Alt-text needs to also watch out for evil moms in evil dads’ clothing. Heck, not just evil parents, watch out for all the assholes disguised as descent folks, just pretending to be good.
Something something, even if we understand what drives a person to behave like a jerk (motivations, personality disorder, brain damage, paychopathy), it doesn’t excuse their behaviour. They’re still a jerk.
I’m trying to figure out how the alt text relates to anything in the strip. Can’t leave me if you stay, especially if we watch out for evil dads. It just doesn’t scan coherently.
clif
Dumbing of Age 14: I Seem Kinda Small Potatoes Especially if We Watch Out for Evil Dads
Slambat
This chapter opened with Dorothy having a nightmare about losing Joyce to Toedad. It seems to be on her mind and inspiring her arc this chapter.
Tho other than straight up moving to a new city for personal reasons/a career choice i can’t imagine joyce would be the type of person to ‘lose touch’ with ppl as an adult
Totaly hetero of her. The sort of thing a gal who’s a pal would say. You know, the sort of friend who would engage with her gal pal in such exteamely straight activities as dressing up and traveling together or staying together in a hotel where they discover there’s only one bed.
AK
C’mon let the girls have their soft queerplatonic situation. Not all deep intimate love has gotta be romantic.
BarerMender
Aw, come on. Let us have the romance. Screw the logic of the characters. Heck with artistic integrity. Immerse us in hot, wet romance.
AK
Someone is depicting what seems to be a queerplatonic partnership cognizantly and on purpose instead of because they’re afraid of putting gay people on screen. That doesn’t really happen in my experience. It’s kinda depressing watching people go “oh yeah this is very gay” every time anything that. You know. Queers the platonic happens. Just kind of further reinforces a feeling of “as far as people are concerned your experiences don’t exist” that is already present around this kind of experience. This isn’t an accusation or anything, it just bums me out.
StClair
In my experience, according to fandom, no relationship is too platonic (or too het) to rewrite so they can have their smut. (Also representation, but mostly smut.)
Fandom is very horny.
Mturtle7
Preach, my aro sibling-in-arms, preach! QUEERPLATONIC JOYCEXDOROTHY FTW!!!
In all honesty, I like to laugh merrily with everyone else at the “omg Dotty and Joyce are so gay for each other” comments. It’s cute! It’s queer as all get out, in both the sexual/romantic sense and the philosophical sense! But also…yeah, underneath that amiable appreciation for a good joke is a deep, hot, anger for the way amatonormativity (among other things) has recently assassinated the entire concept of close personal friendships in many parts of our society. You know it used to be considered fairly NORMAL for close friends of the same gender to just stay in blissful, domestic, partnership for their whole lives, even after one or both of them got married? People would be completely dedicated to their school chums, their garden parties, their pen pals, their drinking buddies, their brothers-in-arms, and those relationships were in some ways MORE respected because they had no sexual component, they remained “pure”. Women could, in fact, absolutely dress up and travel together and stay together in the same bed in a hotel room, and it would just be a nice thing with genuine goddamn emotional intimacy between friends. I certainly don’t miss some aspects of this kind of attitude, but I do think that as a society we’ve lost a lot of respect for close platonic love and only bothered to make up the difference with more valuation for romantic/sexual love and distant, shallow, friendships. And even if you somehow ignored us folx in the aro community and our QPRs…that’s scary as hell. I think more people need to think about having a truly queer outlook on life, and how that necessitates allowing everyone to mix and match all kinds of expressions of love how they see fit, as long as it’s within the boundaries of consent and good communication.
And, like, I laughed along with everyone else at the laundry scene…but I think it needs to be said at some point, that if Joyce and Dorothy hug and cuddle and make deep emotional confessions to each other and even experience Pants Euphoria about separate things while holding hands together, and at the end of it all they still consider each other BFFs…that’s VALID. And FREEING. And queer as all get out, to boot.
TLDR: I’m fine if people want to joke about JoycexDorothy being kinda gay, but anybody tries to imply anything against QPR JoycexDorothy and I’ll f*cking come after them with no mercy.
Mark
[applause]
TerribleTransit
You’re absolutely right.
… But I’m still gonna call the whole situation hella gay even if it’s confirmed to be queerplatonic, because just because it’s not gay doesn’t mean it’s not gay
It's very very weird existing in this culture as someone who feels the same kind of deep need for queerplatonic partnership that lots of people, including myself, feel about romantic attraction. Because it's not like I'm aromantic and so this is of course the way I life partner if I want to. I'm married. This is a separate also important thing! It's important to me! Really important! I feel like it's an empty space I kind of want to fill when I don't have one the same way that I kind of feel that about romantic stuff. And so many people I know don't seem to experience it at all. Just at all full stop. I sound fictional on the internet. I'm only just starting to be out enough with both of my relationships to not feel fictional in real life. I didn't really get the drive for representation (even though I was ace and really not very well represented) until I felt like the life I wanted to live would be treated as fictional in the culture I lived in. It's such a strange thing. It's such a strange thing to be so entirely unrelatable to so many people. I don't feel threatened but I do feel alien and apart.
Sorry, I have just done a weird feelings ramble. Willis, if you read things, I appreciate your comic showing a much wider range of ways of being than I am used to appearing in media. Including this one.
Mturtle7
@AK I’m so glad you feel validated by my little rant, and by the comic in general! Your weird feelings ramble, in turn, is super heartwarming to read. <3
I definitely relate to the awful feeling that society at large considers one of the core aspects of your being to be entirely fictional. It sucks. I wish you and both of your partners luck in making space for yourselves and shining bright against the darkness of ignorance!
If Willis ever has them graduated he could later do a sequel comic with a time jump called ‘Gal Pals’ with Joyce and Dorothy as the main characters and Becky seething in the background. Dina occasionally pops up to give her girl a dose of reality.
I’m trying to find a straight reading of this and boy it’s hard. Does not help they’re constantly referred to as the gay couple by the rest of the cast.
Honestly, the rest of the cast referring to them as “The gay couple” doesn’t really influence me.
When the gay married drug store lady talks about “the things we do for love” and Dotty is has a meaningful pause about it, though, that feels an awful lot like Dotty is questioning the platonic nature of her feelings.
When Dotty has a dream about riding a unicorn with Joyce, and one of the other characters completely unknowingly drops a reference to that being really gay to someone else entirely without Dorothy overhearing it, that feels a *lot* like the *author* is implying that Dotty’s feelings aren’t completely platonic.
Before i came out as trans there was a guy who i had a crush on, he was my best friend. I was sure at the time he liked me too and found out later that he absolutely did cause he admitted it to a mutual friend (and she told me after he and I had a falling out).
One day he told me that he and I should move out of the american south to Edmonton, Alberta, Canada and get a house together maybe raise a kid together eventually. Ya know just hetero things
wow, that is strangely specific location to head to. Coincidently, I live in Edmonton. Deepest redneck Alberta is probably somewhat more accepting of non-binary people than the deep south is, Edmonton even more so. Although there is a much lower chance of getting shot here; I don’t mean for being non-binary, just being in general.
I get it, she working on the part where she’s trying her best not to ruin lives on her way to the top. That kind of requires figuring out a very meticulous way to walk on eggshells.
hurting yourself would indirectly hurt the ppl she care about , so i don’t think it’d come to that (unless she just decides to get blackout drunk, which is also unhealthy but not unlikely to hear of a college student doing either from partying or stress from exams and such)
when someone’s in a lot of pain, they aren’t thinking clearly. That includes emotional pain. if they hurt other people when they hurt themselves, it doesn’t mean they don’t care.
Naw, she always thought that she knew better than everybody and it usually worked out. People followed her advice and were well or didn’t follow it and failed. That validated her, made her feel needed. Now that people are starting not to rely on her so much and do their own thing she’s scared that she’s not needed anymore. She believes that her worth is measured by others in the same stringent way she measures herself.
…You know, Ruth *was* canonically eavesdropping on their conversation just in the last strip. Her overhearing this and drawing a comparison out loud to her & Billie’s relationship would be funny as hell!
i’d imagine she’d go crazy from studying/not able to take a proper break with no friends to chill with (tho being ‘yale dropout’ shouldn’t be a stain on her record or so if it did happen)
My understanding of top schools like Harvard and Yale is that the hardest part is getting in (talking undergrad specifically, ofc). Especially for social sciences majors, the schools at that level can rest on their rep and prioritize getting kids through and in jobs they can brag about. IU might actually be more difficult, in a way, because Yale students don’t have to be in the top 1-5% of their class to actually get a degree-related job.
You know, you don’t have to “improve” people to leave them better than when you found them.
Just treating them with kindness and respect, doing favors for them, etc. will leave them better off, even if you’re not trying to fix all their problems.
My favorite non-project life-improvement was when an ex of mine told me that he didn’t used to notice all the doggos he encountered in his everyday life, but now he does, all the time. (I really like dogs, so when we were out together, I always pointed the dogs out and fussed over them, and told him what kind they were, and I wanted to hear about what dogs he’d seen that day.) And it’s nice — I felt like I’d given him a present, without even knowing it.
i mean some ppl might improve naturally but other than jen forcing her bf to be her ideal, i think some ppl would be for it as long as they’re not told “yeah we need to do this and that” and drag them into a ‘amekover’ or so
do you know how hilarious this would be setting up Joyce-Joe endgame only to have this be a slow burn for 10 more years to Joyce-Dorothy? May your ships come true within your lifetime I suppose
I’ll say that a year ago if you had asked whether Joyce or Dorothy would textually admt to a crush on the other I would have said Joyce, and that is past tense for a reason
I honestly wouldn’t be surprised. She’s shown interest and curiosity, and I don’t think she’s particularly possessive inherently – a lot of that was directly tied into her fundie “expected life plan”.
Has she actually asked Joe to only pay attention to her while they’re dating, or is that something he’s assuming she wants?
Everyone should have a Joyce kept locked in their basement. Oh wait, did I type that out loud?
I love how Dorothy is a Rorschach test here, with some people hearing a marriage proposal, some people hearing suicidal ideation, and some people hearing whatever this is.
thejeff
It’s all weirding me out, because I’m hearing her talk about her feelings about (not) leaving for Yale.
Oooookay, this is suicidal ideation-check-in time. We’re not necessarily at ideation, but there is some concerning shit and worrying level of calm being said and exhibited here.
188 thoughts on “Feeding”
Ana Chronistic
“That made water come out my eyes” /Freakazoid
Decidedly Orthogonal
Alt-text needs to also watch out for evil moms in evil dads’ clothing. Heck, not just evil parents, watch out for all the assholes disguised as descent folks, just pretending to be good.
Something something, even if we understand what drives a person to behave like a jerk (motivations, personality disorder, brain damage, paychopathy), it doesn’t excuse their behaviour. They’re still a jerk.
Decidedly Orthogonal
p.s. I saw the typo, and decided to leave it.
clif
I’m trying to figure out how the alt text relates to anything in the strip. Can’t leave me if you stay, especially if we watch out for evil dads. It just doesn’t scan coherently.
clif
Dumbing of Age 14: I Seem Kinda Small Potatoes Especially if We Watch Out for Evil Dads
Slambat
This chapter opened with Dorothy having a nightmare about losing Joyce to Toedad. It seems to be on her mind and inspiring her arc this chapter.
clif
Ah. Thank you.
Decidedly Orthogonal
Ditto. Thanks muchly.
Proxiehunter
Jesus Dotty, date a girl for a while before you propose to her.
Dara
Yeah even I was all NO DOTTY TOO EARLY
goddammit dotty
Mollyscribbles
I was about to say, that sounds like a proposal.
Angel
either a proposal or desperate clinging.
Tho other than straight up moving to a new city for personal reasons/a career choice i can’t imagine joyce would be the type of person to ‘lose touch’ with ppl as an adult
Proxiehunter
A proposal at this stage of their relationship (the one where they aren’t dating and Joyce is dating someone else) is desperate clinging.
GholaHalleck
Dotty would have to see Joe as a person for their relationship to count.
Shadow Dreamer
You have a point!
Farmer_10
What are you talking about? That was a totally hetero thing to say.
Proxiehunter
Totaly hetero of her. The sort of thing a gal who’s a pal would say. You know, the sort of friend who would engage with her gal pal in such exteamely straight activities as dressing up and traveling together or staying together in a hotel where they discover there’s only one bed.
AK
C’mon let the girls have their soft queerplatonic situation. Not all deep intimate love has gotta be romantic.
BarerMender
Aw, come on. Let us have the romance. Screw the logic of the characters. Heck with artistic integrity. Immerse us in hot, wet romance.
AK
Someone is depicting what seems to be a queerplatonic partnership cognizantly and on purpose instead of because they’re afraid of putting gay people on screen. That doesn’t really happen in my experience. It’s kinda depressing watching people go “oh yeah this is very gay” every time anything that. You know. Queers the platonic happens. Just kind of further reinforces a feeling of “as far as people are concerned your experiences don’t exist” that is already present around this kind of experience. This isn’t an accusation or anything, it just bums me out.
StClair
In my experience, according to fandom, no relationship is too platonic (or too het) to rewrite so they can have their smut. (Also representation, but mostly smut.)
Fandom is very horny.
Mturtle7
Preach, my aro sibling-in-arms, preach! QUEERPLATONIC JOYCEXDOROTHY FTW!!!
In all honesty, I like to laugh merrily with everyone else at the “omg Dotty and Joyce are so gay for each other” comments. It’s cute! It’s queer as all get out, in both the sexual/romantic sense and the philosophical sense! But also…yeah, underneath that amiable appreciation for a good joke is a deep, hot, anger for the way amatonormativity (among other things) has recently assassinated the entire concept of close personal friendships in many parts of our society. You know it used to be considered fairly NORMAL for close friends of the same gender to just stay in blissful, domestic, partnership for their whole lives, even after one or both of them got married? People would be completely dedicated to their school chums, their garden parties, their pen pals, their drinking buddies, their brothers-in-arms, and those relationships were in some ways MORE respected because they had no sexual component, they remained “pure”. Women could, in fact, absolutely dress up and travel together and stay together in the same bed in a hotel room, and it would just be a nice thing with genuine goddamn emotional intimacy between friends. I certainly don’t miss some aspects of this kind of attitude, but I do think that as a society we’ve lost a lot of respect for close platonic love and only bothered to make up the difference with more valuation for romantic/sexual love and distant, shallow, friendships. And even if you somehow ignored us folx in the aro community and our QPRs…that’s scary as hell. I think more people need to think about having a truly queer outlook on life, and how that necessitates allowing everyone to mix and match all kinds of expressions of love how they see fit, as long as it’s within the boundaries of consent and good communication.
And, like, I laughed along with everyone else at the laundry scene…but I think it needs to be said at some point, that if Joyce and Dorothy hug and cuddle and make deep emotional confessions to each other and even experience Pants Euphoria about separate things while holding hands together, and at the end of it all they still consider each other BFFs…that’s VALID. And FREEING. And queer as all get out, to boot.
TLDR: I’m fine if people want to joke about JoycexDorothy being kinda gay, but anybody tries to imply anything against QPR JoycexDorothy and I’ll f*cking come after them with no mercy.
Mark
[applause]
TerribleTransit
You’re absolutely right.
… But I’m still gonna call the whole situation hella gay even if it’s confirmed to be queerplatonic, because just because it’s not gay doesn’t mean it’s not gay
Mturtle7
@ Terrible Transit I’ll allow it
https://knowyourmeme.com/photos/1959754-senor-changs-ill-allow-it
AK
This was very cathartic to read. <3
It's very very weird existing in this culture as someone who feels the same kind of deep need for queerplatonic partnership that lots of people, including myself, feel about romantic attraction. Because it's not like I'm aromantic and so this is of course the way I life partner if I want to. I'm married. This is a separate also important thing! It's important to me! Really important! I feel like it's an empty space I kind of want to fill when I don't have one the same way that I kind of feel that about romantic stuff. And so many people I know don't seem to experience it at all. Just at all full stop. I sound fictional on the internet. I'm only just starting to be out enough with both of my relationships to not feel fictional in real life. I didn't really get the drive for representation (even though I was ace and really not very well represented) until I felt like the life I wanted to live would be treated as fictional in the culture I lived in. It's such a strange thing. It's such a strange thing to be so entirely unrelatable to so many people. I don't feel threatened but I do feel alien and apart.
Sorry, I have just done a weird feelings ramble. Willis, if you read things, I appreciate your comic showing a much wider range of ways of being than I am used to appearing in media. Including this one.
Mturtle7
@AK I’m so glad you feel validated by my little rant, and by the comic in general! Your weird feelings ramble, in turn, is super heartwarming to read. <3
I definitely relate to the awful feeling that society at large considers one of the core aspects of your being to be entirely fictional. It sucks. I wish you and both of your partners luck in making space for yourselves and shining bright against the darkness of ignorance!
Heather
If Willis ever has them graduated he could later do a sequel comic with a time jump called ‘Gal Pals’ with Joyce and Dorothy as the main characters and Becky seething in the background. Dina occasionally pops up to give her girl a dose of reality.
DashWallkick
She is admittedly deeply miserable and lonely and struggling to figure out what to do, which sounds like love confession.
GreyICE
I’m trying to find a straight reading of this and boy it’s hard. Does not help they’re constantly referred to as the gay couple by the rest of the cast.
thejeff
She’s thinking about herself and not going to Yale, then reversing the logic to talk about Joyce staying not her.
Heavensrun
Honestly, the rest of the cast referring to them as “The gay couple” doesn’t really influence me.
When the gay married drug store lady talks about “the things we do for love” and Dotty is has a meaningful pause about it, though, that feels an awful lot like Dotty is questioning the platonic nature of her feelings.
When Dotty has a dream about riding a unicorn with Joyce, and one of the other characters completely unknowingly drops a reference to that being really gay to someone else entirely without Dorothy overhearing it, that feels a *lot* like the *author* is implying that Dotty’s feelings aren’t completely platonic.
FlamestAndLight
Before i came out as trans there was a guy who i had a crush on, he was my best friend. I was sure at the time he liked me too and found out later that he absolutely did cause he admitted it to a mutual friend (and she told me after he and I had a falling out).
One day he told me that he and I should move out of the american south to Edmonton, Alberta, Canada and get a house together maybe raise a kid together eventually. Ya know just hetero things
Roborat
wow, that is strangely specific location to head to. Coincidently, I live in Edmonton. Deepest redneck Alberta is probably somewhat more accepting of non-binary people than the deep south is, Edmonton even more so. Although there is a much lower chance of getting shot here; I don’t mean for being non-binary, just being in general.
Pergola
… stay with me and be my love.
misanthropope
… a U-haul
NGPZ
*plays “Simple and Clean Music Box Version” from Kingdom Hearts Soundtrack on hacked muzak*
Taffy
Dorothy: “Looks like my summer vacation is… over.”
newlland(Henryvolt)
I get it, she working on the part where she’s trying her best not to ruin lives on her way to the top. That kind of requires figuring out a very meticulous way to walk on eggshells.
Thag Simmons
I think it’s more thinking about whether she even wants to pursue the dream
True Survivor
I can’t tell if Dorothy is planning to propose or hurt herself, but this conversation seems be drifting to an ominous place.
UrsulaDavina
Nah i think she finally has some clarity here she probably talking about Yale
True Survivor
I really hope so. Dorothy is good egg (not that bad eggs deserve to suffer like that).
Thag Simmons
Clear intent is not always for the best and Dorothy is clearly feeling a lot right now
Angel
hurting yourself would indirectly hurt the ppl she care about , so i don’t think it’d come to that (unless she just decides to get blackout drunk, which is also unhealthy but not unlikely to hear of a college student doing either from partying or stress from exams and such)
HueSatLight
when someone’s in a lot of pain, they aren’t thinking clearly. That includes emotional pain. if they hurt other people when they hurt themselves, it doesn’t mean they don’t care.
Pylgrim
Naw, she always thought that she knew better than everybody and it usually worked out. People followed her advice and were well or didn’t follow it and failed. That validated her, made her feel needed. Now that people are starting not to rely on her so much and do their own thing she’s scared that she’s not needed anymore. She believes that her worth is measured by others in the same stringent way she measures herself.
Jay
And here I was, hoping this comic could only have *one* lesbian suic*de pact.
Mturtle7
…You know, Ruth *was* canonically eavesdropping on their conversation just in the last strip. Her overhearing this and drawing a comparison out loud to her & Billie’s relationship would be funny as hell!
Nono
Go to Yale, Dorothy.
(In all honesty considering how much she’s struggling at IU I don’t know how well she’d actually do at Yale, but she should go.)
Angel
i’d imagine she’d go crazy from studying/not able to take a proper break with no friends to chill with (tho being ‘yale dropout’ shouldn’t be a stain on her record or so if it did happen)
Regina phalange
My understanding of top schools like Harvard and Yale is that the hardest part is getting in (talking undergrad specifically, ofc). Especially for social sciences majors, the schools at that level can rest on their rep and prioritize getting kids through and in jobs they can brag about. IU might actually be more difficult, in a way, because Yale students don’t have to be in the top 1-5% of their class to actually get a degree-related job.
Nicoleandmaggie
This. Grade inflation is crazy real at ivies. (Except in like engineering majors, where it’s less crazy.)
HueSatLight
she doesn’t know how to study though. She would make it hard.
Agemegos
NO! Other people are not fixer-uppers! Don’t not improve other people without informed consent.
Segnosaur
You know, you don’t have to “improve” people to leave them better than when you found them.
Just treating them with kindness and respect, doing favors for them, etc. will leave them better off, even if you’re not trying to fix all their problems.
HueSatLight
Dorothy treats people like projects though.
Thag Simmons
The point is to be a positive influence in the lives of the people around you
Leorale
My favorite non-project life-improvement was when an ex of mine told me that he didn’t used to notice all the doggos he encountered in his everyday life, but now he does, all the time. (I really like dogs, so when we were out together, I always pointed the dogs out and fussed over them, and told him what kind they were, and I wanted to hear about what dogs he’d seen that day.) And it’s nice — I felt like I’d given him a present, without even knowing it.
Angel
i mean some ppl might improve naturally but other than jen forcing her bf to be her ideal, i think some ppl would be for it as long as they’re not told “yeah we need to do this and that” and drag them into a ‘amekover’ or so
Bo
do you know how hilarious this would be setting up Joyce-Joe endgame only to have this be a slow burn for 10 more years to Joyce-Dorothy? May your ships come true within your lifetime I suppose
Mewzard
The eternal ship wait, gotta love it, lol.
Thag Simmons
I’ll say that a year ago if you had asked whether Joyce or Dorothy would textually admt to a crush on the other I would have said Joyce, and that is past tense for a reason
Angel
or joyce being in a polycule by the end of this lol
Jeff K!
I honestly wouldn’t be surprised. She’s shown interest and curiosity, and I don’t think she’s particularly possessive inherently – a lot of that was directly tied into her fundie “expected life plan”.
Has she actually asked Joe to only pay attention to her while they’re dating, or is that something he’s assuming she wants?
Segnosaur
Geez, next thing you know Dorothy will be saying “It rubs the lotion on the skin…”
True Survivor
She’s putting pepper on Mac and cheese – she’s half way there already.
Cholma
Yep! I definitely got that feeling. “You can’t leave me if I have you locked in my basement.” Y I K E S .
clif
Everyone should have a Joyce kept locked in their basement. Oh wait, did I type that out loud?
I love how Dorothy is a Rorschach test here, with some people hearing a marriage proposal, some people hearing suicidal ideation, and some people hearing whatever this is.
thejeff
It’s all weirding me out, because I’m hearing her talk about her feelings about (not) leaving for Yale.
not someone else
Oooookay, this is suicidal ideation-check-in time. We’re not necessarily at ideation, but there is some concerning shit and worrying level of calm being said and exhibited here.