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unfortunately too many people got mad when we punched the Nazis in the face, so we never managed to get rid of them… this story about to Willis again? (by that I mean, mood whiplash into trauma real quick) ~<3
Betting on Jocelyne getting shot at, with a good chance of Joyce taking the bullet – either accidentally or on purpose. If she doesn’t take the bullet, then Mary comments that Jocelyne deserves it for “being a perverted man” and the user Let Joyce Kill gets to be VERY happy
Right? Is this an Indiana thing? I’ve been to two encampments in two major cities and there were no snipers (based on my experience, the local news, and local Reddit chatter)—but like I said, these were major cities, not Indiana.
This draws heavily from the Palestinian protests at IU last year (inclusing the rules about Dunn Meadow being changed on them), and there were truly police snipers at those.
It’s definitely possible everywhere in the US these days, but local politics do have an impact on the likelihood.
I was wondering if this was about something specific, that seems like a weirdly specific detail to choose if one was just choosing to depict a random high tension protest, let alone a random college campus protest. Thank you for having the knowledge.
No snipers that you knew of, at least. Odds are the reason Asma can see the sniper in this scenario is this: they *want* the students to see them. They’re going for intimidation.
I remember seeing somewhere footage of a sniper set up above a sports stadium, they didn’t want people to know he was there, until after the fact, or they wouldn’t have released the footage of him being there. I tried looking it up, but the details are fuzzy as it was quite a while ago. ~<3
After searching, I can find lots of people saying it is true and the Dallas Cowboys owner confirming that his stadium at least has dedicated sniper nests. I guess because important dickheads might be attending.
On my campus, before I went there, during protests in the 80’s, the students also brought snipers. Resulted in the police & national guard refusing to get close to the protesters.
Reminder that mainstream media was reporting this as an attempted mass shooting right up until the footage surfaced, complete with Gamboa taking aim and only being stopped by security opening fire. Because of course they did.
Well, the Black Panthers doing organized group open carry scared Reagan enough to pass gun control in California. You can decide how successful or not they were overall, but history gives some ideas of how things could go.
That’s… What a protest is. Empty gestures don’t define protest. Demands and the will to force the hand of the ruling class does. Hanging around and making sure you don’t inconvenience anyone, frighten anyone, or break the law in any way is what can rightly be dismissed as “not a protest”, but a group of armed activists showing that they can and will ensure their people’s rights is absolutely a protest.
it’s definitely a thing, particularly when the protests are anti-racist. most of the ICE protests i’ve been to over the years have had police snipers glowering down at the protesters
I’m with you that it’s a thing in general—I’ve seen them at ICE protests as well—but the encampments I’ve been to on the east coast didn’t have them so I was wondering. Other commenters pointed out that it was a thing in Indiana and Ohio with respect to the encampments, however.
See, I did the crazy thing and googled “sniper at protest” and got this hit on the first page:
Newsweek https://www.newsweek.com › snipers-roofs-gaza-studen…
Apr 30, 2024 — Students and protesters have reported sightings of snipers on top of rooftops at Ohio State University and the University of Indiana Bloomingdale’s.
Crazy. Not like I asked if this was an Indiana thing (I literally did, and not rhetorically). Maybe your snark would have been deserved if I had assertively stated there were no protests with snipers based on my limited experience, but I did not do that.
Sorry I’d rather ask here, where I’ve seen that commenters are pretty familiar with Indiana happenings and are generally happy to inform, than google when half the news will have a red slant? Not everyone lives in Indiana, and that Newsweek article isn’t even in the top ten results when I google what you claim to have googled, perhaps because I’m on the east coast. But go ahead and be aggressive whenever anyone asks a question—I’m suuure that will get loads of people to listen to you.
I mean, I didn’t know either; I relayed the method I used to find out.
Frankly, I was surprised that it’d happened specifically at Bloomington. I thought it’d be a different protest that Willis was pulling from, but it seems that he’s portraying a very specific incident, down to the exact location the sniper was placed at and the Dunn Meadow decision.
Sorry that you felt a need to get aggressive as a result. Hope that gets people to answer questions for you in the future. I’d call my manager for you, but it turns out I’m not being paid to take your shit.
There were cop snipers in LA at the Ice Out of LA and No Kings protests. It is, unfortunately, a thing that exists. Not sure how common it is for campus protest, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s much more common than anyone should be remotely comfortable with (0, zero snipers “policing” protests should be the amount that people are comfortable with).
Hitler admired the racists in late 19th and early 20th century America, and modeled a lot of the Nazi Party ideologies on them. And then we imported a bunch of Nazi war criminals during and after WW2 with Operation Paperclip.
Kent State wasn’t snipers. It was, according to my reading, poorly trained and uncommanded National Guardsmen who got scared by students running to see the action, took it for an attack, and shot more or less at random. Considering the people who got shot were some distance away, this seems likely.
oh believe me, am well aware of Operation Paperclip, and what happened in Germany was hardly an isolated incident
like. national guard. snipers. at peaceful protests. really.
at this point, any notion of the intrinsic value of attempts at appealing to our oppressors’ better natures or so-called “compromise” is a fools errand
I. Am. Drawing. A. Line. In. The. Sand.
and I advise you all to do the same
where our country is right now, and where it’s heading, is VERY worrying to say the least, as we are widely coerced into gradually lowering the bar for acceptable bigotries and oppressions until eventually, that bar effectively ceases to exist
if it’s not the impossible seeming choice you’re faced with of having to alienate bigots who happen to be people you wanted to be friends with,
it’s the even MORE impossible, devastating choice you’ll eventually be forced to make when you have to choose between your job and watching someone you love shipped to an internment camp
nearly 80 years ago my great grandparents and their friends learned this the hard way, and nearly died because of it
if we can help it, would really prefer history not repeat itself
but seriously, you are right in everything you said. If we don’t start fighting now, things will get very bad very fast for a long time. Much worse than they are now.
idk if there’s been ‘snipers at protests’ issues before but i wouldn’t be surprised if a handful of ppl brought guns as counter protests esp in teh south. although while i believe ppl should have a right to defend themselves too, any ‘peaceful’ protesters that also have guns on them would be an excuse to be arrested too even if there’s permit/carry laws where you are
Like most issues at protests the “snipers at protests” issues are being caused by the police. The issue is that police put snipers at protests. So far it’s just been intimidation (unlike the rubber bullets being fired directly into people’s faces instead of being bounced off the pavement as they’re designed to be used) but one of these days one of those donut devouring motherfuckers is going to pull the trigger and take out one or more protesters.
Developed? Fascism has been around it the US for a very long time. Most people didn’t notice it much in the past because it was either directed outward at countries we invaded and/or bombed, or directed at small and very hated groups in this country like communists.
Or World War 1 veterans protesting because the bonuses they were promised were stolen from them. Or before that, when a chunk of the states seceded because they were scared they might not get to own other people as slaves. Or before that, when the powers that be even in the “civilized” states owned slaves and saw no problem with it. All while enacting a genocide against native populations that they made and broke treaty after treaty with.
The US has always loved authoritarianism and fascism. Even before they were codified and taught in schools.
Very true. Much of that history is not taught in American schools. I recommend people who want to have a more accurate understanding of US history read “A People’s History of the United States” by Howard Zinn.
America started with a genocide, built itself with slavery, and every vote that wasn’t white, male, and middle class had to be dragged from the ruling class by force.
Agreeing on the Nazi problem, but also, any large gathering of people has the potential to get a sniper in America.
You can spot them at sports events, concerts, protests, marketplaces, any event that draws a crowd.
While at the protests it can definitely be a “someone in charge does not like this happening” thing, sometimes they’re privately employed by security companies to pre emptively prepare for mass shootings. The idea is that if they spot a mass shooter, they can take them out first.
I do not condone this. I wish we had a country where we didn’t have THIS be a “solution” to mass shootings. I just wanted to explain that they can be found anywhere if you just start looking for them.
it’s always had a bad one, remember the country was literally built on slavery and we never really addressed our sins on that count, so its just been a slow slide back into the old status quo.
I have been looking and silently seething. Seriously, the inability of these two to recognize that they either need to cut this shit out or break up with the people they’re dating before getting handsy with each other is driving me up the wall. It’s not an innocent gesture anymore, this is not okay!
Ugh. Have to keep reminding myself this has only been going on for like, an hour tops in-universe.
This is how good friends behave in certain parts of Western culture. Especially if they’re of the female persuasion (meaning not living in constant fear of being taken for gay).
And if they were still actually in denial about their attraction, I’d accept that, but they’re not. Dorothy’s openly admitted it. Joyce has decided she’d had sex with Dorothy and asked if she wanted to do it again.
This isn’t just normal “good friends”, unless we’re using Jennifer’s “friends sometimes bang” argument – which we know exists only because she’s in massive bisexual denial.
fellas is it cheating for two people at a protest to hold onto each other because they’re scared? seriously can’t believe they’d betray the menfolk this way.
This is not uncommon among heterosexual adolescent girls in the U.S., and indeed in many other countries. I speak from years of experience in working with them in the Scouting program.
I don’t imagine that a sharpshooter is an omnipresent thing at colleges, no, but the response by multiple colleges to protests about the Gaza conflict have been excruciatingly poor, and nothing short of vengeful in many cases. Unsurprising, maybe, considering the history of things like the Kent State massacre and other similar retaliatory demonstrations on campuses to bring protestors to heel, but no less disgusting for it.
At the time he wrote this, way back before the 2024 reelection of Trump, probably somewhere between A and B. Now that Americans en masse decided Trump isn’t objectionable and he’s back in power… it’s a lot closer to C slightly hedging on D.
You’re going to be extremely disappointed if you think this is exclusively a US thing, even if it’s certainly more precedented in the US.
After the Munich massacre, the idea that sharpshooters could prevent escalation and worst-case outcomes became more popular, though in practice, I couldn’t tell you that I’ve seen a ton of cases where it was successful. I think it’s kind of a common theme that people would like the illusion of control by pinning their hopes on a “maybe” than accepting that they could be worsening the situation.
But snipers being a known common thing at big public events changes things. It’s not “Oh my god, they’re set up to just massacre protesters”.
I also wonder how much it’s an intimidation tactic and how much it’s just protests aren’t always in places with good sniper cover and protesters are watching for it more than crowds at other public events. Some of both probably, depending on the authorities involved.
Fucking ludicrous! Also, truly did happen during protests at IU last year. Doesn’t seem common at college protests– this and one from Ohio around the same time are the big ones that come up– but I don’t know how often it might happen for large protests overall.
Common for a large protest. We saw them in LA recently. As another commenter pointed out, they’re supposed to prevent escalations like bomb threats and other worst-case scenarios.
Eventually, I suppose they’ll get replaced by AI-driven armed drones, which cost less and can target many people at once. The end goal being that each protester is tracked by their own drone, man-to-man defense style. In this way perfect security will be achieved.
Absolutely ridiculous. But I wager the mentality by those in charge is basically “well, we really do need people up high in stationary positions to be able to fully monitor the protest, and they’re going to need something like binoculars anyway to look at potential problems, and well, at that point, I guess making them snipers with training for monitoring this sort of thing makes sense?”
Again, its utterly ridiculous. But I wager people would be surprised (at the very least) just how many public events have snipers monitoring things.
Just did a google to confirm, and yeah, most sporting events? There’s snipers around. Its generally just become “we need snipers because there’s a serious risk of violence here” and more “we need snipers because its a big crowded event and if something goes wrong and a sniper could’ve solved it, we’ll get run through the ringer”.
American law enforcement will always say antifa is a greater threat than white supremacist violence.
You know, despite the former not existing and the latter responsible for everything from Oklahoma City to a plot to kidnap Michigan’s governor to January 6th.
Yeah, you’re right. That IS utterly ridiculous. What’s far more likely is that someone figured out that a crowd like that is a tempting target for a mass shooter, so they’ve positioned a couple of snipers in case one shows up and starts shooting.
I mean, that would be a terrible position to stop a mass shooter. A police officer on the ground would be much better positioned. The sniper seems much more likely to intimidate protestors and fire into a crowd.
Because a sniper rifle is a weapon that is not very good at a moving target among a large crowd of civilians that would be panicking in an active shooter situation? Police on the ground would be able to be mobile.
I mean, the Met’s been putting snipers on overwatch around sufficiently large public events for long enough that Four Lions could include them in the plot without needing any justification back in 2010, and that’s in the UK
What is Joyce hoping to accomplish here? If Jocelyne is there it is because she chose to be there. What good does Joyce being at the protest do? I don’t think she has thought this through.
She hasn’t thought it through at all. The only thing she set out to accomplish was giving Jocelyn a message that could have absolutely waited. This was an impulsive act from the top to the bottom.
He might get in his car and drive for four hours to…
To, uh…
I dunno, scold Jocelyne for protesting?
The sense of urgency is pretty much entirely in Joyce’s head, on this one. She didn’t think it through, and now she’s put herself (and Dorothy) in an actually dangerous situation.
She could have been thinking, Jocelyne will probably get arrested and then she’ll probably need dad to help, and after that text she (Joyce) had best figure out where Jocelyne stands with dad, without asking dad. Which probably seemed like a quick and straightforward task before seeing the protest up close.
I’m afraid to look up what U. Chicago is doing to its own students during The End of Days. Hard to get unfiltered news here, and unsure whether I really wanna know anyway. Maybe I’ll just cling to one last set of memories. Or illusions. Or something.
Wild how police enforcement is totally on lock to keep their eye on some peaceful teen protestors, but when it comes to stopping or even inconveniencing white supremacists, all you get is excuses and red tape. I’m sorry, did I say wild? I meant completely expected and typical.
I feel like this shouldn’t surprise Dorothy. She’s grown up in a post 9/11, post George W, world. Going through school in the first Trump term and the birth of MAGA fanaticism. She should be way more jaded.
No, this is fully consistent with Dorothy’s characterization from the very start.
She’s both sheltered and naive, almost as much as Joyce. Her progressive parents didn’t instill a ton of shame about sex or pressure her into any particular religious beliefs, but every other topic she’s ever expressed an opinion on has been like this: surprise about how many facets of the world suck.
Apparently, Dorothy has grown up with parents who sheltered her and spoiled her sweet so she actually believed the Presidency was achievable and a noble pursuit.
I’m kinda disappointed that Willis chose to represent the college campus protests with a fictional atrocity in a fictional country. mainly because Mary being a Christian zionist (get all the Jews out of the USA) would be so fitting for her
I think it makes sense because there’s more room for adjusting things as needed for the story. I have no doubts about Mary being a Christian Zionist, though.
I also think it’s best that we don’t get the comment section filled up with people who have heard about “comic strip that doesn’t approve of the genocide in Palestine” and spam “antizionism = antisemitism” bullshit
Also, with the sliding time scale of the comic, in another 15 years they might be in the second year of college. There’ll be all new atrocities being committed by then I’m sure, in exciting new places. Using a fictionalized country keeps it from being dated; by then Palestine will probably not exist. I expect we’ll be stuck in a forever war in Iran though.
israel has been genociding palestine for over 75 years. they are not finishing the job any time soon nor are they stopping. the sliding timescale would be just fine
Dumbing of Age is 15 years old. A fictional event is one that doesn’t go out of continuity. It also doesn’t exploit RL tragedy for a coming of age dramedy’s characters.
Man, I’m glad I was just watching a TF2 video. That makes this feel… a little less depressing.
But jesus christ, what the fuck is going on in the states that this doesn’t feel like much of a fictional scenario. I’m Canadian, and I’m not gonna claim my country’s handled the whole genocide in Palestine much better than the states have, but at least we’re not… so clearly authoritarian.
What’s going on here? I’ll tell ya what’s goin’ on here. It’s a fuckin’ madhouse, the inmates run the show, and anyone who suggests we stop smearing human feces on the wall is getting boiled alive as a warning. This country lost the plot a long time ago, and everyone’s given up on pretending otherwise.
That’s right, our country usually only deploys snipers if the Indigenous are protesting! Ahahaha… yeah we’ve definitely also got our fair share of problems up here.
Y’know, whatever with your fuckin’ sniper. Who’s gonna get shot, honestly? Asma? She’s about as much of a character as Buckets of Blood Guy. Jocelyne? Yeah, right, like Joyce is gonna have to watch her freshly-out sister get blasted. And I’ve already expressed my doubts that Joyce or Dorothy will get more than a black eye if this all goes to shit. So really, why should I be worried about some unportrayed dillhole with a gun I can’t even see? They’re all gonna be fine.
No, it really isn’t, actually. It’s the same sentiment from yesterday, when I said I doubt the main characters are gonna get meaningfully harmed, just spread to the rest of the present cast. Why would it be weird to feel confident there won’t be serious harm done to these characters during this event?
I’m sure they won’t, like, die – but get could still be seriously mentally harmed by witnessing physical harm to unnamed characters. Plot armour only gets you so far in this comic.
I think watching a nameless background extra die would be really boring, especially if it only happens so the important characters can be traumatized by it. It would feel cheap and unsatisfying to me, and I think Willis is a better writer than that anyhow.
That’s not something I’ve contested even once, though. I even included the words “the important characters can be traumatized by it”, which I assumed would imply I’m aware of that as a possibility.
He was the most expendable of the main cast, is the thing about that. I’m looking at this from what I guess is an unusual angle. Of the non-Joyce, non-Dorothy characters, we’ve been told Asma and Jocelyne are here, and both of them are essentially background extras (though Jocelyne is on her way up).
Killing off Asma wouldn’t impact the rest of cast beyond traumatizing whoever witnessed her death, and the same effect could be gained from any of the randos milling about. Even if she does die, there’s not much of a shake-up to be had from it, since she only ever affected the cast by handing them packages and being unimpressed with their antics. Most of them don’t even know her name.
Jocelyne also feels pretty safe, stakes-wise. Narratively, she’s a step up from Asma in that she’s gone on a whole sidequest with Joyce and Becky, not to mention her direct connection with Joyce, being sisters and all. I can see some really juicy trauma for Joyce if Jocelyne dies. Stepping back from the in-story angle though, I’m not sure how well the audience would take a trans character showing up just to get killed for the sake of traumatizing the protagonist. And I wonder if that potential explosive response (claims of Fridging as far as the eye can see, for starters) is something the author wants to invoke on purpose.
As for Joyce and Dorothy, if anyone thinks they’re in real peril, I have a bridge to sell ’em. Now, I’m not saying (and never have said) this event isn’t gonna get buckwild, but Mike’s death is about as harsh as I think things are gonna get for the main cast. Hell, it took Amber ages to even start processing her grief, and that’s after a massive time skip.
Reading books is pointless, because you know the main character isn’t going to be murdered in the next sentence so why would you even bother reading it?
“I know these characters aren’t going to die, because it is a story,” is not an interesting observation–and it’s not the same observation as “these characters are not in peril,” anyway, so you’re just wrong about that.
You’re the only one saying anything about “pointless”, here. That second paragraph has no relationship with anything I actually said, either. The bit about “because it’s a story” isn’t even my point. You just want to be upset and say I’m wrong, so you’re going out of your way to ignore the actual things I said. It’s worthless behavior.
Your comment seems quite pointlessly unkind to me. I expect Taffy can cope with that, so it probably doesn’t even do any damage. But it looks like it was intended to. Which probably tells me something about you.
The idea that you can read this exchange and think Zero is in the wrong is bizarre to me. At worst, they’re matching Taffy’s tone; it isn’t an unkind escalation, their criticism is accurate and appropriate, and importantly, it’s not personal – it’s aimed at the comment rather than the poster. Your response is none of those things.
The only part Zero got right about anything I said was “these characters are not in peril”. The rest is just nonsense they made up and blamed me for saying, when I wasn’t saying any of it. It’s not my responsibility for people to learn how to read what’s actually on the page instead of inventing points that weren’t made, and they need to stop acting like it is. My “tone” was fine from the start and a useless strawman extrapolation of it doesn’t actually match anything.
Yes, yes, we get it, you’re very clever and are aware of general plot conventions. Some of us are invested enough in the story to play along. If you aren’t, nobody’s holding a gun to your head to make you keep coming back.
Yeah, all the characters here are either too expendable to matter or not expendable enough. I can see Jocelyne being potentially killed for drama at some point, but not this soon after coming out. Too much Joyce character development to milk out of that dynamic right now.
Now I’m just trying to think if there’s a character that would be in danger if they went to the protest right now… Only one I can think of that doesn’t have some kind of plot armor is maybe Jason? The rest either have too much storyline going on right now or can’t be killed off without multiple other characters being drawn in for the drama.
I agree that Jason is pretty expendable, but the trouble with that is he hasn’t appeared in a while, and it’d be odd for him to randomly show up at this protest just to get deep-sixed. Jocelyne seems like she has too much storytelling potential to die, but I’m starting to wonder if maybe she winds up injured and in the hospital. That’d put her somewhere nearby for long enough to justify Joyce visiting her at least a few times.
I certainly hope Asma does not get snipered, but I wouldn’t be surprised if her being there here and now was not just coincidence but, erm, Checkov’s Muslima.
Willis loves to break our hearts with good writing though, so I fully expect him to be a dick either to a character or to values we care about. Or both.
I agree with this. I think it’s much more likely that Joyce and Dorothy will be in danger socially than physically. Getting arrested together, getting a picture of them kissing at the protest that goes viral, or just getting a lot more into issues outside their tiny lives and more into politics are all much more likely outcomes than “someone important dies”.
Also, from a different angle, while there’s a temptation to see the sniper as “Chekhov’s sniper”, that takes it well beyond even the reality of American protests. Protesters have been killed by cops, though rarely, but I don’t think there have been any cases of them just being sniped – either out of the blue or in a riot. Deaths and major injuries tend to be from the cops on the ground – usually using less than lethal weapons – tear gas canisters hitting someone, rubber bullets fired directly at the crowd, etc.
The sniper might just be stage setting, to heighten tension. Doesn’t have to actually be used.
It would also take this far beyond any parallel with the actual events at the Dunn Meadow Gaza protests – which did have a sniper and did have police violently clear the meadow and arrest a lot of people, but didn’t involve any fatalities or (iirc) any serious injuries. The likely bad end here is that our cast here gets arrested and roughed up, not that the sniper just murders them or murders someone else in front of them, just because they’re a cop and thus evil.
Actually, I am betting pretty high odds that Jocelyne does get shot and this leads to her being outed to her father. And either Joyce shoves her out of the way to take it (and whoever takes it would at most get a fucked up shoulder out of it on the physical side of things) or Mary mocks Jocelyne and your avatar comes VEEERY close to coming true
You could get essentially the same story arc with Jocelyne being arrested without being shot or by being shot by a riot cop with a rubber bullet or some other common police violence, while staying much more realistic than the sniper opening fire on the crowd.
Ignoring for a moment that this is a boring way to evaluate fiction and really does not need to be repeated every single day: the sniper is there because they were there during last year’s college protests that this storyline is directly representing. The threat of violence from the sniper is literally more real than Blaine beating Toedad to death with a hammer, because they actually existed, and will continue to be more real even if no shots are fired.
Yes and no. The snipers were there, but it’s hard to say the threat of violence is more real based on that, since the snipers didn’t actually start murdering protesters. If you want to use parallel to real events to evaluate it, you’ve got to actually use the real events.
What exactly do you think “threat” means? Like, if I hold a loaded gun to your temple but ultimately don’t shoot you, I still threatened you with violence. You could argue semantics over whether or not I actually intended to shoot but it wouldn’t matter, because the presence of the gun is 100% intended as a threat of violence even if it isn’t used.
And yeah, I’m being really weird about this in response to what I see as a wildly exaggerated idea of the risks of going to a protest. Police violence definitely can happen and is completely indefensible, but your chances of being killed or seriously injured at a protest still aren’t nearly as high as I think some are painting. Most protests aren’t war zones. You’re not taking your life in your hands by protesting, except in rare and pretty identifiable cases.
And I think it’s counterproductive to exaggerate the dangers that way. Yeah, it makes the cops look even worse than they are, but it also discourages people from going out there.
I haven’t seen anybody (in this comment section since last time I said that I was wildly misinterpreted) saying the risk of attending a protest is high. People are saying the risks exist and should be prepared for and minimized when possible.
The risk of my car being in a collision isn’t high but I still wear my seat belt. Your comments the past few days have sounded like you seeing people talking about how they always wear their seat belt and saying they’re over reacting and being in a car isn’t that dangerous.
Because this is a story, and it is being the establishef that there is a sniper, in a protest referring very real world issues, it is an entirely reasonable worry.
It’s potentially a threat of violence in the real world and is definitely perceived that way. (Though see other arguments here today for other reasons why snipers might be there.)
I don’t think this sniper is a real threat to these fictional characters in the sense that I don’t think they’re going to be shot by them, both for narrative reasons as Taffy argues and for realism reasons because despite snipers at protests being real, random protesters being murdered by snipers isn’t.
Being murdered by cops on the ground is possible, but still incredibly unlikely. Violence short of that is much more likely.
“Ignoring for a moment that this is a boring way to evaluate fiction”
What, from a structural angle? I’m weighing the likelihood of various outcomes and coming to the positive conclusion that Joyce and Dorothy aren’t likely to get seriously harmed. It’s a positive sentiment, an “I’m not worried for them, watch, they’ll be alright.”
“And does not need to be repeated every single day”
Which hasn’t happened. Why is this even part of the sentence? Why be a cop about things that aren’t happening?
It’s very strange to me that a very entry-level story analysis, made with an understanding of the story in this comic, is getting any pushback at all. Taking the pieces that are there, looking at them together, using them to come to a positive conclusion about where the story seems likely to go, that’s normal. If it bores you and isn’t how you prefer to engage with literature, that’s 100% fine, but there’s no value whatsoever in trying to shut someone down just because you saw them doing it.
Being rich and in a position of power must be so nice. Just change the rules on a whim or when someone does something you don’t like. Living above the law and accountability just because you can throw money at a problem until it goes away. Must be nice.
A Carla-Charlie-Dina teamup. Dina makes them invisible; Charlie gets them up on the roof; Carla ties the sniper’s bootlaces together _and_ swaps out the actual sniper rifle with a looney-toons fake copy that splats a cream pie in the sniper’s face.
Are you unclear about what the word “sniper” means? They are literally a shooter. And they are literally aiming at the students because the only other people there are cops and the occasional random bystander and I don’t think they care enough about the random bystanders, and the police sniper definitely won’t be shooting at the cops.
Right – a sniper is a shooter, there to take out anyone who starts shooting.
“And they are literally aiming at the students ….”
They are literally aiming at no one because right now in this story arc there is no one that represents a threat. Should someone represent a threat they will then aim at that person and shoot them.
Plot Twist: Asma is a Bulmerian sleeper agent who exists to turn the protest into a massive riot so public opinion can be turned against the oppressed minority.
shut the fuck up, what the actual shit is wrong with you? making terrorist jokes about visibly muslim characters might be okay in whatever reddit you frequent, but in this circle we’re going to hit you with fucking bricks. eat galss
It also smacks of antisemitic conspiracism to my ear, what with implying Israel would be manipulating protests to such elaborate ends. Two-for-one special. The bigotries tend to be linked.
I protested the Israeli genocide of Gaza. I also believe bad actors very much are employed by the police and United States to justify genocide and discredit counter-fascism. I don’t abide by the belief that criticism of Israel’s current party (especially Netanyahu) is Antisemitism and I don’t believe that Trump is above labeling nonviolent protests as terrorists.
Asma is a fictional character and this is a dramedy comic. Real people should not be equated with them. Throwing around the kind of talking points of MAGA and fascist apologia here is not cool, especially to real posters.
I fully admit it’s a bad joke born from a desire to think of this as a fictional over the top event and sadly not our reality. I have no desire to argue with people I agree with either when I live in the Deepest of the Red States in RL.
While replies unhappy with this comment are entirely reasonable, I think (as in my personal opinion) a response suggesting violent actions is not reasonable.
Ah, universities. Don’t worry in like 10, 20 years they’ll celebrate this historic record of youth political activity. If I sound cynical, that is because; I am a Californian.
It’s weird how Willis wrote this a year and more ago, and these situations are literally happening right now in USA… and things are going to get worse. :O
Willis… the time traveler? <.<
Or an empathetic person with common sense that saw what was coming?
I'll believe the time traveler angle for the time.
There were anti-genocide pro-Palestine protests happening on many college campuses last year. I’m assuming Willis was thinking of them, and particularly the protests at Indiana University in Bloomington where this comic is set, when he made these strips.
“Considering the number of times campus police have failed to stop violent crimes being committed against their students, pointing guns at their students feels warranted.”
Most sadly, that’s the exact “logic” that modern “warrior cop” organizations use when faced with protests. They’re always prepared to escalate, while rarely prepared to de-escalate.
Yeah because talking about how there might be a reason why cops are trying to secure a place for everyone’s safety because of past disasters is suddenly waving my arm in the air like certain Melon.
Yes. It is. Yes, praising the police and saying that military opposition to peaceful, anti-war protests being deserved because of “everyone’s safety” while slyly removing people who think genocide is bad from “everyone” is a nazi dogwhistle. You don’t need to be throwing heils for people to clock you.
Being pro-police state is fascist. Trying to act like the police are aiding the common good instead of being violent, racist armed thugs used by the government to crush dissent and sow chaos makes you either incredibly stupid, unobservant, and pedantic, or it makes you a sympathizer. Cops are not your friend unless you’re a billionaire or a klan member. Pretending otherwise, when they have guns aimed at children, makes you sound like a nazi goon.
You don’t get to play ‘oh but sometimes’ in a comment section of a comic written by and for leftist queers. Bring this shit to our house and you will get called out for the rancid bullshit you spew. We are done being nice, our lives are on the line, millions of *other peoples* lives are on the line, and we’re done letting fash-apologists like you walk all over us and pretend everything’s fine. Pack up, go home, fuck off.
Freshman year I worked the Front Desk at McNutt in the late ’90s and there was a group of girls that called me Center Desk Boy for all 4 years of college.
Football Games, Yogi’s (where i worked more than McNUtt) Frat Parties. Center Desk Boy
The poll agonizes me because I am a total yuri sicko, but only for complex, nuanced character arcs. I see and support Joyce/Dorothy, but we just haven’t had enough time with Joe/Joyce for me to be comfortable moving on. Break his heart if you have to, but it’s only been like 2-3 days!! There’s so much more character development that he and Joyce could do for each other, and she could still go for Dorothy after!
Sadly I must lend my critical support to relationship paladins on this cause.
It’s possible this storyline could win me back if they go off and have some very gay experiences together, and then the reveal is that Joyce doesn’t process any of this as real, and goes back to Joe while leaving Dorothy even more shattered than before. That is pretty much what it would take at this point.
I’m that exact kind of sicko, but in a two-party system I gotta vote for the relationship paladins. The greater of two evils.
Nowadays they’re mostly businesspeople. And profit-driven. Whereas colleges and universities are not intended to be profit-driven. The cultural and mindframe conflict causes more harm than good.
Hoping Willis wouldn’t fridge the fan-beloved trans sister of the main character, just for some protagonist character growth, but I do believe someone may get hurt
School shootings do happen, and a crowd of people you can count on being unarmed is a tempting target. A police sniper would be a useful thing to have around in case someone shows up with murderous intent to take advantage of that.
American cops aren’t there to prevent violence, only ever to perform or instigate it. I had a gun pointed at me while I was trying to commit suicide, last year. It was very confusing.
You don’t have police snipers around when there’s, say, a school sanctioned festival with snacks and games on campus drawing a big crowd to a particular spot.
Introducing more guns to a situation rarely makes the options of getting shot less. I trust the police to more likely shoot innocents in the crowd (by accident let’s say) than to take out a crazy MAGA trying to spree kill protestors. Which is by far the most likely murder situation.
But can you cound on them being unarmed? Esp. if the police turn up armed? States that allow concealed carry could definitely end up with some protestors and some counter protestors armed, in a crowd, where feelings are running high. he very best was to start uncontrollable violence is to appear ready to meet violence with violence.
I presume Dunn Meadow is a large common space on the IU campus. As such it is there for everyone’s use, not just for one self-appointed group to commandeer for their own purposes for an indefinite period.
Without dismissing your point, a protest is by nature meant to be disruptive so that people are forced to face the uncomfortable fact that the people are protesting.
The First Amendment requires the government to defend people’s right to peaceably assemble. But government entities are permitted to set limits on how long a given group can monopolize public spaces rather than permitting the public at large to use that space. Generally, overnight encampments are banned in public spaces unless you get a permit from the location’s governing authority.
Arguing with Ron’s point is one thing, (almost, but with plausible deniability) accusing Ron of being a Nazi apologist, looks pretty aggressive. Why the over the top reactions?
“i think if people prevent someone from hanging out in a meadow they should be shot”
Asking for the police, mayor, and government (the most likely to preventy someone from hanging out in a meadow) to get shot is calling for rebellion. I’m not saying I disagree, just clarifying what you just said.
What do you mean by commandeer? None of the protestors are keeping anyone else out anymore than a random jogger is – the only place they’re taking up is the physical space taken up by their body.
If you mean the protestors you’re saying other people are only allowed to take up space as long as they don’t in any way inconvenience you, which is not what sharing space means.
Besides that, though, the 2024 pro-Palestine encampment really only took up half of the meadow. There was still a large area (closer to Indiana Ave) that was not occupied by protestors. Usual outdoor activities like students studying, playing volleyball, etc. continued there.
Chekov’s sniper goes home that evening after a completely peaceful and uneventful day, decides that he’s had enough of his horrible job and wants a career change, goes back to university, turns his life around, saves the entire cast from an attempted kidnapping/murder, takes a bullet in the chest and is sent to the hospital, DOES NOT DIE, realises a lot about himself, enters a loving relationship with his childhood best friend, winks at the camera, end of Dumbing of Age.
(The sniper supplanted the main character in an homage to Roomies, btw)
Amazi-Girl appears behind the sniper and breaks the rifle in two rendering it unrepairable. She knocks out the guard and the sniper and ties the both up together back to back and uses their own handcuffs to prevent them from untying themselves.
A friend compared the Andor massacre in Season 2 to a RL event. I was like, “It’s similar to hundreds of RL events from every nation on Earth throughout history.”
So in the comic universe, it takes 24 hours worth of protests to get police to show up with fences, guns, and a sniper to face off the scary, scary protesters.
In the “real life example,” it was after 100 consecutive days of camping out and protesting.
Not that bringing a sniper out is really an appropriate response, unless you think there’s going to be actual armed resistance. But there’s a huge difference between a forced removal of a weekend protest, with like a day’s notice, compared to something that’s been up for over three months.
I guess DoA’s police are just 100x more trigger happy than IRL police?
It really doesn’t serve anyone to portray protests as this incredibly dangerous thing, except for the people who want to prevent protests from happening.
I get it if you see that differently. There’s another mindset out there, that goes, “Why, if people can see just how much they fear us, and just how far they’re willing to go to put us down, then of COURSE they’d protest!”
And that does get a certain type of person. That’s the same sort of person who sees the police getting ready, sees the sniper, and thinks, “Yes, that’s it, we’re provoking them, this is going to look so bad on TV.”
That sentiment does embolden the people who are very upset and get them to commit. But it scares other people away. Joyce was practically looking for any way to affirm her sister and spend more time with her, but the thought of joining her never even crossed her mind. She and Dorothy right now would do ANYTHING to be away from this protest.
Jocylene attended the protest. Her sister didn’t attend. Her friends didn’t attend. As we can tell from Carla and Charlie, many people on campus who aren’t attending believe the protestors are in the right. That’s a ton of people who otherwise could have been there that weren’t. Protests are led by people who are extremely passionate, but they are made stronger by numbers. And once there, surrounded by other like-minded people, you become passionate even if you were just kind of for it before.
So yes. Especially now, when there’s so much out there to protest and so much to stand up for, it rubs me the wrong way that this is being portrayed as, not just more dangerous than it actually is, but that the characters just take it as a *given* that it’s more dangerous. Like “Ah, of course, the sniper’s in position, must mean it’s 4:00. Thank goodness I deleted my browsing history before I showed up, that would be so embarrassing for my parents to find.”
You’ve got the timeline wrong—the snipers, police presence, and arrests at IU all happened very early on while school was still in session in April. The encampment lasted 100 days total and was finally disbanded in August. Here is a retrospective article by the Indiana Daily Student Newspaper that also contains a lot of links to articles they published as the events occurred: https://www.idsnews.com/article/2025/05/encampment-iu-palestine-protest-one-year
I was there on IU Bloomington’s campus when it happened. The protests were going on for a couple of weeks beforehand, and the tents themselves were there for a few days. It wasn’t “100 consecutive days of camping out.”
The time difference is clearly for narrative reasons — if he paced it realistically, it would take so long for the story to get there that the events wouldn’t be as fresh or relevant. (Willis was probably writing it into the story as it was happening.)
I don’t think that’s actually true for the Dunn Meadow protests.
The rules were changed the day the protest began and the cops cleared the next day. Or maybe the same day?
There might have been protests already, but not an encampment.
Or am I being horribly misled by year old news stories?
According to this, the encampment was formed April 25th, the policy was written on July 29th, going into effect on August 1st, with the police clearing on August 2nd.
I mean, I wasn’t watching this in the news at the time. I’m just looking it up after the fact. So my information is only as good as the news articles that I’m finding today.
But the protestors were allowed there for 100 days, and apparently did about $100,000 worth of damage. In comparison, the protesters on today’s comic have been there for one night, and the campus has, in effect, called in SWAT.
So… then what happened altogether? Police broke it up, but then didn’t break it up? They arrested people for pitching tents, but then let them continue to keep their tents up?
Somethings not making sense here.
In any case, looks like I was wrong about how quickly force was assembled. Damn.
I’m not looking up that much about this specific protest, but sometimes what happens is that powers in place turn to force quickly, try to cut things right off, but then community or other people of influence are like, “Hey, whoa, what they’re doing is legal,” and then some of the force recedes until they can change the law to make what they don’t like illegal.
Here, there are powers coming at this from different angles, including state police and the university leaders, who may want (or be pressured to) take different approaches.
This leads to interesting possibilities from a narrative point of view. (And I’m sure Willis has a much better idea of what happened there than I do.)
I was a little surprised this came to a head so quickly, since I expected it to be at least part an excuse to have Jocelyne hanging around campus for awhile, but if there was an initial crackdown, followed by a longer encampment, that lets us have the early dramatic moment, but still keep her around.
In the real world, cops often show up within hours or even minutes after a protest starts. Especially if that protest could in any way be consider subversive to power structures, such as anti-war and anti-genocide protests.
There’s being overly cautious, and then there’s putting a sniper on a roof with the intent to intimidate people who are saying things you don’t like. The latter is what’s happening here. That loser with a gun isn’t there to stop another loser with a gun, it’s there to make the protesters afraid. There is no argument that justifies putting a sniper in place over a bunch of people just trying to be heard.
I guess yes and no? Like I get it, cops have a very bad reputation, often deservedly so. But at the same time, one maniac with a gun, a maniac with a knife, kidnappers. That’s a lot of nonsense to happen in such a short time in one place and with this kind of protest you are looking at potential maniac who disagrees with the protesters.
That maniac who disagrees with the protesters is most likely to be the sniper or its boss, though. There’s nothing to be gained from treating cops like people.
Nope. Regimes usually fall when the security aparatus decides to side with the opposition. You gain nothing from giving them all the reason to stick with the current regime because they have no way out.
Even crazier theory: It happens at night, Hank catches the bullet between his fingers, flicks it back directly into the gun, and reveals the sniper is a vampire and the Brown bloodline has been hunting them for centuries.
trying to figure out why i have these weird shoulder pains these last few days
am i dying
is it indigestion
am i sleeping wrong
no it turns out i just have terrible fucking posture when i paint things
Hey! I'm incredibly humiliated to be doing this again in such a short span of time.
I need to raise $5k to make a down payment on my rental arrears. We are paying our monthly rent, but we still owe a lot, and if we dont get it settled soon we're gonna lose our place.
Venmo magdalene-visaggio
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You fifteen years ago: I know, I'll start a college comic. That's an experience that never changes. Classes, parties, relationships, it'll be easy.
You now: well I guess I have to address that police brutality is part of the college experience. That's uh... Not great
Mario Kart World hits my attention span just right. Why do I want to do the same lap 3 times in a row? Why can't all three-to-five laps be all different things
who wants to drive in a circle
mario kart world takes me places
i know the second patreon bonus strip of the month tends to drop on the 6th day of the following month, and it's now the 9th, but i gotta hold on to this one for at least one more day, for reasons
I am sincere when I say when lockdown happened and everyone decided to Go Onto Computer the majority of people didn’t have internet brainworm antibodies and now they’re the greatest marks known to man
ceej@ceej.online ⋅ 2m
that a bunch of billionaires have been irreversibly brainwormed by getting addicted to a glorified chat room adds credence to my theory that spending too much time on IRC as a child acts as a powerful inoculant to the worst impulses of an escalatory group dynamic
Hasan Kwame Jeffries is not only Hakeem Jeffries' brother, he is also a history professor at Ohio State University — where he teaches classes on African-American, US, and civil rights history
a fucking sniper. just. why.
…
I ain’t gonna fuck around imma just say it as it is
The United States has developed a Nazi Problem
We passed “Problem” Decades ago. What we have now is a full blown Nazi Occupation.
unfortunately too many people got mad when we punched the Nazis in the face, so we never managed to get rid of them… this story about to Willis again? (by that I mean, mood whiplash into trauma real quick) ~<3
Betting on Jocelyne getting shot at, with a good chance of Joyce taking the bullet – either accidentally or on purpose. If she doesn’t take the bullet, then Mary comments that Jocelyne deserves it for “being a perverted man” and the user Let Joyce Kill gets to be VERY happy
I wouldn’t say occupation. The call is coming from inside the house. Or the House, as the case may be.
Right? Is this an Indiana thing? I’ve been to two encampments in two major cities and there were no snipers (based on my experience, the local news, and local Reddit chatter)—but like I said, these were major cities, not Indiana.
I don’t think real-world statistical probability matters here.
To my knowledge it has happened before and usually means some people in power are getting very, very scared and offended.
Fear is good for them to be feeling. Power needs to be afraid.
This draws heavily from the Palestinian protests at IU last year (inclusing the rules about Dunn Meadow being changed on them), and there were truly police snipers at those.
It’s definitely possible everywhere in the US these days, but local politics do have an impact on the likelihood.
Thank you, this is the answer I was looking for. Disgusting intimidation tactics, though I’m not shocked.
I was wondering if this was about something specific, that seems like a weirdly specific detail to choose if one was just choosing to depict a random high tension protest, let alone a random college campus protest. Thank you for having the knowledge.
No snipers that you knew of, at least. Odds are the reason Asma can see the sniper in this scenario is this: they *want* the students to see them. They’re going for intimidation.
I remember seeing somewhere footage of a sniper set up above a sports stadium, they didn’t want people to know he was there, until after the fact, or they wouldn’t have released the footage of him being there. I tried looking it up, but the details are fuzzy as it was quite a while ago. ~<3
Pretty much all large public events (sporting events, music festivals) in the US have snipers; it’s standard practice at this point.
It’s sad it got to this point
It’s sad it got to the point there was even one
that sounds dubious. Source?
After searching, I can find lots of people saying it is true and the Dallas Cowboys owner confirming that his stadium at least has dedicated sniper nests. I guess because important dickheads might be attending.
I was there at Dunn Meadow last Spring, there was a sniper on the rooftop and *possible spoiler* lots of people did get arrested.
They had one on my campus (also Midwest) during BLM. A few times since then. It’s to “keep students safe.”
On my campus, before I went there, during protests in the 80’s, the students also brought snipers. Resulted in the police & national guard refusing to get close to the protesters.
They really only understand violence.
That’s a good idea, actually.
Question: Was that legal? And would that work today, do you think?
It would depend on the gun laws in that state. Even if it was legal, it was certainly not safe with armed police on the scene.
Well, apparently Arturo Gamboa tried open carrying at a protest just a week or so ago. Did not end well.
https://www.thehandbasket.co/p/salt-lake-city-no-kings-shooting-arturo-gamboa
https://www.yahoo.com/news/watch-arturo-gamboa-released-jail-045112201.html
Reminder that mainstream media was reporting this as an attempted mass shooting right up until the footage surfaced, complete with Gamboa taking aim and only being stopped by security opening fire. Because of course they did.
Well, the Black Panthers doing organized group open carry scared Reagan enough to pass gun control in California. You can decide how successful or not they were overall, but history gives some ideas of how things could go.
That wasn’t a protest, though. It was a parade: “here we are, we’re all armed and maybe even trained, fear us”.
I’m curious what you think a protest is, that you think that doesn’t qualify.
That’s… What a protest is. Empty gestures don’t define protest. Demands and the will to force the hand of the ruling class does. Hanging around and making sure you don’t inconvenience anyone, frighten anyone, or break the law in any way is what can rightly be dismissed as “not a protest”, but a group of armed activists showing that they can and will ensure their people’s rights is absolutely a protest.
it’s definitely a thing, particularly when the protests are anti-racist. most of the ICE protests i’ve been to over the years have had police snipers glowering down at the protesters
I’m with you that it’s a thing in general—I’ve seen them at ICE protests as well—but the encampments I’ve been to on the east coast didn’t have them so I was wondering. Other commenters pointed out that it was a thing in Indiana and Ohio with respect to the encampments, however.
Was it an encampment that was there for weeks at a time? Because obviously it’s going to be hard to have snipers for that long.
I’m not sure snipers are particularly known for moving a whole bunch.
See, I did the crazy thing and googled “sniper at protest” and got this hit on the first page:
Newsweek
https://www.newsweek.com › snipers-roofs-gaza-studen…
Apr 30, 2024 — Students and protesters have reported sightings of snipers on top of rooftops at Ohio State University and the University of Indiana Bloomingdale’s.
Crazy. Not like I asked if this was an Indiana thing (I literally did, and not rhetorically). Maybe your snark would have been deserved if I had assertively stated there were no protests with snipers based on my limited experience, but I did not do that.
Sorry I’d rather ask here, where I’ve seen that commenters are pretty familiar with Indiana happenings and are generally happy to inform, than google when half the news will have a red slant? Not everyone lives in Indiana, and that Newsweek article isn’t even in the top ten results when I google what you claim to have googled, perhaps because I’m on the east coast. But go ahead and be aggressive whenever anyone asks a question—I’m suuure that will get loads of people to listen to you.
I mean, I didn’t know either; I relayed the method I used to find out.
Frankly, I was surprised that it’d happened specifically at Bloomington. I thought it’d be a different protest that Willis was pulling from, but it seems that he’s portraying a very specific incident, down to the exact location the sniper was placed at and the Dunn Meadow decision.
Sorry that you felt a need to get aggressive as a result. Hope that gets people to answer questions for you in the future. I’d call my manager for you, but it turns out I’m not being paid to take your shit.
aren’t they great, folks? be sure to try the veal!
“University of Indiana Bloomingdale’s” leads me to believe that just grabbing first-page Google results isn’t the most reliable source of info either.
Or maybe you just didn’t see them.
Surely not the only place, but it happened at Ohio State at least …
There were cop snipers in LA at the Ice Out of LA and No Kings protests. It is, unfortunately, a thing that exists. Not sure how common it is for campus protest, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s much more common than anyone should be remotely comfortable with (0, zero snipers “policing” protests should be the amount that people are comfortable with).
I don’t like this framing mostly due to the fact it isn’t like Nazis ever had a monopoly on this shit. Kent State springs to mind.
Yeah, it’s very easy to blame the rot in America on foreigners, but the worst of it is coming from inside the house.
With the notable exception of 09/11 4-plane suicide crashes, I’m told our domestic terrorists have committed most of the terrorism murders.
Hitler admired the racists in late 19th and early 20th century America, and modeled a lot of the Nazi Party ideologies on them. And then we imported a bunch of Nazi war criminals during and after WW2 with Operation Paperclip.
Kent State wasn’t snipers. It was, according to my reading, poorly trained and uncommanded National Guardsmen who got scared by students running to see the action, took it for an attack, and shot more or less at random. Considering the people who got shot were some distance away, this seems likely.
The larger issue of course is why they were there to begin with.
Oh, we had a problem back with Paperclip. Now? It’s just a Nazi state.
Buuuut we were shooting college students long before it hit this point.
oh believe me, am well aware of Operation Paperclip, and what happened in Germany was hardly an isolated incident
like. national guard. snipers. at peaceful protests. really.
at this point, any notion of the intrinsic value of attempts at appealing to our oppressors’ better natures or so-called “compromise” is a fools errand
I. Am. Drawing. A. Line. In. The. Sand.
and I advise you all to do the same
where our country is right now, and where it’s heading, is VERY worrying to say the least, as we are widely coerced into gradually lowering the bar for acceptable bigotries and oppressions until eventually, that bar effectively ceases to exist
if it’s not the impossible seeming choice you’re faced with of having to alienate bigots who happen to be people you wanted to be friends with,
it’s the even MORE impossible, devastating choice you’ll eventually be forced to make when you have to choose between your job and watching someone you love shipped to an internment camp
nearly 80 years ago my great grandparents and their friends learned this the hard way, and nearly died because of it
if we can help it, would really prefer history not repeat itself
*plays the international in hacked muzak*
but seriously, you are right in everything you said. If we don’t start fighting now, things will get very bad very fast for a long time. Much worse than they are now.
idk if there’s been ‘snipers at protests’ issues before but i wouldn’t be surprised if a handful of ppl brought guns as counter protests esp in teh south. although while i believe ppl should have a right to defend themselves too, any ‘peaceful’ protesters that also have guns on them would be an excuse to be arrested too even if there’s permit/carry laws where you are
Like most issues at protests the “snipers at protests” issues are being caused by the police. The issue is that police put snipers at protests. So far it’s just been intimidation (unlike the rubber bullets being fired directly into people’s faces instead of being bounced off the pavement as they’re designed to be used) but one of these days one of those donut devouring motherfuckers is going to pull the trigger and take out one or more protesters.
Developed? Fascism has been around it the US for a very long time. Most people didn’t notice it much in the past because it was either directed outward at countries we invaded and/or bombed, or directed at small and very hated groups in this country like communists.
Or World War 1 veterans protesting because the bonuses they were promised were stolen from them. Or before that, when a chunk of the states seceded because they were scared they might not get to own other people as slaves. Or before that, when the powers that be even in the “civilized” states owned slaves and saw no problem with it. All while enacting a genocide against native populations that they made and broke treaty after treaty with.
The US has always loved authoritarianism and fascism. Even before they were codified and taught in schools.
Very true. Much of that history is not taught in American schools. I recommend people who want to have a more accurate understanding of US history read “A People’s History of the United States” by Howard Zinn.
America started with a genocide, built itself with slavery, and every vote that wasn’t white, male, and middle class had to be dragged from the ruling class by force.
America has never NOT had a fascism problem.
of note, this is me agreeing with Kyulen.
It always surprises me when that happens.
lmao not what I meant. I just didn’t want anyone to get feisty thinking I was arguing instead of offering further evidence.
I know, I was just saying I’m surprised when we agree with each other. Most of the time when I comment here I’m not trying to start an argument.
Yeah like, half of our country used to be its own nation founded for the sole purpose of maintaining slavery and white supremacist social order.
Where do you think the Nazis got it from? Hitler literally said he was inspired by the United States
77 million Americans chose evil. Thrice!
Agreeing on the Nazi problem, but also, any large gathering of people has the potential to get a sniper in America.
You can spot them at sports events, concerts, protests, marketplaces, any event that draws a crowd.
While at the protests it can definitely be a “someone in charge does not like this happening” thing, sometimes they’re privately employed by security companies to pre emptively prepare for mass shootings. The idea is that if they spot a mass shooter, they can take them out first.
I do not condone this. I wish we had a country where we didn’t have THIS be a “solution” to mass shootings. I just wanted to explain that they can be found anywhere if you just start looking for them.
it’s always had a bad one, remember the country was literally built on slavery and we never really addressed our sins on that count, so its just been a slow slide back into the old status quo.
So Asma was here!
HA I was right! Hello, Asma!
… And goodbye, freedom to protest. Hello, facist America!
Is this the first time we’ve seen Asma not behind her desk?
Having just checked, no, she confronted Blaine during the family weekend
Thank you for your research work!
Every time I look at these older comics again, part of me is surprised how different the art style looked back then.
So what I’m seeing is… every time she steps out from behind the desk she’s a goddamn hero.
this is the truth!
She was with her lunch, somewhat away from her post (because break time) and Walky asked her about a package. This may have been a bonus entry.
As with today, I think Walky didn’t know her name.
Now I’m wondering how few of the main group know her name.
I know I should be more concerned about the whole police thing, but look at Dorothy’s arm around Joyce’s waist.
No no, your instincts are fine. Joyce and Dorothy being affectionate for safety is more important and interesting than whatever a random pig is doing.
Also, Joyce’s around Dorothy’s shoulders.
I have been looking and silently seething. Seriously, the inability of these two to recognize that they either need to cut this shit out or break up with the people they’re dating before getting handsy with each other is driving me up the wall. It’s not an innocent gesture anymore, this is not okay!
Ugh. Have to keep reminding myself this has only been going on for like, an hour tops in-universe.
This is how good friends behave in certain parts of Western culture. Especially if they’re of the female persuasion (meaning not living in constant fear of being taken for gay).
And if they were still actually in denial about their attraction, I’d accept that, but they’re not. Dorothy’s openly admitted it. Joyce has decided she’d had sex with Dorothy and asked if she wanted to do it again.
This isn’t just normal “good friends”, unless we’re using Jennifer’s “friends sometimes bang” argument – which we know exists only because she’s in massive bisexual denial.
dorothy’s openly stated its a trauma response and thinks its not real, joyce verbally agreed with her, what comic are you reading
The one where they followed that up by agreeing to go “do laundry” and were only stopped by people being there already.
This isn’t just normal friends behavior.
Why?
Oh geez, what a wild thing to get yourself upset about. Call me when they kiss.
fellas is it cheating for two people at a protest to hold onto each other because they’re scared? seriously can’t believe they’d betray the menfolk this way.
It’s okay.
Fuckoff
Same.
I was all like.
“OOOOOOOHHHHHHH our girls are hugging!!!!”
Like roomates.
This is not uncommon among heterosexual adolescent girls in the U.S., and indeed in many other countries. I speak from years of experience in working with them in the Scouting program.
But that’s not the Hug of Lovers. But the Embrace of Fear. Like, feeling the imminent danger coming
I love Asma.
I decidedly do not love colleges.
This isn’t what happens at a college, most days.
What happens at their worst still matters, and this sort of reaction has proved distressingly common.
I don’t imagine that a sharpshooter is an omnipresent thing at colleges, no, but the response by multiple colleges to protests about the Gaza conflict have been excruciatingly poor, and nothing short of vengeful in many cases. Unsurprising, maybe, considering the history of things like the Kent State massacre and other similar retaliatory demonstrations on campuses to bring protestors to heel, but no less disgusting for it.
How many can Joyce teleport at one time. Asking for… someone.
she can only teleport to dorothy! who’s right there!
“Hey, don’t give money to people who are exploding schoolchildren.”
“What’s that? Blow your fucking head off from a hundred meters away?”
Like get a fuckin’ grip.
“Stop killing other people’s kids!”
“Okay, we’ll kill our own young adults instead.”
I’m not American. Please complete my sentence: in America today, the police putting a sniper on a roof when there’s a protest is…
(a) completely fucking ludicrous, (b) very unusual, (c) rare, (d) common
Thank you.
A. Whatever the actual frequency is, it’s ludicrous.
They’re lucky there’s no drones with tear gas and helicopters.
They have police snipers at sports games now. It’s ludicrously common.
Not sure if you’re trolling me.
Anything to stop the Broncos from winning a game.
The Broncos have quarterbacks to prevent that from happening
I really wish I was.
https://www.distractify.com/p/why-are-there-snipers-at-football-games
https://www.bosshunting.com.au/sport/superbowl-snipers-nest/
I’m gonna say both A and secret answer C1 “rare but becoming more common over time”.
At the time he wrote this, way back before the 2024 reelection of Trump, probably somewhere between A and B. Now that Americans en masse decided Trump isn’t objectionable and he’s back in power… it’s a lot closer to C slightly hedging on D.
You’re going to be extremely disappointed if you think this is exclusively a US thing, even if it’s certainly more precedented in the US.
After the Munich massacre, the idea that sharpshooters could prevent escalation and worst-case outcomes became more popular, though in practice, I couldn’t tell you that I’ve seen a ton of cases where it was successful. I think it’s kind of a common theme that people would like the illusion of control by pinning their hopes on a “maybe” than accepting that they could be worsening the situation.
Obviously I don’t know if snipers at big public events are common outside the US; snipers are supposed to be hidden and secret.
Putting a “sniper” in a place where they can be seen, as an intimidation tactic, is limited to the US to the best of my knowledge.
But snipers being a known common thing at big public events changes things. It’s not “Oh my god, they’re set up to just massacre protesters”.
I also wonder how much it’s an intimidation tactic and how much it’s just protests aren’t always in places with good sniper cover and protesters are watching for it more than crowds at other public events. Some of both probably, depending on the authorities involved.
Fucking ludicrous! Also, truly did happen during protests at IU last year. Doesn’t seem common at college protests– this and one from Ohio around the same time are the big ones that come up– but I don’t know how often it might happen for large protests overall.
oh, wait until the police tanks roll up and they deploy the sonic cannons
there was one during student union protests at my university pre-covid
We had two at my high school graduation. 14 years ago.
Of course you need two snipers in case one gets crazy and starts sniping people, they can be sniped by the other one. Totally reasonable.
Quis custodiet ipsos cuBLAM
Exactly lmao
Common for a large protest. We saw them in LA recently. As another commenter pointed out, they’re supposed to prevent escalations like bomb threats and other worst-case scenarios.
Eventually, I suppose they’ll get replaced by AI-driven armed drones, which cost less and can target many people at once. The end goal being that each protester is tracked by their own drone, man-to-man defense style. In this way perfect security will be achieved.
Absolutely ridiculous. But I wager the mentality by those in charge is basically “well, we really do need people up high in stationary positions to be able to fully monitor the protest, and they’re going to need something like binoculars anyway to look at potential problems, and well, at that point, I guess making them snipers with training for monitoring this sort of thing makes sense?”
Again, its utterly ridiculous. But I wager people would be surprised (at the very least) just how many public events have snipers monitoring things.
…and not just in America.
Just did a google to confirm, and yeah, most sporting events? There’s snipers around. Its generally just become “we need snipers because there’s a serious risk of violence here” and more “we need snipers because its a big crowded event and if something goes wrong and a sniper could’ve solved it, we’ll get run through the ringer”.
This post is not an endorsement of that.
Anyone who could genuinely endorse that paranoid nonsense, needs to be examined thoroughly for connections to violent extremist groups.
American law enforcement will always say antifa is a greater threat than white supremacist violence.
You know, despite the former not existing and the latter responsible for everything from Oklahoma City to a plot to kidnap Michigan’s governor to January 6th.
That’s because American law enforcement is one of the largest violent extremest groups responsible for white supremacist violence in the country.
Yeah, you’re right. That IS utterly ridiculous. What’s far more likely is that someone figured out that a crowd like that is a tempting target for a mass shooter, so they’ve positioned a couple of snipers in case one shows up and starts shooting.
I mean, that would be a terrible position to stop a mass shooter. A police officer on the ground would be much better positioned. The sniper seems much more likely to intimidate protestors and fire into a crowd.
How is an officer on the ground better positioned? Unless they happen to be right next the shooter.
There are likely officers on the ground as well, though probably around the perimeter.
Because a sniper rifle is a weapon that is not very good at a moving target among a large crowd of civilians that would be panicking in an active shooter situation? Police on the ground would be able to be mobile.
I mean, the Met’s been putting snipers on overwatch around sufficiently large public events for long enough that Four Lions could include them in the plot without needing any justification back in 2010, and that’s in the UK
Unfortunately, it’s probably a lot more common than most people realize.
You forgot e) an affront to everyone’s civil liberties.
D.
What is Joyce hoping to accomplish here? If Jocelyne is there it is because she chose to be there. What good does Joyce being at the protest do? I don’t think she has thought this through.
She hasn’t thought it through at all. The only thing she set out to accomplish was giving Jocelyn a message that could have absolutely waited. This was an impulsive act from the top to the bottom.
it’s an act in solidarity with her sister, and impulsive or not, safe or not, it was absolutely the right thing to do
I’m not the one questioning that.
Not at all. She didn’t want her sister to get ambushed by her implied transphobic dad.
Yes, I read the comic too.
Anybody wanna bet Willis has Joyce’s sister get shot because Drama and we can’t have nice things?
Nah, there’s a preview panel of her having coffee with Dorothy in a few months (our time).
It’s not at all clear from Hank’s message or the photo he sent that he clocked Jocelyne.
She wanted to warn Joss about Hank seeing her at the protest
Why does that require a warning? What’s Hank going to do about it that’s so urgent it can’t wait?
He might get in his car and drive for four hours to…
To, uh…
I dunno, scold Jocelyne for protesting?
The sense of urgency is pretty much entirely in Joyce’s head, on this one. She didn’t think it through, and now she’s put herself (and Dorothy) in an actually dangerous situation.
She could have been thinking, Jocelyne will probably get arrested and then she’ll probably need dad to help, and after that text she (Joyce) had best figure out where Jocelyne stands with dad, without asking dad. Which probably seemed like a quick and straightforward task before seeing the protest up close.
Volume title: Did You Think First Semester Had Too Much Death? Oops!
I’m afraid to look up what U. Chicago is doing to its own students during The End of Days. Hard to get unfiltered news here, and unsure whether I really wanna know anyway. Maybe I’ll just cling to one last set of memories. Or illusions. Or something.
America: the country that white kids thought was America
“Type 2 Eagleland: the country that white kids thought was Type 1 Eagleland”?
Ohhh so its not a grotesque, its just grotesque.
Wild how police enforcement is totally on lock to keep their eye on some peaceful teen protestors, but when it comes to stopping or even inconveniencing white supremacists, all you get is excuses and red tape. I’m sorry, did I say wild? I meant completely expected and typical.
Republicans are like the Uvalde shooter; Democratic leadership is like the cops that didn’t go in because they “feared for their lives”.
Yep. BLM protests had white supremacist dipshits mishandling AR-15s pointed at demonstrators every day in my city. Scumbags.
I feel like this shouldn’t surprise Dorothy. She’s grown up in a post 9/11, post George W, world. Going through school in the first Trump term and the birth of MAGA fanaticism. She should be way more jaded.
No, this is fully consistent with Dorothy’s characterization from the very start.
She’s both sheltered and naive, almost as much as Joyce. Her progressive parents didn’t instill a ton of shame about sex or pressure her into any particular religious beliefs, but every other topic she’s ever expressed an opinion on has been like this: surprise about how many facets of the world suck.
Her character was written to make sense for fifteen years ago, remember
Apparently, Dorothy has grown up with parents who sheltered her and spoiled her sweet so she actually believed the Presidency was achievable and a noble pursuit.
I’m kinda disappointed that Willis chose to represent the college campus protests with a fictional atrocity in a fictional country. mainly because Mary being a Christian zionist (get all the Jews out of the USA) would be so fitting for her
I think it makes sense because there’s more room for adjusting things as needed for the story. I have no doubts about Mary being a Christian Zionist, though.
I also think it’s best that we don’t get the comment section filled up with people who have heard about “comic strip that doesn’t approve of the genocide in Palestine” and spam “antizionism = antisemitism” bullshit
Yeah, we don’t need a repeat of that shit.
Also, with the sliding time scale of the comic, in another 15 years they might be in the second year of college. There’ll be all new atrocities being committed by then I’m sure, in exciting new places. Using a fictionalized country keeps it from being dated; by then Palestine will probably not exist. I expect we’ll be stuck in a forever war in Iran though.
israel has been genociding palestine for over 75 years. they are not finishing the job any time soon nor are they stopping. the sliding timescale would be just fine
Dumbing of Age is 15 years old. A fictional event is one that doesn’t go out of continuity. It also doesn’t exploit RL tragedy for a coming of age dramedy’s characters.
Man, I’m glad I was just watching a TF2 video. That makes this feel… a little less depressing.
But jesus christ, what the fuck is going on in the states that this doesn’t feel like much of a fictional scenario. I’m Canadian, and I’m not gonna claim my country’s handled the whole genocide in Palestine much better than the states have, but at least we’re not… so clearly authoritarian.
This is straight-up pulled from the headlines of events at IU last year.
What’s going on here? I’ll tell ya what’s goin’ on here. It’s a fuckin’ madhouse, the inmates run the show, and anyone who suggests we stop smearing human feces on the wall is getting boiled alive as a warning. This country lost the plot a long time ago, and everyone’s given up on pretending otherwise.
That’s right, our country usually only deploys snipers if the Indigenous are protesting! Ahahaha… yeah we’ve definitely also got our fair share of problems up here.
Just hope the sniper isn’t Unity from Skin Horse.
Amazi-Girl has a sniper to take down, it seems
Probably wouldn’t be hard for her, either.
Y’know, whatever with your fuckin’ sniper. Who’s gonna get shot, honestly? Asma? She’s about as much of a character as Buckets of Blood Guy. Jocelyne? Yeah, right, like Joyce is gonna have to watch her freshly-out sister get blasted. And I’ve already expressed my doubts that Joyce or Dorothy will get more than a black eye if this all goes to shit. So really, why should I be worried about some unportrayed dillhole with a gun I can’t even see? They’re all gonna be fine.
Whatever you say
You owe me $750, by the way.
I don’t really fell like doing a bit today.
This is a very weird thing to say
No, it really isn’t, actually. It’s the same sentiment from yesterday, when I said I doubt the main characters are gonna get meaningfully harmed, just spread to the rest of the present cast. Why would it be weird to feel confident there won’t be serious harm done to these characters during this event?
I’m sure they won’t, like, die – but get could still be seriously mentally harmed by witnessing physical harm to unnamed characters. Plot armour only gets you so far in this comic.
I think watching a nameless background extra die would be really boring, especially if it only happens so the important characters can be traumatized by it. It would feel cheap and unsatisfying to me, and I think Willis is a better writer than that anyhow.
Even if it’s a student they don’t know very well, seeing that happen would still be pretty traumatizing for a lot of college students.
That’s not something I’ve contested even once, though. I even included the words “the important characters can be traumatized by it”, which I assumed would imply I’m aware of that as a possibility.
Look at the bright side — it could be Mary who gets shot.
This feels like it should be punctuated with a cinemasins ding.
That’s the meanest thing anyone’s ever said to me.
I mean they killed Mike.
He was the most expendable of the main cast, is the thing about that. I’m looking at this from what I guess is an unusual angle. Of the non-Joyce, non-Dorothy characters, we’ve been told Asma and Jocelyne are here, and both of them are essentially background extras (though Jocelyne is on her way up).
Killing off Asma wouldn’t impact the rest of cast beyond traumatizing whoever witnessed her death, and the same effect could be gained from any of the randos milling about. Even if she does die, there’s not much of a shake-up to be had from it, since she only ever affected the cast by handing them packages and being unimpressed with their antics. Most of them don’t even know her name.
Jocelyne also feels pretty safe, stakes-wise. Narratively, she’s a step up from Asma in that she’s gone on a whole sidequest with Joyce and Becky, not to mention her direct connection with Joyce, being sisters and all. I can see some really juicy trauma for Joyce if Jocelyne dies. Stepping back from the in-story angle though, I’m not sure how well the audience would take a trans character showing up just to get killed for the sake of traumatizing the protagonist. And I wonder if that potential explosive response (claims of Fridging as far as the eye can see, for starters) is something the author wants to invoke on purpose.
As for Joyce and Dorothy, if anyone thinks they’re in real peril, I have a bridge to sell ’em. Now, I’m not saying (and never have said) this event isn’t gonna get buckwild, but Mike’s death is about as harsh as I think things are gonna get for the main cast. Hell, it took Amber ages to even start processing her grief, and that’s after a massive time skip.
Reading books is pointless, because you know the main character isn’t going to be murdered in the next sentence so why would you even bother reading it?
“I know these characters aren’t going to die, because it is a story,” is not an interesting observation–and it’s not the same observation as “these characters are not in peril,” anyway, so you’re just wrong about that.
You’re the only one saying anything about “pointless”, here. That second paragraph has no relationship with anything I actually said, either. The bit about “because it’s a story” isn’t even my point. You just want to be upset and say I’m wrong, so you’re going out of your way to ignore the actual things I said. It’s worthless behavior.
Your comment seems quite pointlessly unkind to me. I expect Taffy can cope with that, so it probably doesn’t even do any damage. But it looks like it was intended to. Which probably tells me something about you.
The idea that you can read this exchange and think Zero is in the wrong is bizarre to me. At worst, they’re matching Taffy’s tone; it isn’t an unkind escalation, their criticism is accurate and appropriate, and importantly, it’s not personal – it’s aimed at the comment rather than the poster. Your response is none of those things.
The only part Zero got right about anything I said was “these characters are not in peril”. The rest is just nonsense they made up and blamed me for saying, when I wasn’t saying any of it. It’s not my responsibility for people to learn how to read what’s actually on the page instead of inventing points that weren’t made, and they need to stop acting like it is. My “tone” was fine from the start and a useless strawman extrapolation of it doesn’t actually match anything.
The only part I got right was the part you said was completely unrelated?
Damnably, Willis hadn’t noticed Mike had become a main character.
I think killing off Asma would be horrific. She’s a source of many funny comics and I kind of hope Dumbing of Age has more justice than real life.
Wish we’d kept Mike and killed Mary.
I know I say this every time, but Mary is sexier than Mike, so I’m glad she’s still around.
Strongly disagree. Mike over Mary for me, but in my heart and the fanfic I don’t write, Mike is still alive.
This thread is opening my eyes to hitherto unknown Mary/Mike possibilities.
Yes, yes, we get it, you’re very clever and are aware of general plot conventions. Some of us are invested enough in the story to play along. If you aren’t, nobody’s holding a gun to your head to make you keep coming back.
Yeah, all the characters here are either too expendable to matter or not expendable enough. I can see Jocelyne being potentially killed for drama at some point, but not this soon after coming out. Too much Joyce character development to milk out of that dynamic right now.
Now I’m just trying to think if there’s a character that would be in danger if they went to the protest right now… Only one I can think of that doesn’t have some kind of plot armor is maybe Jason? The rest either have too much storyline going on right now or can’t be killed off without multiple other characters being drawn in for the drama.
I agree that Jason is pretty expendable, but the trouble with that is he hasn’t appeared in a while, and it’d be odd for him to randomly show up at this protest just to get deep-sixed. Jocelyne seems like she has too much storytelling potential to die, but I’m starting to wonder if maybe she winds up injured and in the hospital. That’d put her somewhere nearby for long enough to justify Joyce visiting her at least a few times.
I certainly hope Asma does not get snipered, but I wouldn’t be surprised if her being there here and now was not just coincidence but, erm, Checkov’s Muslima.
Willis loves to break our hearts with good writing though, so I fully expect him to be a dick either to a character or to values we care about. Or both.
I agree with this. I think it’s much more likely that Joyce and Dorothy will be in danger socially than physically. Getting arrested together, getting a picture of them kissing at the protest that goes viral, or just getting a lot more into issues outside their tiny lives and more into politics are all much more likely outcomes than “someone important dies”.
I hadn’t considered their inevitable gay kiss being captured in a photo. Now there’s some stakes.
A news photo which Hank will see.
Also, from a different angle, while there’s a temptation to see the sniper as “Chekhov’s sniper”, that takes it well beyond even the reality of American protests. Protesters have been killed by cops, though rarely, but I don’t think there have been any cases of them just being sniped – either out of the blue or in a riot. Deaths and major injuries tend to be from the cops on the ground – usually using less than lethal weapons – tear gas canisters hitting someone, rubber bullets fired directly at the crowd, etc.
The sniper might just be stage setting, to heighten tension. Doesn’t have to actually be used.
It would also take this far beyond any parallel with the actual events at the Dunn Meadow Gaza protests – which did have a sniper and did have police violently clear the meadow and arrest a lot of people, but didn’t involve any fatalities or (iirc) any serious injuries. The likely bad end here is that our cast here gets arrested and roughed up, not that the sniper just murders them or murders someone else in front of them, just because they’re a cop and thus evil.
And that’s bad enough, right?
A night in a jail cell would definitely be an uncommon event for these kids. I’d rather see that than another death.
Actually, I am betting pretty high odds that Jocelyne does get shot and this leads to her being outed to her father. And either Joyce shoves her out of the way to take it (and whoever takes it would at most get a fucked up shoulder out of it on the physical side of things) or Mary mocks Jocelyne and your avatar comes VEEERY close to coming true
You could get essentially the same story arc with Jocelyne being arrested without being shot or by being shot by a riot cop with a rubber bullet or some other common police violence, while staying much more realistic than the sniper opening fire on the crowd.
Joyce having enough and finally strangling Mary against a wall, silent, her face expressionless.
(cue Komm, Susser Tod)
Ignoring for a moment that this is a boring way to evaluate fiction and really does not need to be repeated every single day: the sniper is there because they were there during last year’s college protests that this storyline is directly representing. The threat of violence from the sniper is literally more real than Blaine beating Toedad to death with a hammer, because they actually existed, and will continue to be more real even if no shots are fired.
Yes and no. The snipers were there, but it’s hard to say the threat of violence is more real based on that, since the snipers didn’t actually start murdering protesters. If you want to use parallel to real events to evaluate it, you’ve got to actually use the real events.
What exactly do you think “threat” means? Like, if I hold a loaded gun to your temple but ultimately don’t shoot you, I still threatened you with violence. You could argue semantics over whether or not I actually intended to shoot but it wouldn’t matter, because the presence of the gun is 100% intended as a threat of violence even if it isn’t used.
Thejeff had just been really weird the last few strips about police violence in protest.
And yeah, I’m being really weird about this in response to what I see as a wildly exaggerated idea of the risks of going to a protest. Police violence definitely can happen and is completely indefensible, but your chances of being killed or seriously injured at a protest still aren’t nearly as high as I think some are painting. Most protests aren’t war zones. You’re not taking your life in your hands by protesting, except in rare and pretty identifiable cases.
And I think it’s counterproductive to exaggerate the dangers that way. Yeah, it makes the cops look even worse than they are, but it also discourages people from going out there.
I haven’t seen anybody (in this comment section since last time I said that I was wildly misinterpreted) saying the risk of attending a protest is high. People are saying the risks exist and should be prepared for and minimized when possible.
The risk of my car being in a collision isn’t high but I still wear my seat belt. Your comments the past few days have sounded like you seeing people talking about how they always wear their seat belt and saying they’re over reacting and being in a car isn’t that dangerous.
Difference in reading the tone I guess.
There’ve been multiple posts about who’s going to get shot. That’s where this particular subthread started.
Because this is a story, and it is being the establishef that there is a sniper, in a protest referring very real world issues, it is an entirely reasonable worry.
It’s potentially a threat of violence in the real world and is definitely perceived that way. (Though see other arguments here today for other reasons why snipers might be there.)
I don’t think this sniper is a real threat to these fictional characters in the sense that I don’t think they’re going to be shot by them, both for narrative reasons as Taffy argues and for realism reasons because despite snipers at protests being real, random protesters being murdered by snipers isn’t.
Being murdered by cops on the ground is possible, but still incredibly unlikely. Violence short of that is much more likely.
“Ignoring for a moment that this is a boring way to evaluate fiction”
What, from a structural angle? I’m weighing the likelihood of various outcomes and coming to the positive conclusion that Joyce and Dorothy aren’t likely to get seriously harmed. It’s a positive sentiment, an “I’m not worried for them, watch, they’ll be alright.”
“And does not need to be repeated every single day”
Which hasn’t happened. Why is this even part of the sentence? Why be a cop about things that aren’t happening?
It’s very strange to me that a very entry-level story analysis, made with an understanding of the story in this comic, is getting any pushback at all. Taking the pieces that are there, looking at them together, using them to come to a positive conclusion about where the story seems likely to go, that’s normal. If it bores you and isn’t how you prefer to engage with literature, that’s 100% fine, but there’s no value whatsoever in trying to shut someone down just because you saw them doing it.
And remember kids, none of Dorothy or Joyce’s friends know that they are here! What could go wrong?
*plays Ohio by CSN on the hacked muzak*
Always liked Devo’s cover of it, given that they were there at the time
Being rich and in a position of power must be so nice. Just change the rules on a whim or when someone does something you don’t like. Living above the law and accountability just because you can throw money at a problem until it goes away. Must be nice.
I am appropriately pleased with Dorothy for distinguishing between gargoyles and grotesques.
Yes. That’s a nice call-back.
Who takes out the sniper:
A. Amazi-girl superhero style
B. Dina ninja style
C. Charlie prank style
D. Carla pie style
E. Mike
F. Norville by accident
Mike murder suicide style off the roof again.
A Carla-Charlie-Dina teamup. Dina makes them invisible; Charlie gets them up on the roof; Carla ties the sniper’s bootlaces together _and_ swaps out the actual sniper rifle with a looney-toons fake copy that splats a cream pie in the sniper’s face.
For character development purposes it should be Carla. Maybe threatening to sue them.
E, but I’m afraid they will need a medium, or a Phoenix Down item.
If it’s something a Phoenix Down can fix, at least we know they’ll live. Silver linings and all.
Mike is the sniper.
Why would anyone take out the sniper? He or she is there to defend the students AGAINST a shooter, not to shoot the students.
That’s a very funny joke.
Are you unclear about what the word “sniper” means? They are literally a shooter. And they are literally aiming at the students because the only other people there are cops and the occasional random bystander and I don’t think they care enough about the random bystanders, and the police sniper definitely won’t be shooting at the cops.
Right – a sniper is a shooter, there to take out anyone who starts shooting.
“And they are literally aiming at the students ….”
They are literally aiming at no one because right now in this story arc there is no one that represents a threat. Should someone represent a threat they will then aim at that person and shoot them.
Yes, because cops have such a great record of not shooting protesters. (not serious)
oh.
Yeah, it seems like things are gonna get a bit darker than usual, soon.
Now, I’m worried a little more about Asma, than Joyce and Dorothy.
Plot Twist: Asma is a Bulmerian sleeper agent who exists to turn the protest into a massive riot so public opinion can be turned against the oppressed minority.
shut the fuck up, what the actual shit is wrong with you? making terrorist jokes about visibly muslim characters might be okay in whatever reddit you frequent, but in this circle we’re going to hit you with fucking bricks. eat galss
It also smacks of antisemitic conspiracism to my ear, what with implying Israel would be manipulating protests to such elaborate ends. Two-for-one special. The bigotries tend to be linked.
I protested the Israeli genocide of Gaza. I also believe bad actors very much are employed by the police and United States to justify genocide and discredit counter-fascism. I don’t abide by the belief that criticism of Israel’s current party (especially Netanyahu) is Antisemitism and I don’t believe that Trump is above labeling nonviolent protests as terrorists.
Asma is a fictional character and this is a dramedy comic. Real people should not be equated with them. Throwing around the kind of talking points of MAGA and fascist apologia here is not cool, especially to real posters.
Man you make a bad taste joke and people called you out on it, fuck off with this bullshit justification.
I fully admit it’s a bad joke born from a desire to think of this as a fictional over the top event and sadly not our reality. I have no desire to argue with people I agree with either when I live in the Deepest of the Red States in RL.
While replies unhappy with this comment are entirely reasonable, I think (as in my personal opinion) a response suggesting violent actions is not reasonable.
Congrats to those who called it.
Ah, universities. Don’t worry in like 10, 20 years they’ll celebrate this historic record of youth political activity. If I sound cynical, that is because; I am a Californian.
“One day everyone will have always been against this” to quote a current book title.
Thanks for the bringing this book to my attention. Do you recommend it?
I haven’t read it but if you’re into political nonfiction about the current events it’s probably a future classic from what I’ve heard.
I knew I had very good reasons to be worried about Joyce and Dorothy going to this protest.
It’s weird how Willis wrote this a year and more ago, and these situations are literally happening right now in USA… and things are going to get worse. :O
Willis… the time traveler? <.<
Or an empathetic person with common sense that saw what was coming?
I'll believe the time traveler angle for the time.
This happened last year with the gaza protests
There were anti-genocide pro-Palestine protests happening on many college campuses last year. I’m assuming Willis was thinking of them, and particularly the protests at Indiana University in Bloomington where this comic is set, when he made these strips.
In fact, there were protests at colleges and universities in almost every US state last year.
It’s a thing that gives me hope. People are standing up.
… Hey, hey alt-text? Don’t fucking say that!
Oh, that’s not good.
*goes to recheck the alt text*
I second “don’t say that”
Honestly, considering the crap that’s been happening in this school as of late, a sniper and police being super paranoid feels warranted.
No
“Considering the number of times campus police have failed to stop violent crimes being committed against their students, pointing guns at their students feels warranted.”
Hmmmmmmmmmm…
Most sadly, that’s the exact “logic” that modern “warrior cop” organizations use when faced with protests. They’re always prepared to escalate, while rarely prepared to de-escalate.
Ah, right, I kind of forgot those are American cops.
grow up
Way too old for that and I’ve seen too many terrorist attacks in the West not to appreciate the need for cops.
aren’t you pigs usually too busy shooting dogs and kidnapping babies to be reading webcomics? why are you here?
Not a cop, not even an American, taking a little break from frantically preparing for Russia invading us.
Megan, what is with this hate talk?
When people are vocally supporting fascist regimes, it tends to piss people off, hope that helps
Yeah because talking about how there might be a reason why cops are trying to secure a place for everyone’s safety because of past disasters is suddenly waving my arm in the air like certain Melon.
Yes. It is. Yes, praising the police and saying that military opposition to peaceful, anti-war protests being deserved because of “everyone’s safety” while slyly removing people who think genocide is bad from “everyone” is a nazi dogwhistle. You don’t need to be throwing heils for people to clock you.
Being pro-police state is fascist. Trying to act like the police are aiding the common good instead of being violent, racist armed thugs used by the government to crush dissent and sow chaos makes you either incredibly stupid, unobservant, and pedantic, or it makes you a sympathizer. Cops are not your friend unless you’re a billionaire or a klan member. Pretending otherwise, when they have guns aimed at children, makes you sound like a nazi goon.
You don’t get to play ‘oh but sometimes’ in a comment section of a comic written by and for leftist queers. Bring this shit to our house and you will get called out for the rancid bullshit you spew. We are done being nice, our lives are on the line, millions of *other peoples* lives are on the line, and we’re done letting fash-apologists like you walk all over us and pretend everything’s fine. Pack up, go home, fuck off.
You are putting a lot of crap in my mouth that I didn’t make.
“Hey I’ve only been here for a few minutes, what’s going on?”
–
LennyDorothy and JoyceFreshman year I worked the Front Desk at McNutt in the late ’90s and there was a group of girls that called me Center Desk Boy for all 4 years of college.
Football Games, Yogi’s (where i worked more than McNUtt) Frat Parties. Center Desk Boy
I mean, there may not be a grotesque, but it’s pretty grotesque
It’s okay. If that’s Chekhov’s sniper, he probably left his rifle hanging on a wall somewhere.
You’re right! I waw almost worried for a minute there ^^
The Relationship Paladins are gaining ground…
Not nearly enough ground. We’ve been stuck at 42% for a couple days now.
Ha HA! You’ll never catch up to us Sex Sickos! (aka, the Amberites)
The poll agonizes me because I am a total yuri sicko, but only for complex, nuanced character arcs. I see and support Joyce/Dorothy, but we just haven’t had enough time with Joe/Joyce for me to be comfortable moving on. Break his heart if you have to, but it’s only been like 2-3 days!! There’s so much more character development that he and Joyce could do for each other, and she could still go for Dorothy after!
Sadly I must lend my critical support to relationship paladins on this cause.
It’s possible this storyline could win me back if they go off and have some very gay experiences together, and then the reveal is that Joyce doesn’t process any of this as real, and goes back to Joe while leaving Dorothy even more shattered than before. That is pretty much what it would take at this point.
I’m that exact kind of sicko, but in a two-party system I gotta vote for the relationship paladins. The greater of two evils.
I don’t think Joyce would Dorothy Dorothy, but that would be funny in a very messed up and kind of problematic way if that happened.
The sickos fell a bit bad for them.
I don’t trust those trustees >_>
Nowadays they’re mostly businesspeople. And profit-driven. Whereas colleges and universities are not intended to be profit-driven. The cultural and mindframe conflict causes more harm than good.
This is America, the land of the free (unless we can find a way to charge you for it) everything is intended to be profit driven. /s
i hoped it might just get played off but the alt text makes me more nervous
Please, please don’t hurt Jocelyne.
Hoping Willis wouldn’t fridge the fan-beloved trans sister of the main character, just for some protagonist character growth, but I do believe someone may get hurt
I feel like Joyce is a good character but can be replaced by her sister.
So clearly she’ll be the martyr.
(Joking! Joking!)
School shootings do happen, and a crowd of people you can count on being unarmed is a tempting target. A police sniper would be a useful thing to have around in case someone shows up with murderous intent to take advantage of that.
100% not what they’re there for.
What makes you say that?
American cops aren’t there to prevent violence, only ever to perform or instigate it. I had a gun pointed at me while I was trying to commit suicide, last year. It was very confusing.
Jesus fucking Christ!!!! I’m so sorry you went through that!
Don’t be, it doesn’t really matter here except to help illustrate how trigger-happy and bloodthirsty our cops are.
You don’t have police snipers around when there’s, say, a school sanctioned festival with snacks and games on campus drawing a big crowd to a particular spot.
me when i’m 7 and think cops are the good guys
Introducing more guns to a situation rarely makes the options of getting shot less. I trust the police to more likely shoot innocents in the crowd (by accident let’s say) than to take out a crazy MAGA trying to spree kill protestors. Which is by far the most likely murder situation.
But can you cound on them being unarmed? Esp. if the police turn up armed? States that allow concealed carry could definitely end up with some protestors and some counter protestors armed, in a crowd, where feelings are running high. he very best was to start uncontrollable violence is to appear ready to meet violence with violence.
Well, shoulda proof read that before clicking on post, but you get my drift.
I presume Dunn Meadow is a large common space on the IU campus. As such it is there for everyone’s use, not just for one self-appointed group to commandeer for their own purposes for an indefinite period.
Without dismissing your point, a protest is by nature meant to be disruptive so that people are forced to face the uncomfortable fact that the people are protesting.
The First Amendment requires the government to defend people’s right to peaceably assemble. But government entities are permitted to set limits on how long a given group can monopolize public spaces rather than permitting the public at large to use that space. Generally, overnight encampments are banned in public spaces unless you get a permit from the location’s governing authority.
dismissing your point, you need to find a moral compass that doesn’t point towards ‘nazi apologia’
Arguing with Ron’s point is one thing, (almost, but with plausible deniability) accusing Ron of being a Nazi apologist, looks pretty aggressive. Why the over the top reactions?
i think if people prevent someone from hanging out in a meadow they should be shot
“i think if people prevent someone from hanging out in a meadow they should be shot”
Asking for the police, mayor, and government (the most likely to preventy someone from hanging out in a meadow) to get shot is calling for rebellion. I’m not saying I disagree, just clarifying what you just said.
Rebellion is a good thing, when people with good ideas are being intimidated with the intent to silence them.
are you
are you really
Right to assembly, falls under the 1st amendment. Please stop falling into the fascist ideology hole.
I also believe if it is illegal, that doesn’t make it wrong. Civil disobedience in the face of unjust laws is justified.
What do you mean by commandeer? None of the protestors are keeping anyone else out anymore than a random jogger is – the only place they’re taking up is the physical space taken up by their body.
If you mean the protestors you’re saying other people are only allowed to take up space as long as they don’t in any way inconvenience you, which is not what sharing space means.
Reporting, this is some weirdo stuff.
Dunn Meadow has a long history of being a protest site and free speech designated zone. You can read about it here in the Indiana Daily Student Newspaper: https://www.idsnews.com/article/2024/06/opinion-guest-column-dunn-meadow-protests-assembly-ground-israel-palestine-students-arrests-iu-bloomington
Besides that, though, the 2024 pro-Palestine encampment really only took up half of the meadow. There was still a large area (closer to Indiana Ave) that was not occupied by protestors. Usual outdoor activities like students studying, playing volleyball, etc. continued there.
This comic is really bringing out the nazi lovers today
Chekov’s sniper goes home that evening after a completely peaceful and uneventful day, decides that he’s had enough of his horrible job and wants a career change, goes back to university, turns his life around, saves the entire cast from an attempted kidnapping/murder, takes a bullet in the chest and is sent to the hospital, DOES NOT DIE, realises a lot about himself, enters a loving relationship with his childhood best friend, winks at the camera, end of Dumbing of Age.
(The sniper supplanted the main character in an homage to Roomies, btw)
Amazi-Girl appears behind the sniper and breaks the rifle in two rendering it unrepairable. She knocks out the guard and the sniper and ties the both up together back to back and uses their own handcuffs to prevent them from untying themselves.
I look forward to Chekov’s Amazi-Girl punting a sniper off the building.
A protest
Fenced in
A sniper on a roof
I’ve seen Andor and now I’m VERY worried
Huge bonus for Dorothy’s self-correction.
Grotesques are the statues. Gargoyles are the statues if they’re serving as downspouts/to direct water.
we’ll ask about AG’s thoughts on firearms if we want to
A friend compared the Andor massacre in Season 2 to a RL event. I was like, “It’s similar to hundreds of RL events from every nation on Earth throughout history.”
Yeah, but the writers likely only intended the scene to be an allegory to like 3 of them max. Maybe 4.
So in the comic universe, it takes 24 hours worth of protests to get police to show up with fences, guns, and a sniper to face off the scary, scary protesters.
In the “real life example,” it was after 100 consecutive days of camping out and protesting.
Not that bringing a sniper out is really an appropriate response, unless you think there’s going to be actual armed resistance. But there’s a huge difference between a forced removal of a weekend protest, with like a day’s notice, compared to something that’s been up for over three months.
I guess DoA’s police are just 100x more trigger happy than IRL police?
This is starting to get weird on your part.
It really doesn’t serve anyone to portray protests as this incredibly dangerous thing, except for the people who want to prevent protests from happening.
I get it if you see that differently. There’s another mindset out there, that goes, “Why, if people can see just how much they fear us, and just how far they’re willing to go to put us down, then of COURSE they’d protest!”
And that does get a certain type of person. That’s the same sort of person who sees the police getting ready, sees the sniper, and thinks, “Yes, that’s it, we’re provoking them, this is going to look so bad on TV.”
That sentiment does embolden the people who are very upset and get them to commit. But it scares other people away. Joyce was practically looking for any way to affirm her sister and spend more time with her, but the thought of joining her never even crossed her mind. She and Dorothy right now would do ANYTHING to be away from this protest.
Jocylene attended the protest. Her sister didn’t attend. Her friends didn’t attend. As we can tell from Carla and Charlie, many people on campus who aren’t attending believe the protestors are in the right. That’s a ton of people who otherwise could have been there that weren’t. Protests are led by people who are extremely passionate, but they are made stronger by numbers. And once there, surrounded by other like-minded people, you become passionate even if you were just kind of for it before.
So yes. Especially now, when there’s so much out there to protest and so much to stand up for, it rubs me the wrong way that this is being portrayed as, not just more dangerous than it actually is, but that the characters just take it as a *given* that it’s more dangerous. Like “Ah, of course, the sniper’s in position, must mean it’s 4:00. Thank goodness I deleted my browsing history before I showed up, that would be so embarrassing for my parents to find.”
You’ve got the timeline wrong—the snipers, police presence, and arrests at IU all happened very early on while school was still in session in April. The encampment lasted 100 days total and was finally disbanded in August. Here is a retrospective article by the Indiana Daily Student Newspaper that also contains a lot of links to articles they published as the events occurred: https://www.idsnews.com/article/2025/05/encampment-iu-palestine-protest-one-year
Ignore the troll, you’re saying a lot that makes sense
I wish we would all ignore the troll!
Ferguson, 2014
August 10: protests
August 18: national guard
That’s 8 days
I was there on IU Bloomington’s campus when it happened. The protests were going on for a couple of weeks beforehand, and the tents themselves were there for a few days. It wasn’t “100 consecutive days of camping out.”
The time difference is clearly for narrative reasons — if he paced it realistically, it would take so long for the story to get there that the events wouldn’t be as fresh or relevant. (Willis was probably writing it into the story as it was happening.)
I don’t think that’s actually true for the Dunn Meadow protests.
The rules were changed the day the protest began and the cops cleared the next day. Or maybe the same day?
There might have been protests already, but not an encampment.
Or am I being horribly misled by year old news stories?
According to this, the encampment was formed April 25th, the policy was written on July 29th, going into effect on August 1st, with the police clearing on August 2nd.
https://www.idsnews.com/article/2024/08/iu-clears-pro-palestine-encampment-in-dunn-meadow
I mean, I wasn’t watching this in the news at the time. I’m just looking it up after the fact. So my information is only as good as the news articles that I’m finding today.
But the protestors were allowed there for 100 days, and apparently did about $100,000 worth of damage. In comparison, the protesters on today’s comic have been there for one night, and the campus has, in effect, called in SWAT.
Actually – doing more digging – what I posted above looks incomplete.
Looks like there WAS a forced arrest and removal of some people on April 25th. https://www.aol.com/state-police-detain-pro-palestine-003552244.html
So… then what happened altogether? Police broke it up, but then didn’t break it up? They arrested people for pitching tents, but then let them continue to keep their tents up?
Somethings not making sense here.
In any case, looks like I was wrong about how quickly force was assembled. Damn.
I’m not looking up that much about this specific protest, but sometimes what happens is that powers in place turn to force quickly, try to cut things right off, but then community or other people of influence are like, “Hey, whoa, what they’re doing is legal,” and then some of the force recedes until they can change the law to make what they don’t like illegal.
Here, there are powers coming at this from different angles, including state police and the university leaders, who may want (or be pressured to) take different approaches.
This leads to interesting possibilities from a narrative point of view. (And I’m sure Willis has a much better idea of what happened there than I do.)
I was a little surprised this came to a head so quickly, since I expected it to be at least part an excuse to have Jocelyne hanging around campus for awhile, but if there was an initial crackdown, followed by a longer encampment, that lets us have the early dramatic moment, but still keep her around.
Also here is confirmation of police sniper(s) on April 25th and 26th specifically: https://www.snopes.com/news/2024/04/26/snipers-college-protests-gaza/
Jocelyn has been there one day. Do we know how long the protest in general has been going on?
That’s an interesting point. You should look back and find out.
In the real world, cops often show up within hours or even minutes after a protest starts. Especially if that protest could in any way be consider subversive to power structures, such as anti-war and anti-genocide protests.
Well keep in mind all the nonsense that happened here in the last half a year. Being overly cautious makes sense.
There’s being overly cautious, and then there’s putting a sniper on a roof with the intent to intimidate people who are saying things you don’t like. The latter is what’s happening here. That loser with a gun isn’t there to stop another loser with a gun, it’s there to make the protesters afraid. There is no argument that justifies putting a sniper in place over a bunch of people just trying to be heard.
I guess yes and no? Like I get it, cops have a very bad reputation, often deservedly so. But at the same time, one maniac with a gun, a maniac with a knife, kidnappers. That’s a lot of nonsense to happen in such a short time in one place and with this kind of protest you are looking at potential maniac who disagrees with the protesters.
That maniac who disagrees with the protesters is most likely to be the sniper or its boss, though. There’s nothing to be gained from treating cops like people.
Nope. Regimes usually fall when the security aparatus decides to side with the opposition. You gain nothing from giving them all the reason to stick with the current regime because they have no way out.
If one faggot saying they’re subhuman makes them feel like they have to be fashy murderers, they’d already made that decision.
Yeah, and that maniacs more likely to be on the fucking roof with a sniper rifle than shot at by the guy holding the sniper rifle.
Yeah, and he’s up on the roof with a rifle right now.
Crazy theory.
Hank shows up to talk to Jocelyn and ends up taking a bullet for his daughter.
Even crazier theory: It happens at night, Hank catches the bullet between his fingers, flicks it back directly into the gun, and reveals the sniper is a vampire and the Brown bloodline has been hunting them for centuries.
“Damn you Hank brown! You haven’t seen the last of the vampire robots!”*
*see the comments section for ‘Saturday’ to get this reference
https://www.dumbingofage.com/2025/comic/book-15/04-the-only-exception/saturday/
I don’t know, Dorothy, a sniper on a rooftop at a college campus protest seems pretty damn grotesque to me.