Detouring
Posted on July 15, 2025 by David M Willis

449 thoughts on “Detouring”

  1. NGPZ

    oh FUCK

    actual boss stage, NOW GET THE FUCK OUTTA THERE

    *plays “Loving You, Losing you” BEAT REMIX from The Boondocks on hacked muzak*

    1. Amara

      Oh so this is where the death flags might get cashed in. No matter how insane Amber’s training and physique are, I doubt she can deflect a bullet if the snipers take action. I worry so much for amazi-girl.

      1. NGPZ

        *worries about Amazi-Girl and plans for fan games* T-T

      2. Adam Black

        Unnamed mustache guy takes a bullet.

      3. Laura

        I choose to believe she now wears one of those new full-silk bodysuits that can stop bullets.

        https://theconversation.com/body-armour-made-from-silk-is-being-developed-but-this-apparently-cutting-edge-idea-is-centuries-old-227475

        https://biologyinsights.com/spider-silk-bulletproof-vest-new-frontiers-in-protective-fabrics/

        But she really oughta be protecting her head more, all the same.

        1. morleuca

          We used to have the spider-goats here in town.

        2. Proxiehunter

          Spider goat, spider goat, does whatever a spider mote

        3. Steamweed

          Taylor from Wildbow’s Worm stories approves of such body armor.

        4. PipersSon

          Even before that, samurai were using silk cloaks to stop arrows.

      4. AbacusWizard

        Maybe the protest sign she’s holding has a layer of kevlar?

        1. Proxiehunter

          That’s not a bad idea just from the durability of the sign standpoint. The fact that you can hold it over center mass or over your face if shooting starts is just a bonus. Not sure how much that would weigh though.

    2. Proxiehunter

      This isn’t a boss stage. Someone gave AG an escort mission. They never keep up with her, keep going weird places . . . Classic escort mission and exactly why gamers hate them.

      1. NGPZ

        mark my words after or right before the escort is completed she gonna confront either Mary or the sniper 0-0

        1. Proxiehunter

          Mary is the sniper! Dun-dun-DUN

        2. Decidedly Orthogonal

          No it’s just one “Dun” meadow.

        3. elebenty

          snerk

        4. Joey245

          Boss battle! ?

      2. Radiance

        I’d like escort missions a lot more if the bad pathfinding was actually because the women you’re escorting just started making out.

        1. Bittersweet

          This feels like either a Saints Row or a Bully mission and I can’t decide which.

    3. Rectilinear Propagation

      Pretend this comment is a like for the music choice.

  2. Thag Simmons

    It’s all the named characters and some guy with a mustache!

    1. Svankensen

      His name is Cyan.

      1. Joe Moose

        Does he make silk flowers to woo ladies?

        1. Svankensen

          Only if they are widowers.

      2. AbacusWizard

        I loved his computer games back in the 1990s!

      3. RoyanRannedos

        AKA Mr. Thou

    2. Kyulen

      Mustache guy deserves a name. I’m gonna call him Steve until he gets an official name.

      1. Thag Simmons

        he does look a little like steve

        1. Searcher

          Stephen or Steven?

        2. Casi

          Stefan

    3. Astariel

      Thank god Amazi-Girl is getting Mustache Guy out!

    4. Bittersweet

      It’s Danny from the future lol

      1. Michelle J Caboose

        Well, I guess I don’t need to make that comment. Thank you for saving me all that typing! 😉

    5. JA

      That is Mustache Mark.

      1. Risky

        Martin, Sal and Danny’s son from an otherwise non-canon future.

    6. Thallone

      Why is he not wearing red? The traditional ensign sacrificial color is red. Amber/AG would know this.

    7. Rabid Rabbit

      Isn’t that Phil? https://www.itswalky.com/comic/this-place-is-a-mess/

      1. clif

        Good eye!

      2. Proxiehunter

        So he should be able to whip up a common household Molotov.

      3. Reltzik

        I’m going with this. This is the DoA version of Phil until Willis says otherwise.

    8. Jahu

      “Some guy with a mustache?” That’s B. “Shitty” Knight!

    9. Amós Batista

      I’ll call him Igor.
      Of course this mustache is from East Europe.
      сука, блядь!

    10. John Campbell

      Leslie and Robin are unaccounted for.

      And Mary, but hopefully she’s already been zip-tied and shipped to a Bulmerian prison.

  3. ZombieKyrik

    Amazi-Girl to the rescue! Also Amazi-Girl with the common sense enough to tell people to run.

    1. Risky

      The perfect amount of common sense for jumpkicking militant cops.

  4. Tessea

    THANK YOU!!!! _Tear gas!_ Please vacate!!!!

    1. Risky

      The first time is training. The second time doesn’t bother you as much.

  5. kaleido

    ahhh, go you, Amazigirl! keeping folks safe!

  6. Nono

    Hi Asma!

    Asma is here. She’s great.

    1. Kelibath

      I’d be happier if she’d had a line in the panel she reappeared in, especially given yesterday’s discussion of the constant under- or mis-representation of people who dress like her vs the use of causes set in the same places as emotional beats across Western media. But I’m glad she wasn’t a one-off drop-in. Really hope we get some cathartic callouts later though.

      1. Kelibath

        Just seen she was the bonus strip. Great, but for similar reasons, we really need that content in the main text IMHO.

    2. Rose by Any other Name

      So that WAS Asma untagged during the wide shot a couple days ago.

  7. Kyulen

    About time they finally try to get out of there.

  8. Sirksome

    They’d be dead if Nintendo decided to announce the release date for Metroid Prime 4.

  9. Tequila Mockingbird

    AMAZIGIRL joins Thor in the proud tradition of being a defender of lesbians… or whatever Joyce and Dotty decide to identify as.

    1. Decidedly Orthogonal

      Bisexual women?

      1. Decidedly Orthogonal

        Or Maytag-sexuals? Both, neither, more?

    2. AbacusWizard

      THOR, protector of the rainbow and all who seek shelter within it!

      1. PipersSon

        Wouldn’t that be Heimdall? Guardian of the Bifrost (rainbow) bridge?

        1. Owlmirror

          Dorothy is Bi
          Joyce is Bi
          They are both in the snow and frost.
          Bi+frost
          Bifrost

    3. Amós Batista

      original Thor

  10. june gloom

    Excellent use of a sign.

    Also wow is the site slow. I think yesterday’s comment thread might have something to do with that, lmao

    1. DailyBrad

      I think it’s a ton of people trying to see it at the same time. A lot of people are very locked in here.

      1. TCS

        I’m not locked in! I can leave any time I want!
        [notices gates closing]
        uhhhhhh maybe Amazi-Girl will save me?

      2. Proxiehunter

        I’m not locked in with you, you’re locked in with me. Which I suppose is the same thing when it comes down to it.

    2. True Survivor

      Amazi-girl missed her calling going into roller derby, she should have gone with baseball.

      1. Proxiehunter

        Nah, she’s hitting a small object with a wide flat surface to return it to the person who served it. That’s tennis.

        1. Needfuldoer

          Or if the object needs a ton of loft, badminton.

        2. vulcanodon

          Either way, that panel got a ‘wow’ from me

    3. Throwatron

      everybody who could not stop compulsively arguing with one another the whole time ran out of stamina and had to go to sleep

      (i am not excluding myself from this group)

      1. Taffy

        Lucky fucks. Wish I could sleep.

    4. FaerwenOfValenwood

      on yesterday’s comic I noticed the comments loading wicked slow starting round the 750+ mark lol. it was a hell of a thing

      1. AbacusWizard

        good job everyone, we broke the internet!

        (or at least one small part of it)

      2. Needfuldoer

        Nah, we’d only be in trouble when someone tries to post the 4,294,967,296’th comment.

  11. DailyBrad

    I can’t say I don’t get where Amazi-Girl’s irritation comes from, time and place, my budding sapphics.

    Which actually applies to all three of them, come to think of it. (No word on Asma and Mustache, though.)

    1. CrimsonStorm

      Sapphic generally means “woman attracted to women”, right? Do we have any indication that Jocelyne fits that? She made a double entendre with Joe about being on the receiving end of buttsex which doesn’t HAVE to mean her partner was a guy but seems a little more likely than not.

      1. CrimsonStorm

        Not to gatekeep though, and also hell yeah won the Gravitar lottery.

      2. Tessea

        When she ‘introduced’ herself to Joyce, Jocelyne specifically mentioned to becky that she was coming to be attracted to girls where there was none before she began HRT.

      3. Li

        She specifically said that going on estrogen had made her a bit more attracted to women. (Known side effect.)

        1. Li

          (I’m being a bit facetious, “side effect” is probably a strong word for it — and sometimes it’s not exactly HRT but transitioning itself changing how a person thinks of their relationships and making certain relationships attractive that weren’t before. For a lot of trans folks, dysphoria is crushing for all types of sexual attraction because imagining yourself in that situation triggers the dysphoria, and if you’re a trans guy not yet in touch with your identity, for example, imagining yourself with a man as a woman can be really super unappealing for hard to define reasons.)

        2. cain

          yes, this is why i thought i was ace for a very long time!! (many people are actually ace, including many trans aces, but i am not one of them. i am very bisexual. i simply couldn’t deal with the concept of attraction or most kinds of physical contact before transitioning)

        3. Li

          Yep!!!

          and hey as a gray-ace enby, it’s okay ❤️ you are not erasing me or anyone else by living authentically as yourself. Someone else’s disbelief in asexuality as a real thing is not your fault. We in the alphabet soup tend to float around and experiment and try on different letters while we figure ourselves out, and that’s good and healthy.

        4. Michelle J Caboose

          What’s funny is, I used to think I was bisexual, but not interested in sex — until I found out there’s a word for “not interested in sex.” I’ve also started realizing I lean heavily toward aromantic, as well.

          It does make it harder for me to feel smug about my self-control, though…

        5. Yumi

          I have heard other people talk about the “bisexual->asexual path” because it turns out feeling around the same level of not sexual attraction to multiple genders can seem like feeling the same level of sexual attraction to multiple genders.

          I was considering that for myself for a while– first came out as bi as a teenager, then moved to just using queer because bi didn’t seem to fit, then considered that I might be ace for a while, but now I don’t think that’s accurate; it’s all kinda messy, so I’m glad I can hold onto the word queer like it’s a teddy bear.

        6. Jerach

          Oh yeah like, I identify as nonbinary now and even without any hormones and infrequent wardrobe changes, just identifying differently has caused me to be able to be attracted to men as well as women (and those inbetween).

          I’m AMAB and could imagine myself as a man with a woman, but not as a man with a man. I can imagine myself with a man now though because I’m not a man, it’s weird.

        7. Yumi

          I’m nonbinary, AFAB, and I remember when I was maybe twelve being like, “if I was a boy, then I could be a girl.” And then going, “wait, what” at my own thoughts.

        8. Li

          Just handshaking at both of you.

          The closest I come to feeling more transmasc than enby is if I try to imagine actually dating a guy. The societal association there of “heterosexuality is part of Being A [binary gender]” is so strong — and heck, it goes in both directions, I’ve also definitely heard from trans lesbians that they sometimes go through a period of either thinking they’re straight or really wanting to be straight specifically for the gender euphoria of Being a Woman that’s so strongly associated with dating a man as a woman.

      4. Doctor_Who

        Jocelyne told Becky the a side effect of the hormones she’s taking is that she’s developing an attraction to girls.

      5. Throwatron

        She mentioned that also being into boys was a recent development for her, that she was still getting used to. So, she definitely had sapphic feelings at some point; I don’t clearly remember whether she directly specified that the change in her sexuality was another full transition, or just an expansion, though.

        1. Throwatron

          well there’s no edit button in this comments section and all the other people rushing to make the same point I did, did it correctly, and I remembered the order of operations backwards. sorry about that, lol

        2. Li

          We’re just all very dedicated to Jocelyne.

        3. Throwatron

          she deserves it

      6. Doopyboop

        She did indicate finding women attractive after her hormone treatment I think, mentioning watching Thor Ragnarok and finding the entire cast attractive. Otherwise I think Joss is still figuring it out.

      7. AMagicalDuck

        Yeah she talked to Becky about it earlier https://www.dumbingofage.com/2024/comic/book-15/02-the-one-where-jocelyne-returns/hrt/

      8. John Campbell

        She did mention that hormone treatments were making her bi.

        1. John Campbell

          Yeah, I knew going to find the link meant that there were going to be like thirty replies by the time I actually got it posted.

        2. DailyBrad

          Yeah, I was referring to Joss and her expressing that.

          I do wonder how much of it is hormones, and how much of it might be coming as a result of her changing relationship with her body and sexuality, too, like a lot can really impact these things.

      9. Rov

        Jocelyne originally told Ethan she’s “not actually gay”, but being on hrt has caused her to “like girls a bit”.

      10. Kelibath

        You’re right from early appearances, as she mentioned not being “actually gay” before dropping the feminine email bombshell, as well as talking about butsecks encounters from around the same period, so she’s probably been either solely or mostly into men most of her life. But HRT is causing a change in that attraction and opening it up toward women/femmes as well. So, technically a cracking sapphic egg NOW?

    2. clif

      DailyBrad, I know where Amazigirl’s irritation comes from. She’s just irritated that Amber’s plan to free up Walky seems to be working.

      1. DailyBrad

        Heh, also possible, certainly. I do find it fun that Amber and Amazi-Girl were both into Danny, but that Amazi-Girl isn’t into Walky like Amber is.

    3. Sajuuk-Khar

      Jocelyne is only allowed to be a budding sapphic if Joe is her Only Exception ? (see my crackship manifesto from yesterday on why this would be wonderful)

      1. Kelibath

        Only if you see sapphic as an exclusionary term instead of something that can sit alongside other types of attraction… she’s been into guys longer, but now she’s on HRT she’s opening up to appreciate both. But the ship sounds grand <3

        1. Sajuuk-Khar

          I’m just kidding around in DailyBrad’s definitional direction, Jocelyne is very clearly a blossoming bi queen 😛

  12. Freezer

    Amazi-Girl speaks for us all! Especially the bit about Nintendo Directs.

    1. Thing 2

      Even those of us who neither know nor care what Nintendo Directs are.

      1. BorkBorkBork

        I understand and acknowledge that such a person is theoretically capable of existing. But it seems beyond sad to imagine someone not only living in that miserable state, but actively choosing to do so.

    2. Deanatay

      Even superheros are allowed to have priorities.

  13. Liara

    Gonna be interested in the percentage decrease of comments from the last strip to this one

    1. Yumi

      That’s quitter talk! (I’m also a quitter, I don’t have time for all that.)

    2. Taffy

      Let’s aim for 100%

      1. Heatth

        Mission failed already!

        1. clif

          Quitter.

    3. RassilonTDavros

      Well now I’m tempted to just comment a whole bunch on today’s strip, purely to fuck with the ratio for gits and shiggles.

    4. Heatth

      The normal commenter counter is between 200 and 500, I think. I wonder if there will be a lingering effect from yesterday and this strip has more comments than usual, but I doubt it would get much more than that.

    5. Kyulen

      Yesterday we had over 100 comments in a few minutes, I doubt we’re breaking that record today.

    6. JA

      Up to 84, maybe it reaches 300.

    7. MK15

      Commenting just because then!

      The AmaziGirl rescue is great and all but I absolutely adore the panel of big sis entering to both guide Joyce and Dog out of danger, while embracing them

    8. Li

      I think we’ll have more comments once the girls actually talk through what just happened, or tell their respective boyfriends, or argue about telling their boyfriends, or whatever other thing happens.

      But matching yesterday’s comment count on strips where they’re just leaving the protest? Unlikely unless someone gets arrested on the way out.

  14. Mr. Random

    Wait… was was she there for so long?
    She’s not under hormones grasp like these two… or… family connection to make sure things are okay like Jocelynn.

    1. Bittersweet

      She’s literally been going Arkham Batman on cops for like 5 solid minutes now, I can only imagine it with sound effects.

      1. Twinsword

        Outstanding mental picture! +1 for you!

      2. AbacusWizard

        Biff! Pow! Bam! Zowee!

    2. Amara

      Amber actively is encouraging this ship since it lowkey means walky might become “available”. On top of the pure chaos gremlin reason, which honestly would have fit Amber anyways. Amazi girl probably feels similarly.

      1. Nono

        Kind of a weird thing to encourage breaking up your stepbrother’s relationship but… I guess gremlin gonna gremlin.

        1. Sajuuk-Khar

          Amber doesn’t want this to break up Joe/Joyce, though! Amber’s goblin ass believes in the Sacred Polycule! There is textual evidence! AG and her were bickering about how Amber definitely still ships JoJo but is in denial (presumably due to wanting that Walky dick real bad)!

        2. Li

          I think Amber’s subconscious motivation to get Walky single probably wasn’t so much concerned with whether or not Dorothy and Joyce worked out, and just thought getting Dorothy to do something messy and relationship-ending-worthy would fit the bill.

          But like. I do think it was entirely subconscious, so I’m not sure it was even that coherent as an impulse.

        3. jeffepp

          The irony is that Walky and Dottie were low-key discussing bringing her in as a third.

    3. Yumi

      Well, AG was doing other things– fighting cops in the background during the gayening– and she is pretty invested in these two’s safety in particular.

    4. CrimsonStorm

      Amazigirl or Asma?

      1. Yumi

        Oh, yeah, if they mean Asma, that makes more sense. But I don’t think Asma being there still has anything to do with Joyce and Dorothy; she’s just among the people who haven’t left yet.

        1. Risky

          Quick run to the edges of the dragnet where there is more tear gas but also more billy clubs, choke holds, and tasers!

    5. Taffy

      She’s being cool and sexy and based, helping unarrest people so they can leave.

  15. Sirksome

    Oh no, Amazi-Girl and thus Amber the person who apparently planted the seed leading Dorothy and Joyce to hooking up so she could bird dog in on Walky knows they made out!

    1. Throwatron

      she knew Walky would only be down to fuck if he was mad at Dorothy! Sad Walky can’t maintain an erection! He’s useless to her that way!

    2. John Campbell

      It’d be funny if Amazi-Girl didn’t tell Amber about it, just to troll herself.

    3. DiDi

      Holy crap, I forgot about that…

    4. Leadsynth

      Amazi-Girl was also there for the Joyce/Joe makeout in the gazebo. Maybe Amazi-Girl just witnesses all Joyce makeouts now?

  16. darkoneko

    not during Nintendo Directs ? XD

    1. Risky

      Luckily as no one but the author predicted, there were no Nintendo Directs this month. wtf

  17. DiDi

    Now the waiting is gonna be torture once again.

  18. Bittersweet

    Amazigirl I love you, genuinely one of my fave characters lolololol. I am terrified for you, but I love you.

  19. PedanticJerkass

    So… Amazi-Girl really just beat up some cops and the rest of them haven’t laser focused on her to do everything in their power to bring her down right now?

    Okay… MST3K Mantra. (That, and the scene isn’t over yet, I suppose.)

    1. Kyulen

      In the real world, the cops would absolutely be all after Amazi-Girl by now, for beating up some of them. But in the real world there wouldn’t be costumed vigilantes beating up cops at protests, so I guess that doesn’t matter.

      1. Svankensen

        We had Pareman!

    2. Sirksome

      Maybe she’s just that good? It’s pretty sad and funny that the fact a horde of cops aren’t ganging up to beat down and pin one person to the ground for arrest is what really stretches the logic of this comic and not the costumed vigilante antics.

      1. Nadamás

        She IS that good.

        1. Dara

          I insist she is that good, and that she continue to be just. that. good.

        2. Li

          She’s trained for years, they’ve trained for six months and most of their training apparently increases their fear and paranoia. Absolutely realistic that she could kick their asses with one hand tied behind her back.

          And, since she’s white and also this is broad daylight with hundreds of witnesses, they’re less likely to just shoot her to death.

        3. thejeff

          Nah, Amazi-Girl runs on comic book logic, not realism. Which is fine, but a few years of martial arts don’t actually make people capable of taking on squads of bigger dudes.
          Superheroes, on the other hand, can take on basically unlimited faceless mooks.

        4. Li

          You’re assuming a lot there and I don’t think you’ve thought through the particulars?

          Anyway, this isn’t a squad of generic bigger dudes, it’s a group of cops, and I don’t know why anyone would assume them capable of taking down literally any random citizen who can throw a decent punch after Uvalde.

        5. thejeff

          I’m sorry, maybe I missed something about Uvalde? Was there a thing there where an unarmed citizen beat up dozens of cops in groups?

          I remember them refusing to go in to confront the shooter, which is despicable enough, but has nothing to with whether a bunch of them together could beat up a “random citizen who can throw a decent punch”.

          Besides, we know from plenty of previous scenes that AG does ignore realism and play by superhero rules, so why think she’s suddenly being realistic here?

        6. Li

          They refused to go in, despite overwhelming numbers and body armor, because they were mostly terrified of being shot by the shooter.

          My memory is that we’ve done studies looking at police, and police training mostly seems to ramp up their fear. Fentanyl hysteria comes from the same place. Shooting unarmed people who were literally running away from them, too, when that’s not retaliatory anger at not being immediately unquestioningly obeyed (although I bet there’s fear there too).

          They’re not big tough “opponents”. They’re just not. A more realistic portrayal, as far as American police go, would be panicky and disorganized and easily defeated, unless they feel able to just shoot you, which they wouldn’t in this situation since Amazi-Girl is white and they’re surrounded by witnesses and they weren’t written as being under the orders of a president who openly fantasizes about executing or deporting protestors.

          Seriously. Police in specific? Against Amazi-Girl in specific? It shouldn’t be controversial. If anything, Willis wrote them as too competent here.

      2. vulcanodon

        Entirely possible they saw how it went with the first couple cops and decided maybe focus on something else for now

    3. Ray Radlein

      Tear gas, smoke, and confusion

  20. UrsulaDavina

    Given how Nintendo has been acting lately (which honestly isn’t new for them — it’s just gotten much worse), I think you should skip the Directs. If you’re wondering why, it’s all the shady stuff they’ve been doing during the Switch 2 rollout. Honestly, Nintendo has been just as bad as other developers; it’s just that 2025 has been a horrific dumpster fire, making it all stand out even more.

    1. Throwatron

      Nintendo have spent this year seeing how fast they can speedrun erasing like 30 years of consumer goodwill for Being Slightly Less Craven Than The Other Two Guys

      1. Sirksome

        It’s sad that I still wanna play their games. The new Donkey Kong comes out in two days and I still wanna play it. But for the first time I feel guilty as a consumer. I own a Switch 2 but I’ll be buying a lot less games these days.

    2. JA

      I saw a short earlier today that Nintendo entered its villain phase about 10 years ago and it’s only not becoming apparent. I’d believe it.

      1. Sirksome

        It’s because Iwata died and Reggie left. Surprisingly those two were responsible for pushing a lot of the old Nintendo business philosophy we like. Such as console pack in games. Wii Sports for free with the Wii was something that had to be fought for.

        1. Throwatron

          I never heard that before, that’s almost unbelievable. The inclusion of Wii Sports with the console is like the core reason it completely dominated the casual market, and made the Wii the best-selling console of all time. Wild that anybody ever thought that was a bad idea.

    3. Nadamás

      Eh, they gonna be awful wherever i watch or not, might as well check out if anything good is realeasing.

    4. Li

      I mean video games really are a No Ethical Consumption Under Capitalism situation, though. There aren’t studios where no crunch happens, for example — just studios where you haven’t heard about it yet. Until we have strong video game unions, it’s gonna keep being a problem.

      Now mind you, I’m not saying it’s wrong to boycott them. I just think unless you commit to only getting your video games from itty bitty operations like Toby Fox, there’s exploitation somewhere in the chain: and the same goes for movies, especially animated movies.

      idk, for me personally it really rewired my brain when I read that interview with exploited workers in, like, China. One of the protestors was wearing a Mickey Mouse shirt during the interview, and the American journalist asked him very seriously why he would own such a shirt, given his problems with Disney.

      And this guy just stared at her, and said there was no connection between the two things. He wore this shirt because it was cheap and that was what he could afford. There was no moral implication to it for him, and he clearly considered the concern over his individual purchases as a consumer to be a complete distraction from his actual activism.

      I think he was right. I think a lot of us have been successfully brainwashed by big corporations into worrying so much about which brand of chocolate we buy at the supermarket or whether almond milk is sustainably sourced that we don’t have the energy for the fights that really matter.

      1. Li

        But again: if knowing what you do about Nintendo makes you not want to own any of their products, that’s absolutely and completely fine. We all draw different lines over what makes a property or a brand into something we just plain don’t want to look at in our houses anymore, even if we aren’t spending real dollars on it.

      2. Kelibath

        I guess the main counterpoint to his comment is that the shirt works as a direct advertisement for the company, and can be taken by onlookers/strangers on the street as an indirect form of support. It’s also worn for longer and so the message sticks around in the way that someone briefly consuming a food product isn’t as useful for. On the other hand, he’s not constantly funding the company like someone buying their produce would be… it’s tough. I agree we need to prioritise the big stuff. Such as making sure disabled people don’t face a quiet genocide and the walking back of all their – and workers’, and womens’, and trans, I could go on – rights, and ensuring our right to protest and demand change itself isn’t totally taken away. But I’d probably still not wear a shirt like that outside if I felt that strongly about the creating company…

        1. Li

          ….the point was that giving his money to a corporation and “advertising” their brand with a t-shirt does not matter.

          We stop unethical companies with regulations and unions, not with individual disorganized boycotts.

        2. Li

          Like, look, there are CERTAIN companies susceptible to enough bad press, and certain individual creators (like Rowling) who we should absolutely do our best to individually starve of money and attention and credibility.

          But Disney doesn’t need advertising. Choosing not to wear a t-shirt with their logo on it and instead just being cold, because again that t-shirt was what he could afford (he worked for Disney, it was hugely discounted)……. would not have helped anything.

          And I think that guy? On the ground? Being exploited by Disney? I think he has a better vantage point on what he and the people like him need. And it’s not a bunch of Americans feeling better about ourselves because we burned a Disney t-shirt.

          That kind of individual purchasing choice does not make for meaningful corporate change. It just doesn’t. It’s posturing. And it’s an exhausting continuous distraction, when we could instead be paying attention to our local elections and lobbying our representatives to support meaningful legislation.

        3. Kelibath

          I get what you’re saying, but would be surprised if that was the only shirt available to him to wear in the city, thrift stores inclusive? Fair enough if it was cents, just surprising – I think with that context I wouldn’t necessarily have commented, but without it I’d be more suspicious that he actually wore the shirt explicitly to be able to make his point about consumerism vs activism on camera. Not that I necessarily object to the plan!

        4. Li

          I guess I can’t stop your speculation that relies entirely on a sweatshop worker in China both knowing and caring about how Americans have convinced ourselves that wearing a t-shirt is a political statement of support for the company that made the shirt.

    5. Taffy

      As the prophet says, it’s always morally okay to pirate Nintendo games. Steal that shit with as much enthusiasm as you like, free of any moral guilt. Buying their games for those ridiculous prices won’t make them put out the game you’ve been hoping and wishing for, anyway.

      1. BorkBorkBork

        I mean, everything’s morally OK according to someone’s morality system. Eating humans is morally OK to a 16th century Aztec, as long as you did it in the right way. Burning witches was morally OK to 17th century New Englanders.

        But I’ve honestly never heard a defense for your position that wasn’t just wild posturing and backwards arguments, covering up the simple fact that someone really really wanted something, but also really really didn’t want to pay money for that thing, so they just took it.

        I’m not sure I would call that moral in any case. It is not a moral good, or a personal right, for you to be able to play a video game. “Because I want it and they’re asking for an extra $10” is not a moral excuse for theft.

        If something is worth the money for it, buy it. If something is not worth the money for it, don’t buy it. If you don’t have the money for something, but you need it, there’s an argument to steal it. But if you do have the money for something, and it’s doing nothing beneficial for you but making you happy for 20-40 hours, you don’t have a leg to stand on.

        1. Nadamás

          Well theft is considered inmoral for the way it affects a victim. In tgis case tge “victim” would be a multi billion dollars company so there is not really any real dmaage done.

        2. BorkBorkBork

          If that’s the case, then you’re saying it’s morally OK for me to steal candy bars and gum at the store, because the cost to Walmart, Hershey, and Wrigley is miniscule. Far more miniscule, in fact, than for me to steal a $70 video game.

          But that’s not the case because we don’t consider theft to be bad compared to the harm that it does to a person, we consider theft bad regardless because the concept of property and ownership is vital to a functioning civilization, and it is in everyone’s interest that theft is a crime. We also don’t measure the severity of the crime by the degree of damage that it does in proportion to the person’s wealth; we measure the severity of the crime simply by the cost of what is being stolen. There is not a sliding scale.

          Those are, again, falsehoods told because you *want* them to be true. You know the logic of what I stated above, because you know it’s not morally correct to shoplift, and because you know that most legal systems measure degree of crime by the dollar amount. You also know that while the legal system is not the same as morality, you also know that breaking the law for a reason that is not morally good is in fact immoral.

          You can also run the “What if everybody did it?” test to see if in fact, no real damage is done. I think you know the answer to that.

          At the end of the day, again, those are simply lies you’re telling yourself to justify the theft you had already decided to do.

        3. Li

          Yes the logic here is generally that it’s extra moral to steal from Walmart, and that if everyone stole from Walmart and Walmart had to stop existing as a store, that would be great.

        4. Li

          And boy, if HERSHEY stopped existing, that would be even better.

          You picked bad examples.

        5. Throwatron

          Every single corporate store of every brand has a preemptive expectation of loss from theft for every quarter and fiscal year, because at the corporate level, it’s common sense that some amount of such activity is inevitable within a society. So, when you consider that, if Wal-Mart doesn’t get robbed enough, then we as a society are giving them extra free profits.

          Stealing from humans is always immoral. Stealing from multi-billion dollar global corporations, who are known human rights abusers, union busters, and who profit from, and lobby to worsen, the dire poverty of the average person? If one has the stomach for it, I’d say it’s morally necessary.

        6. Li

          Like, the argument has some legs to it when it comes to pirating video games from a company you presumably like enough to want them to keep making new video games. There ARE industries where piracy hurts the exact creators whose content you like.

          But man, can you even imagine picking Walmart and Hershey as your examples of companies it would be terrible to steal from because ? what if ? what if they stopped existing. What if Hershey stopped getting its chocolate from literal slave labor. Oh no how awful for poor Hershey……..

        7. Nadamás

          I would understand that argument for indie video games studios but with something as big as nintendo, where the profits will go more towards corporate executives that the people that actually make the game possible, i don’t really see it.

        8. BorkBorkBork

          Every once in a while I remember that this comment section lives in its own little bubble of reality, completely unmoored from the real world, and that reason and logic just really doesn’t apply here. This is one of those times.

          I literally just grabbed the simplest things on my mind. Honestly, I was originally going to say Kwik Trip and Glazers, but realized that was too regional for some people to know, so widened it up to globally recognizable brands. Way to completely ignore what I’m saying, in favor of laughing at my ignorance.

          But it really doesn’t change my argument.

          If Hershey is such a horrible company that it shouldn’t exist (and I definitely see the argument and can concur) then why the hell am I still being a consumer? If Walmart is awful, then why the heck even give them foot traffic?

          Like Nadamas said, you’re barely touching any profit margin of theirs by doing your petty crimes. You stuffing your face with stolen Reeses and Cadbury Cream Eggs is not striking a terrifying blow against slavery. It is, rather, indulging in the benefits of slavery.

          If you’re morally OK with indulging in the benefits of slavery, or of child labor, or of crunch culture, or whatever it is you are taking a stand against, but you’re simply morally against buying said thing, I don’t believe you actually care about the thing you’re “taking a stand” on.

          Imagine if I told you that I was a vegan, as I ate a rack of lamb. “Oh, this?” I say, barbeque sauce dribbling down my cheek. “Oh, I didn’t pay for this. I’m a Fiscal Vegan. I stole it from Whole Foods down the street. I refuse to pay for meat, or any animal product. Take THAT, murder industry!”

          That’s the hypocrisy I’m talking about. That’s why I say, it just sounds to me like a bunch of excuses. Because if you hold a mirror up to it for two seconds you see that the act of stealing that thing makes no sense for what you’re saying.

          I guess, though, if you start from the perspective of “Stealing Isn’t Bad, Actually; White Collar Crime Is Actually A-OK, And They Expect Us To Steal So It Would Be Rude If We Didn’t” there’s not a lot of common ground that we can stand on.

        9. Nadamás

          You are one self important weirdo aren’t you? I absolutely do not agree with you, i agree more with Li that you, i just minded the bit about videogames. Calling everyone here “unmoored from reality” because they don’t agree eith you it’s real rich. I think you are the one who should learn a bit about reality.

        10. BorkBorkBork

          I’ll 100% agree to weirdo, but if thinking that theft is wrong, and people who disagree are wrong, makes me “self-important”… well, I’ve been called worse.

          Better to be a weirdo than a thief. Or an arsonist, murderer, rapist, vandal, conman, abuser, or blackmailer. Just in case any of those other ones someone views with fuzzy “It’s OK when I do it” morality.

        11. Nadamás

          Oh now i know you are full of shit. Thanks for that now i can disregard everything you say guilt free.

        12. BorkBorkBork

          Well, THAT’S not true. You decided to disregard what I was saying long before my last post, and there’s nothing in my last post that is at all wilder than anything else I’ve said.

          You and others still hold true that theft is A-OK depending on who the victim is. You were only willing to entertain the idea that *maybe* it wasn’t OK in the case of indie studios, which was never my argument.

          And no, it’s not wild and over the line to suggest that other crimes someone might view as morally OK. United Healthcare CEOs, for example. Is it murder? Sure, but it’s murdering a murderer. Luigi? Now THATS someone who is following his moral compass. No “fiscal Vegan” for him, no “Oh, I can’t *possibly* support crunch culture, so I’m just going to download it and play. What, spend my money on a more worthy title? Why would I; I want to play Donkey Kong!”

          Someone like Luigi is following his moral compass, going against the flow, literally sacrificing everything for that cause. He does what others see as immoral because he sees it as right.

          A “couch warrior” who steals games instead of buying them, because “every gaming studio has crunch,” has adopted a moral stance that mirrors what he wanted to do anyways. He does not pirate because he is morally conflicted; he adopts a moral stance because it legitimizes what he wanted to do anyways.

          You are 100% free to disagree with me, but this isn’t just trolling. This is my own moral stance. An immoral action is still an immoral action. Choosing the lesser of two evils does not mean that the choice you choose is good, even if it is better.

        13. Li

          Gosh BorkBorkBork that sure is a lot of intense judgment and assumptions! Also some, like, gross fatphobia, presumably unexamined, in the way you invoke food being stuffed greedily into someone’s face, or dribbling down their chin, in an attempt to delegitimize their political opinions.

          I’m not even a shoplifter, and I have better taste in chocolate anyway. Sorry if that feels like another joke at the expense of your not being more familiar with the brand names you reached for, they’re just… they’re just really awful companies and funny examples. Whole Foods is only marginally better. ALDI is a much better company to chide people about stealing from — it’s worker-owned. But it’s also not a huge chain in the States (bigger in Europe, to my understanding), so, less helpful.

          But you were the one who proposed the scenario where stealing from Walmart or Hershey would drive them out of business, so I’m not claiming ownership for the thing you’re now characterizing as ridiculous to believe. That was your idea, your attempt to use Kantean ethics to prove it would be unethical to steal from them because it couldn’t be universalized without blah blah blah.

          So like. Sorry your hastily chosen metaphor didn’t work out so well for you? But all I actually said was, yes, the argument is that it’s extra moral to steal from a shitty company like Walmart.

          And… if you could maybe stop trying to draw an equivalency between shoplifting from a major corporation and rape or murder, that would be rad.

          P.S.: let’s not call Luigi a murderer, not only has that not been proven in a court of law, it seems genuinely unlikely from what we know. My government has been violating his right to due process all over the place, let’s not make their job easier for them.

        14. Taffy

          Nah, fuck ’em. I’ll emulate whatever I want.

  21. Tessea

    I am still very worried about Checkov’s Sniper. The group is bunching up _exactly_ as I’d feared….

    1. Yumi

      It could come back, but it also could have been being used as a way to show how serious the situation is and connect it further to the real world events from IU, thus serving a narrative purpose without anyone actually getting shot.

    2. John Campbell

      Mustache Guy is there as a human shield.

      1. Proxiehunter

        The mustache adds +25 defense points allowing him to tank more hits for the group.

        1. Michelle J Caboose

          +1 ?

    3. Nono

      I’d be more worried for Asma being there because if the only POC (not counting Robin) gets targeted by a sniper just to prove a point about how ‘serious’ this protest is, I’d be very annoyed to put it mildly.

      1. Li

        The alt text on this comic makes me think Willis included her for exactly the opposite reason, but it would be extremely justified to be frustrated and angry and more if she got shot here.

      2. Rectilinear Propagation

        FWIW, I can’t find any news about any of the snipers shooting anyone in real life or any deaths happening during the protests at all. So at the very least, no one has to die to match the seriousness of real world events. Injuries from something “less lethal” maybe.

  22. ZombieKyrik

    So… what are the chances that Amazi-Girl, and/or one of the named characters ends up in cuffs?

    1. John Campbell

      I’m pretty sure A-G getting cuffed means that she and Amber stop being a characters, so it seems unlikely. The others have not been punching fascists, so they can spend a night in jail and things pretty much go back to normal the next day.

    2. Svankensen

      We need to ask ourselves which option is more dramatic. I’m guessing Joyce is going to get jailed and Dotty will blame herself and Joe will find out exactly what happened when he goes looking for Joyce.

      1. Disastroid

        I figured Joe would find out when the news reports hit the TV and internet, and the Protest Lesbians becomes a big deal for 48 hours.

    3. Amós Batista

      I’m sure AG knows one or two cops. It’s good to have contacts.

      1. Proxiehunter

        Do you think she has a commissioner Gordon?

  23. Masha

    You know, I think I’ve come around on this arc. We’ve got slightly left centrists distracting everyone from a protest about US funded foreign murder so they can fight their own personal demons and be gay, a celebrated vigilante figure, everyone somehow getting away(knock on wood) from the protest without any real physical damage or jail time, a brown person with basically zero dialogue or impact on the story in the background…

    This might be the most ridiculous and hilarious white thing DoA has produced and it’s had Jacob’s haircut.

    1. Nadamás

      “Slightly left centrist” where does even. Come from.

      1. Svankensen

        I mean, Joyce and Dorothy are CLEARLY slightly left centrists. Haven’t heard a single even Scandinavian socialistish argument by any of them.

        1. Nadamás

          I might just a skewer view of what even is a “centrist” but those two doesn’t strike me like tgat at all.

        2. Svankensen

          Hmm, I get what you say. They are young enough that their actions, or inaction, could be ignored as political discourse. But if you look at their actions and inaction other than being against discrimination (when it affected people in their intimiate environment), they haven’t taken a stance against anything.

        3. Nadamás

          And that means they are centrist? I don’t see it.

        4. Bittersweet

          Yes, that quite literally is what centrists are like.

        5. Nadamás

          I don’t think so ?

        6. Jon

          Centrists are teenage girls who have never been asked their political stances on pretty much anything??

        7. Kelibath

          It depends on where your country sits Overton window wise right now. From the UK 30-odd years ago Dorothy is definitely a centrist – she’s a reforming Conservative moving left as she realises the Establishment and Due Process doesn’t actually have the people’s best interests at heart. And Joyce is “asymmetrically lapsing out of a” right-wing fundamentalist social group. They’re not “just” centrists, they’ve only just moved out of right-of-centre or more… but they are *moving* left, and what we see of them currently gives me hope that at least Joyce if not both of them are going to keep on quickly doing so across the rest of their uni lives and on. However in the UK *today* Joyce would be considered leftist for simply supporting trans rights and acceptance, or for believing we should help one another in a society ;-;

        8. thejeff

          Well less than 30 years ago, the UK still had Section 28 blocking any teaching that supported homosexuality. Both Joyce and Dorothy are well to the left of that, in those social terms, if not in economic & government control terms.

        9. Kelibath

          I’m from the UK and lived through that ruling, so I respect your point, but I was talking about the general climate as a whole; we’ve been historically pretty awful on LGBTQIA+, though still generally ahead of the US. Our establishment is perenially rightwing Conservative with a capital C as well. But large portions of the population are further left and typically there is a centrist balance… except when they’re being riled up by explicit scapegoat rhetoric campaigns. Which is unfortunately all too often, because said establishment have a stranglehold on tabloid and clickbait media. If I’m honest, though, our real heyday of leftist politics was probably around the Nye Bevan era. We’ve had decades on decades of mainly Conservative rule and that’s shifted the Overton window a bunch along certain lines even while the US still appears farther right for the most l IIRC and to be a bit more detailed, the UK actually moved right-wing into a reactionary moral panic around when Section 28 came in, moved left again in the early 2000s on those lines but swung right into Islamophobia and war rhetoric at the same time what with following the US into Afghanistan, and then made some really decent progress in the late 00s and early 10s before clinging to JKR’s festering bootheels like limpets :/

        10. Priv. Priv.

          In american they are basically communists we can argue about what a “real leftist” is when we establish basic human rights and we can’t even do that.

        11. SocietyPilled

          So is like 99% of the human population Adolf Hitler from this framing then? Joyce and Dorothy are like more left-wing than basically 95% of the American population, but because they haven’t expressed support for, among all possible things, a Scandinavian style welfare state, they are centrists? You’re getting Joe Manchin vibes from this?

        12. Svankensen

          The hell you talking about? They only political stance they have ever taken is support for diversity. That’s like, the most basic thing. Even in deludedly right wing places like the US, at least about most of the population is in favor of those values.

          Support for Scandinavian style wellfare state was an example of minimum leftism. Never heard them talk about worker’s rights, access to education (except regarding Becky, which was solved with a scholarship, not a change in politics), wages, warmongering, exploitation, environment…
          So, yeah, typical center left. Status quo+diversity.

        13. SocietyPilled

          “Only” support for diversity? “The most basic thing”? Do you think that this is some solved issue that centrists just meet once or twice a year to go “Yep. The entire world is still not racist, not homophobic, and not hateful towards immigrants. We have continued to maintain the status quo!” Have you heard Europeans talk about immigration? About Romanis? Oh but it’s all just a basic thing I suppose…

          But I suppose I got my answer. I said “Do you really consider them centrist for being to the left of like 95% of the population easily” and you answered “Well they don’t want to end capitalism like all zero (0) of the political parties currently in power in the west do, so they aren’t left-wing.” Then I say again: that is ridiculous framing.

        14. Svankensen

          Scandinavian wellfare states are all capitalist. The hell you talking about?

        15. SocietyPilled

          Oh, so then is your idea of leftism like Denmark’s Social Democrats, which are deporting asylum seekers, telling the Workers Of The World to get the fuck out of their country, and are considering banning the burqa (something too far-right even for the GOP here in America), or is it more like the Social Democrats of Sweden, whose international secretary declared support for Pete Buttigieg back in 2020, and implied Sanders supporters weren’t “ordinary people”?

          Because it seems weird to (again) ignore something as important as supporting diversity, casting it off to the side as “centrist” and “the most basic thing”, while saying that to get into the left, they should at least be part of an anti-immigrant anti-Muslim party, or perhaps Pete Buttigieg fans.

        16. Svankensen

          I know you are intentionally trying to be obtuse, but you also know I didn’t say any of that. Hell, you ignored all the specific examples (worker’s rights, access to educations, wages, warmongering, etc), and went for something you could twist instead. I’m not ignoring diversity, I’m saying it’s the most basic thing, and doesn’t take you out of center left. It’s a liberal thing. So, anyway, yes, Dorothy and Joyce are liberals. Status quo plus more diversity. Which, is fine, but doesn’t take you out of the center.

        17. deliverything

          Yes, supporting diversity is important, but as far as being a good human goes, it’s like having a pulse. You don’t need to call it out as something unusual.

        18. Nadamás

          I mean, it sadly is relatively unusual, it being “like having a pulse” is still pretty new overall.

        19. SocietyPilled

          I am not intentionally trying to be obtuse, but am making a very important point that you either refuse to acknowledge, or care so little about that it can’t even enter your mind:

          According to you, being pro-diversity doesn’t “take you out of the center-left”, but then you excuse the “left” societies *you give as an example* for being far more anti-immigrant and Islamophobic than the American right.

          So which is it? Is diversity “the most basic thing” that everyone has? Then why doesn’t YOUR idea of “left” nations have it? Why are they allowed to call themselves left while failing to deliver “the most basic thing”? Or is it something that’s surprisingly lacking in the world? In which case why do you so thoughtlessly discard it as “basic”, as if it is in abundance when it isn’t?

          Because it seems like you both think that diversity doesn’t make something “left”, but also that *hating diversity* doesn’t make something “not left”. I find this to be a very interesting double standard. It’s almost like you don’t care about it at all.

        20. Kyulen

          The left begins with anti-capitalism.

        21. Kelibath

          We aren’t just comparing their politics with the *current* political landscape, we’re comparing them across the last several decades or more. The entire Western world has been racing one another rightwards towards fascism for at least the last decade or more. Going back even a little bit would place these two safely just-left-of-centre-and-only-there-by-dint-of-recent-actions. And YMMV by country, of course. They’re Democratic, but they’re sure not Corbyn Labour.

        22. Kelibath

          * to be fair, even Corbyn didn’t quite live up to Corbyn Labour, and what we REALLY need is Green or a Labour variant from the Nye Bevin era, or left of there

        23. Proxiehunter

          The last 48 years by my count. But I’m fuzzy on politics from before I was born. And it might just date back to Regan making it only 44.

        24. Nadamás

          I honestly regret saying anything about this

        25. MK15

          Nah, I think you were right to question the comment. Appreciate the opportunity to hash it out because while they may only be “slightly left of center” in terms of perspective, that’s different from the term “centrist,” which is a loaded, even derogatory name when coming DemSoc types.

        26. Svankensen

          Is it? It just means that they don’t intend to make any large changes to the status quo. It’s pretty simple, really. Don’t they have centrist parties where you live? They are a very common thing, and are exactly like this. Well, some of them. For obvious reasons, they are different from each other. Anyway, let’s hope Dotty’s epiphany leads her to become less of a centrist.

        27. thejeff

          “Centrist” in online US leftist discourse is often used to mean “not anti-capitalist and thus basically fascist”.

          It’s hard to tell what any individual usage means though.

          For all practical purposes, the US doesn’t have any parties that identify as centrist.

        28. Svankensen

          I mean, it certainly means not anti-capitalist. That’s certainly tacitly supporting a lot of structures of exploitation, but from there to “basically fascist” it’s a big leap. And… uhhh. US democrats are centrists. To a t. Except a handful like Bernie and AOC. That’s the problem with a two party system and such a diseased overton window. Their parties can’t use any real label. Republicans used to be a mix of neoliberals and conservatives (all nationalists). Now they added fascism to the mix, and it’s overtaking all the rest.

        29. Kelibath

          Assuming Centrist is a broad spectrum like every other category, and not simply the fixed current Overton midpoint, “slightly left of centre” could still fall within it more feasibly than it falls within “Leftist”. It’s all down to perspective. A lot of the readers aren’t US American and our perspectives might be different. We’re also assessing the kids across their arcs and not only their most recently espoused stances… they’ve both moved Left a bit over the series, Joyce especially. Joyce at the start was definitely RoC.

        30. Proxiehunter

          @Svankensen Calling out the lack of desire to change the status quo is what makes it an insult. Centrist is almost synonymous with MLK’s “White Moderate”. The main difference being not all of them are white.

        31. Nadamás

          I don’t think i was wrong, i just don’t like when people start pointless arguments that lead nowhere.

      2. Masha

        A real central-leftist would’ve failed getting into Brown instead of Yale.

        1. Nadamás

          I am not American so i don’t get the correlation.

        2. John Campbell

          Dorothy hasn’t gotten into Brown.

          Yet.

        3. Proxiehunter

          But I’m pretty sure she’s going to acomplish it. As well as getting Brown into her.

        4. Sajuuk-Khar

          And, God willing, a little Rosenth—

          OH! You meant SCHOOLS!

        5. Yumi

          Well, how much tongue was there?

        6. Nymph

          Dorothy didn’t fail to get into Yale. They accepted her and she decided not to go.

        7. Kelibath

          True, but she is still in the process of working out what she wants instead. We’ll see if that’s Brown or equivalent. They need more time.

        8. thejeff

          I think it’s pretty clear that she wants Brown.

          Don’t know about what school though.

        9. Proxiehunter

          We know she wants Brown, but I don’t think Joyce offers degrees.

        10. Sajuuk-Khar

          Joyce JUST opened her linguistics department, give her time

        11. Proxiehunter

          I heard that department is quite cunning though.

        12. Kelibath

          *just applauds the follow-ups*

      3. Bittersweet

        I think that’s a fairly accurate description of Dorothy and Joyce’s politics. They’re gradually getting more left, but Dorothy started off not wanting to rock boats and Joyce started off from what was most certainly conservative opinions. Frankly, having the opinions of “LGBTQ+ should have rights and be safe” and “Genocide is bad” aren’t exactly super left-leaning opinions, the bar has just been forcibly dragged right over the years in the US. The way Europeans talk about it, I don’t think I have a good mental picture on what would be considered true leftist values in the rest of the world, but I know for a fact that Dorothy and Joyce aren’t there yet lol. (I also think the direction is different in some countries? I could’ve sworn it was, but everyone drawing a distinction between “left” and “liberal” has me confused as to what term to use.)

    2. Sapph-o

      “and its had jacob’s haircut” is absolutely sending me. no really though bc what the HELL did they do to him

      1. Nadamás

        I think he looks ok.

        1. Sapph-o

          depends on the strip bc a lot of times the new shave lines are so wide it makes him look chopped

        2. Yumi

          I get the hair style it’s supposed to be, but I don’t think it’s really well-translated into Willis’ style.

    3. Yumi

      I wonder if when Willis first started on the protest storyline, they saw Joyce and Dorothy happening this way. The post from their Tumblr that was shared yesterday (if someone wants to grab the link, thank you, otherwise I’ll find it to reply with later), it showed that they’ve been planning Joyce × Dorothy for years, but also that their plans have shifted over time. (Previously they had them kissing or whatever not happening for a few more real world years.) They definitely do longterm planning, so when the topic of the protest first came up, they might have already had this storybeat in mind, but maybe not.

      (Mention of the protest for us first came up about seven months ago; Willis had some uptick in lengthening his buffer more recently, so I’d say it was probably around six months from drawing the strip where the protest was first mentioned until drawing yesterday’s– but I don’t know exactly how his process goes. I could see the Joyce and Dorothy building more in the in between strips than he was expecting until we got here.)

      Regardless of that, I do feel there are some mistakes on how the protest was presented. I don’t think having the protest not be about the Gaza genocide but basically be about the Gaza genocide was the way to go. If you don’t want it to be directly that– which I can see reasons for– then make it about something else. This approach, though, where it’s about the Gaza genocide with a thin sheet over it, I think just leaves more people dissatisfied. It’s not general enough to not be (and I held onto that possibility for a long time– the fact that it was in Dunn Meadow meant nothing, since that’s just where protests happen at IU) and not really engaging with or portraying it either.

      Willis also has my sympathies with publishing things as they work on them. They do have a long buffer that allows them to rework things some, but it’s not like with, say, a traditionally published book, where you’ve developed the whole story and done rounds of edits with other people before putting it out– all at once– for the public to consume and judge*. I don’t know if they’d do anything differently with the feedback they’ve gotten now, but they just have forwards to go anyway.

      (*Plenty of such books still end up being incredibly fucked, but anyway)

      1. Yumi

        (Tumblr post I mentioned: https://www.tumblr.com/dumbingofage/789056686007730176/just-out-of-curiosity-willis-how-long-has-this)

    4. Kyulen

      I’m not convinced any of the major characters in DoA are left of center politically. Maybe a few minor characters who usually appear in the background and aren’t normally the main focus of any story arcs might be leftists. US politics is extremely skewed to the right compared to other parts of the world.

    5. Scolopendra

      You’re right and you should say it, even if the vaguely left-of-center white liberals in this comments section will beat you to death for daring to.

      1. Florence

        It’s also just a neutral description

        You aren’t evil or whatever, your politics are just very status quo. Which the status quo could be described as evil but being okay with that is not in and of itself

      2. Li

        I’m just gonna yawn real loudly so that you don’t think the lack of people attacking you for this extremely common opinion is because no one but Florence noticed you.

    6. Amós Batista

      I’m adoring this storyline so much AND I’ll defend any comment like yours.
      Kill me now.

  24. Svankensen

    Reminded me of “Amor encapuchado” by Anarkia Tropikal. Doubt even an LLM can translate that one correctly for you english speakers tho.

    1. FaerwenOfValenwood

      so I went and listened to this and it straight up cums, I love it!! those lyrics hit hard

      1. Svankensen

        Glad you liked it! Chile went through many absolutely massive protests in the 2008-2019 period (10% of the population at a time in some days), so it was very topical.

    2. Thing 2

      As opposed to amor encappachino…

  25. Derek

    so how come no one is wearing a gas mask or even a regular N-95 mask? Dorothy and Joyce make sense because they were not planning on coming or staying, but other protesters knew this was a likely possibility. N-95 won’t completely protect you from tear gas but it’s certainly better than nothing at all.
    People are not even wearing goggles?

    1. tim gueguen

      Probably because they were naive enough to think police overreaction violence couldn’t happen to good college kids like them.

    2. Svankensen

      Having suffered more gasings than I can count, it’s probably because none of those things help much, and all of them make you a prime target for cops. What you do is: Kick the grenade away (or toss, if you have thick gloves), or get out of worst zone of the gas grenade and regroup.

      1. Dara

        In particular, N-95 is a particulates rating, not a fumes rating, and they’re pretty useless for fumes.

        But even if you have something that handles fumes, wearing it properly is a whole ‘nother thing. As you note correctly, the best thing to do is to avoid, reset, regroup.

        1. Proxiehunter

          Tear gas is particulate not fumes. Although an N95 isn’t going to keep it out of your eyes.

        2. Proxiehunter

          And it can cause skin iritation that a mask isn’t going to protect against except where the mask covers skin.

        3. Kelibath

          All of the above, and of course the rather immersion breaking OOC reason, which is that in Willis’ cartoony style and with limited strips it’d impede character recognition as well as conveyance of textual tone. Amazi-Girl could probably get away with a full face gas mask and still be recogniseable, and she’s the most likely candidate to have BOUGHT one, but we wouldn’t see her dynamic expressions and that’d weaken the narrative. I agree it’d be more realistic.

        4. Dara

          Is it? I thought it was a vapour. Good to know.

        5. Derek

          like Proxiehunter said: tear gas is not an actual gas, it’s aerosolized powder

  26. Shitbird

    Jocelyn: “… Neat?”

  27. Viktoria

    Look, AG, if anyone should understand unhealthy coping mechanisms, it’s you. Dorothy was essentially trying to kill herself by getting involved here, she was blowing up every aspect of her life and dreams. It will take a moment for Joyce to pull her back from that.

    That said, AG is right, y’all should have run like a 5 minutes ago.

    1. Nadamás

      And THEN make out some more.

    2. Yumi

      They did run like five minutes ago! It was just in the wrong direction.

  28. Nadamás

    Asma is so done. Like in general. In a spiritual level.

  29. IntangibleMatter

    Amazi-Girl is also not available when a game that some random girl in the dorms has been looking forward to releases

  30. RassilonTDavros

    Yes please for the love of all things unholy, get out of there before things get any worse.

  31. tim gueguen

    Oh, Jocelyne, if you only knew. Which you probably will before the end of this chapter.

  32. Opus the Poet

    It looks like the po po are getting a little chaotic evil

    1. Proxiehunter

      Insert always has been meme here

      1. Sajuuk-Khar

        Thiiiiiiiis

    2. Kyulen

      I’d say they’re more neutral evil. They seem to prefer to do evil while having laws to justify their behavior, but when the laws don’t support their goals the cops will ignore the laws and do evil anyway.

      1. Big Z

        Hell, practically speaking they’re True Neutral (derogatory) — good, evil, follow the laws or not? Which of these things makes me, personally, the happiest right this second?

      2. Kelibath

        It’s possible to be chaotic evil in a lawful/neutral evil society/organisation. But also, the willingness to completely ignore the law whenever it lands on one of “your people”, while exerting it on everybody else to abusive degrees, is CE.

    3. Yak

      Police are definitely lawful evil, even when they are being “chaotic” like this. The reasons for their actions are always due to their perceived lawful authority and the commands of other lawful authorities. They see themselves as enforcing the law.

      Police are being neutral or chaotic only when they are doing something outside of their official purview.

      1. Proxiehunter

        This whole discussion illustrates one of the main reasons why I think D&D needs to do away with the alignment system. No one can fucking agree on what any of them mean. Which causes problems when alignment has mechanical effects, and if it doesn’t have mechanical effects what does alignment do that giving a character a personality, motivation, goals, and desires doesn’t do far better?

        1. Kelibath

          I agree wholeheartedly, but also I’ll go a step farther and say there are other quality RPGs out there which are worth a try – D&D has done a bunch for the hobby, but it’s also becoming absolutely ubiquitous now that Critical Role et al are bringing so many new players in who only know that one system, and it doesn’t do everything right or best! The alignment system forced characterful roleplay at a time when many were still “roll-playing” but it isn’t really too useful anymore.

        2. yak

          I very much agree. Especially 5e is a very rigid game, the only way to use it productively for homebrew is to basically ignore most of the rules as written (such as alignment stuff). I advertise Fate at every opportunity, although for people that are not used to roleplaying the freedom can be a little intimidating. On the other hand, that’s what prebuilt systems on top of Fate are for 🙂

  33. FaerwenOfValenwood

    ngl, this beautifully rendered tear gas keeps on giving me forbidden cotton candy vibes and my brain is so mean for doing this to me

    1. Svankensen

      Ahaha, I the previous one I imagined cherry blossoms. Too much anime maybe. Also tear gas is white in my country.

      1. AbacusWizard

        heck yeah, now they are a TEAM

        go team!

        1. AbacusWizard

          (er, this was supposed to go in main thread; not sure how it turned into a reply, sorry)

      2. Moonie

        I too saw cherry blossoms but am also infected with the anime

  34. Proxiehunter

    Love AG marking that tear gas return to sender. She really needs an Amazi-gas mask though.

  35. Dave Van Domelen

    Asma: “Huh, I guess she DID have a sister in here.”

    1. Sajuuk-Khar

      To quote the wonderful enby Kelly of yesterday’s Patreon, “And she wanted to find her to make out in front of her. Great.”

  36. Xccj

    Maybe it’s just me, but mustache guy has real cop energy to him. Also looks like the guy who sold Dorothy his tent a few strips back, except he’s changed clothes. Or maybe all white mustache men just look the same to me? Dunno.

    On another note, Amazi-Girl is certainly what I would fantasize about doing at a protest like this.

  37. Versen

    Light em up Asma

  38. HueSatLight

    Workshopping something here.
    Amber starts hallucinating Mike again, he’s like an avatar of her guilty feelings, and in this case it will be for sabotaging Joe. Tying into how she stopped hallucinating him before.
    Arnold notices because he can see Mike. Arnold and hallucinatory Mike start dating. Like for real, not Amber fantasizing about Mike and Arnold. Ken sees Mike too. He feels uneasy about it, but can’t quite remember that Mike is dead. Other than Amber, the main cast doesn’t meet Mike. Maybe Booster.

  39. AGV/Ruby

    Home run!

  40. saltchocolate

    Thank you, Willis! For showing us Asma today (& for showing us Jorothy yesterday)!

  41. Airyu

    That first panel with the gas can flying out of panel is such a cool effect

    1. Airyu

      *second panel

  42. Heavensrun

    I DESPERATELY hope that Mary got caught up in the police crackdown despite insisting that she was a counter protestor and she’s on their side actually.

    1. Zero

      She was standing with the police.

      1. SarahTerra

        Mary noticing her pranked sign and collapsing to the ground, yelling that she’s been murdered,

  43. Sajuuk-Khar

    Asma’s incredibly earned side-eye for our insane main friend group

    I love her more every day

    1. Tequila Mockingbird

      I hope she gets more screen time in the future.

  44. DJTsurugi

    no sign of Mary, we can all only hope she met a horrible fate and is being police brutalized. ~<3

    1. Laura

      Um… no.

      I don’t find it useful to hope for anyone to be brutalized.

      1. ZombieKyrik

        Clearly you don’t understand Mary; she is absolutely deserving of a terrifying, and painful encounter with the police.

        1. Laura

          I do understand Mary, and I still say that nobody deserves what these police and ICE agents today are capable of. Nobody deserves that torture.

        2. thejeff

          Definitely agreed.
          I know it’s probably not really the intent (and mitigated by this being fiction), but this kind of argument often makes me worry that even the people the most upset by police violence are really only bothered that it’s directed at them and not at the people they despise.

        3. Proxiehunter

          Yeah, anyone who thinks there’s a correct target for police brutality that deserves to be beaten or shot by police officers who have cart blanch for their violence and will face no consequences is part of the problem. And also can not be trusted to not include you in the list of correct targets.

        4. Taffy

          The only correct target for a cop is the cop.

        5. Throwatron

          Like, it really is the exact same logical thread as the white women who call in a cop to harass any black people caught existing in their neighborhood. That’s the thing they’re literally trying to accomplish: to use the state as a lethal weapon against those they deem sub-human.

        6. Li

          The way I’ve seen it put is this:

          If your principles don’t apply to everyone, then they’re not your principles. They’re just a favor you’re doing for the people you like.

    2. Astariel

      Fingers crossed.

    3. Nymph

      Yeah, vile take. Absolutely not.

  45. Charles Phipps

    The Ending of Dumbing of Age is them charging as the police chase them and we never know the ending.

    1. Tessea

      The ‘Blackadder Goes Forth’ ending, I see.

    2. BYM!

      Soy-ies may rule…

      1. Charles Phipps

        Blackadder Goes Forth was what I was thinking, yeah.

  46. Nadamás

    Who else rejecting the binary on the pool?

    1. Joey245

      Meeee!

    2. darkoneko

      well, like, over 2/3rd of all voters ?

  47. Amós Batista

    I’m afraid to develop this thing I have in mind, about how Amber/ Amazi-girl are used to tear gas….

    1. Proxiehunter

      It’s like developing an immunity to iocain powder.

    2. Svankensen

      Tear gas is quite slow acting unless you eat a mouthful. You usually have a minute to get out. Or fight the cops I guess. She should become useless soonish tho.

    3. Amós Batista

      I’m talking about her dirty father. As Blaine pushed his own daugther to do the things she suffered, I wonder how she’s more resistant to this gas…

  48. AbacusWizard

    heck yeah, now they are a TEAM

    go team!

  49. SarahTerra

    Don’t want the cops to get Asma, but yeah I stopped caring about her when she declared she wouldn’t help Joyce find her sister even if she knew in a situation where it obviously has to be important and then insulted her.

    1. Nadamás

      Weird shit.

    2. Kyulen

      I didn’t like it at the time, but I’ve come to think Asma was right to not trust Joyce and Dorothy. She probably had no idea that Jocelyne is actually Joyce’s sister, and it seems pretty clear that Joyce and Dorothy didn’t show up at the protest because they genuinely cared about the cause the protesters were there for.

      1. Yumi

        Even if she did know Jocelyne was her sister, it was still absolutely the right call. Don’t give out information about people at a protest like that.

        1. Sajuuk-Khar

          Yeah, no, Asma was completely right. There’s a time and a place to assume good faith, and at a highly-escalated protest that the pigs are about to raid? Not it. Not in circumstances like that. There’s too much history of infiltration and shitty police provocateur nonsense, back to the days of the Paris Commune.

        2. Throwatron

          Like, look at it this way: A significantly larger portion of Jocelyn’s family, are people who we as readers do not want to ever know her location. We’ve only gotten confirmation that Joyce is safe.

          Even without the common-sense aspect of not identifying people at a protest, in every other case where a person looking like Jocelyn shows up looking for her, Asma would have been doing the right thing by not helping them. We can’t blame her for being wrong about the one exception.

    3. Nymph

      I loved this part. I hope we get a LOT more Asma in future <3 I want to know all about her.

    4. Bittersweet

      I disliked Asma doing that, but I understood it. She and Jocelyne are literally the two characters I care the most about in this situation because they’re the most at risk of being brutalized the worst and possibly randomly killed. Especially Asma who is consistent enough to recognize but not so close to the cast that they would spend months mourning. Except Dorothy who should absolutely break.

      I mean, AG is technically absolutely most at risk, but I think we’ve seen Amber in preview panels, so I think she’ll be fine.

      1. thejeff

        I am interested in whether there will be long term consequences from AG fighting off the police. This isn’t just some random protester throwing a tear gas grenade back or grabbing a cop in a general melee.

        She successfully fought off and (hopefully) escaped multiple groups of cops, disrupting their entire protest breaking strategy. If they thought of her a campus legend/mostly harmless cosplayer before, she’s on their radar now as a serious threat.

    5. Scolopendra

      Monstrous take. She came to protest the killing of her people, didn’t drop everything to help two white girls who don’t give a shit about it, and that means she deserves whatever she gets from the cops? Do you hear yourself?

      1. Yumi

        Okay, I don’t agree with their take– completely on board with what Asma did, and I’m kind of concerned about people who have indicated they want to go to protests continue to think she was wrong to not give out information about someone if she had it– but that’s not what SarahTerra said.

        They started their comment with “Don’t want the cops to get Asma.” Following that with saying they don’t care about her doesn’t make that “she deserves whatever she gets from the cops.”

      2. Nadamás

        I don’t think we have any reason to believe Asma is from bulmeria?

      3. Ado

        I’ll say explicitly what others have implied. This situation is a good reminder to slow down and really take a lay of the situation before getting that serious and personal against another human being.

        1. Ado

          Hope that didn’t come across condescending. The reminder is one I’m still learning to take myself.

      4. SarahTerra

        Hateful, ignorant, pissy take. You act like that was her only other possible response.

    6. Dawn

      Asma is Joyce and Dorothy’s acquaintance at absolute best, she’s not working right now, why would she help?

      1. SarahTerra

        Who said she had to help? She’s not on a two-response game script.

    7. Yeet

      trusting randomers you barely know who are giving cop energy at a protest is a bad idea for the safety of you and those around you
      she was, to her knowledge, protecting the mentioned sister – who she didn’t even know was related to joyce for real – by not giving people directions to her

      1. SarahTerra

        No one said she was limited to two possible responses.

  50. CianM1301

    Oh thank God, someone with common sense. Common sense and expert sign-wielding skills.

  51. Da Boy

    Wonder how she feels about $80 bucks for a Nintendo game, I imagine many swear words were used

    1. Taffy

      If she’s got any self-respect, she’ll be against the price hike, and should also have been against the increase to $70. Greedy bastards.

      1. Tessea

        Big games could easily reach $70-$80 back in the 90’s. So technically when adjusted for inflation, games have technically gotten cheaper.

        But either way it’s the WAGES that need fixing.

        1. Vanessa

          I’m sure she buys all the new consoles and games on launch day anyway. Nintendo might actually be the company with the best paid and most secure devs, especially when you look at the garbage fire that is Microsoft gobbling up everything and firing everyone and then canceling games.

        2. Da Boy

          Very true, I still have magazines from back then with ads and prices and the games had eye-watering prices and that was when my country was fresh out of communism so the salaries were Shit.
          Steam and the regular discounts it offered was a real game changer.

        3. Taffy

          No. $60 for a full, completed experience that’s not added onto all piecemeal style after it’s out. No paid beta testing (which is all early access is), no roadmaps, no $8.99 costume packs, no in-game store that takes premium currency instead of cash, no in-game store that takes cash, none of it. Make an entire game, finish making it in its entirety, then sell it to me for $60 or less. It is a fucking toy. Toys should not be expensive, especially not in a culture that prioritizes them over clean food (which is also too expensive).

        4. Proxiehunter

          It was also $60 for unfixed bugs that would inevitably wind up in pretty much every game to one degree or another. Ranging from “barely noticeable” to “this game is literally unplayable”.

          I’m not saying there are no problems with your list but I am really happy about the fact that these days when a game ships with serious bugs the devs can actually fix them instead of the buyer just being stuck with a buggy game.

        5. Bittersweet

          To be fair, this has made companies very lazy about QA. The games shipped back in the day were buggy, but like… funny buggy. And very few seriously affected your gameplay.

          Andromeda shipped without render lighting, it looked like it was still a Maya project file. And The Sims 4 is just… a disaster of unparalleled proportions in the video game world. I played and beat Cyberpunk before it got fixed (and loved it so, so, so much), The Sims 4 is so bad these days that it barely runs.

        6. Taffy

          They can fix them without asking people to pay more up front before the “official release”. Their so-called “early access” costing extra is nothing but a way for corpos to get money out of people, especially when that “early” “access” is frequently riddled with bugs and glitches and busted net code. What do people think they’re paying for, if it’s not the privilege of last-minute big checks that should have been the corpo’s internal responsibility before the thing came out? They could spend the “early access” period making the final pass at home, before they’ve got your money, but instead they’re greedily reaching into your pocket and expecting you to do their jobs for them.

    2. Redward

      in my heart she’s pirating them

      1. Da Boy

        Very likely XD

  52. Joey245

    Whew, yesterday’s comment section was wild. How y’all holding up?

    1. Taffy

      I had to go to the hospital because the comments were too mean and my swim bladder got infected.

      1. Steamweed

        Fortunately a shot of queerphobic tears fixed Taffy right up.

    2. Nymph

      Doing well! Hard to get upset about comments when one of my ships was leaving harbor.

      1. Li

        Basically this. I was in a good mood all of yesterday, despite some wild things folks were saying to the human beings.

  53. Jay

    And now we move back to our regular scheduled programming.

    1. Nymph

      How you feeling today?

  54. Deanatay

    Why, yes, Joycelyn, they DO, in fact, have their personal superhero savior.

    IN FACT…. Are Joyce and Dorothy the founders of The League of Lesbian Lois Lanes?

    THIS EXPLAINS SO MUCH

    1. Yak

      The League of Lesbian Lois Lanes sounds like a hilarious spoof on the Spider-verse franchise.

      1. Deanatay

        I can’t be sure, but your comment sounds like you haven’t watched My Adventures With Superman.

        I must be wrong. Of course.

        YOU SHOULD WATCH MY ADVENTURES WITH SUPERMAN.

  55. ValdVin

    Jocelyn, right there with her arms around them, is the best.

  56. Steamweed

    Panel 4, yeah, Jocelyne has ’em both, protective of the younguns.

  57. TGS

    Panel 2 has a big “Viggo actually hit the knife away with his sword” vibe.

  58. pig

    Thank you, Willis; I actually was wondering about Asma and whether she was going to be okay and/or have a background plot being arrested for protesting.

    Also, yay Jocelyne, being peak Big Sis as always <3

    1. thejeff

      Now that you’ve said that (and now that Willis commented on it): We haven’t seen Leslie or Robin since things went south.

      I do worry about Leslie, but I’d be okay with seeing Robin shouting “Don’t you know who I am?” as she’s shoved into the back of a cop car.

  59. JoeCovenant

    So, after yesterday’s… higher than usual post count…
    Is anyone else wondering how Amazi-Girl is managing not to be smothered in blue/grey / actually shot – after openly assaulting a Polis?
    (And having the temerity to do so with a customised sound effect!?)
    I mean… beyond plot-armour!

    1. thejeff

      She’s just that good. I suspect part of the reason she hasn’t been shot is how chaotic it’s been and that she’s mostly been up close with the cops. No clear shot.
      That’s not true not.

      Alternately, AG’s always prepared and she took out the sniper before going into action.

      1. Throwatron

        If the first person AG took out before she got here was the sniper that would be very hard to believe, but also very funny, and would make her look very smart.

        1. Proxiehunter

          Easy enough to believe. Sniper sets up near one of the campus grotesques, AG is on her way up there to brood next to it as one does when one is a superhero and is as surprised to encounter the sniper as they are to encounter her. As the sniper begins standing from the prone position they were in to aim she gives them a good old Amazi-girl special knocking their ass cold and realizes “Holy shit, the police brought a fucking sniper I need to go protect the protestors from them.” and that’s how she got in this situation if you were wondering.

        2. Bittersweet

          This explains a lot and I choose to believe this is what happened until proven otherwise.

        3. thejeff

          Not really hard to believe at all. The accidental approach Proxiehunter describes would be a possibility, but it’s not like the sniper was so well hidden no one spotted them anyway. She could have spotted them earlier and taken them out first when she decided to jump in.

          No one would blink an eye if Batman did it. 🙂

        4. Tessea

          Asma pointed out the sniper from the ground, so I would guess that they’re in place as a deterrent, meant to be seen to ‘encourage the crowd to behave and follow instructions.

    2. Li

      She’s white and they’ve got a lot of witnesses. Hard to go full hail of bullets in that situation!

      Plus, she’s got years of training, they’ve got six months, and police training apparently mostly makes them more afraid of being hurt.

      I honestly don’t know why anyone would be surprised that Amber could beat up American police after Uvalde.

      1. AnonGrouch

        That can’t be right? Isn’t Sal Amazigirl?

        1. Li

          For the record: I laughed ?

  60. Vanessa

    Almost 2,200 comments yesterday!?! Good job Willis!

  61. HueSatLight

    rejecting the binary in another way.

  62. Embe13

    just popping in to say we broke 2k comments yesterday!! we all get an internet!

  63. Amós Batista

    Amazi-girl: Let’s get out here.
    Amber: It’s about time.
    Amazi-girl: Look, I request 100% my brain, that’s not a good time for losing attention.
    Amber: …and losing the opportunity to losing myself? Because I saw 2 of my friends turning themselves into a huge ammount of garbage sickos lesbian?
    Amazi-girl: Not now…
    Amber: It’s like watching my slash fics getting alive.
    Amazi-girl: NOT NOW!

    1. Amós Batista

      So much “losing” word. Sorry, I don’t have time for review, and Willis don’t want to use Disqus here, so

  64. zee

    I don’t fuck with Dorothy/Joyce shippers. Not cuz I dislike the ship (I don’t), or cuz I’m a diehard JoJo shipper (I am). It’s cuz y’all looked a rad ass ship name like DoJo in the face and said nah, imma go with JOROTHY instead. Fuckin, jorothy… Sounds like an ugly pair of pants smh.

    If you need me imma be over here supporting DOJO as they burn their lives down.

    Big ass /J if that wasn’t obvious lol

    1. zee

      Jorothy…that’s like not even 30% Joyce and almost all dorothy. DoJo is the 50/50 they DESERVE ?

    2. Woop de doop

      JoJo’s bizarre adventure

    3. Tequila Mockingbird

      Plus it makes them sound like their ship involves learning karate. DoJo has my vote.

    4. Nymph

      Listen, I’ve always been in favor of DoJo as the ship name, but I just generally don’t type ship names when I talk so it doesn’t matter to me much either way.

  65. Boh No

    “Listen I know Amber is Team Sickos but *I’M* Team Get the Fuck Outta Here so if you could politely step up the PACE…”

  66. Josh

    I stayed out of the comment firestorm yesterday but now that it’s not absolutely bananas out here, I do wanna say there is a sense of relief that it finally happened so I can stop being upset by it. Like oh good, they finally cheated, now I can stop thinking about it.

    Y’all, I don’t think my hobbies are occupying me enough.

    1. Proxiehunter

      It not being absolutely bananas in here might be helped by the fact that the troll with the Sailor Moon gravitar seems to have fucked off.

      1. Tessea

        Oh wow. Not sad that I missed out on that….

  67. Woop de doop

    Forehand! Backhand! Overhead death strike!

    1. Proxiehunter

      Keep your stance wide
      Keep your body lowered
      As you’re moving forward
      Balance is the key
      Right foot, left foot
      Now go even faster
      And as you’re moving backwards
      Keep your eyes on me

      1. ValdVin

        Don’t you want him her to live?

        1. Tessea

          Ouuuuch. That whole episode hit so hard.

  68. Toby (she/they)

    Okay so with the context that Willis didn’t plan on joyce/dotty going all the way until he started drawing the strips leading up to and including the kiss + held back the kiss strips from his protest-related sensitivity reader a lot of this has started making a terrible kind of sense because…. yeah. You can tell it really wasn’t the plan he started with.

    1. perpetual summer

      is this patreon stuff? I couldn’t find anything on social media.

      1. Yumi

        I know they mentioned this not being the original plan on Tumblr (https://www.tumblr.com/dumbingofage/789056686007730176/just-out-of-curiosity-willis-how-long-has-this), but the other details, I’m not sure. Definitely interesting, especially the sensitivity reader stuff.

        1. Toby (she/they)

          Patreon stuff, yeah

        2. Doopyboop

          Sometimes part of story telling is going with the vibes.

        3. Toby

          If the vibes are white girls kissing at a genocide protest- should probably still share that with your sensitivity reader though lol

        4. Doopyboop

          I gotta admit, I don’t have patreon so I don’t know what a ‘protest related sensitivity reader’ is could you explain that? I can only assume from the name that Willis has… a sensitivity reader and they read strips related to protests? I assume to make sure the strips aren’t out of taste? If so, then Willis declining to share the kiss strips with that sensitivity reader is… weird.

        5. Bittersweet

          As an author and comic-writer myself, if you’re gonna be covering more sensitive topics that don’t directly pertain to you (like a veiled Palestine protest) then you’ve gotta get a sensitivity reader. I didn’t when I was a kid and I want to burn my first book as a result since now I’m slightly better educated on certain topics I thought I was being edgy and clever about.

          I don’t think a sensitivity reader was quite involved here lol. I don’t think there’s one irl person I’ve shown these strips to or explained the context that didn’t sit there with wide eyes quietly going “Oh. Yeah. No, that’s uh, that’s not great.”

        6. Doopyboop

          I can understand having a sensitivity reader for things one isn’t directly involved in. Tons of media could use that. I’m mainly surprised because I had never heard of Willis having such a thing before and Toby describing it as a protest related reader makes it sound like he does have a reader for these things, and that he specifically didn’t show the strips to this person, and if that’s the case and Willis talked about that on patreon I would appreciate… more context, maybe?

        7. Toby

          Pasted from his patreon comment: “I did have a sensitivity reader for the protest aspect, but I am a butt who only sent chunks because I like preserving surprises (for example, the smooch wasn’t shared), and my choices are ultimately my own. I don’t want to hide behind somebody else. If it sucks, it’s me.”

        8. Doopyboop

          Thank you Toby! I appreciate that. I definitely understand how you feel a lot more and you know what? I support that. I get wanting to preserve surprises, but having a sensitivity reader is for a reason after all. So I getcha completely.

        9. perpetual summer

          And it does suck : /. Well, thanks for sharing Toby!

        10. Tessea

          To be fair, characters this age doing dumb emotional things at the worst possible moment is really on-brand. Not everything is meant to be a political statement.

          If everyone acted perfectly and properly, the comic would be extremely boring.

        11. Yumi

          Yeah, but there’s also space in between that and this. And like. If this were real life, the issue would be different. Sometimes people might declare their love for each other in thr middle of some other intense event, but as an observer of a real life protest, for example, my focus would still be on the protest. When it’s a story, though, and the romance becomes the focus, then… that’s the focus.

          I don’t see the main issue as being an in-universe thing about the characters’ choices. Out of universe, I definitely think holding back the kiss stuff from their sensitivity reader was a mistake. (Note, I haven’t seen the Patreon post in question, so I’m going off of what was said here.)

        12. Li

          Yes, but it didn’t need to be a protest about genocide. It especially didn’t need to be a protest about genocide in what was inevitably going to read as a thinly veiled reference to Gaza.

    2. Dawn

      Yep, makes sense. I DEFINITELY think a protest related either to queer issues or women’s issues would have been a much better setting for this arc.

      1. Li

        Absolutely.

  69. Josh Spicer

    What are we even doing here?

    1. Taffy

      Well, right now, they’re trying to re-leave the protest they didn’t need to be at in be first place. Amazi-Girl is chastising them for taking so long. Jocelyne is mildly questioning the existence and role of Amazi-Girl.

  70. Taffy

    Jocelyne. Honey. “In which direction is there an exit?” I mean come on. Those fences are easily defeated, you can simply walk toward any of them and knock it down with ease. Waiting for a designated exit to be made, that’s sheep behavior. That’s lay-down-and-die behavior.

    1. Tequila Mockingbird

      “When I am myself, the world bends” she said, clearly she can just use her mind powers and tear the gates asunder with the force of “herself.” THERE IS NO CAGE STRONG ENOUGH TO HOLD ME!

  71. https://gravatar.com/arachnidbat

    Hmmm. Interesting. As Booster pointed out, Amber subconsciously engineered Dorothy and Joyce to get together so she could get with Walky, but it seems like Amazi-Girl disapproves of this… hmmm… fascinating! (Although in fairness she might just annoyed at having to backtrack to save more people lmao)

  72. Nadamás

    https://bsky.app/profile/damnyouwillis.bsky.social/post/3ltzl6kdm622q

    Just thought I share this here

    1. Silent

      I mean, as someone who’s been pretty universally a fan of this storyline, I can’t deny it would have been far better if we had Muslim representation in the primary cast who could have their own arc involving the protest.

    2. Li

      It’s good to see Willis thinking about this!

    3. Amós Batista

      Maybe, more easily than bringing another char to cast, is to make someone convert themselve to Islam.

      1. Nymph

        Why, when there are already a few muslim characters who could just get some more screen time? It seems like Willis is already perfectly happy with that plan, and dealing with the critiques in a really great way.

        1. I Know Why the Mowed Lawn Screams

          Ok very real and true, but also can you imagine how funny it would be if a new storyline started with a cold opening of like, idk Danny (?) converting to Islam.

        2. I Know Why the Mowed Lawn Screams

          Switchin’ that Uke’ out for an Oud LOL

        3. Nymph

          It would be the best of times and the worst of times lmfao.

    4. AnonGrouch

      Thank you for sharing.

    5. I Know Why the Mowed Lawn Screams

      Haha I wanted to take a break from posting from the comments for a bit because I ended up saying a LOT yesterday (1.6K words, 2.9K if we count the two other strips that I also used to talk about this topic).

      I’ve said my piece over there on bsky, but overall I’m just grateful that my words lead to such a quick response + turnaround, it’s pleasantly shocking in a way that I’m appreciative of.

      Anyways, gonna go back to my little mini-hiatus, see y’all on the flipside.

  73. Madock345

    Loving this arc, great job Willis!

    Drama is high, stakes are up, the action is good. 🙂

    1. Madock345

      Also, I know setting events around a protest has been controversial, but I think it’s a real thing to do. Everyone going to college in the states right now is doing it in the middle of massive political and social upheaval, and we’re still doing all the normal college stuff like dating and studying around that. It certainly feels relatable to me, who ran into more than a few protests on campus the last few years.

  74. Cromniomancy

    Man people sure do get divisive in the comments. Last page hit over 2000, that’s nuts.

    Anyway I will wait to see how the situation develops before making any judgements on how the story was handled, but I generally trust Willis to do a good job. I can’t really make any calls re: Muslim rep or whether the allusions to real life events are in poor taste or not, I think those criticisms are fair enough. But I am queer and in a poly relationship so…

    Honestly not bothered by the “oh bi people cheating” shit bc its pretty clearly not like a matter of painting bi people as incapable of commitment or duplicitous sluts due to being bi, I get why someone would be annoyed but in a comic with plenty of queer rep, this strikes me as just a case of humans being realistically messy with complex heightned emotions and young person impulsivity. Its fine. I want to see what happens, how this is dealt with, what the eventual fallout is. I think it’ll be interesting!

    The best case scenario, to me, is this situation will result in eventual communication and learning about themselves. Sometimes people do dumb shit and make mistakes they can’t take back. Sometimes people even cheat, and their partners forgive them and they work on trust and shit. Nothing has to be destroyed forever and no one in this situation is unforgiveable, yknow? just my onion tho

    1. Priv. Priv.

      yeah people forget tropes are only bad if you paint all people in a group in that trope. Bury your gays is punish a character for being gay not no gay character can die ever

  75. Kiashi

    can u believe someone saw joyce and dorothy kissing and threw tear gas at them. RUDE. sacrifice to them the yuri goddess immediately!

    1. Nadamás

      Madoka?

  76. Owlmirror

    I kinda wish that Amber had gone with the classics.

    “Fly, you fools!”

    1. Owlmirror

      *Amazi-girl

      Sorry, honest thinko leading to typo there.

  77. Owlmirror

    I’m wondering if this strip presages the return of the bolt cutters that Amazi-girl stole from a bike thief.

    1. Steamweed

      Excuse me, those are the Amazi-Cutters [TM] now.

      (Because Amazi-Girl [TM] is prepared for anything.)

  78. Owlmirror

    It occurs to me that clouds of tear gas and/or smoke from flash-bangs would obscure the meadow from the POV of a sniper on (checks web) the Indiana Memorial Union. But Willis might decree a convenient breeze for dramatic purposes.

    Relatedly, I wonder if the sniper might not be Lester the murdercop, also for dramatic purposes. He doesn’t appear to have been one of the armored grunts on the ground, so far.

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