I still think writing elaborate fanfiction of being a cool airforce fighter pilot who is roomates with the president is gayer than any of my lesbian relationships have been
Truly, few are the situations in life that are not vastly improved by the addition of giant fighting robots. My personal fave remains “resurrect John Brown and give him a Battlemech!”
this is what most of us keep saying, but for some reason a percentage of chat just… is angry at lesbians? the “oh no they’re cheating” crowd who has only been huffy about this and literally none of the other cheating that has gone on in (checks notes) almost every relationship in this. ~<3
Also maybe Asher? He was kissing on Ethan while technically still with Jen. Jen was treating him like dirt (totally justifiable) so no one really felt too bad for her. (also totally justifiable)
Asher is a good example of what to do: The kissing happened, and then Asher stopped it and said “No, I’m absolutely into this, but I’m in a relationship, and I’m not going to cheat”.
And then he went to his girlfriend, laid it all out, and didn’t go back to Ethan until Jennifer had made it abundantly clear that she was taking him for granted and he didn’t want to have a part in that anymore.
Asher never cheated on Jennifer, basically. He did everything correctly.
Am I remembering wrong that people were fucking livid at Joyce for the Jacob thing and Walky for the Lucy thing?
Like, less so (because it was less clear) and there were people on the other side (like there are for the Joyce and Dorothy thing) but I do not remember the comment sections not being mad.
If nothing else, betting on the comment section not having been mad about something is usually a bad bet.
I was not active in the comments section when the Jacob thing went down but I would be shocked if people weren’t pissed about it. That arc would probably have to be chalked up as a failure if it didn’t push at least a few buttons.
I remember being concerned and wanting Jacob/Raidah to break up properly, I don’t think I was commenting back then though. I *feel* like I called Joyce getting rejected ultimately, but that was so long ago that I could just want to feel like I called it lol. I remember a lot of people being upset about it, but what Joyce was doing was never framed as cute and good behavior lol. Dorothy, Joe, and I feel like one or two others even stopped Joyce to be like “Yo this is fucked up”
I don’t know if I was “fucking livid”, but I absolutely saw Joyce in the wrong in that arc, yeah.
The issue was that Joyce was actively trying to break up/into a (by all apparent accounts from what Joyce could see) healthy relationship so that Jacob could instead date someone that Joyce approved of (whether it was Sarah or herself). All while deceiving Jacob about what she was doing.
That is a bad thing. And that is not an exaggeration of what she was doing. And the reason why that arc worked was *because* the strip recognized that Joyce was in the wrong. Multiple characters called her out on it, and it ended with Joyce not getting the guy.
Right. That appears to be the difference between that arc and this one. This one seems to be treating the pairing as a big romantic thing rather than critiquing it the way the Jacob/Joyce arc did. It’s not over yet, so we’ll see how that plays out, but currently it seems to be leaning into Joyce’s early romcom “It’s not wrong if it’s true love” ideas.
Healthy? A relationship with Raidah was NOT healthy. She’s one of the most toxic characters in the comic, the most toxic student character. Malaya is better by a lot. I was totally with Joyce on that one, breaking them up was definitely a positive. Sucks that he didn’t get together with her or Sarah, Lucy is awful too, but at least not as bad as Raidah.
Jacob kissed Joyce then walked away to go break up with Raidah, saying it could have been something if Joyce had taken a different approach. That got a lot of people mad at him, despite her bringing about the whole situation.
I realized I want someone more like you but not a cheating instigator. It seemed reasonable to me. I could feel a little sorry for Joyce but she brought it on herself.
When has Walky cheated??????? He and Dorothy broke up, got together, broke up, he banged Amber for a bit, broke up, and then dated Lucy for a week and explicitly refused to cheat on her, and then broke up before getting back with Dorothy.
Like, I think the only other character that has maybe cheated is Asher (and I would like to say Ruth on Jason, but like… I legit get vibes Jason Would Not Care and I think we know he does not care that Ruth would drop him in a second for Billie lol). And tbh, at least Billie is a terrible person who actively pushed him into it, kind of makes it a bit more forgivable.
Also, he told her about it more or less immediately iirc and her response was “lol who cares, not gonna make me jealous.” And then they just like… dissolved like a wet biscuit.
Ruth is absolutely not over Jennifer and would probably cheat on Jason with her (or at least boot Jason out the door) if given the chance, but she hasn’t had that chance, so she’s in the clear.
Walky and Lucy? Admittedly I was exaggerating for effect because Walky’s love life is such a mess, but I do remember fevered debates on whether he was cheating or not for sleeping with Dorothy before the ink was even dry on his relationship with Lucy. Even Lucy noted how fast he moved on and it was somewhat ambiguous if she ever truly broke up with him.
Guess that’s not surprising, with how some people thought Joyce and Dorothy were cheating because Joyce touched Dorothy’s cheek. I get being confused about whether the relationship is still in or not but in the end they were broken up with and although Walky rebounding back with Dorothy is… something, it isn’t cheating.
This was the debate that happened then. I was on Walky’s side but that was not the consensus at the time. The magic words were never said! It was all up in the air cause “See ya at math class.” Does not a solid breakup make!
You be the judge! The scales of judgement ultimately lay with us readers.
It reminds me of Mako and Asami’s break up in season 1 of Legend of Korra, down to the people who saw the show being like “wait is Mako hooking up with Korra after cheating? Did Asami and him break up?”.
So, do kids these days consider kisses cheating?
I kinda thought the bar for physical cheating was higher, such as sneaking around having penetrative sex outside your explicitly-monogamous relationship, type of thing.
Arguably the wacky washer antics count as sex, but they were both single at the time, plus at the time they believed it was masturbation with a friend. Like y’do, apparently.
It’s probably emotional cheating, in large part because they think it is… but like, is the expectation these days that you’re immediately monogamous from the very first week of dating, without even saying so, unless otherwise specified?
It does make sense that Joyce would think that monogamy is the default setting of any relationship, and that kissing outside one’s relationship would be a serious betrayal. She’s changed a lot since the beginning of first semester, but still, she wanted Mike to beat up Joe, on their very first date, for looking at the waitress, and that kind of ideal doesn’t just vanish now that she’s kinda learned what a polycule is.
Dorothy, though? Why does Dorothy think that her on-again/off-again deal with Walky is monogamous, or that kissing is automatically cheating?
Or is she concerned about the emotional cheating, of realizing that she and Joyce also love each other?
See, I want to see this addressed. So we don’t know, exactly, where everyone in this would draw a “cheating” line. Dorothy is conflicted, obviously, but that’s influenced by other factors, and we don’t know whether Joe and Walky would see this as a dealbreaker. Yet.
But given what we’ve seen from Joyce? If Joe did this to her [or Walky did something similar to Dorothy], SHE would likely consider it cheating. Or unfaithful. Or a betrayal of trust. Somehow inappropriate, at the very least. Is that necessarily a good thing, since it largely springs from her “gradually being challenged conservative views on sex and relationships?” No, not necessarily, but her standards still exist.
And I want to see HER deal with that. How, by doing this, she might have broken boundaries that she would expect to be respected, and what that means. Clarification: I DON’T mean that I want her to realize she’s a terrible irredeemable person who doesn’t deserve to be happy. I DO want her to have to face the fact that she–probably, maybe she’s had a greater shift in perspective than it seems– has done something to a partner [Joe] that WOULD be a dealbreaker for her, and see how she handles that. We’ve seen Dorothy wrestle with this a bit, in the lead up to the kiss. We haven’t seen Joyce do that so much, yet.
You remind me why I’m glad to be aro ace. How do people deal with all this stuff, with the implied figuring out of other peoples’ values and opinions on what is and isn’t relevant to such matters, along with apparently being influenced by all these feelings for people that can, I’m told, just happen of their own accord?
I’m told love is a wonderful thing that makes life worth living, but so does reading, and I’ve never had to plan my life around a book.
(Ok, maybe I sometimes have arranged things to ensure I’d have time to read, but that’s not the point.)
(Some folks really wanna believe that the first strip here was Joe joking, and not him having a genuine reflexive reaction of jumping into Sarah’s bed, but Joyce certainly thought he was sincere: if she didn’t, she wouldn’t have characterized the moment as a “mistake” that “doesn’t mean [his whole character arc] was a lie”.)
Like, I kiiiind of think she might be operating on a level where she assumes Joe has been very tempted to cheat, and will understand why she gave into a temptation to kiss Dorothy? I also wonder if the conversation they had about masturbation, where she him know that it felt like being unfaithful to him and he told her that was silly and that she had his permission to do that as much as she wanted…
…might not have maybe left them both confused about where they stood?
Since we’ve since seen him maaaayyyybe refraining from masturbation and taking a cold shower instead? And we’ve seen Joyce maaaaaybe throwing caution to the wind and deciding she had permission not to be monogamous at all???
Probably just because monogamy is the norm in the society she grew up in. She’s good at understanding things academically, but applying them to herself is different. eg: bisexuality and orientation fluidity.
She set Walky up with Lucy in order to make him “taken”. I think Roz was right when she called Dorothy “slut-shamey”.
I just wanna say as somebody who’s poly that it’s really dangerous for a person to go “why’d you assume this relationship was monogamous” to a partner. Polyamory is still very much not the norm and if somebody wants a relationship to be poly they need to very explicitly communicate that when they intend to have a relationship that isn’t exclusive.
As someone who’s mono, I think that sucks for poly people, and that mono people need to also be willing to shoulder the burden of communicating our expectations.
Some of us are old enough to recall a time when at least pop culture displayed a norm of having a discussion about if your relationship was exclusive before assuming it was.
I just assumed the discuss is less “Why did you assume this is monogamous?”
And more… (to borrow a maybe outdated term – my background is more like Joyce’s, with more of a “courting” culture than dating)
“Why did you assume we’d ‘gone steady’ within a week of starting dating?”
I’ve personally never dated multiple people in a time, but even at my “courting-culture” college, it was common (and even encouraged by some Bible college professors!) to “date around.” My college even had a process requiring young men, before their third “official date” (something off campus, rather than just hanging around getting coffee on campus), to officially contact a woman’s father to “request permission” to continue dating them. I got the sense that carried with it an implied transition from “dating around” to “going steady,” but even that wasn’t written out anywhere.
As a heteroromantic demi AuDHDer…I’m still really fascinated by trying to understand all these unwritten and/or written “rules” in non-fundamentalist dating and relationships.
At my college, you could get expelled for holding hands, kissing, high-fiving (yeah :\ ) sitting less than 6 inches apart, etc. too many times. So Dumbing of Age has been a pretty significant source of learning about “normal” relationships for me, and ideas of what people might consider “cheating” to be.
@Sarah Lea: A very different dating culture certainly. They’re not going out on specific dates with the intention of seeing if they’re interested in getting more serious. They’re starting out by deciding they want to be serious, because they already know each other, rather than going through any number of official dates. They’ve all said they were boyfriend/girlfriend or otherwise in a relationship, which I think wouldn’t usually have been used if you were still in a “dating around” stage?
Actual dates have been pretty rare in this comic, which matches my ancient college experience. Joyce and Joe’s original disastrous date. Their recent cute one. Ruth and Billie went on one date last semester. Ruth’s blind date with Daisy. Lucy trying to find things to label “dates” with Walky, which kind of echoes something like your college’s culture. I feel like I’m forgetting something, but not very much.
@Li: It does suck for poly people and it’s certainly worth working to change that, but I think that’s better done by encouraging everyone to talk about it directly than by trying to reverse the default assumptions.
@Proxiehunter: I don’t think so. At least not in the poly sense. More in sense Sarah Lea talks about – Are we serious enough to be “going steady” rather than still “dating around”?
@thejeff And my point was that without that discussion a lot of people, at least of a certain age, would assume that both parties would be free to date around thus no one would be cheating. A situation in which it would make sense to wonder why one party assumed the relationship to be monogamous.
@thejeff: I’m not trying to reverse the default assumptions. I absolutely think Joyce’s communication here with Joe (if I’m right, and they miscommunicated) was awful and they both should’ve been clearer.
I’m just saying the responsibility should absolutely not be all on poly people to “disclose”, that’s crummy as heck.
(But Proxiehunter’s also right, and there at least used to be a social convention whereby after a few dates, you and your date-partner would sit down and talk about taking things to the next level: “are we going steady?”, as the kids used to say in, like, the 50s or whatever.
If straight people aren’t having that conversation anymore, and just assuming the answer is ‘yes’ as soon as there’s been one date, that’s a shame.
(As previously mentioned, the dating I did via OKCupid definitely had an expectation where you had to have a conversation before you would both, like, set your profiles to ‘in a relationship’ and stop chatting with other people. But I have never dated in the het scene, so I will not claim to know what that’s like.)
It’s not necessarily relevant to Joyce, because she did sort of stumble over declaring that she saw them as monogamous and exclusive during the masturbation conversation, but in real life, if the “going steady” conversation has stopped being a thing, that sucks.)
Aw MAN I missed that Sarah Lea had already brought up “going steady” conversations. There are so many comments!! I reiterate that it’s sad if that’s gone out of style, but lol, I am embarrassed to have brought it up like it was a new topic.
I responded to Sarah as well, (and it’s tomorrow, so you probably won’t see this) but I don’t think that has really stopped being a thing, even if it’s handled a little different. Like you suggest, it is usually handled that way pretty explicitly on dating apps, but in this kind of college scene when you know each other well people often go straight into “relationship” without actual dates. I think talking about being in a relationship or calling each other boyfriend/girlfriend is the language that replaces “going steady”.
None of which is to say that even college kids don’t still go on those formal “get to know you” dates, often through apps without immediately committing. Or for that matter just hook up for sex after a party or something again without committing.
But I think that discussion is a very different one than the poly discussion and they shouldn’t really overlap. “Are we serious enough to be exclusive?” and “We’re serious, but don’t want to be exclusive” are very different cases and it just gets confusing when they’re conflated. Those old “going steady” conversations almost never had any room for being poly.
@thejeff I mean, they didn’t make space for it explicitly, but you could say “no, I don’t want to go steady with anyone, but I would like to keep dating you anyway” and see how that went over? Heck, the 60s and 70s were right around the corner, and they definitely had what we’d now call poly dating situations.
Still, you’re right that “I want a serious relationship” and “I want an exclusive relationship” aren’t the same statement, and could get conflated and confused…
I just think at least having a conversation about the seriousness of the relationship is still better than skipping it or considering it implied. 😞 That seems destined for heartbreak.
This is why I think Willis is doing an ”Amor Fou” story, about an all consuming, destructive passion. Neither of the ladies seem able to think of their usual ethical considerations right now. Dorothy makes some noises about it, but barely.
It’s from 2016, and an article about a YouGov survey, so probably not? It’s just also the only thing remotely on topic from the Google results they linked. If Pedantic Jerkass meant something else in the result set, they should let us know!
So, cheating isn’t that much of a concern to me here (yet), because it all happened very suddenly (like don’t get me wrong there was the will-they-won’t-they, and the moment in Joyce’s bed, but the actual first kiss and confession was in the middle of a very emotionally intense moment they didn’t expect to happen), and they haven’t had a chance to tell their partners “I’ve had a realization that will change or end our relationship,” since they don’t have phones and were taking the long route home etc.
That said, yeah I’d consider any intentional* romantic and/or sexual intimacy to be cheating**. I can’t imagine I’d be comfortable with my partner making out with someone without my knowledge, nor he with me doing that. It’s not as bad as sex, since there’s little chance of STIs or (with certain bodies) pregnancy, but it’s also a pretty intimate (both in connection and horniness) thing to be doing without a partner’s knowledge or permission.
*unintentional could be something that happened while carried away in a moment, or while under the influence, or where you haven’t realized there are romantic connotations, etc, and of course anything nonconsensual/unreciprocated
**assuming the relationship follows a typical monogamous structure without allowances for any of this sort of thing
Ehhh I would argue they have had plenty of time to rethink. In the heat of the moment during the protest… maybe…. but they were just standing in front of the dorms and it went like this:
We should stop holding hands –> Kissing
We are in relationships. We shouldn’t kiss or hold hands –> Kissing
At this point they know full well what they are doing. They have consciously considered it and still ignored it.
Maybe they are driven by passion, but that doesn’t excuse it. If someone is driven by rage and they hit someone, we still call it assault. People are responsible for their own emotions and for their own behavior.
replied to this, but it was from my phone (which has been spotty with wifi) and didn’t post
I agree. I do think that it has already passed into the territory of cheating. But how concerned and bothered I am by it will depend on how it goes when they talk to Walky and Joe, if they chicken out and try to keep it secret, if they’re open about messing up (and then continuing to explore it before checking in with the partners), if they immediately say that they need to break up, etc.
and I’m giving them a little extra grace since they haven’t had phones or anything. they could probably have gotten home faster (esp if they didn’t make out more), but again I’d be more mad if they did have phones and just neglected to reach out with a ‘hey I have to see you when I get back to the dorms.’
also I imagine it is going to sting considering Becky, Sarah, and I’m sure now Joe and maybe Walky (if someone alerted him) have been worrying about them being fucking disappeared while they were actually making out.
so tl;dr I do think it’s cheating, I’m not happy with them and don’t really love this ship, I just want more context before I like, condemn them
Me? Nope. I once walked in on my girlfriend sucking my best friend’s weenus. My comment was something like “Oh, I see you guys are having fun.” They asked me to join, but I was too tired for sex, had just gotten back from work. I was hungry, offered to make them a sandwich too. The first threesome was later that night.
He knew I wouldn’t mind. She didn’t yet. Glad she figured it out. And yeah, it goes both ways, I occasionally boink his wife.
I mean, Vic didn’t specify how she figured it out. She could’ve been told by the friend. She could’ve just also felt the same way about relationships and exclusivity as Vic, which is more of a fortunate coincidence than anything else.
Let’s not assume there must be something wrong with a situation Vic is telling us was fine, just because we’d be upset if a partner did the same thing to us (and I definitely would be).
Of the people involved it doesn’t seem like anyone felt awkward except maybe her. So, who benefits from people seeming to say that the person who didn’t care should have?
Raising the bar to “having penetrative sex” is especially weird in the context of Joyce, who hasn’t done that at all (or only just last night if fingers count).
Is cheating not even possible if you’re not fucking yet?
Correct. They’re not cheating. Dorothy definitely doesn’t have a monogamy agreement AT ALL. It’s unclear if Joyce does, doesn’t seem like there’s anything explicit. And yeah, it’s definitely not cheating if there’s no penetrative sex.
I’m glad that definition of cheating works for you, but I think most people would disagree with it. For one thing, it would preclude two cisgender lesbians who don’t use toys from being able to cheat on each other, which seems unfair. They should be allowed to cheat on each other if they want to damnit! But seriously, if that definition works for you that’s great, I really don’t want to start an argument.
Nothing explicit. None of the parties involved have signed a contract or even negotiated a verbal one. Nonetheless, there are certainly signs that all of them consider themselves in monogamous pairings.
Dorothy especially, has said multiple times some variation of, “we can’t, I’m with Walky, you’re with Joe”. She sees what they are doing as wrong, but doesn’t currently have the self-control to stop.
I’d say most people consider lip kissing/making out cheating yeah. I’m sexually non monogamous so I don’t even care about it personally but…I can’t really fathom seeing that as kosher without that explicitly being stated first? Maybe it’s the ace in me too but requiring sexual penetration for it to be cheating feels kinda…silly? That feels like the most respectful way to put that I think, I like your comments a lot and don’t wanna come off rude
Also I’ve never dated casually so maybe this is just me but I’ve always seen when you slap the partner/ whatever gendered term label on it that’s kind of monogamous by default until you agree otherwise, unless you went into it already declaring nonmon. Just, assuming you’re good to go on making out with other people sounds like a really bad idea? The type of dumb mistake an 18 year old would make for sure but, the kind they’d learn to never do again by the consequences hopefully.
Kissing has always been cheating. How could it not be? It’s a romantic/sexual act that is always understood to be cheating. Hell, there’s emotional cheating where you don’t do any physical activity at all.
“kids these days” are presumably not all one kid. And, altho people rarely declare their age here, comments here clearly indicate that some commenters consider kissing cheating and some don’t. So it is unlikely that there is a yes/no answer to your question.
Somewhat similarly, the comic itself points out that it is hard to define sex, let alone consensual sex. Is a rape victim a cheater? Is penetration cheating? What about a vaginal examination by a doctor? Helping someone to an orgasm? Well, not everyone experiences orgasm.
Cheating is in the mind of the beholder, and each beholder is different. And even in one relationship between 2 people, their expectations probably aren’t the same.
I also know people who say “just don’t tell me, OK” So secret and cheating, but OK if it remains secret.
Personally, and in my opinion, nobody can judge others in this. If people talk about it and plant their flags in the sand it is up to others to respect those boundaries, or not respect them and accept the consequences.
A point Willis has brought up is that DoA has up until now been pretty light on the cheating considering that it’s a college comic. There genuinely hasn’t been much.
There was implied cheating, Alice with Jennifer when Alice was with … Chester? I could be wrong, but I don’t remember a large amount of lesbian haters being upset with that.
I recall in these very comments someone who I think is now Paladin-aligned basically called Willis a wimp who wasn’t brave enough to do cheating plotline because of their personal hang ups.
This is literally the only cheating that’s going on in DoA that we know about right now. So of course those of us who don’t like cheating are annoyed about what Joyce and Dorothy are doing. It has nothing to do with them being a potential lesbian couple, it’s entirely the cheating.
As a poly person, statements like yours always make me wonder. Are the monogamous people ok?
the answer is ….. a resounding NO. the monogamous people are all caught up acting in jealousy and control issues. This is all derived form a system of defining your relationship by standards of hereditary rules based property ownership. Which we made up to propagate linage based hierarchy.
Its gross, it hurts you all. Its a total shame monogamous people are so drenched in it the cant even believe there is other ways to act.
Where did that come from? What is even wrong with that statement?
Even within poly groups cheating is still a possibility. Most poly relationships aren’t completely open and unilaterally adding someone else would still be cheating. Unless of course you talk to your partner(s) and they’re cool with it – or you’ve agreed that it’s fine up front.
I do guess I am bringing my baggage to the equation.
Specifically Poly relationship anarchist. No ownership. No predefined expectations. Even those expectations we set are mutable and not sacrosanct.
So “Cheating” is a foreign concept to me. Its literally confusing drama monogamous people do that I don’t understand. It seems to hurt everyone involved to set such expectations and the root of so many harms. But hey if you Monogs feel you need these expectations you always fall short of i guess that’s a you thing. Not in my Polyamory but perhaps yours? (this being the royal yours or any person, not meaning you taffy.)
This monogamous person is not OK. Seem to end up with people for whom monogamy is vital, therefore ‘cheating’ is cheating and cruel/relationship ending. Would much prefer a review of the dominant narrative!
“if you don’t have the same reaction as me then you’re a homophobe” is as dumb as the guy who thinks anyone who ships one gay couple hates straight couples.
I honestly can’t tell if that comment is someone trolling. It seems so deliberately inflammatory and out of touch with reality. But then, this is the Internet.
not a troll, just exhausted reading the comments section and it’s a 2 mile long diatribe on fictional characters and their lack of loyalty in college relationships most of which last around 3 days. ~<3
People care about these characters: that’s the sign of good writing. Give them a public forum to discuss it and they’ll share opinions.
It’s understandable to be exhausted by opinions you don’t share, but please don’t make assumptions or insinuations about people for having them. Especially when that opinion is “I don’t like that these characters are cheating on their partners,” which is a totally understandable and neutral reaction.
Isn’t it similarly ridiculous for people to monologue about how cute a fictional couple is? It’s fiction. We know it is fiction. But when we engage with it we still judge it by the standards of life.
So a fictional couple can be cute, and we can care that they are cute. Likewise fictional characters can be cheating, and we can care about that too.
And yeah, people mess up all the time in college. This is Dumbing of Age after all…
But I would still like to see mess-ups framed as such. My main issue is so far the story still seems to be “cute couple”/”ship coming home”, yet every time Joyce and Dorothy keep going the way they are going I like them less. They have repeatedly had the chance to think about how their actions will hurt their current partners and it seems like, so far, their take is “I don’t care”.
As a gentle nudge in the other direction, they’re not even in the front door yet and the comic isn’t called Stopping Dead In Our Tracks To Have An In-Depth Conversation About The Ramifications Of Our Latest Misbehavior And Coming To A Fully Rational And Emotionally Mature Decision With Perfect Solutions To All Possible Outcomes of Age
I’m fine with them being stupid idiots. I am not fine with that idiocy being framed as adorable. And I dislike it when people try to argue cheating is okay because it is “just kissing” or “they are driven by passion” or “Joe might be into polyamory”.
I hope we see real repercussions for Joyce and Dorothy, and if they are going to keep being protagonists I would like to see atonement.
For example Joyce started the comic as homophobic. The reaction from everyone around her (except Mary) was essentially “Weird, no, stop that, please stop talking”. Joyce got called out, got better, and had severe regret that she needed to work through.
Now I would argue that Joyce’s homophobia was less bad than what she is doing now because it had much less impact. She didn’t have a lot of power to do much in the area, and she also wasn’t particularly focused on the issue.
With the current cheating, however, we should reasonably expect it is going to hurt Joe a lot. Being cheated on by your first serious romantic partner hurts, and can keep hurting for years.
Sometimes, things can have two descriptors at once. Is what Joyce and Dorothy doing morally okay? Most would say probably not very moral. Is it cute to see them be giggly and fresh with NRE? Also yes. It might be less cute to add in the future context based on predictions of how things will go based on our understandings of the characters but for now, that’s all that is – predictions. What we are seeing on screen, explicitly? Cute.
Will the future hold some sort of retribution/comeuppance/reckoning? Let’s find out by subscribing to Patreon which is advanced im told and see what’s revealed in due time.
making up something like “all the people that disagree with me are bigots, and the comic has had so many cheating storylines” is the most exhaustive comment today.
I think you meant exhausting, but yeah, Team Sickos have lately been really, really pushing me hard towards the Paladins side of things, just because of the “You must just hate lesbians” thing.
Yeah there’s been some crazy takes on Joyce and Dorothy trying to to defend them that imo, are just byproducts of trying to have some kind of righteous justification when they’d get a lot more respect if they outright just said they dgaf because their ship is sailing or they dgaf because Joe and Walky don’t mean a thing to them
The amount of people throwing around homophobia as a weapon and acting like it’s bananas that people consider doing romantic affections with somebody other than your monogamous partner is cheating has been wild.
No it isn’t. It’s the way the vast majority of people behave. There’s nothing wrong with polyamory or the idea of a truly open relationship. The problem is that Joyce and Dorothy are in monogamous relationships and are cheating on their partners. If you have the discussion with your partner and explain that you don’t believe in monogamy and they agree that’s one thing. This is flat out deceitful and they both know it, but don’t care
my statement: It is a head trip (read odd to think, strange, not cool, even if everybody’s doing it not “OK” because its the assumed normal) to think you must act(read as should do, are expected to do, thought of as normative because it is what lots of people do) Monogamous.
Your statement: No it isn’t. (it isn’t weird to assume your way is both normative and the only way? Oh really.)
It’s the way the vast majority of people behave. (So what? Argument ad populum is a good path for being wrong.)
There’s nothing wrong with polyamory or the idea of a truly open relationship. (correct)
The problem is that Joyce and Dorothy are in monogamous relationships and are cheating on their partners. (which as a Poly person makes no sense to wrap your ideology of what relationships have to be like that to begin with. No they haven’t and that’s a problem but it makes no sense to not have started the stupid “everybody’s doing it” monogamy to begin.)
If you have the discussion with your partner and explain that you don’t believe in monogamy and they agree that’s one thing. This is flat out deceitful and they both know it, but don’t care (So why start the everybody’s doing it dance that hurts us all in the long run? Sounds as I said like a head trip to assume you have to or start doing that to begin.)
but hey go ahead gut just say NO. Even though it clearly is both not a health dynamic for those involved and results in hurt persons taking arbitrary made up rules as sacrosanct and acting like that’s good because “Everybody’s doing it” I’ll keep seeing at the craziness it is and laughing form my poly marriage at the monogamous silly’s who haven’t questioned why they want what they want or why Monogamy or monogamous relationships are even “Wantable” Hint they my not be. You likely want that only because “its how we always did it.” which is just another version of “Everybody’s doing it.” which is just bad think repeated till you don’t even know why its done.
It’s a head trip to think that a. most people either do monogamy or say they do and b. heaps and heaps of people, having said that, do what can only be called cheating because they have bought into monogamy!
If people didn’t buy into it, they wouldn’t be cheating!
I don’t think, even if you think they are incorrect on the facts, that it’s fair to characterize someone who believes they have observed less severe in aggregate responses to situations they consider equivalent involving heterosexual couples that way.
To be uncharacteristically inflammatory, I’ll say it’s 100% of them. It’s not my real opinion, but I’ll also say they’d universally and unconditionally be fine with it if the Relationship Impurities™ were happening with a straight couple.
From this point on, i believe the proper response is, “Taffy, go fuck yourself.” You’re clearly nothing more than a troll, launching accusations that have no basis in reality. I see no reason to treat you with one iota more respect than you are treating everyone else, so seriously, go fuck yourself.
No, Taffy is not “a troll” (noun). You can tell that by reading thru Taffy’s many many comments. It is possible that this one comment is, as it specifically states, trolling (verb).
But.
There is a *massive* difference between a piece of behaviour, and what a person *is*.
And it is in the category of abusive to a. tell somebody that they are a/n …(noun) and b. to tell them to …. (abusive verb).
You, Freemage, are being abusive to Taffy, in this comment.
Okay, how about “throwing away character development and a relationship the readers have gotten invested in as it’s naturally built over a real-time decade”? Or is that also phobic somehow?
It is certainly an opinion, and one you (Needfuldoer) are entitled to have and express. But it is your personal opinion. Others may not think anything has been ‘thrown away’ by the author. It is not phobic. Merely your personal opinion (if it is).
This is just plain not true, people have been upset about past cheating too. They’ve also been upset about potential cheating — Walky and Dorothy, before it was 100% clear tbat Lucy and Walky had broken up, and Asher and Ethan before it was 100% clear that Asher and Jennifer had broken up.
I do think this is getting a bigger reaction, but it’s also breaking up a relationship people were much more positive about (Lucy/Walky had its fans, but it was divisive, and I think most people were neutral at best about Jennifer/Asher)… and also the cheating pair is Dorothy/Joyce, and a significant segment of the readership has always been upset by the idea of them getting together, long before any potential cheating entered into it.
Yes, some of the comments have contained thinly veiled queerphobia. No, it’s not true that past incidents of cheating were totally ignored, nor is it true that everyone who’s upset is just upset because they hate queer women.
The weirdo who treated bi girls like a porn category doesn’t speak for all the naysayers.
Wouldn’t that be a twist of the knife to the relationship paladins.
Joyce: Joe. Walky. We’ve got something to tell you.
Dorothy: We… kissed. Joyce and I. Kissed.
*Joe looks at Walky, who pulls out a $20 and hands it to Joe.*
Joyce: “So, Joe… can we be in one of those polycule things?”
*Joe looks momentarily crestfallen – and then hads the $20 back to Walky*
Joe: “Weren’t we already?”
I still hate the idea that slapping the poly label would just magically solve everything. It doesn’t, and it doesn’t absolve them both of thinking they were cheating and not caring.
Exactly. “Just be poly” is not the magic bandaid you slap on after the fact that makes what they did okay.
Not to mention that Joe’s whole thing has been about how weird it is for him to be in a relationship, and how scared he is to fuck it up, and how committed he is to being monogamous.
@Nono and Jon
My dudes. Y’all need to work on your reading comprehension. Look at the first post in the thread. Read it. Absorb it. Now read mine in context.
A magical thing will occur where everything you said is moot and irrelevant because the poly is not being “slapped on” but was the starting premise.
To be pedantic: the above post by the goddess of the kuo-toa began with “Cut to:”, which is a common introduction for a joke involving, as https://screenplayhowto.com/screenplay-blog/when-to-use-cut-to-and-when-not-to/ puts it, “some sort of disparity between what was conveyed in the previous scene with what’s happening in the current scene”.
Admittedly, that’s not a guarantee that it was a joke, but immediately assuming bad intentions often tends to make social interaction less pleasant. Besides, there’re better things to spend your anger on.
Ah! There we go.
Thank you, delverything, for actually reading the OP instead of having a tantrum.
And yes, others, what Blibdoolpoolp speculated was a comedic scenario where our expectations would be upended by Willis, upon which I wrote a hypothetical description of what said comic might contain.
Nowhere did we suggest that this is what should or would happen.
Nowhere did we suggest to apply this after the fact.
Nowhere, in fact, did we argue at all. Even my responses have been entirely focused upon getting the all the pissy people to pay the least bit of attention to what they were actually replying to.
I swear, the reading comprehension around here is really terrible at times.
My comment was not directed at you, more at all the many, many, many discussions I’ve seen recently where commenters have proposed “they should all be poly, that would fix this situation”.
Threads diverge. Not every reply has to be directed squarely at all the posts above it.
Okay, so today’s just gonna be a day where people get pissy and act like it’s unreasonable to think they’re talking about the same thing as other people in the thread when they’re talking about the same thing in the thread.
You’re free to read my response as pissy but I wasn’t (though I am now, thanks for that): I was explaining my comment. Threads on this site meander and straight-up change topics all the time, it’s incredibly common.
Webcomic from the Keenspot days (about 20ish-25ish years ago) about the adventures of a science fiction fan club. There was an interdimensional-portal crossover with It’s Walky! once. If I remember correctly it had the interesting twist of *reversing* the usual “first they fight, then they team up against a common enemy” cliche. As soon as they meet, they realize they’re on the same side and team up, but later they argue over differences in strategy and turn against each other.
Anyway, there was an ongoing love triangle between three of the main characters of Fans! throughout the run of the comic, and I *think* I remember it being resolved by a “hey wait, what if we just form a poly triad” epiphany towards the end.
I’m not sure that slapping the poly label on would fix anything, but if the chain poly label stuck, it would be a workable solution with minimal pain. It would require maturity, good communication, and caring for other people more than you care for yourself. So let’s face it; it’s not going to happen. But I still feel like it’s worth the four of them discussing.
I can enjoy the joke of the idea but I really don’t like people who legitimately think that this can just painlessly be added to the relationship. It feels very much like people believing unhealthy myths about what polyamory means.
Joyce: do you know what would be funny? You both starting to date.
* Joe looks again to Walky *
Walky: It’s not a good time, right now, you know?
Joe: What are you talking about? Fifty.
Walky: Ok *handles the money* but I didn’t said NO. I said NOT on front of them.
* Joyce looks to Dorothy, that handles 50$ to her *
Out in the hall (since the door is open, because they’re all always leaving the door open), a half-dozen dorm hall residents are grumblingly handing money to each other.
You might wanna flip back a few comics to the one where Joyce and Dorothy kissed to a backdrop of pink shoujo-ai teargas. There ain’t nothing “zero drama” about any of this, even if the resolution is the payoff for a brick joke instead of tears.
Cause, it could easily be both. Drop a joke and then get serious. That is, you know, exactly Willis’s style.
you’re telling me that’s the drama that “sickos” are wanting is Joyce and Dorothy wandering into a protest and then smooth sailing relationshipwise. Don’t bother twisting yourself into a pretzel, I don’t care.
No. I’m telling you that drama has happened, is happening, and will continue to happen. My example of a possible punchline to this above would in no way negate drama.
Also lots of people (like me) picked sickos because the only other poll option was “gets all bent out of shape over characters making poor choices and yells at other people for not meeting their exact level of distress on the subject”. No one was signing up for “must always and forever want the most dramatic thing to happen”, and it’s silly to act like there’s any inconsistency in such a loosely aligned group wanting different things.
Now, if a self-described relationship paladin was suddenly okay with a different couple cheating or whatever, just because they ship that couple…….
Well that would be called “being a shipper”. And it would be completely fine, people can change their opinions actually when asked different questions.
(In this instance I think the part that would make it a “sicko” option to like the idea of an instantaneous resolution with no drama would be the anticipated comment section explosion. But I’d be out there, I might enjoy the schadenfreude for like a moment, but I don’t, actually, want real people to be that upset.)
sickos/paladins poll needs to be redone, since it is unclear which one meant: “prefers the relationships to work out smoothly with no instances of people fucking up and hurting each other”
I think it’d be fun, and that’s what I’m pulling for. However, it would only be fun for like a couple days and then kind of fizzle out for me, so I ultimately prefer the more drama version for more sustained fun.
I’m imagining an alternate timeline where Billie didn’t crash the car and consequently the commentariat has an eternal debate about whether driving drunk is morally wrong.
The fact that they have talked about the “lessatorium” doesn’t inspire confidence. Feels like the move when you’re trying to cover something up.
Basically the only way either of them is gonna ever stay sympathetic to me is if they both go talk to their partners right the hell now. But all this talk is making me increasingly worried they’re not gonna do that.
Which is fine, I’m not in charge or anything. Still just reeling from this shift and how gleeful they *still* are about the whole thing. Clearly it’s not just a fit of passion.
God, I hope we don’t get an honest-to-goodness affair plotline.
I based my interpretation on the fact that the lesbian pun is a joke, while it meaning “less” is… not? And this being a comic that has jokes, the joke option is more likely, particularly given that it was positioned as the punch line of yesterday’s comic – which is, typically, a joke.
But that is the beauty of art. You are free to interpret it differently, and if you would prefer a meaning that is not funny and instead upsets you, then you do you.
I don’t think people are upset by the “less” version of the pun? But also, I see that as the interpretation that makes it actually a joke. The “lesbian” pun just… isn’t there. Like, if “les” had been (well, one, what was said, and then) used to replace “straight” or “hetero” or a word that almost sounded like “les,” then I could see it, but as it is, I would consider to be an extremely poorly crafted joke for that to be the intended meaning.
ok this is really bothering me lmfao, the joke was obviously that they need to do LESS (less-atorium) of what they’re doing rather than doing anything MORE (mor-atorium). a big clue to this is that dorothy kept saying “no MORE [activity]”. this has nothing to do with anyone’s feelings on what’s happening in the comic, you’re straight up just missing the intended wordplay here. imho, your interpretation would be a completely random and arbitrary portmanteau (not even a pun, which requires some kind of association between the two words) and not a joke at all???????
and ftr, all jon was saying was that that particular joke could potentially imply them hiding things, which is understandable. but the joke doesn’t Require that to still be the joke that it obviously was.
The point of puns is that they’re dumb and not really funny, so much so that it loops back around to being funny. It’s just lessatorium bc dot was saying all the things they need to do less of
Nope. I did not ‘realise’ is was about lesbians, as a joke between 2 newly discovering they are bi people. I read it in the comments section that it could *also* be read as les-atorium (even tho stopping would not be a les-atorium, whereas it would be a less-atrorium), and thought oh yeah, wonder if Willis was aware of both interpretations.
So, no, I don’t think people need to be told that they should ‘realise’ it was about lesbians and *not* about less/more.
My money’s on Joe being upset about it but wants to try and work things out because he really likes Joyce. Polycule is floated as a solution… but predictions of who broaches the topic and whether Joe goes along with it are murkier. For the sake of a hypothetical betting pool I’m gonna say Joyce brings up that she wants to kiss Dorothy, Joe provides the language and agrees to try it out.
Walky… I’m calling not surprise but disappointment, feeling justifiably disrespected, and breaking things off with Dorothy. Ooh, maybe Amber breaks the news to him before Dorothy can find a way to bring it up. That would be some top shelf drama. Yeah, I’m gonna go with that.
I predict that Joe will be the one to break it off (after thinking about it and trying to reconcile it but not being okay with it.
I think Walky is gonna say “Fuckin’ FINALLY” and release Dorothy into Joyce’s loving care, because so far I have consistently gotten the vibe that he’s only back together with Dorothy out of inertia, convenience, and a nascent awareness that Dorothy is currently Not Okay and he needs to be helping her cope.
Walky is the only one of the four involved here to propose polamory to someone he was dating at the time. Yes, he did so as a joke. Walky is known for framing things he’s actually serious about as jokes.
I’m not seeing Amber spilling the beans to Walky. The beauty of her plan was that Walky would wind up back in her lap without her having to do anything that would leave her culpable. Only Booster and Amazigirl would know.
Walky has long ago referred to Joyce as his girlfriend’s girlfriend. Amber’s plan might not be as effective as she thinks. The issue is Joe and Joyce. The chemistry between Joe and Joyce has been building almost as long as between Joyce and Dorothy. Joyce acted briefly on her attraction to Dorothy before going on her date with Joe. What that means, I don’t know.
Not to be inflammatory, but generally we call those people “fools.”
This is a comic, so not beholden to real life rules, but I’ve yet to meet a person where the “if they cheated for you, they’ll cheat on you” rule hasn’t held true or the “if they cheated once, they’ll cheat again” rule hasn’t been true. Like, the last dude that cheated on me went on to marry that lady, and he still cheated on her with me (he told me that he changed his mind, I believed him, spent the whole weekend hiding so nobody in town would see me. Like I said, people who give cheaters second chances are fools, myself included.)
Circumstances matter. Girl cheated on me back in college. Had sex with her manipulative ex. We stayed together for another 4 years or so – she didn’t do anything like that again. Still friends with her decades later and as sure as any one from outside can be that she still hasn’t done anything like it.
But your [Kyulen] whole proposition depends on the definition of ‘cheating’. Other people’s definitions might not match yours. Indeed, if the comments some have made are to be believed (and why should they not be?), there are indeed definitions that don’t match yours…
One of the key problems is that they have to go back through a crowded and busy campus, just to find their phones, which are being guarded by their respective room mates, who will have Questions, before they even get a chance to text “Hey, we need to talk” to their boyfriends.
I’m not sure we can trust that they will stay on target under those conditions.
Assuming that there isn’t a ticking time bomb of a photo, news story, or Mary blabbing because she could see the big damn kiss from where she was standing in the counter protest waiting to blow while they deal with room mates and any other obsticals preventing them from reaching Joe and Walky before it goes off.
Don’t forget who’s the editor of the campus newspaper. Personally, though, I’m expecting a photo that depicts Joyce and Dorothy kissing AND Amazi-Girl beating up cops, to satify both of Daisy’s priorities.
My thought is that she might have cared, at some point, but if so, she’s been waiting so long for them to figure it out that her feeling now is more like “took ya long enough”.
Sal isn’t much bothered by the relationships comin’ and goin’. When she and Danny were just starting, and she thought she saw him in bed with Joe, she was smirking, not upset. Was a bit surprised when she saw ‘Danny’ was Joyce. She’s apparently not much of a relationship paladin or sicko.
My guess is option 2. Like Lucy was in her face bragging about their relationship a week ago and now he’s with Dorothy? That’s not including the whole fake dating Amber to piss off their parents thing, she might not even know what was up with that. Walky’s love life is not worth the effort to keep track of.
All we know Sal saw was Dorothy and Joyce hugging. That is par for the course for them. That is the joke last panel, they both always acting gay with each other, this is not anything unusual.
I think it’s the case that Sal is going to avoid the drama. She, like Billie, probably does care to some extent of Walky’s wellbeing, but probably figure it’ll sort itself out.
I don’t think it’s “doesn’t care about Walky at all.” I think it’s she’s not his protector, his relationship messes are his to experience and learn (or not) from. The dinner with their parents was eight days ago. Sal defended Lucy and then Walky showed up with Amber and made a mess of dinner.
Depends on how often Walky’s joked about wanting to try polyamory, honestly. He did it twice with Lucy, he might have also said something to Sal. Just because she’d be wrong to assume he knows and is okay with this doesn’t mean it’s totally illogical if she assumed it.
I know it won’t sound fair, but I’m not so worried about them, cheating their partners.
Maybe because I live in latin america, where monogamy is taking so much seriously. It’s a base of own culture, from sings to series, soap opera, movies, where is expected, in a couple, to control each other.
I know, and I lived stories about people that gaslight their partners, or started to control who they will talk, etc. All the red flag package we all know.
Not counting the classic, when things het out control: women that destroy properties from their guys, because they only suspected from cheating. Guys hitting their girls, or worse, because they talked to some friend.
In marriage, or only dating. Or even someone having a crush, and they don’t returns the feelings, the list goes on…
It tires me. Everything at my sight is all about control.
I don’t know if I could explain one of reason I don’t care so much about the history going for a cheating plot. Maybe I’m wrong, but I don’t have energy to get mad about it.
Man, my side of latinamerica seems much tamer than yours (Chile). Like, of course gender violence and controlling people happens. But, well, one is a crime, and the other usually is reserved for the most psycho. I doubt it’s much more of a thing than it is elsewhere.
…and Asma knows. Plus a few other folks at the protest. Plus, likely Leslie and Robin. Plus any media who may have been capturing “iconic moments” in photo and video of the protest. Plus those medias’ viewers and readers. Plus maybe Joyce’s dad…
…Yeah, that horse has DEFINITIVELY left the barn.
That cat was never IN the bag, to begin with!
Asma: Every time you call me “Front Desk Girl” from now on I’m going to call you “Girl Who Wanted Her Sister To See Her Make Out” and “That Girl’s Sad Nebbishy Blonde Sub.”
Carla’s parents are incredibly more evil than Joyce and Dorothy, yeah. They’re literally giving weapons to genocidaires. Dorothy and Joyce are kissing a bit.
Yeah, pretty much anyone who was at the protest may have seen them kissing. And if someone took pictures or videos of them at the protest then anyone who sees that will know. Though I assume a lot of other people at the protest were more concerned with their own safety than what Joyce and Dorothy were doing.
Could the cat who was not in the bag have opened the barn door for the horse to leave? (Image of a detective in front of a board with red thread between pins)
I feel like Joe has been expecting this for some time, and that may have spurred his conversation with Dorothy – partly because he feels he doesn’t deserve Joyce, but also partly because he dimly sensed the tension and didn’t want to be the reason it didn’t happen.
Whether he did that CONSCIOUSLY, and how well he’s going to take it, is an open question. People do dumb things and push people away when they feel self-loathing, and then react badly when consequences fall in their lap anyway.
Yes, the guy who has extreme baggage regarding his parents’ divorce and disgust at his father’s infidelity is sure to react normally to his girlfriend potentially cheating on him.
That is totally a thing that will definitely happen.
For the record, I think he’d give Joyce and Dorothy a pass for everything that’s happened so far, high spirits and all that, sudden bi awareness, might not be happy about it but I think he’ll understand.
But that depends on what follows, on what Joyce and Dorothy expect the new normal to be. Because I have a feeling he’s not prepared for or interested in polyamory.
This seems to imply the sheer power of yuri naturally pushes one towards shouting from the rooftops. I love it. To paraphrase the same quote I did two days ago… I FEEL THE WARP SAPPHO OVERTAKING ME! IT IS A GOOD PAIN!
I’m assuming Joe and Walky probably won’t be surprised when Joyce and Dorothy finally get around to telling them, but I’m not gonna assume they’ll somehow magically be happy that their girlfriends decided to cheat on them with each other.
I kinda wonder if Wally might surprise us and actually take it worse just because he puts Dorothy up on such a high pedestal. I think Joe will be hurt but push his feelings aside for Joyce
I think it’ll be the opposite. Look back at Walky’s interactions with Dorothy since they got back together: he really doesn’t seem that invested in it. Weirdly it feels like he’s dating Dorothy more as a favor to her because he knows she needs to feel safe and wanted right now.
Compared to first-relationship Walky, who was desperately falling over himself to keep her toward the end, I think he’s a lot more likely to say “that sucks but whatever.”
Joe, meanwhile, is going to be heartbroken. That scene with Rachel in the gym was pre-twisting the knife.
I read it as depression coming from low self-esteem, because he actually genuinely cares for Dorothy, perhaps even to the point of love, and wants a serious relationship – but does not think he is worthy, or that any of the world takes him seriously. This will be the proof that she doesn’t love him or take him seriously, so he might be expecting it – but instead of shrugging it off it could be devastating for whatever shreds of self-esteem he has left and cause a major breakdown.
I’m thinking similarly. The way most people on here are discounting Walky’s feelings on his relationship confirm to me that he comes across as having a very low sense of self-worth. I think he consideres Dorothy to be above him, and this will only prove that to be the case.
I still read it as the opposite. Wally’s rebounding from Lucy and won’t turn down companionship with someone he cares about, but remember how desperate Dorothy was to be dating him again a week ago? And he turned her down cold because of Lucy.
I still think the power dynamic has shifted there, and Walky isn’t the one who “needs” their relationship the most.
Neither Joe nor Walky will, at the very least, be blindsided by it. Joe already knows about Dorothy’s interest in Joyce, based on his conversation with her. And Walky kind of suspects Dorothy’s interest in Joyce, considering how much Dorothy kept talking about Joyce while she and Walky were in bed. And Walky has already been showing signs that he knows this second go round with Dorothy wasn’t meant to last almost from the start. Even so, yeah, that doesn’t mean either of them will be (or should/must be) okay with it, but it won’t be a complete shock to either of them.
I just noticed there’s an upcoming chapter called “Fool’s Spring”, which sounds like a Groundhog Day reference, but it’s lined up for February 1st. Unless there’s a one day timeskip. It would be the first timeskip since the big one.
Probably already finished it. It’s book 16, chapter 3 and they already have chapter 4’s name up. I don’t see the chapter announcements from blue sky, I’m only on tumblr and mastadon.
“Fool’s Spring” is an existing term in gardening circles. It refers to a warm period in late winter that tricks inexperienced gardeners into planting early, only to have a later cold snap kill their seedlings. In this case, It may be a metaphor…
Honestly, and I’m sure not that many people care, but I feel like I might stop reading comments altogether soon.
It’s not even the sickos camp (I don’t have anything against people who enjoy this storyline; it’s not the first time a storyline hasn’t clicked with me and it won’t be the last).
It’s the… weird way some people have been gleeful against them? I’ve seen everything from ‘man would this be an extra twist of the knife to the paladins’ to ‘lol if you’re upset at this you don’t know what genre you’re walking into’. Almost like it’s wrong that people can be upset at the issues raised here.
Let me repeat, I have nothing against people enjoying the current storyline. It’s not my cup of tea, but I can deal with that. But I’m not enjoying the comments sections lately, and I’d rather not let that turn me off the strip as a whole (though I’ll be honest, the latest storyline really hasn’t helped).
Being fair the same things has come from the other camp as well, making anyone who does enjoy the storyline to be weird and pro cheating in real life and the like and so people get exhausted with it and become hostile.
Honestly i think we could use some time away from the comments from time to time especially when it gets contentious like this, just to calm the reactionary emotions snd put things in perspective.
it is such a weird leap of logic to say you support cheating IRL if you’re enjoying this storyline… like I’m personally not, and it’s not the cheating, it’s the getting invested into something for /years/ for it to fall apart in no time makes me not really want to get invested in much of anything. But Im not going to say people are morally bankrupt for being into it. I am sincerely glad for people who have been dying for this to happen, I am simply not one of them. Be kind to each other indeed.
I am fine with people enjoying the storyline. I am not a fan of when people start excusing or diminishing the cheating because they are enjoying the storyline/they ship Joyce+Dorothy.
Are we framing this as Joyce and Dorothy screwing up and making bad decisions for which they will later face the consequences and grow as young adults? I hope so but I have yet to see it.
You have yet to see it because it’s not done yet. I mean, it might not but is there any reason to think Willis won’t use this to pull the drama cord (like a ripcord but it releases drama instead of a parachute) and deliver consequences?
Right now this looks like another example of something I’ve been talking about for a couple days now. Making up your own ending to this and then getting mad as if Willis already wrote it.
Except that I already have seen people excusing the infidelity. “It’s fine as long as Joe decides retroactively he’s okay with polyamory” or “It’s just kissing”.
With regards to how this arc will conclude, I didn’t say Willis won’t have them face real repercussions. I hope they do.
I don’t appreciate your comment because it seems to be responding to stuff I didn’t say.
What you are saying is “I’m obviously not in favor of witch hunts, but it needs to be acknowledged that there are witches among us, true brides of Satan, who are working their devilish arts upon the innocent. And something should be done about them.”
I don’t want to stop reading the comments, but I’ve noticed the same. Some of y’all in the sickos camp seems to be really going out of your way to be nasty towards those of us in the relationship paladins. At least that’s how it appears to me.
I think what you’re seeing is a lot of sarcastic backlash against Paladin-camp peeps who are getting on a very high horse and making statements like “if you understand this you’re a bad person” or “they just want to slap the poly label on everything and call it fixed” or other nasty blanket statements that have been the order of the last two weeks.
Maybe people shouldn’t be justifying it at all? It doesn’t really matter why people are trying to justify Joyce and Dorothy’s behavior, it is still ultimately trying to justify cheating.
People can enjoy the drama without infidelity apologism.
So if people don’t try to justify or excuse the cheating then there wouldn’t be any overgeneralizations about why people are trying to excuse the cheating.
“There wouldn’t be any overgeneralizing [if you SCUM would just FALL IN LINE]”
This. This, exactly, right here. This is why there’s a lot of nasty sarcastic backlash, Kyle’s. It’s this kind of deeply uncomradely, concern trolling shit.
“If you’re not trying to justify cheating, then it doesn’t apply to you.”
My sibling in Manwë. Are you familiar with the phrases “If you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear.” and “It obviously wouldn’t apply to you, you’re one of the good ones.”
Do you think that people who say this are good? Do you think they are ever justified?
I’m not the one who needs to reflect on my behavior.
Like I’m sure you’re gonna spout Godwin’s Law at me and act all aggrieved but I’m not the one who’s publicly saying things that actual fascists say to win my internet argument.
Like, holy shit, Constable, no one is doing “infidelity apologism”. They are reading a fucking comic, which is something you should be able to do without performing acts of contrition!
I like Magneto. I have said “Magneto is right” many times and cheered for him compressing Orchis goons into a ball of metal. Am I a terrorism apologist, for this??? Am I doing excuses for murderers????
I think “In the Pale Moonlight” is a great DS9 episode. I love that Sisko goes that far. Am I an assassination apologist, to you?!?
“Magneto is right” is a position I have fewer issues with because Magneto was basically the head of a resistance group for a persecuted minority. By itself I would see it as saying we need to understand Magneto in the context of broader discrimination.
If someone got super serious saying “Magneto was totally right to kill people. I hope he kills a lot more people in the next comic. And screw those people who think he is bad for killing people” Then I would give them a heck of a side-eye.
Are you comfortable being the arbiter of where the line is on that??? Are you that eager to deal out death and judgement, as Gandalf put it??? Because you shouldn’t be.
It’s a thousand times creepier than any villain fan who’s excited to see the blood and gore and murder to be the guy who turns to his cop friend and sneers, “people like that should be locked up.”
Can’t reply to your comment because it is too far in.
“Are you comfortable being the arbiter of where the line is on that???”
What sort of power do you think I have? I am pretty darn comfortable being the arbiter of my own opinion and saying it.
And I am not saying people should be locked up. I am saying “Cheating is bad. We shouldn’t say cheating is okay”.
That is it.
So, to recap, if you say “Cheating is okay!” you will have to deal with (horror of horrors) … some random people on the internet telling you that you’re wrong.
I hope you can somehow recover from this grievous blow.
I’ve been trying to illustrate to you that the kind of rhetoric you deploy is toxic and when it’s used outside our little walled fandom garden on other issues it has real consequences but like, you deliberately do not want to engage with that and I’m tired of talking to you, so I’m going to stop.
I will leave you with this: if you’re going to sit here and be the “random person on the internet telling [Infidelity Apologists] they’re wrong”, and that they are bad people, great, hoss.
But maybe next time don’t join a hand-wringing chorus about how mean people are to you???? Because if you’re going to sit there going “wrong, wrong, wrong and bad”, you can expect the people who just want to read their infidelity fiction in peace to get sarcastic and mean at you. You’re disturbing their peace and sitting in judgement of them. It’s shitty and rude. What did you think was going to happen, do you think they’re required to sit quietly and tolerate being yelled at all damn day?
I think there are at least legitimate potential arguments that A) previous incidents did not cross the line and B) a single incident in the heat of the moment that does cross the line nevertheless does not become “cheating” unless it is covered up and continued rather than immediately disclosing and either seeking permission or breaking up.
The current kissing in front of the dorm maybe stretches the definition of ‘single incident’ but they are on the same adrenaline high and still have not yet had an opportunity to disclose.
Friend, you haven’t been giving people the benefit of the doubt. That isn’t how you have been engaging with the comment section.
“i just think you all annoying as fuck”
“Unrespectfully disagree.”
Someone comments about how they dislike the cheating and you reply “Well too bad because i do and i am pretty damn happy so i guess you gotta have to doe mad about it 😜”
Like, you do you. You can enjoy the comic, but don’t get mad when people don’t like Joyce because she is cheating. And don’t pretend you have been giving people the benefit of the doubt when you actively seek out and mock the people who dislike the cheating.
I was talking about you specifically right now, what i say in those other occasions is irrelevant. I wanted to give benefit of the doubt to your original reply to me that you were coming from a place of good faith so i choose not to reply back snd get into an discussion, but then you said all that weird shit that sajuk already pointed out and that went out of the window.
Prrrrooooobably too late to de-escalate this conversation but, here’s an attempt to reply to this without attacking you or anyone else:
Maybe people shouldn’t be justifying it at all? It doesn’t really matter why people are trying to justify Joyce and Dorothy’s behavior, it is still ultimately trying to justify cheating.
People can enjoy the drama without infidelity apologism.
With rare exceptions, I think you’re conflating two very different things that are happening.
Some folks are speculating on possible reasons for Joyce and Dorothy’s behavior, such as guessing that maybe Joyce had an off-screen conversation with Joe. This isn’t really “justifying” anything, it’s making predictions and guesses, based on what seem to be Joyce’s existing character traits and the prior conversations she’s had with Joe.
Some folks are saying “this is fine”, but couching it specifically in fictional terms, as in “it’s fine to enjoy a story about cheating”. This also isn’t really justifying cheating or apologism for infidelity. It’s just drawing a distinction between what’s okay to like slash “support” in fiction and what’s okay to like or support in the real world.
Some folks are just straight-up talking about their own lives and their own relationships, where this wouldn’t be cheating, because they’ve negotiated different boundaries with their real-life partners. I think that’s a natural digression from these strips, and sometimes it’s even invited, as other readers have asked, “Is this cheating to you?”
I think most of this group would still agree that by Joyce’s OWN definitions, not only this but going to “do laundry” with Dorothy again would both be cheating — but, having been asked whether they personally would consider it cheating if it happened to them, “no” is a reasonable answer for some folks.
(There’s also a segment that is misremembering certain prior events and conversations, and arguing that Joyce and Dorothy either aren’t in relationships at all or aren’t in monogamous relationships… but misremembering stuff happens, it’s not necessarily a lie they’re telling to “justify” anything.)
Finally: some folks are just saying “yes cheating is fine, more cheating for the blood god”, but they are trolling.
If anyone’s seriously tried to justify infidelity, I don’t think I’ve seen it? The closest I’ve seen is some people saying, “I was cheated on, it didn’t ruin my life,” or “this relationship has been going on less than a week and they’re all 18,” which… I can see how that might be read as justifying cheating? But I think it’s more an attempt to offer counter-perspectives, since some other readers have said, “I’ve been cheated on, and it destroyed me,” as well as comparing Joe and Joyce’s relationship directly to a marriage.
Emotions are clearly running high for a lot of us.
Really good analysis. Esp as to why people really don’t need to get in a state about differing opinions.
As to the penultimate paragraph, this may just be pedantic word defining, but I think a few people have said infidelity is OK, because basically, they have said there is no cheating or infidelity, it is all a product of buying into the assumption that there things exist.
I have also said it does depend on where the line is drawn. Is it cheating to discover you and someone else have a mutual attraction but don’t kiss or hold hands? If not, at what point does it become cheating?
But yeah. We are a huge number of different people. We have different personal opinions over something that is not subject to verifiable fact. Joyce thought masturbation was cheating, Joe did not. Different opinions. Personal opinions are not right or wrong! Especially where they concern such intangibles as morality. Not right or wrong, just different. Accommodate the diversity people!
I think there are certainly some folks arguing now that, essentially, cheating is a social construct. I still don’t think they’re really doing infidelity apologism, because to me, that would take one of a couple of forms:
“It’s fine for me to cheat, other people’s feelings don’t matter.”
“Cheating is good for your relationship, it spices things up!”
“I cheated on my monogamous partner, and it helped them to see that they were actually always poly!”
…or something like that?
“I don’t personally believe in cheating, and I worry about monogamous people because that seems so restrictive and unhealthy” isn’t infidelity apologism. It’s… maybe a little rude. (I don’t think it’s even AS rude as things I’ve seen my fellow monogamous people say about polyamory, and we’re the ones with the systemic power here: poly marriages are illegal in most of the world.)
So there’s my pedantic answer to your pedantic point, heh.
But also I agree: I think it’s interesting how people draw different boundaries on what cheating is and where the lines get crossed, if at all.
Unfortunately I think a lot of the discussion has been tainted by a sense of prescriptivism, and maybe bad memories of past partners that tried to talk some commenters into accepting definitions of cheating that they didn’t end up being comfortable with?
That lovely old chestnut that’s been repeated over and over and over
Also. Like. Hot take, but even the polite responses have been said OVER AND OVER AGAIN????
Fucking, yes. I get it. You do not like this plotline because it involves cheating. You have now said this for three or five days. In a row. You have now gone “I must imagine a wrathful Joe, rising above the horizon like Morgoth clad with the Silmarils, become an enemy of all life”, three or five days. In a row. We get it!!
Okay but like, why isn’t Joe rising above the horizon in wrath? Just in general, not even because his girlfriend is making out with someone else without at least his knowledge.
Yeah… while they’ve been in the minority, it does chafe a little when I read someone say “no one’s being queerphobic about this!!!” …because some people definitely are, and not even just “maybe there’s a subconscious bias that’s going unexamined”, but out and proud gross, queerphobic comments.
I see a lot of it the other way, and that’s probably because I’m on the other side. We’re more likely to register and react to the people coming after us than notice what our own side is doing.
(Fandom story time: in the Avatar: The Last Airbender fandom, the shipping wars were, of course, intense. Lots of Kataangers would say Zutarians were awful about it, and Zutarians would say Kataangers were. I saw more complaints from Kataangers about how Zutarians were, but when I was 12 and uploaded a Zutara fanvid on YouTube– I didn’t even particularly care about the shipping war at that point, I just though the song worked better for Zutara– I got death threats from a couple rabid Kataangers. It pushed me to ship Zutara, though I’m sure there were Zutara shippers who would do the same. And that’s a small minority of either side who’d go that far, but it can really be a lot.)
There’s no camp, there’s no factions, there’s no “y’all”, there’s no “us”. Imaginary fucking lines hallucinated out of thin air because one person made a quip weeks ago.
I get what you mean but the camps are real even if the labels are a joke – people who are personally affronted by the storyline, and people who are enjoying the storyline for whatever reason. That’s a very real line splitting the groups, and I can see why there’s a lot of frustration about it.
It’s completely unsurprising to me that people who are so personally invested in the events of this comic that they now hate the comic/characters for kissing one another while still in relationships, would also feel extremely attacked by people laughing at their anguish. And yeah, it goes the other way around, some people aren’t taking this super seriously and are kind of enjoying the battle as well as the storyline, and are poking at people who are clearly raw or very sensitive about the matter – it’s emblematic of the level of investment and the attitudes surrounding it.
Thus decrees the Lord High Poobah of the Dumbing of Age comment section. Your (good) point is (apparently) invalid now, eskimolos. Might as well just give up. *eye roll*
And some people who are enjoying the storyline even if they don’t like what some of the characters are doing, who still get caught in the backlash anyway.
Indeed! Just a bunch of different people, with different personal opinions on all sorts of different things, when opinion x on one thing does not correlate with opinion y on another thing.
Even the camp in Dunn Meadow was only about one thing.
What’s getting me is more that the longer this stays consequences-free, the more a lot of self-proclaimed “sickos” have their claim that they’re only here for the messy drama proven false.
Which, sure, if you’re here for two ladies smooching, go for it. But the longer we don’t see a blowup, the more “I’m a trash goblin who craves mess” is proven false.
To get into the weeds as I always do,
When it comes to “what does Rogue 7 want”, in day-to-day situations I’m almost always in favor of characters making good decisions. I realize that’s folly in a comic called “Dumbing of Age” but nevertheless I prefer it when characters use their brains. I’m a big fan of “competence porn” shows like Leverage or SpyXFamily, which still manage plenty of drama while letting their characters be smart. Just how my taste goes.
So here I’m a “relationship paladin” because having a conversation with your boyfriend before you smooch someone not your boyfriend is the smart thing to do. Doesn’t mean I think it will happen, but one can advocate for it the same way folks are advocating for a polycule.
It hasn’t been that long– it feels like it, but that’s because it’s om a day to day basis– but I still believe a blowup is coming, and I don’t see how anything about wanting drama has been proven false. I also think these strips have been part of the messy drama.
Except there’s at least a large faction seems to want Joe (and maybe Walky) to just be okay with it. Maybe jump straight into a poly thing or maybe just they expected it and step aside.
Now some people talking about poly are talking long game after a bunch of drama, but not everyone.
Sure, but are those the one that have been rooting for drama? Some people who have liked recent events have been pretty clearly in it for the ship since the beginning. Some (hi) are in the “I’m a trash goblin who craves mess” group. There are people who pull from both. I think jumping straight to everyone being okay with it would be boring, but also unlikely enough that I’m not bothered by serious or playful speculation about it happening.
Yeah, but people on both sides of the divide are reacting as much to the gestalt opinion of the other as to individual posts, much less actually tracking individual’s opinions over multiple days.
Which is then still worthy of critique , especially when it comes to things like this about claims people having made about their preferences being “proven false.”
I’ve literally always said I hope it works out in the end with happy polyamory. That’s not actually in any way inconsistent with wanting drama, or being anti-relationship paladin.
No it isn’t, just because the drama hasn’t happened yet doesn’t make the people saying the like the drama wrong? What kind of ridiculous logic is that??
The comments have definitely been kinda iffy lately. Like a couple weeks ago there was a comment thread about whether someone should go to therapy or not, I commented my experiences in therapy to help with mourning my mother’s death, and a commenter replied back with ‘sorry you don’t have any friends’ which was so out of pocket. The comment was reported and deleted and I haven’t seen that guy around but… yeah. There’s some rude people around here, man. Take care of yourself.
I meant to ask about that. Did you include that because “pipe” could sound like “pee-pee” if you’re doing an outrageously exaggerated accent? Also, I probably don’t even want to know how you got golden-mantled tree-kangaroo piss, but it’s at least impressive for that.
I find I usually only check the comments if something about the strip is bothering me and I want to see if it bothered anyone else. If you’re the same way, maybe while this storyline stays volatile it could be a good idea to assume someone else out there is bothered by it and shares your feelings, and just give the comments a miss.
On the plus side, you won’t have your reading comprehension questioned, and you won’t be called a homophobe for not liking a cheating plotline!
I appreciate your comment. I got into this comic circa 2017 and the person who introduced me to it said the comments section was one of the best on the Internet. I was probably seeing it through that lens, taking their word for it, but it seemed like a kind place at the time. But not too long after that I have started noticing the vindictiveness, self-righteousness, extreme factionalism, and other negative qualities of Internet/social media in these comments, and I often don’t participate or even read. Maybe I skim. Maybe I affirm someone who is bringing some nuance. But it’s mostly like the Internet everywhere. Don’t read the comments.
Which is a real bummer. Early in this comic’s run, the comments gave me a LOT of context I was sorely lacking. At the Jocelyne reveal back in family weekend, I devoured all of the discourse because it was my first exposure, EVER, to trans topics and ideas. Minus the trolls, it felt like genuinely healthy and collaborative discussion.
That’s deeply unfortunate, for me I see the regulars that make this comments section worth returning to, the community built up in the section, and yeah the established community is a bit hostile to people who come in and start throwing down about what one character or another are doing, because that doesn’t feel like mutual enjoyment and discussion – that feels like a declaration of hostility towards the comic and the people enjoying it. It becomes hard to have light-hearted back and forth and enjoyment of whatever is happening in the comic. For instance, I’m sure nobody “liked” amber and Becky’s dad’s kidnapping the group, killing mike, etc, but we “enjoyed” the storyline because it was interesting and it developed the cast and allowed them to go in new directions. So yeah, people are bringing their real, raw hangups likely due to personal trauma in their lives into the comments and using those to get extremely upset about the direction of the storyline, the characters, and even the commenters who are just enjoying the storyline developing, which will cause hostility and conflict in the comments, that’s how things go.
Hell, even I’ve been at a couple of people’s throats lately, and I’m one of the most lighthearted and whimsical regulars we’ve got. It’s currently a shitshow, and I think it started with the direct moral judgements of real people and ends when those stop without so much as a “But I-“.
Nah, it’s been a shitshow for a long time. There are definitely good parts to the comments, but the toxicity’s been there all along – whether it’s the people defending the outright villains like Mary or attacking Becky for her haircut. Or more recently the fighting over the Joyce and Becky atheist spat.
We’ve got the report button, and the worst comments first time people would have left never get through the first-time-commenter filter. Willis has stepped way back on moderating, understandably because kids etc, but they’re still here.
Compare with the comment section pretty much anywhere else! Without active mods, they tend to follow the Twitter model of quickly becoming Nazi bars.
It’s hard to say at this point! I got “into” webcomics in 2013 and learned about It’s Walky, but I didn’t encounter DoA until months later and I think it was an unrelated connection.
“Honestly, and I’m sure not that many people care, but I feel like I might stop reading comments altogether soon.”
I feel the same way. The comments suck, lately. And it’s not even the arguing about the actual events in the comic itself that’s bothersome. That’s fine. Great, even. It’s nice that people care enough about the characters and the story in this comic to feel so strongly about it, either way.
No, it’s all the snide little ad hominem digs at other commenters that makes it kind of a cesspit lately.
The more I read these threads, I’m not even going to say it’s “the sickos are…” or “the paladins are…”
Frankly, at this point there’s a handful of people (on both “sides”) who seem singularly dedicated to stirring the comment section pot while loudly proclaiming it’s the other side who are being the REAL jerks, and it’s distorting the whole thread.
That person’s awfulness kind of made my whole week, I’m going to be doing something else and just remember, “she tried to explain away linking to Discount Kiwifarms by claiming it came up in the search results for ‘DoA’, and then when it was pointed out that no, it would not, not unless you regularly click on a LOT of alt-right/neo nazi crap, her new excuse was that it came up in the search results on an old work computer“… and I will laugh.
How often do you get to see “no, dig UP, stupid!” in real life.
Yeah sometimes the comments are gross and you gotta step away. You do you man, check back with the plot simmers down or whatever. It’ll probably make you happier
The punchline here genuinely is funny. The timing is perfect, and the setup has been building for more than a decade. Understatement, and the obviousness of a situation that only the main character can’t see, sometimes is the way to go.
It’s interesting that you’d imply Joyce and Dorothy [violence-bassd statistic that’s been debunked for decades and only applied to a single (European) city to begin with]
Asma definitely knows, and you know, protest randos. Robin and Leslie were in the area and may have seen – frankly it was an extremely public make out. Don’t worry about who knows, just go talk to your boyfriends.
This reminds me in a way of a short relationship I was in, with an abusive, controlling guy who used me for my money. I was cashiering at work and there was always one customer who was very sweet to me, so I griped to her about how crap it was that I wasn’t allowed to text my friends and that he was always checking my phone to make sure I wasn’t chatting with anybody. I then notice that the next person in line is the mother of his best friend. When I get back to our place the mood is /icy/, the fear I felt that day was so strong, I can’t even remember fully what happened next – I know he yelled at me, but I don’t remember where I slept that night.
It’s just, investing so much into your idea of how something might go still doesn’t prepare you for how it reall will go.
Hey, I read this comment, and for what it’s worth from an internet stranger: I’m so sorry that happened to you. You didn’t deserve that. I hope you’re in a much better place now.
Hank might have seen live and in person. People keep speculating that he saw Joyce’s sister on the news. If anyone else has speculated he was there for the counter protest I’ve missed it, but that is a possibility.
Not to mention whoever took the image of Jocelyn that Hank saw, that he subsequently sent to Joyce for confirmation. I.e., the thing that got Joyce and Dorothy to go to the protest in the first place. Even if it was just some random news footage that he saw, it’s clear that images from the protest are reaching Hank’s (and probably others’) eyes somehow. I’m pretty sure a news crew would probably focus at least for a few seconds on two women making out in the middle of a tear gas attack (while another woman [Jocelyn] stood nearby, smiling encouragingly).
Not to mention the fact that said two women making out were directly helped to escape immediately afterward by the masked vigilante who was very visibly fighting cops just before. If none of that was on the news at all, I would be rather surprised.
Is it just me or does it sound like Joyce and Dorothy are intending to try to keep this a secret?
It makes sense for Joyce’s dad, but otherwise secrecy seems like it should be a second priority to talking to your partners. If they feel the need to lock down the information that seem’s like they are planning to just keep cheating rather than being honest.
If they do (try to) keep it a secret from everybody, then I hope both Joe and Walky, separately or together, have a Phone/computer monitor/TV running nearby with news footage playing on it of Joyce and Dorothy kissing, whenever they next see their erstwhile girlfriends.
We keep talking about how they need to go talk to their boyfriends and that’s true, but they need to talk to each other first, so they know what they want to do. (Maybe they did off panel on the way back from the protest, but we’ve seen no sign of it.)
Yeah, they haven’t been great at communicating things with each other either (which did make more room for yearning, so at least there’s that). Seems like they should have had time to talk about it in between the first kiss and now, but it doesn’t seem like they did. Could imagine one thinking they’re going to keep it secret, and then other confesses to her boyfriend.
I can see that– like, trying to keep it from getting back to their boyfriends before they tell them themselves makes sense, but I would expect the “telling them” to be happening very soon if they’re not trying to keep it a secret. I think it might be clearer tomorrow, if we get to whatever’s third in the plan.
I don’t think so. They’re still trying to sort it out themselves but are aware people already seem to know. I think they plan to immediately tell Joe and Walky, but they will end up meeting the rest of the cast first, one by one, all of whom will indicate their lack of surprise about the relationship.
I think if they planned on keeping it a secret, Dorothy’s reaction to “Sal knows!” would be more panicky.
I think instead she’s been trying to say “we need to stop this, this is cheating”. Whether she plans on ending things with Walky or asking him if he’s okay sharing her with Joyce, I definitely think she plans on telling him…
…but also neither of them are thinking clearly, so I could be reading way too much into her response to Sal, and maybe the plan is “let’s stop cheating and pretend nothing happened”, which would genuinely disappoint me in both of them, but my expectations were low.
(For the record: it would disappoint me because I think Joe and Walky deserve to know this happened, instead of being lied to by their partners.) (My least favorite route here would be a Season 3 of Butfy style “sneaking around” thing where Dorothy and Joyce keep cheating on their partners in secret.)
I suspect she may be thinking in “stop and pretend nothing happened” terms, which will be interesting because she’s obviously completely incapable of stopping.
She might! My alternate take on her desire to take stock of who already knows is more of a “general information gathering” sort of thing, for the girl who keeps spreadsheets both literal and mental on her friends? Take stock of who knows, and whether or not those people need to also be talked to, in addition to telling Joe and Walky…
…which would be more consistent with not being more alarmed that Sal is now on the list of people who knows, and not chasing after Sal to try to do damage control—
—but also, not thinking clearly, AND this is the punchline. The next comic could easily start with Dorothy and Joyce chasing after Sal.
It’s gotta be hard enough saving everyone, fighting the literal police, risking life and limb. But to do all that while *literally* having a chaos gremlin squee-ing in your ear the entire time, going, “Now kiss! Ha ha! Dance, puppets!!!”
And then to get back to your dorm, utterly exhausted, and crash at your desk, watching warily as you write page after page of fiction about real people you know, ending at sunrise with plotting how to subtly manipulate several other ships.
On the one hand – good for them. On the other I’m kinda sad because Joyce/Joe was good ship and I was cheering on them. I cannot emotionally feel (Dorothy and Joyce) do something wrong, but yeah, it’s cheating. Though I know one relationship where something like that happened (though it was heterosexual) and new pair is together for… 8 year now? So it could work.
It’s also possible to love multiple people at the time and polyrelastionship with Dorothy and Joe would be very (VERY) interessting thing for Joyce, but it would look like getting reward after doing something bad so…
Breaking up isn’t required and if they lead with that it pigeonholes Joe and Walky into feeling like it isn’t possible to continue things if they want. They should talk, but leading with breaking up is just stupid at this point given how clearly compatible the two of them are with their current partners.
Unless they (J+D) want to break up with their current partners. Which, I can see Dorothy wanting to break up with Walky (even though I think he’s good to her), but I don’t know that Joyce wants to break up with Joe. And I don’t see evidence that they’ve talked any of this through. Fun!
To be clear, I meant “Yeah?” as in “That is obvious and I’m not sure why you’re adding it in here.” The discussion was around if Joyce and Dorothy should lead with breaking up. If they don’t want to, it could be stupid to lead with that, though Walky and Joe would be free to break up with them anyway. If they do want to break up, it wouldn’t be stupid to lead with that.
My only prediction. More drama and comedy. This will not go smoothly or resolve with a simple conversation. I expect both Joss and Danny to be involved shortly. Sal leads to Danny, hence her appearance today.
I like how Dorothy doesn’t consider “My boyfriend’s sister knows I’m cheating on him” to be a problem vis-a-vis him not finding out, especially because she’s almost certainly right.
She sees Dorothy and Joyce snuggling, which checks out as far as how intimate they normally are. We don’t know that she saw them kissing. Dorothy is kind of jumping to conclusions that Sal actually knows what she thinks she knows, but it is very concerning that she doesn’t seem to think “my boyfriend’s sister knows I’m cheating on him” is a problem! Maybe says more about what Dorothy thinks of Sal than how much Sal actually cares about Walky’s wellbeing.
Like someone said above, I wouldn’t be surprised if she just lost track of walky’s love life by now. They’ve been back together for a couple of days and he broke up with Lucy like a week ago max
Ideally she doesnt consider it a problem because step 3 of her plan involves them going to talk to their boyfriends rather than try to hide it from them
I’m skeptical because I don’t think that would require figuring out everyone who knows. No, step 3 seems to me like it will be “keep everyone who knows from talking.”
I didn’t think of this when submitting mine, but I would suggest something like, “this is not relevant to how I think of the character” to the questions about if you think less of them. I just went with “no,” but that’s what I would mean by it.
I answered strictly monogamous because that’s what I like in my fiction, but it would be kinda nice to have a “I exist outside the relationship paradigm” as an aro/ace person, if you ever make similar surveys in the future 😀
yeah, i was looking for, like. perspectives that might inform how folks feel, trying to determine if monogomous folks might have more problems with it than poly folks, that sort of thing. i myself am in a totally open relationship and so while i understand intellectually cheating is a thing, it’s not actually possible to cheat on me, so it all feels very abstract, y’know?
so like. i guess i kinda slotted aro in there, mentally. which is biasing the data! some poly folks might be really up in arms about cheating! so might some aro folks! stupid of me. sorry
It’s a’ight, just made it a little hard to answer that particular question because I just… do not do relationships at all, so I can’t really be *anything* xD So I just went with what I generally prefer with relationships in fiction as a band-aid.
I wanted to fill this out but the options genuinely don’t allow for my opinions, so here goes:
Enjoying arc: Yes
Think less of Joyce or Dorothy: No, not really; not yet.
How do you think Joe will receive this news: I vacillate wildly. I kind of think he’ll be unsurprised, and try to put a positive spin on things, and at least make an attempt at poly. I worry he’ll do this despite actually being hurt, because he’s said “I don’t think I get to be jealous, not with my history” out loud, to Joyce, prior to this. And that’s not fair to him. Jealousy isn’t a feeling we can “not deserve” to feel.
How do you think Walky will receive this news: EVEN LESS SURE. I kind of think his immediate reaction will be to crack a joke about having been right about Joyce all along, and Dorothy more recently (“oh I see we’re pretending Joyce isn’t attractive” “well ONE of us is doing a shit job of that”); but whether he’s okay with it or not depends a lot on how he’s feeling about his second relationship with Dorothy in general, and Willis hasn’t given us a ton of insight there. I’ve gone through phases of thinking he still worships the ground she walks on and feels lucky — and phases of thinking he sees this as more of a favor he’s doing to a friend who’s down-and-out, one which he expects to end soon — and phases of thinking that he’s doing that second thing, but also feeling like garbage about it. The odds of him at least attempting a happy goofball reaction feel pretty high to me?
Except for the part where Willis said on tumblr that they’re deliberately seeking out a “messy cheating fallout” situation. Which makes me think if the boys don’t react negatively, someone else is going to have to, like Becky or Sarah (being disappointed in Joyce, and hurt because it reminds her of her own issues with Liz).
Oh also totally monogamous. But not upset by fictional depictions of cheating. Usually very bored by fictional depictions of cheating, but also I realize that it’s something that hasn’t ever happened to me, and that people have hot buttons on all kinds of topics.
Took me a long time to get to the point where Beligerent Sexual Tension no longer upsets me! Now I am able to look at it more calmly and say, “I don’t care for that,” whereas before it was a hot button that I found genuinely upsetting.
Time heals. I hope everyone for whom cheating is a fresh wound also find themselves someday healed.
(And still perfectly entitled to dislike it in fiction, but a fair few folks have talked about it as a fresh wound in the comments while this storyline has unfolded.)
I think setting up Dorothy saying “if I make a mistake nothing happens” with Walky looking bummed out is gonna pay off with this cheating arc. Maybe something big will happen! Or, maybe Walky will deflect with these exact words. As far as Joe and Walky being poly, I think Walky is more likely to try being poly than Joe, because he’s already made a couple ‘jokes’ which could just be jokes… but also… it’s Walky. Whereas I feel if Joe agreed to be poly, it’s only because he’d want to make Joyce happy rather than being into it. Which is why I think he honestly would walk away from the relationship. I think he’d wish Joyce and Dorothy well, try to smile for them, but he’s gonna be pretty down after.
I remember that strip! It’s what got me into the “thinks it’s a casual thing he’s doing to cheer up a good friend and former lover, but also feels like garbage about it” phase. Also agreed that Walky is the one who’s brought up being poly, though it’s difficult to tell how seriously interested he is in the concept.
I honestly, genuinely would love to see Walky stand up for himself and stop feeling like he’s personally, 100% to blame for every relationship he’s had falling apart, because I think that’s where his head is at, and it’s not fair to him.
My counter on Joe is — first of all, JUST for the sake of argument, because I agree with you, that’s mostly what I think will happen, but the one counterargument I’ve found so far is that Joe did go to Dorothy, and he did, I think, try to tell Joyce that he wanted her to have what she wants… so I think he’s at least considered the possibility of Joyce/Dorothy being added to the mix, and might, maybe, be more emotionally ready for that than I worry?
But yeah, mostly I think he’s going to put on a cheerful facade about it but feel bad inside.
And my main reason for doubting that is Willis’s stated interest in exploring messy cheating situations, which I do think would be undermined somewhat by Joe expecting it……
hey for folks who might be answering this in the future:
i didn’t put questions about the palestine stuff on there because i just do not care to hear from people who think it was a good idea. that opinion isn’t interesting to me and i don’t want a pile of answers from folks who think it was okay. the cheating stuff, y’know, i don’t really have any skin in the game. it’s for funsies. i don’t feel very funsies about the palestine stuff.
i say this because i got a pile of answers about how bad the palestine stuff was and i’m like. i’m there with you! you don’t gotta yell at me about it! so y’know please stop doing that thank you
For people who know the school, what’s the uh, geography of the situation here? Is Sal walking into the remnants of the protests and the police right now? Is Dunn Meadow far enough away that Dorothy and Joyce wouldn’t need to be worried about it? I feel like outside of the Asma strip the protests just sort of stopped existing and I’m confused why none of the characters are worried. But again I don’t actually know where the Meadow is so that would probably help explain things.
I’ll be shocked if Sal’s doing anything but going onto the steps for a smoke. She’s made a point of avoiding the police and places they’re likely to be for ‘I’m a Black kid with a record’ reasons.
Ah, okay. No idea how close Dunn Meadow is so hopefully she’ll just be on the step and can easily go back inside if it looks like something might come her way.
Multiple characters falling into a harmful trope doesn’t get cancelled out just because there’s one who doesn’t or if the meta points it out. I don’t understand this rebuttal at all.
How about because the majority of bisexual characters in the comic don’t fall under that trope? This is two out of a minimum of six of the bisexual characters in the comic and none of the others have been cheaters.
Jennifer Ruth Danny Asher Dina Booster Jocelyne Robin Alice… heck, even Mike never cheated on anyone that we know of, even in his original universe. More minor characters include Marcie (Patreon comic makes it seem like she and Malaya have a chill open relationship, IIRC she goes off with a guy?), Sierra, annnnd I am forgetting at least one person.
Plus, the comic is still young, I think only Sal and Becky and Carla have indicated they’re absolutely not at all bi (and Sal, only because an alt text once said she’s tragically very straight; I’m not actually counting not being attracted to Marcie specifically as proof). Joe, in a kinda jerky way, where he jokingly asked if Malaya being out as nonbinary now makes him retroactively bi.
For the record I’m not saying no one has any right to be bothered by that, but I do think that once you’ve reached a certain threshold of queer representation, stuff like Bury Your Gays should stop actually applying.
If one gay character dies and their partner then goes on to date a second gay character……. it’s okay to still be upset about the death, but Bury Your Gays, it ain’t.
Just for the record, while Mike himself was never in a relationship where he could cheat, he did have sex with some dude who had a girlfriend when he was setting up his “seduce Ethan” plot.
Possible, but also possible he’s bi and just cheating.
He did say “on the down low”, but I’m not sure that implies he was necessarily closeted, especially since it came after Mike said “don’t read too much into it”.
Erik seems to have been out later, since he was openly at the party with Ethan – though that could have been after he got outed due to cheating with Mike.
It would be different if Willis wasn’t familiar with the slang, or if they’d meant Eric to not be familiar with it? But I doubt that, given how Joyce’s accidental invocation of it was handled, you know?
So we have Danny, Asher, Joyce, Dorothy, Ruth, Billie.
Billie is still in the closet and only really shows romantic interest in women. Asher and her were more of a “I’m being a good Jennifer and having hetero sex is what Jennifer would do” for me. She is also a trash fire.
Ruth is willing to drop Jason by her own mouth to get Billie back, so she’s either fickle, or using Jason as a bed warmer with no real care for him as a person. Also the handcuff/hostage gag was gross. Also a trash fire.
Dorothy, has used and tossed aside every sexual relationship she has ever been in. Has, in fact, been down for using Walky’s trust in her for her own romantic gratification. Trash fire.
Joyce, Has in the past shown the ability to break up relationships to get what she wants, without care or concern over the people in the relationship. Has flip flopped nearly instantaneously on if she wants to get railed by Joe or telling her bestie she wishes it was her taking her virginity. from holding her besties face to kissing her boyfriend in less then 30 seconds. Possible upcoming trash fire but the embers are smouldering.
Asher, had a dude killed, is trying to make a life for himself without having to call in murders, went to his GF and told her immediately about the kiss he had with Ethan. Only pursued Ethan after he and Jennifer broke up. Seems pretty okay, minus the murders.
Danny: Plays the Ukulele and keeps us from seeing s Sal/Marcy slipshine. Also believed in his relationship and was right but no one is ready for that reality yet. Charlie Brown getting railed by Peppermint Patty.
It would have been nice to see a bisexual woman who didn’t smell like burning plastic, is all I’m really saying.
Billie is also rekindling a friendship with her old situationship that could develop into a proper romance. Or it could stay a friendship, either way I think it’s healthy for her to rekindle with Alice. It also might help her to overcome her internalized bi-phobia.
Ruth and Jason are hardly seriously dating. I think they both understand their relationship is more a casual thing and Jason is already aware that Ruth isn’t over her ex, he outright asked her about it. I think they’re both in a mutually beneficial casual dating situation. Maybe it deepens and they get serious, maybe it doesn’t, but I think they’re both on the same page with it.
We’ve seen Dorothy be in a grand total of two sexual relationships and that was with Danny, who she immediately broke up with, and Walky. Now, the Walky relationship has had its own ups and downs, but they both initially got into the relationship both understanding that they were just having fun. They mutually broke up. The rebounding after, I grant you is messy, but also… not the worst, I mean, she’s hung up on her ex oh no?
Joyce, honestly, is exactly what I expect of someone coming out of a religious cult where women need to be virgins until marriage and any sign of sexual interest is a sin. God forbid someone not immediately untangle those tore up from the floor up feelings.
As for bisexual women who don’t smell like burning plastic, we have Sierra, Jocelyne, and Marcie. And if you’re open to biromantic ace women, we have Dina! Potentially Charlie, but she’s up in the air for me if she’s biromantic or homoromantic. And honestly, I think we’ll have more bi awakenings in the cast. As far as we know, maybe Alice herself is bi!
Alice is in the same nebulous possibly bi as billiffer. She hits nearly every branch on the “I can’t be gay I’m a cheerleader” tree though.
Maybe the Marcy bisexuality stuff is in the pateron comics? I’ve only seen her as interested in Mayala, but I might have missed it. I missed Jocelyne’s flag too but I might be blind.
Wasn’t Danny Dorothy’s first BF? So my point stands.
And Serria and Marcy aren’t even on the cast page anymore, but Alice is.
People don’t exactly come out of the womb a perfect person. I can forgive people not knowing their sexuality because I know I had a hell of a time figuring out my own gender identity and sexuality. It’s a process.
I’ve also only seen Marcie’s interest in the comic as being into Sal and Malaya, but since Malaya is non-binary I’d assume that puts Marcie in either the bi or pan camp unless we’re otherwise told. Jocelyne’s flag is predominantly her telling Becky that since taking HRT, she’s felt attraction to women along with her attraction to men.
Danny may be her first bf but I don’t think him just being her boyfriend proves anything about your point that she uses and abuses people. That’s… literally her first relationship. In order to have more you kinda have to… break up? I mean with that logic, I to have a track record of using and abusing people because I had two different boyfriends at different points in my life. Yeah, it’s a shame he followed her like a puppy dog to college, but I don’t think that means she used and abused him. If we saw her continuously lead him on, I’d give you that point, but she broke up with him on the first day BECAUSE she saw that he was gonna keep following her like a puppy.
And I can grant you that Sierra and Marcie are just side characters.
Why elide two things that are not correlated? The bisexuals with their shoelaces undone. The bisexuals with a urinary tract infection. The cheating people in blue T-shirts. The monogamous smokers. The McNugget eaters with big noses. What is the earthly point of this silliness?
if the question is “who knows about this?” that’s a bad sign. A sign that they intend to keep secrets. I hope they come clean to the monogamous partners they have. That’s the only thing that matters. The question is “how do we tell our partners as soon as possible AND how do we figure out what we want?”
GodDAMN, here I’ve been avoiding the comment section because I thought it’d be a trash fire over the protests for ‘real life politics’ reasons and instead I came back to a ship war trash fire. Go figure.
So, here’s where I’m at but tl;dr I’m somewhere in the middle.
– I’m a Joe/Joyce and Dorothy/Walky shipper and I really really don’t give a fuck about Joyce/Dorothy but I know it means a lot to a lot of people here and that was one hell of a way to get together what with the symbolic wedding and all so I’m happy for y’all. Happy shipping, everybody! I’d be losing my shit too if it were one of my ships.
– On one hand – yes, obviously cheating is wrong and I am someone who loves cute and wholesome things and wants my babies to get along so *distressed mom fan noises*
– On the other I am also a trash goblin who craves drama and this is gonna be fricking napalm to this comic and I am READY FOR IT.
– I think Walky and Dorothy are gonna be over *sulks*. I think he’s likely to think Dorothy’s been using him for this relationship and that’s not gonna go over well. He might or might not reconcile with them eventually. Depends. He and Joyce are like two little kids in a perpetual slap fight and that’s just how their friendship is so. We’ll see.
– Joe is gonna be hurt but I think he’ll be more open to them reconciling with him after he’s had time to lick his (very real and valid) wounds. Maybe there’ll. be poly eventually, maybe not, but I don’t think it’ll be before there’s mess.
– No, enjoying this storyline and even enjoying fictional cheating does not indicate anything about your character, opinions or conduct in real life relationships. Come on, now, we’re not children.
– Relationships are complicated and people do have different lines about what constitutes cheating. Some only consider sleeping together to be such and some would consider any romantic/sexual interaction to be such. IME most people are somewhere in the middle where sexual interactions and kissing would count but things like friendly flirting or hugging aren’t inherently. Since monogamy is the majority, most people tend to default to that in relationships unless there’s prior discussion (and yes, ‘more people ask to be exclusive’ but that’s usually so they can call it ‘in a relationship’ as opposed to be dating. Polyamory isn’t a default). Ideally there’d be no default and every relationship (once they decide to call it one) would involve talking about that but well. I don’t think polyamory is quite well known and prominent enough yet for it to cross most people’s minds. It may be getting there in coming years but to most people it’s not there yet. This is all a big ramble, I’m sorry. To get it back on topic, it’s irrelevant what most people do or don’t consider because Dorothy and Joyce both consider this cheating and so that’ll have to be addressed. I expect at least one nasty breakup.
– That whole protest is hanging in the air still and I just hope for their sake they don’t get a photo plastered everywhere before their boyfriends find out because that’ll make things way worse if they have to learn from someone else.
The totally-not-palestine protest was kinda randomly inserted and didn’t really add anything to the relationship drama except to give excuses to make tangential speeches and provide violence. I feel like for the tie-in to the lesbianship to be worth it we *need* something like “this is a believable reason to have Joyce and Dorothy kissing go viral on mainstream media, an act that would otherwise not be newsworthy”. It’s a pretty golden opportunity, all things considered. Bonus points if it provides Mary leverage to serve an antagonistic role (to inevitably get dunked into pies).
In fairness, Willis said on Patreon that Joyce and Dorothy weren’t actually originally planned to get together during the protest. It was more once they realized they liked each other, the characters got away from him and it ended up happening. So, the protest probably was more originally about the protest than a setting for them to be together. That was supposed to be like 5 years from now.
At some point I feel like you do have a responsibility to rein in your characters when they want to do things like make out at your stand-in for protests against actual ongoing genocide.
Would be good and interesting to address the frequent double standard that things like girls making out isn’t seen as proper cheating even by people who acknowledge they probably should see cheating as equal regardless of the sex of the other lover.
People really are dragging these girls over the coals for literally every moment that their hormonal, panicked responses to an ongoing situation don’t mention their boyfriends BY NAME.
Look, this is a bit *less* obviously queer than Joyce going to Dorothy with the list of sex acts and going “hey help me pare down what I’m okay with”, complete with Dorothy still helping after Joyce leaves.
OMG here we go again with the “Kaiju should be emotionally stable before they go looking for a relationship with other kaiju” nonsense again. This strip isn’t called “Citydestroying of Age” for no reason, you know.
Counterpoint: Cheating happening in a story arc is fine, as long as the characters who are cheating are the kind of people who WOULD cheat. A fair few of us are not mad at cheating-qua-cheating, we’re annoyed that JOYCE is clearly over the line on cheating despite recently (in-universe) being actively upset at the idea of cheating on Joe, at least to Joe’s face.
As in, “it will be a less satisfying story for me if Joyce doesn’t experience some internal drama over this, because I will perceive her character as less consistent than I like.”
I feel like Breaking Bad had a pretty sizable portion of its fanbase that never went “Walter White has crossed a line” and that actually ended up being a Bad Thing for society. Given how many people hate Skylar and think Walt was an alpha male and all that nonsense.
I’d say that being able to say “X character has crossed a line” is actually really important and what separates normal fans from incels and fascists in a lot of divisive media (Clockwork Orange, American Psycho, Rick and Morty, Bojack Horseman, 40K, Fight Club, Lolita, etc.)
Not that DOA is anywhere approaching that level of divisiveness, but people say that having those shows/movies/books as your favorite is a red flag are saying so because a lot of fans never critically analyze what the main characters are doing as wrong.
How many is “a lot” though? Memes and comments can easily give the false impression of consensus. These days, you cannot assume that every comment you see is a genuine person’s genuine belief, especially on sites like youtube, reddit, twitter, and twitter clones, which are easily gamed for exposure.
Like, how many people actually watched American Psycho and decided that Patrick Bateman is based? Even just the business card scene? You’d have to be willfully ignoring most of the dialogue and events in the movie to come to that conclusion. I bet that, of the small amount of people that actually think Patrick Bateman is meant to be an alpha chad or whatever, almost all of them came to that conclusion before seeing the movie, if they ever did watch it.
These memes are almost entirely divorced from their source material, they are being pushed by people with agendas that found a useful memetic vehicle, and engaging with them as if they understand or care about it is a big blunder, IMO.
There are definitely some VERY annoying people who have built their entire personality around a movie they misunderstood, but you genuinely get that regardless of messaging.
Like. For example. The Matrix. Or Star Wars. Or Star Trek.
yeah, really an incel/Nazi problem can happen to just about ANY Fandom (especially those which are predominately cis/het white dudes), precisely because said critical analysis is often prohibited from conversation, as it is swept up nebulously-defined category of “”political”” discussion.
In his video essay on how normies become radicalized, Ian Danskin had this to say on the matter:
” Anything on which the community disagrees is *political*.
“Nazis are good” is apolitical; because “Nazis are bad” is the community consensus, neutral, common sense, therefore “Nazis are good” MUST be just an edgy joke (even if not, the community already believes the opposite), so the statement is harmless. Tolerable.
However, “feminism is good” IS a political statement, because the community has not reached consensus. It is debatable, and therefore political, and you should stop talking about it, because that’s “having an agenda”.
A community that doesn’t tolerate progressivism but does tolerate Nazism is going to start collecting Nazis — Nazis who become trusted, Totally Apolitical™ community members who are “just kidding” — Nazis whose goal is to drive a wedge between the community and the Left.
This is how fandoms radicalize — they are built as spaces where nerds, weebs, and furries can safely geek out without ridicule, and are told that the Left is a threat to their safety. Given a choice between leaving a community that has mattered to them for years and simply adjusting to the community’s shifting politics, the assumption is that they will stay. This assumption is right often enough that a lot of fandoms have been colonized. “
He doesn’t do anything really evil until at least a few episodes in, iirc. His original motivations are very relateable (basically, thrill-seeking and needing money)
Oh wow yeah, can’t believe that we could have had an actual Danny/Ethan kiss, but admittedly there is something incredibly funny about the fact that Ethan/Danny died before it even had the chance to come close to being fully realized.
Yeah, remember that time he told Ethan, to his face, that it wouldn’t be such a bad thing if Mike never woke up? GOD Danny’s a mess, I love him so much
God I love fictional characters. I love how they can have all kinds of drama only constrained by the writer’s imagination, and how the writer doesn’t need to consider the morals of a dilemma at all because messy morality just means more drama which means more story! I’m so glad everyone is being so normal about fictional characters who, in the middle of one of their most hectic and chaotic situations ever, are making messy judgment calls most directly informed by panic!
I’M SO GLAD EVERYONE IS BEING SO NORMAL ABOUT THIS
I would love for monogamous people in the comments to stop trying to explain the “rules of polyamory” to everyone. It’s hilariously bad and obvious when someone isn’t actually in my community.
Sometimes first poly relationship someone’s in is weird and it starts in a way that sucks. Sometimes a LOT of them look like that. Polyamory works best with lots of communication, but humans are involved and it’s just never going to be perfect.
And wanting this to turn into a polyamorous relationship because I want to see main-character polyam-rep is not because I think it will be “a band-aid that fixes everything” this is some nonsense argument. I want the drama, I want messy poly, I want to see these little idiots figuring out that snarling mess of reconfiguring their relationship parameters.
Sadly, I don’t think it’s going to go that way. Can we please just stop hyperventilating the words “Polyamory isn’t a bandaid!!” because, actually, sometimes it is, but mostly: Who said we wanted them to stop bleeding anyway?
Totally fair, It sucks that you + other Poly/Non-Monogamous folks are kinda getting the brunt end of the cheating discourse right now. Wanting to see Poly experiences be depicted in romance writing shouldn’t be painted as a “shortcut” when writing relationship drama, nor should those experiences be treated as the lesser or non-appealing simply because they aren’t a part of the monogamous mainstream.
IDK right now we just straight up don’t know what’s the long term situation is going to look like for Dorothy/Joe/Walky/Joyce right now, and it’s fine for people to want different things to happen in the next few weeks, especially when we can only use conjecture and headcanon to talk about what happens next in the long run.
Exactly, and honestly, thanks! I don’t begrudge people wanting this to turn out in a monogamous way, hell I don’t even care if people want Dorothy and Joyce to split and stay with their boyfriends (though I don’t think that’s likely at this point) but it’s exhausting to constantly see the “I’d like if this turned out poly” getting shut down left and right.
This is honestly getting concerning on multiple levels. Dorothy and Joyce were arguably two of the most fundamentally decent people in the comic, and are now turning into cheating shitheads who don’t care who they hurt. This strip even shows Dorothy trying to plan around who knows, presumably so they can cover it up.
On top of that, no one who has seen them cheating together has acted like they care which is also a major issue. Jocelyne knows Joyce is in a relationship with Joe, but looked like she was so happy when she saw her and Dorothy kiss. Sal knows Dorothy is dating her TWIN BROTHER and just walks by like she doesn’t care about him at all. Amber/Amazigirl I understand since she’s focused on fighting cops and saving people in the moment, but Sal and Jocelyne are in the wrong too.
And before anyone starts throwing around accusations of homophobia, I don’t care that they’re gay. I care that they’re cheaters who don’t care about the hurt they’re going to cause others.
Joe was terrified of getting into a relationship at all, but especially with Joyce, because he saw his dad cheating on women constantly and never wanted to be like that. Now Joyce is cheating on him and that’s going to fuck him up majorly.
For Sal specifically, I don’t think she saw them kissing, and she’s right that just holding each other like this doesn’t really stand out if you don’t have the context.
A queer awakening has always been a pass for cheating. Joe might be upset yes, but I don’t think that means Dorothy and Joyce are doing some heinous awful out of character evil. You’d have to be reeeeeal monogamous and cishet to boot to treat it like they’re crossing the moral event horizon here.
Yeah I’m pissed they are doing this. I don’t care if they’re gay, but they’re in relationships with people they like. Were they just with Walky and Joe temporarily because they couldn’t be with each other? That’s extra shitty too.
As a fun exercise, I’ve been comparing the number of comments to instances of the word “cheat” in the comments section. We’ve achieved a ratio of nearly 3:1 today.
Loading ...
When she’s right, she’s right
I still think writing elaborate fanfiction of being a cool airforce fighter pilot who is roomates with the president is gayer than any of my lesbian relationships have been
They are so so gay for that you’re right
Like Suletta and Miorine would look at that shit and be like “WOW, gay much”
I both understood and deeply appreciate that reference.
Jocelyne needs to make sure she gets written into Joyce’s comic as a Mecha
Truly, few are the situations in life that are not vastly improved by the addition of giant fighting robots. My personal fave remains “resurrect John Brown and give him a Battlemech!”
I wonder how Joyce’s comic is going to change as her repressions rise to the surface.
Which is very often
I think everyone with eyes could see it before both of them did lol
They actually don’t have to change anything. They’ve been dating since they first met.
this is what most of us keep saying, but for some reason a percentage of chat just… is angry at lesbians? the “oh no they’re cheating” crowd who has only been huffy about this and literally none of the other cheating that has gone on in (checks notes) almost every relationship in this. ~<3
What other cheating has happened in the comic?
Anything involving Walky could arguably fall under the cheating umbrella. I’m not saying it does but you could debate it.
Also maybe Asher? He was kissing on Ethan while technically still with Jen. Jen was treating him like dirt (totally justifiable) so no one really felt too bad for her. (also totally justifiable)
Asher is a good example of what to do: The kissing happened, and then Asher stopped it and said “No, I’m absolutely into this, but I’m in a relationship, and I’m not going to cheat”.
And then he went to his girlfriend, laid it all out, and didn’t go back to Ethan until Jennifer had made it abundantly clear that she was taking him for granted and he didn’t want to have a part in that anymore.
Asher never cheated on Jennifer, basically. He did everything correctly.
Am I remembering wrong that people were fucking livid at Joyce for the Jacob thing and Walky for the Lucy thing?
Like, less so (because it was less clear) and there were people on the other side (like there are for the Joyce and Dorothy thing) but I do not remember the comment sections not being mad.
If nothing else, betting on the comment section not having been mad about something is usually a bad bet.
I was not active in the comments section when the Jacob thing went down but I would be shocked if people weren’t pissed about it. That arc would probably have to be chalked up as a failure if it didn’t push at least a few buttons.
I remember being concerned and wanting Jacob/Raidah to break up properly, I don’t think I was commenting back then though. I *feel* like I called Joyce getting rejected ultimately, but that was so long ago that I could just want to feel like I called it lol. I remember a lot of people being upset about it, but what Joyce was doing was never framed as cute and good behavior lol. Dorothy, Joe, and I feel like one or two others even stopped Joyce to be like “Yo this is fucked up”
I don’t know if I was “fucking livid”, but I absolutely saw Joyce in the wrong in that arc, yeah.
The issue was that Joyce was actively trying to break up/into a (by all apparent accounts from what Joyce could see) healthy relationship so that Jacob could instead date someone that Joyce approved of (whether it was Sarah or herself). All while deceiving Jacob about what she was doing.
That is a bad thing. And that is not an exaggeration of what she was doing. And the reason why that arc worked was *because* the strip recognized that Joyce was in the wrong. Multiple characters called her out on it, and it ended with Joyce not getting the guy.
Right. That appears to be the difference between that arc and this one. This one seems to be treating the pairing as a big romantic thing rather than critiquing it the way the Jacob/Joyce arc did. It’s not over yet, so we’ll see how that plays out, but currently it seems to be leaning into Joyce’s early romcom “It’s not wrong if it’s true love” ideas.
Healthy? A relationship with Raidah was NOT healthy. She’s one of the most toxic characters in the comic, the most toxic student character. Malaya is better by a lot. I was totally with Joyce on that one, breaking them up was definitely a positive. Sucks that he didn’t get together with her or Sarah, Lucy is awful too, but at least not as bad as Raidah.
At the time, Joyce had no way of knowing it wasn’t healthy.
“Lucy is awful too” sounds like blasphemy tbh, do you have receipts?
I recall being angrier at Jacob, in the moment, but don’t recall exactly why
Jacob kissed Joyce then walked away to go break up with Raidah, saying it could have been something if Joyce had taken a different approach. That got a lot of people mad at him, despite her bringing about the whole situation.
I realized I want someone more like you but not a cheating instigator. It seemed reasonable to me. I could feel a little sorry for Joyce but she brought it on herself.
When has Walky cheated??????? He and Dorothy broke up, got together, broke up, he banged Amber for a bit, broke up, and then dated Lucy for a week and explicitly refused to cheat on her, and then broke up before getting back with Dorothy.
Like, I think the only other character that has maybe cheated is Asher (and I would like to say Ruth on Jason, but like… I legit get vibes Jason Would Not Care and I think we know he does not care that Ruth would drop him in a second for Billie lol). And tbh, at least Billie is a terrible person who actively pushed him into it, kind of makes it a bit more forgivable.
Also, he told her about it more or less immediately iirc and her response was “lol who cares, not gonna make me jealous.” And then they just like… dissolved like a wet biscuit.
Walky rebounds quick, but yeah, I wouldn’t really call it cheating.
Yeah I don’t Walky has cheated on anyone he’s dated in DoA so far.
Ruth is absolutely not over Jennifer and would probably cheat on Jason with her (or at least boot Jason out the door) if given the chance, but she hasn’t had that chance, so she’s in the clear.
She literally has said she would during one of their back and forths if I remember right.
Could you explain that? Because I’m not sure how anything involving Walky would fall under the cheating umbrella.
Walky and Lucy? Admittedly I was exaggerating for effect because Walky’s love life is such a mess, but I do remember fevered debates on whether he was cheating or not for sleeping with Dorothy before the ink was even dry on his relationship with Lucy. Even Lucy noted how fast he moved on and it was somewhat ambiguous if she ever truly broke up with him.
Guess that’s not surprising, with how some people thought Joyce and Dorothy were cheating because Joyce touched Dorothy’s cheek. I get being confused about whether the relationship is still in or not but in the end they were broken up with and although Walky rebounding back with Dorothy is… something, it isn’t cheating.
This was the debate that happened then. I was on Walky’s side but that was not the consensus at the time. The magic words were never said! It was all up in the air cause “See ya at math class.” Does not a solid breakup make!
You be the judge! The scales of judgement ultimately lay with us readers.
It reminds me of Mako and Asami’s break up in season 1 of Legend of Korra, down to the people who saw the show being like “wait is Mako hooking up with Korra after cheating? Did Asami and him break up?”.
Did Jet just die?
You know, it was really unclear.
Cheating Umbrellas; can you buy those on Amazon?
Joyce trying to seduce Jacob away from Raidah is the only example I can think of.
So, do kids these days consider kisses cheating?
I kinda thought the bar for physical cheating was higher, such as sneaking around having penetrative sex outside your explicitly-monogamous relationship, type of thing.
Arguably the wacky washer antics count as sex, but they were both single at the time, plus at the time they believed it was masturbation with a friend. Like y’do, apparently.
It’s probably emotional cheating, in large part because they think it is… but like, is the expectation these days that you’re immediately monogamous from the very first week of dating, without even saying so, unless otherwise specified?
Joyce did say they were exclusive though, essentially. When she said she’d “been faithful”.
And during the Jacob incident, right before he kissed her, she said that kissing would be crossing a boundary.
It does make sense that Joyce would think that monogamy is the default setting of any relationship, and that kissing outside one’s relationship would be a serious betrayal. She’s changed a lot since the beginning of first semester, but still, she wanted Mike to beat up Joe, on their very first date, for looking at the waitress, and that kind of ideal doesn’t just vanish now that she’s kinda learned what a polycule is.
Dorothy, though? Why does Dorothy think that her on-again/off-again deal with Walky is monogamous, or that kissing is automatically cheating?
Or is she concerned about the emotional cheating, of realizing that she and Joyce also love each other?
See, I want to see this addressed. So we don’t know, exactly, where everyone in this would draw a “cheating” line. Dorothy is conflicted, obviously, but that’s influenced by other factors, and we don’t know whether Joe and Walky would see this as a dealbreaker. Yet.
But given what we’ve seen from Joyce? If Joe did this to her [or Walky did something similar to Dorothy], SHE would likely consider it cheating. Or unfaithful. Or a betrayal of trust. Somehow inappropriate, at the very least. Is that necessarily a good thing, since it largely springs from her “gradually being challenged conservative views on sex and relationships?” No, not necessarily, but her standards still exist.
And I want to see HER deal with that. How, by doing this, she might have broken boundaries that she would expect to be respected, and what that means. Clarification: I DON’T mean that I want her to realize she’s a terrible irredeemable person who doesn’t deserve to be happy. I DO want her to have to face the fact that she–probably, maybe she’s had a greater shift in perspective than it seems– has done something to a partner [Joe] that WOULD be a dealbreaker for her, and see how she handles that. We’ve seen Dorothy wrestle with this a bit, in the lead up to the kiss. We haven’t seen Joyce do that so much, yet.
You remind me why I’m glad to be aro ace. How do people deal with all this stuff, with the implied figuring out of other peoples’ values and opinions on what is and isn’t relevant to such matters, along with apparently being influenced by all these feelings for people that can, I’m told, just happen of their own accord?
I’m told love is a wonderful thing that makes life worth living, but so does reading, and I’ve never had to plan my life around a book.
(Ok, maybe I sometimes have arranged things to ensure I’d have time to read, but that’s not the point.)
I still think that, despite READERS knowing better, it’s completely possible Joyce is actually operating on an outdated mental picture of Joe.
https://www.dumbingofage.com/philanderer/
https://www.dumbingofage.com/hard-2/
(Some folks really wanna believe that the first strip here was Joe joking, and not him having a genuine reflexive reaction of jumping into Sarah’s bed, but Joyce certainly thought he was sincere: if she didn’t, she wouldn’t have characterized the moment as a “mistake” that “doesn’t mean [his whole character arc] was a lie”.)
Like, I kiiiind of think she might be operating on a level where she assumes Joe has been very tempted to cheat, and will understand why she gave into a temptation to kiss Dorothy? I also wonder if the conversation they had about masturbation, where she him know that it felt like being unfaithful to him and he told her that was silly and that she had his permission to do that as much as she wanted…
…might not have maybe left them both confused about where they stood?
Since we’ve since seen him maaaayyyybe refraining from masturbation and taking a cold shower instead? And we’ve seen Joyce maaaaaybe throwing caution to the wind and deciding she had permission not to be monogamous at all???
Just a theory.
Probably just because monogamy is the norm in the society she grew up in. She’s good at understanding things academically, but applying them to herself is different. eg: bisexuality and orientation fluidity.
She set Walky up with Lucy in order to make him “taken”. I think Roz was right when she called Dorothy “slut-shamey”.
I just wanna say as somebody who’s poly that it’s really dangerous for a person to go “why’d you assume this relationship was monogamous” to a partner. Polyamory is still very much not the norm and if somebody wants a relationship to be poly they need to very explicitly communicate that when they intend to have a relationship that isn’t exclusive.
As someone who’s mono, I think that sucks for poly people, and that mono people need to also be willing to shoulder the burden of communicating our expectations.
Some of us are old enough to recall a time when at least pop culture displayed a norm of having a discussion about if your relationship was exclusive before assuming it was.
I just assumed the discuss is less “Why did you assume this is monogamous?”
And more… (to borrow a maybe outdated term – my background is more like Joyce’s, with more of a “courting” culture than dating)
“Why did you assume we’d ‘gone steady’ within a week of starting dating?”
I’ve personally never dated multiple people in a time, but even at my “courting-culture” college, it was common (and even encouraged by some Bible college professors!) to “date around.” My college even had a process requiring young men, before their third “official date” (something off campus, rather than just hanging around getting coffee on campus), to officially contact a woman’s father to “request permission” to continue dating them. I got the sense that carried with it an implied transition from “dating around” to “going steady,” but even that wasn’t written out anywhere.
As a heteroromantic demi AuDHDer…I’m still really fascinated by trying to understand all these unwritten and/or written “rules” in non-fundamentalist dating and relationships.
At my college, you could get expelled for holding hands, kissing, high-fiving (yeah :\ ) sitting less than 6 inches apart, etc. too many times. So Dumbing of Age has been a pretty significant source of learning about “normal” relationships for me, and ideas of what people might consider “cheating” to be.
@Sarah Lea: A very different dating culture certainly. They’re not going out on specific dates with the intention of seeing if they’re interested in getting more serious. They’re starting out by deciding they want to be serious, because they already know each other, rather than going through any number of official dates. They’ve all said they were boyfriend/girlfriend or otherwise in a relationship, which I think wouldn’t usually have been used if you were still in a “dating around” stage?
Actual dates have been pretty rare in this comic, which matches my ancient college experience. Joyce and Joe’s original disastrous date. Their recent cute one. Ruth and Billie went on one date last semester. Ruth’s blind date with Daisy. Lucy trying to find things to label “dates” with Walky, which kind of echoes something like your college’s culture. I feel like I’m forgetting something, but not very much.
@Li: It does suck for poly people and it’s certainly worth working to change that, but I think that’s better done by encouraging everyone to talk about it directly than by trying to reverse the default assumptions.
@Proxiehunter: I don’t think so. At least not in the poly sense. More in sense Sarah Lea talks about – Are we serious enough to be “going steady” rather than still “dating around”?
@thejeff And my point was that without that discussion a lot of people, at least of a certain age, would assume that both parties would be free to date around thus no one would be cheating. A situation in which it would make sense to wonder why one party assumed the relationship to be monogamous.
@thejeff: I’m not trying to reverse the default assumptions. I absolutely think Joyce’s communication here with Joe (if I’m right, and they miscommunicated) was awful and they both should’ve been clearer.
I’m just saying the responsibility should absolutely not be all on poly people to “disclose”, that’s crummy as heck.
(But Proxiehunter’s also right, and there at least used to be a social convention whereby after a few dates, you and your date-partner would sit down and talk about taking things to the next level: “are we going steady?”, as the kids used to say in, like, the 50s or whatever.
If straight people aren’t having that conversation anymore, and just assuming the answer is ‘yes’ as soon as there’s been one date, that’s a shame.
(As previously mentioned, the dating I did via OKCupid definitely had an expectation where you had to have a conversation before you would both, like, set your profiles to ‘in a relationship’ and stop chatting with other people. But I have never dated in the het scene, so I will not claim to know what that’s like.)
It’s not necessarily relevant to Joyce, because she did sort of stumble over declaring that she saw them as monogamous and exclusive during the masturbation conversation, but in real life, if the “going steady” conversation has stopped being a thing, that sucks.)
Aw MAN I missed that Sarah Lea had already brought up “going steady” conversations. There are so many comments!! I reiterate that it’s sad if that’s gone out of style, but lol, I am embarrassed to have brought it up like it was a new topic.
I responded to Sarah as well, (and it’s tomorrow, so you probably won’t see this) but I don’t think that has really stopped being a thing, even if it’s handled a little different. Like you suggest, it is usually handled that way pretty explicitly on dating apps, but in this kind of college scene when you know each other well people often go straight into “relationship” without actual dates. I think talking about being in a relationship or calling each other boyfriend/girlfriend is the language that replaces “going steady”.
None of which is to say that even college kids don’t still go on those formal “get to know you” dates, often through apps without immediately committing. Or for that matter just hook up for sex after a party or something again without committing.
But I think that discussion is a very different one than the poly discussion and they shouldn’t really overlap. “Are we serious enough to be exclusive?” and “We’re serious, but don’t want to be exclusive” are very different cases and it just gets confusing when they’re conflated. Those old “going steady” conversations almost never had any room for being poly.
@thejeff I mean, they didn’t make space for it explicitly, but you could say “no, I don’t want to go steady with anyone, but I would like to keep dating you anyway” and see how that went over? Heck, the 60s and 70s were right around the corner, and they definitely had what we’d now call poly dating situations.
Still, you’re right that “I want a serious relationship” and “I want an exclusive relationship” aren’t the same statement, and could get conflated and confused…
I just think at least having a conversation about the seriousness of the relationship is still better than skipping it or considering it implied. 😞 That seems destined for heartbreak.
This is why I think Willis is doing an ”Amor Fou” story, about an all consuming, destructive passion. Neither of the ladies seem able to think of their usual ethical considerations right now. Dorothy makes some noises about it, but barely.
The goalposts are constantly in motion, Leorale, but if you say so someone will complain that you’re being a mean jerk and how dare you.
Humph you’re being a mean jerk and how dare you!
Oh no!!
“So, do kids these days consider kisses cheating?”
For the most part, yes.
You linked to Google. Did you mean to take the “””AI””” overview at its word?
Anyway, scroll down, and you get this GQ article which did a survey where only ~30% of self-identified women said yes, but ~60% of men did:
https://www.gq.com/story/is-kissing-cheating
Not much of a “for the most part” there, actually!
Also don’t trust “””AI”””, it can’t even count the r’s in a word correctly lol.
https://ludic.mataroa.blog/blog/i-will-fucking-piledrive-you-if-you-mention-ai-again/
*TAPS THE SIIIIGN* D:<
Paywalled. Does that cover what “the kids” think? The other results didn’t seem to either and that was the question asked.
It’s from 2016, and an article about a YouGov survey, so probably not? It’s just also the only thing remotely on topic from the Google results they linked. If Pedantic Jerkass meant something else in the result set, they should let us know!
Like, at least it’s a survey, instead of a single post on Reddit…….
Or a post on Quora.
You have done a survey, or you are speaking for yourself, but in the plural?
So, cheating isn’t that much of a concern to me here (yet), because it all happened very suddenly (like don’t get me wrong there was the will-they-won’t-they, and the moment in Joyce’s bed, but the actual first kiss and confession was in the middle of a very emotionally intense moment they didn’t expect to happen), and they haven’t had a chance to tell their partners “I’ve had a realization that will change or end our relationship,” since they don’t have phones and were taking the long route home etc.
That said, yeah I’d consider any intentional* romantic and/or sexual intimacy to be cheating**. I can’t imagine I’d be comfortable with my partner making out with someone without my knowledge, nor he with me doing that. It’s not as bad as sex, since there’s little chance of STIs or (with certain bodies) pregnancy, but it’s also a pretty intimate (both in connection and horniness) thing to be doing without a partner’s knowledge or permission.
*unintentional could be something that happened while carried away in a moment, or while under the influence, or where you haven’t realized there are romantic connotations, etc, and of course anything nonconsensual/unreciprocated
**assuming the relationship follows a typical monogamous structure without allowances for any of this sort of thing
Ehhh I would argue they have had plenty of time to rethink. In the heat of the moment during the protest… maybe…. but they were just standing in front of the dorms and it went like this:
We should stop holding hands –> Kissing
We are in relationships. We shouldn’t kiss or hold hands –> Kissing
At this point they know full well what they are doing. They have consciously considered it and still ignored it.
Maybe they are driven by passion, but that doesn’t excuse it. If someone is driven by rage and they hit someone, we still call it assault. People are responsible for their own emotions and for their own behavior.
And now they’re talking about an “us.” Dorothy, at least, seems fully cognizant of the fact that they are having an affair.
replied to this, but it was from my phone (which has been spotty with wifi) and didn’t post
I agree. I do think that it has already passed into the territory of cheating. But how concerned and bothered I am by it will depend on how it goes when they talk to Walky and Joe, if they chicken out and try to keep it secret, if they’re open about messing up (and then continuing to explore it before checking in with the partners), if they immediately say that they need to break up, etc.
and I’m giving them a little extra grace since they haven’t had phones or anything. they could probably have gotten home faster (esp if they didn’t make out more), but again I’d be more mad if they did have phones and just neglected to reach out with a ‘hey I have to see you when I get back to the dorms.’
also I imagine it is going to sting considering Becky, Sarah, and I’m sure now Joe and maybe Walky (if someone alerted him) have been worrying about them being fucking disappeared while they were actually making out.
so tl;dr I do think it’s cheating, I’m not happy with them and don’t really love this ship, I just want more context before I like, condemn them
Would you consider it cheating if you walked in on your partner passionately kissing someone else?
Me? Nope. I once walked in on my girlfriend sucking my best friend’s weenus. My comment was something like “Oh, I see you guys are having fun.” They asked me to join, but I was too tired for sex, had just gotten back from work. I was hungry, offered to make them a sandwich too. The first threesome was later that night.
He knew I wouldn’t mind. She didn’t yet. Glad she figured it out. And yeah, it goes both ways, I occasionally boink his wife.
“He knew I wouldn’t mind”
That’s what makes it not cheating.
She didn’t yet though. So it WAS cheating on her end.
Shouldn’t it be up to the person alegedly being cheated on if something is cheating or not?
“She didn’t know yet. Glad she figured it out.” to be more specific.
The awkwardness there is that since she didn’t know, she would have done it even if he hadn’t been okay with it, which isn’t a great space to be in.
I mean, Vic didn’t specify how she figured it out. She could’ve been told by the friend. She could’ve just also felt the same way about relationships and exclusivity as Vic, which is more of a fortunate coincidence than anything else.
Let’s not assume there must be something wrong with a situation Vic is telling us was fine, just because we’d be upset if a partner did the same thing to us (and I definitely would be).
Of the people involved it doesn’t seem like anyone felt awkward except maybe her. So, who benefits from people seeming to say that the person who didn’t care should have?
“She didn’t yet. Glad she figured it out.”
Farbeit from me to criticize anyone’s love life, but is there a reason you didn’t just tell her? Kinda weird to just let a partner stumble into it.
Raising the bar to “having penetrative sex” is especially weird in the context of Joyce, who hasn’t done that at all (or only just last night if fingers count).
Is cheating not even possible if you’re not fucking yet?
Correct. They’re not cheating. Dorothy definitely doesn’t have a monogamy agreement AT ALL. It’s unclear if Joyce does, doesn’t seem like there’s anything explicit. And yeah, it’s definitely not cheating if there’s no penetrative sex.
I’m glad that definition of cheating works for you, but I think most people would disagree with it. For one thing, it would preclude two cisgender lesbians who don’t use toys from being able to cheat on each other, which seems unfair. They should be allowed to cheat on each other if they want to damnit! But seriously, if that definition works for you that’s great, I really don’t want to start an argument.
Nothing explicit. None of the parties involved have signed a contract or even negotiated a verbal one. Nonetheless, there are certainly signs that all of them consider themselves in monogamous pairings.
Dorothy especially, has said multiple times some variation of, “we can’t, I’m with Walky, you’re with Joe”. She sees what they are doing as wrong, but doesn’t currently have the self-control to stop.
It’s less clear what’s going on in Joyce’s head.
I’d say most people consider lip kissing/making out cheating yeah. I’m sexually non monogamous so I don’t even care about it personally but…I can’t really fathom seeing that as kosher without that explicitly being stated first? Maybe it’s the ace in me too but requiring sexual penetration for it to be cheating feels kinda…silly? That feels like the most respectful way to put that I think, I like your comments a lot and don’t wanna come off rude
Also I’ve never dated casually so maybe this is just me but I’ve always seen when you slap the partner/ whatever gendered term label on it that’s kind of monogamous by default until you agree otherwise, unless you went into it already declaring nonmon. Just, assuming you’re good to go on making out with other people sounds like a really bad idea? The type of dumb mistake an 18 year old would make for sure but, the kind they’d learn to never do again by the consequences hopefully.
Kissing has always been cheating. How could it not be? It’s a romantic/sexual act that is always understood to be cheating. Hell, there’s emotional cheating where you don’t do any physical activity at all.
“kids these days” are presumably not all one kid. And, altho people rarely declare their age here, comments here clearly indicate that some commenters consider kissing cheating and some don’t. So it is unlikely that there is a yes/no answer to your question.
Somewhat similarly, the comic itself points out that it is hard to define sex, let alone consensual sex. Is a rape victim a cheater? Is penetration cheating? What about a vaginal examination by a doctor? Helping someone to an orgasm? Well, not everyone experiences orgasm.
Cheating is in the mind of the beholder, and each beholder is different. And even in one relationship between 2 people, their expectations probably aren’t the same.
I also know people who say “just don’t tell me, OK” So secret and cheating, but OK if it remains secret.
Personally, and in my opinion, nobody can judge others in this. If people talk about it and plant their flags in the sand it is up to others to respect those boundaries, or not respect them and accept the consequences.
A point Willis has brought up is that DoA has up until now been pretty light on the cheating considering that it’s a college comic. There genuinely hasn’t been much.
There was implied cheating, Alice with Jennifer when Alice was with … Chester? I could be wrong, but I don’t remember a large amount of lesbian haters being upset with that.
Considering what Chester did to her, Alice could probably feed him foot first into a woodchipper and not upset anybody.
Chester sucks and gets no sympathy from the audience.
yup. it’s the circumstances of the cheating that’s the problem, not being “angry at lesbians”.
I don’t think that was even implied? Or at least not strongly.
We don’t have a good sense of the timeline for that whole sequence.
I recall in these very comments someone who I think is now Paladin-aligned basically called Willis a wimp who wasn’t brave enough to do cheating plotline because of their personal hang ups.
Could you elaborate on that, even slightly? So far, all cheatification we’ve seen has involved Joyce, Dorothy, and Jacob.
That’s not “almost every”, that’s “almost none”.
This is literally the only cheating that’s going on in DoA that we know about right now. So of course those of us who don’t like cheating are annoyed about what Joyce and Dorothy are doing. It has nothing to do with them being a potential lesbian couple, it’s entirely the cheating.
As a poly person, statements like yours always make me wonder. Are the monogamous people ok?
the answer is ….. a resounding NO. the monogamous people are all caught up acting in jealousy and control issues. This is all derived form a system of defining your relationship by standards of hereditary rules based property ownership. Which we made up to propagate linage based hierarchy.
Its gross, it hurts you all. Its a total shame monogamous people are so drenched in it the cant even believe there is other ways to act.
So NO the monogamous person are not OK.
Where did that come from? What is even wrong with that statement?
Even within poly groups cheating is still a possibility. Most poly relationships aren’t completely open and unilaterally adding someone else would still be cheating. Unless of course you talk to your partner(s) and they’re cool with it – or you’ve agreed that it’s fine up front.
I do guess I am bringing my baggage to the equation.
Specifically Poly relationship anarchist. No ownership. No predefined expectations. Even those expectations we set are mutable and not sacrosanct.
So “Cheating” is a foreign concept to me. Its literally confusing drama monogamous people do that I don’t understand. It seems to hurt everyone involved to set such expectations and the root of so many harms. But hey if you Monogs feel you need these expectations you always fall short of i guess that’s a you thing. Not in my Polyamory but perhaps yours? (this being the royal yours or any person, not meaning you taffy.)
I just Dyslexiced your name into another user. Excuse me the thejeff my misread of your name. That not was for you, not taffy.
This monogamous person is not OK. Seem to end up with people for whom monogamy is vital, therefore ‘cheating’ is cheating and cruel/relationship ending. Would much prefer a review of the dominant narrative!
“if you don’t have the same reaction as me then you’re a homophobe” is as dumb as the guy who thinks anyone who ships one gay couple hates straight couples.
Amen.
I honestly can’t tell if that comment is someone trolling. It seems so deliberately inflammatory and out of touch with reality. But then, this is the Internet.
not a troll, just exhausted reading the comments section and it’s a 2 mile long diatribe on fictional characters and their lack of loyalty in college relationships most of which last around 3 days. ~<3
People care about these characters: that’s the sign of good writing. Give them a public forum to discuss it and they’ll share opinions.
It’s understandable to be exhausted by opinions you don’t share, but please don’t make assumptions or insinuations about people for having them. Especially when that opinion is “I don’t like that these characters are cheating on their partners,” which is a totally understandable and neutral reaction.
Isn’t it similarly ridiculous for people to monologue about how cute a fictional couple is? It’s fiction. We know it is fiction. But when we engage with it we still judge it by the standards of life.
So a fictional couple can be cute, and we can care that they are cute. Likewise fictional characters can be cheating, and we can care about that too.
And yeah, people mess up all the time in college. This is Dumbing of Age after all…
But I would still like to see mess-ups framed as such. My main issue is so far the story still seems to be “cute couple”/”ship coming home”, yet every time Joyce and Dorothy keep going the way they are going I like them less. They have repeatedly had the chance to think about how their actions will hurt their current partners and it seems like, so far, their take is “I don’t care”.
As a gentle nudge in the other direction, they’re not even in the front door yet and the comic isn’t called Stopping Dead In Our Tracks To Have An In-Depth Conversation About The Ramifications Of Our Latest Misbehavior And Coming To A Fully Rational And Emotionally Mature Decision With Perfect Solutions To All Possible Outcomes of Age
I’m fine with them being stupid idiots. I am not fine with that idiocy being framed as adorable. And I dislike it when people try to argue cheating is okay because it is “just kissing” or “they are driven by passion” or “Joe might be into polyamory”.
I hope we see real repercussions for Joyce and Dorothy, and if they are going to keep being protagonists I would like to see atonement.
For example Joyce started the comic as homophobic. The reaction from everyone around her (except Mary) was essentially “Weird, no, stop that, please stop talking”. Joyce got called out, got better, and had severe regret that she needed to work through.
Now I would argue that Joyce’s homophobia was less bad than what she is doing now because it had much less impact. She didn’t have a lot of power to do much in the area, and she also wasn’t particularly focused on the issue.
With the current cheating, however, we should reasonably expect it is going to hurt Joe a lot. Being cheated on by your first serious romantic partner hurts, and can keep hurting for years.
We’ll see what happens soon enough, I suppose. Benefits of a daily webcomic, tomorrow’s always just a day away.
The strip’ll come out
Tomorrow
Bet your bottom dollar
That tomorrow
It’ll run
this comment, this one wins. ~<3
Sometimes, things can have two descriptors at once. Is what Joyce and Dorothy doing morally okay? Most would say probably not very moral. Is it cute to see them be giggly and fresh with NRE? Also yes. It might be less cute to add in the future context based on predictions of how things will go based on our understandings of the characters but for now, that’s all that is – predictions. What we are seeing on screen, explicitly? Cute.
Will the future hold some sort of retribution/comeuppance/reckoning? Let’s find out
by subscribing to Patreon which is advanced im toldand see what’s revealed in due time.Same here. The ”I don’t care” is what sours me on this.
making up something like “all the people that disagree with me are bigots, and the comic has had so many cheating storylines” is the most exhaustive comment today.
I think you meant exhausting, but yeah, Team Sickos have lately been really, really pushing me hard towards the Paladins side of things, just because of the “You must just hate lesbians” thing.
Yeah there’s been some crazy takes on Joyce and Dorothy trying to to defend them that imo, are just byproducts of trying to have some kind of righteous justification when they’d get a lot more respect if they outright just said they dgaf because their ship is sailing or they dgaf because Joe and Walky don’t mean a thing to them
The amount of people throwing around homophobia as a weapon and acting like it’s bananas that people consider doing romantic affections with somebody other than your monogamous partner is cheating has been wild.
Monogamy. Its a head trip to think you must act that way.
No it isn’t. It’s the way the vast majority of people behave. There’s nothing wrong with polyamory or the idea of a truly open relationship. The problem is that Joyce and Dorothy are in monogamous relationships and are cheating on their partners. If you have the discussion with your partner and explain that you don’t believe in monogamy and they agree that’s one thing. This is flat out deceitful and they both know it, but don’t care
my statement: It is a head trip (read odd to think, strange, not cool, even if everybody’s doing it not “OK” because its the assumed normal) to think you must act(read as should do, are expected to do, thought of as normative because it is what lots of people do) Monogamous.
Your statement: No it isn’t. (it isn’t weird to assume your way is both normative and the only way? Oh really.)
It’s the way the vast majority of people behave. (So what? Argument ad populum is a good path for being wrong.)
There’s nothing wrong with polyamory or the idea of a truly open relationship. (correct)
The problem is that Joyce and Dorothy are in monogamous relationships and are cheating on their partners. (which as a Poly person makes no sense to wrap your ideology of what relationships have to be like that to begin with. No they haven’t and that’s a problem but it makes no sense to not have started the stupid “everybody’s doing it” monogamy to begin.)
If you have the discussion with your partner and explain that you don’t believe in monogamy and they agree that’s one thing. This is flat out deceitful and they both know it, but don’t care (So why start the everybody’s doing it dance that hurts us all in the long run? Sounds as I said like a head trip to assume you have to or start doing that to begin.)
but hey go ahead gut just say NO. Even though it clearly is both not a health dynamic for those involved and results in hurt persons taking arbitrary made up rules as sacrosanct and acting like that’s good because “Everybody’s doing it” I’ll keep seeing at the craziness it is and laughing form my poly marriage at the monogamous silly’s who haven’t questioned why they want what they want or why Monogamy or monogamous relationships are even “Wantable” Hint they my not be. You likely want that only because “its how we always did it.” which is just another version of “Everybody’s doing it.” which is just bad think repeated till you don’t even know why its done.
But you do you, its still a head trip you do.
It’s a head trip to think that a. most people either do monogamy or say they do and b. heaps and heaps of people, having said that, do what can only be called cheating because they have bought into monogamy!
If people didn’t buy into it, they wouldn’t be cheating!
I don’t think, even if you think they are incorrect on the facts, that it’s fair to characterize someone who believes they have observed less severe in aggregate responses to situations they consider equivalent involving heterosexual couples that way.
“chat”?
This is not a chatroom.
Fortunately.
Once again refusing to accept the existence of colloquialisms.
As expected from someone with that username…
Some of the Paladins are just homophobic and Im tired of pretending otherwise.
To be uncharacteristically inflammatory, I’ll say it’s 100% of them. It’s not my real opinion, but I’ll also say they’d universally and unconditionally be fine with it if the Relationship Impurities™ were happening with a straight couple.
I would not be.
Universal and unconditional.
I also would not be.
Yes, you would. 🔪
From this point on, i believe the proper response is, “Taffy, go fuck yourself.” You’re clearly nothing more than a troll, launching accusations that have no basis in reality. I see no reason to treat you with one iota more respect than you are treating everyone else, so seriously, go fuck yourself.
No, Taffy is not “a troll” (noun). You can tell that by reading thru Taffy’s many many comments. It is possible that this one comment is, as it specifically states, trolling (verb).
But.
There is a *massive* difference between a piece of behaviour, and what a person *is*.
And it is in the category of abusive to a. tell somebody that they are a/n …(noun) and b. to tell them to …. (abusive verb).
You, Freemage, are being abusive to Taffy, in this comment.
Okay, how about “throwing away character development and a relationship the readers have gotten invested in as it’s naturally built over a real-time decade”? Or is that also phobic somehow?
I don’t see how Joyce and Dorothy are throwing away their relationship.
It is certainly an opinion, and one you (Needfuldoer) are entitled to have and express. But it is your personal opinion. Others may not think anything has been ‘thrown away’ by the author. It is not phobic. Merely your personal opinion (if it is).
Willis themself said they’re cheating, so they are cheating.
This is just plain not true, people have been upset about past cheating too. They’ve also been upset about potential cheating — Walky and Dorothy, before it was 100% clear tbat Lucy and Walky had broken up, and Asher and Ethan before it was 100% clear that Asher and Jennifer had broken up.
I do think this is getting a bigger reaction, but it’s also breaking up a relationship people were much more positive about (Lucy/Walky had its fans, but it was divisive, and I think most people were neutral at best about Jennifer/Asher)… and also the cheating pair is Dorothy/Joyce, and a significant segment of the readership has always been upset by the idea of them getting together, long before any potential cheating entered into it.
Yes, some of the comments have contained thinly veiled queerphobia. No, it’s not true that past incidents of cheating were totally ignored, nor is it true that everyone who’s upset is just upset because they hate queer women.
The weirdo who treated bi girls like a porn category doesn’t speak for all the naysayers.
Okay, counter-question, why is it suddenly *not* cheating when it’s lesbians.
But, except when they are dressing more colorful, plaid easy colors, now they are using serious color. It’s for real, now.
Sal knows, Sal don’t care.
Adding some doh to the d”aww
Would just like to say that if brevity is the soul of wit, this little quip right here is a masterpiece. Bravo.
Dorothy and Joyce Being Slightly Less Gay Than Usual: A Dumbing of Age Pornographique
**slowclap**
Yes. I truly hope this is the title.
[perfection meme]
it really would be a perfect name
*Dorothy literally going down on Joyce*
Joyce: “How about now?!”
Sal: Nope, you’ve been gayer.
This must become a thing! Willis must get to creating!
“Come on, you’re not even riding a horse!”
Cut to: Everyone already assuming they’re all in a polycule.
Wouldn’t that be a twist of the knife to the relationship paladins.
Joyce: Joe. Walky. We’ve got something to tell you.
Dorothy: We… kissed. Joyce and I. Kissed.
*Joe looks at Walky, who pulls out a $20 and hands it to Joe.*
Joyce: “So, Joe… can we be in one of those polycule things?”
*Joe looks momentarily crestfallen – and then hads the $20 back to Walky*
Joe: “Weren’t we already?”
I still hate the idea that slapping the poly label would just magically solve everything. It doesn’t, and it doesn’t absolve them both of thinking they were cheating and not caring.
To be fair, this hypothetical did start out with communication. Which absolutely is the necessary first step for solving any of this.
Exactly. “Just be poly” is not the magic bandaid you slap on after the fact that makes what they did okay.
Not to mention that Joe’s whole thing has been about how weird it is for him to be in a relationship, and how scared he is to fuck it up, and how committed he is to being monogamous.
@Nono and Jon
My dudes. Y’all need to work on your reading comprehension. Look at the first post in the thread. Read it. Absorb it. Now read mine in context.
A magical thing will occur where everything you said is moot and irrelevant because the poly is not being “slapped on” but was the starting premise.
No, it wasn’t. Because Dorothy and Joyce aren’t assuming they’re poly. They kissed and then acknowledged it was wrong. And then they kissed some more.
So maybe read your own premise again.
**folds hands**
Go on. Read Blibdoolpoolp’s post.
Retype it here to prove you did. I’ll wait.
You mean the baseless speculation/”joke” upon which you baselessly elaborated? What about it?
To be pedantic: the above post by the goddess of the kuo-toa began with “Cut to:”, which is a common introduction for a joke involving, as https://screenplayhowto.com/screenplay-blog/when-to-use-cut-to-and-when-not-to/ puts it, “some sort of disparity between what was conveyed in the previous scene with what’s happening in the current scene”.
Admittedly, that’s not a guarantee that it was a joke, but immediately assuming bad intentions often tends to make social interaction less pleasant. Besides, there’re better things to spend your anger on.
Ah! There we go.
Thank you, delverything, for actually reading the OP instead of having a tantrum.
And yes, others, what Blibdoolpoolp speculated was a comedic scenario where our expectations would be upended by Willis, upon which I wrote a hypothetical description of what said comic might contain.
Nowhere did we suggest that this is what should or would happen.
Nowhere did we suggest to apply this after the fact.
Nowhere, in fact, did we argue at all. Even my responses have been entirely focused upon getting the all the pissy people to pay the least bit of attention to what they were actually replying to.
I swear, the reading comprehension around here is really terrible at times.
How dare you say we piss on the poor, as the tumblr joke goes.
“We shouldn’t do this. We know we shouldn’t do this.”
“Yeah, but too horny (and dorky) to stop.”
@StClair
That was not, in fact, Blibdoolpoolp’s original post. Try again.
My comment was not directed at you, more at all the many, many, many discussions I’ve seen recently where commenters have proposed “they should all be poly, that would fix this situation”.
Threads diverge. Not every reply has to be directed squarely at all the posts above it.
Okay, so today’s just gonna be a day where people get pissy and act like it’s unreasonable to think they’re talking about the same thing as other people in the thread when they’re talking about the same thing in the thread.
@Taffy I know, right?
Jon here clearly doesn’t understand how comment sections work, in general or this one specifically.
You’re free to read my response as pissy but I wasn’t (though I am now, thanks for that): I was explaining my comment. Threads on this site meander and straight-up change topics all the time, it’s incredibly common.
K. You’re not worth the trouble.
As if you are? *eye roll*
Jon, I feel you were trolled in a very tiresome manner. I’m with you at least.
They’re gonna get stuck if you keep doing that. 💅🏻
Is the [the idea that slapping the poly label would just magically solve everything] in the room with us right now?
Mwahaha! I love to slap the poly label on everything and it is solved immediately! I am slapping the poly label on this comments section! Solved!
Finally, a chance to say this with a face.
I’m breaking up with every last of of you.
I’m devastated by this break up, we’ll have to slap a poly label on it to solve my pain immediately.
Honestly, I’d break up with me too.
Have you seen these split ends? And I snore.
My girlfriend snores like a chainsaw, so that wouldn’t even be a deal breaker.
But we were still in the flirting phase! It’s so sudden! I’m relationshiply-whiplashed!
#shiplashed
All the better to hear the sirens without jumping overboard.
Polly label, APPLY DIRECTLY TO THE FOREHEAD.
Hey, it worked in Fans!… I think? Maybe? It’s been a long time.
If that’s a comic, I haven’t read it.
Webcomic from the Keenspot days (about 20ish-25ish years ago) about the adventures of a science fiction fan club. There was an interdimensional-portal crossover with It’s Walky! once. If I remember correctly it had the interesting twist of *reversing* the usual “first they fight, then they team up against a common enemy” cliche. As soon as they meet, they realize they’re on the same side and team up, but later they argue over differences in strategy and turn against each other.
Anyway, there was an ongoing love triangle between three of the main characters of Fans! throughout the run of the comic, and I *think* I remember it being resolved by a “hey wait, what if we just form a poly triad” epiphany towards the end.
Huh. The only Keenspot comic I’ve knowingly read is Flipside, which also has a prominent throuple. Must be in the web code.
I’m not sure that slapping the poly label on would fix anything, but if the chain poly label stuck, it would be a workable solution with minimal pain. It would require maturity, good communication, and caring for other people more than you care for yourself. So let’s face it; it’s not going to happen. But I still feel like it’s worth the four of them discussing.
I can enjoy the joke of the idea but I really don’t like people who legitimately think that this can just painlessly be added to the relationship. It feels very much like people believing unhealthy myths about what polyamory means.
I would fucking cackle. I would love this.
It’s so unlikely but I would feel like I’d won the lottery.
You and me both. Like I said, make a crowdfund. I will donate to it. XD
Joyce: do you know what would be funny? You both starting to date.
* Joe looks again to Walky *
Walky: It’s not a good time, right now, you know?
Joe: What are you talking about? Fifty.
Walky: Ok *handles the money* but I didn’t said NO. I said NOT on front of them.
* Joyce looks to Dorothy, that handles 50$ to her *
Out in the hall (since the door is open, because they’re all always leaving the door open), a half-dozen dorm hall residents are grumblingly handing money to each other.
Is there like, a crowdfunding I can donate to? Because I would pay to see this timeline, even if it’s some kinda DC Elseworlds alt universe.
Joyce and Dorothy: We thought we were cheating and are feeling guilt about that.
Joe and Walky: Lol, we never gave a shit about establishing boundries in our reliationships
Joyce and Dorothy: Thank god, guilt resolved
suddenly zero drama would be satisfying to the “sickos”?
You might wanna flip back a few comics to the one where Joyce and Dorothy kissed to a backdrop of pink shoujo-ai teargas. There ain’t nothing “zero drama” about any of this, even if the resolution is the payoff for a brick joke instead of tears.
Cause, it could easily be both. Drop a joke and then get serious. That is, you know, exactly Willis’s style.
you’re telling me that’s the drama that “sickos” are wanting is Joyce and Dorothy wandering into a protest and then smooth sailing relationshipwise. Don’t bother twisting yourself into a pretzel, I don’t care.
No. I’m telling you that drama has happened, is happening, and will continue to happen. My example of a possible punchline to this above would in no way negate drama.
Especially when we could get weeks of drama from Joyce and Dorothy angsting before the punchline.
I don’t think it’s going to be that easy though. But I still maintain the possability of a poly ending is non zero.
That’s weeks our time. Probably an hour or so for them.
Also lots of people (like me) picked sickos because the only other poll option was “gets all bent out of shape over characters making poor choices and yells at other people for not meeting their exact level of distress on the subject”. No one was signing up for “must always and forever want the most dramatic thing to happen”, and it’s silly to act like there’s any inconsistency in such a loosely aligned group wanting different things.
Now, if a self-described relationship paladin was suddenly okay with a different couple cheating or whatever, just because they ship that couple…….
Well that would be called “being a shipper”. And it would be completely fine, people can change their opinions actually when asked different questions.
(In this instance I think the part that would make it a “sicko” option to like the idea of an instantaneous resolution with no drama would be the anticipated comment section explosion. But I’d be out there, I might enjoy the schadenfreude for like a moment, but I don’t, actually, want real people to be that upset.)
sickos/paladins poll needs to be redone, since it is unclear which one meant: “prefers the relationships to work out smoothly with no instances of people fucking up and hurting each other”
I think it’d be fun, and that’s what I’m pulling for. However, it would only be fun for like a couple days and then kind of fizzle out for me, so I ultimately prefer the more drama version for more sustained fun.
Honestly I wish.
Yeah, it would “twist the knife” so to speak because I don’t like stories that excuse cheating.
Writing the story so that Walky and Joe are not at all upset by the cheating would feel like a cop out.
Bah. Writing the story where they get upset instead of considering it hot would feel like pandering to the stuck up monogamists out there.
I’m imagining an alternate timeline where Billie didn’t crash the car and consequently the commentariat has an eternal debate about whether driving drunk is morally wrong.
+1
Nah id sitll hate that cause its an off screen copout
“We just made out for at least a minute!”
“Yeah, doesn’t even crack the top 10.”
Yeah! They haven’t posted a video about it yet.
Sal can’t be surprised by this; she’s known this longer than they have.
Also, they /really/ need to talk to their respective boyfriends before they find out from someone else. Any predictions on how that will go?
At this rate, my prediction is that they’ll fail to accomplish this in at least one case, if not both.
I made my prediction two threads up from this.
Me prediction is: Very poorly!
The fact that they have talked about the “lessatorium” doesn’t inspire confidence. Feels like the move when you’re trying to cover something up.
Basically the only way either of them is gonna ever stay sympathetic to me is if they both go talk to their partners right the hell now. But all this talk is making me increasingly worried they’re not gonna do that.
Which is fine, I’m not in charge or anything. Still just reeling from this shift and how gleeful they *still* are about the whole thing. Clearly it’s not just a fit of passion.
God, I hope we don’t get an honest-to-goodness affair plotline.
… you do realize that it was lesatorium, as in lesbian, not lessatorium, as in less than a moratorium, right?
A bad pun, not a statement of intent.
There are literally two “s”es in the word in yesterdays strip.
I think you misread it.
*goes back and looks at yesterday’s comic*
…I do not see that?
Far dos on the misspelling.
However, the pun intent of lesbian still stands.
That is your interpretation. (For the record, it was and is not mine.)
You know what, fair.
It is my interpretation.
I based my interpretation on the fact that the lesbian pun is a joke, while it meaning “less” is… not? And this being a comic that has jokes, the joke option is more likely, particularly given that it was positioned as the punch line of yesterday’s comic – which is, typically, a joke.
But that is the beauty of art. You are free to interpret it differently, and if you would prefer a meaning that is not funny and instead upsets you, then you do you.
“Less” is a pun because the “mor” in “moratorium” sounds like “more.”
The joke as I read it was that they promise to do a “moratorium” on showing affection, but “we should be doing LESS, not MORE affection!”
And if right now you’re saying “wow that’s a terrible pun” the characters agree with you, and that’s what makes it funny to them xD
I don’t think people are upset by the “less” version of the pun? But also, I see that as the interpretation that makes it actually a joke. The “lesbian” pun just… isn’t there. Like, if “les” had been (well, one, what was said, and then) used to replace “straight” or “hetero” or a word that almost sounded like “les,” then I could see it, but as it is, I would consider to be an extremely poorly crafted joke for that to be the intended meaning.
ok this is really bothering me lmfao, the joke was obviously that they need to do LESS (less-atorium) of what they’re doing rather than doing anything MORE (mor-atorium). a big clue to this is that dorothy kept saying “no MORE [activity]”. this has nothing to do with anyone’s feelings on what’s happening in the comic, you’re straight up just missing the intended wordplay here. imho, your interpretation would be a completely random and arbitrary portmanteau (not even a pun, which requires some kind of association between the two words) and not a joke at all???????
and ftr, all jon was saying was that that particular joke could potentially imply them hiding things, which is understandable. but the joke doesn’t Require that to still be the joke that it obviously was.
The point of puns is that they’re dumb and not really funny, so much so that it loops back around to being funny. It’s just lessatorium bc dot was saying all the things they need to do less of
I, for one, did not until you said that lol
Nope. I did not ‘realise’ is was about lesbians, as a joke between 2 newly discovering they are bi people. I read it in the comments section that it could *also* be read as les-atorium (even tho stopping would not be a les-atorium, whereas it would be a less-atrorium), and thought oh yeah, wonder if Willis was aware of both interpretations.
So, no, I don’t think people need to be told that they should ‘realise’ it was about lesbians and *not* about less/more.
My money’s on Joe being upset about it but wants to try and work things out because he really likes Joyce. Polycule is floated as a solution… but predictions of who broaches the topic and whether Joe goes along with it are murkier. For the sake of a hypothetical betting pool I’m gonna say Joyce brings up that she wants to kiss Dorothy, Joe provides the language and agrees to try it out.
Walky… I’m calling not surprise but disappointment, feeling justifiably disrespected, and breaking things off with Dorothy. Ooh, maybe Amber breaks the news to him before Dorothy can find a way to bring it up. That would be some top shelf drama. Yeah, I’m gonna go with that.
I predict that Joe will be the one to break it off (after thinking about it and trying to reconcile it but not being okay with it.
I think Walky is gonna say “Fuckin’ FINALLY” and release Dorothy into Joyce’s loving care, because so far I have consistently gotten the vibe that he’s only back together with Dorothy out of inertia, convenience, and a nascent awareness that Dorothy is currently Not Okay and he needs to be helping her cope.
I actually predict Walky will be very pissed, and probably more upset than Joe because he will be blindsided whereas Joe saw the attraction already
Walky is the only one of the four involved here to propose polamory to someone he was dating at the time. Yes, he did so as a joke. Walky is known for framing things he’s actually serious about as jokes.
I’m not seeing Amber spilling the beans to Walky. The beauty of her plan was that Walky would wind up back in her lap without her having to do anything that would leave her culpable. Only Booster and Amazigirl would know.
Walky has long ago referred to Joyce as his girlfriend’s girlfriend. Amber’s plan might not be as effective as she thinks. The issue is Joe and Joyce. The chemistry between Joe and Joyce has been building almost as long as between Joyce and Dorothy. Joyce acted briefly on her attraction to Dorothy before going on her date with Joe. What that means, I don’t know.
We have been making predictions literally every day this week lmao 🤣
I’m assuming it won’t go well, since most people don’t like it when they find out their dating partners are cheating on them.
No, but people have been known to give second chances when it comes to light.
Not to be inflammatory, but generally we call those people “fools.”
This is a comic, so not beholden to real life rules, but I’ve yet to meet a person where the “if they cheated for you, they’ll cheat on you” rule hasn’t held true or the “if they cheated once, they’ll cheat again” rule hasn’t been true. Like, the last dude that cheated on me went on to marry that lady, and he still cheated on her with me (he told me that he changed his mind, I believed him, spent the whole weekend hiding so nobody in town would see me. Like I said, people who give cheaters second chances are fools, myself included.)
Linked to a study just yesterday on the topic, if you’re interested in learning whether or not that aphorism holds water.
(Disclaimer: it might be as much as three days ago now, but it’s there. Search for “study”.)
In this case, I am content to be a fool.
Circumstances matter. Girl cheated on me back in college. Had sex with her manipulative ex. We stayed together for another 4 years or so – she didn’t do anything like that again. Still friends with her decades later and as sure as any one from outside can be that she still hasn’t done anything like it.
But your [Kyulen] whole proposition depends on the definition of ‘cheating’. Other people’s definitions might not match yours. Indeed, if the comments some have made are to be believed (and why should they not be?), there are indeed definitions that don’t match yours…
One of the key problems is that they have to go back through a crowded and busy campus, just to find their phones, which are being guarded by their respective room mates, who will have Questions, before they even get a chance to text “Hey, we need to talk” to their boyfriends.
I’m not sure we can trust that they will stay on target under those conditions.
Assuming that there isn’t a ticking time bomb of a photo, news story, or Mary blabbing because she could see the big damn kiss from where she was standing in the counter protest waiting to blow while they deal with room mates and any other obsticals preventing them from reaching Joe and Walky before it goes off.
I’m highly betting on a photo
It would be competing with photos of AmaziGirl beating up cops, but can’t be ruled out.
Don’t forget who’s the editor of the campus newspaper. Personally, though, I’m expecting a photo that depicts Joyce and Dorothy kissing AND Amazi-Girl beating up cops, to satify both of Daisy’s priorities.
BURN
Oy gevalt can you please just go face the music with your boyfriends already
All that’s gonna do is equalize the music’s relative volume, assuming even hearing in both ears.
I really hope they do that soon.
We really do know your opinion on this by now!
I feel like Sal secretly is happy for them, and she’s been waiting for this as long as we have.
Sal does not care.
My thought is that she might have cared, at some point, but if so, she’s been waiting so long for them to figure it out that her feeling now is more like “took ya long enough”.
Sal isn’t much bothered by the relationships comin’ and goin’. When she and Danny were just starting, and she thought she saw him in bed with Joe, she was smirking, not upset. Was a bit surprised when she saw ‘Danny’ was Joyce. She’s apparently not much of a relationship paladin or sicko.
Sal can more than put two and two together
specially when the two have been leaving a Sapphic breadcrumb trail for the longest time now XD
About fifteen years our time.
Does Sal know that Dorothy and Walky are nominally back together?
this should probably be past tense
Is Sal aware that Dorothy is, at least in theory, dating her brother?
Feel like her reaction would be a bit different if she was, unless she straight up doesnt care about Walky at all
She is at least tacitly aware
For all Sal knows, this could be entirely aboveboard with Walky.
Sal may have opinions but she’s no narc.
My guess is option 2. Like Lucy was in her face bragging about their relationship a week ago and now he’s with Dorothy? That’s not including the whole fake dating Amber to piss off their parents thing, she might not even know what was up with that. Walky’s love life is not worth the effort to keep track of.
Sal maybe gave only 2 days for their relationship endure.
You can care about your brother bit also not care at all about his many bad relationship decisions
Sal does not give a SHIT about Walky’s love life
All we know Sal saw was Dorothy and Joyce hugging. That is par for the course for them. That is the joke last panel, they both always acting gay with each other, this is not anything unusual.
I think it’s the case that Sal is going to avoid the drama. She, like Billie, probably does care to some extent of Walky’s wellbeing, but probably figure it’ll sort itself out.
I don’t think it’s “doesn’t care about Walky at all.” I think it’s she’s not his protector, his relationship messes are his to experience and learn (or not) from. The dinner with their parents was eight days ago. Sal defended Lucy and then Walky showed up with Amber and made a mess of dinner.
To be fair, the point of showing up with Amber was to make a mess of dinner and make Lucy look better by comparison. This was a plan Lucy was in on.
Depends on how often Walky’s joked about wanting to try polyamory, honestly. He did it twice with Lucy, he might have also said something to Sal. Just because she’d be wrong to assume he knows and is okay with this doesn’t mean it’s totally illogical if she assumed it.
Bahahahahaha, I love Sal so much. I mean, she should probably say something on Walky’s behalf or at least to him later, but today’s comic is funny.
I know it won’t sound fair, but I’m not so worried about them, cheating their partners.
Maybe because I live in latin america, where monogamy is taking so much seriously. It’s a base of own culture, from sings to series, soap opera, movies, where is expected, in a couple, to control each other.
I know, and I lived stories about people that gaslight their partners, or started to control who they will talk, etc. All the red flag package we all know.
Not counting the classic, when things het out control: women that destroy properties from their guys, because they only suspected from cheating. Guys hitting their girls, or worse, because they talked to some friend.
In marriage, or only dating. Or even someone having a crush, and they don’t returns the feelings, the list goes on…
It tires me. Everything at my sight is all about control.
I don’t know if I could explain one of reason I don’t care so much about the history going for a cheating plot. Maybe I’m wrong, but I don’t have energy to get mad about it.
Nah you’re right. Folks getting mad about cheating really just don’t understand the genre they’re walking into.
Man, my side of latinamerica seems much tamer than yours (Chile). Like, of course gender violence and controlling people happens. But, well, one is a crime, and the other usually is reserved for the most psycho. I doubt it’s much more of a thing than it is elsewhere.
I’m enjoying them and I’m patient enough to wait for the next comic.
Lucky, Willis keeps extorting me for five bucks
Oh, don’t get me wrong, I also pay the troll toll when I can. Gives a really interesting perspective on the flow of the comic and the comments.
I can’t agree more with last panel Sal
Ah yes, coming out of the glass closet.
Ah yes, the good ol’ glass closet trope: when everybody knows you’re gay except you.
Its funny how similar our concurrent comments were.
…and Asma knows. Plus a few other folks at the protest. Plus, likely Leslie and Robin. Plus any media who may have been capturing “iconic moments” in photo and video of the protest. Plus those medias’ viewers and readers. Plus maybe Joyce’s dad…
…Yeah, that horse has DEFINITIVELY left the barn.
That cat was never IN the bag, to begin with!
Don’t forget that a few other people at the protest might include Mary.
Asma: Every time you call me “Front Desk Girl” from now on I’m going to call you “Girl Who Wanted Her Sister To See Her Make Out” and “That Girl’s Sad Nebbishy Blonde Sub.”
Is cheating at a protest better or worse than at a Coldplay concert?
The Coldplay concert is obviously worse because CEOs are astronomically worse, evil people. This is a solved issue.
So, Carla’s parents?
Carla’s parents are incredibly more evil than Joyce and Dorothy, yeah. They’re literally giving weapons to genocidaires. Dorothy and Joyce are kissing a bit.
They are not, actually, literally doing that.
Right, they’re fictionally doing that. That’s what I keep trying to remind people!
Kudos for the wonderous wordplay, there! 🙂
Gods, I haven’t drawn fanart in decades, but now I just might draw Joyce and Dorothy at the Coldplay concert.
The protest one feels more respectable. Like maybe not better, but certainly you’d get more cred out of it.
I’m pretty sure Asma has weightier things on her mind than if two of the hundreds of people in the building are cheating on their SOs.
Yeah, pretty much anyone who was at the protest may have seen them kissing. And if someone took pictures or videos of them at the protest then anyone who sees that will know. Though I assume a lot of other people at the protest were more concerned with their own safety than what Joyce and Dorothy were doing.
Tbf do you think someone wouldn’t publish a sapphic smooch during an incredibly public protest
It’s the sort of thing you’d use as a headline photo
Not to mention social media and messaging apps…
Could the cat who was not in the bag have opened the barn door for the horse to leave? (Image of a detective in front of a board with red thread between pins)
They’ve opened up this can of worms, and now they have to lie in it.
Too late to change horses in midair.
The train of thought has left the station and derailed…
I mean, Asma saw them kiss, maybe, but I don’t think she knows either of them have boyfriends. None of the main cast are friends with her.
…so the “not being ‘Allowed’ to act upon it” aspect results in a net increase of gayness, versus overt acts of such?
Yes, the horniness field between them intensifies when nothing happens, smooching releases it. Like with static electricity.
Before, they didn’t consider themselves to be doing anything wrong, so they weren’t trying to hide it. Now they are.
It’s the pining that does it.
lol
Joe already knows and is fine with it, Sal has a notary public paper from him that she forgot to give the two idiots
It’s canon, ask Willis
Sal is the notary, actually, it just never comes up. It’s her side hustle.
I feel like Joe has been expecting this for some time, and that may have spurred his conversation with Dorothy – partly because he feels he doesn’t deserve Joyce, but also partly because he dimly sensed the tension and didn’t want to be the reason it didn’t happen.
Whether he did that CONSCIOUSLY, and how well he’s going to take it, is an open question. People do dumb things and push people away when they feel self-loathing, and then react badly when consequences fall in their lap anyway.
Yes, the guy who has extreme baggage regarding his parents’ divorce and disgust at his father’s infidelity is sure to react normally to his girlfriend potentially cheating on him.
That is totally a thing that will definitely happen.
For the record, I think he’d give Joyce and Dorothy a pass for everything that’s happened so far, high spirits and all that, sudden bi awareness, might not be happy about it but I think he’ll understand.
But that depends on what follows, on what Joyce and Dorothy expect the new normal to be. Because I have a feeling he’s not prepared for or interested in polyamory.
Too bad you’re wrong, like I just said. Joe is fine with it. Notary public. Canon.
Wait, who are the two idiots in this conjecture?
Honestly, I need some context.
Last pannel: Yes, Dorothy is getting the strong desire to tell everyone about Joyce, like Becky and Dina.
This seems to imply the sheer power of yuri naturally pushes one towards shouting from the rooftops. I love it. To paraphrase the same quote I did two days ago… I FEEL
THE WARPSAPPHO OVERTAKING ME! IT IS A GOOD PAIN!Feels like it’s been ages since we’ve seen Sal. Love her to death. Welcome back. Flawless re-entry into the plot. 10/10, no notes.
you love to see it!
I’m assuming Joe and Walky probably won’t be surprised when Joyce and Dorothy finally get around to telling them, but I’m not gonna assume they’ll somehow magically be happy that their girlfriends decided to cheat on them with each other.
I kinda wonder if Wally might surprise us and actually take it worse just because he puts Dorothy up on such a high pedestal. I think Joe will be hurt but push his feelings aside for Joyce
I think it’ll be the opposite. Look back at Walky’s interactions with Dorothy since they got back together: he really doesn’t seem that invested in it. Weirdly it feels like he’s dating Dorothy more as a favor to her because he knows she needs to feel safe and wanted right now.
Compared to first-relationship Walky, who was desperately falling over himself to keep her toward the end, I think he’s a lot more likely to say “that sucks but whatever.”
Joe, meanwhile, is going to be heartbroken. That scene with Rachel in the gym was pre-twisting the knife.
THat’s an interseting read.
I read it as depression coming from low self-esteem, because he actually genuinely cares for Dorothy, perhaps even to the point of love, and wants a serious relationship – but does not think he is worthy, or that any of the world takes him seriously. This will be the proof that she doesn’t love him or take him seriously, so he might be expecting it – but instead of shrugging it off it could be devastating for whatever shreds of self-esteem he has left and cause a major breakdown.
I’m thinking similarly. The way most people on here are discounting Walky’s feelings on his relationship confirm to me that he comes across as having a very low sense of self-worth. I think he consideres Dorothy to be above him, and this will only prove that to be the case.
I still read it as the opposite. Wally’s rebounding from Lucy and won’t turn down companionship with someone he cares about, but remember how desperate Dorothy was to be dating him again a week ago? And he turned her down cold because of Lucy.
I still think the power dynamic has shifted there, and Walky isn’t the one who “needs” their relationship the most.
Neither Joe nor Walky will, at the very least, be blindsided by it. Joe already knows about Dorothy’s interest in Joyce, based on his conversation with her. And Walky kind of suspects Dorothy’s interest in Joyce, considering how much Dorothy kept talking about Joyce while she and Walky were in bed. And Walky has already been showing signs that he knows this second go round with Dorothy wasn’t meant to last almost from the start. Even so, yeah, that doesn’t mean either of them will be (or should/must be) okay with it, but it won’t be a complete shock to either of them.
Dorothy: Okay, Joe, Walky, better sit down, we have something important to tell you.
Joyce: Yeah, brace yourselves, this is BIG!
Joe: O-. Okay. I’m ready.
Walky: *gulp*. Me, too! Lay it on us!
Dorothy: Joyce and I… we’re gay!
Joyce: For each other!
*Blink*
*blink*
Walky: … Yyyeah?
Joe: Okay. And?
Joyce: Nono, you guys don’t get it. We’re kissing each other now!
Dorothy: Passionately!
Walky: *to Joe* Were they not doing that already?
Joe: *shrugs* Honestly, it wouldn’t be the gayest thing they’ve done together.
Walky: True dat!
Dorothy: Y- you guys don’t get it! WE’RE CHEATING ON YOU!!
Walky: Okay, in all seriousness, your relationship is the oldest and the strongest! I’ve always felt like _I_ was the one intruding on yours.
Joe: Yup, Dorothy was giving me the stink-eye on Day One. She relented, though, so I assumed it was okay. Are you saying it’s not, anymore?
Dorothy: I- I dunno! I…
Joyce: … Are we in a polycule now?
I just noticed there’s an upcoming chapter called “Fool’s Spring”, which sounds like a Groundhog Day reference, but it’s lined up for February 1st. Unless there’s a one day timeskip. It would be the first timeskip since the big one.
do I have a memory hole or did Willis already finish it?
Probably already finished it. It’s book 16, chapter 3 and they already have chapter 4’s name up. I don’t see the chapter announcements from blue sky, I’m only on tumblr and mastadon.
“Fool’s Spring” is an existing term in gardening circles. It refers to a warm period in late winter that tricks inexperienced gardeners into planting early, only to have a later cold snap kill their seedlings. In this case, It may be a metaphor…
Did Sal see them kissing and consider that less gay than usual, or did she not and is noticing the conspicuous absence of kissing?
Honestly, and I’m sure not that many people care, but I feel like I might stop reading comments altogether soon.
It’s not even the sickos camp (I don’t have anything against people who enjoy this storyline; it’s not the first time a storyline hasn’t clicked with me and it won’t be the last).
It’s the… weird way some people have been gleeful against them? I’ve seen everything from ‘man would this be an extra twist of the knife to the paladins’ to ‘lol if you’re upset at this you don’t know what genre you’re walking into’. Almost like it’s wrong that people can be upset at the issues raised here.
Let me repeat, I have nothing against people enjoying the current storyline. It’s not my cup of tea, but I can deal with that. But I’m not enjoying the comments sections lately, and I’d rather not let that turn me off the strip as a whole (though I’ll be honest, the latest storyline really hasn’t helped).
But anyway. Be kind to one another.
Being fair the same things has come from the other camp as well, making anyone who does enjoy the storyline to be weird and pro cheating in real life and the like and so people get exhausted with it and become hostile.
“You’re a bad person if you find this understandable” was certainly a lot.
@Nono: Take care of yourself! The comments are exhausting often, no matter what side of things you’re on.
Honestly i think we could use some time away from the comments from time to time especially when it gets contentious like this, just to calm the reactionary emotions snd put things in perspective.
it is such a weird leap of logic to say you support cheating IRL if you’re enjoying this storyline… like I’m personally not, and it’s not the cheating, it’s the getting invested into something for /years/ for it to fall apart in no time makes me not really want to get invested in much of anything. But Im not going to say people are morally bankrupt for being into it. I am sincerely glad for people who have been dying for this to happen, I am simply not one of them. Be kind to each other indeed.
I am fine with people enjoying the storyline. I am not a fan of when people start excusing or diminishing the cheating because they are enjoying the storyline/they ship Joyce+Dorothy.
Are we framing this as Joyce and Dorothy screwing up and making bad decisions for which they will later face the consequences and grow as young adults? I hope so but I have yet to see it.
You have yet to see it because it’s not done yet. I mean, it might not but is there any reason to think Willis won’t use this to pull the drama cord (like a ripcord but it releases drama instead of a parachute) and deliver consequences?
Right now this looks like another example of something I’ve been talking about for a couple days now. Making up your own ending to this and then getting mad as if Willis already wrote it.
Except that I already have seen people excusing the infidelity. “It’s fine as long as Joe decides retroactively he’s okay with polyamory” or “It’s just kissing”.
With regards to how this arc will conclude, I didn’t say Willis won’t have them face real repercussions. I hope they do.
I don’t appreciate your comment because it seems to be responding to stuff I didn’t say.
What you are saying is “I’m obviously not in favor of witch hunts, but it needs to be acknowledged that there are witches among us, true brides of Satan, who are working their devilish arts upon the innocent. And something should be done about them.”
What are you even arguing with me about? Do you deny it is cheating? Do you deny it is wrong?
If you agree that it is cheating and agree then it is wrong then I don’t have an issue with that. Like I said, enjoy the story!
Yes
I don’t want to stop reading the comments, but I’ve noticed the same. Some of y’all in the sickos camp seems to be really going out of your way to be nasty towards those of us in the relationship paladins. At least that’s how it appears to me.
I think what you’re seeing is a lot of sarcastic backlash against Paladin-camp peeps who are getting on a very high horse and making statements like “if you understand this you’re a bad person” or “they just want to slap the poly label on everything and call it fixed” or other nasty blanket statements that have been the order of the last two weeks.
Or “people are justifying this this because they value wlw relationships over hetero ones”.
Maybe people shouldn’t be justifying it at all? It doesn’t really matter why people are trying to justify Joyce and Dorothy’s behavior, it is still ultimately trying to justify cheating.
People can enjoy the drama without infidelity apologism.
So if people don’t try to justify or excuse the cheating then there wouldn’t be any overgeneralizations about why people are trying to excuse the cheating.
“Infidelity apologism”
“Trying to justify cheating”
“There wouldn’t be any overgeneralizing [if you SCUM would just FALL IN LINE]”
This. This, exactly, right here. This is why there’s a lot of nasty sarcastic backlash, Kyle’s. It’s this kind of deeply uncomradely, concern trolling shit.
If you are not trying to justify cheating then clearly whatever overgeneralization are happening don’t apply to you.
But if you are trying to justify cheating then yeah, people are going to think poorly of you.
“It’s this kind of deeply uncomradely, concern trolling shit.”
Maybe reflect on your own behavior a little.
“If you’re not trying to justify cheating, then it doesn’t apply to you.”
My sibling in Manwë. Are you familiar with the phrases “If you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear.” and “It obviously wouldn’t apply to you, you’re one of the good ones.”
Do you think that people who say this are good? Do you think they are ever justified?
I’m not the one who needs to reflect on my behavior.
Like I’m sure you’re gonna spout Godwin’s Law at me and act all aggrieved but I’m not the one who’s publicly saying things that actual fascists say to win my internet argument.
Like, holy shit, Constable, no one is doing “infidelity apologism”. They are reading a fucking comic, which is something you should be able to do without performing acts of contrition!
I like Magneto. I have said “Magneto is right” many times and cheered for him compressing Orchis goons into a ball of metal. Am I a terrorism apologist, for this??? Am I doing excuses for murderers????
I think “In the Pale Moonlight” is a great DS9 episode. I love that Sisko goes that far. Am I an assassination apologist, to you?!?
“Magneto is right” is a position I have fewer issues with because Magneto was basically the head of a resistance group for a persecuted minority. By itself I would see it as saying we need to understand Magneto in the context of broader discrimination.
If someone got super serious saying “Magneto was totally right to kill people. I hope he kills a lot more people in the next comic. And screw those people who think he is bad for killing people” Then I would give them a heck of a side-eye.
Are you comfortable being the arbiter of where the line is on that??? Are you that eager to deal out death and judgement, as Gandalf put it??? Because you shouldn’t be.
It’s a thousand times creepier than any villain fan who’s excited to see the blood and gore and murder to be the guy who turns to his cop friend and sneers, “people like that should be locked up.”
Can’t reply to your comment because it is too far in.
“Are you comfortable being the arbiter of where the line is on that???”
What sort of power do you think I have? I am pretty darn comfortable being the arbiter of my own opinion and saying it.
And I am not saying people should be locked up. I am saying “Cheating is bad. We shouldn’t say cheating is okay”.
That is it.
So, to recap, if you say “Cheating is okay!” you will have to deal with (horror of horrors) … some random people on the internet telling you that you’re wrong.
I hope you can somehow recover from this grievous blow.
I’ve been trying to illustrate to you that the kind of rhetoric you deploy is toxic and when it’s used outside our little walled fandom garden on other issues it has real consequences but like, you deliberately do not want to engage with that and I’m tired of talking to you, so I’m going to stop.
I will leave you with this: if you’re going to sit here and be the “random person on the internet telling [Infidelity Apologists] they’re wrong”, and that they are bad people, great, hoss.
But maybe next time don’t join a hand-wringing chorus about how mean people are to you???? Because if you’re going to sit there going “wrong, wrong, wrong and bad”, you can expect the people who just want to read their infidelity fiction in peace to get sarcastic and mean at you. You’re disturbing their peace and sitting in judgement of them. It’s shitty and rude. What did you think was going to happen, do you think they’re required to sit quietly and tolerate being yelled at all damn day?
I think there are at least legitimate potential arguments that A) previous incidents did not cross the line and B) a single incident in the heat of the moment that does cross the line nevertheless does not become “cheating” unless it is covered up and continued rather than immediately disclosing and either seeking permission or breaking up.
The current kissing in front of the dorm maybe stretches the definition of ‘single incident’ but they are on the same adrenaline high and still have not yet had an opportunity to disclose.
Wow i wanted to guve the benefit of the doubt but you really just prove my point for me being so weird about it.
Friend, you haven’t been giving people the benefit of the doubt. That isn’t how you have been engaging with the comment section.
“i just think you all annoying as fuck”
“Unrespectfully disagree.”
Someone comments about how they dislike the cheating and you reply “Well too bad because i do and i am pretty damn happy so i guess you gotta have to doe mad about it 😜”
Like, you do you. You can enjoy the comic, but don’t get mad when people don’t like Joyce because she is cheating. And don’t pretend you have been giving people the benefit of the doubt when you actively seek out and mock the people who dislike the cheating.
I was talking about you specifically right now, what i say in those other occasions is irrelevant. I wanted to give benefit of the doubt to your original reply to me that you were coming from a place of good faith so i choose not to reply back snd get into an discussion, but then you said all that weird shit that sajuk already pointed out and that went out of the window.
Prrrrooooobably too late to de-escalate this conversation but, here’s an attempt to reply to this without attacking you or anyone else:
With rare exceptions, I think you’re conflating two very different things that are happening.
Some folks are speculating on possible reasons for Joyce and Dorothy’s behavior, such as guessing that maybe Joyce had an off-screen conversation with Joe. This isn’t really “justifying” anything, it’s making predictions and guesses, based on what seem to be Joyce’s existing character traits and the prior conversations she’s had with Joe.
Some folks are saying “this is fine”, but couching it specifically in fictional terms, as in “it’s fine to enjoy a story about cheating”. This also isn’t really justifying cheating or apologism for infidelity. It’s just drawing a distinction between what’s okay to like slash “support” in fiction and what’s okay to like or support in the real world.
Some folks are just straight-up talking about their own lives and their own relationships, where this wouldn’t be cheating, because they’ve negotiated different boundaries with their real-life partners. I think that’s a natural digression from these strips, and sometimes it’s even invited, as other readers have asked, “Is this cheating to you?”
I think most of this group would still agree that by Joyce’s OWN definitions, not only this but going to “do laundry” with Dorothy again would both be cheating — but, having been asked whether they personally would consider it cheating if it happened to them, “no” is a reasonable answer for some folks.
(There’s also a segment that is misremembering certain prior events and conversations, and arguing that Joyce and Dorothy either aren’t in relationships at all or aren’t in monogamous relationships… but misremembering stuff happens, it’s not necessarily a lie they’re telling to “justify” anything.)
Finally: some folks are just saying “yes cheating is fine, more cheating for the blood god”, but they are trolling.
If anyone’s seriously tried to justify infidelity, I don’t think I’ve seen it? The closest I’ve seen is some people saying, “I was cheated on, it didn’t ruin my life,” or “this relationship has been going on less than a week and they’re all 18,” which… I can see how that might be read as justifying cheating? But I think it’s more an attempt to offer counter-perspectives, since some other readers have said, “I’ve been cheated on, and it destroyed me,” as well as comparing Joe and Joyce’s relationship directly to a marriage.
Emotions are clearly running high for a lot of us.
Really good analysis. Esp as to why people really don’t need to get in a state about differing opinions.
As to the penultimate paragraph, this may just be pedantic word defining, but I think a few people have said infidelity is OK, because basically, they have said there is no cheating or infidelity, it is all a product of buying into the assumption that there things exist.
I have also said it does depend on where the line is drawn. Is it cheating to discover you and someone else have a mutual attraction but don’t kiss or hold hands? If not, at what point does it become cheating?
But yeah. We are a huge number of different people. We have different personal opinions over something that is not subject to verifiable fact. Joyce thought masturbation was cheating, Joe did not. Different opinions. Personal opinions are not right or wrong! Especially where they concern such intangibles as morality. Not right or wrong, just different. Accommodate the diversity people!
Thanks 🙂
I think there are certainly some folks arguing now that, essentially, cheating is a social construct. I still don’t think they’re really doing infidelity apologism, because to me, that would take one of a couple of forms:
“It’s fine for me to cheat, other people’s feelings don’t matter.”
“Cheating is good for your relationship, it spices things up!”
“I cheated on my monogamous partner, and it helped them to see that they were actually always poly!”
…or something like that?
“I don’t personally believe in cheating, and I worry about monogamous people because that seems so restrictive and unhealthy” isn’t infidelity apologism. It’s… maybe a little rude. (I don’t think it’s even AS rude as things I’ve seen my fellow monogamous people say about polyamory, and we’re the ones with the systemic power here: poly marriages are illegal in most of the world.)
So there’s my pedantic answer to your pedantic point, heh.
But also I agree: I think it’s interesting how people draw different boundaries on what cheating is and where the lines get crossed, if at all.
Unfortunately I think a lot of the discussion has been tainted by a sense of prescriptivism, and maybe bad memories of past partners that tried to talk some commenters into accepting definitions of cheating that they didn’t end up being comfortable with?
Again, emotions running high.
That lovely old chestnut that’s been repeated over and over and over
Also. Like. Hot take, but even the polite responses have been said OVER AND OVER AGAIN????
Fucking, yes. I get it. You do not like this plotline because it involves cheating. You have now said this for three or five days. In a row. You have now gone “I must imagine a wrathful Joe, rising above the horizon like Morgoth clad with the Silmarils, become an enemy of all life”, three or five days. In a row. We get it!!
Okay but like, why isn’t Joe rising above the horizon in wrath? Just in general, not even because his girlfriend is making out with someone else without at least his knowledge.
Beats me! He got those Silmarils from Fëanor last storyline, the least he could do is jam them into his manly brow and mantle their power.
Damn, you said “Mantle” and now I want Joe to achieve CHIM.
Joyce: Joe, uh, I made out with Dorothy. I think I have strong romantic feelings for her, where do we go from here? 🥺
Joe, who has seen the Tower: As we are but part of the Godhead’s dream, honey, I imagine we will walk the tapestry of fate as They have ordained.
If i had to see one more “Joe is gonna backslide” comment i gonna start a fire
I will hand you the napalm, because I am genuinely in favor of arson
Specially if it implies it would be Joyce moral fault if that happen.
(I don’t think he will, I believe in Joe. But if he does, that is on him and nobody else)
And then people in the other camp taking those sarcastic responses seriously and everything spiraling.
And of course it was definitely always the other that started it and always the other that’s escalating. My side is only responding.
Don’t forget “the only reason Porn Lord Willis would make Joyce bi is fan service” from earlier in the week.
Ooo, I missed that one. Thanks!
Yeah… while they’ve been in the minority, it does chafe a little when I read someone say “no one’s being queerphobic about this!!!” …because some people definitely are, and not even just “maybe there’s a subconscious bias that’s going unexamined”, but out and proud gross, queerphobic comments.
I see a lot of it the other way, and that’s probably because I’m on the other side. We’re more likely to register and react to the people coming after us than notice what our own side is doing.
(Fandom story time: in the Avatar: The Last Airbender fandom, the shipping wars were, of course, intense. Lots of Kataangers would say Zutarians were awful about it, and Zutarians would say Kataangers were. I saw more complaints from Kataangers about how Zutarians were, but when I was 12 and uploaded a Zutara fanvid on YouTube– I didn’t even particularly care about the shipping war at that point, I just though the song worked better for Zutara– I got death threats from a couple rabid Kataangers. It pushed me to ship Zutara, though I’m sure there were Zutara shippers who would do the same. And that’s a small minority of either side who’d go that far, but it can really be a lot.)
There’s no camp, there’s no factions, there’s no “y’all”, there’s no “us”. Imaginary fucking lines hallucinated out of thin air because one person made a quip weeks ago.
I get what you mean but the camps are real even if the labels are a joke – people who are personally affronted by the storyline, and people who are enjoying the storyline for whatever reason. That’s a very real line splitting the groups, and I can see why there’s a lot of frustration about it.
It’s completely unsurprising to me that people who are so personally invested in the events of this comic that they now hate the comic/characters for kissing one another while still in relationships, would also feel extremely attacked by people laughing at their anguish. And yeah, it goes the other way around, some people aren’t taking this super seriously and are kind of enjoying the battle as well as the storyline, and are poking at people who are clearly raw or very sensitive about the matter – it’s emblematic of the level of investment and the attitudes surrounding it.
No.
Thus decrees the Lord High Poobah of the Dumbing of Age comment section. Your (good) point is (apparently) invalid now, eskimolos. Might as well just give up. *eye roll*
Stuckity stuck stuck stuck 🎶
And some people who are enjoying the storyline even if they don’t like what some of the characters are doing, who still get caught in the backlash anyway.
Indeed! Just a bunch of different people, with different personal opinions on all sorts of different things, when opinion x on one thing does not correlate with opinion y on another thing.
Even the camp in Dunn Meadow was only about one thing.
What’s getting me is more that the longer this stays consequences-free, the more a lot of self-proclaimed “sickos” have their claim that they’re only here for the messy drama proven false.
Which, sure, if you’re here for two ladies smooching, go for it. But the longer we don’t see a blowup, the more “I’m a trash goblin who craves mess” is proven false.
To get into the weeds as I always do,
When it comes to “what does Rogue 7 want”, in day-to-day situations I’m almost always in favor of characters making good decisions. I realize that’s folly in a comic called “Dumbing of Age” but nevertheless I prefer it when characters use their brains. I’m a big fan of “competence porn” shows like Leverage or SpyXFamily, which still manage plenty of drama while letting their characters be smart. Just how my taste goes.
So here I’m a “relationship paladin” because having a conversation with your boyfriend before you smooch someone not your boyfriend is the smart thing to do. Doesn’t mean I think it will happen, but one can advocate for it the same way folks are advocating for a polycule.
It hasn’t been that long– it feels like it, but that’s because it’s om a day to day basis– but I still believe a blowup is coming, and I don’t see how anything about wanting drama has been proven false. I also think these strips have been part of the messy drama.
Except there’s at least a large faction seems to want Joe (and maybe Walky) to just be okay with it. Maybe jump straight into a poly thing or maybe just they expected it and step aside.
Now some people talking about poly are talking long game after a bunch of drama, but not everyone.
Sure, but are those the one that have been rooting for drama? Some people who have liked recent events have been pretty clearly in it for the ship since the beginning. Some (hi) are in the “I’m a trash goblin who craves mess” group. There are people who pull from both. I think jumping straight to everyone being okay with it would be boring, but also unlikely enough that I’m not bothered by serious or playful speculation about it happening.
Yeah, but people on both sides of the divide are reacting as much to the gestalt opinion of the other as to individual posts, much less actually tracking individual’s opinions over multiple days.
Which is then still worthy of critique , especially when it comes to things like this about claims people having made about their preferences being “proven false.”
I’ve literally always said I hope it works out in the end with happy polyamory. That’s not actually in any way inconsistent with wanting drama, or being anti-relationship paladin.
No it isn’t, just because the drama hasn’t happened yet doesn’t make the people saying the like the drama wrong? What kind of ridiculous logic is that??
The comments have definitely been kinda iffy lately. Like a couple weeks ago there was a comment thread about whether someone should go to therapy or not, I commented my experiences in therapy to help with mourning my mother’s death, and a commenter replied back with ‘sorry you don’t have any friends’ which was so out of pocket. The comment was reported and deleted and I haven’t seen that guy around but… yeah. There’s some rude people around here, man. Take care of yourself.
The amount of death threats and blatantly goading suicidal people has also risen. Over a fake kiss.
Joyce and Dorothy’s kiss went back in time and personally killed my mother.
Well, can you stop sending pipe bombs to my home about it?
Just to be clear I’m only kidding and I really don’t mind Joyce and Dorothy’s kiss.
That doesn’t un-explode the mailman, Doopyboop.
Maybe he’d still be in one piece if he wasn’t stealing my deliveries.
Or if you weren’t shit at making pipe bombs 💅🏻
The report said it was basically dumb luck it went off at all. Gotta watch that casing.
The youtube instructional video I watched had 4 likes on it, that’s more than enough to trust! Although maybe next time I ought not put piss in there…
I meant to ask about that. Did you include that because “pipe” could sound like “pee-pee” if you’re doing an outrageously exaggerated accent? Also, I probably don’t even want to know how you got golden-mantled tree-kangaroo piss, but it’s at least impressive for that.
Wait Pipe is suppose to be pronounced Pee-pee? That makes Pipebombs a lot funnier.
I mean, when they haven’t been iffy over the kissing they’ve been iffy over
PalistineBulmeria.I find I usually only check the comments if something about the strip is bothering me and I want to see if it bothered anyone else. If you’re the same way, maybe while this storyline stays volatile it could be a good idea to assume someone else out there is bothered by it and shares your feelings, and just give the comments a miss.
On the plus side, you won’t have your reading comprehension questioned, and you won’t be called a homophobe for not liking a cheating plotline!
I appreciate your comment. I got into this comic circa 2017 and the person who introduced me to it said the comments section was one of the best on the Internet. I was probably seeing it through that lens, taking their word for it, but it seemed like a kind place at the time. But not too long after that I have started noticing the vindictiveness, self-righteousness, extreme factionalism, and other negative qualities of Internet/social media in these comments, and I often don’t participate or even read. Maybe I skim. Maybe I affirm someone who is bringing some nuance. But it’s mostly like the Internet everywhere. Don’t read the comments.
Which is a real bummer. Early in this comic’s run, the comments gave me a LOT of context I was sorely lacking. At the Jocelyne reveal back in family weekend, I devoured all of the discourse because it was my first exposure, EVER, to trans topics and ideas. Minus the trolls, it felt like genuinely healthy and collaborative discussion.
I have not felt that way here for a long while.
That’s deeply unfortunate, for me I see the regulars that make this comments section worth returning to, the community built up in the section, and yeah the established community is a bit hostile to people who come in and start throwing down about what one character or another are doing, because that doesn’t feel like mutual enjoyment and discussion – that feels like a declaration of hostility towards the comic and the people enjoying it. It becomes hard to have light-hearted back and forth and enjoyment of whatever is happening in the comic. For instance, I’m sure nobody “liked” amber and Becky’s dad’s kidnapping the group, killing mike, etc, but we “enjoyed” the storyline because it was interesting and it developed the cast and allowed them to go in new directions. So yeah, people are bringing their real, raw hangups likely due to personal trauma in their lives into the comments and using those to get extremely upset about the direction of the storyline, the characters, and even the commenters who are just enjoying the storyline developing, which will cause hostility and conflict in the comments, that’s how things go.
Hell, even I’ve been at a couple of people’s throats lately, and I’m one of the most lighthearted and whimsical regulars we’ve got. It’s currently a shitshow, and I think it started with the direct moral judgements of real people and ends when those stop without so much as a “But I-“.
Nah, it’s been a shitshow for a long time. There are definitely good parts to the comments, but the toxicity’s been there all along – whether it’s the people defending the outright villains like Mary or attacking Becky for her haircut. Or more recently the fighting over the Joyce and Becky atheist spat.
It’s…… still one of the best comment sections online.
Comment sections online are usually like 100x worse than this, heh.
Fair.
That just makes it more painful though.
Fair! But yeah I couldn’t not point it out.
We’ve got the report button, and the worst comments first time people would have left never get through the first-time-commenter filter. Willis has stepped way back on moderating, understandably because kids etc, but they’re still here.
Compare with the comment section pretty much anywhere else! Without active mods, they tend to follow the Twitter model of quickly becoming Nazi bars.
I’m curious how you learned about this comic, Jon?
It’s hard to say at this point! I got “into” webcomics in 2013 and learned about It’s Walky, but I didn’t encounter DoA until months later and I think it was an unrelated connection.
Fairly certain it was a QC guest comic.
“Honestly, and I’m sure not that many people care, but I feel like I might stop reading comments altogether soon.”
I feel the same way. The comments suck, lately. And it’s not even the arguing about the actual events in the comic itself that’s bothersome. That’s fine. Great, even. It’s nice that people care enough about the characters and the story in this comic to feel so strongly about it, either way.
No, it’s all the snide little ad hominem digs at other commenters that makes it kind of a cesspit lately.
The more I read these threads, I’m not even going to say it’s “the sickos are…” or “the paladins are…”
Frankly, at this point there’s a handful of people (on both “sides”) who seem singularly dedicated to stirring the comment section pot while loudly proclaiming it’s the other side who are being the REAL jerks, and it’s distorting the whole thread.
I think you’re right.
We’ve also had a few drive-by commenters? People who aren’t regulars and just dropped a provocative positive or negative top-level, then vanished.
And for maybe a week or so a dedicated troll with a Sailor Moon Gravitar.
That person’s awfulness kind of made my whole week, I’m going to be doing something else and just remember, “she tried to explain away linking to Discount Kiwifarms by claiming it came up in the search results for ‘DoA’, and then when it was pointed out that no, it would not, not unless you regularly click on a LOT of alt-right/neo nazi crap, her new excuse was that it came up in the search results on an old work computer“… and I will laugh.
How often do you get to see “no, dig UP, stupid!” in real life.
Yeah sometimes the comments are gross and you gotta step away. You do you man, check back with the plot simmers down or whatever. It’ll probably make you happier
I think there should just be a steady stream of different characters walking by. Get to everyone knowing all at once.
“I’d like you to meet Mister Pokeylope.”
exceedingly cultured reference <3
First time I’ve laughed at this comic in a while, thank you Sal.
The punchline here genuinely is funny. The timing is perfect, and the setup has been building for more than a decade. Understatement, and the obviousness of a situation that only the main character can’t see, sometimes is the way to go.
Dumbing of Age, Book 17: A Little Less Gay Than Usual
If this is a little less than usual,
then the bar is sky high
I just realized Becky is going to IMPLODE
omg true
I wonder if she has already, due to her Joyce-sensing powers
Sal needs to quit cheating on Danny by admitting women exist.
Especially queer women, who [insert deeply queerphobic statement that I will hastily justify with accusations that my opposition just love cheating]
It’s interesting that you’d imply Joyce and Dorothy [violence-bassd statistic that’s been debunked for decades and only applied to a single (European) city to begin with]
I’m just saying these two lesbians who never liked men need to stop cheating on their boyfriends.
Me when I watch The Last of Us Season 1 Episode 3, “Long, Long Time”
God that was such a good episode.
Asma definitely knows, and you know, protest randos. Robin and Leslie were in the area and may have seen – frankly it was an extremely public make out. Don’t worry about who knows, just go talk to your boyfriends.
This reminds me in a way of a short relationship I was in, with an abusive, controlling guy who used me for my money. I was cashiering at work and there was always one customer who was very sweet to me, so I griped to her about how crap it was that I wasn’t allowed to text my friends and that he was always checking my phone to make sure I wasn’t chatting with anybody. I then notice that the next person in line is the mother of his best friend. When I get back to our place the mood is /icy/, the fear I felt that day was so strong, I can’t even remember fully what happened next – I know he yelled at me, but I don’t remember where I slept that night.
It’s just, investing so much into your idea of how something might go still doesn’t prepare you for how it reall will go.
Hey, I read this comment, and for what it’s worth from an internet stranger: I’m so sorry that happened to you. You didn’t deserve that. I hope you’re in a much better place now.
Hank might have seen live and in person. People keep speculating that he saw Joyce’s sister on the news. If anyone else has speculated he was there for the counter protest I’ve missed it, but that is a possibility.
Yeah, it could have been Hank himself who snapped that pic of Jocelyn that he sent to Joyce, I guess. That would suck, for many different reasons.
Why would Hank send a pic of Jocelyne to Joyce, asking her to identify her, if he was looking right at her with his own eyes?
Because she looks differently than expected and possibly was expected to be somewhere else.
Not to mention whoever took the image of Jocelyn that Hank saw, that he subsequently sent to Joyce for confirmation. I.e., the thing that got Joyce and Dorothy to go to the protest in the first place. Even if it was just some random news footage that he saw, it’s clear that images from the protest are reaching Hank’s (and probably others’) eyes somehow. I’m pretty sure a news crew would probably focus at least for a few seconds on two women making out in the middle of a tear gas attack (while another woman [Jocelyn] stood nearby, smiling encouragingly).
Not to mention the fact that said two women making out were directly helped to escape immediately afterward by the masked vigilante who was very visibly fighting cops just before. If none of that was on the news at all, I would be rather surprised.
Is it just me or does it sound like Joyce and Dorothy are intending to try to keep this a secret?
It makes sense for Joyce’s dad, but otherwise secrecy seems like it should be a second priority to talking to your partners. If they feel the need to lock down the information that seem’s like they are planning to just keep cheating rather than being honest.
If they do (try to) keep it a secret from everybody, then I hope both Joe and Walky, separately or together, have a Phone/computer monitor/TV running nearby with news footage playing on it of Joyce and Dorothy kissing, whenever they next see their erstwhile girlfriends.
I’m not sure they know what they intend.
We keep talking about how they need to go talk to their boyfriends and that’s true, but they need to talk to each other first, so they know what they want to do. (Maybe they did off panel on the way back from the protest, but we’ve seen no sign of it.)
Yeah, they haven’t been great at communicating things with each other either (which did make more room for yearning, so at least there’s that). Seems like they should have had time to talk about it in between the first kiss and now, but it doesn’t seem like they did. Could imagine one thinking they’re going to keep it secret, and then other confesses to her boyfriend.
I can see that– like, trying to keep it from getting back to their boyfriends before they tell them themselves makes sense, but I would expect the “telling them” to be happening very soon if they’re not trying to keep it a secret. I think it might be clearer tomorrow, if we get to whatever’s third in the plan.
I don’t think so. They’re still trying to sort it out themselves but are aware people already seem to know. I think they plan to immediately tell Joe and Walky, but they will end up meeting the rest of the cast first, one by one, all of whom will indicate their lack of surprise about the relationship.
I think no, for perhaps a silly reason:
I think if they planned on keeping it a secret, Dorothy’s reaction to “Sal knows!” would be more panicky.
I think instead she’s been trying to say “we need to stop this, this is cheating”. Whether she plans on ending things with Walky or asking him if he’s okay sharing her with Joyce, I definitely think she plans on telling him…
…but also neither of them are thinking clearly, so I could be reading way too much into her response to Sal, and maybe the plan is “let’s stop cheating and pretend nothing happened”, which would genuinely disappoint me in both of them, but my expectations were low.
(For the record: it would disappoint me because I think Joe and Walky deserve to know this happened, instead of being lied to by their partners.) (My least favorite route here would be a Season 3 of Butfy style “sneaking around” thing where Dorothy and Joyce keep cheating on their partners in secret.)
^^^ not very Sickos! of me, I’ll admit, but I would find this annoying and disappointing.
If it happens and other Sickos enjoy it, though, that’s fine, I’ll be happy for them.
I suspect she may be thinking in “stop and pretend nothing happened” terms, which will be interesting because she’s obviously completely incapable of stopping.
She might! My alternate take on her desire to take stock of who already knows is more of a “general information gathering” sort of thing, for the girl who keeps spreadsheets both literal and mental on her friends? Take stock of who knows, and whether or not those people need to also be talked to, in addition to telling Joe and Walky…
…which would be more consistent with not being more alarmed that Sal is now on the list of people who knows, and not chasing after Sal to try to do damage control—
—but also, not thinking clearly, AND this is the punchline. The next comic could easily start with Dorothy and Joyce chasing after Sal.
Can’t answer your actual question, Odo, altho I doubt it. But equally, there will be many others who do not read it that way!
I kind of feel bad for Amazi-Girl.
It’s gotta be hard enough saving everyone, fighting the literal police, risking life and limb. But to do all that while *literally* having a chaos gremlin squee-ing in your ear the entire time, going, “Now kiss! Ha ha! Dance, puppets!!!”
And then to get back to your dorm, utterly exhausted, and crash at your desk, watching warily as you write page after page of fiction about real people you know, ending at sunrise with plotting how to subtly manipulate several other ships.
We still don’t even know yet if AG and Amber actually made it back to their dorm. They could be stewing in a jail cell now. Or worse.
Seriously, I LOVE today’s alt-text!
SO true!
ROFL
On the one hand – good for them. On the other I’m kinda sad because Joyce/Joe was good ship and I was cheering on them. I cannot emotionally feel (Dorothy and Joyce) do something wrong, but yeah, it’s cheating. Though I know one relationship where something like that happened (though it was heterosexual) and new pair is together for… 8 year now? So it could work.
It’s also possible to love multiple people at the time and polyrelastionship with Dorothy and Joe would be very (VERY) interessting thing for Joyce, but it would look like getting reward after doing something bad so…
sal: you two are smoochin’ now? ah should be offended on my bro’s behalf
…
sal: it ain’t happenin’. weird
Sal can’t really be bothered to keep track of whichever flavor of the week Walky is on at this point. Not her problem! Bro can sort his own shit out.
Sal’s giving real “I ain’t gonna read all that, but I’m happy for you. Or sorry that it happened.”
She ain’t wrong
First plan should be; BREAK UP WITH YOU BOYFRIENDS DAMMIT
Breaking up isn’t required and if they lead with that it pigeonholes Joe and Walky into feeling like it isn’t possible to continue things if they want. They should talk, but leading with breaking up is just stupid at this point given how clearly compatible the two of them are with their current partners.
Unless they (J+D) want to break up with their current partners. Which, I can see Dorothy wanting to break up with Walky (even though I think he’s good to her), but I don’t know that Joyce wants to break up with Joe. And I don’t see evidence that they’ve talked any of this through. Fun!
Joe and Walky would also be more than entitled to break things off in response to this
Yeah?
Yes, when your partner cheats on you you’re allowed to be upset about it and end the relationship in response to it.
To be clear, I meant “Yeah?” as in “That is obvious and I’m not sure why you’re adding it in here.” The discussion was around if Joyce and Dorothy should lead with breaking up. If they don’t want to, it could be stupid to lead with that, though Walky and Joe would be free to break up with them anyway. If they do want to break up, it wouldn’t be stupid to lead with that.
Misread your tone! My bad.
Yes, we are not in any doubt about your opinion now!
Of course Sal knows, Amazigirl saw them this afternoon.
What’s the ruling on talking about preview panels for speculation.
For the record, I support gay rights and gay wrongs.
If this is gay wrong i don’t wanna be gay right.
I am Sal’s complete lack of surprise.
That’s approaching a Rocky Roll Call.
My only prediction. More drama and comedy. This will not go smoothly or resolve with a simple conversation. I expect both Joss and Danny to be involved shortly. Sal leads to Danny, hence her appearance today.
These two dummies need some advice.
I like how Dorothy doesn’t consider “My boyfriend’s sister knows I’m cheating on him” to be a problem vis-a-vis him not finding out, especially because she’s almost certainly right.
also says a lot about the fact sal doesn’t give a shit she just saw her brother getting cheated on. Lots of people are losing points for me this arc.
She sees Dorothy and Joyce snuggling, which checks out as far as how intimate they normally are. We don’t know that she saw them kissing. Dorothy is kind of jumping to conclusions that Sal actually knows what she thinks she knows, but it is very concerning that she doesn’t seem to think “my boyfriend’s sister knows I’m cheating on him” is a problem! Maybe says more about what Dorothy thinks of Sal than how much Sal actually cares about Walky’s wellbeing.
Like someone said above, I wouldn’t be surprised if she just lost track of walky’s love life by now. They’ve been back together for a couple of days and he broke up with Lucy like a week ago max
Sorry, Lucy dumped him a week ago max
I think Amber knowing is more if a risk. Now, Dorothy might not know all of the “why” for that, but… she’s not the tightest cannon in general.
Ideally she doesnt consider it a problem because step 3 of her plan involves them going to talk to their boyfriends rather than try to hide it from them
I’m skeptical because I don’t think that would require figuring out everyone who knows. No, step 3 seems to me like it will be “keep everyone who knows from talking.”
I mean she could be approaching it as “we dont want them to find out from someone else”
Maybe I’m giving her too much credit here though
Hi! Rather than venting your spleen at each other, why not vent your spleens at this survey I made to find out how people feel about all the cheating junk
I’m getting “Sorry, the file you have requested does not exist.”
yeah, noticed that
this link should work
Oooooh I love surveys.
I didn’t think of this when submitting mine, but I would suggest something like, “this is not relevant to how I think of the character” to the questions about if you think less of them. I just went with “no,” but that’s what I would mean by it.
Done and done.
I answered strictly monogamous because that’s what I like in my fiction, but it would be kinda nice to have a “I exist outside the relationship paradigm” as an aro/ace person, if you ever make similar surveys in the future 😀
yeah, i was looking for, like. perspectives that might inform how folks feel, trying to determine if monogomous folks might have more problems with it than poly folks, that sort of thing. i myself am in a totally open relationship and so while i understand intellectually cheating is a thing, it’s not actually possible to cheat on me, so it all feels very abstract, y’know?
so like. i guess i kinda slotted aro in there, mentally. which is biasing the data! some poly folks might be really up in arms about cheating! so might some aro folks! stupid of me. sorry
It’s a’ight, just made it a little hard to answer that particular question because I just… do not do relationships at all, so I can’t really be *anything* xD So I just went with what I generally prefer with relationships in fiction as a band-aid.
I wanted to fill this out but the options genuinely don’t allow for my opinions, so here goes:
Enjoying arc: Yes
Think less of Joyce or Dorothy: No, not really; not yet.
How do you think Joe will receive this news: I vacillate wildly. I kind of think he’ll be unsurprised, and try to put a positive spin on things, and at least make an attempt at poly. I worry he’ll do this despite actually being hurt, because he’s said “I don’t think I get to be jealous, not with my history” out loud, to Joyce, prior to this. And that’s not fair to him. Jealousy isn’t a feeling we can “not deserve” to feel.
How do you think Walky will receive this news: EVEN LESS SURE. I kind of think his immediate reaction will be to crack a joke about having been right about Joyce all along, and Dorothy more recently (“oh I see we’re pretending Joyce isn’t attractive” “well ONE of us is doing a shit job of that”); but whether he’s okay with it or not depends a lot on how he’s feeling about his second relationship with Dorothy in general, and Willis hasn’t given us a ton of insight there. I’ve gone through phases of thinking he still worships the ground she walks on and feels lucky — and phases of thinking he sees this as more of a favor he’s doing to a friend who’s down-and-out, one which he expects to end soon — and phases of thinking that he’s doing that second thing, but also feeling like garbage about it. The odds of him at least attempting a happy goofball reaction feel pretty high to me?
Except for the part where Willis said on tumblr that they’re deliberately seeking out a “messy cheating fallout” situation. Which makes me think if the boys don’t react negatively, someone else is going to have to, like Becky or Sarah (being disappointed in Joyce, and hurt because it reminds her of her own issues with Liz).
Can’t see the rest of the questions 😞
Oh also totally monogamous. But not upset by fictional depictions of cheating. Usually very bored by fictional depictions of cheating, but also I realize that it’s something that hasn’t ever happened to me, and that people have hot buttons on all kinds of topics.
Took me a long time to get to the point where Beligerent Sexual Tension no longer upsets me! Now I am able to look at it more calmly and say, “I don’t care for that,” whereas before it was a hot button that I found genuinely upsetting.
Time heals. I hope everyone for whom cheating is a fresh wound also find themselves someday healed.
(And still perfectly entitled to dislike it in fiction, but a fair few folks have talked about it as a fresh wound in the comments while this storyline has unfolded.)
Regarding Walky, I was actually looking back on Walky and Dorothy strips and I found one that I think is a bit of foreshadowing. https://www.dumbingofage.com/2024/comic/book-14/04-for-me-it-was-tuesday/schema/
I think setting up Dorothy saying “if I make a mistake nothing happens” with Walky looking bummed out is gonna pay off with this cheating arc. Maybe something big will happen! Or, maybe Walky will deflect with these exact words. As far as Joe and Walky being poly, I think Walky is more likely to try being poly than Joe, because he’s already made a couple ‘jokes’ which could just be jokes… but also… it’s Walky. Whereas I feel if Joe agreed to be poly, it’s only because he’d want to make Joyce happy rather than being into it. Which is why I think he honestly would walk away from the relationship. I think he’d wish Joyce and Dorothy well, try to smile for them, but he’s gonna be pretty down after.
I remember that strip! It’s what got me into the “thinks it’s a casual thing he’s doing to cheer up a good friend and former lover, but also feels like garbage about it” phase. Also agreed that Walky is the one who’s brought up being poly, though it’s difficult to tell how seriously interested he is in the concept.
I honestly, genuinely would love to see Walky stand up for himself and stop feeling like he’s personally, 100% to blame for every relationship he’s had falling apart, because I think that’s where his head is at, and it’s not fair to him.
My counter on Joe is — first of all, JUST for the sake of argument, because I agree with you, that’s mostly what I think will happen, but the one counterargument I’ve found so far is that Joe did go to Dorothy, and he did, I think, try to tell Joyce that he wanted her to have what she wants… so I think he’s at least considered the possibility of Joyce/Dorothy being added to the mix, and might, maybe, be more emotionally ready for that than I worry?
But yeah, mostly I think he’s going to put on a cheerful facade about it but feel bad inside.
And my main reason for doubting that is Willis’s stated interest in exploring messy cheating situations, which I do think would be undermined somewhat by Joe expecting it……
But we’ll see.
hey for folks who might be answering this in the future:
i didn’t put questions about the palestine stuff on there because i just do not care to hear from people who think it was a good idea. that opinion isn’t interesting to me and i don’t want a pile of answers from folks who think it was okay. the cheating stuff, y’know, i don’t really have any skin in the game. it’s for funsies. i don’t feel very funsies about the palestine stuff.
i say this because i got a pile of answers about how bad the palestine stuff was and i’m like. i’m there with you! you don’t gotta yell at me about it! so y’know please stop doing that thank you
I found your survey to be very fun and thought provoking to fill out. Thank you for making it!
Done. Gonna be interesting to see the results later.
Survey filled out!
For people who know the school, what’s the uh, geography of the situation here? Is Sal walking into the remnants of the protests and the police right now? Is Dunn Meadow far enough away that Dorothy and Joyce wouldn’t need to be worried about it? I feel like outside of the Asma strip the protests just sort of stopped existing and I’m confused why none of the characters are worried. But again I don’t actually know where the Meadow is so that would probably help explain things.
I think she’s just going for a walk, buddy
It’s over half a mile away from their dorm, Sal’s fine.
Okay didn’t realize it was so far away.
I’ll be shocked if Sal’s doing anything but going onto the steps for a smoke. She’s made a point of avoiding the police and places they’re likely to be for ‘I’m a Black kid with a record’ reasons.
That’s really why I was asking. I figured she was going out for something else and wasn’t sure if that would currently be safe or not.
Ah, okay. No idea how close Dunn Meadow is so hopefully she’ll just be on the step and can easily go back inside if it looks like something might come her way.
The cheating bisexuals, what a trope you’ve chosen, Willis
This would be an issue if they were the only bisexuals in the comic
Danny specifically has explicitly pushed back against this tropes
Multiple characters falling into a harmful trope doesn’t get cancelled out just because there’s one who doesn’t or if the meta points it out. I don’t understand this rebuttal at all.
So people of a certain orientation can just never be portrayed doing an extremely common thing? That’s seems rather ridiculous.
How about because the majority of bisexual characters in the comic don’t fall under that trope? This is two out of a minimum of six of the bisexual characters in the comic and none of the others have been cheaters.
Jennifer Ruth Danny Asher Dina Booster Jocelyne Robin Alice… heck, even Mike never cheated on anyone that we know of, even in his original universe. More minor characters include Marcie (Patreon comic makes it seem like she and Malaya have a chill open relationship, IIRC she goes off with a guy?), Sierra, annnnd I am forgetting at least one person.
Plus, the comic is still young, I think only Sal and Becky and Carla have indicated they’re absolutely not at all bi (and Sal, only because an alt text once said she’s tragically very straight; I’m not actually counting not being attracted to Marcie specifically as proof). Joe, in a kinda jerky way, where he jokingly asked if Malaya being out as nonbinary now makes him retroactively bi.
For the record I’m not saying no one has any right to be bothered by that, but I do think that once you’ve reached a certain threshold of queer representation, stuff like Bury Your Gays should stop actually applying.
If one gay character dies and their partner then goes on to date a second gay character……. it’s okay to still be upset about the death, but Bury Your Gays, it ain’t.
Just for the record, while Mike himself was never in a relationship where he could cheat, he did have sex with some dude who had a girlfriend when he was setting up his “seduce Ethan” plot.
So, someone’s boyfriend cheated on him with Mike. Where did Mike cheat on someone again?
IIRC, the strong implication is that that guy was “on the down-low”, i.e. gay and closeted.
Which does often suck for the “beard”, but it’s kind of a sub-category of cheating.
Possible, but also possible he’s bi and just cheating.
He did say “on the down low”, but I’m not sure that implies he was necessarily closeted, especially since it came after Mike said “don’t read too much into it”.
Erik seems to have been out later, since he was openly at the party with Ethan – though that could have been after he got outed due to cheating with Mike.
I mean, that’s just what “on the down low” means, there’s nothing else he could have meant by it reasonably, and Mike was being Mike in response.
I agree that he’s come out since then, but I expect that he split with his girlfriend first.
It would be different if Willis wasn’t familiar with the slang, or if they’d meant Eric to not be familiar with it? But I doubt that, given how Joyce’s accidental invocation of it was handled, you know?
So we have Danny, Asher, Joyce, Dorothy, Ruth, Billie.
Billie is still in the closet and only really shows romantic interest in women. Asher and her were more of a “I’m being a good Jennifer and having hetero sex is what Jennifer would do” for me. She is also a trash fire.
Ruth is willing to drop Jason by her own mouth to get Billie back, so she’s either fickle, or using Jason as a bed warmer with no real care for him as a person. Also the handcuff/hostage gag was gross. Also a trash fire.
Dorothy, has used and tossed aside every sexual relationship she has ever been in. Has, in fact, been down for using Walky’s trust in her for her own romantic gratification. Trash fire.
Joyce, Has in the past shown the ability to break up relationships to get what she wants, without care or concern over the people in the relationship. Has flip flopped nearly instantaneously on if she wants to get railed by Joe or telling her bestie she wishes it was her taking her virginity. from holding her besties face to kissing her boyfriend in less then 30 seconds. Possible upcoming trash fire but the embers are smouldering.
Asher, had a dude killed, is trying to make a life for himself without having to call in murders, went to his GF and told her immediately about the kiss he had with Ethan. Only pursued Ethan after he and Jennifer broke up. Seems pretty okay, minus the murders.
Danny: Plays the Ukulele and keeps us from seeing s Sal/Marcy slipshine. Also believed in his relationship and was right but no one is ready for that reality yet. Charlie Brown getting railed by Peppermint Patty.
It would have been nice to see a bisexual woman who didn’t smell like burning plastic, is all I’m really saying.
Billie is also rekindling a friendship with her old situationship that could develop into a proper romance. Or it could stay a friendship, either way I think it’s healthy for her to rekindle with Alice. It also might help her to overcome her internalized bi-phobia.
Ruth and Jason are hardly seriously dating. I think they both understand their relationship is more a casual thing and Jason is already aware that Ruth isn’t over her ex, he outright asked her about it. I think they’re both in a mutually beneficial casual dating situation. Maybe it deepens and they get serious, maybe it doesn’t, but I think they’re both on the same page with it.
We’ve seen Dorothy be in a grand total of two sexual relationships and that was with Danny, who she immediately broke up with, and Walky. Now, the Walky relationship has had its own ups and downs, but they both initially got into the relationship both understanding that they were just having fun. They mutually broke up. The rebounding after, I grant you is messy, but also… not the worst, I mean, she’s hung up on her ex oh no?
Joyce, honestly, is exactly what I expect of someone coming out of a religious cult where women need to be virgins until marriage and any sign of sexual interest is a sin. God forbid someone not immediately untangle those tore up from the floor up feelings.
As for bisexual women who don’t smell like burning plastic, we have Sierra, Jocelyne, and Marcie. And if you’re open to biromantic ace women, we have Dina! Potentially Charlie, but she’s up in the air for me if she’s biromantic or homoromantic. And honestly, I think we’ll have more bi awakenings in the cast. As far as we know, maybe Alice herself is bi!
Alice is in the same nebulous possibly bi as billiffer. She hits nearly every branch on the “I can’t be gay I’m a cheerleader” tree though.
Maybe the Marcy bisexuality stuff is in the pateron comics? I’ve only seen her as interested in Mayala, but I might have missed it. I missed Jocelyne’s flag too but I might be blind.
Wasn’t Danny Dorothy’s first BF? So my point stands.
And Serria and Marcy aren’t even on the cast page anymore, but Alice is.
People don’t exactly come out of the womb a perfect person. I can forgive people not knowing their sexuality because I know I had a hell of a time figuring out my own gender identity and sexuality. It’s a process.
I’ve also only seen Marcie’s interest in the comic as being into Sal and Malaya, but since Malaya is non-binary I’d assume that puts Marcie in either the bi or pan camp unless we’re otherwise told. Jocelyne’s flag is predominantly her telling Becky that since taking HRT, she’s felt attraction to women along with her attraction to men.
Danny may be her first bf but I don’t think him just being her boyfriend proves anything about your point that she uses and abuses people. That’s… literally her first relationship. In order to have more you kinda have to… break up? I mean with that logic, I to have a track record of using and abusing people because I had two different boyfriends at different points in my life. Yeah, it’s a shame he followed her like a puppy dog to college, but I don’t think that means she used and abused him. If we saw her continuously lead him on, I’d give you that point, but she broke up with him on the first day BECAUSE she saw that he was gonna keep following her like a puppy.
And I can grant you that Sierra and Marcie are just side characters.
They’re the only bisexuals doing it though, so it’s overall fine.
Yup, this is the “Women bisexuals are cheaters, men bisexuals are invisible” trope more then just bi’s being easy.
I guess Jennifer and Ruth are men then.
Love to see an egg in the fryer.
Weirdly this is the only time I don’t care at all. Props to Willis for that
Why elide two things that are not correlated? The bisexuals with their shoelaces undone. The bisexuals with a urinary tract infection. The cheating people in blue T-shirts. The monogamous smokers. The McNugget eaters with big noses. What is the earthly point of this silliness?
if the question is “who knows about this?” that’s a bad sign. A sign that they intend to keep secrets. I hope they come clean to the monogamous partners they have. That’s the only thing that matters. The question is “how do we tell our partners as soon as possible AND how do we figure out what we want?”
GodDAMN, here I’ve been avoiding the comment section because I thought it’d be a trash fire over the protests for ‘real life politics’ reasons and instead I came back to a ship war trash fire. Go figure.
So, here’s where I’m at but tl;dr I’m somewhere in the middle.
– I’m a Joe/Joyce and Dorothy/Walky shipper and I really really don’t give a fuck about Joyce/Dorothy but I know it means a lot to a lot of people here and that was one hell of a way to get together what with the symbolic wedding and all so I’m happy for y’all. Happy shipping, everybody! I’d be losing my shit too if it were one of my ships.
– On one hand – yes, obviously cheating is wrong and I am someone who loves cute and wholesome things and wants my babies to get along so *distressed mom fan noises*
– On the other I am also a trash goblin who craves drama and this is gonna be fricking napalm to this comic and I am READY FOR IT.
– I think Walky and Dorothy are gonna be over *sulks*. I think he’s likely to think Dorothy’s been using him for this relationship and that’s not gonna go over well. He might or might not reconcile with them eventually. Depends. He and Joyce are like two little kids in a perpetual slap fight and that’s just how their friendship is so. We’ll see.
– Joe is gonna be hurt but I think he’ll be more open to them reconciling with him after he’s had time to lick his (very real and valid) wounds. Maybe there’ll. be poly eventually, maybe not, but I don’t think it’ll be before there’s mess.
– No, enjoying this storyline and even enjoying fictional cheating does not indicate anything about your character, opinions or conduct in real life relationships. Come on, now, we’re not children.
– Relationships are complicated and people do have different lines about what constitutes cheating. Some only consider sleeping together to be such and some would consider any romantic/sexual interaction to be such. IME most people are somewhere in the middle where sexual interactions and kissing would count but things like friendly flirting or hugging aren’t inherently. Since monogamy is the majority, most people tend to default to that in relationships unless there’s prior discussion (and yes, ‘more people ask to be exclusive’ but that’s usually so they can call it ‘in a relationship’ as opposed to be dating. Polyamory isn’t a default). Ideally there’d be no default and every relationship (once they decide to call it one) would involve talking about that but well. I don’t think polyamory is quite well known and prominent enough yet for it to cross most people’s minds. It may be getting there in coming years but to most people it’s not there yet. This is all a big ramble, I’m sorry. To get it back on topic, it’s irrelevant what most people do or don’t consider because Dorothy and Joyce both consider this cheating and so that’ll have to be addressed. I expect at least one nasty breakup.
– That whole protest is hanging in the air still and I just hope for their sake they don’t get a photo plastered everywhere before their boyfriends find out because that’ll make things way worse if they have to learn from someone else.
In fairness to Walky he’d be pretty right about Dorothy basically using him this go-round of the relationship lol.
The totally-not-palestine protest was kinda randomly inserted and didn’t really add anything to the relationship drama except to give excuses to make tangential speeches and provide violence. I feel like for the tie-in to the lesbianship to be worth it we *need* something like “this is a believable reason to have Joyce and Dorothy kissing go viral on mainstream media, an act that would otherwise not be newsworthy”. It’s a pretty golden opportunity, all things considered. Bonus points if it provides Mary leverage to serve an antagonistic role (to inevitably get dunked into pies).
In fairness, Willis said on Patreon that Joyce and Dorothy weren’t actually originally planned to get together during the protest. It was more once they realized they liked each other, the characters got away from him and it ended up happening. So, the protest probably was more originally about the protest than a setting for them to be together. That was supposed to be like 5 years from now.
At some point I feel like you do have a responsibility to rein in your characters when they want to do things like make out at your stand-in for protests against actual ongoing genocide.
It’s only been a trash fire over real world politics when the protest has actually been on screen.
It’s been both!
Oh lovely! Glad I skipped out on that.
On the plus side, the protest trash fire inspired Willis to rework the next year of strips so that Asma gets some lime light!!
We’ve definitely had some arguments over real world politics too, though the shipping/cheating arguments have been much bigger the past couple weeks.
Would be good and interesting to address the frequent double standard that things like girls making out isn’t seen as proper cheating even by people who acknowledge they probably should see cheating as equal regardless of the sex of the other lover.
I’ll address that when we address the dragon Walky’s been hiding in his dorm.
And not a single fuck was given for the actual people they’re betraying.
Damn Dotty Joyce stocks are getting mighty low
Come on now, it’s an ongoing conversation. They don’t need to bring up their boyfriends in every strip so that we don’t forget they had them.
I would like them to be brought up with genuine care *once* and not in a “well we cant do this right right now” sense
Yeah after four or five strips of this the fact that they aren’t being talked about as actual people who could be hurt by this is concerning.
People really are dragging these girls over the coals for literally every moment that their hormonal, panicked responses to an ongoing situation don’t mention their boyfriends BY NAME.
They should just start calling each other by their boyfriend’s names. That would solve everything!
we’re gonna get strips with 420+ comments for quite a while now, huh?
ah well, never said no for an excuse for these joints XD
Nah those are rookie numbers, I say we try to beat the 2.2k monstrosity for comment count
(Disclaimer: we should absolutely not try to do this)
there’s always 666 mind you, always a great number in my book >:D
Look, this is a bit *less* obviously queer than Joyce going to Dorothy with the list of sex acts and going “hey help me pare down what I’m okay with”, complete with Dorothy still helping after Joyce leaves.
I think for me I just think the list of things to have a discourse about doesn’t include cheating
Cheating happening in a story is fine bc that’s a thing that happens
But then again I approach this as a story. When Walter White started making drugs I didn’t go “my friend Walter has crossed a line”
My bestie Godzilla needs to stop knocking over buildings. People live in those, Big G!
Honestly feel like we need to give Big G an intervention, the knocking over buildings is getting
–
–
–
Problematic
That’s okay, I’mma hook him up with Mothra and he’ll mellow out.
I’m so tired of people in this comments section acting like dating a giant semi-eldritch moth is a magical solution to behavioral problems.
OMG here we go again with the “Kaiju should be emotionally stable before they go looking for a relationship with other kaiju” nonsense again. This strip isn’t called “Citydestroying of Age” for no reason, you know.
All I’m saying is, Godzilla’s destructive tendencies aren’t gonna be solved with a little bit of that good good Mothrussy.
You don’t know that.
Counterpoint: Cheating happening in a story arc is fine, as long as the characters who are cheating are the kind of people who WOULD cheat. A fair few of us are not mad at cheating-qua-cheating, we’re annoyed that JOYCE is clearly over the line on cheating despite recently (in-universe) being actively upset at the idea of cheating on Joe, at least to Joe’s face.
As in, “it will be a less satisfying story for me if Joyce doesn’t experience some internal drama over this, because I will perceive her character as less consistent than I like.”
I feel like Breaking Bad had a pretty sizable portion of its fanbase that never went “Walter White has crossed a line” and that actually ended up being a Bad Thing for society. Given how many people hate Skylar and think Walt was an alpha male and all that nonsense.
I’d say that being able to say “X character has crossed a line” is actually really important and what separates normal fans from incels and fascists in a lot of divisive media (Clockwork Orange, American Psycho, Rick and Morty, Bojack Horseman, 40K, Fight Club, Lolita, etc.)
Not that DOA is anywhere approaching that level of divisiveness, but people say that having those shows/movies/books as your favorite is a red flag are saying so because a lot of fans never critically analyze what the main characters are doing as wrong.
How many is “a lot” though? Memes and comments can easily give the false impression of consensus. These days, you cannot assume that every comment you see is a genuine person’s genuine belief, especially on sites like youtube, reddit, twitter, and twitter clones, which are easily gamed for exposure.
Like, how many people actually watched American Psycho and decided that Patrick Bateman is based? Even just the business card scene? You’d have to be willfully ignoring most of the dialogue and events in the movie to come to that conclusion. I bet that, of the small amount of people that actually think Patrick Bateman is meant to be an alpha chad or whatever, almost all of them came to that conclusion before seeing the movie, if they ever did watch it.
These memes are almost entirely divorced from their source material, they are being pushed by people with agendas that found a useful memetic vehicle, and engaging with them as if they understand or care about it is a big blunder, IMO.
“Meant to be” should be deleted in the above comment.
There are definitely some VERY annoying people who have built their entire personality around a movie they misunderstood, but you genuinely get that regardless of messaging.
Like. For example. The Matrix. Or Star Wars. Or Star Trek.
yeah, really an incel/Nazi problem can happen to just about ANY Fandom (especially those which are predominately cis/het white dudes), precisely because said critical analysis is often prohibited from conversation, as it is swept up nebulously-defined category of “”political”” discussion.
In his video essay on how normies become radicalized, Ian Danskin had this to say on the matter:
” Anything on which the community disagrees is *political*.
“Nazis are good” is apolitical; because “Nazis are bad” is the community consensus, neutral, common sense, therefore “Nazis are good” MUST be just an edgy joke (even if not, the community already believes the opposite), so the statement is harmless. Tolerable.
However, “feminism is good” IS a political statement, because the community has not reached consensus. It is debatable, and therefore political, and you should stop talking about it, because that’s “having an agenda”.
A community that doesn’t tolerate progressivism but does tolerate Nazism is going to start collecting Nazis — Nazis who become trusted, Totally Apolitical™ community members who are “just kidding” — Nazis whose goal is to drive a wedge between the community and the Left.
This is how fandoms radicalize — they are built as spaces where nerds, weebs, and furries can safely geek out without ridicule, and are told that the Left is a threat to their safety. Given a choice between leaving a community that has mattered to them for years and simply adjusting to the community’s shifting politics, the assumption is that they will stay. This assumption is right often enough that a lot of fandoms have been colonized. “
That’s a bit of a silly comparison because he starts cooking meth in like the first episode, not 15 years in
He doesn’t do anything really evil until at least a few episodes in, iirc. His original motivations are very relateable (basically, thrill-seeking and needing money)
Cheating is fine for the comic, but not fine for commenting on.
OMG, Jerry Springer wouldn’t have wasted a minute of his time because of these two kissing!
https://bsky.app/profile/damnyouwillis.bsky.social/post/3lulfssuo522j
He is right.
Love the sock-puppet bit!
https://www.tumblr.com/itswalky/789910411036246016/did-danny-and-ethan-ever-kiss-or-was-it-only?source=share
I wish he did that the fandom would had exploded.
Oh wow yeah, can’t believe that we could have had an actual Danny/Ethan kiss, but admittedly there is something incredibly funny about the fact that Ethan/Danny died before it even had the chance to come close to being fully realized.
Danny might have a squeaky clean reputation now, but we shouldn’t forget that he earned his place in the DOA messy bisexual hall of fame 🫡
Yeah, remember that time he told Ethan, to his face, that it wouldn’t be such a bad thing if Mike never woke up? GOD Danny’s a mess, I love him so much
God I love fictional characters. I love how they can have all kinds of drama only constrained by the writer’s imagination, and how the writer doesn’t need to consider the morals of a dilemma at all because messy morality just means more drama which means more story! I’m so glad everyone is being so normal about fictional characters who, in the middle of one of their most hectic and chaotic situations ever, are making messy judgment calls most directly informed by panic!
I’M SO GLAD EVERYONE IS BEING SO NORMAL ABOUT THIS
I would love for monogamous people in the comments to stop trying to explain the “rules of polyamory” to everyone. It’s hilariously bad and obvious when someone isn’t actually in my community.
Sometimes first poly relationship someone’s in is weird and it starts in a way that sucks. Sometimes a LOT of them look like that. Polyamory works best with lots of communication, but humans are involved and it’s just never going to be perfect.
And wanting this to turn into a polyamorous relationship because I want to see main-character polyam-rep is not because I think it will be “a band-aid that fixes everything” this is some nonsense argument. I want the drama, I want messy poly, I want to see these little idiots figuring out that snarling mess of reconfiguring their relationship parameters.
Sadly, I don’t think it’s going to go that way. Can we please just stop hyperventilating the words “Polyamory isn’t a bandaid!!” because, actually, sometimes it is, but mostly: Who said we wanted them to stop bleeding anyway?
This was supposed to be a reply, but it’s fine as a stand-alone lmao
Totally fair, It sucks that you + other Poly/Non-Monogamous folks are kinda getting the brunt end of the cheating discourse right now. Wanting to see Poly experiences be depicted in romance writing shouldn’t be painted as a “shortcut” when writing relationship drama, nor should those experiences be treated as the lesser or non-appealing simply because they aren’t a part of the monogamous mainstream.
IDK right now we just straight up don’t know what’s the long term situation is going to look like for Dorothy/Joe/Walky/Joyce right now, and it’s fine for people to want different things to happen in the next few weeks, especially when we can only use conjecture and headcanon to talk about what happens next in the long run.
Exactly, and honestly, thanks! I don’t begrudge people wanting this to turn out in a monogamous way, hell I don’t even care if people want Dorothy and Joyce to split and stay with their boyfriends (though I don’t think that’s likely at this point) but it’s exhausting to constantly see the “I’d like if this turned out poly” getting shut down left and right.
This is honestly getting concerning on multiple levels. Dorothy and Joyce were arguably two of the most fundamentally decent people in the comic, and are now turning into cheating shitheads who don’t care who they hurt. This strip even shows Dorothy trying to plan around who knows, presumably so they can cover it up.
On top of that, no one who has seen them cheating together has acted like they care which is also a major issue. Jocelyne knows Joyce is in a relationship with Joe, but looked like she was so happy when she saw her and Dorothy kiss. Sal knows Dorothy is dating her TWIN BROTHER and just walks by like she doesn’t care about him at all. Amber/Amazigirl I understand since she’s focused on fighting cops and saving people in the moment, but Sal and Jocelyne are in the wrong too.
And before anyone starts throwing around accusations of homophobia, I don’t care that they’re gay. I care that they’re cheaters who don’t care about the hurt they’re going to cause others.
Joe was terrified of getting into a relationship at all, but especially with Joyce, because he saw his dad cheating on women constantly and never wanted to be like that. Now Joyce is cheating on him and that’s going to fuck him up majorly.
For Sal specifically, I don’t think she saw them kissing, and she’s right that just holding each other like this doesn’t really stand out if you don’t have the context.
A queer awakening has always been a pass for cheating. Joe might be upset yes, but I don’t think that means Dorothy and Joyce are doing some heinous awful out of character evil. You’d have to be reeeeeal monogamous and cishet to boot to treat it like they’re crossing the moral event horizon here.
haven’t you been banned for misogyny before?
“Before anyone starts throwing around accusations of homophobia”
Way to self-report.
Yeah I’m pissed they are doing this. I don’t care if they’re gay, but they’re in relationships with people they like. Were they just with Walky and Joe temporarily because they couldn’t be with each other? That’s extra shitty too.
As a fun exercise, I’ve been comparing the number of comments to instances of the word “cheat” in the comments section. We’ve achieved a ratio of nearly 3:1 today.
I literally slapped my thigh laughing