I Excised All my Anxieties into Cartoon Characters Who Definitely Don’t Have Feelings for Each Other will collect “Year Eleven,” spanning the five storylines that start on September 10, 2020, and complete on August 26, 2021. This includes new commentary, 24 Patreon bonus strips, behind-the-scenes artwork, and new character designs into an 224-page tome with luxurious glossy paper all bound up into a sturdy presentation. 9 character magnets are unlocked, with more to come!
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even so, their plans to tell everyone EXCEPT Joyce may still have some flaws :T
It’s not an ideal secret keeping strat, I’ll say that much.
I mean it should work if everyone keeps their mouths shut. What could possibly go wrong?
I mean, it worked out well in that one culturally insensitive episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, right?
Oh wait, no. No it didn’t.
Which culturally insensitive episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer are we talking about here?
Insensitive to vampire culture?
Alas, insensitivity to real world cultures. I think they’re talking about the episode with the evil native warrior spirit, but that’s hardly the only culturally insensitive episode of Buffy or Angel.
That would be the one.
A character attempts to keep a secret from Buffy by telling the secret to everyone that Buffy knows except her.
The secret does not remain secret.
I am shocked at that last development. SHOCKED! What a twist!
Three people can keep a secret… if two of them are dead.
But Dina and Becky are only two people, and Becky’s about to die of embarrassment (vis-a-vis Joyce), but that won’t keep the secret, so… monkeys!
What’s to be embarrassed about? Joyce left faith behind. Becky is literally the only person alive who cared about Becky’s virginity.
I mean, Joyce and Becky are going through a whole thing where Becky is telling Joyce that she was wrong to give up on her faith and try and ‘re-convert’ her. Joyce fining out that Becky violated one of the laws of the faith that Becky is trying to convince Joyce to return to is unlikely to help Becky in that cause.
And also Joyce is trying to convince Becky that her faith is stupid and she should stop, and would probably think that this supports her cause.
Joyce is most definitely not trying to convince Becky of that. She believes Becky’s faith is stupid and she should stop, but she has made no moves towards convincing Becky of that.
Unlike Becky, who took Joyce’s olive branch of a homecooked meal and immediately set it on fire and smacked Joyce in the face with it by playing religious music with the intent of manipulating her back into christianity.
Like Miles Vorkosigan’s plan to woo and marry Ekaterin Vorsoisson, where he tells everyone about his plans, except for her. Leading to the ghastly party scene.
“Kareen had it from Mark. I had it from Ivan. Mama had it from Gregor. And Da had it from Pym. If you’re trying to keep a secret, Miles, why are you going around telling everyone?”
I got it from Agnes, she got it from Jim…
Well: If they tell everyon except Joyce so openly, everyone might think that everyone including Joyce knows already. So it’s no topic to talk about. Wouldn’t count on Sarah though.
😳😳😳
Oh no.
Thank you that made me laugh. Definitely needed after today.
Glad I could be of help! 😊
I maintain Joyce will not recognize Danny if she saw him.
She knows the Hat.
It is a very nice hat.
The coolest thing about Danny is his GF(?).
Sal does indeed make Danny cooler by association.
Nah, you both got this wrong. Danny’s clearly the cool one in that relationship. Sal’s totally fakey with her flower enjoying, barely capable of emotional vulnerability ass. Danny’s a dork but he’s been 100% genuine about his dorkiness. That’s cool.
But that makes Sal a dark, lonely soul who needs someone to see through her shell of anger to the traumatized woobie within, and if I know anything about fanfiction, that makes her so popular the comic may as well be about her.
It’s not? 😏
I could sworn the comic was “Dumbing of Age: A Sal-acious College Webcomic”
This one gets it.
Danny 100% agrees with that statement.
This arrogantly assumes Joyce currently has the capacity to either point or laugh which is assuming a lot today.
It also assumes she would want to point and laugh, which is an understandable assumption but one I suspect is incorrect.
Yeah it’s a little surprising Becky thinks Joyce would do that. Guess she lost some faith in her friend.
Becky would do that (or worse) if their places were swapped, so I would guess that’s why Becky assumes Joyce would do that. Also I think someone (Spencer I think) had a good point the other day: Becky is setting things up for Joyce to do exactly that, so Becky can be righteous about ACTUALLY I DIDN’T DO ANYTHING BAD in the face of opposition and then she never has to have a religious crisis about sex again because she has emerged triumphant from an attack.
Which is frankly a shitty role/position to put your alleged best friend into, imo, but Becky’s often a pretty shitty friend. Also imo.
I’ve been trying to encapsulate how I’ve been feeling about Becky wanting to hide this from Joyce and you articulated it perfectly. This. All of this.
Ouch. That’s not an angle I’d considered, and it makes an unpleasant amount of sense.
That’s a good call
I also wouldn’t be at all surprised if Becky had set up all of that ENTIRELY SUBCONSCIOUSLY, and isn’t actually aware of any if it herself. It’s not her being a shitty friend, per se, it’s just a fact of how humans roll.
This is where I’m leaning, yeah, and I do think that it’s not really a conscious, active plan like I think I’ve been describing it.
I definitely think Becky knows it will come out and she’s trying to maneuver it in a way where everyone knows except Joyce, whereupon she’ll find out somehow and Becky’s privacy has been violated. What I think the endgoal here is that if Becky’s been wronged, then she gets to defend herself, but talking about it on Patreon like 20 minutes ago, I don’t think she has it planned out like “set Joyce up so I can heroically defend myself” like I think I’ve been saying it; every single good thing Becky’s had with her faith came when she fought an antagonistic force, but that’s a thing I can say as a reader and probably not something an in-universe person would think.
What I think Becky’s definitely conscious of, though, is that she’s keeping secrets from Joyce when it’s been made abundantly clear that Joyce is not supposed to keep secrets from her. I think she feels guilty because she gave Joyce a whole lot of shit for keeping secrets, but now she’s in Joyce’s position where she has a conversation she’s not equipped to have with Joyce, but she’s not supposed to have things she can’t tell Joyce. Becky definitely takes advantage* of her dynamic with Joyce but I do think it’s important that Becky earnestly loves and wants to be a good friend to her, and they aren’t totally aware of how messed their dynamic has been.
*This is really loaded as a term and she’s not maliciously doing it, but I do think it’s really apparent that the emotional labour of their friendship has been almost entirely one-sided.
TLDR: I think Becky wants it to come out in a way where she’s the victim, because as it stands right now she’s the wrongdoer according to her black and white thinking. She can’t just go “oh huh so that’s why Joyce didn’t want to tell me, it’s big,” I do think she’s trying to game it so that she’s not at fault because being at fault means you get a spoon across the back.
Consciously or subconsciously, Becky seems to be setting up Joyce as The Enemy From Whose Destruction I Shall Emerge Triumphant. It’s shitty friend-being regardless of whether she’s doing it intentionally or not.
I mean, in my calculus it’s really not the worst case of Becky being an asshole, but it’s a case.
It’s honestly understandable after what she walked in on. I do think Joyce would rise to the occasion and not be a shitbird, but I get why Becky kinda expects it.
I think Becky expects it not because of Joyce’s past behavior (which, let’s be honest, has been almost 100% Becky Gets Everything She Wants Or I Start Punching, aka fully supportive) and more because Becky knows that ‘be a shitbird’ is exactly what she herself would do in that position.
For me it kinda looks like how mortally afraid Joyce was to tell Becky that she kinda sorta had a gay (boy)friend, without knowing that Becky was mortally afraid to tell Joyce that she was her gay (girl)friend.
I.e., they both kinda still regard the other as a representative for the religion of their upbringing, despite everything.
I think they also, despite their current relationship issues with each other, do think highly of the other and would not like to be regarded poorly.
It’s funny, Becky was taken into the family but Jocelyn, Joyce, and Hank, but that brings its own difficulties, too. Family can fight harder.
I’m _guessing_ that Becky’s concerned that the religious hypocrisy will fuel another ugly confrontation in their feud regarding religion.
I suspect people here from the US know what day it is.
To those of you who don’t want to spend today reminded about toxic relationships, familial or otherwise, that they worked so hard to get out of,
I’m here for you. 🥹
https://i.imgur.com/0UmaXrB.png (NSFW)
We’re getting close to (a) climax. I probably drew walky in the same pose like 20 times and for that I apologize. 😛 I don’t know shit about oral.
Story so far
https://imgur.com/a/9Ob1cy3 (NSFW)
“I lost my place, I’ll just do Spongebob characters instead” fucking slew me
I spent maybe a good 5 minutes trying to decide what he’d decide to do instead of the alphabet. Power Rangers, Teenage Mutant Ninja turtles, The cartoon network lineup. But I landed on spongebob cuz you’d probably get some fun mouth movements out of it.
If it was me I’d do FLCL names.
Samejima Mamimimi, Haruhara Haruko and Raharu Haruha would all be really fun to say.
GENIUS! Just the thing to get ’em OVERFLOWING all over the place!!!!
😈😈😈 🫠🫠🫠 🧠🧠🧠
*plays “Advice” by The Pillows on hacked muzak*
as long as he doesn’t do Star Wars names
God, Billie would cum hard as fuck if she felt him mouth “Kit Fisto” into her.
Hurr hurr Fisto hurr hurr
my elderly aunt and her friend are in the room and i’m trying as hard as i can not to laugh at anything i don’t want to have to explain to them and you are making this exceedingly difficult
Bruh I’m DYING here!!!
🤣🤣🤣
Funny Walky mention SpongeBob, that alphabet thing last time immediately made me think of Patrick!!!
Please don’t think I’m not enjoying this, because I am and you’ve definitely got their personalities down flat, especially Billie’s, and I know you have a thing for big boobs, but man, Billie’s boobs are beyond ridiculous.
Really? I mean I do know I exaggerate them a bit, of course, but “beyond” ridiculous”? I mean Billie herself IS notably busty already so I wanted to *push* that a bit. o3o I can always tone it down in the lineart, though it may or may not be necessary simply for the boob job.
I think the issue is some of the poses where her breasts seem to extend a very great distance from her torso.
I would generally say that you have their curvature correct (significantly smaller than her head – I never like it when hentai makes the curvature of breasts equal the character’s head).
Also, in the ‘story so far’, the corrected vagina position pic is again missing (not sure what’s going on with that, but it seems to be some sort of automatic thing since it happened twice in a row).
Once you stop to think about it, panel 2 in particular looks like Billie’s boobs would hang down to her navel if she were to stand up. But it looks hot at first glance.
I’ll freely admit that I did make them too long in panel 2.
Come on Becky I doubt Joyce will point and laugh for 16 whole minutes
She’ll probably only manage one before her body violently reminds her that she’s in a lot of pain and spend the other 15 minutes crying in a fetal position
Either way Carla is entertained for 16 minutes
Huh. It occurs to me that that could lead into Joyce asking Carla if her periods are this bad. Which could lead to any number of outcomes…
I’ve felt for a while that Joyce will already know about trans people through Carla before Jocelyn comes out to her
Oh, I want this! She seemed unaware of why Carla has a single dorm room, so I’m guessing she’s oblivious.
Sorry but if you’re not mean to her sometimes, Carla forgets your name.
Well in that case Carla is a meany stinky doodoo head (but still the best).
Okay, my opinion is that Carla knows exactly who Joyce is and has no intention of telling her anything, but is enjoying messing with Becky.
I see nothing going wrong with this. After all, what are the odds that Joyce finds out? It’s not like students at college talk about stuff and hang out. Clearly the secret is safe. I mean, how will Joyce possibly find out?
The stuff about The Beast in the Twitter sidebar is taking me back. Ah, I remember the halcyon days of, like, 2012 or so when I wasn’t too big to fit into those 1979 seats. Though with my build I’m not sure losing weight would even help all that much.
Anyway Carla continues to be The Best, which is impressive in a comic with Dina in it.
dang becky u r rite
it sure would be lame if someone blabbed to a third party about your sexual history to your obvious discomfort without your consent
youd have to be a real jerk to do that to someone
(ㆆ_ㆆ)
He he.
Say Spencer, is it just me or does there seem to be a noticeable drop in your activity for a while?
I went back to college so I sure hope there has been a noticeable drop in my activity lately, I dunno if arguing on the internet is an acceptable reason for missing class.
If not, it should be.
Counts as practice for debate and oratory?
I count it. 🙃
I’m clearly forgetting but, what incident are you referring to?
Probably this
I’d say it was this: https://www.dumbingofage.com/2016/comic/book-6/04-it-all-returns/grossthings/
Addendum: It’s okay to do it when you’ve been unknowingly roped into an alcoholic death patch and one of of them is currently catatonic in their bed, and less so on the grounds that you just innately know they will get back together and die unless you intervene, despite their completely non-stated desire to reunite.
Meanwhile I for a second thought he meant the entire week The Wellerman spent talking about finally being able to-
Hovertext: Well of course, Joyce does live in the CLARK wing
…so does that mean that everyone in the Beck wing launches crowdfunding projects that bite off way more than they can chew, and none of them ever deliver on any of the planned stretch goals or 3DS port?
This is one of my favorite Carla strips period now. Goddamn, I love her.
She heard the phrase “fuck around and find out” and took it upon herself to ensure that all who fuck around do, indeed, find out
I know Carla is tall, anyway, and has skates on, but this strip is reminding me that Dina and Becky are basically hobbits.
They aren’t hobbits, they don’t eat enough second breakfast to qualify. They’re are hobbit-like at best.
Since Dinah eats breakfast cereal for every meal, to her all meals are second breakfast.
Except for breakfast, which is first breakfast.
So, Riley is a hobbit, then?
You seriously overestimate Carla’s ability to care about people who are not her.
Carla upgrade Joyce’s milk-jug shower clogs and was happily hailed as great while Joyce was a bug. So MAYBE she’d remember Joyce as one of the people who approached proper displays of appreciation of Carla?
… apparently not.
Someone meeting expectations doesn’t stand out.
I’ll put forward that perhaps Carla fibs about not knowing who Joyce is in order to do her usual ‘look what an asshole I am’ without actually doing something very assholish.
i got this impression too
It’s always amazing how well that works on the audience.
She did make those shower shoes for Joyce, so I’d hope she remembers that event.
I’m not sure that incident involved a lot of Joyce’s actual name. I remember a lot of “Freshman!”
I hope so. I would expect that Carla knows how horrible it is to share someone’s private information against their wishes. She’s got to be trolling here, she’s just got to be.
I think she’s generally aware of that, and certainly wouldn’t be doing this if, say, Becky & Dina were trying to keep really quiet about this secret and Carla had just accidentally overheard. Given that they seem to literally be yelling about it all over the dorm, though, I think Carla would be justified in thinking this is not actually a very important secret to them. So yeah, I think she’s serious.
Also, it should be noted that her “What? That’s IT?!” reaction is pretty significant. If Joyce HAD been Becky’s jealous paramour, Carla would totally keep her mouth shut out of respect for Becky (or at least try). But “my buddy might be briefly amused at my expense” really doesn’t register as a serious consequence in Carla’s mind!
Second panel Becky: God I wish that was the case.
(Honestly still waiting for Joyce to be bi for Dorothy and love Becky like a sister and the amazing emotional blowback as a result).
I neeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeed that
Oh, so it wasn’t just me that got a “Lady doth protest too much” vibe from that panel, good to know.
She was doing the internal calculus! “Can a Becky really have it all?”
Dorothy, who is in a good position to know if anyone in the cast is, has stated unambiguously that she is straight.
That does not remotely change the potential for Joyce being bi for Dorothy, it would just make things unrequited.
I love Carla
Carla (points): These two had sex yesterday.
Joyce: Just yesterday? Jeeze, what took you so long?
“Wait, which one’s Joyce, again?”
C’mon, Carla, read the Cast page; there’s a link to it right over your head.
Carla, so self censored she won’t even remember people’s name
Carla is anything but self-censored.
Damn you Otto Korrect!
“Devout Christian” qualifies with Becky, because she studies the Bible deeply enough to read between the lines and understand the metaphors. Christians that rule out Homosexuality are not. They take the words at face value. Becky is devout, and Joyce is not. Joyce is the surface level literalist, and the rest is Parental Brainwashing for Social Status.
Yes, so much reading between the lines from Ms. “pre-marital sex is a sin and god is going to get mad at me for doing it”.
The Bible is pretty consistently anti-sexual liberation, though. it’s arguably a primary theme if Christianity–guilt and shame over pleasure.
It’s also pretty consistently against deception, but Becky has never let that slow her down the slightest.
So her personal God looks down upon victimless acts of personal pleasure, but is OK with her deceiving her friend in the name of religion?
So much for religion being of intrinsic moral value. 🙄
To be fair, nobody ever said how high a value. Zero is a number. So are the negatives.
“JOYCE, WHO IS SOMEHOW INVOLVED IN EVERY SINGLE STORYLINE ON THIS CAMPUS, MUST NEVER KNOW THAT WE HAD SEX!!!!”
With bullhorn from Garbage Roof:
“HEY EVERYONE ON CAMPUS!! DINA AND I JUST HAD AMAZING LESBIAN SEX!! BUT DON’T TELL JOYCE BROWN, SHE CAN NEVER KNOW!!”
Okay, that made me laugh 🙂
“Nobody in the Village can tell Naruto he’s carrying the Nine-Tailed Fox. Everyone else can know. Spread those rumors! Just keep it quiet around Naruto.” – The same dynamic
This is probably the one time that Joyce will be in no mood to care. So good timing.
Carla is such an agent of chaos that she’s actually hard to keep track of (and she seems to have the same problem)
Go Carla GO! Destroy Becky’s stupid fear to be busted by her BFF!
Surprisingly, for a strip with Carla (second least favorite) Becky (in the bottom half) and Dina (somewhere around the middle), this is possibly my favorite Dumbing of Age strip that has ever been inked. I love every moment of it.
Is this a good time to go get pie?
Ping from Megatokyo says it is always a good time to get pie.
Dina is fighting the urge to describe Joyce to Carla.
“Fight it! Fight the Urges!” – Steph, No Game No Life
Huh. What makes you say that? 😐
It sure looks like this great plan of telling everyone except Joyce could in no way result in Joyce finding out from somebody else that Becky and Dina had sex.
That’s the point. Becky consciously does not want Joyce to know. Subconsciously she is working to make it inevitable.
I don’t think I like the “haha, Carla is so narcissistic she doesn’t even remember Joyce’s name” joke. Carla has been distanced from the “main storylines” enough by being relegated to basically being a joke character. She’s chatted with and helped out Joyce enough that she should remember who Joyce is.
I’m pretty sure it’s just Carla doing a bit, she doesn’t actually intend to go tell Joyce she just wanted to make Becky panic a bit
This.
Yup.
Carla keeps the world at arm’s length as a defense mechanism against bigotry and rejection.
I know the feeling she acts on, all too well. 🥺
It’s OK, Carla. There are people who do. Oh my, there are people who do.
Speaking of which, who’s got a link to the most recent one?
Carla is the best 🙂
Carla doesn’t recognize Joyce wearing a Spider-suit.
Maybe she should keep a name chart instead
I’m not sure if anyone else had this take, but I’m going to go ahead and put my version out:
I find it interesting that there was outrage and absolute villain status when Joyce:
– Decided not to believe something.
– Didn’t tell Becky.
– Instead processed her thoughts through a third party.
– In private.
– Talked shit about her previous beliefs (and, to some people’s interpretation, about Becky by proxy)
Yet Becky’s just a wacky goofball when she:
– Decided not to follow a tenet of her faith.
– Didn’t tell Joyce.
– Is instead processing her thoughts through MANY third parties.
– In public.
– Is actively talking shit about Joyce and making this about Joyce at every opportunity.
But everyone was really sure that Joyce wasn’t being treated unfairly. That Joyce was totally in the wrong for lying to Becky in an attempt to protect her feelings while Becky is happy lying to Joyce (and creating a conspiracy of all her new friends) to… protect Becky’s feelings.
Just hmm is all.
They’re both young adults, and young adults do stupid things. I’m just always shocked how aggressively this comment section will react to somethings while shrugging off others. Thank you for skimming through my TEDTalk.
Much like Roz before her, Joyce’s true crime was that she didn’t immediately kowtow and bend over backwards to accomodate the christian busybody who wants to control her life.
Like this isn’t even bitter sarcasm it’s just actual facts.