Seriously? “Joyce pulls” was last week’s epiphany, this week’s epiphany is that Joyce still genuinely feels they’re friends, and is willing to help her with no strings attached, *and* is willing to stand up for her even after she desperately tries to push Joyce away.
In short, it’s that Joyce *sticks*, not *pulls*. XD
I think the epiphany is that she’s going back to Ruth.
The last scene that had Jennifer (out of panel, but likely still there listening) was Joyce saying the following: “She did once. She found love for real. And she grabbed hold of it and refused to let go. But then the other person did.”
And now Jennifer is in Read hall (presumably in the Clark wing, but I can’t tell for sure). She doesn’t live there anymore, so she must be there to see somebody. My first guess is Ruth.
The only other person she might consider herself close to in Read hall is Walky, so that’s a distant second possibility (maybe to apologize for something).
In any case, I suspect we’ll see more towards the outcome tomorrow. That or Willis will change scenes on us again.
The last time we saw Jennifer on panel was 6 days ago, when Alice said “Billie, you’ll never change.” and Jenn’s face collapsed into despair as the entire world turned bright red around her. I think that seems like a pretty clear “life-upheavaling epiphany” moment for her.
I imagine either she left right after Alice told her she’s a horrible person just before Joyce swoops in to actually talk about Billie’s capacity for love, and thus the epiphany is her agreeing with Alice, OR her epiphany was Joyce bringing up her love with Ruth (alongside Ruth telling her like, 3 days ago that if Billie wanted her back she’d take her with no hesitation) that despite how mutually toxic they were, she was genuinely in love with Ruth.
@ Lingo IDK if billiefer has any ‘chemistry ‘with daisy but at this point i suppose it would cut out the middle(wo)man if she just seduced daisy for more of a feature in teh magazine, abuse of power side lol
Gotta say, I love and adore how much of a mess Billie is, romantically. You can’t say “that’s not sexual tension, that’s open hostility” about her, because that line was blurred pretty much right away.
Joyce: “Yay, my mom friends are finally getting together! Take that ‘Mother’, I’ve got TWO moms now!”
Dorothy: “There is so much to unpack in that statement but honestly I’m too tired to care about any of it.”
Lol. This just helped me figure out what their relationship dynamic is. The more I think about it the more Dorothy and Jennifer look like younger versions of Leslie and Robin respectively!
new acquaintance: “That’s a cool name.”
me: “Thanks, I picked it myself!”
acquaintance, oblivious: “Wow, how did your parents do that?”
me, transgender: (immediately second-guesses my life choices)
I have friends who have said that exact thing. Actually, one of them reads this comic, and I don’t think they comment, but like… I’m squinting at you through my computer screen.
Ngl I’m utterly reminded of the day I came out as Autistic to my dad because I was pissed off at a family reunion and all that spite welled up as a joke.
(It wasn’t at him. He did laugh tho :’3 Dorothy’s dealing with a tougher crowd.)
They might need to calm down a bit. Not to undercut their emotions but neither epiphany was that life changing. It’s not like they found out they’re a sleeper assassin wanted in six countries or that their older sister is really their mom. A little bi panic never killed anyone….maybe. Please don’t take this comment seriously.
I wonder, what would be the point of hating something one isn’t afraid of?
(I have that question in mind because I occasionally hear, from homophobes, how it isn’t technically a phobia because they’re not afraid of it. Now, maybe they’re just trying to make some point about how they’re some sort of badass who doesn’t feel fear. But I think the concept of fear can include more than simply feeling the emotion of fear – one can decide that something would be bad [because the TV said so, for example] and work against it, and their actions could be interpreted as being inherently out of fear of that hypothetical future even though they never personally felt the fear. Another factor is they may jump straight to anger, never feeling the fear because the anger covered it up and they don’t know how to process emotions [I mean, I don’t either, not trying to cast shade on that specific part].)
(clarifying: I’m not implying anyone here is incidentally agreeing with their argument, I’m just reminded of it. I agree there are people that want to hurt people and are taking advantage of the culture that’s making certain demos easy targets)
I think the fact of the matter is that disgust is a different emotion than fear, and much more commonly the relevant one. Now, what those people are doing is pedantic, the important thing there is that they are bigoted and homophobia is the word we have for that particular form of bigotry. But I would guess what’s going on with this claim is 1) not wanting to be called a bigot because they actually ARE afraid of a hit to their image as a good person and b) deflecting with something technically true but fucking irrelevant that they can latch onto as an alternative thought so that 3) they don’t have to examine the actual accusation and whether it might be. You know. Morally bad to be doing what they’re doing. It’s an offramp thought process for the kinds of bigots and assholes who can’t just say “and proud” when they get called bigots or assholes.
When I was a teenager, I had an odd kind of respect for the one person in this group I spent time with that would admit that he was homophobic. The other members of the group who were homophobic would play the, “I’m not homophobic, I just believe [homophobia].” And yeah, sometimes going to the “I’m not scared” angle. Like, at least this one guy owned it– and was honestly less of an ass about things than some others.
In a couple years, he had grown out of his homophobia, which is obviously even better.
I don’t know if you’re being facetious, but “he was flirting with me and I’m not gay, so I had to stab him” is absolutely a well-documented and successful legal defense for murder in the United States.
Yes and no state recognizes it as a valid defense. It is banned outright in most states. It has never been used to make an acquittal either, which is some small comfort.
It’s banned in less than half the states. While it hasn’t gotten someone an acquittal (in recent times; seems quite possible for it to have happened previously before it was given the label and wider awareness), it has been used to get lesser charges or reduced sentencing.
I know I was trying to be glib which I’d hoped was conveyed by the over the top examples I made that it was meant for humor. Gay panic and hate has let to death and danger in many cases but in this instance Dorothy and Jennifer are both clearly safe and around strong support networks. The tone of this story has been humorous and light which was the only reason I felt comfortable joking about it at all.
Do you know the difference between “bi panic” and “gay panic”? They’re not the same sort of thing at all, any more than “stock market panic” is the same thing as “Panic At the Disco”.
For an etymological explanation… “fanny”, which comes from Fanny Hill of Fanny Hill (technically titled Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure), is slang for a woman’s waistline anatomy on both sides of the Atlantic; but it’s the back if you’re in the US and the front in the UK, so it’s much more inherently sexual on the east side of the pond. (I’d presume it started out as dirty slang in the US as well, but that connotation has been largely lost to history as Fanny Hill fell out of the public consciousness, so it’s usually used more playfully. Definitely a term a US citizen should be careful of using in foreign countries.)
idk whether “epiphany” is slang for that sort of “climax”, but it’s plausible enough to get the joke, at least.
(I should probably say a US citizen or a citizen of another country whose English speakers use/have a substantial overlap with the American dialect. …or more succinctly, someone who thinks of “fanny” as synonymous for “ass”)
I love this, though it’s a little ironic she’s busting this one out in front of one of the more established bisexual people in the comic, even if Jennifer’s got her own hangups regarding acknowledging that.
ah love it when the least confrontational girl i know lashes out at me before i can lash out at them for some semblance of control. classic duck smoking gif
One of my good friends in high school at one point was often bringing up epiphanies she had, and at one point another friend of her was like, “Hey, I love you, but if you’re having epiphanies every other day, they may just be thoughts.”
Not saying that’s the case here, but it is permanently linked in my mind to the topic of epiphanies.
To be fair, that’s how it goes. You realize you’re attracted to one lady and then the entire world opens up and you go “oh my god, REALLY?” as you realize you had crushes on women dating back to certain Disney animated movie leads.
Dorothy’s been feeling a lot of animosity towards Jennifer this semester. As best I can tell it started here, so possibly some jealousy that she hasn’t figured out yet.
no doubt. I’d think her feelings for Joyce play into it a lot though. Like the way she sees herself in relation to Joyce is a lot like how she saw herself in relation to Walky. Like she’s the one who knows what’s best for them, and she takes care of them.
And Jennifer’s “this is a problem that has a simple solution, and you’re just cracking jokes.” It’s more than “oops, didn’t occur to me”. It undercuts Dorothy’s image of herself, in the relationship that matters the most. I think Joyce’s adoration and deference to Dorothy’s “wisdom” is what attracted her to her.
Look, Dorothy, you kinda-cheaty sent a cleavage pic to someone other than your boyfriend, and yeah, that makes you a bit of a garbage person, but I wouldn’t go so far as to say it makes you a number-2.
On the garbage scale, I’d say she’s about on par with a single empty paper cup on the sidewalk, easily picked up and put in a nearby trash can by someone who notices but just as easily ignored by anyone else.
you always payfor it, it gets in the atmosphere and each molecule of it prevents the generation of approx 1 million ozone molecules.
i was thinking more along the line of r10 or r11, the ones used by my grandfathers fellow soldiers to prank each other while building and repairing fighter planes in ww2. but technically the freezing your feet of can be accomplished dumping propane in the shoes but they have to be put on much quicker.
I think Dina might agree if approached carefully. Becky, on the other hand, would be a much harder sell. I’m pretty sure she’s a solid monogamist, but maybe Dorothy and Dina could come up with a configuration that works for Becky, given time.
Whelp, that’s slightly disappointing. There goes my hopes that this might resolve in a direction more nuanced than “Yup, Dorothy is bi.”
I was really hoping something like deeper thought realizing that her feelings for Joyce are more like a squish (a “crush” centered around intense platonic feelings instead of sexual and romantic feelings) or a realization along the lines of “Well, maybe I’m biromantic to some degree, but the sexual attraction isn’t a factor.” I know lots of people are going to root for pretty much every bi awakening that happens, but as someone who had some confusion around my orientation around that same age and very much isn’t bi, it would be nice to see some representation of situations that don’t end that way.
I also really, really hope that this doesn’t mean that the central platonic friendship in the comic is going to collapse into nothing or turn into a romantic relationship. I really like that one of the strongest and longest lasting relationships in the comic is a strong friendship, not a romantic relationship.
Speaking as someone on the spectrum (several tbh but relevantly, Aspec): Down here we call kissing your platonic mates “boosting your friendship” for good reason.
I’d love to see more platonic friends making out (and perhaps more). I’m aroallo, so that’s one of my favorite things. It would, however, feel like a bit of a strange turn here since Dorothy started down this line of questioning based on Joe asking about her emotional connection to Joyce. It hasn’t really felt like physical attraction has been the central point of questioning. I could be misreading it, though.
I mainly just hope to see this strong friendship remain a friendship, not end up on a “romance or bust” path. Sensual and even sexual fun entering the picture wouldn’t bother me.
I can sympathize with your first point, but not even remotely with your second one. What’s with folks acting like there’s some epidemic of stories about gay romance? That stories about platonic same-gender friendships are endangered?
That folks who want m/m and f/f friendships to turn into romances are somehow different and worse and more prevalent or powerful than folks who want m/f friendships to turn into romances?
Like, shippers of Spock/Kirk and shippers of Mulder/Scully are cut from exactly the same cloth, but somehow only the first group of shippers are entitled or weird. And I’ve heard this from my fellow LGBTQIA+ people almost as often as from straight cis etc people.
Uh… I’m not some straight person booing F/F shippers.
I’m an aromantic person who enjoys seeing non-romantic relationships featured as prominent and important in a world that almost always puts romance first.
I’m not saying that anyone is entitled or weird for their ships. Ship who you want. However, I will also be rooting for my own favored dynamic between two characters, and that’s not less valid because I love how these two interact as friends, not romantic partners. It shouldn’t be treated as any different from me having a different, competing romantic ship.
It is kind of different tho. And like you can enjoy platonic relationship but you gotta realize how it looks when you talk like that about the possibility of a queer romantic relationship happening.
So cheering for romantic relationships is somehow different from and superior to cheering for platonic relationships? And as an aromantic person, I should just keep my thoughts about the relationships I’d like to see that reflect me and my life and how much I value my platonic friendships to myself because someone might think I’m straight-washing?
I understand your frustrations. It sucks to be in a world with little representation and have situations where you’re hoping for it shut down. I experience that all the time (like getting eyerolled and accused of straight washing because my preferred “ship” isn’t a romantic one).
There’s a big difference between “I love this platonic relationship as it is and hope it doesn’t get railroaded into a romance” and “Ew, gross. No same sex romances.” Can we please have the nuance to recognize the difference?
I THINK the thing going on here is that queerplatonic relationships simply don’t get written about by people who aren’t afraid of gay relationships. And they don’t get written about explicitly and directly almost full stop. Certainly we get a lot of deep platonic friendships in media, but like. It’s often queer baiting or the soldier type relationship or comes with a good dose of no homo if it doesn’t take immediate backseat when one of the core characters is romantically involved. And I would desperately like to see fucking. Something. Acknowledge the kinds of sometimes sexual always very intimate absolutely non romantic types of relationships that are really important to me as like. A thing? Explicitly? On purpose? In a way that’s actually interested in the queerness of it instead of in denial of that queerness? Because I have I think literally never seen that ever. Like if you know of media that does that please let me know, I have actually never seen it.
I just want to convey that I respect what you’re saying but also it’s about wanting the universe to directly acknowledge you exist at all in a way that isn’t an accident or an excuse or doesn’t kind of believe you’re lying about the life you lead on some level. And I suspect y’all relate to that feeling and that’s what the conflict is about.
Well, that first bit isn’t true — people who are afraid of gay relationships don’t intentionally write queerplatonic things either. It’s just very well demonstrated by mainstream entertainment that homophobic straight people can write some VERY homoerotic stuff, entirely by accident.
I mean, I definitely agree I DON’T think they’re doing it on purpose. I think when people talk about there being plenty of representation of intimate platonic relationships a lot of what might conceivably fall into the kind of space I’m looking for isn’t like. There on purpose in an acknowledged way. It’s kind of sideways ended up looking a bit like queerplatonicness via aggressive refusal to engage with queer subtext while writing some queer ass shit. That’s part of why I would really like to see that stuff written on purpose by someone who cares and is actually interested in showing things as they exist instead of just denialing their way through something with so much homoerotic subtext that “they’re just friends bro” starts to feel ridiculous. But I’m trying to tease out the distinction between aggressive queerbaiting and what people who want good deep platonic rep are actually looking for.
/slowly circles the part of my comments where i said “what is with folks acting like” and then underlines “and I’ve heard this from my fellow LGBTQIA+ people almost as often”
/also underlines and circles “I can sympathize with your first point”
Anyway I didn’t call you straight, because I didn’t think you were straight, and it would’ve been really weird if I had, since you put this in terms of wanting representation, and I did in fact read your entire comment.
Again: I sympathize with wanting representation that aligns with your specific demographic.
I just don’t understand talking about the fully platonic version of the relationship (not to be confused with a hypothetical queerplatonic version) like that’s in any way in danger of going out of fashion, or why that’s such a common complaint — both in the comment section for this specific comic, and across the wider fandom space, since forever.
Honestly, shouldn’t have said anything. I’m frustrated by the wider trend
(e.g., famous celebrities somehow getting it into their heads that straight men struggling to be openly affectionate with one another is somehow being caused not by the enforcement of toxic masculinity, patriarchy, and systemic homophobia, but somehow by fangirls who want their favorite ship to be canon)
and while I do see that also reflected in the comments here, basically ever since the first person dared to ship Joyce/Dorothy, it’s just. Not even a little bit the same scope or impact, and I picked you of all people to complain about it to.
Apology accepted. I understand your frustration. There are certainly people out there who unfairly shut down the possibility of same-sex romances, and despite me not replying to anyone or directly addressing shippers, there are some similarities between what I said and what you’re frustrated with. I’ve also been guilty of taking out frustrations on people expressing an opinion similar to the cause of said frustration despite not really expressing the same thing.
Me, I’m much more sympathetic to the second point than the first. There is the issue of when queer ships come up– and especially become popular– people will be like, “Why can’t anyone just be *friends* these days.” Which is super annoying, and I’m going to ship f/f for many, many things. But it’s also annoying how much romantic relationships are, like, the Ultimate Relationships in… pretty much everything. Characters’ happy endings aren’t really moving in with their best friend, or managing to get back to them despite the odds, or realizing their relationship is the most important thing to them.
Even in things where the friendships are central, they often lessen in narrative importance when a lasting romantic relationship begins. And I do love shipping, but I’d also love more stories (and in many different gender combinations) where the most meaningful relationship is between best friends.
Now you’ve got me thinking about the friendship/romance balancing act in fiction. People will complain about a romance feeling forced or empty, cite the characters barely interacting or having no chemistry, but I don’t see the same thing with friendship. If the main character of something is talking to their friend for exactly one scene, nobody really says “I’m not convinced those two are friends”, there’s this whole other connotation to it that I can’t personally describe. I don’t fully know the endpoint of this thought, word-wise, but hopefully you can tell what door I’m scraping at.
Sometimes I do see that audience criticism of friendships– mainly when it just tells how they’re close friends and it seems sudden. Like, “Hey, look, we’re best friends and you know I’ll always be there for you” when this is the character’s first scene, more than halfway through the movie, and they haven’t even been mentioned previously.
Exactly. Romantic relationships are not the only relationships worth telling stories about, and it’s frustrating how often romantic relationships take center stage, both in the stories themselves and in discussions around said stories.
I mean, I was expressing my own hopes for these characters, and was neither replying to others nor referencing other shippers. Yet people still interpreted what I said as a rebuttal to Dorothy/Joyce romantic shippers, not its own independent hope for the story.
I have a feeling if I was saying “I hope this doesn’t mean Dorothy is going to break up with Walky,” people wouldn’t have interpreted it that way. That’s just a rival ship, which people understand. Yet “I hope Dorothy doesn’t end her friendship with Joyce in favor of chasing a romance” is seen as complaining about the Dorothy/Joyce romantic ship, not an independent (if rival) hope for the story.
For me, it did feel worse with it starting off with being disappointed that Dorothy is bi, and the stuff about nuance and all that. I do get wanting representation, but in context it really didn’t seem to be going that way and I don’t think it would have been a good move. Sometimes I also hope a character will be a certain identity, but I wouldn’t say I’m disappointed by one queer identity over another.
Her being bi and her and Joyce remaining close friends, that I can get onboard with.
Her being bi-romantic could still be a thing and demisexual when it comes to women. We have only seen her show interest towards Joyce and maybe Amazigirl, both characters she is kind of close to, and has a sort of intense relationship with.
Arguably she’s not so upheaved by being bi, but by (in her estimation) being a relationship cheater. Being a good person is core to her self-identity, and now she’s getting signals from both Joe and Danny that what she’s been up to is poor behavior.
Honestly I think she needs to cut herself some slack about it. She definitely is more upset about it than Joe is, or Walky or Joyce will be. Dorothy remains her own worst critic.
(Not counting the people in this comment section who still hate her for teaching Joyce how to do laundry)
And let’s face it, it’s not like Jenifer hasn’t shown inclinations towards that sort of thing. It’s just that she and Ruth didn’t sit down and negotiate what the limits and safewords are and just jumped in at the “skimmed a review of the sparknotes of 50 Shade of Grey” level.
I went through a couple of iterations of that comment before I, er, hit upon “hit” as the most perfectly explanatory yet ambiguous term for having sexual relations with someone. Because given the relationship these two have and the way Billie rolls, punching her in the face might just be foreplay.
(I don’t think Dorothy has the skills for a proper throwing across the room, and she left her superpowers in another universe.)
Didn’t you hear? It’s okay to have sex with your bestie “like once” so Jennifer is 100% straight. 10 times is close enough to one that it count as “like” once right?
Last time they talked, they didn’t exactly part on great terms or really have a good talk at all. Dorothy is already peak defensive right now, and Jennifer picked an argument with her last time so Dorothy’s jumping the gun to make Jennifer back off.
The last time they spoke, Jennifer grabbed her phone, took a boob pic of herself, sent it to Joyce (she didn’t know it was Joyce) while criticising Dorothy’s breasts, and then told her she was unraveling.
Also, this seems like a perfectly reasonable reaction to Jennifer in general.
I think that for some time now, Jennifer could simply not leave her alone. Their interactions the last few days (or even weeks) was Jennifer bothering Dorothy unsolicited.
So she tried to preemptively shut her off, the only time where she was probably going to anyway, because she couldn’t know.
I appreciate how well Billie is drawn in panels one and four. Her expression is very …expressive in panel one, and her stance is incredible in panel four.
Funny, at first I read the last line as “That might be a two.” It made sense as a comment about how dreadful that one-liner was. But I’ll take a bit of character progress instead I GUESS.
Dammit, I hate it when people do the “which character are you” thing, because, like, bits of lots….
But.
I fucking am (was) Dorothy.
Including the bad parts.
As much as the horny voyeur part of me thinks that a Dotty+Billifer hatefuck Slipshine would be hot… I don’t want to see another disaster lesbian pairing. Or rather, I don’t want to see THIS disaster lesbian pair. I like Dotty too much. I want her journey to self awareness and acceptance to be as supportive and and smooth as possible. There are enough self-layed minefields for her to hazard through. I hope she can go through this with someone who is able to give her what she needs without laying too many other landmines of their own.
Again, I submit the Dotty/Alice ship.
1. Alice and Dotty can bond over their unhealthy attraction to Billifer.
2. They can both go into it with no huge pressures on each other. They can be just what they both need ar the moment. (Put aside that I am not sure about what Alice needs).
3. It provides a ton of drama and growth opportunities for Billifer as well.
4. I find Alice to be very attractive and would very much enjoy seeing that depicted as I am bonked to HJ.
“Dalice”? Or “Alotty”? Anyone with me? Someone better at creating a part(ner)-manteau can help out.
I am. She needs one of those black leather chokers with the ring in the middle. And a nice cup of bubble tea. And a sword, preferably a saber with a nice sheath, maybe a falchion.
Hot Take:
Even as a Kinsey 2, you can identify however you like. It can be bisexual but it doesn’t have to be. You can even identify as straight *with one exception*. Sometimes it’s just the one person. You can update your label over time as you gather more data!
Oh, I super agree! But that would require a degree of nuance Dorothy really struggles with tbh.
Beyond the entire plotline feeling like An Epiphany to her (because you don’t have to be religious to be _hella repressed_ sdfkjg), which is making her question her entire way of acting around women… Dorothy processes info and builds her worldview through labels, boxes, spreadsheets, and lists — The neater the better.
You can identify as you like, but it’s best if you reexamine yourself and see whether it really is just one exception.
And I think Dorothy’s been doing a bit of that and realizing that it isn’t. That as strongly as she might feel about Joyce, she’s finding other women attractive too. See that panel with Amazi-girl working out.
Tbh, the concept of a main character doesn’t really make sense in DoA.
It’s like complaining about Black Panther being in Civil War. He was really not the main character, and yet he’s everyone’s favorite thing about that movie.
What I find funny in the first panel is that Jennifer is clearly about ready to shout at Dorothy and is utterly gobsmacked that she picked a fight that she loses instantly.
This thought hit me as I was falling asleep but since Jennifer now realizes the titty pic she sent on Dorothy’s behalf was sent to Joyce, and knowing how quick she is about Amazi-girl’s identity, I’m now imagining that there’s a timeskip, Jennifer walks the stage, collects her degree, is feeling good, sees Joyce and Dorothy holding hands and cuddling happily. “Huh. Those two sure are good friends.” and then suddenly she remembers the titty pic and it dawns on her “oh my god they’re in a situationship”.
To anyone who thinks Dorothy can’t be funny or make light of herself see the last panel. To everyone who keeps shipping Jennifer with Dorothy for reasons beyond my comprehension, I hope you are happy I still don’t get it though.
As a high-masking autistic queer, I will attribute this to masking on her part as well.
(Like, you learn The Way to sit in a chair, to do it Right and not be scolded or attract any attention to it… and then it becomes so hard not to do that even if it feels better to sit differently (and it only clearly feels better when you’re alone because otherwise you’re aware of the intense Wrongness you are doing in front of someone).)
Anyway. Thanks for coming to my TED Talk about Dorothy sitting in a chair.
@Li: I just saw your comment from yesterday. I’d say first of all, I agree with thejeff, what you offered didn’t seem meaningfully different from what I’ve said. When I gave my definitions, they are ones I’ve gotten from bi and pan people and groups many times over the years. They are how I explored my identity. AND as someone who experiences attraction to different genders in different ways, the general difference I encountered in descriptions was helpful.
Anyway… I don’t know. I will take away that “more than one” could be better than “two or more.” But beyond that… well, it felt like a lot of assumptions about where I was getting things from or my idea of how it is for everyone.
(I will say, as a nonbinary person, and especially when I identified as a bisexual nonbinary person, I always liked “two or more” as part of it for asserting that there are more than two genders, while people might hear “more than one” and go “okay, so two.” But since I don’t identify with bi now, I’ll check in with my local community with it.)
Well, that’s why I was asking where the definitions were coming from? They’re what I heard on tumblr years ago, but not what I’ve found when I did more research and dug into the community history more.
I was getting all kinds of prickly though, between [general background radiation of everything] and the other conversation about the Kinsey scale not having enough axes for pan, but apparently having everything you need to express being bi.
So: I’m sorry about that. I edited my comments a lot before hitting post, trying to keep them from being hostile, bc I didn’t want to be hostile! For a whole host of reasons! Obviously I failed. Gonna take another comment break.
Thank you for that. I do get how a lot of discussions of pansexuality and bisexuality for a time seemed more critical of bisexuality and positioning it as inherently binary or transphobic somehow, and it’s not. But to me, and my friends who do identify as bisexual now (who are all trans, don’t hang with a lot of cis people these days), there is room for it to be different from how people describe pan, and… that’s why we identify with it. Like, one friend isn’t sure if they’re really attracted to men, but they are attracted to people of many other genders, and maybe sometimes men, masc-leaning yes, and they feel bisexuality can fit that. For me, there was a time when I wasn’t feeling attracted to people who shared my same gender identity (not all nonbinary people, but those close to the area I was in within it)… someone suggested that not being attracted to my own gender would technically make me straight, and I was like, gross, it’s still attraction to multiple genders, bi still fits me.
For the definitions I’m most familiar with, I don’t mean to limit or criticize bisexuality at all, and I’ve spent more time in spaces centering bisexuality than pansexuality (I actually feel more limited on my familiarity with pansexuality). It has been a bit since I was in bi-focused spaces, and it’s possible that even when I was, I wasn’t getting the emphasis between people using phrases like “more than one” versus “two or more,” so I stuck with the one I liked better (for previously mentioned reasons).
Also, yeah, the Kinsey scale can be useful as an opening for some people but it’s very limited. That’s not saying something about bi people or anyone else who’s on it, that’s saying something about the scale.
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…well ok then
I’m not even sure what revelation that Jennifer had.
Was it Joyce pulls?
Ironically it’s the same epiphany for both of them!
They both had the epiphany that Dorothy is bi!
They both had a biphany! Which is like an epiphany, but »double«.
So together it’s a quadiphany?
Isn’t that a polyphany?
No, that’s musical style that involves fucking two or more independent partners simultaneously.
Seriously? “Joyce pulls” was last week’s epiphany, this week’s epiphany is that Joyce still genuinely feels they’re friends, and is willing to help her with no strings attached, *and* is willing to stand up for her even after she desperately tries to push Joyce away.
In short, it’s that Joyce *sticks*, not *pulls*. XD
Joyce is Amazi-Girl!
The epiphany is that burnout Dorothy reminds her of her ex.
Even worse – The pissiness does it for her.
I think the epiphany is that she’s going back to Ruth.
The last scene that had Jennifer (out of panel, but likely still there listening) was Joyce saying the following: “She did once. She found love for real. And she grabbed hold of it and refused to let go. But then the other person did.”
And now Jennifer is in Read hall (presumably in the Clark wing, but I can’t tell for sure). She doesn’t live there anymore, so she must be there to see somebody. My first guess is Ruth.
The only other person she might consider herself close to in Read hall is Walky, so that’s a distant second possibility (maybe to apologize for something).
In any case, I suspect we’ll see more towards the outcome tomorrow. That or Willis will change scenes on us again.
You could be right but man would I hate that. Let’s hope she’s going to talk to Walky.
Just in anticipation…pation Damn you Willis!
Maybe she buys weed from Agatha.
3rd possibility: she’s going to see Ethan and Asher for some reason.
The last time we saw Jennifer on panel was 6 days ago, when Alice said “Billie, you’ll never change.” and Jenn’s face collapsed into despair as the entire world turned bright red around her. I think that seems like a pretty clear “life-upheavaling epiphany” moment for her.
I imagine either she left right after Alice told her she’s a horrible person just before Joyce swoops in to actually talk about Billie’s capacity for love, and thus the epiphany is her agreeing with Alice, OR her epiphany was Joyce bringing up her love with Ruth (alongside Ruth telling her like, 3 days ago that if Billie wanted her back she’d take her with no hesitation) that despite how mutually toxic they were, she was genuinely in love with Ruth.
Dumbing of Age Book 15: Hey, Guess What Everyone, I’m Bisexual!
says 80% of the cast
Dumbing of Age Books 15 through 57 are just different characters going “Hey, Guess What Everyone, I’m Bisexual!”
i mean i don’t see it happening cannoiically without alcohol but i’m sure there’d be some billie/doroothy making out sketches atleast
Subscribe to davewillis69 on Patreon and you’ll see lots of Billifer x Dorothy pages. And Billiefer x Joyce, Dorothy x Joyce, Walky x Dorothy x Joyce…
LOL that’s one way to get patreon subscribers tho i’m sure some ppl wanna see fandom art of otehr ppl doing it in various styles too
Dumbing of Age Book 15: “…Yeah, ok, i might be a two”
Obviously, Jennifer and Dorothy must have sex at the end of this.
It suddenly feels inevitable, doesn’t it? Billie/Ruth Part 2.
Or possibly just Billie/Daisy Part 2.
Oh god can you imagine if they get together. Daisy would weep
Dorothy and Billie, I mean. Dorothy and Billie getting together while still working at the paper?
Poor Daisy. Always the bridesmaid, innit
@ Lingo IDK if billiefer has any ‘chemistry ‘with daisy but at this point i suppose it would cut out the middle(wo)man if she just seduced daisy for more of a feature in teh magazine, abuse of power side lol
I dunno about “suddenly”. If anything, this is less sexually charged than their last interaction.
Yeah, I was just about to say that this suddenly feels like foreshadowing.
Gotta say, I love and adore how much of a mess Billie is, romantically. You can’t say “that’s not sexual tension, that’s open hostility” about her, because that line was blurred pretty much right away.
vrisrose
Hmmm
actually, no I want that
uh oh
Joyce: “Yay, my mom friends are finally getting together! Take that ‘Mother’, I’ve got TWO moms now!”
Dorothy: “There is so much to unpack in that statement but honestly I’m too tired to care about any of it.”
I’m a trash goblin who craves mess, so: YES PLEASE
Danny would be proud of that one
Dorothy and Jennifer are competing to become Danny.
Is “good egg” the point where all evolutionary paths converge in the Dumbiverse?
Dancinization is happening.
Dancinization is a beautiful word, we gotta make it a thing
One more pun and it’ll manifest Claire 8D (QC)
Makes sense. She’s probably punsexual.
Punsexual! Yay. universally turned on by word jokes.
I think they should kiss probably.
It would solve no problems whatsoever but it would be very entertaining to see.
Would solve no problems at all. Except shutting them both up for a while.
It would make them worse but in their case that’s what they need
It would solve my problem, which is that I’m not currently seeing toxic lesbian makeouts
This exactly.
That is a problem, yes. No angry, lesbian, toxic making-out.
On god I’m gonna go on withdrawal at this point, the story needs it and my blood requires it.
She can do better.
Agreed. Jennifer/Alice
Alice can do better
Everyone can always do better than everything, though.
Sudden Dorothy!
https://www.dumbingofage.com/2022/comic/book-13/01-bring-me-to-life-drawing/sudden/
(Now Billie has to amend that “vaguely” part)
Lol. This just helped me figure out what their relationship dynamic is. The more I think about it the more Dorothy and Jennifer look like younger versions of Leslie and Robin respectively!
oh no, I see it
Only thing missing is Leslie’s weird attraction to aggressive women in Dorothy
Billie definitely has that, so if you add them together you’re still getting the correct sum of parts
No, the kiss comes after the suplex.
Kissing yesss and then hate-sex
They really really shouldn’t it would be a bad decision on both ends. It would be a hell of a lot of fun to watch the fall out if they do though.
Chekov’s hate kiss or i guess Willis Hate kiss any character who has screamed at eachother multiple times in hate has to kiss.
dotty cooked hours forever and ever. this comic is so good
Has there been a comedy duo with two bisexuals?
nah, but there was this comedy duo with a bisexual and an ace a few years back
dont invoke the curse!!!!!!!!
I thought it was a pansexual and an asexual… and they were roomates.
All I want is to come up with some pun but I’ve got Nothing
[Tumblr Callout 60 wounded 3 dead]
Mainstream aside, tehre’s gotta be enough gay/drag clubs out there to have duos/whole troupes? of jokesters out there
look up the katering show!
Oh, I love this dumbass little fight.
Also, yeah, sometimes you just start punning. Sometimes you accidentally come out to be people because you need to make a joke. It happens.
It’s a bi-product.
new acquaintance: “That’s a cool name.”
me: “Thanks, I picked it myself!”
acquaintance, oblivious: “Wow, how did your parents do that?”
me, transgender: (immediately second-guesses my life choices)
I have friends who have said that exact thing. Actually, one of them reads this comic, and I don’t think they comment, but like… I’m squinting at you through my computer screen.
If your name is Cain then that is a cool name.
I wonder if their brother Able agrees.
Ngl I’m utterly reminded of the day I came out as Autistic to my dad because I was pissed off at a family reunion and all that spite welled up as a joke.
(It wasn’t at him. He did laugh tho :’3 Dorothy’s dealing with a tougher crowd.)
come on bruh, do you really think life-upheavaling epiphanies are mutually exclusive? (-_-)
Jennifer thinks she’s the main character of Dumbing of Age versus Joyce.
They might need to calm down a bit. Not to undercut their emotions but neither epiphany was that life changing. It’s not like they found out they’re a sleeper assassin wanted in six countries or that their older sister is really their mom. A little bi panic never killed anyone….maybe. Please don’t take this comment seriously.
too late :p
Do… do you know what “gay panic” is? Yes, it has absolutely killed people.
I don’t like calling it “gay panic”, more or less reason I don’t like calling it “homophobia”
“panic” and “phobia” implies fear
the people who use “gay panic” as an excuse to kill ain’t afraid, they just murderous assholes
There’s always “-cidal”?
See, it’s homocidal if you’re murdering someone like you, but it’s homicidal if you’re just murdering someone.
</helping>
I wonder, what would be the point of hating something one isn’t afraid of?
(I have that question in mind because I occasionally hear, from homophobes, how it isn’t technically a phobia because they’re not afraid of it. Now, maybe they’re just trying to make some point about how they’re some sort of badass who doesn’t feel fear. But I think the concept of fear can include more than simply feeling the emotion of fear – one can decide that something would be bad [because the TV said so, for example] and work against it, and their actions could be interpreted as being inherently out of fear of that hypothetical future even though they never personally felt the fear. Another factor is they may jump straight to anger, never feeling the fear because the anger covered it up and they don’t know how to process emotions [I mean, I don’t either, not trying to cast shade on that specific part].)
(clarifying: I’m not implying anyone here is incidentally agreeing with their argument, I’m just reminded of it. I agree there are people that want to hurt people and are taking advantage of the culture that’s making certain demos easy targets)
I think the fact of the matter is that disgust is a different emotion than fear, and much more commonly the relevant one. Now, what those people are doing is pedantic, the important thing there is that they are bigoted and homophobia is the word we have for that particular form of bigotry. But I would guess what’s going on with this claim is 1) not wanting to be called a bigot because they actually ARE afraid of a hit to their image as a good person and b) deflecting with something technically true but fucking irrelevant that they can latch onto as an alternative thought so that 3) they don’t have to examine the actual accusation and whether it might be. You know. Morally bad to be doing what they’re doing. It’s an offramp thought process for the kinds of bigots and assholes who can’t just say “and proud” when they get called bigots or assholes.
When I was a teenager, I had an odd kind of respect for the one person in this group I spent time with that would admit that he was homophobic. The other members of the group who were homophobic would play the, “I’m not homophobic, I just believe [homophobia].” And yeah, sometimes going to the “I’m not scared” angle. Like, at least this one guy owned it– and was honestly less of an ass about things than some others.
In a couple years, he had grown out of his homophobia, which is obviously even better.
To quote Spider Robinson in Telempath, “Hatred and fear are damned near synonyms.”
Yes, it’s being a monstrous bigot. Thankfully, it’s never worked as a defense.
I don’t know if you’re being facetious, but “he was flirting with me and I’m not gay, so I had to stab him” is absolutely a well-documented and successful legal defense for murder in the United States.
Yes and no state recognizes it as a valid defense. It is banned outright in most states. It has never been used to make an acquittal either, which is some small comfort.
It’s banned in less than half the states. While it hasn’t gotten someone an acquittal (in recent times; seems quite possible for it to have happened previously before it was given the label and wider awareness), it has been used to get lesser charges or reduced sentencing.
Yes. Ugh. My apologies.
Reality is always worse than it seems.
I know I was trying to be glib which I’d hoped was conveyed by the over the top examples I made that it was meant for humor. Gay panic and hate has let to death and danger in many cases but in this instance Dorothy and Jennifer are both clearly safe and around strong support networks. The tone of this story has been humorous and light which was the only reason I felt comfortable joking about it at all.
Do you know the difference between “bi panic” and “gay panic”? They’re not the same sort of thing at all, any more than “stock market panic” is the same thing as “Panic At the Disco”.
They’re both the main character of their own lives, but not necessarily the main character of this chapter.
Multiple epiphanies.
and epic fannies
… I mean, when you put two epic fannies together just right, you do tend to get multiple epiphanies.
This joke works best if you’re up on your British slang.
For an etymological explanation… “fanny”, which comes from Fanny Hill of Fanny Hill (technically titled Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure), is slang for a woman’s waistline anatomy on both sides of the Atlantic; but it’s the back if you’re in the US and the front in the UK, so it’s much more inherently sexual on the east side of the pond. (I’d presume it started out as dirty slang in the US as well, but that connotation has been largely lost to history as Fanny Hill fell out of the public consciousness, so it’s usually used more playfully. Definitely a term a US citizen should be careful of using in foreign countries.)
idk whether “epiphany” is slang for that sort of “climax”, but it’s plausible enough to get the joke, at least.
(I should probably say a US citizen or a citizen of another country whose English speakers use/have a substantial overlap with the American dialect. …or more succinctly, someone who thinks of “fanny” as synonymous for “ass”)
(can you tell i’m neurodivergent and a big fan of “Um, Actually”)
Speaking as a member of your club, I enjoyed the hell out of this Um, Actually.
Acquiring new knowledge and talking filth are two of my favorite things.
Well at least you’re nailing the puns, Dotty
I love this, though it’s a little ironic she’s busting this one out in front of one of the more established bisexual people in the comic, even if Jennifer’s got her own hangups regarding acknowledging that.
Yeees succumb to the puns!
ONE OF US ONE OF US ONE OF US
ah love it when the least confrontational girl i know lashes out at me before i can lash out at them for some semblance of control. classic duck smoking gif
One of my good friends in high school at one point was often bringing up epiphanies she had, and at one point another friend of her was like, “Hey, I love you, but if you’re having epiphanies every other day, they may just be thoughts.”
Not saying that’s the case here, but it is permanently linked in my mind to the topic of epiphanies.
I love that response, actually. I have a younger sibling who needs to hear it.
Girls girls, you can both be failures.
This made me smile. Thank you.
You can have multiple failures, but there can be only one best failure.
Someone needs to put a sign on the stairs that says, “This way to Garbage Roof.”
now let’s find out that amazigirl is a 4 so they can have 6 together
Nah, they’re all 2s. All three of them.
Not sure about that assessment with Billie, honestly
Yeah… I think Billie is at least a 4.
I get it. I called myself a 3 for years. And then several of my exes came out as trans women during the pandemic, and suddenly I’m a 5.
To be fair, that’s how it goes. You realize you’re attracted to one lady and then the entire world opens up and you go “oh my god, REALLY?” as you realize you had crushes on women dating back to certain Disney animated movie leads.
Suddenly that time you called a girl after school in 6th grad to tell her how pretty she looked that day is recontextualized.
Joyce: Is that not typical?
Suddenly Dorothy is the Two-Face of Dumbing of Age. The Kinsey Two-Face.
Kiss kiss kiss kiss
Loving that dynamic action pointing pose
Reminds me of the Multiple Spider Men Pointing meme.
All I could picture was “OBJECTION!!!”
So these two are going to become the next Disaster Couple, aren’t they?
…Why is Walky oddly fitting for this?
I get that Jennifer is usually enough to put people on edge, but it was a random meet-up at the elevator and we went from 1 to like an 8 really fast.
Being fair, Jennifer has been getting under Dorothy skin on purpose lately.
Dorothy’s been feeling a lot of animosity towards Jennifer this semester. As best I can tell it started here, so possibly some jealousy that she hasn’t figured out yet.
Any animosity there might be tied to the lead in to that strip here
It’s likely her feelings for Joyce do play into it, but Jennifer sweeping in with “Why haven’t you fixed this?” is certainly a big part of it.
no doubt. I’d think her feelings for Joyce play into it a lot though. Like the way she sees herself in relation to Joyce is a lot like how she saw herself in relation to Walky. Like she’s the one who knows what’s best for them, and she takes care of them.
And Jennifer’s “this is a problem that has a simple solution, and you’re just cracking jokes.” It’s more than “oops, didn’t occur to me”. It undercuts Dorothy’s image of herself, in the relationship that matters the most. I think Joyce’s adoration and deference to Dorothy’s “wisdom” is what attracted her to her.
Look, Dorothy, you kinda-cheaty sent a cleavage pic to someone other than your boyfriend, and yeah, that makes you a bit of a garbage person, but I wouldn’t go so far as to say it makes you a number-2.
On the garbage scale, I’d say she’s about on par with a single empty paper cup on the sidewalk, easily picked up and put in a nearby trash can by someone who notices but just as easily ignored by anyone else.
I don’t normally agree with how you put things Taffy (although I agree with you on a lot of things) but this was the best response/description.
I gotta paint a picture using the palette I was born with and whatever I could afford to pick up along the way.
On an only vaguely related tangent, I just realized how well Dorothy and Sweetheart would get along.
“RAMPAGE!” *knocks over coffee cup* *feels guilty about it*
So who will Dotty sleep with first to get her b-card?
Jennifer
Alice
Daisy
or Ruth
Mary
I will find you and I will dampen your socks.
Mary: *lies in bed next to Dorothy under the covers, naked* Listen, I really think homosexuality is destroying America.
Dorothy: Ugh! Stop being such a stereotype!
I will find you and put legos inside your socks.
I’ll worry when it’s freon you’re dumping i those socks
I worry about why they call it freon when it’s not actually free.
Yeah, don’t do that. R-22 is expensive!
Only if you pay for it.
you always payfor it, it gets in the atmosphere and each molecule of it prevents the generation of approx 1 million ozone molecules.
i was thinking more along the line of r10 or r11, the ones used by my grandfathers fellow soldiers to prank each other while building and repairing fighter planes in ww2. but technically the freezing your feet of can be accomplished dumping propane in the shoes but they have to be put on much quicker.
Mary being a hypocrite on top of everything else just makes so much sense.
That would be sooooo good!
Becky and Dina. Threesome. For research.
I think Dina might agree if approached carefully. Becky, on the other hand, would be a much harder sell. I’m pretty sure she’s a solid monogamist, but maybe Dorothy and Dina could come up with a configuration that works for Becky, given time.
Maybe if it involved body sensors, citations, notation, spreadsheets, and one or more studies submitted for publication.
Joyce. After making sure it’s okay with Walky, Joe, and Joyce obviously.
First, she’s going to kiss Jocelyne, obviously. She’ll sleep with Mindy.
JENNIFER AND DOROTHY… i want them to get stuck in an elevator together
As long as it’s not the lumon one ;P
Imagine it malfunctioned and someone kept going up and down without being let out until they got it fixed.
[Aerosmith intensifies]
Jennifer’s performative shtick is getting so old. Not even the pun can save it.
Blasphemy!
she needs to run into malaya and be called fakey 8D
Hey now, that is a 100% quality bi pun, speaking as a pun expert. Any bi experts to confirm?
If you need to ask about that, I think you’re punsexual, not bi.
There’s a bi-t of overlap between both labels
Dorothy seems very bi the book either way
Whelp, that’s slightly disappointing. There goes my hopes that this might resolve in a direction more nuanced than “Yup, Dorothy is bi.”
I was really hoping something like deeper thought realizing that her feelings for Joyce are more like a squish (a “crush” centered around intense platonic feelings instead of sexual and romantic feelings) or a realization along the lines of “Well, maybe I’m biromantic to some degree, but the sexual attraction isn’t a factor.” I know lots of people are going to root for pretty much every bi awakening that happens, but as someone who had some confusion around my orientation around that same age and very much isn’t bi, it would be nice to see some representation of situations that don’t end that way.
I also really, really hope that this doesn’t mean that the central platonic friendship in the comic is going to collapse into nothing or turn into a romantic relationship. I really like that one of the strongest and longest lasting relationships in the comic is a strong friendship, not a romantic relationship.
Dorothy still has a lot to reflect on. Yes, that point you make (very apt, by the way) would have been gratifying right here.
And I agree, because why destroy these solid and acceptable bonds of friendship?
*And I agree,
why destroy these solid and acceptable bonds of friendship?
Speaking as someone on the spectrum (several tbh but relevantly, Aspec): Down here we call kissing your platonic mates “boosting your friendship” for good reason.
I’d love to see more platonic friends making out (and perhaps more). I’m aroallo, so that’s one of my favorite things. It would, however, feel like a bit of a strange turn here since Dorothy started down this line of questioning based on Joe asking about her emotional connection to Joyce. It hasn’t really felt like physical attraction has been the central point of questioning. I could be misreading it, though.
I mainly just hope to see this strong friendship remain a friendship, not end up on a “romance or bust” path. Sensual and even sexual fun entering the picture wouldn’t bother me.
I can sympathize with your first point, but not even remotely with your second one. What’s with folks acting like there’s some epidemic of stories about gay romance? That stories about platonic same-gender friendships are endangered?
That folks who want m/m and f/f friendships to turn into romances are somehow different and worse and more prevalent or powerful than folks who want m/f friendships to turn into romances?
Like, shippers of Spock/Kirk and shippers of Mulder/Scully are cut from exactly the same cloth, but somehow only the first group of shippers are entitled or weird. And I’ve heard this from my fellow LGBTQIA+ people almost as often as from straight cis etc people.
It is very bizarre.
Uh… I’m not some straight person booing F/F shippers.
I’m an aromantic person who enjoys seeing non-romantic relationships featured as prominent and important in a world that almost always puts romance first.
I’m not saying that anyone is entitled or weird for their ships. Ship who you want. However, I will also be rooting for my own favored dynamic between two characters, and that’s not less valid because I love how these two interact as friends, not romantic partners. It shouldn’t be treated as any different from me having a different, competing romantic ship.
It is kind of different tho. And like you can enjoy platonic relationship but you gotta realize how it looks when you talk like that about the possibility of a queer romantic relationship happening.
So cheering for romantic relationships is somehow different from and superior to cheering for platonic relationships? And as an aromantic person, I should just keep my thoughts about the relationships I’d like to see that reflect me and my life and how much I value my platonic friendships to myself because someone might think I’m straight-washing?
I understand your frustrations. It sucks to be in a world with little representation and have situations where you’re hoping for it shut down. I experience that all the time (like getting eyerolled and accused of straight washing because my preferred “ship” isn’t a romantic one).
There’s a big difference between “I love this platonic relationship as it is and hope it doesn’t get railroaded into a romance” and “Ew, gross. No same sex romances.” Can we please have the nuance to recognize the difference?
Thanks for putting so many words in my mouth so you can fell superior. Very cool of you
You know I fell bad for a bit about my comment because it is a complicated issue, but now I don’t, thanks for that.
I THINK the thing going on here is that queerplatonic relationships simply don’t get written about by people who aren’t afraid of gay relationships. And they don’t get written about explicitly and directly almost full stop. Certainly we get a lot of deep platonic friendships in media, but like. It’s often queer baiting or the soldier type relationship or comes with a good dose of no homo if it doesn’t take immediate backseat when one of the core characters is romantically involved. And I would desperately like to see fucking. Something. Acknowledge the kinds of sometimes sexual always very intimate absolutely non romantic types of relationships that are really important to me as like. A thing? Explicitly? On purpose? In a way that’s actually interested in the queerness of it instead of in denial of that queerness? Because I have I think literally never seen that ever. Like if you know of media that does that please let me know, I have actually never seen it.
I just want to convey that I respect what you’re saying but also it’s about wanting the universe to directly acknowledge you exist at all in a way that isn’t an accident or an excuse or doesn’t kind of believe you’re lying about the life you lead on some level. And I suspect y’all relate to that feeling and that’s what the conflict is about.
Well, that first bit isn’t true — people who are afraid of gay relationships don’t intentionally write queerplatonic things either. It’s just very well demonstrated by mainstream entertainment that homophobic straight people can write some VERY homoerotic stuff, entirely by accident.
I mean, I definitely agree I DON’T think they’re doing it on purpose. I think when people talk about there being plenty of representation of intimate platonic relationships a lot of what might conceivably fall into the kind of space I’m looking for isn’t like. There on purpose in an acknowledged way. It’s kind of sideways ended up looking a bit like queerplatonicness via aggressive refusal to engage with queer subtext while writing some queer ass shit. That’s part of why I would really like to see that stuff written on purpose by someone who cares and is actually interested in showing things as they exist instead of just denialing their way through something with so much homoerotic subtext that “they’re just friends bro” starts to feel ridiculous. But I’m trying to tease out the distinction between aggressive queerbaiting and what people who want good deep platonic rep are actually looking for.
…whoops, apparently computer switch switched my icon? Weird.
/slowly circles the part of my comments where i said “what is with folks acting like” and then underlines “and I’ve heard this from my fellow LGBTQIA+ people almost as often”
/also underlines and circles “I can sympathize with your first point”
Anyway I didn’t call you straight, because I didn’t think you were straight, and it would’ve been really weird if I had, since you put this in terms of wanting representation, and I did in fact read your entire comment.
Again: I sympathize with wanting representation that aligns with your specific demographic.
I just don’t understand talking about the fully platonic version of the relationship (not to be confused with a hypothetical queerplatonic version) like that’s in any way in danger of going out of fashion, or why that’s such a common complaint — both in the comment section for this specific comic, and across the wider fandom space, since forever.
Honestly, shouldn’t have said anything. I’m frustrated by the wider trend
(e.g., famous celebrities somehow getting it into their heads that straight men struggling to be openly affectionate with one another is somehow being caused not by the enforcement of toxic masculinity, patriarchy, and systemic homophobia, but somehow by fangirls who want their favorite ship to be canon)
and while I do see that also reflected in the comments here, basically ever since the first person dared to ship Joyce/Dorothy, it’s just. Not even a little bit the same scope or impact, and I picked you of all people to complain about it to.
Sorry.
Apology accepted. I understand your frustration. There are certainly people out there who unfairly shut down the possibility of same-sex romances, and despite me not replying to anyone or directly addressing shippers, there are some similarities between what I said and what you’re frustrated with. I’ve also been guilty of taking out frustrations on people expressing an opinion similar to the cause of said frustration despite not really expressing the same thing.
Me, I’m much more sympathetic to the second point than the first. There is the issue of when queer ships come up– and especially become popular– people will be like, “Why can’t anyone just be *friends* these days.” Which is super annoying, and I’m going to ship f/f for many, many things. But it’s also annoying how much romantic relationships are, like, the Ultimate Relationships in… pretty much everything. Characters’ happy endings aren’t really moving in with their best friend, or managing to get back to them despite the odds, or realizing their relationship is the most important thing to them.
Even in things where the friendships are central, they often lessen in narrative importance when a lasting romantic relationship begins. And I do love shipping, but I’d also love more stories (and in many different gender combinations) where the most meaningful relationship is between best friends.
Now you’ve got me thinking about the friendship/romance balancing act in fiction. People will complain about a romance feeling forced or empty, cite the characters barely interacting or having no chemistry, but I don’t see the same thing with friendship. If the main character of something is talking to their friend for exactly one scene, nobody really says “I’m not convinced those two are friends”, there’s this whole other connotation to it that I can’t personally describe. I don’t fully know the endpoint of this thought, word-wise, but hopefully you can tell what door I’m scraping at.
Sometimes I do see that audience criticism of friendships– mainly when it just tells how they’re close friends and it seems sudden. Like, “Hey, look, we’re best friends and you know I’ll always be there for you” when this is the character’s first scene, more than halfway through the movie, and they haven’t even been mentioned previously.
Exactly. Romantic relationships are not the only relationships worth telling stories about, and it’s frustrating how often romantic relationships take center stage, both in the stories themselves and in discussions around said stories.
I mean, I was expressing my own hopes for these characters, and was neither replying to others nor referencing other shippers. Yet people still interpreted what I said as a rebuttal to Dorothy/Joyce romantic shippers, not its own independent hope for the story.
I have a feeling if I was saying “I hope this doesn’t mean Dorothy is going to break up with Walky,” people wouldn’t have interpreted it that way. That’s just a rival ship, which people understand. Yet “I hope Dorothy doesn’t end her friendship with Joyce in favor of chasing a romance” is seen as complaining about the Dorothy/Joyce romantic ship, not an independent (if rival) hope for the story.
For me, it did feel worse with it starting off with being disappointed that Dorothy is bi, and the stuff about nuance and all that. I do get wanting representation, but in context it really didn’t seem to be going that way and I don’t think it would have been a good move. Sometimes I also hope a character will be a certain identity, but I wouldn’t say I’m disappointed by one queer identity over another.
Her being bi and her and Joyce remaining close friends, that I can get onboard with.
Her being bi-romantic could still be a thing and demisexual when it comes to women. We have only seen her show interest towards Joyce and maybe Amazigirl, both characters she is kind of close to, and has a sort of intense relationship with.
Vindication for DANNY
Worlds collide, as do bisexual women who are feeling deeply uncertain about their romantic lives
Joyce aside, i’d love to see dorothy meticulously plan out a schedule for a “date “
Wow, from talking down to Danny about how much it wasn’t a big deal (when he was handling it much better to begin with) to “life upheaval.”
Yeah, I can see why he got annoyed.
Arguably she’s not so upheaved by being bi, but by (in her estimation) being a relationship cheater. Being a good person is core to her self-identity, and now she’s getting signals from both Joe and Danny that what she’s been up to is poor behavior.
Honestly I think she needs to cut herself some slack about it. She definitely is more upset about it than Joe is, or Walky or Joyce will be. Dorothy remains her own worst critic.
(Not counting the people in this comment section who still hate her for teaching Joyce how to do laundry)
I choose to believe Dorothy’s final line is because she’s watching Jennifer walk away, not because of byline/bi-line.
[uninterrupted gaze directly in the center of Billie’s ass] “Well, there goes the last of my doubts. Damn it.”
So is the last-panel realization, “Dammit, I’m making bi puns now,” or, “Dammit, there’s another woman that I would totally hit”?
I wonder what Jennifer is doing over here anyway.
Like, “hit”. Or, like, “hit“.
Someone call Marcy, we need some light shed upon this
Yes.
And let’s face it, it’s not like Jenifer hasn’t shown inclinations towards that sort of thing. It’s just that she and Ruth didn’t sit down and negotiate what the limits and safewords are and just jumped in at the “skimmed a review of the sparknotes of 50 Shade of Grey” level.
Hit or hit on? In billiefers case probably both
Neither, hit as in “I’d totally hit that”. Slang for would have sex with.
I went through a couple of iterations of that comment before I, er, hit upon “hit” as the most perfectly explanatory yet ambiguous term for having sexual relations with someone. Because given the relationship these two have and the way Billie rolls, punching her in the face might just be foreplay.
(I don’t think Dorothy has the skills for a proper throwing across the room, and she left her superpowers in another universe.)
I still say she’s a three, bi golly.
Both Billiefer and Dorothy’s bylines are bi lines. Bc they’re both bi.
Didn’t you hear? It’s okay to have sex with your bestie “like once” so Jennifer is 100% straight. 10 times is close enough to one that it count as “like” once right?
panel 3 is just >:C 80
Plot twist: In the final panel, Dorothy is actually just giving herself a 2-star rating.
real recognize real.
Dang, that “You’ll never change” hit her hard.
Book 15: “All My Lines Are Now Bi-Lines”
…nope, still not seeing the possibility.
And through this pun is finally set on stone: Dorobi confirmed
bi all means XD
I’m…. Honestly not sure why Dorothy snapped at Jennifer like that.
https://www.dumbingofage.com/2024/comic/book-15/02-the-one-where-jocelyne-returns/unravelling/
Last time they talked, they didn’t exactly part on great terms or really have a good talk at all. Dorothy is already peak defensive right now, and Jennifer picked an argument with her last time so Dorothy’s jumping the gun to make Jennifer back off.
The last time they spoke, Jennifer grabbed her phone, took a boob pic of herself, sent it to Joyce (she didn’t know it was Joyce) while criticising Dorothy’s breasts, and then told her she was unraveling.
Also, this seems like a perfectly reasonable reaction to Jennifer in general.
I think that for some time now, Jennifer could simply not leave her alone. Their interactions the last few days (or even weeks) was Jennifer bothering Dorothy unsolicited.
So she tried to preemptively shut her off, the only time where she was probably going to anyway, because she couldn’t know.
I wonder if Jennifer even realizes that was a pun Dorothy just made. Somehow I doubt it.
Yeah, that one really works better in writing.
I appreciate how well Billie is drawn in panels one and four. Her expression is very …expressive in panel one, and her stance is incredible in panel four.
accepting it is the first step towards recovery (or something like that XD)
Funny, at first I read the last line as “That might be a two.” It made sense as a comment about how dreadful that one-liner was. But I’ll take a bit of character progress instead I GUESS.
That’s a good pun! I like it. If I was a journalist, I would now constantly talk about my bi-lines.
Billie sure looks like a unicorn lately.
you mean horny like one?
yeah I see it XD
Yes! Yes! Embrace your Puns Dorothy! Embrace their Power!
Oh and embrace Your Biness as well.
Jennifer: THIS IS MY HOUR.
Dammit, I hate it when people do the “which character are you” thing, because, like, bits of lots….
But.
I fucking am (was) Dorothy.
Including the bad parts.
Everybody buckle up, we’re having a level 3 epiphany event, and it’s spreading!
Good bye to all that!
Imagine if these two could be friendly with and help each other through their respective epiphanies.
Never though of shipping Jennifer x Dorothy but here we are
Danny clocked it right away.
Dumbing of Age really living up to its title when it comes to these two.
As much as the horny voyeur part of me thinks that a Dotty+Billifer hatefuck Slipshine would be hot… I don’t want to see another disaster lesbian pairing. Or rather, I don’t want to see THIS disaster lesbian pair. I like Dotty too much. I want her journey to self awareness and acceptance to be as supportive and and smooth as possible. There are enough self-layed minefields for her to hazard through. I hope she can go through this with someone who is able to give her what she needs without laying too many other landmines of their own.
Again, I submit the Dotty/Alice ship.
1. Alice and Dotty can bond over their unhealthy attraction to Billifer.
2. They can both go into it with no huge pressures on each other. They can be just what they both need ar the moment. (Put aside that I am not sure about what Alice needs).
3. It provides a ton of drama and growth opportunities for Billifer as well.
4. I find Alice to be very attractive and would very much enjoy seeing that depicted as I am bonked to HJ.
“Dalice”? Or “Alotty”? Anyone with me? Someone better at creating a part(ner)-manteau can help out.
“I am not sure about what Alice needs”
I am. She needs one of those black leather chokers with the ring in the middle. And a nice cup of bubble tea. And a sword, preferably a saber with a nice sheath, maybe a falchion.
Excellent idea. Would a katana pair better with bubble tea?
No, because katanas suck.
Your mom sucks! She has no edge at all she barely qualifies as a kitchen knife.
Looks like their relationship can only go worse and worse. Nice!
Giggling now. Yup.
Hot Take:
Even as a Kinsey 2, you can identify however you like. It can be bisexual but it doesn’t have to be. You can even identify as straight *with one exception*. Sometimes it’s just the one person. You can update your label over time as you gather more data!
Oh, I super agree! But that would require a degree of nuance Dorothy really struggles with tbh.
Beyond the entire plotline feeling like An Epiphany to her (because you don’t have to be religious to be _hella repressed_ sdfkjg), which is making her question her entire way of acting around women… Dorothy processes info and builds her worldview through labels, boxes, spreadsheets, and lists — The neater the better.
You can identify as you like, but it’s best if you reexamine yourself and see whether it really is just one exception.
And I think Dorothy’s been doing a bit of that and realizing that it isn’t. That as strongly as she might feel about Joyce, she’s finding other women attractive too. See that panel with Amazi-girl working out.
neither of them are the main character…
Tbh, the concept of a main character doesn’t really make sense in DoA.
It’s like complaining about Black Panther being in Civil War. He was really not the main character, and yet he’s everyone’s favorite thing about that movie.
My favorite thing about that movie is choking Scarlett Johansen on a table while she’s got her legs wrapped around him.
Carla
also surprised no ones pointed out the synergy with the current questionable content page lol
What I find funny in the first panel is that Jennifer is clearly about ready to shout at Dorothy and is utterly gobsmacked that she picked a fight that she loses instantly.
new poll?
wherever y’all placing Dorothy, folks, I really hope you know what yer doin’
This thought hit me as I was falling asleep but since Jennifer now realizes the titty pic she sent on Dorothy’s behalf was sent to Joyce, and knowing how quick she is about Amazi-girl’s identity, I’m now imagining that there’s a timeskip, Jennifer walks the stage, collects her degree, is feeling good, sees Joyce and Dorothy holding hands and cuddling happily. “Huh. Those two sure are good friends.” and then suddenly she remembers the titty pic and it dawns on her “oh my god they’re in a situationship”.
To anyone who thinks Dorothy can’t be funny or make light of herself see the last panel. To everyone who keeps shipping Jennifer with Dorothy for reasons beyond my comprehension, I hope you are happy I still don’t get it though.
Book 15 title: “All my lines are now bi-lines!”
You can tell she’s bisexual because she constantly makes puns about it. That’s how this works.
I dunno, she seems to be able to sit in a chair properly, so I think it’s ambiguous, at best.
As a high-masking autistic queer, I will attribute this to masking on her part as well.
(Like, you learn The Way to sit in a chair, to do it Right and not be scolded or attract any attention to it… and then it becomes so hard not to do that even if it feels better to sit differently (and it only clearly feels better when you’re alone because otherwise you’re aware of the intense Wrongness you are doing in front of someone).)
Anyway. Thanks for coming to my TED Talk about Dorothy sitting in a chair.
oh no i ship them
@Li: I just saw your comment from yesterday. I’d say first of all, I agree with thejeff, what you offered didn’t seem meaningfully different from what I’ve said. When I gave my definitions, they are ones I’ve gotten from bi and pan people and groups many times over the years. They are how I explored my identity. AND as someone who experiences attraction to different genders in different ways, the general difference I encountered in descriptions was helpful.
Anyway… I don’t know. I will take away that “more than one” could be better than “two or more.” But beyond that… well, it felt like a lot of assumptions about where I was getting things from or my idea of how it is for everyone.
(I will say, as a nonbinary person, and especially when I identified as a bisexual nonbinary person, I always liked “two or more” as part of it for asserting that there are more than two genders, while people might hear “more than one” and go “okay, so two.” But since I don’t identify with bi now, I’ll check in with my local community with it.)
Well, that’s why I was asking where the definitions were coming from? They’re what I heard on tumblr years ago, but not what I’ve found when I did more research and dug into the community history more.
I was getting all kinds of prickly though, between [general background radiation of everything] and the other conversation about the Kinsey scale not having enough axes for pan, but apparently having everything you need to express being bi.
So: I’m sorry about that. I edited my comments a lot before hitting post, trying to keep them from being hostile, bc I didn’t want to be hostile! For a whole host of reasons! Obviously I failed.
Gonna take another comment break.
Thank you for that. I do get how a lot of discussions of pansexuality and bisexuality for a time seemed more critical of bisexuality and positioning it as inherently binary or transphobic somehow, and it’s not. But to me, and my friends who do identify as bisexual now (who are all trans, don’t hang with a lot of cis people these days), there is room for it to be different from how people describe pan, and… that’s why we identify with it. Like, one friend isn’t sure if they’re really attracted to men, but they are attracted to people of many other genders, and maybe sometimes men, masc-leaning yes, and they feel bisexuality can fit that. For me, there was a time when I wasn’t feeling attracted to people who shared my same gender identity (not all nonbinary people, but those close to the area I was in within it)… someone suggested that not being attracted to my own gender would technically make me straight, and I was like, gross, it’s still attraction to multiple genders, bi still fits me.
For the definitions I’m most familiar with, I don’t mean to limit or criticize bisexuality at all, and I’ve spent more time in spaces centering bisexuality than pansexuality (I actually feel more limited on my familiarity with pansexuality). It has been a bit since I was in bi-focused spaces, and it’s possible that even when I was, I wasn’t getting the emphasis between people using phrases like “more than one” versus “two or more,” so I stuck with the one I liked better (for previously mentioned reasons).
Also, yeah, the Kinsey scale can be useful as an opening for some people but it’s very limited. That’s not saying something about bi people or anyone else who’s on it, that’s saying something about the scale.
How dare Dorothy disregard the fact that Everything Is About Jennifer. Nobody else is allowed to have problems while she’s having problems!
Dorothy is cancelled.
Two!?
This was hilarious!!!