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Well as the song goes, Dotty – “You can’t fight the moonlight”, so… perhaps don’t try? Just admit to the moonlight that you’re in love with Joyce in your own way, acknowledge Leann Rimes as the undisputed queen and move on.
All I could think of when I read the title was Sisko’s speech from In the Pale Moonlight.
“So I lied, I cheated, I bribed men to cover the crimes of other men. I am an accessory to murder. But most damning thing of all, I think I can live with it. And if I had to do it all over again, I would.”
I thought of the Babylon 5 intro voiceover, “all alone in the night”. Makes more sense than Cats. Dorothy’s not a cat. She is however, living on a self-contained world, a shining beacon in space.
At this point most of the cast should have varying stages of PTSD, evolving into depression, which is similar to what you said, Joyce in particular should be having nightmares on a daily basis, and Becky should be as well given all the schitt she’s seen, repeated kidnappings and her Toe Dad killed in front of her. She should be getting therapy on the regular, but we never see it…
As I recall, the timing of the van kidnapping viscerally interacted with my own PTSD from the first orange term. As Hacksaw wrote, it didn’t erase the trauma, but it felt like Willis’ buffer knew just what we’d need in that moment.
No, it’s a different angle and Willis’ art style has gotten more detailed.
Why are so many commenters obsessed with looking for hints that Dorothy is attracted to Joyce’s chest? It’s constant, but unsupported by any reasonable interpretation of these strips. Dorothy wouldn’t have believed herself to be a 0 on the Kinsey scale at any point if she was attracted to boobs; it’s pretty clear that she is attracted to Joyce for Joyce, not necessarily her body. She’s not going to go from “I exclusively like men” to “boooooobz” overnight just because her first girl crush has a big chest.
“So many” is always more than two, but mostly depends on context. You previous post is an example of the use of “so many.”
No, I don’t know what we’re talking about either. I started back at the beginning of the thread with the van comment and couldn’t find a use of the word “many.” I’m inclined to believe that the Internet stuck your comment in at a random place instead of where it was supposed to go, but what with you being Taffy and all, it’s hard to know for sure.
I mean, the post I directly replied to says “so many commenters” right up front. They’ve made a claim (“so many commenters are obsessed with blah blah blah”), but can’t give one example of somebody who’s obsessed with it.
Like one person yesterday joked that Dorothy was staring at Joyce’s chest in the flashback panel, one person agreed, and like six people said “no she’s not, obviously”, so I guess that’s people being obsessed with it????
Blaine and Toedad kidnapped Joyce, Dorothy, and pretty much half the cast in an effort to get Amazigirl to show up. Dorothy took charge and came up with a plan to escape and expose Blaine. It ALMOST worked, except Dotty didn’t count on Blaine’s spitefulness when cornered with his inevitable arrest and he grabbed Joyce, threw her into a van, and drove off rather than just surrender to the police, like Dotty was expecting.
Still have them now and they are awesome. I think it’s weird how often people forget that humans are tactile social animals. Skin-to-skin contact and physical touch is so important to our moods. You wouldn’t refuse to pet an animal, why stop hugging your friends and laying about all over each other?
No idea, except in my case the people I would do that with are dead now or far away. My current friends don’t do that. Except hugs. Hugs are always nice.
Realizing my queer identity and meeting other queer people has definitely helped me engage with that more. Still kinda anxious about asking with new people though ’cause our society sucks.
Both my older brothers have kids with one more on the way and I can safely reassess I’ll be extremely happy as the weird uncle who doesn’t talk much they see about once a year.
I feel like I’m missing something obvious re: the empty hanger in the final panel. Is it that the hanger with nothing on it represents her trauma over almost losing Joyce forever during the kidnapping? I feel like there’s a more direct connection that I’m just failing to recognize.
I wonder if this is giving her a chance to just kind of process the story of their friendship, and maybe through that, digesting the feelings she’s been dealing with.
You know, and this is NOT me dismissing any sexual or romantic feelings Dorothy’s feeling, but I wonder if Dorothy’s ever really *had* a female friend she was as close to as she is with Joyce. It does feel worth mentioning that, outside of Danny and Joe, we really know very little about her past, outside of that guy who sneezed in her mouth once. I know her ambitions meant she was probably less beholden to her past, but still, Joyce may well be unprecedented.
This isn’t mutually exclusive with having it for Joyce, but I kind of wonder if that is playing a part here.
But also, she’s also clearly experienced attraction to Amazi-Girl and Jennifer too, and she doesn’t have an unprecedentedly deep relationship with either of them, so.
I would bet you any amount of money that the punchline here isn’t going to be any kind of “Dorothy was confusing platonic feelings for Joyce with romantic ones”.
Is the rest of their deep bond part of the attraction, part of the feelings? Sure. But not in a fundamentally different way from how Joyce’s friendship with Joe is part of their bond and their attraction for one another.
My “already” there was meant to convey “oh I had the same thought a while back!”; rereading my own comment, it comes across as some sort of weird Highlandering thing, as if I’m saying “no that was MY thought, you can’t have it!!” 🫠
To borrow an archaic pun from Neal Stephenson, this strikes me as less “confusion” and more “con-fusion” — we do not have mistaken platonic and romantic feelings, we have an unexpected alloy of those feelings that makes Dorothy’s self-reflection and decisionmaking more of a challenge.
Dorothy ABSOLUTELY has a particularly deep relationship with Amazi-girl. Reported on her extensively and one of her first confidantes, they have a pretty deep bond.
Personally I read her “might be a two” as a reaction to her pun rather than finding Jennifer attractive — note the lack of flushed cheeks compared to AG example — but I can’t discount the possibility.
Either way I doubt she’s confused about her romantic feelings, but she does (with an admittedly very small sample size) seem primarily attracted to women she has a close relationship with already. My read is that she may have a demi- slant to her attraction to females.
Yeah, I’ve heard that argument; I don’t find it convincing, because I think that’s a very silly reason to raise one’s personal Kinsey scale level, versus the more tangible “okay, I am in fact attracted to more than one woman, I guess that makes me more than 0.5 or 1, and I should call myself a two”.
I don’t even really disagree that she could be demi (I’m demi), and I’ve argued against the idea that keeps popping up that she’s going to shift her interest from Joyce to Jocelyne because I definitely think her bond with Joyce is an important element here and that she wouldn’t just suddenly start crushing on Joyce’s sister.
I just don’t think there’s any possibility Dorothy is confusing platonic feelings for Joyce for romantic ones.
But it’s not like Danny said “the more you like puns, the more bi you are” even as a joke, so. Yes it still would come out of nowhere for Dorothy, who’s pretty literal-minded, to decide that’s how things work.
Oh, I am absolutely sure Dorothy’s bi, regardless, I wasn’t trying to call that, or even the Joyce stuff, into doubt. It’s more just musing that I don’t get the impression Dorothy’s ever had a bestie quite like this before, regardless.
Part of what allowed Dorothy to get to 19 without realizing that she was bi may have been that she’s never had a girl, before Joyce, who was close enough to her for her to feel attraction to her.
I think her bisexuality kinda works in tandem with her fangirling over AG and her protection of Joyce. She’s never had to test her understanding of her relationship to women, as far as we know.
and for her, everything has to be categorized and labeled. There’s also been a lot of trauma they’ve endured together. and last but not least, she doesn’t do things by half measures.
I think each memory is actually shown to us *before* the relevant item of clothing. The red jacket Joyce was wearing when kidnapped is not visible on this side of the closet.
I’m confused why the stuff atop the closet shelf changed only in the last panel.
I’m trying to figure out whether that has a meaning or she’s just in another part of the closet, but it’s also the empty hanger frame and I’m not getting that either.
It changes a little in the 2nd closet panel to show she’s moving, just not by as much as in the last panel. You can see the whole top shelf in the previous strip; the folded stuff is just on the far left.
If you look at the background behind the hanger she is holding the sweater vest behind it is different too. also i just noticed she is supposed to holding the top joyce is wearing in the previous panel
And also, on top of all of this, it’s a rare therapy course that accomplishes meaningful results in a mere handful of months, especially with the complex set of issues/trauma Dorothy is working through.
CBT often teaches people who have abusive tendencies (frequently primarily directed inwards) to be less abusive, and isn’t really helpful for this stuff, and is also the most common modality these days. So… Yeah…
(Not the same thing as someone consciously choosing to be abusive btw.) (Aside from all the casual saneism I like the book “why does he do that” by Lundy Bancroft.)
I honestly really despise how some people seem to use CBT to try to treat everything. It feels in many cases (not all but many) that it’s a method to treat symptoms but not actually get at underlying causes. I also find for myself that a lot of the ideas with it just don’t work and it actually makes me uncomfortable because it feels like gaslighting myself.
I had a great therapist, but the office she worked for would cancel my appointments without notice, and the one time I had to cancel my appointment, even though I gave them more than 24 hours notice, they closed my file. The best part is I had no way of getting ahold of her for the support letter she was supposed to write for me for bottom surgery.
Well actually she said she saw a *councilor*, not really the same thing as a therapist, plus she admitted to not telling them about their trauma response so as to avoid leaving a paper trail.
so much trauma and mood whiplash going on you’d think this was written by Rebecca Sugar. Steven Universe is great, you should check it out if you haven’t… ~<3
God, it must HURT Willis to be a year ahead in the narrative he’s already written (and probably even further out still in his plans) and to read all of our speculation.
The clothes I was wearing when I got killed had to be cut off, When I got to the ER I was naked under the sheet on the gurney. So no bad memories from that wreck triggered by the clothes I was wearing. I have enough OTHER triggers for that.
The roofie one with Billie reads differently now that we know her backstory with Alice. Back in that story, I thought Billie knew about the roofie because she was a cheerleader and drank, but now it makes that panel even sadder.
Yeah, Jennifer has made multiple references to helping people who get roofied. Given her tendency to fixate on what flatters her the most, that was clearly Alice.
Here, Jennifer says she watches drinks at parties to make sure no one is roofied, sneaks friends to abortion clinics, and takes down abusive boyfriends. Like Adept said, Jennifer mentioned all three of these things in this strip years ago, it’s just that the recent flashback with Alice directly confirms that all three are directly tied to Alice in some way (namely, that she seemingly got roofied, Jennifer helped her cross state lines for an abortion, and then punched the hell out of Alice’s bf who was responsible).
Or, at the very least, that Jennifer has done two out of three of those things for Alice.
I kind of figure Alice isn’t the only person who’s received help from Jennifer that falls along those lines…
But that’s admittedly an assumption on my part, and I’ll admit, I don’t think Jennifer got invited to many more high school parties after she crashed the car.
I hope these are just jokes because I really don’t get what about Joyce and Dorothy makes Joyce her “metaphorical daughter”. Especially a “metaphorical daughter” that she’s being shown to be in love with. Like I get that it’s at least better than actual incest, but uh. What do you mean metaphorical daughter. And what do you mean ‘having the hots’ for a metaphorical daughter.
Did Dorothy teach Joyce to walk and I missed that strip? Or take her to all her soccer matches?
Thank you Amos, and sorry. Reading it back I come off as defensive and I’m sorry for that. I figured you were joking at least but when others started saying Joyce is Dorothy’s “metaphorical daughter” I started raising my eyebrows. There was a guy in the comments who was really dying on the “actually Dorothy IS Joyce’s mom and she’s just confusing romantic with familiar love” sword that thankfully seems to have stopped with that.
She don’t wants to lose her. I’m afraid this will push Dorothy to do something crazy. Like say to Joyce that she loves her, or decide to never tell her that.
I wonder if Dorothy formed memories during November and December. Like we’re going to see flashbacks of her and Joyce burning down a building, her and Joyce in a half-frozen river, and her and Joyce making swedish meatballs.
TOP: just lampooning that the first hanger is in the “wrong way”, compared to all the others
BOTTOM: people crave nostalgia. but when their good memories spiral into bad memories… ggwp
besides, it ain’t fun when someone else has the same idea. so I wanna comment from a new perspective
(Feel free to delete if it’s too off-topic, but I’m tying it to the general neurodiverse theme of the whole comic, and of Joyce and Dorothy in particular.)
Thanks for the heads-up. I’d already heard it from several sources. I’m glad that the ASD communities are spreading it around like proverbial wildfire.
Well, I guess y’all are gonna see me on the news if this escalates to round-ups, cuz in that situation it’s kill or be killed. I’m not tough and probably won’t get very far, but if I’m not gonna kill myself anymore (too busy learning guitar, seemed like a better use of my time), nobody else gets to do it either. Not without a fight.
I don’t think she has a crush on her friend. I think it is her first real close friend, and her mind doesn’t know how to process it. So close to love, but adjacent.
no. No it wouldn’t. A character who thought she was straight her whole life realizing she was wrong is not the same thing as a character who thought she was bi for five minutes realizing she was wrong. The latter is hardly a twist at all, and it certainly isn’t a great one.
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All the memories. All the feels.
Howinhell did I get first? :O
i gave up after 12:03 and it not being ready yet. assume rest also gave it time to post
I think the server is lagging again. Five minutes I’m guessin’?
Well as the song goes, Dotty – “You can’t fight the moonlight”, so… perhaps don’t try? Just admit to the moonlight that you’re in love with Joyce in your own way, acknowledge Leann Rimes as the undisputed queen and move on.
All I could think of when I read the title was Sisko’s speech from In the Pale Moonlight.
“So I lied, I cheated, I bribed men to cover the crimes of other men. I am an accessory to murder. But most damning thing of all, I think I can live with it. And if I had to do it all over again, I would.”
I thought of the Babylon 5 intro voiceover, “all alone in the night”. Makes more sense than Cats. Dorothy’s not a cat. She is however, living on a self-contained world, a shining beacon in space.
An excellent speech.
Memories, from the Cats musical guys
I can smile at the old days … except some of them.
All the nostalgia. All the memories highlighted.
Is Joyce about to die?
Hopefully it’ll just be the ‘Little death’.
Maybe multiple Little Deaths, she’s overdue.
Little deaths for everyone. Let the little slaughter commence!
Hey, trauma is hot. Just ask literally any character in this comic.
If that were true, I would want to see all of them in the spicy patreon. Every single one. (except the minors thank you)
Huh. Come to think of it…..
It’s almost true. The corrected version is “other people’s trauma is hot.”
Yes, this! Most sadly, my own trauma is just…abrasive. Not in any way hot.
nooo, remember dinosaur comics!
feelings are boring
kissing is awesome
Trust Moray to know what she’s talking about!
Dorothy must realize her true calling: to be a supervillain!
She is.. the Queenpin!
(dunDunDUN)
All her outfits remind you that you’ve been through some shit with this girl.
Silver lining: shopping montage!
Say what you will about Joyce, she’s strong.
She never lets the negative memories stop her from trying to make better ones.
And it seems like it’s getting to the point where she’s litterally been through so much and yet she’s so upbeat that it’s easy to forget.
At this point, half the cast have endured so much trauma that I’d have expected them all to be catatonic by now.
At this point most of the cast should have varying stages of PTSD, evolving into depression, which is similar to what you said, Joyce in particular should be having nightmares on a daily basis, and Becky should be as well given all the schitt she’s seen, repeated kidnappings and her Toe Dad killed in front of her. She should be getting therapy on the regular, but we never see it…
But never alone. Someone’s been there for her. This doesn’t erase the traumas, but it helps.
As I recall, the timing of the van kidnapping viscerally interacted with my own PTSD from the first orange term. As Hacksaw wrote, it didn’t erase the trauma, but it felt like Willis’ buffer knew just what we’d need in that moment.
Something tells me that this enthusiasm is hiding very well some details that Joyce still has
Heck yeah she is. Every story needs a hero we can aspire to be and Joyce has got that on lock (along with the epitome of sweater vest fashion).
It took me a bit to find these strips but yes, Joyce really has grown stronger in spite of her trauma and has told Joe she is NOT fragile.
https://www.dumbingofage.com/2024/comic/book-15/01-love-dares-you-to-change/bothbe/
https://www.dumbingofage.com/2024/comic/book-15/01-love-dares-you-to-change/fragile/
I don’t remember the van
I could use an explainer on all the panels.
1. Not sure, looks like they’re hanging out.
2. Joyce gets roofied at the party.
3. Joyce gets kidnapped (again) by Blaine.
I believe that they are watching Dexter and Monkey master together.
Flashback One: Redraw (or maybe just alteration?) of the final panel of this strip from 2017.
Flashback Two: Redraw of the first panel of this strip, but with Joyce’s pose amended to match the last panel of the preceding strip.
Flashback Three: Depicts the scene from this strip, but from a different angle.
Huh. All of those links work for me except the first one.
Yeah, same for me. See if this link works better.
It is worth noting that while the flashback itself is reasonably pleasant, it also takes place shortly after Amber gutted Gashface McDrugger
It also leads to her sleeping with Joyce. (And Walky.)
Is it me or has Joyce had a bit of a… bust increase in the redraw?
Dorothy’s certainly remembering things in an interesting way.
No, it’s a different angle and Willis’ art style has gotten more detailed.
Why are so many commenters obsessed with looking for hints that Dorothy is attracted to Joyce’s chest? It’s constant, but unsupported by any reasonable interpretation of these strips. Dorothy wouldn’t have believed herself to be a 0 on the Kinsey scale at any point if she was attracted to boobs; it’s pretty clear that she is attracted to Joyce for Joyce, not necessarily her body. She’s not going to go from “I exclusively like men” to “boooooobz” overnight just because her first girl crush has a big chest.
Mostly because it’s fun to join in on the teasing the same way Willis clearly is.
How many are “so many”? Can you give even one example?
“So many” is always more than two, but mostly depends on context. You previous post is an example of the use of “so many.”
No, I don’t know what we’re talking about either. I started back at the beginning of the thread with the van comment and couldn’t find a use of the word “many.” I’m inclined to believe that the Internet stuck your comment in at a random place instead of where it was supposed to go, but what with you being Taffy and all, it’s hard to know for sure.
I mean, the post I directly replied to says “so many commenters” right up front. They’ve made a claim (“so many commenters are obsessed with blah blah blah”), but can’t give one example of somebody who’s obsessed with it.
Like one person yesterday joked that Dorothy was staring at Joyce’s chest in the flashback panel, one person agreed, and like six people said “no she’s not, obviously”, so I guess that’s people being obsessed with it????
Thanks!
Whoa, cool! Thank you for all these detailed explanations, everyone!
Joyce got kidnapped by Blaine.
Speaking of strips with no dialogue. https://www.dumbingofage.com/crosscountry-2/
https://www.dumbingofage.com/fun-3/ also no dialogue
third one is this scene: https://www.dumbingofage.com/hospital/ (this moment)
https://www.dumbingofage.com/police/ (but from this angle)
Blaine and Toedad kidnapped Joyce, Dorothy, and pretty much half the cast in an effort to get Amazigirl to show up. Dorothy took charge and came up with a plan to escape and expose Blaine. It ALMOST worked, except Dotty didn’t count on Blaine’s spitefulness when cornered with his inevitable arrest and he grabbed Joyce, threw her into a van, and drove off rather than just surrender to the police, like Dotty was expecting.
Oh no, Vietnam Flashback :(
You’re never too young.
*Fortunate Son intensifies*
First panel = genuinely adorable
Aww, yeah. I remember fondly my co-ed cuddle puddles back in the college days.
Still have them now and they are awesome. I think it’s weird how often people forget that humans are tactile social animals. Skin-to-skin contact and physical touch is so important to our moods. You wouldn’t refuse to pet an animal, why stop hugging your friends and laying about all over each other?
No idea, except in my case the people I would do that with are dead now or far away. My current friends don’t do that. Except hugs. Hugs are always nice.
Realizing my queer identity and meeting other queer people has definitely helped me engage with that more. Still kinda anxious about asking with new people though ’cause our society sucks.
that’s the thing about memories, the bad ones always find a way to creep in.
Memories can be vile, repulsive little brutes.
Like children, I suppose.
But can we live without them?
Both my older brothers have kids with one more on the way and I can safely reassess I’ll be extremely happy as the weird uncle who doesn’t talk much they see about once a year.
Man this is like clearing out your grandma’s closet after she died or something and going through the memories of each outfit.
Ross!!
Oh hey Walky’s here on one of them. I’m almost surprised.
I feel like I’m missing something obvious re: the empty hanger in the final panel. Is it that the hanger with nothing on it represents her trauma over almost losing Joyce forever during the kidnapping? I feel like there’s a more direct connection that I’m just failing to recognize.
no sweater or vest during that scene.
or she’s breached the collection of bad memories, and they’re just following each other instead of from the clothes.
That was my assumption on Patreon. Willis corrected me.
Joyce had a hoodie on during the kidnapping incident, but she left it on Ross’s body, so now the hanger is empty.
Ohhhh, fuck.
Well. I was gonna make a joke about the invisible sweater being the sexiest but now it just feels kinda crass.
Hold on, is she getting that last flashback off an empty coathanger?
she is considering doing this in the future
https://somethingpositive.net/2001/12/19/december-19-2001-meet-davan-and-peejee/
Holy Cheese, I have been reading webcomics for so long that I know exactly which strip that is without even needing to click the link.
So, I’m not the only one to think of that.
I don’t think they use plastic coathangers for that. (Yeah, I didn’t have to click the link either.)
Oh, I remember having to explain that one to some poor naive kid.
One of the most (in)famous webcomic strips in the history of webcomic strips.
I think it’s more her traumatic memories of not being able to protect Joyce forcing their way in after she was reminded.
I wonder if this is giving her a chance to just kind of process the story of their friendship, and maybe through that, digesting the feelings she’s been dealing with.
You know, and this is NOT me dismissing any sexual or romantic feelings Dorothy’s feeling, but I wonder if Dorothy’s ever really *had* a female friend she was as close to as she is with Joyce. It does feel worth mentioning that, outside of Danny and Joe, we really know very little about her past, outside of that guy who sneezed in her mouth once. I know her ambitions meant she was probably less beholden to her past, but still, Joyce may well be unprecedented.
This isn’t mutually exclusive with having it for Joyce, but I kind of wonder if that is playing a part here.
And it is right there that knowing Dorothy’s past is really necessary.
I second the bit about Dorothy processing her history with Joyce.
I already wondered this a while back.
https://www.dumbingofage.com/2025/comic/book-15/03-me-and-who-you-say-i-was-yesterday/radchickemergency/
https://www.dumbingofage.com/2025/comic/book-15/03-me-and-who-you-say-i-was-yesterday/upheaval/
But also, she’s also clearly experienced attraction to Amazi-Girl and Jennifer too, and she doesn’t have an unprecedentedly deep relationship with either of them, so.
I would bet you any amount of money that the punchline here isn’t going to be any kind of “Dorothy was confusing platonic feelings for Joyce with romantic ones”.
Is the rest of their deep bond part of the attraction, part of the feelings? Sure. But not in a fundamentally different way from how Joyce’s friendship with Joe is part of their bond and their attraction for one another.
My “already” there was meant to convey “oh I had the same thought a while back!”; rereading my own comment, it comes across as some sort of weird Highlandering thing, as if I’m saying “no that was MY thought, you can’t have it!!” 🫠
To borrow an archaic pun from Neal Stephenson, this strikes me as less “confusion” and more “con-fusion” — we do not have mistaken platonic and romantic feelings, we have an unexpected alloy of those feelings that makes Dorothy’s self-reflection and decisionmaking more of a challenge.
Dorothy ABSOLUTELY has a particularly deep relationship with Amazi-girl. Reported on her extensively and one of her first confidantes, they have a pretty deep bond.
Personally I read her “might be a two” as a reaction to her pun rather than finding Jennifer attractive — note the lack of flushed cheeks compared to AG example — but I can’t discount the possibility.
Either way I doubt she’s confused about her romantic feelings, but she does (with an admittedly very small sample size) seem primarily attracted to women she has a close relationship with already. My read is that she may have a demi- slant to her attraction to females.
Yeah, I’ve heard that argument; I don’t find it convincing, because I think that’s a very silly reason to raise one’s personal Kinsey scale level, versus the more tangible “okay, I am in fact attracted to more than one woman, I guess that makes me more than 0.5 or 1, and I should call myself a two”.
I don’t even really disagree that she could be demi (I’m demi), and I’ve argued against the idea that keeps popping up that she’s going to shift her interest from Joyce to Jocelyne because I definitely think her bond with Joyce is an important element here and that she wouldn’t just suddenly start crushing on Joyce’s sister.
I just don’t think there’s any possibility Dorothy is confusing platonic feelings for Joyce for romantic ones.
We can agree to disagree about Amazi-Girl, heh.
It’s silly, but she had just been talking to Danny about the inevitable “bi” puns, so it’s not like it would have come out of nowhere
But it’s not like Danny said “the more you like puns, the more bi you are” even as a joke, so. Yes it still would come out of nowhere for Dorothy, who’s pretty literal-minded, to decide that’s how things work.
Oh, I am absolutely sure Dorothy’s bi, regardless, I wasn’t trying to call that, or even the Joyce stuff, into doubt. It’s more just musing that I don’t get the impression Dorothy’s ever had a bestie quite like this before, regardless.
Okay
Then we are in agreement!
Part of what allowed Dorothy to get to 19 without realizing that she was bi may have been that she’s never had a girl, before Joyce, who was close enough to her for her to feel attraction to her.
Also, point of order: It was Dorothy who hocked the loogie into Tyler’s mouth.
Also, I just realized that “19” upside-down is “bI”.
I think her bisexuality kinda works in tandem with her fangirling over AG and her protection of Joyce. She’s never had to test her understanding of her relationship to women, as far as we know.
It was a guy whose mouth she sneezed in, actually.
I stand corrected, that’s what I get for not double checking.
and for her, everything has to be categorized and labeled. There’s also been a lot of trauma they’ve endured together. and last but not least, she doesn’t do things by half measures.
Oh, trauma, thou art a heartless bongo.
I choose to believe that Shakespeare wrote that.
especially the bongo part.
That’s how we know it wasn’t Francis Bacon.
don’t let derek jacobi hear you
Surely an actor of his experience would admit that for F Bacon, bongo would have been an anachronism. Whereas we all know Shakespeare was timeless.
Yes, the clock striking in Julius Caesar wasn’t an anachronism, it was timelessness.
…
Wait, if it was timeless, why is there a clock? How are there Ides of March?? Everything I thought I knew is meaningless!
This comic should have been titled “See My Vest”
Is it made of real gorilla chest?
Link to the video:
https://youtu.be/TyWVaZsUQjc?si=WPQElWNoXHRmnEtK
I think each memory is actually shown to us *before* the relevant item of clothing. The red jacket Joyce was wearing when kidnapped is not visible on this side of the closet.
I’m confused why the stuff atop the closet shelf changed only in the last panel.
I’m trying to figure out whether that has a meaning or she’s just in another part of the closet, but it’s also the empty hanger frame and I’m not getting that either.
Presumably it will make more sense next panel.
oh maybe this is “what memory do we make next”?
It changes a little in the 2nd closet panel to show she’s moving, just not by as much as in the last panel. You can see the whole top shelf in the previous strip; the folded stuff is just on the far left.
Yeah I agree it hasn’t “changed” just moved to the right as she moves to the left.
If you look at the background behind the hanger she is holding the sweater vest behind it is different too. also i just noticed she is supposed to holding the top joyce is wearing in the previous panel
Let the trauma commence!
All I can say is: “Oof.”
Youre smart enough to know you need a therapist
She has a therapist, she’s just intentionally withholding information because getting diagnosed with PTSD, etc, could damage her political ambitions.
She, Jennifer, and I think Ruth all have/have had therapists. I forget who else do.
Amber has implicitly been in therapy; she told I think specifically Walky that the therapists in the area are garbage.
(I’m sure not all of them, but finding a good match is hard enough when the one paying your therapist’s bills isn’t your abusive dad.)
And also, on top of all of this, it’s a rare therapy course that accomplishes meaningful results in a mere handful of months, especially with the complex set of issues/trauma Dorothy is working through.
Oh for sure.
There are sooooooo many reasons why Dorothy being in therapy right now hasn’t like already solved all of her issues 🥲
It took me 4 years of trying different therapists to find one that helped and I’m still working through trauma that happened 6 and a half years ago.
I’ve been with my current therapist for about 3ish years I think??
CBT often teaches people who have abusive tendencies (frequently primarily directed inwards) to be less abusive, and isn’t really helpful for this stuff, and is also the most common modality these days. So… Yeah…
(Not the same thing as someone consciously choosing to be abusive btw.) (Aside from all the casual saneism I like the book “why does he do that” by Lundy Bancroft.)
Shoot this comment was supposed to be a reply to a different comic
**comment
Look I know, intellectually, that CBT in this context means Cognitive Behaviour Theory, but in my heart of hearts, all I can read is-
I honestly really despise how some people seem to use CBT to try to treat everything. It feels in many cases (not all but many) that it’s a method to treat symptoms but not actually get at underlying causes. I also find for myself that a lot of the ideas with it just don’t work and it actually makes me uncomfortable because it feels like gaslighting myself.
I had a great therapist, but the office she worked for would cancel my appointments without notice, and the one time I had to cancel my appointment, even though I gave them more than 24 hours notice, they closed my file. The best part is I had no way of getting ahold of her for the support letter she was supposed to write for me for bottom surgery.
DOROTHY GOES TO THERAPY. IT ALREADY HAPPENS.
Well actually she said she saw a *councilor*, not really the same thing as a therapist, plus she admitted to not telling them about their trauma response so as to avoid leaving a paper trail.
Close enough for me, tbh.
Always gotta love a nice walk down memory lane suddenly turning traumatic
so much trauma and mood whiplash going on you’d think this was written by Rebecca Sugar. Steven Universe is great, you should check it out if you haven’t… ~<3
God, it must HURT Willis to be a year ahead in the narrative he’s already written (and probably even further out still in his plans) and to read all of our speculation.
We should be so lucky. I’m picturing more tented fingers, demented laughter, high window and swiveling chair vibes.
No one gives you the name DYW. You have to earn it.
With the glint on the eyeglasses (anime style). Maybe a white persian cat (if Willis or fam aren’t allergic).
My speculation is the correct one! Everyone turns into monsters in 6 months! Mark my words!
There’s a secret Patreon tier where Willis lets you know if your theories are correct. /nods sagely
These kids have been through a lot together, huh.
Also the clothes.
Dorothy are in all her adventures. Lot of things are running in the head.
These are Dorothy’s memories, so yeah, she’d be in the adventures lol
I wonder if Joyce still has that yellow dress she wore on that date with Joe.
I’ve suddenly realized I need to throw away all my clothes, except maybe my new gecko hawaii retro shirts.
Illumination is where you find it,.
Tho I do recommend having the new clothes in hand first.
The clothes I was wearing when I got killed had to be cut off, When I got to the ER I was naked under the sheet on the gurney. So no bad memories from that wreck triggered by the clothes I was wearing. I have enough OTHER triggers for that.
All the Feelings!
The roofie one with Billie reads differently now that we know her backstory with Alice. Back in that story, I thought Billie knew about the roofie because she was a cheerleader and drank, but now it makes that panel even sadder.
We knew that already, it was just spelled out recently.
Yeah, Jennifer has made multiple references to helping people who get roofied. Given her tendency to fixate on what flatters her the most, that was clearly Alice.
Did we? What have I missed?
https://www.dumbingofage.com/2013/comic/book-3/03-answers-in-hennessy/alpha-bongo/
Here, Jennifer says she watches drinks at parties to make sure no one is roofied, sneaks friends to abortion clinics, and takes down abusive boyfriends. Like Adept said, Jennifer mentioned all three of these things in this strip years ago, it’s just that the recent flashback with Alice directly confirms that all three are directly tied to Alice in some way (namely, that she seemingly got roofied, Jennifer helped her cross state lines for an abortion, and then punched the hell out of Alice’s bf who was responsible).
Or, at the very least, that Jennifer has done two out of three of those things for Alice.
I kind of figure Alice isn’t the only person who’s received help from Jennifer that falls along those lines…
But that’s admittedly an assumption on my part, and I’ll admit, I don’t think Jennifer got invited to many more high school parties after she crashed the car.
The good and the bad.
It’s been a long, rough road. But despite everything, it’s still you
I like the idea that Dorothy pulled out an empty hanger and thought, “This is where that outfit WOULD be, if Joyce still had it.”
Five more empty hangers in the closet, and Dorothy can tell what would be hanging on each one, with 100% accuracy.
She’s so smart, so capable. A great choice for President someday!
Oh, that’s bittersweet: Dorothy is remembering good and bad moments that her daughter has passed throught.
Joyce is not her daughter, that’s so weird given the context of this moment and Dorothy’s feelings. Ick.
momfriend and daughterfriend not being reciprocal could just be a language thing.
Dunno. I kind of feel that having the hots for your metaphorical daughter is okay in a way that having the hots for your actual daughter isn’t.
Instead of Stepdaughter, they should make Metaphorical Daughter a pornhub category
I feel like that’s part of “Daddy” already.
I hope these are just jokes because I really don’t get what about Joyce and Dorothy makes Joyce her “metaphorical daughter”. Especially a “metaphorical daughter” that she’s being shown to be in love with. Like I get that it’s at least better than actual incest, but uh. What do you mean metaphorical daughter. And what do you mean ‘having the hots’ for a metaphorical daughter.
Did Dorothy teach Joyce to walk and I missed that strip? Or take her to all her soccer matches?
I’m hoping typo?
IDK, I feeeeeel like I remember Amós shipping it, but it’s not like I’m keeping that close of a tab on anyone else’s opinions.
Yeees, I do.
Anyway, I’m sorry, I should be more clear about the sarcasm.
I was thinking about this strip, when Jennifer throw this at Dorothy’s face.
Thank you Amos, and sorry. Reading it back I come off as defensive and I’m sorry for that. I figured you were joking at least but when others started saying Joyce is Dorothy’s “metaphorical daughter” I started raising my eyebrows. There was a guy in the comments who was really dying on the “actually Dorothy IS Joyce’s mom and she’s just confusing romantic with familiar love” sword that thankfully seems to have stopped with that.
🫂
Tone is hard online
Being fair to everyone even knowing you are being sarcastic I have a hard time seeing it in your comment.
At last, the clipshow episode!
oh my god this arc is going to end with her literally coming out of the closet
She don’t wants to lose her. I’m afraid this will push Dorothy to do something crazy. Like say to Joyce that she loves her, or decide to never tell her that.
Maybe some new memories that don’t involve sweater vests.
Love that the hangers resemble question marks
Also wondering\speculating how much Dorothy is thinking of\about Walky rn
As always, fascinating arcs, Mr Willis!
I wonder if Dorothy formed memories during November and December. Like we’re going to see flashbacks of her and Joyce burning down a building, her and Joyce in a half-frozen river, and her and Joyce making swedish meatballs.
So I gotta ask, is it weird I was singing the song already when I scrolled down to see the title?
That said, she is smiling alone… well in panel 2.
i’d be smiling too if the hook was pointing away from me
nostalgia’s one heckuva drug
Could you explain what you mean with this? I am having a hard time connecting your comment with anything on the strip.
some insight? i gotchu fam
TOP: just lampooning that the first hanger is in the “wrong way”, compared to all the others
BOTTOM: people crave nostalgia. but when their good memories spiral into bad memories… ggwp
besides, it ain’t fun when someone else has the same idea. so I wanna comment from a new perspective
Emotional damage resurfacing…
Hi folks…
Not to alarm anyone, but, maybe, we autists and the allies among us should… maybe… get alarmed. Alarumed, as it were.
https://www.npr.org/2025/04/23/nx-s1-5372695/autism-nih-rfk-medical-records
https://autisticadvocacy.org/2025/04/asan-gravely-concerned-by-administrations-plans-for-autistic-peoples-medical-data/
Ummm… (glances around nervously…)
(Feel free to delete if it’s too off-topic, but I’m tying it to the general neurodiverse theme of the whole comic, and of Joyce and Dorothy in particular.)
Oh believe me, I was already alarmed.
(I already knew about this mess.) (But I was alarmed before then, too. It’s just kind of a constant state of alarm these days.)
Thanks for the heads-up. I’d already heard it from several sources. I’m glad that the ASD communities are spreading it around like proverbial wildfire.
Well, I guess y’all are gonna see me on the news if this escalates to round-ups, cuz in that situation it’s kill or be killed. I’m not tough and probably won’t get very far, but if I’m not gonna kill myself anymore (too busy learning guitar, seemed like a better use of my time), nobody else gets to do it either. Not without a fight.
SEXIEST sweater vest, NOT most traumatic!
I don’t think she has a crush on her friend. I think it is her first real close friend, and her mind doesn’t know how to process it. So close to love, but adjacent.
No.
Hahahahahahahaha. The comic disagrees with you. What, are you biphobic or some shit like that?
This is so aggressive wtf lol
The comic, the author, and common sense definitely disagree.
Oh hey it’s at least one more of these lol.
“Wouldn’t it be a great twist if ACTUALLY”
no. No it wouldn’t. A character who thought she was straight her whole life realizing she was wrong is not the same thing as a character who thought she was bi for five minutes realizing she was wrong. The latter is hardly a twist at all, and it certainly isn’t a great one.