Well now somebody will probably draw that. Totally unnecessary as I already have several possible visuals playing in my head, but also somebody please draw this.
given her using “observation” and “experimentation” in describing sex (much to Becky’s prior delight), I could honestly see Dina having an interest in voyeurism
this is of course presuming that she’s not staunchly opposed to poly, and is also biased by my own leanings
Panel one is clearly Becky still masking and telling Dorothy what she thinks she wants to hear so she can, like, go away (“it’s ok! You don’t need to apologize for anything! Everything’s fine!”). Then Dorothy goes and makes it weird by getting super defensive about the clothes thing, and at that point Becky just can’t help herself. Mx. Willis can you please get rid of the obnoxious ad that completely covered the text box as I was typing this.
I hate the ads that do that. They should get out of the way or at least have a button to shrink them after they explode all over the content, doing no favors to the bottom line because I’m not looking to support any advertisers with ads that aggressively anti-reader.
It was for Becky. Since Dorothy is not clairvoyant, she didn’t know in advance that it would do nothing for Becky, so she thought it was worth taking a shot that it would help at least a little.
Also it’s her way of reacting to anyone she feels she may’ve wronged whether she meant to or not. (She’s done this a lot, with the strong implication she’s been doing this for a long time. Tho’ notarised is an extra step, I think?)
I disagree. The apology at no point considered what Becky needed. It was Dorothy trying to address her own feelings of guilt and shame.
If she apologized to WALKY and he responded like this, then you’d be correct, but Dorothy hasn’t wronged Becky. She has nothing to apologize to her for.
Regardless of whether Dorothy wronged Becky or not, she was still harmed by Dorothy’s actions and friends tend to apologise for that regardless of whether they actually are at fault
The idea that Dorothy has nothing to apologize for makes no sense to me. Like she doesn’t HAVE TO for sure, but there’s nothing inherently wrong with her doing so.
It’s perfectly fine to apologize for hurting someone even if you didn’t mean to do so. Even if you didn’t wrong them at all but your actions still caused pain. Don’t you apologize to dogs when you accidentally step on their tail? Do you think you wronged them on purpose? Isn’t Becky more deserving of her feelings being considered than a dog?
IDK, there have been plenty of times I have apologized for someone hurting even though I didn’t set out to hurt them and I don’t think what I did was wrong… and those times had nothing to do with guilt and everything to do with concern for the person I hurt. Maybe I’m in the minority for not weighing out the amount of apology I “owed” like it was a transaction.
The difference is with the dog if you could rewind time you would avoid doing the action that hurt them. Your apology is saying “I wish that I hadn’t done this action that hurt you”
In this instance if she could rewind time Dorothy would still get with Joyce. She wouldn’t change her action. Her apology is saying “I wish I had done exactly what I did and you weren’t upset by it”
“I wish I had done exactly what I did and you weren’t upset by it”
And?
How dare she wish Becky didn’t have to feel hurt?
I’m genuinely unsure what your point is here. Apologies aren’t this limited-scope thing, if you hurt someone and you didn’t mean to–it’s apology time. Regardless of whether you’d rewind time to undo it or not.
An apology saying that you wish you had done something different, or that you think you did something wrong is saying “hey I did something and I wish I had done something different”
An apology saying that you wish someone else wasn’t upset by your actions is saying THEY are the ones that should be different. “Hey I did something and I wish you had reacted/responded differently”
I disagree entirely that there’s no nuance in the second one. It is possible to wish someone wasn’t hurt by what you did in a way that’s informed by sympathy rather than saying they shouldn’t have reacted that way.
“I wish you didn’t have to experience pain” is a perfectly valid apology.
Sure, she’d still get together with Joyce; that wouldn’t change. What would change is she’d try to do it in such a way that hopefully doesn’t hurt Becky so much. Like, maybe not waiting until Becky saw the photo of her and Joyce making out, to tell Becky what’s going on.
Or better yet, insisting that Joyce tell her immediately, instead of waiting until the next morning.
I’m really having extreme difficulty understanding the logic of this apology. To me an apology only has value by how the recipient receives it. How can it be sincere if completely divorced from the emotions of the person you’re apologizing to? How is that any different than pity?
Now if the answer is “Oh, this is just an awkward social mistake Dorothy made.” Then yes, I agree with that. And part of that mistake is noting that even if sincere in intent the apology only helps Dorothy and she should try and do better.
This is a woman who canonically sends handwritten thank you notes for every gift she receives. She clearly believes that handwritten letters are more sincere and respectful
Plus, carefully writing down your thoughtful apology in advance dramatically reduces the odds that you will fuck up in the heat of the moment and say the wrong thing.
Mind you, learning to speak without fucking up and saying the wrong thing is a kind of important skill for a politician to have, so I’m surprised Dorothy hasn’t worked on it obsessively for years
Thank you. She’s doing her best and a bunch of people act like her trying to make things right with Becky is a great sin. I’d have apologized in that situation too, I write things out too, and if I were Becky I’d want an apology too. It’s great to know that all these commentors would apparently think I’m a asshole by proxy. But anyways, I like Dorothy because she seems to actually care. I want to be as caring as she is. I am slowly losing my faith in human for a lot of reasons, and so is Dorothy, but she cares throughout all of it! And that is admirable because I find myself trying to *stop* caring
Yeah, there’s two aspects here. The form of the apology is obviously just wrong – a notarized letter of apology is just silly and isn’t going to impress anyone, much less Becky.
The impulse to apologize to someone who’s been hurt by something you did isn’t a bad one, even if what you did wasn’t wrong and you don’t regret doing it. “I’m sorry I hurt you” isn’t always the performative nonsense of “I apologize if you were offended”.
You left out the unsaid part. It goes, I apologize if you were offended against all logic and reason even though [insert favorite all-knowing deity here] knows that any minimally competent excuse for a human being would be less emotionally fragile and have better sense, and so you’re probably faking it for the cheap effect anyway.
But I have to agree with Nymph somewhere above. You can be completely sorry that you hurt someone without the slightest bit of regret for the thing you did that resulted in hurting them. The two are not the same.
You can sincerely wish that it was possible to do that thing without causing them pain.
Dorothy is Clairvoyant. Either she knew that the letter would have a positive result.
Or she saw that it would enrage Becky while looking good in Joyce eyes.
But either way this is on Dorothy.
I don’t understand this argument. I really want to but this justification confuses me. It doesn’t take clairvoyance. Dorothy knows why Becky is upset and she knows an apology won’t fix what has upset her.
Astarial took the premise, one objectively incorrect that the apology was for Beck since Dorothy isn’t Clairvoyant.
But since Dorothy is one of many characters with supernormal powers, prophetic dreams, visions hunches etc she is Clairvoyant. Understanding destroys the mystery. Hoe does Dina teleport into banks?
The answer is , just because. Shut up, it’s just a comic.
The real issues become intentions and does Becky know it.
I didn’t see the text of the letter. You didn’t. That changes everything
She knows that it won’t fix the situation, but that doesn’t mean it might not help a little bit. If there’s a chance that it could make Becky feel 1% better, then Dorothy would probably feel that it’s worth taking the chance, and it’s just not in Dorothy’s character to do nothing.
Since I’ve completely lost track of what this is in reply to, this seems like a good point to jump in and let the universe know that I am 100% amazed that after all this time there are still people who don’t know how to read a Willis comic.
This is I think, maybe my biggest frustration with this storyline and it’s taken me a while to figure out what it was, but so many things have been done for the sake of a joke, to give a strip a gag, and it’s been really tonally confusing.
Dorothy’s apology isn’t about her as a character or her motivations. It’s just what Willis thought would be a funny way to end a strip, and this clothes thing is the same.
I mean, it definitely is for the sake of a joke, it’s just that Willis tries their best to ensure the joke is consistent with where the plot is meant to go and what the character might do that would be funny. But yeah all but a few strips haven’t meant to be humorous in some way – that’s also why we got the Joyce Stealing Dorothy from Walky strip, and why Walky’s coping mechanism has been nuggets, why he was kicked out of bed by Billifer, and why Joyce has been unrepentantly oversharing about having sex with Dorothy. They’re all choices that haven’t sat right with at least part of the fan base, and they’re all choices that the other part of the fan base sees for what they are – attempts at levity to keep a really difficult storyline from getting too dramatic and tense.
I still maintain that a poorly placed one of these was why the laundry arc left such a bad taste in my mouth. I literally just needed Joyce to actually affirm she was okay with it without backpedaling in a final panel, because the backpedaling gave it coercion vibes. I forget which strip it was, but one of them would’ve been perfect for her to double down on the actual walk and that one had her freaking out again as the punchline (which was actually funny, but still.)
I agree more in the case of today’s clothing thing. But the apology letter was very in-character to the point that it was something I was waiting for and expecting. I guess you could say it being notarized was just for the joke, but that’s well within the bounds of the amount of belief I expect to suspend for a gag-a-day comic strip.
Yeah the tone of this whole story line is all over the place.
If its gag-a-day oh so wacky then fine things are goofy and we shouldn’t take it seriously
Except all those times we should take it seriously and people’s wording matters
These characters have serious interactions that would really impact their relationships going forward
Except for the times when we are in joke land and the interaction is meant to not be taken seriously
In universe time moves way slower than real life time. Sometimes we are supposed to feel the weight of reading about a plotline for years, sometimes its thrown in our face that in universe its only been a couple weeks and why would we care about reading time?
Just keeps flipping flopping from “nah its all a joke dont take it serious it was just for the gag” and “these are significant characters whose actions will have impact on each other”
This is just me spitballing, and absolutely NOT an invitation for a fight from anyone who’s in their angy feelings today.
I wonder if Willis is just a better writer than they give themselves credit for. Maybe they’re accidentally writing a lot more serious, well-rounded, and impactful characters and story ideas than they think they are, so they don’t clock how hard the tonal shift is between “this is a very serious complex moment” and “wakka wakka!” because they were only ever trying to write the latter.
Maybe they add in jokes and gags because this is a jokey comic with a daily punchline (like the newspaper strips Willis presumably grew up reading) but the characters and interactions generally are more complex than in a gag-a-day comic and are capable of really exploring some interesting places. If their author would ever commit to withholding jokes for when they really belong and really hit the best, letting the unhappy times and the deep moments hit their own notes without a wisecrack.
IDK if that version of the comic would be better, worse, or the same, but I do wonder if Willis’ writing got a LOT better and they’re beholden to the wacky nature of a comic they wanted to write rather than the one they are actually writing.
Possible! Also possible that Willis enjoys the tonal whiplash.
I don’t really want 100% serious or 100% goofy no-consequence land. I enjoy the quick contrasts between the two. I’m fine with the structure of often ending on a zany joke that’s a bit over-the-top and exaggerated from the rest of the scene, and I’m fine when the zany or the emotional whammy is unexpected.
(Not saying it’s invalid to prefer having just one or the other tone, or smoother transitions between them, or etc. I’m just representing that I legit enjoy having the whiplash.)
If I want to armchair psychologize/sociologize myself, maybe I like tonal whiplash because humor is my strongest coping mechanism. My whole extended family is like this: nobody wants to look exactly straight at tragedy, the jokes give each other a little breather, without undercutting that actually we’re sad. Our funerals are among our jokiest times.
So, it really matches my brain and culture that a universe should often crack silly jokes at serious times. For me, one tone doesn’t usually undercut the other, but rather, the whiplash serves to highlight both the seriousness and the absurdity.
So maybe Willis is a little like that, too.
That, or it’s fun to write drama and fun to write jokes. 🙂
It was for Dorothy. Dorothy thought it was for Becky but she is attrocious at genuine remorse. Her guilt always seems kind of performative, like she THINKS she should prostrate herself, but never really thinks through that it might not be what the other person needs. It sure as hell isn’t what Becky needs, but frankly she owes Walky — and Joe — an apology more.
Dorothy does not need to have remorse for Becky, the prioiritisation of Becky has consistently hit as insane for me throughout this plot. Becky was happy with Dina, she staked no real claim on Joyce, Dorothy is not BFFs with Becky and owes her nothing for dating Joyce.
Yes, Dorothy should try to be better to Walky, and at least *thank* Joe for being so big about the situation, and apologise for not having treated him better when he was literally trying to open the door for her and Joyce. But nobody needs a notarised apology letter, Dorothy is just wracked with guilt over the whole situation, especially for Becky who has already been through so much.
Dorothy’s got a drop of Bojack Horseman in her and that’s why I love her as a character, because she’s like 85% performances, 10% desperately trying to fix that, and 5% actually remorseful when she messes up/feels uncomfortable. She thinks it’s the other way around, but the Halloween Party was a pretty egregious show of how she kind of seems to need the attention on her. Not because she’s awesome, but because she needs a medal for being mature and understanding and apologetic.
Mind you, she’ll never be remotely near as bad as him, but like… this apology was to make Dorothy feel better and no other reason. And I’m one of the peeps fully in agreement that Dorothy shouldn’t have to apologize for this (if anything Joyce should. Not for getting with Dorothy, but the kinda weird rubbing it in the wound that happened)
I imagine she’ll develop out of it. Maybe if Walky crashes out on her. That’d be nice.
(Now that I think about it, it feels like every major Dorothy moment has been trying to take charge in situations where nobody needs to take charge. It’s consistently resulted in bad outcomes for everyone else, the only exception being when kidnapped and *maybe* the protest I think. I’m unsure if Amber would’ve still gotten stabbed had Dorothy and Joyce just listened to her; that’s dependent on whether it was because she was at the thing longer, giving someone more incentive to follow her or if she was tired or what. Regardless, we’ve seen in her PoliSci class that nobody is actually talking about the protest itself.)
This would be a good take if Dorothy was handing an apology to Walky or Joe or I guess Raidah or Asma. Weird take wrt Becky, though because D&J haven’t done anything wrong to her. Her hurt feelings are an unfortunate and unavoidable side effect of their being together that isn’t anyone’s fault. I don’t necessarily *blame* Becky for not being ready to be gracious about Dorothy’s attempt to express sympathy over that, but to cheer her for that is weird.
Sympathy would be “Hey I know you are hurting over this. But Joyce and I are going to keep being together because we have genuine feelings for each other. Is there anything we can do to lessen the discomfort for you? Would you like more space? How can we best do that while sharing a room?”
An apology isnt sympathy, ita just Dorothy wanting someone to say “no you are in the clear”
I cringe for this Dorothy behavior because I’ve done this Dorothy behavior. It’s avoidance of a scary high tension space she doesn’t know how to navigate. Unfortunately it’s also tremendously disrespectful.
A Dorothy special: self-serving, performative, zero real respect, all so utterly sincerely meant which means no one has ever confronted her about the shittiness of any of it.
I do think in this case while Dorothy is avoiding conflict Becky is also taking this a step too far by demanding Dorothy strip. That’s a sign of Becky’s own weird entitlement. Yes have a conversation, no don’t infringe on a person’s autonomy or personal space and comfort.
I’m talking in a more general sense. I don’t think she wants Dorothy to get naked. I just don’t know how to articulate that better. Disrobing, undressing?
Gotta say I approve. Becky was told she couldn’t have what she wanted and has decided to just take it! Very leadership of her! A+! No notes! Dorothy could learn from her example.
I think what a lot of folks aren’t getting about this exchange is that the question isn’t “Is Dorothy’s apology sincere?” We know it is because we just saw her agonize over her actions in class. The real question right now is “Does Dorothy’s apology consider the needs of the harmed person, or is it primarily for exonerating herself?” *That’s* why it feels so hollow. You can see her teeing up to make this exact same mistake with Walky in the last storyline before Joyce HAHAHAHA’d her way outta there.
As others have said, (S/O Throwatron who swayed me on this last strip) Dorothy’s smart enough to understand she didn’t technically do anything wrong to Becky, but because of Becky’s issues she’s become collateral damage in the wake of Dorothy and Joyce’s actions. Saying “this is Becky’s problem to solve within herself” may be true, but it can’t stop the voice in Dorothy’s head screaming at her to “fix this!” So now we’re stuck at the impasse of “Dorothy can’t leave Becky alone out of fear she’ll hurt herself” and “Dorothy’s part in all of this means she *can’t* solve it and she should probably give Becky some space.”
Dorothy can’t leave Becky alone. Because this is where she literally lives and her clothes are here. It’s only an impasse because it’s written that way.
It’s not true that the comic isn’t complete without a homeless lesbian
…the whole comic is only the way it is because it’s written that way. What kind of a nonsense comment is that? People are fine to discuss the story, including the impasses that are written into it.
Dorothy making a performative apology that only really serves to assuage her own feelings is a) phenomenally in-character, b) ultimately mostly harmless, and c) the most interested I’ve been in dissecting a character’s motivations literally all year. It’s aflaw that’s symptomatic of Dorothy’s greater tendency to simultaneously think she knows better than others what they need and to be kinda selfish.
What I still don’t understand is why the apology was argued to be appropriate when it didn’t help Becky and Dorothy knew that? Even if you have sincere intentions if you know the apology is unwanted and ineffective aren’t you just forcing your sense of guilt onto someone else? I think Becky knows she doesn’t deserve an apology because of her own flaws in her possessive unrequited love for Joyce, so to me Dorothy’s apology was at minimum annoying if not insulting and Dorothy is very aware of that.
The big one is that I have been and will continue to be vocal about calling out bad writing when I see it (a hint that i actually think this is good writing is that I’m being 100% Watsonian rather than Doylist right now). You couple that with the uptick in criticism as a whole that’s been leveled at DoA in the past year and I think there are a lot of folks out there who see my takes and immediately go “Rogue 7! How is he wrong!” And to be fair I’ve made the occasional absolutely stupid take here once or twice.
I think the other is folks assuming that because this apology was performative, it wasn’t sincere. And it was absolutely sincere. Dotty doesn’t have the ability to be anything but sincere. So I think folks thought I was accusing Dotty of being manipulative or conniving when really she’s just being a dumbass.
Like, the complaint of this thread is “we didn’t SAY Dorothy’s apology was insincere, we ONLY said it was perfomative and that all she really cares about is assuaging her own guilt” (two things that don’t actually seem meaningfully different to me, but okay).
But you both seem to be confusing “Dorothy is super socially awkward and ND, I find this terrible apology strategy sympathetic” for “Dorothy’s apology to Becky is both appropriate and helpful”.
I’d really appreciate you not implying I’m deranged for participating in discussion. I know I have opinions you don’t agree with and am earnestly trying my best to understand them. For instance I think the perspective that Dorothy possibly being neurodivergent adds some context I didn’t previously understand. I also believe you can critique Dorothy or any character in this comic’s actions or behavior without it being a complete denouncement of that character.
Not responding to the other thing, it’s not my comment to apologize or not for, but re-sharing two links I provided yesterday in terms of “is Dorothy textually ND or not”.
Some folks have totally forgotten this whole thread, others seem to be taking Dorothy at her (very unconvincing) word, but yeah. It’s not just “she does a lot of ND seeming stuff”, even though that would still be a valid reason for thinking she’s ND.
@Li I am nothing if not predictable. With how many people gets tnagled up in these thrends responding to one another o can’t keep track of who is responding who or where.
I think it’s easy to forget that it wasn’t but a few days back that Dorothy was having a legitimate crisis to the point that she was knowingly putting herself in physical danger, all because she couldn’t cope with the idea of not living up to the impossible standards she sets for herself.
So, if we’re cutting Becky a break for being possessive of Joyce and disrespecting Dina because she’s working through some big things, I do think we can extend some of that same understanding to Dorothy for her bizarre coping mechanism. There will likely come a time when she needs some strong words from a friend about how that coping mechanism could hurt other people, but this probably isn’t the right time for that lecture.
Like for real it is maddening that you’re agreeing with this while calling her apology performative, as if “insincere” weren’t part of the definition of performative.
Did you miss the multiple times where I talked about how a big part of it is subconscious?
Dorothy, even in the throes of coming to terms with the state of authority in America in 2025, is still fundamentally a Lawful Good person. Where a Neutral Good person generally wants a reason to follow The Rules and a Chaotic Good person needs a good reason not to break The Rules, a Lawful Good person needs a good reason to break them. This is the aspect of Dorothy I identify with the most strongly, because I’m also wired that way. I will follow a rule until I see a damn good reason not to, even without any sort of means of enforcement. Rules give you a script, they give you a plan of How Things Should Go.
And she’s following The Rule that when you hurt someone you apologize for it. She’s being entirely sincere. She believe that this is The Right Thing To Do. She’s going to such extremes (mostly for the joke but) because that is How Things Are Done.
But whether or not Becky wants, needs, or even deserves an apology? Doesn’t even factor into it. Dorothy is going to apologize because that is what, in her head, the “script” calls for and she’s just reading her lines.
That is *perfectly normal* for a flailing 19-year-old. One who’s probably neurodivergent (I say probably mostly because my own neurodivergence means I hedge like a motherfucker) as well.
But Dorothy is following a script here. And what do we call it when someone is following a script? A performance. The script is called “How It Is Done”, and she firmly believes that it’s the right thing to do. But it is *absolutely* performative.
Next point: why it’s easier to apologize to Becky than to Walky-
Well, quite simply, because an apology to Walky could go one of two ways. It could be so transparently performative that even Dorothy couldn’t figure out how to be sincere about it. And even Walky would blow up at it.
But the other way is that it’s *too* sincere. It’s an apology that really grapples with how thoughtless she was in toying with Walky, acknowledges that she only got back together with him because she was frustrated she couldn’t have Joyce and never approached their second attempt at a relationship with her whole heart. It would require Dorothy, in sitting down to write it out, to do some serious self-reflection.
And that’s *really* hard to do for anyone, not just a spiraling 19-year old with undiagnosed PTSD, gifted kid burnout, and a new girlfriend.
With Becky, Dorothy can just turn the relentlessly self-critical part of her brain *off* and Follow The Script. And hey, it worked! Becky certainly didn’t blow up about it. The script has been followed, mission accomplished wait why is there no serotonin?
I don’t know why everyone’s assuming this is an apology to Becky INSTEAD OF an apology to Walky, as if Dorothy has some sort of quota she can’t go over, and apologizing to Becky means she’s not going to apologize to Walky.
I especially don’t know why folks are assuming that when Dorothy didn’t go looking fo Becky here, so this entire conversation is unplanned. She went looking for clean clothes. So this doesn’t even really qualify as something Dorothy is doing to “delay” apologizing to Walky, much less something she’s doing to “avoid” it.
I mean, like, maybe it’ll turn out that she is, in fact, trying to give Walky space instead of planning on apologizing to him today, but I don’t think it’ll have anything to do with the apology letter for Becky.
Honestly? It seems more likely to me that Dorothy wrote a bunch of different apology letters for a bunch of different people all at once — like for example, a letter for Joe but also one for Walky and maybe one for Dina. Joyce might or might not have successfully convinced her not to write one for Asma, but I’m sure the impulse was there regardless.
It’s definitely possible that Dorothy plans to apologize to Walky. If that’s the case, I think my point would still hold. She took care of the easy option first.
Again, not a crime, but certainly a character insight.
You have no reason to think she even wrote the letter for Becky before writing a letter for Walky, and the rest of your argument falters because she ran into Becky unexpectedly.
But to get a bit meta, I don’t expect an apology to Walky to be shown onscreen. Because it would be reusing a gag and Willis is a better writer than that. So what we have to work with is Dorothy apologizing to Becky and not Walky. And thus the notion that it’s easier to do so.
Which I don’t actually think is a big deal? That it’s easier to apologize to a third party you hurt than the boyfriend you actively cheated on doesn’t really strike me as a controversial take?
I still think it’s entirely possible Dorothy doesn’t even know Walky is upset. He wasn’t visibly upset in front of her, and despite (or perhaps even because of!) Jennifer telling her that she’s always underestimated the hold she had on him, I think she’s continuing to do that.
Like I can go either way on that, but IF Dorothy hasn’t already written him a letter (something we have no reason to assume), I would BET it’s because she doesn’t know he’s hurting right now (given that she wasn’t actually there when he let his guard down the tiny bit he did with Booster and Jennifer, and has historically alway underestimated how much he cares about her).
I think you continually saying “not CONSCIOUSLY insincere, but still insincere” is, like, a razor-thin distinction that doesn’t change the fact that you’re calling her insincere.
Li, first and foremost, you’re doing that thing again where you accuse me of some sort of broad, sweeping bias- in this case insensitivity to neurodivergence- by twisting my words. You have done so multiple times before and I don’t appreciate it.
*I* am not the one saying that performative actions are insincere. *You* are. I am, in fact, saying the complete opposite, that Dorothy’s apology here is simultaneously sincere and performative.
And yes, I recognize that you’ve cited the dictionary at me. That’s certainly a good point! The dictionary you used does define “performative” as being insincere. But as a counter, I’m going to cite https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/performative, *particularly* point 3: “determined and reinforced by the repeated performance of socially prescribed acts and behaviors rather than by biological factors”. Now, obviously “biological factors” have nothing to do with what we’re talking about here, we can ignore that part, but this apology is “Determined and reinforced by the repeated performance of socially prescribed acts and behaviors” as opposed to *something Becky wants or needs to hear*.
Dorothy is being performative and she is also being sincere. Full stop.
Okay, that last bit isn’t fair, I won’t claim to know what you meant by the word.
But the associations of it are primarily negative when we aren’t talking about grammar or a literal performance.
If you don’t want people complaining that you’re calling Dorothy insincere, just… stop calling her performative. There must be a better word that will actually convey what you mean here.
Yes, absolutely there are *associations* with insincerity in performative behavior. In Dorothy’s case, the insincerity is intimately tied into what you’ve called awkwardness, and it’s subconscious. It’s her desire to Follow The Rules and Apologize overriding that it should be painfully obvious to anyone that Becky is not in a place where an apology would matter one way or the other.
To sum up way too many words:
This apology is not for Becky. It’s because Dorothy wants to be the kind of person who apologizes. She’s completely sincere in her desire, completely sincere in feeling bad about hurting Becky. But there’s a part of her that knows that this apology is not going to do anything to assuage Becky’s pain. At worst Becky could take it as her rubbing it in, at best she’s going to throw it away unread as she did.
*That’s* where it’s performative. The element of insincerity is not that Dorothy is trying to get absolution for her actions. It’s that Dorothy should know that Becky doesn’t care one way or the other whether she apologizes. And yet she apologized anyways.
a.) I think you’ll find that “you can be sincere and still do things for show” is not a commonly held opinion, and you’ll continue to have communication problems if you keep assuming other people agree with you about that.
b.) having had some time to sit with it? I don’t think I want to keep talking to you if you’re not going to acknowledge my objection up there to your claim that I am “doing that thing again where you accuse me of some sort of broad, sweeping bias”.
It’s important to me that you acknowledge that no, I did not “accuse” you of any kind of bias. That instead, I pointed out that your phrasing was insensitive.
If you really believe otherwise? I can’t imagine why you have any interest in talking to me.
And if you’re going to keep claiming it every time I point out that your phrasing had unfortunate implications, I’m CERTAINLY not going to keep talking to you.
It is honestly commendable that you managed to keep trying to have a reasonable discussion with someone who clearly doesn’t want one for as long as you did. Really sorry you wasted your time beating against the brick wall that it’s rouge and their reasoning. Like i had said before i think ignoring them it’s the better course of action, anything else is just a waste of energy
@namadás: like, I won’t ask for an apology, because why would I from someone who views apologies like this, but.
This is at least the second time Rogue 7 specifically has made this accusation and I’m tired of it. I am, generally, very tired of being accused of saying and doing stuff I don’t say or do, lol.
Look. I used to respect your commentary, and to an extent I still do. But I make it a point these days not to initiate conversation with you. For whatever reason, we talk past each other. And neither of us is willing to let the other have the last word.
Which I could respect, but here’s the rub: You are insisting that you can read all sorts of hidden meanings in what I say, but when I do the same- like when you say “throwing ND people under the bus” and I take it to mean you think I’m insensitive- you retreat behind the literal meaning of the words. When I say, repeatedly, that I think Dorothy is sincere, you keep claiming I think she’s insincere- because we disagree over the definition of “performative”.
But also, most importantly, why is it so important to you that I’m wrong? Why is the notion that Dorothy is doing this because It Is Known, Khaleesi rather than because it’s going to make Becky feel better so offensive to you that you feel the need to respond to every single thing I say? Why is the word “performative” so much of a problem?
Dorothy Keener used to be someone I related very strongly to. A “gifted kid with a stick up their ass” was a pretty good description of me as a teenager. And even as she’s spiraled and changed, there’s still parts of that there. Dorothy right now is a good kid. She’s a little selfish. She doesn’t recognize when she’s being selfish, and that’s probably her biggest flaw. She’s dealing with academic burnout, a radical change in worldview, and PTSD. She’s fucking up in new and interesting ways, and one of those ways is that she’s apologizing to someone who would really rather pretend she doesn’t exist and/or punch her in the nose. And I’m trying to share my thoughts on this new and interesting way she’s fucking up.
@nadamas- for someone who advocated for ignoring me yesterday, you sure seem to care what I have to say.
God and it’s complete with an “I used to respect you”.
Again: I did not “make up” an implication that you were calling Dorothy insincere. Everything you said yesterday put forth that implication, including when you said you thought she was “just” apologizing to make herself feel better, “rather than out of a sincere desire to make Becky feel better” or that her apology was “entirely performative”.
It’s not my fault you’re no longer happy with the arguments you made yesterday.
It’s not my fault you then, in the context, said that using scripts in social situations is inherently performative, without thinking about how that might splash back on other ND people, and it’s certainly not my fault that you have in the past advanced queerphobic arguments and had it pointed out, sometimes by people who were a lot less polite or patient with you than me.
But hey: if you’ll agree to stop accusing me of stuff, I’ll agree to stop replying to your comments. I know I’ll certainly be happier for it.
If you never respond to me, I’m not going to respond to you so we should be good there.
I’ve fucked up my language in the past. I will in the future, I’m sure. But that is *not* what I did here. Here’s what you said: “Woof to the idea that following a script = a performance = insincere.”
It was not my intention to say that being performative means being insincere. You can tell by the *several* times I said that Dorothy is both being sincere and being performative. In order to get to that conclusion, you have to connect two things I said on separate occasions as well as *completely disregard* many of the other things that I have said. It’s *incredibly* disingenuous and I’m not just going to take it on the chin.
You’re also disregarding that I was talking about Dorothy’s subconscious a lot yesterday. And Dorothy’s subconscious is really important to this because it’s where her underlying, unacknowledged selfishness lives. Ultimately, Dorothy isn’t any more selfish than your average person. But she never understands when she’s *being* selfish. Look at when Becky found out she’d turned down Yale. We all know now, and I think most folks suspected back then, that it was because she didn’t want to leave Joyce. But she couldn’t conceive that that was the reason, so she told Becky that she didn’t want to profit off of Becky’s pain.
And the combination of that selfishness with her genuine empathy for Becky is where we get this apology that is simultaneously sincere and insincere. Seeing Becky in pain like this does genuinely make Dorothy feel bad. Naturally, she wants to feel better. And apologizing *will* make her feel better, regardless of what happens. If Becky accepts, if the apology genuinely lessens her pain? That’s a win. But if she doesn’t? If she, surprising nobody, crumples up the apology without reading it? Then Dorothy’s selfish subconscious *still* feels better, because Becky’s pain is now no longer her fault- after all, she apologized. And *that’s* what I mean by “Dorothy wasn’t sincerely concerned with Becky’s pain”.
I suppose I should really modify that statement: Dorothy was sincerely concerned for Becky. It just wasn’t her only concern. She was also concerned with a) Doing The Right Thing as I’ve laid out in other comments and b) assuaging her subconscious selfishness.
People literally said it was insincere and that she wasn’t really sorry. If that’s not what you, personally, took issue with, fine, but it was a common complaint.
Yeah I think that’s wrong too. Trying to retroactively make everything about Dorothy fake doesn’t scan with all the emotions we’ve seen her wrestle with.
Considering how little time it’s been in-comic since Becky found out about Doyce, I doubt Becky is actually fine with this. But I still think Dorothy should be trying to apologize to Walky and Joe more than Becky at this point.
I think she had three goals: get some clothes so she doesn’t have to keep wearing Joyce’s since those were the only clean ones available, check in on Becky, and take a punch if necessary. It’s her fault more or less that Joyce had an epiphany without telling her one lesbian friend first.
She explicitly said that she only came to the room now because she thought Becky was out, so unless she’s lying about that, she can’t have had those last two goals in mind.
In a study of 256 1v1 matches (best of 3) between Becky and Dorothy, using a mix of rules (Items on or off, full stages or Omega Stages, infinite meter, computer inputs or players of various skills), Dorothy managed to win a whopping 14 rounds. Not matches, rounds. One of those wins happened because a bird got into the office and distracted Becky’s player. The difference in metagame viability is absolutely bonkers.
I think the joke is that they’re both women, so “reversing” their genders just makes them both boys, not that one or the other is boyed while the other stays girl.
Reversing the genders doesn’t work because it isn’t a trope of history, art, and life that women demand that people should remove their clothes or else they’ll do violence. That’s just not a thing that women have done commonly enough in our culture that Becky’s demand should suggest an imminent physical threat to Dorothy in this scene.
Women can, of course, be scary abusers, and a woman is, unfortunately, fully capable of threatening sexual violence. And when a woman threatens somebody, it is of absolutely zero help or consolation to their victim that this situation is statistically less common than being threatened with a man’s sexual violence.
The stats do make a difference, though, that we really aren’t interpreting that Becky’s demand carries a threat of imminent violence, the way we might, if these was a man demanding another person to strip. (Or if we knew that Becky had a history of violence or something, to make her more likely to be that scary outlier abuser lady.)
Due to history and culture etc, the man is seen as basically always having a weapon, and the woman isn’t.
If every man could totally refrain from doing, threatening, or making art about sexual violence, for a couple generations, that would probably seriously reduce the difference in how readers look at things.
I think Dorothy is actually Naked because her clothes are in here.
I can’t wait till tomorrow when Becky strips off her coat while Dina or Joyce walk in
. because half the comments will be accusing Becky of SA. A third slut shaming Dorothy for breaking Dinas heart.
It’s a bit different in a contrived circumstance like they’re naked under their coat and you didn’t know that.
We wouldn’t call it sexual assault if Becky pulled her coat and, as is most likely, she was wearing one of Joyce’s sweater vests. Still not cool, but not sexual.
I am amused though by the idea that Dorothy’s naked under that coat – especially since she’s been wearing it all day, out jogging and shopping and to class. She’s kept it zipped up the whole time too.
NGPZ, I know you’re taking a hard-earned break right now to focus on your health.
If you do peruse the comments, though, I saw this New Yorker article today on folks trying to leave the USA, and thought of you:
Not super topical per se, but the best of Becky. Just went through some pretty big trauma herself, but she immediately thinks of Amber and goes to her.
I hope folks see what I meant about the apology being performative. Note here how it’s contrasted with Dorothy literally wearing Joyce’s clothes, something that undoubtely feels like salt in the wound to Becky.
Legit I think this is the best writing DoA has had in a long time, 10/10 no notes.
No, I believe Rogue 7 when he says this is the most interested he’s been in Dorothy and the best writing he thinks he’s seen from Willis in months. I’ve seen other people talk similarly about Dorothy specifically: those people were very hopeful that we were gearing up for a Suprvillain Dorothy turn, but they were sincerely excited about it.
Still doesn’t seem at all performative. Awkward as heck but not insincere or coming from a place of selfishly only wanting to make herself feel better and not caring about Becky’s feelings.
Iiii think it’s performative in the sense that everything dotty does is performative. I don’t mean that in a negative way. She follows an “if x then y” script to behave properly. Here it’s “if [friend hurt] then [apology letter]”. Dotty’s constantly performing the role of someone who has their shit together and behaves in a way that a responsible and empathetic adult should, but she has a flawed idea of what that is. Imma project real hard for a second here but it’s a form of masking I relate to. Frankly when it comes to big things that happen outside myself I have a really hard time identifying my own feelings, so I perform the appropriate expression of how I should be feeling until the actual emotions take form in a way I can recognize. I don’t think that’s fully what’s happening here but I think the mindset is similar. She feels bad, she knows she feels bad, she doesn’t want to be seen as a heartless monster so she needs to make sure the person hurt knows she feels bad in a way that you can’t doubt her remorse (theoretically).
Basically it’s performative but not insincere imo. Like when you deliver a speech on stage, you presumably believe every word but you gotta add some extra oomf on top of it to get the message across. I think that’s what she’s doing here and what she does all the time, everywhere.
Yes, Dorothy’s notarized apology letter is performative. It’s a very Dorothy action and always has been. If Becky find that distasteful she could hand the letter back and say ‘I don’t need your letter, you’re fine’. But instead she says ‘You’re fine’ but aggressively crumples the letter and throws it away. Very mixed messages.
Yeah. Dorothy’s apology to Asma was poor because Asma had no reason to understand that this is just Dorothy’s bizarre coping mechanism for failing to live up to the impossible standards she has for herself. Becky, on the hand, does know Dorothy well enough to at least understand that this bonkers gesture is being made in good faith.
Dorothy/Joyce harmed Becky by getting together. They didnt wrong her, they shouldn’t have avoided getting together because of Becky, but its undeniable that them getting together did cause Becky distress as collateral damage.
If she was wanting to account for the harm. The best thing for Dorothy to do would have been to check on Becky, acknowledge that she’s hurting and ask how they can help. Things like “how can we give each other space while sharing a room?” Or “would it help if we changed some of our walking to class routines?”
Presenting it as an apology is inherently asking forgiveness for having wronged someone. Since Dorothy has no intention of stopping being with Joyce or in anyway undoing/changing the action that hurt Becky that just rings hollow. Its like she was just looking for Becky to go “no its fine I hereby release you of all guilt”
Disagree. I once sent a card after a death saying “Sorry for your loss”. It neither accepts culpability or responsibility for the death, nor am I implying that they need to be feeling loss at the death. They could be delighted.
Becky feels hurt at the pairing. Dorothy can acknowledge the hurt and that’s fine. Dina is right when she tells Becky it’s her problem.
I think the difference here is between expressing sorrow and apologizing.
Saying “Sorry for your loss” is not an apology. You are expressing sorrow that they have lost someone.
Saying “I’m sorry for falling in love with your best friend” is an apology. It might also be expressing sorrow, but specifically because it is taking responsibility for a particular action.
Now does Dorothy feel sorrow because she fell in love with Joyce? I don’t think so. So even saying “I’m sorry” for that is dishonest.
What might be honest is to say “I’m sorry you’re feeling bad”, but that isn’t really what Dorothy said.
Dorothy framed it as an apology, and framed it in terms of her actions.
—
My take is Dorothy is sincere in trying to apologize but also a bit of a doofus. I think she is following rules rather than reflecting on values and the result is that she acts in ways that are inappropriate for the situation.
In general the whole cast could do with a healthy dose of self-reflection… but that might be less amusing to read.
This is splitting hairs real finely, but if that’s the definition you’re operating with, the assumptions you’re making about what Dorothy did and didn’t include in her letter make a lot of sense.
1. a regretful acknowledgement of an offence or failure.
—————————————————
Notably: Not a promise to change behavior. Not a wish you hadn’t engaged in the behavior. Not a desire to go back in time and undo the behavior. Just a regretful acknowledgement.
Dorothy regrets hurting Becky. There were ways to have still fallen in love with Joyce and told Becky about it that didn’t cause this much pain. It’s perfectly reasonable to express regret about how everything went down.
Apologies do not require anything but sincere regret, and if you can’t see that in Dorothy then you and I are reading different comics.
I think the thing is, if someone says they regret something, but also would still do it if they were to go back in time and try again, then I don’t think the regret is sincere.
I think it would be reasonable (but not necessary) for Dorothy to wish she had handled getting with Joyce better with regards to Becky. Saying “I’m sorry it came out the way it did, I wish that we’d talked to you in person first” would come across a lot more sincere.
Part of the issue is that this is a humorous comic strip so sometimes characters behave like doofuses primarily for laughs. Dorothy is being a doofus because she is apologizing for the wrong thing. Dorothy doesn’t regret “falling in love with your best friend” she might just regret not finding a way to break it to Becky more gently.
And even in that regard I would hope Dorothy would be feeling more like “I wish I could have found a way to help you more” rather than “I think I messed up towards you” because fundamentally I don’t think Dorothy is to blame for Becky feeling hurt.
It’s like if a friend is coming to visit who is afraid of spiders. They go into your bathroom and are terrified because they see a spider. You might regret that they were frightened, but as long as you weren’t aware of the spider/obtusely negligent it isn’t your fault. You can’t reasonably guarantee that there will never be a spider in your house.
Dorothy can’t guarantee that she will not fall in love with someone Becky is attached to, and can’t guarantee that things won’t fall out in a way that is suprising for Becky. That’s just life.
Doofusing of Age Book 13: My Doofus Group’s Doofusing Chart Is Basically A Doofoboros
(No, that was what I dropped in to say, but as long as I’m here: Odo’s summary of the situation has all the brevity it needs, 10/10 no notes)
(WAIT ACTUALLY as long as there’s already a Tolkien reference here: “Odo’s comment has no brevity… Odo’s comment NEEDS no brevity!” Okay my work here is done.)
Jeez, there are so many holes to poke in “it’s not sincere regret if you wouldn’t literally change what happened via time travel”, like “doesn’t that usually make everything worse when characters try it” and “being sorry that something which makes YOU happy hurts SOMEONE ELSE is still a sincere way of being sorry”.
“I think the thing is, if someone says they regret something, but also would still do it if they were to go back in time and try again, then I don’t think the regret is sincere.”
Regretting that your actions caused them pain is not the same as regretting your actions. Dorothy didn’t DO anything wrong, but is still allowed to feel genuinely regretful that Becky got hurt anyway.
As for your comments on how you wish the apology had been phrased… literally none of us know what’s in that letter. For all you know it’s perfectly phrased and exactly what you want her to say. I doubt it, but I also don’t think asking for perfection from someone trying to care for another person’s feelings is reasonable in the slightest. Human beings are imperfect, expecting perfection is a recipe for unhappiness.
“I regret my actions” is different from “I regret your pain”. What you are describing isn’t Dorothy regretting her actions it is Dorothy regretting Becky’s pain.
It is a “Sorry for your loss” sentiment that communicates “I care about your feelings and I care that you are feeling hurt”. It is not an apology.
You’re right, we don’t know the contents of the letter. But we do know how Dorothy described the contents:
“A Formal Letter of Apology for Falling in Love with Your Best Friend”
Should Dorothy regret “falling in love with [Becky’s] best friend”?
Was Dorothy “falling in love with [Joyce]” and offense or failure?
—
Dorothy did not do wrong by Becky. Dorothy does not owe Becky an apology. Expressing sympathy or care for Becky’s pain certainly is a kind thing a friend should do, but that is different from apologizing.
What Ethan is saying here is basically the point. I don’t think most folks are questioning that Dorothy is sincere. I’m certainly not.
But a sincere apology in the face of an inability and/or unwillingness to change what required the apology in the first place can be even more frustrating than an out-and-out lying, insincere apology. Because you *know* it means nothing in terms of future behavior.
Linking that comic to prove your point kind of requires ignoring that Ethan is right but ALSO wrong there. He’s frustrated with Amber and that’s fair, but he’s also treating her mental health issues like something she’s doing on purpose to avoid having to change her behavior, and, you know, they’re not.
And again: you ARE, specifically, repeatedly, saying that Dorothy is insincere.
Additionally, while entirely agreeing with the point, the only thing I would modify about Nymph’s original statement is that I don’t believe there was any way that Joyce and Dorothy could get together that wouldn’t result in Becks feeling hurt – because her reaction, while understandable, is also completely unfounded. It’s based in the idea that somehow, she is owed Joyce’s affections, that Joyce falling in love with another woman who is not Becky is somehow a betrayal. I understand that Becky and Joyce have a friendship going back to childhood, and that Joyce was willing to abandon her entire belief structure to support her friend, but Becky has taken that to mean that Joyce is hers, and she’s not allowed to be gay with anyone else. (This also taps into Becky’s fear of gender fluidity – if Joyce had fallen in love with her, that would have been just their old affection being reinforced, but Joyce being attracted to both men and women means, in Becks’ mind, that maybe she could have made herself straight and saved all that heartache over the years. She doesn’t understand – yet, anyway – that that’s not how that works.)
I think it’s possible to feel belatedly re-heartbroken that a girl who rejected you, who you thought was straight, later came out as bi, without necessarily feeling like you were entitled to her affections.
I also think there’s something deeper going on here, which you touch on with the latter half of your comment, but yeah.
It’s not entitlement from Becky until she actually says something like “it should’ve been me”, imho. Until we actually get that sentiment from her, just being really sad about it isn’t necessarily entitlement.
(Actually I take that back, I agree with almost all of what you said!
I just have a bit of a semantic disagreement about whether or not Becky being hurt by this necessarily means she felt entitled to Joyce’s affections. She might feel that way, but it’s possible to be heartbroken without that specific feeling.)
“There were ways to have still fallen in love with Joyce and told Becky about it that didn’t cause this much pain.”
I didn’t need my opinion edited, because I didn’t suggest there was a way to cause Becky zero pain with this action. There were plenty of ways to do it that wouldn’t have resulted in this much pain for her though. Emphasis added.
For the rest of all that:
Becky can be upset about this without feeling owed anything. It’s totally fair to have a crush and feel a little heartbreak when your crush gets with someone else. Humans have human emotions.
Becky also has not expressed any of the feelings you’re attributing to her. She hasn’t told anyone she owns Joyce, hasn’t said that Joyce was supposed to be hers. She just got upset that a girl she had a crush on didn’t like her back and it wasn’t for a reason that had nothing to do with her. It was Becky, specifically, that Joyce didn’t want. For many people, that’s a source of ouchie.
She hasn’t even called it a betrayal as far as I’m aware. A lot of the things you’re fighting against here are comment-section reads and not in-story truths.
And again. No. I am not saying she’s insincere. I went back and looked at my posts from yesterday and never once did I say “insincere”. That’s something *you* bootstrapped onto my position by citing one dictionary at me. I can cite another dictionary- https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/performative that doesn’t say “insincere”.
With regards to Ethan, I pretty strongly disagree. Amber’s mental health is tangential to the issue, which is that she always blames herself when no one asked her to. Look at Amber’s reaction to Dorothy & Joyce getting together as another example. When Booster sus’d out that she was trying to snipe Walky away from Dorothy, she ran away denying it. But when Dina was hurting, Amber said “My fault. I made it happen. Sorry.” She’s just jumping straight on the grenade of “I am terrible and I’m so sorry about it.”
And, more to the point, haven’t you ever dealt with someone who was so sorry for whatever little thing they did to you that you ended up having to comfort them?
Because, to bring it full-circle, that’s what Dorothy is doing here a little bit and what Amber does *a lot*. Hence the comparison.
Example sentences are often more helpful than the definitions themselves, such as: “there’s a question of whether that outrage is genuine or performative,” which clearly posits those two things as opposed.
But now I suppose you’ll argue that “sincere” and “genuine” aren’t exactly the same thing, or whatever.
“I think Dorothy is doing this because it’ll make her feel better rather than out of a sincere desire to help Becky.”
(And then a lot of waffle about how Dorothy knows she did something wrong and she feels bad about that, but she’s also “smart enough” to know that she didn’t actually do anything wrong to Becky, so apologizing to Becky is safe. But also, you think, she knows apologizing to Becky won’t actually even make Becky feel any better.
“But she’s smart enough that she *should* know this apology isn’t going to help her.”
Which you then add is why you keep calling it performative.)
But you’re right, you never once technically used the word “INsincere”. You just said the apology wasn’t sincere.
*You just said the apology wasn’t “coming from a sincere place”, and that Dorothy knows it won’t make Becky feel any better, and that she’s doing this instead of apologizing to Walky because it’s easier and doesn’t require her to think about her actions or change her behavior, and that it’s “entirely performative”.
Like gosh, how could I have gotten the idea that you meant she was being insincere, truly the reach of our time, and something I was just doing to make your argument look bad.
Dorothy is sincere in that she believes an apology is required. But, as we see by today’s strip, Becky certainly doesn’t think so- “I don’t need no apology letter”.
Dorothy believes an apology is required because, again, that’s What One Does. As I explained with my whole “Lawful good” spiel, she is very much sincere in that belief. And doing something Because That’s What One Does is performative. Why is that so controversial?
Whether or not Becky wants an apology from Dorothy has nothing to do with whether or not Dorothy was a.) sincerely apologetic, or b.) cares about Becky’s feelings and is trying to make things better.
And again: you have now accused me of “bootstrapping” insincere to your take on Dorothy, so it’s relevant to the conversation that you said this:
““I think Dorothy is doing this because it’ll make her feel better rather than out of a sincere desire to help Becky.”
If you want to walk back some of your points yesterday, by all means, but don’t do that by pretending I made up an argument you’re no longer happy you made.
I can’t be assed to fiddle with HTML right now, so:
“Whether or not Becky wants an apology from Dorothy has nothing to do with whether or not Dorothy was a.) sincerely apologetic, or b.) cares about Becky’s feelings and is trying to make things better.”
Believe it or not, I 100% agree. Dorothy was sincerely apologetic. And Dorothy cares about Becky’s feelings and is trying to make things better.
But here’s the key. Dorothy is *trying to make things better in a way that isn’t going to help Becky*. Because there really isn’t anything Dorothy *can* do or say right now that’d help Becky.
And yet the apology comes out the instant she sees Becky. Her anxiety screams at her “DO SOMETHING” and her lawful good nature screams at her “This is something, do it!”. So she does it. Not because it’s going to help Becky. Because it is Something and it Must Be Done. And *that’s* where it’s performative. It’s not going to help Becky. It’s only going to fulfil the requirement that Something Be Done.
Why you’re still talking to me as though this is a friendly debate, heaven knows. After all, I’m the weirdo who had the temerity to link a dictionary definition of performative, just because you keep insisting it doesn’t imply insincerity. I’m the one whose takes you “used to respect”. I’m the one who cares too much about this conversation.
I know why I’m still replying: because I don’t like that you accused me of “bootstrapping” the word insincere to your takes “by citing the dictionary (crime of crimes, apparently), when in fact you were the one to first say you didn’t think Dorothy was being sincere in her apology. You said that with your own mouth, and then a lot of other things that implied it.
You’ve got a new take today, fine. I really don’t care about that. I care about the unfair jabs you keep making at me as a person, lol, wild concept.
“Appropriate” or not doesn’t really enter into anything. Ethan has a right to his own boundaries.
But to link that comic and say “Ethan really says it all” is funny, when half of what Ethan is saying in that comic is factually incorrect, as well as unfair.
So, in your opinion, if Dorothy intends to keep dating Joyce (which is totally fair because Becky doesn’t own Joyce) she should have done what? Ignored the pain that action cause? Told Becky to suck it up because she’s not going to fix it?
Just, fuck the whole mentality of “well it’s a sincere apology but still not exactly perfectly right” because that’s such a useless mentality to have. This is a messy situation, there isn’t a perfect response. But, if Dorothy feels remorse for hurting Becky, then expressing that remorse is genuinely fine imo.
I kind of think she should mostly just give Becky space, you know?
Dorothy very much is trying to do that, obviously- she was sneaking into their shared room to grab stuff so she can hide with Joyce. And so the “do no harm” version of this encounter is Dorothy more or less going “‘scuse me” and letting Becky go about her day.
This is the part where Becky starts wrestling Dorothy to get her coat off, then Dina walks in and, seeing Becky trying to get Dorothy into a state of undress, assumes they are now having an affair behind her and Joyce’s backs.
Dorothy, of all of the cast, is the most likely to put in inordinate amounts of labor to help a friend with something.
Dorothy constantly holds herself to high standards and strives to be the best version of herself she can be. She doesn’t always succeed, but she tries.
Also I feel I should stress: I think it would be a (fairly minor) jerk move to respond to a top-level like this sarcastically, but it ALSO seemed super tempting to me even as someone who likes Dorothy? Apparently I too am something of a contrarian at times.
I do genuinely apologize for seeing your name and expecting a sarcastic response, but I feel the need to clarify that I wouldn’t have thought you were an awful person for doing it.
She’s now canonically a former Gifted Kid (it came up like a year or so ago?), just like Walky, and I wonder if they wouldn’t have some a very interesting conversation if they ever actually realized that about each other.
She had a very sheltered upbringing, albeit not the exact same sheltered upbringing Joyce had, but she was book smart and not shy about sex from her first appearance, and a lot of folks have decided that meant she was more mature, or at least more worldly, than Joyce. I think this is also why people gave her “I dunno, probably a 0?” Kinsey scale answer so much credence, assuming she’d thought about it for more than two seconds before Danny asked her.
She seems to handle a lot of conflicts by waiting until she’s alone and then googling things, which… isn’t a bad strategy, by any means, but obviously limited. (Two situations where we know she did this are after Joyce was roofied (whereupon she learned to her apparent shock that college campuses don’t have a good track record about handling reports of sexual assault), and after Joyce announced that she had a referral for an autism diagnosis, but she’s ALSO claimed to have practiced comforting people via light physical contact “too much to be bad at it”, which, wow.)
She is MELTING DOWN these days, and I’m here for it.
I’m a big fan of Dorothy because I relate to her a lot. She takes everything more seriously than most of the characters, which I think is one reason she tends to be unpopular, but I find very relatable.
She really cares about people and wants to do right by them. She’s frequently not very good at it, and I think she knows that and it bothers her, but she always tries her best, which is very admirable.
Dorothy is a teenager who has always passionately wanted to help people, and it is utterly bemusing how much/many people here hate her. I have to assume she in some ways embodies a person a disproportionate number of commenter have had issues with, because the intense bad faith takes go back forever.
She’s literally a socially awkward people pleaser, ie: exactly the kind of person who is overrepresented in left-wing spaces on the internet. Huh, maybe that is the issue.
Anyway, I would have no strong feelings on Dorothy if not in response to the weird shit on here. She’s doing her best.
I think it’s sometimes that, sometimes recognizing and cringing at something we once did ourselves, and often the thing I mentioned above about how a lot of folks have the strong impression of Dorothy as much more mature and worldly than she is, so they expect a lot more of her.
When she makes boneheaded mistakes, people get disproportionately upset because they think she must be too smart to have actually done that by accident, therefore it’s something she’s doing on purpose to hurt people, and when she seems genuinely at sea like right now, it must be that she’s at least SUBCONSCIOUSLY manipulating people.
It’s the difference between someone stepping on your toe when you know it’s an accident, and someone doing it when you’ve privately decided they’re incapable of stepping on toes by accident, so it must be because they wanted to hurt you, and anything apologetic they say after the fact is a lie to dodge your righteous fury.
For real. It seems like a lot of people here believe that every social interaction has a victim and a villain, and the job of the comments section is to identify the villain, determine the exact degree of their villainy, and then shame them appropriately.
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dorothy’s desperately trying to avoid revealing her shibari sweatervest
Well now somebody will probably draw that. Totally unnecessary as I already have several possible visuals playing in my head, but also somebody please draw this.
“It’s sweater-vests all the way down…” xD
If Joyce has to be informed what shibari is, the ideal format has been found to be Twenty Questions (but with unlimited questions).
Predictive markets + Shibari… is that EA I see?
A shibari sweater would basically macrame with carefully placed knots over the naughty bits.
Or with large gaps over the naughty bits, depending.
I vote gordian knots. A true test of character, meticulous puzzle solving, or simple scissoring.
So, my 6th grade arts and crafts class plant hanger wasn’t a waste of time?
“Take it off, or I’ll rip it off!”
“I’d like to see you try!”
And that’s how this story gets a sordid new twist.
It’s okay, my brain went there too
+1 to the count from me
i need becky and dorothy to make out and have angry sex so bad
The whole cast just needs to fuck it out at this point.
“That wasn’t Tear Gas the National Guard was firing, it was FUCK GAS!”
“What’s a fuckass?”
you would know!
What about Dina? She does have a prior claim on Becky. unless you want a Joyce, Becky, Dina, and Dorothy foursome.
No, but I’ve heard worse suggestions.
given her using “observation” and “experimentation” in describing sex (much to Becky’s prior delight), I could honestly see Dina having an interest in voyeurism
this is of course presuming that she’s not staunchly opposed to poly, and is also biased by my own leanings
NGL, that would be an awesome (drama-wide) twist.
Don’t trust sudden requests to strip.
yeah, kind of a step too far. We can only handle so much cheating in one comic.
I think the Paladins would literally explode.
unless it’s a polycule; in which case just throw them into the fuck pile.
Hmm, maybe Becky really should have started that apology portfolio.
Also, it’s cold in here, Becky! Probably because of that gas leak causing the heat not to work.
Campfire might help
Probably against dorm rules…
I would advise against the use of fire during a gas leak
She isn’t wearing Joyce’s clothing under that coat. Or, any for that matter.
That’s what I was thinking.
Why would she go to her classes naked? In January?
I mean, she didn’t. She went in a coat. As long as you don’t remove it, it’s no different than going in a dress.
or shirt if it’s a short coat.
Panel one is clearly Becky still masking and telling Dorothy what she thinks she wants to hear so she can, like, go away (“it’s ok! You don’t need to apologize for anything! Everything’s fine!”). Then Dorothy goes and makes it weird by getting super defensive about the clothes thing, and at that point Becky just can’t help herself. Mx. Willis can you please get rid of the obnoxious ad that completely covered the text box as I was typing this.
Oh has that happened to you too? Re: ad. It’s a Hiveworks issue I suppose but it made the comic unreadable the other day.
I hate the ads that do that. They should get out of the way or at least have a button to shrink them after they explode all over the content, doing no favors to the bottom line because I’m not looking to support any advertisers with ads that aggressively anti-reader.
Panel 5 is backmasking
It says On
Also Dorothy’s apology did nothing for Becky so I have to ask again what was it for? Just for the sake of it? Because that means it was for Dorothy.
It was for Becky. Since Dorothy is not clairvoyant, she didn’t know in advance that it would do nothing for Becky, so she thought it was worth taking a shot that it would help at least a little.
Also it’s her way of reacting to anyone she feels she may’ve wronged whether she meant to or not. (She’s done this a lot, with the strong implication she’s been doing this for a long time. Tho’ notarised is an extra step, I think?)
I disagree. The apology at no point considered what Becky needed. It was Dorothy trying to address her own feelings of guilt and shame.
If she apologized to WALKY and he responded like this, then you’d be correct, but Dorothy hasn’t wronged Becky. She has nothing to apologize to her for.
Regardless of whether Dorothy wronged Becky or not, she was still harmed by Dorothy’s actions and friends tend to apologise for that regardless of whether they actually are at fault
Why should she. What Becky needs isn’t Dorothy job. That’s been Joyce and Dina.
This is why Becky needs to move in with Robin.
Lumino, If she apologized to Walky and got the same response, a demand to remove clothing …
What were we talking about again?
The idea that Dorothy has nothing to apologize for makes no sense to me. Like she doesn’t HAVE TO for sure, but there’s nothing inherently wrong with her doing so.
It’s perfectly fine to apologize for hurting someone even if you didn’t mean to do so. Even if you didn’t wrong them at all but your actions still caused pain. Don’t you apologize to dogs when you accidentally step on their tail? Do you think you wronged them on purpose? Isn’t Becky more deserving of her feelings being considered than a dog?
IDK, there have been plenty of times I have apologized for someone hurting even though I didn’t set out to hurt them and I don’t think what I did was wrong… and those times had nothing to do with guilt and everything to do with concern for the person I hurt. Maybe I’m in the minority for not weighing out the amount of apology I “owed” like it was a transaction.
The difference is with the dog if you could rewind time you would avoid doing the action that hurt them. Your apology is saying “I wish that I hadn’t done this action that hurt you”
In this instance if she could rewind time Dorothy would still get with Joyce. She wouldn’t change her action. Her apology is saying “I wish I had done exactly what I did and you weren’t upset by it”
“I wish I had done exactly what I did and you weren’t upset by it”
And?
How dare she wish Becky didn’t have to feel hurt?
I’m genuinely unsure what your point is here. Apologies aren’t this limited-scope thing, if you hurt someone and you didn’t mean to–it’s apology time. Regardless of whether you’d rewind time to undo it or not.
But the onus of change is different.
An apology saying that you wish you had done something different, or that you think you did something wrong is saying “hey I did something and I wish I had done something different”
An apology saying that you wish someone else wasn’t upset by your actions is saying THEY are the ones that should be different. “Hey I did something and I wish you had reacted/responded differently”
I disagree entirely that there’s no nuance in the second one. It is possible to wish someone wasn’t hurt by what you did in a way that’s informed by sympathy rather than saying they shouldn’t have reacted that way.
“I wish you didn’t have to experience pain” is a perfectly valid apology.
I must be too Canadian for this conversation. I apologized when somebody else walked into my desk.
(I didn’t get it notarized though.)
Gasp! You have an unnotarized desk? I thought Canadians were always prepared.
Though maybe that was the boy scouts.
Sure, she’d still get together with Joyce; that wouldn’t change. What would change is she’d try to do it in such a way that hopefully doesn’t hurt Becky so much. Like, maybe not waiting until Becky saw the photo of her and Joyce making out, to tell Becky what’s going on.
Or better yet, insisting that Joyce tell her immediately, instead of waiting until the next morning.
I’m really having extreme difficulty understanding the logic of this apology. To me an apology only has value by how the recipient receives it. How can it be sincere if completely divorced from the emotions of the person you’re apologizing to? How is that any different than pity?
Now if the answer is “Oh, this is just an awkward social mistake Dorothy made.” Then yes, I agree with that. And part of that mistake is noting that even if sincere in intent the apology only helps Dorothy and she should try and do better.
Why would Dorothy think Becky would want a written, notarised apology instead of something verbal anyway?
This is a woman who canonically sends handwritten thank you notes for every gift she receives. She clearly believes that handwritten letters are more sincere and respectful
Yea but. Like. Know your audience.
Plus, carefully writing down your thoughtful apology in advance dramatically reduces the odds that you will fuck up in the heat of the moment and say the wrong thing.
Mind you, learning to speak without fucking up and saying the wrong thing is a kind of important skill for a politician to have, so I’m surprised Dorothy hasn’t worked on it obsessively for years
Which makes the ritual written apology for the benefit of Dorothy, and Becky is just a prop in it.
You know what fuck it, making a Dorothy appreciation thread. Put some nice things here.
Did I hear a cricket?
Thank you. She’s doing her best and a bunch of people act like her trying to make things right with Becky is a great sin. I’d have apologized in that situation too, I write things out too, and if I were Becky I’d want an apology too. It’s great to know that all these commentors would apparently think I’m a asshole by proxy. But anyways, I like Dorothy because she seems to actually care. I want to be as caring as she is. I am slowly losing my faith in human for a lot of reasons, and so is Dorothy, but she cares throughout all of it! And that is admirable because I find myself trying to *stop* caring
Yeah, there’s two aspects here. The form of the apology is obviously just wrong – a notarized letter of apology is just silly and isn’t going to impress anyone, much less Becky.
The impulse to apologize to someone who’s been hurt by something you did isn’t a bad one, even if what you did wasn’t wrong and you don’t regret doing it. “I’m sorry I hurt you” isn’t always the performative nonsense of “I apologize if you were offended”.
You left out the unsaid part. It goes, I apologize if you were offended against all logic and reason even though [insert favorite all-knowing deity here] knows that any minimally competent excuse for a human being would be less emotionally fragile and have better sense, and so you’re probably faking it for the cheap effect anyway.
But I have to agree with Nymph somewhere above. You can be completely sorry that you hurt someone without the slightest bit of regret for the thing you did that resulted in hurting them. The two are not the same.
You can sincerely wish that it was possible to do that thing without causing them pain.
Dorothy is Clairvoyant. Either she knew that the letter would have a positive result.
Or she saw that it would enrage Becky while looking good in Joyce eyes.
But either way this is on Dorothy.
I don’t understand this argument. I really want to but this justification confuses me. It doesn’t take clairvoyance. Dorothy knows why Becky is upset and she knows an apology won’t fix what has upset her.
Astarial took the premise, one objectively incorrect that the apology was for Beck since Dorothy isn’t Clairvoyant.
But since Dorothy is one of many characters with supernormal powers, prophetic dreams, visions hunches etc she is Clairvoyant. Understanding destroys the mystery. Hoe does Dina teleport into banks?
The answer is , just because. Shut up, it’s just a comic.
The real issues become intentions and does Becky know it.
I didn’t see the text of the letter. You didn’t. That changes everything
I am pretty sure, based on the indent that Sirksome was responding to Astarial…
Also, if you’re clairvoyant you don’t have to see the text of the letter.
She knows that it won’t fix the situation, but that doesn’t mean it might not help a little bit. If there’s a chance that it could make Becky feel 1% better, then Dorothy would probably feel that it’s worth taking the chance, and it’s just not in Dorothy’s character to do nothing.
Obv
100% for Dorothy.
Since I’ve completely lost track of what this is in reply to, this seems like a good point to jump in and let the universe know that I am 100% amazed that after all this time there are still people who don’t know how to read a Willis comic.
It was for the sake of a joke.
This is I think, maybe my biggest frustration with this storyline and it’s taken me a while to figure out what it was, but so many things have been done for the sake of a joke, to give a strip a gag, and it’s been really tonally confusing.
Dorothy’s apology isn’t about her as a character or her motivations. It’s just what Willis thought would be a funny way to end a strip, and this clothes thing is the same.
I feel like both punchlines are pretty in-character?
Also, feels a little quick on the draw to say it’s just for the sake of a joke when the scene isn’t even over yet.
I mean, it definitely is for the sake of a joke, it’s just that Willis tries their best to ensure the joke is consistent with where the plot is meant to go and what the character might do that would be funny. But yeah all but a few strips haven’t meant to be humorous in some way – that’s also why we got the Joyce Stealing Dorothy from Walky strip, and why Walky’s coping mechanism has been nuggets, why he was kicked out of bed by Billifer, and why Joyce has been unrepentantly oversharing about having sex with Dorothy. They’re all choices that haven’t sat right with at least part of the fan base, and they’re all choices that the other part of the fan base sees for what they are – attempts at levity to keep a really difficult storyline from getting too dramatic and tense.
a gag-a-day strip will gag each day, after all
I still maintain that a poorly placed one of these was why the laundry arc left such a bad taste in my mouth. I literally just needed Joyce to actually affirm she was okay with it without backpedaling in a final panel, because the backpedaling gave it coercion vibes. I forget which strip it was, but one of them would’ve been perfect for her to double down on the actual walk and that one had her freaking out again as the punchline (which was actually funny, but still.)
I agree more in the case of today’s clothing thing. But the apology letter was very in-character to the point that it was something I was waiting for and expecting. I guess you could say it being notarized was just for the joke, but that’s well within the bounds of the amount of belief I expect to suspend for a gag-a-day comic strip.
Yeah the tone of this whole story line is all over the place.
If its gag-a-day oh so wacky then fine things are goofy and we shouldn’t take it seriously
Except all those times we should take it seriously and people’s wording matters
These characters have serious interactions that would really impact their relationships going forward
Except for the times when we are in joke land and the interaction is meant to not be taken seriously
In universe time moves way slower than real life time. Sometimes we are supposed to feel the weight of reading about a plotline for years, sometimes its thrown in our face that in universe its only been a couple weeks and why would we care about reading time?
Just keeps flipping flopping from “nah its all a joke dont take it serious it was just for the gag” and “these are significant characters whose actions will have impact on each other”
This is just me spitballing, and absolutely NOT an invitation for a fight from anyone who’s in their angy feelings today.
I wonder if Willis is just a better writer than they give themselves credit for. Maybe they’re accidentally writing a lot more serious, well-rounded, and impactful characters and story ideas than they think they are, so they don’t clock how hard the tonal shift is between “this is a very serious complex moment” and “wakka wakka!” because they were only ever trying to write the latter.
Maybe they add in jokes and gags because this is a jokey comic with a daily punchline (like the newspaper strips Willis presumably grew up reading) but the characters and interactions generally are more complex than in a gag-a-day comic and are capable of really exploring some interesting places. If their author would ever commit to withholding jokes for when they really belong and really hit the best, letting the unhappy times and the deep moments hit their own notes without a wisecrack.
IDK if that version of the comic would be better, worse, or the same, but I do wonder if Willis’ writing got a LOT better and they’re beholden to the wacky nature of a comic they wanted to write rather than the one they are actually writing.
Maybe none of that makes sense.
Possible! Also possible that Willis enjoys the tonal whiplash.
I don’t really want 100% serious or 100% goofy no-consequence land. I enjoy the quick contrasts between the two. I’m fine with the structure of often ending on a zany joke that’s a bit over-the-top and exaggerated from the rest of the scene, and I’m fine when the zany or the emotional whammy is unexpected.
(Not saying it’s invalid to prefer having just one or the other tone, or smoother transitions between them, or etc. I’m just representing that I legit enjoy having the whiplash.)
If I want to armchair psychologize/sociologize myself, maybe I like tonal whiplash because humor is my strongest coping mechanism. My whole extended family is like this: nobody wants to look exactly straight at tragedy, the jokes give each other a little breather, without undercutting that actually we’re sad. Our funerals are among our jokiest times.
So, it really matches my brain and culture that a universe should often crack silly jokes at serious times. For me, one tone doesn’t usually undercut the other, but rather, the whiplash serves to highlight both the seriousness and the absurdity.
So maybe Willis is a little like that, too.
That, or it’s fun to write drama and fun to write jokes. 🙂
Or you know how to read a Willis comic correctly.
It was for Dorothy. Dorothy thought it was for Becky but she is attrocious at genuine remorse. Her guilt always seems kind of performative, like she THINKS she should prostrate herself, but never really thinks through that it might not be what the other person needs. It sure as hell isn’t what Becky needs, but frankly she owes Walky — and Joe — an apology more.
Dorothy does not need to have remorse for Becky, the prioiritisation of Becky has consistently hit as insane for me throughout this plot. Becky was happy with Dina, she staked no real claim on Joyce, Dorothy is not BFFs with Becky and owes her nothing for dating Joyce.
Yes, Dorothy should try to be better to Walky, and at least *thank* Joe for being so big about the situation, and apologise for not having treated him better when he was literally trying to open the door for her and Joyce. But nobody needs a notarised apology letter, Dorothy is just wracked with guilt over the whole situation, especially for Becky who has already been through so much.
Dorothy’s got a drop of Bojack Horseman in her and that’s why I love her as a character, because she’s like 85% performances, 10% desperately trying to fix that, and 5% actually remorseful when she messes up/feels uncomfortable. She thinks it’s the other way around, but the Halloween Party was a pretty egregious show of how she kind of seems to need the attention on her. Not because she’s awesome, but because she needs a medal for being mature and understanding and apologetic.
Mind you, she’ll never be remotely near as bad as him, but like… this apology was to make Dorothy feel better and no other reason. And I’m one of the peeps fully in agreement that Dorothy shouldn’t have to apologize for this (if anything Joyce should. Not for getting with Dorothy, but the kinda weird rubbing it in the wound that happened)
I imagine she’ll develop out of it. Maybe if Walky crashes out on her. That’d be nice.
(Now that I think about it, it feels like every major Dorothy moment has been trying to take charge in situations where nobody needs to take charge. It’s consistently resulted in bad outcomes for everyone else, the only exception being when kidnapped and *maybe* the protest I think. I’m unsure if Amber would’ve still gotten stabbed had Dorothy and Joyce just listened to her; that’s dependent on whether it was because she was at the thing longer, giving someone more incentive to follow her or if she was tired or what. Regardless, we’ve seen in her PoliSci class that nobody is actually talking about the protest itself.)
Dorothy is kind of like Jennifer but is less Jennifer about it lol
As I said last strip, going through all the paperwork and notary shit is the clue that the apology is for Dorothy’s sake.
Hey, cold weather dressing is ALL about multiple layers…
Multiple laying is what the clothes are there to prevent…
Proud of Becky to not even glance at or acknowledge the letter like it wss going to help how bad the situation is.
Folding/crumpling it up and tossing it away like the worthless thing it is.
That’s just because she’s a slob. She throws everything on the floor.
This would be a good take if Dorothy was handing an apology to Walky or Joe or I guess Raidah or Asma. Weird take wrt Becky, though because D&J haven’t done anything wrong to her. Her hurt feelings are an unfortunate and unavoidable side effect of their being together that isn’t anyone’s fault. I don’t necessarily *blame* Becky for not being ready to be gracious about Dorothy’s attempt to express sympathy over that, but to cheer her for that is weird.
She didnt express sympathy.
Sympathy would be “Hey I know you are hurting over this. But Joyce and I are going to keep being together because we have genuine feelings for each other. Is there anything we can do to lessen the discomfort for you? Would you like more space? How can we best do that while sharing a room?”
An apology isnt sympathy, ita just Dorothy wanting someone to say “no you are in the clear”
To be fair, we don’t know what was actually *written* in the letter.
It could have said something along those lines.
I don’t think we can comment either way without knowing what the content actually was.
Back to calling her Dotty, huh.
But now she means it.
Dorothy what was the point of trying to lie? Just be honest about this shit. I think Becky would respect that even if she doesn’t like it.
I cringe for this Dorothy behavior because I’ve done this Dorothy behavior. It’s avoidance of a scary high tension space she doesn’t know how to navigate. Unfortunately it’s also tremendously disrespectful.
A Dorothy special: self-serving, performative, zero real respect, all so utterly sincerely meant which means no one has ever confronted her about the shittiness of any of it.
I do think in this case while Dorothy is avoiding conflict Becky is also taking this a step too far by demanding Dorothy strip. That’s a sign of Becky’s own weird entitlement. Yes have a conversation, no don’t infringe on a person’s autonomy or personal space and comfort.
“take off your coat” is hardly the same as demanding someone strip.
Still entitled and not her business, but there’s a difference in scale.
I’m talking in a more general sense. I don’t think she wants Dorothy to get naked. I just don’t know how to articulate that better. Disrobing, undressing?
She is a mess and I love her.
Nothing more substantive to say than that tonight, but it seemed worth saying anyway!
Not sure which one you’re talking about, but I guess it’s pretty applicable either way.
I meant Dorothy in this instance but you know what, Becky too, for sure.
Those words describe half the cast, for me.
(The other half, of course, are “he is a mess and I love him,” or “they are a mess and I love them”)
Unfortunately Becky can’t be part of the polycule, she can only name two of the Beatles
(Also, Mega Man 12? Holy shit what?)
(Mega man 11 complex part 2) (Ringo Paul Jon and Ron)
No wonder Dorothy is so on edge.
Alternate version of the last panel with that one meme template
And that’s how, ironically, Becky got to see her crush’s girlfriend naked.
kissin’, and cuddlin’, and wearin’ each other’s clothes.
Actually in that order, I believe.
October 2026? Walky still not talking to Joyce? Oh wait, this is like, just tomorrow for them.
Looks like for my birthday next year I’m getting some enemies-who-are-married-in-the-other-universe sexual tension.
Gotta say I approve. Becky was told she couldn’t have what she wanted and has decided to just take it! Very leadership of her! A+! No notes! Dorothy could learn from her example.
Dorothy’s professor would also approve.
..Wearing next to Nothing
… cuz it’s hot as an oven?
given becky’s usual level of self-entitlement re: joyce, it’s a wonder she can’t determine if dorothy has her clothes on by smell alone
I think what a lot of folks aren’t getting about this exchange is that the question isn’t “Is Dorothy’s apology sincere?” We know it is because we just saw her agonize over her actions in class. The real question right now is “Does Dorothy’s apology consider the needs of the harmed person, or is it primarily for exonerating herself?” *That’s* why it feels so hollow. You can see her teeing up to make this exact same mistake with Walky in the last storyline before Joyce HAHAHAHA’d her way outta there.
Why is that the question?
The harmed person is Amber
Then Dina, Walky, and Joe.
As others have said, (S/O Throwatron who swayed me on this last strip) Dorothy’s smart enough to understand she didn’t technically do anything wrong to Becky, but because of Becky’s issues she’s become collateral damage in the wake of Dorothy and Joyce’s actions. Saying “this is Becky’s problem to solve within herself” may be true, but it can’t stop the voice in Dorothy’s head screaming at her to “fix this!” So now we’re stuck at the impasse of “Dorothy can’t leave Becky alone out of fear she’ll hurt herself” and “Dorothy’s part in all of this means she *can’t* solve it and she should probably give Becky some space.”
Dorothy can’t leave Becky alone. Because this is where she literally lives and her clothes are here. It’s only an impasse because it’s written that way.
It’s not true that the comic isn’t complete without a homeless lesbian
Are you a mineral?
…the whole comic is only the way it is because it’s written that way. What kind of a nonsense comment is that? People are fine to discuss the story, including the impasses that are written into it.
Adam black is a troll am pretty sure mostly because it’s hard to believe someone sincerely have so many stupid opinions.
Agreed!
Dorothy making a performative apology that only really serves to assuage her own feelings is a) phenomenally in-character, b) ultimately mostly harmless, and c) the most interested I’ve been in dissecting a character’s motivations literally all year. It’s aflaw that’s symptomatic of Dorothy’s greater tendency to simultaneously think she knows better than others what they need and to be kinda selfish.
What I still don’t understand is why the apology was argued to be appropriate when it didn’t help Becky and Dorothy knew that? Even if you have sincere intentions if you know the apology is unwanted and ineffective aren’t you just forcing your sense of guilt onto someone else? I think Becky knows she doesn’t deserve an apology because of her own flaws in her possessive unrequited love for Joyce, so to me Dorothy’s apology was at minimum annoying if not insulting and Dorothy is very aware of that.
I think there’s a few reasons.
The big one is that I have been and will continue to be vocal about calling out bad writing when I see it (a hint that i actually think this is good writing is that I’m being 100% Watsonian rather than Doylist right now). You couple that with the uptick in criticism as a whole that’s been leveled at DoA in the past year and I think there are a lot of folks out there who see my takes and immediately go “Rogue 7! How is he wrong!” And to be fair I’ve made the occasional absolutely stupid take here once or twice.
I think the other is folks assuming that because this apology was performative, it wasn’t sincere. And it was absolutely sincere. Dotty doesn’t have the ability to be anything but sincere. So I think folks thought I was accusing Dotty of being manipulative or conniving when really she’s just being a dumbass.
Did anyone actually say the apology was appropriate?
Like, the complaint of this thread is “we didn’t SAY Dorothy’s apology was insincere, we ONLY said it was perfomative and that all she really cares about is assuaging her own guilt” (two things that don’t actually seem meaningfully different to me, but okay).
But you both seem to be confusing “Dorothy is super socially awkward and ND, I find this terrible apology strategy sympathetic” for “Dorothy’s apology to Becky is both appropriate and helpful”.
I thanks you Li for being a rare beacon of sanity in the deranged storm that been the discussion of this fucking apology letter.
I’d really appreciate you not implying I’m deranged for participating in discussion. I know I have opinions you don’t agree with and am earnestly trying my best to understand them. For instance I think the perspective that Dorothy possibly being neurodivergent adds some context I didn’t previously understand. I also believe you can critique Dorothy or any character in this comic’s actions or behavior without it being a complete denouncement of that character.
https://www.dumbingofage.com/2022/comic/book-12/04-dont-stop-billie-ving/sunlight/
https://www.dumbingofage.com/2022/comic/book-12/04-dont-stop-billie-ving/masking/
Not responding to the other thing, it’s not my comment to apologize or not for, but re-sharing two links I provided yesterday in terms of “is Dorothy textually ND or not”.
Some folks have totally forgotten this whole thread, others seem to be taking Dorothy at her (very unconvincing) word, but yeah. It’s not just “she does a lot of ND seeming stuff”, even though that would still be a valid reason for thinking she’s ND.
I honestly did not even thought about you in yhe slightest when i made this comment.
@namadás: oh hey I would have guessed right! I thought that would be your response but I wasn’t sure and didn’t want to be wrong in this case.
@Li I am nothing if not predictable. With how many people gets tnagled up in these thrends responding to one another o can’t keep track of who is responding who or where.
I think it’s easy to forget that it wasn’t but a few days back that Dorothy was having a legitimate crisis to the point that she was knowingly putting herself in physical danger, all because she couldn’t cope with the idea of not living up to the impossible standards she sets for herself.
So, if we’re cutting Becky a break for being possessive of Joyce and disrespecting Dina because she’s working through some big things, I do think we can extend some of that same understanding to Dorothy for her bizarre coping mechanism. There will likely come a time when she needs some strong words from a friend about how that coping mechanism could hurt other people, but this probably isn’t the right time for that lecture.
I mean, yeah, but that doesn’t really affect whether or not we as commentators can talk about it?
https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/performative
Like for real it is maddening that you’re agreeing with this while calling her apology performative, as if “insincere” weren’t part of the definition of performative.
Did you miss the multiple times where I talked about how a big part of it is subconscious?
Dorothy, even in the throes of coming to terms with the state of authority in America in 2025, is still fundamentally a Lawful Good person. Where a Neutral Good person generally wants a reason to follow The Rules and a Chaotic Good person needs a good reason not to break The Rules, a Lawful Good person needs a good reason to break them. This is the aspect of Dorothy I identify with the most strongly, because I’m also wired that way. I will follow a rule until I see a damn good reason not to, even without any sort of means of enforcement. Rules give you a script, they give you a plan of How Things Should Go.
And she’s following The Rule that when you hurt someone you apologize for it. She’s being entirely sincere. She believe that this is The Right Thing To Do. She’s going to such extremes (mostly for the joke but) because that is How Things Are Done.
But whether or not Becky wants, needs, or even deserves an apology? Doesn’t even factor into it. Dorothy is going to apologize because that is what, in her head, the “script” calls for and she’s just reading her lines.
That is *perfectly normal* for a flailing 19-year-old. One who’s probably neurodivergent (I say probably mostly because my own neurodivergence means I hedge like a motherfucker) as well.
But Dorothy is following a script here. And what do we call it when someone is following a script? A performance. The script is called “How It Is Done”, and she firmly believes that it’s the right thing to do. But it is *absolutely* performative.
Next point: why it’s easier to apologize to Becky than to Walky-
Well, quite simply, because an apology to Walky could go one of two ways. It could be so transparently performative that even Dorothy couldn’t figure out how to be sincere about it. And even Walky would blow up at it.
But the other way is that it’s *too* sincere. It’s an apology that really grapples with how thoughtless she was in toying with Walky, acknowledges that she only got back together with him because she was frustrated she couldn’t have Joyce and never approached their second attempt at a relationship with her whole heart. It would require Dorothy, in sitting down to write it out, to do some serious self-reflection.
And that’s *really* hard to do for anyone, not just a spiraling 19-year old with undiagnosed PTSD, gifted kid burnout, and a new girlfriend.
With Becky, Dorothy can just turn the relentlessly self-critical part of her brain *off* and Follow The Script. And hey, it worked! Becky certainly didn’t blow up about it. The script has been followed, mission accomplished wait why is there no serotonin?
My only response to this is:
I don’t know why everyone’s assuming this is an apology to Becky INSTEAD OF an apology to Walky, as if Dorothy has some sort of quota she can’t go over, and apologizing to Becky means she’s not going to apologize to Walky.
I especially don’t know why folks are assuming that when Dorothy didn’t go looking fo Becky here, so this entire conversation is unplanned. She went looking for clean clothes. So this doesn’t even really qualify as something Dorothy is doing to “delay” apologizing to Walky, much less something she’s doing to “avoid” it.
I mean, like, maybe it’ll turn out that she is, in fact, trying to give Walky space instead of planning on apologizing to him today, but I don’t think it’ll have anything to do with the apology letter for Becky.
Honestly? It seems more likely to me that Dorothy wrote a bunch of different apology letters for a bunch of different people all at once — like for example, a letter for Joe but also one for Walky and maybe one for Dina. Joyce might or might not have successfully convinced her not to write one for Asma, but I’m sure the impulse was there regardless.
It’s definitely possible that Dorothy plans to apologize to Walky. If that’s the case, I think my point would still hold. She took care of the easy option first.
Again, not a crime, but certainly a character insight.
You have no reason to think she even wrote the letter for Becky before writing a letter for Walky, and the rest of your argument falters because she ran into Becky unexpectedly.
That’s valid.
But to get a bit meta, I don’t expect an apology to Walky to be shown onscreen. Because it would be reusing a gag and Willis is a better writer than that. So what we have to work with is Dorothy apologizing to Becky and not Walky. And thus the notion that it’s easier to do so.
Which I don’t actually think is a big deal? That it’s easier to apologize to a third party you hurt than the boyfriend you actively cheated on doesn’t really strike me as a controversial take?
Oh wait, I’ll also add:
I still think it’s entirely possible Dorothy doesn’t even know Walky is upset. He wasn’t visibly upset in front of her, and despite (or perhaps even because of!) Jennifer telling her that she’s always underestimated the hold she had on him, I think she’s continuing to do that.
Like I can go either way on that, but IF Dorothy hasn’t already written him a letter (something we have no reason to assume), I would BET it’s because she doesn’t know he’s hurting right now (given that she wasn’t actually there when he let his guard down the tiny bit he did with Booster and Jennifer, and has historically alway underestimated how much he cares about her).
I think you continually saying “not CONSCIOUSLY insincere, but still insincere” is, like, a razor-thin distinction that doesn’t change the fact that you’re calling her insincere.
Also: woof, friend.
Woof to the idea that following a script = a performance = insincere.
I mean. Just……. woof.
I know you are also ND, but please understand that that throws a lot of your siblings under a bus without their consent.
Li, first and foremost, you’re doing that thing again where you accuse me of some sort of broad, sweeping bias- in this case insensitivity to neurodivergence- by twisting my words. You have done so multiple times before and I don’t appreciate it.
*I* am not the one saying that performative actions are insincere. *You* are. I am, in fact, saying the complete opposite, that Dorothy’s apology here is simultaneously sincere and performative.
And yes, I recognize that you’ve cited the dictionary at me. That’s certainly a good point! The dictionary you used does define “performative” as being insincere. But as a counter, I’m going to cite https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/performative, *particularly* point 3: “determined and reinforced by the repeated performance of socially prescribed acts and behaviors rather than by biological factors”. Now, obviously “biological factors” have nothing to do with what we’re talking about here, we can ignore that part, but this apology is “Determined and reinforced by the repeated performance of socially prescribed acts and behaviors” as opposed to *something Becky wants or needs to hear*.
Dorothy is being performative and she is also being sincere. Full stop.
I’m not “accusing” you of anything.
I am pointing out that the words you just used were hurtful. I am in fact assuming you didn’t mean them that way.
Also, friend, FROM YOUR OWN LINK,
Come on. This is the sense you meant it in, transparently.
Okay, that last bit isn’t fair, I won’t claim to know what you meant by the word.
But the associations of it are primarily negative when we aren’t talking about grammar or a literal performance.
If you don’t want people complaining that you’re calling Dorothy insincere, just… stop calling her performative. There must be a better word that will actually convey what you mean here.
Yes, it is, 100%. I just think you can be sincere and still do things for show.
One last comment before I head back to work:
Yes, absolutely there are *associations* with insincerity in performative behavior. In Dorothy’s case, the insincerity is intimately tied into what you’ve called awkwardness, and it’s subconscious. It’s her desire to Follow The Rules and Apologize overriding that it should be painfully obvious to anyone that Becky is not in a place where an apology would matter one way or the other.
To sum up way too many words:
This apology is not for Becky. It’s because Dorothy wants to be the kind of person who apologizes. She’s completely sincere in her desire, completely sincere in feeling bad about hurting Becky. But there’s a part of her that knows that this apology is not going to do anything to assuage Becky’s pain. At worst Becky could take it as her rubbing it in, at best she’s going to throw it away unread as she did.
*That’s* where it’s performative. The element of insincerity is not that Dorothy is trying to get absolution for her actions. It’s that Dorothy should know that Becky doesn’t care one way or the other whether she apologizes. And yet she apologized anyways.
a.) I think you’ll find that “you can be sincere and still do things for show” is not a commonly held opinion, and you’ll continue to have communication problems if you keep assuming other people agree with you about that.
b.) having had some time to sit with it? I don’t think I want to keep talking to you if you’re not going to acknowledge my objection up there to your claim that I am “doing that thing again where you accuse me of some sort of broad, sweeping bias”.
It’s important to me that you acknowledge that no, I did not “accuse” you of any kind of bias. That instead, I pointed out that your phrasing was insensitive.
If you really believe otherwise? I can’t imagine why you have any interest in talking to me.
And if you’re going to keep claiming it every time I point out that your phrasing had unfortunate implications, I’m CERTAINLY not going to keep talking to you.
It is honestly commendable that you managed to keep trying to have a reasonable discussion with someone who clearly doesn’t want one for as long as you did. Really sorry you wasted your time beating against the brick wall that it’s rouge and their reasoning. Like i had said before i think ignoring them it’s the better course of action, anything else is just a waste of energy
@namadás: like, I won’t ask for an apology, because why would I from someone who views apologies like this, but.
This is at least the second time Rogue 7 specifically has made this accusation and I’m tired of it. I am, generally, very tired of being accused of saying and doing stuff I don’t say or do, lol.
@Li
Look. I used to respect your commentary, and to an extent I still do. But I make it a point these days not to initiate conversation with you. For whatever reason, we talk past each other. And neither of us is willing to let the other have the last word.
Which I could respect, but here’s the rub: You are insisting that you can read all sorts of hidden meanings in what I say, but when I do the same- like when you say “throwing ND people under the bus” and I take it to mean you think I’m insensitive- you retreat behind the literal meaning of the words. When I say, repeatedly, that I think Dorothy is sincere, you keep claiming I think she’s insincere- because we disagree over the definition of “performative”.
But also, most importantly, why is it so important to you that I’m wrong? Why is the notion that Dorothy is doing this because It Is Known, Khaleesi rather than because it’s going to make Becky feel better so offensive to you that you feel the need to respond to every single thing I say? Why is the word “performative” so much of a problem?
Dorothy Keener used to be someone I related very strongly to. A “gifted kid with a stick up their ass” was a pretty good description of me as a teenager. And even as she’s spiraled and changed, there’s still parts of that there. Dorothy right now is a good kid. She’s a little selfish. She doesn’t recognize when she’s being selfish, and that’s probably her biggest flaw. She’s dealing with academic burnout, a radical change in worldview, and PTSD. She’s fucking up in new and interesting ways, and one of those ways is that she’s apologizing to someone who would really rather pretend she doesn’t exist and/or punch her in the nose. And I’m trying to share my thoughts on this new and interesting way she’s fucking up.
@nadamas- for someone who advocated for ignoring me yesterday, you sure seem to care what I have to say.
God and it’s complete with an “I used to respect you”.
Again: I did not “make up” an implication that you were calling Dorothy insincere. Everything you said yesterday put forth that implication, including when you said you thought she was “just” apologizing to make herself feel better, “rather than out of a sincere desire to make Becky feel better” or that her apology was “entirely performative”.
It’s not my fault you’re no longer happy with the arguments you made yesterday.
It’s not my fault you then, in the context, said that using scripts in social situations is inherently performative, without thinking about how that might splash back on other ND people, and it’s certainly not my fault that you have in the past advanced queerphobic arguments and had it pointed out, sometimes by people who were a lot less polite or patient with you than me.
But hey: if you’ll agree to stop accusing me of stuff, I’ll agree to stop replying to your comments. I know I’ll certainly be happier for it.
If you never respond to me, I’m not going to respond to you so we should be good there.
I’ve fucked up my language in the past. I will in the future, I’m sure. But that is *not* what I did here. Here’s what you said: “Woof to the idea that following a script = a performance = insincere.”
It was not my intention to say that being performative means being insincere. You can tell by the *several* times I said that Dorothy is both being sincere and being performative. In order to get to that conclusion, you have to connect two things I said on separate occasions as well as *completely disregard* many of the other things that I have said. It’s *incredibly* disingenuous and I’m not just going to take it on the chin.
You’re also disregarding that I was talking about Dorothy’s subconscious a lot yesterday. And Dorothy’s subconscious is really important to this because it’s where her underlying, unacknowledged selfishness lives. Ultimately, Dorothy isn’t any more selfish than your average person. But she never understands when she’s *being* selfish. Look at when Becky found out she’d turned down Yale. We all know now, and I think most folks suspected back then, that it was because she didn’t want to leave Joyce. But she couldn’t conceive that that was the reason, so she told Becky that she didn’t want to profit off of Becky’s pain.
And the combination of that selfishness with her genuine empathy for Becky is where we get this apology that is simultaneously sincere and insincere. Seeing Becky in pain like this does genuinely make Dorothy feel bad. Naturally, she wants to feel better. And apologizing *will* make her feel better, regardless of what happens. If Becky accepts, if the apology genuinely lessens her pain? That’s a win. But if she doesn’t? If she, surprising nobody, crumples up the apology without reading it? Then Dorothy’s selfish subconscious *still* feels better, because Becky’s pain is now no longer her fault- after all, she apologized. And *that’s* what I mean by “Dorothy wasn’t sincerely concerned with Becky’s pain”.
I suppose I should really modify that statement: Dorothy was sincerely concerned for Becky. It just wasn’t her only concern. She was also concerned with a) Doing The Right Thing as I’ve laid out in other comments and b) assuaging her subconscious selfishness.
All of these things can coexist.
People literally said it was insincere and that she wasn’t really sorry. If that’s not what you, personally, took issue with, fine, but it was a common complaint.
Yeah I think that’s wrong too. Trying to retroactively make everything about Dorothy fake doesn’t scan with all the emotions we’ve seen her wrestle with.
Considering how little time it’s been in-comic since Becky found out about Doyce, I doubt Becky is actually fine with this. But I still think Dorothy should be trying to apologize to Walky and Joe more than Becky at this point.
I think she had three goals: get some clothes so she doesn’t have to keep wearing Joyce’s since those were the only clean ones available, check in on Becky, and take a punch if necessary. It’s her fault more or less that Joyce had an epiphany without telling her one lesbian friend first.
She explicitly said that she only came to the room now because she thought Becky was out, so unless she’s lying about that, she can’t have had those last two goals in mind.
If she’s wearing her sweater vest then we’ve reached critical mass
It’s about time Dorothy stood up to Becky. I hope a physical fight breaks out.
For the comments section.
You guys are getting dull.
Becky would make her eat the curb if they were ever in a real fight and we all know it
In a study of 256 1v1 matches (best of 3) between Becky and Dorothy, using a mix of rules (Items on or off, full stages or Omega Stages, infinite meter, computer inputs or players of various skills), Dorothy managed to win a whopping 14 rounds. Not matches, rounds. One of those wins happened because a bird got into the office and distracted Becky’s player. The difference in metagame viability is absolutely bonkers.
Becky is being like:
“This message will auto-destroy in 5 seconds”
Don’t worry, she’s always on duty!
Yea now reverse genders and see if that sound funny. Wait a minute
I’ve done it. I’ve reversed their genders. For the rest of the comic, Dorothy and Becky will have each others’ gender.
The trouble is, your scientists were so preoccupied with whether or not they COULD that they never stopped to think if they SHOULD…
/jurassic park theme
What..?
I think the joke is that they’re both women, so “reversing” their genders just makes them both boys, not that one or the other is boyed while the other stays girl.
Reversing the genders doesn’t work because it isn’t a trope of history, art, and life that women demand that people should remove their clothes or else they’ll do violence. That’s just not a thing that women have done commonly enough in our culture that Becky’s demand should suggest an imminent physical threat to Dorothy in this scene.
Women can, of course, be scary abusers, and a woman is, unfortunately, fully capable of threatening sexual violence. And when a woman threatens somebody, it is of absolutely zero help or consolation to their victim that this situation is statistically less common than being threatened with a man’s sexual violence.
The stats do make a difference, though, that we really aren’t interpreting that Becky’s demand carries a threat of imminent violence, the way we might, if these was a man demanding another person to strip. (Or if we knew that Becky had a history of violence or something, to make her more likely to be that scary outlier abuser lady.)
Due to history and culture etc, the man is seen as basically always having a weapon, and the woman isn’t.
If every man could totally refrain from doing, threatening, or making art about sexual violence, for a couple generations, that would probably seriously reduce the difference in how readers look at things.
::laugh track, sitcom jingle::
Damn, it took her three in-story hours to respond, and Becky just stood there patiently. It’s canon.
Oh no…. Becky radiates bad juju on that first panel. :/
[Citation needed]
Dang it, where did I leave my jujumeter
(And to make sure you got that joke, I need to check that you’re pronouncing it “joo-JOOM-eh-tur” in your head)
(Also sorry for accidentally reporting you Taffy, you are great and your comment is great)
Honestly, Dotty picking one specific denial that can be very easily disproven tells me she just may have a future in politics after all.
I think Dorothy is actually Naked because her clothes are in here.
I can’t wait till tomorrow when Becky strips off her coat while Dina or Joyce walk in
. because half the comments will be accusing Becky of SA. A third slut shaming Dorothy for breaking Dinas heart.
I mean, if you forcefully strip someone who doesn’t want you strip them, it’s pretty hard to call that anything OTHER than sexual assault.
It’s a bit different in a contrived circumstance like they’re naked under their coat and you didn’t know that.
We wouldn’t call it sexual assault if Becky pulled her coat and, as is most likely, she was wearing one of Joyce’s sweater vests. Still not cool, but not sexual.
I am amused though by the idea that Dorothy’s naked under that coat – especially since she’s been wearing it all day, out jogging and shopping and to class. She’s kept it zipped up the whole time too.
Well, if you’re shopping for clothes, going in naked saves time.
preach it! it’s just about efficiency!
Yes. And cuddle with Becky too now.
Patreon ‘teaser’ frame is heartbreaking…..
“Okay, then, take off your pants”
NGPZ, I know you’re taking a hard-earned break right now to focus on your health.
If you do peruse the comments, though, I saw this New Yorker article today on folks trying to leave the USA, and thought of you:
https://archive.is/JOmN3
Take good care of YOU.
Could have had better chance of working if Becky had given herself a Joyce-y haircut instead.
https://www.dumbingofage.com/2022/comic/book-12/05-this-was-halloween/childhoodhome/
Found this and I think it is a good example of how Becky feels about Joyce.
Oop, another topical one:
https://www.dumbingofage.com/2022/comic/book-13/01-bring-me-to-life-drawing/sporadically/
Spot on!
https://www.dumbingofage.com/2020/comic/book-10/04-is-a-song-forever/rentacop/
Not super topical per se, but the best of Becky. Just went through some pretty big trauma herself, but she immediately thinks of Amber and goes to her.
Let’s be fair here, they’ve been cuddling and wearing each other’s clothes since September. It’s the kissing that’s new.
pleaseeee communicate pleaseee please please please please communication! go! go! communication! please?
That’s actually a concise analysis and helpful suggestion! 🙂
It’s a comment section miracle!
I hope folks see what I meant about the apology being performative. Note here how it’s contrasted with Dorothy literally wearing Joyce’s clothes, something that undoubtely feels like salt in the wound to Becky.
Legit I think this is the best writing DoA has had in a long time, 10/10 no notes.
Sorry bud, I still disagree that Dorothy’s apology is performative. I think it was a little tonedeaf, but not performative.
That’s fine, you’re allowed. But I’m really not saying this just for an excuse to shit on Dorothy, I hope you realize.
Could had fool me.
No, I believe Rogue 7 when he says this is the most interested he’s been in Dorothy and the best writing he thinks he’s seen from Willis in months. I’ve seen other people talk similarly about Dorothy specifically: those people were very hopeful that we were gearing up for a Suprvillain Dorothy turn, but they were sincerely excited about it.
I maintain my “could had fool me”.
It’s irrelevant to me why you’re saying it, so I’m not sure what that line was about.
+1
Still doesn’t seem at all performative. Awkward as heck but not insincere or coming from a place of selfishly only wanting to make herself feel better and not caring about Becky’s feelings.
aaaah the Dannies are multiplying
Iiii think it’s performative in the sense that everything dotty does is performative. I don’t mean that in a negative way. She follows an “if x then y” script to behave properly. Here it’s “if [friend hurt] then [apology letter]”. Dotty’s constantly performing the role of someone who has their shit together and behaves in a way that a responsible and empathetic adult should, but she has a flawed idea of what that is. Imma project real hard for a second here but it’s a form of masking I relate to. Frankly when it comes to big things that happen outside myself I have a really hard time identifying my own feelings, so I perform the appropriate expression of how I should be feeling until the actual emotions take form in a way I can recognize. I don’t think that’s fully what’s happening here but I think the mindset is similar. She feels bad, she knows she feels bad, she doesn’t want to be seen as a heartless monster so she needs to make sure the person hurt knows she feels bad in a way that you can’t doubt her remorse (theoretically).
Basically it’s performative but not insincere imo. Like when you deliver a speech on stage, you presumably believe every word but you gotta add some extra oomf on top of it to get the message across. I think that’s what she’s doing here and what she does all the time, everywhere.
Yes, Dorothy’s notarized apology letter is performative. It’s a very Dorothy action and always has been. If Becky find that distasteful she could hand the letter back and say ‘I don’t need your letter, you’re fine’. But instead she says ‘You’re fine’ but aggressively crumples the letter and throws it away. Very mixed messages.
Yeah. Dorothy’s apology to Asma was poor because Asma had no reason to understand that this is just Dorothy’s bizarre coping mechanism for failing to live up to the impossible standards she has for herself. Becky, on the hand, does know Dorothy well enough to at least understand that this bonkers gesture is being made in good faith.
Dorothy/Joyce harmed Becky by getting together. They didnt wrong her, they shouldn’t have avoided getting together because of Becky, but its undeniable that them getting together did cause Becky distress as collateral damage.
If she was wanting to account for the harm. The best thing for Dorothy to do would have been to check on Becky, acknowledge that she’s hurting and ask how they can help. Things like “how can we give each other space while sharing a room?” Or “would it help if we changed some of our walking to class routines?”
Presenting it as an apology is inherently asking forgiveness for having wronged someone. Since Dorothy has no intention of stopping being with Joyce or in anyway undoing/changing the action that hurt Becky that just rings hollow. Its like she was just looking for Becky to go “no its fine I hereby release you of all guilt”
Disagree. I once sent a card after a death saying “Sorry for your loss”. It neither accepts culpability or responsibility for the death, nor am I implying that they need to be feeling loss at the death. They could be delighted.
Becky feels hurt at the pairing. Dorothy can acknowledge the hurt and that’s fine. Dina is right when she tells Becky it’s her problem.
“sorry for your loss” =/= “a signed and notarized apology letter”
Nothing == a signed and notarized apology. The latter is not a normal, socially acceptable thing to do in any social situation.
So, some of us are looking at it in the broader strokes of “an apology”, because that’s clearly what Dorothy was aiming for.
I think the difference here is between expressing sorrow and apologizing.
Saying “Sorry for your loss” is not an apology. You are expressing sorrow that they have lost someone.
Saying “I’m sorry for falling in love with your best friend” is an apology. It might also be expressing sorrow, but specifically because it is taking responsibility for a particular action.
Now does Dorothy feel sorrow because she fell in love with Joyce? I don’t think so. So even saying “I’m sorry” for that is dishonest.
What might be honest is to say “I’m sorry you’re feeling bad”, but that isn’t really what Dorothy said.
Dorothy framed it as an apology, and framed it in terms of her actions.
—
My take is Dorothy is sincere in trying to apologize but also a bit of a doofus. I think she is following rules rather than reflecting on values and the result is that she acts in ways that are inappropriate for the situation.
In general the whole cast could do with a healthy dose of self-reflection… but that might be less amusing to read.
I don’t always agree with you, Odo, but you said it better than I could here.
“I’m sorry it hurt you when I fell in love with your best friend.”
I don’t see what’s so hard to understand about this honestly.
“I’m sorry you feel that way” or any variation is not an apology. You don’t apologize for how other people feel.
An apology involves an offense of failure, something the person apologizing is accepting they did wrong.
Not every “I’m sorry you’re in pain” is an “I’m sorry you feel that way” (the famous non-apology for jerks!), actually.
“I’m sorry you’re in pain” is not an apology. It is an expression of sympathy. It is not expressing regret for an offense of failure.
This is splitting hairs real finely, but if that’s the definition you’re operating with, the assumptions you’re making about what Dorothy did and didn’t include in her letter make a lot of sense.
We didn’t see what’s written in the apology letter. How do we know that Dorothy didn’t include those things?
Now I want an anime Romcom situation where Joyce or Sarah walk in on Dotty on the ground and Becky trying to strip her.
apology/əˈpɒlədʒi/
noun: apology; plural noun: apologies
1. a regretful acknowledgement of an offence or failure.
—————————————————
Notably: Not a promise to change behavior. Not a wish you hadn’t engaged in the behavior. Not a desire to go back in time and undo the behavior. Just a regretful acknowledgement.
Dorothy regrets hurting Becky. There were ways to have still fallen in love with Joyce and told Becky about it that didn’t cause this much pain. It’s perfectly reasonable to express regret about how everything went down.
Apologies do not require anything but sincere regret, and if you can’t see that in Dorothy then you and I are reading different comics.
I think the thing is, if someone says they regret something, but also would still do it if they were to go back in time and try again, then I don’t think the regret is sincere.
I think it would be reasonable (but not necessary) for Dorothy to wish she had handled getting with Joyce better with regards to Becky. Saying “I’m sorry it came out the way it did, I wish that we’d talked to you in person first” would come across a lot more sincere.
Part of the issue is that this is a humorous comic strip so sometimes characters behave like doofuses primarily for laughs. Dorothy is being a doofus because she is apologizing for the wrong thing. Dorothy doesn’t regret “falling in love with your best friend” she might just regret not finding a way to break it to Becky more gently.
And even in that regard I would hope Dorothy would be feeling more like “I wish I could have found a way to help you more” rather than “I think I messed up towards you” because fundamentally I don’t think Dorothy is to blame for Becky feeling hurt.
It’s like if a friend is coming to visit who is afraid of spiders. They go into your bathroom and are terrified because they see a spider. You might regret that they were frightened, but as long as you weren’t aware of the spider/obtusely negligent it isn’t your fault. You can’t reasonably guarantee that there will never be a spider in your house.
Dorothy can’t guarantee that she will not fall in love with someone Becky is attached to, and can’t guarantee that things won’t fall out in a way that is suprising for Becky. That’s just life.
Someday I will learn brevity… But today is not that day
This day, we comment! Stand with me, people of Gondor! of Rohan!
Doofusing of Age Book 13: My Doofus Group’s Doofusing Chart Is Basically A Doofoboros
(No, that was what I dropped in to say, but as long as I’m here: Odo’s summary of the situation has all the brevity it needs, 10/10 no notes)
(WAIT ACTUALLY as long as there’s already a Tolkien reference here: “Odo’s comment has no brevity… Odo’s comment NEEDS no brevity!” Okay my work here is done.)
Jeez, there are so many holes to poke in “it’s not sincere regret if you wouldn’t literally change what happened via time travel”, like “doesn’t that usually make everything worse when characters try it” and “being sorry that something which makes YOU happy hurts SOMEONE ELSE is still a sincere way of being sorry”.
“I think the thing is, if someone says they regret something, but also would still do it if they were to go back in time and try again, then I don’t think the regret is sincere.”
Regretting that your actions caused them pain is not the same as regretting your actions. Dorothy didn’t DO anything wrong, but is still allowed to feel genuinely regretful that Becky got hurt anyway.
As for your comments on how you wish the apology had been phrased… literally none of us know what’s in that letter. For all you know it’s perfectly phrased and exactly what you want her to say. I doubt it, but I also don’t think asking for perfection from someone trying to care for another person’s feelings is reasonable in the slightest. Human beings are imperfect, expecting perfection is a recipe for unhappiness.
“I regret my actions” is different from “I regret your pain”. What you are describing isn’t Dorothy regretting her actions it is Dorothy regretting Becky’s pain.
It is a “Sorry for your loss” sentiment that communicates “I care about your feelings and I care that you are feeling hurt”. It is not an apology.
You’re right, we don’t know the contents of the letter. But we do know how Dorothy described the contents:
“A Formal Letter of Apology for Falling in Love with Your Best Friend”
Should Dorothy regret “falling in love with [Becky’s] best friend”?
Was Dorothy “falling in love with [Joyce]” and offense or failure?
—
Dorothy did not do wrong by Becky. Dorothy does not owe Becky an apology. Expressing sympathy or care for Becky’s pain certainly is a kind thing a friend should do, but that is different from apologizing.
https://www.dumbingofage.com/2020/comic/book-10/04-is-a-song-forever/directions/
What Ethan is saying here is basically the point. I don’t think most folks are questioning that Dorothy is sincere. I’m certainly not.
But a sincere apology in the face of an inability and/or unwillingness to change what required the apology in the first place can be even more frustrating than an out-and-out lying, insincere apology. Because you *know* it means nothing in terms of future behavior.
Linking that comic to prove your point kind of requires ignoring that Ethan is right but ALSO wrong there. He’s frustrated with Amber and that’s fair, but he’s also treating her mental health issues like something she’s doing on purpose to avoid having to change her behavior, and, you know, they’re not.
And again: you ARE, specifically, repeatedly, saying that Dorothy is insincere.
Additionally, while entirely agreeing with the point, the only thing I would modify about Nymph’s original statement is that I don’t believe there was any way that Joyce and Dorothy could get together that wouldn’t result in Becks feeling hurt – because her reaction, while understandable, is also completely unfounded. It’s based in the idea that somehow, she is owed Joyce’s affections, that Joyce falling in love with another woman who is not Becky is somehow a betrayal. I understand that Becky and Joyce have a friendship going back to childhood, and that Joyce was willing to abandon her entire belief structure to support her friend, but Becky has taken that to mean that Joyce is hers, and she’s not allowed to be gay with anyone else. (This also taps into Becky’s fear of gender fluidity – if Joyce had fallen in love with her, that would have been just their old affection being reinforced, but Joyce being attracted to both men and women means, in Becks’ mind, that maybe she could have made herself straight and saved all that heartache over the years. She doesn’t understand – yet, anyway – that that’s not how that works.)
I agree with you on about half of this.
I think it’s possible to feel belatedly re-heartbroken that a girl who rejected you, who you thought was straight, later came out as bi, without necessarily feeling like you were entitled to her affections.
I also think there’s something deeper going on here, which you touch on with the latter half of your comment, but yeah.
It’s not entitlement from Becky until she actually says something like “it should’ve been me”, imho. Until we actually get that sentiment from her, just being really sad about it isn’t necessarily entitlement.
(Actually I take that back, I agree with almost all of what you said!
I just have a bit of a semantic disagreement about whether or not Becky being hurt by this necessarily means she felt entitled to Joyce’s affections. She might feel that way, but it’s possible to be heartbroken without that specific feeling.)
“There were ways to have still fallen in love with Joyce and told Becky about it that didn’t cause this much pain.”
I didn’t need my opinion edited, because I didn’t suggest there was a way to cause Becky zero pain with this action. There were plenty of ways to do it that wouldn’t have resulted in this much pain for her though. Emphasis added.
For the rest of all that:
Becky can be upset about this without feeling owed anything. It’s totally fair to have a crush and feel a little heartbreak when your crush gets with someone else. Humans have human emotions.
Becky also has not expressed any of the feelings you’re attributing to her. She hasn’t told anyone she owns Joyce, hasn’t said that Joyce was supposed to be hers. She just got upset that a girl she had a crush on didn’t like her back and it wasn’t for a reason that had nothing to do with her. It was Becky, specifically, that Joyce didn’t want. For many people, that’s a source of ouchie.
She hasn’t even called it a betrayal as far as I’m aware. A lot of the things you’re fighting against here are comment-section reads and not in-story truths.
Oh, this is super fair, I missed that.
And again. No. I am not saying she’s insincere. I went back and looked at my posts from yesterday and never once did I say “insincere”. That’s something *you* bootstrapped onto my position by citing one dictionary at me. I can cite another dictionary- https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/performative that doesn’t say “insincere”.
With regards to Ethan, I pretty strongly disagree. Amber’s mental health is tangential to the issue, which is that she always blames herself when no one asked her to. Look at Amber’s reaction to Dorothy & Joyce getting together as another example. When Booster sus’d out that she was trying to snipe Walky away from Dorothy, she ran away denying it. But when Dina was hurting, Amber said “My fault. I made it happen. Sorry.” She’s just jumping straight on the grenade of “I am terrible and I’m so sorry about it.”
And, more to the point, haven’t you ever dealt with someone who was so sorry for whatever little thing they did to you that you ended up having to comfort them?
Because, to bring it full-circle, that’s what Dorothy is doing here a little bit and what Amber does *a lot*. Hence the comparison.
“Bootstrapped”
Example sentences are often more helpful than the definitions themselves, such as: “there’s a question of whether that outrage is genuine or performative,” which clearly posits those two things as opposed.
But now I suppose you’ll argue that “sincere” and “genuine” aren’t exactly the same thing, or whatever.
“I think Dorothy is doing this because it’ll make her feel better rather than out of a sincere desire to help Becky.”
(And then a lot of waffle about how Dorothy knows she did something wrong and she feels bad about that, but she’s also “smart enough” to know that she didn’t actually do anything wrong to Becky, so apologizing to Becky is safe. But also, you think, she knows apologizing to Becky won’t actually even make Becky feel any better.
“But she’s smart enough that she *should* know this apology isn’t going to help her.”
Which you then add is why you keep calling it performative.)
But you’re right, you never once technically used the word “INsincere”. You just said the apology wasn’t sincere.
*You just said the apology wasn’t “coming from a sincere place”, and that Dorothy knows it won’t make Becky feel any better, and that she’s doing this instead of apologizing to Walky because it’s easier and doesn’t require her to think about her actions or change her behavior, and that it’s “entirely performative”.
Like gosh, how could I have gotten the idea that you meant she was being insincere, truly the reach of our time, and something I was just doing to make your argument look bad.
God rouge is fucking exhausting and i am not even the one talking to them!
Dorothy is sincere in that she believes an apology is required. But, as we see by today’s strip, Becky certainly doesn’t think so- “I don’t need no apology letter”.
Dorothy believes an apology is required because, again, that’s What One Does. As I explained with my whole “Lawful good” spiel, she is very much sincere in that belief. And doing something Because That’s What One Does is performative. Why is that so controversial?
Whether or not Becky wants an apology from Dorothy has nothing to do with whether or not Dorothy was a.) sincerely apologetic, or b.) cares about Becky’s feelings and is trying to make things better.
And again: you have now accused me of “bootstrapping” insincere to your take on Dorothy, so it’s relevant to the conversation that you said this:
““I think Dorothy is doing this because it’ll make her feel better rather than out of a sincere desire to help Becky.”
If you want to walk back some of your points yesterday, by all means, but don’t do that by pretending I made up an argument you’re no longer happy you made.
Pff. This site does very funny things with multiple “, that’s not where those were. I’ll just have to stop using that for emphasis.
I can’t be assed to fiddle with HTML right now, so:
“Whether or not Becky wants an apology from Dorothy has nothing to do with whether or not Dorothy was a.) sincerely apologetic, or b.) cares about Becky’s feelings and is trying to make things better.”
Believe it or not, I 100% agree. Dorothy was sincerely apologetic. And Dorothy cares about Becky’s feelings and is trying to make things better.
But here’s the key. Dorothy is *trying to make things better in a way that isn’t going to help Becky*. Because there really isn’t anything Dorothy *can* do or say right now that’d help Becky.
And yet the apology comes out the instant she sees Becky. Her anxiety screams at her “DO SOMETHING” and her lawful good nature screams at her “This is something, do it!”. So she does it. Not because it’s going to help Becky. Because it is Something and it Must Be Done. And *that’s* where it’s performative. It’s not going to help Becky. It’s only going to fulfil the requirement that Something Be Done.
…..right.
Why you’re still talking to me as though this is a friendly debate, heaven knows. After all, I’m the weirdo who had the temerity to link a dictionary definition of performative, just because you keep insisting it doesn’t imply insincerity. I’m the one whose takes you “used to respect”. I’m the one who cares too much about this conversation.
I know why I’m still replying: because I don’t like that you accused me of “bootstrapping” the word insincere to your takes “by citing the dictionary (crime of crimes, apparently), when in fact you were the one to first say you didn’t think Dorothy was being sincere in her apology. You said that with your own mouth, and then a lot of other things that implied it.
You’ve got a new take today, fine. I really don’t care about that. I care about the unfair jabs you keep making at me as a person, lol, wild concept.
Even if it is a consequence of Amber’s mental health issues, it still is appropriate for Ethan to name how it negatively affects people around her
“Appropriate” or not doesn’t really enter into anything. Ethan has a right to his own boundaries.
But to link that comic and say “Ethan really says it all” is funny, when half of what Ethan is saying in that comic is factually incorrect, as well as unfair.
So, in your opinion, if Dorothy intends to keep dating Joyce (which is totally fair because Becky doesn’t own Joyce) she should have done what? Ignored the pain that action cause? Told Becky to suck it up because she’s not going to fix it?
Just, fuck the whole mentality of “well it’s a sincere apology but still not exactly perfectly right” because that’s such a useless mentality to have. This is a messy situation, there isn’t a perfect response. But, if Dorothy feels remorse for hurting Becky, then expressing that remorse is genuinely fine imo.
I kind of think she should mostly just give Becky space, you know?
Dorothy very much is trying to do that, obviously- she was sneaking into their shared room to grab stuff so she can hide with Joyce. And so the “do no harm” version of this encounter is Dorothy more or less going “‘scuse me” and letting Becky go about her day.
My kingdom for an edit button:
But a “do no harm” story is a really boring one so I’m glad Dorothy’s being messy here.
She should have run into the room, cackled, and said she won. Like Joyce did to Walky.
This is the part where Becky starts wrestling Dorothy to get her coat off, then Dina walks in and, seeing Becky trying to get Dorothy into a state of undress, assumes they are now having an affair behind her and Joyce’s backs.
Is this the gen z stare i heard so much about.
People here hust really making it way more complicated that it really is.
You know what fuck it, making a Dorothy appreciation thread. Put some nice things here.
Dorothy, of all of the cast, is the most likely to put in inordinate amounts of labor to help a friend with something.
Dorothy constantly holds herself to high standards and strives to be the best version of herself she can be. She doesn’t always succeed, but she tries.
I genuinely expected this to be sarcastic and was pleasantly surprised. My bad.
Also I feel I should stress: I think it would be a (fairly minor) jerk move to respond to a top-level like this sarcastically, but it ALSO seemed super tempting to me even as someone who likes Dorothy? Apparently I too am something of a contrarian at times.
I do genuinely apologize for seeing your name and expecting a sarcastic response, but I feel the need to clarify that I wouldn’t have thought you were an awful person for doing it.
I genuinely like Dorothy. There are two instances where I disliked her:
– The “Moment of Silence for Mike”
– Cheating on Walky
But overall I think she tries hard, does her best, and has her faults like anyone.
I think Dorothy is SUCH A MESS.
She’s now canonically a former Gifted Kid (it came up like a year or so ago?), just like Walky, and I wonder if they wouldn’t have some a very interesting conversation if they ever actually realized that about each other.
She had a very sheltered upbringing, albeit not the exact same sheltered upbringing Joyce had, but she was book smart and not shy about sex from her first appearance, and a lot of folks have decided that meant she was more mature, or at least more worldly, than Joyce. I think this is also why people gave her “I dunno, probably a 0?” Kinsey scale answer so much credence, assuming she’d thought about it for more than two seconds before Danny asked her.
She seems to handle a lot of conflicts by waiting until she’s alone and then googling things, which… isn’t a bad strategy, by any means, but obviously limited. (Two situations where we know she did this are after Joyce was roofied (whereupon she learned to her apparent shock that college campuses don’t have a good track record about handling reports of sexual assault), and after Joyce announced that she had a referral for an autism diagnosis, but she’s ALSO claimed to have practiced comforting people via light physical contact “too much to be bad at it”, which, wow.)
She is MELTING DOWN these days, and I’m here for it.
Thanks you for saying this while referring things that actually happened and character traits that actually exist.
I could go on!
I think Dorothy has a lot of flaws! I don’t think they make her unlikable, even if some of them would probably get on my nerves if I knew her IRL.
I think she is hella crunchy and textured and I don’t understand folks who find her bland or too perfect.
I’m a big fan of Dorothy because I relate to her a lot. She takes everything more seriously than most of the characters, which I think is one reason she tends to be unpopular, but I find very relatable.
She really cares about people and wants to do right by them. She’s frequently not very good at it, and I think she knows that and it bothers her, but she always tries her best, which is very admirable.
Dorothy is a teenager who has always passionately wanted to help people, and it is utterly bemusing how much/many people here hate her. I have to assume she in some ways embodies a person a disproportionate number of commenter have had issues with, because the intense bad faith takes go back forever.
She’s literally a socially awkward people pleaser, ie: exactly the kind of person who is overrepresented in left-wing spaces on the internet. Huh, maybe that is the issue.
Anyway, I would have no strong feelings on Dorothy if not in response to the weird shit on here. She’s doing her best.
It’s same way i probably wouldn’t have that strong fellings for Booster if people weren’t so weird about them everytime they show up.
I think it’s sometimes that, sometimes recognizing and cringing at something we once did ourselves, and often the thing I mentioned above about how a lot of folks have the strong impression of Dorothy as much more mature and worldly than she is, so they expect a lot more of her.
When she makes boneheaded mistakes, people get disproportionately upset because they think she must be too smart to have actually done that by accident, therefore it’s something she’s doing on purpose to hurt people, and when she seems genuinely at sea like right now, it must be that she’s at least SUBCONSCIOUSLY manipulating people.
It’s the difference between someone stepping on your toe when you know it’s an accident, and someone doing it when you’ve privately decided they’re incapable of stepping on toes by accident, so it must be because they wanted to hurt you, and anything apologetic they say after the fact is a lie to dodge your righteous fury.
Dot hopping down after dumping Wonderbread will forever live rent free in my head cuz she briefly looks like a Super Saiyan during it
Whoops this was ment as a reply to the appreciation thread
Huh. A little bit.
Is Becky wearing her Halloween fit? Is that a sign she will go talk to Dina?
Her Halloween fit was a Dr. Ellie Sattler from Jurassic Park costume.
Busted.
Becky didn’t even read the apology. This can only end in hate sex.
Just going to say: This comment section is full of Rachels.
Always has been. 🌝 👨🏻🚀🔫👨🏻🚀
At first i somehow mistook those astronauts with custom Rachel emojis.
They’re both equally detached from Planet Earth.
For real. It seems like a lot of people here believe that every social interaction has a victim and a villain, and the job of the comments section is to identify the villain, determine the exact degree of their villainy, and then shame them appropriately.