it took me over 15 years to need a dorothy chat icon, how is that possible

Tertiary


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Tags: dorothy, jocelyne

162 thoughts on “Tertiary

  1. Yeah I still don’t trust Tony. Not yet.

    1. Jocelyne also not trusting. Very intelligent. Clearly she’s the superior Brown child.

      1. Jocelyne has had a lot more time to be disappointed by the world.

      2. This is the strip where she tells you she’s blindly following other people’s plans, though.

        1. Yeah, I noticed that.

        2. No, this is the strip where she tells you she’s following other peoples plans. She never said “blindly”.

          Were you under the impression that the protest happened because all those people just … decided to show up randomly at the same time?

        3. “Blindly” is a word you keep inserting, it’s not actually present in any character’s dialogue.

        4. Listening to the event organiziers is not “blindly following other people’s plans.” That’s how community organizing works.

        5. Okay, blindly is a bit of an over statement. There can be completely valid reasons for trusting other people’s judgement. None-the-less, just doing what other people say is a bit of a red flag for me. It implies that the decisions may not be personally vetted before acting on them. I’m perfectly willing to reserve judgement and wait for context if it becomes relevant, but it’s noted as a warning indicator.

        6. There is ALSO no implication that she isn’t personally vetting anything.

        7. It could easily be a turn of phrase, but “I just do” implies “that’s all I do.” It may not be a significant implication or worth worrying about yet, but it’s an implication.

        8. Ever and Anonymous

          I’ve been both an organizer and follower for serious nonviolent direct actions (NVDA). Organizing is best done in a core group that can hash out all the details thoroughly. If you’re not part of that small number but know that they’re basically competent and have a good track record, then you absolutely should follow them and ask only what’s needed to fill your role. Endlessly rehashing what’s already been fully discussed and decided (as is all too common) only aids the existing power structures.

          If you truly have good reason to question the safety or effectiveness of the existing plan, then you can raise any valid objections in a succinct and timely manner. It’s very unlikely those will, or even can, be accommodated given the limited time and leadership capacity. If the action that’s been organized doesn’t feel worth the risk for you, then just run away from it. Staying to support any action that hasn’t been organized well enough also only helps the existing power structures.

          All that said, when you have a group and a plan that works, NVDA can be great! It’s some of the hardest but most meaningful work I’ve ever done. (The fact they’re still talking around phones that could be compromised does require some serious suspension of disbelief though. Ugh.)

        9. It only implies that if you believe you live in a universe where anyone would ever actually say that and mean it.
          .
          There are people who don’t think critically enough, and people who let whatever tell them what to believe, but do you really think even those people would actually say “I just do what I’m told” and mean it?

        10. You reading too much into something doesn’t nake it “an implication”.

        11. hah, basically

  2. Uhh, I’m confused. Maybe the migraine is making me dumb; what’s going on here?

    1. A simple explanation would help; I can barely remember my birthday at the moment. x_x

      1. As a reminder, today is your birthday. Happy birthday!

    2. Dorothy wants to support the cause, but Jocelyne wouldn’t discuss any plans via text, so they met up to do so.

      1. I didn’t realize that wasn’t Joyce until you said something.

    3. I think my reply to my own comment got eaten somehow.

    4. Jocelyne and Dorothy are meeting up at a coffee shop to discuss plans for future resistance actions. Jocelyne says the resistance is thinking about holding a sit-in at Dean McHenry’s office.

    5. I am sorry you are suffering through a migraine. I only get relatively mild ones and they are still agony.
      Here’s hoping you go puke your guts out (that usually makes me feel better).

    6. That’s Jocelyne, and not Joyce (which, for some reason, I didn’t realize until the third re-read of the last panel).

    7. Dorothy and Jocelyn are talking about the ongoing protests demanding that university sponsors divest themselves from the Bulmerian conflict, with particular focus on information hygiene and taking steps to avoid putting out too much information that the authorities could use to move against the protesters.

  3. Hell yeah, comics with trans characters three days in a row. Who just also happen to be some of the best characters.

    Shame about the circumstances, though.

    Anyways I’ve got an endocrinologist appointment on Tuesday and hopefully I can switch to E injections so wish me luck

    1. Good luck, hope everything goes well for you.

    2. good luck! hoping for the best! <3

    3. Good luck! 👊

    4. Good luck with the endocrinologist. About 50 yrs. ago I started with my internist.
      No shots just diethystibesterol which is not available any longer due to problems
      with womb carriers and their offspring.

  4. I got to the last panel before I figured out that that wasn’t Joyce.

    1. it’s basically the ‘i support you/why do you look like me’ trans/hrt meme lol

  5. This is entirely too cozy for a conspiring spot. This diner needs to be like 50% seedier, at least.

    1. Ah, but that’s the first place they’d look!

    2. i assuem it’s nearby on campus/would think it’s the same one tony and sarah went to before booster interrupted them

    3. Nah, it’s a coffee shop. Coffee shops get a +5 circumstance bonus for Resistance Planning.

  6. Jocelyne should get to run into the Dean’s office with a flamethrower and just ignite everything.

    1. Now now, that won’t work unless she asks for a nice curry afterwards.
      (Nobody will get this reference)

    2. that sounds hot

    3. I mean this is all symbolic really. It’s not like any of these horrible US contractors NEED the investment money of Indiana University. It won’t affect their bottom line in the slightest. This is meant to simply not have their tuition go to bankroll bombings in Bulmeria. But it won’t SAVE anyone.

      Which is kind of ironic because if Joycelyn was doing her own dastardly scheming, they could actually approach Carla about getting her parents to possibly take no more murder drone contracts–and possibly make a real difference. It could be where Dorothy learns a valuable lesson about power brokering and networking.

      1. I don’t really care about all that, I just wanna see Jocelyne burn stuff with a flamethrower.

        1. That seems fair.

        2. SadnessWithASmile

          I feel like Carla might also appreciate the opportunity to make a flamethrower for Jocelyne. And possibly herself. Especially with the whole TV situation. So while I agree that seeing Jocelyne with a flamethrower would be delightful, I still think she should loop Carla in, because you know what’s better than a trans woman with a flamethrower? TWO trans women with flamethrowers!

      2. i mean, carla can’t even confront her parents about it, so joycelyn asking her to wouldn’t make much of a difference

      3. There is no Joyce in Jocelyne. She’s not some kind of Joyce Lynn.

        1. Gasp! A typo! My apologies to the Jocelyns of the world.

        2. Dwampre Scorrigank

          In case you didn’t see it this is a reference to Joyce finding some old artworks labeled “Joyce Lynn” that were likely Jocelyne, possibly to hide herself using an under-the-radar name.

        3. They were not labeled “Joyce Lynn” – that was someone’s misreading without glasses of unclear handwriting.

          Would you name yourself after your sister?

      4. Even Carla convincing her parents to pull their company out of those contracts isn’t going to make any real difference. Not in the short run and probably not in the long. From what she said earlier, they’re secondary contractors at worst. They make some systems that are used in missiles. Not clear whether that’s special built equipment for the military or if the missiles just include general purpose Ruttech components.

        1. plus i imagine there’d be some ‘shareholders’ issue or whatever/other ppl in the ocmpany that might overrule it somehow/cancel it out even if her parents are the owners of ruttech

  7. Interesting. Going right into the future resistance planning. I wasn’t expecting that.

    1. really hope Jocelyne really fills her in on how this shit GOES
      but gotta start somewhere I guess
      *plays “The Revolution Will Not Be Televised” by Gil Scott-Heron on hacked coffee shop speakers*

  8. That wallpaper is 100% from a real place, right?

  9. that wall art is SO CUTE!!!

    1. Wallpaper fish for next bonus strip!

  10. Is it weird that I had difficulty reading this strip because my eyes kept wondering back to the very nicely drawn fish. It is jsut there, ineffibly tantalizing in the middle of panels, like: “Ignore these mortals, gaze upon me and know the infinte depths of pridomidal sea”

    1. Pridomidal (adj.)
      Describing the extreme, level of grumpiness experienced before one has consumed their first cup of coffee or tea. Example: “I am absolutely pridomidal until 9 a.m.”

      Why yes, the pridomidal sea may very well have infinite depths.

    2. …primordial?

      1. Probably, but pridomidal is funnier.

  11. “Also my ex boyfriend’s mom used to be married to him.”

    1. And therefor you shouldn’t trust me either.

  12. Tony being a decent enough guy to spot Raidah being kinda sus is great and all, but we gotta eventually deal with the Sarah relationship troubles on the horizon with him being the dean’s son and all the genocide stuff. Like; I would hope Tony could see some reason, and put her before the old man, or even be sympathetic to the students who are dealing with this whole protest crackdown, but I get the feeling their relationship hasn’t been long enough to form that kinda bond yet.

    On a side note,Jocelyn is lookin great, as always.

    1. I’m honestly getting season finale vibes.

      1. I figure we should have a few good years before Willis decides to retire and do a Transmogrifiers comic.

        1. Season finale != series finale.
          .
          Like I don’t really agree with the idea that these are season finale vibes, but the kidnapping for example was a season finale.

        2. A fair point. When do you think the new season would pick up?

        3. Well, I don’t think this season is ending, haha. Just wanted to point out that a season finale isn’t the end of a show. 🙂

  13. Three trans character strips in a row! Probably more!
    ­
    It would be really funny if the next strip focuses on Danny. Or walky.
    ­
    Or both, since they’re together. hehheehehehaehaheaheaheahe

  14. Are all of my comments being deleted, or just the replies?

    1. Hey, Wilber. I think you missed this one.

    2. I see comments and replies from you? I think the migraine is making you miss them.

      1. The new site is still behaving a little weird. A lot of the time, but not always, when I leave a comment or a reply, I have to refresh the screen before I can see it. I assume that is what is happening and not Wilber, who I just made up, whose job is to rapidly get on many different computers and report any comment that ZombieKyrik makes.

  15. At least that isn’t like Tony’s favorite coffee shop.

  16. Still wondering why one Dean (of MANY) is being protested specifically and not the Chancellor of the Bloomington campus or the President (or other members) of the IU Board of Trustees – aka the people with actual campus-wide decision-making power, since the stated goal is divestiture from defense contractor money, but I guess I’m willing to just think that the people Jocelyne believes to be much smarter than her are just actually not that bright themselves and/or this version of IU is actually a super super small school that is in fact run in full by a single Dean. (Or that the point of the storyline is not actually the protest efforts at all but a narrative wrench in Sarah’s relationships.)

    1. I think we can assume that he’s the Chancellor and just being called Dean. Which sounds like cope but he’s treated as the highest authority repeatedly by the comic. Either that or he has a lot of unusual authority because the Chancellor spends all of her time campaigning for the President.

    2. Yeah, this has been bugging me, too. The Dean is the primary authority figure to students, but only because they are in charge of academics. The only reason to protest to the Dean would be to have him rescind suspensions/expulsions of students who got caught at the protest. (Even then, you’d really be better off going higher up the scale.)

      1. As far as I know, nothing would prevent a Dean from serving on the Board of Regents (Board of Trustees or whatever name is applied). It would be kind of unusual though.

    3. This has bothered me for quite a while, but I think what it comes down to is that the author is (perfectly understandably) not very interested in depicting the whole bureaucracy of the school administration, and so the one Dean we see basically stands in for the administration as whole.

      1. Basically, it can pull from immersion. If I know that this is not the way the world works, I’m less likely to suspend disbelief.
        Of course, if Willis is actually aware of all this, and the protest falls flat precisely because it is targeting the wrong person, that could be an interesting story in its own right. (Lots of real-world protest movements have faltered because of such gaffes, so it’s hardly unrealistic.)

  17. Love the art. Holy shit.

  18. ooh nice wall decoration. As long as no one mistake them for fish bones, at least

    1. …they ARE branches/leaves and not fish bones. Right ?

  19. Are we seriously still doing this Bulmeria plotline? It’s a stupid name! You shouldn’t use it for you poorly thought-out commentary on Israel/Palestine. Giving some more rep to the few Muslim character the strip has is good, but it still doesn’t change this is still all in service of the two white leads! Y’know, the thing Willis was criticized for in the first place?

    1. What are you afraid of?

      1. I’m afraid of very white David Willis sticking their foot in their mouth like last time. You don’t evoke a currently hot geopolitical topic like that without serious consideration, not make it about a fake country so you don’t actually have to give any uncomfortable details. Again, they took and issue where Islamophobia was core issue and made it be about two white girls. It’s kinda in tactless.

        1. Willis is doing what he wants, as comfortably as he feels is right. The take that he wrote in the Israel/Palestine specifically to have two white girls kiss and sole the war is a super, SUPER offensive one. As for calling his commentary poorly thought out, I highly doubt you’d find someone who thinks criticizing the Gaza genocide as being genocide is bad among this crowd. And that’s not even what Willis is actually criticizing, he’s going after schools that help fund wars.

        2. @Bryy You cannot talk about Israel/Palestine without talking about Islamophobia, the main justification the university used to smear the protestors was paint them as antisemitic and in league with Hamas. And yes they did write this protest plot in to serve as backdrop for two white girls kissing, it’s why they called it Bulmeria instead of Israel, so they didn’t have to talk about all that other complicated stuff. I am not the first person to call them out on this, why do you think Willis suddenly started to insert new Asma and Raidah strips into the comic? They acknowledged it on their tumblr, which is why it frustrates me so much. If you going to continue this, wouldn’t you include them? The people who would be more affected by it than Dorothy or Joyce?

        3. Maybe we could see were the story goes before reacting to where we think it might go?

        4. Don’t forget that Bulmeria existed in-comic long before Oct. 7th, 2023. At the first mention of “civil war in Bulmeria” I was thinking of Myanmar and the Rohingya…

        5. Bryy, could you explain to me why avoiding a whole set of issues that are irrelevant to the plot is super super offensive. Because I honestly don’t get it.

    2. I ain’t gonna count my chickens before they hatch in any case,
      for the time being imma just see where this goes,
      in any case I hope Dorothy learns that the revolution has many fronts she can be part of,
      or at the very least to shut the fuck up around cops

    3. In regard to the fake country stuff specifically, I’m not sure what Willis can actually do about that since they are now established parts of the narrative, and I doubt Willis is going to flat-out retcon them to the real-life analogues, especially with how Willis writes with a buffer. So the consequences of this fake-country plot-line has to be at least resolved appropriately before it can dropped/shelved in order to avoid potential future faux pas.

    4. Do you think it’s better to say nothing than to say something imperfectly?

      1. Yes, or more specifically, it’s best to say nothing when you already did it badly the first time.

  20. I instinctively read the title in the cursed voice from that one Strong Bad cartoon.

    1. This doesn’t look anything like the inside of Tom Brokaw’s house.

  21. “Not MY plans. THEIR plans. I just do what the much smarter people say.”

    Thank you Jocelyne for putting a more palpable form to the reason I don’t like you. (In the sense of like, she’s well written, but like we wouldn’t be friends if she was real.)

    1. Also how the heck do you get avatars on the new site. Would love to have my Lucy avatar back. Or anything!

    2. Can I ask why that statement makes you sure you wouldn’t be friends with Jocelyne? Honestly just trying to understand because I don’t quite get what’s objectionable about that.

      1. they dont like that she is giving strong follower vibes

      2. That’s an odd way of saying it. That statement helped crystallize why I already disliked her – it wasn’t one thing so awful on its own to create that reaction.

        That aside, I dislike her because she comes across as a zealot. Operating from a platform of blind trust* in her authority (shown here, but she already had the vibe for me – I’d go through past strips but the character tags aren’t working for me) , she pushes people around with confident swagger into fitting her mold of proper behavior and conduct. Another phrasing of the same idea is that she comes across as a tool.

        *I’m aware that her blind trust in her peoples’ -methods- does not equal blind trust in her -cause -. However, she already came across to me as someone who is willing to jump into a cause partially off of blind trust, and use that faith-dependent jump to push people around. Her commentary today is just solidifying my existing read. (Also, for what it’s worth, faith-based zealotry to push people around into boxes of “proper behavior” is endemic to fundie circles like Jocelyne’s childhood, although usually for bad causes instead of a good cause here.) Less importantly, I’m also skeptical that her blind trust in her people’s methods is itself warranted, and we haven’t seen a justification for it so far.*

        It so happens that her mold is correct in this circumstance. It’s important to make this clear. The genocide is bad. My dislike of her is not because she dislikes and challenges genocide. People can be zealots for a good cause, and if you agree with my read on her, she is one. But I care a lot about the process, not just whether the answer, the end cause, is correct or not.

        A prosaic reason to care about the process is that when people advocate for a good cause in a spirit of zealotry, and not as a downstream outcome naturally flowing from thoughtful self-reasoning and critical thinking, they can get swept up in zealotry for bad causes, because they lack the tools to differentiate good involvement from bad involvement, yet are still ready to jump in and fight anyway. This is a very real dynamic that happens many times across many years in the real world.

        That prosaic reason is not why I personally care. It is an explanatory aid if you do not get my fundamental care here, which is more inherent and more slippery to explain. Zealotry legitimizes and accepts the *arbitrary, unjustified* process of shoving others into molds – via following others’ orders and not via a solid independent grounding and justification. This type of chaotic reshaping is fundamentally destructive to the human psyche in a way that few things are, and personally disgusting to me in a way that few things are.

        To be clear. Even I don’t see Jocelyne as the worst, most dangerous, and most entrenched zealot to ever exist. I brought in some very serious reasons why I hate zealotry, but I want to be clear I’m talking about a broad dynamic present with that behavior, not some kind of nefarious scheme that Jocelyne is personally intending to enact.

        Maybe you just entirely disagree with me read on her as a zealot. That’s totally fine. I hope this at least contextualizes and explains my dislike of her, though.

        1. Whoops, I forgot to do the special thing to break paragraphs. Sorry for that gigantic block :P. Also shoutout to embe for saying the core conceit in a much more concise way.

        2. “blind zealotry” is when you practice a modicum of operational security after the cops raided a dorm.

        3. Boy that sure is quite the over-analysis of a single line of dialogue

        4. Hi, Hue. In your eagerness to throw down your epic zinger, I don’t think you read my posts that carefully. Just how I explained that protesting genocide was not my issue with her, practicing opsec is not my issue either. It’s not about what specific actions Jocelyene is doing, but the thought process methods by which she is getting to her actions. It’s her blind faith in “just doing what the much smarter people say” – whether the smart people are correct or not.

          Hi, AMagicalDuck. I do not think you read that closely either. As I explained to Doopy, this is not an analysis of a line of dialogue, but an explanation of why I dislike a quality I interpret in Jocelyne – a quality I had already interpreted in her, but that this line provides additional evidence for, and helped crystallize my understanding of what I had interpreted.

        5. There’s another interpretation of Jocelyn’s statement–she’s letting other people lead (maybe/hopefully people with solid connections to Bulmeria? People of color? Muslims? and not a just handful of well-meaning ex-Christian white girls) and not centering herself, or trying to take the lead. She may have good reason to respect the knowledge and tactics of the movement leaders, and is intentionally not taking the credit for the plans because she’s not being egotistical about it. Just because she’s crediting others with developing the plans, doesn’t mean she is following them “blindly”–perhaps she has considered the plan, agrees with it, and just wants to give credit where credit is due.

        6. I’ll keep it simple and just confirm that yeah I don’t think she gives zealot vibes. All she’s done is attend some peaceful protests against genocide. More power to you though and have a good day.

        7. What other times in the comic was she a zealot?

        8. There are no other times. Heck, there’s not even a this time. At no point in this comic’s entire run has the character Jocelyne displayed any zealotry or zealot-adjacent behavior. It’s just not part of the story.

        9. You’re calling “listening to the protest organizers” zealotry? Yeah, we wouldn’t be friends either.

  22. I would really appreciate if we formally made the Bulmeria issue more separate from RL. I’d love some more details about who is fighting, what the situation is geopolitically, and references to other conflicts. Basically, more Superman (2025) and less direct allegory. You should be able to use Bulmeria to talk about existing horrors in RL but not actually use existing horror in a comic about LGBTA teens learning life lessons.

    1. doesn’t willis do his buffer like a year ahead? i don’t think much would change but other than something like amazigirl being a bit of a stretch for something realistic, a handful of dumbingofage was taking from real life as it is a life-college comic, including joyce’s religious journey being a ‘semi auto biography’ according to wilis himself from whate irevember

      1. He did, but he also inserted comics and tried editing at least one comic when the ‘wedding’ strip was badly received. Willis has the ability to edit their work and try to be more mindful of things happening IRL.

      2. Doing it a year ahead and tying these Bulmeria protests so directly to the Gaza protests has its own issues. We know, for example, that the Gaza protests failed. They did nothing to stop the genocide or to affect the defense companies.
        Arguably the only real affect they had on any outcomes was maybe to help Trump get elected, leading directly to the US attacking Iran. This definitely colors my perspective on them, despite what I’m sure were the best intentions of the students involved.

        1. It’s not the comic that has tied the Bulmeria protest so directly to the Gaza protest, it’s a sizable subset of the readers that have insisted on doing it. This is in spite of easily accepting many counterfactual elements in the comic for the sake of the story, including the evolving now.

        2. @clif It is about Gaza, you’d have to be living under a rock not to understand the whole protest arc was evoking the one that happened at the University of Indiana in real life. The problem is that Willis uses “Bulmeria” as a stand-in for whatever foreign geopolitical is happening at the time as to not date the comic. The issue is in order to keep using it as a stand-in Willis can’t actually explain the conflict in any detail, but the details matter. This is what they were getting criticized about months ago, flatting an issue defined by Islamophobia into set dressing for their two white leads.

  23. ‘i just do what the smarter ppl say’ i mean, that’s not a bad strategy but idk if that’s always the go to (and i get location tracking but hopefully texts won’t be leaked so easily) altho idk how well word of mouth/hard-encoded private servers would help for ppl organizing things

  24. Jocelyne knows the value of opsec. Now she needs to teach it to her sister, as is tradition. I hope she knows of a good basement; I find that’s a good place to do it.

    Also I find it amusing that people are taking her at her word that she just does what others tell her. Yeah, I’m sure the girl who’s paranoid enough to not text plans and to meet in tertiary locations is just following instructions and that the “my plans” was definitely not a slip of the tongue that she had to cover up suddenly.

    1. Your angle is an interesting one, though you didn’t have to say it so condescendingly. Anyway, I disagree with your angle for a couple reasons. Jocelyne being sincere matches my previous interpretation of her character, which, besides making it plausible, would be narratively economical of Willis. Her face in the third panel doesn’t seem like someone who slipped and has to cover by making up a quick improvisational lie – it seems very neutral and matter of fact, which is not how I would expect Willis to depict that moment. Also, I interpreted the opsec carefulness to be something she was told to do – being paranoid doesn’t mean someone is in control or slipping, sometimes people are just told to be that. Still, your angle is interesting, could be true, would create interesting implications, and is not something I had thought of.

      1. Your zealot angle is a bunch of cobbled-together headcanons at best. Get over yourself and let it go, girlypop.

  25. I believe the closest we’ve gotten to Dorothy texting before was when she was writing a thank you note to her grandmother on paper. That was during the period when character’s thought bubbles tended to be color coded the same as their text colors, and Dorothy’s letter-bubble was the light green color often seen in her clothing palette.

    I could be wrong, but I think Lucy is the only character who has changed her pfp (that we’ve seen). I think Joyce’s has changed, but it was just updated art. Lucy has had both a picture of herself and Starfire from teen titans go.

  26. Getting a weird pop up banner on your sight that Adblock can’t even target. Not the safest feeling in the world. Please check that out.

    1. Blocking ads is stealing from content creators.
      [/jk]

    2. … are you 100% sure that it’s the site and not a virus on your end? 👀

    3. PoperBlocker works on most stuff like that, right click -> hide overlay/remove element. I think uBlock has a similar feature, I just like PoperBlocker’s more

  27. Several people being weird about the “I do what [the organizers] say” line. I think taking that to mean she isn’t deciding for herself what causes to support and why is hearing hoofbeats and thinking zebras. It’s much easier to take read that line as simply meaning that she’s not one of the organizers of the collective action. Which…it’s just logistical reality and totally normal that most of the participants in large collective action aren’t the organizers of it.

    1. It’s also one of the big reasons why Jocelyne was able to protest and NOT be arrested, since she followed the advice of the organizers and packed up her stuff to leave. Well, that and Amazi-girl’s intervention, but still. The organizers could tell what way the wind was blowing, they presumably know laws and important info about protests as well as offering supplies and advice to protestors. It’s far better to listen to those around you to protest properly then to go in, guns blazing and no game plan. It can be dangerous.

  28. Dorothy: “You sure no-one can overhear our plans?”
    Jocelyne: “Yeah, of course. I trust this place and its owner, Mario Mario, the coffee maker with his lush Italian mustache.”
    Dorothy: “… What?”

    1. By my understanding, his brother has proven himself willing to take risks against the establishment too… well, against the health insurance companies, at any rate.

      1. It was actually a reference to a previous comment I made

        1. Oh, I’d forgotten that, sorry.
          Nonetheless, sometimes it is nice to reminisce about a time those companies were reminded that consequences can exist even for them.

  29. Something fishy going on with that wallpaper.

  30. I feel like the “Jocelyne is blindly following other people’s plans, clearly she’s awful and/or a mindless zealot” argument in the comments here is honestly one of the weirder takes I’ve seen here in a while. Most people who go to protests and demonstrations are not the ones organizing and planning them. Clarifying to Dorothy and the audience that Jocelyne is not one of the people in charge of the plan she’s telling Dorothy about is not a weird thing. Like someone else mentioned in another comment, she may well also just be mindful that she’s not taking credit for protest plans that are being planned by people she doesn’t want to speak over, such as actual Bulmerians or others in minority groups that are more personally affected by the Bulmeria crisis than her. If I plan to go to a big local demonstration I know about and I tell a friend about it ahead of time because she might also be interested, and quickly correct myself when I accidentally make it sound like I had any hand in actually planning it, that doesn’t mean either of us are zealots or mindless followers. It just means we’re listening to the people who planned it. Frankly, if you go to protests and you aren’t listening to what the organizers tell you (whether you should cover your face, how to avoid alerting the wrong people, how to not piss off the wrong people, what liquids will help against tear gas and which won’t, whether you should leave certain items at home or bring them, phone numbers on your arms, not sharing important protest details recklessly by texting them and leaving a data trail etc.) then you’re most likely just at best compromising your own safety and at worst compromising the safety of everyone else at the protest as well. Organizers at a certain scale usually speak from experience when they ask you to do something – there’s a difference between following orders mindlessly and trusting that people know what they’re doing.

    1. Big agree to all of this.

    2. Being fair i think it’s like, 1 person alone making that argument.

      1. One person said the zealot thing, a good few people are being mad weird about the “I listen to people who know better than me” thing

        1. Actually, it was “I just do what the much smarter people say.” or something very similar to that. I reserve judgement whether to be weird about it.

        2. @clif: you realize you’re splitting hairs, right? It’s uncharitable to take Jocelyne’s line as saying she’s mindlessly obedient rather than taking it as saying she listens to people who know more than she does on this specific topic.

        3. It *is* uncharitable to assume that what she meant is what she just said. But it’s also what she just said. In isolation I’m strongly inclined to assume she meant “people who I have reason to trust” instead of “smarter people.” But I’ve also found that some variation of “I’m just following orders,” to be surprisingly popular among otherwise sensible people. So I find it surprising here and worth noting for future reference. Not going to pretend it’s not a red flag, and not going to pretend that it’s not a single uncharacteristic item that could have a perfectly innocuous explanation.

        4. If you’ve legitimately never encountered “oh I just do what smarter people tell me to” as a rueful turn of phrase, fair enough, but let me assure you: folks who say that do not mean “I literally don’t think for myself at all”.
          .
          Partially because that second thing? Is not a thing most people would ever say and actually mean.

  31. if the commentariat isn’t being weird about autistic women they’re being weird about trans women

    at least some things never change

    1. Clearly, Mx Willis needs to introduce an autistic trans woman and watch the comment section combust. Ideally in winter, to save on heating costs.

      1. P sure that’s just Joss. I mean no confirmation or anything but I’m pretty comfortable making the guess. Tends to run in the family, like my whole nuclear family’s autistic

      2. what do you mean, dorothy’s already in the comic

  32. I had to read this twice before I realised it wasn’t Joyce ^^u

    1. Glad to know I’m not alone. I only figured it out when they were both sitting down. (And my not looking at Jocelyn’s chat icon didn’t help.)

      1. Her icon has that “I’m feeling too much dysphoria for a normal profile pic” composition. Q

        1. I realized it wasn’t Joyce in the first panel art, but I don’t think I would have if the second panel had led.

  33. Oooh, skullduggery is afoot! We gots Carla planning and Jocelyne planning!
    (for very different reasons, but punchin’ up in common)

  34. Locally our No Kings 3 protest had a planning committee of 4. With the other groups involved, maybe 20 people were planning. 2,000 showed up. That’s 99% of people who weren’t part of the planning. But planners aren’t necessarily smarter. But they run social media, websites and comms. Check in with law enforcement. Get safety and marshal training. Connect to national groups for support and training. But all the planning means nothing unless people show up. That’s just collective action. No zombies involved. Everyone has agency. Locally our protest included socialists , college students, a singing group from a church , Dems and indivisible. Common purpose but diverse opinions.

  35. Cute top, Joce!

    I’m loving her unique fashion,

  36. Weird how a lot of character criticism in these comments is really just sparkling misogyny.

  37. Ahhh, I remember when these panels were being posted as teasers and commented that Jocelyn/Dorothy would be a cute ship since, oh, Dot’s crushing on Joyce but Joyce doesn’t seem to reciprocate yet… Absolutely hilarious in retrospect.

    I *am* still jonesing for Jocelyn to get with someone though. She deserves to get to be sweet with someone!

    1. If she got with Walky, then he’d be able to razz Joyce about being her step-bro…. Alternately, given how many folks first thought this was Joyce, a Jocelyne/Joe set-up would be lots of drama.

  38. Is there such a thing as a quaternary location?

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