In the pornographic-film industry, the people are presented with two separate yet equally important groups: the stepmothers, who are stuck in the dryer, and the stepsons, who accidentally took stepdad’s Viagra. These are their stories.
I have never seen or read anything with this premise, and yet I feel supremely confident that his been done, and almost as confident that it has been done much more than once.
Well, the whole family, really.
Dang, those dryers are just traps, aren’t they.
Good on the pr0n industry, for bringing so much direly needed attention to this problem!
Police in TV shows are like royalty in Disney movies. It’s a pleasant fantasy of the way we wish these institutions worked, but no guide to the real world.
My favorite part is when the copaganda is willing to admit that there are bad cops, but every group of bad cops is a small cell that the Grizzled Soft Boy Leading Man can completely undermine and excise in a 50 minute episode – two of them, if it’s a season finale.
In every real police organization, the main characters of all these shows would be shot 15 times in the back during a routine bust for not backing the blue, and the investigation would come up finding no foul play.
Comedies tend to be more realistic than dramas. In real life, people mostly try to avoid drama. But people in bad situations often deal with humor, however dark. That’s why Scrubs was closer to reality than ER and people who have actually worked in radio love WKRP.
I once heard that Scrubs was one of the most medically accurate shows on TV. Don’t know if that’s true, but IT DOES make sense (and honestly, more believable than other shows).
There’s a couple quick tests that indicate if a cop show is ‘copaganda’.
1: How do they portray Internal Affairs? This is the really big one, honestly–copaganda shows invariably show IA (or the local department’s equivalent) as either venally corrupt, woefully inept, or just flat-out envious of ‘real cops’. (Note: Barney Miller was an early adopter of this trope.)
2: If police corruption is part of the storyline, how is it portrayed? The copaganda approach invariably shows a lone bad cop, or at most a very small ring within the department. As soon as the ‘good cops’ find out about it, they devote their entire time to bringing down the corrupt elements, and they have the full backing of any senior officer who isn’t part of the active ring. There’s never any attempt to silence them from higher-ups (at most, there will be a reluctant warning that pursuing this could end the Good Cop’s career, but invariably, this never happens).
3: What kind of corruption is portrayed? Most copaganda shows will talk about ‘dirty cops’ who are ‘on the take’–ie, financial corruption that the Good Cops easily resist. They won’t feature cops who cut corners, strong-arm witnesses, abuse easily coerced suspects (like kids and the mentally disabled) into signing confessions, etc. (If anything, the copaganda show is likely to show sympathy to a Good Cop who is pushed into ‘bending the rules’ in order to put the scumbag behind bars.)
4: How often do the cops get it wrong? Does it portray any cases at all where the cops get a conviction, only to have it later revealed that no, the suspect as innocent all along? Or do they only ever get tricked by masterminds doing frame jobs (which they invariably uncover before someone spends ten years behind bars for a crime they didn’t commit)?
Don’t get me wrong–copaganda shows tend to be fun to watch. They portray, in many cases, the world we’d WANT to live in, where the majority of cops are focused on upholding the law and solving real crimes and making sure the innocent go free. And one of the big reasons we don’t live in that world is the truth behind ACAB–the Thin Blue Line mentality, which says the one thing you never, ever do is snitch on a fellow cop.
we know all cops are bastards, because ex-cops tell us so
good cops simply don’t last, in no small part because bad cops are enabled to harass them CONSTANTLY, sometimes to the point to which they’re driven to suicide
Unfortunately, while this is the best litmus test for copaganda, even copaganda shows once in a while portray it sort-of straight. For example, NCIS has had several story arcs about corruption in law enforcement (always other agencies, but it’s always a Big Deal,a dn systemic, when it happens). They’ve even had an episode where Gibbs put away someone who was innocent, and it was only discovered years later (at which time Our Heroes set things right).
Like I said, “sort-of straight.”
Mostly, though, it’s “zoom and enhance,” undeniable identification from partial prints, near-instantaneous results on DNA scans, and “we won’t rest until we solve this case” mentality resulting in no unsolved cases.
The sheer physicality of D’Onofrio’s acting, especially in interrogation scenes, was astounding. Swooping and stalking and invading people’s personal space to disconcert them during his questioning: amazing.
It took a dive last year with a showrunner who kicked off the season with a “blonde girl kidnapped and trafficked with fentanyl” storyline, but they have new leadership again and it’s back on track!
Situation A – Getting arrested at a protest because you know that sometimes being arrested is part of the protest and you’ve got the wrong end of the stick here, but you think you’re doing something valiant and impactful.
Situation B – Getting arrested for being at a protest after it has been pointed out to you that you had the wrong end of the stick. Specifically after the school newspaper forcibly outed you and made that information public without regard for your safety or consent.
GOSH I WONDER WHY SHE FEELS DIFFERENTLY IN SUCH SIMILAR SITUATIONS??
‘And when the man pulls that switch sir, and pulls my poor head back, just make sure my pretty baby’s, sitting right there in my lap.’ Nebraska : Bruce Springsteen.
Brazil had daylight saving even though it’s on the equator? Why even bother in the first place?
We’ve been trying to get it repealed in the U.S. for decades, it’s an absolutely terrible policy which has been proven to do a lot of harm, but people are so bad at understanding how time works that getting everyone to agree to stop it in the same way at the same time has been all but impossible. The very reason Daylight Saving is so confusing is the same reason people get tricked into thinking it’s ever helpful, and it’s an easy do-nothing policy for politicians who want to look like they’ve done something useful without directly spending any of the government’s own money.
It gets worse for friendships where one person is American and the other is in a non-Americountry that practices Daylight Saving Time.
Because DST lasts for more of the year in America than in other countries, so there are two periods of the year where our clocks are desynchronized in weirder ways than the usual timezone gap.
…because candy companies tried bribing the government for decades to extend it past Halloween, and finally succeeded during Bush Jr.’s term. So now more of the American year falls during DST than during Standard Time.
I despise how buyable our reality is, where bribes can dictate the very time on the clock. At least the extension makes it easy to remember which weekend it ends (the one after Halloween).
It’s a crappy reason, but given the option between making DST permanent or reverting to Standard permanently, I’d vote for Standard out of petty spite.
The advantage to Daylight savings time is that we get longer daylight when it’s actually useful. We need it even more in the winter with shorter days, but that’s when it goes away.
both DST days are actually 2 of the busiest days of the year in emergency rooms. more knife accidents at breakfast, more car accidents all day, people just get hurt more doing dumb stuff, because we arbitrarily disrupted their circadian rhythm, and made them temporarily stupid for a period of one or more days.
it’s actually a practice that comes with its own body count, and we’re just now finally starting to realize it. DST, in the literal sense, has maimed and killed people.
Worse than that, they haven’t had a long term rule for deciding when daylight saving would start or end. In many years the start and end dates would be set by legislation, often passed within a month of when the clocks would change. You can see all the rule changes in the time zone database source here:
Is it? I’d hope a lawyer cares about justice, rather than ”law and order”. The latter is a fascist rallying cry. The law is a tool to achieve justice, it’s not important or valuable on it’s own.
As someone who works in law, I can tell you that most lawyers are motivated primarily by maximizing their billable hours and settling cases as quickly as possible.
Stop reporting it, it just gets restored eventually and makes the rest of the comment section less pleasant while it’s down. I am more stubborn than you, trust me.
Not much to kvetch about tonight. I did get more evidence for my “talking with Asma has really made Dorothy more conscientious about the protest and her role in it” theory though, so that’s nice.
I’ll break from my usual behavior and say something hateful, sure. If Tony’s the kind of person who would refuse to fuck someone entirely because they said “good” instead of “well”, Sarah has better options and would do good to explore them.
Willis should have it cost double the price, and just end halfway as Tony starts going on a long boring explanation of exactly how what Sarah said in bed was grammatically incorrect.
I like how Sarah simultaneously is freaking about how she thinks she needs to
Tony (and his penis) but also conscious of the fact that he’s shorter than her fantasies.
I had the same anxiety when I started talking to my partner in high school. They were so straight laced and precise I couldn’t relax. Then they said “piffle” in a sentence and we started figuring out we have compatible goofy sides.
I’m pretty sure this is just Willis setting up the opportunity to do “Superman sleeps good. You sleep well” bit in the alt-text. The man does love a 30 Rock quote
Dorothy smells the approaching consequences of her actions. Fingers crossed for something to come of it but also not too much because I’m actually very soft hearted
Not that I’ve seen, but people are pretty quick on the trigger about reporting anything truly hateful so it’s honestly impossible to tell unless you happen to see it before it gets obliterated.
There’s a lot of actual hate speech that DOES get posted elsewhere that we know exists (most recently, someone used the “other” comments on Yotomoe’s poll to say something pretty vile, although Yotomoe got rid of it as soon as informed.)
which is funny because I think some of the openly defensive stuff about Raidah’s “I’m gonna ruin your career” threats weren’t IN the containment thread anyway lol
I feel like this “Dorothy is worried Tony will tell the Dean she’s the girl in the newspaper” storyline doesn’t play entirely nicely with the added-later “the school newspaper’s editorial decisions are super fucking important” storyline. Do Dorothy’s teachers not read it?
Tbf this is like, the most subtle way to ask. When I was 19 my dumb ass would have blurted out “Sarah do you think your boyfriend is gonna report us to his dad???”
Ιησωυς got abbreviated as ΙΗϹ (using the lunate sigma) from its first three letters, then transliterated to Latin characters as IHC. Then J developed giving JHC. Then the J was interpreted as the single first letter of “Jesus” and the C as the first letter of “Christ”.
ΙΗϹΩΥϹ → ΙΗϹ → IHC → JHC → J.H.C. → Jesus H. Christ
I don’t think so. The “H” is actually the greek eta, which is the “e” in Jesus (or in Iēsous, before the “J” was distinct.) It just looks like our H
Similarly with the C – which was actually a sigma, that can be written either similarly our “C” or our “S”.
The important thing is to note that traditionally he was a carpenter, and so we can only assume that when he hit his finger with a hammer he’d yell “Jesus H. Me, that hurts.”
Looking back to yesterday and how many people were side-eyeing Tony and I ended up thinking about how the story so far could be a set up for a twist where Tony is abusive (nearly everyone who sees Tony and Sarah together mention either how he’s a real solid guy or he’s the son of the principal so hes got the “everyone thinks hes so great”/power oflver Sarah’s future at college so itd be hard for her to reach out, he’s tangently friends with Roofie Ryan and the Incel Squad so could be in the same thought echo chamber etc)
However this morning reading it at 5:18am I think he’s just a bit of a stick in the mud, and while Sarah is interested in him and attracted to him, she’ll get bored or frustrated with his personality stat and that’d be the romance drama instead.
Yeah, I wonder at what point the charm will wear off and she’ll realise that she’s never just relaxed and had a good side-aching laugh in his presence once. Ever.
It might take a long time, because Sarah has been so unsafe and therefore on the defense for so long that she might not realise that her sense of fun and play is being stifled by a different source now.
Maybe she’ll realise after hanging out with Joe and having a nice chill laugh at the gym one day!
I don’t know… sure he might be a bit of a stick in the mud, but so is Sarah.
People want different things from a partner and right now I don’t think Sarah is looking for a roller coaster. She wants something safe and consistent.
I suspect if anything is going to sabotage this relationship it is Sarah, as she gets to worked up about thinking she is insufficient by herself, and maybe if she is overly reductive towards Tony (tower of muscle, just into law and order, etc…)
I’m actually more worried that it’s gonna get mucked up by his girlfriend’s roomie being someone caught on camera smooching at a protest against actions taken by his father, the dean. Since he’s into law and order that is… not a great optic. Sarah might have to choose between keeping her new relationship and her innate need to protect Joyce.
Considering that Tony’s reaction to Joyce and Dorothy was essentially just ‘huh!’ with a pretty open expression and then a kiss and ‘see you tomorrow’ to Sarah, i don’t personally foresee drama there.
IMO it’s almost better if Tony could not possibly give less of a shit about protesters (re: stupidly getting them in stupid trouble for not actually breaking the law, anyway) but Dorothy spins herself (and Joyce) up to shenanigans about it anyway.
it would be interesting seeing Carla freaking the most out about the being related to genocide supporters, while Tony just doesn’t care. Kinda showing the two sides of that privileged upbringing.
Maybe we actually get to a good ending, where Sarah can actually open up to Tony about her future plans, why she wants to get into Law, and why sticking up for activists is actually important. Those are all long shots in the long game, but like, it’d be a cool arc.
Apropos of nothing, I wonder if Tony’s mother is still alive and well in this universe. She was decidedly dead by the time Tony first showed up, and I don’t think we ever even saw her in flashback form.
My guess is, she’s alive but a deadbeat who walked out on the family when Tony was 4.
Mostly because I don’t think we’ve had a deadbeat mother in this comic yet.
So is Tony into classic Law and Order, Law and Order SVU, Law and Order Criminal Intent, Law and Order Organized Crime, Law and Order LA, Law and Order Trial by Jury, Law and Order UK, Law and Order True Crime, or all of the above? Maybe he just likes hearing “dun dun.”
I will note for the record that Trial by Jury was off the air before Tony was born. In a couple more years this will also be true of Criminal Intent and LA, as well as the first run of original L&O before it came back.
This kinda makes me realize we don’t know much about what Sarah is into. She kind of just stays in her room being grumpy. Is she against rules and law and order? I feel like she and Tony started with some natural chemistry but this strip has me questioning. It’s clear she really likes him but I don’t think it should be a challenge to match his energy. Would he even want that?
You’re not wrong but part of that is because Sarah has spent the past 15 years of webcomic keeping her emotional needs nailed shut. Her brain is hardwired to recoil at the idea of voicing needs in a relationship because then she’ll start creating reasons why he can’t fulfill them and they should just break up anyway.
My issue (and I think most of the people criticizing) has always, *always* been more Doylist than Watsonian.
I’m going to just copy & past TV Tropes for terms-
“When a creator answers a question about their work, should they provide an In-Universe answer or a Real Life answer? The former is the Watsonian perspective, the latter Doylist.”
The Doylist perspective says that it’s not the act of kissing at a protest that is the problem, it’s how the kiss was framed and centered by the narrative at the direct expense of talking about what the protest was about.
So the notion that “people kiss at protests all the time, it’s a powerful act of rebellion!” is *always* going to fall flat because that’s not the actual problem people had with it.
Also, the point I’ve been trying to make is that while kissing at a protest CAN be a powerful act of rebellion, it is not ALWAYS a powerful act of rebellion because every protest is different and carries different rules of engagement, and continually trying to obfuscate this fact causes me to seriously doubt one’s seriousness about political activism writ large.
I’m very much unqualified on that point- it’s not my wheelhouse, so I’m more than content to let folks who actually know what they’re talking about hash it out.
So getting back to the Watsonian/Doylist separation, it’s one of the main reasons that, while I very much think Willis is operating in good faith here (in that they’re genuinely doing their best to be respectful and sympathetic to a very important social cause, rather than “well, people are mad so I need to address it grumble grumble”), the rewrites and insertions that we’ve seen so far have fallen kind of flat for me. Because they’re only addressing the Watsonian concerns rather than the Doylist ones.
Honestly; outside of cheating and all that, the kiss itself wasn’t the problem, it was Willis writing it to be THE thing that overshadowed the protest. Like; if the head of the newspaper wasn’t a horny woman who wanted to see women kissing on her front page of the newspaper she ran, no one would’ve given two shits about Dorothy and Joyce smoochin on the mound.
Checking the tag, the first mention was fully 12 years ago. Of course, Tony has pretty much not been a character in this comic until just a year ago, so.
Idk man, maybe the comic just doesn’t hit for me anymore. I really like the first 3 panels, especially Sarah’s expression/the text in panel 3! That’s really cute, “Ahhhh I said something dumb in front of my new boyfriend!!” writing!
But then no actually Sarah is just upset because she’s super high-strung and it’s about wanting to fuck, not about an emotional connection, I guess? I get that it can be both and characters are multifaceted, but Sarah’s last two speech bubbles feel more akin to something Old Joe would say.
On whole the dialogue in the last 2 panels feels disjointed, like Dorothy/Sarah are talking around each other. Which maybe they are and that’s intentional! To me it just reads kinda… weird.
I dunno. It’s probably just me. Might finally be time to stop daily reading for a while and see if I come back to it at some point.
Sarah really doesn’t want to have a romance at this point in her life. She wants a sex partner.
It’s annoying her that everyone wants to date instead,
It’s a gender reversal of how it usually goes. In Tanya Huff’s BLOOD books, the protagonist, Vicki Nelson gets incredibly annoyed the two men she’s dating want to know where their romances are going. She’s like, “What happened to men who just wanted sex!?”
Sarah seems to be roughly as thirsty/horny as Joyce, she just has more life experience and better ways of managing it (including a few literal power tools).
Sarah has had a lot of character development, but she’s still not really someone who will admit to having emotional needs or seeking connection. And I think that is the main thing about this relationship for her; the fact that she was on the same wavelength with him in so many ways from their first conversation, and the fact that she understands her need to be by herself and accommodates that so readily.
But it’s much easier to admit to being horny than emotionally vulnerable. (And also, of course, Sarah is a very sexually motivated person. And probably the most sexually frustrated person in the cast aside from Daisy.)
That’s really fair and a read I hadn’t considered.
I saw her and Tony hitting it off as a small pivot in what she wanted from this relationship vs what she wanted with Jacob, so seeing her 100% back to “I am horny for man; the things that man wants/values are a hindrance to sex with man” was a disappointing surprise. But that being her way of deflecting her emotional entanglement to focus on this Other Aspect of the Relationship (that is obviously also important to her) makes sense and fits really well. Thank you for the insight!
Feelings definitely, but at this point they still barely know each other, so it’s on the level of crush. Which doesn’t mean she’s not doing her usual Sarah thing of deflecting from that to pretend she’s just interested in the physical side.
I dunno, seeing an untraumatized Tony (as compared to the other universe) as a rock standing up to Sarah’s anxiety storm. She can spiral and self doubt and worry, but he’d probably just be ok constantly reassuring her everything relationshipwise is fine.
Also he was offended when Danny tried to start a fight with him to attract Amazi-Girl. Danny was egging him on to fight by mentioning his sexuality, and Tony was like, wtf? Why would I have a problem with that, or with you? People seem to really want Tony to be a bad guy, but what little we’ve seen of him doesn’t support that. His sport may obligate him to be around d-bags, but he doesn’t like them and he in fact punched one out without hesitation.
I’m all for Tony turning Dorothy in for all the cops she beat up as Amazi-Girl before Jennifer reveals Sal is Amazi-Girl and they realize what a terrible mistake they made.
Oh dammit I could even see Danny somehow screwing it all up even worse since he KNOWS who Amazi-Girl is, resulting in even THAT stable relationship imploding
Further, I could also see Amazi-Girl just turning herself in out of guilt towards Sal, just shortly after Danny Dans it up, meaning that Danny’s sacrifice will literally be for nothing.
Dorothy and Joyce have the pretty much perfect alibi for that, as they were quite conspicuously kissing on camera in normal clothes while Amazi-Girl was beating the shit out of cops in costume.
Like, of all the people on campus, they are the two who most conclusively can’t be Amazi-Girl.
I think Sarah is making a lot of unfounded assumptions about Tony here, mostly because he’s the dean’s son. I’m sure he’s a solid dude, but I don’t think he’s exactly a narc and if they breakup it will probably because Sarah is being too uptight about law and order.
How seriously are we taking the “the dick is the most important part” comment? I always sorta wrote off Sarah’s sort of flustered objectification of Jacob as a first-college-crush indiscretion, and taken on its own I would’ve taken tonight’s comment mostly tongue-in-cheek, but when you consider both of these instances together…
I asked a friend of mine what kind of people he liked to date in case I knew anyone he might like to meet and he just replied “Big Dick” – and he was in his 30s. Some people just know that they want a specific kind of physical relationship – it’s ok if their partners are into it, but Tony and Jacob are very clearly a lot more serious about the romantic and long-term prospects and keen on emotional intelligence in their partners.
Tony believing that having sex every night indicates a lack of seriousness in a relationship is perhaps not the best match for Sarah given that she feels the need to repress herself to fit in with it. Someone with Joe’s attitude would actually have suited her better.
I don’t think it’s “tongue in cheek” so much as Sarah doing her usual thing and emphasizing her misanthropy by reducing her interest to just the physical side. It’s serious not because she really means it, but because it’s a character flaw that she’s going to have to deal with. Not being able to admit emotional vulnerability.
She’s the clear foil of Joyce: Joyce was doubling down on her obsession with romance, to blind herself to how goddamned horny she always was, and how much she wanted to get fucked; Sarah, on the other hand, doubles down on her obsession with getting laid, to help herself ignore the prospect of actually letting somebody get emotionally close to her, or romantically letting down her guard.
I wouldn’t wan to stop you from enjoying your sense of impending doom, but I’ve seen relationships built on less reach the point where the people involved grew on each other.
I was in a relationship with a guy who was really controlling. Like Tony, he was very direct and firm and charming at first. I understand that Sarah has issues with vulnerability but it’s entirely possible, especially knowing his background and how directive he’s already been with Sarah, that he’s exactly how she’s describing here. It’s disheartening how many people in the comments here are assuming that this is just Sarah being crazy or unreasonable.
How has he been directive with Sarah? When he invited her over to join him and his friend in watching a football game, he set aside a comfy space with snacks where she could be free to engage or disengage as much as she wanted, which I thought was very considerate of her needs and desires. “Glad you’re here! You’re free to join me or do your own thing; I’ve made sure you’re comfortable either way,” is about as non-controlling as it gets.
The way he’s phrased certain things is directive, even though they’ve generally been about things that aren’t inherently bad. Like “you sleep in”, “no, attendance is crucial. Let me get my coat and walk you” “I’ve designated a spot for you.”
Sure if you take them out of context, but in context every single one of them is Tony being very considerate of Sarah. “No, attendance is crucial. Let me get my coat and walk you,” was said in reply to Sarah saying she is willing to skip her class to spend more time with Tony, which he shoots down because that’s stupid and self-destructive. So far it reads to me like Sarah is so overwhelmed with emotion she is willing to sabotage her life for Tony, but Tony is so far unwilling to let her do that.
I think that for right now it’s pretty valid to read that possibility, but I don’t think it’s a foregone conclusion. From what we’ve seen, Tony seems to have a pretty regimented lifestyle for himself, but he also seems pretty willing to carve out a space for Sarah to be how she is comfortable being. We haven’t seen the limits of that because Sarah herself is extremely unwilling to approach where the borders *could* be. But let’s look back at the bit of judginess at Sarah’s friends: https://www.dumbingofage.com/2025/comic/book-15/03-me-and-who-you-say-i-was-yesterday/releaseyou/
He asks if Sarah wants “us” to walk with them, with at least an implication that if that’s what Sarah wants he’s there for it. She turns it around as a question to him, with a very soft sell. He mentions them being freshmen, which does come off as judgy, but we never see a response from him after Sarah answers, and it’s Lucy & Jacob that ultimately tell her to go have boyfriend time. I think this largely comes out as a wash, no clear points to award for or against.
When he has her over while he and Beef watch the game, he explicitly gives her veto power (albeit after Beef is already there, which definitely undermines it) and he explicitly states that there are no expectations of her. If she’s into the game, she’s welcome to watch with them. If not, she’s welcome to do literally anything else in a comfy spot with snacks. “You can interact with us as little or as much as you want,” to use his words. Presumably Beef wandered off after the game, and Sarah & Tony spent the rest of the evening together, but that’s all offscreen and we don’t see them again until waking up together the next morning. Where again, Tony’s like *I* have to get up and go to practice, *you* feel free to just be.
If this relationship is going to last, at some point Sarah needs to… Well, fuck around and find out (IN THE COLLOQUIAL SENSE, NOT ANOTHER CHEATING STORYLINE, DON’T @ ME). Poke at a boundary (or set her own), assert a need/want that isn’t preapproved, go against a plan. Then we find out if Tony’s here to be Sarah’s partner and she can relax, or if he needs to be shitcanned. But New Relationship Energy is like that sometimes, when you haven’t known each other ahead of time.
Dude has a bunch of pillows. Presumably (and by word of alttext) he likes pillows. Of the pile of pillows, one is clearly on his side, another that he’s on a little bit but more toward Sarah, and then the rest of them are Sarah’s domain. Does that mean anything? Not necessarily. It’s far from conclusive, but at least potentially a subtle unspoken sign of making space for her.
I agree. He gives off really controlling vibes to me. I think he’s probably here to nudge Sarah’s personal arc by pointing out to her how exhausting it is to be with someone who has a lot of judgement for other people and no wiggle room for people being worthwhile outside that. Maybe also a nudge that she wants more than “a big dick” and “a truckload of muscle” from a boyfriend. She needs someone she’s comfortable with and able to relax around.
Yep. Is Tony the sort to snitch on Amber/A-G, if he ever finds out?
We’ll find out, based on how he reacts to the Dorothy-Joyce snogging on the front page.
Curious to see if this is just Sarah being Sarah or if Tony has given cause to react like this. Hopefully just the former but won’t be surprised at the worst possible outcome.
I mean, Tony has done that weird controlling thing of commenting subtle (and not so subtle) judgement of any behaviors he finds out of the norm as established by him. It can be exhausting and anxiety inducing to try and be with someone that exacting, because you know that if you put a foot wrong you’ll hear about it from Mr. Always-Right.
Bet Tony liked the Lenny Briscoe era of L&O. Lenny carried that show for a full decade. Even though the show’s been revived and, unlike a lot of other revivals, has gained five additional seasons with no signs of slowing down, none of the detectives had Lenny’s wit. The detective who came close was detective Bernard, but that’s because he was played by Anthony Anderson, showing us that he can play more than just goofball sidekicks.
love the comic in general but the hater containment thread stuff makes me not want to comment anymore since I feel like everyone’s gonna be mad if I criticise a character so. probably won’t be back unfortunately.
Sarah seems to have a very clear idea that she has to follow the rules perfectly or Tony is gone.
Would be / will be interesting to see how much that is actually true vs how much that is Sarah’s anxiety creating consequences that aren’t actually there.
Some people have wondered if all Sarah wants is big dick, but I don’t think so. She got interested in him for his personality first (even if that personality was “fellow grump”).
Tbh, I’m going to be disappointed if calling things “unseemly” is his main energy. I got my hopes up when he set up an introvert bed palace for Sarah on game day.
He’s a big ten football player. Most of them take remote classes so they can focus on football. That he attends actual class and intends to graduate and have a non-football career means he has to take classes very seriously. Football is like a 40 hour a week job in addition to school. No surprise he’s super disciplined. He doesn’t have spare time.
Granted, we don’t know how well IU is doing in this year of Dumbing of Age, but depending on whether they make it to conference finals, a bowl game or heaven forbid, the playoffs, he might have extra football stuff to do too.
I’m reminded of the one year Laurent Duvernay-Tardif (one of the rare non-US players to not have come through the US collegiate system) after being signed by the Jets where his teammates were flabbergasted he actually had a medical degree from his time in college.
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Law in Order is a pretty good show. Still going strong too.
Law AND Order. Law in Order is the porn spin off.
In the pornographic-film industry, the people are presented with two separate yet equally important groups: the stepmothers, who are stuck in the dryer, and the stepsons, who accidentally took stepdad’s Viagra. These are their stories.
I have never seen or read anything with this premise, and yet I feel supremely confident that his been done, and almost as confident that it has been done much more than once.
Like any good adult film star, definitely been done more than once.
*DUN DUN*
Nonsense. It’s the step sisters that are stuck in the dryer.
Well, the whole family, really.
Dang, those dryers are just traps, aren’t they.
Good on the pr0n industry, for bringing so much direly needed attention to this problem!
Also never expected them to be such strong advocates for adoption with all the step families.
ROTFLMAO!!
Congratulations! You have won today’s comment section.
DINK DINK!
“Dun dun.”
Meh, it’s really obvious copaganda.
Police in TV shows are like royalty in Disney movies. It’s a pleasant fantasy of the way we wish these institutions worked, but no guide to the real world.
My favorite part is when the copaganda is willing to admit that there are bad cops, but every group of bad cops is a small cell that the Grizzled Soft Boy Leading Man can completely undermine and excise in a 50 minute episode – two of them, if it’s a season finale.
In every real police organization, the main characters of all these shows would be shot 15 times in the back during a routine bust for not backing the blue, and the investigation would come up finding no foul play.
Don’t trust copaganda TV shows.
What about Night Court?
I remember reading somewhere that folks in law enforcement said Night Court and Barney Miller were the TV shows closest to reality.
Comedies tend to be more realistic than dramas. In real life, people mostly try to avoid drama. But people in bad situations often deal with humor, however dark. That’s why Scrubs was closer to reality than ER and people who have actually worked in radio love WKRP.
I once heard that Scrubs was one of the most medically accurate shows on TV. Don’t know if that’s true, but IT DOES make sense (and honestly, more believable than other shows).
I feel like that term gets thrown around a bit too freely. Like any show that doesn’t subscribe to ACAB is “copaganda.”
There’s a couple quick tests that indicate if a cop show is ‘copaganda’.
1: How do they portray Internal Affairs? This is the really big one, honestly–copaganda shows invariably show IA (or the local department’s equivalent) as either venally corrupt, woefully inept, or just flat-out envious of ‘real cops’. (Note: Barney Miller was an early adopter of this trope.)
2: If police corruption is part of the storyline, how is it portrayed? The copaganda approach invariably shows a lone bad cop, or at most a very small ring within the department. As soon as the ‘good cops’ find out about it, they devote their entire time to bringing down the corrupt elements, and they have the full backing of any senior officer who isn’t part of the active ring. There’s never any attempt to silence them from higher-ups (at most, there will be a reluctant warning that pursuing this could end the Good Cop’s career, but invariably, this never happens).
3: What kind of corruption is portrayed? Most copaganda shows will talk about ‘dirty cops’ who are ‘on the take’–ie, financial corruption that the Good Cops easily resist. They won’t feature cops who cut corners, strong-arm witnesses, abuse easily coerced suspects (like kids and the mentally disabled) into signing confessions, etc. (If anything, the copaganda show is likely to show sympathy to a Good Cop who is pushed into ‘bending the rules’ in order to put the scumbag behind bars.)
4: How often do the cops get it wrong? Does it portray any cases at all where the cops get a conviction, only to have it later revealed that no, the suspect as innocent all along? Or do they only ever get tricked by masterminds doing frame jobs (which they invariably uncover before someone spends ten years behind bars for a crime they didn’t commit)?
Don’t get me wrong–copaganda shows tend to be fun to watch. They portray, in many cases, the world we’d WANT to live in, where the majority of cops are focused on upholding the law and solving real crimes and making sure the innocent go free. And one of the big reasons we don’t live in that world is the truth behind ACAB–the Thin Blue Line mentality, which says the one thing you never, ever do is snitch on a fellow cop.
You just described every cop show this side of NYPD Blue.
we know all cops are bastards, because ex-cops tell us so
good cops simply don’t last, in no small part because bad cops are enabled to harass them CONSTANTLY, sometimes to the point to which they’re driven to suicide
https://medium.com/@OfcrACab/confessions-of-a-former-bastard-cop-bb14d17bc759
* even ex cops tell us so
Unfortunately, while this is the best litmus test for copaganda, even copaganda shows once in a while portray it sort-of straight. For example, NCIS has had several story arcs about corruption in law enforcement (always other agencies, but it’s always a Big Deal,a dn systemic, when it happens). They’ve even had an episode where Gibbs put away someone who was innocent, and it was only discovered years later (at which time Our Heroes set things right).
Like I said, “sort-of straight.”
Mostly, though, it’s “zoom and enhance,” undeniable identification from partial prints, near-instantaneous results on DNA scans, and “we won’t rest until we solve this case” mentality resulting in no unsolved cases.
Grease Police brand degreaser is copaganda.
any show that DOESN’T subscribe to ACAB IS COPAGANDA.
also, ACAB.
But does he like Law And Order, or does he like law, and order?
Let’s hope it’s the former. The lawn order crowd is usually ready to chuck law out the window if it interferes with their preferred order.
True.
Tony likes big dicks, you say? O.O
nice avatar
Tony for more bi rep? I’ll take it lol
Like a beer can, as in exactly the same dimensions.
And she cannot lie.
Surrounded by a truckload of muscle!
O.O O.O O.O
You know, that sounds like a description of Steven (AKA Beef). His only in-comic interaction with Tony was in https://www.dumbingofage.com/2025/comic/book-15/03-me-and-who-you-say-i-was-yesterday/steven/ but we don’t know what they get up to the rest of the time. Certainly, that strip implies Tony’s familiar with his room.
Getting sudden Heathers vibes.
no no, he likes having one.
It helps him feel confident.
I preferred SVU out of all the law and orders, although I fell off the past few years. No idea what’s happening in the newest seasons.
I’m more of a Criminal Intent guy, but really just for Goren and Eames.
Oh Goren and Eames were the SHIT, loved Criminal Intent too.
The sheer physicality of D’Onofrio’s acting, especially in interrogation scenes, was astounding. Swooping and stalking and invading people’s personal space to disconcert them during his questioning: amazing.
Most people know him as the ‘Men In Black cockroach guy’ or from Jurassic World but he’ll always be Goren to me.
He’ll always be Private Pyle to me.
Oh his role as Private Pyle was mindblowing.
He’ll always be the doomed guy trapped between the subway train and the platform in Baltimore to me
He made a pretty good Robert E Howard, too.
Nor private Pyle!
Learned something new!
I never realized he was cockroach guy!
Especially heinous things.
It took a dive last year with a showrunner who kicked off the season with a “blonde girl kidnapped and trafficked with fentanyl” storyline, but they have new leadership again and it’s back on track!
…okay ?
Trust Sarah to concentrate on what’s important.
sounding pretty firsty there, sarah
I’m glad Sarah is still Sarah lol
Well “Going on a year now she hadn’t had anything twixt her nerthers that don’t run on batteries.”
Yes, this will doom your relationship.
Dorothy is acting very weird about law and order when she was all about getting arrested and disrupting the protest.
She is awkwardly expressing concern about whether or not Tony is the type to get people in trouble for being at a protest.
Yeah, sometimes you can regret those big transgressive acts after the fact, or get paranoid that there will be consequences.
Regret/concern about the thing you did doesn’t erase how you felt when you were doing it (for good, or ill).
Situation A – Getting arrested at a protest because you know that sometimes being arrested is part of the protest and you’ve got the wrong end of the stick here, but you think you’re doing something valiant and impactful.
Situation B – Getting arrested for being at a protest after it has been pointed out to you that you had the wrong end of the stick. Specifically after the school newspaper forcibly outed you and made that information public without regard for your safety or consent.
GOSH I WONDER WHY SHE FEELS DIFFERENTLY IN SUCH SIMILAR SITUATIONS??
It’d be funny if she said this only for Joyce to be, “Yes, being arrested for our love is so much more important!”
“Dorothy, I don’t think you understand. We have to take this all the way. We have to hold hands in the electric chair and die together.”
‘And when the man pulls that switch sir, and pulls my poor head back, just make sure my pretty baby’s, sitting right there in my lap.’ Nebraska : Bruce Springsteen.
*Duh duhn*
off: Thanks, Jair Bolsonaro, for banning the daylight savings, at end of year.
Now, I have to wait for 2AM until next update.
Thank you, I hope next guy doesn’t miss it, like Adelio did
Brazil had daylight saving even though it’s on the equator? Why even bother in the first place?
We’ve been trying to get it repealed in the U.S. for decades, it’s an absolutely terrible policy which has been proven to do a lot of harm, but people are so bad at understanding how time works that getting everyone to agree to stop it in the same way at the same time has been all but impossible. The very reason Daylight Saving is so confusing is the same reason people get tricked into thinking it’s ever helpful, and it’s an easy do-nothing policy for politicians who want to look like they’ve done something useful without directly spending any of the government’s own money.
It gets worse for friendships where one person is American and the other is in a non-Americountry that practices Daylight Saving Time.
Because DST lasts for more of the year in America than in other countries, so there are two periods of the year where our clocks are desynchronized in weirder ways than the usual timezone gap.
…because candy companies tried bribing the government for decades to extend it past Halloween, and finally succeeded during Bush Jr.’s term. So now more of the American year falls during DST than during Standard Time.
I despise how buyable our reality is, where bribes can dictate the very time on the clock. At least the extension makes it easy to remember which weekend it ends (the one after Halloween).
It’s a crappy reason, but given the option between making DST permanent or reverting to Standard permanently, I’d vote for Standard out of petty spite.
The advantage to Daylight savings time is that we get longer daylight when it’s actually useful. We need it even more in the winter with shorter days, but that’s when it goes away.
Exactly! I’d rather have that hour of daylight fall in the afternoon than in the early morning. Dark at 4 PM is worse than dark at 5 AM.
Then why not stay on daylight time all year?
We should absolutely do that, but I’d rather keep the current system than have Standard time all year and have sunrise at 4:30 in July.
DST gives everyone jet lag twice a year.
both DST days are actually 2 of the busiest days of the year in emergency rooms. more knife accidents at breakfast, more car accidents all day, people just get hurt more doing dumb stuff, because we arbitrarily disrupted their circadian rhythm, and made them temporarily stupid for a period of one or more days.
it’s actually a practice that comes with its own body count, and we’re just now finally starting to realize it. DST, in the literal sense, has maimed and killed people.
So much this. If someone wants more sunlight in their lives, they should move south, not play games with the clock.
Friendships? My BOSS works in Europe, couple weeks a year all our meetings jog an hour to the left for no good reason nowadays.
Standard is the only sane choice. I hate we have to even discuss it.
I think we should abolish clock changes altogether. No more time zones. One world, one clock!
It’s called UTC.
China has only one time zone, it creates unique issues I’ve heard.
As for DST, I could’ve sworn my state abolished it but here we are, the time having changed once again.
Worse than that, they haven’t had a long term rule for deciding when daylight saving would start or end. In many years the start and end dates would be set by legislation, often passed within a month of when the clocks would change. You can see all the rule changes in the time zone database source here:
https://github.com/eggert/tz/blob/main/southamerica#L781
Imagine knowing that there will be daylight saving in the following year, but having no idea when it will start or end.
Sleep sweet is my go-to, lol
Well you know what, good for her.
Hope she can course correct though.
Sarah is so thirsty for this man… I hope she manages not to get in her own way.
I hope she gets in her own way but only in ways that Tony finds funny and endearing. ❤️
She’s got her priorities, he’s got his.
Law and order? Wasn’t she literally studying to be a lawyer? That’d be a big plus if true
Is it? I’d hope a lawyer cares about justice, rather than ”law and order”. The latter is a fascist rallying cry. The law is a tool to achieve justice, it’s not important or valuable on it’s own.
As someone who works in law, I can tell you that most lawyers are motivated primarily by maximizing their billable hours and settling cases as quickly as possible.
Hater containment thread ⬇️
Stop reporting it, it just gets restored eventually and makes the rest of the comment section less pleasant while it’s down. I am more stubborn than you, trust me.
Not much to kvetch about tonight. I did get more evidence for my “talking with Asma has really made Dorothy more conscientious about the protest and her role in it” theory though, so that’s nice.
I’ll break from my usual behavior and say something hateful, sure. If Tony’s the kind of person who would refuse to fuck someone entirely because they said “good” instead of “well”, Sarah has better options and would do good to explore them.
I think it’s pretty clear that we’re supposed to read Sarah as a little neurotic here.
Tony’s BMOC and she wants to impress him. I think it’s all above board so far.
The load-bearing “if” which, if removed, would send the office rolling down the street, causing untold amounts of property damage.
Tony ruining any mood by going “um actually” to Sarah during a passionate moment would be the funniest twist lol
The next Sliphine: “Um, Actually”
Willis should have it cost double the price, and just end halfway as Tony starts going on a long boring explanation of exactly how what Sarah said in bed was grammatically incorrect.
That’s not very sexy.
says you
I like how Sarah simultaneously is freaking about how she thinks she needs to
Tony (and his penis) but also conscious of the fact that he’s shorter than her fantasies.
She’s definitely going to strangle him to death.
With his dick.
Was there some reference to him being short in this strip? I must admit I missed it.
He’s not short, he’s just shorter *than* Sarah, and Sarah has expressed wanting to date people taller than her. Which led to the funny moment at the end of this strip https://www.dumbingofage.com/2025/comic/book-15/02-the-one-where-jocelyne-returns/anisland/
I had the same anxiety when I started talking to my partner in high school. They were so straight laced and precise I couldn’t relax. Then they said “piffle” in a sentence and we started figuring out we have compatible goofy sides.
I’m pretty sure this is just Willis setting up the opportunity to do “Superman sleeps good. You sleep well” bit in the alt-text. The man does love a 30 Rock quote
Dorothy smells the approaching consequences of her actions. Fingers crossed for something to come of it but also not too much because I’m actually very soft hearted
What’s going to happen is, Dorothy’s going to get fingered as a direct consequence of her actions. By Sarah.
I don’t think that’s the polyamory angle most were expecting.
I’m 25 layers ahead of y’all.
At least.
Who would even report the Hater Containment Thread? It’s a valuable public service.
so much so that Willis has re-instated it himself multiple times when it got flagged out
Heck, we had one person within the last week saying that allowing people to be negative in the comments encourages abusive hate speech.
There’s a tiny subset of folks here who can’t distinguish “dislikes this couple/storyline” from “homophobic/misogynist”.
Has there been any ”hate speech” in the containment thread?
Not that I’ve seen, but people are pretty quick on the trigger about reporting anything truly hateful so it’s honestly impossible to tell unless you happen to see it before it gets obliterated.
There’s a lot of actual hate speech that DOES get posted elsewhere that we know exists (most recently, someone used the “other” comments on Yotomoe’s poll to say something pretty vile, although Yotomoe got rid of it as soon as informed.)
There’s been folks who’ve posted some borderline homophobic shit in it but I’ve been pretty quick to report and tell them to fuck off.
which is funny because I think some of the openly defensive stuff about Raidah’s “I’m gonna ruin your career” threats weren’t IN the containment thread anyway lol
people just hittin that report button.
Every time the hater containment thread is flagged, the hating breaks containment and is allowed to spread through the entire comment section.
I feel like this “Dorothy is worried Tony will tell the Dean she’s the girl in the newspaper” storyline doesn’t play entirely nicely with the added-later “the school newspaper’s editorial decisions are super fucking important” storyline. Do Dorothy’s teachers not read it?
Way to make somebody else’s issues all about you again, Dorothy.
Tbf this is like, the most subtle way to ask. When I was 19 my dumb ass would have blurted out “Sarah do you think your boyfriend is gonna report us to his dad???”
*kicks in the door* I HATE TONY!!! (no literally, this is not a bit, I think he’s shady as hell and I’m not up for a lively debate on the topic)
Okay, have a good one today.
Wait, don’t forget to take a stamp on your hater card before you leave! Six stamps and you get a free ice cream!
I HATE ICE CREAM (just kidding I love ice cream)
Ironically, hating ice cream would get you another stamp.
There’s been ice cream this whole time and you never told me!?
did somebody say “ice cream”?
careful, that might get this thread flagged out of existence :p
The H. in Jesus goes by Hanna.
Or Hermanoteu, who knows?
I thought the H stood for Hernandez.
The H is for Methuselah
According to Jack Douglas in “The Jewish-American Sex and Cookbook and How To Raise Wolves”, the H stands for Hashimoto.
As a biologist, I like ”haploid”
I loved the Jack Douglas books, they were so funny.
The H is a Greek upper-case eta: Η
Ιησωυς got abbreviated as ΙΗϹ (using the lunate sigma) from its first three letters, then transliterated to Latin characters as IHC. Then J developed giving JHC. Then the J was interpreted as the single first letter of “Jesus” and the C as the first letter of “Christ”.
ΙΗϹΩΥϹ → ΙΗϹ → IHC → JHC → J.H.C. → Jesus H. Christ
I went to Wikipedia to find out about Christogram, but the H use here is still not been clear to me.
As I read it, the H is only a posfix, because a J was represented by a I and a H together, right?
I don’t think so. The “H” is actually the greek eta, which is the “e” in Jesus (or in Iēsous, before the “J” was distinct.) It just looks like our H
Similarly with the C – which was actually a sigma, that can be written either similarly our “C” or our “S”.
The important thing is to note that traditionally he was a carpenter, and so we can only assume that when he hit his finger with a hammer he’d yell “Jesus H. Me, that hurts.”
enjoy your meal
y-you too
It just wasn’t as good without Jerry Orbach, Dennis Farina was never a singing candlestick. As far as I know.
LMFAO XD
Looking back to yesterday and how many people were side-eyeing Tony and I ended up thinking about how the story so far could be a set up for a twist where Tony is abusive (nearly everyone who sees Tony and Sarah together mention either how he’s a real solid guy or he’s the son of the principal so hes got the “everyone thinks hes so great”/power oflver Sarah’s future at college so itd be hard for her to reach out, he’s tangently friends with Roofie Ryan and the Incel Squad so could be in the same thought echo chamber etc)
However this morning reading it at 5:18am I think he’s just a bit of a stick in the mud, and while Sarah is interested in him and attracted to him, she’ll get bored or frustrated with his personality stat and that’d be the romance drama instead.
Yeah, I wonder at what point the charm will wear off and she’ll realise that she’s never just relaxed and had a good side-aching laugh in his presence once. Ever.
It might take a long time, because Sarah has been so unsafe and therefore on the defense for so long that she might not realise that her sense of fun and play is being stifled by a different source now.
Maybe she’ll realise after hanging out with Joe and having a nice chill laugh at the gym one day!
That seems like such a weird take to me considering he was reintroduced to the comci by punching the Incelerator, which is also how he met Sarah.
I don’t know… sure he might be a bit of a stick in the mud, but so is Sarah.
People want different things from a partner and right now I don’t think Sarah is looking for a roller coaster. She wants something safe and consistent.
I suspect if anything is going to sabotage this relationship it is Sarah, as she gets to worked up about thinking she is insufficient by herself, and maybe if she is overly reductive towards Tony (tower of muscle, just into law and order, etc…)
aaaand she’s gonna muck it up
I don’t think she is, but I think she’s much more afraid she will than is actually likely. Because she’s convinced herself she can’t have nice things.
I’m actually more worried that it’s gonna get mucked up by his girlfriend’s roomie being someone caught on camera smooching at a protest against actions taken by his father, the dean. Since he’s into law and order that is… not a great optic. Sarah might have to choose between keeping her new relationship and her innate need to protect Joyce.
Sarah’s two weaknesses: her thirst vs her urge to be a big sister.
Truly this will be her most difficult character arc yet.
Considering that Tony’s reaction to Joyce and Dorothy was essentially just ‘huh!’ with a pretty open expression and then a kiss and ‘see you tomorrow’ to Sarah, i don’t personally foresee drama there.
IMO it’s almost better if Tony could not possibly give less of a shit about protesters (re: stupidly getting them in stupid trouble for not actually breaking the law, anyway) but Dorothy spins herself (and Joyce) up to shenanigans about it anyway.
it would be interesting seeing Carla freaking the most out about the being related to genocide supporters, while Tony just doesn’t care. Kinda showing the two sides of that privileged upbringing.
Okay actually this is kind of what I’m expecting.
Maybe we actually get to a good ending, where Sarah can actually open up to Tony about her future plans, why she wants to get into Law, and why sticking up for activists is actually important. Those are all long shots in the long game, but like, it’d be a cool arc.
I see Sarah has her priorities in order
Apropos of nothing, I wonder if Tony’s mother is still alive and well in this universe. She was decidedly dead by the time Tony first showed up, and I don’t think we ever even saw her in flashback form.
My guess is, she’s alive but a deadbeat who walked out on the family when Tony was 4.
Mostly because I don’t think we’ve had a deadbeat mother in this comic yet.
So is Tony into classic Law and Order, Law and Order SVU, Law and Order Criminal Intent, Law and Order Organized Crime, Law and Order LA, Law and Order Trial by Jury, Law and Order UK, Law and Order True Crime, or all of the above? Maybe he just likes hearing “dun dun.”
I don’t even watch the show but it is a VERY satisfying “dun dun” sound….
Actually he’s into How to Get Away with Murder.
He”s recently started watching Law and Order: Toronto Criminal Intent.
The alt text says mostly the first couple of seasons, but that could definitely still be either SVU or the original.
I will note for the record that Trial by Jury was off the air before Tony was born. In a couple more years this will also be true of Criminal Intent and LA, as well as the first run of original L&O before it came back.
This kinda makes me realize we don’t know much about what Sarah is into. She kind of just stays in her room being grumpy. Is she against rules and law and order? I feel like she and Tony started with some natural chemistry but this strip has me questioning. It’s clear she really likes him but I don’t think it should be a challenge to match his energy. Would he even want that?
You’re not wrong but part of that is because Sarah has spent the past 15 years of webcomic keeping her emotional needs nailed shut. Her brain is hardwired to recoil at the idea of voicing needs in a relationship because then she’ll start creating reasons why he can’t fulfill them and they should just break up anyway.
Daaaaamn.
Joyce is so scared by Sarah’s horniness on last panel.
Almost as how scared shitless people in power get, when protesters just kiss towards them…
Protest – Riot Kisses Vol. 408737291
https://www.gettyimages.at/detail/nachrichtenfoto/woman-sends-a-kiss-to-a-riot-police-officer-during-a-nachrichtenfoto/1299360139
😎
You’re really impressed with yourself.
As well they should be
me when I don’t understand context
Ok this one doesn’t even count
At this point this is basically a Family Guy joke. You might as well just post Peter clutching his knee and gasping in pain for ten minutes.
Hi, lemme jump in here and say something:
My issue (and I think most of the people criticizing) has always, *always* been more Doylist than Watsonian.
I’m going to just copy & past TV Tropes for terms-
“When a creator answers a question about their work, should they provide an In-Universe answer or a Real Life answer? The former is the Watsonian perspective, the latter Doylist.”
The Doylist perspective says that it’s not the act of kissing at a protest that is the problem, it’s how the kiss was framed and centered by the narrative at the direct expense of talking about what the protest was about.
So the notion that “people kiss at protests all the time, it’s a powerful act of rebellion!” is *always* going to fall flat because that’s not the actual problem people had with it.
Also, the point I’ve been trying to make is that while kissing at a protest CAN be a powerful act of rebellion, it is not ALWAYS a powerful act of rebellion because every protest is different and carries different rules of engagement, and continually trying to obfuscate this fact causes me to seriously doubt one’s seriousness about political activism writ large.
Fair dinkum!
I’m very much unqualified on that point- it’s not my wheelhouse, so I’m more than content to let folks who actually know what they’re talking about hash it out.
So getting back to the Watsonian/Doylist separation, it’s one of the main reasons that, while I very much think Willis is operating in good faith here (in that they’re genuinely doing their best to be respectful and sympathetic to a very important social cause, rather than “well, people are mad so I need to address it grumble grumble”), the rewrites and insertions that we’ve seen so far have fallen kind of flat for me. Because they’re only addressing the Watsonian concerns rather than the Doylist ones.
Honestly; outside of cheating and all that, the kiss itself wasn’t the problem, it was Willis writing it to be THE thing that overshadowed the protest. Like; if the head of the newspaper wasn’t a horny woman who wanted to see women kissing on her front page of the newspaper she ran, no one would’ve given two shits about Dorothy and Joyce smoochin on the mound.
Indeed. “Willis writing it to be” is the key point here- that’s what makes it a Doylist complaint.
And to be a child for a minute: I don’t think they started kissing on the mound until they were alone in Joyce’s room hurr hurr.
Oh, like the mons pubis.
Yes, Taffy. Like the mons pubis.
Oh.
So he is the Dean’s Kid.
Ok.
I can’t remember if this is the FIRST mention, but it was brought up a lil while ago here when Raidah had a freakout about it.
https://www.dumbingofage.com/2025/comic/book-15/03-me-and-who-you-say-i-was-yesterday/crucial/
No, I know that, I was just going “oh ok so contextual cues tell us who he is”.
Checking the tag, the first mention was fully 12 years ago. Of course, Tony has pretty much not been a character in this comic until just a year ago, so.
he always struck me as more ambivalent to that past part but I’m guessing Sarah’s a fan
If there is a wiki for this comic you now have something new to put on Tony’s page. Have fun.
So we’re hoping he bolted down the hallway out of earshot of THAT little manic episode I’m guessing…
What, Sarah screaming about how much he loves circumcision? Yeah, he’s probably not hearing that.
Idk man, maybe the comic just doesn’t hit for me anymore. I really like the first 3 panels, especially Sarah’s expression/the text in panel 3! That’s really cute, “Ahhhh I said something dumb in front of my new boyfriend!!” writing!
But then no actually Sarah is just upset because she’s super high-strung and it’s about wanting to fuck, not about an emotional connection, I guess? I get that it can be both and characters are multifaceted, but Sarah’s last two speech bubbles feel more akin to something Old Joe would say.
On whole the dialogue in the last 2 panels feels disjointed, like Dorothy/Sarah are talking around each other. Which maybe they are and that’s intentional! To me it just reads kinda… weird.
I dunno. It’s probably just me. Might finally be time to stop daily reading for a while and see if I come back to it at some point.
It’s very in-character for Sarah; she spent most of the comic trying to jump Jacob’s bones.
Sarah really doesn’t want to have a romance at this point in her life. She wants a sex partner.
It’s annoying her that everyone wants to date instead,
It’s a gender reversal of how it usually goes. In Tanya Huff’s BLOOD books, the protagonist, Vicki Nelson gets incredibly annoyed the two men she’s dating want to know where their romances are going. She’s like, “What happened to men who just wanted sex!?”
Sarah seems to be roughly as thirsty/horny as Joyce, she just has more life experience and better ways of managing it (including a few literal power tools).
Black & Decker is really missing out on a market opportunity.
But I knew this existed before I searched for it.
https://www.lovense.com/sex-blog/sex-toys/sawzall-dildo-attachment
Sarah has had a lot of character development, but she’s still not really someone who will admit to having emotional needs or seeking connection. And I think that is the main thing about this relationship for her; the fact that she was on the same wavelength with him in so many ways from their first conversation, and the fact that she understands her need to be by herself and accommodates that so readily.
But it’s much easier to admit to being horny than emotionally vulnerable. (And also, of course, Sarah is a very sexually motivated person. And probably the most sexually frustrated person in the cast aside from Daisy.)
That’s really fair and a read I hadn’t considered.
I saw her and Tony hitting it off as a small pivot in what she wanted from this relationship vs what she wanted with Jacob, so seeing her 100% back to “I am horny for man; the things that man wants/values are a hindrance to sex with man” was a disappointing surprise. But that being her way of deflecting her emotional entanglement to focus on this Other Aspect of the Relationship (that is obviously also important to her) makes sense and fits really well. Thank you for the insight!
This, yeah. She definitely also has feelings for Tony, even though there would be nothing wrong with just wanting a physical relationship.
Feelings definitely, but at this point they still barely know each other, so it’s on the level of crush. Which doesn’t mean she’s not doing her usual Sarah thing of deflecting from that to pretend she’s just interested in the physical side.
Crushes are feelings…? I don’t really understand that element of your reply. I didn’t say she was deeply in love, heh.
Arnold would just make a little joke.
You know what, Sarah knows what she likes in a man. I respect that.
He likes…. *opens thesaurus*… regulations and ordinality!
Of course the law student would bring things up in doublets.
Now, which ones between Bill&Ted, Starsky&Hutch, and/or Ren&Stimpy were English and which were French?
Doesn’t everyone?
You have to know the regulations before you can abuse them, and without ordinality twisting the rules wouldn’t count.
Idk guys, large white guy with vague cop energy x neurotic grump who won’t let herself believe she’s loved doesn’t seem like a mix built to last long.
I dunno, seeing an untraumatized Tony (as compared to the other universe) as a rock standing up to Sarah’s anxiety storm. She can spiral and self doubt and worry, but he’d probably just be ok constantly reassuring her everything relationshipwise is fine.
I need to see how his reaction to the protest crackdown before I give him the “good guy, probably” stamp
Very valid
Punching the Incelerator earns him at least the benefit of the doubt from me.
Also he was offended when Danny tried to start a fight with him to attract Amazi-Girl. Danny was egging him on to fight by mentioning his sexuality, and Tony was like, wtf? Why would I have a problem with that, or with you? People seem to really want Tony to be a bad guy, but what little we’ve seen of him doesn’t support that. His sport may obligate him to be around d-bags, but he doesn’t like them and he in fact punched one out without hesitation.
I’m all for Tony turning Dorothy in for all the cops she beat up as Amazi-Girl before Jennifer reveals Sal is Amazi-Girl and they realize what a terrible mistake they made.
And then the cops don’t commit a hate crime and everyone we care about goes home safely.
Oh dammit I could even see Danny somehow screwing it all up even worse since he KNOWS who Amazi-Girl is, resulting in even THAT stable relationship imploding
Danny: “Sal, I got you released and saved your future, by finally clarifying everybody on the assumptions that you’re not Amazi-Girl!”
Sal: “…dude, you’re telling me you fucking narc’d on Amber to the fucking cops?”
Yeah, this is not a joke, I could easily see that conflict come up.
Further, I could also see Amazi-Girl just turning herself in out of guilt towards Sal, just shortly after Danny Dans it up, meaning that Danny’s sacrifice will literally be for nothing.
Dorothy and Joyce have the pretty much perfect alibi for that, as they were quite conspicuously kissing on camera in normal clothes while Amazi-Girl was beating the shit out of cops in costume.
Like, of all the people on campus, they are the two who most conclusively can’t be Amazi-Girl.
I think Sarah is making a lot of unfounded assumptions about Tony here, mostly because he’s the dean’s son. I’m sure he’s a solid dude, but I don’t think he’s exactly a narc and if they breakup it will probably because Sarah is being too uptight about law and order.
She’s been around him for longer than we’ve seen him. I’mma go ahead and trust her read on things unless the comic points out otherwise.
Walkyverse Sarah was studying to be a lawyer. What is Dumbimverse Sarah’s major again?
it’s still law IIRC
Thanks.
Sarah and Jacob are pre-law.
And yet another strip where Joyce doesn’t tell Dorothy about Joe. Such is life.
What’s the count up to now?
Yeah we’re at least one more biology class away from Joyce breaking the seal on that
Joe who? There is no Joe.. there is only Dorothy, the center of Joyce’s universe.
If she doesn’t see or touch him, he doesn’t exist.
“Hey, Sarah shut up for a second–“
So we definitely think this is Sarah spinning out on her own because she doesn’t trust having good things in her life, right?
That was exactly how I read it too.
How seriously are we taking the “the dick is the most important part” comment? I always sorta wrote off Sarah’s sort of flustered objectification of Jacob as a first-college-crush indiscretion, and taken on its own I would’ve taken tonight’s comment mostly tongue-in-cheek, but when you consider both of these instances together…
Sarah stated very early on what she was looking for.
Though not to Tony or Jacob. Though Jacob eventually got the message.
I asked a friend of mine what kind of people he liked to date in case I knew anyone he might like to meet and he just replied “Big Dick” – and he was in his 30s. Some people just know that they want a specific kind of physical relationship – it’s ok if their partners are into it, but Tony and Jacob are very clearly a lot more serious about the romantic and long-term prospects and keen on emotional intelligence in their partners.
Tony believing that having sex every night indicates a lack of seriousness in a relationship is perhaps not the best match for Sarah given that she feels the need to repress herself to fit in with it. Someone with Joe’s attitude would actually have suited her better.
I don’t think it’s “tongue in cheek” so much as Sarah doing her usual thing and emphasizing her misanthropy by reducing her interest to just the physical side. It’s serious not because she really means it, but because it’s a character flaw that she’s going to have to deal with. Not being able to admit emotional vulnerability.
She’s the clear foil of Joyce: Joyce was doubling down on her obsession with romance, to blind herself to how goddamned horny she always was, and how much she wanted to get fucked; Sarah, on the other hand, doubles down on her obsession with getting laid, to help herself ignore the prospect of actually letting somebody get emotionally close to her, or romantically letting down her guard.
I had hopes for Sarah/Tony, but this strip has me worried that they won’t get very far.
I wouldn’t wan to stop you from enjoying your sense of impending doom, but I’ve seen relationships built on less reach the point where the people involved grew on each other.
I see that Sarah is becoming a people person. Nice.
I adore how Joyce and Dorothy can’t keep their hands off each other, it’s so cute.
It really is.
I was in a relationship with a guy who was really controlling. Like Tony, he was very direct and firm and charming at first. I understand that Sarah has issues with vulnerability but it’s entirely possible, especially knowing his background and how directive he’s already been with Sarah, that he’s exactly how she’s describing here. It’s disheartening how many people in the comments here are assuming that this is just Sarah being crazy or unreasonable.
How has he been directive with Sarah? When he invited her over to join him and his friend in watching a football game, he set aside a comfy space with snacks where she could be free to engage or disengage as much as she wanted, which I thought was very considerate of her needs and desires. “Glad you’re here! You’re free to join me or do your own thing; I’ve made sure you’re comfortable either way,” is about as non-controlling as it gets.
The way he’s phrased certain things is directive, even though they’ve generally been about things that aren’t inherently bad. Like “you sleep in”, “no, attendance is crucial. Let me get my coat and walk you” “I’ve designated a spot for you.”
Sure if you take them out of context, but in context every single one of them is Tony being very considerate of Sarah. “No, attendance is crucial. Let me get my coat and walk you,” was said in reply to Sarah saying she is willing to skip her class to spend more time with Tony, which he shoots down because that’s stupid and self-destructive. So far it reads to me like Sarah is so overwhelmed with emotion she is willing to sabotage her life for Tony, but Tony is so far unwilling to let her do that.
I think that for right now it’s pretty valid to read that possibility, but I don’t think it’s a foregone conclusion. From what we’ve seen, Tony seems to have a pretty regimented lifestyle for himself, but he also seems pretty willing to carve out a space for Sarah to be how she is comfortable being. We haven’t seen the limits of that because Sarah herself is extremely unwilling to approach where the borders *could* be. But let’s look back at the bit of judginess at Sarah’s friends: https://www.dumbingofage.com/2025/comic/book-15/03-me-and-who-you-say-i-was-yesterday/releaseyou/
He asks if Sarah wants “us” to walk with them, with at least an implication that if that’s what Sarah wants he’s there for it. She turns it around as a question to him, with a very soft sell. He mentions them being freshmen, which does come off as judgy, but we never see a response from him after Sarah answers, and it’s Lucy & Jacob that ultimately tell her to go have boyfriend time. I think this largely comes out as a wash, no clear points to award for or against.
When he has her over while he and Beef watch the game, he explicitly gives her veto power (albeit after Beef is already there, which definitely undermines it) and he explicitly states that there are no expectations of her. If she’s into the game, she’s welcome to watch with them. If not, she’s welcome to do literally anything else in a comfy spot with snacks. “You can interact with us as little or as much as you want,” to use his words. Presumably Beef wandered off after the game, and Sarah & Tony spent the rest of the evening together, but that’s all offscreen and we don’t see them again until waking up together the next morning. Where again, Tony’s like *I* have to get up and go to practice, *you* feel free to just be.
If this relationship is going to last, at some point Sarah needs to… Well, fuck around and find out (IN THE COLLOQUIAL SENSE, NOT ANOTHER CHEATING STORYLINE, DON’T @ ME). Poke at a boundary (or set her own), assert a need/want that isn’t preapproved, go against a plan. Then we find out if Tony’s here to be Sarah’s partner and she can relax, or if he needs to be shitcanned. But New Relationship Energy is like that sometimes, when you haven’t known each other ahead of time.
I’m also going to mention, in this scene where they’re waking up: https://www.dumbingofage.com/2025/comic/book-15/04-the-only-exception/practice/
Dude has a bunch of pillows. Presumably (and by word of alttext) he likes pillows. Of the pile of pillows, one is clearly on his side, another that he’s on a little bit but more toward Sarah, and then the rest of them are Sarah’s domain. Does that mean anything? Not necessarily. It’s far from conclusive, but at least potentially a subtle unspoken sign of making space for her.
I agree. He gives off really controlling vibes to me. I think he’s probably here to nudge Sarah’s personal arc by pointing out to her how exhausting it is to be with someone who has a lot of judgement for other people and no wiggle room for people being worthwhile outside that. Maybe also a nudge that she wants more than “a big dick” and “a truckload of muscle” from a boyfriend. She needs someone she’s comfortable with and able to relax around.
I sense a potential threat to Amber/AmaziGirl in the Force…
Yep. Is Tony the sort to snitch on Amber/A-G, if he ever finds out?
We’ll find out, based on how he reacts to the Dorothy-Joyce snogging on the front page.
Curious to see if this is just Sarah being Sarah or if Tony has given cause to react like this. Hopefully just the former but won’t be surprised at the worst possible outcome.
I mean, Tony has done that weird controlling thing of commenting subtle (and not so subtle) judgement of any behaviors he finds out of the norm as established by him. It can be exhausting and anxiety inducing to try and be with someone that exacting, because you know that if you put a foot wrong you’ll hear about it from Mr. Always-Right.
Bet Tony liked the Lenny Briscoe era of L&O. Lenny carried that show for a full decade. Even though the show’s been revived and, unlike a lot of other revivals, has gained five additional seasons with no signs of slowing down, none of the detectives had Lenny’s wit. The detective who came close was detective Bernard, but that’s because he was played by Anthony Anderson, showing us that he can play more than just goofball sidekicks.
“Sleep Good.”
Don’t worry Sarah, maybe Tony is a fan of Samurai Jack.
Dorothy’s cop energy now worried about any other potential cops, because like every other cop her cop energy was corrupt cop energy.
Dorothy’s trying to make a change. She has internal affairs energy now.
Sooooo… is this hinting at a Tony/Sarah/Joe throuple?
Sarah definitely has a type, and that type is dudes built like refrigerators.
The sex will be amazing for her.
“if I don’t hear the rattle of a compressor running, he ain’t for me”
Huh. Learning that Sarah is a size queen was not on my bingo list today. XD
While I’m normally a big fan of any G.I. Joe with an animal companion, Law and Order never did it for me. Probably because they’re cops.
Try Brooklyn 99, there is an adorable Corgi in there
I’m with ya. The copaganda shows never appealed to me.
I love this neurotic woman
Sarah? Neurotic?? Shirley not!
love sarah’s reaction here
love the comic in general but the hater containment thread stuff makes me not want to comment anymore since I feel like everyone’s gonna be mad if I criticise a character so. probably won’t be back unfortunately.
That is not really what hater containment is about.
It’s fine if you don’t feel comfy commenting, but literally no one is upset at hater comments outside the containment thread.
Why is the darn “Report Comment” so close to the “Reply” button?
I had every intention of saying something meaningful in response, but my darn hand tremors make it really hard to aim the cursor sometimes. 🙁
Don’t trust a big dick surrounded by a truckload of muscle?
Sorry, Willis: Sarah’s face is so uncanny here…I can’t look at her and not being a bit unconfortable.
Sarah, performing proper “too hornt to function but not fucking up everything around her” in the hopes these two dorks take notes.
I don’t think they’re gonna take notes. Unless she makes them, by taking up the notes and grading them.
An important part of being an older sibling is modeling behavior.
As the oldest of three, I’ll confirm this.
As an oldest sibling myself, another important part is beating common sense into your younger sibling with a pool noodle or pillow or somethin’.
C’mon, Sarah, I’m sure Tony likes other things besides just the one old tv show and the one overplayed song.
Yeah. There always Strunk and White.
Sarah seems to have a very clear idea that she has to follow the rules perfectly or Tony is gone.
Would be / will be interesting to see how much that is actually true vs how much that is Sarah’s anxiety creating consequences that aren’t actually there.
The question is if this is something she’s built up in her head or if that’s how he actually is.
goodforher.jpeg
just saying sarah looks so cutes in the first panel
Some people have wondered if all Sarah wants is big dick, but I don’t think so. She got interested in him for his personality first (even if that personality was “fellow grump”).
Tbh, I’m going to be disappointed if calling things “unseemly” is his main energy. I got my hopes up when he set up an introvert bed palace for Sarah on game day.
Law and Order: a Dumbing of Age Pornographique
He’s a big ten football player. Most of them take remote classes so they can focus on football. That he attends actual class and intends to graduate and have a non-football career means he has to take classes very seriously. Football is like a 40 hour a week job in addition to school. No surprise he’s super disciplined. He doesn’t have spare time.
Oh right, I forgot Americans do Football in College.
Granted, we don’t know how well IU is doing in this year of Dumbing of Age, but depending on whether they make it to conference finals, a bowl game or heaven forbid, the playoffs, he might have extra football stuff to do too.
I’m reminded of the one year Laurent Duvernay-Tardif (one of the rare non-US players to not have come through the US collegiate system) after being signed by the Jets where his teammates were flabbergasted he actually had a medical degree from his time in college.
I feel like Sarah may be projecting her own insecurities onto Tony
I did actually have to take a second to get the alt text.