Ikea Erotica is like reading an Ikea instruction sheet. Boring, literal ‘slot a into tab b’ stuff, which actually suggests at least a vague understanding of how the act works. (Just not all that much creativity with it…)
This is more Anatomically Impossible Sex. ‘Cuz unless there’s something Ethan ain’t tellin’ us…his thing is definitely attached to him.
The first couple of panels remind me of Rachel Bloom’s song “You can touch my boobies”: Video
Sample quote: “I’ll show you my vagina, which is located on my stomach somewhere.” The last couple of panels are quite disturbing, as others have said.
I enjoy how rapidly this particular strip went from the funniest thing to have ever happened in DOA to… not the funniest thing to have ever happened in DOA.
It was hilarious and then quickly became not hilarious at all. The phrase ‘I don’t know what my emotions are doing’ has never actually been accurate until this moment.
Also, every time she says ‘thing’ I’m reminded of 50 Shades of Gray and ‘he touched me… there.’
Actually Willis, I think you’re ahead of the curve. If this was the first comic I read of DoA, that would be pretty much par for the course compared to most webcomics.
Eh, it’s not really that simple. Joyce was marginally aware of the things going on around her, until she passed out. So she should have some memories of the attack, even if she can’t access them consciously. Whether that is due to the drug or her coping mechanisms is unknown. Mostly likely there is a mishmash of sense memories soaked with all the fear and anger, all being repressed of course. Actively repressed, I would assume, given what we know of Joyce.
The problem with repressing stuff is it rarely, if ever, stays in the tiny box we try to keep it in.
Yes, absolutely! And don’t worry if yours won’t come off at first. If you haven’t detached it before it’ll probably be a little stuck. Just put on some gardening gloves and give it a good, solid yank. 😉
sidenote: i’ve been reading this for ages and discovered your other stuff over the summer, and i have yet to be disappointed. except maybe a tiny bit that i don’t know what happened during the end phase of the walky+joyce stuff. anywho, you sir, ROCK!
I’ve been looking forward to the next installments of Joyce’s dream sequence each night, and it hasn’t disappointed. Never thought Willis would be this good at surrealist stuff, but it doesn’t surprise me at all. I hope he does a real drug trip in this strip at some point.
Is it weird that I imagined some weird pyschodelic music in my head for the first part of the comic and then ear-shattering horror movie music for the last panel?
I noticed too… however, I wondered if it might have been deliberate.
I remember mention in that Arnold Schwarzenegger end times movie (forget the title now) that often when we dream, words and numbers are upside down and/or backwards (and therefor the “devil’s number” 666, was actually 999, the last year of the millenium.) I don’t know if there’s any truth to that; I’ve certainly never noticed myself. Then again, I don’t have dreams about the number 666 either.
It’s a viberator, possibly due to Joyce only knowing what a penis looks like in the abstract.
Which then leads to the question as to how she know what a vibe looks like, but I guess it’s not against the rules… *had a mostly nonreligious British education*
I think Joyce doesn’t. What Ethan’s holding seems to partake of both knob and stick. Which, if you’ve heard a little of the right slang, is certainly a possible impression for he to get.
Although one wonders why there isn’t something of the rooster about it.
The subconscious does odd things sometimes, too. It could be she knows what the real thing looks like (someone mentioned being a girl born among brothers, and that was true of Joyce in the other universe) but her dream changed it around because dreams are just odd like that.
There is a big difference (no pun intended) between a good look and a half-caught glance. That’s the difference between an alien encounter and Robert the philanderer.
I had no idea it was even that… But then again, I’m a strange girl, who has seen more of the male genitalia (being born a female among brothers) than I have any device intended for sexual gratification.
Honestly, I thought it was a strange flashlight ^_^;;
This is my first time here. … this girl seems to be suffering from a post-traumatic nightmare caused by unrelieved sexual tension coupled with a horrible memory of a violent person from her past?
I hope her roommate notices what´s up with Joyce. Maybe Joyce will even wake up screaming/sobbing (i know i would, i wouldn´t want this dream to continue any longer oO) which makes it easier for her to wake up.
Maybe it will help if she cuddles with the poor girl in her bed till she fall asleep (that would look soooooo cuuuuuteeee~)?
Whenever somebody double-posts and then does that whole ‘aieee, mea culpa’ thing, I get an almost irresistible urge to reply to their comment with their own comment as a sort’f weird ‘ha ha’. Like a fake double-post.
Native force of habit is leading me to go to questionable content and click on “Dave Willis is A Jerkface” over and over again while I’m trying to think of something else (it’s become basically a nervous tick to go to QC and click on the links to comics I frequent) and every time today I’m all “oh fuck oh fuck I need to stop doing that goddammit me.”
In summary, Dave Willis is a jerkface and Jeph’s hand is adorable and deserves to get better.
I felt everyone’s reaction to the attempted rape was dumb and childish. She needed help, and everyone decided against giving it to her. I was pretty sure something like this was going to happen. Poor sweet Joyce. Pushing things down doesn’t help!
Noooo, don’t go! It makes sense in contex…well, not really. But I promise you this is abnormal for the comic. Check out the start, I promise you won’t regret it.
please stay, this is not all DoA is… if you had checked in last week you would’ve had an amusingly awkward pairing (that i want to happen) as your first strip…. we’re really nice here i swear.
This is really unsettling, cute and just downright disturbing. As one who’s overcoming her own PTSD, this a is a really accurate take on the subject from Joyce’s position. Poor thing. This is gonna get good plot wise tho.
While this is a very intense strip and I applaud Willis for a very good dream sequence, I just find it funny that despite the dream, Ethan looks like he’s somewhat confused about what’s going on, which I find pretty funny. Then Ryan ruins my fun.
So I take it from these last two pages, that as Joyce’s vision of Ethan’s “thing” is a….”back” massager, that she has/had one of her own that she was quite fond of? Good Christian girls always find a way I guess.
I love how utterly manic this strip gets. It’s that kind of feverish nonsense that you experience in real life when you’re having a nightmare, or when it’s while you’re trying to fall asleep but you’re caught in some kind of a mental loop. The comic actually manages to conjure up the feelings that we get in real life, and that’s what makes this strip undoubtedly one of my favorite strips in the entire archive to date.
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Oh fudge
why the tummy *rubbs tummy* ohhhh thats why … also ahhhhhh cut face evil rape guy ahhhhh
To be honest, when I saw the first panel my immediate reaction was “oh man, tummy rubs are great!”
Is that the BED POST hes rubbin her tummy with?….
NEED THIS
You are pretty fucked up, Willis.
And you’re only realising this now?
i realised all crative people are messed up in some way thats why their so damn creative
I should get myself traumatized…
… Joyce is going to wake up and have a permanent fear of sex and/or masturbation.
Either that or start a webcomic.
Joyce is Willis! :O
Yes.
and possibly either shake weights or pepper grinders.
Which she didn’t have before, you mean?
@some dude
NP, Just Keep Reading
yea you really shouldn’t
“Happy people have no stories” after all
Or maybe we’re messed up because we’re creative! Wait, I like your thing better.
I’d blame human biology rather than Willis. Dreams are like this.
Let’s hear it for abstinence-only sex ed…
To be fair, I got good sex ed, and I’ve had sex dreams that were every bit as weird as this was before the OMGRAPEFLASHBACK…
>>OMGRAPEFLASHBACK
I thought that said “OM•Grape Flashback” — but THOSE ARE WORSE!!
Don’t believe me? Just ask the Grape Lady! http://tinyurl.com/3xhww2
You are right but here lets combine the two! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SZoiJM1vlfc
I’ve had ladyfriends who loved to have their stomachs touched as foreplay. So this seems pretty normal to me, aside from the childish ‘dirty’ talk.
There’s that Ryan, ruining everything again.
C’mon, they lost – let it go…
I’m not sure if none, one or both of you are joking.
This is hilarious, creepy, sad, and just weird all at once.
Poor Joyce.
No, no bad place. XS
UH?
What the hell did Joyce eat before going to bed?
A Box of Libid-o’s. The Cereal with Marshmallow Spanish Flies.
I lol’d
Welsh Rarebit, of course.
I bequeath an internet to anyone who knows why.
Dream of the Rarebit Fiend?
Well done! Winsor McCay comics from 1904 FTW!
That was the prequel to Wallace & Grommit’s “Curse of the Welsh Rarebit,” wasn’t it?
I used to make those when I was a kid. I don’t know why the mustard males it so much better, but it does.
Mustard Males? Is that slang for Asian dudes?
Yes, but only when applied to cocktail wienies.
Males = typo’d makes.
P.S. Your comment was kind of racist.
Or possibly cheese toast.
Methinks she didn’t get a proper education in boning matters.
This is pretty plot intense.
PTSD.
Pretty Thick and Strong Dick?
WIN!!
Not funny at all.
You’re right.
You’re not funny at all.
I honestly parsed that as “Post-traumatic Sex Disorder.” Still seems pretty appropriate on review, though.
ASD, actually, but yup.
TOO INTENSE.
How intense?
ALL OF THEM.
Wow! Shock of all shocks! It’s almost like Joyce has no idea how sex works!
I hope she knows that babies don’t come from cabbage patches at least.
I’m hoping she knows that in real life a guy’s “Thing” isn’t detachable. I mean, she has brothers, right?
What, yours isn’t?
Not so far, no.
Oh man.
You are missing out.
I feel like a Detachable Penis song reference is needed. (my name for the video)
God your face screams “Omg do it! Do it!”
“Detachable Penis Reference” sounds like a very awkward indy band.
As someone mentioned before, it’s definitely detachable. It’s the reattaching that is problematic.
Everything has the potential to be detached. We don’t need your LABELS!
As you tell tell by your gravatar, sometimes reattaching can go completely wrong!
That’s actually a second best scenario. Completely wrong has lifelong consequences that can never be undone.
Isn’t that Maxim 11?
Of course not. It so obviousely comes from a large white bird carrying the baby in a sheet.
She’s clearly been to the wrong parts of the internets.
No, if she’d been to the wrong parts she’d know what’s what.
nonononono.. those are the RIGHT parts.
As we all know. the internet is for porn. (everyones heard it, so I shant link.
But…but…if the internet is for porn, and the internet is made of cats, doesn’t that mean it’s all kitty porn? DO NOT WANT
Google “Felicia” and then come say that again.
DO NOT WANT
A cat is fine too.
hmm….Felicia Day was the one that popped up for me. I wonder what you’re–
oh.
okay, I went to Image mode.
got it.
You’ve never actually read fanfiction written by (obviously virgin) teenagers, have you?
There’s a trope for this: IKEA Erotica.
ba-dum-pish!
That’s where a handful of hunky Norsemen show up at your door with wood (oak and pine, mostly) and you make with the screwing, right?
Nah, this isn’t Ikea Erotica.
Ikea Erotica is like reading an Ikea instruction sheet. Boring, literal ‘slot a into tab b’ stuff, which actually suggests at least a vague understanding of how the act works. (Just not all that much creativity with it…)
This is more Anatomically Impossible Sex. ‘Cuz unless there’s something Ethan ain’t tellin’ us…his thing is definitely attached to him.
well it’s dream logic after all…
The first couple of panels remind me of Rachel Bloom’s song “You can touch my boobies”:
Video
Sample quote: “I’ll show you my vagina, which is located on my stomach somewhere.” The last couple of panels are quite disturbing, as others have said.
This has taken a turn.
A turn of the magic peppermill as it flakes nightmare from the corns of trauma.
This came off as very “Chef Brian” when I read it.
your comment and avatar are nearly as horrifying as the comic itself
Fuck, I knew it seemed like Joyce was getting over this whole almost rape thing too quickly.
I have no idea what emoticon represents the expression I just made.
\ ~
0.o
()
Something like that?
HOLY CHEESE NIGHTMARE FUEL OHMYGOSH!
you forgot to say Batman
This comic is horrifying enough without me attempting to imagine that it was the first DoA comic I ever read, thank you very much.
Well…that escalated quickly. Jesus Christ, Willis. Oy.
“Do you want to know how I got these scars?”
Awww… we’re not on reddit, I can’t upvote you.
“I know how you got them. I was there.”
Gooooodnight, everybody!
Love Walky’s avatar on this.
I enjoy how rapidly this particular strip went from the funniest thing to have ever happened in DOA to… not the funniest thing to have ever happened in DOA.
“RUB MY TUMMY WITH IT!”
Simulataneousely smile frowns occurred. My body was so confused.
For me it was more like “HA HA HA HA HA HA HA oh.”
Most humor’s like that if you dig deep enough.
Yeah, humor is kind of like fear in reverse. “HA! HA! HA! AH! AH! AH!”
!AH !AH !AH !AH !AH !AH
Damn this whole dream sequence has just been really well written. And drawn.
This would indeed be considered an example of a “bad trip”, though with Joyce it would likely be worse since it relates to a traumatic experience.
Galasso puts LSD in his pizza sauce. It’s the only explanation for how he was able to drive Mama Bear’s out of business.
My wild stab in the dark actually happened!
So did Joyces, a few months ago.
HEY-O!
remember, children, sex kills.
Hopefully for Joyce, it’ll be the only one!
Stab in the Dark “That actually sounds like a good title for a horror flick”
It was hilarious and then quickly became not hilarious at all. The phrase ‘I don’t know what my emotions are doing’ has never actually been accurate until this moment.
Also, every time she says ‘thing’ I’m reminded of 50 Shades of Gray and ‘he touched me… there.’
So today’s comic is pretty much EXACTLY this comic for the modern era: http://oglaf.com/sexmanual/1/ (NSFW)
Hey! Stay out of my life unless you’re gonna be like my boss! Can I boss? Can I??
LOL I was just gonna say. XD
Called it.
Actually Willis, I think you’re ahead of the curve. If this was the first comic I read of DoA, that would be pretty much par for the course compared to most webcomics.
Poor girl, she really may be scared from that. Curious tho, she actually don’t remember about the event because of the drug…
Her subconcious knows ALL.
Eh, it’s not really that simple. Joyce was marginally aware of the things going on around her, until she passed out. So she should have some memories of the attack, even if she can’t access them consciously. Whether that is due to the drug or her coping mechanisms is unknown. Mostly likely there is a mishmash of sense memories soaked with all the fear and anger, all being repressed of course. Actively repressed, I would assume, given what we know of Joyce.
The problem with repressing stuff is it rarely, if ever, stays in the tiny box we try to keep it in.
I love the whiplash I just got from this comic.
So few panels. So many reactions.
Not gonna lie… kinda freaked out for reals. Which is part of why I lurv your writing.
Wow, I’ve… I’ve been doing it wrong my whole life :O
You’re meant to detach it and rub it on her tummy?!
Ffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffff…
Yes, absolutely! And don’t worry if yours won’t come off at first. If you haven’t detached it before it’ll probably be a little stuck. Just put on some gardening gloves and give it a good, solid yank. 😉
Well crap.
Wow, I actually jumped when I saw that last panel.
Ditto. That’s actually a really frightening scene to have suddenly appear.
Oh hey, date rape guy. Haven’t seen him in a while.
your gravitar makes it funnier
“Oh, hi, date rape guy! Haven’t seen you in a while! How’s it going? So how about those election results–crazy, huh?”
I’d bet money this is someone’s first.
I am beginning to comprehend how Faz and Wren took eight tries to get it right. Not that I’m convinced they’re there yet… >.>
AHH!! AHHHHH!! Shortpacked! spoiler!! *covers eyes*
(I am still not finished with Shortpacked! :P)
Wrong first.
this would freak me out so badly i’d have to archive dive just to see if it was all like this…
This dream sequence has gotta be one of my five favorite webcomic moments.
I was pretty sure she was taking that date rape incident way to easy. But damn. Well done Willis. One of your best.
sidenote: i’ve been reading this for ages and discovered your other stuff over the summer, and i have yet to be disappointed. except maybe a tiny bit that i don’t know what happened during the end phase of the walky+joyce stuff. anywho, you sir, ROCK!
OH THIS IS JOYCES DREAM
I thoguht it was Ethans and i said to myself “This makes no sense WTAF”
Wait, so that’s -not- how you have sex?
Huh. Been doing it wrong for all these years.
Wake up, Joyce!
I’ve been looking forward to the next installments of Joyce’s dream sequence each night, and it hasn’t disappointed. Never thought Willis would be this good at surrealist stuff, but it doesn’t surprise me at all. I hope he does a real drug trip in this strip at some point.
Oh god poor Joyce.
AAAAAAAAAAA
And this is where the dream goes from weird to bad 🙁 poor Joyce 🙁
Is it weird that I imagined some weird pyschodelic music in my head for the first part of the comic and then ear-shattering horror movie music for the last panel?
Most comments evah? You should make a poster of this one! ^!^
Although this is horrifying, its also a brilliant move story-wise. I am excited to see where Joyce’s subconscious takes her.
I can’t be the only one to notice his cut is on the wrong side, right?
I noticed
I noticed too… however, I wondered if it might have been deliberate.
I remember mention in that Arnold Schwarzenegger end times movie (forget the title now) that often when we dream, words and numbers are upside down and/or backwards (and therefor the “devil’s number” 666, was actually 999, the last year of the millenium.) I don’t know if there’s any truth to that; I’ve certainly never noticed myself. Then again, I don’t have dreams about the number 666 either.
…aaaaand now Joyce wakes up screaming. Super Sarah to the rescue!
Yeeeeeeeeess…
Comfort her, Sarah.
Lesbianism is not a sin in the Bible. Only butt stuff.
Comfort her…
Tee-hee!
Silly dildo-‘Your-THING’ joke. 🙂
Ahhh! Scary! 0o0
Why is Ethans detachable? Do they all come off? Should mine?
It’s a viberator, possibly due to Joyce only knowing what a penis looks like in the abstract.
Which then leads to the question as to how she know what a vibe looks like, but I guess it’s not against the rules… *had a mostly nonreligious British education*
I think Joyce doesn’t. What Ethan’s holding seems to partake of both knob and stick. Which, if you’ve heard a little of the right slang, is certainly a possible impression for he to get.
Although one wonders why there isn’t something of the rooster about it.
It looks kinda like a pepper grinder to me. I wonder if Joyce ate out at like Olive Garden or something the night before.
The subconscious does odd things sometimes, too. It could be she knows what the real thing looks like (someone mentioned being a girl born among brothers, and that was true of Joyce in the other universe) but her dream changed it around because dreams are just odd like that.
There is a big difference (no pun intended) between a good look and a half-caught glance. That’s the difference between an alien encounter and Robert the philanderer.
I had no idea it was even that… But then again, I’m a strange girl, who has seen more of the male genitalia (being born a female among brothers) than I have any device intended for sexual gratification.
Honestly, I thought it was a strange flashlight ^_^;;
Called it. Sorta. 🙁
Amazing how different the tone is from the original Roomies! comics. I wonder how younger Willis would react to seeing this as his work in 15 years.
Saw this coming.
I didn’t see this coming, and it scares me!
Whelp that was horrifying.
This is my first time here. … this girl seems to be suffering from a post-traumatic nightmare caused by unrelieved sexual tension coupled with a horrible memory of a violent person from her past?
More or less, yeah.
Although “from her past” in this case translates I think to “a couple weeks ago”.
Wow. This honestly made me sick. In a good way.
Your avatar + comment = win.
I literally had a shock on look on my face when seeing that last panel. Yikes O_O
Let us hope she now takes Roz’s advice to get some therapy.
OK. You asked and here I am. I’ve been away for a bit and this is the first strip I’ve seen in about two weeks.
The hells goin on?
It’s good to see a dream sequence that actually feels like a dream.
Not so good to see Ryan.
Most of the dreams I remember feel just like reality until I wake up.
I hope her roommate notices what´s up with Joyce. Maybe Joyce will even wake up screaming/sobbing (i know i would, i wouldn´t want this dream to continue any longer oO) which makes it easier for her to wake up.
Maybe it will help if she cuddles with the poor girl in her bed till she fall asleep (that would look soooooo cuuuuuteeee~)?
Plot twist: Not a dream sequence.
Ryan is a shapeshifter!
The song title “Welcome to my nightmare” comes to mind.
Joyce should not sing it.
Holy hell Joyce has some F’ed up dreams
So. Creepy. Poor Joyce. Also, the fact that the last panel puts the reader into Joyce’s POV = extra super creepy.
I bet Joyce will wake up screaming.
I had somehow managed to not notice the POV thing, so I have to thank you for the phantom dong sensations on my tummy.
0 Shades of Grey.
Well that escalated quickly
Okay, my arbitrary decision to believe that this isn’t a dream and is actually happening makes this a LOT worse.
Ugh, this is not going to make it any easier for Joyce to accept sex as a positive thing, is it?
Also, I forgot what her attacker looked like so for a second I thought he was supposed to be Tycho from Penny Arcade.
Her neck isn’t long enough for Tycho to even look twice at her.
Damn, I’m at the point where I hesitate to even look at this strip again. Very intense.
Bravo Willis, bravo.
Whenever somebody double-posts and then does that whole ‘aieee, mea culpa’ thing, I get an almost irresistible urge to reply to their comment with their own comment as a sort’f weird ‘ha ha’. Like a fake double-post.
Ahh, I wouldn’t have held it against you, it is kind of a silly thing to get bent out of shape about, haha.
Damn, I’m at the point where I hesitate to even look at this strip again. Very intense.
Bravo Willis, bravo.
Grr, I knew this would post twice. Oh well.
Willis knows all about my tummy-rub fetish.
It is the first one I’ve read, why is Tycho from Penny Arcade here? (4th panel)
I’m sensing somebody is in imminent need of The Talk…
All of my wat. Is Joyce on something!? lmao
I love that Joyce is having a sex dream without knowing what sex is. That last panel was heart-wrenching.
I’m starting to think this might be a dream.
Willis, you go right on trolling the internet.
Native force of habit is leading me to go to questionable content and click on “Dave Willis is A Jerkface” over and over again while I’m trying to think of something else (it’s become basically a nervous tick to go to QC and click on the links to comics I frequent) and every time today I’m all “oh fuck oh fuck I need to stop doing that goddammit me.”
In summary, Dave Willis is a jerkface and Jeph’s hand is adorable and deserves to get better.
Oh man, these were the same day? 🙁
I felt everyone’s reaction to the attempted rape was dumb and childish. She needed help, and everyone decided against giving it to her. I was pretty sure something like this was going to happen. Poor sweet Joyce. Pushing things down doesn’t help!
It’s funny that she thinks the penis goes in the belly button.
Uhm… so I just wanted to check out this webcomic… I think I’ll be leaving now *slowly starts walking backwards*
Noooo, don’t go! It makes sense in contex…well, not really. But I promise you this is abnormal for the comic. Check out the start, I promise you won’t regret it.
please stay, this is not all DoA is… if you had checked in last week you would’ve had an amusingly awkward pairing (that i want to happen) as your first strip…. we’re really nice here i swear.
Read from #1, genius, context is very important.
This is really unsettling, cute and just downright disturbing. As one who’s overcoming her own PTSD, this a is a really accurate take on the subject from Joyce’s position. Poor thing. This is gonna get good plot wise tho.
Wow, did Joyce ever fail sex ed!
Oh yah, home-schooled by… yeah.
So, uh. I just started reading this. In fact, this was the first dumbing of age comic I’ve ever read. Awkward.
Probably gonna be pretty horrified when she finds out how real sex works.
I recall a strip in It’s Walky! where she was horrified to discover that babies come out of vaginas.
To be fair, she’d been mindwiped.
I’ve always had a soft spot for Joyce, but this is one of the few times I’ve really felt bad for her. Maybe the mindwipe was a good thing…poor girl.
While this is a very intense strip and I applaud Willis for a very good dream sequence, I just find it funny that despite the dream, Ethan looks like he’s somewhat confused about what’s going on, which I find pretty funny. Then Ryan ruins my fun.
“Imagine if this were the first Dumbing of Age comic you ever read”
It was.
Lo, for this is the first Dumbing of Age comic I ever read.
And now I’ve read all of them.
So I take it from these last two pages, that as Joyce’s vision of Ethan’s “thing” is a….”back” massager, that she has/had one of her own that she was quite fond of? Good Christian girls always find a way I guess.
HAH!! I never thought of that, but oh man. I think you may be on to something there. 😛
The most surreal my dreams ever get is that I’m in a relationship in them.
Do you hear that?
…It’s the world’s smallest violin playing “cry me a river,” just for you. 😛
Curiously, this is the first DoA comic I’ve ever read.
Imagining it is still hard.
Give my tummy all of your thing.
I love how utterly manic this strip gets. It’s that kind of feverish nonsense that you experience in real life when you’re having a nightmare, or when it’s while you’re trying to fall asleep but you’re caught in some kind of a mental loop. The comic actually manages to conjure up the feelings that we get in real life, and that’s what makes this strip undoubtedly one of my favorite strips in the entire archive to date.