i promise multiple panels in tomorrow’s strip, which you can see early on patreon
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…
*plays “Rain” from Cowboy Bebop CD on hacked muzak*
it’s the tear gas, it’s the stormtroopers we have to endure
We hate it.
Very fitting choice of lyrics.
“Is it right, or is it wrong?”
“Or is it here that I belong?”
welp 420 comments again
I have to deal with some nasty road rash, thus, this warrants four joints
really hopin our star crossed homies pull through >~<
Is that the number of comments, or a note about “the weed talking”?
p.s. Sorry about your spill. Heal up well and may you be able to rest.
thank you ;-;
I’m not gonna be able to work for weeks while this heals, any help I can get staying afloat rn is HIGHLY appreciated >~<
Camera name?
No? I name it Fred.
oh no
Oh, yes. There are points in a story where everything changes and nothing can go back to the way it was. This is one of those points.
I guess this scene is a bit late for
(PS I just saw this a month ago. I like your taste.)
I didn’t think there were any drama tags left to be pulled.
how many reference photos did this one take
I mean Google Earth is a thing, so anywhere between one to a dozen, depending on how you count
You talkin about reference photos. Willis concerned about only one panel.
ANd me, trying to view in a higher resolution because I can barely tell WTF is going on.
joyce is walking towards dorothy while saying the gayest shit you ever heard. meanwhile cops are being cops and amazi-girl is kicking them in the head while protesters flee
Yeah I don’t know who all is going to jail after this but if they can catch her, amazi-girl is def on the list. Only plot armor has protected her from tasers and rubber bullets up to this point
I agree that this is the gayest shit you ever heard, but importantly she is quoting from the Bible (Ruth 1:16 if you’re keen)
“And your people shall be my people, and your… um, lack of god shall be my lack of god.”
It’s a quote from the book of Ruth, Ruth pledging her loyalty to her mother-in-law Naomi (I believe her husband, Ruth’s son, was dead at that point). There’s a number of things in the Bible between people of the same-sex that have possible reinterpretations these days with the increased understanding of LGBTQ+ issues. Ruth and Naomi are an example of this.
I want to assume you meant Naomi’s son, but given some relationships of the period, I can’t 100% say there is no way Ruth’s mother-in-law wasn’t married to Ruth’s son and I am about to go to bed, so I am steadfastly not looking up bible passages right now.
These lines are also often used in Jewish wedding vows!
So is that what lesbian weddings are like?
Naw. Not enough swords.
Swords might actually be useful here.
There’s usually more swords
Ours definitely had more swords.
Damn. Between myself and my wife we own a lot of swords. Didn’t think to bring any along to the magistrate though. Not sure they would have let us either.
What I’m gathering here is in case of zombies find the nearest lesbian couple.
Depends on the zombies. If it’s a transmissible blood-borne pathogen, swords are just an easy way to join the horde when their blood sprays onto you. (There’s a side bit in the “Mira Grant” novel Feed where they discuss some of the early zombie fighters who learned the hard way that Kellis-Amberlee is all too happy to spread via contact. That’s also why shotgun headshots are considered to be extremely rude. Bullets to the head are the way to go. Journalists going into infected areas must maintain a license that includes a high score at the target range.)
I think the judge at mine can vouch, we had a slightly better time.
It’s like that scene in pirates of the Caribbean at world end
The line does feature heavily in Jewish and Christian lesbian weddings. It’s Ruth converting into the tribe and promising to love Naomi 4eva, like so:
“Do not urge me to leave you, to turn back and not follow you. For wherever you go, I will go; wherever you lodge, I will lodge; your people shall be my people, and your God shall be my God.
Where you die, I will die, and there I will be buried. Thus and more may God do to me if anything but death parts me from you.”
(Technically they’re mother-in-law and daughter-in-law, on a quest to find husbands, so they can get back into the protection of the patriarchy. And once they get husbands, they don’t get any more lines in the story. But still! It’s romantic.
https://www.sefaria.org/Ruth.1.16?lang=bi&with=all
The tear gas isn’t in my version of the story. Maybe it’s a King James thing.
Never once had I thought of that as a romantic thing. Mother and daughter-in-law.
I mean, I guess there’s definitely an audience for that, but usually they play the “No, we can’t do that, you’re my step mother” way of skirting icky taboo.
Anyways. Joyce is 100% intentionally quoting, and I think the fact that she likely doesn’t mean it as romantic, means that it’s extra romantic.
Being a woman and not having a husband in those days, meant you had very limited means to take care of yourself. Practically nonexistent. Your only hope, if you didn’t want to be getting into the sex trade, is to find another man to marry.
Ruth is young, beautiful. She would not struggle hard to find another husband. Naomi was an older woman. Too old to marry, too old to attract for prostitution, too old to even do hard labor. As she goes to her homeland, she hopes to receive aid from family, but mostly she goes expecting to find nothing but death.
But instead, Ruth, a foreigner, pledges her loyalty to Naomi. You don’t know just how insane that is. The Jewish people at this time are intensely xenophobic. You do not simply waltz in there and emigrate to Israel. Most people who take a foreign wife are viewed as breaking God’s law. Ruth is not simply saying “I will go with you,” she is saying, “I will give up all I have left, so that you have something left, and we will each have each other.”
When Ruth says “Your people shall be my people, and your God shall be my God,” you don’t know how crazy that is. Ruth was married to Naomi’s son, but didn’t worship the God of Israel. They are absolutely 100% outcasts returning to a land that if they are lucky, will simply spit in their face.
Two grieving widows, both who lost a husband, and in that moment Ruth – the one who Joyce is quoting – shows a self-sacrificial love, putting the needs of her mother-in-law over her own, so that she doesn’t have to stand alone.
In this moment, to me, it’s clear as day. Joyce *really likes* Joe. She loves Dorothy.
Shipping Ruth and Naomi has been a thing for quite a while. Same with Yonatan and David. They’re the best ships in the Tanakh. Though the best ship in all of ancient Jewish lit is Rabbis Yoḥanan bar Nafḥa and Shimon ben Lakish. They were chevrutas! It’s so gay <3
oh my god they were CHEVRUTAS
There’s also another pair of rabbis that had a joint ordination ceremony that was basically a wedding, Ami and Assi I think?
Thank you for your comment. I’d never heard this story before, and you summarized it beautifully.
Also worth noting that for Christians (like Joyce used to be), Ruth is a *Moabite* (the most despised of foreigners) and also an ancestor of Jesus through her second husband (and Jewish descent is, to some degree) matriarchal.
So pretty radically inclusive.
For Jews, she’s an ancestor of King David. And Jewishness comes from the maternal line, so it’s strongly supporting that Jews-by-choice are just as valid as Jews-by-birth and should be included as such.
(If the Messiah is a literal person, they’re supposed to descend from King David’s line, too, and Christians hold that that’s Jesus. Most Jews don’t give any thought to the messiah though.)
The story likely was codified / became super popular when Israelites were intermarrying with their neighbors the Moabites. Israelites needed a story of a really good-guy Moabite, so we can feel happy about our new Moabite son- or daughter-in-law that our kiddo just brought home. We need a way to have them join the tribe and everything is cool. Ruth is that Moabite, who is loyal and wonderful and helps her mother-in-law out of a real problem, anyone would be delighted to be related to her, let her in already.
Isn’t that a callback to the time Joyce made Dorothy a lunchbag and she put that quote in it as a message to her? Dorothy commented at that point that she didn’t know if Joyce knew it was a common quote for lesbian weddings. Now Joyce pretty much confirmed that yeah, she knows how gay it sounded.
https://www.dumbingofage.com/2018/comic/book-8/03-faz-is-great/kale/
Oh look at Sierra’s face. She KNOWS.
I had a feeling this wsd Ruth. Thanks for confirming.
I assume they don’t usually have cops and tear gas at most lesbian weddings. I could be wrong.
Sometimes the lesbians are cops.
Look, I’m just going to assume that this is what all lesbian weddings are like and there is no need at all to disillusion me.
Yes. This particular passage is used regularly in lesbian weddings
So, bad news for relationship paladins.
Booyah!
Poor Walky. His hesitation and anxiety were not unfounded, I fear. I know he’s not the hero in this reality, but goddamn it, Willis.
I’m so confused, i thought “relationship paladins” meant everyone ending up in relationships (like seems to be happening), and “sickos” meant like secret hookups or something
It’s very specifically about Dorothy and Joyce staying 100.0% faithful to Walky and Joe, respectively – at least until they talk shit out vis-a-vis their perverse lust for one another.
This is contrasted with SICKOS pressed against the window, gleefully watching this surprisingly nontoxic yuri finally emerge, come what may.
With a strong dose of that ancient WeCanSexy 2koma.
UU: PrecioUs babies!
uu: NOW FuCK!
…I was not expecting to see a fucking Caliborn/Calliope reference here
The odds are low but never zero.
shall never escape the Homestuck
More or less. As someone who definitely clicked “Relationship Paladin” I’m not against Dorothy/Joyce, I just wasn’t happy about Joyce being in what is by all accounts a pretty solid relationship and happy and about to have a moment of hormonal passion without being honest with themselves about what they meant to each other and their other relationships. Especially right before Joyce’s date with Joe, it felt like an incipient train wreck and just not good, and seeing people cheering it on made some of us, or at least me, dig our heels in.
This…well, look. I like the Joe and Joyce relationship. And I appreciate that Joe is being the better person he hinted he could be. But if Joe needs Joyce to be that guy, if one breakup sends him spiraling back into his old ways, he’s not that guy. And frankly he’s shown he has the emotional maturity to handle this, even if he doesn’t want it.
Whereas Dorothy and Walky just feels like going back to something that’s comfortable but not what you need. I don’t really ship it.
This feels like a more healthy official statement on Joyce’s part than if they’d made out on her bed. In a better world I would have liked Joe to have some advance notice and all, but the pressure and tension is external rather than internal and I’m more okay with this than I would have been.
I’m half expecting a photo of Joyce and Dorothy kissing amidst the tear gas to be THE media image of the protest.
A little more healthy, I guess. I know it’s not “Smarting of Age”, but I’d still like it if someone would actually sit down and think about it. It’s only maybe an hour since they were telling each other “it’s just a trauma reaction/excess horniness” and then heading off to do laundry anyway.
Bad news for relationship paladins. But only if Dorothy survives.
Joyce has plot armor. Dorothy had plot armor all the way up until this panel, but it’s gone now. This is a story line where things are happening and it’s written by Damn You Willis.
Willis has posted panels a year from now where they’re both walking free, in full color, and have shading.
Which now? Willis has a buffer extending into the future? Our future? Well yes, Willis clearly does. Wow, I never thought of it that way before.
But has Willis gone into OUR future and posted panels?
I mean, the updates are scheduled. So, arguably he has.
Yeah I mean they’re probably not going to prison for life for a college protest. The more likely consequence is that having a record will cause some inconveniences in their future career pursuits.
Well, there ain’t no screwin’ as of yet. Right now, it’s running-back-into-the-fire-to-save-the-bestie. BUT! If they get out of this free and intact, yeah, there might be some passionate activities.
wherever you gay, i will gay
Ruth tag missing
Ruthless
Best.
Yeah, I read this as Joyce calling out to Ruth for help
Reference: Bible, book of Ruth, 1:16
Commonly cited at gay weddings. /nods sagely
I thought the favorite one for gay marriage was 2 Samuel 1:26
Ruth is common at lesbian weddings specifically
Umbrella term usage, but sure.
That’s where the confusion seemed to lie.
Honestly I thought it would be popular at both, especially since it’s also apparently popular at m/f weddings.
Love Amazi-Girl still beating up the minions of the state.
Missed that because I was too distracted by Joyce reciting wedding vows.
Note how the vast majority of the cops are ignoring that to go after everyone else. I bet that one cop currently getting kicked in the face is kind of hating their colleagues right about now.
Good. Maybe it’ll quit and get a real job.
I keep hoping that will happen with telemarketers, but it never does.
I don’t care if they get together but I just wish that there wasn’t cheating involved with the both of them. I hate cheating as a plot point and it kinda ruins a lot of the shippy shit with me. Plus I feel like Joe is gonna end up backsliding so much into being an ass again.
If there weren’t underlying feelings involved this would be a great friendship scene.
But yeah, the underlying ‘this could lead to cheating’ taints it a little.
I don’t much care for cheating either. I just don’t see any sign of cheating happening.
And so long as Joyce sits down with Joe and explains that she is going to be dating both him and also Dorothy, no cheating will occur. Just some informed dating of two people at once.
Just give it a couple strips you’ll probably see some cheating shortly
Or Joyce breaks up with Joe first.
Because if Joe isn’t okay with Joyce dating someone else at the same time, then Joyce either needs to respect that or break up.
…..That would be nice, wouldn’t it :”)
Based on how he handled talking to Dorothy about the lewds, I wonder if he might be ok with it. I know some of that compassion was about knowing Dorothy is figuring out sexuality stuff. But some of also seemed like he appreciates how much she means to Joyce in a way that I could very much see turning into compersion
I mean, Joyce already cheated by her own admission. This is just MORE cheating.
She admitted doing laundry, but it wasn’t cheating since it was before she got together with Joe.
They planned to do laundry again, but didn’t follow through since the room was crowded, so that’s only attempted cheating.
Wasn’t laundry day AFTER she got with Joe, but before they did any smooching? Dotty’s entire plan was “get her off before she bongo’s joe, for.. reasons.”
No, they weren’t together. Joe had expressed his feelings to Joyce, but Joyce had not yet made her decision. She clearly had some desire for Joe, though, so Dorothy was hoping that experiencing sexual pleasure without Joe would keep Joyce from dating him.
So she just tells him how it is and he has to accept it? Just fuck his feelings?
That’s kinda how choices like that work. If Joe has a problem with Joyce also dating Dorothy at the same time, and Joyce wants to date Dorothy more than Joyce wants to date Joe, it’s either both Joe and Dorothy or just Dorothy and not Joe.
Ultimately sometimes the answer to “it’s her or me” is “i choose her”.
Whose feelings do you find it acceptable to eff? Because I don’t see a solution here that doesn’t eff anyone’s feelings.
He would have to accept it, he doesn’t own her. It would probably involve some heartache on his part. She doesn’t owe him staying together until he decides otherwise. She owes him honesty.
you have remarkable confidence in two people being very cool about polyamory very quickly considering one of them witnessed his parents’ marriage fall to pieces due to cheating and the other was raised to believe that this would damn her to an eternity of torture.
I’m not saying it’s impossible, but it would mean that they just get over their baggage instantly. it would stretch credibility is what I’m saying
Joyce has hangups around very specific sex acts, not around love, and she’s been quite cool about Sierra’s two girlfriends this whole time, so suddenly developing hangups around polyamory sending people to hell would be… strange.
As for Joe, he has trauma about cheating, and specifically his dad ruining his parents’ marriage, not around polyamory. There’s also this:
https://www.dumbingofage.com/2024/comic/book-14/04-for-me-it-was-tuesday/flush/
Which Willis linked as part of a big post pointing out various points of Dorothy/Joyce hinting, thus confirming that Joe wasn’t just talking about Joyce getting drinks with Dorothy, but was trying to feel out a more serious topic.
As I’ve said before, I worry he might force himself to be okay with this because he thinks he “has” to, rather than actually sitting with his own feelings on the matter and letting himself not be okay with it — but it’s also possible that he’s thought about this a lot and that he’d already decided he was okay with it when he went to ask Dorothy if she had feelings for Joyce.
The communication (at least on-panel) would still leave much to be desired, but like. Folks aren’t basing hopes for poly on nothing.
Following on about Joyce’s feelings on polyamory Sarah has previously had to tell her that it can’t solve all relationship problems.
https://www.dumbingofage.com/2024/comic/book-15/01-love-dares-you-to-change/envisioned/
Definitely further proof of her not thinking polyamory would send anyone to hell!
Well, in the OT, there’s lots of cases of men with multiple wives. And Joyce’s flavor of Christianity was obviously heavy on OT teachings. So once she cracked the homosexuality nut, there was no additional resistance to polycules.
Why should she, Joyce, not ALSO get to have multiple wives?
One husband obviously, but multiple wives.
(I don’t know who the other wives would be. Sal and Jennifer? In terms of “other women Joyce has shown at least some signs of being attracted to”.)
Though that example isn’t really poly, since it’s just a vehicle to give Sarah an in with Jacob despite him being with Lucy, so that he can then dump Lucy and eventually marry Sarah.
I maintain she’s not at all ready for polyamory, even if she doesn’t object to it in theory.
That’s not the argument I was responding to, though!
“you have remarkable confidence in two people being very cool about polyamory very quickly considering […] the other was raised to believe that this would damn her to an eternity of torture.”
(Emphasis mine.)
Like let’s be real. “This should end in polyamory” genuinely does not in any way imply that the person saying it thinks the characters are going to immediately get to that point with no further developments or growth needing to happen first?
The “very quickly” part kind of does.
And the post a couple up from that has Joyce telling Joe she’s dating both of them as a way to forestall cheating, which kind of implies an immediate solution.
The “very quickly” came from Derek, who I was arguing with, and who doesn’t think polyamory is a realistic outcome here.
Rose by Any Other Name, meanwhile, just said that Joyce can avoid cheating on Joe by telling Joe that she has feelings for Dorothy and wants to date them both — which… I think is true?
(I’m also, personally, increasingly sure that Joe expects that conversation, and plans to tell Joyce it’s okay with him if she asks, even if it’s not.)
(Which is how we could in fact “very quickly” get into a situation where Joyce and Dorothy technically have a green light and wouldn’t be cheating on Joe anymore, while still not presenting polyamory as a magical solution that fixes all relationship problems.)
((Add in your own version of something similar happening with Walky — I don’t want to belabor the point, I’m already prone to long-winded spiels.))
Yes, that’s a thing they should do before things go much farther and it might work out or it might blow up their existing relationships, but there’s been no sign from either Joyce or Dorothy that they’re considering doing that.
And we do know they were about to “do laundry” again – without talking to Joe or Walky – except the room was crowded and then Joyce got the text about Jocelyne and the protest. There’s more evidence for intention to cheat than for intention to talk to Walky & Joe about a poly relationship.
I’d like to the see Joyce and Dorothy become a couple at some point, if they decide to accept they’re bi and they break up with the guys they’re currently dating. My main issue with them getting together has been that I don’t want them cheating to do so.
Premature. Let’s get Dorothy out of this alive first. Then worry about relationship drama.
I mean… look at the title of the comic. They’re dumb 18 year olds that do dumb regrettable things, it’s just how they are.
For a lot of folks in the comments, though, “dumb” explains a bit, but not deliberate cheating–that’s not dumb, that’s selfish. (Note that stumbling into sex, as in the first Laundry Day, wasn’t really ‘deliberate’, and thus can be covered safely by ‘dumb’, as can some of the soulful eye-gazing that they’re only really coming to understand the significance of.) Having sexy makeouts now, however, would be deliberate.
There is one exception to this possibility, though, and I’ve got a hunch this might be where we’re going. Namely, Dorothy gets injured in the coming fracas, and Joyce, hyped on adrenaline, kisses her while making a declaration of affection–and THEN realizes where all this has really been leading. That first kiss, made in the heat of the moment, would be more ‘dumb’ than ‘selfish’.
I feel you, but imo this kind of messiness is so authetic to many folks’s experience of being a woman figuring out you like women (or at least one woman) in a society that tells you those feelings can’t be real or serious.
It’s almost like life is messy and hard to figure out, especially when we’re young, full of hormones, and working from corrupted world-views and incomplete information.
But I’m also much less bothered about my partner finding happiness than most.
If Joyce cheats on Joe, it’s going to destroy him.
I’d be very surprised if it destroyed him. I think it’ll hurt, for sure, but I imagine it will give him a new perspective. He’s always been the one worried he would cheat on someone else (like his dad), idk that he’s even considered he might be the one who gets cheated on. That it’s actually just not something you can avoid no matter how hard you try, because you can’t control other people.
His entire thing was “No relationships because I have the Cheating Gene and I won’t hurt someone like my dad hurt my mom and his other relationships” And he manages to win over THE most un-cheating-coded person on the planet earth, and then she cheats on him. his one step out of his comfort zone is being punched in the nards, it would take a LOT for him to come back from that.
I can see why you’d think that, I just don’t agree. We’ll see what happens!
One of the things I don’t like about this whole situation, is that it makes Joe and Joyce’s relationship just part of a test to see how he reacts to being cheated on, if he’s changed for real.
And kind of at the expense of the Joe and Joyce friendship. There’s something between them that she doesn’t have with anyone else. He’s encouraging without being judgmental. They opened up to each other in ways they didn’t with other people. Becky’s overbearing, Dorothy’s judgmental, Sarah’s distant, and they don’t recognize her changing. And he does.
Agreed.
I’m not fond of the kind of general take that the significance of her relationship with Joe lies only in how it interferes with her OTP Dorothy.
I won’t pretend to know where we’re heading, but I don’t think it’s there.
it’s only cheating if they decide to have a relationship while going behind the backs of the people they’re currently dating, it’s entirely possible to realize you want to be with someone else, communicate that with your significant other without that being cheating
i hate it when people behave badly in my fiction
God DAMN IT, Joyce. I know the Webcomic isn’t called ‘Smarting of Age’ but can one person in this storyline not be a complete moron?
Joyce’s sister BEGGED her to leave, and Joyce couldn’t even go with that.
In response to your top comment yesterday (“Dorothy competing with Amzi-Girl for worst decision making today.”)
BUT WAIT, IT’S JOYCE BROWN WITH THE STEEL CHAIR.
Will Dorothy still want to be here if it also puts Joyce in danger?
Joyce left to avoid jail food that touches, and was outside the fence after Dot ran back in. She’s back in now not because she didn’t leave, but because a bastard tackled her for being outside the fence doing nothing. And then said bastard’s goon friends opened the fence up to assault her friends.
She didn’t ask for this…
Yeah, at this point the consequence of being arrested seems unavoidable. Might as well help your friends if you’re screwed either way.
I know that not running back in might have helped her fight the charges later, but she’ probably not thinking about that.
Amazi-Girl gave her the chance to run and she’s declaring her intentions here. Let her own this, even if it’s a dumb move.
Did Dorothy ever tell Joyce that that quote is often said at lesbian weddings?
Now why would a Friend of Dorothy ever suspect such a thing?
oh
my
gods
perfection
If you look up “Friend of Dorothy” in the dictionary, you’ll find Joyce’s picture.
On a side note, not fifteen minutes before reading your comment about “Friends of Dorothy” I was reading to my 8 year old from “Marvelous Land of Oz” and we the passage where the Scarecrow and Tin Woodman reunite… ye gods is it queer.
“And then the door burst open and Nick Chopper rushed into their midst and caught the Scarecrow in a close and loving embrace that creased him into many folds and wrinkles.
“My dear old friend! My noble comrade!” cried the Tin Woodman, joyfully. “how delighted! I am to meet you once again.”
And then he released the Scarecrow and held him at arms’ length while he surveyed the beloved, painted features.”
… and then realizes that he left polish all over the Scarecrow’s face.
You’re not the only one to notice. Here’s Daisy McGuire’s version of it:
https://yellowbrickramble.com/comic/a-tin-plated-emperor-03
(The webcomic’s an unreasonably cute reimagining of The Marvelous Land of Oz.)
Thank you thank you; it’s always fun to find new comicbook re-imaginings of the lesser-known Oz stories!
(I grew up with Eric Shanower’s fascinating graphic-novel sequels, and more recently encountered his comic-book retellings of the first few Baum novels. Great stuff; highly recommend.)
Oh, that’s adorable. I’ll have to add that to my reading list!
Just wait until you see how close Ozma and Dorothy are in the later books.
This is like my fourth time through! It’s just THIS kid’s first time.
Oz was my First Fandom because a renter had the whole series on a bookshelf in my playroom growing up.
Dorothy and Ozma, who greet each other with kisses, and Dorothy is the only person allowed to enter Ozma’s room without express permission?
Yeah, I’m on that train.
Though it doesn’t help that in the 1900s, the social separation of “teenager” hadn’t been invented yet, and any women up to like twenty were referred to as “little girl.”
OMG, I feel very stupid to have not gotten this!
……
…….. is Dorothy’s name just a pun?
No, for a few reasons — like how in the Walkyverse, Dorothy didn’t have any friends.
But it is an excellent joke now.
Beautiful
Wow am I crying or did someone just deploy tear gas in here
Jocelyn, are you gonna stay and protect your sister, or do the smart thing and get out of there?
And Joyce holy fuck on walking through that tear gas, impressive. Deeply concerning, but impressive.
SICKOS NATION RISE
We been raised for a while.
We wanted one kiss; we got zip ties, tear gas and probably a blunt force trauma TBI. No, no, this is good too.
It started out with a kiss, how did it end up like this
With a certain inevitability.
But only in retrospect.
It was only a kiss, it was only… well, also a bit of laundry.
My sympathies Joe.
I hope you don’t backslide on the rebound.
The sad thing is there’s no one really worth pursing for him either. Maybe if he transfers to Sarah’s sister school?
As much as I have distaste for Joyce and Dorothy as a potential couple, this is a good character moment! Joyce the newly-minted atheist, calling upon scripture to give her the strength to do what she feels is right. In desperate times, sometimes we have to fall back on what we know.
And yeah yeah it’s the dyke verse
Hmmm, this comment has a certain vibe.
I love this but I’m also confused where Joyce is coming from spacially
Anything in regards to spatial ability was taken behind the shed and shot during this entire sequence. Just don’t even try taking it into consideration or you’ll just get a headache.
She’s coming back from the gate she left by.
Especially considering that where Amazi-Girl is currently fighting cops in the background is rather far away from where Joyce is coming in from and also has a bunch of other cops between her and Joyce, when in the previous strip, AG was right there where Joyce was.
(I’m imagining that AG just sprinted along the tops of the helmets of all those other cops to get way over there where she’s face-kicking one of those two or three straggler cops.)
For Hecate’s sake, there’s more cops than people there, that are already dispersed.
Amazi-girl saved Joyce’s ass, she will be defeated soon.
Her sister begged her to leave.
And Joyce is already suffering tear gas.
No, no, it’s the worst outcome ever. Didn’t they both think in any other person??
I think we all know the answer to this. :\
What leads you to believe Amazi-girl will be defeated soon? She has more experience at this than they do.
Unless AG is wearing a sniper-proof suit or is able to outright dodge sniper fire, this will be over soon, one way or another.
…the 18 year old girl in spandex has more experience than the dozens of riot cops in armor?
…what?
American cops barely get any training.
Even if they have zero experience, they have more *life* experience. There’s no possible way that every single one of these cops is here for their first day. The second either one of the multiple groups of twenty focuses on her, she’ll go down in a flash.
Or, you know, the sniper. Who would by the same logic of them being there would have already put a bullet through her head the second she drop kicked the first one.
“Barely any training” in things like de-escalation, or working with people, or actual investigation, or anything like that. KILLING and DOMINATING, THAT they’re very well trained for.
They barely get any training period is my understanding. “Police academy” takes between 12 and 27 weeks to complete. We are looking at a maximum of six months.
While it presumably took AG years to get to this point of skill at both hand to hand combat and parkour. I do wonder if she was active in her home town or still in her training arc.
That’s a great question, actually. And now I kind of want “Amazi-Girl: Year One” as a spin-off limited run book.
You know what, girls? I think it’s time to take the advice of my single biggest childhood hero:
Take chances! Make mistakes! Get messy!
Seriously, who can give a fuck about their morals when we’re looking at the start of a successful repeated artistic narrative and it looks this good? I’m throwing down my sword and magic helmet and joining the Sickos. Bravo, Mx. Willis.
GO SICKOS
You can keep the sword and helmet actually, those are pretty dope.
Eh, magic helmet…
The magic is what make it dope you philistine
“my sword and magic helmet”
Yes! yes! yes!
ONE OF US! ONE OF US! >:D
Let’s go [mumble mumble]

Let’s go!

🫵
This whole joyce/dotty being gay at a genocide protest plotline is literally a wet dream for performative white allies with hero complexes. I am near speechless.
Honestly that just feels like the typical webcomic route at this point. Some others I’m reading are also going through big moments that basically boil down to white hero complex and I’m just like “Yeah…sure. Alright”
The instances in the past I’ve always felt were a bit more self aware but man idk anymore
I mean, Willis is using this as the climax of the “Dorothy is spiralling and making bad decisions” storyline. I’m not sure how much more self-aware it can get.
Can’t help but feel like this is a bit of a misread. What I see is Dorothy making herself a target to ensure that she gets arrested. Not materially defending anyone else or making a meaningful sacrifice for her beliefs. In fact, she’s barely invested in this cause. Plus half the cast has made it clear that her staying at the camp doesn’t benefit anybody and is like morally neutral at best (probably even a negative because she is unprepared and dragging Jocelyn down with her). I don’t see her being rewarded for this. I see her getting blasted in a few strips for being dumb and impulsive. I think what she’s actually looking to do is torch her acceptance to Yale in a way that she can’t take back later and also outs her to her family. And maybe looking to be absolved of some liberal guilt for selfishly and imperialist-ily looking up to The President™/America in general. So, in that light, my feeling is more, great, she needed to grow up a bit, end this ambiguity that’s torturing her, and turn her energy to something productive. Or at the very least crash out in a way that actually makes her reckon with her life. Though, the smarting of age character probably would’ve accomplished just as much through an honest, vulnerable talk with her parents and then having Walky or Becky draft a rude return letter to Yale admissions.
Then again, all of that requires you to take this protest in defense of a people facing genocide and divorce it from that meaning in order to see it in terms of how this White (?) girl feels about herself. So if you take issue with that? I mean, fair enough.
all it’s missing is a side character making a snarky, but pointedly true, comment about the two white women co-opting the movement to even it out. once everyone has a chance to breathe, of course
Yeah, I have a vague notion that these events might lead to a lot of media spotlight creating school gossip, and someone like Asma who saw Dorothy and Joyce arrive late, or even an argument about activism between Charlie and Carla might show some thought on this topic, later in the comic. (Which might take us months to reach in webcomic format, but will already have been written).
O, Asma absolutely HAS to ream out Dorothy for this bullshit.
I’m not so much talking about it in-context in the story bc yeah of course most things in a story about a white woman does tend to revolve around said white woman. It just feels like a tasteless if not downright offensive to bring up a real life genocide that is happening right now in the real world, but only to make your white girl ship profess their love or whatever. It’s egregious. The next strip is even worse bc its even clearer that the protest is not what mattered to either of them in the first place. Whatever
It explicitly isn’t about Palestine. That’s why the name isn’t used. I really doubt ‘the setting of a protest against genocide’ is being used solely for the purposes of shipping. I am 100% expecting Dorothy to get the metaphysical shit beaten out of her by Asma or others in the movement for not thinking collectively in a moment where it is really important to think collectively about things and for things to take a lot more nuanced direction in Dorothy’s character arc as a result.
you’re right and you should say it
I think we’re basically getting that from Jocelyne, along with the earlier bit from Asma.
Also idk personally I don’t see anything here but Dorothy showing up too late to make a difference to a cause she doesn’t know much about? She’s literally standing on a tiny hill, holding up a sign she didn’t make, in an impotent gesture as the protest fizzles out around her.
I’m not sure anyone even needs to call her out any further on this behavior, it seems so self-evidently useless (and like a cry for help).
Like maybe if she were actually escalating things successfully? But apart from Jocelyne and Joyce, I don’t think anyone else has even really noticed what Dorothy’s doing.
Well, at least the stormtroopers aren’t shooting the tear gas grenades directly at people. Yet.
Give them time
So I’m betting the fallout from this is really going to add tension to the relationships between Sal and Danny as well as Sarah and Tony due to differencing worldviews
I’m not sure if Jacob x Lucy will be affected much, Lucy didn’t strike me as political in that way but we’ll see
I think Becky x Dina could be in trouble too
Hmm? How so? Differing views on police authority?
That, plus differing views on getting involved in protests and getting arrested for it and maybe even differing views on the military industrial complex – Danny’s brother is in the army, people may think it’s ok to work for Ruttech or Lockheed Martin etcetc
And we’ve already seen it in Charlie x Carla
I think the one who will face the biggest repercussions is the person least involved, Amazi-girl and it won’t involve a single relationship. She’ll probably get arrested, her identity revealed to the press and be made a martyr/villain to the cause.
Of course, then you have other worst case scenarios that can ruin everything by sheer power of the press/social media. “A couple of white lesbians caught in the crossfire” (Dorothy/Joyce) “A Muslim terrorist.” (Asma), “A trans person doing whatever evil thing they do this week.” (Jocelyn). Stories that you often see in these kinds of things, but aren’t necessarily true or they’re spun into something huge. I think this kind of thing will lead to all the fallout in the relationships rather than just straight up “you’re cheating on me” mentioned in other comments.
I think AG basically has to get away at this point. Unlike the others, if she’s arrested, she’s in serious trouble.
And honestly, she’s the biggest news story of the protest: “Campus super-hero attacks police” is a perfect distraction from the police violence, the sketchy rules change and the cause of Bulmeria itself.
Which makes it the perfect opportunity for Willis to wrap up the Amazi-Girl craziness, and for Amber to maybe get some fucking therapy. And no, Bruce Wayne, fighting crime is not “therapy.” Some people would rather do the impossible by themselves than get help.
If she’s caught, Amber doesn’t get therapy, she goes to prison.
If not caught, she gets to play out the classic “misunderstood superhero in conflict with the law” trope, which fits right into her mythology. And, with AG a wanted criminal, she couldn’t be open with any therapist she went to anyway.
Right after Willis gave her a costume redesign?
I mean, that would certainly be a bold move, to do that and then immediately retire the character forever.
I’m also reminded of how Willis made sure Amazi-Girl showed up before the end of the very first storyline, because they knew they had to establish that this comic strip was going to involve superhero shenanigans immediately, or else people would never stop complaining about their introduction.
I can only imagine how much worse the complaining would be if Amazi-Girl hadn’t showed up until the first Toedad story.
Wait, is Danny pro-genocide or something? I missed that comic.
It’s not going to be about who is or isn’t pro genocide, it’s going to be about reactions and getting involved or not.
Also I wouldn’t put it past Danny to say something well meaning but insensitive about Dorothy’s actions today
I mean, looking at the crowd, you understand why the police need their tanks, stormtroopers, Imperial walkers, and tear gas. This is a violent riot that is destined to overthrow America with its cannibalistic commu-natzi aggitation. Who knows what could be next after Bulmeria protesting. Police reform? Fair wages? And end to the Electoral College!?
Ughh.
*shudder*
Commie Nazis
They must save the pennies for Unisef!
Just kiss already!
“YES… HA HA HA… YES!” –Sickos
oh my god
Off topic a bit, but I do wonder how this is going to make Becky feel. Reminds me a bit of Amber being like, “So you would do it for her, but not for me?” or something along those lines, years ago, to Ethan. Very different situation, but will Becky experience a possible similar sentiment?
Of course, she’s in a happy relationship with Dina now… but I don’t know that the whole thing with Sarah pointing out to Dina (also years ago), that Dina is kind of a replacement for Joyce to Becky, and Dina’s sad response of, “I know,” ever got quite…resolved? Or did it. What do I know. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Yeah, that’s one of a few potential drama bombs in the air right now, along with:
– how will Walky react to his long-time running gag turning out to be true?
– will Joe be hurt, and will he sublimate his feelings because he “doesn’t get to be jealous, not with [his] history” (what he told Joyce after she came back from a night of drinks with Dorothy)?
– how is Joyce rationalizing this, when she previously considered even masturbation potential cheating?
And despite my “sickos” status, I continue to hope these crazy kids will make polyamory work.
Dotty would need to get over her hatred of Joe, which I don’t really see happening without a few more acts of Big Cheese.
I do think it’d be hard for them to both date Joyce with the dislike as strong as it is, but I don’t think she would necessarily warm up to him first. Like, if her feelings stay the way they are jowls, it might put stress on the relationships and perhaps break them in the long-term, but if they both are dating Joyce and Dorothy gradually warms up to Joe (not in a romantic way, just in a “Okay, he’s kinda alright” way) then that could be avoided.
*don’t think she would necessarily NEED to warm up to him first
I was more confused about the “jowls”.
Obviously “jowls” is a more commonly used word than “now,” and basically means the same thing, according to my autocorrect.
Ah.
I genuinely think their most recent conversation was a huge stride towards them being friends. Not quite there yet, but certainly past Dorothy hating him.
I do think it helped, and I wouldn’t use “hate” for Dorothy’s current feelings towards Joe, but it’s hard to say exactly where they are now since interaction between them has been minimal.
Sure, if you just like… ignore everything that happened after Dorothy yelled at Joe, that would be a very sensible objection.
She’s not gonna be dating Joe anyway, she’d be dating Joyce and maybe also Walky (I currently think he’s more likely to peace out and eventually wind up with Amber again).
I’m sorry, this came out a lot ruder than I meant it to. Sometimes when I’m aiming for funny/pithy, I overshoot and just go rude.
I do think that their last conversation was a breakthrough, though, and that Dorothy doesn’t currently hate him, and that they could be friends.
I mean, what happened after she basically said he walked through life without ever giving any thing up or working hard? she cussed him out for.. being a teenager, and he let it roll off him because he’s grown as a person and is a good place. Did I miss any kind of actual growth beyond her blowing off steam? She backpedaled a bit from her UST when she thought about hurting Walky.. but that was it no?
I’d say how she talked to Joyce about Joe here shows she’s thawing toward him a bit: https://www.dumbingofage.com/2025/comic/book-15/03-me-and-who-you-say-i-was-yesterday/because-ultimately/
Thanks, Yumi!
The way you describe the two of them, it really sounds like your takeaway from that conversation was “Dorothy thought she had every right to yell at Joe the way she did, and she still mistakenly thinks she’s better than him, what a jerk,” but that’s just not how I read the scene at all.
Which, let’s be clear: you are entitled to that read! But because I don’t share it, my estimate of how likely polyamory is to work out here is necessarily very different from yours.
That might even come about in this storyline if Amber gets arested too. He might go for supporting Dorothy, see she’s already got Joyce, and realise Amber needs his support more.
As I keep saying a poly situation does not mean Dorothy needs to date Joe.
Walky becomes The Cheese. Walky makes it so.
Very easily: it’s not sexual. Dorothy is sexually into Joyce, but not vice versa.
I don’t know if that’s true, but I’m pretty sure she doesn’t consider this to be sexual. This is her standing up for her friend, regardless of how messy that friendship may be in other ways. She’d probably do the same thing for Becky or Sarah, or at the very least, she thinks she would.
Another reminder that what Joyce considers to be perfectly normal and chaste “friendship” has been, uh, influenced by past examples/experience.
Your lips to
God’sWillis’ ears.At this point I’d settle for Joyce coming out of this as a character I can still like, and I wish that didn’t seem like increasingly too much to ask.
Joyce is absolutely sexually into Dorothy, but running to your friend in a protest isn’t a sexual act so I’m not sure by what stretch anyone could call this cheating.
Because in context, it’s romantic. It’s not sexual, but it is a romantic declaration. We’re also only a couple hours out from her suggesting “doing laundry” after deciding that was actually having sex.
Yeah, I don’t think this moment is cheating, but Joyce did affirmatively decide to do something she’s declared would be cheating with Dorothy, and that’s what I meant.
I do also think it is hecka romantic, and I kind of expect the two of them to kiss once Joyce is close enough.
Also, I’d say a romantic declaration is already pretty close to cheating, unless you follow it up with some kind of disclaimer about how you feel that way, but can’t act on it – at least without talking to your partner first.
Sure!
I’m just… forever trapped in the whirlpool of “does this strip currently actively portray an act of cheating” versus “is it inevitable that they’re definitely going to cheat”, and now also, “have they already cheated” and, of course, “does xyz situation count as cheating universally?”
And I continue to feel like maaaaaybe we are all going to be trolled by the reveal that actually Joe’s already fully accepted the idea of Dorothy as a future metamour, because if Joyce doesn’t at least think she already had permission to do more laundry with Dorothy, then her actions don’t make sense to me.
It’s a shoe waiting to drop either way, though.
(Also I continue to see multiple sides of the above questions. I’m absolutely capable of agreeing with one person that this isn’t cheating and also agreeing with another person that is IS over a certain line… ultimately I think it all depends on Joe and what he and Joyce consider cheating, and we just don’t know yet, but their last conversation on the topic COULD have confused Joyce into thinking she had permission to do more than she did… bleh. We’ll see.)
Joyce could be working on some confused combination of Joe telling her masturbation wasn’t cheating after she told him about doing laundry with Dorothy and Jennifer’s bit about “once with your best friend doesn’t count”, but if she does have some explicit permission from Joe, I think I’d be even more pissed at her – since she’s withholding that from Dorothy and trying to get Dorothy to do what she’d think was cheating (and actually would be with regard to Walky.)
If Joyce is just in love and confused and making bad decisions that makes more sense to me.
Also, when she and Dorothy came close to talking about it earlier, that would have been the perfect opportunity to say “Nah, I talked to Joe and he’s cool with it”, rather than blaming it on “surplus misdirected horny”.
Maybe. But in the version of events I was proposing, all those other factors would still be in play: Joyce still wouldn’t be thinking clearly, she’d still be in love with Dorothy and confused and making bad decisions… just while also thinking Joe had indicated he’d be okay with this.
Which leaves Walky as the only other person Joyce should be worried about hurting, but now I’m thinking about it, and… has Joyce ever had a moment about Walky like Dorothy’s moment about Joe? Has Joyce ever said, even grudgingly, that she’s sure Walky cares about Dorothy and will take good care of her? Or was this her last word on the subject?
Joyce defied her religion, her community, chased Becky down on a motorcycle, and punched out her dad.
Is this really a “you’d do it for her but not for me”?
Date her? Yeah!
She would do anything for love, but she won’t do that (date her).
I accidentally hit the “random comic” button and landed in 2015, where Amazigirl landed on Toedad’s car to rescue Becky. Becky’s response to Amazigirl’s arrival included the statement that she thought “Amazigirl” was just a nickname Joyce had for Dorothy…
Becky’s treated Dorothy as her “nemesis” for a long time, but as she cleared up recently, it’s mostly a “bit.” She does care about her as a person, and I think she of all people would support Joyrothy’s trip up the Kinsey scale. You saw her hi-fiving Joc for starting to have fem attraction, right?
Basically, Joyce was just not that into you, Becky.
I worry over this and the fact that Becky has been dealing with suicidal feelings for a bit.
Wh…at…? I definitely missed the “Becky is feeling suicidal” hints somewhere along the way and would love enlightenment if you have time.
I don’t think Becky is but had a Blue Screen Shutdown moment when she said she’d rather die than become straight.
Which made her realize she’d just drawn a line similar to her mother.
In response to the gender studies topic of sexuality potentially being a fluid thing, she balked so hard she felt like she would rather die than be anything less than 100% lesbian and then balked again at how insensitive that was to her dead mother, and ever since has been waffling back and forth between those two points.
I wouldn’t describe that as suicidal feelings though. She’s reacting to it in terms of being forced back into what her dad wanted for her – married off to some gross guy to raise a bunch of kids.
DAMN
And I stress this part
YOU WILLIS!
Wait for it.
Are you calling Willis a Willis? “You Willis, you”? Them’s fightin’ words…
The Bart The
Toxic yuri status: RAINBOW QUARTZ, but shifting towards something undetermined but potentially more problematic.
rainbow quartz is accurate since they havent cheated yet, but Are playing in the boyfriends’ faces LOL. if/when the cheating officially commences I have no idea who we’ll be at. Not extreme enough to be malachite… perhaps sugilite? sardonyx during the tower episode? hell, bluebird azurite???
Not sure if I’m seeing it right but is Joyce’s nose bleeding? Oof…
If Joyce took a nice faceful of CS she’s got snot and tears streaming down her face.
Ask me how I know…
Okay, so that *is* a fence in the background, then, I see someone climbing it. I thought it was a railing yesterday.
Anyway, nice splash panel.
Also: YEAH, AMAZI-GIRL! Drop those kicks! DFA!
So… I’m still dumbfounded…
How in any universe is Amazi-Girl still alive at this point? 🤯
Luck o’ the Irish. It’s the only possible explanation.
She’s that good. She’s been doing this successfully for awhile. She’ll be successful right up to the point she isn’t.
Like when the snipers start getting involved…
She trains to be the best there is at what she do.
And what she do ain’t pretty.
She’s just cool like that.
She’s a superhero. Fighting off a bunch of riot cop mooks isn’t exactly unknown for even the badass normal superheroes.
And the sniper hasn’t shot yet because a) This isn’t in their normal rules of engagement and he doesn’t know what to do and b) She’s moving fast close among the other cops so he doesn’t have a clear shot or c) she was smart and took out the sniper first.
oh no. oooooh no
At that moment she realized that when she was quoting from Ruth, what she was really saying was, “I love you.”
Next strip, there’s no dialogue except Dorothy saying, in the last panel, “As you wish.”
As she rolls down the hill Joyce pushed her off of.
Steve, I believe that Joyce knows what she’s saying.
When did Ruth say this? (genuinely curious)
I had assumed it was a song lyric from the playlist, but turned out to be a Bible verse. Joyce would definitely know it.
There’s a thread above with good commentary on it, but basically Ruth (not Lessick) says this to her mother-in-law Naomi, after both Ruth’s husband and Naomi’s other son die, Naomi is going to go back to her family in Israel and instructs Ruth and her other daughter-in-law (name escapes me right now) to go back to their own families likewise. Ruth refuses to be parted from Naomi and makes this vow to her, and the romanticism of it and resemblance of especially the full version to a marital vow has been noted by many readers.
Ruth 1:16-8
Yep, it’s a Bible verse. Book of Ruth, specifically. Different Ruth.
You guys are no fun. We could have convinced Tessea to look up the book of Lessick.
*laughs!*
oh gosh, she’s doin’ a Ruth, this is serious
She stole that cops femurs?
“Time to cross ‘suplex a bunch of cops’ off my bucket list!”
I like the art choice of a single panoramic panel for this strip, we can see almost the entire protest area.
What’s gayer, being gay or whatever TF these two have going on?
Dammit, Joyce!!
Jocelyn, please grab your sister and her girlfriend-adjacent companion and haul them both out over your shoulders!
So we’re going to see Joe get destroyed by the fact that the most wholesome girl he’s ever met and is wildly in love with is cheating on him the way his dad cheats on everyone. But it’s ok, because people ship her and Dorothy cheating on their boyfriends. Joyce and zdorothy getting together isn’t some big romantic story, it’s just cheating.
Speak for yourself.
i think it’s preemptive to call this “getting together”. even if they stripped and boned right there in the middle of the riot, that would still just be sleeping together. they haven’t had any sort of discussion about what their relationship is or is going to be. so far they’ve only acknowledged the deeper feelings they have for each other. that doesn’t mean that they’re dating now.
also, yeah, they’re pretty much cheating on their boyfriends at this point, and that’s not cool, but… so? sometimes people cheat on each other in real life. people are selfish and short-sighted. i’m interested in seeing what will happen, seeing them deal with the consequences of their actions, or try to avoid them. i’m interested in seeing how other characters react, if/when they find out, and in seeing if dorothy and joyce DO try to pursue some kind of romantic relationship, or if they chicken out, or something else entirely. it’s not about glorifying cheating, it’s about wanting to see what happens next.
Thanks you!
Well-said, Looney!
Admitting you have deep romantic feelings for someone other than your partner isn’t cheating, it’s being honest and communicating.
People are going to have feelings. That’s life.
Now, if they start making out in the middle of the quad, then you have a point. But saying you’re not going to leave someone you care about behind in a dangerous situation isn’t cheating.
Nor is saying “I have romantic feelings for you.”
Going further without communication with your partner is.
Always ask your S.O.’s permission before letting your best friend in the basement during a tornado. It might upset him and make him turn into an incel.
i totally agree with everything you’ve said, however joyce and dorothy DID sneak off to go do laundry with one another, which joyce had literally just determined counts as having sex by her definition, and which dorothy was totally okay with doing. they didn’t Get To do laundry, but they were definitely planning on cheating on their partners. planning to cheat and actually cheating may be two different things, and one might not be as bad as the other depending on whom you ask, but i think both still constitute a pretty big breach of trust in a relationship.
Joe told Joyce masturbation isn’t cheating.
Yeah I don’t see anything they’ve done so far as cheating. They have come up close to the line a few times, but they haven’t crossed it, and they’re also best friends. They do need to talk to their boyfriends about the feelings they are struggling with though.
If this were real life, this is the kind of relationship that would actually happen (between Joyce and Dorothy) after years of how they are now, not a few weeks.
It’s worth mentioning that Joyce already had a conversation with Joe already where she was concerned about whether “laundry” was cheating, including mentioning that she does “laundry” with Dorothy, and Joe specifically said that not only is masturbation not cheating in his eyes, but he’s happy to encourage it. While they didn’t go in detail about Dorothy’s specific amount of involvement, I think Joyce honestly has been given the impression that “laundry” with Dorothy is well within the established and discussed boundaries. The fact that they’re starting to navigate some complicated feelings around it doesn’t automatically change those boundaries, even if they very likely need to have a talk about it soon with each other and their respective partners.
Dorothy knows much more about what she’s doing here, but she’s also firmly in denial, and trying her darndest to do anything but be with Joyce. And I assume given her openness about the topic that she also figures masturbation isn’t cheating, even if she hasn’t actually discussed it with Walky on screen.
The trouble with defining cheating is that it’s very individual, down to the person and the relationship. What constitutes cheating to me or you or them could be several very different set of rules. They might be edging on breaching some trust, but that’s more a matter of everyone needing to communicate better about what they want and what they don’t, as well as sorting out who they actually want to be with at the end of the day. Having conflicting feelings isn’t a choice, they just still have to deal with the consequences of how they decide to handle them. Intending to blow off some steam together wouldn’t necessarily have been cheating for them even if they weren’t interrupted. They really need to acknowledge that both of them seem like they would like to do more, though, even if they’ve both tried not to cross that line so far.
responding to your reply, but also to others’ in general: i had forgotten that joe had talked to dorothy about masturbating, and how that’s totally ok, but i also think that it’s a bit disingenuous to refer to joyce and dorothy doing laundry together as JUST masturbation. like i said above, joyce has expanded her definition of what constitutes having sex to include what she does with dorothy, and she then sought out dorothy so they could do it again. she was trying to have sex – very, very tame sex, but sex by her own definition – with someone other than the person she was monogamously committed to. i’m pretty sure that most people would count that as trying to cheat.
you’re right that cheating can come down a lot to how individuals define it, and that we don’t know for sure if joe would define this as cheating, especially since technically nothing actually happened (yet). i’m only arguing that i think by joyce’s own definition, her actions would constitute at least an attempt to cheat on joe.
That’s a fair point, yeah. I did forget that she acknowledged out loud that she might technically have created a definition of sex that includes laundry, though she seemed like she was still debating whether or not that applied. It wasn’t intended as disingenuous so much as giving her the benefit of the doubt. Considering Joyce specifically made Dorothy leave the room and everything once she got to the good part, it’s not like Dorothy had a large or active part in the act besides initial company and basic sex ed, after all.
It’s still what I would consider to be kind of an edge case, but only because Joe already encouraged “laundry” as a good and healthy thing and Joyce might still be riding that as permission. She didn’t even consider fingering to be sex with her own boyfriend until Becky pushed her on it, after all – I think Joyce and Joe would have to talk a lot more about further boundaries and definitions before I’d ascribe Joyce solid, strong intention to cheat here, though at this point I’m also wondering if there is much of a future relationship between them either way, depending on how things shake out with Dorothy.
It’s okay for Joyce and Dorothy to cheat on Walky and Joe. Not because I ship them, but because it’s fine, actually.
I look forward to hearing the explanation.
You already did. The explanation was “because it’s fine, actually.”
Also Taffy is definitely just one of the folks who’s so sick of everyone asserting “you’re all just FINE WITH CHEATING as long as it’s sapphic I guess!!!!” that they’ve started saying “yes cheating is fine”.
If you’re trying to convince me that Taffy is team relationship-paladin, that’s going to be a hard sell.
I don’t think that’s what I said at all…
For me, there’s a very important implied “In terms of made-up stories” somewhere in any pro-infidelity comments I make. Still, I’m neutral on the subject in real life unless it affects me or someone I know. Not my place to weigh in on real people’s relationships, and all.
At the very least I do think you need to know the people involved… you know what they say about assumptions!
Makes an ass out of Umptions.
I don’t care that it’s Sapphic. I care that it’s cheating. And being done by arguably 2 of the most wholesome characters in the strip with each other. I care that they both know how badly Joe’s dad being a cheater messed him up, but don’t seem to care about how this is going to affect him, thoughthat could change. And yes, I know they haven’t technically cheated physically yet, but it’s incredibly clear where this is going. Not to mention that emotional cheating is still cheating.
wholesome? gross
The men don’t get to be happy in this comic I’m starting to realize.
won’t someone think of the men… so rarely the focus of any story
Ok: you are wrong.
You’re wrong.
I do think you’re wrong but I will tell you that even if you were right, it’d be cool & great of the comic to do that
You’re wrong.
Danny is perfectly happy currently, and so is Jacob. Even Asher and Ethan, actually, they seem fine now with no sign of things taking a turn to the worst.
And sure, a few storylines from something might happen to them or whatever, but this is a drama comic, that happens to literally every character. The women are not any particularly happier than the men. If anything, they have a higher change of being hit by drama because they are the focus of this drama comic.
Basically. The real difference isn’t who gets to be happy – which changes from story arc to story arc, but that the women are more the focus of the comic.
We’re still a long way from any ending, so there’s no guarantee any current pairings are endgame, even the ones that have been foreshadowed for a long time.
+1
Ethan’s getting laid, I don’t think I’d call him fine though lol. It’s really just Walky that’s not allowed to be happy, but that’s because his arch involves growing a spine and those characters kind of can’t do that without being treated like garbage consistently. (Or I guess someone taking pity on them and trying to care for them like an abused cat, but I’m not sure Walky’s at that level of Despairing Doormat yet.)
I’m pretty sure Danny is happy…
I think he’s going to be panicked at Joyce having come under serious threat of harm first.
Then he’s going to have questions – but bear in mind he’s already called out Dorothy on being attracted to Joyce, and he already knows abot the Laundry incident just before he and Joyce officially got together. He also knows that Joyce is not well-educated on big chunks of life.
There’s a chance that initially it’s Dorothy he’ll be mad at, because he tried to talk to her, she should know better, she could be interpreted as taking advantage of Joyce’s ignorance, etc.
This is hardly a romantic moment. Dorothy is her best friend along with Becky. She’s not going to abandon her. That’s just who Joyce is.
I could be wrong, but it really wouldn’t make sense narratively
Yeah I don’t see Joyce leaving any of her close friends behind in this.
While quoting the verse about lesbian devotion that gets quoted at lesbian weddings, though?
Has anyone whose gotten mad about things that are definitely going to happen in later strips ever been right?
My favourite was the time someone went on a huge rant about Becky judging Joyce for saying the f-word, and the very next strip was Becky telling Joyce that it was totally awesome she was saying the f-word.
The more certain and upset someone is about a future strip that’s 100% definitely incoming, the more likely they’re gonna be dead wrong about the outcome, often in a way that causes another human being to die in real life.
*tired, disgusted sigh*
I think I’m gonna have to let this marinate for a few days…
That’s totally fair.
New strip tomorrow!
Them cops sure do be gassing themselves on every side. Unless Joyce threw that one back at the cops, which would have been awesome. I get that they are fully kitted out but blocking your own sight lines at point blank is rarely a good idea, and even the fullest protective gear can leak, ask me how I know.
I’m not complaining, we already know the local cops are canon idiots.
My dad was involved in some of the Vietnam student protests and often liked to tell the story about being part of a protest that was mostly at a traffic circle neighboring the main campus of his school. When the cops showed up with pepper spray however they mostly ended up shooting their canisters over the actual protestors into the main quad, which was mostly occupied by regular students sunbathing.
If they were intending to radicalize more of the student body they certainly did a good job.
Cops are often not the smartest people.
Well yeah, they’re not people at all.
There are litterally people who’ve tried to join the police who were rejected for being too smart.
They ain’t hired for thinking. They’re hired for bruting and thugging.
“Never tear gas to windward”?
It’s also a lot of tear gas for very few protesters. Seems that, Amazi-Girl aside, they could just march in, surround them and haul them off.
‘And thus did the sniper’s bullet put an end to the Joe versus Dorothy ship debate.’
Damn, Joe’s out here too?
No, just Dorothy.
what’s the quote from? one of her Christian songs?
Old Testament, Book of Ruth. Chapter 1, verse 16.
It’s a passage that is quite often interpreted as a woman declaring her love to another woman, and is often included in sapphic wedding vows.
Huh. Ya know…
*rubs chin thoughtfully
I’m starting to suspect some possibly-homosexual behavior and feelings there, on the part of those two.
Just a suspicion, mind. No evidence yet, clearly.
So which is Harley Quinn and which is Poison Ivy?
I think making them either Harley Quinn would be unfair to the boys they’re currently dating, just by association, heh.
Well, Walky is something of a clown.
And Dotty is more the serious type dedicated to causes.
can i just say, in response to a lot of different comments i’m seeing, i’m really getting sick of people placing the burden of joe’s character development on joyce’s shoulders. joyce cheating on joe is a shitty thing to do, yes, and she’s be responsible for him getting upset, or their relationship falling apart, or whatever other bad thing may happen. but if he starts “backsliding” into old misogynistic behaviors, as people claim he will, how the hell is that joyce’s fault? why is his girlfriend responsible for him not being an asshole? he put her on a pedestal, but she didn’t ask to be put up there. i’m not saying he shouldn’t be allowed to be upset or angry or even act out in response, but i really don’t like the implications of people placing the onus of the man’s Goodness on the ability of the woman to remain perfect and pure, and i think those who are claiming this would do well to analyze why they think this is so.
Emotional Support Girlfriend
But no for real, this trend has absolutely been bothering me for a while now. It’s both unfair to Joyce and seems to have very little faith in Joe? The logic seems to be, “if being a good boyfriend doesn’t earn him a specific girl, why should he bother?” and I don’t think most of the folks expressing this opinion would agree with that logic in any other context.
Or it’s simply looking at his literal cheating based trauma and going “yeah this will probably cause that to flare up hard” and what was his response to that trauma? Shutting himself off from emotional connection entirely
There is a difference between “this character will be hurt and might lash out/regress a little if their girlfriend hurts them” and “this character’s ability to be redeemed is totally dependent on if they’re being compensated for that redemption via a girlfriend who never hurts them” and WAY too many people have been viewing Joe and Joyce’s relationship through the latter lens
Or its related to his literal first girlfriend in literally no one knows how long literally cheating on him the one fucking thing he’s feared his whole fucking life *he* would do.
I dont care of joyce and dorothy want to fuck but joyce should have the decency to dump him first so he isn’t punched in the face with every single deep engrained fear he grew up with
you don’t have to like Dorothy/Joyce, or be into whatever relationship drama has been building up the last few arcs, or even act like seeing a character or ship you like come crashing down doesn’t make you upset, but like. Joe isn’t a real person. whats happening now in the story is going to have narrative consequences, not real life ones. any exploration of Joe’s feelings on his relationship with Joyce ending the way is did or divorce related trauma is going to be for story purposes, and i don’t think it’s unreasonable that a character (especially a character in a semi-dramatic series like this) can do bad things and go through bad things happening to them.
what i do find unreasonable is when that frustration towards a character’s actions leads to unchecked biases bleeding onto negative associations with what that character represents as a whole. there’s been a lot of unchecked sexism and biphobia when talking about the possibility of Joyce cheating on Joe, and that’s sucks a lot, especially when that kind of behavior has been called out and rejected by the text itself.
like i said earlier, if you’re upset that a character you care about is going to be hurt, that’s fine, YMMV, but other people having different reactions to conversations around what is essentially a hypothetical story beat at this current time doesn’t mean that they’re like. wrong for having an opinion different than yours
also just letting you know beforehand that i probably won’t reply to you again, even if you write a follow up message. you’re an internet stranger, i’m an internet stranger, and at the end of the day this is the comments section of a webcomic. it’s fine.
Well, thank you for responding so thoroughly that there’s no need for me to.
@Jay: for real, consider taking a break? It’s okay to take a break if you aren’t enjoying the comic, it can be a lot easier to read through something like this if it’s all at once rather than slowly over days.
Yeah if Joe can only start respecting women because he’s being rewarded with a relationship then it wouldn’t really indicate much growth on his part. He should want to grow from these behaviors because he wants to be a better person and because he sees they are wrong, which we have seen Joe indicate. Joyce can certainly help inspire him to wanna grow as well but that doesn’t mean they have to be together forever and it doesn’t mean if he decides “fuck it then, I’m gonna go back to rating women on scales of 1 to 10” that Joyce is now the one bearing the burden of whatever he does from that point on.
But it makes perfect sense given his current connectipn with cheating
He can certainly be upset and feel hurt to be cheated on, I completely agree with that, but he’s still an adult who is responsible for his own actions. I don’t think anyone gets carte blanche to hurt others or lash out because of their trauma. Trauma can make you understand why they did it, and someone can certainly bounce back from it and get the help they need, but in the end I wouldn’t say that because his dad cheated on his mom, and then his girlfriend cheated on him, that he can now say “fuck it women are just there to fuck and have no emotional connections with” or… whatever a crashing out Joe would say.
Because I’m sure the first woman he opened himself up to literally confirming every single fear he ever grew up with will mean he’ll keep a level head and be thinking perfectly clearly.
See, I feel like we’re having two completely different conversations here. Have a great rest of your night, also good avatar Ava’s demon is a lovely comic.
I dont see it personally but fair, have a wonderful night.
Also thank you, tbh i havent read it in years but I never got around to changing the pfp. It’s fan art but i lost the original artists links
That’ll be a Sabtastic piece. Good choice, she’s hilarious.
my army of danny icon-havers who agree with me grows.
Pff
You’re right cheating is just a silly little thing with no harm 🩵
There’s a MILE of space between “It’s not Joyce’s job to keep Joe from being a misogynist by staying with him and never hurting him” and “Cheating doesn’t hurt anyone.”
If your response to being hurt is to become the worst version of yourself and punish people around you ~you’re the asshole~ in that story.
Jay. Looney did not say cheating is okay or that it wouldn’t make sense for Joe to feel hurt. Looneybasically said that Joyce is not *accountable* for how Joe acts on that (valid and understandable) pain.
If you think Joyce is at fault for however he acts on his feelings, where do you draw the line? Is it Joyce’s fault if he physically assaults her about it? Is it Joyce’s fault if Joe assaults someone else about it? Is it Joyce’s fault if Joe doxxes her online for some creeps to do revenge for him? How about if he becomes violent towards queer people in general?
That’s all from me today
So should we be worried that the school is going to try to expel them?
I feel like I should be but I don’t see anyone talking about them getting kicked out.
For what, joining a legal protest that’s getting broken up in a routine manner? Next you’ll say they should be expelled for eating food out of the on-campus vending machines.
schools have expelled students for protesting before. it’s not unheard of. barnard college/columbia university expelled a student this past march for being involved in the hind’s hall occupation the previous spring.
Schools have revoked already issued degrees for protesting.
That’s the dumbest shit ever. Like fuck you, school, I have the papers right here.
Which is fine until you apply for a job and HR checks your information.
I would simply murder HR.
That’s a solution I had not considered.
Who will be first with a “Let Taffy Kill” grav?
“I think you’ll find the claim on my resume was that was issued the degree, something the university has committed libel by contradicting.”
Past a certain varying amount of listed experience on the resume, the college credentials are rarely checked by HR. (I used to be part of that process.)
Not in any real sense, I don’t think? It’s a college web comic, so the main character getting expelled would be a pretty big change to the universe.
True, but school officials trying to expel them would still cause all kinds of problems.
Sure! Sorry, I may have misunderstood your question.
Some colleges and universities expelled students for protesting against genocide last year, so it is a possibility.
Yeah, if this is supposed to mirror current world events, then the administration should at least try to do something to them. They might walk it back if they do or lose a legal challenge, but this feels like something that’s going to end with parents showing up and public scrutiny.
No because they’re both protagonists in this comic about college so they’re not leaving the college
Not really likely; if they do, the comic is over.
I just want Jocelyn to get out. Maybe drag Joyce out. Jail will be far more dangerous for her, and she can help Joyce/Dorothy from the outside if they end up there.
We believe you, alt text. We believe you.
I usually read DoA on my PC. How do you read alt text on a phone screen?
It might depend on the browser but tapping and holding the image sometimes shows the alt text. Tapping just below the comic (but not on any of the buttons) also works.
If you just hold your finger on it tje image until the menu pops up it should be at the top of it
On Samsung, I just tap the empty space beneath the comic and it comes up.
This frame is amazing. I opened it on my phone and was brought up short and said “Wow.” Then opened it on my big graphic screen for study.
And I have no idea what’s going to happen next.
I dont think I’ve ever wanted a plot line to end faster…
joe to dorothy: “holy shit, she walked through tear gas for you? you can fuckin have her, I can’t compete with that.”
Aww, they’re such good friends
ooooo
God dammit willis you made me crack i need to see tmr panels
SEEING TOMORROWS PAGE DID NOT HELP
As I keep saying, that’s why Willis needs to have a $10 2-day ahead Patreon tier.
And if that’s not enough, a $20 3-day ahead one, etc.
He’s leaving money on the table here.
I know, right?
How much for “give me the buffer, ALL THE BUFFER, I NEED IT”?
Willis out here sitting on a Year+ buffer AND NOT SHARING IT!
If I remember my ancient Indian stories properly, more money than there is in the universe.
Took me a while, too. Looking for Amazi-girl.
For those still looking, she’s right under the “I” in Joyce’s second word balloon.
Joe’s probably going to hook up with Rachel at some point during the fallout of all this, isn’t he.
I think Willis had a sort of rule to not redo relationships from the Walkyverse on doa.
Plus, that’d just be proving her right.
A sort of rule, but not an absolute one (see Sal & Danny). Especially for short term hookups, I expect (either short in the Walkyverse or here).
And of course, Rachel’s not interested.
Rachel is really, really not interested.
I mean, she’s kind of obsessed with him though.
If you call hating someone being obsessed.
There IS a line there that starts to blurry the more you approach it
God damn it, Joyce, now Amazi-Girl assaulted an officer for nothing!
Assaulting an officer is its own reward.
In some places it comes with free drinks for a week or so (usually not from the bar itself, just from what you need to keep as an incredibly small number of people who know you did it). More depending on what the officer was doing and how badly they were injured when assaulted.
Poor Joe. Back to thinking he’s filth and unworthy of anything beyond empty hook ups. Walky is going to freewheel in a dozen directions. Three girlfriends in a matter of months, one of them twice over. We’re all here for the drama, but geez this feels like a hit to the stomach seeing it coming.
Thank you for putting to words my thoughts in a much better way than I can lol
Sounds like a good reason not to base your self worth on romantic relationships
This.
True, but hard to do as a teenager in our world.
It goes beyond that.
Joe’s personality from before was the result of his father’s actions and behaviour. But with Joyce he started opening up and changing, finding a new meaning of life and new purpose.
But this? Joe saw her as this moral light in a sense but if he gets cheated on by someone he saw as moral and pure? If even someone like that can act like his father?
What then?
Then he has to come to terms with the fact that Joyce is human and find a way to have morals without her playing guardian angel. I think he’ll manage and it’ll be good for him.
Most likely, it will still be painful
Yeah, absoLUTEly it’ll be painful, but he’ll make it through and I don’t think it’ll wreck his progress as a human being the way some people seem to think.
This just paves the way for Walky/Joe.
The true endgame.
……holy….
they are just out-gaying it in every strip
JOYCE IS THAT FUCKING RUTH 1:16 THE GAYEST BIBLE VERSE
THAT IS USED AT LESBIAN WEDDINGS JOYCE
JOYCE DO YOU KNOW
Of course she knows she’s studied the bible extensively
Maybe. At least originally she hadn’t studied lesbian weddings extensively though. And her Sunday school upbringing would have emphasized non-lesbian readings of the verse.
When she decided to become a lesbian love sleuth, she first studied
the bladetheir weddings.My headcanon has her enthusiastically researching everything she possibly can about lesbian weddings ever since this moment.
That makes a lot of sense.
so…. where do we think Joyce’s dad is? inside the fence, or out?
Probably La Porte.
Ahhhh?!?!? AHHHH!!!!!
fwiw: I don’t give a damn if it’s cheating/if it becomes cheating, because these are not real people and no one in real life who actually exists is being hurt. This is a great story beat and a great panel.
I’m looking forward to the fallout no matter which way the Jenga tower falls. I hope they make out sloppy style and get caught on camera. I hope Mary’s head implodes (also on camera). I hope Joe sees it and goes, tearfully, full of pride, “That’s my girl!” I hope Walky has to learn to care about sociopolitical issues. I hope the snipers fall off the roof and get kicked in the face by Amazi-girl. I hope the girls here all go to jail and get bailed out by Dotty’s parents and Joyce and Jocelyne collectively tell their parents to fuck off while Joyce and Dorothy make out. I hope somebody finally sues the school.
I hear the wails of agony and it is music to my ears. I am invincible. Keep going, Willis. Don’t know where you’re taking us but I’m comfortable in this hand basket.
btw if you are a real person who has trauma over being cheated on, and are projecting that onto the fictional scenario here: I’m sorry that happened to you and that you got hurt. I’m not responsible for your healing though. You can most effectively lash out and dunk on me by making a donation to Doctors Without Borders: https://give.doctorswithoutborders.org/
*not having looked at patreon yet* So, tomorrow’s comic is going to be back to Jennifer and Alice, right?
Funny this should post so close to the Superman release.
My father had told me the importance of standing up for people that are not like me. And my upbringing in a small coal mining town unfortunately removed fear. From experience I can say that in my college days I tasted tear gas, and as an adult I tasted military grade mace. Neither would I recommend, and neither do I regret.
My father is no longer with us, and as he watched his union that he represented on a state level and his country fall apart around him. And a week before he died he told me how important moments like these are. And from my standpoint, it doesn’t matter what brings you there. Everyone has their own reasons. The important part is that you were there.
Sorry this is the last of the web comics I check daily, and this strip made me feel a type of way to finally comment and stop lurking.
Willis, this is good! I had to go to my desktop, pull an image copy of the strip, and magnify it. Just to look at everything.
What is it with queer girls and suicide pacts DoA…
It is extremely hot.
There should be a poll as to which character is going to get shot by the snipers.
Is there an exit for Amazi-Girl? I hope she’s smart enough to know she can’t punch out scores of cops. Time to vanish behind the clouds of teargas.
*punches a cop*. Yes yes, that’s very sweet, I now *smacks a cop with his own truncheon* pronounce you wife and wife, congratulations, now *spin kicks a cop in the ear* smash a ceramic teacup under your foot and GET THE FUCK OUT OF HERE PLEASE *vaults on another cop’s shoulders and over the fence*
Of everyone here, she’s the most capable of getting over that fence without trouble.
She’s also not likely to do it if she knows Joyce and Dorothy are still in danger. And seriously beating up cops puts her at far more legal risk than anyone else here if they do finally drag her down by weight of numbers.
I know doomed Yuri when I see it
Am I the only person who thinks this won’t lead to cheating at this point?
joyce already cheated in her own mind, that will eventually catch up to her as soon as the dire situation ends probably.
Ironically, the cheating technically already happened. We’re just waiting for the moment where everyone catches up.
When?
What are you thinking of as cheating?
Dorothy teaching her how to masturbate. Joyce probably has complicated feelings about that incident now that she’s realized she technically had sex with dorothy.
To be clear I’m not saying *I* think that I’m just saying, due to a technicality, Joyce probably does.
Neither of them were in relationships when that happened.
Oh right jesus I forgot Joyce and Joe have only been handsy and making out for less than a week. Compressed time is a bongo.
That was before she got together with Joe. Joyce already told Joe about it and said it wasn’t cheating because it was before they were dating.
Now, her attempt to go do laundry with Dorothy again would have been cheating, but they were foiled by the room being full and then by the text from Hank about Jocelyne at the protest that led them here.
Yeah, I’m with Jeff. I haven’t seen any cheating.
A thought for those worried about the impact this may or may not have on Joe:
Do you think Joe’s desire to change himself is externally or internally motivated? Did he want to impress and improve his chances with Joyce? Or did he genuinely want to change himself with no expectation or hope of reward?
I would completely understand Joe backsliding a step or two as a reaction to what seems to be coming. People are not perfect, and initial pain can cause lots of unfortunate reactions – so I won’t begrudge Joe an initial lashing out in some way. But IF Joyrothy happens, it will be fascinating to see if Rachel is right about people. Is his newly found moral compass internally driven, regardless of whatever situation he is in? Or is it actually just following that which he desires?
I think Joe was using Joyce as a morality stone. He was trying to improve himself for her but also because he hates himself.
I got the impression Joyce inspired him to change, and that inspiration will outlast their romance. But yes, the hike might be a bit rocky in places.
A little of both.
I suspect he’ll backslide a bit in response at least for awhile, but probably not to as bad as he was before. He’ll also be righteously pissed at both Joyce and Dorothy – maybe especially Dorothy who’s long looked down on him.
He’ll get through it, but it’s not going to be simple and easy.
It Would be pretty funny if he developed this smug superior smirk around Dotty to mess with her. Just ribbing her about who is the perv now.
It’d be really cool for Rachel to get mean with Joe when he’s crying over it only for her to be the one he tells about his feeling on infidelity, perhaps even some bonding
Oooo that is a very good mental image. I still don’t want Joe hurt but dang! That would be really good.
tbh I’m just glad about this because I think Joyce being around reduces Dorothys chances of going down self-destruction style.
tbh i’m mainly team polycule atm because i think Dorothy needs Joyce but Joyce also needs someone to keep her in check which isn’t something Dorothy can do alone anymore. Joyce tends to run herself into dangerous situations for literally no reason and Dorothy is so checked out that she doesn’t care anymore. Joe rounds the little party out perfectly giving Joyce support and a semi-effective wingman. Walky gets to stay because he’s funny, like a joke party member.
I’m only OK with this because Joe showed no animosity towards Dorothy about her feelings for Joyce. If he was upset by this in anyway, I would say something, but it seems like he at least isn’t jealous or angry in any way, which is big of him considering Dorothy has been very unintentionally sneaky about all this. So yeah, team polycule all the way. As long as Walky is OK with it too.
Y’all. I meant the cops. The cops right this literal second. In this actual moment.
Joyce is the most ride of die character in DoA. She doesn’t have to go out and prove it to us again every day. But she does.
Ruth? Nice.
To the folks who are upset this queer romance is happening on a backdrop of protests against genocide:
So what movies do you like, and how many of them involve a man and a woman falling in love or renewing their love while horrific things happen all around them
Looking at Die Hard, Gone with the Wind, Titanic.. eh you get it
~absolutely this~
Is this the moment of honesty between these two? No more deflecting, by claiming trauma, or misplaced horniness? Will they admit that what they feel, is more than platonic?
Hm. Well there’s sort of a difference between depicting romances of people involved in said horrific things happening around them (probably true for all of your examples? I’m not too familiar with Gone with the Wind. From what I do know, weird example to be honest) and a romance that puts the actual tragedy at the periphery – this isn’t about a genocide. It’s literally a backdrop as opposed to the setting (which is the protest). For Dorothy & Joyce’s relationship, the cause doesn’t matter (& hey, maybe it will in the future! I doubt it though). It’s also a current issue (at least stands in for one) as in people are dying right now, and I certainly understand why that would feel tasteless. It’s my least favorite part of the storyline as well. & I do get where Willis is coming from, I can follow the reasoning, I just don’t like it.
Oh this was supposed to be a reply to Wilde. Well it’s two comments up you’ll find it
Gone with the Wind takes place on a plantation in the South, pre and then during and then post civil war, so no, not a weird example.
I mean, a bit of a weird choice because fuck the slave owning Confederate bastards it’s about.
Not to mention how goddamn boring that movie is, on top of it all. Nobody ever quotes a single line other than “Frankly, you Confederate fuck, I don’t give a horse’s left but”, because there’s not a single other decent line in the damn thing.
The scene in Atlanta (IIRC) of the heroine moving through a street filled with Confederate wounded stays in my mind.
I’m damn glad that General Hood lost that battle and Atlanta fell, but wounded men are wounded men. By 1864 a lot of them were draftees with no choice but to charge at the order of a half-mad amputee.
Okay, sure, but it was just an example of famous romances with backdrops of tragedies etc. I think “slavery” counts as a tragic backdrop.
Oh, even better, the wording was “while HORRIFIC things happen around them”. If you don’t think Gone with the Wind fits that criteria, well…
But the backdrop is “slavery” for a group of white people in the South. Granted, it’s set during/after losing a war, which I guess you would count as a good example again, but still.
I think I rankled against it as an example because aside from ot being straight up racist, it centers white people and treats the black characters it does have extremely bad by being stereotypes. In such it IS a movie romance I would have my issues with, though not the exact same as I do here.
Okay, so it’s not a movie you, personally, love, but you’re not the only person in the world…? It’s still a broadly beloved romance with a truly horrific setting.
I think you thought I was making an argument I definitely wasn’t making? That I was arguing that Gone with the Wind is an unproblematic romance because at least the Civil War is being lost?
Maybe I got lost in the semantics of the thing, but I was just arguing that slavery is at least as horrific a backdrop for a romance as the sinking of a ship that killed a lot of people (Titanic).
The original argument wasn’t mine, so I can’t speak for OP, but if I had put that list of movies together, I wouldn’t expect everyone to love every one of the movies on the list — my point wouldn’t have been that they’re all unproblematic, or even that any of them are, so much as that this sort of thing is fairly common. We as a species seem to have a thing for stories about love blooming on battlefields, both metaphorical and literal.
It sort of matters to the argument I was making, i.e. that what me (& other people I’ve seen) don’t like about the storyline /isn’t/ that it’s merely a romance with an eventful backdrop, and that that is misrepresenting the argument (Wilde seemed to be at least referencing an earlier comment! Maybe I was wrong on that though) – there’s details that matter & bother me in those specific cases, not generally.
The way you’re laying it out, it makes sense as a good example. In the frame of my comment & what I was thinking about, I didn’t think it was. I guess I shouldn’t have mentioned it without elaborating though since it clearly distracted from what I was trying to say.
I think we did talk past each other on Gone with the Wind, but I don’t care to get into it in yesterday’s comments. It’s possible I’m just being particular anyways.
Yeah, we totally got into an argument on something very technical based on a misunderstanding, and that’s at least as much on me! My powerful impulse to attempt to clear up a misunderstanding of someone else’s argument sometimes gets me in trouble like that fff. Have a good one
Extra bonus silliness: I don’t even think folks are wrong to be bothered by this backdrop! I’ve been saying for weeks that I thought this was a mistake, because the optics are awful. If the comic wasn’t going to meaningfully address Gaza, I’ve repeatedly said there should have been a lot more legwork done to clarify that this was intended to just be a generic protest, ideally not over genocide?
I do get where you’re coming from. The way I see it, though, this isn’t a piece of media that takes place in Bulmeria, this is about characters in the States who are living their lives while knowing genocide in Bulmeria is happening. IRL people here walk past chants of “stop killing children” into a store to decide between a Cabernet or a Merlot. They complain about tariffs affecting their access to a $450 game system after donating $20 to a Palestine mutual aid group. So to me at least, this is accurate to our own surreality; American kids obsessing about their small personal dramas while the world’s on fire around them.
Also I’ve never understood why it’s called tasteless to show current issues or fictionalized versions of current issues in media. It’s weird to pick up books written during or after peak COVID with not even a nod towards masks, vaccines, etc. I get why an artist or writer would choose to opt out if it was too grim for them to tackle, I just don’t think it’s tasteless to try to acknowledge reality, even if you fumble a bit.
Nobody wants Frodo to spend 3 pages lecturing Samwise about COVID-19 safety precautions.
Try Scalzi’s “Kaiju Preservation Society” – the author had a serious* novel 3/4 written in 2020, then caught Covid, junked the novel, recovered, and wrote KPS when his brain woke back up, filling the work with Covid references and humor – and without specifying the gender of the main character, by the way.
*serious for Scalzi.
Yay Scalzi!
People pulling on COVID for their writing, either referencing ot directly or obliquely are, since it was/is a worldwide event, pulling on their own experiences. I don’t think it’s comparable. I also don’t think a writer should never do it, I just don’t like it here!
Life goes on, even while terrible things are happening. People still fall in love, and go to work, and have birthday parties, etc. The world doesn’t stop, even for the most horrible things.
The most pearl-clutching complaints I personally saw were about fanfiction coming out of the Covid lockdown in the US.
Like. Come on folks. That was a global event. Even teenagers writing for fandoms you think are cringe have a right to make lemonade out of tragedies they personally experienced……..
Thank you blowjob cat me and my friend were talking abt this and…yeah exactly.
I mean IMO I wanted to wait until this arc was finished until I said anything, but tbh yeah, my hot take is that even though this arc has SO many things that I’m genuinely very happy about (More development for Rachel, Bisexual Drama, the official death of President Dorothy™) the “Bulmeria” elements is also my least favorite part of this story so far.
It’s not even the fact that this is a major moment for Joyce and Dorothy as a romantic couple (fair, fine, ties in with both the politics of this comic and the relationship writing that’s been happening the last few arcs) as much as it is that having the backdrop be specifically a protest about US intervention in the Middle East just bums me out more than anything, when all the major plotlines being set up for the fallout of this protest all center around how it will affect a group of characters [Joyce, Dorothy, Jocelyne, Amazi-girl, Carla] that all make up of white women.
And just to clarify, unless Asma in future chapters gets to be a character who gets to do something other than be a snarky straight man to the main cast, I really don’t count the two strips we had with her as proper set up for a future Asma character arc. Anything about Asma maybe getting to call anyone on our main cast out for having the privilege to not have to care as much about what’s going on in “Bulmeria” is conjecture about her status as a Muslim women more than anything about HER as a character.
I know there’s limitations on what this particular dramedy webcomic set in Indiana, USA can say or do about a story like this without making some incredibly radical changes, but I feel like as someone who comes from North African diaspora I can say that it just. sucks more than anything to see what is probably the closest thing to a story arc about Arab and Muslim people that has existed in the 15 years DOA has been a comic and see nothing come out from that (so far) that gives me the confidence this comic wants to do more with that.
Much more eloquently said than I would’ve!
I was sort of hedging to just wait it out until the end of the arc too, and if anything substantially changes I’ll be sure to reappraise it as a whole, but I think it’s fine to air misgivings about serial media while it’s still happening, too. Part of the whole bit!
Personally, I’m also thinking about one of the only other Muslim women we’ve HAD a bit more screentime with, which is Raidah. Of course she’s been cast as an antagonist, but I don’t know. I would just love to see anything from her from that wasn’t high school mean girl, and would think this could be a good opportunity. She’s the one who sent Dorothy spiraling about her politics in the first place by mentioning that presidents commit war crimes (which is, now that I think about it, a similar issue as you talk about here with Asma).
Thank you! I saw the comment you left on my last comment a few days ago and it was really nice seeing someone else who really got what I was trying to say.
I’ve really clung on to Raidah as a character because out of the three (maybe four?) named Arab and Muslim characters in this comic, she’s the only one who can make that jump into a fully fledged player character.
Like, there’s always little things that really suggest some unexplored depth. Her ex-friendship with Sarah being real, her feelings on getting ① cheated on and dumped, political and social frustrations over being a muslim girl in an overwhelmingly Christian state. Hell, the similarities btw ② Dana and Jennifer alone could be the thing that pushed Raidah to realize that maybe she was wrong, and the lingering fallout of that realization would absolutely make for insane character development.
I think it’s fine if Raidah stays an antagonistic figure, because in a lot of ways it’s really interesting how she’s emblematic of how a lot of the main cast’s more caustic personalities would look like from the outside in, but it would be cool if she got to have like a Rachel-esq arc where we really get to understand why she’s the way she is, if only so we could stop having everyone in the comments keep acting like she’s just there to be an up-her-ass ③ gag figure with 0 interiority.
① The smallest of side notes, it’s kinda funny how worked up everyone is about Joyce cheating on Joe right now as if she hasn’t homewrecked before. It’s great I really do love this comic.
② I do think the introduction of Alice as a positive figure in Jennifer’s life does mean that she’ll have to reconsider what her friendship with Raidah + co looks like, and i’m really truly hoping that it isn’t as simple as “I can ditch these inferior terrible friends now that I remember what real friendships is like”.
③ Thats Carl’s job. Fuck im’
I would love to see more Raidah.
I keep saying, I think we need to check in on Dana, because 99% of the Sarah-Raidah beef so far does seem like “they could both be right”. The 1% has been Raidah’s treatment of Jennifer, which I think isn’t about Sarah as much as it is about destroying Joyce for the Jacob Incident… which, you know, is sympathetic, IMHO.
As fun as I personally think it would be if Dana somehow came back for one arc, I don’t even think we need her to come back to create a story that advances, if not just straight up resolves, the Raidah/Sarah beef once and for all.
Because while the way Raidah treated Sarah at the start of the comic was genuinely heinous, IMO Sarah being a caustic misanthrope with nebulous people skills probably meant that at least some of the breakdown in communication, at least before the comic started, could have been resolved in a healthier way.
And it’s fine if Raidah and Sarah never become friends again, that ship has sailed, but it would be nice to revisit and recontextualize their relationship sooner rather than later. (Also it could relieve some of the more poorly aged “Reefer Madness”-esq energy of that flashback, but I digress)
Also when my partner read DOA for the first time last year, zie suggested that Jennifer continues to hang around Raidah because subconsciously she finds a lot of comfort being around a woman who is just very mean to her and ever since then I’ve been going insane over all the story dynamics that could happen between these two characters alone. I love them so much they really understand my special interest webcomic in a way that nobody else does.
Can noone listen to the instructions to please stop putting yourself in danger?! Like good motives but stop it, even the people incharge of the protest are saying to disperse
Teenagers and instructions? Especially instructions meant for their personal safety?
You have a point there
First word of the comic’s title.
Fair enough
(taps the name of the comic*
jesus holy christ they’re straight up in LOVE
you cannot use that ruth quote and expect anything other of me than shipping so intense it blocks the suez canal
Willis’s promise that DoA would be even gayer in 2025 continues to be kept.
Delicious. Finally some good fucking acting with integrity, no regrets.
I think there will be plenty of regrets.
Can’t have any regrets if you’re dead
Speaking as a lifelong atheist/agnostic — damn, sometimes a Bible quote has lasted for a reason.
yeah
As an ex-methodist, the Bible has just so many wonderful and powerful verses that can be incredibly powerful and helpful on poetic and philosophical levels that it is a text I don’t think I’ll ever truly dismiss. I don’t believe it’s the written word of God anymore (if I ever really did) but that doesn’t mean it isn’t still a powerful piece of writing.
oh my god
Well I hope the two of you’s sacrificial lamb cosplay works out
I think I can see the spot I was sitting in for the eclipse.
omg, this is really a wedding!!!