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Join Kieran and his friends as they are pulled into another reality that may or may not be real and are forced to confront their own identities, the nature of simulated universes and reality itself.
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Widdershins
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Dumbing of Age
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Cyanide & Happiness
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ARISE, YE SKELETON KING
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You’ll never be president if you aren’t okay just being a morally bankrupt human being. That one exception you are thinking of was like a once in a country’s history type thing and besides, no, they murdered innocent civilians and separated families from their children.
Carter’s record depends on how much you want to blame him for second- and third-hand events. FREX, the most obvious misstep was funding the mujahideen rebels in Afghanistan–which ultimately led to the rise of the Taliban once the Soviets were driven out. There’s a number of lesser examples, as well, but exactly how many of those were predictable, let alone expected, side-effects of Carter’s policies is very hard to pin down.
Chomsky, of course, will tell you that Carter committed war crimes like every other President, though the examples I’ve seen him give were, frankly, unconvincing to me. Given that Chomsky echoes Putin’s talking points about Ukraine, I’m not sure I’m inclined to give him the credit I once would’ve.
Given the various atrocities that the Soviets were committing in Afghanistan, including mass murder, destruction of food supplies, mass land mining, etc.
… lets just say the Mujahadeen looked like the lesser of two evils.
I’m not big on American expansionism, but that’s no reason to give a pass to Soviet expansionism.
One big issue with global geopolitics is that there often are no right moves. Whatever you do is going to look like a mistake in hindsight. After all, you only see how the path you took went wrong, not how the path you didn’t take would have gone wrong.
Not always true of course. There have definitely been some serious blunders.
Backing Indonesia’s crimes against humanity in East Timor, just a whoopsie daisy that really needed decades of hindsite to realize that killing a quarter of the population is kind of sad-face-emoji.
I’ve plowed through three years of some good shit. High melodrama, but so far, Amber’s tone-poison father has not shown up, in person. Plus you get to see her take James Ryan Haywood to ribbons.
Walky was almost definitely teasing/joking when he referred to Joyce as “my girlfriend’s girlfriend” – being OK with a joke, and.being OK with your girlfriend teaching her crush to masturbate and holding her hand while she does it, then later sending her cleavage pics,may well be different…
I’m not sure Walky’s expressed any backpressure on Dorothy pursuing Joyce. At most he seems to bluntly remind her that he, himself, does not share her attraction. Dorothy outright proposed letting Joyce play voyeur and Walky’s snarky response amounted to ‘sure, why not.’ They’ve fallen asleep in a pile watching cartoons and the only one to freak out was Joyce.
Dorothy and Walky were NOT together when the washing machine incident happened (January 29, 2023 strip). Walky was still with Lucy at that time; they broke up in the December 20, 2023 strip. Even Dorothy and Joyce’s night out drinking (April 9-26, 2024 strips) was before Dorothy and Walky actually got back together (May 20, 2024 strip).
Only the selfie incident happened while Dorothy & Walky have been together.
Yeah, between that and yesterday’s crapping on people who lack binocular vision (we’re not that rare, bongo) I am so ready for Dorothy to spend the rest of the semester being the dorm outcast
Yes, she immediately “amended” it to make it All About Dorothy being a Good Person.
I know she’s widely beloved, but her honestly, her constant weird combination of self-righteousness and self-flagellation is uncomfortably reminiscent of the creepiest Church Ladies I’ve been unfortunate enough to know.
I think that might be you reading personal experiences into a character. And that using ‘this person has some similarities to bad people’ as the measuring stick for how kindly to read the intentions of fictional characters is a bad vibe.
Not wanting to sound uninclusive or ableist is making things all about yourself now? Is it better to not care, or is the trick that you aren’t allowed to use the pronoun “I”?
Okay, look. I am both disabled and have many vision problems, including lacking vision in one eye.
I was fine with Danny’s joke. I was fine with Dorothy’s immediate response. I am fine with calling things “lame”, or saying “you’re blind to the facts.” I am disabled, not stupid – I UNDERSTAND METAPHOR.
What I am not fine with is people saying “That’s so lame – O GOSH HAPAX I DIDN’T MEAN YOU, THERE’S NOTHING WRONG WITH BEING LAME!” Because that immediately signals that no, you *do* have a problem with me being lame, that you mentally put me in a box labelled “lame people”, who are stupid and oversensitive and need special coddling, and the most important thing to you is that nobody thinks you are a Bad Person What Labels People.
So yeah. Who the hell is Dorothy apologizing to, except her mental image of herself as someone who is Better Than That?
And that’s the encapsulation of this entire encounter with Danny. She really doesn’t care what Danny thinks or feels as an individual human beings. She just wants him to represent a category – the Slutty Cheating Bisexuals – and to grant absolution to her self-image.
And for that, I am fine with her sitting alone for the rest of the year.
You know when you put it like that I do totally see just how shitty that kind of behavior from her is. I personally would hope for her to overcome her desire to present the appearance of giving a shit like a typical Democrat politician and actually learn how to just genuinely be decent. I get wanting her to just, have to deal with people being fed up with her for a bit though.
As an autistic cripple with plenty of problems, you are wound WAY to tight. Dorothy has some implicit bias, same as ANYONE ELSE who doesn’t regularly act with the people that she accidentally forgot about. She then immediately realized that, pointed out her error, and moved on. That is a fine way to handle a misstep and its clear your dislike of the character is affecting your bias on how that interaction played out.
idk, I’m personally tired of Dorothy being caught in a doom spiral ever since Raidah challenged her preconceptions about becoming President. I’m not saying she should go try to mack on Joyce or that she shouldn’t feel at least a little bad about the titty pics, but dorm outcast is a little much.
see, that i’d get, but as a fellow connoisseur of Jewish guilt… “freaking out about sending your bestie a picture of your cleavage because you’ve just discovered bisexuality and now you’re afraid of committing retroactive mental adultery” has a distinctly Catholic palate to me
My whole family is catholic (From Argentina where the pope is from!) and even though I was never to any kind of church service besides family baptism, I still spend a good part of my childhood and adolescence terrified that I was going to hell or that my dead relatives were going there. And this wasn’t because I was told about it constantly or anything, just the concept of eternal suffering by itself was enough to give panic attacks m no wonder I eventually turned atheist.
I’m from country other pope was – Poland. I cannot describe how big of a figure John Paul II was here, so I’ll say only that it was so big, that at some point young people were so tired of his cult, that biggest meme number here is 21:37.
.
.
.
It’s the hour when he died.
Dorothy, my god, what on earth is your definition of cheating? Because unless there’s a little shit going on off-camera you really need to re-evaluate. You’re in thought-crimes territory here.
Some people actually have this “emotional cheating” belief going on. To my knowledge it’s strongly emphasized in a lot of US Christian groups so I’d expect to be hearing it more from Joyce. But it’s not JUST them.
I have never really fully understood the “emotional cheating” thing with thoughts. For one thing, I have seen way too many people go off the deep end on what they consider it to be (as in dreams and other things that people really can’t control). Also, it all seems to stem from one’s presumption of what is actually going on it someone else’s head. In this case, I would be more allowing of it, as it is the person themself being uncomfortable with their own thoughts and actions.
Considering I have heard stories from people of both genders bragging about dating several people at the same time without anyone them knowing (which just sounds exhausting without touching the moral questions personally), I do wonder how much of the concept of “emotionally cheating” is used as a defense for people who actually cheat. Blame their partner for emotionally cheating first type of thing.
The times where I have been more understanding of the concept tend to have more actions involved with them, such as spending more time and focus on a friend or coworker than the significant other. It can be a fine line sometimes, as if they are the primary contact person when the other is having a major panic or depression attack, they are obviously going to want to set things down and try to help. It can be complicated.
I just binged House a few weeks ago, and the story arc of Taub’s wife connecting with a guy in a support group for spouses with cheating partners is honestly the only good example I know of “emotional affair”.
Most example of emotional cheating i encounter is just, people being friends. It feels like it’s becoming a part of the abuse tactics to isolate your partner from their support network, to argue emotional cheating to guilt your partner to cut all contact with anyone that isn’t the abuser.
Emotional cheating isn’t “I had a naughty thought about someone” though. Emotional cheating is “I’m investing myself in this person romantically even though we’re not having sex. I have feelings for this person and I’m continuing to indulge in those feelings”, often at the expense of the relationship with the actual romantic partner. It’s a long-term priorities issue, not a once-off thoughtcrime issue.
It’s the action of repeatedly choosing to entangle emotionally with someone other than your partner. It can be an unclear line, sometimes, but it’s not just a made-up excuse to be mad.
I guess that I just tend to hear people use it incorrectly. Not too surprising that people try to use it for their own purposes I guess. I tended to hear it used about dreams or other similar reasons. The one that I remember the best was the gal who wanted to keep her relationship on the down-low but had a fit anytime her boyfriend even smiled at someone else.
That being said, after being the lowest ranked person in the family for priority, I do understand how it can be frustrating.
I might also have issues with understanding the boundaries since it is harder for me to understand the line between friends and a partner. I get the prioritization issues, but the emotional entanglement is a bit unclear to my asexual leaning self. Maybe I am just missing a piece of the puzzle that is where clearly defined emotional boundaries should lie. I don’t know.
It’s absolutely a made-up excuse to be mad for some people, though. It’s a big Christian thing because of the whole “Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s wife” bit, which gets pushed at its furthest to even regarding another person as attractive if you’re in a relationship with someone else. It’s a pretty standard gag in a lot of TV shows and such where, even if we don’t know the characters’ religion (if they’re religious at all), a woman will get pissed at her boyfriend’s or husband’s wandering gaze, no matter the frequency, intensity, or context.
Monogamy in our society is heavily saddled with an expectation that everyone is going to be incredibly possessive and women especially must also be perfectly loyal. Dorothy’s tripping into that hard, especially with her complex about having to be perfect in every way already.
Can you give some examples of emotionally entangling in a way that constitutes cheating? I’m not trying to disagree with you but would like to some perspective.
From my personal experience (not with a relationship, but family), it gets really frustrating when you are going to spend time together with someone, like going out to dinner or watching a tv show or a movie, and it constantly gets interrupted by a phone call of this other person every single time. It makes you feel less valued than the other person. It isn’t normally a problem if it happens once or so, but when it starts happening every single time. Even then, it has to have been something that you talked to them about and then they ignore the agreement they made withh you about it. I personally think that you lose the bounds to get extremely mad at them if you have never even directly mentioned it to them before.
I have no idea if this is what Rowan meant. It is just where I could see there being a problem.
Thanks, that’s a good example that’s not what I was expecting. So in this sort of scenario, as I think I understand it, it’s about prioritizing more than having specific feelings – if you’re making time for someone else that was “supposed to” (per whatever understanding your relationship is built on) be time for your partner, that sends a message that they are not top priority for whatever it is. And I guess the reasons for doing it might matter too; if you’re prioritizing getting short-term rewarding new-relationship emotions over long-term rewarding old-relationship emotions (I can only assume that’s how it is), that seems like it’s essentially setting up a transition.
But our actions derive from our thoughts.
Obviously some people just cheat casually, but it’s common for many to build up to it emotionally by building an emotional connection over time before crossing whatever physical line actually counts for you as cheating.
Dorothy here has definitely gone well beyond just unbidden thoughts about Joyce – even without the action of sending lewds.
So she’s a terrible person for having thoughts? Thoughts so subconscious she didn’t even know she was having? She deserves to be labeled a cheater, to be lumped in with people who actually fuck someone else while in a relationship because she’s exactly the same?
No. There is room in the world for innocent mistakes.
Chill out. She screwed up. The mistakes weren’t innocent, but they were mistakes. We don’t have to decide between her being a perfect innocent and a terrible monster.
She did a fairly minor bad thing. She needs to deal with it. Going into denial just makes things worse.
Preeetty sure she’s counting the titty pics as a form of infedelity. Which, y’know. Isn’t far out of the realm of the inaccurate.
She hasn’t been shtupping Joyce, no, but she’s crossed what she considers to be a sexual boundary in regards to the monogamous expectations of her relationship. And since she’s one of the two people responsible for defining those boundaries and expectatioms, I’m not inclined to argue with her.
Yeah. Like, I don’t know why people keep acting like cheating is only the literal physical action of sleeping with someone. If your partner (in a monogamous relationship) sent an inappropriate picture to someone, would you be okay with that? If you went to your Advice Person (Mom/Sibling/Friend) and told them that your partner did that, would that person not tell you to leave them?
Like, that’s not even getting into the can of worms that is Dorothy hiding it. Which like… I’m not sure this counts as hiding it, but when I do anything with potential for such grave misunderstandings, I usually go straight to my husband and tell him immediately. We know Dorothy is freaking out and scared, but the optics aren’t great.
Only Joe knows about this, but now it only remains to be seen what Dorothy will do later, yes, I love her but we can’t ignore the big mess she’s gotten herself into.
People keep acting like that because, for them, that’s what constitutes cheating. The definition varies for everyone, and personally I think Dorothy is allowed a little leeway at the moment as she unpacks something about herself that is filled with all kinds of unconscious biases and negative knee-jerks.
If my partner sent naughty pics to someone on the path to a realization of bisexuality, I would be very understanding of the fact that human beings are messy and don’t always do the right thing. I would be more concerned about checking where we stood and what was needed from me to help support this new realization. I’d have boundaries, for sure, but they wouldn’t start and end at the first stupid mistake.
I think that’s fair and I do think she’s allowed some leeway, but the key here is that she doesn’t think so. She thinks she’s crossed a line.
And while she’s given Walky apology sex, she hasn’t actually talked to him about it, at least on panel. Which is a further problem, though certainly not an unsurmountable one.
“I don’t know why people keep acting like cheating is only the literal physical action of sleeping with someone. If your partner (in a monogamous relationship) sent an inappropriate picture to someone, would you be okay with that?”
So that’s what I answered. I don’t disagree with your take at all.
Yeah, it’s not the dumbass emotional cheating thing, it’s the sexy photos. This is where as a well adjusted human you talk to your partner and figure out what they think about what’s happened and rebuild trust if needed, but like. Comic about young adults. She holds herself to pretty extreme moral standards and she’s violated her own boundaries about it. She’s doing the work of figuring out how she feels about it right now, and I imagine we’ll see the conversations with the person she should actually be talking to once she’s processed enough to have any idea what to say. I’m sure she’ll get there.
yeah, it’s not that the feeling of guilt isn’t warranted at all, it’s just hilariously disproportionate with what she actually did. plus, knowing walky, he’d probably just crack a dumb joke and be done with it
“and I imagine we’ll see the conversations with the person she should actually be talking to once she’s processed enough to have any idea what to say.”
Will she though? Or will she just push him away, emotionally and physically?
I think it’s also the emotional cheating thing. Not the dumbass version where any kind of passing thought counts, but the part where she’s in love with Joyce. Even if she hadn’t sent the pictures, that’s a big strain. Especially when she’s just gotten back together with Walky, so that relationship might not be on the most solid footing yet.
whatever the hell they were doing in the laundry room would sure count as cheating, though if I recall I don’t think she was with Walky at the time.
it was still weird as hell and even weirder she mentally didn’t count as having a sexual experience with Joyce
That was before she got back together with Walky. It was because Walky rejected her and she needed an emotional boost, so she decided to fix Joyce by making her cum.
No, she did that to fight back against Joe/Joyce, and tried to ask Walky the next chapter, after “accepting” their relationship. Ask Ruth what she did to cope with both interactions…
Right, not Walky rejecting her. That was afterwards, during Joementum. But deciding to fix Joyce wasn’t merely to fight back against Joe. It was frustration after Walky asked her for advice regarding Lucy.
It was absolutely mind-boggling to me how many people in the comments at the time still insisted they were two straight girls with a wholly platonic friendship. (While at the same time claiming that Joyce’s consent there was dubious?) That whole scene was explicitly sexual and in a particularly sapphic way.
I didn’t say it wasn’t sexual activity, in fact I said outright yes it was sexual activity. I am saying that at no point for either of them was there sexual DESIRE directed at each other.
Unless the premise here is that physical sexual activity can’t possibly happen without specific desire? Which would mean that actually every gay person who’s ever had sex with the opposite gender while closeted is actually bi and a liar because it doesn’t matter that there’s no desire due to only activity mattering? P
Jesse, what the fuck are you talking about? How many times am I gonna have to tell you motherfuckers I don’t fucking play “I didn’t say you said I said” before you get it through your fucking skulls? I know it’s hard to think when you’re sucking on power tools for fun, but can you at least fucking try?
Sure, except she didn’t think they were unsolicited. She got two pics from Joyce first, then talked to Amber (a bad idea) and was told this was how Gal Pals act and she was making it weird.
Not saying it’s all good, just saying you’re phrasing this like she just randomly decided to cross a boundary. Anything sounds bad when you remove all context.
Unsolicited makes them less gross in general, but doesn’t really change whether they count as cheating on her current relationship.
The bad advice from Amber is a mitigating factor as is her being heavily in denial, but when it comes down to it, it’s still something she did because of her crush on Joyce. Not unforgivable, but not unreasonable for her to see it as a problem.
Small caveat, she was pretty certain that the pics were send to her by mistake so yeah, by most standard they were unsolicited. I don’t have any moral opinion on it,just pointing out what happened.
You can’t be president until you’re 35 anyway, at which point sleeping with women half your age rounded up to the nearest 1yr is legal! So the imaginary situation is sorted out. ezpz
I assume that he will not be allowed to do that. Because it’s illegal and I will NOT be accepting that level of shit years before it happens. It’s not normal, it’s not inevitable, there are things we can do to fight it. Don’t obey in advance <3
… do you mean it’s like watching your cat hit themselves against a wall, or do you mean that having a cat is like hitting yourself against a wall? Because I can read it either way and it still makes sense.
Okay, so maybe it’s a little mean, but when I see a cat run head-first into a wall, it’s definitely gonna make me laugh. I’ll check on the kitty while I’m busting out a proper fortissimo guffaw, of course, because I’m not a monster.
Conflict is fun in stories! I think generally most people like when a character has to go through difficult stuff, that’s when the most interesting stuff happens
I strongly suspect that she kind of realized what the obvious answer was as she started speaking the question aloud, but then just kept pushing in the vain hope that Danny’s answer would somehow, miraculously, be different.
Yeah I think I’m thinking along the lines of “but she didn’t actually cheat” so that seems really unnecessary harsh from Danny. But otoh, he was asked a question about cheating. Hmmm
Notes how she did not give any specific just was a vague “How often do you cheat on your partner with same sex people”, like she is assuming that is just a thing bisexuals do.
Yeah, he doesn’t have context for this, he’s asked about “accidentally cheating” which, given his history with Joe, may or may not sound like deflection.
And also, being asked a question that is just a wee bit insulting (I mean, it more or less does play into a stereotype that bi folks can’t be faithful to a single partner since they’re attracted to more than one sex) can definitely provoke a reprisal
Um Dorothy is Danny-ing this up mor then Danny. The whole as some one who is bisexual do you cheat on your partner with a small sex crush. I don’t knownif Dorothy meant to phrase it that way but that’s really insulting and plays into untrue stereotype of Bi folks being overly sexual and promiscuous.
So for further context I do hold Dorothy to a slightly higher standard then most characters I mean if any one of characters said that I’d be infuriated but coming from Dorothy it just pisses me off more beacuse she should know better and reading the next strip it’s just alot
Dorothy just walked up and basically said “hey, you’re bi: how often are you allowed to cheat on your partner if you’re bi?” As if that amount is somehow different for bi people.
Danny’s response is appropriate. More than appropriate in fact, since Dorothy’s tone-deaf miscommunication is poking at maybe the single most overdone stereotype about bisexuality (that all bi people are sex-crazed philanderers incapable of committed relationships).
Hi. Bi, poly, woman. Been there, been that, lived it, been beat down in the street for it and kept going.
So now that we have that context laid out:
You can read her comment that way if you want to and I wouldn’t stop you if I could but holy shit, to me that’s just an invented reading, laid over top her words. You honestly interpret an embarrassed – even ashamed! – confession to an old friend and former boyfriend to whom she clearly went for advice as a request for permission? That’s nuts. And I don’t see it in the text. At all.
I mean, right out of the gate, he’s kinda being a dick. But that last line. Un-fucking-called-for.
Scoping it a little back out from this one specific case – wherein damn right she was flirting with her bestie that turns out she actually did have a crush on and didn’t even know and that kinda matters – are women not allowed to flirt with people in your world? Are women not allowed to flirt for friendliness in your world? Are bi women in particular not allowed to flirt in your world, even if they’re already involved? Do we have some etherial level of reserve and decorum we must always meet that straight women need not attain?
Does flirting with someone in that context actually make you a morally bankrupt human being?
Because if it does, holy shit, what kind of Puritan are you, I’m kinda curious about the whole predestination thing. Like, is Danny predestined to be an over-the-top asshole about this here? Is it not his responsibility because of predestination?
Or is maybe his reaction a lot more than a little over the top, to the point of him acting like a real asshole, e.g., Dannying it up?
Him saying “no” is obviously fine, him saying “no, and I think that’s kinda assy of you if you are” would be okay too. He doesn’t have to approve. But leaping straight to “morally bankrupt human being” to someone who was at least some kind of a friend into a few minutes ago is so uncalled for I don’t even know where to start. Particularly not in the context of what’s going on in the real world right now, holy shit.
If she’s morally bankrupt, what scale can there even be for people doing actual harm?
Is he incapable of cutting a little slack? Or is he just lashing out for other reasons?
e.g., once again, being a total dick, and Dannying it up.
Dorothy very specifically used the word “cheat,” not “flirt.” Like I get it, I’m bi and poly too, but I took it as “she said accidentally cheating so that’s what she meant.” What matters isn’t what we the audience define as cheating (I vote no, she didn’t, btw), but that DOROTHY considered it cheating.
As others have said, I also don’t think Dorothy has done anything terribly wrong. She was indulging in playful feelings she didn’t understand and now that she’s put the pieces together, she’s panicking.
Danny doesn’t know that context. He only knows what Dorothy *said* and the only word she used was “cheating”. Adding the word “accidentally” after the fact doesn’t help clarify what’s actually going on: in fact it makes it sound like she’s trying to downplay a very serious thing.
Danny does not have all that context we have. He doesn’t know it’s about some pictures. He was flat-out asked about cheating. He was asked how often (not if, how often) he was unfaithful to his partner.
That response is totally fine. It is a bit extreme for the context of what actually happened, but not explaining what happened is on Dorothy, not on Danny.
The thing is that they aren’t strangers, or casual acquaintances, or even recently new friends. They showed up together with a long, involved history.
And it’s so far out of character for her that he could go, “…okay that sounded really bad to me, so what do you actually mean?” And yeah, I would want and expect someone who has been friends with and out and out involved with someone that long to do.
But instead, it’s be-an-asshole-for-three-panels then cut exactly zero slack. It’s like a quick reversion to Early Strip Danny, when he was an asshole on the regular, and it’s not bad storytelling – he’s in a context with her again which kinda reverts his whole context in general and sometimes people act like that – but he’s still acting like a dick.
“…why would anyone flirt if they’re already involved?”
Because they want to.
Because it’s their personality.
Because being nice is sometimes misconstrued as flirting.
Because there’s no harm in flattery and getting your heart fluttering.
Because they’re polyamorous.
Because they and their partner think it’s hot.
“Flirting for friendliness?
To me that’s a contradiction in terms.”
So then, you don’t do that. Put boundaries up that you don’t get involved with people who do that. But understand that other people don’t all subscribe to the idea that flirtation/attraction/excitement about other people constitutes infidelity. It’s a case-by-case thing, not set in stone.
none of these characters have presented as Poly even in the slightest. So yes, ‘flirting’ would be off the table if youre with someone else, thats just basic monogamy.
Thank you, Nymph.
I was otherwise occupied when this comic dropped, but reading the comments, I have been wanting to say something similar.
Couples need to set boundaries. Different people have different definitions of what is and is not acceptable in a relationship, and until the people involved in a relationship decide where those boundaries lie, they are asking for trouble.
As the cliche line from so many shows movies and books “it doesnt matter what lights my partners fire, just where they go to douse it.”
To many, this seems to be a weird foreign concept. But it is imho a very healthy and natural one. many of us may not understand why certain things get our engines running, but if we are lucky we get to be with someone who will enjoy the results of the motorway getting lit regardless of how it got done.
Flirting for friendliness? To me that’s a contradiction in terms.
[martial-arts voice] Ah, a student of the fine art of flirting for hostility! A formidable weapon, in skilled hands. I did not have the talent for it myself, I hate to say, and was forced to divert to the school of casual banter for hostility.
I acknowledge that it is a lesser art, but it is one for which I am better suited. I envy you your aptitude.[/martial-arts voice]
But seriously, flirting for friendliness is a very common thing in some communities, particularly queer communities. In my personal experience, ngl, femboys set the standard – with some of them it’s absolutely performance art – but it’s by no means exclusive either to anyone. I’ve absolutely been in mixed to mostly-straight communities where it was a thing, too.
Another bi person here—if you hate Danny, fine. But let’s not pretend what Dorothy said wasn’t messed up. “How often do you cheat on your partner with your same-sex crush” is a stereotype that hurts bi people, and yeah, I’d be pissed if someone said that to me. Reframing the context doesn’t make it better—she chose to say it that way, and she should know better. Danny being a dick doesn’t erase that
I don’t actually hate Danny anymore – and haven’t for a while – but holy crow he can be a real dick. He was a real dick a lot more often early on, when I did kinda hate him, but he’s been better lately. Until now, which is a real and highly unwelcome (to me) return to form.
To me Dorothy what she said was the worst thing said here and given what happen she didn’t even bother to apolgize in the next strip and Dorothy has a histoey of apologizing for offending people even when they were assholes to her and I like Dorothy, but what she said infuriated me.
Yeah I think the last time Danny Danned up this much was when talking to Walky. I brought this up then, but it still drives me up the wall when people can’t be bothered to tell you when you’re annoying them but instead just act rude and hope you’ll be discouraged from talking to them ever. Dorothy may be a pain but at least she’s clearly expressing her thoughts and feelings.
Danny has expressed that he doesn’t like Walky many times, to his face and that seems to not discourage him talking to him so. And he doesn’t want Dorothy to not talk to him, he just enjoying getting to put back some things she does, it is something people do sometimes. It is fine.
It probably is unnecessarily harsh. Danny probably isn’t being purposefully malicious, but Dorothy did absolutely stomp on Danny’s heart (pretty much out of no where from his then naive perspective). I think he is trying to still be friends with Dorothy, but some of that hurt sometimes boils to the surface. Especially when he feels she had talked down to him thereby treating him as dumb or something less capable; once again – a weight.
Also, lets face it – for somebody obsessed with doing right by others, Dorothy treats her lovers as remarkably expendable. Worried about him slowing down your academic career? Dump his butt. Exploring your sexuality? Send nudes to your bff behind his back and angel to replace her boyfriend. She may need to have a personal reconning about that behavior and who better than to give it to her than Danny – whose arc as pretty much been 13 years of him trying to find his identity and love after she shattered his heart, perceptions, and plans.
“Bisexual Homoromantic” is, at its strictest, in my interpretation, “sexually attracted to two presentations(not necessarily “male+female”), but only romantically attracted to the subject’s own (which, once again, may not overlap with sexual attraction).
Bisexual Lesbianromantic would be “sexually attracted to two sexual presentations(not necessarily “male+female”), only romantically attracted to women.”
I was gonna say that but “Bisexual Lesbianromantic” is fewer syllables than “Bisexual woman-loving-woman” but they’re both ten, and if you pronounce “WLW” as “willow”, “Bisexual WLW” cuts that down to 6.
Bi != two. Bi people have been fighting against that for like forty years now. Bi / pan / poly have broad overlap, all of them can mean someone is attracted to more than two genders.
I strongly disagree. It was shown over and over again how in love she was with Walky, and she was deeply hurt when they split up.
Wanting to prioritize your future and your career doesn’t mean you don’t care about the relationship you had to leave to do so. I think your read on this is off-base.
Again, I just could not disagree more. I also do think there is a lot of ground between “doesn’t have romantic feelings at all” and “is in love with” even IF she didn’t love him.
And her whole tenor is typically “calm and just a bit condescending, but her wisdom all comes from things like wikipedia.” And like, I get it. But sometimes it’s fine if someone ribs her about it.
In all fairness, not all of that was Dorothy. It’s pretty clear that Danny’s parents openly considered him to be pretty worthless except that he somehow pulled Dorothy.
His emotional dependence on her was not healthy, and he definitely said some shitty things along the way as he healed after they broke up. But for starting off in a pretty shit place he’s come a long way.
Dorothy…is slowly coming to grips with the fact that she’s not as all together and perfect as she wanted to be, or wants other people to think she is.
Nobody is perfect, and the fact that Dorothy understands this isn’t something that should make her feel less. Besides, not everyone who knows her is going to blame her for not being perfect.
Dottie has a habit of picking “fixer upper” partners. She thinks she’s the one who can fix them.
Danny, Walky, Joyce? All people she’s tried to fix and make “Normal” like her. It’s incredibly condescending how much she treats them like children when she’s just as much of a sheltered child as they are.
i said this a while ago here (at least i think i did but i may have dreamt it)
while from the outside her actions may have connotations that look condescending, but her intention and awareness are factors to be considered. i have seen no awareness from dotty that she is aware her actions could be seen that way.
In fairness to Danny, Dorothy did just pop into his room out of nowhere and ask him how much of a cheating bi he is. Even if she was really asking about herself, that can come off as an immensely insulting stereotype.
That was my first impulse, because I took what Dorothy said to be “how often do you ‘cheat’ on your partner *by having* a same-sex crush?” which, come on, it’s not cheating to feel attracted to someone and it certainly doesn’t make you morally bankrupt! But looking at it again, an equally plausible reading is “how often do you cheat on your partner with a person of the same sex that you’re crushing on?” ie, can I fuck Joyce, which I can understand his more vehement reaction to.
I read this the same way–that the crush itself was what she was calling cheating. But “with a same sex crush” is pretty ambiguous and I get why a lot of people (including probably Danny) read it the other way.
How is that even a question? Danny can be awkward, but cheating isn’t a thing he’d do. At worst, he wouldn’t recognize that someone was flirting with him.
The ethical bar to be president of united states at this point is below the marianas trench resting in the earth’s mantle and getting lower every passing day.
this. there were abolitionists in british parliament already at that time. there were catholic monks writing against it. just because the society at large seemed to accept it. there have always been those who understood the inherent evil of slavery
no i just am bad at detecting /s it in the written word, one of the reasons for my sloppyness. i hate using the written word to communicate, to easy to have misunderstandings
Which is a little ironic, since we have all the time we need to type the exact words we mean to say, in the way we mean to say them, and then others have all the time they need to read them, comprehend them, and come to reasonable conclusions about their meanings, without adding in extra text and subtext that never existed.
And on days like today, we get people willingly refusing to acknowledge that lack of urgency, sputtering out barely coherent responses as if you’re confronting them face to face in an alley. Not that you have, it’s just happening and they know who they are.
This just in: Worrying that you’ll cheat on your partner accidentally because you’ve been exposed to bi stereotypes your whole life is now on the same level as war crimes!
Everyone hide your delicates and clutch your pearls.
I think, in case that sarcastic dramatism doesn’t put it across, that she’s nowhere near as ‘unethical’ as she would have to be to be comfy as president of the US.
Sending sexy photos to someone who isn’t your partner, without that being explicitly within your relationship boundaries, may not be “cheating” but it’s not okay
Wait, do you really think that it is puritanical to say that a person in a committed monogamous relationship should not send unsolicited nudes (or nude-adjacent) pics to a third party?
add that the “nudes” are not unsolicited but were a response to “nudes” sent by your best friend.
to me under shirt overbra is a sexy pic but not a nude, a nude has to show the bits that need to be blurred on safe search. but i am old enough to remember a time when FHM and MAXIM were on the front display of magazine racks and playboy and penthouse were at the back of the rack. when easily 60% of the rack was what the modern puritans would call pornagraphic materials but were available for the perusal and purchase by 12 year olds (again not the true 18+ ones but “life style mags” in whiich no one was allowed to have more than 2 sq ft of fabric on their bodies.
i get that we have come to use “nudes”to cover the general idea of images sent with the intention of causing arousal. but i feel it has become a pocket dimension sledgehammer catch all when all we need is a Toffee mallet, and that loss of context causes misunderstanding and confusion.
i’ll step off the soapbox now, need it to finish my derby racer
i live in the south central prairies of kanuckistan, i just go outside.
the real issue is finding a hill big enough to race on, they closed the arlington st bridge and its the closest thing in 2 provinces of me to a slope
Can confirm, I had to be the bearer of bad news for a friend after discovering her at the time boyfriend had been engaging in very, very, VERY intense kink ERP with another woman behind her back. Turns out he tried to get my friend to agree to a poly relationship with the other woman, my friend refused, and uh… yeah…
i mean i can totally imagine danny awkwardly accidentally flirty with another person but being flustered and telling his partner right away or just telling another guy he’s hot but not rly doing anything more otherwise but some ppl are stricter about what constitutes cheating since ’emotional cheating’ is a term
In Dorothy’s mind, the things she was doing with Joyce were platonic. She has just realized they subconsciously weren’t. I think “accidentally cheating” is a suitable definition, albeit a weird and needlessly vague one.
@ Jon walky specifically aside, i’d think more partners would probably be a bit more weirded out/uncomfortable about the laundry room thing versus like just a photo even if it was a ‘teaching ‘moment lol(although i don’t think she was hooking up wit hwakly at that point)
No offense to all the fans and the author of It’s Walky, but “how bad is It’s Walky Dorothy?” can have the same answer as “how bad is It’s Walky?” if I got into more depth.
Y’know I’m not upset at the actions or unfaithfulness of Danny or Dorothy, bit I am upset at how unfair and boundary crossing of Danny Dorothy is being. She doesn’t seem to care about being his friend and isn’t nice to him. She dumped him and he was bummed out but eventually moved on. He’s a good egg and is being very kind not telling her to gtfo and leave him alone.
I think being the cause of hearing your crush orgasm in the middle of the laundry room, because you told her too, ranks a bit more on the creeper shart then sending a titty pic.
In fact, there’s no reasonable way to disagree. You’d have to be borderline braindead to think a single person can cheat on their SO, just a dribbling mess of a brainlet. An absolute, unambiguous dipshit of the highest order, undeserving of the title “sentient being”, if we’re being kind about it.
Why does it matter if you’re a single person cheating on your SO or if you are a bunch of people cheating? If you promised your now dead SO you would never hold hands with anyone else again, is it not possible to cheat on that promise? Do we know that SO isn’t an abbreviation for Stupidtest Online?
Well, okay, maybe “sentient being” is being rather kind.
All she has to do is confess to Walky. Who will want to see the titty pix, even though she’s right there in-person. She’s much more angsting over it than he will.
In contrast, I am seeing a lot of people in the comments here very eager to cast her actions and motivations in the worst light possible, which seems hardly needed right now? Like she’s legitimately danning it up right now and has got herself into a right mess, there’s no need to make up reasons to criticise her.
Not to be hyperbolic, but I think Dorothy’s behavior might resemble that of an ambitious teenager who knows less than she thought. I know that’s a controversial thing to say.
dont forget mutually getting off in the laundry room, but they wern’t both dating people at that time. At least I dont remember them dating, it was forever ago
i feel the context that joyce went first is being ignored or discounted. it cannot be as it is the instigator. i do not believe dotty would ever have sent joyce said bra pic if joyce had not sent one first.
if the pop culture i grew up with is to be “believed” sending bra pics and other things that would be considered flirty/gay coded, is a natural and normal part of female friendships. and i could see dotty having internalized that it is something girls do with their friends, just not her as she didnt previously have female friends to do so with.
It’s being discounted because Dorothy herself knew the pics weren’t meant for her. She tells Amber the pictures were obviously meant for Joe and then followed her advice to send some back justifying it as “just kidding lolz”
It’d be one thing if Dorothy thought the pictures were meant for her in a “girl friendship!” kind of way, but she knew they were not.
Mostly there’s a big wrinkle in how she had not consciously confronted her feelings at that time. Things get kind of messy when you start having to evaluate conscious vs. unconscious motivation. Like yeah she had to take a while and go to someone else to help rationalize it, which should’ve been signal enough to her not to do it. But a bad feeling that needed rationalizing away could’ve come just as easily from a place of “this is beyond my comfort zone and I need to loosen up.” Something that may have been reinforced by how casually Jennifer also took the prospect of sending a cleavage shot on the spur of the moment, indicating that it doesn’t actually have the gravity her bad feeling was investing in it.
I’d be a lot more down on it if she did it now because she’s finally more aware of what’s going on in her head regarding Joyce.
How well did Dorothy actually do in gender studies? Also as a bi person I think Danny does a pretty good job of summing it up. Great job Danny for Danny-ing this up.
Damn, Dorothy is a mess. First the stereotype, then tries to soften the weird boundary-crossing with “accidentally”? Dot, you wanted jugs so you deliberately offered some 8 ounce cans.
Dorothy could’ve definitely been more humble about that explanation back in the day: if you go back and read it, it definitely has tones of “poor silly Danny who doesn’t know as much as I do”. Not in a malicious way, just in a classic Dorothy know-it-all way.
And sure, Danny could choose to be nicer. I’m not mad at him for some light snark though. His ex girlfriend broke up with him abruptly (the FIRST NIGHT after he’d followed her to college) and implied it was because he was holding her back. Danny then went out and got his shit together, did a bunch of personal growth, and figured out who he was.
And now his ex shows up at his door, a complete mess, basically asking him if she’s allowed to cheat on her partner now that she’s realized she’s bi. Danny teasing her about her previous I-know-everything demeanor with him is pretty understandable.
Oh no. That was shit. And not just for the “my stated reasons for breaking up with you were bs” thing.
Remember she chose Danny because according to Walky only the most pathetically effeminate of girly men would possibly own more than one pair of shoes.
And somehow Dorothy took that as gospel.
(Should she have challenged Walky when he said it, sure. But also he was mildly frantic about his missing shoe and she felt guilty about it getting lost, so.)
(Also there’s just no reason to actually think Dorothy said anything in the gap between the strip Taffy linked and its follow-up other than “oh, a man-sized person I know who has multiple pairs of shoes that might fit you?” — because the other boy she knows at this point is Joe, and he’s a much less likely match for Walky’s shoe size than Danny.)
Also: Maybe Dorothy knew Danny would have more than one pair of shoes because she dated him and it had nothing to do with the girly comment? Again, just thinking outloud here.
I bet Dorothy knew Danny and Joe both owned multiple pairs of shoes, and just didn’t think Joe was as likely to have shoes close enough to Walky’s size for them to be wearable.
Like, for serious, Willis is the one who’s jokingly calling Danny a little bit femme. That last panel is not Dorothy’s imagination, it’s a smashcut to Danny’s actual actions at that moment for comedic effect.
@Taffy yeeeep. Like, she’s NOT perfect! She’s so far from perfect. Off the top of my head and recently, how about:
— Trying to get back together with Walky while he and Lucy were on the rocks!
— Telling Joe to “find different prey”! There are layers of bad to that interaction!
@Clif: I love Danny in all the strips in that sequence. I also love Dorothy in them. Particularly when Mike points at her and she automatically waves and then mentally slaps herself in the face for it.
Yeah, Mike was at his finest too. He knows Danny isn’t going to believe him, but he knows he can wind Dorothy up and she’ll do more damage than he could.
But the thing I think people are currently taking Danny to task are missing is that this is how Danny and Dorothy interact.
I just don’t get a VILLAIN reading from either of them here. Danny’s being unusually sardonic, but I do think it’s unusual because he hasn’t done a lot of interacting with Dorothy or Walky lately (they both kind of bring it out in him). Dorothy is being a Grade A Mess. But neither of them is even being “a little jerky” to each other right now, much less mean.
Boy, Danny comes off pretty unlikable here. Holding onto this and being so ready to jump, for one thing. For another, looking back…Dorothy was being calm but she wasn’t being condescending? He was being oblivious, which was exasperating, but she spoke directly and precisely to his questions and thoughts.
Dorothy’s line in panel 2 could almost be self-deprecating humor playing off of what Danny said, but with the rest of the strip I’m going with obliviously sincere.
In what way did she cheat? By sending the boob pics? That was a complete misunderstanding and doesn’t even count. Heck, Dorothy didn’t even realize she HAD a crush on Joyce until well after the pics were taken and sent.
Joyce sending her pic to Dorothy was a misunderstanding, Dorothy sending hers to Joyce was completely on purpose. It was Amber idea but she could have very easily just, not do it.
dotty would never have sent the pics with out joyce sending first even if it was a misunderstanding. yes dotty has oppourtunities to not do so, but she never would have been prompted, tempted, whatever we wanna call it if joyce hadnt sent first. i do not say this to remove fault from dotty entirely here, but she CANNOT be held as solely in the wrong here. yes it is messy, yes it is awkward, yes there are boundary issues here. these are 18-20 year olds, learning,dealing with ongoing chemical changes in their brains, unlearning the bad habits their parents taught them (if lucky), learning that real life isnt a movie/tv show/book/cave painting.
The fact that Joyce texted the photos first only matters in the context of Joyce and Dorothy dealing with the fallout from the texted pictures. It doesn’t matter in the context of Dorothy and Walky’s relationship. Dorothy is wholly responsible for her response to the pictures.
it does matter. dorothys action does not happen with out 3 things.
1. joyce texting her pics. with out this initiating event none of this is happening, there is no conflict and dotty doesnt intensify her spiral. it doesnt fully exonerate her but it does provide context and remove some responsibility. the phrase “we have no control over how someone else sees/interprets/reacts to our actions” does not absolve us of our responsibility for triggering such actions.
2. dotty is spiralling. her decision making processes are not working properly, they havent been since raidah, this is leading her to act rashly and in ways she otherwise wouldnt. again not absolution but mitigating truth.
3. amber pressures her to. she is pressured by a friend to do so. she is peer pressured into it. this is big to me, i’ve dealt with a lot of bullies bullying and peer pressure shit. that shit is tough to deal with when your head is stable, let alone when your decision making processes are messed up.
again dorothy isnt 100% innocent, she had oppourtunities to make other choices, it is true. although when viewed in the greater context there are matters that reduce her responsability. she doesnt exist in a vacuum none of us do. i do not wish to put words in your mouth, but the argument used here is one i see from people in kanuckistan that do not want to accept instititional cause and effect with events in this country. so sorry i do not want to put words in anyones mouths but it is a sore area for me
If you don’t want to put words in my mouth, then, respectfully, I ask that you don’t (you absolutely just did). I think there are a lot of flaws in your reasoning, but I’ll wish you a good day rather than keep arguing and have my positions taken in bad faith.
as i poorly said i did not mean to phrase things as putting words in anyones mouths let alone yours. hopefully our interpretation of the next strip aligns
I think it still is a joke…?
I think she wouldn’t have sent it if it didn’t seem like “the right thing to do” to her in some manner. I’m sure it wasn’t shown, but maybe she thought Joyce would freak out when realising she sent pics to the wrong person? (And she did not realise yet… soooo…)
I believe her feelings were a (too) close second motivator, and she is afraid that it was subconsciously her real intent.
i don’t think she was it as a joke, nor at the time she sent it did she veiw it as a “thirst trap”. she is suffering from an ongoing mental health issue here (like 2 months now or however long it has been since riadah was an asshole to her). i would hazard professor x would tell us she sent it (after amber pushed her to) as an expected response. should she have realized how it could look/appear, if she was in a healthier headspace probably, but she isnt in a healthy headspace right now. it feels to me, mean and disproportionate to expect her to be making perfect decisions and be morally flawless
This breakdown has been coming for a while.
She has very strict standards (for herself) and a tendency to binary thinking that rivals the old Jedi Order.
Her breakdown has been going on since her perfectly calculated plan to take down Blaine backfired on her because she didn’t take into account how defiant Blaine could be, opting to grab Joyce and use her as a hostage rather than surrender to the police after his kidnapping plot failed.
I think “cheating” is a strong word, but that if she does really feel strongly about it, the thing to do would be to talk to Walky and try to establish what is and isn’t kosher as a couple. That’s a whole lot healthier than what she’s panicking about.
Context? What is that? Some kind of fancy smancy hippie new age nonsense? In my days we consumed present events completely untethered from past experiences and we Like it.
“cheating? for a picture of tits sent to a bestie in response to tits sent to you? Y’all are strange. Kill the cop in your head.”
more like “Sending a tit pic to your crush who has a boyfriend while youre also dating someone” and the “in response to tits sent to you” also ignores the fact joyce clearly didnt mean to send it to her at all.
Im more shocked by how many of the people in the comments here are fine with their partners (or themselves and not telling their partner) sending nudes/tit pics to other people, would definitely be a deal breaker in my relationship, especially if i knew they had a crush on said person
A. I am glad Danny’s giving her a little grief at the beginning, that’s not unearned, even if I tend to give Dorothy’s intentions the benefit of the doubt.
B. I don’t think Dorothy is really giving Danny enough information here, but it’s also an odd question. I think there are absolutely people in queer circles with relaxed attitudes about racy pictures, etc, for a variety of reasons, not the least of which being related to euphoria about getting to express our sexuality in a way that brings joy, but that’s something that is, when done correctly, something done with consent all around, and with understandings between partners.
I don’t *think* Walky is going to think of this as cheating, per se, but I do think he’s going to have to try to digest it, and I think he’s going to be hurt about dishonesty related to the act more than the act itself.
I think Walky might kind get it? Like he’d simultaneously be hurt, but also be like “oh, a situation I teased you and Joyce about on multiple occasions. Yeah I see why you wouldn’t tell me.”
The real issue for the Walky/Dorothy relationship won’t be the pictures themselves, but the implications. She sent those pictures while in denial about her bisexuality and her crush on Joyce. She also got back together with Walky while in denial about her bisexuality and her crush on Joyce.
How much of that decision was also driven by her denial? Will Walky think it was? Will she think it was?
I do not see walky responding like that at all, walky hides it but is capable of extremely high emotional intelligence, and the moment he sees dottys concerns he will very likely be incredibly supportive and understanding. could this become a big thing for them, yes. will it i don’t think so, and that is cause i see walky as being fully able to give dotty what she needs to gain perspective, grow and heal
Walky’s response is really only a small part of that. Even there he’ll likely be supportive and understanding, but he also doesn’t really think he’s good enough for Dorothy and this may play off that. “Of course that explains why you turned back to me. You were just trying to deny your real feelings. You’ve figured it out now. You don’t need to stay with me.”
The other question of course is how much that denial really did play into going back to Walky.
So many comments saying that sending suggestive photos to someone you have feelings for while you’re both in monogamous relationships with other people isn’t cheating or even “doing anything wrong” is making me feel like a crazy person…. hello????? Yes it absolutely is??? If Joe sent half-naked photos to Liz right now most people would rightfully consider that cheating. Omg.
I don’t understand where all that grief is coming from in the first two panels from Danny. I thought that Dorothy handled that pretty well, but he’s all like “Oh yeah well last semester you tried to explain something to me that you hadn’t personally experienced, AND used innocuous physical contact to express sympathy. HOW DO YOU LIKE THAT???” Like wtf did she do wrong in that scenario?
He quite literally says out loud that her allyship was performative and condescending, which she subsequently goes on to prove by repeating the single worst stereotype about bi people in an attempt to find an excuse for sending Joyce a picture of her cans.
If she first said what she said on the last few panels AND then Danny responded like this, I would understand. But I think she did a good job in her original interaction that’s being flashbacked! Like yeah, she was calm. Should she have instead been like “OMG YOU’RE BI WAIT FUCK DON’T PANIC WE CAN FIX THIS DON’T PANIC DANNY!”? It just seems like a random “Fuck you for being calm about things; not so calm now eh?”, which I’d expect from Jennifer but not Danny.
If I had to guess I’d say it’s Danny’s lingering resentment at being immediately dumped at college plus Dorothy minimising his own bi crisis with some know-it-all Wikipedia spiel.
What counts as cheating comes down to the partners involved. I highly doubt Joe would view this as cheating, and he can likely talk Dorothy down, but what matters at the moment is that *she* feels like she cheated. That’s what needs to be addressed and worked with.
I agree… Danny is acting much… ruder… than the situation calls for.
When he came to Dorothy to ask about his bisexuality, Dorothy mostly handled it in a pretty straight-forward manner. She was honest and comforting to a degree (talking about all the ‘intermediates’ between straight and gay.) Danny just comes across as a jerk in the first panels.
He deserves this. Their relationship is pretty one sided in Dorothy’s favor. This may be the one time he gets to be smug talking to her he’ll ever get.
Yeah it really feels like Dorothy takes Danny for granted and uses him in a Raidah sort of way. He was really uncomfortable exploring his sexuality and wasn’t sure about bringing it up with Dorothy. How much has she just hung out or been pleasant with him “as friends” since?
damn danny remembers that conversation so unfavorably to dorothy I feel like the definition of bisexuality was kind of useful to a guy who didn’t know the word before then lol. And after that she does admit that everything she knows about this she read & that he should talk to someone else who’s bi or gay (alternatively, his girlfriend), which doesn’t feel condescending to ME but I genuinely just think Danny wanted to needle Dorothy when given a chance. He’s usually a nice guy but there’s some points where he’s still a real dick (which is good that’s a fun character)
I think it’s the bit where she name-drops the Kinsey Institute that comes across as condescending. She even leads with “Danny, you know [XYZ fact Danny obviously doesn’t know], right?”
She could’ve opened that same page of the discussion with the same content but with a more accessible approach (I.e. “bisexuality can mean a lot of things, it doesn’t invalidate your current feelings or relationship, in fact there’s even a number scale for it”).
To add onto what Li said below, last strip Danny made a binocular vision joke. Dorothy’s response was to correct him, which to me comes off as her taking his joke very literally.
To explain further, I’ve honestly been anticipating Dorothy coming to grips with being autistic because when Sarah suggested it, Dorothy’s response was surprisingly… mad, and she rebuffed it by saying “I can’t be autistic, I UNDERSTAND people”. And honestly I feel like a lot of events in the storylines since then just put in bread crumbs that Dorothy is definitely neurodivergent, she just has some internalized abelism because she was so good at masking and working hard in school, which are very key (especially for women) for sliding under the radar as far as being recognized as being neurodivergent.
For example, most people don’t practice sympathetic physical contact. Unless they do, in which case I guess I’ve been missing out on some practice runs… but basically, Dorothy feeling the need to practice social routines, cues, and such comes off as more signs that she’s just very good at masking.
Recently I’ve realized I am kind of Insecure about jokes. I find myself doing kind of a lot of reassuring other people that something someone ELSE said was just a joke, which I think is a… bit of a coping mechanism. Since it functionally lets me make sure it was indeed a joke without asking >.>
Yeah, recent strips definitely seem like Dorothy is being written as autistic now. There’s things from earlier in the comic that could be interpreted that way, but it seems more intentional now.
I learned I’m autistic last year, and when I looked back at some stories I had written before, I was like, “Okay, so… I have never written an allistic main character…”
@AnonGrouch it’s a lot of things, but I think most specifically her adherence to rigid categories. Her insistence that she’s practiced sympathetic physical contact too much to be bad at it, too.
I’ve been enjoying the interconnect web of Dorothy’s refusal to acknowledge potentially autistic traits in herself. She’s become a lot more interesting.
Haha! That’s true. Somehow Dorothy was never in the exact same box as Lucy for me, where I found her too bland to have strong feelings about, but it probably helps that the commentariat has never been what the kids call “normal” about Dorothy since she first dumped Danny, so at the very least there were always interesting (if wild) conversations about her going on…
But since the timeskip, her increased dysfunctionality has been like spice, and since I started watching her for ND traits, she’s got a lot more interesting as a character. A lot more… relatable orz
Her brain is going to be really annoying about this huh. Fine. I hate it but Dorothy isn’t exactly good at accepting grey areas when it comes to her personal actions. At least it’s consistent.
Some of yall are reading a very different comic. Woof.
— Does Dorothy think cheating is a fundamental part of being bi?
No, of course not. Obviously not. She phrased her question poorly — surprise! — but what she means to ask Danny is obviously more akin to, “As a fellow late-blooming bi person, have you ever accidentally flirted with someone you didn’t know you were attracted to?”
But a.) she’s spiraling, and b.) it’s much funnier this way.
— Is Danny being a jerk?
Honestly I think there’s some self-criticism in this comic from Willis themself; I think Dorothy’s strip with Danny was meant to be her being a Good Ally, and it’s only in retrospect (or maybe as a result of reactions to the strip) that Willis was like, “Oh dang, I absolutely had Dorothy straightsplain bisexuality to my new bi dude, whoops.”
As for the rest of the conversation: Danny is just reacting to the words Dorothy is saying! I doubt he thinks she means to imply that all bi people are cheaters, either, but he can’t read her mind and he doesn’t know what’s been going on with her.
— Was it wrong for Dorothy to send Joyce a lewd?
It would be wrong for her to do it now, because now she’s fully cognizant of her feelings for Joyce, and she no longer has anxiety screaming at her that the Normal, Platonic Thing to Do is to send Joyce a lewd.
But I think it’s a stretch to call the one photo she sent, under the circumstances in which she sent it, “cheating”.
Most of all what she should do is have a conversation with both Walky and Joyce where she owns up to it.
— Are you, Li, a Dorothy apologist?
Probably by some standards! I don’t think she’s incapable of ever being in the wrong, but I do think most of the things folks tend to bring up as Dorothy’s worst misdeeds are… at the very least, blown out of proportion.
I do have a million objections to people sending other people lewds (starting with its unsafe, btw) but people going after Dorothy feels like people calling to impeach Clinton with no one trying to impeach the trumpster who rages real havoc on the world.
It’s a unclear boundary thing at best, a „shit Dorothy you though yourself so self-aware wtf are you doing?“ as a normal reaction, but this shitstorm about cheating makes no sense to me. Are you all in Dorothy‘s headspace right now?
Yeah. I winced when I saw this comment on Patreon last night because immediately I knew the comments today would be full of people pouncing on Danny’s comedically misinformed take in that last panel, which is based both on Dorothy’s guilt-ridden misrepresentation of what she did and also on her poor wording overall, and go “See???? The comic agrees with me that Dorothy is history’s greatest monster.”
Your addendum got a sensible chuckle out of me. I liked the brief image of a circle of Danny avatars all agreeing that Dorothy isn’t actually the worst person in the world.
If Dorothy had laid out her question as you said (which I agree is closer to what she meant), Danny would also be able to share his related experience, with his feelings for Ethan emerging when he was dating AG. I hope the conversation continues so Dorothy’s question can be reframed.
Also, looking back on the strips from when Danny was coming to Dorothy about advice, she did kind of miss the mark on what a big emotional deal it was for him to be realizing this about himself… which she understands better now. This isn’t a major fault, but I can see how it could have felt dismissive to Danny, and possibly to Willis looking back in a writer perspective.
I think a more accurate description of where Dorothy actually was mentally would probably be… that phenomenon where you nervously try to come out to a straight friend, and that friend goes, “Oh, I knew,” even though they didn’t actually know, because they’re just in such a hurry to make sure YOU know this is totally okay and not a big deal and hasn’t at all changed how they see you?
It can be a REALLY crummy thing to hear for a bunch of reasons, even though imho it comes from a good place.
Two things can be true! Dorothy can have been trying her best in that scene and it can STILL have been less than awesome for Danny — even, dare I say, crummy.
Also while I thought (and still kinda think) there’s a very funny symmetry in having both Jennifer and Danny be such disaster bis that they don’t even know bisexuality is a real thing — welp. Other bi people are well within their rights to find that irritating, especially since the third major out bi character at the time was Ruth, and she wasn’t exactly rushing to claim the label either. (It was a “lesbian” pact she had with Jennifer, after all.)
… I wonder if this isn’t also being reframed in part because of the sliding timescale. Sadly skepticism over the reality and validity of bisexuality hasn’t really gone anywhere? But it sure FEELS like we should all know what the word is and that it’s a real thing in 2025, doesn’t it.
Yeah, but I think that’s retconned recontextualization, is all. I think this comic is taking advantage of Danny’s wording there to make a stronger criticism of Dorothy now, in 2025 (or 2024, when the strip was written) than Willis originally intended Danny to be delivering back when that original strip was written.
Yeah, I’m not sure she’s even thinking of the stereotypes of bi people being cheaters, she’s looking excuse her own behavior: “Do other bi people screw up like I did while figuring themselves out?”
But the way she phrases it, Danny’s interpretation is perfectly reasonable.
I think he knows her well enough to not seriously think she was TRYING to say “as a bi person, how often do you cheat?” but those are more or less the words that came out of her mouth, lmao. How else was he supposed to react?
yes this, she is spiralling, and it is effecting her decision making ability.
given what dorothy has said, nothing danny is saying is out of line at all. He doesnt have the context.
woo boy it’s been a while since there was such a close duel of who is the bongo in the strip. team danny but it’s weird that he sensed that she came to ask about bi but didn’t sense what she meant by cheating.
that is easier to understand to me than the people who feel he is being an asshole to her here, and those who think dotty has commited the gravest sin imaginable.
Ah, there we go, that’s an in character thing for Danny to say!
In my humble opinion, Danny felt out of character here. Part of that is probably how he was drawn – he had eyebrows in these strips that Danny should not have.
But also, it felt more like he was speaking for people on the other side of the screen, who felt weird about it being Dorothy who explained that bisexuality exists to Danny, rather than just his own feelings.
But the moment his eyebrows dissapear momentarily, he’s back in character. Danny is aggresively monoamorous, and his responds resonably to (what sounds very much like) a very toxic and sadly common biphobic stereotype.
Danny wears his eyebrows so high that many people reading the comic think he doesn’t have any. IRL such people with high eyebrows look perpetually surprised.
There are three interpretations for what Dorothy is implying here:
1. She is planning something, in which case she is, let’s say, stretching the definition of the word “accidentally”.
2. She’s referring to her night out with Joyce, in which case she’s seriously stretching the definition of the word “cheating”.
3. Something happened off-screen that night, and both Joyce and Dorothy have never brought it up. This one is the least likely but the most interesting.
I’m… pretty sure she’s still talking about the Titty Pics, since both she and Joe seem to agree they count as Cheating if she’s romantically/sexually interested in Joyce.
I maintain that Joe was just busting Dorothy’s metaphorical balls, and didn’t realize Dorothy (and her ironically binary way of thinking) would take his jabs 100% to heart.
Joe may have told Joyce that he didn’t feel like he had the right to be jealous after she went out for drinks with Dorothy, but I don’t think that extends so far that he wouldn’t have been even a little bit upset with Dorothy if he really thought she had been trying to get Joyce to cheat on him.
Joe might have been busting her balls with the “that makes you worse than me” (in response to her “it makes me as bad as YOU”), but it was Dorothy even then who said that her being into Joyce would make sending the lewds cheating. That didn’t come from Joe.
Not to speak for Freezer, but I think we are all talking only about whether Joe thinks it counts as cheating. Twilight said “both Joe and Dorothy agree”, and a few of us are saying, “no, I don’t think Joe was serious about that.”
It’s very obvious Dorothy thinks it counts, at least at her current level of spiraling.
Though I do see Freezer also suggests that Joe planted the idea! Sorry Carry on. I agree that didn’t come from Joe, although I do think Joe playing along with it solidified Dorothy’s concerns.
Omg the biphobia is coming from inside the house. This is the first time I’ve not been sympathetic towards Dorothy, posted before reading all the comments, and delighted in Danny gloating (has Danny ever gloated before? In amy universe?) Oh and the title of the strip misled me to think I’d get Dina and Becky.
When I was in high school my mom said being bi wsn’t real just an excuse to be promiscuous and being promiscuous was the worst thing a person could be. “But Tracy is bi and hasn’t even had their first kiss yet?” “Tracy is bi?! But I *like* them!” Thanks mom…
There was a Something Positive comic in which a bisexual woman was offered a TV role playing a bisexual character. She rejected the role because of how it was written, since the writers’ description of the character was “she’s bisexual, so she’ll sleep with anyone.”
I don’t think it’s biphobia so much as self-loathing. “I AM A TERRIBLE PERSON FOR LUSTING AFTER JOYCE WHILE BANGING WALKY!”
But Dorothy does seem to be a very binary, right choice/wrong choice kind of person. The idea that you can be attracted to more than one person at a time (and just not act on it) honestly never occurred to her. To feel is to do.
Not necessarily even self-loathing, but she’s looking to excuse her failures. “Do bi people often mess up before/while coming out?” is a more reasonable version of her question, but it comes out in a really bad way.
2nd to last panel is giving me flashbacks to this scene from The West Wing:
Toby Ziegler: You accidentally slept with a prostitute?
Sam Seaborn: A call girl.
Toby Ziegler: Accidentally?
Sam Seaborn: Yes.
Toby Ziegler: I don’t understand. Did you trip over something?
Sending spicy pics to someone you’re interested in (whether you can admit that to yourself or not) certainly qualifies as cheating in many people’s books.
if we didn’t have the trigger that is joyce sending first. she didnt send those pics in a vacuum. she got pics, is spiraling, made poor decision. it can be seen as cheating, and if she and walky discuss it and decide she cheated then it is cheating. but it is also a response to a confusing act from a bff.
it can be called cheating yes but is it cheating, that is to be seen.
I think Walky might be fine with Dorothy also dating a girl
He did say to Lucy he it’d be cool to expand their twosome into a polycule, unclear how serious he was
I don’t think she really thinks that. More like “I kind of cheated while I was still denying any bisexual attraction. Is that a common thing or am I really a horrible person?”
this is closer to the truth if you ask me. i think it is more with her spiral her brain went i helped him through his realization he is who should help me. i do not think she thought it through any further than that. her brain has been in panic mode under the surface for weeks now. the moment she is faced with self focused stresses she is unable to see anything with perspective or objectiveness.
Jeez, Dorothy, sending someone a sexy picture while convincing yourself it was a joke is not the same as cheating. I’ll give you accidentally flirting and I can understand if it’s something you don’t want to do (it’s definitely something you shouldn’t do again unless you have a good conversation with Walky about it), but calling it accidentally cheating makes it sound way bigger than it is.
Also, I don’t remember the timeline perfectly, but Danny definitely got at least close to flirting with Ethan while involved with Amazi Girl, right? He’d actually give you the answer you want if you phrase it better.
Which is very interesting, given her analysis of how Joyce went about atheism with all of the structure and moral conviction of her puritan upbringing. But it turns out Dorothy does also have an extremely strong sense of “right” and “wrong” – and an incredibly sensitive one at that.
You’re right guys, Dorothy wasn’t cheating! She DIDNT KNOW what happened in the laundry room was sexually motivated all along! Gee, I wonder what JOYCE thinks about that???
I am once again begging people to remember that when the laundry room incident happened, neither of them had boyfriends. Two single people cannot cheat.
Li, the laundry room incident happened because Dorothy could tell how horny Joyce was for Joe, and wanted to defuse that bomb. Totally un-selfish right, and not at all wanting to prevent Joe & Joyce for selfish reasons.
– Fear that Joyce was going to sleep with Joe and then regret it (very conscious)
– Resentment of / competitiveness with Roz in the “helping Joyce” Olympics (very conscious)*
– Jealousy over Joyce (very unconscious)
So in the most charitable of framings, that’s still only 1/3rd remotely altruistic. I think at least part of her concern was coming from a good place??? But that is all I would personally give it.
* The first two motivations were in fact SO conscious that Dorothy even said them out loud with her mouth. (More specifically, she said, “And this is a— this is an innovative, sex-positive solution that is not just perpetuating the status quo,” before muttering: “Roz,” to herself.)
Meh. I’m very literal minded, but even with me the spirit intended matters more than the literal definition. It’s not about litigating the rules, but Dotty realising she’s not been ethical or honest in her actions.
You can’t pre-cheat on someone, though? Joyce and Joe were flirting with each other but Joyce hadn’t in any way entered into a relationship with Joe back then, and Walky wasn’t even available, much less Dorothy’s boyfriend.
Dorothy introduced it like she did in the comic so Danny is reacting accordingly to that, not to what actually happened. Dorothy is once again the architect of her own misery here. Danny was just a reflection of that out of ignorance.
So, obviously, Dorothy is an anxiety-ridden self-flagellating weirdo who will take any excuse to think of herself as history’s greatest monster.
But maybe – just maybe – thinking of her momentary goof-up where she sent a cleavage pic to a girl who sent one to her as full blown CHEATING might suit her own purpose somehow, even if just subconsciously…
It’d give her a good reason to break up with Walky again, for one. Even if Walky probably wouldn’t care that much, it seems like Dorothy would like to have the freedom to sleep around and experiment.
If Joyce was single (And ready to deal with her own bisexual revelation), Dorothy might well break up with Walky for her, which is its own kettle of monkey’s but “sleep around and experiment” isn’t in the Dorothy nature.
Well… maybe that was more wishful thinking after seeing how she looked at Amazi-Girl, lol. We still know she *wants* Joyce/Joe to break up for totally non-selfish non-Joyce-lust reasons, and is maybe still expecting it to happen sooner rather than later. And again – this is more about her subconscious or unexamined desires.
It’s such a a shame Dorothy hasn’t considered asking Amber or Amazi-Girl about an experimental FFM three-way with Walky yet, but I suppose it’s only been like ten minutes. It’d be such a neat way to manage this silly crisis.
In my experience, guilt or anxiety like this is paralyzing. You beat yourself up for both things and enjoy neither. If Dorothy doesn’t get some help and support, I’d be more worried about her both breaking up with Walky and breaking her friendship with Joyce. Isolating herself for made up moral reasons. Dorothy has a track record of giving up things that bring her joy, because doing the right thing must always hurt and therefore what hurts must be the right thing to do.
At first, I thought she was talking about the laundry room incident, but now I realize she and Joyce were both single then. So yeah, this is definitely about the pic.
Dorothy turned down her Yale dream for Joyce. Something she wouldn’t do for Danny or Walky. Walky is her boy toy and tension release mechanism. Joyce is someone who she has changed her life for. This is far beyond laundry rooms or downshirts.
She didn’t turn down Yale entirely because of Joyce, once again it was the fact that she was given the opportunity because of the kidnapping and she fell guilty about benefitting from something that traumatized her friends.
To be fair, that’s the explanation she gave at a point where she wasn’t yet able to consciously accept, much less articulate, non-platonic feelings for Joyce. Also wasn’t she talking to Becky at the time?
I think it’s certainly part of the reason, but like, also…
Oh, sorry, I missed the word “entirely” in your original comment We are in agreement there!
As for talking to Becky changing things… I just mean that I think Becky would be an especially unlikely person for Dorothy to feel comfortable admitting that some part of her reason for staying was “Joyce”. I don’t know that I think Becky would’ve actually reacted badly? But I know that if I were Dorothy, I’d expect Becky to react badly, even if I still thought my Joyce feelings were 100% platonic love.
Kind of makes me wonder about November. I imagine Joyce still showering her with adoration and Dorothy’s feelings start to deepen, but she still doesn’t know how to make much time for her friends.
I don’t think Dorothy feels/felt nothing for Walky, or felt nothing for Danny. But I think she loved Future President Dorothy Keener’s perfectly designed CV more. If she wouldn’t stay for Walky, then her explanation of staying because she didn’t want to benefit from Becky’s Dad’s death or whatever can’t be the whole truth.
Wild thought: Dorothy should talk to a girl about this. Guys have very few avenues to do non-romantic physical contact “by accident” because physical contact between men is so stigmatized in our culture, to the point where any physical contact is sometimes interpreted as romantic/sexual by the man receiving it. Dorothy needs to talk to someone who knows what platonic displays of affection are, so she can get her head sorted out. She’s suung herself for thought crimes.
Idk man, when the other ladies in my group heard I never masturbated, they took me to a sex toy shop which I consider quite a bit more platonic than teaching me how to masturbate and then being present and guiding me through my first time.
Would that have worked for Joyce, though? Like at all? Or would she have become overwhelmed and fled the situation? Dorothy knows Joyce. I’m not trying to say the laundry scene was platonic, though. Neither Joyce nor Dorothy were in a relationship with anyone else at the time– I’m mostly thinking about Dorothy defining her recent actions (tit pic) as “cheating.” The tit pic could easily be platonic.
That exact scenario isn’t necessary. Put some tips of how to explore her own body in with Amber’s literature. Dorothy was not actually solving a problem for Joyce. She was solving a problem for Dorothy.
And I’m going to add that Dorothy doesn’t know Joyce as well as she thinks, or at least has poor judgment about that knowledge. Joyce’s main problem is with shame, and taking her to masturbate in a place where someone could easily walk in on them was a fucking bad judgment call.
So not only would “HowToTouchYourself.txt” been sufficient, it had a much lower risk of accidentally backfiring.
Dorothy is the judge, jury, executioned, stenographer, defendant, claimant, lawyer, other lawyer, audience, architect, contractor, DJ, bouncer, bartender and manager of her own self-assigned crimes.
man i feel like growing up in kanuckistan has helped here, we had fucking lessons in elementary school (89-95 for me) about what the differences are. (also i am a hugger and have had to have many conversations about appropriate touching cause of an aunt who had never known love and found family members hugging to be creepy)
PEOPLE IT IS OK TO HUG EACH OTHER. WE NEED MORE HUGS
So today, Dorothy, who isn’t even 20 yet, now considers herself a monster for discovering a new aspect to her sexuality. Have I got that right? And a portion of the comment section agrees? Can we maybe all agree that teenagers make mistakes cause they’re just learning, and it’s ok?
Feeling like you’re a monster for discovering new parts of your sexuality is par for the course for a bisexual teenager. Unfortunately, so is being demonized by other queer people, though there’s been progress on that front in the last 20 years.
But she hasn’t done any cheating to begin with. Sorry if you hate Dorothy, but being basically peer-pressurised into sending a boob-pic to someone you are still in denial to have a crush on is not crossing the line. It’s something she should come clear with Walky, but beyond that, there is no fool play.
You know, I remember thinking that Dorothy was a lot nicer here than she was in the original continuity. And she still is, but this is the first time I’ve ever seen shades of the person she was in the original storyline.
i know we’re all talking about dorothy’s biphobia and misunderstanding of what constitutes conscious cheating here but i just want to take a swing at the dead horse of “WOW dorothy is NOT beating the autism allegations.”
as long as she’s having an identity crisis anyway she may as well sit down and re-examine all her internalized bigotry and biases and sort herself out. therapy might help with that. hey dorothy if you’re serious about giving up on your political dreams maybe you should revisit the idea of therapy.
Yeah phrasing there was as harsh to yourself a possible inna way that would make almost anyone go you crossed a line. If you explained..eh it’s sorta bad but in a very understandable way?
It might seem like Danny’s being too harsh here, but it’s actually Dorothy who’s being too harsh on herself, and Danny reacting appropriately to a description he doesn’t know is Dorothy being too hard on herself.
Although he is guilty of possibly deliberately not picking up on a sign that Dorothy might be being too hard on herself by not asking her to clarify what she means by “accidentally cheated” when pretty much anyone would be curious for elaboration.
Now now, everyone calm down. If we apply a little Dorothy Logic™ to this comic, it seems pretty clear that she’s guilty and distraught over her new bisexuality and is trying to rationalize self-hate and disgust through an acceptable moral channel.
She didn’t cheat on anyone because A- she wasn’t dating Walky at the time and B- she didn’t even know what she was doing was romantic. Dorothy just has, like Amber, a compulsion to apologize and make gestures to show her regret in ways no one asked for.
Her seeking logic to her “cheating” is her attempt to ‘right’ something uncomfortable for her.
a lot of people in the comments need to understand that the metric for “is this cheating” is ONLY decided on by the people in the relationship. If Dotty considers sending sexy pictures to people without her partner being aware cheating, then it’s cheating. It doesn’t make her out of touch or self-deprecating to have personal boundaries and recognize when she’s crossed them
I’m reminded, of all things, Marlo the longtime love interest of Rick Jones who broke up with him because she wanted to sleep with Moonstone.
Rick tried to take it with understanding but said something akin to, “Okay, I support your coming to grips with your bisexuality but you’re also breaking up with me or wanting to cheat then come back. So…not cool.”
How did “I jokingly replied to a PG-13 picture of a friend’s breasts with a similar picture of my own” turn into “I accidentally cheated on my partner with a same-sex crush?” Like, I know Joe joked about it, but still, this is so far from actual cheating that it’s facepalm-worthy, especially if you also consider all the hijinks along the way.
Are there situations where someone sending secret lewd pics to a friend behind their significant other’s back cheating? Yes. Is Dorothy anywhere near that territory considering the actual situation? No. I almost guarantee if she laid out what happened with Walky, he’d laugh at the hijinks, not admonish her for cheating.
Also, has Danny ever responded to Dorothy coming to him for support with actual understanding and support? Like, he’s come to Dorothy for help, and she’s done her best to help (help that he spits in the face of here for no good reason). Yet every time I can remember, he responds to her request for help with being a snarky asshole trying to make a point.
Go talk to Walky, Dorothy. He’s the only person you would need to talk to about issues of potential cheating, and he actually cares more about you than Making A Point ™.
The amount of people in the comments conflating THEIR version of infidelity with Dorothy’s makes me sad. Talk to your partners, people. Don’t assume you’re the universal baseline.
For me, I think I’d feel weird if a partner sent saucy photos to someone else, regardless of intent. It might be a dealbreaker depending on how they respond to my confrontation. If they diminished my feelings or made excuses, I’d feel like our expectations of monogamy might not be compatible. But that depends on level of sauciness. And, say, if they were consulting a friend like ”do you think my partner would like this lingerie or this one” I’d probably think that was great.
If a partner did what Dorothy did, I wouldn’t feel great. I’d need them to take responsibility, and also be open with me about their feelings. I’d wanna be there for them while they figured out their bisexuality, but I’d also need reassurance from them that they don’t think those pics were acceptable and that they won’t do anything like that again. I’d also need to talk to them about whether their views of infidelity shift depending on gender and sex. Mine don’t, so I’d need to make sure we were on the same page.
Yeah. Like I wouldn’t say it’s flat-out cheating, but I also wouldn’t say it’s an okay thing to do unless the person and their partner(s) have agreed it’s okay. Every relationship is different, and anyone involved in the relationship should have those talks with their partners! (unfortunately, a lot of people are allergic to healthy communication)
Should Dorothy feel bad? Not to the extent she is, but yeah, kinda. Should she talk to Walky about it immediately? YEAH
I mean, he’s right to say that, considering “bi people are cheaters” is an annoyingly common stereotype. Dorothy isn’t necessarily right to say that’s cheating (thought crimes aren’t real, honey)–though it’s not exactly the most *okay* thing to do while in a monogamous relationship, either–but Danny isn’t wrong for lashing back against the stereotype either.
It’s not like he knows exactly what she’s referring to, anyway, so as far as he knows, she’s basically coming up to him and going, “You’re bi, so how often have you cheated on your partners because of it?” A lot of people would’ve reacted way more harshly.
As a bisexual, i’m the first to push back against “bisexual people can’t be fully happy with only one partner of one gender”,
But as a polyamourous relation anarchist, i’m not the best proof against it either xD
In this particular context, I think that was more “being incredibly oblivious”, but. yeah. yeah that’s not how being bi works, Dorothy. Theoretically having more options for who you might in theory like to have sex with does not in fact make you more likely to go and have unwise sex.
me as a child: I can't believe my poor great-grandma had to live through both a global pandemic and a global economic collapse
me now: I can't believe my lucky great-grandma got to wait nine whole years between her global pandemic and global economic collapse
You might get blackballed from the industry, but the reporter who asks, “Excuse me Mr. President, but what the fuck are you talking about?” would go down in history books forever
Next up: free DOROTHY MAGNETs unlock at $30k! And there's a SURPRISE MAGNET tier drop coming soon, and there's no way you'd know who it is unless you've been paying attention to my Bluesky feed in the past few weeks, or just understand silhouettes.
kck.st/3XQddiF
I put up my remaining 30 Tricerahoodie Dina magnets as a book 14 add-on for funsies, but then they sold through in a morning. Welp! guess i'll make them unlimited and buy more after the kickstarter
kck.st/3XQddiF
maybe i'm on edge today because #9chickweedlane actually seemed pretty fine
like a dogs and cats, living together kind of moment
or wildlife sensing a coming thunderstorm
A little while ago, my parents' cat Bridget went missing. As the weeks dragged on, they became extremely worried. My dad devised a way to distract himself: he began to paint Bridget's adventures, imagining her travelling through time and popping up in some of art and music's most iconic scenes.
me, last year: okay, starting a kickstarter on Hugest Solar Eclipse Day of Your Entire Life may have been a bad idea, let's not start on a worse day next year
me, this year: uh oh
as with book 12, maggie has put together a video for the new kickstarter
in exactly one way and no other, it will be like 2023 again
soon: www.kickstarter.com/projects/dum...
U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission @cpsc.gov ⋅ 17h
Tom Cox @dj-acid-reflux.bsky.social ⋅ 2d
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Get her ass, Danny.
As he said, even accidentally, that wouldn’t be great.
But Dorothy. Think! This means you could be president after all.
You’ll never be president if you aren’t okay just being a morally bankrupt human being. That one exception you are thinking of was like a once in a country’s history type thing and besides, no, they murdered innocent civilians and separated families from their children.
….Jimmy Carter didn’t do that, did he?
Yeah, right after his friggin’ peanuts went friggin’ sour.
Carter’s record depends on how much you want to blame him for second- and third-hand events. FREX, the most obvious misstep was funding the mujahideen rebels in Afghanistan–which ultimately led to the rise of the Taliban once the Soviets were driven out. There’s a number of lesser examples, as well, but exactly how many of those were predictable, let alone expected, side-effects of Carter’s policies is very hard to pin down.
Chomsky, of course, will tell you that Carter committed war crimes like every other President, though the examples I’ve seen him give were, frankly, unconvincing to me. Given that Chomsky echoes Putin’s talking points about Ukraine, I’m not sure I’m inclined to give him the credit I once would’ve.
Given the various atrocities that the Soviets were committing in Afghanistan, including mass murder, destruction of food supplies, mass land mining, etc.
… lets just say the Mujahadeen looked like the lesser of two evils.
I’m not big on American expansionism, but that’s no reason to give a pass to Soviet expansionism.
Oh, I agree. I understand what led to the decision; most of Carter’s missteps, i would argue, are similar in nature, only really obvious in hindsight.
One big issue with global geopolitics is that there often are no right moves. Whatever you do is going to look like a mistake in hindsight. After all, you only see how the path you took went wrong, not how the path you didn’t take would have gone wrong.
Not always true of course. There have definitely been some serious blunders.
Backing Indonesia’s crimes against humanity in East Timor, just a whoopsie daisy that really needed decades of hindsite to realize that killing a quarter of the population is kind of sad-face-emoji.
honestly I just can’t wait to see what Walky’s reaction to this gonna be XD
“I FUCKING KNEW IT’
followed by “ARE YOU BREAKING UP WITH ME”
I think technically they are already broken up? What’s goin on between them now hasn’t really been acknowledged or given a name.
As of December 24th Walky is referred to as Dorothy’s boyfriend in a conversation between Fororhy and Jocelyn
“Really? Joyce? I’d have understood if it was Joe, you could bounce a quarter off his ass.”
“Yeah no shit.”
I’ve been re-reading from The Context Link and Walky once called Joyce “my girlfriend’s girlfriend.”
He also immediately offered sexual favors to Jason, while we’re on the subject.
That’s nuts. With that accent, its obviously Jason who would doing Walky the favor.
Also, what is The Context Link?
A few days ago when Danny called this whole interaction, several people linked to the incoming flashback.
https://www.dumbingofage.com/2015/comic/book-5/03-the-butterflies-fly-away/kinsey/
I’ve plowed through three years of some good shit. High melodrama, but so far, Amber’s tone-poison father has not shown up, in person. Plus you get to see her take James Ryan Haywood to ribbons.
Three years, nineteen days later, Amber’s tone-poison father shows up in person. Bleugh.
At least I gained new appreciation for gags where a character violates the panel boundaries.
Walky was almost definitely teasing/joking when he referred to Joyce as “my girlfriend’s girlfriend” – being OK with a joke, and.being OK with your girlfriend teaching her crush to masturbate and holding her hand while she does it, then later sending her cleavage pics,may well be different…
I’m not sure Walky’s expressed any backpressure on Dorothy pursuing Joyce. At most he seems to bluntly remind her that he, himself, does not share her attraction. Dorothy outright proposed letting Joyce play voyeur and Walky’s snarky response amounted to ‘sure, why not.’ They’ve fallen asleep in a pile watching cartoons and the only one to freak out was Joyce.
Dorothy and Walky were NOT together when the washing machine incident happened (January 29, 2023 strip). Walky was still with Lucy at that time; they broke up in the December 20, 2023 strip. Even Dorothy and Joyce’s night out drinking (April 9-26, 2024 strips) was before Dorothy and Walky actually got back together (May 20, 2024 strip).
Only the selfie incident happened while Dorothy & Walky have been together.
thank you for your work as this confirms what my head thought was the case.
See. Retroactive cheating!
Thank you, Danny. I hate the ‘cheating bisexual’ stereotype.
Yeah, between that and yesterday’s crapping on people who lack binocular vision (we’re not that rare, bongo) I am so ready for Dorothy to spend the rest of the semester being the dorm outcast
“Crapping on?” She amended that statement about binocular vision immediately. Like, within the same panel.
Yes, she immediately “amended” it to make it All About Dorothy being a Good Person.
I know she’s widely beloved, but her honestly, her constant weird combination of self-righteousness and self-flagellation is uncomfortably reminiscent of the creepiest Church Ladies I’ve been unfortunate enough to know.
I think that might be you reading personal experiences into a character. And that using ‘this person has some similarities to bad people’ as the measuring stick for how kindly to read the intentions of fictional characters is a bad vibe.
Not wanting to sound uninclusive or ableist is making things all about yourself now? Is it better to not care, or is the trick that you aren’t allowed to use the pronoun “I”?
Okay, look. I am both disabled and have many vision problems, including lacking vision in one eye.
I was fine with Danny’s joke. I was fine with Dorothy’s immediate response. I am fine with calling things “lame”, or saying “you’re blind to the facts.” I am disabled, not stupid – I UNDERSTAND METAPHOR.
What I am not fine with is people saying “That’s so lame – O GOSH HAPAX I DIDN’T MEAN YOU, THERE’S NOTHING WRONG WITH BEING LAME!” Because that immediately signals that no, you *do* have a problem with me being lame, that you mentally put me in a box labelled “lame people”, who are stupid and oversensitive and need special coddling, and the most important thing to you is that nobody thinks you are a Bad Person What Labels People.
So yeah. Who the hell is Dorothy apologizing to, except her mental image of herself as someone who is Better Than That?
And that’s the encapsulation of this entire encounter with Danny. She really doesn’t care what Danny thinks or feels as an individual human beings. She just wants him to represent a category – the Slutty Cheating Bisexuals – and to grant absolution to her self-image.
And for that, I am fine with her sitting alone for the rest of the year.
You know when you put it like that I do totally see just how shitty that kind of behavior from her is. I personally would hope for her to overcome her desire to present the appearance of giving a shit like a typical Democrat politician and actually learn how to just genuinely be decent. I get wanting her to just, have to deal with people being fed up with her for a bit though.
As an autistic cripple with plenty of problems, you are wound WAY to tight. Dorothy has some implicit bias, same as ANYONE ELSE who doesn’t regularly act with the people that she accidentally forgot about. She then immediately realized that, pointed out her error, and moved on. That is a fine way to handle a misstep and its clear your dislike of the character is affecting your bias on how that interaction played out.
idk, I’m personally tired of Dorothy being caught in a doom spiral ever since Raidah challenged her preconceptions about becoming President. I’m not saying she should go try to mack on Joyce or that she shouldn’t feel at least a little bad about the titty pics, but dorm outcast is a little much.
Given Dorothy’s tendency towards self-flagellation, it not surprising (if a bit disappointing) that she’d lock on to the “bisexual slut” trope.
jesus christ, Dorothy, for someone who was raised areligiously you have a distinctly Catholic taste for unearned guilt
You cannot escape the six thousand plus years of legacy just by skipping shul. Trust me.
I think that may be a bit older (about 3 times) than the Catholic Church.
see, that i’d get, but as a fellow connoisseur of Jewish guilt… “freaking out about sending your bestie a picture of your cleavage because you’ve just discovered bisexuality and now you’re afraid of committing retroactive mental adultery” has a distinctly Catholic palate to me
Or a distinctly moral OCD palate.
As a former Catholic who has worked at a Jewish Community Center I completely understand and agree.
Man, I think it’s in the blood. I’ve got it and I’m a couple generations lapsed.
My whole family is catholic (From Argentina where the pope is from!) and even though I was never to any kind of church service besides family baptism, I still spend a good part of my childhood and adolescence terrified that I was going to hell or that my dead relatives were going there. And this wasn’t because I was told about it constantly or anything, just the concept of eternal suffering by itself was enough to give panic attacks m no wonder I eventually turned atheist.
I’m from country other pope was – Poland. I cannot describe how big of a figure John Paul II was here, so I’ll say only that it was so big, that at some point young people were so tired of his cult, that biggest meme number here is 21:37.
.
.
.
It’s the hour when he died.
What, no love for Ratzinger?
Yeah, that makes sense.
Glad it’s not just me who’s been feeling the catholic guilt vibes coming off of Dorothy.
yeah, Dorothy demonstrates to us once again that “Christian Atheist” ain’t an oxymoron XD
Dorothy, my god, what on earth is your definition of cheating? Because unless there’s a little shit going on off-camera you really need to re-evaluate. You’re in thought-crimes territory here.
Some people actually have this “emotional cheating” belief going on. To my knowledge it’s strongly emphasized in a lot of US Christian groups so I’d expect to be hearing it more from Joyce. But it’s not JUST them.
I have never really fully understood the “emotional cheating” thing with thoughts. For one thing, I have seen way too many people go off the deep end on what they consider it to be (as in dreams and other things that people really can’t control). Also, it all seems to stem from one’s presumption of what is actually going on it someone else’s head. In this case, I would be more allowing of it, as it is the person themself being uncomfortable with their own thoughts and actions.
Considering I have heard stories from people of both genders bragging about dating several people at the same time without anyone them knowing (which just sounds exhausting without touching the moral questions personally), I do wonder how much of the concept of “emotionally cheating” is used as a defense for people who actually cheat. Blame their partner for emotionally cheating first type of thing.
The times where I have been more understanding of the concept tend to have more actions involved with them, such as spending more time and focus on a friend or coworker than the significant other. It can be a fine line sometimes, as if they are the primary contact person when the other is having a major panic or depression attack, they are obviously going to want to set things down and try to help. It can be complicated.
I just binged House a few weeks ago, and the story arc of Taub’s wife connecting with a guy in a support group for spouses with cheating partners is honestly the only good example I know of “emotional affair”.
Most example of emotional cheating i encounter is just, people being friends. It feels like it’s becoming a part of the abuse tactics to isolate your partner from their support network, to argue emotional cheating to guilt your partner to cut all contact with anyone that isn’t the abuser.
And once again, we have a coincidental parallel here: https://questionablecontent.net/view.php?comic=5540
… For the last few days, they really bounce well together and off of each other……
No. No. Don’t you understand? She just cheated on Joyce with Walky.
Dorothy is not and never has been Joyce’s girlfriend.
Walky begs to differ.
Emotional cheating isn’t “I had a naughty thought about someone” though. Emotional cheating is “I’m investing myself in this person romantically even though we’re not having sex. I have feelings for this person and I’m continuing to indulge in those feelings”, often at the expense of the relationship with the actual romantic partner. It’s a long-term priorities issue, not a once-off thoughtcrime issue.
It’s the action of repeatedly choosing to entangle emotionally with someone other than your partner. It can be an unclear line, sometimes, but it’s not just a made-up excuse to be mad.
I guess that I just tend to hear people use it incorrectly. Not too surprising that people try to use it for their own purposes I guess. I tended to hear it used about dreams or other similar reasons. The one that I remember the best was the gal who wanted to keep her relationship on the down-low but had a fit anytime her boyfriend even smiled at someone else.
That being said, after being the lowest ranked person in the family for priority, I do understand how it can be frustrating.
I might also have issues with understanding the boundaries since it is harder for me to understand the line between friends and a partner. I get the prioritization issues, but the emotional entanglement is a bit unclear to my asexual leaning self. Maybe I am just missing a piece of the puzzle that is where clearly defined emotional boundaries should lie. I don’t know.
It’s absolutely a made-up excuse to be mad for some people, though. It’s a big Christian thing because of the whole “Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s wife” bit, which gets pushed at its furthest to even regarding another person as attractive if you’re in a relationship with someone else. It’s a pretty standard gag in a lot of TV shows and such where, even if we don’t know the characters’ religion (if they’re religious at all), a woman will get pissed at her boyfriend’s or husband’s wandering gaze, no matter the frequency, intensity, or context.
Monogamy in our society is heavily saddled with an expectation that everyone is going to be incredibly possessive and women especially must also be perfectly loyal. Dorothy’s tripping into that hard, especially with her complex about having to be perfect in every way already.
Can you give some examples of emotionally entangling in a way that constitutes cheating? I’m not trying to disagree with you but would like to some perspective.
From my personal experience (not with a relationship, but family), it gets really frustrating when you are going to spend time together with someone, like going out to dinner or watching a tv show or a movie, and it constantly gets interrupted by a phone call of this other person every single time. It makes you feel less valued than the other person. It isn’t normally a problem if it happens once or so, but when it starts happening every single time. Even then, it has to have been something that you talked to them about and then they ignore the agreement they made withh you about it. I personally think that you lose the bounds to get extremely mad at them if you have never even directly mentioned it to them before.
I have no idea if this is what Rowan meant. It is just where I could see there being a problem.
Thanks, that’s a good example that’s not what I was expecting. So in this sort of scenario, as I think I understand it, it’s about prioritizing more than having specific feelings – if you’re making time for someone else that was “supposed to” (per whatever understanding your relationship is built on) be time for your partner, that sends a message that they are not top priority for whatever it is. And I guess the reasons for doing it might matter too; if you’re prioritizing getting short-term rewarding new-relationship emotions over long-term rewarding old-relationship emotions (I can only assume that’s how it is), that seems like it’s essentially setting up a transition.
Yep. I’ve never understood being upset about thoughts. ACTIONS are the problem, not THOUGHTS. (which usually come to you unbidden anyway)
But our actions derive from our thoughts.
Obviously some people just cheat casually, but it’s common for many to build up to it emotionally by building an emotional connection over time before crossing whatever physical line actually counts for you as cheating.
Dorothy here has definitely gone well beyond just unbidden thoughts about Joyce – even without the action of sending lewds.
So she’s a terrible person for having thoughts? Thoughts so subconscious she didn’t even know she was having? She deserves to be labeled a cheater, to be lumped in with people who actually fuck someone else while in a relationship because she’s exactly the same?
No. There is room in the world for innocent mistakes.
There’s plenty of room in the world for innocent cheating.
Chill out. She screwed up. The mistakes weren’t innocent, but they were mistakes. We don’t have to decide between her being a perfect innocent and a terrible monster.
She did a fairly minor bad thing. She needs to deal with it. Going into denial just makes things worse.
Preeetty sure she’s counting the titty pics as a form of infedelity. Which, y’know. Isn’t far out of the realm of the inaccurate.
She hasn’t been shtupping Joyce, no, but she’s crossed what she considers to be a sexual boundary in regards to the monogamous expectations of her relationship. And since she’s one of the two people responsible for defining those boundaries and expectatioms, I’m not inclined to argue with her.
Yeah. Like, I don’t know why people keep acting like cheating is only the literal physical action of sleeping with someone. If your partner (in a monogamous relationship) sent an inappropriate picture to someone, would you be okay with that? If you went to your Advice Person (Mom/Sibling/Friend) and told them that your partner did that, would that person not tell you to leave them?
Like, that’s not even getting into the can of worms that is Dorothy hiding it. Which like… I’m not sure this counts as hiding it, but when I do anything with potential for such grave misunderstandings, I usually go straight to my husband and tell him immediately. We know Dorothy is freaking out and scared, but the optics aren’t great.
Only Joe knows about this, but now it only remains to be seen what Dorothy will do later, yes, I love her but we can’t ignore the big mess she’s gotten herself into.
People keep acting like that because, for them, that’s what constitutes cheating. The definition varies for everyone, and personally I think Dorothy is allowed a little leeway at the moment as she unpacks something about herself that is filled with all kinds of unconscious biases and negative knee-jerks.
If my partner sent naughty pics to someone on the path to a realization of bisexuality, I would be very understanding of the fact that human beings are messy and don’t always do the right thing. I would be more concerned about checking where we stood and what was needed from me to help support this new realization. I’d have boundaries, for sure, but they wouldn’t start and end at the first stupid mistake.
I think that’s fair and I do think she’s allowed some leeway, but the key here is that she doesn’t think so. She thinks she’s crossed a line.
And while she’s given Walky apology sex, she hasn’t actually talked to him about it, at least on panel. Which is a further problem, though certainly not an unsurmountable one.
Sure! But the person I responded to said:
“I don’t know why people keep acting like cheating is only the literal physical action of sleeping with someone. If your partner (in a monogamous relationship) sent an inappropriate picture to someone, would you be okay with that?”
So that’s what I answered. I don’t disagree with your take at all.
Yeah, it’s not the dumbass emotional cheating thing, it’s the sexy photos. This is where as a well adjusted human you talk to your partner and figure out what they think about what’s happened and rebuild trust if needed, but like. Comic about young adults. She holds herself to pretty extreme moral standards and she’s violated her own boundaries about it. She’s doing the work of figuring out how she feels about it right now, and I imagine we’ll see the conversations with the person she should actually be talking to once she’s processed enough to have any idea what to say. I’m sure she’ll get there.
yeah, it’s not that the feeling of guilt isn’t warranted at all, it’s just hilariously disproportionate with what she actually did. plus, knowing walky, he’d probably just crack a dumb joke and be done with it
Despite the enormous mess, it is comforting to see comments (very few, but valuable) towards Dorothy that she sorted it out.
“and I imagine we’ll see the conversations with the person she should actually be talking to once she’s processed enough to have any idea what to say.”
Will she though? Or will she just push him away, emotionally and physically?
We’ll find out! But I’m banking on actual conversation with him.
That might happen, yes. But I think she will need a nudge from a person with actual moral values, lets say Joe.
Oh, I don’t think Dorothy is lacking in moral values.
I think it’s also the emotional cheating thing. Not the dumbass version where any kind of passing thought counts, but the part where she’s in love with Joyce. Even if she hadn’t sent the pictures, that’s a big strain. Especially when she’s just gotten back together with Walky, so that relationship might not be on the most solid footing yet.
Dorothy’s moral standards, at least regarding herself, are pretty consistently unforgiving.
whatever the hell they were doing in the laundry room would sure count as cheating, though if I recall I don’t think she was with Walky at the time.
it was still weird as hell and even weirder she mentally didn’t count as having a sexual experience with Joyce
That was before she got back together with Walky. It was because Walky rejected her and she needed an emotional boost, so she decided to fix Joyce by making her cum.
No, she did that to fight back against Joe/Joyce, and tried to ask Walky the next chapter, after “accepting” their relationship. Ask Ruth what she did to cope with both interactions…
Right, not Walky rejecting her. That was afterwards, during Joementum. But deciding to fix Joyce wasn’t merely to fight back against Joe. It was frustration after Walky asked her for advice regarding Lucy.
Neither of them were dating anyone at that time.
Well there is the laundry room “I’m teaching you how to masturbate” thing which…reads pretty different now
How were you reading it before? Because as the magnets said, there was no heterosexual explanation for that.
It was absolutely mind-boggling to me how many people in the comments at the time still insisted they were two straight girls with a wholly platonic friendship. (While at the same time claiming that Joyce’s consent there was dubious?) That whole scene was explicitly sexual and in a particularly sapphic way.
My point is, was, and remains that it was sexual activity without sexual DESIRE. And I stand by that one.
Aw, c’mon. What’s sexual about jackin’ off in public together while you hold hands?
I didn’t say it wasn’t sexual activity, in fact I said outright yes it was sexual activity. I am saying that at no point for either of them was there sexual DESIRE directed at each other.
Unless the premise here is that physical sexual activity can’t possibly happen without specific desire? Which would mean that actually every gay person who’s ever had sex with the opposite gender while closeted is actually bi and a liar because it doesn’t matter that there’s no desire due to only activity mattering? P
Wow, nice argument you made up there
Jesse, what the fuck are you talking about? How many times am I gonna have to tell you motherfuckers I don’t fucking play “I didn’t say you said I said” before you get it through your fucking skulls? I know it’s hard to think when you’re sucking on power tools for fun, but can you at least fucking try?
Except the problem is that Dorothy is now realizing what she didn’t admit to herself at the time: There was sexual desire.
Are you forgetting the very much on-camera and unsolicited pictures of her breasts?
You mean the photos that only showed a very small amount of cleavage?
Sure, except she didn’t think they were unsolicited. She got two pics from Joyce first, then talked to Amber (a bad idea) and was told this was how Gal Pals act and she was making it weird.
Not saying it’s all good, just saying you’re phrasing this like she just randomly decided to cross a boundary. Anything sounds bad when you remove all context.
Unsolicited makes them less gross in general, but doesn’t really change whether they count as cheating on her current relationship.
The bad advice from Amber is a mitigating factor as is her being heavily in denial, but when it comes down to it, it’s still something she did because of her crush on Joyce. Not unforgivable, but not unreasonable for her to see it as a problem.
Sure, but again I was replying to a specific comment above mine and not offering my opinion on whether Dorothy’s feelings are right or wrong in-world.
Small caveat, she was pretty certain that the pics were send to her by mistake so yeah, by most standard they were unsolicited. I don’t have any moral opinion on it,just pointing out what happened.
She straight-up told Amber that they were obviously intended for Joe.
i mean even as a joke, it’s a bit awkward to send a topless pic to someone you know has a bf
Good thing that didn’t happen.
She’s been having a one-sided emotional affair with Joyce, I guess?
No one said it was one sided.
I’d say Joyce is even less aware of it than Dorothy was.
I dunno, sending someone a picture of your tits sounds like textbook cheating in my book, what is cheating to you?
Fun fact, if we WERE counting thought-crimes as cheating, Danny would be a liar here: https://www.dumbingofage.com/2014/comic/book-5/02-threes-a-crowd/disappoint/
Well, she is aiming to be a politician…
Yeah, but she’s doing it all wrong. For starters, she doesn’t even have a wife to cheat on with women half her age.
On review, Dorothy should wait until “women half her age” are the age that she is now, at which point she’d be twice her current age.
Well I’d hope Dorothy waits until she’s at least 36 before she starts sleeping with women half her age.
I already said that, yes.
You can’t be president until you’re 35 anyway, at which point sleeping with women half your age rounded up to the nearest 1yr is legal! So the imaginary situation is sorted out. ezpz
That assumes that after someone runs for a third and then fourth term that anyone is going to pay any attention to that Constitution thing anyway.
I assume that he will not be allowed to do that. Because it’s illegal and I will NOT be accepting that level of shit years before it happens. It’s not normal, it’s not inevitable, there are things we can do to fight it. Don’t obey in advance <3
But muh skibidi pre-compliance…
[/bit]
This. This a thousand times.
We cannot start acting like the constitution and the rule of law no longer matter. That’s how we wind up in a situation where they don’t.
I like Dorothy best. Why do I also like seeing her confusion here?
Because liking a character sometimes entail enjoying seeing them hit themselves against a wall, kind of like having a cat.
… do you mean it’s like watching your cat hit themselves against a wall, or do you mean that having a cat is like hitting yourself against a wall? Because I can read it either way and it still makes sense.
Whichever make you happier
Okay, so maybe it’s a little mean, but when I see a cat run head-first into a wall, it’s definitely gonna make me laugh. I’ll check on the kitty while I’m busting out a proper fortissimo guffaw, of course, because I’m not a monster.
But you have such potential.
Conflict is fun in stories! I think generally most people like when a character has to go through difficult stuff, that’s when the most interesting stuff happens
No no, only #cozy fluffy comfort food media is acceptable.
Dorothy how the hell didn’t you already know that. Girl get it together.
I strongly suspect that she kind of realized what the obvious answer was as she started speaking the question aloud, but then just kept pushing in the vain hope that Danny’s answer would somehow, miraculously, be different.
I think Danny went too far now.
I think he went the appropriate amount giving the circumstances.
Yeah I think I’m thinking along the lines of “but she didn’t actually cheat” so that seems really unnecessary harsh from Danny. But otoh, he was asked a question about cheating. Hmmm
Notes how she did not give any specific just was a vague “How often do you cheat on your partner with same sex people”, like she is assuming that is just a thing bisexuals do.
Yeah, he doesn’t have context for this, he’s asked about “accidentally cheating” which, given his history with Joe, may or may not sound like deflection.
And also, being asked a question that is just a wee bit insulting (I mean, it more or less does play into a stereotype that bi folks can’t be faithful to a single partner since they’re attracted to more than one sex) can definitely provoke a reprisal
But it’s Danny not taking into account something he doesn’t know. Tradition demands we roundly condemn him.
I mean she also implied that bi folk just cant helpcheating on their partners so i think she crossed a line first
being in a relationship, and sending a picture of your boobs to someone else, also in a relatinship, is textbook cheating.
Join me in camp Jesus Fuck Danny, Being a Dick Much? I haven’t seen Danny Dannying it up this bad in a while.
You people make me wanna hit something sometimes.
How about the dance floor? It’s hard to stay mad when you’re dancing.
The idea of dancing in front of other people or being amongst people dancing make me wanna commit atrocities (it’s the autism)
I’m sure your dancing isn’t legally considered an atrocity.
More seriously, every floor is a dance floor if you want it to be one. Even the bathtub.
Yeah you would think that but…
yeah! bust a move! ^^
*plays “Boogie Wonderland” by Earth, Wind & Fire on hacked muzak*
as long as it is a dry tub. don’t dance in the shower, good way to fall in the tub. now sit down dancing while in the bath +1
Don’t be a coward in your own home. Fill the tub with military-grade lubricant and hit the griddy like a thunderstorm.
it wont let me reply to your mssg.
made me chuckle hard
I’m with you on that one, social dancing is a nightmare.
In a mosh pit you can do both!
Um Dorothy is Danny-ing this up mor then Danny. The whole as some one who is bisexual do you cheat on your partner with a small sex crush. I don’t knownif Dorothy meant to phrase it that way but that’s really insulting and plays into untrue stereotype of Bi folks being overly sexual and promiscuous.
So for further context I do hold Dorothy to a slightly higher standard then most characters I mean if any one of characters said that I’d be infuriated but coming from Dorothy it just pisses me off more beacuse she should know better and reading the next strip it’s just alot
…? Are you joking?
Dorothy just walked up and basically said “hey, you’re bi: how often are you allowed to cheat on your partner if you’re bi?” As if that amount is somehow different for bi people.
Danny’s response is appropriate. More than appropriate in fact, since Dorothy’s tone-deaf miscommunication is poking at maybe the single most overdone stereotype about bisexuality (that all bi people are sex-crazed philanderers incapable of committed relationships).
Hi. Bi, poly, woman. Been there, been that, lived it, been beat down in the street for it and kept going.
So now that we have that context laid out:
You can read her comment that way if you want to and I wouldn’t stop you if I could but holy shit, to me that’s just an invented reading, laid over top her words. You honestly interpret an embarrassed – even ashamed! – confession to an old friend and former boyfriend to whom she clearly went for advice as a request for permission? That’s nuts. And I don’t see it in the text. At all.
I mean, right out of the gate, he’s kinda being a dick. But that last line. Un-fucking-called-for.
Scoping it a little back out from this one specific case – wherein damn right she was flirting with her bestie that turns out she actually did have a crush on and didn’t even know and that kinda matters – are women not allowed to flirt with people in your world? Are women not allowed to flirt for friendliness in your world? Are bi women in particular not allowed to flirt in your world, even if they’re already involved? Do we have some etherial level of reserve and decorum we must always meet that straight women need not attain?
Does flirting with someone in that context actually make you a morally bankrupt human being?
Because if it does, holy shit, what kind of Puritan are you, I’m kinda curious about the whole predestination thing. Like, is Danny predestined to be an over-the-top asshole about this here? Is it not his responsibility because of predestination?
Or is maybe his reaction a lot more than a little over the top, to the point of him acting like a real asshole, e.g., Dannying it up?
Him saying “no” is obviously fine, him saying “no, and I think that’s kinda assy of you if you are” would be okay too. He doesn’t have to approve. But leaping straight to “morally bankrupt human being” to someone who was at least some kind of a friend into a few minutes ago is so uncalled for I don’t even know where to start. Particularly not in the context of what’s going on in the real world right now, holy shit.
If she’s morally bankrupt, what scale can there even be for people doing actual harm?
Is he incapable of cutting a little slack? Or is he just lashing out for other reasons?
e.g., once again, being a total dick, and Dannying it up.
Dorothy very specifically used the word “cheat,” not “flirt.” Like I get it, I’m bi and poly too, but I took it as “she said accidentally cheating so that’s what she meant.” What matters isn’t what we the audience define as cheating (I vote no, she didn’t, btw), but that DOROTHY considered it cheating.
Thank you, yes!
As others have said, I also don’t think Dorothy has done anything terribly wrong. She was indulging in playful feelings she didn’t understand and now that she’s put the pieces together, she’s panicking.
Danny doesn’t know that context. He only knows what Dorothy *said* and the only word she used was “cheating”. Adding the word “accidentally” after the fact doesn’t help clarify what’s actually going on: in fact it makes it sound like she’s trying to downplay a very serious thing.
Danny does not have all that context we have. He doesn’t know it’s about some pictures. He was flat-out asked about cheating. He was asked how often (not if, how often) he was unfaithful to his partner.
That response is totally fine. It is a bit extreme for the context of what actually happened, but not explaining what happened is on Dorothy, not on Danny.
The thing is that they aren’t strangers, or casual acquaintances, or even recently new friends. They showed up together with a long, involved history.
And it’s so far out of character for her that he could go, “…okay that sounded really bad to me, so what do you actually mean?” And yeah, I would want and expect someone who has been friends with and out and out involved with someone that long to do.
But instead, it’s be-an-asshole-for-three-panels then cut exactly zero slack. It’s like a quick reversion to Early Strip Danny, when he was an asshole on the regular, and it’s not bad storytelling – he’s in a context with her again which kinda reverts his whole context in general and sometimes people act like that – but he’s still acting like a dick.
There seems to be a culture shock here. Let me illustrate:
…why would anyone flirt if they’re already involved?
Flirting for friendliness?
To me that’s a contradiction in terms.
“…why would anyone flirt if they’re already involved?”
Because they want to.
Because it’s their personality.
Because being nice is sometimes misconstrued as flirting.
Because there’s no harm in flattery and getting your heart fluttering.
Because they’re polyamorous.
Because they and their partner think it’s hot.
“Flirting for friendliness?
To me that’s a contradiction in terms.”
So then, you don’t do that. Put boundaries up that you don’t get involved with people who do that. But understand that other people don’t all subscribe to the idea that flirtation/attraction/excitement about other people constitutes infidelity. It’s a case-by-case thing, not set in stone.
none of these characters have presented as Poly even in the slightest. So yes, ‘flirting’ would be off the table if youre with someone else, thats just basic monogamy.
Thank you, Nymph.
I was otherwise occupied when this comic dropped, but reading the comments, I have been wanting to say something similar.
Couples need to set boundaries. Different people have different definitions of what is and is not acceptable in a relationship, and until the people involved in a relationship decide where those boundaries lie, they are asking for trouble.
Hard agree with both of you.
As the cliche line from so many shows movies and books “it doesnt matter what lights my partners fire, just where they go to douse it.”
To many, this seems to be a weird foreign concept. But it is imho a very healthy and natural one. many of us may not understand why certain things get our engines running, but if we are lucky we get to be with someone who will enjoy the results of the motorway getting lit regardless of how it got done.
Flirting for friendliness? To me that’s a contradiction in terms.
[martial-arts voice] Ah, a student of the fine art of flirting for hostility! A formidable weapon, in skilled hands. I did not have the talent for it myself, I hate to say, and was forced to divert to the school of casual banter for hostility.
I acknowledge that it is a lesser art, but it is one for which I am better suited. I envy you your aptitude.[/martial-arts voice]
But seriously, flirting for friendliness is a very common thing in some communities, particularly queer communities. In my personal experience, ngl, femboys set the standard – with some of them it’s absolutely performance art – but it’s by no means exclusive either to anyone. I’ve absolutely been in mixed to mostly-straight communities where it was a thing, too.
Wow, you put way more of an invented reading in someone else’s comment here. I mean… wow.
Another bi person here—if you hate Danny, fine. But let’s not pretend what Dorothy said wasn’t messed up. “How often do you cheat on your partner with your same-sex crush” is a stereotype that hurts bi people, and yeah, I’d be pissed if someone said that to me. Reframing the context doesn’t make it better—she chose to say it that way, and she should know better. Danny being a dick doesn’t erase that
I don’t actually hate Danny anymore – and haven’t for a while – but holy crow he can be a real dick. He was a real dick a lot more often early on, when I did kinda hate him, but he’s been better lately. Until now, which is a real and highly unwelcome (to me) return to form.
To me Dorothy what she said was the worst thing said here and given what happen she didn’t even bother to apolgize in the next strip and Dorothy has a histoey of apologizing for offending people even when they were assholes to her and I like Dorothy, but what she said infuriated me.
Yeah I think the last time Danny Danned up this much was when talking to Walky. I brought this up then, but it still drives me up the wall when people can’t be bothered to tell you when you’re annoying them but instead just act rude and hope you’ll be discouraged from talking to them ever. Dorothy may be a pain but at least she’s clearly expressing her thoughts and feelings.
Danny has expressed that he doesn’t like Walky many times, to his face and that seems to not discourage him talking to him so. And he doesn’t want Dorothy to not talk to him, he just enjoying getting to put back some things she does, it is something people do sometimes. It is fine.
I think he got annoyed because she reacted badly to him repeating some of what she said to him.
In what respect did she react badly? Serious question, I looked back at those strips and I don’t see it.
It probably is unnecessarily harsh. Danny probably isn’t being purposefully malicious, but Dorothy did absolutely stomp on Danny’s heart (pretty much out of no where from his then naive perspective). I think he is trying to still be friends with Dorothy, but some of that hurt sometimes boils to the surface. Especially when he feels she had talked down to him thereby treating him as dumb or something less capable; once again – a weight.
Also, lets face it – for somebody obsessed with doing right by others, Dorothy treats her lovers as remarkably expendable. Worried about him slowing down your academic career? Dump his butt. Exploring your sexuality? Send nudes to your bff behind his back and angel to replace her boyfriend. She may need to have a personal reconning about that behavior and who better than to give it to her than Danny – whose arc as pretty much been 13 years of him trying to find his identity and love after she shattered his heart, perceptions, and plans.
Dorothy may be bisexual lesbianromantic.
Which is to say she has no real interest in guys romantically.
I think the term is homoromantic regardless of the gender of the person.
It’s all shades of meaning.
“Bisexual Homoromantic” is, at its strictest, in my interpretation, “sexually attracted to two presentations(not necessarily “male+female”), but only romantically attracted to the subject’s own (which, once again, may not overlap with sexual attraction).
Bisexual Lesbianromantic would be “sexually attracted to two sexual presentations(not necessarily “male+female”), only romantically attracted to women.”
I was gonna say that but “Bisexual Lesbianromantic” is fewer syllables than “Bisexual woman-loving-woman” but they’re both ten, and if you pronounce “WLW” as “willow”, “Bisexual WLW” cuts that down to 6.
Thanks for the correction! I now know more.
Bi != two. Bi people have been fighting against that for like forty years now. Bi / pan / poly have broad overlap, all of them can mean someone is attracted to more than two genders.
I strongly disagree. It was shown over and over again how in love she was with Walky, and she was deeply hurt when they split up.
Wanting to prioritize your future and your career doesn’t mean you don’t care about the relationship you had to leave to do so. I think your read on this is off-base.
I don’t think it was Walky she stayed for but Joyce.
Walky is a good friend but does she love him?
No.
Again, I just could not disagree more. I also do think there is a lot of ground between “doesn’t have romantic feelings at all” and “is in love with” even IF she didn’t love him.
Notably: could not disagree more with “but does she love him? No.”
I never suggested she stayed for Walky, so I didn’t feel that was important to respond to.
Okay, so she’s just lying to his face when she says “I love you” to him? That’s stupid.
Does she know what love is compared to Joyce?
What the fuck are you even asking?
@Charles you might be stupid.
And her whole tenor is typically “calm and just a bit condescending, but her wisdom all comes from things like wikipedia.” And like, I get it. But sometimes it’s fine if someone ribs her about it.
In all fairness, not all of that was Dorothy. It’s pretty clear that Danny’s parents openly considered him to be pretty worthless except that he somehow pulled Dorothy.
His emotional dependence on her was not healthy, and he definitely said some shitty things along the way as he healed after they broke up. But for starting off in a pretty shit place he’s come a long way.
Dorothy…is slowly coming to grips with the fact that she’s not as all together and perfect as she wanted to be, or wants other people to think she is.
Nobody is perfect, and the fact that Dorothy understands this isn’t something that should make her feel less. Besides, not everyone who knows her is going to blame her for not being perfect.
Dottie has a habit of picking “fixer upper” partners. She thinks she’s the one who can fix them.
Danny, Walky, Joyce? All people she’s tried to fix and make “Normal” like her. It’s incredibly condescending how much she treats them like children when she’s just as much of a sheltered child as they are.
i said this a while ago here (at least i think i did but i may have dreamt it)
while from the outside her actions may have connotations that look condescending, but her intention and awareness are factors to be considered. i have seen no awareness from dotty that she is aware her actions could be seen that way.
In fairness to Danny, Dorothy did just pop into his room out of nowhere and ask him how much of a cheating bi he is. Even if she was really asking about herself, that can come off as an immensely insulting stereotype.
That was my first impulse, because I took what Dorothy said to be “how often do you ‘cheat’ on your partner *by having* a same-sex crush?” which, come on, it’s not cheating to feel attracted to someone and it certainly doesn’t make you morally bankrupt! But looking at it again, an equally plausible reading is “how often do you cheat on your partner with a person of the same sex that you’re crushing on?” ie, can I fuck Joyce, which I can understand his more vehement reaction to.
Yeah, it’s really easy to read “I may have committed some light treason” energy into her question to Danny
I read this the same way–that the crush itself was what she was calling cheating. But “with a same sex crush” is pretty ambiguous and I get why a lot of people (including probably Danny) read it the other way.
How is that even a question? Danny can be awkward, but cheating isn’t a thing he’d do. At worst, he wouldn’t recognize that someone was flirting with him.
Good news, Dorothy! You’re not too ethical to be President after all!
The ethical bar to be president of united states at this point is below the marianas trench resting in the earth’s mantle and getting lower every passing day.
President Dorothy Keener-616: LAUNCH THE SENTINELS!
Didn’t the first several of those guys own slaves and sponsor the genocide of indigenous populations?
Yes, but that was before we knew it was wrong.
Some people had already figured it out. Others didn’t want to.
this. there were abolitionists in british parliament already at that time. there were catholic monks writing against it. just because the society at large seemed to accept it. there have always been those who understood the inherent evil of slavery
I see that I may have left out the implied /s.
no i just am bad at detecting /s it in the written word, one of the reasons for my sloppyness. i hate using the written word to communicate, to easy to have misunderstandings
Which is a little ironic, since we have all the time we need to type the exact words we mean to say, in the way we mean to say them, and then others have all the time they need to read them, comprehend them, and come to reasonable conclusions about their meanings, without adding in extra text and subtext that never existed.
And on days like today, we get people willingly refusing to acknowledge that lack of urgency, sputtering out barely coherent responses as if you’re confronting them face to face in an alley. Not that you have, it’s just happening and they know who they are.
That bar is now in the lower mantle.
someone get james cameron in a submarine, we need him to go raise the bar again
This just in: Worrying that you’ll cheat on your partner accidentally because you’ve been exposed to bi stereotypes your whole life is now on the same level as war crimes!
Everyone hide your delicates and clutch your pearls.
I think, in case that sarcastic dramatism doesn’t put it across, that she’s nowhere near as ‘unethical’ as she would have to be to be comfy as president of the US.
I can’t find my pearls.
Is it okay to do it the other way around?
Nymph I think you are responding to a joke like it was serious.
Maybe lmao
This comment section is just Poe’s Lawing all over the place.
You know it’s bad when when my stoner ass is making perfect sense by comparison.
LOL
That’s not railroading, Dorothy. That’s well-earned ribbing.
How do you accidentally cheat? I mean, maybe if you were both walking around naked and one of you tripped over?
I am guessing she is referring to emotional cheeting? But also it is clear she didn’t think this through very well.
By having the most puritanical definition of cheating ever conceived of
The only thing that I could see is the washing machine incident and tbh even that feels like a stretch to me
Sending sexy photos to someone who isn’t your partner, without that being explicitly within your relationship boundaries, may not be “cheating” but it’s not okay
Wait, do you really think that it is puritanical to say that a person in a committed monogamous relationship should not send unsolicited nudes (or nude-adjacent) pics to a third party?
Or even solicited nudes?
I mean, it’s fine if your partner’s okay with it, but without discussing it with him?
add that the “nudes” are not unsolicited but were a response to “nudes” sent by your best friend.
to me under shirt overbra is a sexy pic but not a nude, a nude has to show the bits that need to be blurred on safe search. but i am old enough to remember a time when FHM and MAXIM were on the front display of magazine racks and playboy and penthouse were at the back of the rack. when easily 60% of the rack was what the modern puritans would call pornagraphic materials but were available for the perusal and purchase by 12 year olds (again not the true 18+ ones but “life style mags” in whiich no one was allowed to have more than 2 sq ft of fabric on their bodies.
i get that we have come to use “nudes”to cover the general idea of images sent with the intention of causing arousal. but i feel it has become a pocket dimension sledgehammer catch all when all we need is a Toffee mallet, and that loss of context causes misunderstanding and confusion.
i’ll step off the soapbox now, need it to finish my derby racer
What does your wind tunnel test facility look like?
i live in the south central prairies of kanuckistan, i just go outside.
the real issue is finding a hill big enough to race on, they closed the arlington st bridge and its the closest thing in 2 provinces of me to a slope
Speaking from personal experience, participating in ERP without thinking to clear it with your girlfriend counts.
Whoooo, been there, buddy.
At this point, the most embarrassing part is that it wasn’t even good RP.
Double oof.
Can confirm, I had to be the bearer of bad news for a friend after discovering her at the time boyfriend had been engaging in very, very, VERY intense kink ERP with another woman behind her back. Turns out he tried to get my friend to agree to a poly relationship with the other woman, my friend refused, and uh… yeah…
i mean i can totally imagine danny awkwardly accidentally flirty with another person but being flustered and telling his partner right away or just telling another guy he’s hot but not rly doing anything more otherwise but some ppl are stricter about what constitutes cheating since ’emotional cheating’ is a term
Flirting without realizing you were flirting.
In Dorothy’s mind, the things she was doing with Joyce were platonic. She has just realized they subconsciously weren’t. I think “accidentally cheating” is a suitable definition, albeit a weird and needlessly vague one.
@ Jon walky specifically aside, i’d think more partners would probably be a bit more weirded out/uncomfortable about the laundry room thing versus like just a photo even if it was a ‘teaching ‘moment lol(although i don’t think she was hooking up wit hwakly at that point)
Is this a learning step for Dorothy to become Its Walky Dorothy?
Dorothy: I can do war crimes?
Yikes how bad is Its Walky Dorothy?
IW Dorothy willingly goes to an Apocalypse World with the intent of fixing it.
How bad was It’s Walky Dorothy? She killed Joyce to get Walky.
You can’t prove I’m wrong without reading It’s Walky. I recommend starting at https://www.itswalky.com/comic/and-now/ .
She merges with the main antagonist.
No offense to all the fans and the author of It’s Walky, but “how bad is It’s Walky Dorothy?” can have the same answer as “how bad is It’s Walky?” if I got into more depth.
Idk Danny, you were pretty touch and go with Amazi-girl and Ethan
Y’know I’m not upset at the actions or unfaithfulness of Danny or Dorothy, bit I am upset at how unfair and boundary crossing of Danny Dorothy is being. She doesn’t seem to care about being his friend and isn’t nice to him. She dumped him and he was bummed out but eventually moved on. He’s a good egg and is being very kind not telling her to gtfo and leave him alone.
What boundary has Danny set that Dorothy is crossing?
Dorothy thought Danny was lame.
Now he has a uke and she’s been left in the dust.
No no, Danny is an uke.
The Tao of Uke.
I realize uke starts with a vowel, but it sounds like it starts with a y not being used as a vowel, so Ima gunna claim it should read “is a uke.”
If you can become one with the uke can you play it with one hand clapping?
My guess is that Dorothy feels second-hand guilt about the laundry incident.
Or the much more recent incident where she sended a tit pic whole actually being in a relationship?
I think being the cause of hearing your crush orgasm in the middle of the laundry room, because you told her too, ranks a bit more on the creeper shart then sending a titty pic.
But this is about which one she would think of as cheating not which one you think are creepy.
i think that was when she was single so wouldnt count as cheating
i would agree
In fact, there’s no reasonable way to disagree. You’d have to be borderline braindead to think a single person can cheat on their SO, just a dribbling mess of a brainlet. An absolute, unambiguous dipshit of the highest order, undeserving of the title “sentient being”, if we’re being kind about it.
I consider that a challenge.
Why does it matter if you’re a single person cheating on your SO or if you are a bunch of people cheating? If you promised your now dead SO you would never hold hands with anyone else again, is it not possible to cheat on that promise? Do we know that SO isn’t an abbreviation for Stupidtest Online?
Well, okay, maybe “sentient being” is being rather kind.
it isnt much of a challenge, getting a sexual partner is cheating on your right hand after all
Fuck, you’re both right. I retract my blanket statement and return it with a sticky note that says “You promised Lenore, so it counts.”
Dorothy is tripping over every single broom on the way out of the closet.
Pffft, this comment is perfect XD
She threw a couple of rakes and hoes in there for good measure.
Dorothy, you sweet dingbat, you did not know it was a crush. Relax.
All she has to do is confess to Walky. Who will want to see the titty pix, even though she’s right there in-person. She’s much more angsting over it than he will.
Is everyone who’s saying Dorothy only did emotional cheating forgetting that she sent titty pics to her same-sex crush or
For real. It’s not as bad as sleeping with someone but it’s not okay
I’m telling you people, she just blatantly cheated on Joyce, her one true love, with her boy toy Walky.
Like, Danny is maybe my least favorite of the entire cast, bless him, but even I’m like “Tragic! The Worst Person You Know Just Made a Great Point”
The worst person? Really? Have you met Billie?
“The worst person” part is a joke. I know he’s not morally the worst person in the cast by far. He’s just my least favorite.
I’d argue Mary is the absolute worst, tbh.
The “dottie can do no wrong” club is fighting for its life right now.
Yeah, all zero of ’em.
I don’t think that club exists?
In contrast, I am seeing a lot of people in the comments here very eager to cast her actions and motivations in the worst light possible, which seems hardly needed right now? Like she’s legitimately danning it up right now and has got herself into a right mess, there’s no need to make up reasons to criticise her.
Not to be hyperbolic, but I think Dorothy’s behavior might resemble that of an ambitious teenager who knows less than she thought. I know that’s a controversial thing to say.
That was an emotional titty pic, same umbrella.
dont forget mutually getting off in the laundry room, but they wern’t both dating people at that time. At least I dont remember them dating, it was forever ago
i feel the context that joyce went first is being ignored or discounted. it cannot be as it is the instigator. i do not believe dotty would ever have sent joyce said bra pic if joyce had not sent one first.
if the pop culture i grew up with is to be “believed” sending bra pics and other things that would be considered flirty/gay coded, is a natural and normal part of female friendships. and i could see dotty having internalized that it is something girls do with their friends, just not her as she didnt previously have female friends to do so with.
That’s certainly the argument that Amber made.
It’s being discounted because Dorothy herself knew the pics weren’t meant for her. She tells Amber the pictures were obviously meant for Joe and then followed her advice to send some back justifying it as “just kidding lolz”
It’d be one thing if Dorothy thought the pictures were meant for her in a “girl friendship!” kind of way, but she knew they were not.
Mostly there’s a big wrinkle in how she had not consciously confronted her feelings at that time. Things get kind of messy when you start having to evaluate conscious vs. unconscious motivation. Like yeah she had to take a while and go to someone else to help rationalize it, which should’ve been signal enough to her not to do it. But a bad feeling that needed rationalizing away could’ve come just as easily from a place of “this is beyond my comfort zone and I need to loosen up.” Something that may have been reinforced by how casually Jennifer also took the prospect of sending a cleavage shot on the spur of the moment, indicating that it doesn’t actually have the gravity her bad feeling was investing in it.
I’d be a lot more down on it if she did it now because she’s finally more aware of what’s going on in her head regarding Joyce.
lol ‘accidental’ cheating makes me think of that ‘accidental sex’ comic XD;
How well did Dorothy actually do in gender studies? Also as a bi person I think Danny does a pretty good job of summing it up. Great job Danny for Danny-ing this up.
Being able to say the right things about abstract concepts is, unfortunately, not the same as applying that grace and understanding to yourself.
Damn, Dorothy is a mess. First the stereotype, then tries to soften the weird boundary-crossing with “accidentally”? Dot, you wanted jugs so you deliberately offered some 8 ounce cans.
I’m standing by that one. I shouldn’t, but I am.
I don’t see Dorothy as having been conservative about Danny’s sexuality. She seemed really supportive, so I don’t get his read
*condescending not conservative
Yeah I don’t get it either, I really do not understand his reaction here, it just feels like he’s being a giant fucking asshole for no reason.
Kinda seems like he’s letting something out that he’d been keeping in for a while, to me. What’s she gonna do, break up with him?
Dorothy could’ve definitely been more humble about that explanation back in the day: if you go back and read it, it definitely has tones of “poor silly Danny who doesn’t know as much as I do”. Not in a malicious way, just in a classic Dorothy know-it-all way.
And sure, Danny could choose to be nicer. I’m not mad at him for some light snark though. His ex girlfriend broke up with him abruptly (the FIRST NIGHT after he’d followed her to college) and implied it was because he was holding her back. Danny then went out and got his shit together, did a bunch of personal growth, and figured out who he was.
And now his ex shows up at his door, a complete mess, basically asking him if she’s allowed to cheat on her partner now that she’s realized she’s bi. Danny teasing her about her previous I-know-everything demeanor with him is pretty understandable.
Upvote
Next thing you know she’ll ask to borrow his shoes.
Oh no. That was shit. And not just for the “my stated reasons for breaking up with you were bs” thing.
Remember she chose Danny because according to Walky only the most pathetically effeminate of girly men would possibly own more than one pair of shoes.
And somehow Dorothy took that as gospel.
What in the world are you talking about?
https://www.dumbingofage.com/2012/comic/book-3/01-if-the-shoes-split/girly/
They’re exaggerating this scene.
Thank you, Taffy.
@Buli-Buli: you may be interested in this additional link:
https://www.dumbingofage.com/2013/comic/book-3/01-if-the-shoes-split/manhood/
(Should she have challenged Walky when he said it, sure. But also he was mildly frantic about his missing shoe and she felt guilty about it getting lost, so.)
(Also there’s just no reason to actually think Dorothy said anything in the gap between the strip Taffy linked and its follow-up other than “oh, a man-sized person I know who has multiple pairs of shoes that might fit you?” — because the other boy she knows at this point is Joe, and he’s a much less likely match for Walky’s shoe size than Danny.)
And then Danny was weirdly racist to Walky, so maybe everyone in the comic called “Dumbing of Age” has issues? Just a thought.
relevant comic: https://www.dumbingofage.com/2012/comic/book-3/01-if-the-shoes-split/mowgli/
Also: Maybe Dorothy knew Danny would have more than one pair of shoes because she dated him and it had nothing to do with the girly comment? Again, just thinking outloud here.
I bet Dorothy knew Danny and Joe both owned multiple pairs of shoes, and just didn’t think Joe was as likely to have shoes close enough to Walky’s size for them to be wearable.
Like, for serious, Willis is the one who’s jokingly calling Danny a little bit femme. That last panel is not Dorothy’s imagination, it’s a smashcut to Danny’s actual actions at that moment for comedic effect.
Exactly this.
I honestly have no problem with admitting when Dorothy has been in the wrong, but the specific wrongdoings folks keep accusing her of is always:
[footage not found]
It’s like people are using 2017 OneyPlays hypotheticals as a news source, sometimes.
But she didn’t stop at the shoes. Then she wanted his Amazigirl. https://www.dumbingofage.com/2012/comic/book-3/01-if-the-shoes-split/popular/
@Taffy yeeeep. Like, she’s NOT perfect! She’s so far from perfect. Off the top of my head and recently, how about:
— Trying to get back together with Walky while he and Lucy were on the rocks!
— Telling Joe to “find different prey”! There are layers of bad to that interaction!
@Clif: I love Danny in all the strips in that sequence. I also love Dorothy in them. Particularly when Mike points at her and she automatically waves and then mentally slaps herself in the face for it.
Yeah, Mike was at his finest too. He knows Danny isn’t going to believe him, but he knows he can wind Dorothy up and she’ll do more damage than he could.
But the thing I think people are currently taking Danny to task are missing is that this is how Danny and Dorothy interact.
Yeah.
I just don’t get a VILLAIN reading from either of them here. Danny’s being unusually sardonic, but I do think it’s unusual because he hasn’t done a lot of interacting with Dorothy or Walky lately (they both kind of bring it out in him). Dorothy is being a Grade A Mess. But neither of them is even being “a little jerky” to each other right now, much less mean.
I love that first panel. Something captured in the stances and expressions.
Boy, Danny comes off pretty unlikable here. Holding onto this and being so ready to jump, for one thing. For another, looking back…Dorothy was being calm but she wasn’t being condescending? He was being oblivious, which was exasperating, but she spoke directly and precisely to his questions and thoughts.
Dorothy’s line in panel 2 could almost be self-deprecating humor playing off of what Danny said, but with the rest of the strip I’m going with obliviously sincere.
In what way did she cheat? By sending the boob pics? That was a complete misunderstanding and doesn’t even count. Heck, Dorothy didn’t even realize she HAD a crush on Joyce until well after the pics were taken and sent.
That’s what she means by accidentally.
Joyce sending her pic to Dorothy was a misunderstanding, Dorothy sending hers to Joyce was completely on purpose. It was Amber idea but she could have very easily just, not do it.
dotty would never have sent the pics with out joyce sending first even if it was a misunderstanding. yes dotty has oppourtunities to not do so, but she never would have been prompted, tempted, whatever we wanna call it if joyce hadnt sent first. i do not say this to remove fault from dotty entirely here, but she CANNOT be held as solely in the wrong here. yes it is messy, yes it is awkward, yes there are boundary issues here. these are 18-20 year olds, learning,dealing with ongoing chemical changes in their brains, unlearning the bad habits their parents taught them (if lucky), learning that real life isnt a movie/tv show/book/cave painting.
The fact that Joyce texted the photos first only matters in the context of Joyce and Dorothy dealing with the fallout from the texted pictures. It doesn’t matter in the context of Dorothy and Walky’s relationship. Dorothy is wholly responsible for her response to the pictures.
it does matter. dorothys action does not happen with out 3 things.
1. joyce texting her pics. with out this initiating event none of this is happening, there is no conflict and dotty doesnt intensify her spiral. it doesnt fully exonerate her but it does provide context and remove some responsibility. the phrase “we have no control over how someone else sees/interprets/reacts to our actions” does not absolve us of our responsibility for triggering such actions.
2. dotty is spiralling. her decision making processes are not working properly, they havent been since raidah, this is leading her to act rashly and in ways she otherwise wouldnt. again not absolution but mitigating truth.
3. amber pressures her to. she is pressured by a friend to do so. she is peer pressured into it. this is big to me, i’ve dealt with a lot of bullies bullying and peer pressure shit. that shit is tough to deal with when your head is stable, let alone when your decision making processes are messed up.
again dorothy isnt 100% innocent, she had oppourtunities to make other choices, it is true. although when viewed in the greater context there are matters that reduce her responsability. she doesnt exist in a vacuum none of us do. i do not wish to put words in your mouth, but the argument used here is one i see from people in kanuckistan that do not want to accept instititional cause and effect with events in this country. so sorry i do not want to put words in anyones mouths but it is a sore area for me
If you don’t want to put words in my mouth, then, respectfully, I ask that you don’t (you absolutely just did). I think there are a lot of flaws in your reasoning, but I’ll wish you a good day rather than keep arguing and have my positions taken in bad faith.
as i poorly said i did not mean to phrase things as putting words in anyones mouths let alone yours. hopefully our interpretation of the next strip aligns
It would have been a misunderstanding, if she didn’t repeatedly try and send them. Unless you’re joking and I just wooshed it.
Sympathy via light physical contact?
Dina understands it too.
Dorothy sends one tit pick as a joke and has an existential crisis. I can’t imagine what would happen if she actually cheated. She might die.
I think at this point we can safely assume it wasn’t actually as a joke.
I guess Dorothy had a good run then.
RIP Dorothy Margot Keener
Died of Girl Saw My Boobies Disease
Big same.
I think it still is a joke…?
I think she wouldn’t have sent it if it didn’t seem like “the right thing to do” to her in some manner. I’m sure it wasn’t shown, but maybe she thought Joyce would freak out when realising she sent pics to the wrong person? (And she did not realise yet… soooo…)
I believe her feelings were a (too) close second motivator, and she is afraid that it was subconsciously her real intent.
The joke was an excuse to keep her denial in place.
The feelings were the real motivation.
i don’t think she was it as a joke, nor at the time she sent it did she veiw it as a “thirst trap”. she is suffering from an ongoing mental health issue here (like 2 months now or however long it has been since riadah was an asshole to her). i would hazard professor x would tell us she sent it (after amber pushed her to) as an expected response. should she have realized how it could look/appear, if she was in a healthier headspace probably, but she isnt in a healthy headspace right now. it feels to me, mean and disproportionate to expect her to be making perfect decisions and be morally flawless
Girlie, you were 3 millimeters from kissing Ethan after y’all’s comic store date, that’s at least a “mostly never” lol
Wow, this comic is DETERMINED to speed run Dorothy to a total breakdown XD
it seems Amber became fed up with her SMB run,
so she moved on to trying to optimize Dorothy’s Total Breakdown %any
This breakdown has been coming for a while.
She has very strict standards (for herself) and a tendency to binary thinking that rivals the old Jedi Order.
Yeah and now that it’s hit, she’s just shooting speed running it.
this breakdown has been ongoing. present tense.
Her breakdown has been going on since her perfectly calculated plan to take down Blaine backfired on her because she didn’t take into account how defiant Blaine could be, opting to grab Joyce and use her as a hostage rather than surrender to the police after his kidnapping plot failed.
sometimes these comment threads pick hills to die on that show how disconnected I am from the mainstream.
cheating? for a picture of tits sent to a bestie in response to tits sent to you? Y’all are strange. Kill the cop in your head.
I mean, that’s how she frames it, herself.
I think “cheating” is a strong word, but that if she does really feel strongly about it, the thing to do would be to talk to Walky and try to establish what is and isn’t kosher as a couple. That’s a whole lot healthier than what she’s panicking about.
Exactly
The picture was not detached from context. Nobody’s being a cop, they’re admitting the events of the comic took place in the comic.
Context? What is that? Some kind of fancy smancy hippie new age nonsense? In my days we consumed present events completely untethered from past experiences and we Like it.
And it was upfill both ways.
“cheating? for a picture of tits sent to a bestie in response to tits sent to you? Y’all are strange. Kill the cop in your head.”
more like “Sending a tit pic to your crush who has a boyfriend while youre also dating someone” and the “in response to tits sent to you” also ignores the fact joyce clearly didnt mean to send it to her at all.
Im more shocked by how many of the people in the comments here are fine with their partners (or themselves and not telling their partner) sending nudes/tit pics to other people, would definitely be a deal breaker in my relationship, especially if i knew they had a crush on said person
A. I am glad Danny’s giving her a little grief at the beginning, that’s not unearned, even if I tend to give Dorothy’s intentions the benefit of the doubt.
B. I don’t think Dorothy is really giving Danny enough information here, but it’s also an odd question. I think there are absolutely people in queer circles with relaxed attitudes about racy pictures, etc, for a variety of reasons, not the least of which being related to euphoria about getting to express our sexuality in a way that brings joy, but that’s something that is, when done correctly, something done with consent all around, and with understandings between partners.
I don’t *think* Walky is going to think of this as cheating, per se, but I do think he’s going to have to try to digest it, and I think he’s going to be hurt about dishonesty related to the act more than the act itself.
I think Walky might kind get it? Like he’d simultaneously be hurt, but also be like “oh, a situation I teased you and Joyce about on multiple occasions. Yeah I see why you wouldn’t tell me.”
Walky? He’s likely to react more like this
In the end it’s Walky, he’s not going to give a shit about a cleavage shot to Joyce, whom he already calls Dorothy’s girlfriend.
So glad someone is calling the picture what it actually is—it was cleavage, not a “tit/titty pic.” She was covered up more than lingerie models.
The real issue for the Walky/Dorothy relationship won’t be the pictures themselves, but the implications. She sent those pictures while in denial about her bisexuality and her crush on Joyce. She also got back together with Walky while in denial about her bisexuality and her crush on Joyce.
How much of that decision was also driven by her denial? Will Walky think it was? Will she think it was?
I do not see walky responding like that at all, walky hides it but is capable of extremely high emotional intelligence, and the moment he sees dottys concerns he will very likely be incredibly supportive and understanding. could this become a big thing for them, yes. will it i don’t think so, and that is cause i see walky as being fully able to give dotty what she needs to gain perspective, grow and heal
Walky’s response is really only a small part of that. Even there he’ll likely be supportive and understanding, but he also doesn’t really think he’s good enough for Dorothy and this may play off that. “Of course that explains why you turned back to me. You were just trying to deny your real feelings. You’ve figured it out now. You don’t need to stay with me.”
The other question of course is how much that denial really did play into going back to Walky.
I can’t believe that Dorothy danned herself
jesus christ dorothy
Dorothy, girl, you gotta stop basing your understanding of how sexuality works off of bad tv shows.
“What? Queerness has ethics and morality also?!”
So many comments saying that sending suggestive photos to someone you have feelings for while you’re both in monogamous relationships with other people isn’t cheating or even “doing anything wrong” is making me feel like a crazy person…. hello????? Yes it absolutely is??? If Joe sent half-naked photos to Liz right now most people would rightfully consider that cheating. Omg.
I don’t understand where all that grief is coming from in the first two panels from Danny. I thought that Dorothy handled that pretty well, but he’s all like “Oh yeah well last semester you tried to explain something to me that you hadn’t personally experienced, AND used innocuous physical contact to express sympathy. HOW DO YOU LIKE THAT???” Like wtf did she do wrong in that scenario?
Wrong by what metric?
He quite literally says out loud that her allyship was performative and condescending, which she subsequently goes on to prove by repeating the single worst stereotype about bi people in an attempt to find an excuse for sending Joyce a picture of her cans.
If she first said what she said on the last few panels AND then Danny responded like this, I would understand. But I think she did a good job in her original interaction that’s being flashbacked! Like yeah, she was calm. Should she have instead been like “OMG YOU’RE BI WAIT FUCK DON’T PANIC WE CAN FIX THIS DON’T PANIC DANNY!”? It just seems like a random “Fuck you for being calm about things; not so calm now eh?”, which I’d expect from Jennifer but not Danny.
If I had to guess I’d say it’s Danny’s lingering resentment at being immediately dumped at college plus Dorothy minimising his own bi crisis with some know-it-all Wikipedia spiel.
Even in the original scene, he doesn’t seem too impressed. He ends with saying he’d rather go learn more from a non-zero.
What counts as cheating comes down to the partners involved. I highly doubt Joe would view this as cheating, and he can likely talk Dorothy down, but what matters at the moment is that *she* feels like she cheated. That’s what needs to be addressed and worked with.
I agree… Danny is acting much… ruder… than the situation calls for.
When he came to Dorothy to ask about his bisexuality, Dorothy mostly handled it in a pretty straight-forward manner. She was honest and comforting to a degree (talking about all the ‘intermediates’ between straight and gay.) Danny just comes across as a jerk in the first panels.
Since yesterday, Danny was already showing a malicious interest in screwing Dorothy.
No, that’s not the truth.
He deserves this. Their relationship is pretty one sided in Dorothy’s favor. This may be the one time he gets to be smug talking to her he’ll ever get.
Yeah it really feels like Dorothy takes Danny for granted and uses him in a Raidah sort of way. He was really uncomfortable exploring his sexuality and wasn’t sure about bringing it up with Dorothy. How much has she just hung out or been pleasant with him “as friends” since?
damn danny remembers that conversation so unfavorably to dorothy
I feel like the definition of bisexuality was kind of useful to a guy who didn’t know the word before then lol. And after that she does admit that everything she knows about this she read & that he should talk to someone else who’s bi or gay (alternatively, his girlfriend), which doesn’t feel condescending to ME but I genuinely just think Danny wanted to needle Dorothy when given a chance. He’s usually a nice guy but there’s some points where he’s still a real dick (which is good that’s a fun character)
I think it’s the bit where she name-drops the Kinsey Institute that comes across as condescending. She even leads with “Danny, you know [XYZ fact Danny obviously doesn’t know], right?”
She could’ve opened that same page of the discussion with the same content but with a more accessible approach (I.e. “bisexuality can mean a lot of things, it doesn’t invalidate your current feelings or relationship, in fact there’s even a number scale for it”).
Also I like how both this strip and last strip just add even more evidence to my ‘Dorothy has autism’ headcanon.
Same
Do you mind explaining cuz I don’t get it.
To add onto what Li said below, last strip Danny made a binocular vision joke. Dorothy’s response was to correct him, which to me comes off as her taking his joke very literally.
To explain further, I’ve honestly been anticipating Dorothy coming to grips with being autistic because when Sarah suggested it, Dorothy’s response was surprisingly… mad, and she rebuffed it by saying “I can’t be autistic, I UNDERSTAND people”. And honestly I feel like a lot of events in the storylines since then just put in bread crumbs that Dorothy is definitely neurodivergent, she just has some internalized abelism because she was so good at masking and working hard in school, which are very key (especially for women) for sliding under the radar as far as being recognized as being neurodivergent.
For example, most people don’t practice sympathetic physical contact. Unless they do, in which case I guess I’ve been missing out on some practice runs… but basically, Dorothy feeling the need to practice social routines, cues, and such comes off as more signs that she’s just very good at masking.
Recently I’ve realized I am kind of Insecure about jokes. I find myself doing kind of a lot of reassuring other people that something someone ELSE said was just a joke, which I think is a… bit of a coping mechanism. Since it functionally lets me make sure it was indeed a joke without asking >.>
Yeah, recent strips definitely seem like Dorothy is being written as autistic now. There’s things from earlier in the comic that could be interpreted that way, but it seems more intentional now.
I learned I’m autistic last year, and when I looked back at some stories I had written before, I was like, “Okay, so… I have never written an allistic main character…”
Oh yeah, big time.
@AnonGrouch it’s a lot of things, but I think most specifically her adherence to rigid categories. Her insistence that she’s practiced sympathetic physical contact too much to be bad at it, too.
I think of when she said “I understand people” in response to the joking insinuation of tism.
Oh yeah, there’s more beats throughout the comic! But I was constraining myself to just from the last couple of strips.
I’ve been enjoying the interconnect web of Dorothy’s refusal to acknowledge potentially autistic traits in herself. She’s become a lot more interesting.
Haha! That’s true. Somehow Dorothy was never in the exact same box as Lucy for me, where I found her too bland to have strong feelings about, but it probably helps that the commentariat has never been what the kids call “normal” about Dorothy since she first dumped Danny, so at the very least there were always interesting (if wild) conversations about her going on…
But since the timeskip, her increased dysfunctionality has been like spice, and since I started watching her for ND traits, she’s got a lot more interesting as a character. A lot more… relatable orz
Also: Lucy isn’t in that box for me anymore and she hasn’t been for a long time! But she was in there for a good while..
Her brain is going to be really annoying about this huh. Fine. I hate it but Dorothy isn’t exactly good at accepting grey areas when it comes to her personal actions. At least it’s consistent.
Shoulda gone to Roz, Dotty. She might be more willing to give you the absolution you crave
Some of yall are reading a very different comic. Woof.
— Does Dorothy think cheating is a fundamental part of being bi?
No, of course not. Obviously not. She phrased her question poorly — surprise! — but what she means to ask Danny is obviously more akin to, “As a fellow late-blooming bi person, have you ever accidentally flirted with someone you didn’t know you were attracted to?”
But a.) she’s spiraling, and b.) it’s much funnier this way.
— Is Danny being a jerk?
Honestly I think there’s some self-criticism in this comic from Willis themself; I think Dorothy’s strip with Danny was meant to be her being a Good Ally, and it’s only in retrospect (or maybe as a result of reactions to the strip) that Willis was like, “Oh dang, I absolutely had Dorothy straightsplain bisexuality to my new bi dude, whoops.”
As for the rest of the conversation: Danny is just reacting to the words Dorothy is saying! I doubt he thinks she means to imply that all bi people are cheaters, either, but he can’t read her mind and he doesn’t know what’s been going on with her.
— Was it wrong for Dorothy to send Joyce a lewd?
It would be wrong for her to do it now, because now she’s fully cognizant of her feelings for Joyce, and she no longer has anxiety screaming at her that the Normal, Platonic Thing to Do is to send Joyce a lewd.
But I think it’s a stretch to call the one photo she sent, under the circumstances in which she sent it, “cheating”.
Most of all what she should do is have a conversation with both Walky and Joyce where she owns up to it.
— Are you, Li, a Dorothy apologist?
Probably by some standards! I don’t think she’s incapable of ever being in the wrong, but I do think most of the things folks tend to bring up as Dorothy’s worst misdeeds are… at the very least, blown out of proportion.
Dorothy killed Mufasa.
Damn you, Dorothy!!!!
Mufasa had it coming.
Dorothy has been hoping to run the country, and The Lion King teaches us that killing Mufasa is an important part of that.
I snickered.
I do have a million objections to people sending other people lewds (starting with its unsafe, btw) but people going after Dorothy feels like people calling to impeach Clinton with no one trying to impeach the trumpster who rages real havoc on the world.
It’s a unclear boundary thing at best, a „shit Dorothy you though yourself so self-aware wtf are you doing?“ as a normal reaction, but this shitstorm about cheating makes no sense to me. Are you all in Dorothy‘s headspace right now?
Yeah. I winced when I saw this comment on Patreon last night because immediately I knew the comments today would be full of people pouncing on Danny’s comedically misinformed take in that last panel, which is based both on Dorothy’s guilt-ridden misrepresentation of what she did and also on her poor wording overall, and go “See???? The comic agrees with me that Dorothy is history’s greatest monster.”
Media literacy is hard.
This COMIC not this COMMENT, sigh
I agree. (And it’s pure coincidence that we all have the same Danny Gravatar.)
Your addendum got a sensible chuckle out of me. I liked the brief image of a circle of Danny avatars all agreeing that Dorothy isn’t actually the worst person in the world.
If Dorothy had laid out her question as you said (which I agree is closer to what she meant), Danny would also be able to share his related experience, with his feelings for Ethan emerging when he was dating AG. I hope the conversation continues so Dorothy’s question can be reframed.
Also, looking back on the strips from when Danny was coming to Dorothy about advice, she did kind of miss the mark on what a big emotional deal it was for him to be realizing this about himself… which she understands better now. This isn’t a major fault, but I can see how it could have felt dismissive to Danny, and possibly to Willis looking back in a writer perspective.
Oh for sure. 100%!
I think a more accurate description of where Dorothy actually was mentally would probably be… that phenomenon where you nervously try to come out to a straight friend, and that friend goes, “Oh, I knew,” even though they didn’t actually know, because they’re just in such a hurry to make sure YOU know this is totally okay and not a big deal and hasn’t at all changed how they see you?
It can be a REALLY crummy thing to hear for a bunch of reasons, even though imho it comes from a good place.
Two things can be true! Dorothy can have been trying her best in that scene and it can STILL have been less than awesome for Danny — even, dare I say, crummy.
Also while I thought (and still kinda think) there’s a very funny symmetry in having both Jennifer and Danny be such disaster bis that they don’t even know bisexuality is a real thing — welp. Other bi people are well within their rights to find that irritating, especially since the third major out bi character at the time was Ruth, and she wasn’t exactly rushing to claim the label either. (It was a “lesbian” pact she had with Jennifer, after all.)
…
I wonder if this isn’t also being reframed in part because of the sliding timescale. Sadly skepticism over the reality and validity of bisexuality hasn’t really gone anywhere? But it sure FEELS like we should all know what the word is and that it’s a real thing in 2025, doesn’t it.
Even back in that scene, Danny shows a bit of the same reaction: “No offense, but I think I’d rather hear about this from a non-zero then”.
https://www.dumbingofage.com/2015/comic/book-5/03-the-butterflies-fly-away/kinsey/
I think it’s a stretch to say that was meant to be him expressing annoyance though, his expression is completely neutral as he says it.
I read it as pretty neutral at the time, but I think this recontextualizes it a bit.
Yeah, but I think that’s retconned recontextualization, is all. I think this comic is taking advantage of Danny’s wording there to make a stronger criticism of Dorothy now, in 2025 (or 2024, when the strip was written) than Willis originally intended Danny to be delivering back when that original strip was written.
Yeah, I’m not sure she’s even thinking of the stereotypes of bi people being cheaters, she’s looking excuse her own behavior: “Do other bi people screw up like I did while figuring themselves out?”
But the way she phrases it, Danny’s interpretation is perfectly reasonable.
Absolutely!
I think he knows her well enough to not seriously think she was TRYING to say “as a bi person, how often do you cheat?” but those are more or less the words that came out of her mouth, lmao. How else was he supposed to react?
yes this, she is spiralling, and it is effecting her decision making ability.
given what dorothy has said, nothing danny is saying is out of line at all. He doesnt have the context.
It’s not being bi that makes people seek out other sexual partners, it’s not getting needs met. That happens to persons of all sexual orientations
Danny just went up several places for the character tier list.
He’s a good kid.
Up your character tier list. He’s already quite high on mine.
Aaaaaaand I forgot to close that italics tag.
> Being a morally bankrupt human being
“Looks like president’s back on the menu, boys!”
(I don’t normally shitpost, but when I do, it usually includes a reference)
“President menu” is a much better name than “ballot”.
+1
woo boy it’s been a while since there was such a close duel of who is the bongo in the strip. team danny but it’s weird that he sensed that she came to ask about bi but didn’t sense what she meant by cheating.
that is easier to understand to me than the people who feel he is being an asshole to her here, and those who think dotty has commited the gravest sin imaginable.
Dorothy, you fucked up. Deal with it.
That feels a bit harsh, IMHO. Trying to send Joyce boob pics wasn’t the greatest idea, but that’s more “youthful stupidity” than “active fuckery.”
If that’s the only thing you think Dorothy has fucked up in the pursuit of this little voyage of self-discovery, I don’t know what to tell you.
There has been a LOT of active fuckery from Dorothy in this vein, most of it directed at Joyce (And Walky. And, to be fair, herself).
She fucked [Walky] up [on her loft bed], yes.
“Knowing your own darkness is the best method for dealing with the darknesses of other people.” Carl Jung
+1
Ah, there we go, that’s an in character thing for Danny to say!
In my humble opinion, Danny felt out of character here. Part of that is probably how he was drawn – he had eyebrows in these strips that Danny should not have.
But also, it felt more like he was speaking for people on the other side of the screen, who felt weird about it being Dorothy who explained that bisexuality exists to Danny, rather than just his own feelings.
But the moment his eyebrows dissapear momentarily, he’s back in character. Danny is aggresively monoamorous, and his responds resonably to (what sounds very much like) a very toxic and sadly common biphobic stereotype.
“Eyebrows he should not have” what the fuck does that mean??
Danny wears his eyebrows so high that many people reading the comic think he doesn’t have any. IRL such people with high eyebrows look perpetually surprised.
If I were Dorothy in this situation, I would simply say “whoopsie” and never mention the situation to anyone again. Just let it fall by the wayside.
Unfortunately, we’ve seen Dorothy isn’t the best at letting things go.
There are three interpretations for what Dorothy is implying here:
1. She is planning something, in which case she is, let’s say, stretching the definition of the word “accidentally”.
2. She’s referring to her night out with Joyce, in which case she’s seriously stretching the definition of the word “cheating”.
3. Something happened off-screen that night, and both Joyce and Dorothy have never brought it up. This one is the least likely but the most interesting.
I’m… pretty sure she’s still talking about the Titty Pics, since both she and Joe seem to agree they count as Cheating if she’s romantically/sexually interested in Joyce.
I maintain that Joe was just busting Dorothy’s metaphorical balls, and didn’t realize Dorothy (and her ironically binary way of thinking) would take his jabs 100% to heart.
I think I’d co-sign that.
Joe may have told Joyce that he didn’t feel like he had the right to be jealous after she went out for drinks with Dorothy, but I don’t think that extends so far that he wouldn’t have been even a little bit upset with Dorothy if he really thought she had been trying to get Joyce to cheat on him.
seconded
Joe might have been busting her balls with the “that makes you worse than me” (in response to her “it makes me as bad as YOU”), but it was Dorothy even then who said that her being into Joyce would make sending the lewds cheating. That didn’t come from Joe.
Not to speak for Freezer, but I think we are all talking only about whether Joe thinks it counts as cheating. Twilight said “both Joe and Dorothy agree”, and a few of us are saying, “no, I don’t think Joe was serious about that.”
It’s very obvious Dorothy thinks it counts, at least at her current level of spiraling.
Though I do see Freezer also suggests that Joe planted the idea! Sorry
Carry on. I agree that didn’t come from Joe, although I do think Joe playing along with it solidified Dorothy’s concerns.
Omg the biphobia is coming from inside the house. This is the first time I’ve not been sympathetic towards Dorothy, posted before reading all the comments, and delighted in Danny gloating (has Danny ever gloated before? In amy universe?) Oh and the title of the strip misled me to think I’d get Dina and Becky.
When I was in high school my mom said being bi wsn’t real just an excuse to be promiscuous and being promiscuous was the worst thing a person could be. “But Tracy is bi and hasn’t even had their first kiss yet?” “Tracy is bi?! But I *like* them!” Thanks mom…
There was a Something Positive comic in which a bisexual woman was offered a TV role playing a bisexual character. She rejected the role because of how it was written, since the writers’ description of the character was “she’s bisexual, so she’ll sleep with anyone.”
I don’t think it’s biphobia so much as self-loathing. “I AM A TERRIBLE PERSON FOR LUSTING AFTER JOYCE WHILE BANGING WALKY!”
But Dorothy does seem to be a very binary, right choice/wrong choice kind of person. The idea that you can be attracted to more than one person at a time (and just not act on it) honestly never occurred to her. To feel is to do.
Not necessarily even self-loathing, but she’s looking to excuse her failures. “Do bi people often mess up before/while coming out?” is a more reasonable version of her question, but it comes out in a really bad way.
Dorothy can’t deal with the idea that she’s worse than Joe and wants to find an excuse for flirting with Joyce (however inadvertently).
Yeah that’s it. She’s looking for a cop out.
2nd to last panel is giving me flashbacks to this scene from The West Wing:
Toby Ziegler: You accidentally slept with a prostitute?
Sam Seaborn: A call girl.
Toby Ziegler: Accidentally?
Sam Seaborn: Yes.
Toby Ziegler: I don’t understand. Did you trip over something?
I really don’t think you’ve cheated (yet), Dorothy.
Hard disagree.
Sending spicy pics to someone you’re interested in (whether you can admit that to yourself or not) certainly qualifies as cheating in many people’s books.
if we didn’t have the trigger that is joyce sending first. she didnt send those pics in a vacuum. she got pics, is spiraling, made poor decision. it can be seen as cheating, and if she and walky discuss it and decide she cheated then it is cheating. but it is also a response to a confusing act from a bff.
it can be called cheating yes but is it cheating, that is to be seen.
Bisexual presidential candidate … I don’t see that going down well in Boise, Idaho
I mean, she’s already a woman and we’ve seen what people will vote in to avoid having a woman as president so she was probably hosed from the start.
Word
I think Walky might be fine with Dorothy also dating a girl
He did say to Lucy he it’d be cool to expand their twosome into a polycule, unclear how serious he was
Dorothy wanted to hear another answer. Luckily for her, Danny tell her otherwise. Kinda sad to know she thought being bi allows you to cheat.
Sounded more to me like she was leaning into the old “bisexual = sexually voracious” trope.
I don’t think she really thinks that. More like “I kind of cheated while I was still denying any bisexual attraction. Is that a common thing or am I really a horrible person?”
this is closer to the truth if you ask me. i think it is more with her spiral her brain went i helped him through his realization he is who should help me. i do not think she thought it through any further than that. her brain has been in panic mode under the surface for weeks now. the moment she is faced with self focused stresses she is unable to see anything with perspective or objectiveness.
Jeez, Dorothy, sending someone a sexy picture while convincing yourself it was a joke is not the same as cheating. I’ll give you accidentally flirting and I can understand if it’s something you don’t want to do (it’s definitely something you shouldn’t do again unless you have a good conversation with Walky about it), but calling it accidentally cheating makes it sound way bigger than it is.
Also, I don’t remember the timeline perfectly, but Danny definitely got at least close to flirting with Ethan while involved with Amazi Girl, right? He’d actually give you the answer you want if you phrase it better.
Dorothy has a very “black/white” way of thinking. Anything that’s not 100% right is 100% wrong, ESPECIALLY when it comes to her own behavior.
Ironically, one of the people who’d be most capable of setting her mind at ease re: “I’m a dirty dirty cheater” is Joyce.
Which is very interesting, given her analysis of how Joyce went about atheism with all of the structure and moral conviction of her puritan upbringing. But it turns out Dorothy does also have an extremely strong sense of “right” and “wrong” – and an incredibly sensitive one at that.
Dorothy has been condescending to a lot of people with flaws like Joe, Danny, and others.
Losing her moral high ground has been horrifying to her and I mean that with actual sympathy.
Yes, exactly
*cracks open door, speaks with fake voice*
You’re right guys, Dorothy wasn’t cheating! She DIDNT KNOW what happened in the laundry room was sexually motivated all along! Gee, I wonder what JOYCE thinks about that???
*slams door*
The fact that this came from a Joe Gravatar is probably the best thing about an already gold comment.
I am once again begging people to remember that when the laundry room incident happened, neither of them had boyfriends. Two single people cannot cheat.
Li, the laundry room incident happened because Dorothy could tell how horny Joyce was for Joe, and wanted to defuse that bomb. Totally un-selfish right, and not at all wanting to prevent Joe & Joyce for selfish reasons.
I’ll take “words I didn’t even remotely say” for $200, Alex.
Extremely selfish, definitely wanting to prevent Joyce and Joe for selfish reasons.
Still not cheating.
Motivating Dorothy in that sequence:
– Fear that Joyce was going to sleep with Joe and then regret it (very conscious)
– Resentment of / competitiveness with Roz in the “helping Joyce” Olympics (very conscious)*
– Jealousy over Joyce (very unconscious)
So in the most charitable of framings, that’s still only 1/3rd remotely altruistic. I think at least part of her concern was coming from a good place??? But that is all I would personally give it.
* The first two motivations were in fact SO conscious that Dorothy even said them out loud with her mouth. (More specifically, she said, “And this is a— this is an innovative, sex-positive solution that is not just perpetuating the status quo,” before muttering: “Roz,” to herself.)
Perfectly distilled
Yeah it usually isn’t cheating when people do something when neither of them is in a relationship. You are completely right about that.
I know this is a journey and they are all just “Dumbing of age”…
But, come on. Dorothy has never cheated!
She just literally learned that she has “specific” feelings for Joyce an hour ago and she is trying to understand how her worldview is changing.
…Maybe she should go ask Asher.
You could taste the tension in the air between them in this convo.
I love it.
Wow, those first two panels dump a lot on Dorothy. Not all of it undeserved. I can see Danny being tired of her shtick.
The rest. Hmm, it’s interesting. I feel they aren’t quite talking about the same things, but what was Dotty actually doing regarding Joyce?
Monoplot problems, as my more overtly poly friends might say.
She sent her a pic of her cleavage. Dorothy is completely overreacting here.
She took Joyce to the laundry room for some machine aided mutual masturbation because she didn’t want her interacting with Joe while obviously horny.
Neither of them were in any kind of relationship at the time. Conniving? Maybe. Cheating? Categorically, no.
Meh. I’m very literal minded, but even with me the spirit intended matters more than the literal definition. It’s not about litigating the rules, but Dotty realising she’s not been ethical or honest in her actions.
You can’t pre-cheat on someone, though? Joyce and Joe were flirting with each other but Joyce hadn’t in any way entered into a relationship with Joe back then, and Walky wasn’t even available, much less Dorothy’s boyfriend.
That is not how that works tho.
Dorothy introduced it like she did in the comic so Danny is reacting accordingly to that, not to what actually happened. Dorothy is once again the architect of her own misery here. Danny was just a reflection of that out of ignorance.
You’ll never make it as president if your head explodes. I mean, come on, you look ridiculous.
So, obviously, Dorothy is an anxiety-ridden self-flagellating weirdo who will take any excuse to think of herself as history’s greatest monster.
But maybe – just maybe – thinking of her momentary goof-up where she sent a cleavage pic to a girl who sent one to her as full blown CHEATING might suit her own purpose somehow, even if just subconsciously…
It’d give her a good reason to break up with Walky again, for one. Even if Walky probably wouldn’t care that much, it seems like Dorothy would like to have the freedom to sleep around and experiment.
“…it seems like Dorothy would like to have the freedom to sleep around and experiment.”
I haven’t seen anything to suggest she wants to do that. I think she’s just being self-flagellating and not a harmful bi stereotype, personally.
Let me be more specific – it would put her one step closer to sleeping with Joyce, who she definitely does have the hots for.
But only one step, since Joyce is dating Joe.
If Joyce was single (And ready to deal with her own bisexual revelation), Dorothy might well break up with Walky for her, which is its own kettle of monkey’s but “sleep around and experiment” isn’t in the Dorothy nature.
Well… maybe that was more wishful thinking after seeing how she looked at Amazi-Girl, lol. We still know she *wants* Joyce/Joe to break up for totally non-selfish non-Joyce-lust reasons, and is maybe still expecting it to happen sooner rather than later. And again – this is more about her subconscious or unexamined desires.
Or maybe I’m just a raging himejoshi.
It’s such a a shame Dorothy hasn’t considered asking Amber or Amazi-Girl about an experimental FFM three-way with Walky yet, but I suppose it’s only been like ten minutes. It’d be such a neat way to manage this silly crisis.
In my experience, guilt or anxiety like this is paralyzing. You beat yourself up for both things and enjoy neither. If Dorothy doesn’t get some help and support, I’d be more worried about her both breaking up with Walky and breaking her friendship with Joyce. Isolating herself for made up moral reasons. Dorothy has a track record of giving up things that bring her joy, because doing the right thing must always hurt and therefore what hurts must be the right thing to do.
Dorothy, Honey. Sending a titty pic as a joke is not cheating, even if there were complicated subconcious feelings surrounding it. Take a deep breath.
At first, I thought she was talking about the laundry room incident, but now I realize she and Joyce were both single then. So yeah, this is definitely about the pic.
“Yes, it was a JOKE! A JOKE!”
narrator: It was not a joke.
Dorothy turned down her Yale dream for Joyce. Something she wouldn’t do for Danny or Walky. Walky is her boy toy and tension release mechanism. Joyce is someone who she has changed her life for. This is far beyond laundry rooms or downshirts.
So true 🥰 So… yuri!!
She didn’t turn down Yale entirely because of Joyce, once again it was the fact that she was given the opportunity because of the kidnapping and she fell guilty about benefitting from something that traumatized her friends.
To be fair, that’s the explanation she gave at a point where she wasn’t yet able to consciously accept, much less articulate, non-platonic feelings for Joyce. Also wasn’t she talking to Becky at the time?
I think it’s certainly part of the reason, but like, also…
https://www.dumbingofage.com/crowded/
This strip suggests there’s some “for Joyce” in there, too.
Sure there is some of that and also what I say, and I don’t see how is the fact she was talking to Becky affects anything?
Oh, sorry, I missed the word “entirely” in your original comment
We are in agreement there!
As for talking to Becky changing things… I just mean that I think Becky would be an especially unlikely person for Dorothy to feel comfortable admitting that some part of her reason for staying was “Joyce”. I don’t know that I think Becky would’ve actually reacted badly? But I know that if I were Dorothy, I’d expect Becky to react badly, even if I still thought my Joyce feelings were 100% platonic love.
Kind of makes me wonder about November. I imagine Joyce still showering her with adoration and Dorothy’s feelings start to deepen, but she still doesn’t know how to make much time for her friends.
I don’t think Dorothy feels/felt nothing for Walky, or felt nothing for Danny. But I think she loved Future President Dorothy Keener’s perfectly designed CV more. If she wouldn’t stay for Walky, then her explanation of staying because she didn’t want to benefit from Becky’s Dad’s death or whatever can’t be the whole truth.
Wild thought: Dorothy should talk to a girl about this. Guys have very few avenues to do non-romantic physical contact “by accident” because physical contact between men is so stigmatized in our culture, to the point where any physical contact is sometimes interpreted as romantic/sexual by the man receiving it. Dorothy needs to talk to someone who knows what platonic displays of affection are, so she can get her head sorted out. She’s suung herself for thought crimes.
Idk man, when the other ladies in my group heard I never masturbated, they took me to a sex toy shop which I consider quite a bit more platonic than teaching me how to masturbate and then being present and guiding me through my first time.
Would that have worked for Joyce, though? Like at all? Or would she have become overwhelmed and fled the situation? Dorothy knows Joyce. I’m not trying to say the laundry scene was platonic, though. Neither Joyce nor Dorothy were in a relationship with anyone else at the time– I’m mostly thinking about Dorothy defining her recent actions (tit pic) as “cheating.” The tit pic could easily be platonic.
That exact scenario isn’t necessary. Put some tips of how to explore her own body in with Amber’s literature. Dorothy was not actually solving a problem for Joyce. She was solving a problem for Dorothy.
And I’m going to add that Dorothy doesn’t know Joyce as well as she thinks, or at least has poor judgment about that knowledge. Joyce’s main problem is with shame, and taking her to masturbate in a place where someone could easily walk in on them was a fucking bad judgment call.
So not only would “HowToTouchYourself.txt” been sufficient, it had a much lower risk of accidentally backfiring.
Dorothy is the judge, jury, executioned, stenographer, defendant, claimant, lawyer, other lawyer, audience, architect, contractor, DJ, bouncer, bartender and manager of her own self-assigned crimes.
+1
man i feel like growing up in kanuckistan has helped here, we had fucking lessons in elementary school (89-95 for me) about what the differences are. (also i am a hugger and have had to have many conversations about appropriate touching cause of an aunt who had never known love and found family members hugging to be creepy)
PEOPLE IT IS OK TO HUG EACH OTHER. WE NEED MORE HUGS
“Coincidentally related”? Guess we’re gonna wait a little more.
My morals are filing for bankruptcy, like 23andMe, Red Lobster and Hooters?!!
So today, Dorothy, who isn’t even 20 yet, now considers herself a monster for discovering a new aspect to her sexuality. Have I got that right? And a portion of the comment section agrees? Can we maybe all agree that teenagers make mistakes cause they’re just learning, and it’s ok?
Nobody has said that?
Feeling like you’re a monster for discovering new parts of your sexuality is par for the course for a bisexual teenager. Unfortunately, so is being demonized by other queer people, though there’s been progress on that front in the last 20 years.
What does that last have to do with anything?
feeling those feelings isn’t cheating, acting on them is
DID EVERYONE TRY THE CHICKEN? I THOUGHT THE CHICKEN WAS LOVELY
+1
But she hasn’t done any cheating to begin with. Sorry if you hate Dorothy, but being basically peer-pressurised into sending a boob-pic to someone you are still in denial to have a crush on is not crossing the line. It’s something she should come clear with Walky, but beyond that, there is no fool play.
Dorothy is blowing this up way out of proportion.
To paraphrase Sal and Joyce: Danny is just the right amount of petty, and sometimes Dorothy is full of poop.
…yeah, honey, that’s still cheating if you DO it.
Being attracted to someone isn’t cheating but if you act upon it… yeah.
You know, I remember thinking that Dorothy was a lot nicer here than she was in the original continuity. And she still is, but this is the first time I’ve ever seen shades of the person she was in the original storyline.
i know we’re all talking about dorothy’s biphobia and misunderstanding of what constitutes conscious cheating here but i just want to take a swing at the dead horse of “WOW dorothy is NOT beating the autism allegations.”
as long as she’s having an identity crisis anyway she may as well sit down and re-examine all her internalized bigotry and biases and sort herself out. therapy might help with that. hey dorothy if you’re serious about giving up on your political dreams maybe you should revisit the idea of therapy.
Yo, Dorothy? Wtf, girl?
Yeah phrasing there was as harsh to yourself a possible inna way that would make almost anyone go you crossed a line. If you explained..eh it’s sorta bad but in a very understandable way?
It might seem like Danny’s being too harsh here, but it’s actually Dorothy who’s being too harsh on herself, and Danny reacting appropriately to a description he doesn’t know is Dorothy being too hard on herself.
Although he is guilty of possibly deliberately not picking up on a sign that Dorothy might be being too hard on herself by not asking her to clarify what she means by “accidentally cheated” when pretty much anyone would be curious for elaboration.
Now now, everyone calm down. If we apply a little Dorothy Logic™ to this comic, it seems pretty clear that she’s guilty and distraught over her new bisexuality and is trying to rationalize self-hate and disgust through an acceptable moral channel.
She didn’t cheat on anyone because A- she wasn’t dating Walky at the time and B- she didn’t even know what she was doing was romantic. Dorothy just has, like Amber, a compulsion to apologize and make gestures to show her regret in ways no one asked for.
Her seeking logic to her “cheating” is her attempt to ‘right’ something uncomfortable for her.
We are talking about the photo stuff not the laundry room stuff.
To be fair, a fair few of us are definitely trying to talk about the laundry room incident, heh.
What a question, lmao
My guess is she’s more talking about the washing machine rides rather than the picture.
That would be weird considering neither of them was in a relationship at the time.
Look, it’s not being morally bankrupt to have a crush. It just depends on what you do about it. It’s not a crime to think something.
(Now, Dorothy HAS taken actions related to her crush, but Danny doesn’t know that.)
Never mind. Read other comments and now I get it.
a lot of people in the comments need to understand that the metric for “is this cheating” is ONLY decided on by the people in the relationship. If Dotty considers sending sexy pictures to people without her partner being aware cheating, then it’s cheating. It doesn’t make her out of touch or self-deprecating to have personal boundaries and recognize when she’s crossed them
I’m reminded, of all things, Marlo the longtime love interest of Rick Jones who broke up with him because she wanted to sleep with Moonstone.
Rick tried to take it with understanding but said something akin to, “Okay, I support your coming to grips with your bisexuality but you’re also breaking up with me or wanting to cheat then come back. So…not cool.”
Every update I find more and more people here whose opinion I do not respect and wish I could throw stuff at.
That might be a sign that it’s time to take a break.
I could use one too, frankly!
But then how will I acquire my daily dosis of frustration distance with human nature?
You don’t have to be here! I frequently just don’t read the comments for a bit when I know they’re probably gonna piss me off.
But you see I am mentally ill and hate myself.
Seeing the comment number at 400+ is usually a good sign that there’s gonna be lots of heated controversial back-and-forth.
How did “I jokingly replied to a PG-13 picture of a friend’s breasts with a similar picture of my own” turn into “I accidentally cheated on my partner with a same-sex crush?” Like, I know Joe joked about it, but still, this is so far from actual cheating that it’s facepalm-worthy, especially if you also consider all the hijinks along the way.
Are there situations where someone sending secret lewd pics to a friend behind their significant other’s back cheating? Yes. Is Dorothy anywhere near that territory considering the actual situation? No. I almost guarantee if she laid out what happened with Walky, he’d laugh at the hijinks, not admonish her for cheating.
Also, has Danny ever responded to Dorothy coming to him for support with actual understanding and support? Like, he’s come to Dorothy for help, and she’s done her best to help (help that he spits in the face of here for no good reason). Yet every time I can remember, he responds to her request for help with being a snarky asshole trying to make a point.
Go talk to Walky, Dorothy. He’s the only person you would need to talk to about issues of potential cheating, and he actually cares more about you than Making A Point ™.
Also, curse this Gravitar making things weird.
Dorothy is not having a crisis about literally cheating, but over being dishonest and behaving unethically.
The amount of people in the comments conflating THEIR version of infidelity with Dorothy’s makes me sad. Talk to your partners, people. Don’t assume you’re the universal baseline.
For me, I think I’d feel weird if a partner sent saucy photos to someone else, regardless of intent. It might be a dealbreaker depending on how they respond to my confrontation. If they diminished my feelings or made excuses, I’d feel like our expectations of monogamy might not be compatible. But that depends on level of sauciness. And, say, if they were consulting a friend like ”do you think my partner would like this lingerie or this one” I’d probably think that was great.
If a partner did what Dorothy did, I wouldn’t feel great. I’d need them to take responsibility, and also be open with me about their feelings. I’d wanna be there for them while they figured out their bisexuality, but I’d also need reassurance from them that they don’t think those pics were acceptable and that they won’t do anything like that again. I’d also need to talk to them about whether their views of infidelity shift depending on gender and sex. Mine don’t, so I’d need to make sure we were on the same page.
Yeah. Like I wouldn’t say it’s flat-out cheating, but I also wouldn’t say it’s an okay thing to do unless the person and their partner(s) have agreed it’s okay. Every relationship is different, and anyone involved in the relationship should have those talks with their partners! (unfortunately, a lot of people are allergic to healthy communication)
Should Dorothy feel bad? Not to the extent she is, but yeah, kinda. Should she talk to Walky about it immediately? YEAH
I mean, he’s right to say that, considering “bi people are cheaters” is an annoyingly common stereotype. Dorothy isn’t necessarily right to say that’s cheating (thought crimes aren’t real, honey)–though it’s not exactly the most *okay* thing to do while in a monogamous relationship, either–but Danny isn’t wrong for lashing back against the stereotype either.
It’s not like he knows exactly what she’s referring to, anyway, so as far as he knows, she’s basically coming up to him and going, “You’re bi, so how often have you cheated on your partners because of it?” A lot of people would’ve reacted way more harshly.
As a bisexual, i’m the first to push back against “bisexual people can’t be fully happy with only one partner of one gender”,
But as a polyamourous relation anarchist, i’m not the best proof against it either xD
Which doesn’t mean i cheat, obviously.
In this particular context, I think that was more “being incredibly oblivious”, but. yeah. yeah that’s not how being bi works, Dorothy. Theoretically having more options for who you might in theory like to have sex with does not in fact make you more likely to go and have unwise sex.