she's been just off-panel, super grouchy this whole time

The nightmares


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Tags: dorothy, joyce, sarah

80 thoughts on “The nightmares

  1. One must imagine Sarah happy.

    1. Is this like those imagine nine impossible things before breakfast exersizes?

      1. In retrospect, the Dumbing of Age comment section was probably not the best venue for a Camus joke

        1. It’s an uphill climb, all right, but you’re on a roll

        2. Maybe, but I still appreciated it. Just can’t come up with a good reply that early in the morning

        3. Probably for some of Camus’s work, but I feel like “One must imagine Sisuphus happy” has achieved a pretty decent bit of cultural osmosis. I see it referenced a lot

        4. I don’t think they didn’t get it.

        5. Dwampre Scorrigank

          Can you clarify what you mean by that? I don’t think it’s exactly an outlier for jokes that might be told here sometimes! And I’m pretty sure clif was just riffing on your joke with a tangentially related joke, that doesn’t mean they didn’t appreciate your joke. Also of note, your line still scans as a joke without the Camus connection, simply due to the phrasing – part of what made it a good joke. But none of those statements might be relevant because I admittedly don’t know your tone here.

      2. More like how you have to imagine winning the lottery jackpot, because you’re never going to actually experience it.

        1. Dwampre Scorrigank

          One must imagine winning the lottery to build up to being able to imagine Sarah happy, it takes some training to get to those levels.
           
          btw y’ns the “save name and email” check box is actually working – on desktop – it just saves it in your browsers autofill, just tab/click to it and hit down arrow/click again. I’m probably not the first to discover this but I just found out.

    2. First, assume a spherical Dorothy of uniform density.

    3. “Ah, a visitor? Indeed, I have slept long enough.”

  2. “kissing that girl who overthinks things. mwwwah. right on the lips no more thinking for you beautiful”
    -that one tweet, you know the one

    1. The only Tweet I’m aware of:
      “Ten years in and we bone like we’re cheating on each other WITH each other. A decade-plus and her clit/brown/taint-area still pOwns my dick.”
      — Kevin Smith

  3. I like to think Sarah was awake the whole time, including watching Dorothy climb out of bed in a trance and stare out the window speaking nonsense.

    And was just like “And now there’s THIS bullshit.”

    1. I think alt-text agrees with you

    2. I like to think that Sarah was awake all the other times as well.

    3. that was my first thought, poor girl sitting in bed like “ok, psycho white girl doing psycho serial killer things… don’t draw attention to yourself” ~<3

  4. Can we have a Slipshine or Other Patreon comic that’s just the same shot of Sarah, over and over again, getting increasingly annoyed in each frame as the sex noises from off screen get more and more numerous? (Like, she could be reading a book or studying for a really important life altering test or something.)

  5. That’s very sweet, but I’m pretty sure you can’t fix trauma that way.

    1. But if you keep responding to trauma with sex, you can turn trauma into foreplay and soon after a turn-on!
      ….
      …. and that would be bad.

      1. Is kinkifying your trauma all that bad? Maybe it could be a lemons/lemonade type of deal.

        1. Dwampre Scorrigank

          I mean if you do it right, it’s gets you out of going to therapy.
           
          -that person who over-romanticizes kink, paraphrased (slightly)
           
          (realizing I should clarify, don’t mean that as directed at you or disagree with you, just riffing on what you said)

        2. It transforms the trauma into what I call a load-bearing problem. If you ever adequately address or heal from your trauma, your sex life suffers as a result.

        3. Dwampre Scorrigank

          I would call that a continuation of the process of healing from trauma and/or a continuation of the trauma’s effects on your life. Trauma may have effects on your life for a long time, and it may effect your sex life. There’s no magic formula to simply end those effects and become un-traumatized, thus guaranteeing no further effects.
           
          Sexuality is fluid anyway, and it is OK for one’s sex life to change as a result of maturing, including healing from trauma.
           
          Plus it’s not like your healing makes you forget the trauma happened, you can still enjoy sexualizing those concepts and memories if you want, like if you grow beyond your angry teenager music but you still like moshing to it on occasion.

        4. Trauma and kinks getting tied up psychologically is definitely a thing that happens! It can be a way of processing certain kinds of trauma. But, deliberately forcing that? That sounds like a recipe for possible disaster…

        5. I’m sex-repulsed ace so I have no skin in this game, but the idea that healing from your trauma is gonna make your sex life suffer is pretty hilarious to me. People could just, like… change it up? The sex life can evolve, or as others pointed out, you can still enjoy kinky thing after healing like at that point I’m sure it’d just be for the fun of it. And if not, surely a happy and healthy couple can just experiment a little to find other ways to keep things fresh. Is one’s sex life really that fragile? “sorry Frank, I’ve laid all of my trauma to rest and have moved on entirely, never again can we use the fuzzy hand cuffs”.

        6. Haha, yeah, doopyboop: confirming that sexual people needn’t worry that healing from trauma will mean outgrowing their favorite kinks. Heal with impunity, o kinksters!

    2. It does not, no. The fantasy that love can somehow magically fix someone’s trauma (or other mental illnesses) is one of the most insidious myths perpetuated by popular media. Being in a healthy, loving relationships helps, for sure. But it doesn’t magically fix illnesses anymore than praying for someone’s broken foot magically heals it. You still need to go to therapy and take medication. :P

  6. Joyce and Dorothy are Lily and Marshall, and Sarah is Ted going, “please don’t.”

    1. dang, she really DOES Moesby things up, romantically

  7. If trauma could be fixed by kisses I’d still be broken because my last major relationship was while I was a teen and trauma has happened since then.

  8. The stabbing guy really needs to go to jail. We need some sort of unrealistic event like the judician system working.

    1. …I mean yes, but that wouldn’t actually magically get rid of the trauma overnight. Especially when you consider that Ryan’s friends have already tried to get revenge on her and her friends at least once.

    2. Is he not? Pretty sure he was arrested after he tried to attack Amber and Dorothy, and there’s only so much daddy’s money can get you out of.

      1. Last I heard he was in hospital because he got shanked and now his family is sueing Amber, which is why her mum hinted at her rushing into marrying Joe’s dad–because he’s footing the legal bills. Whether or not Amber will actually get called into court over it remains to be seen.

        1. Yeah, if he’s going to go to jail, he’ll need to heal first. I’m okay with the current situation.

        2. The only way I foresee revisiting that storyline is if it can be tied into the “Amber is Amazi-Girl” thread. It’s been long enough that he’d be discharged from the hospital by now, but there’s not much left to it except legal dealings. Besides, it wouldn’t revolve around Doyce.

  9. It won’t work, but Joyce could try more. And more.

  10. Sarah got a front row to this whole drama bomb, and stayed silent the whole time. Good on her for not just makin another “get straighter dreams” jab lol

    1. She also had a front row seat with Dorothy to Ross getting brained.

  11. Happy full moon to those celebrating

    given the total lunar eclipse, will legit be a BLOOD MOON >:D

    *plays “Vain Star” on hacked muzak*

    1. My daughter was born on the third day of the third month of the third millennium. Her 25th birthday will be heralded by a blood moon.
      .
      Maybe we should have named her Valkyrie, as we discussed.

    2. I don’t trust the moon. It’s scary.

  12. Try fingering her ear, Joyce. It’ll help.

    1. If it doesn’t help, try fingering other things. You’re bound to find her reset switch somewhere.

      1. Nostril

        1. Are you making up anatomy again?

        2. No, no. The nostril is a real bone somewhere in your body.

          I know this because there was this guy once who kept threatening to break my nostril.

  13. Cute goobers.

    Sarah… is a good roomate.

  14. I mean, it can’t make it worse!

  15. Sarah waking up to Dorothy just standing in the corner of the room like a horror movie.

  16. I’m surprised that these two finally care about how Sarah might feel about them doing sexy stuff while she’s in the same dorm room.

  17. omg ahahahha!
    poor Sarah.

  18. Kissing all your emotional problems away only works in Hallmark movies, Joyce. And even then, it’s only in Christmas Hallmark movies. And last I checked it was still January.

    1. Thanks to the horrors of streaming, you can watch any movie you want, whenever you want. Poob has it for you.

      1. everybody is always asking whether Poob has it for them…nobody ever asks if They’ve got it for Poob.

  19. Dumbing of Age: Trauma is Gonna to Trauma

  20. Ah, yes. The myth of “consensual” smooching.

  21. Sarah: “I hate that I have to see you guys watch and sleep. That’s not why we have a cuckchair here!”

  22. Judging by the location of her speech balloon, i imagine Sarah to be pressed up against the wall just above Joyce’s bunk, likely to fall on top of them if she releases her grip for but a moment.

  23. “I give you permission to not trauma anymore.”
    Narrator: And just like that, Dorothy’s trauma was gone forever.

  24. You know, preventing Sarah from getting proper sleep, this is starting to touch her bottom line. And we know how that ended the previous year…

    1. I’m not sure that calling Joyce’s parents and telling them that they need to pull Joyce out of school is going to work.

  25. The pussy ain’t therapy and neither are kisses.
    Something something the Christian idea that it’s a woman’s job to fix her man and lead him down the correct path to Christ keeping it’s dirty hooks in Joyce’s brain, just with different details

    1. ex future president elects will do fucking anything except getting therapy

      1. Ig we’re just calling Joyce anything now

    2. yeah, Christian Atheist is HARDLY an oxymoron, and the proof is in her puddin’

      it don’t even require a Christian upbringing — just growing up in a country like this with language, traditions, culture, civics, customs, etc, majorly built by and for it’s white Christian majority. Regardless of creed, these religious institutions are a dominant influence of the moral intuition on the people of the United States, for better or for worse.

    3. and like

      what’s a romantic partner even expected to DO??? According to romantic traditions within our white-Christian informed culture, a girlfriend/boyfriend/husband/wife etc is basically SUPPOSED to be an effective sexual lover, soul-mate, best friend, co-parent, co-driver, co-accountant, household manager, spiritual guide, therapist, etc. ALL AT THE SAME TIME @~@

      …does the person we have sex with really HAVE to also be the same person who be our friend to hang out with for fun and just not feel lonely? and sort through our trauma? and make our meals? and handle a bunch of other important self care and other tasks, with no trainin’ or nothing to go by but merely “following feelings”? all at the same time???

      we’re not going to find EVERYTHING we’re bred to expect out of a partner like this in a single human being, that’s just NOT how human nature works

      these kind of expectations bred of white Christian informed romantic traditions and patriarchy are highly unrealistic at best, and at worst they are intrinsically TOXIC.

  26. Oh goddamnit, you two, Sarah is in the room? I threw out my roommate’s girlfriend for being MUCH less annoying than this, and he was (and still is, because he at least understood basic roommate etiquette) my best friend.

    1. To be fair, they were being relatively normal and asleep until Dorothy started trauma sleep-walking, which isn’t really under anyone’s control at least in the short term.

      1. Yeah. It’s not beyond the pale to be snugglebugging (the fucking while Sarah was in the room was, but not this), and when your roomie’s gf starts sleepwalking and slurring about how she needs to save her there’s not much else to do but just go “uuuuhhh”

        1. See, I was more imagining that this implied Sarah was also in the room for the whole Dorothy Containment Device bit, with the klaxons.

        2. That falls under snugglebugging.

  27. However adorkable people see this, this is a legitimate addition to Sarah’s list of reasons why she hates people.

    1. Like the entire reason Sarah burned bridges with Raidah stems from the fact that Dana’s issues were costing her sleep and subsequently causing her grades to slip.

  28. Hope Sarah says “Hey, I made myself a lot of enemies for asking my previous sleep-disturbing room to get-help-or-get-out, so, don’t do this to me again and go get therapy. (In the morning though).

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