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That’d be nice
Posted on September 8, 2025 by David M Willis

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Tags: dorothy, joyce

Discussion (0) - “That’d be nice”

  1. YourCousinJay

    It’s like she’s magnetically drawn to Joyce lmao, Dotty getting more downbad than Becky was

    1. YourCousinJay

      ngl tho, for as funny as it is for Dot to teleport onto Joyce between strips after excplicitely saying they shouldn’t do anything while they’re there. If nothing happens for much longer imma actually crash out.

      Like to the very least flip the camera to walky or joe for a while, or hell show me more random students gossiping about the news like I’ll take anything at this point

      1. Annaphylaxis

        Yeah I very much need something to actually *happen*, and soon. Preview comics seem to indicate that it will, tho.

  2. shadowcell

    Dumbing of Age Book 16: nope nope nope nope

    1. Nymphie

      NO NOT READY NOT EVER READY

  3. Summer

    These two are way too scared of communication for any kind of polyamorous situation to work out successfully

    1. Dot

      Hell, I have doubts about a monogamous situation.

      1. anonymsly

        Particularly so as Joyce doesn’t seem to have much in the way of sexual impulse control atm, and Dorothy seems to do things specifically so she can feel awful and beat herself up about them moderately frequently.

    2. Kyulen

      They are incredibly bad at communication.

      1. Freezer

        I think one needs to parse that one out. Joyce is still getting used to communicating in ways/with people that aren’t Christian Fundamentalist. And the Autism doesn’t help with that. Dorothy, on the other hand, is very good at communication… As long as it’s not about her.

        But yeah, there’s a real chance they fail to communicate themselves out of this relationship before it can really start.

    3. GholaHalleck

      You can tell things are dour when this is just about the only poly talk I’ve seen so far.

      1. Donovan

        The public isn’t ready for my galaxy-brain Asher-Ethan-Joe triad

        There’s MY poly talk

        1. GholaHalleck

          On a visual level I am down. Plot wise to get them together would be hard.

          Maybe Joe has a secret stash of Prototype Wreckers on display on the fourth wall and Ethan goes into full Omega heat at the sight of it.

        2. gamtos

          Galaxy brain: “tall hunky jewish good. Asher can join.”

    4. Decidedly Orthogonal

      The fear isn’t the problem. Bravery is being afraid and doing it anyways. But letting fear drove avoidance is a problem.

      Of course this entire comic has always been about young people learning and growing. Saying something can’t ever work seems… rash.

  4. The 25th

    You can’t run away from your problems forever Dorothy, no matter your cross country experience

    1. Slartibeast Button, BIA

      “You can’t run away forever. But there’s nothing wrong with getting a good head start.” – Meat Loaf

    2. Freezer

      “Watch me!”

    3. Pocky

      gotta get those running shoes ready, because running from your problems is the longest and hardest marathon on earth lol

    4. Decidedly Orthogonal

      Life is like a box of chocolates…

      1. tim Rowledge

        You mean because it’s got a lot smaller and more expensive recently?

        1. Clif

          Stolen!

        2. Jon

          Expensive and bad for your teeth.

  5. Thing 2

    A. She’s asleep/resting
    B. Pull yourself together Dorothy

  6. Tessea

    You gotta face her sooner or later, Dottie!

    1. Doctor_Who

      The nice thing about “sooner or later” is that not only does it present “later” as an option, but it also does not define the magnitude of laterness.

      1. Slartibeast Button, BIA

        The nasty thing about “sooner or later” is when it becomes a BS excuse for not being willing to admit you aren’t ever going to do it.

      2. deliverything

        Well, the heat death of the universe is probably a firm deadline.

        1. eh, whatever

          Not if the expansion of the universe is fast enough.

    2. StClair

      [citation needed]

      1. Tan

        Citation: https://www.dumbingofage.com/2020/comic/book-11/01-this-bright-millennium/groove/

      2. Tessea

        Citation: They live together.

        1. Tessea

          Oops. Tan beat me to the point with visual evidence!

  7. katerly

    I get the feeling Dorothy isnt as confident with this situation as Joyce is

    1. Freezer

      #HearMeOut: Ever since it became clear that Joyce was Really Into Dottie (and it wasn’t just Autism-fueled mixed signals as I originally thought), I have wondered how much of of her thing was genuine same-sex attraction and how much was A) her desire to transgress against Christianity B) her hangups with sex and sexuality (though we’ve seen the right trigger will cause her to blow (hur hur) right past those).

      1. eh, whatever

        Joyce is really not a natural-born contrarian who does things just to transgress.

  8. Slartibeast Button, BIA

    Is this “mindful” in the new sense that I’ve never gotten around to figuring out, or the older sense?

    1. Matt Beardface

      Mindful as in “thoughtful”, I’m pretty sure. Mindful in the new sense is more like “meditative” or “self-aware”.

      1. Clif

        I thought mindful has always meant aware and attentive.

        1. a/snow/mous/e

          I think the difference is whether that awareness is directed at yourself or others. It’s always meant to be aware and attentive of others’ needs and desires. The other kind of mindfulness is more like being aware of your own mental state, rather than just being considerate of people’s feelings.

  9. Kyulen

    Just rip the bandaid off and talk with Becky already.

    1. ReFlex76

      She.
      Is.
      At.
      Church.

      1. perpetual summer

        And? They should still talk with her. Someone commented about this multiple strips ago, but it’d be so easy to text Becky & tell her they wanna meet up instead of worrying they’ll randomly run into her – pretty easy to tell why that’s not happening though! (see: Dorothy) (also, drama)

        1. Kyulen

          Yes, they could do this instead of trying to come up with all sorts of excuses to avoid talking with Becky.

        2. GholaHalleck

          You know how badly I want them to just kick in the door of the church and have Dotty do the “HAHAH I WON! YOU LOST! JOYCE IS MINE BECKY AND JESUS! I WON! HAHAHAHAHAHA!” thing?

          Maybe have her tip over the Eucharist like a gatoraide bucket.

        3. Yumi

          Okay, missed the context for this comment at first, thought Dorothy was saying this to the church (that connected to Joyce’s upbringing or at least represented it), thought it was maybe odd but was onboard.

        4. GholaHalleck

          I mean both can happen. Becky’s church, then they take the bus to the cult church. make a weekend of it.

        5. pig

          She should go to the service, run down the aisle, grab the dish of communion wafers, and fling them all dramatically into the air

      2. Bryy

        That’s perfect drama, though. Taking over the sermon.

      3. Taffy

        Church famously lasts forever. Becky will never return from church.

      4. thejeff

        Dorothy seems to think she might be next door with Dina and is panicking about it.

        1. anonymsly

          Dorothy seems to enjoy panicking/self-flagellation and actively look for excuses to do both, no matter how minor.

          She’d be in tears over Walky’s 100 nuggets all ‘I am fully responsible for the state of his colon, I’m such a horrible bongo’ if she knew about it.

      5. Big Z

        So put on some Hozier while on your way there.

    2. Yet_One_More_Idiot

      Dotty: Or – counterpoint – how about no?

  10. Masha

    Honestly can’t tell if I’ve turned into a sicko because I want them to fuck already so we can do something else or some version of paladin that wants someone to come in and tell them to shut the fuck up so we can do anything else.

    1. Masha

      The monkey’s paw cursed option is that they fuck but then continue to have this same conversation in 2-3 more locations.

    2. Wraithy2773

      I mean, I think “EITHER FUCK OR GET OFF THE POT ALREADY” is a valid stance to have in general. 😀

      1. Freezer

        That was my take on her and Joe. And we see where that’s led.

        1. Freezer

          “her” = “Joyce” (Stupid lack of an “edit” button)

    3. Erica

      Maybe Willis needed to drag this out with a bunch of filler strips while they figure out how to rewrite the three years of plot they scrapped

      1. Dot

        They were a year ahead before these strips started posting, the rewrites and adjustments have mostly been to make the Muslim cast more prominent

        1. Doopyboop

          https://www.tumblr.com/dumbingofage/tagged/preview%20panels

          To back up what Dot said, if you scroll through the preview panels here you will see panels from strips that we have now started to see. For example, the one with Jennifer talking to Dorothy and Joyce about their kiss was posted in November of 2024. Like Dot said, the main shuffling of the year long buffer was to incorporate the Muslim cast since otherwise Asma wouldn’t have reappeared until like, a year after the protest was posted.

          Also wish people would stop taking Willis’ “yeah I didn’t think the kiss would happen until five years from now” to mean he literally threw five years worth of comic in the trash can. The decision to have them kiss was made while he was clearly writing/drawing the strips out.

        2. thejeff

          OTOH, he’s clearly done something, since the buffer watch is much less than it was before this arc started. It’s only at February 2026 now and I know it was down to November, maybe earlier for a bit. He’s clearly seriously reworking something that’s coming up.

          I doubt that’s affected the pacing of this part though, other than a couple of strips added to fit Asma/Raidah in.

        3. deliverything

          Maybe that’s just how far they’re scheduled to automatically update, and past that the sequence of strips just isn’t set? Could well still have about a year’s worth waiting to be organised.

        4. Dot

          Could also just be it ticks over to whatever date was most recently uploaded regardless of whatever later strips might still be queued.

        5. AK

          He said it’s not that a lot has been canned but he’s added enough stuff in the queue that it was easier to just remove everything and reupload stuff, so it’s probably up to where the new additional strips are.

        6. Doopyboop

          AK is correct; for example, the initial date that the November 2024 preview of Jennifer/Dorothy/Joyce was posted was meant to be August 31st and it wound up being posted September 3rd. The discrepancy in dates accounts for the two strips of Asma and Raidah and Alice that were added. Strips are certainly being reshuffled but ONLY to allow the addition of new strips rather than removing large chunks of strips.

        7. Dot

          Yeah, bingo. The premature firing of the DoJo gun is factored into any strips that came after.

      2. GholaHalleck

        Oh God, the Tear Gas Wedding really IS the Red Wedding! No one let Willis buy a trampoline!

        1. Dot

          Don’t let Willis anywhere near Meereen dawg

        2. Thag Simmons

          BRB, gonna go write a 3000 word essay about why Asher is the one who poisoned the locusts

    4. zee

      I’ve ascended beyond sicko or paladin. I just want SOMETHING to happen. If I have to wait another 24 hours just to watch these two be “””adorkable””” for yet another strip in gonna fucking lose my mind

      1. Donovan

        Yessss reject the false dichotimy with me

        1. Taffy

          All dichotomies are either false or dialogue options in a Telltale game.

        2. Big Z

          Which are all also false, because the same thing ends up happening either way.

      2. Taffy

        “Tomorrow’s strip is on Patreon” I don’t trust that they’ll be doing anything tomorrow, either.

      3. Nymphie

        Bored bard?

      4. Rose by Any other Name

        **everyone getting frustrated with the romantic holding pattern**
        vs
        **me, a romance novel enthusiast who is absolutely used to reading entire 100k word novels where the author drags her feet on getting the couple together for 90% of the book only to finally have an overly brief resolution in the last 20 pages**

        Yall don’t know from frustration.

        On a more positive note, I was pleasantly surprised by a recent novel I read where the couple got together at the 40% mark of the book.

        1. Jon

          Even outside the genre. In the Seanan McGuire/”Mira Grant” novel “Feed”, there were hints of tension between Shaun and Becks (mostly on Becks’ side, for reasons that would become obvious much, much later). They were finally resolved about halfway through the sequel, “Deadline”. (“If Dave were still alive, I’d owe him twenty bucks.”) That also lent a great deal of tension (not sexual this time, thank the gods) to Becks’ reaction to the big – nay, enormous – twist in the third book, “Blackout”.

          This is just a short pause.

    5. Tessea

      I wonder if at the time people got tired of the kidnapping storyline and wanted to go back to anything else. Let the man tell his story.

  11. Doopyboop

    They’re gonna go somewhere they expect Becky not to be, like a men’s only strip club or something, only for Becky to be there was a waitress.

    “Yeah uh. I needed some extra money. What uh, what’re you two doing here.”

    “DEFINITELY NOT HIDING OUR SAPPHIC LOVE FOR EACH OTHER FROM YOU”

    1. Erica

      They could go get pizza at Galasso’s…

      1. Doopyboop

        The perfect place for a first date! Can’t imagine anything bad coming from that1

        1. Embe13

          likely how it will happen becky’ll be at work after church and se them walk by hand in hand (now i have no clue of the iu geography but what if they had to pass golassos leaving the protest and becky saw them go by then holding hands, hell they were told to not take their normal route)

  12. Nubetrasnochada

    She hasn’t been those things consistently for a while Joyce, depression drain them outta her.

    1. GholaHalleck

      Since the start of the comic really. Her trying to be an ideal and failing utterly is her Hat. I used to respect that she at least got back up and kept trying, but this is… not that.

  13. Dot

    JUST FUCKING TALK TO HER

    1. Dot

      this is so BORING

      1. Animedingo

        Yup

      2. Donovan

        STYROFOAM

      3. Dot

        It is just beyond ridiculous that Becky’s reaction gets all this buildup and tension and we didn’t even get to see Dorothy and Walky have a conversation.

        1. ReFlex76

          You saw the conversation.

          If Joyce hadn’t interrupted, Dorothy would still be trying to break up with him.

        2. Dot

          Fucking GOOD. I WANTED a long drawn out conversation between them. Clearly, I’m annoyed I didn’t get that!

        3. John Campbell

          You wouldn’t have gotten that anyway. You would’ve gotten Dorothy meandering around the point without saying anything meaningful until something else interrupted them or Walky decided to just cut to the chase. Seriously, the girl spent an entire summer failing to break up with Danny.

        4. Dot

          I was going to say I’d have hoped she’d have learned from her mistakes but then I remembered that this is Dorothy and that’s just not something to expect from her.

        5. GholaHalleck

          I mean, she probably has her notes from the last time she broke up with Walky, she could just use those.

        6. anonymsly

          She has now failed to break up with Walky several times. Arguably her first attempt (ruined almost immediately by her booty-calling him) was the best effort, but that means none of her notes are useful.

        7. The Queer Agenda [frog memes]

          Walky would probably rather chew his own leg off to escape than have that conversation, though.

        8. anonymsly

          So the argument is that the only way Dorothy got broken up with Walky was because Joyce did it for her. Dorothy wasn’t getting anywhere on her own.

        9. Dot

          And I’m criticizing the choice to write that scene that way. It wasn’t inevitable. Dorothy is not a real person.

        10. anonymsly

          Dude, not sure why you’re snapping at me. I came in on your side, replying to the person who told you you’re wrong because we saw Dorothy break up with Walky.

        11. Dot

          Apologies if I misread your tone! That’s my bad.

          Please don’t call me dude, though. I’m a trans woman.

        12. Jon

          Intending no disrespect, Dot, but that’s not immediately obvious from either your screen name or your avatar. Please extend patience to those of us (like me) who are/were not aware of that fact.

          Also, while Dorothy is not a “real” person, she is a defined character within the story, with certain traits that she’s living up to here. If one starts treating one’s characters like mere plot points, with no characterization of their own, one’s story quickly falls apart. I’ve read plenty of those..

        13. Erica

          If they could be half as callous to Becky as they were to Walky we’d be done already

        14. ESM

          Even with all there’s build there’s like a 50/50 chance Becky’s reaction is just “neat!”

      4. Mal

        It feels like manufactured tension at this point. Or, not manufactured tension, but prolonged tension. Because now that Dorothy and Joyce are actually together–apparently several years early– there’s no tension THERE anymore, so new tension has to be leaned on.

        It’s like when a horror movie has a really, really, really long draw back shot down an empty hall, or a really, really, really long panning shot around a shadowy room. It’s obvious what the film is doing: either something is going to jump up and scare the audience, or, TWIST nothing happens but you were braced to scared so HA, TENSION! And that works for a while. But if the film does the same thing again, and again, and again, or the shot gets longer, and longer, and longer, it doesn’t stay tense or interesting. At some point you’re you’re justing sitting there waiting for something to happen.

        And unfortunately in the Dorothy/Joyce scenes, so far the camera keeps holding a shot only for basically nothing to really happen. Will Becky be the dramatic “jump scare” we’ve all been waiting for after Sal, Jennifer, Daisy, Booster, Walky, and Joe fizzled out [for now]? Maybe, but the tension is gone, now it’s just…waiting to see if there’ll be payoff.

        1. Dot

          I am sympathetic to having to find new tension points and experiment after a major plot point arrived earlier than you were expecting, but lord is it boring to watch in real time.

        2. GholaHalleck

          This entire thread of comic is the long pan of the Enterprise in the first Star Trek movie. We get it. It’s a finished ship. Can we *do* something with it now please?

        3. StClair

          You’re supposed to admire the ship, because she is gorgeous.

        4. Dot

          In this case it’s as if the whole Enterprise was painted beige. Impressive production, sure, but too dull to admire.

        5. Embe13

          i think you underestimate the excitement of beige, now hospital green, dear god it sounds like a douglas addams ship

        6. Taffy

          Nobody’s bold enough for the ship to be yellow, I guess.

        7. Embe13

          yellow isnt inherently boring

        8. Taffy

          Correct. It’s a nice color that catches the eye. Nobody’s spaceship is yellow, because everyone in the universe is a coward except for Ms. Frizzle and Naboo.

        9. Big Z

          No, worse. This entire thread of the comic is the long pan of the (brand new, significantly better looking model) Enterprise … if it had happened AFTER the rest of the movie.

          We are all already WELL AWARE of what these two dorks look like when they’re flailing at bad communication and not actually accomplishing A Relationship, we don’t need to keep lingering on it just because they technically have finally accomplished A Relationship.

        10. Li

          Which is why I personally don’t think this is about Becky at all. I think it’s all about Dorothy feeling a ton of anxiety at the idea of Performing a Sex With Another Girl, potentially made worse by fear of hurting Joyce, definitely made worse by Joyce being equally completely inexperienced with Sex With Another Girl but seemingly expecting Dorothy to know exactly what she’s doing.

          I’d be dying of anxiety and finding excuses to stick to just kissing too if it were me.

        11. Dot

          I’m unconvinced it’s so much anxiety about having sex with a girl. I am much more partial to the idea that, as has happened before, Dorothy doesn’t know how to deal with success and needs to contrive a way to work herself into panic mode to avoid actually dealing with the success she has in front of her.

          I don’t think it’s likely that Joyce is going to expect Dorothy to know how to eat pussy like a champion right away, she’s fully aware that Dorothy is just as inexperienced of the praxis of lesbian sex as she is.

        12. Li

          Re: your first paragraph: do we have an example of that happening other than possibly Yale? It makes sense to me but I’m not sure I remember it being a recurring pattern.

          Re: your second paragraph: I mean, check yesterday’s alt text.

          Dorothy has done nothing to make Joyce THINK she is an Expert on all worldly things, and indeed every time a worldly thing comes up, Dorothy has tried to tell Joyce as much, but Joyce keeps expecting her to know everything anyway.

          It started with expecting Dorothy to know everything about college parties even though Dorothy had never been to one, and continues in the present with expecting Dorothy to know everything about trans people, even though it sure seems like she and Dorothy have the exact same amount of personal experience there. Dorothy does do her research when she knows there’s something to research, but that’s about it.

          Joyce keeps expecting otherwise, though.

        13. Li

          *day BEFORE yesterday’s alt text!

        14. Big Z

          I could buy into that, although I suspect Joyce has just as much anxiety and is running through the “I’m super into this until the last minute” like she did with Joe and PIV sex.

        15. Li

          Maybe! But Joyce said she found the idea of sex with Dorothy a lot less scary than sex with Joe, and I’m inclined to believe her.

          Ryan trauma + fundie religious trauma, which in Joyce’s case was intensely focused around PIV intercourse and sodomy (Two Penises Variety ™) as being bad and evil (outside of marriage for the first one, generally for the second one)).

          So I think Joyce genuinely thinks there’s nothing to be nervous about with Dorothy.

          She might find out that she feels differently once they’ve started! But right now I think she has all the excitement and none of the nerves.

        16. Li

          Correcting myself: Joyce said having sex with Dorothy would be “so much easier” than having sex with Joe. I am assuming she means less scary, but she might have meant something else.

    2. ReFlex76

      “Her”? Amber?

      Joyce to Dorothy?

      Dorothy to Joyce?

    3. zee

      Dawg I was dying on the Patreon yesterday ong they’re such momentum vampires
      I’m gonna cry if this ends in an anticlimax. With all this buildup Becky better have an explosive ass reaction

      1. Taffy

        Becky better stab somebody

      2. tyersome

        I’m not sure I understand why Becky having diarrhea would be appealing?

        1. Taffy

          It would be funny, at least.

        2. YourCousinJay

          Itd be something, at least.

        3. Taffy

          Yeah, I’d settle for “something” at this point.

        4. Freemage

          Not appealing, but definitely amusing:

          Panel 1: Becky, on toilet in stall, looking a little green. Joyce looks over the stall wall from the next stall over, smiling. Joyce: “Hey, Becky, Dorothy and I need to–”

          Panel 2: Joyce pulling Dorothy up to look over the wall as well. Dorothy is muttering something about boundaries. Becky is now looking seriously distressed. Joyce: “We need to–”

          Panel 3: F/X: Large letters indicating extraordinarily wet Word Replaceing noises. Dorothy and Joyce both reel back in horror.

          Panel 4: Dorothy and Joyce, tumbled into the bottom of the stall, clearly rendered unconscious either by the fall, the stench, or both. F/X continues from prior panel.

          For the next week, all four panels are the same shot, but with increasingly horrific and graphic noise F/X.

          Next strip to move the action forward, Panel 1: Becky, laid back on Dina’s dino, still looking a bit seasick, as Dina spoons soup into her mouth. Dina: “I did tell you not to try to engage Walky in a McNugget-eating-contest.”

          Panel 2: Becky, weak voice: “Worth… it… At least I won. Oh, I think Dotty and Joyce mighta smooched or somethin’.”

          Panel 3: Dina: “Well, if so, you won that bet.”

          Panel 4: Same Joyce/Dorothy panel as before, but now they are surrounded by a purple-green miasma.

          See? Comedy gold!

      3. Freezer

        Actually, an anti-climactic “Yeah, I suspected. Why do you think I was nice to Dotty allasudden?” ending is my preferred outcome. “Womp Wooomp” type endings are my jam, TBH.

        1. thejeff

          It seems almost necessary after all this buildup.

          But at the same time I want some payoff.

        2. Big Z

          Sheesh, you must be eating this entire storyline with a spoon, then, because it’s been wall-to-wall “whoops, all ‘no one cares'”.

        3. deliverything

          Well, except for Sarah. And I linked that not out of concern you might remember, but because you might like to revisit a moment when someone had a reaction.

        4. Freemage

          The issue is that Sarah’s reaction was, frankly, part of the build-up–she was expressing concern for others who might legitimately claim to be hurt by this, and for how it would affect Joyce (and possibly Dotty) once the ramifications of their actions were known.
          However, if everyone else on the list of potentially upset folks (Joe, Walky and Becky) are all chill about it, then it actually re-contextualizes Sarah’s reaction from sisterly concern into worry-warting.

        5. Lumino

          I think it actually damaged Joyce’s relationship with Sarah. Because Sarah now knows that Joyce casually betrayed a good person who trusted her and doesn’t seem broken up about it.

          Sarah, a person with major trust issues, will be hit hard by that.

        6. Big Z

          Hah, I did remember, but I’m also kinda counting that as “no one cares” because Joyce and Dorothy certainly didn’t care about her mild disapproval.

        7. Big Z

          See also this strip immediately after where Joyce’s reaction to being chastised is “try to smooch Dorothy, express that BC is no longer needed”.

        8. Freezer

          Yes, actually.

    4. Gotthammer

      I gotta go right now she said urgently having done absolutely nothing with urgency since.

    5. Spacie

      I feel like Milhouse watching Itchy and Scratchy…and Poochie.
      ” When are they going to get to the fireworks factory?”

  14. Wraithy2773

    Dorothy feels like someone that really, really, REALLY does not want to cause harm to anyone. She wants to get along with everyone and be good to everyone and everyone getting along great.

    Yes, this is not always possible, but look, I’m a lot like that too, it can be a bit tricky to discern when that’s not really viable, and it really nut-punches the idealism when it does.

    Hence her reaction regarding Becky, nicely emphasized here. She wants to be true to herself and good to Joyce and all that jazz, but it comes with a huge “I’M HURTING BECKY SO BAD AND SHE DOESN’T DESERVE TO HURT SHE’S BEEN HURT ENOUGH FOR FIVE LIFETIMES ALREADY” asterisk.

    Sooooo, run and hide from the consequences of your life, surely that will make everything better!

    …teenagers are allowed to be a little dumb, okay? >_>

    1. YourCousinJay

      “Dorothy feels like someone that really, really, REALLY does not want to cause harm to anyone.”

      Well…. bit late for that, lol

    2. Kyulen

      If she’s been trying not to cause harm to anyone, she’s definitely not succeeding.

      1. nadamás

        I mean that’s kinda the point it is plainly not possible

        1. Wraithy2773

          …thank you for getting the point.

        2. nadamás

          I cannot tell if you are being sarcastic

        3. Ornathe

          I don’t think it’s sarcasm. There is no way Dorothy could have navigated this without hurting anyone. The only “option” I think some people might have considered “not hurting anyone” would have been continuing to repress and deny her feelings for Joyce, and I don’t consider that to be harmless because that was clearly harming her.

          Like, I fully agree. Dorothy doesn’t want to cause harm to anyone. The fact that it was pretty much inevitable doesn’t change that, because most people don’t want to harm people but will still do so at least occasionally by virtue of people needing and wanting different things. That’s the case for everyone, and the point, I think.

    3. StClair

      She thought she could be President and only do good things and nothing bad and Fix Everyone’s Problems.

      1. GholaHalleck

        And her first step in that master plan was to dropkick her BF to the curb on move-in day. She’s been a “I am a good person… Oooo Shiny!” since day one, but it’s taken til now for a lot of folks to see it.

        1. nadamás

          What does that have to do with anything? Breaking up with her boyfriend that she just didn’t like anymore is at worst a nautral act.

        2. Freezer

          But she did still like him. She admitted to him when they got back together that her breaking up with him was a mistake. Yeah, she broke up with him again a week later (in-story), but the point still stands.

        3. nadamás

          I was talking about danny not Walky

        4. Freezer

          Ah. My bad.

        5. Dot

          I don’t think this is a fair characterization of what happened, but the fact that she had not definitively dumped Danny before the start of the semester is kind of her core issue in miniature.

      2. Wraithy2773

        Yup, teenagers can be a little dumb. *points at title of the comic* 😀

    4. Dot

      She doesn’t want to hurt anyone, but she does. And she never changes the behaviors that are causing the hurt, either. It’s one of her main flaws.

      1. Big Z

        That’s kinda her thing: “I’ve tried changing my long-range goals, and nothing else, and I’m all out of ideas!”

    5. GholaHalleck

      Its just weird she seems fine with hurting Joe and Walky, but Becky counts more.

      For JOYCE that makes sense, but Dotty’s known Becky for like.. Four months? Tops? And while she’s got her hang ups about Joe’s being an asshole. Walky’s been nothing but good to her, and he’s an afterthought at best for her.

      1. Dot

        She’s not fine with hurting Walky, she beats herself up for it all the time. She just doesn’t then make changes to her behavior so that she stops hurting him.

        She doesn’t like Joe.

        1. Wraithy2773

          Also, lets be real: Joe and Walky have had very minor levels of hurt in their lives compared to Becky.

          Yes, Walky’s dealing with his parents’ racism, and Joe with his father’s flagrant infidelity and how that’s impacted his life…

          …but Becky… her mom committed suicide, she was kicked out of college for being gay, her father tried to kidnap her at gunpoint, her father then helped kidnap her friends and was an accessory to killing one of them, oh yeah she thought her best friend was actually gay/bi but turned out she wasn’t except that best friend is now bi for Dorothy…

          …its not really comparable. I get why Dorothy is more worried about hurting Becky than she is for hurting Joe or Walky.

        2. Embe13

          agreed, also becky is her roommate. she has her desk and bed in the same room as her.

        3. ESM

          ….Does Dorothy actually know that Becky is in love with Joyce?

        4. Dot

          I feel like that’s one of those things that we can safely assume, even if it wasn’t stated on-panel, that it was explained to her off-panel.

        5. Embe13

          yeah she makes it pretty obvious when she arrives on campus adter getting expelled, wuth all the antagonistinc behavior and dotty becoming the new best friend. she may even also bring it up when they become roomates

        6. GholaHalleck

          See, I don’t think she actually does care though. She pretends to care, she is currently lying to herself that she cares, but if she actually cared, she’d not keep doing the same things over, and over, and over again.

          I have a theory about it, but I’m blanking on the terms and I’d rather not get it wrong.

        7. Embe13

          her behavior is very untreated nuerodivergent, i got my adhd diagnosis 2 years ago, really helped explain my issues with difficulties changing behavior habits and being able to present the lessons learned from mistakes. and let me tell you IT FUCKING HURTS when you know you are making a mistake, you KNOW you should do it, yet you do it any way. like you try and try to not do the things that hurt those around you, and you struggle and struggle year after year and only get such incremental progress you question your own fucking sanity. so yeah dorothy does care you better fucking believe she cares, she just isnt able to stop and may not be able to with out outside intervention and even possible medicated help.

        8. deliverything

          If not wanting to do something was all it ever took to stop doing something, we wouldn’t need therapists.

        9. Embe13

          amen!

        10. Jon

          “If she ACTUALLY cared she would stop making the same mistake” isn’t really how human brains work most of the time.

          You can be absolutely torn up about something and still fail to do it. Whether due to mental illness, trauma, neurological differences…there’s a lot going on in the human brain.

          It’s not a blanket excuse for bad behavior but claiming she doesn’t care is inaccurate I think.

        11. nadamás

          Yeah yeah whatever you say ghol *pat* *pat*.

        12. The Queer Agenda [frog memes]

          Y’know, when it comes to Walky, I’m not entirely sure she’s fully aware of how he feels. I don’t think he’s ever actually told her, and she seems kinda shit at reading emotions (especially her own.) She worries about hurting him because she’s a worrier, but she might have been operating under the assumption that Walky prefers a casual thing and never updated his preferences.

      2. The Queer Agenda [frog memes]

        Becky is her roommate, has no support outside of their friend group, and Joyce is basically Becky’s only remaining family. If the boys never want to speak to them again, sucks but everyone will manage in the long run. A major falling out with Becky is more complicated.

        (Personally, I think Becky will be ok or her problem will be with identity shifts, and Dorothy’s anxiety is making her overthink until she spontaneously combusts.)

    6. Thing 2

      And… in short, Dorothy is… Dorothy.

  15. Joe Moose

    [gif of Donald Duck jumping on Bugs Bunny, shoving him down the hole]

    “Get back in there! Down, down, down! Go, go, go!”

    1. Freemage

      Donald or Daffy?

      1. Taffy

        They specifically said Donald.

        1. Freemage

          They did, but Donald is a different IP-holder, so I’m trying to imagine any time there might’ve been such a clip to make a gif from. I’m wondering if Joe Moose made an error and typed one name instead of another, as Daffy Duck jumping up and down on Bugs’ head is something that has probably occurred at least once.

        2. Jon

          In their takeoff of the story of Aladdin and the Forty Thieves. When they came up inside the cave full of gold, Daffy tried to stuff Bugs back into the hole, convinced Bugs was going to try to take it all. (Later, when he accidentally released the genie from the lamp, he tried stuffing the genie back in the same way. That… was a mistake.)

        3. StClair

          “Consequences schmonsequences, as long as I’m rich.”

  16. IntangibleMatter

    Dorothy has apparently figured out a way to perform a gravitational slingshot off of Joyce, this has major implications for physics.

  17. Dot

    The only thing that’s interesting to me about this situation is Joyce obviously still having rose-tinted glasses towards Dorothy’s very apparent and transparent flaws

    1. YourCousinJay

      And that swing does go both ways cuz Dotty also definitely has a victim identity build around Joyce to the point of her nightmares just being hundreds of Joyces needing to be rescued by her

      Like the potential is there we’re just not doing anything with it (yet? like if Willis doesn’t tap into this storywell that’d be a damn shame)

      1. Bryy

        Heck, even in this strip, there are remnants of “our attraction is trauma response”.

        1. Dot

          One thing I am looking forward is Dorothy having to deal with the fact that, yes, her love for Joyce is actually tangled up in her (undiagnosed?) PTSD, and a healthy relationship with Joyce (and an even remotely functional hinge with Joyce and Joe) is going to require her to work on untangling that. Which may mean having to stop lying to her therapist.

    2. GholaHalleck

      I actually REALLY want a Joyce/Walky convo now. Joyce with stars in her eyes with Walky covered in nugget boxes and reminding Joyce of all the times Dorothy has scrunched his feelings.

      1. Mal

        Oooooh, I’d actually love this. Both as an acknowledgement moment for Walky, and a denial moment for Joyce after she insisted Dorothy couldn’t bring out bad things in her.

        I still say get Booster involved and just have them eviscerate the situation as only Booster can. Like how Alice did a run down for the audience recently as a re-cap, only a much less “awesome gossip” version and a more “hard truths straight to the nose” version.

      2. Rogue 7

        That’ll just nake Joyce want to jump Dorothy’s bones even more.

        Not sure if that was what you were going for.

    3. Freemage

      Well, there IS a reason for this. How Joyce just described Dotty is, in fact, how Dotty is–with Joyce. Even her more questionable decisions (first laundry) have generally come from a place of wanting to help and protect Joyce, and Joyce sees that.
      What Joyce hadn’t grappled with is that, in many ways, she’s the exception, not the rule. Dotty is fully willing to leave a campus of carnage behind her if it means she gets Joyce in the end, even if she didn’t realize for so long that that was her actual goal.

  18. darkoneko

    Joyce your mere proximity keeps makes Dorothy dumber

  19. Suet

    Dorothy is less ready than Joyce? This ain’t Freaky Friday anymore

    Very Mindful, Very Demure Honest, Very Unafrai–

  20. ReFlex76

    This is why Joyce has Dorothy listed in her contacts as Roll, Perfect Cinnamon.

    This is how she sees her.

  21. Sirksome

    I’d make a don’t trust bit but obviously Dorothy already doesn’t trust herself to be happy.

    1. Bryy

      Jennifer has a type.

  22. Donovan

    I wonder what my toxic yaoi is doing right now.

    I hope Asher is teaching Ethan to money-launder. Depressed boy needs more transformers.

    1. Dot

      I have to imagine all my OTPs are having a great time right now. Becky and Dina having wonderful lesbian sex because they trust themselves and each other enough to be fully open and intimate. Billie and Ruth are reconciling and looking at one-bedroom apartments. Sal is helping Danny get her first HRT appointment. Wholesome stuff.

      1. Donovan

        Good for the girls

      2. Yumi

        Malaya has finished up what they were doing in the bonus strip and is now using their tongue to trace out the ASL alphabet on Marcie. Those two aren’t necessarily an OTP for me, but I want good things for Marcie.

      3. Big Z

        *gestures at pedestal* This is where I’d put my imaginary visions of my OTP having a great time right now…

        … if it wasn’t JOE AND JOYCE.

        1. Dot

          Hope springs eternal, comrade!

    2. Sirksome

      Asher mentioned!?

      He probably lets himself bang his boyfriend for any reason and doesn’t care about the gay friend it could upset. You can trust him on that. Good for him.

      1. Donovan

        it IS good for him

        1. Dot

          It’s good for both of them. Asher/Ethan is a tinderbox but so long as the match isn’t lit everything’s gucci.

        2. Donovan

          I’m in my ill-advised asbestos suit its okay

        3. Dot

          What’s a little mesothelioma between friends?

        4. Thing 2

          Itchy?

        5. Taffy

          Tasty.

  23. gnoka

    like what would they even do if they got a bad response from becky? it’s not like they’d break up over it

    1. GholaHalleck

      It’s not been four days, they can’t break up yet.

      1. zee

        God that would be the funniest conclusion at this point tho…

        1. Donovan

          Could you IMAGINE the comments

        2. Thag Simmons

          we’d be so mad

        3. ESM

          Becky is 100% cool with everything and then Joyce/Dorothy break up immediately for unrelated reasons. I wouldn’t even be mad, it’d be so fucking funny.

        4. Xujhan

          Honestly it would redeem this entire storyline for me. People want mess, I say give it to ’em.

        5. Jon

          Speaking as someone who *really* dislikes Joyce/Dorothy as it stands currently, I’d be livid if they broke up now xD

          All that heartache for nothing. It’d be a power move for sure though.

  24. Yumi

    This is me projecting for the sake of speculation, but I wonder if Becky’s treatment of Dorothy is a serious factor here. Becky’s investment in the rivalry/nemesis bit is based on joking, and Dorothy knows that. Becky has just recently demonstrated that she sincerely cares about Dorothy. BUT.

    If you hear these kind of things in jest, there can still be a background part of your mind going, “but what if it wasn’t in jest?” There can be a part of your mind that’s not working with you in terms of getting jokes. So your unconscious could think, “what if these little things really do make her hate me.” And then there’s the big thing, and it’s like… worse that you don’t usually think it’s serious, because you sincerely care about her, and she cares about you, but now you’re going to LOSE that and she’s going to HATE you, and she’s given you plenty of warning, this is really your fault, you really are as awful as she says–

    Or, yknow, Dorothy’s reaction is for comedic effect and just highlights a general avoident tendency.

    1. Sirksome

      I think it can be both and probably is. Sometimes things done in jest can still have harmful effects and Dorothy is also very avoidant and regularly questions letting herself be happy at the expense of others. I don’t think she’d be nearly this hesitant if Becky weren’t so possessive of Joyce and regularly reinforcing that rivalry because of it.

    2. Li

      Honestly, I’m not sure this is at all about Becky. I think Dorothy has major performance anxiety about being with Joyce. And maybe also regular anxiety.

      She’s repeatedly expressed fear of Joyce getting hurt. Not entirely unlike Joe’s repeatedly expressed fear of hurting Joyce.

      JOYCE kept saying she’d have an easier time sleeping with Dorothy. DOROTHY has never said anything like that.

      1. John Campbell

        I suspect Joyce has some major and very specific anxiety about a penis going into her vagina, but it was only yesterday morning that she even began to consider that maybe other things could possibly count as “sex”. Thus going all the way with Joe is scary, but there’s nothing she can do with Dorothy that’s a problem.

        Dorothy, on the other hand, is comfortable with sex, but she’s still coming to terms with being gay for her bestie, and probably would have spent the entire semester pining after Joyce without ever actually getting up the courage to say anything if Joyce hadn’t taken the initiative.

        1. Li

          Yeah.

          It’s a little ironic of course but it’s very much what I think is going on here.

          ‘Course, it’s also extremely effin relatable to me personally, I see a lot of my own performance anxiety in Dorothy’s behavior right now! So I could be projecting. But yeah.

          I don’t think this is actually about Becky. I think the idea of going further than kissing is both exciting and extremely scary for Dorothy, and Joyce trusting her so completely is the opposite of helpful for that fear, heh.

        2. Rimwalker55

          That feels like a very good read.

        3. Li

          Heh, thanks 🙂

        4. thejeff

          It wouldn’t surprise me if there was something to that, but it’s not all that’s going on here. It’s not performance anxiety that’s keeping Dorothy from going next door to check on Amber because Becky might be there. Might be what made her suggest checking on Amber in the first place, but the panic over telling Becky seems real too.

        5. Li

          I think the “panic over telling Becky” is rising continued anxiety over the thing I just explained, which is real, and that’s why it seems real.

          I think her system is flooded with cortisol and that’s making her spiral.

          We will of course have a better idea of whether or not I am correct over the next couple of strips.

        6. thejeff

          Maybe. That kind of seems like it could fit today’s strip. I don’t think it works so well for earlier reactions to talking about telling Becky, all the way back to the the first time they talked about it when they got back to the dorm.
          If it was just spiraling over sexual anxiety it doesn’t seem it would be confined to Becky, but Becky’s always been the big focus. For both of them.

        7. Li

          I didn’t mean to imply ALL previous reactions were about this. Just the one happening right now.

        8. AK

          I think the person who talked about Dotty not wanting to hurt anyone more or less had it. Breakups are one thing, but they’re normal. She’s done them before. Becky and Amber are both glaring examples of her failure to make everything good for everyone in much less practiced socially scripted ways, and I without the script I don’t know that she has a good feel for how to handle either.

        9. Li

          Also possible? 🙂

    3. Thag Simmons

      Especially since Becky’s pretend rivalry is obviously her way of venting off some actual jealousy, or at least started that way

  25. Animedingo

    Ok lets count the number of current problems

    Joe has given joyce permission to date dorothy but clearly has mixed feelings about it.

    Joyce hasnt told Dorothy that joe gave her the pass.

    They havent told becky and apparently arent going to.

    Joyce doesnt know about amber yet

    Dorothy continues to play with walkys feelings

    Ronda or whatever her name is, the snobby one who hates sarah, wants to break up sarah with the whats his name. And shes spreading rumors as she does.

    The only relationships that seem to be stable are sarah/guy, lucy/jacob, and danny/sal

    1. Animedingo

      Forgot about ethan and asher

    2. Slartibeast Button, BIA

      “Ronda or whatever her name is,”

      Raidah

    3. Dot

      Clearly Joyce has some vague idea about amber.

      1. zee

        I don’t think so. I think she heard “check in on amber” in a very generic way, like oh yeah amber/mazi was doing crazy things at the protest, we should go see if she’s alright “. Not “she was for sure badly wounded and we’re worried about her.” Ik dottys pretty distracting but I think if righteously furious Joyce had even an inkling about what happened to amber she’d have made that very apparent by now. She’s gonna be fuming when she finds out

        1. Dot

          Yeah that’s what I’m saying, she has an idea that Amazi-Girl was at the protest and probably got roughed up, but not the details.

    4. YourCousinJay

      “The only relationships that seem to be stable are sarah/guy, lucy/jacob, and danny/sal”

      Becky & Dina?

      1. Animedingo

        Forgot about them

      2. Animedingo

        Lets see how that lasts after becky finds out

        1. Freemage

          Also, Sarah/Tony is considered to be ‘potentially endangered’, depending on how Tony’s dad defends the administration’s actions in calling in the cops, and how Tony, in turn, reacts to that.

          Essentially, a similar potential vibe to Charlie/Carla.

          I suppose technically, Mary/wassisname might be stable, but none of us really wants to talk about that–Mary ain’t even on the cast page.

    5. Lee

      Plus Alice going around being as messy as humanly possible gossiping about people she hasn’t even met. Surely there’s a plan for that to contribute in some way to the drama.

    6. Jeff K!

      It continues to be wild to me how unimportant Tony is in this series considering how important he was in It’s Walky, that people just call him “guy”.

  26. ReFlex76

    Confirmation: If Joyce had not interrupted, Dorothy would still be trying to break up with Walky.

  27. John Campbell

    Okay, Dorothy, this is easy. Take a page out of your girlfriend’s book. The two of you just need to go find Becky, and then you go, “HAHAHAHA I WIN!” and then ostentatiously make out with Joyce in front of her.

    If Becky’s not prepared to be arch-nemesed at, she shouldn’t have started the arch-nemesing.

    1. Dot

      It’d give her even more of a complex but on some level I think Becky would respect it.

  28. Dot

    Mx. Willis… the servers…

  29. Dean

    If they want to avoid Becky, the only logical option is to lock the door and stay in this room forever.

    1. John Campbell

      Just one minor problem: Becky has a key.

      1. StClair

        Yes, but we’ve seen a solution to that: break off the knob, then move a desk in front of it.

        1. John Campbell

          Becky’s girlfriend has a key to the adjoining room.

        2. ZombieKyrik

          Barricade the connecting door.

        3. John Campbell

          I’ve seen enough Jurassic Park to know that won’t keep Dina out.

        4. SillyGoose

          But it’s not Dina they’re worried about. Nor Sal, who can still ise the window. So it’s clearly a foolproof plan

        5. Li

          I’ve seen enough of this comic strip to know that when they finish barricading the door, they’ll turn around and Dina will be standing directly behind them.

        6. Dot

          Clever girl.

    2. Taffy

      They could just shoot her.

  30. Gotthammer

    So this whole thing started when they went to the protest to warn Jocelyn that her dad might be on to her. Which then led to Jocelyn being on the front page of the paper. But apparently they have completely forgotten about that since Jocelyn contacted them about the paper first and it was brushed past with an off-hand remark.

    So what was so urgent Joyce had to run off on Joe for? Surely not talking to Daisy because that was a nothing sandwich where Joyce just said a couple of quips about her comic. Jocelyn being outed by their actions hasn’t even entered their minds and just seems to have vanished as a concern.

    There’s all this stuff that should be happening but instead conversations are avoided for a “joke” (Dorothy and Walky) and we just get strip’s of them talking about the idea of talking to Becky.

    1. Dot

      What’s frustrating about this arc is that the forward momentum is in fits and starts, like a sputtering engine. It feels like we’re finally building to a dramatic beat, then it gets pushed down the road or resolved in an anticlimax. It feels like we’re going nowhere fast.

      1. Gotthammer

        Indeed. I don’t like this arc personally, but I can acknowledge the potential for mass drama and interesting interpersonal conflicts it can create.

        Eg. Becky pissed because she views cheating as morally wrong, Dina & Wonderbread pissed because they’re Joe’s friends and past beef with Joyce & Dorothy respectively, Sal pissed via Danny and Walky, Jennifer pissed for Walky, Sarah pissed because she’d come around on Joe and she hates drama in her house. Hell, even have Daisy pissed because Dorothy was meant to be on the AG beat and failed to cover her being there.

        Suddenly their friend group has imploded and their living situations are terrible. It’s great drama without having to drag out a strawman hatesink like Mary.

        But for all the talk of sickos loving the drama I’m not seeing anything actually happening that qualifies. It’s all potential drama. Joe is quietly imploding (though some disagree on this so maybe he is actually fine), Walky is apparently fine, Jocelyn being in the paper doesn’t matter, Billie can’t help but complement Joyce and Dorothy while lightly scolding them etc.

        If there’s going to be drama, actually give me drama thank you. If not, spare me from this endless nothing.

        1. Kyulen

          I definitely feel like several of us in the comments were expecting a lot more drama and characters being upset about how Joyce and Dorothy have been acting lately than what we’ve seen so far.

        2. OngoingConversation

          I strongly doubt that Walky actually is fine. We know him, and we know he doesn’t react visibly when he’s upset. Him being quippy and then apparently chugging along is perfectly in character, we just have to wait for his eventual imploding.

        3. Gotthammer

          Maybe, but the possibility of something maybe happening in three to eight months is hardly compelling.

        4. pig

          Oh yeah, he’s super not fine. He used the phrase “coping mechanism” and bought 250 chicken nuggets. He’s not doing well today.

      2. Yeet

        that’s what it’s like when you’ve got two people who don’t know what the fuck they’re doing (but with opposing energy to that effect) working together though – they spin in place

      3. Blume

        It’s kind of like a wild goose chase, vibe wise.

    2. Thing 2

      Yep. Altho I am the most placid of placid “just read the comic, dude” people, even I wonder whether they are having fits of transient global amnesia, or something. I mean I know my priorities aren’t anyone else’s priorities, but… have they got any?

      1. Big Z

        As far as I can tell, Joyce and Dorothy’s ENTIRE priority list is as follows:

        1) get REAL horny for each other to the point they forget what they were doing
        2) abruptly decide some random thing is REALLY important and has to be done RIGHT NOW
        3) run at full speed to DO THE THING
        4) arrive, and completely half-ass doing the thing, possibly forgetting the impetus for doing the thing in the first place
        5) go to step one

        1. deliverything

          Small correction: it seems like “go to step one” can happen at any point in the sequence, seemingly at random.

        2. Dot

          You forgot “treat Becky’s reaction like it is somehow the most pressing and important factor in this entire affair”

        3. Freemage

          “… but don’t actually do anything about it.”

    3. Jon

      Joyce ran off because she seriously thought she could somehow have Daisy un-publish the paper. She wanted to tell Jocelyn that she thought Dad might know, which is, y’know, probably something Jocelyn would be interested in, but the whole “police attacking us and suddenly I realize I love this girl” drove that out of her mind. Remember that all of this is taking place the next morning. I know it’s been a couple of weeks for us, but not for them.

      Then she wanted to go break the news to Becky, hopefully before Becky saw the paper, but Becky appears to be at church with Dina (and hopefully Dina isn’t engaging the pastor in a debate right there at the pulpit). So right now they’re catching their breath. Maybe in ten or fifteen minutes/another three weeks of strips, Joyce will remember to ask Dorothy about exactly how open their relationship should be.

      1. Freemage

        Y’know, the thing that would salvage this storyline the most for me would be a cut to Dina, at the church, gnawing on the pastor’s head while explaining how his entire cosmology is absurd.

  31. YourCousinJay

    Sometimes I kinda wonder how Willis gets anxiety about any storybeat not hitting cuz especially with more and more peeps crashing out at the storypacing as of late, cuz these things are made like months in advance so that has to be like watching the world’s slowest car crash in real time

    1. YourCousinJay

      (speaking of anxiety, not having an edit button while being a poor proof reader will kill me one of these days)

      1. YourCousinJay

        *If Willis gets anxiety about any storybeat not hitting

      2. Embe13

        you are speaking my language my dude!

    2. Reaver

      I glance at how long his que is and just resolve to be along for the ride because this is his story he wants to tell and I’m just here to sit and eat popocorn tbh

      1. Thing 2

        Yeah. Me too. Only very recently, But, I am currently puzzled, however. Still, trust, eh?

      2. nadamás

        Finally someone who gets it!

      3. The Queer Agenda [frog memes]

        Hell yeah, I’m here to eat popcorn and see what happens. The question is not will something go boom, but which thing and when. If it’s not this, Willis has plenty simmering on the back burner.

        I think it’s interesting to analyze the characters, but I try to stick to just that. Writing a character does not automatically equal endorsement of said character’s actions, and flaws make them more interesting.

        1. thejeff

          For flaws to make characters more interesting, the flaws have to be treated as flaws. And the narrative here seems to going out of its way to minimize the flaws involved.

        2. Li

          Genuine question:

          If you agree with TQA[fm] about depiction of flaws not necessarily equaling endorsement of flaws, how would you distinguish between that and “the flaws have to be treated as flaws”?

          Genuine question. Because I think the current strip is an illustration of one of Dorothy AND Joyce’s flaws (Dorothy’s anxiety (general, on whatever topic we think that anxiety concerns), plus the pedestal Joyce has her up on)… but I suspect you mean more than just “flaws should create problems for the character”?

        3. Li

          I’m so glad I wound up with two genuine questions in that comment……….. sigh!

        4. YourCousinJay

          If I could give my two cents, they kinda go hand in hand atleast in this case.

          Character flaws create conflict which create interesting story.

          So to give a character a flaw but then not have said flaws pay off in actual story potential would be to rob the story of interesting conflict, and in turn kind of absolve the character of said flaw.

          Like if a flaw never pays off in any way it’s not really a flaw, just a character quirk

        5. Li

          I don’t agree. I think there’s a big difference between character flaws just existing and informing characterization (which may or may not always have significant impacts on a given story featuring those characters) and character flaws having explicit, specific negative consequences, and I want to know which thejeff means when they say “character flaws need to be treated as flaws“.

        6. Li

          Also, “absolve” is either a poor word choice or a revealing one? I’m not sure which. But “character flaw” is not synonymous with “character wrongdoing”.

        7. YourCousinJay

          absolve is the intended word

          character flaws don’t always constitude wrongdoing but flaws often are the cause for wrongdoing. if wrongdoing occurs such as for example, someone’s anger leading to them lashing out to another. and the story then doesn’t resolve the actual consequences of said outlash and instead continue with their status quo, then the narritive has effectively absolved the character of wrongdoing while snubbing the narritive potential of a situation created through a character flaw.

          obviously not all flaws always create wrongdoing, Percy Jackson for example has explicit fatal flaws and at times through channeling those same flaws they greatly benefit their allies. Though if a flaw never creates negative consiquences entirely then it’s not a flaw in the first place.

        8. Li

          Okay. I agree that that is true of media intended for children. I do not agree that it is or should always be true of media intended for adults.

        9. Li

          like, let’s look at three different adaptations of Sherlock Holmes in semi-recent decades.

          1. House, MD — a loose reimagining, in which Holmes is instead a doctor named House who solves medical mysteries with a friend named James Wilson instead of John Watson.

          2. Sherlock — in some ways an even looser reimagining, but meant to hew closer to the books: a modern retelling.

          3. Elementary — another modern retelling.

          All three of these shows start with their main character being an asshole genius who has one real friend and a few other people who like him to varying degrees.

          House ran the longest and was the most episodic, being from a slightly earlier era of television. Its characters were all pretty static, which means that while the main character does, sometimes, push people too far, and attempt to make amends, it never really sticks. Indeed, in many ways, the main character gets worse over the course of its nine seasons!

          Sherlock only lasted the rough equivalent of four seasons, each of which had three ninety minute episodes. Its main character was also pretty static, but occasionally the writers tried to pretend he’d become a better person, or that he was at least ever a decent friend to John.

          Elementary, coming in squarely between the length of the other two and also being both more episodic than Sherlock but more serialized than House, also opted to give its Sherlock a character arc that actually sticks. He starts out as a huge piece of shit, just like the other two, but the people around him refuse to put up with that, so he’s forced to change his behavior.

          If you’ve seen any of these three shows: the first and third are actually equally good, IMHO, and the problem with the second one really isn’t that its Sherlock is a jerk who doesn’t change significantly over the course of the show. You can have a perfectly good story where the characters are mostly static, flaws and all! It’s genuinely completely fine.

          But if your characters aren’t going to change very much, they need to be strongly defined, and they need to either interact compellingly or have something very interesting to do — and BBC Sherlock fails pretty much all three of these hurdles. Only Sherlock is actually well-defined, and even his relationship with John, the theoretical lynchpin of the show, isn’t especially compelling as-written. (Which is probably why the writers kept trying to fake viewers out with the return of Moriarty after his death.) Then, the actual murders they’re supposed to be solving? Well, this creative team obviously either isn’t very interested in or just isn’t very good at writing murder mysteries! They’re poorly structured and they get solved almost entirely off-screen, with the equivalent of technobabble.

          I probably still wouldn’t have loved BBC Sherlock even if all of its other problems were fixed because I, personally, just don’t find Benedict Cumberbatch’s Sherlock nearly as charismatic as Hugh Laurie. But that would be down to personal taste.

        10. Freemage

          Looking at House, specifically….

          I’d say that the show absolutely does treat his flaws as flaws (albeit slowly). He loses multiple people in his life, precisely because of his misconduct. He also suffers other consequences–jail time, institutionalization, multiple near-total crashouts. That he, himself, is frequently unchanged by these events in the long run, doesn’t mean that the audience isn’t shown that he is a deeply flawed character and that these flaws are destroying him.

          So far, the only consequence to Joyce and Dorothy’s flaws in this storyline is Sarah’s Disapproving Stare–which, as I pointed out up-thread, is harder to take seriously because so far, all of the people who she was mad on behalf of have turned out to “Oh, no big deal”. That is what happens when flaws aren’t treated as flaws.

        11. thejeff

          I don’t think the first question necessarily applies to my point? I wasn’t thinking in terms of endorsing flaws when I wrote that, but in terms of narrative/character payoff.
          That said, I do agree about “depiction of flaws not necessarily equaling endorsement of flaws”. I don’t think there’s any formulaic way of telling when either the depiction is an endorsement or when the flaws aren’t being treated as flaws.
          And yes, we can certainly point at examples like the anxiety in this strip of particular flaws being problems for the character. Neither I nor anyone else here has ever said Willis never treated flaws as flaws.
          We’re talking about the cheating of course and how it’s been minimized at every stage. I don’t think that’s in any way an endorsement of it by Willis though. I think it’s more of an unwillingness to commit, possibly due to Willis being uncomfortable writing cheating stories, which I think he’s said.

        12. Li

          OK, but you were replying to someone whose objection was specifically “writing flaws does not equal endorsing them”, so it seemed like a response to that part, and I was curious as to how.

          I also don’t really think I would call “cheating on their boyfriends” a character flaw for Joyce or Dorothy, not because it’s not a bad thing to have done, but because, to me at least, “character flaw” suggests a pattern of behavior, not a one-time mistake.

          (Will this become a pattern? Who can say! But it hasn’t yet.)

        13. Li

          Aha, re-reading I see I made a mistake!

          Writing a character does not automatically equal endorsement of said character’s actions, and flaws make them more interesting.

          Two separate points.

          Still, I don’t think the cheating is one of Joyce or Dorothy’s character flaws; I think it’s just a mistake they’ve made, which is currently still causing ripples, though I cannot stress enough that everyone for whom the ripples are not big enough has my sympathy! I think that’s a very very reasonable take.

  32. SillyGoose

    Ok I wasn’t convinced by the “Dorothy is stalling” arguments so far, I now officially admit, yep, she’s not ready for sex with Joyce, apparently

    1. Taffy

      She’s not ready to order a sandwich at a restaurant, in this state.

  33. stellatedHexahedron

    the longer this goes on the more convinced i am that becky’s gonna be like “finally! welcome to the club, sister!”

    1. Pergola

      “Toldja Girls Are Rad. What took you so long?”

  34. Taffy

    Good grief, can Joyce just gently but firmly push Dorothy onto the bed and fuck the panic attack out of her already? This is excruciating now.

    1. nadamás

      Just imagine what it’s like from inside Dorothy head.

      1. Taffy

        Full of carrot shavings and mole hair jackets probably.

        1. nadamás

          I fell that is a reference to something I don’t get

        2. Taffy

          Me when I feel like that’s a reference to something I don’t get:

  35. ESM

    Dorothy and Joyce should have sex in Becky’s bed and then Becky should walk in and be really happy for them, just to see how the reddit reacts.

    1. nadamás

      Careful some people here gets real pissy if you complain about the subreddit.

      1. ESM

        I’m not complaining, honestly. People are allowed to hate this storyline and if they choose to hate this storyline somewhere where Willis isn’t obliged to look at it that’s just good manners on their part.

        It’d still be really funny.

    2. Taffy

      They’ll complain. That’s their entire thing. What is there to “see”, when it’s the same reaction every time, regardless of stimulus? They don’t get what they want, they complain. Something they asked for happens, they complain. Their dad buys them a good car without expecting any form of compensation, they complain. Their houses burn down, they complain. Their houses don’t burn down, they complain. It’s all they know how to do. If you want to see them do it, they’re doing it right now, and you can see it happening in real time.

      1. ESM

        I don’t read the DoA subreddit so I went and skimmed it and honestly they’re not doing much of anything. Most posts have like 10 comments and then the strip with Joyce laughing at Walky has a few hundred, which is clearly mostly people who don’t regularly post there and even then 200 is not a lot of comments. It’s like six full-time haters and every now and then a bunch of people from here crash on their couch when a strip comes out they really don’t like.

    3. The Queer Agenda [frog memes]

      I think it’d be funny if Becky turns this around into triumphantly reclaiming the “Joyce’s best friend” title, because now Dorothy has been side-moted to Joyce’s girlfriend instead.

  36. Wilde

    Not reading comments on this plotline/these characters for a while, for mental health reasons, but still wanted to say my piece.

    I think it’s a sweet thing to see Dorothy showing vulnerability in front of Joyce, (kind of) admitting she’s scared. It’s an opportunity for Joyce to realize Dorothy is a real, flawed human being who’s STILL worthy of love. I hope Joyce decides to help Dorothy do a hard thing, as a act of love and gratitude for Doroth helping her get through things Joyce was scared to do in the past. Not in a transactional sense, not “owed”, just that warm feeling of wanting to do something for someone you know they’d do for you.

    I know there’s all kinds of drama coming down the road for them, but I like little moments like these.

    1. Taffy

      Half the comments (exactly 50%, if you account for the last 10 days of strips) are some variation on “I am not saying I will personally come to your home and murder you in front of your family, but if you don’t start agreeing with my extremely specific read on this comic’s events, maybe we’ll just have to see what happens.” with therapy words thrown in. There, I saved you some trouble.

      1. Bryy

        That’s an extremely unhealthy reading of what people have been writing, I think.

        1. Masha

          You’ve just made an enemy for life.

        2. Taffy

          Oh what, everyone gets to be hyperbolic and off the mark except me? ?

        3. Big Z

          I read that in Y’shtola’s voice and that somehow made it the funniest thing you could have done.

      2. thejeff

        And the other half are people posting wildly wrong takes on what the other posters are saying.

        1. Taffy

          Truly, it’s only a matter of time before someone murders someone else, around here.

        2. thejeff

          And with everyone on edge, once the first blow falls, it’s just going to be mass slaughter.

  37. Zamperla

    Y’ ever wonder if maybe dorothy could give up o the president hard enough to talk to a psych about her anxiety issues. Maybe joyce could get her to try gabapentin out for a bit or somethin

    1. Taffy

      If Joyce wanted to be a good girlfriend, she’d get Dorothy to try out Bloodborne.??

      1. Mr D

        Dear lord Taffy, getting a perfectionist to play a Soulsborne (and one of the original flavor Fromsoft ones) is a death sentence. She’d disappear from the strip for years!! (Which, y’know, would only be for a few weeks in-universe, but still)

        1. eh, whatever

          Taffy is many things, but not a dear lord…

        2. Big Z

          Taffy’s a deer lord, you can tell because of the antler altar.

        3. Taffy

          Antlers seem really annoying to dust.

        4. Jon

          But Antler came to save Capt. Davison, after the Master went away! And since then, things have been going really well.

        5. Taffy

          My Insight is hovering around the 80 mark.

        6. Da Boy

          Could introduce her to Hollow Knight and Silksong. Perfect opportunity right now!

  38. zaratustra

    if we’re gonna spend another week hiding things from becky who totally already knows, we better have more complicated shenanigans than this

  39. Axel

    I like that now that the news it out anyway, Joyce is ready to go discuss it even if Dotty is kind of weirdly avoidant (or maybe that’s just me thinking it’s weird?)

    1. thejeff

      They’re going back and forth, depending on the moment. It was Joyce who said “phew” when Becky wasn’t in the room when they came back.

      1. esolo

        True but is that because she doesn’t want to talk to Becky, or because she would *prefer* to jump Dorothy’s bones?

  40. JBento

    I can’t tell if I’m more bored with this whole thing or annoyed that we’re spending more time on “but what will Becky think” than we did on the people that were actually in the relationships and got cheated on.

    1. Blume

      It’s definitely sad. Who knows, maybe there’s a payoff or consequences to that?

  41. Needfuldoer

    Wait, when did these two swap brains?

  42. Steamweed

    Dorothy still has one comma. It’s not too serious. If she loses that last comma, okay, then we’ll have a full blown emergency. We must stay vigilant.

  43. Yeet

    lmao these idiots
    texting jocelyn to say something like “so do you think dad reads the online college paper and am I fucked lol” would be a good idea if they’re not going to hash out things about joe and walky in a real manner or text becky

  44. Astariel

    Boy, everyone’s really grumpy today. I’m not feeling any issues with the pacing here, personally, but as long as Joyce & Dorothy are on screen together being adorable, I’m happy. I do wish they could get the Becky thing taken care of so they can go back to smooching, though.

    1. Rimwalker55

      I think you’re right. Personally it would be great for those romantic endorphins to fire off, but sometimes I think, “Nice twist, Mr. The Willis, but how are you going to dig out of this drama hole?”
      Also, I’m worried about Amber too. 🙂

    2. deliverything

      I can’t speak for others, but my current grumpiness isn’t related to the comic. Perhaps I’m not the only one struggling with viewing things more negatively for external reasons?

    3. YourCousinJay

      tbh i wouldn’t mind if it wasn’t for the fact there’s so dramatic tension happening in the background with Joe, Walky, Becky, hell the entire friendgroup. A friend of yours cheating on another one of your friends can get messy real quick.

      If all that stuff was resolved already I’d probs enjoy the cute stuff more but right now it just feels like we’re on the knife’s edge waiting for the tension to finally break

      1. Myra V

        I get that – but we already saw two of the big three players that would be hit by the impact of that (Walky and Joe). Walky was, well, Walky about it, and I was genuinely surprised by how mature Joe was about the whole thing. Really, the only big potential bombshell left to go off is Becky, and… well, I don’t mind Mr the Willis milking the tension over that for a bit longer. Though it definitely should be resolved sooner rather than later, truth be told. It’ll be nice seeing a few weeks drama free from the group before the next big whatever it is blows in to toss things about again.

        Maybe shenanigans with Alice and Jennifer figgering things out between them? And Jennifer figuring out that her new “friend” group is actually worse than the Read Hall crew (who, yes, are all messed up at least a little bit – but danged if they don’t stick together through thick and thin and help build each other up to be better people all around!).

        Though… I am still rooting for Jennifer and Ruth to be a thing again. Dang, but those two were good for each other!

    4. Yeet

      yeah the pacing is right on the money for two people being stupid and drawing their problem out slightly, presumably making it explode a little worse in the end

  45. Myra V

    I’ve just binged the entire archives in something like 3 days, and I have to say that I’ve never seen a cast of characters that I’ve identified with more than this band of merry misfits. I definitely identify with Dina the most (especially with her whole moving around unnoticed thing – something that happens with me a LOT even well into middle age), and I have a friend that I definitely see a LOT of Joyce in (though, of course, both of these characters are much more intense in their respective traits than we were in our college days).

    The more melancholic side of it is that as a trans woman who didn’t start transitioning until I was older (hello, Jocelyn, I share that trait with you), and this is almost exactly the sort of college experience I wish that I’d had, where I was able to actually come into myself as the bisexual woman I am rather than the emotionally shelled off person that I was. Great comic so far, and I’m really looking forward to seeing how all of this plays out!

    1. YourCousinJay

      “I definitely identify with Dina the most (especially with her whole moving around unnoticed thing”

      Mood lol. There was definitely something funny about getting to about halfway through the story and being like “oh shit, I just am, I’m just further along her journey”. And while I’ve gotten a lot better at being with peeps and all the social sides of things and not going mute infront of people. I still occassionally scare the hell out of people for apparently being too silent when I move around in people’s blindspots

      But yeah all that aside, Willis really is a great character writer even when I’m not 100% with the current arc it’s great just seeing them all bounce off of each other

      1. Myra V

        I mean, we got to see Joyce’s reaction to finding out her big sis is, well, her sister, which I’ve been looking forward to since we first found out during the Parent’s Weekend chapter right near the start of the comic. And the single biggest plot thread that’s been building through the entire series? Well, that was a heck of a way to bring it into the open! It may be more difficult having only gotten one strip a day for all these years – but for someone that just binged the entire archives, I’m really liking how this current story is playing out!

    2. Li

      There are definitely things I envy these kids for.

      I’m glad you’re in a better place now, though!

    3. zee

      Is that an ai grav?

      1. Myra V

        Yeah. I was tinkering around on Nightcafe to make art for my personal use, and when I saw that image pop up, I knew it was just about perfect for me to use as my avatar. If I’m ever in a position where I have some spare cash to throw around, I may commission an artist to do a proper rendering of it, but for now the AI art works for my purposes.

        1. Yeet

          ?

  46. Jernacious

    Oh my god, Dorothy became Yahtzee Croshaw.

    Because she’s gone Zero Punctuation and Fully Ramblomatic!

  47. Carl Muckenhoupt

    Ah, the panic of realizing that there’s nothing stopping you, and frantically scrambling to come up with something.

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