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AAAYOOOOOOOYOOOOOOOOOOOYOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
“be gay, do crimes”, ammi right? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Sickos, Chaos Faction, Trash Goblins Who Crave Mess,
our time has come!!! WE RIIIIIIIIIIIISE!!!!!
*plays “Apocalypshit” by Molotov on hacked muzak*
WOOOOOOOOOO!!!! This is such a cute kiss and I get to change my avi!
It is INCREDIBLY romantic. Hats off. Fucking beautiful, I’m in awe
Cover of romance novel:
“Incredibly romantic!”
*Looks inside*
Infidelity.
I see you’re familiar with the romance genre!
And it’s just as divisive in the romance community as it is here.
Sometimes, you gotta do crimes to be gay.
omg Nymph that icon
Also seriously, beautiful art, Willis.
No but seriously Willis. Insanely great art!
Second that Damn you are amazing
didn’t even hesitate. Good stuff lol
THAT’ SUCH A GOOD PFP!!! Relationship sickos win!!!!
Honestly though this comic specifically means so much to me. I have to believe this is possible for me, this level of love. I have to.
The kind where you and someone else both cheat on your respective partners? That’s not love.
If they were polyamorous and their boyfriends knew about it, different story, but as it is currently, just disappointing
Infatuation. Lust. I’ll buy those, but I also have a problem with ”this level of love” in this context. Sigh…
I’d often agree, but I’m not sure about either of those existing relationships. Dorothy and Walky doesn’t seem like much more than an FWB situation, and perhaps the point of this is that both Joyce and Joe have been lying to themselves (Joe about being a better person than he has been). Though I sincerely hope Rachel isn’t right about that.
Or maybe this is just Garbage Strip, and you can be garbage here.
So let’s just totally ignore the fact the Joe has been there was Joyce via text for months before they were even dating. Joe was there for Joyce throughout all her family drama and her questioning her religious upbringing/being an atheist. Plus he stood by and supported her when she got her diagnosis for autism. But all that means nothing right and Joe has done nothing for Joyce this whole journey huh?
There’s like 10 others characters that were there for Joyce.
So they all get to take a deli number ..and withdraw their earned sexual interest from the Joyce Bank. In order.
/S
Joe will have to get behind Sarah. And Sal. And Dina.
Becky will take it harder than joe
“Joe will have to get behind Sarah. And Sal. And Dina.
Becky will take it harder than joe”
Phrasing! Uh, are we not doing “phrasing” any more?
I was gonna be so very disappoint if no one made that gravatar!
The fact that THIS comment is under moderation is honestly hilarious to me. Me literally just being excited and enjoying the comic was so offensive people reported it enough times to trigger automod lmao.
Some of you need to breathe, chill out, get a nice cool drink and learn to let other people enjoy things.
OH, that’s why the comments number looked it had cap.
Dorothy WOULD be a person who was able to combine “be gay do crimes” into a single efficient activity.
Imagine the time you could save!
Also, I love how the pink tear gas creates sapphic shoujo bubbles.
AHHAHAHAHAAAAAAAAAAA
no that’s FUCKED XD
Do you think she planned that part too?
Man, she’s GOOD. Perhaps she should be president.
I JUST REALIZED THAT WAS THE TEAR GAS AND NOT JUST SAPPHIC SHOUJO BUBBLES OH NO
This isn’t Japan! The pink isn’t from cherry blossom petals all over the place! Cover your mouths!
…
I mean, breathing each other’s air is a very short-term solution, BUT I’LL TAKE IT!
They look almost like sakura petals wafting in the wind.
That was my thought, lol
the chemical weapons are blooming early this year…
You could even say it’s a chemical ro
A chemical rom–
[gets shot]
this post was already good but booster pfp takes it all the way up to 11/10
@Dante
Your comment here is so perfect. The Booster avatar. The pun. The inclusion of the sniper. It’s just **chef kiss**
*looks at poll in sidebar* 43% would say it’s a BAD romance. 57% are just going GAGA for it.
Knowing Willis, absolutely 100% intentional.
The gas is tear grey in real life, but he made it pink to be more romantic.
And it makes us cry and cry out!
To better evoke the pink plum tree blossom petals falling around as the sapphicism doth increase.
in panel 2, to the left of joyce and dorothy, they also look like cherry blossoms blooming from the barren winter tree. its sending me insane let me tell you
I would say “oh, thank heavens I’m not the only one who saw the sakura,” but This Crowd so kinda inevitable actually.
Oh, the cherry blossoms…
“Optimize Your Gay with this One Weird Trick! The Carceral State hates it!”
Looking forward to her color-coded, multi-dimensional, fully-cited presentation about it.
new avi time
hey willis could you do me a favor and just lower the frame a little bit on panel 2. yeah not for any particular reason
Take it as is, It’s fine. Do eeet.
it’s for science, Willis
New avatar!
I will ride you always comrades!
“Ride you” or “ride with you”? Slight difference there.
I don’t care whichever is faster
Yeahhh that ain’t clarifying things.
Yes! We did it!
We eat well tonight, Team Sickos. We eat well.
fuck yeah, 420+ comments already
I got a whole pot brownie, and dammit I’m CELEBRATIN’ :9
666+ COMMENTS!!!!
CHAOZ GOBLINS! IT’S SHOWTIME!!!!!
*plays “BeetleJuice Cartoon OP” on hacked mzuak*
1000+ comments!!! And if JUST KEEPS RISING 🤯
*plays Dragon Ball Z battle music on hacked muzak while I crash*
did… did you count them? please tell me there is an auto count i’m just missing
found it
Discussion (1,046) ¬
I mean, I hope this isn’t how this goes – but this has the chance to break up at least 3 relationships (in no particular order)
Joyce cheating is gonna break Joe’s heart, and he may retreat fully into his old playboy protective shell.
Walky… is gonna be upset, throw a shitload of shade, and possibly wind back up with Amber (If she manages to dodge the swat teams)
Becky’s gonna be fucking CRUSHED – because it’s one thing to have an unrequited crush on your straight best friend, but it’s gonna kill her all over again to find out Joyce likes girls, just not her. Depending on how hard she fixates on THAT, Dina may walk away, because of the obvious hangup on Joyce
OVER 2000+ COMMENTS!!!!
IT’S FINALLY FUCKING HAPPENED!!!!!
I’m so happy….
*plays Super Saiyan God Theme on hacked muzak*
🤯
🧨🥲
Oh, this is gonna be legendary
FUCK YEAH!!!!! I got popcorn and hotdogs and beer, this gonna get EPIC >:D
*plays “JoJo Pillar Men Awaken EPIC REMIX” on hacked muzak*
I mean I’m just waiting for the “they haven’t actually been cheating so far!” ones to come up with a new one.
It’s true!
They’re, what, couple blocks away from the dorm? That’s not so far to go for cheating.
Since when is kissing someone else not cheating?
They’re making a pun joke around the “so far” by saying the cheating is in fact so near
Cheating depends on the rules.
But yeah, it’s Joyce, She’d absolutely categorize kissing as cheating even if Joe didn’t.
Old Joe would just go “You can kiss all the girls you want, that’s hot”
Current Joe is gonna be hurt.
yes it’s only near-ly cheating lol
Panel 4, they both clearly realize what they just did. We all see it, don’t worry.
As they kiss, they become one with the tear gas.
Everyone in sight is crying tears of joy. Well, tears, anyway.
i do gotta commend them for fully committing to the bit
And then they kiss again. So they realize what they are doing but they decide screw and keep going anyway.
I would say if anything this makes what they are doing even worse. This wasn’t just a momentary lapse of judgement, but they actually considered their actions, considered the people they are going to hurt, and decided to do it anyway. This is selfish behavior.
God forbid women behave suboptimally
Women must minmax their morality clearly. You need to constantly be performing moral actions or you get thrown into a meat grinder. If your total moral rank dips into an A- you are an irredeemable piece of shit. Not only must you donate every cent to charity but you should perform good deeds 24/7 mow every lawn and save every cat in a tree help every grandma cross the street. And when you aren’t performing good deeds you need to make as much money as possible so you can donate EVEN MORE to charity. You must Eat Pig Slop because anything else isn’t humble enough your humility must be a faultless bulwark because anything else is unacceptable. If someone asks you out you must accept with no hesitation because your love for others must be a fount that can never be emptied and denying others affection is an unacceptable act of cruelty. You must live without fail to serve others every waking moment.
Don’t even think about attacking an enemy who is running away.
Actually, with the latest patch, minmaxing a morality build is no longer the current meta. Disaster Gay prestige class is doin’ numbers, right now.
Except I’d have the same issue with Danny kissing Ethan. This has nothing to do with their sex, and everything to do with the fact that cheating is wrong, and harms people who are innocent of wrongdoing.
Is it understandable under some circumstances? Yeah. Still wrong, though.
They are going to do a lot more than that
I mean yeah, until this point it hasn’t actually been cheating, they were right about that.
GIven that different people define cheating differently, it still may not be.
If Joyce goes and talks to Joe and tells him what happened, then it is only cheating if they decide that it is cheating.
Otherwise, if Joe is okay, then it’s the start of polyamory.
On the other hand, if Joyce lies to Joe – then yes, it’s cheating. Gotta keep things honest.
As for Dorothy/Walky, they weren’t dating – their recent bang was not within the bounds of a relationship, therefore not cheating.
Yes, honesty is what’s important.
For reference https://www.dumbingofage.com/2024/comic/book-14/04-for-me-it-was-tuesday/sweeten-2/
Dorothy says to walky she would like them to be back together.
https://www.dumbingofage.com/2024/comic/book-14/04-for-me-it-was-tuesday/schema/
Later she comments on how “if I make a mistake, it doesn’t matter” in reference to Dexter and the Monkey Master, but Walky has the slight realization that she might be doing the same thing to him.
And it seems like she was. She acted as if she wanted a relationship with him, but it kinda seems like she was just using him as a diversion. And this wasn’t like with Joe and Malaya where both seemed fine with just a casual hook up.
This is such a good and genuinely sane definition, Rose, and I thank you for it
no, it’s a terrible definition. any nuance makes it more difficult to feel morally superior! everything has to be black and white, and never exist on any kind of spectra, because otherwise there might be a reason not to make the harshest and most deranged moral judgements possible, at the drop of a hat!
I guess I feel a bit uncomfortable with it because it feels like asking for forgiveness instead of permission. It can still work out if Joyce asks afterwards but it would be more ideal if Joyce asked before. Characters in a work of fiction, and people in real life, don’t do things perfectly though.
Dorothy and Walky are back together. Were back together.
I’m hoping she goes to him all, “I… I have something I have to tell you. I kissed Joyce.”
“And?”
“Like, on the lips. Open mouth. With tongue and everything.”
“…. And…?”
“I squeezed Joyce’s butt! (ohmigod joyce has an amazing butt) Why aren’t you flipping out?”
“Honestly, I thought you two had been smoochin’ it up for weeks already. You really didn’t get any on your drinks date? No wonder you were so hard up for it.”
Assumes facts not in
evidenceframe.you’re technically correct, but…let’s just call it a reasonable inference to make? XD
Yeah, I’m assuming there’s going to be some more smooching and maybe some squeezing before they get to the point of breaking the not-exactly-news to anyone else.
“hey, we really, really have to go tell our boyfriends about this”
“Yeah…yeah, we do…”
…
…
…
“You’re not moving.”
“You’re also not moving.”
“Actually, I just remembered, I need to do laundry! I guess we’ll get to telling our boyfriends, tomorrow.
“I don’t want to return Sal’s jacket smelling like tear gas. We’d better go wash it.”
Absolutely how I expect the Dorothy-Walky talk to go. I’m a bit more uncertain about how the Joyce-Joe talk will go.
Excellent and on point summary.
Still, am I the only one hoping Joe doesn’t get his heart broken?
Why are you asking a question that has been, IMO, quite clearly answered over the last couple of weeks?
Whether or not he does get his heart broken? I just hope that he’s able to be honest with himself about whichever way he feels. I’m scared he will commit to something that he doesn’t actually feel okay with.
Mentioned upthread, but I’m not just worried about Joe being heartbroken… Becky’s gonna be fuckin’ CRUSHED.
For me, and I emphasize, FOR ME personally, it’s not cheating until they realize they’re into the other person but start lying to the other one. For example, Joyce JUST realized her feeling for Dorothy and kissed her. If after this kiss she continues with Dorothy, and does not speak to Joe, then its cheating to me. Of course there’s more layers and nuance, to me nows the time to address the issue with their partners before continuing or not. However, I do recognize that different people have different thresholds for that.
No no, don’t you understand that you must understand your feelings before you’ve even felt them, and break up before they occur, else you’re cheating?
Seriously, people have no nuance. It’s been like, 22 hours since Joyce came up with a definition of sex that included what she did with Dorothy. Let the girl admit to herself she’s into Dorothy before she has to torpedo her relationship with Joe.
Wasn’t that this morning? Probably more like 4-6 hours.
I’d disagree. This is 100% cheating. They can have a conversation and agree it’s not a big deal, but it IS cheating. She kissed Dorothy before taking with Joe. There was no consent to change from a Monogamous relationship prior to this. She broke the agreement inherent to that.
Gonna play the devil’s advocate for a bit here. Did she and Joe agree to be monogamous? Did Joyce consent to be bound by monogamy? I may be wrong but I don’t recall that being discussed. Is it fair for him to assume that if they haven’t discussed it? Furthermore, the definition of monogamous refers specifically to marriage, and though it gets extended to sex frequently, it isn’t used in reference to kissing.
I’m also going to take the (possibly controversial) position that queer relationships, *especially* involving a person who is just learning about their sexuality, are allowed special leeway. I’m not even playing the devil’s advocate here anymore, it just only makes sense that if someone has a chance to learn something that big about themselves, they should be supported in doing it. Of course they need to have an honest discussion about it with anyone else they are in a romantic relationship with, but you can’t expect them to drop everything and do that first.
honestly as a queer person, i don’t agree with giving “special leeway” with what counts as cheating. I think some grace should be granted, especially for situations of “oh shit I just figured out what I’m feeling” but it IS still cheating.
That said, I’m living for this development so I don’t even care. XD
Yeah I mean really if they’re transparent about what’s going on and the boys fine with it — and I strongly suspect that Joe, at least, would be into the possibility space that it opens up — then there’s no reason for this to be a problem.
That’s not what’s going to happen though. Remember who’s writing this.
i mean my understanding was always that “cheating” involves sleeping with someone. this is 100% a violation of trust though
either way i’m still team sickos
Ehhh, it was definitely dancing in emotional affair territory, or along the line of it at least
i am happy for them but sad for Joe (and a little for walky)
I’m hoping that Joe understands that sharing Joyce is better than losing Joyce.
That said, no matter what happens, I am here for the drama.
**makes popcorn**
Better to break up than to settle for “sharing” because you’re too afraid to lose someone who cheated on you. That always ends in resentment. End it now and spare them all the pain.
Yeah, I have known plenty of “open relationships” that consisted of one person who wanted to sleep around and another who pretended to be okay with it because they were afraid of losing their partner.
As a fellow Cake I agree Pumpkin
I’m really sad for Walky – I don’t think he has the resilience that Joe has or the ability to find genuinely healthy coping mechanisms. It think it’s potentially very bad for both of them, don’t get me wrong, but the amount of times Walky is treated like an afterthought is an in-comic problem as well as a comment section phenomena, and something Walky’s insecurities have shown him to be aware of (in universe only, not in a breaking the 4th wall way, obvs)
I don’t know that Joe does have the resilience.
He’s been on a kick about trying to be a better person, but the degree to which he’s been doing that for Joyce vs. doing that for Himself is a bit up in the air.
If this hurts him, I can see him immediately falling back into “I shoulda never gotten serious, people only get hurt when it’s serious”
Yeah I’m so sad for Joe right now. I wanted this exact moment for years until the “you’re my anxiety” speech
Yeah Dorothy’s “I can make mistakes, it doesn’t matter” to Walky is going to sting even worse when she talks about this with him. Looking back on things the way that Dorothy treats Walky actually really hurts to me, ’cause I’ve been in similar situations several times before. I’ve been in relationships where it feels like I’m being taken for granted, that I’m just somebody to “have fun” with but not somebody to actually be taken seriously. It sucks.
Actually, I’m almost ready to put money on “Joyce actually does go talk to Joe, whereas Dorothy says she’s gonna go talk to Walky, gets cold feet, and blows off telling him to brood over her guilt.”
GOD YES THIS OMG this would be DELICIOUSSSSSS
Joe is all “I’m hurt but I want you to have what you want and maybe I’m trash” and Joyce is all “do not ask me to choose between you it will TEAR ME APART and I am NOT THROWING YOU AWAY” and it’s very big and romantic
And then Walky gets gravitas from having his soul rent and Dorothy keeps her guilt complex! IT’S WIN-WIN BABY
(Also it means my Sacred Polycule has 1,000 haters to reap the tears from!!! It can’t lose!!!!)
They realize it, then do it again.
Eesh.
Might as well be hanged for a sheep as a lamb.
I… really don’t know how to feel. On one hand, I predicted they would be a thing from like… idk Book 6. On the other, Joe and Joyce were doing so well and I was rooting for them. I wanted to see where Joe/Joyce would go, but I guess that’s just down the drain now… poor Joe, he put in so much effort to be a better person for Joyce
We won, family
You won the battle. The war continues.
But still: Aww.
and the internet
A SPLODE
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Kerblam!
“I survived the D. Willis apocalypse of ’25, and all I got was this stupid copypasta.”
<3
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“Hey Roberto!, how you been?”
“oh you know around, Gonna rob this bank though”
oh my god it’s happening
as a muslim (relatively) this storyline has been balls but as a bisexual oh my god.
sickos stay winning !!!
Meh, complete opposite reaction as an also bisexual.
Stereotypes keep stereotyping.
ok.
You say that like Dorothy didn’t approach Danny over this exact thing and he basically went “I have literally never felt any desire to do that. That’s not a bisexual thing. That’s kind of a you thing.”
I’m not the one who added the bisexual tag onto their sickos shirt. All I said was as a bisexual I dislike yet another “bisexual women can’t help but cheat.” story beat.
That Danny said “No, that’s a you issue” doesn’t negate the comment section doing flips about these two not being able to hold their ovaries in check to go and break the hell up with their SOs before they Maytag each other.
I literally have no idea what the hell you are even saying.
I think the shirt bit is referencing something Willis did, idk. The rest is just “Danny stating outright the cheating isn’t a bisexual thing doesn’t mean people haven’t been begging for the characters to cheat”.
I was replying to someone who said “As a bisexual this makes me happy”
So I said “as a bisexual I’m annoyed by this, because it’s stereotypes.”
then someone said “The author added a bisexual saying not all bisexuals do that thing they’re doing”
then I tried to explain how I was only talking about being bisexual as a foil to Lawn, because they wear the “sickos” shirt. But yeah, it gets a bit lost in the middle there.
This would make more sense if I Know Why the Mowed Lawn Screams had ONLY said “as a bisexual this makes me happy”.
But if you reread the comment you responded to, you’ll find that actually they were talking about feeling torn because of different parts of their own identity, which makes it super clear they weren’t trying to be an ambassador for all bisexuals, and that your quippy response was kind of a weird flex.
i’m literally only speaking for myself here, not as the ambassador of all bisexual dumbing of age readers. we have different limitations on how we feel on how this particular story beat went and that’s fine.
damnit! I thought it was my turn to speak for every bisexual! do we really gotta go back to the old council system?! there were so…many…memos…
Have you considered doing a reread? Their characters have been an unknowing-friends-to-lovers arc for years. Maybe a decade. It’s a pretty complex, interesting romance too. If all you’re getting from that is “the author is making them sexmonsters,” no bisexual romance may ever pass muster for you.
Sincerely – Yet Another Card-Carrying Bisexual
I think if someone feels bad that they have to cross one more thing off their list of “bisexual representation where they don’t cheat”, that’s fair. It doesn’t mean that it’s not well written, but it’s still a valid reaction for someone to have.
Things being well written doesn’t mean that they’re not also harmful stereotypes.
I mean danny wven said cheating is a morals thing not a bisexual thing ruth danny and billie are all bi characters that never cheated.
Thiose unreliable, lusty bisexuals just can’t be faithful… sigh.
As a Muslim, it’s certainly been a ride.
As a lover of stories, however, Willis proves himself again. Well played.
if this arc ends with me getting egg on my face, then I will gladly take the L, but unfortunately i’ve been burnt too many times by how otherwise solidly written progressive media handles Arab/Muslim/SWANA characters and storylines for me to feel particularly optimistic tbh
Internet stranger gesture of support? I’m genuinely sorry about that.
thanks, seriously.
there’s a lot i could say about how… exhausting? frustrating? disappointing? to know that the dehumanization of arab communities is so normalized in the global west that any serious depiction about us that isn’t being made directly BY us can be treated as a non-factor with no consequence, even if there is no malicious intention present.
and i really must emphasize that last part, because I don’t think DOA’s tokenism of it’s muslim/arab characters is a result of active prejudice. but it doesn’t change the fact that the tokenism is happening anyways, which is insanely frustrating when you remember that this comic is really good about how it goes about representation otherwise. it makes you wonder why we’re the exception when it comes to western media on the whole, why it’s so hard to conceptualize that a character can be any amalgamation of christian/atheist/agnostic/jewish/secularist/etc etc and not have it get in the way of them being able to actively participate in their stories, but the inverse is not possible for muslims and arabs? why is it that SWANA narratives can not just be palatable, but emotionally resonant to a wider audience when they’re not centered on SWANA characters?
there’s more i can say in all honesty because it’s a big topic and i’m literally only one person with my own tastes, but i dont think the comments section is an appropriate nor particularly effective forum to get those feeling out (even if i do think the fast pace of discussions here could yield interesting insights) and in all honesty compared to most other americans that are a part of the SWANA diaspora, i’m as red blooded yankee doodle american as it comes.
but I do hope that everything i’ve been saying the last few days could inspire people to be more disconcerting about why these half-baked narratives (both the inclusion and lack thereof) don’t just suck in a bubble, but are representative of a wider ongoing problem in western media
(also. watch the taqwacores on tubi. read the book too on the internet archive. neither are perfect nor universal depictions of the diaspora experience but it’s probably the only story about muslim americans that really *gets* it, y’know?)
jesus christ this is a monster, i’m going to bed
Thank you for sharing it. I hope you sleep well
Thank you for speaking up.
I’ve realized I had a blind spot.
This is the only take I respect. I’ve had an uneasy feeling about this from the start and this just confirms it. The staging of this kiss is one of the most politically tasteless things I’ve ever seen. None of it matters, to this story — not genocide, not racism, not colonialism. The protest is just a backdrop to situate these white girls’ lesbian love as righteous and rebellious. It’s honestly quite sickening.
I’m genuinely sorry you had to see this slap in the face.
I was honestly hoping to see Dorothy called out on this in the text, a few days ago, when Joyce was still on her way out and it was becoming obvious Dorothy’s desire to stay was more motivated by her need to do something big and enforce change in the only way she thinks she still should – I do believe she meant to stay and protest for the protest’s sake, but not for the cause, more because she’s bitter and angry at the status quo and corruption teeming in everything she used to idolise – but now I agree. It feels like this cause has been tokenised for character development, and not of the characters who share a common background or experience to it, either. Really hope it comes around but at least Willis will see these takes.
Yeah to be honest as I think over it that element is honestly more gross than all the “cheating” issues that this situation brings up. It’s honestly pretty upsetting and disappointing in a comic that I’ve otherwise really liked the way its handled complex issues.
i mean hey, it’s not just asma and the faceless genocide victims, you also have
*checks notes*
raidah
okay i’m sorry
Actually, Raidah’s inclusion in the narrative is arguably positive–sure, she’s a villain, but she’s very much not a stereotypical Muslim villain. For one thing, she’s female, which almost no mass-media portrayal of a Muslim villain would be (the assumption being that all Muslim villains are male, and Muslim women are passive go-alongs). Her faith being genuinely irrelevant to her villainy is, in some ways at least, a win.
I’m not saying the story isn’t lacking diverse portrayals–it absolutely is. On the other hand, it’s a portrayal of Indiana University–which is also terribly lacking in racial and ethnic diversity. If we were to include Raidah on the cast page, it’d honestly be a pretty representative sample of the University’s student body–you’d expect maybe one or two SWANA students in a group of under 30 students.
The portrayal of the protests themselves is more of an issue, honestly, in no small part because they’ve been fictionalized to non-existent countries. Is Bulmia or whatever it is even in the Middle East?
Raidah is a character that i really like and i always want to see more of, and in some ways she’s exactly what i’m looking for when it comes to a compelling SWANA character (even if i understand that not everyone does due to the fact that she’s a pretty vicious acetous antagonist lol), but IMO her status as a muslim character feels more like it’s there to make her even more of an outsider to the main cast than it is to inform what makes her tick ( see; the Jacob/Joyce/Raidah cheating arc )
this next thing is more of an issue i have with the userbase than with the text itself tbh, but i also think a general lack of screen time, plus her being a character that consists of so many setups and so little payoff has given her a reputation in the wider doa community that leads to a lot of annoying double standards. she tends to be treated as a Linda/Mary type antagonist, when she’s intended to be more of a Rachel style figure [incredibly acerbic foil to our lovably acerbic cast].
ex: note how a lot of people’s anger towards Raidah saying one really snotty thing about the U.S gov to Dorothy wasn’t to just be upset that she was being pretty fucking rude (fair thing to not like her for), but to insist that her distain toward the U.S government couldn’t have come from sympathetic or reasonable conclusions based on her own life experiences. Even up to just last week people were STILL acting as if Dorothy taking what Raidah said seriously was akin to self-harming behavior. which is pretty insane !!
as for if “Bulmeria” I mean, if we apply a Doyist perspective it’s explicitly about the Gaza student protests, and even in the walkyverse it was specifically being used as a fictional african country, but using what we know in-universe, (1) this is a encampment protest about a “conflict” that the both U.S government and U.S based multi-billion corporations are happily involved in (2) that specifically calls for IU to divest from a military contractors (3) who are actively participating in a genocide and (4) has some emotional impact on IU’s muslim population (once again, i must emphasize that this is the first time we’ve seen Asma outside of her workplace in the 15 YEARS she has existed).
also shit, i think i accidentally flagged you, sorry about that
we’re very much on the same page here, i’m also a big raidah fan and i think she was 100% on the money with dorothy. i said sorry partially because i thought it’d be funny given her rep, but also because yeah, she doesn’t get a lot of facetime. 78 strips in 15 years! for comparison, asma has 23.
i do think we’re gonna see more raidah soon, not just because of this arc but because this has been the year of cashing in the emotional baggage of bit players. jocelyne’s back! alice’s back! tony’s suddenly relevant after his connection to walky was first established well over a decade ago! granted, that’s speculative
I admit, I’d forgotten Raidah was Muslim at the time of the “commit war crimes” jab, so I admit I didn’t view it through that light. I still think she’s ~wrong~ about that (in the sense that if everyone who doesn’t want to commit war crimes opts out of trying for political power, you end up with people who are all too happy to commit them’ look at what happened, at least in part, because Michigan Palestinians opted not to vote for Harris–they got Donald Trump instead). But that sort of attitude does meet the strip’s title, at least.
My point on Bulmeria is simply that the fictional shading serves to simplify the issues involved. Leaving Hamas in power (and note–I’m aware that Hamas is in power largely because of Netanyahu’s strategies of making sure he always has a reason to bomb Gaza) ultimately means that instead of Palestinian liberation, we get Palestinian Iranifcation–and Iran is a miserable shitshow of a country for women, specifically.
I do support disinvestment protests, though–that’s a level of possible action that would mean something to Israelis, but isn’t likely to trigger something more insanely evil by the Israeli government (America pulling military support would, I’m pretty certain, simply leave Israel with a green light to get serious about genocide).
look, i can tell that you’re not coming at this with the intent of starting bad faith arguments, but i specifically focused on criticizing the way the comic has treated its arab + muslim characters on the *whole* and not just on if using bulmeria as a stand in for palestine was a good idea because 1). that’s much more indicative of the deeper problems that caused this disconnect between the comic and muslim doa readers like myself, and 2). i’m still americanized enough to know that i shouldn’t speak on the behalf of anyone from the global south, even if i’m still sudanese diaspora.
but even putting aside the fact that i don’t think the comments section of a webcomic is a good place to have nuanced conversations about american politics in relation to arab politics in the west, there’s so many things that you just said that personally gave me a lot of red flags, and that is enough to know that there’s no way we’re going to end up on the same page if we start a debate now.
i probably won’t respond to any of your comments going forward, and i recommend that you should start your own comment chain if you want to keep your train of thought going
I read everthing. And you’re right.
I believe that issue is mainly on Dorothy, that just grabbed a poster and standed in the middle of the protests. Even not making any idea what’s the protest is about. Typical american white liberal, of course, risking the lives of serious protesters. Tots gonna write a novel about it.
Maybe today it will be more hard to comment (you know, because Joyce x Dorothy), but don’t feel like you should not speak. You may speak about it, yes.
I wish I had seen this before I posted my own comment several hours later. This is so much better worded than mine. I don’t know that I can add anything of value, but just that this is what we need to be talking about with this arc and this particular strip, and it feels so overshadowed just so people in the other 1700+ comments can be homophobic or spiteful.
I just want to say I really appreciate your perspective on this and I do feel a bit guilty as a white westerner for not realizing this perspective on the current storyline. Probably the closest way I can relate is as an autistic person who is very tired of stories that present autism only from the perspectives of those close to autistic people but not really from the perspectives of autistic people themselves.
It’s ironic considering that this comic actually does a very good job on that front, but is not great at the representation you’ve discussed.
Can you please explain what you mean by that? For context, I’m a former Christian now atheist French guy and I don’t have any SWANA friends so I’m pretty oblivious to misrepresentation of these people in media (apart from the constant racism/Islamophobia right-wing media throw in our face everyday).
Feel free to just give me a few keywords to search for if you don’t want to teach me, and thank you for your time anyway
I am not in any of those groups but as someone who does have a couple of relevant friends, “let’s accidentally engage in a protest that rhymes heavily with actual horrific events, as a metaphor for late-teenage rebellion” is not necessarily a very sensitive take to people affected by the events, and I would even suggest it’s an iconically white perspective.
(I also didn’t realize it was a problem until someone pointed it out, but they’re right.)
I’m actually all here for these criticisms and think they’re justified.
But, I think I’m slowly finding the point of Willis making this protest, the backdrop of this scenario finally going down.
Dorothy and Joyce’s willful ignorance towards the destructive reality that their current actions are about to wreak on their personal lives, because they are both also deliberately repressing themselves from actually unpacking and dealing with these feelings in a deliberate way, is a narrative foil to the fact that Dorothy and Joyce generally navigate their morality by Always Doing The Right Thing; except, in both their budding tryst, and Dorothy’s budding sense of activism, the reality is that they are deeply unprepared to actually deal with both of those desires, in any constructive way.
Dorothy couldn’t unpack her feelings for Joyce in a rational way, because she’s conditioned by comphet, and her previous traumas of being sapph-shamed by Joe when he was coping with her direct rejection; this is similar to the fact that, up until now, Dorothy fully identified with the type of establishment politics and policies that, in the underlying, messy reality, are obviously founded entirely on the blood and suffering of innocent humans, thousands of miles away.
In both cases, Dorothy is diving into something that she doesn’t understand, isn’t prepared for, and isn’t mature enough to deal with, with no safety net, because she feels a strong internal compulsion for her goals and actions to Always Be Morally Pure and Objectively Correct, as opposed to actually consulting her own real self, and interrogating herself as to what she actually believes. Her only coping mechanism to try to stop herself from making this obvious and willful moral failing with Joyce, was to IMMEDIATELY throw herself back into the Old Dorothy Pattern of “I’m going to go do what’s right, no matter what, no matter how hard it is, or how unprepared I am, because I must always put literally everybody’s needs before mine,” because that was the only justification she could think of, to not just lay a wet one on Joyce, right then and there.
She can’t do the thing she actually wants to do, because it would make her morally compromised; thus, she tries to escape back into her own patterns, but just determined to “do it right” this time. “Okay, I can never be president, because being president means I am complicit in genocide. Guess I have to go do the exact opposite thing, because it’s the only pattern of behavior that brings me peace and comfort!”
Does anybody else but me see that foil? Or am I reading too far into it, or am I simply way off base?
Which is the exact same pivot she seems to be having with her feelings towards her own sexuality. “I can’t have feelings for Joyce! I’m a Kinsey One! It’s a trauma response!” She doesn’t even seem to be seriously considering the possibility, of believing in, or doing, some in-between thing, in either the political sense or the romantic sense, because those things would actually require her to do real introspection. They would require her to interrogate what she actually believes, and what she actually wants. And she’s too locked-up in fight or flight responses, and her constant mounting emotional breakdown, to realistically do that with any success.
The reality is, she is woefully unprepared to actually do the real work in determining who she really is, and what she really wants to do, because her prior obsession with always needing to be perfect, and doing unrealistically right by literally everyone, is just too much for her right now. In the exact same way, unpacking that her prior political beliefs were problematic and naive, is also currently beyond her. She actually needs to deal with her mountain of legitimate trauma, first, before she’s in a place to start properly finding herself, again.
So, I won’t comment on the tastefulness of using a real-world genocide as a narrative foil in this way; unlike Dorothy, I’m perfectly capable of admitting that that conversation is not my place, and that I’m too woefully under-educated on the topic to offer anything of meaning to that discourse. But I will say, I’m starting to get the thought process Willis may have had, when he first chose to construct this plot. It makes sense if you think about it in the right way…but I’m still not sure it was an overall good decision.
I think you nailed it with one exception.
Dorothy’s problem with being into Joyce isn’t that Dorothy is fumbling being queer.
It’s that she’s really not sure what to do about being attracted to someone in a relationship.
I think this is a pretty nuanced breakdown of this situation and I definitely see your points. It’s definitely a messy situation where it feels like the non-specificity of the details of the horrible actions being protested against is kind of the point, because Dorothy is not the kind of person who is actually digging into the details of this in a thoughtful way. I feel like I would prefer if more detail was shown, just perhaps in a way to highlight Dorothy’s ignorance.
It’s very possible that this may happen later on though in the aftermath, and it’s also possible that it would be very difficult to include full thoughtful details like that with everything else going on in the story. One could then ask though if it’s appropriate at all to approach these topics if you’re not going to give them enough time to discuss those messy and upsetting details.
Having never even considered any of these points a few hours ago, I’m largely in agreeance with this whole thread. Having the protest be a background for, as someone else put it, two white girls romantic drama culmination, isn’t really tactful, at all. I can see the parallels of why Dorothy did this, since it was removing herself from Joyce, in contrast to Joyce being taken from her, as well as the fact that she’s compensating for her naiveté of wanting to be president and her own guilt over people calling her out and her ignorance over the reality of that dream. Like people said above she feels she HAS to do this because she’s always been all or nothing, and she’d rather do hands-down what she thinks is the right thing in that moment rather that let something slide. One of her strongest character motivator is fixing thing, fixing people, making things her problem. And she’s doing that now, while being distracted by her trauma, and attraction to Joyce.
I just hope Willis does redirect a little bit, or have Asma chew them out and call them out on their actions here? I think that might make up for it a bit but I’m not sure.
Can’t seemingly reply to Polar, but strongly agreed. If either one of the girls foregrounded here were SWANA themselves – thank you Lawn for the new definition! – or if either one had an interest in the protest, or friend or family ties to the issue, this could be a story about one staying and the other returning to be with them and support them in it “and your people shall be my people, and your God shall be my God” as it were. Cue kissing. As it is, the strip coming up doesn’t reassure me, simply because we see how characters fared for a quick silent panel – we ideally need an upcoming calling out of the two white girls treating the protest like a publicity stunt, fair as that is or not, and some strips on how the aftermath of this is emotionally resonating or impacting the circumstances of Raidah et al.
@YBAlex i’ve gone into more depth on my own feelings on this arc the past few days [panorama, really sucks] but tl;dr it’s just feels kinda gouache to have the backdrop be a student protest about people dying in the middle east when the comic hasn’t shown that it’s going to un-tokenize the frustratingly few arab characters they have, and it super blows this time around because i really like this webcomic.
I really get you ,I just think you may have to put it in perspective that people don’t know what they don’t know and that Willis’s heart is in the right place. I think the backdrop was also shown to illustrate maybe Willis’s own trend from liberalism to leftism, partly in interest of supporting Palestine. But I completely agree, the other representation in the comic has been good and complex but I think it simply boils down to Willis having been raised in a white evangelical family and possibly not having had much experience with Arab Muslim communities in the Midwest, so may want to support Arab Muslims in the face of recent events but does not want to do it tactlessly, so is minimising how much actually gets shown here. Also this was most likely created a year ago, so likely not at all within the bounds of context of the even more effed up last 6 months in terms of what this situation would mean now.
I’m sure Willis with the confidence to write accurate, complex Muslim perspective would absolutely include them, I don’t think there’s any intention of actual tokenism more than trying to spotlight acknowledgement and understanding of the issue without going beyond the realms of personal understanding.
i mean, yeah, I don’t think Willis wrote this storyline from a place of carelessness and all the things you brought up are very real and true things to keep in mind, but also you’re doing the exact thing that i pointed out was my core issue with how muslim/arab characters are treated in general.
Willis’s background hasn’t stopped him from writing characters that are black, latine, filipino, east asian, jewish, etc (all perspectives that *don’t* have a lot of crossover with a white evangelical background), but why is it that writing muslim/arab characters in particular is the line that gets drawn?
the passive way SWANA characters and narratives have been developed has been a point of contention for the entire comic, not just in the context of this one particular story beat. ask yourself this, why is it that it took 15 years for a character like Asma to be depicted outside of her campus workplace? why does her first ever strip outside of of her workstudy job starts with our main characters calling her “desk girl”?
i don’t think i’m being unreasonable to want better. this kind of thing grinds you down, even if you know that none of it is being done with bad intentions.
brief follow up on something else i should have said, but i also don’t think it’s unreasonable for muslim/arabs to be dissatisfied with how this particular plot beat has unfolded so far, especially when you consider that this IS a story arc that chose to go ahead and commit to a story about students protesting US interventionism in the global south. quite literally , Carla’s parents now canonically provides tech that kills fictional arabs in the text of the series now, the stakes are much higher compared to some of the more domestic narratives that could have been done.
hey I’m just asking because I’ve never seen it, am I correct in assuming that SWANA stands for “Southwest Asian/North African?” It seems like the only obvious explanation, but I wanna make sure I’m getting it right.
Same, it’s not an acronym I’ve seen before.
@throwatron @deanatay
yeah, thats what SWANA is short for. tbh it’s kinda a clunky acronym but it’s definitely more representative of the full gambit of islam in those regions than “middle east/middle eastern” is.
once I feel confident when and where I should be deploying it, I’ll definitely be adding it to my regular lexicon; it definitely sounds more descriptive and accurate and useful.
I admit, I had to google the term twice, because the first time I wound up with a trade organization for waste management companies (Googling “SWANA racism” did the trick).
I only had a clue because a few years back, a museum at the University of Chicago, which used to be called The Oriental Institute, changed its name to the Institute for the Study of Ancient Cultures, West Asia & North Africa (ISAC-WANA). It’s a clunky name, but definitely a better description of their remit and collections (which are amazing; I recommend it to anyone looking for a bit of insight into the region’s history).
boooooooo
Please know that half of my heart agrees with you
To be clear only because of the cheating
Absolutely agree. Happy to see this, but also heart is breaking for Joe.
Should probably feel the same for Walky, but the comic has not spent the past year focusing super heavily on his growth as a person.
Joe wants Joyce to be happy. Right now Joyce is very happy.
( insert pflrrt emoticon )
*perfectly catches the tomatoes in my mouth while applauding sickosly*
The Uncle Iroh icon makes for a great mental image there.
uncle iroh doesn’t care if you are a sicko, only that you are true to yourself
*cuts the tomato and puts some salt and pepper on it and mixes in some balsamic vinegar for a delicious snack
Agreed, but only because I don’t like cheating.
ur tomatoes are gonna get cross-bred with the tear gas and grow true monstrosities watch out homie!
to be fair, i think if you bred a pepper with actual tear gas, people would be stumbling over each other, trying to be the first ones to eat it.
this comic is so shit, i’m like a battered wife who keeps coming back even though it never gets any better. bye yall
This isn’t an airport; you don’t have to announce your departure.
I think it’s a benefit to Willis as an author to know that this storyline is turning some readers off.
While there are probably some bigots and folks with unconscious homophobia who are specifically objecting to two ladies kissing, there are also plenty of readers who dislike this arc for perfectly valid reasons (I myself have a lot of problems with it in terms of what I think is good writing) and an author who ignores any and all negative feedback is one who doesn’t write good stories for long.
I think that, ultimately, we’ve already pared down on the total number of bigots in this readership/comment section, over the last several times that there was a storyline which made the comments this much of a battleground. If there are any full-blown bigots somehow still reading, they seem to understand that they’re flatly unwelcome, down here.
Live Jocelyn reaction:
Oh my god I just saw the bsky post and I SWEAR I did not notice the title before posting. She’s just there. Reacting
*Reactioning
**Reactionating
What?
***Reactionalizing?
Unfortunately the moment will be cut short by the cops and the tear gas
Joe now legally has to kiss Walky
seems logical to me
THAT’S JUST THE RULES
It’s the only way for them to move forward
I see no downsides to this caveat
Obviously.
Absolutely. Joe and Walky get together, Joe indulges his desire to be a chef, Walky enjoys a new delicious and healthy diet of homemade food. They snuggle, Walky continues his path as the new second-favorite sibling in his parents’ eyes and Joe encourages him to keep standing up for himself and his sister. Amber gets carpal tunnel for seemingly unrelated reasons.
…well heck, now that’s super cute.
They did get classroom assignment married the same time Joyce and Dorothy did, didn’t they?
I now need that to have been foreshadowing
Next time we see them they’re realizing a very similar gay yearning arc that has been happening entirely off-panel
It’s the only way balance will be restored.
Also, Amber wants to watch.
I could see it
Yes please
I fully support this.
I still wanting for Joe to hug Danny
if this finally ends up happening over this exact reason, that will be so beautiful but also so sad :’)
Comments War solved case dismissed bring in the dancing lobsters
Man, if only people could change their orientation just so everyone gets a happy ending. But I guess that’s the advantage of fiction, right?
anyone who writes stories and doesn’t have everybody be bisexual by default is a coward. write the change you want to see in the world!
“I know writers who use subtext, and they’re all cowards”
-Garth Marenghi
+1
I am here for the Joe-Joyce-Dorothy-Walky bisexual polycommune.
“Wow, you know…my Mom was right. Secular school did turn us all into gay communists!”
“No, Joyce…you see…the gay communism, was inside us, all along!”
Actually he just gets his heart broken.
Probably returns to his old ways with a vengeance.
I WAS HERE WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
♪ wE CaN be HeRos! JUst FoR onE DAy! ♫
A+++ soundtrack choice
For reals. Perfection.
pour one out for those of use who were introduced to heroes by godzilla 99 and bob dylans kid instead of the original (or the awesome apocalyptica cover with til lindemann)
Watch it be on national television tomorrow and Joe and Walky see it.
Joe would not be the person to worry about seeing this.
Probably not even top five
Crap I didn’t even think about that, good point
What’s that? You wanted Carol to be relevant again? Yeahhhhh!
I just wanna meet the shunned sibling once Joyce makes national news smooching Dorothy.
For reasons involving knowledge I don’t think I should have, I imagine said sibling is also trans and is a very popular video game streamer with a V-tuber girlfriend who plays guitar.
I will accept this as canon until proven otherwise.
I was hoping that the lost sibling would be a horrible Alt-Right type the dad disowned but mentioning he’s a good kid put a kibosh to that. We need more villains for Amazi-Girl to punch.
i can’t tell if this is actually a real person, or if your character writing instincts are just rad as hell
Pourquoi pas tous les deux?
They are good friends with BurgerOni and MommyMilkers. Maybe one day there will be a confab crossover.
i can HEAR my headcanon voice for BurgerOni saying “genocide? that’s basically spawn-camping, and spawn-camping isn’t cool!”
MommyMilkers will, of course, not know what it is, will gently ask, and guide us all through some uncomfortable realizations as she works to understand it.
Two women kissing in a cloud of tear gas does make a great headline image
Hell, it’d be the sailor-kissing-nurse picture of the generation. Just, you know, with more consent.
There was tons of consent for the “sailor kissing” pic.
It was set photoshoot.
(Just fyi)
Yup. I thought of the TV angle yesterday when the kiss loomed, but yeah – if trans girl Joycelyn on TV was bad, Joycelyn watching Joyce kiss a girl at a protest on TV is so much worse.
**Grabs popcorn**
On the other hand, I will laugh uproariously if Joyce’s dad concludes “huh, I guess that wasn’t Jocelyn at the protest.
This was my first… well, third* thought too.
*First: a combination of “Finally” and “Well, fuck” (I’m mostly in the Paladin column).
Second: “Damn, the tear gas is doing a lot of work here. Great job.”
Both the paladins AND the sickos are saying “fuck” right now.
You know that person who responded to me last strip was right, Joyce hasn’t declared her sexual and romantic interest in Dorothy thus meaning this could be platonic. Perhaps Joyce and Dorothy need a couple more smooches to determine if they really have feelings for each other.
I don’t know, that’s not really definitive. They should do some things with their tongues to each other’s bits, to be sure.
It’s a ploy to avoid the cops. They have engaged bisexual invisibility.
LMAOOOO
BI-ERASURE – ACTIVATE!
This comment got a very loud HEH from me at 6am
I was looking for that person, wondering how they were going to play this. “Well she still hasn’t screamed ‘I’m queer’ yet, so Joyce is giving her platonic tongue until she states otherwise”
They’re just kissing for practice, this is gal pal behavior, they aren’t even roommates!!
Do you really think there’s enough evidence Joyce is attracted to Dorothy to justify her kissing Dorothy a second time? I don’t know, it’s really unclear to me if she’s attracted to Dorothy or to women at all.
Look, Dorothy’s straight.
— off to bed with Joyce at the first opportunity.
An excellent response.
Just gal pals, chillin’ doin’ laundry!
…With a Joyce-shaped exception.
*third time, the second time is already in the last panel
That’s a reasonable interpretation, but given the angle they could just be hugging extra hard. Based on the change in their arms positions. But indeed, their lips could also be hugging extra hard.
But how can we make sure this is a behavior sustained through time?
(How can we HELP sustain it?)
It’s the only way to make sure!
that’ll be Dorothy’s mind in like 5 minutes, if I know anything about sapphic girls
Looking forward to a few months later, they are married and have a huge bed that doubles as a washer/dryer, and they are both thinking “she probably doesn’t really love me, she’s just playing along. I’m pretty sure she’s straight.”
Although replace “love” with “want me like I want her” or something, because they are both aware of their love for each other, but despite all the sex it could still be platonic.
… this thread is best thread. Have a cookie for best thread.
Becky’s closet nuke did set an awfully high bar for coming out in DoA…
No, this is unambiguous.
I dunno, I think there’s still some room for Jesus betwixt Joyce and Dorothy. I’m gonna need more evidence before I can confirm an attraction between these two. It’s the only way to be sure.
*eyeroll*
i would like to point out that the Christian Jesus is Very Pretty and has Long Hair, and it’s distinctly possible that Joyce’s love of Christ, was always sapphic from the start..
ahh yes kenobi drives another to saphic love
alternatively it could be elrond
elrond and jesus aren’t the same person?????
just the latest in the “my parents were praying to an action figure/image of a sci-fi/fantasy character they thought was jesus” memes
okay but imagine going into an old woman’s house, and there’s just pictures of Jesus Christ everywhere…and, you’re about to panic, but then she reveals that she just freaking loves Lord of the Rings?
Could be.
Romantic or platonic, I always support kissing the homies.
YYYAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
HOLY FUKCING SHIT
genuinely genuinely im soooo fucking excited for where it goes from here. how do they broach this topic to their respective boyfriends. do they keep it secret? thatd be way worse. i think a good way out where everyones happy is possible but they are playing with fire and [presses a button on my soundboard] “IT’S NOT CALLED SMARTING OF AGE NOW IS IT”
this shit is gonna be so juicy. oh my god. im so excited. lets all hold hands and dance in a circle
I’m SO SEATED for this trainwreck like you’ve got no idea, I really need to know what happens next and sdkgjksdlj I’m here like. 1000% along for wherever this ride takes us
You and Me both buddy!
I respect your avatar choice. it is perfection.
They’ve both got big enough guilt complexes that I highly doubt they intend to keep it secret from either Joe or Walky. However it would make sense for them to find out from seeing video or a photo of this in media before Joyce or Dorothy can bring it up if someone is on the scene taking photo or video and Joyce and Dorothy get arrested.
I believe the standard is that they can hold for 48 hours without bringing charges so that would be up to two days for them to learn from other sources.
Odds that Mary makes sure Walky and Joe see the tape? This might actually be the best way to get the two of them to be cool about it, of course. “Mary hates this? It must be a good thing!”
Yeah, I suspect they will want to confess as soon as they can, particularly Joyce. She’s going to feel really bad about it.
Unfortunately, if they get arrested…Joe and Walky might find out first.
THIS IS THE RIOT POLICE, THANK YOU FOR YOUR COMPLIANCE
WAIT THESE AREN’T TEAR GAS THEY’RE GAY BOMBS
OH MY GOD THEY THREW QUEER GAS BY MISTAKE
I LOVE BOTH THIS TERM AND YOUR AVATAR
Queer gas for the straight ass?
Yep, that’s where it goes.
Bravo!
I wish there was an upvote button, and also that I wasn’t drinking soda at the time, because it came out my nose I laughed so hard. Thank you
oh dang, your avatar <3
Ha
Not a single one of their friend group will be surprised. Put out, maybe, but now surprised
… OK, if that’s the reaction and everybody’s actually chill with this then I officially forgive the comic for making me very sad and happy and confused at the same time
Walky grins while Joe hands him a twenty. If this had happened twelve hours later, then Joe would have won.
Joe: “… I’ll be in my bunk.”
Joe: “No, I understand”
Both predicted The Kiss. Only disagreement was When.
Becky will be very normal about this.
I’m picturing her art style vibrating in place. Or her linework storming off, leaving her colors standing there blank-faced.
That would be the funniest fucking outcome.
“Oh, you two actually kissed and maybe wanna see where that goes?Huh. I had another month in the betting pool.” *Joe hands Walky $5*
Wonder if any of them predicted it’s be in the protest.
I’d be legitimately upset if everyone’s just kind of cool with this. What’s the point of over-the-top relationship drama if everyone’s a mature and understanding adult about it. I want Becky and Dorothy to get into a fistfight. I want Joe to jump off a bridge like Javert. I want Mary to get hit by a bus for unrelated reasons. I want Dina to realize she was a “Joyce is straight” rebound and get mad about it. I want Nightguy to fight Incelerator and think maybe Incelerator is onto something and become a villain himself (Actually, “Walky becomes a right-wing asshole” has kind of been set up a bit post-timeskip). I want every single relationship in the entire comic in flames.
I want a meatball sub but you’re also making gokd suggestions here
Mel, I also want you to have a meatball sub, I think you deserve it
I want Ethan to literally join the Mob and break Asher’s heart since Asher (ostensibly) has been trying to leave it. I want Alice to realize, sooner rather than later, that Jennifer is still as big of a trainwreck now (if not an even bigger one) as she was back in high school. I want Jacob and Lucy to just kind of come to the mutually agreed upon conclusion that they’re simply not as into each other as much as they thought they were at first. I want Sarah and Tony to keep on doing… whatever it is they’re doing, however they want to do it. I want Mary and Peter to be fed feet first into a wood chipper (or just Mary, that would be an acceptable outcome, too).
Dina already said she knew she was a rebound, but Becky’s reaction to this may bring it home in an unpleasant way.
I think it’s because these characters have already had a lot of relevant character growth in this department, and this webcomic is also, pertinently, a comedy. There’s also a hell of a lot of drama value in “characters think everyone will hate them far more than they actually will.”
I want NightGirl to give Incelerator a big smootch and vanish.
I agree. I also want Mary to be hit by a bus. Not so much the rest of it, but definitely that part.
Joyce tearfully confesses to Joe and Joe just says “hot.”
Joe, unsure how to feel, falling back on his old habits while he processes his emotions on the inside: “Uh-huh, and would you be willing to reenact the kiss, so I can have a clear idea of how it went down? You know, for the sake of thorough emotional analysis?”
They had a pool going, but nobody would bet on it NOT happening, so the bets had to be about where and when.
Carla wins the pot for guessing “during a riot”, saving her the trouble of starting one.
Oh God, thank you I needed that laugh
Seconding PB.
I made this yesterday in a different but related context, but I’m going to go ahead and include it here as well.
If someone is taking photos Daisy will totally put this on the front page undermining the entire protest and causing some actual Consequences…
If that happens, I would not complain if we got days of just doing reactions to it.
im hopping in your car and riding with you, that would be peak
Daisy: “It’s very nice, but if I provide more pics can you cover up enough so it says “Do her”? Then I’ll take fifty copies and start pushing them under doors.”
**slow clap**
Brilliant work. I fully approve.
Amazing, Yumi.
That’s delightful, but I also feel the need to mention how putting all those Daisy faces together shows how clearly her design matches so much of 1998’s webcomic scene – I had flashbacks to Class Menagerie and early CRFH!!! looking at that.
OOOOOHHHH SSSHHHIIIIIIIIIIIIIII-
I expect this comic’s comment section to top out at over 800 posts/replies.
Depends on if it gets locked first. I’m predicting they get locked because of people flaming out over this development. Not sure if it tops 800 posts before that happens but it probably will if it doesn’t get locked.
it feels to me like most people have already mostly chilled out
i continued scrolling in linear fashion and I Was Wrong
Yeah, came back after work and was surprised to see over 1700.
And then I started reading some of them. Oof.
Couldn’t sleep and decided to browse the web for a bit and…wow I was not expecting this to explode like this (750 posts as of this reply).
honestly, I wasn’t going to be able to sleep last night, anyway, so the comments section functioned well for me as a means of reaching the morning time without suffering any boredom
i suffered other things! but none of them were boredom!
1,018 as of now, five hours after it was posted (and two after midnight here). I stayed up to watch it hit 1k (and because it’s still uncomfortably warm in my room) but now I’m off to bed.
… it’s over 1200 now.
1,425.
2015. o.O
So it turns out that was a fucking lowball estimate, holy shit.
I’ll see yer 800 and raise ya another 1000.
I knew I should’ve went for the moon and said like 2000 or something.
I genuinely did not think this comment section had enough energy to hit 2000 comments these days, but we are damn close.
Energy has been sapped a bit, yeah, due to the usual suspect and stuff. But those two snoggin’ can get us a bit hyped again.
We’re at 1991 now.
jocelyn just absolutely vibing lololol
Live Jocelyne reaction:
*Pops champagne bottle*
What a couple a sickos!
I feel bad for Joe and Walky. I feel like they’ve both been through enough, and they’re both trying so hard, and all that is just…not worth remembering. That gives me a shitty feeling. Like yeah I get the appeal and the chemistry here, but I just feel down right now.
I’m still holding out hope for a Polycule
Same. It works on paper and I wanna see it work on… well this is a comic so still paper but you get what I mean. Let the polycule commence!!!
It’s only on paper if you get the physical copy of the book. I want to see it work on my screen though.
Very valid, let’s see it work in pixels!!
A Joyce/Dorothy/Walky/Joe polycule, or a Joyce/Dorothy/everyone else in the lockup polycule?
I’m not, a polycule is predicated on trust. Not a good start for it if it’s based on two people emotionally cheating with no care for the other two they supposedly care about.
Also sorry for the report, got dumb fat fingers.
Yeah, this would be a terrible start to that, because of the lack of trust and honesty.
Eh, Walky I think will be fine, I recall him already accepting the getting back together was temporary while they rebounded
Joe is the one I’m feeling more bad for
I do, however, want to see Walky’s reacting to this more than Joe. Like, for Joyce it is a complicated situation where she is discovering her feelings in real time. But Dorothy already knew of her feelings so I feel she acted more unfairly towards her boyfriend as a result. I kinda want to see Walky call her out on it.
(I feel the need to point out, though, that I am in no way saying Dorothy is evil or whatever. I just want to see good drama pay off)
On the plus side, she can’t use “Two Weeks” on him, its been like.. two days at most.
I don’t know if I’m doing my math right, but he may absolutely be able to use “Two Weeks” on her.
Joe will bounce back off this fine and it’ll be a chance for him to prove his character growth wasn’t just a fake to get Joyce like Raidah said.
Walky is going to literally become a super-villain, effectively replacing Mary’s role in the comic but with more action scenes. There have been multiple arcs about how bad his mental state was been and then he got a costume and wasn’t able to answer the Incelerator. The setup for his heel turn has been going on for a while.
I do wonder if Joe will forgive it and perhaps suggest an open relationship but Joyce will choose to end things. Not because poly wouldn’t be interesting but that Joyce has actually gone off Joe a bit. I’m saying that because I felt the chemistry between Joyce and Joe has been lacking, in my opinion, compared to Joyce and Dorothy. Also that’s what happened to me when my ex cheated so I guess I find it plausible and not a story line I’ve seen before.
They literally hooked up last night.
I don’t think we should count our chickens before they hatch. Like, yeah, it’s messy, and those two will likely have strong feelings about all of this, but like, no use borrowing grief from the future about it. We’ll get there when we get there.
Joe’s the one I’m worried about. So much of his positive character development is tied up with Joyce, how’s he going to react if she cheats on him.
Walky might not be happy, but I think he’ll be fine. I don’t get the sense that either he or Dorothy are putting their full heart into their second run at dating, the spark didn’t come back
“If” bro she’s in the process of cheating on him
yeah that sentence could be constructed better. oh well
I think Joe will be in a better spot because he knew this was coming.
Walky sorta did, in so far as Dorothy bringing up the idea of Joyce watching them have sex, but I doubt he thought it was terribly serious. I do think he’s going to be very disappointed in Dorothy, because he thought higher of her integrity. That said, I also think he’d be more upset to learn she’s been majorly downplaying her mental state to him re: her PTSD, though she’s been doing that to herself, too. That’s been a bigger block for their second round than any lack of spark.
Yup. I’m sure all the sickos from the poll are thrilled right now but this is like the horrible monkey’s paw of what I wanted way before Joe/Joyce happened. (Cuz I did ship Dorothy Joyce in the comic way earlier.)
And I’m sure Joe is resigned to it from how he talked to/confronted Dorothy about her feelings for Joyce. Maybe he thinks he deserves it, somehow. Either way.
I’ve lost any investment I had in Joyce or Dorothy as characters. (Which I knew was going to happen, it happens any time characters I like have this type of fucking plot.)
As a sicko from the poll, I am indeed thrilled right now.
Agreed. I don’t know why people are celebrating this.
Because Joyce and Dorothy are kissing.
Yes, you do.
Because girls kissing trumps and kind of like. Wanting characters to not be so morally degraded as to cheat.
I don’t care who tries to say ‘cheating sometimes happens, it’s exploratory, etc’ shut the fuck up. I’m a queer person (bi) and I’ve never cheated, nor felt compelled to cheat on my partners over the years.
Cheating points to a character flaw in the cheater. Point blank.
There is absolutely nothing wrong with writing flawed characters, in fact it’s a sign of very good writing.
I think there can be a problem with writing flawed characters if you don’t have it presented as a flaw with real consequences.
If you have a sexist character… that is a flaw. But if it isn’t critiqued then the story is just promoting sexism. And if that critique doesn’t have narrative consequences then it is just lampshading.
Consider the Big Bang Theory. Frequently the main characters are very sexist. They often get called out for “being sexist” but without any narrative consequence.
Will we see Joyce face repercussions for choosing to cheat? Probably to some extent but right now the visual framing of this seems to focus on the “romance” and “passion” rather than the dishonesty.
Mmm, idk.
I absolutely agree that there’s something extremely frustrating about a story with a main character who’s an asshole, say, if the writers don’t agree that the character is an asshole.
But I don’t agree that it’s always important for a work of fiction to actively and clearly critique its characters’ flaws within the text. Sometimes it’s okay for an author to assume that their readers don’t need to be told that sexism is bad, especially if their target audience is adults rather than children.
Like, what about unreliable narrators? What about ambiguous endings? What about stories with more nuanced takes on morality, and — frankly — better-written, more nuanced characters than the lineup of the Big Bang Theory?
What about everyday sexism? Does a character being every-day sexist need to be explicitly taken to task by the narrative, or is it good enough if (say) a feminist character overhears the sexist thing and raises her eyebrows pointedly?
Did Joe get called out enough for his transphobia in leaving Carla off his “Do” List?
Gods forbid fictional characters be flawed. Obviously Willis should only write about morally pure characters with no flaws and those of us who like reading fiction about less than morally pure characters are bad people.
Not what I said, but nice hyperbole. Characters can be flawed in ways that aren’t being a fucking cheater. I’m talking about people trying to justify the cheating as ‘normal’ and ‘something that happens when exploring sexuality’ because fuck off.
Most of the cast is flawed in a way that is explored to some extent. Adding cheating is something that for me, is a deal-breaker as far as liking a character! Surprise!
If the comments section wasn’t cheering on the cheaters like there’s nothing wrong with cheating, maybe there would be less paladins.
And we know there would be far more paladins if this wasn’t “turning the straights gay.”
Who is “we”? Because I don’t think I know that at all.
I will reiterate for like the 500th time that there was a split in the comics exactly like this for Joyce and Jacob and Raidah, back during that storyline, and there were plenty of Relationship Paladins back then, too. The sexualities of the girls may impact which readers wanted this to happen, but it certainly did not make for more of them.
Huh. Now that you mention it, I even made a special Gravatar for that kiss. It was a little more Kingdom Heartsflavored.
Yep, this isn’t unprecedented or anything.
Oh dang yeah this is the second time Joyce has done something underhanded like this. That is…not great.
That’s certainly one takeaway! You are fully entitled to your opinion.
Turning the who what now?
Joyce has been about as straight as a rainbow since day 1 and Dorothy saying her Kinsey number was subject to change was one of the biggest Checkov’s guns of the comic that a lot of readers spotted when that strip was made years ago.
How the fuck has this formed a ‘pro-shipper’ ‘anti-shipper’ label in the fandom comments? Am I a stupid-as-fuck queer for thinking complaints are valid but this is a lot and there’s just more fucking shit for us all to be in community over,- Like, as people with each other- than broken characters we’re still watching going thru the arc of? Am *I* dumbing of age?
wow yes i’ll take things that literally have never happened for 500, Alex
Hey, hey Rabbit.
Different people define cheating differently. We don’t know what Joyce and Joe have agreed upon, of if they have even talked about it.
I will say that, to me, a kiss like this during a moment of extreme emotion is NOT cheating. At all.
What they do next may or may not be. If Joyce tells Joe what happened and they talk about it, then it isn’t cheating unless they decide that it is.
… if Joyce lies about it, then yes, it’s cheating. Because, to me, the lie is the key component, not the kiss.
Sure, on the internet maybe. I can’t imagine telling someone IRL “oh I kissed my long time friend on the mouth because it was emotionally charged” and any of them not thinking it’s cheating.
Lol, you’re named after food.
What I can’t imagine doing is hearing someone say “to me, this is not cheating” and just assuming they must never have had a real relationship before, because obviously no one could ever possibly mean that, and definitely they couldn’t actually have an adult relationship with rules different from the rules I might like myself.
Always assume the broadest definition of cheating until you have a conversation that sets those boundaries. You can’t just do what you want and say “Well you never explained what you considered cheating” afterwards.
Rose didn’t say anything that implied that’s how they operate, though.
You can’t? Hi, I’m sitting here. My wife is on her computer, her other husband is playing Prey on his Xbox, our daughter is just finishing dinner. Not everyone has the same ideas you do.
“I will say that, to me, a kiss like this during a moment of extreme emotion is NOT cheating. At all.”
I will say that if this is your interpretation you need to be very explicit with your partner about that. You need to tell them “Hey, if I feel really passionate I might just go kiss someone else”.
If you don’t then still cheating and a dick move.
Why are you assuming Rose doesn’t already do that, though?
I really can’t take someone seriously who complains about fictional characters being “Morally Degraded”
Muh moral JPEG compression artifacts.
Are we disallowed to judge fictional characters now? Are we unable to engage with the story? If you want to just ogle at the spectacle, go right ahead. I don’t know why you’re in the comments section, though.
So are you genuinely incapable of engaging with a story without turning it into a moral play about who is being ethical at all times? Because that’s kind of what your comment sounds like. In which case I also can’t take you seriously. There’s a whole world of possibilitirs out there of engaging with media that don’t involve judging characters morals. It’s beautiful out here… The sun is shining… The birds are singing…
Or we are fully capable of engaging with the story including its moral/ethical components. If a character goes around being a shitty person I am going to dislike their character even if I like their role in the narrative.
I am fine with this being some drama that gets explored in the narrative. I am not fine with cheating being framed as “awww cute”. Joyce and Dorothy still have agency. They are making a decision and it is one that is disrespectful and rude to their partners.
the mistake that all of these folks are making, is that they are repeatedly assuming that we aren’t judging the characters
I’ve been judging the fuck out of them both, this whole time. It’s just that, my emotional response to that judgement, is in proportion to the fact that this literally isn’t real, and harms nobody, and the whole point of this story is the characters navigating the process of learning to be a good person, one step at a time.
I am and have been very sad and disappointed about how Joyce and Dorothy have acted! I just don’t think I have a responsibility to castigate fake people, so that everybody knows that I’m totally morally pure, in real life!
And, maybe, just maybe, getting so mad at a fictional character, in a fictional story, that one starts harshly judging and actively flaming real people about it, makes a person no worse than the average Twitter user?
I am because these two characters are kissing each other in the mouth hope that helps
partly it’s because this ship has been slow-burned as an endgame for literally 10+ years, and so the people who have been shipping it have been literally been conditioned to want it to happen for that entire duration, because it was something deliberately foreshadowed over and over by the story, and so enjoying that outcome, is just part of how enjoying a long-form serialized story literally works
partly, it’s because some of us read fiction expecting characters to act like humans, and not be morally perfect, and actively make mistakes that make sense for their character, and thus create meaningful conflict that is interesting to witness and contemplate, and further characterize everybody in the story through how they react to it
I mean, you say it yourself— some of us like it when characters make mistakes that make sense for their character. Does this make sense for Dorothy right now? Absolutely. I’m not contesting that. Does this make sense for Joyce? I’m a lot less convinced.
One of Joyce’s most prominent, long-lasting character traits is that she struggles with change and with redefining her worldview. In a certain sense, you could argue that the entire comic is about her being put through that struggle over and over again in different ways. And we’re being told that she’s able to recognize her crush on Dorothy and reimagine her sexuality over the course of like 12 hours, with no discernible angst or self-doubt at any point? I can’t even imagine her being that relaxed about deciding to put toppings on a bowl of pasta.
To say nothing of Joe! Sure, the foreshadowing for Joyce/Dorothy has been in place for a long time, but Joyce/Joe was also slow-burned for like 6 years before they got together, and it’s been signposted for ages that the big conflict in their relationship was going to be Joyce’s growing horniness versus Joe’s desire to “settle down” and be something other than The Sex Guy. I’ve been a shipper of Joyce/Joe on its own terms, sure, but I also thought that burgeoning conflict was really compelling and grounded in the directions the characters’ arc had already been going. But either way, that’s all out the window now! What does it matter if there’s this seed of a fault line when one party in the relationship is instead just running around kissing other people?
I dunno. I have no objection to Joyce/Dorothy in principle, but this just feels rushed. It feels like Willis was given a deadline that he had to make them kiss by and just pushed aside every other storyline in order to make it happen.
gestures at the public Patreon posts about how this storyline nearly started in 2023, and how Willis has tried to start it several times since then
gestures at how Joyce actually had a very similar trajectory on her feelings for Jacob, spending a while in denial over having any and then making a very sharp 180 degree turn the second someone called her attention to them in a genuine way
(Walky making fun of her for months doesn’t count)
idk, I don’t actually think this throws any of Joe’s development out the window, and I think it’s fully consistent with Joyce’s previous characterization, but also Willis has deliberately kept us out of Joyce’s head this whole time, presumably to better draw out the tension over whether or not she felt the same way about Dorothy that Dorothy did about her.
So I expect the answer to a lot of questions about where Joyce’s head has been out will come very quickly, and then it’ll be easier to judge whether or not all of this makes sense.
(Literally you can find comments from me this whole time trying to wrap my head around Joyce’s perspective. You’re not alone in having questions about it. But I think we were supposed to, and I think the answers are coming.)
Agreed. Especially about Willis keeping us out of Joyce’s head. That the attraction was there was obvious, but what Joyce was thinking about it was not.
And even now, what Joyce is thinking about Joe in regard to all this is completely unknown.
I’ve mentioned it at other points in this thread, and on previous days, but two factors I have thought of are:
1) Joyce has spent the past few hours, days even, moving from obsession to obsession, crisis to crisis. She has not been thinking critically about literally anything she is doing, because she’s cosplaying Dorothy from a year ago, and throwing herself full-force into trying to forestall and assuage Dorothy’s impending breakdown.
2) I think there’s an argument to be made, that Joyce has done a full 180 in the source of her moral compass from fundamentalist to secular, and the inherent secularity of Being Horny and Kissing Girls, has her convinced that what she is doing, is not OKAY by any means, but she’s convinced that it’s actually a far smaller transgression than it actually is. To her, it’s something that a fundie would be mad about – after all, she had to deliberately unpack that girls kissing was not a bad thing!
So, she isn’t actually reckoning with the premise that her violating her and Joe’s monogamy, is as big of a deal as it obviously is, because she associates sexual propriety entirely with religious morality, and has not yet unpacked that that same thing is actually equally morally charged for secular atheists like herself. I think that, to be fair and honest, she is being at least partly willfully ignorant. But, as a result of the things I said, she isn’t lying to herself as hard as she would have to, if she had actually unpacked her own morality in a deeper way, and if she was actually thinking through her behavior and actions with any real depth.
There’s also another point I made, that’s related, where I think the love she’s experiencing with Dorothy right now, is subconsciously bringing her back to the way that she used to imagine experiencing love, as she was socialized by her prior fundamentalist upbringing. Her and Joe have a very healthy, secular relationship; this thing with Dorothy? I believe it resembles the way Joyce was directly taught, that her and her future husband were meant to think about one another, and I think that, in the current chaos of her life, that prospect is both comforting and exciting, further spurring her to ignore any lingering doubts she may have, deep down.
And, I would be remiss to leave out the uncharitable but obvious fact, that these women are horny as absolute get out, and it is definitely a factor in fueling their bad decisions.
Thank you for summing up my feelings on this better than I ever could.
If situations were totally different, I’d be really good with this. But I’ve actually been really excited for the Joe/Joyce ship and their development for years, and this whole arc basically has made me feel like there was no point in being invested in them. But I did get invested in them. And now I feel super let down.
> One of Joyce’s most prominent, long-lasting character traits is that she struggles with change and with redefining her worldview… we’re being told that she’s able to recognize her crush on Dorothy and reimagine her sexuality over the course of like 12 hours, with no discernible angst or self-doubt at any point?
I think that Joyce struggles long-term over rationalizing minor inconsistencies in her worldview. Short-term though, she immediately decides to change for big revelations.
Holy shit that’s a very succinct explanation, and with a case study to boot. I wish I knew this strip well enough to be able to just pull that out.
Yep! Very well-put.
I feel the same. I’d love to be happy for Joyce and Dorothy, but I just feel bad for Joe and Walky. They deserve good relationships with people who aren’t gonna cheat on them.
I also feel bad for the guys. I’m cheering, not because this is the right decision, but because narratively it’s a very interesting one.
Walky knew it was a matter of time when Dorothy told him she was happy to be in something that meant nothing and harmed no one. He was particularly hurt by that statement, but it might be that he knows this will come.
I think it’ll hurt more taking one more L to Joyce.
…Huh.
Walky’s kind of overdue for a kick in the head. He’s been an asshole forever and dramatically moreso post time-skip.
Joe’s drunken crash-out is going to be AMAZING, though. I hope he sleeps with 90 percent of women in Indiana between 18 and 84, plus one dude when he is bored. Lets get full Jerry Springer with it.
I hope for a significantly higher number of men in that sex rampage, but otherwise I’m on board.
Just to prove to Joyce that he, too, can be gay.
lmao no, as funny as that would be, I want him to do it for himself and his own happiness.
that’s totally how i feel about the polycule idea. Joe actually being cool with this, internally and emotionally, and it not being as disruptive as most of us are expecting it will be? That would be A+++ great. but, I hate and fear the idea that Joe will feel obligated to feel okay with it, and bury the fact that he actually doesn’t feel okay with it, and give consent anyway
That’s what I’m expecting. I hope he gives himself the time and emotional space to actually think about it and eventually decides he is okay with it, but I expect him to be like, “What? I knew this would happen, good for you Joyce,” and inside there are crying emojis.
there’s also crying emojis outside :'( they are on my face T_T
Just one man but he has sex with Walky multiple times.
> and dramatically moreso post time-skip.
Character grieving and denying grief acts in a way that isn’t socially acceptable. More at 11.
Since Mike died, Walky has spent a lot of time on Facebook (danger!) indulging in conspiracy theories (danger!!) about Mike being alive, stalked Jennifer for a bit while refusing to accept her name change, lost a comic he cared about to Joyce, lost a fight to Incelerator (!!!), and now lost his girlfriend to Joyce.
I think there’s sufficient foreshadowing that Walky might *literally* become the Joker over this, and I’m 100% down for it. We’ve never had a character go from good to evil (or vice versa) and I wanna see it. I want Evil Incel Walky! Joyce vs. Walky, battle of the century! He can get beat up and reform eventually, sure, but I want to see him go absolutely apeshit in a clown costume!
i have been rooting for transfemme Walky to be their next major character arc but if Walky enters his insane loser incel era, just on a metatextual level alone that would be the funniest fucking thing to ever happen
I know, right! There’s been quite a bit of setup for a Walky heel turn since Mike died, but also given the entire Walkyverse it’d be so amazing.
The best villain moment in the whole comic was Blaine assembling the Legion of Dads, and Loser Incel Supervillain Nightguy would be even better. I hated that Incelerator was in the comic and actually getting punchlines at the expense of the cast, but that makes so much more sense if this is where it’s going.
IMO the best thing the incelerator did was act as the setup to the “surprise b****“ punchline that is upgrading frigging TONY to major supporting character status, and i would be perfectly fine if his relevance as character stays that way lol
to be fair, I wouldn’t call it a pattern per se, but at least some number of transfemmes actually do have to go through their insane loser incel era, IRL. it sounds insane, but it’s literally a thing.
I’ll be real, that’s an absurdly shallow list of things. Mike being alive was a joke he made, he never believed it. Being resistant to Jennifers name change is not a walky specific thing. In fact, the person who correctly called it out as being shallow specifically was Sal. Even then, it wasn’t a sticking point.
Like I think even if all of those were completely correctly representing how we are supposed to view his actions, I would be unconvinced, and I really don’t think they are.
Walky consistently switched to Jennifer as soon as she told him about it. I don’t even know where this idea comes from.
yeah the one thing that truly gets me about how much hate NEARLY EVERY CHARACTER in this strip gets, at one point or another, is genuinely how little empathy most of the readers have for anybody but their specific favorites, who can do no wrong.
If most of these characters actually went on a murderous rampage, I would still have empathy for them. Most of them are so severely abused and traumatized, I’m just not surprised, shocked, or appalled when they make bad decisions? Like, yes, I’m disappointed in them, and I’m sorry about it. But we have a God’s-eye-view of every aspect of the story, and every aspect of their entire lives, and like…it’s never hard for me to accept how, and why, any of these characters are imperfect, and even immoral, in the circumstances where they frequently are.
like yes, I wouldn’t be friends with them, or put up with them in real life. that’s why i keep them stored safely in my literal fiction, to observe for fulfillment and entertainment. I’m not their fuckin’ dad, they aren’t my responsibility.
I hope Joe goes “damn, I was worried I’d be my dad and instead I’m my mom”, then he has a long chat with Danny.
i forget who brought up Joe/Danny Platonic Hug up above but now i have a desire i cannot let go of
Walky’s been pretty decent lately? Not perfect, but I feel like he’s been keeping himself above par
I had no idea where that link was gonna take me and I am impressed thank you
I’m so busy saying, “Awwwwwww” that I don’t even remember who Joe and Walky were.
Why does what Joe and Walky have been through entitle them to the affections of Dorothy and Joyce respectively? Women are not a prize to be given out as a reward for men’s moral virtue or as compensation for their suffering.
Yeah, it’ll suck for them if/when they are broken up with (I personally don’t really buy that it’s likely for there to be anything poly going on here), but that’s life! Sometimes relationships will hurt you and as much as that’s sad, nobody is obligated to maintain a relationship with somebody just to spare them the hurt that would come with it ending.
I think we all have to remember that this arc of these two coming to terms with their feelings for each other has taken place over a day and a half, and while, yeah, this isn’t as clean and nice and textbook as you would hope for in real life, this has been a messy, intense, emotional couple of days for these girls, and how everything’s gone down reflects that.
I’m not specifically talking to you here, OP, and more to a general sentiment that I’ve seen in comments over the last couple weeks especially, but there’s been a frankly obscene amount of handwringing over the feelings of the men in these (extremely short-lived) relationships, as if their feelings take priority over the feelings, self-actualisation and self-discovery of the women involved. Especially when it comes to the often complex and fraught nature of gay women discovering and coming to terms with their sexuality (not to MENTION everything to do with Joyce’s upbringing), I find it really distasteful how the focus has often been on how this discovery will be inconvenient and unfortunate for the men in their lives.
I don’t want to assume (and don’t, for the most part) that this comes from a place of homophobia, but there’s definitely a need to examine the way that the discussion on this arc has tended to stray from discussions of the narrative (“This is going to be such a mess!”, “There’s going to be so much drama.” etc.), which is what we get with most of the dramatic moments in this comic, to something much more approaching genuine moral outrage. I’ve seen more than a few people say that this arc is ruining their enjoyment of the comic or the characters, and I think that’s a sign that people need to step back and have a bit more of a think over why the fictional depiction of, frankly, fairly mild relationship drama is affecting them so much.
I apologise to everyone for how much this comment got out of hand, but I’ve been feeling a lot of feelings about this over the last couple weeks.
You’re reminding me of the short Shaun video about Deus ex Machina, and how a lot of the reactions to that movie are steeped in clear disbelief that the narrative of the movie can actually be saying what it’s saying, because it subverts and asks you to question whether a movie’s protagonist is automatically its hero — and also whether the main male character was ever necessarily actually the protagonist.
GOOD.
god damn it willis
Somebody give this Willis a Eisner
I’d be down for that. Not necessarily because of this scene in particular, but because of his general creative power and dedication to the craft.
Then do we have to give Eisner a Willis?
Yeah, it’s kind of fucking ridiculous that Willis does NOT, in fact, have a motherfucking Will Eisner Award.
Awww, with cherry blossoms… wait no.
dfgdfhlkjsdlkfh know I chortled and choked on my tea omg
Dang it, that was gonna be my reply! >_<;
As mentioned above, I fuckin love the tear gas sapphic shojo bubbles.
I’m am a relationship paladin and this is my religion.
Your gravatar gives this such a plus
That’s the type of reactions I was hoping for.
Just commenting so I can find this page later, after 1000 comments have dropped and I can read them all at my leisure.
WOO!
im unironically glad that that’s something you will actually enjoy doing. i would much rather everybody down here actually be having fun.
i think for many here, the discussion is what they find fun.
might be one of the best lines in Dogma “jesus loved watching us argue”
or along those lines (i’d make a comment about not remembering as it a has been unavailable for so long and thus remember poorly, but iam om one of those sickos who actually has it on dvd, just too lazy to rewatch)
I find the fun discussions fun, the interesting discussions interesting, and the caustic discussions caustic! I find that dealing with the third thing, is worth getting to participate in the other two.
Huh, it’s over 2000. I thought I was being hyperbolic with my guess. Shows what I know.
The tear gas really adds a lovely ambiance.
Hope this doesn’t make Joe rebound back into being a misogynistic ass
Otherwise, WOOO *now get the hell out of there*
Nobody can make him do that, he’d be chosing it on his own.
preach it!
I think him *not* rebounding would be the best rebuttal to Rachel’s insistence that his change of heart is “delayed gratification in pursuit of a long term goal” if he remains a better man absent that goal
I’m calling it now that Joe’s next real relationship after this, eventually, will be with Rachel, probably because of that.
IMO I think Sarah’s more likely, as funny as that is
I could see Sarah a ways off in the future, if her thing with Tony doesn’t last.
That WOULD be very Rachel. “If this guy won’t be a shitty loser like I think he is, I’ll just manipulate him into sinking down to my level, thus proving me right!
Or, alternatively… Rachel actually finally accepts that he has indeed changed for the better and decides maybe he’s not the monster she made him out to be up to now (thus showing that she, too, is not the monster that most commenters have preemptively written her off as).
This only happens if Joe deigns to give her the time of day at some point, maybe.
this feels more likely, but i would say the new joe would give her the time of day regardless, as she is a human being who whioe being a bongo to him, has not committed any acts of true evil worthy of making her not worthy of civility.
and, crucially, Joe does believe that people can change
Joe will be sad and hurt but basically reasonable. It’s Walky who’s going to turn evil over this. Like, evil evil, there’s been tons of setup that he’s been in a dark place since Mike died.
I actually forgot about that
like a few others have said I DO NOT understand where you get this walky turns evil from. yes he has had difficulty proccessing mikes death, but at no point have i gotten ANY vibe from him that his overall world view or attitude is changing to suggest he is going to do anything but try to continue to be a better person.
he has since mikes passing made multiple (poor some might say) attempts to have the positive effect on the people around him that mike had, as now that mike is gone he truely is able to see the good mike did.
HOLY FUCKING SHIT it finally happened! YES HAHAHA YES
Jocelyn: “Neat!”
yes perfect
Honestly, as part of Relationship Paladins, this is actually what bothers me more. She should be grabbing them both by the collars and bellowing, “GREAT! NOW GO WRIGGLE LIKE A COUPLE OF EELS IN HEAT ANYPLACE THAT ISN’T ABOUT TO BECOME A GODDAMNED SHOOTING GALLERY!!”
Her “Everything is Fine” face, here, is just seriously disappointing.
look, two things:
– when you know that your beloved little sister grew up in a dangerous, abusive cult, it is transcendental to behold concrete evidence that she has been relatively undamaged by that dogma, and is capable of freely being herself in opposition to her conditioned dogma, so Jocelyn can’t help but be extremely giddy about that
– when you’re sapphic and you see sapphics sapphicing, Jocelyn’s current reaction is actually the industry standard response
To elaborate, what I’m saying is, this isn’t her “everything is fine” face, this is her “I have been temporarily pulled out of the dire reality in front of me, by a state of wonderment that is so strong it has distracted me from even my most basic self-preservation instincts.”
YESSSSSS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
thank you for having the eloquence to find the words i struggled with.
this applies to all 3 wonderful ladies here.
there are hormons here that have been running high for a while, you then add the stress of fascists fascisting, and then you add a loved one running into danger.
honestly if they had not kissed/lost themselves in the kiss a little bit, they wouldnt feel like real characters.
i understand the trauma many have regarding cheating in relationships(or in life in general) BUT in moments of extreme stress morally perfect decision making is nigh impossible, this does not absolve them of the hurt it may cause their other loved ones, and if it progresses to sexual physical intimacy then their isnt really a question of them commiting a morraly wrong action. but that hasnt happened. it may not happen. we have to wait and see where this goes next.
Additionally:
YES, HA HA HA, YES!
Gay protest is good protest
HELL YES
HELL FUCKING YES
IT’S A GLORIOUS DAY TO BE A SICKO!!!!
SICKOS RISE
YIPPEEEEEEEE
RISE OF THE SICKOIMALS.
it is the most fantastic strip of the year!!!!
the 2k25 Kiss of CHAOS is here!!!!
so grab your favorite chesticle, and CHEER!!! ^-^
HOORAY HOORAY HOORAY!!!
this is SO DAMN GAY!!! <3
LESBIANS AND SICKOS STAY WINNING
Always has always will.
Evidence suggests both of them are bisexual not lesbians.
Nonsense, as bisexual women in a relationship, they forgo their bisexuality entirely forever. Like Korra and Asami.
They can be bisexuals in lesbians with each other
That seems irrelevant to the comment. Syl ist talking about the readers, no?
I have complicated feelings about this.
Thank you for summing it up so perfectly.
Valid!
Is “woooo” a complicated feeling?
It is one of the most complex of all feelings.
This has complicated feelings about you.
Appropriate avatar is appropriate.
YEEEEEESSSSSSS!!!!!!!!!
I’m happy for them and sad for Joe and Walky. Either way the comments are going to be hell tomorrow morning.
Even as someone who was on Team Paladin, my reaction was OMG OMG, IT’S HAPPENING! IT’S HAPPENING!
Also, you know, the requisite’ “I’m real happy for you dawg, and I’mma let you finish” BUT PLEASE VACATE THE PREMISES before y’all get 1312 bruises from the “peace officers.”
they call them peace officers because theyre all huge peaces of shit
More like piss officers, because they piss off everyone they encounter.
more like penis officers. cause they dicks
the white people are white people-ing… cheating AND being the main characters at a genocide protest you dont gaf about oh the whites are WHITING
Something about your picture being Jason making such a disapproving face makes this comment so much funnier
nobody but a proper british man can truly appreciate the storied history of whites whiting all over everything
This is where I’m at. Half-British, whitest person most of my friends have ever seen, and even I can plainly see this is some wildly inappropriate white bullshit.
Nothing quite so destructively ignorant as a bunch of white Americans who grew up comfortably in the majority and never had to reckon with their race in any uncomfortable context. You don’t have any right to claim the “sicko” title for cheering on this brazen display of self-centeredness.
Your avatar makes this 10 times funnier.
Dang it, ninja’d again.
Seriously in what way are they being the main characters of the protest? Nobody but Jocelyn is actually paying attention to them.
I mean…I kind of get it? No, obviously Joyce and Dorothy aren’t calling a halt to the protest so everyone has to watch them kiss. But also: protests are for important causes, and are stressful and [can be, and in this case is] dangerous. Willis is obviously trying to juggle acknowledging modern protests while also writing these strips in advance, and not wanting the comment section to be an absolute fire pit, so I can understand him not pausing the current teen drama to ONLY focus on a protest. But Joyce and Dorothy came here to find Jocelyn, not really for the protest. It’s a plot with a backdrop of a protest that has become a…vehicle?…for Joyce and Dorothy facing their own issues as white queer women. Joyce went to find her sister, and it became about her taking Dorothy’s hand and going together. Jocelyn wanted them to leave for their safety–and arguably HER safety– and it became about Dorothy reaching a breaking point and using a dangerous situation at the protest to feel in control. Then it became about Joyce being dragged back in, to stay with Dorothy, and basically confess their feelings. And now they’re making out amdist tear gas. Like…the protest is a backdrop for two white women, who didn’t care about the protest except to find Jocelyn and then feel in control of their own lives and drama, to have a romantically fulfilling moment. Aw dang, the world and this protest are going up in oppressive flames, but at least they got to confess and kiss!! With the spice that they’re also cheating. I don’t think it’s A Terrible Unforgivable Sin that it’s happening this way, but I can see why people would find it kinda tiresome.
You are incredibly eloquent. Good comment. I’d rate it 10/10
It is definitely an issue in that it feels like this relatable real world storyline is being minimised for this (and not even in a way that feels satisfying to at least a bunch of people).
At best it’s a little tone-deaf, and even if it reads better on a binge, the day-to-day reactions matter.
You articulated a lot of my feelings about today’s strip and the past few strips better than I could.
Meanwhile, a superhero is probably still in the background somewhere, jump-kicking riot cops in the face.
big ups to joyce and dorothy for being so gay it possibly saves amazi-girl’s life
Out of character. Y’know, the bit that’s written and not imagined or implied.
Like this is honestly a very silly reaction to someone who’s clearly talking about author choices and not character choices.
yeah but we all have a reasonable sense of how stories tend to go, and everything about this set-up screams that, in the future, “Riot Lesbian Kiss” will be the most viral part of this protest incident in-universe, and actually over-shadow the real message the actual protestors are trying to get across.
ultimately, we are pre-reacting to a story beat that seems so obvious, that it may as well be sitting on a tee in front of us. we may be wrong about it actually happening! but, like, it’s very hard for me to believe that the front page of at least the next university newspaper, is the two Riot Lesbians kissing romantically in a literal cloud of tear gas. That image would go instantly viral in real life.
It feels that way, but it’s really hard to see how it trumps Amazi-Girl beating up dozens of riot cops.
depressingly, I know the answer to why it does.
amazi-girl is something the university is deeply ashamed of, wants to hide and bury by any means necessary, and the mainstream media doesn’t want to show a vigilante hero resisting the police, lest the rest of the public get any ideas
meanwhile, the two random sophomore lesbians macking out in a cloud of tear gas, is both a mega-viral image that can have a thousand think-pieces spun from it in mere seconds, and furthermore, dilutes the actual anti-establishment story at hand.
Amazi-Girl is actually, obvious, the biggest story here.
That’s precisely why that’s the story that both the University and the media, will want to use the more marketable story of the kissing lesbians, to act as a cover up for. If they talk about the successful resistance against the riot cops, then they have to acknowledge the real story, and the real protest, and that’s the one thing that both outlets will inevitably refuse to give voive to.
Great point except they’re freshman
wait are you kidding me? even after the time skip, this is still their first year in college?
…that means that, if this strip continues at the current pace, the oldest of them will finally get a bachelor’s degree finished, in 45 years?!
Hey, it’s younger than the age I’m due to complete a bachelor’s degree at, so it’s still good going!
But that still not them making themselves tge main characters, that would be external factors outside of tgeir control. And it might not even happen
Dorothy is 100% making herself the main character. She stormed into this protest and bought a sign off of somebody just because she’s having an identity crisis and wants to be an irritant to the system. This could be literally any liberal protest and Dorothy would do the same because the actual issue doesn’t matter. I think that’s very main character
There is a meaningful distinction between events in-universe (where this is just one thing happening amid the chaos) and out-of-universe (where this is plainly being presented as the most important moment in the entire scene).
Yeah it is being presented that way because tgeyvare actually the main characters of. The story we are reading so of course tge “camera” gonna follow what they do, that is still not they making themselves the main characters of the protest
But if the important part is the two kissing, why bring in the protest at all?
Because absent something this stressful, these two would have kept circling the point forever, not actually admitting their feelings for each other until Joyce finally shares her pudding cup with Dorothy in the retirement home.
industry plant yuri in the middle of the genocide protest plotline yay
who’s the industry here
A rhetorical one, I think
Big Yuri
sickos industry
my friend and i have been referring to thse two as “mid yuri” for years before this plotline was even on the skyline but it is unfortunately more relevant than ever lmfao. truly the kraft singles of yuri.
at least kraft singles are useful for sandwiches. which is more than i can say for this plotline or this dynamic.
you are a light in these dark times…
I am so relieved to find more of my people coming out of the woodwork. Not relationship paladins, not “sickos,” but a secret third thing (sickos with good taste)
my ideal would have been dorothy and jennifer having a drunken miserable little fling right when alice initially seeming to reject jennifer a second time and dorothy seemed like she was starting to question her assumed heterosexuality. sure, it lacks the cheating angle, and it ended up not being viable when alice decided to give jennifer another chance, but itd be a lot more psychologically fascinating to me personally.
hell, even if i found the concept rather unimpressive in terms of narrative and dynamics i still would have even been more forgiving and tolerant of dorothy and joyce’s friendship becoming tinged with romantic entanglement if the backdrop wasn’t ALSO some 2012 liberal white performative ally tumblr user’s fanfiction about bbc sherlock and watson making out at the stonewall riots type nonsense. really thought we all had better taste and more critical thinking skills than that. but noooo.
Now, when you say “sandwiches”,
korean bbq spam and cheese sandwiches, you down?
Y’know what, I’ve never tried Spam. By this time next week, I’ll do my best to have an opinion on it.
I salute you.
I need you to know I love your comments. Extremely, extremely funny and poignant.
useless lesbian sandwich with craft American cheese slices and some lettuce if you’re feeling *~*spicy*~*
a sandwich with just lettuce and cheese sounds horrifying.
i feel like it could be made to work
but i don’t feel as if anybody should
The texture alone makes me recoil
that’s the one thing you’d have to fix, but holy crap some dark alchemy would be needed to fix such a foundational problem
kraft macaroni and cheese was right there
we were so close to greatness
I feel like I waited 15 years for that moment.
I think the thing that some people are missing, is that some of the readers of this strip literally did.
Like, fuck the shippers for wanting something that Willis has been hyping them up for, for like, their entire adult lives, right?
Nah but fuck Willis for giving it to you in the worst way.
Hasn’t Willis always been, more or less, a monkey’s paw of a story-teller? This is the only strip of his I’ve partaken in.
Ah, then you missed the portions of It’s Walky! when being excited to see the return of a minor character was tempered with the knowledge that their return likely heralded their violent death.
I blame Willis for splitting the comment section in two. In a very Binary way.
So, if you want something for long enough, it stops being a morally-complex thing to want?
it does if it’s a fictional comic strip that literally cannot physically harm anybody in real life in any way, yeah. that’s a big part of fiction, actually.
So, if someone said that actually they’d been rooting for ToeDad or Blaine or Ryan, that’s fine by you?
Actually, if someone said that, I would be deeply invested to find out the reason that the felt that way.
Which, I probably wouldn’t ever find out. Anybody with opinions that shitty, probably couldn’t go five days without getting themselves banned from posting comments. They wouldn’t be able to respond to some of the passive-aggressive, bad-faith, willful misunderstanding of points, and general performative moral grandstanding, without dropping at least a couple of slurs into the mix.
That’s a good point, I probably would be as well!
I’m sorry if that’s how it came across. I find the best way to find out what someone thinks is to ask them about it, but I can see how it can come across as ‘Oh yeah, well what if all your friends jumped off a cliff?’ type absurdity
Oh. In that case, I’m sorry for the tone of some of my subsequent replies to you. I did not read it that way at all, but it’s definitely a result of my own bias from having other, different people actually being deliberately caustic at me all night. But I still did wrong by you because I misunderstood, and I’m sorry for that.
I feel bad for Joe, but happy for the two of ‘em
I’m expecting Walky to handle it best, with Joe feeling slightly down but not much. He wants to be supportive of her and for her.
I’m genuinely interested in how both Joe and Walky will react to this development.
Sad wank.
Maybe together.
Laundry day, huh?
instructions unclear. dick stuck in washing machine
YAY!!!! I’m just so happy for these two! I love them so much! All the consequences and fallout can wait for tomorrow. Today is just about these two and this moment.
I don’t want to say this is the greatest moment in human history, but it’s probably in the top ten.
Make that top 5!
HOOOOOOOLLY MOLLY!
…there have been five kisses that have been rated most passionate…
An excellent reference for such a time. William Goldman approves.
But does S. Morgenstern?
I asked him! He said “As you wish!”
Yes!
Y E S !
YESSSSSS!!!
YEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEES!!!! >:D
the
tigersapphics are out!I really hope joe takes this with stride and even after being betrayed doesnt let it ruin his progress.
We were all prepared for the possible outcome.
Still got to feel sorry for Joe and Walky but I’m sure will work out.
*Things will work out
walky lawyers up, deletes facebook, and hits the gym. that’s where he and joe fall madly in love and get married and have babies (who correctly understand that Monkey Master is superior to Ultracar)
The only good thing about this storyline has been Joe teaching Sarah how to workout.
okay but, to be fair, that was really freakin great
Cheating bothers me immensely, and I haven’t liked how unpreterbed Joyce has been about this whole thing vs Dotty (not that that makes her better for doing it) but I still was filled with joy seeing this tonight. The fallout probably will not have the same effect
I’m honestly predicting this might end as soon as she points out what Billie said and Dorothy calls her out on it. But I also feel like that would be kind of lazy so I hope that’s not the entire solution
I think that boat has sailed, but another axiom I’ve considered, is Joyce reflexively under-selling the importance of monogamy, because she’s already been taught that polygamy is Not A Bad Thing and Okay To Do
If You’re Secular, and might be somewhat surprised, when every other secular person she knows reacts predictably to the genuinely bad thing she did.
Or maybe Dorothy, though misguided, was simply correct all along, and Joyce being so excessively horny was destined to get her into trouble, by making bad decisions she couldn’t take back. Dorothy was just lying to herself when she predicted that Joe was the reason Joyce would end up acting on a rash impulse, and doing something she couldn’t take back.
I am going to say… both. Both of these scenarios ring true for me.
Monogamy is not important. Humans are not, by default, monogamous.
And it should NOT be assumed. As far as we know, Joyce and Joe have NEVER discussed the the terms of their few days old relationship. And THAT is a thing too, in our time it’s been years, in comic time it’s been days. There has, as far as we know, NOT been an agreement that they would be exclusive. And YES, that has to be intentionally agreed to, because again monogamy is NOT the default.
Pretending that humans are default monogamous is a religious construct, and it’s past time for that to be fucking obsolete. NOBODY is ‘cheating’ here because no agreement to be monogamous exists, not for Joe, not for Walky, and not for Joyce and Dorothy.
fuckin’ preach brother
I think when you live in a society where monogamy is assumed you have to also assume your current partner would also be working under that assumption if you’ve neve discussed it and neither party is openly poly. Is the assumption of monogamy societal nonsense? Yes. But it exists so that’s where I think people are being unfair. You can safely assume that you are working under an assumption of monogamy. To deny that because poly exists is just going to hurt people.
Until society changes the vast majority of people assume monogamy. We all know that and should act accordingly.
Hey, uh. Am polyamorous, am not anti-cheating plotline, but whether or not HUMANS are default monogamous, American CULTURE outside a couple of cities and subcultures very much is. When you enter a relationship you’re typically signing up for whatever your culture’s default relationship contract is with modifications negotiated as necessary. This is reasonable. If polyamory were the cultural norm if would also have to be assumed with monogamy as a negotiated specific.
Additionally (and maybe more to the point) Joyce has literally said the word “monogamous” about her relationship with Joe in the comic. They may decide this is not a big deal, but it is definitely a breach of default monogamy rules.
the only time tear gas has ever looked romantic
(p.s. AAAAAAAAAAAHHHH HOLY SHIT)
THIS IS NOT OKAY. It does not matter who it’s with, Jocelyne is still cheating on Joe. It’s no more forgivable than if Joe suddenly cheated on her with some random girl. Cheating is cheating. The characters, and frankly the rest of the readers, should not consider this something to be happy about. Honestly, I was actually dreading this happening, and now all I can think about is not yay for Joyce and Dotty, but how bad I feel for Joe. He tried so hard to be a better person.
I didn’t know Jocelyne and Joe were dating. I suspect that might be news to both of them as well, honestly.
IF WE CAN’T HAVE THE POLYCULE, THEY
MUSTSHOULD BE DATINGseriously how cute and funny would that be, though??? like. COME ON.
Joyce and Jocelyne are two diff characters, but yes. Generally agree.
Hi, I’m reading a COMIC STRIP here, not a thing happening to real people. I like slasher films and sci-fi horror but I don’t want to come face to face with a xenomorph or Mike Myers. The idea that READERS shouldn’t enjoy the thing they are READING is so silly.
I’m enjoying it! I don’t support cheating IRL, but this is drama and it’s cute and I’m hype for it.
The idea that readers can’t also not be turned off by this storyline specifically is also silly.
I didn’t say they couldn’t, seriously go read what I wrote again because those words aren’t in there. I’m specifically responding to LEE saying “and frankly the rest of the readers, should not consider this something to be happy about.”
Which is, like I said, silly. <3
You like this because you are invested in the characters. I’m also invested in the characters, and I think what is happening is very destructive. Neither Joe nor Walky deserve to be kept in the dark, and it doesn’t feel like Joyce spares Joe a single thought, after having acted super into him in the preceeding weeks.
I hate dishonesty and keeping people in the dark. Joe really tried talking with Dorothy, but she did not return the favour in the slightest.
Dorothy seems to live inside her own head. She doesn’t communicate honestly with her friends, she keep trying to manage and direct them instead.
Okay? There are plenty of reasons I like this story arc, but you can boil it down to whatever makes you happy. Reminder: I was responding to LEE’s suggestion that people shouldn’t like this, not taking aim at you personally for disliking it.
It’s fine that you don’t like this. It’s fine that I do like this. I’m not sure why that’s controversial but we’re allowed to like different things lmao.
And if that’s all people were saying there wouldn’t be such push back. Instead moral judgements are being made towards the author and people who are enjoying the story line.
And AAAALLLLL of those moral judgements are fully invalid and worthless!
yea but it still hurts when judgemental people get mad at you for enjoying media incorrectly, when they are the only ones who are patently incapable of separating reality from fantasy. because that thing does happen in real life, where it has real consequences. like, sometimes we are a nice little community down here, so it sucks whenever it’s not like that, even when “conflict is a fact of life” is my actual argument as to why it’s okay for the comic strip to have believable conflicts within it.
People can dislike cheating in fiction too.
As I said to Nono:
I didn’t say they couldn’t, seriously go read what I wrote again because those words aren’t in there. I’m specifically responding to LEE saying “and frankly the rest of the readers, should not consider this something to be happy about.”
Which is, like I said, silly. <3
kinda funny how all the relationship paladins are the ones who constantly misread and misrepresent everybody’s arguments, and suck every ounce of nuance out of them, post after post, to keep banging their morality drum about how Not Okay the fictional characters would be in real life.
like yeah, it’s bad. we get that. we’ve all repeatedly acknowledged it. I also don’t condone Darth Vader cutting Obi-Wan Kenobi in half in Star Wars. That was a bad thing for him to do. But, it was a sick as hell story beat, in that fictional story, and the story was better for it.
If we don’t beat our drums, some people might not actually know it’s bad. There’s a lot of people out there who will cheat and tolerate cheating because all they know about relationships, they learned from Hallmark movies.
…seriously?
(Also, hypthetically, once everyone is OK with it, isn’t it a victimless crime then?)
Only half joking. Some people really are like that, but I don’t think our comments will reach any of them.
And, no. Society accepting something doesn’t mean nobody is harmed by it. Often it just prevents people harmed by something from talking about it.
Do you really think everyone is going to be okay with this?
I doubt it, because (1) that’s improbable, (2) it does not IMO fit with some established character perspectives, and (3) it leads to Messy Drama, which is what at least as many people are here to read about as those who are here for the Romantic Fantasy.
Yeah, I think Joyce/Dorothy is actually a terrible ship where they bring out the worst in each other and will ruin them, Joe, Walky, Becky, and maybe even Dina. And I’m enjoying this strip precisely because of that. If I wanted to see characters be happy all the time I’d read Questionable Content. I want to see some trash fires here
You have a warped sense of humor.
I approve.
Finally someone making sense!
I mean, Anh, Ayo, and Liz, at least for now, are all still trashfires, in their own separate ways, but that’s neither here nor there.
You’re right it’s a comic strip. People shouldn’t attach real life morals or opinions to things!
Yknow I think Ross and Blaine were justified and right. Hey it’s just a comic strip. Why hate them for their actions
Ross kidnapped a woman with the intent to put her in a conversion camp.
Blaine kidnapped a different woman with possible intent to murder, after helping cause the death of a guy and directly hammering another guy’s skull in, along with enlisting the mob snd the friends of a known rapist to help kidnap and torment several other people.
Joyce and Dorothy kissed outside of class without permission.
Your comparison is stupid.
I always enjoy your avatars, but you may have outdone yourself.
Fine then.
Joes list was perfectly fine
he never harmed anybody and never did he pressure any of the women he rated for sex.
Its just a webcomic, idk why people got so upset about it.
You’re being silly about this.
Am I? Maybe.
Idc.
You’re being just as silly as people acting like the paladins here are somehow stupid for having a problem with cheating as a plot device. (Which everyone seems to be shaking hands in a questionably circular motion.)
It’s only a matter of time before one of y’all compares these two to Ryan.
and you are casting stones, as you often do.
Yeah his list actually was fine because him and the list both don’t actually exist.
People sure are excited to argue with points I didn’t make. I was explaining why there’s nothing wrong with being excited by this, liking it, or even excusing it. You decided to take that personally.
That’s a you problem, babes. Re-read what I actually wrote, I’m not arguing things I never said <3
Nymph, stop cheating on Jay.
I’m sorry, I’m really trying to stop, but I’m a horrible person (as evidenced by wanting two drawings to smooch).
That’s an entire mood, though.
Since the timeskip, we know Walky’s been in a really bad and bitter place mentally that he’s bottling up, that he’s gotten into conspiracy theories, that he’s repeatedly stalking Jennifer and refused to accept her name change, that he’s got a costumed identity now, that he lost the comic strip contest to Joyce, that he had no response to Incelerator’s bullshit (and then lost), and that now he’s lost his girlfriend to Joyce too.
Everyone’s focused on how Joe’s going to react, but I think Walky is LITERALLY going to become the Joker over this and it’s going to be fucking incredible.
*Slams table*
Supervillain Walky!
Supervillain Walky!
Supervillain Walky!
He *just* got a costumed identity! Come on, Joyce vs. Walky! Let’s get nuts!
Why do I keep replying to this thread? I don’t mean to but it keeps happening.
idk but I love it, continue.
Honestly your vision is most compelling
Especially since in the 18+ Patreon he’s been seen railing Amber and like
Supervillain and superhero relationships are already juicy as FUCK, what if we added plurality to the mix lmaoooo
It’s actually completely fine to like villains, I don’t know what’s complicated about this.
wow i can’t believe you’re a serial cheater in real life who also is an abuser and also kicks puppies. i wish that the police could arrest people like you using only your singular comment as evidence. why would you go on the internet, and say that it’s morally necessary to open concentration camps? don’t you know that’s a bad thing to want?
/s because, today, I don’t currently trust about 40% of this comment section to have the necessary reading comprehension skills to work that out by themselves.
I hope some of the folks being especially binary about this read your comic and realize that that’s the part they’re missing when they say “well I guess that makes Toedad’s actions okay!”
It’s not what you like in fiction, it’s the weird insistence that you can’t like that thing in fiction unless you also like it / would condone it in real life………
*comment not comic sigh
Also, I have now literally been asked whether I think that not loudly condemning cheating in every single post I have ever made on this site, also means that I believe that Toedad and Blaine did nothing wrong, and that I would also condone their actions.
I wish I was cynical enough to not take people seriously, when they’re being this deliberately obtuse. I thought this comment section might be a place where I didn’t have to have my freaking troll radar on.
okay nvm, turns out this particular instance was me misreading a more innocent comment, because I let myself get too worked up at the people who were just being dicks
Poe’s Law. There ARE people comparing Dorothy and Joyce to Blaine like, literally in this thread.
Go donate to a charity instead of judging people on the internet for liking a story about people who don’t exist. I really like slasher films guess I’m a Problematic Murderer in your eyes. Come the fuck on
to be fair, i think it would be morally correct for you to murder a bunch of teenagers at a lake. i think that would be based.
It’s only morally correct if they’re hideously deformed or the son of a thousand maniacs! These are important caveats!
no. i disagree. it’s part of your personal arc. accept personal growth. murder the teenagers.
Ur so rite, I accept my character development
I like to think I have grown beyond murdering trolls.
Excuse me but it was a HUNDRED maniacs
The gentleman on the radio back in the day told me it was 10,000 maniacs.
I assume you meant Joyce in your first sentence, not Jocelyne. I agree, cheating is not ok.
Well too bad because i do and i am pretty damn happy so i guess you gotta have to doe mad about it
NOBODY IS READING THIS AS AN INSTRUCTIONAL CARTOON FOR REAL WORLD HUMAN INTERACTIONS
They are however reading context. I don’t see why that is worth all caps rage.
Rage is when any emphasis exists at all, especially when it’s identical in format to the first sentence of what’s being responded to.
Despite my all caps I’m still just a rat in a cage.
As somebody who has been cheated on several times, I gotta say that you need to chill.
Love is REALLY messy and complicated, as are Relationships in general.
Joe does love Joyce, and I have no doubt that a part of Joyce loves Joe, but relationships throughout this entire story have been a web of messed up breakups and getting together with both the right and wrong people, its about making dumb choices and sometimes they work out and sometimes they don’t. Compared to what has happened in the past in this comic, this Kiss doesn’t even reach the half way point of the iceburg of messed up relationship issues for this story. This can be salvaged fairly easily if they just take a step back and go explain things to their partners, I would barely call this cheating (this coming from a guy who, again, was cheated on several times, one of which being when my partner had a THREESOME with two of my other friends IN PUBLIC, behind a building, this was a partner I had planned to marry btw.), this is a highly emotional moment where their bodies are probably pumping with so much adrenaline that they aren’t thinking about anything else at the moment.
Joe will be Fine.
Walky will be Fine (Hell walky would probably think its Hot if he saw this kiss right now).
Joe has KNOWN about this attraction for a long time now, since before he started dating Joyce, he expected it to happen and even told Dorothy she could have Joyce if she wanted her, because he KNEW that Joyce would accept that affection without hesitation.
While I do not think he will be 100% okay when the break up happens, he has grown as a person and that growth is not going anywhere. I have a feeling he will be just fine. Just like I am now.
This. The time I got cheated on wasn’t more emotionally damaging than any other breakup I’ve had and I’d been dating her a hell of a lot longer than Joe and Joyce being in a relationship or Walky and Dorothy getting back together in a way that Walky himself clearly didn’t think was going to last.
I understand where you’re coming from, but I’m genuinely tired of this stereotype. I was kinda hoping Willis would subvert the expectation and show how much Joyce had grown by actually communicating with Joe. Instead, on what will probably be used for more drama, Joe will find out through the TV, or this event will be kept secret by other means.
This stereotype type of “LGBT ruin relationships” genuinely needs to end as all it does is continue to hurt our community.
It’s college. Most of the characters have ruined at least one relationship they’ve been in. Some of them more.
I’d say it’s about equal for the straight (or straight passing in some cases) characters ruining a relationship they’re in by fucking up as a character who is LGBTQ+ ruining a relationship they’re in.
And they aren’t potentially (there’s still room to salvage relationships if everyone’s honest and comes to some sort of agreement whether that’s polyamory or “I’ll let it slide this once because it was heat of the moment and you clearly feel bad about it but do it again and we’re breaking up.”) ruining their relationship with their boyfriends by being bisexual, they’re potentially ruining those relationships by kissing someone else which straight people can and do too.
Yeah, bisexuals always cheat is a fucked up stereotype. But in a comic with six bisexuals I can think of off the top of my head where only two of them have ever cheated on their partners (as I said above, no one give me that shit about Asher. It’s clear that was a breakup between him and Jennifer. The only one that doesn’t seem to understand that is her.) it’s pretty clear that the message isn’t “bisexual people will always cheat” it’s “sometimes people cheat”.
The solution to the stereotype should not be that bisexual characters can never cheat. Especially not when the text is clear that this is a flaw of the characters that’s unrelated to their sexuality.
It turns out I said that below not above.
Jocelyne swore a marriage oath in the future to only smile that stupidly when Joe REALLY dicks her down you see, so
i can’t in any sense create or contrive any logical reason for this to happen, but for some reason, joe dicking down jocelyne is extremely funny to me, in a way i cannot at all articulate
like maybe they’d be cute! but I can’t explain why that might be! but my brain says it’s peak comedy, and supplies me with no rational explanation.
No no no it WOULD BE. It would be INCREDIBLY funny, as well as cute
Like of course Joe goes for a lady who looks just like Joyce, but check this out she’s snarky and more rude and it’s his jam?? and also Joyce is like oh NO my first real boyfriend is FUCKING MY STUPID TRANS SISTER UUUGGGGGHHH and Joss is all hahaha Joyce I am all up on Joe, sibling bickering love, etc.
Like I really really want Joyce/Joe/Dorothy but if I can’t have that I am FIENDING for Joe/Joss
OH my GOD i just imagined Jocelyn doing the Sisterly Lean, but to Joe, and Joyce instantly being more offended and jealous, than if every woman on earth schtupped dorothy AND the maytag
and, jocelyn is experienced, and knows what she wants sexually, and doesn’t have any baggage that would cause Joe to need to obsess over her presumed sexual and emotional fragility. tbh having a partner where Joe could let go of that hang-up for a bit, would probably be really good for him.
think this is my bizarro ship now, thank you so much for your essential consulting work.
I have never wanted a crack ship to set sail more than this omfg
we owe sajuuk-khar a great debt on this day
*bows, humbly accepts accolades*
Why do I want this now. How did you convince me. How. Why. This is amazing.
I have truly cooked this day, and I am proud of this
I don’t want to be insufferable about this, because I have shipped the two of them in the past. I just wished this wouldn’t be yet another unfaithful bisexual trope.
Aggressively pointing at this comment.
Cheating bisexual trope is tired. Two white women who don’t give a shit about the protest using it as a backdrop to have a big dramatic kiss also sucks.
If only another bisexual character could explicitly point out that being bi isn’t an excuse to cheat. Maybe that character could wear an unusual hat. play a ukulele, have an ex-who’s a super hero, and date Sal.
Oh wait, he already did and everyone got pissed at him for being too mean to Dorothy.
The comments always get pissed when Danny tries to help Dorothy with realistic actions instead of just starting fires and hurting friends he’s had for decades.
The comments always get mad whenever anyone is less than stellar towards Dororthy. It’s really wild to me.
If you wanted to, you could have put a period after whenever and stopped there.
Having one author-avatar-character say ‘This thing is bad’ in a single strip does have exactly the same weight as spending months on another author-avatar-character doing that thing, you’re right
Actually what it suggests to me is that the author knows what he’s doing and this whole thing is going to go up in flames rather than be a sweet romantic end-game pairing.
If we get pay-off along those lines, that’s one thing.
The way people are using Danny’s one-off statement leaning a little more towards the authorial hypocrisy side of the scale, but that could well be the interpretation rather than the text.
I mean, it’s not just Danny’s statement. We also have off the top of my head four bisexual characters who to my knowledge have never cheated on anyone (No one give me that shit about Asher. How was he supposed to take what Jennifer said as anything other than her breaking up with him unless he was supposed to take it as them never having been together in the first place?) compared to two who are in the process of possibly torpedoing their relationships that have barely begun in favor of recently recognized but long held feelings for each other.
im officially sick of restating points ive made elsewhere on other posts (this isn’t meant to attack you directly or be snarky! that’s just the sincere truth) but I have posted in more detail lower down, I really, really do not see how this storyline has been a cheating bisexual trope, or follows any kind of stereotype about cheating bisexuals. It just does not scan to me. Just because there’s two bisexuals, and they’re technically cheating, is not the same thing as reinforcing a stereotype or invoking a trope. Sometimes, things can just be the things they are, in isolation of any particular judgements, or other factors.
people will people. humans will human. we are clomplex being who make poor decisions in real life, why wouldnt our comic characters do the same. there are people of every orientation who cheat, there are people of every orientation that don’t. there are people who have thoughts about others than their current partners and never act on it, and there are people who cheat without such thoughts occurring. yes there is a lazy stereotype about ANYONE who isnt straight automatically being more likely to cheat. but there is also the reality that stories need conflict in order to advance pplot, and as i have been reading one relationship (even if it involves the main character) commiting adultry in some form does notmake it the lazy “bi’s are cheaters” trope, we have almost the entire milieu of possible relationships depicted in this strip. (i mean we havent had anyone in a relationship with a taperecorder stuffed in a pillow but who knows what that misterycharater that appears in 10 months is)
So who’s Katniss and who’s Peeta?
That is hard to say. I would guess Dorothy is the Peeta and Joyce is the Katniss – she is the less emotionally sensitive and erratic of the two, at least of late. Also, Joyce only originally showed up to this protest to protect her sibling, and seems the more legitimately torn between two lovers when compared to Dorothy – who seems not all that interested in Walky and more motivated by her (up to now) unrequited crush on Joyce. Additionally, Joyce honestly seems more comfortable with violence and more seamlessly genuine than Dorothy, who can be more of a political creature. Finally, if we are going by “Mocking Jay” events, Dorothy is way more messed up by her experience in captivity than Joyce.
Interesting to say that Joyce is more torn between the two when Dorothy been the one repeatedly saying “we can’t” and Joyce hasn’t seemed to give a single thought to Joe this whole sequence.
I think that the first time Joyce had any thoughts at all today, was right after Dorothy’s tongue touched hers. She was just kind of impulsively running around in circles in a blind panic, before this.
Neither. Neither of them care about the shit this protest is for, and neither of them has the depth or flaws that either of those characters have imo.
I’d ask why you’re here if that’s how you feel, but you’ve made it very clear you were going to stop reading if this happened, so I expect this is some sort of last hurrah. I hope you enjoy it.
Pretty much, yeah. This is the last panel I ever plan on reading so I’m just going ham in the comments because I don’t have much interest in these two (and I presume they’re gonna get a lot of airtime after this.) because simply put: Cheating plotlines put me off. Plenty of great series and stories have loads of long-form conflict without needing to use it.
I’ve been put off every time a story, webcomic, or show has a cheating plotline like this, because it just tactical nukes my investment into the story as a whole. Not even “oh wah, I don’t like it” but as in I can feel my interest physically drop. I don’t know if it’s an autism thing or what, but I can feel things like loss of interest physically happen to me.
And I’m extremely dissapointed, because I loved this comic and did not want this to happen. I didn’t want the inevitable nuke of physical interest drop. I knew it’d happen as soon as physical cheating occurred.
That’s fine. It’s understandable. I’m sorry for your loss, non-sarcastically.
Thanks. I appreciate it. I’ll miss some of the commenters here. (You included.)
I honestly have a lot of sympathy for a LOT of folks who are upset over this storyline.
I wish no one was making it more personal than that, but strong feelings are involved. Spleens are being vented. On some level I get it.
You and I have had nice discussions in the past, I’m pretty sure. Maybe most recently over Walky and Lucy — I’ve dipped in and out of the comments since then, being more or less active, because sometimes I get too emotionally involved in commenting myself and I let it do silly things like keep me up way too late at night.
(Guilty glance at the clock,,,)
I wish you well on your future internet travels.
yeah, I have empathy for everybody’s feelings!
I just don’t have empathy for the people who are using their feelings as a justification to be flaming raging dicks to everybody!
Which Rabbit has not, because they’re chill and are just expressing what they feel. So, despite having no history with them, I already miss them
yo for serious though, this is okay, and i do feel bad that you (and probably some other people) feel this way. especially with a serialized work, where you can commit a ton of real-life time to it, only to have it turn on you like that, in a way that you can’t help but have it ruined for you.
on the other hand, you’ve been completely normal about this, and respect that it’s coming from your personal feelings, and it’s not a reason to shit on literally everybody else who’s not having the same experience as you. If the other people who feel the same way, could make the mental leap that you easily made, there wouldn’t be a giant shit-slinging extravaganza going on in every comments section of this comic, lately.
Thank you for not making your feelings everybody else’s responsibility, you’re cool, and you will be missed <3
Genuinely I’m sorry the comic ended up going that way, I can see how certain storylines would drop interest into the abyss like that. :c maybe in a few months the direction the comic goes will make you come back and you’ll like it again after it’s blowed over
Clearly, Joyce is Katniss. Dorothy is Peeta.
(As determined by: Which of the two has committed violence upon another person in order to defend a loved one? And is capable of doing it again without hesitation?)
I feel so bad for Joe and I was ready to be pissed off about this inevitable turn
I have to hand it to Willis for the beautiful art in the past few panels though, clouds of tear gas and emotion
I’m ready to move on from this now though, Joe x Joyce had a ton of potential that wasn’t realized so…yeah.
Yeah, I was a big fan of Joe/Joyce too… but this story was written a year ago (the game was rigged from the start.) All we can do is go along for the ride and see where Willis takes us.
Yeah like I absolutely am on the Joe/Joyce train way more than the Joyce/Dorothy train. I just expect the characters in the strip to act like the character they are, and so I’m not upset how the-thing-that-was-always-going-to-happen, finally happened.
I don’t actually read toxic yuri, so my maiden voyage with it, will hopefully be enjoyable?
Hey, there is a chance Joe x Joyce can still float, though it might be in the form of a Polycule instead, don’t let your dreams be dreams people.
If the solution ends up being Polyamory, after all the angst from dorothy, It’d feel lazy as shit to me.
Also, I hate poly that starts with cheating in general.
You disapprove of the relationship that the three of us have been in for 21 years and counting, and our two children? Cool, cool cool cool.
Not everyone defines “cheating” the same way you do, kid.
God damn you took that super fucking personally random dude who was not in any way targeted personally.
Joyce doesn’t deserve it and neither does Joe.
If your dreams can’t be canon at least they can be fanfic. But there’s still a chance for them to be canon.
Ah fanfic, that beautiful copium one can always retreat to when the author’s (or IP holder’s) vision does not align with your own. Not even saying that pejoratively, I’ve mainlined the stuff more than once.
I kinda think that, at least in terms of such a thing being a success long-term, that ship maybe sailed, exactly today. If Joyce talked about this with Joe first? There was a strong chance. If Joe finds out his girlfriend macked like crazy on somebody else, and is predictably hurt by that? He shouldn’t be willing to accept that, and I think it means bad things for his character arc if he chooses to.
honestly do not believe joe will be destroyed or too hurt by it. i honestly don’t think it will be polycule either. i can easily see them leaving it at this kiss, i can easily se ethem both deciding that while thye have very strong feelings towards each other they would rather remain besties in a platonic relationship, discussit wiht the current partners and moving forward like adults. and if it does lead to the 2 of them enetring a relationship i feel joes recent emotional journey puts him in a place able to handle this without backsliding into misogyny
THE RAMIFICATIONS WILL BE HARSH AND PLENTIFUL BUT THEY WON’T BE HERE FOR AT LEAST THIRTY MORE SECONDS, LET’S FUCKIN GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!
I love it when an avatar is perfect for the comment
unironically, this comment is the exact line of thinking that the human libido has evolved to encourage, lmao
Definitely distracting the cops now.
WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!
My prediction is that someone snaps a photo of the kiss that goes minorly (or majorly) viral, and Joyce and Dorothy have to deal with everyone else finding out in the most drama-causing way possible.
Me: HOT DANG MY SHIP IS COMING IN, DING DING
Also me: poor Joe…
This is giving me whiplash. OMG what if it’s meningitis???
It’s not meningitis, Hanners.
As, I thought you were making a QC reference. Where Hanners was sad to hear about Faye and Angus but happy for Marten and Claire, describes it as whiplash, then worries if it was meningitis.
“Meningitis is a human affliction.” – Vergil
Ohh, that is a quote from Devil May Cry, not the Aeneid or Dante’s Divine Comedy. That makes way more sense.
PS. Have you seen the new DMC anime? I don’t believe it to be very well written, but despite its protagonist’s name sakes, I don’t think the games were ever beloved for being the pinnacle of character development and logical plot anyway. Still, I will admit it had a killer title sequence and I generally found the antagonist delightfully melodramatic and psychotic – he definitely stole the show.
I haven’t seen the new one, but I really enjoy the old one. The games I’ve played (DMC 3, DMC 4, DmC:DMC) are amazingly goofy, but yeah I really wouldn’t call them the height of writing.
It might be a tumor.
“You little shit, it’s not a tumor okay?!”
Is it wrong that I don’t care about Joe and Walky? Like I find it a bit off putting that we’re supposed to worry about what two guys think about two women realizing their love for each other. Also Walky specifically is the guy at this moment rather smugly proclaiming Joyce wishes she could have sex with Dorothy as if she posed zero real threat to him. Well Joyce ain’t wishing no more. Joe might be sad but I think he’ll recover.
“two guys” and its their partners who they are currently in a monogamous relationship with lmfao. yall are so unserious. two girls cheating is still cheating- its not uwu and harmless just bc they’re women ur weirddd.
Nah it’s totally valid. If they want someone to care about them I’m sure there’s an informed consent clinic around they can get some estrogen
the first step to having people care about you, is caring about yourself enough to take the estrogen. that’s how you get into all the good transfemme discords, after all.
I never said it was harmless. I said I don’t care which is quite different. Relationships are never clean. People will be hurt regardless and believe it or not monogamy doesn’t mean they have a claim on their partner if monogamy is even assumed at all in their relationships. Joyce and Dorothy’s feelings are valid and worrying about what two dudes think of two women finding love outside of heteronormative cultural pressure is a bit off putting and I’d be saying the same if Walky was making out with Joe instead. Live your truth first then sort out the mess later.
Monogamy doesn’t mean they have a claim on their partner? What?
The sentence explains itself.
Perhaps I misspoke or didn’t articulate well? Joyce and Dorothy aren’t married to Walky and Joe. They’re two free young adults. How do we define dating exactly? Like yeah kissing someone else is bad but like I don’t agree at all if someone tries to argue they can’t do it. I’m here if you wanna call it cheating I totally agree with that but they are free to cheat if they feel this love.
Comments like these always sound like someone trying to justify cheating. Like when you hear stories about a shitty boyfriend stammering through trying to explain to his GF why making out with a girl isn’t really cheating despite never establishing that to his GF before he did it.
Oh, they can totally do it, just like how Elon Musk can totally give the Nazi salute at Trump’s inauguration. Just don’t be too surprised if Dorothy’s and Joyce’s Tesla dealership possibly gets firebombed as a result of their actions, is all.
Yes, Joyce and Dorothy definitely deserve to be violently attacked for what they’re doing here. What a fucking ludicrous comparison.
okay but they absolutely did not say that, and i don’t think you’re even slightly reasonable for reading it that way.
Just because you’re free to do something doesn’t make it necessary, or even OK, to do that thing
If they wanted to break up with their partners and get with each other that’s their right. But it’s important to always save that common courtesy before getting romantically involved with another.
Though it’s not 100% that’s what’s going to happen
oh, so you’re of the school of thought that people own their spouses, then? something tells me you aren’t, and your choice of words was just poor.
Monogamy doesn’t mean two people have a claim on each other. It means that they both agreed to not romance other people. If one of them does anyway, it’s a betrayal. You need extreme circumstances to make a cheater more sympathetic than the person they betrayed. These circumstances aren’t it.
Is it wrong that I always have a hard time realizing that Walky was the actual protagonist of the original comic?
EDIT: oh crap accidentally hit the report instead of reply button, I hope that doesn’t become a thing
Danny and Walky are both former main characters of previous Willis comics! Also, don’t worry, it takes 10 reports before anything happens.
Yeah honestly I’m not worried about Walky at all. Joe, yes. But I think Walky will be fine.
“two guys” as if they were some randos and not these women’s sexual and romantic partners. at minimum they deserve an explanation
The only thing Walky deserves is a boot to the head. Joe this is very sad for but I don’t really care because I just want to see the world burn here.
what did Walky do to deserve a boot to the head?
I get why anyone would take it as Walky being smug about Joyce wishing she could have sex with Dorothy as if she could take Dorothy from him but I read it a different way. I read it from a place of frustration.
Joyce never made any secret she didn’t like Dorothy and Walky together. Joyce outright /celebrated/ when Dorothy dumped Walky. Joyce beat him to the punch of doing the newspaper comic. Dorothy already hinted to Walky she thought Joyce was hot. He’s seen first hand how much weight Joyce’s opinion has on Dorothy. She’s been a threat since day one so I don’t think it’s that.
Walky also possibly has been feeling lately like he’s merely one of Dorothy’s mistakes and he doesn’t matter.
They’re not just two random guys, they’re the boyfriends of Joyce and Dorothy. And they don’t deserve to be cheated on.
You’d have a point if they were two randos and not the monogamous partners of the two women in question
Yeah they get to have thoughts about this
Being a cheating bongo is bad even if its between two women.
If one of these two were a dude you’d be singing a different tune
This. Too many comments are giving a pasd for shitty behavior because it’s the two female protags. You have a wlw plot without infidelity or reinforcement of negative stereotypes of bisexual people
[citation needed]
Read any comments over the last couple of days and think would they be this positive is Joe was making out with Sarah or Rachel.
God if Sarah wasnt dating that footballer i woulda loved to see that
No.
I mean, there’d be a different group of people excited about it? Probably fewer for the Joe/Sarah, because I don’t think that’s a very popular ship. I’m not sure if Joe/Rachel has a lot of shippers in DoA either, though there’re some hold-outs from the Walkyverse, I’m sure.
But yes, if Dorothy were a boy, and his romantic tension with Joyce had been as long-running a feature of the comic, I’m sure a fairly equal number of people would be hyped right now.
I know, because I remember how hyped Jacob/Joyce shippers were back during that storyline, which had a very similar divide in the comments between “people who hate Jacob/Joyce and don’t want it to happen at all”, “people who love Jacob/Joyce but don’t want it to start with cheating”, “people who love Jacob/Joyce and don’t care if it starts with cheating”, and “people who are true Relationship Paladins and are very upset that the third group exists”.
Claims that this is necessarily more acceptable because it’s two women are just. based on nothing. We have literal evidence to the contrary. Just because you don’t remember it doesn’t mean it didn’t happen.
As someone who was quite vocal about Joyce and Jacob, I liked the idea of the pair but didn’t want it to start with cheating because I knew that would torpedo the ship before it got too far. I was right then.
Wonder if I’m right this time.
I hope nothing I said sounded like “and people were wrong to feel either way back then”, because my point has always been, “no there isn’t some magical double standard happening only because it’s two girls, we had all the same arguments almost beat for beat the last time cheating came up when everyone involved was (presumed) straight”.
A lot of the people who want the cheating to happen are folks who ship the cheating ship super hard. A lot of the people who don’t want the cheating to happen strongly dislike the cheating ship. And some people have been very consistent, because fictional cheating always bothers them, regardless of their feelings on the ship in isolation.
Myself, I think there are parallels here, but there are also anti-parallels. The strongest anti-parallel was Willis saying that ship-teasing Joyce/Dorothy by having them (accidentally) do very gay things was one of their favorite parts of writing this strip.
Joe wouldn’t be discovering something about his sexuality if he kissed a female acquaintance. The messy parts are still there with Dorothy/Joyce, but there’s a lot more stuff to root for making the mess worth it overall.
Which is why Joe should kiss Walky.
I’d actually be singing ‘Montero’ instead of ‘The Only Exception’ while playing it on the hacked Muzak
“Eh their men, who the fuck gives a rats ass about them it’snot like their feelings are worth a damn. What matters is lesbian love which is always better than boring mainstream heterosexual love, so that makes this act if infidelity ok”…This is what they call misandry right?
That aside as far as the history of Joyce and her take on Dorothy and Walky relationships goes she’s been the couples #1 anti-supporter. Constantly saying “Your not good enough for Dorothy” or “eventually she’s going to wise up and leave you” in constant disapproval. Now with this it just proved him right that she was just hating because she wanted to steal his girlfriend.
Walky hate aside even though I know he’s nor everyone favorite, I’d say he’s still a decent enough guy to not be cheated on by his first love.
It makes me of the scene from Boajack Horseman where Mr.Peanut Butter accuses BoaJack of “Liking his girlfriend.”
Dont even try and bring up the misandry of it all you’ll just get yelled at. I stopped calling misandry out online years ago, its engrained in the internet psyche that its totally okay for dudes to get shit on
I personally won’t be offended by most people’s opinions in response to my comments specifically. I believe we can all have fair and honest discussions here and try to extend courtesy and good faith to any response. I do think people myself included tend to overreact a bit. Being called a misandrist isn’t that bad though. I’ve been called worse.
ok I know I am taking bait here, but misogyny is a structural form of oppression that is ingrained in society and effects women at every level of it – misandry supposedly is when people are mean to men online. ask yourself why you aren’t being taken serious.
Never said “Misogyny” I used “Misandry” by itself. I’m fully aware those two aren’t in the same ball park when it comes to public influence, though it’s like comparing prejudice to full blown systemic hate, both are on different scales but are far to similar.
Though several Google searches to multiple dictionary sights might disagree with your terminology, it still seems like in your definition of the word still fits in this particular conversation given this online chat we’re having.
Even if the commenter Sirksome at the top of this thread didn’t intentionally mean for this conversation to go that way and their choice of words were just wrong.
At this point, “misandry” is a dog whistle.
I strongly disagree. Misandy is a real thing that exists, because of the exact same conditions that cause misogyny to exist. Men also suffer under patriarchal norms. Feminism is the equally solution to both of those problems.
The dismantling of systemic misogyny just takes higher priority than the unpacking and healing of misandry, for the obvious and sensible reason that the material conditions of women globally, are objectively more important than the emotional baggage men carry as a result of the same system of oppression – especially because, that system actually benefits men in other ways, which is not true in reverse.
The responses are very interesting to me. As if the entirety of over a decade of slow burn storytelling doesn’t matter anymore because “what about their boyfriends?” Something about that feels like the antithesis of fun writing to me. Like why am I even reading this story if not to enjoy the messiest love drama possible?
This isn’t misandry, or fetishizing lesbianism over monogamy. Those takes are valid but this is a story. I just think it kind of doesn’t matter in the face of such a dramatic payoff.
But it seems like I’m wrong on this one. Or at least most disagree with me. I think Joe and Walky will be fine, but I guess this is actually a really bad thing that has happened.
I feel like they’ll feel a type of way about it they’ll still try to understand if not able to work through.
I get all things are fair in love and war it’s good that those two got to make their feelings known. But that shouldn’t mean the feelings of two commitid and caring romantic partners should be devalued, even if this has been simmering on the surface for a while.
Love is beautiful but can’t always fun, it gets messy and feelings can get hurt.But hey who knows maybe Joe and Walky will take this just fine.
Joe will be fine. Joyce is into girls, but Joe is her only exception. Walky all but called this long ago.
okay that’s perfectly rational and all, but have you consi-
[gets stuffed into a burlap sack by the gremlin that lives in my brain]
TRANS JOE TRANS JOE TRANS JOE TRANS JOE TRANS JOE TRANS JOE TRANS JOE TRANS JOE TRANS JOE TRANS JOE TRANS JOE
you’re confused because you haven’t turned your media consumption into a performative moral exercise to make sure everybody knows that Bad Things Are Bad and You Know It. you read things to engage with a narrative and characters, to enjoy a story, and be invested in how and why certain characters make certain choices.
if you were simply more judgemental, and less secure in your self and your beliefs, you too could be having just as much outrage, and just as little fun, as all of the people calling you a horrible person for not judging the actions of fictional characters harshly enough! It really matters quite a lot, you know.
What an ironic way to pitch that argument
sorry, after having the ten wackiest people in the comment section accuse me of absolute moral depravity for, like, five straight hours, I simply gave up on treating those people with any modicum of decorum, or good faith! it was a deliberate choice to be meaner, because the lot of you are so infuriating!
in short, go sit on a cactus, you un-serious, self-righteous dolt! I bet you eat babies!
Yeah, fair enough. One of the more annoying parts of the Internet is there being enough people that you have to have almost the same argument a dozen times whenever you say something that can be spun out into a position for arguing against. Hope your day picks up from here!
honestly, thanks for being so understanding about it
Hey now, don’t go bringing that level-headed sanity to this melodrama fest!
Thing is, Joe/Joyce is also a decade of slow burn storytelling. All the way back to their first disastrous date.
Joe/Dorothy is also long-term storytelling! We literally just learned, Dorothy got her damn sexual repression directly as a result of Joe’s behavior!
Man, it’s almost as if these three arcs have always been narratively intertwined, or something. Like they’re character foils of one another
I’d personally feel different about all of this if I thought Willis had been working towards them this entire time, rather than making two separate goes of it.
I don’t see how he wasn’t. Obviously the first date wasn’t really a proper go at it, but it set up “What was I Joe, before I hurt you?” and it’s clearly been in the works since then.
Because I just don’t think it was? I think the part where she was revealed to be texting Joe at at her parents’ house was the proper start of a second go.
Just as I presume you don’t think fifteen years of poking playfully at Joyce having feelings for Dorothy was setup for anything else, something a lot of readers would strongly disagree with you on?
I think there were hints before that, but that reveal was almost 10 years ago, back in 2016. All of Joe’s heel-face turn was tied to Joyce and that’s been a long time.
I do think Joyce and Dorothy has been teased for a long time, though don’t think there was anything nearly as solid as the “What was I Joe, before I hurt you?” bit until pretty recently. And that was 2017.
Okay, but now you’re just being subjective. “Solid” is in the eye of the beholder.
I genuinely did not find anything romantic about that sequence! At all. The same way you weren’t feeling the romance in Joyce and Dorothy listening to Paramore together. A lot of folks liked what they thought was a strong platonic friendship between these girls; well, I’ve been there, because I liked what I thought was a strong platonic friendship between Joe and Joyce.
Romance is a mood. Mood is subjective. “Solid” is subjective. One person’s obvious 15 year slow-burn is another person’s “just jokes you weren’t supposed to take seriously”.
It’s fine. We can agree to disagree. I’m not saying your reading is wrong, just that I’d feel differently if I agreed with it.
It wasn’t romantic, I guess, but it acknowledged both that he was vulnerable to her and that she cared about what he’d thought of her. In the context of that disastrous date.
By the Paramore time something romantic was obviously going on – my only question was how much Joyce was consciously aware of it. But that was yesterday. I’m much less sure about the romance in any of the jokes from decades ago.
I think Willis was setting both of these up from pretty near the beginning – though not necessarily to collide in this way.
I mean, I distinctly recall you being confused that anyone else thought it was romantic at the time? That’s what I was referencing.
Like I said: mood is subjective. You either feel it or you don’t.
And it genuinely wasn’t the jokes from Walky that made me ship these two. It was the way that he obviously (to me) wasn’t completely wrong. Walky wasn’t saying “haha, Joyce is obviously bi, and that’s funny”; he was saying, “Joyce is obviously jealous as heck of me as Dorothy’s boyfriend,” and… she was.
(Also just because I didn’t find the “what was I before I hurt you” sequence romantic doesn’t mean you can’t? That wasn’t my point at all. My point was that it’s subjective.)
It’s not wrong, no. They’re fictional characters, not real people. You’re fine. There’s nothing morally wrong with not caring about fictional feelings.
God yes. 100% with you on this.
“What about Joe?”
“What about Walky?”
“What about Becky?”
“What about Joe?”
What about Joyce and Dorothy, the two characters on screen right now actually having this happen to them? Can we not spare them a moment?
What about love?
Don’t you want someone to care about you?
a
:O
Absolutely not reading the comments on this one. This is Yuri 15 years in the making and I can’t believe it’s actually happening
And tonight you were the wisest of us all
when you get down to it, 80% of the total comments are more or less chill.
the other 20% is just really, really, really annoying to behold.
i’m sad that i got proven wrong
I’m reading the comments only because I know there’s more of us, who’ve been here for +15 years waiting for this to happen.
Hell yeah! I know there’s a whole sickos/paladin war happening, but honestly I’m just glad the bisexual Joyce deniers will stfu now
Oh they probably won’t, they just probably start complaining that it was totally out of nowhere with not real build up (because they don’t pay attention)
And/or deny she’s bisexual by calling her a lesbian.
Well, she might be. Lots of lesbians dated men before realising they were lesbians. I think saying for sure that either of these options is DEFINITELY the truth to the exclusion of all else is a bad idea. Joyce is definitely gay in some kinda way, but the rest is up to where she goes from here.
“this is objectively poorly written (because I have poor reading comprehension, and don’t pay close attention)!” is truly the most common art critique in the entire world
So hey… can I get your permission to have this quote engraved on a plaque or something? Hell, I’d settle for a needlepoint throw pillow. Anything to immortalize this absolute gem of a comment.
This is truly the monkey’s paw of me believing Joyce to be bi. Yes I wanted it confirmed. This is like the worst scenario for me, personally, to have it confirmed. Ugh.
Oh no, now it’ll just shift to “Joyce is gay and was never attracted to Joe and that’s why she didn’t have sex with him”
Hey, something about not counting chickens before they hatch.
BUT NOW, IT’S HAPPENING!
And it only took 14 years, 7 months, and 20 days…
CHRISTMAS IN JULY bongoES
Jocelyne: “Okay, that’s great for you both! Go get a room! Right now! AWAY FROM THE RIOT POLICE!”
But you know Joyce might just be passionately kissing Dorothy on the mouth in a completely platonic way! (He says with overwhelming levels of sarcasm)
There you go again giving us platonics a bad name.
to be fair, i fully believe joyce could also platonically kiss a woman with this same passion
that isn’t what is happening here
but i believe in her, and she could definitely achieve that
and i for 1 agree with you, all things are possible in love and war in fiction.
also i am older and was brought up on outdated (and in many cases frankly incorrect) sex ed, but isnt it possible to be someone who only feels sexual attraction to those you first feel love towards, like the concept of nothing really turns me on but you the human i want to be with. huh i met another human i could see my self with and they also turn me on, the first just happening to be oppisite sex yet the second identifies as a trisexual pyrofox. but no one else causes a stirring of the loins?
the word you are looking for is “demisexual,” unless the language goalposts have moved on me, at some point
And it’s still January!
Jocelyn getting material for the BEST MAID OF HONOR SPEECH EVER.
+1
no for real, tho
Hank is going to have a time.
Carol can die mad.
Can Carol just die in general? I don’t think we need to put emotional prerequisites on this.
No, no, she has to die mad.
I’d like Carol to linger personally. While Jocelyne and Joyce flourish in their daily lives and find love and happiness and meaning outside of any religious connotation, I’d like Carol to know and see and be unable to do anything. Her reaching out? Ignored. Her diatribes in the form of text? Left on read or simply ‘delivered’. Missed by none, reconciled with the dust of her retirement home.
I like the energy here, so I’ll add one thing to it. The best revenge is a wife well-kissed.
If I’m being honest, knowing nothing about the characters or Willis himself when I found this series in January, I thought that Carol was the kind of person Joyce was going to end up as. I am very glad I was wrong, and have come to adore Joyce and even see a lot of myself in her.
I would hope that if Carol ever comes back into the story, she’s taking the opportunity to grow and change. Perhaps she comes to see how empty her faith is without her family. One way or the other, that would make for an interesting character thread.
If she were to return just to spout off all zealot-like, she’d be quickly brushed off and ignored. Joyce has already overcome that hurdle. And while I’m sure she still loves her mother, lingering doubt doesn’t seem to be one of Joyce’s issues.
Bringing Carol back just to have her be a one-note antagonist that Joyce no longer needs approval from would be a waste. Better to just leave her off-screen going forward if there’s nothing new to deal with regarding her.
Sure Joyce may have to deal with her on the side here and there in her own personal life, but that could easily be off-screen, nothing that needs to be focused on.
Having said that, I can picture an alternate approach where Carol starts harassing the evil atheist Dorothy or her parents for ‘corrupting’ her innocent little Joyce.
Then she can meet Jocelyne.
Joyce is a semi-autobiographical character, and thus, Carol is equally a semi-biographical character.
So, I hate to disappoint you, but she will literally never do anything good. For reasons that are as depressing as you’re assuming.
I mean, I wouldn’t say never. It’s totally possible that at some point in the future, Willis will find catharsis by imagining a better ending for Joyce’s relationship with her mom than they had with their own, you know?
i only want that if it would really mean something to him, to be honest. despite appropriately hating the characters, I do appreciate that some of the antagonists in this comic, simply are shitty people, and don’t want or need any redemption, because they don’t care about being shitty, or otherwise, see themselves as the real good guy. that’s what most actual “bad people” in real life, really are. it’s good that not all the villains are cartoonishly criminal, and that not all the misguided people are redeemable. Or, maybe more accurately, I think the comic is better for it.
wait you said they did i misremember willis’ pronouns? I just tried to google them, but it turns out there’s literally a linguist who wrote papers about pronouns with the same name, so that search didn’t work out so well
He/they on BlueSky etc
Both good!
I take the opportunity to they as often as I can because despite being nonbinary myself singular they still sounds weird to me and I am trying to force my brain into getting over that. I’m making progress.
But Willis goes by both.
got a nonbinary nibling (brothers kid) still getting used to it my self, being mde easier the more their interests align with mione over her dads (he’s a comicbook loving artsnob that is somewhat dismissive of nonwestern comics, basically if it isnt the quality of lone wolf and cub it is inherently inferior to superman/spiderman) yet i just took the nibling to the local anime convention!
(honestly my brother is to blame for my love of anime, 9years old is probably 2-3 years too young to watch akira, but i met the love of my life (21 years together woot!) at a uni anime club!)
I have to agree. I didn’t realize that Carol was a real reference as well. Definitely would need to be something important to bring her back.
Well, it seems like she’s always mad so it’s not like dying mad is going to change anything or be hard to achieve. Maybe she can take Mary with her somehow.
Really is, isn’t he? This is maybe the only thing that could’ve distracted him from Jocelyne.
If this somehow directly or indirectly causes the death of Carol, then I can forgive any bad feelings it might cause Joe and Walky (and Becky) in the meantime.
if lesbians kissing literally kills bigots, well, do your civic duty, gals
HELL. YEAH.
🥳
welp.
I never would have thought that clouds of tear gas could form a romantic background but here we are.
Not entirely sure if this warrants a DAMN YOU WILLIS or a BLESS YOU WILLIS but either way ________ WILLIS
They almost look like cherry blossoms.
Exactly what I was thinking!
he knew exactly what he was doing
Go with a DAMN YOU WILLIS. If it isn’t appropriate now, it will be later.
Very excited this happened. More excited, as someone whose been to these actual protests, for them to leave now because it’s not about them.
Don’t really care at all about the cheating part though, it’ll work out.
EAT SHIT PALADINS SICKOS STAY WINNING !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Nooooo poor Walky T_T
…look i realize in the face of. um. Everything Else. it probably feels silly to say?
but like. i genuinely love the flow of this strip? the beat-by-beat way we push in for the first kiss, swing the characters around, then go for the second kiss is just really visually satisfying and well-constructed.
This isn’t silly to say! This is a great observation, it’s a beautifully constructed piece of comic art <3
My response elsewhere was “In principle I’m pissed because I’m all about the Joe/Joyce ship, but that strip is too perfect for me to care today.”
I think Willis will probably appreciate getting a few comments about the artistry of the strip in-between all the samey celebrations and angry frustrated yelling.
Oof tae Garbage Roof wi’ ye two! Right fookin’ noo!
when they get their first house, joyce and dorothy’s laundry nook is gonna go CRAZY
and then they both get a coughing fit so bad that it causes at least one of them to throw up, because tear gas is really terrible
“fun” fact: tear gas is not actually a gas, it’s aerosolized powder. the best strategy to deal with it is to wait for it to settle and brush it off without touching it
Having been tear gassed twice in my life I can verify that it makes for TERRIBLE romantic ambiance
Yeah the consequences are going to be pretty immediate for all the angry folks in the comments. Very actual and physical consequences. Kinda impressed Joyce has her eyes open still and isn’t a complete snot volcano
that’s the thing I don’t get. like, yeah, relationship paladins, you hate joyce and dorothy now, and you want bad things to happen to them, because now they’re sub-human evil creatures or whatever.
doesn’t that mean you get to enjoy the fact that they’re about to go be detained and abused by the state over this? like, they’ve proven they deserve bad things to happen to them, because they’re bad people now, and the point of fiction is the morally impure get punished. so, just enjoy that part of the coming strips, where they’re being punished for their multiple obvious and flagrant mistakes.
if this is the set-up for being the SECOND time in Dorothy’s life that she empties her sinuses down someone’s throat during a kiss, that would be one of the funniest, most obtuse joke set-ups ever
Jocelyn is watching “Don’t care” She’s grinning like a fool. “Still don’t care”
These are fictional characters. They’re also college kids and generally poor decision makers, like most college kids. It’s fine they they cheated because it makes for great drama. Cheating as a result of sexual awakening is very common. It doesn’t make them bad people. Just dumb.
It makes them a little bad people.
Medium rare bad, not well done bad.
Well-done bad isn’t really a thing in this comic. It’s mostly cartoonish bad (Blaine and Toedad) or bigot bad (mary)
Blaine and Toedad were “charcoal” bad. Mary is “E. Coli-infested raw meat rotting in a dumpster” bad.
You want to know what the answer is, in short? As much as it frustrates me to say it?
It’s easier to hate cheaters than it is to hate murderers, because more people can believably relate to the idea of being cheated on.
It’s literally that simple. And yet, nearly all the people for whom infidelity is a trigger, cannot wrap their heads around the fact that not everybody’s nervous system activates over the same things, and thus, some of us can adequately compartmentalize this specific thing, in a way that doesn’t indicate that we condone it, or makes us evil sub-human monsters.
Nah, it’s that we’re encouraged to hate the murderers and bigots. That’s their role in the story. They’re villains who are there to hate. Thus we can hate them and enjoy them as characters.
The cheaters here on the other hand are the protagonists. We’re being set up to treat the cheating as a big romantic moment. As a positive thing. The story itself appears to be condoning it.
That’s a very different thing.
No, this is also a factor, and I didn’t mean to imply that it wasn’t.
That is often the argument that gets made, but it’s not always true? Plenty of people do in fact watch slasher movies and root for the killer, and that’s still morally fine.
The thing I find frustrating is both sides (the people being extreme) are acting like the other side is delulu or immoral. But yeah I agree cheating upsets people more because it’s more relatable and probably happened to them. I mean it happened to me but I don’t think it’s evil. I also disagree with some of the extreme language. However I also disagree with people who are acting like this isn’t cheating at all, some of whom are really bending over backwards to justify it.
I’m fine with whoops for the DottyJoyce. Personally I’ve felt Joyce has been OOC for a little bit which I dislike (but that’s my interpretation) and I’m very interested in Joe’s reaction (whatever it may be).
“Some of whom are really bending over backwards to justify it”
I don’t know, I think some of the folks who seem to be “bending over backwards” do literally just have a different definition of cheating.
Which is fine. Cheating is whatever the people in the relationship agree it is. If some people don’t define kissing as cheating, that’s fine. If it upsets you (general you) to think about, don’t worry! You don’t have to date those people. They wouldn’t want to date you anyway. Their definition of cheating cannot hurt you.
YES YES YES A DECADE AND A HALF IN THE MAKING LETS GOOOO
[INARTICULATE SCREAMS]
Me reading walkyverse for the first time SIXTEEN years ago: “This Joyce girl is probably bi. I wonder if this David artist guy will ever explore that.”
My reaction to this was, in order:
1. Gasp-laugh
2. Facepalm so hard my face hurts
3. Cackle
4. Lose it at the title text
10/10 comic, the sickos have won.
The only way this could be better is if they invited Becky into the polycule without telling Dina. Just blow up everything. Mass chaos, mass hysteria, full fistfights and hormones and terrible decisions left and right. I just want to see it all burn.
i’m not looking forward to Hurt Dina, because frankly, i’m scared of her power
but on the other hand, i am looking forward to Hurt Dina, because whoever gets the dressing down from her, is going to have their entire character arc laid out in the most painful and unflattering way possible, and i’m gonna fist-pump at how hard Dina utterly destroys them.
All right so the band-aide has finally been torn-off. While I wish we could have gotten a little more interiority from Joyce’s inner-PoV before this plot development happened, I am eager to finally see the interpersonal drama and fall-out of this play-out. I am most curious to see what Willis’ long-term with Joyce and Dorothy is going to be, because at the moment I can definitely see it going many many different ways.
*Willis’ long-term plans
Tomorrow Becky wakes up and it was all a nightmare.
I can only imagine they were holding back on purpose because it would’ve spoiled the will-they-won’t-they tension, and we’ll be getting explorations of it now.
If you squint, the tear gas looks like cherry blossoms, foreshadowing change.
I didn’t let it marinate…
Suddenly I desperately miss Mike. No real reason. I just do.
What do you mean, no reason?
As in nothing prompted them to miss him. They just do.
Mike could have prevented all of this with his well-intentioned abuse. They’d definitely have a different, worse problem to deal with, as a result! But it wouldn’t have ended up being this specific problem.
tl;dr this is ultimately all Booster’s fault
I mean they might have had this specific problem if Mike thought it was funny or useful to another manipulation he would have encouraged it.
Mike would be sending pictures of the kiss to Joe and Walky right now
hey actually I just had a thought. did we ever actually find out who leaked the Do List? Because, honestly, that also would have been Peak Mike.
My favorite part of this is “they’d definitely have a different, worse problem to deal with” because that’s especially true. Mike solved problems like gasoline puts out fires.
I’m telling you, Mike worked. Anytime someone in the cast had a problem and they told Mike, boom! Right away, they had a different problem.
So fucking happy.
The fallout is gonna be pain but in the moment just so fucking happy.
We’e about to find out how good Hank actually is.
Hank just shows up with a new girlfriend, who looks like Dorothy in 30 years, and says “no, I get it, Joyce, I get it.”
The alt text is genuinely funny.
Assuming you’re not a patron that’s some fast ‘shopping, good job on the av
I already had the base set up (lesbian flag and sickos win, etc), so it was just copy+paste the comic and fiddle a bit!
Serendipity favors the prepared mind, as Pasteur used to say.
I agree. Though I originally thought the alt-text said “ugh, more queerbending” and thought wow that is a terrifying and kind of homophobic superpower. Also, unnecessary as Korra apparently doesn’t need another magical martial art to do that.
to be fair, we can’t be sure she didn’t. maybe the avatar can just do that, but they simply don’t write it in the tales?
Some of yall really need to work on detangling your feelings about real people from like characters in stories. Some of the posters in here are acting like Joyce and Dorothy are real instead of a series of pixels on a website.
Also they’re like 20 give em some slack. People make mistakes and questionable choices when they’re young and college aged. It doesn’t mean they’re irredeemable scum or deserve structural violence enacted against them. Go to therapy
Oof “Some of yall really need to work on detangling your feelings about real people from like characters in stories” has been such an issue in the past like…decade?? Or so???
SHEEEEESH so I get all swoony over the Master from Doctor Who or cute girls kissing unbeknown to their boyfriends as the miasma of tear gas rolls in, this doesn’t mean I condone murder, cheating and bad timing. I can separate fiction and reality and engage with the world in a healthy way despite being down to clown with supervillains, I promise
I don’t know if it’s just part of the larger “parasociality” trend in internet media or what but getting this bent out of shape over this is like so bizarre to me. Do you (general you, not specific) also get this mad over like… Patrick Bateman axing Jared Leto to death or do you have the emotional and mental maturity to go “oh this isn’t real I don’t need to be super in my feelings about this” when you see it? It’s fiction! No one is being hurt, these pixels are not your friends! They’re little dolls Willis struts across the screen for us to watch and have fun with!
Yeah. I’ve tried not to project too much of my experience with the rest of the larger purity culture resurgence in Fandoms, Generally, but it’s so obviously coming from the exact same mentality and it’s so exhausting and depressing.
I worry about the kids, too, because fanfic was a much-needed escape for Bitty Li growing up queer surrounded by homophobic friends, and I was already depressed and dealing with a lot. If I’d also started steeping in guilt over not always shipping the purest possible ships (and there is no truly pure ship, it’s a moving goalpost) — well. I wouldn’t have had an escape.
the rise of purity culture among youth is a rightwing psyop. NIGHTYNITE
how dare you speak the truth. don’t you know that isn’t allowed?!
I’m really glad Bitty Li had that escape and comfort in fandom!
Thanks, Wilde.
I mean… by that logic no one should be happy about characters doing anything either? It’s not only fine to react to characters making bad moral choices with negative/conflicting feelings, but it’s actually the point. It’s engaging with the material. If we never felt anything for any of the characters then that would mean that Willis was doing a bad job.
Also like yes, some people do react to murderers in media with disgust/upset/general bad feelings. The writers and actors want them too. It’s like the main goal.
No, you misunderstand.
Nobody is telling anybody “don’t feel things.”
What all of us who are frustrated with this tiresome discourse are saying is, first, “maybe temper your feelings about the fictional melodrama you read even just a little bit, so that you don’t feel compelled to sanctimoniously judge all of the people who aren’t flying off the handle at the same intensity as you, because they compartmentalized the emotions they got from their entertainment into the realm of fiction, like a rational adult?”
Which, to be clear, you haven’t personally done, yet; but, right now, you’re unintentionally speaking for the worst people in this comments section, today, and if I come across as terse, it’s because I’m already very sick of their constant misrepresentation and, I HOPE, willful misrepresentation of literally anybody who disagrees with them.
(I hope, in the sense of, “I hope they’re being this infuriating on purpose to troll, and they actually aren’t this incapable of comprehending any opinion that they don’t personally agree with”)
oh. well to be honest I feel like almost anything I say if going to be taken in bad faith. I’m not speaking for anyone but myself.
I think part of the problem is that, yet again, we’re all having different conversations.
Conversation #1: unfiltered reactions to the strip itself, whether positive or negative
Conversation #2: some people reacting negatively to the positive reactions to the strip, often with veiled or explicit accusations that readers who are cheering right now must not realize that cheating is morally wrong
Conversation #3: some people reacting negatively to the negative reactions, often along the lines of “it’s not that serious, these are fictional characters”
Conversation #4: negative reactions to the negative reactions to the negative reactions, now sometimes along the lines of, “What, are you saying I’m not allowed to have feelings about fiction? Why even read fiction at all if you don’t care about what happens to the characters?”
These are all valid reactions, but I think it’s clear that they’re not all taking in the full extent of the previous conversations. It’s understandable that Conversation 4 folks feel aggrieved or even attacked by Conversation 3, but Conversation 3 is in response to Conversation 2, and it’s also understandable that folks felt aggrieved or attacked by Conversation 2.
So: if you’re not one of the people saying “it’s morally wrong and also messed up of you if you don’t hate what’s happening right now and you must condone cheating in real life,” well, Conversation 3 isn’t aimed at you. You’re just being caught in the crossfire.
(It would be remiss of me not to acknowledge that there’s a subset of Conversation 3 which is straying close to if not outright saying that Conversation 2 folks are delusional: and that’s not cool, folks.
I also think some of us, myself included, have expressed concern for the mindset that says you must only consume media Ethically, i.e. it’s vitally important that the work sufficiently condemn bad actions and bad actors, and that readers identify characters as good or bad, and that readers only like the characters identified as good.
For my part, that’s a genuine concern, because I almost got sucked into this wave of purity culture and it was super heckin damaging to my mental health.
But I get that it sounds like concern-trolling, especially if this comment section is your first run-in with the argument.)
Oh and ALSO there’s Conversation #5, which is some people saying they still don’t think this is cheating, some of whom are being facetious, some of whom are probably trying to defend Dorothy and Joyce, and some of whom just legit have a different definition of cheating in their real lives.
Folks from Conversation #2 seem to be using the entirety of Conversation #5 as further ammunition for the idea that Dorothy/Joyce shippers are all just rabid yuri fans who will defend anything for the sake of their ship, which is pretty insulting to literally everyone involved, and some of them are just straight-up accusing folks in Conversation #5 of being bad partners IRL, because apparently it’s impossible for adults to negotiate relationship boundaries that they wouldn’t personally like for themselves.
stellar analysis, thank you for doing it, i’ve exhausted the necessary patience to have bothered. you pretty much got every part exactly right.
Heh, thank you.
Hopefully some of the Conversation #4 folks see it! Because like. We definitely wound up with a lot of seemingly “top-level” comments that are nonetheless definitely reacting to one or more of these conversations, and if you haven’t done all the reading of two thousand comments……
Like, yeah, I get why Conversation #4 folks feel like they’re being told they’re silly (put politely) for not liking fictional cheating, or for caring about fiction at all.
No, but for real.
Comment approved.
There’s nothing with disliking cheating in fiction that you read.
*nothing wrong with. left out a word again
Correct! Just as there’s nothing wrong with loving it!
Also, people are forgetting this comic is called DUMBING OF AGE and is about dumb college students making dumb choices and are like…assuming this is going to narratively be portrayed as all good and admirable with no negative consequences whatsoever.
Forgive me for having doubts about this topic being handled with anymore class than “well we broke up with our boyfriends right after and we’re sorry
” thats usually how these storylines go
If you think Willis is a bad writer im really not sure why you’re sticking around? I would’ve dipped. I have before when I just didn’t care about storylines.
No offense but you can’t go “oh I’m just concerned about the plot direction” when your post 3 below mine is “Fuuuuuuuuuuuck you two
These two get thrown to the bottom of my protagonist rankings for the moment because i think this is the scummiest shit any of the main cast has done.
And yes. I’m including the list.” lol
Like this is worse than the list? A curated, misogynist set of ratings for basically all of the women in Joe’s life? Where he systematically objectified the women around him? Honey I get ur a Joe stannie but be so for real.
one piece of grace i will extend to that take is, quite frankly, i think it’s natural for literally every aspect of experiencing this comment, to be subject to Recency Bias
Most people don’t actually rationally believe that Joyce and Dorothy are worse than, say, Blaine or Toedad or whoever. However, right now, they have big feelings about Joyce and Dorothy, because it’s the thing that is fresh in their minds, because it just happened – and, when you get right down to it, something only “happens” in this comic, like once every 3-6 months, because that’s how a serial comic strip literally works in physical space and time.
Like yeah, people are irrationally flipping out in a way that maybe they’ll be really embarrassed by, six months from now, because they let their need to make sure everybody understood their moral compunctions, out-stripped their desire to critically engage with the story-line on any level. I actually, straight-up, do not blame them for that emotional response.
I just wish they understood that what I just described, is what they’re actually doing. I wish they weren’t taking their justified emotional response to a deliberately immoral storyline out on the rest of us, who simply want to casually or critically engage with the work. Yes, this triggers you all. No, I’m not saying that as a means of minimizing or disparaging the colloquial or clinical use of that term. I actual mean that, in a non-disparaging, literal fashion. It’s okay that you feel that way. I feel that way about some things, too. I think I’ve had at least one or two crash-outs in this very comment section, during different storylines that I had trouble with.
Hell, the people who have very real and justified concerns with the fact that a real-life genocide is being used as a set dressing for this storyline to play out, are being 1000% times more reasonable and mature about their complaints over those concerns, and aren’t attacking anybody. That’s because, those people aren’t just lashing out in favor of their own negative emotions towards the storyline; they are critically engaging with the work. Not just emotionally lashing out.
This is a badly organized post but, while I’m sure my tone and delivery could be better, it’s also late and I’m frustrated at seeing so many people being attacked, when they’ve done nothing wrong, besides literally read the strip that they are literally in the comments section for. Maybe I shouldn’t post it? But, fuck, that doesn’t seem to stop all the people who honestly believe they have the moral high ground to degrade and attack readers for enjoying the comic.
Well, Joe will think it’s worse than the list – That’d make you worse than me
But more, the difference is that the story treated the list as bad. As a major character flaw that Joe has overcome. (I’ve got my issues with how well that was handled, but it definitely was there.) The list was never romanticized the way this scene is.
It’ll be interesting to see if Willis can handle this the same way, while still keeping the sickos happy.
good catch actually, I had already had that specific line slip out of my mind, despite loving it when I read it
FWIW, I don’t think they’re talking about the list at all. Dorothy is worrying that she’s cheating, then says that makes her like Joe because she’s confused it with promiscuity, and Joe teases her by saying promiscuity and cheating aren’t the same.
I think Joe is. Or at least Joe is talking about his whole old self, not just the list specifically.
Acting like people not liking cheating as a plot point is a moral failing or something is genuinely so fucking funny.
“Moral failing” i just think you all annoying as fuck.
Nothing wrong with not liking the topic or its use as a plot point but let’s be real some of the commenters are taking it a step past that. Like it’s not a moral failure but it’s also weird as hell to be like “wow these are the worst people on the planet I now have genuine animus toward them and have lost all faith in the author to move forward” like… Please learn to have like a modicum of emotional distance from the media you consume
Acting like kissing = a whole affair is even funnier, because it is deeply stupid behavior
Also like the only people wielding moral failings as a cudgel are genuinely y’all on the Yelling About Cheating subfaction
Literally no but ignore your side all you want, I guess. Makes no difference to me.
whoa, how dare you come out and say that cheating on your spouse is good, puppies deserve to be kicked, and also that you want more war in the middle east, because it will start the rapture. those are all really extreme points to just deliberately and directly make, in a webcomic comments section! maybe you should consider not killing people with your car, that’s also bad, and you mentioned you enjoy doing that, i think.
okay now that i made my insanely caustic sarcastic comment, i will say, thank you so goddamned much for saying what I wish I could have said, with any level of brevity or poise. my version of your post would have been 14 paragraphs long, repeated certain points too many times, glossed over others, and also possibly gotten me banned from the comments section for getting too mean around paragraph 12.
spoiler alert: i think i wrote enough cumulative paragraphs to get a little mean, i hope i don’t regret it
They are both 18 still. Maybe 19? This is still the first year of college.
In which half the commenters are actually Booster because they’re just excited about mess.
A quarter of the commenters are Booster, a quarter of them are Amber.
That seems low.
Lot of commenters also treating this as if it’s real life. Yeah, IRL cheating is bad, but this is fiction. Fiction is allowed to do stuff (and even get away with it) that would otherwise never fly or turn out good IRL. Too many people lose sight of that.
Joyce only kissed Dorothy because she got tear gassed and couldn’t see so she thought she was kissing Joe. Boy will she be embarrassed once she rinses out her eyes!
(I love this, but god damn I feel bad for Joe and Walky)
Fuuuuuuuuuuuck you two
These two get thrown to the bottom of my protagonist rankings for the moment because i think this is the scummiest shit any of the main cast has done.
And yes. I’m including the list.
My general rule of thumb with webcomics is that the longer they go on, the more unlikeable most of the characters become because they have more time to do that one thing that readers feel cross the line.
Some of them do get better (see Joe), but most of them… eh.
Here’s a reminder to everybody in this comments section who wasn’t alive in the 90s: The premise of the show “FRIENDS,” was that the main characters were six people who you’d actually want to be friends with.
They were never good people! And, in fact, the longer the series went on, they got worse! But, people were able to suspend disbelief that having such a friend group would be good and fun, for like, eight years.
Basically what I’m saying is, I do at least somewhat agree with Nono’s take on Immorality Fatigue in Serial Fiction. Something that irks you now, will eventually irritate you, if you give it a decade of repeated friction.
I don’t understand how this is worse than Danny’s comment to Ethan about Mike dying, or Joyce trying to turn Ethan straight.
Thanks for reminding me Joyce tried to turn ethan straight.
Idk how that was supposed to improve my opinion on joyce, but.
Also thats an insesitive remark and a dick move but it’s not essentially throwing your partners trauma in their face it was just Danny being a dick.
Their point wasn’t trying to improve your opinion on joyce, because I imagine they don’t really feel very strongly about how some stranger personally ranks fictional characters in their mind.
The thing they were questioning was the statement about this action being worse than other things, becasue it’s relativley minor compared to a lot of stuff that has happened.
Hey, Danny was right. And Danny never said he was including a list and then didn’t.
Took me a while to figure out but I’m 90% sure they mean they’re including The List that Joe made (which was a plot point for a while) in their list of shitty things characters have done not that they were including a list they had made.
Or, like, Joe’s everything early comic.
Yeah no I consider all of that lesser than this.
Joe was a womanizing dickhead but he was honest about it and never tried to manipulate people. This is straight up emotional abuse
Like…. activley trying to cause harm to someone specific with their actions…?
Do you think that Joyce is kissing this girl she is in love with because she… wants to make Joe suffer?????
Of course not. Joe is her only exception.
Joe is the only one not illuminated by the Power Booster Rod.
I mean, she clearly doesn’t care enough about Joe not to cheat on him, despite them being together and clearly liking him physically. In the end she didn’t actually give a shit about him to actually consider her feelings despite multiple chances to.
If it cuts away to show she did talk to him/essentially rendering this ‘totes not cheating’ I’ll never know. But I think it’s stupid if it does.
No it’s not, sorry that you don’t seem to know what that word mean but i recommend not throwing it around willy nilly, it is an actually pretty serious thing.
I actually don’t agree that Danny’s comment about Mike dying was morally bad. It was the least socially-apt thing I’ve ever seen, and it was the worst possible time to say it, and it was personally insensitive in a way he hadn’t intended to be, and Danny really should have been smart enough to not be honest (in fact, you can argue he WAS smart enough, since he THOUGHT he managed to keep the reply inside his own head, to begin with)…
…but he also told zero lies, and Mike was literally an abusive manipulator to his entire extended friend group. Danny’s feelings weren’t wrong, and his sentiment wasn’t immoral. It was just a douchebag move to say the truth out loud, and even then, saying it out loud was still completely unintentional on his part.
Unrespectfully disagree.
i cant take your whole thing on the morality of this situation seriously when you have THAT character as your gravatar
I took a break from the DoA comments a while back, and there are days when I really regret coming back. Like today, when most of y’all are cheering on two characters cheating on their partners.
No but see, it’s okay because they’re not real. /s
What you said, but not sarcastic.
^ let the people be excited, ok? people make mistakes, and in real life, we wouldn’t celebrate that. but this is a big ship for a lot of people, and even if it starts in murky waters, it’s a big moment. (it’s a big moment even if they don’t end up together, because they are discovering their sexuality!!)
it’s okay to be intrigued and curious where this is leading. it’s okay to be upset by it too, but like, don’t take it personally if people are excited.
it’s not advocating cheating, it’s just being happy for other parts of this moment, whether its queer pride or the friends to lovers trope…
and frankly, even the people who are morbidly excited to see the “train wreck” of the aftermath aren’t terrible people, because it is fiction and it’s perfectly fine to be interested in plot conflict! it’s not like they’re trying to start a real conflict by breaking up a real relationship, so like, they don’t need to be reminded that cheating is bad, ok? don’t just assume people are pro-cheating based on comments on a fictional webcomic
instructions unclear, i have forwarded your message to homeland security as evidence of terrorism, murder, and puppy-kicking.
I mean. Yeah. You can read a story where there’s a conflict while holding it in your mind that this is not an ideal situation, right? That the author might not be *endorsing* the behavior they’re portraying? How in the world did y’all get through the Ruth/Billie era?
A lot of things happen in fiction that are not ok IRL, and the world continues to turn.
Yes, but see, it’s okay because they’re not real.
No you dont understand
Its two women so it’s okay
This actually isn’t the main reason I’m enjoying it! I’m just really happy one of my ships is sailing (and excited for the ramifications of this dumdum decision). I like the drama, it brings me joy.
What you said, but without the sarca… Oh, wait. There wasn’t any.
—
Unrelatedly, once the Bulmeria storyline is safely concluded, I have some questions for you. Possibly an apology, but I’m not sure.
Ominous.
What you said but not sarcastic
Good!
hey so it’s perfectly cool to feel whatever it is you feel, I’m not the feelings police, but I super don’t appreciate your judgment of dozens of people in this comment section who are literal strangers to you for the heinous crime of enjoying a storyline. that shit’s gauche, yo
No, you don’t understand. If you like a piece of media where any character who is not a purely evil antagonist does anything bad, ever, for any reason, it’s because you do not have any moral compass at all, and like drop-kicking the infants at the local NICU. There’s just no other possible explanation for that sort of extreme behavior.
Suddenly remembering that 9 Chickweed Lane storyline where a guy who’s in a relationship with another man cheats on him with a woman who he winds up marrying, one that I only knew about at all via watching Willis angrily post about it on Twitter. Wouldn’t surprise me if the root inspiration of this whole arc was “let’s do that but reverse it by making it a gay couple cheating on their opposite-sex partner(s) and (presumably) also treat the guys they’re cheating on with any respect at fucking all.”
You know what they say it’s better to ask for forgiveness than permission
So, uh.
They’re very much in public. In a location with media. And they just did a VERY photogenic thing. In the middle of an extremely dramatic, chaotic situation.
Yeah, that kiss is gonna get *published*.
Some people doubt this story beat is inevitable, but while a lot of us have been wrong about how and when this whole situation was inevitably going to play out, I really doubt we’re wrong about the “Front Page of the Paper” thing. Far less dramatic things have dominated the real life news cycle.
Yeah.
Dunno how it will play out, but I’m pretty sure Joyce & Jocelynne’s father will know about this development before Walky or Joe.
Damn, that IS a good point. He has every reason to be curious about the situation, and to be paying rapt attention, right now.
Despite how I am annoyed by this development, I am more surprised by the sheer number of comments rolling in than anything else. Like holy crap you guys.
we thirst.
It’s a topsy-turvy world, and maybe the problems of two people don’t amount to a hill of beans. But this is our hill. And these are our beans!
I fucking love beans.
oh man I am not looking forward to what’s gonna happen when the cops get to ’em
Dorothy and Joyce successfully avoid police brutality, because the Riot cops are just standing there, watching…just a chorus of “Nice!” Like the cops from that one episode of South Park, where the kid gets groomed by his teacher.
Well, if it’s anything like real life, the whole lot get herded into some kind of holding area, all their stuff is taken, they’re booked, held for about 48 hours, and while “leadership” (meaning “Whoever is the most vocal and/or morally questionable people available”) are then actually arrested, the rest are released somewhere inconvenient with the clear implication that if they get rounded up again or make any fuss about their treatment then the police will “discover” serious crimes with which they can be charged.
It’s meant to be humiliating, disruptive, and prevent future protests.
WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO YURIII
GIRLS
ALL I REALLY WANT IS GIRLS
Yeah I don’t hate this ship necessarily but I don’t like how we got here. Love the depraved bi trope being played out.
how is this depraved its like sweet and cute
It’s a pretty common trope in media that bisexual people are incapable of not cheating in relationships. You don’t have to have a cheating plot line to pair two women together. They could just be together!
LMFAO, you said “just”
Like every other wlw relationship in the comic?
also a valid point!
valid point
Because I’m sure everyone’s just dying to know what I think (hah no).
The cheating ain’t great. Obviously.
But this wasn’t just cheating. This was also coming out, AND coming out to the one person that you care about most, and don’t want to lose as a friend if they don’t feel that way. Which, if Becky is any indication, is really not easy at all.
And this clearly wasn’t planned. If it was, do you think they would choose to do it here, being gassed, and possibly beaten, and for sure incarcerated?
And I am sure, to everyone concerned, that the very first thing that each of them will do, is go and break up with their boyfriends, as soon as they are free to do so. Neither of them have been dating for super long. I know this FEELS like a four year relationship but it’s been like two weeks.
I’m not worried about Walky. He very much cares for Dorothy, of course, but I don’t think they’re “in love.” He does care for her, but in a non-romantic way. Even when not in a relationship, he cares for her. He’s the sort of person who would just be happy if she’s OK, but can be happy in a relationship with someone else.
I do worry a little about Joe. I don’t think he’s just infatuated; I think he is honestly in love with Joyce. He didn’t change himself *for* her, but she was a major catalyst in why he changed. And he was always so worried about hurting someone else… and it’s going to fucking suck when he gets hurt in the way that he was afraid of hurting someone else. Especially because he ALSO wants Joyce to be happy and will know that this will make her happy.
But he’ll live. And Willis is already repositioning Rachel, so it’s easy to see where the dominoes will fall. But poor Danny will have to pick up the pieces.
TLDR: Joyce loves Dorothy, Dorothy loves Joyce. Dorothy and Walky at best, just Really Like each other, and Walky cares for Dorothy, and so they’ll be OK. Joyce Really Likes Joe, but Joe loves Joyce, so I expect this one to be painful. Either way, this was always something that was going to happen either way; the one thing that should not have happened was that they stay in their relationships.
I just hope Joyce suffers a legitimate consequence from this.
As long as she’s not a Mary Sue, she will.
…
An’ I ain’t saying anything else.
Awe MARY is the perfect agent of doom to shit on Dorothy and Joyce and make them both feel terrible for it.
Mary I never thought I’d say this, but I need you come into play and be a bongo
NO. RACHEL.
NO RACHEL.
Get that shit OUT OF HERE
Too late.
She is allowed to exist she is not allowed to hook up with Joe.
It is boring. It is dog shit. It is Old News from a yellow ass old news paper. I Hate It. I will not accept it as even a hypothetical get RID of IT
Rachel can hook up with Joe, but only after she turns into a literal super-villain, and Joyce and Dorothy become super-heroes, and Joe is tied to a contrived death trap with a comically over-sized death laser. If we can get all the way to that point, I’ll be interested in it!
“it’s not just cheating, it’s coming out” is so funny help. it’s not regular cheating if ur gay… gay cheating like, cancels out. or something.
Doesn’t cancel it out. It’s saying that this is only happening in this weird particular way because they are both going through an identity crisis of sorts. Dorothy, in particular, is literally going in a self-destructive spiral here. She’s been circling the drain for a while and was now going straight into literal self-harm, even if by means of someone else.
If not for this situation? If not for Dorothy literally self-destructing? They’d pribably still end up together. Maybe make it a day or so until at least one of them just can’t fake it with their boyfriend anymore, and then the other follows suit.
I’m not saying it’s excusable. I’m saying it’s understandable.
But hey, it already sounds like you’re just hearing what you want to hear, so why the heck am I bothering reasoning with you here?
the tl;dr is:
this isn’t different than normal cheating
but the reality is, comphet leads to this sort of thing happening, because if it weren’t for comphet, bigotry, and their sheltered upbringings, Joyce and Dorothy would have hardcore banged like crazy, twelve or thirteen real-world, real-life years ago.
It’s not that any of us are excusing this behavior. It’s that we grasp that the circumstances that led to this bad behavior, are affected by factors larger than the individual moralities of both characters.
It was literally not possible for this outcome to happen any sooner than it did, nor for it to happen in any non-messy way. Because the characters still, at this moment, do not have the life skills, or emotional maturity, or the degree of unpacking internalized homophobia necessary, to make the decisions that are obviously correct to every adult person reading this strip, who has actually finished their frontal lobe, and has already processed all of those obvious moral and philosophical truths.
These are two of the most SHELTERED and REPRESSED women I have ever seen in probably any piece of media I’ve actually watched. I’m not “giving them a pass to cheat.” What I am, is unsurprised that they couldn’t come to this conclusion in a rational, mature way, because right now, neither of them are acting rationally, and neither of them are mature. And I think any version of the story, where they don’t stumble head-ass into this in the messiest way possible, would be woefully unrealistic, and also would have no meaningful impact on the story.
Like, I’m not exaggerating: the reason that Joyce and Dorothy could not do this any other way, starts with the fact that they are only just starting to unpack the systemic factors that have restricted their lives and senses of self. In the same way that Dorothy is deeply immature and uninformed on the very serious real-world genocide being highlighted by this protest, her and Joyce are equally uninformed as to how to properly unpack their deeply-repressed impulses.
I said on previous pages, “if Joyce actually thought about what she was literally doing, she would figure out exactly what is going on in a second.” And, the second that she had Dorothy’s tongue in her mouth? She figured it out, that instant. But, by that point, she’s already done the bad thing, and she can’t un-do it, so why should she stop, now? After all – this is the level of devotion, that her upbringing deliberately taught her she should expect, when she has romantic feelings for a person. She’s also the most sexually repressed woman on Earth, who went 19 years without touching her genitals, and whose understanding of sexuality maybe one real life year ago was that it would only ever be appropriate, in this exact sort of situation
My point is, they’re very wrong, and it’s their fault. I’m just not surprised that, with the specific sequences of events that happened, in order, that this was the outcome. And I think that things going this way, is good, believable fiction, that follows the logic of the existing narrative in an appropriate way.
For 90% of the portion of this scenario playing out, Joyce is Playing The Dorothy and is completely focused on solving the practical and emotional crises of those close to her. If you’re lost as to how she could blow through so many obvious red lights and stop signs, on the way to this…literally consider, she hasn’t been thinking critically, through any of this. She was obsessing over her perfect date with Joe, obsessing over the fact that Dorothy is crumbling, obsessing over the fact that Oh Shit Gotta Warn my Sister…she’s been running on an auto-pilot that is programmed by the fear of losing her loved ones. Because, right now, she’s trying to do what she sees as “What Dorothy has always been doing for me.”
I’ve never liked the fact that there’s cheating here, and I really, really resent all the people who are making that judgement so deliberately and aggressively at the rest of us, who simply are capable of compartmentalizing this one thing as a story beat in a piece of fiction. I could go back, read the whole strip, and drop a 20 000 word paper on every single logical reason this story-line played out this way, and separately unpack every factor as to why it makes narrative sense for these two fictional characters to do a genuinely bad thing.
But I shouldn’t have to do that, for people not to think I’m a terrible person.
whoops, as is often the case, this stopped being tl;dr
Yeah that’s a really funny tl;dr. I liked your analysis though!
i sometimes imagine the things i could accomplish, if i possessed the soul of wit, a modicum of restraint, and basic time management skills
I really hate the “can’t fake it with their boyfriend anymore”. That’s arguably true for Dorothy returning to Walky, but it completely trivializes Joyce’s relationship with Joe, which has also been building over basically the entire comic.
Unless you’re arguing she really is a lesbian and any apparent interest in men has just been comphet.
I hate saying this, but… the amount that Joe likes Joyce, is leagues more than Joyce likes Joe.
He thinks about her constantly. She was his anxiety, after all. He shapes his life to fit hers. He follows her direction. And sometimes, her direction is not very good. I still remember Joyce, flustered and upset that Becky was angry with her about the dranks thing, just pushing him forward and saying, “You handle this, this is your job.”
He pretended to drink at the party, because he tried to tell her that he wasn’t comfortable drinking, and she flatly told him he WOULD drink. And then when it came out that he didn’t, she got angry with him. And yes, she had valid reason to be upset with him for misleading her, but at the same point, he never said he would get drunk, he never said he would go do all that. He said, “Look, I’m drinking!” when he took A drink, and that was it.
I don’t know if Joyce got her behavior from watching her mother, or cobbled together from watching others in her upbringing, or as a leftover from when she was marriage-crazy when she first went to college. But it really doesn’t seem to me like Joyce is crazy about Joe for Joe. She likes feeling loved. She likes feeling wanted. She likes that her boyfriend knows so much more about the things she’s exploring. I daresay, she likes the fact that there’s an imbalance of “guilt” between the two, where he always feels like he’s done the wrong thing and is making up for it, and she feels like she is forgiving him for the wrong thing, because there’s nothing that feels nicer to a Christian, pre or post, than acting like Jesus and forgiving someone.
Joe has bee a wonderful boyfriend for Joyce. Joyce has been a shitty girlfriend for Joe.
This really does sum up my own quiet concerns about Joyce and Joe.
I really haven’t liked some of how she’s talked to and about him, and that moment where she said “fuck” for the first time and everyone around her looked shocked — I absolutely thought at first that they were looking at her like that because she’d just said, “use your boyfriendliness to iron things out ’cause that’s what you’re for“.
Which I thought, and still think, was a terrible thing to say about a person, and potentially pointed at deeper issues.
I thought this was cute at the time, and now I feel a little different.
That figure drawing class that Joe sat in with Joyce for. When he shared his picture with her and his feelings for her. Joyce didn’t tell him at all how she felt about him, even though she asked. And one of the last images of that day was her in her bed, with Joe’s drawing.
I thought, oh, that’s cute, she really does like him, she’s liked him from the beginning, she’s just being coy. And yeah, that’s true… but with the other patterns of behavior, it also feels like a bit of a manipulation tactic. Because Joyce *knows* that she can get Joe to do what she wants by being cute and by acting lovable and by every so often doing something sexy.
She’s not treating him like an equal; she’s treating him like an accessory. He’s Ken to her Barbie.
The more I think about it, and the more I think about how Carol and Hank broke apart after the whole Blaine fiasco, and her yelling at him to come back her up and toe the line, makes me REALLY think that she learned this from her mom.
Which is honestly horrifying. Carol is a monster. There is, hands down, bar none, no character in this strip that I find more repugnant than Carol.
And yes, that includes Blaine and Ross. If you sat Blaine down in a chair and grilled him about what he did, he wouldn’t pretend what he was doing was good; he’d laugh in your face at the concept. If you sat Ross in a chair and grilled him on what he did, he’d say it was extreme, but it was necessary to save his daughter.
But Carol wouldn’t care. She doesn’t think that it’s extreme to dump trauma in her children’s lap. She doesn’t think it’s extreme to pay money to release an armed gunman. She doesn’t think it’s extreme to send the family dog to a shelter because the apartment she wants can’t take dogs. She doesn’t think she’s unreasonable to defend her daughter’s kidnapper and she doesn’t think that she had any part nor responsibility in what happened. She wouldn’t bat an eye about never seeing Jocylene or Joyce or anyone else ever again, because they left her, and they’ll either come around or they won’t.
And the weird thing is? It’s not religious brainwashing. Oh, sure, she IS brainwashed, but that’s not why she’s such a horrible piece of shit. She’s coated 100% in religiosity, and she 100% did totally sell their house because she thought that God told her to do so. She is one million percent doing everything because she believes that she is right and everyone else is wrong.
It’s because she’s a psychopath.
I don’t mean that flippantly, I mean that honestly. She’s learned the environment she exists in so well and has adapted to that culture so well that this is what she projects constantly. But she legitimately does not care about the damage and harm that she does to others, or what others do to them; only if they’re right or wrong according to the social structure and religious structure that she was raised a part of. Joyce could be lying beaten and bruised and tear gassed, and she might make a comment about how this was God’s plan, and that this was how he was showing her the wages of sin, or something.
I’ve lived in church cultures all my life. This isn’t normal church culture. Real life church people have crises of faith when they encounter this, or they lean on the actual good scripture that talks about loving others, caring for others, being there for others. Like Joyce and Becky. This isn’t even zealotry. Ross was a zealot. Carol is just cold.
If God was real in DoA, and Carol died, she’d cast Christ out for being a a fake liberal socialist and tell God that he needed to clean the filth out of here. There would be zero recognition that she had been wrong, on anything.
(and yes, there are some people like Carol in churches. I’ve met them. That’s how I recognize them. They’d be this way even if they were in some other social structure.)
Anyways. Bringing this back to Joyce. Since this entire Dorothy storyline, we really haven’t seen what is going on in Joyce’s head. We’ve been in Dorothy’s head, sure; we’ve been in Becky’s head, we’ve been in Joe’s head. Joyce is just Joyce. We don’t know when she realized she had these feelings, we don’t know when she was struggling with them, or if she was struggling with them, or if this was just a sudden realization, or what. So I *am* concerned to see her mirroring these actions of Carol’s, because while Dorothy is VERY distraught about hurting Walky, Joyce doesn’t seem to give two squirrel farts about hurting Joe.
I’m gonna say, is this a problem with Joyce and Joe or is this a problem with Joyce?
Like all of these points are valid, but they’re easy to see as just character flaws with Joyce and not knowing how to handle relationships, especially where she has the upper hand.
It’s hard to say, because we still don’t have a very good baseline for what Joyce would be like as A Girlfriend. Her one terrible date with Joe followed by her forcing things with Ethan (oh boy I don’t like how that came out!!! I mean when she kissed him for the first time in a burst of desperate envy over Dorothy and Walky’s seemingly uncomplicatedly happy intimacy), followed by trying to tempt Jacob, followed by… this.
I just think BorkBorkBork is right about the long timeline of the Joe/Joyce relationship has been dominated by big specific feelings for Joyce from Joe — and Joyce expecting Joe to fill out a boyfriend-shaped hole in her life.
Which is why, even though I do think she’s very bi, I completely understand folks who find her relatable to their own experiences as lesbians in denial.
Now: if the question is “would these problems be magically fixed if Joyce were dating a girl instead”………
I want to say no, because I think that’s much more interesting, but I feel the need to point out the foreshadowing of the classroom-assignment-marriage, and how Joyce has said out loud with her mouth that she thinks all of this would be “easier” if she could be with Dorothy. Some of Joyce’s baggage around what a relationship should be IS currently very tied to cisheteropatriarchy.
At the very least, I think realizing she can also be attracted to women, and that it’s okay if that attraction feels different and looks different, might help her break down the things she’s absorbed from her mother even if things don’t work out with Dorothy.
Like Dorothy said herself in that class: you can structure a marriage with a man like this too, you know.
Totally agree with you, Li.
They wouldn’t be solved, but I think they would be helped. Not because Queerness Solves Everything™, but because she’s acting out a relationship role and a gender role that she’s experienced in life. Her only real experience with boys were her brothers, parental figures, and the one crush. Most of her brothers were way older than her, and while Jocylene was presenting as male at that time, I kind of get the feeling that she didn’t really get her idea of maleness from her.
So when she first met Joe, she thought of him as a potential spouse first and as a person much, MUCH later. Texting-With-Joe-While-Breaking-Into-Becky’s-House later. Whereas with Dorothy, she has always been a dear friend. Her relationship with Dorothy is the kind of relationship that a solid hetero relationship SHOULD be: friends first.
All the same, she really doesn’t know how to be in a good relationship, because she really hasn’t seen one. She’s seen a somewhat-functional one that worked when everyone stayed in their narrow, pre-defined lanes and never had any sort of conflict. There’s going to be problems regardless. But here, she doesn’t start out handicapped.
A+++++ material
i’m sure Joe will be upset at first, but there is SOME possibility he’ll bring up polyamory…
also i am by no means convinced that Joyce will want to break up with Joe
i don’t know whether she’ll even want to TELL him about it… but if she does, i feel like it’s going to be accompanied by an apology and asking him how they can work things out to keep their relationship afloat. i think JOE would probably be the one to try to break things off.
You are I think correct
I feel like bringing it up to him and apologizing is the right thing to do, like, that gives him the agency and the respect he deserves and from there whatever happens happens
Of course that’s like, an ideal version of events lololol
I feel like Joyce must on SOME level think this would be okay with Joe, even if she’s completely wrong.
It wouldn’t be the first time, or even the second time, or even the third time so far in this relationship that Joyce has assumed Joe would be uncomplicatedly horny about something he actually has strong reservations about.
“Telling Joe I kissed Dorothy is like giving him a birthday present!” could absolutely be the level she’s occupying here.
Heck, it was the level DOROTHY was occupying, back when she told Walky that a tipsy Joyce had confessed to wanting to watch the two of them have sex.
(As for why Joyce hasn’t been swayed away from this line of thinking by Dorothy trying to use their boyfriends as a reason not to kiss: lots of possibilities, including assuming Dorothy is being a goody two-shoes and forgetting, in her (in Joyce’s opinion) boundless perfect compassion and grace, that Walky will probably also be happy and horny about it.)
I do think there is a slight chance that Joyce may 169% believe that she can have her cake, and eat it, too.
Or as the Slipshine would explore in detail, let Joe have her while she eats Dorothy too.
look, all i’m saying is, that’s one caked-up dorm room, and if i were in there, i would also be eating
I don’t think I’ve ever had more strongly mixed emotions about a comic strip before! I’ve been shipping these girls forever, but then it happening LIKE THIS? Can’t wait to see the drama unfold, that’s for sure.
So what I want is for these two to go be lesbians at Yale. That’s Joyce’s solution to Dorothy’s inertia, and conundrum. Can’t get left behind if you come along!
Mike left the cast. These two should leave the cast. Book complete? child’s play. Arc complete? tougher, but done. *Characters* complete? Let’s f’n GO.
somehow, i don’t think that we’re going to abandon the main character of the comic. if anything, it would be more likely to abandon the other 95% of the cast of the comic for the Yale storyline. Neither of which, I think, would be a smart narrative or business decision for Willis.
I honestly hope this ship crashes and burns not because its yuri but because it began with cheating.
That’s so valid. Do you have any other ships you like more that you’d be hype to see?
Not that didn’t either just burn down or has already sailed.
Please dont kill Danny and Sal Willis. Please. I want one of my ships to not sink
Based on Willis’ Twitter, Danny and Sal will still be fine in a year at least. He just posted a preview of them together.
Well at least I have hope for 1 of my dozen ships in the series not being burned to the ground and shredded to dust cause this just killed one of my last standing ships.
Cant have shit in college
Unless that’s a flashback lol
More seriously, I’m guessing that’s a panel of Danny introducing Sal to his parents, based off his hands and also Sal kinda sorta waving
Well I wish you happy shipping in the future! And I’ll keep my fingers crossed for Danny and Sal for you!!
If they don’t leave there in 2 minutes, their noses will burn, and cops will crash their clubs in them…
I think the tear gas is suitable karma in the moment but honestly i hope theres some actualy ramifications for this on the two of them outside of just “oh maybe their (hopefully now ex) boyfriends dont talk to them much anymore”
What else ought there be?
Idk. I haven’t thought that far.
I hope more of the friend group calls them both out on it tho at the very least maybe Danny or Becky. If Becky called Joyce out on this I’d be jumping for joy
I can see Becky giving Joyce a “What the actual fuck, Joyce? At least break up with the guy first!”, sealed with a firm glare.
Becky will absolutely channel any remnant heartbreak she has into righteous moral indignation, and I will have to sigh and love her both for and despite this, the beautiful orange child
I hope this ship crashes and burns and takes half the cast down with it because it’ll be entertaining.
You like this plot point because “Fictional characters aren’t real people”
I like it because the entire concept of cheating exists to facilitate inheritance rights, as well as to enforce men’s ownership of women as property through marriage, and therefore cheating is a social concept that should be abandoned!
We are not the same!
(JK we are the same, it’s fictional characters so who cares lol)
(Also yes I am aware that in the society we actually exist in, people enter relationships under a presumed social contract of not being intimate with other people, and to break that without consulting someone else is a violation of trust.)
Well I meant to post this independently instead of in a reply, but it works fine enough here i suppose….
everything you said here is ultimately true, but most of our society is not yet woke enough to digest that obvious reality
I dunno if society really has anything to do with the concept of it.
If a kindergarden class is playing on the playground, and Suzie is walking with her friend Joey, and Suzie kisses Joey on the cheek, and Suzie says she loves Joey, and then Lillie *also* kisses Joey and takes his hand and says hey, let’s go play together in the sandbox, when Suzie screams and tackles Lillie to the ground and pulls her hair, I doubt that Suzie is doing that because the concept of cheating exists as a way to enforce men’s ownership of women as property during marriage and facilitating inheritance rights, and Suzie wants to be beholden to that patriarchal marriage structure.
Social animals have specific ways of pairing and finding mates that are hard coded into their DNA thanks to evolution, because it makes it more likely for the group to pass along its DNA if everything is stable. “Inheretance rights” and “Men’s ownership of women as property” are relatively recent social constructs, compared to the simple dichotomy of “The male can spread seed to many individuals and can carry on DNA better if it has many partners” and “The female has one egg that she must invest a long time in, and can carry on DNA better if she has a devoted partner.” THAT is the core dynamic from which “cheating” comes from. It’s not learned from society, it’s part of our instinct.
It sounds like you’re suggesting that ‘cheating’ is just this odd thing that men created in order to make sure that women didn’t just go sleeping around with everything and they would stick with them. I’d say it has a lot more to do with the fact that men with power have historically come down very hard in punishing women for cheating, while turning a blind eye to their own galavanting.
On the other hand, our closest ape relatives are polyamorous, and your example assumes Suzie did that whole thing entirely on her own, without having received any messages from her parents, other friends, or TV that plays in her house, which I think would be quite a feat of bubble parenting.
If it’s any consolation, it may take a long time, but I honestly believe that this start to their relationship has doomed their long-term potential. They are not getting into this relationship for healthy reasons. As I’ve said elsewhere, Dorothy is half-right about her behavior being a trauma response; she’s just attributing the trauma response to the wrong half of the equation.
That’s basically where I am. Narratively, I don’t see where this goes that doesn’t lead to it crashing not only both of their existing relationships, but this new one as well. Probably very quickly.
They might circle back to it after going through some growth.
By analogy with our prior cheating arc, this is the Jacob kissing Joyce strip.
I feel really bad for Joe in all this. He’s been trying so hard. This might make him backslide.
Im not worried about backsliding im worried about isolating and self destructing. This could destroy any trust he has of wanting to get into another relationship THAT HE FUCKING DESERVES
Joe will become the new Ethan, until he finds an Asher of his own. /s
I don’t care, i hope he does, that would be interesting to see!
Nah
I absolutely hate the sapphic media trope of cheating on a good man, and I am low-key stressed about how this will affect Joe, but the art here is gorgeous
Genuine question:
What are some other examples of this? Because I can only think of Korrasami, and they weren’t dating Mako by the time they got together.
So no one told you life was gonna be this way…
…? How is this an answer to my genuine question?
Dammit, I forgot that most of you guys didn’t exist yet in 1994.
I mean, I recognize the Friends theme song. I don’t know what it has to do with sapphic media. Especially not a sapphic media trope about two women cheating on a good man — I didn’t think anyone thought Ross was a good man?
Good for them.
Do I feel sorry for Joe? Yes. He’s trying to be better and this will hurt.
Do I feel sorry for Walky? Meh. He kinda falls ass-backwards through life, so he’ll brush this off and fall ass-backwards into another relationship.
Do I feel sorry for Becky? Yeah. She’s probs gonna be jealous on some level that fundy Joyce shot her down, but not-fundy Joyce chose Dotty.
But Dorothy and Joyce make Joyce and Dorothy happy in ways the others cannot.
And so long as Joe or Walky don’t rebound onto Mary, shit will be cash. Or something.
I am the most eager to see Becky’s reaction, because she is going to be torn between “hell yeah, let’s go lesbians!” and jealous that Joyce could have picked her but didn’t. At this point in the story, and how stable her relationship with Dina is, I think her feelings will be much more positive then negative, but a little bit of hurt will still be there.
I have the same impression. If this had happened much earlier, like, before the timeskip, then I could see Becky having a meltdown. Now though? Her relationship with Dina is so solidified I don’t see a major crash happening. Like, it will still hurt for Becky, but I don’t foresee major drama on that front.
Although, I do see this furthering her anxiety about changing orientation.
Joyce couldn’t’ve picked Becky, though, because Joyce doesn’t love her that way.
That’s not Joyce’s fault – nor Becky’s, to be very clear – but Joyce doesn’t owe Becky that decision. It’s either real or it’s not, right?
And it wasn’t, for Becky.
I vaguely recall in the past that some time ago, there was a flash-forward panel or whatever where Dina was getting really irate about something?
I think the fallout from this might be the beginning of the implosion of Becky and Dina, because Dina is unwilling to put up with being Becky’s obvious second choice, and loses the patience to try and fulfill Becky’s serious codependency issues. Which is really sad, because Dina is great and I only want great things for her.
I’m calling that Joe will, at the very least, eventually hook up with Rachel.
NO. GOD NO. KEEP THAT SHIT IN THE WALKYVERSE WHERE IT BELONGS IT IS TRASH
I’m not so sure on the “Dorothy and Joyce make Joyce and Dorothy happy in ways the others cannot” part. Joe was in many ways doing a lot better for Joyce than Dorothy was for quite awhile now.
Hoo boy. Love to see it. Terrified of the consequences. Nothing is ever easy.
I’m almost glad that I only discovered this comic a few months ago or I’d have been dying for this for over a _decade_!!
First, leave without being arrested or worse, secondtalk about this! they need to have a _CALM_ moment to descide if this is really what they want to do to (probably) end their existing relationships on.
Either way this is going to change a HUGE chunk of their social interactions now. People aren’t going to look at them the same anymore, especially if the fallout is bad.
The shippers got their wish today. Now the characters have to pay for it.
Oh, and despite Dina, I worry that this might hurt Becky.
But if ANYONE could see this coming, I think it would be her. She’s known Joyce for so long, and she sees Joyce and Dorothy together all the time. She’d likely have picked up on it.
(Also that scene recently with Becky trying to console Dorothy is easily one of my favorite moments in this entire comic)
Becky: I’m so mad. I’m going to go have sex with my girl friend so I won’t be so mad.
Ahh, classic.
this implies becky has enough domme in her to directly ask for sex in a clear way. what actually happens, is she will make sad moony eyes at Dina, until Dina gives her clear directions on what to do, and reassures her she’s doing it right.
LMAO SO TRUE
i totally do not relate to becky at all. enough with the allegations!
I’m happy for both, but I’m more happy for Dorothy.
She endured lot of struggling in all DoA history. It’s like she finally won something. Like, now Dorothy can rest in bed.
it’s so hilarious because most of what she “won” is going to be Consequences.
I agree with you. But it is worthy.
It’s not exactly like her, but i can relate of her pain. What I can say is: if I can reach my dream of life, or my reason to live, or what I was looking for, there’s no pain that make me regret it.
Hey Willis. Is this one of those autobiographical moments… or one of the fictionalized ones?
For that to be true, there’d have to be some long-running issue of the American Military Industrial Complex being complicit in genocides all around the globe, such that similar protests could have been happening during his own college years, and…oh…oh no…oh no, no, no…
Amazing alt-text is amazing.
Saw this coming. Also people, you can be upset with fictional characters. You literally have people who have written essays about why Holden Caulfield sucked (he does), why Rick Sanchez shouldn’t be admired etc. If you can have one side wish well for a character you can also have the other wish bad on them. It doesn’t matter as it’s fictional anyway right?
The problem as I said above are the number of commenters making moral judgements about other readers for not being torn up about Joyce and Dorothy cheating on Joe and Walky, or judgments about the author himself for writing the plot.
This exactly.
It’s completely fair and valid to be mad that this is happening, to be frustrated with Willis for writing it, to hate Joyce and Dorothy for cheating on their boyfriends!
It’s not so fair or valid to make sweeping statements about the morality of readers who feel differently, and the latter thing is like. gonna get folks bent out of shape. Because they’re being insulted in a very personal, direct way.
On the bright side, I’ve finally given up being in any way nice or charitable to the small, loud minority that is doing this. I fucking tried, but these folks are fucking ridiculous. And I wish they weren’t about to deliberately misrepresent what I obviously meant in that last sentence, and come accuse me of poor moral fiber over it.
And by small, loud minority, I genuinely mean that, because even most of the people expressing “yeah I don’t like this” are more or less saying that, and then moving on. Which is actually a reasonable way to engage within a community.
Thing is though is that people do make sweeping judgements on people for characters or series they like. People here probably do it as well. I’ve seen people get judge for liking a certain character or watching a certain show. I do agree that liking a fictional character or story shouldn’t get you judged but unfortunately some people are different.
Yes, people exhibit many unfair and invalid behaviors. Gonna keep calling it out though.
The funny thing is, I am torn up by it. I haven’t been reading the strip for as long as some people, my memory isn’t always the best so the long-term story-telling sometimes gets lost in my sense of recency bias, and so overall, I didn’t have the same level of investment of this ship sailing, by any means necessary, as some people. I’ve been really rooting for Joe and Joyce, and think they’re super cute.
It’s just that, I’m torn up by what the fictional characters did. In the fictional story. Which I read, because I think the characters are interesting, and I like to see what they’re going to do, and why they’re going to do it, and how the other characters will react. I’m genuinely sad about it!
And so, that sad feeling is literally the core part of the reason why I think the strip is good, and why it is worth reading. I’m emotionally invested enough, that I care when the characters do things! I’m proud of them when they succeed! I’m disappointed in them when they fail! I’m super disappointed in Joyce and Dorothy, for not doing better!
But, like, I have empathy for them? I know I just said, I sometimes struggle with the REALLY long-term story-telling details and beats, but I still have a strong general idea of how we got to this point, and why, and I have sympathy for the fact that all the characters in this strip, are traumatized, immature kids, with serious personal problems, and zero practical social skills. And, I like the fact, that they all act predictably like the sheltered, privileged college kids they are, because that period of human life is one of the best to choose for writing a story where complex characters sometimes do the right or wrong thing, for the right or wrong reasons.
If you want a story where everybody is plainly good or plainly bad, and everybody does the right thing, and nothing upsetting ever happens, unless a moustache-twirling villain is tying a damsel to a railroad track? Like, I’d suggest children’s entertainment…except, nowadays, even shows for six year olds, are not that morally pure, or intentionally black and white. I don’t see how these folks could watch something as tame as My Little Pony, and not end up in paroxysms of moral outrage at the fact that the characters don’t always know the best way to treat their friends, because they’re all young, and are learning to solve problems, and conduct themselves like moral people.
I’m still mind-boggled, that a bunch of people chose to dedicate themselves to reading a coming of age story for, like, a decade, and yet are upset when the characters in the coming of age story, aren’t acting like the most mature adults that can possibly exist in human society, at all times.
This. Aaaaallllllllllll of this.
If you can’t empathize with the characters and be swept away in their troubles and triumphs, what’s the point of spending time with the story?
According to large section of commenters, it’s silly to be upset with fictional characters, even when they do shitty things like cheat on their partners.
This is an extrapolation.
Hit dogs gonna holler
Maybe you shouldn’t hit dogs at all? Jesus Christ, dude.
…I’ve never understood what that expression was supposed to prove, because hollering is a very reasonable reaction to being hit.
It means “you’re complaining because you know the complaint is about you even though I didn’t mention you”.
Is the implication that Kyulen cheated on me?
Of course not, the implication is that Dorothy is Velma from Mystery Inc and Joyce is cheating on her with Scooby Doo.
But seriously it’s just AAVE.
Huh. I figured it were Southern.
I understand what people saying it think they’re communicating, but given their terrible metaphor, it just sounds like, “You being mad that I just said ‘You’re an awful person’ is proof that you’re and awful person.”
*an, plus whatever other typos autocorrect introduced, idk I’m tired lol
https://linguaholic.com/linguablog/a-hit-dog-will-holler/
Is this wrong, then? I mean it would hardly be the first time AAVE was misattributed to a white guy (sometime in the 1800s, ftr).
I think most of us are less judgmental about “people being upset with the fictional characters for cheating” and more about “people being upset that anyone else could possibly still enjoy the story”. I fully understand that some people hate this storyline or are tired of elements in it or are disappointed in the characters, or even no longer want to keep reading because cheating plotlines are a hard dealbreaker for them, but I don’t think either side should get to tell the other side that they aren’t allowed to feel a certain way about the comic itself. I would be equally annoyed with people saying no one’s allowed to dislike this turn of events as the people saying no one’s allowed to enjoy it.
There’s plenty of plotlines out there that I wouldn’t bother reading or would be uncomfortable with, or that if they became the focal point of a webcomic I might not want to spend my time on that story anymore, and that’s fine, but I will always acknowledge that for some people, those storylines tickle their drama bone or their particular preference just right, and sometimes a story is for them and not for me. That doesn’t make the story bad. I think that’s the sticking point for a lot of us who are on the “I’m having fun with this storyline, regardless of whether I think the characters are in the right or not, but a bunch of people are now in the comments telling me I must be morally corrupt for enjoying it” side of things right now.
Personally, I don’t even have a clear-cut call on whether I think they’re cheating or not, or whether it’s necessarily defensible, but I do very much want to see what happens next, because I’m emotionally invested in all of these characters and I want to see what happens to them. That includes Joyce and Dorothy, but also Joe and Walky, and all the other people around them! Not everyone’s going to have a good time, sure, and that’s fine. That’s why I’ve always enjoyed DoA! It’s very human and flawed and real! We’re all on the garbage roof and we can be garbage here with these guys! So many ships have already sailed and sunk here, and so many characters have already been smacked with consequences before. I have no doubt the same will happen here, especially since Danny has already strongly indicated he would disapprove. We’ve already seen characters like Billie break away from the main groups, and what we got instead for a while was a whole slew of more characters around her to get intertwined with the greater plots!
Like, man, it baffles me that something this dramatic that is obviously going to cause dynamic changes isn’t exciting for everyone, but I do fully respect that for some people, the drama tag doesn’t always swing where they want. That’s okay. No one has to keep reading if they dislike the experience, but it’s also fine to keep reading and have a different emotional experience with it than other people. I think the comment field would be a little less caustic if everyone was more chill about not ascribing moral judgment to those emotional reactions from others. Everyone is free to judge the characters, but this has always been a story with moral dilemmas and a lot of nuance, where much of the point has been to explore the character flaws and give people a chance to grow by giving them consequences to deal with when they make a decision, without deeming them better or worse people than others.
I think the issue is that some of the supporters become dismissive of people who don’t like the current story arc. You can hate the arc and still read. One thing I don’t want to happen here is for the comment section to become a cheerleader section. Comments can be both positive and negative and no one should be told to go read somewhere else because they don’t like someone’s comment.
I think you are mistaking “man, if you’re that unhappy reading this strip, maybe go read something else?” sorts of comments for “no one is allowed to read this if they don’t enjoy the current storyline”.
I know I’ve personally just suggested some people take a break and come back after the arc is over, because many readers have said it’s a lot easier to get through an arc they aren’t enjoying if they read it all at once instead of slowly over time.
Also there’s a difference between “commenters being mad at Willis or frustrated with the characters’ choices”
and commenters being mad at other readers and yelling at and cussing them out for having the gal to enjoy the current storyline, like for example what Jay had been doing for the past couple of strips.
The latter is what I personally would like people to stop doing. I don’t think that’s an unreasonable thing for me to want.
That’s fair but I’ve seen people getting attacked for hating Joyce and Dorothy for cheating (some even saying they’re homophobic which is ridiculous since being queer doesn’t give you a pass for cheating). Posters calling out “relationship paladins” for being too sensitive as it’s only fiction. But it seems like they’re sensitive because they shouldn’t get upset by others getting mad at fictional characters. They should be called out too as it goes both ways.
I did a loooooong analysis tracking the conversations that are being had up above.
Some people are definitely getting caught in the crossfire between what I’m calling Conversaion 2 and Conversation 3.
Conversation 2 was and still is a bunch of people who are angry at anyone who’s expressed any kind of positivity over this strip, and have been asserting that anyone who so much as said “yay!” must a.) not understand that cheating is morally wrong, and b.) be equally as cavalier about real-life cheating as they are about fictional cheating.
Conversation 3 is a reaction to that, and has resulted in multiple people making top-level comments to the effect of “calm down, they’re not real people, no one’s really being hurt, it’s not that serious.” If you weren’t here for the first two waves, this third conversation LOOKS like it’s coming out of nowhere, or making unkind assumptions.
Now in comes Converation 4: people who see Conversation 3 happening, but didn’t read up through literally a thousand previous comments. They feel like they’re being attacked for not liking fictional cheating, or for even having feelings about web comics at all. They protest, understandably!
But it’s important to realize that Conversation 3 didn’t happen in a vacuum, and that Conversation 3 objections aren’t actually to people getting too upset over fictional characters, but to being told by Conversation 2 people that they’re morally bankrupt in real life for not being upset over fictional characters.
Like, for one thing, the folks from Conversation 2 have often resorted to asserting that those of us who aren’t upset with Joyce and Dorothy for cheating? Must be terrible partners. We must cheat on our own partners.
I imagine you agree that that’s a personal attack that shouldn’t be getting levied in a conversation over Dorothy and Joyce?
(My longer analysis included calling out the portion of Conversation 3 that’s resorting to calling Conversation 2 people delusional. That sucks! That also shouldn’t be happening. I’m not entirely sure how to completely separate my legit concerns over the purity culture mindset from it, though, because if you’re not familiar with the wave of purity culture encroaching on fandom spaces and haven’t, yourself, almost gotten sucked in by it, like…
It sounds like concern-trolling.
It’s not, at least not from me. I feel awful for people who have gotten stuck in the saw trap of castigating themselves every time they like a “bad” ship. It was really terrible for my mental health.
But it still sounds like concern trolling. :/ )
And dang it, this is already super long, but I didn’t mean to ignore your point about queerphobia.
some even saying they’re homophobic which is ridiculous since being queer doesn’t give you a pass for cheating
So again, two different conversations.
There ARE some folks who are saying “gay ships get a pass on cheating”. Not many, and I’m not sure how serious they’re being, but that is being said by a couple of people.
MORE what’s being said is that Joyce and Dorothy have spent their whole lives thinking they’re straight, and that untangling feelings of sapphic attraction in that situation is really confusing, and that being eighteen already means being a hormonal mess. Add to that that Dorothy’s been spiraling for a while, and a fair few folks are basically willing to give the girls a bit of a golf handicap on cheating. That Joyce and Joe only became official like ten days ago adds to the sense some readers have that, while this isn’t ideal, it’s not as bad as it would be if Joyce and Joe had actually been in a long-term relationship for years, and it’s more understandable that Joyce would do this with her first-ever girlcrush than it would be if she were cheating on Joe with a boy……. or, and this is important, more understandable than it would be if she were cheating on Joe with Dorothy, but like, years from now, after she’d already come to terms with her bisexuality.
It’s not a “pass for cheating because gay”, it’s not really a pass at all — it’s more like… let’s put it in legal terms. It’s more like people think there are mitigating factors that should lesson Joyce and Dorothy’s prison sentence.
Also: let’s not mince words here, some of the criticism, especially for the last few weeks but also today, has been queerphobic. You’ve got the occasional commenter being loudly disappointed that Joyce is “suddenly” not straight anymore. A fair few comments have complained very directly about there not being any straight characters left in the comic, dating all the way back to when Joe first confronted Dorothy about having feelings for Joyce.
More than that, and something I’ve personally felt increasingly discomfited by, there’s been a lot of crass sexualization of Dorothy’s feelings for Joyce. Even when Dorothy was being an anxious mess, people were loudly talking in disgusted tones about how “obviously” horny for Joyce she was. People kept saying she was going to “try to fuck Joyce” during the previous storyline. People kept talking about how gross it was that she’d kept Joyce’s incompetent, unsexy photos for any time at all, even though she originally went to Amber for help deleting the photos permanently, and even though she only kept them because Amber (accidentally or on purpose) convinced her that it was Weird and Sus and Gay of her to even want to delete the photos, because the normal platonic friend thing to do was to send back a “joke” pic of her own.
So. It’s not “ridiculous” to say some of the negative reactions to this story are queerphobic… because they have been.
I agree that queerphobia isn’t motivating everyone’s displeasure! I think “my” side has painted with too broad a brush on that topic. But it’s also not not present in the conversation. Some of it is subconscious, for sure: I don’t think the vast majority of folks who were so quick to sexualize Dorothy’s feelings for Joyce in a negative way even really noticed that… the comments on the strip where Joe first started talking about having feelings for Joyce, for example, had been much less sexualized.
Unconscious biases are a bongo, as the local vernacular would put it. You absorb them without noticing, and you can repeat them just the same way.
*lessen, plus any other typos, it is once again late and I’m once again commenting on my phone like a fool
the college freshman year coming out moment at the moment of highest possible drama, good work everyone!
I know this has seem inevitable for awhile now, but what an absolute nuclear bomb for our cast. So much betrayal in this one moment. Which, is probably good for the plot of the comic. Can’t have things getting too cozy, right? But off, this is going to be a fracture line for their friend group, and I’m not sure it will ever recover.
It’s gonna be so goddamn crazy. I am fucking seated. I am locked the fuck in.
WHOA, BAD PERSON ALERT! Stop enjoying your fiction! The character did a bad thing! You need to let everybody know, as loudly as possible, that you do not personally condone the bad thing they did! It’s vitally important to your social reputation in this internet comments section!
SIGH.
SIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIGH.
Man I’d love to see what the comment section would have thought about Brokeback Mountain
Haaaahahahahagahhaaahahagahahhahgghgg
Ooooooooooooof.
I mean. Kind of fair. Dorothy and Joyce are in a much more accepting environment, but Dorothy certainly wasn’t being much more accepting of her own feelings.
Also, you know what? I’m not sure that first part is even true. They’re in a much more accepting circle of friends, but every day 2025 gets scarier.
ha HA – thermonuclear
FUCKING FINALLY
K, I admit, that is hot. However, worth the price? One hot kiss all for the low price of three broken hearts and potentially a night in the slammer?
I guess we’ll find out.
Three? 🤨
Joe, Walky, and half the comment section.
Either Walky or Joe is a Timelord.
Joe, Walky, and Becky, who’s had a gay crush on Joyce for years now and only gave up on it under the assurance that Joyce was strictly straight. Joyce/Dorothy is basically a nightmare scenario for her so when this comes to light she’s going to take it as a straight up betrayal. Which it is.
Becky does not have a claim on Joyce’s sexual fidelity please even Becky does not believe that or has ever believed that my God
Walky has been coasting and trying to avoid serious shit and bro that doesn’t work! You knew this was gonna crash out! Get outta here! Go get messy with Amber!
Joe I believe in. I believe very much in Joe. I think Joe is better than most of the commenters fanon of him lmao
No, she doesn’t. No one ever has claims on such a thing over another person, but tell me this. Becky’s had a lifelong gay crush on Joyce and only let go and walked away under the assurance that Joyce wasn’t gay.
O look, lo and behold, Joyce *does* have gay feelings, and in the person Becky’s regarded as a rival for Joyce’s attention no less.
How exactly is she suppose to take that?
While I do agree that a good heartbreak would probably do Walky some good, get him to wake the fuck up and take life a little more seriously, cheating is still cheating.
And, yeah. Then there’s Joe, who this is going to hurt the worst of all and deserves it the least. Hopefully this doesn’t cause him to relapse into being a philanderer.
Wasn’t Walky broken up the _last_ time Dorothy ended things with him?
As for Becky, I think she may feel a little hurt on some level, but look at what she’s gained in Dina, schooling, a circle of friends that she adores (even when pretending they’re her nemesis).
Sure she may have some selfish feelings about Joyce. I’d be shocked if she didn’t! But I can’t see her acting out about it. What would that do to Dina but make her feel like she was just filling Joyce’s spot in Becky’s heart for a while unless/until Joyce swooped in to fill it.
Willis may go that direction, but it would have to be written and handled VERY carefully to not suddenly kill a lot of the affection people have for these characters.
In the end, Joyce and Dorothy may find that they should have handled things MUCH better, but youth and heavy emotions can and do cause chaos in people’s lives.
Becky, much like Boomer, will live. She’s not getting betrayed, only Joe and Walky are. That’s already two people, we don’t need to embellish.
Just because two people are queer does not make them obligated to be attracted to each other or reciprocate a crush. If they were hetero guy and gal friends, they would not be obligated to date either.
Honestly it’s less a Kinsey Scale issue between Becky and Joyce and more that Joyce sees Becky as a sister. Of course Joyce wouldn’t be attracted to Becky. And I hope Becky realizes that.
Always shipped it, sorta wished it had happened before JoeXJoyce, but looking forward to seeing how it plays out regardless because it’s going to be a mess no matter what and I am here for m e s s.
While I like them together I hate this for Joe. I hope Joyce fesses up immediately.
I also really hope Joyce fesses up immediately.
If Joyce does not talk to Joe about this immediately I will be disappointed in her, for real. I’m prepared for her to go that route but I will click my tongue very hard. It will make me put sad faces on the grade sheet for her and Dotty.
Meh. I’m on board with this. It’s still cheating, and there will be fallout, and it likely will suck for Joe and Walky (and Becky), but whatever.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
(I do kind of hope this is caught on TV cameras and broadcast to the world, before Dorothy and Joyce are ready for the world to know about it, though.)
well, we can hope. The cops have been manhandling anyone getting close and I sorta doubt journalists have exceptions in that setup
Journalists are often explicitly targeted. Of course these days it’s easy to retain access to pictures and videos you take even if the pigs steal your phone or whatever else you’re using. Or even stream everything live so everyone sees events as the occur.
Like what happened with the Australian journalist who was deliberately shot with a rubber bullet by some LAPD dickwad a month ago.
And a happy Bastille Day to yous too !
People talking about how people define cheating differently so maybe technically this isn’t cheating for Joe and Joyce- I am bewildered at the lengths people are going to in defense of this.
If Joe had kissed anyone else, people would have torn his dick off about it in the comments. For cheating on Joyce and being what he was afraid of being. No amount of ‘big emotionally charged moment’ would have changed that.
It always surprises me when people confidently state things they have no proof of and no way of knowing for sure.
I’m a big fan of this moment today, and I would have been similarly hype about an identical storyline for Joe. In fact I’m busily shipping him with Walky rn, and if it cuts to Joe smooching him tomorrow I’ll be equally hype.
Joe is and forever will be the punching bag of the comment section and seemingly this comic as payment for the list.
He rated women therefore no long term happiness allowed
He did more than just rate women, but I do hope he gets to be happy. I’m still really excited for him to further explore his interest in cooking.
What else were his crimes? Consensually sleeping around? Making a crap comment here and there? (Something the entire cast has done)
Even if you equate all his multiple sexual harassment to “crappy comments”, it is frankly absurd to pretend it is on the level of “the entire cast”. Like, seriously, that was almost all he did for multiple years. It is closer to Mike in sheer amount than Walky.
Maybe, just maybe, Dorothy wouldn’t have had such deep-seated repression of her sexuality, if teenage Joe hadn’t casually made her feel the need to reflexively reject the idea that she might be into women, as a form of social self-defense?
But, no, that would be an example of long-term, cause-and-effect storytelling, and those are never good, if they lead the character to eventually make the WRONG choice, instead of the RIGHT one.
This is the first time I’ve thought of that, and, in a sense, it’s kind of poetic? Dorothy absolutely did imply, if unintentionally, that Joe treating her that way has left her with serious baggage, back when they were talking about Dorothy’s feelings.
Crimes? None at all. Shitty things he’s done? Lots!
– Didn’t take “no” for an answer from at least one woman.
– Objectified every woman he came across.
– Joking about rape (getting women drunk so they’d sleep with him/have a threesome).
– The List (obvi)
– Treated his good friend Danny like shit about a break up.
– Also treated Danny like shit when Danny didn’t want to sleep with someone.
– Called Dorothy a lesbian through high school for not wanting to get with him (bullying).
There’s plenty more, but I think that’s sufficient enough to define my “he did more than just rate women” comment. I understand that you, personally, don’t think what he did rises to the level of bad that you feel Joyce/Dorothy have risen to here. I disagree. I think the level of upset you’re getting about him potentially having a single bad thing happen to him is more than is warranted when you decide to throw it at other human beings in the comments section like a venomous weapon.
I hope that explains my position well enough.
no long term happiness guaranteed, no woman permanently owned, just like everybody else
I would recommend you to go reread the comic if you think this is all Joe’s did. Like, seriously, I’ve been doing that and I had forgotten just how terrible he was. Even when his list got “leaked” he still acted like an ass, Danny had to practically drag him into some self-refleciton.
This has nothing to do with either being happy with this development or wanting to see Joe continue his character growth. But so many people feel the need to whitewash him to justify their dislike for the current plot, so of course there is push back. Joe doesn’t “deserve” to be cheated on, but he was an awful person.
And, really, if he can continue his path of personal improvement without needing a reward in form of a girlfriend, that would be great, I would love that for him.
It is a weird assumption to make that a character will never have any happiness just because one bad thing happened.
Joe’s gonna stub his toe and spiral into a beer depression. His wife will leave him, his dog will die, his truck will break down, his Gibson will stay tuned.
if joe had kissed danny we would be throwing a fucking mardi gras
This is cheating but it’s also something that just happened in a really emotional moment. Is it ok to reserve my judgment of them as people until I see how they decide to handle it afterward, or are they about to be killed and we need to decide if the next chapter should take place in heaven or hell?
I don’t know why that was a reply to you, sorry.
Did people tear Joe’s dick off in the comments when he nearly fucked Liz after uhhhh kind of emotionally leading on Joyce for a loooooong while?
I don’t think they did (and yes I know, NOT THE SAME, I am not saying it is perfectly equivalent I am saying there is room for nuance!!!! A kiss also is not ripping Dotty’s clothes off and fucking her! A kiss is not GOOD, but like, it could be discussed and maturely dealt with, in any number of ways!!!!!)
If I remember right tho….they did.
Even after he stopped immediately when she expressed discomfort
https://www.dumbingofage.com/2021/comic/book-12/01-sister-christian/ruined/
You don’t remember correctly.
You might be confusing how people treated Liz, because there were a lot of commenters calling for Liz’s blood both before and after this — they also blamed her for Joyce’s “asshole atheist” turn.
Yeah I was gonna say, no dogg, they pitied Joe and piled on Liz with the force of a football team
like I am not Liz’s Biggest Fan and I didn’t like the faith-off at aaaaaall but damn if that shit wasn’t totally unwarranted
It is interesting how disproportionately aggressive the comment section has been towards Liz… and Lucy… and Sarah… and Sal…
Subconscious biases? In my society? It’s more likely than you think!
Well wait a minute, now what do those four characters have in common? I can’t think of a single common factor between them.
To say nothing of Anna, people were calling her an abuser and braying for her death immediately. She’s literally never done anything but be acerbic, Willis later said her dialogue was 100% all stuff Mike would have said.
Mike was already more divisive in DoA comment sections than he had been in the Walkyverse, but man. Man oh man. Did Anna ever get eaten alive, for mysterious reasons.
Such a mystery.
The biggest controversy in that sequence was anyone suggesting Joe even consider the possibility that Liz might not be quite as ready for sex as she said she was. That was obviously infantilizing her.
I agree fully that this is the closest anyone came to tearing Joe’s dick off about it.
I’m just gonna continue being a big fan of both Joe and this development, and looking forward to further drama, and hoping Joe comes out of it okay. I’m also gonna continue hoping for eventual poly endgame, which isn’t me making any weird assumptions about how quickly anyone’s gonna get over anything, just to head that off at the pass.
I co-sign this idea and I offer you a muscular Predator handshake, but without the betrayal from later in that movie.
I will return this handshake! Only more so for not having actually seen the movie upon which this ominous reference is based.
The handshake is so powerful, that there’s currently a professional wrestling tag team, whose entire existence is predicated on the fact that they Do That Handshake, and also, there’s an 80s filter over everything.
…oh gosh. Earlier, Joyce’s dad called to ask if she saw Jocelyn(e) in the protest, so he’s probably still watching TV right now. And maybe, just maybe, the TV reporter could display that despite the rising clouds of tear gas all around.
WO w i sure can’t wait to go read my favorite webcomic, make a comment, and then close the page without looking at anything else! That’s sure a spicy-a meatball!
Real!
Bad news I looked at all the rest of the comments and angry-responded at least two, wasting an hour of my life on internet discourse when I could’ve helped fund resistance to the actual genocide, police brutality, and injustice in the real world, Bwuh-oh sisters!
Nah ur real for that
Good use of time is a skill and all and doing good stuff is great and all but deviations are human
You’re not doing something wrong for not spending all your free time Calculated for Utilitarian Optimal Moral Output (very funny that this coincidentally spells out ‘CUOMO’), that just means you’re not a robot
Dunno if I’m taking this over serious, if i am then just take this reaction as me dealing with a past of taking this over serious the other way
It’s interesting to process Joyce making a fuckup this big in her post-fundie era.
I might’ve not remembered everything, but I can’t think of a fuckup this big that could reverberate through her life this big since the fundie era.
Valuable lesson about not overrating the degree to which people change in different phases in their life, about understanding how they still have goodness in their “worse phases” and still have badness in their “better phases,” and all that.
It’s funny you mention this. Because it was just occurring to me how the more she separated herself from Christianity, the more it felt like her morals grew questionable bit by bit…
My view was ironic but your view gives me a lot more to sit on.
I actually think a very reasonable response for her doing this, though it’s hard to put succinctly, is she has done an Uno Reverse on her old, fundamentalist moral thinking:
Fundies think that kissing a girl is a sin; but, sin isn’t real; and, Fundies are bad; therefore, anything Secular must be Good by default; and, as we’ve established, kissing girls is secular, so therefore, it can’t be morally wrong.
This is the same way she used to deal with – or more accurately, REPRESS AT ALL COSTS – her cognitive dissonance over aspects of her Christianity that didn’t immediately track to her moral compass. So, what she’s doing, simply isn’t triggering her moral compass, as strongly as it should, because she is very practiced at substituting her own moral compass, with the dogma she believes in, when the two contradict.
There’s also the fact that, this kind of whirlwind romance, is PRECISELY how fundies market romantic love to young girls. It’s supposed to feel overwhelming and scary, and you’re supposed to be tirelessly and perfectly devoted to the other person, and you’re supposed to live and die for them, and give your whole self to them, and it’s supposed to feel like you will burst and the love will both complete you, and destroy you. In absence of a singular guiding authority in her life, due to her becoming secular? The experience of love she is feeling from Dorothy right now, feels irresistible to her, because Dorothy is her anchor and her guiding star when things get chaotic, and so the way she feels about Dorothy, right now? In her gut instincts, this is the closest Joyce has felt to her previous love (read: obsession) with Christ, since she lost her faith.
This situation is perfectly constructed to make Joyce brush off critically thinking about her actions in accordance to her ethics, and instead, backsliding into falling back on what “feels right.” She’s just substituted the prior authority of fundamentalist dogma, for the stuff that she’s in the process of learning in her Women’s Studies class. Which, by virtue of being a 19 year old former fundamentalist? She has not unpacked the things she has learned anywhere near as well as she naturally assumes that she has.
If you need a tl;dr…Joyce is used to determining what The Right Thing is, by defaulting to what an authority tells her is right. She has fully abandoned her allegiance to her prior authority; however, that doesn’t mean her patterns of behavior automatically change to suit that. Because this feels good, and her prior behavioral schema was, more or less, Never Do What Feels Good (Because It’s Wrong), and this feels good – therefore, gut instinct? It can’t be wrong! Because this is what true love is supposed to feel like, and you’re always supposed to sacrifice everything you have for it, without a second thought!
Which is why her and Dorothy have, always, been near-perfect character foils. And now, they’ve completely circled around one another, and met in the middle, as a messy, co-dependent disaster.
One could even argue that it’s a very skillful fictional representation of a way hat autistic “black and white thinking” traits can be expressed.
I have been banging the drum for a while, that Joyce may not be the only budding bisexual woman in the comic, suffering from an autistic compulsion towards absolute moral purity.
please let this turn into Joyce dating both Dorothy and Joe… please let this turn into Joyce dating both Dorothy and Joe…
I really, REALLY hope this goes in a mature way where Joe can recognize that Joyce needs to pursue Dorothy, even though she handled it in a way that hurt him. And I’d LOVE it if Joyce can continue pursuing her love of Dorothy while also playing around with this new and exciting man that is Joe that she’s definitely shown an interest in. And I hope Joe loves Joyce enough that, while he’s definitely entitled to be hurt, he can want Joyce to get the person that she really wants. (Though, I’m worried about how hurt Joe might get when he gets cheated on, when he’s the guy who decided to be shallow to avoid hurting people like how his Dad hurt his Mom by cheating on her.)
Walky though…… the guy who’s been feeling the pain of dating someone who’s clearly just dating him because he’s available, and is about to find out that that person also cheated on him, validating the fears that she didn’t really want him……. Walky’s fuuuuuuuuucked.
Joyce doesnt deserve to date both of them after this because Joe doesnt deserve to be with someone who knows his trauma with cheating and DOES THIS
Yeah this would be a classic “I already betrayed you but can we go poly to smooth it over” which is inherently a very bad idea. The trust is already broken, and it usually just painfully draws out the inevitable.
The mature outcome here is Joe breaks up with her (for his sake, not hers, but this is also in Joyce’s interest, and I’m not going to witch hunt her and hope she’s miserable despite her fuck up). Ditto for Walky.
The mature outcome is also that Dotty and Joyce do some deep soul searching about what they want, and can commit to and handle, in a relationship before jumping into anything.
are y’all the type of people who believe in “emotional affairs”, too
That sounds to me like a gotcha question. I believe some relationships away with people besides the partner can be intimate enough that they are betrayals, and that some relationships with other people are not intimate enough to be betrayals.
Betrayal can happen in varying depths, and with every physical act or no physical act. Some of those depths are cheating, and I don’t care a ton about getting into the weeds there, but later panels suggest both are well aware they made a serious betrayal.
I seem to recall that exact term being used either yesterday or the day before.
Emotional cheating is a thing yeah, but what you think it is, is probably a bit different.
I’m gonna level with you, I do. I do believe that it can, and does, happen – even if, in many cases, I think such an accusation would just as easily be a natural bid for power in a relationship, which could come from a controlling abuser who is slowly restricting their partners agency and outside relationships.
I just don’t think that anybody besides the two (or more) people in a relationship, have any say over what is or is not cheating, in that specific relationship. If “emotional cheating” is something both people in the relationship sincerely believe in, it’s real, full stop. Even if I, personally, think that the very idea of that is stupid, and restrictive, and literally suspicious in many cases.
Emotional affairs are totally a thing.
They’re not as common as reddit wants you to think, having a close friend whose gender you’re attracted to and whom you get emotional support from doesn’t meet the criteria, but what else would you call it when someone abandons their partner to spend all of their time and emotional energy with someone else even as things stay entirely PG?
I don’t think that has to be cheating? It’s absolutely a cause for concern, consternation, and outright feelings of anger for the aggrieved partner! It’s a genuine problem, if such a thing is actually happening, and there isn’t some kind of good reason for it! But, that doesn’t make it cheating. It’s very possibly a betrayal of the basic responsibility that comes with being in a relationship in many cases, but I don’t see why it has to get lumped in with infidelity.
It doesn’t need to be “emotional cheating;” it’s as simple as “my partner stopped paying attention to me, so I have no reason to call them my partner, anymore.” To me, saying anything further than that, gets kind of squicky, because it starts to sound as if what’s being said is “our relationship means I literally own my partner’s time, their actions, and their emotional spectrum.” Which I think is not a good or fair way to look at relationships. Relationships are a consistent choice that two or more people make, not a property arrangement. I would rather a person in that situation say “my partner stopped putting effort into and/or stopped taking our relationship seriously,” if that’s the way they’re feeling about it. I really think it’s a more accurate description of the event.
I mean, I can see how that’s kind of granular, and I don’t want to apply how I feel about it as a judgement of how anyone else feels. But, that’s just the way I’ve unpacked our society’s shitty, unbalanced norms around relationships.
Nah, Throwatron, I’m absolutely with you and that’s what I meant by my very flippant snark upthread lmao
Like, emotionally disengaging from someone you love and have made a commitment to is absolutely cruel and heartbreaking, I would even call it a form of abuse
But attaching it to infidelity? No. That feels very rooted in the creepy old-school idea that you own your partner, you own their feelings, they are chattel that you purchased and they aren’t allowed to form a connection with anyone else without you approving. That’s fucked up!
This really seems like picking nits over definitions.
I think my own context is pretty important for these kinds of discussions. I’m 36 and I’ve been in my first real relationship for 2 years now. Roughly a year before that I dated someone for a few months, but we never really got that close. In addition, my best friend, a person I’ve known since I was 3, is a pretty prominent node in his polycule- his household right now is him, 2 of his long-term partners, and their 2 kids. Recently he’s been seeing a woman who is also our close friend’s sister who is married to a trans woman, and one of the kids’ mom’s partners also frequently comes by along with his spouse(I think?) as well. And that’s just what I pick up when we hang out, I’m not out here taking notes or pressing anyone for details.
So believe me when I say that I have well and thoroughly considered how to be ethical and happy outside the bounds of a traditional heterosexual relationship. And now that I’m in one, a situation I honestly kind of gave up on for a while, I have *also* considered the sorts of boundaries I think are appropriate in a relationship.
And what I’m saying is that there’s definitely a big difference between “you stopped paying attention to me just because” and “you stopped paying attention to me because all your attention is now focused on someone else”. Functionally, I think that’s the reason why I wouldn’t work in a poly relationship. I don’t think I’d be able to juggle my time and attention between two equally deserving people, and, to be quite honest, I’d worry about my partner doing that to me because my self-esteem still isn’t all that great. Because I’ve seen my friends successfully do so for 9 years now, I’m well aware that it’s *possible* to value two or more partners in such a way that doesn’t harm anyone, I just don’t think it’s a universally applicable thing at all.
Again, it’s not an emotional affair if you’re close to someone who isn’t your partner. And partners are allowed to make friends without their partner’s approval. But fundamentally, if you’re neglecting your partner’s needs, it matters if the reason for that is because you’re fulfilling someone *else’s* needs. And that’s where we get “emotional cheating” from.
Polyamory requires trust and I doubt this will foster much of that
…and then the sniper took his shot.
LOL
“why the fuck are there suddenly so many cherry blossoms everywhere?! am I supposed to shoot the cherry blossoms?”
Coming out of my cage
And I’ve been doing just fine
Gotta gotta be down because I want it all
It was only a kiss, how did it end up like this?
474 comments, it was only a kiss
And they fled immediately out of the encampment, everyone in and around the encampment made it safely out, and they marched straight to Joe to fucking talk about this shit like adults. Right? Riiiiight?
Hahahahaha I live in hope!!!
MY PEOPLE, I AM THE BLIND BI PROPHET OF JOECEROTHY AND I SAY UNTO YOU THE POLYCULE IS REAL, THIS IS NOT AN END BUT A BEGINNING, HOLD FAST TO OUR FAITH
PREACH IT BROTHA! <3
I wish to convert
Cool. So they’re terrible people. Doubly so for stopping and realizing that what they’re doing is scummy then continuing to do so regardless. There’s nothing worth celebrating here.
Here’s hoping that when they realize the cost of it, the loss of close friends, hits them both very, *very* hard.
I just hope they lose more friends than just walky and joe over this
They won’t
At bare minimum, I’d say a falling-out with Becky is a safe bet. Almost certainly Dina as well.
Becky and Dina’s relationship having trouble because of this is something I’m really worried about too :c
Yes, how dare they not respect Becky’s prior claim to Joyce’s vagina!
One thing I will say is: this comic is actually pretty primed for a full split into two social factions. You’ve got the Raidah/Jennifer group on one extreme end, and Joyce and Dorothy as the central point around which the other extreme orbits.
Since we’re mostly expecting that this kiss is going to, at the very least, be the front cover of the next student paper, it’s distinctly possible that, through a domino effect, nearly every character can fully be dragged into choosing either the Joyce side, or the Raidah side. And, thus, nearly every character gets to make a very interesting choice, for whom some will find it more obvious than others.
I hate the implication of that storyline, because it will be very gut-wrenching for a very long time! But at the same time, that would be absolute cinema, for the same reason that I also think what’s currently happening, is absolute cinema.
Terrible people is a pretty damning judgment. They’re college kids in challenging situations who made big mistakes. They should face accountability for their bad choices that hurt people – their challenges are not an excuse for these avoidable choices they knew were wrong – but this one bad choice isn’t everything about them, and they have a lot of life to live and learn.
Wow! Like the Sonic music! Live and learn! (Words I don’t remember!)
HANGING ON THE EDGE OF TOMORROW
Naw, that’s crazy. They made one immoral choice, under extreme emotional duress, in a dangerous and chaotic situation. They deserve to be crucified, and then brought back to life, and then crucified again. Just like every person who has ever done anything wrong, ever.
so real for this
Whose reaction will we see first when Doyce/Jorothy becomes the symbol of the strike in tomorrow’s newspaper?
Dude, this is going viral in like 2 minutes from now. Newspapers are Journalism’s appendix.
It is actually insane that “Cheating is bad” is somehow a controversial opinion on these boards
Objective observation gets a lot wonkier with the lovable protagonist in a moment depicted with the positive emotions of her perspective, and not the negative emotions of the multiple people she hurt.
Not a knock on Willis for the depiction, I like it artistically, and the not perfectly coherent fan reaction is inevitable, at least for the time being. We will see the reaction when the fallout is in our faces.
It bothers me how many other commenters seem to be fine with cheating, as long as it’s two characters they really like doing it.
Thanks you for noticing i make my mission to be as bothersome as humanly possible
I was also fine when they blew up Alderaan in Star Wars. That was a cool moment.
real people or fake people involved? because there’s sort of a difference
(though, as a total aside, I recently read an article about people in relationships with AI companions – and one of the people did break up with their longtime partner over it because it felt like cheating. Interesting edge case.)
This “they’re fictional characters so they shouldn’t be held accountable” line needs to be squashed. If people had tried to defend Blaine or Ross would you make that argument that it’s okay for them to be shitty because they’re fictional? Of course not!
Not even remotely on the same ballpark. There this called “context” and “nuance” see?
What’s the planck level of this shitty behavior in fiction and reality can be excused because it’s fictional? Because for me shitty behavior is shitty behavior. It’s called being consistent and having a moral compass.
You know what? I gonna excuse even harder now.
Oh god I’m having flashbacks to the Voltron shipping drama with your comment here. “FICTION IS REALITY” amirite?
Don’t think p summer isn’t saying these choices are okay. Rather, that real world people react differently to real world harms versus fictional depicted harms, for all sorts of different reasons
Many people who say one thing on this thread would say a different thing if they saw it actually happen in the real life real world
Genuinely, how do you propose to hold a fictional character accountable?
Simply don’t cheer for bad behavior. This character is an alcoholic, we don’t cheer for her to be an alcoholic and endanger then other fictional characters.
This character is an insane mafia connected person threatening his daughter. We don’t cheer for him to threaten his daughter. It really is not that hard.
Shitty actions are still shitty even when done by characters we like. That should not even be close to a hot take.
Suppose someone has a perfectly consistent moral compass when it comes to situations where real people get hurt, but an inconsistent one when it comes to situations where fictional people get hurt. How big of a deal is this? Genuinely – I don’t think it’s 0 deal, but I do think it is fairly small.
I also know this “someone” is not real, but I do believe the average person is closer to this than you think. Most people are not equally good at judging all situations, and being weaker at judging fictional ones versus real ones is pretty common.
Have you considered that people are cheering for the relationship and not, you know, endorsing the infidelity of the act???
and that the relationship is not tainted by the infidelity of one (1) makeout session in the heat of the moment in the same way that a pattern of dog shit behavior like “engaging in organized crime for years” or “parental abuse” taints something???
how allergic to shades of grey are you, my guy??? this isn’t having a moral compass it’s enforcing a puritanical doctrine
Two girls kissing and cheating on their boyfriends is not a crime akin to threatening murder??? Bruh???
I’m pretty sure the fictional characters can’t hear the cheering, and they wouldn’t hear the booing, either. Nothing we do or don’t do is going to affect their (fictional) actions or the outcome. Especially since the strip is almost a year “behind” what Willis has built up. Whatever fallout happens, has already happened. We just won’t see it for a while.
I’m not sure if you’re aware, but the argument you’re making whiffs of censorship, ala the Hays Code where Hollywood couldn’t produce films that had distasteful content. Specifically, the idea of “the possibility of a cinematically inspired thought crime” and “and lastly forbade a picture to show any sort of ridicule towards a law or “creating sympathy for its violation.”
Your “hot take” is about a fictional thought crime. You are reinventing the Hays Code in 2025. I’m just gonna leave this here and step away.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hays_Code
“Shitty actions are still shitty when taken by characters we like.” yeah, I agree! I just think it’s like, good that that happened. Because it’s fun. It’s good drama. Maybe the way you express having a good time with media is by shaking your head disapprovingly, knowing securely that you are a Better Person, but that’s just not true for a lot of people!
Also, I’m not sure you know what “holding accountable” means.You cannot demand anything from a fictional character. They’re not real. They can’t hear you. You could try holding Willis accountable, I guess, for being so morally corrupt as to write whatever you’re so upset about, but then do say that instead of pretending the fake people in your screen have agency. That’s silly.
TFW Estinien Varlineau uses the Eye of Nidhogg even though I told him I’d be very cross with him if he did so.
The minute Estinien used those cursed eyes I unsubscribed from FFXIV because I can’t enable that kind of evil behavior. My wife says Square Enix has him as a protagonist in the new expansion and every time I think about it I throw up. He doesn’t deserve that Hawaiian shirt! He’s EVIL!
That scene where he’s exercising topless (the slut) and Zero watches the sweat drip off of him, as if he didn’t literally get possessed by the villain just 8 years prior.
Sure, but some commenters seem to be completely ignoring the shitty actions and just being happy their ship happened.
As for “holding accountable” – obviously we as commenters can’t hold the characters accountable, but the author can and I suspect will.
I suspect this going to blow up in ways that many cheering it on won’t enjoy. Of course those who are just here for the drama will, but that’s a different motivation.
Okay but that’s still fine for them to do. It’s fine for people not to care about the “shitty actions” of the fictional characters. No one should need to preface their happiness about a kiss with a paragraph of disclaimers about how cheating in real life would be bad.
And folks who genuinely don’t think this is cheating are also allowed that opinion, that’s not an evil opinion no one should hold. Cheating is whatever the people in the relationship agree it is. Don’t date people whose definition is incompatible with yours, and it’s all gravy.
I also think the comment section in general is more aware of the incoming implosion than you’re giving them credit for. A huge number of the happy comments still explicitly make time to say “haha this is gonna blow up so bad tomorrow”.
Nobody’s making you act this way.
I bet you’re the kind of person that gets really mad when people say they’re fans of villains
Probably not, because liking villains generally means liking them as villains. (Barring those people who are genuinely like “No. The villain is completely right here. Torturing the puppy was good, actually”)
And liking complex flawed characters who make mistakes and do bad things is also cool – we can accept the mistakes, the consequences and the character growth that follows.
Cheering on the flaws and the mistakes as actually perfectly fine is where some have problems.
Well… those people should take a huge step back and realize that it’s still fine to cheer on character flaws and mistakes.
That’s not the part that’s controversial. Hope this helps.
I don’t get why people can’t seem to understand this is fiction. Like there’s plenty of media where I’m excited for character’s bad decisions and love them and/or the story for it, while in real life i would be horrified. It feels like a lot of people in the comment section thing that media should only be enjoyed in a pre prescribed way and everything else is bad or wrong. My go to example is slashers because i am pretty much never on the side of the survivors in slasher films, but irl I wouldn’t be like “yas literally slay” to a murderer. It’s just weird to have a view point that people’s relationships to *fictional* characters is ever immoral. If someone wanted to like, idk bang Blaine, I’d be like, you know what, as long as you wouldn’t condone someone like that irl, go you
Motherfuckers wanna act like there’s no meaningful difference between Freddy Krueger and Jeffrey Dahmer.
Are you saying that Joyce and Dorothy are, in fact, the villains of the story? Because I’m seeing people using the ‘Well, I don’t support eating a bunch of space truckers, but I still watch Alien’ excuse, and it’s like, good! You’re meant to identify with the space truckers! The audience is asked to treat protagonists different than antagonists, and part of that is it feeling weird when the protagonists break their own rules.
Maybe Better Call Saul or The Sopranos are better examples for you?
Horror movies just get brought up frequently because it’s plainly silly to act as if enjoying fake people getting stabbed means you’re some sort of bloodthirsty killer. (As an aside, there’s absolutely a subset of horror movies where the audience IS supposed to cheer for people getting killed because they’re unsympathetic even opposed to a literal killer; also given the history of horror which frequently has its villain on the outs of society or othered in a way, there are viewers who readily identify with that! I hope this doesn’t read as a gotcha it’s just a fun fact. I like horror.)
Anyways, you seem to have missed what the thread was about, which was a conflation of reality vs. fiction. Feel weird all you want, we all have different lines for that, but it’s still different than the same thing happening in real life.
Well, that’s coming back around to the protagonists playing by their own rules thing. I’ve read the Night Lords books, I’ve got no problem with people living down to the established expectations.
It’s when people spend a lot of time establishing that they should be better than that only to prove that they aren’t that they lose me, if that makes sense.
Hmm I think I do, but I think for me it might be more about the rules of the story than any specific characters. Because that does make sense to me and can get frustrating. Here, for Dorothy as a character, I think it’s been addressed by the story that she thought herself in a certain way (progressive, helpful, a good person) and is actually much more messy. Joyce is what’s still a bit of a mystery to me, honestly.
Anyways we also might just be engaging differently with stories, because I often love when characters give into bad impulses / fail their own expectations / etc. (to get back to BCS, I loooooove Kim’s character arc).
Yeah, that point about the rules of the story makes sense. This is meant to be a story about personal growth and self-discovery, two of the main characters spending Doylist months insisting that they won’t do a thing because it would go against their personal morality by being cheating makes the culminating Big Damn Kiss a little more ‘Ah, for fuck’s sake’ than ‘Wooo, yeah, we’re eating tonight!’; at least from where I’m sitting, at least.
I personally have no problems with fictional characters giving in to bad impulses or not living up to their own standards. If that’s how the story presents it.
Currently the story is taking that and presenting it as a grand romantic moment and at least some of the commenters are taking it that way – “finally the OTP who’ve been foreshadowed for the whole comic are getting together”. It’s endgame, true love, not bad impulses or failing to meet their own standards.
Mind you, I fully expect Willis to subvert the shit out of that, but right here in this moment, that’s what people are seeing.
Nobody needs to preface their enjoyment of Alien with “Well, I don’t condone eating space truckers, but”. If you feel you need to do anything of the sort, increase the dosage on your anxiety meds, because you’re managing the emotions of people who don’t exist.
It’s literally not. You just are desperate to misread into every single person who doesn’t share your opinion, the worst possible strawman, because that’s easier for you to accept than any level of nuance.
It is because people are getting heated over FICTIONAL CHARACTERS cheating. No real life relationships are being harmed here. Some people need to step away from their screen and go outside for a bit.
Props for Willis for the thoughtful, earned, and committed upend of the status quo. Looking forward to seeing what happens next.
Joe is hurt but doesn’t relapse, earning his character arc.
Becky is hurt
Dina is hurt that Becky is hurt
Walky teams up with Incelerator and becomes the main villain of the comic for a bit, paying off literal years of “Walky is turning sour” build-up.
Didn’t even think about Becky. FUCK! That’s going to sting like a rocket to the chest. She was always kept at arm’s length, only for her best friend to pursue a girl by CHEATING on her boyfriend with her college friend, and THAT’s her big coming-into-the-light moment. Goddamn.
Obviously, Becky was never *entitled* to Joyce’s affection, but a natural reaction on her part would be to think her best friend was deeply dishonest with her for many years with profound effects. (And there’d likely be some truth to it – while a lot of the disconnect was Joyce just learning her orientations and emotions as she grew, particularly out of a damaging fundie environment, I’m sure Joyce was not 100% honest with herself about her feelings at all times.)
This is going to be even bumpier than I thought.
Shaking in anticipation for evil Walky though.
Looking forward to the Night Guy/Amazigirl fight
Well, “fight”
One of the two is WAAAY more skilled at fighting, after all
the night guy/amazi-girl fight would turn into a walky/amber hate-fuck really, really fast
walky would never turn heel, except in a ploy/plan to somehow save amazigirl, and even then it would be an act
shit, every time walky tries to turn heel, it’s usually like the cutest most lovable thing ever. The opposite of “heel” is “babyface” for a reason!
HAA
Oh, c’mon.
Becky knows that Dotty is in a crisis. She knows something fundamental has changed very recently and that D’s having a hard time with it. Her most likely reaction to this news is “OHHHHHHH.”
There is no reason for her to assume Joyce was being dishonest at any point. Joyce never even insisted that she was straight or that that’s why she wasn’t into Becky. She just said she *wasn’t into Becky.*
She could be gayer than a bag of rainbows and that could still be true. I’ve been bi for decades, if my best friend tried to kiss me I’d be like “Woah, no dude, you’re like family, that’s weird.”
The most likely crisis Becky will have about this is that it plays into her current anxiety about sexuality changing. Y’know, her whole current character arc.
Honestly the lack of faith this comment section has in the character development of Joe and Becky is kind of nuts.
Don’t mind the fact that I googled “Dumbing of Rainbows Becky Joyce Kiss” instead of “Dumbing of Age Becky Joyce Kiss’. (It still worked lol).
https://xkcd.com/604/
Anyway.
“There is no reason for her to assume Joyce was being dishonest at any point. Joyce never even insisted that she was straight or that that’s why she wasn’t into Becky. She just said she *wasn’t into Becky.”
You’re missing 10-year old details. Unforgivable really!!1!!1! You misunderstand Becky’s reaction. Becky believes that Joyce communicated that she was straight, regardless of what Joyce specifically said, and how true Becky’s belief is. And this angle of “what Becky believes” is what I’m focusing on for how Becky will get hurt.
I’ll discuss the immediate context of the kiss as neutrally as possible. In general, it seems intentionally ambiguous whether Joyce is saying she’s not into girls, not into Becky, or both, but Becky herself interprets it to mean Joyce is not into girls (whether that is justified or not).
https://www.dumbingofage.com/2014/comic/book-5/01-when-somebody-loved-me/hindsight/
Joyce immediately responds “I don’t…” (…like you? …like girls?) “I’m not…” (…gay? …into you?)
Becky desperately hopes specifically both that 1) Joyce is lesbian (“Your boy stuff was all talk. ALL TALK.”) and 2) Joyce is into her specifically (“You HAVE to feel the same way. You just HAVE to.”)
Joyce says “I don’t. I really don’t.” Most immediately, she says she does not feel the same way about Becky, versus talking about her broader sexuality. However, the strong, emphasized way she says it suggested to me, when I read it first, that she is also rejecting the idea of being into girls in general. That she is blanket rejecting both of Becky’s hopes, not just being specifically into Becky.
Maybe you disagree with my interpretation. Sure. However, Becky interpreted it the same way I did.
https://www.dumbingofage.com/2014/comic/book-5/01-when-somebody-loved-me/forever/
“Man, if you’re REALLY not into girls, why else wouldja be hidin’ your girlcrush from me?”
Later:
https://www.dumbingofage.com/2014/comic/book-5/01-when-somebody-loved-me/aftermath/
“I came here and kissed Joyce but she’s straight.”
Also, I think you’ve got the wrong idea about how I understand these characters. I’m not saying Becky is going to (word-of-the-day here!) backslide in reaction. Just she’s going to be hurt about it.
I could definitely also understand it playing into her current arc, too. We will see.
Oh, I can’t wait to see Sarah being around for the messy aftermath of this fun stuff. Especially since neither of these dumb asses probably knows proper decontamination procedures for exposure to tear gas. Hopefully Joyce’s sister will be able to fill them in before they spread that shit all over the dorm.
Jesus tap dancing Christ, I don’t like cheating either, but like, did I missed the panels where Joyce got out a strap and started railing Dorothy in the snow yelling “I HOPE JOE KNOWS I DON’T CARE ABOUT HIS STUPID FEELINGS!!!!! I’M GONNA LIE TO HIM LATER THOUGH”???? Because a whole contingent of y’all seem to have seen those lmao
Oh, folks have been talking like that had happened since before Dorothy took out the playlist of Paramore songs.
there’s a certain subset of people who enjoy longform serialized drama and spend the whole time imagining the worst possible thing that could happen next, getting really upset about it, and then getting mad at the author about this terrible thing that is clearly going to happen next.
There seems to be no particular way to stop this, and it’s always a little baffling.
Yeahhhh.
Speculating excitedly is one thing, getting super bent out of shape over things that you’re only sure are even going to happen because of your cork board covered in red string is… something else.
No amount of The Thing Not Still Not Happening™ ever seems to lessen the intensity.
see, I do that!
It’s just that I enjoy doing it. I don’t fucking know why people who fucking hate doing it, would spend their time doing it. It’s fun trying to predict what will happen in a story! Especially when the story can exceed your expectations, and raise the stakes even higher!
Yeah exactly- see thats just Enjoying the Drama. Its fun to think of how stuff might hurt later. It’s the part where you then go “and what I imagined happening and how badly it will play out is EVIL AND HORRIBLE” like.
are. are we not all here for a really long form drama comic.
everybody’s here for the drama, until the wrong emotion gets activated slightly too much. i admit i myself am not fully innocent of this.
This whole comment make me giggle. You’re right and the way you wrote it is perfect lol
I think the idea that it has to be sex to be actually bad is a bit disingenuous which alot of people are acting like too.
That is not what I’m saying, I’m saying that people are *reacting* like they just fucked thirty times in a barn and got gay married, WHICH they did not DO.
Like. Is it bad to kiss a girl on the mouth while in a monogamous relationship with a boy? Yes! It’s a breach of trust, and that’s not good, BUT it is not fucking KRYPTONITE. It does not emit relationship-killing radiation! It is a small breach of trust, and it can be repaired, and holy shit it might not be indicative of who you are morally as a person???
Like, motherfuckers are comparing kissing Dotty to alcoholism!!!!
And murder!
We’ve already unironically had “this one action from Dorothy is worse than the cumulative summary of every single wrong or bad thing Joe has done, for his entire life, including any and all of the things that weren’t actually captured by the narrative of the strip.”
Even though, if you wanna get real crazy with it…this whole set-up doesn’t play out, if Dorothy isn’t reflexively repressing her sapphic sexuality for years, to the point that it becomes a default reflex…and Dorothy probably doesn’t have any reason to feel that overwhelmingly repressed, if Joe hadn’t used that exact same prospect to directly sexually harass her, as a result of her being unwilling to fuck him. Like, Dorothy didn’t have God or the Church to make her a ball of repression. Her parents would have been fully supportive of that, because they’re secular angels. It’s almost certain, that Joe himself literally played a direct, causal part in this outcome.
I also don’t like that comparison, because addiction is not a moral or personal failing. Shocking to see a take that reactionary in this comment section.
Yeah that was FUCKED, I’m like, what?????
some people, much like Joyce, believe that they have already Totally Unpacked Everything Bad that they learned from society during their formative years
You know what else is a breach of trust? Going behind Joyce’s back to talk about Dorothy re: the misplaced lewd pics! If Joe really loved Joyce he would’ve discussed everything with her about that on-panel, beforehand, so I guess now they have to break up???
Hell, half of this entire friend circle’s default form of socialization is “disrespecting each others’ boundaries in well-meaning ways.”
It’s an immutable part of Being An Adult Teenager Who Is Fully Convinced They Know Better Than Everybody Else, which is a sentence that could have fully ended after the word “teenager.”
+1
Look, we should all just be happy for her now that she’s finally found a strap that met her sparkliness requirements!
Willis please take notes and give Joyce a unicorn-looking rainbow sparkly strap for the Slipshine
(Joe bought it for her. Dorothy is astonished at this doctrine, or at least as astonished as you can be mid-spitr—OKAY OKAY STOP PELTING ME WITH TOMATOES)
stops pelting you with tomatoes and starts pelting you with tomatillos.
This this so much thiiiiis
Also while we are at it I have no idea what Jocelyn’s headspace here is but that reaction doesn’t make sense to me.
smiling because her fucked up sad fundie little sister just kissed her girl best friend and its cool and happy?
Jocelyne has been shipping it for a while, I imagine. She described Dorothy “I can see why you became an atheist for this one”.
If I thought I was the only queer person in a conservative family and I found out my sister was also queer, I’d be smiling too
Ohhh that’s a great point.
She’s met Joe y’all and Joyce was definitely into him in a way she was not really Ethan when they met. She knows she is dating. That’s the part none of the current explanations really explain.
any conflicting emotions are presently being repressed by the immediate positive emotions regarding sibling finding sapphic joy, also adrenaline is fucking rising through this whole shebang and that messes with the ability to make rational dissections (intentional typo cause funny)
I think it’s like an immediate in the moment thing, she hasn’t gotten a chance to think about anything, there’s a lot of emotions. Like, they’re kind of in a dire situation now, everyone’s mind is on something it should not be (the thing that *should* be on their minds is getting the heck out of there). Nothing is gonna be super logical atm it’s all weird feelings
exactly
cut and dry this is infidelity
however
joe and walky can get it and i have no doubts they’ll bounce back from this
preferably atleast imo they’ll bounce off of each other first
This strip is the emotional equivalent of eating your favorite meal, but in front of a hungry/starving child, and its also their favorite meal. Thank you Willis. How could you Willis?
I WONDER WHOS GONNA BE SEEING THIS IN THE NEXT STRIP
if they are hungry, then why not share it? ^^
?
If the little one’s hungry, oh gosh, I guess I grabbed more than I really wanted and if only some kind young soul would help me finish all this.
i love this comment and now i’m slightly jealous of all the shippers who felt strongly about this one. that sounds like a hilarious dichotomy to experience all at once.
I’m not gonna get into the cheating debate, I’m just waiting to see how the comic handles the fallout. All I’m here to say is that kissing dramatically when you’re both wearing glasses is impressive. In my experience, there’s just an unpleasant clacking noise and them you awkwardly pull apart trying to make sure you haven’t broken them
I’m just in here to throw confetti for the 10 year long ship dieheards. Confetti! Confetti!
Great now that be stuck in my hair for hours!
Am I fine with cheating in real life? No, it’s unethical. Am I fine with cheating in a story? Of course. Characters who fuck up are way more interesting than characters who always do the right thing.
Exactly this. Give me flawed, well-meaning little morons who fuck up some times and have to learn how to own that and grow with it.
I must admit that one of my first thoughts was imagining the glasses making gmod ragdoll collision noises.
Goddamnit, this was a reply for Bobbi
Don’t worry, I still saw it
And me, I don’t actually usually like fictional cheating storylines either. But I think this one has a good mixture of various pressures and lots of balls in the air, so my interest is piqued.
I’ve also shipped it since forever, mostly while thinking I was being very silly, so that doesn’t hurt.
(Also, cheating in real life is bad! Not at all a controversial take! Weird that some folks are trying to say it is, just because some people are enjoying a storyline they’re not!)
Can’t support women’s rights without supporting women’s wrongs
I’m having She-Ra and the Princesses of Power flashbacks. Maybe people shouldn’t be projecting the evils of the world into the story, some of the takes are straight up delusional.
Yeah people here do that sometimes
OMG HOLY SHIT OMG
LET’S GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
I can’t *wait* to see all of the fallout from this!
I will say it here as well as on the Patreon: if Joe and Joyce decide to call it off over the kiss (which is valid even if Y’all Must Learn To Chill), IF I am denied the sacred polycule and the beautiful prophecy of Joecerothy is made a lie,
I *NEED* Joe to hook up with Jocelyne, then.
Because it would be 1.) cute and 2.) HILARIOUS
I am RIDE OR DIE Joecerothy but, BUT, if there is no hope for that I DEMAND that Jocelyne wraps her legs around Joe and asks in a sultry voice for him to bestow womanhood with his boner (because when Joyce told her about that Joss laughed for five minutes straight)
Every trans woman I know would also laugh hysterically for five minutes straight, after that exchange. And, about half of the straight or bi ones would want to hop on that dick, even if only for the bit!
Hoky shit i barely was away from 2 hours and it already at 600+?! Puta madre.
*starts creating massive amounts of comments like a wild canine shaking a stick in its jaws*
You get me!
commenting today kind of feels like when a dog has a really big stick, and he really wants to get it through the door, but he can’t, cause the door is too small, and the stick is too big
Toxic yuri status: GARNET
Let’s see how long that lasts…
I’m losing it over the fact that I can’t tell if this is a legit Steven universe reference or not
Whoa whoa, don’t you dare imply Garnet is toxic and not perfect.
Garnet was toxic! Garnet was just toxic in a more stable and less dramatic way than the rest of the cast, and as all the gems gradually unpacked their traumas, they all learned better ways to treat each other from Steven and the other humans, and this includes Garnet! That’s why Ruby and Sapphire had to separate for a bit, and work things out, before they ultimately got married!
Actually, Garnet and Dorojoy were kind of toxic, for almost the same reason? They got together with one another during a period of their lives that was fraught with chaos, trauma, and confusion, and they then ended up being deeply codependent with one another, as a natural result.
At least Garnet can be trusted alone with the washer and dryer.
I will grant you the part where they fell apart, but most of that had to with them coping over the Rose/Pink Diamond reveal, not anything to do with their own relationship.
I don’t see the parallels with Dorojoy. I mean I see it very much with Dorothy, girl’s been spiraling for like a year now (maybe longer? I forget when it was that Raidah crushed her president dreams), but Joyce has been pretty okay? Like, the only really chaotic part of her life has been dealing with her parents’ divorce.
On one hand I’m happy for the girls but as a Relationship Paladin™, I’m worried that this is gonna make Joe backslide all the actual character development he was doing.
Walky… whatever, I could frankly care less about his reaction.
I think Walky’s reaction will be to become the Joker and it’s going to be fucking incredible.
In my mind, this happens, funniest fucking option the girls get cut off from their friend group, and Amber ends up, somehow, with Asher. Just because it’d be funny. This is how I choose to believe the comic will go.
I actually think there’s no way that Amber and Asher are sexually compatible.
Not because of the trauma thing. Amber hates herself, she can easily push down that response, if it gets her some good hate-fuck.
It’s just that Asher seems too sexually passive, and seems to be reliant on Ethan to take sexual initiative. But, I don’t think Asher would necessarily enjoy being sexually jumped, and used like a sex object to relieve his partners’ latent frustration and insecurity…
…if he did, he probably would have just stayed with Jennifer, in the first place.
“But, I don’t think Asher would necessarily enjoy being sexually jumped, and used like a sex object to relieve his partners’ latent frustration and insecurity… if he did, he probably would have just stayed with Jennifer, in the first place.”
I mean him and Ethan’s relationship ain’t too much healthier, really. I also don’t think Asher/Amber will ever be a thing though
Hey, I never said what Asher and Ethan had was healthy! Just that it was sexually compatible!
Walky in full on Pierrot makeup in a fucked up goth Nightguy costume
“Once I protected the night. Now I AM THE DARKNESS.”
I’m wondering if Dorothy got knocked out in the chaos and is having a dream.
Also I showed my gf this comment, she doesn’t read but knows some about if from me, and she asked “why is there a tiny Joyce?”
I’ve no dog in the cheating v true love fight but I’m pretty sure that whatever chemical agent Joyce has on her face is transferable by skin. Dorothy may have no emotional reason to regret that kiss (GO TEAM EROS) but there may be physical side effects, and not just the nice ones.
Lois Bujold admits she creates novels by creating interesting characters and then thinking, “What’s the worst possible thing that can happen to this person?
[Jocelyne gets a screencap and text from their dad] “is this your sister?”
[Jocelyne, noting Joyce’s back is to the camera so only Dorothy’s face can be seen] “Nope!”
Is it socially appropriate to respond in this comments section with only a keyboard smash? Because, hoo boy, if I see more posts this good, and it’s okay, that’s what I’ll be doing in the future.
*taking frantic notes*
“lingering scent of tear gas to set mood for date night…?”
Didn’t know ya had it in ya kid
-Joss, probably
This is gonna get messy I suspect but damn if I’m not here for it…
wait…wait….wait….wait….waiiiiiit.
WHAAAAAAAAAAT?
It happened?
OMGOMGOMGOMGOMGOMGOMGO!!!!!
WE HAVE A CODE RED! CODE RED!!!!
*swoooooon*
TOUCHDOOOOOOOWN!!!!!
finally, another pair to the stupid sapphic disaster set 🥹
my day is officially better 🥹🥹🥹
Also I swear if I have to read the word “backslide” one more time I’m gonna walk through some teargas. Joe’s character development doesn’t matter more than Joyce and Dorothy’s, and this is a pretty massive one for both of them. Of course there’s going to be fallout. These are fictional teenagers. One of them dresses up in costume and fights crime. Joyce being put in a position where she’s caught between her feelings for two people and having to make a decision about where to go, is compelling. Her having to realize she did something that could hurt others and deal with the fallout, is also compelling.
In-world, they are kids. None of these decisions are the end of the world. They’re kids learning and fucking up.
I will say again: if you are mad and want to dunk on me, the best way to do that is donate to Doctors Without Borders. Oooh that would teach me a lesson. You would slam dunk me for all the internet ethics points. You would totally destroy me.
https://give.doctorswithoutborders.org/
but they kissed! They kissed on the mouth! That’s like twenty sexual encounters at once!
Honestly I’m just sick of the assumption that he’s *gonna*. He might, that’d be a realistic reaction. But I would bet it’s more likely he tries to once and immediately realizes that just isn’t who he is anymore.
This is exactly what I expect to happen (and what I would love to see). I want to see that the ways he’s changed for the better actually make him happy and for him to realize that Joyce was not just a tool for him to repair himself with, but a whole person who sometimes does stupid hurtful things.
I don’t think he’s gonna backslide, Joe’s shown too much growth for that. But I do think he’ll be sad, and that makes me sad.
On considered thought, my main reaction to this is “poor Becky”. She loved Joyce first, she kissed Joyce first, and she got shot down by Joyce with a reason that was good but turns out to be completely false. College kids figuring out relationships is nothing unusual, but that’s such a cruel thing for her.
it will take Becky years to unpack how lucky she is that her and Joyce never got together when she wanted them to. like, that relationship would have been toxic as hell, then tragic as hell, and probably gotten at least one of them killed, at some point.
The reason Joyce shot down Becky was because she wasn’t in love with her romantically. That’s *true*. There is no cap there. Becky is her sister.
She also thought she was straight, but she never said “I’m sorry, Becky, I am absolutely definitely straight and that is the reason we cannot be together, because of how straight I am.”
Sure, but you’re missing one thing:
Becky’s internal coping mechanism for suppressing her deep-seated romantic feelings for Joyce, is, and has always been, relying on “it literally was never possible, so there’s no need to unpack my feelings over it, because doing so risks me alienating Joyce, and losing her friendship forever.”
Deep down, Becky is the lesbian love sleuth. She’s long concluded, I think, that the signs are there for Joyce to be a little bit bi. She’s even probably told herself, “hey, if Joyce got together with Dorothy, great! More lesbians! Yay lesbians!”
Avoidance is Becky’s emotional compartmentalization strategy. So, even though she knows the truth, deep down, that isn’t the same thing as honestly confronting the fact that her previous reason for Being Completely Okay With Joyce Not Loving Her Like That, is not the objective fact that she’s told herself it is, and never has been.
Becky is deeply insecure about her worth, and about the idea that anyone will ever want her, or want to love her forever. She already constantly needs Dina’s reassurance, that Dina won’t leave her, and doesn’t desire anybody but her, and that neither of their genders or sexualities will ever change in any way that will hurt her; she’s absolutely as codependent as Dorothy has now become, she’s just been in a stable enough place lately, to make that not as obvious to anybody who isn’t named Dina.
And, ultimately, if Becky goes off the rails here, Dina can only be expected to have so much patience for reassuring her girlfriend that she will always love her the same, while Becky is failing to conceal the crushing reality from Dina, that Dina is not and has never been her true love, or her first choice.
I’m a die hard Dina stan, so I’ve been fearing their first real relationship turbulence arriving, but given what’s going on in this storyline? I’m already resigned to the probability that their relationship may be shambling to its ultimate doom.
Didn’t Joyce *also* say at one point that if she’d have changed her sexuality for anyone, it would have been Becky?
Like, don’t get me wrong it’s OK for Joyce to realize she’s in love with Dorothy and sees Becky as a sister, but let’s not pretend that both Becky and Joyce thought the only reason Joyce didn’t want to be with Becky was because they both thought Joyce wasn’t into women.
IIRC i think you’re right and that’s also a great point
I mean, Joyce has also explained that when she says she loves Dorothy, she means she wants to BE her, which is a feeling that could never be confused with wanting to be WITH her, and Joe was incredulous, and Willis has confirmed that was intended to be obviously a lie Joyce believed about herself.
Like… yes that’s what Joyce said, because that’s what she thought. But it was also demonstrably untrue even at the time — she’d already gotten very flustered over Sal and even Jennifer, not reactions we saw her having to Becky at all.
Sure, we know that those were hints at Joyce’s latent bisexuality now. But they weren’t confirmed as such for a long time, particularly when after she fixated on Sal’s hair she went “couldn’t handle anything below the neck”. Becky made her decision to get with Dina because she thought Joyce was straight, and someone who said “if I wasn’t gay for Becky, who would I be gay for”. And for Becky to find out that the answer to that question is “Dorothy”, well, given Becky’s entire pattern of behavior towards her throughout the comic, I think it would be bad writing for her *not* to feel hurt and betrayed that it’s not an incompatible orientation but who she is as a person that means Joyce isn’t into her romantically.
I think you’re giving a lot of credence to her “anything below the neck” comment when it came from a girl who was having dreams about dicks as being featureless tubes that could be disconnected from the human body.
Anyway, I didn’t say Becky wouldn’t be hurt, I think she’s probably going to have a Moment over this.
She’s going to try so, so hard to not have a moment, and trying not to have that moment, is going to make it way, way worse when it finally arrives.
*sigh* Okay. We’re in this now. Let’s see what happens.
I hope Joe backslide all the way to the top of the slide so fast he gets launched into the stratosphere!
It’s okay, because Joe can breathe in space.
I really don’t ship it, but I’m in to see where it goes.
and jfc get outta there gals
gasfight, gatebreach, girlkiss
You clever thing, you.
If ya like that, look at their username upside-down.
Oh. My. God. That’s awesome!! Ty for pointing it out!
YES!
YESSSSSSSS!
https://bsky.app/profile/damnyouwillis.bsky.social/post/3ltvjjr3fsc27
Damn Even the website is shipping them!
Honestly, it would kind of kick ass if Becky’s earlier comment of “you’ve been a rebel for like five minutes, not everything is about your pain” to Joyce came up again and the shit about Dorothy and Joyce making the protest about them were addressed with consequences in comic.
You wanna talk about sickos wanting drama, I think the best part about characters fucking up is when the fallout hits.
(And also they can have character development while kissing.)
Yes! Give me the delicious drama!
It finally happened! The kiss of chaos 2K25!
The seal has been broken! Now all the juicy consequences can begin!
YEEEEEEEEEEEESSSSSSSSSSSSSS
the Kiss of Chaos has come!!!
polylylylylylylylylylylylylylyy >:D
*plays “Count Bleck’s Plan” from Super Paper Mario on hacked muzak*
The comment section today:
https://youtu.be/ctVuPSX03tc?si=aYxKMw9AZ2DeXU3J
gosh diggity
I was gonna comment “NOW KISS!”, yesterday, but I decided against it.
…I see they did it, anyway…
if I believed in Jesus I’d pray for him so hard right now to help Willis wade through this most unholy den of nope that is the comments section today, lmao
yea, though I walk through the fifteen comment thread about how kissing Dorothy proves every word Joyce said about caring about Joe was an evil lie, I shall fear no evil, for Thou art with me
I’d say near-zero chance Willis has the time, or is dumb enough, to deliberately wade through all this, on a day like today. He has better things to do. He’d probably only show up, if a comment actually hit the number of reports needed to indicate it’s not a statistical error.
good news! he tweeted “i ain’t reading all that” about the comments section three hours ago! they’re safe!
Clever person. /nods sagely
Finally!!
These two are going to be on the news, aren’t they?
(Press are already there, Jocelyn got published; people kissing in front of a protest being broken up would make an amazing photo.)
Joyce pulling Dorothy for the Kiss. Dorothy hugging her and letting herself go. The silence during.
The pink mist all around!
Joyce red/pink eyes, cheeks and nose. Logic hitting them for a bit, but then losing themselves again and continuing that Kiss.
The previous updates with their sheer epicness that reached us at this break point.
OMG!!! I just can’t!!!
LOVE THIS!!!
Poor Joe. Guys like him who fall hard for one girl, want and work to change and become better people and more emotionally developed, get broken for life by being cheated on :<
Yeah, this is going to be rough for Joe.
And Joyce *knows* what a big deal cheating is for him too.
Oof.
“broken for life” can we get a grip here
look, when boys experience real adult feelings, societal conditioning tells us to coddle them, because boys can’t handle that sort of thing, on account of being all manly and whatnot. not everybody unpacks that fundie ridiculousness as fast as everybody else
I’m not scared of a cheating subplot nor a character being flawed, but I do believe that Joyce has been acting incredibly out of character to fit into this story beat, so I understand people’s frustration in that regard.
My honest explanation? Joyce has been in Crisis Resolution Mode Don’t Think Just Fix Everybody’s Problems Oh My God Everything Is A Crisis for the entire past two days or so of in-comic time. I genuinely think that the simplest explanation for her acting this way, is that the first time in the last several hours that she deliberately entertained a rational thought, and critically processed the ramifications of her behavior, was the exact second that we saw Dorothy’s tongue first enter her mouth.
At which point, well…now, she’s just being horny.
Considering how things with Jacob went I don’t think it’s out of character
Considering how things with Jacob went, I’m surprised Joyce is making the same mistake twice. I thought she’d learned that lesson about crossing boundaries while in a relationship but apparently not.
I agree, this entire arc has felt forced to me and a lot of character dynamics are out of whack. Dorothy more or less makes sense but Joyce especially is acting very strangely.
To quote Pitch Meeting: “Well, I have a cool kiss scene planned for these two, so things are just gonna kind of *happen* until we get to that.”
What nobody seems to have considered is, if Joyce and Dorothy come clean with their boyfriends and aren’t immediately dumped, they can form a Light Party of woman-liking goobers who elbow-nudge each other when a total babe walks by. Their group chat could be 78% hot lady art and photos by volume, did you consider that? Dare to dream, don’t be cowards.
Joe would be so mad if he knew how much better lesbian group chats are than straight boys ones. Nudes only get posted on the straight boys discord if they were literally obtained illegally, or were otherwise morally bankrupt!
I feel so bad for Joe.
I also feel really bad for my ship, I think Joe and Joyce brings a lot of good stuff out of each other and have great interacrions.
Really wanted to see where that was headed
And there goes down the drain two of my favorite ships.
Then again, those were build on two women who had previously masturbated together while holding hands in a public laundry, so I have only myself to blame to emotionally invest myself into them in the first place.
That being said, Joyce and Dorothy now have to accept that they are now a reddit story. And one where they will have a tough job claiming to be NTA.
“Am I the asshole?” – Dorothy
“My (19M) girlfriend (19) has cheated on me with her best friend (19F):
My girlfriend had previously asked me if it was okay if that friend in question could watch us have sex together and… Wait, never mind, I should have seen that one coming.”
Alright, ladies, now that we’ve established that you are indeed attracted to each other, can we PLEASE GET OUT OF THIS INCREASINGLY ESCALTING SITUATION?!
ngl i concur, but if this follows Scott Pilgrim rules we can be assured that time basically slowing down for em right now XD
While they’re not looking, a screaming Japanese moon witch has unleashed a monster on Dunn Meadow.
Dammit, Rita! Now we’re gonna have to call in 5 teenagers with attitude!
Fortunately, these particular teenagers have unbelievable amounts of attitude.
Hell, even going with the first episode’s actual dialogue, where Zordon calls for “five overbearing and over-emotional humans”, the guy’s got a smorgasbord of options here.
Amazi-Girl: I’m glad you’re having a moment, but I can only keep the riot cops distracted so long.
damn everybody comments so much
boosting a fundraiser ive had open in another tab
https://www.gofundme.com/f/help-eyad-rebuild-his-life-and-the-life-of-his-family
https://www.gofundme.com/f/providing-a-haven-of-hope-for-my-child-omar
YESSSSSSSSS
Relationship Paladins be like “cheating cheating cheating”
I’LL REDUCE THIS PLACE TO ASHES HUUURAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!
*plays KAMEHAMEHA” by SDR3 on hacked muzak*
I have not read the almost 1000 comments above, so just 2 thoughts that I’m sure have been brought up before somewhere in those 1000 comments:
1) It’s a nice inversion of what happened to the Joe/Joyce relationship in the original timeline.
2) It’s a nice throwback to what happened when Leslie made them roleplay married couples.
Oh, and
3) Daaang, dat ass.
4) It is nice how the tear gas makes it look like they’re under cherry trees.
i would like to point out, without any desire to deeply elaborate at the moment, that i really don’t think that this storyline in any way actually invokes, or feeds into, the Cheating Bisexuals trope. I can get why people feel that way; it has two bisexuals in it, and they’re cheating.
While I admit that tropes have never been any sort of obsession of mine, and I can’t claim to have a deep understanding of the history and case studies of this specific trope, I reason the point of that trope is things such as “bisexuals are more sexually depraved and morally bankrupt,” or that “all bisexuals are cheaters” or that “all bisexuals inevitably cheat,” and I just…do not think that any of those, are a good analysis of Willis’ intentions, or the characters’ actions, where this storyline is concerned.
Maybe I’ll elaborate later, if I feel like it, when I’m less tired. But, simply, I don’t really agree that the trope has been invoked. I think the fact that Joyce and Dorothy are bisexual, is like, the 7th or 8th most prominent factor that’s causing this specific sequence of events to unfold, and that it doesn’t make any real statement about bisexuals, directly. Nor does it “condone cheating, as long as it’s gay.”
That you class it as the 7th or 8th factor is kind of the important part of why it isn’t that trope. The story simply isn’t that shallow. There are plenty of layers to this storyline that simply dismissing it as cheating bisexuals is kind of an insult.
Yes, they are now technically cheating bisexuals, but it is not just that, and there are a lot of things going on with the story that are more important than that.
Probably not gonna stop it showing up on the DoA TVTropes page, though
sadly, the collective wisdom of the internet, has never been greatly lauded
I mean honestly I’m kind of sick of people conflating *having an affair* with discovering you have deep romantic feelings for someone you thought you were attached to platonically.
I get it, being cheated on sucks. But give people like, *a* day to process that “Oh shit, I think everything I ever assumed about my sexuality and romantic preferences was incredibly wrong.”
You can do that without emotionally cheating on your spouse though. Regardless of it being a major upheaval or not you kissing somebody who isn’t your significant other when you’re in a monogamous relationship is bad, especially when it’s to a person you know has trauma related to cheating effecting their self worth.
I think it’s perfectly normal for people to think that that happening in such a way is pretty dreadful.
Spouse?
You don’t remember when Joe and Joyce got married? Or Walky and Dorothy?
Man I have GOT to stop having blackouts when I try to read this comic, I miss all kinds of things.
A) Not spouses.
B) A DAY. It’s been A DAY since Joyce realized she had romantic feelings for Dorothy, her same-sex best friend who she thought she only had platonic feelings for.
These people are very young, Joyce in particular is pretty sheltered, they’re both dealing with crises about their fundamental senses of identity, and in the *midst* of all that, they kissed each other on impulse. I’m not saying that isn’t still wrong, I’m saying it’s not the same thing as knowing and intentionally starting and sustaining an affair behind the back of your romantic partner, which is the trauma that motivates a lot of people who get very personally huffy about cheating in general.
In the midst of crises about their fundamental senses of identity and a high adrenaline situation where it is likely they are about to experience physical violence aimed at them by the brutal oppressive police called there by the school they go to.
And hey JAZZ HANDS Indiana is just such a fun place to be right now for queer people.
Maybe it doesn’t fit the spirit of the trope, depending on how you define said spirit of said trope, but at the end of the day these are two people affirming their nascent open bisexuality by cheating on their partners. Even if they pull a Scott Pilgrim and break up with said partners immediately, the scope of the text of the trope has been fulfilled.
And it was explicitly called out in the strip by Danny when Dorothy asked him about it.
Everyone was expecting a Joe/Joyce Slipshine, and its gonna be Dorothy/Joyce isn’t it? Either one is fine.
I mean, we could potentially get both. Though I’d hazard that it might just be a single illustration for Joe/Joyce.
My money was on Sarah and Tony. Sony?
Look, Tony has been too perfect so far. I really struggle to imagine that he’s also so good at doing sex, that it will make for an entertaining slipshine? he’s gotta be bad somewhere, right?!
No, no, no. It’ll be a Dorothy/Joyce/Joe slipshine, but Joe will be on the cuck chair.
It’s actually just gonna be Joyce and the Chair. She has a thing for cheating now, so she’s also cheating on the Maytag.
Holy shit, he pulled the trigger. I mean, we saw it coming, but it still somehow doesn’t feel real.
Thank you, Willis. MY SHIP SAILS.
(also lol at the alt-text)
ISTG if the next panel is someone saying “Dorothy u were hit unconscious by cops”
okay, but what if Dorothy is waking up in a prison cell and Joyce is there and Dorothy is confused until Joyce clarified that it happened whilst they were suckling face?
The two ships are colliding, and that means very very good things.
I’ve been waiting for this since June 29, 2011.
I get the concern for Joe/Walky, and just a general distaste for cheating, as a reason not to like this. Or to not…not…like this– I get liking this for the ship or the drama or the combo, whatever. I’m not loving it, but it’s not a bad STORY, which is ultimately what this is.
But I don’t like this not just because of what it means for Joe and Walky– it’s not great, but it will not completely end their universe either, I don’t think– I really don’t like this as a foundation for Dorothy and Joyce. Doyce. Joyrothy. Jotty. I’m sorry, I don’t know what the designated ship name is.
This just comes with so, so much baggage. Dorothy cares for Joyce, and is bi regardless despite her recent attempts to dismiss her feelings as only a trauma response, but this specific relationship IS wrapped up so much in Dorothy’s insecurities about losing Joyce in any capacity. It’s wrapped up in a bunch of “fraught boundaries, all the time”: the mutual masturbation in a public laundry room, the texting of the tit pics which Joe directly talked to Dorothy about, the Only Exception near miss, Amber’s involvement kiiiinda setting this up to free up Walky, Billie’s meddling, Dorothy’s general fretting over Joyce to the point that even other characters notice it’s a little strange, and the immediate adrenaline of the current teargassing situation. Plus, y’know, Dorothy’s existential breakdown that, just as a reminder, Becky is currently stressing out over because Dorothy is somewhere without her phone. Plus the cheating. Plus Dorothy, going to bang Walky as an outlet for her feelings about Joyce [I am not saying that was cheating or evil or terrible, it’s just part of why she went to bang Walky recently and that’s emotionally complicated]. Does this have to be a perfectly healthy thing to be an enjoyable ship, or enjoyable drama, or both? Absolutely not! But this feels like a sweet moment in time that is going to lead to a whole bunch of guilt and negative feelings and doubt down the line, from themselves and others. Regardless of how Joe and Walky react in the immediate aftermath. Which doesn’t make me feel great for future Dorothy and Joyce. I see the honeymoon period ending dramatically and badly.
Also, this might just be me personally: this art is beautiful work, but when I think about WHY the visuals are the way they are, I don’t like the use of tear gas as a pink dreamy cherry blossom-esque aesthetic. I’m sure there’s going to be a strip where it turns out their eyes are irritated, AT LEAST, from this, this is a moment in time with multiple types of uncomfortable consequences on the horizon, but the clash of “aw, such pretty color scheming for the kiss” and “oh yeah, that’s tear gas, actually, shit is going down” makes me very conflicted.
Does the tear gas making pretty coloring for the kiss work better if the point is the baggage blowing everything up? Making it seem all romantic, when it’s actually a disaster in waiting?
No, no no, I mean you cannot be certain they are kissing. I’m sure there is nothing sexual going on in their bits right now. Definitely too early to say. Footballers hug and, well, maybe look like they are kissing but it’s just enthusiasm, right? All these people that call this cheating, they might be jumping the gun, eh?
“Ah that’s excellent! The Tear Gas even makes it look like it’s ripped from a Yuri manga. Damn you Willis, I’m impressed. Now let’s see how the comments are handling this.”
dogstaringatcomputer.jpg “Good Lord”
Well now they’ve Done it. Prepare for the Relationship drama!
Also Holy Crap, I just got here and there is already 1000+ comments… I don’t think I’ve ever seen this many under any strip.
Not since Joyce delivered an uppercut to ToeDad has there been such a commotion in the comments section.
Or when Jocelyne revealed she is trans
breaking the 180 rule not only to provoke a sense of how off kilter things are feeling for them, but also to highlight how similar they are (frankly only their coats and hair are enoigh to distinguish them at points) is an absolutely beautiful use of comic technique <3
and the tear gas acting as a visual romantic framing resembling blooming flowers while also being translucent highlighting the impermanence of their situation??? ugh so good
Complaining about them kissing at a protest to me feels like some serious hustle culture brainrot. And claiming that they don’t care what the protest is about is disingenuous. Like, yeah, they didn’t come here for the protest, and Dorothy decided to join the protest because she’s got stuff going on that’s got nothing to do with it — but she wouldn’t have joined if she didn’t also care about what was going on.
Also I don’t see the meta problem with this either: Claiming that this strip today is somehow sidelining or throwing away the topic of the protest in favor of romance seems just weird to me. Multiple things can be going on at the same time. The protest itself had multiple strips to present itself as what it was, we saw signs that make an actual point, I… am really not sure what some of y’all are getting mad about here.
I mean, I have been at protests, too (though in Germany, not in the US), and like… if two people find the time to share a kiss, it’s like whatever. Good for them? If this registers as playing main characters to you… What is going on?
Sorry, but it is literally using the tear gas from the protest as an artistic aesthetic for a confession scene and a kiss centered on two main characters. And Jocelyn is there to react to the main character’s kiss. It’s brilliant artwork, masterfully done. But it’s still the comic using tear gas, at a protest, where there is a sniper and cops are funneling students and civilians, as a pretty cherry blossom dream like framing device for Joyce and Dorothy to finally kiss in a more visually striking way. You don’t have to agree that that is a problem, or annoying, or a vexing choice. But when the culmination of a plot with a protest in it is to ultimately use the protest as a dramatic/picturesque stylized backdrop for two main characters kissing after several strips leading up to said kiss, I think readers are allowed to personally think the protest scene is being made about the main characters making out in center frame for an entire strip.
For me the tear gas as cherry blossoms signals that Willis knows that this is fucked up. The world is deteriorating around them, and what they’re having here is not a happy end, it’s a short moment of respite. It’s crass and fucked up, and that contrast has a point. It’s not some insensitive joke about protests being oh so romantic, it’s black humor.
This whole scene had so many important things going on. Dorothy confronting her own cop energy and reflecting on how the system bends towards fascism and how her compliance is supporting that; Joyce personally experiencing that even following the law does not keep the cops off your back. And like… I don’t know how you’d better depict what a protest is about as long as you’re in the confines of a very much character-centric story. And now all of that is moot because two people are kissing?
So saying that it’s “ultimately” about the romance, only because that’s what’s at the end of it (so far, this is probably far from over, but that’s not the point I’m making), seems… weird to me. Like, sure, I kind of get it, but then again… at some point you just have to be able to look at a scene like this and realize that no, it’s *not* just about the kiss. It’s a pretty good representation of a protest, and we get little enough of that as it is. The complaints register, to me, as counterproductive. Like you’re not allowed to tack anything onto a depiction of a protest, lest you sully the holy purity of political activism.
I’m not sure how many comments you’ve read, but for multiple people the issue is not /a protest/ but that a line is drawn to current and real issues, the genocide in Gaza specifically, especially since the group of people affected have not been very present in the story and most recently been used to scold the white main characters. I don’t think it’s “counterproductive” to be disappointed with that and it honestly sucks you’re so intent on dismissing it instead of just disagreeing.
Look, you don’t have to find this strip conflicting, uncomfortable, problematic, or anything. I’m not trying to question Willis’ personal motives, and I’m not trying to condemn this strip to the void. I’m just explaining why people might have a problem with this, since you asked “what is going on.”
–This is not a hypothetical protest. It’s not an independent plot point of a protest about teacher pay, or an event on campus, or a unique in-universe issue. It’s based on real protests that are still ongoing about a current sensitive issue that many people have real world stakes in. That’s going to hit closer to home than just “a coincidental protest.”
–Joyce and Dorothy were not here for the protest. They were here to find Jocelyn. They found Jocelyn. Jocelyn asked them to leave, multiple people warned them to leave, listing the various dangers they were largely unaware of. They decided to stay. Mostly to work through their own emotional issues around Dorothy’s idealogical (personal political/social aspirations?) and emotional conflicts and Joyce’s devotion to Dorothy. Having Dorothy work through those things is not an issue; having Dorothy suddenly decide to do that at a dangerous protest because she is spiralling, as if that is NOT making the protest a stage for Dorothy’s personal issues, is to some people.
–This entire arc has been predominantly about Dorothy and Joyce’s relationship, and it now is running parallell or on top of the protest. Them deciding to go to the protest was what led to them not doing laundry BUT holding hands. Them going into the protest together was them still holding hands and having a talk about Dorothy giving up Yale for Joyce. Them STAYING at the protest was them looking at their hands and realizing once they leave, it’s back to the real world where they have to acknowledge the change in their relationship or go back to their boyfriends. Jocelyn got a couple of strips to lecture them on the protest, and Dorothy HAS talked about the fascism and oppression of the system, but even in that strip it ends with her thinking about having the things she wants, or NOT having the things she wants, with a meaningful panel of her hand in Joyce’s. At every step, more experienced protestors have warned Dorothy that what she is doing is dangerous and ultimately unhelpful. Jocelyn said it to Dorothy directly, and Dorothy said “You don’t know what I need.” Dorothy’s sincerity aside, she IS making it about what she needs in a moment–feeling in control of her own perceived failures and want she wants, which are repeatedly tied to Joyce– where she is being told, directly, that what she is doing is not aiding the protest itself.
–Yes, people have emotional moments at protests. But if in the middle of a protest I saw 2 teen girls hashing out their codependent relationship and making out, I will have some major concerns, and they will NOT be “I hope those crazy kids DTR, what a cinematic moment in real time.” This is not a quick kiss at a protest, or a relieved embrace after the dust has settled, or a still shot of people after the protest to show the passion and plight of the people being brutaized by the police. It is the protest coming to a head, and the current focus is on Dorothy and Joyce confessing their romantic feelings and making out in the artistically rendered pink of tear gas. The fact that Jocelyn and Amazi-girl and others are being brutalized by police has been put on hold to have this grand moment between these two. And even if this does become an iconic visual of the protest later, it is going to rub some people the wrong way that the face of the protest has become “these two messy white girls who only wandered into the protest now making out [while we as the audience know they are cheating on their partners].” Also, this is a story, not a spontaneous act between twe people, so I think it’s valid for people to feel personally hesitant for why the story has THIS backdrop for the girls making out. Does it taint the whole protest plot? No. But people are allowed to pause and be conflicted about WHY Dorothy and Joyce’s relationship drama has used a real world protest backdrop to add drama and pathos to their Big Feels. ESPECIALLY when they were not previously invested in the protest–this isn’t happening after Joyce came to find Dorothy knowing she had been at the protest all day.
–Again, the art is brilliant. And it can have multiple meanings. Like I said, I am 100% sure that there will be a strip about the consequences of the tear gas, as well as the emotional fallout of Dorothy and Joyce’s actions. Still, given that many people have noticed that the gas has been drawn in a Yuri cherry blossom style, I think it’s fair that some people will ask, “Why are we turning active tear gas into a Yuri aesthetic. There is actual shit going down, is now really the time for this.”
–I think, and I could be wrong, that you are treating the protest elements as self evident because, yes, this is a reference to real ongoing protests, so of course readers can tell that the world is burning and Joyce/Dorothy is just a reflection of that . Which is fine. Not everyone is going to do that. Some people, and I’m not condemning them for it, will see the protest as a set peice for two characters finally getting together. And people with real experience with the protests are allowed to be conflicted about that.
–Counterproductive…how? Because we should be grateful that a protest is depicted at all? Yeah, great! Thank you, Willis, sincerely. That does not make it above discussion and criticism. Because it might “sully the holy purity of activism”? I don’t think anyone is saying that. I think people are asking, “Hey, in a plot that involves a protest about the suffering of real world people, where other characters are at risk and being brutalized, where other characters have asked and begged and pleaded for Dorothy and Joyce to be aware of the risks and LEAVE, where Dorothy and Joyce were not involved in the protest in the first place, why is ALL OF THAT being put on the back burner so we can watch these two kiss?” That is not about the purity of activism. It is people with a stake in activism expressing that maybe this is not the time to choose a focus so directly on the chaotic white bi girls, or use a protest about real people as a thematic parallel to their personal issues.
Again: you do not have to have any questions or qualms about this framing. No one is obligated to do a set amount of critical thinking penance before they can decide to just enjoy this strip and see where it goes. That is fine. Dismissing people trying to have a nuanced talk about why elements of this story don’t work for them….people are also allowed to feel that way without having to explain that they aren’t being a puritanical buzzkill who doesn’t get the big picture Willis is going for, actually. I can get the big picture Willis is going for. I can still think it’s not done well.
YES! YES!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P3ALwKeSEYs
Uh-oh, someone’s in trouble with the relationship cops for gay crimes. This might lead to some feelings of betrayal and abandonment, but I think everyone will come out okay. The trouble with the riot cops may just be worse.
ALL THE YES!
some of the “o no”
BUT ALL OF THE YES
Don’t like this. I don’t like that it’s cheating, I think the use of tear gas as, like, yuri-tastic sakura imagery is in extremely poor taste, and I really don’t like where this takes Joyce and Dorothy’s characters. Oh, and it’s cheating. I was perfectly happy with Billie and Ruth as a toxic sapphic romance built on a shaky foundation. I didn’t need another.
At least with Billie and Ruth, they weren’t already dating other people when they got together. I was fine with that. But this is cheating, so I don’t like it. Also they are gonna be feeling the effects of that tear gas that’s serving as yuri-esque background imagery pretty soon.
The only thing I’ve got a problem with would be the cheating.
Man, the art in this whole sequence is gorgeous.
I haven’t seen it mentioned much yet, but I think there’s something to be said about the fact that some people could probably stand to take a deep breath when it comes to fictional stories and events occuring that cause a sense of discomfort. Some of the best and most engaging storylines in DoA (to me, of course, this is subjective and that’s part of the point) have been the ones with people making bad choices or experiencing awful things, like most of the Toedad and Blaine plots, Ruth and Billie’s relationship and suicide pact, the kidnapping, Mike’s death, Joyce trying to convert Ethan, Joyce pretending to be Jacob’s girlfriend, Walky introducing Lucy to his parents and failing to do anything about the racism – they’re things that had profound direct and ripple effects on the cast, and that sometimes split up couples or friendships, or at the very least strained or changed them, and while some of them rested on villain plots where it was obvious that Bad People were doing Bad Things for less defensible reasons, several of them were just because of the protags being flawed people who all still have a lot of growth to do.
I might not have greatly enjoyed all the plots like Mike’s death (he was one of my favourite characters!) or Joyce’s less than great choices around Jacob, but that doesn’t mean they weren’t still important points in the story. Mike’s death changed a lot of things, and Joyce lost a friend and potential partner by going behind his back and then dragging him into lying to his family. The Walky and Lucy storyline was uncomfortable for me from start to finish because Walky only really went for it to not hurt her feelings while Lucy was let down harshly when it finally hit her that he didn’t even feel strongly enough about her to clap back at his parents when they disparaged her. But the dysfunctional relationship was an important part of their respective character growths! The fact that I was uncomfortable with it doesn’t make it bad writing, or even a bad part of the story. Sometimes, you’re supposed to be uncomfortable or at least conflicted about a storyline. Most great fiction kind of relies on making you care enough to feel something, and if nothing bad happens to anyone in the story, you have less reason to cheer when things go well. And if everyone starts out perfect and making great decisions, there isn’t really any conflict that leads to the catharsis of growth and resolution.
To be clear, I think everyone’s also perfectly entitled to at any point decide that they dislike a story enough to put it down and not engage with it, if they prefer. There’s enough stories out there in the world that there will always be a million other ones that you’ll like better than one you’re not enjoying. But I feel like there’s a lot of judgment going around towards people who enjoy a story that has uncomfortable elements in it. It’s okay to call out those elements and feel strongly about them, obviously, but I wish there wouldn’t be so many of the “and if you think this is okay to put in a story, you’re a bad person” additions. People enjoy different content for different reasons, and usually not because they condone the bad choices or think the characters should be applauded for them, or that people otherwise enjoy them for the most bad faith possible reasons. Sometimes it’s just about wanting to see what happens next. That’s what most ongoing/serialised stories rely on, after all – readers wanting to see how something complicated will play out.
(All my comments tend to become huge chunks. Sorry about that. I have many thoughts and opinions and DoA makes me very excited to talk about things and stuff with other people who have big feelings about the same things as me.)
yo i have the same problem. unbrevity buddies <3
I dont think anyone’s dropping doa over this but Dorothy and Joyce stocks are plummeting
People have certainly claimed to be dropping DoA over this. Lots of “This is the last panel I’ll ever read” and “Well, I’m out” over the last few days.
I doubt it’ll actually happen, but it has certainly been claimed.
1,200 comments and counting – if anything readership will go up. I mean, I’d like to see the characters act more intelligently but it’s right in the name of the strip
I want to see the characters act more intelligently.
Very, very slowly. Over a very long period of time.
Just like real humans, in real life.
I’ll definitely drop it if Willis is proven to be a worse writer than I expect. If this protest doesn’t get actual fleshing out and the nuance and impact of the protest and Dorothy/Joyce’s actions. I’ll probably drop if neither of these two get meaningful consequences from these actions depending on how stupid the justification is (I don’t know if Willis has the chops to write a polyamorous relationship from THIS starting point of all starting points). I’ll temporarily drop if this causes Joe to revert because that’d be lazy writing. I find this entire sequence frustrating, but ‘willing to see where it goes for a bit’.
Baffling to me that people see this as meaningful cheating. Like, it’s a kiss. If they don”t tell Joe and Walky, yeah, it’d be bad. But kissing a bit as they acknowledge their feelings for the first time is not terrible moral crime, and it’s bizzarre how many people seem to think that it is. It’s ‘cheating’, I guess, but just barely, and the actual issue for their relationships with their boyfriends is still their feelings, not their mouths touching each other.
Also, this is clearly a good thing for Joe and Walky as characters in a story. Walky’s relationship with Dorothy was kind of stagnant, not moving his character forward; and Joe trying to be a good person without the role of ‘Good Boyfriend’ is way more interesting than him staying in his (frankly excruciatingly boring) relationship with Joyce.
More importantly: Lesbians. Hooray!
Kissing someone else when you are in a committed monogamous relationship is definitionally cheating. Are we really doing this?
It’s cheating enough that they need to talk to their boyfriends about it, and if they don’t then it is a moral failing. But if they’re leaving their boyfriends for each other, I don’t think it really matters if their first kiss happens before or after. (Where sleeping with each other would be an meaningful additional betrayal.) And it’s completely understandable that they need to kiss to figure out what they’re feeling and what they want.
If this is how their relationship begins I would find it highly objectionable if it became something lasting. Cheating is one of the cruelest things you can do to a partner and I would not like it to be narratively rewarded at all.
Spitting on someone’s shoes, and deliberately hitting them with a car, are both forms of assault and battery, in the legal sense. Are you suggesting that two things cannot fit onto the same spectrum, without having absolute and complete moral equivalency?
Like, I’m not saying it’s not wrong. Both of those things are genuinely assault, as sure as Joyce and Dorothy are genuinely being unfaithful, here. But, I also think that having a completely static level of judgement and distaste for moral failings, independent of circumstance or magnitude, as if every such example are equally serious and equally distasteful, seems like an impossible way to live life.
I judge that Dorothy and Joyce are doing something willfully wrong here, and I have the whole time they’ve been doing it. I just have sympathy for the fact that there are many, many reasons to not expect these characters to always make the best possible decisions, and I don’t see any point in the constant moral grandstanding over behavior that literally everybody (who isn’t sarcastically trolling the relationship paladins) in this comments section knows is morally wrong.
Asher’s also cheating on Jennifer now, technically; they never broke up. Except we, as the omniscient readers, know for a fact that, for all functional purposes, they are broken up. It’s still bad Asher hasn’t broken up with Jennifer, but it’s not as bad as it would be if Jennifer actually took their relationship seriously, actually cared about her relationship with him, or had any sincere desire to date him. Oh, right, just remembered, Jennifer is also cheating on Asher with what’s-her-name now, too.
Both of those obvious examples of cheating I just laid out? I deem them far less serious, and far less worthy of reprimand, than what Joyce and Dorothy are currently doing. That’s partly because of my omniscient view as a reader, but given that I have that view, I KNOW that what Joyce and Dorothy are doing, is worse than what Asher and Jennifer are doing. Consequently? I also acknowledge the reality, that there are many, many more examples of infidelity, that are far more morally degraded and reprehensible, than the situation that Joyce and Dorothy have allowed themselves to stumble into.
In short, my view on the morality of cheating is, cheating is not the least or most bad thing you can do to a partner, in general…because every individual relationship has the sole right to set the parameters for what they consider cheating, in that relationship, and it’s nobody else’s business. If you tell your partner that the worst thing they can do to you is cheat on you? You’re right, and they should believe you, and if that’s the boundary you both agree on, you both have to respect it.
Meanwhile, everybody in this strip who is the main cast, is so immature, so sheltered, and so privileged, that I would not define any of what they are doing in their romantic lives, to rise to the level of an adult relationship, in any sense beyond literally and legally.
So in short, I am, and have been, very disappointed in them. But I also just…have a basic understanding that nobody in this strip is going to act like a responsible, mature adult, for quite a long time. My disappointment for them, is just one of the many emotions that this story about imperfectly navigating adult life is meant to evoke in me. That’s the whole reason Willis wrote it to be more morally grey, and more grounded, than his other works, as far as I can glean.
Couldn’t agree with this more. I’ve been very surprised by the reactionary pearl clutching responses to this. Like this kiss is the equivalent of shooting Walky and Joe in the head. Walky who knows and regularly jokes about the about Dorothy and Joyce’s homoromantic closeness at their expense. Joe who literally had Dorothy confess her attraction to Joyce right to him.
As if this isn’t just a kiss they both still have the moral capacity to immediately regret. I feel like there’s always been too much pressure from us semi-omniscient readers to expect perfection and absolute moral righteousness from these characters when that’s not the case. Character flaws are what makes them fun.
Like we’ve seen Joe and Walky especially fumble the bag in their relationships to women. I don’t remember them receiving nearly this much blowback. I for one welcome Joyce and Dorothy being idiots in love and the mess they’ll have to clean up because of it.
PREDATOR. HANDSHAKE. For YOU.
This is a righteous paragraph.
Baffling to me that people DON’T see this as meaningful cheating, especially with the pre-existing emotional context that you yourself acknowledge.
Also, I have to gently correct you about another think: Joyce and Dorothy is actually the most excruciatingly boring relationship in the comic, and I hope it flames out as fast as it heated up.
I’d argue that they’re in a superposition of “breaking up” and “cheating”. Breaking up just before kissing would only have been marginally less messy (assuming Joyce/Dorothy immediately got to tell Joe/Walky, instead of the presumptive protest photos breaking the news.)
IMHO a superposition of breaking up and cheating IS cheating.
Messy or not, the right order of actions in an ordinary non-abusive relationship is “break up, THEN hook up with someone else.”
tbh, the characters themselves see this as meaningful cheating. Hence Dorothy trying to push Joyce away all day, and the “uh oh”
There is kissing, there is kissing on the lips, and then there is what this is which is full on macking. The only other ‘kiss’ that gets more cheating then this is cunning linguistics. You can argue that it is confusing if ‘a peck on the lips’ was read as cheating but they ‘macked’ acknowledged the macking then macked some fucking more instead of running from the riot police.
Hey, another tidbit for the people who Want Dorothy to Face Real Consequences:
If, like many of us are predicting, this kiss ends up being front page news? There is a very real possibility that Dorothy or Joyce gets directly confronted about their political feelings about the protest, on camera, possibly by bad actors. Dorothy, the smart, moral, wannabe future present, is going to have to justify her political views, which she herself admitted doesn’t personally understand, about a specific topic she’s never sincerely researched, and is not aware of any of the core talking points that those actually participating in that cause would want her to get across, as the new face of the student protest movement.
In short, we might be t-minus four to six in-universe hours from Dorothy facing the humiliation of being one of the dumb, well-meaning-but-out-of-their-depth college freshmen getting castigated for having their naive political takes absolutely shredded to bits, by some kind of douchebag Ben Shapiro type, and her shoddy advocacy will actively undo the work that people like Asma and Jocelyn are trying to do, as she gets held up as the ultimate strawman for the “they’re just dumb college kids, they shouldn’t even have the right to have a political voice” crowd.
If that’s not real consequences, I don’t know what else possibly could be?
*”wannabe future president” was the line I was trying to write, lol
Listen, if this all ends with Amazigirl punching Ben Shapiro it will all have been worth it.
“Amazigirl punching Ben Shapiro” OK yeah that’s a possible upside I hadn’t considered
finally. his poor wife will have reason to know moisture.
Wow – forget about Becky being jealous of Dorothy for Joyce, with this she’d have to deal with Dorothy being the face of lesbianism on campus.
GAY KISS ON MY BIRTHDAY
I check dumbing of age every morning first thing while waking up – it was nice to start the day with a big smile.
Ahhh, the “Graduate” ending. Both characters discard everything for each other, and in the heat of the moment it feels so right that they realize they should have done this long ago…
And now I’m expecting the REAL “Graduate” ending where they realize the ACTUAL consequences of what they’ve done. At best they both cheated on their boyfriends. Walky will probably take this in stride, but Joe… I think he might revert back to his old ways when he finds out that he can never make Joyce happy. And at worst the two of them will most likely be arrested and probably expelled, leaving Joyce to deal with her family… and possibly Becky, heartbroken to know that everything she suspected about Dorothy is right and Joyce didn’t reject Becky because she was straight but because she was in love with Dorothy.
But hey, OTP is finally canon, amirite? (punches person behind me that tries to point out that the real OTP is Walky and Joyce) AMIRITE? High five!
We know Joyce won’t be arrested (long term) nor expelled – She is basically the mainest main character and it would cut off a lot of campus stories
Dorothy on the other hand…
This. Dorothy winds up accepting Yale after all to Do The Right Thing and get out from between Joyce and Joe.
Oh nooooo that would be so crushing. Like an actor suddenly leaving the show.
We got preview panels tgat shows the two together so no
The ending of The Graduate, but in the back of the paddy wagon, slowly zooming out to be framed by the barred window.
I wonder how angry the “cheating” people will be when Dorothy and Joyce talk to Walky and Joe about this now.
Depends on how easily they’re let off
I’m with Jocelyn on this one – looking on in wonder, and we’ll sort it all out later
oh no joe
He’s going to see it on the news (because what cameraman wouldn’t turn their lens on this in the middle of a police attack) I just hope it isn’t a hard landing. Maybe he’ll be philosophical about it. Like people in love for the first time who see their partner cheating…
Yeah he’s not gonna be philosophical about it
Back during the “Joyce gets drunk” arc, when she posted the selfie with Dorothy, he had this wistful, happy-but-pained smile on his face. Next we saw him he was going to talk to dorothy and the language heavily implied that he was willing to step out of the way for them, if that’s where they were going.
And alter on, teasing Dorothy that, for all his fuckups, he isn’t a cheater.
not sure if this is the most comments any page has ever had but if not then i’m doing my part. genuinely so wonderful to see a ship that i have actively hoped for for years finally pay off and absolutely agonising that it does so in the messiest and most interpersonally destructive way possible. dumbing of age is truly the modern telenovela and i am HERE FOR IT
honestly the mess is indescribable. the fallout potential. becky’s hurt, dina’s hurt that becky is hurt, joe making connections about what rachel’s been harassing him about (but an opportunity to grow from it and not backslide), but walky’s for SURE backslide because the possibility of night guy going to hang out with incelerator if amber decides not to get back with walky, ambers realization that she did on accident break her brothers relationship, which would then set off booster like a firework.. its all just SOOO MUCHHHH
Can somebody please describe this moment with a haiku about tear gas cherry blossoms?
The tear gas blossoms
Into searing pain of lungs
We need a medic
Oh dear God my eyes
Why did they throw it this way
Someone get the milk
Two girls kiss among
the cherry blossoms of gas
comments are unhinged
Meh. I’m actually rather disappointed in this. I was never a big fan of this ship because it detracts from what I thought was a great friendship.
Yes, thank you! Platonic love exists, and I know everyone wants everyone to be gay all the time but it bothers me when people perpetuate the idea that two people can’t be friends who love each other dearly without wanting to have sex with each other.
People only “want everything to be gay all the time,” because obviously 8000 years of history re-branding every obvious gay and sapphic relationship in every piece of history or media as “and they were the good friends, the best of friends, friends in way that eclipsed every other form of love…platonically. They were roommates.”
Like, I do get being annoyed about obligate platonic erasure, as a result of a modern fascination with Gay Finally Being Allowed; most of the most important relationships in my life, have been some form of platonic. But, I urge you to understand, the thing you are frustrated about, is a direct response to the exact opposite sort of erasure being the rule of law of the entire world for the majority of the human history that most of us have been directly born into.
tl;dr gilgamesh and enkidu definitely fucked, and alexander the great was a gay boyfailure supreme. also, sappho definitely married a guy whose name translates to “Dick Allcocks” from “Man Island,” but I promise, she did it for the bit. she still loved the ladies.
It’s so weird, how the premise that two people of compatible genders can’t be just friends is literally the premise of like thousands of heterosexual romances for hundreds of years, but somehow the enemy of platonic love is definitely the rise of niche fandoms that like gay ships that usually aren’t even canon.
*literally the basis
*whatever, I’m tired, it’s hard to believe this argument isn’t just disingenuous camouflage when “men and women can’t be friends because the sex part always gets in the way” is such a famous line from one of the best-regarded romantic comedies of all time, as well as being referenced millions of times since then
It’s enough of a drama nuke that I’m actually kind of into it. I was thinking this would be some sort of slow mutual pining and “we can’t” turning into conversations but this just shattered dozens of relationships.
Becky’s going to find out Joyce is gay but not for her. Walky is going to have his fears of her being better than him reinforced. Joe will be crushed. Joyce’s friendships are getting complicated.
Hit me with it, sir, I’m ready to feel bad.
SURELY THIS WILL ALL WORK OUT! HA HA HA
Meh.
User name checks out
Meaning?
That you obviously support Joe, I suspect.
Never even thought of that!
)
(I’m getting old…
I didn’t notice before that dorothy is wearing fingerless gloves
is she borrowing sal’s clothes now too
It’s not her fault. As soon as she kissed Julia Grey, her attire rearranged itself to fit into the canon.
you can never have just one
Bisexuals: “You don’t AUTOMATICALLY have to cheat if you’re bi!”
Atheists: “You don’t have to be a liar and a cheater just because you don’t believe in God.”
Marginalized Folks: “You don’t have to make protests all about your own issues, you can just be a good ally.”
Joyce: “HOLD MY BEER, I’M TRYING OUT FOR THE REINFORCING STEREOTYPES OLYMPICS”
I’m sorry, that was harsh. Joyce would actually say something like “hold my plain chicken fingers that have never touched any other food…”
Hey, she may not like beer. But artisan whiskey? That’s where you get the real good bad decisions.
You are a fucking idiot
What a damning rebuttal lol
Anything more would be wasting letters.
Technically you could have done without “are a”.
You make some good points, which will unfortunately be ignored or dismissed by a lot of other commenters here.
The other two are fair enough, but how does the atheism fit in? She’s not doing this because she’s an atheist, and it would be ridiculous to suggest that was one of her motivations, so I don’t think you’re probably saying it is. So, could you be very kind and elaborate on that specific aspect of your comment?
I feel like you’re already well aware of this, but I’m choosing to take this at my knee jerk face value and answer the question even though it’s directly poking the bear. It is an incredibly common belief that atheists don’t have morals or standards because they don’t believe in God. I accidentally insulted my husband back when I was still Christian by saying that even though he wasn’t Christian, his morals were still based on Christian values by virtue of being raised in the Southern US (which true or not, he was very quick to inform me of that stereotype and how often people have told him to his face that because he isn’t a Christian, he has no morals.)
And it is true. In church I was taught not to trust atheists or to even be kind to them because they were dangerous, evil, and would just drag me down with them.
Therefore, by cheating on her partner, something which is widely agreed to be a Dick Move by most people even if it’s not by many people in this comment section, Joyce is reinforcing the belief that atheists have no morals. To be fair, this is kind of backed up by her being aimed at Jacob like a torpedo (which I don’t recall if that was before or after losing her religion). Some people would probably consider the premarital sex thing part of that, but far fewer people take issue with that these days and idgaf because it doesn’t harm anyone emotionally the same way cheating does.
I don’t agree or disagree with Joyce reinforcing that stereotype, though I definitely do agree with the other two being problematic things that she and Dorothy are playing into right now.
Right, but only brainless, incurious dipshits would ever believe a stereotype that stupid.
Having ran into innumerable examples of said dipshits in my Appalachian upbringing (especially once I went atheist myself) and in acknowledgement of the existence of idiots such as Carol and Toedad in the comic world, I felt the stereotype merited inclusion.
It occurred to me after seeing your response that people might have perceived me as calling out “things the commentariat is saying” rather than “common stereotypes”, which wasn’t the intent.
*begins praying for polyamory*
Lo, I said, “Let There Be One Thousand Comments!”
And it was so.
Look is it good to cheat? No.
Is it incredibly iconic to do it at the one place that has a chance of making the national news, a place you specifically went to avoid your sister getting more attention, with her in the background?
Yes!
Is it good for girls to kiss girls? Also yes.
2/3 yes, yes wins.
leaves religion, instantly becomes a cheater. Well that kinda sucks, I thought Joyce would be a better person than that. Hope this doesnt completely crush Joe that the first girl he seems to care about instantly cheats on him.
Doesn’t help the history cheating has played in his development. Like of all the people to be cheated on, the guy who based his previous decision to sleep around without getting emotionally attached to not become his serially cheating father is now on the end of being cheated on when he’s actually letting himself become emotionally invested… idk, man.
I also dislike how it clearly plays in to the “Bi’s are all greedy/cheaters” thats so heavily prevalent in like, ALL media. And given my personal hatred of cheaters too, this has kinda completely ruined 2 of the main characters from this comic for me
Yep, that’s definitely the exact sequence of events. Cause and effect, right here, right now, fully on display.
That’s not entirely fair. Joyce was a cheater when she was a Christian too. This is just the first time she cheated on HER partner
You can’t cheat on someone else’s partner. Only they can do that.
Does “consenting cheater assistant” work? Lol it’s all the same to me
Queerbaiting? Consider me baited.
joyce and dorothy would never bait. that would be weird. they just do laundry.
That is not what that term means
I don’t think anyone knows what that means anymore.
Using a thinly veiled I/P protest conflict as a backdrop for the unfaithful bisexuals trope? Really?
A protest that Dorothy hasn’t displayed any actual specific interest in, she just wants to be an irritant to the system.
Yeah, she’s literally just doing it symbolically to feel better about herself. She has said that outright.
What makes it feel so weird for me is the choice of cause. Wrapping it all up in something so pertinent to real-world politics makes Dorothy’s “I gotta do this FOR ME” attitude feel weirdly gross.
Yeah, that’s another good reason I dislike this story arc right now. I feel like the protest deserves more attention than just being used as a backdrop for this.
It’s just so abrupt and unfounded for Joyce. I think Dorothy having unrequited feelings for Joyce was a much more compelling storyline. I’m still hoping Joyce might realize she loves Dorothy but isn’t sexually attracted to women, while Dorothy is, because I think that fits better with everything that’s been established up to here and would make for a good storyline. But I am certainly interested in seeing the fallout from this and want to see how things go down with Joe.
Oh that would be interesting. I have some instances in my family of biromantic heterosexual women, I write them fairly often in my characters (since I pull pretty heavily from my life), but I can’t say I’ve ever really seen it anywhere else.
I’m sitting here contemplating how literally last night Joe and Joyce had a lovely date and I’m Ron Burgundy with a beer: “Boy, that escalated quickly.”
Like, I think this is a weakness of Willis covering every single day sequentially- this sort of thing would be much better in my mind if it happened after a week or so of a timeskip, just so it doesn’t feel so freaking rushed.
Like, Walky/Lucy suffered from this too, the relationship was given outsized importance for what was a two week fling, but it’s really hurting the story right now.
Right? Joyce and Joe’s relationship had literal years of buildup, and months of in-story time. She’s been down bad wanting to get Joe’s dick for like a year. And then she has like one day of bisexual awakening and kisses Dorothy the very next day after her romantic date and hook up with Joe. That’s why from a story perspective, as someone who has been reading this story for over 10 years, it really feels like this came out of nowhere and it’s completely out of character and frustrating
This is precisely the main reason why I can’t get behind this. Compare to Billie and Ruth where it was years and years of buildup and false starts. This plot thread only entered the narrative a few months ago!it’s only been a couple days in-story!
It absolutely did not come out of nowhere. Walky has been commenting on Joyce and Dorothy’s mutual admiration society for months, their time. Like, seriously, this was 12 years ago. He frames it as a joke, but he frames everything as a joke. Joe actually went to Dorothy and confronted her with her crush on Joyce before she was willing to admit it to herself. I’m not going to post a wall of links, because gods know how long it would take Willis to moderate it, especially today, but this has been hinted and foreshadowed again and again for years.
Recurring jokes about Joyce being gay for Dorothy is not, in fact, the same thing as introducing them having genuine acknowledged romantic and sexual feelings for each other as a serious plot element and as both a lesbian and a connoisseur of sapphic fiction I am in fact very insulted that people seem to think that it is.
Right, having an immature dude joke that any girls who are close friends must want to scissor is not the same thing as a girl showing lesbian inclination
Thank you, it’s driving me crazy that people act like years of “Dorothy and Joyce are kind of gay” jokes are the same as the years of actual plot and character driven set up Joe and Joyce got. It doesn’t surprise me that the relationships Joyce and Dorothy are often compared to are Eleanor and Tahani from the Good Place or Leslie and Ann from Parks and Rec…. aka close platonic relationships that gay jokes are made about, not romantic relationships in their own canon. I’m not against Dorothy/Joyce on principle, it’s just the execution I take issue with.
You’d think that with Willis directly saying they’ve been seeding this for years and knew Dorothy was bi before the timeskip and also gave Walkyverse Dorothy a happy ending with “the combined genetic material of Walky and Joyce, which is super into Dorothy for some reason”, it might indicate that some of that wasn’t just jokes, but apparently not.
All well and good, but it doesn’t change the fact that we’ve gone from Dorothy admitting to herself that she has feelings for Joyce to them making out in 24 in-universe hours. As a serious plot thread with significant narrative focus, it has moved way too fast.
I think we’ve gone kind of exactly the same speed Joyce always goes once she realizes she has strong feelings for someone and that they’re possibly requited? Joe asked her out immediately, and she said yes immediately. Ethan asked her out in their second conversation and she said yes immediately. She spent a while crushing on Jacob and being in denial about it, but the moment Joe suggested Jacob might like her back, she made a 180 degree turn and started flirting deliberately with him.
It took her longer to say yes to Joe the second time, but it didn’t seem to be out of any uncertainty over her feelings: she seemed to just be enjoying his attraction to and crush on her.
These are more recent, but: Joyce wants to see Dorothy having sex, and Joyce says “I love you” to Dorothy because “It doesn’t mean I want to be ‘with’ her, it means I want to ‘be’ her, which is a separate, distinct feeling that’s impossible to confuse with the other.”
Joyce is definitely jealous of Walky, and wants to go on dates with Dorothy. Her comic strip has the characters based on Joyce/Dorothy flirting with each other.
I really look forward to the conversation that Joyce and Walky have about her constantly stating he wasn’t good enough for Dorothy.
This is the part where they acknowledge them. They’ve been genuine for ages but this is the part where they’re acknowledged so I don’t understand the problem.
It’s not that it came out of nowhere. It’s that it went from “subconscious longing” to “full-on makeouts” in literally 24 hours. And that 12 hours ago Joyce was having a very significant date with Joe.
I think this whole shebang would have been *massively* improved by a timeskip of one week. It’d give everything time to cook. Dorothy could have been marinating in her feelings, Joyce could have taken some time to process how she feels about Dorothy and Joe, and these kids maybe could have studied for their midterms or something.
You’ve never done anything impulsive based on long-standing emotions, despite being in a context that was incompatible with doing that impulsive thing? Never?
Ive never cheated on my partner, no.
That wasn’t the question.
I’m terribly boring, so no, not really. Maybe that’s why I was single until age 33.
But again, this isn’t about these two deciding to smooch after all the buildup. The groundwork was absolutely laid down. It’s about how just last night Joyce and Joe were on a very significant date, but suddenly less than 12 hours later
1) the protest came to a head
2) Joyce needed to go warn Jocylene
3) Dorothy decided to play the martyr
4) The girls decided kissing in the middle of tear gas, cops, and protestors was totally a good idea.
And all of that happening so fast, so soon after this *other* significant event in their lives, narratively, it feels contrived. It’s too many significant events happening in such a short timeframe.
In the past week, Joyce has
*had her first kiss with Joe, I’m pretty sure.
* found out her mom sold her house to give money to the church that bailed out Toedad.
* “enjoyed the laundry” with Dorothy
* got drunk with Dorothy
* had a drunken dorm party for Becky
* found out she had a sister
* had her “first time”, by certain definitions, with Joe.
Like, when has she had time to breathe, never mind do homework?
Man, I can’t believe these main characters in a dramatic comedy story are experiencing significant life events at an unrealistic rate.
Come on, now.
Literally all I’m saying is that a single, unseen week of nothing dramatic happening would be a net benefit to the story
We had an entire unseen Christmas break, ya glutton.
So many events happening back to back to back has absolutely been the biggest problem with this comic throughout its entire run. Everything that happened before the timeskip happened in the first month and a half of school. From Joyce getting her world upended to Amber/Amazi-Girl’s whole arc to the evil dads putting things together so quickly. And then three whole months of nothing.
Again, take Walky and Lucy’s relationship as another example. It was this whole dramatic *thing* where they had a metric ton of drama…and never even fucked because they went on three actual dates. The whole relationship, from start to finish, hit beats that take most couples *months*, not because of feelings one way or another but because they’ve got other shit to do rather than speedrun a relationship arc. Lucy and Walky was a major part of the comic, something hugely important to both of them. And that simply doesn’t jive with it being a *two week fling*.
Spacing things out, taking a week where nothing of significance happens but we can assume relationships are strengthened or decay as they were trending in the leadup would make for a comic that is much more in tune with how reality works. One of this comic’s strengths is that so many of its characters are relatable, and that relatability largely comes from their being realistic and nuanced characters (Dina, for instance. So many people vibe with her being an intelligent young autistic woman with a hyperfixation that I really think that her stealing that bottle of hooch solely because “she can go anywhere undetected” weakens her character. Amazi-Girl not being a bullet-riddled corpse right now is another example. It’s hard to take Amber/Amazi-girl’s struggles with anger and trauma responses seriously when they’re out here unironically doing things no one else in the comic can just because. This is a realistic comic except when it isn’t, and it’s generally the moments that lack realism that are its weakest.
And spacing these events out more realistically would strengthen the comic.
PS: this comment section would be a nicer place if you just let people say things and didn’t feel the need to stir up shit anytime you think it would be funny.
Sorry for having a normal exchange, I guess. It’s your own decision to read it as shit-stirring, despite that not being the case.
I mean…you could just as easily say, that the current rapid, almost manic pace of Joyce’s life, is a direct factor in her pushing her boundaries out so far and so fast? That, the fact that she’s currently just living her life uncritically, with her foot all the way down on the gas pedal, is strong evidence that Joyce is not thinking very hard about the ramifications of any of her actions, right now? Which is very different from the times in her life, where she was constrained by the boundaries of her moral obsessions?
She used to be so morally obsessed that it made her basically a perfect tradwife, and that’s all she ever aspired to be. But, she relates that moral obsession, to being wrapped up in her fundamentalism. So, by rejecting fundamentalism, she thinks that she is now free to never consider the long-term moral consequences of everything she does, because to her, that’s just not a thing that secular people do.
She went from having blaring alarms and a gilded cage around her mind at all times, which was her coping mechanism for trying to be morally perfect, to a framework where she doesn’t think that she ever has to worry about what she’s doing, at all, because what she’s doing isn’t wrong, because she associates what she is doing fully with secularism.
Her arc from here, is that she needs to find a middle ground between a crippling moral obsession that obfuscates from her who she really is, and what she really believes, and her rightful abandonment of that obsession, that actually allows her to consider the morality and consequences of her actions, in real time, so that she can actually achieve being the moral secular version of herself, who she actually wants to be, and currently is deluding herself into thinking that she is.
holy fuck, i just realized that Joyce did for Dorothy the exact thing that Walky didn’t have the spine to do for Lucy.
(clarification: I do not think that Walky was wrong, and that him doing what Joyce did, would have had cataclysmic consequences for the basic stability of his life and future, in a way that what Joyce did, didn’t)
I think it’s actually important and key to what’s going on with Joyce that it happened that quickly. (Or that quickly since her lovely date with Joe.) The thing with Dorothy obviously started before that date. In a sense, right before that date.
I’m not sure exactly what it means for Joyce, but I think it’s important.
Joyce jammed the gas pedal down as hard as humanly possible, and put the car on cruise control, because her underlying assumption is that Thinking About the Moral Ramifications of Your Actions, is not something that secular people need to deliberately do.
She’s just a typical college kid, who just learned about nihilism for the first time, and badly understands it, and is using it as an excuse to shield herself from being critical of her own bad behavior.
Pretty sure the intention all along was to give Joyce the most buckwild liberatory 24 hours imaginable
It also makes me REALLY hate Joyce. Spend her life being a ‘good person’ Ignorant on things sure, but a good person.
She leaves the church and suddenly becomes a cheater with the unfaithful bisexual trope
Cop loading up the tear gas for the event, sees unfamiliar crate with pink and violet colors, label ‘Stupid Happy’, shrugs…
There are 1200 comments as of 830a. A typical range is 100-300.
Fascinated to know by how much this breaks the curve.
honestly i think that usually, when comments section bloats this much, it’s usually gotten locked by now?
Willis has joked on BlueSky about “I ain’t reading all that” so make of that what you will
ooh so Willis isn’t actively moderating these comments, meaning we can post off-topic nonsense without making them take time outta their day to read through it all?
YESSS YESSSSS QUICK EVERYONE, tell me all about Your Favorite Mug™️!! Links to pics are appreciated but not required
My favorite mug is a 15oz white one with a picture of a crab holding up a knife, and the phrase “Mess with the crabo you get the stabo” on it. I use it almost every day.
Just to be greedy, my second favorite mug is one of those simple blue textured ones you can find at Walmart around Christmas, bundled with a packet of hot chocolate. My music professor bought a bunch of them for our entire ensemble after our first performance in last year’s winter production of It’s a Wonderful Life, in which we provided a live sound track for the play. I was on guitar, next to two saxophones and a trumpet. We did four runs of the play, that weekend, and after the last show I went home and drank the cocoa out of that mug.
omg I love these
my favorite mug features a collage of my favorite F1 driver of all time but I gave him cat ears on every pic
Now that’s classy.
I have a double-wall stainless mug for coffee, and a huge ceramic one decorated with flowers given to me by a colleague, that I use for soup.
ooo huge fan!! I have some real nice double-wall glass mugs for coffee, they rule
I need this tbh, we have a bunch of cheap mugs and they mostly don’t handle heat well enough not to make the entire mug hot to the touch ;;
Winter mugs. The kind you can warm your hands with until it’s cooled enough to drink
Mug?
I prefer Barq’s.
based based based based based I like it a normal amount based based based
i like using the most generic identical mugs in the house, that are part of a large set, because the prospect of emotionally bonding with a specific object feels far too dangerous, and potentially painful. If I were to decide that there was a specific one I liked, that means that, someday, it would break, and I would have to mourn about it, and go through the hard work of not beating myself up internally over failing to care for a thing that I loved!
The art has been really incredible lately. Excellent work.
I’m so relieved to be aromantic.
Personally I have a lot of faith in Willis and authors in general that they will take us on an interesting journey with the storylines they choose to explore, I’m very intrigued to find out where this goes.
I love this for them but daaaaang am I worried about the boys.
I dont anymore sadly. I get this has been built up for awhile, but so has Joyce’s growth as a character. For this whole run of the comic Joyce has been learning more and more how to communicate with joe and be honest. We could of had a personal moment where Joyce admits her feelings, and though it hurts, admits to joe her true feelings are for Dorthey. It would of been a great and way better written story that showed the results of growth. Instead, we get the stereo type that Bi’s/LGBT as a whole are cheater’s/ relationship destroyers. Willis was a good story teller, and an amazing representer of LGBT, till now that is.
This is exactly where I land — Sure, it’s been foreshadowed that Joyce is kinda into Dorothy in a way she doesn’t really fully admit to herself prior to this storyline.
But this storyline more or less erases a fair portion of her growth since the whole Jacob/Raidah incident, up to and including the part where she acknowledges that “laundry day” would have been cheating under her own definition.
About the only way Willis pulls this off in a dramatically satisfying way is if Joyce has a fucking lot of guilt about it once the initial high wears off.
can we now reveal that Walky and Joe have been fucking for weeks
better idea: joe has been fucking Night Guy, he hasn’t yet clued in that it’s Walky, somehow
Something for him to have in common with Danny. So, to engage with the theme of the comments section of the past few days if Joe were fucking Nightguy and didn’t know Nightguy was Walky and then Joe fucked Walky would Joe be cheating on Nightguy with Walky?
Does the answer change if like AG and Amber Nightguy were an alter of Walky* and Walky wasn’t aware that he was Nightguy either?
*Yes, one does not generally develop DID at Walky’s age. This is a hypothetical for the sake of discussion. And hey, there’s been no evidence that his shitty parents gave him DID, but if they had then it is technically possible for him to have developed the Nightguy alter after meeting AG. If that explanation doesn’t work for you assume an AU where we have Nightguy instead of AG and it’s Walky not Amber who has DID.
I gasped when I first saw this. They are so beautiful together.
Jeeeeesus 1200+ comments at the time of this comment. People sure take the actions of fictional characters to heart.
4th most commented on strip of all time (on-site). https://www.dumbingofage.com/category/comic/?orderby=comment_count
Dang! I didn’t know we had this info. TY!
Up to 3rd and closing fast.
Up to 2ne
NUMBER ONE
Mission accomplished.
Closing the comments section and going home.
Wooo!!!!
It’s a big moment in the overall storyline — I’d almost call it the BIGGEST moment so far.
I think we forget how many people read without commenting, with mostly just the “regulars” doing so on an average strip. Something this momentous will likely prompt readers to comment for the first time.
Hoo boy.
Okay, so a bunch of character’s likely reactions to this have been discussed to death in the 9 hours since (a handful of minutes past) midnight, and with 1211 comments as of when I started typing this no one will likely read down far enough to see this one, but what the hell, let’s theorize about how some characters I haven’t seen mentioned yet will be impacted by this!
Danny: Dorothy went to him just before all this went down and asked about bisexuality leading to infidelity. If I were Danny, and I saw the full page photo of Joyce and Dorothy making out that Daisy’s guaranteed to put on the front page of tomorrow’s campus newspaper, that conversation in retrospect would look a lot to me like Dorothy had been asking permission to cheat on my best friend. Presumably Danny’s going to go to bat for his bestie, and it’ll be interesting to see what form that takes, and if he confronts Dorothy about it directly.
Tony and Sarah: Dean McHenry is presumably going to be pressured to do something about these protests, and Daisy is about to make Joyce and Dorothy this protest’s public face by plastering them sucking face across the entire campus. I don’t think this happened at Indiana University (at least I couldn’t find examples from a brief search), but no small number of pro-Palestine protesters at other universities were expelled last year for their parts in opposing genocide. Sarah and her new boyfriend Tony, who just happens to be the dean’s son, are presumably going to do what they can to shield Joyce and Dorothy from being targeted for retribution by IU. This could end up, saying, putting Tony’s position on the football team and his sports scholarship — or even potentially Sarah’s scholarships — at risk, and/or put a strain on their new relationship.
Asma and any other named protesters (maybe Roz?): Presumably they will be deeply unimpressed by the two white girls who showed up at the last minute and inadvertently made themselves the public face of this protest. I would be inclined to think this wouldn’t get much story focus, were it not for…
Carla: Ruttech’s complicity in genocide presumably isn’t about to vanish as a plot point in the wake of all the story threads connected to the above, and similarly the cause as a whole presumably isn’t going anywhere either.
Raidah: Is going to have a fucking FIELD DAY with this.
Mazel tov to Joyce and Dorothy but boy oh boy there’s gonna be FIREWORKS
Yeah, I fully agree that the epic-level crash out that Danny is justified to deliver to Dorothy in this situation, after all of their shared history, and the pedestal that Dorothy has constantly put herself on over Danny and Joe (I legit almost typoed “Hoe,” lmao), might be one of the best things we’ll ever witness in this comic. He’s got a spine, now. I want to see what this man is capable of, at maximum overdrive.
Also, I’m very cautiously assuming that Sarah will have to directly choose between supporting Joyce and keeping her relationship; I expect Tony to have the sort of apolitical, pro-establishment view that A) the majority of athletes have, and B) that Dorothy used to have, and thus expect him to have limited sympathy for the protestors, because he doesn’t really see their advocacy as any different from his embarrassing teammate The Incelerator.
And, besides, he has been very clear, he tolerates no buffoonery; and, at this current stage of their lives? Joyce and Dorothy are the walking, talking, face-sucking equivalent of pure, living buffoonery.
In short, I think the coming storm may well lead to a lot of characters having to suddenly make a snap judgement about who they are going to support, and what side they’re gonna be on, and what they’re willing to sacrifice to do it. The story implications are immediately staggering, in a way that even the previous episodes of extremely traumatic violent escapades have not been able to accomplish without resorting to time skips.
I agree entirely. I expect another months-long timeskip where we find out what the new status quo is.
ugh please not another time skip, it’s both lazy AND would be skipping the payoff of this story, that could actually be interesting
Danny is currently SO fucking glad he did not stay with Dorothy lmao
Like he must be feeling like Neo in the Matrix, he dodged so many bullets
I did read this far down, and I think you make some good observations.
Oooh, poor Joe.
Also, Becky gonna be PISSED.
you have so little faith in the characters of this comic being good people.
Well they’re kind of being Not Good People in this very strip so idk what else I’m meant to believe
Joe has enough emotional intelligence to be able to have an adult conversation, at least if the fandom interpretation of him is to be believed. Becky, likewise, has no reason to be upset someone she liked only ‘became’ gay later. Like these are adult characters. They’re not going to throw temper tantrums the instant someone in their lives acts non-ideally.
Becky being pissed about this would not be an instance of her being not a good person.
Now, if she called them both a slur,
I don’t remember if Joyce ever said it or not, but I’m just thinking she at least never uttered the dreaded “If I was into girls, I’d totally go for you” to Becky cause being on the end of that only to know later they’ve gone on to be with girls is kind of… yikes… it’s… not the best “let you down easy” to go for. It’s a hard let down even if you know rationally that they never thought it would change.
Plot twist, Becky smooching it up with Dotty to get that second-hand anime kiss experience
I agree POOR BECKY!🥺
Joyce can be gay but not for Becky….
Most people aren’t gay for people they consider siblings to them.
Tell that to all the childhood best friends that end up married.
Those people don’t consider their childhood best friends to be their siblings!
Like it really is that simple. Sometimes the people we grow up with feel like our siblings and are unattractive to us, sometimes they don’t. And Becky isn’t the only unlucky childhood friend to wind up in a situation where it’s asymmetrical.
Now I’m wondering if people would be spamming the word “incest” instead of “cheating”, if Joyce and Becky ever did start dating. It seems plausible.
They aren’t blood related and aren’t sisters so it wouldn’t be incest. Would it count as incest if you married your childhood best friend that’s you known since infancy and whose family is close to yours? Some childhood best friends end up together and I think it’s a beautiful thing.
It doesn’t matter if the word actually applies to the situation, there’s always someone here who’ll say it.
110% they would. Some of them would probably be the same people. I’m honestly surprised we don’t get people freaking out about Dina being “child coded” because the comments section the past few days has sounded like that crowd.
That would make an interesting combination with the people who were all but accusing her of raping Becky because autistic people can’t understand consent, back when “These two are about to fuck” was still ongoing.
Look, as much as I adore Becky, she’s not entitled to Joyce’s romantic affections if Joyce doesn’t feel like that. No, not even if Joyce ends up with a different girl later.
Westermarck Effect is a hell of a drug.
I’m just here to add to Willis’ comment count.
Also: Awwwww!!!
Relationship Paladins in shambles, tonight begins the Era of the Sickos.
‘Bout time!
(I do feel bad for Joe though, and Becky is gonna combust)
Thank you I hate it.
Also I j=would just like to say again……
JOYCE.IS.A.BAD.GIRLFRIEND!
Oh right you were tge one tgat went on tgat whole weird ass tirade about how bad a girlfriend joyce for not informing Joe of everything she does. Now i am even more happy that you are upset.
no see I think “joyce is a bad girlfriend” is a very reasonable take!
it’s just that, with her upbringing and history, I fully expect her to be a terrible girlfriend, think it would be an unrealistic story if she wasn’t, and thus am unperturbed that the person who has been deliberately socialized not to handle relationships in a fair and equitable way, doesn’t handle relationships in a fair and equitable way.
And i love that you hate it.
I still stand that she was a bad girlfriend for that and now she is getting worst. It’s just sad cause at her core I thought Joyce was a better person then this. Also this kind of frames people who get away from their crazy controlling religious background just abandon their morals when they stop believing and turn into bad people. Which is not great for atheist that aren’t horrible people just because they lack religion. Honestly all the negative stereotypes in this storyline is leaving a bad taste in my mouth.
You only read it that way because you want to read it that way. Hey, can you link that knockoff Kiwifarms website again?
I read it that way because it’s being presented that way. I dunno what Kiwifarms is I just found DOA in that bad comic website after I googled DOA and was honestly shocked at first. Now in hindsight what they said about this fandom doesn’t seem wrong anymore which is really disappointing.
You want it to be that way, so you’re making up reasons for it to be that way. Upsetting yourself on purpose so you can lash out and pretend to be harmed by anyone who even mildly disagrees with you. You’re not fooling anyone, except maybe yourself.
It’s literally what Willis is writing in his comic. I didn’t write it or make it up I’m just interpreting what has been presented to me. Which I’m not the only one interpreting it that way from looking at this comment section. A lot of people think this storyline is distasteful. Just because I’m not so I’m love with his comic that I’m blinded by it’s flaws doesn’t make me the bad guy. Their are legit reasons people are upset and I happen to agree and form my own options on it.
And still you continue making up extra things to be upset over, because you’re allergic to joy and can’t let yourself feel it.
So, I just googled Dumbing of Age (because if I google DOA I only get results for Dead on Arrival). I got seven pages deep and then ran out of pages without turning that site up.
DOA comic gives me more results, most of them unrelated to Dumbing of Age, but still no sign of that site in ten pages.
Which raises the question, what is your search history like that it’s serving you altright platforms like that site reasonably close to the top that you would have clicked on it?
“After I googled DOA and scrolled through as many pages as it took to find something unfavorable” is a hell of a self-report.
I must confess that I have been very ferociously upset with all the cheating that’s been going on in this comic. It’s terrible! Unconscionable!
First, Dorothy cheating on Joyce with Walky, then Joyce cheating on Dorothy with Joe.
At long last these two finally remember the commitment and bond of their relationship and come back into the arms of their (one, true, proper, legal, moral, ethical, and right) lover.
(My god, paladins, these kids are *nineteen years old* if the worst thing any of them ever does in a relationship is suddenly realize they’re gay for and kiss their best friend I guarantee they’re doing better in their relationships than you ever did or could)
You are forgetting Joyce cheating with them all on her first love, Sal.
And Sal’s cheating on Joyce with her bike!
I thought her first love was Jennifer’s breasts?
You had me in the first half not gonna lie lmao
I genuinely think that, when somebody criticizes a fictional character on the internet, the website should display the 5 worst things that person has done in their lives, completely bereft of any context, in the most uncharitable interpretation possible. You know, since they want to prove so bad that they have the moral high ground, over people who literally do not exist.
I feel like that’s a lot more appropriate when someone criticizes a real stranger rather than a fictional character. Because one is a human trying to live their lives and offering criticism or commentary on a fictional entity which literally exists to be interpreted and criticized and it’s really weird to imply that the latter should be given more leeway and patience than the former.
Damn as a sapphic girl I wanted this ship but this feels like a real monkey’s paw moment lol. Poor Joe. (It is masterful storytelling, though-I’ll be watching the fallout peeking through my hands lol)
Also, as a sapphic BLACK girl, I don’t see enough people talking about how the anti-genocide protest has become a backdrop for a romantic climax. It feels in poor taste, even if it was intended otherwise. People are dying, Kim…
I’m underwater
No air in my lungs
My eyes are open
And I’m giving up
You are the wave
I could never change
If I survive
I’ll dive back in
(I would’ve done something sweet and fluffy like Still Into You for this one, but Pool is with one of my favorite Paramore songs ever and its dark undercurrent fits with the vibes of this very dangerous situation.)
Also fits with the whole tear gas thing going on!
And there it is!
God I love a good soap opera/telenovela. Complicated characters making complicated choices that will have complicated consequences, with a fandom ready and willing to fully lay out all the complications in their discussions of it WHILE READILY DISCARDING INFINITE LEVELS OF SAID COMPLICATIONS TO MAKE THEIR ARGUMENTS, with the added spice that we get to spend 24 hours debating the developments of, in-universe, five-to-ten seconds of story per day.
SICKOS FOREVER
SICKOS FOREVER
Don’t worry people, kissing is just an antidote for teargas, everybody knows that /s
I’m not sure that making two main characters so queer for each other that they cheat on their respective partners at a protest for metaphorical Palestine while being tear gassed was actually a good play at all..
I’m all for flawed queer characters, but this just feels.. kinda gross actually, especially since the metaphorical protest is for a group of people actively being denied rights and killed??? Like this does not feel like the most well written opportunity to do any of this.
Thank you well explained.
I mean that’s the thing, right? Most of the big dramatic beats in this story have had some reasonable distancing from reality. Abusive dads generally don’t engage in car chases with superheroes while trying to kidnap their gay daughters, nor do they dress up as supervillains as part of elaborate revenge schemes. But this is real shit, you know? People have actually for real been putting their lives and safety on the line to protest a horrific modern Holocaust that is still at this very second ongoing. Using it as set dressing for this plot thread that I already think has been uncharacteristically sloppily-written is extremely fucking tacky.
Also, just to be clear, if you wanna make them cheat, then whatever. It’s a comic about barely-not-kids, all of whom have very little concept of emotional or relationship management.
The issue here is not the cheating (fiction-wise), and the issue here is not that they’re queer, or that they’ve realized how they feel about each other, the issue here specifically should be that a very real and tragic genocide is being used to highlight two white queers. If it were a completely fictional scenario, it would still be tasteless at best, but using real people’s pain for the fictional relationship develop of two white girls just really feels malicious.
This captured a lot of my feelings on it. Framing this storyline through the protest as a way of raising the stakes and heightening the drama. But it feels really, painfully forced.
I have enjoyed the ups and downs of all of DoA’s relationships for years, and you’d think a relationship shakeup between (arguably) its two most prominent characters would hit even harder. But this moment is really falling flat for me.
Not that I’m against Joyce & Dorothy having feelings drama for each other. I LOVED the almost-kiss scene in Joyce’s room. But the execution of this moment against the backdrop of this protest feels really forced and cheap to me.
Thanks you for saying this. I feel the same.
I don’t know what it says about me that my second thought was “oh man Joe is gonna be gutted. He was really trying to be better”.
My first thought was just “SQUEEEEEEEE!!!”
jesus christ the comments section cares an awful lot about cheating on a relationship that is less than a month old
and also in what universe is kissing in public during a protest cheating. what sort of baffling puritanism is this
Joyce and Dorothy are both in exclusive romantic relationships. It does not matter how old the relationships are, if you kiss someone else in that context, you are cheating on your partner. I’m genuinely getting sick of people jumping through hoops to justify this as not really cheating. Like, no, it definitionally is. It’s fine if you’re excited about girls kissing, it’s fine if you ship Joyce and Dorothy, but what they are doing right now is cheating on their partners, and you need to own that.
god you’re weird
I’m weird for acknowledging the objective facts of the situation? If I’ve been in a monogamous relationship for a week, do you genuinely, truly believe it would be ok for me to make out with someone other than my partner?
yep!
I think you are in fact the weird one here….
“i went on one date and now we are soul bonded”
wait, shit, i shouldn’t responded to you, i’m in a monogamous commenting relationship with dot
So you are going to neglect the fact that Joe was been there for Joyce this whole time via text and their relationship has been a slow burn for 6 years now?
“So you are going to neglect the fact that Joe was been there for Joyce this whole time via text and their relationship has been a slow burn for 6 years now?
”
i think it’s irrelevant, but if that’s your standard joyce’s relationship with dorothy’s has been a slow burn for even longer. she even hooked up with dorothy before hooking up with joe; does that make her entire relationship with joe cheating on dorothy?
Not “soul-bonded”, but monogamous.
You can tell because the question posited “If I’ve been in a monogamous relationship”.
Joe has been there for Joyce emotically though for a very long time now. Hell since first semester when they had Leslie’s class together. Just because Joe’s support has mostly been behind-the-scenes at this point doesn’t mean it haven’t happened and Joe’s been grewing with Joyce since day 1.
“Joe has been there for Joyce emotically though for a very long time now. Hell since first semester when they had Leslie’s class together. Just because Joe’s support has mostly been behind-the-scenes at this point doesn’t mean it haven’t happened and Joe’s been grewing with Joyce since day 1.”
yeah, so?
“yeah, so?”
So like what? Fuck him and his feelings now because? Why does his growth and character development count for nothing?
“So like what? Fuck him and his feelings now because? Why does his growth and character development count for nothing?”
it doesn’t count for nothing, but it’s irrelevant to whether or not this is cheating. also being a nice guy doesn’t entitle you to anything
This is still cheating because Joe put trust into Joyce and his relationship with her. Making out with another person when you’re in a establish relationship is cheating full stop. Also Joe is more then just a “nice guy” he’s emotionally invested and romantically involved with Joyce. Which their romantic relationship evolved from a very deep friendship they had been forming all throughout the first semester. Being a nice guy does in fact entitle you to nothing but being a boyfriend does entitle you to certain common courtesies of being in a relationship with someone.
“This is still cheating because Joe put trust into Joyce and his relationship with her. Making out with another person when you’re in a establish relationship is cheating full stop. Also Joe is more then just a “nice guy” he’s emotionally invested and romantically involved with Joyce. Which their romantic relationship evolved from a very deep friendship they had been forming all throughout the first semester. Being a nice guy does in fact entitle you to nothing but being a boyfriend does entitle you to certain common courtesies of being in a relationship with someone.”
and yet kissing isn’t cheating
I know you’re more upset at the concept than the wording, but if we were to be pedantic and like, the word ‘cheater’ IS a big ‘liar liar pants on fire’ childish of a colloquialism, I’d say at the very least Dorothy is not practicing consent-based polyamory. She did not talk to Walky about the possibility of acting on her feelings for another person, before she reciprocated this action today.
Still holding hope maybe Joyce ACTUALLY talked to Joe beforehand although that’d be pretty wild for Willis to actually do and probably just, not gonna happen.
And I mean, there are relational theories and dynamics even looser than what I’m going over, but we kind of live in the society we do- Like the static quo hasn’t shifted so much that this would be considered ‘’’ethical polyamory’’’, as it were.
Ultimately I don’t know why I did this exercise and spilled so much words over a comment subsection so uselessly divided but ehhhhhh here’s to 2.5k comments or so
Echoing SailorCakes. Believe what you want but your definitions are skewed. This is 100% cheating.
it’s not tho
YES IT IS! !100% this is cheating full stop!
It is, you can think it’s not a huge deal but it is 100% cheating
If Joe made out with another girl after only having one date I doubt there would be nearly as much debate on if it’s cheating or not
“If I caught my partner kissing someone else without my consent I would fully consider that cheating. Joyce and Dorothy are fully making out which they know is wrong and continue to do so which is 100% cheating. It’s really messed up you think otherwise.”
if my partner caught me making out with someone else and cared i would break up with them
but it literally isn’t just “one date” – joyce literally explicitly refers to joe as her boyfriend, like, multiple times. they’re explicitly, literally, in a steady dating relationship. kissing dorothy while dating joe is in fact, objectively cheating. whether dorothy kissing joyce counts as cheating on walky is debatable, because they haven’t exactly discussed the terms of hooking back up. but it’s still insensitive of her to do to him considering their history. it isn’t puritanism to for cheating to be objectively recognized as cheating. unless it’s been discussed between partners beforehand, kissing someone other than your steady partner is cheating. like. objectively.
not that it’s even the real issue of this entire situation, but if that’s the one we’re focusing on here…
kissing isn’t cheating, i don’t know what to tell you. kissing’s a morally neutral act.
You can think that for yourself if you like but the vast majority of people disagree with you.
not even the vast majority of this comment thread disagrees with me
You may repeat this ridiculous position until you are blue in the face, but you cannot possibly expect any reasonable person to agree with you.
i can and i do. your huffy puritanism is not universal
It is not “huffy puritanism” to consider making out with someone other than your monogamous romantic partner cheating, it is in fact the view most people would take. For Christ’s sakes, I’m not being prudish here! At what point does it become cheating? Does Joyce need to slip a finger in or something?
you *are* being prudish, and it’s a little weird you don’t just own it. drawing a firm moral line that any emotional or physical interaction outside of a single monogamous relationship is cheating is certainly well and good if that’s your kink, but it’s certainly not a universal moral standard.
lol you’re really mad about the fact you’re wrong
Quick question, if kissing someone else is not cheating in a monogamous relationship, what do you think the word “monogamous” means
“Any emotional or physical interaction” is not cheating, but MAKING OUT with someone when you’re in a monogamous relationship is! Jesus Christ!
“Quick question, if kissing someone else is not cheating in a monogamous relationship, what do you think the word “monogamous” means” one spouse. kissing ain’t marriage. it ain’t partnering.
kissing in general? sure. kissing someones cheek or forehead aren’t necessarily romantic or sexual actions and aren’t inherently cheating. but this specific kind of kiss is.
Dunno if you’re trolling or just being willfully ignorant? This is cheating. That’s why Dorothy has been freaking out about it for the entire storyline.
dorothy is 18 or 19 and has a hyperactive sense of ethics grounded in a high school worldview that has had an increasingly negative impact on her life
This is very definitely cheating, and it’s weird that you think otherwise.
and yet it’s not cheating
‘Sharks are smooth’, forum locked at 1000 comments
“most people rejected his message. they hated jesus because he told them the truth.”
And now I want to read the entire Dumbing of Age, because I want to find out EACH signs that Joyce and Dorothy are bi. Like, since WHEN they are queer and/or they liked each other.
Oh Cheese yeah! Best DoA page ever.
this is tasteless. storyline was built up like they’re walking into a war zone. clearly it was just some made-up drama so we could be delivered this farce. the sister looks proud instead of concerned like 2 strips ago, in the middle of the protest.
plus their relationship was always an older-sister dynamic with dorothy teaching joyce about reality, dorothy clearly doesn’t want a romantic relationship and never has, she just wants joyce to live a more normal life. joyce is very clearly hetero, obsessing about dongs since the beginning of the strip (whiteboard ding dong bandit). dorothy also has no history of being interested in women. the realistic thing that would have happened is that joyce would have grabbed dorothy and tried to drag her out of the protest area.
even the julia gray stuff was more of “i want to be her” and admiration than anything romantic. this strip feels like another artist’s satirization of DoA.
do what you gotta do to earn your living, Porn Lord Willis.
Wow really? Clapping to biphobia? You don’t deserve that sailor moon icon.
Yes me as a bi-women have biphobia cause that makes all the sense 🥴
I’m not sure how saying that a bi woman is obviously straight because she had an obsession with “ding dongs” could be anything less than biphobic.
Isn’t her obsession with “ding dongs” and her girl crushes proof of her being bi though? I’m not upset that Joyce is bi it’s just upsetting how she got here. I think them making out when they were both drunk would have been a better biawaking then this mess. At least at the bare minimum she could of broken up with Joe first.
You might not be upset that she’s bi, but cf who’s comment that you applauded included the phrase “joyce (sic) is very clearly hetero” obviously is. Otherwise they would not be calling a character with years of evidence of bisexuality “clearly hetero”.
“Joyce is very clearly hetero”
Direct quote from the comment you’re applauding
At the time of her “ding dong bandit” storyline and up until very recently Joyce was firm on her I’m hetero stance. Which it’s fine if she realized she isn’t but this seems like the worst possible way for her to do so.
The post you applauded didn’t say that she identified as hetero at the time. The post you applauded said that incident is proof that Joyce is hetero implying just as another comment far above about “turning the straights gay” (requiring them to ignore years of evidence prior to this comic that Joyce was bisexual in general and that both her and Dorothy had growing romantic feelings for each other) that Joyce and Dorothy have been hetero since the start of the comic and Willis has recently decided to “turn them lesbian” for this story line. Which is text book biphobia.
I have a problem with the cheating and the tastelessness too, but the “Joyce is straight actually” thing is not it. You can be boy crazy AND like girls. I’ve seen plenty of real life people fall into this category. Also, being bi doesn’t mean you like both exactly the same. You can prefer one or the other.
I, for example, prefer other women over men. I’m more girl crazy than boy crazy most of the time. But that doesn’t mean I DON’T like men. I have days where men are the only thing I can think about.
I don’t think the comic portrayed them being queer before the latest arcs particularly well, but they ARE queer whether you like it or not.
Also, I don’t like the implication that Willis would only make two female characters sapphic for fanservice. Queer women are not a porn category.
+5000
I agree, since bisexuality only exists as a porn category Joyce’s obsession with ding dongs is proof positive that she could only be straight and Willis is changing that with no reason so the woman who once looked at a woman’s breasts and marveled that she could curl up in them and be warm and safe forever is now suddenly a lesbian instead of straight like she has been from the start of the comic until just now (because as we’ve established bisexuality does not exist).
How dare he suddenly make the straight girl Joyce who has never shown evidence of crushing on a bad ass girl with a motorcycle suddenly a lesbian!
My sarcasm is obvious enough it doesn’t need tagged right?
No, see, Sal is a black woman. That’s masc-coded enough that a straight woman would absolutely be attracted to her
/SARCASM
” joyce is very clearly hetero, obsessing about dongs since the beginning of the strip”
Joyce has been fascinated by other women’s breasts and hair since the beginning of the strip, too. By your logic, she is “very clearly lesbian”.
Or, y’know, bi.
Are they twirling, or is Willis rotating the view? I think the latter but am not sure.
I don’t like it! (Cheating, not lesbians)
I’m sure it’ll make for good drama. Lots of characters do things I don’t like! Hopefully it turns out to be interesting.
It’s a great day . I’m a little surprised by how much this touched me.
So have all the people outraged over the cheating forgotten the time that Joyce got Jacob to cheat on Raidah?
Just saying if this is your line you should have left ages ago
Everyone involved in that acknowledged that it was bad and shouldn’t have happened. Jacob particularly avoided Joyce because of how bad it was, then Joyce felt awful for days.
I don’t like how triumphant this seems in comparison.
It’s not finished yet.
Well you see it’s just happened right this moment and this is a serialized one-per-day comic
There are things that will happen after this
Joyce was trash for that and she’s trash for this too.
Many of us were assuming that Joyce learned and grew from that incident, as she seemed to have been.
More reason to hate Joyce
Joyce was narratively punished by having her chance with Jacob foreclosed upon.
Oh this is absolutely not my line, but it can be something I dislike, just like back then.
Joyce, you have misunderstood Be Gay, Do Crimes, isn’t supposed to be this literal! It is a joke!
while it’s sure been meme’d out of literal meaning in a lot of spaces……. Be Gay Do Crimes is often really supposed to be that literal!
it’s that literal in, IIRC, 93% of all countries on Earth!
If you are a coward.
Call me Marie Kondo, ’cause this mess sparks joy.
That’s the way to put it. Messy? Sure. Am I rubbing my hands like fly? Yes.
Sometimes I feel like the only one who’s here because she just thinks they’re a cute couple, rather than a source of chaotic drama and Discourse(tm) qwq
But then there’s Jocelyne, so I know I’m not alone ^w^
Also no, I really don’t see this as being an issue of the ladies being unfaithful. Up until now they’ve been just as dishonest with themselves and each other about how they felt about one another, but I guess some folks see the brief or unstable relationships with their boyfriends as more “real” than this one, which has been building for the entire comic. And it’s not like any of them are married or anything, as long as they’re honest about this, it’s fine.
Also no, men don’t need women to be faithful to them as a reason to improve or have character development
We’re not rewards. Except maybe to our girlfriends =w=
I like this a lot. I also do think they’re a really cute couple and I want them to succeed, but I think the current way they’re getting together is ALSO going to cost a lot and create a mess and I am HERE for that.
They’re allowed to be two things. More than two things if they want.
Ah! This is pretty much my sentiment exactly, thanks for saving me some typing!
There are just what feel like probably a lot of teenagers/early 20s in these comments that haven’t had a whole lot of long term relationships. Yes, this sucks and is regrettable to pan out this way, no it is not unrealistic nor character assassinations nor does it damn these characters. This comic is not about effect fully realised people, this comic is about dumb people with messy drama having to change and solidify their adult identities through painful lessons.
I hadn’t shipped jorothy at all, not that I wouldn’t have, I was just myopically distracted by finally getting Joece from having liked it for years since It’s Wally flirted with the notion. The result I most grimace at as a consequence of this is potentially building up another Joe-Rachel relationship, I’ve enjoyed exploring other dynamics (or reinventing the old ones, as with Robin and Leslie, I still will ship them forever tbh).
Not to hijack this comment for the “gravity of the backdrop” discourse, but Willis has time and again wanted to be Good Person without fully getting all the Nuance of a thing, then realising the weakness and putting more effort into it. I would not be surprised if this is where Jorothy came from, I reflect on the insertion of Leslie Bean, the Lesbian, which was absolutely a joke about tokenism and a good natured attempt to diversify the cast that Willis then doubled down and committed to deepening/expanding, and now she’s one of the most beloved characters in either comic universe. I am sure the bulmeria protest is meant to be Willis opening up the topic to show support, as outside of leftist echo chambers there *really* isn’t a consensus of universal support on this issue, especially in the US where this is based. Since Willis is always writing things ages ahead of time, the choice of an alias for the issue may be an attempt to future proof, it may also be to try to address the collective experience that being a sheltered white American who has grown up seeing protests and disproportionate police/military response has been like, much like the Becky kidnapping felt a clear attempt to echo the feelings around gun violence and school shootings. The author isn’t prescient or all knowing, they’re an ex-evangelical from the Midwest striving to be a better individual and make comics and talk about transformers/batman. As with jorothy and cheating, the backdrop is a well intentioned mess that has promise for future nuanced realisation, even if it isn’t currently seeming executed in a way fitting for the gravity of the real world situation presently.
One final note, I remember years ago there was cheating discourse and I don’t even remember about what tbh, and my response had been “it’s juvenile to think starting one relationship before another is finished is a death sentence for all relationships and friendships involved”, the real world is what you make of it and these kids are teenagers, they will absolutely do dumb stuff, it’s best not to consume media hoping for perfect characters who would do everything you would do in an ideal world with total knowledge and personal development on lock.
“Also no, men don’t need women to be faithful to them as a reason to improve or have character development
We’re not rewards”
OOHH
Cool motive. Still CHEATING
HELL YEAH
Well, It Aint Called Smarting Of Age!
Nobody listen to Sarah, no matter how right she is.
I had totally forgotten this!
… which is no surprise, because I’ve been reading since It’s Walky! and have forgotten almost everything ever.
so conflicted here because i feel so so so bad for Joe but i’m incredibly happy at the same time that they have finally just …gone and done it.
Yeeah, lets glorify cheating just because its two girls….
Right?
How about we wait and see if there are any narrative consequences to this before we accuse this of glorifying cheating
I would argue the narrative framing of it — hell, even the visual composition of these last few strips — is glorifying it. Framing it as a triumphant moment, even if there’s an “uh oh” in there.
The immediate comparison is when Joyce and Jacob kissed. It was not like this.
Not as over the top as this – we didn’t get the clouds of pink tear gas/flowers and the like, but when it happened an awful lot of the commentariat bought that kiss as the start of a new relationship. Which then promptly exploded two strips later.
We’ll see where this one goes.
I interpret the glorification as a Joyce POV thing, because it feels glorious and triumphant for her right now.
To say the comic and Willis are glorifying it, I’d like to see what happens next. It would be glorifying if this were the end of the strip, but we have a lot of comic and recontextualization left.
(I strongly think there will be narrative fallout and big changes for Joyce’s POV that heavily recontextualize this moment.)
Yeah lets, it is very fun
I used to see this kind of glorification when boys are the protagonists.
Do you think Hannibal glorifies cannibalism
Over here watching The Menu and then writing a 46:37 long video essay about how it glorifies rich people and “high cuisine”
Okay I’ve made this joke a million times but, I’m gonna say it unironically. I feel sympathy for the The Menu guy! I’d kill them all, too!
The burger scene is my favorite part of that movie, and ties everything together very nicely. Without that part, I don’t think the movie would be as enjoyable, especially the second time around.
It’s such a powerful statement about how the wealth class of society warps all of the most basic aspects of human life, in whatever deranged way best strokes their egos and suits their needs, even at the expense of the real, physical reality underlying the basic needs that they are perverting with excess and vanity.
Not my dumbass almost going “YEA :D” ;_;
i wonder how many of the folks here that are really mad at the possibility of this falling into the “cheating bi trope/stereotype” might be misinterpreting what i find to be the most tyring of all literary tropes “the love triangle must always be there” trope. it is honestly one of the most frustrating tropes in fiction to me personally. WHY DOES ALL STORIES INVOLVING ANY FORM OF A ROMANTIC PLOT HAVE TO INVOLVE LOVE TRIANGLES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! thankfully willis has mostly avoided the worst parts of it (SOOOO MANY MANGA fucking have a character introduced for the only reason of forcing the creation of a triangle, i have probably stopped reading 50-100 manga/books cause all of a sudden a new character is introduced whose entire character and personallity is “fuck this healthy growing relationship between 2 people i have never seen before cause one of them is hot, and for some reason no one questions why i would do this, or the main characters let this person cause unnecessary conflict that could (and in the real life relasinships i have been in/close to would be headed off by a 2 min conversation by those in the relasionship and that would be and has been the end of it, and almost all of those situations happened before i was 21)
now i am not saying that is happening here, nor would i likely walk away if it happened here willis had forshadowed this for 15 years, all of the characters have been present the whole time (eccept jocelyne who is addmitedly only in the most horny of love triangle ships). also this stripis all about relationship drama so some tryangles and polycules and manage a 3 style oroboros srtyle everyone will have had sex with everyone else by the end of this stories are what we are here for.
>why do so many romance stories have love triangles?
It’s a tried and true way to introduce dramatic tension. Kind of like how so many love songs are about breakups or how so many action movies are about revenge.
i find it extremely lazy, especially when there isnt one to start with, i am not referring to the myriad of 3 childhood friends/coworkers/unholy arrangedmarriage competition bs, but the frequency in which serialized/longerform fiction will have the 2 mains get together(over 1000pages/30-50 chapters) and not 1 week later a new hire/transfer student shows up and for no reason other than the author doesnt know how to continue finding romantic tension decides to have them try to steal one from the other, like you spent 1 year of their time together building the trust to get to the point of try to start a life together, and some rando will appear and actually become a threat to the relationship, like for me if a stranger could step in and cause real issues between the mains, i lose the ability to believe their feelings for eachother were anything but fleeting and therefor do not find the future relationship believeable. like this get fucking stuffed into action manga, like the mains already have enough going wrong in their lives that a rando causing romantic tensions for no reason other than its expected to be there.
Also, another thing to consider is, by having two romantic interests in your romantic story, you’re giving the readership two distinct options for a paramour, such that at least one of them ticks at least some of the reader’s boxes. If you only have one paramour, there’s a chance that some readers won’t find that specific guy sexy, which means they have zero reason to be invested in the work.
By deliberately injecting two options, both of them different enough as to effectively contrast one another, you’re more likely to be offering your reader a reason to actually enjoy your book, as intended. It’s just marketing and capitalism, babey. The Love Triangle is romance novels’ answer to Brand Extensions.
I like the author LC Mawson’s solution to the love triangle issue in her books. Everyone angsts about it for a couple books and then they all decide to do polyamory about it. Everybody wins!
On one hand, good for them, on the other that uh… that’s going to cause some relationship issues
Yeah. This is a bummer for Joe, Walky, AND Becky, in a kind of roundabout way.
Oh, gawd.. I just remembered Becky is Dorothy’s roommate. What a mess.
Yeah this really kind of blows up the core friend group.
I would not be surprised if it didn’t. Walky has “been known” about Dorothy and Joyce for a long time, and Joe isn’t really in the “friend group”. Walky might be hurt but he will live. Joe may be devastated but ah well that’s the price we pay for delicious homosexuality.
Joe will devolve into Depressed Joe, enter into a really self-destructive relationship with Rachel but manage to keep it together (focusing on school lets him forget about ~the pain~) and slowly fade out of everyones’ lives.
i think joe will cope by sitting on walky and eating walky whole with his butt, like a freaky butt snake
I really think people have pretty been consistently overestimating Wally’s self-esteem.
uh oh!
What’s all this, then?!? I expected Steve eating cereal.
What’s this, a Questionable Content joke in my DumbingofAge?
Insert “spelling Marten incorrectly” comment here…
Welp, I guess Walky and Joe have to kiss now to even it out.
fifteen HUNDRED comments. Good lorb.
To anyone else interested what could have caused so much commentation:
50% of it is a rehash of the same stuff that has been the hubbub in this comment section for the past month or so. The other 50% is what you would expect from The Kiss of Destiny finally happening.
Excuse you it’s the Kiss of Chaos, get the name right
(Teasing)
Chaos, Destiny, same difference.
Chaos is just deconstructed destiny, as if the universe fucked up the recipe half-way, and then presented it to the judges in separate piles of the components, as if they meant to serve it like that the whole time.
I have a pretty good news for you:
BE GAY DO CRIMES
Lmao the comments really do get worse as you go down
I thought I was in the thick of it, good Lord, no, this is the full crashout zone. Queerphobia. Personal assaults. No True Scotsman everywhere.
T- 4 hours to lockdown.
That’s a good sum up. Sheesh. All of that over a fictional story about some dumb college kids. People are wild.
Queerphobia for saying “hey dont cheat on your partner”?
Lmao that’s not remotely what I mean and you know it, buddy, I’ve seen you getting het up both here and in Patreon. I hope you can chill out about this and I refuse your bait.
Ill definitely chill out after this arc is over and the mess has settled i have no doubt.
Good plan refusing the bait.
I’m a true Scotsman!
(Joe –
– Scotsman!)
I have been waiting for this for like the last year of the comic. The last panel where they go back in after realizing what they’ve done is why I can forgive you for breaking my heart every few weeks.
some of these people could literally watch The Graduate, and come away saying “I can’t believe the whole point of the movie, was that grooming and cheating are good ideas!”
No, cheating is not a good thing. These two were already there though. But as a queer person, watching this slow burn gently approaching a boil, watching Dorothy deny herself that her feelings are even real, not even knowing if Joyce is feeling it the same way, watching Dorothy throw away so much of herself trying to ignore it, it’s incredibly satisfying to see them both dive gleefully into their feelings for each other.
And yes, it’s messy. It was always going to be, because THIS IS A DRAMA COMIC. So having the story build to an incredible climactic moment in multiple meanings is really brilliant storytelling. No matter what happens going forward, people are getting hurt, either emotionally or physically, and that sucks for the characters. But the moments of truth finally hitting all at once is SATISFYING. That’s not a moral or ethical judgement, it’s a just a queer person enjoying a good bit of storytelling about queer joy. It very frequently doesn’t happen that way, especially in stories written by straight folk.
Of course, if it turns into another “kill your gays” trope I don’t know that there is a power in the world that will keep Indiana safe from queer vengeance.
Man. I fucking hate this. It’s like the shit cherry on top of a storyline I fucking hate. This has absolutely tanked the enjoyment and interest I have in this webcomic. It’s just so great to see characters I have really liked be this fucking shitty. As an extra bonus, I was really happy to see Joyce and Joe get together, a ship I have been wanting to see since reading the storyline in Its Walky!, and I was really happy to see Dorothy and Walky getting back together because I really enjoyed them as a couple and was sad to see them breakup. And now this has fucking ruined all of that, because no matter what happens after, I cannot enjoy those couples anymore. Either they’re gonna break up or they’re gonna stay together when they shouldn’t and this is gonna be hanging over the relationships like a stain. Bleh.
Hard agree on all accounts. I hate everything these 2 idiots have been doing. I really LIKE Joe/Joyce and Dorothy/Walky
Sorry straights, this comic is for the gays.
Better luck next time I guess
Didnt realize being gay made cheating okay
Who said it did? Explicitly, in terms you’re not twisting to serve your narrative?
Also, the artist who drew your avatar used to be friends with Shadman, and in 2014 when the image was posted, she was hanging out with a bunch of animators who constantly made jokes about rape, pedophilia, racism, homophobia, and she was joining in. If we’re gonna take implications as explicit facts and evidence of other humans’ wrongdoing, you’re condoning that behavior by extension, since you’re using the picture of your own free will.
TBH I know actually nothing about the artist who made this. I set this like 8 years ago and it was smth I stumbled across reading Avas demon.
So actually thanks for letting me know, I’ll actually get around to changing my PFP now. <3
Meet Bob, an OC of mine and one not drawn my someone problematic.
Granted, that was all a decade ago, and I don’t believe in condemning people now over things they did then. I was mainly being illustrative by bringing up her past associations, which I admit I wouldn’t know about if I hadn’t listened to the podcasts where she said all that stuff.
Glad to hear I’m not the only one who hasn’t loved the current storyline. Not as bummed about the kiss, but I’m not invested in ships so like, checks out
Bye then.
“Checks out” meaning “it checks out that Sol would care more given that they lost their ship”, not meaning “I’m checking out.” In it for the long haul baybee
Nadamás was replying to Sol, not you <3 The threads get tricky sometimes.
yeah, it would really benefit from just having a single-pixel solid line downwards from the bottom corner of every gravatar, so you didn’t have to like…position your mouse exactly, and scroll, to figure out who the fuck is replying to whom.
georgetakeiohmy.jpg
Welp, I’m gonna hate these characters for awhile.
“Uh oh” is right. As much as I do like both Joyce and Dorothy, this is gonna be a VERY sticky mess. (Well, I mean Joe would proooobably be OK with something like a throuple as far as the sex is concerned, but I’m not sure how his recent emotional development would take it.)
You know, I think now’s the time to switch POV to another set of characters for the next 3, 4 weeks, or maybe months.
SteveDina, eating cereal.Or it’s just Steve eating cereal!
Dina and Steve eating cereal, because they’re distant cousins or something, idk.
Dina went to dinosaur camp with the spy lady that Steve divorced. Dina appreciates his willingness to be infodumped with dinosaur facts. It was the same reason the russian spy lady was so into him.
yup. sounds about right.
yup. sounds about right.
I will reach through this screen and strangle you, I swear to GOD.
Honestly, I am angry at both Joyce and Dorothy. This isn’t “cute” this is cheating. They are both being incredibly unfair to their partners.
And quite frankly, at this point, I hope their relationship crashes and burns. Being queer doesn’t make cheating okay.
Delicious. I’m eating good food tonight.
Damned if that ain’t the most romantic thing in the comic so far. Especially considering the Ruth1:16 quote a moment ago. Fingies crossed for polyamorous arrangement – I imagine both Joe and Walky would be more open to it than most
But honestly, Joyce and Dorothy seem like they’re in LOVE love with each other, in a deeper way than either of their hetero relationships. Oh gods, poor Becky though.
Popping in from the Patreon comments out of morbid curiosity. Just know I have 0 moral opinions on this unless you count “these two are stupid lil babies and dotty is the whitest teenest lib to ever white teen lib”, which is an observation, not a criticism. I think her first radical political act being making a protest against genocide all about her and her angst is perfect and hilarious. De-libbing is a slow process, she’s doing her best
It’s a lot better than how other libs try to make genocide all about their feelings, like a certain very disappointing statement from a certain very well educated creator who can’t seem to separate “people care about genocide and want it to stop” from babyleft teenagers getting mad at her on twitter
I still have no idea what liberal even means not matter how many times it’s been explained to me.
it’s because, historically, someone has always opposed the idea of liberalism, and so both liberals and anti-liberals have a long tradition of constantly redefining what “liberal” means, at every point in the historical context.
Sounds confusing!
Liberal means “stuff I don’t like”, except to liberals.
also, many of the people who secretly aren’t liberals, love to masquerade as liberals, because you get kicked out of less bars that way
It’s more or less Dorothy’s statement from a few strips back of “ask for rights politely but don’t rock the boat.” I’m so proud of her for breaking out of it
I’m wondering what the Venn diagram on “straight” and “mad about infidelity in a fictional month-old relationship” is for our readership here… because whoooo boy some of these comments.
Hey let’s be fair here, queer people are just as capable of having bad takes as straight people
Yeah, like are we gonna pretend I’m not even here?
Oh I know, I live on Bsky.
Thankfully bluesky is good for me because i never go outside of the people i follow who are all vool and only have good takes.
I forgot cheating is okay if it’s in a new relationship
Hey, do me a favor, don’t reply to me anymore. I’ve read your comments from today and yesterday and I’m not interested in what you have to say.
Oh and your comments from two days ago too, can’t forget those.
Cheating is ok if you send a written request to the judge for ‘takesy-backsides’ within 30 days of the initial violation otherwise it’s ground for legal sanction
There are plenty of non-straight folks here who are not ok with this cheating. For example I’m bi and I dislike this because it’s cheating.
Cool, this comment wasn’t about you tho!
expecting the performative moral panic crowd to understand that not literally every thing they hear, read, or see is about them, is always going to be a losing battle.
Or for them, for that matter.
Just so you know, the relationship is way less than a month old. It’s maybe nine days old at this point?
That only bolsters my point lmao.
Yeah, I wasn’t saying it to disagree with you, just straight up to strengthen your argument. I’m on your side in this.
Oh yeah I get you.
Honestly these comments feel like the inevitable collision of a legion of cis dudes bringing their own culturally-Christian morality that they refuse to question or examine with the rabid moral OCD and inability to separate fiction from reality of Tumblr, and it’s really sad. And also really funny. But mostly kind of frightening because it’s a scenario I keep seeing get played out across all sorts of media and I think it’s a canary in the coalmine for the coming media illiteracy apocalypse.
There’s a decent amount of overlap I’m betting. I’ve been wondering all day what the ratio of “people loudly angry about the cheating” and “people who are hiding their homophobia under loudly moralizing” overlap is, tbh.
I’d bet big money that it’s at least 60%.
I actually don’t think this is a charitable take. Most of the homophobia being displayed, is clearly internalized stuff that needs to be consciously unpacked, and not examples of devoted bigots trying to sneak in their agenda.
I’m not saying it’s not wrong to call it out! But you’re misrepresenting them a little bit by doing it the way you are.
Not as much as they’re misrepresenting everybody else, mind you! But, like, I do think we can try not to let our justified criticisms go even dumber than theirs.
I disagree that it’s “most,” personally. There are a lot of queer commenters in here for reasons that might be obvious, but a lot of commenters also seem to be cis men of a variety of sexualities but leaning straight and while I’m not here to make value judgments based on broad categories, these people do seem to be the driving factor behind the tenor of these comments.
“I’ve been wondering” means I don’t know how much there is. My take is “I wonder” not “This is definitely a huge number of people”. I wasn’t even calling it out lmao I was just thinking out loud.
I should have run screaming from the comments section today.
a lot of people in these comments have been real quick to say this is biphobic (in another comic I could see the argument but not in the context of DoA where most characters are queer + struggling w relationships does not discriminate lol) or glorifying cheating when we haven’t even see the fallout from this yet or if/how they tell their partners. And anyway, it’s not Smarting of Age, I fully expect these characters to make rash decisions via emotion (which is a believable thing for someone their age to do). like this isn’t the pairing I was rooting for as a relationship paladin, but I’m still interested in seeing how these characters handle things once emotions calm down.
this yeah
And now it’s absolutely cheating. ick. Great that they’re figuring themselves out, but still ick that they’re both cheating on their SOs
What I’m specifically curious about is I thought I recalled Willis saying that definitively Joyce is not bi in any way, she is 100% hetero. Did I misremember that? Curious if he changed his mind as the characters developed, or was this part of the plan all along and I either misremembered him saying that or maybe he said it slightly different that I remember – like maybe she’s not bi, but she’s pan or something like that?
I don’t know if he said that or not, but he did say that he wasn’t going to kill any of the cast and then Mike happened. I find it hard to believe though that Joyce “Warm and Safe Forever” Brown was ever intended to be 100% hetero.
I think the “warm & safe forever” was when he reiterated that Joyce was 100% hetero. If I recall correctly, a bunch of us were like, “Warm & Safe forever? Oh! Joyce is Bi?” And Willis came in and reiterated nope, she’s not, she’s hetero or maybe it was someone else who came in and linked or referenced a post he had made about Joyce being hetero?
But yes, you’re right about the “no one is going to die” statement and then Mike happened.
Another thing to remember is that Joyce is semi-autobiographical and I seem to recall Willis having a realization about their own 100% heteroness (or lack thereof) later than that strip. Unless I’m confusing that with the realization that resulted in their pronouns being he/they.
Most definitely something to be taken into consideration and part of the reason I wondered if he changed his mind somewhere along the line. Mainly I’m curious if this was always the plan and I just misremembered the way he phrased some things or if the plan changed due to self-discovery and/or the characters’ world not evolving the way that was originally envisioned.
And to be clear, I’m not saying he is obligated to stick to the original plan, I’m just curious about his process as a writer.
I’ve been rereading the comic from the start and, along it, reading the backlog of Willi’s Tumblr and the Patreon. I’ve also been glancing at the comment section for most pages, (but admittedly I am not paying that close attention to those).
Anyway, I am arriving at 2017 and I have yet to see Willis make such a statement, or anyone else commenting on said statement. And I am getting close to where Willis claimed he made the decision of Joyce and Dorothy getting together, so I suspect you are misremembering something, or maybe you extrapolated too much from what Willis did say.
Probably a good reason for the arc to be called ‘The Only Exception’ lmao
So, Joyce and Dorothy have kissed each other on the mouth, despite both being in relationships with boys. That’s gonna be messy when they get home.
It’s too bad this is the last strip that will ever exist. What a grand finale, of a little disappointing with how many threads are left in the air.
yeah, it was a really weird take for the author to just end the whole strip on the premise that cheating is morally okay. shame that there will be absolutely no chance for him to clarify that, in any way. this is truly the thesis statement of the entire comic’s run, laid bare, and there’s no other reasonable expectation or interpretation.
I was initially going to say “Oh no, poor Joe!” but I honestly don’t know what he reaction would be if he saw this lol
I just hope Joyce will be honest, because we all know she can’t keep a secret very well
(Joyce stammering): “Joe, I… have to talk to you”
(Joe, wanting to hear it from her): “OK, go on”
Joyce: “My feelings have been incredibly mixed up, and I kissed Dorothy.”
Cop behind desk: “Look, whatever; just keep her out of trouble, OK?”
Joe: “Sure. (turns to Joyce, smiles sadly) I saw the two of you on the news. We can talk about it once we get you out of here…”
God, I hadn’t even considered what it would look like if she tried to keep it a secret lmfao.
Dorothy, Joyce and Walky could form a polycule. Joyce and Walky have a good relationship in another universe before Dorothy appeared.
I’m 100% here for it and have created a helpful visual for how it could look.
Joe
Joyce ↔️ Dorothy 
Walky
you forgot to have Joe and Walky banging. The ouroboros isn’t complete, nor are my ships.
Joyce and Walky have a good relationship now. Like, not a romantic one, but they are friends. Some people are under the impression they actually hate each other, but the two have consistently hang out even outside Dorothy for months. It is not that crazy to think the two could “share” Dorothy in a polycule even if the two don’t get involved with each other. I believe it more than Dorothy accepting Joe, tbh.
That said, I do kinda want Walky to be hurt by the cheating and for things to not be solved easily. I want Joyrothy to keep strong, but I also I want consequences, I want the drama.
I have no words for say how beautiful this strip is. The long building of Joyce and Dorothy’s relationship, this explosion of feeling in the most dramatical way and situation. “Dumbing of age” is one of the better written strip of all times
On the one hand, I really did love Joe and Joyce together, so I mourn that ship.
On the other hand, I have plenty of faith that the emotional fallout of all this is going to be disastrous for many of the characters, which will be, honestly, S-tier entertainment. Which is really what we’re all here for, innit?
Beautiful strip. But considering at least two other…well…ONE other life, is just about to be crushed underfoot because of this…yeah. I’m done, I think.
Also, cmon. Wally ain’t gonna be too upset and just move on with his own life on literally three minutes. But Joe? Who completely changed himself for love? Yeah. He’s gonna be crushed. And I don’t like that, not one bit.
Im calling it now: Joe will be reasonable, because that’s in character for him. But he will crashout on liquor and casual sex a lil
Everyone involved has been dating less than a month. Saying lives are going to be crushed seems a massive over statement. Yeah it’s going to be a rough few weeks, maybe a month or so, and then they’ll move on.
The problem is a month in this comic is like three years. So that’s just gonna be the story for a while. Yay. Relationship drama and fallout. Whooooo…..
I mean to them it’ll be a couple weeks, for us?
That all depends on if Willis chooses to do another time skip I guess
Which has nothing to do with whether or not this will “ruin lives”. Unless there are readers who are in such a bad mental place it will ruin their lives but it’s on them to manage their own media consumption not the author to only write what they can tolerate.
I really, really feel like it’s way too soon to get another time skip. This is a moment of the story that we really should be forced to live in, at least for a while.
This is true, but also for a lot of people this is their first real romantic relationship. Getting cheated on can have a big, lasting effect on how people trust.
Lmfao, Joyce’s sister in the background like “YOO GET IT SIS”
Honestly Jocelyne’s reaction confuses me, not even a minute ago she was telling Dorothy she should leave and now the situation has gotten objectively worse with Joyce also likely to get arrested, which Jocelyne said would only make things worse for her.
She shouldn’t be standing there smiling, she should be attempting to physically drag them to safety saying “this is all very nice but can you have these moments of self discovery somewhere safe”
If I had to make a guess, she’s too excited by it to think logically at all. This is just her immediate reaction.
Like, three days ago, she wasn’t sure if her beloved baby sister had done enough unpacking of the cult nonsense they suffered through for their whole lives, to not immediately disown her for being a queer woman. Which was a legitimate concern. And now, she’s seeing that same sister, speedrun through the dogma that could have easily destroyed their relationship, and going head-first into literally being her queer sister.
The feeling of relief that Jocelyn isn’t going to lose her little sister over who she is, and that her little sister will ultimately be a safe person to be a part of her chosen family, is briefly overwhelming her prior justified fear of watching her little sister get murdered by a riot cop.
All I’m saying is, give the girl five to ten seconds to enjoy serendipity. She’ll go back to being the responsible adult in just a moment.
I wish I had never read this strip.
… so that I could read it and get the instant of bliss I got when I read it first time.
exactly my feelings towards first learning about the existence of Dina Saruyama 🥰🥲
Try refreshing the page. It works for me. It’s especially effective if you go do something boring, and then come back, and remember this exists.
OMGOMGOMGOMGOMGOMGOMGOMG-i mean “doing the laundry” together as friends was too freaking weird so this makes a lot of sense now but anyway- OMGOMGOMGOMGOMGOMGOMGOMGOHMYGOSHOMGOMGOMGOMG
ALLONS ENFANTS DE LA PATRIIIIIIIE
LE JOUR DE GLOIRE EEEEEST ARRIVÉ
Jocelyne is a sicko, we should have known. (We did know.)
I confess I had never heard of Dumbing of Age. I found it – randomly – on Kickstarter recently and saw there was a trans character, so did the Kickstarter. Why not? A couple of weeks ago I got my reward – all of the books to date. So I read them all, right from the start.
Today I finished the last book, so came to the website to read the comics that came after the last book, to catch up to “now”.
This was that comic.
Welcome to the club!
Over 1700 comments. Can we break 2k by midnight?
(*insert meme: Starship Troopers, “I’m doing my part!”)
This is now the most commented on strip by over 100 comments, and we’re still going, good work everybody.
Everyone else finally pulling their weight around here.
We may all have different opinions on this page but we can all agree.
It’s a page worth talking about
100%.
Also may I applaud you for chilling out? I’m glad you’re sticking around, I hope the comic rewards you for it.
“Never thought I’d [get to 2.5k comments] fighting side by side with a [Sicko].”
“What about side by side with a friend.”
“Aye, I could do that.”
Only 1,700+ comments at this time? C’mon people you can do better! WE can be better! (go fer 2,000!) Reject the binary; be BOTH the uhoh and ohyeah!
If there’s a binary, you better believe I’m rejecting the fuck out of it.
I approve of [1] the Jorothy kissin’ (since Joyce initiatified, we use her morpheme first) and [2] the pink-all-round motif. You are motifated. That is good.
My rejection of the binary (on International Non-Binary People’s Day) is that I’m going “uh oh” and grinning about. Not squealing because I’m not a particular shipper of these two (I don’t object to it, it’s just not one I’m heavily invested in), but excited for the character/relationship developments and drama this singles, in the webcomic I read for character/relationship developments and drama.
This is going to be televised and that’s how her dad, mum, boyfriend, etc are going to see it
Ab-so-damn-lutely. If it ain’t so, we’re gonna be disappointed. Drone camera footage; breathless newscaster talkin’ about gay gals snoggin’ in the middle of a protest / mass arrest.
headline: “woke students have gay orgy while helpless cops beaten by alleged superhero”
i implore all college students: be the change we want to see in the world XD
So yer sayin’ college students these days gotta do more orgying and public-kissing in protests? Well okay. Ya talked me into it.
Don’t forget about superheroes putting cops in the hospital! That’s actually the most important part!
I mean, it doesn’t have to be superheroes doing it, but it is a good idea to conceal your identity while doing that.
“Hi, I’m bi”
An excellent response on the page proving love can bloom on the battlefield.
A friend just posted about how the gays stay winning in our discord and well. Now I guess I have to get caught up again.
okay so this is dope, this is cute, dare i say adorable. but how in the everloving fuck is there 1,770 comments about it
well, let’s see here:
1. despite all the build-up and hinting, a lot of people where apparently under the impression that Joyce x Dotty was basically a crackship
2. anticipation and speculation of the shear CHAOS this new development will lead to in the comic
3. ad nauseum CHEATER CHEATER CHEATER CHEATER accusations
4. people like me just having a time while seeing big number KEEP ON RISING!
can we see 2000+ comments by midnight????
I’ve moved on from #3 and am now just joining discussions to see if we can get that 2K
the irony is that we need all the help we can get to hit that mark, and it seems Rabbit below me rn is aware of this XD
Come on queers and beers LET’S DO IT, <150 TO GO!
We may all have different opinions on how extreme this is, and I may have over reacted a tad as I tend to do but gosh darnit Willis will hear our adoration for this giant mess he's created.
>3. ad nauseum CHEATER CHEATER CHEATER CHEATER accusations
I mean, it’s no accusations at this point. They’re actively cheating in-frame. In fact they seem to realize this, brush it off, and then do it again.
I think they’re more talking about the “anybody who isn’t expressing moral outrage to my exact standards over this fictional storyline, condones every act of real-life infidelity with extreme zealotry” crowd.
2,000 by 9:00 p.m. CST!!
Between the protest as a backdrop, Jocelyne being here at all, Joyce and Dorothy’s lead-up finally resulting in something nobody can deny happened, their boyfriends having probably some stake in this turn of events, people being genuinely unhinged about the raw concept of cheating, and then the usual “You’re all bad people if you don’t match my exact level of high-pitched hysterics on this real moral apocalypse” level of nuance, I’m not surprised at all.
yeah it’s messed up cuz like, romance amidst disaster like that happened all the fucking time in comics like X-Men, BatMan, Wonder Woman, etc,
oh so “timeless classics” in which social commentary on genocide, corruption, Civil Rights and related movements were literally baked into the property from the very get-go
the execution of the storyline has much to be desired, true, but Willis still does at the very least a preatty decent job of this in a daily webcomic format
yeah it’s messed up cuz like, romance amidst disaster like that happened all the freaking time in comics like X-Men, Batman, Wonder Woman, etc,
oh so “timeless classics” in which social commentary on g_noc!de, corruption, Civil Rights and related movements were literally baked into the property from the very get-go
the execution of the storyline has much to be desired, true, but Willis still does at the very least a pretty decent job of this in a daily webcomic format
ok but that part i do get. it’s not super sensitive. i’ve kind stopped feeling much for this comic now for a year or so, partly i was miffed that willis seemingly had nothing to say about, yeah, the genocide in gaza?!
…but now i’m wondering if he’s gonna end up treating the subject with the gravity it deserves. which btw doesn’t mean it mustn’t be funny or cute or have sexy times, but this feels like the protest is serving as a bit of a whacky backdrop. it feels cheapening.
i’m just kind of tired of being disappointed by people i appreciate(d) i guess
I mean the tear gas and established SNIPER and armed police are hardly what I’d consider “wacky”
but yeah I still very much hope “Bulmeria” ‘s atrocity is specifically highlighted for what it is — a RACIAL genocide
and of course that wealthy white US elites and imperialists for decades robbed and continue to rob both Jews and Muslims over there and let them blame each other and profit off the ongoing horrific conflict via military industrial complex, with repugnant rackets that are ABSOLUTELY UNFORGIVABLE
I am still hold hope that this plotline will carry on beyond just being a backdrop for Joyrothy. And that Asma will become an actual character alongside it.
I would like for Asma to replace Jason in all capacities.
You know, I’m interested in seeing how Asma dating Ruth would go, but I just don’t think it would work out for them.
No, please, my poor sad British baby. Let him have his minion status. ; 3;
I’m hoping that at some point soon, a camera gets shoved in Dorothy’s face, forcing her to reckon with her new media-enforced position as the Spokesperson of the Protest, while she sits there fumbling over herself because she doesn’t actually know jack shit about the protest she impulsively joined as a cope for her mental breakdown.
A lot of squealing, a couple of arguments, a few debates and a handful of shit flinging.
Milu, hey! Good to see you.
hey there! likewise =3
I wonder if 1773 … well 1774 now, comments is the most a page has ever gotten ?
Yes.
By over a hundred.
Wheeeeeeeeee
I don’t have anything to contribute that hasn’t been said already, I just felt like adding to the comment count… 1780s and climbing!
If this had been going on as a film I’d have been yelling at the screen that the two of them (Dorothy especially) are acting like kids dooming themselves in a slasher flick, but luckily this isn’t that kind of story. We got here in a manner that kept me wincing, but my ship is now underway, so I shake my fist at the torpedoes and all of that…
And this officially the most commented on strip of the whole comic! That is good right? Right?!
Lol, I came here to make this exact joke.
No fair! You changed the outcome by measuring it!
There were a couple of strips that potentially could have matched it, but the comments were pre-emptively disabled. Thankfully.
You can organize strips by comment count, and the 3rd one have its comments locked. Who know where it would have gone if it was left open (given the subject of the strip, though, I think I can guess why it wasn’t)
https://www.dumbingofage.com/category/comic/?orderby=comment_count
Wonder if we’ll get to the 2000 mark.
Aaaaand we have.
I don’t have strong feelings on the shipping discourse of it all but I do feel like putting in my two cents as someone of Palestinian descent. Over the past few years I’ve observed a certain disconnect between the genocide as a reality of the world I’ve been aware of since I was a child, and the genocide as a moment in American leftist politics. And this storyline makes sense when viewed through the lens of the latter but it is utterly surreal with the former perspective. I don’t feel offended exactly, more alienated. Like, oh, I’m not in the target audience for this, huh.
I do also have to say using a fictional country name as a stand-in feels especially weird here when the name “Palestine” being verboten is a part of the struggle. That’s how the cultural aspect of genocide works, make everything about it a taboo. The more awareness the more this is counteracted–hence this comment. I realize not invoking the name feels more tasteful, but… Distinct cons to this route as well.
Yeah. october 7 was not so much a discontinuity as an intensification… There’s a line by comedian Amer Rahman to the effect that a tactic of colonisers everywhere is to start the timeline when it’s convenient for them. I’ll try to find it.
Free Palestine
ah yes, there it is.
“Democracy by itself is three wolves and a sheep deciding what’s for dinner.”
— Socrates, pretty sure
But try telling that to my relatives who called me a “race traitor” and have functionally disowned me at this point
alienating is an incredibly apt way of putting it. like, as a dumbing of age fan i’m very much down for a lot of the future storylines being set up right now, but as someone who comes from sudanese diaspora it feels like another case of my reality as an arab american not being enough to really matter, even when the narrative is being sympathetic to arab conflict and traumas. I can only imagine how much stronger that feeling is in your case, and that must really suck.
Yes, exactly. I found your comments up there resonated a lot too. It’s such an odd kind of mixed feeling. Anticipating the in-strip drama nonetheless. We’ll see where this goes.
I am pretty jazzed about the shipping drama aspects and the character interplay, as my posts earlier in this wild ride indicate, but like, the whole Bulmeria thing has felt really…w e i r d from the jump! Like, I love Jocelyne but when she started talking about being here for a clear stand-in-for-Palestine-related protest I felt a shudder run down my spine, like, damn, are we really doing that???
And then when it became more of a pure background allegory I confess I got slightly more okay with it, but actually going to Dunn Meadows has been the weakest link of this entire storyline. It’s weird! It’s been a weird choice.
(In case my dumb ADHD ass is jamming my foot into my mouth I am not saying BOOOOO NO POLITICS IN MY WEB COMIC or that the allegorical nature made things Totally Okay prior to going to the protest, I am trying to express that I understand and am in solidarity with the alienation. it is DICEY stuff, this background choice. I am glad Willis pretty clearly supports a free Palestine and an end to the genocide but there is some jank here too, and it’s worth critiquing!!)
Yeah +1 on both counts
As an American who has cared about Palestine for a long time, I wish the focus of the current story arc had been more on the protests and less on the shipping.
Just. Extending my sympathy to you.
I’ve been worried this was going to be exactly what it seems to be (an unfortunate backdrop) for weeks.
I imagine that last year, when this was written, trying NOT to write comics that featured a protest about a genocide in Dunn Meadows probably felt like death by slow suffocation, but this middle-of-the-road hedging, where it’s “not” about Gaza but it IS about a genocide and it was inevitably going to read as being about Gaza……… if there wasn’t more intention to actually address the issue…
Then Willis should have written something outside their timeline. Extra Patreon bonus strips, which would have been shared for free on the main site as blog posts, or perhaps placed on a special Patreon tier where the proceeds would go directly to an appropriate charity. Maybe some magnets featuring the cast all holding up protest signs with slogans like “Free Palestine”.
Because I absolutely recognize the narrative utility of Dorothy getting radicalized by her first student protest without her parents present, especially a protest against IU, especially one that then got shut down by police. All of that makes complete sense.
But to do that with this protest, and still center it on your largely white cast, and………..
Yeah. If this is how it was going to be handled, infinitely better I think to just provide images of all our favorite characters protesting, with the profit going to a charity that would help Palestine.
(I’m crossing my fingers for Asma to become more of a character starting now. I know she’s at a huge disadvantage: she and Raidah are both brand-new to DoA, and I’m sure Willis has some anxieties around fitting Asma into a cast full of characters they know much better. But please, please, Willis. Asma deserves better.)
Yeah that’s, honestly where I’m at with this. I understand incorporating elements of real life events into a story but, I feel like this was a poor choice given the place of the protest relative to the relationship drama going on. I think I would have preferred a fundraiser for people in Palestine and then within the comic itself having any of a myriad number of other ways to get to this point with the relationship dynamics. It’s not like there’s a shortage of issues to protest about that don’t make “notPalestine’s” circumstances a background for romance between people unconnected to it.
Yeah. (Also “NotPalestine” is a good way to refer to this.)
I’m loving the look on Jocelyne’s face, in panel 2.
Okay, NOW it’s definitely cheating.
Yeah. Cool.
As someone who shipped Joyce x Dorothy for years, I’m pretty disappointed with the way their romance played out.
The cheating is awful, of course, especially considering Joe’s trauma about his dad cheating on his mom and the fallout this caused.
Using a protest of what’s definitely a parallel to the Palestinian genocide as a backdrop for two white girls giving into their romantic feelings for each other, to the point of using teargas as a way to accentuate the “beauty” of the scene, is incredibly tasteless.
Also, I’m just totally jarred with how fast Joyce accepted her feelings for Dorothy after years of being totally clueless over it. No questioning her sexual orientation, not much (if any) internal conflict or even just thinking through whatever her feelings might be for Dorothy. It was almost completely focused on Dorothy’s own feelings and internal conflict as Joyce was kinda just pulled along for the ride, it feels like?
To put it short, I did want it to happen, but not like this.
Is it unimaginable for the backdrop to be more meaningful than “ooh how romantic this tear gas is”, and for its use to have more purpose than gay titillation?
It seemed like it was either for accentuation of the romantic scene or apparently, as I saw some commenter around here suggest, for parodying scenes in yuri manga where the girls finally kiss by having the teargas resemble cherry blossom trees? (I can see that, the resemblance is strong.)
And also, as I’ve heard POC say in this comment section, two white girls’ romance taking center stage with the backdrop of a protest that’s about people who are very not them is, at best, pretty tacky. I certainly wouldn’t argue against that as someone who’s mostly(?) white. I can see that too, considering that it seems like white people can’t stop making every danged thing about themselves all the time.
It’s an interesting situation, because while I can understand the “They’re making the protest about them” sentiment, none of the extras have given one solidarity shit that they’re there at all. Asma was unhelpful on purpose (Go, Asma), Leslie and Robin showed up for like one strip and did their schtick, and Jocelyne outright told them “This is about to escalate and you didn’t really need to come here”, but nobody else has really even acknowledged their presence. The protest hasn’t become about them. It’s no more about them than any other backdrop would have been. The cafeteria is about Joyce and Dorothy kissing, if this is. That’s a whole other angle, too. Why a barely-changed clone of an existing protest that really happened, instead of something with similar vibes that could be more broadly ignored? I have to imagine it’s all going somewhere, but I can’t really blame anyone who’s not patient enough to wait for it to be over before deciding it’s tasteless.
Hm, maybe… I dunno. I just find this odd for a lot of reasons. Like, for example, this page having the most lovingly drawn kiss in the whole comic, despite the circumstances. Seriously, I’d love this if it wasn’t the whole cheating thing piled on top of other stuff that’s been bothering me about DOA’s writing as of late.
Admittedly a small part of me is being kinda sickos.jpg about the cheating kiss thing cos I’m a sapphic weirdo, but I mostly dislike this.
I’m really excited to see what the fuck even happens after all of this. Like, this is a nightmare scenario for some people, and these two are making out in the middle of it? Fucking weirdos, but thanks to the unbelievably wild first semester and even all the mess from the start of this one, I really wasn’t expecting a normal outcome.
It’s very clearly Sakura imagery. It’s yuri.
So is Faz’s mom.
This is funny because Yuri is in fact her name.
I think these concerns are legit!
I think Willis has kept us out of Joyce’s head on purpose so far in order to prolong the dramatic tension over whether or not Joyce returned Dorothy’s feelings, though, so I think we’ll be getting more insight into her thought processes very quickly now, and that’ll make it easier to judge whether or not the writing of this makes sense: whether or not Joyce’s motivations work for us, etc.
After weeks of having no idea where her head was at, I think I’ve got a fuzzy picture now, and what I’ve imagined makes sense for me personally, but it’ll still be fair to not like that.
As for the part where this is happening the way it is, with this particular backdrop: I think that’s the fairest of fair complaints.
goddammit I thought I had another day before my cycle,
ah well, at least there still time to hit the 2000+ comment mark!
still tho ow
time to speed things up to not only break the record but basically DO A FUCKING VICTORY LAP
*plays “The Death that I Deservioli” from Pizza Tower Soundtrack on hacked muzak*
the hell, I thought that had a hyperlink, here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uvAPiELt_Oo
https://www.tumblr.com/dumbingofage/789056686007730176/just-out-of-curiosity-willis-how-long-has-this?source=share
Here for anyone who wanna know how long this been planned.
Okay, glad not to live in the universe where getting to this point took another five years.
Woof me too.
ive been reading this since the before times. im still surprised. im aware of a lot of panels where you could point at it and go see its spelled out right there! but like idk walky can make the joke that dorothy should probably have sex with joyce to mellow her out, and ill accept that and agree with him, but not expect that to happen. the two of them can be the best of best friends and id never have expected joyce to jump into her arms and kiss her. idk, im not against this but i feel like one of an extreme minority that wasnt waiting for this since ronald reagan was shot…
WTF? Why does this have so many comments? I love this, btw.
Come on, guys, we can make to 2K
Just a little over 100 comments to go until 2k and 3 hours left on the clock, will we make it?
Actually scratch this, Ive decided that the funniest outcome is Willis locking the comments at 1999, denying us 2k comments
You know what? I’m seconding this.
The Y2Komment
I finally remembered the one little detail to comment on, that I couldn’t get to stick in my head, last night!
It’s going to be the funniest thing ever, if it turns out that the only reason that Hank was trying to get Joyce’s confirmation on where Jocelyn was, was that he wants to reconnect with her after finally divorcing Carol, and he fears that Jocelyn thinks that he is as unsafe to her as Carol is.
Or, otherwise, some version of “Hank totally already knew about Jocelyn, and was only misgendering her to Joyce, because he had no way of knowing that Joyce knew about her sister.” Their entire suicide mission to protect Jocelyn at all costs, having been entirely unnecessary, based on them having incomplete information and making the wrong inferences? That would be the great cherry on top of this shuddering quagmire of rash decisions!
Oh. Oh my God that would be so sweet holy shit. I don’t know if I can fucking believe it. If we get Good Dad Hank I’ll be so fucking happy, like, him turning up to go “DAMMIT JOCELYNE BROWN WE TALKED ABOUT HOW DANGEROUS THIS WOULD BE” and angrily hug his girls
That would be peak, as the kids say
Fuck. What if on top of that, Hank knows about her website and secretly had read everything she’s written?
Joyce all trying to be a good trans ally baby and get in her dad’s face about how like it or not Joss is a grown woman and can make her own decisions, and Hank just going “I am not letting them put my goddamn daughter in a men’s prison! Not now not ever!”
Yes. Yes. YES. I’m throwing money at the screen, but nothing is happening!
Throw it harder! It’s all in the wrist!
Excellent advice! I’ll let you know if it works.
That would be amazing.
(Also I’m sorry, you’ve replied to me a LOT today and yesterday, and I haven’t replied to all of them because my reply would just be “yep” or “exactly”, so pls imagine like 40 of those replies because if I haven’t responded yet it’s because I didn’t have anything more interesting to say but you get
from me)
I guess I’m here watching all your hard work and since you’re into it, I’ll do my part to put it over the top, too.
Woo!
Doing my part to reach the 2K milestone… it just hit me, this might be the most effective marketing tactic that DYW (damn you willis) has ever done for the “see tomorrow’s strip today” bit on patreon. Well played, sir. Well played.
I mean, honestly, I think that tactic was for yesterday. We got to the big moment already, very little change tomorrow will be as epic.
Okay, but what if Joe shows up on a unicycle with a string of garlic up his ass, juggling crucifixes and wooden stakes, and he says “Oh good, you’re already kissing. Now come on, I need your help fighting these lesbian circus vampires!”
What then?
Jocelyne: “Joyce, I’m stealing your boyfriend, I cannot help but be madly in love with a boy who can unicycle with garlic up his ass”
Joyce: “God dammit there goes Julia Grey’s entire polyamory arc! Thanks for nothing, big sis!!!”
I have never wanted a non sequitur more than I do this specific one at this specific time.
And that’s the story of how Tequila Mockingbird learned that in order to close italics you need to use the backslash. C’est la vie.
I thought you just really fucking loved that mental image lmfao
I don’t want it as a mental image, I want this Azathoth-grade madness to materialize before me so that I may bear witness to its anarchic energy firsthand in a “some men just want to watch the world burn” kinda way… which might be a first for me.
I side with the lesbian circus vampires.
HEYYYY HEY how about whoever makes the 2000th comment gets a cash prize? I propose 1 (one) farthing for the lucky winner
I’ll chip in one (1) internet point.
(i’m fresh out of farthings…)
50,000 gil on the pile.
The fallout of this is going to be thermonuclear. I do not like how many people are going to get hurt having it all happen like this. Including them.
I have had time to let myself stew and I’ve decided I will NOT drop this or even let it marinate. For I am continuing to read out of a desperate, vicious hope of that sweet, sweet Schadenfreude.
The story has done really well so far with having… debatably karmic events happening to people who have done… not so debatably bad things. Especially in the bonus strips.
So I’m hoping that energy will continue. Though with my luck, the consequences won’t be as immediate or obvious as I would like.
yo i’m just glad that you have found a reason to keep reading the strip, which will let you enjoy it for what it is!
I wish you luck on that!
I still think Joyce must think this is okay with Joe, even if she’s very wrong about that, which for me would be a mitigating factor: they’ve had two conversations that were sort of about this without quite being about it, and it wouldn’t be first time she’s assumed Joe would just be uncomplicatedly happy (and horny) about something that he actually had deep reservations about.
Like, think of how much media sends the message that the words”hey, I made out with my best female friend today” is like giving your boyfriend an early birthday present?
So: that’s my “not a total cop-out” solution of the moment. That there WILL be fallout, but Joyce really and truly didn’t mean to hurt Joe.
We’ll see, of course.
Meanwhile Dorothy’s excuse is just “the thing with Walky isn’t serious so it shouldn’t be a big deal right?” which will probably just absolutely crush him.
I wonder.
She DID sort of put Walky and Joe on equal footing when she brought them up while saying “we shouldn’t do this”, but I wonder if that was actually less her morals talking and more her anxiety — her desire to rationalize her feelings away.
If it is in fact as you say, and she thinks Walky won’t actually be hurt, and she just name-dropped him and the vague concept of loyalty to their existing relationships, however new and or casual, because she wanted to stop the train.
Me: Oh wow. I don’t like this development, but this is a very pretty page and I’m glad the kids wasn’t backed out of because this was literally the best place to have it pacing wise, I’d have been sad to waste a buildup like that. I’m tired though and keep writing angry novels and I don’t have that level of commitment in me tonight. I’ll write a comment tomorrow.
Tomorrow: HOLY SHIT THAT’S ALMOST 2000 COMMENTS.
Kiss*, ugh, stupid phone.
we’re almost at 2k
1981! A good year! (well in some ways…)
First
An appropriate comment for its utter belatedness.
TWO-THOUSAND COMMENTS
WE’RE AT 2,004 COMMENTS AS OF THIS WRITING! WE DID IT, FAM! (If I knew how to post links, I’d post a link to Queen’s “We are the Champions” on the hacked muzak.)
*plays “We Are The Champions” by Queen on hacked muzak*
You have my sincere thanks, comrade.
I use this one. Simply replace the basic URL and sample text, and you’re good to go. Though if you’re gonna link a YouTube video, get rid of everything after the question mark in the URL, and also the question mark itself. I suspect they do weird algorithm shit, so they’re not to be trusted.
You also have my sincere thanks, Comrade Taffy.
Imagine after all this it gets revealed this is all a tear gas induced hallucination
3k comments minimum
if willis copped out that hard, i would actually switch sides, and throw myself in with the queerbaiting crowd, lmao
Happy post with over 2K comments, guys! I’m sure people are being completely normal!
Nothing but the most civilized trash fire here
Make sure to extend your pinkie as you huddle around the flaming dumpster.
OUR trash fire is of the highest quality.
It’s extremely human in here. All of us have skin and organs.
More organs means more human!
(also, at 2026, we have passed the current year)
Making a lot of assumptions about us here
And they’re even our skin and organs. Because they’re in our possession and that’s 9/10ths of the law.
Holy shit how did it hit 2000 comments?? The reactions are insane
It’s the strip so many people wanted and so many separate people didn’t want
The clans are at war
Now I’m just imagining that crusader bit near the end of Hellsing Ultimate.
CLAN “TRASH GOBLIN” PLEDGES 1,000 SOULS!
Even the people who didn’t want it (me) still wanted it. Just not in the way it was done
At least this time there weren’t people defending bigotry. I am pretty sure that is how the other 1400+ comments strips got that big.
Defending Ross pulling a gun on his own daughter so he can force her into a conversion camp, as one does.
And the one Mary blackmails Ruth (just after hate speeching Carla) is positioned as if it is the 3rd most commented strip in the site. We can’t see the comments anymore, but I can only imagine what they were before they got closed.
We can’t? I can see the comments on that strip.
Oh, huh, weird, so can I now. I thought I couldn’t in my current reread just a couple of days ago. I could be misremembering, but even though I can read the comments, when I look at the strips in comment count order just that one strip has the comments count hidden.
Anyway, I am not actually going to check what horrible stuff people were saying back then.
HUH?! That was a thing????
There’s actually been more than a bit of biphobia popping up.
This one strip is going to have a massive impact on everything going forward.
I’m just popping in because I wanna say I made it into the comments that broke 2k.
But just so I’m not empty handed. Here’s amber flexing.
https://imgur.com/a/hnIw7Bd
I’ve been meaning to ask if you take art requests at all because I would love to see the Yoto Take on Joe/Joyce/Dorothy as a delightful sandwich or the recently discovered Jocelyne/Joe crackship
I’ll consider it.
Eeeeeexcellent.
:O~ BIG WOMAN
A GIANT WOMAN!
All I wanna do
Is see you turn into
Both of them know there will be consequences to this. To me, the thing about making this decision to follow up on these rush of feelings has little to do with their existing relationships– Dorothy is/was backsliding with Walky; being with him again was a lie she told herself, and this thing with Joyce is closer to her truth. Joyce on the other hand is experiencing her first physical relationship with Joe, and there’s a whole mess to untangle dealing with Joyce’s emerging sense of sexuality versus intamacy, and how much Joe is involved on the spectrum between earnest love interest and sex prop. Joe has definitely fallen in love, but it’s hard to say that Joyce feels as strongly. What Joyce and Dorothy are feeling for each other, however, has been built up and reinforced for years. We know they love each other, we know they would do anything for each other, and in this moment, they decided to damn the consequences.
I *think* the fallout will be quick and sharp for Dorothy and Walky, and more drawn out for Joe and Joyce. Whether that means breakups, suggested poly routes (Joe *did* seem to be okay with the idea that Dorothy has a thing for his girlfriend), or a rift between Dorothy and Joyce as they try to salvage relationships (and friendships), it’s really hard to say how all the chips could fall. Willis is a crafty little monkey, fond of curveballs and heartbreaks, so there are likely scenes ahead we’re not considering.
Anyway, A+ shit right here.
Also, 2100 comments at 11:21 est. Yowzers.
You might be coming in late but I respect a nice piece of thoughtful analysis and wish to invite you to a Sacred Polycule temple meeting, or a JoeJocelyne Madness temple meeting, whichever you prefer. Or both!
Are there brochures for either or both of these congregations? I need them for… research.
Actually, the Sacred Polycule does have a brochure.
…The JoJocelyne Madness sect is still working on theirs.
I’ve been looking at the brochures and I would like to subscribe to the newsletter.
This is basically how I look at it, yeah. The important thing is that this is a fictional, ongoing story, with fictional characters who are flawed people. Some people seem to have lost sight of that, and don’t have the patience to just wait until tomorrow, or next week, or however long down the line, when they could be moralizing NOW.
Fully agree. Walky I think, while obviously not expecting the ‘Joyce’ of the whole situation, or going to be happy about it as a whole, is going to have a much easier time dealing with this situation considering he has considerable relationship experience, with Dorothy, Lucy, and (sort-of) Amber, (although as Booster pointed out, Amber sort of intentionally/unintentionally manufactured this breakup, so it remains to see how happy he is going to be at her, which really depends on how much he listens to his dad’s advice on Amber). Also he is somewhat aware that Dorothy is sort of going back to dating him, as an emotionally safety spot (not to frame Dorothy as a villain tbc, she’s a great character and for the most part, a pretty good person, just trying to honestly describing their relationship at the moment) and he’s in a sense rebounding with Dorothy, after his breakup with Lucy (which in fairness was, like Lucy and Booster sort of pointed out, basically his fault, even though he did mature a lot as a person, during and after the relationship, directly because of it).
Joe though, is not going to take it well. I don’t expect him to become a full on misogynist dude-bro again, I think he has sincerely changed for the btter in that aspect, but I do think he’s going to pretend to be ‘fine’ with it, (that may involve breaking up with Joyce or not, its unclear at the moment, what he’ll do) but regardless I think Joe is going to start developing some unhealthy thoughts regarding this situation, possibly selfhatred.
Poor guy. I was really rooting for him and Joyce, but of course I don’t think we can really blame Joe if he decides to break up with Joyce (which I’m very conflicted on both, whether that’s the ‘right choice’ for Joe, or whether he’ll even want to do it or not.) Personally, I’m hoping he and Joyce continue their relationship in a healthy and emotionally supportive manner, in whatever shape and form that might end up being (possibly including Dorothy in a polycule type situation, where Joe and Dorothy date Joyce, but aren’t dating each other). But of course, that may not be a possibility at this point, as sad as that makes me lol. God, I hope Joe has a healthy and not self-destructive/self-demeaning reaction to this whole situation. He’s made a lot of progress as of late, so it would be very sad to see him backslide as a response to everything that’s going on.
Also this goes without saying, but I hope everything goes well for Dorothy and Joyce too. Their great characters, and while I’m sad to see Joe and Joyce’s relationship potentially end, I hope Dorothy and Joyce’s new relationship will go well, or at least not end horribly. One can only hope!
You know what? Screw it.
*Plays The Frozen Autumn – “Dusk is Like A Dagger” on the hacked muzak*
WE HAVE LIFTOFF
almost 2200 comments
I’m pretty sure the counter has locked.
Oh dear God, this is hilarious. The comment are….pure comedy. Clearly there are many definitions of such words as “monogamy”, “making out” and “cheating”, even within a country, never mind between countries!
People have opinions. They differ. That’s OK. People are entitled to have and even express opinions!
…..wow.🤯
walky was right, joyce did want to kiss dorothy
It’s over 2 thousaaaaaaaaaand!!!
2,181 so far.
ugh, there
1. Poor Joe and Walky.
2. Good for those crazy kids.
3. Beautiful art.
4. As a Palestinian this arc has been emotional whiplash XD
Jocelyne is happy, because, suddenly, she got a lot of inspiration to write.
Yay!
lezzys WIN.
hey just curious does the comment counter have a CAP?…
Good question!
And the page is getting very very slower. In cellphone, it’s taking 5 minutes to render all comments.
FUCKING SICKOS!
Why, yes, fucking is what sickos are all about.
Sudden thought if Joyce tries to think after this ‘no this wasn’t cheating I was expressing my definite NOT-lesbian love for Dorothy in the most dramatic way I could :D’ I will LAUGH I will LAUGH like girl is constantly untangling stuff and now she has a new rope five miles long
Can’t tell if all the comments are moving on and I am the sole person left adding single digits to this train wreck or if it’s so many comments it’s just glitching out and not showing new ones, but a previous comment I made had me consider the funniest things that could be going on with Joyce throughout all this/ after-
1. “Wait, what, cheating!? But I was just doing what girls do in movies when they confess to loving being friends with another girl!”
2. “Cheating!? But, we didn’t have penetrative sex!” *Seinfeld credits music*
3. “What, Dorothy was saying she likes me ROMANTICALLY??” *Seinfeld credits music but against a freeze frame slowly zooming in of Dorothy’s face reaction*
4. [Joyce already talked through her feelings and got the green light from Joe a day ago]
5. “Would you believe me if I said the gas was so thick I thought it was Joe?…”
https://www.dumbingofage.com/2025/comic/book-15/04-the-only-exception/backwith/
https://www.dumbingofage.com/2025/comic/book-15/04-the-only-exception/beeswax/
How I was so dumb in not figuring it out what are they talking about. Damn it.
That’s why I need to read it all again. At least, the last 7 years pages.