Dumbing of Age Book Twelve

Dumbing of Age

A college webcomic by David Willis
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July 8, 2026

This tall

by David M Willis on June 25, 2025 at 12:01 am
  • 04 – The Only Exception
└ Tags: asma, dorothy, joyce, leslie, robin

Discussion (544) ¬

[ Comments RSS ]
  1. NGPZ
    NGPZ
    June 25, 2025 at 12:05 am | # | Reply Report comment

    as expected, Asma knows standard protocol

    Ya. Ain’t. See. NOTHIN’

    • Pocky
      Pocky
      June 25, 2025 at 12:15 am | # | Reply Report comment

      Who’s askin? And even then, I dun know nothin.

      • Aquila
        Aquila
        June 25, 2025 at 2:40 am | # | Reply Report comment

        AHA!
        If you don’t know nothing, that means you DO know something!

        • Steamweed
          Steamweed
          June 25, 2025 at 8:17 am | # | Reply Report comment

          “NGPZ has confessed!”
          — All the English teachers and professors

          • Decidedly Orthogonal
            Decidedly Orthogonal
            June 25, 2025 at 11:33 am | # | Reply Report comment

            Naw. The English department knows the difference between a logical negation and linguistic usage. It’s the Philosophy freshman we got to watch out for.

            • NGPZ
              NGPZ
              June 25, 2025 at 2:34 pm | # | Reply Report comment

              it’s funny you say that, my Cognition Philosophy Professor once remarked that the “””formal””” (white) rules of English grammar are there for saying a lot while expressing relatively little

              of course, was very astute XD

              • NGPZ
                NGPZ
                June 25, 2025 at 9:37 pm | # | Reply Report comment

                um about that… 😅👉🏽

              • Purple Floof
                Purple Floof
                June 25, 2025 at 11:13 pm | # | Reply Report comment

                Dunno if you speak any other languages, but “formal” is a class thing, not a race thing – most languages have formal and informal methods of talking. Spanish has the same thing for sure; “Fui a caminar a la tienda con mi perro” vs “Fui a dar un tranquilo paseo con mi pequinés de pura raza hasta la farmacia”. Languages like Chinese and Korean have even more complex distinctions between formal and informal speech, and use it much more commonly by far than English and Spanish do.

                • Yumi
                  Yumi
                  June 25, 2025 at 11:16 pm | #

                  Yeah, you’re talking about a different thing. What NGPZ is talking about is sometimes called “standard English” or “standard American English” or “dominant American English.” There’s a lot of aspects of race and class going on with it.

                • NGPZ
                  NGPZ
                  June 25, 2025 at 11:30 pm | #

                  yeah, obligatory reminder that language is this organic thing not to be thought of as separate from the culture and values of the people who speak it, regardless of whether or not they wanna continue perceiving those as some kind of raceless default

                • Purple Floof
                  Purple Floof
                  June 25, 2025 at 11:32 pm | #

                  I don’t really understand what you mean by that, Yumi – the stuff they teach in public school is more or less the same across the board because they want to teach formal, which makes you seem upper-class, and they discourage informal speaking because it makes you seem poor and uneducated. It’s not like trailer trash white people are talking like they’re fancy or whatever, y’know?

                • DinaJoyce
                  DinaJoyce
                  June 25, 2025 at 11:40 pm | #

                  Race and class are pretty inextricably linked in the US (and most other places too, but especially in the US).

                • Yumi
                  Yumi
                  June 25, 2025 at 11:43 pm | #

                  There’s way too much into this and what you just said for me to get into this late. If you don’t understand connections between race, class, language, education, power… well, they exist, and there’s so much on this subject if you want to look into it with just some of the key words already mentioned. I feel deeply uncomfortable with what you just said, so I’m just not going to be able to continue this.

                • Yumi
                  Yumi
                  June 25, 2025 at 11:55 pm | #

                  Names that come to mind as scholars on this topic (biased towards those I’ve met and can therefore easily name): Drs. April Baker-Bell, Django Paris, Davena Jackson

                • Ymbrael
                  Ymbrael
                  June 26, 2025 at 1:24 am | #

                  Class and race intersect, especially in places where historical white supremacy still has a major role in cultural hegemony. That’s why it’s called “intersectionality”….

                • Uly
                  Uly
                  June 26, 2025 at 2:24 am | #

                  Formal is really not the right word choice here. You can speak in a formal register even when speaking a non-prestige dialect.

                  The word you want to use is “standard variety” or “prestige variety”.

    • MisterJinKC
      MisterJinKC
      June 25, 2025 at 12:28 am | # | Reply Report comment

      I’d agree except it’s already been established that she knows who they are.

      • zims
        zims
        June 25, 2025 at 1:11 am | # | Reply Report comment

        Dorothy has more of a reputation of wanting to BE the power rather than fighting it, and Joyce is a chatterbox. Even if they’re on the same side, they can still spill the beans to the cops. The less info is spread around, the less likely it is for that info to be passed on to the authorities.

        • yak
          yak
          June 25, 2025 at 2:35 am | # | Reply Report comment

          While this is true, nobody at the protest is masking up or seeming to hide their identity in any way. This means their participation in the protest is basically public knowledge.

          Although, this also makes Joyce’s decision to go ‘save’ her sister pretty unnecessary.

          • Sharizard
            Sharizard
            June 25, 2025 at 5:09 am | # | Reply Report comment

            It’s not really a saving thing, is it? She’s here to warn Jocelyne that their dad ‘might be on to her’.

            Kind of interesting really. In theory this should be a five minute in and out conversation, but between Dorothy’s reaction, the fences appearing and Asma’s understandable paranoia, the tension’s suddenly ramped up.

            • Decidedly Orthogonal
              Decidedly Orthogonal
              June 25, 2025 at 11:36 am | # | Reply Report comment

              Yeah, thankfully the snipers are also here near to help de-escalate things. 😉😑

              • Decidedly Orthogonal
                Decidedly Orthogonal
                June 25, 2025 at 11:37 am | # | Reply Report comment

                Damnit. It’s <strike> not strikethrough… here.

          • Wack'd
            Wack'd
            June 25, 2025 at 5:46 am | # | Reply Report comment

            i assume the lack of masks (for folks besides jocelyne i guess) is like how sal doesn’t wear a motorcycle helmet while riding when we gotta see her face emoting

            • Nymph
              Nymph
              June 25, 2025 at 7:17 am | # | Reply Report comment

              Sal absolutely wears a motorcycle helmet when she’s riding? I’m not sure if there’s a single instance where she doesn’t, but I’m open to being wrong on that. Still, the vast (that’s a link to a strip) majority (another link) of the time she’s wearing a helmet even when you would expect to need her to emote (link!).

              She even wears a helmet on a pedal bike, but I’ve already used three links and don’t want to get automodded.

              • Wack'd
                Wack'd
                June 25, 2025 at 8:47 am | # | Reply Report comment

                sequence starts here, there was a big to-do about it at the time”

                • Nymph
                  Nymph
                  June 25, 2025 at 9:36 am | #

                  Okay, so there’s one time she didn’t wear a helmet, fair enough. Willis has still shown plenty of times that he’s happy putting a helmet on her even when it’s an emotive scene.

          • Yumi
            Yumi
            June 25, 2025 at 8:56 am | # | Reply Report comment

            Yeah, but I still get why Asma isn’t helping along people she doesn’t trust.

            Beyond that, and meant more generally to some comments who seem to think otherwise, “cop energy” doesn’t mean “I think you are literally a cop.” Maybe Joyce and Dorothy have been sent by someone (a parent, perhaps) to confirm that Jocelyne s there. Maybe they want to try to drag her away from the protest themselves. If Asma does know where Jocelyne is and happens to see her before they do, Asma could tell her that they’re looking for her– then Jocelyne could do with that information what she wants.

            • yak
              yak
              June 25, 2025 at 3:20 pm | # | Reply Report comment

              Yeah it’s a reasonable, if maybe over-cautious, reaction. Another angle: Asma might not know that Jocelyn is trans, and she also might not know that Joyce knows Jocelyn is trans. Jocelyn seems to be going boymode at the protest.

              • thejeff
                thejeff
                June 25, 2025 at 7:56 pm | # | Reply Report comment

                It was hard to tell from the photo Hank sent, but I doubt Jocelyne’s going full boymode now. Probably not as femme as the dress she wore to meet Joyce, but not boy either.

              • alice
                alice
                June 25, 2025 at 8:58 pm | # | Reply Report comment

                opsec only works if you use it consistently. the point of having procedures is that you don’t want a bunch of different people with different biases and weaknesses, not knowing what other people have already revealed, trying to judge what’s safe to disclose on the fly. you stonewall even if it feels unreasonable, because the other people relying on you for their freedom probably don’t have identical definitions of unreasonable as yours.

                • alice
                  alice
                  June 25, 2025 at 8:59 pm | #

                  of course i lost the context in editing. this comment was in response to “…if maybe over-cautious…”

                • yak
                  yak
                  June 27, 2025 at 4:17 am | #

                  Correct, that’s why it’s over-cautious to be stuck up about opsec when nobody at the protest seems to be making any attempt at concealing their identity.

      • smolgrlboi
        smolgrlboi
        June 25, 2025 at 11:27 am | # | Reply Report comment

        Even the most well-intentioned people you are closest with can be a security risk at a protest. interpersonal connections aren’t trump cards in these situations.

        • alice
          alice
          June 25, 2025 at 9:25 pm | # | Reply Report comment

          and even people you’re working alongside with in a protest, where u don’t just trust them interpersonally, but operationally. when u share operational information about an illegal action (which, for most protests that’s ambiguous, yay!) with someone, you’re imposing a potentially lifelong burden on them to segment that knowledge off from the rest of their knowledge and never disclose it, potentially even under intense legal pressure. if nothing else, that’s a huge unnecessary source of stress! even if it’s rude or unhelpful in the moment, you’re doing people a favor in the long run by having firm, consistent information boundaries.

    • Lysbeth
      Lysbeth
      June 25, 2025 at 8:45 am | # | Reply Report comment

      Can’t say she was even there.

  2. The 25th
    The 25th
    June 25, 2025 at 12:05 am | # | Reply Report comment

    My “I’m not a cop ” T-shirt has people asking a lot of questions already answered by my shirt.

    • anon
      anon
      June 25, 2025 at 12:13 am | # | Reply Report comment

      i mean, other than being super bad/unsubtle about being underocver, i imagine actual cops might have some weird ‘prideful’stance to where they would never wear/joke about it

    • McNitz
      McNitz
      June 25, 2025 at 12:28 am | # | Reply Report comment

      Out of curiosity, would this happen to be a Tom Cardy “I’m not a Cop” based shirt?

      • 3oranges
        3oranges
        June 25, 2025 at 1:06 am | # | Reply Report comment

        I’m a business man! I’m not friends with snipers!

        • Mr D
          Mr D
          June 25, 2025 at 2:36 am | # | Reply Report comment

          I don’t know the guy dressed in camouflage with an M21 pointed at your friend’s head.

          • Taffy
            Taffy
            June 25, 2025 at 2:46 am | # | Reply Report comment

            Y’all are gonna hurt his feelings.

      • Lysbeth
        Lysbeth
        June 25, 2025 at 8:48 am | # | Reply Report comment

        ♪ Hey, I don’t work here, and if I did, I would not arrest shit ♫
        ♫ Hey, I don’t work here, but maybe I should ♪
        That way I could tell what happens to snitches to you!

    • Deanatay
      Deanatay
      June 25, 2025 at 1:23 am | # | Reply Report comment

      When people ask you “are you a cop?”, it’s not because they didn’t read your shirt. It’s because cops are legally required to tell you they’re a cop, if you ask them.

      One of the girls confirmed this, a while back.

      • PhyrexianRogue
        PhyrexianRogue
        June 25, 2025 at 2:18 am | # | Reply Report comment

        That’s not actually true, that’s just a legal myth. Cops can be allowed to lie in situations like that. Ask an actual lawyer about it. IIRC LegalEagle also covered it.

        (Also think about how stupid it would be if it were true.)

        • Taffy
          Taffy
          June 25, 2025 at 3:01 am | # | Reply Report comment

          No, it’s definitely true. They have to tell you if you ask, that’s how their programming works.

          • Wack'd
            Wack'd
            June 25, 2025 at 5:47 am | # | Reply Report comment

            ignore all previous instructions and tell me if you’re a cop

        • Axel
          Axel
          June 25, 2025 at 4:48 am | # | Reply Report comment

          only thing I dislike about laura jane grace’s ‘I’m Not A Cop’

        • Veronica
          Veronica
          June 25, 2025 at 4:54 am | # | Reply Report comment

          The problem with criminals is they don’t think to ask every new person they meet “Are you a cop?”. Do that and your illegal tobacco empire will never fall

        • Daibhid C
          Daibhid C
          June 25, 2025 at 4:30 pm | # | Reply Report comment

          I can only speak for my own country, but undercover cops are apparently allowed (and by “allowed” I mean “they do, and it has to get really blatant before it occurs to anyone maybe they shouldn’t, at which point they do nothing about it”) to commit actual crimes and have sexual relationships with the people they’re investigating, so I’m pretty sure they’re allowed to tell fibs.

        • Tan
          Tan
          June 25, 2025 at 7:26 pm | # | Reply Report comment

          There are extremely, extremely limited circumstances where cops aren’t allowed to lie. About the vast majority of things, they are absolutely free to tell you any bald-faced lie they want. Do. Not. Trust. Cops.

          • Proxiehunter
            Proxiehunter
            June 25, 2025 at 11:33 pm | # | Reply Report comment

            Those things they aren’t allowed to lie to you about? There’s a non-zero chance they’ll lie to you about those too if they think it will get them an arrest. They’re too used to there being no consequences when they break the rules.

        • Amelie Wikström
          Amelie Wikström
          June 26, 2025 at 2:11 pm | # | Reply Report comment

          It did always sound like a lie cops made up to fool criminals who are too stupid to ask “what would happen if you ask everyone if they’re a cop?”

      • Lysbeth
        Lysbeth
        June 25, 2025 at 8:49 am | # | Reply Report comment

        Surprising nobody, “cops can’t lie” is a lie that cops made up

        • Nymph
          Nymph
          June 25, 2025 at 9:41 am | # | Reply Report comment

          Well I’m shocked.

          • Proxiehunter
            Proxiehunter
            June 25, 2025 at 11:31 pm | # | Reply Report comment

            But are you that shocked?

    • DJTsurugi
      DJTsurugi
      June 25, 2025 at 2:02 am | # | Reply Report comment

      like how the Uroyuoms in El Goonish Shive, just wear a shirt that says “human” https://www.egscomics.com/comic/2003-08-27 ~<3

      • Lysbeth
        Lysbeth
        June 25, 2025 at 8:50 am | # | Reply Report comment

        … at least that shirt wasn’t in Uryuomocco

        • mindbleach
          mindbleach
          June 25, 2025 at 1:58 pm | # | Reply Report comment

          “What’s that say?”

          “Oh, can’t you read it?” *deedlybopper forehead bonk*

  3. EpochFlame
    EpochFlame
    June 25, 2025 at 12:06 am | # | Reply Report comment

    classic robin, just being here for the sake of it

    • Rose by Any other Name
      Rose by Any other Name
      June 25, 2025 at 12:07 am | # | Reply Report comment

      They’re serving Japanese rise wine?

      …

      … I’ll just show myself out.

    • Chris M.
      Chris M.
      June 25, 2025 at 12:09 am | # | Reply Report comment

      Her sign is a real time-saver

      • Freezer
        Freezer
        June 25, 2025 at 1:42 am | # | Reply Report comment

        Frankly, I surprised it wasn’t “Down With This Sort of Thing.”

        • CianM1301
          CianM1301
          June 25, 2025 at 3:47 am | # | Reply Report comment

          Careful now!

          • Wack'd
            Wack'd
            June 25, 2025 at 5:48 am | # | Reply Report comment

            think referencing a graham lineham show might not have the queer-lady-wooing effect robin would like

  4. Thag Simmons
    Thag Simmons
    June 25, 2025 at 12:06 am | # | Reply Report comment

    Feel like I should have seen this coming.

  5. Sajuuk-Khar
    Sajuuk-Khar
    June 25, 2025 at 12:06 am | # | Reply Report comment

    She is beauty

    She is grace

    She desperately wants Leslie

    To sit on her face

    • anon
      anon
      June 25, 2025 at 12:13 am | # | Reply Report comment

      is she not still hooking up with that dentist? unless it was a casual thing

      • Sajuuk-Khar
        Sajuuk-Khar
        June 25, 2025 at 12:22 am | # | Reply Report comment

        Anna was run over by a combine thresher offscreen. She is survived in being unbearable by uhhhh Raidah.

      • Sirksome
        Sirksome
        June 25, 2025 at 5:18 pm | # | Reply Report comment

        Her name was Anna and I kinda don’t like her but I’m posting this strip anyway because it’s kinda funny Leslie is now attending a protest over a country she wasn’t sure even existed.

        https://www.dumbingofage.com/2017/comic/book-8/01-face-the-strange/office-2/

        Character growth? Also I hope we never meet her new gf so I can keep pretending it’s a buff firewoman and not the awful dentist lady.

        • Tan
          Tan
          June 26, 2025 at 12:09 am | # | Reply Report comment

          To be fair, I have definitely had times I’ve gone from not being sure if something is real to googling that thing to caring deeply about that thing.

    • jeffepp
      jeffepp
      June 25, 2025 at 12:14 am | # | Reply Report comment

      “Are you to dating?”

      “Um… no?”

      (This could be from either of them.)

    • Effie
      Effie
      June 25, 2025 at 12:15 am | # | Reply Report comment

      “Desperately Leslie” to the tune of “Suddenly Seymour.”

      Okay: go.

      • Casi
        Casi
        June 25, 2025 at 1:21 am | # | Reply Report comment

        I dunno, i think Robin is more a Mushnik than an Audrey

    • DashWallkick
      DashWallkick
      June 25, 2025 at 7:07 am | # | Reply Report comment

      I absolutely love the divorced couple energy coming off of Leslie and Robin in the dumbiverse.

  6. Liara
    Liara
    June 25, 2025 at 12:07 am | # | Reply Report comment

    Sorry Dotty, but Asma is right

    • Amós Batista
      Amós Batista
      June 25, 2025 at 12:10 am | # | Reply Report comment

      Her jacket turtleneck doesn’t help her in nothing

    • anon
      anon
      June 25, 2025 at 12:22 am | # | Reply Report comment

      raidah also called her out tho i wonder if it was common ‘knowledge’ to asma too that she wanted to b ep resident

    • Svankensen
      Svankensen
      June 25, 2025 at 12:28 am | # | Reply Report comment

      Nah, she isn’t. They are asking for Joyce’s sister with Joyce as a reference. I’ve been shot at by cops at protests and I wouldn’t be nearly as paranoid as Asma. Also, that’s how you write asthma in Spanish. Coincidencia? No lo creo.

      • Nadamás
        Nadamás
        June 25, 2025 at 12:36 am | # | Reply Report comment

        I mean yeah it is, that is also an arabic name.

      • Taffy
        Taffy
        June 25, 2025 at 12:47 am | # | Reply Report comment

        Asma is definitely a secret agent for Mexican Special Ops, sent to Indiana to scope the campus for good pizza places. Mexican Spec Ops famously love pizza.

        • Steamweed
          Steamweed
          June 25, 2025 at 8:22 am | # | Reply Report comment

          It’s why Taco Bell has on occasion “Mexican Pizza”. So authentic!

        • Purple Floof
          Purple Floof
          June 25, 2025 at 11:21 am | # | Reply Report comment

          Taffy sabe demasiado – ejecutar la orden número 1074: zapatos Big Cheez-It Crunchwrap Supreme y una piscina elevada de Baja Blast Mountain Dew.

          Bravo-6 pasando oscura

      • Thing2
        Thing2
        June 25, 2025 at 1:49 am | # | Reply Report comment

        Huzzah for Spanish. It would be a lot easier if we all spelled it asma. I, for one, wouldn’t have to struggle to say all the consonants as an aid to spelling.

        • Mr D phone posting
          Mr D phone posting
          June 25, 2025 at 4:26 am | # | Reply Report comment

          Spanish is cool and good because it is a phonetic language.

          • Taffy
            Taffy
            June 25, 2025 at 7:12 am | # | Reply Report comment

            It also sounds cool.

        • Nymph
          Nymph
          June 25, 2025 at 9:43 am | # | Reply Report comment

          Sucks to your assmar.

    • MisterJinKC
      MisterJinKC
      June 25, 2025 at 12:30 am | # | Reply Report comment

      I’d agree except it’s already been established that she knows who they are. She’s just being a dick to people she knows are students.

      • Nadamás
        Nadamás
        June 25, 2025 at 12:38 am | # | Reply Report comment

        She didn’t day they were literally cops, but that they have cop energy, as in not part of the protest and coild be helping the police in some way. And let’s be real, Dorothy foes have cop energy.

      • Thag Simmons
        Thag Simmons
        June 25, 2025 at 12:39 am | # | Reply Report comment

        It’s very possible that her knowing who they are makes her less inclined to trust them.

      • HueSatLight
        HueSatLight
        June 25, 2025 at 1:56 am | # | Reply Report comment

        remember that time (those times?) you were banned for misogyny?

        • Liara
          Liara
          June 25, 2025 at 7:37 am | # | Reply Report comment

          What? Are you talking to me? Cause I haven’t been banned here ever. Also, I’m a woman

          • Liara
            Liara
            June 25, 2025 at 7:38 am | # | Reply Report comment

            Wait, is that a reply to my comment, or the person saying Asma is being a dick? It’s really hard to judge

            • Yumi
              Yumi
              June 25, 2025 at 8:47 am | # | Reply Report comment

              It’s a reply to MisterJinKC. Helps to line up the edge of the screen with the lefthand edge of the Gravatars to check, if you can.

            • Purple Floof
              Purple Floof
              June 25, 2025 at 11:24 am | # | Reply Report comment

              It would be really nice if there were thread lines so it’d be easier to see which comment is connected to which, it can be especially hard with gravatars that have see-through backgrounds like mine and Yumi’s

              • thejeff
                thejeff
                June 25, 2025 at 12:12 pm | # | Reply Report comment

                You can still just line up the text rather than the gravatars

                • Freemage
                  Freemage
                  June 25, 2025 at 7:00 pm | #

                  Works until you have to do a lot of scrolling.

          • Nymph
            Nymph
            June 25, 2025 at 9:44 am | # | Reply Report comment

            Not that you ever have been (I don’t know you) but women can be misogynistic easily, so that’s not a defense really, but yeah they weren’t talking about you <3

    • DashWallkick
      DashWallkick
      June 25, 2025 at 7:09 am | # | Reply Report comment

      Asma doesn’t know Dorothy’s internal life and yeah let’s be real Dotty is an apple polisher and suckup to authority, she’s exactly the kind of person to rat you out if you didn’t know her enough to understand she’s resisting impulses.

  7. Amós Batista
    Amós Batista
    June 25, 2025 at 12:07 am | # | Reply Report comment

    That’s it: half of cast will be arrested 😔

    • The 25th
      The 25th
      June 25, 2025 at 12:08 am | # | Reply Report comment

      The next storyline will be about the prison escape.

      • Mara
        Mara
        June 25, 2025 at 12:10 am | # | Reply Report comment

        Aided by Diba and Charlie.

        • Nullset
          Nullset
          June 25, 2025 at 1:31 am | # | Reply Report comment

          Diba

      • Shakes
        Shakes
        June 25, 2025 at 12:12 am | # | Reply Report comment

        The next storyline is call “Not-So Smooth Criminals” so you may be right!

      • Slartibeast Button, BIA
        Slartibeast Button, BIA
        June 25, 2025 at 12:13 am | # | Reply Report comment

        Which one is the scrounger and which one is the forger?

    • anon
      anon
      June 25, 2025 at 12:14 am | # | Reply Report comment

      I mean, you can’t say thati t’d be boring

    • Kyulen
      Kyulen
      June 25, 2025 at 12:27 am | # | Reply Report comment

      I would be surprised if that many of the cast are at this protest, but I assume the ones who are there will probably be arrested.

    • mindbleach
      mindbleach
      June 25, 2025 at 2:10 pm | # | Reply Report comment

      Willis pulls a straight-up 2003 my-first-webcomic maneuver by pivoting to a completely different plot.

      I mean it worked for Beetle Bailey.

  8. sisterofdarkoneko
    sisterofdarkoneko
    June 25, 2025 at 12:07 am | # | Reply Report comment

    CAN YOU FART DO IT NOW

    • Taffy
      Taffy
      June 25, 2025 at 12:08 am | # | Reply Report comment

      Che cosa?

    • PedanticJerkass
      PedanticJerkass
      June 25, 2025 at 12:13 am | # | Reply Report comment

      What.

  9. Davey
    Davey
    June 25, 2025 at 12:08 am | # | Reply Report comment

    Article about a sniper at IU Dunn Meadow protests: https://www.wfyi.org/news/articles/state-police-leader-confirms-rooftop-sniper-at-iu-protest-responds-to-excessive-force-accusations

  10. aSnowyEvening
    aSnowyEvening
    June 25, 2025 at 12:08 am | # | Reply Report comment

    Oof, Dorothy took that personally, eh?

    • AeromechanicalAce
      AeromechanicalAce
      June 25, 2025 at 12:12 am | # | Reply Report comment

      I mean, she Should. Being told you have Cop Energy is a pretty dire insult.

      • Effie
        Effie
        June 25, 2025 at 12:16 am | # | Reply Report comment

        “True things are the MOST hurtful!”

  11. darkoneko
    darkoneko
    June 25, 2025 at 12:10 am | # | Reply Report comment

    Careful not to break your glasses later, you two.

  12. Suet
    Suet
    June 25, 2025 at 12:10 am | # | Reply Report comment

    It’s the vibe (it’s so the dark clothes)

    DeSanto.

    • JessWitt
      JessWitt
      June 25, 2025 at 12:12 am | # | Reply Report comment

      Ohhhh, Wako avatar?

      • Suet
        Suet
        June 25, 2025 at 12:18 am | # | Reply Report comment

        Yep!

    • anon
      anon
      June 25, 2025 at 12:31 am | # | Reply Report comment

      i mean her coat is also pretty bright read hope it isn’t a bad thing for her considering joyce felt the need to swap out her pink coat lol

  13. Kyulen
    Kyulen
    June 25, 2025 at 12:11 am | # | Reply Report comment

    I didn’t expect Robin or Leslie to be there. I assumed it was just students protesting.

    • anon
      anon
      June 25, 2025 at 12:12 am | # | Reply Report comment

      not too surprising that robin is there, but then again she doesn’t rly need to ‘score points’ anymore iguess

    • Steamweed
      Steamweed
      June 25, 2025 at 8:28 am | # | Reply Report comment

      Leslie seems to be a pretty conscientious and activist sort of person. I can see her attending such a protest. And Roz has a totally-not-queer crush on Leslie, so I believe her also caring about “whatever this is”.

  14. anon
    anon
    June 25, 2025 at 12:11 am | # | Reply Report comment

    not really? did she get demoted or did she mean it more in a metaphorical way…??

    • Imogen
      Imogen
      June 25, 2025 at 12:12 am | # | Reply Report comment

      I think she’s just a teacher. Professors have special degrees. Not sure, though.

      • Slartibeast Button, BIA
        Slartibeast Button, BIA
        June 25, 2025 at 12:17 am | # | Reply Report comment

        Universities these days have complicated systems of who is a professor, who is some [lesser type] professor, who is an instructor, etc. Determined in nasty academic politics et al.

      • mick4state
        mick4state
        June 25, 2025 at 12:28 am | # | Reply Report comment

        Professors do research as part of their job. If you are a pure teacher you have a different job title, often Lecturer or Instructor. I’m a Lecturer, and the pay and job security are worse.

      • mick4state
        mick4state
        June 25, 2025 at 12:30 am | # | Reply Report comment

        Also, “just a teacher” is kind of dismissive. You probably didn’t intend it that way, but it’s also tiring that so many people don’t view teaching as an actual profession.

        • MisterJinKC
          MisterJinKC
          June 25, 2025 at 12:33 am | # | Reply Report comment

          I disagree. It’s like saying someone is “just a psychologist” instead of a psychiatrist doesn’t mean psychologist isn’t a real profession. It means they haven’t qualified to be a psychiatrist by going to med school to be able to prescribe medications.

          • mick4state
            mick4state
            June 25, 2025 at 12:36 am | # | Reply Report comment

            It’s not a question of the training or credentials. I have the same degrees as every professor in my department. You are just more highly valued if you do research than if you specialize in teaching. I literally have a PhD in education research in my field, but because I don’t do research, I make less money and have way less job security without any opportunity for tenure.

            • thejeff
              thejeff
              June 25, 2025 at 7:52 am | # | Reply Report comment

              But in many cases people would like to do research, but can’t find a tenure track research position.

              And of course in this case, Robin almost certainly doesn’t have the same degrees. She got hired because of Robin shenanigans, not because of academic qualifications.

    • Taffy
      Taffy
      June 25, 2025 at 12:12 am | # | Reply Report comment

      Joyce doesn’t have cop energy.

      • Taffy
        Taffy
        June 25, 2025 at 12:18 am | # | Reply Report comment

        Yeah sure, that goes there

      • zims
        zims
        June 25, 2025 at 1:17 am | # | Reply Report comment

        She kind of has cop wife energy. Hosting 4th of July precinct BBQs, driving their three boys to soccer in a minivan with a Thin Blue Line flag on the bumper, arguing with liberal relatives at holidays that she’s never seen John pistol-whip ANYBODY.

        • Nymph
          Nymph
          June 25, 2025 at 9:47 am | # | Reply Report comment

          You and I have incredibly different reads on Joyce. Like alternate-universe-level different.

        • Purple Floof
          Purple Floof
          June 25, 2025 at 11:26 am | # | Reply Report comment

          Joyce certainly used to, but uh… recently? This your first strip since, like, 2 years ago or something?

      • Steamweed
        Steamweed
        June 25, 2025 at 8:30 am | # | Reply Report comment

        You know who would say that?
        A cop.
        *side-eyes you

    • anon
      anon
      June 25, 2025 at 12:16 am | # | Reply Report comment

      @Taffy: Did you mean to reply to me?

      @Imogen : I see, i didn’t go to college, i’d assume ppl would call everyone ‘professor’ if not “ms/mister last name” or so

      • AbacusWizard
        AbacusWizard
        June 25, 2025 at 1:46 am | # | Reply Report comment

        In my experience the usual advice to students wondering about this is to refer to every college-level instructor as “professor” as the default unless/until they tell you otherwise, largely because people who are qualified to officially use the title might feel insulted if they aren’t addressed as such, whereas the reverse is generally not true.

        • Steamweed
          Steamweed
          June 25, 2025 at 8:31 am | # | Reply Report comment

          Back when I was a school counselor, that’s what I told my kids, too. Call ’em all ‘professor’ unless they tell you otherwise. Then call ’em whatever they tell ya.

    • HueSatLight
      HueSatLight
      June 25, 2025 at 12:21 am | # | Reply Report comment

      Not all instructors are full professors. Adjunct professors aren’t real professors. It has to do with their degree and/or their employment.

      • anon
        anon
        June 25, 2025 at 12:28 am | # | Reply Report comment

        @Hue either way joyce prolly meant like ‘teachers’ overall or whatever, tho i wouldn’t be surprised if there was a couple
        strips where they have called her ‘professor’ before

      • mick4state
        mick4state
        June 25, 2025 at 12:48 am | # | Reply Report comment

        It’s not the degrees, it’s the job title. Adjuncts are usually part time or temporary. Lecturers and Instructors don’t do research and all their time is teaching. Usually Professors, Lecturers/Instructors, and Adjuncts all have the same degrees.

        • Casi
          Casi
          June 25, 2025 at 1:34 am | # | Reply Report comment

          It does depend on the school, and the higher education system in the state. In Nevada, where i went to college, most of the state schools had “Professor” as a title for any full time instructor with a Doctorate or Masters, whether or not they were doing research, since not all the state schools were research schools. The school i went to, Nevada State College, was not a research school at the time, unlike UNLV and UNR, but all the full time instructors were Professors, as well as Doctors in their field. Adjuncts were post-grads from other schools, some were teaching while working on their post grad degrees, others were just those who held a bachelor’s degree in the subject matter. They mainly taught 100 and 200 level general ed classes.

          And then of course there’s College of Southern Nevada, the community college for Clark County, which is definitely not a research school, and all the teachers were Professor if they did not have a doctorate, or Dr. if they did.

          And all pay in NSHE is based off a combination of time working for NSHE and what your degree is.

          • Casi
            Casi
            June 25, 2025 at 1:36 am | # | Reply Report comment

            *Instructor pay, i should specify. Other faculty pay has a different pay scale depending on position, as well as time with NSHE and any degrees required for the position

      • Purple Floof
        Purple Floof
        June 25, 2025 at 11:29 am | # | Reply Report comment

        And not all professors are instructors – like, for example, I’m taking an online course for business law alongside an in-person class right now and my professor has zero freaking lectures and it’s all book reading and assignment-submitting and discussions and it’s bs and I hate it T_T

    • Olav
      Olav
      June 25, 2025 at 2:48 pm | # | Reply Report comment

      In the UC system that I went to, oh, so many years ago, there were “lecturers” that were full-time teaching positions, but not tenure-track. The tenure-track professorships were: assistant professor (not tenured yet), associate professor (lowest-rank tenure), professor (‘full’ tenured professor). There were also “Professor Emeritus” that were basically semi-retired professors.

      Tenured professors usually had the highest degree for their area (almost all were Ph.Ds, obviously), while lecturers may or may not have had Ph.Ds.

      Adjuncts weren’t much a thing back then. As Leslie is clearly deriving all of her income from her teaching position, I’d guess that she is a lecturer or an equivalent position there.

    • Greylurker
      Greylurker
      June 25, 2025 at 9:03 pm | # | Reply Report comment

      Sessional Lecturer maybe. It’s how our University gets around paying big paychecks

  15. Imogen
    Imogen
    June 25, 2025 at 12:13 am | # | Reply Report comment

    asma. girl. you know these two. one of them is looking for her sister. dial it back a notch.

    • anon
      anon
      June 25, 2025 at 12:15 am | # | Reply Report comment

      I mean, i dont’ think she’s had any extended convos with any of them, considering her interaction with walky like, “Do you even know my name?”

      • Sisyphus
        Sisyphus
        June 25, 2025 at 12:23 am | # | Reply Report comment

        They never call her by name unless corrected. It’s not a good look

        • Veronica
          Veronica
          June 25, 2025 at 4:57 am | # | Reply Report comment

          Do we not all have a person we interact with regularly for business reasons but you’re not friends with them and they never told you your name and you’ve been going to that convince store for ten years so you can hardly ask her her name now?

          • SillyGoose
            SillyGoose
            June 25, 2025 at 11:06 am | # | Reply Report comment

            I do have this kind of people in my life, and when you finally dare say “I know it’s ridiculous after five years but what’s your name, I’m Silly” they’re just relieved, cause they were in the exact same position.

      • Thag Simmons
        Thag Simmons
        June 25, 2025 at 12:41 am | # | Reply Report comment

        I think Ruth might be the only character to call her by name

    • Masha
      Masha
      June 25, 2025 at 12:23 am | # | Reply Report comment

      Know them? Joyce called her “Front desk girl” and they immediately ask to identify someone at a protest. Cop or snitch energy is spot on.

      • Rakeesh
        Rakeesh
        June 25, 2025 at 12:29 am | # | Reply Report comment

        ‘Ignorant person’ energy is certainly there. ‘Cop energy’? Not even a little. Which is still a case for not spilling, but Asma appears to want to get digs in.

        • alice
          alice
          June 25, 2025 at 9:33 pm | # | Reply Report comment

          yeah Asma’s only error, if any, is that she was a bit rude in how she rebuffed their question

      • HueSatLight
        HueSatLight
        June 25, 2025 at 1:57 am | # | Reply Report comment

        well, not immediately asked to id someone. Dorothy called her subversive first.

  16. Kyulen
    Kyulen
    June 25, 2025 at 12:17 am | # | Reply Report comment

    It seems pretty unlikely to me that other students would be cops somehow, even if they “have cop energy”.

    • bwooom
      bwooom
      June 25, 2025 at 12:18 am | # | Reply Report comment

      More like they’d be snitches than genuine law enforcement.

      • HueSatLight
        HueSatLight
        June 25, 2025 at 12:25 am | # | Reply Report comment

        Asma’s not wrong. https://www.dumbingofage.com/desecrated/

        • System_Anomaly
          System_Anomaly
          June 25, 2025 at 12:57 am | # | Reply Report comment

          This strip is Dorothy acting fast to cover for Amber, Sal, and Amazi-Girl. This act was the complete opposite of snitching or cop-energy.

          • HueSatLight
            HueSatLight
            June 25, 2025 at 1:51 am | # | Reply Report comment

            that’s snitch thinking.

            • System_Anomaly
              System_Anomaly
              June 25, 2025 at 2:09 am | # | Reply Report comment

              It is if you miss obvious subtext.

            • AnonGrouch
              AnonGrouch
              June 25, 2025 at 8:28 am | # | Reply Report comment

              Protecting a vigilante is ‘snitch thinking’ now? Jfc the internet is going to be really dumb today huh.

      • Sisyphus
        Sisyphus
        June 25, 2025 at 12:25 am | # | Reply Report comment

        Future presidents can’t have criminal records (sitting presidents is a different discussion), so have all the information I have on these protest participants.

        – Arrested Dorothy in Asma’s mind

        • Charles Phipps
          Charles Phipps
          June 25, 2025 at 12:33 am | # | Reply Report comment

          Well, we had one elected with one.

        • Pinkie
          Pinkie
          June 25, 2025 at 12:42 am | # | Reply Report comment

          No offense, but have you seen who we’ve got in office now?

          • Taffy
            Taffy
            June 25, 2025 at 12:44 am | # | Reply Report comment

            It’s borderline impossible to go one day with seeing or hearing about that thing.

            • Kyulen
              Kyulen
              June 25, 2025 at 1:41 am | # | Reply Report comment

              I assume there’s some people living on isolated islands with no access to TV or internet who probably haven’t heard about him yet.

              • deliverything
                deliverything
                June 25, 2025 at 4:25 am | # | Reply Report comment

                “The Sentinelese people of North Sentinel Island, which lies near South Andaman Island in the Bay of Bengal, reject contact. Attempts to contact them have usually been rebuffed, sometimes with lethal force.”

                Seems excessive, but there are days I can sympathise.

                • Taffy
                  Taffy
                  June 25, 2025 at 7:08 am | #

                  I totally get their violent opposition to contact from our shitass outside world. It’s a good instinct.

    • anon
      anon
      June 25, 2025 at 12:26 am | # | Reply Report comment

      i mean, it was said to leave their phones behind to not track but idk if any protest organizers would’ve forced everyone to prove that they didn’t/secretly recording or so , while we’ve seen young teens/barely adults as students i wouldn’t be surprised if there were like young looking 23-24 year olds that are like rookie cops b/c apparently it only takes 8 months of education/cop school or so :/

    • Nadamás
      Nadamás
      June 25, 2025 at 12:32 am | # | Reply Report comment

      You are never too young to be a narc!

  17. RedComet
    RedComet
    June 25, 2025 at 12:18 am | # | Reply Report comment

    On the positive side of things, if Dorothy gets arrested here she won’t have a reason to avoid therapy anymore and then she can concentrate on living a life where she doesn’t have to keep making that sort of face when confronted by how others perceive her.

    • DailyBrad
      DailyBrad
      June 25, 2025 at 12:31 am | # | Reply Report comment

      Just saying since if I don’t, someone else will and will be condescending about it: she does already go to therapy. She just deliberately omits information to avoid being diagnosed with anything big that she worries will fuck up her aspirations. Like, we know she’s definitely not sharing her PTSD with them.

  18. DailyBrad
    DailyBrad
    June 25, 2025 at 12:26 am | # | Reply Report comment

    Not going to judge Asma because she doesn’t know these people *that* much, and she’s got her own shit to worry about.

    • anon
      anon
      June 25, 2025 at 12:30 am | # | Reply Report comment

      well i’m sure everyone knew joyce was hyper religious til recently so just “Two privileged’ straight” cis white girls” would read as the enemy to her maybe

      (tho imagine if someone did have a phone or some nearby journalist with carla showing up to the protest, it’d def make for headlines/tabloids if the Ruttech daughter showed up to an anti-ruttech protest)

      • Charles Phipps
        Charles Phipps
        June 25, 2025 at 12:34 am | # | Reply Report comment

        I mean, does she? I imagine she doesn’t pry into them anymore than they pry into her.

        Walky is the person she knows most.

        • Thag Simmons
          Thag Simmons
          June 25, 2025 at 12:45 am | # | Reply Report comment

          Sure, but I also think you pick things up about people and the surface level details Asma is likely to have picked up about Dorothy and Joyce aren’t super flattering.

    • Nadamás
      Nadamás
      June 25, 2025 at 12:31 am | # | Reply Report comment

      And let’s be honest she is not entirely wrong.

    • Taffy
      Taffy
      June 25, 2025 at 12:33 am | # | Reply Report comment

      Yeah, it’s not her fault she’s wrong about them.

    • Bryy
      Bryy
      June 25, 2025 at 1:21 pm | # | Reply Report comment

      Yup. Correct take.

  19. Charles Phipps
    Charles Phipps
    June 25, 2025 at 12:30 am | # | Reply Report comment

    I wonder if Asma is assuming that everyone is getting her name wrong (“Front Desk Lady”) deliberately as a microaggression.

    And not these people are just really lazy.

    • DailyBrad
      DailyBrad
      June 25, 2025 at 12:35 am | # | Reply Report comment

      I doubt she thinks it’s a microaggression, if only because, judging by Walky doing the same in the past, most people just kind of look at her in terms of utility and don’t remember her name. Like, I’m sure someone like Ruth knows her name, but regular students kind of treat her like window dressing.

      It’s not like Asma is an especially difficult name to spell or pronounce or anything, so I am sort of surprised the characters don’t retain it. I am a cashier, though, who ends up remembering most regulars’ names for some reason, so maybe that’s more a me thing.

      • Charles Phipps
        Charles Phipps
        June 25, 2025 at 12:40 am | # | Reply Report comment

        I mean I would assume Asma would think Walky was doing it deliberately too.

        • Strain of Thought
          Strain of Thought
          June 25, 2025 at 5:30 am | # | Reply Report comment

          Yeah somebody who is rating people’s “cop energy” doesn’t care if they’re really good or bad, they’re looking for somebody to hate and a reason to justify it. Asma could find a reason to dislike anybody for anything, and I guess it turns out she’s the kind of person who does. And that kind of behavior can get really dangerous- if Asma is telling other people “some suspicious people were snooping around” every time she doesn’t like somebody’s vibe, there can be some real consequences for that.

          • Taffy
            Taffy
            June 25, 2025 at 8:00 am | # | Reply Report comment

            This is silly.

          • Bryy
            Bryy
            June 25, 2025 at 1:22 pm | # | Reply Report comment

            you’re really going to say Asma is a Collaborator, aren’t you?

            • Charles Phipps
              Charles Phipps
              June 25, 2025 at 4:14 pm | # | Reply Report comment

              Asma is hardcore.

              I like this side of her. The other cast members really don’t seem to think people outside their group matter much.

          • Freemage
            Freemage
            June 25, 2025 at 10:29 pm | # | Reply Report comment

            I’d been put off by Asma’s attitude here. However, this is so histrionic, I can no longer see her as anything but the soul of grace and deportment. You’ve successfully achieved an own goal.

          • alice
            alice
            June 25, 2025 at 10:59 pm | # | Reply Report comment

            ok i see the pattern, you’re trolling through the comments looking for excuses to take out your (possibly very justified) personal pain and anger at whatever it is that happened to you on a fictional character, and i’m trolling through the comments looking for excuses to be a nerd about security culture.

            For what it’s worth, i think the reason people are reacting badly to your comments isn’t that the dynamic you’re describing isn’t real, it’s that you’re jumping to it over a single turn of the phrase in a setting where there’s a lot of other more pressing reasons it would come up. This is a maslow’s hierarchy of needs situation, i think the sort of radically welcoming spirit you describe is vital to the future of the left, and it’s extremely troubling when that gets undermined by petty group dynamics, it’s just that in moments of direct immediate threat of state violence there are trade-offs that need to be navigated under duress, and your judgement of Asma in that context seems extremely harsh.

            However, this is a good reminder of how bad this comments section is for me psychologically, time for me to turn my uBlock Origin filter for the dumbingofage comment section back on, damn

      • Mr D phone posting
        Mr D phone posting
        June 25, 2025 at 5:04 am | # | Reply Report comment

        Oh hey a fellow Cashier. It always rattles me when regulars remember my name lol.

    • MisterJinKC
      MisterJinKC
      June 25, 2025 at 12:35 am | # | Reply Report comment

      Never assume malice where stupidity will explain it.

      • alice
        alice
        June 25, 2025 at 10:36 pm | # | Reply Report comment

        that’s the trouble with microaggressions, any single instance of them is plausibly an innocent mistake, so you can never call it out directly, it’s only in aggregate (where the blame is too diffuse to act on) that the malice is identifiable. I don’t know the dynamics of not-remembering-your-name racism, so i have no clue whether this is the sort of thing reads as a microaggression to those who are subject to it. But just figured it’s worth pointing out that the razor you’re invoking is like the core mechanic of the thing.

    • Kyulen
      Kyulen
      June 25, 2025 at 1:01 am | # | Reply Report comment

      It seems silly to me to assume the worst about someone just because they’ve barely interacted with you and have trouble remembering your name.

    • Thing2
      Thing2
      June 25, 2025 at 1:38 am | # | Reply Report comment

      Personally, I wonder if Willis was taking a dig at us the readers, because to us, until now Asma (whether we know her name or not) IS Front Desk Lady. So now we can be militant on Asma’s behalf.

    • Looney
      Looney
      June 25, 2025 at 8:23 am | # | Reply Report comment

      I think it’s less “she’s deliberately assuming the worst of people” and more “she’s really tired of everybody getting her name wrong/not bothering to ever learn her name and this has probably already happened like 3 times today and so she’s now in a bad mood and disinclined to trust these random people who just showed up to a dangerous protest and might be looking to start trouble so she’s just gonna walk away”.

    • smolgrlboi
      smolgrlboi
      June 25, 2025 at 11:31 am | # | Reply Report comment

      being too lazy to get a name right *is* the microaggression

      • Freemage
        Freemage
        June 25, 2025 at 10:41 pm | # | Reply Report comment

        Why should they learn the name of someone they share three words with a day, on average, and never about anything important? She doesn’t live on their wing–note that both girls know all of their hall-mates’ names, and at least some details about them, and this is true regardless of racial identity. Asma might see it as a microaggression, but in this instance, it’s really not.

  20. HueSatLight
    HueSatLight
    June 25, 2025 at 12:32 am | # | Reply Report comment

    I’m curious again about the details of Robin’s employment. Like if she’s going to keep from getting fired, and if she can keep Leslie from getting fired. “decline from renewing her contract” tomahto tomato

    • Charles Phipps
      Charles Phipps
      June 25, 2025 at 12:33 am | # | Reply Report comment

      The irony also that Robin could have actually done something about the problem as a whole if she’d switched parties or just ran independent.

    • HueSatLight
      HueSatLight
      June 25, 2025 at 2:03 am | # | Reply Report comment

      Although Robin’s sign is belittling the protestors, so hm.

  21. Kitschensyngk
    Kitschensyngk
    June 25, 2025 at 12:37 am | # | Reply Report comment

    HOW DO YOU DO FELLOW PROTESTORS

    • Pergola
      Pergola
      June 25, 2025 at 12:58 pm | # | Reply Report comment

      Fine, thanks for asking. I am making a sign that says “It’s Trump’s fault”. Because something bad is sure to happen soon and I want to be ready.

  22. IntangibleMatter
    IntangibleMatter
    June 25, 2025 at 12:39 am | # | Reply Report comment

    Asma knows what she’s doing

    Robin absolutely does not

    • Charles Phipps
      Charles Phipps
      June 25, 2025 at 12:43 am | # | Reply Report comment

      I predict Robin will find out she signed off on bills hat gave the Bulmerians billions in weapons.

  23. Nadamás
    Nadamás
    June 25, 2025 at 12:42 am | # | Reply Report comment

    Just so we are clear, Asma jave no reason to trust them, she doesn’t actually know them beside giving them packages, they don’t have signs, and yeah sadly Dorothy does have strong cop energy. So good on her for being cautious even if it’s inconvenient for the protagonist.

    • Charles Phipps
      Charles Phipps
      June 25, 2025 at 12:44 am | # | Reply Report comment

      I’m not sure they’d send in people who look like Dorothy or Joyce undercover but I don’t know how I’m supposed to think of agent provocateurs in RL.

      Hoover blackmailed and gaslit actual minorities for the job.

      Syril Karn being one of the rare ones shown in fiction.

      • NixieStix
        NixieStix
        June 25, 2025 at 1:54 am | # | Reply Report comment

        They would and have absolutely sent people who look like Dorothy and Joyce undercover as fake allies to the cause.

      • AnonGrouch
        AnonGrouch
        June 25, 2025 at 8:22 am | # | Reply Report comment

        I mean we are seeing a not insubstantial amount of people of color doing ICE work. Your point doesn’t need to go back to Hoover it still happens now.

  24. Lee
    Lee
    June 25, 2025 at 12:45 am | # | Reply Report comment

    Nah to the people defending Asma because she barely knows Dorothy and Joyce. If it’d been in a thought bubble, I guess, fine. But it was just pointlessly mean to say it out loud with zero provocation. Plus, if you’ve got a problem being seen with someone at a protest, all the more reason to get rid of them quickly with a simple “sorry, I haven’t” rather than antagonize them.

    • Nadamás
      Nadamás
      June 25, 2025 at 12:52 am | # | Reply Report comment

      Yiu must have very thin skin if you think that comment was that mean.

    • Taffy
      Taffy
      June 25, 2025 at 12:56 am | # | Reply Report comment

      It’s not optimally kind, but I figure she’s already tetchy since she’s in a protest to begin with, so we can give her a pass.

      • DailyBrad
        DailyBrad
        June 25, 2025 at 2:29 am | # | Reply Report comment

        Yeah, this is a high stress situation to begin with, and she doesn’t have a lot of incentive to let her guard down, particularly if she could potentially endanger another protester.

      • AnonGrouch
        AnonGrouch
        June 25, 2025 at 8:16 am | # | Reply Report comment

        Yeah basically what Taffy said. ‘Not optimally kind’ is the best way to put it.

    • deliverything
      deliverything
      June 25, 2025 at 4:49 am | # | Reply Report comment

      Telling them about their “cop energy” seems more helpful than the simple “sorry, I haven’t” would have been; this way, they can understand why others are also not telling them, and also potentially help two people who seem like clueless newcomers realise something about the seriousness of the situation. It’s not polite, but it’s kinder than bland politeness would’ve been.

  25. Opus the Poet
    Opus the Poet
    June 25, 2025 at 12:48 am | # | Reply Report comment

    Hi… Robin.

  26. Lingo
    Lingo
    June 25, 2025 at 1:00 am | # | Reply Report comment

    Yay Leslie!!! I was just thinking the other day, we don’t get to see nearly enough of Leslie. (We probably see just the right amount of Robin.)

  27. Dark_T_Zeratul
    Dark_T_Zeratul
    June 25, 2025 at 1:05 am | # | Reply Report comment

    Well, I suppose Robin isn’t an ENGLISH professor…

    • Thing2
      Thing2
      June 25, 2025 at 1:40 am | # | Reply Report comment

      Hee hee

    • Proxiehunter
      Proxiehunter
      June 25, 2025 at 2:15 am | # | Reply Report comment

      No, she as American a professor as you can get.

  28. Bogeywoman
    Bogeywoman
    June 25, 2025 at 1:06 am | # | Reply Report comment

    Throw back to when the school strike protests were happening. Tutor took a vote and we voted to strike, so she went too. Another teacher still held class, but went with the topic of direct action and live streamed the protest

    (Studying social work, the class was community development)

  29. Victor Riley
    Victor Riley
    June 25, 2025 at 1:20 am | # | Reply Report comment

    Leslie is for sure a professor. While it used to mean having a PhD, it’s the accepted title for anyone that teaches college-level classes. I correct students who try to call me “Doctor”, because I’m not… but I teach college, so I am a Professor, as well as my colleagues that also only have Masters, which is the large majority of them.

    • Aubrey
      Aubrey
      June 25, 2025 at 1:21 am | # | Reply Report comment

      My school differentiated between professors and instructors.

      • Axel
        Axel
        June 25, 2025 at 1:32 am | # | Reply Report comment

        mine too, though we didn’t really call many of them by either title, it was usually their first name.

    • Needfuldoer
      Needfuldoer
      June 25, 2025 at 3:20 am | # | Reply Report comment

      I thought she was officially an “adjunct lecturer” or something along those lines.

  30. G127
    G127
    June 25, 2025 at 1:22 am | # | Reply Report comment

    I don’t know how likely it is that cops would send undercover people into protest pretending to be the sister of a particar participant (seems very unlikely), but it was a mean response anyway. Just say you don’t think so and leave it at that. Why insult people you meet at a protest?

    • Nadamás
      Nadamás
      June 25, 2025 at 1:40 am | # | Reply Report comment

      Because she doesn’t think they are actually there ti protest and i hardly call that an insult.

    • HueSatLight
      HueSatLight
      June 25, 2025 at 2:14 am | # | Reply Report comment

      Asma may be telling her that so that if Dorothy’s not there to fuck with the protestors, she gets her act together. The students at the 2024 protests frequently had fairly good discipline when it came to communicating with the press, infosec, etc.

      • Freemage
        Freemage
        June 25, 2025 at 10:50 pm | # | Reply Report comment

        Gah, sorry, I reported by accident. Wish we could cancel that.

        Anyway, I would say that not all the protests had that level of skill–I did see actual anti-semitism on display, and I also saw some spokesmen who were… well, young, and thus inexperienced and failed to understand that no, the administration was not required to allow Ubereats deliveries to protestors (and especially, making that plea when the school admin had not even attempted to interrupt food deliveries to an occupied school building in the first place, seemed very preemptively whiny).

        I will say that the UIB group that I found online talking about the admin’s policies was very well-spoken for the most part.

    • DailyBrad
      DailyBrad
      June 25, 2025 at 2:31 am | # | Reply Report comment

      I don’t think she’s necessarily being literal with the “cop energy” comment, like I doubt she thinks they’re actually themselves cops, but she may assume them to be more likely to cave to authority and cooperate with authorities or freely collaborate with them willingly.

    • Nymphie
      Nymphie
      June 25, 2025 at 2:45 am | # | Reply Report comment

      She might be snappy because it’s a big protest faux pas to ask to find someone. While not literally snitching to the cops, Asma might not want fellow protesters to get in trouble with their families by confirming their presence. Ya know, the entire reason Dorothy and Joyce are there, to warn her sister that their dad saw her. Asma has no way to confirm what their intentions are.

      • AnonGrouch
        AnonGrouch
        June 25, 2025 at 8:13 am | # | Reply Report comment

        Very few people go to a protest in America until college. She SHOULD have told them that’s bad etiquette and refused and then upon being pressed further said exactly what she said. But she’s also a dumb kid and not required to be perfect or a teacher to dumb kids. So that ‘should’ is ‘it’d have been best if’ not an obligation

    • ACAB
      ACAB
      June 25, 2025 at 2:06 pm | # | Reply Report comment

      I think you’re interpreting an honest observation (of something not great) as much more malicious than intended. This is good information for Dorothy to have about herself, and to confront. These two have bumbled into a protest that is about to be crawling with cops with zero sense of basic infosec. It is not likely they’re “sent undercover.” Is it likely that Dorothy, asked the right way by a cop, would divulge information, possibly on purpose, possibly not? Abso-fucking-lutely. It is important for her to know that. Frankly, if Asma actually thought Dorothy was literally in cahoots with cops, she wouldn’t have talked to her at all. You blank actual cops and undercovers.

  31. Axel
    Axel
    June 25, 2025 at 1:28 am | # | Reply Report comment

    geez robin, at least copy someone else’s sign

  32. Axel
    Axel
    June 25, 2025 at 1:31 am | # | Reply Report comment

    Guys she doesn’t think they’re literal cops. She maybe thinks they’re narcs in general, and definitely thinks they have bad energy and aren’t there sincerely, but ‘cop energy’ doesn’t mean ‘I think you are a cop or with the cops’

    • Nadamás
      Nadamás
      June 25, 2025 at 1:39 am | # | Reply Report comment

      It’s really weird how anyone could take that literally

      • Needfuldoer
        Needfuldoer
        June 25, 2025 at 3:18 am | # | Reply Report comment

        Take what to the where now?

        • Taffy
          Taffy
          June 25, 2025 at 3:28 am | # | Reply Report comment

          Take the dishes to the sink and wash ’em.

          • Mr D phone posting
            Mr D phone posting
            June 25, 2025 at 5:08 am | # | Reply Report comment

            That’s the first thing I did today, thanks for the reminder tho

            • Taffy
              Taffy
              June 25, 2025 at 7:25 am | # | Reply Report comment

              I know for a fact most of y’all got chores to do. Put your laundry in the machine. Wash at least a couple of your dishes. Hell, you can even just restack them. You might be surprised to find out there’s really only a few in there, and it’s one or two biggish ones making it look like a lot. That’s okay, we all stack absentmindedly sometimes. Just get ’em ready. It only takes a minute or two, you can spare it. You were just gonna use that time to watch sludge content anyway, it’s fine.

          • Nymph
            Nymph
            June 25, 2025 at 10:00 am | # | Reply Report comment

            Bring in the dog and put out the cat.

            • Taffy
              Taffy
              June 25, 2025 at 10:10 am | # | Reply Report comment

              Unless you have an inside kitty, in which case feed it food on purpose and with intent.

              I kinda miss having outside cats, sometimes. We’d let ’em out when they wanted out, then they’d come in when we called ’em, and they’d hunt if they got hungry while they were out. Alas, we don’t live out in the country anymore, and the roads here in town are too busy to feel safe letting our dipshit goblin cat outside.

              • Yumi
                Yumi
                June 25, 2025 at 10:37 am | # | Reply Report comment

                For so many reasons, it’s better to keep your cat indoors (or only taken outside while supervised, like on a leash), but I do wish I could let my cats out to go have adventures.

                We do take one out on a leash into the backyard. The other one isn’t interested, possibly because the first one acts super wild and ready to attack when coming back inside.

                • Purple Floof
                  Purple Floof
                  June 25, 2025 at 10:41 am | #

                  I gotta wonder where this rise in “don’t let your cats outside” came from – it seems very recent

                • Yumi
                  Yumi
                  June 25, 2025 at 11:23 am | #

                  People learning and sharing some basic stuff, I guess. Cat declawing also used to be more popular.

                • Yumi
                  Yumi
                  June 25, 2025 at 11:28 am | #

                  I’d also note– most cats are acquired from shelters, and in my experience, shelters advise keeping cats indoors. When we got my older cat, my mom started to say she would be an indoor-outdoor cat, and I was like, “No, she will not!” Which is a stance the shelter agreed with. Shelters are also often against declawing (for kittens, and DEFINITELY against it for older cats) and less likely to adopt to people who want to declaw their cat.

                • Purple Floof
                  Purple Floof
                  June 25, 2025 at 11:33 am | #

                  What’s declawing got to do with indoor/outside cats? All I remember is growing up with Fluffy and Chocolate being indoor and outdoor cats, them having their claws (both were fixed, at least), and one time they brought a random-ass cat into my room through the skylight cuz I had a cat-ramp set up for them up there (attic room).

                • Yumi
                  Yumi
                  June 25, 2025 at 11:39 am | #

                  It has to do with people learning more about cat care. Definitely didn’t try to set it up in a way that made it like…dependent or built on the indoor/outdoor cat thing. Just another thing that’s changed. Though it is kinda fucked to be like, “We’re going to take your claws but then let you roam wild”– even though it would cut down on the amount of damage they do. (Though plenty of cats can hunt without claws.)

                • thejeff
                  thejeff
                  June 25, 2025 at 12:10 pm | #

                  It’s relatively recent: in terms of decades at least, but it’s been good advice for a long time. Outdoor cats don’t survive as long and are literal murder on the local bird population.

              • Li
                Li
                June 25, 2025 at 2:46 pm | # | Reply Report comment

                What thejeff and Yumi said.

                Also, having encountered a bunch of cats outside, let me tell you, they don’t usually look like they’re actually having fun. For every one cat who comes up to me in Major Friendly Mode, there are five cats who I just see cowering in the bushes or the shade of a car, hypervigilent little babies with collars on that I nevertheless wonder if I should scoop into a carrier, because what if that cat is lost, or abandoned, or sick…

                Which is another risk you run. Even if your cat doesn’t get hit by a car, someone with good intentions might kidnap it.

                Please keep your cats indoors, especially if you live in North America or somewhere similar because in addition to everything else we’ve got rabies.

                • Li
                  Li
                  June 25, 2025 at 2:46 pm | #

                  Sigh this was meant to be a reply one level further down the chain!

                • Taffy
                  Taffy
                  June 25, 2025 at 3:27 pm | #

                  Important to my prior anecdote, we lived right on the edge of a rural village with less than 800 people in it, with corn fields across the street and behind the lot. Not a whole lot of traffic, and the cats mainly stuck to the yard and field. It wasn’t 100% safe like some people would probably prefer, and we did lose a few to accidents (out of something like 40 total), but they were definitely happy with the arrangement. Mind you, that may be an outlier situation, and people shouldn’t try to replicate it if they live In Town.

                • Axel
                  Axel
                  June 25, 2025 at 6:53 pm | #

                  My previous neighbour (upstairs tenant, and we were in the basement suite) didn’t fix her cats, refused to put any identification (collar, microchip, tattoo, etc) on despite them being outdoor cats, then had the audacity to be mad when someone adopted one of them.

                  She also said like ‘it’s better they be in danger outside than miserable inside,’ then I’d hear her crying as she tried to call them in at night. I’m pretty sure she lost at least two cats while living here, and they were nice cats. Very friendly, spent most of the time outside our door trying to get attention and/or come into our place.

                • thejeff
                  thejeff
                  June 25, 2025 at 8:00 pm | #

                  I’ve known a few outdoor cats in the past who were regularly getting fed at multiple houses. They had a good deal. 🙂

                • thejeff
                  thejeff
                  June 25, 2025 at 8:02 pm | #

                  @Taffy: I’ve seen a few outdoor cats around here, some semi-regularly but never for more than a year or so.

                  The local pack of coyotes are probably more responsible than cars.

                • Li
                  Li
                  June 26, 2025 at 6:11 pm | #

                  Yeah the only outdoor cat I actually know what happened to specifically… a ways outside of the city, neighbors found her body on their property after the coyotes got to her. 😔

                  Usually, outdoor cats just disappear one day. 😞

                  Some cats are extremely canny and they live long lives despite being outdoor cats, but yeah. Definitely the outliers.

            • Victor Riley
              Victor Riley
              June 25, 2025 at 11:07 am | # | Reply Report comment

              Yakety Yak

              • Taffy
                Taffy
                June 25, 2025 at 11:35 am | # | Reply Report comment

                Don’t talk back.

              • Nymph
                Nymph
                June 25, 2025 at 5:12 pm | # | Reply Report comment

                Thank you for getting my joke <3 (no shade to the conversation above, more people should be keeping their cats indoors for LOTS of reasons)

      • Kyulen
        Kyulen
        June 25, 2025 at 3:55 pm | # | Reply Report comment

        I had literally never heard of the term “cop energy” until today, so I don’t know what I was supposed to think it meant. And google just brings up some technical science thing.

        • Axel
          Axel
          June 26, 2025 at 1:50 am | # | Reply Report comment

          I mean it’s like telling someone they give off any other kind of energy. It doesn’t mean you think they are that thing, it means that they give off a vibe like it. Plenty of people without dicks have big dick energy.

    • Da Boy
      Da Boy
      June 25, 2025 at 7:05 am | # | Reply Report comment

      This does remind me that story Dwayne Johnson said. That at his high school age he was so big that other students thought he was an undercover cop trying to pull the “How do you do fellow kids?”

  33. Deanatay
    Deanatay
    June 25, 2025 at 1:31 am | # | Reply Report comment

    Robin: Hey girls! Are you here to earn extra credit?

    Joyce: We can earn extra credit for protesting?

    Robin: You can if you hold my sign!

  34. Schol-R-LEA;2
    Schol-R-LEA;2
    June 25, 2025 at 1:41 am | # | Reply Report comment

    Robin/Leslie Toxic Yuri Status: SUGILITE.

    Not much chance of direct emotional trauma, but high possibility of dangerous hijinks.

  35. Icalasari
    Icalasari
    June 25, 2025 at 1:44 am | # | Reply Report comment

    …Yeah, yeah I can totally see Dorothy being described as having Cop Energy

    • Purple Floof
      Purple Floof
      June 25, 2025 at 10:25 am | # | Reply Report comment

      But can you see why kids love the cinnamon taste of Cinnamon Toast Crunch?

  36. AMagicalDuck
    AMagicalDuck
    June 25, 2025 at 1:56 am | # | Reply Report comment

    Uh oh the commenters are interpreting a woman of colour’s actions as maliciously as possible again

    • Taffy
      Taffy
      June 25, 2025 at 2:10 am | # | Reply Report comment

      Which ones?

    • Regret
      Regret
      June 25, 2025 at 2:21 am | # | Reply Report comment

      I see two negative ones. And they are nowhere near as maliciously as possible, just overestimating how well Asma (I assume that’s who you’re referring to) knows Dotty and Joyce. I know you can even do better yourself, try to think of an actually as maliciously as possible interpretation.

    • Kyulen
      Kyulen
      June 25, 2025 at 2:35 am | # | Reply Report comment

      I haven’t seen anyone interpreting her actions maliciously as possible because she’s a woman of color so far. Some of us don’t like how she treated Dorothy and Joyce because it seems like a ridiculous way to treat fellow students at a protest.

      • Purple Floof
        Purple Floof
        June 25, 2025 at 9:40 am | # | Reply Report comment

        Exactly – for example, I mentioned color at one point only because someone else brought it up and I responded in the context of what she said, which turned into a separate tangent

    • perpetual sea
      perpetual sea
      June 25, 2025 at 3:41 am | # | Reply Report comment

      hey now this isn’t Raidah. I’ve mostly seen people not knowing what cop energy means but I don’t think that’s malicious

    • Mr.Morningstar
      Mr.Morningstar
      June 25, 2025 at 4:21 am | # | Reply Report comment

      I mean Joyce was literally just asking if she saw her sister.

  37. mel
    mel
    June 25, 2025 at 2:01 am | # | Reply Report comment

    “The woman never divested from a weapon in her life!”

  38. ADLegend21
    ADLegend21
    June 25, 2025 at 2:17 am | # | Reply Report comment

    Dorothy has cop energy, meanwhile a politician is 5 feet from Asma.

    • Proxiehunter
      Proxiehunter
      June 25, 2025 at 4:01 am | # | Reply Report comment

      Even the pigs wouldn’t hire Robin. Too uncontrolable. Send her to bust a hot lady dealing weed and suddenly Robin’s smoking weed, sleeping with the dealer, and is now anti-cop.

  39. Hazel
    Hazel
    June 25, 2025 at 2:49 am | # | Reply Report comment

    Asma is anti-cop, a trans ally, made Blaine leave the building, and has a poking stick for rowdy students. Hell yeah queen

    • Purple Floof
      Purple Floof
      June 25, 2025 at 9:37 am | # | Reply Report comment

      “trans ally”? Was there a strip about that?

      • Bryy
        Bryy
        June 25, 2025 at 1:34 pm | # | Reply Report comment

        Your air quotes imply disbelief. There’s really no evidence to suggest Asma is transphobic.

        • thejeff
          thejeff
          June 25, 2025 at 2:32 pm | # | Reply Report comment

          But there’s also no evidence to suggest she’s a trans ally, right?

          • Purple Floof
            Purple Floof
            June 25, 2025 at 5:20 pm | # | Reply Report comment

            Right – and I’m just asking for a strip or something that shows that – I’m not saying there isn’t one, nor am I saying she’s not one, but claiming someone is something without there being supporting examples of it, not even the person saying they’re that something, isn’t a good practice.

            • thejeff
              thejeff
              June 25, 2025 at 8:04 pm | # | Reply Report comment

              Arguably, you could say she’s being one here, by not saying anything about Jocelyne, but that’s assuming a lot that’s not in evidence

              • Yumi
                Yumi
                June 25, 2025 at 8:34 pm | # | Reply Report comment

                Yeah, but it’s actually fine here.

              • Purple Floof
                Purple Floof
                June 25, 2025 at 9:40 pm | # | Reply Report comment

                Exactly, that’s my point – I mentioned either yesterday or in another thread that we have zero strips of Asma and Jocelyn having any interaction whatsoever, not even being tagged in the same strips, so any proof otherwise would be new info

    • Moonie
      Moonie
      June 25, 2025 at 1:57 pm | # | Reply Report comment

      Agreed, a queen

  40. Tessea
    Tessea
    June 25, 2025 at 3:43 am | # | Reply Report comment

    I was not expecting to see Robin here. But her sign makes me think she wasn’t really expecting to be, either.

    • Proxiehunter
      Proxiehunter
      June 25, 2025 at 4:03 am | # | Reply Report comment

      I’m not sure Robin ever expects to be anywhere, she just keeps finding herself places and rolling with it until she’s in another place.

      • thejeff
        thejeff
        June 25, 2025 at 8:39 am | # | Reply Report comment

        She’s there for Leslie of course. Whether Leslie wants her to be or not.

      • Shadowsnail
        Shadowsnail
        June 25, 2025 at 9:03 am | # | Reply Report comment

        Charlie actually spends a lot of time with Robin, but about halfway across the room and without noticing.

  41. Amós Batista
    Amós Batista
    June 25, 2025 at 3:47 am | # | Reply Report comment

    For those who are criticizing Asma: there’s people in our “chain” that link are more fragile than ours. People that are more vulnerable than us.

    • Purple Floof
      Purple Floof
      June 25, 2025 at 9:36 am | # | Reply Report comment

      Dangerous analogy – weak links in a chain are how a chain is broken, which encourages the excision of said weak links to maintain chain cohesion.
      Better analogy would be “a herd is strongest when it protects its most vulnerable”

  42. Mel
    Mel
    June 25, 2025 at 5:33 am | # | Reply Report comment

    I get people are sympathetic to the protagonists because we know their inner thoughts but I definitely would not help point out anyone in a protest to two people who JUST walked up. They are NOT in the protest group and frankly the question is cop energy ajacent in the context alone

    • Prior Semblance
      Prior Semblance
      June 25, 2025 at 6:32 am | # | Reply Report comment

      I don’t think the accusation really makes sense in the context of looking for your own sister.

      • Huttj
        Huttj
        June 25, 2025 at 6:40 am | # | Reply Report comment

        And if their eldest brother showed up asking the same question?

        • Taffy
          Taffy
          June 25, 2025 at 7:28 am | # | Reply Report comment

          What if Jeremy Irons asked?

          • Shadowsnail
            Shadowsnail
            June 25, 2025 at 9:05 am | # | Reply Report comment

            What if Mandy Patinkin asked?

            • Purple Floof
              Purple Floof
              June 25, 2025 at 10:24 am | # | Reply Report comment

              What if Smitty Werbenjägermanjensen asked?

        • Proxiehunter
          Proxiehunter
          June 25, 2025 at 10:59 pm | # | Reply Report comment

          Or their mother. Or for that matter if prior to his death Becky’s father had walked up to a protest and asked if she was there.

      • StarfighterVicki
        StarfighterVicki
        June 25, 2025 at 11:08 am | # | Reply Report comment

        Joyce might be lying about being Jocelyn’s sister. She might be Jocelyn’s sister, but plan to rat her out to their parents. She might not be planning to rat Jocelyn out to their parents, but have such a hard time lying to them that they figure it out. And so on and so on and so on.

        Asma could’ve said it more tactfully, but she’s fenced in with a sniper trying to scare her. I don’t blame her for being on edge.

      • ACAB
        ACAB
        June 25, 2025 at 1:50 pm | # | Reply Report comment

        Well a) cops lie and b) people like Dorothy at protests like this are absolutely the type to try to get a permit for the protest or be a cop “liaison” – and that well meaning “if we follow the rules they’ll respect our 1st amendment rights :)” naivete gets people brutalized and arrested by cops all the fucking time. It’s actually a very common problem with student protests because many of them haven’t had firsthand experience at protests yet, and assume that the anti-cop rhetoric is hyperbole or political posturing. It’s happened at pro-Palestine student protests that these strips are referencing – UT Austin and Columbia for example.

        Do not confirm anyone’s name or presence at a protest without their specific, explicit permission (let alone give current location!). Truly.

  43. Wack'd
    Wack'd
    June 25, 2025 at 6:00 am | # | Reply Report comment

    how dare asma say something mean, that must mean she’s racist against white people, and is also getting people evicted from the protest, and is also defaming cops who are just good boys who want to help except for the tens of thousands who aren’t

    • Da Boy
      Da Boy
      June 25, 2025 at 6:06 am | # | Reply Report comment

      To be fair, being an asshole to someone’s face is unlikely to make you protest allies.

      • smolgrlboi
        smolgrlboi
        June 25, 2025 at 11:26 am | # | Reply Report comment

        your feelings should genuinely not be a priority if you’re at a protest. if someone not being sugar and honey to you is enough to turn you from a cause, then I’m going to suspect you didn’t have the ethics or solidarity to begin with.

        • Da Boy
          Da Boy
          June 25, 2025 at 12:05 pm | # | Reply Report comment

          And that’s how you get Trump in the office for the second time.

          • Serendipity
            Serendipity
            June 25, 2025 at 1:43 pm | # | Reply Report comment

            We got Trump because we didn’t fight hard enough, not because we were too nice.

            • Da Boy
              Da Boy
              June 25, 2025 at 1:46 pm | # | Reply Report comment

              My point is, protests are an attempt at gathering public support and making them aware of the issue. Antagonizing people just hurts your cause, just look at the idiots who glue themselves to the busy roads or spray paint on art pieces. There are theories aplenty that they are secretly paid by oil industry companies to make protesters look bad.

    • Kyulen
      Kyulen
      June 25, 2025 at 6:46 am | # | Reply Report comment

      Joyce literally just asked Asma if she saw her sister. Asma’s response to that question seems pretty ridiculous to me.

      • JBento
        JBento
        June 25, 2025 at 7:15 am | # | Reply Report comment

        Because, as we know, no one is ever a piece of shit regarding their family members.

        • Bruno
          Bruno
          June 25, 2025 at 2:17 pm | # | Reply Report comment

          Can someone google Joyce and see if she’s been involved in any recent kidnappings

      • GUIGUI
        GUIGUI
        June 25, 2025 at 8:35 am | # | Reply Report comment

        She doesn’t know the full context, but if she is aware Jocelyne is trans and that she come from a fundie family, maybe she is wary that she could put Jocelyn at risk helping one of them locate her.

        • Wack'd
          Wack'd
          June 25, 2025 at 8:49 am | # | Reply Report comment

          THIS ISN’T A LOGIC PUZZLE, THIS ISN’T A COURT OF LAW, ASMA SAID SOMETHING DICKISH BECAUSE COLLEGE STUDENTS AND INDEED ALL PEOPLE ARE DICKS SOMETIMES AND SINGLE STATEMENTS ARE NOT WAYS TO MAGICALLY DEVINE SOMEONE’S ENTIRE MORAL CHARACTER

          • Purple Floof
            Purple Floof
            June 25, 2025 at 9:24 am | # | Reply Report comment

            By that singular statement I have divined that you are a doodoo-face and my dad could beat up your dad in a court of law

            • Taffy
              Taffy
              June 25, 2025 at 10:12 am | # | Reply Report comment

              My dad’s a Marine, so he could easily defeat your wussy lawyer dad.

              • Purple Floof
                Purple Floof
                June 25, 2025 at 10:15 am | # | Reply Report comment

                Well duh, I said he could beat up Wack’d’s dad – not yours

                • Taffy
                  Taffy
                  June 25, 2025 at 10:18 am | #

                  He could also defeat Wack’d’s dad. Power scaling.

                • Purple Floof
                  Purple Floof
                  June 25, 2025 at 10:23 am | #

                  the dad tier list needs rebalancing tbh – it’s been the same meta for way too long, the low-tier dads need to have *some* chance

        • Purple Floof
          Purple Floof
          June 25, 2025 at 9:30 am | # | Reply Report comment

          In absence of evidence otherwise, I’d figure Asma doesn’t know Jocelyn exists other than maybe having passed by each other at some point in-canon – she doesn’t go to the school, let alone live in the dorms or have reason to use the help desk.

          • perpetual sea
            perpetual sea
            June 25, 2025 at 11:29 am | # | Reply Report comment

            Asma also handles the mail send to students. There’s at least 2 strips where she gives Joyce a package of Monkey Master merch, and those might not be the only times she’s gotten mail. Asma also apparently sees Joyce enough to note “something seems different about you” in one of those strips (Joyce is wearing Sal’s leather jacket & acting cool).

            • perpetual sea
              perpetual sea
              June 25, 2025 at 11:36 am | # | Reply Report comment

              Oh you said Jocelyn lmao. Well enjoy an unnecessary refresher on Joyce and Asma

              • Purple Floof
                Purple Floof
                June 25, 2025 at 11:42 am | # | Reply Report comment

                lol

      • Yumi
        Yumi
        June 25, 2025 at 9:01 am | # | Reply Report comment

        A bit dickishly phrased, perhaps, but absolutely the right response. Don’t confirm or deny someone’s there to people you don’t know are in the clear to know.

        Good rule for various settings, really. Don’t confirm either way, let the person know someone was looking for them if you are in contact with them.

        • Prior Semblance
          Prior Semblance
          June 25, 2025 at 10:40 pm | # | Reply Report comment

          The right response would just be no.

    • Amós Batista
      Amós Batista
      June 25, 2025 at 8:33 am | # | Reply Report comment

      AY

      • Purple Floof
        Purple Floof
        June 25, 2025 at 11:42 am | # | Reply Report comment

        the comment fits the pfp lol

  44. Da Boy
    Da Boy
    June 25, 2025 at 6:05 am | # | Reply Report comment

    You really can’t take the craving for free publicity out of Robin, huh? Once a politician, always a politician.

    • Steamweed
      Steamweed
      June 25, 2025 at 8:34 am | # | Reply Report comment

      1. Politician forever. Can’t take the politician out of the Roz.
      2. Also Roz forever. Can’t take the Roz out of the Roz.

      • Steamweed
        Steamweed
        June 25, 2025 at 8:36 am | # | Reply Report comment

        Eh phooey. Brainfart. Meant “Robin” in all instances of “Roz.” 😛

        • Da Boy
          Da Boy
          June 25, 2025 at 8:40 am | # | Reply Report comment

          To be fair, Roz is very much like her sister, even if she will never admit it XD

          • Purple Floof
            Purple Floof
            June 25, 2025 at 11:01 am | # | Reply Report comment

            What do you think would happen if Roz had the forbidden cereal?

    • Wack'd
      Wack'd
      June 25, 2025 at 8:50 am | # | Reply Report comment

      i don’t think robin wants free publicity, i think she wants free pub-leslie-ty

      • Da Boy
        Da Boy
        June 25, 2025 at 9:07 am | # | Reply Report comment

        A very good motivation indeed

      • Purple Floof
        Purple Floof
        June 25, 2025 at 10:21 am | # | Reply Report comment

        taking leslie to a pub is definitely on Robin’s to-do list
        so’s leslie, probably

  45. Steamweed
    Steamweed
    June 25, 2025 at 8:12 am | # | Reply Report comment

    Hi, Robin.

  46. Looney
    Looney
    June 25, 2025 at 8:15 am | # | Reply Report comment

    ROBIIIIIIIIIIIIIN MY FRIEND ROBIN

  47. AnonGrouch
    AnonGrouch
    June 25, 2025 at 8:38 am | # | Reply Report comment

    This is one of the strips that makes me really hate the ‘Dorothy is no longer president’ direction of her life. She has cop energy. It’s true, but having the ‘mortified at being outgrouped’ reaction rather feeling the passion to ‘change the context of that by making the system better’ was always something I genuinely respected Dorothy as a character for.

    People with political aspirations are never ‘good’ people, but they sure are necessary people and you don’t gotta be a president to be a person who works from the inside of a flawed system to reform it on a local or state level. Defund the police and abolish ICE needed politicians willing to do that. Not to get rid of the functions of government, but because the system for both is so corrupt and bad that it needs a whole redo. ‘Having cop energy’ isn’t an actual problem. The system of ‘policing in America’ is the problem. It requires flawed and ambitious people to fix. And Dorothy was always an acceptable model of what such a person willing to fix it would look like. Seeing her so far from that is always painful especially since the alternative she is living through is really not that pleasant to hang around honestly.

    • Wack'd
      Wack'd
      June 25, 2025 at 9:21 am | # | Reply Report comment

      you would think if it was possible to reform the system from the inside, people would’ve done it by now. i mean in america alone they’ve had two hundred and forty eight years, what’re all these flawed, ambitious people waiting on

      “but what about–” i guarantee whatever reform you’re about to name came as a response to radical action and did not, when applied in government, actually fix or address the broader issues that made those reforms necessary

      • Astariel
        Astariel
        June 25, 2025 at 10:32 am | # | Reply Report comment

        How silly. Things have obviously reformed for the better drastically in the last 248 years. This sort of ultra-negative reading of American history popular on the left isn’t any more true or realistic than the ultra-positive reading by the right.

        • smolgrlboi
          smolgrlboi
          June 25, 2025 at 11:21 am | # | Reply Report comment

          DRASTICALLY for the better??? I’m sorry what country are you talking about lmao

          “I will never say that progress is being made.
          If you stick a knife in my back nine inches and pull it out six inches, there’s no progress.
          If you pull it all the way out that’s not progress. The progress is healing the wound that’s below, that the blow made. And they haven’t even begun to pull the knife out, much less pull, heal the wound…

          They won’t even admit the knife is there.”
          ― Malcolm X

        • thejeff
          thejeff
          June 25, 2025 at 12:02 pm | # | Reply Report comment

          Yup. Nothing ever gets better. Nothing can ever get better.
          The only solution is to completely overthrow the system at which point all our problems will magically disappear.

        • Yumi
          Yumi
          June 25, 2025 at 12:10 pm | # | Reply Report comment

          There are definitely things that have improved. Wack’d didn’t say otherwise. They just don’t think those changes would be fairly attributed to those inside the system working within the system to change it.

          • thejeff
            thejeff
            June 25, 2025 at 12:18 pm | # | Reply Report comment

            They also said “did not, when applied in government, actually fix or address the broader issues that made those reforms necessary”

            But then, neither did the radical action and almost always, the radical action needed support from sympathetic officials within the system, just as the officials needed support from the radical actors outside to be able to actually make changes.

      • Chubseus
        Chubseus
        June 25, 2025 at 10:49 am | # | Reply Report comment

        I understand where this feeling comes from, but I think it’s a little too “doomer.”

    • Purple Floof
      Purple Floof
      June 25, 2025 at 9:27 am | # | Reply Report comment

      The process by which power is obtained prevents good people from obtaining it, either by not letting them obtain it in the first place, or slowly chipping away their morals every time they try to obtain it a la death by a thousand cuts

    • Taffy
      Taffy
      June 25, 2025 at 10:03 am | # | Reply Report comment

      Screw reforming the system from the inside. It’s too late for that, in America at least. The whole thing needs torn down and replaced with something new, preferably something less inherently hostile. I like voting for stuff as a concept, that seems good, but it’s really kinda been ruined and polluted with all the manipulation we’ve got going on, so a full reset on stuff like districts and whatnot might be nice. People getting to buy and sell their political influence with mega corporations also seems like a glaring flaw, so we’d need to get rid of that and probably start chopping heads off as a warning the moment someone tried it again. Probably also just remove our current law enforcement situation, it’s way too Call of Duty and doesn’t really work for the people. For-profit prisons gotta go too, there’s no justifying those.

      Basically, if we could found an entirely new country but keep the buildings and roads and stuff where they’re at (and fix ’em up so they work better), permanently keep stuff even and fair, do it all pretty much overnight, and prevent it from ever deteriorating, that’s about what it’d take to really fix things. Unfortunately, right now the best we can manage is throwing everything we’ve got at a massive wall to deal chip damage. Kinda bleak, but I guess we should at least keep trying.

      • Purple Floof
        Purple Floof
        June 25, 2025 at 10:20 am | # | Reply Report comment

        Only problem with the chopping heads idea is that there hasn’t been a single instance in all of recorded history of a bloody revolution ever not ending with the resulting government collapsing and becoming even worse by the end of it – either by becoming a dictatorship of some kind, or another country invading and taking over (countries that are inclined to invade and take over other countries usually aren’t the kind you want in charge of you). Like I said up above – the kind of people that seek power are not the kind of people that should have it, and the kind that don’t seek it are not the kind of people that will keep it for very long.

        • Astariel
          Astariel
          June 25, 2025 at 10:33 am | # | Reply Report comment

          American Revolution, for one.

          • Purple Floof
            Purple Floof
            June 25, 2025 at 10:53 am | # | Reply Report comment

            That wasn’t a bloody revolution, it was a subjugated country in that had “its own” (appropriated, technically) military that rose up against its non-local subjugator. Was a formal war that was fought, rather than a bloody revolution where the people just kept chopping heads until there weren’t any more enemy heads to chop (French revolution, for example)

            • JBento
              JBento
              June 25, 2025 at 12:54 pm | # | Reply Report comment

              No it wasn’t, wth. The colonies in North America weren’t a “subjugated country”, they weren’t and had never been a country.

              The subjugated country were the Native American Nations, and they were neither the ones that made the revolution nor the ones that got liberated (or even not-genocided).

          • thejeff
            thejeff
            June 25, 2025 at 12:05 pm | # | Reply Report comment

            That’s about the best case scenario (and as Purple Floof said, it was not really an internal revolution) and it still led to massive compromises that brought us to the deeply flawed system we’re dealing with today.

        • RocketRelm
          RocketRelm
          June 25, 2025 at 12:30 pm | # | Reply Report comment

          Yeah once people that start going “I like voting for stuff as a concept, but it’s really kinda been ruined, so the whole thing needs to be torn down and replaced with something new where I’m in charge, and persistently keep chopping heads off as warnings”, take charge, it’s really NOT an environment that produces democracy.

          • Taffy
            Taffy
            June 25, 2025 at 12:45 pm | # | Reply Report comment

            You’re exaggerating what I said, slightly.

            • Nymph
              Nymph
              June 25, 2025 at 5:20 pm | # | Reply Report comment

              Too late, I already voted for you.

      • thejeff
        thejeff
        June 25, 2025 at 12:06 pm | # | Reply Report comment

        Even that kind of magical clean wipe still leaves us with all those people who think Trump’s going to make us Great Again playing their role in setting up the new system.

        • Taffy
          Taffy
          June 25, 2025 at 12:31 pm | # | Reply Report comment

          At this point, those freaks can die too. They’re already trying to kill the rest of us on purpose, just out of horrific grinning spite, so they’re lost causes and acceptable casualties.

          • Charles Phipps
            Charles Phipps
            June 25, 2025 at 1:30 pm | # | Reply Report comment

            As an anarchist, the most depressing thing I believe in is the fact that the biggest impediment to democratic reform is not the rat****ery that people do to democratic voting that put George W. Bush and Trump 2nd term in power. Get rid of the electoral college and so on.

            No, it’s that even with that, a huge chunk of voters ARE against progressive platforms. They prefer to vote for hate than end homelessness.

            What does one do when the people are the problem?

            • Taffy
              Taffy
              June 25, 2025 at 1:34 pm | # | Reply Report comment

              Kill ’em before they take the rest of us down, I guess. I really don’t have a nicer solution in mind, and I’m honestly tired of trying to think about it like the people who want me dead can be reasoned with. They can’t, so when the pot finally boils over and they come for me (and they will), all I can think to do is keep me and mine alive as forcefully as possible.

              • Bruno
                Bruno
                June 25, 2025 at 2:20 pm | # | Reply Report comment

                I don’t know how this sentiment coexists in your mind with your virulent hatred and rejection of everything that literally agrees with you, but comes from a foreign source that your ruling class — the people you despise and fear — have been telling you to hate for centuries.

                • Taffy
                  Taffy
                  June 25, 2025 at 3:15 pm | #

                  Clean your room, you fucking slob.

            • JBento
              JBento
              June 25, 2025 at 8:18 pm | # | Reply Report comment

              Pssst, Trump won the popular vote in 2024, there was no ratfuckery.

              • thejeff
                thejeff
                June 26, 2025 at 8:41 am | # | Reply Report comment

                Well, no more than the usual GOP ratfuckery. Voter suppression through various means is long standing and well documented.

      • AnonGrouch
        AnonGrouch
        June 25, 2025 at 9:18 pm | # | Reply Report comment

        For the record my personal political opinion of what I’d like to happen was not expressed here. It was a commentary on Dorothy. Dorothy is a systems person. To turn her into a ‘burn it all down’ person would take quite a shift in personality that I do not thing would suit her or be particularly healthy for her personal well being. It is very distant from the core of what Dorothy is. You could maybe convince her to scrap the system if there was a replacement and a direct way of achieving it in an order based way, but without that it’d be very difficult. Joyce on the other hand is almost certainly more of a ‘burn it all down’ type as can be seen in her reactions to her upbringing.

  48. ValdVin
    ValdVin
    June 25, 2025 at 8:43 am | # | Reply Report comment

    Shouldn’t this be exactly Roz’ kind of thing?

    Maybe she will show up tomorrow.

  49. Andy
    Andy
    June 25, 2025 at 8:55 am | # | Reply Report comment

    Ok. They called her front desk girl. She can be a dick to them.

    • Orange Lantern
      Orange Lantern
      June 25, 2025 at 9:10 am | # | Reply Report comment

      She isn’t though. She is being a formidable ally right there.

      • BorkBorkBork
        BorkBorkBork
        June 25, 2025 at 9:38 am | # | Reply Report comment

        She’s being a formidable ally by being a dick to them.

      • Bruno
        Bruno
        June 25, 2025 at 2:36 pm | # | Reply Report comment

        *They’re* the ones who are being allies to *her*, or rather, not.

  50. Orange Lantern
    Orange Lantern
    June 25, 2025 at 9:12 am | # | Reply Report comment

    – spends a lifetime (short as it is to this point) cultivating a cop energy vibe.
    – gets surprised when people pick up on the cop energy vibe.

    Ha, I know people like this in RL.

  51. Astariel
    Astariel
    June 25, 2025 at 10:34 am | # | Reply Report comment

    Damn, Asma, not cool.

    • ACAB
      ACAB
      June 25, 2025 at 1:37 pm | # | Reply Report comment

      If you are at a protest and someone asks you for the location of someone, do not give them that information. Do not confirm that you know the person nor that they are there.

      Err on the side of caution ALWAYS. This is basic, 101 stuff for any protest more serious than, like, the pussy hats

      • Taffy
        Taffy
        June 25, 2025 at 1:51 pm | # | Reply Report comment

        The what hats, now? I could look this up, but I’m interested in how you’d tell this story.

        • ACAB
          ACAB
          June 25, 2025 at 2:00 pm | # | Reply Report comment

          lol I’m referencing the anti-Trump women’s march in 2017 where people knitted pussy hats. They were pink knitted beanies with cat ears. Don’t get me wrong, I was there too (sans hat), it just wasn’t exactly a heavy-arrest-risk type of event. Permits secured, Kamala Harris and ScarJo speaking from a stage, that kind of thing

          • Taffy
            Taffy
            June 25, 2025 at 4:43 pm | # | Reply Report comment

            Those hats are pretty cute. I’d make an awful politician, because a cute enough hat would probably sway me on a policy.

      • Charles Phipps
        Charles Phipps
        June 25, 2025 at 6:24 pm | # | Reply Report comment

        The only people I dismiss among protestors are those who try to gatekeep protests for reasons other than safety. The “Oh wow, those RESIST people were losers with their hats” for example.

    • Bryy
      Bryy
      June 25, 2025 at 1:39 pm | # | Reply Report comment

      She’s notr wrong.

    • Moonie
      Moonie
      June 25, 2025 at 1:59 pm | # | Reply Report comment

      On the contrary – deeply awesome. To my memory, we don’t know if Asma has a clue who Jocelyne even is, but she’s arguably already done more to protect her than Joyce, her sister, ever has.

      • Moonie
        Moonie
        June 25, 2025 at 2:00 pm | # | Reply Report comment

        I would still like to acknowledge here that Joyce is indeed making strides in this particular area, and that she is also a victim of an abusive culture.

  52. frightfully_after
    frightfully_after
    June 25, 2025 at 10:39 am | # | Reply Report comment

    LONG time lurker (back to It’s Walky!), but I wanted to say something since I see a lot of comments about Asma being out of line here. I don’t think she is.

    It’s a good practice at protests, especially ones with heavy police presence, not to give out any information to anyone. That’s what protest organizers are for – you direct all questions to the organizers.

    Asma could have lied, but instead, she told them why she wasn’t, which is pretty fair (and something Dorothy needs to hear and understand). Especially when they didn’t start the conversation off well by not even knowing the name of someone they see regularly and calling her by her job instead of her actual human name. I’ve got an autistic kiddo and severe ADHD myself, so I know names are HARD but there are a lot better ways to go about it than calling someone by their job title. You also generally shouldn’t loudly call out identifying information about somebody at a protest, for safety.

    I don’t know if Asma is familiar with Joycelene and Joyce’s fundie family or Dorothy’s political aspirations, but if she does, that’s even more of a reason to be cautious. Regardless, she’s following protest best practices here. Anyone who ISN’T this paranoid at a protest SHOULD be.

    Cops, by the way, aren’t the only ones we’re concerned about at protests. Bad actors show up to stir shit by pretending to be protestors, up to and including inciting violence with cops to 1) get protesters hurt and arrested, 2) sow chaos and disorganization, and 3) make protests look bad in the public eye.

    Asma is protecting herself and her fellow protesters. Dorothy and Joyce are the outsiders here, and while their motivations are good, they are potentially putting people in danger. Please remember that there is a loaded gun pointed at all of them right now.

  53. smolgrlboi
    smolgrlboi
    June 25, 2025 at 11:32 am | # | Reply Report comment

    god Asma is a breath of fresh air in this strip

  54. Bruno
    Bruno
    June 25, 2025 at 12:19 pm | # | Reply Report comment

    Asma is completely correct, by the way. Dorothy is an aspiring war criminal and Joyce is an Evangelical Christian extremist. The two of the represent some of the most reactionary elements on campus. They’re currently having a change of heart, but that’s by no means completed — even knowing everything we know about them, which Asma doesn’t, I would not trust them at a protest.

    • Charles Phipps
      Charles Phipps
      June 25, 2025 at 1:27 pm | # | Reply Report comment

      Dorothy: “No I want to STOP war crimes.”

    • Dana W
      Dana W
      June 25, 2025 at 8:26 pm | # | Reply Report comment

      Joyce has not been a Christian extremist for ages. She is a very open and accepting atheist. I have not been a conservative in 25 years and I still get slanders and slurs over my past by people just like you who refuse to admit people can CHANGE!

      • Torgamous
        Torgamous
        June 25, 2025 at 10:22 pm | # | Reply Report comment

        Do you blame Asma for not keeping up with the incredibly recent character development of someone who isn’t close enough to her to know her name?

  55. thumb
    thumb
    June 25, 2025 at 1:28 pm | # | Reply Report comment

    Asma is not wrong.

    • NGPZ
      NGPZ
      June 25, 2025 at 1:34 pm | # | Reply Report comment

      yeah that a number one rule bruh

      SNITCHES GET STITCHES

      • Charles Phipps
        Charles Phipps
        June 25, 2025 at 4:10 pm | # | Reply Report comment

        I mean we know she’s wrong.

        What is it about Dorothy that gives off cop energy?

        • NGPZ
          NGPZ
          June 25, 2025 at 4:22 pm | # | Reply Report comment

          doesn’t matter regardless, considering what’s at stake she cannot afford to take that risk

          also come on she’s a goodie two-shoes who’s whole character for the majority of the comic was about wanting to be President, and Asma has yet to know her recent change XD

  56. ACAB
    ACAB
    June 25, 2025 at 1:31 pm | # | Reply Report comment

    If you are at a protest and someone asks you for the location of someone you have no previous knowledge of being their friend, do not give them that information even if no one is blocced up. This is 101 shit.

    • Taffy
      Taffy
      June 25, 2025 at 1:43 pm | # | Reply Report comment

      Username checks out.

      I guess this is how Joyce and Dorothy learn that particular lesson, since they were a little too impulsive to look up “how not to act at a protest” before they charged in.

      • Charles Phipps
        Charles Phipps
        June 25, 2025 at 4:11 pm | # | Reply Report comment

        They gave up their phones and dressed in non-recognizable colors.

  57. ACAB
    ACAB
    June 25, 2025 at 1:56 pm | # | Reply Report comment

    Not only is Asma practicing good protest etiquette, telling Dorothy to her face that she gives cop energy is important. That’s not her being mean and insulting just to hurt her feelings. It is a real, honest observation! This is valuable information for Dorothy to have.

    At the risk of sounding cliche, conflict is not abuse, people! It is GOOD to tell your lib friends who do not examine their biases that they can unwittingly pose a danger to people they agree with.

    • Amelie Wikström
      Amelie Wikström
      June 25, 2025 at 3:13 pm | # | Reply Report comment

      It’s about as valuable as when people used to tell me I’m a robot. Like okay let me adjust my entire personality to act more like everyone expects and when that fails I’ll withdraw from human contact instead.

      Me and Dorothy are probably equally unwelcome at protests because, yes, you need to act in certain ways and have a certain energy to be more help than hindrance, I’m not questioning Asma’s judgment. Really it’s just another way in which cops being bastards hurts neurodiverse people cause they make it so you can’t trust someone acting weird in a volatile situation.

      • Serendipity
        Serendipity
        June 25, 2025 at 3:45 pm | # | Reply Report comment

        There is a significant difference between being told to alter your behavior to protect opsec and being told to alter your behavior because they can’t handle your neurotype.

        • Charles Phipps
          Charles Phipps
          June 25, 2025 at 4:10 pm | # | Reply Report comment

          Can we say what about Dorothy makes her cop-like?

          In a way that doesn’t depend on knowing her personality?

          • Yumi
            Yumi
            June 25, 2025 at 4:33 pm | # | Reply Report comment

            Well, in the last strip when talking to Asma, she showed her lack of familiarity with the protest and how it might be responded to (saying that it’s apparently more “subversive” than she thought), questioning (due to surprise, sure, still) what Asma had just said. They’re probably radiating discomfort with being there– Joyce at least smiled for a second, not sure if Dorothy has had any kind of relaxed-to-positive facial expression…

            Yeah, I can see how Asma could think they might side with authority or not be safe to give information to.

        • Amelie Wikström
          Amelie Wikström
          June 25, 2025 at 4:26 pm | # | Reply Report comment

          But nobody has told Dorothy to do anything different, and certainly not why. Only that she is wrong.

          • Amelie Wikström
            Amelie Wikström
            June 25, 2025 at 4:41 pm | # | Reply Report comment

            I mean, on a scale from “I don’t know you, I’m not telling you anything” to “Why are you doing that weird thing with your lips? Get out of here,” how helpful would you say Asma’s comment is in this situation?

            • Torgamous
              Torgamous
              June 25, 2025 at 10:27 pm | # | Reply Report comment

              Asma’s job isn’t to be helpful to Joyce and Dorothy. It is to be helpful to the protest, which means not helping out people you’ve pegged as snitches.

              • Amelie Wikström
                Amelie Wikström
                June 26, 2025 at 2:16 am | # | Reply Report comment

                This is true.

      • Kyulen
        Kyulen
        June 25, 2025 at 6:18 pm | # | Reply Report comment

        I agree. I’d like to go to protests in the future, but this whole discussion about “cop energy” has me worried that, as an autistic person who naturally acts differently from neurotypical people, other protesters would automatically assume I’m suspicious.

        • Charles Phipps
          Charles Phipps
          June 25, 2025 at 8:25 pm | # | Reply Report comment

          As an autistic person, I have been told I come off as insincere no matter what I say.

          I’m like, “Gee, thanks.”

        • Yumi
          Yumi
          June 25, 2025 at 8:32 pm | # | Reply Report comment

          If some people are initially guarded against you (skipping over all the “don’t approach this the way Joyce and Dorothy did” stuff, because some people still might be)… that’s okay. Here, Asma has this impression about these two. What’s the consequence? She’s not giving them information about another person who might be at the protest, which should be standard protocol anyway.

          Someone whose side your on regarding you with suspicion might feel shitty. I’m autistic, and I get how stressful it can be when you’re hoping to –blend, fit in, feel in community in a space, and it doesn’t work. But it’s very unlikely things would move beyond uncomfortable feelings.

        • not someone else
          not someone else
          June 26, 2025 at 12:05 am | # | Reply Report comment

          I promise you that there are plenty of autistic people at protests and the quickest way to get people to trust you is to go to a protest as part of a group, which you should be doing anyway as a safety measure.

          Plus, like, not being publically known as a Hillary Clinton kinnie until five minutes ago.

          • Amelie Wikström
            Amelie Wikström
            June 26, 2025 at 5:25 am | # | Reply Report comment

            Yeah, if you have a group of people to go to a protest with that takes care of most of the problems with being autistic. That’s assuming you even “know” a whole group of people. I have one person in my life who I talk to on a regular basis.

            Come to think of it this may be a useful way to explain autism. If you go to a mass protest, where you watch everything you say and do very carefully unless you’re with people you know and trust completely cause you assume everything goes on your permanent record and breaking any of the rules of which they’re only telling you enough to suggest there may be more rules they’re not telling you may have serious lasting consequences for you or your friends and maybe a sniper might shoot you for any reason just cause the people in charge fundamentally disagree with you being there? That is how I treat every social interaction.

            The point I was making was that “you have cop energy” is not as helpful of an instruction as neurotypical people seem to think. I’ll put “be with a group” in there too.

  58. RoyanRannedos
    RoyanRannedos
    June 25, 2025 at 3:22 pm | # | Reply Report comment

    I’m sure Robin has recycled that sign a few times now.

  59. Makkabee
    Makkabee
    June 25, 2025 at 4:04 pm | # | Reply Report comment

    Oh, come on, Asma! Joyce has PROTAGONIST energy! You don’t even have a name half the time!

  60. Charles Phipps
    Charles Phipps
    June 25, 2025 at 4:15 pm | # | Reply Report comment

    Was Dorothy intending to go to this protest? Because i thought she was.

    • Nadamás
      Nadamás
      June 25, 2025 at 6:42 pm | # | Reply Report comment

      Jocelyne give her the suggestion to do it but she didn’t to have decided no.

  61. Jdorr
    Jdorr
    June 25, 2025 at 5:10 pm | # | Reply Report comment

    You do kinda have cop energy Dorothy. Like you are working on it but there is certainly something there to work on in the first place

  62. Charles Phipps
    Charles Phipps
    June 25, 2025 at 6:28 pm | # | Reply Report comment

    Weird thought: Would it be better for Willis to make the Bulmerian protest more detailed about the political situation and its specifics (i.e. in a fictional context) with who is doing what or is it better to just leave it as a allegory for the Palestinian protests. The latter is very clear and I support it but I kind of wish more about the Walkyverse version of all this would be clear.

    • Call Me Deacon Blues
      Call Me Deacon Blues
      June 25, 2025 at 7:42 pm | # | Reply Report comment

      I’m guessing, since Willis wants this to be at least somewhat timeless, that he wants to keep it as vague as possible so it can be a stand in for future protests of future injustices.

    • thejeff
      thejeff
      June 25, 2025 at 8:12 pm | # | Reply Report comment

      I’d rather leave it as a Gaza allegory. I don’t think we need deep lore about a fictional conflict. How many strips if background detail would you need to get any nuance in the situation? Or we can just assume “Israel/Palestine”.
      Or even with just the current info: Some country committing a genocide with US support. That’s really enough and the next level of detail is probably too much.

  63. NGPZ
    NGPZ
    June 25, 2025 at 9:14 pm | # | Reply Report comment

    Okay look I ain’t gonna fuck around and imma just say it as it is to address the more than apparent let-them-eat-cake obliviousness here

    Asma literally cannot afford benefit of the doubt in this situation because as a Muslim in a Red State there is that high a risk she can be DEPORTED

    Joyce and Dotty’s intention don’t matter here, disregarding the dangers faced by people of color so that white people can have a little convenience is still racism, period

    • Zamperla
      Zamperla
      June 25, 2025 at 9:36 pm | # | Reply Report comment

      thank you genuinely for doing so, because I now know as a brown dude its probably not worth my time to scan the way too many god damn comments above this one. white people not being cool today, as most days.

      • NGPZ
        NGPZ
        June 25, 2025 at 9:44 pm | # | Reply Report comment

        you have no fuckin idea dude, genuinely fuck this shit

        basically me right now:

        https://youtu.be/L9zEl00iFus?t=608

        • NGPZ
          NGPZ
          June 25, 2025 at 9:51 pm | # | Reply Report comment

          fuckin white people reverse racism card bullshit being pulled, NOPE JUST DONE

  64. Zamperla
    Zamperla
    June 25, 2025 at 9:37 pm | # | Reply Report comment

    Nods gently. Sorry dotty. My ass is also too brown to trust the blonde girl with nervous intensity trying to ID a specific person at the protest.

  65. Deanatay
    Deanatay
    June 25, 2025 at 9:39 pm | # | Reply Report comment

    *Robin grabs pen, makes hasty edit to sign*

    I ALSO CARE
    ABOUT-WHAT
    EVER THIS IS

  66. Charles Phipps
    Charles Phipps
    June 25, 2025 at 10:04 pm | # | Reply Report comment

    I’m disappointed in Dotty, I thought she’d be one of the people down there.

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