477

Blanket
Posted on August 1, 2025 by David M Willis

477 thoughts on “Blanket”

  1. NGPZ

    super slumber party!

    la la la la la

    @-@

    1. ZombieKyrik

      Shame that the video was taken down.

      1. Taffy

        Is it, though? It’s been re-uploaded, but did we really miss the video of Stamper getting pissed on?

    2. K. Ivan Ruppert

      Gosh it’s great to see two girls who are such good good friends. Just gals, being pals. Gal pals!

  2. ReFlex76

    No need for a protest photo, all they have to is try to act normal, and everyone will figure it out.

    1. Doctor_Who

      Sarah: “Hmm, these two are acting 3% more gay than usual.”

      1. ZombieKyrik

        That puts them at 69% gay.

        Nice.

        1. Yet_One_More_Idiot

          No, it puts them at 72% gayness now. xD

    2. mindbleach

      Don’t be suspicious!

    3. TerribleTransit

      I mean, Sal and Agatha clocked them immediately, so Sarah taking 3-5 panels is progress! If they keep this up they might be able to have entire strips with a character before they figure out what’s going on!

    4. Vulcanodon

      It’s not as gay as it sounds!

    5. Deanatay

      Sarah: It’s weird. They’re acting just as gay as usual, but now… it’s like they’re trying to hide it? It’s almost like…

      Mary: When Adam and Eve ate the Fruit Of Knowledge, and were just as naked as before, but were suddenly ashamed of it, and God could tell?

      Sarah: … Can someone ELSE repeat what Mary just said, so I can agree with them and not feel dirty inside?

  3. Sirksome

    Keeping them honest!

  4. mindbleach

    Sarah suspects this is gayer than usual, but cannot place how.

    1. mindbleach

      Also I choked on the alt-text.

      1. Rose by Any other Name

        Yes. “cousins”
        Very similar to “roommates”.

        1. darkoneko

          Sailor Neptune and Sailor Uranus

        2. mindbleach

          That is what the reference.

        3. Yarrr

          We warned you, bro.

        4. Needfuldoer

          Oh my god they’re roommates

      2. True Survivor

        It is admittedly, sadly, hillarius.

  5. John Campbell

    Smooth, ladies.

    1. Sajuuk-Khar

      OPSEC: 100

    2. Nadamás

      Like a sharks skin

      1. pope suburban

        Oh that was very good.

  6. BBCC

    These two are very good at not arousing suspicion!

    Unfortunately they are very good at arousing other things which may CAUSE suspicion.

  7. AeromechanicalAce

    I’m Suddenly struck by a situation that, even a few days of in-comic time ago, would have been insane, but looks like a real possibility right now.

    Is Sarah going to stick up for Joe here in this situation?

    1. Dot

      100%

    2. Shade

      Even if she didn’t have that gym time with him I still think she would have. If only because she thinks better of Joyce than this and she doesn’t always have the highest expectations of people.

      1. Buck Ripsnort

        That gym time leads me to suspect that Sarah will not only tell Joe, she’ll be there to console him and that will lead. . . where this kind of shit always leads in this strip.

        1. Casi

          To Galasso’s for Pizza?

        2. Jon

          Yes, exactly. Galasso’s. No place else, just Galasso’s.

        3. Formerly Glenn

          OR, it will lead to… Joe showing that he really *is* a decent person and validate his own personal journey up to this point.

    3. Lumino

      Not a doubt in my mind. The real question is: Will she blame Dorothy for ‘corrupting’ Joyce, or will she acknowledge that Joyce can and did change of her own volition?

    4. Reltzik

      Of course not.

      She’s going to take a principled stand AGAINST infidelity, and if Joe just so happens to be an unintended beneficiary of that principled stand, then oh well.

      (TBF, she may well stand up for Joe, figure 50/50 odds of it given that she takes a stand at all.)

      1. Sajuuk-Khar

        I believe she’s going to take a stand, but it’s less a principled stand against infidelity and more a “if you two GROIN IDIOTS fuck up the friend group that my bullying-traumatized ass JUST got used to with your DUMB GAY BULLSHIT, I am going to fold myself up like origami and throw myself in the garbage!!!!”

    5. Meagan

      I actually love Sarah sticking up for Joe as a plot development.

    6. Throwatron

      Quite a lot of Joyce’s social circle has become really endeared to Joe, even against their own literal resistance, in some cases. Joyce fucking Joe over is going to really short circuit some peoples’ brains.

    7. Astariel

      If she does, it’s a real monkey’s paw situation for her, given that she tried to get Dorothy to seduce Joyce to break up Joyce and Joe not that long ago.

      https://www.dumbingofage.com/2023/comic/book-14/01-everybodys-looking-for-nothing/entice/

  8. MK15

    Sarah was born at night, but not last night…

  9. Adj

    Quick, act normal!

  10. Taffy

    I don’t think she noticed.

    1. Nymph

      Don’t be suspicious, don’t beeee suspicious…

  11. M!a

    And it falls to Sarah to bust them.

    To make Joyce be honest.

    To Joe.

    Sarah.

    Joe.

    …yeah this is plausible

    1. Bittersweet

      See, Sarah and Joe should just be friends because not every dude/lady pairing needs to end up together.

      But on the other hand, they both have a self-improvement arc and like… nonzero chemistry. So I ship.

      1. Bittersweet

        Dude/lady friendship pairing* gah

    2. Wack'd

      JOOOOOOE! JOYCE AND DOROTHY ARE DOING AN INFIDELITY!

      1. Sajuuk-Khar

        Joe: Oh no! If Joyce gets a taste for it she won’t be able to stop herself!

      2. Vulcanodon

        Rationalization! This is all normal, just like any other day. It would be suspicious if I didn’t lay down under a blanket with no pajamas with someone I have a long history of gay behavior with.

      3. NullSet

        Joyce and Dorothy Perform an Infidelity: a Dumbing of Age Pornographique

      4. a/snow/mous/e

        giving Phineas & Ferb vibes

  12. Sajuuk-Khar

    INSIDE SARAH’S MIND

    “What? Dorothy’s LITTLE GAY THING FOR JOYCE is evolving!

    …

    Congratulations! Your LITTLE GAY THING FOR JOYCE evolved into STUPID BULLSHIT!”

    1. BYM!

      I think that’s more of a Digimon evolution maybe

      1. Armadillo

        No, if it was digimon there’d be a “mon” at the end of the name. All digimon names end with “mon”.

        1. ZombieKyrik

          Babydmon best baby Digimon of all time.

        2. Marianne

          But calling it “Dorothy’s little gay thing for Joyce mon” feels somewhat disrespectful to Jamaicans

        3. Meagan

          Lol. Take out the spaces and it’s fine.

          Gaythingforjoycemon.

          Pronounce the ‘e’ in Joyce for a smoother syllabic experience.

        4. Tessea

          Joemon, Joymon, Dottymon, Saramon Walkymon, (who owns a walkman)

      2. Freezer

        Confusionmon, Digivolve to… DRAMAMON!

      3. Sharizard

        JOYCEMON AND DOROMON DNA DIGIVOLVE TO…

    2. Sajuuk-Khar

      I don’t understand why people think this would be a Digimon evolution when Digimon evolutions are temporary states that can be reverted back to their lower form. Agumon isn’t permanently stuck at Greymon, he can go back to Agumon at any time (presuming a Digivice is involved, anyway).

      It’s Pokémon evolutions where they’re stuck this way. 😛 And believe me, these two disaster bis are stuck this way.

      1. Tequila Mockingbird

        Thank you for this. You saved me the trouble of pedantic nerdy “ackshually” posting this elaboration.

    3. Mturtle7

      This made me laugh so loud I scared my cat, congratulations

  13. Amós Batista

    Sarah: hold on, that’s not the usual gay you two does. That’s a … different gayness

  14. pjeseb

    “Joyce and Dorothy have such great chemistry. I wish they would just get together already!”

    *Monkey’s Paw curls*

    1. M!a

      *Monkey’s Paw spontaneously combusts*

  15. Mark Sebree

    Yes, I saw the Sailor Moon dub reference

    1. NGPZ

      I JUST noticed XD

      bravo 10/10 Willis

    2. BarerMender

      It went clear over my head.

      1. ZombieKyrik

        In Sailor Moon, two of the Sailor Scouts are romantically involved, but in the English Dub they made them “cousins,” to try, and hide the lesbian aspect entirely.

        1. Lumino

          And hilariously made it WAY WORSE, because it was still super obvious that they were lovers, now they’re just from West Virginia.

        2. BarerMender

          I’m trying to be offended, but let’s face it, I got out of West Virginia for reasons.

        3. Taffy

          Only so many times you could go to weddings where they already had the same last name?

        4. True Survivor

          Really? I thought the alt-text was a dig at oversees censorship of Western gay couples in modern animation, but it is the other way around and for an older cartoon? I’d like to say I am shocked, but not really.

        5. Nicepainter

          It was a reference to the old Sailor Moon dub, you’re not entirely wrong in assuming it was a way of censoring it just wrong about the era. The whole “cousins” thing is infamous now because of how big Sailor Moon was back in the day and how poorly they hid the fact they were originally meant to be together romantically

        6. Sharizard

          If you search around for ‘Sailor Neptune and Uranus counsin dub’ there’s literally a scene from the dubbed anime that has them being very physically close and saying ‘We’re… cousins’ in the most obvious way possible.

          I don’t know how the dub thinks it was hiding it. The most generous interpretation is that they’re trolling Usagi (or Makoto i can’t remember).

        7. Random832

          Honestly it’s kind of surprising they didn’t just make Haruka a guy instead, considering they did the opposite for Zoisite [one half of a gay couple on the villain side in the first season]

          Maybe they didn’t want to introduce the idea of someone who’s a guy in their civilian identity turning into a magical girl – not like they would have known at the time they’d have to deal with that anyway the following season (which, fwiw, i don’t think they tried to cover up at all)

        8. BarerMender

          Ah, that clears it up. Thanks for the info. But why does anyone care they’re lesbians? Wait, dumb question. Christian country. Christians are never lesbians, so wouldn’t understand.

        9. Loki

          To be clear, we are thinking of the anime from the 90s, not the remake Sailor Moon Crystal. Which is to say, it was a different time.

        10. Nicepainter

          Also specifically the original English dub, the modern Viz one does away with the cousins thing and leaves them as romantic partners without trying to hide it like the old Cloverway dub did

        11. Taffy

          Gotta love the good ol’ Dick dub. I’ve only ever seen that version of Sailor Moon, thanks to it being the version Family Video had on the shelf.

        12. C.

          Cloverway/Pioneer had taken over the dub by the time the “cousins” appeared.

        13. Taffy

          That’s okay.

        14. Bright

          Because Children’s Television In The 90s

        15. Proxiehunter

          More specifically they made one of them male and explained away their level of affection being because they were cousins. We should just be glad that they didn’t decide on brother and sister because their level of affection was not cousinly.

    3. Wraithy2773

      Yeah, the strip itself is hilarious, but the alt text knocked it out of the park :D.

    4. Gwen

      And now in the spirit of the dub, Dorothy is going to appreciate how Joyce has the most ‘talent’.

    5. Roborat

      I got it as well, I am so proud of myself.

  16. jeffepp

    Sarah know she lost the betting pool. She had a day next week.

  17. ReFlex76

    I need to see Sarah drag them by the ear first to Joe, then to Walky, each time just saying “Tell them!”

    1. Holly

      I don’t need it, but it feels likely and makes sense.
      (Joyce and Dorothy need it to overcome their communication cowardice though)

      Sarah just ignoring this would make zero sense.

  18. BYM!

    “Do you wanna wear nice clothes and go travelling together Joyce?”

    “Let’s, Dorothy, my new best friend!”

    Thanks Owl House dub

    1. ReFlex76

      Taiwanese dub

    2. Proxiehunter

      I’m still not sure if that was censorship or someone rolling a nat 1 translating “go out with me”.

  19. AnonGrouch

    I think I’m gunna not read the next few comics till the dust settles. I definitely wasn’t expecting Sarah of all people to be the one who cracks open this nut.

    1. mindbleach

      Phrasing.

  20. DiDi

    It’s a good thing I’m not rooting for these two as a couple because they’re such idiots, it’s almost like watching a RomCom anime.

    1. Nadamás

      You take that back!

    2. Sharizard

      I’ll take your romcom anime and raise you american sitcom. We just had a smash cut of Joyce giving Joe a blowjob off screen. This is now officially on the same level of Chandler being unable to break up with someone because he can’t stop having sex with them.

  21. Dot

    Come on girls, you cannot possibly expect this to work

  22. Alexander Krizak

    You are ending a whole book with this plot thread hanging? Truly, Willis, you are history’s greatest monster.

    1. Jon

      Yeah, leaving that big ol’ plot thread dangling hurts real bad.

  23. ReFlex76

    That last panel, Sarah seems more insulted than anything, “Who the hell do you think you’re fooling?!”

    1. MacareuxMoine

      I think it’s her ‘I didn’t sign up to this drama’-face

      1. MacareuxMoine

        should have been ‘I didn’t sign up for this drama’ (how did I manage, to explicitly look up the correct grammar and still get it wrong?)

  24. Sajuuk-Khar

    RE: THE NEW POLL

    My real feelings are “I’m not anyone’s mom”, but I voted “the best” out of pure, unadulterated spite!!

    1. Nadamás

      Spite is always a good motivator

      1. Dot

        It can be, but I find it exhausts you faster.

        1. AlexanderHammil

          oh, i don’t know, i’m having a great time with this storyline. everyone being so mad at what’s happening is just the lagniappe

        2. Seralyna

          well that’s why you use spite for extremely easy things like voting in a poll or posting comments. doesn’t need to get you far really

        3. Nadamás

          You get it,

    2. John Campbell

      Yessss. I want all the cheating. Walky hooking up with Amber, while Amazi-Girl takes Dorothy’s Lois-Laning to the next level. Joe hooking up with Sarah, and then pushing her out of the room because Rachel’s coming by. Danny discovering that Walky kisses just like his sister. Dina and Charlie teleporting away for some sexy experimentation. Becky seducing Lucy over to the sapphic side. Jacob and Tony going at it like a couple of sides of beef slamming together, and then getting slammed by a side of Beef.

      Just because I am so sick of all the people who feel the need to roll in here every Willis-damned strip to make sure we all know just how much they hate cheating and want Joyce and Dorothy to be punished for their crimes, which are way worse than theft, murder, or genocide.

      1. Tricia

        So people are only allowed to express negativity once, otherwise they must heap praise upon Willis?

        Or are you also sick of the people that roll in here every strip to make sure everyone knows how much they love Joyce and Dorothy making out?

        1. Taffy

          Let people enjoy things.

        2. eh, whatever

          Where are you getting “otherwise” from? There’s not a word about that. All it says is “stop repeating yourselves eventually, it gets boring”.

        3. Nymph

          Someone saying “I personally am sick of this” is hardly about what you’re allowed to do or not, lmao.

          They are also allowed to express negativity, and it’s allowed to be aimed at you.

      2. Amara

        When you’re right, you’re right!

    3. Nymph

      Same lmao

    4. Jon

      I usually enjoy the cheekiness of the poll but this time, all the options felt fake-chummy, like when a website asks “do you want to sign up for our newsletter?” And the only two options are “Of Course!” and “No, I’m a loser who hates quality newsletters >:( “

      1. Nadamás

        I think you are reading too much into it but if it was tge case i honestly couldn’t blame Willis.

        1. Jon

          Not saying it was the intent – just sharing that’s how I felt looking at the options!

      2. clif

        The real answer is that cheating is evil and I want Joyce and Dorothy to do more of it. You would think that was an obvious option to include, but NOooo!

        I’m nobody’s mom, but who knows what scientific and technological advances there may be in the future.

        1. Sajuuk-Khar

          You know what, you’ve convinced me! Willis, you cad, where’s my fourth option?! This future baby mama (assuming we don’t regress scientifically or technologically) and I DEMAND it!

        2. Jon

          With the current set of options, I’m firmly in the camp of “they’re college freshmen and horny idiots, so”.

    5. Steamweed

      That’s a big problem with society today. Ya gotta join one of the extremist parties to get anywhere. Anyway, pleased that you’re a colleague Sicko and Not-Mom.

  25. Bonesrental

    -metal gear solid alert noise-
    Sarah: !

  26. mindbleach

    Tomorrow’s comic is more Sarah faces as the babbling nonchalance spirals into hands-under-clothes makeouts, and she’s still 40% sure this is a bit.

  27. Taigan

    “Well, if you two are settled in I think I’ll spend the night at my boyfriend’s place.”
    “NOOOOOOO!!”
    “Thought so.”

    1. True Survivor

      I’m not sure if that “NOOOOOOO!!” is meant to be read with shameful fear or deeply lustful sarcasm. It’s pretty funny either way.

      1. and painted shark women

        I have never before, in all my years of awkwardly fondling the English language, read and/or thought the phrase “deeply lustful sarcasm”, and I’m happy that now I have.

        1. Tequila Mockingbird

          Right? People crap on English all the time, but fail to recognize the diamonds in the rough it can deliver, like that one! But also, “awkwardly fondling the English language” is another magnificent turn of phrase, and I would like to thank you for introducing me to it.

  28. butts

    just gals being pals. nothing to see here

  29. Reltzik

    Joyce, you should have stopped after the second sentence in panel 2.

    Sarah, you should slowly back out of the room and spend the night at Tony’s rather than get entangled in Drama.

    1. Lumino

      Joe WAS trying to teach her when to end her sentences.

      At least this time she didn’t bring up poop.

  30. Gin

    She isn’t making that expression because she is suspicious, but rather her resting face full of contempt for those who feel joy.
    Or feel up Joyce.

  31. Dean

    A flawless subterfuge!

  32. Reltzik

    *eyes the poll* I voted “Is whatever”, but I feel like there should have been an option between “Whatever” and “Dead to me”.

    1. Lumino

      It’s just a vibe check. I went with ‘Dead to me’ because this arc has seriously and negatively affected my opinion on Joyce and Dorothy (and I wasn’t Dorothy’s biggest fan to start with).

      I’m not writing them off entirely, but it’s had a negative effect so that is what I selected.

    2. Thag Simmons

      Yeah, that feels like it’s gonna skew the results a bit

      1. Jon

        I always dislike all-or-nothing polls. I know it’s meant to be a silly bonus on the website but this one really feels like it’s trying to gloss over both the “moderately upset” and the “moderately excited” camps that I feel like a big chunk of the audience are in right now.

        Are they DEAD to me? Of course not. But they’re both measurably less sympathetic and interesting to me as characters than they were before this arc.

        And again again, I know it’s just for fun. But I don’t like hiding the *only* option to voice a complaint behind an aggressively angry fake opinion almost nobody actually has. Feels like I’m being fed a false dichotomy.

        1. Meagan

          ABSOLUTELY. Artificially driving the drama
          .

        2. Rogue 7

          This is exactly how I feel about the cheating plotline.

          And what really grinds my gears about this poll is one of my most common problems with hyperbole: it feels like someone is going “you must really feel X”.

          And, no. If I felt X I would have said so.

          I’m a hypocrite here in that I used to do this sort of thing all the time. It was the core of me playing the martyr- which is kind of why Dorothy’s decision to go get arrested was so goddamn funny to me- I was always actling like the tiniest request from someone really meant they wanted me to do something unreasonable.

          Now that I’ve (mostly) grown past that tendency, it irritates the fuck out of me when folks do it deliberately. Just say what you mean and let other people say what they mean!

        3. perpetual summer

          I’m like, hearing you, but saying voting in a poll is the only option to voice a complaint is quite silly. What are you doing right now? Like, Willis reads the comment section. Probably not every comment but they are for sure seeing people’s complaints or compliments. (100% the poll is inspired from reading the comment section – a comment I read & enjoyed literally yesterday was saying they’re not anyone’s mom.) The polls ARE just for fun and if you’re not having fun with them you can just ignore them (though I’ll say that gets harder when many comments bring them up too) . Sometimes I click a random option because I want to see how people voted.

          Anyways I did roll my eyes at this one a bit because the discussion about cheating in comments has been somewhat exhausting (and exhausted) already and I don’t care for the author playing into that, even as a joke. It also gets repetitive, though I guess I can’t really complain about that since it’s staying relevant to the comic. I will anyways!

    3. Wraithy2773

      I’m more on side #ItsComplicated personally. They’re fucking this all up, but I don’t read this comic for people acting smart :D.

    4. Kyulen

      I don’t actually think cheating is the worst most evil thing ever, but I voted for that in the poll because it’s the only option that’s not ok with or indifferent to it. I think cheating is morally bad, and this arc has definitely lowered my opinion of Joyce and Dorothy a lot, but of course there are far worse things than cheating.

      1. Holly

        I’ve not voted. Cheating is a rubbish and disrespectful way to treat someone, which can cause them some harm with long-term repercussions. It’s not the greatest evil in all the world, but it’s not Great Evils and goods that shape most of our daily lives – it’s is a buildup of all the little ones.

        Cheating does happen though and it happens for many messy reasons. I’m perfectly fine with seeing that reflected in fiction and even for the opportunity to see a side of things I have never been on and don’t intend to. I’m happy to read about conflict in fiction and different ways people react to it, and the consequences of those reactions.

        That’s what fiction is for, seeing things from positions you can never be in yourself! The example I tend to give is that one can’t spend ALL of their 20s and 30s travelling around the world single AND spend all of them them raising a family in one local community.

        This storyline allows the opportunity to see multiple reactions, their logic or emotion and their consequences, and to sit with that discomfort and contemplate all of the possibilities, your own choices, those of others, etc. without experimenting directly on your own loved ones.

        Even to notice how strong your own internal reactions are to the storyline and see that others aren’t reacting the same and to contemplate why (without jumping straight to derision) is valuable.

        TLDR; I don’t want to vote in the poll, because I don’t link my own personal (less extreme) distate of cheating to my opinion or approval of any fictional work about it.

    5. Queezle

      Yeah, I will sit this one out. I kind of like them together, but I never enjoyed cheating plots and have a hard time rooting for a couple that started through cheating. But they are also just teenagers, so… I definitely do not like the lying to their romantic partners aspect of this, but they are cut bi disasters together.

      1. Queezle

        cute not cut

    6. Reltzik

      Aaaand it looks like the poll’s been changed to account for this.

  33. Li

    That alt text. Chef’s kiss.

  34. HueSatLight

    World’s Greatest Detectives:
    Batman
    Benoit Blanc
    Sarah Clinton

    1. BarerMender

      Sarah makes the grade as a lesbian love detective. The word “lesbian” modifies Joyce and Dorothy.

      1. BarerMender

        Oops. Lesbian Love Sleuth.

  35. StClair

    This is one of these days that I feel very much for/with/like Sarah.

    1. Lee

      ?

    2. Sajuuk-Khar

      As a disembodied audience member I have become a complete slavering sicko, redolent in vileness, but if were a cast member Sarah has my full allegiance in this situation, I am making:

      1.) a face
      2.) plans to leave immediately, you two are going to do finger stuff under the blanket and pretend badly that you aren’t, I do not want to be here

  36. Chaucer59

    Nothing to see here. These aren’t the nerds you’re looking for. Move along.

  37. ZombieKyrik

    This isn’t regular gayness; this is… advanced gayness.

    1. Slartibeast Button, BIA

      Are there certification tests or something?

      1. clif

        For only $500. I will provide you with such a test, and if you pass, will provide you with a certificate suitable for framing whereby I personally certify you as a certified lesbian. For an additional $500. I will provide you with a study guide for the test, and for an additional $500. will provide you with the secret method guaranteed to insure you pass the test.

        (Hint – It tells you who to bribe and how much.)

        1. Buck Ripsnort

          Does the certification package include a gold star?

        2. tim Rowledge

          definitely- but it has that type of adhesive that you have to lick

  38. Qube

    DON’T BE SUSPICIOUS

  39. Grayfinity

    Joyce, Dorothy, stop. You’re spiraling.

    1. Lumino

      They’ve been spiraling all week, what makes you think they’d stop now?

      1. Holly

        It’s true, and they’re even at that fun part of the spirl near the centre that goes really really fast just before they get sucked down the drain!

    2. Jon

      I don’t know that move: will they have trouble with it under the weighted blanket?

  40. Joe Moose

    Me, after reading the alt text: I swear, if we have a “I want you to touch me gently*” moment, I will fucking yodel.

    *”Later, when we’re alone.”

    1. and painted shark women

      Do it. Life is just a series of long waits between occasional good justifications to yodel

  41. cain

    fast forward a while and any time dorothy excuses herself from an event by saying “i have to do laundry that day” joyce butts in with “i’m laundry”

  42. JA

    Guys I think Sarah’s getting suspicious.

  43. Alongcameaspider

    Sarah: “how are they simultaneously being less AND more gay than usual?”

  44. IntangibleMatter

    And they weren’t roommates

    Oh my god the

    1. IntangibleMatter

      y weren’t roommates

      How the hell did my mouse slip and hit the “post comment” button early

      1. Proxiehunter

        There were two beds, but only one didn’t have Joyce’s room mate in it.

  45. keet

    sigh sarah continues to be the most relateable

    1. Sajuuk-Khar

      Sarah is the guiding star of this comic

  46. Heatth

    Well, at least Sarah is not likely to tell anyone?

    1. BarerMender

      I dunno. Sarah likes to tell hard truths in the hardest way possible.

      1. Heatth

        Which is different from gossiping. Like, maybe she will tell Joe/Walky while Joyce/Dorothy are in the room, but she won’t seek them out to tell them ahead of time.

        1. Amara

          *sarcastically* hey your girlfriends are in the room making out. — and everyone immediately believes this to be the usual sarcasm /joking about the two. Even if Sarah isn’t being sarcastic and she just has resting sarcasm voice.

          Except when they enter they actually are making out.

    2. Holly

      Sarah just spent the day with Joe and has a genuine friendship building there.
      Imagine, if you had a good friend who was vulnerable to being hurt in this way, and they inevitably found out that you knew about something like this and did not tell them, it’d damage your friensdhip with them. So there’s a selfish motivation to sort it out – not that selfishness is Sarah’s likely motive.

      Sarah also has a strong sense of justice and a big sister attitude towards Joyce, so she’s not likely to be afraid to pick a fight. She told on her previous roommate because it was the right thing to do.

      She’s also freshly in a relationship, so may empathis with not getting cheated on even more – and she’s in a relationship with someone who encourages her no BS “people are awful” mindset. I can’t see her standing by and doing nothing, I’d be really surprised at that.

      1. Jon

        Sarah also has the memory of *sending* Joyce at Jacob to ruin his relationship with Raidah, so she knows Joyce is capable of it.

        1. Holly

          Oh yeah! And she was very horny-blind about Jacob herself, and made poor choices because of it, so she has the experience to recognise it when Joyce an Dorothy are doing it.

        2. Astariel

          And she specifically tried to get Dorothy to seduce Joyce to break up Joyce and Joe just a week ago.

        3. Jon

          Yeah, but since a week in the strip is like a month or so realtime (haven’t checked exactly), everyone’s forgotten this in their haste to have Sarah break up Joyce and Dorothy.

      2. Lumino

        Ya know, I just thought about this. Maybe the plot thread is that Sarah won’t tell others about this because tomorrow she’s going to be wiped out from her exercise today.

        After all, that is a thing that happens and Joe foreshadowed it.

      3. Freemage

        While I agree with this analysis, it points more to the probability that she’s going to disrupt their potential shennanigans by making a Queen Snark comment that forces the Cheaters to confront their behavior.

  47. Cimorene

    I almost voted “whatever” but I am several people’s mom .-.

    1. clif

      Yeah, these things should have write-in votes.

  48. Slartibeast Button, BIA

    Critical failure on Subterfuge roll.

  49. Quinn

    I am so glad Sarah is there. I was hoping she’d catch them and talk some ethics into them, but their pitiful attempts at deception seems to have lit up Sarah’s bullshit detector.

    1. Barf Ninjason

      So, I found out recently that I, like many people, got “ethics vs. morals” wrong – I thought morals were the social standard and ethics were the evaluation of what’s really right and Wong. But it’s t’other way ’round. Thus, they may have been unethical in the snse stWestern culture expects de facto monogamy and regards the slightest deviation from it as, well, deviance – but the only immoral thing I’ve seen them do so far is *assume* that they “have* to break up with their boyfriends, without even *considering* becoming polyamorous.

      1. Tarod

        They are engaging in behavior they view as a betrayal of trust to their boyfriends.

        It’s an affair.

        1. Jon

          Echoing this.

          Like, y’all. It’s whatever if YOU don’t think any of this qualifies as cheating. But *Joyce and Dorothy* obviously believe that THEY are doing something wrong themselves, and are doing it anyway.

        2. deliverything

          Also, I’m pretty sure Joyce knows that Joe, in particular, considers cheating to be wrong, and he reminded her of that subject at the same time he gave her that blanket.

      2. Odo

        The terms are largely interchangeable. As for why cheating is unethical, here are some quick reasons.

        – It withholds deeply relevant information that someone would use to make personal life decisions
        – It violates the partners expectation of monogamy. Not having an explicit conversation does not change this. If you have reason to believe the partner is expecting monogamy then if you want to change that the decent thing to do is to talk to them
        – It undermines emotional security and trust due to that violation

        If you want to change your relationship, talk to your partner.

      3. thejeff

        No, the immoral thing is that they’re continuing without either breaking up or becoming polyamorous. And they can’t “become polyamorous” without checking in with their current partners.

      4. HueSatLight

        you were right the first time.

      5. Barf Ninjason

        Personally, I’m just really disappointed in all of you people who regard passionate spontaneous kissing of each other as the same thing as premeditated cheating. Though perhaps I *shouldn’t* be terribly surprised considering the sheer amount of “liberal” bigots that comprise Willis’s fanbase.

  50. Barf Ninjason

    “Just helping you calibrate your gaydar, Sarah.”

  51. circumlocutrix

    The fact that there’s a non-zero chance Sarah or Rachel could end up with Joe is wild to me

    1. Sajuuk-Khar

      If Joe and Rachel get together I will personally destroy the DOA servers with my teeth.

      1. Sajuuk-Khar

        Before anyone gets cute, yes, fuckers, I know about the goddamn Walkyverse. THAT’S WHY I HATE THE PAIRING.

        1. Heatth

          Fortunately, Willis avoids the Walkyverse endgame pairings

      2. Owlmirror

        I have recently come up with the idea that in this universe, Joe and Rachel are half-siblings, and Rachel’s attitude towards Joe isn’t suppressed interest; it’s her trying to process her feelings about their bio-father (whom she mostly despises). (Only Rachel and her mom are aware of this relationship)

        I think Rachel telling Joe, and him trying to be a better brother regardless of what happens with Joyce, would be an interesting character and narrative arc without being a romantic/sexual pairing.

        I have no idea if that will pan out in the actual comic. Willis giveth and Willis taketh, damned be the name of Willis.

        1. deliverything

          That would also support her “people can’t change” philosophy.

      3. Tequila Mockingbird

        On behalf of your dental hygienist, please do not do this. If you must disrespect your surroundings, please opt instead for a good old-fashioned sledgehammer or similar implement.

        1. Owlmirror

          One of the interesting things about language is that possessives can be ambiguous. So, yeah, “my teeth” could mean “the teeth that I have in my mouth growing out of my jaws”, but it could also mean “the teeth I have in my collection — shark, hippopotamus, elephant, etc”

          A elephant molar could easily bludgeon a computer to destruction.

  52. Seralyna

    I ultimately fuck with the sentiment of “do whatever i’m not your mom” too much to not click it, but I do probably have an opinion closer to genuinley thinking cheating is fine than most.

    1. Nadamás

      It’s objectively the funniest option

  53. Fireprincesslily

    Don’t be suspicious, don’t be suspicious

  54. Doxkid

    “No open mouth kissing? This is slightly less gay than usual. But why?”

  55. Icalasari

    I voted whatever, though I’m more in, “Cheating is wrong, but *give me more of this delicious drama I even have popcorn*”

    1. Clif

      Welcome to the fourth optioneers.

  56. darkoneko

    ..not so smooth criminals, indeed

    1. and painted shark women

      you’ve been h

      hit by

      B 0 0 t

      SHUCKACHUCKA

  57. Kyulen

    I can’t imagine why Sarah would suspect anything, with how extremely normal and not suspicious Joyce and Dorothy are acting right now.

    1. NGPZ

      nothing but totally normal earthling human stuff

      move along!

  58. Mai

    At this point, I’m rooting for these two to fail and lose everything cause they aren’t even being clever about it. I mean, if you’re gonna be awful people, at least be FUNNY otherwise then you’re just being awful people who aren’t funny.

    1. Nadamás

      Don’t know about anyone else but i find this incredibly funny

    2. Jon

      Agreed. I see so many people talking about “I’m not in favor of cheating but I’m just here for the messy fallout!” But they’re not…doing anything all that interesting.

      Doesn’t help that all infidelity plotlines feel so similar to me. “Oh no I like them both but I feel bad about it, whatever to do” ad nauseam.

      Got me thinking…are there any cheating/infidelity plots I HAVE liked? Not sure I could name one. Post yours below if you have one!

      1. Bittersweet

        I suspect that infidelity plotlines tend to flop is because most of us are uncomfortable with that in our lives. Like, people don’t want to hide secrets from one parent, they don’t want to hide secrets from their friend’s SO. Not those types of secrets, it’s weird and you just kind of want people to sort their nonsense without involving you.

        Basically, it crosses the line of “uncomfortable for the audience” rather than “uncomfortable for the characters” and that makes it hard to do well. Like how successful gross out humor is more distressing for the characters (and thus isn’t usually actually all that gross). People have their tolerances obviously, but lots of people have pretty low tolerance for that sort of social discomfort. It’s why Liar Revealed plots and similar tropes also feel awful.

        Like, it’s not just who has been cheated on, who believes in cheating as an extant concept, who is super up on their high horse, etc. It’s like a tolerance thing. I have no clue if I worded any of that well, it’s Late-Thirty and I’m exhausted lol. Maybe someone can expand on what I’m trying to say.

      2. eh, whatever

        But they’re not…doing anything all that interesting.

        …yet. We don’t know what damnable things are already drawn for the next year IRL.

        1. Big Z

          Thing is, it’s already been going on long enough that a lot of the audience is just bored and waiting for the other shoe to drop already.

        2. Jon

          Yep, exactly. And apparently it’s going to go unresolved into the next storyline/book so that makes me even more worried about how long the “when will their dirty secret come out” portion will last.

        3. Gwen

          There were more comics dedicated almost solely to Amazi Girl’s search for the identity of the Whiteboard Dingdong Bandit than there have been since Joyce and Dorothy’s first kiss. Those three-odd weeks of dingdong-centered comics were spread between July and September in their respective year. This really isn’t long by the comic’s standard, it’s how the decompressed storytelling has always worked.

          (Unrelated, but while I was checking this statistic, one comic during that run also had Joe talking about how excited he was to add Danny’s girlfriend to his to-do list, even when Danny looked viscerally uncomfortable. I can only presume that the paladins are going to crack down hard on support for Joe and declare him anethema any day now.)

        4. thejeff

          Part of the difference is that those 3 weeks were spread out among other story lines.

          As for Joe? I can’t speak for paladins in general, but Old Joe is definitely anathema. He’s gone through a whole character development arc and gotten a lot better.

        5. Big Z

          Joe’s on a growth arc. That’s what characters are supposed to do. A lot of us thought he was a dick back then, and he’s been making reasonable changes since then.

          And frankly, the hunt for the whiteboard dingdong bandit was WAY more fun than this, IMHO. Obviously some folks disagree, which is fine.

      3. Li

        Hey, it is absolutely fair and valid that you’re personally bored by what’s going on right now, but there are plenty of folks who are enjoying the tension, and for whom things are already entertainingly messy.

        So I don’t think any of the “sicko” voters who wanted mess are being inconsistent yet? I don’t think I’ve seen anyone say, “I’m a Sicko, and what’s happening right now is boring me.”

        (I did see a couple of people express as much when Joyce and Dorothy were still outside the dorm smooching, but not recently.)

        1. thejeff

          And even those (when still outside) were mostly “not enough mess!”

        2. Li

          Yep! It was a couple of folks saying “aww… now stop being cute and get to the mess!!”

        3. Jon

          Yeah I phrased that poorly. I meant to say that I keep hearing about the messy fallout but so far have been underwhelmed (even knowing the other shoe hasn’t dropped yet, what we have gotten is kind of “same old, same old” cheating tropes)

          Not implying anyone’s inconsistent or insincere or whatever

      4. John Campbell

        Dude, Joyce just gave Joe her first BJ while Dorothy was waiting in the hall for her to break up with him. I don’t know what the hell you think qualifies as an interesting development. This is 100% trash Goblin-grade mess.

        1. Big Z

          I think a lot of us are still considering this “buildup to the mess” rather than “mess”. I said it elsewhere, but the last few strips feel like that gif of the speeding truck never QUITE hitting the bollard to me.

        2. Mai

          Literally anything other than Dorothy and Joyce would be interesting because they are my two least favorite characters in the comic, lol. I admit I’m very biased in my boredom and dislike.

  59. ADLegend21

    Me thinks Sarah will stick up for Joe here when she susses out what happened.

    1. Holly

      Yeah, kinda hopes Sarah frogmarches Joyce back to Joe and stands there glaring until Joyce comes clean (because it looks like that is what it’s going to take to counter Joyce’s cowardice here).

      1. pope suburban

        Same, if only because I am still weirded out by how little both of them care about the cheating, the blowjob, and the further cheating they plan to do under Joe’s thoughtful gift. Like yes, heat of the moment, but it’s been many moments now, with many interludes, and they just seem to find it hilarious even as they discuss how serious and hurtful it is? I’m bewildered. I would like someone to ask how they’re going to reconcile the points they’re making here.

        1. Holly

          I don’t think they find it hilarious and do think they care. I’m reading them as in a pure panic – stuck in fight or flight and chosing flight/freeze.

          It’s hard to read in a comic, but their big smiles are more like grimaces or masks than actual smiles. They are not laughing and goofing here, they are grimacing. They’re not making jokes right now they are panicking and blurting stuff out.

          It’s highlighting how immature they are in a different way – they can’t face Big Emotions or manage a conflict conversation *at all* and they are not even trying to learn how to right now.

        2. eh, whatever

          Joyce’s smile is only somewhat exaggerated. Dorothy’s, however, is painfully embarrassed; that’s not hard to read in this comic at all.

        3. Holly

          I don’t want to assume anyone’s cartoon reading interpretation is the same as mine, especially when their comment implies heavily that it is not.

    2. Astariel

      That would be extremely hypocritical of her.

  60. BorkBorkBork

    Smooth. She’ll never suspect a thing.

  61. Sean Smith

    Jeeze, someone just tell me when we are back to Sal and Hat Guy being cute.

    1. Taffy

      Good news about Wednesday.

      1. deliverything

        Wednesday Addams is joining the cast? Convenient. She’s prone to murder, so we can finally get an in-universe answer to whether murder or cheating is worse.

  62. BorkBorkBork

    Huh. You know, I was almost *not* going to vote on “bad” because it’s so overblown… but I guess I also forcibly made myself step back and see these guys not as people that I’m empathizing with, but as cartoon characters hamming it up.

    So while I’d never say “they’re dead to me,” in a very real sense, they are. That is, they used to feel like real living people, and now they feel no more alive than Marmaduke or Hagar the Horrible.

    1. Lumino

      Yeouch. With everything that’s been going on the last week, I feel like that’s the harshest criticism.

      Not that I can find fault with it.

      1. Jon

        Fun fact, this phenomenon is recognized and actually has a name: it’s called “the eight deadly words” in a lot of fiction writing circles! (https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/EightDeadlyWords)

        TL;DR – it’s totally okay (writing-wise) if readers HATE a character: it means the creator did a good job making the character resonate, even if in a bad way!

        What you REALLY don’t want is for people to stop caring completely about a character. That might sound better than hate, but it’s not…it’s far, far worse.

        1. Lumino

          Since you were the one to link to TVTropes, it reminds me of the page on “Slap-Slap-Kiss”. Specifically:

          “The concept is related to the theory that hate is not necessarily the opposite of love so much as its twisted twin; its opposite would be apathy.”

        2. BorkBorkBork

          Yeouch. You know, I didn’t mean that to really be a huge scathing criticism; I was feeling before like I was just taking this all way too seriously, and was feeling silly for treating them like real people. But now that you’ve said that… maybe that was more of a defense mechanism, so I could still enjoy the strip without hating it.

          And I mean, this is a common mistake that people make when growing up. It’d be weird if a storyline like this was never explored. But, IRL, when people do this it kind of makes me hate them, and in those cases I’m not experiencing it at the snail’s pace that DOA goes in.

          I suppose the fact that I went from “I’m actually really concerned for Joyce and Joe’s relationship because I feel like Joyce is probably emulating some of her mother’s worst traits, in the dynamic that she and Hank had,” to “Oh, ha ha, they’re doing that bit where they act like they’re being super smooth and inconspicuous and instead they’re being blatantly obvious; that’s just like classic Flintstones,” is probably not desirable from a writer’s perspective.

          We’re still nowhere near a full-on Loss scenario for me, where if an actual serious strip dropped I would find it off-putting and ridiculous… but if there’s a strip coming up that intends me to have empathy for Joyce or Dorothy, I don’t think it’s going to hit very well.

    2. pope suburban

      I was trying to find a way to articulate how I felt about this and you did it perfectly. Like…they have not historically been assholes, much less gleeful ones, and now they are not only behaving as such, but wallowing in it. It’s weird.

      1. Sajuuk-Khar

        If this is what you think “gleeful assholes wallowing in it” looks like, I, uh, think your definitions could use some work

        1. Madock345

          Right? Are we not watching these two completely fail to function out of guilt and confusion in the exact current strip? They can’t even hold a conversation lmao.

        2. Big Z

          I said yesterday, I think the big disconnect for a lot of folks is between “man, I remember having been this dumb about stuff and screwing it up this badly” and “even when I was dumb and horny I was never THIS dumb and horny”.

          It seems to me that a lot of the people on the latter side of that line (“I’ve been dumb and horny, but never to the point I just couldn’t stop cheating on my boyfriend”) are reading Joyce/Dorothy’s continued “we are going to keep doing hanky panky while agonizing over not telling our boyfriends” as “wallowing in it” whereas someone who actually felt guilt would at least stop literally fucking around.

        3. Dot

          Yeah like if you can’t keep your hands off of each other and you’re both painfully aware of that fact, you should not be literally sleeping with each other until the situation with your partners which you are both ostensibly agonizing over is resolved.

        4. Athedia

          Yeah, like I have realized I was majorly crushing on someone else during a relationship…but I haven’t ever cheated on a partner

          The other thing that makes me feel the ick right now is that…this kinda leans into a lot of toxic bi tropes. Like the “well never date someone bi because they will cheat on you.” So I am just checking back once a week now to see if we are done with this arc.

        5. Sajuuk-Khar

          I am genuinely sorry, but I cannot take this line of objection seriously. I just can’t.

          Dorothy and Joyce have not fucked around even once. Not once! They have:

          -mutually(?) masturbated one (1) time, pre- Joe and Joyce’s relationship, which Joe is on some level aware of and has not seen fit to break up with Joyce over—it is a sexual contact solely in Joyce’s head and to scarlet letter her over it is a mental gymnastic I find frankly grotesque

          -kissed romantically a total of three (3) times on screen—this IS an act of infidelity, technically, because it happened outside of their current relationships

          -made plans to engage in a romantic/sexual relationship—but ONLY after informing their current partners and either breaking up or making other arrangements; Joyce’s attempt at doing so evolved into guilt-based fellatio, but this all is morally neutral. They’re doing “the right thing” given that you can’t go back in time and erase the kissing, and to pretend to do so would be grotesque and dishonest.

          -currently made plans to sleep over together, a situation that is doubtless fraught with stupidity and sexual tension. It is incredibly foolhardy. It is not, however, guaranteed fucking! They haven’t done any hanky-panky!

          Now, is it likely they might succumb and do stuff under the thoughtful gift? Maybe. But it’s equally likely, being these two, they will torment themselves with guilt for every errant brush of thigh or elbow, to the point that gone morning they are batteries if even worse sexual tension!

          And the truly fucked thing is that they’d get the Scarlet Letter anyway, no matter what they did!!!

        6. Big Z

          Wait, are you reading “hanky panky” as “intercourse/below-waist contact” and not as “any sexual activity, especially when improper in some way”?

          And honestly, it’s not important to me what specific actions they’ve taken — IMHO, the only binding definition of cheating is unique to the specific relationship, and it’s in the text that JOYCE thinks all of this is cheating, and we can evaluate HER actions in that context.

        7. Big Z

          Also, what does “the Scarlet Letter” even mean in this context? If you mean “will be judged by their friends for how their actions affected Joe and Walky”, then hell yes bring on that letter.

        8. Sajuuk-Khar

          I am not talking about what “might happen in the strip”, because in the context of this conversation, that is engaging in the profoundly stupid pastime of “making up things to get mad about, so that my a priori judgment of these characters looks more okay.” I am not talking about in-strip reactions.

          I am talking about audience complaints and audience judgments, especially people who are professing that Joyce and Dorothy are “gleeful assholes” who are insincere in their feelings, or are permanently branded as adulterers in their minds, or any number of hyperbolic judgments that have been levied this past week and a half. People compared their first kiss to alcoholism and murder. THAT, right there, is the scarlet letter I’m talking about. It is the audience overreaction, the audience’s insanely poor judgment, the audience’s repetitive, self-reportedly hypocritical hyperbole.

          And for fuck’s sake. You moved the goalposts in the same question you asked me “where are your goalposts.” YES, OF COURSE I’M COUNTING HANKY-PANKY AS JUST SEXUAL CONTACT. That’s what the euphemism has always been! I just. What?

          What’s the point of even trying to have a conversation if you’re going to say “well, I can just decide what this character did is adultery, because of her own personal inner feelings, and clearly she’s a scumbag asshole who doesn’t really feel the feelings she says, because she’s bad at living up to the standards set by her brain?” Is the weather good up there on that cloud-dwelling horse??

        9. Sajuuk-Khar

          Like, I honestly don’t fucking get it. I don’t get this behavior. It is insane to me. I don’t love cheating plot lines, I have very personal problems with infidelity in the real world, but the anti-cheating people in these comments remind me without fail of the fucking Crucible.

        10. Big Z

          Actually, the weather is great up here. I do agree, though, that any discussion is not possible given the vast gulf between our respective givens/axioms/whatever.

        11. Li

          @Sajuuk-Khar I get where you’re coming from but it has been a while since that level of fever pitch, and Big Z is being pretty dang reasonable. He was talking about the broad trend, and we definitely were seeing a noticeable divide yesterday and reaching some understanding across the “lines” here, I think! Some people being like, “Oh wow, I really never knew anyone who messed up like this, so for me it seemed unrealistically over the top,” and other people being like, “Haha, I wish it was unrealistic, my friend group totally exploded in college over much worse stuff than this.”

          Big Z was just pointing out that for people in the first camp, this seems like “wallowing” and being unremorseful because the whole situation seems like manufactured sitcom drama.

          I don’t think Big Z was actually saying, “I personally think they’re wallowing.” I think he was recognizing that the girls ARE full of jangly nerves and guilt, but that it hits different if you’re still super incredulous that anyone on earth could ever be so Dumb ™.

          @Big Z: for the record there HAVE been some pretty extreme “I hope these two get permanently ostracized by their friends” talk, which is what I think the Scarlett Letter reference is about.

          I think both sides have calmed down somewhat since “are they actually going to cheat” stopped being a question — even if “would you personally consider it cheating if your girlfriend did what Joyce is doing” continues to come up — in part because I think even the most upset of the people who have stuck around are more or less resigned to watching Joyce and Dorothy be crappy to their boyfriends for a while, in part because we’ve all vented our spleens a bunch already.

          I worry the poll plus people coming here from BlueSky is gonna start everything up again orz but it was nice while the relative peace lasted.

        12. Big Z

          Frankly, the conversation has reinforced my belief that there is a lot of talking past each other going on in basically all of these threads — less here, perhaps, than during the Laundry Incident which is the last time I remember it getting this bad.

          I am trying not to feel like Sajuuk-Khar (who obviously, at least, has excellent taste in space RTS games — I was fortunate enough in free cash timing that both collector motherships grace my desk) is arguing with me by proxy for the most extreme of the “Relationship Paladins” — I’d consider myself one of the milder sort, in the vein of “I made a lot of horny stupid decisions at that age, but they never involved anything even infidelity-adjacent, so I’m absolutely judging these characters for making worse choices.” I don’t want them permanently marked for life as adulterers, which is a literal interpretation of “Scarlet Letter”, but I do want them to be treated by their friend group as “people who made decisions that hurt our mutual friends” for a bit.

          And, again being frank, I hate that I’m being nitpicked over exactly what kind of hanky-panky these two are having and who’s going to hurt because of it WHILE also hearing the words “adulterer” and “Scarlet Letter” being tossed around like I said anything close to that.

        13. Sajuuk-Khar

          It’s belated and I doubt you’ll ever see it, BigZ, but I apologize for definitely arguing with you by proxy and getting way more heated than was warranted. That was rude. I should have stopped with my definition of the Scarlet Letter In The Comments phenomenon because that was meant much more generally, but I got mad.

        14. pope suburban

          My definitions are just fine. They’re not the ones you want, but you’re not actually the arbiter of everything. I guess I could go out of my way to make that massively condescending but that seems like a waste of time – though I wouldn’t sit here and tell you it definitively and objectively is, because some basic perspective I guess.

    3. StClair

      In my experience, in both fiction and real life, there comes a point where observing the antics/mistakes of the young, stupid, drunk and/or horny stops being entertaining and just becomes tiresome.

  63. Kenny Williams

    Sarah you should go visit your boyfriend. Let things just ride.

  64. Bash

    Okay so obviously this is wrong, but it is INCREDIBLY funny

    1. Nadamás

      That what makes it so funny

  65. Heavensrun

    They are *so bad at this*.

  66. Kaylee Dragonfly

    Good job keeping it secret from her. That lasted all of fifteen seconds.

  67. HueSatLight

    Sarah’s going to need some earplugs to get to sleep, to block the white noise machine.

  68. Thing 2

    Y’know, there are people saying that Joyce cannot ‘cheat’ (is the c-word OK?) on Dorothy with Joe. But. By Joyce’s recent definition of sex, she had sex with Dorothy before she became Joe’s girlfriend. So if ‘cheating’ is having sex with someone else, then having sex with Joe is ‘cheating’ on Dorothy…

    1. Dot

      What? That’s not how tha works.

      1. deliverything

        Pretty sure it makes sense by Joyce Logic. If you don’t understand Joyce Logic… well, honestly, you’re probably better off.

    2. thejeff

      Several people have made this argument and I can’t quite see where they miss the logic.

      Is there an assumption that having sex inherently creates a monogamous relationship, even if the people involved don’t see it as one? Or the same, but only if there is also an emotional connection, but still without the people involved thinking it’s a monogamous relationship?

    3. Big Z

      “Cheating” is breaking the rules of a relationship you’ve established. Dorothy and Joyce didn’t establish a relationship at all at the time, they just did some moderate hanky-panky as friends, which is a thing that people do.

      If you’re thinking about things wherein a dating relationship has to involve forethought and be expressly ended (and I think you could say the majority of US culture treats it this way), then Joyce is still dating Joe, making Dorothy the “affair partner” rather than someone who can be cheated on, until Joe and Joyce formally break up.

      That said, a quick perusal of certain advice columns and subreddits will also clue one in to the the idea that there are a LOT of people in the “affair partner” position who think they are being cheated on if their partner goes back to their established spouse/$genderfriend.

      Anyway, as “cheating” is specific to what the people in a relationship think is cheating (although when not explicitly stated, one usually has to make assumptions), the affair partner model holds because that’s what Dorothy thinks it is and Joyce tacitly agrees (or at least stops arguing).

      1. thejeff

        I think double cheating is a reasonable possibility. In a situation like this one, where you strike up a new cheating relationship, if you agree with the new person that you’re going to break up with the old one, but you actually don’t and continue to have sex with them, you’re now violating that new agreement.

        For it to count I think you have to be a bit more explicit than in a non-cheating relationship.

        1. Lumino

          I’m reminded of the old adage: “If your partner cheated with you, they will cheat on you.”

    4. Heavensrun

      Cheating isn’t about who f%#$ed first, it’s about who has agreed to be in an exclusive relationship with who.

      1. Jon

        And at what point, exactly, did Joyce and Joe have a frank discussion of their expectations of exclusivity? I must have missed it. (It can’t be just “Joe’s clearly uncomfortable with perceived infidelity,” because that still isn’t agreeing to anything.)

        1. Big Z

          The serious question answer to this is twofold:
          – in the absence of a specific verbalized discussion, what assumptions do you think they’re each working with?
          – to what degree is it reasonable to make assumptions about things like that in this particular cultural context?

          In all honesty, I suspect that all four affected kids (Joe/Joyce, Dorothy/Walky) are all essentially operating under the culturally mediated assumption that any relationship wherein the words “boyfriend” or “girlfriend” are used is de-facto an exclusive one. (If they were just “dating”, that could go either way.) At least, that’s the way my kid and my younger fraternity brothers use the words.

        2. Heavensrun

          The cultural expectation is that when you are in a relationship with someone, by default, it is expected that you are exclusive to them. Maybe that shouldn’t be the norm! But it is. Joe almost certainly expects that they’re exclusive. Joyce explicitly acknowledged that she thinks she’s cheating, which means even if he *didn’t*, she’s still betraying his trust because *she* thinks she’s going behind his back.

          But I’m not here to get in an argument about whether what Joyce is right, or wrong, or how bad cheating is, or how much what she’s doing equates to cheating, or any of that. I was responding to Thing2’s suggestion that Dotty was *there first*, therefore the relationship with Joe is the real cheating. Dotty and Joyce did not explicitly decide to become girlfriends until after Joe became Joyce’s boyfriend.

  69. Acher4

    PartnerNO!!!

    1. Tequila Mockingbird

      PARTNER YES!!!

    2. Steamweed

      GAL PALS YES
      GOOD FRIENDS YES
      PARTNERS YES
      ROOMMATES YES!

  70. Charlotte

    Uhoh?

  71. Acher4

    I’m quite suprised on the lately comments against Joyce and Dorothy.

    I am all against cheating. And I was for Joe/Joyce, but acting as if the whole situation is as clear as black and white is kind of… way too hypocritical.

    They are 19 year olds, who have been in situationships for 3-4 days.
    Let’s get the torches down please. Thanks.

    1. thejeff

      It’s pretty clear and black and white. They acknowledge it. That’s why they keep saying what they should do and then chickening out or making excuses to do what they want instead. It’s okay to sleep together because they’ve done it before not as a couple and besides Sarah will be there to keep them from doing anything.

      It’s understandable that they’re caught up in emotions and doing the wrong things, but they still are. If it didn’t matter because their relationships were just “situationships for 3-4 days”, then it should be easy to tell the boys and be done with it, right? No big deal.

      1. deliverything

        Exactly this — we can quibble all we like about how bad it is or isn’t, but they clearly consider it wrong, and yet…

    2. Jon

      I am so sick to tears of the “they’re only 19, it ain’t called Smarting Of Age” line of discussion.

      I managed to never cheat on anyone my entire life, even when I was a dumb college freshman. Some things cross a line.

      1. StClair

        (not intending to draw a direct line between that and this, but)

        Many players of an online game I used to play would protest their bans from same, and/or try to excuse the misbehavior that got them that, with the assertion that “everyone gets banned” (sometimes “at least once”). And I was always like, “… no?” Perhaps that’s how it was in their experience and/or social circles, but somehow I managed to avoid that.

      2. Kyulen

        Same, somehow even when I was a dumb college freshman, I managed to not cheat on anyone.

      3. Gizen

        Not everyone has cheated on a partner, but everyone has done *something*. Everyone is guilty of, at some point in their life, doing something they knew was wrong. At the end of the day, what Joyce and Dorothy are doing is stupid and wrong, but it’s not like they’re out there committing murder. This is not the most unforgivable sin that anyone has ever done. In the same way that Joe himself did not start to improve until after he had a drastic decline, Joyce and Dorothy will almost certainly need to actually face consequences before their dumb idiot brains can start to correct, and it’s too soon for that.

        Also, while you never cheated on anyone in your entire life, did you also experience a complete mental breakdown and the destruction of your self-image and then be presented an opportunity to do something self-destructive while in a vulnerable state of emotional turmoil? Or were you presented the chance to make a stupid mistake while still recovering from having been raised as part of a cult?

        Like I said, everyone makes a stupid mistake at some point in their life, but what those stupid mistakes will be will depend on what situations come along when they’re at their most likely to do something stupid. Not that it’s an excuse or a justification, but not everyone who so proudly proclaims they’ve never cheated would be able to continue doing so if things had happened differently in their lives. Some people would, but others would find their willpower is not as great as they think it is when situations come along while they’re at their lowest.

  72. Uratnik

    Holy shit that alt text is literally the funniest punchline in the whole comic.

    1. Rogue 7

      For my money it’s still the one comment from two days ago:

      “Joyce, you blew it.”

  73. Cabbage

    I love Joyce despite her flaws, and it’s important to remember she’s always been like this! Her passion and love have always been stronger than her sense of right and wrong. Sometimes this makes her behave badly, like when she lied to Harrison about dating Jacob; sometimes it makes her behave well, like when Becky came out to her. She thought being gay was wrong, but there was just no contest between that and her love for Becky.

    Dorothy is different. She’s been having a very bad couple of weeks and got caught at a vulnerable time; under better circumstances I think she could have avoided this. But Joyce was always going to do something like this someday.

    1. Ornathe

      Yeah, I genuinely struggle to understand everyone saying this is vastly out of character for them, because this completely tracks for Joyce and in my opinion, it isn’t an entirely unexpected thing for Dorothy to do, either. Joyce has willingly interfered with others’ relationships before because she wanted someone for herself (or allegedly for Sarah), and Joyce does a lot of lying and sneaking behind people’s backs, especially for horny reasons, even if she’s not good at it. The Ding-Dong Bandit is the most egregious example, but likely not the only one. And Dorothy has been on this path for a while now – taking Joyce for “laundry” to try to make her not date Joe in the first place by hoping rubbing one out would get her out of the horny-for-Joe rut, ignoring her relationship with Walky to send titty pics, going the extra mile in order to send the best most flattering possible titty pics she could manage, practically asking Danny to exonerate her, booty calling Walky for hasty apology sex because she knew she’d wronged him but not enough to tell him what she actually did… Frankly, the fact that they’re trying to keep their hands to themselves until they properly end things with Joe and Walky is a feat.

      This isn’t “out of character behaviour” for either of them. If anything, the fact that they’re struggling to adhere to the uncomplicated and Moral(tm) path of “okay, so we kissed, now we have to successfully and neatly end things without chickening out before we can so much as think about doing that again” makes them feel even more real to me. I don’t care about them doing things perfectly, I care about seeing them have very human flaws that it’d be all too easy to write out for the sake of making them as likeable as possible.

      1. Madock345

        Good comment agree fully.

      2. and painted shark women

        won’t lie, I have not enjoyed this current arc at all because I’m very attached to these two idiots and high key hated this look for them, BUT you make a very good point and I’m gonna try to look at it all more your way :3

      3. Big Z

        I’ve seen the argument made that this is a reversal in trajectory for Joyce — she seemed to be moving on from her “Do Stupid Things Due to Horny and Romantic” phase (into, possibly, a different kind of “Do Stupid Things Due to Horny and No Longer Constrained By Religion” mode where she was “ready” for that ding-dong).

        Most of my personal disappointment in the storyline is that I had really identified with a lot of Joyce’s journey, but when she went down the path of “relationship anarchy/cheating due to bad impulse control” she lost me.

        (I personally took the path of “slept with someone WAY too early in the relationship, because God Isn’t Real And Rules Are Stupid”, which was just as dramatic in the long run)

      4. Li

        https://bsky.app/profile/smooti.bsky.social/post/3lvbl44mhl22m

        I think this person on BlueSky nailed it. As Willis says in reply, it’s the Joycest thing Joyce has ever done.

      5. Odo

        Joyce loves a lot of people. Normally that doesn’t undermine her sense of right and wrong, rather it strengthens it.

        In the case of Jacob she made a bad, stupid decision, but it was wrapped up in her fantasy that this was how romantic relationships worked. She villainized Raidah and didn’t recognize how she was disrespecting Jacob’s agency. It wasn’t that she was “overcome with love” rather love didn’t stand in her way.

        In this instance, however, she still loves Joe, and she is continuously choosing to act in a way that will hurt him. And her motivation is purely selfish. She loves Dorothy sure, but Dorothy doesn’t need to sleep with her, or to keep kissing her, etc… especially not so urgently that is should take precedence over Joe.

        Joyce isn’t normally this selfish when it comes to hurting the people she loves.

        1. thejeff

          I’m not sure that’s quite right. I don’t think she so much villainized Raidah as didn’t give her a second thought when she wasn’t actually present. Which isn’t so different from how she’s treating Joe, except that she likes Joe when he is there.
          It might even be how she’s treating Dorothy, though that’s more of stretch. Still look what happened as soon as she was alone with Joe. Or when he showed up for their date the night before.

          It’s very hard to tell what’s going on in Joyce’s mind right now.

        2. Freemage

          I concur with this assessment, and this is what’s been bugging me. Joyce not caring about people she doesn’t care about is an existing flaw. Joyce being actively and knowingly harmful to someone she explicitly cares deeply for is another thing entirely, and does seem to defy prior characterization.

    2. Odo

      Joyce has always been bad about respecting boundaries, like with her objectifying Sal, or lying to Jacob. But, as I said in my other reply, love is the foundation of her sense of right and wrong, not an obstical.

      When her learned religious morals conflict with love she chooses love.

      But this is not that. She is not making a courageous stand for love. She is making a horny stand for lust. She wants to make out with Dorothy, and she is prioritizing that over her care and respect for Joe.

      Which is out of character. Normally she is intensly worried about doing things to harm the people she loves. Consider how she freaked out when she realized her homophobia might have hurt Becky. She is willing to do a lot to help and care for the people she loves.

      She clearly still loves Joe in a certain sense, but she isn’t continuing to demonstrate that same care. That is what feels out of character. Bad boundaries and naivete are one thing. Knowing betraying a close friend is another.

      1. Fuzzy

        Yeah. I can’t remember any previous instances where Joyce realized she was hurting someone she loved and didn’t change course immediately to try and stop hurting them. Whereas Joyce has realized she’s hurting Joe, and that realization has not completely ground her life to a halt like it has every previous time.

        Like, for instance, when she realized she was hurting Ethan by trying to convert him to heterosexuality:
        https://www.dumbingofage.com/2015/comic/book-5/02-threes-a-crowd/shouldgo/
        https://www.dumbingofage.com/2015/comic/book-5/02-threes-a-crowd/trauma/
        https://www.dumbingofage.com/2015/comic/book-5/02-threes-a-crowd/climbing/

        1. Fuzzy

          Oh my bad, she was actually running out to find Becky, not Ethan, cuz realized she was hurting Becky by being homophobic. But breaking up with Ethan was also important to her, at least.

          https://www.dumbingofage.com/2015/comic/book-5/02-threes-a-crowd/gunshot/

      2. Astariel

        It’s weird to me that you see this as being just about lust, when I feel that it’s been abundantly clear going back to the very early days of the comic that she loves Dorothy more than anyone. All that’s changed is that she realizes that she loves Dorothy romantically as well, and even though she loves Joe also, that can’t compete with her love for Dorothy.

  74. iain

    Gosh, EVERYONE’S seen that Smosh clip huh

    1. Taffy

      What Smosh clip?

  75. David Welbourn

    It’s like watching poker players trying to bluff with transparent cards.

  76. Imp

    Dorothy to Joe: Me and your girlfriend playing dress-up at my house…

    1. and painted shark women

      <3<3<3<3
      first time my fiance played me that song I was utterly not expecting the line about hentai boobies and snorted milk out my nose just from feeling so seen ;o;

      1. Tequila Mockingbird

        Out of curiosity, what is the song? I don’t recognize these lyrics.

        1. Formedras

          Probably One Week by Barenaked Ladies, which references Sailor Moon.
          Also got parodied as Jerry Springer by Weird Al, which got a Sailor Moon AMV.

        2. Jon

          No, the only reference in there to Sailor Moon is “got those boom anime babes who make me think the wrong thing”.

        3. Taffy

          It’s interesting how many people are on the “Sailor Moon is sexy” train, because she’s like 16 by the end of the show, and I hear it from adults. Even while it was still airing.

        4. Taffy

          A quick search turned up Slumber Party, by Ashnikko.

        5. Tequila Mockingbird

          Thank you very much! Have 1.21 internets. You know, to account for inflation.

  77. Doopyboop

    Sarah looks lovely in black.

  78. Da Boy

    If put into an interrogation room these girls would confess to everything including sniping JFK… and the cop didn’t even get his coffee yet!

  79. Armepos

    Mike would have told Walky and Joe by now, and on its way to tell Becky. Making sure they al feel sad about it.

    1. Formerly Glenn

      I miss Mike.

      My pet theory is that he’s actually just in witness protection.

      Even though he really is just dead.

    2. HueSatLight

      Amber’s hallucination of Mike tells Walky and Joe, making sure Amber feels sad about it and that Walky and Joe knows Amber’s part in this.

      1. HueSatLight

        I was imagining Mike physically manifesting, but now I’m wondering if an alter can develop that way.

  80. MaeBeSo

    These two literally doing the “Don’t Be Suspicious” song from Parks and Rec unironically, these two dorks deserve each other lol

  81. Willoughby Chase

    I’m genuinely enjoying this storyline

  82. Steamweed

    Per the poll, I see that the Gremlins and Sickos Society is still in the lead. An excellent (and unsurprising) turnout.

    1. Big Z

      Latest results have “indifferent” in the lead at 596, “dead to me” at 476, “cheating rules” at 240.

      And, implied based on the turnout for sickos vs. paladins, “I’m not voting in a joke poll” and “I haven’t seen it yet” at approximately 5000 combined. =P

      1. Steamweed

        Ahh, I see I am now a member in:
        “They’re college freshman and horny idiots, so, like, (30%, 56 Votes)”

        Excellent. 🙂

        1. Jon

          Precisely.

  83. Abel Undercity

    Sarah-sense, tingling!

  84. thumb

    I know it’s coincidental on account of it being done almost a year ago, and also Willis wouldn’t want to make that particular connection, and also no one would expect something so clownish in real life,
    But it’s giving real “are you still talking about Jeffrey Epstein?” vibes.

    1. Madock345

      I don’t get it?

      1. Freemage

        I get the reference, but not the linkage. The quoted bit is essentially how the GOP has been acting in response to increasing demand to release info that would actually be damaging to Trump, re: his relationship with Epstein. After using Epster as a talking-point against the Democrats during the entire election, they suddenly are acting like they never heard of the guy.

    2. Dot

      The New York financier?

  85. Username Taken

    Historians will one day say they were roomies.

  86. goggleman64

    I love the slow trasition from Fresh Smile to Classic Frown.

  87. Bryy

    I’m so amused by this.

  88. Owlmirror

    Sarah: Do . . . I need to put a sock on the doorknob?

    Dorothy: What?! NO!! No sock-related business going on here! This is just a simple, ordinary sleepover! Like we sometimes do!

    Joyce: No socksy times are happening!

    1. Owlmirror

      Actually, I’ll put 10 quatloos on “They are both so exhausted by all the stress of the day that nothing happens under the blanket and they just fall asleep”.

      1. Nymph

        oh I approve of “the weighted blanket is so nice it sends them both to dreamland in seconds” idea

        1. Big Z

          The only thing that would make this idea funnier is if tomorrow’s strip is “Dorothy and Joyce, fast asleep under the blanket. Camera pans to the (now open) door, in which are standing Sarah, Joe, and Walky, all frowning with their arms crossed. End of Book 15.”

        2. Nymph

          lmao, yes. That would be perfect.

    2. Owlmirror

      And another 10 quatloos on something else:

      The strip for when they wake up will be an homage to that black-and-white photograph of two young women facing each other in bed. One is brunette and the other is blonde, I think.

      Posters and such of that picture were very common 20ish years ago, and they are probably still around. Anyone else know what I’m referring to?

      1. Big Z

        “Kiss”, by Tanya Chalkin, which I eventually found on google by searching “that poster of two girls in lingerie that every guy had in their dorm”.

        Which is ironic, since the original image was very much “an advertising shoot for a queer-friendly online financial services and storefront” (that died in 2001 in the first dotcom crash era).

        1. StClair

          oh, is that what that one tATu shoot was referencing?

          (my media awareness of anything after the early 90s is extremely spotty/random and full of gaps)

        2. Owlmirror

          That’s the one. You get half my quatloos, if I win any.

    3. Tequila Mockingbird

      To which Sarah’s response would be “Gotcha. Two socks, then.”

    4. Steamweed

      I applaud you for your “socksy times” terminology.

  89. Adeptus

    Uh, acknowledging how wrong it would be for them to now snuggle under Joe’s gift in this way makes what fallows even more ick.

    I’m approaching the ”these characters are dead to me” threshold fast, and I’m not even such a CHEATING IS BAD lawful type. What gets me is how callous and flippant they are towards other people.

    Things keep being revealed and reinforced about them, and I don’t think I’d continue to associate with friends like this after I found out.

    1. Big Z

      Yeah. I certainly knew people who were this … whatever this is, back in college. And they spent the last two years before graduation wondering why they were gradually excluded from basically every friend group, even by people they hadn’t directly cheated on or enabled the cheating-on of.

      1. Adeptus

        It’s the old, ”when someone tells you who they are, believe them the first time”.

        Now, don’t get me wrong. I believe in redemption and reconciliation. Most of the time hurt feelings and fights happen over misunderstandings, and apologies go a long way.

        What doesn’t wash off is deliberate callousness.

        1. Big Z

          The other side of “these are dumb kids in their late teens” coin is also “when this is the FIRST time YOU’VE been wronged in a relationship, it’s going to hurt more and you’re not going to have tools to deal with it” — I also believe in redemption and reconciliation in the abstract, but they’re just as hard (if not harder!) for a bunch of dumb kids to pull off as “figuring out your bi awakening without kicking your current boyfriends in the teeth”.

        2. Adeptus

          Fully agreed. I’ll stick around to see if Willis can salvage this into something I’ll still enjoy following.

  90. Drainiest Drain

    Just woke up from a nap. I dreamt we got canon voices for Joyce, Joe, and Danny. I heard them in a dubbed strip, and when they materialized in the hurricane bunker me and several hundred children sheltering in. The DOA people became volunteer audience members in a clown show that was taking place. Joe sang Mirrors by Justin Timberlake at the top of his lungs.

  91. Dot

    Sarah: Alright, what are you two hiding?

    Joyce: What? W-we’re not… we wouldn’t… who says we’re hiding anything?

    Sarah: Tell me now or I’ll tell Joe you’ve been cheating on him.

    Joyce: …

    Joyce: Weeeelllll

    Sarah: Oh Jesus Christ

  92. Mym

    I feel like a lot of the people upset that these fictional girls are cheaters are probably also upset by fictional brothers kissing

    1. Dot

      “What’s wrong with this? It’s just like incest” is perhaps not the most rhetorically persuasive argument in the world

      1. Mym

        The antis are here

      2. Mym

        I’m comparing fiction to fiction. If you continue to read the comic after there’s been murder, do you not then condone murder? Or is it ✨fixtional✨

        People who get real world mad should only read nonfiction

        1. Big Z

          Ah yes, the correct way to read fiction stories — never ever identify with or care about what’s happening! Because if you do it means you exactly think that everything in fiction should be exactly the same way in real life!

        2. Freemage

          I’m sorry your understanding of fiction is so barren. The point of fiction is to entertain, yes, but it can also contain messages, both intentional and deliberate, particularly from how the events in that fiction are portrayed.

          Would you enjoy a story where Mary, without changing her actual words and actions, was portrayed as some sort of genuinely righteous person, speaking hard truths to sinful peers and bring them onto the path of Light? I know I wouldn’t.

          Framing matters in fiction. This story has HAD portrayals of violence and murder, but no one complained about those moments because they were invariably shown to be bad things. They absolutely DID get angry at the perpetrators, but that was fine, because we were meant to. Here, the anger-inducing behavior is coming from characters we like, and in Joyce’s case in particular, one we feel violates the core of what we like about the character.

    2. Big Z

      This is exactly the kind of thing I was thinking about the other day when I said this place is entirely too full of shit-stirrers.

      I feel like a lot of people making disingenuous statements about what other people like or dislike about the comic are trying to get their drama fix from the commentariat because they secretly agree with me that this storyline is going nowhere.

      1. Nadamás

        That is a really weird assumption about a really common internet thing. People are gonna start shit! It’s annoying but it’s not because of any hidden motive, it’s just what anonymous people on the internet do.

        1. Big Z

          There are many, many uncharitable assumptions about what people are thinking and saying that I have seen either stated or implied in these threads.

          This one is mine.

    3. Taffy

      I’m not upset about this, but I might be about the hypothetical kissing brothers. Like, the cheater cheater pumpkin eaters are just eating their pumpkins while other stuff happens, but I’d immediately be worried that if two brothers kissed, it would turn into An Incest Comic™ and just be about that from then on.

    4. Jon

      Wincest seems quite popular on AO3. If I were less ethical, I might tag a couple of my stories with it just to get some readers. (Mine are completely devoid of hanky-panky, which seems to be an unpopular option.)

  93. BCGeiger

    Oh, they are GOOD! /s

  94. Boomer Gonzales

    Ok, I’m getting the vibe that this whole thing is going to end up badly for them. Joyce in particular.

    Throughout this run, I’ve noticed Dorothy have a habit of pursuing what other people desire or even have as if she’s trying to find her identity in the scope and goals of others instead of forging her own path only to abandon said path when encountering the reality of that path such as her aim for politics until she met the ACTUAL Senator De Santis in the shamelessly flawed flesh.

    As for Joyce, this sweet summer child is still in the midst of finding out who she is outside of the controlled structure of others. She’s leaning REAL hard on the new community she’s found, but she may or may not know she’s subconsciously doing so at the sudden and complete absence of her old community. She’s still experimenting and that’s all well and good in the trial and error era of early adulthood we all experienced, but the more I read the more I get the idea that she’s being led as opposed to taking the lead.

    1. Tequila Mockingbird

      I’d like to add to this that I think some of that “being led” portion of her behavior may be a hold over from the old fundie community.

      You spend a long time in an environment where you are encouraged to follow the rules and go through the motions without question? That doesn’t disappear the instant you cast off your previous worldview. Breaking yourself from the “be obedient” and “trust Big Brother” mentality can take a long time to fully detox out of your mental system.

      It’s not uncommon to latch on to a new “authority” figure and take what they say as your NEW gospel. I’m an adult and I still lapse into this sometimes; the idea that being good means following the *correct* authority. Thinking for yourself is a skill like any other, and it requires practice.

      So, speaking from a similar (or at least adjacent) perspective* as Joyce here, you’re more right than you realize.

      *By which I mean, conservative Bible Thumper youth that I left during my college years.

    2. thejeff

      And yet, Joyce initiated the Kiss, even while Dorothy protested “we can’t”. Or yesterday, suggesting Dorothy sleep over.
      It’s Dorothy who’s made protests the whole way and Joyce who’s gotten her past them.

      It’s really hard to see Dorothy leading Joyce here.

      1. Big Z

        Concur. Their dynamic has shifted significantly since the “mom friend” days, and didn’t Dorothy even say she was consciously trying to do things Joyce’s way prior to the protest?

  95. Mishyana

    All other issues aside, it’s good that Becky and Joyce have not ended up together because they would absolutely murder each other. I get that Becky has a crush but good lord they are the definition of incompatible.

    1. Dot

      Definitely. But I’m not convinced that Dorothy and Joyce are romantically compatible in the long term either…

      1. Adeptus

        I can only hope not. Their shtick already bores me to tears.

  96. Seakay

    Just for the record, I voted “Cheating is evil and Joyce and Dorothy are dead to me,” but I meant it in like, a positive way

    1. Taffy

      These disgusting trollops (affectionate)

  97. Big Z

    (Literal) Shower thought:

    I suspect the reason infidelity is significantly more impactful on some people’s enjoyment of a story than other kinds of “moral wrongs” is specifically because it’s almost impossible to imagine it being something justified or good in the long run.

    Murder? Most folks are going to know at least one story where killing the bad guy is the only way to stop him. Most folks would, I think, at least consider going back in time and killing Hitler/Stalin if the opportunity presented itself. Even someone like Hannibal Lecter, clearly positioned as “the bad guy”, is shown choosing his victims based on perceived insults or failings, which positions him in the narrative as “above” other killers who choose more arbitrary victims. Killmonger takes it too far, but in general he’s not wrong about the need for the oppressed to have the ability to rise up.

    Robbery? Everyone from Robin Hood to Jean Valjean had a good reason for that. Even something like Ocean’s Eleven sets up a story where the victim of the robbery deserves it on some level (and isn’t PARTICULARLY hurt by it — a guy who owns three Vegas casinos isn’t going to miss a mere nine-figure cash heist).

    But infidelity? Even when it’s justified (revenge, trapped in a bad relationship for other reasons), it’s not a thing that solves any problems, it just balances the scales a bit.

    Therefore, in general it seems like it’s easier to sympathize with a fictional murderer than a fictional cheater, because most people deep down could imagine a problem you could only solve by killing someone but not a problem you could only solve by cheating on your otherwise-good partner.

    1. Dot

      I mean there’s always degrees to this sort of thing. The town beauty who is trapped in an abusive relationship with the local industrialist who falls in love with the good-hearted farmboy behind his back? That’s fine, we like that, and we root for it because the “wronged” party is more morally objectionable than the erstwhile crime of cheating. What’s upsetting about it in this case for a lot of people is that isn’t the case here. Joe and Walky are both generally exceptionally good partners. They don’t deserve this.

      1. Big Z

        *nods* Agree, but extend to tie into my “it’s not a thing that solves problems” assertion — if the beauty JUST cheats with the farmboy, a lot of us will find it unsatisfying because at the end of the day she’s still married to the industrialist! Something ELSE has to happen besides infidelity so that she can end up being free of the actual problem (the marriage) — even if that something else is “she gets caught and absolutely mauled by a divorce court judge, loses everything EXCEPT farmboy love.”

    2. Seakay

      My theory on this is that it’s also because cheating is more likely to hit close to home for someone—almost everyone has known someone who’s been cheated on, or even had it happen to themselves. Much fewer people have known someone who’s been murdered, or had personal experiences relating to it. Most people see it happen waaaay more often in fiction than IRL, so there’s more personal distance there.

    3. HueSatLight

      My intent is not to undermine your observation, but this felt like a challenge.

      Here’s an example of “cheating” solving a problem. Admittedly it’s a terrible example. Romeo and Juliet. One interpretation is that Juliet is betrothed to Count Paris, and does not want to be trapped married to him. She is not head over heals in love with Romeo, but realizes he is a way out of that trap. Being with Romeo is the less worst of two traps. She doesn’t get Romeo to act unless she makes out with him. The cheating (as defined by their culture) is necessary for her to escape. Like I said, not a great example, because they all famously die. And that type of scenario is something a lot fewer posters here probably encounter than “the rich gouging the poor”.

      1. Big Z

        *nods* Absolutely accepted, but it feels like to me that this is just another case of “it doesn’t solve problems directly” — the “solution” to their actual problems is the fake-suicide plot, which famously falls to shit. The cheating, such as it is, is just a means to motivate Romeo to participate in that solution.

    4. Li

      Mmm.

      Except the “murder is fine, it’s sex that’s the problem” argument usually isn’t about infidelity specifically. Most of the time, when I see this argument get made, it’s about how it’s fine to like fictionalized, dramatic serial killer stories until someone wants to marry the serial killer, e.g. Killing Stalking (which is a horror story with sexual elements, NOT a romance claiming to portray a healthy relationship, but boy would you not know that from how western fandom received it lol).

      Or like how society in general never batted an eye at literally countless portrayals of serial killers as cool awesome geniuses (like Hannibal Lectre), but got VERY upset about the teen girls who swooned over Dahmer and Bundy.

      Because it’s completely fine and morally neutral to think they’re super cool dudes, handsome and charming and brilliant, but we draw the line the instant our extremely romanticized serial killers actually strike a teenage girl as romantic, heh.

      1. Li

        Like, don’t get me wrong. I do think our tendency to romanticize serial killers is a problem! We’ve made them into real-life supervillains who evade the police for decades by being brilliant, when the mundane truth of the matter is that the vast majority of serial killers just………

        Get away with their crimes because they target sex workers and unhoused people. Because they very rarely target middle class white people.

        And because police are lazy and incompetent and don’t bother to investigate the vast majority of serial killings. Because even Law & Order, the most copaganda series of all time, still acknowledged that police have a code phrase for dead sex workers: NHI. No human involved. Which they use to let each other know not to try too hard!

        I just think it’s… extremely noteworthy that we’ve all accepted the romantification of serial killers as fine and normal, and we don’t tend to get our knickers in a twist until women start liking a serial killer for “the wrong” reasons, and those reasons are always sexual.

        Because America is a little screwed up about sex, and that permeates a lot of our psychology.

        1. Li

          Also the misogyny. Can’t forget that part, heh.

        2. Big Z

          Oh yeah, there is no doubt an undercurrent of “yes, the misogyny” (and “Serial Killers” are 100% in the bucket of “only cool when guys romanticize them”) and “sex is bad” in all of this, but even in mostly queer-friendly and egalitarian spaces that have tried to unpack that I have found that “infidelity” is more likely to annoy people than “murder” or “robbery”.

        3. Li

          Yes! Sorry, I agree with that part of the thesis. I tried to cut down my response (lol), and I found up just fully discarding that, but at ONE point I was gonna be like:

          I’ve been here too in a slightly different sense, which is that I used to get really distressed by a specific type of Beligerent Sexual Tension. And then for a long time I just deeply didn’t like it.

          But at the same time, while I was Most distressed by BST, I still had no problem at all with stuff like, The Joker/Batman. Whether it was being winked at in Arkham City or dealt with more at length like in The Lego Batman Movie. I’d see arguments that enemies to lovers was a toxic trope that was offensive to people who’d been in abusive relationships…

          …and I’d be like, not all of us? This doesn’t bother me even a little. It doesn’t look anything like what I experienced. Not the way that more mundane “they argue viciously because they’re in love” tropes did!

          And for me personally, I was if anything even more distressed by specific types of friendships — friendships where one person just says mean stuff to the other all the time, and it’s played for laughs, with the person who’s getting “bullied” also seeming to enjoy it. That’s not even a romantic relationship, but it still really upset me!

          Obviously, of course, all people are different. There ARE gonna be people who have been in abusive relationships for whom The Joker’s twisted way of showing affection to Batman absolutely does get to them — maybe not even the varying canon dynamics as much as the way they see fans talk about those dynamics!

          But yeah. What I’m trying to say, I think, is that not every fictional take on a matter is equal, and the ones that Get to Us are often the ones that are closest to what we’ve personally experienced.

          (I’m putting bullying in quotes up there because when I was really raw from my experience, that’s what it looked like. And, like, sometimes it IS, too!

          Relevant example: the way Joe used to call Dorothy a lesbian. I fully believe that he thought it was teasing and in good fun and didn’t realize it was actually hurting her. I’m sure 98% of the time she rolled her eyes, and sometimes she even lobbed something back. I’m sure she never burst into tears in front of him.

          But the fact that she wasn’t enjoying the back and forth does matter! Sometimes people enjoy it and sometimes they don’t. Some people enjoy relationship dynamics in their real lives that I would hate, heh. I was projecting when I felt like the non-bullying examples were still bullying.

          But of course we all project sometimes. Heck, we all project a lot! No one’s actually an X-Men style empath, we’re all making guesses on what other people are feeling all the time. Sometimes we’re right. Sometimes we aren’t.)

        4. Li

          [aaaaaa]

          Welp. Didn’t mean that to be more than like 2 paragraphs.

        5. Big Z

          Agreed and cosigned — for me, infidelity/cheating storylines are kinda annoying but what I REALLY can’t stand is anything that smacks of “cringe” or “embarassment comedy” — there was a couple of years where I basically couldn’t watch funny movies because everything reminded me of being the bullied weird kid.

        6. Li

          I’m so sorry about that. Ugh, cringe comedy was HUGE for a while, too, as if suddenly it was the only kind of joke anyone knew how to tell.

          And it’s recently gotten better in a very… selective way.

          People will say “don’t bully kids with autism” in the same breath as they’ll suggest that we should bring bullying back for fully harmless stuff, because they know Being Ableist Is Bad but they haven’t at all internalized that a lot of weird behavior is neurodiversity, even if the person hasn’t disclosed a diagnosis…

          …and they’re not at all ready to internalize that bullying people is, like, fundamentally bad, and that the purpose of social justice movements isn’t, actually, to identify the groups of people it’s okay to bully.

          We all need to learn that “annoying” is not the same thing as “harmful”, that it’s okay to dislike someone for being annoying (you’re not instantly a bad person, you don’t need a Good Reason for disliking someone) but that disliking someone shouldn’t automatically = being mean to them, and that you get infinitely further in creating a safe space if you make shitty behaviors impermissible than you do if you just put a sign on the door that says “no cishet men allowed”.

          (For one thing, you’re gonna spend the rest of your evening policing people’s genders and kicking out bi/pan/etc people. For another, it’s just literally true that a lot of abusive people fly under the radar by having The Good Identities and giving all the right progressive lip service.)

        7. Big Z

          Yeah, the improvements are very haphazard at best — there is definitely an undercurrent of “it’s okay to be mean to the RIGHT PEOPLE”.

          My partner showed me a bit of that “Chit Show” and that’s kinda emblematic — as far as I can tell, the “joke” is “hey, look at our awkward co-worker — but he’s actually doing the correct thing most of the time just in a weird or awkward way. It’s funny. Laugh.” And I literally can’t figure out what the appeal is of “watch the weird guy be weird” even if he’s not getting bullied or harassed, or he’s shown to win when that DOES happen.

          Or like the Big Bang Theory, which as far as I can tell has the thesis of “it’s okay to laugh at nerds and autism and misogyny if we frame said nerds etc. as the protagonists”.

        8. Li

          Bleh.

          The Big Bang Theory pretty much shot itself in the foot immediately by being a show written about nerds by people who… maybe they don’t all hate nerds, but they absolutely don’t understand or know any nerds, and the way the characters are written consistently is with “being nerdy” as a punchline.

          A lot of the nerd opinions they voice are incoherent. Things it doesn’t make sense for the character to actually believe, but like, it’s A Nerd Thing, so therefore.

          Like all the nerds love Star Trek. Even though most of them are, like, physicists. And I’m not gonna say there are no physicists who love Star Trek, because of course there are. But these characters are mostly pedants. You’d think they’d be put off by the meaningless technobabble. You’d think at least ONE of them would be strictly a fan of hard sci-fi, and would be put off by Star Trek and Star Wars for being mostly space fantasy. You’d think at least one of them wouldn’t like comic books.

          Heck, you’d think they’d at LEAST argue over which Star Trek was best, but the only times it’s come up (I just checked the wiki bc it’s been years since I tried to give this show a chance), it’s been “The Original Series is the best show, but Picard is a better captain than Kirk.”

          Which, for anyone who’s seen any Trek at all, is a WILD opinion for even one person to hold. If you like Picard best, surely you also prefer quieter, more thoughtful episodes with nuanced conflict resolution and diplomacy? Why would you then say TOS, with its shorter, simpler episodes with much blunter politics and more of a “cowboy” sensibility about problem-solving, be your favorite series? It absolutely just feels like writers who have never seen any episode of Star Trek just going, “well, they’ll probably consider The Original to be the best, right? Because it’s the original and nerds usually prefer the original. But Captain Picard is most people’s favorite so we’ll have them also like him best!”

          Never mind that TOS is famously hard to watch for modern audiences because it’s so cheesy and cheap-looking and its social commentary is so dated. Many people do still dig through it and find diamonds in the rough and come to love it best, but even for them, it’s a show that lives or dies by the strength of its main trio: loving TOS best but not loving Kirk (and Spock and McCoy) is just really really really weird. For all the nerds to agree about it is bizarre.

          Also, that neither Deep Space Nine nor Voyager are even contenders for any of the nerds just makes the characters look racist and sexist. Which they ARE, so fair play I guess, but they’re not supposed to be that bad lol.

          I know “they got the nerd stuff wrong” is small potatoes when compared with how the characters treat Penny, or the specific way that Sheldon’s likely autism and everyone else’s social awkwardness are the butts of jokes, but I do feel like knowing so little about the subculture you tried to base your sitcom around dooms you to failure. How can you write interesting characters if you understand so little about what makes them tick? How can anyone expect those characters to treat women well, when “nerds suck at interacting with women” is all the writers know or care to know about their characters? How can anyone expect the characters to handle neurodiversity with any aplomb when “nerds are weird and annoying” is all the thought that was put into any of it……..

        9. Li

          LI. Li, nobody cares this much about The Big Bang Theory. YOU definitely don’t care this much about the Big Bang Theory. Ffffffff.

          If Willis ever adds an edit button all of my comments will immediately become half as long, because the embarrassment when I hit post and it’s just 8 million paragraphs……..

        10. Big Z

          Hah, god I wish I had an edit button for the opposite reason — I’m quick to toss off a paragraph or one-liner and then want to immediately adjust or append something to it.

          Anyway, the REAL Trek dorks know that Picard was more of a horndog fuckup than Kirk ever was — “Picard thinks, Kirk acts” is at least half “memery that bears no relation to their actual Starfleet careers as depicted on-screen”.

        11. Li

          So first let me agree with you that Kirk gets a bad rap and that he was never, like, playboy misogynist. He wore his heart on his sleeve and fell in love several times! And also yeah, in their academy days, explicitly Kirk was a nerdy bookworm and Picard got in bar fights so often that he eventually got himself stabbed through the heart lol.

          But Picard did chill out, and he is a big archaeology nerd, and TNG as a whole definitely has more “thinky” episodes, in part because Roddenberry had shifted from trying to make a funky 60s science fantasy show inspired by the same type of serials that also inspired Star Wars to full-on commitment to portraying a utopian future.

          (inb4 TOS was always woke: of course it was! Roddenberry was very conscious of what kind of message he was sending by putting a Russian on his bridge, a Black woman on his bridge; TOS was fighting against stereotypes we don’t even remember anymore, like Scotty being a brilliant engineer and a hard worker instead of a lazy drunk.

          But TNG was when he started trying to imagine a future completely free from human conflict, where we’re all SO evolved that we don’t even grieve as children when our parents die. It… didn’t work super well! The show got better when it got away from that constraint more and was allowed to have SOME interpersonal conflict, but ye, I think the meme is actually understandable.

          Not that you said anything other than “it’s only half true” 😉 )

        12. Adeptus

          Cringe comedy is the worst, and yes, I was also bullied and mocked at school.

        13. Big Z

          There’s also post-Roddenberry Picard to consider. For all it’s myriad flaws, ST:Picard did a HELL of a job showing us the PTSD-ridden shell of a man still trying to figure out how to do good (and fucking it up a whole lot) in a universe that’s increasingly decided his brand of thoughtful do-goodery isn’t what’s needed anymore.

        14. Priv. Priv.

          Its from Puritanical culture the Puritains had all sort of hang ups about about sex but were cool with genocide. Purity Culture Advocates will always say its about bad or immoral sex but what even is considered “immoral” is shaped by puritanical ideas. Thats not to say cheating is good or anything but people underestimate how much they habe internalized these ideas.

    5. Tequila Mockingbird

      This is very well thought out, and you make some excellent points. Thanks for posting this. I think you hit the nail on the head, here.

    6. Jon

      I’m just holding that there’s a lot of space between “justifiable” and “understandable”.

      I understand why the characters are behaving this way. That doesn’t mean I think it’s justified, just that I get why they’re doing what they’re doing.

      1. Big Z

        No doubt. If it wasn’t consistently understandable, I doubt any of use would be here after this long.

  98. superglucose

    Cheating is the *best* and Joyce and Dorothy should do more of it.

    Dubcousin best cousin

  99. Ac

    Joe is going to be the last to find out, isn’t he? everyone else will plainly see it or think they were already dating, and Joe will be completely blindisded?

  100. Florence

    Personally my vote is more cheating because I am actually Satan and I rise! Muahahahahahahaha

    *cue night on bald mountain
    https://youtu.be/b756FPiLlp8?si=pE2hsREQMBLzPeFT

    1. Amós Batista

      Oh, damn it, it’s a Balrog!!

      1. Florence

        You thought ol balrog was dead!

        1. NGPZ

          chernabog, yeeees hahahhahahaha >:D

    2. Ac

      (Sickos YES laugh)

      1. Florence

        Yes! My power grows with sicko laughs!

  101. Yeet

    sarah tries to text joe and walky but everyone is still saved in her phone as that annoying kid

    1. Tequila Mockingbird

      This is gold, and I hope it happens.

    2. Dot

      Walky: Sarah, why’d you text me that Joyce was cheatin’ on me?

  102. slambat

    re poll: i think cheating is fairly significantly overrated especially when you just realized you’re gay after getting into a straight relationship very recently. basically they have a week or so grace period to break up with joe and walky before it becomes a problem imo

    1. Adeptus

      Pretty sure Joyce is bi.

      1. slambat

        it’s certainly possible, but the way joyce has been with joe is extremely similar to the way many lesbians i know describe their final and/or most serious relationship(s) with a guy. the throwing yourself into it, the rapid advancement in stages of relationship, the fixation on the sexual aspects especially when it’s something you previously denied yourself… you love the person, and you want to feel romance, so you convince yourself that this man is the one for you. doubly so when there’s a woman close to you who you don’t think you’re allowed to love romantically. i could believe either or both of them being bi, but as written, right now, i’m buying dorothy as bi a good deal more than joyce.

      2. Freemage

        Pretty sure they both are, actually. Dotty’s gotten intimate with two BFs prior to this, and was clearly jonesing for johnson when she hooked back up with Walky. And Joyce has been obsessed with men’s asses forever. If anything, I think Joyce is more ‘evenly bi’ while she may be Dotty’s exception. Joyce’s fascination with Billie’s boobs and her girlcrush on Sal both point to her having a more bisexual desire that was simply constrained by her upbringing, while Dotty’s only really been into Joyce.

  103. zee

    Happy emancipation day to any fellow Anglo Caribbeans! To celebrate our release form the shackles of slavery, I have emancipated myself from this comment section to go touch grass! Well, sea grass. And sand. I’m on the beach. Yes I’m bragging, explicitly. Har dee har har

  104. Li

    Also, hey, fellow sickos:

    Let them who has never had a piece of media run headlong into a big personal squick or even trigger that made it hard to enjoy cast the first stone.

    It IS actually totally okay for people to be sharing their negative feelings about cheating in general and this storyline in particular!

    There’s been a marked decline lately in folks actually saying “you’re a bad person if you’re enjoying this storyline”, so let’s not treat folks like they’re saying that when they’re only saying, “I hate cheating storylines,” or “I like Joyce and Dorothy less now” or “this is boring.”

    The comments were just chilling out and becoming fun to interact with again…! I really don’t wanna lose that lol.

    (And don’t get it twisted, I’m not saying “you’re not allowed to respond to those comments at all,” I’m just saying that not all of the negativity today or even this week was saying we’re not allowed to enjoy the storyline.

    So maybe don’t start at 11 when you comment? Just a thought orz.)

    1. Looney

      yuuuuup

    2. Big Z

      I appreciate this, and want to append the following suggestion:

      In addition to “not starting at 11”, recognize this: some people here are here for nuanced, deeply thoughtful discussion; some people are here for light discussion, casually tossed off; some people are here for one-liners and goofing. The BIGGEST fights I’ve seen have been when one of these groups responds to a post by another group but holding it to their own standards (for example a Group 1 poster treating a Group 2 post like it should be a Group 1 post and nitpicking aspects of it instead of reading it on vibes… or vice-versa… is so much more likely to start a fight than a single thread of one-liner-ers.)

    3. Taffy

      I like to keep my comments at a cool 4-6, most days. It helps balance out the rare occasion I go to 10.

    4. Tequila Mockingbird

      I like this take. This is a good take. Carry on, comrades.

  105. AlexanderHammil

    we’re never going to get there at the rate time passes in the comic, but do we think joyce or dorothy is likely to get the sophomore chop? i cannot imagine joyce with a shaved head, particularly since willis has talked about drawing from the hairline out, but my money is otherwise on her

    1. Dot

      Bet on Becky.

    2. Fuzzy

      Awww Joyce would look really cute with a grown out buzz cut actually. (I’m sure that style has a name but I don’t know what it is.)

  106. Amós Batista

    *Reads the new poll*
    Are y’all happy, sickos, paladins, garbage?

  107. Formedras

    It’s been one week since we got to see
    Cheating lovers and cousins that marry

    …

    OK, I’m done, that’s all we needed anyway.

  108. Borg

    I’ve been hoping someone in the comic will propose polyamory as a solution to this situation, because I really want to see how that suggestion is received.

    But that probably won’t happen.

    1. NGPZ

      not with that attitude!

      we gotta make a polyamory SPIRIT BOMB

      1. Jon

        Yeah, but that requires screaming for like half an episode before launching it, and I don’t think my throat’s up for that.

        1. Tequila Mockingbird

          Do you think recording a shout for a brief period and then just looping the mp3 would serve to acquire spirit energy? That’d be something I could manage.

        2. Big Z

          Instructions unclear, your desktop speakers just went Super Saiyan and flew off without you.

  109. crys

    re: poll who is jakey

    1. Laura

      Jakey? I asked the AI robot on the interwebs on the interwebs and it said there was a kid named Jakey who liked to do dances on tiktok, who later died? Is this that Jakey and why do we hope Jakey dies?

    2. I Know Why the Mowed Lawn Screams

      Jakey is depreciative slang to refer to a “golden retriever boyfriend” or, that one phenotype of a boyfriend who is utterly unexceptionable with the exception being his utter lack of externalized problematic or toxic behavior. The disparaging element comes from the fact that there are many who will uphold the Jakey as the ideal romantic partner despite having no remarkable qualities outside of being mildly pleasant. Mostly an in-joke of an in-joke that came from a Tumblr post (Google “I hope Jakey Dies” all together instead of “Jakey” individually)

      1. Laura

        Huh. Thank you!

  110. V98

    i like joe. i really do! he’s interesting and charming and handsome and he’s doing all the right things. i also hope this turns him inside out

    1. I Know Why the Mowed Lawn Screams

      the moment he learns that all his romantic hangups were simultaneously proven right and also extremely off base in the most knife-twisty way possible, it is going to be incredibly heartbreaking and I’m going to feel so much for him. I’m also 1000000% here for it.

  111. AntithesisConundrum

    With respect to the poll. I saw Willis talked a bit on their tumblr about how they didn’t pull the trigger on Ethan/Danny because it would mean that the characters were doing a Bad Thing. “Cheating is evil and makes me like Joyce/Dorothy more” doesn’t 100% match my feelings, but it’s the closest to it — these characters are more interesting when they do bad things sometimes!

    Really liking this arc. I have faith in Willis to see where they’re taking us. (Been reading for twelve years, and I fully expect to be here twelve more.) Thank you, Willis!

    1. Jon

      “(Been reading for twelve years, and I fully expect to be here twelve more.)”

      So, all the way to their first summer break?

      1. AntithesisConundrum

        Just in time for the dramatic reveal that Mike was, indeed, in witness protection. 😉

        1. Taffy

          Mike, opening a vault that contains the Infinity Gauntlet, speaking to nobody in particular: “Fine. I’ll do it myself.”

    2. Crow

      Chose that option with the caveat that they are cartoon characters so I don’t care what they do, and I don’t think cheating is actually “evil.” It’s more in the category of “not great.” But it is funny when Joyce does bad things.

  112. Red Comet

    Haha they’re so dumb :,)

  113. Shakes

    Y’know when I originally said “relationship paladins” I wasn’t being positive. Stop moral grandstanding over a comic.

    1. Taffy

      But if they don’t condemn real people’s mortal souls based on their opinions of a cartoon strip, they can’t get off.

      1. Shakes

        Unfortunately some folks are desperate to preach about the purity of their own souls by condemning the actions of comic book characters too which is even more obnoxious.

        1. Taffy

          I’m such a good person. I would never do the things Arawn Death-Lord does.

    2. Big Z

      Sickos ain’t a compliment, either. People can like or dislike what they like, for whatever reasons they care to.

      1. perpetual summer

        I’d rather let Shakes decide what they meant by their original comment, but for me personally, no, Sickos is positive! People usually use that picture (or just the text) referring to themselves enjoying something, after all. It’s also sort of pre-emptively taking an insult (not that I think many people, like, use the word sicko seriously? But it’s the sentiment) & identifying with it, much like I guess some people have run with “relationship paladin” due to the poll.

  114. Lilliam

    Sarah: I can’t believe the two of you would do this??

    Dorothy: what?? We’re not…

    Sarah: You’re smoking weed?? After what I told you about my last roommate???

    1. Tequila Mockingbird

      Immediately my brain went to that vine; “JOYCE, IS THAT A WEED? I’M CALLING THE POLICE!” [enters numbers into the dorm microwave]

    2. GholaHalleck

      If it smells like weed they need to wash up.

      1. Freemage

        … together?

  115. Nadamás

    Man finding the searc in page options really sped up my comment reading.

    1. Taffy

      It’s great, you can search your own name and jump around to see if you’ve got any new replies.

  116. Yeet

    did people bully willis about the poll or something
    be nice to willis this is a cool comic

    1. Nadamás

      I don’t know who jakey is butvi hope they die. (And i doubt they bully him, probably just give him an idea for another ridiculous pool).

  117. Biblioholic93

    I dunno it’s kinda gay

    In the best way~

  118. HueSatLight

    Read Tomorrow’s Strip Today

  119. Tequila Mockingbird

    I don’t think a poll has ever made me laugh as hard as this new one just did. Bravo Willis. Bravo.

    1. Tequila Mockingbird

      Wow, only 7% (at time of typing) are in the “it’s just a comic” camp?

      1. Big Z

        I feel like people are probably chased off that one by “literally could not care what they do”. The one thing we don’t seem to lack here is strong opinions.

        1. Nadamás

          I am of ths strong opinion ttat jakey should die.

      2. Proxiehunter

        If we didn’t care what they do we wouldn’t be interested in reading about them.

    2. Nadamás

      Nuance mother fucker!

  120. AntithesisConundrum

    Dorothy: “Compeer”
    Walky: *bursts through the wall to make a peer joke*

  121. Guy Human

    Oh boy. Time to read Impossibly perfectly Responsible young adults make deliberate well measured decisions that work out every time.

    Wait a minute. These aren’t Impossibly perfectly responsible young adults that make deliberate well measured decisions that work out every time at all!

  122. Some Guy

    That’s some poll.

    There’s a lot to say about it but the thing that’s most curious to me is the “Don’t care, it’s just a comic.” option. I know folks like that are out there, but, I don’t understand why you would choose to consume media you don’t give a shit about? I hear this kind of thing semi-often, and it’s always mystified me.

    Assuming they’re being honest, which, like,

  123. JohnnyO

    They’re having a non-sexual adult sleepover.

  124. Hillean

    NGL, I kind of hate this arc.

    I get ‘shippers’ are excited to see everyone just start swapping into other partners, but story-wise this is just the worst.

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