“If there is a hell, I’m sure this is how it smells.
Wish this were a dream, but no it isn’t.”
Joyce: You should see yourself, you have any idea what you look like right at this moment, Walky?
Walky: What?
Joyce: A ravenous bongo. The same blood runs through both of us. A ravenous bongo who hunts for the affection of others.
Walky: I’ve bled all that kinda blood away.
Joyce: Then why are you still alive!?
(Also guys don’t make this weird, I only put Joyce in Vicious’s role for the bit. Come at me at your peril and we’ll go into a long and ridiculously analytical essay in comments about how Spike is the villain of Vicious’s story that we don’t see.)
Willis can you, or someone who knows, give me an estimate on how much longer Dumbing of Age will continue? Both in terms of books, and years; whatever you can tell me is appreciated.
I hold the firm belief that Willis will end the strip at the most confusing unexpected moment with no warning or build-up whatsoever.
Ruth’s grandfather shows up to reveal that he was the mastermind behind ‘everything’, and presses a button to reveal that Joyce has always been a robot. She stabs Dorothy. As she dies, she reaches out for Walky, the only one there who could possibly help her. But it turns out he too is a robot, and promptly explodes in front of her.
I know people have convinced themselves that Dorothy/Joyce is endgame and therefore the strip must be ending soon, but AFAWK Willis has no plans to end it anytime soon.
Dorothy/Joyce was originally intended to be endgame, but Willis was visited by three ghosts in the night and taught the true meaning of Lesbmas, and so decided to do it early.
I think Willis has said in the past that the story ends at the end of the first academic year. Given we’re still pretty deep into winter that’s a long way off.
Sure, Dumbing of Age ends, but what about Second Dumbing of Age? Dumbing of Age Year 2. Dumbing of Age II: The Dumbening. Dumbing of Age II: The Wrath of Dumbening?
It’s been 15 years and the story’s only at the end of the January following the start of freshman year (for most of the class). And that’s including a huge time skip from the middle of October to the first week of January.
Honestly, I think it would’ve been better if the story was paced out so that each in-universe year took 10 real world years to play out. That would’ve given longer-to-us arcs more room to breathe for the characters while still giving it a minimum 40 year run from move-in day to graduation. (Point of comparison: Peanuts ran for 50 years.)
If I recall, Willis started Dumbing of Age because he was planning on starting a family, and it was too time consuming to be constantly staying up to date on pop culture for Shortpacked.
Dumbing of Age for the most part doesn’t require he stay up to the minute on any particular news item so he can be the first funnyman to make a joke about the latest topical item. Which leaves him more time to spend with his kids.
So, you might theorize that he could switch to a new comic again once all his kids are grown up and moved out, but personally I suspect he just likes working on this project too much to stop, even once his schedule is freed up.
I kind of suspect that even if Dumbing of Age did wrap up, it would be replaced with another self contained story. Maybe try his hand at another sci-fi narrative like ItsWalky. I don’t think we’re going back to another Shortpacked style story.
Ist Willis 20-year career and main/sole incomesource.
Soooo …… until he retires?
Would you ask Mick Jagger how long he´s planning to make music? Different league, but artists rarely just stop doing the thing that keeps them fed and housed.
As do plumbers and bus drivers, btw.
Willis does have a long career as a comic artist, but not all of that has been Dumbing of Age specifically. There was Shortpacked, and before that Joyce and Walky, and before that It’s Walky, and before that Roomies.
It’s not asking how long Mick Jagger plans to make music. It’s asking when we can expect his next album.
All that being said, I don’t expect Dumbing of Age to end anytime soon.
As you point out correctly about Jagger: young artists tend to be productive and change lanes, searching for a way of expression that keeps them fed.
Once they have settled in in some niche where they can earn a good living? They tend to ride that horse as long as it can walk.
And i´m not saying that derisevely. Its just human nature to largely stop struggeling too hard when we can live a secure life.
Yes, Willis has done other stuff.
But DoA has been his mainstay for over a decade, and he isnt young anymore (going on fifty).
We will see if he moves on at some point, and turns out to be one of the authors who keeps renewing his work going on. But given what I have seen from so many other creative types I liked, few had a different biography than 10, 20 years of creative peak, folowed by decades of mikling that niche.
I don’t think he’s quite at the “resting on his laurels” part of his career just yet.
Even this current story arc is a pretty big shakeup.
55 would mean his best years are behind him if he were a football player, but for an artist and author I think it’s pretty unfair to say that he’s past his “creative peak” when he’s still improving is craft with every passing year.
Scents don’t fossilize. Do we have any paleontologist commenters who can reason it out from the evidence we do have?
Things can sometimes smell like seemingly unrelated other things just because there are only so many available molecules that would fit the process making them.
I mean, yes, but also, having walky over right now probably would be bad. I mean, Amber played a role in Walky and Dorothy breaking up, which ultimately caused the situation between dina and becky. That could give some bad “I messed up your relationship to be close to my now freshly single love interest” – vibes.
This whole thing basically messed up most social relations in this cast.
Yes, and she just told Dina she made Joyce and Dorothy being together happen. Wouldn’t have worked if they weren’t into each other in the first place, but she definitely was a catalyst in those events.
What do you mean that the first strip after Dorothy and Joyce kissing isn’t Joe talking about his feelings???? That’s SUCH bullshit. No, it never occurred to me that we’ll get there eventually. Why do you ask?
Wow Amber needs a hug, and a therapist. She’s going to blame herself for Becky breaking Dina’s heart because she helped push Dorothy to Joyce. I feel like Dorothy/Joyce was inevitable, and Amber is not responsible for it happening.
That being said I still want Amber/Walky even if it isn’t the healthiest relationship. What are we to do?
Honestly, Amber/Walky seems quite healthy to me. For all their discussion of being “Garbage”, what I’ve actually seen them do in their “Garbage Time” is allow themselves to rest without feeling guilty about it, and indulge in some things that make them happy. To be fair, the McNuggets or Taco bell might be a little unhealthy, but their relationship seems near ideal, given the circumstances.
I’ve said this before but every other girlfriend tries to “fix” Walky. But I feel like when Walky was dating Amber he WANTED to improve himself. Just a complete difference in the dynamic.
Walky wanted to improve himself for Dorothy too, he basically forced his way through math tuition and basically gave up when they broke up with “but without her, what’s the point?”.
That seems like a key difference. Improving yourself for yourself or improving yourself for someone else. The latter is only nice while the relationship lasts.
I agree, Dot & Joyce made their own choices, though of course in Amber’s mind she had been hoping for this outcome which makes her feel guilty anyway seeing the fallout. Even if there’s no way she’s “responsible”.
I flip flop on this as the story goes on. I guess if Amber has a reason to feel guilty then let her. Even if Joyce and Dorothy was inevitable which I believe, pouring gasoline on a fire is still wrong. She’s not responsible but she’s not innocent. Mostly because yeah now other people are hurt a bit.
I’m very much in the same camp. this was going to happen regardless. the pins were already set up and they were gonna be knocked down soon. is Amber goading Dorothy into responding like with like the bowling ball that specifically made contact? good chance, but I think they were already on their way down when she made her move
but of course I say that from the omniscient seat of the reader. Amber lacks our perspective so she could easily believe that her intervention was what got things rolling. but if it didn’t happen today, it would have happened within a week I’m sure
I hope she comes up with some way to comfort Dina. their blends of neurospice don’t exactly jive but they deserve whatever their brains will allow
Things were happening, but it was the pics that led Joe to confront her, which led to her accepting that she actually was into Joe. Something similar might have happened through some other chain of events, but Amber’s got a pretty solid role in what did happen.
Well like I said back When Sal blamed herself for Amber and Danny breaking up, she can’t be blamed for the decisions someone else makes in their love life.
I mean also, Dorothy/Joyce is not responsible for Dina and Becky’s current situation
They hurt Joe and Walky with the cheating, they endangered protesters with their behavior in Dunn Meadow, but they are not responsible for Becky’s feelings or how she reacted to them.
Becky and Dina going through a rough patch entirely on them and them alone, mostly Becky. Becky knows this and just like how she can’t get over her own feelings she has outright stated the she blames no one but herself.
In all honesty it can’t be helped, a person can’t change what another person feels because when it comes matters of the heart a person can’t even force themselves to change what they themselves feel.
It’s arguable that Dorothy choosing to make some kind of defiant stand after the protest organizers were breaking things up caused some kind of difference in police response and/or other members of the protest thinking they needed to stay in solidarity rather than flee.
At that point it’s a question of semantics whether “doing something public and dangerous, such that other people are potentially ethically compelled to help you” is “endangering” them or not.
(I’ll also say I don’t think it’s at all clear that Dorothy’s actions actually caused any change in anyone’s behavior except for Joyce. Even Amazi-girl seemed to already have been there. We don’t have enough of a broad-lens view of the events, I think, to say anything for certain.)
I mean yeah I tend to argue that what Dorothy did didn’t actually impact much. She was not actually successful in centering herself or prolonging the protest. The camera pulling out to show her impotently standing on a tiny hill all by herself while the protest crowd filed out in a different direction was pretty clear in terms of visual language.
But she COULD have endangered the protesters. It’s at least an avenue where one can argue she owes people an apology.
Becky and Dina’s potential breakup is not.
You know?
(I was also in a hurry this morning but that’s no one else’s fault haha.)
You could argue that if Dorothy and then Joyce hadn’t gone back in, they would have been basically clear earlier, then AG wouldn’t have had to help them and could have focused on rescuing others who hadn’t had the time to get out.
It’s a bit of a stretch in terms of actually causing any hard. Regardless though: Protests aren’t about you. If the organizers are telling you to get out, don’t ignore that in favor of grandstanding.
In the same way I would say someone who willingly walks into a burning building is tangentially responsible for the people who get burned going in after them to save them.
Except no one ‘went in after them’. AG was there to protect the protestors in general, and engaged the cops willingly. They didn’t actively engage the cops. Dorothy was more ‘impotent’ than ‘irritating’ with her little stand on the snow mound.
I don’t know if Asma woulda stuck around to bolt cutter down the fence if Dorothy hadn’t wandered back in. And while Amazi-girl was already fighting the police she probably would’ve been able to move out of the area faster if there weren’t still people there to protect. The framing of the comic truly makes it difficult to tell how many people were still there besides Joyce and Dorothy or how much danger they were in of being arrested.
Though regardless of if Amazi-girl or Raidah put themselves in danger BECAUSE of them, their actions did have the potential to put people in danger simply because people may have felt inclined to help them.
I was gonna make this same comment. Dotty and Joyce endangered ~themselves~ on Dunn Meadow, yes. But they neither revealed other people’s identities, nor did they escalate the situation with the cops. By the time Dorothy was holding up the sign, tear gas was already flowing, and the cops were busting heads.
Now, AG definitely was escalating the situation–as much as the cops deserved to get stomped into the ground, it’s quite likely that the tear gas saved protestor lives at that point, because the snipers didn’t have a clear shot.
We all want Amber/Walky because it’d be good for both of them. Even Booster recognizes that. They can be themselves and have less self loathing and moping about it because they finally feel like they have something they “Deserve”, and it would let them loosen up.
Amber, however, will not accept *anything* she deserves because she’s inherently avoidant and scared of vulnerability because she thinks she breaks things. Such as here, where she can’t say “Dina is hurting and I don’t want to be that roommate,” and she’s thinking, “I don’t deserve it because I blame myself for this,” so she just blurts out the worst thing one can say.
I’d love Amber/Walky, but only after they really deal with what happened on Halloween. Walky may have been an ass, but the story has barely touched on Amber assaulting him in response. Domestic battery is simply a red line for me, and until it’s been processed by those involved, I can’t see the relationship as remotely salvageable.
His face looks to me like he understands that Amber is in one of her dark moods and that she doesn’t want to people right now, regardless of with whom.
@cbwroses i mean other than an amused smile i don’t think most ppl would rly be happy even if it’s a softer rejection aversus him taking it super personally
Even if Amber shouldn’t blame herself for what’s happened (50/50 on it personally), I do hope this at least kickstarts her realization that she can’t treat the people around her like fanfic characters and call it a social activity. Unfortunately, this is DoA and I’m sadly familiar with the pull of digging a deeper hole for yourself.
Ethan is a big beautiful dork, and knew Amber was pointing her phone at him for Pokemon, and not a picture. I feel like he would at least have played Pokemon Go too.
For Ethan my vibe is that he’s kinda…a character based around a sorta dated kinda nerd. Even though he technically grew up in the 2010s I can’t not see him as someone growing up in the 80s/90s who was completely resistant to the Pokemonia boom in the late 90s.
I can see Asher in the “grew out of Pokémon stage” since he still holds on to certain cartoon and game loving aspects from his younger years. My head Canon was that he was a care free fun loving kid just like Walky but being born into a gritty crime family quickly beat that out of him, though secretly he wish he can get back the childhood that robbed that from him.
Lol. Earlier generation like any of them even know what a Hypno or a Venomoth is. These young punks only know the stars. I challenge them to name any non starter gen 2 pokémon on sight! They couldn’t do it! Don’t @ me!
out of ennui i have ranked which doa characters i think would be furries or not (again) https://pasteboard.co/KpQdKYVb5VLV.png
everyone drop your really specific tier lists now
Well, Joyce and Dorothy need to have SOME strips where they’re in the honeymoon phase of their relationship, thinking only about themselves. They’ve only declared their undying love for each other two days ago and had sex for the first time earlier in the night. I think the other shoe should drop by the next day they have chem class, or at most the end of the week when Joe decides he needs Joyce to answer whether she wants to try polyamory or not.
I hope Joe learns to value himself and completely rejects Joyce, assuming she thinks they can still be friends (she probably thinks that’s a completely reasonable idea)
I also hope he doesn’t backslide to past behaviour
The routine morning walk to math class should be very awkward if anyone even bothers to show up that is. The funniest thing I can think of is we just cut to the math class and everyone is sitting in separate seats and Sal asks “Where were you guys?”
This is great for the “sickos” team members who specifically wanted chaos and conflict (there are dozens of us!! Dozens!!) but not at all what the “Paladin” team members who wanted consequences for Dorothy and Joyce, “cheating” category.
… but not at all what that second group of people were asking for.
We keep hitting a sort of weird conversational roadblock, where different camps have used “consequences” to mean different things.
— Some people wanted Dorothy and Joyce to kiss and expressly said they were hoping for it to be messy. This group could be called “pro-consequences”, but the consequences they wanted for kissing were “basically anything”.
— Some people wanted Dorothy and Joyce to kiss, but didn’t care whether or not it was messy. This group could be called “consequences-neutral”.
— Some people wanted the kiss, but were hoping for no consequences. “Anti-consequences”, you might say.
— Some people wanted a kiss, but not that kiss: they wanted Joyce and Dorothy to break up with their boyfriends first. Some of the people in this group have shifted to the “other side” completely, becoming anti-Joyce/Dorothy.
— Some people did NOT want the kiss to happen, but now that it has, they want Joyce and Dorothy to face fallout. “Pro-consequences”, but very specific consequences.
— Some people didn’t want the kiss to happen, but now that it has, they’re just hoping we shift focus to other characters soon. Another group for “consequences-neutral”.
I think that covers all the possible positions one can have on “consequences”.
Now, we keep having threads about the consequences (or lack thereof) so far, with folks making statements like:
“Still no consequences!”
“People wanted consequences, are you happy now?”
“How can anyone say there haven’t been consequences?! Look at THIS strip!”
“I thought you self-described sickos wanted chaos and mess, aren’t you disappointed that we haven’t had any of that??”
…And I think you can see where I’m going with this.
The kiss HAS set off a chain of events. Some of those events ARE pretty messy.
But I don’t think anyone’s being hypocritical when they say this either is or isn’t what they were personally asking for.
I think the folks cheering for chaos and mess are eating well tonight specifically because they weren’t too fussed about the TYPE of chaos or mess. Amber being injured, Joyce and Dorothy being somewhat outed by Daisy’s editorial choices, Joe suggesting polyamory, Becky and Dina potentially breaking up, Walky and Amber potentially getting back together — these are all Things That Are Happening, things that wouldn’t be happening if not for the kiss. Lots of balls in the air now! Not all of them good for Joyce and Dorothy.
But the folks who have been agitating for “consequences” have made the type of consequence they wanted VERY clear, and it is just genuinely very silly for people to keep acting like they’re just demanding “consequences (generic)” instead of asking for Joyce and Dorothy to very specifically face consequences for cheating on their boyfriends.
I mean, all of these characters (except Jacob and Tony, I guess) have managed to keep it going for like 15 years so far with no signs of slowing down, so…
So Amber spurned Walky’s advances (mostly due to blaming herself for encouraging Dotty to go after Joyce, indirectly leading to her roommate Dina getting her heart broken as collateral damage.) and that means Walky has no rebound to fall back on and has to (gasp) process getting dumped like a grown up for the first time this series?
Walky is the one guy I believe would sincerely text “U up?” to play Nintendo. I think this reckoning is gonna be more about his lack of friends not connected to his romantic pursuits.
I text ‘u up’, to mean ‘are you awake and willing to talk’. If texting ‘u up’ is a booty call, I have booty called a lot of very inappropriate people who I would not want to have sex with!!! About the only way i can see this as a booty call is if the person being texted is a penis owner and you know it’s OK to ask if they are ready and willing!
Plus, where I am ‘booty call’ tends to mean accidental phone call actuated by butt.
Don’t trust texting with the screen that close to your eyes, AMBER! It’s bad for your eyes. I do that all the time though…because I have bad eyesight. It’s a horrible cycle.
First fight or breakup? We’re taking bets! Will Dina and Becky recover or is terrible lizbians down for the count? I got 20 on it’s over! They’re gonna go over a week without figuring this shit out and that ship will be at the bottom of the ocean right next to the SS. Ruthless. Enjoy possibly one day being awkward friends ladies.
Becky probably feels like they’ve broken up, but Dina probably meant her last conversation to be “come back when you’re 100% committed to making this work and not see me as a consolation prize.”
It might last a lot longer than usual because, from my own experience, you never really get over your first love, especially at that age.
I feel like it would be good for both Amber and Walky if they spent some time together. Not sure if it would be good for Dina to be there with them, but with Amber’s current condition I doubt they can do anything more than hang out if Walky did come over to Amber and Dina’s room.
On a completely unrelated note, why does this comment section form think I put in a website URL called “deleted” when I didn’t actually put in any URLs? Weird.
I love the complete disconnect between Amber’s two responses. I mean, she wants Walky to come over, but then glances over at Dina. And the clear thought is, Dorothy just dumped you for Joyce, Dina and Becky are… messy… due to Joyce, and, well… no.
So her first message is full-on Amber angst, with a strong subtext of “Dina deserved Becky/Becky is a mess who didn’t deserve Dina, and I’m a mess who doesn’t deserve Walky, so me getting what I don’t deserve would just be cruel.”
And then she just says “No. Stay away.” And I’m honestly surprised that wasn’t Amazi-Girl.
But what makes it incredibly Amber is that she apparently didn’t even consider the perfectly valid middle ground of “Things are messed up because of Joyce and Dorothy, and that affects Dina, and so I don’t think you should come over here because Dina’s here.”
Yes, meeting elsewhere might be an option, but Amber wouldn’t go for it because she’d feel she was walking out on Dina (even if the latter wouldn’t care). And Walky would only want to meet somewhere very private, anyway, because he specified “no electronics.” I.e., he’s hoping to get laid and that Amber won’t insist on bringing a vibrator into things.
I know a lot of folks are reading this as Walky may just wanna get his dick wet but I don’t think that’s the case here.
I genuinely think that Walky just needed a sounding off board and Amber–even if they previously dated, is about the closest thing he has to a friend and supportive person for that kind of thing. Someone he can actually talk to about things. Had their been video games involved, it probably would have been easier.
Yeah I tend to agree, by partially his own design he has made himself something of a loner.
Almost every dude in the hall with him sees him as that jokey guy who never has any real feelings at best, an annoying fuck who never shuts up at worst. The few dudes that do tolerate him are either involved in the mess like Joe or part of a burnt bridge by proxy like Jacob.
The girls are more or less the same, but he has a few more options that are not viable. He’s smart enough to know this probably fucked up Becky too, can’t talk to Dorothy since she’s the catalyst, Jennifer tried but Walky doesn’t seem too comfortable with exposing his true feelings to her for good reason and Sal will either not really gaf, or it’ll fray her relationship with both of Joyce and Dorothy and more drama is really probably not what he wants.
Walky knows that him and Amber have had a relationship where they can bounce their feelings of inadequacy and pain off each other. Sex has never really been a hot button for him, hell even Jennifer a few strips ago said girls didn’t really mean anything to him until Dorothy anyways. This definitely reads to me more of him trying to find somebody he can feel comfortable exposing the actual extent of his hurt to rather than a booty call.
Taking “no electronics” to mean “I want sex without you using a vibrator” seems an incredible stretch to me. Especially when the prior conversation was “I am medically unsafe to use electronics right now”.
Mr/Ms/Mx Bunny (may I call you Rabid?), I think you’re not only inserting a lot of subtext here, but missing what’s already been established.
Amber encouraged the titty-selfie exchange between Joyce and Dorothy, and may in the back of her mind have intended this as a way to free Walky up so that she could start seeing him herself. She therefore blames herself for Joyrothy, and for all the repercussions thereof (no, it’s not fully rational, but this is a person who developed DID and a superhero alter because her father berated her for not being tough enough, so “rational” left her life years back). Since part of the repercussion was the breakup of Becky and Dina, Amber feels that having Walky come over at all, even just to talk, would be “rewarding” her for her actions, and also that she doesn’t deserve any rewards.
And “no electronics” is a reference to yesterday’s strip, where Walky wanted to come over to use her Nintendo system; she pleaded incompetence, as she was too spaced on her unspecified medications (pretty sure she hasn’t let anyone but Dina know that she was stabbed and patched up by a backstreet surgeon) to use the system – or much of anything else, as she also dropped her phone on her face during their conversation.
Ok people keep saying this so I have to keep pushing back:
People wanted consequences for the *cheating*. Becky and Dina’s falling out is not a consequence of the cheating, it is a consequence of Joyce being gay and Becky’s feelings about it.
Amber’s guilt and pushing Walky away when she wants to be near him is also not really a consequence of the cheating, although it can at least be read as one if you squint a bit.
As I keep having to say, all of these events could have played out the exact same way if Joyce and Dorothy had been completely single when they kissed, and therefore they are not the sort of consequences people have been asking for.
Really? If Dorothy had been single when she’d kissed, Walky would be sad and lonely and hitting up old friends right now because of it?
This isn’t at all a result of the breakup, which was a result of the cheating, which was a result of her specifically not being single when she kissed Joyce?
It sounds like maybe when you say you want “consequences”, what you mean is that you want Joyce and Dorothy to be punished in some way. Maybe branded with a scarlet letter of some form.
This is every bit as weird and unsupported by anything Dot’s said as it would be if I accused you of starting a campaign to have them officially canonized as Saints of Twue Wuv by whatever passes for an in-universe pope.
I’m loath to engage seriously with someone who so baselessly misrepresented my point, but as I have said over and over, my ideal narrative consequence for the cheating is Walky getting upset specifically at Dorothy for cheating on him and having to seriously reckon with the ways she’s mistreated and been unfair to him since they first formed their relationship
I wanted Joe to be annoyed at being cheated on (and I have to settle for some form of sad and resigned and grasping at poly straws)… but most importantly, I want that to blow back on Joyce and actually puncture her stupid too-hornt-to-function brainpan for a second. I want her to actually feel remorse for being an asshole.
I’ve been wanting Dorothy to actually face some blowback from the friend group for how she’s been basically using Walky as an emotional punching bag and sex doll all semester, and now doing so while being a cheater on top of it.
I want the rest of the cast to act like actual fucking college students who are friends with the people hurt, and not like people who are aware that Joyce and Dorothy are the main characters.
That’s not “punishment”, that’s “how emotions and friendships usually work”.
I’ll keep this in mind when people say Willis’ polls are just silly fun time questions since now I’m seeing the rhetoric of those polls spill into people’s arguments.
No, people were already referring to scarlet letters before the poll. Which is usually how it goes, Willis gets the wording of poll options from our discussions.
0 days since Jorothy shipper has accused somebody who says that there should be some measure of consequence for two people cheating on their significant others beyond their exes being really sad of having some sinister, unspoken intention behind it.
1) Nothing I’ve said is further from reality than your “scarlet letter” nattering.
2) It’s still not a consequence to the actual cheaters, which is what should be happening.
You don’t have to agree, but one can fully argue that yeah, Walky would also have been sad and feeling lonely if he’d been broken up with regular style instead of post-getting cheated on, given his mental state after other recent breakups & his selfworth issues generally. He sure felt bad after Dorothy broke up with him the first time! Garbage roof & all that?
(Personally I’ve written the cheating off as something Willis just didn’t do very well, so I’m not expecting much and am instead happy to see drama I care about, like this.)
I’d also recommend to just listen to people when they tell you what they mean instead of making up sinister secret intentions, but that’s just me.
They broke up because she cheated on him, but that’s apparently not a “consequence” because we made up some hypothetical where they were dating, and they broke up, and they kissed, but no cheating was involved somehow.
So they broke up, so what? How has that hindered those two in the slightest? Hell, she sent Jennifer to do the smoothing over for her and even Jennifer was getting on to her for constantly hurting him with little to no attempts to try and make up for her constant use of him. She hasn’t even had to directly face it while she continues to suck face with Joyce totally unaffected by what she left Walky to deal with after she let Joyce laugh in his face about it.
The consequences of the break up has fully fallen on the cheated not the cheaters and that’s where people’s issues have come from. The biggest consequence they’ve faced is the meltdown of somebody not even involved in the relationship in the slightest and the only person who has even slightly challenged them on this was Sarah, who was completely ignored instantly.
I think this consequences debate is the wrong take entirely. We shouldn’t be framing it as consequences. Joyce and Dorothy shouldn’t have to pay a price for being in love. The real fallout of this is likely that they’ve lost all their friends in order to be together. Those are effects inherently not felt right away.
Walky is in the same place (and really most if not all of the characters are in the same place) if Dorothy had gone to walky and said “Hey I love Joyce this isn’t going to work” and then kissed Joyce.
If this is a break up story line not a cheating storyline very little if anything is different.
People in the ‘consequences’ camp were pissed by the cheating. If Dotty had broken up with Walky BEFORE kissing Joyce, he’d honestly have still been upset and probably on a nugget-spiral and trying to get support/feedback from Amber.
And Becky would’ve still spiraled, and Dina would still have been left feeling like a consolation prize.
So yes, no cheating would still lead to this exact strip.
It must be horrible to live in the belief that punishment is so inbuilt in the universe that you just can’t have nice things if you did anything wrong, no matter how unrelated.
It’s a good thing the prevailing negative opinion was “they should have appropriate consequences for their actions” and not “they just CAN’T have nice things”.
I’m pretty sure eh, whatever is just talking about Amber?
idk I can’t keep track of everyone’s “sicko/paladin” alignment chart values but I don’t think eh whatever is staunchly anti-consequences for Joyce/Dorotby or anything.
Amber’s state of mind seems to be a perfect mix of the Budhist lament “I have loosed an Act upon the world”, and the biblical admonition “He who rolls a stone will have it return upon him”. She didn’t intend this collateral damage and doesn’t feel she should profit from the circumstances.
I don’t know if Dina is sad or angry, or just awaiting the final verdict, but I feel so sad for her.
I think the intention matters. The action wasn’t much but if she was trying to push Dorothy towards Joyce to make Walky single that is a pretty manipulative and shitty thing to do.
It’s still important to remember that all Amber did was take a picture and say “lmao you should send her a picture back”. Dorothy is a grown woman who sat on the photo for a while and sent it on her own free will. She’s smart enough to know that sending a zesty picture isn’t “just a joke”. Amber may FEEL responsible, but that doesn’t mean she IS.
Y’know what? If intent isn’t magic when you meant to do something good and wound up causing harm, intent also isn’t magic when you meant to do something bad and wound up getting a good result instead.
Admittedly extreme example to show that your conclusion is, at least, flawed:
Good Intent: Shooting a gun skywards during the Fourth of July. Your celebratory intent is not magic, and does not prevent the downward bullet from causing property damage, injury or death.
Bad Intent: You aim a rifle at someone you despise and take the shot, but miss because you’re really not good at this, however, the person takes a Fight Club-style lesson from this and learns to enjoy life. Despite this good outcome, you still tried to kill someone.
A key difference, of course, is the predictability of the outcome. The possibility that a hunk of metal falling randomly in a park could harm someone, or just fuck up a car window, is pretty obvious. The notion that a near-death experience would cause someone to change their life for the better is nowhere near as reliable, and the outcome you were seeking wasn’t even that noble in the first place.
Nah. If intent only matters when it’s negative, then intending to do things at all is inherently harmful and you can’t trust anyone with any kind of intention.
Hence my note about the difference between the two examples. If someone is so thoughtless that they are incapable of perceiving obvious bad outcomes, then no, I don’t trust their intentions, because their incompetence outweighs their intent.
Real-life example: Wanting to stop wealthy pedophiles, many folks decided to vote for Donald Trump. Their good intentions were totally eradicated by their utter incompetence and disconnect from reality.
A rejoinder içve heard is “intent isn’t magic, but its still intent.”
As in, if you’re talking mostly about the tangible effects of something, especially negative ones, ‘intent’ isn’t gonna male them un-happen. The aftermath is here and everyone has to live with it.
But if you’re discussing the character/nature of the person who did the action; yeah, intent matters kind of a fucking lot. GGood people can cause bad things without meaning to; that doesn’t make them evil. Bad people can have good things happen as a side effect of their actions; that doesn’t forgive the fact that they INTENDED malice
I feel really sad for everyone here. Walky doesn’t get to hang out, which he really needs. Amber’s blaming herself for something that really isn’t her fault, or at least only minimally, and so denying herself happiness (which is extremely Amber). Dina not sleeping on the dinosaur is just heartbreaking, all the moreso because she doesn’t look upset.
really enjoying this strip. IDK Amber caring about Dina here is sweet to me, even if it veers into some self-flagellation & guilt bullshit. Also I just like Walky having friends lol. He’s always so genuine with Amber. (I think I’d really like them dating eventually but also would like some slowburn please. My favorite.)
me, drinking my haterade: wild that amber feels guiltier about this than joyce or dorothy
tbf amber is just thirteen pints of guilt in a comic t-shirt. but bb, you do not deserve to feel bad about this. you didn’t make this happen! you didn’t make becky react the way she did & hurt dina!
Yuuup. I really dislike the feature of this storyline where the most guilt- and sadness-ridden people are the ones whose actions are LEAST proximally the cause of anyone else’s problems.
OTOH, that’s kinda realistic. The people who do the most harm are often the people with the least ability to introspect about it or have any empathy for the people they harmed.
I think for this situation Joyce and Dorothy feeling any guilt really undercuts their relationship. If they were just gonna feel bad or guilty why even bother getting together at all? It was a choice to pursue their romantic feelings even if you wanna argue the kiss was beyond their control in the heat of the moment. That really leaves only Becky who is already in deep depression from this and that’s not at all Joyce or Dorothy’s fault.
In my experience of the people I know who cheated but thought they had good justifiable one-time/special reasons for it — they continued their new thing, but also had a lot of shit to work through about it and felt bad/guilty but also like it was a thing that HAD to happen.
And hell, that’d be really interesting to see either the staunch atheist or the recovering fundie examine.
Panels 2 & 3 art particularly beautiful. Clever telling. I love wordless ‘show don’t tell’ (even tho I grumble about commenters making wild assumptions). The eyes have it. Amber’s so close and in your face that you can’t miss it, Dina’s so far away that you have to look for the eye contact.
Love the shadows in panel 3.
So, in the next two strips, that I can’t comment on: in the first, Raidah appears from the right, with a wall containing windows behind here and Joyce. She leaves to the left, as if she interacted with Joyce in passing, but there is a solid blank wall behind them. Looking as if we now have a totally reversed perspective. So did Raidah actually walk up to Joyce, interact and then walk back the way she came?
But then look at the 2nd strip, where Joyce calls out to Raidah, whois going away…
I believe what you’re seeing in the last panel of the first comic is the floor, not the wall. You can see in the second strip that the flooring is that same color next to a red/maroon walkway or carpet of some sort. I read it as Raidah approaching from the right, then continuing on the same direction she had been already heading. The second strip has Joyce looking the same direction she originally had been in the first comic, and Raidah turning back to reply. I believe the entirety of both comics take place from the same side of the two.
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Dina…
She did the best she could do…
She did what was for the best…
But this is still very painful for her.
😖😖😖 😭😭😭😭😭😭😭
*plays “Rain” from Cowboy Bebop Soundtrack on hacked muzak*
Ah, the masterpiece version. Correct choice, beautifully done.
“If there is a hell, I’m sure this is how it smells.
Wish this were a dream, but no it isn’t.”
Joyce: You should see yourself, you have any idea what you look like right at this moment, Walky?
Walky: What?
Joyce: A ravenous bongo. The same blood runs through both of us. A ravenous bongo who hunts for the affection of others.
Walky: I’ve bled all that kinda blood away.
Joyce: Then why are you still alive!?
(Also guys don’t make this weird, I only put Joyce in Vicious’s role for the bit. Come at me at your peril and we’ll go into a long and ridiculously analytical essay in comments about how Spike is the villain of Vicious’s story that we don’t see.)
“If there is a hell, I’m sure this is how it smells.
Wish these were fresh nugs, but no, they are not.”
This reminds me when Amber finally let go of Mike’s Ghost.
Ironically my headphones were playing Blue from Cowboy Bebop for that panel.
“never seen a bluer sky, I can feel it reaching out and moving closer”
There’s something about Blue.
Asked myself what it’s all for
You know, the funny thing about it
I couldn’t answer
No, I couldn’t answer
I like you like he likes she likes Chicken Bone
Willis can you, or someone who knows, give me an estimate on how much longer Dumbing of Age will continue? Both in terms of books, and years; whatever you can tell me is appreciated.
Until they’re finished
It will probably continue until willis is physically unable to keep making it.
…and for at least three years afterward, thanks to the size of his buffer by then
And even then they’ll have a time skip to get to graduation, with several new couples in place just to mess with us.
Galasso x Mary is endgame.
Now I want that arc, just not as endgame.
Graduation or heat death of the universe. Whichever comes first.
Heat death of the universe it is, then.
Not if there’s a Big Rip or a Big Crunch. Of course both of those would presumably end the comic, too…
Willis, talk with the Foglios, learn the process of continuing past the Big Crunch (Winslow says “Hi!”).
Just until the main cast is dead.
Two more strips.
I believe the buffer is a full year out at this point.
…Is that a tree from a specific book cover or am I, like, entirely imagining the resemblance?
I hold the firm belief that Willis will end the strip at the most confusing unexpected moment with no warning or build-up whatsoever.
Ruth’s grandfather shows up to reveal that he was the mastermind behind ‘everything’, and presses a button to reveal that Joyce has always been a robot. She stabs Dorothy. As she dies, she reaches out for Walky, the only one there who could possibly help her. But it turns out he too is a robot, and promptly explodes in front of her.
The End.
If only he’d bothered to keep up with his maintenance.
considering the buffer is a year ahead i imagine prolly til his kids graduate, eif not longer
I hope for a long time, but I started as a Shortpacked fan so…
I know people have convinced themselves that Dorothy/Joyce is endgame and therefore the strip must be ending soon, but AFAWK Willis has no plans to end it anytime soon.
Dorothy/Joyce was originally intended to be endgame, but Willis was visited by three ghosts in the night and taught the true meaning of Lesbmas, and so decided to do it early.
So many stories end when the destined couple get together, but that’s not required. There’s still a lot of story potential afterward.
I think Willis has said in the past that the story ends at the end of the first academic year. Given we’re still pretty deep into winter that’s a long way off.
They also used to say that they didn’t think we’d ever see the end of the first semester.
Technically, we didn’t see the ‘end’ of the first semester–we just pole-vaulted over it.
“They”? Is Willis nonbinary, genderfluid, or gender indeterminate? I’ve noticed this but don’t know much about Willis personally.
Sure, Dumbing of Age ends, but what about Second Dumbing of Age? Dumbing of Age Year 2. Dumbing of Age II: The Dumbening. Dumbing of Age II: The Wrath of Dumbening?
Pip, I don’t think they know about Second Dumbing of Age.
It’s been 15 years and the story’s only at the end of the January following the start of freshman year (for most of the class). And that’s including a huge time skip from the middle of October to the first week of January.
Honestly, I think it would’ve been better if the story was paced out so that each in-universe year took 10 real world years to play out. That would’ve given longer-to-us arcs more room to breathe for the characters while still giving it a minimum 40 year run from move-in day to graduation. (Point of comparison: Peanuts ran for 50 years.)
This is a very ominous question, are you okay?
If I recall, Willis started Dumbing of Age because he was planning on starting a family, and it was too time consuming to be constantly staying up to date on pop culture for Shortpacked.
Dumbing of Age for the most part doesn’t require he stay up to the minute on any particular news item so he can be the first funnyman to make a joke about the latest topical item. Which leaves him more time to spend with his kids.
So, you might theorize that he could switch to a new comic again once all his kids are grown up and moved out, but personally I suspect he just likes working on this project too much to stop, even once his schedule is freed up.
I kind of suspect that even if Dumbing of Age did wrap up, it would be replaced with another self contained story. Maybe try his hand at another sci-fi narrative like ItsWalky. I don’t think we’re going back to another Shortpacked style story.
Ist Willis 20-year career and main/sole incomesource.
Soooo …… until he retires?
Would you ask Mick Jagger how long he´s planning to make music? Different league, but artists rarely just stop doing the thing that keeps them fed and housed.
As do plumbers and bus drivers, btw.
Willis does have a long career as a comic artist, but not all of that has been Dumbing of Age specifically. There was Shortpacked, and before that Joyce and Walky, and before that It’s Walky, and before that Roomies.
It’s not asking how long Mick Jagger plans to make music. It’s asking when we can expect his next album.
All that being said, I don’t expect Dumbing of Age to end anytime soon.
As you point out correctly about Jagger: young artists tend to be productive and change lanes, searching for a way of expression that keeps them fed.
Once they have settled in in some niche where they can earn a good living? They tend to ride that horse as long as it can walk.
And i´m not saying that derisevely. Its just human nature to largely stop struggeling too hard when we can live a secure life.
Yes, Willis has done other stuff.
But DoA has been his mainstay for over a decade, and he isnt young anymore (going on fifty).
We will see if he moves on at some point, and turns out to be one of the authors who keeps renewing his work going on. But given what I have seen from so many other creative types I liked, few had a different biography than 10, 20 years of creative peak, folowed by decades of mikling that niche.
Eh, Willis is still pretty spry.
I don’t think he’s quite at the “resting on his laurels” part of his career just yet.
Even this current story arc is a pretty big shakeup.
55 would mean his best years are behind him if he were a football player, but for an artist and author I think it’s pretty unfair to say that he’s past his “creative peak” when he’s still improving is craft with every passing year.
Plenty of cartoonists are still cartooning in their 90s.
Also boy is that ever an extremely young idea of what “old” is, assuming you are under 30.
Dina avoiding the dinosaur :((
Dinosarn’t
😖😖😖😭😭😭😭
*plays “Disheartened Pazu” from Castle in the Sky on hacked muzak*
how often have they cleaned that dino since, uh. . . using it?
Never. They fucked on it hardstyle and then didn’t clean it at any point.
It’s possible that Dina has cleaned it in some form considering she has been sleeping on it.
or she’s sleeping in it because it NEEDS cleaning lol
not sleeping *
Look, if your going to have a dinosaur, it needs to have that authentic dinosaur scent.
…Dinosaurs smelled like stale human sexytimes?
Scents don’t fossilize. Do we have any paleontologist commenters who can reason it out from the evidence we do have?
Things can sometimes smell like seemingly unrelated other things just because there are only so many available molecules that would fit the process making them.
I genuinely hope Dina has tried to clean it at some point off-panel, because otherwise that’s kinda gross.
Honestly the deleted message is even more Amber. It feels like it’d be right at home on the garbage roof.
I mean, yes, but also, having walky over right now probably would be bad. I mean, Amber played a role in Walky and Dorothy breaking up, which ultimately caused the situation between dina and becky. That could give some bad “I messed up your relationship to be close to my now freshly single love interest” – vibes.
This whole thing basically messed up most social relations in this cast.
She also said in an earlier strip that she blames herself for helping Dorothy send the down shirt photos iirc.
Yes, and she just told Dina she made Joyce and Dorothy being together happen. Wouldn’t have worked if they weren’t into each other in the first place, but she definitely was a catalyst in those events.
*sigh* Patience. PATIENCE.
Pfft we don’t do that around here.
What do you mean that the first strip after Dorothy and Joyce kissing isn’t Joe talking about his feelings???? That’s SUCH bullshit. No, it never occurred to me that we’ll get there eventually. Why do you ask?
even w/o the dina issue, ambz is still pretty injured
I love the little detail that dina won’t sleep on a gift from becky right now. Great strip.
On the other hand, I take the fact that she hasn’t tossed it out to be a positive sign.
I mean, I agree with you… but also, practically speaking, how would she get it out of the room if she wanted to toss it?
She’s got a big strong roomate. She can just get Am…ber…. to…
Hm.
Yes, there is a logistical issue or two.
suddenly and without anyone noticing?
Localized entirely within your kitchen?
But its huge nose is slightly under, which is heart-wrenching.
Aww D:
That’s the most Amber thing Amber has ever texted at you so far
stay away, doctor Dina’s orders
Yaoi or no yaoi, our dude isn’t wrong though.
Wow Amber needs a hug, and a therapist. She’s going to blame herself for Becky breaking Dina’s heart because she helped push Dorothy to Joyce. I feel like Dorothy/Joyce was inevitable, and Amber is not responsible for it happening.
That being said I still want Amber/Walky even if it isn’t the healthiest relationship. What are we to do?
more chars? Because there’s nobody here that wasn’t hurt by Joyce x Dorothy ship, or it isn’t too awkward to stay close
Honestly, Amber/Walky seems quite healthy to me. For all their discussion of being “Garbage”, what I’ve actually seen them do in their “Garbage Time” is allow themselves to rest without feeling guilty about it, and indulge in some things that make them happy. To be fair, the McNuggets or Taco bell might be a little unhealthy, but their relationship seems near ideal, given the circumstances.
I’ve said this before but every other girlfriend tries to “fix” Walky. But I feel like when Walky was dating Amber he WANTED to improve himself. Just a complete difference in the dynamic.
Walky wanted to improve himself for Dorothy too, he basically forced his way through math tuition and basically gave up when they broke up with “but without her, what’s the point?”.
That seems like a key difference. Improving yourself for yourself or improving yourself for someone else. The latter is only nice while the relationship lasts.
+1 This is how it feels.
I agree, Dot & Joyce made their own choices, though of course in Amber’s mind she had been hoping for this outcome which makes her feel guilty anyway seeing the fallout. Even if there’s no way she’s “responsible”.
I flip flop on this as the story goes on. I guess if Amber has a reason to feel guilty then let her. Even if Joyce and Dorothy was inevitable which I believe, pouring gasoline on a fire is still wrong. She’s not responsible but she’s not innocent. Mostly because yeah now other people are hurt a bit.
I’m very much in the same camp. this was going to happen regardless. the pins were already set up and they were gonna be knocked down soon. is Amber goading Dorothy into responding like with like the bowling ball that specifically made contact? good chance, but I think they were already on their way down when she made her move
but of course I say that from the omniscient seat of the reader. Amber lacks our perspective so she could easily believe that her intervention was what got things rolling. but if it didn’t happen today, it would have happened within a week I’m sure
I hope she comes up with some way to comfort Dina. their blends of neurospice don’t exactly jive but they deserve whatever their brains will allow
Things were happening, but it was the pics that led Joe to confront her, which led to her accepting that she actually was into Joe. Something similar might have happened through some other chain of events, but Amber’s got a pretty solid role in what did happen.
Wait THAT’S what this is?
Well like I said back When Sal blamed herself for Amber and Danny breaking up, she can’t be blamed for the decisions someone else makes in their love life.
I mean also, Dorothy/Joyce is not responsible for Dina and Becky’s current situation
They hurt Joe and Walky with the cheating, they endangered protesters with their behavior in Dunn Meadow, but they are not responsible for Becky’s feelings or how she reacted to them.
Becky and Dina going through a rough patch entirely on them and them alone, mostly Becky. Becky knows this and just like how she can’t get over her own feelings she has outright stated the she blames no one but herself.
In all honesty it can’t be helped, a person can’t change what another person feels because when it comes matters of the heart a person can’t even force themselves to change what they themselves feel.
How did they endanger protesters? They didn’t cause the police to attack, and they didn’t stop anyone else getting out.
It’s arguable that Dorothy choosing to make some kind of defiant stand after the protest organizers were breaking things up caused some kind of difference in police response and/or other members of the protest thinking they needed to stay in solidarity rather than flee.
At that point it’s a question of semantics whether “doing something public and dangerous, such that other people are potentially ethically compelled to help you” is “endangering” them or not.
(I’ll also say I don’t think it’s at all clear that Dorothy’s actions actually caused any change in anyone’s behavior except for Joyce. Even Amazi-girl seemed to already have been there. We don’t have enough of a broad-lens view of the events, I think, to say anything for certain.)
I mean yeah I tend to argue that what Dorothy did didn’t actually impact much. She was not actually successful in centering herself or prolonging the protest. The camera pulling out to show her impotently standing on a tiny hill all by herself while the protest crowd filed out in a different direction was pretty clear in terms of visual language.
But she COULD have endangered the protesters. It’s at least an avenue where one can argue she owes people an apology.
Becky and Dina’s potential breakup is not.
You know?
(I was also in a hurry this morning but that’s no one else’s fault haha.)
You could argue that if Dorothy and then Joyce hadn’t gone back in, they would have been basically clear earlier, then AG wouldn’t have had to help them and could have focused on rescuing others who hadn’t had the time to get out.
It’s a bit of a stretch in terms of actually causing any hard. Regardless though: Protests aren’t about you. If the organizers are telling you to get out, don’t ignore that in favor of grandstanding.
In the same way I would say someone who willingly walks into a burning building is tangentially responsible for the people who get burned going in after them to save them.
Except no one ‘went in after them’. AG was there to protect the protestors in general, and engaged the cops willingly. They didn’t actively engage the cops. Dorothy was more ‘impotent’ than ‘irritating’ with her little stand on the snow mound.
I don’t know if Asma woulda stuck around to bolt cutter down the fence if Dorothy hadn’t wandered back in. And while Amazi-girl was already fighting the police she probably would’ve been able to move out of the area faster if there weren’t still people there to protect. The framing of the comic truly makes it difficult to tell how many people were still there besides Joyce and Dorothy or how much danger they were in of being arrested.
Though regardless of if Amazi-girl or Raidah put themselves in danger BECAUSE of them, their actions did have the potential to put people in danger simply because people may have felt inclined to help them.
I was gonna make this same comment. Dotty and Joyce endangered ~themselves~ on Dunn Meadow, yes. But they neither revealed other people’s identities, nor did they escalate the situation with the cops. By the time Dorothy was holding up the sign, tear gas was already flowing, and the cops were busting heads.
Now, AG definitely was escalating the situation–as much as the cops deserved to get stomped into the ground, it’s quite likely that the tear gas saved protestor lives at that point, because the snipers didn’t have a clear shot.
We all want Amber/Walky because it’d be good for both of them. Even Booster recognizes that. They can be themselves and have less self loathing and moping about it because they finally feel like they have something they “Deserve”, and it would let them loosen up.
Amber, however, will not accept *anything* she deserves because she’s inherently avoidant and scared of vulnerability because she thinks she breaks things. Such as here, where she can’t say “Dina is hurting and I don’t want to be that roommate,” and she’s thinking, “I don’t deserve it because I blame myself for this,” so she just blurts out the worst thing one can say.
I’d love Amber/Walky, but only after they really deal with what happened on Halloween. Walky may have been an ass, but the story has barely touched on Amber assaulting him in response. Domestic battery is simply a red line for me, and until it’s been processed by those involved, I can’t see the relationship as remotely salvageable.
Wonderful strip.
This is painful for so many reasons. And I really hope someone checks on Becky soon. She shouldn’t be alone right now.
same 🙁
Walkamber! The amazing Ship that sinks itself!
It’s a submarine.
‘diametrically(?) opposed garbage’, not necessarily bad but iimagine she would’ve said yes if dina wasn’t curretnly having issues
Very easy to imagine, since it was the goal. There just wasn’t supposed to be collateral damage that Amber cared about.
i made one of those once
The Garbage Barge that wouldn’t float.
more chars? Because there’s nobody here that wasn’t hurt by Joyce x Dorothy ship, or it isn’t too awkward to stay close
Amber doesn’t mean anything by it, but I doubt Walky will handle more rejection well.
he called it an ‘amber thing’ so i assume he’d be used to it versus like being hurt/confused
Except his face looks like he’s leaning towards taking that negatively.
His face looks to me like he understands that Amber is in one of her dark moods and that she doesn’t want to people right now, regardless of with whom.
I’m reading it as this is all he deserves.
@cbwroses i mean other than an amused smile i don’t think most ppl would rly be happy even if it’s a softer rejection aversus him taking it super personally
could be used to something and still feel hurt
“You don’t have any friends. Nobody likes you.”
Where”s the rain when we need it.
https://imgchest.com/p/9rydq39w64k
For fun I decided to make a tier list for what DOA characters I think would be pokemon fans.
so true
if joyce likes monkey master, christianity upbring aside i can imagine her having a plushie at least lol
Even if Amber shouldn’t blame herself for what’s happened (50/50 on it personally), I do hope this at least kickstarts her realization that she can’t treat the people around her like fanfic characters and call it a social activity. Unfortunately, this is DoA and I’m sadly familiar with the pull of digging a deeper hole for yourself.
That wasn’t meant to be a reply FUCK
Agreed
Ethan is a big beautiful dork, and knew Amber was pointing her phone at him for Pokemon, and not a picture. I feel like he would at least have played Pokemon Go too.
For Ethan my vibe is that he’s kinda…a character based around a sorta dated kinda nerd. Even though he technically grew up in the 2010s I can’t not see him as someone growing up in the 80s/90s who was completely resistant to the Pokemonia boom in the late 90s.
I can see Asher in the “grew out of Pokémon stage” since he still holds on to certain cartoon and game loving aspects from his younger years. My head Canon was that he was a care free fun loving kid just like Walky but being born into a gritty crime family quickly beat that out of him, though secretly he wish he can get back the childhood that robbed that from him.
IIRC Dina taught Becky about 90s Pokemon???
just surprised she’s not, you know, a little higher on this list ;-;
I figured Dina would be too turned off by the lack of adherence to biology with them. I dunno it’s hard to get a read on what her taste is.
https://www.dumbingofage.com/2018/comic/book-8/03-faz-is-great/nineteen/
!!!!! I KNEW IT
(Dina likes earlier Pokemon generations confirmed canon) ^-^
Lol. Earlier generation like any of them even know what a Hypno or a Venomoth is. These young punks only know the stars. I challenge them to name any non starter gen 2 pokémon on sight! They couldn’t do it! Don’t @ me!
Second-hand account told as a joke, soft-confirmed at best.
Yeah I figured knowing the gen 1 Pokémon is just the oldest thing Becky can think of offhand.
out of ennui i have ranked which doa characters i think would be furries or not (again)
https://pasteboard.co/KpQdKYVb5VLV.png
everyone drop your really specific tier lists now
https://imgbox.com/q4eosADS
pasteboard link didnt work look at this
Seems pretty accurate to me.
Dina should rank a little higher given her dinosaur pajamas and stuff, just sayin XD
That’s scalie. Completely different 😛
Lucy absolutely fantasized about being a gym leader.
…Her favorite type is definitely Psychic though.
Man, that’s some bad company Ethan’s keeping. He needs to learn to enjoy a good Pikachu joke, at least.
‘reward’, huh? that’d be cute if it wasn’t for all the…*gestures to everything* going on
Idk dude, framing it as “deserving” comes with some nasty self-loathing implications even if she wasn’t in the eye of a shitstorm
Welp.
Those of us rooting for ‘more consequences’, should have remembered that we don’t get to choose who pays them. Enjoy!
Well, Joyce and Dorothy need to have SOME strips where they’re in the honeymoon phase of their relationship, thinking only about themselves. They’ve only declared their undying love for each other two days ago and had sex for the first time earlier in the night. I think the other shoe should drop by the next day they have chem class, or at most the end of the week when Joe decides he needs Joyce to answer whether she wants to try polyamory or not.
I hope Joe learns to value himself and completely rejects Joyce, assuming she thinks they can still be friends (she probably thinks that’s a completely reasonable idea)
I also hope he doesn’t backslide to past behaviour
The routine morning walk to math class should be very awkward if anyone even bothers to show up that is. The funniest thing I can think of is we just cut to the math class and everyone is sitting in separate seats and Sal asks “Where were you guys?”
I’m so excited for their next Biology class
Speak for yourself, I was always rooting for SPECIFIC consequences (or at least specific people to receive consequences).
This is great for the “sickos” team members who specifically wanted chaos and conflict (there are dozens of us!! Dozens!!) but not at all what the “Paladin” team members who wanted consequences for Dorothy and Joyce, “cheating” category.
… but not at all what that second group of people were asking for.
We keep hitting a sort of weird conversational roadblock, where different camps have used “consequences” to mean different things.
— Some people wanted Dorothy and Joyce to kiss and expressly said they were hoping for it to be messy. This group could be called “pro-consequences”, but the consequences they wanted for kissing were “basically anything”.
— Some people wanted Dorothy and Joyce to kiss, but didn’t care whether or not it was messy. This group could be called “consequences-neutral”.
— Some people wanted the kiss, but were hoping for no consequences. “Anti-consequences”, you might say.
— Some people wanted a kiss, but not that kiss: they wanted Joyce and Dorothy to break up with their boyfriends first. Some of the people in this group have shifted to the “other side” completely, becoming anti-Joyce/Dorothy.
— Some people did NOT want the kiss to happen, but now that it has, they want Joyce and Dorothy to face fallout. “Pro-consequences”, but very specific consequences.
— Some people didn’t want the kiss to happen, but now that it has, they’re just hoping we shift focus to other characters soon. Another group for “consequences-neutral”.
I think that covers all the possible positions one can have on “consequences”.
Now, we keep having threads about the consequences (or lack thereof) so far, with folks making statements like:
“Still no consequences!”
“People wanted consequences, are you happy now?”
“How can anyone say there haven’t been consequences?! Look at THIS strip!”
“I thought you self-described sickos wanted chaos and mess, aren’t you disappointed that we haven’t had any of that??”
…And I think you can see where I’m going with this.
The kiss HAS set off a chain of events. Some of those events ARE pretty messy.
But I don’t think anyone’s being hypocritical when they say this either is or isn’t what they were personally asking for.
I think the folks cheering for chaos and mess are eating well tonight specifically because they weren’t too fussed about the TYPE of chaos or mess. Amber being injured, Joyce and Dorothy being somewhat outed by Daisy’s editorial choices, Joe suggesting polyamory, Becky and Dina potentially breaking up, Walky and Amber potentially getting back together — these are all Things That Are Happening, things that wouldn’t be happening if not for the kiss. Lots of balls in the air now! Not all of them good for Joyce and Dorothy.
But the folks who have been agitating for “consequences” have made the type of consequence they wanted VERY clear, and it is just genuinely very silly for people to keep acting like they’re just demanding “consequences (generic)” instead of asking for Joyce and Dorothy to very specifically face consequences for cheating on their boyfriends.
Thank you, Li.
Like genuinely that last paragrah made me feel heard when it sometimes feels like people are just. Actively ignoring the words being said
THANK.
YOU.
100% in character.
Sad Walky.
So… Dinamber… Ambadina… 2shawties…?
I’m beginning to think trash goblin who craves mess isn’t a sustainable lifestyle.
Damn there goes my life prospects
Not without a way to travel between dimensions o3o
Well, with Dina and Charlie as a team, you should be golden.
I mean, all of these characters (except Jacob and Tony, I guess) have managed to keep it going for like 15 years so far with no signs of slowing down, so…
Perks of living in a webcomic.
Ooo, change of avatar.
Maybe Walky, Amber and Dina need to have a dino nugget nerd out and take their minds off shit.
*spiderman pointing at other spidermen meme*
Walky’s probably had enough nuggets for one day.
So Amber spurned Walky’s advances (mostly due to blaming herself for encouraging Dotty to go after Joyce, indirectly leading to her roommate Dina getting her heart broken as collateral damage.) and that means Walky has no rebound to fall back on and has to (gasp) process getting dumped like a grown up for the first time this series?
(Joyce laughs evilly in the background.)
Walky is the one guy I believe would sincerely text “U up?” to play Nintendo. I think this reckoning is gonna be more about his lack of friends not connected to his romantic pursuits.
He’ll always have Jason.
(To inflict himself on.)
I text ‘u up’, to mean ‘are you awake and willing to talk’. If texting ‘u up’ is a booty call, I have booty called a lot of very inappropriate people who I would not want to have sex with!!! About the only way i can see this as a booty call is if the person being texted is a penis owner and you know it’s OK to ask if they are ready and willing!
Plus, where I am ‘booty call’ tends to mean accidental phone call actuated by butt.
Joke’s on you–he will continue to put this in the pit of his stomach until he finally crashes out. As God intended.
Don’t trust texting with the screen that close to your eyes, AMBER! It’s bad for your eyes. I do that all the time though…because I have bad eyesight. It’s a horrible cycle.
If you keep it close to your eye, it has less time to pick up velocity when you drop it.
Oh no, did they break up?
No just having their first fight.
First fight or breakup? We’re taking bets! Will Dina and Becky recover or is terrible lizbians down for the count? I got 20 on it’s over! They’re gonna go over a week without figuring this shit out and that ship will be at the bottom of the ocean right next to the SS. Ruthless. Enjoy possibly one day being awkward friends ladies.
Poll! (sick, but Poll!)
Becky probably feels like they’ve broken up, but Dina probably meant her last conversation to be “come back when you’re 100% committed to making this work and not see me as a consolation prize.”
It might last a lot longer than usual because, from my own experience, you never really get over your first love, especially at that age.
oh you.
I feel like it would be good for both Amber and Walky if they spent some time together. Not sure if it would be good for Dina to be there with them, but with Amber’s current condition I doubt they can do anything more than hang out if Walky did come over to Amber and Dina’s room.
On a completely unrelated note, why does this comment section form think I put in a website URL called “deleted” when I didn’t actually put in any URLs? Weird.
I love the complete disconnect between Amber’s two responses. I mean, she wants Walky to come over, but then glances over at Dina. And the clear thought is, Dorothy just dumped you for Joyce, Dina and Becky are… messy… due to Joyce, and, well… no.
So her first message is full-on Amber angst, with a strong subtext of “Dina deserved Becky/Becky is a mess who didn’t deserve Dina, and I’m a mess who doesn’t deserve Walky, so me getting what I don’t deserve would just be cruel.”
And then she just says “No. Stay away.” And I’m honestly surprised that wasn’t Amazi-Girl.
But what makes it incredibly Amber is that she apparently didn’t even consider the perfectly valid middle ground of “Things are messed up because of Joyce and Dorothy, and that affects Dina, and so I don’t think you should come over here because Dina’s here.”
Yes, meeting elsewhere might be an option, but Amber wouldn’t go for it because she’d feel she was walking out on Dina (even if the latter wouldn’t care). And Walky would only want to meet somewhere very private, anyway, because he specified “no electronics.” I.e., he’s hoping to get laid and that Amber won’t insist on bringing a vibrator into things.
I know a lot of folks are reading this as Walky may just wanna get his dick wet but I don’t think that’s the case here.
I genuinely think that Walky just needed a sounding off board and Amber–even if they previously dated, is about the closest thing he has to a friend and supportive person for that kind of thing. Someone he can actually talk to about things. Had their been video games involved, it probably would have been easier.
Yeah I tend to agree, by partially his own design he has made himself something of a loner.
Almost every dude in the hall with him sees him as that jokey guy who never has any real feelings at best, an annoying fuck who never shuts up at worst. The few dudes that do tolerate him are either involved in the mess like Joe or part of a burnt bridge by proxy like Jacob.
The girls are more or less the same, but he has a few more options that are not viable. He’s smart enough to know this probably fucked up Becky too, can’t talk to Dorothy since she’s the catalyst, Jennifer tried but Walky doesn’t seem too comfortable with exposing his true feelings to her for good reason and Sal will either not really gaf, or it’ll fray her relationship with both of Joyce and Dorothy and more drama is really probably not what he wants.
Walky knows that him and Amber have had a relationship where they can bounce their feelings of inadequacy and pain off each other. Sex has never really been a hot button for him, hell even Jennifer a few strips ago said girls didn’t really mean anything to him until Dorothy anyways. This definitely reads to me more of him trying to find somebody he can feel comfortable exposing the actual extent of his hurt to rather than a booty call.
Taking “no electronics” to mean “I want sex without you using a vibrator” seems an incredible stretch to me. Especially when the prior conversation was “I am medically unsafe to use electronics right now”.
It was such a swerve from an otherwise well-reasoned comment.
Holy chain of inference, Batman!
Mr/Ms/Mx Bunny (may I call you Rabid?), I think you’re not only inserting a lot of subtext here, but missing what’s already been established.
Amber encouraged the titty-selfie exchange between Joyce and Dorothy, and may in the back of her mind have intended this as a way to free Walky up so that she could start seeing him herself. She therefore blames herself for Joyrothy, and for all the repercussions thereof (no, it’s not fully rational, but this is a person who developed DID and a superhero alter because her father berated her for not being tough enough, so “rational” left her life years back). Since part of the repercussion was the breakup of Becky and Dina, Amber feels that having Walky come over at all, even just to talk, would be “rewarding” her for her actions, and also that she doesn’t deserve any rewards.
And “no electronics” is a reference to yesterday’s strip, where Walky wanted to come over to use her Nintendo system; she pleaded incompetence, as she was too spaced on her unspecified medications (pretty sure she hasn’t let anyone but Dina know that she was stabbed and patched up by a backstreet surgeon) to use the system – or much of anything else, as she also dropped her phone on her face during their conversation.
Amber’s face as she deletes her message is honestly such a mood.
As opposed to Amber’s face deletes her message when she drops her phone on it!
It’s kind of funny (not so funny.. DINA NOOOOOOOOOO)
That people were screaming that “There are no consequences”.
Well, sucks to be them…. or Dina.
Definitely sucks to be Dina… and Amber.
:____((((((((
Ok people keep saying this so I have to keep pushing back:
People wanted consequences for the *cheating*. Becky and Dina’s falling out is not a consequence of the cheating, it is a consequence of Joyce being gay and Becky’s feelings about it.
Amber’s guilt and pushing Walky away when she wants to be near him is also not really a consequence of the cheating, although it can at least be read as one if you squint a bit.
As I keep having to say, all of these events could have played out the exact same way if Joyce and Dorothy had been completely single when they kissed, and therefore they are not the sort of consequences people have been asking for.
THANK YOU. This, exactly.
This.
Really? If Dorothy had been single when she’d kissed, Walky would be sad and lonely and hitting up old friends right now because of it?
This isn’t at all a result of the breakup, which was a result of the cheating, which was a result of her specifically not being single when she kissed Joyce?
It sounds like maybe when you say you want “consequences”, what you mean is that you want Joyce and Dorothy to be punished in some way. Maybe branded with a scarlet letter of some form.
This is every bit as weird and unsupported by anything Dot’s said as it would be if I accused you of starting a campaign to have them officially canonized as Saints of Twue Wuv by whatever passes for an in-universe pope.
So, what constitutes a “consequence” then, if not the things that happened in this comic, as a direct result of the cheating?
If not punishment then what, exactly? Nobody has elaborated on that yet.
I’m loath to engage seriously with someone who so baselessly misrepresented my point, but as I have said over and over, my ideal narrative consequence for the cheating is Walky getting upset specifically at Dorothy for cheating on him and having to seriously reckon with the ways she’s mistreated and been unfair to him since they first formed their relationship
I wanted Joe to be annoyed at being cheated on (and I have to settle for some form of sad and resigned and grasping at poly straws)… but most importantly, I want that to blow back on Joyce and actually puncture her stupid too-hornt-to-function brainpan for a second. I want her to actually feel remorse for being an asshole.
I’ve been wanting Dorothy to actually face some blowback from the friend group for how she’s been basically using Walky as an emotional punching bag and sex doll all semester, and now doing so while being a cheater on top of it.
I want the rest of the cast to act like actual fucking college students who are friends with the people hurt, and not like people who are aware that Joyce and Dorothy are the main characters.
That’s not “punishment”, that’s “how emotions and friendships usually work”.
I’ll keep this in mind when people say Willis’ polls are just silly fun time questions since now I’m seeing the rhetoric of those polls spill into people’s arguments.
No, people were already referring to scarlet letters before the poll. Which is usually how it goes, Willis gets the wording of poll options from our discussions.
Fuck off lol
Fuck your stupid letter, you weak-minded doomsday cultist.
SIGH
0 days since Jorothy shipper has accused somebody who says that there should be some measure of consequence for two people cheating on their significant others beyond their exes being really sad of having some sinister, unspoken intention behind it.
You gotta come up with something catchier than that.
It’s a work in progress! I take helpful criticism.
If she’d have broken up with Walky first, he’d still be sad, but she would not have been cheating on him.
Thus, this is a consequence of the breakup, not the cheating.
The breakup is a consequence of the cheating. Explicitly. In text. Not in some hypothetical you made up, but in the comic we’re reading.
1) Nothing I’ve said is further from reality than your “scarlet letter” nattering.
2) It’s still not a consequence to the actual cheaters, which is what should be happening.
You don’t have to agree, but one can fully argue that yeah, Walky would also have been sad and feeling lonely if he’d been broken up with regular style instead of post-getting cheated on, given his mental state after other recent breakups & his selfworth issues generally. He sure felt bad after Dorothy broke up with him the first time! Garbage roof & all that?
(Personally I’ve written the cheating off as something Willis just didn’t do very well, so I’m not expecting much and am instead happy to see drama I care about, like this.)
I’d also recommend to just listen to people when they tell you what they mean instead of making up sinister secret intentions, but that’s just me.
+1
They broke up because she cheated on him, but that’s apparently not a “consequence” because we made up some hypothetical where they were dating, and they broke up, and they kissed, but no cheating was involved somehow.
It’s hard not to read into that.
Like, if not a punishment then what kind of consequences are we talking about here?
Do they need to figure out how way to power their flux capacitor with infidelity or something? Where are we going with this?
So they broke up, so what? How has that hindered those two in the slightest? Hell, she sent Jennifer to do the smoothing over for her and even Jennifer was getting on to her for constantly hurting him with little to no attempts to try and make up for her constant use of him. She hasn’t even had to directly face it while she continues to suck face with Joyce totally unaffected by what she left Walky to deal with after she let Joyce laugh in his face about it.
The consequences of the break up has fully fallen on the cheated not the cheaters and that’s where people’s issues have come from. The biggest consequence they’ve faced is the meltdown of somebody not even involved in the relationship in the slightest and the only person who has even slightly challenged them on this was Sarah, who was completely ignored instantly.
I think this consequences debate is the wrong take entirely. We shouldn’t be framing it as consequences. Joyce and Dorothy shouldn’t have to pay a price for being in love. The real fallout of this is likely that they’ve lost all their friends in order to be together. Those are effects inherently not felt right away.
NARRATIVE
FUCKING
CONSEQUENCES
CAUSE AND EFFECT
WHY IS THIS SO FUCKING HARD TO GRASP
I try to stay pretty level headed on here but really! This is not something we should have to be relitigating over and fucking over!
It is truly exhausting
Some people are just too stupid to understand what’s written.
Walky is in the same place (and really most if not all of the characters are in the same place) if Dorothy had gone to walky and said “Hey I love Joyce this isn’t going to work” and then kissed Joyce.
If this is a break up story line not a cheating storyline very little if anything is different.
It’s literally both! They broke up, because they cheated.
You can make up an imaginary story where only one of those things happened, sure, but in this one, this is a direct consequence of the cheating.
So what kind of consequences are we talking about, given that apparently these consequences don’t count somehow?
But Walky has only expressed upset over the breakup, not that he was cheated on. That’s where the issue lies.
Okay, so:
People in the ‘consequences’ camp were pissed by the cheating. If Dotty had broken up with Walky BEFORE kissing Joyce, he’d honestly have still been upset and probably on a nugget-spiral and trying to get support/feedback from Amber.
And Becky would’ve still spiraled, and Dina would still have been left feeling like a consolation prize.
So yes, no cheating would still lead to this exact strip.
The fact that Dina’s expression is totally identical to what it always is, but she’s not on the dinosaur, is just a devastating character moment.
It must be horrible to live in the belief that punishment is so inbuilt in the universe that you just can’t have nice things if you did anything wrong, no matter how unrelated.
A lot of people seem to feel that the universe should work that way, at least in regards to Joyce and Dorothy.
It is, yeah.
It’s a good thing the prevailing negative opinion was “they should have appropriate consequences for their actions” and not “they just CAN’T have nice things”.
I’m pretty sure eh, whatever is just talking about Amber?
idk I can’t keep track of everyone’s “sicko/paladin” alignment chart values but I don’t think eh whatever is staunchly anti-consequences for Joyce/Dorotby or anything.
Yeah, I’ll cop to just sub…commenting? Astariel there.
I think that’s the plot for The Good Place.
Ohhhhhhhhh Dina’s not sleeping on the dinosaur… whew.
And amber… Im. Very glad is tryng out meds, even if thats a Process.
(eating popcorn) its terrible (enjoying myself)
Amber’s state of mind seems to be a perfect mix of the Budhist lament “I have loosed an Act upon the world”, and the biblical admonition “He who rolls a stone will have it return upon him”. She didn’t intend this collateral damage and doesn’t feel she should profit from the circumstances.
I don’t know if Dina is sad or angry, or just awaiting the final verdict, but I feel so sad for her.
But he who rolls a joint will loose up his act upon the world, if you know what I mean. Syncretism for the win. As always.
Dukkha, anatta, dutchie
Life is pain, existence is fleeting, so pass the dutchie pon the left-hand side
“Rewarded” and all she actually did was take a photo of Dorothy’s covered tits. Girl needs to unravel a thing or two.
I think the intention matters. The action wasn’t much but if she was trying to push Dorothy towards Joyce to make Walky single that is a pretty manipulative and shitty thing to do.
Oh, well.
It was, but not to the extent that she has to give up ever seeing him again. Especially since I doubt she was conscious of her intention.
IF.
It’s still important to remember that all Amber did was take a picture and say “lmao you should send her a picture back”. Dorothy is a grown woman who sat on the photo for a while and sent it on her own free will. She’s smart enough to know that sending a zesty picture isn’t “just a joke”. Amber may FEEL responsible, but that doesn’t mean she IS.
Y’know what? If intent isn’t magic when you meant to do something good and wound up causing harm, intent also isn’t magic when you meant to do something bad and wound up getting a good result instead.
Admittedly extreme example to show that your conclusion is, at least, flawed:
Good Intent: Shooting a gun skywards during the Fourth of July. Your celebratory intent is not magic, and does not prevent the downward bullet from causing property damage, injury or death.
Bad Intent: You aim a rifle at someone you despise and take the shot, but miss because you’re really not good at this, however, the person takes a Fight Club-style lesson from this and learns to enjoy life. Despite this good outcome, you still tried to kill someone.
A key difference, of course, is the predictability of the outcome. The possibility that a hunk of metal falling randomly in a park could harm someone, or just fuck up a car window, is pretty obvious. The notion that a near-death experience would cause someone to change their life for the better is nowhere near as reliable, and the outcome you were seeking wasn’t even that noble in the first place.
Nah. If intent only matters when it’s negative, then intending to do things at all is inherently harmful and you can’t trust anyone with any kind of intention.
Hence my note about the difference between the two examples. If someone is so thoughtless that they are incapable of perceiving obvious bad outcomes, then no, I don’t trust their intentions, because their incompetence outweighs their intent.
Real-life example: Wanting to stop wealthy pedophiles, many folks decided to vote for Donald Trump. Their good intentions were totally eradicated by their utter incompetence and disconnect from reality.
A rejoinder içve heard is “intent isn’t magic, but its still intent.”
As in, if you’re talking mostly about the tangible effects of something, especially negative ones, ‘intent’ isn’t gonna male them un-happen. The aftermath is here and everyone has to live with it.
But if you’re discussing the character/nature of the person who did the action; yeah, intent matters kind of a fucking lot. GGood people can cause bad things without meaning to; that doesn’t make them evil. Bad people can have good things happen as a side effect of their actions; that doesn’t forgive the fact that they INTENDED malice
Etc. Etc.
I feel really sad for everyone here. Walky doesn’t get to hang out, which he really needs. Amber’s blaming herself for something that really isn’t her fault, or at least only minimally, and so denying herself happiness (which is extremely Amber). Dina not sleeping on the dinosaur is just heartbreaking, all the moreso because she doesn’t look upset.
really enjoying this strip. IDK Amber caring about Dina here is sweet to me, even if it veers into some self-flagellation & guilt bullshit. Also I just like Walky having friends lol. He’s always so genuine with Amber. (I think I’d really like them dating eventually but also would like some slowburn please. My favorite.)
me, drinking my haterade: wild that amber feels guiltier about this than joyce or dorothy
tbf amber is just thirteen pints of guilt in a comic t-shirt. but bb, you do not deserve to feel bad about this. you didn’t make this happen! you didn’t make becky react the way she did & hurt dina!
Yuuup. I really dislike the feature of this storyline where the most guilt- and sadness-ridden people are the ones whose actions are LEAST proximally the cause of anyone else’s problems.
OTOH, that’s kinda realistic. The people who do the most harm are often the people with the least ability to introspect about it or have any empathy for the people they harmed.
I think for this situation Joyce and Dorothy feeling any guilt really undercuts their relationship. If they were just gonna feel bad or guilty why even bother getting together at all? It was a choice to pursue their romantic feelings even if you wanna argue the kiss was beyond their control in the heat of the moment. That really leaves only Becky who is already in deep depression from this and that’s not at all Joyce or Dorothy’s fault.
In my experience of the people I know who cheated but thought they had good justifiable one-time/special reasons for it — they continued their new thing, but also had a lot of shit to work through about it and felt bad/guilty but also like it was a thing that HAD to happen.
And hell, that’d be really interesting to see either the staunch atheist or the recovering fundie examine.
Yeah that’d at least be an interesting space to play in
Panels 2 & 3 art particularly beautiful. Clever telling. I love wordless ‘show don’t tell’ (even tho I grumble about commenters making wild assumptions). The eyes have it. Amber’s so close and in your face that you can’t miss it, Dina’s so far away that you have to look for the eye contact.
Love the shadows in panel 3.
I feel the need to mention, for anyone following Willis’s bluesky, that my middle initial is not ‘W’.
It’s two Vs, really close together.
So, in the next two strips, that I can’t comment on: in the first, Raidah appears from the right, with a wall containing windows behind here and Joyce. She leaves to the left, as if she interacted with Joyce in passing, but there is a solid blank wall behind them. Looking as if we now have a totally reversed perspective. So did Raidah actually walk up to Joyce, interact and then walk back the way she came?
But then look at the 2nd strip, where Joyce calls out to Raidah, whois going away…
So happy that this is the comment i found when going two strips back.
I believe what you’re seeing in the last panel of the first comic is the floor, not the wall. You can see in the second strip that the flooring is that same color next to a red/maroon walkway or carpet of some sort. I read it as Raidah approaching from the right, then continuing on the same direction she had been already heading. The second strip has Joyce looking the same direction she originally had been in the first comic, and Raidah turning back to reply. I believe the entirety of both comics take place from the same side of the two.
I believe you may be confusing a brown panel they’re standing near with a wall.
And a reversed perspective with a 90 degree swing.
HAHA! WILLIS YOU FOOL YOU FORGOT TO CLOSE THE COMMENTS TODAY! NOW I CAN COMMENT ALL I WANT!!!
Hi guys how has your week gone? My computer’s motherboard got a short circuit so my past few weeks have been ass!