expect to type tonight), he has no way of knowing yet that ‘Joshua’ is actually his sister. As jarring as we think of ‘Joshua’, he’d hear us talking about Jocelyne and have a similar mental jolt.
Of course, the flip side of that is that if he wasn’t a bigot, she might have told him.
Somebody at that table should have thought before they…. and it isn’t Becky.
Also, we now have the official short form of Jocelyne. Joss.
Aw, man. All her writing ends with someone the audience loves dying, doesn’t it?
At least she’s probably not working out her issues with strong female characters by running them through endless horrific physical traumas!
Before what, John? Before what?
Before John sprains Joyce’s other wrist after she beats his face in with the fury of a million angry suns.
I wonder if Joyce can do a Jedi Force thing, and freeze Jon’s vocal cords?
Joyce needs The Voice.
http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Ip7QZPw04Ks
Oh wait, you didn’t mean the that voice, did you?
And certainly not this one.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=20W4slP2PGg
The Voice? You don’t mean… The Other’s Voice do you? Joyce is not nearly Spark-y enough to be related to Lucrezia. Or blonde enough.
I dunno, she and Agatha have similar tempers that they learn to give a little rein to…
Agreed.
What about The Apostle?
Rufus?
He does have a lot of spare time on his hands.
Jedi don’t usually use telekinesis for Force Choke, because it’s too ‘aggressive.’ I guess when prosthetics tech is that advanced it’s safer to lop off a hand with an auto-cauterizing weapon than to restrict the flow of blood/ichor/whatever to the brain.
“I find your close-mindedness… disturbing.”
I feel like the guy having fired a gun really makes all of the mental gymnastics to somehow make it seem like he was in the right seem silly, but I guess people like this -do- exist in real life.
You’d be surprised at the ingenuity of an asshole finding a way to victim-blame someone powerless and struggling.
Is it weird to be this proud of a fictional character? I didn’t even like joyce very much before becky showed up, but I’m proud of her for being ready to stand up and not let anyone else sling shit at her friend.
Maybe, but we’re humans; ‘weird’ is kind of our thing.
Joyce is awesome, and everyone at that table is lucky to have her as a sister and a friend.
Nope!
Fictional characters hold a mirror to humanity and have the ability to infuriate and inspire as any speech referencing Shakespeare characters can attest. And Joyce reminds me a lot of brave ex-fundie friends of mine who escaped that toxic culture as well as those who ill-advisedly tried to stand up for me when my life went to shit. And there’s a lot to be proud of there. At least for me.
I sure as hell like her a lot more now that she’s actually defending Becky and trying to help her than I did when she was first coming to terms with the screwed-up things she believed and was putting on other people.
Town hall in her municipality of birth would be my idea… not sure how well that’d work, but it’d probably be better than trading recriminations in a diner. Then again, if John needs to be told that it’s okay to punch someone who’s pulled a gun on you…
I wonder if he even knows about the gun… if he heard of the incident by word of mouth, that seems like the kind of detail the local community might omit.
Joss and I do the same thing in uncomfortable situations like this
Naught can penetrate the coat of solitude.
Ugh, bureaucracy. Lots of homeless people have trouble getting necessary documents. That John hasn’t considered that strongly suggests that he’s an Autobot.
Seriously. Official documents are hard as shit to secure.
Not for most people. If you’re normal, it’s just a normal part of life. Your parents have the right documentation (birth certificate, mostly) on hand to get your SS card when you need it and a driver’s license/passport/whatever base ID you need and once you’ve got those, everything else is just a bit of bureaucratic hassle.
It’s only when you fall outside that paradigm that things get tricky. Having to bootstrap without the starting pieces. Changing your gender. Etc.
In other words, privilege.
Think about this stuff before…. Having a father who’s kind of a psychopath?
Yeah, way to be born into the wrong family, Becky. Gah!
Not sure how Ross is supposed to be a psychopath. He probably has empathy, he’s just too much of a complete and utter moron and shitbag to listen to it.
If Ross ever had empathy, the culture he lived in strangled it.
Riiiiight, she’ll be sure to get all her ducks in a row and everything perfectly planned out before the next time she’s held at gunpoint and kidnapped and left completely alone in the world. How unprepared of her!
It’s like she didn’t even plan to be hunted across the state by a dangerous complete asshole who wanted to steal her away to a torture camp. Like, wow, Becky, way to be lazy!
Later, we find that John has complete plans laid out for every such scenario and just assumes everyone else does too.
I wonder if one of those plans details how to avoid getting punched in the face by his sister… because if so that plan would better kick in FAST.
Well lets see here, opposite sides of the table, Joyce’s arm span can’t reach over, both on outside of booth, but if both got up with his longer arm span he could possibly keep her from hitting face. Though that would now require him to have a plan that let’s Christi have his kids.
Welp, so much for my hopes about this lunch. I’m really hoping Jocelyne can help them find other local allies, or this weekend is going to be absolutely unbearable.
Oh it’s only going to get worse from here. There’s still church to look forward to tomorrow.
Aannnd again, more importantly, this emphasizes bad parenting again, I had my SSN memorized before middle school. knew where it would be if I needed it, ect. I’ve personally carried it since about the end of middle-school and its to the point where it is almost ready to disintegrate. And I plan to make sure my future spawn are well learned in the things they NEED to know to survive and maintain their lives in the real world. @_@
Becky should have needed it to get into Anderson, correct? At least I remember needing mine at college.
There’s a good chance Ross was totally in control of every step of her applying.
That’s a guarantee. Remember he didn’t allow her a phone, a driver’s license, or the internet. The likelihood that he let her take the lead in a college application is exactly zero
Nope. Anderson doesn’t require it.
You shouldn’t carry it around on your person. If you got mugged, lost your wallet, etc., someone could get access to your SSN. It’s better to store it somewhere safe.
Plus there’s only a limited number of replacements you’re ever allowed to get in your life.
Seriously? How the fuck is that even supposed to work.
You are allowed a certain number (3? 4?) of free replacements. After that, you go out — bang! — like a candle.
(I had to get mine replaced once — so I know.)
3 replacements in a year and 10 in a lifetime.
Updating them for name or other changes doesn’t count.
I’ll be honest, I have a form somewhere in my house with my SIN (Social Insurance Number – Canadian equivalent). I don’t actually know where. And I definitely haven’t memorized it… I think there’s a 7 in it?
Mm, I always have to dig mine up. I had it memorized (and maybe still do, but wouldn’t use it without confirming) after doing a fuckton of forms, but no one ever told me I should and I never made an effort. What I was told to do was to keep it somewhere it wouldn’t get stolen. I think I can also get it by looking into my NSLSC (student loans) account, but I’m not sure.
Listing all the myriad ways Ross suck at parenting WOULD include not having Becky memorizing her SSN… but it would be pretty far down on the list.
Wowwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww.
I was kinda wondering why everyone was saying John was being a huge asshole. I thought he was making some pretty good points, and there are probably some official channels Becky could go through to get her SSN, so I didn’t get the hate. Then someone else mentioned him calling Jocelyn “brother”. Not cool, my man. Not cool.
eh you can’t blame him for that, given that he literarily does not know Joycelyne is female. We really should save judgment for when Joycelyne comes out to him, and see his reaction then.
Well, she’s not out to her family, right? I don’t think we can fault him on that point, although it seems he probably wouldn’t be supportive anyway. And we can definitely fault him for being condescending unpleasant (probably homophobic) and unhelpful.
in his defense he might not know yet that Jocelyn is actually his sister
but he’s still being an overall bag of dicks and i am disappointed that he is not a better person
Jocelyn is closeted, isn’t she?
Jocelyne isn’t out to John yet though, so that wasn’t on purpose.
??
He’s being hostile and confrontational about the SSN issue, not actually making points to be helpful. That’s why he’s an asshole.
But, unless Jocelyne’s came out to him off-panel, it’s pretty unrealistic to expect that he’d know to call her his sister and not his brother. I mean… I don’t have high hopes for his behaviour if Jocelyne did come out to him, but let’s not write him off on that issue before he’s even given a chance.
he probably doesnt know about jocelyne
hes an asshole because there is absolutely no way becky could have prepared for her father pulling her out of school and chasing her across the state with a shotgun, and he doesnt actually have a good point at all
Because every gun is a shotgun. (Because GUNS! — right?)
On this one point, and only this one point, in John’s defense he probably isn’t aware that Jocelyn is his sister, not his brother.
I think a lot of the disgust with John comes from the “You should think of these things before…” line.
Yes, he doesn’t know he has two sisters, but why did he need to jump in to “protect” Jocelyne from Becky? Gratuitous assholery, seems to me.
I dunno, as the eldest he might be used to watching out for his siblings to some degree, especially if Jocelyne tends to be withdrawn around him like she is when her parents are present.
I’d guess that it has less to do with ‘protecting’ his sibling from what Becky said and a lot more to do with what he thinks about Becky’s sexuality.
Basically, it was an excuse for him to shit on Becky.
or maybe hes just simply reacting, like normal people do. you know, shen someone says something you sometimes answer. maybe even if the person wasnt talking to you, but youre still there in that group so you assume its okay to answer. and people who care about eachother protect eachother. wether or not its about beckys sexuality, i dont know. hes obviously overreacting a bit since becky was probably not 100% serious about her request, but we all do that. we all overreact, we all misinterpret, we all accidentally seem like jerks sometimes because we dont like admitting we’re wrong. im not saying john is a good person. i cant judge on that yet, because i dont know him yet. but i wont assume someone is a bad person just because they make mistakes and come from a christian family
Sure, feed him some more rope if you’re willing to keep giving him the benefit of the doubt, but every appearance has removed more and more.
In addition to everyone else saying he doesn’t know, even if he did, he still shouldn’t call her “sister” here, since that would out her to Becky & Joyce, which isn’t his call.
I’m not sure exactly what the protocol is in such situation, and suspect it varies from case to case, though I’d certainly try to minimize misgendering or deadnaming the person, but go for that over outing them. In other words, try to use names or gendered terms as little as possible.
Yeah, I accidentally outed someone, back in the day, because someone I knew was careful with my speech and noted that I never referred to one particular person with gendered pronouns. So I think if you want to not out a transgendered person, you have to use the assigned gendered pronouns when you’re with people who haven’t been let in on the secret. It might be useful to talk with the transgendered person about this if that makes you feel funny. The other option is to start avoiding gendered pronouns entirely, which seems a bit extreme.
Just call her Joss. It’s close enough to Josh that it will sound like that, but not actually misgender her.
with some id and time you can get your ss# easily enough. my friend had no ids and while it is annoying with hoops to jump through it is possible
All of her IDs are probably at her house, save for maaaaaybe a license (I forget if she can drive or not) so it would still require her to get into her house to get those documents. At that point, may as well grab your SSN directly from there. IF she could get in, that is. Maybe she’ll contract one of DoA’s delinquent characters to stage a break-in.
Granted, the custom of keeping SSID cards in safes could pose a problem unless she enlists someone with talents we don’t know about. I wouldn’t be surprised if Amazi-Girl learned to crack basic safes out of boredom when netsurfing, or maybe for practical reasons under Blaine’s thumb.
I was thinking more on the lines of Sal, but that’s a good point too. Sal could probably pick locks no problem, but would probably say no. Amber may not be able to pick locks, but in terms of getting into the house at all? I can see her forcing down a door or two.
I really hope they don’t recruit Sal. Becky would be in trouble enough breaking in. An “ethnic” “inner-city” type messing with lockpicks or smashing down doors would bring in such an avalanche of cops with itchy trigger fingers that it’d put all of them in serious danger of not only being arrested, but straight up being shot.
Oh it’d be a terrible idea, and probably one of the reasons why she would say no. BUT, I could see Amber saying yes, and then Sal following anyway against her better nature to stop them from getting into trouble. Cue them getting caught, Sal volunteering to take the blame since she already has a record, and then Sal getting arrested and treated poorly by the police on Amber’s behalf, compounding her guilt and hatred with a heap of dramatic irony.
That would fit the themes of the comic but would still make me very very sad.
You and me both.
And considering the length of time this comic goes by on, that could be the equivalent of putting Sal on a bus.
Becky: Come on, what’re they gonna do, shoot me?
Sal: … Ya realize that ain’t actually a surprisin’ outcome?
Sal: Nah, you’re white. They’d shoot me.
*slow clap*
Sal? Amber? Pffff. Who do we know who has a talant with lockpicks and a habit of helping clueless people out?
Nosy Neighbour: And what do you think you are doing?
Billie: Here, have a 20 to go away.
Okay, you win.
She doesn’t have ID. She has no driver’s license and has no passport and very likely doesn’t even have a state ID.
Well then I guess she has her birth certificate and… a SS card? Maybe?
And both of them somewhere if either exists. Not unfixable, but definitely not the greatest starting position for putting one’s life back together.
Do we actually know she doesn’t have a driver’s license? Pretty good assumption, but has it actually come up?
Passport’s unlikely. School ID with a photo is her best bet, if they didn’t take it from her when Ross pulled her from school. From what I can tell of Indiana law, that should be enough to get a birth certificate and from there everything else is possible. Just time and effort. Does require nominal fees, which aren’t really nominal in her financial situation.
I’d still check the house, if it can be done without obvious lawbreaking.
Unfortunately, if Ross formally pulled her from Anderson, that school ID won’t work; you’ve got to be currently enrolled in order for them to take that.
Theoretically. In practice, I doubt they actually check with the school. The “current” requirement is really just so you can’t use a decades old school id.
Normally I’d say yes, but government can be very exacting about things like that.
In my experience school ID isn’t usually considered valid enough for government bureaucracies- too easily faked? Can’t be bothered to check it’s valid? Arbitrary standards?? Dunno, but it’s never been sufficient for me
Sure, but how many hoops can you jump through in less than a week?
…ok that makes sense. Not willfully abusive, but privilege-blind enough that he doesn’t realize how rude his dismissal is. John’s being an ass here, but he’s probably not unfixable.
True, but there are definitely some things he is going to have to come to terms with before that can happen, and judging by how taken aback he is by Joyce’s reactions, that’s not going to happen today. He just strikes me as someone who isn’t bad, but is completely removed from the reality and severity of what happened. He probably thinks the whole thing is likely an overblown misunderstanding, that a concerned and emotional father went to take his daughter home, and probably doesn’t believe on some level, or really even know how much things escalated. My guess is his narrative of events probably run something like:
“Toedad went to the college to collect his wayward daughter who is acting out and choosing to be a lesbian (because I, John, have been raised by my mother and my entire community to understand that it must be a choice) and things got out of hand. People overreacted when he tried to take his unwilling daughter home, Joyce overreacted and punched him, college liberals overreacted and turned it into an ‘abduction’ story, and there was a gun found in his trunk.”
So clearly, it was just a normal situation of a loving, if possibly misguided parent trying to take his daughter home, with other people escalatingbthe situation by overreacting, and the whole thing would have been fine if they had just let him take her, and everyone talked things out afterward. Because he’s a good fundamentalist Christian. And Christianity means good morality. He’s one of the good guys by definition, and a good guy wouldn’t do anything terrible or as bad as everyone is making this out to be, right…?
Any chance that John has been hiding Christi because she keeps tripping and hitting herself in the eye with doorknobs, (maybe because she ain’t doing the wife thing right….)?
I can see it, but it’s still early enough to go the complete opposite way (I mean, he can’t unasshole himself in general, but he could be a good spouse).
Eh, I’m not picking up a violent vibe from him. At least not yet, we will probably get to see soon how he reacts to confrontation. I think he just has an uncomplicated world view and is reinterpreting what he heard to fit it. I’m guessing he heard a toned down version from his mom and can’t even really consider that things might have gotten as crazy as we saw. In his mind it’s probably all a misunderstanding that got out of hand. Which is an easy conclusion to come tonif you have the worldview that all people are basically decent and things would turn out alright if you just sit down and talk things out like gentlepeople. I feel like this attitude would fit with his role as a missionary as well.
That’s why he is being an ass about this whole.thing. The social security number? Why are you suggesting crazy things, surely there is an easy fix for this? Punching toedad? You should have all just talked it over? “You should have thought of that before…” There are a few ways that can go. If he is likenhis mother, it’s “before you decided to become a lesbian.” If he is a little better, but still unsympathetic as hell, it’s “you should have thought about that before outing yourself” or even “before cooling around with your college roommate” (it’s been a while. That was what outed her, right?) If he is more tolerant, but with an unrealistic world view, that sentence ends “before you ran away from home. You should have just talked with your dad, because clearly in a just and rational world, created by an omnipotent and omnibenevolant creator, an understanding would have been reached.”
That last one is less likely.
Yeah, making out with her roommate is what outed her. I had gotten the impression that’s shortly after Becky herself realized the feelings she got for girls were the ones she was ‘supposed’* to have for boys, though I may be reading way more into the sequence than was intended.
* Please, please, please note the scare quotes.
Her real mistake was not locking the door. 🙂
At Anderson. …
Yeah, John’s definitely no Carol, and I don’t think his rudeness here is as directly rooted in dogmatism. He comes off to me like he thinks he doesn’t have a problem with Becky’s lesbianism, but he has no concept of what she’s up against and tries to rationalize the situation without having any idea what he’s really saying. Not unlike what a lot of commenters were doing before Ross brought out the gun.
It almost seems like it’s dawning on him in panel 4 that he doesn’t actually *have* a useful point to make, but then he jumps to criticizing Joyce’s tone to save face. Which is still shitty, but he seems to have at least some capacity for self-awareness.
I’d say that John has not yet proven himself to be a copy of his mom, but he ain’t winning any points.
Give him time.
Eh, I got the impression that he was looking for an excuse to go after Becky at the start of this strip.
I’m sure she is well aware of how angry she sound.
Hell I’m angry too I just don’t know where to aim it at.
John is, no doubt, being an ass, but the look he has as he stutters “before…” Maybe I’m projecting more humanity on him than he deserves, but I wonder if it’s Jordan related? He looks less judgemental and angry, and more scared. Like he’s seen how standing up without a plan goes, and he’s worried it’s going to go poorly for Joyce?
…yeah, probably projecting. Disappointing older bro is disappointing.
everyone else is projecting hatred on him and have been since the moment they saw him (even if its true), so its probably okay to project humanity on him too
*roll eyes* Yes, how dare people notice red flags and the culture he stemmed from and react accordingly and it turns out accurately to the warning signs he was littering on the ground.
And sorry about being rude and sarcastic there, but I think the ship has sailed on the whole “how could you queers jump to conclusions on this nice young man” thing.
and how dare people see the potential good in others and believe different than everyone else
yea cause im totally a straight cis man hating on everything that isnt like me. im basing this on your choice to use “queers” as if i would attack queer people
No. You’re a totally straight cis man (I assume from your words) who has the privilege to trust people who are showing huge red flags of prejudice and not normally be hurt by it because it isn’t directed at you. It’s easy to overlook or ignore when it doesn’t affect your life. Like it doesn’t affect mine. I’m cis and straight and white and male myself, but I’m getting better at spotting the signs, at least in fiction.
And John is showing a lot of them. Since it’s fiction, it could be a fake out. It’s still possible to make excuses for him. But a fake out on this kind of thing isn’t really Willis’s style, so I’d be really surprised if all the warning signs were just red herrings.
I do hope though that when it does finally become too obvious for you to look past, you don’t flip over to the “it’s just a strawman. People aren’t really like that” camp.
im not even gonna read the whole thing before telling you: no im not a straight cis man
Fair enough. Much of the rest still applies.
Man I remember when people were projecting on Carol too! How unfair, she turned out to be such a nice lady. (in all honesty I think John was given more benefit of a doubt than Carol)
That’s only because, sadly, abusive/manipulative parents are a more universal experience – doubly so if the parents were highly religious or ideological. (Abuse becomes “training a child in the way they should go, that it may go well for them” when you have an old enough book to justify things.) But – and again, this is my idealist streak showing – siblings, ESPECIALLY the eldest, are supposed to look out for each other, not be another scold.
Of course, sometimes “looking out for each other” turns into “another scold”. In much the same way parents taking care of their children can.
oh did i say that? i guess i mustve blacked out cause i cant remember that
People have been projecting hatred on John? Most of what I’ve seen before today was people going through elaborate contortions to explain away any red flag that popped up.
It was a truly novel experience for me, as I’m generally the one who’s giving people probably more benefit of the doubt than the situation merits.
Oh dear…
So far as it goes she should be able to go search the house (I expect she still has a key).
I’d say she should be able to go to the SSA, but that may be messy. Does she have a current, valid state ID or drivers license? If so she’s fine for getting a replacement card, though she’ll likely also need to get a certified copy of her birth certificate (which will also need ID to get). Without one of State ID, drivers license or passport it’ll be a lot harder to get her card reissued.
none of those things you mentioned strike me as something Toedad would think is a Thing Women Should Have
curiously, tampons and opinions are also not on this list. odd.
I wouldn’t be surprised if he thought tampons were some kind of sex toy.
Tampons are not on the list. They are also not on the list of Things Women Shouldn’t Have. They are on the list of Things That Should Never Be Mentioned To Men Because They’re Icky Female Things.
I wonder how much Joyce’s family actually knows about what went down? Considering how fully many of them appear to have bought into the idea of culture wars and the World of Wordly Things is Wicked ideology, even if they were to encounter a story in the media about what went down at Joyce’s school-stalking, assault, battery, at least one possible count of attempted murder, potential counts of whatever it is for acting an idiot on the road, kidnapping…well, anyway, a long list of stuff…if Joyce’s family actually encountered such a story, how much would they credit as it would be from The World and The Liberal Media?
their behavior is possibly a range of things. If they know about all of that but give it some sort of limited pass because ToeDad Loves His Family and Protects Against the Gay…eh, that’s pretty contemptible. And even though it hurts, if they persisted in thinking and behaving that way, the sooner Joyce cuts ties the better. She was already on the fence about liking The World better than God’s Plan *before* her old team rallied behind an attempted murderer.
What seems more likely to me is that they don’t know many or perhaps even most of the details of what actually transpired. Which is still contemptible as it would require either conspiracy thinking or deliberate ignorance or both, but it lacks the intent and endorsement of the alternative.
I hope it’s that. Even if they can never come around to the idea that homosexuality might not be some cosmic sin, I hope they can at least come around to the idea that if ToeDad had all of what happened in him-if he would do and threaten to do violence to many people, and would even threaten some people with murder, over the idea of his daughter being gay…then yeah, regardless of whatever else one thinks about that, she needed to get out of there.
We’ll see. Joyce’s dad seems to be partway there already. Her mom and brother on the other hand, less so. And whatever else is going on with her sister in law. I suspect she might be a ToeDad spiritual companion.
John hasn’t brought it up yet. And I doubt she is.
Well, it was on the news so it’s not exactly something he should be reasonably UNAWARE of.
Idk, I’m agreeing with the idea that Christy might be almost Toedad level. The fact that their lives seem to be filled with missionary trips and the more we see of John’s personality, I think there might be something there. On the opposite hand, John just seems like he’s torn between caring and dealing with his values. So, I also think there’s a chance Christy is an influence (possibly one with brown skin) that is pulling him away from the Brown influence into more peaceful Christian views.
“I wonder how much Joyce’s family actually knows about what went down?”
Man attacked by incarnation of carnivorous dinosaur! Escapes with life!
john do you realize how fucking stupid you sound
Oh good we have a new candidate for Worst Brown.
I think his mom still has him beat. He’s at least less passive aggressive about it.
Idk, Carol is super hostile to Becky, and about Joyce behind closed doors (that conversation with Hank about taking her out of school), but she’s gushingly sweet to Joyce’s face.
Whereas John is being directly dismissive and minimizing and Superior and crap.
Two candidates in the running, get yer ballots ready!
She wasn’t very sweet at dinner.
I prefer John to Carol specifically because of that. John seems almost sincere, like he’s struggling to understand the situation when he’s being pulled between caring for his sister and what his core set of values say about what happened. Whereas Carol just seems incredibly insincere and fake. She uses her core values to justify her hate and punish those around her, but fakes being super sweet with Joyce to still put on the facade of being the ideal caring Christian mom…
I’ve got Carol pegged for a Downfall speech just before Joyce and Becky leave.
Try as she might to keep the peace, Jocelyne’s balance gets thrown off by Joyce 2.0
I think that’s more thrown off by John.
“I tried, but my first derail, derailed right back towards the exploding cliff. What can I do that won’t just make it worse? I’ve got nothing. Got to say something. Babble about the menu.”
Do you hear that ticking sound, John? Did you notice it’s getting faster? That’s your sister going critical mass. Detonation is going to be glorious.
But is Joyce in compliance with the Mad Bomber Uniform Wiring Code?
Probably not, she hasn’t had time to read the documentation. The best thing to do is watch the water glasses for Cherenkov radiation. Of course, when you see the blue glow, it’s too late.
This just gets better and better, I’ve seldom seen someone make such great points without losing grasp of the characters and narrative.
yep. jocelyn is now my favorite.
as an Australian, I have the privilege of not needing a social security number, but cant you make an enquire to find out what your SS number?
Don’t you have there something called Tax File Number, if I remember correctly, which acts as an identifier?
Yes but we don’t need it just to apply for a job, TFN only apply to tax.
Here in the USA jobs need it to prove citizenship and most jobs also take out your paycheck taxes and pay them on your behalf to the government using the number.
Plasma, technically you don’t need an SSN because you don’t work here in the States, not because you’re Ausrtalian — Aussie expats working here do need SSN.
Becky has several options Plasma:
Write to her states Dept. of Statistics and get a stamped copy of her birth certificate. About $12 and 2 to 3 weeks to get it.
Take the certificate to the SS Office and get a copy of her SS card. I think it cost me $6 but can’t remember.
Or she could contact the old college and request transcripts of her records, which very likely have her ssn included.
She is in her rights to do all of this without parential consent.
All of this info. is on the internet also, with clear instructions. And most colleges have student ID no’s, allowing access to their student information.
I just did the bc and ss card myself.
Becky was a first semester college student at a private religious institution and was kicked out after a month. She was previously homeschooled. It’s completely plausible that her parents and the government employees who issued the card are the only people who have ever seen her SSN.
Her university can, and likely would be, huge dicks to her about getting any of her information. Assuming she even still has her ID card and they didn’t confiscate it or that it wasn’t lost when she fled her father when he came to taker her away.
Furthmore, in Indiana, you are required to have a photo ID to get a birth certificate. If it’s a school ID, you must be currently enrolled in the institution. Becky is not.
Unless I’m reading their information page wrong.
From what I can tell of this: http://www.in.gov/isdh/files/Id_requirements.pdf
Becky’s only option for getting her birth certificate would be to get a social agency or an attorney representing her to request it on her behalf.
Honestly, the school ID would probably work. It’s for the current semester and I doubt they actually check with the school.
Assuming, as you say, that she still has it.
Checking the house is still probably the quickest option, if not actually locked down by the police.
Problem: to get a birth certificate, you generally need either a driver’s license/passport/equivalent, or your social security card and something like a voter reg card, vehicle registration, previous year’s tax return…
It is actually a massive pain in the ass to get your birth certificate if you don’t already HAVE all your IDs already. If you live someplace where all you need to do is write to some department and wait, you’re in the minority. (And also, not in Indiana. Here: http://www.in.gov/isdh/files/Id_requirements.pdf )
No wonder false identification is big business over in The United States.
It took me two tries to get a certified copy of my birth certificate (because a photocopy wasn’t good enough — not a Xerox (you kids get offa my lawn!)) in order to get a state ID. Something something bureaucratic something. And I already knew my SSN.
I assumed Becky was just joking yesterday, but assuming she’s not…
1.You should just memorize your social security by the time you’re 18. I won’t make too big of a fuss. Just because MY mom made me do that doesn’t mean it’s a huge focus for others.
2.Does Becky not have a bank account? I mean she’s sheltered sure, but assuming she does have an account, she could probably get her SS from there.
3. She could always go down to the Social security office and see if they could help her. I may be assuming too much
4. She could ask police or someone else to acquire some sort of key or way to trespass into her house, look through her files, and find her social security. she may not live there anymore but I’m sure he can probably still go in there and look for her documents.
5. And I’m still under the impression it’s a joke that everyone is taking seriously for some reason, I’m pretty sure using someone else’s social security is a felony. A quick google search yeilds iffy results but I’m pretty sure it’d result in at least a hefty fine and some jail time.
But even if it doesn’t, It’s a poor idea to use someone else’s soc, in case an employer tries to cross reference you.
yeah, there are still ways for becky to get her SSN. she definitely doesnt know them though, so hopefully a character that does will show up soon
Which is so odd considering these are all college students…who don’t know how to google social security number?
Or call her old college to get her transcripts which will have her SSN.
Wait, you can google a social security number? That seems wildly unsafe given how a social security number is a major component of identity fraud.
I think/hope unique meant Google ways to learn/acquire your SSN.
I know what Unique means. But they are being horribly patronizing, and so I think Cerberus is engaging in snark.
I really do hope my previous question sheds some light on UA, as they are coming across a whole lot like John.
I think Unique means that if Becky googles “Social Security Number” the internet will tell her what she needs to do to get a new card.
Anderson doesn’t require the SSN to apply, and even if it did, the number on the transcript would most likely be the student ID number, not the SSN.
Not all public or state colleges even require a SSN in their applications these days, so even if Anderson WASN’T a private religious school, they still might not have her SSN. My old school only requires it if you’re applying for financial aid or employment with the school itself.
Yeah, it’s crazy illegal to do that. But, since she’s not finished her applications, it’s safe to assume that she knows she needs it, but has no idea what it is or how to get it, hence the joke.
I’m unsure how you recover your SSN, since no one at a government building would give them out easy because it’s very easy to steal someone’s identity with that. You’d probably need official documentation confirming your identity, which would also be in her house, sooooooooo.
It’s also probably safe to assume that if her dad didn’t get her an account if he didn’t push for her to know her SSN. Plus, if she did, she would’ve done the smart thing and withdrawn all of her money after being kicked out, so her dad couldn’t freeze her assets. She didn’t, and we met back up with her when she had like, $2 and no school. Safe to say she’s gonna have a hard time getting that number.
1.) Becky having her SSN gives her a shred of agency, which I doubt Ross would allow.
2.) No, probably not. Again, Ross doesn’t strike me as the type to let her work outside the home.
5.) I’m hoping it was a deadpan joke, but in this case I think John’s just taking any reason to snipe at her since she’s a Bad Sinful Gay.
It’s either a joke or it was held from her to the point that she didn’t really know what it was or think about it until it was on application forms (also that’s so weird to me, we don’t have that here) and doesn’t know how they work (she’s borrowing phone numbers and addresses already anyway, if she doesn’t understand that could just seem like the next step).
This. Yeah, Toedad was very unlikely to teach her her SS card number seeing as how he never expected her to work as her role was to remain pure, unsullied, marry young, and educate her future kids. No need for an SS number for any of that.
And it’s pretty clear so far that Becky does not have a bank account of any form as that would be a sign of autonomy and being a full person instead of a meat puppet for her dad.
And yeah, it’s clearly a joke. Like, Becky doesn’t have it in her to commit identity theft and John’s just taking the opportunity to jump on her because “gay=evil-doer”.
Also 3) apparently it’s not as difficult as I first feared, but she’s still going to need to look up how to do the things she needs and find or replace all the documents she needs with nearly nothing to prove she’s who she says she is.
Government agencies tend to be overworked so even if they wanted to help they wouldn’t be able to spare the time to walk her through everything.
And aid organization like say the LGBT center of a major liberal style city or a survivor’s organization like Truth Wins Out might be able to help her, but again, that’s going to require learning some google to even learn that’s an option, seeing as how she has literally no connection to any queer community and the Questioning Resources Joyce picked up are probably centered towards non-homeless youth and basic definition stuff.
And for 4) cops in this city will not be helpful like the sympathetic cops back in Bloomington. She’s a shit stirrer and a “bad Christian” and in a small town like this, that’s basically putting a target on your back for police harassment.
I’m hoping that Jocelyne can help her find a LGBT organization to help once John’s in the bathroom or something.
Is La Porte heavily fundie? Given that Hank, at least, knows Toe-Dad is an asshat, some of the other locals might be willing to give Becky a break.
According to Willis outside of the comic and Becky inside of it, La Porte is super white and fundie and small town, so help from locals seems unlikely (though Bloomington has seemed to be much more supportive for her).
But also agreeing on hoping Jocelyne can drop some resources based on a more “what to do when you’re assuming you’ll be disowned any second now because you don’t believe you can keep your mouth shut for much more” perspective.
Jocelyne: Becky, here’s a big list of advice and resources and contacts and groups and people who can help out homeless LGBT teens.
Joyce:
John: Josh, why do you have all that?
Jocelyne: Because I did the research, duh.
Alternatively…
Jocelyne: … because… reasons.
Joyce: …
John: …
Jocelyne: *sweat drop* (about to say something)
John: You need to toughen up, bro, instead of crying over every hopeless cause.
Jocelyne: Ah ha ha, yup, that’s me, just too full of empathy for my own good. (sends secret queer hand signal to Becky)
Probably more likely.
I just liked the idea of her having the response all planned out.
Becky was probably joking, albeit there was a subtext of truth – I need my SSN and have no idea how to get it. Help!
(And if she wasn’t joking, I doubt she knows it’s a crime.)
But I think that’s the point. Becky was joking, but John got super defensive and confrontational about it. Because he’s a jerk.
Your first paragraph is how I feel and felt about it, and I’m still hoping it’ll lead in to Jocelyn helping her (though possibly not in person, and almost definitely not in front of John)
Yup, Becky’s face last comic betrays how scared she is. And it’s more than we think because Becky’s scared face is to go completely poker face. To show genuine fear like she did, she must be in full meltdown “oh god, what do I even do, I’m running out of options” mode like she was when Toedad showed up on campus.
Speaking from experience: Physically abused kids tend to get really good at hiding fear. Cuz an abusive parent feeds of your fear and uses it to fuel their anger – hence you get the “Stop crying or I’ll give you a reason to cry!” Or “quit flinching! It’s not like I abuse you – your grandfather used to hit me with a belt! That’s abuse! Have I ever hit you with a belt?!” or “Ooooh, here we go with the water works again! Do you think you’re going to get anything out of that? You’re not.” or I could go on.
Emoting the fear you’re feeling = pisses off the abuser because they feel guilty for making their child fear them and they think you’re manipulatively guilt-tripping them. Smiling and getting too conciliatory = pisses off the abuser because they think you’re not taking their threat seriously (for a long time, because I’m autistic and emote atypically, I would smile when terrified and that never went over well). Poker face is generally safe – neutral expression makes them think you’re paying attention but doesn’t make them feel guilty or belittled.
Even now, a decade after I left home, if I hear someone with a voice similar to either of my parents raise their voice in anger, I freeze and my face goes poker-face. It’s a survival mechanism.
*hugs* And yeah, that makes a lot of sense.
You specified “physically”; you didn’t need to.
This is true. Speaking from my experience – others’ may vary and didn’t intend to be all hierarchy of abuse* about stuff even though I suspect that’s how it came off.
*By which I mean that thing where people tend to assume that physical abuse is the worst of the worst – even though for me personally gaslighting and emotional abuse screwed with my head in worse and more lasting ways.
Yup, the “you are the real abuser here because you are manipulatively guilt-tripping me” thing is especially amazing as a contortion of logic.
Sorry, just… going over some personal memories here.
Someone could volunteer to help Becky get her SSN.
I’m pretty sure Becky was joking, too, which makes John’s reaction that much more ‘too far’.
I have a strong feeling she doesn’t have a bank account, as she didn’t even have a phone because ‘too much freedom’ so Toedad said no.
Plus, she wouldn’t likely be able to do much with a bank account if she also doesn’t have an ID (I’m assuming that’s what they meant by her not having a license, as you CAN get a state ID even if you haven’t passed a driving test, and it works basically the same minus driving).
Even if she did have an ID and a bank account, I’m pretty sure it would be illegal (or at least against company policy) for the bank to tell her what her SSN is, as that would be a really easy way for someone to steal a person’s identity (“See, I have an ID and the account number, so just give me the last important thing for ruining somebody’s life, please?”) My bank has even started blanking out the account number on receipts they hand to you after giving them an ID AND THE ACCOUNT NUMBER, likely to reduce that kind of thing (also, over the past few years, they’ve become much more likely to ask for your ID).
The SSN office is likely where she’ll have to go, but others with more experience dealing with them have pointed out how difficult that can be, especially if she doesn’t have any other way to identify herself, which she doesn’t seem to. Even the police probably have their hands-tied as far as letting her go into her house, and who knows if/where Toedad kept that kinda info.
At least, you can get a state ID in places I’ve lived, maybe not in Indiana.
(That will probably have to be one of the other steps Becky will have to deal with, so yay waiting around in the DMV and not even getting to drive because of it).
I’ve had my own bank account since I went to college. (My parents were told it was a good idea, even though I didn’t work–I was on scholarship.) I’m pretty sure they would not give my me social security number. I don’t know any place that doesn’t just show you the last four digits.
And, yeah, Becky is joking, but she genuinely doesn’t have her SSN–if she even has one. And the stuff you are saying is exactly what she needs someone to tell her. I don’t know why UniqueAntique thinks that it would be normal for someone like Becky to figure it all out on her own.
Change “have her SSN” to “know her SSN.”
I wish we had real accounts and editting.
Also…
Joyce: ‘Of course I’m angry, you’re being a dick!’
John: ‘LANGUAGE! Now I see why Mom fears for your soul.’
Joyce: ‘God doesn’t give a damn about swearing, John, he cares about being a dick. Read your damn Bible!’
Jocelyne: ‘You probably shouldn’t damn the Bible, Joyce.’
Joyce: ‘You’re right, Joshua…that was too far.’
Jocelyne: ‘It’s Jocelyne, please.’
Joyce: ‘… Huh?’
Jocelyne: ‘I’m a trans woman.’
John: *head explodes*
Joyce: *head explodes*
Becky: ‘IS THAT EVEN A THING?!?’
🙂
BECKY: “WOW! DID I TELL YOU THAT I’M A LESBIAN?”
*all the applause*
+1+1+1+1
And there was much rejoicing
The question is, is that Becky just being Becky, or is she hitting on Jocelyne?
I could also picture Jocelyne telling them that’s she’s a woman, and Joyce going: “I swear and ride motorcycles now, Becky’s a lesbian, and Josh has apparently always been Jocelyne, and we never knew it. So what are you hiding from us, Jonathan?”
“Christi hits me.”
Joyce: Is becoming more and more extreme in every comic, to the point where I can actually see her kicking an ass belonging to some of the physically tougher DoA crew (including John, who looks like he’s 30 years old and weighs like 60 pounds more than her). Characterization marches on, and I love it.
John: Finally acknowledges Becky, which many commenters noticed not happening in the first strips of their meeting. Unfortunately, he finds actually takes issue with the SSN comment, which many of the same commenters cited to be a dumb thing to complain about. At least he’s as ignorant as he is spineless; this way Joyce can practice against someone more soft-spoken for the verbal heavyweight championship match with her mom.
Becky: Never learned her SSN because her mom passed and her dad dropped all the balls, so no one pushed her into memorizing it back when she didn’t need it. Sad. Unknown if she will be able to compete at the family dinner square-off.
Jocelyn: Continues on as both one of the purest, funniest, and most socially-aware characters in the strip. Is ready to be Joyce’s tag-team partner when the time comes.
Her strength is as the strength of ten because her heart is pure?
Jocelyn? Yes. She is a warrior of fortune, coming only when needed.
If Yotomoe’s around, something of Joyce as a Paladin would be great.
Dunno if Smite Evil would work on John, but it sure did a number on Ross.
She’s a homebrewed class now. The spell name is ‘smite bigot.’
Paladins get their strength from God, but Joyce is becoming more and more jaded with what it means to follow him, and is fighting other paladins. I think a reclass is in order. Maybe Berserker
Paladins get their strength from “a god.” And none of them are homophobic.
Hmm, that’s true. Still, I don’t really see her fighting strength coming from any god, or God. She fights for her friends!
Some priests and paladins do not draw strength from a deity, but from a greater cause or idea. Secular priests! That’s a thing (in DnD)
Oh true! In that case paladin is back on the table (and those classes got a lot cooler).
I suspect Ross didn’t drop that ball so much as hoarded it jealously.
Fair point. I guess that’s the difference between making mistakes and actively making things worse.
I think John was looking for a reason to be angry and condescending to Becky. I think he’s utterly confused, however, how Joyce is not only not on his side but actively on Becky’s in a way which may permanently tar their relationship. My mom had the same stunned look when I yelled at her for the first time when she tried to turn me against my fiance (now wife).
Jo[y]celyn[e]’s real problem is all those unstable vowels in her name.
Aaaannndddd it’s official. John’s an asshole.
I take John’s attack (and first acknowledgement) on Becky as a HUGE dump of sideways anger. He is seething that his sisters are welcoming Becky. His rage is also laced with privilege, misogyny, and blaming the victim. He reminds me of some right wing troglodyte posting that abused children should go out and get their own places to live. I dislike John as much as I loathe Joyce’s mother.
Alllllll of this. I literally can’t agree with it any more.
Well, we’re off! Everyone safety-belted in?
Also, we were just talking about “how can Becky not know her SSN?” yesterday. I know how far in advance these things are written/drawn, so it’s funny how well that question/objection was anticipated. Good one!
This is not the first time past Willis predicted and pre-answered our questions in comic. All I can figure is that Willis is a terrifying time wizard with the power to read future minds.
The more boring but somewhat humbling answer is that we’re just that predictable.
He draws comics for a living. If he has that power, he’s not using it to it’s fullest effect.
Sometimes, great power comes with great limitations.
Peter Parker only realized the part of that story that applied to him.
Angry.
Angry.
WELL NO SHIT SHERLOCK. Gotta appreciate the irony of John not stopping to think before telling Becky she should have stopped to think.
Well, I guess we now know which parent John takes after.
Also, I really feel bad for Joss in these past few strips. I can’t imagine how badly it must hurt to constantly be referred to as a “brother”.
I’m not sure which possibility is worse – that she’s so used to it it doesn’t bother her, or that it stings every time.
Based on the subtle depictions of her face in the past few strips, I’d say it’s a little of both. I think she’s used to hearing it and she tries to not let it bother her, but the stinging sensation still manages to slip through.
I feel so much for both Becky & Jocelyne in these strips, mostly due to being LGBT+ myself living in an area of the US that isn’t the most welcoming or understanding.
I love new “new” Joyce! Totally trying to be respectful but also not putting up with any of that weird judgmental crap that she internalized for so long. Christians sometimes talk about righteous anger and this is it in its purest form!
Well, at least John caught himself before he had to swallow his foot. Shame he had to follow that up with accusing Joyce of sounding too darn angry. I am getting a little “this is my baby sister, why’s she acting like this?” vibe from John, but not nearly enough to justify the shitstorm this could become. Haven’t seen nearly enough of the guy to dislike him as much as some here do, but he’s on thin ice.
Now I wonder if Joss came along as much to defray potential disaster as to catch up with Joyce and Becky…
SHE SHOULD BE ANGRY.
Fucking SERIOUSLY. If I were interacting with someone THAT tone deaf, I would rock their fucking world with some harsh truths.
Go all Mike on him?
Damn it, John, I had such high hopes for you.
Actually, I didn’t, because “have empathy” really isn’t setting the bar that high.
I used to think that. Empathy should be universal, right? Especially with how global communication and media are now, getting enough perspective to “walk a mile” should be easy. But if the way I see retail workers, minorities, or hell, even women talked to is any indication, people are more hive-minded than ever. John’s treating his sister and Becky like work. He’s a missionary, saving poor, ignorant souls. (And even if it’s not a direct re action to Becky’s sexuality, the tone is offensive. As the kid of a kindergarten teacher, Teacher Mode is the worst.)
Put the sum total of recorded human knowledge into the pocket of every human alive and what do they do with it? They don’t educate themselves, no. They just form tribes like they always do.
I cope with this by imagining empathetic people as complex intelligent life forces who for some cruel reason are stuck in meat-suits. It’s not airtight I grant you, but it makes me feel less upset about it all.
I’ve been meaning to say, I think both that Jocelyn must have a safe get out plan set up or in the works, and must be feeling out exactly how set Becky is. I thought the specific terminology that she asked if Becky had a ‘safe’ place to live rather than the casual ‘you got a job, found a place?’
I had more supporting thoughts but I just got sleepy. Basically, just the whole tone of her talking to and assessing Becky. She might also be using her to judge what things she (Joc) may have missed in getting prepared.
Yeah, she’s definitely thought that through. And probably knows others in similar situations.
“safe place” is something of a key word that most people wouldn’t think of
and that those who’ve dealt with similar issues would get.
I hope, for Jocelyne, it’s something of a past issue. She’s living on her own and not reliant on her parents. Still not out, but she wouldn’t be on the street if she did come out – just estranged from her family.
has anyone else ever wondered what Carla’s original name was? Obviously her parents didn’t name her Carla, unless they’re physic, and it was changed when she realized she was transgender. I’m putting my money on Carl.
some might say this has noting to do with the current strip, well to them I say…runs off into the distance.
It was Sue.
So they were big into Country?
Also, it took a second for me to get the joke.
physic, like… physical? just kidding, I know you meant psychic. ~<3
Well, physic is an antique word for medicine AND the name of a character in The Princess Bride, so perhaps Some 1 did intend “physic”?
Um, the Princess Bride character is Fezzik, not physic.
True, but I never read the book and when I saw the movie I heard Physik, which I thought was an odd name, but I liked it, so it stuck and …. what’s that look for?
Oh, you should read the book, too. It’s great!
By any chance, do you have trouble hearing the difference between “pen” and “pin”?
You mean like in “straight pen” and “ink pin”? What difference? 😉
Many trans people don’t like having their dead name being close to their real name, so they choose something totally different. Having flexible names that can be changed by one or two letters is something writers do because it seems more transformative, but many trans people think that having the names be that close somewhat trivializes the process of choosing a new name.
(Note, I’m not trans, this is just something I’ve observed. I’m sure some trans people do go about only changing their name slightly, especially if they have a really neutral name like Alex or Sam. I certainly dont speak for any trans people, let alone all of them, but I have seen people expressing this opinion. Feel free to correct me if I’m wrong or off-base!)
That’s interesting. Will more people be assigned gender-neutral birth names when our society becomes less steeped in its current, prescriptive, fearful binary culture? IDIC
Unknown, but probably not any time soon, since names like John are still crazy-popular and it’s from the Bible. Naming conventions are really important to some people, so they’re not going to go away very quickly.
But again, I’m not trans so I don’t really know if that would be a full-on solution for people looking to reshape their identity to better match who they actually are. I’m sure it’s more on an individual-basis. Maybe some people would want to keep their old, applicable names if they had good experiences before they came out. Maybe some people would make the change regardless on previous experience, because the act of leaving behind your old name with your previously-assigned gender feels liberating. I have no idea!
My original comment came about because I saw a thread of people complaining about cis author’s convention of giving trans characters transformative names, citing that it didn’t work that way. But, everyone is different, so I really can’t say. Which is why I left myself open for correction, in case anyone who’s experienced this more closely will know what’s up.
(Also, as an aside, I’m pretty sure asking what people’s dead name was is a quick way to make them upset or angry. It’s rude, if I’m not mistaken.)
Honestly trying to weigh whether or not to take a transformative name myself.
It would help if I had any idea at all whether the people I love would treat it with respect or not. I wish I had a better basis for understanding how they’d see it, but I don’t. Not at all.
If our society loses its binary perspective, why would we assign names as belonging to one sex/gender or the other?
If we can have a boy named Sue, why can’t we have a girl named John?
I would love to see our culture drop its fierce gendering and allow enough acceptance to support boys named Sue and girls named John. Perhaps when that happens we’ll see less trans folk feeling it is necessary and critical to change their names to be seen.
We may see that day as a species, but I have a feeling none of us talking here will live to see that day personally.
Sooner than you’d imagine, I think.
Trans rights and gender politics in general have been struggled with for literally hundreds of years.
It would be wonderful if gender lost its meaning soon, and everyone could be themselves without worrying about names or bodies. But I wouldn’t count on it.
That they have. But technology has been a great facilitator of interaction, conversation, and exposure. As it improves and becomes more common, enclaves and isolation of people into cultural pockets is going to gradually become less and less possible, as it already has.
In less than two decades, the United States has gone from imprisoning people for being gay to >50% of Americans approving of gay marriage and it being enshrined in law. Now that is hardly an issue that is “over” by any means, but the blunt truth is that gay marriage was still being treated as a joke in the 90s and now it’s a fact of life. Compare that to the rate of change in acceptance of other social changes.
I don’t really believe society is ever – or will ever be – free from prejudice. I think humans are, by their very nature, tribal beings that will denigrate, mistrust, and hate those who are different from themselves to whatever degree they find profitable. But I do think we can see shifts in prevailing attitudes and those shifts are occurring faster and faster.
The issue right now is that there are people who see the trans thing as setting back gender relations. Gender is socially defined, they say, so how can someone feel like they are a different gender than what people tell them they are?
Trans people actually put a spanner in the concept of gender studies. And this wasn’t really that long ago.
cue list of reasons why I hate performativity and the way it gets used for cis people to have fun with drag, but trans people to get called fakey fake.
And well. The /word/ transgender is ’90s, and the intro of transness into the Field Of Gender Studies is recent, but so is, y’know, the Field of gender studies. And trans people ourselves go alllllll the way back to the beginning of time (with various words in various cultures).
Also the sooner we drop the notion that because something is a social construct (like money??), someone reacting to that in a non-normative way is like, internalized oppression-ing themself (like calling for socialism???)…the frickin’ better.
yah this. My name is semi-transformative, but I kinda regret that because it was in part to “make it easier” for my parents aaaaaand it mostly gave them a foothold to keep being transphobic.
I do know about an even mix of related- and unrelated-to-deadname folks, but the MAIN point is, it’s really lazy and kinda gross when cis writers give everyone related names, as if that’s the only way to do it. It also has this feel of ~wordplay~ and ~figure out the oldname~ that really trivializes the harm and violence of deadnaming. And y’know, how many trans folks who have been murdered get news articles refusing to use their true names, and tombstones with deadnames, and we can’t have a proper estimate of our trans dead because they’re so rarely reported as actually trans…and on and on.
So yeah this line of theorizing is very >_>;;;;;;
Thanks for sharing your thoughts. I know this is a difficult topic, which is why I tried to remain neutral and careful, but it’s great of you to share your experience and insight on the topic. I’m sorry if this thread on dead names was hard to read.
Sadly all of that second paragraph.
Also, yeah, I made the same mistake at first, picking a feminization of my given name as a peace offering to my parents to “make it easier” on them. And it similarly just gave them an excuse to keep being transphobic and awful as well as make it really easy for randos to “fix” my name back to “what they thought it should be”.
Glad I figured out what a disaster that was and was able to change my name to something that actually felt right long before I started messing around with legal paperwork.
And I’m glad that you ‘caught a break’ on that one: congrats on finding a name that’s right for YOU (high five?)!
(I am gathering/thinking that this — legally sheding an assigned/dead name and christening (?) yourself with a right name that you chose is a pretty big transitioning step.)
i thought carlas last name would be “ultra” or something similar, so maybe her old name was something like that instead
Personally, I dislike speculating on trans people’s dead names as they are dead for a reason.
But to answer your question. I’m going to guess it’s nothing like Carla as Carla seems to have chosen her name to match a fictional character that resonated very strongly with her (Ultra Car), which is something I did and my chosen name is thus very far from the name that was given to me at birth.
I should have just waited and upvoted you.
I feel the need to point out that if Carla were not but a character, this would be incredibly inappropriate an not your business. It is still, but Carla didn’t hear you and we may someday learn via flashbacks, so I’ll give you it.
On names discussion, mine (birth and in current use) is unusual enough that I would keep it without thought if it weren’t for a well known celebrity of the same name. Lots of names are unisex now. I want to keep my initials and perhaps a similar definition, but it’s hard because I don’t want a transformative name nor one any weirder than current, and that’s a lot to ask with my other parameters. Just to give some insight on the thought process that I have.
(NB ‘Marie’ is a middle name I use online, it is unrelated to all this)
Say, what was your name in the states?
I think I know what I really wish Joyce would say right now. “He pointed. A gun. At. My. FACE!”
Especially considering John probably got Carol’s version of events.
IT’S ALMOST LIKE SAYING STUPID, IGNORANT SHIT INCITES NEGATIVE EMOTION!!!
WHO’DA THUNK IT?!?!
hmm, do I like this new Joyce? yes, yes I do. ~<3
Comic Reactions:
And John sees your “well, actually” and raises it a mansplaining, a victim blaming, AND a tone trolling. Well, John, way to be every insufferable douchebag trope all in one smug five o’clock shadow package. Fuck, it’s the “nice” version of conversations with my family, complete with the “well, you really should have thought about the consequences your humanity would bring down upon you before you started to exist” dipshittery.
FUDGE YOU, JOHN!
And now the panels:
Panel 1: … jumping on Becky for a joke in a disproportionate way, blaming her later for things not her fault… dear Bob, John is one of those readers who used to blame Becky for “wasting” her money on $20 haircuts or for being too out and thus “putting Joyce at risk”.
Also, yeah, on Becky’s response. She was deliberately blocked off from all that information because she was never expected to have any control over her life, allowed any personal choices, or work a day in her life. Her role was to do what her father told her, marry a “good” man he approved of, and then serve as his house and sex slave raising his kids and educating them for free. And so now she’s starting with almost no clue on how to adult and not even the internet savviness to know where to look for the resources she needs.
I really hope Jocelyne can help her out.
Panel 2: … well, that’s just awkward with yesterday’s conversations… but point stands that “somewhere” is a very large place. Also, fuck you John, you react like a viper to a joke comment and this is your first interactions with her and now you dismiss her very good point with some soft-serve “pfft, fuck your problems” shit? Wow, what a dick.
Panel 3: Oh, man, Attack Joyce is fierce.
Also, shit, yeah, her house would be locked up, wouldn’t it? Like, even if it’s not being torn apart by the cops, it’s also probably literally locked up as in Toedad probably locked the house up and he probably never bothered giving her keys to it as he assumed he’d be the one to let her in and out… which means if she’s raiding Toedad Manor, she’s literally breaking in… to a place under police supervision… with a likely paranoid Neighborhood Watch around.
She’s even more fucked than I thought on that score and literally does have no choice but replacing the documents from scratch with whatever pieces she can cobble together and hope her parents aren’t the type of paranoids to never file anything with the government.
Panel 4: There are not enough “fuck you”s for that shit. Like, what a steaming pile of victim blaming tripe. Oh, maybe you should have thought about how your life could have been ruined out of the blue and planned all of your acquiring of critical documents from your abusive parents before hand. Like, fuck, she got caught making out with a roommate and you want to blame her for that simply because you’re a complete douche?
Panel 5: Um… hey, everyone, not taking anymore bets on that whole John getting punched first thing anymore, cause the odds are quickly approaching 100%. Cause Joyce is quickly becoming done with this shit.
Panel 6: Christ, what an asshole.
Oh, is your fragile masculinity hurt because your little sister called you out on your shit, so now you need to fucking play the tone police? After you already steered the conversation back to the hobby horse you clearly wanted to beat before Jocelyne steered you away from this train wreck?
Also, ugh, so fucking annoying how predictable he’s being with that. Like, women of course are never allowed to be angry about things, so once he pisses off his sister whose best friend was kidnapped and who had a fucking gun pointed at her head, he retreats to “gosh, listen to yourself, so angry” as if that dismisses all the bear-baiting he was just doing.
What. A. Shit.
Panel 7: Oh man, Jocelyne must be getting close to breaking. It’s clear from her secret high five that this stuff impacted her very personally and the victim-blaming for negative consequences of homophobia has got to have her flashing forward to a future coming out or someone letting slip something on facebook or whatever and freaking out a bit with the knowledge that her brother would make the exact same arguments to her.
And she went to the effort of clearing out a nice safe landing zone only to have him plow into the ditch full of twisted metal and old still armed sea mines and then start wandering around banging on things. She’s got to know she’s close to breaking and “saying something she can’t take back” and probably feels its her job to “keep the peace” and so is throwing one last desperate distraction and hiding behind her menu so the shrapnel doesn’t hit her in the face.
And that sucks. A lot.
Also, FUDGE YOU JOHN!
Becky has several options:
Write to her states Dept. of Statistics and get a stamped copy of her birth certificate. About $12 and 2 to 3 weeks to get it.
Take the certificate to the SS Office and get a copy of her SS card. I think it cost me $6 but can’t remember.
Or she could contact the old college and request transcripts of her records, which very likely have her ssn included.
She is in her rights to do all of this without parential consent.
All of this info. is on the internet also, with clear instructions. And most colleges have student ID no’s, allowing access to their student information.
I just did the bc and ss card myself.
Perhaps, but John ‘Around Somewhere’ Brown clearly doesn’t know that. He’s reacting strongly to a joke as though it was sincere and doubling down not on not knowing ‘what to do next’ but ‘should have thought that through, before . . .’
Joyce is mad because he clearly hasn’t given this thought and is treating Becky’s very real problems, with answers that put her in precarious position, flippantly. And then, Joyce is more angry because his last sentence implies not that she’s not following the right steps, but that all of this was avoidable, if she had just not . . . What? Been gay, maybe?
Um… not sure what part of this prompted that response.
Would you mind terribly clarifying? It’s okay if not, I’m just a little confused.
Since you copy/pasted your answer(to an unrelated comment for some reason) I decided to do it as well.
Becky was a first semester college student at a private religious institution and was kicked out after a month. She was previously homeschooled. It’s completely plausible that her parents and the government employees who issued the card are the only people who have ever seen her SSN.
Her university can, and likely would be, huge dicks to her about getting any of her information. Assuming she even still has her ID card and they didn’t confiscate it or that it wasn’t lost when she fled her father when he came to taker her away.
Furthmore, in Indiana, you are required to have a photo ID to get a birth certificate. If it’s a school ID, you must be currently enrolled in the institution. Becky is not.
Unless I’m reading their information page wrong.
From what I can tell of this: http://www.in.gov/isdh/files/Id_requirements.pdf
Becky’s only option for getting her birth certificate would be to get a social agency or an attorney representing her to request it on her behalf.
Depending on where she was born, you might need proof of ID for your birth certificate.
Where I was born, I need my mother’s place of birth, her date of birth, her full legal unmarried name, my father’s full legal name, his date of birth, his place of birth, and photo ID.
Without those, I would be unable to get my birth certificate without going there in person with a lawyer and swearing a deposition (which requires $200 for lawyer fees and travel to the city of my birth, which is about $600 round-trip). If her state Department has similar requirements, it’s entirely possible she doesn’t know some or all of the info she would need, or that the costs would be beyond her ability to pay.
Yikes, I don’t know all of those things.
I have a card-sized birth certificate I carry in my wallet, but that one’s already been damaged once when I fell into water.
I really should get the original full-size one when my mother isn’t around. She keeps it in a box under her bed… I think.
(I’m 29.)
i think this an excellent reading except for 6.
I dont see this as tone-policing ( but it also is ), as much as self-preservation showing up and saying “hi” .
When a person doesnt understand what they are saying is wrong, they may be able to understand when they made someone angry, and were threatened. It may not be his masculinity thats is fragile, as is his face.
Despite the fact that his go-to defense mechanism is dismissiveness, he’s right, Joyce is angry. His deflection is infuriating , Ill give you that, but its also the only emotional intelligent thing he said.
I see this as less Fragile masculinity as total cluelessness. Talking about why Joyce is so angry at him right now, might be the only thing that keeps him from getting a punch in the face— a thing he only might have just learned his baby sister is fully capable of pulling off.
Your description of his character may be accurate. Short of an instant apology — which I think we both agree he isnt capable of. That might even seem foreign to him, since just a moment ago he went from telling someone not to commit a crime , to defusing his sister from beating him up.
His cluelessness, dismissiveness , prevents him seeing how he escalated it —
we agree there —short of an instant apology , this might have been the only thing he was capable of perceiving/ saying to prevent table flipping.
It doesnt make him less of an asshole.
Oh boy, this is going to be a fun table when the parents show up.
Im not dismissing your anger, but you might want to pace…..I think this is foreshadowing. i predict things will get far worse.
You are right about over the repeated attempt to victim-blame. He was probably informed of events by his mother. He cant help himself and wants to fully lay his ignorance out , making Becky responsible for events.
I am all but certain this conversation is far from finished. My spider-sense is reminding me of the scene where Billy Barfs in the hate-chicken cafeteria, over rejection by her former lover. Jocelyn’s save isnt going to last.
Im half predicting an unexpected character to show up, if this is a rhyming scene. Otherwise there will be a 3rd conversation where john just out and blames Becky. and the only thing that will defuse his ass-kicking is Jocelyn coming out of the closet, right at that moment.
what do you think?
Well, I agree with Cerberus in the sense that it is tone policing. John isn’t being emotionally intelligent when he says “do you know how angry you sound?” That’s him trying to make her anger feel irrational, or unjustified. Whether he actually does find her anger to be overblown, or just wants to shut her down is up to interpretation, but judging from the first strip where he also called punching Ross over the top, I’d lean towards the former.
A more emotionally in-tune response would sound like “why are you so angry” or better yet, “what am I saying that is making you feel this way.”
“Do you know how angry you sound” implies that he doesn’t understand her anger, nor does he want to, he just wants it to stop.
This.
Yeah, the self preservation instinct kicked in when it cut him off after “before”.
Then it relaxed, thinking it’s job was done and he spewed out the tone policing bit. Now it’s given up on him as a lost cause and gone off to corner to have a drink.
Joyce: “Yes. Yes, John. Yes, I do realize how angry I sound. And, fair warning, it isn’t a patch on how angry I feel, John. Just so you know. John.”
You are right. I was wrong. Cereberus was totally 100% right.
I was SOOO wrong in my reading > So very VERY wrong.
Fuck this asshole.
NO, self-preservation at all.
I read this as partial empathy or If not full emotional intelligence, Social Intelligence….reading social emotional cues and being cued into the tone . You sort of need to notice the tone to manage it. but NOPE!
But I was wrong. hes Disconnected, and a Condescending passive-aggressive judgmental weasel fuckface.
I thought he was at Half-Douchbag— but using that skillfully to pull things back from the brink. Nope.
( Nope, Nope , Nope Nope )
Instead hes a leaky Anal Douche shooting ass-juice on everyone else, and asking them why they smell.
Let the righteous beatings commence.
Not sure where you’re getting “when the parents show up” from, as this was stated to be a party of four.
I thought that wasnt set in stone/ definitive .
this didnt strike me as a reservations necessary restaurant.
I thought it was implied the parents were coming in the original invite
This is all wrong, ( about Panel 6 ) and I wish i could erase it.
I don’t get why you think Becky would have to break into her own house. Surely she can get inside with permission from the police? Crime scenes are not “untouchable” unless they’re a murder case and the house itself is not even the scene of the crime.
Because the small mostly fundie hometown police aren’t likely to be receptive to the pervert that got her father arrested? Even if she does have the legal right to get her stuff.
Honestly, I think it’s worth trying, especially if they could recruit Hank into coming along. His presence would likely shut down a lot of the resistance. Lending his privilege, if you like.
And I suspect he’d go along with it, if they asked away from Carol.
This.
Also, I’m assuming she doesn’t have a key to her own place and Toedad seems the paranoid suburban type to always lock his door.
I mean, having her own key would easily be seen as extraneous seeing as how she wasn’t really allowed an unsupervised life and wouldn’t be returning home except when Toedad picked her up and brought her home.
And I’m more assuming it’d be under more watch as a relevant scene to the crime as they would have wanted to make sure that no one else was in on the kidnapping scheme.
Also, small town cops are going to be very angry at the “pervert” who got “a good man” slapped in irons over “some bullshit”.
For me:
Panel 1: The joke went so fast over John’s head it parted his hair.
Panel 2: Incapable of believing that she doesn’t have access to the paper.
Panel 3: Getting owned so hard that…
Panel 4: He realized partway thru his fundie response that it may, in fact, not only be the wrong thing to say but be wrong…
Panel 5: With then Joyce letting him know that the original thought process will lead to a world of hurt.
Panel 6: Theoretical moment of growth causes mood backlash, and reverts to fundie response to calm.
Panel 7: Actually thought was Joyce until halfway thru the comments. Thought she was changing the subject as to not hit him, now see it was Jocelyne (or can we use Joss?) not only attempting to defuse the situation as she does best, but also give us today’s punchline.
Either that or
Panels 1,2,4,6: No Growth, Bad Person.
Panels 3,5: Old-Testament Rath.
Panel 7: Health Hazard Alert, cause Willis is looking out for us?
Maybe there’s an in between. But who must we sacrifice for it to be good?
Cerberus, You were totally right. I was wrong.
He’s actually being judgmental and passive-aggressive to her, just for having a feeling. Thats it. How Dare she have feelings.
( Man , I wonder says it about me that you lamented how predictable this type was , and I couldnt predict at all. I think it might be in my emotional blindspot.
like when you cant pattern-match a persons external motivation to something you might feel on your own , internally . )
Forget Fragile masculinity. Its full on Broken.
Johns the walking split-stream half-fused hole on a permanently limp dick.
This Patronizhole couldnt be any more condescending; not without going full Ground Zero Schmuckitude and telling Joyce ‘she’d be prettier if she’d smile’.
Sniveling Weasel.
Kinda surprised she can’t retrieve anything from her house, like said important documents
Probably doesn’t have a key. Although a sledgehammer makes for a lovely universal key.
There’s the window that’s never locked — you know, the one overlooking the tool shed? But that wouldn’t be Drama.
Imma wait for more from john- I’m interested in his marriage- but you aren’t holding up well here boy. ‘do you hear how angry you sound?’ oh honey it isn’t a patch on how angry she IS. maybe you’d better fucken listen to it. cracks in the ice. Drums in the deep
Oh I can’t wait for the Balrog of Joyce anger finally shows up.
This time I am sure as hell not rooting for gandalf.
I think in this case Gandalf would have no problem just stepping to the side.
“YOU SHALL NOT- Whoa! That is some victim-blaming bullshit right there. You go right ahead.”
So….. Jocelyne is Gandalf? Make sense.
John, remember that, in Joyce’s place, Jesus might throw tables around and make with the whipping. Now is not the time to talk about how angry she sounds, unless you are saying how appropriate that is.
Enter Jordan to change the subject. Please?
He’s not expected, at least. “Brown, table for four” said the waitress. Unless John reserved before talking with Joyce and didn’t correct the number of seats when he got there.
John: It was kinda dumb to hit Becky’s dad in the face.
Joycelyne: DON’T HIT HIM IN THE FACE!!!
Joyce: I WILL HIT YOU IN THE FACE
Masked stranger: Not so fast!
Becky: Who is this masked stranger?
Masked stranger *Dramatically takes off mask*
Everyone: JORDAN?????
Jordan: It’s right, : It’s me, Jordan, the last Brown sibling. I’m here to make this family gathering complete.
Hmmm. Didn’t really have a punch line there. Oh well.
And here we see perhaps the saddest result of the “Joshua generation” phenomenon. The Browns have one child who, presumably, called them on their crap and split with the family (at least somewhat), one who is living deep in the closet, Joyce who is heading for a split… but perhaps saddest of all is John. The one who swallowed it all. The one who believes. The one who is a missionary, whose wife is a vanished from everyone else’s life as a good woman should be, and who will no doubt repeat the same horrific cycle with his own children.
I wonder about John. We only have his word he’s a missionary. He is married to an east Indian and it’s a pretty solid bet that Carole will not accept her into her family. We know he hasn’t been home in a very long time.
So is he a missionary? Who is he really married to…no one has ever seen her?
So maybe he swallowed it all or maybe he didn’t?
Or another (white?) missionary. We know nothing about christi
Also, he is perfectly within reason to tell Becky to get her own SSN. If she tries using someone else’s that is ‘identity theft’ and if she think’s she’s got trouble now she ain’t seen nothing yet.
I think maybe he just was not thinking that when you are a homeless know nothing kid without a clue – getting your own papers is a bit difficult.
I think Joyce is just looking for a fight and he presented a perfect target.
As to Becky:
Becky has several options:
Write to her states Dept. of Statistics and get a stamped copy of her birth certificate. About $12 and 2 to 3 weeks to get it.
Take the certificate to the SS Office and get a copy of her SS card. I think it cost me $6 but can’t remember.
Or she could contact the old college and request transcripts of her records, which very likely have her ssn included.
She is in her rights to do all of this without parential consent.
All of this info. is on the internet also, with clear instructions. And most colleges have student ID no’s, allowing access to their student information.
I just did the bc and ss card myself.
I uh don’t think Becky was seriously intending to use Jocelyne’s SS number. Obviously she needs to get one, but it’s not a trivial task that should be talked about so dismissively.
Now, be fair. What’s dismissive about saying the same thing six times on one page, and ignoring the issues raised by others in the comments?
Yeah, seriously. It was clearly not a serious request. And even if it’s doable, it’s still a pain in the ass and will not be all that easy what with the state of public transportation in Indiana.
And yeah, not to be a douche, but I’m bristling pretty fierce at the raw victim-blaming nature of “he is perfectly within reason” and the compassionless minimization of how scary her situation is and how little she’s been prepared for this type of adulthood.
Like, what the hell, Uniqueantique? Not cool.
He’s perfectly within his own reason. It all makes perfect sense to him.
Understand the mentality of the victim of fundamentalism (which, thus far, it seems John is very much such a victim).
Becky is a lesbian, whose own father went after her with a shotgun. That means that there is a great deal of sin in her life (again, according to fundie logic). Possibly Becky’s own, possibly her father’s, likely a combination of both. John is a missionary. A minister. It is his duty, charged by his god, to shepherd this wayward soul as much as possible… and if she is not willing to be shepherded, which her open lesbonic tendencies (Fry and Laurie reference) seems to indicate, that his sister and others be protected from her.
Of course that train of thought is bullshit. John’s condemnation of Becky leads to a condemnation of everything Becky does, which as Joyce points out is ridiculous given the circumstances. But John is a Christian man. He does not lose arguments, especially not to known lesbites (another Fry and Laurie reference) and a sister being led astray by them. Hence the easy pivot toward Joyce’s anger, which he has likely already rationalized as the REAL problem here.
After all, good Christian women do not get angry. They let the love of Jesus flow through them. Minus the driving out the moneychangers part, because that only applies when John wants to be angry at something.
So yes, everything John said is reasonable… if you look at it from the perspective of a brainwashed fundamentalist no longer able to recognize his own internalized bigotry and hatred.
“with a shotgun” — Not a shotgun. See below.
I think Joyce is braced and ready for a fight, because she knows her own family and knows what she was walking into this weekend. That may make her a little sensitive and unwilling to let things slide that she might in other circumstances.
That’s still very different from looking for a fight. More that she’s not willing to put up with any bullshit when it comes to Becky, even in cases where it might be better to let it slide.
All that said, everything John has said and done since the phone call where he tried to exclude Becky from lunch has been pushing the limits of possibly reasonable, giving Joyce more and more reason to explode at him. Even here, he’s not trying to help Becky solve her problem, he’s attacking her and dismissing her and then invalidating Joyce’s anger.
Like you’re doing.
Interestingly enough, I wouldn’t be surprised if John’s upbringing wasn’t as strict as the other Brown siblings. He’s quite a bit older, and he apparently went to public school.
I’m suuuuuuuper interested in this aspect, yeah.
Also, want to say, what a wonderful personality John has for a guy who goes on missions to other countries. He must be soooo charitable to the people he meets, and is a shining beacon of understanding that makes them want to join Christianity to be like him. He sounds like just the guy you’d want to talk to if you have employment issues or are going through troubles./sarcasm
He honestly sounds like every single missionary we hosted at my church growing up.
Because it’s not enough for fundamentalists to wallow in hate. We have to export it to other nations.
Missionaries go to other countries to tell the locals that their own traditions aren’t good enough. The entire job is asshattery. John’s par for the course.
I think John is in danger of fist-born Joyceness.
I think Joyce is danger of hurting her other wrist. Which would be sad.
Anyone who doesn’t think it’s difficult without a SSN and a cooperating parent should google Alecia Pennington. I’d post links but I’m not sure that’s allowed here. It can be almost impossible to get out on your own if you don’t have your SSN, birth certificate, or a cooperative parent.
So, how long until we finally see a solution to Becky’s dilemma? (such as retrieving a 1098-T online)
It is called the Dumbing of Age so I guess a while.
did anyone look at his face and his eyes? look at his eyes. he clearly has the sad eyebrows on until joyce attacks him. (mild sarcasm playing on things people said some days ago about jocelynes eyes being upset to hopefully make some people think a little about it)
A campus full of college students and not one of them knows enough to google Social Security and birth certificates, etc. Not to mention her old college transcripts which surely have her SSN on them.
It is not that hard to get them.Are schools in this country no longer teaching students to do research? To ask questions when they need information?
Becky just got unfettered access to the internet last weekend.
She don’t know how to google shit, yet.
Actually it’s very believable. I help out at library information desk and it’s not uncommon for people of all ages to have difficulty with what should be simple questions of research.
In Becky’s case I believe she was raised with limited access to the internet, and probably isn’t aware of how much you can find on it. Except for her girl friend and a few others, most of the DOA aren’t aware that she needs to find her SSN.
College transcripts often require proof of ID, SSN etc. plus a processing fee.
That said I’m pretty sure her former college would help her out if she knew to ask. Also one’s college transcript won’t necessarily have the ssn on them, mine don’t.
In addition there’s been a lot going on for everyone, in my experience the more drama and stress that happens, the harder it is to deal with even simple tasks. Especially if you think it’s a difficult one, and many people do think dealing with the government is going to be a long and fraught process no matter what your trying to do.
Also I think many of the people around her think she just needs to go home and retrieve those documents rather than replace them. If they thought about it they’d see the issue but it’s not their problem.
Also I believe Becky has no ID any sort. When you run like she did … the goal is out, everything else can be dealt with later. Complete lack of documents, probably hostile hometown makes getting ones SSN an issue.
Most people who’ve never had to get/replace a SSN think it’s a difficult process. I know I did.
something you have to remember: This is a Christian College – if it isn’t taking public funds they might be very lax on their record keeping.
Especially when you get into the more fundamental types you get people – they sometimes basically live off the grid having home births home schooling their children with no government documents to their children’s name because it is “the mark of the beast” or they are “sovereign citizens”. (Heard a interview with some which got out of this situation years ago it is scary stuff.)
Stop your goddamned victim blaming. John is being an asshole. The fact that you got your SSN has no fucking relevance, and your desire to hate on someone because they didn’t do what you did, is just bullshit.
John is being a shitty person in this comic. Do not act like him.
All of this.
After-lunch Grand Theft Becky’s House? She and Joyce and Jocelyn get into zany shenanigans breaking and entering and repossessing Becky’s stuff.
great, now I want a Lupin the III/Dumbing of Age crossover.
Isn’t Grand Theft Auto when you steal the actual car?
Are you suggesting that they steal Becky’s whole house?
I mean, they could go all Up and just fly it over to wherever Becky wants to live.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adverse_possession
Long story short, if Becky walks in like she owns the place, lives there openly for six to ten years without her dad’s permission (not that he can do much about it while he’s in prison), pays property taxes and so on somehow, files some paperwork… the state says it’s officially her house.
Guys, Becky’s right there. Maybe let her speak for herself?
On one hand, talking over queer voices isn’t good.
On the other, it’d be kinda bullshit to let John engage in his passive-aggressive shit with her, considering how he keeps the conversation moving toward minimizing what Ross did and illegitimizing her stopping him. John’s been pushing toward this topic for the last two strips, and when Joss tried to steer him away he bulled on through anyway.
Since John and Joyce are so far apart in age, they don’t really know each other, and it’s a safe bet he may have only met Becky a couple of times before. He has basically been dropped into a relationship he has no understanding of. I’m not trying to excuse him, but he just heard a near stranger ask his “brother” for some very personal data…
Before? Her mom decided to just up and die? Before her dad decided to commit an attempted kidnapping? Really let’s figure out what action Becky took that in anyway led to this issue because near as I can tell she did nothing to precipitate her not having the documents so many of us take for granted.
Before you decide to be lesbian, of course.
Bingo. You seem to be the first person in this comments section to suspect that’s what he was going to say. I think so, too, especially as his mother Carol has also used language about “deciding” to be gay.
My guess is that John thinks that Becky has done everyone, including Joyce, a lot of wrong by being openly and unrepentantly sinful and thus attracting misfortune and leading other people, like her dad, to do wrong.
I think if that was what he was going to say, he’d actually finish the sentence.
My money is on “before I DON’T KNOW WHAT BUT THIS CAN’T NOT BE YOUR FAULT SOMEHOW BECAUSE JUST WORLD FALLACY LALALA CAN’T HEAR YOU”
He successfully kidnapped her.
Oh boy I’m sure glad to share my name with this character.
It’s a common name.
“You should have thought about that before getting kidnapped at gunpoint.”
Also, notice he John seems to notice that there is no way to end that sentence without sounding awful in panel 4. So he recognizes that what Toe-dad did was wrong and there is no excuse for it(unlike his mother), but also clearly believes Becky did something wrong too.
I’m pretty sure John’s reacting to Joyce, rather than having a realization. (Or at least not an unbidden realization.)
She should think of these things before…
…she caused the problem? OR
…she became frustrated at the lack of a solution?
There are non-awful ways to end that sentence. It would have a completely different meaning, though, and wouldn’t cause him to trail off.
That first suggestion is still pretty awful, imo, since really the main ways anyone could argue Becky ’caused the problem’ were by being gay and by running away when her father was about to put her in some form of reparative therapy.
Unless I misunderstood the point you were making there, in which case I apologise.
Er, of course it is. It’s the thing he was obviously going to say.
But the sentence could have ended the second way. It makes actual sense like that. A non-awful ending to the sentence exists.
I think that I’ve worked out what John’s problem is: I think that he genuinely can’t believe that this has happened in his town. He can’t believe that such an undercurrent of oppression and violence could exist there. He’s desperately looking for a way to blame Becky and Joyce – That they’ve over-reacting or exaggerating due to laziness or something… Or anything other than his impression of a ‘perfect Christian hometown’ being a naïve self-delusion.
Meanwhile, Jocelyne is living the nightmare of being present for a serious family bust-up.Socially eembarrassing and emotionally painful.
John doesn’t seem to buy into the whole “Gays are a corruption from Satan to ruin our children and destroy our family” fundie thing, but he *definitely* thought that “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell” sounded like a pragmatic compromise.
Yup. He wants an excuse to disengage and not empathize with the sinner. And is falling into the victim-blaming trap WAY too many commenters are.
+1. That is exactly that. A man of God like Ross don’t just go out and hunt their kids with guns, right? There must be something wrong with Becky to cause that behavior, right?
And of course “I have no moral obligation to help her with all the things she desperately needs help with, right? The fact that her predicament comes from a member of my church and is aggravated by our teachings does not make me, as a man of faith and a member of the closest thing she has to a family, obliged to help her out or invest in her emotionally like my sister is doing, right?”
Well, he used a varmint/vermin rifle, which is for hunting vermin, destructive animals which need to be destroyed by people. Which I still believe is symbolic.
Because today’s comic is sad, and because the majority of the comments are either sad or angry, and because I do not wish to be sad…I declare this thread to be the happy thread! While here please refrain from saying anything sad, angry or that has admittance of real world problems.
Soooo….does anyone like puppies?
I love puppies, and kittens! They’re all so cute and fluffy.
I have kittens! Koji (the black one) is almost five and Docky (the orange one) is… goodness, he’s three already! They are the best!
Yogurt! Chocolate!
Hell, depBut chocolate yogurt is just sadness.
Kitten Therapy
Jocelyne is a perfect human being
Yay Joyce! Yay John! Get into practice! It’s only going to be, what, another month or two until Thanksgiving and you have to make mealtime awkward for family through the power of arguing for real!
(…. totes with Joyce here, of course.)
Lets try to like the person one last….
Maybe he can redeem him self with the end of the sentence.
Well, it would make sense for him to finish with “before you give up and think there’s no solution.”
The fact that her number exists and can, theoretically, be obtained is useful for her to take into consideration.
That sentence works okay.
“I am not pleased, because your problem is not resolving itself easily and learning how much you haven’t been allowed to know about adulting makes me uncomfortable. Also a woman is sounding angry. All of this needs to stop now.”
Boy oh boy have I been in conversations like this. Either they learn orrrrrrr they don’t.
Oh yeah, maybe she should have asked her dad what her social security number is while he was CHASING HER AROUND WITH A SHOTGUN.
“WITH A SHOTGUN”
NOT a shotgun — see below.
I’ve had my SSN memorized since I was 15. I’ve had my card in my wallet almost as long (so long my signature has altered almost entirely from the one on the card.). Seems to me that Becky’s parents have failed her in EVERY conceivable way.
“I’m just saying maybe a competent parent would have taught his child her social security number.”
This particular issue is entirely on Toedad. Of course, in his eyes she wouldn’t needed it. He’d have given it to her husband, along with the goats and the rest of her dowry. I wonder if he bothered with other minor details like her birthday, blood type, family medical history, etc.
It’s not so much that they “failed” her as that her father “intentionally sabotaged” her.
Keeping your teenaged kids ignorant of how to adult and do adult responsibilities like paperwork and taxes is a v-e-r-y common tactic of abusive asshole parents.
Awww, I was hoping John was going to be cool…
Also, I’m with Jocelyne, except I read the menu that closely not to escape awkward family interactions but because I avoid all interactions and/or I’m eating alone.
Huh, this is the first strip that’s hit close to home in a way that leaves me so squirmingly uncomfortable that it’s making me think about taking a break from the comic long enough for this scene to end and then skipping over anything that’s mostly John and Joyce talking when I catch up.
And it’s weird because I’m not even sure why it’s making me react so strongly; people have said even worse things in this storyline (Is it worth your father going to prison?) and there have been points in the story that have hit close to home in a much more painful way that never made me consider stepping away for a bit (the family members this draws to mind leave me more pissed off than hurting).
Willis is scarily good at portraying realistic bigotry. When Carol goes after Becky, she seems cruel. But John… John’s bigotry is more subtle. More casual. More paternal. It’s a different animal.
Willis’s ability to portray everything from Mary’s hatefulness, to Carol’s passive-aggression, to Mr. Brown’s uncomfortable conservatism, to Joyce’s ignorant bigotry, to John’s paternalistic condescension, to Ross’s psychotic rage, is remarkable.
So yeah, I can see any given one of those being somewhat triggering, both to those who have been on the receiving end, and those who have been on the giving end.
I could think of a reason why, John.
Man, I was really not expecting this comic of all comics to trigger the avalanche of douchetastic victim-blaming horseshit and siding with the bigot against Becky.
Like, holy fuckballs, so not okay.
And it’s genuinely disconcerting to hear such little sympathy for the raw scary messiness of Becky’s situation having been in very similar circumstances to her, albeit luckily with a large amount of my documentation and autonomy secured.
And it’s hard to ignore when last comic had such a flood of unearned compassion and “don’t judge” calls for someone leaking red flags of awful bigoted behavior (a flood that has continued into a comic where he is very much being a complete dick in no uncertain terms) while so little sympathy for someone who has done remarkable things to pick herself out of the nothingness she was cast into.
And it’s hard to ignore that it’s the straight white cis and often male characters who are afforded this “wait and see” and “let’s extend forgiveness” outlook, while it is the victimized queer female characters who are afforded so little sympathy and so much minimization of what they have actually suffered (whether it be assholes pretending that getting deliberately misgendered is no big deal or people pretending like having no documentation is a walk in the goddamn park because it’s super easy and safe to break into a house and steal things you don’t know where they are).
And no, I’m not saying everyone talking about that is being homophobic or a douchebag. I’m really not. Just that the accumulation of all of this speaks to a social reality that gets really draining to engage with in such high volume and that gets frustrating.
And yes, that’s on me, not you. But it still grates and there’s aspects of this that maybe people want to think more on if they are so inclined, cause it’s very frustrating for folks like me. And no, that’s not me using my life experiences as a weapon. That’s me being frustrated because I remember some of these same arguments being used against me when I was in a very similar situation and getting dumb flashbacks to when my family liked to blame me for everything awful happening in my life.
I’m just constantly marveling at Willis’s incredibly realistic portrayal of fundamentalists.
John is spot on. I knew so many guys like him. I almost was a guy like him.
Yup. He knows his shit all right. And it’s sad to realize exactly how he learned his shit on this particular bit.
He presents them so sympathetically. I couldn’t do that. In my (entirely hypothetical) comic, John would have demon horns and be spewing fire. I’m constantly in awe and admiration of the characterizations of this comic (and of course, deep, deep uncomfortableness at seeing the hatred I was once part of laid bare).
Some are sympathetic. Toedad and Mom are pretty hellish.
And yet still completely realistic. Even Toedad had internally logical reasoning for why he had to behave the way he behaved. I know a guy who was kidnapped by his parents and forced into a re-education camp. I can imagine Toedad’s justification being said by his parents. In his sick, twisted mind, he honestly cared about his daughter’s well-being.
That’s what makes this comic so powerful, in my opinion. It’s not a polemic telling us to hate these people. It presents them as they are. And we do hate Toedad, and we do hate Carol, but not because the comic tells us to do so.
Fair point. I’ve had the luxury of not encountering men like Ross very often, so it’s still foreign and weird to see them displayed like this. I suppose seeing them act this way towards characters we already know is a way for those who haven’t experienced this sort of thing to lear, while giving others who have gone through this some catharsis/something they can really relate to.
Honestly, it’s fucking bizarre.
Like, I’m not even a fan of Becky’s. (I find her bull-in-a-china-shop insensitivity super grating.) But I don’t know where people are coming from with these crazy expectations. Like, the most I could even begin to expect of her is that she’s printed out and begun filling out some relevant paperwork. And that’s not even taking her emotional state into account. Her only living parent pointed a gun at her a week ago and promptly got arrested. That is PTSD crazy. I would understand if she spent the rest of the month curled up in fetal position on a dormroom bed. (Even if it would be annoying to read, given the glacial pace this comic moves at.) But Becky has, by all accounts, done an amazing job of remaining productive while under a huge amount of stress.
I said before it would be one thing if John was helpfully offering advice about retrieving her own SSN (which he isn’t). But, even if he was, Becky would be completely justified in politely telling him that she has enough on her plate right this second – she’s here to have a relaxing time with Joyce this weekend, and was only joking and venting her frustrations to Jocelyne’s offered ear.
Yeah, I think Becky does a stellar job (although I would love her even if she didn’t), and all that victim-blaming bullshit is just that.
As for ACTUAL help… that is exactly what Jocelyne gave Becky yesterday, and just as you point out, that is exactly what John doesn’t give her now.
I don’t have much tolerance for victim mentality, much like I have little tolerance for Becky being purposefully rude. But as much as I think it’s destructive to indulge bad behaviour (regardless of personal circumstances) – holy fuck! If people really think that it’s ‘bad’ that Becky accepts help from others, and doesn’t give the time of day to the kind of shit John is peddling, and spends a little time being confused and figuring out her next step, instead of spending every waking hour of every day rushing towards the goal of self-sufficiency and employment… then I think people really need to reevaluate the amount they take their mental and emotional health for granted.
What this really tells me is that a lot of people are very out of touch with what the average human response to high stress is.
Yeah. Which I guess is awesome. I wouldn’t wish someone the type of life experiences where they were intimately familiar with high stress, do-or-literally-die, not now PTSD I need to fix my life, oh fuck, everything is awful and I want to roll up into a ball and cry badness.
Cause it sucks. And even when you’re being on top of it, there’s mental blocks and things that you can’t figure out or stuff you lost track of just trying to keep all the pieces going. And even if you think your brain isn’t melting, it actually is in the background and that affects how you interact with people.
Though it does provide a nice illustration of American attitudes towards the homeless, where we are culturally encouraged to look at them as lazy leeches with “easy to solve” problems, when most of the time they are PTSD-riddled mentally ill queer kids abused and thrown out of families who try and survive the best they can with whatever resources they can wrangle together.
Funny, I sometimes find that Becky’s just too damn sensitive for her own good. By which I mean she pretty much all the time takes on all the blame for whenever someone around her is sad. Especially Joyce. I mean, how many comic strips have we had where the dialogue is a variant of this:
Becky: Joyce, I’m a horrible person, it’s all my fault!
Joyce: No, Becky, no! It’s not your fault, dammit!
At least a dozen now, I bet.
And it seems like not many of the commenters you’re referring to are up for much discussion either. Most of them tend to go quiet as soon as you’ve put in your voice. Hopefully because they feel a bit ashamed of themselves…
What a Christian can’t get angry ? News flash people being a Christian isn’t the same as being a zen monk.
He’s not disparaging Joyce’s anger because she’s a Christian. He’s disparaging Joyce’s anger because she’s a girl.
Becky can request a copy of her birth certificate at the Town Hall I would think? Assuming this is where she was born. I don’t know what kind of ID they’d require for that though…
Also Joyce bro #1 taking after Mom I see.
John, do you realize how victim-blaming/bigoted you were about to sound?
And you’re already sounding like: women must know their place.
Panel 3: General McPentagon: “DEFCON 1, DEFCON 1, SHE’S GOING CRITICAL”
Panel 5 : General McPentagon: “DUCK AND COVER!!!!!!!!!! *runs around in circles, pushes all red buttons, hides under desk*
Seriously, John. Jocalyne already saved your ass once, this one is all on you.
Ya:
When upset,
When in doubt,
Run in crcles,
Scream & shout.
Damn it, John. I was rooting for you. We were all rooting for you….not to be a tool.
*sighs* with any luck his toolbaggery is a reflection of whatever issue he is having re: his wife and parents (like, he has thought of all these things and that is why he is keeping his wife a secret until…until…) I would just really like Joyce and Jocelynne to have family who will support them.
Oh well, we could still get Jordan?
I love these subtlelties of Willis’ dialogues. Look, what John suggests in a second panel is completely reasonable advice, however he chose the wrong tone. Instead of preaching and having no sense of humor in the panel first he could chose to give an advice to Becky that would be the same. After all there must be same social security register or other administrative unit that would help people who lost their social security number (SSN). Alternatively he might have suggested her to contact her insurance company, it’s likely that in a small town like La Porte where she was insured there is just a few of those. Or perhaps he could have suggested her to talk to hers general practitioners/family doctor who maybe have her number. If he wanted to be a really nice guy he could have even offered to help Becky searching for it. What Joyce does in the third panel is also perfect. She overreacts, due to her lack of social skills, and patronizes her brother instead of acting towards improving the situation.
I was with you there until the bits about Joyce. John is making it clear that he doesn’t give a shit about Becky’s problems, and is working towards making them feel small and irrational. This really comes out in panel two, where he says “oh come on”, implying that Becky’s issue itself “I dont know what it is and never learned it” is trivial.
This offends Joyce, which makes her mad, but she doesn’t say anything that isn’t true. She puts up all the ways Becky could get the number easily, and explains why they’re all no-gos. She’s mad, but if John is actually going to try to be understanding, this is the part where a neutral to well-meaning person would back down.
John doesn’t, which justifies Joyce’s anger, since she just explained why this issue is a serious problem. To which John replies (and implies) that it wouldn’t be a problem had Becky not come out, which is shitty.
Fair points. However we have just met John, so I wouldn’t judge him yet. Perhaps I give him a benefit of doubt, for being from Joyce’s family, and they all are kind of socially awkward in their ways.
As far as Joyce is concerned, I think I have said the same: she got mad, angry and reacted with aggression. Regardless of wether she had reason to be angry, she spoke first words that came to her mind. Basically, because of her anger, she did not realised that John ‘unintentionally’ gave a valid advice. She ridiculed it and made him defend which he does clumsily. He panics and starts saying some cliche but realises in the mid-sentence how dumb he is. Yeah, Joyce is right, but it is ‘not right to be angry’. That’s my opinion.
Willi’s narration is just perfect, he is able to present so much emotions with just e few sentences and pictures.
I see what you’re saying, but i still don’t agree, unfortunately. There are some people (myself included) higher in the comments who talk about tone-policing, what it is and how it can be derived by what John says.
People don’t really want to give John a lot of leeway since he’s coming at Becky and not taking her problems or what Joyce thinks very seriously, which sucks.
He’s not taking her problems seriously…but he IS blaming her for them, so he’s got a twofer on the ‘awful reactions to other people’s problems’ board.
You are not wrong!
While John may sound like a massive dick here, I think it’s to his credit that he clearly realized mid-sentence that he did not have a point.
I think he wanted to go further, but is hesitating since he’s scared of fighting Joyce. Backdown 2: The Backdownening
as long as he doesn’t go fürher.
And so he immediately pivoted to criticizing Joyce’s anger.
That’s not admirable. By making this about Joyce’s anger, he neatly avoids any realization that he might possibly be wrong about Becky.
I dunno. To me, it sounded like he started a sentence, stopped halfway through when he realized he had no idea what he was gonna say, and then Joyce got all pissed at him, which he pointed out because he finds it unusual for her to be so angry, and she’s kind of terrifying.
He doesn’t look frightened or worried. He looks dismissive.
Look at his face. Look at his sentence.
“Do YOU realize how angry YOU are?”
The subtext I see is “Think about who you’re talking to. How dare YOU take that kind of tone with ME?”
Which is weird, because the emphasized word was “angry.” To me, the subtext is pretty clear: he has never seen Joyce angry before. Knowing Joyce, she has probably never been truly angry before recently. My reading of the whole situation is that John is a)not fully aware of what happened and b)generally terrible at dealing with people’s emotions.
People seem awfully quick to jump on the John hate bandwagon here. He is a complete jerk? Based on Willis’ usual M.O., probably. But I just don’t like seeing things that way. I’m not religious, and I’ve seen the awful shit they can do, but I can’t bring myself to see all religious people as a part of a hive mind of hate and stupidity without a single redeeming quality. Even in a fundie community, there’s got to be decent people. Given that John hasn’t said anything overtly hateful yet, I choose to see him for now as a generally nice guy who just doesn’t know any better.
Jocelyn is decent. Joyce’s father is becoming decent. Joyce is becoming decent. Her mother and John are not. Billie is decent, if troubled. Sierra is decent. Mary is not.
Quite frankly, thus far more Christians have been good than not. But fundamentalist abuse, especially how that affects children, is a real thing. And fundamentalist abuse of other people is also a real thing. And Willis presents that very realistically.
1) It would actually be a bit odd for all the kids to throw off their upbringing. (Caveat that we don’t actually know about Jordan other than that the parents don’t approve.
2) As the EvilWriter said, plenty of perfectly good Christians in the strip. I’d also point to Becky.
3) He can still be a generally nice guy in lots of ways with a sexism and homophobic blind spot. I kind of hope the earlier speculation was right and he’s at odds with the parents over marrying an Indian woman. He’s thrown off the (relatively mild) racist part of his upbringing, but not the parts that haven’t been directly challenged yet.
You are completely right. It is very likely that John is in fact homophobic. However, my point was that, whether talking about John or anyone else, immediately jumping on the hate bandwagon accomplishes nothing. Guy at least deserves the benefit of the doubt until he proves himself to be a jackass.
Even if he does turn out to be homophobic, that can mostly be blamed on his upbringing. The real test of his character is not in his immediate attitude towards Becky, but in his ability to realize when he’s wrong and work to better himself. If you’re right and his conflict with his parents is over issues of racism, then he’s already shown that ability, and may be capable of changing his views on other subjects.
I don’t know, I think it’s less ‘I don’t have anything to say’ and more ‘I have something to say, but it would sound bad, even if I totally mean it and don’t think it actually IS bad’.
He didn’t even say anything.
He started talking then stopped.
I’m really confused what’s even going on with this conversation.
People don’t talk like this. 🙁
uh, in my experience, people talk like this a LOT.
What exactly do you mean? Like starting than stopping without finishing sentences? I can recall multiple times when I’ve done that in the past week. Especially when I realize that I might be saying the wrong thing and I don’t want the other person to be angry at me.
What? People talk like this all the time. I talk like this all the time. Starting a sentence and then interrupting myself because I haven’t finished it in my head is a daily occurrence for me.
I think he realised that Joyce was about to thump him if he carried on in that vein … instead he carried in another way which is equally likely to see him leave the table in a manner not unlike a Tom & Jerry cartoon.
Joyce is becoming a real badass, willing to fight her corner for what she believes. ++1
As “The Flashing Blade” song goes, “You’ve got to fight for what you want and all that you believe”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z-ZEDNkZ2L4
Awwww, I had such high hopes for John. All dashed.
Me too. But….having thought about it, I wonder if Willis is going to use him as a foil for Becky’s situation? Becky’s didn’t think about anything, she got outed and then just refused to be pushed back in the closet no matter what might seem ‘reasonable’ or ‘prudent’. It seems obvious that John is having some sort of issue where he doesn’t want to introduce his wife to his family, so maybe he is going the opposite way. He is thinking everything through, never acting hastily until he is ready to confront the situation. Except…as a result he is never going to confront the situation, and his wife stays the dirty little secret?
I feel like the only way John gets out of the douche boat on this one is if he’s secretly married to a man, and took arduous time and effort to make sure his family could never find out, which leads him to have the perspective that he did things “the right way” to prevent these “foreseeable consequences” in this sort of situation. It wouldn’t be a stretch for him to have this kind of strong ideal that there is a singular “right way” to do things, given the structure of his upbringing.
But still, he’s being sexist as fuck anyway; then again, why wouldn’t a fundie remain sexist if his sexuality brings the “number of women I need to interact with under any modicum of basic human decency” from one to zero?
Also, maybe a singular neutral take on his response in this strip is that, as a few did previously point out, John basically doesn’t know Becky. So when she frames her issue as not having her SSN “because I never needed it before,” that does sort of sound like some immature dreck to a grown adult. This is especially because he is a son and not a daughter and therefore this is information that likely would have been provided to him at the appropriate age, and its importance emphasized. The way Becky was raised, even compared to the ludicrous fundie shit-show that was his upbringing, is so offensive to the basic agency of a human being that it is completely outside his experience.
It still doesn’t change the fact that he’s being a major asshole. But it could change how much we should reasonably expect him to realize the extent of how badly he’s acting.
I like how John mentions that “maybe you should think of these things before….” when he doesn’t even think about Becky’s circumstances
tbf Asking for someone’s SSN is actually really rude???
Like I’d be legit offended if someone asked for mine even jokingly.
yeah i know its pretty rude, and becky herself is pretty rude, but the point is that john still didn’t think about what becky has gone through and seems to be downplaying it, judging by the way he talked to her so he’s being kind of a hypocrite here by saying “maybe you should think of these things before…”
I don’t know about rude. I certainly wouldn’t give it to them, no matter how much I sympathized with them.
But Jocelyne handled that last strip. She didn’t get offended. She didn’t attack Becky for it. She didn’t need John to attack Becky for her.
I still just plain ol don’t think Becky knows any better, doubt she even understands the severity of what she did, cause ToeDad didn’ t think she needed that kind of power to run her own life.
We just roared by 400, and we haven’t even gotten to those undercooked eggs.
eggs?
Panel 7. Digressions on casually mentioned food items are traditional.
Ah! I was left unawares
You’d think it would be in Mr. Willis’s “Read before posting”.
Meanwhile, we’re about to hit 800 and still the two above posts are the only hits on a search for “eggs”. Dereliction of commenter duty!
So if food is mentioned then people will then derail the comment section to talk about said food? Nice. This is a running trend I can get behind. I had no idea since I only started regularly commenting earlier this week.
Yes. What this comments section is lacking is some good old-fashioned half-baked puns!
I think Jocelyne considers food poisoning a good alternative right now.
Love how John sounds exactly like the commenters giving Becky shit for not having her SSN the other day, only this time everyone jumps down his throat for being a victim blaming dick. Because he is.
Also I wish I had a Joyce in my life. At least I live in an incredibly less bigoted environment than Becky does. Also also while I definitely feel for Jocelyne (closeted trans person brofist) I’m like “girl, speak up at least a little? Stop your family from having a shouting match in the middle of a restaurant?”
^yeah agreed with the commenters part
And lo, John finally talks to Becky! …Mmm. What a nice guy. I doubt Becky was serious about using Jocelyne’s SSN.
aww man my heart is aching for joyce, joycelene, and becky. I really need a bonding scene where joycelene doesn’t exactly out herself to joyce, but at least mentions she’s glad joyce has grown so much already/is there if she needs help processing the family…
all of which would suck even more for joycelene more than joyce. I’m really not looking forward to joyce realising how difficult big joy’s life has been, and her own unknowing (and probably minor) contributions to that.
RE: Emerald City Comicon — are those of us who are not able to travel 3/4 of the way across the country at the drop of a hat going to be able to avail ourselves of the poster and/or print?
The poster will go up on the site after the con. I don’t tend to put the prints up in my store.
This conversation makes approximately 0% sense.
Like, her SSN absolutely is written down somewhere.
She needs to go to her local SS office, and she needs her birth certificate.
I’m sure she can get into her house via asking the police, where her birth certificate is sitting in a filing cabinet somewhere.
If not, does she know where she was born??
Hang on, does she even have a birth certificate??????
I can state from experience that more people that you might think only find they don’t have a birth certificate when they become old enough to manage their own affairs and need the other information a birth certificate can provide as an identity document. Explaining how to fix this is one of the parts of my job I don’t like, because the process is slow, complicated, and biased against the person seeking to fix this. Though, advising them they’re not the only ones in this predicament tends to lift their spirits at bit..
Wait, it’s possible to not have a birth certificate at all? I’d like to see that conversation unfold.
“What do you mean, I don’t have a birth certificate? That can’t be right!”
“I’m afraid it is, sir. Officially, you have never been born!”
Yeah, you can not have a birth certificate. Just means you weren’t born at a public hospital and your parents never filed the relevant paperwork for it, I think?
Yup. Home birth and paranoid parents who don’t trust the dang gubmint and its databases is a potent recipe for being really screwed in later life. Especially if you’re home schooled on top of it.
Like, she might actually have her documents and they might be “somewhere”, but it’s actually a realistic possibility that she’s starting from literal nothing and needs a legal organization to help her prove to the government that she is who she says she is.
Her social security card is probably with the household papers, including birth certificate. So, yeah, assuming it’s just in a lockbox (like my parents kept mine until I came of age), and not in a damn safe in the wall, she probably just needs to get into her dad’s computer room or wherever.
Mission Impossible style taking the storm window out and forcing the window. Used to do this when my parents would go somewhere when I was out, I’d come home first and have to get in.
As several people (mostly Cerberus) have said, the local cops aren’t likely to be too sympathetic, even if she does have a legal right to get her stuff, including id/documentation, from the house. Probably worth trying, but not guaranteed. Especially if she has to search through all of Ross’s stuff to find it. Especially if it’s locked away.
What is the name of the other other brother, the one that Mom has no contact with? Any chance that, say, Jocelyn has “leaked” any info to him and that Joyce may be hearing from him someday soon?
Also, if someone could link to the strip in which Joyce slugs Toedad, I would be grateful.
You’re thinking of Jordan.
Per request: http://www.dumbingofage.com/2015/comic/book-6/01-to-those-whod-ground-me/strength-2/
Joyce! Your anger! It’s over 9000!
(cue ten minutes of close ups of Joyce’s face either focusing her anger or being extremely constipated)
Joyce is doing something beautiful here. She is mirroring Becky. Remember how Becky used sarcasm about her situation to deflect Carol back during dinner, now Joyce is doing the same thing (although she uses it for offence rather than deflection).
She did the same thing with Becky’s joke about “what are they going to do, shoot me?”, which she mirrored herself later that evening. Joyce, bless her soul, does everything she can to send the message that Becky is welcome here.
Shit, I missed that. That is a nice parallel and also reveals their opposite goals and emotional states right now. Becky is scared and trying to be the happy-go-lucky support so she deflects with sarcasm and tries to distract.
Joyce is angry and wanting to show her family that she supports Becky completely and thoroughly, so she responds with more bitter attacking sarcasm that puts the real issues front and center.
As you note, it’s a nice parallel.
WOAH. Awesomely spotted.
I’m loving the privilege-comprehension that Joyce is (instinctively) utilising in this reading: Becky displaces because it’s the safe thing to do, while for Joyce the stakes are second-hand and it’s ultimately safer to put herself on the line using Beckytactics than it is to let her more-vulnerable friend get further injured.
Going back a bit… I’m wondering how much of her much earlier outburst about the assumptions of her faith being challenged was because of the dawning realisation that despite all she’s been raised to think, she has power, independence and agency. She’s since had that validated by Hank (and excused away by Carol, but New Joyce ain’t buying that nonsense), and now here she is: surrounded by family expecting her to fall into line with them, not realising quite what she’s bringing to that table.
A Joyce who might be figuring out that the proper expression of her faith could be to back up the likes of Becky no matter what it costs her… aww yeah, that’s so lovely I’m in risk of tearing up here.
Use your aggressive feelings, Joyce. Let the hate flow through you.
As someone who’s not American, I don’t understand your reliance on a SSN, which sounds like a unique ID number, when you value freedom so much. Here in Australia, a socialist country, we’ve shouted down every attempt at ID cards and ID numbers. We have a CRN if we’ve used Centerlink (unemployment and pensions), but most don’t have one (Centerlink is our social security). Everyone has a medicare number, but it’s not ID, it’s use is restricted to doctors and hospitals. Everyone who pays tax has a tax file number, which only your accountant, employer and the Tax Dept can use. But no global ID like your SSN. Freedom anyone?
Yeah, a lot of Americans feel the same way. We’re not sure how it got that way; we have no idea how to fix it; and other, more pressing issues, like how to keep Donald Trump from becoming President and whether or not we can get medical care, kind of overshadow it.
Not to mention the fact that it works out far better to go the other way and just actually have government ID if you don’t place an insane premium on some nebulous concept of ‘freedom’ that isn’t born out in actual societies.
The SSN is really more of a tax id number. As such you need it for employment forms so your employer can withhold income tax from your paycheck. Using it as an ID number is technically illegal and fraught with all sorts of emotional controversy.
Here one can elect not to provide your tax file number to your employer. This results you being taxed at the highest rate, and doesn’t make much sense, but you have the freedom to do so. Similarly, you can elect to provide your TFN to your bank, then taxation on interest is based on your net income, and not at the highest investment return tax rate. Bank accounts without TFNs are watched closely for suspicious transactions as well.
In general, we pay quite high taxes, but what with universal medical care, subsidised prescriptions, unemployment, pensions, disability support, tax relief for families, free hospitals etc it’s still very good value for money for most people.
The problem we run into is a strong fundie Rapturist culture that gets up in arms whenever someone proposes systems to make it easier for government to keep thorough records on everyone that is more accessible by all parts of the government.
Like in Denmark, I loved how on the ball the government was and it was all because everything was tied to my health insurance card and all the government systems were linked up to each other, but if we tried to do something like that here, we’d get endless screaming about the One World Government and the Mark of the Beast.
Hell, there’s a reason that there’s decent fundie support for getting rid of the SSN as well, leaving everyone with no means of ID other than state driver’s licenses and passports.
Not just the fundies there either. There’s a lot of vaguely libertarian anti-government stuff as well. Of course, they want to get rid of SSNs along with the whole SS program, not just as ids.
Near as I can tell, the anti-government and fundie streams are parallel, but with a lot of overlap. Not all the anti-government types are fundie and not all the fundies are anti-government. They just wind up voting together for reasons.
AIUI, the UK National Insurance number is basically all the Australian numbers in one handy place so you can lose it more easily. It’s definitely not ID; every job interview I’ve been to has asked me to bring my NI number and valid ID, since even if I still had my NI card, it’s entirely useless for this purpose. (Valid ID is anything with a photo – since I don’t drive and haven’t left the country since a school trip at 15, I use my college card, which is expired but still looks like me – sometimes plus proof of address, like a utility bill. The NI card has neither of these things.) It sound like Social Security is about the same.
However, in the UK the system has (and has always had) provision for an employee not knowing what their NI number is. Traditionally the employer would assign a temporary number based on the employee’s date of birth and gender (‘TNddmmyyg’). These days HM Revenue and Customs have a handy little web service where the employer gives what information they can about the employee, and HMRC reply with the NI number that should be used.
The impression I’m getting from these strips and comment threads is that it’s nothing like as straightforward to do that in the US of A.
I had a professor who held on to her original SSN Card, and bureaucrats HATED it. They always tried to get her to turn it in for a new one . . . because, as a 1st generation card, it said “This card is not to be used as a form of identification.”
A lot of people seem to be jumping on the John Hate Train™. Sure, he’s not being the most sensitive to Becky’s problems, but I feel like I read a different comic than other people did.
I read it like this:
Becky asked Joss for her SSN, and John went “Wait, what? You have your own.”
Becky explained that she didn’t have access to it, and, not having encountered a problem like this before, John assumed that there must be some way to fix it.
Having been exposed to the effects of this problem and people who blame Becky for it, Joyce leaps to her defense and tells him why it’s not that easy.
Joyce is probably still annoyed at John for thinking she overreacted by punching Becky’s dad (which is reasonable), so his insensitivity is enough to make her angry. Personally, I think that Joyce is still angry at the world, her mom, and Becky’s dad. Some of that anger might be directed at John, too.
I don’t think John knows all of this. He knows some of it, but except for his insensitivity, he doesn’t think that what he said (that Becky should be able to get her own SSN) warrants anger. Still, he thinks that they haven’t thought of all options and (I think) begins to say that they shouldn’t give up on getting it before doing something dumb (like borrowing someone’s SSN). Not having fully planned out what he’s going to say, he realizes what he IS saying and begins to backpedal.
Joyce, still angry, warns him against saying the wrong thing, and John, who knows he was close to saying something Really Bad™ but is still feeling attacked and maybe a bit bewildered, lashes out.
It seems to me, neither of them are being unreasonable. John’s just being insensitive and pragmatic, and Joyce is defending her friend (with some righteous anger).
I agree with you to an extent. The thing is, that’s exactly what privilege is. John has never encountered this problem before, will never suffer it himself, and decides it’s his job to fix it, because he subconsciously assumes he’s best qualified to do so. And yes, it’s to his credit that he realises this isn’t the case and stops talking.
Privilege is something that’s good to be acknowledged by those who have it, but it’s not something that should garner instant hatred. I don’t think he subconsciously thinks that, either. He’s not drawing on experience or training; it sounds like he thinks that the solution should be common sense. When it’s clear that it’s not so simple, he starts to back off.
Pretty sure “insensitive” accounts for enough to be on the John Hate Train. Also, rather than pragmatic, I’d call it stupid. I don’t know about you, but if anyone asked to borrow my SSN casually like that, I’d assume they were joking. Judging by the facial expression, exclamation points, and bolded “ask”, he got defensive.
By pragmatic I meant that he’s focused more on the problem than the person having the problem. And look at yesterday’s strip again. She’s whispering, and she has a nervous look on her face. That’s not the look of someone making a joke. That’s someone who is running out of options and asks for too much in the hopes that they’ll say yes. Joss didn’t take it as a joke, either.
As for insensitivity… that’s a whole other thing. He’s not tiptoeing and considering everyone’s feelings at every turn, but he’s not openly condemning her either. Some people just aren’t that sensitive no matter who they’re talking to, and Becky doesn’t seem like the kind of person who needs to be coddled.
He’s not being pragmatic. He’s not actually focused on the problem and trying to solve it, he’s dismissing it. As I said earlier if Panel 4 had been “Hadn’t thought of that. There’s got to be someway to get your SSN. Let me see what I can find…”, that would be pragmatic. Instead he goes back on the attack, blaming Becky (or both of them?) for not thinking things through, when he’s not doing any better. And that’s one of the better interpretations of where that “before” was headed.
This. He’s treating legitimate barriers as meaningless because he didn’t personally think of them, victim-blaming Becky for not magically predicting her own disownment, and then when Joyce calls him out, turns to tone-policing her.
There’s nothing wrong with privilege on its own per se, but John isn’t just tripping on his privilege, he’s reveling in it and bristling that someone “lesser” is calling him out on his shit and is thus doubling-down on awfulness in response.
I’ve encountered enough John’s in my life and my family used to play minimization/victim-blaming shit like this all the time when they were in the midst of disowning and abusing me. Lots of “pfft, so you got threatened with death, no big whoop, the real question is why you insisted on being out dressed like ‘that'” and similar.
He didn’t, though. If he was about to blame Becky for what happened to her (and I still don’t think he was going to), he stopped himself before he said it.
You may be right about the tone-policing, but it still seems to me like he’s just perplexed that Joyce is angry at him and getting defensive in response.
You may be right about more than I think, but it seems a lot of people here are putting words into his mouth that he did not say, and thoughts into his head that we can’t know if he thought, as if Willis explicitly put all those words into a thought bubble. I’m not saying he’s blameless, and he might very well be as bad as everyone says he is, but people seem so eager to hate him that they’ll overanalyze and invent reasons to hate him before he gives them those reasons himself.
You’re right, in a way. He hasn’t explicitly said anything horrible yet. People often don’t come right out and say “I’m prejudiced against you.” We are reading intent and motivation into what he says and does. That’s what people do. Those are basic social skills – because people lie and hide their motivations and it’s risky as hell to take everyone at face value.
In real life and even more so in fiction and especially fiction like this where we get a few sentences per day to work with. One thing that means is that the writer chooses those sentences with care to create impressions.
Willis seems to be doing a pretty good job here. With nearly every strip John’s been in (and in the few things said about him before he appeared) he’s given us more clues as to what John’s like. Some had unrealistic expectations before he appeared. Some had probably already decided he was evil, though I don’t recall many comments to that effect before the phone call. Many were wary, but hopeful. I know I was. Every strip he’s been in has raised the wariness and crushed the hope a little more.
At this point, I’d be shocked if it turned around. Maybe in time, he’ll change. Hank seems to have.
That’s reasonable, I guess. I suppose I’m someone who tries to find the best in people and gives the benefit of the doubt. Open or near-open hostility (i.e. from Ross or Carol) is enough to dispel that, but John is being way more careful and definitely less self-assured than either of them. Maybe you’re right and I won’t see a bad person for who they are, but I try not to hate until I’m sure they deserve it.
We’re not so much jumping on the hate train. It’s more like the train was stopped at the station and then he started giving free tickets. Today he pretty much says that getting on the hate train for free you also get a free four-course meal.
“Oh Joyce how can you sound so angry about me telling your best friend that if she had just let her father re-educate her about what a terrible person she is for being a dirty dirty lesbo satanchild then she wouldn’t have any troubles? You’ll never get a decent husband if you go around calling a man’s opinion into question, tsk tsk.”
And now I feel dirty for having written that, even in a sarcastic-implied tone. Eeeeew.
He didn’t say anything like that.
He kind of did. That’s what so interesting about the way he said it!
No, he didn’t. When talking about things that relate to Becky, he’s been tentative, and he immediately backpedals when Joyce disagrees with him. The tone’s starting to shift now, but that honestly seems more like him defending himself than him condemning Becky.
People are so eager to put words into his mouth. John hasn’t said what Carol and Ross have. Maybe he agrees with him. Maybe he doesn’t. A lot of people here aren’t waiting to see before they decide what he thinks.
Are we reading the same comic here?
He’s said, near as I can tell, three things that relate to Becky: “I was thinking this would be family only”, “How’d you hurt your hand? … Ha Ha, Wow that’s a pretty extreme reaction” and today’s strip. Note that today was the first time he spoke to Becky directly or even acknowledged her presence.
We don’t see his reaction to the first, though he obviously didn’t actually refuse. I could see that being considered tentative. In the second case, I wouldn’t say it’s tentative at all, but he doesn’t actually backpedal – Jocelyne tries to change the subject and his next line is going after Becky over the SSN thing.
He hasn’t said anything explicit about her being a lesbian. He has tried to exclude her, ignored her, dismissed her very real problems. He’s not being pragmatic and helpful, he’s assuming they’re idiots and when Joyce responds angrily, shifts the focus to that rather than trying to come up with anything to help.
It’s possible, though unlikely given his upbringing, that he’s not coming from a position of homophobia, but just dismissing their concerns and efforts because they’re kids and probably because they’re girls.
Again, that last requires a little reading into the text, but that should be expected of any challenging text.
He hasn’t gone as far as Carol has. Much less as far as Ross did. He may well wind up being somewhere between Hank and Carol, but he’s still looking pretty bad.
There’s something to be said for looking for the best in people and always giving them the benefit of doubt, but it’s also risky as hell when you’re as vulnerable as Becky is right now. And Joyce is being very defensive of her, for obvious reasons. And poor Jocelyne, who likely knows John better than either of them doesn’t seem very trusting of him either, given her prompt deflection last strip.
Oh, hey, you’re right. I didn’t even notice him ignoring her, but at the same time, Joyce didn’t talk to Jocelyne, either. I just read it as two separate conversations happening concurrently: Joyce and John talk while Becky and Jocelyne talk, and eventually the conversations combined.
When Joyce told John that her response was proportional, I read “I don’t know, I just think” as backpedaling. He doesn’t outright take anything back, but he’s lessening how much he sounds like he believes what he said.
I never meant pragmatic to mean “he’s going to solve the problem” but that he’s talking about the problem, not the person having it. You’re right, he doesn’t want to talk about either. He probably figures this isn’t his problem, and he doesn’t want his family roped into it if they don’t do it right.
We aren’t Becky. I’m not saying Becky has to like John. We’re meant to empathize with her, but we don’t have to filter our perceptions through how Becky feels about them. John isn’t a bad person for not wanting to help with a serious problem of a person he barely knows. How far would you go to help your sister’s friend?
Well Joss had snarked at Joyce about eating strange things by then, so there was at least some interaction.
“I don’t know. I just think” reads to me like the start of a justification/explanation for why he’s right and she was too extreme. Apparently Jocelyne thought it was going in that direction too, judging by the interruption/deflection.
He’s talking about the SSN problem but only to dismiss it as a problem.
When that doesn’t work, he’s done and moves on to Joyce’s tone.
As for how much effort I’d put into it? I don’t know. I’d like to think in a case as serious as this, I’d at least put in some research to see what the best approach would be. After all, I’ve done that much for the discussion on this comic:)
If it would take more effort than I was willing to put in, I’d at least acknowledge that it was a more serious problem than I’d thought at first.
Check panel 4, the repeating ‘before…’, the implied pause, he desperately wants to say something to the effect of ‘before you decided to be a lesbian’, not anything nice and helpful about the proper procedures to acquire new government issued identification.
I suppose it could be. It doesn’t seem like a natural thing to say from the last thing he said, but it could be in reply to what Joyce said, instead. The line “I’m just saying” makes me think he’s building off what he’s already said instead of adding something new, though. Either way, John stopped himself; Joyce didn’t interrupt him.
It is exactly a natural thing to follow from what he just said.
There’s nothing that could possibly follow that line that could be helpful.
“I’m just saying maybe you should think of these things before asking your friends for their Social Security Number. Has the house been transferred to you yet? If so, you could call a locksmith and find your papers.”
To be fair, that’s probably not what he was going to say, but you can’t say that there’s no possible good end to that sentence.
There is no possible good end to the sentence that makes any sense in context without assuming John is even less experienced with the way the world works than he’s chiding Becky for being.
‘Has the house been transferred to you, yet?’ Really?
The house will never be transferred to Becky. Even if Ross were dead there’s little chance it would have been.
Whatever. The point is that he could have said any number of things at the end of that sentence. Probably bad, possibly neutral, less likely good. Whatever he was going to say, he stopped himself. Some people are acting as though instead of stopping himself, he said the most obscenely offensive thing they could think of.
http://www.dumbingofage.com/2016/comic/book-6/02-that-perfect-girl/mortgage/
Carol thought that Becky had the option of staying in her old house. John might have thought the same and recommended that she go there.
Just knowing what I think Willis is trying to create, I think you can’t assume that John has best intentions here. His confusion at Joyce’s anger doesn’t read–to me–like someone who innocently blundered into a mistake, because he’s calling on JOYCE to check herself.
“Do YOU realize how angry YOU sound?” He asks. The subtext is “Do you realize how you’re talking to me, your older brother?” not “What did I do wrong to cause this reaction?”
That’s fair. What he said wasn’t the right thing to say, to be sure. It could be both, though. It’s not unreasonable to tell someone not to yell at you, either. He also doesn’t have all the time in the world to think of the correct response. Real conversations happen far too quickly for that.
As an aside, if the person you were talking to suddenly started yelling at you, “Stop yelling at me.” and “What did I do?” are both reasonable responses.
When you take an obvious joke as an actual intent to commit a crime, and then start victim blaming the kidnapping victim, getting yelled at is something you should expect.
It wasn’t an obvious joke. When I read it, it seemed like she was actually asking to borrow Jocelyne’s SSN. Jocelyne didn’t take it as a joke, and John didn’t either. Becky didn’t laugh it off as “It was just a joke”.
Whether he was about to victim blame her is still undetermined, and even if he was, he stopped himself. Joyce didn’t interrupt him.
But “Do you realize how angry you sound?” isn’t either of those.
Where do you even go from there?
“Why yes I do!”
“Oh, okay, carry on.”
The only place that goes is either the “Don’t you dare get angry at your elders” or the “Girls shouldn’t be show anger” directions. Neither of those are acceptable.
Of course, she’s angry. Her best friend was kidnapped at gunpoint by her father. She was threatened with a gun. Her best friend is homeless and one step from the streets and she doesn’t know if she can protect her. Her mother’s blaming Becky for it all. And her big brother is treating it all like she’s just overreacting and none of it’s a big deal.
There’s a third option: “I don’t like when the people I’m talking to are angry.” He hasn’t fully thought out everything that he’s said, and in tense conversations, people tend to not think too far ahead.
Joyce deserves to be angry, but John isn’t the one who deserves all of it. He thought that Becky could solve her problem rather easily, and anger wasn’t necessary to tell him that, no, it’s not that easy.
To all those wondering how she could not have any of that information, it’s possible in so many situations. When I was 16, my sister and I sued for a custody change because we hated our stepfather with a burning passion, and we won. Like as in my mom lost all custody and we were given direct control over visitation. And guess who was holding onto all of those important documents of ours? Uh huh. Mom. And guess who suddenly couldn’t find them when we needed them later, forcing a lot of paperwork and time/money spent replacing all of it? Yup yup. Mom.
And we at least had a father who could help us through the process. Becky has no one but Joyce and her friends at this point. Obviously it’s not impossible to get through it, but it’s not like there aren’t any obstacles.
(Side note, even if the police let her in the house, who’s to know where Ross kept those documents and whether or not he’d divulge their location? In my case, that kind of stuff was kept in a lockbox somewhere in my mother’s house. We never really knew where it was, or had access to a key.)
The way this is going, Joyce may have another hand injury.
What was the point of this meeting again? I feel like it was supposed to be about something else, but John seems to be sidetracking the whole thing.
If nothing else, I sincerely hope Joss, Becky and Joyce leave together, and John is left by himself to pay the check.
Also, just a thought, but if Becky applied to get her SSN card, and assuming she’ll have 2 forms of ID, who will pay the fee? Most likely Joyce, which will upset John/their mother.
But what if John paid for it? There is still good in him. There’s still a chance to do the right thing.
He’s a missionary in India. There is zero good in him.
A missionary in India seems… entirely unnecessary. Granted, India may or may not be struggling with its caste system mindset, but the country as a whole is very rapidly developing. I’m sure there is some context I’m missing. Care to fill me in?
I don’t understand how being a missionary in India makes him an horrible person. Is there something I’m missing?
The history of missionary activity in India is… contentious. During the colonial period it complemented military and mercantile imperialism, attempting to convert local populations to Christianity and demonising local traditions, religions, and forms of knowledge. Their argument was that they were bringing Christian brotherhood and equality to poor, caste-oppressed people (a lot of them set up schools that are running to this day, and some famous missionaries like William Carey were superlative Indic scholars), but in reality there was as much inherent racism in colonial missionary activities as there is in casteism. I think Seriously is referring to this history which doesn’t let you look at modern missionaries in a global south country without suspicion.
A very good breakdown of what I’m talking about, but also there’s the matter of the most famous Christian missionary to India, Mother Teresa, who, despite popular misconseptions to the contrary, did nothing to help the sick, poor, and dying, and simply set up homes for them to die in and literally reveled in their suffering as a part of her religious beliefs. Missionaries in almost any country should be viewed with suspicion at best and contempt at worst, but this is even moreso magnified in India.
Not to mention the fact that all the money spent on setting up churches and bringing in white people to live and preach fairy tales could, you know, go to building schools or digging wells or whatever is actually needed in the community where they already have a pretty decent religion thank you very much.
All of this.
Hell, most missionary work is brutally oppressive and awful and designed mostly to withhold even the bare necessities of self-sufficience and aid unless the natives fully buy into an often racist and extra abusive version of the colonialist’s scriptures.
And I mean that quite directly. Religious groups are very fond of experimenting out some of their “ideal world” ideas on those receiving missionary care, whether that be their anti-condom, anti-sex-education absolutism in places with high AIDS rates or things like the Uganda anti-gay laws which were completely encouraged and put into place by US fundie missionary groups and local leaders backed by them.
It’s pretty awful all around.
All that you said is true and then some. I didn’t bring up the Missionaries of Charity simply because they’re Roman Catholic and some might argue more Protestant/non-denominational missionary groups aren’t as ideologically rigid. I’m from Calcutta, and honestly Mother Teresa is such a complicated subject of discussion. She’s been canonised and is respected by a lot of people, but it’s also known that she fetishised suffering. The Missionaries of Charity run orphanages but recently stopped allowing adoptions because Indian law has changed to permit single mothers to adopt: http://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/new-policy-forces-missionaries-of-charity-to-end-adoption-services-in-india-29527/
I’m an atheist and personally deeply suspicious of “charitable” endeavours of any kind from religious corporations, so while there’s a lot I can say about this I won’t because my bias would affect my arguments and none of us can speak for Everyone.
Yup, pretty sure you’re right and the meeting was just supposed to be about family meeting up, shooting the shit, but John quickly derailed it.
And I think part of the why is that he was already bristling that Joyce stood her ground and defied him by bringing Becky along and now he’s bristling that he’s not having the conversation centered around him and his points of view as the oldest male.
I’ve sadly met a lot of men like John who are like that and they only get more defensively assholic the more they realize that their attempts to gain control over the conversation is just “making them look worse”.
Hooray! John as ‘Scum of the Earth’ confirmed! I had my suspicions at the India missonary mention, and this confirms it! Who all was taking bets? The house is paying 3-to-1!
Seriously though, Fuck this guy.
I assume this has been discussed already but I missed it.
What is a social security number and why doesn’t she have it? Is it like an ID card for murricans?
A social security number is used to identify American citizens (and legal immigrants) for taxation purposes. It is needed to file your taxes, on your work applications (so they know how to tax your paycheck), and on school registration forms (to prove you are in fact the citizen enrolling and possibly making use of financial aid/student loans).
Yes and no with regards to school registration. You’d need to give your SSN if you’re also applying for financial aid or employment from that institution, but it can be optional otherwise. My old college no longer requires an SSN in their application process, and it’s a public university.
I have so much love for Joyce here. She’s really going to bat for Becky, against her own family, which is just so boss. Friendship, you’re doing it right 🙂
I’ve got a feeling that Jocelyne’s sotto comment in panel 7 is in response to John’s complaint about Joyce sounding ‘angry’. Essentially She’s saying to John: “Please stop telling Joyce shit that she already knows.”
For the people saying that it’s easy to find SSN application information on the Internet, it’s worth pointing out that navigating the Internet – knowing what search terms to use, knowing where to find things on a particular website – is not necessarily intuitive if you haven’t grown up with technology or have had only limited access. I read an article a while ago (I can’t find it now, otherwise I’d link to it) that kids who have home computers and Internet access – and have had the opportunity to play around on them – have a distinct advantage in applying to colleges and universities, as they can navigate their websites and compare them easily, whereas kids who were dependent on library or school access to computers (and therefore spent all their time on required assignments rather than exploring the Internet at will and learning how it works by osmosis) weren’t able to process the information as well or as quickly. It’s like literacy – if you’ve grown up knowing how to read because you learned it at an early age, it can be hard to understand the struggle of someone who’s illiterate or has only recently learned to read. For Becky, the world of the Internet really is unexplored territory, and I’m not sure she’s at the point of thinking that she can even find this sort of information online – and the people around her may take it so much for granted that they haven’t even thought to mention it.
I think it’s even more illustrative that a bunch of internet-savvy people fully invested in proving a character wrong about how easy it is to know exactly what to do don’t even agree or have a problem-free method for her to solve her situation and get all her documents.
So it’s not just people taking for granted many years of internet savviness, it’s also people not being aware of just how little Becky is starting with and how much she’s been kept in the closet about everything she’ll actually need to adult.
I like how if it’s so easy for Becky to already know what to do to get out of her situation despite having very little life experience, it must be much more easy for John to research how not to be an asshole given that he’s not under 24/7 stress about where he’s going to provide for himself. and yet here we are.
lol feminists…
the guy is a dick, theres no evidence so far that he is also sexist. the “patriarchy” doesn’t have to be responsible for every word out of a person’s mouth, it might be plausible that he simply doesn’t want his sibling to act angry or argumentative at all, especially against him.
Except that, as a Brown, he was raised as a fundamentalist christian, and therefore “sexism” is a big part of the package. So far, the only one we’ve met that ISN’T sexist is Jocelyne, and Joyce is making headway.
Papa Brown (I forget his name) hasn’t given any indication that he’s sexist, but considering the ensemble, it really is on him to prove otherwise.
I think papa brown is probably a little bit sexist, at least to much more modern standards, but he’s clearly much less of a homophobe than mama brown and, as at least implied here, John.
His name’s Hank.
No single drop of rain is responsible for the flood. And yet.
B-|
Okay, seriously, is this just going to be the wank brigade of “well, actually”s by a bunch of clueless white men the next week or so of comics or what?
…a comment like that with that kind of user name and avatar has to be a sly parody of some kind…right?
I just remembered that John is a missionary, and now his tone – while not okay – makes all the sense in the world. He’s not looking at his sister and her best friend, he’s looking at Lost Souls to Reach. He’s in the religious equivalent of Teacher Mode. (Except, he’s not even being a *good* teacher. He’s being that teacher everyone hates.)
As the adult son of a kindergarten teacher, let me tell you: Teacher Mode gets really old, really fast.
There is no doubt that John is in the wrong here.
However, I am reminded of the fact that the storyline prior to this was largely about Joyce’s friends being concerned about her inability to stop being angry. Anger has been her primary emotion since the kidnapping. She has good reason for this, but her friends aren’t sure if it is healthy.
Which makes me wonder if John might end up being useful by pushing Joyce to the point where she unloads on him about all the things that are making her angry. It might be a bit cathartic, and Jocelyne being let in on some of it would surely be helpful to Joyce. Even Becky could use some of that information.
With the Browns, ALWAYS assume the worst until they pleasantly surprise you. The idea that someone is inappropriately angry is a common silencing tactic–it suggests that their ideas are defined by emotion and emotion is an unacceptable place to form ideas.
Structurally speaking, I’d say that this idea of dismissing someone via emotion is common enough that it’s not being subverted. John will be played straight to draw attention to the problems with the way the Brown family is choosing to approach this.
This.
John is not worried about her emotional state and about to provide her resources for handling anger in a positive manner. He’s being dismissive about her anger and using it as a means of dismissing her and her stance in an exact recreation to the sort of tone-policing crap women who care about things get 24/7.
Ugh, one of the more annoying things about when I started to be out online as a girl was how my anger went from “such passion” to a means of dismissing what I was saying, because I was “being all emotional and hormonal”.
I never meant that John was worried about her. I just meant that he could be unintentionally useful by being the straw that broke the camel’s back, causing Joyce to finally let out all the stuff she’s holding back.
HMM, I WONDER WHY JOYCE WOULD SOUND ANGRY, JOHN.
Becky probably can’t apply for a SSN since she almost certainly already has one and doesn’t know it. Her father would have need a SSN for her in order to claim her as a dependent on his taxes all these years, and very few parents would be willing to forgoe that.
I’m not an american, so I don’t know how that works, but wouldn’t that solve her problem? Apply, get rejected on the basis that she already has one, ask what it is, done?
They can reject you on the basis that you have one, already (which prevents fraud, let’s not pretend it’s just bureaucrats being mean). But they won’t tell you what the number *is*, on the basis that the person in front of them might not be who they say they are, barring proper ID.
The tricky bit is, Willis has been lavish in telling us what Becky doesn’t have (SSN card, I guess driver’s license, etc), but not so much on what she does. If she has a birth certificate and some form of photo ID (A college ID with her name and pic on it, even if she doesn’t attend that college now) would do it.
Honestly, even if it’s that serious (she can’t get her birth certificate without an ID, she can’t get an ID without a SSN, and she can’t get a SSN without ID and a birth certificate), this is an interesting hours’ worth of work for a lawyer, even an advanced legal student (if, say, you live on a college campus). They don’t have money, true, but given what happened with Toedad, “pro bono for the good publicity” would be plenty of payment.
That’ll still be a pain in the ass and require tracking down an aid worker willing to help.
Like, dealing with much easier questions with a lifetime of googling experience and lots of adult skills, I still run into major question marks and freakout moments for changing my legal name, so I can’t even imagine how impenetrable and frightening it feels to have close to no official records, no experience googling, no clue on where to start, and a fear that this could all endanger her housing situation if she fucks something up.
Come to think of it though, Becky took a turn driving Joyce back home. Either she does have a license, or we can add “drives without a license” to wacky things she does.
Looking back in the archives, I’m not seeing any with Becky in the driver’s seat. Do you happen to remember where that one is, because I’m having difficulty finding it?
I just went through the archives, and all I see Becky doing in the drive to Joyce’s is sleeping.
You can apply for a new SSN card _fairly_ easily, though it does come with a fee that, while pretty nominal for anyone with even basic income, might be insurmountable for someone in Becky’s position. I think I got a new one myself for like. . . Gosh, it was either 10 or 50 dollars, and I cannot remember which.
As has been said, easily if you have the appropriate identification. Bootstrapping ID from nothing is hard.
Driving a car is easy once you know how.
Heh. Thanks for the smile.
It does happen… especially among the fundie set. However, it’s not clear whether her family was fundamentalist before she was born.
Not only are they haters, not only have they terrified themselves with their fantasies, not only are theyou the oppressive government they claim to oppose, they’re just stupid:
https://mobile.twitter.com/JayShef/status/712845760287494144
In this case, I submit that anger is not only an appropriate response, but also THE appropriate response.
That said, this is probably something to take up at the local Social Security office.
Re the three Brown brothers:
Way back when we first meet Joshua he says to Ethan that he is currently the “favorite son” precisely because his family knows so little about him. (I am using the name and gender the family knows him by in this context.) Consider what this means: Jordan we know rejected the family religion. Jonathan, who is the firstborn and a missionary, is not the favorite son. There must be a falling out of some sort, though not as extreme as with Jordan. The non-white wife is a possible candidate. The non-Christian wife does not sound as likely, since Jonathan seems to have swallowed the religion whole. Nor does the idea that he is hiding a husband instead of a wife really stand up to examination–if Hank and Carol had also never seen this mysterious wife despite the happy couple being within driving distance, I think we would have heard loud and long about that.
The simplest explanation is that Jonathan is almost the same sort of Christian jerk as Carol but less racist, and is no longer Carol’s favorite after marrying an unsuitable wife. I suspect that Hank is not as “Christian” as Carol and loves all of his children–more about that in my next post. I thought briefly that Carol might be upset because Jonathan went into a less lucrative field of work (Mammon is more important than Jesus to most fundamentalists, after all) but that doesn’t fit with Joshua being the current favorite.
Joshua/Jocelyn, the current “favorite son”, works as a freelance writer, and according to Walkypedia, “appreciates the ability to define her own identity through her work”. Don’t mom and dad ever ask to see anything s/he has written? Maybe Jocelyn has written articles about airbag recalls or the effect that the drought in California has had on the American brussel sprout industry under the “Joshua” byline that he can point to when his family asks what he does for a living. (Hey, freelance writers take any gig they can get.)
My guess is that, in addition to Christi not being white enough for Carol, she has drawn John out of their little non-denominational fundamentalist sect and into some more mainstream protestant church.
I mean, even if John was as fanatic as his mother, after a few trips to India he should eventually learn that are things way more important than their own petty obsessions about homosexuality and sex before marriage and hate against Catholics going in the world.
Or John has lied about his “missionary” work in India, and he has just married an Indian (probably not even Protestant) girl. Carol could be trying to “protect” their daughter from learning the horrible truth of her older brother’s interracial and interfaith marriage, and Hank and John run along with her shit so John can keep meeting his younger siblings.
By the way, I don’t think these panels up there hint to John being a fanatic and intolerant bigot like his mother, just insensitive and careless; he was going to scold Becky for not having her security number, forgetting what has happened to her, and when he realized he tried to divert the focus towards Joyce’s behaviour instead of apologizing for being an insensitive, careless ass.
That’s true. Simply belonging to a different sect of the same religion would be enough to knock him off the favorite list. Hell, it could even be as simple as he’s the oldest and has been adulting for awhile but not buckling down and getting married “like he was supposed to” whereas Jocelyne, Joyce, and Jordan are the babies and thus more innocent and “pure” before they’ve all started showing their impurities.
That all being said, Jocelyne thinks she’s her parents’ favorite, but Carol seems to be of the mind that all the younger kids at least “faced a harder road” towards being “proper” adults:
http://www.dumbingofage.com/2016/comic/book-6/03-when-god-closes-the-door/squeezing-2/
So Jocelyne might not be fully aware of how much her family smells her queerness on her.
or maybe it’s just that he’s a missionary and planning to be out of the country for most of his life and his mom isn’t able to see him as often as she likes. or she doesn’t like that his wife takes precedence over her. -shrugs-
…Christi is a very Christian name. I would highly doubt that she’s not Christian. idk, I get the impression that John and Christi are super-Christian, because John hasn’t seemed to examine any of the assumptions he’s making here. or at all. and if he’d ever had to examine any of his assumptions he’d probably be more like Hank.
…I think Hank and John were very strongly paralleled in that Hank’s response to Joyce punching Toedad was “great, I always wanted to do that!” and John’s is, essentially, “you’re too angry”.
She could be a lapsed Protestant, or a Catholic.
But you are probably right in. If Carol and Hank think that he’s fine, then he’s probably still a fundie, and his wife too. Unless he has been hiding stuff from them.
Joceyln, Jocelyn… Being adorable during a family meltdown about a legitimate situation.
According to Walkypedia, in the original Walkyverse Carol became pregnant with Jonathan in college, unplanned, and dropped out of school as a result. In this universe, all we know is that Jonathan is the eldest. Here is my theory about the family, which Willis could easily destroy in the next strip:
I posit that the chronology was the same in this universe. Hank and Carol were typical college kids, not all that religious, or at least irreligious enough to get pregnant. Hank married Carol because that was the decent thing to do, while Carol reacted to her pregnancy by “finding God” and going off the deep end. Hank fakes his way along, trying to be a buffer between his children and the worst of Carol’s religion. These two (sequential) strips show him in his role as buffer, mediator, diplomat:
http://www.dumbingofage.com/2016/comic/book-6/02-that-perfect-girl/roadtrip/
http://www.dumbingofage.com/2016/comic/book-6/02-that-perfect-girl/humility/
A few strips later he was pleased to hear that Joyce had punched out Toedad. Here he breaks out of the “character” that he plays for his wife and the rest of his church:
http://www.dumbingofage.com/2016/comic/book-6/02-that-perfect-girl/occasionally/
I would not be surprised if we later learn that he has occasional communication with Jordan that Carol doesn’t know about.
Has he said anything about Jonathan’s marriage?
Shouldn’t she have a passport, ID card, or driver’s licence with her SSN on it somewhere? If not, a lack of SSN is the least of her worries, she’d be an undocumented citizen and she’d be lucky she doesn’t look like a latino. Getting a valid ID should be her first priority. Hopefully she can still get one, considering her parents can’t confirm her identity(not sure what identity theft prevention measures the US has in place).
Also, I think being angry at John is a bit premature at this point. He has barely said anything, just mentioned she should get her own SSN. Give people the benefit of the doubt before yelling “patriarchy” at them, sheesh. He may simply have reacted because SSN’s are not legally transferable.
It exists, but she doesn’t have it.
That’s her actual problem right now.
You know, big brother is right. Why is Becky asking for social security numbers? You know people live in this country everyday without ’em. I swear the entitlement!
Apparently I have tripped a moderation flag (with a post that hasn’t shown up yet). So I can avoid this in the future, does anyone know what the criteria are? Length? Posting too often? So far as I can tell, I did not say anything contraversial or offensive by the standards of this forum; if anything, my previous post that did go through had more potential to offend some people.
Posts with multiple links need manual moderation, regardless of other content. Might be it.
This. I trip that flag literally every time I do one of my old strip link bombs.
Um, I don’t understand why this comic is entitled “Prevented”. What am I missing here? Usually the title corresponds to a word somewhere in the dialog. Hmmmm.
Very occasionally the title refers to dialogue that got edited out of the strip before it was published.
Break in! Break in! …or find out if there’s some legal way to get Becky’s possesions out of her parent’s house. Booooring.
Does it counts as breaking in if it’s your own house?
It’s not really her house, though, it’s her father’s. (Or the landlord’s, if they rent, but Becky’s name won’t be on the lease.) If Becky were able to break in without being caught…eh, no problem. Even if they found out after the fact, very few police would bother arresting her and even fewer prosecutors would file charges. (It could and has happened; however, for Becky this would probably be a low risk.)
If she was caught breaking in, well…that could vary a lot. If I were Becky’s neighbor and knew her circumstances, I would not only NOT call the cops, I’d help her break in. I’ve known police who would respond to this call with, “Eh, take your stuff and get out” and let it go but, again, there is a chance she could be arrested and even charged with breaking and entering. In MOST jurisdictions she wouldn’t – either because of sympathy or because it’s just not worth the bother – but she could.
For the sake of drama, I’d love to see a series of strips where she and Joyce (maybe with Jocelyn’s help) stage a break in complete with narrow but successful escape.
I’m kind of curious what the actual legal situation is here. Assuming Ross hasn’t done anything formally and legally to disown her or otherwise change her legal status with regard to the house, is the legal situation really any different than if she was back home over Christmas or summer vacation and locked herself out and climbed in a window.
Or for that matter if Joyce and Becky had driven home before lunch and both Hank and Carol were out shopping or something?
She still doesn’t own the house. It still doesn’t have her name on it. She’s not living there full time, but it’s probably still her legal address (in so far as she has one). Is there no assumption that a child or adult child, still legally living with their parents has a right to enter their home?
Okay, I’ve lost track. How many Brown siblings are there? I think I read somewhere there are six. There’s Joyce, John and Jocelyne here. Are the others unnamed yet?
There’s four. From oldest to youngest, there’s John, Jocelyne, Jordan and Joyce.
In the Walkyverse there’s two extra older brothers; Justin and Jared.
John, whose actual given name appears to be Jonathan, is the eldest Brown sibling in both universes, at least according to Walkypedia.
Actually I’m pretty sure there’s five. John, Jocelyne, JordanJoyce-and-Smitt, lalalalalalala…
(Whenever we go out, the people always shout, John, Jocelyne, JordanJoyce-and-Smitt!)
Much obliged to all, and particularly to Paul for clueing me in to Walkypedia.
“Do you realise how angry you sound?”
“Why yes I do motherfucker.”
*splat* *kapow* “KERPLUNT!”
“Lets go get this stupid SSN before I kill someone.”
*rides off into distance leaving trashed restaurant behind*
In times of trouble, I ask myself “What Would Jesus Do?”
And the answer always is “flip some tables and whip some jerks”.
Biker #1: …wasn’t that your hog?
Biker #2: Like I was going to try to STOP her??
+1 entire internet
NOT THE FOODBORNE ILLNESS!!!! NOOOOO!!!!
You should really think of these things before your father threatens to murder everyone, Becky. You have nobody to blame but yourself.
I am re-writing this to eliminate links to the comics. Moderator, please delete the earlier version.
According to Walkypedia, in the original Walkyverse Carol became pregnant with Jonathan in college, unplanned, and dropped out of school as a result. In this universe, all we know is that Jonathan is the eldest. Here is my theory about the family, which Willis could easily destroy in the next strip:
I posit that the chronology was the same in this universe. Hank and Carol were typical college kids, not all that religious, or at least irreligious enough to get pregnant. Hank married Carol because that was the decent thing to do, while Carol reacted to her pregnancy by “finding God” and going off the deep end. Hank fakes his way along, trying to be a buffer between his children and the worst of Carol’s religion. The strips just before he, Joyce, and Becky leave on the “road trip” show him in his role as buffer, mediator, diplomat. A few strips later he was pleased to hear that Joyce had punched out Toedad, and he breaks out of the “character” that he plays for his wife and the rest of his church. I would not be surprised if we later learn that he has occasional communication with Jordan that Carol doesn’t know about.
Has he said anything about Jonathan’s marriage?
If you go back to our first exposure to Hank & Carol in the Family visit strips, it’s really hard to see Hank as just playing a character. He’s the first one to bring up Dorothy’s atheism as a bad influence. He’s got the horribly “Hitler was maybe partly Jewish” line. He might be slightly less horrible in that whole sequence than Carol, but it’s a matter of interpretation.
If he’s faking it, he’s doing a really good job and a lot of damage in the process.
I think the more straightforward reading is that what he said in the car was true and he has been rethinking some things.
The idea that Jonathon was unplanned is interesting. There are some hints that they’ve gotten more religious over the years.
There’s such a thing as being lost in the mask.
I had a horrible thought: Toedad will be out on bail eventually. He already believed that the law of the land meant nothing before the God’s Law, but now in his mind he has Nothing Left to Lose.
He probably won’t be given that option. He’s a pretty high flight risk, and also a demonstrated danger to his community.
On the other hand, shitty job of sentencing+parole options could mean something. Of course, it would never happen in comic because it’d be a while
Very much so. Becky is going to be living in fear of every potential bail hearing, every parole, and every early-release or release date as it’ll mean her and hers will be put into danger again by an angry Toedad who blames her (or rather the demon he sees as taking over her) for “ruining his life”.
Does anyone know what chance there is that Toedad isn’t going to come after Becky if he gets out? Since he’s not going to get life, even for kidnapping, (not to mention, there will be folks from the church who’ll testify as character witlesses for him), could he be held, after his sentence for what he’s already done, as a continuing threat to Becky?
Barring some kind of mental illness ruling, no. Being a continuing threat could keep him from getting parole, but he can’t be held past his actual sentence.
Look up civil commitment. It’s a thing. A dangerously ill used thing, but a thing.
Nearly always (or maybe always?) requires the mental illness ruling.
Or am I missing something?
Willis has said that Toedad was going to be dealt with in a permanent fashion which he has been.
Permanent as far as the strip goes. In real world terms, Ross will be out eventually and Becky will be worried about that when the time comes. For the moment she’s got bigger problems and since it’s likely to be 10+ years down the road that’s centuries in DoA time.
God dammit, FUCK YOU, John. 🙁
Does Joyce ever use “a’int”? Becky seems to use it quite often.
I think Joyce’s family was more ‘proper’ than Becky’s.
Hey bro, Joyce SOUNDS angry because she IS angry.
Pro Tip!
R
E
S
P
E
C
T.
It’s called “respect” John. You should try it. (You patronizing shiz.)
Find out what it means to me!
oooh just a little bit, uh huh
Now’s when we figure out that Leorale is an anagram of, um, wait, there’s no T, and where’s the H? Never mind.
Phew, my secret identity remains safe, thanks to my poor spelling!!
I mean, what?
Joyce’s family sucks.
In other news, John is a real dick. Stop being a dick John.
No, John and Carol suck.
Jocelyn is awesome, if more avoidant than is really healthy in the situation, and Hank has shown growth and potential for more.
Agreed, Carol sucks the wailing void of chaos. Bongoid John almost certainly sucks the wailing void of brainwashed child. Hank, who knows? But still, Joyce and Joss. They didn’t come from nowhere. And we don’t know about Jordan yet.
One thing I’ve noticed on rereading is Joyce specifically mentioning that Becky’s house is ‘locked up’. Now I’m wondering if while they were driving around earlier they tried to go by Becky’s place to pick up her official documents and couldn’t get in.
In my very slow way, I’ve been thinking about this. So far in DoA, Mr. Willis has been very good about not springing retcon-like surprises. Aha, but Danny discovered the Detect Bongoid medallion yesterday! We just hadn’t gotten around to mentioning it.
It seems like the major characters don’t know more than we do. Is that right?
In particular, I keep wondering. Have Hank and Carol met Christi? Does Joyce know whether they have? If not: Joyce. Ask the question.
The eyebrows in this strip are great. Bongoid John has only one in panel two. Joyce is so mad hers have leaped outside her hair in panel three. Jocelyne’s peek eloquently above the menu in panel seven. But best of all, Joyce’s are full of wrath in panel five. So much done with simple lines. Wow.
Now I feel bad for wanting Joyce to potentially hurt her other hand slapping the shit out of John. I was thinking I wasn’t going to like him but I didn’t think he’d be this douchetastic.
John is most certainly being a douche, but honestly the only person in this interaction who’s hands are entirely clean is Jocelyne. The use of someone else’s SSN is not, in fact, a reasonable thing to ask. I’m pretty sure that would be illegal.
On a totally unrelated note, is Ana Chronistic secretly Willis? I find it interesting that the first comment is always theirs without fail. Just curious, of course.
Ana isn’t Willis. She just sees the comic early on Patreon so she can have a comment ready to go as soon as the comic goes up. She also doesn’t always get the first comment.
Also, I’m still confused why people thought Becky was seriously asking for Joycelyn’s social security number to use. Everybody knows that wouldn’t work and would be a bad thing to do. John’s the only one getting defensive about it.
Ah. Gotcha.
Maybe I misinterpreted, but Becky seemed on the level to me. I get the sense that she legitimately isn’t familiar with how this stuff works yet.
I suspect she might have been. She didn’t even seem to know there was a card, when she was job hunting.
Of course, if she doesn’t really know what it is or why it’s important, then it’s not horribly offensive to ask for one, just ignorant. As far as she knows, she just needs a number to write down in that field of the job application.
You’d think the police would be able to help her find the information she legally needs to survive in this country.
That’s what I thought too. Maybe it’s her not knowing about stuff again… or maybe it isn’t that easy after all?
hahahhahahahahahha
No.
Police don’t give a SHIT how you’re going to manage.
Whatsoever.
Frankly it was kind of lucky and lesbian-prayer-answering that the ones in Bloomington were so sympathetic to her to begin with.
La Porte’s, as others have said, most likely would not be that sympathetic.
Basically as a rule of thumb unless you’re with someone whose VERY SPECIFIC JOB is to help you find resources for Adulting (ie, an aid worker, disability hiring manager, or things like Career Resources at colleges sometimes), they are going to assume you are fully capable of finding those resources yourself/you already know them.
Even a sympathetic and helpful police officer would look at this and go “Not my job,” and you would be incredibly lucky to have a specific reference where to go from there from them.
Yeah, the closest any of them were going to get in that situation was “Ma’am, we’ll need to see your identification. And an address and number where we can reach you if we need more information.”
If she was underage, there would have been a procedure to get her in touch with CPS or something similar, but she’s an adult.
Here’s a hint: if it’s in the last comic, and it seems unrealistic or silly or whatever, then it’s a joke. That’s how the strip is laid out.
Last panel, you mean?
Not a bad rule of thumb, I suppose, but that’s the thing. It didn’t seem unrealistic to me that she would ask that out of ignorance.
Ohhhhboy….Joyce-tastic blow-up in three….two…one…
Every time I come back to this page I keep trying to come up with a John Dies At The End joke and I’m drawing a blank.
At least the comic isnt full of spiders
Okay, Russ, now it’s my turn. Spiders?
I don’t mean to alarm you, but you may have a huge, invisible spider living in your skull right now.
I’m not alarmed. I’m dead of frigh…
“John Dies at the End” is a rad comedy-horror novel. “This Book is Full of Spiders” is it’s sequel!
Thanks, Russ! After Spencer’s post, I went to Wikipedia for more information. Eeek. At least Peduncle doesn’t die at the end. Small consolation, given the title.
It’s a very good thing Peduncle lives in the end! Though we’re still unsure about John, since the third and final book has yet to be released.
Poultry isn’t meat now?
John you are telling off your little sister for being angry after she has recently had a gun pointed at her. Go to hell.
Also your victim blaming her best friend go to hell twice.
He is specifically telling her off for being angry at the guy that pointed the gun at her “extreme reaction” indeed.
I have a unique perspective on these comics. Why? Because I’ve known Willis since middle school, and I’ve lived in La Porte my entire life. I’ve been reading his stuff since 1990 at his lunch table in 6th grade. (Very little growth both artistically and intellectually since then. I jest.) I have an obvious particular love for ones set in La Porte. Thankfully, we are not all like Joyce’s family. Some of us lucky ones are even atheists. I always enjoy reading the comments as people speculate what La Porte is really like. Keep it up.
Careful there, John. Last time Joyce got this angry, Toedad got a nice fist-sized dent in his lower jaw.
Is this going to end with them having a passive-aggressive conversation that is going to be taken out on the food in front of them? If so, I pre-emptively feel sorry for all the poor animals that gave up their lives so they could be used to punctuate the frustration of this cesspool of anger and miscommunication.
Ain’t family the best?
Maybe Joyce sounds angry because… TADA she IS angry
To those who seem to think that every gun is a shotgun: Willis went to great lengths to pick a particular gun and to depict it in such detail that it could be identified (as a Ruger single shot varmint rifle). So it REALLY annoys me when you say ‘shotgun’. And it makes me wonder about the validity of whatever else you are commenting about.
So am I OCD for reading ALL the comments? Hmm?
people who don’t know or care about guns must be wrong about anything else they say? okay
Let’s just say that I have my doubts about anyone who ignores a hint carefully laid by Willis after it has been pointed out and discussed by other commenters.
I don’t think John is queerphobic, per se, at least not in an active way like Carol and Hank are. Jocelyne DID offer Becky an out-of-closet high five in his presence as a de-escalating measure, and I imagine she’d know.
What he does have, however, is a bad case of Just World fallacy.
It’s a logic fallacy / ideology / attitude that is built ENTIRELY around victim blaming. It states explicitly that if something bad happened to that person, CLEARLY they deserved it. Depending on individual outlooks, it might make exceptions for close friends / Proper Victims, but I have read a self-help book (recommended to me by a therapist, no less) that stated that if something bad happened to someone, it’s because Life is punishing them for having a bad attitude towards it. The logic went, if you think something about life sucks, life will prove to you that it indeed does by punishing you for that. Furthermore, it stated that people like that had ‘bad auras’ that you can’t get near or it’ll corrupt your aura too.
(Translation into normal human: you should never ever feel compassion and/or anger about injustice, if it’s about yourself then clearly that’s the source of your problems, if it’s about someone else they are Corruping You and you will be befallen by disasters if you let the feelign thrive.)
(I asked the therapist about what if bad shit happens to small children. The answer was, it’s punishment to their parents. I did not come for another visit.)
(That book in its preface explicitly stated its views as not Christian (that would make it unpopular around here), not adhering to any specific religion, but ~spiritual. It can be easily translated into Christian context, however, by replacing ‘Life’ with ‘God’, and match fundie worldview seamlessly)
I don’t know how extremely John buys into this, but clearly he does. His response to the situation is to try and minimize the problem, and pinpoint what exactly did /Joyce and Becky/ do wrong. He stumbled on ‘before’ because again, I think, he’s not explicitly queerphobic, and the phrase ‘before you decided to go and be a lesbian’ did not quite cross his mind.
He did not manage to come up with something after ‘before’, but clearly it CAN’T BE because there was nothing to be done and it was not Becky’s fault. Clearly he just failed at coming up with the response because his conversational partner was not doing the conversation thing right and was INTERFERING with his thought process by being so ANGRY.
He is not victim blaming Becky because she’s a lesbian. He’s victim blaming Becky because she doesn’t fit the profile of Perfect Victim. If she were, say, a straight girl getting sexually harrassed by her father instead, he’d sing the exact same tune.
People like him are a great support group for bigots.
I… really hope Joyce manages to yell some sense into him.
i know exactly what kind of stuff you’re talking about, it’s related to that “visualization gets you the things you want from the universe” crap. i bought a book about it called The Secret or whatever. took me a while to realize it was garbage.
Ironically, having bought that book did in fact eventually make me feel better. After I read through the first dozen pages with increasing feeling of WTF, took a break from it, vented to my friend, then went back to it with a pen. It’s an ANNOTATED EDITION NOW, at lest for the first several dozen pages. Complete with straight up pictures of smelly shit drawn over certain paragraphs because I just couldn’t come up with any other comment.
Very therapeutic 😀
This page makes me so angry at John. Like I get it, Becky should not have asked for another persons ssn. But at least hear then out, try to understand what is going on before passing judgement.
Tone policing is the worst.
Ok, so I get that John is being a bit insensitive to Becky and all considering what she’s been through, but seriously HOW does she not know her own SSN? That’s like…. basic information. I don’t understand how someone doesn’t know it before they leave the house, it baffles me. Again, I understand she’s been through a lot, but not know this sort of thing is just irresponsible.