Technically Joyce said ‘im meaning she wouldn’t be talking about Booster. Then again that sounds similar enough to ’em that it might be negligible when spoken aloud.
I don’t know what to tell you, but I have the pen/pin merger, and for me it’s the same in all contexts and has nothing to do with vowel reduction of unstressed syllables.
Yes, I believe that was Ana’s point. That “him” would not be referring to a girl or Booster or, in this case, Walky, since he just left. Well then, Ana pretends Dorothy is wondering, who else does Joyce even know that would be joining us?
Well Walky is leaving in panel 1 so clearly not him. Joyce was on good terms with Ethan pre-timeskip, though they have not been shown together since, and post-timeskip Ethan is…. *waves hand vaguely*
If it’s pistols, Joe’s fuckin’ toast. I don’t know why, but I feel like Dorothy is a crack shot with a flintlock. Sabres, I think Joe takes it just from reach alone, plus his much higher swing strength. Jousting, I feel like could go either way, since Joe’s a huge target but Dorothy feels more likely to be precise.
We don’t know a lot of Joe’s history. He’s seems to have taken the physical fitness trait at an early age. Maybe that has some minor stealth benefits. I kinda assumed he was a Fuckboi which is a bit of warlock class, but it’s unclear. Especially since he’s been showing signs of trying to change lately.
Ok I haven’t played in a while, but let’s try this anyway…
Danny’s clearly the Bard. Joyce is a Paladin (hope that doesn’t mean she gets penalties for losing her god). Dina’s a Wizard (one she learned that this involves research, not superstition). Mike was obviously a Warlock. Sierra’s a Druid, Carla’s an Artificer.
…Yep, this all checks out.
I think you can make the argument for Dina as a Druid. Her field of research is focused on the natural world, and turning into Dinosaurs is the high-level Druid’s speciality!
Joe isn’t the party Bard — that’s Danny, subclass Ukulele Hipster.
Joe’s charisma is OK. He puts effort into looking jacked and rugged and all, but people are mainly annoyed by his pickup lines.
I could see Joe as a Fighter. Fighters are all about the equipment, and Joe knows how to use every machine in the workout room.
Good Dexterity, too, for acing his first attempt at drawing Joyce… and because something something sex pun.
Can I just note how much I love how SUBTLE and QUIET Joyce’s happiness is here? Compare to how manic and almost performative her happiness at “dating” Joe last time, or even Ethan, was before. This isn’t “Yay!!!1! I have a BOYFRIEND!” This is the rare contentedness of finding mutual joy in another’s companionship. It’s…just…
Yes! This is different, for Joyce! With Joe (first era) and Ethan, it really was about Finding A Man (and Jacob was [I could write for days but teal deer It Awww Complicated]). This time, with Joe, this is…they’ve been building feelings quietly for several months, and it’s mutual, and Joe actually, and finally, has made himself vulnerable to her to let her know how much he cares about her? They both know they like each other’s company! They wanna spend time together? SQUEE.
I think she’s low level friendly with him – he’s the lifetime bff of a dude she dated for years. She’s generally at least tolerant, even if she never seeks out his company.
Good point; she’s not smiling in any panel where she’s alone with Joyce- only the one where she’s saying so-long to the others. Maybe the realization of having bitten off more than she wants to chew with Joyce has kicked in.
Is it just me or is it kind of jarring when the backgrounds disappear halfway through a strip and then reappear only to disappear again? They are very nice backgrounds, but I kind of wonder if it would be easier on the reader if once they disappeared they didn’t come back? What do you guys think? (I don’t really know, I’m not an art visual arts person.)
I kind of like the transparent panels, and if the background is all the same (they’re moving in this one, but sometimes the characters are all just standing in a hallway or whatever) it breaks it up a bit.
SPOCK: What my instruments read is totally unbelievable, Captain. Twice, for a split second each time, everything within range of our instruments seemed on the verge of winking out.
Idk if it’s just you, but it doesn’t bother me at all. It’s like a visual punctuation mark to me, or a little palate cleanser for my optical cortex. It helps to break up the monotony of a repeated image, and make it fresh again? Like, uh, if you’re eating oatmeal, and you find a raisin or an almond in there.
You know. It occurs to me that Dorothy has known Joe for longer than the comic run. Since she dated Danny in highschool and Danny has known Joe since grade school.
y’know, considering that Dorothy has a little bit of shared history with both Joe and Danny, it’s gonna be fun seeing that factor in whatever shenanigans happen next. Would love to see Dotty bring up some horrible high school Joe lore (and vice-versa).
BRAHAM! Where Joe, ironically, had been the third wheel with Danny and Sal, now Dorothy is the third wheel with Joyce and Joe! Been planning this for literally years (like a number of things, but still)?
As a total non-sequitur to all of the emotional “crap” being dealt with better by everyone else… I must say that Joyce has a terrific sense of color coordination. That teal life puffy vest sets off very nicely against her salmon sweat suit. Or whatever colors they are supposed to be… obviously I’m no where near as color-knowledgeable.
If she’s known him for a decade, he’d have been eight. Joe doesn’t strike me as the type to have always been a hornball, it seems like a thing he’d pick up as a teenager.
He’s probably been a hornball since the day he first noticed how pretty ladies are.
Besides, he’s had a hornball example around his entire life. Even if Danny and Dorothy only started dating in high school, they’re from the same town. Assuming all three grew up there, they must have crossed paths in school before then.
I dunno, my town had at least 4 elementary schools, 3 middle schools, and 2 high schools. Tons of people I didn’t meet until high school, or even a couple years in (either because we never saw each other, or because they transferred in by moving or simply by changing high schools within the district)
I don’t think Dorothy would do that, but even if she did, I think she’d be pretty willing to listen to Joyce if Joyce was like “hold up, this is what I like about Joe”. Dorothy’s thing is not…pigeonholing people into boxes and refusing to accept the possibility of personal growth, y’know? I think she’s not having an easy time with Joyce this semester, but if Dorothy thought people were incapable of change or growth, she’d never have befriended an extreme teen Christian fundamentalist who held a number of moral values incompatible with Dorothy’s values in the first place.
I’m concerned there’ll be a “you don’t have to have sex to prove you’re an atheist, Joyce! (especially because you’re not actually an atheist you’re just acting out)” from Dorothy in particular.
I agree this seems distinctly possible, especially if Joyce finds out about Dina and Becky. Unless they loosen up a little on the “Joyce the naif” thing, I can see Dorothy and maybe a few others thinking that any attempt at romantic/sexual interaction with Joe is some kind of acting out or trying to imitate Becky. I don’t think it would be at all, but then again we know about how Joyce and Joe have been getting close as friends, and how long Joyce has been an atheist, and how aware Joyce is that her friends won’t let her change. This situation is ripe for misunderstanding. I would love for Sarah to be the one to resolve this though; her joke about “pratfalling into an orgasm” suggests a refreshing lack of expectations or hangups, and I think she’s really well-suited to tell everyone to chill the hell out.
I thought that was Ruth going against her RA training and telling Joyce she wasn’t actually asexual, that someday she would pratfall into her first orgasm and bang half the town.
I’m not sure who used this wording, but they both said something to this extent (Sarah fairly early on, Ruth comparatively recently, and also Jacob said so to Sarah once (something like ‘one day she’s going to snap and suck a thousand dicks,’ to which Sarah said ‘I used to think that’)
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“Joyce knows people who aren’t girls, Walky, or Booster?”
Jakob ?
Technically Joyce said ‘im meaning she wouldn’t be talking about Booster. Then again that sounds similar enough to ’em that it might be negligible when spoken aloud.
In dialects with the pin/pen merger, ‘im and ’em are, in fact, perfect homophones.
Don’t I know it. (I’m southern)
Southern USA? Huh. For some reason I’ve always thought you were in Spain.
I was going with California, based on exactly nothing.
You’re half right. I was born there.
Not in unstressed contexts such as this. Them reduces, but him does not (I’m Southern, too).
I don’t know what to tell you, but I have the pen/pin merger, and for me it’s the same in all contexts and has nothing to do with vowel reduction of unstressed syllables.
Interestingly, pin and pen sound the same for me, but ‘im and ’em are distinct! (“im” rhymes with “him,” but “em” sounds like “um”)
(them and him do rhyme, though)
Yes, I believe that was Ana’s point. That “him” would not be referring to a girl or Booster or, in this case, Walky, since he just left. Well then, Ana pretends Dorothy is wondering, who else does Joyce even know that would be joining us?
Ethan?
I mean, have you seen Ethan lately?
Man’s gotta eat at some point.
Well Walky is leaving in panel 1 so clearly not him. Joyce was on good terms with Ethan pre-timeskip, though they have not been shown together since, and post-timeskip Ethan is…. *waves hand vaguely*
Joyce: “You suitors you may now battle for my hand. Make it amusing, I grow weary.”
You think she’d prefer pistols, sabres or a joust?
Haven’t you heard? Joyce can handle being around naked people now.
Greek wrestling it is.
Bah! Boring, not enough blood
Naked MMA it is.
Pankration! Basically bronze age MMA. Actually choking your opponent to death was an automatic DQ, so it was possible for a dead guy to win a match.
So two dead guys can advance to the next round and be scheduled against each other?
That’ll mess up a lot of brackets
If it’s pistols, Joe’s fuckin’ toast. I don’t know why, but I feel like Dorothy is a crack shot with a flintlock. Sabres, I think Joe takes it just from reach alone, plus his much higher swing strength. Jousting, I feel like could go either way, since Joe’s a huge target but Dorothy feels more likely to be precise.
This is AMERICA! Bare knuckle boxing, of course!
Sledgehammers in 5 feet of water.
Dorothy is canonically 4’3″, so that’s a little unfair.
5’4″!
You have GOT to list all the characters’ heights somewhere!
Eh, it’s only a 1′ margin of error.
Becky and Dorothy are already doing that.
Hmmm. I wonder who clears? Joe and Dorothy rank pretty close in the DoA power rankings.
I just got a mental image of Joe Powerbombing Dorothy.
In this webcomic, surely duels would be insult contests.
“How appropriate, you fight like a cow.”
Pretend this comment is an upvote for the reference.
My vote is for fighter jets for the duel.
Wait, how high is Joe’s stealth stat?
Low but he probably got a critical success
Circumstance bonus for dramatic reveal.
He gets a -2 for being Large, but his class most likely is Rogue, so it’s a class skill.
We don’t know a lot of Joe’s history. He’s seems to have taken the physical fitness trait at an early age. Maybe that has some minor stealth benefits. I kinda assumed he was a Fuckboi which is a bit of warlock class, but it’s unclear. Especially since he’s been showing signs of trying to change lately.
Trying to change = Multiclassing.
It hasn’t come up in the campaign previously, but actually he’s had level 1 Rogue since he grew out his stubble.
Ok I haven’t played in a while, but let’s try this anyway…
Danny’s clearly the Bard. Joyce is a Paladin (hope that doesn’t mean she gets penalties for losing her god). Dina’s a Wizard (one she learned that this involves research, not superstition). Mike was obviously a Warlock. Sierra’s a Druid, Carla’s an Artificer.
…Yep, this all checks out.
I think you can make the argument for Dina as a Druid. Her field of research is focused on the natural world, and turning into Dinosaurs is the high-level Druid’s speciality!
Excellent point, Druid Dina happily accepted.
Joe is absolutely not a Rogue. He’d be one of the martial classes, probably fighter or maybe a paladin
With Joe’s charisma stat? I would have pegged him as the party’s bard. Probably a College of Eloquence subclass with expertise in animal handling.
Because something something sex pun.
Joe isn’t the party Bard — that’s Danny, subclass Ukulele Hipster.
Joe’s charisma is OK. He puts effort into looking jacked and rugged and all, but people are mainly annoyed by his pickup lines.
I could see Joe as a Fighter. Fighters are all about the equipment, and Joe knows how to use every machine in the workout room.
Good Dexterity, too, for acing his first attempt at drawing Joyce… and because something something sex pun.
Joyce’s been teaching him teleportation.
I had the same thought.
Oooh dunno if Dorothy’s ego can handle this
AWWW send help, Joyce invited Joe to come walk with her and Dorothyyy.
Awwww! Joyce invited Joe to lunch! (I assume!) Look how happy he looks! Look at that smile!
**emits a joyful SQUEE that increases in pitch slowly until it becomes inaudible to humans**
Basically me right now too 😂😂😂 —
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C9FFfuqMWnw
But, isn’t the main idea only Joe and Joyce go lunch alone?
He’s happy to be around her! She’s happy he’s around her! It’s a perfect match!
Can I just note how much I love how SUBTLE and QUIET Joyce’s happiness is here? Compare to how manic and almost performative her happiness at “dating” Joe last time, or even Ethan, was before. This isn’t “Yay!!!1! I have a BOYFRIEND!” This is the rare contentedness of finding mutual joy in another’s companionship. It’s…just…
*Quiet, blissful squeeeeeeeee*
Yes! This is different, for Joyce! With Joe (first era) and Ethan, it really was about Finding A Man (and Jacob was [I could write for days but teal deer It Awww Complicated]). This time, with Joe, this is…they’ve been building feelings quietly for several months, and it’s mutual, and Joe actually, and finally, has made himself vulnerable to her to let her know how much he cares about her? They both know they like each other’s company! They wanna spend time together? SQUEE.
I’m imagining that last panel with, like, a horror movie sting, maybe some ominous JJBA doom text floating around.
Yeah, take away the context, and that last panel looks like the opening scene to a Law & Order: SVU episode
She’s already taking her boyfriend to meet her mom, huh?
This made me smile, thank you.
Made me laugh. Thanks also.
Delightful comment, would read again
Delightful answers, all of you. Thanks so much! 🙂
Dammit, I came here to say that
It bears repeating
I couldn’t stop laughing at your comment for like 5 minutes. Now it makes me giggle when I say it out loud. Thank you
Dorothy was never overly fond of Joe. I don’t think she ever missed him.
I think she’s low level friendly with him – he’s the lifetime bff of a dude she dated for years. She’s generally at least tolerant, even if she never seeks out his company.
The Rain is ‘Tess’, the Fire is ‘Joe’…and They Call The Wind ‘Mariah’…
Now that’s a good song.
You listen to the Kingston Trio version of it, or some newer version?
My Dad was a Marine and he served in Korea. They sang it over there.
I can’t tell if the lack of smile on Dorothy’s face when she said ‘oh so it’s just us two today huh’ means she’s still mad about yesterday or not.
Oh interesting
Good point; she’s not smiling in any panel where she’s alone with Joyce- only the one where she’s saying so-long to the others. Maybe the realization of having bitten off more than she wants to chew with Joyce has kicked in.
The sheer power of belief made him materialize behind them
*delighted cackle* Oh god, yes, please, tell her!
Aww, he’s so happy to be here!
Huh, Dorothy has no idea about Joyce and Joe’s low-level ongoing friendship, let alone anything else, if I recall correctly
His expression is GREAT
This is cute. Thank you 🙂
This is going to be interesting.
this isn’t going to end well but i just love seeing joe and joyce happy about each other’s presence
panto audience: HEEE’S BEHIIIIIIIND YOOOOOOOOU
Is it just me or is it kind of jarring when the backgrounds disappear halfway through a strip and then reappear only to disappear again? They are very nice backgrounds, but I kind of wonder if it would be easier on the reader if once they disappeared they didn’t come back? What do you guys think? (I don’t really know, I’m not an art visual arts person.)
I kind of like the transparent panels, and if the background is all the same (they’re moving in this one, but sometimes the characters are all just standing in a hallway or whatever) it breaks it up a bit.
especially with a background as busy as this. The lamp looks like it would hit the speech bubbles odd too.
I don’t think they’re actually walking, considering their legs are in the same pose in each panel.
SPOCK: What my instruments read is totally unbelievable, Captain. Twice, for a split second each time, everything within range of our instruments seemed on the verge of winking out.
Reverse polarity to the main deflector matrix or something, that should stabilize reality.
Try cross-circuiting to B.
Personally, I like it. In my mind, it feels like it naturally pulls your focus along from panel to panel.
It’s done in so many comics I don’t notice anymore, for emphasis and a little bit or breather room, but I can see how it might be distracting as well
Idk if it’s just you, but it doesn’t bother me at all. It’s like a visual punctuation mark to me, or a little palate cleanser for my optical cortex. It helps to break up the monotony of a repeated image, and make it fresh again? Like, uh, if you’re eating oatmeal, and you find a raisin or an almond in there.
Meiosis?
🥹
dang he steps lightly for such a big guy
You know. It occurs to me that Dorothy has known Joe for longer than the comic run. Since she dated Danny in highschool and Danny has known Joe since grade school.
dorothy’s reaction should be priceless
And back to my favourite scheduled program
I’m sure everyone is going to be normal about this development.
I love redemption arcs. Joe and Joyce would be a good thing at this point.
He’s right behind me, isn’t he?
Joyce officially has an ‘im.
y’know, considering that Dorothy has a little bit of shared history with both Joe and Danny, it’s gonna be fun seeing that factor in whatever shenanigans happen next. Would love to see Dotty bring up some horrible high school Joe lore (and vice-versa).
Hopefully, she doesn’t spend the whole arc skeptical that he’s not High School Joe anymore.
Are Dorothy and Joyce going to address “yesterday’s” friction?
https://www.dumbingofage.com/2022/comic/book-13/01-bring-me-to-life-drawing/disappear/
She’s not look so happy when she figure out she’s alone with her. I believe Dorothy is, at least, discomforted.
Considering that directly led to Joyce & Joe’s evening together, seems likely to come up shortly
I wonder if Dorothy will be happy, worried or jealous about this unexpected development. Good thing she’s the first to be informed.
Joe is officially bigger than Joyce and Dorothy put together.
Next Vol title: “Street Corners Ain’t Gonna Loiter Themselves.”
You really can’t miss ’em, anybody over 5’9″/175cm is a beacon.
Jennifer “escaped”? Eeeeeeeelaborate
Jennifer ran out the class at 20 mph to make sure no one could bother her, follow her or interact with her.
How is this so wholesome and so awkward at once
BRAHAM! Where Joe, ironically, had been the third wheel with Danny and Sal, now Dorothy is the third wheel with Joyce and Joe! Been planning this for literally years (like a number of things, but still)?
Stupid autocorrect. Should have started BwaHA!
As a total non-sequitur to all of the emotional “crap” being dealt with better by everyone else… I must say that Joyce has a terrific sense of color coordination. That teal
lifepuffy vest sets off very nicely against her salmon sweat suit. Or whatever colors they are supposed to be… obviously I’m no where near as color-knowledgeable.well crap, meant to strike out the word Life, but I’m obviously also code challenged.
Yeah! Joyce’s taste in clothing is pretty square, but she seems to have a good sense of color.
I am so here for a Joyce/Dorothy/Joe triad, as would Joe.
Re: hidden text. I guess this strip’s title could be hyphenated?
I really can’t perceive any difference if it’s cooler to put hiffen or not.
Also, about alt-text: Willis, what’s about a five-words-title?
Wouldn’t be cooler – it would pass as one word though. 🙂
Wow. How did dorothy not hear the high pitch howl of a star trek teleporter at work? There is nothing stealthy about those things.
Maybe shes distracted about how to tell her best friend shes leaving after this semester.
Joe and Joyce have been spending too much time together. He has absorbed her ability to magically teleport.
Maybe he’s been studying Dina, and was there all along.
Dorothy has known Joe for a decade or so. She’s no gonna go for the brand new version. He’s been a horndog so as long as she’s known him.
If she’s known him for a decade, he’d have been eight. Joe doesn’t strike me as the type to have always been a hornball, it seems like a thing he’d pick up as a teenager.
He’s probably been a hornball since the day he first noticed how pretty ladies are.
Besides, he’s had a hornball example around his entire life. Even if Danny and Dorothy only started dating in high school, they’re from the same town. Assuming all three grew up there, they must have crossed paths in school before then.
I dunno, my town had at least 4 elementary schools, 3 middle schools, and 2 high schools. Tons of people I didn’t meet until high school, or even a couple years in (either because we never saw each other, or because they transferred in by moving or simply by changing high schools within the district)
I don’t think Dorothy would do that, but even if she did, I think she’d be pretty willing to listen to Joyce if Joyce was like “hold up, this is what I like about Joe”. Dorothy’s thing is not…pigeonholing people into boxes and refusing to accept the possibility of personal growth, y’know? I think she’s not having an easy time with Joyce this semester, but if Dorothy thought people were incapable of change or growth, she’d never have befriended an extreme teen Christian fundamentalist who held a number of moral values incompatible with Dorothy’s values in the first place.
GOD i want them to work out so BAD
Why is Becky talking to only Dorothy like Joyce can’t hear her?
Dorothy and Becky are stood next to each other in the preceding strip as everyone else comes out the building, so carrying on a conversation?
Joe shouts “GOOD MORNING”
Well this is going to be a surprise for Dorothy
I’m concerned there’ll be a “you don’t have to have sex to prove you’re an atheist, Joyce! (especially because you’re not actually an atheist you’re just acting out)” from Dorothy in particular.
the bracketed part being several of her friends’s opinion, not mine
I agree this seems distinctly possible, especially if Joyce finds out about Dina and Becky. Unless they loosen up a little on the “Joyce the naif” thing, I can see Dorothy and maybe a few others thinking that any attempt at romantic/sexual interaction with Joe is some kind of acting out or trying to imitate Becky. I don’t think it would be at all, but then again we know about how Joyce and Joe have been getting close as friends, and how long Joyce has been an atheist, and how aware Joyce is that her friends won’t let her change. This situation is ripe for misunderstanding. I would love for Sarah to be the one to resolve this though; her joke about “pratfalling into an orgasm” suggests a refreshing lack of expectations or hangups, and I think she’s really well-suited to tell everyone to chill the hell out.
I thought that was Ruth going against her RA training and telling Joyce she wasn’t actually asexual, that someday she would pratfall into her first orgasm and bang half the town.
I’m not sure who used this wording, but they both said something to this extent (Sarah fairly early on, Ruth comparatively recently, and also Jacob said so to Sarah once (something like ‘one day she’s going to snap and suck a thousand dicks,’ to which Sarah said ‘I used to think that’)