Dumbing of Age Book Twelve

Dumbing of Age

A college webcomic by David Willis
RSS
‹
›
  • Home
  • About/Read before posting
  • Archive↓
    • by calendar
  • Cast
  • Store↓
    • Main Store (books and stuff)
    • T-shirts
  • Patreon↓
    • Patreon (regular)
    • Patreon (NSFW)
  • Facebook
  • Instagram
dammit mary get your foot out of there so i don't gotta tag you
First Previous Random 305Comments Share Next Latest
Reddit Digg Facebook MySpace Delicious Stumbleupon Buzz Up! Mixx Technorati Google Bookmarks Yahoo Bookmarks Yahoo MyWeb Windows Live Propeller FriendFeed Newsvine Xanga LinkedIn Blinklist Twitter
Discover more Hiveworks comics
Edison Rex
Chris Roberson
The adventures of the world’s greatest villain who, after defeating his superheroic nemesis, decides that he’s the only one left to defend the world.
Dumbing of Age
David M Willis
Joyce has been homeschooled her entire life until now, when she's suddenly a freshman in college! Things don't go well.
The Golden Boar
Magnolia Porter Siddell
A young woman joins a group of summoners who call forth Guardian Beasts to protect their isolated magical island. Unfortunately, her Guardian Beast is nothing like she'd imagined, and he's about to change her life, and everything she thought she knew about herself...
Nerf Now!!
Josué Pereira
A cute webcomic about fanservice, video games, and... love. Mostly video games, though.
Freakshow
Scotty
A festival of broken people, blood flows in the center ring. Come one and come all, to the greatest show in all of Paris.
Blindsprings
Kadi Fedoruk
Tamaura, wrested into a world 300 years in the future, must find a way to save the magic fading from her country.
Sleepless Domain
Mary Cagle (Cube Watermelon)
In a world where magical girls and their battles are commonplace, loss has become all too common as well.
Barbarous
Ananth Hirsh, Yuko Ota
A crummy wizard and an anxious monster have to get over themselves and bring order to an apartment building full of misfits.
Not Drunk Enough
Tess Stone
Logan Ibarra is possibly the unluckiest repairman in the world. A late night job should not have landed him in the middle of a mad scientist's squabble, but he soon finds himself surrounded by monsters and further madness with little tools to get out.
Sister Claire
Yamino
In the troubled aftermath of a great war between Witches and her fellow Nuns, novice Sister Claire just wants a purpose.
Peritale
Mari Costa
A fairy godmother with no magic tries her best to successfully fulfill a Fairytale and win the respect of her peers.
ARISE, YE SKELETON KING
Brian Clevinger, Escher Cattle, Lee Black
A troupe of wandering "adventurers" down to their last silver "acquire" a map only to find the real treasure was the fiend they dug up along the way.
Saint for Rent
Ru Xu
Saint Halliday runs an inn for Time Travelers. Unfortunately, he seems to attract other supernatural "guests," too.
Three Panel Soul
Matt Boyd, Ian McConville
It's a pretty rigid format but we keep the content loose, you know?
The Weave
Rennie Kingsley
A young woman pursued by bad luck is witness to the murder of the Fairy Queen of Summer. Can she get to the bottom of this mystery?
Cyanide & Happiness
Explosm
Satire, dark humor and surreal humor.
Ozzie the Vampire
Eric Lide
Ozzie and her best friend Kimmy are your average everyday normal art students – except one is an immortal vampire with superpowers and the other possesses a magic talking grimoire. Also they have to save their town from a demonic invasion.
Angel's Orchard
Harry Bogosian
After the events in Demon's Mirror, Gerda has accepted her role as a Demon Hunter, and Cezar has traveled back to the Demon City. Demons have existed alongside humans for millennia, so things begin to return to normal. But an impossibly powerful Relic has been taken by one of the Demon Masters, and a silent war enters its final stages.
Empowered
Adam Warren
A sexy superhero comedy (except when it isn't) about the never-ending struggles of a plucky but very unlucky young superheroine.
Sakana
Mad Rupert
Our heroes must navigate a hazardous dating scene, overcome personal anxieties, and wrangle unruly seafood in order to find love, peace of mind, and a paycheck.
Nigh Heaven & Hell
Scotty
Heather Vodihn is on a simple mission: find her father. However she becomes entangled with two strangers with mysterious powers being stalked by a group with bizarre demands. Heather must learn to trust her new traveling companions, even if she is untrustworthy herself.
Monster's Garden
Ash G.
Champion pit fighter Kilo Monster was content to spend the rest of his days tending to his quiet garden alone... until he met a curious robot girl and her human family.
Darkling Bright
Chris Hazelton
Kieran Bright is a college student home for the summer and roped into an online reunion with his old neighborhood friends in the most recent update of their favorite childhood MMORPG. At least, he was, and that was the idea... Join Kieran and his friends as they are pulled into another reality that may or may not be real and are forced to confront their own identities, the nature of simulated universes and reality itself.
The Messenger
indui
In a ruin-abound town cursed with bad luck, Kai and Kalla--a young boy and a fledgling dragonbird spirit--take on a quest in hopes the reward will solve all of their problems.
Guilded Age
T Campbell, John Waltrip, Florence Machina
Welcome to the saga of the working-class adventurer! Enjoy the complete story with new annotations daily!
Novae
KaiJu
A historical romance with a touch magic and a dash of astronomy. It chronicles the romantic adventures of Sulvain, a sweet tempered necromancer and Raziol, a passionate 17th century astronomer.
Heroes of Thantopolis
Izzy Strontium Hall
A living boy fights to save the City of the Dead.
Stand Still, Stay Silent
Minna Sundberg
A few generations after the end of the world, a small, poorly financed research crew is sent out to rediscover whatever is left of the forbidden old world in the south.
BOOKMARK
Click "Tag Page" to bookmark a page. When you return to the site, click "Goto Tag" to continue where you left off.
Goto TagClear Tag


BUFFER WATCH Comics are currently drawn and uploaded through:

July 11, 2026

Calmly

by David M Willis on July 8, 2025 at 12:01 am
  • 04 – The Only Exception
└ Tags: dorothy, joyce, mary

Discussion (305) ¬

[ Comments RSS ]
  1. NGPZ
    NGPZ
    July 8, 2025 at 12:02 am | # | Reply Report comment

    wow of all times NOW she decides to go gangsta

    …right into range of armed police without so much as a plan

    (0-0)

    FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU

    *plays “Apocalypshit” by Molotov on hacked muzak*

    • anon
      anon
      July 8, 2025 at 2:48 am | # | Reply Report comment

      what is she planning to do tho , i don’t think there’d be a ‘leader’ unless she gets on top of a tall thing and shouts directions at everyone or so

      • Caro
        Caro
        July 8, 2025 at 10:59 am | # | Reply Report comment

        standing up for something she believes in and ensuring jocelyn has someone in her corner. she doesn’t want to be a capital-L Leader, she hasn’t in ages. she wants to do good

    • DJTsurugi
      DJTsurugi
      July 8, 2025 at 5:59 am | # | Reply Report comment

      meanwhile me yelling at them like Barbosa “JUST KISS!” ~<3

  2. Reaver
    Reaver
    July 8, 2025 at 12:02 am | # | Reply Report comment

    LEEROOOOY JENKIIIINS!

    • Doctor_Who
      Doctor_Who
      July 8, 2025 at 12:05 am | # | Reply Report comment

      DOOOOROTHYYYY KEEENERRR!

      • Proxiehunter
        Proxiehunter
        July 8, 2025 at 12:06 am | # | Reply Report comment

        NOOOOOOOO REGREEEEEEEETS!

        • Aquila
          Aquila
          July 8, 2025 at 12:24 am | # | Reply Report comment

          TOO SOOOON TO TEEEEELLLL!

          • Laura
            Laura
            July 8, 2025 at 2:11 am | # | Reply Report comment

            KHAAAAAAAAAAAAÀAAAAN!

            • Amelie Wikström
              Amelie Wikström
              July 8, 2025 at 2:50 am | # | Reply Report comment

              Get in their FAAAAAAAAAACE!

              • morleuca
                morleuca
                July 8, 2025 at 6:15 am | # | Reply Report comment

                It’s a FAAAAAAAAAAAAAAKE!

                • Olofa
                  Olofa
                  July 8, 2025 at 6:31 am | #

                  I LIKE YELLLLLIIIIIIIIIING!

                • Van Jealous
                  Van Jealous
                  July 8, 2025 at 6:44 pm | #

                  E X P E LLLLLLLL E D!

              • Laura
                Laura
                July 8, 2025 at 11:31 pm | # | Reply Report comment

                FAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAACE
                https://www.dumbingofage.com/2010/comic/book-1/01-move-in-day/face/

                …A reference?

                • Amelie Wikström
                  Amelie Wikström
                  July 9, 2025 at 2:59 am | #

                  I was worried everyone had forgot FAAAACE

    • yak
      yak
      July 8, 2025 at 6:00 am | # | Reply Report comment

      Dorothy, in the lock-up and eating a bucket of KFC she got somehow: “At least I have chicken”

      • Freezer
        Freezer
        July 8, 2025 at 5:11 pm | # | Reply Report comment

        Joyce: Ew, they mixed original with crispy!

        • morleuca
          morleuca
          July 8, 2025 at 7:57 pm | # | Reply Report comment

          do people actually eat original?

          • Opus the Poet
            Opus the Poet
            July 8, 2025 at 8:31 pm | # | Reply Report comment

            Yep, some of us do.

          • Freezer
            Freezer
            July 8, 2025 at 10:26 pm | # | Reply Report comment

            I’m old enough to remember when KFC was legit the best restaurant fried chicken around.

            • Freezer
              Freezer
              July 8, 2025 at 10:26 pm | # | Reply Report comment

              Emphasis on “was.”

  3. ZombieKyrik
    ZombieKyrik
    July 8, 2025 at 12:02 am | # | Reply Report comment

    Welp, this isn’t going to end well.

    On a scale of 1-10 how bad do we think this is?

    • NGPZ
      NGPZ
      July 8, 2025 at 12:03 am | # | Reply Report comment

      well let’s see,

      there’s armed police, a sniper, and Mary

      what do you thinK???? X-X

      • Proxiehunter
        Proxiehunter
        July 8, 2025 at 12:06 am | # | Reply Report comment

        Depends, will the sniper shoot Mary? What about if I offer him cash?

        • NGPZ
          NGPZ
          July 8, 2025 at 12:12 am | # | Reply Report comment

          dammit I really REALLY hope that happens

          if not?

          *guzzles redbull, cracks knuckles and opens up GameMaker*

        • Icalasari
          Icalasari
          July 8, 2025 at 12:25 am | # | Reply Report comment

          I will also take Mary getting arrested. Even if Dorothy or Joyce got arrested, Mary’s arrest is worth at least 1.5x that in wonderful points

          • butting
            butting
            July 8, 2025 at 2:00 am | # | Reply Report comment

            Jocelyne, Leslie, and Dorothy in a cell (holding pen, more likely) together could be a hell of a time.

            With Mary too, though? Ew.

            • Lily
              Lily
              July 8, 2025 at 8:28 am | # | Reply Report comment

              getting arrested isn’t fun for anyone, but i particularly worry about jocelyne; pigs don’t exactly have a great track record with trans women

          • anon
            anon
            July 8, 2025 at 2:51 am | # | Reply Report comment

            mary would have too much ‘narc’ energy if not be a suckup or start quoting bible verse

          • Kyulen
            Kyulen
            July 8, 2025 at 3:01 am | # | Reply Report comment

            It seems unlikely they’d arrest Mary, since she’s on their side.

            • clif
              clif
              July 8, 2025 at 3:26 am | # | Reply Report comment

              Specifically, her foot seems to be on Joyce’s side of the fence.

            • eh, whatever
              eh, whatever
              July 8, 2025 at 4:11 am | # | Reply Report comment

              They’re going to shoot first and ask questions later, including questions like “oh, are you actually theoretically on our side”.

              • Olofa
                Olofa
                July 8, 2025 at 6:32 am | # | Reply Report comment

                But the leopards would never eat her face!

            • Sharizard
              Sharizard
              July 8, 2025 at 4:21 am | # | Reply Report comment

              Considering her sign’s been swapped without her noticing, they make think she’s making fun of them…

              • anon
                anon
                July 9, 2025 at 10:24 pm | # | Reply Report comment

                i think it’d be more ‘making fun of others’ if it said “YOUR” face is a but versus carla writing it as ‘my’ XD

        • RonF
          RonF
          July 8, 2025 at 10:05 am | # | Reply Report comment

          The sniper isn’t going to shoot anyone that isn’t themselves shooting.

          • The Lurker
            The Lurker
            July 8, 2025 at 1:27 pm | # | Reply Report comment

            O sweet summer child…. https://www.apnews.com/44c0ffa874663b4f1ea8f890a7c304d0

            • thejeff
              thejeff
              July 8, 2025 at 2:11 pm | # | Reply Report comment

              There are tons of examples of unjustified police shootings.

              I’m not aware of any from snipers at protests. I’m not even aware of any justified shootings from snipers at protests. There certainly weren’t any shots fired at the IU protest this is based on.

              Police violence at protests tends to be using supposedly non-lethal weapons – misused rubber bullets, tear gas canisters fired at people or just good old beatings with batons.

          • Taffy
            Taffy
            July 8, 2025 at 2:34 pm | # | Reply Report comment

            Well, that seems naive.

          • Opus the Poet
            Opus the Poet
            July 8, 2025 at 8:35 pm | # | Reply Report comment

            You’re probably too young to remember “4 Dead In Ohio” by CSN&Y

      • JA
        JA
        July 8, 2025 at 12:35 am | # | Reply Report comment

        So bricks are getting thrown. Things’ll be alright, I think.

    • Longshot97
      Longshot97
      July 8, 2025 at 12:04 am | # | Reply Report comment

      Not well, I think. 9. Possibly even 10.

    • Kyulen
      Kyulen
      July 8, 2025 at 12:06 am | # | Reply Report comment

      Depends on how nasty the cops decide to be towards the protesters.

    • Otl1973
      Otl1973
      July 8, 2025 at 1:50 am | # | Reply Report comment

      Willis took this almost line by line from what happened at “pro-Palestinian” protest at IU a little over a year ago. The school administration and the state police significantly overreacted – it’s not clear why (unlike if this happened this year, in which case they arguably could have been afraid of retribution by the Trump administration if they didn’t). 55 people (students, faculty, and protesters who were neither) were arrested, none were charged. There were no significant injuries.

      The commentariat seems to be expecting this to turn out like anti-war demonstrations on campuses sometimes did in the 60s and early 70s, with many injuries and some deaths, notably at Kent State and Jackson State. If Willis actually goes that far, he is dishonoring the names of those back then. I don’t think he will, but if this does end significantly worse than the actual IU event did, I’ll be disappointed in him tugging heartstrings to just play to the readers. It’s not like this was a made up event – it’s conceivable that I’d give him more slack if it was. But so far it is just a replay of the news, albeit with these characters.

      • butting
        butting
        July 8, 2025 at 2:08 am | # | Reply Report comment

        True, but: there’s the dangling thread of Lester out there. I can see him putting a round in someone off-protest (Mary Mary Mary please please Mary) and going down for it, and if it’s some right-wing freak left recovering in hospital (Mary Mary Mary please please Mary) then that would absolutely track with the contemporary right’s delight in celebrating their martyrs.

        Which means we’d be stuck with the consequences forever. Ugh.

        • Laura
          Laura
          July 8, 2025 at 2:13 am | # | Reply Report comment

          Lester?

          • Laura
            Laura
            July 8, 2025 at 2:17 am | # | Reply Report comment

            Ah yes. Lester the cop who knows who Amazi-Girl is. Who shot Blaine.

            • Tessea
              Tessea
              July 8, 2025 at 2:22 am | # | Reply Report comment

              Blaine actually did the right thing and deflected Lester’s question about Amazi-Girl being Amber before he died.

              Something like
              “So your daughter turned out to be Amazi-Girl.”
              After a beat
              “She wishes. She could never pull off something like that.”

              • Laura
                Laura
                July 8, 2025 at 2:46 am | # | Reply Report comment

                Huh. Gotta point there.

              • DJTsurugi
                DJTsurugi
                July 8, 2025 at 6:03 am | # | Reply Report comment

                something about part of what you said doesn’t sit right… ” did the right thing” I personally wont attribute any “right things” to Blaine. if hell exists, he’s there. ~<3

              • cain
                cain
                July 8, 2025 at 8:08 am | # | Reply Report comment

                I don’t think it was out of a desire to protect Amber. He follows it up with something along the lines of “no way, but if you think you can use it to arrest her, go for it.”

              • PhyrexianRogue
                PhyrexianRogue
                July 8, 2025 at 3:09 pm | # | Reply Report comment

                That was not about protecting Amber. It was denial about his daughter’s capabilities. Amazi-Girl helped beat him, but it’s impossible for his failure daughter to beat him, therefore his daughter can’t be Amazi-Girl.

        • Silphael
          Silphael
          July 8, 2025 at 2:18 am | # | Reply Report comment

          The consequences could be Mary beginning to realize, too, because I feel like her character is going nowhere.

          • Steamweed
            Steamweed
            July 8, 2025 at 6:47 am | # | Reply Report comment

            One could help that she gets lumped in by the cops as a protester and gets arrested, beaten, and/or shipped off to jail. And has a “But I didn’t think they’d eat MY face” moment.

          • Astariel
            Astariel
            July 8, 2025 at 11:03 am | # | Reply Report comment

            Do we really need a redemption arc for Mary? IRL, not everyone gets redeemed. Some people just stay assholes their whole lives. Seems like Mary could be a representative of that.

          • ESM
            ESM
            July 8, 2025 at 12:15 pm | # | Reply Report comment

            If you weren’t familiar with Mary’s Walkyverse character, she’s initially presented as “A meaner version of Joyce who feels bad that being mean makes people not like her” and her potentially being redeemed is up in the air, even as she gets more aggressive. Then her wacky blackmail plot semi-accidentally gets Ruth to attempt to kill herself. Afterwards, Jennifer is like “Okay your mean shenanigans have crossed a line into actually being evil, but I’m winning to move on if you’re willing to stop now. We’ll call it even. Choo choo, all aboard the redemption arc train last chance” and Mary doubles down and pitches a plan to blame it all on Carla. This gets her punched in the face and exiled and is “officially” the point where “Mary learns to be a better person” is stricken from the list of possibilities for her. This is her arc. She’s a foil to Joyce, both having to choose being changing for her friends or sticking to her religion. Joyce went one way, she went the other and was ultimately completely and utterly defeated as a result.

            The problem is that Mary WAS a Walkyverse character so she’s part of the “main cast” even though her arc is completely and satisfyingly resolved in such a way that explicitly shuts the door on her ever changing. That’s why every time she’s appeared since she’s had a completely new gimmick. She’s dating Peter Paul, then she’s homophobic Galasso who’s so inept that Becky/Dina enjoy hanging out with her, then she’s trying to seduce Joyce into being a TERF and now she’s a nazi and probably next arc she’ll be a juggler or something. She can’t be interesting. She can’t be threatening. She can’t even really be defeated because it would undercut her big climatic ultimate defeat in the blackmail arc and seem weak by comparison. She really doesn’t have a role in a the comic any more and should ride off into the sunset in shame and be replaced with a new “homophobic asshole” that Willis can actually do a storyline with.

            • Nadamás
              Nadamás
              July 8, 2025 at 3:03 pm | # | Reply Report comment

              I seriously would like to see dome dtrips showing your repeated claim that “Mary fell bad being mean make people not like her”.

              • ESM
                ESM
                July 8, 2025 at 3:42 pm | # | Reply Report comment

                Not “felt bad” in the sense of feeling guilty, literally just “Wow it sucks that people here aren’t bigoted”, and for that I’m mostly going off her being sad in panel three here and being surprised/confused/upset that people were mad at her about the blackmail thing. I realize that’s only two examples it’s fully 5% of her appearances up to that point; she’s a very minor character who barely appears with a simple little mini-arc. “Mary is a jerk, but that makes people not like her which makes her sad. Will this make her stop being a jerk? No, she’ll just aim her jerkishness at Carla and Ruth because she thinks they’re acceptable targets and now she is getting punched in the face as she deserves.”. And it’s a nice little mini-arc for a very minor character. Dumbing of Age is about flawed people trying to be better. Mary refuses to be better so she’s punched in the face and kicked out of the group. It’s a big dramatic statement of the themes of the comic. Fix your hearts or die. It’s good! I like the storyline where the nazi gets punched in the face and it’s not even the worst thing that happens to her. I wish we had more like it, where villains were defeated in a really emotionally satisfying way.

                • Tan
                  Tan
                  July 8, 2025 at 4:14 pm | #

                  I would call that indignant rather than sad

                • Nadamás
                  Nadamás
                  July 8, 2025 at 9:08 pm | #

                  Yeah i gotta agree, those are just 2 very far apart instances that could be interpreted tgat wat if you like. I don’t really.

      • Silphael
        Silphael
        July 8, 2025 at 2:22 am | # | Reply Report comment

        At the same time, there is something to consider : it is unlikely Willis will make another protest in this webcomic, and here it’s by taking “protest” generally (ie, gathering, slight riot, and so on), so showing more serious state violence would be covering all those cases. Sure, that would be a lot compared to last year protests, *but* Dorothy mentionned “they changed the law overnight” which happened this year, meaning it could also be about the LA uprising, where there has been wounded.

        • thejeff
          thejeff
          July 8, 2025 at 7:01 am | # | Reply Report comment

          IU changed the rules overnight to ban encampments, leading to clearing the protest there. Exactly what we’re seeing here.

          It’s possible he’ll take this farther, but I wouldn’t expect it.

          Some arrests are likely and that should be enough to provoke some drama in the cast.

      • FlamestAndLight
        FlamestAndLight
        July 8, 2025 at 4:45 am | # | Reply Report comment

        Why would that dishonor the names of those who died at the hands of the state back then?

    • Taffy
      Taffy
      July 8, 2025 at 2:04 am | # | Reply Report comment

      Like a 3, maybe a 4 at most. They’ll be fine.

    • AlexanderHammil
      AlexanderHammil
      July 8, 2025 at 2:12 am | # | Reply Report comment

      oh, i don’t know, the girl who is thin, blonde, pretty, and also fairly famous for organizing an escape from a kidnapper standing in front of the police is absolutely camera ready

  4. Longshot97
    Longshot97
    July 8, 2025 at 12:03 am | # | Reply Report comment

    Why oh why did we wish for this ship.

    Damn you David “Monkey’s Paw” Willis.

    • Bryy
      Bryy
      July 8, 2025 at 3:03 am | # | Reply Report comment

      That’s this entire comic.

  5. Dot
    Dot
    July 8, 2025 at 12:04 am | # | Reply Report comment

    Finally some political backbone from Dorothy. Proud to share a name with her for once.

  6. ZombieKyrik
    ZombieKyrik
    July 8, 2025 at 12:04 am | # | Reply Report comment

    The alt text XD Willis lives in a hell of his own design. 😛

    • GholaHalleck
      GholaHalleck
      July 8, 2025 at 12:25 am | # | Reply Report comment

      Which appendage is Walky though?

  7. AnonGrouch
    AnonGrouch
    July 8, 2025 at 12:04 am | # | Reply Report comment

    The rizzening! Let it consume you. Feel it. Embrace it. Draw power from its cup and your own will runneth over. RIZZ it up! Rizz it up! Rizz it UP!

    • AnonGrouch
      AnonGrouch
      July 8, 2025 at 12:05 am | # | Reply Report comment

      Let it be known that I was asking for this a few days ago and my wish was granted.

    • True Survivor
      True Survivor
      July 8, 2025 at 12:34 am | # | Reply Report comment

      Thank you, now “Rizz up” is what I’m always going to hear during the post-credit ending of Transformers One. I would be mad, but honestly, I think it works better. The reasoning behind the name Deception always seemed very forced for a revolutionary movement, but the naming is amazing when you instead imply Megatron is running some sort of evil pick-up artist seminar.

      And sure all the references to Optimus in that speech now make their relationship seem pretty gay, but come on, it was already bursting at the bolts with homoerotism to begin with. Its not changing anything there.

      • AnonGrouch
        AnonGrouch
        July 8, 2025 at 4:36 pm | # | Reply Report comment

        I mean if you really think about it the Decepticons are always doing that if you squint at it.

  8. Yumi
    Yumi
    July 8, 2025 at 12:04 am | # | Reply Report comment

    @hovertext: I have more thoughts about Walky being (currently) tagged?

    • Jo_cubstar
      Jo_cubstar
      July 8, 2025 at 12:05 am | # | Reply Report comment

      Same

    • Kyulen
      Kyulen
      July 8, 2025 at 12:07 am | # | Reply Report comment

      Either that’s a mistake or he’s also barely visible in the background somewhere.

      • Dara
        Dara
        July 8, 2025 at 12:27 am | # | Reply Report comment

        A foot, hopefully stepping on Mary’s

      • Dara
        Dara
        July 8, 2025 at 12:31 am | # | Reply Report comment

        dang, Willis fixed it

    • audkitten
      audkitten
      July 8, 2025 at 12:25 am | # | Reply Report comment

      I think he’s the shoes under the DOROTHY! bubble in the last panel.

    • HueSatLight
      HueSatLight
      July 8, 2025 at 12:27 am | # | Reply Report comment

      Counter protest has free pizza

      • Proxiehunter
        Proxiehunter
        July 8, 2025 at 4:40 am | # | Reply Report comment

        Look, the man’s on record as being willing to suck dick for pizza but I doubt he’d go so far as to protest in favor of genocide for pizza.

        • Steamweed
          Steamweed
          July 8, 2025 at 6:52 am | # | Reply Report comment

          Absolutely not. Walky has standards. He’s not going to protest in favor of genocide for a couple slices of free pizza.

          (you’d have to throw in a case of nachitos and a pallet of 50-piece mcnuggets, at the very least, before he’d think about it)

  9. Taffy
    Taffy
    July 8, 2025 at 12:04 am | # | Reply Report comment

    Dorothy’s about to return some lemons.

    • UrsulaDavina
      UrsulaDavina
      July 8, 2025 at 12:26 am | # | Reply Report comment

      And burn some houses down with the lemons.

  10. Kyulen
    Kyulen
    July 8, 2025 at 12:05 am | # | Reply Report comment

    Now the question is, will Joyce run in after her?

    • AnonGrouch
      AnonGrouch
      July 8, 2025 at 12:08 am | # | Reply Report comment

      I feel like that’d deduct cool points.

      • AnonGrouch
        AnonGrouch
        July 8, 2025 at 12:09 am | # | Reply Report comment

        Like just, the over all vibe I mean. Not ‘deducting them from Joyce’

    • Freezer
      Freezer
      July 8, 2025 at 12:10 am | # | Reply Report comment

      Depends: Does her love for Dorothy override her fear of food that touches (or snipers)?

    • ESM
      ESM
      July 8, 2025 at 12:16 am | # | Reply Report comment

      She has thirty minutes. She just just kind of casually stroll in after her.

      • Kyulen
        Kyulen
        July 8, 2025 at 12:20 am | # | Reply Report comment

        We don’t know how long they’ve spent already. Plus the cops may have been lying about the thirty minutes and decide to go in early.

      • Steamweed
        Steamweed
        July 8, 2025 at 6:53 am | # | Reply Report comment

        That gate is awfully close to being closed. Seems it’s in the process of being closed up, what with Dorothy’s speed in re-entering.

        • vulcanodon
          vulcanodon
          July 8, 2025 at 9:36 am | # | Reply Report comment

          Looks like Dorothy is about to disappear over the horizon

        • Rose by Any other Name
          Rose by Any other Name
          July 8, 2025 at 7:10 pm | # | Reply Report comment

          I mean, it closed earlier. They reopened the gate to let them out. There is literally nothing stopping Joyce from following her back in.

  11. M!a
    M!a
    July 8, 2025 at 12:05 am | # | Reply Report comment

    Well, I knew they weren’t gonna kiss so SOMEbody was getting busted…

  12. Amós Batista
    Amós Batista
    July 8, 2025 at 12:05 am | # | Reply Report comment

    that’s first step for a presidential

    • SunflowerBanjo
      SunflowerBanjo
      July 8, 2025 at 12:26 am | # | Reply Report comment

      Incredible avatar for this comment.

  13. Shakes
    Shakes
    July 8, 2025 at 12:07 am | # | Reply Report comment

    Rest in peace President Dorothy
    Witness the birth of Activist Dorothy

    • NGPZ
      NGPZ
      July 8, 2025 at 12:30 am | # | Reply Report comment

      an absolutely beautiful transformation ;-;

      *plays “My Innermost Apocalypse” by Danny Baranowsky on hacked muzak*

  14. Nono
    Nono
    July 8, 2025 at 12:08 am | # | Reply Report comment

    It’s a bad decision. But I’m just glad something is finally happening because the “will they won’t they” thing feels like it’s starting to drag.

    • Lumino
      Lumino
      July 8, 2025 at 12:14 am | # | Reply Report comment

      Right? Are they cheating or not, just pull the band aide off so we can deal with the fallout.

      What I think will happen is that the police will charge in before Joyce can follow Dorothy, leading to more trauma.

      • Taffy
        Taffy
        July 8, 2025 at 1:57 am | # | Reply Report comment

        At this point, they could fuck on the ground while everyone watched and I wouldn’t consider it cheating.

        • PedanticJerkass
          PedanticJerkass
          July 8, 2025 at 2:06 am | # | Reply Report comment

          It would still be cheating, regardless.

          • Thing 2
            Thing 2
            July 8, 2025 at 2:40 am | # | Reply Report comment

            Not for Taffy, it wouldn’t!

          • Taffy
            Taffy
            July 8, 2025 at 2:58 am | # | Reply Report comment

            No.

            • clif
              clif
              July 8, 2025 at 3:32 am | # | Reply Report comment

              Specifically, they wouldn’t be cheating on Taffy.

          • Nymph
            Nymph
            July 8, 2025 at 9:12 am | # | Reply Report comment

            Cheating is actually a line people get to decide for themselves, not a universal definition.

            • Rose by Any other Name
              Rose by Any other Name
              July 8, 2025 at 7:13 pm | # | Reply Report comment

              **points at what Nymph said*
              This.
              Also, “dating” someone does not mean “exclusively dating” someone. If you don’t discuss being exclusive, you are not exclusive.
              No one in this damn comic has ever, to my knowledge, set a single relationship boundary. Ever.

              • NGPZ
                NGPZ
                July 8, 2025 at 7:58 pm | # | Reply Report comment

                yeah, any notion of exclusivity being The Default is white Christian privilege :/

                • NGPZ
                  NGPZ
                  July 8, 2025 at 8:02 pm | #

                  and of course, this is a Red State and the cup runneth over 9-9

              • thejeff
                thejeff
                July 8, 2025 at 7:58 pm | # | Reply Report comment

                1) Both Joyce and Dorothy have at least referred to it those terms. Joyce telling Joe that doing laundry with Dorothy wasn’t cheating because they weren’t together yet. Dorothy saying they “can’t” because they’re with Joe and Walky respectively.
                We haven’t seen them explicitly discuss boundaries with their partners, but it’s clear they acknowledge them.

                2) I get that it sucks for poly people to have to deal with these cultural assumptions, but they do exist and just relying on “we didn’t discuss being exclusive, so …” sucks. Talk about it. Communication is necessary to make poly relationships work (any relationships, but even more so.) Otherwise, what’s the outcome? Just tell the partner you care about that it’s a shame that they’re hurt, but you didn’t break any explicit rules so you don’t have to care?

                • Rose by Any other Name
                  Rose by Any other Name
                  July 9, 2025 at 12:06 am | #

                  1) Cultural assumptions are a thing. Dating more than one person makes you a slut. Similar BS. Just because they say things doesn’t mean they talked about them.

                  2) Well that’s a fucky way to do that. Typically, those of us on the poly side of things are MORE likely to immediately discuss expectations than those who simply follow cultural norms.

                • thejeff
                  thejeff
                  July 9, 2025 at 8:26 am | #

                  1) So they think it would be cheating, but since they haven’t talked about it, it would be fine for them to do it anyway. While thinking it would be cheating and expecting their partners to think it would be cheating.
                  2) Yes, that’s kind of my point. Poly people are more likely to discuss expectations. Which is good. Do that.
                  Not doing that and relying on ‘but we didn’t explicitly say we were exclusive’ to excuse sex with someone else when your partner is hurt by it is not only a fucky way to do it, but the exact situation Joyce and Dorothy would be in if they went ahead on the grounds you’re suggesting.

                • Li
                  Li
                  July 10, 2025 at 12:02 am | #

                  Counterpoint for #2: monogamous people should get comfortable with actually starting the conversation and stating their expectations and needs.

                  The argument here is that Joyce should ask clearly, even though she technically has broached this topic with Joe and Joe gave her the opposite signal, and that Joe has no obligation to tell her anything without being asked?

                  I think what Joyce is doing right now is wrong, but it does rely on my having some knowledge that I don’t think Joyce necessarily does.

        • Steamweed
          Steamweed
          July 8, 2025 at 6:55 am | # | Reply Report comment

          I don’t believe you. I demand a Patreon (or Slipperyshine) depiction. Plus your “Taffy Reacts” video.

    • 3oranges
      3oranges
      July 8, 2025 at 2:48 am | # | Reply Report comment

      “Starting to drag” is hard to judge for a webcomic…something that takes weeks the first time through will take minutes the next time you read it, and all of a sudden what was too slow can be over so fast.

      • Erik
        Erik
        July 8, 2025 at 7:21 am | # | Reply Report comment

        “What was too slow can be over so fast”
        There’s a song in there…

        • Nymph
          Nymph
          July 8, 2025 at 9:14 am | # | Reply Report comment

          There’s a Paramore song that was earlier in the strip called “All I Wanted” with the lyrics: “I could follow you to the beginning, just to relive the start.
          Maybe then, we’d remember to slow down at all of our favorite parts.” which is pretty close AND topical.

  15. DailyBrad
    DailyBrad
    July 8, 2025 at 12:10 am | # | Reply Report comment

    Ah jeez.

  16. Reltzik
    Reltzik
    July 8, 2025 at 12:12 am | # | Reply Report comment

    No, Dorothy! This is not how these things go! It’s the RIOT POLICE that are supposed to start the riot!

    • Kyulen
      Kyulen
      July 8, 2025 at 12:17 am | # | Reply Report comment

      I’m sure the cops will start it soon enough.

  17. IntangibleMatter
    IntangibleMatter
    July 8, 2025 at 12:12 am | # | Reply Report comment

    *sighhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh*

    Joyce, you’re going after her, aren’t you…

  18. TheKelliestKelly
    TheKelliestKelly
    July 8, 2025 at 12:15 am | # | Reply Report comment

    Act with integrity. No regrets

    • RASSILONTDAVROS
      RASSILONTDAVROS
      July 8, 2025 at 12:35 am | # | Reply Report comment

      Fuck, if it turns out that this strip was foreshadowing this whole time, then: goddamn, well played.

      • CinnamonToastBun
        CinnamonToastBun
        July 8, 2025 at 3:58 am | # | Reply Report comment

        It goes way waaaay deeper than that….

    • Zamperla
      Zamperla
      July 8, 2025 at 4:30 am | # | Reply Report comment

      Oh thank god im not the only person who gets nervous this specific way.

    • Reltzik
      Reltzik
      July 8, 2025 at 12:26 pm | # | Reply Report comment

      … wait, is there a difference between integrity and stupidity? Because I’m not seeing it here…

  19. TheKelliestKelly
    TheKelliestKelly
    July 8, 2025 at 12:15 am | # | Reply Report comment

    Walky is in this strip?? Where’s Walky?!

    • cbwroses
      cbwroses
      July 8, 2025 at 12:28 am | # | Reply Report comment

      Next to Waldo, I assume.

  20. ESM
    ESM
    July 8, 2025 at 12:15 am | # | Reply Report comment

    “Dorothy, wait! We still were inside the fence last strip and it didn’t show us leaving! Dorothy you’re running away from the protest! Dorothy no!”

    • StClair
      StClair
      July 8, 2025 at 12:54 am | # | Reply Report comment

      that was my thought, honestly. It looks to me like she’s leaving.

    • Veronica
      Veronica
      July 8, 2025 at 5:36 am | # | Reply Report comment

      “Dorothy, there was specifically a line of dialogue about how we were *almost* outside of the fence and then we stopped to talk for a few strips. Are we charging into or out of the protest now?”

  21. mindbleach
    mindbleach
    July 8, 2025 at 12:16 am | # | Reply Report comment

    Alright. Consider: Dorothy kills several officers and somehow gets away with it. Kicks a man clean in half. Evades suspicion by exuding white-girl pheromones. Total non-issue, going forward.

    • Bittersweet
      Bittersweet
      July 8, 2025 at 12:26 am | # | Reply Report comment

      She slinks away into a cloud of Bath and Bodyworks body mist emanating from her pores like a squid fleeing combat.

      • mindbleach
        mindbleach
        July 8, 2025 at 12:55 am | # | Reply Report comment

        A baton whiffs through black cherry merlot. A second swing is stopped cold, and yanked in. The man is never seen again.

        • Plain Marie
          Plain Marie
          July 8, 2025 at 8:42 am | # | Reply Report comment

          Black cherry merlot, lol.

      • Plain Marie
        Plain Marie
        July 8, 2025 at 8:43 am | # | Reply Report comment

        lol!!!!!
        Thanks for that image.

    • Taffy
      Taffy
      July 8, 2025 at 12:28 am | # | Reply Report comment

      Kicks a man in half? Damn, she’s killing cops and people?

    • Disastroid
      Disastroid
      July 8, 2025 at 5:59 am | # | Reply Report comment

      She’ll kick you apart! SHE’LL KICK YOU APART!

  22. Kiashi
    Kiashi
    July 8, 2025 at 12:18 am | # | Reply Report comment

    Those police boots look a lot closer than they did before in the last panel, are they going to pursue? Someone running back inside in defiance like that might unfortunately make them rescind the “grace” period early i’d imagine

  23. Segnosaur
    Segnosaur
    July 8, 2025 at 12:19 am | # | Reply Report comment

    Hmmm, some interesting possibilities for storylines some up, if Walky really is there (as the tag suggests)

    He could join Dorothy. And if he does, he is sort of related to the dean (in a very indirect way), so this could cause all sorts of issues.

    • Bittersweet
      Bittersweet
      July 8, 2025 at 12:23 am | # | Reply Report comment

      Linda starts really treating Walky like Sal after he gets arrested with his girlfriend.

      • Nymph
        Nymph
        July 8, 2025 at 8:55 am | # | Reply Report comment

        Nah, girlfriend is white and that’s what really matters to Linda. She’ll probably praise him for “showing some political ambition” and start pushing him that way instead of toward pre-med.

        • Bittersweet
          Bittersweet
          July 8, 2025 at 1:40 pm | # | Reply Report comment

          Girlfriend’s in jail for protesting against the university that employs their good family friend and gets them nice sports tickets, Linda might not be sweet on Dorothy either afterwards lol

  24. HueSatLight
    HueSatLight
    July 8, 2025 at 12:19 am | # | Reply Report comment

    There’s a ROTC building close enough that it is probably being watched and any random fire would be put out, but there’s a ROTC supply building across campus. She could calmly, angrily, organizedly not be near that ROTC supply building when a fluke electrical fire breaks out there.

  25. Bittersweet
    Bittersweet
    July 8, 2025 at 12:20 am | # | Reply Report comment

    Hells yeah Dorothy, go punch a cop, if you’re about to be a victim of police brutality get some shots in!

    I’d call her a Baby Bernie Sanders but I actually dislike him (for personal reasons, not policy-related ones) and I like Dorothy a lot. Baby Jill Stein? It’s been years since I’ve checked on her, she hasn’t done anything outright abhorrent yet has she? Either way, I like actual political involvement from Dorothy.

    Granted, it still feels weird and out of left field, but like, I can vibe with the strip in a vacuum.

    • Bittersweet
      Bittersweet
      July 8, 2025 at 12:25 am | # | Reply Report comment

      [Also, I do not actually want Dorothy to turn this protest into a riot. I mean, I kind of want it because I have the political views of what they apparently call an “accelerant” and that’s the way I like my media messy, but I lack enough experience with dangerous protests to know when that sort of this is called for, if ever. I just lack the emotional bandwidth to like type out something well-thought-out today.]

    • Dara
      Dara
      July 8, 2025 at 12:30 am | # | Reply Report comment

      “[Jill Stein] hasn’t done anything outright abhorrent yet has she?”

      oh

      oh dear

      baby shield your eyes, you don’t want to look

      Maybe Baby Elizabeth Warren, but with a touch more warzone. I think that’d fit her.

    • Kyulen
      Kyulen
      July 8, 2025 at 12:35 am | # | Reply Report comment

      I suspect my dislike for Bernie is for entirely different reasons than many people here. I dislike him because he’s too far to the right. Despite his claims of being a socialist, he never actually advocates for socialism, and in fact his calling himself that has caused a lot of Americans to have misconceptions about what socialism actually means. Bernie is not a socialist, he’s an old-fashioned liberal.

      • Kyulen
        Kyulen
        July 8, 2025 at 12:36 am | # | Reply Report comment

        I don’t agree with Stein on everything, but at least she’s left of Bernie, and unlike him she’s been out there protesting against genocide and fascism for many years.

        • Ray Radlein
          Ray Radlein
          July 8, 2025 at 1:15 am | # | Reply Report comment

          Stein is a genocide apologist.

          • Ray Radlein
            Ray Radlein
            July 8, 2025 at 1:16 am | # | Reply Report comment

            Like, literally.

            • Kyulen
              Kyulen
              July 8, 2025 at 1:19 am | # | Reply Report comment

              I’ve seen no evidence of that. I’ve seen plenty of her speaking out and protesting against genocide.

          • Nymph
            Nymph
            July 8, 2025 at 8:52 am | # | Reply Report comment

            I would love a link with evidence of this? I don’t particularly care for Jill Stein because I don’t believe in voting third party at the presidential level until we have a lot of third party support in congress and senate (and lower levels of political positions) first, but a quick google said she was pro-Palestine before it was cool and calling for a boycott of Israel over the apartheid as early as her 2012 campaign (maybe before) so I’m just confused what you mean? There are certainly plenty of OTHER genocides, so if you could just point me to which one she supported, I’d be grateful.

        • ESM
          ESM
          July 8, 2025 at 1:19 am | # | Reply Report comment

          Jill Stein is a Nazi, bro.

          • Kyulen
            Kyulen
            July 8, 2025 at 1:23 am | # | Reply Report comment

            Where did you get that idea? I’ve seen nothing to indicate that she’s a Nazi anywhere.

            • Bryy
              Bryy
              July 8, 2025 at 2:16 am | # | Reply Report comment

              Jill Stein has twice run as a Decoy Candidate. Her campaign has not hid this fact. She wanted Trump to win.

              • Kyulen
                Kyulen
                July 8, 2025 at 2:34 am | # | Reply Report comment

                That’s not even remotely true. Some of y’all love the say the most ridiculous nonsense I’ve heard about Stein.

                • Bryy
                  Bryy
                  July 8, 2025 at 3:02 am | #

                  Stein’s people have specifically said that Trump would be better than Harris.

                • Kyulen
                  Kyulen
                  July 8, 2025 at 3:08 am | #

                  I can say things that are not true too. Black is white, up is down, the moon is made of cheese.

                • clif
                  clif
                  July 8, 2025 at 3:38 am | #

                  Sh. We’re trying to keep that quiet about the moon.

              • Wilde
                Wilde
                July 8, 2025 at 11:12 am | # | Reply Report comment

                Mmm, not exactly, unless I’m missing something in my search. She was saying that the war on Gaza was going to continue under either party, which was true. She was essentially saying both dominant parties are equivalent to Nazis for their support of genocide. It was a bad and naive take on her part to say there was no “lesser evil” (tell that to people being illegally deported, or many others). But I couldn’t find her actively supporting Trump or saying he was preferred. There’s a terrible dude quoted at the end of the article (Grenell) who says that, but he’s not affiliated with Stein.

                There is evidence that Russia boosted ads about her but that’s nothing new. Their entire MO is to fuel division and dissent, they don’t care who they back as long as it serves in breaking down unity. I haven’t found anything saying she wanted Trump to win. Or that she supported genocide (as Ray said), the opposite so far.

                However I’m easily seated by authoritative reliable sources, so hit me up with links. Not afraid to be wrong.

                • Li
                  Li
                  July 8, 2025 at 11:21 am | #

                  2016, she said better Trump than Hillary because she thought they’d do all the same things but HRC would be more dangerous and get more of it done. And now we have a conservative supermajority on the Supreme Court, and her campaign literally got more votes in several key swing states than HRC needed, so.

                • Li
                  Li
                  July 8, 2025 at 11:29 am | #

                  like idk about her intentions, I’m not a mind-reader, but she did very much say better Trump than Hillary in 2016, herself, with her own mouth. That’s just true. I think it is self-evidently the case that she was very wrong and critically underestimated Trump, both then and in 2024, and that the damage his presidencies did to the US Supreme Court alone are going to exact a heavy toll on all of us for generations after Trump and Stein are both dead, but of course YMMV.

              • Astariel
                Astariel
                July 8, 2025 at 11:31 am | # | Reply Report comment

                She’s also a Putin apologist who defended the invasion of Ukraine.

                • Ray Radlein
                  Ray Radlein
                  July 8, 2025 at 9:35 pm | #

                  She’s also an Assad fan who defended a Kurdish (among other groups) genocide

            • eh, whatever
              eh, whatever
              July 8, 2025 at 4:33 am | # | Reply Report comment

              If you hang out with ultranationalist imperialists who are actually waging an actual war of conquest that they started, what exactly does that make you…?

              • Daibhid C
                Daibhid C
                July 8, 2025 at 5:35 am | # | Reply Report comment

                These days? A politician.

      • NGPZ
        NGPZ
        July 8, 2025 at 1:25 am | # | Reply Report comment

        no US democrat is an actual socialist, the most the party would ever support that even remotely resembles that is a welfare state, and even that’s stretching it :/

        • Kyulen
          Kyulen
          July 8, 2025 at 3:04 am | # | Reply Report comment

          Maybe decades ago they might have supported something close to a welfare state, but these days they don’t support even that.

          • NGPZ
            NGPZ
            July 8, 2025 at 1:32 pm | # | Reply Report comment

            yeah and Jill Stein or not, the democrat party ain’t gonna save us on account of the party being run by complacent cowards who are directly complicit in this mess (-_-)

          • thejeff
            thejeff
            July 8, 2025 at 2:19 pm | # | Reply Report comment

            And why did that change? Was it just that Dems got tired of being popular?

            Nah, it was that LBJ signed onto Civil Rights legislation and the white working class that loved the New Deal and the Great Society saw that black folks were going to get part of it too and said “Fuck that.”
            Welfare was popular until it could be painted as something that took from hard-working (white) real Americans and gave to black people.

            • NGPZ
              NGPZ
              July 8, 2025 at 5:36 pm | # | Reply Report comment

              Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. was very apt to call them out for wanting “socialism for the rich and white, rustic free market capitalism for the poor and people of color”, given that suburbia, highways facilitating White Flight, among many other things would have NEVER happened without government subsidized credit they would otherwise consider “”welfare””

              things only continued to go downhill from the democratic party’s repeated and ultimately misguided attempts to “reach across the aisle”, which didn’t really mean reaching out to vulnerable minorities but winning over conservatives and white so-called “centrists”

              because you can really only do so by appealing to THEIR standards of Politeness And Courtesy™, and those standards are deliberately designed to strip away any and all anti-establishment parts of discourse. To get these kinda white folk to even listen, you have to continuously water down the message, and if you want to stay in the conversation, you’ll eventually become a centrist yourself

              and when enough leftists fall for it and do that, that’s when the right appeals to “”being reasonable””, i.e. using centrists to misrepresent the left to the undecided public, thereby making actual leftists seem more extremist, and that’s how the right wing keeps on winning (-_-)

              • Li
                Li
                July 8, 2025 at 6:17 pm | # | Reply Report comment

                I mean the right wing keeps winning via jerrymandering.

              • thejeff
                thejeff
                July 8, 2025 at 8:52 pm | # | Reply Report comment

                Problem is that the Dems haven’t had a solid majority coalition since LBJ broke the old Labor+segregationist South one. They need to keep the margin they lose white voters by low enough for other demographics to make up the difference and that involves not scaring off too much of the “I’m not racist, but …” kind of white racist. Which limits what they can do, when any program that helps vulnerable minorities, even as a side effect, can be painted as a giveaway to “them”.

                They need some “conservative and white so-called centrist” voters, since vulnerable minorities and non-bigoted white people aren’t a functional majority* in this country. That sucks, but it’s the hand we’re playing.

                Which isn’t to say Dems haven’t made some major screw-ups, but they’re walking a narrow line with a real disadvantage that can’t simply be overcome by promising or even enacting better policies. The real problem is us. The real problem is the voters.

                *Possibly a numerical majority, but explicit gerrymandering (as Li says) and implicit state and rural/urban divides shift the balance towards the GOP.

      • eh, whatever
        eh, whatever
        July 8, 2025 at 4:31 am | # | Reply Report comment

        Tone of voice aside, he’d fit pretty neatly into Europe’s parties that bear the name “Social-Democratic”.

  26. Icalasari
    Icalasari
    July 8, 2025 at 12:23 am | # | Reply Report comment

    Wait, Mary is there?

    Oh boy what horrid thing is she going to say tomorrow…

    • Pinkie
      Pinkie
      July 8, 2025 at 12:54 am | # | Reply Report comment

      Something bigoted about how she’s too white and Christian to go to jail and the cops should deport all the liberal commies instead? Sigh…

    • PedanticJerkass
      PedanticJerkass
      July 8, 2025 at 2:15 am | # | Reply Report comment

      Didn’t you see Buttface there in yesterday’s strip?

  27. Coatl
    Coatl
    July 8, 2025 at 12:23 am | # | Reply Report comment

    Wait a minute, that’s why Jocelyn smiled like that…
    Dorothy’s confidence and determination in the last panel… wow

    • Coatl
      Coatl
      July 8, 2025 at 12:27 am | # | Reply Report comment

      I barely notice the Walky tag.

  28. RASSILONTDAVROS
    RASSILONTDAVROS
    July 8, 2025 at 12:25 am | # | Reply Report comment

    Dorothy… good luck.

    You’re going to need it.

    very relieved to have preview panels rn

  29. thakoru
    thakoru
    July 8, 2025 at 12:26 am | # | Reply Report comment

    Quick PSA: If you’re ever at a protest that you didn’t plan, LISTEN TO THE PEOPLE WHO DID PLAN IT. If they tell you to leave, LEAVE. Dorothy is committing a textbook “white person’s first time at a protest” mistake, namely, making it about her by trying to be a hero, and probably making things worse for everyone in the process.

    • Dana
      Dana
      July 8, 2025 at 1:09 am | # | Reply Report comment

      Thank you, I wish I’d thought to share that.

    • Ray Radlein
      Ray Radlein
      July 8, 2025 at 1:15 am | # | Reply Report comment

      Do we have any evidence that Joceleyne or Asma planned the protest?

      I agree that Joyce should absolutely not be inside that fence, but I think Dorothy knows what she might be getting into and how to act.

      • Daibhid C
        Daibhid C
        July 8, 2025 at 5:31 am | # | Reply Report comment

        If you can’t find the people who planned it, at least listen to people you know who seem to have more protest experience.

      • thakoru
        thakoru
        July 8, 2025 at 9:45 am | # | Reply Report comment

        They might not have been, like, primary organizers, but they were probably at least there for the planning sessions. They have a plan. And nothing about how Dorothy’s been conducting herself up to now indicates that she knows how to act at a protest; frankly, I’m a little worried she’s about to punch a cop.

    • Andy
      Andy
      July 8, 2025 at 10:34 am | # | Reply Report comment

      Yes. Those about to be arrested know it. They have planned for it and have lawyers lined up. They know what to expect. They know how to behave to minimize risks. They attended training sessions. They likely have a roster. That’s why Joss wanted them gone. Dorothy is endangering the prepared protesters. And they won’t trust her.

      • Taffy
        Taffy
        July 8, 2025 at 2:29 pm | # | Reply Report comment

        Training sessions and a roster? I didn’t know people went that far.

  30. Fuchs Sakemann
    Fuchs Sakemann
    July 8, 2025 at 12:28 am | # | Reply Report comment

    I swear to God, Willis. You better not Chekhov’s sniper Dorothy. If you’re gonna Chekhov’s sniper anyone, it better be Mary.

    • Plain Marie
      Plain Marie
      July 8, 2025 at 8:37 am | # | Reply Report comment

      I got that reference. We’d all like to not be that reference.

    • Amós Batista
      Amós Batista
      July 8, 2025 at 2:51 pm | # | Reply Report comment

      Chekhov looks like a gun name, like Kalashnikov

  31. ESM
    ESM
    July 8, 2025 at 12:29 am | # | Reply Report comment

    Walky is in the tags because he Carmen Sandiago’d the bridge that was there two strips ago. “It’s symbolic!”, he said, as police arrested him.

  32. darkoneko
    darkoneko
    July 8, 2025 at 12:30 am | # | Reply Report comment

    GO FUCK THEM UP.

  33. John Campbell
    John Campbell
    July 8, 2025 at 12:32 am | # | Reply Report comment

    Oh, come on, Dorothy, you call that a dramatic gesture?

    You’ve gotta kiss your girl first!

    • Looney
      Looney
      July 8, 2025 at 10:05 am | # | Reply Report comment

      I’M SAYING! Amateur hour here honestly

  34. Dara
    Dara
    July 8, 2025 at 12:35 am | # | Reply Report comment

    I love Dorothy looking at Joyce with love for her anger in panel 3.

  35. AGV/Ruby
    AGV/Ruby
    July 8, 2025 at 12:35 am | # | Reply Report comment

    Look who’s leaving her “best friend” behind and she helplessly watches her being taken away

    • AGV/Ruby
      AGV/Ruby
      July 8, 2025 at 12:37 am | # | Reply Report comment

      Note: this isn’t a criticism of the character but an observation of a role reversal

  36. Charles Phipps
    Charles Phipps
    July 8, 2025 at 12:59 am | # | Reply Report comment

    Humorous twist: Asma and the other protestors assume that Dorothy is a police plant there to start a riot.

    • Taffy
      Taffy
      July 8, 2025 at 1:08 am | # | Reply Report comment

      And then they kill her and use her blood as war paint.

      • NGPZ
        NGPZ
        July 8, 2025 at 1:18 am | # | Reply Report comment

        I may be an atheist but I will legit pray to Satan if it means that’ll happen to MARY D:<

      • 3oranges
        3oranges
        July 8, 2025 at 2:53 am | # | Reply Report comment

        This is an anti-war protest. They would have to use her blood as peace paint.

    • anon
      anon
      July 8, 2025 at 2:51 am | # | Reply Report comment

      i’d assume jocelyne wil stand up for her/with her lol

  37. Odditude
    Odditude
    July 8, 2025 at 1:12 am | # | Reply Report comment

    I am afraid of what Mary is gonna tell Joe :/

    • Taffy
      Taffy
      July 8, 2025 at 1:19 am | # | Reply Report comment

      Why would Joe believe anything Mary says? Is it just because she’s hot?

    • ESM
      ESM
      July 8, 2025 at 1:20 am | # | Reply Report comment

      How would Mary know to tell Joe anything and why would Joe believe her?

      • HueSatLight
        HueSatLight
        July 8, 2025 at 2:16 pm | # | Reply Report comment

        She knows Joe and Joyce are together, and she wouldn’t be telling Joe something unbelievable.

        Like it wouldn’t be them having a heart to heart, it would be a barb if anything.

        • thejeff
          thejeff
          July 8, 2025 at 2:21 pm | # | Reply Report comment

          They’re best friends. There’s nothing they’ve done here in Mary’s view that’s even near the line. We know the overtones, but there’s nothing explicit to snitch on.

          If they’d kissed or something, then there would be.
          Mary could make up something, but she always could have done that.

    • PedanticJerkass
      PedanticJerkass
      July 8, 2025 at 2:30 am | # | Reply Report comment

      Joe and Mary have been in three pages together (technically four, but one of those doesn’t count, since they weren’t actually in the same place) and have exchanged zero words so far. I doubt Joe would believe anything from someone he’s only ever seen in passing and about whom he has heard only bad things, most likely.

    • Nymph
      Nymph
      July 8, 2025 at 8:44 am | # | Reply Report comment

      Mary: FROM THIRTY FEET AWAY I SAW DOROTHY AND JOYCE HANGING OUT TOGETHER TALKING!! LESBIAAAANNNNNNNNSSSSSSS

      I don’t think there’s much for Mary to tell.

  38. Boh No
    Boh No
    July 8, 2025 at 1:45 am | # | Reply Report comment

    Official numbers have been disputed and never confirmed but some say she beat up up to six campus riot police officers on that day before they subdued her

  39. Tessea
    Tessea
    July 8, 2025 at 2:18 am | # | Reply Report comment

    *R#*)^R#*^R*P&#T*OP@&#RT*OP!!!!

    Dammit, Dorothy! Now it’s going to be _you_ being carted off while Joyce is helpless but to watch you go.

    No fair making Joyce share your nightmare!

    Also, if Dorothy gets severely injured/killed, it will _break_ Joyce. Especially just after learning Dorothy passed on Yale for her.

  40. Cloud
    Cloud
    July 8, 2025 at 2:23 am | # | Reply Report comment

    And then Dorothy gets shot, goes into a coma, and when she wakes up she’s in the Roomies comic.

  41. Thing 2
    Thing 2
    July 8, 2025 at 2:48 am | # | Reply Report comment

    Have epiphanies somewhere safe.

    • anon
      anon
      July 8, 2025 at 2:52 am | # | Reply Report comment

      Dangerous Epiphanies are prolly a good high if not a good band name lol

  42. Acher4
    Acher4
    July 8, 2025 at 2:49 am | # | Reply Report comment

    “I LOVE you…..r stupid anger”. Fixed it 😛

    ALso, now I am thinking Joyce banging on the closed fences meme style.
    “LET ME IIIIIIIN LET ME IIIIIIN!!!”

  43. Francoinblanco
    Francoinblanco
    July 8, 2025 at 3:17 am | # | Reply Report comment

    I watched too much squid games my first though was Dorothy ditch Joyce into protest side not otherwise

  44. Axel
    Axel
    July 8, 2025 at 3:25 am | # | Reply Report comment

    it would be funny (in a sad way) if Dorothy is escalating- like running up to punch a counterprotestor or a cop or something- because that kinda proves Asma right, it’s super a cop move to sneak into the protest, then escalate it so the riot cops can justify firing.

    I assume she’s actually running in there and somehow blocking Joyce out, similar to when Amber locked her (Dorothy) into the residence hall to fight roofie guy.

    • Axel
      Axel
      July 8, 2025 at 2:38 pm | # | Reply Report comment

      I take solace in knowing I’m not the only one who thought (thinks?) she’s running in, not out

      • Axel
        Axel
        July 9, 2025 at 2:14 am | # | Reply Report comment

        (I now feel even more solace knowing I was right)

    • Amós Batista
      Amós Batista
      July 8, 2025 at 2:48 pm | # | Reply Report comment

      Dorothy would be really mad if she goes jail, and it turns into a reality check. But now that you talked about it, I’m worried more about Asma than others.

  45. aftermath37
    aftermath37
    July 8, 2025 at 3:27 am | # | Reply Report comment

    long time reader first time commenter! Hi!

    First off goddamn thank you for this arc you have no idea how bad I needed to see this.
    Second off, when our encampment got raided, we had people alert the rest of campus to get eyes on us. People ran the like 2 miles to the base of campus in the middle of the night to support us. We were holding the line and I could see people’s flashlights as they were stumbling down in the dark.
    One girl who was in the wagon with us after we got arrested wasn’t part of the encampment at all but jumped in as she saw the police closing in on us. Joyce and Dorothy reminded me of her in this scene.
    As scary as it was I am still full of so much love for everyone who was there.
    If you’re reading this you are not alone! We will do this together!

    • Wilde
      Wilde
      July 8, 2025 at 11:16 am | # | Reply Report comment

      ♥️ thanks for your activism.

  46. BYM!
    BYM!
    July 8, 2025 at 3:41 am | # | Reply Report comment

    Dorothy goes to do something crazy and Joyce kisses her to short-circuit her brain and prevent her from doing said thing

  47. Charlotte
    Charlotte
    July 8, 2025 at 3:51 am | # | Reply Report comment

    Noooooooooo….
    C’mon we didn’t need the trauma. :,(

  48. ADLegend21
    ADLegend21
    July 8, 2025 at 4:10 am | # | Reply Report comment

    please tell me she’s running at Mary!!!!

    • Nymph
      Nymph
      July 8, 2025 at 8:42 am | # | Reply Report comment

      Hit her with a low tackle!!!

    • MK15
      MK15
      July 8, 2025 at 8:22 pm | # | Reply Report comment

      I think the alttext means that’s Mary’s foot outside the fence by Joyce

  49. Needfuldoer
    Needfuldoer
    July 8, 2025 at 4:15 am | # | Reply Report comment

    Now it’s Dorothy’s turn to disappear over the horizon!

  50. eh, whatever
    eh, whatever
    July 8, 2025 at 4:38 am | # | Reply Report comment

    Righteous wrath fits right into Dorothy’s personality.

  51. Proto
    Proto
    July 8, 2025 at 4:56 am | # | Reply Report comment

    Something something no regrets!

  52. Veronica
    Veronica
    July 8, 2025 at 5:31 am | # | Reply Report comment

    “It’s never given me or anyone else anything, ever…not in my entire seventeen years of experience”

  53. yak
    yak
    July 8, 2025 at 5:59 am | # | Reply Report comment

    Joyce doesn’t strike me as an angry person at all? I don’t get this dialogue.

    • yak
      yak
      July 8, 2025 at 6:05 am | # | Reply Report comment

      I know she said “it makes me angry” last strip but like… that seemed to me to be her thoughts about the situation, not something significant about her. Maybe I’m missing something.

      • Doopyboop
        Doopyboop
        July 8, 2025 at 6:20 am | # | Reply Report comment

        I think it’s because whenever Joyce has been angry in this comic it’s usually been very significant. I wouldn’t consider her an angry person BUT that she HAS used her anger very efficiently and effectively when she feels it. The following strips are just some examples off the top of my head.

        https://www.dumbingofage.com/2011/comic/book-1/06-yesterday-was-thursday/smash/

        https://www.dumbingofage.com/2015/comic/book-6/01-to-those-whod-ground-me/language/

        https://www.dumbingofage.com/2015/comic/book-6/01-to-those-whod-ground-me/strength-2/

        https://www.dumbingofage.com/2016/comic/book-6/03-when-god-closes-the-door/angry-3/

        https://www.dumbingofage.com/2016/comic/book-6/03-when-god-closes-the-door/frame/

        https://www.dumbingofage.com/2020/comic/book-10/03-when-it-crumbles/dangerous-2/

        https://www.dumbingofage.com/2024/comic/book-14/03-trystin-in-the-wind/frosty/

        • Username Taken
          Username Taken
          July 8, 2025 at 10:03 am | # | Reply Report comment

          I forgot how infuriating John was. I remembered that he was unlikeable, but rereading those strips… Sheesh.

          • Wilde
            Wilde
            July 8, 2025 at 11:30 am | # | Reply Report comment

            Yes, and I also forgot how infuriating the people in the comments were. People over there supporting John’s gaslighting with their “I like her cute and sexy, not angry” and “she’s ruining everything by having an emotional reaction to being gaslit right now”. Ugh.

            • thejeff
              thejeff
              July 8, 2025 at 2:05 pm | # | Reply Report comment

              An infuriating demonstration of how well those tactics of John’s work. Even commenters here were falling for the “she’s angry, therefore hysterical, therefore wrong.”

              • Taffy
                Taffy
                July 8, 2025 at 6:42 pm | # | Reply Report comment

                Well, yeah, her anger detached her uterus and made it bounce around her insides at random, forcing her to say incorrect things. That’s just basic anatomy.

  54. Suet
    Suet
    July 8, 2025 at 6:11 am | # | Reply Report comment

    I’m also tired of listening to Sinatra

    Despite all my rage, I’m still just a Dot in a cage

  55. :0
    :0
    July 8, 2025 at 6:14 am | # | Reply Report comment

    Welp, that’s it I guess.

  56. Stephen Nedland
    Stephen Nedland
    July 8, 2025 at 6:37 am | # | Reply Report comment

    This is not going to end well.

  57. Ragnarok
    Ragnarok
    July 8, 2025 at 8:17 am | # | Reply Report comment

    Welp, it went where I was afraid it was going to. Peace out, y’all. Guess the fictional country was a necessity, otherwise the cognitive dissonance involved would be too much.

    • Nymph
      Nymph
      July 8, 2025 at 8:40 am | # | Reply Report comment

      See you tomorrow.

    • Adept
      Adept
      July 8, 2025 at 12:35 pm | # | Reply Report comment

      Because it’s apparently terrible for a secular Jewish girl to protest atrocities, even when obfuscated.

      “My country, right or wrong” is a vicious, poisonous creed.

      • thejeff
        thejeff
        July 8, 2025 at 1:53 pm | # | Reply Report comment

        Secular girl with, iirc, one Jewish grandparent. Sure, that’s enough for the antisemites, but we don’t have to treat that as reality. Israel isn’t even her country.

        • Li
          Li
          July 8, 2025 at 2:56 pm | # | Reply Report comment

          https://www.dumbingofage.com/catholic/

          Honestly I interpreted this to mean her dad’s parents are both Catholic and Jewish (as opposed to one of them being each), but only Willis can tell us for sure.

          There are also different ways of being non-religious, and considering that Willis almost had Joe and Dorothy meet in Hebrew school…

          Idk, I think they’ve been backtracking on their Jewish characters all being 100% secular. Joe and his dad tried to share Jewish holiday celebrations with Amber, for example.

          • thejeff
            thejeff
            July 8, 2025 at 9:00 pm | # | Reply Report comment

            Though he also comments that her going to hebrew school would have been a bigger retcon than her knowing him that long, because we already knew she’d been raised irreligiously.

            And even secular Jews often do holidays as cultural traditions, much like secular families from Christian traditions still do religious holidays, just non-religiously. I was raised atheist, but we still did family Christmases and even made Easter eggs – we just didn’t go the church ceremonies about them.

            • Li
              Li
              July 8, 2025 at 10:24 pm | # | Reply Report comment

              That’s a fair point about Willis’s note, but I stand by my assertion that the idea still shows them considering walking back the overwhelmingly disconnected-from-being-Jewish writing of their Jewish characters? They wanted to have Dorothy go to Hebrew school, and then they decided they couldn’t.

              Also I’m going to respectfully disagree with them on it being a retcon, because I don’t think Dorothy going to Hebrew school would have had to be raising her in a specific religion: I think it would have been giving her the opportunity to feel more deeply connected to her grandparent(s). And it also doesn’t need to have been the only type of religious education they gave her the opportunity to seek out. Raising someone irreligiously isn’t the same thing as raising them as an atheist.

              (Never mind that I think my Jewish mutuals and friends have pretty consistently explained secular Judaism as being different from a secular culturally Christian person — you can still practice Judaism very meaningfully without believing in anything supernatural. This is also true of some other religions.)

              • Yumi
                Yumi
                July 8, 2025 at 11:44 pm | # | Reply Report comment

                Yeah, I’d also say for secular people who engage in culturally Christian holidays in the US, it’s a different situation because like… it’s the cultural norm. Engaging the the mainstream holiday is going to be a different experience than engaging in a minority holiday.

                I think Dorothy’s parents would be open to letting her try Hebrew school, and I could see her liking it enough to go for a while– young Dorothy might have enjoyed things like language learning and history lessons. A Jewish neighbor I grew up with said that her Hebrew school taught her to question and agrue, which I’m not sure Dorothy would have wanted from hers at the time, but I imagine there’s a lot of variation.

                • Li
                  Li
                  July 9, 2025 at 12:18 am | #

                  Yumi, I tried to add that first part like five times and couldn’t make it brief enough orz. Thank you for bringing it up, because yeah, it’s just very different. Also, I don’t think there’s anything remotely like “Santa Claus” for most religious holidays, i.e. a version of the holiday with a kid-friendly mascot that’s entirely divorced from its religious significance.

                • thejeff
                  thejeff
                  July 9, 2025 at 8:34 am | #

                  Easter eggs were the other thing I came up with.

                  But while the mainstream/cultural norm thing is true, there’s also a thing where minority groups go to lengths to keep cultural practices going, even apart from religion. Which could apply.
                  All of which ties in complicated ways to being Jewish being both an ethnicity and a religion. Though I think your point about “secular Judaism” undercuts the original argument that Willis is backtracking on the Jewish characters being 100% secular Jewish.

                • Li
                  Li
                  July 9, 2025 at 4:03 pm | #

                  @thejeff sorry I could have been clearer, other was modifying religious not holidays. What I meant was Christianity is unusual if not unique in having these fully divorced versions of its holidays.

                  And no, it does not, it points to a limitation of language, which is why my second comment called it 100%-disconnected-from-their-Jewishness. Because again you can be “secular” in Christian terms of not believing God exists while still being “religious” in terms of practicing Judaism. Christianity is not unique in putting all its emphasis on faith (accept Jesus as your personal savior and you’re Christian), but it is different from Judaism, which puts all its emphasis on behavior.

                  Plenty of actively atheistic Jewish folks still practice. Being an athiest would not necessarily conflict with Dorothy going to temple, etc.

                  This is, again, hard to express because of the strongly Christian culture we’re both steeped in, where “secular Jewish person” conjures an image of someone who is only ethnically Jewish, and can’t have wanted to go to Hebrew School, can’t possibly keep kosher, etc etc, because “secular Christian” means something very different.

                  And again I don’t want to say that one or the other model is more common? I don’t have enough knowledge for that. But I do know it’s how, say, Japan operates, with its populace that mostly identifies as both Buddhist and Shinto, with its Shinto weddings and its Buddhist funerals, etc.

                • Li
                  Li
                  July 9, 2025 at 4:12 pm | #

                  Massive TL;DR:

                  Because Judaism has different standards for what counts as being religiously Jewish than Christianity does, Willis could absolutely have Dorothy attend Hebrew school without making her ever have been any less committed to atheism, or her parents any less committed to raising her irreligiously.

                  I think different people mean different things by “secular Judaism”, some of which come from the expectations formed by their experiences with “secular Christianity”, but it very much doesn’t have to just be someone who celebrates the big Jewish holidays for the sake of their kids fitting in, or because they seem like fun, the way it often is for secular Christians.

      • Joyfulldreams
        Joyfulldreams
        July 8, 2025 at 1:54 pm | # | Reply Report comment

        I’m…pretty sure Dorothy isn’t secular Jewish???? JOE is, though.

    • Taffy
      Taffy
      July 8, 2025 at 2:31 pm | # | Reply Report comment

      See ya tonight.

    • Kyulen
      Kyulen
      July 8, 2025 at 5:23 pm | # | Reply Report comment

      There are lots of Jewish people who think that Israel doing genocide is bad. Sorry if that information upsets you.

      • NGPZ
        NGPZ
        July 8, 2025 at 5:50 pm | # | Reply Report comment

        yes, and I’m one of them 😬

      • Adept
        Adept
        July 9, 2025 at 7:15 am | # | Reply Report comment

        Yeah, this is what I tried to say.

  58. Yeet
    Yeet
    July 8, 2025 at 8:39 am | # | Reply Report comment

    called it a few days ago that only one of them would get out

    • Nymph
      Nymph
      July 8, 2025 at 8:39 am | # | Reply Report comment

      High five for you.

      • Nymph
        Nymph
        July 8, 2025 at 8:41 am | # | Reply Report comment

        This sounds snarky but was genuine lmao sorry.

    • CianM1301
      CianM1301
      July 8, 2025 at 12:50 pm | # | Reply Report comment

      Who says Joyce isn’t going back in after her?

  59. Xaeon
    Xaeon
    July 8, 2025 at 9:09 am | # | Reply Report comment

    Dumbing of Age Book 15: Damnit Marry Get Your Foot Out of There So I Don’t Gotta Tag You

  60. Big Z
    Big Z
    July 8, 2025 at 10:02 am | # | Reply Report comment

    Abstract representation of part of the fandom: “C’mon, Dorothy, make an ill-advised but dramatically fraught decision about your love for Joyce.”

    Monkey’s Paw: *curls a finger*

    • Mr.Morningstar
      Mr.Morningstar
      July 8, 2025 at 10:06 am | # | Reply Report comment

      I chortled

      i did not know i could chortle

    • Nymph
      Nymph
      July 8, 2025 at 11:24 am | # | Reply Report comment

      I regret nothing, the monkey paw has no power here. (to be revised a few strips from now)

  61. Pergola
    Pergola
    July 8, 2025 at 10:07 am | # | Reply Report comment

    At last! Someone who will fight for us! We need someone like that to be President someday!

    • Amós Batista
      Amós Batista
      July 8, 2025 at 11:19 am | # | Reply Report comment

      She got my vote!

  62. Andy
    Andy
    July 8, 2025 at 10:25 am | # | Reply Report comment

    I was just chatting with my spouse about the three Omelas stories. Le Guin in 1974. Those who walk away…. Jemisen in 2016 Those who stay and fight. And the current award winning. Let’s kill the kid. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Why_Don%27t_We_Just_Kill_the_Kid_In_the_Omelas_Hole

    Dorothy is in the second phase.

    • Pergola
      Pergola
      July 8, 2025 at 11:44 am | # | Reply Report comment

      Thank you! Here’s the link to the Jemisen story:
      https://www.lightspeedmagazine.com/fiction/the-ones-who-stay-and-fight/

    • Nadamás
      Nadamás
      July 8, 2025 at 2:40 pm | # | Reply Report comment

      Remind me of my friend that just HATES the way a lot of people completely missed the point about the omelas story that like, the kid didn’t exist until it was clear the spectator just would not accept the fact a real Utopia could actually be real without dome kind of dsrk secret so the narrator give them one even if it doesn’t make any sense.

      • Li
        Li
        July 8, 2025 at 3:38 pm | # | Reply Report comment

        Hmmmm. I don’t think your friend is correct.

        For one thing, the grim dark secret is absolutely foreshadowed earlier in the story, when LeGuin makes a point of noting that the one thing that can be absolutely certain about the magnificent city is that it has no guilt, which she then follows up on by pointing out that to care for the child would be to let guilt into the city.

        Although guilt is unpleasant and, by itself, not necessarily productive, the idea of an entire society completely free of guilt does not actually sound utopian to me. Not even little guilts? Does no one even hurt their loved ones by accident in this city? It’s an unsettling detail and it sets the stage.

        For another thing, if there is no child, then what is the point of the end of the story? Why does the focus shift to the people who walk away from Omelas? Why does the narrator say that these people are even more incredible to imagine than the city itself?

        No. I think it’s true that the child doesn’t exist, in the same sense that the city of Omelas itself also doesn’t exist — LeGuin asks us to imagine a utopia, and encourages us to fill in the details of that utopia so that it most appeals to us personally, with the only exceptions being that the city shouldn’t be religious in an organized way, and that there is no guilt within its walls — and yes, there are notes along the way of a general criticism of grimdark fantasy (this story is the source of her famous quote about evil being boring), but the child in the city is at least as real as the city itself.

        The narrator is still engaging, or attempting to engage, the reader(s) in a thought experiment. LeGuin was making a point about utopias being difficult to believe in, but “there is no child, the city is perfect,” does not seem to me to have been the intended thrust of the story.

        • Li
          Li
          July 8, 2025 at 3:48 pm | # | Reply Report comment

          (Part of the thought experiment is definitely the haunting awareness that many of us live, in whatever comfort we live, similarly at the expense of an underclass, and that it’s difficult to imagine even a city doing such minimal (comparatively) harm as Omelas, much less a city (read: society) better enough to be worth walking away from Omelas for. The challenge, as with many such stories by many such authors, is to start imagining, so that you might one day hope to actually be able to achieve it.)

          • Nadamás
            Nadamás
            July 8, 2025 at 4:48 pm | # | Reply Report comment

            I have no thought or opinion on the matter because i never read it, i just trust my friend because i think they are pretty smart (and i might be not describing their thoughts correctly because i am not) here is one of their post about it if that helps:
            https://www.tumblr.com/aspiringwarriorlibrarian/651859360123928576/banging-head-the-entire-point-of-omelas-is?source=share

            • Li
              Li
              July 8, 2025 at 6:15 pm | # | Reply Report comment

              I understand their objection, but I politely disagree. I would also encourage everyone to read the story for themselves, it’s only four pages. 🙂

            • Li
              Li
              July 8, 2025 at 6:16 pm | # | Reply Report comment

              Like yes that is one of the themes present in the story, but it’s certainly not the whole point — or even the main point, IMHO. If it were, I think the ending of the story would be very different.

              • Nadamás
                Nadamás
                July 8, 2025 at 6:31 pm | # | Reply Report comment

                I showed her this interaction and she got some stuff to day to clsrify her position if you fel like reading.it.

                • Li
                  Li
                  July 8, 2025 at 8:08 pm | #

                  If you like! Your post got me to seek out the story to read it, which I hadn’t previously done — and I think that’s just a good thing regardless.

                  I have similar feelings of frustration about Machiavelli’s The Prince, which I think is obviously satire rather than a sincere document… but there’s a big debate about that, actually! One side may be right, but I would be more than happy enough if my strong opinion on the matter got someone else to actually read it instead of just assuming it’s sincere… but also instead of just taking my word for it, you know?

                  Critical thinking is a muscle. We use it or we lose it. 🙂

                • Nadamás
                  Nadamás
                  July 8, 2025 at 8:44 pm | #

                  ” I do get the point of the child existing, because there are many ways to interpret the story. I just chose the most radical, because I believe the story demands radicalism, and utopianism, and walking away from the lie that someone has to suffer for others to be happy. ”

                  “Do you believe? Do you accept the festival, the city, the joy? No? Then let me describe one more thing.”

                  (Description of the child.)

                  “Now do you believe in them? Are they not more credible?”

                  “I also think there’s a key factor missing in all retellings of Omelas: While it was first published on its own, it was republished in the Wind’s Twelve Quarters. The story right after is “The Day Before the Revolution”, about a founder of the anarchist socialist nation in “The Dispossessed”. LeGuin herself describes the founder as “one of those that walked away from Omelas”.

                  “So the child is a lie like the city is a lie. Perhaps. But I refuse to say that the story is pointless if it does not have a suffering child to absolve us of the sin of wanting more”

                  That is what dhe wrote

                • Charles Phipps
                  Charles Phipps
                  July 8, 2025 at 9:46 pm | #

                  The thing about the, “The failure of the story is the inability to imagine a utopia without suffering” is that it actually feeds the matter of the story’s Trolly problem. Because since the readers can’t imagine a utopia without suffering, they’re part of the problem but absolutely someone who now must decide whether they’d live there or not if there was suffering.

                • Nadamás
                  Nadamás
                  July 8, 2025 at 10:26 pm | #

                  I don’t really follow.

                • Li
                  Li
                  July 8, 2025 at 10:36 pm | #

                  @Namadas: yes, again, I fully understood their argument. I did notice those lines. I just think the entire thing is couched as a hypothetical repeatedly, and that Omelas doesn’t exist at all, so the child not existing doesn’t stand out meaningfully for me.

                  I don’t think the story is pointless without a child…? That sounds like a misunderstanding of my argument.

                  What I was trying to say is just that the last part of the story, which I don’t think would make sense to include, if the intended takeaway was first and foremost “free your mind from the false belief that stories are only valuable if they’re dark”, instead of “force yourself to confront the idea that no amount of suffering can be acceptable, for anyone — no matter how commonly accepted, there are other people rejecting that idea already, and you should join them”.

                  Also, that last bit about the other stories doesn’t invalidate my interpretation at all — first of all — rather, I think it strengthens the argument for my interpretation…? In a world where LeGuin meant for Omelas to be a true utopia where there is no suffering, why would anyone actually leave?

                • Li
                  Li
                  July 8, 2025 at 10:38 pm | #

                  Ugh, typos. “Also that last bit about the other stories doesn’t invalidate my interpretation at all — rather, I think it strengthens it”.

                  Please pretend I successfully deleted “first of all”, because I meant to. :/

                • Yumi
                  Yumi
                  July 8, 2025 at 11:23 pm | #

                  It’s an interesting perspective, but I would find the story much less engaging and impactful if I viewed that as the entire point. But I think some of the impact of the story comes from different meanings people find in it, and I could see it as one.
                  (My general stance is more in-line with Li’s, I think, along with leading to discussion that many would like to identify with the ones who walk away (or do more), and yet we (general we) often accept the suffering of others–as long as it’s at a distance– for much lesser benefit.)

                • Nadamás
                  Nadamás
                  July 9, 2025 at 12:16 am | #

                  I don’t really think she cared about invalidating your interpretation or your argument much at all, she just likes to talk about these stuff and i gve her an excuse for it. Just like yiu are adamant about how you read it, she is about how she does it. I personally only care to the extend it is important gor her.

                • Li
                  Li
                  July 9, 2025 at 12:24 am | #

                  Heh, okay. Tone is hard online, and this is also being passed through a third person (you), so I thought otherwise, but that’s okay. 🙂

                • Li
                  Li
                  July 9, 2025 at 4:14 pm | #

                  Also seriously pass my thanks on to your friend? Even though I disagree, I’m happy they got me to read the story and think about it more 🙂

  63. DashWallkick
    DashWallkick
    July 8, 2025 at 11:24 am | # | Reply Report comment

    No no, I support this. This is a good thing. Much like Joyce, she needs to commit to risky behaviors, experience consequences, and realize it’s not the end of the world. If she gets arrested and stands her ground saying “I stand with what the protesters were doing. They’re right. I’m not compromising my beliefs,” then she’s finally become who Dorothy is, and now she can start to recenter herself.

  64. Wendy
    Wendy
    July 8, 2025 at 11:43 am | # | Reply Report comment

    Oh thank god Mike already got shot so that shooting another character would be redundant, and so Dorothy is DEFINITELY safe.

    ….right?? *laughingnervously.gif*

    • Taffy
      Taffy
      July 8, 2025 at 12:16 pm | # | Reply Report comment

      Mike died from fall damage. Blaine was the one who got shot.

      • Wendy
        Wendy
        July 8, 2025 at 12:48 pm | # | Reply Report comment

        oops lol

      • staszu13
        staszu13
        July 8, 2025 at 10:04 pm | # | Reply Report comment

        Nah Mike is in witness protection from alleged Korean organized crime figures

  65. Adept
    Adept
    July 8, 2025 at 12:32 pm | # | Reply Report comment

    Ooh, is out political activist baby becoming radicalised?

  66. PB
    PB
    July 8, 2025 at 2:01 pm | # | Reply Report comment

    Well, I was half-right.

  67. Florence
    Florence
    July 8, 2025 at 3:09 pm | # | Reply Report comment

    Dorothy is like Mon Mothma in andor in that she’s a centrist who’s struggling but still trying as she walks down a radical path

  68. BYM!
    BYM!
    July 8, 2025 at 6:39 pm | # | Reply Report comment

    I mean, if Dorothy just goes back to Jocelyne and also gets arrested like, that’s probably fine as long as Joyce doesn’t get arrested with them.

    • BYM!
      BYM!
      July 8, 2025 at 6:40 pm | # | Reply Report comment

      I’m just worried for Dorothy that she’s feeling a lot of things right now and being emotional is not what you wanna be around armed police!

      • BYM!
        BYM!
        July 8, 2025 at 7:44 pm | # | Reply Report comment

        Dorothy has called Joyce’s anger a “tool for kindness” before right? Is that just me am I hallucinating? Does anyone remember when that was?

  69. Arillius
    Arillius
    July 8, 2025 at 7:44 pm | # | Reply Report comment

    As someone who recently suffered at the hands of police (I called them because I was being robbed, they didn’t stop the robbers or like my tone and so tackled me and broke a few vases with my head, giving me brain damage), I think I shall have to wait to keep reading this if police are involved. Also, sadly, killed my love of Nathan Fillian and the Rookie.

    • Charles Phipps
      Charles Phipps
      July 8, 2025 at 9:41 pm | # | Reply Report comment

      I’m so sorry for your treatment.

      • Arillius
        Arillius
        July 10, 2025 at 12:32 pm | # | Reply Report comment

        Thank you for the sentiment and I do mean that sincerely. I, ironically, know I’m lucky. I survived the surgery and had someone willing to take me in while I do physical therapy.

        It’s terrifying. This comic gets that. A bit too well, I think.

  70. staszu13
    staszu13
    July 8, 2025 at 10:07 pm | # | Reply Report comment

    Boy Dorothy is seriously reacting to Asma’s cop remark.

    Dorothy: I am not a cop!

  71. https://gravatar.com/brisklycollector6c844b08cf
    https://gravatar.com/brisklycollector6c844b08cf
    July 10, 2025 at 1:31 pm | # | Reply Report comment

    Yall ever been so unwilling to come out of the closet, you’d rather put yourself in danger of arrest and throw away everything you’ve worked your whole life for? Yeah, me too.

Comment ¬
Cancel reply

NOTE - You can use these HTML tags and attributes:
<a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <cite> <code> <del datetime=""> <em> <i> <q cite=""> <s> <strike> <strong>

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

More Asma?

View Results

Loading ... Loading ...
  • Polls Archive
CONVENTION APPEARANCES


September 13/14, 2025 - Small Press Expo in Bethesda, Maryland

David M Willis! avatar
David M Willis!
@damnyouwillis.bsky.social
damnyouwillis.bsky.social's user avatar
David M Willis! @damnyouwillis.bsky.social ⋅ 2min
Charles ENTRAPMENT Cheese! HE WAS SET UP
phillewis.bsky.social's user avatarPhil Lewis @phillewis.bsky.social ⋅ 5h
A Chuck E. Cheese employee in full costume was arrested by Tallahassee officers for credit card fraud www.tallahassee.com/story/news/l...
A police officer arrests Chuck E Cheese while children watch in the background
1
8
 
damnyouwillis.bsky.social's user avatar
David M Willis! @damnyouwillis.bsky.social ⋅ 5min
....unleash my potential as the side-eyeing monkey puppet????????? how did they know
1
4
 
damnyouwillis.bsky.social's user avatar
David M Willis! @damnyouwillis.bsky.social ⋅ 24min
Mfw my power is unlimited
preternia.com's user avatarpreternia @preternia.com ⋅ 8h
Hasbro Star Wars Black Series 6” Mace Windu & Darth Sidious 2-pack.
4
6
24
 
damnyouwillis.bsky.social's user avatar
David M Willis! @damnyouwillis.bsky.social ⋅ 27min
FLY GUY
preternia.com's user avatarpreternia @preternia.com ⋅ 4h
SDCC 2025: NECA Sesame Street.
2
5
28
 
damnyouwillis.bsky.social's user avatar
David M Willis! @damnyouwillis.bsky.social ⋅ 29min
ABYSS RAIN the most emo stegosaurus of all time, not that that's a high bar
2
1
17
 
damnyouwillis.bsky.social's user avatar
David M Willis! @damnyouwillis.bsky.social ⋅ 38min
Finally gonna make something of myself
1
40
 
reposted by David M Willis!
queensunflowers.bsky.social's user avatar
Queen Sunflower (She/Her) 29 @queensunflowers.bsky.social ⋅ 4h
we're treating this as explicit permission, btw. Not cheating anymore, he told them to do it!!!
damnyouwillis.bsky.social's user avatarDavid M Willis! @damnyouwillis.bsky.social ⋅ 5h
The answer may surprise you! but it shouldn't
1
4
44
 
reposted by David M Willis!
joshuaconkel.bsky.social's user avatar
Joshua Conkel @joshuaconkel.bsky.social ⋅ 3h
We have done this experiment one billion times and it has worked great all one billion times.
jonmunitz.bsky.social's user avatarJon Munitz @jonmunitz.bsky.social ⋅ 9h
Germany gave people €1,200/month no strings attached. They kept working, slept better, switched to better jobs, and even gave more to others. Turns out, when people aren’t drowning, they swim further. #UBI doesn’t kill ambition, it frees it.
122
3376
8716
 
damnyouwillis.bsky.social's user avatar
David M Willis! @damnyouwillis.bsky.social ⋅ 2h
You vs the girl he tells you to not make eye contact with please
1
1
14
 
damnyouwillis.bsky.social's user avatar
David M Willis! @damnyouwillis.bsky.social ⋅ 4h
THEN WHY DID THEY CANCEL MINE
preternia.com's user avatarpreternia @preternia.com ⋅ 4h
Hasbro Transformers Age of the Primes Sideways is in stock at Walmart ($24.97) - bit.ly/3J2BiOz #ad
4
1
17
 
reposted by David M Willis!
meakoopa.bsky.social's user avatar
Anthony Oliveira @meakoopa.bsky.social ⋅ 4h
rest in piss hulk hogan
andre the giant: I don't like to speak badly of people I have grown up thinking and being told that if you cannot Say something nice about someone, you should not say anything at all. But I must break that rule in this case because I hate Hulk Hogan very much. He is a big ugly goon and I want to squash his face.
2
84
355
 
reposted by David M Willis!
jfruh.bsky.social's user avatar
Josh Fruhlinger @jfruh.bsky.social ⋅ 4h
once again, my self-appointed task of commenting on a daily artistic medium over the course of decades that sometimes throws repeats at me puts me in the position of pierre menard accidentally writing the quixote
5
6
100
 
reposted by David M Willis!
toygrind.bsky.social's user avatar
Thew Adams @toygrind.bsky.social ⋅ 6h
Oh my GOD Those stickers we saw on Dammit Open earlier this month? With the super early G1 artwork of non-finalised Autobots? And that one little weirdo in the corner with the VW chest who looked like a shit Bumblebee? It's fucking MUFFY
chrismcfeely.bsky.social's user avatarChris McFeely @chrismcfeely.bsky.social ⋅ 6h
WE DONE IT AGAIN!! Another long-lost TF document unearthed at last and brought to you at TFNation! Come Muffy-diving with me and Jim as we take you on a detailed look through writer Jeffrey Scott's WILDLY different early-1984 pitch for the original G1 cartoon!!
8
31
102
 
reposted by David M Willis!
chrismcfeely.bsky.social's user avatar
Chris McFeely @chrismcfeely.bsky.social ⋅ 6h
WE DONE IT AGAIN!! Another long-lost TF document unearthed at last and brought to you at TFNation! Come Muffy-diving with me and Jim as we take you on a detailed look through writer Jeffrey Scott's WILDLY different early-1984 pitch for the original G1 cartoon!!
tfnationltd.bsky.social's user avatarTFNation @tfnationltd.bsky.social ⋅ 6h
This is a BIG one... TRANSFORMERS NONE: THE CARTOON THAT NEVER WAS TFNation 2025 Saturday Night Clubcon 9th August 2025 ✅ Sorenson & McFeely ✅ Lost media ✅ Pre-recorded script reading ✅ Special guest cast Details below! tfnation.com/blog/20... #TFNation #Transformers
Transformers none panel logo
9
41
118
 
damnyouwillis.bsky.social's user avatar
David M Willis! @damnyouwillis.bsky.social ⋅ 5h
Pop quiz: what are they fighting over
Cafeteria Joyce/Walky catfight
18
1
76
 
reposted by David M Willis!
tendermiasma.com's user avatar
Suzanne ✨🌑 @tendermiasma.com ⋅ 14h
Reposting links when it's not ass o'clock but if bigots can yell at visa and mastercard then so can we. This is a nightmare timeline for nsfw creators and creators as a whole, so if you're someone who enjoys my work or anyone else's we need all hands on deck if we want any shot at all
1
167
542
 
damnyouwillis.bsky.social's user avatar
David M Willis! @damnyouwillis.bsky.social ⋅ 6h
Considering Dagwood's industrialist tycoon parents disowned him for marrying Blondie, I'm pretty sure that last panel was his wedding vows verbatim
2
42
 
reposted by David M Willis!
claystorks.bsky.social's user avatar
otava heikkilä @claystorks.bsky.social ⋅ 13h
instead of vowing to take itch down with your justified anger, redirect that anger at the institutions who are directly responsible for strong arming every single platform that sells adult and/or queer art:
iantos.bsky.social's user avatarIantos @iantos.bsky.social ⋅ 19h
Maybe we could find out. Mastercard (US): 1-800-627-8372 Mastercard (Int.): +1-636-722-7111 Visa (US + Can): 1 800 847 2911 Visa (AUS): 1 800 125 440 PayPal: +44-0203-901-7000
12
1506
2149
 
reposted by David M Willis!
ironspike.bsky.social's user avatar
Iron Spike @ironspike.bsky.social ⋅ 7h
Buy a lottery ticket NOW
nasboat.org's user avatarassbutt @nasboat.org ⋅ 2d
please let Hulk Hogan be the third in the Rule of 3s
34
295
 
reposted by David M Willis!
edgeofsports.bsky.social's user avatar
Dave Zirin @edgeofsports.bsky.social ⋅ 7h
Real discussion: CNN: Hey Dave it's CNN. Could you come on to talk about the death of Hulk Hogan Me: Hulk Hogan was a racist scab and a liar. He hated unions, Black people, and the truth and that's why he loved Donald Trump. What time do you want me? CNN: Great! Well.... so we'll keep looking
202
4035
15020
 
damnyouwillis.bsky.social's user avatar
David M Willis! @damnyouwillis.bsky.social ⋅ 7h
so, you got detention
1
2
31
 
damnyouwillis.bsky.social's user avatar
David M Willis! @damnyouwillis.bsky.social ⋅ 8h
look, i gotta say it: "re-experience your nostalgia" is nonsense that's just recursive nostalgia
8
4
56
 
damnyouwillis.bsky.social's user avatar
David M Willis! @damnyouwillis.bsky.social ⋅ 9h
Joyce meets Historical Jesus
10
11
105
 
damnyouwillis.bsky.social's user avatar
David M Willis! @damnyouwillis.bsky.social ⋅ 9h
when the Yip-Yip Martians say "yip yip," that is how they stim
6
31
 
reposted by David M Willis!
tfuinfo.bsky.social's user avatar
TFU.INFO @tfuinfo.bsky.social ⋅ 12h
Poor Devastator.
plasticcraic.bsky.social's user avatarPlastic Craic @plasticcraic.bsky.social ⋅ 1d
One for fellow parents Credit - Tyson Richards (FB)
4
3
30
 
damnyouwillis.bsky.social's user avatar
David M Willis! @damnyouwillis.bsky.social ⋅ 10h
We have moved the kitchen island to make room for a repairman and it is oddly comfortable to stand in this little pocket
6
41
 
damnyouwillis.bsky.social's user avatar
David M Willis! @damnyouwillis.bsky.social ⋅ 10h
This is obviously a rerun. It mentions Orlando Bloom.
1
1
48
 
reposted by David M Willis!
mattgoldey.bsky.social's user avatar
Matthew @mattgoldey.bsky.social ⋅ 12h
@damnyouwillis.bsky.social put this in the Louvre
3
1
43
 
reposted by David M Willis!
maronegri76.bsky.social's user avatar
A.E. Maronegri (He/Him) @maronegri76.bsky.social ⋅ 19h
Possible solution: youtube.com/shorts/4V_5z...
header image - anime love triangles
youtube.com
anime love triangles
YouTube video by ProZD
1
2
26
 
damnyouwillis.bsky.social's user avatar
David M Willis! @damnyouwillis.bsky.social ⋅ 19h
Dumbing of Age: "Catch" www.dumbingofage.com/2025/comic/b... #webcomics #webcomic
www.dumbingofage.com
Catch
5
2
19
 

©2010-2025 Dumbing of Age | Powered by WordPress with ComicPress | Subscribe: RSS | Privacy Policy | Back to Top ↑