Checked the archives and no kisses were exchanged after the Joe gifting, not until the next day after they talked to Daisy, in-between which both had already had a shower that morning as well as likely brushing their teeth before bed and after waking up, so thankfully Dorothy is in the clear there. Honestly I imagine there was an offscreen exchange like “okay but seriously you need to go brush your teeth” “oh shit will my mouth become pregernant?”
Also gonna share a little joke/anecdote because this is a strip set in and talking about Taco Bell; when I was probably about 5, I was in the backseat of the car and my parents were in the front discussing what fast food to get and they both were like “Oh, yeah, Taco Bell’s a good idea”. My disgruntled 5 year old ass screwed my face up and called up to them, “[My name] don’t like Taco Bell” and they both gave me a look and laughed, cause they were my parents so they already knew I wouldn’t eat anything from Taco Bell and were planning to get me something else from somewhere else, but it became an in joke for years afterward that if anyone mentioned Taco Bell one of my parents would reply “[My name] don’t like Taco Bell”, and I’d get in on it too. It was a fun in-joke and I still do it with my dad whenever I pick him up his Doritos locos tacos supremes.
What the heck’s in that burrito then? I feel like the concept of a burrito is the antithesis of Joyce’s food philosophy. Isn’t just a bunch of “gross” stuff touching wrapped in a tortilla?
I respect it I guess. I’d say it was a waste of money but I don’t like Taco Bell so any purchase there is a waste to me. Just beans might be a convenient workaround though in a pinch.
Oh ditto, I’m not a Taco Bell fan myself either. I just get food from literally anywhere else but when you’re out and about with another person it can be difficult to try and navigate getting food from a different place. I’m not even a big bean fan so I think if I was with someone who wanted to get taco bell I’d just grab a drink and watch them eat.
I think Joyce has actually answered this before, that certain foods operate more like a method of conveyance than food itself like the bun of a hotdog, but I could be misremembering that or made it up entirely.
And that was extremely a date. And a good one. I mean, Joyce said she’d glassed someone before and she’d do it again, and I believed her. That’s quality dating right there.
I’m genuinely shocked that it’s plain bean burritos she eats and not plain cheese quesadillas. To me, the latter thing is way more people’s Safe Food at Taco Bell.
Honestly my food issues have been a lifelong source of anxiety over potential relationships, so I really feel this one. Your feeling I can feel deeply.
Well, I have been in the dark. I thought tacos were hard shells. But these things seem to be variations on what I would call a wrap. But I like the idea of masa flour ones, being allergic to wheat.
I have not and will not do that, and recommend in the strongest possible terms that you do not either.
(My prediction/assumption is that the search results will include things you cannot unsee.)
As much as I do agree with Dorothy’s assessment that the drinks date should totally be viewed As A Date retroactively, I disagree with her assessment that Taco Bell is an insufficient first date for them. You’re dating Joyce “Hopeless Romantic” Brown, Dorothy, she could romanticize a first date at Blowjob Cat.
(My agreement with Joyce about the Crunchwrap depends on whether it’s a Crunchwrap Supreme or a Black Bean Crunchwrap. Crunchwrap Supremes are delicious, but I do not fuck with black beans.)
Also I’d like to take the Taco Bell being a topic of the strip as an opprotunity to point out that the quesarito (also known as the only menu item worth a damn at that place) is back at Taco Bell
Anyone else have a Taco Bell situation with their partner? Mine I can’t kiss if he’s recently eaten a banana or deli meat. I don’t care how long ago it was I can still smell it until the mouth is clean!!
Oh joy now I have to have a tab open to understand what everyone is talking about.
Americans and their propensity to bloviate about fast food is one of the bigger annoyances as a Not American. My god do you people love talking about fast food.
Yeah but most cultures have like. Real food to brag about. I’m argentinian, for example, and we have the beast meat in the fucking world. And Dulce de Leche.
Some American food worth of bragging about is Southern BBQ as well as breakfasts. Honestly there are other meals worth bragging about in this country too but being a melting pot means sometimes the best meals to discuss are Americanized versions of meals from other countries that were brought here and evolved over time.
But it’s educational. I learn so much about the weird things USAvians eat and have, in my time, found hilarity in trying to explain the weird things that UKavians eat. I might even have found a new thing to eat. Masa flour was an awesome discovery for me.
Dorothy seems to be struggling a bit with eating. Possibly Joyce isn’t eating, just holding and talking. Maybe this is a metaphor for something. Not a petit four anyway.
With how big of a buffer Willis has, I wonder if there would be a benefit to Willis doing like a binge drop of the next arc/book or two-worth of strips so readers could understand the bigger picture of what Willis is going for with the plot development that occurred over this last half-year. Because of how great the emotional fallout has been for so many characters, readers are simply too impatient to see the narrative consequences play-out at the normal daily pace.
Honestly the buffer is something that’s a big benefit for Willis as it is, because he has months of work stacked up ahead of time so if anything happens IRL, he doesn’t have to rush to any deadlines. And considering how most webcomics might update once a week, if you’re LUCKY, I think the daily pace is something that’s getting a bit… taken for granted, maybe? I mean, I’m a longtime and still current reader of Ava’s Demon and that comic has had years long hiatuses in the past.
Oh it’s no doubt something we take for granted, but I think it’s also what “allows” (for lack of a better word) for DoA to have such a relatively slow pacing narratively compared to a lot of other web-comics. Because Willis has the ability to chug out so many strips to the extent that they have such a huge buffer, DoA’s pacing naturally trends towards a decompressed pacing style, and such a style can be very frustrating for readers when its covering certain subject matter.
I get that but it also still isn’t necessarily just a DOA thing. Like Ava’s Demon, the comic I mentioned? Love it, it’s beautiful art. In-comic, however, we’ve also been on events that have happened over the course of… maybe a couple days? And the comic is 13 years old. At least DOA has had 6 months in-comic over the course of 15 years.
Sure but – and I want to stress that I know you mean nothing bad by this – the whole point of having a buffer, is to have excess labour done in case of an emergency or life event, without it causing economic stress. It’s technically entirely possible to just drop 2 months of strips at once! But, when you break it down, you’re asking a worker to dump two months of their economic livelihood on us in the span of one day, so that we can all maybe stop being whiny babies about not getting instant gratification from their labour.
You wouldn’t ask someone in any other industry, to sacrifice two full years worth of their paid vacations for your mere convenience, right? ‘Cause that’s ultimately the magnitude of this ask: “please completely devalue a huge amount of your labour, so that we might have a little bit more fun immediately.”
At the end of the day, the comic being somewhat less satisfying, to some of the audience, for a few months time, is not a valid reason for Willis to throw 2 months worth of their career into the bin just to placate some of their audience. Nobody in any industry should be doing that for anyone.
Throwatron is 100% correct. If somebody needs a 2 month stack of strips in a single delivery, they need to bookmark and take a two month break before returning.
I think if Willis was going to drop any spoilers, it really should just be in the form of a vague statement. Definitely don’t agree with the idea of burning a huge chunk of the buffer, even as someone rather unsatisfied with the story since the tear gas wedding.
I would NEVER advocate for Willis’ work ethic in building such a huge buffer to be rewarded by having to rip a huge chunk out of it just to deal with a portion of the audience being dissatisfied.
Good thing Dorothy put a stop to qualifying the Taco Bell date as their first one. That has proven to be a bad omen for the longevity of your relationship.
Tacos come in two/ three varieties: flour tortilla (soft shell, as Walky is eating here) and corn tortilla (can be soft or crunchy/ hard shell).
The pre-crunchy taco shells bought in a store are often considered white person tacos or less authentic/ more commercial. A corn tortilla can be fried to make it a crunchy taco.
If you’re from certain parts of Southwest America, you could also get a frybread taco! But it looks different.
I’m from certain parts of Southwest America and this is apparently very important to me.
I’m a simple bongo with simple Taco Bell needs: Crunchwrap supreme, swap the tomatoes for onions. Pair with a soft taco with avocado ranch sauce and a refresca whose caffeine count is determined by how badly my migraine needs it. Lunch: achieved.
Physically? Still a lot of pain but at least its a little less now, also less redness, more itching. Just finished my last day of Mupirocin, still got a few days left on Keflex
Mentally? agony honestly, trying my best to just get comfortably numb
Nope, I still don’t find these two cute. Not when they started off with cheating and continued with treating a whole bunch of other characters really shitty.
Joyce being “heroically gay” and missing the point of the actions she’s doing having consequences to hurt her friends and loved ones as well as possibly ruin the protest’s messaging.
(Because Bulmeria isn’t X related to the RL state, I fully believe that Joyce barely knows the country exists)
*clears throat* I’m uh, I’m going to take a sustained absence from the comments. I believe I’ve forgotten the human and need to take a step back to re-calibrate.
I was half doing this already but uh just wanted to make a comment apologizing to Willis specifically. At my best of times I’ve just been an annoying whiney bongo the past few months and at worst I’ve been uh pretty fucking toxic I won’t deny.
So uh, please, honestly, everyone enjoy. I’ll see y’all again in a few weeks
See also the divisive creation of the concept of “haters” who want Joyce branded with a scarlet letter etc. It’s the me sowing ha-ha this is awesome me reaping oh no! meme.
And I would argue that the negative feedback has by and large been in good faith, honest, and constructive.
Not that I am not sympathetic to today’s situation (For latecomers the hater thread, gone at time of writing this, was the first post and Willis themself responded asking why it could not have been left until later in the day), but if you write a divisive plot then foster the idea of sides amongst your community, you’re going to get sides amongst your community.
I also think it is unfair to ask there be no negativity in these comments, in the general sense. This is not something Willis has said, to be clear, but something other commentators have. If you are enjoying something seeing others dislike it isn’t fun, sure, but the attitude of if you don’t have anything nice to say don’t say anything at all gets toxic real fast. Like it’s great u til something happens you don’t like and then you’re shut down.
I will admit bias, those who saw my lengthy post on “””””bulmeria””””” a few days ago will know why, but I’m still going to argue that the vast, overwhelming majority of critique here comes from fans who are expressing their various issues and complaints about something they have loved by a creator they have supported for many, many years, and want to enjoy again.
I know this is true because I’ve seen people say this, and far too often it was accompanied by a sadness that their attempts at constructive feedback was being characterised as wanting Joyce branded with a scarlet letter, or being unhappy that Dorothy wasn’t being scolded by a man.
Honestly I think it’s a pacing issue at this point. Joe has been left alone for months. Becky is finally getting some storyline but it’s still moving along bits and pieces. And I think people are getting frustrated when we keep cutting back to Joyce/Dorothy being coupley.
Considering how long the storyline has dragged on and how much heated discussion it’s brought up due to everything surrounding it, feels like we could almost do with another Halloween-esque timeskip.
Yeah, I think the storyline is fine in the broad strokes. It’s *just* the pacing that’s getting to me. So many strips that are just Dorothy and Joyce being cute. Even when it’s one like today’s which I’d probably like in other circumstances, it’s just kinda gotten old.
The more Willis doubles down an feeling hurt and lashing out on ”haters” of his perfect cinnamon rolls, the more bridges they burn.
DoA was a favorite of mine for a decade, and I hope it recovers. I’ve been frankly shocked and disappointed by what I see in Willis’ social media posts.
My take on Joyce and Dorothy is I like the plot but I want it to be a disaster because I find disasters in DOA fun to read. I don’t want anyone to hate on the characters because they’re the protagonists I’ve followed for decades.
I think most people reading suspect we’re building to an even bigger personal meltdown than the Becky/Dina situation, but until that happens we’re stuck in a feedback loop of “the end of the world is taking forever. The many nonplussed reactions in-story have also not helped. I could forgive somebody not used to Willis’ style and tempo concluding that they’re taking the easy way out in the name of yuri.
A little sad my pouring-my-heart-out comment got vanished alongside the thread. Ah, well. Probably for the best. A few brief shining moments, anyway. 😆
Does anyone else here fells drained after staying a bit too long in these comments? Like mentally exhausted and discomforted, the opposite of a serotonin boost.
I did back during the period where two halves of the commenters were straight slinging mud at each other and accusing one another of moral degeneracy for 1000 comments a day, but at this point, most of the squabbles are a lot less high stakes, so it’s easy to determine when I can glaze over an entire thread within the first 2-3 replies, and it’s easy to accept that even if I had something to add, that adding it at that time and place, wouldn’t be constructive for me or for those discussions.
Things have mostly downgraded from everybody being monstrously unfair to each other, to occasional terse dialogues between a few people who happen to have opposing-but-particular views on one granular thing; the first thing triggers me, the second thing, I can accept, through choosing not to pay attention to it.
This isn’t directed at anyone in particular, but holy crap y’all, learn to check out on comments/threads that are obviously going to enrage you, and convince you to waste a huge chunk of your energy and mental composure on squabbles that ultimately do not matter. I get everybody getting defensive when people were being called moral defectives on a daily basis; I was very inflammatory in response to that, and I don’t make any excuses for it, because to me, it was something worth being inflammatory about.
IMO (and YMMV), nothing has risen to that timbre of disagreement since. The time for people to at least try to calm down, and maybe just individually avoid the topics that are going to consistently trigger them, already started weeks ago. We had a collective moral trauma within our readership; it makes sense a lot of people are still on edge; but, quite a lot of us, are choosing daily to stay on that edge, because we don’t want to back down.
At the end of the day, if someone’s take or pattern of posting is so abhorrent to you as a reader, it’s probably more logical to accept the premise that trying to engage that person is probably a huge waste of time and energy. If it feels like someone’s takes are so alien to you, that it’s as if they aren’t reading the same comic you are? Or, if their emotional reactions are so different from yours? Trust that instinct, that maybe trying to force that dialogue, and bring that person around to your way of thinking, will just end with you feeling like you screamed at a wall for an hour, and the wall inevitably won.
None of us here are as derelict or unreasonable, as our fear and anger will try to convince us they are. Most of us are mostly reasonable, most of the time. Some people don’t get along, and that’s fine. We just need to maintain an effort to care for ourselves and our mood and our time, as opposed to feeling compelled into prodding one anothers’ worst impulses, because we all individually deserve that from and for ourselves, let alone how it affects other commenters.
Personally, while I acknowledge that Joyce and Dorothy cheating was dumb and probably unethical, I like the ship; more importantly however, It seems like it is something in character for both of them to do. In theory, Joyce wants to be ethical, but we have already seen that attraction can get the best of her, as with Jacob. Dorothy has a history of liking Walky while simultaneously distancing herself from him when she’s overwhelmed, and doesn’t listen to him or consider how her actions will make him feel as much as she probably should.
All this is to say, there is much truth to the claim that Dorothy and Joyce are imperfect people making imperfect decisions (which is something that people may want to forget?); however, I don’t think this is bad writing on Willis’s part.
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Don’t trust Taco Bell.
It’s not so much Taco Bell, as it is the employees who don’t wash their hands, and what not.
In Dispatch, Malevolo makes a joke that Taco Bell is only the same four ingredients re-arranged.
So maybe it’s Joyce’s favorite restaurant.
I’ve heard that joke before, elsewhere.
“”Joke.”
Nah, let’s be fair, they got at least six, eight now
I’ve never trusted them, I just want cheap and dependable sometimes.
sadly, Headmaster Dorothy was the biggest shelfwarmer of the whole toyline
(very happy to have one of the bookmarks with this strip on it btw)
Didn’t Joyce kiss Dorothy after getting a weighted blanket from Joe? If you don’t remember Joyce was VERY grateful for the gift.
Willis specifically said Joyce brushed her teeth before the kiss lmaoooooo
Now I just feel silly.
how many times did he have people asking if she did before he had to make the comment though?
Checked the archives and no kisses were exchanged after the Joe gifting, not until the next day after they talked to Daisy, in-between which both had already had a shower that morning as well as likely brushing their teeth before bed and after waking up, so thankfully Dorothy is in the clear there. Honestly I imagine there was an offscreen exchange like “okay but seriously you need to go brush your teeth” “oh shit will my mouth become pregernant?”
They’re being cute together, billions must die
Would be even cuter if we got to see them playing footsies, rather than Joyce just claiming they are. :3
I gotta admit that last panel is very relatable.
Also gonna share a little joke/anecdote because this is a strip set in and talking about Taco Bell; when I was probably about 5, I was in the backseat of the car and my parents were in the front discussing what fast food to get and they both were like “Oh, yeah, Taco Bell’s a good idea”. My disgruntled 5 year old ass screwed my face up and called up to them, “[My name] don’t like Taco Bell” and they both gave me a look and laughed, cause they were my parents so they already knew I wouldn’t eat anything from Taco Bell and were planning to get me something else from somewhere else, but it became an in joke for years afterward that if anyone mentioned Taco Bell one of my parents would reply “[My name] don’t like Taco Bell”, and I’d get in on it too. It was a fun in-joke and I still do it with my dad whenever I pick him up his Doritos locos tacos supremes.
So if the crunchwrap is gross stuff, wot de heck is JOYCE eating???
Pure bean burrito
She is eating a burrito a completely different thing,!
Maybe it’s just the tortilla lettuce and cheese. You can order that at Taco Bell. I’ve done it before.
If Joyce is anything like my autistic food aversion ass lettuce will not be anywhere near that thing.
Honestly a 100% cheese filled tortilla doesn’t sound half-bad.
They literally sell that in multiple varieties at Taco Bell.
I have very limited direct experience with Taco Bell. I think there’s been like one in my area and I don’t think it exists anymore.
This is so funny, since lettuce is one of the safest foods for me. The Food Autism is so fuckin arbitrary.
Everybody is eating their own dish at the autism potluck.
Tortilla filled with nothing but the smoothest, reddest hot sauce they have.
The best part of the regular burrito is the sauce so sure
Too bad she doesn’t have spare heads, like Kryten.
Three headed Cerberus Dorothy when?
Princess Langwidere has entered the chat.
What the heck’s in that burrito then? I feel like the concept of a burrito is the antithesis of Joyce’s food philosophy. Isn’t just a bunch of “gross” stuff touching wrapped in a tortilla?
Someone else suggested it’s just beans
https://www.dumbingofage.com/2022/comic/book-13/02-turning-saints-into-the-sea/bounty/ From their last taco bell date
I respect it I guess. I’d say it was a waste of money but I don’t like Taco Bell so any purchase there is a waste to me. Just beans might be a convenient workaround though in a pinch.
Oh ditto, I’m not a Taco Bell fan myself either. I just get food from literally anywhere else but when you’re out and about with another person it can be difficult to try and navigate getting food from a different place. I’m not even a big bean fan so I think if I was with someone who wanted to get taco bell I’d just grab a drink and watch them eat.
It’s a uniform paste originally composed of beans and possibly cheese.
Frankly, I’m surprised that the tortilla exterior isn’t a problem.
…. no one ask Joyce why it’s not a problem.
I think Joyce has actually answered this before, that certain foods operate more like a method of conveyance than food itself like the bun of a hotdog, but I could be misremembering that or made it up entirely.
Don’t trust buns, unless their Dorothy’s.
Bread-based delivery systems for the uniform ingredients Joyce consumes appear to be fine. See also: pizza, sandwiches.
It’s Taco Bell. If Dorothy has to poop it out first, Joyce won’t be in for a long wait
I have to admit, their drinks adventure makes a much better first date than lunch at Taco Bell.
And that was extremely a date. And a good one. I mean, Joyce said she’d glassed someone before and she’d do it again, and I believed her. That’s quality dating right there.
personally i don’t want to date anyone who won’t glass somebody at the appropriate place and time
What can Joyce even eat at Taco Bell, a bean burrito?
Multiple kinds of food touching is kind of a big thing for burritos
Yes she has very literally eaten just bean burritos there
I think she could handle a cheese quesadilla.
… at least, I hope she could handle a cheese quesadilla.
I’m genuinely shocked that it’s plain bean burritos she eats and not plain cheese quesadillas. To me, the latter thing is way more people’s Safe Food at Taco Bell.
“in my experience” was a better way to say that but i’m not meant to be awake right now
Honestly my food issues have been a lifelong source of anxiety over potential relationships, so I really feel this one. Your feeling I can feel deeply.
chew
Isn’t Taco Bell food 80 percent gross things even if you like Mexican food? My parents had some once and were not impressed.
Taco Bell is never going to be as good as actual Tex-Mex. But for fast and cheap, it’s acceptable.
Looks up crunchwrap. My daily education about non-food food.
Well, I have been in the dark. I thought tacos were hard shells. But these things seem to be variations on what I would call a wrap. But I like the idea of masa flour ones, being allergic to wheat.
Sounds like you’re confusing tacos with taco shells. But yes, tace shells can be hard or soft, and the soft ones were the original kind.
One-ingredient-taco sounds, at same time, boring and pretty awesome.
You just need a lot of different one-ingredient tacos and you’re golden.
okay, i’ll allow it, but we’re getting dangerously close to just reinventing samosas on this train of thought
Why is that crunchwrap so tiny?
It involves a combination of economic inflation and this very comic. Google “Dumbing of Age inflation” to learn more.
I have not and will not do that, and recommend in the strongest possible terms that you do not either.
(My prediction/assumption is that the search results will include things you cannot unsee.)
Honestly there’s no good inflation content on the internet these days. That search doesn’t even yield any proper smut.
Artists found out that AI scrapers were on DeviantArt, and so they deleted all the sacred texts
Absolutely diabolical!
I salute you!
As much as I do agree with Dorothy’s assessment that the drinks date should totally be viewed As A Date retroactively, I disagree with her assessment that Taco Bell is an insufficient first date for them. You’re dating Joyce “Hopeless Romantic” Brown, Dorothy, she could romanticize a first date at Blowjob Cat.
(My agreement with Joyce about the Crunchwrap depends on whether it’s a Crunchwrap Supreme or a Black Bean Crunchwrap. Crunchwrap Supremes are delicious, but I do not fuck with black beans.)
Also I’d like to take the Taco Bell being a topic of the strip as an opprotunity to point out that the quesarito (also known as the only menu item worth a damn at that place) is back at Taco Bell
Anyone else have a Taco Bell situation with their partner? Mine I can’t kiss if he’s recently eaten a banana or deli meat. I don’t care how long ago it was I can still smell it until the mouth is clean!!
Dorothy getting head.
There, it’s been said, you can all relax now.
Dorothy getting her cock sucked.
Second place to Joe again.
oh god thats right, need to finish the sequel drawings to Dorothy Keener’s Diminutive Hog
I know there’s a good joke about a teacup pig in this bit, but I’m too tired to work it out
They’re gonna finish eating and then they’re gonna go fuck in the stall, aren’t they.
Oh joy now I have to have a tab open to understand what everyone is talking about.
Americans and their propensity to bloviate about fast food is one of the bigger annoyances as a Not American. My god do you people love talking about fast food.
Oh, stuff it. Every fucking culture on Earth never shuts the fuck up about its food.
Food is being generous in some of these cases.
Okay, multiple servings of blended milk and ice cream.
indeed, this is the United States and THE CUP RUNNETH OVER
(and not in a good way 👀)
HOW are we running these cups over, when the cups are so dang big???
Yeah but most cultures have like. Real food to brag about. I’m argentinian, for example, and we have the beast meat in the fucking world. And Dulce de Leche.
what beast meat do you use?
These beings known as “cows.” Or “pigs”. Sometimes even “sheep”. I know, crazy.
(don’t tell Dina about the chickens)
Some American food worth of bragging about is Southern BBQ as well as breakfasts. Honestly there are other meals worth bragging about in this country too but being a melting pot means sometimes the best meals to discuss are Americanized versions of meals from other countries that were brought here and evolved over time.
Nobody’s even bragging though. They’re literally just admitting Taco Bell exists.
But it’s educational. I learn so much about the weird things USAvians eat and have, in my time, found hilarity in trying to explain the weird things that UKavians eat. I might even have found a new thing to eat. Masa flour was an awesome discovery for me.
I would like to try some of the sandwiches that place comes up with.
never seen USAvians and i’m immediately in love
This seems like a silly comment since Taco Bell has been expanding into Europe since 2008
i’m genuinely shocked that it’s as recent as ’08
very tickled seeing your username above a comment about fast food bc every time i see it i assume its short for ‘milkshakes’
but maybe the americagoggles talking, idk
*but maybe that’s the etc. etc
im gonna go make things right with my dad
Partially Gelatinated Gum Based Non-Dairy Beverage doesn’t fit in most name fields.
Dorothy seems to be struggling a bit with eating. Possibly Joyce isn’t eating, just holding and talking. Maybe this is a metaphor for something. Not a petit four anyway.
With how big of a buffer Willis has, I wonder if there would be a benefit to Willis doing like a binge drop of the next arc/book or two-worth of strips so readers could understand the bigger picture of what Willis is going for with the plot development that occurred over this last half-year. Because of how great the emotional fallout has been for so many characters, readers are simply too impatient to see the narrative consequences play-out at the normal daily pace.
Honestly the buffer is something that’s a big benefit for Willis as it is, because he has months of work stacked up ahead of time so if anything happens IRL, he doesn’t have to rush to any deadlines. And considering how most webcomics might update once a week, if you’re LUCKY, I think the daily pace is something that’s getting a bit… taken for granted, maybe? I mean, I’m a longtime and still current reader of Ava’s Demon and that comic has had years long hiatuses in the past.
Oh it’s no doubt something we take for granted, but I think it’s also what “allows” (for lack of a better word) for DoA to have such a relatively slow pacing narratively compared to a lot of other web-comics. Because Willis has the ability to chug out so many strips to the extent that they have such a huge buffer, DoA’s pacing naturally trends towards a decompressed pacing style, and such a style can be very frustrating for readers when its covering certain subject matter.
I get that but it also still isn’t necessarily just a DOA thing. Like Ava’s Demon, the comic I mentioned? Love it, it’s beautiful art. In-comic, however, we’ve also been on events that have happened over the course of… maybe a couple days? And the comic is 13 years old. At least DOA has had 6 months in-comic over the course of 15 years.
Tbf, half of those months were skipped – they didn’t even reach Halloween.
Your point stands though
You have a good point there too.
Then just take a break and come back and read it in one swoop?
Sure but – and I want to stress that I know you mean nothing bad by this – the whole point of having a buffer, is to have excess labour done in case of an emergency or life event, without it causing economic stress. It’s technically entirely possible to just drop 2 months of strips at once! But, when you break it down, you’re asking a worker to dump two months of their economic livelihood on us in the span of one day, so that we can all maybe stop being whiny babies about not getting instant gratification from their labour.
You wouldn’t ask someone in any other industry, to sacrifice two full years worth of their paid vacations for your mere convenience, right? ‘Cause that’s ultimately the magnitude of this ask: “please completely devalue a huge amount of your labour, so that we might have a little bit more fun immediately.”
At the end of the day, the comic being somewhat less satisfying, to some of the audience, for a few months time, is not a valid reason for Willis to throw 2 months worth of their career into the bin just to placate some of their audience. Nobody in any industry should be doing that for anyone.
Throwatron is 100% correct. If somebody needs a 2 month stack of strips in a single delivery, they need to bookmark and take a two month break before returning.
I think if Willis was going to drop any spoilers, it really should just be in the form of a vague statement. Definitely don’t agree with the idea of burning a huge chunk of the buffer, even as someone rather unsatisfied with the story since the tear gas wedding.
I would NEVER advocate for Willis’ work ethic in building such a huge buffer to be rewarded by having to rip a huge chunk out of it just to deal with a portion of the audience being dissatisfied.
Seems obviously not worth burning a very hard built buffer in a desperate bid to appease people that definitely would not work
I mean, it might work depending on what other shoe would be dropped on it. But it still wouldn’t be worth it anyway.
She said poop
Good thing Dorothy put a stop to qualifying the Taco Bell date as their first one. That has proven to be a bad omen for the longevity of your relationship.
https://www.dumbingofage.com/2021/comic/book-11/04-hompk/attheborder/
In that one, isn’t Walky eating a crunchy, shape holding taco? That’s what I thought a taco was…
Tacos come in two/ three varieties: flour tortilla (soft shell, as Walky is eating here) and corn tortilla (can be soft or crunchy/ hard shell).
The pre-crunchy taco shells bought in a store are often considered white person tacos or less authentic/ more commercial. A corn tortilla can be fried to make it a crunchy taco.
If you’re from certain parts of Southwest America, you could also get a frybread taco! But it looks different.
I’m from certain parts of Southwest America and this is apparently very important to me.
I didn’t even notice your name until after finishing your post, and the comedic timing I created for myself was sublime
Well I guess we know who tops now
I’m actually pretty sure that this was their first date.
We never saw it happen tho, did we?
No, though the next couple strips suggest that it did. We cut to Billie coming out of the closet after that.
As a Crunchwrap mainstayer, I gotta ask the obvious: What’s the Crunchwrap order?
[mine usually goes: Steak+Cantina Chicken+Refried beans+Three cheese Blend+Rice+Lettuce+sour cream+Red Sauce+Chipotle sauce]
I’m a simple bongo with simple Taco Bell needs: Crunchwrap supreme, swap the tomatoes for onions. Pair with a soft taco with avocado ranch sauce and a refresca whose caffeine count is determined by how badly my migraine needs it. Lunch: achieved.
If Joe could do it, so can you ^^
so goddamn tear gas powder dusting her face was NOT a deterrent, but mediocre junk food breath is too much for Joyce, I see how it is
Tear gas is one homogeneous thing!
That entirely tracks, tbh.
Oh, this one was included on the new bookmarks, wasn’t it? It’s cute.
The Hater Containment Thread has been compromised
Hater Containment Breach Warning Protocol activated
Jesus Christ give it a rest already.
It’s interesting to see the comment total stay the same when so many vanish.
I hope you’re feeling better, NGPZ. 🕯🍵🫖
Physically? Still a lot of pain but at least its a little less now, also less redness, more itching. Just finished my last day of Mupirocin, still got a few days left on Keflex
Mentally? agony honestly, trying my best to just get comfortably numb
*plays “Horse Steppin’ by Sun Araw on hacked muzak*
Wishing you mental peace and beauty in your life, NGPZ. Such a lovely song. I had never heard it before. Thank you for sharing it.
Joyce being Joyce. lol
Nope, I still don’t find these two cute. Not when they started off with cheating and continued with treating a whole bunch of other characters really shitty.
We get it.
It’s not like we expected anything to change on that front so reinstating fells redundant.
Yeah, but that’s the set up.
Joyce being “heroically gay” and missing the point of the actions she’s doing having consequences to hurt her friends and loved ones as well as possibly ruin the protest’s messaging.
(Because Bulmeria isn’t X related to the RL state, I fully believe that Joyce barely knows the country exists)
It makes it even stranger, as the protests actually being about Israel would mean an ex-fundie _has_opinions_.
*clears throat* I’m uh, I’m going to take a sustained absence from the comments. I believe I’ve forgotten the human and need to take a step back to re-calibrate.
I was half doing this already but uh just wanted to make a comment apologizing to Willis specifically. At my best of times I’ve just been an annoying whiney bongo the past few months and at worst I’ve been uh pretty fucking toxic I won’t deny.
So uh, please, honestly, everyone enjoy. I’ll see y’all again in a few weeks
I hope it is a restful time away and that you feel refreshed when you come back.
Take good care of YOU.🫖🍵
Yet another strip where Joe seemingly stands in his dorm room alone, waiting for Joyce to come back and finish the conversation.
Like if you as an author have previously publicly gloated about getting into a private Facebook group for a comic to complain about a plot (about how cheating bisexuals is incredibly harmful no less), while daily ragging on said strip publicly and in the sidebar of this very page, one could make the argument of we learned it from watching you.
See also the divisive creation of the concept of “haters” who want Joyce branded with a scarlet letter etc. It’s the me sowing ha-ha this is awesome me reaping oh no! meme.
And I would argue that the negative feedback has by and large been in good faith, honest, and constructive.
Not that I am not sympathetic to today’s situation (For latecomers the hater thread, gone at time of writing this, was the first post and Willis themself responded asking why it could not have been left until later in the day), but if you write a divisive plot then foster the idea of sides amongst your community, you’re going to get sides amongst your community.
I also think it is unfair to ask there be no negativity in these comments, in the general sense. This is not something Willis has said, to be clear, but something other commentators have. If you are enjoying something seeing others dislike it isn’t fun, sure, but the attitude of if you don’t have anything nice to say don’t say anything at all gets toxic real fast. Like it’s great u til something happens you don’t like and then you’re shut down.
I will admit bias, those who saw my lengthy post on “””””bulmeria””””” a few days ago will know why, but I’m still going to argue that the vast, overwhelming majority of critique here comes from fans who are expressing their various issues and complaints about something they have loved by a creator they have supported for many, many years, and want to enjoy again.
I know this is true because I’ve seen people say this, and far too often it was accompanied by a sadness that their attempts at constructive feedback was being characterised as wanting Joyce branded with a scarlet letter, or being unhappy that Dorothy wasn’t being scolded by a man.
Honestly I think it’s a pacing issue at this point. Joe has been left alone for months. Becky is finally getting some storyline but it’s still moving along bits and pieces. And I think people are getting frustrated when we keep cutting back to Joyce/Dorothy being coupley.
Considering how long the storyline has dragged on and how much heated discussion it’s brought up due to everything surrounding it, feels like we could almost do with another Halloween-esque timeskip.
Yeah, I think the storyline is fine in the broad strokes. It’s *just* the pacing that’s getting to me. So many strips that are just Dorothy and Joyce being cute. Even when it’s one like today’s which I’d probably like in other circumstances, it’s just kinda gotten old.
The cheating discourse overshadowing the much more questionable handling of the protest angle is a real “art imitating life” moment
The more Willis doubles down an feeling hurt and lashing out on ”haters” of his perfect cinnamon rolls, the more bridges they burn.
DoA was a favorite of mine for a decade, and I hope it recovers. I’ve been frankly shocked and disappointed by what I see in Willis’ social media posts.
My take on Joyce and Dorothy is I like the plot but I want it to be a disaster because I find disasters in DOA fun to read. I don’t want anyone to hate on the characters because they’re the protagonists I’ve followed for decades.
I think most people reading suspect we’re building to an even bigger personal meltdown than the Becky/Dina situation, but until that happens we’re stuck in a feedback loop of “the end of the world is taking forever. The many nonplussed reactions in-story have also not helped. I could forgive somebody not used to Willis’ style and tempo concluding that they’re taking the easy way out in the name of yuri.
A little sad my pouring-my-heart-out comment got vanished alongside the thread. Ah, well. Probably for the best. A few brief shining moments, anyway. 😆
Just wanted to wish everyone some wellness today.
Sadly, I don’t think I caught that one
All good! Here’s a cup of tea instead. 🍵🫖
Since I started polyamory, I have not one, but two fussy eaters to accommodate. I might have a type
Why should it be a date and not a prune?
Does anyone else here fells drained after staying a bit too long in these comments? Like mentally exhausted and discomforted, the opposite of a serotonin boost.
I did back during the period where two halves of the commenters were straight slinging mud at each other and accusing one another of moral degeneracy for 1000 comments a day, but at this point, most of the squabbles are a lot less high stakes, so it’s easy to determine when I can glaze over an entire thread within the first 2-3 replies, and it’s easy to accept that even if I had something to add, that adding it at that time and place, wouldn’t be constructive for me or for those discussions.
Things have mostly downgraded from everybody being monstrously unfair to each other, to occasional terse dialogues between a few people who happen to have opposing-but-particular views on one granular thing; the first thing triggers me, the second thing, I can accept, through choosing not to pay attention to it.
This isn’t directed at anyone in particular, but holy crap y’all, learn to check out on comments/threads that are obviously going to enrage you, and convince you to waste a huge chunk of your energy and mental composure on squabbles that ultimately do not matter. I get everybody getting defensive when people were being called moral defectives on a daily basis; I was very inflammatory in response to that, and I don’t make any excuses for it, because to me, it was something worth being inflammatory about.
IMO (and YMMV), nothing has risen to that timbre of disagreement since. The time for people to at least try to calm down, and maybe just individually avoid the topics that are going to consistently trigger them, already started weeks ago. We had a collective moral trauma within our readership; it makes sense a lot of people are still on edge; but, quite a lot of us, are choosing daily to stay on that edge, because we don’t want to back down.
At the end of the day, if someone’s take or pattern of posting is so abhorrent to you as a reader, it’s probably more logical to accept the premise that trying to engage that person is probably a huge waste of time and energy. If it feels like someone’s takes are so alien to you, that it’s as if they aren’t reading the same comic you are? Or, if their emotional reactions are so different from yours? Trust that instinct, that maybe trying to force that dialogue, and bring that person around to your way of thinking, will just end with you feeling like you screamed at a wall for an hour, and the wall inevitably won.
None of us here are as derelict or unreasonable, as our fear and anger will try to convince us they are. Most of us are mostly reasonable, most of the time. Some people don’t get along, and that’s fine. We just need to maintain an effort to care for ourselves and our mood and our time, as opposed to feeling compelled into prodding one anothers’ worst impulses, because we all individually deserve that from and for ourselves, let alone how it affects other commenters.
I really hope I don’t regret posting this later.
No reason you should
Maggie is a very understanding person, based on the hovertext.
Personally, while I acknowledge that Joyce and Dorothy cheating was dumb and probably unethical, I like the ship; more importantly however, It seems like it is something in character for both of them to do. In theory, Joyce wants to be ethical, but we have already seen that attraction can get the best of her, as with Jacob. Dorothy has a history of liking Walky while simultaneously distancing herself from him when she’s overwhelmed, and doesn’t listen to him or consider how her actions will make him feel as much as she probably should.
All this is to say, there is much truth to the claim that Dorothy and Joyce are imperfect people making imperfect decisions (which is something that people may want to forget?); however, I don’t think this is bad writing on Willis’s part.
also man what the fuck did i miss in the 4 hours right after this strip dropped, holy hell