Joyce: Look, I’m not saying you have to tell me, but lets just say in the hypothetical match-up between you and Joe, this could be an effective tie-breaker.
Yeah I know Joyce don’t know any better, but I really REALLY hope Dorothy is thorough to her about this lest she get on the bad side of Carla or someone even less forgiving 👀
–Dave, i’m sure English has used that as a euphemism at SOME point in the past. …right? . . . Google says several actual bakeries, including one in Hawaii, and various brands of pie. but NO euphemism? i am disappoint!
ps: sorry, pushed ‘report’ when i wanted ‘reply’. bad Dave
Carla assumes everyone else is a moron. I’m not sure she’d care. If anything she’d be annoyed that Joyce was paying attention to her because she’s trans, not because she’s awesome.
or it could be that THE SUBJECT WASN’T IMPORTANT to Joyce until someone decided to make a big noise about the whole thing. Joyce doesn’t look (so far) at someone who presents like Carla and say to herself “Hey, I want to shag that person” because up to now, to JOYCE, Carla’s a girl, and thus, not in her sights as someone to shag, thus she’s not going to pay much, if any, attention to what’s between Carla’s legs…because she just doesn’t care. it’s not relevant in Joyce-Land…until some pundit or other starts making a big deal about it. (Which they do, and have, and continue to do.)
This, is a mark of Carla’s success-someone like Joyce who has no other ulterior motives NEITHER NOTICES NOR CARES until someone makes a public stink that they really, have zero right to be making. (looking both at the noisy fundies, and the activists on that one, on both sides of the curtain or aisle.)
Used to be, back in the dark, dark days of yore, that NOBODY GAVE A SHIT, it wasn’t important, it wasn’t some existential cultural struggle or platform for an election (with the nasty side of me thinking it’s more or less someone ashamed of their erection. The religious right is LOADED with barely disguised closet cases who need to chill the fuck out and stop projecting their own kinks on other people while denying them to their friends…who probably have the same kinks and are just as ashamed of it.)
Carla successfully passes the “If you didn’t tell Me I wouldn’t Know or care” test-that is, the REAL LIFE test.
That’s success. That’s successful. Presents as a woman (albeit one with some obnoxious tendencies) and treated as a woman, END POINT, that’s doing very well indeed.
Used to be back in the dark days of yore “that dirty liar tricked me into thinking ‘he’ was a woman” was enough to get you off of a murder charge. Used to be that a body meant the police shrugged, and didn’t care.
Lets not romanticize the “dark days of yore” here.
Yeah especially because ‘yore’ was practically yesterday. It was only the last few years that some old guy murdered his neighbor and his entire defense was “I’m not gay”. Got six months in jail and 100 hours of community service. And this was in a very, very blue city.
Your entire premise is incredible problematic here. Weather you intend to or not, you are pushing the idea that a transgender person HAS to transition and HAS to “Successfully Present” in order to be treated with respect. And that is false, and dangerous and potentially damaging to transgender people who don’t have the means or ability to transition.
To be honest, her family’s money and influence – and Carla’s clear abilities in science/engineering – make it seem unlikely to me that she’d actually be going to a state school rather than say MIT or Caltech.
You assume her family is supportive. It feels like they’re nuveau riche – not connected enough to automatically get Ivy enrollments just for their name, and not willing to throw around the sums of money it takes to randomly get your kid enrolled in an Ivy. We also don’t know how Carla’s grades are – transitioning often has associated mental health issues that impact school performance, and just because she’s a great engineer doesn’t mean she has the 5.0 GPA and bevy of AP credits needed to support that.
We also know her family run a massive company that seemingly makes everything from phones to automobiles, which makes them absurdly rich. Like potentially more wealth than the rest of the main cast’s families put together, which given Jason, Jennifer and Asher is substantial.
Wealth is wealth, power is power. Wealth certainly can buy your way into it, but that’s to some extend gaudy. Ostentatious. Believe me, the old money thinks Elon Musk is just as much of a clown as the rest of us do.
Sure, they’ll take his money, but you won’t find a general finding his kid a comfy seat in the air force reserve if there’s a draft, no one is going to show up to his kids failing oil business and give them a lucrative contract just because. The most he gets is the sort of transactional respect that someone like Putin might give him, and even then look how many favors that got him.
Nuveau Riche. You can buy all the toys, but that’s not a seat in the club.
Unless her being Trans had something to do with her not being in a school like that. Notice that she has her own dorm, it could be because of her parent’s money/influence or because the school is not risking anything.
I knew plenty of people at school who should’ve been able to get into a “more prestigious” school, given their parents’ fame and influence. I did not go to a more prestigious school than IU. They were better in some areas and worse at others – yet some of the children of money I knew went to the school I did despite IU officially being better for their major. They never did it because the school I went to was in state and IU wasn’t.
If I’m remembering correctly, one of them had their school chosen for them because it was their parent’s alma mater, and another because it was their parents’ alma mater.
Many of them claimed it was because they had evaluated schools by a rigorous process they weren’t interested in disclosing which indicated our school was the best at actually teaching their major, regardless of what average starting salaries might claim. Some of them were actually supported in saying that our school was the best for their field, even if somewhere like Harvard would like people to believe otherwise.
There are lots of reasons besides money why someone might go to a state school instead. Maybe Carla’s a legacy or her parents donate a lot to this school so they wanted her to go there? Maybe it had better policies on things like dorm rooms for her? Maybe she wanted to be close to home in case of an emergency? Who knows?
Yeah. We know Harrison cut his teeth taking down a major piece of anti-trans legislation, he knows Carla on a first name basis, his firm has a lot of her parent’s money and Carla assumes everyone already knows that she is trans.
Which taken together implies a highly publicized court case around Carla’s transition.
Yeah, main one I remember is during the fire alarm/kidnapping ploy. Someone said something about everyone being out, and she made a comment that she’s “been out since that cover of Newsweek.”
Most likely due to her parents being quite rich and renowned, especially if her parents were… gasp, putting their funding into LGBT+ friendly bills and trying to fight for their daughter! Stop the presses!! We can’t have that in our CCCCHRISTIAN AMERICA.
As people brought up yesterday, she was on the cover of Newsweek when she came out. It’s almost certainly on Carla’s parents’ “personal life” section of Wikipedia, assuming Carla doesn’t have a page for herself. (Probably not, but hard to say.)
Now, it’s POSSIBLE this was like, seven or eight years ago and no one in the dorm knows except the ones who’ve indicated they DEFINITELY do (Dorothy, Sal, Mary, Ruth), but given things like Carla saying drawing a dick on her whiteboard was a hate crime before realizing everyone else had them (and it was therefore hilarious,) she definitely ACTS like her default assumption is “people know/probably know.”
Do you really think Carla hasn’t set herself up a thoroughly credible alternate personality just so she could create a Wikipedia page about herself without being caught?
I mean, yeah, that is definitely a distinct possibility. It’s also possible she had one without having to intervene just from the Newsweek/court case/kid of tech billionaires stuff combined. (At the very least, I’d be certain the court case has a page in its own right.)
It’s also possible Carla’s waiting until she’s patented her first major innovation in pie-throwing technology to start working on that. You know, so she can say she’s thoroughly earned it.
When she runs into Harrison in the elevator, he says something like “didn’t you use to be just this tall”, which suggests it was quite awhile back.
I’d say her assumption is probably more “people could know” and when there’s something like the whiteboard dingdong it’s an obvious assumption that whoever drew it knew.
She also almost never brings it up on her own. For all the “pay attention to me” shtick, being trans isn’t something she uses that way. Anyone might know, but she’s just as happy if they don’t.
The “this tall” was like a head shorter than she currently is. That indicates that at most it was before her last growth spurt. She’s 19 so that was like….what four or five years ago? That’s hardly ‘quite a while back’ or so far back the others wouldn’t remember seeing it everywhere for a while.
Honestly, I’m kinda surprised Joyce doesn’t know. It seems like the kind of thing her parents would want to protest.
It’s already been brought up that it seems fairly clear one large reason for her “Annoy All Indiscriminately / Pay Attention To MEEEE” schtick, at least in this setting where she’s never been Ultracar at all, is to focus folks’ attention ON something other than her being trans. most folks only have so much attention to spare, after all.
–Dave, it’s related to Dina giving Ethan her hat at the LGBTQIA+ meeting, so people had something else to focus on about him, which calmed his neuroses.
Carla 100% has her own page. Relatives of famous people would be likely enough to have at least a stub even if they’re otherwise not notable. The presumed subject of a prominent legal battle would certainly have one. And I’m pretty sure someone would warrant a blurb just for appearing on Newsweek even if they’d never done anything else of note. There’s absolutely no way Carla doesn’t have a page.
Honestly, is it ‘outing’ someone if they’ve been on the cover of Newsweek? There comes a point when the person is out, and that’s got to be the situation here. Joyce could easily find out Carla’s identity just from that tidbit alone, really, so Dorothy is not really accomplishing much here by refusing to tell the one girl on the wing who doesn’t know about Carla.
I think there’s a fuzzy point where it becomes acceptable .
Like, for instance Stephen Fry, Elton John, Chaz Bono.
But even people who have that sort of stuff in their profile on social media, or have pride flags or stickers, atleast to me. I’m bi, I have a little sticker on my name badge at work.
If the person in question is ‘out’ then imo they’re ‘out’ and you can’t ‘out’ someone who isp ublicly ‘out’. Like, at a certain point pretending that someone isn’t queer and out is erasure.
Dorothy isn’t saying ‘I won’t out her to you’ she’s saying ‘I won’t out her to you if you’re going to be weird about it’. Dorothy is just being polite so Joyce doesn’t pester Carla.
This implies that, if Dorothy *did* tell Joyce, either it would slide off of Joyce’s brain like water off a teflon-coated windshield, or there’s someone else on the floor who doesn’t know. By not pushing, Dorothy’s leaving room for the more comfortable third option that Joyce just wasn’t paying attention.
Now I want to write the song, secret weenus. Has to be folk punk.
“DOES SHE HAVE A SECRET WEENUS/it’s no secret she has two/she shakes em both all over town/when she dances the boogaloo” (weenus is the skin on people’s elbows)
We also know that she’s on a first name basis with a lawyer who made his name striking down a major piece of anti-trans legislation and who her parents employed.
Yeah, between “kid of high-profile tech magnates” (consider Elon Musk’s son’s name making the news, or his daughter’s name change to tell him to go fuck himself while also updating her name because she’s trans, or yeah, John Jolie-Pitt,) and the clear implications the Ruttens were involved with Harrison’s big case involving trans rights, it makes a lot of sense.
Are you surprised? I know she’s come a long way but I never thought the ‘Joyce learns about trans people’ character development would happen offscreen.
I actually sort of find it *less* offensive that she entertained the possibility, versus a “we can always tell” overconfidence in “clocking” that transphobes often have.
Joyce seems to be out of her depth rather than paranoid or hateful.
More like fenotype, i.e. looks. Which has only a weak correlation with gender. And gender only has a strong (nowhere near perfect) correlation with genitals. Nobody mentioned chromosomes, let’s not stretch this hypothetical too far, they’re note relevant.
This is exactly the kind of rationalization Joyce would tell herself, yes! …The reactions of commenters above may have subtly hinted to you already that this is not actually a good rational thing to think, though.
This is “you can’t just ask people why they’re white” levels of holy god what. Please tone it down just a notch or two. Thank you. Love you. Oh my fuck.
Wow, I remember the “oof” when I read that, and also the sudden realisation that someone I was very good friends with was a bit too Hazel-coded for me to want to be friends with them anymore.
Honestly, Joyce said something v similar about Becky back when she first came out. Luckily less transphobic, 7 years of progress on trans stuff (and a slightly different setting/tone) helped a lot there.
If you think Joyce’s reaction is that shocking given her upbringing and lack of exposure to any positive or normalizing messages about trans people (until one class last semester), you have led a very sheltered life.
Then you’re using the word “shocking” in a different sense than everyone else here. Everyone else is talking about how it is not unexpected, yet you want to talk about how it is bullshit. That’s fine, but phrase it as a new subject (because it is), don’t do the typical internet comment thing where we think that the only valid response is a rebuttal.
Wasn’t the Blaine incident national news? Like it probably didn’t linger in the common consciousness for long but a kidnapping with three fatalities involving two people in comic book costumes and a congressional campaign manager would at least be a novelty.
Robin, an sitting congresswoman, publicly cited the incident (and the need to let Becky as her campaign manager rest and heal) as the reason she conceded the congressional race for reelection 2 weeks before the actual vote.
(back in 2nd of september, 2020 real time)
If Ashers grand dad could stop such things from coming up in national news they’d be the illuminati not just a crime syndicate.
It’d probably end pretty soon since there wouldn’t be any new developments to continue reporting on after she withdrew.
We can also assume that a teenager who (at the time) wanted to become president would follow national news very closely — especially compared to one who was purposely raised to be ignorant innocent.
The Keeners might leave newspapers around, or keep it playing in the background, or straight-up buy Dorothy a Newsweek subscription to encourage her interests. The Browns probably discouraged Joyce from news: any time she tried to ask about it, she’d be met with a screed about how it was all religiously bad and corrupt and sinful, she wouldn’t get an unvarnished or appealing answer.
i’d imagine unless it was important or if they felt ‘attacked’ by it specifically like ‘hurting christian values’ it’s not something they would’ve focused on if joyce was prepping for college and other sibling s tuff (after all if it was that big of news, but they were still ok with letting joyce go to a non christian college b/c her parents went, but i don’t think joyce would’ve rly remembered it among all the other stuff teh news covers with teh 24 hour news cycles and stuff)
Joyce’s exposure to the outside world was heavily censored by her parents and church. Alternate expressions of sexuality weren’t covered in Veggie Tales, and she was taught to self-censor what she learned outside of home.
Unless it’s one of those stories that are pre-reported for weeks before anything actually happens, and then resurrected every few days for months after it’s all happened because they miss the sales boost, and dusted off annually to ask “whatever happened to…” and endlessly referenced as a warning about imaginary dangers….
Joyce was also very sheltered by Carol. She wouldn’t have been exposed to Carla’s story unless it was brought up as an example of “horrible parents and irresponsible doctors [redacted, use your imagination]”. Even then, she may not realize the Carla in the story is her neighbor Carla. (Assuming the adults driving her conversation don’t deadname her the entire time, or worse.)
I’m kind of amazed, honestly. You’d think whatever batshit right-wing propaganda outlet the Browns got their “news” from would have had a field day wringing hatemongering out of Carla coming out.
True. Even if her parents demonized “[Insert-deadname-here] Rutten,” she probably wouldn’t have put two and two together unless she’d realized Carla was trans from the start.
Carla wouldn’t make good propaganda for the right wing – she’s happy and successful. I think Carla was right that Mary was all bent out of shape at Carla’s mere existence.
Conservative Outrage du jour is an easy recipe, just throw buzzwords into a blender.
“They’re rich liberal tech parents indoctrinating their child into thinking all of this is okay and paying off doctors to [I’m not going there] to them and call it ‘tReAtMeNt’ !!!1!1!”
I feel like just because it’s “national news” doesn’t mean everyone would be aware of it especially since Joyce would be a child at the time this news circulated, so unless Carla’s life has had continued publicity related to her transition for years it’s very possible, almost expected most people around her age would be oblivious unless they were already familiar with her name.
Or even a teenager. Her parents didn’t allow her to watch mainstream cartoons since they were a gateway to “Eastern religion”. I don’t know their position on Fox News, though.
True, but there’s plenty of room to go either way here. It’s perfectly reasonable if Joyce doesn’t know about Carla but Dorothy does, so it doesn’t really need to be brought up explicitly within the story.
Given how loudly becky’s been about her orientation (not that orientation and gender is the same but at least joyce has a bit of exposure to the lgbt community), hopefully it’d be fine since the existing trans ppl in the comic have been pretty chill about their identity (well carla is quite boisterous personality wise but she doesn’t yell ‘i’m trans deal with it!’ versus her overall ‘i’m perfect and you should worship me’)
When she met Booster, Joyce was advanced enough to go “Okay, this is one of these things that gets me into trouble, I’m going to say nothing and research it later on my own.” That honestly puts her well ahead of a lot of people.
Booster is nonbinary/masc presenting right? even if nbs fall under the ‘trans umbrella’, idk if sarah had the knowledge to explain it to her since it might be complicated/nuanced enough to be its own thing like also gender fluidity and all that
Dorothy, why did you, within the span of 30 seconds, say “You do know, right?” and “I’m not going to tell you.” There was no Joyce being weird in between those two statements. That’s… out of touch for you. Also, how are you worried about outing them, if it was on national news -__-
It’s still personal information. Even if it’s public it’s not Dorothy’s right to out Carla to someone who doesn’t know. Maybe Carla would prefer people not knowing even if she expects them to. Passing can be very important and empowering.
I think the confusion centers on “how can one be outed when one is already out?” It needs a different word. Which word, I don’t know. But “revealed generally” and “revealed to one person who hadn’t got the word yet” are situations different enough that using the same word for both will leave some people puzzled.
Aside from what others have already said: There are such things as body language, facial expressions, and tone. Joyce absolutely spent those 30 seconds being weird about it.
LOL no, you’re absolutely right. I had initially considered writing “There was no Joyce being weird[er than baseline Joyce]” which would have been more accurate ^_^. But Dorothy knows Joyce and decided to bring it up anyway. This is a perfectly normal reaction for Joyce to just about anything outside the bubble of her Fundie childhood worldview.
Also Carla’s pronouns are explicitly she/her, not they/them. If you are referring to her as “them” because her transness was brought up… Don’t do that.
Thanks, I wasn’t (and for my own part, taking issue with my language should not hinge on ill intent — I prefer to presume people in this community, like Joyce here, are well intentioned). That said, I do frequently use they/them, if I simply don’t wish to emphasize someone’s gender or don’t consider gender relevant to the conversation, which, just like someone’s anatomy, it just about never is. Using they/them as a gender-agnostic singular is both valid and extremely common, even in reference to people with she/her/he/him pronouns.
Telling someone you won’t tell them about it if they’re weird can be a forewarning instead of a reaction to them being weird. Given Joyce immediately proceeded to act like a weirdo, it was clearly merited.
Ugh, I really thought Joyce was grown enough to not pull this shit, but I guess every new experience along these lines is still just a hard reset on her bad behavior. At this rate she’s going to start staring at Carla like she’s some kind of zoo animal if she finds out.
carla would def keep her at an arms length if she tried anything but i imagine she’d respect boundaries and not try to check out out in like the shower room or so versus dorothy where she’s been more comfortable enough to have ‘laundry room time’ with, so i assume she’s not ‘holding herself back’ on questions and such so to speak
But at least dorothy’s prepping her about it a bit. wonder if booster will join in or if they’d roll their eyes about it lol (tho i can imagine they’d focus more on charlie rn)
Joyce has spent 18 years learning how to behave in one culture, and now she’s effectively a foreigner who’s lived a few months in another culture. Behavior takes a long time to learn and longer to un-learn. Indeed, even within a single culture one spends one’s whole life learning it, because ethos changes over time.
Unless she comes out in front of Carol, in which case Joyce will instantly switch to “I will fight for my sister!”
To be honest, I’m a little surprised narratively this seems to be happening now. I’d figured it would work better for her first direct confrontation with a trans person to be Jocelyn. Raise the dramatic stakes.
Joyce’s pattern so far has been for her first experience with a group to be bad and improve later, usually with the second person being someone she cares more about (like Ethan and then Becky).
I have three trans people among my close relatives and I actively support all of them.
And… I wish Dorothy had
1) given Joyce some credit for correcting her mother’s language;
2) said “I won’t tell you who yet” in a much less judgey way.
Anyone who has no experience with something is going to be “weird” about it at first. It’s not like people instinctively know exactly how to act in a new situation – especially when the initial set of questions is likely to get a response of “You’re not fit company, go away and shut up, you’re a bad person.”
Like, Dorothy could have said “Joyce, if I tell you now who it is, you’ll probably run and pester her, and she doesn’t need that. She’s just some girl, except she also gets lots of shit for being trans. So let’s you and me talk until you’ve taken the edge off your incredulity.”
If anyone here reads The Daily Grind, every few chapters there’s a scene where the protagonist is like “Hey random person I’ve never met, here’s an alien species you didn’t even know existed. If you don’t instantly start treating them like an ordinary person, then you’re a racist and you deserve nothing but snarky contempt from me.” This does not make the world better in any way.
So, like, maybe we could have just a bit of compassion for Joyce here? She’s far from perfect, and she should probably grow before she tries to be friends with a person she knows is trans, but she’s doing her best in the right direction, which is pretty darn good considering the upbringing she had.
That’s all true. But Dorothy isn’t a teacher, she doesn’t have to be flawlessly gentle and patient and judgment-free with her friend. She’s just having an honest reaction.
Joyce ignorantly said something wack, Dorothy reacted like it was wack. Joyce wasn’t even hurt by this reaction. It’s OK.
The Daily Grind’s non-human persons are all traumatised refugees from hellholes that use them as murderfodder. (Like trans people in America, I guess.)
Nobody is demanding you forget that they: have acid spit, or can freeze you in time by looking at you, or are always That Friend You Forgot – but it shouldn’t take supernatural empathy (or a James) to not automatically other them and poke at the trauma?
“I have no idea what that’s supposed to mean.” James admitted bluntly. “But it sounds pretty bad when you say it that way.”
Just that fast. Just that unforgiving. This was far from the only time James reacted this way.
“Yes, the things that look exactly like robot drones are people. And if you dare question their degree of personhood, even reflexively (less than thirty seconds after first learning that literal magic exists and such a thing is even theoretically possible), then I’ll tell you that you sound really bad to me.”
To my eye, James has less empathy than some of the human people he’s being borderline abusive to. He’s in a position of power (the quote is from a job interview where he explictly tells the candidates “You have no good options other than to work for me”) and he’s using it to verbally beat people up for being morally deficient.
Look, I don’t know all the context of whatever piece of fiction is being referenced here. Maybe the person I’m replying to is calling some other thing “borderline abusive” and “verbally beat[ing] people up for being morally deficient”. I’m not exactly a fan of making up some scenario about robot clone shit and acting like forcing people to adjust to wacky magical hijinks is commentary on real life bigotry or whatever, if that’s what the comic/story/thing is doing.
But I’m not “pretending” to think that it seems like a “verbal beatdown” reading really, really hard into the line as presented, as well as stating Dorothy’s “it’s none of your business and you’re being weird” is lacking in compassion for Joyce. It’s really not that hard to take a second to think: oh hold on, you’re right, there is literally no scenario in which asking what some random acquaintance’s junk is polite, sorry, my b, let’s move on. Hell, Joyce is doing that.
*what some random acquaintance’s junk LOOKS LIKE is polite
Look, whatever, maybe I’m an asshole for thinking having empathy for Carla is a bit bigger of a deal, or maybe none of that has shit to do with anything that was said and I’m hallucinating an entire conversation. I’m gonna go to sleep. Y’all have fun.
Your reading of Chris Phoenix’s comment is barely coherent and reads like you took random words from different parts and combined them into something only a little bit related, then got pissy at them over your own misunderstanding. And then you went for some ice cream headache of a passive-aggressive personal dig, pretending they said anything about their own morality just so you could be a dick about it.
Nobody’s asking you to agree with their post, but comprehending it might be helpful.
ooookay hey hey. Taffy i get that you find @not someone else’s reaction unfair but maybe consider?
i think it’s okay actually that they have a bit of a kneejerk reaction to bigoted shit and react kind of stiffly to what could easily be misread as tone-policing. i don’t think that’s what they’re doing, i don’t know The Daily Grind either but in the context of this comment section i think it’s fine actually for trans folks to be a bit exhausted by appeals to politeness. (it’s also cool that not everyone is and some have more patience with the Joyces of this world, thank god!)
i actually agree with @Chris Phoenix’s point, to the extent that i understand the context they’re framing it in. that doesn’t make me unsympathetic to @not someone else’s reaction. maybe they’re exhausted and got kind of snappy at someone actually calling for compassionate allyship, not tone-policing of discriminated folks themselves. it’s understandable.
This would have been a good moment for Dorothy to work on the vital political skill of looking at the topic through the other person’s values and speaking the other’s language.
It would make her a shoo-in in any contest with any of the current crop of pol.s, who seem to score zero in that department.
If Dorothy still wants to be President or even take a small political office. She doesn’t have the moral stomach to make hard/evil decisions that involve personal gain. And usually, those people don’t make it too far in politics. Becky had a really good point when she mentioned that. Politics requires ruthlessness (and money) to gain a seat at the table.
Couldn’t have said it better myself. Don’t usually have the spoons to type these kinds of thoughts out, especially given the usual response, but I appreciate that you did.
these are all good points. Acknowledging that you didn’t say Dorothy was terrible, just you wish she’d done it differently, I do want to say something in her defense.
She’s not wise beyond her years, she has a little more experience with some things and a little less with others. She’s also doing the best she can, in the right direction. She just doesn’t know she’s ordinary yet, possibly also because of her upbringing.
I was talking about Dorothy… but also about some of the people in the comment section.
Yes, Dorothy is doing fairly well. Rather than criticize or call out a real person directly, I focused on what Dorothy could have done better. I do hope that we in real life can be quicker to empathize with people who are working on improving themselves, rather than focusing on their mistakes or cringe factor.
My reflex was to cringe at Joyce, I need to work on asking myself if I’m cringing because of regret / fear I would have made a similar mistake (or still might make).
As a reader I think Joyce is doing pretty good here, but if I was actually in Dorothy’s position I might not be sure how to handle it. I’m sure it’s awkward for her too. I think they’re both trying their best without being completely sure how to handle the situation.
This. And also, there’s no difference between asking questions out of genuine curiosity and desire to learn and asking questions sarcastically to reinforce your closed-minded judgements.
Sure, Dorothy could have handled this a lot better, but it might be worth keeping in mind that Dorothy is also in the midst of her own mental breakdown at the moment, and her reaction to Joyce here could just be another manifestation of that. Doesn’t really excuse it, mind you, but it could at the least explain it.
I don’t think how Dorothy phrased it is judgey. Telling Joyce that she’s not going to tell her if she’s going to be weird about it isn’t a bad thing. It’s a single, firmly stated boundary that she’s not going to tell Joyce who it is if she’s gonna be out of line. And while yes, it’s natural that Joyce doesn’t know how to get in line yet, that doesn’t mean that reaction should be coddled. Telling someone they’re out of line is not mean or rude or lacking compassion for them and it certainly doesn’t mean that you have nothing but contempt from them from thereon in. That’s something they need to know if they’re gonna be dealing with people from the group they’re freaking out about.
Personally, I’d take being told ‘I’m not going to tell you who yet because you’ll probably run and pester her and she doesn’t need that’ to be far more lacking in compassion. Yeah, I’m wigging out because I’m learning about a new group of people, that doesn’t mean I’m suddenly a toddler who needs to be told not to pester people. I’m learning, I’m not three.
And honestly? Maybe he continues to treat the person rudely but the excerpt of The Daily Grind you posted doesn’t seem unforgiving to me. Someone questioning someone else’s personhood DOES sound pretty bad and they need to know that before they interact more with them. Saying you don’t know what they mean by that also offers them the chance to stop and think about they mean by people. Yes, it’s normal to freak out, but that doesn’t mean someone pointing out you’re saying something crappy is unforgiving. Especially since it sounds like James is very familiar with this situation and having this conversation over and over again is exhausting. It’s okay to demand compassion for learning but it’s not cool to demand people gentle talk the whole way through it regardless of what they say without ever telling them ‘Dude, not cool’.
I meant to add this, sorry. Joyce IS doing very well considering her upbringing and I’m sure she’ll continue to improve. I think it’d be good to say ‘good’ about Joyce correcting her mom, and none of this is meant as a condemnation of Joyce overall.
ykw actually yes i agree with all of what you said.
it’s ok to be a bit bitey with people when they’re talking trash, even unwittingly. maybe it’s not the most perfectest attitude, but i feel like it’s a minor point and a matter of personality more than ethical concern.
(i also had that reaction to the dialogue that @Chris Phoenix quotes of… wait that’s supposed to be an example of cold and unforgiving? that response actually sounds… fine to me?)
sure we can have compassion and patience for Joyce. it’s good to be compassionate and patient. or, like, not? it’s kind of whatever in my book? ultimately, not a hill i’ll die on either way. what does matter is for her to get that what she says is not ok.
now i do think allies being little superior gatekeepey shits for cheap clout do suck, but i don’t think that describes either situation here.
I don’t know if this still counts as throwing off an overly religious upbringing unevenly or just generally being unaware of things
the asking about people’s genitalia is definitely the first bit though
i mean, it is a thought that’d occur to ppl when they first learn about trans ppl at a younger age but most ppl don’t rly blurt it out loud unless they’re younger
but given what her mothers like i wouldnt’ be surprised if she grew up having worse preconceived notions
She’s also not blurting it out to the person in question, but to a close friend of hers, which does make a difference. I suspect even Joyce would be a bit more circumspect if she was talking to Carla directly (assuming she learns it is Carla.)
I think the way this story goes in the long term is that Joyce is going to learn it’s Carla, Jocelyne is going to come out a little bit later. She’s gonna probably say something slightly insensitive because she’s Joyce, then freak out after the conversation and ask someone for help since this is way beyond her depth. This would also be way beyond Dorothy’s depth, so she would try to turn to Carla, but then eventually turn to Booster at some point.
Basically, out of all the other trans people in this comic… Carla considers herself way too important for this, Joyce doesn’t know Zaph, Malaya considers herself way too inexperienced for this, so Booster, the one tackling a psychology program, is probably the best fit.
I think to say Carla would consider herself too important is giving her too little credit. It was a long time ago, and relativley brief when it happened, but being trans is pretty clearly the one part of her life she takes A Lot more seriously than everything else (likely because she was forced to by public scrutiny.)
I could see her dismissing joyce if it was Just about Joyce, but bringing the fact that its her sister who would suffer by not helping her, I wouldn’t be suprised if carla did try to help.
Now, her help might be kinda goofy and too self centered to be useful, but I kinda assume she would at least try.
Yeah, Carla’s self-aggrandizement reads pretty clearly as a defense mechanism to me. When the chips were down (Ruth going full suicidal), she made an active effort to do her best to help. As you say, the quality of her help can be debated, and I’m not entirely convinced she’d be willing to try (again, the aftermath of the Ruth episode), but I don’t think she’d refuse out of a sense of self-importance.
Joyce didn’t ask Dorothy about her weenus, though. She just looked awkwardly. She’s probably not going to look at everyone’s things on the floor. Even if she did, there’s no telling how far she would get.
Carla could…
A. Have had genital reconstruction surgery or an orchiectomy.
B. Be tucking.
C. Wearing a gaff.
D. Have small enough testicles and/or penis that it wouldn’t be visible with tight underwear.
Next strip: Carla walks in and cooks some instant ramen. While the noodles boil, she complains loudly about her junk sitting weird today. Joyce is too busy staring heterosexually at Dorothy’s crotch to notice. Carla finishes making her noodles and walks off.
…this comment reminds me of how until I saw one of Yomotoe’s drawings, I was unaware that I’d always assumed Carla had had bottom surgery. This is because until I saw said drawing and realised that, I had never spent so much as a split second thinking about the configuration of Carla’s crotch.
I then contemplated my assumption for a while, and was deeply relieved to discover that I could actually provide reasons for my assumption.
I hadn’t even gotten that far. It barely registers to me that Carla may have been born in any other way than bursting out of the womb crowing her name in delight.
*pause* *facepalm* Yes, Jamie. Of course she takes so much delight in her name. That should really have been obvious. I just … don’t think about Carla, really.
Tbh, the chapter titles are often applicable to several different things that happen inside them. It’s genuinely impressive to me that Willis can do that.
I have been Joyce in this situation, I have been Dorothy and I have also been Carla. Joyce will learn and it will be awkward. At the dumbing age that is the only way.
Ehhh, it’s an awkward and uncomfortable conversation but at least they’re trying? Dotty is doing well, Joyce less so, but we’ve ample evidence for how fast she can grow and learn without causing undue chaos and destruction, so I’m hopeful.
Here’s the viewing order of the 8 live action series, 3 animated series, 2 series of ‘shorts’, and 13 movies of star trek that you’re obligated to watch to get references. Be forewarned, a lot of them are bad, as any true trek fan will tell you.
1.
Are you really a Trek fan if you don’t have a list of episodes you love to hate-watch? A bunch of episodes are objectively bad TV, but we love them anyway. (At least the ones that are “Threshold” bad; the community shuns the episodes that are “Code of Honor” bad, thank goodness.)
If you want a more digestible first Trek, watch Lower Decks. The first few episodes are a little too slapstick, but it finds its footing halfway through the first season. It’s more fun if you get all the “blink and you miss it” references they stick in, but you don’t have to have all of Memory Alpha memorized to enjoy the show.
Start with the original series or TNG season 2 if you want a “proper” watch-through. Just remember they don’t have decades of worldbuilding to benefit from, so up through the middle of TNG will feel a little sparse. (And no, they never go back to the prohibition-era Chicago gangster planet, or the “very obviously shot on the Mayberry backlot” planet.)
A reporter from national TV wanted to do some feelgood interview with a cute little girl on a fair or something like that and she made him cry within two minutes (because of course she did)
I know it’s for the punchline in the strip, but Joyce’s pose in panel 5 is a “reprogramming brain” look to me. And sometimes other people are in the eyeline of that.
Dorothy probably wants to rein her in before she talks to carla if they do run into each other
tho given the ordeal with mary any thing joyce might say if a bit ignorant/naive wouldn’t possibly be as bad, or not change carla’s opinion as much if she still sees her as a ‘bible girl’ even tho she was told joyce is an atheist now
Her parents are rich and own a very high-tech company, and support her for who she is.
But having rich parents doesn’t offer much emotional protection. And in many circumstances it wouldn’t even offer practical protection.
Being a millionaire doesn’t come anywhere close to making Carla invulnerable enough that she would be careless about being outed. Now, Carla’s personality might make her not-care. Or care-but-pretend-she-didn’t.
It may sound trite or silly, but millionaires are people, and deserve to be treated like people. Not outed casually because “they’re rich, why should they care?” or “they’re rich so it’s OK to hurt them.”
It’s also a little rude too. But yes, making sure Joyce doesn’t misunderstand boundaries and run up and loudly inform Carla that she’s proud of her for her transition out of nowhere is just good thinking.
Though with Carla it might backfire. “Yes, you are proud of me! Tell me more about how brave and special I am!”
more detailed, coloured illustrations of things Joyce never ever carefully considered and envisaged and gave a truly insane amount of thought about?!
Literally not a single time, has the specific sexually objectifying gay threesome herein depicted been agonizingly visualized by Joyces hyperactive horny brain in lewd slomo, tasteful lighting and IMAX quality
exactly. and those are space vampires from warring factions. that’s just what intergalactic conflict resolution looks like. (President Kenner is about to enter the fray and rubber-stamp the peace treaty by ceremonially fingerbanging her trusted Space Captain. a bit of a formality but well, that’s politics. lotta protocol.)
in fairness to historical reality, leaders making genitalia-based decisions is certainly a lot more common than anyone would be comfortable admitting in a UN plenary session. “everything is sex, except sex which is power” something something, i’m very smart. back to drawing sexy gay sex though.
*sun-drenched spaghetti western vibe*
Joe, Ethan and Jacob are staring at each other intently.
in a flash, they each draw their dicks, and clouds of kicked up dust momentarily obscure the scene.
next thing you know, the three of them are lying down in a heap… plugged full of dicks.
Carla would totally be into the concept of her very presence having lead Joyce astray… which would leave Becky in a huff because if anyone corrupted Joyce it was HER, dammit.
My eyes are pretty lousy. We’re talking about Carla, who’s not even slightly stealth, but a six-even silly person, right? (Also, how the hell does Joyce not know?! She brings it up constantly, and literally said when Joyce painted a penis on her door called it a hate crime until she realized it was on all the doors.)
Joyce doesn’t exactly understand what to look for. Some of the audience might not eve know if there weren’t non-Joyce strips where Carla spells it out.
I’m not sure she does bring it up that often; if it’s a natural part of the conversation, perhaps, but mostly it seems like making sure people know she’s trans would get in the way of making sure people know she’s C*A*R*L*A.
It’s still been obvious enough that I picked up on it, but there’s a difference between Joyce, who doesn’t pick up on these things because of her upbringing, and me, who doesn’t usually pick up on these things because I’m an idiot.
She’s hinted at it a few times, and also mentioned it explicitly during a storyline about Mary. So for the audience it might feel like she talks about it a lot. Since Joyce is the main character it can be easy to forget that she wasn’t around for that and doesn’t know everything we know.
And I’m fairly certain a large portion of Carla’s bombastic nature is either a deliberate or subconscious act to deflect away from her transness and keep others at arm’s length.
Carla almost never brings it up. And never explicitly. She hinted to Sal early on. There was the reaction to the whiteboard dingdong.
Obviously the incident with Mary. A talk with Malaya. But those weren’t her bringing it up.
For all the attention she wants on herself, it’s pretty clear she doesn’t want any attention for that.
Sure, but it had just been brought up horribly earlier in that scene. She’s willing to talk about it directly when needed, but she rarely brings it up and never that explicitly.
i don’t blame people for not remembering such an old comic, but it is a very good example to point out that This Specific thing tends to cut through carlas persona pretty distinctly
Willis, I have put up with this Joyce/Dorothy tease for YEARS. Have mercy!
It’s because I know this is a comic that is aware of the nuances of orientation and attraction; this is a comic I would trust to understand concepts like an ace trans lesbian (yes Carla, I see you) or queerplatonic relationships and sex buds that are not dating, Etc. So if Joyce and Dorothy say they are straight, they can be straight!
Because of this, I accepted platonic mutual masturbation. I accepted their non-romantic adoration for one another. But now Joyce is staring at Dorothy’s crotch, thinking about her genitals.
WILLIS. I AM TOO GAY FOR THIS. I am THIS close to either writing fanfiction, or creating OCs vaguely based on them just so they can make out.
Hey, I’ve yet to see the author complain about any of the fanstuff that gets linked here, including noncanon stuff, and Joyce/Dorothy is pretty tame. Go ye forth and write.
I think Joyce will come out as bi once she feels less panicked about sex. Dorothy might be straight, but she’s usually slightly more normal about it all.
I don’t think Joyce is bisexual – compare her attention to men she’s attracted to to any given woman and you’ll see a marked difference: Joyce gets horny for men and not women. Biromantic maybe, but I don’t see bisexual.
Yeah, I don’t know what’s going on exactly? The strip itself has lampshaded the issue a few times — Daisy calling Joyce’s comic strip out for “feeling kind of queerbaity” if her self-insert and the character based on Dorothy don’t eventually get together, and similarities between Joyce/Dorothy and Leslie/Ann (Parks and Recreation) were highlighted, albeit in a scene that was ALSO very much about Robin’s denial. I can definitely picture all of this culminating in Joyce one day giving Dorothy a similarly loving look and saying, “No, tragically we are both heterosexual” (a line of actual dialogue from Leslie about Ann in P&R’s final season).
I can also picture it eventually going more the way that The Good Place did, where eventually Eleanor just acknowledged she was “legit into Tahani” and thus bisexual but the show was firmly committed to a completely different endgame ship, and Tahani wasn’t it for Eleanor.
I think the latter was better, certainly, but I won’t say they didn’t both disappoint my gay little heart.
(I have no issue with the men Eleanor and Leslie dated instead; like Joe is with Joyce, they were cute. The gay little heart just wants what it wants. I’m not quite inspired to write fanfic, though; even though I know the actors and writers for both shows would be super on board with me writing fan fiction of my “preferred ships”, it still feels a little… I don’t know. Sad. Like throwing your own birthday party because your friends forgot.)
I’m glad you enjoy them! idk, it’s not a problem I usually have with noncanon ships. (I mean, it’s the 2020s and all, but I’m pushing 40, and even nowadays the ships my gay heart wants very rarely happen, so I’m extremely used to carrying on regardless.) Maybe it’s something unique about the intersection of the creative team basically taking me by the hands, looking directly into my eyes, and saying, “We know! We see the potential too. It’s valid and so are you! But nah.”
The most I’m used to hoping for is that a show/book series/comic will end without actively sinking my ship, but something about my ship being sunk while the creative team acknowledges it and says it’s neat but it’s never happening… really kills the part of my brain that wants to engage in transformative fiction. I just kinda go “oh, okay,” and move on.
Full respect to Willis, I won’t accuse the strip of queerbaiting even if Willis themself does, but I will be sad? I don’t think anyone can ask more of a shipper than that. 🙂
I liked both BenXLeslie and ChidiXEleanor enough that I wouldn’t have wanted the other ship over them, BUT I wanted both Ann and Tahani to end up realizing they were gay. (Ann and Chris the second time around was kinda eh for me.)
I didn’t want Leslie not to marry Ben, but I really would have liked a poly thing. Admittedly a poly thing in keeping with the rest of the tone of the show would have kind of sidelined Ben (thinking of a million jokes, but most specifically the one where the gang makes a word cloud out of Leslie’s emails / tweets / what have you, and there’s a pretty Big Ben word balloon but a HUUUUGE Ann one and the characters conclude “well, she really loves Ann”)…
Also Ann being gay would’ve — fit a specific type of later in life gay awakening? Her relationships with men were all pretty terrible, her moment of clarity around how every man she’s dated so far has become her whole personality… it would’ve been interesting and would have made sense for the character to fall in love with a woman and be like “oh! huh! this is different, have I been self-sabotaging this whole time because subconsciously I didn’t want to date men???”
…also-also? I will never not be disappointed in general by how incredibly heteronormative the end of Parks & Rec was — and I don’t just mean “everyone was straight”, I mean everyone was married-with-children. I doubt it was intentional, but if you compare the first few episodes to the finale, it’s very… noticeable. “Huh, I forgot that April was originally in an asymmetrical poly relationship with two queer men. Oh, and Donna had multiple Friends With Benefits going on. Leslie wasn’t exactly strong and independent with no need for a man, but she sure did live alone in a house that she owned? We had a bunch of happily single characters, like Ron and Ann when she first broke up with Andy, and……… now everyone’s married with kids or kids on the way or both. We even married off the two token gay guys to each other. Hm.”
Unfortunate Implications about what it means to grow up.
Tahani meanwhile… did she ever actually express interest in men? I know Jason was her assigned soulmate at one point but if she ever actually made significant eyes at a boy I’m not remembering it. It probably would’ve felt performative even if she had, given how much of her early characterization WAS performative. Hmm. I haven’t rewatched TGP yet.
oh also it is a bit funny to me how much credence everyone gives to the one comic in 2015 where Dorothy called herself “I don’t know probably a zero? I guess that could change,” as if that was the Definitive Final Clinching Proof of her heterosexuality. Plus one time she disparagingly said something sounded like it was “outside [her] dumb cishet experience”, which is definitely not a sentiment any queer person has ever felt or expressed prior to coming out because goodness knows we were all totally self-aware at 18.
(This is a “it’s not the conclusion I have a problem with so much as the process by which the conclusion was reached” situation.)
I think due to the nature and the audience, conversations like this don’t feel super authentic. There’s no reason for completely cishet lib politicking Dorothy to have near-divine perfect intersectional clarity on an issue she has very little personal investment or even secondhand experience with, but because Joyce is the voice of the unlearned and Dorothy is the voice of the learned, the exchange must happen this way.
Meanwhile as a closet transmasc bisexual disaster with a pretty good cover story, I have to have this conversation regularly with people of various professed political alignments, and the conversation almost always goes “kids forgetting what gender they are/confused, sure I support what they want for themselves, it doesn’t affect *me* any, but I do think it’s a mental illness/fad/confusion etc.”
When we’re on the internet in leftist circles, it’s easy to believe and assume that the outward shows of support and fighting back against trans critical narratives are the norm, but I’ve gone back to uni recently and even among the trans youths I end up around, most of the kids are just following and repeating what they hear online, it’s just as confusing for them – so why would an 18 year old with no gender or sexuality questions who’s spent much of her life trying to follow a script for promising young politicians be up to date on issues that struggle to gain widespread consensus and understanding even in their spheres of influence, much less members of the wider political alignment that may or may not support them?
The answer is simply that sometimes this comic is meant to be a reflection and condensation of the author’s own experiences, and a megaphone attempting to show what is and isn’t appropriate in a given circumstance.
Chris Phoenix’s comment above examines how Dorothy’s response is not actually ideal. She’s good about being informed, but medium in execution. It’s something I noticed when she suggested Joyce “try deism”, she projects perfect clarity, but doesn’t have it.
Maybe she is still doing unexpectedly better than someone who is light on experience and heavy on just reading about it, for the reason you said.
It’s really not that unbelievable that someone as idealistic as dorothy would spend way too many hours one night looking into trans people and how we want to be treated, considering she has been in a dorm with one for months, and then had another trans person introduced to her social circle, and someone who was already in it come out.
Even despite that shes not being perfect about it. I could kinda agree that joyce herself is being a little too nice for realism, but considering the absurd degree of specifics we know about joyce, its not really that unreasonable to imagine her being fully uninformed instead of informed Badly
Uh. Your concluding paragraph: 100%. Your take that this reads unnatural? I disagree. This reads as an incredibly normal conversation to me. Joyce’s fundie reactions can go into cartoonish to me (as in literally, things are exaggerated in webcomics), but Dorothy seems extremely accurate.
/ID as transmasc, present as female, spend my IRL time around liberal people who are mostly-hypothetically accepting. I have been triggered by ignorant comments in the past, yet this is basically how I’d expect my cohort to react here.
It’s one thing being progressive from your comfy armchair, it’s different when actually interacting with the people on whose side you claim to be. That said, Joyce already stepped up once, she can be better.
This is still quite possibly my favorite strip in the whole comic. That is one of the most romantic things a person could ever possibly say about the person they love. God damn. Still gets to me.
Huh…
If a “penis” is something the having of is one’s own private business…
…Then is a “Weenus” (“We”, “Us” ) something to be shared with the general public?
I blame Joyce’s aversion to certain words for this invasive thought that is going to be trapped in my brain for the rest of the morning, if not longer.
“Magazines” isn’t in the text in the comic, that usually only happens when there’s little or no text. Incidentally, the sliding timescale means that the article in Newsweek was when it was zombie Newsweek, run a right-wing church.
Sorry dotty but its your job as a cis to let joyce get ALL her stupid thoughts and questions out now so she can process it, realize the err of her ways, and move on to act normal 😌😌
What Joyce needs is someone who will talk to her about these things and answer these kinds of questions, understanding that Joyce isn’t trying to offend them. She’s asking from a place of genuine curiosity and that should be encouraged while also helping her to understand these things and what and how things might be construed as offense, even if unintentionally.
yeah, but as a trans person, it is damn exhausting to act as someone’s living reference library. going to a cis ally is going to be more beneficial as there’s less chance Joyce is going to use up someone’s last spoon asking a “simple, innocuous” question that is just a step too far and get blown up at.
She needs someone who will talk with her from a place of understanding, but not necessarily answer *these* kinds of questions. Respond to with corrections or redirect, but not discuss another person’s genitalia with her as part of the intro.
I know Joyce is being very face palmy with this, but hey, at least she still called them by her correct gender. Even with going “omg secret weenus” Joyce called the mystery trans woman a girl.
I had a similar conversation once. There were a lot of people in Ottawa who were very active in both the BDSM and belly dancer communities. I forget how the conversation came up but I wound up telling one of the belly dancers that she actually knew a lot of people that were into BDSM. She wasn’t shocked or repulsed, just surprised.
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Joyce: Look, I’m not saying you have to tell me, but lets just say in the hypothetical match-up between you and Joe, this could be an effective tie-breaker.
Tie breaker? Please. They both know Dorothy clears easily.
But the Maytag Repair Man remains king.
Yeah I know Joyce don’t know any better, but I really REALLY hope Dorothy is thorough to her about this lest she get on the bad side of Carla or someone even less forgiving 👀
Joyce: Don’t worry, I’m way better about this stuff than I used to be. Watch, I’ll go say hi to Carla and won’t be weird or anything.
(Joyce walks away. Beat panel. Joyce walks back with pie on her face.)
Joyce: I may have been slightly weird. Or not, it’s hard to tell with Carla, this might just be “Hi”.
Hey, no spoilers!
so Carla gave Dorothy a hi pie!
–Dave, i’m sure English has used that as a euphemism at SOME point in the past. …right? . . . Google says several actual bakeries, including one in Hawaii, and various brands of pie. but NO euphemism? i am disappoint!
ps: sorry, pushed ‘report’ when i wanted ‘reply’. bad Dave
Carla will be far more upset at someone not knowing Who She Is.
Carla assumes everyone else is a moron. I’m not sure she’d care. If anything she’d be annoyed that Joyce was paying attention to her because she’s trans, not because she’s awesome.
Then again, not knowing means there was a point in time where Joyce was not paying attention to her at all.
or it could be that THE SUBJECT WASN’T IMPORTANT to Joyce until someone decided to make a big noise about the whole thing. Joyce doesn’t look (so far) at someone who presents like Carla and say to herself “Hey, I want to shag that person” because up to now, to JOYCE, Carla’s a girl, and thus, not in her sights as someone to shag, thus she’s not going to pay much, if any, attention to what’s between Carla’s legs…because she just doesn’t care. it’s not relevant in Joyce-Land…until some pundit or other starts making a big deal about it. (Which they do, and have, and continue to do.)
This, is a mark of Carla’s success-someone like Joyce who has no other ulterior motives NEITHER NOTICES NOR CARES until someone makes a public stink that they really, have zero right to be making. (looking both at the noisy fundies, and the activists on that one, on both sides of the curtain or aisle.)
Used to be, back in the dark, dark days of yore, that NOBODY GAVE A SHIT, it wasn’t important, it wasn’t some existential cultural struggle or platform for an election (with the nasty side of me thinking it’s more or less someone ashamed of their erection. The religious right is LOADED with barely disguised closet cases who need to chill the fuck out and stop projecting their own kinks on other people while denying them to their friends…who probably have the same kinks and are just as ashamed of it.)
Carla successfully passes the “If you didn’t tell Me I wouldn’t Know or care” test-that is, the REAL LIFE test.
That’s success. That’s successful. Presents as a woman (albeit one with some obnoxious tendencies) and treated as a woman, END POINT, that’s doing very well indeed.
Used to be back in the dark days of yore “that dirty liar tricked me into thinking ‘he’ was a woman” was enough to get you off of a murder charge. Used to be that a body meant the police shrugged, and didn’t care.
Lets not romanticize the “dark days of yore” here.
Yeah especially because ‘yore’ was practically yesterday. It was only the last few years that some old guy murdered his neighbor and his entire defense was “I’m not gay”. Got six months in jail and 100 hours of community service. And this was in a very, very blue city.
Your entire premise is incredible problematic here. Weather you intend to or not, you are pushing the idea that a transgender person HAS to transition and HAS to “Successfully Present” in order to be treated with respect. And that is false, and dangerous and potentially damaging to transgender people who don’t have the means or ability to transition.
It was national news?
Her family is pretty dang wealthy/powerful, coulda been something during tge timeskip
To be honest, her family’s money and influence – and Carla’s clear abilities in science/engineering – make it seem unlikely to me that she’d actually be going to a state school rather than say MIT or Caltech.
Carla does not seem like the type to want to go to a really fancy school. IU is local and maybe her parents went here.
Too much competition. Carla will be nothing less than a Big Fish. Even if the pond isn’t the biggest.
You assume her family is supportive. It feels like they’re nuveau riche – not connected enough to automatically get Ivy enrollments just for their name, and not willing to throw around the sums of money it takes to randomly get your kid enrolled in an Ivy. We also don’t know how Carla’s grades are – transitioning often has associated mental health issues that impact school performance, and just because she’s a great engineer doesn’t mean she has the 5.0 GPA and bevy of AP credits needed to support that.
We know her family is supportive.
We also know her family run a massive company that seemingly makes everything from phones to automobiles, which makes them absurdly rich. Like potentially more wealth than the rest of the main cast’s families put together, which given Jason, Jennifer and Asher is substantial.
Yeah, but it’s money that they extracted themselves, so the connections are still lacking
Wealth is wealth, power is power. Wealth certainly can buy your way into it, but that’s to some extend gaudy. Ostentatious. Believe me, the old money thinks Elon Musk is just as much of a clown as the rest of us do.
Sure, they’ll take his money, but you won’t find a general finding his kid a comfy seat in the air force reserve if there’s a draft, no one is going to show up to his kids failing oil business and give them a lucrative contract just because. The most he gets is the sort of transactional respect that someone like Putin might give him, and even then look how many favors that got him.
Nuveau Riche. You can buy all the toys, but that’s not a seat in the club.
Unless her being Trans had something to do with her not being in a school like that. Notice that she has her own dorm, it could be because of her parent’s money/influence or because the school is not risking anything.
I knew plenty of people at school who should’ve been able to get into a “more prestigious” school, given their parents’ fame and influence. I did not go to a more prestigious school than IU. They were better in some areas and worse at others – yet some of the children of money I knew went to the school I did despite IU officially being better for their major. They never did it because the school I went to was in state and IU wasn’t.
If I’m remembering correctly, one of them had their school chosen for them because it was their parent’s alma mater, and another because it was their parents’ alma mater.
Many of them claimed it was because they had evaluated schools by a rigorous process they weren’t interested in disclosing which indicated our school was the best at actually teaching their major, regardless of what average starting salaries might claim. Some of them were actually supported in saying that our school was the best for their field, even if somewhere like Harvard would like people to believe otherwise.
There are lots of reasons besides money why someone might go to a state school instead. Maybe Carla’s a legacy or her parents donate a lot to this school so they wanted her to go there? Maybe it had better policies on things like dorm rooms for her? Maybe she wanted to be close to home in case of an emergency? Who knows?
Yeah. We know Harrison cut his teeth taking down a major piece of anti-trans legislation, he knows Carla on a first name basis, his firm has a lot of her parent’s money and Carla assumes everyone already knows that she is trans.
Which taken together implies a highly publicized court case around Carla’s transition.
Yeah, which might also be why she has her own room as much as being trans, if she’s a character of notoriety.
Don’t I recall a one-panel flashback to a Time cover story about her case, a couple of hundred strips ago?
Newsweek actually, but yes. It’s been mentioned a few times.
Yeah, main one I remember is during the fire alarm/kidnapping ploy. Someone said something about everyone being out, and she made a comment that she’s “been out since that cover of Newsweek.”
Yep
Most likely due to her parents being quite rich and renowned, especially if her parents were… gasp, putting their funding into LGBT+ friendly bills and trying to fight for their daughter! Stop the presses!! We can’t have that in our CCCCHRISTIAN AMERICA.
It was apparently a landmark court case for Trans-rights in the Dumbingverse, and Jacob’s brother was a lawyer for Carla’s side.
As people brought up yesterday, she was on the cover of Newsweek when she came out. It’s almost certainly on Carla’s parents’ “personal life” section of Wikipedia, assuming Carla doesn’t have a page for herself. (Probably not, but hard to say.)
Now, it’s POSSIBLE this was like, seven or eight years ago and no one in the dorm knows except the ones who’ve indicated they DEFINITELY do (Dorothy, Sal, Mary, Ruth), but given things like Carla saying drawing a dick on her whiteboard was a hate crime before realizing everyone else had them (and it was therefore hilarious,) she definitely ACTS like her default assumption is “people know/probably know.”
Do you really think Carla hasn’t set herself up a thoroughly credible alternate personality just so she could create a Wikipedia page about herself without being caught?
“This entry reads like an advertisement…“
Ah, someone knows the COI stuff at W*ikipedia. It’s possible you’ve even trawled the W*ikipediocracy forums.
Only enough to ensure I’m still Certified Non-notable.
whew. Dodged a bullet there.
I mean, yeah, that is definitely a distinct possibility. It’s also possible she had one without having to intervene just from the Newsweek/court case/kid of tech billionaires stuff combined. (At the very least, I’d be certain the court case has a page in its own right.)
It’s also possible Carla’s waiting until she’s patented her first major innovation in pie-throwing technology to start working on that. You know, so she can say she’s thoroughly earned it.
When she runs into Harrison in the elevator, he says something like “didn’t you use to be just this tall”, which suggests it was quite awhile back.
I’d say her assumption is probably more “people could know” and when there’s something like the whiteboard dingdong it’s an obvious assumption that whoever drew it knew.
She also almost never brings it up on her own. For all the “pay attention to me” shtick, being trans isn’t something she uses that way. Anyone might know, but she’s just as happy if they don’t.
she was also pretty vocal about it in that first gender studies class as i recall.
She said she’s already mastered gender, which is a strong hint, but never actually comes out and says she’s trans.
Since the topic at hand was gender more generally, that could easily be taken like Roz early in the first semester class.
ah right, i only remembered the subtext, not the text =)
The “this tall” was like a head shorter than she currently is. That indicates that at most it was before her last growth spurt. She’s 19 so that was like….what four or five years ago? That’s hardly ‘quite a while back’ or so far back the others wouldn’t remember seeing it everywhere for a while.
Honestly, I’m kinda surprised Joyce doesn’t know. It seems like the kind of thing her parents would want to protest.
It’s already been brought up that it seems fairly clear one large reason for her “Annoy All Indiscriminately / Pay Attention To MEEEE” schtick, at least in this setting where she’s never been Ultracar at all, is to focus folks’ attention ON something other than her being trans. most folks only have so much attention to spare, after all.
–Dave, it’s related to Dina giving Ethan her hat at the LGBTQIA+ meeting, so people had something else to focus on about him, which calmed his neuroses.
Carla 100% has her own page. Relatives of famous people would be likely enough to have at least a stub even if they’re otherwise not notable. The presumed subject of a prominent legal battle would certainly have one. And I’m pretty sure someone would warrant a blurb just for appearing on Newsweek even if they’d never done anything else of note. There’s absolutely no way Carla doesn’t have a page.
Honestly, is it ‘outing’ someone if they’ve been on the cover of Newsweek? There comes a point when the person is out, and that’s got to be the situation here. Joyce could easily find out Carla’s identity just from that tidbit alone, really, so Dorothy is not really accomplishing much here by refusing to tell the one girl on the wing who doesn’t know about Carla.
If someone isn’t aware, then yes, telling them would be outing the individual in question.
I think there’s a fuzzy point where it becomes acceptable .
Like, for instance Stephen Fry, Elton John, Chaz Bono.
But even people who have that sort of stuff in their profile on social media, or have pride flags or stickers, atleast to me. I’m bi, I have a little sticker on my name badge at work.
If the person in question is ‘out’ then imo they’re ‘out’ and you can’t ‘out’ someone who isp ublicly ‘out’. Like, at a certain point pretending that someone isn’t queer and out is erasure.
Dorothy isn’t saying ‘I won’t out her to you’ she’s saying ‘I won’t out her to you if you’re going to be weird about it’. Dorothy is just being polite so Joyce doesn’t pester Carla.
“There’s always at least one.¨
This implies that, if Dorothy *did* tell Joyce, either it would slide off of Joyce’s brain like water off a teflon-coated windshield, or there’s someone else on the floor who doesn’t know. By not pushing, Dorothy’s leaving room for the more comfortable third option that Joyce just wasn’t paying attention.
Yes. This isn’t hard. A secret is a thing someone doesn’t know yet. Someone doesn’t know yet, therefore it is a secret.
Sadly, Musk’s trans daughter is news, so why not fictional tech billionaires?
secret weenus: band name i called it
“Does She Have a Secret Weenus: A Dumbing of Age Collection”
Now I want to write the song, secret weenus. Has to be folk punk.
“DOES SHE HAVE A SECRET WEENUS/it’s no secret she has two/she shakes em both all over town/when she dances the boogaloo” (weenus is the skin on people’s elbows)
wanna keep your weenus secret/gonna be hard to bend your arm
a relevant song by Uncle Bonsai, to play on the hacked elevator music outside of normal business hours
–Dave, because the lyrics are NSFW, and in fact were partly the subject of a Supreme Court case
They later changed their name to Weezer
I think Carla might know.
Her parents have a big fortune, so she can probably get a private investigator
Sincerely didn’t even think of that entendre until JUST now.
I was about to ask why Carla would be national news, but then I remembered one of Brad Pitt’s kids was in the news for that so fair enough I guess
We also know that she’s on a first name basis with a lawyer who made his name striking down a major piece of anti-trans legislation and who her parents employed.
Yeah, between “kid of high-profile tech magnates” (consider Elon Musk’s son’s name making the news, or his daughter’s name change to tell him to go fuck himself while also updating her name because she’s trans, or yeah, John Jolie-Pitt,) and the clear implications the Ruttens were involved with Harrison’s big case involving trans rights, it makes a lot of sense.
Also, good call Dorothy I respect it.
Seriously Brown?
Are you surprised? I know she’s come a long way but I never thought the ‘Joyce learns about trans people’ character development would happen offscreen.
I meant that she suspects Dorothy
but yes, I know the characters have a lot to learn, but some…well, they are a challenge.
I actually sort of find it *less* offensive that she entertained the possibility, versus a “we can always tell” overconfidence in “clocking” that transphobes often have.
Joyce seems to be out of her depth rather than paranoid or hateful.
Is it suspicion or hopefulness?
Agree on this.
I was trying to reply to Thag but life happens.
Well, that would explain Joyce’s attraction to Dorothy.
…What? No. Ew. Not cool.
fuck off with that
…or maybe it’s just that people’s attraction to others is generally based on their gender, not their hypothetical chromosomes? Don’t be gross.
More like fenotype, i.e. looks. Which has only a weak correlation with gender. And gender only has a strong (nowhere near perfect) correlation with genitals. Nobody mentioned chromosomes, let’s not stretch this hypothetical too far, they’re note relevant.
This is exactly the kind of rationalization Joyce would tell herself, yes! …The reactions of commenters above may have subtly hinted to you already that this is not actually a good rational thing to think, though.
These two ain’t making out hardly at all
They’re already discussing who has the week’s. What do you want?
*has the weenus
Curse you autocorrect.
Joyce Brown and the Tale of the Secret Weenus
a children’s novel
–Dave, in the Hardy Drew and the Nancy Boys series
Joyce. Joyce sweetie.
This is “you can’t just ask people why they’re white” levels of holy god what. Please tone it down just a notch or two. Thank you. Love you. Oh my fuck.
only reason anyone should ever know/ask is if they’re already in a relationship and discuss it before being intimate lol
Tho i can imagine joyce also considering herself an ‘above the waist’ lesbian if she was more into girls/admitted she liked dorothy or anyone else
https://www.girlswithslingshots.com/comic/gws-chaser-537
Wow, I remember the “oof” when I read that, and also the sudden realisation that someone I was very good friends with was a bit too Hazel-coded for me to want to be friends with them anymore.
oh no, you can’t link girls with slingshots and force me to confront my previous bad ideas
that needs to stay back in the rose colored nostalgic past where it belongs
her free chapters of Elephant Town seem pretty good for what they are so far
It’s in its second round of reruns!
Honestly, Joyce said something v similar about Becky back when she first came out. Luckily less transphobic, 7 years of progress on trans stuff (and a slightly different setting/tone) helped a lot there.
If you think Joyce’s reaction is that shocking given her upbringing and lack of exposure to any positive or normalizing messages about trans people (until one class last semester), you have led a very sheltered life.
Yeah, this is like ground-level stuff. She’s doing sort of okayish, all things considered.
I find Joyce’s reaction that shocking because I’m trans, not because I didn’t grow up with people about a hundred times worse than this.
It doesn’t have to be abnormal to be bullshit.
Yeah that’s like the same level of ‘oh look it was a different time’.
So yeah, we get it, doesn’t mean we’re not tired of seeing baby’s first reaction to trans/gay/minority race people for the 100th time.
What’s novel to someone is yet another Tuesday for another.
yeah, i can’t fault it’s inclusion, considering it’s pretty on tone with a lot of other stuff, but it still isn’t Fun to read
Then you’re using the word “shocking” in a different sense than everyone else here. Everyone else is talking about how it is not unexpected, yet you want to talk about how it is bullshit. That’s fine, but phrase it as a new subject (because it is), don’t do the typical internet comment thing where we think that the only valid response is a rebuttal.
It appears Willis is sometimes a fan of cringe humor.
Dorothy is handling this really well in fact.
She probably watched a dozen TED talks on it
Not all national news are widespread. If you missed that news cycle, you REALLY missed it
The only time Dorothy becomes national news is if she becomes presi–
Wasn’t the Blaine incident national news? Like it probably didn’t linger in the common consciousness for long but a kidnapping with three fatalities involving two people in comic book costumes and a congressional campaign manager would at least be a novelty.
I’m guessing that Blaine’s business associates pulled a few strings to damp it down, as it might splash on them if people got too curious.
I’d find that difficult to believe.
Robin, an sitting congresswoman, publicly cited the incident (and the need to let Becky as her campaign manager rest and heal) as the reason she conceded the congressional race for reelection 2 weeks before the actual vote.
(back in 2nd of september, 2020 real time)
If Ashers grand dad could stop such things from coming up in national news they’d be the illuminati not just a crime syndicate.
It’d probably end pretty soon since there wouldn’t be any new developments to continue reporting on after she withdrew.
I dunno if they ever explicitly stated it was national news but it’s hard to believe it wasn’t. It definitely made at least state news.
We can also assume that a teenager who (at the time) wanted to become president would follow national news very closely — especially compared to one who was purposely raised to be
ignorantinnocent.The Keeners might leave newspapers around, or keep it playing in the background, or straight-up buy Dorothy a Newsweek subscription to encourage her interests. The Browns probably discouraged Joyce from news: any time she tried to ask about it, she’d be met with a screed about how it was all religiously bad and corrupt and sinful, she wouldn’t get an unvarnished or appealing answer.
i’d imagine unless it was important or if they felt ‘attacked’ by it specifically like ‘hurting christian values’ it’s not something they would’ve focused on if joyce was prepping for college and other sibling s tuff (after all if it was that big of news, but they were still ok with letting joyce go to a non christian college b/c her parents went, but i don’t think joyce would’ve rly remembered it among all the other stuff teh news covers with teh 24 hour news cycles and stuff)
Joyce’s exposure to the outside world was heavily censored by her parents and church. Alternate expressions of sexuality weren’t covered in Veggie Tales, and she was taught to self-censor what she learned outside of home.
Not even alternative expressions of sexuality involving the use of a Veggie Tales character? 😀
Leave Jimmy Gourd out of this.
Unless it’s one of those stories that are pre-reported for weeks before anything actually happens, and then resurrected every few days for months after it’s all happened because they miss the sales boost, and dusted off annually to ask “whatever happened to…” and endlessly referenced as a warning about imaginary dangers….
Joyce was also very sheltered by Carol. She wouldn’t have been exposed to Carla’s story unless it was brought up as an example of “horrible parents and irresponsible doctors [redacted, use your imagination]”. Even then, she may not realize the Carla in the story is her neighbor Carla. (Assuming the adults driving her conversation don’t deadname her the entire time, or worse.)
Yeah, it wouldn’t have surprised me if she had heard of it, in the context of bigoted church sermon or anti-trans protest or something.
I’m kind of amazed, honestly. You’d think whatever batshit right-wing propaganda outlet the Browns got their “news” from would have had a field day wringing hatemongering out of Carla coming out.
There’s a possibility the Browns never used the name “Carla”
True. Even if her parents demonized “[Insert-deadname-here] Rutten,” she probably wouldn’t have put two and two together unless she’d realized Carla was trans from the start.
Given the Browns, they probably preferred to keep their kids sheltered from “the trans agenda” entirely.
Hard to say. Maybe the Browns censored stuff like that from their kids. Although I have a hard time imagining John wouldn’t flap his mouth about it.
Carla wouldn’t make good propaganda for the right wing – she’s happy and successful. I think Carla was right that Mary was all bent out of shape at Carla’s mere existence.
Conservative Outrage du jour is an easy recipe, just throw buzzwords into a blender.
“They’re rich liberal tech parents indoctrinating their child into thinking all of this is okay and paying off doctors to [I’m not going there] to them and call it ‘tReAtMeNt’ !!!1!1!”
vomit vomit vomit GrOoMeRs vomit fart!
Someone showing Carla’s level of obnoxious attention-seeking and total lack of empathy is HAPPY? Who’s getting wierd and delusional NOW?
I feel like just because it’s “national news” doesn’t mean everyone would be aware of it especially since Joyce would be a child at the time this news circulated, so unless Carla’s life has had continued publicity related to her transition for years it’s very possible, almost expected most people around her age would be oblivious unless they were already familiar with her name.
Or even a teenager. Her parents didn’t allow her to watch mainstream cartoons since they were a gateway to “Eastern religion”. I don’t know their position on Fox News, though.
Or maybe having Joyce ignorant of this just works better for the story Willis wants to tell. There doesn’t have to be a “real” reason.
There has to be a reason that’s real inside the story or there’s no story, just a lecture.
True, but there’s plenty of room to go either way here. It’s perfectly reasonable if Joyce doesn’t know about Carla but Dorothy does, so it doesn’t really need to be brought up explicitly within the story.
Oh yeah, no, if she’s gonna be weird about it she can google it herself. Don’t tell her if she’s a weirdo.
inb4 she doesn’t have the foresight to specifically search about indiana and google searches “college trans girls” lol
… Then Joyce discovers a new side of herself.
Secret weenus, a private dick if you will.
An Irish monk?
I hope Dorothy helps Joyce deprogram any harmful ideas about trans people she might still have before she runs around her floor being weird about this
Given how loudly becky’s been about her orientation (not that orientation and gender is the same but at least joyce has a bit of exposure to the lgbt community), hopefully it’d be fine since the existing trans ppl in the comic have been pretty chill about their identity (well carla is quite boisterous personality wise but she doesn’t yell ‘i’m trans deal with it!’ versus her overall ‘i’m perfect and you should worship me’)
When she met Booster, Joyce was advanced enough to go “Okay, this is one of these things that gets me into trouble, I’m going to say nothing and research it later on my own.” That honestly puts her well ahead of a lot of people.
Booster is nonbinary/masc presenting right? even if nbs fall under the ‘trans umbrella’, idk if sarah had the knowledge to explain it to her since it might be complicated/nuanced enough to be its own thing like also gender fluidity and all that
Sarah is also terrible at explaining things. She doesn’t have the patience or tactfulness to do so in a way that helps Joyce in the moment.
Well… after she said “Does he know he’s wearing girl makeup?”
i keep my weenus stored in a briefcase for ‘Secret Anti-Government Services’
Really nailing not being weird about it.
i mean, by joyce standards it could’ve been way worse if she was still pre-becky revelation
There went my theory that Joyce knew Carla was trans but didn’t know what trans the word meant.
Dorothy, why did you, within the span of 30 seconds, say “You do know, right?” and “I’m not going to tell you.” There was no Joyce being weird in between those two statements. That’s… out of touch for you. Also, how are you worried about outing them, if it was on national news -__-
It’s still personal information. Even if it’s public it’s not Dorothy’s right to out Carla to someone who doesn’t know. Maybe Carla would prefer people not knowing even if she expects them to. Passing can be very important and empowering.
Dorothy is surprised that Joyce doesn’t already know, but that doesn’t mean Dorothy wants to tell her. Those are two separate things.
And it’s probably best not to share this info with anyone who is ignorant of how any of this works, a la “transes all the way”.
I think the confusion centers on “how can one be outed when one is already out?” It needs a different word. Which word, I don’t know. But “revealed generally” and “revealed to one person who hadn’t got the word yet” are situations different enough that using the same word for both will leave some people puzzled.
The effort you’re going to to make Dorothy the bad guy here is kinda impressive.
well, they prolly do need to talk a bit more after just being “well, it’s carla” and joyce zooming off to pester carla a bout personal questions
Aside from what others have already said: There are such things as body language, facial expressions, and tone. Joyce absolutely spent those 30 seconds being weird about it.
LOL no, you’re absolutely right. I had initially considered writing “There was no Joyce being weird[er than baseline Joyce]” which would have been more accurate ^_^. But Dorothy knows Joyce and decided to bring it up anyway. This is a perfectly normal reaction for Joyce to just about anything outside the bubble of her Fundie childhood worldview.
Also Carla’s pronouns are explicitly she/her, not they/them. If you are referring to her as “them” because her transness was brought up… Don’t do that.
Thanks, I wasn’t (and for my own part, taking issue with my language should not hinge on ill intent — I prefer to presume people in this community, like Joyce here, are well intentioned). That said, I do frequently use they/them, if I simply don’t wish to emphasize someone’s gender or don’t consider gender relevant to the conversation, which, just like someone’s anatomy, it just about never is. Using they/them as a gender-agnostic singular is both valid and extremely common, even in reference to people with she/her/he/him pronouns.
Telling someone you won’t tell them about it if they’re weird can be a forewarning instead of a reaction to them being weird. Given Joyce immediately proceeded to act like a weirdo, it was clearly merited.
Cue the fanart
Oh FINE I’ll do it myself.
(vaguely) suggestive: https://i.imgur.com/JPHkJTM.jpg
Sorry for scratching it out on a napkin, what can ya do
Ahahahaha 😙👌
Hey thanks, I’ll be here all week
Ugh, I really thought Joyce was grown enough to not pull this shit, but I guess every new experience along these lines is still just a hard reset on her bad behavior. At this rate she’s going to start staring at Carla like she’s some kind of zoo animal if she finds out.
carla would def keep her at an arms length if she tried anything but i imagine she’d respect boundaries and not try to check out out in like the shower room or so versus dorothy where she’s been more comfortable enough to have ‘laundry room time’ with, so i assume she’s not ‘holding herself back’ on questions and such so to speak
But at least dorothy’s prepping her about it a bit. wonder if booster will join in or if they’d roll their eyes about it lol (tho i can imagine they’d focus more on charlie rn)
Joyce has spent 18 years learning how to behave in one culture, and now she’s effectively a foreigner who’s lived a few months in another culture. Behavior takes a long time to learn and longer to un-learn. Indeed, even within a single culture one spends one’s whole life learning it, because ethos changes over time.
Really bodes well for if Jocelyne ever comes out to her, huh.
Not that she won’t do well EVENTUALLY, but yeah.
Unless she comes out in front of Carol, in which case Joyce will instantly switch to “I will fight for my sister!”
To be honest, I’m a little surprised narratively this seems to be happening now. I’d figured it would work better for her first direct confrontation with a trans person to be Jocelyn. Raise the dramatic stakes.
Joyce’s pattern so far has been for her first experience with a group to be bad and improve later, usually with the second person being someone she cares more about (like Ethan and then Becky).
Nah, foreshadowing exists for a reason.
It’s only a secret if you don’t look at her elbows.
Pika?
Dumbing of Age, Book 17: A Secret Weenus
Joyce, I stg. You are getting on Lucy levels of annoying today
I’ve always thought that Lucy is a “Joyce without trauma”, but with the recent “subtlety” she received from Linda, anything can happen.
Hoping Lucy drop kicks Linda and becomes more likeable, but I’m not holding my breath
So… not really all that annoying at all, then?
The most annoying. I hate Lucy
I have three trans people among my close relatives and I actively support all of them.
And… I wish Dorothy had
1) given Joyce some credit for correcting her mother’s language;
2) said “I won’t tell you who yet” in a much less judgey way.
Anyone who has no experience with something is going to be “weird” about it at first. It’s not like people instinctively know exactly how to act in a new situation – especially when the initial set of questions is likely to get a response of “You’re not fit company, go away and shut up, you’re a bad person.”
Like, Dorothy could have said “Joyce, if I tell you now who it is, you’ll probably run and pester her, and she doesn’t need that. She’s just some girl, except she also gets lots of shit for being trans. So let’s you and me talk until you’ve taken the edge off your incredulity.”
If anyone here reads The Daily Grind, every few chapters there’s a scene where the protagonist is like “Hey random person I’ve never met, here’s an alien species you didn’t even know existed. If you don’t instantly start treating them like an ordinary person, then you’re a racist and you deserve nothing but snarky contempt from me.” This does not make the world better in any way.
So, like, maybe we could have just a bit of compassion for Joyce here? She’s far from perfect, and she should probably grow before she tries to be friends with a person she knows is trans, but she’s doing her best in the right direction, which is pretty darn good considering the upbringing she had.
That’s all true. But Dorothy isn’t a teacher, she doesn’t have to be flawlessly gentle and patient and judgment-free with her friend. She’s just having an honest reaction.
Joyce ignorantly said something wack, Dorothy reacted like it was wack. Joyce wasn’t even hurt by this reaction. It’s OK.
And besides, she knows that Joyce is capable of doing something she shouldn’t.
The Daily Grind’s non-human persons are all traumatised refugees from hellholes that use them as murderfodder. (Like trans people in America, I guess.)
Nobody is demanding you forget that they: have acid spit, or can freeze you in time by looking at you, or are always That Friend You Forgot – but it shouldn’t take supernatural empathy (or a James) to not automatically other them and poke at the trauma?
Just that fast. Just that unforgiving. This was far from the only time James reacted this way.
“Yes, the things that look exactly like robot drones are people. And if you dare question their degree of personhood, even reflexively (less than thirty seconds after first learning that literal magic exists and such a thing is even theoretically possible), then I’ll tell you that you sound really bad to me.”
To my eye, James has less empathy than some of the human people he’s being borderline abusive to. He’s in a position of power (the quote is from a job interview where he explictly tells the candidates “You have no good options other than to work for me”) and he’s using it to verbally beat people up for being morally deficient.
(The above quote is from Chapter 220.)
Yup, suggesting someone not ask rude questions is basically violent abuse, and there’s no polite way to do it.
I’m sure you’re just absolutely the most beautiful compassionate soul that ever lived and we’re all missing out, but tbqh you sound exhausting.
What’s exhausting is how fucking stupid you’re pretending to be in this comment.
Yeah I literally can’t even figure out what provoked that response in the first place
Look, I don’t know all the context of whatever piece of fiction is being referenced here. Maybe the person I’m replying to is calling some other thing “borderline abusive” and “verbally beat[ing] people up for being morally deficient”. I’m not exactly a fan of making up some scenario about robot clone shit and acting like forcing people to adjust to wacky magical hijinks is commentary on real life bigotry or whatever, if that’s what the comic/story/thing is doing.
But I’m not “pretending” to think that it seems like a “verbal beatdown” reading really, really hard into the line as presented, as well as stating Dorothy’s “it’s none of your business and you’re being weird” is lacking in compassion for Joyce. It’s really not that hard to take a second to think: oh hold on, you’re right, there is literally no scenario in which asking what some random acquaintance’s junk is polite, sorry, my b, let’s move on. Hell, Joyce is doing that.
Cripes-
*like a”verbal beatdown” IS reading
*what some random acquaintance’s junk LOOKS LIKE is polite
Look, whatever, maybe I’m an asshole for thinking having empathy for Carla is a bit bigger of a deal, or maybe none of that has shit to do with anything that was said and I’m hallucinating an entire conversation. I’m gonna go to sleep. Y’all have fun.
The second thing, yes. Everything between “or maybe” and “I’m”.
Your reading of Chris Phoenix’s comment is barely coherent and reads like you took random words from different parts and combined them into something only a little bit related, then got pissy at them over your own misunderstanding. And then you went for some ice cream headache of a passive-aggressive personal dig, pretending they said anything about their own morality just so you could be a dick about it.
Nobody’s asking you to agree with their post, but comprehending it might be helpful.
ooookay hey hey. Taffy i get that you find @not someone else’s reaction unfair but maybe consider?
i think it’s okay actually that they have a bit of a kneejerk reaction to bigoted shit and react kind of stiffly to what could easily be misread as tone-policing. i don’t think that’s what they’re doing, i don’t know The Daily Grind either but in the context of this comment section i think it’s fine actually for trans folks to be a bit exhausted by appeals to politeness. (it’s also cool that not everyone is and some have more patience with the Joyces of this world, thank god!)
i actually agree with @Chris Phoenix’s point, to the extent that i understand the context they’re framing it in. that doesn’t make me unsympathetic to @not someone else’s reaction. maybe they’re exhausted and got kind of snappy at someone actually calling for compassionate allyship, not tone-policing of discriminated folks themselves. it’s understandable.
This would have been a good moment for Dorothy to work on the vital political skill of looking at the topic through the other person’s values and speaking the other’s language.
It would make her a shoo-in in any contest with any of the current crop of pol.s, who seem to score zero in that department.
If Dorothy still wants to be President or even take a small political office. She doesn’t have the moral stomach to make hard/evil decisions that involve personal gain. And usually, those people don’t make it too far in politics. Becky had a really good point when she mentioned that. Politics requires ruthlessness (and money) to gain a seat at the table.
Wow, missed opportunity.
“What do you think ‘people’ means?”
Couldn’t have said it better myself. Don’t usually have the spoons to type these kinds of thoughts out, especially given the usual response, but I appreciate that you did.
these are all good points. Acknowledging that you didn’t say Dorothy was terrible, just you wish she’d done it differently, I do want to say something in her defense.
She’s not wise beyond her years, she has a little more experience with some things and a little less with others. She’s also doing the best she can, in the right direction. She just doesn’t know she’s ordinary yet, possibly also because of her upbringing.
I was talking about Dorothy… but also about some of the people in the comment section.
Yes, Dorothy is doing fairly well. Rather than criticize or call out a real person directly, I focused on what Dorothy could have done better. I do hope that we in real life can be quicker to empathize with people who are working on improving themselves, rather than focusing on their mistakes or cringe factor.
My reflex was to cringe at Joyce, I need to work on asking myself if I’m cringing because of regret / fear I would have made a similar mistake (or still might make).
As a reader I think Joyce is doing pretty good here, but if I was actually in Dorothy’s position I might not be sure how to handle it. I’m sure it’s awkward for her too. I think they’re both trying their best without being completely sure how to handle the situation.
No. Perfection right away or you’re a bad person and can safely be discarded. Those are the rules.
This. And also, there’s no difference between asking questions out of genuine curiosity and desire to learn and asking questions sarcastically to reinforce your closed-minded judgements.
Sure, Dorothy could have handled this a lot better, but it might be worth keeping in mind that Dorothy is also in the midst of her own mental breakdown at the moment, and her reaction to Joyce here could just be another manifestation of that. Doesn’t really excuse it, mind you, but it could at the least explain it.
I don’t think how Dorothy phrased it is judgey. Telling Joyce that she’s not going to tell her if she’s going to be weird about it isn’t a bad thing. It’s a single, firmly stated boundary that she’s not going to tell Joyce who it is if she’s gonna be out of line. And while yes, it’s natural that Joyce doesn’t know how to get in line yet, that doesn’t mean that reaction should be coddled. Telling someone they’re out of line is not mean or rude or lacking compassion for them and it certainly doesn’t mean that you have nothing but contempt from them from thereon in. That’s something they need to know if they’re gonna be dealing with people from the group they’re freaking out about.
Personally, I’d take being told ‘I’m not going to tell you who yet because you’ll probably run and pester her and she doesn’t need that’ to be far more lacking in compassion. Yeah, I’m wigging out because I’m learning about a new group of people, that doesn’t mean I’m suddenly a toddler who needs to be told not to pester people. I’m learning, I’m not three.
And honestly? Maybe he continues to treat the person rudely but the excerpt of The Daily Grind you posted doesn’t seem unforgiving to me. Someone questioning someone else’s personhood DOES sound pretty bad and they need to know that before they interact more with them. Saying you don’t know what they mean by that also offers them the chance to stop and think about they mean by people. Yes, it’s normal to freak out, but that doesn’t mean someone pointing out you’re saying something crappy is unforgiving. Especially since it sounds like James is very familiar with this situation and having this conversation over and over again is exhausting. It’s okay to demand compassion for learning but it’s not cool to demand people gentle talk the whole way through it regardless of what they say without ever telling them ‘Dude, not cool’.
I meant to add this, sorry. Joyce IS doing very well considering her upbringing and I’m sure she’ll continue to improve. I think it’d be good to say ‘good’ about Joyce correcting her mom, and none of this is meant as a condemnation of Joyce overall.
ykw actually yes i agree with all of what you said.
it’s ok to be a bit bitey with people when they’re talking trash, even unwittingly. maybe it’s not the most perfectest attitude, but i feel like it’s a minor point and a matter of personality more than ethical concern.
(i also had that reaction to the dialogue that @Chris Phoenix quotes of… wait that’s supposed to be an example of cold and unforgiving? that response actually sounds… fine to me?)
sure we can have compassion and patience for Joyce. it’s good to be compassionate and patient. or, like, not? it’s kind of whatever in my book? ultimately, not a hill i’ll die on either way. what does matter is for her to get that what she says is not ok.
now i do think allies being little superior gatekeepey shits for cheap clout do suck, but i don’t think that describes either situation here.
I don’t know if this still counts as throwing off an overly religious upbringing unevenly or just generally being unaware of things
the asking about people’s genitalia is definitely the first bit though
i mean, it is a thought that’d occur to ppl when they first learn about trans ppl at a younger age but most ppl don’t rly blurt it out loud unless they’re younger
but given what her mothers like i wouldnt’ be surprised if she grew up having worse preconceived notions
She’s also not blurting it out to the person in question, but to a close friend of hers, which does make a difference. I suspect even Joyce would be a bit more circumspect if she was talking to Carla directly (assuming she learns it is Carla.)
I think the way this story goes in the long term is that Joyce is going to learn it’s Carla, Jocelyne is going to come out a little bit later. She’s gonna probably say something slightly insensitive because she’s Joyce, then freak out after the conversation and ask someone for help since this is way beyond her depth. This would also be way beyond Dorothy’s depth, so she would try to turn to Carla, but then eventually turn to Booster at some point.
Basically, out of all the other trans people in this comic… Carla considers herself way too important for this, Joyce doesn’t know Zaph, Malaya considers herself way too inexperienced for this, so Booster, the one tackling a psychology program, is probably the best fit.
I think to say Carla would consider herself too important is giving her too little credit. It was a long time ago, and relativley brief when it happened, but being trans is pretty clearly the one part of her life she takes A Lot more seriously than everything else (likely because she was forced to by public scrutiny.)
I could see her dismissing joyce if it was Just about Joyce, but bringing the fact that its her sister who would suffer by not helping her, I wouldn’t be suprised if carla did try to help.
Now, her help might be kinda goofy and too self centered to be useful, but I kinda assume she would at least try.
Yeah, Carla’s self-aggrandizement reads pretty clearly as a defense mechanism to me. When the chips were down (Ruth going full suicidal), she made an active effort to do her best to help. As you say, the quality of her help can be debated, and I’m not entirely convinced she’d be willing to try (again, the aftermath of the Ruth episode), but I don’t think she’d refuse out of a sense of self-importance.
I chalked that one up to Joyce’s usual innocent complete disregard of boundaries.
Joyce didn’t ask Dorothy about her weenus, though. She just looked awkwardly. She’s probably not going to look at everyone’s things on the floor. Even if she did, there’s no telling how far she would get.
Carla could…
A. Have had genital reconstruction surgery or an orchiectomy.
B. Be tucking.
C. Wearing a gaff.
D. Have small enough testicles and/or penis that it wouldn’t be visible with tight underwear.
Next strip: Carla walks in and cooks some instant ramen. While the noodles boil, she complains loudly about her junk sitting weird today. Joyce is too busy staring heterosexually at Dorothy’s crotch to notice. Carla finishes making her noodles and walks off.
I’d pay Willis to draw that.
I mean, same.
…this comment reminds me of how until I saw one of Yomotoe’s drawings, I was unaware that I’d always assumed Carla had had bottom surgery. This is because until I saw said drawing and realised that, I had never spent so much as a split second thinking about the configuration of Carla’s crotch.
I then contemplated my assumption for a while, and was deeply relieved to discover that I could actually provide reasons for my assumption.
If Carla=Girl, and Crotchthink=0, then Dongsumption=0 as well. It’s basic JRPG math.
I hadn’t even gotten that far. It barely registers to me that Carla may have been born in any other way than bursting out of the womb crowing her name in delight.
*pause* *facepalm* Yes, Jamie. Of course she takes so much delight in her name. That should really have been obvious. I just … don’t think about Carla, really.
unrelated, what’s up with the green ginger dorothy
on the plus side, at least Joyce is going to learn the “holy shit do not say this” lesson from someone who won’t steal her kneecaps.
This is… this is going to be why the storyline is titled “Everyone is Looking for Nothing,” isn’t it.
Tbh, the chapter titles are often applicable to several different things that happen inside them. It’s genuinely impressive to me that Willis can do that.
I have been Joyce in this situation, I have been Dorothy and I have also been Carla. Joyce will learn and it will be awkward. At the dumbing age that is the only way.
Wait. There’s a non-dumbing age? When does it start? Asking for a friend.
Ehhh, it’s an awkward and uncomfortable conversation but at least they’re trying? Dotty is doing well, Joyce less so, but we’ve ample evidence for how fast she can grow and learn without causing undue chaos and destruction, so I’m hopeful.
Joyce what the fuck
Yeah, it’s like she’s new to this or something.
Joyce pulling “My old friend
KurzonJadzia” level of understanding immediately would have been hilarious.Had to look up what that meant, but I agree.
(Adding Star Trek to the list of Things People Reference Daily)
Sokath, his eyes opened!
(I reference Trek all the dang time. Also Homestar Runner.)
Here’s the viewing order of the 8 live action series, 3 animated series, 2 series of ‘shorts’, and 13 movies of star trek that you’re obligated to watch to get references. Be forewarned, a lot of them are bad, as any true trek fan will tell you.
1.
Are you really a Trek fan if you don’t have a list of episodes you love to hate-watch? A bunch of episodes are objectively bad TV, but we love them anyway. (At least the ones that are “Threshold” bad; the community shuns the episodes that are “Code of Honor” bad, thank goodness.)
If you want a more digestible first Trek, watch Lower Decks. The first few episodes are a little too slapstick, but it finds its footing halfway through the first season. It’s more fun if you get all the “blink and you miss it” references they stick in, but you don’t have to have all of Memory Alpha memorized to enjoy the show.
Start with the original series or TNG season 2 if you want a “proper” watch-through. Just remember they don’t have decades of worldbuilding to benefit from, so up through the middle of TNG will feel a little sparse. (And no, they never go back to the prohibition-era Chicago gangster planet, or the “very obviously shot on the Mayberry backlot” planet.)
It’s not a secret, you just have to pay a thousand dollars up front to see it for five seconds.
you have hereby invoked rule 34, sir/ma’am/both/neither
–Dave, pronoun clump happily stolen from the epic milsf space opera _First Contact_
…Malaya was national news? Somehow they being them I don’t doubt it.
A reporter from national TV wanted to do some feelgood interview with a cute little girl on a fair or something like that and she made him cry within two minutes (because of course she did)
My wife read this and said, “This is approaching Peggy Hill levels”
I know it’s for the punchline in the strip, but Joyce’s pose in panel 5 is a “reprogramming brain” look to me. And sometimes other people are in the eyeline of that.
You are not alone. Whatever the cause, that’s a thoughtful look.
She had the spinning circle cursor over her head in that frame.
(Mostly because she’s too young for the Windows 95 hourglass.)
Man, I miss the ability to reprogram my brain. There’s a step or thingy missing but I can’t figure it out.
…wait, they’re talking about Carla, aren’t they? I kinda doubt she’d care if Dorothy outed her. If nothing else, she’s a millionaire, isn’t she?
Dorothy probably wants to rein her in before she talks to carla if they do run into each other
tho given the ordeal with mary any thing joyce might say if a bit ignorant/naive wouldn’t possibly be as bad, or not change carla’s opinion as much if she still sees her as a ‘bible girl’ even tho she was told joyce is an atheist now
Her parents are rich and own a very high-tech company, and support her for who she is.
But having rich parents doesn’t offer much emotional protection. And in many circumstances it wouldn’t even offer practical protection.
Being a millionaire doesn’t come anywhere close to making Carla invulnerable enough that she would be careless about being outed. Now, Carla’s personality might make her not-care. Or care-but-pretend-she-didn’t.
It may sound trite or silly, but millionaires are people, and deserve to be treated like people. Not outed casually because “they’re rich, why should they care?” or “they’re rich so it’s OK to hurt them.”
Booster talks about how terrible her parents are, but whatever faults they have, they love their daughter, and support her transition totally.
“if you’re going to be weird about it” is the operative phrase here. She doesn’t want to set Carla up for a Joyce-freakout.
It’s also a little rude too. But yes, making sure Joyce doesn’t misunderstand boundaries and run up and loudly inform Carla that she’s proud of her for her transition out of nowhere is just good thinking.
Though with Carla it might backfire. “Yes, you are proud of me! Tell me more about how brave and special I am!”
I mean, I wouldn’t call that backfiring.
…well then, well then!!!
more detailed, coloured illustrations of things Joyce never ever carefully considered and envisaged and gave a truly insane amount of thought about?!
Literally not a single time, has the specific sexually objectifying gay threesome herein depicted been agonizingly visualized by Joyces hyperactive horny brain in lewd slomo, tasteful lighting and IMAX quality
Nope nuh uh
ooooooooh
well yeah, that’s clearly space captain julia mcgray
exactly. and those are space vampires from warring factions. that’s just what intergalactic conflict resolution looks like. (President Kenner is about to enter the fray and rubber-stamp the peace treaty by ceremonially fingerbanging her trusted Space Captain. a bit of a formality but well, that’s politics. lotta protocol.)
Engaging in diplomatic intercourse, huh…
in fairness to historical reality, leaders making genitalia-based decisions is certainly a lot more common than anyone would be comfortable admitting in a UN plenary session. “everything is sex, except sex which is power” something something, i’m very smart. back to drawing sexy gay sex though.
Did you come up with these, that quickly? I am rethinking whether I really wasted all that much talent in not pursuing art. 😞
ummm i don’t know what answer gets you to not be sad???? i’m sure you can still pursue art and make some extremely smoldering smut yourself?
Eh. Mine would all be goils. I think just me and Yoto are the audience for that. xD
The answer to the age-old question, “Who’s been drawing dicks?”
*sun-drenched spaghetti western vibe*
Joe, Ethan and Jacob are staring at each other intently.
in a flash, they each draw their dicks, and clouds of kicked up dust momentarily obscure the scene.
next thing you know, the three of them are lying down in a heap… plugged full of dicks.
and scene
hot, very hot
Wow. Stunning.
Carla would totally be into the concept of her very presence having lead Joyce astray… which would leave Becky in a huff because if anyone corrupted Joyce it was HER, dammit.
My eyes are pretty lousy. We’re talking about Carla, who’s not even slightly stealth, but a six-even silly person, right? (Also, how the hell does Joyce not know?! She brings it up constantly, and literally said when Joyce painted a penis on her door called it a hate crime until she realized it was on all the doors.)
Joyce doesn’t exactly understand what to look for. Some of the audience might not eve know if there weren’t non-Joyce strips where Carla spells it out.
I’m not sure she does bring it up that often; if it’s a natural part of the conversation, perhaps, but mostly it seems like making sure people know she’s trans would get in the way of making sure people know she’s C*A*R*L*A.
It’s still been obvious enough that I picked up on it, but there’s a difference between Joyce, who doesn’t pick up on these things because of her upbringing, and me, who doesn’t usually pick up on these things because I’m an idiot.
She’s hinted at it a few times, and also mentioned it explicitly during a storyline about Mary. So for the audience it might feel like she talks about it a lot. Since Joyce is the main character it can be easy to forget that she wasn’t around for that and doesn’t know everything we know.
And I’m fairly certain a large portion of Carla’s bombastic nature is either a deliberate or subconscious act to deflect away from her transness and keep others at arm’s length.
also cover for her face-blindness. possibly.
Carla almost never brings it up. And never explicitly. She hinted to Sal early on. There was the reaction to the whiteboard dingdong.
Obviously the incident with Mary. A talk with Malaya. But those weren’t her bringing it up.
For all the attention she wants on herself, it’s pretty clear she doesn’t want any attention for that.
She did mention it directly when Ruth complains about her antagonizing Mary.
https://www.dumbingofage.com/2016/comic/book-6/02-that-perfect-girl/antagonize/
Sure, but it had just been brought up horribly earlier in that scene. She’s willing to talk about it directly when needed, but she rarely brings it up and never that explicitly.
i don’t blame people for not remembering such an old comic, but it is a very good example to point out that This Specific thing tends to cut through carlas persona pretty distinctly
Yup. One of the few times we get to see her with all the “Pay attention to me I’m an asshole!” armor stripped away.
Oh man. Just outed myself to a super sheltered cishet girl myself and Gosh do I wish I wasn’t also her Dorothy.
That is a terribly exhausting position to be in. I always have to remind myself to breathe and try to smile through it. Good luck, hun
I also kinda wish she gave a shit to learn as much as Joyce does.
I find it very funny that she seems to have picked up “weenus” from Walky.
Every time I see the word, I think ”Weezer”. Which doesn’t work; I don’t think they’ve been in the national news for a couple decades.
They don’t care about that.
Ooh wee ooh.
Willis, I have put up with this Joyce/Dorothy tease for YEARS. Have mercy!
It’s because I know this is a comic that is aware of the nuances of orientation and attraction; this is a comic I would trust to understand concepts like an ace trans lesbian (yes Carla, I see you) or queerplatonic relationships and sex buds that are not dating, Etc. So if Joyce and Dorothy say they are straight, they can be straight!
Because of this, I accepted platonic mutual masturbation. I accepted their non-romantic adoration for one another. But now Joyce is staring at Dorothy’s crotch, thinking about her genitals.
WILLIS. I AM TOO GAY FOR THIS. I am THIS close to either writing fanfiction, or creating OCs vaguely based on them just so they can make out.
As a transbian, I sympathize.
As a non-Ace I’m holding out hope for the Slipshine. 🤭
Hey, I’ve yet to see the author complain about any of the fanstuff that gets linked here, including noncanon stuff, and Joyce/Dorothy is pretty tame. Go ye forth and write.
I think Joyce will come out as bi once she feels less panicked about sex. Dorothy might be straight, but she’s usually slightly more normal about it all.
I don’t think Joyce is bisexual – compare her attention to men she’s attracted to to any given woman and you’ll see a marked difference: Joyce gets horny for men and not women. Biromantic maybe, but I don’t see bisexual.
I think Joyce is biromantic, and gives off sexually confusing vibes that have awakened something in Dorothy, who is bisexual.
Yeah, I guess I see what you mean.
Write more fanfic! We need more!
be the gay that you want to see in the world!
Yeah, I don’t know what’s going on exactly? The strip itself has lampshaded the issue a few times — Daisy calling Joyce’s comic strip out for “feeling kind of queerbaity” if her self-insert and the character based on Dorothy don’t eventually get together, and similarities between Joyce/Dorothy and Leslie/Ann (Parks and Recreation) were highlighted, albeit in a scene that was ALSO very much about Robin’s denial. I can definitely picture all of this culminating in Joyce one day giving Dorothy a similarly loving look and saying, “No, tragically we are both heterosexual” (a line of actual dialogue from Leslie about Ann in P&R’s final season).
I can also picture it eventually going more the way that The Good Place did, where eventually Eleanor just acknowledged she was “legit into Tahani” and thus bisexual but the show was firmly committed to a completely different endgame ship, and Tahani wasn’t it for Eleanor.
I think the latter was better, certainly, but I won’t say they didn’t both disappoint my gay little heart.
(I have no issue with the men Eleanor and Leslie dated instead; like Joe is with Joyce, they were cute. The gay little heart just wants what it wants. I’m not quite inspired to write fanfic, though; even though I know the actors and writers for both shows would be super on board with me writing fan fiction of my “preferred ships”, it still feels a little… I don’t know. Sad. Like throwing your own birthday party because your friends forgot.)
ok but some of the Eleanor x Tahani fics on AO3 are actually amazing.
I’m glad you enjoy them! idk, it’s not a problem I usually have with noncanon ships. (I mean, it’s the 2020s and all, but I’m pushing 40, and even nowadays the ships my gay heart wants very rarely happen, so I’m extremely used to carrying on regardless.) Maybe it’s something unique about the intersection of the creative team basically taking me by the hands, looking directly into my eyes, and saying, “We know! We see the potential too. It’s valid and so are you! But nah.”
The most I’m used to hoping for is that a show/book series/comic will end without actively sinking my ship, but something about my ship being sunk while the creative team acknowledges it and says it’s neat but it’s never happening… really kills the part of my brain that wants to engage in transformative fiction. I just kinda go “oh, okay,” and move on.
Full respect to Willis, I won’t accuse the strip of queerbaiting even if Willis themself does, but I will be sad? I don’t think anyone can ask more of a shipper than that. 🙂
I liked both BenXLeslie and ChidiXEleanor enough that I wouldn’t have wanted the other ship over them, BUT I wanted both Ann and Tahani to end up realizing they were gay. (Ann and Chris the second time around was kinda eh for me.)
I didn’t want Leslie not to marry Ben, but I really would have liked a poly thing. Admittedly a poly thing in keeping with the rest of the tone of the show would have kind of sidelined Ben (thinking of a million jokes, but most specifically the one where the gang makes a word cloud out of Leslie’s emails / tweets / what have you, and there’s a pretty Big Ben word balloon but a HUUUUGE Ann one and the characters conclude “well, she really loves Ann”)…
Also Ann being gay would’ve — fit a specific type of later in life gay awakening? Her relationships with men were all pretty terrible, her moment of clarity around how every man she’s dated so far has become her whole personality… it would’ve been interesting and would have made sense for the character to fall in love with a woman and be like “oh! huh! this is different, have I been self-sabotaging this whole time because subconsciously I didn’t want to date men???”
…also-also? I will never not be disappointed in general by how incredibly heteronormative the end of Parks & Rec was — and I don’t just mean “everyone was straight”, I mean everyone was married-with-children. I doubt it was intentional, but if you compare the first few episodes to the finale, it’s very… noticeable. “Huh, I forgot that April was originally in an asymmetrical poly relationship with two queer men. Oh, and Donna had multiple Friends With Benefits going on. Leslie wasn’t exactly strong and independent with no need for a man, but she sure did live alone in a house that she owned? We had a bunch of happily single characters, like Ron and Ann when she first broke up with Andy, and……… now everyone’s married with kids or kids on the way or both. We even married off the two token gay guys to each other. Hm.”
Unfortunate Implications about what it means to grow up.
Tahani meanwhile… did she ever actually express interest in men? I know Jason was her assigned soulmate at one point but if she ever actually made significant eyes at a boy I’m not remembering it. It probably would’ve felt performative even if she had, given how much of her early characterization WAS performative. Hmm. I haven’t rewatched TGP yet.
oh also it is a bit funny to me how much credence everyone gives to the one comic in 2015 where Dorothy called herself “I don’t know probably a zero? I guess that could change,” as if that was the Definitive Final Clinching Proof of her heterosexuality. Plus one time she disparagingly said something sounded like it was “outside [her] dumb cishet experience”, which is definitely not a sentiment any queer person has ever felt or expressed prior to coming out because goodness knows we were all totally self-aware at 18.
(This is a “it’s not the conclusion I have a problem with so much as the process by which the conclusion was reached” situation.)
FANFIC FOR THE FANFIC FILES
–Dave, SLASH FOR THE SLASH PHONE
I can’t take it anymore! It’s so much teasing to me.
oooooh, she really didn’t know.
:O
TFW Joyce does not register who Carla is. Carla would be PISSED lol.
I’m half expecting Dorothy to be referring to someone else!
Carla is the one who reverse-engineered Joyce’s shower shoes so she doesn’t have to say “Oh no, my hubris!”
Joyce certainly remembers that.
Joyce knows who Carla is. Joyce does not register Carla as anything but a fellow girl/woman. Why should Carla be pissed?
I think due to the nature and the audience, conversations like this don’t feel super authentic. There’s no reason for completely cishet lib politicking Dorothy to have near-divine perfect intersectional clarity on an issue she has very little personal investment or even secondhand experience with, but because Joyce is the voice of the unlearned and Dorothy is the voice of the learned, the exchange must happen this way.
Meanwhile as a closet transmasc bisexual disaster with a pretty good cover story, I have to have this conversation regularly with people of various professed political alignments, and the conversation almost always goes “kids forgetting what gender they are/confused, sure I support what they want for themselves, it doesn’t affect *me* any, but I do think it’s a mental illness/fad/confusion etc.”
When we’re on the internet in leftist circles, it’s easy to believe and assume that the outward shows of support and fighting back against trans critical narratives are the norm, but I’ve gone back to uni recently and even among the trans youths I end up around, most of the kids are just following and repeating what they hear online, it’s just as confusing for them – so why would an 18 year old with no gender or sexuality questions who’s spent much of her life trying to follow a script for promising young politicians be up to date on issues that struggle to gain widespread consensus and understanding even in their spheres of influence, much less members of the wider political alignment that may or may not support them?
The answer is simply that sometimes this comic is meant to be a reflection and condensation of the author’s own experiences, and a megaphone attempting to show what is and isn’t appropriate in a given circumstance.
Chris Phoenix’s comment above examines how Dorothy’s response is not actually ideal. She’s good about being informed, but medium in execution. It’s something I noticed when she suggested Joyce “try deism”, she projects perfect clarity, but doesn’t have it.
Maybe she is still doing unexpectedly better than someone who is light on experience and heavy on just reading about it, for the reason you said.
It’s really not that unbelievable that someone as idealistic as dorothy would spend way too many hours one night looking into trans people and how we want to be treated, considering she has been in a dorm with one for months, and then had another trans person introduced to her social circle, and someone who was already in it come out.
Even despite that shes not being perfect about it. I could kinda agree that joyce herself is being a little too nice for realism, but considering the absurd degree of specifics we know about joyce, its not really that unreasonable to imagine her being fully uninformed instead of informed Badly
Uh. Your concluding paragraph: 100%. Your take that this reads unnatural? I disagree. This reads as an incredibly normal conversation to me. Joyce’s fundie reactions can go into cartoonish to me (as in literally, things are exaggerated in webcomics), but Dorothy seems extremely accurate.
/ID as transmasc, present as female, spend my IRL time around liberal people who are mostly-hypothetically accepting. I have been triggered by ignorant comments in the past, yet this is basically how I’d expect my cohort to react here.
Ew, I didn’t think I changed my email. Give me back blowjob cat!
One more try with different capitalisation.
I was the bass player for “A Secret Weenus” back in ’94.
but did it go up to 11?
–Dave, we may know why the drummer exploded now
It’s one thing being progressive from your comfy armchair, it’s different when actually interacting with the people on whose side you claim to be. That said, Joyce already stepped up once, she can be better.
“Secret weenus” kmt.
Secret Weenus an upbeat combo of the popular variety m’lud
Oh Joyce, we forget how long your path to progress is
https://www.dumbingofage.com/2020/comic/book-10/02-to-remind-you-of-my-love/situation/
Joe doesn’t forget. (I love that he loves her but still is perfectly aware of how she can be.)
This is still quite possibly my favorite strip in the whole comic. That is one of the most romantic things a person could ever possibly say about the person they love. God damn. Still gets to me.
Every time I click on a link to an old comic, I end up reading for another dozen or two strips.
So, here’s Joyce and Dorothy about Joyce getting some Hot D.
I’m glad she’s having this conversation with Dorothy. She can get out all of her accidental harmful thoughts and be lovingly called on them.
Magazines?
Huh…
If a “penis” is something the having of is one’s own private business…
…Then is a “Weenus” (“We”, “Us” ) something to be shared with the general public?
I blame Joyce’s aversion to certain words for this invasive thought that is going to be trapped in my brain for the rest of the morning, if not longer.
the collective dick, if you will
Plot twist: yes, she is looking.
“Magazines” isn’t in the text in the comic, that usually only happens when there’s little or no text. Incidentally, the sliding timescale means that the article in Newsweek was when it was zombie Newsweek, run a right-wing church.
yeah first draft the text was “in magazines” but increasingly what the fuck are magazines
They’re the things you try not to notice in the checkout line.
Sorry dotty but its your job as a cis to let joyce get ALL her stupid thoughts and questions out now so she can process it, realize the err of her ways, and move on to act normal 😌😌
What Joyce needs is someone who will talk to her about these things and answer these kinds of questions, understanding that Joyce isn’t trying to offend them. She’s asking from a place of genuine curiosity and that should be encouraged while also helping her to understand these things and what and how things might be construed as offense, even if unintentionally.
yeah, but as a trans person, it is damn exhausting to act as someone’s living reference library. going to a cis ally is going to be more beneficial as there’s less chance Joyce is going to use up someone’s last spoon asking a “simple, innocuous” question that is just a step too far and get blown up at.
She needs someone who will talk with her from a place of understanding, but not necessarily answer *these* kinds of questions. Respond to with corrections or redirect, but not discuss another person’s genitalia with her as part of the intro.
It was Mike… Maybe…
I see your Mike and raise you a Galasso.
I know Joyce is being very face palmy with this, but hey, at least she still called them by her correct gender. Even with going “omg secret weenus” Joyce called the mystery trans woman a girl.
I noticed that too and I was very impressed.
occurred to me that Joyce should already know rather than having to look
I had a similar conversation once. There were a lot of people in Ottawa who were very active in both the BDSM and belly dancer communities. I forget how the conversation came up but I wound up telling one of the belly dancers that she actually knew a lot of people that were into BDSM. She wasn’t shocked or repulsed, just surprised.