jocelyne, snapping those invisible suspenders
8

Transcript

Jocelyne: Sarah, LOOK: I didn't encourage Joyce and Dorothy, but I sure as hell didn't STOP it, either.
Jocelyne: I've SEEN Joyce's ex-boyfriend. He'll do PLENTY okay back on the market.
Sarah: He LOVES JOYCE, though.
Jocelyne: Oh, what, so then he's OWED my little sister?
Sarah: OUR little sister.

Encourage
Posted on April 23, 2026 by David M Willis

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Tags: jocelyne, sarah

Day three of the Dumbing of Age Book 15 Kickstarter ended!  On day one we also unlocked the second stretch goal, Free Amber Magnets for everybody!  if you pledged for something i physically mail to you, anyway

344 thoughts on “Encourage”

  1. Wack'd

    Good morning! For those who missed last night: I’m Wack’d, my pronouns are they/she, and I’ll be your new moderator. I recognize last night was a little bit of a shitshow, and that I was a little bit of a shitstirrer. This has been widely regarded as a bad move.
    –
    Folks asked for the new rules to be established higher up in the comment thread, with minimal hostility. I’m gonna do my best, but honestly, I think it might be more helpful to establish what vibes I want, why I want them, and hope that enough folks agree that I can do my job with minimal DELETEDs.
    –
    Firstly, we’ve spent years litigating individual character’s actions, and more specifically we’ve spent the past year litigating the actions of Joyce and Dorothy. While plenty of these posts have been overtly hostile and made in bad faith, from my perspective the bigger issue is the monofocus itself. It’s hard for any other conversation to gain traction when 90% of comments are about how much cheating happened, how bad it was, how much disdain Joyce and Dorothy deserve, and what restitution need to be made. So we’re just not doing that anymore! Any conversation that can be boiled down to “character x shouldn’t have done action y” or “character x needs to do action y”, regardless of how inoffensive it is on its own, is getting sniped on sight. Analysis of why character x has done action y is fine–welcome even!–but it can’t be just a list of bad traits. “Joyce cheated because she’s selfish” isn’t a reason, it’s just grumbling.
    –
    Which brings us to point two–no one cares about what character you hate and why you hate them. It’s just not a good conversation starter. People who like that character are gonna feel unwelcome, and people who dislike that character are gonna feel welcome to pile on that negativity. Same with plot points. I might make some leeway for a really strong structural critique, but frankly a lot of that is warmed over too–the cheating happened too fast, the protest was the wrong venue, the characters don’t have chemistry. I’m not even saying I disagree with all of those, but change the dang record, y’know? I’m autistic and even I’ve heard this song too many times. Again, it’s been an entire year! I know it can be hard to come up with new things to say about a daily comic strip, but frankly I’d rather fewer comments of higher quality than a multitude of identical complaints.
    –
    Point three is pretty simple. The paladin/sicko stuff was fun for a little bit, but I don’t like how it encouraged people to snipe at each other, and snipe at Willis. This is a place for conversation about the comic, not how much its author and your fellow commenters suck. Again, loads of people are alternatively terrified of this place or mocking what a rat’s nest it’s become, and a big part of that is a willingness to just let things escalate and start arguments. It’s okay to use the report button.
    –
    I’m gonna address politics here briefly. In 2016, a storyline ran in which Mary engaged in targeted and knowing transphobic violence because of a noise complaint. People took Mary’s side–some loudly and proudly, some couched in “just asking questions.” The comments continued without a second moderator for another decade. Due respect, this place has had its chance to prove it can handle these subjects without the hammer coming down, and y’all blew it.
    –
    There’s a remark on the “Read Before Posting” page that says “Please don’t proselytize in the comments. To this you may respond, ‘But you get to preach on your website!’ To which I nod and say, yes, you’ve figured it out.” I’m gonna be enforcing this. The comic’s perspective is that minorities face structural and interpersonal injustice, the United States and its allies perpetuate horrific crimes here and abroad, and that people are right to be angry about these things. Any attempt to smuggle counterarguments in, even if the tone is nice and polite, is getting nuked. Any attempt to say these stances are just as bad as right-wing extremism is getting supernuked. I know I said I’d try and keep the hostility to a minimum but I genuinely dunno how to be nice about this one. Sorry.
    –
    That said, if you’re a leftie and have an issue with how Willis handles this stuff, I’ll leave that alone as much as I can. Willis wants to do better at depicting minority characters and advocating for less war crimes. I want them to do better at depicting minority characters and advocating for less war crimes! And if you’re mad about that, well, that’s probably okay. The only exception is gonna be stuff related to how the protest went down a year ago, just because, again, that stuff’s been noted and Willis is trying to deal with it. Round 3,256 of that fight happening in the comments doesn’t help anyone. Again, “don’t be a broken record” is kind of the core theme here.
    –
    So, let’s bring the temperature down. What kind of comments do I want? What do I think would be good and acceptable discourse?
    –
    There’s someone on Patreon who, every day, analyzes how Willis positions characters and allocates panels. This is really cool! There’s also someone on Discord who has enumerated times where Willis’ visual storytelling can use a boost and draw stronger connections across individual strips. This is also really cool! Approaching the comic as a comic, as a series of images, is a type of analysis I don’t see a lot of. Folks should try their hand at that!
    –
    Similarly, literary analysis! Even just high-school level stuff would be a step up. How does Dorothy’s changing perspective on political power reflect our changing times? What other comics or works of art can you think of that address similar topics, and how do they differ? What is Mario Kart a metaphor for? I want an intro, a conclusion, and three body paragraphs on my desk by Friday.
    –
    In-depth character analysis would be great. Willis has done a great job creating a cast who have rich backstories and a tapestry of events that shape their worldviews. There are also characters whose actions could be read into in the present absence of that kind of detailing. Again, so long as the conclusion is more interesting than “Joyce’s greed sickens me,” I’m all for it.
    –
    If all that seems too high-minded, well, the classics are classics for a reason. Tell a joke! Make a pun! Put a song on the hacked muzak! Insinuate two characters should kiss! Do stuff that makes this place seem fun and welcoming. Really, at the end of the day, if we can get the level of discourse to this level, I’ll consider myself (and you!) to have achieved a job well done.
    –
    That’s basically it. I hope it was helpful, or at least more helpful than whatever I was doing yesterday. Uh. Bye!

    1. Dwampre Scorrigank

      I for one welcome our new commentariat overlord!

      1. Rose By Any Other Name

        Likewise.
        I feel like I’ve been saying a lot of the same stuff for years, and it’s been like shouting into an uncaring void.
        Dumbing of Age is a piece of literature. We need to treat it as such.
        Also, thanks for posting up top – I believe I entirely missed this yesterday by the simple virtue of the fact that I’ve been avoiding the comments of late. I am VERY glad to see this change.

      2. Nicki

        god, thank you. I only just started reading this comic 3 months ago, binged through it, thought “wow, this is fantastic, also there’s so many dynamics to pick apart and discuss with a still active community! I can’t wait to see what they’ve said about it!”

        And it’s just been

        non

        stop

        complaining.

        I really have no idea where it came from, if this comic had sprouted from the aether as of a year ago the community would have been completely different so all I can imagine is that it’s a comic that grew away from some of its original community and that original community is the kind of community that it very much should have grown away from lol

        I hope David keeps it up, this is great stuff.

    2. Pocky

      good luck Wack’d. I’m rootin for you to keep the comments sections here more bearable lol

    3. Taffy

      “I want an intro, a conclusion, and three body paragraphs on my desk by Friday.”

      Now you’ve really overstepped and crossed the line. I’ve already got finals coming up and now even my recreation is assigning homework? I have a special plan for this world.

      1. turbojet

        either a Ligotti reference or a Current 93 ref–or both! Nice.

        1. Taffy

          What?

        2. Mitzi B.

          https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_Have_a_Special_Plan_for_This_World this seems to be the reference

        3. turbojet

          Oh, sorry–I got excited and assumed your Special Plan remark was a reference to one of Thomas Ligotti’s writing or Current 93’s music. I apologize for my assumption.

        4. thenamelesssamurai

          To be fair, turbojet, I made the same assumption as you

    4. Bryy

      I fucking love this post holy shit. A+ no notes.

    5. QueenofSodor

      im gonna miss the DELETEDs, i always imagined you were saying them all Strong Bad-like

      1. Wack'd

        DELORTED!

        1. Tessea

          Not ten minutes ago I was playing poker 1v1 vs Strongbad in Poker Night at The Inventory!

    6. Jay

      Maybe making a sickos v paladins poll wasnt the greatest idea

      1. nadamás

        It’s not Willis fault all of us took what was suppose just to be a fun silly pool and turned it into a moral alignment chart.

    7. Icalasari

      Damn, I expected this to continue to rage on way longer, like I was prepared to stay away for a week or two then decide if the fires cooled enough to comment again. But Willis did a GREAT job picking you! Maybe these comments will feel more like the comments of another webcomic I read with a bit more willingness to actually interpret stuff

      You didn’t need luck at all it seems :D

    8. Inahc

      Yay moderator!
      …can I post this one or will it 404 again?

    9. Rabid Rabbit

      This is clear, cogent, and unimpeachable.

      But (as a mostly onlooker), I admit to being baffled as to how you and Willis can be such intelligent people and yet apparently never considered announcing this before the new regime came into effect.

      I look forward to your cameos, you’ll clearly fit right in with the rest of the cast.

      1. eh, whatever

        and yet apparently never considered announcing this before the new regime came into effect
         
        Yesterday’s comments made clear they’re both uncomfortable making grand announcements to people. Even the impossible hope that “people would notice a trend” was expressed.
         
        It’s not intelligence, it’s fear.

        1. ary

          Anxiety maybe sure, but also Willis is currently busy with the Kickstarter, which if you follow them on social media or just read into some subtext elsewhere, seems to weigh extremely heavily on their mind every time. Which makes sense, it’s technically a big financial question mark every time.

          Not the greatest timing for a big change, admittedly.

        2. Throwatron

          Well-justified fear, I would like to tack on. I wrack my brain harder to sanitize the tone and potential misinterpretations of my comments here, way more so than any other platform I’ve ever engaged in. The benefit of the doubt has been completely gone for a long time. I’m not saying I’ve never posted something impulsively, but, like, the number of times I’ve gotten one-and-a-half paragraphs into a post here, only to stop and say “man, this isn’t worth the effort to mitigate the risk,” has steadily climbed in the past few months.

        3. Dwampre Scorrigank

          @Throwatron I have spent far too much time that way! (though sometimss I can bang out quick thoughts if I’m too sleep-deprived for my anxiety to work properly – the thoughts might not be super lucid though). I do that other places as well but there is a strong feeling of scrutiny here. It’s not entirely inappropriate, because we are in fact posting publicly, forever – it’s not the worst idea for anyone to be thoughtful about things they commit to the permanent record. Though it’s sad that it hampers the community culture, and that it gets to the point of stymying participation for many people.

    10. Tessea

      Good luck with the position!! It’ll be nice to see things get a little less toxic around here.
      This is supposed to be fun!

    11. ResRam

      A second attempt? …. smart.
      Sounds more sincere and less teenage-powerdrunk derisive now.

      Ah, well, best of luck.

    12. v

      oh thank fuck.

      … can we still ask to get our comments deleted recreationally

      1. Aura

        I mean, what are they gonna do, delete them? :P

    13. Gotthammer

      As you are (rightfully) being paid for your work here, you are now a social media comment moderation professional.
      .
      In the real world I run the socials for my country’s branch of a trillion dollar multinational. A huge part, like 90%, of this is moderating and interact with the comments left on said socials.
      .
      So, from one professional to another: this ain’t it.

      1. nadamás

        Yeah those two things are completely equivalent and it makes total sense to judge them as such. 🙄

        1. stePH

          Seems like a difference of scale to me. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

        2. Taffy

          Yeah, a massive difference, in fact. They’re so many orders of magnitude apart, it’s ridiculous to even put them next to each other. “Trillion dollar multinational” isn’t even in the same galaxy as “the website for one human’s fairly popular cartoon strip”.

    14. Paul

      *me reading the comic*
      Oh, the comments are gonna be an absolute dumpster fire today.
      *clicks comments, sees there’s now a mod in place*
      Oh good! I wish you patience and strength, and you get the community you moderate for.

    15. Mr D

      I moderate a subforum that talks about a game’s lore and people can and often do get pretty unhinged.
      I should not have to tell people to stop comparing the “Other Faction” to german political movements from the 1930s, and that players who play as that faction do not, in fact, deserve to be treated like members of that German Political Movement!
      After a few weeks of harshly smacking people with the Bonk of Disgrace, just telling people to lay off for a minute, take a break, and come back when they are calm is usually enough.
      _
      (Side note, does anyone know how do I get the new system to save my name, Email and how to get a Gravatar???)

      1. Taffy

        The comment box not saving your info is a known issue and currently there’s no fix for it. If you’re on a phone, you may have an auto fill function, which is gonna be your most reliable option.

        To get a Gravatar, go to Gravatar Dot Com, sign up for an account with the email you plan to use here, pick an image, and you’re good to go!

        1. Mr D

          Thanks Taffs, ‘ppreciate it.
          Now I gotta find out a proper image to turn into a grav.

        2. thejeff

          I do wish we could get the random gravatars back. If nothing else when they change it provided a nice little distraction from what ever was going on in the comments.

        3. embe13

          firefox on pc seems to also save my email and name for autofill

        4. Taffy

          Well, how about that. Mine does, too. I wonder how many people are primarily reading and posting from their phones, though.

    16. Sabrina

      As a former moderator of an online space dissillusioned by the attitude of fellow mods, I salute you and wish you the best. Weed the garden!

    17. Uniquitous

      Excellent. Good luck!

    18. Olofa

      I, too, believe that two characters should kiss.

      1. Fart Captor

        mfw there’s two or more women in a single strip 🤔

    19. Albi

      Well, shit (positive tone). And yeah, we really did blow it, huh? Thank you for your time and doing what’s necessary.

    20. Big Z

      See, now this is an intro!

      There was the occasional discussion in the previous year that boiled down to “People having differing perspectives on the amount of hostility/bigotry in the comments because of when they were reading said comments (after reporting had taken out the worst ones)”. Would it be possible to have a daily or weekly post with some statistics relevant to that? Number of post auto-removed due to reports, number of posts you’ve had to manually remove? Even without specifics, I think such a thing would put into perspective the scope of issues here (especially for those of us who roll in around 8-9am Eastern and therefore miss the first wave of comments and reports). And if nothing else, I’m curious on a “professional” level of how that number compares to the places I moderate. :D

      1. Jodka

        This sounds like a cool idea.

    21. zee

      The lack of hostility here is much appreciated. There’s a difference between commenters snipping at each other and someone with actual authority coming in as a seemingly hostile force. I do hope you took Joy’s points on yesterday’s thread into consideration. Idk your race or circumstances but subconscious racial bias definitely has its way of sneaking into how people define what is and isn’t aggressive language. Not even black folk are immune to that. I also am, for example, going to keep openly cringing when Joyce and Dotty’s white girl-ness starts boiling over into peak white woman type behavior, esp if a brown woman is being subjected to said behavior. And I hope that won’t be considered scratched record-ing because their white woman cringe has been on display and thus thoroughly discussed for a year. Doesn’t make it any less painful to watch
      .
      Anyway good luck, the new introduction did do a lot to put my hackles down but I’ll still be…idk vigilant for a while. I’ve been saying Willis needs to hire a damn mod already since he clearly hates doing it and it wasn’t good for him. So I’m definitely glad for the existence of a mod

      1. NGPZ

        I concur strongly and will remain vigilante as well. As good as their proported politics look, I aint gonna count my chickens before they hatch.
        No matter what happens, like I said before the best thing to do is stop treating the comments section like the center of the universe anyway (insert parable about 3 blind folk and an elephant here or somethin, I got physical therapy to do)

      2. SpookyFox

        The White Woman(en) Nonsense of this entire story arc has really been tiring for me. We see a little bit of the in universe reaction to it in the form of Dina and Asma, but I fear that’s the extent it’s ever going to be acknowledged.

    22. HueSatLight

      I get sick and tired when someone likes a character because of their flaws, examines how they’re addressing or not addressing those flaws, and then a bully clique calls that reader a bigot because they dared say their perfect angel favorite character isn’t a perfect angel. Is “liking a character so much you try to drive other readers away” also verbotten, is it not as bad “mentioning a mistake a character made more than half a week ago”?

      1. Wack'd

        noting a character has flaws is fine so long as it’s not just to dunk on them

        1. NGPZ

          thank you so much for clarifying!!!
          BTW if it’s possible I think it would be very VERY much worth it to put the whole post and this amendment there-of to the “read before posting” section just so that ALL readers and commenters can have easy access to them
          👉🏽transparency in rules and enforcement there-of will be KEY to building trust between the community and this new moderation regime

    23. KittyKai

      I just wanna say – thank you so much for the work you’re taking on here! I imagine you’ve got a hard and draining job ahead of you, and I very much appreciate your willingness to take that on and make the comments more pleasant for all of us. Wishing for you all the best!!! 💜

    24. JustAGirl

      Longtime lurker coming out of the woodwork to say: About time. The comments have been unbearable for years at this point; glad to see something being done about it.

    25. ValdVin

      Welcome to the new sheriff in town.

      “Please don’t proselytize in the comments. To this you may respond, ‘But you get to preach on your website!’ To which I nod and say, yes, you’ve figured it out.”

      I’ve excerpted this very bit on another forum for a smaller webcomic whose creator has mused about the behavior of commenters and how much leeway they are going to allow.

    26. George the Archon

      Previous occasional poster, recent “Knows what? I think I’ll pass”-er, here.

      Congrats to you for an excellent start right here, and best wishes for success.

      More power to your (moderatorial) elbow!

  2. NGPZ

    ooooooooh here it gooooooooooooooes

    1. NGPZ

      I mean…. both I guess¯\_(ツ)_/¯
      all I know is I got physical therapy tommorow and thus I need SLEEP
      have fun slingin mud or whatever under the new rules, im tired XD

  3. IntangibleMatter

    Jocelyne, I love you, but you should have more sympathy.

    Sarah, are you implying that he’s owed Joyce…?

    You can tell the writing is good because I sympathize with both characters and yet don’t entirely agree with either (please don’t kill me, Wack’d. This comment isn’t me being mean about the characters it’s just how I feel about their positions right now)

    1. ProfNekko

      Not “owed” in the sense that she’s obligated to date him but he does at least deserve the level of respect to actually talk to him and sort things out instead of brushing him to the curb and avoiding him.

      1. anon

        didn’t they talk and joe said he was willing to be ‘open’/share with dorothy? and even tho i’m sure she’s ‘enjoyed’ her intimate time with dorothy i can still imagine her thirsting/wanting to be intimate with a man too

        1. eh, whatever

          didn’t they talk and joe said he was willing to be ‘open’/share with dorothy?
           
          Joyce still hasn’t reacted to this offer, other than two promises to talk to Joe later.

        2. Dandi Andi

          @eh, whatever
          She did respond by saying no. Joe didn’t want to hear no so he pressed and she ran away.

      2. Differentiator

        I think that’s exactly the misunderstanding here. They’re both protective of Joyce, but Jocelyne is the “spread your wings” big sis, and Sarah is the “get your shit together” big sis. Which is perfectly on brand for both of them.

    2. Needfuldoer

      I read that as Jocelyne putting words in Sarah’s mouth, deflecting Joyce’s culpability to her actions and putting Sarah on the back foot.

      1. TulipKitten

        That’s what I was thinking, to be honest. Just because Joyce did something bad in-universe a couple of days ago and Sarah is mad about doesn’t mean that she thinks that Joe is entitled to Joyce.

        Just that Sarah doesn’t think that Joe deserved to be cheated on and strung along. And it’s normal to be mad about that, especially since in-universe, she didn’t have much time to get over it.

      2. Throwatron

        I think it’s very worth pointing out that, in this case, one of these women is highly socially astute, while the other is borderline asocial, and struggles with interpersonal communication. The fact that Jocelyn can “win” this argument, says less about the veracity of both arguments, and more about the fact that one of them is a writer who is used to skillfully applying words, whereas the other struggles not to eat shoe, even in situations where she would have clearly been in the right.

        1. Throwatron

          And, I feel the need to tack on to this, Sarah clearly doesn’t actually think that Joe is “owed” Joyce, at all. That’s not at all the part of Joyce’s behavior which she is trying to critique. She’s just utterly incompetent at succinctly spelling out the relevant details of her own worries about the situation, and Jocelyn is shutting her down with a strawman gotcha question, which was something Sarah hadn’t even considered. Jocelyn would be right to criticize that perspective…if that perspective was happening. But, it isn’t.

        2. Throwatron

          She is a writer by trade. This is normal socialization amongst young writers…which is why so many young writers seem to be so lonely, lmao

        3. Needfuldoer

          Exactly! “She’s bad at framing her thoughts and feelings when articulating them to others” is an established Sarah trait! Sadly though, “she uses low fundie rhetoric weapons like appeal to emotion in arguments/debate” is becoming one of Jocelyne’s whether she realizes she’s doing it or not. :(
          Never mind that this is the same Jocelyne who knew right away that Joe was “down bad” for Joyce.
          https://www.dumbingofage.com/comic/askabout/

    3. mick4state

      The compelling thing here is that both Jocelyn and Sarah have good points and it’s putting them in (seeming) opposition to each other. Sarah is right to be upset that Joyce’s actions hurt Joe, who seems to legitimately love Joyce, very deeply. If the thing that happened to Joe happened to your friend, you’d be justifiably upset on behalf of said friend. But Jocelyn is right that Joyce is not owed to Joe. Every relationship requires both parties to want to be in it, and sometimes that only goes one way. This is then complicated by the fact that Joyce seems to still have feelings for Joe, just not as great as the feelings she has for Dorothy.

      I hope this doesn’t cross the new lines drawn in the sand.

      1. Humbob

        I also find it interesting that Joe took actions to set this up for both Joyce & Dorothy. He is playing the martyr a bit, but also its only been a few days. Joyce is in the newness of a relationship that has been brewing for a long time. She has also exhibited that she still has feelings for Joe. The only things that still need to happen are a frank conversation with Joe & Dorothy separately & together. Maybe a polycule would actually work once things settle, or maybe it would be to uncomfortable for everyone. Its not a decision Joyce can make on her own, but it has intentionally been left open.

    4. MyBlueBox

      Sarah said “I support gay rights” and then Jocelyn said “I support gay rights AND gay wrongs”

  4. Dot

    She is implying that Joe is a human being with feelings that deserve to be taken into consideration.

    1. Dot

      Sometimes analyzing text requires one to read between the lines.

    2. apocryphascribe

      While I agree, she’s doing a poor job of saying just that, and it wouldn’t be the first time she’s been bad at communicating due to having strong feelings about something.

    3. Dwampre Scorrigank

      @Dot: Sometimes there is more than one potential read of the subtext
       
      @Astariel: I don’t read it as a yes, I read it as begrudgingly conceding that was too good of a shutdown, though she perhaps wants to say more

    4. Bryy

      No she didn’t. She’s clocking Jocelyn going back on her prior attitude towards Sarah being co-sister.

    5. Astariel

      @Dot – Stow the condescending attitude, please. I don’t need you to teach me how to analyze text.

    6. Andy

      Two week boyfriend easily forgotten in a couple years is owed what? All relationships are to some degree uneven and one person is typically more committed than the other.

      1. clif

        Well the argument would be that he’s owed closure instead of being left hanging. I’m not totally sure that’s a completely accurate read of what’s happening, but it might be.

      2. Astariel

        @Clif – Well, Joyce tried to give him closure and he rejected it. He made a poly proposal and Joyce needed time to think about it, which only happened two days ago in comic time. So far Joe doesn’t seem to think that Joyce is putting him off unreasonably. Besides, does Sarah even know about that? I don’t think she does, and if she doesn’t I don’t see what she expects from Joyce here. She can’t go back and undo the cheating. Does she want her to break up with Dorothy and get back with Joe? That wouldn’t be fair to either of them.

      3. zee

        The base respect of not being treated like a disposable thing and instead as a full human being with his own feelings and inner world, for starters. No one’s saying he’s owed Joyce, but he is owed a basic acknowledgement of his feelings. Some sympathy from his friends. The conversation Joyce promised him, which I’m sure is coming up soon enough.

    7. clif

      I’m not sure why you see it as condescending. It’s accurate and a fair point whether it’s specifically relevant or not. It seems to me that Dot is correct that Sarah concern stems from a belief that Joe needs to be treated better. What else is going on isn’t completely clear to me because different readings are possible.

    8. Astariel

      @Clif – It’s condescending because any high school student knows that reading between the lines is part of analyzing text and because it implies that a failure to agree with her perspective can only be due to being too stupid to read the text correctly, rather than just reading it and having a different opinion.

    9. zee

      it’s the final panel. Those are for jokes and dramatic lines, not clarification. Save the judgement for tomorrow or whenever this conversation comes back up

    10. Throwatron

      Sarah is also a terrible communicator, who is bad at talking about feelings or emotions. Yeah, she “could have said” a lot of things better…she never does, because, actually, she can’t. That’s something worthwhile to factor into critiques of Sarah’s dialogue: being a terrible communicator, is a core part of her character, and all of her arcs.

  5. Iris

    Well if nobody else is gonna do it I guess I’ll be the one to insinuate that Sarah and Jocelyne should kiss.

    1. Insanenoodlyguy

      Nah, Thunderdome. Two women enter, one woman leaves.

      1. Iris

        One woman leaves because they made out so hard it became a sort of dragon ball fusion kinda situation.

        1. Manticore

          So, Steven Universe situation?

        2. Rose By Any Other Name

          @Manticore
          **flash**
          Saralyne: “Oh! Oh, um… hello?”
          ….
          I don’t have a further bit for this because my spark of creativity began and ended with the fusion name Saralyne.

        3. Iris

          @manticore yes this exactly.
          …
          I should draw this, I think.

        4. Insanenoodlyguy

          Nah, one consumes the other to raise their power level and reach their “semi-perfect sister” form.

        5. Inahc

          All I wanna do / is see them turn into / a giant woman!

        6. Tessea

          Giant Woman!

    2. QueenofSodor

      i for one really, REALLY want to see how joyce reacts to her big sisters making out

      1. redcaela

        I don’t make the big bucks, but if I did, they’d be in your account within three business days!

      2. Throwatron

        I’m kinda curious how Jocelyn would react to “so, what, I’m supposed to just hang out in the same room as my little sister, every night, while she has loud, sloppy sex?” Jocelyn is sex positive, but I don’t know if any siblings are that sex positive.

    3. Sajuuk-Khar

      YOU.

      You’ve got the right idea

    4. Dwampre Scorrigank

      Oh yeah? Well, I’LL insinuate YOU should kiss! What do you say (or insinuate) to that!?

      1. Dwampre Scorrigank

    5. Aura

      I typed up far more of a response to this comment than it deserved. Instead, I’ll just give you this advice: Any time you feel the need to push back on someone headcanoning a character as queer (or making jokes implying they are), or to argue that a comic has enough queer rep and no more should be added, take a moment to reflect, consider why you feel that way, realise that’s completely unjustified, and then don’t do that instead.

    6. Cassie

      Is Jocelyne into girls? The last thing I remember her saying about her sexuality was telling Ethan she isn’t gay. Maybe things have changed since then but unfortunately I think yuri is unlikely with these two.

      1. superglucose

        She has said to Becky that hormones have made her more into girls than she was previously. Does that make her “into” girls? Who knows! Probably not even Jocelyne at this point!

        1. Stormtide Leviathan

          She could do the entire cast of thor ragnarok.
          https://www.dumbingofage.com/comic/hrt/

        2. Cassie

          Hahaha I even commented on that strip. You’d think I’d remember that. Oops.

    7. Li

      Cis not an acronym, it doesn’t stand for anything (especially not “comfortable in skin”). It is a Latin prefix, the opposite of trans. It means nothing more or less than “non-trans”.
      .
      Also everything ^^^ said.

    8. Leadsynth

      Do we know if Joss is into women, men, both, neither…? I feel like it was established that she wasn’t into girls when she was closeted but now she’s starting to feel differently?

      1. redcaela

        After coming out she remarked she wanted to do the cast of Thor: Ragnarok, so I’d say an indicator in the Bi column.

      2. RedCat

        Isn’t Joss the name of another of Joyce’s siblings or am I misremembering?

        1. Dwampre Scorrigank

          John, Jordan, Jocelyne, Joyce, (add-ons I remember: Becky, Sarah, Amber/Amazigirl, Dina (*via an off-the cuff remark by Jocelyne)). First person in-comic I remember calling her “Joss” was Becky, though commenters have been doing it for a while.

    9. Mitzi B.

      I will not rest until every Dumbing of Age character is part of the LGBTQ+ umbrella. I refuse to leave anything for the cis and the straights.

  6. Insanenoodlyguy

    Before the rest of the poop train gets moving… you need a proper rules post. The last one was picking fights and this one is all about your opinions, which, while they may be the new law around here, are not a great way to list rules. There are people who have trouble parsing this kind of talk who just want a straight forward, no frills rules list, and It’s just good to have one of those.

    1. Enkrod

      Personally, I think shooting for a vibe and explaining what vibe, is the superior rules post. Because with laid down rules you get a lot of arguing about the rules, skirting around the letter of the rules and basically rules-lawyering.
      With a vibe it’s more dynamic and less incentive for the wrong people to find loopholes.

  7. Insanenoodlyguy

    GDI this was meant to be a reply to the first post, the lack of edit button sure is unfortunate.

    1. PilkScientist

      You can copy the text of your comment, delete the current one, and paste that into a new comment under the correct post. There is no downside to doing so, hope this helps :>

    2. PilkScientist

      You can copy the text of your comment, delete the current one, and paste that into a new comment under the correct post. There is no downside to doing so, hope this helps :>

      1. PilkScientist

        Oh there’s no delete button. Oh ok.

        1. Insanenoodlyguy

          Lol you see my problem.

        2. Bwitty03

          this method can still work if youre willing to misuse the report function to get your original comment removed

  8. Dot

    I’m really not interested in people willfully misrepresenting what Sarah is saying again so I think I’m gonna dip from the comments again. I have yuri to write.

    1. RassilonTDavros

      That’s fair. Hope you enjoy it!

    2. Yotomoe

      Oh speaking of yuri, I was working on a Sarah/Raidah Yuri fic. Would like to get your opinion on it, if that’s your thing.

      1. thenamelesssamurai

        Ain’t Dot, but I’m down with that if you feel comfortable sharing.

      2. Dot

        Sure

        1. Yotomoe

          o3o Do you maybe have a bsky I can DM or a discord maybe? I don’t wanna post it publicly until I add more to it/get some feedback.
          (You don’t gotta post them here if so, I’m basically yotomoe everywhere so you can just shoot me a message).

        2. Dot

          I have my discord listed publicly elsewhere, so I don’t mind. It’s radiofreederry.

    3. Yotomoe

      “Joe will get over it, he’s got options”
      “But he loved her”
      “oh, so you think he’s owed her”
      Based on the flow of conversation “He loves her” is in direct response to “Joe will get over it. The idea of “He loves her” is asserting that just because Joe is handsome and good with women he will rebound easily and Sarah’s response of “but he loves her” is to bring up “no, he’s very emotionally invested in his relationship with her and is going through real genuine heartbreak that you are currently downplaying”

      1. thejeff

        Good point. It’s easy to focus on the phrase “so then he’s owed her”, since that triggers a lot of nice guy/incel discourse, but that makes it easy to overlook what she was responding to.
        Not surprising Jocelyne takes it in the direction she does, since she’d focused on her sister and doesn’t know or care about Joe at all. Which makes it easy to not just dismiss, but ignore his feelings.
        Her casual dismiss is also a nice echo of Old Joe’s attitude.

    4. Yotomoe

      “Joe will get over it, he’s got options”
      “But he loved her”
      “oh, so you think he’s owed her”
      Based on the flow of conversation “He loves her” is in direct response to “Joe will get over it. The idea of “He loves her” is asserting that just because Joe is handsome and good with women he will rebound easily and Sarah’s response of “but he loves her” is to bring up “no, he’s very emotionally invested in his relationship with her and is going through real genuine heartbreak that you are currently downplaying”
      Whoops didn’t mean to post that in response to Dot

      1. Lee

        You’re exactly right, strong agree.

  9. Mitzi B.

    Gonna recycle my opinion from Patreon and say I want this to escalate into some kinda Street Fighter brawl. Winner gets the Official Overbearing Big Sister title

  10. JD

    it can be hard to articulate more pressing issues about navigating relationships and being kind to people who are you friends in the heat of the moment, been there

  11. Joshi!

    jocey no if you snap your suspenders they’ll smack your tits and it’ll REALLY hurt

  12. Suet

    the big-off is off, then
     
    jocelyne, mayoral stance. mime suspenders, please.

  13. DiDi

    OH. OK. I SEE.
    So this is what we’re doing.

  14. Foxtastic

    God this strip is extremely compelling because I don’t 100% agree with either one of them, and I love that

  15. Cholma

    [Narrator} “Ladies & Gentlemen, your attention please! In this corner, wearing red is Jocelyne, Joyce’s biological sister, and in the other corner, wearing white is Sarah, Joyce’s college sister! And now, for your entertainment . . . in a ten round exhibition . . . they will fight for the title of JOYCE’S BIG SISTER.

    So when the bell sounds, prepare yourself . . . for the MAIN EVENT!”

    * D I N G *

    1. Mitzi B.

      YES. YOU UNDERSTAND THE VISION.

    2. ThatDerpGuy

      IT’S TIME FOR THE SUPER SISTER SMACKDOWWWWWWWN

  16. Folus

    Feels like if Sarah has a problem with Joyce’s actions, maybe she should take it up with Joyce.

    1. Dot

      She has already made it clear to Joyce that she thinks Joyce fucked up big time vis a vis her treatment of Joe.

      1. shepsquared

        The issue is that Joyce only listens to positive reinforcement

    2. Jay

      She did, joyce dodged it

      1. Bryy

        Joyce deserves a medal.

    3. DiDi

      Sarah already tried once.
      Remember the first night she and Dorothy had a sleepover after the protest incident?
      It didn’t stick.

  17. Proto_Eevee

    well, i realize that’s not exactly what she means but this site doesn’t have an edit button so whatevs

    1. John Campbell

      Worse, it does have an edit button, but it doesn’t work 90% of the time.

  18. RassilonTDavros

    I for one have really liked these strips between Jocelyne and Sarah and am looking forward to the Big Sis War.
     
    also lowkey think it could be a fun dynamic maybe? idk

    1. RassilonTDavros

      That second bit was meant to read “fun ship dynamic”, whoopsiedaisy

  19. Thag Simmons

    Probably a little bit. Give her a bit more time to frame her stance and she’d probably call that “deserved to not have been cheated on”
     
    We know Sarah had a boyfriend who cheated on her (with her own sister), so there’s almost certainly some pre-existing baggage. Both projecting herself onto Joe and not wanting to perceive Joyce as sharing a major commonality with her old boyfriend.

    1. Dwampre Scorrigank

      On that note not wanting another little sister she sees as a cheater is likely a big factor, and is a fair position. I wonder if the fact that the first little sister cheating was a betrayal to her is making it feel like a betrayal the second time by association.

      1. Throwatron

        I do think it’s kind of awesome that we all worried so deeply about Joe’s cheating trauma for, like, six months, only for that to not be the major issue, in favor of Sarah’s cheating trauma. Life can be like that, sometimes.

      2. Li

        I definitely think this is part of Sarah’s reaction.
        .
        Which isn’t to say I think she’s overreacting or anything, just that it’s impossible that her own bad experiences with Liz aren’t coloring how she feels right now about Joyce.

    2. Astariel

      Certainly Joe didn’t deserve to be cheated on. But if Joyce had broken up with him before kissing Dorothy, would he be less heartbroken now? As someone who has been in a similar situation, I doubt it.

      Also, Joyce can’t un-cheat on him, so I’m not sure what Sarah wants here, exactly, if that’s what her issue is.

      1. Throwatron

        I don’t think the central issue is really about that. Jocelyn rightly clocks that Sarah sees a huge part of siblinghood, being establishing control over your younger siblings’ behaviors, and rejects that entirely; what Sarah is actually worried about, though, is whether Jocelyn is encouraging or aiding Joyce towards making amoral or immoral decisions. It’s not that Sarah wants Joe “un-cheated on,” it’s that, from her perspective, Jocelyn is completely okay with her little sister acting in what she sees as a morally bankrupt way.

        Jocelyn is wary of a controlling, authoritarian figure trying to exercise dominance over her little sister, because that precise issue has defined both of their entire lives.

        Sarah is wary of Joyce having an authority figure who actively encourages her to act without a moral compass, because she has a very high degree of focus in her life, on what is or is not just.

        These two viewpoints aren’t even incompatible, if both sisters understand each other. But, both sisters are lacking nearly all the details necessary to understand each other, so they’re not going to see eye-to-eye, unless Sarah can manage to communicate what actually troubles her to Jocelyn, more clearly and specifically.

  20. Erzsi

    oh man beef between these two has me genuinely so excited

    1. Erzsi

      oh man a comment of mine finally got approved, which is less exciting but still exciting!

      1. RassilonTDavros

        Welcome to the comments section! We are hopefully less likely to bite than previously.

  21. Mitzi B.

    A more serious take is that Sarah actually sees Joe as a friend on some level. To Jocelyne Joe is “some hunk that Joyce dated for a week or so” while Sarah was around to see Joe grow and change as a person, from the unbearable horny scumbag he was at the start of the comic to a more sincere, more respectful person who took his relationship to Joyce seriously. And, importantly, a person who has stopped judging all women primarily on a 1-10 scale, making him capable of interacting with Sarah as a respected equal.

    1. Throwatron

      Another point to add, but I think that perhaps nobody in the cast, besides Joe and Joyce, are at all aware of the fact that Joyce and Joe were besties for a good 4-6 months, texting every night about their deepest feelings and insecurities. For nearly everybody but the two of them, “they were together for two weeks” is an accurate and uncomplicated fact…but it’s not truly accurate. Their personal interactions went a lot deeper than that, for a lot longer. Joe is being dishonest, when he frames to Sarah that it was “just two weeks.” It’s cope. He’s been nutso head-over-heels about Joyce, since before he ever had his first scraps of character development, and Joyce is one of the only people in the cast who knows this.

      1. thejeff

        I don’t think Joe was being dishonest there. I think he was saying he could have had longer if he’d had the courage to confess his feelings sooner.

  22. kat

    I was like “Jocelyne’s right, they’re just kids let the be kids.”
    And this strip reminds me that Jocelyne, too, is kid.

    1. anon

      we’re all kids faking it til we make it lol

  23. Pocky

    *grabs popcorn* the funny part about this is that they are both kind of right. Joe isn’t owed a relationship with Joyce, and Joyce really should’ve just broken off things more respectfully with Joe. That being said, Jocelyne is correct, this is college, they are the dumb age, and this is going about as well as most college flings go. Sarah is kind of caught up in her feelings for both Joe getting better, and her wanting to be the tough big sister to Joyce.

    1. Corey C.

      I always thought Joyce was a bit hypocritical to basically rip the band-aid off when it comes to Dorothy and Walky, telling him Dotty chose her over him and laughing in his face about it, yet she constantly kicks the can down the road when she’s faced with telling Joe herself that it’s over. “Joe, we’re through. I love Dorothy- always have and always will. You’re a decent guy, but not MY guy. Goodbye.” A break-up in 20 words or less. Simple and to the point. Joe isn’t entitled to a relationship, but he is entitled closure in that Joyce found her soul mate and and it isn’t Joe.

      1. v

        Well, I think it’s more than that? The difference here between Dorothy’s treatment of Walky and Joyce’s treatment of Joe is that… Dorothy likes Walky, maybe even loves him, but their romantic entanglement was really just a college fling. Joyce, though? Joyce was in capital L Love with Joe. Still is, I think. She’s only been so hesitant and weird around Joe because she hasn’t really grappled with the fact that – even though she’d drop him like a rotten potato if he got between her and Dorothy – she’s still losing something meaningful to her by breaking up with him.
        Now, do I think Joyce should actually try being polyamorous? Well. Yes, I’d love to see her try… because watching it crash and burn would be hilarious. And that’s not a knock on Joyce; polyamory may simplify love triangles, but actually pulling it off in a healthy way takes a lot more care and maturity than monogamy, and I wouldn’t trust any of the dumb teens in this cast with “care” or “maturity”.

      2. Astariel

        Except she did tell him all that. She was extremely clear that although she cared for him, she was choosing Dorothy over him. Joe was the one who made the poly counterproposal, which predictably, kind of blew Joyce’s mind. So if Joe feels he doesn’t have closure, that’s his own fault. To his credit, he hasn’t given any sign of feeling that way himself.

  24. RyzerShadows

    I get and agree with what Sarah is trying to say, which is to say he deserves the respect of…well respect and not being straight up dismissed as just some dude especially when Jocelyn hasn’t seen even half the extent of what joe and joyce were like together. and I really hope she clarifies afterwards, but oh man this is bout to get 10 types of messy.

    1. Dev

      Agreed.

  25. B J O’Shea

    The thing about Dumbing of Age is that it’s basically a long-running soap at this point & we dip in and out stories while picking up/building on old ones from time to time and this whole arc has been like… three slow-burning plots all coming to a head at once and now all the Chekhov’s guns are going off. Which is kinda what happens when you’re what like 16 years deep into this kind of story and it’s going to be a while until things settle from all of this.

    But also love a bit of character-driven conflict whoot

  26. Yotomoe

    Sarah didn’t say that, Jocelyne.
    That’s a really weird comeback to what Jocelyne just said, Sarah.

    1. Nik

      It’s weird, but there is a clear purpose behind it. Jocelyne was trying to shut down any counter argument by going, “By the way, that’s my little sister you’re talking about. You don’t get to talk about her that way.” Sarah’s rebuttal, to me, translates to “I have been this girl’s roommate, friend, and mentor for the last six months that you haven’t been around. I absolutely get to talk about her that way.”

      1. Alongcameaspider

        Also Sarah is calling back to earlier in the conversation, like, probably not even 30 seconds since they both introduced themselves as Joyce’s “big sister” and Jocelyne said “we can both be her big sister”

        1. Throwatron

          This is something that I fail to understand how so many people can miss. Jocelyn clearly wasn’t honest at all, when she made herself out to be totally okay with Joyce having another Big Sister figure. Much like how Joyce lamented that she “always had a big sister…but never earned her,” Jocelyn has always been way more focused on her relationships with Joyce and Becky, than with any of the other members of her family. She also has this deep, stinging feeling of loss, about the relationship that was always there, but which she never got to engage in or express, before this point. Her assuring Sarah that they could both be big sisters, was a conversational nicety. It took Jocelyn exactly one strip to prove that she didn’t mean it, and this is just Sarah pointing that out.

          I mentioned yesterday how this conversation is almost 100% identical to Dorothy’s blow-up at Billie, over swooping in and being there for Joyce one time, taking maximum credit, and then absconding to leave the rest to Dorothy. It’s going more and more that way, as we read.

      2. Theozilla

        Yeah that’s good summary of where the characters are coming from.

      3. Erzsi

        Yes! This exactly. I feel like interpretations of this exchange are going in every which direction, but it’s actually just this.

  27. comicgeekery

    It’s definitely a complicated situation, but I do wonder if some of Jocelyn’s motivation is a longing for Joyce to be queer too. Jocelyn has probably felt really alone in her family for a long time. And now Joyce can have a girlfriend? An atheist, liberal girlfriend? It would be so tempting to blindly encourage that.

    1. yak

      Oh yeah, I think Jocelyn is giving the outsider perspective that probably most of us would have, hearing about this story without having followed these characters’ private lives for years.

  28. Claire

    I think this dynamic is really interesting!

  29. Li

    Oooo

  30. Alongcameaspider

    The mod picked a hell of a story beat to start policing the comments on

    Or maybe it was completely intentional in order to get the worst out in force to get them out of here early

    Anyway I see where both characters are coming from here, Jocelyne is only able to use the information she has and she’s missing a lot of context (like for example Joyce has been notably cagey about actually breaking up with Joe)

    1. Wack'd

      i started on monday but things were pretty chill so i didn’t need to do much

  31. Taffy

    This is a conflict with no safe option to root for. In that spirit, I’m going to advocate for Jocelyne and Sarah to settle this with a game of rocket tag in the hallway. Live ammunition, real rocket launchers, first to score wins.

    1. deliverything

      I’d prefer best of three, mostly because if one of them can make a comeback after being hit with a rocket, she’ll have earned it.

      1. Taffy

        That’s actually an excellent point, thank you!

  32. Sirksome

    Yes! Finally something going exactly the way I thought it would!

  33. Masha

    I still continue to not be a fan of how the women of color in the story are used as the ones to criticize Joyce and Dorothy but it always falls into the categories of 1.) the character is already generally unliked/not popular so their criticisms are easily brushed aside or ignored because of who they are or 2.) the dialogue is written in a way where the characters are blatantly talking around each other and the character ends up not actually presenting what their criticism is until the other person eventually smiles and moves on and people are left going “well what even was her problem?”

    1. Sirksome

      I think maybe this misconstrues why certain characters are even critical of Joyce or Dorothy which has more to do with their character than whether they are liked. I’ve said before Sarah has a history with cheating, her little sister has stolen multiple of her boyfriends. Raidah the only other character really even critical of Joyce and Dorothy also has a history of being cheated on, involving Joyce as well as a personal vendetta against Joyce for that. I think them being woman of color in this regard is purely coincidental since many if not all of their motivating factors for their criticism has been established in comic years ago. Asma is she was even that critical of them was only because she was asked directly by them. Most others have kind of given them a pass or justifiably don’t care much about other’s relationship drama. Dina specifically seems possibly a little upset with Joyce for involving herself in her and Becky’s relationship drama. Again her being a person of color seems coincidental.

      1. Theozilla

        Even if it is all truly coincidental, there is still value in noting and pointing out trends when they occur and examining them.

    2. StarryMoon

      Agreed. Raidah, Sarah, and Asma tend to be in a position where they oppose Joyce and Dorothy. And while I agree with their views, I don’t like how they’re constantly being put in a position that welcomes readers to be against them to uplift the main white couple. Its a trend I don’t like and I don’t know if everyone in this comment section is aware enough to have a discussion about it. And yeah, I don’t really see this convo leading anywhere considering a lot of characters suddenly leave a lot of the (mainly but not all dramatic/hard) convos out of nowhere. Raidah leaving a convo with Daisy to suddenly pray, Sarah leaving a convo with Joyce and Dorothy about their relationship to go to the toilet (or was it the bathroom?), and Asma leaving the bowling cus of a lack of Alice and not being sought on after.

  34. Jay

    I love Sarah so much, we haven’t gotten enough Sarah lately.

    1. Theozilla

      While women of color in the story do seem to be getting used that way relatively recently, I am not sure if that first category is that accurate? Like Dina and Sarah are pretty well-liked characters by the fandom. Or are you more talking about how popular/well-liked they are in-universe?

      1. Theozilla

        Whoops replied to the wrong comment

      2. Masha

        Assuming that was a reply to my comment then I would point to Raidah and Roz being examples.

        1. Theozilla

          Sure, so if we’re talking about fandom popularity, that would mean there have been two popular/well-liked characters and two unpopular/not-as-well-liked characters. So not really enough to be a categorical in that regard trend which is my point.

  35. JessWitt

    Looks like the big sister team-up has sailed for distant, opposing shores.

  36. Yotomoe

    https://cdn.imgchest.com/files/88d2ede3a6bf.png (Suggestive)
    Meant to post this yesterday but didn’t get to it. In honor of the new book title I wanted to draw Amber being a Messy trash goblin.
    I may do more. I really like Amber when she’s trashy.

    1. ThatDerpGuy

      Your art is always a treat to see Yoto. Always happy to see a sexy goblin Amber

      1. thenamelesssamurai

        Agreed

    2. RyzerShadows

      We love goblin amber in this house

    3. NGPZ

      she not just trashy, she STEAMIN HOT trash <3
      splendid work <3

    4. Sirksome

      She sent Danny five naked workout pictures or she sent Walky five naked workout pictures? Y’know it’s actually funnier if it’s both.

      1. Dwampre Scorrigank

        A mix, she just has one “My Ex” in her contacts and her phone picks one at random. It’s a little weird she includes Ethan, but Danny actually gets the most angry about it.

      2. Yotomoe

        She sent them to Walky. She’s just being vague about it cuz she’s saying this to Dorothy.

    5. Cbwroses

      I’m here for it

    6. Insanenoodlyguy

      If things do shake out that you no longer feel welcome here, there are places that will gleefully take what you have to offer you wonderful creature you.

    7. anon

      lol at first i was gonna ask what a ‘wet lolan’ was before i realized it said blanket haha

    8. clif

      It took me a sec., but the first two had me giggling.

    9. FlameAndLight

      you are a treasure, i love your art, thank you!

    10. Allotrope

      Yotomoe your art is goated with the sauaS <3

    11. Throwatron

      oh geez i love me some goblin content.

    12. NickPG

      I think I get what ‘Eiffel Towered’ means but I’ve never heard that term before (probably just gets tagged as ‘DP’)

    13. Li

      SUPER cute!

    14. John Campbell

      The last one made me actually lol.

  37. Reaver

    *pushes their head together*

    Now kiss-

  38. ADLegend21

    said it on the patreon, but dating prospects don’t excuse cheating Jocelyn, and Sarah’s right the market doesn’t matter to Joe because he loves Joyce and Joyce is leaving him hanging on if they can still be together. It’s not about being owed a person.

  39. Cheshrin

    Probably going to be my last comment here – the new UI has been giving me an honest-to-gods migraine, and I value my physical health more than I value rambling into an uncaring void – so I want to go out on a high note by talking about a character who has always been one of my favorites: Sarah Clinton, aka the smartest person in Read Hall.

    It’s very important to remember when discussing this conversation that Sarah herself is the victim of infidelity – she’s had at least two high school boyfriends cheat on her, both with her little sister. While Liz can only be blamed for one of those, that doesn’t change the fact that Sarah has not only been in the position of being cheated on, but having her romantic partner “stolen” by someone she loved and trusted. In that respect, she is perhaps more justified than anyone in the comic to be disapproving of Joyce and Dorothy getting together as a result of infidelity, and I suspect it will be a very long time both in and out of comic before she becomes remotely okay with any of this.

    Furthermore, while Jocelyne is not omniscient and thus does not know that she is telling someone who was cheated on, “hey, that thing that happened to you personally and hurt you deeply doesn’t actually matter, and you’re actually the weirdo for caring so much,” I as the all-seeing audience do know that, and thus know exactly how Sarah would feel about being told that. With that in mind, I have nothing but sympathy for Sarah in this situation. Frankly, she could be several orders of magnitude meaner about this and I would still be sympathetic towards her. Like, we’re talking somewhere well past skip-the-wedding magnitudes of mean before I start to think she might be overreacting.

    (Again, that’s not a knock on Jocelyne, she doesn’t know. I’m just talking about what I know.)

    To put it very simply and very positively: Sarah Clinton is objectively correct to be pissed at Jocelyne here and also can do no wrong in my shriveled, bitter heart. She is my queen and she will always be my queen and I will support her always. Free my girl, she did all that but who cares. Good night!

    1. Dwampre Scorrigank

      Sorry about the migraines. I agree about Sarah, it is very fair for her to be angry about this, and I wonder if you’re right that this will become a longterm grudge of hers, that would be interesting.

    2. Bash

      I think she came out swinging a little too hard when she blamed Jocelyn for Joyce cheating on Joe. Jocelyn had nothing to do with that, and it’s not fair to assume she did.

    3. Trying my best

      Thank you for the great comment as you go. Thank you also for mentioning the migraines, as I didn’t connect the dots to realize the UI was triggering mine. I am sorry you have been having them though!

      1. Dwampre Scorrigank

        If you don’t mind, what do you think it is about the UI change that’s triggering migraines? I don’t get migraines (I think – I’m assuming my chronic headache isn’t one), and also my memory is quite flaky these days (especially about visual things), so I don’t have my finger on what might be a problem in the new version.

    4. zee

      As a fellow migraine sufferer I salute you comrade. As a fellow Sarah lover I will simply concur that she is in fact the GOAT, and add that she’s actually never done anything wrong in her life ever and deserves the world. I do not take constructive criticism nor will I except any slander on my goats name

  40. Seralyna

    Oooh what a good comic to have this encouragement to analyse the text on, I haven’t done that in a while on account of the swap to a new site and the broad hostility. This might be my favorite strip so far…?

    First of all, there are two interesting character beats going on here, one old and one new. Jocelyne has been… I think entirely uncontroversial since her first appearance in a sense. Of course anyone with an issue with trans people is going to have an issue but disregarding that, she has been nearly a perfect infallible angel the entire time, I can’t really think of anything she has done that could believably cause any tension with this comics intended audience without an absurd amount of reaching. As a result, this comic is new ground for her! While I personally basically entirely agree with what she is saying, it’s absolutley controversial.

    I particularly like her position here as a person with a high connection to the situation, but a low familiarity with it. She cares a lot about it but doesn’t really know the ins and outs, the emotional situation and the details. She is speaking partially from a place of ignorance (which is reasonable considering her situation and the fact joyce hasnt mentioned joe once since she dumped him) which still causes her friction with the viewer (and sarah) , who has seen joe’s entire redemption and has inherent bias towards sympathising with him.

    Theres just a very potent back and forth here, where her first comment is pretty dismissive, and overall genuinley kinda tough if you appreciate Joe. While there has been a lot of focus on his previous actions, this instead just dismisses his importance because of his appearance, its pretty callous. This, combined with sarahs line puts you on sarah’s side, before Jocelyne swoops back in by delivering another callous, but much more correct line. I think It’s true that no matter how much Joe loves joyce, whether they had a relationship or not, he isn’t owed a relationship with joyce, and he doesn’t get to decide what she does now that they have broken it off.

    I mentioned an old character beat here, and it’s Sarah’s! A very old one in fact, which is, terrible first impressions. Sarah is a character we have had a long time to get used to, and she’s very wonderful, but she is famously pretty standoffish to people she doesn’t know. The thing that reminded me of this are her more recent first impression with Lucy. Sarah was activley hostile and tried to push her away.

    She starts out immediatley on the wrong foot a few panels ago, with the fumble on the trans thing, then here takes Jocelyne’s defensivness as a challenge to her role in joyce’s life. It’s pretty likely she felt kinda on the backfoot ever since that start, and this whole conversation escalates her emotional intensity by having joe disrespected, without Jocelyne even realising she’s doing it.

    Overall I just think it’s fun that sarah’s like, Main Character trait of being bad with people, and happy about it gets some time to shine, because the more she interacts with people who she likes and likes her, the easier it is to forget that shes kind of a social mess, and I like that about her.

    I’m not sure what to think about the “Our little sister” line because it’s really interesting and nuanced but I feel like we do need more context from the next page to fully understand how she meant it. How much of it is rooted in being genuinley offended by the idea that she might not be being considered by Jocelyne as important to joyce, how much relates to her trying to make a point of her more direct connection to the situation compared to Jocelyne!! I don’t know but its fun to guess!

    There is a fair criticism here to say that both of these people are talking past each other, and I think that’s somewhat true, although I think its in character for them both. Neither has perfect information, and both are kinda running hot emotionally. Jocelyne is effectivley insulting someone that Sarah likes without realising, and although the trans thing was shrugged off by her, I feel like it’s pretty easy for something like that to set her in a more defensive mindset. They are both kinda reading the worst from the other’s statements here and escalating way too much and it rules.

    Really good page, I don’t feel like proofreading this so sorry if its a mess

    1. Fireprincesslily

      Thank you for saying everything I could have said and more. I appreciate this take!

    2. v

      i think we should pin this comment to the top of the comments section, THIS is the good character analysis i wanna be seeing!!!!!!!!!

  41. Sajuuk-Khar

    Sarah!!! I have a FOOLPROOF way to assert your dominance! Bring up the time you hit a dude with a bat for Joyce!! Unprompted!!!

    1. Sajuuk-Khar

      this is not to stake out a side this is to promote the horrifically messy but really funny idea of Jocelyne learning about the horrible first week party SA through THIS SITUATION and like, Sarah just being like “Get a bat and show me what YOU’RE about, white girl!!”

  42. Bajja

    Team Sarah on this 🤷🏻‍♀️

  43. Spira

    Sarah I love you and I am rooting for you here but please get back to the point and stop pushing this weird big/little sister fixation, it is not going to do you any favors. Don’t let Jocelyne walk away believing that you think Joe is owed Joyce. You have some very valid arguments you could be making instead!

    1. Dwampre Scorrigank

      I don’t think Jocelyne believes Sarah believes that, I think it’s a rhetorical point saying “your argument is moot unless you do believe that (which I’m sure you don’t)”. I see Sarah as conceding that shutdown, not because she has nothing more to say but because she didn’t have it prepared to say in a way that accounts for Jocelyne’s rhetoric, and so she indicates “you won this round but this isn’t over/ I’m not abandoning my care or influence over Joyce or her actions”.

      1. Dwampre Scorrigank

        If Yak’s reply to my comment was removed because of my report, it was an accidental report, sorry – there certainly wasn’t anything offensive or rule-breaking about it. I am curious whether reports are more sensitive now (it used to take some larger number because of how easy it is to hit accidentals).

  44. Sajuuk-Khar

    Separately from my other comment about a hilarious insane scenario where Sarah breaks the news to Jocelyne about Joyce’s getting SA’d at a party in the worst way humanly imaginable, o have never been more certain that the Dorothy/Joe/Joyce polycule is alive and SHOULD win

    Can you imagine how funny it’d be if that kicked off with these two in separate monogamy camps

    1. Mewzard

      “Joyce should date Dorothy!”
      “Joyce should date Joe!”
      “You’re both right, I do, in fact, date both!”
      *synchronized expressions of surprise from both Jocelyne and Sarah*

      1. Insanenoodlyguy

        Interestingly, Sarah’s current argument wraps around and applies on the other end. Dorothy loves Joyce and is owed full knowledge of her partners relationship status/statuses.

  45. Tessea

    Thank you!!! It’s good to see people who can see past knee-jerk reactions and see both sides of an issue.
    They’re both right, they’re both wrong, and they both want what’s best for Joyce. But they can’t referee her relationships.

  46. shepsquared

    She’s implying that Jocelyn wouldn’t be shrugging this off as meaningless if Joe had cheated on Joyce. Or if Jocelyne actually knew Joe, like she presumably does Becky.

    1. Kimi

      Even if you can shrug it off as just a temporary young relationship and you are better off without the cheater, most people do not want to hear that right away (maybe after they get in a better relationship or after the sting has cooled off). I wonder how much of that is due to people taking the cheating as commentary on them personally rather than on the cheater. A “if I had been a better person, they wouldn’t have cheated on me” type of thing.

      On a side note, I am not sure that Joe would have cared as much about others cheating on him during his previous relationships as he never treated them seriously. He took his relationship with Joyce fairly seriously and strived to be the better person that she saw in him.

      1. shepsquared

        He’s probably clinging to the knowingly doomed hope that Joyce is going to say “Dorothy said yes to me being a hinge” when she gets around to talking to him too.

      2. anon

        did joe even have ‘previous relationships’ or just one night stands/hookups? I doubt he would’ve had anyone willing to date him versus keeping it casual after roz leaked their sex tape

      3. Trying my best

        Joyce was Joe’s first ever relationship.

  47. Buli-Buli

    This is a false dichotomy. No one is “owed” a romantic relationship. Joe is not “owed” a relationship with Joyce.
    He –having been a loyal and invested partner– _is_ owed the dignity of not being publically cheated on or being strung along by Joyce after the fact.
    And it is evidence of Sarah’s good character that she is (A) defending Joe’s well-being and (B) holding Joyce to an ethical standard Sarah expects.
    As opposed to Jocelyne’s flippant “girls will be girls” response.

    I will take the time to argue that while Joe has been even-tempered and rational about how his relationship with Joyce ended… His suggestion that he could “share” Joyce with Dorothy is unrealistic to the point that I question the sincerity of his reaction.

    1. Insanenoodlyguy

      Is he owed a relationship? No. Is somebody who loves you, been in a relationship with you where they’ve been committed, owed fidelity and a clean break? Yes. This is a carryover conversation. “Unfaithful.” is the context Sarah is arguing here. It’s a lousy way to treat somebody who loves you.

  48. aelfwine

    …I think it’s one thing for Joyce to refer to Sarah affectionately as a big sister of hers, and it’s yet another for Sarah to demand Joyce’s actual sister to treat that as factual reality. Sarah’s actual relationship towards Joyce is “friend” and “roommate”.

    1. Cassie

      I think it’s interesting how this coincides with the cheating issue. Would Sarah be pushing as hard on the sister thing if she didn’t feel like she was also pushing for moral advisorship, bordering on moral authority, over Joyce? Maybe. Maybe not. But I think there’s a clear connection between “I am Joyce’s big sister (too)” and “Joyce should not have cheated and anyone who enabled that is on my shitlist.”

      I think it’s also a claim Jocelyne won’t feel like she can back down from; yes, she said “We can both be her big sister,” granting Sarah permission to claim the title alongside her, but it’s pretty clear she wasn’t offering that out of genuine goodwill. At best it was an awkward moment she was trying to smooth over, and I’m guessing there was some hurt that she felt like the big sister role–something Joyce has mentioned always wanting–has apparently already been filled. Sarah doubling down on that in order to assert that her views should be the ones Joyce hears will continue to push on that hurt, and being “big sis” is something I don’t think Jocelyne can give up easily.

      And then you have Sarah’s response to how Jocelyne is so cavalier about Joyce cheating. Because yes, college boyfriends come and go, and yes, Joe is likely to find someone else who wants him quickly if that’s what he wants, but the hurt is still real; Sarah’s not wrong to point that out. But the way she’s doing it, I feel like “so he’s owed my little sister,” in addition to Jocelyne setting her claim on the title, is a valid response. He will still get over it and heal either way and he will find someone new either way, but in the meantime he’s not owed Joyce. Neither argument refutes each other but neither actually really hits on the point.

      I also think that, in a hypothetical world where Joyce and Dorothy realized they’re in love and broke up with their respective boyfriends, Sarah wouldn’t be much happier. There’s not a lot of difference between “I’ve been in love with my best friend this whole time and so we need to break up” and “I’ve been in love with my best friend this whole time and we’ve kissed and cuddled a bit” in terms of betrayal, and that seems to be Sarah’s sticking point. No matter that Joyce has come to terms with a fundamental truth about herself, no matter that her little sister is happy, Sarah is upset because it hurt Joe. Which is another reason why she doubles down on “Our little sister;” even if she doesn’t think Joe is owed Joyce, per se, asserting her right to Joyce is more important to her than asserting Joyce’s right to pick her partner. I think Sarah might also be worried that Joyce is going to move on from her too, and that’s probably kicking all the emotions surrounding this whole thing into high gear, as well as making it a proxy fight about Sarah and Joyce’s relationship.

      …that all kinda got away from me, sorry

  49. Tilly

    I think the interesting thing here is that they’re both swinging pretty hard and getting pretty defensive about their respective positions, but neither of them really know the whole story – Joe isn’t even really an *ex*-boyfriend just yet, inevitable as that probably is (I really can’t see the Joyce v-shaped throuple era ever happening). Neither of them *really* know what’s going on with Joyce at the moment because neither of them have really been good big sisters and asked.

    1. Shiro

      Yeah! I like how both of them have aspects where they’re correct, and neither really has the full story. It’s a very human conflict and I appreciate that. It shows that Willis is trying to add more of that realistic, flawed humanity to the story, and that makes it feel like a fuller world, if that makes sense

    2. Fail Earnhardt

      I think there’s some motivated reasoning here too. Jocelyn needs Dorothy to matter more than Joe because she finally has a sibling to share her queerness with and will hold onto that for dear life. Sarah needs someone else to take the cheating-turned-halfway breakup more seriously in order to validate both her judgment of Joe and the bitterness she still feels about her own cheating incident.

  50. Fail Earnhardt

    Torching a relationship because your boyfriend is too short? That’s easy mode for Self Sabotage Sarah. The real galaxy brain play is starting beef with your roommate’s sister where you’re both clearly using said sister as a vector to air out messier emotions.

  51. eskimolos

    Honestly, as the youngest of five kids, I do think Sarah is right to defend her place as Joyce’s big sister. I know life gets in the way, but Jocelyne has barely been around and there for Joyce during pivotal growing times in her teen years, meanwhile Sarah has been there and actively talking about things with Joyce, almost daily. I’m too exhausted to manage a more in-depth take, but I like Sarah asserting her position as Joyce’s big sister here.

    1. Throwatron

      Sarah’s first roommate emotionally imploded to the extent that it nearly ruined Sarah’s entire future, and so then she had to deal with it the best way she knew how. She was rewarded with a second roommate, who may as well have been a twelve-year-old, in terms of life experience and maturity. Yes, in this regard, I’m infantilizing Joyce, because the persistent infantilization of Joyce through her early life, is the canon of her character.

      So, I generally wouldn’t be on Sarah’s “side,” here, in most cases; I wasn’t exactly on Dorothy’s “side” when she blew up at Jennifer, in nearly the same archetypal situation, though I had sympathy for her feelings. But, Sarah is not wrong to identify that, from her perspective, “being a sister” is a matter of responsibility and work that you have to do, not just a matter of blood relation. Sarah has been tirelessly putting in the work for Joyce, almost from Day 1 of the strip, when it comes to helping Joyce drag herself out of the hole of her own lack of socialization, and supporting her sometimes-particular wants and needs.

      Sarah tried ignoring her first roommate situation, until it became so bad that she felt she HAD to step in. The opposite is what happened with Joyce. She’s actually been there for her, far above and beyond what any person in her position would be expected to. Far above and beyond, what would be expected from someone merely being a “good person.” She’s been a big sister figure, full-stop, and she’s therefore right to be hackled by the implication that she is lesser, when compared to someone who, from Sarah’s perspective, only occasionally shows up, and performs no actual sisterly labour.

      It’s very insensitive to Jocelyn, but if Sarah full-on said “call me when you pick up a bat for your sister,” I wouldn’t entirely hold it against her, even if it would be an emotional outburst, where she should know better. Like, by Sarah’s standards, Jocelyn has been a great big sister…to Becky. We aren’t privy to the particular things that Jocelyn has done for Joyce in the past, because they were probably not constrained within the timeline of this comic.

      1. Dot

        It’s all very complicated, because Jocelyne was closeted for most of her life and was denied the opportunity to establish a sisterly bond with Joyce, who slotted her into the role of “annoying older brother.” She feels she has to play catch-up, and probably feels insecure about the fact that, in many ways, Sarah really has been much more of a big sister to Joyce than she has, and that’s probably why this disagreement is getting her hackles up so much.

  52. Dwampre Scorrigank

    Yay, Joss gets another new sister! (the combative rival kind)

  53. Acher4

    oh shiiiiiiit.
    lol
    *grabs popcorn*

  54. Bill Erak

    OH SNAP

  55. CT Phipps

    I am guessing Joycelyne hasn’t had much experience in relationships, for obvious reasons. They’ve had to be deeply closeted for survival. However, I think they’re just not seeing the idea of trying to let someone down easy.

    1. FlameAndLight

      as far as I can tell Jocelyn does not use they/them pronouns. She uses she/her

    2. AlexanderHammil

      Per Jocelyne, she had her “bubble poked at by a lot of gay people,” so she might not have had many long-term relationships, but it sounds like she’s done her share of dating and/or hooking up.

      1. Throwatron

        This is pretty much the whole reason why this conversation is going so badly; Jocelyn just does not believe that, up until now, Joyce could have had a meaningful emotional relationship, because she’s projecting her college experience onto Joyce’s. She can see, however, that the Dorothy relationship is serious, because like everybody else in the cast, Jocelyn has known they were mega-freaking-gay for each other for the jump.

        She truly has no context for Joyce’s relationship with Joe, other than “my lil sis has always been a sexually-repressed hornball underneath her fundie programming, and I have exclusively seen her try to shack up with tall, attractive guys since she went to school.” It makes sense for her to minimize it, subjectively; she may not feel the same way, if she was actually present for more than 0.1% of the strips in the broader story.

    3. Lena

      Jocelyn uses she/her.

      1. C.T. Phipps

        My apologies, those they were meant in the general sense and not as identifiers of pronouns. I know I should be using she/her but just fell into the habit that I use for all people while writing. /sincerity mode

        1. Lena

          No worries. :)
          Apologies for being a bit terse.

  56. Bash

    I think most of the commenters would agree with you. Joceyln doesn’t see it like that, because she wasn’t around for any of this. She didn’t see Joe slowly open up to Joyce in a way that’s completely new for him. She doesn’t understand how much this relationship means to him, because she doesn’t know him at all. Dorothy took the time to get to know her, so she’s more invested in that relationship.

  57. Regina Phalange

    I’m pretty sure that’s what Sarah’s getting at with her point about how Joe loves Joyce. She certainly isn’t suggesting Joe is owed Joyce. So she must be suggesting his sincere feelings deserve some respect (I.e., he didn’t deserve to be cheated on, let alone publicly).

  58. Corey C.

    Oh god, this IS going the route of the boss vs brother conversation in “Love Hurts!” HIDE THE BUBBLE TEA!

  59. yak

    Same

  60. GUIGUI

    Pretty sure Sarah’s comment was more about how saying things like “back to the market” isn’t the most appropriate thing to say about someone whose heart is broken.

    But then again, what do I know, I am not the one writing the comic.

  61. Thing 2

    Why should we have to go over it one more time? Isn’t hundreds of times enough? And you may have your personal opinion, but so do hundreds of other readers. So, should everyone prsent their opinion and there is some kind of vote that we all adhere to, or do we all just agree/disagree to differing ‘degrees’? Or is it that if you repeat your opinion often enough and loudly enough, everyone will agree?
    It doesn’t work in politics and it doesn’t work here. It just fills up space. Can you accept that people have different personal opinions? I have no beef with you having a personal opinion, merely with insistence that yours is the only one, and repetition of it.

    1. Taffy

      I don’t usually agree with you, but right now I agree very strongly.

      We have been over this.
      We’ve been over it almost daily.
      Multiple times a day.
      For like a year.
      Every possible angle has been covered in that time, and not once have I seen a single person be convinced by anyone else’s version.
      No amount of “you refuse to call it this” or “you’re delusional if you don’t agree with me” is going to work. It has been stress tested.
      Endlessly.
      After this long, for any angle of “Are Joyce and Joe broken up?”, every single person who was ever going to be convinced by the exact same rhetoric has been convinced.
      Can we make like the All-American Rejects in that Bionicle commercial and “Move Along” already?

      1. Jay

        If only there was a discussion between teo characters thats been pushed off thay could solve all of this, in-and-out if universe

  62. redcaela

    What could Jocelyne possibly see in Dorothy? She’s missed most of the relationship beats, but she didn’t miss that Dorothy is the girl whose love Joyce chose *twice* over that of her parents [1], with alienation and being disowned as potential consequences both times. That’s an especially heady brew of dramatic entanglement, and if I were in Jocelyne’s shoes? Yeah, I’d be cheering from the sidelines that my little sister fell for the person that inspired that kind of bravery and growth (Joyce gets drunk head over heels on that romantic draught, of course, and Dorothy errs on the side of sobriety). Joe’s a true sweetie-pie that helped his girl come out of her shell. Dorothy is the meteor that knocked her girl’s life out of orbit and set it on fire, with all the consequent smoke and debris. That’s the wavelength I’m on and I interpret Jocelyne as being on.
    –
    [1] – Down to mirroring those panels in dramatic fashion, I’m a total sucker for that: https://www.tumblr.com/dumbingofage/796046687379587072/next-january-lets-do-this-pose-again-at-my-dad
    –
    I think a polyamory arc could be really cute and provide a fun opportunity for the characters (Joyce especially) to grow again and mine new avenues of humor, but Joyce basically blue-screened the first time the subject came up with Joe and more or less had the same reaction when other polycules came up. It’ll be a slow burn to there if it happens. Feel like we’re “due” to see the Dina-Becky talk before then.

  63. ADLegend21

    Jocelyn literally just said they could both be Joyce’s older sisters

    1. Throwatron

      Yes, and that sentiment lasted for eight panels, and then Joyce was “my sister,” again.

      1. Throwatron

        Jocelyn, but I get 404s after every post, so I have no edit button.

      2. Throwatron

        wait, actually, my correction is wrong, I literally misread my own post, it did not need correction. I only had one coffee this morning :<

  64. ProfNekko

    it really shows how Jocelyne and Joyce are siblings considering they both possess the same Impulsive and “happiness regardless of what happens to others” mentality. Though in this case I’m willing to give a bit more leeway to Jocelyne in that she does not know anything about Joe other than his looks… However I will also give some knocks against Jocelyne for her commentary about Joe because she really is dismissing him as just some hunk of meat that can be dropped and doesn’t have to worry cause another girl will just rebound on him anyways cause he’s attractive.

    And while this is speculation on my part I do feel that Jocelyne is also expressing the behaviors she is accusing Sarah of because she is kinda treating Dorothy like a rare collectable that you have to jump at at the chance. Likely not her intention but it can come off that way.

    In this argument I’m more willing to take Sarah’s side. But that’s since I know the full context of her character with her being upset over getting her ex-boyfriend cheating on her with her own sister and her concerns that Joyce’s kinda flippant attitude to everything is leading her down a dangerous path. But let’s see how the Battle of the Big Sisters ends shall we?

  65. frmCast351

    It’s kinda starting to read like Sarah sees Jocelynn as a kind of corrupting influence? as if she’s upset with Joyce for the way she’s not handling the Joe situation, but also she cares about Joyce enough that she would rather find an external factor to blame for her behavior, and Jocelynn conveniently fits the bill. a kind of “you’re doing a bad job of being a protective figure, and you’re failing to save Joyce from her own bad decisions, so i guess i have to step in as Big Sister”
    That also pretty well mirrors the way she handled the situation with her old roommate, where she saw someone struggling with bad decisions and took it upon herself to be the person to make it better, and in the process scorning those who would sit by and allow things to play out. except in that case it was a self-destructive grief fueled spiral, and in this case it’s a kind of cascading self-discovery. the level of severity is not equivalent, which Jocelynn identifies (“it’s college, boyfriends come and go, give it time and it’ll be fine”).
    It’s actually kind of an interesting dynamic here, because usually Sarah is the jaded and experienced Older Person of the group, who has a year of experience over the rest of the main cast, but here she’s actually the naive idealist to Jocelynn’s Experienced Older Person, who has the hindsight to be able to say that the things that seem like they matter a lot right now will matter less as time goes on. It shows that while Sarah is generally more mature and experienced than the freshman of the cast, she’s not without flaw and is herself still growing and experiencing.

  66. Jerna

    “Our little sister.”
    CUE THE ANTHEM OF THE USSR!!

  67. v

    oh we’re encouraging analysis? far be it from me to usually get involved in comments sections (hell, i’ve never commented on dumbing of age before), but as joss’s neighbor in ramentown (english degree) lemme take a crack at it
    –
    i feel like thus far in dumbing of age, there’s been kind of a dichotomy in term of the way that the two notable trans women in the cast are portrayed, and it goes back to a line from the aforementioned 2016 storyline with mary: “just because i’m trans doesn’t mean i have to be the perfect girl”. specifically, carla is simultaneously hilarious and lovely while also being arrogant and high on her own self importance, while jocelyne, due to lacking screen time up until the past year or so, was portrayed with less… bite to her character, so to speak? she’s the reasonable sibling, the one who’s correct about the awful stuff going on in the brown family, the queer one, the one who actually cares about becky without getting uncomfortable. not portrayed without nuance, to be clear! but her being kind of a little shit in a very ‘older sister’ way isn’t quite the same as what’s being displayed here, which is her acting on incomplete information and sort of just… skirting past the idea that the people involved with these relationships that shattered have feelings. which is interesting to see! her increase in prominence is finally showing more of her humanity in a way which doesn’t flatter her, and it’s nice to see the first on-screen trans member of the cast displaying more of that messy humanity. she’s stepping out of the “perfect girl” mould, and in a way which also goes back to one of HER old lines: “i’m their favorite, precisely because they know the least about me”. (it’s 4:30 in the morning, forgive me for not getting the direct citations)
    –
    in some ways, the characteristics that joss displays here are a mirror to the characteristics that have made her likable thus far. her breezy insistence that joe can just move on and college boyfriends come and go parallels her willingness to engage in shenanigans and cause problems for the greater good. to her, the “greater good” is joyce’s relationship with dorothy, so joe can just move on. but even so, while jocelyne IS acting on incomplete information re: the depth of the involved relationships, there is an extent to which her dismissal of joe’s feelings is a very deliberate blind spot on her part. she’s correct that joe isn’t “owed” joyce, but that phrasing also feels precision designed to shut down a conversation by reading sarah’s words in bad faith. joss KNOWS that joe loves joyce, because she herself commented on it back at the start of her re-entrance into the plot.
    –
    joss’s reading of joe, in fact, contributes further to joe’s more recent character arc of being uncomfortable with the way he’s perceived as a sex object: she doesn’t say she’s MET joe, she says she’s SEEN him. in college, BOYFRIENDS come and go. it’s not about the respect that joe deserves as a person, it’s about the fact that he’s a handsome guy who can rebound with any woman he wants, and to some extent it’s about the fact that he’s a man in general. other commenters have noted that joyce’s relationship with dorothy allows jocelyne to know that her baby sister by blood is also queer and thus find solidarity in that, but an interesting caveat to that is that joss already had a queer baby sister: becky. joss hasn’t been keeping up with things to know that joyce and dorothy kissing led to becky having a breakdown that destroyed her own relationship, and while i’m sure joss isn’t heartless and wouldn’t be happy to hear it, there’s a sense that she’s regarding joyce as her ‘real’ family in this instant, same as she cuts sarah out of the co-sistering proposition the moment that she interprets sarah’s words uncharitably.
    –
    i sort of hope we get to see more of jocelyne interacting with becky in the future now that not everything is going rosy, because there ARE unconscious biases going on that i think it would be interesting to see her address and grapple with… i had more thoughts but it’s 5 am now so i release this beast into the wild

  68. Bea

    Ooh neat showdown. Feel like our trainwreck half-sister Liz deserves an honorary tag in this one. I’m not all that sympathetic to the idea that Sarah is just really hurt by the concept of cheating for a bunch of reasons but mostly cause if that’s all it is, then she really is just intruding and displacing her own hurt onto Joe. I mean, highly relatable, but if you really wanna take his side, he needs support not someone to shame Joyce more.

    BUT, if we’re thinking about Liz and more importantly Liz’s severe lack of limits and how Sarah tries and fails to keep her in check? And how Sarah feels like she’s taken on this important mantle as a sister but doesn’t really have a lot of standing because they didn’t live together long and their family ties are pretty tenuous? And especially considering that Liz showing up directly kicked off that whole atheism conflict between Joyce and Becky where it was largely up to Sarah (and Dotty) to hold Joyce accountable for how cruel she was willing to be to Becky. Now that Joyce has gone from “I’m not apologizing, they all straight up lied to me” to “I’m not apologizing for loving someone they tell me I’m not supposed to”, it’s once again up to Sarah to speak up and tell her, it’s great that you found yourself but you absolutely cannot trample all over other people. And unlike Liz (and Dana), Joyce actually does listen to her. Which means that this is finally Sarah’s chance to be well-regarded, valued, loved, etc. for what she provides as a sister. Meanwhile Jocelyne, growing up trans in the Brown house, was present for the full scope of repression and abuse they come from and is landing squarely on the side of queer mess. She knows that ultimately the phobes and the christofascists want control over your body and your life, and any misstep you make is one more reason to shove you back into the closet and lock the door. Jocelyne sees her sister who has been denying herself for like a decade or more finally deciding to take up some space and become herself. Of course she doesn’t need to prioritize this guy’s feelings over her living her actual life. And If this Joe guy’s love is contingent on Joyce contorting herself into some acceptable wife-shape then that’s not love, that’s violence. It’s potentially the same as what Carol does.

    Now is this actually just some reasonable college-age gay mess that Joyce should absolutely be free to engage in? Or is it a shocking lack of regard for someone who cares deeply for and has put a lot of trust in her? Well, Joyce is having a hard time drawing that line for herself, so it’s up to her sisters to take sides and duke it out on her behalf.

    1. Yumi

      Nice analysis!

  69. Dandi Andi

    That may be true, but Sarah is the one who knocked Ryan out with a bat when he assaulted Joyce at a party. So I think Sarah has a pretty big pile of big sister credit.

    1. Bleuryder

      Plus, Sarah was there for the whole Becky’s dad kidnapping fiasco. Before, during and after. I think that gives her some points too.

  70. Big Z

    Meanwhile, I’m feeling that the panel 3-4 discussion is similar to that meme that goes around about the two definitions of respect:
    –
    Sarah: “He LOVES Joyce, though.” (“She dealt with him in such a way that she’s his first real relationship, and it’s been building through their friendship long enough that he’s legitimately affected by this, it’s not just another college fling from his side.”)
    –
    Jocelyne: “Oh, what, then, so he’s OWED my little sister?” (“I am understanding this strictly in the context of their dating relationship, wherein no valid solution for Joe is possible (except maybe poly but I am not privy to Joe floating that) because Joe’s unilateral love is not his ex-girlfriend’s problem.”)
    –
    At this point, given that both of these ladies are generally on the top of my “favorite characters, say smart things” list, I’m understanding this conflict to be primarily about context — Sarah’s thinking of the Joe that Joyce convinced her was growing and changing and who’s been one of Joyce’s best friends for a long while. I’m pretty sure that Jocelyne doesn’t have much if any of that context, and thinks this is just about the week-and-a-half of dating.
    –
    Importantly, in their respective contexts, they’re both correct!

    1. Big Z

      Broken edit button means my conclusion goes here:
      –
      If Joyce wants to continue to be “a good friend” to Joe, she owes him an acknowledgement of what’s happening at the very least, and some kind of a serious discussion. If Joe’s now just “the ex-boyfriend before dating Dorothy”, then it’s valid for her to not do that, with the knowledge (that Sarah and Joyce and we have, but that Jocelyne may not) that will basically devastate a friendship that’s been going on for months that Joyce seemed to be getting a lot of support from.

      1. Big Z

        (this also has me reading some Ron Swanson-like “I know more than you” energy into Sarah’s “OUR little sister.”, which seems very on-brand.)

    2. Sirksome

      I actually kinda think they’re both wrong here as well. Neither Jocelyne or Sarah actually know the details of Joyce and Joe’s relationship even if Sarah knows more. They have no idea what either want and at least for right now they both seem happy enough on the surface even if I don’t personally like or believe in the status Joe has put himself in or Joyce enabling that. The fact is Joe and Joyce are both kinda happy where they are right now based purely on their last interaction and Sarah and Jocelyne are talking out their asses even if it’s from a sincere place of concern. I think the argument pretty much immediately pivoting to possessiveness of their role as older sister to Joyce really emphasizes thier real problems with each other. Jocelyne has just showed up and started immediately influencing her sister and Sarah doesn’t like the direction that influence seems to lead.

      1. Sirksome

        I don’t think he’s happy either except for moments when he’s near Joyce, but I also don’t think his friends really know or care except for Sarah and possibly Dina. I’ve also been told by comments many times that he’s still actually dating Joyce and giving her the time she needs to figure herself out. If that is true then right now he’s seems fine continuing his relationship as is.

    3. PersonMcPerson

      I think it’s also important to consider another element of Jocelyne’s context. Jocelyne had hid this insanely important part of herself for years from her family for her own safety, including from Joyce. For all she knows, Joyce may have been doing the same thing, going so far as to get with Joe as a beard. In this context, Joe is a shield (maybe even a willing one, depending on what Jocelyne thinks), so she won’t know that he was genuinely in love with her

      1. Big Z

        That’s a valid line of thinking, but I kind of deliberately left that out because the very short-term-ness of their “officially dating” relationship argues against it, IMHO — Jocelyne herself seems to be identifying it out loud as “college relationships come and go” rather than “maybe this was bearding/comphet/self-defense”, after all, and I think even if she doesn’t want to say the latter part out loud I feel like she would have phrased the former part differently if she was thinking along those lines, perhaps acknowledging it as an awakening or self-understanding rather than just the vagaries of college life (since, obviously, Joyce is nowhere near a closet at this point).

  71. PersonMcPerson

    cheering for jocelyn because i hate straight relationships /j

  72. superglucose

    Ok Joe + Jocelyne is the ship I never knew I needed

    1. PersonMcPerson

      gwuh? where does a Joe + Jocelyne ship come from?

      1. UrsulaDavina

        If two characters exist they can be shipped thats an internet rule i don’t know the number.

        1. TulipKitten

          To be fair, they have floated the idea around a few times in comic, when Joyce pestered Joe about not putting Carla on the list. And then he got defensive about it and started “If you want me to prove a point by saying I’d fuck your sister” and “bestow womanhood with my boner”. That could be read as foreshadowing. And Jocelyne looks enough like Joyce that he, in his heartbroken stupor, might use her as a rebound.

          Jocelyne did ask about Joe in the context of her little sister, but if you read it hilariously bad faith, she could have been scoping Joe out to snatch him from her sister.

          Joe and Jocelyne would be an egregiously messy ship that I’m honestly kinda here for. It would firmly cement Jocelyne’s villain arc in-comic.

        2. PersonMcPerson

          (replying to TulipKitten) does Jocelyne really have a “villain arc”? I haven’t really noticed it.

        3. TulipKitten

          I want her to have a villain arc. But alas, she doesn’t yet.

  73. nadamás

    That’s not something that she said or mean. Please stop being weird about Jocelyne.

    1. Rimwalker55

      Well, I’m always open to constructive criticism. Misogyny is a sociological belief system that places men at the top. It doesn’t matter the gender of the speaker, there are still women that believe their husband is the boss of the family. It’s a myth that taking a long time to die.
      So when someone says, and I paraphrase, ‘Joe’s got no complaint, he’s going to get plenty of action’, it is no flex to recognize it as classic misogyny.
      I’m open to refutation.

      1. nadamás

        I don’t believe you when you say you are open to constructive criticism, you has had a recognizable pattern of accusing Jocelyn specifically of weird things (being manipulative and now being misogynistic) that are just stretch at best, outright misreading at worst. And ignoring when people tell you that’s weird. I won’t call you transphobic but it’s honestly hard for me not to see it that way, you seem to have bias regarding Jocelyn specifically and that make me not trust you

      2. Rimwalker55

        Heard and noted. Thanks for responding. One of the best things about DOA is the basic canon that there are no perfect people. Everyone is human and has their own personal journey. It makes it very real and relatable. Jocelyn is a warm and caring person who grew up in in a highly indoctrinating world. It takes time to grow out of all that. No saint but actively changing every day. Like her sister, like Sarah, like Joe. Jocelyn shouldn’t be immune to comment, that would just deny her humanity and the great story of her growth. Just as we all have.

    2. Rimwalker55

      Also, @Dot’s comments below had some good points on this. And probably a lot clearer and less wonky than me.

  74. Caroline

    1. this is the most interesting character collision we’ve had in a while and I really like it. these two being so strongly at odds is something i dont think anyone saw coming until it started and is something that’s really going to last
    2. does the ‘save my name and email in this browser for the next time i comment’ button just straight-up not work for anyone else? I have my adblocker turned off for this site so I know it’s probably not that

    1. Caroline

      oh wonderful and when I hit post it does send the comment but also sends me to a 404 page. i think my browser’s fuckin broken

      1. Cassie

        I think the site just does that. No idea why, but it’s weird and annoying.

      2. Alongcameaspider

        Nah its not a problem on your end, the sites been doing that to everyone since it got updated

  75. YourCousinJay

    I kinda get why, Joyce is her sister and you’ll always want to view them in the best light but I didn’t expect them to just kinda brush it all under the rug. Though I’m glad Sarah’s at least checking her on it as someone who’s been between all of them since the start of the schoolyear and by proxy both more context and bigger stakes regarding Joyce’s actions and the ways their effects ripple through the friendgroup

    1. YourCousinJay

      (also i dont know if this slides too far into banned conversation if so I apologize, however)
      .
      It also really erks me Joce would immediately read Sarah’s response as her implying Joe was “owed Joyce” for loving her. Rather than him being owed not to get cheated on or even the base dignity to have his relationship come to any conclusion be that polyamory or a breakup or some mystery third option. It just comes over as a kind of protectiveness of her little sister that bleeeds into a kind of un-empethatness that I honestly didn’t expect from someone like Joce

      1. Throwatron

        No, I’m actually with you that Jocelyn is not arguing in good faith by going to that place. It’s very much a deliberate rhetorical shutdown via strawman. Which Jocelyn should know, and probably would admit to herself, if she were being honest about it. She’s 110% jealous and threatened by Joyce having a second sisterly figure in her life, because Jocelyn has already carved that space out for herself in her mind, probably going back to when Joyce was a literal baby.

    2. Big Z

      That’s funny, because I am generally HARSHER on my little brother than I am on random folks — it’s practically my job to civilize him, after all. =P

      1. Throwatron

        You are the Sarah model of sibling, and that’s totally valid XD

  76. Wilde

    I’m STOKED about the new mod. Maybe we can finally see those heartfelt conversations of the past, where people remembered there are other human beings in here!

    I also hope this will apply to examples of people posting here simply to position “bait”. I agreed yesterday with your call on the “transphobes are going to be normal about this” and leaving that, but today I already see examples of people figuring out how they can use that style of comment as a loophole – “fortune telling” what other people are going to say or do – to lay a honey-pot and try to incite conflict by framing what the conflict COULD be in a way that positions themselves on higher ground, then “leaving” (so they can check to see who got caught in the trap later).

    Basically, I’m concerned that the especially smart “haters” around who apply (purposefully or not) some advanced manipulation/abuse tactics (such as DARVO) will fly under the radar. There are people who gaslight / manipulate other commenters into hostility as calmly as an arms dealer. I’m hopeful they’ll just get tired of having to work extra hard to plant their hate seeds, but I hope you’ll be looking out for people whose threads start “innocuously” but always create negative cesspools, and/or who seem to inflame otherwise calm threads instantly by casually flicking them like a domino. That stuff is creepy and unsettling, frankly, and not all commenters got my unfortunate life training to avoid abusers and some VERY insidious and subtle tactics.

    Thanks for your work, I look forward to seeing a more constructive and safer feeling comments section soon!!

    1. Wilde

      oops, I forgot we have to add breaks manually now. Sorry for the mess of text!

  77. Vulcanodon

    Joyce has been through all kinds of confusing new feelings and changes – it would be a miracle if she navigated all that smoothly. But I would like to see her have that conversation with Joe. She was Joe’s first real love, yes? And it wasn’t one-sided. She doesn’t owe him romance but that conversation does seem necessary.
    And… I think it will happen.

  78. Dot

    Yuri update: 2000 words of chapter eight written today. I bring this up just to say: Mx. Willis, I am newly-empathetic for the situation your characters put you in. These two girls REALLY want to kiss nad I find myself in the unenviable position of being the one who has to hold them back from each other.

  79. AC

    jocelyn is objectively correct

    1. Dot

      Jocelyne is correct from her own perspective, and with the information she has access to, it’s easy to see her perspective – Joe is a strapping young man, and obviously a catch in terms of looks. From the outside looking in, it’s easy to just assume that he’ll be fine, and that however he feels about things, it’s a worthwhile trade-off for Joyce to explore her true feelings for this young woman she’s objectively crazy about (and Jocelyne was present for Joyce defying her parents to keep Dorothy in her life, so she obviously knows how special that connection is, even if she’s also a bit biased towards the queer relationship over the heterosexual one).
      –
      But Sarah has much more context than Jocelyne does. She knows where Joe was earlier in the school year, how repulsive he was as a person. She knows how much he’s grown, and how much of that was specifically because he fell in love with Joyce. She saw how they improved one another, and how Joyce defied her in order to pursue her relationship with Joe (not equivalent to but thematically resonant to how Joyce defied the authority figures in her life to keep Dorothy in it). She knows how important their connection was to the both of them. And she’s come around on Joe! They’re friendly now. So of course seeing him regarded so callously and dismissively by someone who *does not know him* – that rankles her! She’s not saying that Joe is owed Joyce’s love – that’s a complete non-sequitur by Jocelyne to deflect the actual point that Sarah is making, which is that Joe *is* owed dignity and consideration of his interiority. Jocelyne is objectifying Joe here, in the sense that she is thinking of him as a slab of man-meat and not a person whom was hurt by her little sister. Even if that’s a reasonable thing to do with the information she has, Sarah knows that it’s wrong. That’s why she’s putting her foot down here.

  80. Smooti

    I had a much longer thought out comment here but then my browser crashed, so I’m just gonna sum up: both Jocelyn and Sarah are right, they’re just both coming at this from different angles. And I kind of like that there is almost an added layer of jealously on Sarah’s part here: she finally feels close to someone who needed her, and then one of Joyce’s siblings is coming in and trying to do similar things to Sarah’s “role.” I think Sarah is a little worried, maybe not consciously, that she’s going to get “replaced.”

  81. rainbow-flyer

    This is basically the sister version of Captain America: Civil War — Sister War. And honestly? I can see both sides. Jocelyne means well, but she’s coming at this as an outsider, while Sarah had a front-row seat to all of Joe’s character development. That makes it hit differently. Good on Sarah for standing her ground.

  82. David

    Joyce did wrong, but hey, character is a pendulum and she was oppressed almost her whole life! and almost got unalived by her own dad for not obeying their twisted rules!

    Joe is no saint, so whatever, he´ll manage. Sorry to fall into cliché, but he has to man up.
    Love can´t be “earned” anyway. Joyce loved Dorothy way more than Joe even before getting partnered to Joe.

    True love is beyond good and evil… it´s complicated.

  83. David

    Joyce did wrong, but hey, character is a pendulum and she was oppressed almost her whole life! and almost got unalived by her own dad for not obeying their twisted rules!

    Joe is no saint, so whatever, he´ll manage. Sorry to fall into cliché, but he has to man up.
    Love can´t be “earned” anyway. Joyce loved Dorothy way more than Joe even before getting partnered to Joe.

    True love is messy…

  84. Li

    I wonder if there isn’t a little bit of… well, gosh, how to put this!
    .
    First of all, Jocelyne was raised in the same environment as Joyce, and Joyce has definitely sometimes expressed a sort of… gender essentialism that positions boys as specifically being too strong to be hurt by stuff?
    .
    Second of all, there is definitely a certain stripe of both general feminine bonding and specifically feminist bonding that revolves around kind of shit-talking men. Men suck, men are the worst, men are insensitive louts, amirite ladies.
    .
    And I cannot help wondering if Jocelyne hasn’t been getting a lil bit of gender euphoria out of being dismissive about Joe’s feelings? Like, that would be very natural!

    1. Throwatron

      It has been my personal experience that many young trans women go through a phase, of varying duration, where they can be extremely dismissive of hurt done to, or had by, men; either in the context of interpersonal situations, or in the context of systemic harm done to men via patriarchy.

      I don’t think it’s a malicious thing; my gut instinct is that, when you don’t actually identify with being a man for a significant portion of your life, but still have to perform it up until you are free of it, it’s possible to subsequently minimize the value of men’s emotional spectrum afterwards, in much the same way the patriarchy actually does.

      I’m sure somebody out there has had much deeper, more scholarly insights about this phenomenon than I do. But, once you transition to a state where you’re no longer beheld to the presumption of being a man, it seems that there’s an eagerness to jump full-force into the feminine instinct of being socially dismissive of the very real problems that do affect men, partly because it’s part of the intoxicating nature of a sisterhood which has gone fully denied, but also partly because of a built-up animosity related to all the negative feelings that came from being forced against one’s will into performing manhood. And, I find, the less that someone actually identified with the trappings of manhood prior to transition, the more extreme this shift can be, and the longer it can last.

      I will also say, though, that everybody I’ve personally seen go through this, eventually grows out of it, and starts being willing to see men as people, again, as opposed to maintaining a permanent adversarial feeling towards them.

      Terrified to make this post, but it’s a lived experience I’ve been through more than once, and I do think it’s relevant and worth sharing.

  85. nadamás

    I don’t really care for picking a side in this conflict, I just enjoy new character interactions.

  86. Throwatron

    This is not at all what Sarah is trying to say, even slightly. That’s how Jocelyn is painting it, and Jocelyn is not correct, because she’s making assumptions about Sarah that are not true. Sarah is, however, absolutely terrible at communicating her points, and Jocelyn is bereft of any of the practical context as to what Sarah is trying to communicate, and why.

    If you want a better idea as to what Sarah’s actual concerns are, there are dozens of other comments from today where myself and others go into detail about that, and I don’t want to just rehash it, because I’ve spent way too long commenting, today.

  87. YourCousinJay

    aw, my comment chain got nuked

    welp. ehhh, best i got then is that im excited to see how sarah and joce will play off of each other given they both have Joyce’s best self-interest at heart but clearly different views on the circumstances surrounding it

  88. Li

    Whatever else you can say about the modding: this is definitely the most interesting to read comment section in a long, long time.

    1. Big Z

      I don’t even think that has anything to do with the modding, per se, this is just also great fodder for conversation — two characters, largely well-liked (or at least not widely hated by anyone worth listening to), having a discussion where they’re both basically correct depending on the perspectives they have.

      1. Li

        I mean, I really disagree.
        .
        I think the prohibition on having the exact same argument about the exact same 1-2 issues really forced a lot of folks to be more thoughtful about how they approached making comments, and I think knowing that we had a moderator made a bunch of people willing to read and potentially participate in a comment section on this specific strip who would otherwise have hunkered down to wait for the storm to pass, myself definitely included.
        .
        Plus, there are multiple new faces today, and plenty of folks actively saying very directly that they feel more comfortable commenting now because there’s a mod.
        .
        And… also a couple of people raising entirely understandable concerns! Hopefully Wack’d will take those concerns on board.
        .
        But to say it isn’t making a difference? It definitely is.

        1. Throwatron

          I’m mostly just shocked at how fast it was. The sheer number of disappearing comments (including a few threads where I just can’t see what the problem with them was?) is slightly concerning, but at this point, it’s probably better to over-correct than undershoot it. 300+ comments that are up to be appreciated, and there’s way more of the kind of discourse I’d previously thought of when I thought of this community.

        2. Li

          Yeah, I mean, I also contributed to a couple of threads that have disappeared, and I do wish we had a bit more feedback about what was going wrong, but… Right now, it feels like a garden has been aggressively pruned into better shape despite itself, hah.

  89. Irreleverent

    I feel like its being slightly overlooked that this exchange started with Jocelyn extending Sarah and olive branch which she chose to immediately attempt to beat her to death, for no particularly good reason. When Jocelyn asked Sarah if that means Joe is owed Joyce, she’s kinda just asking Sarah what the hell we’re even doing here.

    1. Irreleverent

      Actually though what did Jocelyn do to deserve this conversation?

      1. Rimwalker55

        Oo! Oo! I know this one! Actually, nothing other than teeing up some interesting back and forth about Joyce. It may be that this happens here and now to speed date the story line into Jocelyn’s encounter with Tony.

      2. PB

        Nothing. Sarah’s just establishing her shared sisterhood with Joyce. She tends to show affection by growling is all.

      3. Throwatron

        I think you’re missing the part where Jocelyn extended the olive branch, and then immediately pulled it back just 8 panels later. It was “our sister” up until the first moment she got any level of disagreement from Sarah, and then it was immediately back to “my sister.” That’s the thing Sarah responded negatively to, and if I were in her position, I would’ve noticed the slip, too.

  90. Reaver

    I forget. Did Sarah ever admit how not cool of a
    Move it was to try and get Jacob to cheat with Joyce? I feel like she’s being way more protective of Joe’s feelings than she ever was of Jacobs..

    1. YourCousinJay

      Eventually yeah and she tried to call it off but by then Joyce was super into the idea

    2. Stormtide Leviathan

      Theoretically, but she also later tried to get Joyce to cheat with jacob to break up her and joe

  91. The Rev

    God DAMN, Sarah!

  92. Allie_KO

    I think it’s still really important to remember: we the readers have spent a long time with these relationships than the people in setting have. It hasn’t been even a school year in story. In story, we gotta remember that Joyce and Joe were together for like, two months tops, and Dorothy and Walky were broken up for longer than they were together. There’s reason to be upset, certainly, but it’s not a marriage of some decades broken, it’s two college relationships that are less than a semester old ending because of infidelity. I think that perspective is important to keep in mind if someone seems cavalier about something in setting that feels major to us.

  93. Spaceman Spiff

    Today’s comic has six panels. 2 and 5 do not have borders. Panel 1 is a medium shot. Panels 2-6 are medium close shots. There is a slight gap between panel 3 and 4.
    Today’s comic features an interaction between Sarah and Jocelyne. The first comic featuring both of these characters is from 2013, when Joyce moved in. They have not spoken directly before the current sequence.

  94. Leaf

    I think Sarah wants things for Joyce that she’s afraid to want for herself.

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