The Dumbing of Age Book 15 Kickstarter continues! And today a surprise JOYCE MAGNET has just been revealed!
Just 9 days remaining! oh how time flies, and also personal perceptions of sexuality
Sarah: I was your big sister FIRST!
Sarah: I--I mean, yes, okay, she was... always your big sister first.
Sarah: Buy I CLAIMED THE TITLE first!
Joyce: So did you accomplish anything else on your checklist while I was gone?
Dorothy: I can't locate Amber. She's not in her room, and she's not answering texts.
Joyce: Oh, she's definitely in Walky's room.
Dorothy: What? How--
Joyce: I'm Joyce H. Brown: Lesbian Love Sleuth! ...in which it seems "lesbian" did modify "sleuth" all this time.
114 thoughts on “The title”
QueenofSodor
okay but is “lesbian” still modifying “love” because i really really need to know if joyce supports the #walkie walkerton tgirl agenda
Doctor_Who
Since Walky was, like, the single most “called it” person regarding Dorothy and Joyce, can HE also claim to be a lesbian love sleuth?
Which, I guess, would also have two meanings if he turned out trans.
Morleuca
I think Walky and Joyce need to open a detective agency together, a la Moonlighting.
Paradoxius
Considering the circumstances, intriguing that this might yield an extraordinarily un-homoerotic detective partnership
Astariel
I was wondering this also.
Stormtide Leviathan
I don’t think Joyce intends it that way, but I *do* think that possibility is foreshadowing of Walkie happening some time down the road
RassilonTDavros
Perhaps the very concept of Sleuthing itself is what Lesbian modifies?
Cassie
I feel like she would be on board at first because she’d feel like she should, in order to show proper support for Jocelyne, and later because she’d realize that making more girls to be attracted to is super gay.
Or she’d just hear an “estrogen would save him” comment made about someone else and start wondering if that solution would apply to annoyances in her own life
NGPZ
have ya checked the nearest Poke-stops? XD
Wack'd
here is the rules post again
.
yesterday i left some nice comments about it up which made me feel like i needed to take the time to address negative comments, as to maintain some neutrality
.
today i will just be deleting all replies to this comment regardless of how nice they are. if you do not want your comment deleted do not reply to this comment. thank you
Cassie
Sarah why is it so important to you that you’re the primary big sister? I really don’t get this; it feels like you think there’s something tied to it. Whether that’s the right to guide Joyce’s morality or just a stronger tie to Joyce that you hope will be less likely to be broken, idk, but regardless it’s getting a bit weird.
Cholma
I think it’s because after being shunned by Raidah & crew the previous year, and feeling like the world was against her, Joyce broke through her barriers and became her only real friend and she’s afraid of losing that connection.
Sharizard
Being labelled as Joyce’s big sister meant a lot to Sarah. Someone else coming along and doing the same thing, no matter who they are, is unsettling to her.
She’ll get over it.
MCD
I think it also doesn’t help that she’s somewhat at odds with Jocelyne about how Joyce handled things with Joe. If they were on the same page I think she wouldn’t feel as threatened
Opinion
My interpretation is its her perception of the little found family the cast has become.
If everyone is at odds with their bio family then they can all lean on each other and make their own little unit.
But if people have good relations with family/people outside of this dorm then that could mean one day her little found family unit could break up and go interact with other people.
Cassie
I really hope that’s not the case because that would be an extremely selfish, bordering on controlling and abusive, mindset for Sarah to have. I don’t think she’s been quite so possessive of Joyce in the past, and most of her big sister actions have been more to protect Joyce from external threats, so I don’t think it’s that. But also that tendency is why I’m having such a hard time understanding why Sarah feels the need to die on this particular hill.
MCD
It might help to think of where Sarah is coming from as defensive. I don’t think I quite agree with how Opinion is interpreting it.
Sarah doesn’t have great relationships with most of her blood family, and in her previous year things went extremely badly with Raidah and that whole group when Dana went into her own spiral. Given that Sarah is a bit at odds with Jocelyne about how Joyce handled things with Joe (especially given that the way things had been going with Joe before that had started to make her feel better about Joe), I think Sarah might be afraid that a similar kind of conflict could tear this new little family of hers apart. After it’s taken her this long to get more comfortable, that would be devastating.
Dot
I just don’t get why this is what she’s getting hung up on because it wasn’t the crux of the issue in her conversation with Jocelyne.
Li
I just think she’s flustered over it because now Joyce is here to hear her caring about getting to be Joyce’s big sister, and caring is embarrassing.
.
Unfortunately, it still contributes to the pattern already mentioned by speed racer, StarryMoon, and Zee.
.
But I think “flustered tsun caught being dere” was the intended read orz
Yumi
The discomfort with sharing aside, it’s really sweet how important the role of being Joyce’s big sister is to Sarah.
Dean
Now I’m wondering what the H stands for. Because it isn’t heterosexuality.
Tris
Hannah!
Astariel
It stands for Hannah.
ZombieKyrik
Hannah, I think? Willis can correct me if I’m wrong.
thejeff
Hussy
Needfuldoer
Joyce’s middle name is Hannah.
https://www.dumbingofage.com/comic/selfportraits/
Cholma
Oh, Sarah. Girl, you got it BAD. Once the Queen of Hatin’ on Everyone after people you thought were friends shunned you, and now Joyce has turned your world upside down!
ZombieKyrik
I’m not sure Amber is up for the hanky-panky; big wounds take a lot out of you. That being said I hope she and Walky share the bed again with Walky being calmer than last night.
.
I still ship garbage roof, AmberxWalky forever!!!
Alongcameaspider
Plot twist: Walky is trans and her original interpretation of the “lesbian love sleuth” title is actually correct
Justin8448
She could be a lesbian lesbian love sleuth!
Steamweed
Sarah vs Jocelyn, boxing match of the century!
(9 rounds of seeing who can more quickly pack fragile items into boxes with sufficient packing material and tape it all up)
Throwatron
That’s really unfair to Sarah, trans lesbians are experts at quick-moving people on short notice!
Morleuca
That and our supernaturally earned biological advantage in all things…
Sajuuk-Khar
Boxing? Is that what the kids are calling hatefucking these days?
I swear, just yesterday it was kismesisitude…
Steamweed
Yeah! Haven’t you heard of Boxing Day in England? They take their hatefucking very seriously, I tell you what.
speed racer
I love it when the white girls ignore everything a POC says to them that’s gotta be one of my favourite things that continuously happens in this comic ^_^
Freezer
To be fair: What, exactly, do you say in response to *that?*
speed racer
personally I just think Willis should be paying attention to the way he writes his POC. Sarah doesn’t have a will of her own she is being written by a white man. he is the one making her talk like this and having the white girls treat her this way.
nadamás
I don’t really think this strip specifically it’s worthy of this response. Sarah is not being treated any different that any other would in this scenario. Beat then moving on to another topic like nothing happened it’s a pretty comic comedic scene.
speed racer
so I’ve never left a comment here before, so not sure why I can’t reply to nadamas, but this strip was more the little one that finally broke the camels back for me. I’ve been reading 10 or so years and I’ve been watching the racially charged micro aggressions stack up time and time again. POC in these comics are consistently relegated to being aggressive or standoffish or, in this case, ignorable. I’m tired of it.
Jon
I’m curious, Speed. What, exactly, do you think would be a reasonable response to what Sarah said? Because if there is no reasonable response (which, in my personal opinion, there is not), then the reasonable course of action would be to politely ignore it and move on.
Wack'd
i think the broader point is not that joyce and dorothy should be acting differently in this specific situation but that speed has identified a broader pattern wherein characters of color act in antisocial ways, and white characters react to characters of color with indifference
.
if this conversation is going to continue i am going to need folks to engage with speed’s broader complaint rather than nitpicking this specific situation, and i am going to need people to be civil and not accusatory. thank you for your attention in this matter
Andora
I mean honestly there’s not a single character in the whole comic that hasn’t been aggressive and standoffish at least a few times. Even Meredith who’s whole character is “smokes weed” has been an asshole about that.
Honestly I’d say the only character who hasn’t had a “just outright hostile for no reason” moment (or at least I can’t think of one off the top of my head) is Lucy, closest she came was being a bit too horny at Danny when she was trying to make her outing with Walky the “third date”.
Cholma
Speed Racer: The reason you can’t respond directly to the comment above you is because the thread is nested as deep as it will go. After 2 or 3 comments, you can’t directly reply anymore.
As for your more specific comment, if you’ve been reading for 10 years, what is your reaction to how Jacob or Sierra (? Barefoot girl) is portrayed? I love Sarah, and she’s always been portrayed as “prickly” because of her backstory, but I can’t think of any case where Sierra or Jacob has been aggressive to anyone. However, I do have a terrible memory, so I wouldn’t be surprised if someone could name examples.
clif
speed racer – It’s nothing about your comment; the software that handles the comment section will only let comments go so deep and after that you have to reply to that last comment that allows it. As you did.
Wack’d – It may be the case that white girls ignoring everything a person of color says to them is something that continuously happens in this comic, but it’s not clear what speed racer counts as that happening. In this particular case, Sarah is a person of color and she is clearly being ignored. If someone asked me if I thought it was something that was constantly happening, I would say no. But I’m not a person of color and it could easily be something I’m blind to. It’s not even clear to me whether speed racer intends to include Asian or mid-Eastern characters in their complaint or if by person of color they are focused on characters that, like Sarah, are black. Nor is it clear if by the white girls they mean these specific two white girls (who have been going through a period of ignoring lots of stuff since the kiss) or whether Carla, Ruth, Amber or even at a stretch Jennifer are intended to be included. If it’s a continuing pattern, I’m going to need a bit more in the way of examples to be able to recognize it.
…
But the thing is, in the absence of more information, this particular instance, nits and all, is what we have to work with.
…
Well yes, Willis is not a person of color to the best of my knowledge, they write the comic and Willis is all the characters. Willis is imperfect, being human, and so his writing isn’t perfect. That’s all kind of a given.
akwardguy
Jumping in to say I agree with Speedracer, the past year or so the only people who’ve had a negative comment to Joyce and Dorothy or about them in story have been WOC. (Not commenting on how valid those criticisms are, but it is a pattern).
Neither the character’s nor the story has given us a reason to take what they’ve said seriously. Since the criticism is undercut by something else
Sarah has a problem with the cheating, but is being portrayed as irrational or unreasonable about being Joyce’s literal big sister.
Raidah has a problem with Joyce’s conduct at the protest, but is portrayed as a villain by weaponizing homophobia.
Sal tells dorothy and Joyce that Danny and walky are mad at them, and then disappears from the bowling alley unacknowledged.
Asma has a problem with what they did at the protest, but is portrayed as being rigid and inflexible.
Wack'd
waving akwardguy’s comment through because, even though it violates “don’t claim one side of a conflict is obviously supposed to be wrong”, it calmly and clearly provides supporting arguments for a complex issue that is open to discussion
Grimey
I mean gang–we could talk about how some of the POC have been written, been based–been put in some situations that have broader, unfortunate implications. Take Jacob for instance since the discussion about antisocial behaviors and how characters are written. I am speaking primarily as a black POC who grew up in the south. I still live here.
Somehow.
Anyway. Jacob was in a relationship with Raidah, who by all intents and purposes is an antagonist. She’s also very goal driven, “aggressive” as a WOC. He more or less cheats on her emotionally for Joyce and then breaks it up. Of course I’m not disregarding that Sarah aimed Joyce like a tomahawk missile at that relationship but–it comes back to BITE Sarah because she and Raidah are similarly coded of the ‘aggressive’, or ‘prickly’ brush that results driven WOC get scrubbed with in media (I will offer some kudos to Willis for their check-in arc on Sarah basically unharshing herself, to be more acceptable only to run into Tony who likes her the way she is, or that Sarah/Raidah’s issues kinda lean on the divisiveness of POC find with each other in spaces). Who does Jacob end with? Someone described as the black version of Joyce, Lucy. Whole can of worms there between him and Becky and finding “Joyce-remiscient” characters.
Now all of that was just one example you could argue that it’s just…How things land, and look, that Sarah ending up with Tony is a resolution for another wrinkle, someone appreciating her for her, but he may be on a side/stance of things she cannot morally abide by sooner or later, about someone for everyone, that it wasn’t just ‘curvy white woman beats WOC for successful, attractive black man ten times out of ten’ for the Raidah/Joyce/Jacob thing.
zee
Yeah even if we just look within the past year (it feels especially intense the past year) it’s just been a pattern of “brown woman criticizes the white girl couple for doing something they consider harmful. White girls say “it’s white girling time” and white girl all over the poor brown woman. Racists flood the comments.” I’m not going to speculate as to who is supposed to be “objectively” wrong since someone else already did that very well, but it is frustrating how those brown women are always undercut somehow. Like in the most recent interaction with Sarah and Joss, when Joss hit her with “so he’s owed my little sister?” That’s not what Sarah meant. Everyone knows that’s not what Sarah meant. But Sarah response is to reestablish herself in the big sister role rather than address that comment. Now I don’t hold this against Sarah, it’s a final panel. Those are for jokes and dramatic beats. But then the conversation is immediately interrupted and cut away from. She never gets to defend herself, she’s never gotten to expand on her point. It’s frustrating to read as a black woman. For a while I damn near had a “it’s been x days since a brown woman was accosted by this couple” sign up. Like, at least mix it up. Throw a white woman at them, throw Danny at them. Why is it that exclusively brown women criticize them in person and suffer or get ignored for it?
Sajuuk-Khar
@Grimey: I’m gonna be genuinely pissed off if Tony and Sarah breaking up is framed at all as Sarah’s fault and especially if the root of that breakup is to be Tony’s white as white paint attitude about laws and law enforcement, that shit would be so out of line. I really want Sarah and Tony to flourish, even though I will make one million jokes about Sarah and Jocelyne fucking.
@Speed/Akward/Zee: This is an interesting perspective! I gotta say I was confused initially on scrolling up, but I do think you notice a potentially troubling trend.
I do want to put forth an alternative viewpoint though, which is that I think it’s a mistake to frame Sarah as unreasonable or in the wrong to begin with, both about her (very reasonable) objection to the infidelity and in her budding rivalry with Jocelyne. I didn’t even read that as her being prickly or loud in a stereotypical manner, myself, because it just bodes as Sarah being affectionately possessive, followed by the comedy moment of “…”
But, of course, intent ain’t magic and the patterns that exist could use some work, I will agree.
Ed Callahan
“Let’s get back to that later, once we get the end loader and start unloading.
Mitzi B.
I think Dumbing of Age makes more internal sense once you accept that Joyce Brown is kinda racist. Not racist enough to have no black friends, but racist enough to be a shitty friend.
Grimey
Kinda up for me there with the roving theory of Walky being tfem and an egg to eventually be cracked. I don’t disagree with the ideas here in principle but I don’t see either narratively. Joyce I wouldn’t write off as racist, she just takes information and grows as things come, and that aspect of life has not come to her doorstep much. I wouldn’t just assume Walky is an egg, he happens to just present in touch and certain energies that make him more mature and understanding of parts himself than the other, more immature aspects.
Mitzi B.
That aspect of life has pretty literally come to her doorstep: Joyce lives with Sarah. And generally they’re good friends, but that doesn’t prevent Joyce from doing things like congratulating herself for walking to class with black people, or (in this case) blowing off what Sarah has to say.
Grimey
@Mitzi
Yes, I agree with all those points but I guess..Mm. I guess what I’m trying to articulate is you and I both know how racist that would look, but I don’t think Joyce as a character grasps what it looks like until it was right up in her face. Like…Woefully ignorant to her own choices and desires, you know what I mean? That fact that she was writing and drawing what was basically amounting to cucking Walky and being with Dorothy in that newspaper comic, and only after getting with Dorothy has to go back and look at it like “OH THAT WAS WHAT I WAS DOING…” has me feeling like someone would have to handhold her into seeing the choices she’s making towards folks of color AIN’T it.
Wack'd
indeed, it was only once sal drew a really explicit parallel between joyce’s identity struggles, and the way joyce was treating sal as a two-dimensional model-of-coolness slash life-sized-barbie, that joyce started to dial her perception of sal back towards something less objectifying
Queezle
I do not know it is that she is racist, or that she still has harmful biases to unlearn from her upbringing, some of which are rooted in racism… through I guess someone with racist biases is kinda racist. So I am probably not disagreeing with you. After all not being consciously racist does not make you not racist.
She has done a lot of growing since the comic started, while it has been years IRL, it has only been months in comic time, and I do not think she is done growing.
I am interested to see if this is something that will be addressed in comic.
Odo
Aren’t the two kind of the same? It is just an irregular conjugation
“I’m just observing. You have harmful racial biases. He’s a racist.”
It seems like there is a big aversion to calling people racist, and fundamentally this aversion comes from wanting to “not judge racists too harshly” rather than “reduce racism”.
I’d say it is better to be more comfortable recognizing that racism has many forms and degrees. Joyce can be on a journey of overcoming her learned racial biases, and also be a little bit racist because she has her racial biases. The goal isn’t to punish Joyce, it is to recognize racism and to work to reduce it.
zee
I mean isn’t that basically text? Beyond the fact that everyone’s kinda racist bc we’re raised in a white supremacist society and basically forcefed the Kool aid from the moment we’re born and your very fist experience is how much the doctor does or doesn’t treat your mother like shit based on if he thinks her melanin has numbing effects.
.
Joyce isn’t a hateful person, that’s not a prerequisite to being kinda racist. Sarah was like the first black person she’s ever met, she was terrified of Muslims as of 2 months ago. Just like her fundamentalist black and white, over romanticized thinking is engrained into her and still shows its effects, same goes for racism. You don’t shed all your subconscious biases in 2 months at the age of 18. And unlike her homophobia and transphobia, Joyce hasn’t actually had to spend much time confronting her racism. She had that talk with sal about objectifying her but that was very personal. Mostly her early comic racist traits were more of her being a punchline and they were never really taken that seriously by the text. I’m guessing that’s just not a plotline Willis wanted to write, or perhaps doesn’t feel equipped to do so. Which is fine. But yeah Joyce is kinda racist idk how this is a surprise to anyone. Y’all need to expell the term racist as a noun from your mind. When you label someone as A racist, it’s easier to say “oh that’s just who they are. They’re just bad. Unlike me. I mean IM not a racist.” And your desperation to not be the bad thing blinds you to the unconscious biases you for sure have, because again, literally everybody has them. When you boil people down to “a racist” and “not a racist”, that ignores racism as a systemic issue and turns it into a personal one. Which, y’know. Kinda defeats the whole point of trying to take down the institution of racism
NGPZ
👏🏽👏🏽👏🏽
100% all of this, especially the last part
that conversations about systemic failings one way or another get contorted into matters of personal moral responsibility is ironically still a white conservative Christian informed way of looking at things, period.
if looking at racism in terms of personal failing other than a systemic failing doesn’t immediately strike somebody as still a right-wing way of thinking, that’s a product of just how unfortunately skewed our country’s discourse window has been like that for the longest time now 9-9
Dave
I have noticed that ever since The Kiss there’s been an uptick in strips where Joyce and Dorothy are together and just sort of…don’t respond to characters criticizing or arguing with them? Which stands out because both Joyce and Dorothy will usually argue verbosely when someone calls one of them out. Dorothy was just doing it with Sarah a few strips ago! But now Joyce is here and now they’re ignoring Sarah. I figure that’s got to be written deliberately and that it’ll eventually come to a head.
Granted, it maybe isn’t a GREAT look that the pushback they’ve been receiving has been exclusively from the POC in the cast. And briefly Danny by proxy.
SpookyFox
This has been my exact thoughts about this recent plot arc. White woman nonsense abounds, POC get hurt and ignored by proxy.
zee
☝️☝️☝️ it’s kinda frustrating. Like, I wish they’d at least argue back, get defensive or whatever. Them plainly ignoring what people say to their face is lowkey irritating from a reader standpoint, and lowkey upsetting given who it’s often coming from
IntangibleMatter
This’d be the most WILD way for Walky to be revealed as trans
And an absolute blast
I’m here for it
nadamás
Love thow they just ignore that and move on.
poofdepoof
How did Joyce know that Amber was in Walky’s room? (Assuming I missed/forgot a strip — anyone want to drop a link?)
PilkScientist
It’s a dramatic irony joke; she’s making an informed assumption with an unreasonable level of confidence, which we the audience know to be correct.
Bash
She knows they were romantically involved at one point last year. There was an arc where she attempted to help their romance get off the ground.
Reltzik
Sarah, a person can have more than one big sister.
Bill Erak
Joyce and Dorpy be like ‘welp, I’m not unpacking all of that’
Slartibeast Button, BIA
The important part of sisterhood is who submits the paperwork first.
TrueSurvivor
Huh, why are the characters on the ‘cast’ page behind a login screen? I feel like that has to be a bug, right? I just wanted to recall Sarah’s last name.
Wack'd
clinton