I’m just imagining, like, Dorothy’s face surgically attached to Joyce’s torso, like that one terrible DC event (don’t recall the name) where somebody turned people into robot spider zombie things with big, easily-damaged weak spots.
That specific bit of stupidity was Black Canary’s face (Just her face) grafted onto Frankenstein’s chest. Which somehow is able to use her super screaming power.
Because of course super-scream powers are located entirely in the face meat, not the lungs or throat. That’d be silly.
I’m both horrified and horrifically intrigued by the question of just how fucking bad her mental state is about to get. Just how much lower the universe is going to push her, how the hell she’s going to pick up all the shattered pieces of her life, and what she’s going to build out of what’s left over.
Like, up until Joyrothy happened– hell, up until Becky’s “God is fake“– I had thought that Beckasaur was unsinkable. The one constant. Now that it’s over… I mean, all bets are off. About the only certainly I have left is that Willis ain’t gonna kill either of them.
A bit early to call it over. It’s definitely on the rocks, and this blow-up could well sink them, but there’s still a chance Becky can salvage things. If Dina will accept an apology, anyway.
The universe ain’t doing shit to her in this instance. This is all on her. She built up an idea in her own mind that she can’t cope with being untrue, and if she really believed that Joyce was gonna return her feelings, she wouldn’t have fooled around with her roommate and got kicked out of the christian school in the first place. If her idea of her and Joyce were true, then she cheated and never felt a moment of guilt. Becky is selfish and deluded, aka a Christian. And Dina is nobody’s consolation prize!
This is certainly one of the takes of all time. “If she really believed that Joyce was gonna return her feelings, she wouldn’t have fooled around with her roommate and got kicked out of the christian school” is so egregiously slut-shamey, and if you’re going to claim that it’s how you think Becky would feel about the situation — it absolutely isn’t, she would not characterize her and Kaitlin mutually discovering their deeply, painfully repressed sexuality together as “fooling around”, and the assertion that kissing someone other than Joyce is somehow proof that Becky’s feelings for Joyce are shallow or whatever absolutely came from your own head, friend, and not this comic or any of its characters.
For example, if you had ever said something like “Mike is a force of nature and can’t be destroyed,” he would want you to consider the possibility that if you hadn’t said that, Mike might still be around.
Or if say, someone had said, back when two characters broke up, “Willis wants us to hate him,” and you had responded, “Nah, if Willis wanted us to hate him then he would have broken up Dina and Becky,” then the chances you would have influenced what Willis subsequently did are miniscule. But Mike would have wanted to remind you of what you said at every opportunity.
People with vaginas do like sex, but usually the dryers getting humped are in private homes.
Usually.
That said, it’s a comic and the scene used what was available to give them that kind of moment. It’s weird to me how many people are still hung up on it being in public. Like no one’s ever fucked in hidden away public areas with a risk of being busted.
Like they aren’t also complaining about Dorothy and Joyce being too vanilla. Which I do agree with.
It being in public isn’t the issue for me, at least, I’m fully in favor of public shenanigans (and yes, doing it more often would make these two more interesting to me lol).
I would put forward that most people do something at some point in their life that could be described in a way that “most people don’t do X specifically”.
All of that is aside that Dorothy is not asserting anything about laundry being “normal”, she is asserting that it was not her and Joyce having sex with one another. It was way gayer than that
So I am of course perfectly aware that people use dryers to get off, but most people do not drag their best friends that they’re sublimating romantic feelings for to one to masturbate for the first time with the explicit purpose of sabotaging their courtship with a potential paramour they are jealous of.
Yeah, but people don’t beat up college criminals in hero costume, or Akira slide to class on their motorcycle. Most people aren’t as cool as Amber, Sal, or Dorothy.
I mean, not to defend Dorothy in that sequence, but I think what she was actually consciously trying to do was bad enough without any exaggeration.
She didn’t think Joe was courting Joyce, she thought Joe was just trying to get into Joyce’s pants — and she similarly didn’t think Joyce could possibly be interested in someone like that, so she decided to teach Joyce to masturbate with the expectation that a more clearheaded Joyce would realize she didn’t really want to be with Joe.
And also because Roz accused her of being slut-shamey with her earlier, more normally expressed concerns, and Dorothy wanted to prove Roz wrong. She very expressly mutters under her breath that this is an “innovative, sex-positive solution that is not just perpetuating the status quo… Roz.” (https://www.dumbingofage.com/2023/comic/book-13/02-turning-saints-into-the-sea/relieve/)
There was, of course, also jealousy happening, but I think if she’d actually believed Joe had sincere romantic aspirations for Joyce and wasn’t still thinking of him as the sex pest she’d known him to be for like 5 years, she would have also known that trying to herd Joyce away from him was a Weird thing to do, and it would’ve stayed bitter confusing jealousy, like what we saw later from her in the gym.
“she would have also known that trying to herd Joyce away from him was a Weird thing to do”
To stress: I am not saying that teaching a friend to masturbate isn’t kind of weird in itself, though I’m sure it’s happened at least once platonically.
What I mean is that if Dorothy had actually thought of what she was doing as “sabotaging [a romantic] courtship”, the cognitive dissonance (“wait, WHY am I doing this?”) would have been too much for her to get past.
yeah, it’s kind of wild– nobody pretended billie/ruth was healthy or smart, dorothy and joyce can be cute to some folks without them pretending the girls can/have done no wrong
“Nobody pretended Billie/Ruth was healthy or smart”
Well, no, I don’t think people pretended to think that. I think people genuinely did think that they eventually reached a point of healthiness, though, and I think one of the people who thought that was Willis. Reread “This Was Halloween”.
Folks keep forgetting that Billie and Ruth had both stopped drinking, that Ruth was on antidepressants and Billie was in therapy, BEFORE they broke up. In that storyline, Billie is talking about introducing Ruth to her parents. Ruth sabotages everything because she’s too afraid that someday, depression might win again, and if it wins, it might cause her to drag Billie down with her. She broke up with Billie in an effort to save her life.
Also, Billie and Ruth were pretty unhealthy to start with. Ruth knew she was depressed to the point of eventually being suicidal. Their twisted relationship was actually very good for them. It was the Mary inspired withdrawal from the relationship which set things off. Without Jenifer and Carla, Ruth would likely be dead and with her alcoholism, Jenifer would have been a ticking time bomb. So, yeah, in their own way they were healthy for each other.
The amusing thing to me about reactions to the Ruth/Jennifer relationship is commenters seem pretty equally divided on who was abusive in the relationship. Lots of people think it was bad and someone was abusing someone, but which way it goes flips from person to person and which aspect of the story arc they were focusing on.
That’s because people need there to be a one-sided nature to the abuse, so they can assign blame. The concept of a mutually toxic relationship is a bit much for a lot of folks. (Personally, I figure their relationship was mutually toxic, but they actually brought it to a better place, then Ruth imploded it.)
I think it’s genuinely weird how people are upset about them cheating when they broke up with their previous boyfriends within 48 hours. The only thing that’s even questionable is Joyce giving a blowjob to Joe after kissing Dorothy, and that’s cheating on Dorothy who didn’t seem to care.
I’m not saying they did good or anything. But it very much feels to me like if people were arguing for 30 years of jail time over stealing some candy. So kinda uno-reverse: it’s weird how this community is ready to jump up in arms over minor things when it’s lesbians doing them.
1. They aren’t lesbians.
2. ’30 years of jailtime’ most people who aren’t just drop-in weirdos want something more on the lines of, like. More than one person saying ‘hey that wasn’t cool.’ Feels dull.
Joyce, despite her trepidation about PIV sex, very much enjoyed her times with Joe as well, and in the Walkyverse she is of course happily married to a man with whom she regularly enjoys fulfilling sex.
Specifically, I was really hoping this could bring some conflict between Walky and Dorothy about how thoughtlessly Dorothy has treated him throughout the strip’s run, but it really looks like that’s just not happening.
I am holding out hope that it is still coming. It’s only been a few hours after all. Getting the cold shoulder from Walky during their shared classes would speak volumes.
Joe though, the man pretty much thoroughly has lost his dignity in this exchange. Even offered himself up as a side piece.
The breakup with Joe remains… incomplete. I’m absolutely not saying “ZOMGZ it’s cheating, hang ’em high”; just that there’s this unresolved issue that’s going to cause a bit more drama at some point.
She hasn’t actually fully dumped Joe, is part of it; and she was close enough friends with the guy before they started dating that the way she’s treated him feels… Cruel? Like a bit of a swerve?
I’ll be real though, the part of this that bothers me the most is just that I aggressively dislike Dorothy and have for years lol. She’s self important, self centered, and the way she’s treated everyone has at some point rubbed me the wrong way– even Joyce! I’m not gonna say that she doesn’t deserve love, but I think she’s frankly more interesting as someone unsympathetic the cast tries to fix than as someone who gets what she wants.
There’s absolutely nothing amazing about it at all. I can very easily and simply explain to you why people are so willing to forgive or not care about them cheating.
Because it’s fiction.
None of Joyce and Dorothy’s relationships are real, because Joyce and Dorothy themselves are not real people. If you like a character or a ship, it is real easy to brush aside negatives when those negatives are not actually real.
And even if they were real, the people who were cheated on themselves are less broken up about it than the people in the comments complaining about it are.
That last point is actually one complaint with the story. To some of us, it feels like the narrative is minimizing the cheating by having the two directly affected not seem to care about that aspect. Walky seems to be upset about being dumped and Joe is being self-sacrificing and still clinging to hope, and those are narrative choices, because as you say, they’re not real people. They’re fiction.
Yeah, sorry to break it to you, but Joe and Walky’s behaviour are both much more normal than the people leaving comments. Like Joe said, they’ve been dating less than two weeks, they’re not married, they’re not sharing a place together, they’ve only barely started dating. This is not ‘serious committed relationship that’s being violated’, even if Joe still wants to hold out hope that maybe it might be someday. Meanwhile Walky and Dorothy were back together for even less time than that. While both of them have the right to be angry over it, they can’t be THAT angry, and if either one of them were absolutely destroyed by what happened, it would reflect worse on them for having emotionally committed WAY too fucking soon. ESPECIALLY in Walky’s case. Joe has a bit more room to be angry but Joe also still has the maturity to recognize this is not the end of the world and it may be possible to work things through still (and I hope they do, I wanna see the poly ship!)
They don’t need to be “THAT angry”, whatever you mean by that. They don’t need to be “absolutely destroyed” or “end of the world”.
And it’s not like they’re not emotionally affected anyway, it’s just that in both cases it seems focused on getting dumped rather than being cheated on. Joe’s still pining, hoping she won’t really leave him. Walky’s drowning his sorrows in nuggets. Like, the same level of reaction, but channeled into “I deserve better than being cheated on” would suffice for me.
How would that look different? When I got cheated on IRL, I basically did what Walky did, except with fanfiction instead of McNuggets. I’m not sure what it is people want to see from Walky and Joe that’s different from what they’re doing. Righteous anger?
@Astariel: “what people want” isn’t just one thing, though.
I think for a lot of folks, mostly what it comes down to is: “I want to see any indication that Willis agrees that what Joyce and Dorothy did to get here is wrong.”
Most folks don’t, I don’t think, have any one specific consequence in mind, though some people have certainly said they either hoped or expected that Joyce and Dorothy would lose at least some of their friends.
But I think there’s an understandable discomfort when an artist seems to strongly disagree with you about whether a given (fictional) action is right or wrong, and when a given fictional character is in “the right” or not.
Also let me be very clear that I am not assigning any moral value to this discomfort. I think it’s always jarring when a storyteller makes a leap like this without you on board for it.
(Personally, I don’t actually agree that Willis thinks Joyce and Dorothy are in “the right” here, and I do think there are probably more social consequences coming. I also think that it’s already taken too long for a lot of readers, and that Joyce and Dorothy being obliviously happy while Joe and Walky and Becky and Dina are all varying degrees of miserable is rubbing salt in the wound in a way that is unlikely to be forgiven by those readers.
Like, I personally think it’s dramatic irony, rather than Willis dancing on the metaphorical graves of the Joe/Joyce / Walky/Dorothy / Becky/Dina relationships? But I can understand feeling differently.
And I think that, when you feel like Willis is dancing on those graves, you’re unlikely to be particularly mollified by the kind of smaller-potatoes consequences we’re likely to see.
Like, if Walky says one cutting thing to Dorothy and then stops hanging out with Joyce — if Sal quietly follows his lead — if Jennifer further withdraws from Joyce and Dorothy… that might have been enough if it had happened immediately, but by this point I think it will fall flat with the folks who want consequences.
I think at THIS point, given the above feelings, anything that leaves the Dorothy/Joyce relationship still intact and happy together is likely to not feel like enough, even if it would’ve been enough a month ago.)
(Also: I’m not saying it wouldn’t be enough for ANYBODY. I’m saying that after the anticipation has been drawn out to this extent, is unlikely to be enough for even most of the people who had hoped for exactly those things two months ago.
Which I think is just human nature, and not anybody trying to be unpleaseable?
Like, I am not talking about the folks who have used this whole thing as an excuse to be homophobic, and I’m not talking about the puritanical fringe who do keep popping up and pretty much directly saying Joyce and Dorothy need to “suffer”.
Those people exist, we’re not making them up to get mad at, but they’re definitely not the majority here. The majority here are just, I think, frustrated by not being on the same page as Willis, and they’ve been on different pages for so long that I think even if Willis dovetails the way I think they will, I doubt they’ll course-correct enough for it to feel like… “oh, that was worth waiting for.”
At best, I think a lot of readers are just going to wind up feeling deflated, like: “okay, I… got what I technically said I wanted two months ago, so I guess I no longer have the right to be mad.” Which is not a much more fun position to be in, emotionally.)
@Li: Thank you for at least internalizing what a lot of have actually been saying. Its less about finding it ‘morally awful’ or anything, and just finding it unsatisfying.
(The slow pacing is NOT helping, and previews from next August make it feel like, unless there’s a BIG flip coming, we’re still gonna be not too removed from this storyline. In which case, ooooooh boy.
@Donovan: I’ve just been listening. And I’ve been there, even though I’m not where y’all are right now?
I think “suspension of disbelief” applies to a lot more than just superheroic feats of strength. I think there’s a type of suspension of disbelief that makes characters feel like real people to us, and gives us faith in a specific storyteller’s ability to tell stories. A lot of different things can damage that suspension of disbelief, but when it breaks, there’s not always a way back to the previous level of enjoyment of and confidence in a story.
If DoA was a drive through the countryside, Joyce/Dorothy was Willis hitting a bump in the road that some of experienced as a pleasant moment of weightlessness (not unlike with a rollercoaster), and others of us experienced as a painful lurch that left us with bumps and bruises.
And some of us appear to have been thrown tiredly clear of the vehicle, heh.
To add to your point, Li, and give a specific example:
My white whale in all of this, my ideal consequence, is Walky having to confront and acknowledge the fact that the way Dorothy has treated him for their entire acquaintance has been wrong. It’s been thoughtless, it’s been careless, and it’s been occasionally deeply hurtful for him, but he has thus far refused to remove Dorothy from the pedestal he has placed her on – even when she pushes and pulls at him, putting them on break then going back right away for sex, even when she pushes him to date Lucy (something that inadvertently caused the collapse of one of his few friendships at IU when the relationship imploded) and then threw herself at him a few days later. Even when she slid herself back into the position of his girlfriend and cheated on him four days later. He has never acknowledged that Dorothy does not treat him the way a partner should, and has been consistently unfair with him, although she has acknowledged it (while not changing her behavior). I want him to face up to the fact that the first girl he ever invested his heart into ended up treating him very thoughtlessly, and I’d like for him to talk to her about it. It’d be a bonus if he gets mad about it! I want Walky to react in ways that aren’t just sadness, and I want to see a bit more of his angry streak.
That’s my ideal consequence in all of this. That and messy poly between Joe/Joyce/Dorothy.
Frankly, this could be a 100% accurate depiction of real things that really happened and I would have zero issue with Joyce and Dorothy. They got caught up in an emotional moment then did the responsible thing by breaking up with their boyfriends in a reasonably timely fashion. I don’t think they did anything particularly wrong other than being messy and human, which is not their fault, we all are messy humans.
Joe and Walky’s reactions also seem natural enough, because on some level they both knew this would happen.
I’m right there with you. If they had realized they were in love but dutifully broke up with Joe and Walky before the kiss, it would change nothing at all. They would feel the same amount of hurt for the same reasons. Both men seem pretty clear that their relationships just weren’t that kind of commitment. The people constantly barking about cheating seem to be doing so in a purely letter-of-the-law sort of way. It’s TECHNICALLY cheating and therefore Walky and Joe OUGHT to feel a certain way rather than letting the relationships be what they are and letting the men feel what they do.
And in fact Joe helped instigate it by forcing Dorothy to confront what she wanted. I don’t think Joe did this unintentionally or in ignorance of the risks.
Please go back and read the Jacob/Joyce storyline comments. It’s not “because lesbians”. The comment section divide now, as then, is about half “because shippers”, half “because sincere disagreement on whether or not this counts as cheating”.
Some folks really want what is happening here to be “everyone agrees with me that the protest kiss counts as cheating, some people are just making excuses and pretending to disagree that it’s cheating because they want Joyce and Dorothy not to have done anything wrong”. What is actually happening here is “sometimes, people sincerely disagree about whether xyz counts as cheating”.
I’m not part of that second group, by the way. I do think they cheated. So there’s no need to try to convince me that you are empirically correct.
I just get a little exhausted by the consistent mischaracterization, especially the way it just refuses to accept the idea that sometimes people have different values.
What frustrates me is that so many people seem to be unwilling to consider any nuance whatsoever with cheating. The conversation begins and ends with “cheating is bad, therefore anyone who does something other than the maximally moral thing is evil”. Someone seeks out multiple affairs while their devoted spouse gets cancer treatment just because sex is fun and they think they can get away with it? “Absolute monster.” Two closeted people discover they’re attracted to one another, cross a line they did not intend to cross, and wake up the very next morning and break up with their week-long partners* to pursue a relationship together? “Exactly the same degree of monster.”
Yes, cheating is bad by definition. And yes, kissing someone else when you’re in a (implicitly?) monogamous relationship is cheating. But not all bad things are equally bad. Honestly, this whole fan war makes me think we need different words for a sustained, intentional infidelity on one hand, and attempted serial monogamy where the proper paperwork didn’t get filed at the correct time on the other.
Joyce and Dorothy messed up, even considering the mitigating circumstances. But honestly, between Sarah’s and Becky’s responses, I feel like they’ve already faced social consequences more than commensurate to the wrongdoing they actually did.
(*Yes, I am of the opinion that Joyce absolutely broke up with Joe. Even Joe himself seems to agree. Joyce did not finish explaining her “no” to Joe, but she would have had to give him an explicit “yes” for her to be on the hook for Joe’s proposal.)
I mean it very, VERY clearly is her Dad’s fault, and their Church’s. Like. The man threatened her life more than once, that’s definitely a fault thing.
That depends on what you think “Becky’s bullshit” is here. If it’s just her clinging to her crush on Joyce, then it’s not really her dad’s fault. If it’s everything else playing into it, then yeah.
It kind of is, though. Disorganized or insecure attachment.
“I love you I hate you don’t leave me just leave me and get it over with…” etc.
When a person is growing up in an unsafe environment, they can develop and unhealthy or even obsessive attachment to anyone who feels safe and welcoming to them. Anyone who shows kindness to or interest in them.
It was especially true with Joyce because of the shared “you and me against the world” bond of growing up in the cult together.
…Speaking from experience, here. Old childhood crushes are hard to shed. And perceived betrayals or abandonment from the childhood object of limerent attachment, the perceived “life raft” with which to escape the danger of one’s childhood home, can still devastate. Even well into adulthood. Long after the childhood bond is gone.
It’s important to remember the mental state Becky was in when she came to Bloomington. She had been expelled from her school, she was on the run from her dad, and she had no possessions to her name except the clothes on her back. She was as desperate as is possible to get. Joyce was literally her everything in that moment. Given her sincere religious beliefs, it’s possible and even likely that she saw Joyce as a literal gift from God. A manifestation of unconditional divine protection. And that’s been slowly taken away from her. Not just romantic love, but the friendship and that feeling of being someone’s safe place. I don’t know a single pertain who wouldn’t be at least a bit of a mess in those circumstances.
What sucks wrt Joyce and Dina is that it isn’t their responsibility to manage her emotional state for her. Being where she is isn’t Becky’s fault, but she is the one who has to do the work to fix it. And Joyce can’t be expected to pretend to not be in love with Dorothy for Becky’s benefit. Neither should Dina be expected to pretend not to be hurt.
Ah yes a containment thread. Kind of like how these two stay contained in their little bubble of plot armor where everything is great for them. And all the blowback and downside to their behavior only hits other people .
I want consequences for the cheating, not the being gay, I think Mary is likely to bring more of the latter and I do NOT want her to be the one to bring the former.
But i think the window on the former is closing anyway
Fair enough, and in agreement. Like, as much as I like these two, Joyce *never got back to Joe*, so the two are technically still together. I’ll forgive the kissing before just because “Webcomic and wants to show they are so madly in love they literally struggle to wait” which is a meh trope but is the one chosen – A weak reason, but a reason. This is just awful to Joe though, and as seen, they… Ain’t seeing consequences for that act
Joyce has broken up with Joe. Dorothy has not broken up with Walky. Dorothy could still walk in and say, I hope you didn’t take Joyce seriously; now take those pants off. She probably lacks the motivation though.
“And now you see why I had to come here to break up with you.”
Next strip.
“I have to break up with you, Joe.”
Next strip.
“I can’t date two people at the same time.”
What Joe said is irrelevant. Them breaking up does not require his approval or agreement. The fact that Joyce promised to continue the conversation at some unspecified future time is irrelevant. The fact that Joyce is willing to consider herself a hussy is interesting but irrelevant to the fact that we saw her break up with him on screen. Denying reality is kind of pointless.
Nah, Joyce was very clear that she was going to be kissing Dorothy more. If her relationship with Joe is still up in the air, it’s clear that the remaining options are either “he’s dumped and she’s with Dorothy” or “some kind of poly thing including him and Dorothy”. Either way, she’s doing nothing wrong to him by having sex with Dorothy.
I think it’s a mistake for her to have had sex with Dorothy without telling Dorothy about the poly suggestion first, if she has any interest in trying it, but that’s different from her still being in any sense exclusive with Joe.
You know, for all the discourse that there is around redemption of evil characters in fiction, I like it when there isn’t a redemption arc at all and instead the evil person just… stops. Because even the most evil of all men can choose to stop. One of the most brilliant parts off A Clockwork Orange, which didn’t make it into Kubrick’s adaptation, is that in the final chapter where Alex gives up on ultraviolence because he literally just gets bored with it.
I love the little teasers because it’s like “Ho ho, look at the drama brewing” and I look at the date and I’m like “Something happens in fucking AUGUST?”
High five fellow Chaos Gremlin! I want to watch everyone burn. And then put each other out, get things back into order again … and then burn it all down in a different way.
One, being subjected to homophobic bigotry is not really the thing people mean when they talk about consequences.
Two, lol no she isn’t. Mary sucks at sucking, she’s a comically ineffective jobber who exists to get dunked on, whatever bigoted bullshit she tries is going to end with her faceplanting into the mud
I wonder how far that’s going to go. I am imagining an apocalypse pulling every single character into heartbreaking misery except these two, who are unaffected and just keep having cute couples moments in the middle of the university’s ashes.
Well, hey, it could be much worse. Just so long as nobody tries having sex on a diving board or asking their parents about their first time.
I like that they keep emphasizing that Dorothy(who she’s only known for probably half a year) is her best friend. Probably said it just loud enough for Becky to hear to sink deeper into depression.
Tbf I’m pretty sure the DoA description has been “and her Atheist best friend” since the start. And I also have multiple best friends like I’d say Joyce does, but I think I get where you’re coming from
The only way I can see that working is if your best friend is also best friends with your other best friend.
It’s also possible to just have more than one friend and not have a specific “best” friend who stands out as being especially close.
But the bigger issue here is that Joyce and Becky have been rapidly drifting apart even just as friends for months now and the comic has barely even dealt with *that* aside from their fight over Joyce lying about being atheist and then mocking Becky for still believing and then being unapologetic afterward. Becky isn’t Joyce’s best friend anymore, she hasn’t been for a long time, but Joyce is still lying to her about that to avoid conflict and deepening the wound every time she does.
The last panel being genuinely cute when removed ftom context honestly makes me even more annoyed now because the context DOES exist and CAN’T be removed. I’d love to be able to enjoy adorkable nonsense with everyone else, but a) that’s ALL we’ve been getting from these two, so there’s in their dynamic that makes it, well, dynamic, and b) the “how we got here” looms over these two like some kind of narrative sword of Damocles.
It’s like Willis just handed me a nice vanilla shake at a restaurant but they stepped on a dog’s tail on the way to get it here. Like, yeah, that’s a nice milkshake and all, but it’s hard to enjoy it when all I can think about is that poor pupper. And also this is the fifth milkshake you’ve brought me and I’m getting pretty sick of vanilla, especially when I first started coming to this diner for their spicy noodles.
If any of that scans. It’s late. I’m tired. My sleep schedule is whack.
*there’s nothing in their dynamic that makes it dynamic.
Missed a word. V v tired. Goodnight, everyone play nice while I’m asleep or the Cheshire Cat will eat all the good snacks from your pantry or something.
I mean, this is the worm in the apple, right? It was a bad narrative choice to establish this extremely important couple, one Willis has been planning for years and that seems to be his own personal OTP, as getting together by cheating on their partners, and very specifically partners who are popular and well liked characters. When this kind of thing happens in the soaps, the partners are usually abusive, or bland, or otherwise unfulfilling, so it’s easier to root for the couple who clearly belongs together. You can say it’s a bold choice to not take that easy way out and instead add the complicating factor of both the partners being cheated on being well liked characters in their own right, but all that means in practice is that this relationship has a little rain cloud over its head that it’s never going to be able to shake.
Hell, they could have been drunk when they cheated, and the messy complications could all stem from that while they actually do both treat the people around them with respect and care now that they’re sober. If this whole thing stems from the “huh shit, that’s right, no one here HAS been cheating” sentiment… college kids getting drunk and doing stupid, regrettable shit is even more classic than cheating because horny.
It would also lead to literal years worth of relationship plot to mine out. In-universe days for them to come clean about what happened to their partners, for their partners to move on (or not) as a result, lots of time for them to come to terms with being bi, lots of time to deal with Becky’s issues, lots of time to drift apart from their partners and pull that “we want to get together but we’re trying to be good” that Walky and Amber did, and finally lots of time for them to finally get over it all and get together.
That’s a cheating storyline that allows the characters to be messy but not deliberately selfish AND allows for their budding relationship to actually build up to its climax despite them having hooked up already.
If Joyce and Dorothy got together while drunk I promise you we’d still be shooting down people furious that one of them was responsible for SAing the other.
Personally, only if one of them was drunk. If both are drunk, it’s kinda hard to assign blame. Just people being stupid.
Alcohol is a narcotic that specifically damages inhibitions. Part of the problem is that Joyce and Dorothy were in 100% control of every choice they’ve made.
To be clear: I wasn’t saying I personally felt it would be SA, so there’s no need to debate with me. Just that a section of the comments certainly would.
Reminds me of an old tumblr post I saw of a sign that says something like “Tony was drunk. Sarah was drunk. They had sex and Tony got in trouble for taking advantage of her” and all I could think was “Weren’t they both drunk? Why is he not considered being taken advantage of”
It did less to dissuade me from alcohol as it did random hookups. (Not that I’m at any risk of indulging in either).
You’ve said it better than I could. I really wish I could find this cute, but their shitty behavior towards other people while getting to this point has made that impossible.
I will never pry myself free of Patreon’s clutches at this rate!!! *goes back to subscribe*
I forget when I stopped being angry. I think I’m still moderately disgusted, though. If they weren’t already in a locked room, I’d tell them to fucking get one.
Shit, who is around that’s still in the middle of something? ALICE! Where’s Alice? Billie should have left Walky’s room by now since he ended things obnoxiously.
Let’s watch *those* two lesbians get going. They’re getting back together so it’s a lot more wholesome and romantic than this. Automatically. 2nd chances are better. That’s the rule.
I’ve never heard of anybody allowing steak to be left over. You get that steak eaten while it’s good and fresh, no matter how many sides you have to relegate to leftover hell to make that happen. Those things are too expensive to be eaten inferiorly.
My stomach is only so large, and on the extremely rare occasion I get to eat a steak, I like to order a very big one so I can have some later, to prolong the experience. Heating it up in the skillet the next morning is perfect.
I just want to shout booooo again, but I don’t know if it’s because I’m annoyed at them or I just wanna say Boooo because it’s nearing the end of October.
It still seems weird to me that those of us who don’t approve of Joyce and Dorothy starting their relationship off with cheating and continuing it by being shitty to pretty much everyone around them are the ones who need a “containment thread”.
I think the containment thread is to allow space for other discussion, because frankly the kvetching about the situation is played out. It has become and aggressively uninteresting line of conversation
“Nothing else has actually happened in 4 months” is a big part of it I think. Even the Becky/Dina drama and Joe’s talk with Sarah tie directly back to Joyce/Dorothy, so they’re not really getting away from the discourse.
We’ve had past conflicts that led to a lot of drama in the comments, like the Becky/Joyce atheism fight, but that was only the sole focus for a couple weeks, then while it did keep coming up, the focus kept shifting to other plots which let the comment drama die down a bit.
Here’s it’s been almost nothing else for more than two full chapters (with a side order of related discourse about the protest.)
Yeah… in this storyline the only deviations we’ve had from the DoJo Show or its repercussions have been a bit with Amber and the Ruth/Alice/Billie love triangle, and only bits and pieces of each.
These two are such densely packed nothing it’s created a black hole that sucks all the other storylines into it, snuffing out anything that could be interesting
The comments on the comic gets repetitive because what’s happening in the comic gets repetitive. If the comic had moved on to show other storyline/characters other than “Joyce/Dorothy” and “Joyce/Dorothy fallout” there would be something else to comment on.
If only we could get a similar “oh look they’re so cute. I love how cute they are!” and “hey, I’m going to accuse all the people who dislike this ship of some kind of weird-ass beliefs and/or bigotry” containment thread(s).
Our opinions shouldn’t be shared openly because it’ll make the shippers who want everything perfect annoyed 🙁
(I’m specifically done just commenting anything about this, my thoughts are clear that this shit is boring and this plot is pointless outside of establishing them being sickly sweet with each otjer but its also making several previous plots also entirely pointless to read)
Honestly, as long as there’s no block/mute feature (and tbf I don’t know how that would work with this particular comment widget, it’s not like we have accounts), I think the idea of a self regulated “haters go HERE, everyone else go THERE” thread is the best way we’ve got to enforce intercommunicative boundaries and prevent thing from devolving into knockdrown drag-outs, which is as beneficial to us haters as it is to the hater-haters.
I, personally, like having a designated Bongofest Zone where I can say “I don’t like this” without someone crawling down my throat about it.
Yeah that’s the best part. Having complete permission to freely dunk on this dogwater ass ship without having to worry about stepping on anyones toes cuz, hey you saw the title. You know what this thread is about. That’s so freeing and a relief
I can get how containing the negativity to one thread is better for the overall vibes of the site and health of everyone involved. If you’re someone who both doesn’t care about the cheating and likes these two I can see how it’d get exhausting constantly having to dodge complainers. I don’t even like these two and I think the cheating complaints get a little annoying after a while
Once again, I am amused to find the most completely unhinged takes on what the DoJo haters must be thinking in the comments.
Once again, I am unsurprised to find out that most of the really viciously unfair takes are being generated by people who really, really want this to be a lovely sweet coming-out story and completely ignore the cheating/being-a-dick-to-your-friends aspects (and, to be fair, vice-versa).
At this point for me personally this ship is just a microcosm of the way the ship has been done the entire strip, I think:
– it was built up in the background for fifteen years, there was NO WAY it was going to be as good as the hype unless it was endgame in some capstone kind of way.
– and now we’re building up how sweet and wonderful these two are and how great it is for them to finally be together and sunshine and puppies… and aside from the complete lack of anything actually entertaining in the lens of “hey, this has been a dramedy the whole time, and there’s nothing dramatic and no jokes here”, I feel like we’re once again being set up for no catharsis/plot arc.
Yes, yes, let Willis cook. It’s been cookin’ since May, and every time something interesting starts happening we cut back to this soggy wonderbread toast.
Can we cut back to Sal and Danny actually? I recently got to read their slipshine, GOD throw two are peak. They’re so underappreciated by the narrative, they got together and barely showed up again after that
”God why do people keep repeating themselves about not liking dojo-”
Well, because apparently despite using very plain terms to explain my feelings I still keep getting told what unhinged thoughts I must actually be having.
As someone who thinks it’s reasonable to expect a bunch of college kids to react somewhat badly to cheating within the group, I’m especially fond of hearing how what I actually just said was “Dorothy and Joyce should be murdered for betraying their loves”, just like everyone else who has an opinion on cheating other than “cheating is irrelevant/it’s not cheating anyway”.
Oh look, we got ANOTHER “people talking about how they don’t like the ship being here every four strips not being interesting, remind me of how homophobes used to say not to shove gay in their faces.” The part that goes “I will ignore that pretty much every regular in the haters thread has said nothing of the sort of Dina/Becky or Ruth/Billie having cute moments, or about Mike/Ethan or any other gay smooching.” has as usual gone unspoken.
Listen, I’m not trying to start a fight by trespassing on the negativity thread, but as a not-very-dedicated commenter who genuinely does not understand what Joyce and Dorothy have done wrong in this storyline other than cheating and being mildly obnoxious, I need to ask:
Which takes do you consider “viciously unfair,” exactly?
Like, I haven’t seen any anti-Doyce commenters who I’d consider homophobic, so yeah I’d say that take was viciously unfair. I’ve also only seen one person actually have that take. Maybe if I was more active in the comments I’d see more pro-Doyce people calling the other side homophobic, or maybe I’d see anti-Doyce people being homophobic (before their comments get deleted).
And from my perspective, I’ve seen a ton of people accusing Joyce and Dorothy of being awful, shitty, etc. to everyone around them, not just their boyfriends. So awful that people are threatening to stop reading. Which, I wouldn’t call it “viciously unfair,” but certainly unfair and personally very aggravating. Especially in a comment strip with people like Mike, Raidah, pre-character-development Ruth. And at the same time, there are a ton of anti-Doyce people who claim to just be bored of the storyline and complain they’re being slandered. And it frustrates me, cause I don’t know if they’re talking about me (I’ve complained a lot about people who I think are demonizing Joyce and Dorothy to a ridiculous degree), or if they’re just talking about accusations of homophobia.
The problem is, the really bad stuff gets scrubbed (mutch like the actual homophobia that shippers rightfully point out does.)
So, like, i can tell you that one of the common dojo shippers replide to a tepid ‘lol whitebread’ take with, “oh, so you just want a man to come rape joyce straight again, huh?” But I can’t…prove it. Because it was a vile accusation that was RIGHTFULLY scrubbed. Its literally a ‘just trust me bro’ situation.
Oh sweet, thanks. Ive been sticking to the Patreon comments lately so idk if this has been an ongoing thing or if it’s new.
Anyway these two still suck. Like not morally or anything they’re just still unseasoned boiled chicken breast whenever they’re on screen together. Finally bit the bullet and forked over the 25 bucks (ouch) to look at the porn and like. They they were actually kinda fun. Got some personality in there, lil bit of salt to cut the overwhelming sugar. Gonna need a lot more than that to stop feeling like a waste of a page when literally everything tangential to this storyline is more interesting. I wanna cut back to Becky and Dina.
Hey, don’t go blaming us archaeologists for calling everyone “good friends”, you tend to see some pretty kinky shit depending on which cultural groups you wind up studying!
I’d throw the blame more at those boring historian types who later interpret the findings. Gotta classify everything nice and vanilla for the public narrative
Given both the Slipshine previews and how lesbian sex often tends to work, especially with people who don’t have enough experience to guess their own preferences, I’m gonna say they probably swapped out.
Okay, serious question: what DOES stone mean these days? My only context is from reading historical shit where it’s ambiguous whether it’s about position, genitals, or emotional armor.
I also am a lot of things, but lesbian is not one of them so I may be biased towards the largely vanilla bottom ladies among my friends group lol.
Stone tops prefer to be the one “doing” and don’t want anything done to them. They get pleasure from bringing their partners pleasure and match up well with pillow princesses who prefer to enthusiastically receive but not to give.
In recent years, straight people have stolen the term pillow princess to mean “woman who is uninterested in sex and just lies there” which is not the vibe, and IS annoying.
It’s so frustrating. I know the term could also have negative connotations in queer spaces, but I feel like there’s this ugly “keeping score” aspect either way, with a fixation on “the top” as the only one who’s actually Doing Sex. The “bottom” is just experiencing sex, just having sex Done to Them. And therefore the only way to actually Have Sex Mutually is to be a switch.
This mentality is so nakedly patriarchal and misogynistic, And Yet it’s everywhere, infecting everything.
Okay, but neither of them has probably ever played Red-Eyes Fusion to combine their Red-Eyes Black Dragon with their Dark Magician, forming the Red-Eyes Dark Dragoon on their first turn, so they haven’t really fucked.
They haven’t even interupted their opponent’s combo at a crucial choking point by tactically activating Ash Blossom and then simply making Verte Anaconda.
It’s absolutely wild being raised fundie and told that your first time is not only going to be terrible, but also horrifically painful. I used to have panic attacks thinking about the pain and the blood.
Anyways, my slightly younger relative took the jump first and was like “Lol what no, it doesn’t hurt why would it hurt” and that was literally all I needed to hear to get over that. I totally get why Joyce would think it was scary even without a judging God. You can reason away eternal damnation, reasoning away “the most painful night of my life before I had kids” is much harder. I feel deep pity for the entire female boomer generation.
I’m pretty sure OP and the friend they mentioned are both, you know, people with vulvas.
That said: lube never hurt anyone. More lube than you think you need is always a good policy for any type of sex, and yes, this very much includes vaginal.
Um, as a member of the boomer generation, I was told it was wrong to have any sex (and same sex sex was a complete no-no), but I was not told ‘the most painful night of my life’. Admittedly no fundie upbringing for me, but my peer group was not raised on a fear of painful sex.
I was raised in the South (so basically raised fundie) and I was told the first time would be painful. As least the way I was told, it would be ‘painful’ on account of the cherry popping. I remember my mom even telling me that there could be some blood from it being ‘popped’. In truth I think the real pain would be a combo of inexperience and inappropriate prep, aka if someone uses the right lube and revs up their partner enough to get some stuff going on then it shouldn’t be dry. It’s gonna be painful if the sex is dry.
For me it’s pretty much always been painful. For years I assumed the pain was just an automatic part of the process.
…One thing about medication-induced loss of libido is that it can be kind of a relief once that part of one’s life is gone. Actually makes the rest of human experience easier to navigate.
…For me, anyway.
Well, thank you for saying so, Doopyboop. But it’s over now. One of the good things about the extinguishment of sexual capacity is that I don’t miss it at all. It’s like the old song goes:
“I have all that I requested.
I do not want what I have not got.”
It’s a little wistful but ultimately liberating.
I’m making peace with the loss. I think it’s a good next step in life.
…It’s funny, everybody says that medication and trauma work can’t affect a person’s orientation, but, yeah – sex-repulsed ace feels right, these days. Much more peaceful.
Just because it’s not how I’ve always felt in the past doesn’t necessarily mean that it can’t be what’s right for me *now*, at this stage in life.
Don’t forget the ones whining about all the other commenters who refuse to condemn Joyce and Dorothy for sacrificing babies to Moloch, or whatever it is Joyce and Dorothy supposedly did.
For what its worth, I don’t have any reason to disbelieve Jay when he said that one wasn’t meant to go through. He’s owned up to more aggro stuff, I don’t see why he’d make up an excuse that.
I will admit to being a comment section problem tho, I’m taking a step back so y’all won’t have to worry about me popping up too much and whatever i do comment will be a pittance on comparison.
Also just a sidenote I’ve discovered its whenever I post off data my comments dont go through so no more me raging and commenting expecting it to not go through
When that boredom manifests as showing up everyday to whine and moan and yuk in everyone else’s yum, I don’t really care about the distinction in the underlying opinion.
what with Becky X Dina shippers having their 9/11, this the LEAST we can do, I’ll bite
Trick or treating was always a joy as a kid, my neighborhood really REALLY shows up for halloween, I remember going as GIR from Invader Zim, that was fun
as an adult? I go to the store last minute to get discounted huge bags of candy, and watching horror movies with my friends
Hey, thanks Spacie. I appreciate you making a thread to just have pro-social interactions with people and get some better vibes in this zone. At this point I wouldn’t care if you made it about Easter.
My fun Halloween memory was hosting my first party living away from my parents. It wasn’t a rager, it was nerds talking about games, playing music, eating candy, etc. It was a much simpler time back then.
Song-wise, I’ll take a good Monster Mash anytime.
I don’t know I have a favor Halloween movie, but for video games, classic Silent Hill just doesn’t stop giving.
I think Snickers is an excellent choice. I’ll take people’s Three Musketeers too.
Fav Halloween memory the time me and friends trick or treated alone we covered 3 neighborhoods 11 full streets
Fav Halloween song This is Halloween Danny Elfman
Fav spooky Movie The Exorcist which i have seen 167 times and just keeps getting funnier every single time! though Orignal Halloween and The Thing are close seconds
And Snickers but i do love me some tootsie pops specifically blue and i wont say mo to a Twix
And also best Halloween costume i was a Box literally just cardboard box with four holes cut out two to see and two for my arms some stamps and a fake address written in a sharpie!
Honestly top 10 Halloween movies
1)The Excorsist
2)Halloween
3) Night of The Living Dead
4.) Ghostbusters
5.)Beetlejuice
6)The Thing
7) The Nightmare before Christmas (a teo for one)
8)Friday the 13th
9) Carnival of Souls
10) Herditarry
‘Carnival Of Souls’ is a great choice, no film has ever managed ‘be terrifyingly atmospheric on no budget to speak of’ so well. The original ‘The Haunting’ is a fine example of the same but with an actual budget/actors/etc.
We don’t really celebrate Halloween where i live. They pass seasonal specials on tv and supermarkets decorate but trick or treating is pretty much not a thing at least in my area.
I haven’t read a lot of horror movies, but i quite like monster house and paranorman. I could also recommend the tales from the gas station book series, they got a pretty good mix of creepiness and absurd humor. And if you like things from r/nonsleep or creepypasta wiki, Mr.crepypasta is a real good narrator on youtube. Also speaking of r/nosleep i couldn’t not mention my favorite author Daturdead and his blue sunflowers series, his stuff are really good.
And about candy, anything that is chocolate i eat without question, the bigger the better. I don’t pay much attention to brands, as long as there chocolate in my mouth i am happy.
We had a big Halloween party tonight. It was fun! We invite all the neighbors, both because it’s nice to be able to make some connections and because even for those who don’t come, they’re probably not going to complain about it if they were invited. One family moved onto the block during summer, and we introduced them to a couple other families in the neighborhood. Their daughter is in 3rd grade, and we had another neighbor who’s in 2nd grade, and at first they were both to shy to play with each other, but I helped navigate that and soon they were running around chasing after the 3rd graders brother (he’s in 7th grade, and unfortunately there weren’t any kids close to his age there) yelling about how he needed to pay his taxes.
I don’t have kids, so my favorite Halloween memory is of me going to my sister’s neighborhood to go trick or treating with her and her kids. Her neighborhood goes all out with haunted houses and competitions for best decorations. I had never seen that kind of commitment to Halloween before. I was also a bit shy because I didn’t know the protocol for being an adult with no kids trick or treating, but they just gave me a bucket and candy like I was a kid too. I enjoyed seeing my nephews trick or treating and taking their aunt to the houses.
Fave Movie? Never really been big on Halloween Horror movies, but does Sinners and the Book of Life count?
And as for candy, I’m not big on chocolate. But Starbusrts and Tootsie Pops are the best.
for reals I count Sinners, I LOVE that movie, that one scene with the brothaz spirits from the past, present and future I just felt in my BLOOD AAAAAAAAAH <3
I’ve never really understood Hallowe’en, always having assumed it was some kind of merging of the Christian All Hallows Eve, and the Mexican Day of the Dead. But I’m now understanding that it is one of the many things that was extant when Caucasian folks migrated to the USA, and has remained extant and developed in the USA but largely disappeared in UK/Europe. Obviously the USA current version has ‘re-migrated’ around the world in popular culture.
I will be celebrating yaM day, which is May day for southern Hemispherians.
In college we would go out Halloween-carolling. My girlfriend found a bunch of filked Halloween-themed lyrics to well-known Christmas carols (Away in a Graveyard, We Three Ghouls, Ghosties We Have Heard on High, Humphrey the Blue-Nosed Pumpkin, etc) online and compiled them into a songbook, we made a bunch of copies, and we’d meet up with a bunch of our friends—all in costume, of course—and wander around downtown, visiting various houses and fraternities and sororities and stores. At each one we’d knock on the door, and someone with a bowl of candy would open it, expecting a few kids saying “trick or treat,” but instead see a dozen college students gleefully bursting into song. It was glorious. Everybody loved it. We never explicitly asked for candy but most folks offered it anyway. The sororities especially thought we were adorable and sometimes dumped entire bowls of candy into our sacks. Good times all around.
My friends and I used to wander around in cloaks and masks “Halloween caroling” (singing whatever spooky songs we all knew well enough to be a makeshift choir) with a treasure box full of full sized candy bars. Any kid who approached us would be asked an easy riddle (I used to write riddles, I had several I knew were doable for kids) and if they got it right we’d open up the treasure box and they’d get to choose out one of the big candy bars. It was a lot of fun, and theatrically giving out the candy was way more fun than receiving it ever had been. Good times.
Favorite Halloween memory: Taking my younger cousin trick or treating, or taking the boys I babysat trick or treating. Also memories of going to Howl-O-Scream with my mom.
Favorite Halloween song: Monster Mash, Thriller, This is Halloween, Grim Grinning Ghosts
Favorite Halloween movie: Hocus Pocus and Trick R Treat
My favourite Halloween memory was in university when some friends and I used to do this event called trick or eat. We’d dress up and go door to door asking for donations to the food bank. People’s reactions were great. At first they’d be like you’re way to old for this and then when we explained what we were doing they’d be excited to donate, and often give us candy as well.
My favourite candy are the reese’s pumpkin things. They’re so much better than regular peanut butter cups!
So I was trick or treating with my kid a few years back, when she was on the cusp of “too cool to be trick-or-treating with dad”. I had on my frankly badass Qui-Gon Jinn costume (look, I spent way too much money on a cosplay-level kit and an Ultrasaber, because I’m a dork in my 40s and I could finally afford it).
At one point, coming up the street the other direction is another dad. In a pretty good Kylo Ren costume.
I just point and light the saber. He pauses, then dramatically lights his. Cue duel in the middle of the street with a dozen cheering kids of varying ages.
This year I’m planning on handing out candy, and keeping my saber on the “red” colorway so if anyone calls me Obi-Wan I can do that one AU meme where Anakin and Obi-Wan switch their alignments.
“Obi-Wan? *dark chuckle, ignites red lightsaber* Now THAT’S a name I haven’t heard in a long time.”
Dude awesome carving skills. I need to show this to my youngest. She will talk your ears off about Pokemon. This year she painted her plastic pumpkin to look like Sylveon. I used markers to paint on a bunch of different ghost types on mine.
I was raised pretty religious. It goes deep. So I would go around door to door on Halloween asking for donations to UNICEF, rather than candy. (Much to the mortification of the classmate’s mom who would be taking the group of kids door to door, who felt like I was imposing by asking for money instead of candy.)
On those occasions when I did receive candy anyway, I would give away even my favorite candy (Reese’s — I loved peanut butter) to the other kids, and then brag to my mom afterwards about how virtuous I had been not to take any.
…Wild. Even well-intentioned religions can turn Halloween from a fun and creative festival into a devotional chore.
…OK, a happier memory? My mother would always help me to make my own halloween costumes, out of old clothes and things we had around the house. Because she didn’t believe in buying anything. Another religious thing. My favorite was a blue silk burqa that her mother had bought in an open-air bazaar in India, shortly after India’s independence. Culturally appropriative, I know. I was, like, 8. Retrospect is 20/20. I would out it on to completely hide my face. I would wear a life-preserver (for canoeing) over my shoulders to raise up my shoulder height and make my covered head appear instead to be a stump of a neck.
Then I would carry one of those big round plastic-pumpkin baskets, with an old papier-mâché skull mask on one side and a wig of long yellow yarn on the other, so it looked like a severed head I was carrying.
Then I would go to school, proudly carrying my “head” tucked under my arm and proclaimed myself to be Anne Boleyn.
“With ‘er ‘ead tucked underneath ‘er arm”: https://youtu.be/Ct8RMos3rYk
(Played on the hacked classroom cassette player.)
The one time I went trick or treating in seventh grade. Halloween isn’t a huge thing in my country, the only area I know that does trick or treating is one particular gated community. I was in a witch hat and a shitty cloak I got passed down from my brother (my mom made it for a Darth maul costume). My hat kept flying off when I walked so I just used it as my candy bag. It was awesome.
Second place is my first year of college, my dorm had a Halloween auction to raise money. The costume theme was Egyptian gods and I came as Bastet in the skirt from my prom dress and a top made from this shitty gold fabric that left threads all over like two floors of the building lol. My friends and i were all matching. The auction was crazy, it was a date auction and basically a strip show, without the stripping. People were doing splits, lap dances, men and women. The doen admin was sooo mad lol. They got so much money from it though.
Third place, 11th grade Halloween at school. I put a lot of effort into this haunted doll costume. There was a contest and I fully played into the gimmick, moving stiff and staring out dead eyed into the crowd. I got 2nd place, only beat out by a guy that used actual latex monster makeup lol. I won a gift certificate to a froyo shop that was super popular at the time. It didn’t have an expiration date and it was a lot of money, relative to the prices. So I just kept using it for years. It’s still in my wallet and not maxed out, like 8 years later lol.
It’s impossible to tell how much of the active zone is from giving and from receiving, which is the reason why Joyce jokes that they can’t tell who won. Even if they could agree on what “winning” is, they can’t disambiguate it from the data. Though, personally my heart beats faster when someone is going down on me than when I’m going down on someone, so I would expect Joyce is the bigger pillow princess.
Part of what has made the “Joyrothy” arc so awful is that with the way it was dropped like a bomb it allowed the characters to skip over any soul searching about who they wanted to be with and why. And on a certain level I get it; the whole idea is that it was like a dam bursting and letting loose months of pent up desire. But *damn*. It’s not even the decisions Joyce and Dorothy ultimately made sometimes, it’s how instantly and unhesitatingly they made them. Joyce *still* hasn’t taken one moment to ask herself why she is head over heels for Dorothy but couldn’t return Becky’s affections. At first it was all guilt and flimsy attempts at concealment, like she knows she’s doing something shameful, and now they’ve done a complete 180 and are literally hanging a picture of them kissing on their door to let everyone know they’re fucking. Did they not realize Becky might see that? They can’t seem to even consider not spiking the football.
Any to be clear, I am not arguing that Becky called dibs or that Joyce and Becky even have good romantic chemistry- I think they’re a mess together actually and there’s very good reasons for both of them to be with other people. But part of why Becky is so broken right now is that she’s been unable to process both Joyce and her rapidly drifting apart and also that Joyce and her were never romantically compatible, and that’s hard to do when Joyce won’t acknowledge either of those things and instead spends all of her time lying to Becky to avoid conflict and then avoiding her.
Why would Joyce stop to think about why she’s attracted to Dorothy but not Becky? She never stopped to think about why she’s attracted to Joe but not Walky. A lot of people just don’t think about this stuff, attraction is just something that happens to them seemingly at random with no rhyme or reason for it.
Because it’s a reflection of Joyce’s fundamental sexual orientation? Joyce was sure she was straight because she wasn’t attracted to Becky, now she is sure she is queer because she’s attracted to Dorothy. That’s a pretty big part of who she is as a person, I feel like that would be something someone would have a few questions about.
Joyce lack of attraction to Becky plays no role in her self-conception of her sexual orientation. She was already concerned that she might have sapphic feelings before Becky shows up, and she did not become any more or less concerned about it after Becky confesses. Moreover, she doesn’t say she’s not into Becky because she’s straight, she just says she’s not into Becky, and later adds that Becky is like a sister to her. The fact is, Joyce doesn’t define any aspect of herself in relation to Becky, so consequently it’s no surprise that she feels no need to interrogate why she is attracted to Dorothy (also Billie and Sal) but not attracted to Becky.
At no point does Joyce say that she’s not into Becky or can’t be into Becky because she is straight. The actual reason she gives is that it is like incest. So Joyce is no more going to interrogate why she’s not attracted to Becky any more than she is going to interrogate why she is not attracted to Joycelene. They are her sisters, of course there’s no attraction.
I actually took the opposite from that strip. Panel 2 supports your reading, sure, but the end sounds to me like she is indeed having #Thoughts(tm) and is in denial about it (remember, at this time, being afraid to deal with any of the parts below the neck is basically how she felt about hetero sex as well).
The point isn’t to claim that Joyce isn’t attracted to girls just because she says she isn’t, it’s that Joyce herself said that not being attracted to Becky was a test of her straightness. Joyce comes up with other complimentary reasons why she is not attracted to Becky in order to placate her, like the sisters thing, a feeling that I don’t dispute Joyce having. But Joyce clearly said the stuff to Becky about being like family to make Becky feel better, not out of genuine introspection.
Joyce herself said that if she would be gay for anybody, it would have been Becky, and that her not being gay for Becky must meant she is definitely straight, so Joyce finding out that she can in fact be gay for other girls ought to make her question why her previous “straightness test” was inaccurate. The ‘like sisters’ reason could totally be it, and I have my own theory, but my point is that because of the way the story has gone down, Joyce hasn’t even paused to stop and go “Wait, wait, so I was gay after all? Then why didn’t I like Becky? I guess maybe we really are like sisters??”
You didn’t see it because it got stuck in moderation, but you should take a look at the pile of links I posted above and reconsider yours in the context of the larger narrative. As Lee and Reflex say, Joyce is lying to herself in the strip you posted. She wishes that she wasn’t attracted to Becky because she identifies as straight, but the reality is that her orientation has nothing to do with it. Joyce has been lusting over girls other than Becky the entire time she’s been in college, even as she denies it. She’s not into Becky because she sees Becky as her sister, which is not something that requires much in the way of reflection.
Of course she was lying to herself. She’d still have been lying to herself if she’d said directly to Becky “I’m not interested because I’m straight”.
People keep referring to her initial rejection of Becky as if it really means something, but unless you think Joyce was already consciously aware of being bi, I’m not sure what it would mean.
There are things that Joyce overthinks, and other things where she jumps straight to what she wants and feels and then constructs justifications after the fact, if she introspects about it at all.
Smartwatches like the apple watch come with a heartrate monitor. Could also be a fitbit, which does a bunch of additional stuff like track steps, give you a rough estimate of calories burned and such
Then Dorothy holds up the phone and shouts “Joyce is mine now, Becky! I win, you lose! AHHH HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA!” and hangs up on her.
I shouldn’t bite but my kid woke me up at 5:30 am screaming at nothing and is now calmly watching Pupstruction
One of the straight-up strangest things I’m taking away from the Joyrothy backlash is WHOMST is allowed to traumatically discover their sexuality at college and WHOMST is allowed to eventually enjoy it.
Billie/Ruth started with fatphobic bullying and physical abuse, and involved substance abuse, suicidal ideation, and a smol international incident. Now it’s a beloved mainstay of the strip, even with their dynamic shifting into being exes or “on break.”
The extended circumstances of Becky’s coming out led to a school shooting, a mass kidnapping, the deaths of at least three people, political fallout for the United States of America, and gave her a giant heap of underdiagnosed, undertreated C-PTSD that is now getting blown back at her girlfriend. But Becky/Dina is an essential pillar of the strip.
Joyce doesn’t get to have compassion for the undesirable fallout from her coming out, because she was “supposed” to be straight. The POV, if you were, amidst all these queers. Dorothy doesn’t get to have that compassion, because you liked her better as a neurotic, self-despising mess. Why isn’t anyone thinking about their men?!
If you’re one of the people who obsesses over infidelity as a mortal sin, then just ignore me, as we don’t have common ground here. Anyone else, you don’t have to like Joyrothy (or read the strip daily?!) but I’d again ask you to consider–who is allowed to come out? Who is allowed to hurt people when they come out?
This one’s a weird one for me because I understand what you mean and I don’t disagree but I also feel like this is worded very strangely. Maybe it’s because of things like, Becky’s example did yes, have her first gay experience be very traumatic and awful. Things trickled out of that. But also, she was able to get an affirming haircut, find a community of people who helped to house her and look out for her, a mentor in Leslie, and girlfriend in Dina… I know it’s difficult to remember the good things because Becky’s in a bad spot now, but it hasn’t been all bad for her.
Also your question of ‘who is allowed to hurt people when they come out’, I think that’s an iffy question to ask because a lot of blowback when people come out is sometimes due to people who are unsupportive who reframe their loved one’s coming out as ‘harming’ them. Such as a transmasc who’s mother says “you took my daughter from me” or a father who decrees his son for being gay and being a ‘bad influence’ because of it. Most commonly, the actual harm, if any does come from coming out, is done to the person coming out. Like Becky. This isn’t meant as an attack either, I know it’s earlier, it’s just some weird questions or poorly worded things here and there where I’m not entirely sure what your point is.
It’s dead simple for me, and it has nothing to do with who’s “allowed to come out?/hurt people?” (or, for that matter, “infidelity as a mortal sin”). It has to do, simply and only, with whose storylines are entertaining to read, and whose storylines I find believable.
The strip has been drama/comedy for so long that having so much focus a couple that has essentially 0 drama and 0 jokes, 100% sweet is a jarring tone shift. Frankly I want some appropriate-strength dumb-college-kid reactions to the infidelity (Not mortal sin levels. Not treating like murder.) because it’d actually let their story be INTERESTING in a realistic way.
Same here. I’m not upset that Dorothy and Joyce are bi, I already figured we’d get to see them come out and was fully prepared for that. I was prepared for the possibility of them getting together. Would I prefer Joe/Joyce remain a thing? Yeah, but I also wished Ruth/Billie were still an item. The main problem is that I read this comic for the drama, but all the drama keeps getting diffused after 2-3 pages so we can see more fluff.
Like… I was rereading some older pages last night, and one of my favorite Walky/Amber moments is when they first kiss on Garbage Roof. It was sweet, it was romantic, and then we got drama from Amber realizing Walky was Sal’s brother. That was followed by both tension and romance, and it was a good balance of the two. This just isn’t balanced. It’s too much sugar, not enough spice, and I prefer spice over sugar most days.
Partly this analysis reflects the distinction between readers who see this as a coming out story and those who see it as a cheating story, but also I think there’s a serious rosy filter on those earlier coming out arcs.
Becky took an enormous amount of flack for basically nothing in the comments. People didn’t trust her, thought she was lying about her dad’s reaction, complained endlessly about her freeloading off of Joyce, about spending the $20 Jennifer gave her on a haircut instead of somehow using it to get a place to live. Or about intruding and causing conflict on Joyce’s trip home for the weekend.
I wasn’t really following the comments for the very beginning of Ruth/Jennifer, but while they were and are popular, they’ve always been incredibly controversial as well. With one or the other being accused of horrible things at basically every appearance.
Since when was Billie/Ruth considered a healthy relationship? If it was a “beloved mainstay” to someone, it was either because the way it was damaging and messy could prompt so many storyline arcs, or because of the same “I love (disaster) lesbians so much I don’t care about anything else” crowd that definitely is NOT complaining about this relationship.
Also, Bille didn’t come out then. I’m pretty sure she told at least one person about Alice long before her relationship was revealed.
I have no idea what point you’re trying to get at with Becky/Dina. There was a lot of time dedicated to showing that it wasn’t just an empty rebound relationship, and there really wasn’t much dedicated to showing that Becky was letting any feelings about Joyce have any impact on it. They also never progressed their relationship in a way that disapppinted or selfishly hurt the people around them.
Joyce/Dorothy have been acting like they’re in complete true love with nothing to distract them over and over. You brought up Billie/Ruth, so I guess that’s a good comparison to how willfully ignorant to their problems they’re acting – except this isn’t a secret relationship that has no real direct impact on anyone else, it’s not being treated with the same “obviously very unhealthy” and “mostly lust/trauma driven with no deeper personal connection” tones, and these are NOT those characters. Dorothy is not this selfish – she’s tried on multiple occasions to be more of a jerk and failed to maintain it. And Joyce almost always had to force herself to overcome her built up “fundie no no” boundaries. She still had issues with swearing and sex. So both of them leaning completely into the selfish, cheating, first-time-same-sex relationship, and having the issues swept aside to give the tone and treatment of the best outcome ever whenever they get a moment to themselves (and often even without that requirement)… it’s really off-putting.
Yeah, they managed that at last, but they were still both set up to be needing years of therapy and personal growth. When it was revealed that they were split up now, I wasn’t surprised. It was very likely that they would need to drift apart in order to fight their own personal demons without being dragged down by each other’s.
It’s interesting, isn’t it? It reminds of mainstream media in the late ’90s-’00s when you could have gay sidekicks or secondary characters but never the main characters. They were always straight. And the profoundly negative reaction in the comments to any display of physical affection by this couple also reminds a lot of that era. “Why do they have to keep shoving it in my face?” and so forth.
Ruth and Billie, and Becky and Dina are also main characters. Joyce is the de jure protagonist, but DOA is an ensemble piece. Or that’s how it’s usually been.
Becky literally ran around campus screaming that she was a lesbian and there was no noticeable riot in the comments about “why is it in my face omg”.
A couple of cheaters shit all over the plot of everyone else to act like they’re in twue luv a double-digit number of hours after they realized they had feelings for each other and the very tone of the story supports that rather than sticking to its usual approach of remembering that fucked up relationships/hookups ARE fucked up and people cry homophobia at any negative reception.
It’s especially ridiculous because this is DUMBING OF AGE. Between this and Shortpacked, anyone who actually had problems with THE GAYS either left long, long ago, or discovered this comic literally yesterday (at the most).
Oh hey love it when shippers completely misrepresent anyone who disagrees with them so they can call a bunch of queer people homophobic for not liking these two specifically. No one who hasn’t been rightfully dogpiled and banned fucking said Joyce was “supposed to be straight”. That’s not what anyone is saying. Stop hallucinating strawmen.
Out of curiosity, is there a way to find one’s old comments and any replies to them? Made some cogent observations yesterday, but they all got swallowed up by the daily comment avalanche. Must I check out this page every few hours?
I really hope Becky gets over her funk and is able to go back to being friends with Joyce. Yeah, Joyce isn’t into that way, but you’ve been friends a long time and now there isn’t much competition for “Platonic Best Friend” anymore.
So I’m wondering if this will cure Dorothy’s slow motion identity crisis/mental breakdown. Not sure how I’m going to feel if we find out that the entire crisis was because she wanted Joyce and didn’t think she could have her.
QUESTION for those in a monogamous long-term relationship!
Do you call your partner/spouse your “best friend”? I don’t think I do. It feels like a separate category to me so “best friend” feels inaccurate and incomplete.
Not quite in one of those (poly-but-married-to-long-term-nesting-partner here), but yes and no. I have a very clear “best friend I’m not sleeping with” who I’ve been close with for decades, but I will also refer to my partner as “my best friend I get to sleep with”.
But yeah I absolutely call some of my partners my best friends. I do think your “partners” should be among your closest friends, but your network of close friends should not only consist of your partners.
If by “monogamous” you mean “dedicated romantically to just one person and not even fucking anyone but them”, and if “long-term” includes “twelve years, four months, and nine days”, then I fit the criteria for this question. No, I don’t call my girlfriend my best friend. She’s my girlfriend, partner, Final Fantasy wife, and co-conspirator. If I have a best friend, I think our tabletop group’s GM is the most likely candidate, but otherwise I haven’t had a “best friend” since I was like 21. Sometimes I wonder what that guy’s up to, but it was a bad break-up, and it’s never been a good time to reconnect.
100% my wife is my best friend. in my observations, it seems to be a big help in long lasting relationships. (my parents, my aunts and uncles that have not separated, parents of friends that stayed together, almost all would descrtibe their SO as such)
Mostly monogamous technically but we don’t really care who the other does sex stuff with, if ever (mutually ace).
We were best friends before we started dating and even moreso after. Anyone else I call my best friend, there’s a silent asterisk of “other than bf”
I mean I don’t personally think I’ve had a best friend since middle school?
But “I’m so lucky I got to marry my best friend” is an extremely common sentiment. Doesn’t mean everyone feels that way, but it’s definitely not weird or abnormal either.
I was led to expect more religious-shame-induced hysterical weeping, tbh. Okay okay it’s a nice, sweet moment of calm and comfort and intimacy, no notes.
Would be nice if folks on both “sides” of this argument could stop reducing the other side’s opinion to “because lesbians”.
No, the folks who don’t like Joyce/Dorothy or who don’t like how we got here aren’t just mindlessly frothing over them because Joyce and Dorothy are bi.
No, the folks who do like it or who don’t mind how we got here aren’t just mindlessly fawning over them because Joyce and Dorothy are bi.
There’s LGBTQIA+ people and allies on both sides and it is unkind to erase other commenters’ sexuality or smear them as bigots just for how they feel about this storyline.
It’s also just… really really unproductive? And we’re all gonna keep right on talking past one another, if we insist on treating every individual we talk to like they’re the weirdo fringe of their “side”, heh.
At this point, I don’t have any faith that anyone actually knows what anyone else believes about this storyline. Too many assumptions and accusations have been thrown around, and the entire comments section smells like burnt hay.
The big problems are 1.) most commenters see one person with an extreme take they disagree with and assume/claim that everyone on the other side has that take, 2.) most commenters see people complaining about extreme takes on the other side and assume/claim those people are demonizing everyone on their side by saying they all believe that, and 3.) most commenters believe the people they disagree with are more numerous, obnoxious, and hostile than the people they agree with.
Probably? I’m not a super-dedicated commenter (Sometimes I’ll comment several times a day, sometimes once a month), and this is the first time I’ve been really active during a big controversy.
I can assure you, yeah it can get pretty stupidly heated around here, this hardly an isolated incident
and honestly? understandable. even before the pandemic, some folk around here have seen some really rough years
I speak from experience when i say that spending a large chunk of your time in the comments section of a webcomic of all places… isn’t exactly something you’re driven to do if your life is going so great o3o
They are a cute couple but I don’t love that there seems to be a lot of people who are pretty OK with them having not only cheated on their partners but then are trying to justify it because “BUT LOVE!”
They have harmed numerous people and some likely for a LONG time due to their irresponsible actions. That’s just a fact.
I don’t think there’s been a lot of “trying to justify it because ‘BUT LOVE!'”
I think there’s been a fair bit of:
— “I personally don’t think kissing counts as cheating”
— “I personally don’t believe in the concept of cheating” (this is like, 1-2 people, max, but it’s been said)
— “the kiss WAS cheating, but they were caught up in the moment and coming to terms with their sexualities, which I consider to be mitigating factors that make the cheating less egregious”
— “the kiss was cheating, but Joyce and Dorothy are fictional characters, so I don’t care that much whether or not they’re good people, I just want them to be interesting”
— “the kiss was cheating, but I’ve been shipping this for 15 years, and I’m just glad they’re finally a couple, no matter how they got there”
— “the kiss was cheating, but like, whatever, I don’t really care about Joe or Walky as characters and/or I value having more canon sapphic couples way more than I value fictional male feelings”
(I think the second variant on that last opinion has gotten a bit more common of late. It seems to be mostly coming from people who don’t frequent this comment section a lot, and are just here to poke the metaphorical bear. I think a fair few of them are coming straight from BlueSky, where Willis has complained about some of the more virulently queerphobic comments — which do exist, but tend to either never make it out of moderation in the first place, or be mass-reported and thus automatically deleted — with the understandable but unfair impression that that’s the COMMON take among the “haters”, and a desire to dunk on them.)
(Honestly, I think “BUT LOVE” is closer to something Joyce herself might say than an opinion I’ve seen expressed in the comment section with any frequency? She basically did say it about breaking up Jacob and Raidah, after all.)
Addendum: there are a LOT of rebuttals to these takes, like “I also want them to be interesting, too bad they’re boring as heck!”
But I was just trying to list out the pro-Joyce/Dorothy takes that I think veer close to “BUT LOVE”, but mostly don’t actually go there.
For the record, it also hasn’t been all “pro-Joyce/Dorothy” folks arguing over what constitutes cheating. There has genuinely been something of a breadth of opinions from both “camps” on:
— whether or not “doing laundry” again would have been cheating
— whether or not the protest kiss, specifically, would be considered cheating by Joe, which usually involved people digging up links to various comics where Joe and Joyce discussed their relationship’s boundaries
— whether or not kissing SHOULD be considered cheating by default (an outgrowth of the previous conversation: basically, “where do you draw the line if you haven’t had that specific conversation with your partner?”)
— whether or not cheating is always wrong
Also: sorry for the TL;DR here, but it does bug me to keep seeing this unstated assumption that “I don’t care that Joyce and Dorothy made out and cuddled before talking to their respective boyfriends” can’t possibly be an authentically held opinion, and must instead be people “making excuses” for fictional cheating, which they must necessarily agree, deep down in their heart of hearts, is inexcusable?
It seems like such an unproductive way to approach other commenters.
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remember y’all, healthy hearts start young! <3
and just cuz ya indoors that ain't mean ya can't exercise! ;)
Good old private exercise.
Best. Exercize. Of all.
Such good cardio. And endorphines.
The Fitbit-measuring contest is really cute. These dorks.
I did wonder about the watches… question answered
I’m pretty sure those are fitbits, yee
never got the appeal myself, but it’s great to see this kinda commitment to an active lifestyle, especially this way
Dorothy is absolutely the kind of person who logs absolutely everything, and Joyce wants to wear Dorothy’s skin.
Dammit now I kinda want that as an April Fools/Halloween strip
Joyce (Wearing Dorothy): “Now Dorothy and I are together FOREVER”
Joe: “…So does that mean we still have a chance?”
Huh. Hadn’t thought of _that_ kind of threesome before.
(okay, i’m into it.)
I’m just imagining, like, Dorothy’s face surgically attached to Joyce’s torso, like that one terrible DC event (don’t recall the name) where somebody turned people into robot spider zombie things with big, easily-damaged weak spots.
Ah, good ol’ Futures End.
That specific bit of stupidity was Black Canary’s face (Just her face) grafted onto Frankenstein’s chest. Which somehow is able to use her super screaming power.
Because of course super-scream powers are located entirely in the face meat, not the lungs or throat. That’d be silly.
They are definitely the kind of couple that would go as each other for Halloween
hell yeah, they be so cute together, it’s scary XD ;p
*plays “Bustin” by Neil Cicierega on hacked muzak*
Dangit, now i know what I should’ve asked Willis for for my commission outta this year’s Kickstarter! Locked in for next year! ^^
From the song “Feelin’ Kinda Naughty”
“I wanna kill you and wear your skin like a dress
But then also have you see me in the dress
And be like “Omg, you look so cute in my skin!”
I was really into Fitbit in the early days, but now just carrying around my phone does the same thing.
Gotta track those calorie expenditures. They both did a good enough job that they’ve earned a pudding cup.
Hot dang, I need to pick up a FitBit.
There was a UK comedy sketch, I think, about fitbits, fatbits, fartbits and fuckbits…
Turns out Becky just walked into the room only to hear Joyce call Dorothy her best friend.
Her heart shatters EVEN MORE. Nuclear winter settles in. Soggies may rule.
I’m both horrified and horrifically intrigued by the question of just how fucking bad her mental state is about to get. Just how much lower the universe is going to push her, how the hell she’s going to pick up all the shattered pieces of her life, and what she’s going to build out of what’s left over.
Like, up until Joyrothy happened– hell, up until Becky’s “God is fake“– I had thought that Beckasaur was unsinkable. The one constant. Now that it’s over… I mean, all bets are off. About the only certainly I have left is that Willis ain’t gonna kill either of them.
A bit early to call it over. It’s definitely on the rocks, and this blow-up could well sink them, but there’s still a chance Becky can salvage things. If Dina will accept an apology, anyway.
“Now that it’s over…”
Don’t you mean “extinct”? 😛
The universe ain’t doing shit to her in this instance. This is all on her. She built up an idea in her own mind that she can’t cope with being untrue, and if she really believed that Joyce was gonna return her feelings, she wouldn’t have fooled around with her roommate and got kicked out of the christian school in the first place. If her idea of her and Joyce were true, then she cheated and never felt a moment of guilt. Becky is selfish and deluded, aka a Christian. And Dina is nobody’s consolation prize!
This is certainly one of the takes of all time. “If she really believed that Joyce was gonna return her feelings, she wouldn’t have fooled around with her roommate and got kicked out of the christian school” is so egregiously slut-shamey, and if you’re going to claim that it’s how you think Becky would feel about the situation — it absolutely isn’t, she would not characterize her and Kaitlin mutually discovering their deeply, painfully repressed sexuality together as “fooling around”, and the assertion that kissing someone other than Joyce is somehow proof that Becky’s feelings for Joyce are shallow or whatever absolutely came from your own head, friend, and not this comic or any of its characters.
the scary thing is if Willis is sadistic enough to go “like mother like daughter”
No deaths of main characters.
(The Damnable had overlooked that Mike had become a main character; it turns out he wasn’t supposed to.)
Willis didn’t overlook shit. They intentionally, knowingly broke that rule, and acknowledged as much
Mike would have wanted it that way.
I can’t argue with that. But he would have wanted you to feel bad about it.
For example, if you had ever said something like “Mike is a force of nature and can’t be destroyed,” he would want you to consider the possibility that if you hadn’t said that, Mike might still be around.
Or if say, someone had said, back when two characters broke up, “Willis wants us to hate him,” and you had responded, “Nah, if Willis wanted us to hate him then he would have broken up Dina and Becky,” then the chances you would have influenced what Willis subsequently did are miniscule. But Mike would have wanted to remind you of what you said at every opportunity.
Mike was like that.
true… But there’s no reason she has to succeed… merely try
I know it might kill some drama, but I’d really like to think that they learned enough from Becky’s example to lock the damn door.
They did. Both doors.
Reference: https://www.dumbingofage.com/2025/comic/book-16/01-not-so-smooth-criminals/reallydoingthis/
I think even I’d nope out of the comments for a day or two if that was indeed the case.
Dorothy really wants to think humping a washing machine is normal and safe.
Please, Dorothy would never! It was a dryer.
Does she still think that was, like, a normal thing people do
She absolutely Googled it and her sources were impeccable and she is not at all sublimating a boodle of neurodivergence about it.
It is. You’re the weird one.
The things cis women do with electric toothbrushes, hairbrush handles, and washers/dryers are funny yo.
Girls can like sex.
Nobody ever said women can’t like sex. Getting off in a public location is still a little less common though?
If it isn’t done in a common space, is it really common?
People with vaginas do like sex, but usually the dryers getting humped are in private homes.
Usually.
That said, it’s a comic and the scene used what was available to give them that kind of moment. It’s weird to me how many people are still hung up on it being in public. Like no one’s ever fucked in hidden away public areas with a risk of being busted.
Like they aren’t also complaining about Dorothy and Joyce being too vanilla. Which I do agree with.
It being in public isn’t the issue for me, at least, I’m fully in favor of public shenanigans (and yes, doing it more often would make these two more interesting to me lol).
Totally! I was more mentioning the “in public” thing as a response to 3oranges point as well tbh.
But YES agreed it would make them more interesting.
I would put forward that most people do something at some point in their life that could be described in a way that “most people don’t do X specifically”.
All of that is aside that Dorothy is not asserting anything about laundry being “normal”, she is asserting that it was not her and Joyce having sex with one another.
It was way gayer than that(this reply missed slightly where it was supposed to go)
yeah, asserting that all of her nerdy and/or gay stuff is in fact perfectly normal (and straight) is Jennifer’s thing.
When I was in college another student literally got busted doing this.
It is, in fact, something people from weird fundamentalist backgrounds do.
So I am of course perfectly aware that people use dryers to get off, but most people do not drag their best friends that they’re sublimating romantic feelings for to one to masturbate for the first time with the explicit purpose of sabotaging their courtship with a potential paramour they are jealous of.
Yeah, but people don’t beat up college criminals in hero costume, or Akira slide to class on their motorcycle. Most people aren’t as cool as Amber, Sal, or Dorothy.
I mean, not to defend Dorothy in that sequence, but I think what she was actually consciously trying to do was bad enough without any exaggeration.
She didn’t think Joe was courting Joyce, she thought Joe was just trying to get into Joyce’s pants — and she similarly didn’t think Joyce could possibly be interested in someone like that, so she decided to teach Joyce to masturbate with the expectation that a more clearheaded Joyce would realize she didn’t really want to be with Joe.
And also because Roz accused her of being slut-shamey with her earlier, more normally expressed concerns, and Dorothy wanted to prove Roz wrong. She very expressly mutters under her breath that this is an “innovative, sex-positive solution that is not just perpetuating the status quo… Roz.” (https://www.dumbingofage.com/2023/comic/book-13/02-turning-saints-into-the-sea/relieve/)
There was, of course, also jealousy happening, but I think if she’d actually believed Joe had sincere romantic aspirations for Joyce and wasn’t still thinking of him as the sex pest she’d known him to be for like 5 years, she would have also known that trying to herd Joyce away from him was a Weird thing to do, and it would’ve stayed bitter confusing jealousy, like what we saw later from her in the gym.
“she would have also known that trying to herd Joyce away from him was a Weird thing to do”
To stress: I am not saying that teaching a friend to masturbate isn’t kind of weird in itself, though I’m sure it’s happened at least once platonically.
What I mean is that if Dorothy had actually thought of what she was doing as “sabotaging [a romantic] courtship”, the cognitive dissonance (“wait, WHY am I doing this?”) would have been too much for her to get past.
I get that it wasn’t conscious on Dorothy’s part, I just don’t think that materially matters.
Okay, me misreading what you meant by “with the explicit purpose of”, then.
Hm, yeah, can see why that would be confusing, my bad. I’d say it was THE explicit purpose, but it was not explicit to HER.
No worries 🙂 I rescind my comment.
Aww
This would be genuinely cute if they weren’t screwing up the relationships of like four different people too.
Skill issue
Skill issue
Becky’s bullshit is her own and not anyone else’s fault.
It is but the others… Well, it amazes me how quickly the community here is willing to brush cheating aside because lesbians…
It’s pretty shockingly fast. About half of them get off on it upsetting people though.
yeah, it’s kind of wild– nobody pretended billie/ruth was healthy or smart, dorothy and joyce can be cute to some folks without them pretending the girls can/have done no wrong
“Nobody pretended Billie/Ruth was healthy or smart”
Well, no, I don’t think people pretended to think that. I think people genuinely did think that they eventually reached a point of healthiness, though, and I think one of the people who thought that was Willis. Reread “This Was Halloween”.
Folks keep forgetting that Billie and Ruth had both stopped drinking, that Ruth was on antidepressants and Billie was in therapy, BEFORE they broke up. In that storyline, Billie is talking about introducing Ruth to her parents. Ruth sabotages everything because she’s too afraid that someday, depression might win again, and if it wins, it might cause her to drag Billie down with her. She broke up with Billie in an effort to save her life.
Also, Billie and Ruth were pretty unhealthy to start with. Ruth knew she was depressed to the point of eventually being suicidal. Their twisted relationship was actually very good for them. It was the Mary inspired withdrawal from the relationship which set things off. Without Jenifer and Carla, Ruth would likely be dead and with her alcoholism, Jenifer would have been a ticking time bomb. So, yeah, in their own way they were healthy for each other.
The amusing thing to me about reactions to the Ruth/Jennifer relationship is commenters seem pretty equally divided on who was abusive in the relationship. Lots of people think it was bad and someone was abusing someone, but which way it goes flips from person to person and which aspect of the story arc they were focusing on.
That’s because people need there to be a one-sided nature to the abuse, so they can assign blame. The concept of a mutually toxic relationship is a bit much for a lot of folks. (Personally, I figure their relationship was mutually toxic, but they actually brought it to a better place, then Ruth imploded it.)
I think it’s genuinely weird how people are upset about them cheating when they broke up with their previous boyfriends within 48 hours. The only thing that’s even questionable is Joyce giving a blowjob to Joe after kissing Dorothy, and that’s cheating on Dorothy who didn’t seem to care.
I’m not saying they did good or anything. But it very much feels to me like if people were arguing for 30 years of jail time over stealing some candy. So kinda uno-reverse: it’s weird how this community is ready to jump up in arms over minor things when it’s lesbians doing them.
1. They aren’t lesbians.
2. ’30 years of jailtime’ most people who aren’t just drop-in weirdos want something more on the lines of, like. More than one person saying ‘hey that wasn’t cool.’ Feels dull.
Clarifying one, they haven’t dropped a specific label but bisexual or some form of multi-sexuality is most likely.
Dorothy, at the very least, isn’t a lesbian. She thoroughly enjoyed sex with Walky every time it was portrayed, and also seemed to genuinely love him.
Joyce, despite her trepidation about PIV sex, very much enjoyed her times with Joe as well, and in the Walkyverse she is of course happily married to a man with whom she regularly enjoys fulfilling sex.
Both of Dorothy’s past boyfriends are incredibly eggy, I could see a world where she’s a lesbian tbh
Specifically, I was really hoping this could bring some conflict between Walky and Dorothy about how thoughtlessly Dorothy has treated him throughout the strip’s run, but it really looks like that’s just not happening.
I’m still holding out hope, but I agree it seems unlikely.
I’d really like Walky to just be done with these two. Wouldn’t bother Joyce any, but Dorothy would care.
I am holding out hope that it is still coming. It’s only been a few hours after all. Getting the cold shoulder from Walky during their shared classes would speak volumes.
Joe though, the man pretty much thoroughly has lost his dignity in this exchange. Even offered himself up as a side piece.
The breakup with Joe remains… incomplete. I’m absolutely not saying “ZOMGZ it’s cheating, hang ’em high”; just that there’s this unresolved issue that’s going to cause a bit more drama at some point.
It was actually, 12 hours or something, till they both broke up with their boyfriends.
She hasn’t actually fully dumped Joe, is part of it; and she was close enough friends with the guy before they started dating that the way she’s treated him feels… Cruel? Like a bit of a swerve?
I’ll be real though, the part of this that bothers me the most is just that I aggressively dislike Dorothy and have for years lol. She’s self important, self centered, and the way she’s treated everyone has at some point rubbed me the wrong way– even Joyce! I’m not gonna say that she doesn’t deserve love, but I think she’s frankly more interesting as someone unsympathetic the cast tries to fix than as someone who gets what she wants.
There’s absolutely nothing amazing about it at all. I can very easily and simply explain to you why people are so willing to forgive or not care about them cheating.
Because it’s fiction.
None of Joyce and Dorothy’s relationships are real, because Joyce and Dorothy themselves are not real people. If you like a character or a ship, it is real easy to brush aside negatives when those negatives are not actually real.
And even if they were real, the people who were cheated on themselves are less broken up about it than the people in the comments complaining about it are.
That last point is actually one complaint with the story. To some of us, it feels like the narrative is minimizing the cheating by having the two directly affected not seem to care about that aspect. Walky seems to be upset about being dumped and Joe is being self-sacrificing and still clinging to hope, and those are narrative choices, because as you say, they’re not real people. They’re fiction.
Yeah, sorry to break it to you, but Joe and Walky’s behaviour are both much more normal than the people leaving comments. Like Joe said, they’ve been dating less than two weeks, they’re not married, they’re not sharing a place together, they’ve only barely started dating. This is not ‘serious committed relationship that’s being violated’, even if Joe still wants to hold out hope that maybe it might be someday. Meanwhile Walky and Dorothy were back together for even less time than that. While both of them have the right to be angry over it, they can’t be THAT angry, and if either one of them were absolutely destroyed by what happened, it would reflect worse on them for having emotionally committed WAY too fucking soon. ESPECIALLY in Walky’s case. Joe has a bit more room to be angry but Joe also still has the maturity to recognize this is not the end of the world and it may be possible to work things through still (and I hope they do, I wanna see the poly ship!)
They don’t need to be “THAT angry”, whatever you mean by that. They don’t need to be “absolutely destroyed” or “end of the world”.
And it’s not like they’re not emotionally affected anyway, it’s just that in both cases it seems focused on getting dumped rather than being cheated on. Joe’s still pining, hoping she won’t really leave him. Walky’s drowning his sorrows in nuggets. Like, the same level of reaction, but channeled into “I deserve better than being cheated on” would suffice for me.
How would that look different? When I got cheated on IRL, I basically did what Walky did, except with fanfiction instead of McNuggets. I’m not sure what it is people want to see from Walky and Joe that’s different from what they’re doing. Righteous anger?
@Astariel: “what people want” isn’t just one thing, though.
I think for a lot of folks, mostly what it comes down to is: “I want to see any indication that Willis agrees that what Joyce and Dorothy did to get here is wrong.”
Most folks don’t, I don’t think, have any one specific consequence in mind, though some people have certainly said they either hoped or expected that Joyce and Dorothy would lose at least some of their friends.
But I think there’s an understandable discomfort when an artist seems to strongly disagree with you about whether a given (fictional) action is right or wrong, and when a given fictional character is in “the right” or not.
Also let me be very clear that I am not assigning any moral value to this discomfort. I think it’s always jarring when a storyteller makes a leap like this without you on board for it.
(Personally, I don’t actually agree that Willis thinks Joyce and Dorothy are in “the right” here, and I do think there are probably more social consequences coming. I also think that it’s already taken too long for a lot of readers, and that Joyce and Dorothy being obliviously happy while Joe and Walky and Becky and Dina are all varying degrees of miserable is rubbing salt in the wound in a way that is unlikely to be forgiven by those readers.
Like, I personally think it’s dramatic irony, rather than Willis dancing on the metaphorical graves of the Joe/Joyce / Walky/Dorothy / Becky/Dina relationships? But I can understand feeling differently.
And I think that, when you feel like Willis is dancing on those graves, you’re unlikely to be particularly mollified by the kind of smaller-potatoes consequences we’re likely to see.
Like, if Walky says one cutting thing to Dorothy and then stops hanging out with Joyce — if Sal quietly follows his lead — if Jennifer further withdraws from Joyce and Dorothy… that might have been enough if it had happened immediately, but by this point I think it will fall flat with the folks who want consequences.
I think at THIS point, given the above feelings, anything that leaves the Dorothy/Joyce relationship still intact and happy together is likely to not feel like enough, even if it would’ve been enough a month ago.)
(Also: I’m not saying it wouldn’t be enough for ANYBODY. I’m saying that after the anticipation has been drawn out to this extent, is unlikely to be enough for even most of the people who had hoped for exactly those things two months ago.
Which I think is just human nature, and not anybody trying to be unpleaseable?
Like, I am not talking about the folks who have used this whole thing as an excuse to be homophobic, and I’m not talking about the puritanical fringe who do keep popping up and pretty much directly saying Joyce and Dorothy need to “suffer”.
Those people exist, we’re not making them up to get mad at, but they’re definitely not the majority here. The majority here are just, I think, frustrated by not being on the same page as Willis, and they’ve been on different pages for so long that I think even if Willis dovetails the way I think they will, I doubt they’ll course-correct enough for it to feel like… “oh, that was worth waiting for.”
At best, I think a lot of readers are just going to wind up feeling deflated, like: “okay, I… got what I technically said I wanted two months ago, so I guess I no longer have the right to be mad.” Which is not a much more fun position to be in, emotionally.)
@Li: Thank you for at least internalizing what a lot of have actually been saying. Its less about finding it ‘morally awful’ or anything, and just finding it unsatisfying.
(The slow pacing is NOT helping, and previews from next August make it feel like, unless there’s a BIG flip coming, we’re still gonna be not too removed from this storyline. In which case, ooooooh boy.
As always, Li, you have good words and I agree with almost all of them.
@Donovan: I’ve just been listening. And I’ve been there, even though I’m not where y’all are right now?
I think “suspension of disbelief” applies to a lot more than just superheroic feats of strength. I think there’s a type of suspension of disbelief that makes characters feel like real people to us, and gives us faith in a specific storyteller’s ability to tell stories. A lot of different things can damage that suspension of disbelief, but when it breaks, there’s not always a way back to the previous level of enjoyment of and confidence in a story.
If DoA was a drive through the countryside, Joyce/Dorothy was Willis hitting a bump in the road that some of experienced as a pleasant moment of weightlessness (not unlike with a rollercoaster), and others of us experienced as a painful lurch that left us with bumps and bruises.
And some of us appear to have been thrown tiredly clear of the vehicle, heh.
*entirely clear of the vehicle
*though probably also somewhat tiredly!
To add to your point, Li, and give a specific example:
My white whale in all of this, my ideal consequence, is Walky having to confront and acknowledge the fact that the way Dorothy has treated him for their entire acquaintance has been wrong. It’s been thoughtless, it’s been careless, and it’s been occasionally deeply hurtful for him, but he has thus far refused to remove Dorothy from the pedestal he has placed her on – even when she pushes and pulls at him, putting them on break then going back right away for sex, even when she pushes him to date Lucy (something that inadvertently caused the collapse of one of his few friendships at IU when the relationship imploded) and then threw herself at him a few days later. Even when she slid herself back into the position of his girlfriend and cheated on him four days later. He has never acknowledged that Dorothy does not treat him the way a partner should, and has been consistently unfair with him, although she has acknowledged it (while not changing her behavior). I want him to face up to the fact that the first girl he ever invested his heart into ended up treating him very thoughtlessly, and I’d like for him to talk to her about it. It’d be a bonus if he gets mad about it! I want Walky to react in ways that aren’t just sadness, and I want to see a bit more of his angry streak.
That’s my ideal consequence in all of this. That and messy poly between Joe/Joyce/Dorothy.
Frankly, this could be a 100% accurate depiction of real things that really happened and I would have zero issue with Joyce and Dorothy. They got caught up in an emotional moment then did the responsible thing by breaking up with their boyfriends in a reasonably timely fashion. I don’t think they did anything particularly wrong other than being messy and human, which is not their fault, we all are messy humans.
Joe and Walky’s reactions also seem natural enough, because on some level they both knew this would happen.
I’m right there with you. If they had realized they were in love but dutifully broke up with Joe and Walky before the kiss, it would change nothing at all. They would feel the same amount of hurt for the same reasons. Both men seem pretty clear that their relationships just weren’t that kind of commitment. The people constantly barking about cheating seem to be doing so in a purely letter-of-the-law sort of way. It’s TECHNICALLY cheating and therefore Walky and Joe OUGHT to feel a certain way rather than letting the relationships be what they are and letting the men feel what they do.
And in fact Joe helped instigate it by forcing Dorothy to confront what she wanted. I don’t think Joe did this unintentionally or in ignorance of the risks.
Please go back and read the Jacob/Joyce storyline comments. It’s not “because lesbians”. The comment section divide now, as then, is about half “because shippers”, half “because sincere disagreement on whether or not this counts as cheating”.
Some folks really want what is happening here to be “everyone agrees with me that the protest kiss counts as cheating, some people are just making excuses and pretending to disagree that it’s cheating because they want Joyce and Dorothy not to have done anything wrong”. What is actually happening here is “sometimes, people sincerely disagree about whether xyz counts as cheating”.
I’m not part of that second group, by the way. I do think they cheated. So there’s no need to try to convince me that you are empirically correct.
I just get a little exhausted by the consistent mischaracterization, especially the way it just refuses to accept the idea that sometimes people have different values.
What frustrates me is that so many people seem to be unwilling to consider any nuance whatsoever with cheating. The conversation begins and ends with “cheating is bad, therefore anyone who does something other than the maximally moral thing is evil”. Someone seeks out multiple affairs while their devoted spouse gets cancer treatment just because sex is fun and they think they can get away with it? “Absolute monster.” Two closeted people discover they’re attracted to one another, cross a line they did not intend to cross, and wake up the very next morning and break up with their week-long partners* to pursue a relationship together? “Exactly the same degree of monster.”
Yes, cheating is bad by definition. And yes, kissing someone else when you’re in a (implicitly?) monogamous relationship is cheating. But not all bad things are equally bad. Honestly, this whole fan war makes me think we need different words for a sustained, intentional infidelity on one hand, and attempted serial monogamy where the proper paperwork didn’t get filed at the correct time on the other.
Joyce and Dorothy messed up, even considering the mitigating circumstances. But honestly, between Sarah’s and Becky’s responses, I feel like they’ve already faced social consequences more than commensurate to the wrongdoing they actually did.
(*Yes, I am of the opinion that Joyce absolutely broke up with Joe. Even Joe himself seems to agree. Joyce did not finish explaining her “no” to Joe, but she would have had to give him an explicit “yes” for her to be on the hook for Joe’s proposal.)
I mean it very, VERY clearly is her Dad’s fault, and their Church’s. Like. The man threatened her life more than once, that’s definitely a fault thing.
That depends on what you think “Becky’s bullshit” is here. If it’s just her clinging to her crush on Joyce, then it’s not really her dad’s fault. If it’s everything else playing into it, then yeah.
It kind of is, though. Disorganized or insecure attachment.
“I love you I hate you don’t leave me just leave me and get it over with…” etc.
When a person is growing up in an unsafe environment, they can develop and unhealthy or even obsessive attachment to anyone who feels safe and welcoming to them. Anyone who shows kindness to or interest in them.
It was especially true with Joyce because of the shared “you and me against the world” bond of growing up in the cult together.
…Speaking from experience, here. Old childhood crushes are hard to shed. And perceived betrayals or abandonment from the childhood object of limerent attachment, the perceived “life raft” with which to escape the danger of one’s childhood home, can still devastate. Even well into adulthood. Long after the childhood bond is gone.
Yes!
It’s important to remember the mental state Becky was in when she came to Bloomington. She had been expelled from her school, she was on the run from her dad, and she had no possessions to her name except the clothes on her back. She was as desperate as is possible to get. Joyce was literally her everything in that moment. Given her sincere religious beliefs, it’s possible and even likely that she saw Joyce as a literal gift from God. A manifestation of unconditional divine protection. And that’s been slowly taken away from her. Not just romantic love, but the friendship and that feeling of being someone’s safe place. I don’t know a single pertain who wouldn’t be at least a bit of a mess in those circumstances.
What sucks wrt Joyce and Dina is that it isn’t their responsibility to manage her emotional state for her. Being where she is isn’t Becky’s fault, but she is the one who has to do the work to fix it. And Joyce can’t be expected to pretend to not be in love with Dorothy for Becky’s benefit. Neither should Dina be expected to pretend not to be hurt.
All right, all right, I’m not too proud to admit it: that last panel is sufficiently cute in a vacuum.
Ya got me once, Willis.
Yes, but he made Dina sad.
Hater containment thread, kvetch here, don’t be a weird asshole about it, etc
Ah yes a containment thread. Kind of like how these two stay contained in their little bubble of plot armor where everything is great for them. And all the blowback and downside to their behavior only hits other people .
Just remember, a sneak peak for a late august trip shows Mary spotting them together
If NOTHING else, Mary is going to bring consequences to them
I love being in both the “YAY JOYROTHY!” and “Dramaville hurry up” camps, I eat good no matter what
*August STRIP frickin keyboard
I was wondering where they were going in August lol!
I want consequences for the cheating, not the being gay, I think Mary is likely to bring more of the latter and I do NOT want her to be the one to bring the former.
But i think the window on the former is closing anyway
Fair enough, and in agreement. Like, as much as I like these two, Joyce *never got back to Joe*, so the two are technically still together. I’ll forgive the kissing before just because “Webcomic and wants to show they are so madly in love they literally struggle to wait” which is a meh trope but is the one chosen – A weak reason, but a reason. This is just awful to Joe though, and as seen, they… Ain’t seeing consequences for that act
I’m pretty sure Joe knew it was over when Joyce promised to talk later.
Joyce has broken up with Joe. Dorothy has not broken up with Walky. Dorothy could still walk in and say, I hope you didn’t take Joyce seriously; now take those pants off. She probably lacks the motivation though.
No. She kinda tried, and it petered out before our eyes.
ha HA, “peter”
That is factually incorrect. https://www.dumbingofage.com/2025/comic/book-16/01-not-so-smooth-criminals/sundayedition/
“And now you see why I had to come here to break up with you.”
Next strip.
“I have to break up with you, Joe.”
Next strip.
“I can’t date two people at the same time.”
What Joe said is irrelevant. Them breaking up does not require his approval or agreement. The fact that Joyce promised to continue the conversation at some unspecified future time is irrelevant. The fact that Joyce is willing to consider herself a hussy is interesting but irrelevant to the fact that we saw her break up with him on screen. Denying reality is kind of pointless.
Joyce herself is noncommital as to whether Joe is her ex-boyfriend.
Yeah, he’s desperate to not lose a relationship which he described as the best thing that ever happened to him. 🙁
Nah, Joyce was very clear that she was going to be kissing Dorothy more. If her relationship with Joe is still up in the air, it’s clear that the remaining options are either “he’s dumped and she’s with Dorothy” or “some kind of poly thing including him and Dorothy”. Either way, she’s doing nothing wrong to him by having sex with Dorothy.
I think it’s a mistake for her to have had sex with Dorothy without telling Dorothy about the poly suggestion first, if she has any interest in trying it, but that’s different from her still being in any sense exclusive with Joe.
She’ll probably go for the “hussy” angle too, to add some spice to her bigotry.
Plot twist, Mary decides that wait, she finds this cute and will root for them.
Comment section explodes.
It’d be a bold more, for certain.
You know, for all the discourse that there is around redemption of evil characters in fiction, I like it when there isn’t a redemption arc at all and instead the evil person just… stops. Because even the most evil of all men can choose to stop. One of the most brilliant parts off A Clockwork Orange, which didn’t make it into Kubrick’s adaptation, is that in the final chapter where Alex gives up on ultraviolence because he literally just gets bored with it.
I love the little teasers because it’s like “Ho ho, look at the drama brewing” and I look at the date and I’m like “Something happens in fucking AUGUST?”
When this comic started, I was college aged…
rooting for the homophobic christian bigot is a good look for the paladins.
Oh I am not a paladin. I’m a Chaos Gremlin
Not to be confused with a trash goblin.
High five fellow Chaos Gremlin! I want to watch everyone burn. And then put each other out, get things back into order again … and then burn it all down in a different way.
“Things might happen almost one calendar year from now” isn’t really a sop to people who are bored already, unfortunately
(This is not a dig at you, or even Willis, lol. It’s just the nature of the pacing. Alack and alas.)
One, being subjected to homophobic bigotry is not really the thing people mean when they talk about consequences.
Two, lol no she isn’t. Mary sucks at sucking, she’s a comically ineffective jobber who exists to get dunked on, whatever bigoted bullshit she tries is going to end with her faceplanting into the mud
Mary’s not consequences, Mary’s just a bigoted asshole. Consequences are the people they actually care about reacting negatively
I wonder how far that’s going to go. I am imagining an apocalypse pulling every single character into heartbreaking misery except these two, who are unaffected and just keep having cute couples moments in the middle of the university’s ashes.
Well, hey, it could be much worse. Just so long as nobody tries having sex on a diving board or asking their parents about their first time.
Just feels like we’re lingering on boring stuff lately
I think Coolsville sucks! 😠
Red Herring!?
Shelbyville sucks!
I like that they keep emphasizing that Dorothy(who she’s only known for probably half a year) is her best friend. Probably said it just loud enough for Becky to hear to sink deeper into depression.
Look that’s fine, sometimes you meet someone and you just fuck w them (literally in this case) even going through half the shit these two have
Tbf I’m pretty sure the DoA description has been “and her Atheist best friend” since the start. And I also have multiple best friends like I’d say Joyce does, but I think I get where you’re coming from
Wait … how could someone have multiple best friends? That’s not best works. The best is the single top of whatever it’s applied to.
You can’t have multiple things be the ‘best’ in the same category, that’s nonsense!
No you can have more than one best friend
The only way I can see that working is if your best friend is also best friends with your other best friend.
It’s also possible to just have more than one friend and not have a specific “best” friend who stands out as being especially close.
But the bigger issue here is that Joyce and Becky have been rapidly drifting apart even just as friends for months now and the comic has barely even dealt with *that* aside from their fight over Joyce lying about being atheist and then mocking Becky for still believing and then being unapologetic afterward. Becky isn’t Joyce’s best friend anymore, she hasn’t been for a long time, but Joyce is still lying to her about that to avoid conflict and deepening the wound every time she does.
My best friend list is a pool not a list
You can if “Best Friend” is a category, not a ranking!
The categories go (in ascending order of trust and intimacy)
Enemies
Annoyances
Strangers
Acquaintances
Friends
Best Friends
Committed Players In My D&D Campaign
I’m glad you have your priorities straight.
The last panel being genuinely cute when removed ftom context honestly makes me even more annoyed now because the context DOES exist and CAN’T be removed. I’d love to be able to enjoy adorkable nonsense with everyone else, but a) that’s ALL we’ve been getting from these two, so there’s in their dynamic that makes it, well, dynamic, and b) the “how we got here” looms over these two like some kind of narrative sword of Damocles.
It’s like Willis just handed me a nice vanilla shake at a restaurant but they stepped on a dog’s tail on the way to get it here. Like, yeah, that’s a nice milkshake and all, but it’s hard to enjoy it when all I can think about is that poor pupper. And also this is the fifth milkshake you’ve brought me and I’m getting pretty sick of vanilla, especially when I first started coming to this diner for their spicy noodles.
If any of that scans. It’s late. I’m tired. My sleep schedule is whack.
*there’s nothing in their dynamic that makes it dynamic.
Missed a word. V v tired. Goodnight, everyone play nice while I’m asleep or the Cheshire Cat will eat all the good snacks from your pantry or something.
Ethan gravatar checks out?
I mean, this is the worm in the apple, right? It was a bad narrative choice to establish this extremely important couple, one Willis has been planning for years and that seems to be his own personal OTP, as getting together by cheating on their partners, and very specifically partners who are popular and well liked characters. When this kind of thing happens in the soaps, the partners are usually abusive, or bland, or otherwise unfulfilling, so it’s easier to root for the couple who clearly belongs together. You can say it’s a bold choice to not take that easy way out and instead add the complicating factor of both the partners being cheated on being well liked characters in their own right, but all that means in practice is that this relationship has a little rain cloud over its head that it’s never going to be able to shake.
Hell, they could have been drunk when they cheated, and the messy complications could all stem from that while they actually do both treat the people around them with respect and care now that they’re sober. If this whole thing stems from the “huh shit, that’s right, no one here HAS been cheating” sentiment… college kids getting drunk and doing stupid, regrettable shit is even more classic than cheating because horny.
It would also lead to literal years worth of relationship plot to mine out. In-universe days for them to come clean about what happened to their partners, for their partners to move on (or not) as a result, lots of time for them to come to terms with being bi, lots of time to deal with Becky’s issues, lots of time to drift apart from their partners and pull that “we want to get together but we’re trying to be good” that Walky and Amber did, and finally lots of time for them to finally get over it all and get together.
That’s a cheating storyline that allows the characters to be messy but not deliberately selfish AND allows for their budding relationship to actually build up to its climax despite them having hooked up already.
If Joyce and Dorothy got together while drunk I promise you we’d still be shooting down people furious that one of them was responsible for SAing the other.
Personally, only if one of them was drunk. If both are drunk, it’s kinda hard to assign blame. Just people being stupid.
Alcohol is a narcotic that specifically damages inhibitions. Part of the problem is that Joyce and Dorothy were in 100% control of every choice they’ve made.
To be clear: I wasn’t saying I personally felt it would be SA, so there’s no need to debate with me. Just that a section of the comments certainly would.
Yeah, I can’t argue with you there.
Reminds me of an old tumblr post I saw of a sign that says something like “Tony was drunk. Sarah was drunk. They had sex and Tony got in trouble for taking advantage of her” and all I could think was “Weren’t they both drunk? Why is he not considered being taken advantage of”
It did less to dissuade me from alcohol as it did random hookups. (Not that I’m at any risk of indulging in either).
You’ve said it better than I could. I really wish I could find this cute, but their shitty behavior towards other people while getting to this point has made that impossible.
Greetings fellow “can only describe shipping vibes through food”er. You are in good company.
These two have only been together for like 12 hours and theyre already stagnant, that has to be a new record
I will never pry myself free of Patreon’s clutches at this rate!!! *goes back to subscribe*
I forget when I stopped being angry. I think I’m still moderately disgusted, though. If they weren’t already in a locked room, I’d tell them to fucking get one.
Shit, who is around that’s still in the middle of something? ALICE! Where’s Alice? Billie should have left Walky’s room by now since he ended things obnoxiously.
Let’s watch *those* two lesbians get going. They’re getting back together so it’s a lot more wholesome and romantic than this. Automatically. 2nd chances are better. That’s the rule.
Like my mom used to say “the only thing that’s good reheated is goulash”
Your mom never had last night’s steak for breakfast, I guess.
I’ve never heard of anybody allowing steak to be left over. You get that steak eaten while it’s good and fresh, no matter how many sides you have to relegate to leftover hell to make that happen. Those things are too expensive to be eaten inferiorly.
My stomach is only so large, and on the extremely rare occasion I get to eat a steak, I like to order a very big one so I can have some later, to prolong the experience. Heating it up in the skillet the next morning is perfect.
I usually eat leftover strip steak cold. Has a special, unique taste to it.
Anything with a tomato sauce tends to be waaayyyy better reheated.
Mmmmm….. next-day Lasagna.
Pizza is objectively meant to be eaten after at least 6 hours in the fridge and then microwaved a couple times to get it warm in the middle
“Anything with a tomato sauce”
I’ve been considering various counter-examples and you’re right, that is the common thread.
It’s something to do with the way the acids in tomato sauces break down their own sugars and how that improves over time. Worth a google!
I just want to shout booooo again, but I don’t know if it’s because I’m annoyed at them or I just wanna say Boooo because it’s nearing the end of October.
Even the ghosts in the room watching Joyce and Dorothy are like “Wow this is a *terrible* storyline, damn you Willis!”
I have to say it — I do think Vriska may have done some things wrong.
Reported on five devices. Take it the fuck back🔪
Report it on six you lazy coward.
Should be 8 times. She’d understand.
Heresy!
It still seems weird to me that those of us who don’t approve of Joyce and Dorothy starting their relationship off with cheating and continuing it by being shitty to pretty much everyone around them are the ones who need a “containment thread”.
I think the containment thread is to allow space for other discussion, because frankly the kvetching about the situation is played out. It has become and aggressively uninteresting line of conversation
What discussion is there to be had outside of just bongoing or gushing about these 2, basically nothing else has actually happened in 4 months
Dina and Becky’s drama is interesting, so is Joe’s talk with Sarah. Would love to see more of those.
I too would love to see more of those.
But sadly we only get 2 pages from each before we get more doyce being sickly sweet to each other for imma guess 5-10 pages minimum
“Nothing else has actually happened in 4 months” is a big part of it I think. Even the Becky/Dina drama and Joe’s talk with Sarah tie directly back to Joyce/Dorothy, so they’re not really getting away from the discourse.
We’ve had past conflicts that led to a lot of drama in the comments, like the Becky/Joyce atheism fight, but that was only the sole focus for a couple weeks, then while it did keep coming up, the focus kept shifting to other plots which let the comment drama die down a bit.
Here’s it’s been almost nothing else for more than two full chapters (with a side order of related discourse about the protest.)
Yeah… in this storyline the only deviations we’ve had from the DoJo Show or its repercussions have been a bit with Amber and the Ruth/Alice/Billie love triangle, and only bits and pieces of each.
I’d actually forgotten we’d had that Ruth/Alice conversation.
I think all the Amber bits were basically protest fall out though.
These two are such densely packed nothing it’s created a black hole that sucks all the other storylines into it, snuffing out anything that could be interesting
The comments on the comic gets repetitive because what’s happening in the comic gets repetitive. If the comic had moved on to show other storyline/characters other than “Joyce/Dorothy” and “Joyce/Dorothy fallout” there would be something else to comment on.
It’s the repetitive part of the comment section that people can scroll through.
If only we could get a similar “oh look they’re so cute. I love how cute they are!” and “hey, I’m going to accuse all the people who dislike this ship of some kind of weird-ass beliefs and/or bigotry” containment thread(s).
Our opinions shouldn’t be shared openly because it’ll make the shippers who want everything perfect annoyed 🙁
(I’m specifically done just commenting anything about this, my thoughts are clear that this shit is boring and this plot is pointless outside of establishing them being sickly sweet with each otjer but its also making several previous plots also entirely pointless to read)
Honestly, as long as there’s no block/mute feature (and tbf I don’t know how that would work with this particular comment widget, it’s not like we have accounts), I think the idea of a self regulated “haters go HERE, everyone else go THERE” thread is the best way we’ve got to enforce intercommunicative boundaries and prevent thing from devolving into knockdrown drag-outs, which is as beneficial to us haters as it is to the hater-haters.
I, personally, like having a designated Bongofest Zone where I can say “I don’t like this” without someone crawling down my throat about it.
Yeah that’s the best part. Having complete permission to freely dunk on this dogwater ass ship without having to worry about stepping on anyones toes cuz, hey you saw the title. You know what this thread is about. That’s so freeing and a relief
It makes like as a good honest hater a little better, it does.
I can get how containing the negativity to one thread is better for the overall vibes of the site and health of everyone involved. If you’re someone who both doesn’t care about the cheating and likes these two I can see how it’d get exhausting constantly having to dodge complainers. I don’t even like these two and I think the cheating complaints get a little annoying after a while
Zee is soft on cheating. Everyone shun zee.
Becky thinks her depression is bad now, wait till she finds out she isn’t Joyce’s best friend anymore.
You can have more than one best friend.
Once again, I am amused to find the most completely unhinged takes on what the DoJo haters must be thinking in the comments.
Once again, I am unsurprised to find out that most of the really viciously unfair takes are being generated by people who really, really want this to be a lovely sweet coming-out story and completely ignore the cheating/being-a-dick-to-your-friends aspects (and, to be fair, vice-versa).
At this point for me personally this ship is just a microcosm of the way the ship has been done the entire strip, I think:
– it was built up in the background for fifteen years, there was NO WAY it was going to be as good as the hype unless it was endgame in some capstone kind of way.
– and now we’re building up how sweet and wonderful these two are and how great it is for them to finally be together and sunshine and puppies… and aside from the complete lack of anything actually entertaining in the lens of “hey, this has been a dramedy the whole time, and there’s nothing dramatic and no jokes here”, I feel like we’re once again being set up for no catharsis/plot arc.
Yes, yes, let Willis cook. It’s been cookin’ since May, and every time something interesting starts happening we cut back to this soggy wonderbread toast.
Boring.
So what you’re saying is that soggies may rule.
God the character actually named Wonderbread is 100x more interesting than this.
Can we cut back to Sal and Danny actually? I recently got to read their slipshine, GOD throw two are peak. They’re so underappreciated by the narrative, they got together and barely showed up again after that
”God why do people keep repeating themselves about not liking dojo-”
Well, because apparently despite using very plain terms to explain my feelings I still keep getting told what unhinged thoughts I must actually be having.
It’s a real “I like pancakes/so you hate waffles?” situation
As someone who thinks it’s reasonable to expect a bunch of college kids to react somewhat badly to cheating within the group, I’m especially fond of hearing how what I actually just said was “Dorothy and Joyce should be murdered for betraying their loves”, just like everyone else who has an opinion on cheating other than “cheating is irrelevant/it’s not cheating anyway”.
‘Let college kids be emotional and dumb’ version of ‘rules for thee but not for me.’
Oh look, we got ANOTHER “people talking about how they don’t like the ship being here every four strips not being interesting, remind me of how homophobes used to say not to shove gay in their faces.” The part that goes “I will ignore that pretty much every regular in the haters thread has said nothing of the sort of Dina/Becky or Ruth/Billie having cute moments, or about Mike/Ethan or any other gay smooching.” has as usual gone unspoken.
my life as a queer man is so enriched by being called a homophobe for finding a longrunning webcomic’s current plotline boring.
Listen, I’m not trying to start a fight by trespassing on the negativity thread, but as a not-very-dedicated commenter who genuinely does not understand what Joyce and Dorothy have done wrong in this storyline other than cheating and being mildly obnoxious, I need to ask:
Which takes do you consider “viciously unfair,” exactly?
Like, I haven’t seen any anti-Doyce commenters who I’d consider homophobic, so yeah I’d say that take was viciously unfair. I’ve also only seen one person actually have that take. Maybe if I was more active in the comments I’d see more pro-Doyce people calling the other side homophobic, or maybe I’d see anti-Doyce people being homophobic (before their comments get deleted).
And from my perspective, I’ve seen a ton of people accusing Joyce and Dorothy of being awful, shitty, etc. to everyone around them, not just their boyfriends. So awful that people are threatening to stop reading. Which, I wouldn’t call it “viciously unfair,” but certainly unfair and personally very aggravating. Especially in a comment strip with people like Mike, Raidah, pre-character-development Ruth. And at the same time, there are a ton of anti-Doyce people who claim to just be bored of the storyline and complain they’re being slandered. And it frustrates me, cause I don’t know if they’re talking about me (I’ve complained a lot about people who I think are demonizing Joyce and Dorothy to a ridiculous degree), or if they’re just talking about accusations of homophobia.
comic strip*
I posted this way too late to hope for a response, might try again tomorrow.
The problem is, the really bad stuff gets scrubbed (mutch like the actual homophobia that shippers rightfully point out does.)
So, like, i can tell you that one of the common dojo shippers replide to a tepid ‘lol whitebread’ take with, “oh, so you just want a man to come rape joyce straight again, huh?” But I can’t…prove it. Because it was a vile accusation that was RIGHTFULLY scrubbed. Its literally a ‘just trust me bro’ situation.
(Honestly i probably shouldn’t even be bringing it up again, but it did kind of shell-shock me a littke tbh.)
Oh sweet, thanks. Ive been sticking to the Patreon comments lately so idk if this has been an ongoing thing or if it’s new.
Anyway these two still suck. Like not morally or anything they’re just still unseasoned boiled chicken breast whenever they’re on screen together. Finally bit the bullet and forked over the 25 bucks (ouch) to look at the porn and like. They they were actually kinda fun. Got some personality in there, lil bit of salt to cut the overwhelming sugar. Gonna need a lot more than that to stop feeling like a waste of a page when literally everything tangential to this storyline is more interesting. I wanna cut back to Becky and Dina.
Also yay I’m happy to see dojo catching on
I will not aww! They are not cute! They are simply void!
Awww! Love Dorothy’s smile in panel 6.
Every smile in this strip is so amazing and adorable!
They’ll go down in history as good friends.
Archaeologists study their remains.
Classify them as good friends.
Maybe even roommates.
Hey, don’t go blaming us archaeologists for calling everyone “good friends”, you tend to see some pretty kinky shit depending on which cultural groups you wind up studying!
I’d throw the blame more at those boring historian types who later interpret the findings. Gotta classify everything nice and vanilla for the public narrative
The line between regular and slipshine further blurs
So, which one of them was the top? Did Joyce put in more work to enjoy the Happy Dorothy sounds?
Joyce is definitely the top, are you kidding
https://www.dumbingofage.com/2025/comic/book-16/01-not-so-smooth-criminals/reallydoingthis/
She destroyed Dorothy’s clothes on the atomic level. The energy expenditure was horrendous.
So THAT’S why they’re both glowing!
Given both the Slipshine previews and how lesbian sex often tends to work, especially with people who don’t have enough experience to guess their own preferences, I’m gonna say they probably swapped out.
It works that way less than you think. Stone tops exist!
Okay, serious question: what DOES stone mean these days? My only context is from reading historical shit where it’s ambiguous whether it’s about position, genitals, or emotional armor.
I also am a lot of things, but lesbian is not one of them so I may be biased towards the largely vanilla bottom ladies among my friends group lol.
I know it both sexually and emotionally, but put together with top it is the sexual context, in which it’s basically “only gives, doesn’t receive”
Stone tops prefer to be the one “doing” and don’t want anything done to them. They get pleasure from bringing their partners pleasure and match up well with pillow princesses who prefer to enthusiastically receive but not to give.
In recent years, straight people have stolen the term pillow princess to mean “woman who is uninterested in sex and just lies there” which is not the vibe, and IS annoying.
Yup! I’m a stone top myself and pillow princesses have my entire heart.
It’s so frustrating. I know the term could also have negative connotations in queer spaces, but I feel like there’s this ugly “keeping score” aspect either way, with a fixation on “the top” as the only one who’s actually Doing Sex. The “bottom” is just experiencing sex, just having sex Done to Them. And therefore the only way to actually Have Sex Mutually is to be a switch.
This mentality is so nakedly patriarchal and misogynistic, And Yet it’s everywhere, infecting everything.
My stance on this, which I’m sure you’ve all been impatiently waiting for, is that if both people are enjoying it, who the hell cares.
There is clearly a difference in the amount they registered as ACTIVE. How much of that Active Zone time was giving, and how much receiving?
The canon material is ambiguous. Sure difficult to tell for certain.
Also the Canon material pretty much states Joyce is sopping wet whenever she is around Joe and Dorothy
They’re switches going off the slipshine, but let’s be real. Joyce is the top.
Fuckin nerds.
My favorite hobby!!
Well said
Total nerds!
I don’t wear a smartwatch but if I did, I think I’d take it off for sex. I don’t think I’d want my watch to know when I’m having sex.
Okay, but neither of them has probably ever played Red-Eyes Fusion to combine their Red-Eyes Black Dragon with their Dark Magician, forming the Red-Eyes Dark Dragoon on their first turn, so they haven’t really fucked.
They haven’t even topdecked Elemental HERO Stratos…
And they call themselves gay…
You haven’t lived until you go turn one, on the play, land, Sol Ring, Arcane Signet, Mana Crypt, Rhystic Study.
Fuck living, this thread only describes TCG-related sex. Which is more important than living.
Jesus Table-Flipping Christ, if someone did that at a table with me, I would scoop immediately and watch them get stabbed by the other two players.
They haven’t even interupted their opponent’s combo at a crucial choking point by tactically activating Ash Blossom and then simply making Verte Anaconda.
It’s absolutely wild being raised fundie and told that your first time is not only going to be terrible, but also horrifically painful. I used to have panic attacks thinking about the pain and the blood.
Anyways, my slightly younger relative took the jump first and was like “Lol what no, it doesn’t hurt why would it hurt” and that was literally all I needed to hear to get over that. I totally get why Joyce would think it was scary even without a judging God. You can reason away eternal damnation, reasoning away “the most painful night of my life before I had kids” is much harder. I feel deep pity for the entire female boomer generation.
Okay sure but if you’re gay and don’t prepare yourself… it might hurt.
I’m pretty sure OP and the friend they mentioned are both, you know, people with vulvas.
That said: lube never hurt anyone. More lube than you think you need is always a good policy for any type of sex, and yes, this very much includes vaginal.
Um, as a member of the boomer generation, I was told it was wrong to have any sex (and same sex sex was a complete no-no), but I was not told ‘the most painful night of my life’. Admittedly no fundie upbringing for me, but my peer group was not raised on a fear of painful sex.
I was raised in the South (so basically raised fundie) and I was told the first time would be painful. As least the way I was told, it would be ‘painful’ on account of the cherry popping. I remember my mom even telling me that there could be some blood from it being ‘popped’. In truth I think the real pain would be a combo of inexperience and inappropriate prep, aka if someone uses the right lube and revs up their partner enough to get some stuff going on then it shouldn’t be dry. It’s gonna be painful if the sex is dry.
For me it’s pretty much always been painful. For years I assumed the pain was just an automatic part of the process.
…One thing about medication-induced loss of libido is that it can be kind of a relief once that part of one’s life is gone. Actually makes the rest of human experience easier to navigate.
…For me, anyway.
I’m so sorry it’s been painful every time for you. That must have been difficult to go through.
Well, thank you for saying so, Doopyboop. But it’s over now. One of the good things about the extinguishment of sexual capacity is that I don’t miss it at all. It’s like the old song goes:
“I have all that I requested.
I do not want what I have not got.”
It’s a little wistful but ultimately liberating.
I’m making peace with the loss. I think it’s a good next step in life.
That’s good at least! I understand, I’m sex-repulsed ace so I have no desire or urge to use my own equipment.
Thanks, Doopyboop!
…It’s funny, everybody says that medication and trauma work can’t affect a person’s orientation, but, yeah – sex-repulsed ace feels right, these days. Much more peaceful.
Just because it’s not how I’ve always felt in the past doesn’t necessarily mean that it can’t be what’s right for me *now*, at this stage in life.
That was a special feature of your particular fundie sect, not of the boomer generation.
Remembers the 60’s, much of which happened in the ’70s.
I think I agree.
Its time for me to recap the comments
comments: I hate them I hate them I hope they die in a fire!
tune in next time!
I think there’s a little more diversity than that.
True I thought I saw someone hope they get hit by a truck.
Don’t forget the ones whining about all the other commenters who refuse to condemn Joyce and Dorothy for sacrificing babies to Moloch, or whatever it is Joyce and Dorothy supposedly did.
They should have acted with integrity.
Ah but you see they already have no regrets.
Dude, did you even »read« the Sliphine?! It was puppies, not literal babies.
For what its worth, I don’t have any reason to disbelieve Jay when he said that one wasn’t meant to go through. He’s owned up to more aggro stuff, I don’t see why he’d make up an excuse that.
I stand behind everything I say….except that.
I will admit to being a comment section problem tho, I’m taking a step back so y’all won’t have to worry about me popping up too much and whatever i do comment will be a pittance on comparison.
Also just a sidenote I’ve discovered its whenever I post off data my comments dont go through so no more me raging and commenting expecting it to not go through
Question is, will you now get accused of strawmen and repetition, for an amusing piece of sarcasm?!
I mean I was gonna lol
amusing is a generous adjective to use here
Don’t misrepresent opinions if you don’t wanna get called out for misrepresenting opinions <3
Huge chunk of the “haters” are more “bored” right now than “murderously angry.” I get that makes us harder to dismiss but don’t put words in my mouth.
When that boredom manifests as showing up everyday to whine and moan and yuk in everyone else’s yum, I don’t really care about the distinction in the underlying opinion.
Nope, still pretty easy to dismiss.
Relevant xkcd from all the way back in 2011.
hahaha+18 Stickmen having sex
This is official Halloween thread!
Let’s talk all things Halloween. What is your favorite Halloween memories?
For me it was the first times my girls went trick or treating together.
Got a favorite Halloween song? I just discovered Muse Fell like Halloween. Been watching the video several times.
Favorite spooky movie? Mine is Poltergeist.
What are some of your favorite fun size candies? I love Snickers, Heaths and Almond Joy.
Discuss these topics and more.
Little early for a Halloween thread, don’t you think? This is a daily strip, we got some runway left!
Figured with how the comment section has been lately we all need a little mood booster, plus it is never too early for Halloween.
RIGHT???
what with Becky X Dina shippers having their 9/11, this the LEAST we can do, I’ll bite
Trick or treating was always a joy as a kid, my neighborhood really REALLY shows up for halloween, I remember going as GIR from Invader Zim, that was fun
as an adult? I go to the store last minute to get discounted huge bags of candy, and watching horror movies with my friends
Beetlejuice is always a fav ^-^
*plays Beetlejuice opening theme on hacked muzak*
Hey, thanks Spacie. I appreciate you making a thread to just have pro-social interactions with people and get some better vibes in this zone. At this point I wouldn’t care if you made it about Easter.
My fun Halloween memory was hosting my first party living away from my parents. It wasn’t a rager, it was nerds talking about games, playing music, eating candy, etc. It was a much simpler time back then.
Song-wise, I’ll take a good Monster Mash anytime.
I don’t know I have a favor Halloween movie, but for video games, classic Silent Hill just doesn’t stop giving.
I think Snickers is an excellent choice. I’ll take people’s Three Musketeers too.
Your welcome and I love reading all the responses so far.
I’m already seeing Christmas ads. Halloween’s been relocated to sometime back in September, maybe August, to make room for them.
I wish the War on Christmas could end in a fucking nuclear winter.
That would at least be a winter!!!
“Always winter and never Christmas”
*plays Weird Al’s “Christmas at Ground Zero” on the hacked muzak*
The War on Christmas will end when Christmas ends its illegal occupation of October and November and promises no further aggression.
I will personally shoot Santa Claus directly between the eyes with my M202 FLASH that I’ve painted with Halloween imagery like it’s a Fortnite weapon.
Apparently people didn’t used to say “Merry/Happy Christmas” to each other except on Christmas Day itself. Can you even imagine?
Hands Big Z a spare Internet.
As many of my friends adamantly insist in, like, April every year, it’s never too early for Halloween.
Fav Halloween memory the time me and friends trick or treated alone we covered 3 neighborhoods 11 full streets
Fav Halloween song This is Halloween Danny Elfman
Fav spooky Movie The Exorcist which i have seen 167 times and just keeps getting funnier every single time! though Orignal Halloween and The Thing are close seconds
And Snickers but i do love me some tootsie pops specifically blue and i wont say mo to a Twix
And also best Halloween costume i was a Box literally just cardboard box with four holes cut out two to see and two for my arms some stamps and a fake address written in a sharpie!
Honestly top 10 Halloween movies
1)The Excorsist
2)Halloween
3) Night of The Living Dead
4.) Ghostbusters
5.)Beetlejuice
6)The Thing
7) The Nightmare before Christmas (a teo for one)
8)Friday the 13th
9) Carnival of Souls
10) Herditarry
‘Carnival Of Souls’ is a great choice, no film has ever managed ‘be terrifyingly atmospheric on no budget to speak of’ so well. The original ‘The Haunting’ is a fine example of the same but with an actual budget/actors/etc.
We don’t really celebrate Halloween where i live. They pass seasonal specials on tv and supermarkets decorate but trick or treating is pretty much not a thing at least in my area.
I haven’t read a lot of horror movies, but i quite like monster house and paranorman. I could also recommend the tales from the gas station book series, they got a pretty good mix of creepiness and absurd humor. And if you like things from r/nonsleep or creepypasta wiki, Mr.crepypasta is a real good narrator on youtube. Also speaking of r/nosleep i couldn’t not mention my favorite author Daturdead and his blue sunflowers series, his stuff are really good.
And about candy, anything that is chocolate i eat without question, the bigger the better. I don’t pay much attention to brands, as long as there chocolate in my mouth i am happy.
*Saturdead
Saturdead on http://www.reddit.com/r/Saturdead or http://www.reddit.com/r/nosleep is my favorite, too! I also love Monster House. I’m really pleased and surprised to see some fellow Saturdead fans out in the wild.
Me too he isn’t as well know as he deserves, for real one of the best internet horror writers i seen.
We had a big Halloween party tonight. It was fun! We invite all the neighbors, both because it’s nice to be able to make some connections and because even for those who don’t come, they’re probably not going to complain about it if they were invited. One family moved onto the block during summer, and we introduced them to a couple other families in the neighborhood. Their daughter is in 3rd grade, and we had another neighbor who’s in 2nd grade, and at first they were both to shy to play with each other, but I helped navigate that and soon they were running around chasing after the 3rd graders brother (he’s in 7th grade, and unfortunately there weren’t any kids close to his age there) yelling about how he needed to pay his taxes.
I don’t have kids, so my favorite Halloween memory is of me going to my sister’s neighborhood to go trick or treating with her and her kids. Her neighborhood goes all out with haunted houses and competitions for best decorations. I had never seen that kind of commitment to Halloween before. I was also a bit shy because I didn’t know the protocol for being an adult with no kids trick or treating, but they just gave me a bucket and candy like I was a kid too. I enjoyed seeing my nephews trick or treating and taking their aunt to the houses.
Fave Movie? Never really been big on Halloween Horror movies, but does Sinners and the Book of Life count?
And as for candy, I’m not big on chocolate. But Starbusrts and Tootsie Pops are the best.
for reals I count Sinners, I LOVE that movie, that one scene with the brothaz spirits from the past, present and future I just felt in my BLOOD AAAAAAAAAH <3
I have yet to watch the tree of life but from what i have heard i’d count it.
And Sinners is super dope or super fly on my five point film sclae which ranges from shit, meh, pretty dope, dope and super dope or super fly
I’ve never really understood Hallowe’en, always having assumed it was some kind of merging of the Christian All Hallows Eve, and the Mexican Day of the Dead. But I’m now understanding that it is one of the many things that was extant when Caucasian folks migrated to the USA, and has remained extant and developed in the USA but largely disappeared in UK/Europe. Obviously the USA current version has ‘re-migrated’ around the world in popular culture.
I will be celebrating yaM day, which is May day for southern Hemispherians.
No, it’s simply a specifically Irish thing.
In college we would go out Halloween-carolling. My girlfriend found a bunch of filked Halloween-themed lyrics to well-known Christmas carols (Away in a Graveyard, We Three Ghouls, Ghosties We Have Heard on High, Humphrey the Blue-Nosed Pumpkin, etc) online and compiled them into a songbook, we made a bunch of copies, and we’d meet up with a bunch of our friends—all in costume, of course—and wander around downtown, visiting various houses and fraternities and sororities and stores. At each one we’d knock on the door, and someone with a bowl of candy would open it, expecting a few kids saying “trick or treat,” but instead see a dozen college students gleefully bursting into song. It was glorious. Everybody loved it. We never explicitly asked for candy but most folks offered it anyway. The sororities especially thought we were adorable and sometimes dumped entire bowls of candy into our sacks. Good times all around.
That’s amazing 🤩 🍂🍫🎃
My friends and I used to wander around in cloaks and masks “Halloween caroling” (singing whatever spooky songs we all knew well enough to be a makeshift choir) with a treasure box full of full sized candy bars. Any kid who approached us would be asked an easy riddle (I used to write riddles, I had several I knew were doable for kids) and if they got it right we’d open up the treasure box and they’d get to choose out one of the big candy bars. It was a lot of fun, and theatrically giving out the candy was way more fun than receiving it ever had been. Good times.
I didn’t know there was such a thing as a Halloween song.
Favorite Halloween memory: Taking my younger cousin trick or treating, or taking the boys I babysat trick or treating. Also memories of going to Howl-O-Scream with my mom.
Favorite Halloween song: Monster Mash, Thriller, This is Halloween, Grim Grinning Ghosts
Favorite Halloween movie: Hocus Pocus and Trick R Treat
Favorite candy: Skittles and reese’s.
My favourite Halloween memory was in university when some friends and I used to do this event called trick or eat. We’d dress up and go door to door asking for donations to the food bank. People’s reactions were great. At first they’d be like you’re way to old for this and then when we explained what we were doing they’d be excited to donate, and often give us candy as well.
My favourite candy are the reese’s pumpkin things. They’re so much better than regular peanut butter cups!
So I was trick or treating with my kid a few years back, when she was on the cusp of “too cool to be trick-or-treating with dad”. I had on my frankly badass Qui-Gon Jinn costume (look, I spent way too much money on a cosplay-level kit and an Ultrasaber, because I’m a dork in my 40s and I could finally afford it).
At one point, coming up the street the other direction is another dad. In a pretty good Kylo Ren costume.
I just point and light the saber. He pauses, then dramatically lights his. Cue duel in the middle of the street with a dozen cheering kids of varying ages.
This year I’m planning on handing out candy, and keeping my saber on the “red” colorway so if anyone calls me Obi-Wan I can do that one AU meme where Anakin and Obi-Wan switch their alignments.
“Obi-Wan? *dark chuckle, ignites red lightsaber* Now THAT’S a name I haven’t heard in a long time.”
A few years ago I made a Weezing Pumpkin that turned out really good.
https://imgchest.com/p/wl7laaeppyx
Also, I’m the full size Candy Bar house.
Dude awesome carving skills. I need to show this to my youngest. She will talk your ears off about Pokemon. This year she painted her plastic pumpkin to look like Sylveon. I used markers to paint on a bunch of different ghost types on mine.
I was raised pretty religious. It goes deep. So I would go around door to door on Halloween asking for donations to UNICEF, rather than candy. (Much to the mortification of the classmate’s mom who would be taking the group of kids door to door, who felt like I was imposing by asking for money instead of candy.)
On those occasions when I did receive candy anyway, I would give away even my favorite candy (Reese’s — I loved peanut butter) to the other kids, and then brag to my mom afterwards about how virtuous I had been not to take any.
…Wild. Even well-intentioned religions can turn Halloween from a fun and creative festival into a devotional chore.
…OK, a happier memory? My mother would always help me to make my own halloween costumes, out of old clothes and things we had around the house. Because she didn’t believe in buying anything. Another religious thing. My favorite was a blue silk burqa that her mother had bought in an open-air bazaar in India, shortly after India’s independence. Culturally appropriative, I know. I was, like, 8. Retrospect is 20/20. I would out it on to completely hide my face. I would wear a life-preserver (for canoeing) over my shoulders to raise up my shoulder height and make my covered head appear instead to be a stump of a neck.
Then I would carry one of those big round plastic-pumpkin baskets, with an old papier-mâché skull mask on one side and a wig of long yellow yarn on the other, so it looked like a severed head I was carrying.
Then I would go to school, proudly carrying my “head” tucked under my arm and proclaimed myself to be Anne Boleyn.
“With ‘er ‘ead tucked underneath ‘er arm”:
https://youtu.be/Ct8RMos3rYk
(Played on the hacked classroom cassette player.)
The one time I went trick or treating in seventh grade. Halloween isn’t a huge thing in my country, the only area I know that does trick or treating is one particular gated community. I was in a witch hat and a shitty cloak I got passed down from my brother (my mom made it for a Darth maul costume). My hat kept flying off when I walked so I just used it as my candy bag. It was awesome.
Second place is my first year of college, my dorm had a Halloween auction to raise money. The costume theme was Egyptian gods and I came as Bastet in the skirt from my prom dress and a top made from this shitty gold fabric that left threads all over like two floors of the building lol. My friends and i were all matching. The auction was crazy, it was a date auction and basically a strip show, without the stripping. People were doing splits, lap dances, men and women. The doen admin was sooo mad lol. They got so much money from it though.
Third place, 11th grade Halloween at school. I put a lot of effort into this haunted doll costume. There was a contest and I fully played into the gimmick, moving stiff and staring out dead eyed into the crowd. I got 2nd place, only beat out by a guy that used actual latex monster makeup lol. I won a gift certificate to a froyo shop that was super popular at the time. It didn’t have an expiration date and it was a lot of money, relative to the prices. So I just kept using it for years. It’s still in my wallet and not maxed out, like 8 years later lol.
*dorm admin, damn
Joyce, the winner is Slipshine.
So they had Nerd Sex.
GAY Nerd Sex ^-^ <3
Objectively the best kind of sex.
I continue to enjoy the Joyce/Dorothy stuff in spite of all the pain it’s putting other characters through.
If i’m honest that makes me enjoy it more
Winning at sex. Oh, yeahhh!
*quagmirememe.gif
Sex is, indeed, a competition.
Secret is, you win the most by losing.
normal to want and possible to achieve
So is walky up off the floor yet after Billie kicked him out of his bed?
Extremely, extremely cute. Lookit these goobers.
Comparing fitbits is such incredible dork energy.
Also — 23 vs 33? Pillow Princess Dorothy confirmed xD
It’s impossible to tell how much of the active zone is from giving and from receiving, which is the reason why Joyce jokes that they can’t tell who won. Even if they could agree on what “winning” is, they can’t disambiguate it from the data. Though, personally my heart beats faster when someone is going down on me than when I’m going down on someone, so I would expect Joyce is the bigger pillow princess.
I mean, ALSO, your heart rate goes up slower if you’re in better shape 😉
Does anyone else gets a deja vu of Joyce’s first time in It’s Walky?
I think the bed’s in better condition.
“The chair! The chair!”
And she’s unknowingly justifying Becky’s crashout. Neat.
She can have a best friend and TWO sisters. As a treat
Part of what has made the “Joyrothy” arc so awful is that with the way it was dropped like a bomb it allowed the characters to skip over any soul searching about who they wanted to be with and why. And on a certain level I get it; the whole idea is that it was like a dam bursting and letting loose months of pent up desire. But *damn*. It’s not even the decisions Joyce and Dorothy ultimately made sometimes, it’s how instantly and unhesitatingly they made them. Joyce *still* hasn’t taken one moment to ask herself why she is head over heels for Dorothy but couldn’t return Becky’s affections. At first it was all guilt and flimsy attempts at concealment, like she knows she’s doing something shameful, and now they’ve done a complete 180 and are literally hanging a picture of them kissing on their door to let everyone know they’re fucking. Did they not realize Becky might see that? They can’t seem to even consider not spiking the football.
Any to be clear, I am not arguing that Becky called dibs or that Joyce and Becky even have good romantic chemistry- I think they’re a mess together actually and there’s very good reasons for both of them to be with other people. But part of why Becky is so broken right now is that she’s been unable to process both Joyce and her rapidly drifting apart and also that Joyce and her were never romantically compatible, and that’s hard to do when Joyce won’t acknowledge either of those things and instead spends all of her time lying to Becky to avoid conflict and then avoiding her.
Why would Joyce stop to think about why she’s attracted to Dorothy but not Becky? She never stopped to think about why she’s attracted to Joe but not Walky. A lot of people just don’t think about this stuff, attraction is just something that happens to them seemingly at random with no rhyme or reason for it.
Because it’s a reflection of Joyce’s fundamental sexual orientation? Joyce was sure she was straight because she wasn’t attracted to Becky, now she is sure she is queer because she’s attracted to Dorothy. That’s a pretty big part of who she is as a person, I feel like that would be something someone would have a few questions about.
Joyce lack of attraction to Becky plays no role in her self-conception of her sexual orientation. She was already concerned that she might have sapphic feelings before Becky shows up, and she did not become any more or less concerned about it after Becky confesses. Moreover, she doesn’t say she’s not into Becky because she’s straight, she just says she’s not into Becky, and later adds that Becky is like a sister to her. The fact is, Joyce doesn’t define any aspect of herself in relation to Becky, so consequently it’s no surprise that she feels no need to interrogate why she is attracted to Dorothy (also Billie and Sal) but not attracted to Becky.
Here we see Joyce struggling with her sapphic feelings:
https://www.dumbingofage.com/2013/comic/book-3/03-answers-in-hennessy/curiosity/
https://www.dumbingofage.com/2013/comic/book-3/03-answers-in-hennessy/endupgay/
Struggling with the same feelings, then burying them under her attraction to Ethan:
https://www.dumbingofage.com/2013/comic/book-3/03-answers-in-hennessy/sorted-2/
Her reaction to Becky’s kiss and confession. Notice that she doesn’t say she can’t be into Becky because she’s straight:
https://www.dumbingofage.com/2014/comic/book-5/01-when-somebody-loved-me/hindsight/
Talking it over with Becky a little later. Again, notice that she doesn’t say that she’s straight, she says that Becky is like a sister:
https://www.dumbingofage.com/2014/comic/book-5/01-when-somebody-loved-me/forever/
At no point does Joyce say that she’s not into Becky or can’t be into Becky because she is straight. The actual reason she gives is that it is like incest. So Joyce is no more going to interrogate why she’s not attracted to Becky any more than she is going to interrogate why she is not attracted to Joycelene. They are her sisters, of course there’s no attraction.
Here I’ll just link the dang strip where Joyce says it out loud for anyone else reading this since you’re so set on denying it:
https://www.dumbingofage.com/2015/comic/book-5/02-threes-a-crowd/foranybody/
I actually took the opposite from that strip. Panel 2 supports your reading, sure, but the end sounds to me like she is indeed having #Thoughts(tm) and is in denial about it (remember, at this time, being afraid to deal with any of the parts below the neck is basically how she felt about hetero sex as well).
The point isn’t to claim that Joyce isn’t attracted to girls just because she says she isn’t, it’s that Joyce herself said that not being attracted to Becky was a test of her straightness. Joyce comes up with other complimentary reasons why she is not attracted to Becky in order to placate her, like the sisters thing, a feeling that I don’t dispute Joyce having. But Joyce clearly said the stuff to Becky about being like family to make Becky feel better, not out of genuine introspection.
Joyce herself said that if she would be gay for anybody, it would have been Becky, and that her not being gay for Becky must meant she is definitely straight, so Joyce finding out that she can in fact be gay for other girls ought to make her question why her previous “straightness test” was inaccurate. The ‘like sisters’ reason could totally be it, and I have my own theory, but my point is that because of the way the story has gone down, Joyce hasn’t even paused to stop and go “Wait, wait, so I was gay after all? Then why didn’t I like Becky? I guess maybe we really are like sisters??”
The last panel is Joyce saying she would fuck Sal if she could.
You didn’t see it because it got stuck in moderation, but you should take a look at the pile of links I posted above and reconsider yours in the context of the larger narrative. As Lee and Reflex say, Joyce is lying to herself in the strip you posted. She wishes that she wasn’t attracted to Becky because she identifies as straight, but the reality is that her orientation has nothing to do with it. Joyce has been lusting over girls other than Becky the entire time she’s been in college, even as she denies it. She’s not into Becky because she sees Becky as her sister, which is not something that requires much in the way of reflection.
Of course she was lying to herself. She’d still have been lying to herself if she’d said directly to Becky “I’m not interested because I’m straight”.
People keep referring to her initial rejection of Becky as if it really means something, but unless you think Joyce was already consciously aware of being bi, I’m not sure what it would mean.
Late reply, but *thank you* for linking this. I’ve been racking my brain for months now trying to remember where I’d seen Joyce say that.
This reply chain is going to be very funny if the follow-up comment I made before your reply ever leaves moderation (it has a lot of links).
It is! It really really is. Especially since it ends with a step where Joyce sort of tacitly admits to having a crush on Dorothy.
There are things that Joyce overthinks, and other things where she jumps straight to what she wants and feels and then constructs justifications after the fact, if she introspects about it at all.
These two are wonderful pair of dorks, and I love seeing them together.
I’m behind the times. Do those watches function like Scouters?
Smartwatches like the apple watch come with a heartrate monitor. Could also be a fitbit, which does a bunch of additional stuff like track steps, give you a rough estimate of calories burned and such
It means you’re both losers.
Yeah, fist bump!
I have completely forgotten where those watches come from or what their purposes are.
They’re just smartwatches with apps that monitor fitness activity.
They’re communicators that allow them to teleport to the Command Center. Billie made them early on.
Ah, thanks. It had somehow slipped my mind.
I don’t care: everyone had their pillow talk, now I want Joyce and Dorothy to have a 20 pages pillow talk.
At least.
Aww, this is cute.
Just that?
Nah.
They’re so cute… The world needs more cute.
Just gals being pals
Heccing cute.
Here’s hoping things work out in the long run, too. For everyone featured recently.
Damn, she’s replacing Becky in the best friend role too? Maybe Becky IS the problem and should be alone forever!
Next strip pans over and it’s revealed that Becky was on video call with them the whole time
Then Dorothy holds up the phone and shouts “Joyce is mine now, Becky! I win, you lose! AHHH HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA!” and hangs up on her.
Pretty sure Dorothy has called them each her best friend, even recently.
Not sure about now.
*Joyce. Embarrassing.
Becoming anti doyce not from the cheating but the smart watches
They’re fitbits. Which might be worse.
They’re lucky. Some of us have to count angina moments. 🙂
But for real the best friend thing is adorable
Oh my GOD, is THAT what they were wearing on their wrists???? 🙄
“If you put all your trust in numbers, you really are dumber than I thought!”
— Bardock commenting on Mira’s overreliance on power levels in Dragon Ball Xenoverse 2
The winner is the one who got the most sex
I shouldn’t bite but my kid woke me up at 5:30 am screaming at nothing and is now calmly watching Pupstruction
One of the straight-up strangest things I’m taking away from the Joyrothy backlash is WHOMST is allowed to traumatically discover their sexuality at college and WHOMST is allowed to eventually enjoy it.
Billie/Ruth started with fatphobic bullying and physical abuse, and involved substance abuse, suicidal ideation, and a smol international incident. Now it’s a beloved mainstay of the strip, even with their dynamic shifting into being exes or “on break.”
The extended circumstances of Becky’s coming out led to a school shooting, a mass kidnapping, the deaths of at least three people, political fallout for the United States of America, and gave her a giant heap of underdiagnosed, undertreated C-PTSD that is now getting blown back at her girlfriend. But Becky/Dina is an essential pillar of the strip.
Joyce doesn’t get to have compassion for the undesirable fallout from her coming out, because she was “supposed” to be straight. The POV, if you were, amidst all these queers. Dorothy doesn’t get to have that compassion, because you liked her better as a neurotic, self-despising mess. Why isn’t anyone thinking about their men?!
If you’re one of the people who obsesses over infidelity as a mortal sin, then just ignore me, as we don’t have common ground here. Anyone else, you don’t have to like Joyrothy (or read the strip daily?!) but I’d again ask you to consider–who is allowed to come out? Who is allowed to hurt people when they come out?
This one’s a weird one for me because I understand what you mean and I don’t disagree but I also feel like this is worded very strangely. Maybe it’s because of things like, Becky’s example did yes, have her first gay experience be very traumatic and awful. Things trickled out of that. But also, she was able to get an affirming haircut, find a community of people who helped to house her and look out for her, a mentor in Leslie, and girlfriend in Dina… I know it’s difficult to remember the good things because Becky’s in a bad spot now, but it hasn’t been all bad for her.
Also your question of ‘who is allowed to hurt people when they come out’, I think that’s an iffy question to ask because a lot of blowback when people come out is sometimes due to people who are unsupportive who reframe their loved one’s coming out as ‘harming’ them. Such as a transmasc who’s mother says “you took my daughter from me” or a father who decrees his son for being gay and being a ‘bad influence’ because of it. Most commonly, the actual harm, if any does come from coming out, is done to the person coming out. Like Becky. This isn’t meant as an attack either, I know it’s earlier, it’s just some weird questions or poorly worded things here and there where I’m not entirely sure what your point is.
Amen, friend. Getting a lot of “She was supposed to be the GOOD one!” around here.
It’s dead simple for me, and it has nothing to do with who’s “allowed to come out?/hurt people?” (or, for that matter, “infidelity as a mortal sin”). It has to do, simply and only, with whose storylines are entertaining to read, and whose storylines I find believable.
The strip has been drama/comedy for so long that having so much focus a couple that has essentially 0 drama and 0 jokes, 100% sweet is a jarring tone shift. Frankly I want some appropriate-strength dumb-college-kid reactions to the infidelity (Not mortal sin levels. Not treating like murder.) because it’d actually let their story be INTERESTING in a realistic way.
Same here. I’m not upset that Dorothy and Joyce are bi, I already figured we’d get to see them come out and was fully prepared for that. I was prepared for the possibility of them getting together. Would I prefer Joe/Joyce remain a thing? Yeah, but I also wished Ruth/Billie were still an item. The main problem is that I read this comic for the drama, but all the drama keeps getting diffused after 2-3 pages so we can see more fluff.
Like… I was rereading some older pages last night, and one of my favorite Walky/Amber moments is when they first kiss on Garbage Roof. It was sweet, it was romantic, and then we got drama from Amber realizing Walky was Sal’s brother. That was followed by both tension and romance, and it was a good balance of the two. This just isn’t balanced. It’s too much sugar, not enough spice, and I prefer spice over sugar most days.
Partly this analysis reflects the distinction between readers who see this as a coming out story and those who see it as a cheating story, but also I think there’s a serious rosy filter on those earlier coming out arcs.
Becky took an enormous amount of flack for basically nothing in the comments. People didn’t trust her, thought she was lying about her dad’s reaction, complained endlessly about her freeloading off of Joyce, about spending the $20 Jennifer gave her on a haircut instead of somehow using it to get a place to live. Or about intruding and causing conflict on Joyce’s trip home for the weekend.
I wasn’t really following the comments for the very beginning of Ruth/Jennifer, but while they were and are popular, they’ve always been incredibly controversial as well. With one or the other being accused of horrible things at basically every appearance.
I’m just here to poke holes in this
>Hurt themselves
>Was hurt by a 3rd party (Beckys dad)
>Hurt directly by the party.
There are major differences to the situation here unrelated to “omg you were supposed to be straight”
This will be my only comment here have a good day.
Since when was Billie/Ruth considered a healthy relationship? If it was a “beloved mainstay” to someone, it was either because the way it was damaging and messy could prompt so many storyline arcs, or because of the same “I love (disaster) lesbians so much I don’t care about anything else” crowd that definitely is NOT complaining about this relationship.
Also, Bille didn’t come out then. I’m pretty sure she told at least one person about Alice long before her relationship was revealed.
I have no idea what point you’re trying to get at with Becky/Dina. There was a lot of time dedicated to showing that it wasn’t just an empty rebound relationship, and there really wasn’t much dedicated to showing that Becky was letting any feelings about Joyce have any impact on it. They also never progressed their relationship in a way that disapppinted or selfishly hurt the people around them.
Joyce/Dorothy have been acting like they’re in complete true love with nothing to distract them over and over. You brought up Billie/Ruth, so I guess that’s a good comparison to how willfully ignorant to their problems they’re acting – except this isn’t a secret relationship that has no real direct impact on anyone else, it’s not being treated with the same “obviously very unhealthy” and “mostly lust/trauma driven with no deeper personal connection” tones, and these are NOT those characters. Dorothy is not this selfish – she’s tried on multiple occasions to be more of a jerk and failed to maintain it. And Joyce almost always had to force herself to overcome her built up “fundie no no” boundaries. She still had issues with swearing and sex. So both of them leaning completely into the selfish, cheating, first-time-same-sex relationship, and having the issues swept aside to give the tone and treatment of the best outcome ever whenever they get a moment to themselves (and often even without that requirement)… it’s really off-putting.
I mean they actually were in a pretty healthy place when Ruth blew it all up
Yeah, they managed that at last, but they were still both set up to be needing years of therapy and personal growth. When it was revealed that they were split up now, I wasn’t surprised. It was very likely that they would need to drift apart in order to fight their own personal demons without being dragged down by each other’s.
It’s interesting, isn’t it? It reminds of mainstream media in the late ’90s-’00s when you could have gay sidekicks or secondary characters but never the main characters. They were always straight. And the profoundly negative reaction in the comments to any display of physical affection by this couple also reminds a lot of that era. “Why do they have to keep shoving it in my face?” and so forth.
Ruth and Billie, and Becky and Dina are also main characters. Joyce is the de jure protagonist, but DOA is an ensemble piece. Or that’s how it’s usually been.
Becky literally ran around campus screaming that she was a lesbian and there was no noticeable riot in the comments about “why is it in my face omg”.
A couple of cheaters shit all over the plot of everyone else to act like they’re in twue luv a double-digit number of hours after they realized they had feelings for each other and the very tone of the story supports that rather than sticking to its usual approach of remembering that fucked up relationships/hookups ARE fucked up and people cry homophobia at any negative reception.
It’s especially ridiculous because this is DUMBING OF AGE. Between this and Shortpacked, anyone who actually had problems with THE GAYS either left long, long ago, or discovered this comic literally yesterday (at the most).
Oh hey love it when shippers completely misrepresent anyone who disagrees with them so they can call a bunch of queer people homophobic for not liking these two specifically. No one who hasn’t been rightfully dogpiled and banned fucking said Joyce was “supposed to be straight”. That’s not what anyone is saying. Stop hallucinating strawmen.
These damn girls!
Look at them cheating on Joe, Walky, Becky, Dina, Sarah and even Raidah.
Despicable!!!!
Out of curiosity, is there a way to find one’s old comments and any replies to them? Made some cogent observations yesterday, but they all got swallowed up by the daily comment avalanche. Must I check out this page every few hours?
If you’re on a computer you can use ‘ctrl f’ and then search your username on the comic page you’re looking for your comments in.
If you’re on mobile you can find the same option in wherever the menu for your browser is, the three lil dots/lines in a corner
I haven’t seen the Slipshine related to this moment so I don’t know. But I’m going to guess that the sex was … shall we say… “conventional”.
Cuz if Dorothy tongued Joyce’s balloon knot, this ending would have been very different. I doubt Joyce would have been prepared for that.
But again, I haven’t seen the Slipshine.
Apparently, she did.
They both went down on each other and Joyce also licked her fingers Which were ‘Dorothy Flavored’.
Doesn’t “conventional” lesbian sex generally involve cunnilingus?
I think they mean ass eating? A balloon knot looks like a bootyhole
Yeah, “balloon knot” is a euphemism for butthole. I was hoping to keep the imagery on the light side.
WOOOAAAAHHH
SEEEEEGGGSSS!!!!
UWAAAAAAHHHHHH!!!!
SEEEEEGGGSSS!!!!
ORE WA SEKKUSU SURUN JANE!!!!
ORE GA, ORE JISHIN GA SHINRO SEKKUSU NI NARUN JA!!!!
SEEEEEGGGSSSS!!!!!!
Biking furiously through a tunnel, are ya?
Just admiring the artful placement of the text.
I really hope Becky gets over her funk and is able to go back to being friends with Joyce. Yeah, Joyce isn’t into that way, but you’ve been friends a long time and now there isn’t much competition for “Platonic Best Friend” anymore.
Joyce, that makes you both winners. Enjoy your Bone Zone minutes.
good job, buddy.
So I’m wondering if this will cure Dorothy’s slow motion identity crisis/mental breakdown. Not sure how I’m going to feel if we find out that the entire crisis was because she wanted Joyce and didn’t think she could have her.
Oh I hope it makes it worse. Be fun
QUESTION for those in a monogamous long-term relationship!
Do you call your partner/spouse your “best friend”? I don’t think I do. It feels like a separate category to me so “best friend” feels inaccurate and incomplete.
Not quite in one of those (poly-but-married-to-long-term-nesting-partner here), but yes and no. I have a very clear “best friend I’m not sleeping with” who I’ve been close with for decades, but I will also refer to my partner as “my best friend I get to sleep with”.
Also poly-but-married-to-long-term-partner –
But yeah I absolutely call some of my partners my best friends. I do think your “partners” should be among your closest friends, but your network of close friends should not only consist of your partners.
I have! And then we broke up and then became best friends again under wholly different circumstances.
If by “monogamous” you mean “dedicated romantically to just one person and not even fucking anyone but them”, and if “long-term” includes “twelve years, four months, and nine days”, then I fit the criteria for this question. No, I don’t call my girlfriend my best friend. She’s my girlfriend, partner, Final Fantasy wife, and co-conspirator. If I have a best friend, I think our tabletop group’s GM is the most likely candidate, but otherwise I haven’t had a “best friend” since I was like 21. Sometimes I wonder what that guy’s up to, but it was a bad break-up, and it’s never been a good time to reconnect.
It happens quite a lot actually.
100% my wife is my best friend. in my observations, it seems to be a big help in long lasting relationships. (my parents, my aunts and uncles that have not separated, parents of friends that stayed together, almost all would descrtibe their SO as such)
Yes, but my partner is aro, and was my best friend for years beforehand.
Mostly monogamous technically but we don’t really care who the other does sex stuff with, if ever (mutually ace).
We were best friends before we started dating and even moreso after. Anyone else I call my best friend, there’s a silent asterisk of “other than bf”
I mean I don’t personally think I’ve had a best friend since middle school?
But “I’m so lucky I got to marry my best friend” is an extremely common sentiment. Doesn’t mean everyone feels that way, but it’s definitely not weird or abnormal either.
My partner is absolutely my best friend. I would say that is also my ideal romantic relationship dynamic.
I was led to expect more religious-shame-induced hysterical weeping, tbh. Okay okay it’s a nice, sweet moment of calm and comfort and intimacy, no notes.
Stupid text bubbles!
Aha – the 10 minutes Joyce spent frantically filing down her nails counted!
I hadn’t made that connection but by God it fits and now that’s how I’m going to see it.
https://www.tumblr.com/dumbingofage/798480694215131136/cannot-confirm-nor-deny-that-the-reason-both-these?source=share
I want to believe in this.
Willis was playing the long game for a decade, under our nose.
Is that Willis’ tumbler?
It’s one of them.
https://dumbingofage.tumblr.com/ is all DOA stuff, while https://itswalky.tumblr.com/ is their general account, (but still has lots of DOA stuff).
Dang, and I’m only learning about its existence now!
dang we just hurling spears becky’s way now
I do enjoy sapphics just cuddling naked and having happy yaps~
Just gonna say:
Would be nice if folks on both “sides” of this argument could stop reducing the other side’s opinion to “because lesbians”.
No, the folks who don’t like Joyce/Dorothy or who don’t like how we got here aren’t just mindlessly frothing over them because Joyce and Dorothy are bi.
No, the folks who do like it or who don’t mind how we got here aren’t just mindlessly fawning over them because Joyce and Dorothy are bi.
There’s LGBTQIA+ people and allies on both sides and it is unkind to erase other commenters’ sexuality or smear them as bigots just for how they feel about this storyline.
It’s also just… really really unproductive? And we’re all gonna keep right on talking past one another, if we insist on treating every individual we talk to like they’re the weirdo fringe of their “side”, heh.
At this point, I don’t have any faith that anyone actually knows what anyone else believes about this storyline. Too many assumptions and accusations have been thrown around, and the entire comments section smells like burnt hay.
Dorothy X Joyce or not
Dina sad,
so NGPZ sad TT~TT
The big problems are 1.) most commenters see one person with an extreme take they disagree with and assume/claim that everyone on the other side has that take, 2.) most commenters see people complaining about extreme takes on the other side and assume/claim those people are demonizing everyone on their side by saying they all believe that, and 3.) most commenters believe the people they disagree with are more numerous, obnoxious, and hostile than the people they agree with.
so the usual cycle, except in a much more concentrated form given the tumultuous story events as of recent o3o
Probably? I’m not a super-dedicated commenter (Sometimes I’ll comment several times a day, sometimes once a month), and this is the first time I’ve been really active during a big controversy.
I can assure you, yeah it can get pretty stupidly heated around here, this hardly an isolated incident
and honestly? understandable. even before the pandemic, some folk around here have seen some really rough years
I speak from experience when i say that spending a large chunk of your time in the comments section of a webcomic of all places… isn’t exactly something you’re driven to do if your life is going so great o3o
some of us just enjoy a good discussion and are not getting the need satisfied irl
They are a cute couple but I don’t love that there seems to be a lot of people who are pretty OK with them having not only cheated on their partners but then are trying to justify it because “BUT LOVE!”
They have harmed numerous people and some likely for a LONG time due to their irresponsible actions. That’s just a fact.
I don’t think there’s been a lot of “trying to justify it because ‘BUT LOVE!'”
I think there’s been a fair bit of:
— “I personally don’t think kissing counts as cheating”
— “I personally don’t believe in the concept of cheating” (this is like, 1-2 people, max, but it’s been said)
— “the kiss WAS cheating, but they were caught up in the moment and coming to terms with their sexualities, which I consider to be mitigating factors that make the cheating less egregious”
— “the kiss was cheating, but Joyce and Dorothy are fictional characters, so I don’t care that much whether or not they’re good people, I just want them to be interesting”
— “the kiss was cheating, but I’ve been shipping this for 15 years, and I’m just glad they’re finally a couple, no matter how they got there”
— “the kiss was cheating, but like, whatever, I don’t really care about Joe or Walky as characters and/or I value having more canon sapphic couples way more than I value fictional male feelings”
(I think the second variant on that last opinion has gotten a bit more common of late. It seems to be mostly coming from people who don’t frequent this comment section a lot, and are just here to poke the metaphorical bear. I think a fair few of them are coming straight from BlueSky, where Willis has complained about some of the more virulently queerphobic comments — which do exist, but tend to either never make it out of moderation in the first place, or be mass-reported and thus automatically deleted — with the understandable but unfair impression that that’s the COMMON take among the “haters”, and a desire to dunk on them.)
(Honestly, I think “BUT LOVE” is closer to something Joyce herself might say than an opinion I’ve seen expressed in the comment section with any frequency? She basically did say it about breaking up Jacob and Raidah, after all.)
Addendum: there are a LOT of rebuttals to these takes, like “I also want them to be interesting, too bad they’re boring as heck!”
But I was just trying to list out the pro-Joyce/Dorothy takes that I think veer close to “BUT LOVE”, but mostly don’t actually go there.
For the record, it also hasn’t been all “pro-Joyce/Dorothy” folks arguing over what constitutes cheating. There has genuinely been something of a breadth of opinions from both “camps” on:
— whether or not “doing laundry” again would have been cheating
— whether or not the protest kiss, specifically, would be considered cheating by Joe, which usually involved people digging up links to various comics where Joe and Joyce discussed their relationship’s boundaries
— whether or not kissing SHOULD be considered cheating by default (an outgrowth of the previous conversation: basically, “where do you draw the line if you haven’t had that specific conversation with your partner?”)
— whether or not cheating is always wrong
Also: sorry for the TL;DR here, but it does bug me to keep seeing this unstated assumption that “I don’t care that Joyce and Dorothy made out and cuddled before talking to their respective boyfriends” can’t possibly be an authentically held opinion, and must instead be people “making excuses” for fictional cheating, which they must necessarily agree, deep down in their heart of hearts, is inexcusable?
It seems like such an unproductive way to approach other commenters.
Oh my god
They ARE dorks.
I’m actually a little astonished.