“Whoever thought selling O’Douls and V8 in a gallon jug should be taken out back and shot. This piss is vile. No wonder Dina could just walk out of the store with it; they were hoping someone would try to take it.”
Not that that’s concerning or anything, it just feels like something’s going to happen with him that’s important plot-wise soon. Big character development moment or something.
To be fair, Joe has a lot more experience with alcohol, and has about the body mass of Joyce, Walky, and Dorothy combined. Entirely reasonable for him to be considerably less drunk than the others :D.
Perhaps Joe needs to be the sober companion here because these wholesome, trusting kids are going to need an experienced person to help them avoid trouble. I’m sure he’s seen some stuff. Let’s hope the two biggest guys are the most sober people here because they are also the ones who could either cause the most trauma or be the best protectors. Frankly, I always stayed well the fuck away from any football-player-looking guys in college because of the nasty shit that my hometown football players and the coach got away with. You don’t want to be a whistle-blower because the whole fanbase (basically the whole town or state) will gang up on you … and they know it.
I’ve seen that, too, yeah. Gentlest, protectingest giants I’ve met were in my martial arts programs; the shittiest, predatoriest were in my schools’ football programs. 🙁
Does Joe have a lot more experience with alcohol?
I know there’s a lot of material to go through, but I don’t remember, off the top of my head, ever seeing him drink.
Who was he supposed to be drinking with, since he can’t buy his own?
It’s at least implied that he went out partying (and hooking up?) Some of that was just performative bullshit, but there was at least one hungover incident and there was enough space for Danny to believe it.
I have a separate question entirely, one raise by your question. There’s a general position in the comic that, unless you have a fake ID or are a dinosauric ninja, you can’t acquire alcohol if you are underage. Is this a relatively recent development? Because I don’t think I’ve ever lived in a town, and certainly not a college town, where the liquor stores were anything but delighted to cater to the under-21 market. Even (possibly even especially) in small-town midwestern states.
I have a very strong suspicion that Joe’s a bit wary about getting drunk around a Joyce who’s as forward as she’s been recently. Not because he thinks she’ll take advantage or that he’ll be taking advantage of her, but because I think he wants to be 100% sure when they finally have sex that their inhibitions were not at all inhibited.
Or perhaps he’s finding that there’s even more to her than he knew and working hard to digest the fuller understanding. Joyce did present a fairly simple personality when she arrived.
Part of it, I think, is his experience with Liz, and how she . He’s waiting for Joyce to suddenly change her mind about all this personal transformation and he really doesn’t want her to think of him as the person who “almost ruined her forever”.
Yeah. It’s that frustrating situation of ‘You’re very much sober. Partner is super drunk. Sex should not happen even if partner super demands it, regardless of if you want to or not.’
The obvious solution to this problem is to get drunk yourself. 🙂
But more seriously, this is a real concern even if you’re drunk yourself, especially in cases where there’s good reason to suspect the partner wouldn’t be ready if they weren’t drunk.
She overshot her usual teleport, wound up in the Appalachians, and this stuff came from the still of some guy with two teeth known only as “Pappy”, so you know it’s the real deal.
I always assumed it was Joyce that could teleport (like when she “appeared” in sal/Mikayla’s room), and Dina’s super power is more invisibility/stealth.
That, or enough time has passed for them to have more than one cup potentially heavily diluted by Sprite. Except for Joe. Joe doesn’t seem to like drinking or at least I don’t think we’ve seen him drunk before.
I think he has been hung over but we haven’t seen him drinking. I could see a slow, steady drinker going several hours never getting beyond “relaxed” but still hung over the next morning from the total volume metabolized.
I can get a delightful buzz off two ounces of whisky and I’m careful to measure it out into my glass exactly and carefully because it doesn’t look like much. Some people may find that two mores ounces leads to draining the whole bottle and dancing naked on the tables and I suspect those people are in this room.
IIRC hormones, blood volume and body weight all contribute, there’s a reason why there exist separate charts for extrapolating level of drunkness from number of drinks for AMAB/AFAB folk.
Walky may have ate something that didn’t count as food (and giving his normal diet and his activities today, y’all can take that a couple different ways).
Aye. I’m going to make jokes about him just not feeling the booze yet, partly because of his experience with booze and partly because he’s fucking huuuuge, but its far more likely (and dramatic!) that he’s thinking about those other parties where booze led to hookups that he’s not nearly as proud of anymore.
I think this might end with Joyce trying to sleep with him and him turning her down because she’s drunk. That might not be how it goes, but I can see it happening.
That would be some delicious dramatic irony, seems plausible. And he would be right; he knows about consent better than anyone here. In his role as a guy who has dedicated his life to being a great one-night-stand, one that a young woman would recommend to all of her friends, he knows that a guy needs to be sober enough to be considerate of the lady’s desires. On the other hand he knows that he knows nothing about being a good boyfriend.
You’re not thinking dramatically enough. I feel like the implication is that Joyce and Dorothy want to proposition a foursome. While Walky is going to be reluctant but go with it, Joe will be heavily against it because he thinks everyone is too drunk- and secretly, he wants his first time with Joyce to be special and unique, not a drunken party foursome that feeds into the image of “Joe the party slut” he hates. HOWEVER…he will ALSO be conflicted, because he doesn’t want to be /left out/, because it’s Joyce’s first sexual experience! So he both wants to keep her safe, as well as not leave his girlfriend to sleep with her best friend (and some guy) without him. So what does he do? Does he stay or does he go?
There’s NO good options, it’s SO juicy and dramatic. A+
I think Joyce and Dorothy are going to kiss at some point. And Joe’s still going to be sitting there with a lot of uncomfortable thoughts and nothing to do with them.
Yep, I feel like Joe was already predicting that trajectory since Joyce first mentioned she wanted to get drunk with him. I think he’s starting to worry she still sees him as his “old self”, and is making assumptions about what he is an isn’t comfortable with. He’s been very quiet ever since the topic of alcohol came up.
We’ve seen some. He hooked up with Roz and Malaya and both of them don’t seem to hold anything against him and he didn’t act inappropriately I assume. Malaya and Joe even have a slipshine that might have relevant emotional details. It might be enough to make some educated theories.
Yeah, but Malaya at least just walks up to him and says “let’s fuck”. It’s not really a good example of his game.
And Roz gave up on him. She was pretty upset with his schtick by then. And we didn’t see how it started.
The only times we saw old Joe hit on women it was dramatic failures. We’ve got some evidence that he was hooking up regularly despite this – and apparently even after the list came out. Along with some evidence of drinking/partying, but again we didn’t see any of that.
Fucked if I know, I started throwing out fucks whenever I fucking wanted about twenty fucking years ago and I haven’t really stopped with that fucking stuff, I just turn it off at fucking work because for some fucking reason its considered untoward to describe other groups as fucking idiots who can’t keep to their own fucking schedule the motherfuckers.
You, and everyone above make a good point; I thought back to my own first time saying fuck, when I was like 13 I said it for like a week before I got over it.
So I get it now, I need to put up with it for a few months until she reels it in.
Oh Joe, he’s so worried … about something, about whether he can still be the good guy that Joyce likes while drunk? About what he’s done in the past while drunk? About the secrets he will spill if he gets drunk? If he can ever have the easy camaraderie that Dorothy (and even Walky) has with Joyce?
Maybe just about the vileness of this illegal hootch?
Is it still polyamory if she’s possessive and jealous and will not accept her potential partners having other partners? I do not grok polyamory, but I do not think Dorothy is cut out for it.
Poor Joe. I’ve been him at parties. (Not in all the ways, but the feeling-left-out-and-uncomfortable way.) I am worried. A lot has gone into this relationship starting and now there’s a major stressor happening. I hope they get through it.
…Jesus Willis, how many story arcs in a row have all been building up to this last panel that’s CLEARLY threatening a foursome? Joyce and Dorothy getting drunk and flirty building on top of the washing machine arc, Dorothy and Walky getting together again, Joyce and Joe talking about their sexual relationship, Joyce telling Dorothy about wanting to watch her and Walky, which lead to Dorothy telling Walky…
Seriously, absolutely mad props. From a storytelling perspective, this would feel outlandish or too much if you hadn’t clearly been building it up really well.
I can so imagine him rubbing his hands and cackling. Both when he figured out this was what was going to happen, and now as these strips are hitting – one. by. one. Like droplets over the rock, while we claim for more.
Also, I think it’s extremely adorable that Walky says his issue with it is that Joyce is “less different than everyone else”. I’m sure that was also a Willis gag to himself about needing to consciously write Joyce without swears in her dialogue compared to everyone, but it’s also a really cute character moment! Establishing that despite their bickering sibling relationship, Walky actually DOES enjoy these things that make Joyce different from everyone else- but with Walky’s typical hesitancy towards change and fear of the status leaving him behind!
Man, I fuckin’ love Dumbing Of Age. I started reading this when I was in middle school and now I’m graduating with a Master’s next week
Yeah, Walky and Joyce take shots at each other and do have legitimate grievances with one another sometimes, but they are still friends, ultimately, even if you also get things like their shared physical attraction that they try to downplay or disregard, or butting heads due to both wanting some of Dorothy’s time, etc.
Aww, thank you! COVID hit when I was a Junior, so it was two very different experiences… I was super active and involved on campus, and basically dying afterwards/during grad school lol
DOA actually didn’t influence me as much, mostly because I’m not a superhero or a soap opera star. A big influence, however, was Tatami Galaxy! I absolutely refuse to spoil anything about it, but it’s a 12 episode anime with a beginning middle and end that is a violent wakeup call about how you have to live your life without regrets during college. Life changing, alongside a similarly themed game I adore called The World Ends With You
(Btw, I think I accidentally hit “report this comment” trying to reply to it? Weird website)
Dorothy doesn’t get as many punchlines as a lot of the cast does, but when she gets one, she makes it count. Genuinely a big laugh out of me, which is nice because I accidentally got spicy ramen sauce in my left eye and currently have tears pouring down one half of my face. I needed a laugh.
Ding ding ding! I think so too, it’s just too new for him. Having a girl past the one-night-stand, having a girlfriend at all, his relationship with Joyce, the path of their physical and sexual relationship…. And Joyce looks like she’s really to fuck them all while yelling fuckfuckityfuck! I think he mentally prepared himself for years of handholding and waiting until marriage.
I think Joe has the idea that he, and Joyce will have sex soon, but he feels uncomfortable with initiating anything because of his past behavior. He will probably refuse Joyce if she asks while drunk, but if she is sober, and asked then he will tentatively go along with it. I imagine he will be letting her lead, and be very patient and willing to stop if she suddenly gets worried, and changes her mind.
Already been done in “The Cutting Edge” and probably a gazillion other romcoms.
Drunk virgin throws herself at Horndog Numero Uno, who won’t bang her because of a sudden debilitating case of moral fiber. But of course he won’t just fucking TELL her that It’s Different With Someone You Care About, so she feels rejected and bolts.
Because youth, stupidity, and lazy writing. I’m praying we avoid #3.
“I’m unwantable because my boyfriend didn’t fuck me while I was drunk” doesn’t seem like a very Joyce thing to happen. Seems like something a total hack would write.
I don’t actually see it happening at all. I meant that IF the contrived ‘horndog gets morals and refuses to hook up unethically’ plot was to happen, I’m sure it would at least have Joe say why, but that I supposed that wouldn’t for sure be enough to prevent Joyce from freaking out over rejection, seeing as that would be the plot direction anyway. (I also misread M!a’s comment as a serious prediction of the coming plot, and kind of included that as a concession because I felt bad being entirely shooting the idea down)
(and I mean, while I still consider it improbable at best, it would be “my boyfriend expressed interest in basically every woman on campus, but doesn’t want me specifically [and I’m drunk so this makes perfect, horrible, sense in my mind],” whilst probably not parsing his reasoning and/or unaware of how drunk and out of it she actually is)
Can confirm. Tried to have sex while drunk and after a couple of minutes we were both like “Goddamn, this sucks. Like actually terrible, let’s just watch anime.”
I simply don’t understand, my mind refuses to comprehend, how could everyone at this party not be instantaneously fucksloshed into the ninth drunkosphere, regardless of phenotype or mass?
I also don’t understand, how could these characters universally be crabsmashed from a mere drippity drop of boozahol from the magic addiction jug, which is simultaneously way too strong and way too weak?
It’s mainly an in-joke for Willis, because in the Walkyverse Joyce and Walky are the big OTP, so here it’s supposed to be like “haha, they can’t stand each other here”. Similar to Joyce’s complete disregard/inability to remember Danny, in the Walkyverse comics she had a big stalkerish crush on Danny.
Walky is an extremely messy, casual, aimless, dudebro who has a strong base drive to wallow in hedonistic nerdery and not worry too much about tomorrow. Joyce is a neatness-obsessed, high-strung, autistic girl who has a strong base drive to follow the rules and achieve the exact life plan that she believes to be the correct one. In the Walkyverse, this contrast led to them being romantically entangled. In DoA, however, it seems to have led to them just kinda low-key hating each other. Not in an especially malicious or explosive way, mind you, but just like oil and water. If Walky hadn’t started dating Dorothy, they probably would have been very comfortable just disdainfully ignoring each other for the rest of the school year, but as things stand, yeah these little barbs are just gonna keep getting thrown.
At Dorothy: [Drunk Bedroom Eyes] “You got back together with fucking Walky?”
At Walky: [Sober(er) Indignation] “HEY WALKY…!”
Back at Dorothy: [Drunk Bedroom Eyes + :3] “Sooooo~”
…One of them turns out to be the secret traitor and either the Big Bad Villain or their lead henchman, and the two characters have a climactic duel to the death in the third act of the film!
Alt-text: I refuse to read these. I used to skip Walky, Becky or Robin talking, because they are so hard to understand.
For real, I didn’t read the title. I know it starts with “homogeni…” so I’ll pretend it is this word.
All these lightweights will be passed out long before they can wander somewhere to engage in sexy times. They might wake up together with hangovers and dragon breath in the morning.
Joe looks really unsure whether he likes the “New” Joyce. And of course, he’s aware that if he dumps her, even for a good reason, everyone on campus will hate his guts, and say, “Same ol’ Joe– never changed a bit.”
I believe Joe is afraid Jouce will make a drunken pass at him and he is staying sober to prevent himself from accepting. When and if they do bone, he wants her to make that choice with a clear head.
My favorite scene in The Spy Who Shagged me: Felicity Shagwell is drunk and approaches Austin Powers. He tells her no. “Baby, you’re drunk; it wouldn’t be right!”
A lot of people are reading this as jealousy, but I seem to recall that her dislike of Walky existed even before Dorothy started dating him! It’s just that it was a passive dislike of his sloppiness and rudeness before, which turned into an active dislike and conviction that Dorothy was “too good for him”.
I wonder if part of that was because of Sal as well. She was so cool, competent and mature and then there was… “Pajama Jeans! Having more than two pair of shoes is girly!” Manchild Walky. Like how could he even come from the same gene pool as Coolness-on-a-Bike Sal? It must have been annoying to Joyce who idolized both Dorothy and Sal.
Loading ...
Joe is contemplating an awful lot there
“Do I TELL them this stuff is V8?”
“Whoever thought selling O’Douls and V8 in a gallon jug should be taken out back and shot. This piss is vile. No wonder Dina could just walk out of the store with it; they were hoping someone would try to take it.”
Joe wondering if this is Joyce and Dotty, fucking FLIRTING with each other right in front of him….
Where that hand goin Dorothy
Somewhere good. We can hope.
Directly to fanfic territory. The best territory!
Joe is wondering when he became the sensible one
Yep. That.
He is not alone.
He’s thinking about the exact definition of the word “keg”.
Walky Implies a Sex: A Dumbing of Age Pornographique
I don’t think that that’s Pornographique… more of a “Suggestivique”
I believe it’s called an Entendre.
I always hear that word in my head as ‘enn tenn dree’, and giggle quietly to myself.
This is the kind of behavior that kept me out of the really good schools.
Perhaps “Implifique”? Or “Innuendique”?
(“Innuendo!” “In-my-what-o?”)
Dorothy asks Joyce to come watch her have sex and possibly partake. 🤣🤣
it’s only implied so she doesn’t have to cover walky up
And she insists on bringing an increasingly mortified Joe.
I’m not positive it’s mortification. But its certainly something.
But Joyce gotta cover one eye with a hand. What the other hand is doin’…
Joe is the sober one here?
Not that that’s concerning or anything, it just feels like something’s going to happen with him that’s important plot-wise soon. Big character development moment or something.
THE RETURN OF LIZ
Damn…true
Yeah, lot of “Joe is uncomfortable with this” panels lately.
To be fair, Joe has a lot more experience with alcohol, and has about the body mass of Joyce, Walky, and Dorothy combined. Entirely reasonable for him to be considerably less drunk than the others :D.
Perhaps Joe needs to be the sober companion here because these wholesome, trusting kids are going to need an experienced person to help them avoid trouble. I’m sure he’s seen some stuff. Let’s hope the two biggest guys are the most sober people here because they are also the ones who could either cause the most trauma or be the best protectors. Frankly, I always stayed well the fuck away from any football-player-looking guys in college because of the nasty shit that my hometown football players and the coach got away with. You don’t want to be a whistle-blower because the whole fanbase (basically the whole town or state) will gang up on you … and they know it.
I’ve seen that, too, yeah. Gentlest, protectingest giants I’ve met were in my martial arts programs; the shittiest, predatoriest were in my schools’ football programs. 🙁
That tracks depressingly accurately.
Guess we know who was using steroids.
Does Joe have a lot more experience with alcohol?
I know there’s a lot of material to go through, but I don’t remember, off the top of my head, ever seeing him drink.
Who was he supposed to be drinking with, since he can’t buy his own?
It’s at least implied that he went out partying (and hooking up?) Some of that was just performative bullshit, but there was at least one hungover incident and there was enough space for Danny to believe it.
I have a separate question entirely, one raise by your question. There’s a general position in the comic that, unless you have a fake ID or are a dinosauric ninja, you can’t acquire alcohol if you are underage. Is this a relatively recent development? Because I don’t think I’ve ever lived in a town, and certainly not a college town, where the liquor stores were anything but delighted to cater to the under-21 market. Even (possibly even especially) in small-town midwestern states.
He knows that booze can facilitate threesomes of some kind or another, and that’s not where he’s at in life right now.
He also later told Danny that he never had any threesomes, he just talks a good game.
IMHO the truth lies somewhere in the middle.
Yes he’s been drunk (and hungover.) No, he hasn’t had a threesome (but he wished.)
I have a very strong suspicion that Joe’s a bit wary about getting drunk around a Joyce who’s as forward as she’s been recently. Not because he thinks she’ll take advantage or that he’ll be taking advantage of her, but because I think he wants to be 100% sure when they finally have sex that their inhibitions were not at all inhibited.
I think Joe’s thinking about the Joyce he originally fell for–or, rather, trying NOT to think about her.
Yeah me too
Ooh same avatar. Amber IS ship savvy.
I think Joe fell for a Joyce who is open to change.
I’m thinking this too. This isn’t quite the Joyce he fell for. Not necessarily bad, but maybe way too different.
Or perhaps he’s finding that there’s even more to her than he knew and working hard to digest the fuller understanding. Joyce did present a fairly simple personality when she arrived.
Yeah. Ouch. Wondering if she’ll come back, or if this new pendulum swing is long-term.
Fully informed consent is his thing, he may not want to do the horizontal bop with Joyce if she’s sloshed.
I just hope she doesn’t interpret that as rejection.
Part of it, I think, is his experience with Liz, and how she . He’s waiting for Joyce to suddenly change her mind about all this personal transformation and he really doesn’t want her to think of him as the person who “almost ruined her forever”.
Yeah. It’s that frustrating situation of ‘You’re very much sober. Partner is super drunk. Sex should not happen even if partner super demands it, regardless of if you want to or not.’
The obvious solution to this problem is to get drunk yourself. 🙂
But more seriously, this is a real concern even if you’re drunk yourself, especially in cases where there’s good reason to suspect the partner wouldn’t be ready if they weren’t drunk.
Last time I asked how much, now I need to know what. They can’t be buzzed off one sip can they?
These guys are all lightweights and Dina pretty clearly got like weapons grade alcohol.
She overshot her usual teleport, wound up in the Appalachians, and this stuff came from the still of some guy with two teeth known only as “Pappy”, so you know it’s the real deal.
Who names their teeth, and why “Pappy” for both?
If you’ve only got two teeth, “pappy” would end up a better descriptor of your diet – unpleasantly soft and textureless.
Does Dina teleport?
I always assumed it was Joyce that could teleport (like when she “appeared” in sal/Mikayla’s room), and Dina’s super power is more invisibility/stealth.
That, or enough time has passed for them to have more than one cup potentially heavily diluted by Sprite. Except for Joe. Joe doesn’t seem to like drinking or at least I don’t think we’ve seen him drunk before.
I think he has been hung over but we haven’t seen him drinking. I could see a slow, steady drinker going several hours never getting beyond “relaxed” but still hung over the next morning from the total volume metabolized.
Possibly rubbing alcohol.
I can get a delightful buzz off two ounces of whisky and I’m careful to measure it out into my glass exactly and carefully because it doesn’t look like much. Some people may find that two mores ounces leads to draining the whole bottle and dancing naked on the tables and I suspect those people are in this room.
AFAB folk tend to get buzzed a lot quicker if earthling medical knowledge does not escape me.
If do, it’s because on average they have lower body mass which is the primary factor in alcohol tolerance.
Also, on average a 15% lower blood volume to body mass ratio, which means even less blood to “dilute” the alcohol in.
It’s hormonal, I believe.
Sauce: holy *moly* has my tolerance dropped since changing mine.
IIRC hormones, blood volume and body weight all contribute, there’s a reason why there exist separate charts for extrapolating level of drunkness from number of drinks for AMAB/AFAB folk.
Yup, same here. When my body ran on T I could drink whole rooms under the table. Switching OS to E has definitely changed that considerably
Same. There’s been times I start catching a buzz off one beer, when it used to take at least 2-3
Walky’s barely even a lightweight. He can get contact drunk.
………….. Huh.
When was the last time any of these intrepid teenagers ate anything? I don’t see no snacks there.
Walky may have ate something that didn’t count as food (and giving his normal diet and his activities today, y’all can take that a couple different ways).
If we just go by scenes of them eating, probably days ago?
I think it’s safe to assume things like dinner can happen off panel.
Dorothy, interesting hand placement while talking about fucking.
oh good, someone else sees it. ~<3
Joyce’s 16th F-bomb!!! ^^
aaaand this makes comment #69 😛
Nice!
OH MY GOD I HADN’T AND NOW I DID.
And I can’t unsee 8DDD
Oh gosh oh gosh oh gosh
Final panel is so steamy
I thought it was established this was a fucking Walky strip.
Everyone here is a contender for fucking, with consent.
… funny that everybody is sitting
I’m just wondering in what conceivable sense Robin could be said to be homogenimatized
Homo-genimatized?
Joe seems to be contemplating if the dranks will result in explicit fucking.
And if he wants that any more
Aye. I’m going to make jokes about him just not feeling the booze yet, partly because of his experience with booze and partly because he’s fucking huuuuge, but its far more likely (and dramatic!) that he’s thinking about those other parties where booze led to hookups that he’s not nearly as proud of anymore.
I think this might end with Joyce trying to sleep with him and him turning her down because she’s drunk. That might not be how it goes, but I can see it happening.
That would be some delicious dramatic irony, seems plausible. And he would be right; he knows about consent better than anyone here. In his role as a guy who has dedicated his life to being a great one-night-stand, one that a young woman would recommend to all of her friends, he knows that a guy needs to be sober enough to be considerate of the lady’s desires. On the other hand he knows that he knows nothing about being a good boyfriend.
You’re not thinking dramatically enough. I feel like the implication is that Joyce and Dorothy want to proposition a foursome. While Walky is going to be reluctant but go with it, Joe will be heavily against it because he thinks everyone is too drunk- and secretly, he wants his first time with Joyce to be special and unique, not a drunken party foursome that feeds into the image of “Joe the party slut” he hates. HOWEVER…he will ALSO be conflicted, because he doesn’t want to be /left out/, because it’s Joyce’s first sexual experience! So he both wants to keep her safe, as well as not leave his girlfriend to sleep with her best friend (and some guy) without him. So what does he do? Does he stay or does he go?
There’s NO good options, it’s SO juicy and dramatic. A+
Could be! Joe may be looking at Dorothy’s hand as well as his drink!
I think Joyce and Dorothy are going to kiss at some point. And Joe’s still going to be sitting there with a lot of uncomfortable thoughts and nothing to do with them.
I love this. Are you secretly an evil DM?
Yep, I feel like Joe was already predicting that trajectory since Joyce first mentioned she wanted to get drunk with him. I think he’s starting to worry she still sees him as his “old self”, and is making assumptions about what he is an isn’t comfortable with. He’s been very quiet ever since the topic of alcohol came up.
This still frustrates me, since I think we’d have a much better understanding of Joe if we’d seen some of those parties and hookups.
We’ve seen some. He hooked up with Roz and Malaya and both of them don’t seem to hold anything against him and he didn’t act inappropriately I assume. Malaya and Joe even have a slipshine that might have relevant emotional details. It might be enough to make some educated theories.
Yeah, but Malaya at least just walks up to him and says “let’s fuck”. It’s not really a good example of his game.
And Roz gave up on him. She was pretty upset with his schtick by then. And we didn’t see how it started.
The only times we saw old Joe hit on women it was dramatic failures. We’ve got some evidence that he was hooking up regularly despite this – and apparently even after the list came out. Along with some evidence of drinking/partying, but again we didn’t see any of that.
When is Joyce going to grow out of her “add the word fuck to everything” phase?
It’s already starting to grate.
I feelike that’s kind of the point, right? It’s incredibly realistic for someone who just started cursing
We all cursed this much when we were 11-14.
Poor Joyce is just catching up on her normal youth experiences.
Fucked if I know, I started throwing out fucks whenever I fucking wanted about twenty fucking years ago and I haven’t really stopped with that fucking stuff, I just turn it off at fucking work because for some fucking reason its considered untoward to describe other groups as fucking idiots who can’t keep to their own fucking schedule the motherfuckers.
Fuck if I didn’t see this reply coming.
If true to reality she will be over it long, long after everyone around her is over it.
She just entered it a few hours ago, give her a few days to get it out of her system
So we’ll stop seeing it around December.
From our perspective it’s been a while, but for her it’s been less than a day
If I were living in comic time it would still feel like weeks.
It’s been five fucking minutes, chill the fuck out.
Stop being creepy Vegeta.
Do you need an adult?
She’s been at this for like three hours. Let her get it out of her system.
You, and everyone above make a good point; I thought back to my own first time saying fuck, when I was like 13 I said it for like a week before I got over it.
So I get it now, I need to put up with it for a few months until she reels it in.
There! That‘s why Joe has been looking so pensive.
It’s been what, 12 hours? Less?
Dorothy with the drunk hands on Joyce again.
If you didn’t already know you’d be left guessing who the couple is in that last panel.
I DO know and I’m still guessing.
Even so, there is still not enough homo in this homogenimatized for me. ^_^
She got them bad-touch grabby-hands
It’s not a bad touch if it’s not unwelcome.
Easy, chitlins… she’s just making sure she doesn’t topple over.
Mmm-huh.
I think Joe’s going to both refrain from going to far with drunk Joyce, as well as notice Dorothy’s being pretty handsy with drunk Joyce.
Oh Joe, he’s so worried … about something, about whether he can still be the good guy that Joyce likes while drunk? About what he’s done in the past while drunk? About the secrets he will spill if he gets drunk? If he can ever have the easy camaraderie that Dorothy (and even Walky) has with Joyce?
Maybe just about the vileness of this illegal hootch?
I think, on top of a lot of his established fear of treating Joyce right, the thing he’s feeling is:
“They can’t all be this drunk this fast, right? What is this stuff. It’s not that bad, right?”
I think many of those questions are there, that’s why Joe seems sober and I also think he’s on guard to avoid any inconveniences.
Ya know what, I believe you in the fifth panel, Joyce.
I am terrified of where this is all going.
Joe ’yeah no i’m not touching thisdrink ’
Someone has to be the responsible one here!
Dorothy may be polyamourous and has no idea… That hand gently touching her “friend’s” leg
When you’ve done laundry together, that’s a kind of closeness that only besties can understand >:)
We gotta add that to the archeologists’ and historians’ responses now.
“They were just good friends.”
“They were just roommates.”
“They just did laundry together.”
Poly, and noooot a “Zero on the Kinsey Scale” at all.
Dorothy was clearly in the closet back then. That self identified Kinsey ranking seems very unlikely now.
Is it still polyamory if she’s possessive and jealous and will not accept her potential partners having other partners? I do not grok polyamory, but I do not think Dorothy is cut out for it.
yeah, i think these boys may have to just deal with their girlfriends fuckin’ each other
Oof that’s not gonna be nice. That’s gonna kill all three relationships.
Poor Joe. I’ve been him at parties. (Not in all the ways, but the feeling-left-out-and-uncomfortable way.) I am worried. A lot has gone into this relationship starting and now there’s a major stressor happening. I hope they get through it.
…Jesus Willis, how many story arcs in a row have all been building up to this last panel that’s CLEARLY threatening a foursome? Joyce and Dorothy getting drunk and flirty building on top of the washing machine arc, Dorothy and Walky getting together again, Joyce and Joe talking about their sexual relationship, Joyce telling Dorothy about wanting to watch her and Walky, which lead to Dorothy telling Walky…
Seriously, absolutely mad props. From a storytelling perspective, this would feel outlandish or too much if you hadn’t clearly been building it up really well.
I can so imagine him rubbing his hands and cackling. Both when he figured out this was what was going to happen, and now as these strips are hitting – one. by. one. Like droplets over the rock, while we claim for more.
Possibly, possibly. But Willis can be a tease.
Willis? Tease us?? No way!!!
Shirley, you can’t be Sirius!
Nothing can take from me that Joyce and Dorothy have a thing. And Willis keeps adding more and more to this misture.
Also, I think it’s extremely adorable that Walky says his issue with it is that Joyce is “less different than everyone else”. I’m sure that was also a Willis gag to himself about needing to consciously write Joyce without swears in her dialogue compared to everyone, but it’s also a really cute character moment! Establishing that despite their bickering sibling relationship, Walky actually DOES enjoy these things that make Joyce different from everyone else- but with Walky’s typical hesitancy towards change and fear of the status leaving him behind!
Man, I fuckin’ love Dumbing Of Age. I started reading this when I was in middle school and now I’m graduating with a Master’s next week
Yeah, Walky and Joyce take shots at each other and do have legitimate grievances with one another sometimes, but they are still friends, ultimately, even if you also get things like their shared physical attraction that they try to downplay or disregard, or butting heads due to both wanting some of Dorothy’s time, etc.
Congratulations Justnobodyfqwl ! How was your college experience? Did thos series influence you at all?
Aww, thank you! COVID hit when I was a Junior, so it was two very different experiences… I was super active and involved on campus, and basically dying afterwards/during grad school lol
DOA actually didn’t influence me as much, mostly because I’m not a superhero or a soap opera star. A big influence, however, was Tatami Galaxy! I absolutely refuse to spoil anything about it, but it’s a 12 episode anime with a beginning middle and end that is a violent wakeup call about how you have to live your life without regrets during college. Life changing, alongside a similarly themed game I adore called The World Ends With You
(Btw, I think I accidentally hit “report this comment” trying to reply to it? Weird website)
Dorothy doesn’t get as many punchlines as a lot of the cast does, but when she gets one, she makes it count. Genuinely a big laugh out of me, which is nice because I accidentally got spicy ramen sauce in my left eye and currently have tears pouring down one half of my face. I needed a laugh.
Ouch hahaha
Have you tried not purposely dumping a gallon of Mace in your eye?
Why would they do that?
It’s nice seeing these guys just having a funny friend chat. They poke each other but it’s good natured.
Yes, they went through too many things that it’s only fair that they have this pleasant moment
If they keep drinking, there might be even more poking happening.
So is Joe not drinking, or just have too much mass to get tipsy from such a small amount?
based on the look, I think he’s either not at all, or sees where Joyce is and is taking it slow because worried
same reason either way, just slow vs not
Joe is going to have a whole crisis just from being afraid of taking advantage of Joyce
Ding ding ding! I think so too, it’s just too new for him. Having a girl past the one-night-stand, having a girlfriend at all, his relationship with Joyce, the path of their physical and sexual relationship…. And Joyce looks like she’s really to fuck them all while yelling fuckfuckityfuck! I think he mentally prepared himself for years of handholding and waiting until marriage.
I think Joe has the idea that he, and Joyce will have sex soon, but he feels uncomfortable with initiating anything because of his past behavior. He will probably refuse Joyce if she asks while drunk, but if she is sober, and asked then he will tentatively go along with it. I imagine he will be letting her lead, and be very patient and willing to stop if she suddenly gets worried, and changes her mind.
Already been done in “The Cutting Edge” and probably a gazillion other romcoms.
Drunk virgin throws herself at Horndog Numero Uno, who won’t bang her because of a sudden debilitating case of moral fiber. But of course he won’t just fucking TELL her that It’s Different With Someone You Care About, so she feels rejected and bolts.
Because youth, stupidity, and lazy writing. I’m praying we avoid #3.
Alex Karev be like
I’m pretty sure Joe would say “no, you’re way too drunk, let’s” (either “just cuddle again” or “get you back to your room”) rather than being vague.
Still a chance Joyce could freak out about being unwantable or something though.
“I’m unwantable because my boyfriend didn’t fuck me while I was drunk” doesn’t seem like a very Joyce thing to happen. Seems like something a total hack would write.
I don’t actually see it happening at all. I meant that IF the contrived ‘horndog gets morals and refuses to hook up unethically’ plot was to happen, I’m sure it would at least have Joe say why, but that I supposed that wouldn’t for sure be enough to prevent Joyce from freaking out over rejection, seeing as that would be the plot direction anyway. (I also misread M!a’s comment as a serious prediction of the coming plot, and kind of included that as a concession because I felt bad being entirely shooting the idea down)
(and I mean, while I still consider it improbable at best, it would be “my boyfriend expressed interest in basically every woman on campus, but doesn’t want me specifically [and
I’m drunk sothis makes perfect, horrible, sense in my mind],” whilst probably not parsing his reasoning and/or unaware of how drunk and out of it she actually is)“It’ll be more fun for both of us when you’re not as limp as a wet noodle.”
Can confirm. Tried to have sex while drunk and after a couple of minutes we were both like “Goddamn, this sucks. Like actually terrible, let’s just watch anime.”
I simply don’t understand, my mind refuses to comprehend, how could everyone at this party not be instantaneously fucksloshed into the ninth drunkosphere, regardless of phenotype or mass?
I also don’t understand, how could these characters universally be crabsmashed from a mere drippity drop of boozahol from the magic addiction jug, which is simultaneously way too strong and way too weak?
I bet it’s the government’s fault.
I read that in Vegeta’s voice, provided me a much needed laugh. Thank you. XD
It only fucks you up if you’re +21.
This is what they don’t want y’all over there to discover. I’m sorry, you had to know one day.
Dammit you’re giving away all the adult secrets! :O
Joyce’s disdain for Walky seems overblown to me – way out of proportion to anything Walky has ever said or done. Or, maybe, I have a bad memory.
It seems to me like a mutual friendly habit by now. It doesn’t seem to have any heat.
Or maybe I just appreciate the respect Walky has for Joyce.
That’s my read of it, like siblings bickering more then any actual hostility
You haven’t met my siblings. For which I’m glad.
They just dislike each other but in like, a comedic, friendly way.if that makes sense.
It’s mainly an in-joke for Willis, because in the Walkyverse Joyce and Walky are the big OTP, so here it’s supposed to be like “haha, they can’t stand each other here”. Similar to Joyce’s complete disregard/inability to remember Danny, in the Walkyverse comics she had a big stalkerish crush on Danny.
> disdain for Walky seems overblown
Jealousy.
Woooops. There it is.
I mean, it’s also playful banter. But Joyce has been Like That about their relationship from the start.
It’s banter.
Walky at the beginning of the comic often questioned/mocked Joyce’s religious worldview. Apparently the harsher way of talking has remained
That’s true. But, isn’t it also true that many of the things Joyce believed at the start of the school year she now regards as dumb.
Walky is an extremely messy, casual, aimless, dudebro who has a strong base drive to wallow in hedonistic nerdery and not worry too much about tomorrow. Joyce is a neatness-obsessed, high-strung, autistic girl who has a strong base drive to follow the rules and achieve the exact life plan that she believes to be the correct one. In the Walkyverse, this contrast led to them being romantically entangled. In DoA, however, it seems to have led to them just kinda low-key hating each other. Not in an especially malicious or explosive way, mind you, but just like oil and water. If Walky hadn’t started dating Dorothy, they probably would have been very comfortable just disdainfully ignoring each other for the rest of the school year, but as things stand, yeah these little barbs are just gonna keep getting thrown.
*dorothy grabs joyce’s leg* :0
*Joyce’s leg detaches*
Did not see that coming.
And that is how Joyce learned that her former church was also full of lizard people.
I know you *probably* didn’t mean anything like this but,
just a heads up, “lizard people/person” is actually an anti-Semitic dogwhistle,
be especially weary if you see someone putting the term into triple-parentheses.
It’s also kind of an offensive way to refer to autistic people in D&D circles, I’ve found.
So who’s going to tell Joyce she’s really fucking annoying now?
Nobody, because they’re not annoyed by her.
…I mean, Walky is. Rather demonstrably. He didn’t say the exact words, but he’s certainly expressing the sentiment.
Non-canon.
In vino sacrilegium.
The touch…!!!!
Joe noticeably sober i see.
he is hunting. he can’t afford to let alcohol make him soft
He’s already a softie. Can’t risk it, no
I love that Joyce is like
At Dorothy: [Drunk Bedroom Eyes] “You got back together with fucking Walky?”
At Walky: [Sober(er) Indignation] “HEY WALKY…!”
Back at Dorothy: [Drunk Bedroom Eyes + :3] “Sooooo~”
Joe: “oh no, now I am Joyce, that is afraid of booze parties and girls.”
How many times has Joyce said something to or about Walky that would clearly be about fucking him if the word fucking was added before his name?
Final panel Dorothy and Joyce is so steamy it’s a sauna in there
Joke’s on you, alt-text! I never see the strip titles unless someone points it out!
Joyce, in the movies, when two characters have an instant, persistent, unexplainable low-level animosity, what happens in the second reel?
Ooh, Ooh, I know this one!
…One of them turns out to be the secret traitor and either the Big Bad Villain or their lead henchman, and the two characters have a climactic duel to the death in the third act of the film!
Aww, Joe. I’m glad you’re the “Designated Driver” with the alcohol-party-thing. But I’m sorry you’re the DD also with the Joyce-pendulum-swing-thing.
Joe’s going to be holding Joyce’s hair later isn’t he? I feel like Joyce puking is inevitable.
‘s better than pooping, right?
ehhh you only got tastebuds in one of those places and you don’t choke if the other is clogged
Alt-text: I refuse to read these. I used to skip Walky, Becky or Robin talking, because they are so hard to understand.
For real, I didn’t read the title. I know it starts with “homogeni…” so I’ll pretend it is this word.
All these lightweights will be passed out long before they can wander somewhere to engage in sexy times. They might wake up together with hangovers and dragon breath in the morning.
Joe looks really unsure whether he likes the “New” Joyce. And of course, he’s aware that if he dumps her, even for a good reason, everyone on campus will hate his guts, and say, “Same ol’ Joe– never changed a bit.”
Or he’s staring at his cup, thinking: “a few sips and they’re snockered. What’s in this stuff???”
I believe Joe is afraid Jouce will make a drunken pass at him and he is staying sober to prevent himself from accepting. When and if they do bone, he wants her to make that choice with a clear head.
My favorite scene in The Spy Who Shagged me: Felicity Shagwell is drunk and approaches Austin Powers. He tells her no. “Baby, you’re drunk; it wouldn’t be right!”
I wonder if Dorothy and Joyce are so drunk to lose all restraint and finally kiss.
Why does Joyce dislike Walky so much? Just jealousy that Dorothy was spending time with him instead of her?
Walky seems imminently likable here.
A lot of people are reading this as jealousy, but I seem to recall that her dislike of Walky existed even before Dorothy started dating him! It’s just that it was a passive dislike of his sloppiness and rudeness before, which turned into an active dislike and conviction that Dorothy was “too good for him”.
I wonder if part of that was because of Sal as well. She was so cool, competent and mature and then there was… “Pajama Jeans! Having more than two pair of shoes is girly!” Manchild Walky. Like how could he even come from the same gene pool as Coolness-on-a-Bike Sal? It must have been annoying to Joyce who idolized both Dorothy and Sal.
Good reminder.
Although I’m sure it didn’t help his case that he was stealing Dorothy time.
Dumbing of Age Book 14: So You’re Putting Up With This Again
What the fuck is Joe fucking thinking? I can’t read that expression?
He’s looking at his booze in a sort of wary, concerned, hesitant, or second-guessing sort of way.
I’d give Dorothy more than an implied fucking as well . . .