dumbing of age book 16: on the precipice of hanky-panky

Precipice
Posted on October 15, 2025 by David M Willis

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Tags: dorothy, joyce

365 thoughts on “Precipice”

  1. NGPZ

    :0

    XD

    1. Amós Batista

      it’s about time

      1. Nurts2That

        Joyce still hasn’t fully broken up with Joe. ?‍♂️ I’m not certain it’s gonna be hanky panky time.

        1. NGPZ

          oh fuck, i just had a PREMONITION

          Becky is gonna bust into their room, crying

          I sure hope this does not come to be T~T

        2. probskay

          I mean, Joe seemed quite chill with the possibility of a polyamorous relationship, so I don’t think he’s actually going to be any sort of obstacle to their relationship. Pretty cool move for Joe tbh

        3. NGPZ

          yeah if anything, it’s crazy we’ve seen the shear XTENT of his growth in just a few panels of him reacting to the news :0

        4. Badger

          Sad but true. No Joe has expressly opened the door to Joyce of, well not a throuple, so eloquently and heartfelt like put it feeling the space in choices heart which is still there for him. Though yeah, I think she just owes that to him not just as a potential lover but has a very close friend to hammer that out before there’s Hanky Panky time

  2. Ty34er

    So this is either going to turn into a very weird Slipshine/smut comic or Dorothy is going to find out that Joyce is basically poly right now.

    1. RASSILONTDAVROS

      Perhaps both?

      1. jeffepp

        One would hope.

        DoJoJo

        1. Sharizard

          I would buy a Slipshine called DoJoJo’s Performs a Bizarre Sexual Adventure.

        2. and painted shark women

          take my internets

          TAKE THEMMMMM

        3. Aquila

          “Steel balls run” ?

    2. Arianod

      Dorothy knows, though? She asked Joyce whether she had talked things through / broken up with Joe and Joyce basically said “No, I s*cked him off”.

      1. Silphael

        The closest it’s mentioned is here afaik, and it’s definitely that clear cut : https://www.dumbingofage.com/2025/comic/book-16/01-not-so-smooth-criminals/splash/

      2. a/snow/mous/e

        That was before she had a conversation with Joe about the kiss, when Joyce and Dorothy were still procrastinating on their breakups.

        After Joyce finally had the conversation with Joe, Dorothy thought Joyce had broken off the relationship by telling him about the kiss, but actually Joe was still interested in a poly relationship. Dorothy has not heard that Joyce’s relationship with Joe is still in limbo.

        If he brings it up, it could be awkward and put Joyce on the spot. If Dorothy brings up her belief that Joyce and Joe are not together, it could hurt Joe’s feelings. Hopefully Dorothy will learn about the situation soon.

  3. Achallenger

    Deary me

  4. Serendipity

    it time

    1. Pocky

      time it be

  5. Aislashu

    The fact that Jocelyn is gone though means Joyce said it. Just sayin’. xD

    1. cain

      YOU’RE RIGHT

    2. Miri

      Or that Joyce yeeted her…

    3. anon

      either that or something came up/she was like ‘just kidding’ and ended up going to eat instead

      1. Cinnibar

        They JUST had Dad Pizza

    4. Kim

      The fact that how that resolved itself wasn’t shown is a stroke of GENIUS <3

  6. Sirksome

    Yeah don’t trust elevators.

    1. Dot

      The one in my apartment building shudders all the time and it’s so scary.

    2. True Survivor

      I avoid elevators if I can. I am no longer as afraid of them as I was, but the sudden lurches some of them do right before they stop really messes with me – it feels painfully like falling. Also, you know the stairs are just way better for you. Getting in the cardio, and all that.

      1. Wizard

        Just to be That Guy, i’ll point out that far more people die falling down stairs than get killed by elevators.

    3. EmCaCo

      I was once stuck in an elevator for all of 10 seconds before the guard hit the reset button and that has given me a very healthy AWARENESS of elevators and their fickle nature.

      1. Yet_One_More_Idiot

        I was once stuck in a lift for over an hour with my mum (I was late 20s/early 30s at the time), a woman and her little boy, and another woman who was both claustrophobic and diabetic, and had been on her way to have a meal at the store’s restaurant. The mum and kid were fine, but the other woman was absolute hell to be stuck there with, and being in a glass-walled lift DID NOT HELP her claustrophobia at all! xD

    4. Ray Radlein

      Not when you’re that horny, no. They wouldn’t have made it half a floor

    5. Reltzik

      If you’re not careful your wallet will get lifted.

      1. tyersome

        *Raises eyebrow*

        1. Reltzik

          Because, you know, it’s a lift.

        2. tyersome

          I’m sorry I gave away your crown, but you’ll need to defeat Olofa in comical comment combat to regain it …

    6. anon

      how many floors does this uni even have tho?

      1. Needfuldoer

        Read has 5 or 6 floors.

        The library isn’t the tallest building on campus, but it has the most stories.

        1. Steamweed

          #iseewhatyoudidthere

    7. CianM1301

      Because they’re always up to something?

    8. ResRam

      I get that such fears can not be argued away. And being in a “doorless” box is an uncomfortable situation.

      But being on an elevator is far, faaar safer that for example driving a car or a bike. They very, very rarely break down, and almost never do anything else than just stop when they do.
      I worked for an elevator maintainance firm once upon a time (24/7 alarm phone operator).
      And their internal numbers where that about one in 4 1/2 million rides/riders ever gets stuck, and those people get freed on average within 17 minutes after pressing the alarm.
      There really are very few activities as safe.

      1. ResRam

        And yes, the job was largely do-nothing.
        About 50 calls a shift in a large urban area, responsible for 4 digit number of lifts. And most of those calls where mistaken alarms or pranks/kids/somebody trying it out.
        If I had two calls a day where I actually had to actually call up the mechanics, the day seemed hectic.
        I doomscrolled much of the time on the clock.

  7. Touchfuzzy

    At what point are we allowed to say that Joyce really is being shitty for not stopping to talk to Joe, or hell, even talk to DOROTHY about what is going on with Joe, and work all this out without people jumping down our throats for it.

    1. Dot

      People can say that Joyce has no obligation to disclose that stuff until she’s processed it and figured out what she wants to do, and I can understand that perspective, but if I found out that my girlfriend hadn’t actually broken up with her previous partner and was considering dating them alongside me, after we’d established ourselves as girlfriends and been physically intimate, I would not be happy about it.

      1. Adam Black

        “We broke up. Im planning on telling him soon”.
        After the full date

    2. SunflowerBanjo

      Idk, IS something “going on” with Joe right now?
      She said she had to break if with him because she wants to be with Dorothy, he offered her the option of being with both of them, she seemed conflicted but ultimately said they would talk more later and left it at that. Since then, she has been giddy and excited and honeymoon phase-y with Dorothy, while also having the whole “Covering for her sister when their dad suddenly appeared” situation to deal with. I get that like, she does owe Joe that followup conversation, and she will need to loop Dorothy I before that can happen, but it’s a Big Question and I don’t blame her for not prioritizing it at the current moment.

      1. Tessea

        Honestly, it’s Joyce. She probably just forgot about it with everything else that’s been happening.

      2. Donovan

        She also seemed iffy on the subject of whether they broke up or not after that, though

        Its like. shroedingers breakup right now

    3. Taffy

      Nobody’s jumping down your throat. Get off the cross.

      1. thejeff

        I’m amused by the next post being a “paladins are insufferable” one.

        1. Taffy

          Yeah, the placement is pretty funny.

    4. Priv. Priv.

      When you paladins stop being insufferable so never.

      1. Donovan

        Between yesterday and today I think you’re getting a little personal with this energy maybe

        1. Dot

          I think perhaps continuing to view things through a paladins/sickos binary is not good to be doing this late in the game.

      2. GreyICE

        Take your pills dear.

    5. Airyu

      If anything I see the “Joyce is terrible” people jumping down other people’s throats, but okay
      Joyce and Dorothy’s first kiss happened yesterday evening. Less than 24hours. If you could manage all your feelings perfectly, and plan out every since conversation you need to have in the midst of unexpected ones like your dad showing up, congratulations to being a perfect human, because i sure couldn’t manage all that in a span of, again, less than 24 hours, let alone with all the other issues they’re dealing with, and also being the ripe old age of 18 or 19

      1. Lee

        Sure. But I don’t think people are necessarily saying that there’s already been time to deal with X, Y, and Z. I think they’re saying that this relationship won’t feel sweet and cute until there *is* time to deal with X, Y, and Z, and it’s striking the wrong chord for them that the author seems to feel differently.

        1. Minivet

          I get people expressing their feelings there but I think it’s not very close reading of the strip to read the author as thinking everything’s perfect & cute & amazing. Obviously there is a lot of saccharine (their word!) Dorothy/Joyce content now & there will continue to be in the future (see the piechart on Bluesky); getting the relationship into full gear is as fun for them as it is for most of us. But the imperfection and messiness is part of the drama, part of what makes it realistic and interesting. I would point out in particular the strip when Dorothy said “EX-boyfriend” and Joyce mumbled in response, as showing the author is well aware of this particular brewing conflict.

        2. Airyu

          I don’t think the author feels like that at all. I think he’s shown the characters feeling conflicted plenty, and also shown that NRE is a hell of a drug

          And I really do think people forget the timescale a lot. In universe, three days ago Joyce barely understood what being trans meant. Two days ago Joyce found out Jocelyn is trans, and they got attacked by incel man, and Dorothy figured out she’s bi. Yesterday was the protest. Like holy heck that’s a lot of realization and more to happen in three days, but I feel like people treat it as if this is taking place over a much longer timeframe

    6. Cmasta1992

      You’re forgetting: it’s okay because lesbians

      They’re cheating: it’s okay because lesbians

      They’re going behind people’s backs: it’s okay because lesbians

      They’re generally being shitty: it’s okay because lesbians

      1. Strain Of Thought

        Willis has made plain his belief in identity-based morality since the first time he had a character proudly assert that they identified as an asshole.

      2. Li

        ?

      3. Taffy

        iT’s OkAy BeCaUsE lEsBiAnS

      4. Adeptus

        I also find the ”because lesbians” double standard rather tiring.

        1. Taffy

          Then stop hallucinating it, ya double-mint doorknob.

      5. Dot

        They’re not lesbians.

      6. Lumino

        Just wanna say, perfect Gravatar.

      7. Nymph

        Making up arguments to win is a sign of a very bad day. Maybe you can find a way to manage those big feelings without being homophobic, lil buddy?

      8. Superglucose

        Support women’s wrongs!

      9. NGPZ

        9-9

        *notices bi-erasure and takes shot of energy drink*

      10. Airyu

        The fact that your gravatar is Daisy tho lmao

    7. Kyulen

      Unfortunately there’s a whole bunch of commenters who get really upset whenever anyone brings up how shitty Joyce and Dorothy have been acting towards many other characters in this storyline. It’s one of the reasons why I try to avoid replying to some commenters here. This comment section gets really toxic really fast.

      1. thejeff

        It’s kind of amusing that in the paladins/sickos divide it’s the sickos who keep insisting that Joyce and Dorothy aren’t being shitty.
        You’d think that self-proclaimed sickos would embrace them being shitty.

        1. Big Z

          Right, except somehow “paladins (want to see these two not cheat)” vs. “sickos (want to see messy shit happen)” mutated into “paladins (want to see consequences) vs. sickos (want to see drama) which mutated into “paladins (anyone who dislikes Doyce)” vs. “sickos (people who ship Doyce)”. I’m sure there are more.

          Completely aside from the uselessness of the binary, different people mean RADICALLY different things when they use the terms.

        2. Nymph

          I think it’s amusing that people keep acting like the Paladin/Sicko divide is real and tangible instead of a joke someone made about the comments section on that specific day.

        3. thejeff

          Fair, but there’s definitely a divide, even if the labels aren’t necessarily appropriate and the divide is messier than the binary they suggest.

        4. Nymph

          Sure, there are divides on any opinion, but that isn’t what I meant. I meant this idea that there are camps of two types of people in the comments where opinions held by any single person in that “camp” can be used to point at and go “ALL paladins” or “ALL sickos” are hypocrites/annoying/loud/mean/wrong/right/pretty/hungry/etc.

          It’s just gross how quickly a joke turned into this prescriptive bullshit like people can’t hold differing opinions within themselves even, let alone within a group.

        5. Big Z

          +1

    8. Falcon

      Perhaps after you remember that Joyce talked to Joe, promised him a later conversation, and it’s still the same damn day.

      1. Dot

        If she has time to fuck Dorothy she has time to loop Dorothy in on something that could be very significant to their relationship going forward.

        1. Falcon

          Why? Joyce did tell Joe she needed to break up with him, and hasn’t made any decision or commitment on being poly with him. It’s not such an overriding priority for Joyce to talk to Dorothy that they can’t do something they’ve badly been wanting to do first. Could their avoidance tendencies make this a genuine problem? Yes. But at this point no trust has been broken or greater harm caused.

        2. Dot

          Dorothy is obviously under the impression that they are fully broken up with their boyfriends and in a monogamous relationship, and it is not fair to Dorothy to let her labor under that assumption.

        3. Falcon

          I suppose that’s a fair argument. It’s also something between Joyce and Dorothy though. Given their mutual overriding head over heels need to celebrate their relationship by boinking, I’m inclined to believe Dorothy’s interests aren’t being significant try harmed here, likely until she indicates otherwise or at least another day passes.

        4. Dot

          Obviously Dorothy wants to fuck Joyce, but would she still be so keen if she was aware of the ambiguity in her and Joe’s situation? “Break up with the boyfriends” was a prerequisite for them to do *anything* together. Dorothy made a list!

        5. Falcon

          It was a list they made because they felt they had to. It was the best they could come up with morally at the time. Doing something you really, really want to do because something you decided should be gotten out of the way beforehand wasn’t fully settled mostly doesn’t, in isolation and in my experience, lead to massive regret.

    9. Astariel

      Probably about the same time people stop making every damn thing these two do about Joe, so some time around the heat death of the universe.

      1. Jay

        Its almost like Joe is still major character with important moments we havent gotten yet that people would really like to see over joyce and dorothy smashing faces for the 15th time this month

        1. thejeff

          Also, there’s a big dangling plotline with potential conflict that’s been called back to a few times already. It’s part of the actual story.

  8. shadowcell

    dumbing of age book 16: very gross and uncalled for

  9. Dot

    So obviously the implication is this is going to go into slipshine territory but I think it would be very funny if Joyce accidentally let slip the Joe thing while they were undressing each other and really killed the mood

    1. Donovan

      Also funny if they literally just run into him on the way

      1. Dot

        It’d be extremely awkward for everyone involved, and for different reasons for each!

        Joyce has been avoiding the elephant in the room
        Joe is in limbo
        Dorothy thinks he’s the ex she yelled at right before she came out and stole Joyce from him

      2. Donovan

        Man what if they did and Dorothy tried her version of the ‘haha she’s mine now!’ Joyce did to walky and the punchline was an exquisite Joyce Face. That’d be so fucking funny.

    2. Nymph

      This. This is all I want for them.

    3. pjeseb

      As a relationship paladin, I’m hoping Joyce realizes on her own that she needs to have that conversation with Dorothy before the lust wolves are loosed and hanky panky ensues.

      As a fan of wacky comedy, I like Donovan’s idea.

    4. Sirksome

      I admit I could be wrong but I feel like this is still a very big assumption that Joe and Joyce are in some kind of poly situation that Joyce never agreed to. Joe pitched that to try and keep her but Joyce was pretty clear that she wasn’t willing to date two people and just agreed to talk later. Maybe the comic will treat that as heavy confirmation that Joyce is still somehow with Joe and is thus leading Dorothy on under false pretenses but that feels like a long shot to me. Like we’re creating drama because the break ups were too clean. To me it matters much more what Joyce actually does with Joe from here on before I believe she’s at all considering the poly option.

      1. SunflowerBanjo

        I think partially it’s because of Joyce’s response here where *SHE* seems uncertain about her current status with Joe. I agree that I don’t think she agreed to/that they’s any sort of poly-understanding between the two of them, but I do think it’s been made clear that Joyce is a little hazy on her current “relationship” with Joe.

        https://www.dumbingofage.com/2025/comic/book-16/01-not-so-smooth-criminals/splash/

      2. deliverything

        Until https://www.dumbingofage.com/2025/comic/book-16/01-not-so-smooth-criminals/endorse/ she hadn’t even considered the possibility of a poly relationship. Admittedly, she doubles down on the mono option in the following strip, but it seems like her reason for doing so is that she’s “not a hussy!“, a claim that’s swiftly debunked.

        Also, though it’s off-topic, her last-panel face led to an Eye of the Tiger parody in the comments: https://www.dumbingofage.com/2025/comic/book-16/01-not-so-smooth-criminals/dateboth/#comment-1924198

      3. Astariel

        There is literally nothing Joyce can do to disentangle herself from Joe enough to make doing anything with Dorothy okay in the eyes of the commentariat. This comic could end 30 years from now with Joyce and Dorothy getting married, and the last comment in the last comments section would be, “But what about Joe?”

        1. Opinion

          I mean she could have a conversation with him that concludes “we are broken up and I will only be with Dorothy” rather than “I’m going to be with Dorothy and maybe you are involved? Idk wait on hold I’ll get back to you at some point”

          Or even tell Dorothy that she left Joe on a maybe about the whole poly concept.

        2. Sirksome

          She did have that conversation, but it seems that Joe pointing out she is in fact a hussy is being interpreted as some sort of UNO reverse card to Joyce being very adamant she doesn’t date two people the sentence before and that she has to breakup with him. There is potential for some muddy dating shenanigans in the future but I don’t personally think Joyce has done anything to be considered cheating or lying to Dorothy, or whatever awful behavior people think she’s doing.

        3. deliverything

          The interpretation I had (and you don’t) is that her reason for saying she wouldn’t date two people wasn’t due to not wanting to, but rather due to believing that that’s not an acceptable thing to do. That doesn’t mean that discarding this belief automatically means DoJoJo will happen, of course (for all that I’m hoping it will), just that it’s still a possibility.

          Regardless, she could go through the entire Kama Sutra with Dorothy without it being cheating on Joe, because he’s now aware that she’s with Dorothy, for all that his own possible relationship status is uncertain.

        4. thejeff

          I hope she actually does make this messy. Sex with Dorothy now, without telling her about Joe’s offer or her own interest in taking it. Goes back to Joe and talks about it tomorrow and winds up having sex with him too. Couple days later Dorothy finds out somehow.

          Joyce blunders into the actual cheating arc that all this was just the set up for.

        5. Donovan

          Would certainly liven up the arc for me, tbh!

        6. Dot

          Her going “Joe and I are broken up” instead of going “eeeghh….?” when the topic comes up would be sufficient for me.

        7. thejeff

          Yeah, wasn’t her last reference to him in Daisy’s office still “my boyfriend” and she didn’t really confirm Dorothy’s correction of that.

        8. Yotomoe

          It’s almost as if they had years and years of relationship buildup and people got really invested in them as a couple of something.

  10. Red

    Oh no the precipice

    1. Slartibeast Button, BIA

      Divides the Heights of Ecstasy from the Depths of Depravity.

    2. Strain Of Thought

      Is it bad that I can’t read “on the precipice” without my brain reflexively inserting “rain-slick”?

      I feel like there’s a lot of room for certain jokes here.

  11. Osopescado

    *plays “On the precipice” by Hanky Williams the Panky on the alternate universe Hacked Muzak

  12. IntangibleMatter

    Someone do the math on how much force Joyce is exerting on Dorothy right now because I can’t remember how to do physics

    1. Reltzik

      It depends on Dorothy’s weight.

      1. Taffy

        Dorothy weighs 120lbs exactly.

        1. Reltzik

          Then, estimating the angle by which she is hanging at 45 degrees, this would require 170 lbs of force.

        2. Reltzik

          (Approximately. Actually 169.7056….)

        3. Astariel

          Is that more or less than three atrociraptors?

        4. deliverything

          According to Wikipedia: “Atrociraptor was a relatively small dromaeosaurid, comparable to Velociraptor in size, and is estimated to have measured about 1.8-2 m (5.9-6.6 ft) in length and weighed 15 kg (33 lb).”

        5. thejeff

          So, roughly about 1/3rd of a Dina.

  13. Barf Ninjason

    Someone’s gonna get such a hanky-panking.

  14. Sirksome

    This could be awkward because I think Joyce is going into this assuming Dorothy is a sex veteran but does Dorothy actually have any experience with lesbian sex? She’s basically a virgin here too. I’m sure somethings transfer over, but she’s also only dated virgins herself and I don’t know how adventurous Walky or Danny were. Will they even know how to cooch on cooch?!

    1. Rowen Morland

      I feel like Dorothy can easily explain this to Joyce of it being her first time with a girl. This will inevitably lead to a smash cut of Joyce going “Ahahaha, I took Dorothy’s lady virginity!” To Walky.

    2. Adam Black

      I suspect that’s the easiest thing to figure out.

    3. biomanzilla

      They’re going to have to open Dorothy’s laptop and watch some homemade videos to see how it’s done. I assume they can’t use Joyce’s because it still has parental blocks she installed herself.

    4. Barf Ninjason

      I’m sure they’ll figure it out, it’s not rocket surgery.

      1. Proxiehunter

        It’s not even brain science.

        1. Barf Ninjason

          ‘S’true – cuz it’s pussy art

        2. Taffy

          Me when the cat walks through my paint and across the canvas.

      2. Strain Of Thought

        Smash cut to Space Force Captain Julia Gray and Future President Doris hopelessly lost in space.

    5. Envy

      Joyce also hadn’t even touched herself before the laundry incident like a week ago. She is extremely inexperienced with female anatomy, even her own. I suspect(and hope) this is gonna go hilariously.

  15. Joyfulldreams

    Hey Joyce I know this might be fruitless but please talk to your boyfriend like you promised you would now that the crisis is passed, and also tell your girlfriend about the fact that you haven’t actually broken up with your boyfriend? Honestly maybe that second thing is more urgent before hanky panky. Maybe.

    Who am I kidding. It won’t happen. Lol.

    1. Adam Black

      That’s great that way she can cheat on them both.
      Or on Dorothy twice depending on how you count it

  16. Adam Black

    I blame the plaid.
    I think they both have a fetish

    1. Peng

      Lesbianism

      1. Adam Black

        Shrug

  17. Tessea

    I want to see Steve eating cereal! …. Who is Steve??

    1. AbacusWizard

      I think it’s a Questionable Content reference? Like the story would be building up to something big but then cuts away to Steve, a minor character from much earlier in the strip, eating cereal? I think? It’s been a while but I’m pretty sure it happened at least a couple of times.

      1. Marisa Mockery

        I miss Steve eating cereal. He was written off the comic years ago….

        1. Nono

          I don’t think he was exactly written out, he was even there at the recent wedding.

          He’s just never had a ton of focus. He had like, two storylines that were both around 4000 strips ago.

          Someone like Raven would be closer to being written out.

        2. Odditude

          Oh, she is written out.

          Maybe a cameo on an anniversary or when he remembers her after rereleasing some of the earlier comics.

          But she is gone 🙁
          So is Penelope

        3. Nono

          Penelope at least showed up (relatively) recently. Admittedly it was for like, four strips. But I guess she’s there.

          Now I don’t necessarily think it’s a bad thing for him to focus on characters that he does enjoy writing more. But it’s definitely conspicuous that Penelope, Raven and Emily are supposedly still working there but we basically only ever see Dora, Hannelore and Ayo instead. At least mix up the interactions a bit or write them out of the roster.

        4. Bittersweet

          Afaik Raven doesn’t work there anymore (went on to do science), and I’m not sure if Emily still does. I don’t think Penelope leaving has been mentioned though. I feel fairly confident about the Raven having been confirmed to have left left though.

        5. Nono

          Raven did leave to do science but then came back and ‘asked for her job back because otherwise she’d have to move back in with her folks for the summer’ or something.

          But that was a long while ago so maybe she went back to school since.

          Penelope hasn’t “left” per se, but she appears so sporadically (despite still working there) that she’s like Steve in a sense of ‘they only appear when the plot wants them to’.

      2. Slartibeast Button, BIA

        Steve eating cereal while every one was screaming to know if Marten and Claire did it or not:

        https://www.questionablecontent.net/view.php?comic=2407

        2743 and 3692 are also notable.

  18. Pappenheimer

    Again, the wisdom of the Seagull:

    “Let’s start with level flight.”

    Amazi-girl style ‘while dangling fifteen feet from the ground’ can wait for laters.

  19. AbacusWizard

    yoink!

  20. Taffy

    Yeah, may as well get it over with ASAP.

    1. Nymph

      “Get it Over With: A Dumbing of Age Pornographique”

  21. biomanzilla

    Can’t wait for the “Joyce and Dorothy do it while Joe sits in the cuck chair” Slipshine.

    1. Jon

      What’s wrong with a threesome?

      1. StClair

        Dorothy, most likely.

      2. Tawnee

        It’s a waste of a perfectly good cuck chair?

    2. biomanzilla

      Now that I’ve said it I keep imagining Joe watching them have sex while giving lots of unsolicited advice.

      “Joyce, slow down, it’s not a race. You’re here to enjoy yourself”
      “Dorothy, always use two fingers, like I showed you”
      “Someone’s clearly doing all the work here. I’d like some more teamwork, please”

      1. and painted shark women

        okay that is legit hilarious to me, wpgg

      2. Nymph

        Joe in a coach uniform with a whistle, squatting nearby so he can get a close look at what’s happening before he calls one of the plays they’ve practiced.

      3. Kevin K

        But he’d cover one eye with his hand, right?

  22. Dara

    No Jocelyne implies that Joyce did in fact say, “Big sis, please leave so that I can go fuck my girlfriend.”

    1. thejeff

      But the dialogue counters that, since it’s only about Jocelyne claiming that, not about making her say it.

  23. NGPZ

    I’m still worried about Dina…

    T~T

    1. Shiro

      Yeah, I’m watching that plotline somewhat nervously

  24. Boop

    No matter where they go to fuck it’s gonna be awkward for one or both of them. Unless they’re going to Sierras room

    1. Taffy

      It won’t be awkward if they go to the Taco Bell to fuck. It’s expected.

      1. Adam Black

        The Actual Bell ?

        1. Taffy

          No, I said the Taco Bell, ya drowsy fuckin’ slob. Do you need a 4’8″ French guy to slap you on the cheek every so often, to make sure you’re staying awake?

    2. Envy

      Honestly, starting a polycule with Joe so they can use his room(and sexile Danny to Sal’s) isn’t the WORST idea

  25. Amber

    I hope the next page is just the elevator door opening.

  26. Bryy

    The B stands for Bisexual.

  27. Yotomoe

    I was thinking yesterday so I just thought I’d ask. Obviously I’ve already given my feelings. But I wanna know.

    For those Doyce shippers. What is the main appeal of this couple? Like legit. I know there’s a sapphic aspect of course. But obviously there’s more. There’s clearly a friend’s to lovers aspect that a lotta people really love. And I guess if you look at it from that perspective I guess they’re the slowest build to a couple in the whole comic.

    But rather than feeling like you have to defend it against haters I wanna see what people really think. Y’know just Gushing about them and why you dig them. Personally I know I can gush about Amber/Walky for forever.

    1. Jay

      As what once might’ve been described as a Doyce shipper before this arc made thwm intolerable I just think when Joyce is acting like Joyce and Dorothy is acting like Dorothy I think their personalities mesh very well, in fact I’d say ther relationship could be described similarly to Joeyce where Dorothy (Joe) keeps Joyce level and keeps her eccentricities from going entirely haywire

      1. Nono

        I think they work fantastically as best friends. Not sure about them as a couple, there were grains of it but the sudden swerve of Dorothy being ‘into’ Joyce feels like it did come up all of a sudden, same as ‘Dorothy might be autistic because she really likes spreadsheets’.

        1. Envy

          Yeah, I think I’d be more down for this relationship if they had hovered in the “wait, do I ACTUALLY have romantic feelings for my best friend???” area for longer. In-universe it was only like 48 hours for Dorothy before she made a move on Joyce; I need more yearning than that!

        2. theburningbentley

          this! the almost immediate certainty of it on both their ends made my switch up from “oh this could be interesting” to bored very quickly. like i guess good for them that they identified the interest so quickly and speedran to otp but…. narratively i would have liked something more akin to the ethan/danny dynamic.

        3. thejeff

          I was also really surprised we didn’t get to see Joyce struggle at all with “wait, do I ACTUALLY have romantic feelings for my best friend???” She had even less time to deal with it before moves were made. Possibly even making the moves before being aware of it. 🙂

      2. Big Z

        Right? And one of the things that makes Doyce-as-shown NOT work for me, aside from the stevia flavor (too sweet, with a weird aftertaste), is that part of the impetus was Dorothy expressly trying to do more of a Joyce-ish “live in the moment”, leading to this running around switching focus every three strips they’re in where nothing gets resolved and everything ends up reverting to “so horny they forgot what they were doing”.

      3. Yotomoe

        Just wanna say I wanted this to be a thread for Doyce positivity for today so while I don’t wanna tell anyone what they can and can’t say I do wanna keep it from being too too critical here.

        1. Li

          Thank you, Yotomoe. Both for starting the thread and for nudging people. It’s very kind of you.

        2. theburningbentley

          whoops i only saw this after i piled on >< sorry doyce shippers!

        3. Jay

          No negativity coming from me, I’m glad people are enjoying Doyce even if I’m personally not the biggest fan atm

    2. Barf Ninjason

      Amber and Walky seem really well-suited. That whole garbage roof thing was sweet.

      Personally, I like Dorothy and Joyce together because it seems like they bring out the best in each other; they seem to both get less judgemental and more compassionate, I guess? And like, they’re from such different backgrounds and have such different personalities, but they seem to understand each other on a deep, deceptively simple sort of level.

    3. Mewzard

      Personally speaking, I always liked their dynamic. Their fun interactions, their occasionally challenging one another to step out of their traditional comfort zones (more often for Joyce, I admit), and I also think they make a cute couple.

      There’s also some part of me that saw people (especially Walky) tease the two about it so much, that it just felt like Apollo bringing their words to fruition, a nice cosmic balance.

      But yeah, I’ve been rooting for Joyce and Dorothy as a couple for well over a decade now, and I’m ready to see what that journey’s like once they get to just enjoy it without all that’s been over their heads to this point.

      I want to see them on open dates, couple hang outs, that sort of thing.

    4. eskimolos

      I was firmly a JoJo shipper until I think the build up to the kiss, and I wasn’t really on board until the kiss, which I know is a controversial take. It wasn’t the cheating, it was the passion, and the elation, which I think was really well conveyed! It convinced me that these two really, really wanted to be with one another. I’m not anti-Jojo now, though I am pro-let people be happy and make mistakes, and anti-stone the harlots because I’ve seen that go down in real life and it’s really, really ugly.

    5. Li

      I appreciate the intent behind this comment, but I don’t think I can really do any gushing in this comment section? The idea makes me tired, even with an explicit invitation. S’just been too many years of the regulars being very negative about this ship, and too many of the regulars who like the ship being very defensive and unpleasant about it in turn.

      But also: I’m not trying to guilt trip anyone, people with negative feelings have every right to express them here, and I genuinely hope the folks who are venting feel better as a result.

      1. Li

        I rewrote this comment a bunch and I still don’t like it, ugh.

        What I was trying to say was that I kinda feel like gushing over this ship here would be… rude? Like I’m intruding on someone else’s space.

        That might be totally bizarre of me to feel, but it’s still how I feel. The part where some of the people who like the ship are also often pretty rude about it doesn’t help, heh.

        1. Donovan

          If it means anything, as a bona fide Hater I don’t think you woukd be rude to gush when explicitly prompted. Comic discussion is for all (non-venomous) discussion

        2. Barf Ninjason

          Enthusiasm is very, very rarely rude. Gush like the gross candy, mon frere-mano.

      2. Yotomoe

        I respect your decision, but I do wanna say I wanted to open this up BECAUSE I think people should feel free and clear to gush about something they like rather than having to defend it. I’d genuinely love to hear the position from those who love these two so I can better understand them. And it’s genuinely enjoyable to hear someone talk about something they enjoy.

        1. Josh

          Even as a hater I feel like threads like this should be welcome and encouraged. I think (most) of us are mature enough to just let people enjoy things and then go complain in their own threads where it’s safe to do so. Chances are the people who aren’t mature enough will see a swift moderating anyway. (I’m surprised I haven’t been yet on my worst days tbh)

        2. Big Z

          Right? I’m a hater, myself, and frankly I still want to hear about people enjoying things, especially people who can enjoy a thing without shitting on the people who don’t.

          Like, I find Doyce about as spicy as flour, but YOU’RE allowed to like them and YOU’RE not a bad person for liking them.

          The problem has always been people who go “I like Joeyce, and people who like Doyce are cheating-endorsing lesbian fetishists or whatever” and people who go “I like Doyce, and people who like Joeyce are comphet homophobes and I laugh at the idea anyone ever wants to see Joe again or whatever”.

        3. Li

          I know. I hope it works for other readers.

          For me, it just feels like volunteering to read a bunch of responses where folks tell me at length why they disagree…? Even if they’re super super polite about it, that takes the wind out of my sails. It’s embarrassing, in my head. I’d rather mumble vaguely about them being cute while looking at my shoes.

          I hope that makes sense.

        4. Li

          I am also definitely part of the “problem”, part of the reason why so far the only actual discussion happening is folks saying they don’t like the ship. I could be replying encouragingly to other folks who are saying they like the ship! But. Mumbling at my shoes.

    6. The Big One

      For me its mostly because I see a lot of myself in Joyce as a lesbian woman who also went through the deconstructing Christian faith into something else (though I became a polytheistic pagan and not an atheist like Joyce did) and discovering my queerness along the way, and Joyce and Dorothy have had a very long history of gay subtext in their interactions especially from Joyce to Dorothy.

      Getting to see Joyce actually get to explore that attraction to women with a woman she clearly loves dearly is a far happier progression of Joyce’s story to me than if she just stayed stuck in a monogamous relationship with a man the whole time having to basically repress any genuine exploration of her attraction to women into abstract hypothetical thought experiments, though that could very well be either me projecting or my general dislike/disinterest in Joe as a character sneaking through.

      They’re also, as Willis themselves have pointed out, a deliberate subversion of the common comedy trope in television where the characters will make jokes about the homoeroticism of certain relationships as if the idea they could be anything more than heterosexual platonic best bros/gal pals is inherently ridiculous and worthy of mockery (JD/Turk, Leslie Knope/Anne Perkins, House/Wilson, BBC Johnlock, etc.). And as a queer person who hates that tropes, its nice seeing the vaguely homoerotic subtext of a best friendship slowly simmering in every interaction actually gets unironically acted on instead of just denied and used for fodder for laughs at the idea of their queerness.

      It helps further Joyce’s arc of fully growing out of the conservative Christian patriarchal outlook she was indoctrinated into, and it helps Dorothy’s arc in realizing that she’s going to have to be more than a one note Hillary Clinton copy if she wants to earnestly change the world for the better.

      1. Adam Black

        ‘its nice seeing the vaguely homoerotic subtext of a best friendship slowly simmering in every interaction actually gets unironically acted on… ‘

        In another place

        https://www.keepingtimecomic.com/comic/page-105-106/?ht-comment-id=27507414

    7. Pluis

      Both Joyce and Dorothy are deeply idealistic characters with a desire to be “a force for good” and a seriously flawed view of the world and their own capabilities and approaches towards being one, and when they are together it really feels like they help each other see both the limits of their current abilities and the value of their true selves.

      It’s always felt like on the scale of “what you can be”, Joyce was raised to believe she isn’t allowed or able to do anything, while Dorothy was raised to believe she could do everything, and both of them, from their own viewpoint decided “Well, I’m going to make things better for everyone”. And now that they’re in college, Joyce has more freedom than ever and Dorothy has more run-ins with her own limits then ever, and they’re both spiraling. Joyce is spiraling upwards, out of control with freedom she doesn’t know how to deal with, and Dorothy is spiraling down with limits she doesn’t know how to address.

      And both of them keep heading to somewhere in the middle, where they both become aware of both their limits and capabilities, and they keep pushing each other towards that “force for good” that they both have within themselves.

      I think it’s also the difference I feel between the way this relationship works and the one both had before. Joe helped Joyce grow as well, but it felt like pushing her from who she is, more towards normalcy. Walky felt more like he was dragging Dorothy down to normalcy.

      But when Joyce and Dorothy are together, it feels less like they are being pushed towards being “more normalized” and more like they help each get rid of the things holding them back from realizing “fully idealized self”. With this relationship, I’m excited to see where they end up, because I think it’s the only one that’s capable of getting them to extraordinary destinations, the others one just took them to ordinary ones.

      Hope some of that makes sense ^^”

      1. Big Z

        I would unironically love for your second-to-last paragraph to be true — one of the things I DISLIKE about Doyce is that, so far, it’s all been (to my eyes) one-note full of “everything that looks like it could result in interesting development resets back to dumb horny after 3-4 strips” (as with today!). One would be a fool to not see some potential in the general case of their relationship, but for the past few months of real time there’s been almost literally nothing done with that.

        1. Yotomoe

          Hey now. This a positivity thread. No Yucking Yums here!

        2. Big Z

          Ack!

      2. eskimolos

        I really love this response, it’s beautifully written and I agree with most of it.

    8. and painted shark women

      I love Joyce and Dorothy’s whole dynamic throughout, and their slow-but-clear growing infatuation with each other (even more clear and less slow in a recent binge-reread, seriously. The people who say it came out of nowhere are entitled to their view, but my own view is that I’m guessing they’re not big on rereads.) I’m also really fond of both characters – I like most of the characters in this comic, but they’re definitely in the top 10. Especially Dorothy. I find her good qualities really endearing and her bad qualities either equally endearing or just far too relatable.
      In the scene where they’re lying on Joyce’s bed listening to music, and Dorothy gives Joyce that incredibly sad and vulnerable “you’re everything I want but can’t have” smile, I GOTS FEELS ;n; I’m a sucker for sapphic feels in general, happy or sad. And having spent all my formative years being both AMAB and borderline-incel-causing levels of unattractive/unconfident, I could identify too well with the bittersweet “look upon a hauntingly beautiful place I can never visit” aspect. Oof owie ouch my skeletybones
      And with that established… then, I hated this whole storyline past that point, and frankly still do. I was one of the people muttering “not like this, not like this” when they got together, and at HOW they got together, (1) because I ALSO liked Dorothy/Walky and Joyce/Joe a lot as couples/dynamics/arcs and was sad for everyone at how messy it all went, and (2) because I also felt hella uncomfortable with the whole genocide-protest-as-backdrop thing. (I didn’t figure out unprompted that that was WHY I felt uncomfortable; my life experience has been VERY “oops-all-white-privilege.exe” so far, so I miss a lot of nuance, and it took reading other peoples’ comments on the topic to make sense of why I was feeling so ick. “It feel oofy?” was as far as I got on my own.)
      It’s made me like two of my favourite characters less – they just seem like worse versions of themselves – and it’s made me have less trust in the plot (and by extension the author) where before I’d enjoyed almost every arc. Wehhhh, such negativity, typical relationship paladin. So why am I still here, if I hate it so much?
      Because I do want to see where it goes, and if all these plot threads resolve in a way I can make peace with, and if it might end up as something I do enjoy again. After all, I’ve enjoyed the whole comic up to this point, good times and bad, re-read the whole archive several times this year alone; call it emotional sunk cost fallacy, sure, I’m no stranger to that, but I really don’t feel like just yeeting the whole thing and never finding out what happens.
      I guess I just can’t summon the same anger that everyone seems to have about it. I’m just – sad. I don’t feel like being mad at the people who simply enjoy different plot beats to me – this is a comic, no-one’s actually dying (that I know of) so people can like what they want. I don’t feel like being mad at DYW – they’re entitled to write their own comic, that they’ve put more time and effort into than I’ve ever put into anything in my underwhelming life, however they damn well please. That holds for the protest arc, too – sadly, because I can picture myself making the same sort of mistakes way too easily. Sure, this is a bit self-interested (did I mention I’m white? -__-) but: if I can’t believe in someone making these sorts of mistakes, taking criticism on board, learning and growing and trying to do better next time – then I sure as hell can’t believe in myself ever pursuing or succeeding in creative endeavours. Because I can guarantee all the stories I would wanna tell are MAD problematic in ways I haven’t even begun to anticipate wheeeeeeeeee
      Sorry this answer got rambly and probably off topic. I appreciate you asking the question though, Yotomoe, I thought it was a nice gesture amidst all the barely-restrained baby’s-first-sectarian-conflict of this comments section.

      1. and painted shark women

        Aauugh to anyone struggling to read that, I’m so sorry, I’ve almost never posted anything more than two concurrent sentences here before and didn’t realize I’d need to double all the line breaks @ n @;;;

    9. thenamelesssamurai

      Honestly, I kinda want to respond to this, but it might take me a few days to type things up to get across everything I wanna say. Is it okay if it takes a few days to respond to this?

    10. Opinion

      Not in that camp but from the outside the appeal seems to be “winning” like the classic media version of these two is that they end up dating male best friends and just stay super close “gal pals” forever which is definitely a form of LGBT erasure. So I can get the appeal of “no this time they actually get together” but where that loses me is while that’s a great win against the trope in this specific instance it just doesn’t seem to be implemented well.

      1. Li

        Yotomoe tried to make a thread for people to gush about what they like about the ship. I don’t think this reply is really in that spirit?

    11. Astariel

      It’s hard for me to say exactly why I love Joyrothy so much. They make me feel happy and excited when they’re together in a way that none of the other couples do, even the ones I really like such as Becky/Dina or Danny/Sal. I think it probably starts with Joyce and Dorothy being the most relatable characters for me. I relate to Dorothy’s intelligence and academic focus, as well as having everything fall apart in college. Joyce has always been my favorite character and I relate to pretty much everything about her except the being raised in a cult part. I’ve always loved their friendship, and I love that even though there was every reason not to expect them to be friends when they met they still built such a strong and supportive relationship.

      I think part of my love for the relationship is also that even though I always loved the idea of them together, I never thought it would actually happen. My media expectations were pretty much formed in the ’90s, so I have a subconscious assumption that you can have gay sidekicks in a story, but the main character will never be gay, no matter how much teasing there is. I enjoyed all the ‘Joyce and Dorothy are acting really gay for each other’ jokes, but I never really expected it to go any farther. It’s only in the last year or so that I started to think it might actually happen. The strip with the actual first kiss (in the original version) was the happiest and most excited the comic has ever made me. I just couldn’t believe it was actually happening for real.

      As for the relationship itself, I admit I’m pretty much an old-fashioned romantic. I love the friends-to-lovers arc. I love the way they are each other’s most important person and the unwavering faith they each have in each other. I love how they’re always there to support each other and pick each other up. I do think they bring out the best in each other. It’s basically the relationship I’ve always wanted but will never have IRL.

      I hope this gave you some insight into the feelings of the pro-Joyrothy side, and I honestly appreciate your asking even though you aren’t feeling the relationship yourself.

      1. eskimolos

        Right? I feel like the passion and authenticity whenever they interact is so evident, they really are each other’s whole world right now. That is irritating and problematic for those who struggle with the cheating aspect, but also the whole situation of things boiling over and coming to a romantic head, and a whirlwind of bad choices and regrets waiting to happen feels exceptionally authentic as well. This is absolutely the kind of situation that has had me head over heels in the past, where I think there’s no way someone would like me that way and then, suddenly, as I’m quietly self destructing over my bullshit, it turns out that actually? they do.

    12. Dandi Andi

      I could probably write a book, but I’ll try not to.

      I see a lot of myself in Joyce, for better and worse. That’s probably because Willis has said that Joyce is semi autobiographical for them and I am also a 40-something, Midwestern, ex-vangelical amab enby. I’m just from Missouri instead of Indiana. So a lot of her story rings very true to me. Her church, her patents, the movies she wasn’t allowed to watch, the music she WAS allowed to listen to (playing “Colored People” by D.C.Talk at her dorm party brought back some very cringey memories for me). That’s was my life when I was that age.

      Also like Joyce, I had feelings of same sex attraction that I had no idea how to deal with. In that church environment, the only acceptable way to deal with those feelings was repression and denial. Even after abandoning my faith, I still suffered that little voice in my head that still thought I was going to hell for even thinking about kissing boys. My egg was eventually cracked in my 20s by a close friend. I never did kiss that boy, but he sure made me realize how much I wanted to. Unfortunately, my wife at the time didn’t find a lot of comfort in that and divorced me soon after.

      So i feel this arc deeply. And I just desperately want things to go better for Joyce than they did for me. And I think they can. She’s always been a well meaning fuck up. But she’s also always come around to clean up her messes in the end.

    13. Amós Batista

      I have more solid arguments, but I love when the hot guy/girl is left behind. I love this kind of history. A personal reason

  28. pjeseb

    Yet again Joyce displays the last remaining vestige of her religious upbringing, that which she has retained after discarding all else: her Freakish Fundie Strength™.

  29. Jay

    Well….at least we’re getting a quick slipshine outta this ship ?‍♀️

  30. darkoneko

    …… sigh. Alas. Poor Joe

    1. Barf Ninjason

      Joe’s no schmoe, he likes dese ladies dough; he might someday want to watch but dey might say no

    2. Acher4

      Joe is into this… 😛

      1. Big Z

        Still not yet established whether Joe is “into this” or “willing to settle for this”.

        (and likely not to be for a while, given Willis’ bsky pie chart of who’s showing up in upcoming strips)

        1. Nymph

          Ugh I knowwww, I hope that pie chart was a joke (and I think it was) because how am I supposed to live my messy polyamory dreams if one of the key members of the polycule isn’t getting any screentime?

          I feel like a little kid waiting for dinner to finish cooking and staring at the cookie jar.

        2. Big Z

          Your lips to Willis’ ears, because I have 0 ability to tell how much his bsky commentary is “serious” vs. “trolling the Doyce-dislikers” (and to be fair, having glanced at the subreddit etc, I understand the trolling impulse because some of us Doyce dislikers are real jerks about it)

  31. Atrius

    Pretty positive this is a throwback to Dorothy and Walky’s Slipshine.

  32. Shiro

    As it turns out, the suggestion earlier in the comics that she was gonna crack and suck a billion dicks someday was, in fact, only half correct and lacking vision

    1. ReFlex76

      Ruth’s prediction seems way more nuanced and accurate:

      https://www.dumbingofage.com/2018/comic/book-8/04-of-mike-and-men/need-2/

    2. Big Z

      The obvious Bruce Lee pastiche joke here falters on the rocks of “as a cis man, I don’t even know what the ‘funny’ colloquialism for the equivalent female anatomy is without risking offending SOMEONE.”

      1. Nymph

        Clams would be the most silly and least offensive option (I think). See Also: cooter, cooch, vag, bean (specific to the clit but still), suggestively wiggling your eyebrows and pointing down, lady garden, a low whistle.

        1. Big Z

          Hah, accepted:

          I fear not the Joyce who’s pleasured a billion clams, but the Joyce who’s pleasured one clam one billion times.

        2. Li

          Also for some reason tuna? Jokes about eating tuna.

        3. Big Z

          See, in my “spent a lot of time around cishet men in locker rooms” experience, “fish” references (as specifically opposed to “clam” ones) were always specifically misogynistic comments about unpleasant smell.

        4. Li

          Things that don’t really occur to you when you like how fish smells and tastes. 😉

        5. Big Z

          I mean, me too, the worst part about having a all-vegan fam except for me is that no seafood place serves any vegan main courses that I’ve ever found so I’m perpetually sneaking out for illicit mid-day shrimp.

        6. Li

          Pff aw. Shrimp, though. ?

        7. Big Z

          … “Illicit Mid-Day Shrimp” is my crust-punk Great Big Sea cover band.

      2. Dot

        I would advise using the term “female anatomy” to refer to a vagina, it’s cissexist. My anatomy is female even if it’s not a cooter, and a trans man’s vagina would likewise be male anatomy. “Yonic/phallic” are probably better terms to use here.

        1. Big Z

          See, this is why I asked, I don’t even know how to ask right without stumbling over a couple decades of unconscious programming!

        2. Dot

          Hey, being willing to adjust already puts you leagues ahead of most cis dudes. All things considered I’d say you’re doing fine.

        3. Big Z

          Way I figure it, if I’m asking questions and trying to be careful when I unpack some of these dusty old mental boxes, I’m probably okay.

          This one’s particularly weird internally, in that somehow I never really thought about the case even though I’ve been doing ex: “folks who are/can be pregnant” for a couple years now when talking about say reproductive justice.

        4. Dot

          Cissexist phraseology is baked into so much of our everyday language, it’s easy to overlook something or get tripped up here or there. I’ve been out as a trans woman for eight years as of last week but even I occasionally get tripped up. Once you can really wrap your head around the concept of both gender and biological sex being fundamentally social constructs, it does get easier in my experience.

        5. Big Z

          The one that’s baking my and my partner’s noodle right now is that I came up in the kind of way where “yes sir/ma’am!” is just something you say when you’re being polite, and we have so far been unable to come up with any kind of enby version that meets the quadruple criteria of “not-gender-coded”, “not already in use in less respectful contexts”, “not even potentially offensive”, “1-2 syllables and sounds good to say”.

          A very British “Aye, guv” is the frontrunner, having ruled out “chief”, “boss”, etc.

        6. Big Z

          (also, obviously: thank you, inserting “yonic” into my mental vocabulary with a metaphorical crowbar now)

        7. Li

          Yonic can be used the same way as phallic btw. Yonic imagery is actually kind of common in horror, often with teeth! It’s a popular design for alien mouths, etc.

        8. Dot

          Georgia O’Keefe paintings too.

        9. Li

          Haha, true, and much more pleasant.

          I love horror and sci-fi, so I’m over here like “the sarlacc pit!”, but flowers = yonic is absolutely a common motif in prettier media.

          (The sarlacc pit is actually pretty circular and much less specifically evocative, but I am utterly blanking on the NAMES of any of the specific things that are in my head. And sometimes it’s really blatant like you can even see the clit lol.)

        10. Big Z

          Or even combining the phallic and yonic in non-conventional ways, arguably the reason why Geiger’s art is so unsettling.

        11. ResRam

          Lol
          https://www.oglaf.com/labiathans/

        12. Dot

          Advise not*

          It’s been a long day already, folks.

  33. StClair

    the longer this goes on, the less I care about any of it.

    1. Jay

      Same same.

      I’d say but different, but just same.

  34. Donovan

    Fun game: take a shot for every count of bi-erasure in a DoJo strips comments.

    1. Barf Ninjason

      Yeah, as a bisexual person I’m flabbergasted how many people can’t seem to acknowledge the apparently deeply confusing concept “both.” It makes me pity asexuals because I can only imagine that if “both” is that hard to grok how much “none” be confusing to, like, neurotypical sex-oriented heterosexuals who are also ding-dongs.

      1. Donovan

        Birom-aces stay losing :’)

    2. NGPZ

      unfortunately I have no alcohol

      shall shots of energy drink suffice for this game, given I have work to do?

      1. Donovan

        by all means

        1. NGPZ

          *pops open can of monster energy*

          let’s begin

    3. Big Z

      Hayup.

    4. Li

      Important caveat: lesbians seeing themselves in Joyce isn’t bi-erasure.

      I agree that Joyce is bi, but she hasn’t actually claimed an identity yet, and her characterization so far does actually make sense for both. Heteronormativity is a seriously powerful thing, and sexuality CAN be fluid: lots of lesbians have had sexual and romantic histories that look like Joyce’s.

      1. Donovan

        I’m mostly talking about the actual incidences that inevitably creep up a time or two

        1. Li

          And those are fair! I’ve just definitely seen people get jumped on for just relating to this as lesbians, so I felt the need to tap the sign. ? Especially because sometimes defenses of Joyce and Dorothy as bi do wind up erasing lesbian experiences by saying xyz “proves” they can’t be lesbians.

          IRL there really aren’t clear bright dividing lines between, for example, butch woman and trans man. Lots of people identify as one before realizing they’re actually the other, some people identify as both at the same time, others move fluidly between identities… and because it absolutely SUCKS out here, we can wind up fighting each other over scraps of precious representation.

          After decades of bi characters not being allowed to call themselves bi, just saying the word also feels revolutionary, and I absolutely don’t want to dismiss the importance of reminding people that bi characters are bi…

          But we need to remember that that was coming from like, TV executives. The powers that be decided that characters weren’t allowed to call themselves bi, or weren’t allowed to BE bi without also being untrustworthy, etc, not on the viewers.

          Willow identifying as a lesbian instead of bi is on Joss Whedon and Marti Noxton, not on random lesbians in the audience who found Willow’s coming out story extremely relatable.

  35. Reltzik

    Without comment on the ship itself, I’m starting to worry that this has potential to tear apart the entire friend-group.

    1. Big Z

      I’ve seen this sort of thing tear apart my own college friend groups at least twice, but that was decades ago and who knows how these dorks are going to react.

    2. SunflowerBanjo

      IRL yeah it would definitely have the potential to, but this is a comic strip and ultimately the response from the rest of the cast and how the aftermath shakes out is in the hands of the author. I don’t see Willis imploding the group they’ve spent decades knitting together across a multitude of comics/stories. If for no other reason than because repairing the damage from a whole group falling out would take years of real time, and be such a departure from the overarching story that’s been told up to this point.

      1. Nono

        At the very least I don’t think they’d stay MAD; he kinda broke up the Ethan/Danny friendship but they just kinda snipe at each other/is awkward, same as Ruth/Billie. There’s not a lot of pure venom because that would just be uncomfortable to sit through years of.

        Probably a lot of bitterness. Maybe everyone just turns into Sarah.

      2. Big Z

        I think you’ve hit on one of the reasons I personally reacted so badly to the “cheating” aspect of the storyline — it CAN’T really get the reaction that feels most reasonable/realistic, because of the format and time-dilation of the comic.

        I even checked in with my (high school) kid, and her opinion was that if this was about her and her friends they’d pretty much be splitting into “Team Aggressively Pro-Girl-Love”, “Team Aggressively Pro-Joe/Walky”, and “Team Wants People to Accept Who They Are but Are Uncomfortable With The Specific Circumstances and Just Kind of Pull Away”.

        … which, come to think of it, sums up a fair amount of the comment section if you squint, so maybe she’s on to something.

        1. Li

          Point of order: we as readers and your kid as a proxy reader have omniscient knowledge that MOST of the friend group lacks.

          I don’t think I would be at all willing to put money on this, but it’s entirely possible that everyone who’s reacted so far except for Sarah has no idea that there was actually any cheating.

          And I don’t mean “they don’t know Joe and Joyce were dating”, though I’m sure that’s true of at least one of the girls on Joyce’s floor who has congratulated the new couple so far, because she’s not super close to say Mandy.

          I just mean that I think Sarah and Dina are really the only folks, out of the ones who have so far reacted at all, to actually know Joe at all. Most of the girls in Joyce’s dorm and indeed the campus at large have met Joe at most twice, once when he first picked out a number for them, and then again after his list “leaked” and he handed out apology donuts.

          Which means a lot of people have probably only met Joe’s horndog persona, followed by his (begrudging, for the most part!) apology tour.

          Like, you and I and Sarah and Dina and Danny know that Joe would not, in fact, react to news of Dorothy and Joyce smooching in public by soliciting windmill high fives from everyone around him, but can the same really be said for even Becky?

          And then there’s Walky, who’s kind of in an even worse position. Jennifer saw through his persona enough to know he’d be hurting, but he’s made SO many jokes and has even called Joyce his girlfriend’s girlfriend that I think a lot of people who only know him on kind of a surface level would also assume he was not only okay with this new status quo but in fact had known it was going on for months.

          One of the reactions I’m most looking forward to is Danny. Both because Danny is firmly in Joe’s quarter AND because Dorothy kind of pre-confessed to the cheating, so he’s one person who will immediately jump to the assumption that Joyce and Dorothy did not, in fact, start dating with the full knowledge and consent of everyone involved… but he IS in the minority here in terms of how much he knows both about Joe as a person and about the specific circumstances of how these two might have gotten together.

          Bonus footnote: another person who I think would ordinarily know what’s going on and be potentially upset about is is AMBER, because Joe has been telling her directly about his insecurities for MONTHS, but Amber is currently mired in her own guilt over the part she played in all of this happening. And she’s inclined to think the worst of herself, so even if Booster was completely off-base in their guess about whether Amber was hoping to break Dorothy and Walky up so that she could have him all for herself, I think Amber is unlikely to feel like she has any business casting stones right now.

          Extra bonus footnote: Booster is, of course, kind of a special case, seeing as they (seemingly) unapologetically revel in drama, but I do think we are due for a twist, because I think their attitude towards Joyce and Dorothy is likely to be different after Walky’s depressive funk sinks in.

        2. Li

          Ex: Lucy knows Walky better than most of the cast now, but he also made several potentially hopeful comments about a polycule with her and Amber, and her comment that Joyce seemed bi caused him to say he loved her for the first time, so. Again I think she probably has an inaccurate mental picture of how he would react to news that Joyce and Dorothy were ACTUALLY dating.

        3. Big Z

          In re your point of order:
          Most definitely — there’s not any reason for that to happen IMMEDIATELY, just kind of a reason for as the rumor mill starts grinding for stuff to happen. I think I’m still semi-cautiously waiting for this storyline to go somewhere with the actual general finding-out phase, since so far it’s been kinda sidetracked into Jocelyne and the newspaper and the protest instead of moving on to the romantic drama.

          But to tie it back to the specific I was responding to, I don’t find it especially likely for Willis to eventually break up this loose friend group in any way (let alone what I’d consider a relatively realistic one) regardless of when it happens, because to do so would make the comic significantly less cohesive and it’s already got almost too many plates spinning to feel like a single story anymore.

        4. Li

          Oh yeah I don’t think there will be any permanent splits? But we are certainly somewhat poised for Lucy to get sucked in by Raidah, related or unrelated.

          And I am MIXED as heck on whether I think any of the things I brought up are going to be parts of the current or upcoming storyline, I’m not sure if these are chekov’s guns or if we’re doing minimal drama around the cheating! I just do also think that we’ve got plausible deniability still, because almost no one knows the full story.

        5. Li

          Heck, it’s really NO ONE who knows the full story. Sarah knows the most of anyone, but she doesn’t know about Joe’s proposal yet…

        6. thejeff

          Also, in my experience a lot of that drama comes from the participants making the case to their friends to try to keep them on their side. Which isn’t going to happen here. Joe and Walky aren’t likely to be bad mouthing their exes. When the principles aren’t taking sides, it gets a lot harder to split the friend group up.
          Even Danny, who like you said, knows a lot of what’s going on and has reason to support Joe, isn’t likely to go too far with it when Joe is telling him to cool it.

  36. UrsulaDavina

    So at some point are they going to disscuss ethical non monogamy beacuse people keep saying Polycule which is ENM but but Dorothy has made it clear that she doesnt really like Joe so that would rule out a polycule. So ENM seems like a more practical arangment if this doesnt blow up in Joyce’s face. Which bas a high probability of happening with plenty of collateral damage.

    1. Jay

      Honestly, at some point Willis is going to have too bring it up again but honestly at this point I have no fucking idea on *how* it’s going to be handled.

      It’ll either make all of this worth it, or be another thorn in the side of anyone who’s already bored of this arc.

      At this point I don’t believe there’s a middle ground.

      1. Nono

        I’m not sure there’s any peaceable storyline to all this for a while. The circumstances of the whole ship is going to be hanging over the storyline for a long while.

        As a narrative viewpoint the storyline is like fine, it shifts things and puts plots into motion. I can’t really tell if it’s a well written one, because there are a few things that I think are being squished quickly to hurry the development along.

        1. Big Z

          I always feel vaguely vindicated any time someone else also has a feeling similar to my own vibe that the pacing has been highly weird for this storyline.

        2. Nono

          Well we know that it WAS a sped up storyline per some of his posts. The idea was Dorothy/Joyce was a ship that WOULD have happened years from now but he decided to bring it forward.

          Which I guess is bad if you’re a Joe/Joyce shipper.

        3. Big Z

          I think it’s also been bad for the general coherence of the storyline.

        4. Li

          I still don’t think this is at all what we know.

          We know one option was that it would happen five years from now, but we also know that another option was that it happened two years ago. Willis has almost pulled the pin on this grenade like three times. That seems like the opposite of rushed to me.

    2. AMagicalDuck

      It’s still a polycule if not everyone in it is dating each other. Also “ethical non monogamy” is kind of an awful term. Nobody ever feels the need to specify that a monogamous relationship has to be ethical, why is that always required then polyamory is discussed

      1. biomanzilla

        I think monogamous relationships should be ethical, as a general rule.

        1. Taffy

          Probably most relationships in general should be ethical, if we wanna get hung up on frivolous privileges like “ethics”.

        2. Yotomoe

          Counterpoint: Ruth and Billie.

        3. Taffy

          I had the foresight to cover that base with “most”.

        4. thejeff

          Right but the usage of “ethical non monogamy” implies that monogamy is ethical by default and that non monogamy isn’t. Or maybe it’s more that it reflects that as a societal assumption.

        5. Big Z

          I mean, as someone who uses the term ethical non-monogamy for myself, I never really saw it as comparing it to poly, but rather to set it apart from non-ethical non-monogamy (i.e., “cheating” and/or “pick-up artistry/serial monogamy”).

        6. thejeff

          That was kind of my point.
          The assumption that monogamy is the ethical approach by default means that you have to specify “ethical” when you’re talking about anything else. Of course it isn’t actually true that monogamy is inherently ethical either, that’s just a cultural assumption.

          I also feel like there are things that technically fall into ethical non-monogamy that aren’t usually counted as that or as poly. Like modern hook up culture (though that’s certainly open to abuse, it isn’t inherently bad) or the earlier casual dating vs “going steady” that came up a lot in the comments recently. Generally poly and non-monogamy are only used when there is at least one relationship that cultural expectations would suggest would be monogamous.
          Like in the comic, Roz is implied to have sex with a lot of different guys, but without being serious about any of them. That’s not poly or I think what’s normally meant by ethical non-monogamy, even though it’s both ethical and not monogamy.

        7. Big Z

          Mmm, I think we’re talking past each other a bit, largely because Roz IS (assuming everyone is fully informed, consents, and taking appropriate STI precautions) practicing something I’d define as ethical non-monogamy.

          My understanding of the term is that it started out as a DEFENSIVE term — a lot of monogamous folks assume that only monogamy is ethical (no, and not all monogamy is ethical either), but a lot of polyamory folks ALSO would assume that dating around was only ethical if you were expecting to be in a long-term romance with everyone. In other words, it felt to me (back in the day with my open relationships in college in the 1990s) that the assumption being fought was “the only ethical relationships are ones that are on the relationship ladder, mono or poly” rather than a specific assumption about monogamy.

          And in response, a lot of us “open relationship” or “hookups are just hookups as long as everyone is clear on what’s happening” types ended up settling on “ethical non-monogamy” to specifically counter the accusations that we were just sluts or cheaters — no, we specifically thought through what we’re doing and are trying to do it in a non-harmful way.

        8. thejeff

          Okay, fair enough. That’s not how I’ve normally seen the term used.

        9. Big Z

          I am not in the least surprised to hear that a term of art used among a relatively small subset of open and/or poly relationship enthusiasts is getting used in different ways in different places/communities.

      2. Yotomoe

        Personally I practice Unethical Monogamy.

      3. Pluis

        Sadly most people, when hearing “non-monogamy”, immediately assume “cheating”, which is we had to come up with the pointless qualifier.

      4. C.T Phipps

        In my Morgan Detective Agency books, the protagonist tries to figure out how her brother’s relatiionship works where he’s dating his long-term girlfriend while his wife has a dozen or so regular lovers. Neither of their lovers dating each other.

        Mind you, they’re all vampires.

    3. Nymph

      That’s not how polycules work, everyone in a polycule does not have to (and is rarely ever) dating everyone else in the polycule. I’ve literally only seen that happen in committed triads and I’ve seen exactly two of those (ever) that weren’t fictional. It’s still a polycule, it’s just a different arrangement of nodes than a triad.

      I wish I knew why the idea that everyone in a polycule had to be dating each other was so popular.

      1. Big Z

        Similar to what I was saying to thejeff about ethical non-monogamy, I suspect it’s that a lot of folks, even when they get past the idea that you CAN be in romantic love with more than one person, still think about romantic relationships as basically a construct with the objective of forming a family — and so subconsciously (or not) they assume the only truly valid relationships are ones that are targeted at ending up in a marriage-like construct (everyone in one big household with a nice picket fence and 2.5 kids and a dog, etc).

        1. Taffy

          How the fuck you gonna have 2.5 kids, by the by? So like, you got two out fine but what’s goin’ on with litte Peter Pointfive? What half of the kid is it? Top, bottom, left, right, front, back, inside, outside? You’re gonna get weird looks if you walk into the school like “Yo, I need to register this loose collection of organs for kindergarten. He’s my son, trust.” The only way I see that .5 happening is if your kid just doesn’t have a lower body, and then it gets into dehumanizing territory, cuz that’s still a whole kid, he just got less body than some of the others in his class. Is he a Nobody, like are you raising Roxas over there? If you are, then after not very long he’s gonna grow a heart of his own and you’ve just got 3 kids now.

        2. Big Z

          No, see, YOU can’t have 2.5 kids, but EVERYONE can have 2.5 kids if you do the math right (and have a very weirdly remixed incident of the whole King Solomon Maternity Test theory where God just sorta wallpapers over the cut edges and tries to pretend the whole thing never happened.)

        3. Taffy

          Thank you for the reminder that I will never give birth in my entire life.

        4. Big Z

          I honestly can’t tell if I owe you congratulations, condolences, or an apology.

      2. Touchfuzzy

        As someone who is poly, this.

        V relatioinships or series of V relatioinships, or wheels and spokes relationships are way way way more common than stuff like triads.

        I’ve literally never dated someone that any of my partners were also dating. There were a few times they showed interest, but it never went anywhere.

  37. biomanzilla

    Out of curiosity, why did Dorothy ever want to be president, anyway? Does she have any real interest in politics or economics or American history? Was the whole thing just a utopian, technocratic fantasy of a future where everyone would be forced to listen to her? If Dorothy still wants some of the power of the presidency without the pressure of having access to the nuclear codes or worrying about election campaigning, I think she’d do a good job as Secretary of State, Attorney General or as a Supreme Court judge.

    1. StClair

      I think it really was as simple as “so she could solve everyone’s problems.”
      Which is definitely something the President can do, without doing anything bad or making things worse for anyone.
      (It is worth noting that she came up with this plan when she was, like, five.)

    2. Kyulen

      I don’t remember if she ever mentioned why she wanted to be president, but it seems like she thought that was the best way to help everyone. She never seemed to have any actual policies she wanted to enact, and it seems like she didn’t really know much about what presidents have actually done historically. To be fair the US education system doesn’t really teach most of us about all the terrible things the US government and our presidents have done. I had to learn that on my own later, after I’d been out of school for many years.

    3. eskimolos

      I think ultimately you have to get meta here and understand Dorothy’s characterisation was heavily born of the political climate in the late 2000s, possibly re-energised after the 2016 election, and then shot after the rise of Leftism and BLM on the internet between 2016 and 2020, which raised the question of whether the current political system is inherently corrupt. Much like Ronald Reagan was a beloved figure in Shortpacked!, it feels a lot like Dorothy wanting to be president was more a reflection of the author’s own naivety, and her turn away from that path was to reflect Willis’s own turn away from faith in the American political system.

      Certainly, teenagers do not have fully formed and reasoned notions of politics, and suffer from the mistaken belief that they have perfect opinions about just about every complex political topic. Dorothy is clearly quite smart, but is still a teen.

      1. thejeff

        I do think Dorothy’s arc is heavily influenced by changes in Willis’s take on American politics and by the last decade or so of politics in general. I suspect it would have been very different had Clinton won in 2016 and had even a moderately successful presidency. Living in the current hellscape, it’s much harder to be positive about mainstream politics.
        Of course, disillusionment and disengagement with mainstream politics is part of the problem.

    4. C.T Phipps

      I’m inclined to think that Dorothy had a 50:50 mix of naivety with ambition. She had the idea she wanted to fix all of the world’s problem and is probably quite educated in terms of what’s wrong in America (poverty, violence, and so on) with a knowledge of history as well. However, Dorothy was of the opinion she would be able to be elected by being the most qualified person and doing the hard work to convince people her actions would work.

      Basically, her giant blind spot being that everyone was acting in fundamentally good faith which is definitely something that the last 12 years have been especially blatant about not working.

      1. StClair

        Yup, this.

    5. Masha

      Because she’s the author’s version of college Hillary Clinton

    6. Dot

      She’s an ambitious young woman and president is kind of the default goal for that kind of archetype

  38. Acher4

    And then Joyce finds out she doesn’t like women sexually….only Dorothy romantically.

    oh no…

    (ye, jk. Waiting for the slipshine actuallly :P)

    1. Quinn

      Getting a ‘Girl’s with Slingshots’ flashback.

    2. Arianod

      Yeah, that’s definitelyl *not* gonna happen. The UST is strong with these two.

  39. Kenny Williams

    Slipshine slipshine joyce preforms a sex

  40. Kyulen

    I think it would be a little funny if Joyce and Dorothy went to a bunch of different locations to try and have sex, but every place they go is occupied by other people studying or hanging out or whatever.

    1. Andy

      Like Dorothy’s room ( where Becky lives) or Joyce’s (Sarah, who will ask about Joe)? They are still facing a cascade of consequences despite Joyce wishing otherwise. The course of true love never did run smooth. Especially with these doofuses. Or with DYW.

  41. Arianod

    Joyce and Dorothy breaking the sound barrier on their way to hanky-panky

  42. ADLegend21

    they’re gonna break up in 3 years of real time and it’ll finally just get to the Saturday of their in comic week lol

  43. thumb

    Wait, the title is “On The Precipice…”????
    This entire volume is going to be edging.

  44. Josh

    Bro, you literally left your boyfriend on read like less than two hours ago.

    1. Taffy

      Sounds like his problem, not hers.

      1. Big Z

        Snark aside, she did “PROMISE” that she’d talk to him later, so I suspect when she breaks out of this latest horny cycle and remembers it that SHE will think it’s her problem.

        1. Nymph

          She’s not breaking that promise atm tho. Later is still available after she bangs her girlfriend.

        2. Li

          I genuinely think the potential fallout of not getting back to Joe right this minute is less than the potential fallout of Joyce letting Dorothy think she broke up with Joe when she actually left him in a holding position.

          Joe was told later, and tomorrow for example would still be later. Dorothy was told Joyce broke up with Joe, and while I think it was fully understandable that Joyce didn’t correct that when they were in crisis mode, I think it’s definitely something Dorothy has the potential to Feel Weird About if it doesn’t come up until after she and Joyce have had sex. Especially if Joyce just completely forgets and Dorothy winds up somehow hearing about it from Joe instead.

        3. Nymph

          Absolutely! But, again, she’s not having sex with Dorothy ~yet~ and there’s still plenty of time for her to bring up the weirdness with Joe before they get down and dirty.

          And if she doesn’t–then yay mess!! If she does then yay conversation!!

        4. Li

          Basically, heh. Embracing the potential for mess is definitely the more fun way to read.

        5. Big Z

          Certainly she’s not, but I suspect she still feels the obligation of it even if it’s not nearly top of priority list for her, that’s all I was sayin’.

    2. BorkBorkBork

      Technically not boyfriend right now. She came and said they were broken up; he questioned the need to and said he was open to poly. Joyce reiterated that she wasn’t leaving Dorothy and left without addressing it further.

      The way I figure it, their old relationship has ended, and she has not taken Joe up on his new offer. Joe questioning it and offering the poly solution does not mean they haven’t broken up.

      And yes I know the way Joyce phrased it was “You see why I have to break up” instead of “I am breaking up” but they are for all intents and purposes done unless they renegotiate. They are as broken up now as Lucy and Walky were after Lucy walked away saying she deserved better.

      1. BorkBorkBork

        *not taken Joe up yet. I know it’s still up in the air.

        … though honestly, as time goes on, I’m really starting to think she shouldn’t. She only really seems to think about Joe when Joe’s around, and their relationship really hasn’t been much more than pure physical, at least on her end.

        1. Big Z

          Hard disagree, you just have to go back to them sorting out her childhood artwork to completely dismiss the claim their relationship is purely physical.

        2. deliverything

          Also: https://www.dumbingofage.com/2016/comic/book-6/04-it-all-returns/help-2/
          While that’s friendship rather than a relationship, there’s no reason to expect that closeness to go away just because they decided to add physical stuff to their interactions.

        3. Big Z

          … a minor archive binge after that led me to (unrelated) my single favorite Walky moment of all time. Of ALL time.

  45. Pluis

    It’s funny how completely opposite Joyce’s reactions to the idea of sex with Dorothy is compared to Joe’s. Before it was all “I am saying that I want this, but only to convince myself that I want this, even though I don’t really and I’m going to abort at the last second” and now it’s all “I am saying that I don’t want this, but only to convince myself that I don’t want this , because I SO WANT THIS, but not right here in the hallway where everyone can see”.

    1. anonymsly

      It’s funny how people are out here trying to claim that Joyce has zero sexual/physical attraction to Joe when we have a LOT of strips showing that yes, actually, she is very much sexually attracted to Joe. Being wary of the act itself due to lingering rape trauma and a lifetime of purity conditioning =/= lack of attraction or interest

      1. Big Z

        Right? Given her upbringing and traumas (and hell, the “hussy pills” thing is emblematic of all this!), it’s entirely understandable that she’s more apprehensive about penises than non-penises.

        1. thejeff

          While that’s likely to be true, she’s still actually done a lot more with penises (well, a penis) than with other women’s vaginas. We could definitely see some hesitation when it comes to actually doing it.

        2. Big Z

          Right, but also from my own religious-conservative upbringing, the MAIN scares were about PIV sex and specifically about “the risk of out-of-wedlock pregnancy”. IMHO, she’s likely to have more specific hangups around “pregnancy is possible here” than around other penis-involved activities (and she’s shown having to work up to basically every one of those except for the oral sex blanket incident).

      2. Nymph

        Exactly! Even without rape trauma and purity culture, the first time you decide to take on the many responsibilities of having PIV sex (pregnancy potential for one thing, vulnerability with another person, the higher risk of STI transmission, etc) can be scary no matter how much you want it.

        Joyce’s actual label is up to her to decide, but she’s clearly horny about dudes (Joe, Ethan, Jacob).

    2. Dot

      She has yet to actually do anything with Dorothy. We’ll see how enthusiastic she is when the cooters actually comes out.

      1. Big Z

        This is an equally valid point that doesn’t get nearly enough recognition.

    3. Nymph

      In addition to all the valid and lovely replies you’ve had: Deciding not to go through with PIV sex at the last moment doesn’t mean you didn’t really want it or were convincing yourself you didn’t want it. There are a ton of valid reasons (see other comments) and this idea that being nervous/not ready yet means she isn’t actually into dudes is gross actually.

    4. Pluis

      I’m sure there’s people who think all these things, but my post was not about attraction, or reasoning, or trauma. Just about the divide between how she’s going around it. You’re all free to make assumptions about whatever you like, of course, but please don’t attach them to me ^^”

      1. Nymph

        Buddy no one was assuming things about you, we were talking about the WHY of Joyce seeming to approach this differently.

        People talking and not agreeing with you doesn’t mean they’re failing to understand/attaching things to you.

  46. Astariel

    Whee, flying Dorothy!

  47. Disastroid

    Somewhere, Steven Tyler weeps.

    1. Steamweed

      #igotthatreference

    2. Andy

      For those who didn’t. https://youtu.be/h3Yrhv33Zb8?si=rPxfMgk9Qf9PWQQw

  48. Rimwalker55

    Yoink’d her so hard both jackets switched hands. Dorothy is developing rotator cuff injuries.

  49. DashWallkick

    “I had LESBIAN SEX with Joe!”

    and now you’re correcting that by having lesbian sex with Dorothy!

    1. deliverything

      Relevant strip: https://www.dumbingofage.com/2025/comic/book-15/04-the-only-exception/fingering/
      But, as an alternative possibility: maybe she’ll has a crisis of confidence and doubt her beginner fingering skills are “worthy” of the perfection that is Dorothy, but Dotty was prepared for this eventuality and brings out a strap-on so they can have their first shared sexual experience (that doesn’t involve laundry machines) without worrying about being good enough.
      In other words, Joyce has straight sex with Dorothy.

      1. Dot

        I really don’t like the way either of you are talking about this, honestly. Sex between women is gay sex point blank period, using a strap is a skill you have to learn, and Joyce having sex with Joe isn’t something that needs to be “corrected.”

        1. deliverything

          Sorry… I meant it as a joke playing off the “lesbian sex with Joe” thing, but… it didn’t work out very well, did it?
          Actually, part of me realised it wasn’t going well even as I was typing it. I should’ve listened to that little voice.

        2. Yotomoe

          I mean by that same logic sex between a man and a woman is also straight sex. I assume they were just piggybacking off the absurdity of Joyce’s statement.

        3. Dot

          I understand what they were trying to do, I just find the way it was expressed to be distasteful.

  50. Steamweed

    “Zounds, that girl is hornt!”

  51. Nurts2That

    Joyce STILL hasn’t properly broken up with Joe. Please, Willis, let them run into him in her room.

    1. Animedingo

      Or rather dorothy doesnt know she didnt

  52. Anonymous

    I am amused by what (maybe) must have been omitted in order for Jocelyne to no longer be here, after the previous strip.

  53. Hilzabub

    She-Ra: “We’re on the edge of greatness…”

    Dumbing of Age: “We’re on the precipice of hanky-panky”

  54. Suet

    dang it, elevators are fun

    the precipice don’t stop. tik tok, on the clock

  55. Rimwalker55

    Does it seem like Dorothy is constantly pumping the brakes on incipient hanky panky? Is she bashful about jumping into this newfound aspect of her sexuality?

    1. Yun Yi Zhang

      It’s less Dorothy pumping the brakes and more Joyce stepping on the gas with all her weight.

      1. Dot

        It’s a bit of both, I think. Dorothy was the one making an entire list of stuff that had to happen before they were allowed to touch each other.

    2. pjeseb

      Her being bashful might be part of it, but I think Dorothy’s reluctance has more to do with her not wanting to hurt anyone. Especially Walky and Becky.

  56. Jay

    God I wish the early strips were more than just tmr cause fuck id pay money to just see the entirety of the rest of this arc immediately

  57. Rectilinear Propagation

    Wait, does this mean she actually said it?!

    1. NGPZ

      most likely, yes :0

  58. mindbleach

    It is four minutes from the next comic that I realize Dorothy is the one getting yanked in the last panel.

  59. Thing 2

    But, this is downstairs, right?
    Oh wait, they are going to run up the stairs and arrive out of breath and sweaty?

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