SECOND BONUS STRIP FOR MAY 2022
Added 2022-06-07 12:09:50 +0000 UTCMay's second bonus strip features... the Apostle Paul! Everyone's favorite.
4/22 second bonus strip: https://www.patreon.com/posts/second-bonus-for-66108173
6/22 second bonus strip: https://www.patreon.com/posts/second-bonus-for-68795875
Comments
As somebody who went on a somewhat Joyce-like personal arc coming out of Fundamentalism, I can say that it's… real rough on kids who take it very seriously, and as time goes on more and more energy gets dumped into Trying To Keep It Making Sense. That doesn't rule out autism, but the obsession with resolving the inconsistencies and the fixation on making everything fit into the system is also, like… strong late-stage fundie burnout cope.
Jeff Eaton
2022-06-18 04:28:24 +0000 UTCAutism fits better with how Joyce has been presented but my OCD hs some odd rituals concerning eating as well.
Steve McSheffrey
2022-06-10 04:40:32 +0000 UTCMy most/least favorite thing about this strip is how utterly normal Joyce’s dialogue seems to my mind.
Evelyn
2022-06-09 02:55:17 +0000 UTCYears ago, I think shortly after Willis commented on Dina being probably autistic, I took note of Joyce's eating habits, considered that in context of her tendency to do things like this, and came away with the conclusion that she was likely autistic as well. Like Sarah said, this incredibly checks out.
Mars
2022-06-09 02:08:17 +0000 UTCYou can not reconcile that shit, especially if you have a pastor who tells you what to believe rather than teaching why you should. You do what Joyce did: Keep contradictory beliefs shoved down your throat like one is green beans and the next is mashed potatoes and never let them touch each other.
Steve McSheffrey
2022-06-09 00:40:50 +0000 UTCExcept look at the compassion the doctor is drawn with. I'd figuratively kill to see that expresion from a medical professional
Steve McSheffrey
2022-06-09 00:36:43 +0000 UTCSorry, the WHAT
Vanessa says We Have Nothing To Lose But Our Chains, Unless You’re Into That
2022-06-09 00:05:52 +0000 UTCThere is certainly a difference between "retconning" and "recontextualizing details of the world or setting because the creator only later recognized the significance of things already established". Especially with characters who are partly or substantially autobiographical. Also, when it comes to critiques of this scenario as being an unrealistic way for Joyce to realize she might be autistic — I feel like a decade plus of having complete strangers comment, just occasionally, on how many of your characters give off an Autistic Vibe, always pointing to traits you've given them that you personally share, is no less a Strange Story of Self-Discovery. I like to think, though, that if it were feasible for Joyce to share this particular autobiographical trait (e.g., after at least a full year of publishing her newspaper comic, she started getting a bunch of letters from her readers saying how cool it was that Julia Gray was autistic), she would have.
Rainfall
2022-06-08 19:40:36 +0000 UTCMy inclination is that this is less anything actually "important" than Joyce is just rambling because she's nervous and has a staggering amount of Biblical knowledge. It's a shame it's so personal because there are plenty of atheist theologians and historians. It might also allow her to develop some peace with the subject and alternate interpretations.
C.T. Phipps
2022-06-08 19:18:41 +0000 UTCThis doctor is very on the ball and I like her.
BBCC
2022-06-08 03:58:47 +0000 UTCThat's because she knows us well enough!
Grace Kieser
2022-06-08 01:47:34 +0000 UTCI hereby declare this doctor to be a good person.
Doug DeJulio
2022-06-08 00:44:24 +0000 UTCIS it a retcon though
David Willis
2022-06-08 00:42:42 +0000 UTCNot me. I'm voting for Joyce's Crisis of Infinite Pauls picture book!
Dean Reilly
2022-06-07 23:58:20 +0000 UTCCan't be a doctor without any patients, yuk yuk yuk
William Tessmer
2022-06-07 23:37:55 +0000 UTCI didn't have Joyce's ultra fundamentalist upbringing, but this thing she's doing here? I didn't limit my attention to Paul. I read the bible cover to cover 1.45 times, not counting all of the random jumping around through the New Testament prompted by sermons and stuff. My .45 time through the bible, I took copious notes to correlate all the things. Of course, I stopped because I found enough stuff to come to a conclusion about the value of my efforts on that task. The people around me took this activity to mean that I was very different, and clearly a true believer. But really it was just me being on spectrum and being exposed to something that bothered my on spectrum-ness enough to really investigate it. I didn't decide that the original presentation I was shown of biblical characters was canonical, but a large part of that was from having learned enough to distrust what most people said about the bible. Going through the bible the first time, it became clear to me that most of the "biblical scholars" in my local community really weren't. They knew enough to impress the people around them, but they focused entirely on the "well known" parts of the bible and accepted the popular versions of any other bits that are in the vernacular. For example, Job. If you've only heard people talking about Job, you probably have a very skewed idea of what went down in that "book". All of the local "biblical scholars" had the same very skewed idea, which told me that they hadn't read it, they just heard about it from a common source.
Some Ed
2022-06-07 23:10:39 +0000 UTCBut others brought up in their faith, like say Becky, wouldn’t have done a detailed explanation like this. When Becky was explaining her guilty feelings about sex to Dina, she never went into this kind of detail.
Norah Willett
2022-06-07 20:20:19 +0000 UTC@Ruth (The Horned Witch) Yes, that's it exactly.
C-Cubed
2022-06-07 19:00:35 +0000 UTCCOME ON AND SOAR WITH ME WITHIN A TALKING BOOK
Wednesday
2022-06-07 18:22:45 +0000 UTCSoaring Tome SOARING TOME
Wednesday
2022-06-07 18:21:50 +0000 UTC"Ah, my daughter does this too. Sweet kid, I'm going to ask some questions 'cause whooo dang she's probably had a Time before now, and if she is like my daughter, connecting her with people who understand what she's going through is gonna reduce her stress by a lot." The lil' smile with the kind of almost-laughing mouth and the concerned eyes lead me there. Don't have a precise word for the hybrid recognition-concern-referral-compassion thing, but that's what I imagine the thought process is.
Ruth (The Horned Witch)
2022-06-07 18:05:57 +0000 UTC“Retcon” would imply that at some point Joyce had been definitively established as Not On The Spectrum. That’s not what’s happening here.
Harold
2022-06-07 17:34:29 +0000 UTCExcept this particular dialogue isn't mostly about how she feels about this stuff now; she's just talking about weird shit she did as a kid, which even within the bounds of a fundamentalist upbringing is absolutely not typical childhood behavior.
Sean Murphy
2022-06-07 17:33:45 +0000 UTCBeing homeschooled can explain her believing all the stuff she was taught, but it can't explain her aversion to contradiction, pre-atheist desire to reconcile all this nonsense into a coherent text, and general use of all this minutia as conversation-filler unprompted--traits we've not seen Becky or any of the adults in her life exhibit.
Seth Aaron Hershman has they she pronouns
2022-06-07 17:33:07 +0000 UTCI don't know, it feels more sympathetic than that.
C-Cubed
2022-06-07 17:10:41 +0000 UTCProfessional concern and confusion.... mostly confusion
Michael Bell
2022-06-07 16:50:47 +0000 UTCFinally! A Joyce that doesn't remind me of my wife!
Packy Anderson
2022-06-07 16:49:36 +0000 UTCI can see why Dr. Laura might want to look at a spectrum issue, but to me it seems Joyce is being pulled apart by her (in good faith) ultra fundamentalist upbringing vs. her up close and personal experience of the real world once she was let loose in it. That’s Joyce’s possible hypothesis and it sounds plausible to me. But we can propose; it’s Willis who disposes. If he wants to retcon Joyce for the strip, it’s his call. After all, she’s a comic strip character. Plausibility by definition is less of an issue.
Edwin I Callahan
2022-06-07 16:49:25 +0000 UTCI really like the doctor's facial expression in the last panel. I can't quite describe what it's conveying but I like it.
C-Cubed
2022-06-07 16:47:46 +0000 UTCFor sure. She’s a patient doctor.
Daniel Adams
2022-06-07 16:13:46 +0000 UTCI THOUGHT that was a very specific reference to Paul made yesterday.
Daniel Adams
2022-06-07 16:12:59 +0000 UTCAww thats sweet :)
yaoi boi
2022-06-07 14:57:26 +0000 UTC:0 Joyce didn't kick the readers out of the room, just the non-patrons. Love it!
William Tessmer
2022-06-07 14:52:05 +0000 UTCYes. Of a necessity, since we are not getting a bonus Fuck Truck strip at this point.
Simon Magid
2022-06-07 14:28:24 +0000 UTCSo we’re all voting for Dr. Kaur on the 15th, right?
Harold
2022-06-07 14:12:13 +0000 UTCSometimes when you ask "what are you thinking about" you get "oh, not much". Other times, however...
Andrew
2022-06-07 14:08:29 +0000 UTCOh look, the reason why Joyce got that referral!
Taellosse
2022-06-07 14:02:11 +0000 UTCThis is clearly Joyce in the middle of explaining why she's waited so long to seek medical assistance for her menstrual discomfort.
Taellosse
2022-06-07 14:01:22 +0000 UTCPoor Joyce. This is sad, like, really sad to see.
Pierpaolo Di Camillo
2022-06-07 13:55:10 +0000 UTCOkay. I wonder what brought this topic up in the doctors appointment.
Andrea Andrew
2022-06-07 13:18:30 +0000 UTCOh look it's me!
Jasmijn Wellner
2022-06-07 13:11:37 +0000 UTC
