Kneed
Posted on December 28, 2025 by David M Willis

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Tags: dorothy, joyce

209 thoughts on “Kneed”

  1. QueenofSodor

    c’mon dorpy, she’s just trying to be constructive here! smh my head

    1. Pocky

      Illicit iguana possession

      1. WillowD

        Illicit but cute.

      2. anon

        i mean, wouldn’t put it past a cop to be petty about confiscating Fuckface too but i imagine malaya will befine/not go down w/o a fight

  2. C.T Phipps

    What are the odds this will end with Joyce being shoved in the back of a police car and driven away while Dorothy helplessly watches?

    1. tim gueguen

      Only if she does something that could be considered obstruction, which seems unlikely for Joyce.

      1. Tessea

        Well she did technically flee arrest at the protest.

        1. Risky

          Twice!

      2. Wizard

        The ICE-holes are currently claiming that recording immigration raids is “domestic terrorism”. Based on existing precedent, courts will probably tell them to FOAD, but that doesn’t guarantee they won’t make some people’s life hell in the meantime. “The process is the punishment.” Locking people up and forcing them to waste time, money and resources on their defense goes a long way to demoralize people even if they eventually “win”.

    2. Stormtide Leviathan

      God I hope so, that’d be so fun. For us not them

  3. shadowcell

    police conclude that amazi-girl is actually fuckface

    1. Andrusi

      Kneedface

    2. Deanatay

      Amaz-iguana.

  4. Doctor_Who

    Plot twist: they are, in fact, doing a routine iguana sweep.

    Luckily Malaya remembered to put the Groucho Glasses on Fuckface today, so they’ll walk right by him.

    1. jeffepp

      No one will ever know!

      Seriously, I almost hurt myself.

      1. Jeff K!

        Unhand her, Dan Backslide!

  5. NGPZ

    noooooooooooo not Sal

    not FUCKFACE

    AAAAAAAAAAAAHUUUUUUUUUUUN ?

    1. C.T Phipps

      Dorothy, did you narc on the iguana!?

      You have strong cop energy.

      1. Clif

        I can’t help noticing that NGPZ didn’t specify not Malia. The other person attached to the room. This is what we call a loophole in the bia.

        1. NGPZ

          truth be told im worried about everyone in that dorm

          in a red state, cops can be especially callous

          ?

      2. Silphael

        Knowing Dorothy, as soon as she realized the system couldn’t help, she read all available sources, and quickly realized that police is not to be talked to.

  6. C.T Phipps

    Prediction:

    They will ask Jennifer to retrieve the Amazi-Girl costume and she finds it in Sal’s closet.

    Check and mate.

    1. Shepsquared

      That’s possible, we don’t know where Jennifer went after class. Unlikely since she lives in another dorm, but possible.

      1. Clif

        Jennifer protects Sal by claiming she found it in her roommates closet.

    2. Carla's #2 Fan

      I was also immediately thinking about how this will lead to more assumptions by Jennifer that Sal is Amazi-Girl

  7. Jay

    Who called it

    1. C.T Phipps

      It’s going to be renamed Its Dorothy and Joyce.

      1. Clif

        It’s Dorothy and Joyce doesn’t happen until after they graduate or the Martian invasion happens, whichever comes first. Though without the Head Alien to prepare us ahead of time, we’re pretty much doomed, so it will be a short run.

      2. Jay

        I meant the amazi girl sal uniform thing ?

  8. Astariel

    I wonder if panel 4 is information that Dorothy got offscreen or if she’s leaping to a conclusion. All Dina told her that we saw was that Sal hid the costume, but not where.

    1. Lumino

      This is what I thought as well.

    2. Thag Simmons

      Dorothy acting rashly and getting in trouble because she doesn’t give her friends enough credit that they don’t need her help would make sense as a story beat.

      But of course, so would the other thing

  9. IntangibleMatter

    Dammit, Fuckface, it’s been a good run o7

  10. Dot

    I’m fine with this cut back to them because it’s finally advancing some plot and they’re actually treating this situation mostly with the seriousness it warrants.

    See? I can be nice.

    1. NGPZ

      I’m hella worried about them screwing up if they decide to enact any hair brained scheme, the consequences could be awful ?

      1. Rosicrucian

        They are the not-so-smooth criminals, after all.

        1. Mr D

          The smooth brained criminals!

        2. Pocky

          hey, “be gay, do crime” is a lifestyle

    2. Tricia

      Dorothy might be, but Joyce is in no way taking this seriously.

      1. Dot

        She’s getting there. Just needs some guidance.

        1. Rosicrucian

          She hasn’t made it quite as far down the “police are not our friends” realization as Dorothy.

          Possibly because someone smooched her stupid right when she was figuring it out.

        2. Tricia

          If she needs some guidance to know that they’re mad they got kneed in the face then she’s beyond help.

        3. Taffy

          Your mom’s beyond help.

        4. Clif

          For a nickel.

          (if you’re dead you’re beyond help. Mike is dead. See how it all fits?)

        5. John Campbell

          :works through the syllogism:

          So… Mike’s your mom?

        6. Jon

          And Bob’s your uncle.

          You’ve got a weird family tree.

        7. John Campbell

          Surely Bjorn Stronginthearm is my uncle.

      2. Nono

        I mean Joyce has shown a lot of compartmentalisation about most of her consequences.

      3. AMagicalDuck

        She considers Malaya a friend and doesn’t want them getting in trouble. Yes it’s far from the largest issue at the moment but she is concerned for a friend’s wellbeing

      4. Needfuldoer

        Since when is Joyce so bad at caring about her friends? That used to be her thing!

        1. deliverything

          Where in this strip does she show that she’s bad at caring for her friends? Despite Dorothy’s “Less important, Joyce!” comment, Joyce’s addition about Fuckface seems to me like simply noting an extra concern, not downplaying the Sal-related one.

    3. zee

      Yeah I felt a pit of dread when I saw the blurred out strip on Patreon yesterday, massively relieved to see it’s still prot relevant

  11. BobC

    I give up. I’m just along for the ride. Thinking is turned off. I’m just surfing the DoA wave. Wherever it carries me. Coral reefs do not scare me now!

    1. Clif

      Congratulations grasshopper. You have achieved Dumbing of Zen.

  12. Bill Erak

    Oh god what are the chances Asher purposefully set this shit up

    1. Ike

      Pretty much zero, I’d say.

      1. Bill Erak

        idk, he was there during the after-protest operation thing. Was the facilitator of it actually

        1. Sarah Lea

          What after protest operation thing?

          Or do you mean Blaine’s death, months before the protest?

        2. Bill Erak

          Yeah. Where he probably saw Sal taking care of AG.

        3. Rosicrucian

          Okay dude, Asher was in that scene. He got Amazi-Girl that doctor. He’s not gonna call the cops on her right after, or some awkward questions would be asked.

        4. Radiance

          Yeah, that would be bizarre.

          I’m more inclined to think Asher was the one who sent the anonymous text warning her. He has at least one source on the inside, so he’d know, and as you say he has a vested interest in Amazi-Girl not getting made.

        5. Clif

          I’m fully prepared to believe that he sent the anonymous text and tipped off the cops. Now the cops owe him a favor and so does AmaziGirl.

        6. Rosicrucian

          Okay I get that Asher is not squeaky clean but I think y’all are going a bit far in ascribing sinister motives to him.

        7. Queen Anthai

          tbh I figured Asher is the one who gave Amber the warning about the raid

    2. RedComet

      imo very low chances since he’s probably the one who texted Amber to warn her about the raid in the first place after helping her get secret medical assistance.

    3. Xccj

      Here’s a conspiracy theory; maybe he did both?

      Tipped the cops off that Amazi-Girl is in the dorm and then gives Amber a warning. Setting up the danger so he can be the hero. And now Amber owes him a solid.

      May be a bit much but hey I can spitball here. 😀

      1. Clif

        This. And also the cops owe him a favor for the tip.

        1. Risky

          The doc tipped off the cops, Asher got pinched and roughed up until he gave them just enough info to save his pitiful life, he managed to get access to a cell (not his for obvious reasons) and sent the text frantically hoping that the cops don’t win and that he doesn’t bleed out.

        2. Clif

          Interesting. Also bold of the cops to tick off his grandfather.

      2. Thag Simmons

        basically the only way it would make sense for him to set this up, and still insanely risky for pretty minimum potential reward

    4. Thag Simmons

      Very low to nonexistent.

      Maybe he wanted to drive Amber into associating with his family, but that is a very high risk play for a thing it doesn’t seem like he would want

    5. Sirksome

      *sigh*…..Okay Asher trusters, I’m seeing a lot of crackpot theories and leaps of logic here and I just gotta say you really need to step up your game with the distrust of Asher here! In that there are very valid and logical reasons to distrust Asher Park that have not het presented themselves. We actually know nothing yet.

      We’ll start here. The main reason anyone even thinks that Asher is the one who tipped off Amber is because of the slow build of strips with him showing some active interest in who Amazi-Girl is. Like these two.

      https://www.dumbingofage.com/2024/comic/book-15/01-love-dares-you-to-change/ispy/

      https://www.dumbingofage.com/2024/comic/book-15/01-love-dares-you-to-change/hotdudes/

      1. Sirksome

        Sound reasoning so far. Between these two strips, possibly instigating Incelerator to draw AG out for confirmation of identity which is just a theory Jennifer came up with

        https://www.dumbingofage.com/2025/comic/book-15/02-the-one-where-jocelyne-returns/coincidence-2/

        It’s often a joke that Jennifer’s intuition is bad, but it’s actually not. She could be accurate about this but it doesn’t even matter since Sal actually just fucking called him.

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

        He definitely knows Amber and Amazi-Girl are the same person or share a body or however you want to classify that dual existence. So maybe he did text her, we should really be asking how he did that instead of why. Cause the why is very simple. He feels guilty.

        Asher set her friends up to be kidnapped, probably got her dad killed, and more important than any of that is by dating Jennifer and now Ethan and thus spending time with the group he actually likes them all now.

        He’s not a villain, he’s a sympathetic bad boy likely a little in over his head with his mob family he fucking lying about not being associated with. So no. He’s probably not working with the cops, he doesn’t need to call in a tip for a bunch of insecure assholes with badges and guns to want to beat up and a arrest the young woman that kicked all their asses. The cops obviously know where AG operates, she’s been in the paper that everyone in Bloomington reads multiple times for just in case they couldn’t solve the puzzle of vigilante that beat me up at IU is probably a student there.

        Asher’s not setting anyone up or trying to bring AG under his thumb or get favors or whatever. Asher is trying to protect his “friends” and make up for his previous bad behavior but because he’s a lying and untrustworthy little shit he has to do it in roundabout ways that don’t directly implicate him which is why you all should really not be trusting him! That’s my guess anyway.

        This little cop event will likely have some unforeseen negative ramifications that could have easily been avoided if Asher had just told people cause that’s kind of just his whole thing. He floats around the morality scale as a sort of sad unintentional antagonist. But you all trust him anyway cause he’s hot and maybe helped get Blaine killed. Fair I guess.

        1. Embe13

          minor note, why do the cops know to target that dorm hall?
          yes we know that it was common knowledge among the maincast that A-girl emerged from that dorm but have we had any confirmation that the authorities would have that info yet? and if they did not have said information prior to this how did they come across the tip. now my worry is that robin and/or leslie since the protest, and that could mean they are in custody and have somehow given the information out (probably under duress).
          now my hope is somehow the info came out of joyces mom and her church, now thye have history with A-girl thwarting their plans, and could have reason to believe she lives in that dorm. and the cops knowingthe church had contact with a-girl contacted them regarding theories to aid them in tracking her down

    6. zee

      Literally 0 I’m willing to bet money on it

  13. RassilonTDavros

    Can’t wait to see how the Usual Suspects manage to fuck this situation up even worse lol.

  14. General Tekno

    There’s an easy way to diffuse the situation – someone should call Dina and have her just walk into the room and take the costume while the cops are in the hallway.

    They won’t notice her.

    1. General Tekno

      …and crap that’s the REAL reason Willis added in Dina/Becky drama, isn’t it? To take her superpower off the table when it’s needed most.

      1. Clif

        But they don’t need Dina. All Joyce needs to do is put the Iguana on her head and as has been established, she becomes effectively invisible.

        1. Joe Angel

          You misremember, the iguana adds to persuasion.

      2. Nymph

        When the world needed her most… Dina vanished.

  15. ZombieKyrik

    I feel like it’s too late to get to Sal’s room, and get the costume, considering the cops have already arrived.

    Btw where is Amber? Please tell me she got down safely, and is hiding from the cops.

    1. Clif

      With some certainty, she is hiding from the cops. Given her current state, safely seems a much bigger ask than successfully.

  16. Freezer

    Seems to me the police would let this one go, otherwise they remind the world that a squad of riot police got bodied by a single UNARMED female in a superhero costume.

    Granted, this is totally something the Bondi DOJ would do, but this isn’t them.

  17. Van Jealous

    I guess if FF has to be evacuated…it might be construed by the police as…The Flight Of The Iguana….sorry…not really…

  18. Icalasari

    …REALLY SAL!? You thought your room would be safe for the costume after she KNEED officers in the face!?

    I… I am surprised, Sal usually seems more paranoid than that

    1. thejeff

      Dina actually said that Sal hid the costume. Unless she told Dorothy more off panel, Dorothy’s just assuming it was in her room.

  19. John Campbell

    Okay, Dorothy, you fucked her brains out. You need to fuck some back in real quick.

    1. Dot

      In the middle of the road?

      1. RassilonTDavros

        Why don’t they do it in the road? No one will be watching them.

        1. Slartibeast Button, BIA

          But that might frighten the horses…

        2. Clif

          Surely someone’s watching the horses.

        3. kdmw

          I ran through the whole song in my head, planning to respond with the next line of the song, before realizing that there is no next line

      2. John Campbell

        Why not? It’s not like anyone’s available to arrest them for public indecency right now.

        1. Clif

          Plot twist. Slaribeast’s horses make a citizens arrest.

          What do you mean their not citizens? They’re clearly equine-Americans.

      3. Needfuldoer

        Maybe they can find a laundromat nearby.

      4. zee

        They can distract the cops by committing public sexual acts. Genius!

    2. Icalasari

      Nah, let’s go for an integer underflow error

      1. Clif

        I lost the context for the comment, but it sounds funny on it’s face.

        1. Needfuldoer

          It’s a problem from ye olde computer days, where if math resulted in numbers outside a legal range they’d “wrap around”. Huge positive numbers became huge negative numbers, huge negative numbers became huge positive numbers.

          For example, let’s say we have a variable that can be any whole number from -10 to +10. If we’re at -8, and we subtract 6, that equals -14, a number the variable can’t hold, so we wrap around and it becomes +7.

          -8 -1 =
          -9 -1 =
          -10 -1 =
          +10 -1 =
          +9 -1 =
          +8 -1 =
          +7

        2. John Campbell

          Basically, you have a number that’s limited to a certain number of digits, and you do math to it that takes it beyond the number of digits it can hold, so the excess digits are dropped. Except usually we’re talking about binary digits — bits — instead of decimal digits. And it’s a little more complicated because most modern architectures don’t use a sign bit; they represent negative numbers using two’s-complement math.

          Also known as the Gandhi Bug. In early Civ games, the AI leaders had an Aggression rating, which was stored in an unsigned 8-bit integer: range 0–255 (0x00–0xFF). Certain effects could reduce the Aggression rating, like the adoption of Democracy, or the development of nuclear weapons. Gandhi had a very low base Aggression rating, and a preference for Democracy. Adoption of Democracy would drop him from 1 to 0. Development of nuclear weapons would reduce everyone’s Aggression by 2, which would drop him from 0 to -2. Only the variable couldn’t hold negative numbers (unsigned), so it would wrap around from 0 (0x00) to 254 (0xFE). So effects that would make everyone else less aggressive would make Gandhi would go from a pacifist to a frothing, nuke-hurling maniac.

        3. Clif

          Okay, shmart guys, having been programing since the 60’s I know full well what an underflow error is. What I would like someone to please explain is the context for Icalasari’s remark. What were they responding to???

        4. Andrusi

          Toplevel comment is a joke about how Dorothy, by figurative “fucking Joyce’s brains out,” also did so literally (i.e. turned her stupid) and now needs to reverse the process, fucking Joyce’s brains back in to make her smarter. The response suggests that this effect would be better achieved by fucking Joyce’s brains out even more until an underflow occurs, causing her to become extremely smart.

        5. Clif

          Thank You!!!

        6. Kevin K

          You keep using that “=” symbol. I do not think it means what you think it means.

        7. Clif

          Assignment! Screw the mathematicians. Oh wait. I’m also a mathematician.

          Never mind.

        8. Embe13

          and you don’t want to get laid!?

      2. Dandi_Andi

        I love the implication that Joyce is normally completely cum brained, but her post nut clarity is god-like.

  20. RassilonTDavros

    For the record, I should note that while Dina did tell Dorothy that Sal had hidden Amazi-Girl’s costume, she never actually specified where Sal had hidden it. Either there was another conversation we didn’t see, or Dorothy is jumping to that conclusion.

    1. Icalasari

      I hope she’s jumping to conclusions. REALLY hope she is, because it’s weird to imagine Sal being that careless about this

    2. Doopyboop

      I think Dorothy’s jumping to that conclusion because she’s scared for Sal and Amazi-girl. I’m not sure where Sal would have hidden it besides her room somewhere though. …Maybe with either Danny or Marcie?

      1. Ray Radlein

        Under an AC unit up on Garbage Roof?

        1. Clif

          Its too dangerous for Amber to climb down without being seen, so she climbs up to the roof.

      2. Queen Anthai

        Amazi-Girl still had the costume when she and Sal left the Mafia Doctor, right? Or at least the underarmor?

        1. Doopyboop

          I think she had both when they were leaving the Doctor, presumably after Amber made it to her dorm room and changed into normal clothes that’s when Sal got her costume and probably the underclothing too.

  21. tim gueguen

    Do you all think Sal is really dumb enough to leave the costume in her room?

    1. Archieve

      Does seem out of character.

    2. Archieve

      Maybe it’s yet another set up for Jennifer finding “proof” Sal is Amazi girl.

      1. EpochFlame

        seems likely

    3. RassilonTDavros

      If by “you all” you mean Joyrothy, then yes.

      If by “you all” you mean the comments section, then lol nope.

      1. tim gueguen

        The comments section has been pretty heavy of late with “Oh noes, Willis is gonna use a trope that was an annoying cliche decades before some of us were born!” talk.

    4. Icalasari

      I know she isn’t that careless normally. I’m just worried Sal may get an entry on TVTropes for this arc for “Idiot Ball” due to suddenly being uncharacteristically incompetent in order to set stuff up

    5. Nadamas

      I don’t know why need to be dumb for that, not like she had any way to know there be police raid

      1. Clif

        Was that not exactly the possibility that hiding the costume was to protect against? Else why bother to hide the costume?

        1. Thing 2

          Burnt it.

    6. Andy

      Sal’s boarding school would have had room inspections. Sal knows how to hide things. Police aren’t more thorough than nuns.

      1. Clif

        I vote for hiding it in the ceiling of Mary’s room. Oh, wait. Is Mary still sharing a room with Roz?

        Nah, I’m still good with it.

  22. Tricia

    If Joyce isn’t going to take this seriously, why should I?

  23. ReFlex76

    “Leave Hanky-Panky Face alone!”

  24. AshleyMagica

    RUH ROH, SKOOKS

    1. NGPZ

      iUnderstoodThatReference.gif

  25. Ray Radlein

    Hey, Joyce and Dorothy, remember when you selflessly went to the protest to rescue your sister and warn her about your dad, and it wasn’t necessarily a great idea?

    Maybe don’t go rushing in to Sal’s room to protect her without checking first to see if that’s a good idea or not

    1. StClair

      But as you just pointed out, that would be extremely smarting of age out of character for them.

  26. Kyulen

    I’m glad Joyce and Dorothy are finally expressing some concern for other characters here instead of acting shitty, but I really hope this isn’t gonna result in them going into their residence hall and doing something stupid that gets them or others hurt by the cops. Though I wouldn’t be surprised if that’s what happens.

  27. John Campbell

    Hmm… They want the costume out of the dorm so the cops don’t find it… but most of their friends live in the dorm. But there are a couple who don’t. So, obviously, Sal should take the Amazi-Girl costume to Billie and ask her to hide it.

    (My tablet actually suggested Billie there, so apparently autocomplete is thinking along the same lines.)

    1. Clif

      Yes, this will indeed be an attractive option. Sal leaves the costume with the one person who believes she’s AmaziGirl. How can this not put Jennifer at the top of Sal’s list of people to turn to.

  28. Stormtide Leviathan

    Has joyce said fuckface’s name yet?

    1. John Campbell

      Speaking as the Official (self-appointed) Counter of “Fuck”s… she has not.

      (Fun fact: If you hover* over the bars on the upper graph, it’ll show you where that bit of the bar came from!

      * Offer void in iOS. It should work on Android, though. Just touch the bar.)

      1. Clif

        AS always, thank you for your public service.

  29. Derek

    Joyce cares more about the iguana than the possibility of Sal getting fucked over by the cops, cool cool cool cool cool

    1. Bryy

      Nah, as a fellow autistic, I can safely say that this is her analytical tunnel vision coming into play.

  30. YourCousinJay

    Man Joyce’s been scattered lately..

  31. DashWallkick

    “Sal is A-G” hitting the news stands, Sal arrested on suspicion of assaulting an officer, released because she’s not wounded and A-G shows up elsewhere? Maybe?

    1. Needfuldoer

      Surly they’d know they’re looking for a short, stocky, white girl? Just having Sal put the costume on should rule her out as their suspect.

      1. Nura Calise

        1) That didn’t stop Jennifer from believing that Sal is A-G.
        2) Even if they can tell it’s not her because the costume doesn’t fit, they can still arrest her for being an accomplice.

  32. JWK

    Have we firmly established that they are after Amazi-girl? I see a twist coming.

    1. tim gueguen

      Mary trying to go after Asma or Carla by planting something in their rooms. Or simply making an anonymous report to harass them.

    2. Stormtide Leviathan

      They said they’re “searching closets” which definitely at least points heavily towards amazi-girl

  33. Dave

    Starting to suspect that Joyce has been disassociating all day to avoid having to tell Dorothy that she hasn’t broken up with Joe, or have her promised talk with Joe, or anything else that would disrupt her new normal. Which would go a LONG way to explain why the Queen of Reaction Faces has been so calm about the consequences her actions have had on her friends and peers. Fingers crossed!

    1. StClair

      Oh, definitely IMO. She’s been trying to live in her (new) fairy tale.

  34. Bryy

    Dorothy is gonna try to say she is Amazi-Girl, isn’t she?

    1. John Campbell

      Spartacus moment for the whole dorm.

      (Walky in back: “I’m nightguy!”)

    2. tim gueguen

      Which would work for about 5 minutes given her now semi-famous kiss picture with Joyce. And her lack of injuries.

  35. NGPZ

    Okay piece of advice for you all

    never underestimate how much your hamstrings could hurt when cleaning your leg with saline wash

    X~X

    1. Clif

      I’ll bear that in mind.

      Get better.

      1. NGPZ

        thank you T~T

        12 days on Keflex already, seems to be helpin it

        lost a few pounds so im underweight now

        blood test came back and revealed im anemic now

        but at least i got iron and effective painkillers

        glass half full

        ;-;

        1. Laura

          So glad you have that iron, at least! Sending you all hopes for smooth and thorough healing!!! ?❤️‍???
          Anemia and being underweight is NO FUN. I really hope you recover fully. ??

        2. Laura

          …I just got my MRI results for my back. Made me sad. All the pessimistic projections.

          Still, my spinal cord itself is intact and unimpinged. Just the nerves branching off of it are impinged. So… glass half full?
          ?

          Gonna have to keep working on it… ⚕️

        3. NGPZ

          ????

        4. Laura

          Thank you, hon’.? I appreciate you.

        5. Laura

          In case it might help, I’ve been meditating to this “pain relief sound” for the past three hours straight. It seems to relax me.
          https://youtu.be/yqy1WIGxPFw

  36. Shogo

    I guess racists are gonna racism, but I’m pretty sure the fundamental problem with all this is that Amazigirl is like publicly known? And documented?

    There’s plenty of evidence that Amazigirl is an overweight white girl and not a skinny black girl. Like, she got into a fistfight with Sal at a political rally? There should be assloads of pictures of that confrontation alone. (Which just makes Jennifer all the more stupid.)

    1. Risky

      Even if they are checking every room and find the costume and don’t immediately assume one of the occupants of that room is Amazigirl, one or both of them are being detained for questioning and probably arrested for abetting etc.

    2. nadamás

      Amber isn’t Overweight??

      1. Needfuldoer

        “Stocky”, maybe. She’s 5’2″ of solid muscle who somehow still looks like a squishy IT nerd.

        This is why BMI is a bad metric.

        1. deliverything

          Not that implausible, actually. It’s known as a “sleeper build”, I think… Subcutaneous fat may conceal muscle (and can protect from impacts somewhat) but doesn’t hamper it.
          Basically, the top layer’s squishy but what’s under it isn’t. Kinda like a T-800.

        2. Clif

          Let’s not forget that Amber trains and her body plays Roller Derby. I would imagine a large part of that is muscle.

        3. John Campbell

          I’m in my 50s, and I’ve been spending my weekends doing full-contact martial arts in heavy armor for the last thirty years. I’ve got enough middle-age padding that it’s not obvious how much of what’s under it is dense fast-twitch muscle. (I don’t float in fresh water.) And, like Amber, I’m built on a wide frame, though for me it’s shoulders, not hips. Upshot is that I’m heavier than I look, strong enough to toss a 300-pound armored fighter, and faster than a guy my size has any right to be. My BMI has shot way past merely “overweight”, and is well into “obese”. BMI wants me to lose about 70 pounds. If I did, at least 50 of that would have to be muscle mass, because I’m just not carrying that much fat.

          BMI is a horrible fucking metric, and the guy who invented it should be dragged out into the street for public ridicule and then flogged once for every person he’s given crippling body-image issues to. (He wouldn’t survive it, but he’s been dead for 150 years anyway, so.) It’s just a height/weight ratio, with an exponent thrown in as a sop to square-cube law, but it has no way to tell the difference between fat mass and muscle mass, and just assumes that any mass beyond a certain very low threshold is fat. It has no way to tell what someone’s frame is like beyond the simple height measurement, and that’s highly variable. Amber’s built on a broad-hipped frame, so even if she were skinny, she’d be heavier and so have a higher BMI than, say, Dina. The exponent is too small — even taking into account that taller people are usually (and that “usually” is covering up a plethora of sins in itself) not proportionately wider, the exponent should be more like 2.6 than 2.0. And some people are Just Bigger, and should get the full cube exponent. As a result, if two people have exactly the same proportionate build, the taller one will have a higher BMI than the shorter one. (Amber gets a break there, but on the other hand, the Amazi-Rack.) Its threshold for muscle mass is too low, so basically anyone who regularly exercises is going to build more muscle than it accounts for, so as a result, it considers healthy athletes to be at least “overweight” (though this does not imply that everyone it considers “overweight” is a healthy athlete), and guys like Joe and Jacob are absolutely going to be “obese”, because it has no way to tell the difference between someone built like them, and someone built like BoB Guy.

        4. deliverything

          From reading https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Body_mass_index :
          Apparently, it was devised by Adolphe Quetelet, who intended it as some kind of average across a population, not a measurement for an individual (though apparently he thought being average was a social ideal?).
          The actual person who promoted its use for individuals (and might therefore be a more suitable flogging target) was Ancel Keys, who apparently thought BMI was “if not fully satisfactory, at least as good as any other relative weight index as an indicator of relative obesity”. If this was true, those “other relative weight indices” must have been terrible.

        5. deliverything

          Oops… I misunderstood on first reading. Apparently, Keys didn’t intend it to be used for individuals. Seems like that was actually a gradual thing that started happening because measuring properly was more difficult and costly, so many doctors took a shortcut that could, I suppose, have been adapted based on the individual, and then this got generalised to the point of being applied to social policy and the like.
          So… I don’t know who deserves the flogging, sorry. But we shouldn’t blame the inventor of the simplified method for the misuses perpetrated by people long after his death.

        6. NGPZ

          Good lord as someone whose BMI legit JUST crossed into underweight,

          did not expect so see this kinda discussion here @-@

    3. Adept

      In what sick world is Amber overweight? Jesus.

      1. zee

        She’s been getting called chubby since the start of the comic, and slowly over time that’s morphed into curvy and buff as all get out

      2. YourCousinJay

        She’s overweight in-universe, more specifically she’s got kind of a dadbod situation going on for her with a strong muscle foundation but no cut down fat giving people the impression she’s chubby.

        Even Mazzie comments Amber should probably get into better dietary habbits despite their overall great physique

    4. C.T Phipps

      She hasn’t gotten any pictures of her so I would assume she’s far from well documented.

    5. sickolesbian

      cops do nooooot care

    6. Reaver

      Amber is nowhere near overweight, I’ve seen her do backflips, she’s 100% muscle-

  37. Risky

    Maybe Sal is “doing laundry”, and by that I mean washing clothes in the washing machine with borax or enzymatic cleanser to get some of the blood out of her uniform.

    1. Thing 2

      Good place to leave it then! slash mark and all. It is dispensable. Another can be made.

      1. Shadowsnail

        No need to make one. Two words: alien symbiote.

        1. deliverything

          NGPZ might join the cast? That could be fun.

        2. NGPZ

          the venom suit from SpiderMan; the kamui uniforms from Kill La Kill;

          to be worn by one of the cast, by Dina especially, would be a dream come true

          T~T <3

  38. Tenzhi

    Butt wither; fuck face. Dammit, Jerry!

  39. Da Boy

    Aw shit, Billie will be proven right in the worst way possible.

  40. Allen Alberti

    Don’t trust Sirksome’s silence? seriously you ok?

    1. Clif

      Sirksome is here today with a well reasoned analysis detailing why we shouldn’t trust Asher conspiracy theories. And also why we shouldn’t trust Asher.

      Note, I said well reasoned, not correct.

  41. Alaric

    My own autism is quite different from Joyce’s in some ways, but I identity with her strongly here. She’s not trying to imply that the two things are equally important. She’s just trying to be complete. And it can be frustrating when people interpret that as indicating that they’re equally important.

    1. Serendipity

      Oh good I’m not alone. I had the same thought.

    2. Dandi_Andi

      Yeah, even if they’re not of equal importance, this is still a perfectly logical connection to make. “Cops are searching for contraband. What other contraband will they find? Can we smuggle it all out at once?” Or alternately “Cops are threatening my friend, Sal. Who else are they threatening and can we solve both problems at once?”

      1. Andrusi

        Along these lines, aren’t Sal and Malaya roommates?

        1. Dandi_Andi

          To the best of my knowledge, yes

        2. Andrusi

          I don’t know if Joyce has made that connection, but if she has then she might think Fuckface is potentially a Sal problem. “Hi, I’m a cop in Joyce’s imagination. Oh, this room has an unauthorized iguana! This disrespect for authority is just what you’d expect from a COSTUMED VIGILANTE! SEARCH THIS ROOM THOROUGHLY!”

  42. Hydrohead

    Sal can just claim that it was a Halloween costume, or something a partner requested for an RP ‘date’ night.

    1. Da Boy

      Probably won’t work since it must have blood on it

      1. deliverything

        Hey! Don’t kinkshame!

        1. Clif

          This also assumes the cops will be asking questions.

    2. Stormtide Leviathan

      She can even honestly say that her boyfriend has a thing for amazi-girl

  43. ESM

    I love that Dorothy is using generic ‘Social Media” instead of Bluesky or Twitter or TikTok or whatever. Obviously you wanna try and future-proof the comic a little, the social media landscape is in flux right now, just sort of funny.

    Although, given how mad everyone was about the all-important newspaper cover, maybe social media is a new thing in the DoA-verse.

    1. John Campbell

      The Ruttech platform is just named Social Media™.

    2. NGPZ

      I mean gotta be careful tho, “Bulmeria” was a country name which was probably chosen with that intention as well, but backfired o3o

      Hell there’s even a whole Dumbing of Age Tumblr post Willis wrote about the caveats of trying to future-proof his comic with, well, the tumultuous way the world is right now ?

      I think it is VERY much worth a read

      https://www.tumblr.com/dumbingofage/788887077478645760?source=share

      1. ESM

        I think a lot of the webcomic “Strong Female Protagonist”, which wasn’t even set in our world and yet Trump’s election just completely invalidated it and the creators had to drop it.

  44. yak

    Did Dina say it was in Sal’s room? I thought she just said that Sal hid them.

  45. foducool

    what do you mean “less important”? fuckface is the most importantest thing!!!

  46. ElderlyMarxist

    oh fuck no 🙁

  47. Jdorr

    Uh oh uh oh uh oh!

  48. Handley Ramirez

    Man. Fuckface is getting deported, isn’t he?

    1. NGPZ

      nooooooo ;-;

  49. John Campbell

    Okay, even the server thinks it’s after midnight, and it still hasn’t updated the comic.

  50. Toes14

    Like the Amazi-girl costume would even come close to fitting Dina . . . She’d be swimming in it!

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