Change the capitalization of your Email to change your gravatar.
Like, say, your Email is sev@sev.sev
Capitalize it sEv@sev.sev
That’ll force the grav-roulette to spin again.
Alternatively go back a decade and set a custom avatar on this new fangled “gravatar” thing and then promptly forget how to change it. Thereby completely sidestepping the whole gravroulette problem entirely.
But there is already a circle, well a part of a circle anyways (is way too big of a geek at times) devoted to Hypocrites, maybe we can take a part of that circle and have them crucified there on opposite sides, so they are marched over by the legions of hypocrites forever, and since they are separated it is even more torture as they can never be together again, oh and there is the extra punishment of having to share that Bolgia (the name for the part I am refering to in Italian) with the Pharisee that pushed the crucifixion of Jesus. (Sorry, had to channel my inner classic literature geek)
again, I think they would go to the Bolgia for hypocrites, either as being chained and wearing the gilded lead robes or crucified on opposing sides, still forced to wear the robes and being trodden on for eternity.
That falls nicely into my theory that Heaven and Hell are actually the same place, but which one it is depends on the person. So Heaven for Carla would be Hell for Mary and so on.
George Bernard Shaw’s play, Man and Superman had a good bit about that. It was quite a fun read, especially if you considered it a product of its time.
This is the first time I’ve ever felt the need to comment… Your theory about heaven and hell being the same place is kind of how I feel about being on Earth. It’s all in what you make of it…
I am reminded of a story I came across somewhere or other:
A guy is being taken on a tour of Hell, and there’s a bunch of people sitting at a table. Now, the table is full of food (sushi); but the people around it are skinny to the point of starvation and grumpy as hell, and the guy asks, “Why is everyone so hungry when there’s all that food there?”
And someone replies, “Because you can only pick the food up with the chopsticks, and all the chopsticks are five feet long! So none of us can eat anything!”
So next the guy is taken up to Heaven, where, same thing, table full of sushi; but here, everyone is happy and laughing and well-fed.
“Oh, so the chopsticks are the normal length here, then?” he asks.
“No,” someone replies, “Here in Heaven the chopsticks are still five feet long. The difference is, here we feed each other.”
Huh, I heard that story but people’s elbows were locked, and this was coming from temple. Which made me question why the people didn’t just like, shove their faces into their plates, and also, why this Rabbi who told us jews don’t believe in hell was trying to tell us some story about hell. My elementary school kind of sucked.
They did that on “Night Gallery” where a hippie (John Astin, of all people) is condemned to Hell as a hypocrite. Hell, for him, is a room with a farmer discussing crop futures, a couple showing their slide show of their trip to Hawaii and a stack of 45s of big band music. BAD big band music. When he finally get Satan’s attention, Satan tells him; “This is it. This is what you get for eternity. You know what the funny part is? This exact room is ‘Up There.’ “
That one haunted me for years. Not so much the circumstances, as it got me thinking about eternity. I think it was being locked in anywhere forever that really got to me.
I’ve said it before, if Peter & Mary are based off of a couple from Willis’s own college residence wing, Peter might be faking it right now but eventually convert for real.
Do they only shake with the left for official scout business or is that something that sticks with people? Only asking because I have never actually seen anyone shake hands with their left.
Right hand is correct for the three-finger salute!
Source: was a Girl Guide in the UK for quite a few years. It’s the same internationally, except for the Cub Scouts, who get a two-finger salute.
Either way, it’s always the right hand.
The two finger Cub Scout salute isn’t absolutely universal. Some packs, the one I was in for example, allow the three finger as well. That’s typically a thing where the given pack has close direct ties with a specific boyscout troop.
And this is where my brain apparently backfires on me. My scouting and guiding troops always empathized using the left hand to *shake* which apparently crossed wires in my brain as the hand you use to salute.
Probably doesn’t help that I can be really bad at telling left from right.
Sorry, but unless that’s changed since I was part of Scouts in the ’80s it’s right hand (just dug out my old handbooks to check). Wikipedia agrees on this subject, which normally I wouldn’t take as significant but I know most of the big Scouting organizations have taken pains to make sure the info there is accurate, as does the plethora of official imagery and various photos associated with the movement which Google image search turns up for both “scout oath” and “scout half salute”.
That said, I’d doubt Joe was in Scouts anyway, or else his troop was significantly less formal than the one I was part of, because outside the hand issue that is one sloppy salute. Mind you, I live in an area with tons of military and retiree locals so bias and all that.
Not a scout, but it’d be weird if it were done with the left anyway, considering the weird stigma in the West about the left hand. Specifically, it’s seen as ungodly, and also associated with witches. In other countries, it’s just because the left hand is the one you clean yourself with.
Hm, we weren’t into scout’s oaths in Germany, but I distinctly remember that scout’s greeting was with the right hand up and shaking hands with the left.
(Which I found strange once I learned the left hand was deemed inappropriate for handshakes in cultures not using a water toilet…)
“The great Faz even has a chart that shows exactly how much more fundamental the Church of Charts is as compared to all your boring churches.”
“…what?”
It’s either that or she’s saying, “No, Joe, I’m not forgiving you, because live with your mistakes.” I’m leaning towards it being Rachel’s mistake, but I’m not yet sure.
Whoops, I meant to reply to the grav check thread. Sorry to crash this one! At least I got Billie as my avatar, and not some GIANT CHICKEN, because that would be stupid.
As a sophomore, she has a full year of what Joe and the gang are two months into. Yes, she has a back story from hell. Just like Sarah. The sunny happy frosh seem like a lifetime ago.
Interesting sentiment coming from Rachel given her condemnation of Ruth. Good for Joe, I hope he succeeds. Mary and Peter make me want to bleach my soul to remove the taint of their nauseating self righteousness. Theirbbehavior is so gross.
Living with them isn’t the same as being eternally punished for them and never being able to change though. Also, if she really holds such harsh views as universal then she’s either as big as Mary on condemnation or she’s projecting, neither of which is healthy.
if by that you mean ‘punished for her sin by getting pregnant’ . . um, ew, no. nobody needs a reinforcement of the narrative that ‘only bad girls get pregnant’ or ‘having unmarried sex ought to ‘ruin’ your life’ or any other variant of ‘pregnancy = comeuppance’
Nope, it’s more of Mary ending up divorced and remarried a lot. I absolutely hate Mary and Peter as a couple (and separately, too), and would love to see them broken up, hopefully with a little heartbreak involved. Pregnancy doesn’t have anything to do with this.
If I had to wager a guess, going to apologize to Dorothy (since she didn’t come for doughnuts and Joe probably figured he should say sorry for putting her in a foul mood last week).
Not that I like Mary or anything, but how would she belong in the traitor’s department of Hell? I mean having her frozen in ice would be fine by me, but treachery is not the first thing that comes to mind with Mary…
I’d mark her for A Sower of Discord. She gets to be hacked and mutilated by a demon with a giant sword. But Dante tended to categorize people according to what his story or personal feelings mandated, not necessarily about a consistent logical or theological framework.
And I can’t decide if it would be super boring vanilla sex with them being smug about how they’re forgiven afterwards, or if it would just be pages of them making out and talking about how they’re better than all the sinners because they’re not having sex.
Haha my friend has a four-year-old who decided he was super into Spiderman before he had a clue about who Spiderman actually was (just liked the toys, I think).
In his version Spiderman is a good guy who can control spiders, so he beats up bad guys and then all his spiders tie them up in their webs and crawl all over their faces until they promise to be good and not steal stuff anymore.
You have no idea how much I want that to be canon, haha. It would probably work REALLY WELL.
If you do decide to convert, you’ll surely end up knowing more than the vast majority of other Jews. It’s a thing. Good luck with whatever you choose. ^^
The BSA is a secular organization. Some level of religious overtones tend to be present, but it can vary wildly from troop to troop. Some troops are VERY religiously-oriented, though I don’t know if any actually require you to belong to any particular religion to join.
The main reason for the religious bullshit like excluding gay scouts until only a few years ago and their continued exclusion of trans scouts is largely due to a large part of their funding coming from religious organizations.
As I understand it, troops like mine that are secular and not creepily militaristic have gotten rarer in the last decade or so. Hopefully there are other more inclusive organizations taking their place rather than them simply going away
Yeah, Jews are allowed by the Boy Scouts. (Though many troops are directly supported by churches and I suspect some would discriminate.)
Belief in God is part of the scouting rules. Officially atheists can not be members, but those of any religion can be (probably some wiggle room on exactly what qualifies). Again, how strictly this is enforced likely varies from group to group.
Not all. If she was raised in a household with ideals such as she displays, then I feel pity for her. She’s been taught that hate is humanity’s province and duty, has never been shown actual love, and has thus been quietly abused her entire life. Others have it worse, but she is the product of hate. For that, I do not hate her (however much I hate her behavior and even philosophy); I pity her, and wish not for her eternal torment, but for her enlightenment and an ease to a wretched suffering she does not even know she is enduring.
Even if she were a product of her environment, which Willis has said she is not, that doesn’t make me hate her less. She’s not ignorantly bigoted and unaware of the harm she does, she actively enjoys tormenting and hurting other people for her own personal amusement. She is a type of nasty that lives in the same realm as the things that drive the “Ryan’s” of the world. She revels in hurting others and having power over them, all while justifying it to herself as they are not “real” people. She’s an awful human being.
Oh, wait, that’s actually a very accurate way of describing how Mary doesn’t see Carla as female… Though I’m still not sure how it would fit her conviction that “regular sinners” are going to hell… (Like Joyce for instance)
That’s the thing though, she sees anyone who isn’t like her as “sinners”, she strips them of all humanity and views them as nothing more than their ” misdeeds.” She then uses that as an excuse to torment people. With Carla, she doesn’t just not see her as female, she doesn’t see her as a person at all, she treats her as subhuman.
So, here’s my theory… Walky and Jason are also in that bar (the stubbly guy mentioned in yesterday’s alt-text is in both scenes). Then they cut away to give Leslie a chance to show up, and also tease us with Stacy. Now they’ve cut away again. My guess is that Willis hasn’t loaded the chamber to its critical mass yet; at least one more person is going to show up in that bar. And who is this, you might ask?
Well, that’s where I ran out of ideas. Any guesses as to who creates the most drama possible in that building? (And remember, Walky and Sal can both get in there no problem, so I’m assuming the bouncers don’t really care.)
I find that most “Christians” who mention the rapture come across that way; they view the Rapture (at least the version they are convinced will be a thing that has little to do with the actual Bible) as the ultimate chance to go “Nyah nyah, told you so!”
It’s impossible to be righteous without having some significant measure of pride. If one believes they are encouraged by God Himself to be righteous even when they’re not all that wise about His teachings, well…..
In his place you have given me Dorothy, who is so awesome in so many ways that she can never represent me. You would doom me to forever live in the shadow of my own grav.
This cannot stand.
So once more I spin unto your breach, dear frenemy. Let our bottles be coined.
On that note I wonder how this will end. Maybe the two of them will realize something about the other person and start to be completely repulsed by each other and brake things off.
I think a bucket of cold water or a garden hose is more traditional.
But hey, at least, while they’re still nauseating, they’re both distracted with each other and not actively planning out ways to hurt the people around them.
“I’m a hundred times more humble than thou art,” I could live with, when the alternative is blackmail, misgendering, and trying their damnedest to murder by suicide.
Yeah, Mary, you guys are so totally holy. Gee, I sure wish I could be as holy as you and get into Heaven (oh no wait I’m aiming for Asgard so no I don’t).
Hey, I heard someone in the lobby thinks they’re holier than thou art. Go make out over there.
Or, hah, someone could film them making out (or actually having sex) and upload it to the same porn site Roz used, which would piss off the Dean and possibly get him to throw them both out. Hey, Roz is perfectly positioned to both film them having sex and to upload it to the same site! Well, well.
I always thought that there was something irrepressibly cute about Faz and Wen from their complete lack of self-awareness combined with total innocence. You could never really take offence at them without appearing heartless (sort of like kicking an incontinent Labrador puppy for repeatedly taking a whiz on your rug).
Yeah, Faz on his own was a terrible infliction on Amber and everyone else at the store. Faz and Wen are basically neutralized, and I kind of admired their persistent positivity in the face of both clearly being insane.
My new avatar looks a lot like a girl I know from work. And it reminds me, there’s something I’ve been meaning to ask you guys, because this seems like a strangely appropriate place for it. My friend is a devout Muslim girl, a lot like Joyce in many ways. She is friendly and likeable, and I have a fairly close working relationship with her. Recently she has expressed to me her distaste for LGBT people, and that she does not view gay or trans people as being real or legitimate identities. What is the appropriate response to this?
I find the best response is, “That’s your choice to make, I disagree”. It makes the point without starting a fight and if they try to convince you a simple “I will not change my mind, let’s agree to disagree” is usually enough.
I can get that, I tend to get very passionate as a dfab man when people are anti-lgbt, but I’ve personally found that confrontation can sometimes be the impetus for people to double down and be more vocally ant-lgbt, so I suggest caution especially being lgbt youself. If you feel comfortable outing yourself you could say do you see me as real?
Whatever you decide to do stay safe and remember you will have to work together so don’t let yourself get pulled into a fight, just speak your piece calmly and rationally.
You could start by telling you that you disagree if you haven’t already. Pointing out that people don’t choose to be LGBT, and they just want to be allowed to live.
If she’s expressing this distaste in the workplace, discouraging that seems like a good target, if you can’t change her mind. If you’ve got any LGBT coworkers (closeted or no), they shouldn’t have to listen to that.
I think she knows that I disagree, though I haven’t stated it quite so directly. I’ve been treating her opinion of gay people as something of a joke, which I can get away with because like I said, we’re close. Thing is, I’m actually one of those closeted coworkers, though not out of fear, I just don’t really talk about it, and I don’t generally come across as being queer. It’s an interesting situation to be in.
My experience working with a lot of conservative religious organizations as a community organizer is that I was just myself. I didn’t go out of my way to either mention or hide my sexuality, and over a few years, most of the people who assumed I’d been mentioning the type of girlfriend with whom you get a mani-pedi realized I meant the type of girlfriend with whom I shared a one-bedroom apartment. They figured it out when they were ready, and when they already had a good relationship with me. My two cents, your mileage may vary, etc.
Shit. I really have much experience in this area. I was able to set my brother straight after he expressed the opinion that transgender people were just being “trendy”, but he didn’t really have that strong of an opinion on the matter, so it didn’t take much.
If she’s not extremely harsh about it, gentle push-back like you’re doing might be the way to go. You could try being slightly more firm by moving from “haha, you can’t be serious” to “this again? you’re being ridiculous”, with some eye-rolling, and see how that goes.
It might nudge her towards re-evaluating a little faster, but it’s easy to roll back if she seems to respond badly.
Yeah, that’s what I’ve been thinking is the way to go. It just seems so strange to me. I’m used to the bigots in my life being people like Mary. Not Joyce.
I agree with your points far captor, but you do have to be careful getting too confrontational about it, especially in the workplace and some people respond very badly to having you try to change their mind.
If you trust her to remain civil and friendly, low-pressure questioning and debate geared towards mutual understanding, if not agreement, shouldn’t hurt. Asking “Why do you hold your current views?” and phrasing arguments as “This is why I hold my current views.” is a more gentle way to butt heads in the case that you actually want to do that. If you don’t want to, or don’t think it would be a good idea, you have every right to pick your battles. Hell knows I do.
I definitely want to talk about it at some point. Not sure how it’s gonna come up though, because I don’t really want to start the conversation myself haha
I like that you’re using the phrase “current views”; it makes it sound more like something that might change, and that’s fine, rather than being something both immutable and wrong. 🙂
I have some Muslim friends who are absolutely allies of LGBTQ+ folks. They say the Koran actually supports it (or at least doesn’t contradict it, I don’t remember which offhand). Let me ask them and see if they can give you any tips. 🙂
I had to do a double take on Mary in the last panel, because between her arm position and the shadows, it almost looked like she wasn’t wearing anything under her sweater. Was her top that low-cut when we saw it before?
Is ‘we all have to live with our mistakes’ an improvement on ‘redemption is a story… you will always be the thing you were before’?
Because acknowledging our mistakes, taking responsibility for them, understanding why we made them and working on the root causes, and trying not to repeat those mistakes (or let the same maladaptive source thoughts/beliefs lead us to making similar mistakes) is how we move past those things and grow as people and improve ourselves.
Also I really like Joe’s apology. He owns how wrong he was (without disclosing anything that could make Joyce feel uncomfortable) and1 that he thought he was being funny and is now aware he was not, and he intends to stop acting like that. Starting by calling Rachel by her proper name is a pretty good beginning. And also shows he bothered to learn it rather than actually mentally completely reducing her to the sum of her component body parts, personality not required…
Also I’m not sure other people taste of religious symbolic cleansing? Unless they’re making a case for Peter’s tongue (I am going with tongue. I am staying with tongue) being made of Jesus’s flesh and his saliva (again, saliva, not any other bodily fluids, be they freely swapped or not) being Jesus’s blood… but pretty certain a Christian would find that quite blasphemous, and now I just have mental images of Mary devouring him praying mantis-style because cannibalism is next to godliness so long as you eat the right people for the right reasons…
On the plus side it may reassure Amber that other people are messed up too? On the negative, it’s 5:30 am and I don’t think I can sleep with that mental image…
FWIW, I suspect that Rachel is talking about herself here… and I also think she may have been talking about herself for most of her tirade at Ruth. It is a conclusion that I draw from her expression in panel 5 and it worries me.
No, not at all. It’s a legalistic classification of promises made in general, any day of the year, for any valid reason. All promises are divided into several categories, to which different rules apply.
In this case, it’s a promise of denial–– meaning that, as a halakhic rule, one who promises not to do something can be called out by other people at any time and must immediately stop doing it without objection.
Looki at that! A proper apology. No passive aggressive bullshit, no doubling down, just a proper acknowledgement of what he did wrong and a promise to do better.
Joe was a boy scout. Joe going camping, learning different knots, earning his helping old people badge (sorry, I don’t know what boy scouts do). Think about this head canon for a bit.
It honestly makes a lot of sense to me. My dad and brother were both really enthusiastic about scouting, my brother even worked as a leader at Scout camp in early adulthood and my dad still grabs opportunities to teach scouts. (Any Scouts; he’s getting ready to teach my girlfriend’s Girl Scout troop Dutch oven cooking, his old specialty.)
They’re both very logical and structured engineer personalities (seriously, both engineers) and I see a lot of that in Joe too.
More on topic, at least those two aren’t being as horrible as they usually are, even if the trade off is being subjected to their constant condescension and face sucking.
She sounds like you have to carry your mistakes around and remember them daily or something…
Did she make a mistake that’s impossible to forgive (she herself at least) because the results was so bitter?
I really want to know where Rachel’s inability to forgive things and complete lack of faith in people comes from. She’s so opposed to the idea that people can change, there’s almost certainly a backstory there.
I mean, both were pretty similar in the fact that both were still horrible, whiny, cowardly, bullying, spoiled little shits, but book Joffrey has no empathy at all, and does what he does mainly to show to everyone that he’s decisive and strong, while show Joffrey’s actions have an undercurrent of sexual malice. Plus, show Joffrey tortured and killed prostitutes and ordered all of Robert Baratheon’s bastards killed.
Hate her more than Umbridge? I mean, they share the core trait of way-too-real sanctimonious moralizing and sense of superiority in their evil, but at least Mary isn’t also a huge racist nazi with a bent for torture.
Welp, hate is not scalable based on how many horrible traits someone has. It’s all a case of personal opinion. And frankly I think that Mary just didn’t get an opportunity to be racist yet.
Also this reminds me that one post I read about how Umbridge is more hateable than Voldemort. Basically Voldemort is a fantasy evil we are Extremely unlikely to encounter while Umbridge is a much more real-life kind of evil. Same thing probably applies here. Someone like Mary has a somewhat higher chance to pop up in our lives than someone like Umbridge.
Wasn’t disbelieving, just surprised. Does kinda tie into the “worst bigots are self-hating oppressed people” myth, but we still have the malfous and their ilk
Sorry if it came off like that. When people do the “I didn’t know that”, I like to refer them to the source directly, so that they have it if someone drops a challenge on them. It’s only polite.
Often the most zealous. They have to prove to everyone (including themselves) that they’re fully committed to the cause, despite the “unfortunate circumstances” from which they come.
Reminds me an aunt of mine. Back during communist times she was super dedicated to that cause. Now? If the priest told her to jump she’d ask “How high?”
Rachel’s expression in panel 5 puzzles me. It makes me wonder what mistake she has to live with. It might explain her going way beyond boundaries with Ruth if there is some strong regret in her past that makes her feel both unforgiven and unable to forgive.
Meanwhile, I’m suspecting that, pretty soon, Peter and Mary will be banned from every church in town. Even the most insufferably self-righteous group has standards and those two would just make them look bad!
idk it’s interesting because their happiness is very clearly…a performance, for the benefit of the people around them. i have to wonder what they’re like when they’re alone. if this is even something they can maintain while they’re alone
you know what i didn’t want to think about??? people getting off on the thought of being raptured. like. somehow. the most heavenly orgasm sent straight from god and infused with the glory of being right. which just makes it better, obvs, and you can watch all those suckers below suffering because they weren’t as good as you. EVEN BETTER you can watch them admitting you were right and regretting that they didn’t agree with you sooner and oh, the error of their ways!!!1!!
like……………………i didn’t want to think about someone getting off on that, but now i kinda have to, because it’s just…it’s there. it’s there. and it’s not leaving.
I have seen video of people like this being pranked with fake rapture setups. The looks on their faces when they think they have been left behind is priceless.
Hooray! Joe’s internalising what he’s learnt today! And it’s interesting comparing Rachel’s response to Joe’s apology here to her previous response to Ruth’s apology – “you will always be the thing you were before” is a very similar message to “we all have to live with her mistakes”. Seems like part of the reason she can’t forgive Ruth, and has trouble believing that people can become better than they used to be, is because she’s made mistakes she can’t forgive herself for.
This isn’t to imply that she’s obliged to forgive Ruth, or that she had to accept Joe’s apology – which she doesn’t technically do here, even though she doesn’t respond to Joe with the same anger she did to Ruth. She just sadly states that everyone has to live with their mistakes. And it does make sense that she responds less negatively to Joe’s apology – Ruth’s was a public apology, and while that was understandable, as she wanted to apologise to the whole dorm, Rachel probably perceived it as performative and fake, a way of winning back favour before reverting to type. By contrast, Joe’s apology here is private (unlike his donut apology) – he bumps into Rachel by chance, and takes the moment as a chance to acknowledge the way he was in the wrong, and promise to be better in the future.
Rachel was chewing at the bit to scream at Ruth the whole time. She tried to jump on Ruth and yell at her before she realized her brother was in the room with her. I don’t know if Ruth’s choice to make the apology public changed a thing.
Am I the only one that when The Spawns of Unholy Filth do have sex, Peter goes all “Puritan” on Mary and drops her because she’s a Woman of Sin who Tempted his Male Purity with her Evil Biblical First Sin?
My personal favoured theory is that Peter just wants to be the one to deflower a ‘Christian girl’ and is simply parodying the things that Mary wants to hear (and it’s a shame that she so lacks self-awareness that she literally doesn’t notice that he’s mocking her). Once he has his goal, he’ll drop her and move on to find a new ‘conquest’.
It’s what happens with Mary then that will determine much about the character and her relationships with those around her.
That’s the vibe I got. Peter reminds me of an episode of Night Court where a sexual predator was telling the naive lawyer whatever she wanted to hear. She was on cloud nine headed toward marriage while he was getting ready to notch his bedpost. The whole thing was stopped by the sleazy guy lawyer spotted the ruse and warned her.
The only thing is that with Joe’s reaction in the last panel, I’d guess that he really is usually like this. Or like Mary. Because if it was all just an act and he actually wasn’t this annoying on a regular basis, I doubt Joe would care about whether or not the girls kept him.
Yea I actually think if Peter was known for using dishonesty to get what he wants like if he was pretending to be Christian to get in Mary’s pants Joe would dislike him but wouldn’t want to inflict him on the girls dorm.
If I remember correctly, and I think it’s been mentioned recently here too, in the other comic, they got pregnant from premarital sex and I am guessing that will happen again. Whether he is just mocking her to get in her pants and will drop her or blame her or what he will do beyond that point – no idea. I do think he seems even douche-ier (is that a word?) this time if possible.
So, I am thinking that if things do not exactly go like previous incarnations, the change may be that Peter dumps pregnant Mary. Or, like BenRG pointed out this may just be a case of dropping her after he makes his conquest. In which case, there may not be a pregnancy story line. We may get both. Who knows?
Also… Grav Check… Who did I get?
IIRC, Willis has spoken pretty harshly about his choices in that IW! storyline, so I doubt the pregnancy thing will happen again. If it does, it’ll be because he came up with some better way to do it – making it not punishment for hypocritical permarital sex.
At my sister’s college (all-women) there was a group that honestly called themselves the “God Squad” and acted just as obnoxious as Mary and Prick (oops…Peter).
Wanted to make a “Mary/Peter/Paul threesome” joke but based on other comments that joke is probably dead already so I’m basically onky commenting to see if my gravatar is Blowjob Cat.
Panel 5 Rachel is looking reflective. Has she been thinking about her awfulness at the dorm meeting? Or generally some thing she now wants to do differently in the future?
I’m very curious to find out what “mistakes” Rachel is living with that have got her eyes looking so emotional.
She reminds me of a friend who had an abortion when she was pretty young, so that’s what I’m leaning. Towards in the back of my mind.
So Rachel is rejecting Joe’s apology but she isn’t subjecting him to a huge “you can never change” rant. She also isn’t looking him in the eyes.
The last time we saw Rachel she was yelling at them for accusing her of leaking the list. So if something has happened with her since then, we didn’t see it.
I don’t know if it’s just that she sees what Joe did as less bad or that she doesn’t feel like yelling at him again.
Mary & Peter: There’s something particularly irritating about someone who thinks they’re insulting you when really they’re just going on about something you don’t even agree with and/or care about.
It’s kind of bizarre really that people like this honestly think that other people would agree that they’re going to heaven. I’d think they’d just roll their eyes at anyone telling them that they aren’t so I don’t know why they think this would work the other way around.
I’ve said this elsewhere but I am getting an “unforgiving and unforgiven” vibe from Rachel. Maybe she’s got a red mark (even if only in her own mind) somewhere in her past and, as she can’t forgive herself, she can’t extend that to anyone else. To me, her avoiding Joe’s eyes was shame that he is attempting to change when she feels herself beyond redemption.
I think that Rachel blowing up on Ruth was a result of bad phrasing rather than what she truly meant. That what she tried to say was that -quick- redemption is a fake story, something that doesn’t exist. That one apology is supposed to make up for it all. That a promise to be better is all that’s needed… Those are usually the elements in typical redemption stories, and they are also what makes such stories false. True redemption takes a hell of a lot more than that.
Those were my words, and I am feeling even more confident in them now. Beause now we get to see Rachel when she’s not having the initial (and 100% justified) anger over the whole situation. So when Joe apologised, instead of blowing up on him, we get these words:
“We all have to live with our mistakes.”
What mistakes have you done that you have to live with, Rachel? Or what mistakes were done to you personally that whoever did to you basically got away with?
Because now, Rachel, I think I can see why you don’t believe in quick redemption. I can see you carrying the mistakes that happened in your life with you, every day.
Whether it was your own mistakes, and your guilt doesn’t allow you to live it down.
Or whether it was something done to you that whoever did it got away with far too easily, using the quick redemption tropes to get back into the good graces of people. People that should have had your back and denied them the ease of their redemption, making them truly work for it and earn it.
But at the same time, you’re not having the initial anger that, however justified, could lead you to choose your words poorly like you did with Ruth. You’re still upset with Joe, that much is clear, but you’re also choosing to give him a more gentle reminder that quick redemption is not easily happening. I would not blame you for still shouting at him, but I am proud of you for not doing it.
And Joe… I remain cautiously optimistic about you.
Because for one thing, that was an actual apology; and one that you initiated on your own. You did not try to defer any blame in any way. You fully accepted that what you did was not funny. You admitted that your idea of the whole list was a wrong idea.
It might still look a bit… being disarming rather than regretful, I could say. But that’s part of who you currently are, and at least for those of us who knows about your conversation with Joyce, we are capable of seeing how her words clearly reached you. For now, it’ll do.
I think you’re giving Rachel the benefit of the doubt that she isn’t giving Ruth. There’s really no quibbling on her phrasing in that scene, she made it very clear she meant what she said. She had every right to be angry with Ruth, and every right to be distrustful of Ruth’s announcement and promises to improve. But what she said crossed a line from righteous anger to straight-up abuse, and while I maintain that there is no background that would excuse her from what she said, there’s at least a hint that it’s not coming from nowhere.
“But what she said crossed a line from righteous anger to straight-up abuse”
I disagree strongly on that. For one thing, what Ruth had been doing to Rachel and the other women in the wing, now -that- was straight-up abuse. Some harsh words about redemption being false doesn’t come anywhere near close to that.
I mean, from -our- point of view, we know that Ruth’s actually truly regretting all she did. From our point of view, we know that she’s actually trying very hard to be better and to make up for her bad shit. From our point of view, we know that Ruth is under no illusions whatsoever that this will be a quick and painless process. From our point of view, Ruth is attempting to redeem herself the right way.
But Rachel never had our knowledge, and from where she was standing, it looked suspiciously similar to a “quick redemption story”. And that’s what she reacted to.
And I don’t blame her for that. I don’t even blame her for not coming across as more nuanced in that moment. I just wish she had the knowledge we readers have.
While you’re not wrong that Ruth was an abusive bully, it’s also a known fact to the dorm that she’d just gotten out of suicide watch. There are some things you just don’t say to someone who’s a risk for suicide — and telling them that they’ll never ever be a better person is one of them.
But even outside of that context, it’s a fucked up, abusive thing to say. It’s crossing a line. If you don’t agree that it is, well, I don’t know what to tell you.
So you don’t think I looked at that strip before I wrote those words, huh? Nice moment of being patronizing there, “fam”.
I’ll admit that Ruth coming out of suicide watch makes it worse. Quite a lot worse.
But fucked up outside that context? Sorry, but no. Outside of that context Rachel is giving Ruth an extremely clear message that she’ll no longer tolerate any abuse whatsoever. Because that’s what she expects is going to happen. Because that -is- what often happens in real life.
There’s a world of difference between “I don’t believe your apology and I don’t trust your motives” and “you will never ever be a good person because redemption isn’t real.” Even without the suicide watch thing — which Rachel KNEW about — it’s not a nice thing to hear.
I’m sorry you thought I was being patronizing, but to be quite frank I’m not really in the mood to placate your feelings when you’re sitting there telling me what Rachel said was totally okay and not a shitty thing at all.
“I’m not really in the mood to placate your feelings when you’re sitting there telling me what Rachel said was totally okay and not a shitty thing at all.”
And now you’re just straight up lying about what I said, because I never said it was totally Ok and not at all shitty.
I totally see where you’re coming from, and I get exactly why Rachel reacted the way she did (even without the backstory w’re sure to get that fuels those motives more), but I do think it was tremendously dangerous to respond to someone the day they get back from a psychiatric stay/suicide watch with a speech about how they are bad and will always be that way. I like Rachel and want to see more from her, but it’s hard for me to brush that aside as justified (though obviously the anger is earned and Ruth is owed no forgiveness for her earlier actions).
True, and that may be why I’m feeling really confident that there is a background of abuse in Rachel’s past. I’m open to her being the abuser, but for now, I think it more likely that she was being abused. Over a long period of time.
Maybe even to the point of becoming suicidal.
“But wouldn’t that make her -less- likely to cross the line with Ruth, then?” you might ask.
Well, here’s the thing: -If- she was abused to the point of being suicidal, that may only have fueled her ire against abusers in general. -Especially- is the abusers got away with it. Heck, I think it’s likely that they promised not to do it again… And then did it again.
And in the strip before her “redemption is a story” speech, she talks about how Ruth gets to keep her job and her girlfriend, despite abusing both. So then, in Rachel’s mind, the same thing is happening all over again.
Reliving such a moment, I don’t think she is able to give a damn about Ruth’s situation. If, as I think, she’s basically having her darkest moments relived in that meeting; she’s getting filled with rage about how once again, abused people gets nothing but the shit end of the deal.
In such a moment of rage, I’d venture that Rachel looks at Ruth and sees the former abuser(s) in her life.
And I think that she wishes that her former abuser(s) were dead.
I mean if we can forgive Ruth for rampant abuse and actual sexual assault I don’t think it’s impossible to acknowledge that, while badly timed, Rachel lashing out at her is small potatoes.
I think it is because we actually know Ruth’s full story (or at least enough of it to easily infer the rest without making major mistakes) that we can forgive her.
Because no matter how you slice it, I am guessing at Rachel right now with my posts. I do think that I am making reasonable guesses, but they are still guesses. And without having anything real to go on as far as Rachel’s background, it’s much harder to see where she’s actually coming from.
I wasn’t saying I think Rachel is a huge monster or anything and wasn’t trying to play the degrees game. I feel like a lot of people are able to “forgive” Ruth, or at least move past her past, because we have backstory that feeds into them, she’s accepting of her own faults, and there is a clear will to change and be better. I’m sure we’ll get backstory from Rachel too. I’m not trying to say I think Rachel lashing out was the end of the line for me. I just think it was dangerous/unwise. It also makes me nervous about whatever it is Rachel has gone through…
Change for the better takes time and effort and is not easy. People can often overestimate their own willingness to put in the effort. People can also outright lie about their willingness to put in the effort while putting in a token effort to avoid facing the consequences of their actions both by deceiving those they hurt and getting third parties on their side.
Also Rachel is not required to disregard where the relationship started because often people can’t see how messed up a relationship they are in is until sometime after it ends that’s part of how abuse works. And faking willingness to change can be an abuse tactic.
Ruth didn’t lose her position which she used to bully people or her relationship which started with her using her position of authority to pull Billie’s pigtails. I don’t really believe people should require Rachel to play nice with Ruth because of Ruth’s personal issues considering Ruth bullied the entire floor including Rachel, Ruth is likely faking chage, and nobody is giving Rachel a fair chance to leave the situation without major financial loss.
That being said what Rachel said is not likely to help the situation. Calling Billie an abuse victim with Stockholm syndrome would be more likely to make Billie double down in an abusive relationship. Saying people don’t really change will not encourage Ruth to try to change. Worst of all Ruth was not the only one hurt by what she said Rachel accidently told Billie that she is not able to be better than poison which will drag down anybody but Ruth, Joyce that she was every bit the bigot she started the school year as and would never get better, Amber that she couldn’t learn to control her anger, and Mary that at the end of the day people either are good or they are not. If Rachel meant that she believed that consistently making the decisions needed for positive change was harder than it sounds when you decide to change, or that Ruth is only lying to avoid consequences she really should have been more specific.
Damn you Willis and your fundie history. I’m so embarrassed that I, as a Jew with years of Hebrew School and the occasional Talmud session, had no idea about the various “Nidres” and you did. I really need to up my Talmud game, but it’s so boring
That said, is Joe’s family more observant than they seem? Neither he nor his father seemed the Talmud-studying type, and they sure don’t teach that in Conservative or Reform Hebrew schools pre-Bar Mitzvah (maybe in orthodox day schools.)
Talmud is fascinating and hilarious if you have a good teacher and/or stick to the awesomer stories. Check out Beruriah sometime, the ancient feminist who routinely outsmarts all the male rabbis. She was very probably a real person, and very polarizing, for obvious reasons. There are two kinds of stories about her, suggesting that some rabbis were mad threatened by her scholarly snark and wanted to see her punished, and some thought she was the best ever because they were correct.
Thing that just occurred to me – while it’s likely Rachel’s mistakes line is referring to past experience pre-strip, I’m wondering if she also knows Amber was responsible for the stabbing, and if so made the connection between the scared looking girl at the meeting and what happened next. If so that might explain why her stance is somewhat softened.
Yeah, I’m certain if Rachel had been more aware of her audience and their tendencies to internalize that sort of thing (Amber and Joyce both) she would probably have edited herself more. … Though given she gave that speech to someone the day they got out of suicide watch, who knows. (I get that Ruth was an awful RA who had no business keeping the job, but seriously do you WANT someone immediately going back to self-harming on your conscience?)
But especially since Amber’s past crimes are all a response to abuse and goading (particularly the convenience store stabbing) and she absolutely considers herself Bad because of it, you’d REALLY want to avoid her ending up in the splash damage.
So does the removal of the wrist bands pretty much cancel any theories that were going out there about Mary potentially self-harming herself, or has enough time gone by that these would have essentially healed?
I mean, with Vitamin E and if it were three years ago, maybe… but I think that theory’s sunk, yeah. (I don’t know what the healing rate would be with that kind of self harm scarring, but I’m pretty sure there would still be something there.)
Not to be Like That but the wristbands have been gone for a while. That’s definitely a theory gone down the drain. But on that note, doesn’t it seem like Rachel’s current arc is shaping up to be what Mary’s arc could have been had Willis confirmed that theory? Rachel’s mentality of ‘There is No Redemption’ plus living with your mistakes sounds analogous to Mary’s ‘There is No Divine Forgiveness’ plus living with your own vulnerability, which is how I interpreted the theory. Hm… 🤔
The comic is totally innocent, but it personally disturbed me because it reminded me of the story of the woman who murdered her children because she was afraid if they lived any longer they might sin and not get into heaven.
I remember hoping at the beginning of the chapter that Mary had learned her lesson in not being a assbag jerkface. Damn me for wanting to see the best in people.
considering Willis’ experience with the hyper religious there’s no way we’d see that transition without some behind the scenes. Also, most christians are unfortunately not Joyce in that they’re never going to stop being elitist pricks.
Anyway, as I was saying before I got distracted, I really want to know more about Rachel. She’s so enigmatic and I really wanna know what makes her the way she is about people and forgiveness and redemption.
Just adding to this as well, Peter and Mary are still a gross couple. But I’m less convinced he’s faking it. Nobody fakes THIS much of their personality for sex. Also, what Joe says cements that Peter’s always been awful.
Testing Avatar, etc. Since I don’t believe in no-content posts: this is seriously one of the best webcomic forums I’ve seen. Most webcomics I read, (about 40 now) I’ve abandoned the comments sections entirely. Everyone here gets +1 internets for being pretty not terrible.
I feel really bad for Rachel here. Cuz on one hand yay Joe for finally seeming to start to get it a bit. On the other hand, maybe I’m a cynical bastard but my brain would be going “AAAAAA” or “What’s the catch?” on repeat.
OTOH, Yay that joe finally seemed to get the hint that he’s being Creeper McCreepazoid.
I see it a little differently, if we look at the apology Joe is giving compared to the apology Ruth gave there is some differences and that’s why I think this going well for them
Joe doesn’t just say the words, he looks genuinely apologetic and sincere and what hes saying is also good, he explains what he was doing and understands why it was wrong and I think that Rachel is reacting to that (along with some left over guilt of course)
Now I’m sure Ruth was sincere as well but it probably came across as forced (not her fault of course) and combined with the raised fists of Billie and the amount of abusing Ruth did (and length of time she did the abusing) I’m not too surprised Rachel didn’t react well to Ruth and that shes reacting well to Joe
I think Joes doing well here but of course hes not perfect and he’ll regress every now and then but hes well on his way to being a good dude and Rachel…well I now want to know what secrets shes hiding
Also Mary is looking pretty foxy in that last panel
Very short guess: She’s already had a confrontation with Joe where she got to vent out, and so I believe her anger about him had probably subsided a bit.
But I think the full reason won’t be known until we hear Rachel’s story.
Loading ...
Dating roulette: better or worse than grav roulette?
Speaking of grav roulette . . .
You have our sympathy
But not as much as if you had gotten Mary or Rachael.
Oh no, are there new gravs? Does that mean I’m no longer Marcie?! (yes, I’m only posting to check if my grav changed)
Ah goddammit of course I get this guy. This might be the one thing that actually makes me “Get a Gravatar” now. ^T__T^
The good news is Gravatars are fun.
Or are they
Oh, dear. Who have I got then?
Marcie. Sweet.
Who do I have now?
I… totally haven’t forgotten this guy, but, purely for the benefit of others, can somebody say who this is?
Sayid.
…He says as an excuse to check his own avatar….
Change the capitalization of your Email to change your gravatar.
Like, say, your Email is sev@sev.sev
Capitalize it sEv@sev.sev
That’ll force the grav-roulette to spin again.
Like this
Or this.
All you gotta do is change which letters in your email are capitalized and Voila.
That’s a great tip. Thank you.
Don’t mind me, just grav-checkin’
Yup, still got it
I wonder who I got.
Alternatively go back a decade and set a custom avatar on this new fangled “gravatar” thing and then promptly forget how to change it. Thereby completely sidestepping the whole gravroulette problem entirely.
Ok plz let this work this is the first time I’ve seen it explained
YASSSS ALL SHALL BOW FOR THE MIGHTY GALASSO!!!
Do you get grav roulette if you changed your Name but kept the email the same?
HAHA Even the avatar looks upset to be Peter
Grav roulette, go!
?
Yes. Good.
*throws the grav dice*
Yessssss
Go go gadguette!
Sierra! Yeah, that’s pretty good. I can live with that. 😀
As someone who got Sierra right away, I must agree with you. She’s pretty good!
gaguette?
Big money, big money, no Mary, no Mary, STOP!
Again!
Once more.
I’ll take it! lol
I find that wall of Sierras very disturbing.
Hmm?
I’m feeling lucky!
Who is this?
One of the guys from the LBGTQ meeting, can’t remember his name.
Less messy than gravy roulette.
I’d love some gravy
Or Russian roulette for that matter.
Ew. maybe I’ll try that again.
I definitely lucked out this time. Went from one of Sarah’s former friends (can’t remember her name) to a badass biker chick/former convict.
petition to create a new level of Hell just for those two
I’m sure there are others who’d fit there but they can have it
I think the demons would be happy to let them have a private area, since that means they don’t have to watch these two.
Talking of couples who would make demons uncomfortable, is Wen going to show up in DOA, I wonder?
But there is already a circle, well a part of a circle anyways (is way too big of a geek at times) devoted to Hypocrites, maybe we can take a part of that circle and have them crucified there on opposite sides, so they are marched over by the legions of hypocrites forever, and since they are separated it is even more torture as they can never be together again, oh and there is the extra punishment of having to share that Bolgia (the name for the part I am refering to in Italian) with the Pharisee that pushed the crucifixion of Jesus. (Sorry, had to channel my inner classic literature geek)
Praying isn’t the only thing Mary and Peter are doing on the street corners as the hypocrites do.
Isn’t there a special circle of hell for those two morons according to Dante’s inferno?
again, I think they would go to the Bolgia for hypocrites, either as being chained and wearing the gilded lead robes or crucified on opposing sides, still forced to wear the robes and being trodden on for eternity.
She should go to a place that seems just like Heaven is supposed to be, except that all the wrong people are there and none of the right ones are.
So…actual Heaven, then.
That falls nicely into my theory that Heaven and Hell are actually the same place, but which one it is depends on the person. So Heaven for Carla would be Hell for Mary and so on.
George Bernard Shaw’s play, Man and Superman had a good bit about that. It was quite a fun read, especially if you considered it a product of its time.
This is the first time I’ve ever felt the need to comment… Your theory about heaven and hell being the same place is kind of how I feel about being on Earth. It’s all in what you make of it…
I am reminded of a story I came across somewhere or other:
A guy is being taken on a tour of Hell, and there’s a bunch of people sitting at a table. Now, the table is full of food (sushi); but the people around it are skinny to the point of starvation and grumpy as hell, and the guy asks, “Why is everyone so hungry when there’s all that food there?”
And someone replies, “Because you can only pick the food up with the chopsticks, and all the chopsticks are five feet long! So none of us can eat anything!”
So next the guy is taken up to Heaven, where, same thing, table full of sushi; but here, everyone is happy and laughing and well-fed.
“Oh, so the chopsticks are the normal length here, then?” he asks.
“No,” someone replies, “Here in Heaven the chopsticks are still five feet long. The difference is, here we feed each other.”
Huh, I heard that story but people’s elbows were locked, and this was coming from temple. Which made me question why the people didn’t just like, shove their faces into their plates, and also, why this Rabbi who told us jews don’t believe in hell was trying to tell us some story about hell. My elementary school kind of sucked.
I Heard a version with foot long spoons in One Hundred Years of Solitude
They did that on “Night Gallery” where a hippie (John Astin, of all people) is condemned to Hell as a hypocrite. Hell, for him, is a room with a farmer discussing crop futures, a couple showing their slide show of their trip to Hawaii and a stack of 45s of big band music. BAD big band music. When he finally get Satan’s attention, Satan tells him; “This is it. This is what you get for eternity. You know what the funny part is? This exact room is ‘Up There.’ “
That one haunted me for years. Not so much the circumstances, as it got me thinking about eternity. I think it was being locked in anywhere forever that really got to me.
“Hell is other people”
No Exit, 1944, Jean-Paul Sartre
Anyone else watch “The Good Place”? Gotten to the end of Season 1 yet?
You might like The Good Place.
So, like Heaven, except all the milk containers in the fridge are empty?
I did some digging. It turns out Satan has a Patreon.
I smell a double date!
And what is this new icon?
Maybe Bloodrose will finally make an appearance?
In fact, maybe she’s already in this very strip, just barely off-panel.
Yeah, Willis? Ours aren’t on that list you posted to twitter..
image address indicates it’s bloodrose. and god, i wonder who i’m gonna get. i got used to walky.
well it could be? worse? let’s try the capitals trick.
Eh. Was Mary last time. Let’s see what I get now.
Well that’s a horrifying thought.
I can’t even bring myself to imagine going on a double date with Mary and Peter.
That’d be almost as bad as getting Peter in the grav roulette =/
(At least that facial expression is perfect for like, every comment).
I wonder if Peter is legitimately an awful Christian like Mary, or if he’s playing her.
And I see the bossman has introduced some new avatars.
Given that Joe seems to recognize him, I think he may just be Male Mary, but you never know
I’ve said it before, if Peter & Mary are based off of a couple from Willis’s own college residence wing, Peter might be faking it right now but eventually convert for real.
We just need Paul to show up and its all on
I hear his last name completes the trio. It’s Peter Paul, and Mary.
And then Peter and Paul have to remember the Golden Rule.
If Peter goes from Fake Christlover with a shitty attitude to Real Christlover with a good attitude, that would be so sweet.
Why not both?
Why not Zoidberg? (Sorry)
Good old ship clashing with garbage trash garbage trash garbage.
At a guess – Mary’s feeling guilty about being as harsh as she was on Ruth. Maybe not TOO guilty, but just a bit.
You mean Rachel, right?
I will assume you meant Rachel.
Er yeah, Rachel. I think Mary’s incapable of guilt.
That 5th panel makes me wonder if Rachel was applying that same “redemption isn’t real” speech to herself as well.
I had the same thought. What’s weighing down her soul?
Besides that her speech made Mary happy, that is.
So Joe recognizes Peter. He is the male Mary after all.
That’s the wrong hand, Joe! >:[
Otherwise, very well done
pretty dang sure that’s his right hand
(and, yes, joe’s left-handed, but it’s still done with the right hand, regardless, I CHECKED)
Oh, derp. I was 100% certain it was supposed to be with the left, but you’re right. I must’ve been thinking of the handshake
Scouts use their left hand for handshakes, as it’s the hand closer to the heart.
Do they only shake with the left for official scout business or is that something that sticks with people? Only asking because I have never actually seen anyone shake hands with their left.
Scout oaths are done with the left hand, always. For both Boy Scout and Girl Scout movements.
are you sure
https://www.google.com/search?q=scout+oath+hand&safe=off&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwja_Zv5gO_VAhVJWCYKHaCTAkAQ_AUICigB&biw=1920&bih=950
there’s just an awful lot of scouts here using the right hand, you see
that’s from the Mirror Universe, where I was a Scout
Instead of helping old ladies cross the street you helped them cross the street the other way
No no, they helped roads cross young men.
How many roads?
Why did the road cross the chicken? So it could stay on the same side.
Mirror Scout is somewhere between Bloodpact Scout and Eternal Scout, right?
Welcome to Night Vale.
Right hand is correct for the three-finger salute!
Source: was a Girl Guide in the UK for quite a few years. It’s the same internationally, except for the Cub Scouts, who get a two-finger salute.
Either way, it’s always the right hand.
The two finger Cub Scout salute isn’t absolutely universal. Some packs, the one I was in for example, allow the three finger as well. That’s typically a thing where the given pack has close direct ties with a specific boyscout troop.
And this is where my brain apparently backfires on me. My scouting and guiding troops always empathized using the left hand to *shake* which apparently crossed wires in my brain as the hand you use to salute.
Probably doesn’t help that I can be really bad at telling left from right.
Sorry, but unless that’s changed since I was part of Scouts in the ’80s it’s right hand (just dug out my old handbooks to check). Wikipedia agrees on this subject, which normally I wouldn’t take as significant but I know most of the big Scouting organizations have taken pains to make sure the info there is accurate, as does the plethora of official imagery and various photos associated with the movement which Google image search turns up for both “scout oath” and “scout half salute”.
That said, I’d doubt Joe was in Scouts anyway, or else his troop was significantly less formal than the one I was part of, because outside the hand issue that is one sloppy salute. Mind you, I live in an area with tons of military and retiree locals so bias and all that.
Yeah, I so did I. My brain clearly misfired. I even tried it with my left hand and it felt totally wrong.
Eagle Scout here – never made the sign with the left hand.
Not a scout, but it’d be weird if it were done with the left anyway, considering the weird stigma in the West about the left hand. Specifically, it’s seen as ungodly, and also associated with witches. In other countries, it’s just because the left hand is the one you clean yourself with.
It’s understandable, really. The left hand tends to be the more sinister of the two.
Get out.
Then there’s the old legionnaires’ marching cadence: “Sinister! Sinister! Sinister, dexter, sinister!”
Hm, we weren’t into scout’s oaths in Germany, but I distinctly remember that scout’s greeting was with the right hand up and shaking hands with the left.
(Which I found strange once I learned the left hand was deemed inappropriate for handshakes in cultures not using a water toilet…)
it’s like faz and wen were radicalized
Don’t put the thought of Fundie Faz in my head, I need to get sleep tonight.
But Faz is a fundie of the Church of Charts. 😛
“The great Faz even has a chart that shows exactly how much more fundamental the Church of Charts is as compared to all your boring churches.”
“…what?”
“We all have to live with our mistakes.”
…between that and her whole thing about Ruth, it sure sounds like Rachel’s got some serious shit we haven’t heard yet.
Yeah, I’m getting more and more curious what she’s got going on
It’s either that or she’s saying, “No, Joe, I’m not forgiving you, because live with your mistakes.” I’m leaning towards it being Rachel’s mistake, but I’m not yet sure.
It might very well be both.
What? Mary? Nooooooo! Time to change my capitalization.
Yeah, that one’s much better 😛
Of course, couldn’t really get any worse than Mary…
(Watch as I also get Mary)
Yeah, I’m fine with this one 😛
From the expression on Rachel’s face, I think she’s talking about her own mistakes.
I think if she was telling Joe *he* needed to live with *his* mistakes, she’d be looking (glaring?) at him.
The glance down and to the side seems more reflective to me; I bet you a thousand Internet points that she’s thinking of her own mistakes.
Ooh, what mistake do I get to live with?
Oh, wow, I got Billie! So cool—she’s one of my favorite characters. I sure lucked out this time.
Whoops, I meant to reply to the grav check thread. Sorry to crash this one! At least I got Billie as my avatar, and not some GIANT CHICKEN, because that would be stupid.
Billie’s a chicken I tell ya, a giant chicken!
That Lurker’s just nuts! How dare they disrespect Billie in this way!
As a sophomore, she has a full year of what Joe and the gang are two months into. Yes, she has a back story from hell. Just like Sarah. The sunny happy frosh seem like a lifetime ago.
So, I guess that Peter was the Mary of the boys’ wing.
Oh, I have a new avatar! I can’t remember who she is though… was she one of Raidah’s friends?
Nash, according to the image address. Doesn’t seem to have appeared in DoA yet, assuming I didn’t mess up the tags.
Sara wins grav roulette. Danny+Ukulele OTP! 🙂
Ah, thanks. 🙂
I kind of wonder now if there’s a trans man in the boys’ wing who got bullied by Peter like Carla was by Mary.
HOW DEEP DOES THE RABBIT HOLE GOOOOO~?
Ooh, ooh, what’s my new avatar I gotta know!
Yeeeeessssssssss I’m Sal now!
Official avatar check thread.
hai
Please be a good facial expression…
ohoho. An improvement in character for sure.
I wanna see mine!
I was Dina before, hard to improve on that (I know, cliché, but I just love her enthusiasm once she gets onto dinosaurs).
Ooh, but I’m definitely cool with Joyce and her enthusiasm for pretty much everything!
Nyello?
Who am I now?
Next try…
And another one …
I had Joyce for a long time and was happy, but all things must pass.
No, no, no, I don’t want to be Eric, Joe or Daisy!
wat I got
Nice!
Grav roulette spin spin spin
Not that I comment but every year or so
Who do I get…
Eh, could be worse than Meredith, but let’s see….
An amusing picture of Sarah, but I’ll probably stick with Meredith
Hit me with it.
Checking… hoping I’m still Dorothy…
Oh well, Ruth is cool in some ways too. Let’s see what happens if I capitalize the X…
Uh oh.
I’m just curious what happens if I change the capitalization and already hava a gravatar
well now i’m curious to see what i have…
Is that the case? Well how about this!
We are extremely pleased.
Testing for Gravatar…
Ryu? Feh.
Better, but maybe one more?
Perfect!!
Check
Let’s see…
oh my god please no
oh this one’s nice but I have no idea who this is so let’s try one more time
on one hand this is wonderful on the other I THINK I’LL STICK TO THE STRANGE REDHEAD
Lets see here……
Maybe one more time.
Yes this is good.
So does everybody change?
Everybody who doesn’t have a set gravatar…unless the algorithm happens to randomly assign the same one, which is possible, if unlikely.
Dagnabbit, and I was hoping for a new chocolate fairy sculpture.
The default generic ones got re-rolled, but if you set one up through the “Get a Gravatar” link you keep it.
I of course remain a generic playing card. But I was not ready to abdicate anyway.
Ooh am I finally not Joe any more?
Nice but idk who that is.
Adorable. Keep spinning…
I’ll stick with walky unless this is Joyce.
checking mine!! :0
I had Ruth before, I think
Her face foods my worry irl buuuuut I’m curious. change the caps right?
drat, I meant fits! ugh auto correct/swype =the worst
That autocorrect was just channeling the Walky grav. He was thinking about chicken nuggets when you were typing.
Interesting sentiment coming from Rachel given her condemnation of Ruth. Good for Joe, I hope he succeeds. Mary and Peter make me want to bleach my soul to remove the taint of their nauseating self righteousness. Theirbbehavior is so gross.
*their behavior, stupid tablet keyboard
I don’t think Rachel here is inconsistent with her treatment of Ruth. It’s a softer phrasing, certainly, but seem to me to be the same attitude.
Living with them isn’t the same as being eternally punished for them and never being able to change though. Also, if she really holds such harsh views as universal then she’s either as big as Mary on condemnation or she’s projecting, neither of which is healthy.
I have a feeling Rachel or someone she knew wasn’t forgiven.
Actually, judging by her people don’t change thing she may not forgive herself. Also, eww I’m Malaya.
Jealous… I miss her angry bongo face.
The only question is if Mary’s luck in the dumbiverse will parallel hers in the walkyverse. If so…*evil laugh*
I’m also apparently Becky now, and I am 100% okay with this.
You are Rad!
Well we wouldn’t see the ramifications of that for a few in-universe months so…. wait a couple years then.
if by that you mean ‘punished for her sin by getting pregnant’ . . um, ew, no. nobody needs a reinforcement of the narrative that ‘only bad girls get pregnant’ or ‘having unmarried sex ought to ‘ruin’ your life’ or any other variant of ‘pregnancy = comeuppance’
Nope, it’s more of Mary ending up divorced and remarried a lot. I absolutely hate Mary and Peter as a couple (and separately, too), and would love to see them broken up, hopefully with a little heartbreak involved. Pregnancy doesn’t have anything to do with this.
Is that paid content? Because the last I remember of Mary it was her telling her husband to report Sal.
Hah! I love hating on Mary and Paul. They’re both so awful, I can’t even tell if they deserve each other or not.
Erm… who is this lovely character?
Spencer. She hasn’t appeared yet.
So what you’re saying is that she’s a time traveler.
Panel 6 is so wrong but so funny I can’t stop smiling while reading it because its so devilishly over the top
I half expect them to start twirling their waxed moustaches
Talk about a match made in the darkest, deepest pits of the ninth level of hell…
But on a brighter topic, I’m really proud of Joe in this strip. He really does seem to be trying after what Joyce said to him.
Although… what IS he doing in the woman’s wing in the first place?
Not the normal.
If I had to wager a guess, going to apologize to Dorothy (since she didn’t come for doughnuts and Joe probably figured he should say sorry for putting her in a foul mood last week).
I assume Joe was there seeking out Rachel specifically to apologize.
He might be on his way out of the wing after having escorted Joyce back to her room.
Looking at his phone, maybe going through the list to apologise to each person in person.
(heh)
That was supposed to be a question… never let it be said I sounded sure about anything
I’m with you.
He could well be doing an apology to everyone who didn’t get a donut. That might be a few people on this wing.
Wonder if he knows many other women on other wings of the hall?
I doubt hell is this creative.
Not that I like Mary or anything, but how would she belong in the traitor’s department of Hell? I mean having her frozen in ice would be fine by me, but treachery is not the first thing that comes to mind with Mary…
I’d mark her for A Sower of Discord. She gets to be hacked and mutilated by a demon with a giant sword. But Dante tended to categorize people according to what his story or personal feelings mandated, not necessarily about a consistent logical or theological framework.
I knew it, Joe and Rachel are totes gonna bang.
Anti life justifies my hate. Anti Life SO justifies my hate…
EW. FUCK not for that icon.
But it went so well with the Anti-life bit.
Good ol’ “No Subtlety” Kirby.
Man, the last time I heard that one it was an earlkier episode of Stop The Fourth Wall. That takes me back….
I’m dreading the Mary/Peter slipshine.
But they’re a canon pairi-…
…. oh, wait, that’s Spiderman.
Not since the intervention of the devil!
Dammit now I’m imagining it.
And I can’t decide if it would be super boring vanilla sex with them being smug about how they’re forgiven afterwards, or if it would just be pages of them making out and talking about how they’re better than all the sinners because they’re not having sex.
Nah. Lots of anal, with them being super smug about how it doesn’t count.
That was my guess too. Like the Garfunkel and Oates song.
.
Oooh, can I not say “Brownbacking”?
Me too. Especially when all the spiders crawl out of Mary’s vagina on page 4.
Haha my friend has a four-year-old who decided he was super into Spiderman before he had a clue about who Spiderman actually was (just liked the toys, I think).
In his version Spiderman is a good guy who can control spiders, so he beats up bad guys and then all his spiders tie them up in their webs and crawl all over their faces until they promise to be good and not steal stuff anymore.
You have no idea how much I want that to be canon, haha. It would probably work REALLY WELL.
ew
That is the worst thing that can happen for slipshine oh god
“Neder issar” = a traditional Hebrew vow of prohibition or deprivation. (Had to look it up, glad to learn.)
I though it was Hebrew, but couldn’t be bothered to look it up. Tnx.
(me too! this conversion-considerer knows a lil more than she did before :3 )
If you do decide to convert, you’ll surely end up knowing more than the vast majority of other Jews. It’s a thing. Good luck with whatever you choose. ^^
Me, too. I had no idea there were explicit laws around what does and doesn’t count as a vow, but it makes sense.
Speaking of Hebrew vows, are jews allowed in the scouts? They’re a christian organisation afaik, aren’t they?
And I wonder who I will be now.
The BSA is a secular organization. Some level of religious overtones tend to be present, but it can vary wildly from troop to troop. Some troops are VERY religiously-oriented, though I don’t know if any actually require you to belong to any particular religion to join.
The main reason for the religious bullshit like excluding gay scouts until only a few years ago and their continued exclusion of trans scouts is largely due to a large part of their funding coming from religious organizations.
As I understand it, troops like mine that are secular and not creepily militaristic have gotten rarer in the last decade or so. Hopefully there are other more inclusive organizations taking their place rather than them simply going away
They’re not new, but there is the Coed “Venture Scouts”
Yeah, Jews are allowed by the Boy Scouts. (Though many troops are directly supported by churches and I suspect some would discriminate.)
Belief in God is part of the scouting rules. Officially atheists can not be members, but those of any religion can be (probably some wiggle room on exactly what qualifies). Again, how strictly this is enforced likely varies from group to group.
Huh. New pics?
Hmm…
Might be.
Pfft… Okay, no.
Maybe…
Ooh! Okay.
How do you do that? ?
Just different caps and software fixes it?
Test1234? Does this work?
Drat.
Better this time?
Damn you Willis! Okay that last one with cOm wasn’t bad but still.
I hate spamming but I want a nicer pic. =/ So going to try a few more capitalizations of my Email.
I can live with that one. =)
Using your thread to test a couple
And I got Mary… that’s what I get for thread stealing
Lol. It’s okay. This can be the “find your gravatar” thread.
And I am still trying to get Dina …
Jacob isn’t bad, but let’s try again
A find your Gravatar thread? Hooray, now I can stop spamming the bottom!
Danny’s better…
Eh, not a Meredith fan since SP!
Perfect! 😀
Mary and Peter, since you’re okay with dying now, I have some good news about what the rest of the dorm thinks about you.
I think that sentiment applies to most if not all of the readership too.
Not all. If she was raised in a household with ideals such as she displays, then I feel pity for her. She’s been taught that hate is humanity’s province and duty, has never been shown actual love, and has thus been quietly abused her entire life. Others have it worse, but she is the product of hate. For that, I do not hate her (however much I hate her behavior and even philosophy); I pity her, and wish not for her eternal torment, but for her enlightenment and an ease to a wretched suffering she does not even know she is enduring.
According to Willis IIRC, Mary’s parents are probably alright people who’re unable to really understand why she turned out the way she did.
She’s kind of like the opposite of Joyce in that respect.
I’ve read that too, hence my dislike of Mary, she’s awful just because that’s who she is, not because of how she was raised.
The ‘opposite of Joyce’ aspect comes up in pretty much every element of her personality, except for the ‘devout Christian’ part.
That probably happens to lots of parents.
Even if she were a product of her environment, which Willis has said she is not, that doesn’t make me hate her less. She’s not ignorantly bigoted and unaware of the harm she does, she actively enjoys tormenting and hurting other people for her own personal amusement. She is a type of nasty that lives in the same realm as the things that drive the “Ryan’s” of the world. She revels in hurting others and having power over them, all while justifying it to herself as they are not “real” people. She’s an awful human being.
Not that I like Mary or anything, but what makes you think she doesn’t believe other people are “real”? Did I miss something?
Oh, wait, that’s actually a very accurate way of describing how Mary doesn’t see Carla as female… Though I’m still not sure how it would fit her conviction that “regular sinners” are going to hell… (Like Joyce for instance)
That’s the thing though, she sees anyone who isn’t like her as “sinners”, she strips them of all humanity and views them as nothing more than their ” misdeeds.” She then uses that as an excuse to torment people. With Carla, she doesn’t just not see her as female, she doesn’t see her as a person at all, she treats her as subhuman.
Sorry, I took so long to reply, my comments haven’t been wanting to go through.
Okay, points for Joe. That was a genuine apology.
No points for Mary or Peter. Punches for Mary and Peter.
Also, I’m wondering what Rachel has to live with.
Seconded on all points.
Among other things, she has to live with Mary and Peter.
…..
…..
Come and knock on our doooooor…..
No, dear gods no, three’s company with Mary and Peter is a punishment only someone as bad as “Ryan” deserves.
Also, who the hell is my avatar, and why do they look like a laughing demon?
Nash, a new upcoming character. Little known about her.
I think it’s a new character we haven’t seen yet!
A Muslim one, apparently. I was beginning to think that Asma was the only one in all of Indiana. Good to see some more religious diversity.
There’s also Raidah
I didn’t know Raidah was Muslim. Huh.
She and Jacob spent a lot of time discussing religion.
I REALLY hope that Mike ends up seducing and hatef***ing either Mary or Paul . . . or BOTH . . .
And if it does happen I hope it happens like this:
http://www.shortpacked.com/blog/comic/book-7/05-pedostache/a-89/
Coming soon to a Slipshine near you: “Mary x Mike: Evil is Coming” – A Dumbing of Age pornographique by David “Damn You” Willis.
I’m laughing so hard. This is the best thing I’ve read in a while. You just made my night. Thank you.
I HATE Coke in my nose, thanks! 🙂
Tease us with Stacy yesterday and then *blip* scene change to the dorms. Figures.
Let’s see what Gravatar roulette has for me, a former Sal.
Yay! Sierra is pretty cool, like the embodiment of positivity. But I won’t bear feet.
But do your feet bear you?
I dunno how they could stand for that.
Sometimes you just have to toe the line.
So, here’s my theory… Walky and Jason are also in that bar (the stubbly guy mentioned in yesterday’s alt-text is in both scenes). Then they cut away to give Leslie a chance to show up, and also tease us with Stacy. Now they’ve cut away again. My guess is that Willis hasn’t loaded the chamber to its critical mass yet; at least one more person is going to show up in that bar. And who is this, you might ask?
Well, that’s where I ran out of ideas. Any guesses as to who creates the most drama possible in that building? (And remember, Walky and Sal can both get in there no problem, so I’m assuming the bouncers don’t really care.)
Only a matter of time before Mary’s pregnant from pre-marital hanky-panky.
She’ll claim case precedent to deny sinning.
So nobody told these two idiots that Pride is one of the bigger sins, huh?
IKR, Geez you’d think they know that.
I find that most “Christians” who mention the rapture come across that way; they view the Rapture (at least the version they are convinced will be a thing that has little to do with the actual Bible) as the ultimate chance to go “Nyah nyah, told you so!”
I’m sure hundreds of people have told them that, but these two know God’s will better than those sinners.
If you think you know God’s will – you probably don’t. :/
or the God you follow must be a really small god, if a mere mortal like yourself is able to comprehend their plan.
Yessss!
Ineffability, right!
“Puny god.”
Don’t diss small gods, it’s one of Terry Pratchet’s best books.
Seriously, it’s a great book. If you haven’t read it check it out.
It’s like telling them that public prayers are spiritually dubious according to Matthew 6; they just rationalize it away.
It’s impossible to be righteous without having some significant measure of pride. If one believes they are encouraged by God Himself to be righteous even when they’re not all that wise about His teachings, well…..
………
Grav Roulette.
I always knew this day would come.
You have returned.
You have returned and you have taken my Walky.
In his place you have given me Dorothy, who is so awesome in so many ways that she can never represent me. You would doom me to forever live in the shadow of my own grav.
This cannot stand.
So once more I spin unto your breach, dear frenemy. Let our bottles be coined.
Ah, grav roulette is fun~
Now, see, I said that and it did THIS to me.
…Okay, yeah, I love Carla. I can work with this for tonight.
So they’ve met, ok.
On that note I wonder how this will end. Maybe the two of them will realize something about the other person and start to be completely repulsed by each other and brake things off.
Somebody should take a fire extinguisher to those two.
Spray or bludgeon?
Halon.
It binds to the oxygen in the air, making combustion no longer possible. You can imagine what it does to humans…. or even Mary.
I think a bucket of cold water or a garden hose is more traditional.
But hey, at least, while they’re still nauseating, they’re both distracted with each other and not actively planning out ways to hurt the people around them.
“I’m a hundred times more humble than thou art,” I could live with, when the alternative is blackmail, misgendering, and trying their damnedest to murder by suicide.
Yeah, Mary, you guys are so totally holy. Gee, I sure wish I could be as holy as you and get into Heaven (oh no wait I’m aiming for Asgard so no I don’t).
Hey, I heard someone in the lobby thinks they’re holier than thou art. Go make out over there.
Or, hah, someone could film them making out (or actually having sex) and upload it to the same porn site Roz used, which would piss off the Dean and possibly get him to throw them both out. Hey, Roz is perfectly positioned to both film them having sex and to upload it to the same site! Well, well.
If done without their consent I am pretty sure that would ultimately get Roz in more trouble.
Who is a more repulsive couple Peter and Mary or Faz and Wen?
I’d say Peter and Mary because how shitty they are with their form of religion.
I always thought that there was something irrepressibly cute about Faz and Wen from their complete lack of self-awareness combined with total innocence. You could never really take offence at them without appearing heartless (sort of like kicking an incontinent Labrador puppy for repeatedly taking a whiz on your rug).
Yeah, Faz on his own was a terrible infliction on Amber and everyone else at the store. Faz and Wen are basically neutralized, and I kind of admired their persistent positivity in the face of both clearly being insane.
My new avatar looks a lot like a girl I know from work. And it reminds me, there’s something I’ve been meaning to ask you guys, because this seems like a strangely appropriate place for it. My friend is a devout Muslim girl, a lot like Joyce in many ways. She is friendly and likeable, and I have a fairly close working relationship with her. Recently she has expressed to me her distaste for LGBT people, and that she does not view gay or trans people as being real or legitimate identities. What is the appropriate response to this?
I find the best response is, “That’s your choice to make, I disagree”. It makes the point without starting a fight and if they try to convince you a simple “I will not change my mind, let’s agree to disagree” is usually enough.
I want it to be that simple. But it’s gonna dig at me.
I can get that, I tend to get very passionate as a dfab man when people are anti-lgbt, but I’ve personally found that confrontation can sometimes be the impetus for people to double down and be more vocally ant-lgbt, so I suggest caution especially being lgbt youself. If you feel comfortable outing yourself you could say do you see me as real?
I’ve considered doing just that. I’m a little hesitant at what her reaction might be though.
Whatever you decide to do stay safe and remember you will have to work together so don’t let yourself get pulled into a fight, just speak your piece calmly and rationally.
I will, and thank you for your advice.
You’re very welcome. Good luck.
You could start by telling you that you disagree if you haven’t already. Pointing out that people don’t choose to be LGBT, and they just want to be allowed to live.
If she’s expressing this distaste in the workplace, discouraging that seems like a good target, if you can’t change her mind. If you’ve got any LGBT coworkers (closeted or no), they shouldn’t have to listen to that.
I think she knows that I disagree, though I haven’t stated it quite so directly. I’ve been treating her opinion of gay people as something of a joke, which I can get away with because like I said, we’re close. Thing is, I’m actually one of those closeted coworkers, though not out of fear, I just don’t really talk about it, and I don’t generally come across as being queer. It’s an interesting situation to be in.
My experience working with a lot of conservative religious organizations as a community organizer is that I was just myself. I didn’t go out of my way to either mention or hide my sexuality, and over a few years, most of the people who assumed I’d been mentioning the type of girlfriend with whom you get a mani-pedi realized I meant the type of girlfriend with whom I shared a one-bedroom apartment. They figured it out when they were ready, and when they already had a good relationship with me. My two cents, your mileage may vary, etc.
Yeah that’s pretty much how it works for me too.
Shit. I really have much experience in this area. I was able to set my brother straight after he expressed the opinion that transgender people were just being “trendy”, but he didn’t really have that strong of an opinion on the matter, so it didn’t take much.
If she’s not extremely harsh about it, gentle push-back like you’re doing might be the way to go. You could try being slightly more firm by moving from “haha, you can’t be serious” to “this again? you’re being ridiculous”, with some eye-rolling, and see how that goes.
It might nudge her towards re-evaluating a little faster, but it’s easy to roll back if she seems to respond badly.
Yeah, that’s what I’ve been thinking is the way to go. It just seems so strange to me. I’m used to the bigots in my life being people like Mary. Not Joyce.
I agree with your points far captor, but you do have to be careful getting too confrontational about it, especially in the workplace and some people respond very badly to having you try to change their mind.
If you trust her to remain civil and friendly, low-pressure questioning and debate geared towards mutual understanding, if not agreement, shouldn’t hurt. Asking “Why do you hold your current views?” and phrasing arguments as “This is why I hold my current views.” is a more gentle way to butt heads in the case that you actually want to do that. If you don’t want to, or don’t think it would be a good idea, you have every right to pick your battles. Hell knows I do.
I definitely want to talk about it at some point. Not sure how it’s gonna come up though, because I don’t really want to start the conversation myself haha
Ha! Yeah, I feel that.
I like that you’re using the phrase “current views”; it makes it sound more like something that might change, and that’s fine, rather than being something both immutable and wrong. 🙂
I have some Muslim friends who are absolutely allies of LGBTQ+ folks. They say the Koran actually supports it (or at least doesn’t contradict it, I don’t remember which offhand). Let me ask them and see if they can give you any tips. 🙂
I appreciate it, thanks
Shitty personalities aside, Mary and Peter look really good in that last panel.
We can see your face, Peter.
I see Mary hasn’t been denying Peter any. 😛
I saw what you did there.
These two need to be eaten by an Allosaurus.
Check with Jeph Jacques – he may know where to find a hungry one.
Why an Allosaurus? Why not a Suchimimus or an Afrovenator?
Or a swarm of Compsognathiuses?
I had to do a double take on Mary in the last panel, because between her arm position and the shadows, it almost looked like she wasn’t wearing anything under her sweater. Was her top that low-cut when we saw it before?
Yep.
“Take my Peter, please”
Your Gravatar makes that creepier than it needs to be.
Is ‘we all have to live with our mistakes’ an improvement on ‘redemption is a story… you will always be the thing you were before’?
Because acknowledging our mistakes, taking responsibility for them, understanding why we made them and working on the root causes, and trying not to repeat those mistakes (or let the same maladaptive source thoughts/beliefs lead us to making similar mistakes) is how we move past those things and grow as people and improve ourselves.
Also I really like Joe’s apology. He owns how wrong he was (without disclosing anything that could make Joyce feel uncomfortable) and1 that he thought he was being funny and is now aware he was not, and he intends to stop acting like that. Starting by calling Rachel by her proper name is a pretty good beginning. And also shows he bothered to learn it rather than actually mentally completely reducing her to the sum of her component body parts, personality not required…
Also I’m not sure other people taste of religious symbolic cleansing? Unless they’re making a case for Peter’s tongue (I am going with tongue. I am staying with tongue) being made of Jesus’s flesh and his saliva (again, saliva, not any other bodily fluids, be they freely swapped or not) being Jesus’s blood… but pretty certain a Christian would find that quite blasphemous, and now I just have mental images of Mary devouring him praying mantis-style because cannibalism is next to godliness so long as you eat the right people for the right reasons…
On the plus side it may reassure Amber that other people are messed up too? On the negative, it’s 5:30 am and I don’t think I can sleep with that mental image…
I like your assessment here, very well thought out.
I skimmed that last panel before actually reading an dOH GOD I was so concerned about taste like JEEZ
Aaannd your mentioning of Mary eating Peter mantis-style gave me a Franken-Fran flashback.
‘I’m sorry, are you OK?’
FWIW, I suspect that Rachel is talking about herself here… and I also think she may have been talking about herself for most of her tirade at Ruth. It is a conclusion that I draw from her expression in panel 5 and it worries me.
I really want to know what’s up with Rachel’s, “We all have to live with our mistakes”? Like what happened in her past?
On another note, I see the grav pool has been updated and now I won’t remember who’s who anymore D:
Man those two facing God’s judgement… They are showing so much PRIDE. If only there was say… a deadly sin there. Hmm.
So, I looked up what “neder issar” was. Is it similar to Lent, except a lifelong promise instead of a once-a-year type thing?
No, not at all. It’s a legalistic classification of promises made in general, any day of the year, for any valid reason. All promises are divided into several categories, to which different rules apply.
In this case, it’s a promise of denial–– meaning that, as a halakhic rule, one who promises not to do something can be called out by other people at any time and must immediately stop doing it without objection.
Looki at that! A proper apology. No passive aggressive bullshit, no doubling down, just a proper acknowledgement of what he did wrong and a promise to do better.
Didn’t even need a doughnut.
I feel like Joe says he’s stopping fairly often.
I mean…we’ve already kind of seen how he acts normally. This is like the first time he’s actually said he’s stopping.
Joe was a boy scout. Joe going camping, learning different knots, earning his helping old people badge (sorry, I don’t know what boy scouts do). Think about this head canon for a bit.
It honestly makes a lot of sense to me. My dad and brother were both really enthusiastic about scouting, my brother even worked as a leader at Scout camp in early adulthood and my dad still grabs opportunities to teach scouts. (Any Scouts; he’s getting ready to teach my girlfriend’s Girl Scout troop Dutch oven cooking, his old specialty.)
They’re both very logical and structured engineer personalities (seriously, both engineers) and I see a lot of that in Joe too.
BLOWJOB CAT
More on topic, at least those two aren’t being as horrible as they usually are, even if the trade off is being subjected to their constant condescension and face sucking.
But dangit, I don’t dig bj cat
Someone call the Human Centipede guy so he can sew their lips together. Everyone will be happy.
I thought that was a dwarven thing.
It’s the teeth.
It makes BJ Cat look like it plans to chew before it swallows.
(And speaking of scary avatars, the last time I used this email, I got stuck with Mary. Almost ANYTHING would be an improvement.)
“We all have to live with our mistakes”, huh? Looks like Rachel’s changed quite a bit since 3 days ago.
Nope, not gonna be chloe thank youuu
I’ve gotten Peter, Arnold, and Mary so far. I would KILL for Chloe at this point.
I can deal with Walky though
She sounds like you have to carry your mistakes around and remember them daily or something…
Did she make a mistake that’s impossible to forgive (she herself at least) because the results was so bitter?
I’m pretty sure that she’s talking about herself here and may have been talking about herself when she was rejecting Ruth’s apology too.
I really want to know where Rachel’s inability to forgive things and complete lack of faith in people comes from. She’s so opposed to the idea that people can change, there’s almost certainly a backstory there.
Mary is one of the only fictional characters I hate, and I believe the only one who I hate more than Dolores Umbridge. Joffrey Baratheon comes third.
Wait, book Joffrey or show Joffrey?
Is there a difference between the two versions?
Ok no, not Raidah…
From what I heard quite a few dumb actions by Cersei were done by Joffrey in the show.
Is there a difference between the two versions?
Also I’ve found out that if I reply to my own comment that’s still awaiting moderation, both comments disappear.
I mean, both were pretty similar in the fact that both were still horrible, whiny, cowardly, bullying, spoiled little shits, but book Joffrey has no empathy at all, and does what he does mainly to show to everyone that he’s decisive and strong, while show Joffrey’s actions have an undercurrent of sexual malice. Plus, show Joffrey tortured and killed prostitutes and ordered all of Robert Baratheon’s bastards killed.
So, in short, not much difference, but I think show Joffrey is worse
Hate her more than Umbridge? I mean, they share the core trait of way-too-real sanctimonious moralizing and sense of superiority in their evil, but at least Mary isn’t also a huge racist nazi with a bent for torture.
Welp, hate is not scalable based on how many horrible traits someone has. It’s all a case of personal opinion. And frankly I think that Mary just didn’t get an opportunity to be racist yet.
Also this reminds me that one post I read about how Umbridge is more hateable than Voldemort. Basically Voldemort is a fantasy evil we are Extremely unlikely to encounter while Umbridge is a much more real-life kind of evil. Same thing probably applies here. Someone like Mary has a somewhat higher chance to pop up in our lives than someone like Umbridge.
Self-hating racist nazi, remember. Umbridge is a halfblood.
Ooooo, really? I didn’t know that
https://www.pottermore.com/writing-by-jk-rowling/dolores-umbridge
If it’s from JK herself, I think it’s as definitive as it gets.
Wasn’t disbelieving, just surprised. Does kinda tie into the “worst bigots are self-hating oppressed people” myth, but we still have the malfous and their ilk
Malfoys
Sorry if it came off like that. When people do the “I didn’t know that”, I like to refer them to the source directly, so that they have it if someone drops a challenge on them. It’s only polite.
Often the most zealous. They have to prove to everyone (including themselves) that they’re fully committed to the cause, despite the “unfortunate circumstances” from which they come.
Reminds me an aunt of mine. Back during communist times she was super dedicated to that cause. Now? If the priest told her to jump she’d ask “How high?”
Not seeing much difference there.
Except for the whole, complete 180 on her previous believes. You just can’t get more opposite than a dedicated commie and dedicated catholic.
And here’s me thinking that the name Peter had died out when my generation grew up…
I think this might be the first time I’ve ever truly liked Joe.
Encouragement for Joe!
Sorry for offtopic but… damn, Jacob in a suit? The universe really is testing Ethan.
It’s for church. In the full character model he’s holding a bible.
I lied when I said last grav roulette round further down.
He might really need it to fight off all the people who want a piece of him.
and then he takes off the glasses and pulls open his shirt with both hands…
And Pillar Men theme starts to play.
Ai yai yai, indeed…
I almost wish they would die right now and get Kenny from South Park treatment
So I’m guessing Rachel considers herself to be irredeemable as well?
Joe’s growth in this makes my heart sing. ♥
Dat da da. I’m sorry that I have nothing to say here.
Wuh-oh. Definitely not. I don’t need more reminders of the similar stupidities of Walky and me.
Eh. Livable but not awesome.
Ken, the default brunt of the joke
And his employer.
How long I am gonna do this for
Goodness
I mean, I like her but let’s try for something else.
Ok, last one for today.
Alright, what did she do?
Also, Whomst is going to punch Mary and Mary’s boyfriend???
aww nice I got Joe this time!
better than getting mary
Personally I hope that residents of their dorm wings get together, vote and decide that they should have a private room. In the dumpster.
peter sounds like a huge dick
NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
The worse time for a new avatar.
I HATE!
Can be easily changed, trick is at the top of the page. =)
Well at least you’re in character.
>Mary> Sounds like, no. Has, yes.
Now you know my pain.
So who am I now?
Jessica.
A very common name.
Oh dear…do you have amnesia? You are Remmington Steele, and I’m going to get you to a doctor, OK?
Leslie Bean in “I’m gonna seduce Congresswoman DeSantl” mode.
Rachel’s expression in panel 5 puzzles me. It makes me wonder what mistake she has to live with. It might explain her going way beyond boundaries with Ruth if there is some strong regret in her past that makes her feel both unforgiven and unable to forgive.
Meanwhile, I’m suspecting that, pretty soon, Peter and Mary will be banned from every church in town. Even the most insufferably self-righteous group has standards and those two would just make them look bad!
BTW, notice their ‘smiling without smiling’, something I noticed that former PM Tony Blair was particularly good at.
they def. do not have their smize on
idk it’s interesting because their happiness is very clearly…a performance, for the benefit of the people around them. i have to wonder what they’re like when they’re alone. if this is even something they can maintain while they’re alone
i kinda doubt it idk
Proud of you, Joe.
I hope Rachel’s okay.
World’s grumpiest Sarah grav. Perfect.
Not grumpy; worn down and tired. Joyce probably was in-her-face and über-cheerful at 5am this morning again.
you know what i didn’t want to think about??? people getting off on the thought of being raptured. like. somehow. the most heavenly orgasm sent straight from god and infused with the glory of being right. which just makes it better, obvs, and you can watch all those suckers below suffering because they weren’t as good as you. EVEN BETTER you can watch them admitting you were right and regretting that they didn’t agree with you sooner and oh, the error of their ways!!!1!!
like……………………i didn’t want to think about someone getting off on that, but now i kinda have to, because it’s just…it’s there. it’s there. and it’s not leaving.
thanks i guess?
I have seen video of people like this being pranked with fake rapture setups. The looks on their faces when they think they have been left behind is priceless.
*plays “Je n’ai regrette rien” on the ironic hacked muzak*
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q3Kvu6Kgp88
Huh he updated the gravs. Who am I?
Booyah!
You are a high quality Ruth, friend!
Hm. I’m wondering about Rachel’s reaction. She’s looking really guilty and she’s not taking the ‘redemption is a story’ angle.
I wonder if maybe she’s feeling kinda bad about Ruth?
Hooray! Joe’s internalising what he’s learnt today! And it’s interesting comparing Rachel’s response to Joe’s apology here to her previous response to Ruth’s apology – “you will always be the thing you were before” is a very similar message to “we all have to live with her mistakes”. Seems like part of the reason she can’t forgive Ruth, and has trouble believing that people can become better than they used to be, is because she’s made mistakes she can’t forgive herself for.
This isn’t to imply that she’s obliged to forgive Ruth, or that she had to accept Joe’s apology – which she doesn’t technically do here, even though she doesn’t respond to Joe with the same anger she did to Ruth. She just sadly states that everyone has to live with their mistakes. And it does make sense that she responds less negatively to Joe’s apology – Ruth’s was a public apology, and while that was understandable, as she wanted to apologise to the whole dorm, Rachel probably perceived it as performative and fake, a way of winning back favour before reverting to type. By contrast, Joe’s apology here is private (unlike his donut apology) – he bumps into Rachel by chance, and takes the moment as a chance to acknowledge the way he was in the wrong, and promise to be better in the future.
Oh, look I’m Galasso. KNEEL BEFORE ME, WORTHLESS PEONS!
…If I do, will I have pizza?
and subs!
I love this comment section
As emperor of the internet, We are under no obligation to kneel before you.
Speak for yourself. I want my pizza!
Rachel was chewing at the bit to scream at Ruth the whole time. She tried to jump on Ruth and yell at her before she realized her brother was in the room with her. I don’t know if Ruth’s choice to make the apology public changed a thing.
Peter please walk into the sea
Sierra! Aw yiss.
What does “neder issar” mean? Google is failing me.
Grav roulette works like this???
The only couple that combines PDA with judging others.
Public Displays of Judgement?
Sounds about right
Public Displays of Faith, or PDF,
It will never change
Am I the only one that when The Spawns of Unholy Filth do have sex, Peter goes all “Puritan” on Mary and drops her because she’s a Woman of Sin who Tempted his Male Purity with her Evil Biblical First Sin?
My personal favoured theory is that Peter just wants to be the one to deflower a ‘Christian girl’ and is simply parodying the things that Mary wants to hear (and it’s a shame that she so lacks self-awareness that she literally doesn’t notice that he’s mocking her). Once he has his goal, he’ll drop her and move on to find a new ‘conquest’.
It’s what happens with Mary then that will determine much about the character and her relationships with those around her.
That’s the vibe I got. Peter reminds me of an episode of Night Court where a sexual predator was telling the naive lawyer whatever she wanted to hear. She was on cloud nine headed toward marriage while he was getting ready to notch his bedpost. The whole thing was stopped by the sleazy guy lawyer spotted the ruse and warned her.
Just realized I could imagine later Ruth talking Mary down off the ledge.
Dan Fielding was quite the piece of work, but every now and then he could circle back around to doing the right thing.
The only thing is that with Joe’s reaction in the last panel, I’d guess that he really is usually like this. Or like Mary. Because if it was all just an act and he actually wasn’t this annoying on a regular basis, I doubt Joe would care about whether or not the girls kept him.
Yea I actually think if Peter was known for using dishonesty to get what he wants like if he was pretending to be Christian to get in Mary’s pants Joe would dislike him but wouldn’t want to inflict him on the girls dorm.
If I remember correctly, and I think it’s been mentioned recently here too, in the other comic, they got pregnant from premarital sex and I am guessing that will happen again. Whether he is just mocking her to get in her pants and will drop her or blame her or what he will do beyond that point – no idea. I do think he seems even douche-ier (is that a word?) this time if possible.
So, I am thinking that if things do not exactly go like previous incarnations, the change may be that Peter dumps pregnant Mary. Or, like BenRG pointed out this may just be a case of dropping her after he makes his conquest. In which case, there may not be a pregnancy story line. We may get both. Who knows?
Also… Grav Check… Who did I get?
Dotty!
IIRC, Willis has spoken pretty harshly about his choices in that IW! storyline, so I doubt the pregnancy thing will happen again. If it does, it’ll be because he came up with some better way to do it – making it not punishment for hypocritical permarital sex.
At my sister’s college (all-women) there was a group that honestly called themselves the “God Squad” and acted just as obnoxious as Mary and Prick (oops…Peter).
Wanted to make a “Mary/Peter/Paul threesome” joke but based on other comments that joke is probably dead already so I’m basically onky commenting to see if my gravatar is Blowjob Cat.
Joe actually used her name, progress.
Panel 5 Rachel is looking reflective. Has she been thinking about her awfulness at the dorm meeting? Or generally some thing she now wants to do differently in the future?
I’m very curious to find out what “mistakes” Rachel is living with that have got her eyes looking so emotional.
She reminds me of a friend who had an abortion when she was pretty young, so that’s what I’m leaning. Towards in the back of my mind.
Huh.
So Rachel is rejecting Joe’s apology but she isn’t subjecting him to a huge “you can never change” rant. She also isn’t looking him in the eyes.
The last time we saw Rachel she was yelling at them for accusing her of leaking the list. So if something has happened with her since then, we didn’t see it.
I don’t know if it’s just that she sees what Joe did as less bad or that she doesn’t feel like yelling at him again.
Mary & Peter: There’s something particularly irritating about someone who thinks they’re insulting you when really they’re just going on about something you don’t even agree with and/or care about.
It’s kind of bizarre really that people like this honestly think that other people would agree that they’re going to heaven. I’d think they’d just roll their eyes at anyone telling them that they aren’t so I don’t know why they think this would work the other way around.
I’ve said this elsewhere but I am getting an “unforgiving and unforgiven” vibe from Rachel. Maybe she’s got a red mark (even if only in her own mind) somewhere in her past and, as she can’t forgive herself, she can’t extend that to anyone else. To me, her avoiding Joe’s eyes was shame that he is attempting to change when she feels herself beyond redemption.
Sounds about right to me.
Apologises for SPAM post – Alternate Gravitar test
Alternate Gravitar 2 test
Ugh. Performative Christianity. Like a mirror image of its founder.
…Jesus was performative? I… guess I can see that
Let’s see who I get this time…
OH HELL NO LET’S TRY AGAIN
Ehhhh, a little better, but…
Hmmm…
…….
Sorry for the clutter, everybody, I just really want a good character.
.
?
??
???
????
I keep getting characters that I don’t know, and it’s making me feel like a terrible fan.
.
Okay, Galasso. I can work with that. 😀
Watching these gravatar roulette threads is quite entertaining. Sir Willis should do this every month or so.
At some point it would have been faster to set up your own gravatar.
Just when I thought Mary couldn’t get more obnoxious
Taste?
This disturbs me greatly.
I’m hoping to see more of our two favorite goofball couple soon.
Also, curious as to what new gravatar I’ve got…
Kind of cool that he knew the term “neder issar”. If you didn’t go to yeshivah, you likely wouldn’t know it.
Previously, I have said this of Rachel:
I think that Rachel blowing up on Ruth was a result of bad phrasing rather than what she truly meant. That what she tried to say was that -quick- redemption is a fake story, something that doesn’t exist. That one apology is supposed to make up for it all. That a promise to be better is all that’s needed… Those are usually the elements in typical redemption stories, and they are also what makes such stories false. True redemption takes a hell of a lot more than that.
Those were my words, and I am feeling even more confident in them now. Beause now we get to see Rachel when she’s not having the initial (and 100% justified) anger over the whole situation. So when Joe apologised, instead of blowing up on him, we get these words:
“We all have to live with our mistakes.”
What mistakes have you done that you have to live with, Rachel? Or what mistakes were done to you personally that whoever did to you basically got away with?
Because now, Rachel, I think I can see why you don’t believe in quick redemption. I can see you carrying the mistakes that happened in your life with you, every day.
Whether it was your own mistakes, and your guilt doesn’t allow you to live it down.
Or whether it was something done to you that whoever did it got away with far too easily, using the quick redemption tropes to get back into the good graces of people. People that should have had your back and denied them the ease of their redemption, making them truly work for it and earn it.
But at the same time, you’re not having the initial anger that, however justified, could lead you to choose your words poorly like you did with Ruth. You’re still upset with Joe, that much is clear, but you’re also choosing to give him a more gentle reminder that quick redemption is not easily happening. I would not blame you for still shouting at him, but I am proud of you for not doing it.
And Joe… I remain cautiously optimistic about you.
Because for one thing, that was an actual apology; and one that you initiated on your own. You did not try to defer any blame in any way. You fully accepted that what you did was not funny. You admitted that your idea of the whole list was a wrong idea.
It might still look a bit… being disarming rather than regretful, I could say. But that’s part of who you currently are, and at least for those of us who knows about your conversation with Joyce, we are capable of seeing how her words clearly reached you. For now, it’ll do.
But we’ll be sure to keep you to your promise.
I think you’re giving Rachel the benefit of the doubt that she isn’t giving Ruth. There’s really no quibbling on her phrasing in that scene, she made it very clear she meant what she said. She had every right to be angry with Ruth, and every right to be distrustful of Ruth’s announcement and promises to improve. But what she said crossed a line from righteous anger to straight-up abuse, and while I maintain that there is no background that would excuse her from what she said, there’s at least a hint that it’s not coming from nowhere.
“But what she said crossed a line from righteous anger to straight-up abuse”
I disagree strongly on that. For one thing, what Ruth had been doing to Rachel and the other women in the wing, now -that- was straight-up abuse. Some harsh words about redemption being false doesn’t come anywhere near close to that.
I mean, from -our- point of view, we know that Ruth’s actually truly regretting all she did. From our point of view, we know that she’s actually trying very hard to be better and to make up for her bad shit. From our point of view, we know that Ruth is under no illusions whatsoever that this will be a quick and painless process. From our point of view, Ruth is attempting to redeem herself the right way.
But Rachel never had our knowledge, and from where she was standing, it looked suspiciously similar to a “quick redemption story”. And that’s what she reacted to.
And I don’t blame her for that. I don’t even blame her for not coming across as more nuanced in that moment. I just wish she had the knowledge we readers have.
Nah fam. I invite you to go back and read that strip.
While you’re not wrong that Ruth was an abusive bully, it’s also a known fact to the dorm that she’d just gotten out of suicide watch. There are some things you just don’t say to someone who’s a risk for suicide — and telling them that they’ll never ever be a better person is one of them.
But even outside of that context, it’s a fucked up, abusive thing to say. It’s crossing a line. If you don’t agree that it is, well, I don’t know what to tell you.
So you don’t think I looked at that strip before I wrote those words, huh? Nice moment of being patronizing there, “fam”.
I’ll admit that Ruth coming out of suicide watch makes it worse. Quite a lot worse.
But fucked up outside that context? Sorry, but no. Outside of that context Rachel is giving Ruth an extremely clear message that she’ll no longer tolerate any abuse whatsoever. Because that’s what she expects is going to happen. Because that -is- what often happens in real life.
There’s a world of difference between “I don’t believe your apology and I don’t trust your motives” and “you will never ever be a good person because redemption isn’t real.” Even without the suicide watch thing — which Rachel KNEW about — it’s not a nice thing to hear.
I’m sorry you thought I was being patronizing, but to be quite frank I’m not really in the mood to placate your feelings when you’re sitting there telling me what Rachel said was totally okay and not a shitty thing at all.
“I’m not really in the mood to placate your feelings when you’re sitting there telling me what Rachel said was totally okay and not a shitty thing at all.”
And now you’re just straight up lying about what I said, because I never said it was totally Ok and not at all shitty.
So I kindly invite you to just fuck off.
Fucking off, then.
Good luck on getting your jimmies unrustled, I hear it’s an outpatient procedure these days.
I totally see where you’re coming from, and I get exactly why Rachel reacted the way she did (even without the backstory w’re sure to get that fuels those motives more), but I do think it was tremendously dangerous to respond to someone the day they get back from a psychiatric stay/suicide watch with a speech about how they are bad and will always be that way. I like Rachel and want to see more from her, but it’s hard for me to brush that aside as justified (though obviously the anger is earned and Ruth is owed no forgiveness for her earlier actions).
True, and that may be why I’m feeling really confident that there is a background of abuse in Rachel’s past. I’m open to her being the abuser, but for now, I think it more likely that she was being abused. Over a long period of time.
Maybe even to the point of becoming suicidal.
“But wouldn’t that make her -less- likely to cross the line with Ruth, then?” you might ask.
Well, here’s the thing: -If- she was abused to the point of being suicidal, that may only have fueled her ire against abusers in general. -Especially- is the abusers got away with it. Heck, I think it’s likely that they promised not to do it again… And then did it again.
And in the strip before her “redemption is a story” speech, she talks about how Ruth gets to keep her job and her girlfriend, despite abusing both. So then, in Rachel’s mind, the same thing is happening all over again.
Reliving such a moment, I don’t think she is able to give a damn about Ruth’s situation. If, as I think, she’s basically having her darkest moments relived in that meeting; she’s getting filled with rage about how once again, abused people gets nothing but the shit end of the deal.
In such a moment of rage, I’d venture that Rachel looks at Ruth and sees the former abuser(s) in her life.
And I think that she wishes that her former abuser(s) were dead.
And that’s why she stepped over the line.
I mean if we can forgive Ruth for rampant abuse and actual sexual assault I don’t think it’s impossible to acknowledge that, while badly timed, Rachel lashing out at her is small potatoes.
I think it is because we actually know Ruth’s full story (or at least enough of it to easily infer the rest without making major mistakes) that we can forgive her.
Because no matter how you slice it, I am guessing at Rachel right now with my posts. I do think that I am making reasonable guesses, but they are still guesses. And without having anything real to go on as far as Rachel’s background, it’s much harder to see where she’s actually coming from.
I wasn’t saying I think Rachel is a huge monster or anything and wasn’t trying to play the degrees game. I feel like a lot of people are able to “forgive” Ruth, or at least move past her past, because we have backstory that feeds into them, she’s accepting of her own faults, and there is a clear will to change and be better. I’m sure we’ll get backstory from Rachel too. I’m not trying to say I think Rachel lashing out was the end of the line for me. I just think it was dangerous/unwise. It also makes me nervous about whatever it is Rachel has gone through…
Plus, a Nider Issar is pretty serious. He’s vowing to never take enjoyment from objectifying women ever again.
Neder Issar
Change for the better takes time and effort and is not easy. People can often overestimate their own willingness to put in the effort. People can also outright lie about their willingness to put in the effort while putting in a token effort to avoid facing the consequences of their actions both by deceiving those they hurt and getting third parties on their side.
Also Rachel is not required to disregard where the relationship started because often people can’t see how messed up a relationship they are in is until sometime after it ends that’s part of how abuse works. And faking willingness to change can be an abuse tactic.
Ruth didn’t lose her position which she used to bully people or her relationship which started with her using her position of authority to pull Billie’s pigtails. I don’t really believe people should require Rachel to play nice with Ruth because of Ruth’s personal issues considering Ruth bullied the entire floor including Rachel, Ruth is likely faking chage, and nobody is giving Rachel a fair chance to leave the situation without major financial loss.
That being said what Rachel said is not likely to help the situation. Calling Billie an abuse victim with Stockholm syndrome would be more likely to make Billie double down in an abusive relationship. Saying people don’t really change will not encourage Ruth to try to change. Worst of all Ruth was not the only one hurt by what she said Rachel accidently told Billie that she is not able to be better than poison which will drag down anybody but Ruth, Joyce that she was every bit the bigot she started the school year as and would never get better, Amber that she couldn’t learn to control her anger, and Mary that at the end of the day people either are good or they are not. If Rachel meant that she believed that consistently making the decisions needed for positive change was harder than it sounds when you decide to change, or that Ruth is only lying to avoid consequences she really should have been more specific.
in what fresh hell did Mary even find Peter
But why would they want Peter?
I say just put him in a trebuchet and let God handle the rest.
… Eh, I can live with Raidah.
(how DO you change your gravatar anyway)
Do you want to set a gravatar or play gravatar roulette?
In the former case, the link is to the right of the name field.
In the latter, you just change the capitalization of your email, which is what gets hashed to determine what you get.
It was the latter. Thank you!
Trebuchet? What are you, a complete barbarian?!?!?
I say we tie them to a log and use a ballista.
Why yes, I’m a complete barbarian. Also trebuchets are so cool.
Why, I oughta… No wait, you’re right, trebuchets are cool.
Damn you Willis and your fundie history. I’m so embarrassed that I, as a Jew with years of Hebrew School and the occasional Talmud session, had no idea about the various “Nidres” and you did. I really need to up my Talmud game, but it’s so boring
That said, is Joe’s family more observant than they seem? Neither he nor his father seemed the Talmud-studying type, and they sure don’t teach that in Conservative or Reform Hebrew schools pre-Bar Mitzvah (maybe in orthodox day schools.)
Maybe Joe’s mom is more observant?
That could work. Heck, maybe his dad isn’t even Jewish
Talmud is fascinating and hilarious if you have a good teacher and/or stick to the awesomer stories. Check out Beruriah sometime, the ancient feminist who routinely outsmarts all the male rabbis. She was very probably a real person, and very polarizing, for obvious reasons. There are two kinds of stories about her, suggesting that some rabbis were mad threatened by her scholarly snark and wanted to see her punished, and some thought she was the best ever because they were correct.
Also, allow me to say: FUCKING GOYIM! Oh, they do give me such headaches
“Oy” not “Oh”. Damn antisemitic autocorrect
Quite the tsuris.
I learned a new Yiddish word today😁
As a struggling Christian, I wish I lived in this comic for two reasons.
To be someone Joyce could talk to
And to dress down that friggin’ monster Mary and her asshat boytoy.
I’ve always said that there is somebody out there who’s right for everyone…
…but sometimes I wish I was wrong. 😛
Thing that just occurred to me – while it’s likely Rachel’s mistakes line is referring to past experience pre-strip, I’m wondering if she also knows Amber was responsible for the stabbing, and if so made the connection between the scared looking girl at the meeting and what happened next. If so that might explain why her stance is somewhat softened.
I feel that if Rachel knew about Amber she wouldn’t have said “redemption is a story” at her since, well, Amber doesn’t need to redeem herself.
It’s not like Ruth actually doing awful shit and trying to grow out of it. Amber had bad shit done to her and is misguidedly believing it’s her fault.
Yeah, I’m certain if Rachel had been more aware of her audience and their tendencies to internalize that sort of thing (Amber and Joyce both) she would probably have edited herself more. … Though given she gave that speech to someone the day they got out of suicide watch, who knows. (I get that Ruth was an awful RA who had no business keeping the job, but seriously do you WANT someone immediately going back to self-harming on your conscience?)
But especially since Amber’s past crimes are all a response to abuse and goading (particularly the convenience store stabbing) and she absolutely considers herself Bad because of it, you’d REALLY want to avoid her ending up in the splash damage.
So does the removal of the wrist bands pretty much cancel any theories that were going out there about Mary potentially self-harming herself, or has enough time gone by that these would have essentially healed?
I mean, with Vitamin E and if it were three years ago, maybe… but I think that theory’s sunk, yeah. (I don’t know what the healing rate would be with that kind of self harm scarring, but I’m pretty sure there would still be something there.)
Not to be Like That but the wristbands have been gone for a while. That’s definitely a theory gone down the drain. But on that note, doesn’t it seem like Rachel’s current arc is shaping up to be what Mary’s arc could have been had Willis confirmed that theory? Rachel’s mentality of ‘There is No Redemption’ plus living with your mistakes sounds analogous to Mary’s ‘There is No Divine Forgiveness’ plus living with your own vulnerability, which is how I interpreted the theory. Hm… 🤔
Ew Ew Ew
The comic is totally innocent, but it personally disturbed me because it reminded me of the story of the woman who murdered her children because she was afraid if they lived any longer they might sin and not get into heaven.
Mental Correlation is a scary game
I have nothing helpful or intelligent to say; I just wanna see what my new assigned grav is
Same.
I can say good on Joe for starting on being better and that the last panel there makes me shiver a little bit. But otherwise, Same.
Challenge accepted, Peter and Mary. (cocks gun)
I remember hoping at the beginning of the chapter that Mary had learned her lesson in not being a assbag jerkface. Damn me for wanting to see the best in people.
considering Willis’ experience with the hyper religious there’s no way we’d see that transition without some behind the scenes. Also, most christians are unfortunately not Joyce in that they’re never going to stop being elitist pricks.
Wait! I got it!
Rachel was the one who introduced Peter to Mary!
I haven’t commented in a while.. I’m just here to see which new gravatar I got, and to say : fuck Mary and Peter
eeeeehhh-
I was really hoping for like, Carla, or Jocelyne.. or y’know, a girl. Any girl
I’m gonna draw my own again screw it
Don’t mind me, just posting to see my new grav
Dammit! I’m Mary’s boyfriend?! Bongo!
Please be different this time
Crap its even worse! I’m the bongo herself!
This is the most amazing comment thread ever.
Aww I miss being Carla.
But this is an acceptable alternative.
Last try. Luck be my friend.
Better than nothing
you names him Peter because Joseph was too on the nose wasnt it?
His last name is Paul. As in Peter Paul & Mary. (Not to mention Mindiana and Les Bean.) Willis is clearly happy to embrace pun names.
God: “THAT CAN BE ARRANGED.” *whisks Peter and Mary away from the mortal realm*
It turned out that God’s Judgment is just a huge, held-in-for-ten-hours hangover fart. If you’re still standing, you pass.
Shameless grav roulette post
Go play in a fire, Mary.
Joe’s a flawed guy but I don’t think he’s an inherently bad one.
Kind of stating the obvious here, but, well. Yeah.
Not a fan of that gravatar, let’s see.
Much better.
Could probably insert most of the characters names in there and it’d still work
Makes me wonder if Joe was ever a Boy Scout. I’m sure he’d have hated it.
Also, I know Rachel’s Jewish, but what’s her last name? Was that ever stated in Walkyverse and I just forgot it?
Her last name is Jackson.
Rachel’s thing is really interesting me…
AGH MY BEAUTIFUL JOCELYNE GRAVATAR
WHERE DID IT GO
Testing for a new avatar, I would rather not have Mary ew
Spencer … must be a character who hasn’t appeared yet. Still better than Mary so far. 🙂
Anyway, as I was saying before I got distracted, I really want to know more about Rachel. She’s so enigmatic and I really wanna know what makes her the way she is about people and forgiveness and redemption.
Just adding to this as well, Peter and Mary are still a gross couple. But I’m less convinced he’s faking it. Nobody fakes THIS much of their personality for sex. Also, what Joe says cements that Peter’s always been awful.
Raidah, huh … yeah I think I’ll stick with Spencer.
Agreed, I think he was their wing’s That Guy.
Tonight, Mary finds out that ‘Peter’ tastes slightly salty . . .
Testing Avatar, etc. Since I don’t believe in no-content posts: this is seriously one of the best webcomic forums I’ve seen. Most webcomics I read, (about 40 now) I’ve abandoned the comments sections entirely. Everyone here gets +1 internets for being pretty not terrible.
I feel really bad for Rachel here. Cuz on one hand yay Joe for finally seeming to start to get it a bit. On the other hand, maybe I’m a cynical bastard but my brain would be going “AAAAAA” or “What’s the catch?” on repeat.
OTOH, Yay that joe finally seemed to get the hint that he’s being Creeper McCreepazoid.
I see it a little differently, if we look at the apology Joe is giving compared to the apology Ruth gave there is some differences and that’s why I think this going well for them
Joe doesn’t just say the words, he looks genuinely apologetic and sincere and what hes saying is also good, he explains what he was doing and understands why it was wrong and I think that Rachel is reacting to that (along with some left over guilt of course)
Now I’m sure Ruth was sincere as well but it probably came across as forced (not her fault of course) and combined with the raised fists of Billie and the amount of abusing Ruth did (and length of time she did the abusing) I’m not too surprised Rachel didn’t react well to Ruth and that shes reacting well to Joe
I think Joes doing well here but of course hes not perfect and he’ll regress every now and then but hes well on his way to being a good dude and Rachel…well I now want to know what secrets shes hiding
Also Mary is looking pretty foxy in that last panel
Don’t mind me. Just doing the gravatar gravy dance too…
One more
🙂
Again!!!
Yes! Joyce!
Why’s Rachel so accepting of this apology but not Ruth’s?
Very short guess: She’s already had a confrontation with Joe where she got to vent out, and so I believe her anger about him had probably subsided a bit.
But I think the full reason won’t be known until we hear Rachel’s story.
Good point, I hope we get her backstory soon
Hey why am I not Dina anymore 🙁
Willis recently redid the whole “random avatar” thing for everyone who did not have a custom avatar.
AS A JEWISH PERSON I AM HERE TO SAY: FRIGGIN GENTILES INDEED THANKS JOE.
Also what the FUCK is eating Rachel?
This passive-aggressive proselytization is a recipe for tsuris. Mary keeps finding new ways to be the worst.
good job Joe!!!
Grav roulette, plx ignore
asd
I guess this will do!