Nobody is arguing that kissing at a protest is never appropriate under any circumstances, but there is a time and a place and some protests are absolutely not appropriate venues for that kind of conduct. Waltzing into an encampment protesting the genocide of a minority that you, as a white woman, are not a part of, and laying one on another white girl’s lips prominently enough to feature in the media would reasonably be considered a faux pas in that context.
she MIGHT have a kind of sort of leg to stand on in the picture (which wasn’t their doing), but talking about them walking around or having bumped uglies in their own room as something they shouldn’t do is kinda stretching it imho.
Its coming across as a little more pointed at the fact they are doing what they are doing, and less that it only happened at the protest.
Only Dorothy seems to realize she done goofed. Joyce is stubbornly stuck in the “my fantasy came true and I can kiss my future wife anytime I want and anyone who says otherwise is a hateful bigot” part of her relationship. Asma’s trying to take off the rose colored glasses, but Joyce, being the romantic idiot she is, refuses to part with them.
She isn’t talking about them fucking though, they are. She asked if it had escalated into anything else that became a problem. Joyce is the one who decided that was probably the fuckin, and Dorothy agreed.
also keep in mind that Asma is assuming that both of them are cheating on somebody else right now, and that at least one of them has likely done so before, because that’s the last information she heard on the topic. which, I don’t suspect is on Joyce or Dorothy’s radar, at all.
I’d buy this if we had the slightest bit of evidence that Joe or Walky even know her actual name–that is to say, if she had a friendship with them. Then, it might be in the slightest tiniest way her business if the girls are cheating hussies. Right now, though? Nah.
I’ve said before–these two have screwed up a lot in this arc. But not one bit of it has anything to do with what Asma’s talking about, which is making it easy to (mis)read her as being homophobic, and still leaves me convinced she’s actually mostly envious of their relative freedom to express their affections.
I’m kind of confused which of the many later events Asma is talking about, actually. Can you enlighten me? It seems like J&D are clear on it, given quoting the timing.
When did the comic ever mention the people being genocided were some kind of minority group? From my recollection the comic has never mentioned anything about the conflict besides it’s being committed by a made up country with a really dumb name. Like yeah, we the audience understands what it’s supposed to be, but this the major writing issues with Willis adamantly not wanting to date the comic as it means we can’t actually discuss the issue from within the story since it has to be abstracted like this. If the protest was about pseudo-Israel killing Muslims it’s kinda weird that no one acknowledges that fact (you think Dorothy might have something to say being Jewish), especially when they’re talking to Muslim woman. It’s clear Willis is trying to use this as a way address the criticism, but the problem with what they wrote has everything to do with the specifics which the comic can not address and the result is that it makes both parties come off as weirdos who care way too much about what the other does/thinks considering they’ve had only a handful of conversations.
The fact that dorothy and joyce are white has been repeatedly mentioned in-comic as relevant to the distastefulness of the photo of them, implying that the people being targetted are not white. This is also supported by the extra focus on Asma and Raidah caring about this conflict in a notably different way than other people do. Dorothy also explicitly mentions fascism being at work, and fascism targets marginalized people by definition. And lastly, *you cannot do a genocide on a group with social, political, and financial power*. The state will not defend that. This isn’t set in a magical fairtale land. It’s effectively our world, but time tracks differently.
I do agree though that while the comic at least implies that Muslims are the targets of the Bulmerian genocide, there aren’t the same hints that Jews are the perpetrators. Other than it being an I/P parallel, but there’s been an attempt to focus on the Muslim characters in the aftermath, but nothing even hinting that Dorothy or Joe’s Jewishness is relevant.
Yeah it’s always a minority group but it could be a white minority group, maybe a Russia v. Ukraine type of thing (even if that’s not genocide quite yet). We don’t know, because the comic won’t actually bite the bullet and commit to anything! And if it’s not going to do that then it really shouldn’t be doing it at all.
Not really relevant to your point but it still seems worth pointing out that Russia, at least, is not uniformly white. It’s part of Asia, there are plenty of ethnic groups there that are extremely Russian and also if you saw them on the street you’d swear were, for example, Han Chinese.
Willing to bet Ukraine is similarly not uniformly white.
Interestingly, just due to its location, Ukraine is weird that way — something like 96% of the population is Ukrainian, Great-Russian, Belorussian, or Romanian… the largest non-“East/Central Slav” ethnic group is Crimean Tartars at 0.5%.
Well, my point is kind of that “Ukrainian” need not mean “white”, just as “Russian” doesn’t necessarily mean “white”. I wasn’t saying Russia has a big population with Han Chinese ancestry, I was saying Russia has regions that are 100% Russian and always have been but do not look white.
(Whether or not a Russian census would agree with this, I don’t know! But I was not talking about immigrants or descendants of immigrants, the way I would be if I were talking about “American” not meaning “Indigineous, frankly, but for the sake of this conversation white”.)
Like let me use a more concrete example because it’s similar:
One of my professors this semester has people guess his ethnicity. The guesses are always kind of a mixture. He gets “middle eastern???” a lot. He would probably get “white” a lot more if he weren’t visibly Muslim. That sort of guy.
He is actually ethnically Chinese. Just from non-Han Chinese ethnic group, of which there are many.
See, this is close to my heart for a different reason, in that I am also 50% Central Slav and grew up in the kind of Appalachia where I was still catching racial slurs for that in the late 1980s. I’m somewhat sensitive about how Slavic ethnicities are perceived. 😀
I’m not actually sure WHAT you’re trying to get at, I’ll be honest, I’m mostly just interested in pointing out that Ukraine is kinda “uniformly white” (or, at least, uniformly East Slavic) in terms of the ethnic groups that populate it in a way that Russia isn’t.
(now if we’re going at this from the direction thejeff stated, there IS a significant ethnic divide between Ukrainian-ethnicity Ukrainians and Russian-ethnicity Ukrainians, and IIRC that’s even supposedly Putin’s main stated causus belli along with not-as-spurious-as-Ukraine-would-like accusations of neoNazi groups having a fair sway in some areas).
I dunno, maybe I fully misread what Cameron was saying, “but it could be a white minority group” and then listing Russia vs Ukraine just sounded like it was taking for granted the fairly popular USAmerican perception of Russia as being all-white, when it isn’t. I don’t know as much about Ukraine. So I prefaced my comment with saying it wasn’t necessarily relevant to their specific point.
I know that Europe has different ethnic groups going on, and I know whiteness is super conditional and not a very coherent idea, which leads to white supremacy not always benefitting the sort of people USAmericans picture when we think “white”. I know Eastern Europeans are a whole… category for European xenophobia/racism.
I’m not getting at, or meaning to get at, anything about Slavic identity. Only that there are Russian ethnic groups that even USAmericans would look at and assume “Chinese” rather than “Russian”.
I don’t know if that helps at all because I’m not sure what I’ve stepped in here, but I am sorry.
(Not that USAmericans can’t also be super racist to Eastern Europeans, obviously, which I don’t need to tell you bc you were just talking about having experienced that…
I was just kind of cataloguing what I know about European xenophobia/racism.
And all of this is complicated because race isn’t concrete, it’s literally all just skin deep, etc., so I am struggling to communicate at all what I’m talking about lol.)
Basically minority groups in other countries don’t have to break down along the same racial/ethnic lines we think about in the US or even in “the West” more generally.
Prior to the (latest) Palestinian genocide, I did see quite a few watchdog accusations that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine was genocidal under international law (in that one of the aims was to destroy them as a distinct people and culture.) Worse war crimes upstaging other war crimes.
Or, here’s a thought–it could be Sudan from awhile back. The government (Muslim) went after a bunch of minority groups in Darfur (also Muslim) and damn near took them off the roster of humanity. And no one who wasn’t Muslim bothered to do anything about it.
Really, the main reason this tracks to I/P is the call for disinvestment by the protestors. This has only been a cause celebre for US students twice in my lifetime–South Africa and Israel.
And there are similar pictures from ant number of other protests around the world in the decades since. There was nothing wrong with them kissing.
And running the photo on the front page was literally the bets thing Daisy could have done for the protest. If you want to get White Middle-Class Normies on your side (SPOILER: You do, if you are serious about the aims of your protest), then showing a conventionally attractive pair of obviously harmless white girls getting tear gassed is a great way to do it — especially when the next-most newsworthy photos would be of a student beating the crap out of, like, a dozen cops. If you support the protests, then you would desperately want to distract public attention from students beating the shit out of cops, because that would be a good way to ruin the lives of everyone involved in the protests.
Like, seriously, we know the cops started it (SPOILER: If there’s an “it,” cops will >always be the ones to have started it), but if the protest becomes known for student-on-cop violence, then the hammer will squash everyone there. Depending on who is President in the DoA-verse right now, people who look like Asma might get simply disappeared.
Have you considered that using bold type a lot will not actually make people agree with your opinion that White Middle-Class Normies are universally only interested in empathy when manipulated by girls kissing (spoiler: having your worst and whitest impulses stoked does not necessarily put you in a positionto be helpful).
Who said they were interested in courting the assistance, allyship, or opinions of “middle-class white normies” who only care about an issue with their faces on it. That won’t be good allyship, they won’t be able to help anyone but themselves, and they’ll abandon the cause as soon as someone says something they don’t want to hear.
White cishet people have to unpack their own bullshit before they can help me in any meaningful way. And plenty of them do! Plenty of them genuinely come to help and put their bodies and time and money on the line for the cause. Those tend to be among the people it’s worth reaching out to.
Because, shockingly, those are the people who it’s actually helpful to have around. People no one has to tiptoe around and do a ton of extra labor for whenever they falter or get confused.
White Normies punch waaaay above their weight in protest movements, because white normie politicians listen to them. This is, literally, Protest Movement 101.
If you can get a dozen white grandmothers to attend your march, you put them in the fucking front row. How do you get them to attend? Well, letting them see their white normie granddaughters get attacked by cops is an absolutely time-tested way of energizing them to do that.
Notice that none of this involves changing the point of your protest or “softening” your message; the whole point of white normies at a protest is (a) to shield more vulnerable protesters, and (b) to create a permission structure for other white normies to come on board and put pressure on white normie politicians, who have the power to actually do what you want done.
This isn’t centering white normies, it is just using them as effectively as possible.
Ray, thank you. I swear some of these kids are well meaning, but as someone in their 40s, yeaaahhh they have no idea what they’re doing with these movements.
The curse of every movement, but if you want things to happen you do want the white allies (not the white moderates, but the white allies). Guess what, there’s a reason that Greta Thunberg gets a lot of attention, she knows it, and she uses it.
As someone else in their 40s, this discussion has been going on between our groups for many years and despite continually editing us out of the history books you’re still wrong. <3
Comic’s been making some people mad, they are trying to contain it to one thread to not interfere with people who are just here to read the comic and vibe.
I mean that don’t really work well when it’s near the top and gets really long but ya know the thought is what counts
it’s giving similar vibes as NGPZ’s past “Let’s talk about a completely unrelated topic to the possibly-triggering comic content” threads from past storylines
not really. It is in fact, the exact opposite. It is explicitly about discussing the comic. Just in a way that’s negative about the current, very polarizing storyline
it’s only similar in that it was a thread built for a specific discussion. the difference is that the “let’s talk about something else” threads were off topic, and willis asked for the threads that weren’t about the comic to stop. this thread is specifically meant for discussion about the comic, but for the people who didn’t like the topic to have a space talk about it in hopes that the people who have stronger feelings towards the negative will restrict it to here.
unfortunately, it’s always been god awful to read the comments section not so much due to the content within, but because the comment box layout doesn’t make it easy to tell who is replying to who and where a thread stops and ends. i very often have to hold my cursor over the left edge of an avatar so i can scroll up to see who they’re replying to, and that no longer becomes doable once the replies no longer nest posts. there’s no tumblr or disqus indent bar that shows connecting comments, or a “replying to x” comment within posts to link directly, and it gets ever harder to tell where the containment thread starts and ends the longer they get.
i would honestly suggest the webmaster change that, if for nothing else but accessibility. it’s rough on people with visual impairments.
i’d argue it doesn’t make it easier, since it’s so hard to tell when the threads end. i’d do unholy things if it meant the webmaster would implement the ability to collapse threads.
Because the Dorothy/Joyce hate was consuming the comment section. In theory containing it in a single thread means the rest of the comments can be about other things.
This is the kind of thankless but necessary work that keeps a community functioning. Dot, you are the hero we needed and I want you to know you are appreciated.
Joyce is fundamentally someone who when given a choice between the people she loves and the world, she will let the world burn. This has significantly driven the major decisions and changes in worldview that she has undertaken over the course of the comic. She chooses love, every time, and now she’s the most in love she has ever been, a singular totality of feeling so overwhelming that it’s the apocalypse for everything else. It’s my favourite trait of hers.
“I hate the idea of causes, and if I had to choose between betraying my country and betraying my friend I hope I should have the guts to betray my country.”
— E. M. Forster
I don’t entirely agree with Forster (or with Joyce), but I have some sympathy for the viewpoint.
At least Dorothy seems willing to have some introspection about how her behavior is hurting others. Joyce is annoyingly resistant to even the slightest bit of introspection these days.
To steal a Patreon comment from bbcc yesterday, “Joyce’s shittiest traits all kinda boil down to her stubbornness and clearly people going ‘But she’s SO CUTE and she doesn’t know any better’ hasn’t done her any favours.”
Imo Joyce wouldn’t be nearly as frustrating here if it weren’t for the dozens and dozens of grown ass adults clambering and screeching about how she did nothing wrong. Like she’s clearly meant to be an annoying, childish lil shithead right now and I can handle it when a main character is being deliberately portrayed as shitty for a bit. But then!!! I see these grown mf tryna justify every annoying lil shithead action, and that’s what’s making this suck so bad rn. That and, frankly. The writing on everything surrounding the protest falls flat, including asma when she’s talking about anything related to the protest. But y’know, everyone already knows that
There is a shockingly high amount of people who act like making something gay makes it inherently good.
I came for the Chicken Parmesan repercussions and trash fire of these two love struck morons burning their world around them in the name of lesbians, not this Chicken Nuggets and Walmart Ketchup grade Nothing Bloody Happens lunch special.
Don’t forget the especially annoying minority of comments that take a position like “the only possible reason to dislike this pairing (or, more egregiously, ‘the only possible reason you’d think them cheating on their partners and calling it cheating in-strip was them cheating on their partners’) is if you’re either misogynist, a homophobe, or a misogynist homophobe who wants to force bi/lesbian women to date men.”
Yeah, I’d be more about this storyline if there wasn’t so much focus on them acting like it’s the truest of true love (and ignoring everyone else around them in order to do so).
And the comments acting like this rushed outcome is the greatest thing ever.
If she winds up being actually bigoted, that’s a spit in the face of the whole point of adding more Asma as an apology for minimizing his Muslim characters
The whole protest was about the university and US government arming the government of Bulmeria, which implies they’re using those weapons against people. The protest was written into the story as a parallel to the campus protests a couple years ago, which were over colleges and the US government arming the Israeli government.
thing that concerns me is the whole issue Asma has with their PDA and being overly inquisitive about them escalating their relationship. I can get her bein mad about the picture, but I think she might be pushin it a bit. Kinda feels eerily close to another character being very bigoted of the queers on campus. We don’t need another one lol
Dotothy said she wanted to apologize for the kiss thing, Joyce said she didn’t want to apologize for the kiss, Asma brushed that off and then started askin Joyce about the whole relationship and getting very focused on them doing something that they “shouldn’t” be doing. Its kind of the crux of the issue with this whole thing so far. Is Willis being vague with Asma just being really nosy and judgemental about the cheating aspect, or is she being potentially judgemental about their open queerness (or in the case of asking about their boinking, premarital stuff).
My take is that Asma has a boring job and these two idiots are interrupting her reading and so she is doing a fine job of entertaining herself at their expense.
It’s possible Asma’s just engaging Joyce in a line of Socratic questioning on the nature of temptation and impulse control, in response to Joyce’s rhetorical question yesterday?
🧐
*shruggie*
Asma is a closeted lesbian who – for some reason – thinks the right way to go about that is not acting on any impulses, inclinations or lower urges ever. Why she thinks whitebread girls would behave like proper muslim ladies is a complete mystery – but hey, they came to her with their problem to make it hers.
Also, if we have four muslim characters & the others are Raidah, Sayid & Nashita, it makes sense for Asma to be more religiously strict than the others, given what we know of their characters & behaviour. Alice/Asma will not happen any time soon, is what I’m saying.
It’s not at all clear Asma “thinks the right way to go about that is not acting on any impulses, inclinations or lower urges ever.” It’s a possible reading of what she’s saying and it’s the one Joyce seems to be taking, but you can also read her argument as just responding to Joyce’s “How could I ever possibly stop myself from kissing Dorothy regardless of the circumstances?”
Likewise, I think it’s likely that the MAIN thing she disapproves of are “here are these two morons, making themselves the main characters in my life regardless of what I would prefer AGAIN.”
We should focus less on Asma’s alleged bigotry and more on how insanely fucking racist Joyce and Dorothy are for deciding they need to make any of this Asma’s problem when they don’t even know Asma and are just using her as a stand-in for Muslims generally. She doesn’t know you. She doesn’t like you. You barely know her name. Leave her alone.
Asma has agency and is exercising it. Notice that the conversation continues because Asma is asking questions. If Asma wanted to be left alone, a dismissive “Okay” or “Whatever” in the second panel of last strip would have been the end of it.
I would agree with that to a point, but frankly I’m all on board for “oh, it’s YOU IDIOTS? Saying idiot noises at me? I’m going to dissect you and make you uncomfortable until you either fuck off or an actual customer shows up.” as being the best possible decision Asma could be making.
also she’s kinda trapped at her job while these two talk at her, and while “whatever” or “okay” would be more professional and maaaaybe shut down the conversation faster, it would possibly enable them because “oh asma said everything’s cool, we’re forgiven” when it’s not true and also the last thing they need to have any wiggle room to believe. asma is not in a favourable position here.
the only other alternative that could have stopped this from them possibly taking it in a “i’m forgiven” way would be telling them “if you need to use our services, i’m here to help, otherwise please leave the desk so others can” and shutting down the whole conversation so they don’t have any more room to talk and don’t have any feedback. still, this isn’t fair to asma, who is trying to work and being engaged in a conversation at her workplace by possible patrons about something that she has little freedom to engage in honestly and without risk.
Asma is obligated to stay professional, she is not obligated to engage in personal conversation by asking probing questions, which is what she is doing, and it is what is driving the conversation. If she didn’t want to talk to Joyce and Dorothy she could have responded to them with a simple “okay” or the ever popular “is there anything else I can help you with?” Instead Asma decided to try doing a Socratic Dialogue, and that is her choice, her exercise of agency. Now if Asma had indicated she didn’t want to engage in personal conversation and the girls pressed her, then yeah that would be bad, but that’s not what happened.
Not only do I agree that it’s unfair that everybody jumps directly to the idea that Willis’ borderline-token Muslim character would immediately be bigoted (Willis is imperfect, but they are not dunder-headedly tone deaf and dense?), it’s not even, like, the only explanation. Asma could just as easily be queer, but also still in the process of processing some or all of her internalized queerphobia, which would make her a flawed character, but it’s a far fucking cry from being a card-carrying homophobe.
Like, shit, she’s standing in front of two other women who are gracelessly in the process of unpacking their queerness, maybe Willis chose to deliberately write Asma as a different perspective on that same premise, because it would actually be a constructive and interesting way to write her?
I’m pretty sure she’s gearing up for a “Your actions were more intentional than you are admitting; own up to them.” Kind of as a rebuttal to the common excuse of cheating being a “mistake” despite the fact it’s obviously a multi-step process.
“Hey guys, here’s my apology character. Anyway, she embodies literally the most noxious and pervasively common stereotype possible about the people she’s written to represent.” Like, come on, can we give Willis the most basic benefit of the doubt? lmao
Yes I was also agreeing with you in an amused way, the c’mon being directed at. Everyone who for whatever reason thought that’s the direction willis was going
As someone who has dealt with Muslim bigots, they’re very real and if you think Christian bigots are insane… oh boy. Oh. Fucking. Boy. Toedad would be pretty well respected.
Interestingly, American Muslims poll about equal with Protestant Christians when it comes to general approval/disapproval of subjects like gay marriage. However, recent immigrants, particularly those coming because they are fleeing war-torn regions (rather than desiring the more liberal attitudes found in Western nations) do tend to bring some pretty heavy baggage. Like most things involving people, it’s messy.
Damn Joyce still isn’t getting it. Dorothy is arriving there, but Damn Joyce is still being an idiot. They need to be separated, not broken up but placed into two separate rooms and maybe then someone like Sarah or Asma will get through to Joyce. I think if Dorothy is alone she will be able to self reflect.
Joe. It’s gotta be Joe. Joyce is speedrunning her relationship with Dorothy so fast that I think she’ll be proposing to her by weeks end, and Jocelyn encouraging this has emboldened her so much that she’s running on pure romantic id. Joe showing up (hopefully with flowers) still wanting to be with her and reminding her that they never officially broke up might wipe the rosy veil from Dorothy’s eyes and realize that this relationship isn’t going to work if Joyce wants to marry her yet keep Joe as a side piece. And if Joyce dumps Joe as cruelly as she did with Walky, that could also show Dorothy that Joyce isn’t in her right mind right now and the two need to SLOW DOWN! At least go on a couple real dates first before pulling out that engagement ring…
Look….. gooner and gooning is just part of zoomer lexicon now. Waggle your finger at it all you want, it’s become part of every day conversation. If aave getting watered down to just slang that white people inevitably use incorrectly is just a fact of like then fuckin, same with goofy shit like gooner.
At this point I see goon and stuff as harmful. It’s strictly a term to mock the idea of being horny as if its weird or gross. And has become a catch all for any sexual arousal to anything to make the act of being turned on or into something wrird and gross. In a time where credit card companies are literally gouging nsfw creators and states and countries are passing sweeping laws governing what people are allowed to see or post I’m not exactly keen on society’s trend towards anti-sex rhetoric. Its not just silly fin time. It’s a sign of a sweeping trend towards conservitive views on sex.
If you wanna pretend the 4chan fascist / Nazi dog whistle aspect of the term doesn’t matter, you should still contend with the fact that the meaning of the term is inherently shitty, and we do actually have not only the right but the responsibility to educate zoomers when “”””their”””” slang (as if the popularizing of this terminology isn’t being done on purpose, as if random twelve-year-olds just stumble upon age-old Nazi rhetoric, as if it’s not coming from alt-right griftulencers and then repeated by people who don’t know any better), is literally based on and reinforcing bigoted worldviews.
I’m not gonna get up in arms over fuckin. Gooner. Arguing for or against. I said what said, I said what I meant and I meant what I said. You can’t lecture me or pay me to actually care about the word goon. I’m all for educating people on dog whistles but like. I have my limits for how dumb of a concept I’m willing to argue about.
You’re the one who said “it’s part of the kids’ lexicon now so it’s not worth trying to do anything about it” over a literal Nazi dog whistle that is, in fact, super relevant to queer people, on account of us being a very popuar target for ALL synonyms for “degenerate”.
You don’t have to care about it or try to educate people on what these crappy words mean, how they’re harmful, or where they come from, but like, if you don’t have the energy to do that, why do you have the energy to sabotage someone else’s efforts.
Now, that’s an interesting piece of knowledge! I’m gonna say that the person who introduced me to the term was a trans woman who seemed to be under the impression that the “degenerate” label was specifically intended to MOCK the Nazi view of sexuality, and as such I’m kinda leaning towards zee’s view.
Anyone who likes the term can claim they’re just being ironic as much as they want, doesn’t change the fact that using the terminology is normalizing an literally dangerous worldview where masturbation = degenerate and degenerate = bad.
Footnote: I’m sure some people do authentically think they’re using it ironically. That is, unfortunately, how a lot of 4chan fascist slang gets spread around. The word sounds funny and is fun to say! We’re laughing AT them!
Oops, there’s been a huge alt-right revival and zoomers are listening to fuckin Andrew Tate, and meanwhile leftists are also accidentally legitimizing the terminology as “just something normal people say” with in-jokes amongst themselves, and now culture’s been changed forever.
Or: we take not just the origins of these words but also what they mean seriously, and we remind everyone that actually it’s really weird to make fun of someone by calling them a degenerate masturbator. Weird and, frankly, sexual harassment!
Mmmmm, it’s less fraught for sure but I still think the idea underpinning it is that horniness is something to be ashamed of and keep hidden. And the connotation that one’s “main” social media account should be carefully curated for corporate consumption is…
…both very good advice in the modern era (and I simply don’t have social media with my real name attached), and a depressing testament to the power of capitalism.
Like at some point I think we crossed a certain horizon with the internet, where it went from “gosh it should not be so easy for kids to stumble onto adult content, we should have kid-safe spaces” to “actually EVERY site should be treated as being first and foremost for kids*, and frankly the fact that you even WANT an adults-focused space is kind of a red flag”.
* it’s not really for kids, it’s definitely for advertisers. Kids are a great market demographic when you have no ethical qualms about manipulative advertising aimed at a group of humans with underdeveloped impulse control. Make all spaces kid-focused so we can harvest the data of more kids (and also adults)!
It’s always a little different when it’s a term we identify with!
I might feel at least a little bit differently about this word if leftists were making an active effort to reclaim words like “degenerate” instead of just using them in almost the exact same way to mean “creepy losers society would be better off without”.
Kinda like how everyone’s super into body positivity and yet I still see the “asshole” in left leaning comic strips being a fat and nonconventionally attractive person.
@Yotomoe: I was also thinking of that. I almost went on a long tangent about how this word is ALSO used as almost a synonym for “neckbeard” or “basement-dweller”, which are both popular leftist insults that we should also ditch because when you think about it for more than 1 second, that’s body-shaming and ableism/classism (among other issues with “basement-dweller”, like how it follows directly from the (especially white) American idolization of nuclear families).
Not to get all Frank Miller’s Batman back when it was actually good up in here, but these are the tools of our enemies. We can’t defeat toxic masculinity while ALSO literally using it to belittle men we don’t like. And we can’t defeat queerphobia while also buying into concepts that undergird it, like “sexual practices between consenting adults that are gross to me personally ARE dirty and shameful, actually”.
Leftist spaces have a real problem internalizing this. It’s too easy, and too tempting, to find socially acceptable ways to bully other people, and bodyshaming and kinkshaming are such rich veins to tap for cutting insults, as long as we target people who “deserve” it.
(Let me be clear: I’m not saying you have to be nice to Elon Musk. I’m saying that you should reconsider whether “used to be bald” is actually one of the things he has done that sucks.) (Never mind the fact that Musk is unlikely to see your specific Funny Facebook Post, but your perfectly sweet aging cousin with a bald spot he’s already ashamed of definitely will.)
@Li Yeah, I mean, I have a couple rants about how I think MORE people should be horny on main if they can do it without being creepy to people. At some point, making it clear that MOST people are out here thinking sexy thoughts about ALL DIFFERENT KINDS OF PEOPLE can’t help but loosen some things up.
Yeah I hate all the weird puritanical shit I gotta wade through now. What happened to us jeez. It’s ok to be horny sometimes y’all. Sex positivity includes stuff you might not agree with. (Within reason). Just don’t make it your whole personality I guess.
Admittedly this is me reading a bit into Joyce’s “I am allowed to kiss Dorothy whenever!” attitude but I’m starting to feel like she would be the kind to involve others in a kink publically even when they’re uncomfortable.
She wants to honk Dorothy’s chest in public? Well tough luck if you’re uncomfortable! She should be allowed to!
Idk about all that but it is really just a ridiculous, childish attitude, I cannot believe people are entertaining it. Yes, obviously, there are times when you shouldn’t make out with your girlfriend. Don’t do it at a funeral. Don’t do it while riot cops are throwing people to the ground and you have been told repeatedly to get the fuck out of the meadow. Joyce is fully entitled to always want to kiss Dorothy, lord knows I often feel that way when I’m dating someone, but what she seems to be chafing against here is the idea that she should have any sense of restraint or propriety whatsoever, and the fact that Dororthy isn’t reining her in at all isn’t helping.
If I attend a protest that I am unable to attend safely, I am putting others at risk, because they will risk themselves to try to rescue and protect me. If the risk to me is unacceptable to myself OR to others who might be placed at risk by my endangerment, then I can serve the movement better from a supportive role, away from the front lines.
It was hard to hear, but it was heartfelt, and eventually I did understand it. It’s a question of strategy.
In short, a doylist perspective emphasizes the intent of the author, while a Watsonian persepctive prioritizes the in-universe thought processes of the characters in a work.
So when people say this is a watsonian response to a doylist critique, they mean that Willis is using his characters to respond to criticisms made of them as an author regarding the protest and its appropriateness as a backdrop for Joyce and Dorothy getting together.
It also feels like a dozen strips or so of talking heads just trading morality views at each other. Which not only grinds pace to a halt, but also doesn’t actually move anything along? It would be one thing if the characters develop because of it. But Joyce is just ignoring or not caring about any of the criticisms characters are throwing her way. Daisy doesn’t care about Raidah’s criticisms.
So it’s just… characters (and I’d add, mostly minority characters) saying stuff and white people shrugging. Which if that was the intention of the writing, uhh, sure?
It’s just, consistently A for effort and F for execution on retrofitting the Muslim cast members and the critiques of this storyline bc like, those critiques cannot substantially alter the plot too much because so much is drawn out in advance, which means that you have the unintentionally really bad effect of the white characters basically just ignoring the criticisms leveled at them by women of color.
I believe it means when Sir Arthur Conan Doyle was writing Sherlock Holmes stories, which were all written with Dr. Watson as the POV character to Holmes’ brilliance and publishing their exploits, if someone critiqued the stories, Doyle could have Watson address the critiques in future stories as Doyle’s mouthpiece.
But I maybe mistaken.
Well, moreso that if you asked Watson why he narrated something contradictory, he would have to explain it within the context of his own existence within the Sherlock Holmes universe, because he doesn’t understand he’s a character.
Why did Watson write that his leg was injured in the war, and then later complain about his shoulder flaring up and reminding him of the war?
Well, Watson might say, he has more than one war injury, of course. Or maybe he has a psychosomatic pain in his shoulder. It could even be that Watson was still deciding how much to reveal about himself and Holmes and fibbed the details when he first started writing.
But if you asked Doyle why Watson wrote that, he would say, “I forgot that I’d already said it was his leg.”
Doctor Watson is not only the viewpoint character, but indeed the first-person narrator. The very text that the reader encounters was actually written by Dr. ARthur C Doyles,. but is supposed to have been written by Dr. John (or James) H. Watson. So the Sherlock Holmes stories (with the exception of The Musgrave Ritual and maybe one or two others?) were written by two unemployed British doctors: the real Dr. A.C. Doyle and the fictional Dr. J.H. Watson. When you have anything in the text that seems to need any special explanation “Why did Dr. Watson write that?” and “Why did Dr. Doyle write that?” are different questions about the same text, sometimes calling for different answers.
Oh hey that was me. Maybe. I certainly have idk if someone else did prior.
Related: The issue wasn’t the kiss per se. The issue was taking a real world issue, stripping it of context and then using it as a pretty backdrop for makeouts.
That we know so little about “Bulmeria”, that any actual conversation about the issue is totally skipped (ie lunch with Hank), and that none of the characters are shown to really have any opinion on the matter only highlight the crass nature of the thing.
By making Raidah and Asma proxy mouthpieces for reader criticism it only highlights the co-opting of pro Palestinian actions. By having the (white) targets of this in character criticism respond with jokes / double down it seems any attempt at addressing the issue is insincere.
Now Dorothy and Joyce have gone to a Muslim character they barely know, cornered her at her job, and the dialogue is twisting in circles about the kiss when that wasn’t the issue. Because the characters can’t say what the main issue is because it was the whole plot as presented:
The concept of the “Bulmerian” genocide existing solely in the story for this kiss to happen is grotesque.
And this in character response isn’t even addressing things like: I’ve never seen you at a protest wtf were you doing? Why the fuck did you show up, refuse to leave, and put everyone else in danger?
Instead it’s focussing on the kiss when that is just the most obvious symptom of thoughtlessly shoving in other people’s suffering for a moment of drama. Which is something the characters can never apologise for and, afaik, Willis has never actually apologised for.
Yes, they have vowed to include more Muslim characters, but that wasn’t the issue per se. Not ever piece of media needs to tackle every aspect of the human condition. And no single piece can represent every person on earth (save a united colours of beneton ad). But just shoving in “representation” doesn’t make it good, and it doesn’t show that the criticism has actually been heard.
The issue isn’t that Dorothy and Joyce kissed, it’s that they kissed on camera, but it wasn’t Daisy’s camera that they’re talking about, it was the comic’s own. Except the characters can’t actually say that so the conversation doesn’t actually make a lot of sense in either direction. Asma’s arguments are confused and Joyce and Dorothy being here in the first place is honestly way more offensive than the kiss itself because they’re just traumadumping on the only Muslim person they’re vaguely aware of despite not actually knowing her.
In order: Why they showed up was to warn Jocelyne. Why they [or rather Dorothy specifically] refused to leave was she didn’t want to be someone with ‘cop energy’ anymore. Neither of those aspects, at least, had much to do with their as-yet-not-quite-existent romantic relationship, and frankly, reducing it to “did you walk into the meadow with your arms around each other” is almost insultingly reductive in light of the full context (though it’s certainly understandable if Asma didn’t, and still doesn’t, know they weren’t already together).
WHAT IS ASMA MAD ABOUT? WHAT IS THIS CHARACTER’S MOTIVATION? It’s enough that it’s starting to make me seriously question if she IS supposed to be being homophobic cuz why is THIS her line of questioning? WHAT THE FUCK IS SHE TALKING ABOUT?
I said so below but this is getting so off-topic that this reads more like its addressing the out-of-universe commentary surrounding the kiss than an in-universe reaction
I think it’s important to note they came and talked to her and chose to lead the conversation in this direction. I don’t think it’s homophobic to call out Joyce and Dorothy for having no awareness or responsibility in their moment to moment decision making that day. They were trying to mutually masterbate before going off to try and rescue Jocelyne. So saying those two made a bunch poor decisions enabling their kiss that caused them a lot of problems is a fair take to me. We do still hate them for cheating right? I really think that’s what Asma is getting at but for different reasons.
Yeah, it’s getting to a point where I’m genuinely starting to wonder where any of this is ever leading up to.
There’s just so many times this storyline where things are just happening and have no real payoff or reason for being. What is this doing for Asma, why are they even doing it still when the lampshade in one of the strips prior was that they’re doing it to feel less guilty.
Am I supposed to be reading her as unreasonably upset and taking a good point and bastardizing it for personal reasons. Are Jorothy just supposed to come across as clueless and aggravating? I know it’s a daily comic so some things are gonna be left to the imagination but Willis has been generally good about an obvious, immediate payout that lets us know what the vibes are. This storyline has just been all over the damn place, way too many scenes popped in after the fact imo.
Someone pointed out elsewhere in the comments that she overheard Alice and Raidah talking about Joyce and Dorothy cheating, that might be what Asma is referring to.
I’ll admit, I forgot about that until that comment.
Okay, I see three possible interpretations here. My own interpretation is that Asma is irritated an these two for annoying her and so she is giving them some well deserved grief. Operating in the dark, she just got them to admit that their behavior escalated into a “problem” which is a tactical error on their part, but to some degree they think that way, hence the whole “Let’s be criminal together” thing.
The second interpretation is that Asma suspects that it escalated into sexual behavior between two women and considers that to be a problem. In which case, yes, she is homophobic to some degree. But that’s not how I read the comic or Asma. And in fact, it doesn’t seem to be consistent with her own (implied) attraction to Alice.
The third interpretation, which I hadn’t previously considered, is that Asma considers the cheating to be the problem based on the conversation with Alice and Raidah. But see, this doesn’t hang together. It was the kissing that was the cheating and it wasn’t something that might have led to later on that created the problem. This interpretation makes no sense.
Subject to further information, Asma is enjoying herself and letting these two idiots hang themselves with their own answers.
What’s weird about this is that Joyce and Dorothy seem to be talking about the sexual behavior as a problem, but I don’t think Asma is. At least I can’t think of anything else that “Only 45 minutes. Twice” could be referring to.
But I read Asma as talking about the consequences – getting on the front page and potentially the cheating.
Yeah, I’m so very confused about the premise of this whole thing.
The most charitable interpretation I can come up with is Asma thinks two white girls set out from the start to use the protest basically as an exciting foreplay to their sexcapades and is trying to explain to them why that isn’t ok.
We know that isn’t (quite) how things went down, but Asma doesn’t. But if that’s what is going on here, this is a really confusing way to get that across to the reader.
Asma could have just said “Don’t come to a protest just because you think it will be exciting and make sex more fun.”
I suspect my interpretation above is actually wrong. But I can’t actually think of any other premise that makes sense.
your interpretation sounds pretty much entirely correct to me…which is why I’m scared that you’re right, and that the real answer is far less comprehensible.
Given she has context that it ended up with both Joyce and Dot cheating ontop of yesterday’s page, I think she’s just saying both of them have very bad inpulse control
Given that Joyce brought up the kissing defiantly and unprompted and keeps saying “why should I control my impulses”, that seems pretty reasonable of her.
Also gonna say I honestly don’t want Asma in more of this comic, especially if she’s gonna be written like this.
Not every character needs focus and I already get the impression that the more Asma we get the less likeable she’ll become.
Yeah I don’t really like it when the dark horse character becomes a focus character. Like, they were cool because we only saw a brief snippet of them once in a blue moon. Making them a main character entirely defeats the point.
Sure. Or he could make a new one with more main cast significance. Like booster. Asma isn’t just Muslim rep. She’s a character. And some characters are best used sparingly. I’ve seen so many fan favorite characters become duds from over use. (Fred Fredburger syndrome I’ll call it.) A cast of characters is like a chess board. Not every pawn gets to be a queen. But that doesn’t mean their positioning isn’t integral to the game winning board state. I only worry that overlaying asma will tuon what made her such an enjoyable character. And if the only reason for including more of her is just for representation I feel like that does a disservice to her role.
That said if she goes on to continue being a fun and engaging character I don’t mind her getting more focus. This is just…a rough start to her having a more prominent role.
“Let me know when the front desk girl has actual lines” is a criticism I’ve seen of DoA fairly frequently, actually. So some people definitely do want more of her, and I bet some of them want more of her even if it does in fact entail her becoming more unlikable, just like some people really want polyamory from the main cast even if it’s super messy and started with cheating.
Different people want different things from representation.
Some people want things that won’t be very good. I never claimed nobody wants this. I’m saying I don’t want it, cuz I think having more of her will just serve to degrade her character. But I super DOUBLE don’t want her to only start getting more focus to assuage the guilt of accidentally making a culturally insensitive storyline. They could’ve given Asma more screen time at any point in the last 15 years but now that they botched a genocide protest she’s getting more focus? Yeah, not a fan.
I could be wrong but I’m pretty sure Willis mentioned doing more with Raidah and Asma following discourse after the kiss strip. Even mentioning his realization that he isn’t really utilizing his Muslim cast members very well. You can correct me if I’m wrong.
I agree that it’s not going to assuage Willis’s guilt. If that’s why they’re doing it, it’s super misguided!
But I also disagree that “representation for representation’s sake is wrong”? I think “representation” is more than enough reason to want to diversify your cast. In some stories because it actively adds to the realism, but also realism isn’t the only important thing about a universe.
It’s not something that should be done carelessly, you need sensitivity readers as a bare minimum, and you need to make sure they feel listened to and encouraged to be bluntly honest with you.
But I’m also a different kind of marginalized than you. #ownvoices comes from a good place, but given that queerness is invisible, I’ve mostly experienced it from the side of “forcing creators to out themselves before they’re ready”.
And years after the author was forced to out herself as bisexual, people are STILL using Love, Simon as some sort of penultimate example of gay lit being appropriated and churned out by cringey straight people.
Meh, I rewrote that like six times and I’m still unhappy with it.
I did not mean to imply that the forced outing associated with some parts of #ownvoices made the whole movement BAD. It’s not! I just happen to be part of a marginalized group for whom it’s had some very specific splash damage and I wanted to acknowledge how that affects my perspective. We’re not the most important part of it or anything!
I just know it’s never far from my thoughts when I start thinking about “no one should tell a story that isn’t their own”? If that makes sense?
Which also is NOT what you were saying, my brain just hears “representation should be added for good reason, not just for its own sake” and starts connecting all kinds of dots.
Also, to get us back on track: I want to reiterate that if any part of Asma getting more screen time is supposed to assuage Willis’s white guilt or make up for the botched protest storyline, that’s a bad place to start from.
I want to hope it’s more like “wow this really makes it embarrassingly obvious that I haven’t done enough with Asma”, and I fully agree that it’s 15 years late on developing her and nothing will ever make that NOT embarrassing. For lots of readers, this will be not only “too little too late” but also “oof, too little AND way too much all at once” (due to the contextual contamination of her new prominence), and those are both…
I mean, they make complete sense to me. As a white person I would have no place whatsoever judging whether they’re valid or not, it’s SO far outside my lane, but completely understandable ways to feel and also ways to feel that I sure as heck hope Willis has made peace with.
To be honest, I don’t really agree that he hasn’t done enough with Asma. I mean, if he wants to do more, that’s cool, but a minor character being around for a long time without focus isn’t actually a flaw. It’s just what a minor character is. It’s already a big cast and there are lots of people who’ve gotten a tag and occasional speaking role, but no actual development. That’s inevitable.
@thejeff: sure, but if Agatha never gets more development, that’s still fundamentally different from Asma never getting more development. DoA’s cast has a TON of nice white blond girls, even if Agatha happens to be the only one who’s specifically Mormon.
Meanwhile, for Muslim characters, it’s Asma, Raidah, and Nash. Raidah is by far the most developed of the three, and as much as I desperately want to like her…
(I love her character design, I think she’s had a couple of good moments, I think she makes a pretty good villain, and I want her to have more depth)
…I think it’s pretty reasonable to call “Muslim characters who are actually characters” a weakness of the strip, and, especially because I do think Willis likes writing Asma, I think not doing more with her for 15 years than the occasional witty comeback in mostly bonus strips WAS a problem and did merit taking action to correct.
Like…I don’t think that’s a “flaw”. There’s no way every group is gonna be represented in the main cast. I don’t care that Sayid or Ken or any other character who’s an unexplored minority doesn’t get focus cuz the point of the comic isn’t “every minority needs a prominent role.” It’s to tell a story and not shy away from diversity. It’s FINE if you WANT to include more diversity but you will probably NEVER satisfy every single group. Nor should it be expected to? Would it be nice if there was a prominent indian student? Sure. Or a kid in a wheelchair or a deaf student. Or even someone who’s really really poor and not just lower middle class. But like…it’s also fine if it’s not? Diversity is good but you can’t hold yourself to such a high expectation of it.
This is a great comparison. Kind of like the other Tim from “Fans!”, latching onto a new thing and immediately making it their entire identity. Remember when Joyce first started watching “Dexter & Monkey Master”?
Personally, I hate these video ads that randomly appear, can’t be closed, and occupy a good sixth of the screen. Like I get why advertising might be a necessary evil, but it doesn’t have to be so obnoxious and anti-user, it would be absolutely fine if there were a close button but instead I end up having to cover that part of the screen with my hand until it’s gone because the animation messes with my ADHD.
I just dont understand anymore. I don’t know what’s going on, I don’t know why we’re soing this I don’t know why they’re doing this, I don’t onow why Willis is making Joyce the single most unenjoyable thing to read ever.
I open the page wvery day thinking “this is it, this is when I’m going to start enjoying DOA again, we’ve moved past the bad writing” and then boom this page and I’m just like.
I feel bad for Maggie. She suggested one little story beat that was entirely reasonable for the comic, all things considered, and it’s managed to lead to a point where I’m slightly worried this storyline is going to actually affect their long-term livelihood.
A sincere suggestion, for the sake of your enjoyment, is to take a month off, come back after Thanksgiving. You’re clearly unhappy coming here every day, but evidently you also don’t want to let go of the comic just yet. The compromise position here is to take a break, come back later. As a bonus, you’ll have thirty-ish strips to read all at once, which is a lot more enjoyable than reading one per day.
You are definitely also a reader I think would benefit from a break for your own sake, but pls don’t stop reading “because no one should have to read my comments”.
No one DOES have to read your comments. As long as you’re not, like, seeking out Dorothy/Joyce fans to yell at, you’re not doing anything to anyone here by just being negative. It’s okay to be negative.
Yeah, I don’t get this. This feels way off for both characters and they just keep doubling down on it. Which would be good if they were doubling down in the wake of consequences, like “well everything else has gone to shit but I’m not letting go of this”, but they’re just ignoring everything.
Yup, I continue to be convinced the only rational explanation for this is “Asma is a relationship paladin, and all she really wants is these two dorks to go the fuck away and stop justifying their stupid kissy faces, she’s got work to do.”
Look I agree with asma on principle but why the fuck is she being written like this? It feels like all her real dialogue up to this point has been written in the most confusing, vague, contrived way to basically invite misunderstanding and never actually get her point across. She’s being made a mouthpiece for criticism which I frankly don’t care about, but it’s being done in such a strangely constructed way
Ahhhhh make this end. Move on. The whole thing feels like Willis responding to complaints that people don’t actually have. To paraphrase a comment from elsewhere:
Willis thinks the haters complain about:
1. lesbians
2. women not being subservient to men
3. kissing
4. liberals
5. the lack of muslim representation
what people are actually upset with
1. multi-dimensional characters reduced to ‘lesbians’
2. the emotional distress of male characters being a punchline at most
3. joyce and dorothy’s kissing taking priority over plot development and pacing
4. poor representation of politics
5. bringing a background character into the main cast so willis can get another square for ‘representation bingo’
6. And it taking. So. Long.
Hard agree. Sorry, but I’m just not that interested in discussing the morals of making out at a protest. Joyce and Dorothy are idiots, but that’s pretty universal among horny 19 year olds. The reaction this is receiving feels appropriate for if they had done something to deliberately disrupt the protest, like the Free Palestine movement does to every march that happens these days.
I want to go back to Asher and whatever is going to happen to him with the mob plot. Or watch Jennifer continue to blow up all her new friendships while Lucy lives her best life. Or check in on Sal and Danny briefly discussing how the relationship they both expected to messily come apart did so for the opposite reason they expected.
I want a three-week noir story focused entirely on Galasso. At this point, people just need a palate cleanser, and Galasso shooting a bunch of mobsters in black and white is just what we all need right now.
Hmm…maybe the mobsters could open up a rival restaurant (as a front for gambling or money laundering) and Galasso could go over to checkout the competition and they think he overheard something while he definitely didn’t.
So they try to kill him to silence him while he thinks they’re just enthusiastic restauranteurs who also want to conquer the world and are trying to kill a rival for the throne.
And we can get all his inner dialogue in a noir hard boiled detective narration style in black and white while the color strips will be the mobsters shooting at him from alleyways while being perpetually confused over all his take over the world talk.
I have no idea what you’re referencing. So I did what any competent individual would do and asked Google “what space scientist says Whoopsie-piddles” and it had no idea what I was on about.
While Joyce’s desire for a continued relationship with Joe is up in the air, including Dorothy in that, especially in that context, is a bit fetishistic imo
Sexuality in cartoons is fine! I’m a big fan of it! The fetishising I was talking about was fetishising gay relationships as something for the enjoyment of men. “These two girls just started dating, I want to see them in a sexually submissive position to a man” is fetishistic in a bad way imo
Everyone I know who’s sucked cock has stated they actually feel like they’re in a position of power. Understandable. That guy’s most sensitive part is in an orifice filled with jagged bones.
I dunno I guess it all depends on how you view sex. A lotta times people presume any sex with a man is male dominated. I’m much more sub-minded I guess so I tend to assume the opposite.
(Like I pictured Joyce and Dorothy toying with him while he was a flustered mess with that little squiggly smile he does)
So it could just be vibes based. Cuz those two contexts would feel very different seeing them back to back despite describing the same event.
I feel like we might honestly be best served by having the whole damn comic finally take a monthlong hiatus for editing and then disable the comments section for another two because this shit is spilling over outside the fandom.
i would wholeheartedly endorse this if it wasn’t Willis’s career. They deserve a break from drama, and if they could financially survive without their kids suffering, it’d probably be a good idea to take a break for even a week to send a message to people.
Y’know, I wouldn’t mind a short hiatus. It would give everyone involved a period to chill the fuck out without thinking “It’s midnight EST, I guess I’ll reflexively check the comic for the latest update”.
As a joke, I’ll say it’s actually ableist against people with poor impulse control to have daily updates without any pauses and then write something so polarizing and contentious in it.
Girl that is a whole other sentence. I said one thing and you got mad about a different thing.
I’ve complained about the fandom’s obvious anti-muslim bias in the past, i just don’t harp on it as much because I’m not muslim and feel like someone else can articulate it better. People’s treatment of Raidah in particular, though, is obvious and clear evidence that this fandom sucks shit at respecting brown people even an iota.
I *AM* a bisexual woman and can call out biphobia just fine, though, actually.
i’ve drawn lines all over the place that this community has ran past like they’re competing in a dodecathalon, but yeah, sure, telling dorothy to go put a cock in her mouth isn’t weird at all, you win.
Yeah I don’t give a fuck if some dude wants to see them have a threesome? Or see dotty suck a cock? Tf? Hell you can see dotty put a cock in her mouth very easily on slipshine or the other Patreon.
Imma join the chorus telling you go log tf off bc this is getting. Visibly unhealthy for you. Calling taffy an incel is fucking wild. You’re just kinda being an asshole to everyone and hiding behind words like bigotry and sexual harassment as an excuse. Hell im probably gonna disappear from the main site comments for a bit after today too.
Yeah, calling me an incel is just complete nonsense. There are so many better insults to throw at me, all based on my actual behavior and thoughts, that pulling out “incel” is a sign someone is just blindly firing in any direction. At least personalize the worthless hatred, fer cryin’ out loud?
The fact that multiple commenters (Taffy, Big Z, and Dot just to name a few) keep getting insults thrown at them for expressing polite disagreement is really uncalled for and I sincerely hope that it doesn’t ruin any of y’all’s day whenever this kind of thing happens. Hopefully it stops.
My day is unruinable, personally. Hayride, corn maze, d20 holiday one-shot, bit o’ the ol’ reeferino. One unshowered Presbyterian isn’t gonna do much to bring me down.
I was gonna ask what’s up with that, and then I remembered I wouldn’t check back to see if anyone actually responded. I understand her being upset about them drawing attention to themselves at the protest, but why does she care about the other stuff? Is it because they’re cheating? I didn’t realized she paid any attention to who was with who.
which I think is. . . kind not her business I guess? Like; valid if she doesn’t like them for cheating, but like seems she wanted to move the conversation away from the protest, the thing we were hopin this was about. Oh well, tomorrow will be that ripped off bandaid lol
I think she’s talking at least mostly about the protest, but also responding to Joyce refusing to accept the premise by pointing at consequences.
She’s saying “You need some self control so you’re not tempted to escalate into something that causes problems” and they’re hearing “kissing escalated into sex.”
I mean, Joyce could stop interrupting Dorothy’s half-assed bad-idea apology by whining about how she’s allowed to kiss Dorothy at any time.
Asma’s not getting in their business — they came here to drop their business in front of Asma, and Asma is within her rights to chew on ’em for any of it.
Oh I assumed she meant “I haven’t frenched anyone recently enough to be relevant here but I’ve been told I’m pretty good”. Yours is probably closer to the truth
Asma is swiftly racing her way to the top of my favorite characters list. Right now she’s hovering above Sal and below Amber, so if she keeps it up she’ll land firmly in my top 5. She’s already taken the vacancy Joyce left in the top 10.
Right? Lotta people here so invested in “DoJo” did nothing wrong who are ignoring the fact that “randomly harassing the front-desk clerk, who can’t get away from this trainwreck of a conversation, with stupid apologies/non-apologies” is in and of itself doing something wrong.
Tbh I kinda would’ve liked today to just be Asma telling them to buzz off. I like her a lot more than I like seeing Joyce rn, but this is also pretty firmly now into territory of “not her business.” Like, Joyce started it but I can’t help but feel she didn’t open the door *that* wide for this.
Agreed, getting onto them about what they did at the protest is one thing. Even Dorothy acknowledges that they kinda hijacked it, but what they did after really isn’t any of Asma’s business now and her bringing it up is weird.
I mean, no, but I feel like there’s a lot of stops between “Tell someone that they need impulse control in response to them talking at you about kissing” and “grill strangers on their sex life,” and at least one of those stops is going “right well, clearly you Just Don’t Get It and I have work to do so could you just… not come back ever? Unless you need a package and hopefully someone else is on shift then?” Like I really feel like that’s a stop that gets hit way before asking strangers about their sexual misdeeds. If she actually knew Dorothy and Joyce, it’d be different.
I don’t think Asma’s actually grilling them about their sex life. She’s talking about the kissing when they shouldn’t be escalating into front page photos and maybe about cheating. Joyce is talking about sex.
I don’t get Asma’s anger/argument here. Kissing in the middle of the protest? Yeah, sure. I can see how *it* becoming the lead element of the newspaper story an issue for her, but holding hands in the beginning? Getting “busy” afterwards? Her disdain seems misplaced to me, especially since she was just thirsting for Alice.
She knows that Dorothy and Joyce’s first rendezvous was of the cheat-y variety due to Raidah and Alice talking about it next to her desk in this comic.
My initial guess is that if there’s any judgment about “temptation” on Asma’s side, it’s coming from that. Could be wrong, though.
Why shouldn’t she have disdain for them? They came to her while she was working to offer a weird apology and apparently brag about their relationship, while carrying their literal dirty laundry and without showering after apparently screwing 2-3 (?!?) times.
It wasn’t Asma who brought up the kissing, she just responded with her opinion after Joyce decided she couldn’t stay silent. And her opinion is seemingly that being at the protest should have been the main thing they were focused on while at the protest, not how much they wanted to kiss.
Yeah but it’s weird, like hijacking the protest is one thing but it’s not like she’s Jiminy Cricket. She’s not their conscience, at this point tell them to be on their way, she really has no busy chiding them for anything they did after they left.
Even weirder is accosting Asma at her job to apologise about a non-issue and immediately derail with what was at best a non-sequiter and what was at worst a refusal No, she’s not Jiminy Cricket. They sought her out, and Joyce brought up the kiss. Why shouldn’t she be annoyed at being dragged into this again, or give her unfiltered opinion to the annoying girl who has only once called her by name and is apparently incapable of controlling herself?
Is she even allowed to tell a resident to leave without hearing why they approached her in the first place?
Nah she’s allowed opinions. No one is keeping them there to be chided, they haven’t even asked her to butt-out. They came over, they started this conversation, they can sit in it until one of them draws a boundary. It’s silly to blame this on Asma.
This right here! This entire conversation could have easily never happened. (If, ironically, they’d have listened to the smartest thing Joyce has said in a while in the stairwell).
Asma would have been well within her rights to tell ’em to buzz off, but she’s equally well within her rights to engage with the stuff they are saying to her.
I think maybe she was referring to the kissing escalating into knocking the [real issues of] the protest off the front page, and they misunderstood what she meant because they’re, well, everything she thinks they are. Otherwise, yeah, I don’t really follow this one.
Seems like a rationally thought out possibility. You came out hugging, which led to kissing in a very public event, which led to your kiss being on the front page of the paper.
But, of course, there are other possible interpretations. Interesting to see what does happen!
Honestly, I don’t think this latest set of strips are doing anything.
We know they were inserted later, but aside from Asma screentime (which is admittedly good), it’s mostly just a: oh yeah Joyce is kinda an asshole. Which we really didn’t need more help for.
Asma screentime, good! But would be nice for her screentime to not be tied to the protest storyline which most people have agreed just wasn’t done well. She got some actual content earlier with the seeds of the Alice/Asma ship (which… might not pan out til a year from now? I dunno).
Same with the Raidah/Daisy strips from earlier, like good to have Raidah call Daisy out on it but since it didn’t actually lead to anything constructive, it was just:
Remember Daisy is a walking horny joke? Let’s do that again.
Awkward bit when Raidah leaves mid argument to go pray. Like just as a reminder that yes, she’s Muslim.
I dunno, the inserted strips are okay for screentime but narratively I’m not sure they’ve actually been that good at all. They’re just spending more time on a Doyce storyline that is already moving at a glacial pace while people are waiting for others to develop.
You could be right, but I also think the nature of this comic is that things setup in strips maybe don’t pay off for awhile like assuming Walky didn’t care or react to the breakup only to find out much later he did react to it and is upset. Maybe this strip doesn’t work and is just one off Asma time or maybe this conversation will come into play later like hopefully making Doyce more self aware as a couple.
Okay this one has lost me again. I follow up to the last two panels, and then I have no idea where Asma’s meant to be going with that.
Unless SHE meant the kiss escalating to being on the front page of the paper and THEY mistook her as meaning “Did y’all then go home and fuck?”???
Someone help, this is two strips in a row where I just feel kinda lost.
You could say she’s trying to address them talking to her about this while smelling of sex and carrying their dirty laundry, but that would really deserve a more direct response.
When Dorothy said they should talk to Asma, I didn’t think that meant they’d forget about what they were in the middle of doing and go right that second.
I think Asma’s point is that their behavior while aware of their feelings escalated things to a point it created multiple problems for them. Dorothy especially was very aware of her crush on Joyce and even felt guilty about it, while still dating Walky. She still went to the protest with Joyce, which lead to the kiss, the picture, the break ups, ect. They could’ve just kept distance from each other and literally everything that’s happened in the last two days for them could’ve been avoided and they’d even likely still be in the same place they are now. It’s not an admonishment of what they did as much as their completely lack of responsibility in the choices made.
She was at the protest and on screen like 20 seconds after they kissed, plus she heard Alice and Raidah talking about Joyce and Dorothy after the newspaper article.
Okay not as bad as I thought, but I really don’t know if this complaint still being focused on [kissing at a protest] is like the main problem? I thought it more like the protest was sidelined for focus on romance?
I definitely misread that as all three things being discounted and I got unreasonably excited at the idea of Chinese food being discounted on Halloween (for literally no reason) even though I’m throwing a Halloween party later for my family.
Watching 3 scary movies Halloween, Carnival of Souls and The Excorsist. I will also be Handing out Candy, snickers twixs and skittles. But before that I have a 5 hour drive back home.
I didn’t figured out what I can do.
(Yes, I did some … “witchcraft” this night and totally forgot it was Halloween Eve.
Coincidences…
Anyway, I need to find my bear mask. And, so, prepare to travel, because November 2nd is also Day of Dead
I’m gonna go on a hay ride with my girlfriend, then go hang out with the gays to play our annual Halloween one-shot. We’re doing a Fallout-free Fallout D20 game, this year. I would love to dress up in my Ascian costume, but I’d like it to not have infinite dog hair on my nice black robe, so it’s probably just gonna be a normal outfit sorta night.
Friends are coming over for a horror-themed space RPG and then a board game about ghosts and skeletons and other cute monsters. I’m making dumpling rice.
Uhhhh buying candy at work and wearing Unicorn no. 1 from Holo taco on my nails. It’s not a Halloween shade but I felt it fits the season. Trying to think of something to watch with my boyfriend when I get home after the new episode of May I Ask For One Final Thing. Maybe a Satoshi Kon…
Now that I’m rested and stomach settled. I’m going to put on my Beetlejuice sweatpants and hand out candy while my husband takes the girls out trick or treating.
I’m so torn between knowing that Dorothy, and Joyce are disasters right now, and deserve at least a significant portion of the hate they’re getting, and the knowledge that I enjoy their relationship, and once they get past this phase they will probably make for couple that lasts through the rest of the comic.
I realize that’s a run-on sentence, but I don’t know how to break it up.
At this point, Joyce is just being the Anti-Mary. Like, I mean that in the most literal way possible. If Mary is obsessively fundamentalist as her only personality trait, Joyce has morphed into the opposite pole on that spectrum. She’s just as intense, and just as willing to interject her current hyper-fixation into every unwanted situation, but she’s proselytizing Secular Hedonism as opposed to Conservative Christianity.
I don’t like or believe in the term “horseshoe theory,” but it seems like Joyce has managed to fully 180 her belief system, while simultaneously regressing her behavior right back to where it was on move-in day.
Agreed. I’m so lost. Why is Asma litigating their PDA? I get calling people out for being obnoxious but she already did that — now it’s like she’s lecturing them on How Not To Fuck Your Girlfriend 101, which is just really confusing as both a joke and a plot line.
Hopefully tomorrow sheds some light on her reasons for this whole conversation but I’m rapidly losing the thread for this scene.
It’s like a little computer doohickey with a screen and a stylus. You’d use it to jot down notes and stuff, in the faraway years before everyone had smartphones. There used to be a sort of corporate douchebag vibe to owning one, I think.
I think she’s just trying to get Joyce to acknowledge the idea of consequences and that maybe there are times and places for a little bit of self-restraint.
It’s Joyce and Dorothy who somehow ran with that into “And then we had sex. Twice. And a bit in the stairwell.”
kay. im not reading any of that.
muslim readers who may or may not be reading this: what do you think because your the only people here whose opinion actually matters rn?
Since other people here have an infinitely better understanding of the actually-relevant issues at play here than I do, I will instead come from another angle entirely and say that I really like the facial expressions here.
I’m just going summarize a page from Huda Fahmy’s graphic novel “Huda F am I” to illustrate what I think Asma’s thought process is in this and yesterdays strip. In this page the speaker is a religious teacher addressing a roomful of muslim schoolgirls in Dearborn:
1) When it comes to interacting with the opposite gender, all parties must keep it professional and academic. No mingling
2) It’s perfectly normal to be attracted to someone, and even want to pursue that attraction. *There is no sin in the actual feeling!* [Emphasis mine]
3) *But actions are something else. You’ll be held accountable for those. Just be careful.* [emphasis mine]
I hope this is instructive in why I, personally, felt this strip is in some way relating to Asma as a person and how she sees the world. It does NOT mean she is a bigot, nor homophobic, and I admit its possible she does not consider this at all in her worldview. But I felt it is worth sharing.
This is pretty enlightening even if it possibly wouldn’t apply to Asma. I’d totally understand viewing and judging Joyce and Dorothy’s actions through this perspective from anyone.
For my part, when Asma had lesbian sounding thoughts about Alice, I went looking through reddit on islam asking about how gay and lesbian affection was viewed by different Muslim communities. Every single response included something like “if you’re a Muslim, you can have the thoughts but you can’t act on them.” Some indicated that they wouldn’t judge non-muslims for this. The point is, my searching aligned very much with what KM is quoting above.
My personal experience with hijabi Muslim women from a variety of different countries is that the religion is generally more Orthodox and strict on how women present themselves and what they’re allowed to engage in. I have mainly met mothers, and I list that as the main trait as in conversations with them about their lives and religious observance, their children are the main point of their lives, their husbands and husband’s parents the next priorities after children. I have no idea what an American hijabi just into or out of college would be like, I’ve met second generation hijabi teen girls but in the position of a mother of their friend, or a friend of their mother, so not quite a place where I’d be able to have similar conversations with them or interact with them the same way as I might with their mothers. I can glean some from a mother friend who had grown up in the US, but of course I met her after she’d already become a mother, what I know is that outside of the expat Muslim communities, the Muslim women I’ve known were friendly but did not engage much with the wider non-muslim community they were based in.
All this to say, Asma’s behaviour and discussion here and behaviour in previous strips doesn’t really look like anything I’ve experienced from hijabi women to date, but of course people are man and varied. She seems cynical and mildly irritated, while most Muslim women I’ve met even when exhausted are warm and tolerant, even when dumb faux pas have been made through tone deaf assumptions about their beliefs. My hijabi friends would never have told me how to conduct myself or live, and were delighted to talk about their lives and upbringing, and how they raised their own kids. Indeed, Muslim men I’ve worked with have also been courteous and happy to chat about what it is like to be a Muslim.
It isn’t impossible that Asma would be less courteous and judgemental, but in the context it feels like a hamfisted attempt to get more Muslim representation into the comic without enough time and research to make sure it feels natural and nuanced.
Nah Dot is right. Sapphic sex can take a loooot longer if you’re having a great time. Needing to take snack and/or water breaks in the middle is not unheard of. It also depends what you consider “one fuck” like if you break up all the sex by the short period of time you’re panting and giggling into separate sections or consider it all one long rollercoaster.
Not that I’ve never had quickies or 45min bangs, just that it IS unimpressive in this specific context. Especially for a first time together, imo.
I’m with Joyce in panel 4; I reject the premise. Also, is Joyce saying that them having sex is a problem in the last panel? That seems wildly out of character given how strongly she’s been defending kissing.
I don’t think Joyce is saying it’s a problem, she just has sex on the brain and thought about kissing escalating and went straight to it escalating into sex.
“The meadow” is shebtalking about the protest? Because they didn’t walk in together. Dorothy entered first, then Joyce rejoignez her and the escalation of violence wasn’t caused by them.
No no it’s ok because Walky is used to being hurt (and Dorothy dngaf about Walky), Joe and Joyce were only together 2 weeks and it’s true love so it’s all ok
There have definitely been times when Joyce cared about infidelity, when someone else COULD be doing it, because she wanted more of it. And yes, it was “true love” those times too.
“But MY x is different” is a very common theme among religious fundamentalists, for various values of x: abortion, infidelity, homosexuality, etc. (and yeah, Joyce is still one, she just changed allegiances)
I get what Asma’s doing, but if these were people I don’t have a particular friendship with, I just wouldn’t get involved. Only gonna give yourself a headache.
They didn’t do anything wrong to Asma. They kissed and someone blew it up into a thing, but Asma hasn’t cared about who they are sleeping with before and only cares about it not because someone who is not in this room used their kiss to increase newspaper engagement. Asma has no claim to either of them and should mind her business. Joe and Walky have a right to be upset, Asma has none.
They are CURRENTLY doing something wrong to Asma, assuming you consider it wrong (as I do) to “walk up to a customer service employee, who cannot leave and can’t really tell you to fuck all the way off into the sun either, and keep talking to them about your stupid pet issues when they just want to finish sorting the mail and maybe read another chapter of their homework.”
They’re holding asma hostage at her desk at her job in this war crime of a conversation, that deserves prison time at least
Also they came to her to absolve themselves of their white guilt and Joyce sprung this whole kiss conversation on her out of nowhere with mad “debate me bro” energy, this is entirely their fault. They’re lucky asma isn’t chasing their asses off with the broom
Asma is not a hostage here, she is the driving the conversation by doing a Socratic Dialogue on Joyce and Dorothy. If Asma didn’t want to talk to them, she could have easily ended it the second panel of the last comic.
Exactly. Her motivation is to take them into increasingly uncomfortable territory until they go away. In the meantime she gets to enjoy their increasing discomfort.
Nah, we still don’t know what is happening. We are still waiting for this to play out.
So, again, lets look at those matched pairs of ‘talking heads’ panels for the facial expressions. This is surely a building joke.
Wait, forty five minutes? Which forty five minutes were “a problem?” This is taking a turn from “don’t take over a protest” towards a slut shamy angle I *really* don’t like.
Given Asma has been forced to hear about these two and their relationship status before the tear gas wedding, she’s somewhat aware that they had boyfriends as recently as that morning. She’s not slut shaming, she’s cheater shaming which is entirely valid.
I’m extremely sex positive, but I don’t think it’s particularly wrong to be a bit snippy about someone’s sex life if they show up at your job and start talking to you about their sex life, unprompted. Like, that’s not slut-shaming, that’s a reasonable personal boundary.
I’m sick of all this preachy stuff. Dumbing of Age needs to get back to it’s roots and have a high speed car surfing chase sequence or some parent on parent blunt object murder.
i’m in the club of people who primarily enjoy this strip as a comedy strip. can’t speak for anyone else, but the strip is always less enjoyable when it decides to be a hardcore melodrama for a weeks or months at a time, and i don’t understand why anybody wants to read those storylines over cute fluff with relaxed stakes.
My tinfoil hat theory for why Asma is prying into their relationship beyond hijacking the protest is that she’s trying to load up on juicy gossip for if/when Alice walks her way again. Otherwise I don’t get why she hasn’t already told them to fuck off.
The Asma strips are, per Word of Willis, inserted after the fact, so we presumably have a few days until the strip that was originally planned to go up on Halloween.
I think this is such a weird storyline. They barely know eachother. People kiss during protests. If a newspaper decides to make that the main photo on the frontpage that’s hardly their problem. Is it a problem because both of them are women? Why do they need to apologise to the woman that was quite hostile to them when they saw eachother during this?
The whole plot and the reactions to it seem off to me. There is still a lot of hostility to women kissing in public. And it feels like people finally have an excuse to say: see, I’m nkt actually agains open lesbians in public but in this specific case…
Why has a gay coming out story been so much about cheating and how much it impacts them anyway?
A good portion of the audience really liked Joe/Joyce and didn’t like how it got cut short for Dorothy/Joyce. As for the cheating, I think it’s less that cheating must be always punished in a “moral” sense, but more that it interrupted a storyline they were invested in so there should probably be some “narrative” consequences because it feels unsatisfying otherwise.
The cheating storyline that… had no one literally cheating and any relationship misunderstanding ended in less than 12 hours. (including the hours of sleep)
I really like this storyline by the way.
It’s just that some commenters/people are so adamant to slam these young women for finding their love, that they have twisted and turned everything we have been seeing happening in front of our eyes.
Is it racism, is it misogynism, is it homophobia? I really don’t know.
But this storyline was NOT a cheating storyline. (sorry Willis :P)
Except that both the author and various characters talk about as cheating, but also don’t really react to it as cheating. Which I think causes a lot of the cognitive dissonance in the audience.
If one of the boys involved had reacted with some of the “that’s barely cheating” arguments we’ve seen here and then been more upset about being dumped than the cheating, I think that might have defused some of the reaction. But that didn’t happen either.
I absolutely do NOT think one of the boys being even more blase about the cheating would have helped.
Folks understandably want fictional characters to match their level of intensity about issues. Everyone wanted Joe and Walky to be exactly as upset as they were about the cheating, whether that was “not at all” or “extremely”, and having characters basically look into the camera and say “I’m not upset at all” would have felt like the readers who WERE upset being told they had no right to be and had been overreacting for a month.
Which some folks did feel like Joe and Walky’s nonreactions already were, but given the pace of the storyline…
There’s really no version where the boys’ reactions could have defused the comment section. We had way too much time to rile ourselves and each other up.
I’m taking their current reactions as basically no reaction, so I don’t see this idea as being “even more blase”.
At least it would acknowledge the cheating and show why they’re more bothered by getting dumped than by the cheating aspect.
I don’t think we really disagree very much so I’ll just say:
I think SPECIFICALLY having Joe say “that’s barely even cheating” (possibly while rolling his eyes) would not have defused reactions. But I guess we can’t really know either way.
We saw with our very own eyes Joe setting this situation up by talking to Dorothy to get her to admit to herself what she really wanted, the apparent reason being that he wanted Joyce to have what she wanted, hoping that would include him. This was not something hitting him out of left field. The only time he rolled his eyes was when Joyce claimed not to be a hussy.
This is exactly the problem with this comment section. Look, I’m going to model some better behavior for you:
See, though, you’re entirely wrong about the cheating — the only coherent definition of cheating is ‘whatever people in the relationship say is cheating’, and the characters have said they were cheating.
However, I’m not going to implicitly accuse you of all kinds of bigotry for having a different definition of cheating or a different reaction to those story beats, because that’d be weird and hostile.
Y’all say that like the fucking characters themselves didn’t classify it as cheating. And the author. His wife said “wow it’s crazy none of your college fuck-ups have cheated on each other yet” and he was like “oh shit yeah I should probably do that”. You can call it whatever you want, according to the characters, the writer, and the story being told, it was canonically cheating.
Like, it could have involved the cheating AND the kiss perfectly fine. It’s the weirdness after that has made it… intolerable. Joyce and Dorothy could’ve kissed, they could’ve immediately afterwards been like “oh shit” and then tried to hide it or bury those feelings because they’re in relationships (kind of like what Dorothy was doing before) and then the kiss becomes front page and we see that Joe Knows even if he won’t bring it up. Walky could’ve found out via Billie and then *he gets to dump Dorothy*, but like Joe he sits with this information. Tension builds because we don’t know what either dude is thinking at this point in time, but we now know of at least 3 characters who Know. Becky gives Joyce the cold shoulder suddenly, Joyce doesn’t understand why. We notably don’t see much from Becky’s POV at first. For plot convenience, Joyce goes not to talk about these feelings with Becky but with Billifer and gets an irritated response of “I only said it wasn’t gay to kiss your best friend, idk what you’re even on about right now.” Idk if Billifer would care that much about Joe, so she’s not likely to harp on the cheating aspect even if Joyce brings it up. Not to her anyways.
Dorothy and Joyce go to talk in private, Joyce is vulnerable about her feelings and Dorothy tries to support her but also talk them down from having an all out affair. Joyce reaffirms that she’s pretty sure she wants her first time to be with Dorothy and that it’s new to her, but she’s pretty sure that’s what she wants. Dorothy buckles under no pressure, boom Slipshine.
Then Sarah comes in to a sex scented room and scene plays out as it did. First domino falls. Dorothy decides to go make right by telling Walky, he cuts her off and dumps her (with the same coldness he used to refuse starting an affair with her.) Joyce brushes Sarah off like before, gets the same perky greeting from Sierra but with zero context, goes to talk to Joe. The Joe scene plays out pretty much the same only she asks for time to think about things rather than promising to talk to him later because that’s more explicit and at least officially puts them on break. She sees the paper for the first time, freaks out because of family and everyone seeing it. Maybe runs back to her room alone and gets confronted by Becky, which goes down more or less the same but without Joyce and Dorothy being weird about it, just Joyce awkwardly trying and failing to defuse the conversation. All of this would’ve probably taken half the strips.
Oh, and the protest should’ve been over LGBTQIA+ rights. That was a thing last semester, it’s still an ongoing issue, the exact same cast can be there that was before. It all goes down the same way (only I guess Jocelyne has to come out all the way as either gay/bi or trans to Hank, whichever she feels safest doing).
But that basically sidesteps every major issue the past two storylines have had in maybe half the strips. We still get cute Dorothy/Joyce moments. Joyce is notably not an abrasive asshole with object permanence issues or amnesia about past lessons and her own drawn conclusions from them. The cheating is ACTUALLY used narratively rather than another awkward thumbtack to step over. There’s no need for more Asma and Raidah here, but if more is desired then some of these exchanges can happen in the lobby where Asma is able to side eye and comment which opens the door to her appearing more. Daisy is no longer a weird horny gremlin having to defend a headline and picture that relay zero information to the reader about the subject of the protest and has instead actually picked a really good picture for the protest while being less of a weird horny gremlin. (Don’t get me wrong, the picture thing is complicated, I think most outlets would’ve run with that one, the headline however is atrocious.)
Like, I hate doing full “here’s how it should’ve been done things” in someone’s own living room, but I get frustrated by people acting like this was the foregone conclusion and it wasn’t lol. You can do cheating storylines, you can do bi cheating storylines (though admittedly my version probably actually IS in the problematic trope area), you can do kissing at a protest, the problem is entirely in how the wrong things are being focused on and how it’s driven time to a standstill for it! I just want the next storyline to not be about any of this stuff at all and for things to just start happening again!
It seems that Dorothy is slowly starting to realize her errors, though in her case it’s kind of impossible to course correct because the paper was already published and it’s literally yesterday’s news. Plus she’s definitively ended things with Walky (thanks to Joyce.) so there’s really no where to go except forward SLOWLY. Joyce, however, seems to want to speedrun this relationship straight into marriage, collateral damage be damned. Her father’s approval and Jocelyn’s encouragement that the two should have sex immediately have completely unleashed Joyce’s id, as she now feels completely justified to do whatever she wants whenever she wants, and ANYONE who tells her to slow down- Asma, Becky, Sarah, probably even Dorothy herself, is just a hateful bigot who doesn’t want true love to prevail.
I really think this runaway train that is Romantic Joyce is about to crash the seconds Joe shows up with flowers and Dorothy realizes Joyce never officially broke up with him like she had Dorothy do with Walky…
The reaction Joyce had when Dorothy declared both of them had dumped their respective boyfriends so they could be together heavily foreshadowed that this is going to be a big problem down the line. And sex with Dorothy has caused Joyce to completely forget about everyone else in her life, so we KNOW this omission to Dorothy of not officially dumping Joe IS going to bite her in the ass SOON… probably before this day is done, or the next time Joyce has chem class…
I hope we get to the ”Joyce somehow fumbled both of them” part soon. There are many interesting ways how things can go from there, but our girl is currently in dire need of a reality check.
Corey, it is factually incorrect that Joyce had Dorothy break up with Walky. Reread the strips. It is not a thing which happened. Please provide the strip and panel # in which *Dorothy* breaks up with Walky.
Dorothy was attempting to do so, when Joyce came in and took over in an unkind manner. After which Walky said it was what he expected and is behaving like a dumped boyfriend, and being ‘comforted’ as one.
How you interpret that is up to you. It was messy.
nobody’s focusing on the important part: what happened in those five minutes on the stairwell :eyes: like did they stop mid conversation about the protest to bang it out against the wall in a record five minutes?? girls??? lmaoo??
I find it very interesting that in this scenario where Joyce and Dorothy came and annoyed Asma with insincere apologies meant to assuage their own feelings of guilt, and Joyce specifically clarified she is not apologizing for the kiss specifically, the reaction is to be mad at Asma and claim she’s homophobic for calling them out on their series of poor decisions. WTF??? I thought most people were angry with Joyce and Dorothy for their recent actions? That getting together actually ruined them for life?
What is the problem here? I truly don’t understand because the only notable difference to me here is that Asma isn’t specifically saying they’re both horrible cheaters and instead saying they made bad decisions and have poor self control. These things were true. Where are we getting that Asma hates kissing. PDA, and homosexuality?
I don’t like to risk being a bad ally here, but I think that perhaps these hair-trigger homophobia takes have less to do with internalized colourism amongst the broader readership, and more to do with the fact that there are many queer commenters who have IRL reasons to look for even the tiniest shred of potential homophobia, and immediately call it out.
This is just me trying to be as charitable to everybody involved as possible, and I also accept the reality that blatant racism and bigotry does show up within the comments frequently enough, to justify calling it out.
Couple of vocabulary tips, because these words have specific meanings in social justice:
Colorism isn’t another word for racism, it’s the specific phenomenon of lighter skin being treated as better within a community of color. The beauty industry’s intense marketing of skin-lightening products in South Korea, for example, is an expression of colorism.
Internalized, likewise, doesn’t mean “something one has absorbed” in this case, but a type of bigotry that is directed at a trait we ourselves possess. So, for example, JENNIFER experiences and sometimes expresses internalized biphobia. But 100% straight people can’t have “internalized biphobia”, they just have the regular kind.
We might also call it learned biphobia (see: Howard, Ruth’s little brother, who seemed to just be thoughtlessly repeating stuff he’d heard from adults), or unconscious biphobia, but not internalized.
Also: sure, some readers are gonna be quicker to pick up on hints of queerphobia and more likely to worry about it, and therefore, sometimes, to see it where it isn’t there. But also it’s not at all a coincidence that Sarah, Raidah, and now Asma have all been specifically accused of biphobia based on… nothing? Especially with Sarah, it was such a huge leap.
Oh I 100% believe you both are correct here. I believe these commenters are sensitive to potential and perceived homophobia on account of being LGBT. I get that. However, a common experience for POC, especially BIPOC, is that any hint of negative emotion is read in a very uncharitable way. A black man being annoyed is seen as being aggressive. A black woman raising her voice to make a point is seen as aggressive. So, I definitely feel it isn’t a coincidence that Sarah, Raidah, and Asma being upset and annoyed is being read uncharitably from people who are rather sensitive to what they are reading as homophobia.
Let me emphasize that I’m in agreement with you, I do not think it’s a coincidence.
Also queer readers can be more sensitive to queerphobia than non-queer readers and also more likely to assume it’s there and react badly to it when it seems to be coming from characters of color. We’re all steeped in white supremacy, it’s pervasive, and it gets into your bone marrow and very much does inform knee-jerk reactions.
Gotta do the work to unlearn that stuff, and gotta keep reminding ourselves that the bias is probably still there.
Apparently most of the people commenting today think Joyce never did anything wrong. Which is a wild take to be getting mad at Asma for not sharing, when she’s only person in this conversation who can’t just stand up and walk away.
I think a lot of the hot takes on Asma are mostly near the top in Dot’s designated hate containment thread (like intended?) so saying “most” is a bit of an exaggeration. I do think a larger portion of comments has been knee jerk reactions. “What is Asma talking about? This isn’t her business! Why she hate girls kissing?!” And then a lot of folks trying to respond saying “Hey, maybe immediately assuming she’s homophobic is a bad look.” And then that morphing into more meta textual criticism that this is actually the author trying to parrot audience criticism.
honestly i started scrolling pretty fast once i realized that half the comments were the same argument played out by like ten different pairs of two different commenters. it seems like everybody came to one of the two takes independently, and then found their dance partner for the night
There’s also the thing where we tend to notice people opposing our own viewpoints more than people supporting them, so it’s easy for different people to see “most of the people” very differently, when it’s really a handful of loud voices on different sides.
Asma talks about kissing escalating into problems and Joyce talks about sex, so obviously what Asma meant was that girls should be careful about kissing because it might lead to sex. When that’s not what she said at all.
Frankly, in addition to what other folks have said about “media literacy” and “bias”, I think it’s just a mirror of some of the discussions in the comment section since this ship started — there are some folks here who have adamantly decided that the only possible reason to dislike DoJo is bigotry, and as such if Asma disapproves of them (even mildly) then it must be bigotry.
A lot of people in these comments seem to like interpreting any criticism of their favorite couple as negatively as possible, and that applies to both other characters in the comic criticizing Joyce and Dorothy and other people in these comments criticizing them.
This is odd to me because Joyce and Dorothy are not a favorite couple. The reaction to them has been mixed at best. So it’s really strange to me that when Asma criticizes them it’s seen negatively.
But the people who have DoJo as a favored couple tend to be very emphatic about it, so them seeing Asma as criticizing them gets a lot of reaction.
Which isn’t to say those who don’t like DoJo aren’t emphatic of course, but we all tend to react more strongly to perceived criticism of our views than to support.
Honestly, everyone who actually likes DoJo seems to just post one sole comment saying “I know they’re controversial but they’re so cute to me!”
All the people talking at length about it, either hate DoJo, or are entirely tepid on them, and just participating in the various discussions around them that match their interest. The idea that there’s an army of DoJo lovers actively fighting anybody and everybody who doesn’t adequately woobify their blorbos, just does not match reality, and it’s only a few persistent people who are implying this false reality.
To riff on something you said in another thread, I think a lot of the feeling is from assigning those folks who are on a hair-trigger looking for homophobia as “DoJo fans”, which to be fair to everyone appears to be the case.
That particular accusation, in a fanbase like this about a comic this unapologetically pro-LGBTQ+, sounds a LOT louder than it actually objectively is as a percentage of the discourse.
It’s basically the same thing as assigning the folks who are occasionally blatantly queerphobic “JoJo fans”.
Like, yeah, they do tend to at least posture as that, sucks to have that group be on “my side”.
It’s a variant on Tragic: The Worst Person You Know Just Made a Good Point, only in this case it’s something like Frustrating: The Worst People I Know Agree With Me On Something Small I Nonetheless Care About, Now People Keep Assuming I Also Agree With Their Politics.
Yep. And the fact that this is a mostly-unmoderated space (unless a lot of people all report something, basically) means that there’s no effective deterrent for escalating any complaint you have, either, aside from whatever social opprobrium one gets –and I’ve moderated enough forums for long enough that I know a) people don’t really feel social consequences as much from folks they don’t respect or agree with, b) that there are a lot of troublemakers who FEED on social opprobrium without further consequence, and c) it’s nigh-impossible to tell those apart sometimes.
I think they’re a particularly POLARIZING couple, honestly, which might be more apropos as an explanation — there seems to be relatively more intensity of both love and hate for this ship than for other couples.
Well obviously the commentariat need to protect these poor widdle gay babies from the big scawy brown lady with all her criticisms, that are definitely homophobic and prudish and not at all eeasonable. Why do I say that? Oh I dunno, something about looking at her puts me on edge. And Sarah. Surely the only thing they have in common is that they’re homophobic holier than thou sticks in the mud and Nothing. Else.
God, this is uncomfortable to watch. I hope Willis is writing that intentionally, and that Dotty and Joyce doing the White Progressive Unloading White Guilt And Looking For Absolution Before An Unconsenting Minority thing is supposed to be terrible and cringe lol. Because jfc.
I dunno…given the current track record and just how weirdly this conversation keeps jumping around, I’m half expecting Asma to just ask them to wingman (wing woman?) her with Alice 🙄
Agreed. I want to trust the writer (even if he make some mistakes from Protest day, but it’s a specific case).
Anyway, I’ll play the long play and wait to tomorrow strip, to talking anything more serious.
And it’s definitely on-brand for Joyce to say both “We shouldn’t do this” and also be kinda obnoxiously romance-focused when they decide to to it anyway.
As I keep feeling the need to disclaim: I am in no way saying these strips can’t be hard to read, or that Willis will ultimately NOT have made a terrible mistake by going down this road, just that I cannot agree with takes that amount to “Joyce is saying it, therefore Willis must think it’s true”.
More likely that we’re seeing what is simultaneously an over- and undercorrection, where Willis is trying to take accountability for the problems with the protest storyline through Joyce and Dorothy, when…
idk, maybe the better part of valor would just have been to add a blog post underneath the kiss strip where they directly accepted responsibility for the problems folks have rightfully had with all of us and pledge to do better going forward?
But. Year-long buffer. It’s not like I don’t understand feeling like “I’ll do better going forward” just isn’t anywhere near good enough when “going forward” is a full year in the future.
I won’t pretend I’m itching to be in Willis’s shoes or confident I could do better to address this type of criticism, just thinking about it honestly makes me want to delete all social media and go live in a cave for the rest of my life.
Another issue just generally is that it’s hard to make Dorothy and Joyce take accountability for the problems with the protest storyline when the single biggest issue folks have taken with it is the framing.
The framing isn’t in-universe, except the photo Daisy ran with. If not for that framing, Dorothy’s crashout in the middle of the protest is something that almost no one except Joyce would have even noticed, because she pretty much entirely failed to get anyone else’s attention.
She can apologize for having TRIED to get attention, and she can apologize for having shown up to the protest not knowing anything about them, but in-universe she and Joyce were looking for Jocelyne, not looking to join the protest, so it shouldn’t have been as much of an issue that they didn’t know what they were doing as part of a protest.
That Doylist versus Watsonian issue, I guess, though I feel like I am still mostly seeing comments about that operating on the assumption that Willis is trying to dodge accountability or explain away the problems with the protest storyline, and I don’t agree with that.
I think in some ways this is actually the “right” way of responding to criticism, but so far the execution is… let’s say shaky.
Honestly, I perceive a fairly major part of the problem is that the framing is in both places — an out-of-universe apology etc. would go some ways to addressing that framing, but while the in-universe newspaper photo exists (and how the hell do you retcon/replot THAT on the fly?) it will keep dragging the in-universe framing (and thus the comic itself) back to the issue.
I do think Joyce and Dorothy have things they CAN apologize to Asma for, I just also think that so far this is falling short because the Big Thing isn’t technically their fault.
But I’m also reacting to the reactions! And I haven’t read the hater containment threads in depth. I just feel like I’ve seen a lot of folks who at least feel like Joyce and Dorothy are apologizing (or refusing to apologize) for kissing / being into each other, and that of course is not something to apologize to Asma for.
(I see it a bit differently, but I do think the overall disconnect is an issue, at least right now.)
I mean this aint hardly the first time Willis has been made aware of blindspots this way and prompted this kind of effort, at least in strips further into the buffer
He even said once “this is literally the reason I still keep a comments section. Many other webcomic authors have burned theirs to the ground for very good, jarring reasons, but I still need an easy way to keep a pulse on the “did I do something wrong” meter”
I know he has much more in store for us later on the line to adress this kind of stuff, but buffer or not, he likely was afraid that without more *immediate* effort, he was afraid readers would lose faith.
Hence the “saying it will be better one year in the future, yeah that seems bad”
This is probably the point when Willis put both hands up and said to himself, “screw it. Highly decompressed storytelling or not, I have a giant buffer to retool as much of as I please, and I am not going to be another White Dude Trying to Offput ammends to what was clearly insensitive to a serious racial issue. So WHAT if I get backlash to what’s essentially a retcon? There’s ALWAYS backlash. But at least this way nobody can tell me I’m not trying my best to do my job.”
And honestly I actually glad this kind of interaction is happening in strip right now, as cringe as it is? I dunno I guess I just like it when racism is explored in the strip in ways that don’t ways manifest as “cartoon supervilliany” as Jennifer put it.
I’m always going to critique Willis on the execution, but I feel like I’ve been pretty consistent in giving them credit for their intent in retrofitting these scenes.
Fully agreed. I’ve been critical of Joyce and Dorothy being uninteresting, but all of the strips that have been added in after the fact, with Asma and Raidah? They’re my favorite strips since the kiss happened. These scenes are interesting and have a bit more to chew on, and I’m looking forward to more of this subplot as a result.
God Joyce is being such a baby in a not endearing way. This is the first time I’ve actually felt too old for their dipfuckery.
Like Joyce is annoying as hell rn but it doesn’t actually bother me. These characters don’t really elicit strong negative reactions from me anymore.
Until I scroll down and see over 100 adults clambering over each other to justify why she’s not being annoying actually and she’s a perfect little gay baby with her perfect little girlfriend and all these (incidentally brown women) are just buzzkill, sanctimonious haterz!!!1!11!! And also probably homophobic, totally.
Sad but true: while serious political events are taking place, the media will focus on smooching – possibly drawing attention away from the purpose of the event. Maybe Joyce and Dorothy didn’t know this but I hope they know it now.
“When this is over let’s go someplace and smooch” might be a good idea.
Exception: When some dipshit is ‘protesting homosexuality’ it’s time for a public smooch-in. Harness the media’s lens.
Well at least Dorothy is picking up that they’ve both been tits here, where the protest is concerned. Joyce is NOT. There are ALWAYS times not to make out with your partner/love interest, regardless of context; and she’s making this apology all about her and not listening to Asma at all.
To be fair on #2, the laundry is a public facility. They can’t get there without using a publicly accessibly thoroughfare, and it isn’t like they aren’t allowed to kiss while doing laundry.
Yeah, I think Joyce is being a complete bongo-hole. Get over yourself… just because she’s now YOUR girlfriend (that you cheated on your boyfriend with) doesn’t mean you have carte-blanche to do whatever you want.
She’s got “main character energy” here… and while yes, she is a main character in this strip, a character shouldn’t be treating themselves as that to the detriment/insult of others.
Look. This is dumbing of ages. It means people do some dumb s**t. Dorothy and Joyce just. Did a lot. In a small period of time. They need to admit she’s right then actually apologize to the boys and if not apologize at least talk to Becky. Then they can go snog in a corner forever just not during protests
I’m reminded, by Joyce’s dialogue, of the one Achewood gag about various characters’ decision-making flowcharts, one of which had “Is the mother turned out?” -> No -> “THEN TURN THAT MOTHER OUT! WOO WOO!”… with a dotted line to a “learning corner” that read “Some mothers should not be turned out” -> “It is not your business to ‘turn out’ a funeral.”
The reactions to this whole thing on both sides in these comments is just weird af.
-Should Asma be pissed at these two for kissing at a protest, particularly when the protest had already fallen apart and especially because it wasn’t them who centered the kiss, but Daisy publishing the pic on the front page because of unrequited horniness? No. Be pissed at Daisy. Two people kissing at a protest is maybe the biggest goddamn non-issue ever, unless they clamber up on a stage in the middle of the thing and set off fireworks ahead of time. Nobody, and I mean literally *nobody*, at an actual protest would give a shit about two people kissing.
-Have Joyce and Dorothy made a wealth of bad decisions of late, including coming to Asma, for no other reason than that she happens to be Muslim, for some sort of weird absolution and is that absolutely cringe af, and should she be pissed at them for that? Yes.
In short: Joyce and Dorothy are not perfect and have been very, very dumb and inconsiderate of late, and deserve to be criticized for it.
Kissing at a protest is not intentionally coopting that protest, and they are not the ones who took the picture or decided to center it on the front page of the college paper. It’s just a goddamn kiss.
Dorothy’s been on a downward spiral this entire year of 2025. She managed to get ONE win by making Joyce her official girlfriend, but this happiness comes at a great cost, and in the long run, is just masking the problems Dorothy has within her. Dotty at least is starting to realize something about all this is off, but has no idea how to set things right. Joyce, on the other hand, is pure romantic id unleashed. Dotty checked all the boxes for being the future spouse (although Joyce initially wanted a husband for her MRS degree.) and since Hank didn’t see a reason to disapprove of the relationship and Jocelyn was all for it, that has validated the relationship and DoJo can do no wrong. Joyce is perfect, Dorothy is perfect, their relationship is perfect, and anyone who is hurt or offended by any action they do is a homophobe who doesn’t want true love to prevail.
I think Joe might throw a wrench in Joyce’s speedrun toward the altar, but I don’t really know what to do about Dotty, since no amount of sex with Joyce is going to fix that inferiority complex she now has…
You can’t attack just one part of the argument and dismiss it. She’s building up to the “that escalated into trouble, right”?
Which they promptly derailed into “it escalated into sex”.
You see two dorks. You know these dorks. These dorks never talk to you unless they need something. They’re coming over to you. They look guilty. Merciful Allah, you know what they’re about to do.
Wait, they’re not saying anything. They’re just smiling way too large and trying to look casual but actually still looking like they’re feeling guilty.
Okay Asma, think. You can scare them off and go back to your book. You try to shock them by implying they’re asking you for a threesome. These are the most vanilla girls you know, surely this will work.
It doesn’t work.
They’re talking now. Oh no, they’re really doing this. You’re not sure you have the spoons to be the white girl whisperer today. Well, the nerd is mostly making this about white guilt, but Joyce is making this about kissing.
And you’ve heard about Joyce. Mainly you’ve heard Raidah complaining about Joyce, and Raidah is Raidah. But then Alice chimed in and apparently Joyce is OFTEN about kissing. And whether Joyce’s reasons for kissing are what Raidah says is anybody’s guess, but the one thing Joyce seems to be confirming for you is that she’s got really poor impulse control.
Not kissing people isn’t hard. You don’t kiss people all the time. You’re sublimating so much horny it could be seen from space if you weren’t so good at sublimating it.
But Joyce seems to think it’s never a bad time for kissing. Maybe this is a teachable moment. As much of a pain in the ass as these two are, you didn’t want them to become victims of the police state just because they thought they were in a rom-com.
You point out to them that they really were down bad for each other so much that the idea that the kiss was an “accident” doesn’t really scan because they walked into the protest arm-in-arm. They were going to do this. It was only a matter of time. They could have done this anywhere that wasn’t in front of riot police surrounded by tear gas.
…this does not go over well.
They really do think they’re in a rom-com, and the university DOES NOT pay you enough for this.
Wait, Asma doesn’t even know these two outside of like, passing familiarity, why’s she assuming them kissing led to problems? Why’s she saying the protest was the wrong time to kiss too? It got Dorothy to leave, didn’t it? If anything, kissing at the protest should have happened sooner, then the paparazzi couldn’t have gotten their front page shot.
She was JUST listening to Raidah and Alice talking about Joyce being a cheater in particular.
And as she’s the front desk clerk and thus probably handles mail and definitely handles packages, I guarantee you she has an idea of everyone’s names even if they don’t know hers.
To be clear, Joyce wasn’t accused of being a cheater. People were cheating on folks with Joyce. Plus the fact that they approached her together would lend credence to them kissing being problem-free. Clearly they’re either together or a FWB situation from Asma’s perspective.
I really don’t think you’re going to find much agreement on this. If a bunch of people wind up cheating on their partners with the same person, that person is very much the common factor.
so this comment is mainly directed towards willis. i think we all know they read the comments to some extent.
maybe when/if it comes time to print this storyline like the others, at least a portion of the money made should go to a charity like anera or MSF. or you could do a seperate thing as a fundraiser? i would contribute.
i have no idea if theres anything that could be done to the story to make it less messy, unless you decide to retool it altogether, but i digress. im glad at least you care. whatever happens, our real actions are more meaningful than drawings or commentary. lets use them for something that could tangibly help people.
So she knows about the cheating? So are we supposed to assume Asma loves tea and other gossip and is judgemental to strangers she isn’t close with and that’s her personality? I still feel like an apology about nothing should bever have taken in the first place. I feel like the writer fumbled with the retconning. Should have just changed nothing then add random meta apologizing
I predict at some point Joyce and Dorothy are going to have conflict over different standards of conduct. Dorothy has historically been very, very concerned with right action even when it isn’t very fun. She is all about doing her duty.
Joyce has been more inclined to follow her heart and to go with what feels right. This has lead her to be a bit of a jerk at times.
I think this strip demonstrates the difference between the two pretty clearly. Dorothy is looking guilty and going “Yeah, I guess I did bad” whereas Joyce is defiant going “No, I should get to do this”.
I think at some point there will be conflict where Dorothy feels like Joyce is encouraging her to go against her better self, or else where Joyce feel’s like Dorothy’s standards are restricting/shaming her.
I am not saying they will break up over it, and how big of a conflict really depends on how the story goes (I suspect it will be a smaller conflict if they talk about it in the next couple weeks than if it comes up in a couple years Real Time).
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*Wheeze*
Their faces in Panel 2 made me do a spittake..
Panel 2 and panel 4 are both great.
I’m with Joyce. Anyone claiming religious basis for controlling others’ behaviour can get stuffed.
I agree with you there, but it’s far from clear that’s what Asma’s doing.
🎶 Happy, Happy Halloween, Halloween, Halloween Happy, Happy Halloween, Silver Shamrock 🎶
Happy Halloween!
awe hell yeah >:3
*plays “Tombstone Arizona” by Mr Sauceman on hacked muzak*
THIS IS DUMBOWEEN THIS IS DUMBOWEEN
DUMBOWEEN DUMBOWEEN
In this comic
We call home
Everyone dance to the Dumbing Song
In this comic
Don’t we love it here
Everyone’s waiting for the next surprise
Looking forward to the upcoming Burton-Willis confab!
Happy Halloween peeps!
🎶 London Bridge is falling down, falling down, falling down, London Bridge is falling down, my fair lady! 🎶
That tune?
Cause
Doctor Stein makes funny creatures
Lets them run
Into the ni-ight…
ANGY JOYCE GOES >:<
Hm. More like >:c
Protest – Riot Kisses Vol. 103727171
https://www.gettyimages.at/detail/nachrichtenfoto/couple-kiss-near-police-officers-in-the-middle-of-the-nachrichtenfoto/865779418
Kindly reminder… 😜
Nobody is arguing that kissing at a protest is never appropriate under any circumstances, but there is a time and a place and some protests are absolutely not appropriate venues for that kind of conduct. Waltzing into an encampment protesting the genocide of a minority that you, as a white woman, are not a part of, and laying one on another white girl’s lips prominently enough to feature in the media would reasonably be considered a faux pas in that context.
she MIGHT have a kind of sort of leg to stand on in the picture (which wasn’t their doing), but talking about them walking around or having bumped uglies in their own room as something they shouldn’t do is kinda stretching it imho.
Its coming across as a little more pointed at the fact they are doing what they are doing, and less that it only happened at the protest.
But they have now accepted that it was a problem. Asma is good.
Only Dorothy seems to realize she done goofed. Joyce is stubbornly stuck in the “my fantasy came true and I can kiss my future wife anytime I want and anyone who says otherwise is a hateful bigot” part of her relationship. Asma’s trying to take off the rose colored glasses, but Joyce, being the romantic idiot she is, refuses to part with them.
She isn’t talking about them fucking though, they are. She asked if it had escalated into anything else that became a problem. Joyce is the one who decided that was probably the fuckin, and Dorothy agreed.
also keep in mind that Asma is assuming that both of them are cheating on somebody else right now, and that at least one of them has likely done so before, because that’s the last information she heard on the topic. which, I don’t suspect is on Joyce or Dorothy’s radar, at all.
I’d buy this if we had the slightest bit of evidence that Joe or Walky even know her actual name–that is to say, if she had a friendship with them. Then, it might be in the slightest tiniest way her business if the girls are cheating hussies. Right now, though? Nah.
I’ve said before–these two have screwed up a lot in this arc. But not one bit of it has anything to do with what Asma’s talking about, which is making it easy to (mis)read her as being homophobic, and still leaves me convinced she’s actually mostly envious of their relative freedom to express their affections.
Asma is at least aware that Dorothy was in a relationship *and* she probably thinks Joyce is a habitual “other woman”.
https://www.dumbingofage.com/2025/comic/book-16/01-not-so-smooth-criminals/whatshername/
I’m kind of confused which of the many later events Asma is talking about, actually. Can you enlighten me? It seems like J&D are clear on it, given quoting the timing.
When did the comic ever mention the people being genocided were some kind of minority group? From my recollection the comic has never mentioned anything about the conflict besides it’s being committed by a made up country with a really dumb name. Like yeah, we the audience understands what it’s supposed to be, but this the major writing issues with Willis adamantly not wanting to date the comic as it means we can’t actually discuss the issue from within the story since it has to be abstracted like this. If the protest was about pseudo-Israel killing Muslims it’s kinda weird that no one acknowledges that fact (you think Dorothy might have something to say being Jewish), especially when they’re talking to Muslim woman. It’s clear Willis is trying to use this as a way address the criticism, but the problem with what they wrote has everything to do with the specifics which the comic can not address and the result is that it makes both parties come off as weirdos who care way too much about what the other does/thinks considering they’ve had only a handful of conversations.
The fact that dorothy and joyce are white has been repeatedly mentioned in-comic as relevant to the distastefulness of the photo of them, implying that the people being targetted are not white. This is also supported by the extra focus on Asma and Raidah caring about this conflict in a notably different way than other people do. Dorothy also explicitly mentions fascism being at work, and fascism targets marginalized people by definition. And lastly, *you cannot do a genocide on a group with social, political, and financial power*. The state will not defend that. This isn’t set in a magical fairtale land. It’s effectively our world, but time tracks differently.
It’s the implication.
(Don’t write an I/P parallel into your comic if you don’t want people to read I/P into it.)
I do agree though that while the comic at least implies that Muslims are the targets of the Bulmerian genocide, there aren’t the same hints that Jews are the perpetrators. Other than it being an I/P parallel, but there’s been an attempt to focus on the Muslim characters in the aftermath, but nothing even hinting that Dorothy or Joe’s Jewishness is relevant.
This. Arguing based on plausible deniability that this is a reference to I/P seems rather silly, doesn’t it?
Yeah it’s always a minority group but it could be a white minority group, maybe a Russia v. Ukraine type of thing (even if that’s not genocide quite yet). We don’t know, because the comic won’t actually bite the bullet and commit to anything! And if it’s not going to do that then it really shouldn’t be doing it at all.
Not really relevant to your point but it still seems worth pointing out that Russia, at least, is not uniformly white. It’s part of Asia, there are plenty of ethnic groups there that are extremely Russian and also if you saw them on the street you’d swear were, for example, Han Chinese.
Willing to bet Ukraine is similarly not uniformly white.
Interestingly, just due to its location, Ukraine is weird that way — something like 96% of the population is Ukrainian, Great-Russian, Belorussian, or Romanian… the largest non-“East/Central Slav” ethnic group is Crimean Tartars at 0.5%.
Well, my point is kind of that “Ukrainian” need not mean “white”, just as “Russian” doesn’t necessarily mean “white”. I wasn’t saying Russia has a big population with Han Chinese ancestry, I was saying Russia has regions that are 100% Russian and always have been but do not look white.
(Whether or not a Russian census would agree with this, I don’t know! But I was not talking about immigrants or descendants of immigrants, the way I would be if I were talking about “American” not meaning “Indigineous, frankly, but for the sake of this conversation white”.)
Ugh that was supposed to be strikethrough.
“American” not meaning “
Indigineous, frankly, but for the sake of this comparisonwhite”.Like let me use a more concrete example because it’s similar:
One of my professors this semester has people guess his ethnicity. The guesses are always kind of a mixture. He gets “middle eastern???” a lot. He would probably get “white” a lot more if he weren’t visibly Muslim. That sort of guy.
He is actually ethnically Chinese. Just from non-Han Chinese ethnic group, of which there are many.
See, this is close to my heart for a different reason, in that I am also 50% Central Slav and grew up in the kind of Appalachia where I was still catching racial slurs for that in the late 1980s. I’m somewhat sensitive about how Slavic ethnicities are perceived. 😀
I’m not actually sure WHAT you’re trying to get at, I’ll be honest, I’m mostly just interested in pointing out that Ukraine is kinda “uniformly white” (or, at least, uniformly East Slavic) in terms of the ethnic groups that populate it in a way that Russia isn’t.
(now if we’re going at this from the direction thejeff stated, there IS a significant ethnic divide between Ukrainian-ethnicity Ukrainians and Russian-ethnicity Ukrainians, and IIRC that’s even supposedly Putin’s main stated causus belli along with not-as-spurious-as-Ukraine-would-like accusations of neoNazi groups having a fair sway in some areas).
I dunno, maybe I fully misread what Cameron was saying, “but it could be a white minority group” and then listing Russia vs Ukraine just sounded like it was taking for granted the fairly popular USAmerican perception of Russia as being all-white, when it isn’t. I don’t know as much about Ukraine. So I prefaced my comment with saying it wasn’t necessarily relevant to their specific point.
I know that Europe has different ethnic groups going on, and I know whiteness is super conditional and not a very coherent idea, which leads to white supremacy not always benefitting the sort of people USAmericans picture when we think “white”. I know Eastern Europeans are a whole… category for European xenophobia/racism.
I’m not getting at, or meaning to get at, anything about Slavic identity. Only that there are Russian ethnic groups that even USAmericans would look at and assume “Chinese” rather than “Russian”.
I don’t know if that helps at all because I’m not sure what I’ve stepped in here, but I am sorry.
(Not that USAmericans can’t also be super racist to Eastern Europeans, obviously, which I don’t need to tell you bc you were just talking about having experienced that…
I was just kind of cataloguing what I know about European xenophobia/racism.
And all of this is complicated because race isn’t concrete, it’s literally all just skin deep, etc., so I am struggling to communicate at all what I’m talking about lol.)
Basically minority groups in other countries don’t have to break down along the same racial/ethnic lines we think about in the US or even in “the West” more generally.
Yes exactly.
Prior to the (latest) Palestinian genocide, I did see quite a few watchdog accusations that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine was genocidal under international law (in that one of the aims was to destroy them as a distinct people and culture.) Worse war crimes upstaging other war crimes.
Or, here’s a thought–it could be Sudan from awhile back. The government (Muslim) went after a bunch of minority groups in Darfur (also Muslim) and damn near took them off the roster of humanity. And no one who wasn’t Muslim bothered to do anything about it.
Really, the main reason this tracks to I/P is the call for disinvestment by the protestors. This has only been a cause celebre for US students twice in my lifetime–South Africa and Israel.
And there are similar pictures from ant number of other protests around the world in the decades since. There was nothing wrong with them kissing.
And running the photo on the front page was literally the bets thing Daisy could have done for the protest. If you want to get White Middle-Class Normies on your side (SPOILER: You do, if you are serious about the aims of your protest), then showing a conventionally attractive pair of obviously harmless white girls getting tear gassed is a great way to do it — especially when the next-most newsworthy photos would be of a student beating the crap out of, like, a dozen cops. If you support the protests, then you would desperately want to distract public attention from students beating the shit out of cops, because that would be a good way to ruin the lives of everyone involved in the protests.
Like, seriously, we know the cops started it (SPOILER: If there’s an “it,” cops will >always be the ones to have started it), but if the protest becomes known for student-on-cop violence, then the hammer will squash everyone there. Depending on who is President in the DoA-verse right now, people who look like Asma might get simply disappeared.
Have you considered that using bold type a lot will not actually make people agree with your opinion that White Middle-Class Normies are universally only interested in empathy when manipulated by girls kissing (spoiler: having your worst and whitest impulses stoked does not necessarily put you in a position
to be helpful).Who said they were interested in courting the assistance, allyship, or opinions of “middle-class white normies” who only care about an issue with their faces on it. That won’t be good allyship, they won’t be able to help anyone but themselves, and they’ll abandon the cause as soon as someone says something they don’t want to hear.
White cishet people have to unpack their own bullshit before they can help me in any meaningful way. And plenty of them do! Plenty of them genuinely come to help and put their bodies and time and money on the line for the cause. Those tend to be among the people it’s worth reaching out to.
Because, shockingly, those are the people who it’s actually helpful to have around. People no one has to tiptoe around and do a ton of extra labor for whenever they falter or get confused.
White Normies punch waaaay above their weight in protest movements, because white normie politicians listen to them. This is, literally, Protest Movement 101.
If you can get a dozen white grandmothers to attend your march, you put them in the fucking front row. How do you get them to attend? Well, letting them see their white normie granddaughters get attacked by cops is an absolutely time-tested way of energizing them to do that.
Notice that none of this involves changing the point of your protest or “softening” your message; the whole point of white normies at a protest is (a) to shield more vulnerable protesters, and (b) to create a permission structure for other white normies to come on board and put pressure on white normie politicians, who have the power to actually do what you want done.
This isn’t centering white normies, it is just using them as effectively as possible.
Go back to the power scaling forums, nerd
Frankly speaking, when I’m evaluating what tactics to use at a protest, as a cis white man I’m going to listen to the guy with a white-male pfp LAST.
Oh sorry, I can see how you were confused!
I was disagreeing with you. Strongly. Not requesting further elaboration <3 Thanks so much!
Ray, thank you. I swear some of these kids are well meaning, but as someone in their 40s, yeaaahhh they have no idea what they’re doing with these movements.
The curse of every movement, but if you want things to happen you do want the white allies (not the white moderates, but the white allies). Guess what, there’s a reason that Greta Thunberg gets a lot of attention, she knows it, and she uses it.
As someone else in their 40s, this discussion has been going on between our groups for many years and despite continually editing us out of the history books you’re still wrong. <3
Hater containment thread ⬇️
I hate this and knowing it was a later insertion makes it worse
Genuine question: How do you know which ones are a later insertion?
Anything with Asma showing up between the protest and basically next June was retrofitted per word of willis
Ahhh, Damn you Willis and all that then
Willis stated originally he didn’t have a strip with Asma until next year so at minimum anything now with Asma is an insert.
Asma’s next appearance was originally slated to be like, mid 2026. So any strips involving her are later additions.
The next non-insertion strip with Asma features Carla in it and was apparently roughly a year after the protest strips
I’m sorry I’m being more directly salty about this than I have been about anything before but. MAN.
why has there been a “hater containment thread”? what’s up with that
Comic’s been making some people mad, they are trying to contain it to one thread to not interfere with people who are just here to read the comic and vibe.
I mean that don’t really work well when it’s near the top and gets really long but ya know the thought is what counts
it’s giving similar vibes as NGPZ’s past “Let’s talk about a completely unrelated topic to the possibly-triggering comic content” threads from past storylines
oh yeah, I think Laura did that too, although yeah maybe I am the one who started that, heh
I was copying from you, NG. *Waves.*
I don’t really follow Asma’s train of thought, here…
🤔
not really. It is in fact, the exact opposite. It is explicitly about discussing the comic. Just in a way that’s negative about the current, very polarizing storyline
it’s only similar in that it was a thread built for a specific discussion. the difference is that the “let’s talk about something else” threads were off topic, and willis asked for the threads that weren’t about the comic to stop. this thread is specifically meant for discussion about the comic, but for the people who didn’t like the topic to have a space talk about it in hopes that the people who have stronger feelings towards the negative will restrict it to here.
unfortunately, it’s always been god awful to read the comments section not so much due to the content within, but because the comment box layout doesn’t make it easy to tell who is replying to who and where a thread stops and ends. i very often have to hold my cursor over the left edge of an avatar so i can scroll up to see who they’re replying to, and that no longer becomes doable once the replies no longer nest posts. there’s no tumblr or disqus indent bar that shows connecting comments, or a “replying to x” comment within posts to link directly, and it gets ever harder to tell where the containment thread starts and ends the longer they get.
i would honestly suggest the webmaster change that, if for nothing else but accessibility. it’s rough on people with visual impairments.
Does it really do all that much anyway, since this comment system doesn’t let you collapse threads?
Makes them easier to scroll past, I suppose…
i’d argue it doesn’t make it easier, since it’s so hard to tell when the threads end. i’d do unholy things if it meant the webmaster would implement the ability to collapse threads.
As long as it doesn’t involve Disqus. Bleh.
i second you there. disqus might have a better layout, but i don’t care for the rest of it.
Because the Dorothy/Joyce hate was consuming the comment section. In theory containing it in a single thread means the rest of the comments can be about other things.
People were breaking into incredibly vitriolic arguments and I decided to put my foot down and start establishing some intracommunity boundaries
This is the kind of thankless but necessary work that keeps a community functioning. Dot, you are the hero we needed and I want you to know you are appreciated.
let’s call it: Reddit, hehe
A bunch of folks in these comments really don’t like it when anyone criticizes the shitty behavior of their favorite ship, Joyce and Dorothy.
Jesus fucking Christ I hate bullheaded romcom brain Joyce
that’s how joyce has always been tbf
Yes and I have always hated when she gets like this! It’s one of her least pleasant traits!
Joyce is fundamentally someone who when given a choice between the people she loves and the world, she will let the world burn. This has significantly driven the major decisions and changes in worldview that she has undertaken over the course of the comic. She chooses love, every time, and now she’s the most in love she has ever been, a singular totality of feeling so overwhelming that it’s the apocalypse for everything else. It’s my favourite trait of hers.
“I hate the idea of causes, and if I had to choose between betraying my country and betraying my friend I hope I should have the guts to betray my country.”
— E. M. Forster
I don’t entirely agree with Forster (or with Joyce), but I have some sympathy for the viewpoint.
And it is among her worst traits
And it’s at the top of her terrible traits.
At least Dorothy seems willing to have some introspection about how her behavior is hurting others. Joyce is annoyingly resistant to even the slightest bit of introspection these days.
To steal a Patreon comment from bbcc yesterday, “Joyce’s shittiest traits all kinda boil down to her stubbornness and clearly people going ‘But she’s SO CUTE and she doesn’t know any better’ hasn’t done her any favours.”
Imo Joyce wouldn’t be nearly as frustrating here if it weren’t for the dozens and dozens of grown ass adults clambering and screeching about how she did nothing wrong. Like she’s clearly meant to be an annoying, childish lil shithead right now and I can handle it when a main character is being deliberately portrayed as shitty for a bit. But then!!! I see these grown mf tryna justify every annoying lil shithead action, and that’s what’s making this suck so bad rn. That and, frankly. The writing on everything surrounding the protest falls flat, including asma when she’s talking about anything related to the protest. But y’know, everyone already knows that
There is a shockingly high amount of people who act like making something gay makes it inherently good.
I came for the Chicken Parmesan repercussions and trash fire of these two love struck morons burning their world around them in the name of lesbians, not this Chicken Nuggets and Walmart Ketchup grade Nothing Bloody Happens lunch special.
Don’t forget the especially annoying minority of comments that take a position like “the only possible reason to dislike this pairing (or, more egregiously, ‘the only possible reason you’d think them cheating on their partners and calling it cheating in-strip was them cheating on their partners’) is if you’re either misogynist, a homophobe, or a misogynist homophobe who wants to force bi/lesbian women to date men.”
As far as I’m concern, Dorothy and Joyce being terrible and suffering no consequences for it is the trash fire I’m here for.
That’s just not really compelling
*gently escorts you out of the hater thread with a pushbroom*
Hey bongoing about how this plot isn’t compelling is exactly what the hater thread is for
I am quite certain Big Z was replying to me.
Lys is correct. 😀
Yeah, I’d be more about this storyline if there wasn’t so much focus on them acting like it’s the truest of true love (and ignoring everyone else around them in order to do so).
And the comments acting like this rushed outcome is the greatest thing ever.
Honestly, I think if Asma winds up actually being bigoted, I might have to join the containment zone with you guys lol
If she winds up being actually bigoted, that’s a spit in the face of the whole point of adding more Asma as an apology for minimizing his Muslim characters
I don’t think that’s where this is going, but.
REALLY hope its not goin that way too. Especially since the whole protest arc itself is kind of vague enough as is about who is being killed.
When did we find out someone is being killed?
It seems pretty clear that someone tried to kill Amazigirl.
The whole protest was about the university and US government arming the government of Bulmeria, which implies they’re using those weapons against people. The protest was written into the story as a parallel to the campus protests a couple years ago, which were over colleges and the US government arming the Israeli government.
It’s the implication.
Hasn’t “genocide” been used explicitly in comic?
Dunno. Which character do you think used it?
Charlie. Jocelyne.
I thought there were signs with genocide in the protest scenes, but apparently not. There were signs about killing children though.
Charlie said it.
https://www.dumbingofage.com/supplier/
“Are you in favor of Ruttech being a military supplier during a genocide?”
Jocelyne implied it.
https://www.dumbingofage.com/carve/
“This weekend, me and a tent are going to carve our shape into Dunn Meadow until the university stops funding bombs that murder children.”
Jocelyne said it explicitly as well.
https://www.dumbingofage.com/divest/
“Who are fueling a genocide in Bulmeria.”
To be fair, we really shouldn’t be calling Asma’s words and phrasing bigotry to begin with.
We shouldn’t, but that doesn’t stop people from leaping to call her homophobic (yesterday being a prime example)
thing that concerns me is the whole issue Asma has with their PDA and being overly inquisitive about them escalating their relationship. I can get her bein mad about the picture, but I think she might be pushin it a bit. Kinda feels eerily close to another character being very bigoted of the queers on campus. We don’t need another one lol
Is she being overly inquisitive? They sought her out and Joyce brought it up out of the blue?
Dotothy said she wanted to apologize for the kiss thing, Joyce said she didn’t want to apologize for the kiss, Asma brushed that off and then started askin Joyce about the whole relationship and getting very focused on them doing something that they “shouldn’t” be doing. Its kind of the crux of the issue with this whole thing so far. Is Willis being vague with Asma just being really nosy and judgemental about the cheating aspect, or is she being potentially judgemental about their open queerness (or in the case of asking about their boinking, premarital stuff).
No, Dorothy said she wanted to apologize for her cop energy and then Joyce brought up the kiss unprompted.
My take is that Asma has a boring job and these two idiots are interrupting her reading and so she is doing a fine job of entertaining herself at their expense.
Go Asma.
It’s possible Asma’s just engaging Joyce in a line of Socratic questioning on the nature of temptation and impulse control, in response to Joyce’s rhetorical question yesterday?
🧐
*shruggie*
Asma is a closeted lesbian who – for some reason – thinks the right way to go about that is not acting on any impulses, inclinations or lower urges ever. Why she thinks whitebread girls would behave like proper muslim ladies is a complete mystery – but hey, they came to her with their problem to make it hers.
Also, if we have four muslim characters & the others are Raidah, Sayid & Nashita, it makes sense for Asma to be more religiously strict than the others, given what we know of their characters & behaviour. Alice/Asma will not happen any time soon, is what I’m saying.
It’s not at all clear Asma “thinks the right way to go about that is not acting on any impulses, inclinations or lower urges ever.” It’s a possible reading of what she’s saying and it’s the one Joyce seems to be taking, but you can also read her argument as just responding to Joyce’s “How could I ever possibly stop myself from kissing Dorothy regardless of the circumstances?”
Iii dont think she’s closeted, I think she’s just single
Likewise, I think it’s likely that the MAIN thing she disapproves of are “here are these two morons, making themselves the main characters in my life regardless of what I would prefer AGAIN.”
I’d be annoyed with them, too. They’re pestering her at work to assuage their feelings of guilt.
We should focus less on Asma’s alleged bigotry and more on how insanely fucking racist Joyce and Dorothy are for deciding they need to make any of this Asma’s problem when they don’t even know Asma and are just using her as a stand-in for Muslims generally. She doesn’t know you. She doesn’t like you. You barely know her name. Leave her alone.
Asma has agency and is exercising it. Notice that the conversation continues because Asma is asking questions. If Asma wanted to be left alone, a dismissive “Okay” or “Whatever” in the second panel of last strip would have been the end of it.
I would agree with that to a point, but frankly I’m all on board for “oh, it’s YOU IDIOTS? Saying idiot noises at me? I’m going to dissect you and make you uncomfortable until you either fuck off or an actual customer shows up.” as being the best possible decision Asma could be making.
also she’s kinda trapped at her job while these two talk at her, and while “whatever” or “okay” would be more professional and maaaaybe shut down the conversation faster, it would possibly enable them because “oh asma said everything’s cool, we’re forgiven” when it’s not true and also the last thing they need to have any wiggle room to believe. asma is not in a favourable position here.
the only other alternative that could have stopped this from them possibly taking it in a “i’m forgiven” way would be telling them “if you need to use our services, i’m here to help, otherwise please leave the desk so others can” and shutting down the whole conversation so they don’t have any more room to talk and don’t have any feedback. still, this isn’t fair to asma, who is trying to work and being engaged in a conversation at her workplace by possible patrons about something that she has little freedom to engage in honestly and without risk.
Asma DOESN’T have agency, because she literally can not leave; they did this at her workplace where she’s obligated to stay profession.
Asma is obligated to stay professional, she is not obligated to engage in personal conversation by asking probing questions, which is what she is doing, and it is what is driving the conversation. If she didn’t want to talk to Joyce and Dorothy she could have responded to them with a simple “okay” or the ever popular “is there anything else I can help you with?” Instead Asma decided to try doing a Socratic Dialogue, and that is her choice, her exercise of agency. Now if Asma had indicated she didn’t want to engage in personal conversation and the girls pressed her, then yeah that would be bad, but that’s not what happened.
Right!?
There is no reason to be apologizing to Asma! They barely know her!
And like, make it a single strip. Apologize if it was weird, and MOVE ON.
Not only do I agree that it’s unfair that everybody jumps directly to the idea that Willis’ borderline-token Muslim character would immediately be bigoted (Willis is imperfect, but they are not dunder-headedly tone deaf and dense?), it’s not even, like, the only explanation. Asma could just as easily be queer, but also still in the process of processing some or all of her internalized queerphobia, which would make her a flawed character, but it’s a far fucking cry from being a card-carrying homophobe.
Like, shit, she’s standing in front of two other women who are gracelessly in the process of unpacking their queerness, maybe Willis chose to deliberately write Asma as a different perspective on that same premise, because it would actually be a constructive and interesting way to write her?
Personally, I think Asma is appearing more as another critical voice of wisdom. We could do with more of them outside of Booster, Ruth and Sarah
I’m not entirely sure where Asma’s going with this, but I doubt she’s gonna turn out to be a bigot.
I’m pretty sure she’s gearing up for a “Your actions were more intentional than you are admitting; own up to them.” Kind of as a rebuttal to the common excuse of cheating being a “mistake” despite the fact it’s obviously a multi-step process.
Yeah I don’t think Willis would put himself up on the cross like that.
“Hey guys, here’s my apology character. Anyway, she embodies literally the most noxious and pervasively common stereotype possible about the people she’s written to represent.” Like, come on, can we give Willis the most basic benefit of the doubt? lmao
Bros made mistakes with this storyline but c’mon. That’s not just bad writing, that’s being actually stupid. He’s not stupid lol
yes, sorry, this was literally my point. i was just agreeing with you, in greater specificity, for the peanut gallery
Yes I was also agreeing with you in an amused way, the c’mon being directed at. Everyone who for whatever reason thought that’s the direction willis was going
I really need to start putting tone indicators on all my shit bc this has happened more than once
(Genuine observation)
haha sorry last night was an all nighter, it’s less you being vague, and more me being particularly thick this morning
As someone who has dealt with Muslim bigots, they’re very real and if you think Christian bigots are insane… oh boy. Oh. Fucking. Boy. Toedad would be pretty well respected.
Interestingly, American Muslims poll about equal with Protestant Christians when it comes to general approval/disapproval of subjects like gay marriage. However, recent immigrants, particularly those coming because they are fleeing war-torn regions (rather than desiring the more liberal attitudes found in Western nations) do tend to bring some pretty heavy baggage. Like most things involving people, it’s messy.
Willis desperately trying to call himself out like he’s Taylor Swift
Damn Joyce still isn’t getting it. Dorothy is arriving there, but Damn Joyce is still being an idiot. They need to be separated, not broken up but placed into two separate rooms and maybe then someone like Sarah or Asma will get through to Joyce. I think if Dorothy is alone she will be able to self reflect.
Get what through to Joyce?
pretty much any single thing in her entire life unrelated to mashing herself into Dorothy until they both combust, I guess
That she is being a doofus about making out at the protest.
Ugh slept awful, feel like vomiting and dealing with more TMI that is causing to me to be literally butthurt.
Probably that her getting with Dorothy was a string of active choices she made, not something she just fell into, and she needs to own up to that.
Joe. It’s gotta be Joe. Joyce is speedrunning her relationship with Dorothy so fast that I think she’ll be proposing to her by weeks end, and Jocelyn encouraging this has emboldened her so much that she’s running on pure romantic id. Joe showing up (hopefully with flowers) still wanting to be with her and reminding her that they never officially broke up might wipe the rosy veil from Dorothy’s eyes and realize that this relationship isn’t going to work if Joyce wants to marry her yet keep Joe as a side piece. And if Joyce dumps Joe as cruelly as she did with Walky, that could also show Dorothy that Joyce isn’t in her right mind right now and the two need to SLOW DOWN! At least go on a couple real dates first before pulling out that engagement ring…
I should be absolutely loving a storyline concerning two young, blonde women discovering each others bodies, it’s my favourite kind of porn
But this is just so meh, you can have one bland character and still make it interesting but you cant have two
this is a bit of a weird thing to say about two women in a comic that isn’t porn.
And yet, there’s canonical porn of them. I think Harry has a point here.
Yeah, the fact that there absolutely is porn of this makes the comment pretty un-weird tbh.
Still somehow a weird admission to me somehow. I cant ignore the context of HARRY BROWNHOLE’S admission, but something tells me he’s kindof a gooner.
FYI that team is:
a.) 4chan terminology favored by fascists
b.) fundamentally based in the idea that masturbation is “””degenerate””” (straight up Nazi terminology)
If you don’t like being associated with these belief systems, consider unlearning their dog whistles.
*term
Remember: Female masturbation is liberating and promotes good mental health, male masturbation is predatory and promotes sexual assault.
Where the hell did THAT come from.
And other things no one said.
Look….. gooner and gooning is just part of zoomer lexicon now. Waggle your finger at it all you want, it’s become part of every day conversation. If aave getting watered down to just slang that white people inevitably use incorrectly is just a fact of like then fuckin, same with goofy shit like gooner.
*fact of life
At this point I see goon and stuff as harmful. It’s strictly a term to mock the idea of being horny as if its weird or gross. And has become a catch all for any sexual arousal to anything to make the act of being turned on or into something wrird and gross. In a time where credit card companies are literally gouging nsfw creators and states and countries are passing sweeping laws governing what people are allowed to see or post I’m not exactly keen on society’s trend towards anti-sex rhetoric. Its not just silly fin time. It’s a sign of a sweeping trend towards conservitive views on sex.
1. Ten years ago it was “just part of youth language” to use gay as a synonym for bad. We managed to get kids to knock that shit off.
2. I’m not exactly resigned to letting people misuse and dilute AAVE either.
3. “Goofy” is a choice adjective when we are talking about literal Nazi dog whistles at a time when Nazi beliefs generally are surging in popularity.
4. Also even if none of the previous three points were true, gooner is bad at the most basic level.
Masturbation = degenerate = bad is BAD. Extremely dangerous for queer folks, not great for anyone else either!
Also everything Yotomoe said, 100%.
If you wanna pretend the 4chan fascist / Nazi dog whistle aspect of the term doesn’t matter, you should still contend with the fact that the meaning of the term is inherently shitty, and we do actually have not only the right but the responsibility to educate zoomers when “”””their”””” slang (as if the popularizing of this terminology isn’t being done on purpose, as if random twelve-year-olds just stumble upon age-old Nazi rhetoric, as if it’s not coming from alt-right griftulencers and then repeated by people who don’t know any better), is literally based on and reinforcing bigoted worldviews.
I’m not gonna get up in arms over fuckin. Gooner. Arguing for or against. I said what said, I said what I meant and I meant what I said. You can’t lecture me or pay me to actually care about the word goon. I’m all for educating people on dog whistles but like. I have my limits for how dumb of a concept I’m willing to argue about.
Also comparing a dumbass word for horny to just, the straight up normal word for a whole ass sexuality being used as an insult is. A Choice™.
You’re the one who said “it’s part of the kids’ lexicon now so it’s not worth trying to do anything about it” over a literal Nazi dog whistle that is, in fact, super relevant to queer people, on account of us being a very popuar target for ALL synonyms for “degenerate”.
You don’t have to care about it or try to educate people on what these crappy words mean, how they’re harmful, or where they come from, but like, if you don’t have the energy to do that, why do you have the energy to sabotage someone else’s efforts.
Is gooning even AAVE in origin? I know a lot of slang is, but I haven’t seen a connection there.
It is extremely not AAVE in origin.
I didn’t say it had aave origin? I was pointing out the constant watering down of language
Ah, oops. I misread.
Now, that’s an interesting piece of knowledge! I’m gonna say that the person who introduced me to the term was a trans woman who seemed to be under the impression that the “degenerate” label was specifically intended to MOCK the Nazi view of sexuality, and as such I’m kinda leaning towards zee’s view.
Anyone who likes the term can claim they’re just being ironic as much as they want, doesn’t change the fact that using the terminology is normalizing an literally dangerous worldview where masturbation = degenerate and degenerate = bad.
Footnote: I’m sure some people do authentically think they’re using it ironically. That is, unfortunately, how a lot of 4chan fascist slang gets spread around. The word sounds funny and is fun to say! We’re laughing AT them!
Oops, there’s been a huge alt-right revival and zoomers are listening to fuckin Andrew Tate, and meanwhile leftists are also accidentally legitimizing the terminology as “just something normal people say” with in-jokes amongst themselves, and now culture’s been changed forever.
Or: we take not just the origins of these words but also what they mean seriously, and we remind everyone that actually it’s really weird to make fun of someone by calling them a degenerate masturbator. Weird and, frankly, sexual harassment!
I mean, I’m personally more partial to “horny-on-main” as a less-fraught term with what appears to be the correct meaning.
Mmmmm, it’s less fraught for sure but I still think the idea underpinning it is that horniness is something to be ashamed of and keep hidden. And the connotation that one’s “main” social media account should be carefully curated for corporate consumption is…
…both very good advice in the modern era (and I simply don’t have social media with my real name attached), and a depressing testament to the power of capitalism.
Like at some point I think we crossed a certain horizon with the internet, where it went from “gosh it should not be so easy for kids to stumble onto adult content, we should have kid-safe spaces” to “actually EVERY site should be treated as being first and foremost for kids*, and frankly the fact that you even WANT an adults-focused space is kind of a red flag”.
* it’s not really for kids, it’s definitely for advertisers. Kids are a great market demographic when you have no ethical qualms about manipulative advertising aimed at a group of humans with underdeveloped impulse control. Make all spaces kid-focused so we can harvest the data of more kids (and also adults)!
Heh, to be fair I self-identify with that one. “Horny-on-main (approving)”.
It’s always a little different when it’s a term we identify with!
I might feel at least a little bit differently about this word if leftists were making an active effort to reclaim words like “degenerate” instead of just using them in almost the exact same way to mean “creepy losers society would be better off without”.
Like, the fascism is baked in there, you know?
Kinda like how everyone’s super into body positivity and yet I still see the “asshole” in left leaning comic strips being a fat and nonconventionally attractive person.
@Yotomoe: I was also thinking of that. I almost went on a long tangent about how this word is ALSO used as almost a synonym for “neckbeard” or “basement-dweller”, which are both popular leftist insults that we should also ditch because when you think about it for more than 1 second, that’s body-shaming and ableism/classism (among other issues with “basement-dweller”, like how it follows directly from the (especially white) American idolization of nuclear families).
Not to get all Frank Miller’s Batman back when it was actually good up in here, but these are the tools of our enemies. We can’t defeat toxic masculinity while ALSO literally using it to belittle men we don’t like. And we can’t defeat queerphobia while also buying into concepts that undergird it, like “sexual practices between consenting adults that are gross to me personally ARE dirty and shameful, actually”.
Leftist spaces have a real problem internalizing this. It’s too easy, and too tempting, to find socially acceptable ways to bully other people, and bodyshaming and kinkshaming are such rich veins to tap for cutting insults, as long as we target people who “deserve” it.
(Let me be clear: I’m not saying you have to be nice to Elon Musk. I’m saying that you should reconsider whether “used to be bald” is actually one of the things he has done that sucks.) (Never mind the fact that Musk is unlikely to see your specific Funny Facebook Post, but your perfectly sweet aging cousin with a bald spot he’s already ashamed of definitely will.)
@Li Yeah, I mean, I have a couple rants about how I think MORE people should be horny on main if they can do it without being creepy to people. At some point, making it clear that MOST people are out here thinking sexy thoughts about ALL DIFFERENT KINDS OF PEOPLE can’t help but loosen some things up.
Yeah I hate all the weird puritanical shit I gotta wade through now. What happened to us jeez. It’s ok to be horny sometimes y’all. Sex positivity includes stuff you might not agree with. (Within reason). Just don’t make it your whole personality I guess.
Exactly.
Admittedly this is me reading a bit into Joyce’s “I am allowed to kiss Dorothy whenever!” attitude but I’m starting to feel like she would be the kind to involve others in a kink publically even when they’re uncomfortable.
She wants to honk Dorothy’s chest in public? Well tough luck if you’re uncomfortable! She should be allowed to!
Idk about all that but it is really just a ridiculous, childish attitude, I cannot believe people are entertaining it. Yes, obviously, there are times when you shouldn’t make out with your girlfriend. Don’t do it at a funeral. Don’t do it while riot cops are throwing people to the ground and you have been told repeatedly to get the fuck out of the meadow. Joyce is fully entitled to always want to kiss Dorothy, lord knows I often feel that way when I’m dating someone, but what she seems to be chafing against here is the idea that she should have any sense of restraint or propriety whatsoever, and the fact that Dororthy isn’t reining her in at all isn’t helping.
Which also feels like a lesson that Jocelyne already told her about. Righteous anger, cool. Sometimes you need to be tactical about it?
Honestly, I’m glad the Joecye ship has crashed at this point. He deserves better.
Folks used to tell me that, at protests:
If I attend a protest that I am unable to attend safely, I am putting others at risk, because they will risk themselves to try to rescue and protect me. If the risk to me is unacceptable to myself OR to others who might be placed at risk by my endangerment, then I can serve the movement better from a supportive role, away from the front lines.
It was hard to hear, but it was heartfelt, and eventually I did understand it. It’s a question of strategy.
This sure is a scene that Willis chose to write about their characters, huh.
Who was it who first coined this as being a Watsonian response to a Doylist critique? Because BOY was that commenter on the money.
“Let me tell you about the law of holes: If you find yourself in a hole, stop digging.”
What does that mean?
In short, a doylist perspective emphasizes the intent of the author, while a Watsonian persepctive prioritizes the in-universe thought processes of the characters in a work.
So when people say this is a watsonian response to a doylist critique, they mean that Willis is using his characters to respond to criticisms made of them as an author regarding the protest and its appropriateness as a backdrop for Joyce and Dorothy getting together.
It also feels like a dozen strips or so of talking heads just trading morality views at each other. Which not only grinds pace to a halt, but also doesn’t actually move anything along? It would be one thing if the characters develop because of it. But Joyce is just ignoring or not caring about any of the criticisms characters are throwing her way. Daisy doesn’t care about Raidah’s criticisms.
So it’s just… characters (and I’d add, mostly minority characters) saying stuff and white people shrugging. Which if that was the intention of the writing, uhh, sure?
It’s just, consistently A for effort and F for execution on retrofitting the Muslim cast members and the critiques of this storyline bc like, those critiques cannot substantially alter the plot too much because so much is drawn out in advance, which means that you have the unintentionally really bad effect of the white characters basically just ignoring the criticisms leveled at them by women of color.
I think Dot is right on the money here, once again.
Thank you
I believe it means when Sir Arthur Conan Doyle was writing Sherlock Holmes stories, which were all written with Dr. Watson as the POV character to Holmes’ brilliance and publishing their exploits, if someone critiqued the stories, Doyle could have Watson address the critiques in future stories as Doyle’s mouthpiece.
But I maybe mistaken.
Makes sense
Well, moreso that if you asked Watson why he narrated something contradictory, he would have to explain it within the context of his own existence within the Sherlock Holmes universe, because he doesn’t understand he’s a character.
Why did Watson write that his leg was injured in the war, and then later complain about his shoulder flaring up and reminding him of the war?
Well, Watson might say, he has more than one war injury, of course. Or maybe he has a psychosomatic pain in his shoulder. It could even be that Watson was still deciding how much to reveal about himself and Holmes and fibbed the details when he first started writing.
But if you asked Doyle why Watson wrote that, he would say, “I forgot that I’d already said it was his leg.”
Doctor Watson is not only the viewpoint character, but indeed the first-person narrator. The very text that the reader encounters was actually written by Dr. ARthur C Doyles,. but is supposed to have been written by Dr. John (or James) H. Watson. So the Sherlock Holmes stories (with the exception of The Musgrave Ritual and maybe one or two others?) were written by two unemployed British doctors: the real Dr. A.C. Doyle and the fictional Dr. J.H. Watson. When you have anything in the text that seems to need any special explanation “Why did Dr. Watson write that?” and “Why did Dr. Doyle write that?” are different questions about the same text, sometimes calling for different answers.
Watson writing the stories was what I meant by “publishing their exploits”.
Oh hey that was me. Maybe. I certainly have idk if someone else did prior.
Related: The issue wasn’t the kiss per se. The issue was taking a real world issue, stripping it of context and then using it as a pretty backdrop for makeouts.
That we know so little about “Bulmeria”, that any actual conversation about the issue is totally skipped (ie lunch with Hank), and that none of the characters are shown to really have any opinion on the matter only highlight the crass nature of the thing.
By making Raidah and Asma proxy mouthpieces for reader criticism it only highlights the co-opting of pro Palestinian actions. By having the (white) targets of this in character criticism respond with jokes / double down it seems any attempt at addressing the issue is insincere.
Now Dorothy and Joyce have gone to a Muslim character they barely know, cornered her at her job, and the dialogue is twisting in circles about the kiss when that wasn’t the issue. Because the characters can’t say what the main issue is because it was the whole plot as presented:
The concept of the “Bulmerian” genocide existing solely in the story for this kiss to happen is grotesque.
And this in character response isn’t even addressing things like: I’ve never seen you at a protest wtf were you doing? Why the fuck did you show up, refuse to leave, and put everyone else in danger?
Instead it’s focussing on the kiss when that is just the most obvious symptom of thoughtlessly shoving in other people’s suffering for a moment of drama. Which is something the characters can never apologise for and, afaik, Willis has never actually apologised for.
Yes, they have vowed to include more Muslim characters, but that wasn’t the issue per se. Not ever piece of media needs to tackle every aspect of the human condition. And no single piece can represent every person on earth (save a united colours of beneton ad). But just shoving in “representation” doesn’t make it good, and it doesn’t show that the criticism has actually been heard.
+100
The issue isn’t that Dorothy and Joyce kissed, it’s that they kissed on camera, but it wasn’t Daisy’s camera that they’re talking about, it was the comic’s own. Except the characters can’t actually say that so the conversation doesn’t actually make a lot of sense in either direction. Asma’s arguments are confused and Joyce and Dorothy being here in the first place is honestly way more offensive than the kiss itself because they’re just traumadumping on the only Muslim person they’re vaguely aware of despite not actually knowing her.
They just walked up to a near perfect stranger to basically say “Sorry for being white but not for being gay.”
Also, Asma hasn’t made any arguments yet. She’s asking questions so far. Arguments can be inferred from the questions, but in fact have not been made.
Perhaps they will be and then we will know more.
Just Asking Questions can be an argument and I think Asma is making one here. It’s just that Joyce kind of broke it by jumping straight to sex.
In order: Why they showed up was to warn Jocelyne. Why they [or rather Dorothy specifically] refused to leave was she didn’t want to be someone with ‘cop energy’ anymore. Neither of those aspects, at least, had much to do with their as-yet-not-quite-existent romantic relationship, and frankly, reducing it to “did you walk into the meadow with your arms around each other” is almost insultingly reductive in light of the full context (though it’s certainly understandable if Asma didn’t, and still doesn’t, know they weren’t already together).
WHAT IS ASMA MAD ABOUT? WHAT IS THIS CHARACTER’S MOTIVATION? It’s enough that it’s starting to make me seriously question if she IS supposed to be being homophobic cuz why is THIS her line of questioning? WHAT THE FUCK IS SHE TALKING ABOUT?
I said so below but this is getting so off-topic that this reads more like its addressing the out-of-universe commentary surrounding the kiss than an in-universe reaction
It really does feel like that, doesn’t it?
I think it’s important to note they came and talked to her and chose to lead the conversation in this direction. I don’t think it’s homophobic to call out Joyce and Dorothy for having no awareness or responsibility in their moment to moment decision making that day. They were trying to mutually masterbate before going off to try and rescue Jocelyne. So saying those two made a bunch poor decisions enabling their kiss that caused them a lot of problems is a fair take to me. We do still hate them for cheating right? I really think that’s what Asma is getting at but for different reasons.
Yeah, it’s getting to a point where I’m genuinely starting to wonder where any of this is ever leading up to.
There’s just so many times this storyline where things are just happening and have no real payoff or reason for being. What is this doing for Asma, why are they even doing it still when the lampshade in one of the strips prior was that they’re doing it to feel less guilty.
Am I supposed to be reading her as unreasonably upset and taking a good point and bastardizing it for personal reasons. Are Jorothy just supposed to come across as clueless and aggravating? I know it’s a daily comic so some things are gonna be left to the imagination but Willis has been generally good about an obvious, immediate payout that lets us know what the vibes are. This storyline has just been all over the damn place, way too many scenes popped in after the fact imo.
Someone pointed out elsewhere in the comments that she overheard Alice and Raidah talking about Joyce and Dorothy cheating, that might be what Asma is referring to.
I’ll admit, I forgot about that until that comment.
Okay, I see three possible interpretations here. My own interpretation is that Asma is irritated an these two for annoying her and so she is giving them some well deserved grief. Operating in the dark, she just got them to admit that their behavior escalated into a “problem” which is a tactical error on their part, but to some degree they think that way, hence the whole “Let’s be criminal together” thing.
The second interpretation is that Asma suspects that it escalated into sexual behavior between two women and considers that to be a problem. In which case, yes, she is homophobic to some degree. But that’s not how I read the comic or Asma. And in fact, it doesn’t seem to be consistent with her own (implied) attraction to Alice.
The third interpretation, which I hadn’t previously considered, is that Asma considers the cheating to be the problem based on the conversation with Alice and Raidah. But see, this doesn’t hang together. It was the kissing that was the cheating and it wasn’t something that might have led to later on that created the problem. This interpretation makes no sense.
Subject to further information, Asma is enjoying herself and letting these two idiots hang themselves with their own answers.
What’s weird about this is that Joyce and Dorothy seem to be talking about the sexual behavior as a problem, but I don’t think Asma is. At least I can’t think of anything else that “Only 45 minutes. Twice” could be referring to.
But I read Asma as talking about the consequences – getting on the front page and potentially the cheating.
Yeah, I’m so very confused about the premise of this whole thing.
The most charitable interpretation I can come up with is Asma thinks two white girls set out from the start to use the protest basically as an exciting foreplay to their sexcapades and is trying to explain to them why that isn’t ok.
We know that isn’t (quite) how things went down, but Asma doesn’t. But if that’s what is going on here, this is a really confusing way to get that across to the reader.
Asma could have just said “Don’t come to a protest just because you think it will be exciting and make sex more fun.”
I suspect my interpretation above is actually wrong. But I can’t actually think of any other premise that makes sense.
Sounds right to me.
your interpretation sounds pretty much entirely correct to me…which is why I’m scared that you’re right, and that the real answer is far less comprehensible.
Given she has context that it ended up with both Joyce and Dot cheating ontop of yesterday’s page, I think she’s just saying both of them have very bad inpulse control
Given that Joyce brought up the kissing defiantly and unprompted and keeps saying “why should I control my impulses”, that seems pretty reasonable of her.
Can we focus on some other characters please
Hell I’ll even take a Mary story at this point I’m just tired of this
To be clear my issue is not with having Asma screen time, its that I’m tired of the extended focus on Joyce/Dorothy
Just wanted to clarify since my initial comment wasnt very clear
Naah you’re good, we get it
Also gonna say I honestly don’t want Asma in more of this comic, especially if she’s gonna be written like this.
Not every character needs focus and I already get the impression that the more Asma we get the less likeable she’ll become.
Yeah I don’t really like it when the dark horse character becomes a focus character. Like, they were cool because we only saw a brief snippet of them once in a blue moon. Making them a main character entirely defeats the point.
So Willis should keep all his Muslim characters in the background because that makes them cool???
Sure. Or he could make a new one with more main cast significance. Like booster. Asma isn’t just Muslim rep. She’s a character. And some characters are best used sparingly. I’ve seen so many fan favorite characters become duds from over use. (Fred Fredburger syndrome I’ll call it.) A cast of characters is like a chess board. Not every pawn gets to be a queen. But that doesn’t mean their positioning isn’t integral to the game winning board state. I only worry that overlaying asma will tuon what made her such an enjoyable character. And if the only reason for including more of her is just for representation I feel like that does a disservice to her role.
That said if she goes on to continue being a fun and engaging character I don’t mind her getting more focus. This is just…a rough start to her having a more prominent role.
“Let me know when the front desk girl has actual lines” is a criticism I’ve seen of DoA fairly frequently, actually. So some people definitely do want more of her, and I bet some of them want more of her even if it does in fact entail her becoming more unlikable, just like some people really want polyamory from the main cast even if it’s super messy and started with cheating.
Different people want different things from representation.
Some people want things that won’t be very good. I never claimed nobody wants this. I’m saying I don’t want it, cuz I think having more of her will just serve to degrade her character. But I super DOUBLE don’t want her to only start getting more focus to assuage the guilt of accidentally making a culturally insensitive storyline. They could’ve given Asma more screen time at any point in the last 15 years but now that they botched a genocide protest she’s getting more focus? Yeah, not a fan.
Yoto, I could be wrong, but I really think you are conflating two different things.
I could be wrong but I’m pretty sure Willis mentioned doing more with Raidah and Asma following discourse after the kiss strip. Even mentioning his realization that he isn’t really utilizing his Muslim cast members very well. You can correct me if I’m wrong.
I agree that it’s not going to assuage Willis’s guilt. If that’s why they’re doing it, it’s super misguided!
But I also disagree that “representation for representation’s sake is wrong”? I think “representation” is more than enough reason to want to diversify your cast. In some stories because it actively adds to the realism, but also realism isn’t the only important thing about a universe.
It’s not something that should be done carelessly, you need sensitivity readers as a bare minimum, and you need to make sure they feel listened to and encouraged to be bluntly honest with you.
But I’m also a different kind of marginalized than you. #ownvoices comes from a good place, but given that queerness is invisible, I’ve mostly experienced it from the side of “forcing creators to out themselves before they’re ready”.
And years after the author was forced to out herself as bisexual, people are STILL using Love, Simon as some sort of penultimate example of gay lit being appropriated and churned out by cringey straight people.
Meh, I rewrote that like six times and I’m still unhappy with it.
I did not mean to imply that the forced outing associated with some parts of #ownvoices made the whole movement BAD. It’s not! I just happen to be part of a marginalized group for whom it’s had some very specific splash damage and I wanted to acknowledge how that affects my perspective. We’re not the most important part of it or anything!
I just know it’s never far from my thoughts when I start thinking about “no one should tell a story that isn’t their own”? If that makes sense?
Which also is NOT what you were saying, my brain just hears “representation should be added for good reason, not just for its own sake” and starts connecting all kinds of dots.
Also, to get us back on track: I want to reiterate that if any part of Asma getting more screen time is supposed to assuage Willis’s white guilt or make up for the botched protest storyline, that’s a bad place to start from.
I want to hope it’s more like “wow this really makes it embarrassingly obvious that I haven’t done enough with Asma”, and I fully agree that it’s 15 years late on developing her and nothing will ever make that NOT embarrassing. For lots of readers, this will be not only “too little too late” but also “oof, too little AND way too much all at once” (due to the contextual contamination of her new prominence), and those are both…
I mean, they make complete sense to me. As a white person I would have no place whatsoever judging whether they’re valid or not, it’s SO far outside my lane, but completely understandable ways to feel and also ways to feel that I sure as heck hope Willis has made peace with.
To be honest, I don’t really agree that he hasn’t done enough with Asma. I mean, if he wants to do more, that’s cool, but a minor character being around for a long time without focus isn’t actually a flaw. It’s just what a minor character is. It’s already a big cast and there are lots of people who’ve gotten a tag and occasional speaking role, but no actual development. That’s inevitable.
@thejeff: sure, but if Agatha never gets more development, that’s still fundamentally different from Asma never getting more development. DoA’s cast has a TON of nice white blond girls, even if Agatha happens to be the only one who’s specifically Mormon.
Meanwhile, for Muslim characters, it’s Asma, Raidah, and Nash. Raidah is by far the most developed of the three, and as much as I desperately want to like her…
(I love her character design, I think she’s had a couple of good moments, I think she makes a pretty good villain, and I want her to have more depth)
…I think it’s pretty reasonable to call “Muslim characters who are actually characters” a weakness of the strip, and, especially because I do think Willis likes writing Asma, I think not doing more with her for 15 years than the occasional witty comeback in mostly bonus strips WAS a problem and did merit taking action to correct.
Like…I don’t think that’s a “flaw”. There’s no way every group is gonna be represented in the main cast. I don’t care that Sayid or Ken or any other character who’s an unexplored minority doesn’t get focus cuz the point of the comic isn’t “every minority needs a prominent role.” It’s to tell a story and not shy away from diversity. It’s FINE if you WANT to include more diversity but you will probably NEVER satisfy every single group. Nor should it be expected to? Would it be nice if there was a prominent indian student? Sure. Or a kid in a wheelchair or a deaf student. Or even someone who’s really really poor and not just lower middle class. But like…it’s also fine if it’s not? Diversity is good but you can’t hold yourself to such a high expectation of it.
I’m reminded of when Joyce went too far in her atheism.
Huh?
This is a great comparison. Kind of like the other Tim from “Fans!”, latching onto a new thing and immediately making it their entire identity. Remember when Joyce first started watching “Dexter & Monkey Master”?
Personally, I hate these video ads that randomly appear, can’t be closed, and occupy a good sixth of the screen. Like I get why advertising might be a necessary evil, but it doesn’t have to be so obnoxious and anti-user, it would be absolutely fine if there were a close button but instead I end up having to cover that part of the screen with my hand until it’s gone because the animation messes with my ADHD.
Maybe try an adblocker, if you have that access? I like UBlock Origin, but that’s just me.
Or read it on a PC instead of a phone. Assuming that’s an option.
Orion on iOS and Firefox on Android both block ads (you can install addons in the Android version).
I just dont understand anymore. I don’t know what’s going on, I don’t know why we’re soing this I don’t know why they’re doing this, I don’t onow why Willis is making Joyce the single most unenjoyable thing to read ever.
I open the page wvery day thinking “this is it, this is when I’m going to start enjoying DOA again, we’ve moved past the bad writing” and then boom this page and I’m just like.
Why am I even here
Willis wasn’t kidding when they commented about having ”blown up their webcomic”. Somehow I don’t think this is what they meant, however.
I feel bad for Maggie. She suggested one little story beat that was entirely reasonable for the comic, all things considered, and it’s managed to lead to a point where I’m slightly worried this storyline is going to actually affect their long-term livelihood.
I don’t think it will. Have Patreon numbers dropped at all?
But yes, this is deeply unlikeable for me as well.
A sincere suggestion, for the sake of your enjoyment, is to take a month off, come back after Thanksgiving. You’re clearly unhappy coming here every day, but evidently you also don’t want to let go of the comic just yet. The compromise position here is to take a break, come back later. As a bonus, you’ll have thirty-ish strips to read all at once, which is a lot more enjoyable than reading one per day.
I think I’ll do just that, I’ve already been comsidering it
Tbh I only keep up daily because I check the page on my walk home from work but a break is in order.
No one needs to come here and read my daily bongoing anyways.
I’ll see you all in December, hopefully….THIS is over by then
Your daily comments are fine!
You are definitely also a reader I think would benefit from a break for your own sake, but pls don’t stop reading “because no one should have to read my comments”.
No one DOES have to read your comments. As long as you’re not, like, seeking out Dorothy/Joyce fans to yell at, you’re not doing anything to anyone here by just being negative. It’s okay to be negative.
Yeah, I don’t get this. This feels way off for both characters and they just keep doubling down on it. Which would be good if they were doubling down in the wake of consequences, like “well everything else has gone to shit but I’m not letting go of this”, but they’re just ignoring everything.
Yup, I continue to be convinced the only rational explanation for this is “Asma is a relationship paladin, and all she really wants is these two dorks to go the fuck away and stop justifying their stupid kissy faces, she’s got work to do.”
Asma, stop being a boomer and address the white privilege real problem they did in protest.
Man this entire Asma section feels like trying to “address the controversy” while still not quite grasping what people are actually pissed about.
It really does.
Trying hard to make up for insensitivity (admirable) and coming close to stumbling ass-backwards into racism in the process (less so.)
I’ll give it another couple strips to see if this clears up some. God I hope so.
Look I agree with asma on principle but why the fuck is she being written like this? It feels like all her real dialogue up to this point has been written in the most confusing, vague, contrived way to basically invite misunderstanding and never actually get her point across. She’s being made a mouthpiece for criticism which I frankly don’t care about, but it’s being done in such a strangely constructed way
Ahhhhh make this end. Move on. The whole thing feels like Willis responding to complaints that people don’t actually have. To paraphrase a comment from elsewhere:
Willis thinks the haters complain about:
1. lesbians
2. women not being subservient to men
3. kissing
4. liberals
5. the lack of muslim representation
what people are actually upset with
1. multi-dimensional characters reduced to ‘lesbians’
2. the emotional distress of male characters being a punchline at most
3. joyce and dorothy’s kissing taking priority over plot development and pacing
4. poor representation of politics
5. bringing a background character into the main cast so willis can get another square for ‘representation bingo’
6. And it taking. So. Long.
You are not welcome in the hater containment thread
Oh no, the math is mathing
I completely agree with Joyce in panel four
So glad this is happening because irs not like there’s any other more, a lot more, interesting story lines that could be getting covered instead
Hard agree. Sorry, but I’m just not that interested in discussing the morals of making out at a protest. Joyce and Dorothy are idiots, but that’s pretty universal among horny 19 year olds. The reaction this is receiving feels appropriate for if they had done something to deliberately disrupt the protest, like the Free Palestine movement does to every march that happens these days.
I just want to see what Joe, Walky, Dina and Becky are doing and how they’re handling it
I want to go back to Asher and whatever is going to happen to him with the mob plot. Or watch Jennifer continue to blow up all her new friendships while Lucy lives her best life. Or check in on Sal and Danny briefly discussing how the relationship they both expected to messily come apart did so for the opposite reason they expected.
I want a three-week noir story focused entirely on Galasso. At this point, people just need a palate cleanser, and Galasso shooting a bunch of mobsters in black and white is just what we all need right now.
Hmm…maybe the mobsters could open up a rival restaurant (as a front for gambling or money laundering) and Galasso could go over to checkout the competition and they think he overheard something while he definitely didn’t.
So they try to kill him to silence him while he thinks they’re just enthusiastic restauranteurs who also want to conquer the world and are trying to kill a rival for the throne.
And we can get all his inner dialogue in a noir hard boiled detective narration style in black and white while the color strips will be the mobsters shooting at him from alleyways while being perpetually confused over all his take over the world talk.
Whoopsie-piddles, as a certain space scientist would say.
I have no idea what you’re referencing. So I did what any competent individual would do and asked Google “what space scientist says Whoopsie-piddles” and it had no idea what I was on about.
Did they fuck in the stairwell?
perfect icon for that question (y/y)?
I appreciate that my avatar now matches my energy as a commentor.
Perfect icon for questioning that perfect icon!
I’m not questioning it, I’m applauding it. ^_^
I bet “only” some heavy petting.
Which leads to Rocky Horror references.
As Joyce were so repressed, I’ll let her go wild
By some definitions!
What about when you’re kissing Joe? Or, when Dorothy is kissing Joe? Or, when you’re both kissing his… well, you get the picture.
if this isn’t proof comments need disabled for a little while idk what is.
What’s wrong with jeffepp’s comment?
While Joyce’s desire for a continued relationship with Joe is up in the air, including Dorothy in that, especially in that context, is a bit fetishistic imo
Oh no, not the cartoons. If we fetishize those, what’s even sacred anymore? Won’t someone please think of the poor victimized cartoons?
Sexuality in cartoons is fine! I’m a big fan of it! The fetishising I was talking about was fetishising gay relationships as something for the enjoyment of men. “These two girls just started dating, I want to see them in a sexually submissive position to a man” is fetishistic in a bad way imo
So, is sucking cock inherently submissive now?
Everyone I know who’s sucked cock has stated they actually feel like they’re in a position of power. Understandable. That guy’s most sensitive part is in an orifice filled with jagged bones.
I dunno I guess it all depends on how you view sex. A lotta times people presume any sex with a man is male dominated. I’m much more sub-minded I guess so I tend to assume the opposite.
(Like I pictured Joyce and Dorothy toying with him while he was a flustered mess with that little squiggly smile he does)
So it could just be vibes based. Cuz those two contexts would feel very different seeing them back to back despite describing the same event.
Some people watch too much porn, I guess. Gives ’em unrealistic ideas about what sex is meant to look like.
It can be, yes. But also, like, I don’t feel like that’s what was implied in the original post in this thread.
I feel like we might honestly be best served by having the whole damn comic finally take a monthlong hiatus for editing and then disable the comments section for another two because this shit is spilling over outside the fandom.
We don’t know that Asma isn’t a fan.
i would wholeheartedly endorse this if it wasn’t Willis’s career. They deserve a break from drama, and if they could financially survive without their kids suffering, it’d probably be a good idea to take a break for even a week to send a message to people.
Y’know, I wouldn’t mind a short hiatus. It would give everyone involved a period to chill the fuck out without thinking “It’s midnight EST, I guess I’ll reflexively check the comic for the latest update”.
As a joke, I’ll say it’s actually ableist against people with poor impulse control to have daily updates without any pauses and then write something so polarizing and contentious in it.
Really? The islamophobia is fine but we need to shut down the comments over a threesome joke?
Girl that is a whole other sentence. I said one thing and you got mad about a different thing.
I’ve complained about the fandom’s obvious anti-muslim bias in the past, i just don’t harp on it as much because I’m not muslim and feel like someone else can articulate it better. People’s treatment of Raidah in particular, though, is obvious and clear evidence that this fandom sucks shit at respecting brown people even an iota.
I *AM* a bisexual woman and can call out biphobia just fine, though, actually.
Yeah okay but the fact that you draw your line at a threesome joke is wild tho
Also a bisexual woman, hi
i’ve drawn lines all over the place that this community has ran past like they’re competing in a dodecathalon, but yeah, sure, telling dorothy to go put a cock in her mouth isn’t weird at all, you win.
Yeah I don’t give a fuck if some dude wants to see them have a threesome? Or see dotty suck a cock? Tf? Hell you can see dotty put a cock in her mouth very easily on slipshine or the other Patreon.
Imma join the chorus telling you go log tf off bc this is getting. Visibly unhealthy for you. Calling taffy an incel is fucking wild. You’re just kinda being an asshole to everyone and hiding behind words like bigotry and sexual harassment as an excuse. Hell im probably gonna disappear from the main site comments for a bit after today too.
Yeah, calling me an incel is just complete nonsense. There are so many better insults to throw at me, all based on my actual behavior and thoughts, that pulling out “incel” is a sign someone is just blindly firing in any direction. At least personalize the worthless hatred, fer cryin’ out loud?
The fact that multiple commenters (Taffy, Big Z, and Dot just to name a few) keep getting insults thrown at them for expressing polite disagreement is really uncalled for and I sincerely hope that it doesn’t ruin any of y’all’s day whenever this kind of thing happens. Hopefully it stops.
My day is unruinable, personally. Hayride, corn maze, d20 holiday one-shot, bit o’ the ol’ reeferino. One unshowered Presbyterian isn’t gonna do much to bring me down.
At some point, I just can’t be bothered by vitriol from people whose positions clearly aren’t based on anything any of us have actually said.
The threeing may still occur. The throupling is not dead.
This conversation seems like Asma is more concerned with Joyce and Dorothy’s romantic/sexual behavior than the protest.
I was gonna ask what’s up with that, and then I remembered I wouldn’t check back to see if anyone actually responded. I understand her being upset about them drawing attention to themselves at the protest, but why does she care about the other stuff? Is it because they’re cheating? I didn’t realized she paid any attention to who was with who.
Ah, someone pointed out like 3 comments down that Alice and Raidah were talking about them cheating right in front of her.
which I think is. . . kind not her business I guess? Like; valid if she doesn’t like them for cheating, but like seems she wanted to move the conversation away from the protest, the thing we were hopin this was about. Oh well, tomorrow will be that ripped off bandaid lol
I think she’s talking at least mostly about the protest, but also responding to Joyce refusing to accept the premise by pointing at consequences.
She’s saying “You need some self control so you’re not tempted to escalate into something that causes problems” and they’re hearing “kissing escalated into sex.”
I mean, Joyce could stop interrupting Dorothy’s half-assed bad-idea apology by whining about how she’s allowed to kiss Dorothy at any time.
Asma’s not getting in their business — they came here to drop their business in front of Asma, and Asma is within her rights to chew on ’em for any of it.
Refresher: https://www.dumbingofage.com/2025/comic/book-16/01-not-so-smooth-criminals/whatshername/
Can’t have done much for her impression of Joyce
I’m still trying to piece together what the reviews joke meant lol
Some people live vicariously through fanfiction and romance novels.
It means: “I haven’t Frenched anyone, but I hear it’s nice so I’m not opposed to the idea of Frenching anyone.”
That it’s directed at Alice, who she seems to have a crush on, is probably meant with an undercurrent of: “You. You French me right now. Please.”
I endorse this interpretation and encourage Willis toward its implementation.
Oh I assumed she meant “I haven’t frenched anyone recently enough to be relevant here but I’ve been told I’m pretty good”. Yours is probably closer to the truth
Asma has heard good reviews.
Asma is swiftly racing her way to the top of my favorite characters list. Right now she’s hovering above Sal and below Amber, so if she keeps it up she’ll land firmly in my top 5. She’s already taken the vacancy Joyce left in the top 10.
We have only had 31 strips with her in it (not counting patreon) and often as a background character so I’m glad we are getting more of her.
Asma should charge them money after this interaction.
Flip a tablet over and point to the 20% tip option.
Right? Lotta people here so invested in “DoJo” did nothing wrong who are ignoring the fact that “randomly harassing the front-desk clerk, who can’t get away from this trainwreck of a conversation, with stupid apologies/non-apologies” is in and of itself doing something wrong.
Tbh I kinda would’ve liked today to just be Asma telling them to buzz off. I like her a lot more than I like seeing Joyce rn, but this is also pretty firmly now into territory of “not her business.” Like, Joyce started it but I can’t help but feel she didn’t open the door *that* wide for this.
Agreed, getting onto them about what they did at the protest is one thing. Even Dorothy acknowledges that they kinda hijacked it, but what they did after really isn’t any of Asma’s business now and her bringing it up is weird.
Is the notion of winding up someone who is annoying you that weird?
Now mind you, it’s not risk free.
I mean, no, but I feel like there’s a lot of stops between “Tell someone that they need impulse control in response to them talking at you about kissing” and “grill strangers on their sex life,” and at least one of those stops is going “right well, clearly you Just Don’t Get It and I have work to do so could you just… not come back ever? Unless you need a package and hopefully someone else is on shift then?” Like I really feel like that’s a stop that gets hit way before asking strangers about their sexual misdeeds. If she actually knew Dorothy and Joyce, it’d be different.
I don’t think Asma’s actually grilling them about their sex life. She’s talking about the kissing when they shouldn’t be escalating into front page photos and maybe about cheating. Joyce is talking about sex.
She didn’t know there were “sexual misdeeds” resulting from the kissing. She was fishing with the term “problem.” They bit.
I don’t get Asma’s anger/argument here. Kissing in the middle of the protest? Yeah, sure. I can see how *it* becoming the lead element of the newspaper story an issue for her, but holding hands in the beginning? Getting “busy” afterwards? Her disdain seems misplaced to me, especially since she was just thirsting for Alice.
Am I misreading her anger here?
She knows that Dorothy and Joyce’s first rendezvous was of the cheat-y variety due to Raidah and Alice talking about it next to her desk in this comic.
My initial guess is that if there’s any judgment about “temptation” on Asma’s side, it’s coming from that. Could be wrong, though.
Ah, everything becomes clear. Thanks.
Oh right, Asma was made aware of Joyce/Dorothy’s new intimate relationship being born out of infidelity. That tracks
I believe in that, too, and we all have to wait tomorrow
She knows what Alice said (a weird take) and what Raidah said (a jealous take), anyway.
I think that’s what started it, but now she’s trying to convey to Joyce that her lack of restraint does cause problems
Why shouldn’t she have disdain for them? They came to her while she was working to offer a weird apology and apparently brag about their relationship, while carrying their literal dirty laundry and without showering after apparently screwing 2-3 (?!?) times.
It wasn’t Asma who brought up the kissing, she just responded with her opinion after Joyce decided she couldn’t stay silent. And her opinion is seemingly that being at the protest should have been the main thing they were focused on while at the protest, not how much they wanted to kiss.
Yeah but it’s weird, like hijacking the protest is one thing but it’s not like she’s Jiminy Cricket. She’s not their conscience, at this point tell them to be on their way, she really has no busy chiding them for anything they did after they left.
Even weirder is accosting Asma at her job to apologise about a non-issue and immediately derail with what was at best a non-sequiter and what was at worst a refusal No, she’s not Jiminy Cricket. They sought her out, and Joyce brought up the kiss. Why shouldn’t she be annoyed at being dragged into this again, or give her unfiltered opinion to the annoying girl who has only once called her by name and is apparently incapable of controlling herself?
Is she even allowed to tell a resident to leave without hearing why they approached her in the first place?
Nah she’s allowed opinions. No one is keeping them there to be chided, they haven’t even asked her to butt-out. They came over, they started this conversation, they can sit in it until one of them draws a boundary. It’s silly to blame this on Asma.
This right here! This entire conversation could have easily never happened. (If, ironically, they’d have listened to the smartest thing Joyce has said in a while in the stairwell).
Asma would have been well within her rights to tell ’em to buzz off, but she’s equally well within her rights to engage with the stuff they are saying to her.
I think maybe she was referring to the kissing escalating into knocking the [real issues of] the protest off the front page, and they misunderstood what she meant because they’re, well, everything she thinks they are. Otherwise, yeah, I don’t really follow this one.
Seems like a rationally thought out possibility. You came out hugging, which led to kissing in a very public event, which led to your kiss being on the front page of the paper.
But, of course, there are other possible interpretations. Interesting to see what does happen!
Don’t trust yourselves when around your mousey best friend you shouldn’t kiss for multiple reasons.
Great trust comment!
Honestly, I don’t think this latest set of strips are doing anything.
We know they were inserted later, but aside from Asma screentime (which is admittedly good), it’s mostly just a: oh yeah Joyce is kinda an asshole. Which we really didn’t need more help for.
Asma screentime, good! But would be nice for her screentime to not be tied to the protest storyline which most people have agreed just wasn’t done well. She got some actual content earlier with the seeds of the Alice/Asma ship (which… might not pan out til a year from now? I dunno).
Same with the Raidah/Daisy strips from earlier, like good to have Raidah call Daisy out on it but since it didn’t actually lead to anything constructive, it was just:
Remember Daisy is a walking horny joke? Let’s do that again.
Awkward bit when Raidah leaves mid argument to go pray. Like just as a reminder that yes, she’s Muslim.
I dunno, the inserted strips are okay for screentime but narratively I’m not sure they’ve actually been that good at all. They’re just spending more time on a Doyce storyline that is already moving at a glacial pace while people are waiting for others to develop.
You could be right, but I also think the nature of this comic is that things setup in strips maybe don’t pay off for awhile like assuming Walky didn’t care or react to the breakup only to find out much later he did react to it and is upset. Maybe this strip doesn’t work and is just one off Asma time or maybe this conversation will come into play later like hopefully making Doyce more self aware as a couple.
Okay this one has lost me again. I follow up to the last two panels, and then I have no idea where Asma’s meant to be going with that.
Unless SHE meant the kiss escalating to being on the front page of the paper and THEY mistook her as meaning “Did y’all then go home and fuck?”???
Someone help, this is two strips in a row where I just feel kinda lost.
I’m just as lost as you, honestly.
This reads more like its addressing the out-of-universe commentary surrounding the kiss than an in-universe reaction
You could say she’s trying to address them talking to her about this while smelling of sex and carrying their dirty laundry, but that would really deserve a more direct response.
When Dorothy said they should talk to Asma, I didn’t think that meant they’d forget about what they were in the middle of doing and go right that second.
That just means you haven’t paying attention. Don’t you know this is gonna be on the test?! XD
I think Asma’s point is that their behavior while aware of their feelings escalated things to a point it created multiple problems for them. Dorothy especially was very aware of her crush on Joyce and even felt guilty about it, while still dating Walky. She still went to the protest with Joyce, which lead to the kiss, the picture, the break ups, ect. They could’ve just kept distance from each other and literally everything that’s happened in the last two days for them could’ve been avoided and they’d even likely still be in the same place they are now. It’s not an admonishment of what they did as much as their completely lack of responsibility in the choices made.
I think this is a read I fuck with. Basically calling them out for not really stopping and thinking at any point.
How would Asma be aware of any of that?
She was at the protest and on screen like 20 seconds after they kissed, plus she heard Alice and Raidah talking about Joyce and Dorothy after the newspaper article.
🐟
Okay not as bad as I thought, but I really don’t know if this complaint still being focused on [kissing at a protest] is like the main problem? I thought it more like the protest was sidelined for focus on romance?
Oh well.
HAPPY HALLOWEEN!!!!
🎃😈🕷🕸👻🍫👽🌙🌌
I know what I’m doin,
gettin discount candy, weed, chinese food, and chillin the fuck out after the comments yesterday
how bout all yaz?
Got a Halloween party tomorrow night so I’m dressing up for the first time in years. Going as Butch lesbian Clark Kent.
Must resist urge to make dumb joke. Must resist urge to make dumb joke.
Have a fun time at the party.
Oooo that’s SUCH a good costume idea!! 💕
If anyone’s interested:
https://imgur.com/a/NLEjQ2t
It’s not Halloween yet for me, still got almost 40 minutes until it’s time.
But I plan to watch horror movies, sleep, eat candy, and sleep.
I definitely misread that as all three things being discounted and I got unreasonably excited at the idea of Chinese food being discounted on Halloween (for literally no reason) even though I’m throwing a Halloween party later for my family.
Watching 3 scary movies Halloween, Carnival of Souls and The Excorsist. I will also be Handing out Candy, snickers twixs and skittles. But before that I have a 5 hour drive back home.
We’re taking our kid trick-or-treating for the first time. Very excited and very unsure what kiddo’s gonna think of it hahaha.
Have a great time together!
I didn’t figured out what I can do.
(Yes, I did some … “witchcraft” this night and totally forgot it was Halloween Eve.
Coincidences…
Anyway, I need to find my bear mask. And, so, prepare to travel, because November 2nd is also Day of Dead
yeeeeeees! >:3
Happy Dios De Los Muertos as well!!! 🕯️
Wait… did you unintentionally summon Halloween?
Who knows 😈
I’m gonna go on a hay ride with my girlfriend, then go hang out with the gays to play our annual Halloween one-shot. We’re doing a Fallout-free Fallout D20 game, this year. I would love to dress up in my Ascian costume, but I’d like it to not have infinite dog hair on my nice black robe, so it’s probably just gonna be a normal outfit sorta night.
Friends are coming over for a horror-themed space RPG and then a board game about ghosts and skeletons and other cute monsters. I’m making dumpling rice.
Uhhhh buying candy at work and wearing Unicorn no. 1 from Holo taco on my nails. It’s not a Halloween shade but I felt it fits the season. Trying to think of something to watch with my boyfriend when I get home after the new episode of May I Ask For One Final Thing. Maybe a Satoshi Kon…
Millennium Actress…
Oh I have been meaning to watch that one
Going to fucking work cuz I couldn’t get it off
but then I’m carving pumpkins when I get home.
Now that I’m rested and stomach settled. I’m going to put on my Beetlejuice sweatpants and hand out candy while my husband takes the girls out trick or treating.
I’m so torn between knowing that Dorothy, and Joyce are disasters right now, and deserve at least a significant portion of the hate they’re getting, and the knowledge that I enjoy their relationship, and once they get past this phase they will probably make for couple that lasts through the rest of the comic.
I realize that’s a run-on sentence, but I don’t know how to break it up.
Getting half of it to kiss Dorothy would probably work, though I guess that remains to be seen.
Bold move to make your main character completely insufferable and obnoxious, Willis.
I don’t think Mary’s the main character here.
That’s a funny way to spell Joyce there boss…
More than one character can be completely insufferable and obnoxious.
At this point, Joyce is just being the Anti-Mary. Like, I mean that in the most literal way possible. If Mary is obsessively fundamentalist as her only personality trait, Joyce has morphed into the opposite pole on that spectrum. She’s just as intense, and just as willing to interject her current hyper-fixation into every unwanted situation, but she’s proselytizing Secular Hedonism as opposed to Conservative Christianity.
I don’t like or believe in the term “horseshoe theory,” but it seems like Joyce has managed to fully 180 her belief system, while simultaneously regressing her behavior right back to where it was on move-in day.
It’s temporary, I hope. Like every other time Joyce has been insufferable and obnoxious for a bit
Yeah not sure where Asma is going with this, we seem to be getting off the subject at issue.
this is so weirdddd
I think I get it but I also think Asma’s point is hard to fully articulate in a conversation in a way that feels natural.
Agreed. I’m so lost. Why is Asma litigating their PDA? I get calling people out for being obnoxious but she already did that — now it’s like she’s lecturing them on How Not To Fuck Your Girlfriend 101, which is just really confusing as both a joke and a plot line.
Hopefully tomorrow sheds some light on her reasons for this whole conversation but I’m rapidly losing the thread for this scene.
Can somebody *please* tell me what PDA stands for, cos Google is not my friend?
Public Displays of Affection
Public Display of Affection
Kissing, cuddling etc in public, basically. In some conservative jurisdictions this can be a crime, in others, merely frowned upon.
Personal
Digital
Assistant
It’s like a little computer doohickey with a screen and a stylus. You’d use it to jot down notes and stuff, in the faraway years before everyone had smartphones. There used to be a sort of corporate douchebag vibe to owning one, I think.
But I’m still allowed to kiss and cuddle it, right?
Legally, I think you have to.
I think she’s just trying to get Joyce to acknowledge the idea of consequences and that maybe there are times and places for a little bit of self-restraint.
It’s Joyce and Dorothy who somehow ran with that into “And then we had sex. Twice. And a bit in the stairwell.”
I’m assuming she might be leading back to them kissing at the protest, but I’m not 100% sure on that.
Asma has seen enough inappropriate PDA as the front desk girl to last her a lifetime.
https://www.dumbingofage.com/2019/comic/book-9-comic/02-but-the-sun-still-shines/chase/
kay. im not reading any of that.
muslim readers who may or may not be reading this: what do you think because your the only people here whose opinion actually matters rn?
This is so fucking bad.
PLEASE stop entertaining this Asma please tell them to go away 😭😭😭 these last two strips have been tough
i doubt she will for much longer
1. she has a job and is on break
2. she’s nobody’s mother
GET THE BROOM, GIRL
The hose.
The pressure washer.
Since other people here have an infinitely better understanding of the actually-relevant issues at play here than I do, I will instead come from another angle entirely and say that I really like the facial expressions here.
Personally I just love Dorothy’s little flush at the end thinking of the stairwell.
I’m just going summarize a page from Huda Fahmy’s graphic novel “Huda F am I” to illustrate what I think Asma’s thought process is in this and yesterdays strip. In this page the speaker is a religious teacher addressing a roomful of muslim schoolgirls in Dearborn:
1) When it comes to interacting with the opposite gender, all parties must keep it professional and academic. No mingling
2) It’s perfectly normal to be attracted to someone, and even want to pursue that attraction. *There is no sin in the actual feeling!* [Emphasis mine]
3) *But actions are something else. You’ll be held accountable for those. Just be careful.* [emphasis mine]
I hope this is instructive in why I, personally, felt this strip is in some way relating to Asma as a person and how she sees the world. It does NOT mean she is a bigot, nor homophobic, and I admit its possible she does not consider this at all in her worldview. But I felt it is worth sharing.
This is pretty enlightening even if it possibly wouldn’t apply to Asma. I’d totally understand viewing and judging Joyce and Dorothy’s actions through this perspective from anyone.
For my part, when Asma had lesbian sounding thoughts about Alice, I went looking through reddit on islam asking about how gay and lesbian affection was viewed by different Muslim communities. Every single response included something like “if you’re a Muslim, you can have the thoughts but you can’t act on them.” Some indicated that they wouldn’t judge non-muslims for this. The point is, my searching aligned very much with what KM is quoting above.
My personal experience with hijabi Muslim women from a variety of different countries is that the religion is generally more Orthodox and strict on how women present themselves and what they’re allowed to engage in. I have mainly met mothers, and I list that as the main trait as in conversations with them about their lives and religious observance, their children are the main point of their lives, their husbands and husband’s parents the next priorities after children. I have no idea what an American hijabi just into or out of college would be like, I’ve met second generation hijabi teen girls but in the position of a mother of their friend, or a friend of their mother, so not quite a place where I’d be able to have similar conversations with them or interact with them the same way as I might with their mothers. I can glean some from a mother friend who had grown up in the US, but of course I met her after she’d already become a mother, what I know is that outside of the expat Muslim communities, the Muslim women I’ve known were friendly but did not engage much with the wider non-muslim community they were based in.
All this to say, Asma’s behaviour and discussion here and behaviour in previous strips doesn’t really look like anything I’ve experienced from hijabi women to date, but of course people are man and varied. She seems cynical and mildly irritated, while most Muslim women I’ve met even when exhausted are warm and tolerant, even when dumb faux pas have been made through tone deaf assumptions about their beliefs. My hijabi friends would never have told me how to conduct myself or live, and were delighted to talk about their lives and upbringing, and how they raised their own kids. Indeed, Muslim men I’ve worked with have also been courteous and happy to chat about what it is like to be a Muslim.
It isn’t impossible that Asma would be less courteous and judgemental, but in the context it feels like a hamfisted attempt to get more Muslim representation into the comic without enough time and research to make sure it feels natural and nuanced.
I believe nobody is addressing the real point: damn, 45 minutes? That’s a hell of stamina, Joyce
45 minutes isn’t really all that impressive.
Ok there marathon runner, settle down.
No penis no problem tbh, them shits have a timer on them
That was 45 minutes twice though. So an hour and a half all told.
That’s still decidedly average for sapphic sex lol. I often go for two hours or until my hand and jaw both can’t keep going, whichever comes first.
For a virgin it is.
Depends if the virgin is on tricyclic antidepressants.
Nah Dot is right. Sapphic sex can take a loooot longer if you’re having a great time. Needing to take snack and/or water breaks in the middle is not unheard of. It also depends what you consider “one fuck” like if you break up all the sex by the short period of time you’re panting and giggling into separate sections or consider it all one long rollercoaster.
Not that I’ve never had quickies or 45min bangs, just that it IS unimpressive in this specific context. Especially for a first time together, imo.
Twice! 😛
45 minutes MORE 45 minutes?????
Joyce is a machine!
I’m with Joyce in panel 4; I reject the premise. Also, is Joyce saying that them having sex is a problem in the last panel? That seems wildly out of character given how strongly she’s been defending kissing.
Heck yeah Panel 4 Joyce!
Joyce may still have fundie programming in her brain when it comes to thinking of sexual desires as a problem.
I don’t think Joyce is saying it’s a problem, she just has sex on the brain and thought about kissing escalating and went straight to it escalating into sex.
Without noticing that Asma got her to frame it as a problem.
Maybe, but I don’t think that was her intent.
“The meadow” is shebtalking about the protest? Because they didn’t walk in together. Dorothy entered first, then Joyce rejoignez her and the escalation of violence wasn’t caused by them.
The protests took place in Dunn meadow, and in this strip https://www.dumbingofage.com/2025/comic/book-15/04-the-only-exception/brightpink/ (and the next one which is where they talk to Asma) they walk in, holding hands, then move to wrapping an arm around each other as they walk.
Rejoined. RE joined. The fact that they walked in together initially before getting separated for a minute is literally baked into your wording
Another Halloween. Another messy breakup.
“there’s always more halloweens”
How about you shouldn’t kiss Dorothy, or anyone else for that matter, when you’re in a romantic relationship with someone else?
But Joyce doesn’t care about infidelity when she’s the one doing it, because true love or something.
No no it’s ok because Walky is used to being hurt (and Dorothy dngaf about Walky), Joe and Joyce were only together 2 weeks and it’s true love so it’s all ok
There have definitely been times when Joyce cared about infidelity, when someone else COULD be doing it, because she wanted more of it. And yes, it was “true love” those times too.
See, e.g.:
https://www.dumbingofage.com/2018/comic/book-8/04-of-mike-and-men/twentyoneandflee/
“The ‘it was meant to be’ exception.”
-Heather Davis, “Crazy Ex-Girlfriend”
“But MY x is different” is a very common theme among religious fundamentalists, for various values of x: abortion, infidelity, homosexuality, etc. (and yeah, Joyce is still one, she just changed allegiances)
I get what Asma’s doing, but if these were people I don’t have a particular friendship with, I just wouldn’t get involved. Only gonna give yourself a headache.
Asma you shouldn’t have to be dealing with this I’m so sorry
They didn’t do anything wrong to Asma. They kissed and someone blew it up into a thing, but Asma hasn’t cared about who they are sleeping with before and only cares about it not because someone who is not in this room used their kiss to increase newspaper engagement. Asma has no claim to either of them and should mind her business. Joe and Walky have a right to be upset, Asma has none.
They initiated the conversation and Joyce brought up the kiss unprompted, why shouldn’t Asma say what she thinks of it? She’s the one who can’t leave.
They are CURRENTLY doing something wrong to Asma, assuming you consider it wrong (as I do) to “walk up to a customer service employee, who cannot leave and can’t really tell you to fuck all the way off into the sun either, and keep talking to them about your stupid pet issues when they just want to finish sorting the mail and maybe read another chapter of their homework.”
They’re holding asma hostage at her desk at her job in this war crime of a conversation, that deserves prison time at least
Also they came to her to absolve themselves of their white guilt and Joyce sprung this whole kiss conversation on her out of nowhere with mad “debate me bro” energy, this is entirely their fault. They’re lucky asma isn’t chasing their asses off with the broom
Asma is not a hostage here, she is the driving the conversation by doing a Socratic Dialogue on Joyce and Dorothy. If Asma didn’t want to talk to them, she could have easily ended it the second panel of the last comic.
Exactly. Her motivation is to take them into increasingly uncomfortable territory until they go away. In the meantime she gets to enjoy their increasing discomfort.
“And if you zoom in on her eyes, you can see her faith in humanity decreasing by the second!”
Nah, we still don’t know what is happening. We are still waiting for this to play out.
So, again, lets look at those matched pairs of ‘talking heads’ panels for the facial expressions. This is surely a building joke.
Wait, forty five minutes? Which forty five minutes were “a problem?” This is taking a turn from “don’t take over a protest” towards a slut shamy angle I *really* don’t like.
Given Asma has been forced to hear about these two and their relationship status before the tear gas wedding, she’s somewhat aware that they had boyfriends as recently as that morning. She’s not slut shaming, she’s cheater shaming which is entirely valid.
I’m extremely sex positive, but I don’t think it’s particularly wrong to be a bit snippy about someone’s sex life if they show up at your job and start talking to you about their sex life, unprompted. Like, that’s not slut-shaming, that’s a reasonable personal boundary.
I’m sick of all this preachy stuff. Dumbing of Age needs to get back to it’s roots and have a high speed car surfing chase sequence or some parent on parent blunt object murder.
Technically preachy stuff in Wilis works is going back to the roots.
We need to make MORE Jurassic Park references during school shooting!
I’m actually hoping nearly any character dies just so we can get out of this hellhole of a storyline.
i’m in the club of people who primarily enjoy this strip as a comedy strip. can’t speak for anyone else, but the strip is always less enjoyable when it decides to be a hardcore melodrama for a weeks or months at a time, and i don’t understand why anybody wants to read those storylines over cute fluff with relaxed stakes.
My tinfoil hat theory for why Asma is prying into their relationship beyond hijacking the protest is that she’s trying to load up on juicy gossip for if/when Alice walks her way again. Otherwise I don’t get why she hasn’t already told them to fuck off.
you know, getting gossip to get into Asma’s orbit WOULD make sense as an explanation, heh
*Alice’s orbit
I mean, if you’re gonna get accosted by the newest most annoying couple on the block you might as well get your money’s worth
“life gives ya lemons, chuck em at people”
That’s the spirit.
thats not tinfoil hat that’s possibly genius
Asma I get being annoyed about the kiss at the protest but the rest of this really isn’t your business.
Also damn, I was really kinda hoping for Lizbian break up on halloween… if they’re gonna break up, today would have been such a good day to do it
The Asma strips are, per Word of Willis, inserted after the fact, so we presumably have a few days until the strip that was originally planned to go up on Halloween.
Well, it wasn’t her business until they came to her and started talking about it. Now she’s just asking questions that they are choosing to answer.
Well, this is all kinds of messed up.
HUGS?
KISSING?
OMG! The HUMANITY!!!!
Call the police!!!
Oh wait…
That was good for a chuckle.
I think this is such a weird storyline. They barely know eachother. People kiss during protests. If a newspaper decides to make that the main photo on the frontpage that’s hardly their problem. Is it a problem because both of them are women? Why do they need to apologise to the woman that was quite hostile to them when they saw eachother during this?
The whole plot and the reactions to it seem off to me. There is still a lot of hostility to women kissing in public. And it feels like people finally have an excuse to say: see, I’m nkt actually agains open lesbians in public but in this specific case…
Why has a gay coming out story been so much about cheating and how much it impacts them anyway?
A good portion of the audience really liked Joe/Joyce and didn’t like how it got cut short for Dorothy/Joyce. As for the cheating, I think it’s less that cheating must be always punished in a “moral” sense, but more that it interrupted a storyline they were invested in so there should probably be some “narrative” consequences because it feels unsatisfying otherwise.
Because the author wanted to write a cheating story line and this weirdness is what we got.
It’s definitely weird. I don’t get where Asma is coming from here.
I have to assume she’s not doing a ”lust is bad” thing, but what is she doing?
Mostly responding to Joyce rejecting the premise and bringing up kissing Dorothy in the first place.
Willis’s comics have always been weird. It’s part of their attraction.
Why are you guys being weird about them being weird.
The cheating storyline that… had no one literally cheating and any relationship misunderstanding ended in less than 12 hours. (including the hours of sleep)
I really like this storyline by the way.
It’s just that some commenters/people are so adamant to slam these young women for finding their love, that they have twisted and turned everything we have been seeing happening in front of our eyes.
Is it racism, is it misogynism, is it homophobia? I really don’t know.
But this storyline was NOT a cheating storyline. (sorry Willis :P)
Except that both the author and various characters talk about as cheating, but also don’t really react to it as cheating. Which I think causes a lot of the cognitive dissonance in the audience.
If one of the boys involved had reacted with some of the “that’s barely cheating” arguments we’ve seen here and then been more upset about being dumped than the cheating, I think that might have defused some of the reaction. But that didn’t happen either.
I absolutely do NOT think one of the boys being even more blase about the cheating would have helped.
Folks understandably want fictional characters to match their level of intensity about issues. Everyone wanted Joe and Walky to be exactly as upset as they were about the cheating, whether that was “not at all” or “extremely”, and having characters basically look into the camera and say “I’m not upset at all” would have felt like the readers who WERE upset being told they had no right to be and had been overreacting for a month.
Which some folks did feel like Joe and Walky’s nonreactions already were, but given the pace of the storyline…
There’s really no version where the boys’ reactions could have defused the comment section. We had way too much time to rile ourselves and each other up.
I’m taking their current reactions as basically no reaction, so I don’t see this idea as being “even more blase”.
At least it would acknowledge the cheating and show why they’re more bothered by getting dumped than by the cheating aspect.
I don’t think we really disagree very much so I’ll just say:
I think SPECIFICALLY having Joe say “that’s barely even cheating” (possibly while rolling his eyes) would not have defused reactions. But I guess we can’t really know either way.
We saw with our very own eyes Joe setting this situation up by talking to Dorothy to get her to admit to herself what she really wanted, the apparent reason being that he wanted Joyce to have what she wanted, hoping that would include him. This was not something hitting him out of left field. The only time he rolled his eyes was when Joyce claimed not to be a hussy.
It IS a cheating storyline. Because there was, in fact, cheating involved.
This is exactly the problem with this comment section. Look, I’m going to model some better behavior for you:
See, though, you’re entirely wrong about the cheating — the only coherent definition of cheating is ‘whatever people in the relationship say is cheating’, and the characters have said they were cheating.
However, I’m not going to implicitly accuse you of all kinds of bigotry for having a different definition of cheating or a different reaction to those story beats, because that’d be weird and hostile.
”Weird and Hostile” would be a pretty good descriptor for a lot of the discussion here.
Y’all say that like the fucking characters themselves didn’t classify it as cheating. And the author. His wife said “wow it’s crazy none of your college fuck-ups have cheated on each other yet” and he was like “oh shit yeah I should probably do that”. You can call it whatever you want, according to the characters, the writer, and the story being told, it was canonically cheating.
I’d argue that it’s not a cheating story. And that feels completely accidental.
Like, it could have involved the cheating AND the kiss perfectly fine. It’s the weirdness after that has made it… intolerable. Joyce and Dorothy could’ve kissed, they could’ve immediately afterwards been like “oh shit” and then tried to hide it or bury those feelings because they’re in relationships (kind of like what Dorothy was doing before) and then the kiss becomes front page and we see that Joe Knows even if he won’t bring it up. Walky could’ve found out via Billie and then *he gets to dump Dorothy*, but like Joe he sits with this information. Tension builds because we don’t know what either dude is thinking at this point in time, but we now know of at least 3 characters who Know. Becky gives Joyce the cold shoulder suddenly, Joyce doesn’t understand why. We notably don’t see much from Becky’s POV at first. For plot convenience, Joyce goes not to talk about these feelings with Becky but with Billifer and gets an irritated response of “I only said it wasn’t gay to kiss your best friend, idk what you’re even on about right now.” Idk if Billifer would care that much about Joe, so she’s not likely to harp on the cheating aspect even if Joyce brings it up. Not to her anyways.
Dorothy and Joyce go to talk in private, Joyce is vulnerable about her feelings and Dorothy tries to support her but also talk them down from having an all out affair. Joyce reaffirms that she’s pretty sure she wants her first time to be with Dorothy and that it’s new to her, but she’s pretty sure that’s what she wants. Dorothy buckles under no pressure, boom Slipshine.
Then Sarah comes in to a sex scented room and scene plays out as it did. First domino falls. Dorothy decides to go make right by telling Walky, he cuts her off and dumps her (with the same coldness he used to refuse starting an affair with her.) Joyce brushes Sarah off like before, gets the same perky greeting from Sierra but with zero context, goes to talk to Joe. The Joe scene plays out pretty much the same only she asks for time to think about things rather than promising to talk to him later because that’s more explicit and at least officially puts them on break. She sees the paper for the first time, freaks out because of family and everyone seeing it. Maybe runs back to her room alone and gets confronted by Becky, which goes down more or less the same but without Joyce and Dorothy being weird about it, just Joyce awkwardly trying and failing to defuse the conversation. All of this would’ve probably taken half the strips.
Oh, and the protest should’ve been over LGBTQIA+ rights. That was a thing last semester, it’s still an ongoing issue, the exact same cast can be there that was before. It all goes down the same way (only I guess Jocelyne has to come out all the way as either gay/bi or trans to Hank, whichever she feels safest doing).
But that basically sidesteps every major issue the past two storylines have had in maybe half the strips. We still get cute Dorothy/Joyce moments. Joyce is notably not an abrasive asshole with object permanence issues or amnesia about past lessons and her own drawn conclusions from them. The cheating is ACTUALLY used narratively rather than another awkward thumbtack to step over. There’s no need for more Asma and Raidah here, but if more is desired then some of these exchanges can happen in the lobby where Asma is able to side eye and comment which opens the door to her appearing more. Daisy is no longer a weird horny gremlin having to defend a headline and picture that relay zero information to the reader about the subject of the protest and has instead actually picked a really good picture for the protest while being less of a weird horny gremlin. (Don’t get me wrong, the picture thing is complicated, I think most outlets would’ve run with that one, the headline however is atrocious.)
Like, I hate doing full “here’s how it should’ve been done things” in someone’s own living room, but I get frustrated by people acting like this was the foregone conclusion and it wasn’t lol. You can do cheating storylines, you can do bi cheating storylines (though admittedly my version probably actually IS in the problematic trope area), you can do kissing at a protest, the problem is entirely in how the wrong things are being focused on and how it’s driven time to a standstill for it! I just want the next storyline to not be about any of this stuff at all and for things to just start happening again!
+1
So you’re okay with minimizing the Muslim characters?
You want to retcon a retcon? You want to write the strip yourself? What’s the point in reading Willis’ version then?
Asma is still entirely correct here.
But what is Asma entirely correct about?
Why do the explain themselves to a random person? It’s none of her business to know, or judge, what they are doing.
They made it that random persons business when they went to that random person for absolution
Press the “Previous Comic” arrow a couple of times. You’ll see the strip where they brought it up for no good reason.
Heck, they’re bringing up two 45 minute sessions of strenuous activity this strip for no good reason.
Except our entertainment and maybe Asma’s.
It seems that Dorothy is slowly starting to realize her errors, though in her case it’s kind of impossible to course correct because the paper was already published and it’s literally yesterday’s news. Plus she’s definitively ended things with Walky (thanks to Joyce.) so there’s really no where to go except forward SLOWLY. Joyce, however, seems to want to speedrun this relationship straight into marriage, collateral damage be damned. Her father’s approval and Jocelyn’s encouragement that the two should have sex immediately have completely unleashed Joyce’s id, as she now feels completely justified to do whatever she wants whenever she wants, and ANYONE who tells her to slow down- Asma, Becky, Sarah, probably even Dorothy herself, is just a hateful bigot who doesn’t want true love to prevail.
I really think this runaway train that is Romantic Joyce is about to crash the seconds Joe shows up with flowers and Dorothy realizes Joyce never officially broke up with him like she had Dorothy do with Walky…
As soon as she pulled the “I WIN YOU LOSE” maneuver on Walky, I suspected that Joyce would find a way to fumble Joe AND Dorothy somehow
The reaction Joyce had when Dorothy declared both of them had dumped their respective boyfriends so they could be together heavily foreshadowed that this is going to be a big problem down the line. And sex with Dorothy has caused Joyce to completely forget about everyone else in her life, so we KNOW this omission to Dorothy of not officially dumping Joe IS going to bite her in the ass SOON… probably before this day is done, or the next time Joyce has chem class…
I hope we get to the ”Joyce somehow fumbled both of them” part soon. There are many interesting ways how things can go from there, but our girl is currently in dire need of a reality check.
Corey, it is factually incorrect that Joyce had Dorothy break up with Walky. Reread the strips. It is not a thing which happened. Please provide the strip and panel # in which *Dorothy* breaks up with Walky.
Dorothy was attempting to do so, when Joyce came in and took over in an unkind manner. After which Walky said it was what he expected and is behaving like a dumped boyfriend, and being ‘comforted’ as one.
How you interpret that is up to you. It was messy.
nobody’s focusing on the important part: what happened in those five minutes on the stairwell :eyes: like did they stop mid conversation about the protest to bang it out against the wall in a record five minutes?? girls??? lmaoo??
Whatever it was, it’s still making Dorothy flush in that last panel.
So, I guess we’ve established that Asma is a Baptist. Don’t have sex while standing, it could lead to dancing.
I find it very interesting that in this scenario where Joyce and Dorothy came and annoyed Asma with insincere apologies meant to assuage their own feelings of guilt, and Joyce specifically clarified she is not apologizing for the kiss specifically, the reaction is to be mad at Asma and claim she’s homophobic for calling them out on their series of poor decisions. WTF??? I thought most people were angry with Joyce and Dorothy for their recent actions? That getting together actually ruined them for life?
What is the problem here? I truly don’t understand because the only notable difference to me here is that Asma isn’t specifically saying they’re both horrible cheaters and instead saying they made bad decisions and have poor self control. These things were true. Where are we getting that Asma hates kissing. PDA, and homosexuality?
The brown woman didn’t immediately throw up the gay pride flag, obviously she’s a homophobe.
Also, reminds me of the commenter who insisted Sarah’s disapproval of Dorothy and Joyce came from a place of homophobia.
I don’t like to risk being a bad ally here, but I think that perhaps these hair-trigger homophobia takes have less to do with internalized colourism amongst the broader readership, and more to do with the fact that there are many queer commenters who have IRL reasons to look for even the tiniest shred of potential homophobia, and immediately call it out.
This is just me trying to be as charitable to everybody involved as possible, and I also accept the reality that blatant racism and bigotry does show up within the comments frequently enough, to justify calling it out.
Couple of vocabulary tips, because these words have specific meanings in social justice:
Colorism isn’t another word for racism, it’s the specific phenomenon of lighter skin being treated as better within a community of color. The beauty industry’s intense marketing of skin-lightening products in South Korea, for example, is an expression of colorism.
Internalized, likewise, doesn’t mean “something one has absorbed” in this case, but a type of bigotry that is directed at a trait we ourselves possess. So, for example, JENNIFER experiences and sometimes expresses internalized biphobia. But 100% straight people can’t have “internalized biphobia”, they just have the regular kind.
We might also call it learned biphobia (see: Howard, Ruth’s little brother, who seemed to just be thoughtlessly repeating stuff he’d heard from adults), or unconscious biphobia, but not internalized.
Also: sure, some readers are gonna be quicker to pick up on hints of queerphobia and more likely to worry about it, and therefore, sometimes, to see it where it isn’t there. But also it’s not at all a coincidence that Sarah, Raidah, and now Asma have all been specifically accused of biphobia based on… nothing? Especially with Sarah, it was such a huge leap.
Oh I 100% believe you both are correct here. I believe these commenters are sensitive to potential and perceived homophobia on account of being LGBT. I get that. However, a common experience for POC, especially BIPOC, is that any hint of negative emotion is read in a very uncharitable way. A black man being annoyed is seen as being aggressive. A black woman raising her voice to make a point is seen as aggressive. So, I definitely feel it isn’t a coincidence that Sarah, Raidah, and Asma being upset and annoyed is being read uncharitably from people who are rather sensitive to what they are reading as homophobia.
Let me emphasize that I’m in agreement with you, I do not think it’s a coincidence.
Also queer readers can be more sensitive to queerphobia than non-queer readers and also more likely to assume it’s there and react badly to it when it seems to be coming from characters of color. We’re all steeped in white supremacy, it’s pervasive, and it gets into your bone marrow and very much does inform knee-jerk reactions.
Gotta do the work to unlearn that stuff, and gotta keep reminding ourselves that the bias is probably still there.
Apparently most of the people commenting today think Joyce never did anything wrong. Which is a wild take to be getting mad at Asma for not sharing, when she’s only person in this conversation who can’t just stand up and walk away.
“most”
Every time I see someone say something about “most of the people commenting”, I go back and look and it’s like, three particularly loud people.
It’s like that Family Guy joke about one phone call equalling a billion people.
Wait, Family Guy had jokes? How long ago was this?
I may have been a teenager at the time. Possibly pre-teen.
I think a lot of the hot takes on Asma are mostly near the top in Dot’s designated hate containment thread (like intended?) so saying “most” is a bit of an exaggeration. I do think a larger portion of comments has been knee jerk reactions. “What is Asma talking about? This isn’t her business! Why she hate girls kissing?!” And then a lot of folks trying to respond saying “Hey, maybe immediately assuming she’s homophobic is a bad look.” And then that morphing into more meta textual criticism that this is actually the author trying to parrot audience criticism.
honestly i started scrolling pretty fast once i realized that half the comments were the same argument played out by like ten different pairs of two different commenters. it seems like everybody came to one of the two takes independently, and then found their dance partner for the night
There’s also the thing where we tend to notice people opposing our own viewpoints more than people supporting them, so it’s easy for different people to see “most of the people” very differently, when it’s really a handful of loud voices on different sides.
Brown woman mildly scolded white woman, so obviously she’s evil.
It’s a cliche, but “poor media literacy”.
Asma talks about kissing escalating into problems and Joyce talks about sex, so obviously what Asma meant was that girls should be careful about kissing because it might lead to sex. When that’s not what she said at all.
Frankly, in addition to what other folks have said about “media literacy” and “bias”, I think it’s just a mirror of some of the discussions in the comment section since this ship started — there are some folks here who have adamantly decided that the only possible reason to dislike DoJo is bigotry, and as such if Asma disapproves of them (even mildly) then it must be bigotry.
(in keeping with my comment to Taffy above, “some folks here” is also approximately three loud people).
A lot of people in these comments seem to like interpreting any criticism of their favorite couple as negatively as possible, and that applies to both other characters in the comic criticizing Joyce and Dorothy and other people in these comments criticizing them.
This is odd to me because Joyce and Dorothy are not a favorite couple. The reaction to them has been mixed at best. So it’s really strange to me that when Asma criticizes them it’s seen negatively.
But the people who have DoJo as a favored couple tend to be very emphatic about it, so them seeing Asma as criticizing them gets a lot of reaction.
Which isn’t to say those who don’t like DoJo aren’t emphatic of course, but we all tend to react more strongly to perceived criticism of our views than to support.
Honestly, everyone who actually likes DoJo seems to just post one sole comment saying “I know they’re controversial but they’re so cute to me!”
All the people talking at length about it, either hate DoJo, or are entirely tepid on them, and just participating in the various discussions around them that match their interest. The idea that there’s an army of DoJo lovers actively fighting anybody and everybody who doesn’t adequately woobify their blorbos, just does not match reality, and it’s only a few persistent people who are implying this false reality.
To riff on something you said in another thread, I think a lot of the feeling is from assigning those folks who are on a hair-trigger looking for homophobia as “DoJo fans”, which to be fair to everyone appears to be the case.
That particular accusation, in a fanbase like this about a comic this unapologetically pro-LGBTQ+, sounds a LOT louder than it actually objectively is as a percentage of the discourse.
It’s basically the same thing as assigning the folks who are occasionally blatantly queerphobic “JoJo fans”.
Like, yeah, they do tend to at least posture as that, sucks to have that group be on “my side”.
It’s a variant on Tragic: The Worst Person You Know Just Made a Good Point, only in this case it’s something like Frustrating: The Worst People I Know Agree With Me On Something Small I Nonetheless Care About, Now People Keep Assuming I Also Agree With Their Politics.
Yep. And the fact that this is a mostly-unmoderated space (unless a lot of people all report something, basically) means that there’s no effective deterrent for escalating any complaint you have, either, aside from whatever social opprobrium one gets –and I’ve moderated enough forums for long enough that I know a) people don’t really feel social consequences as much from folks they don’t respect or agree with, b) that there are a lot of troublemakers who FEED on social opprobrium without further consequence, and c) it’s nigh-impossible to tell those apart sometimes.
Yeeep.
I think they’re a particularly POLARIZING couple, honestly, which might be more apropos as an explanation — there seems to be relatively more intensity of both love and hate for this ship than for other couples.
Well obviously the commentariat need to protect these poor widdle gay babies from the big scawy brown lady with all her criticisms, that are definitely homophobic and prudish and not at all eeasonable. Why do I say that? Oh I dunno, something about looking at her puts me on edge. And Sarah. Surely the only thing they have in common is that they’re homophobic holier than thou sticks in the mud and Nothing. Else.
/S, obviously
THIS THIS THIS
….well that sure is going in an interesting direction, this conversation
the alt text tho hahahahahahhahahahahahahaha
God, this is uncomfortable to watch. I hope Willis is writing that intentionally, and that Dotty and Joyce doing the White Progressive Unloading White Guilt And Looking For Absolution Before An Unconsenting Minority thing is supposed to be terrible and cringe lol. Because jfc.
I really hope that tomorrow Asma just tells them to fuck off so we can move on
I dunno…given the current track record and just how weirdly this conversation keeps jumping around, I’m half expecting Asma to just ask them to wingman (wing woman?) her with Alice 🙄
HAHA CALLED IT
Agreed. I want to trust the writer (even if he make some mistakes from Protest day, but it’s a specific case).
Anyway, I’ll play the long play and wait to tomorrow strip, to talking anything more serious.
I mean Joyce pre-called them both out on this, I think it is in fact safe to assume Willis thinks what they are doing here is bad and embarrassing.
And it’s definitely on-brand for Joyce to say both “We shouldn’t do this” and also be kinda obnoxiously romance-focused when they decide to to it anyway.
Yeah…….
As I keep feeling the need to disclaim: I am in no way saying these strips can’t be hard to read, or that Willis will ultimately NOT have made a terrible mistake by going down this road, just that I cannot agree with takes that amount to “Joyce is saying it, therefore Willis must think it’s true”.
More likely that we’re seeing what is simultaneously an over- and undercorrection, where Willis is trying to take accountability for the problems with the protest storyline through Joyce and Dorothy, when…
idk, maybe the better part of valor would just have been to add a blog post underneath the kiss strip where they directly accepted responsibility for the problems folks have rightfully had with all of us and pledge to do better going forward?
But. Year-long buffer. It’s not like I don’t understand feeling like “I’ll do better going forward” just isn’t anywhere near good enough when “going forward” is a full year in the future.
I won’t pretend I’m itching to be in Willis’s shoes or confident I could do better to address this type of criticism, just thinking about it honestly makes me want to delete all social media and go live in a cave for the rest of my life.
*all of this not all of us
*god typos in a comment you can’t edit are the worst
Oh also:
Another issue just generally is that it’s hard to make Dorothy and Joyce take accountability for the problems with the protest storyline when the single biggest issue folks have taken with it is the framing.
The framing isn’t in-universe, except the photo Daisy ran with. If not for that framing, Dorothy’s crashout in the middle of the protest is something that almost no one except Joyce would have even noticed, because she pretty much entirely failed to get anyone else’s attention.
She can apologize for having TRIED to get attention, and she can apologize for having shown up to the protest not knowing anything about them, but in-universe she and Joyce were looking for Jocelyne, not looking to join the protest, so it shouldn’t have been as much of an issue that they didn’t know what they were doing as part of a protest.
That Doylist versus Watsonian issue, I guess, though I feel like I am still mostly seeing comments about that operating on the assumption that Willis is trying to dodge accountability or explain away the problems with the protest storyline, and I don’t agree with that.
I think in some ways this is actually the “right” way of responding to criticism, but so far the execution is… let’s say shaky.
Honestly, I perceive a fairly major part of the problem is that the framing is in both places — an out-of-universe apology etc. would go some ways to addressing that framing, but while the in-universe newspaper photo exists (and how the hell do you retcon/replot THAT on the fly?) it will keep dragging the in-universe framing (and thus the comic itself) back to the issue.
I do think Joyce and Dorothy have things they CAN apologize to Asma for, I just also think that so far this is falling short because the Big Thing isn’t technically their fault.
But I’m also reacting to the reactions! And I haven’t read the hater containment threads in depth. I just feel like I’ve seen a lot of folks who at least feel like Joyce and Dorothy are apologizing (or refusing to apologize) for kissing / being into each other, and that of course is not something to apologize to Asma for.
(I see it a bit differently, but I do think the overall disconnect is an issue, at least right now.)
I agree and like,
I mean this aint hardly the first time Willis has been made aware of blindspots this way and prompted this kind of effort, at least in strips further into the buffer
He even said once “this is literally the reason I still keep a comments section. Many other webcomic authors have burned theirs to the ground for very good, jarring reasons, but I still need an easy way to keep a pulse on the “did I do something wrong” meter”
I know he has much more in store for us later on the line to adress this kind of stuff, but buffer or not, he likely was afraid that without more *immediate* effort, he was afraid readers would lose faith.
Hence the “saying it will be better one year in the future, yeah that seems bad”
This is probably the point when Willis put both hands up and said to himself, “screw it. Highly decompressed storytelling or not, I have a giant buffer to retool as much of as I please, and I am not going to be another White Dude Trying to Offput ammends to what was clearly insensitive to a serious racial issue. So WHAT if I get backlash to what’s essentially a retcon? There’s ALWAYS backlash. But at least this way nobody can tell me I’m not trying my best to do my job.”
And honestly I actually glad this kind of interaction is happening in strip right now, as cringe as it is? I dunno I guess I just like it when racism is explored in the strip in ways that don’t ways manifest as “cartoon supervilliany” as Jennifer put it.
I’m always going to critique Willis on the execution, but I feel like I’ve been pretty consistent in giving them credit for their intent in retrofitting these scenes.
yeah!
to quote the Fresh Prince, “He a little confused but he got the spirit!” XD
A+ on intent, D on execution so far? Or something like that? I think you said. 🙂
Fully agreed. I’ve been critical of Joyce and Dorothy being uninteresting, but all of the strips that have been added in after the fact, with Asma and Raidah? They’re my favorite strips since the kiss happened. These scenes are interesting and have a bit more to chew on, and I’m looking forward to more of this subplot as a result.
Endorsed.
I hate that I’ve transitioned into hate-reading this strip.
Well, congratulations on transitioning in general.
Thank you!
Diversity win!
Look at Asma being the voice of sanity
“At least we didn’t do the sex stuff at the protest itself! We waited until later. Aren’t we great for our self-control!?”
Gonna paste my Patreon comments
God Joyce is being such a baby in a not endearing way. This is the first time I’ve actually felt too old for their dipfuckery.
Like Joyce is annoying as hell rn but it doesn’t actually bother me. These characters don’t really elicit strong negative reactions from me anymore.
Until I scroll down and see over 100 adults clambering over each other to justify why she’s not being annoying actually and she’s a perfect little gay baby with her perfect little girlfriend and all these (incidentally brown women) are just buzzkill, sanctimonious haterz!!!1!11!! And also probably homophobic, totally.
Sad but true: while serious political events are taking place, the media will focus on smooching – possibly drawing attention away from the purpose of the event. Maybe Joyce and Dorothy didn’t know this but I hope they know it now.
“When this is over let’s go someplace and smooch” might be a good idea.
Exception: When some dipshit is ‘protesting homosexuality’ it’s time for a public smooch-in. Harness the media’s lens.
One would argue that if the protest is for LGBTQ+ rights, then the kissing would, in fact, be part of the protest.
But it wasn’t so, not really relevant
Unless you’re an ally. We gotta keep our pants on I guess.
Well at least Dorothy is picking up that they’ve both been tits here, where the protest is concerned. Joyce is NOT. There are ALWAYS times not to make out with your partner/love interest, regardless of context; and she’s making this apology all about her and not listening to Asma at all.
Agreed. And in case people are wondering in what situations sloppily kissing might be inappropriate…
1) After your lifelong best friend insinuates they’re going to commit suicide
2) While dragging sex soaked laundry through a publicly accessible stairway
3) After one of you hijacked a protest you don’t really care about, putting several people at risk because you feel bad you got called a narc
…just to name a few
To be fair on #2, the laundry is a public facility. They can’t get there without using a publicly accessibly thoroughfare, and it isn’t like they aren’t allowed to kiss while doing laundry.
Yeah, I think Joyce is being a complete bongo-hole. Get over yourself… just because she’s now YOUR girlfriend (that you cheated on your boyfriend with) doesn’t mean you have carte-blanche to do whatever you want.
She’s got “main character energy” here… and while yes, she is a main character in this strip, a character shouldn’t be treating themselves as that to the detriment/insult of others.
Look. This is dumbing of ages. It means people do some dumb s**t. Dorothy and Joyce just. Did a lot. In a small period of time. They need to admit she’s right then actually apologize to the boys and if not apologize at least talk to Becky. Then they can go snog in a corner forever just not during protests
The Age of Dumbing
“No, I am absolutely not interested into being your third. I planned to go for that Becky and Dina couple anyway.”
She can be Billie and Alice’s third
I’m reminded, by Joyce’s dialogue, of the one Achewood gag about various characters’ decision-making flowcharts, one of which had “Is the mother turned out?” -> No -> “THEN TURN THAT MOTHER OUT! WOO WOO!”… with a dotted line to a “learning corner” that read “Some mothers should not be turned out” -> “It is not your business to ‘turn out’ a funeral.”
The reactions to this whole thing on both sides in these comments is just weird af.
-Should Asma be pissed at these two for kissing at a protest, particularly when the protest had already fallen apart and especially because it wasn’t them who centered the kiss, but Daisy publishing the pic on the front page because of unrequited horniness? No. Be pissed at Daisy. Two people kissing at a protest is maybe the biggest goddamn non-issue ever, unless they clamber up on a stage in the middle of the thing and set off fireworks ahead of time. Nobody, and I mean literally *nobody*, at an actual protest would give a shit about two people kissing.
-Have Joyce and Dorothy made a wealth of bad decisions of late, including coming to Asma, for no other reason than that she happens to be Muslim, for some sort of weird absolution and is that absolutely cringe af, and should she be pissed at them for that? Yes.
In short: Joyce and Dorothy are not perfect and have been very, very dumb and inconsiderate of late, and deserve to be criticized for it.
Kissing at a protest is not intentionally coopting that protest, and they are not the ones who took the picture or decided to center it on the front page of the college paper. It’s just a goddamn kiss.
Ye gods.
They didn’t set off fireworks, but they DID get up on the available stage.
If by stage you mean small pile of snow, then kind of?
Dorothy’s been on a downward spiral this entire year of 2025. She managed to get ONE win by making Joyce her official girlfriend, but this happiness comes at a great cost, and in the long run, is just masking the problems Dorothy has within her. Dotty at least is starting to realize something about all this is off, but has no idea how to set things right. Joyce, on the other hand, is pure romantic id unleashed. Dotty checked all the boxes for being the future spouse (although Joyce initially wanted a husband for her MRS degree.) and since Hank didn’t see a reason to disapprove of the relationship and Jocelyn was all for it, that has validated the relationship and DoJo can do no wrong. Joyce is perfect, Dorothy is perfect, their relationship is perfect, and anyone who is hurt or offended by any action they do is a homophobe who doesn’t want true love to prevail.
I think Joe might throw a wrench in Joyce’s speedrun toward the altar, but I don’t really know what to do about Dotty, since no amount of sex with Joyce is going to fix that inferiority complex she now has…
Okay, *technically* they didn’t enter the meadow with their arms around each other, they entered the meadow and then put their arms around each other.
But also, so what? People ain’t allowed to act like a couple at a protest?
You can’t attack just one part of the argument and dismiss it. She’s building up to the “that escalated into trouble, right”?
Which they promptly derailed into “it escalated into sex”.
I don’t get what this is building up to
You see two dorks. You know these dorks. These dorks never talk to you unless they need something. They’re coming over to you. They look guilty. Merciful Allah, you know what they’re about to do.
Wait, they’re not saying anything. They’re just smiling way too large and trying to look casual but actually still looking like they’re feeling guilty.
Okay Asma, think. You can scare them off and go back to your book. You try to shock them by implying they’re asking you for a threesome. These are the most vanilla girls you know, surely this will work.
It doesn’t work.
They’re talking now. Oh no, they’re really doing this. You’re not sure you have the spoons to be the white girl whisperer today. Well, the nerd is mostly making this about white guilt, but Joyce is making this about kissing.
And you’ve heard about Joyce. Mainly you’ve heard Raidah complaining about Joyce, and Raidah is Raidah. But then Alice chimed in and apparently Joyce is OFTEN about kissing. And whether Joyce’s reasons for kissing are what Raidah says is anybody’s guess, but the one thing Joyce seems to be confirming for you is that she’s got really poor impulse control.
Not kissing people isn’t hard. You don’t kiss people all the time. You’re sublimating so much horny it could be seen from space if you weren’t so good at sublimating it.
But Joyce seems to think it’s never a bad time for kissing. Maybe this is a teachable moment. As much of a pain in the ass as these two are, you didn’t want them to become victims of the police state just because they thought they were in a rom-com.
You point out to them that they really were down bad for each other so much that the idea that the kiss was an “accident” doesn’t really scan because they walked into the protest arm-in-arm. They were going to do this. It was only a matter of time. They could have done this anywhere that wasn’t in front of riot police surrounded by tear gas.
…this does not go over well.
They really do think they’re in a rom-com, and the university DOES NOT pay you enough for this.
Yeah, this rings true. Love this take.
Really good post
This is now my preferred interpretation of the last couple of strips.
Thirding the good post.
(oops, didn’t refresh after reading all the above. Fourthed, I guess.)
👏🏽💯
yeah Asma really is the Squidward here, I feel bad for them having to put up with these white-ass baby-queer twits :/
gorgeous, i am applauding, i am entertained to my core
Wait, Asma doesn’t even know these two outside of like, passing familiarity, why’s she assuming them kissing led to problems? Why’s she saying the protest was the wrong time to kiss too? It got Dorothy to leave, didn’t it? If anything, kissing at the protest should have happened sooner, then the paparazzi couldn’t have gotten their front page shot.
Because she was there when Raidah and Alice talking about Joyce having a thing for kissing people already in a relationship.
Which in fairness, Joyce has done a pretty unacceptable number of times. Knowingly.
*were talking
She was JUST listening to Raidah and Alice talking about Joyce being a cheater in particular.
And as she’s the front desk clerk and thus probably handles mail and definitely handles packages, I guarantee you she has an idea of everyone’s names even if they don’t know hers.
To be clear, Joyce wasn’t accused of being a cheater. People were cheating on folks with Joyce. Plus the fact that they approached her together would lend credence to them kissing being problem-free. Clearly they’re either together or a FWB situation from Asma’s perspective.
I really don’t think you’re going to find much agreement on this. If a bunch of people wind up cheating on their partners with the same person, that person is very much the common factor.
Right? She wasn’t accused of being a cheater, she was accused of being a *homewrecker*.
Homewrecker is a wild label for someone who ended a 3 day long rebound
so this comment is mainly directed towards willis. i think we all know they read the comments to some extent.
maybe when/if it comes time to print this storyline like the others, at least a portion of the money made should go to a charity like anera or MSF. or you could do a seperate thing as a fundraiser? i would contribute.
i have no idea if theres anything that could be done to the story to make it less messy, unless you decide to retool it altogether, but i digress. im glad at least you care. whatever happens, our real actions are more meaningful than drawings or commentary. lets use them for something that could tangibly help people.
not to imply that art means nothing or that nobody here is doing anything on that end. just, yknow, priorities.
honestly I’m surprised Asma is humoring them this much
So she knows about the cheating? So are we supposed to assume Asma loves tea and other gossip and is judgemental to strangers she isn’t close with and that’s her personality? I still feel like an apology about nothing should bever have taken in the first place. I feel like the writer fumbled with the retconning. Should have just changed nothing then add random meta apologizing
Asma was there when Raidah was complaining about Joyce being a serial homewrecker
I predict at some point Joyce and Dorothy are going to have conflict over different standards of conduct. Dorothy has historically been very, very concerned with right action even when it isn’t very fun. She is all about doing her duty.
Joyce has been more inclined to follow her heart and to go with what feels right. This has lead her to be a bit of a jerk at times.
I think this strip demonstrates the difference between the two pretty clearly. Dorothy is looking guilty and going “Yeah, I guess I did bad” whereas Joyce is defiant going “No, I should get to do this”.
I think at some point there will be conflict where Dorothy feels like Joyce is encouraging her to go against her better self, or else where Joyce feel’s like Dorothy’s standards are restricting/shaming her.
I am not saying they will break up over it, and how big of a conflict really depends on how the story goes (I suspect it will be a smaller conflict if they talk about it in the next couple weeks than if it comes up in a couple years Real Time).
I think your prediction will prove reasonably accurate. Also, love your username. DS9 forever!