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Early update for August 16, 2025 (Patreon)

Published:
2025-08-15 03:55:01
Imported:
2026-06

Content

oh right that's also going on

Files

Comments

Grimeagle

"She got what!?"

SmurfJuice

Ouch. Remember to spare a thought for your cape.

Sajuuk-Khar

Dorothy’s brain has been so damaged by horny guilt that she forgot Amber fought a platoon of riot cops

Ria

Peak fiction

Grace Serenity

Ah, that shoe I lost! There it is...

Sajuuk-Khar

This is much like in Diamond is Unbreakable when Josuke’s hairstyle got trashed so he was so mad he forgot what drawings are…yea!!

Maude Reads Things

Oh shit, that's right, Dorothy didn't know that yet. This is gonna be good

Heatth

...Is she going to think Dina meant "emotionally wounded"? Is Dorothy somehow trick herself Amber is jealous?

Wednesday Sophia

"OMG IM SO SORRY LET ME KISS IT BETTER THIS INSTANT"

AE Gonzalez

In the midst of two people kissing, there was a lot of police brutality to break up a protest.

Simon Magid

Got dropped on you from a great height, did it? Willis ought to be more careful :(

Railway Series Book Club

option 1: the kiss is already on social media and dina knows thats what dorothy's fishing for an answer about and is refusing to dignify it with an answer option 2: dina knows nothing but can tell from dorothy's lack of chill that *something* is happening and she's probably going to be dealing with allo nonsense for the forseeable future my money's on option 2

Corronchilejano

Dorothy just wanted some gay drama, not actual life threatening drama.

Logibear

Dina with the successful insight check

Sajuuk-Khar

I love Dina’s weary stare in Panel 3. I have a feeling you’re gonna be making that expression a lot this arc, my dear Ms. Saruyama.

tifani

No. The last time she saw her she was in a fight with the cops.

C

Oh right, the other reason to be emotionally hurt, the friend being physically hurt...

Logibear

I wonder if Dorothy is going to feel responsible for this happening?

tifani

Yeah Dorothy turns out other people have shit going on besides what’s happening with you.

Grace Serenity

Everyone has been speculating on a picture that hasn't even been hinted at in the comic. My theory is the university and cops made sure there were NO cameras there so they could get away with using riot police and tear gas on a college campus.

Harold

@BBCC: To paraphrase Run-D.M.C., not good meaning good but good meaning bad But also good

Tessea

I have never seen that expression on Dina's face before. Oh dear, this angle I hadn't considered. is Dorothy (and later Joyce) going to assume it was their fault for slowing Amber down?

GundamBradley

They didn't exactly do her any favors in that respect, but yeah, this was likely inevitable once it'd gotten to that point.

Logibear

Hank sent Joyce a pic of Jocelyne at the protest though

Railway Series Book Club

oh she will. it'll be objectively untrue for her to believe that given Amazi-Girl *had* an out and *chose* not to take it, but that's never stopped the Demon Anxiety that plagues Dorothy's mind before and it sure won't stop now!

tifani

Yeah I don’t think there’s a picture either. This whole thing is to remind Dorothy that the kiss was only the most important thing that happened to Joyce and Dorothy that day. Everyone else there was dealing with the protest and the riot cops.

Harold

"Ye best start believin' in disaster bisexual drama, Ms. Saruyama..."

Smoochie

Dorothy may lock herself in her room over guilt as we go.

Heatth

I've seem that being proposed before, but it is hard to justify. Amazi-Girl could have escaped with them but decided to go back. Whatever happened happened way past Dorothy and Joyce were out of the picture.

Smoochie

“Dina will remember this.”

tifani

Dorothy visits Amber and ends up telling on herself about the kiss by trying to get Amber (recovering from being violently wounded Amber) to promise not to tell with that whole, “It’s on the schedule for today!” bs. It’s not that Dorothy doesn’t care that Amber is hurt but it’s not the top of her priorities list.

Dan Rabin

The light from the half-bath and Dorothy's shadow are carefully drawn—the lights are indeed off in Dina and Amber's room itself. In the reverse-angle conversation part of the strip, Dorothy, intent on quantifying how far the gossip about her and Joyce might have gone, sails right past the warning contained in Dina's hard look in panel 3. Dorothy brings out the fake smile and the dismissive/minimizing hand gesture in panel 4, but Dina decides to trust her with the facts anyway, and Dorothy drops the act in the face of serious business. This could be the re-emergence of the caring, competent Dorothy from the kidnapping. She may have forgotten about these valuable skills during her period of self-doubt, but they apply whether she wants to be President within the system or whether she wants to be part of a principled resistance. There's also a chance that her desire to protect Joyce may be transferred in spirit to protecting Amber/Amazi-Girl. It's certainly an element that's available for the author to use as he sees fit.

Sajuuk-Khar

It’s option 2 all the way. Dina has sensed the dumb bullshit approaching like a storm front and she is preemptively sick of it.

Logibear

"Dina disliked that"

Kelly (they-them)

Dina did say *violently* wounded But as they say, sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will scar forever

Logibear

Yeah, I also feel like Amber may be too injured to stop Dorothy from taking it upon herself to help in the situation too. Which could get interesting.

William Lewis

They might but shouldn't - they were explicitly told to leave while she turned back to continue the fight. That was a classic of "brave but stupid" on Amizi-Girl

Gale Tazzin

that's right dorothy your problems are actually pretty not important in the broader scale of things right now

voyager-ngc5195

This is one of those situations where Dorothy really needs to just turn around and stay out of it. She won't, but she should.

Gale Tazzin

it's the same expression Asma hit her with

tifani

Okay so Dorothy and Joyce now get the reality check that they have been putting off for hours. Because Dorothy decided to put herself at the center of that protest instead of getting her ass away asap and Joyce decided to join her Amber got physically hurt. She only knows this now because she went there to make sure that Amber hadn’t said anything about the kiss not to check on Amber’s safety. Selfishly pursuing what she wants and ignoring everything going on around her because she’s so in her own head about her own wants leads to consequences for other people. Now she could continue to further isolate herself with Joyce to ignore the ticking time bomb of more consequences OR she could go to Amber and be an actual friend. And going to Amber will lead her directly to Walky and maybe finally telling the fucking truth.

Smoochie

Dina I fear, can quickly do the math in that one moment. - There was a protest. - Dorothy and by extension likely Joyce was at that protest. - SOMETHING happened in which Dorothy and/or Joyce was endangered. - Amber shot to their rescue and ended up being injured. That is probably Dina’s hypothesis, leading to that rather ‘I am so over your shit and I don’t even know what it is’ stare.

Railway Series Book Club

@Tifani: I think a picture being out there would enhance this aspect. Like, we know for a fact that because of preview panels that we're about to get an appearance from Daisy this storyline, and she's a yuri fiend, which to me suggests these two kissing is going to be a front page spread. Not only would it force the narrative forward by outing the pair, but it would mean that what they did completely stole the spotlight from a protest for a good cause, which is yet another way in which they valued each other over any moral high ground in that moment. I think it would be great for them! (in sort of a Suffering Builds Character way)

tifani

Well she kind of is so hopefully.

Irene Knapp

that's among the better possibilities... personally I'm holding out hope that she'll come to her senses and thank Amber

tifani

I would like to think that if a picture does exist Daisy has the good sense to not out people without their consent especially one of her reporters by publishing it, girl on girl fan though she may be.

tifani

Seriously though I doubt Daisy is that stupid (Dorothy and Joyce could sue) or that cruel. In a version of events where a hypothetical picture exists unless Joyce and Dorothy consent to it being published it’s not being published. Billie could end up seeing it though.

Harold

I agree that this is a much-needed reality check, and possibly a priority reset (and Dorothy initially focusing on whether Amber "said anything" is a bad look, I'll give you that), but: Amazi-Girl got hurt *after* Dorothy and Joyce escaped the protest. She could have left with them, but chose to go back to help more protesters get out. I suppose you could make the case that Amazi-Girl exponentially increased her chances of becoming a target for physical harm when she attacked the cops, which started when she was saving Joyce. But Amazi-Girl was already at the protest, and would very likely have done everything she did *regardless of whether Dorothy and Joyce were there at all*. Dorothy being Dorothy, she probably is going to blame herself for Amber getting hurt. That doesn't mean we have to blame her as well.

voyager-ngc5195

What I'm mostly worried about is that Dorothy will learn Amber was shot by police, in a situation where *too many people already know* she was shot by police. The simple fact is, Amber's a fugitive, and Dorothy made herself a fairly identifiable person of interest at the protest. Dorothy needs to *not be further involved* for both their sakes.

Amós Batista

Maybe Dina doesn't know about the kiss, or that Dorothy insisted in be inside protest

Harold

@voyager-ngc5195: Not sure why she needs to "stay out of it" - Amber is someone she cares about, and she's hurt. Dorothy's reaction in the last panel indicates (at least, I'd like to think so) that her priorities just got a hard reset, at least for the moment, and that she'd want to find out what happened to Amber and if she's OK. Frankly, if she did turn around and walk away right now, that would make her look even worse.

tifani

There’s really no point in talking about what would have happened if Dorothy and Joyce hadn’t been there. Dorothy lives in the reality where they were and where they were repeatedly asked to leave and ignored that. They kept her there longer to defend them and her being there longer lead to her being around for the situation to escalate.

Chason

She didn't know Amber was hurt, how could it be at the top of her priorities?

tifani

Dina knows all.

Smoochie

I keep feeling that after Dorothy had this moment of questioning if she’s become her father in terms of violence and manipulation, she won’t be pursuing Walky. Edit: I do indeed mean Amber not Dorothy <_<

Heatth

Amazi-Girl didn't stay there longer to defend them though. She stayed there longer to defend other, off-screen, people. Dorothy and Joyce *really* have no part in Amazi-Girl getting hurt. Nobody knew they were in the protest, so they aren't the reason she went there in the first place. And they aren't the reason she stayed. They aren't any more guilty of Amazi-Girl getting hurt than Jocelyne and Asma are.

tifani

I’m talking about an imagined post this scene visit.

Harold

@Smoochie: Think you meant *Amber*, not Dorothy

Fart Captor

yuri shrapnel injures hundreds of fan fic writers every year 😔

tifani

@heatth: agree to disagree

voyager-ngc5195

Which is why I'm saying she won't stay out of it, because she obviously does care. Normally that's fantastic, but right now there's legal repercussions to contend with. If Dorothy (and subsequently, Joyce) knew Amber was shot, that's another liability for Amber. A big one, since again, Joyce and Dorothy (may) have made themselves identifiable figures at the protest, and frankly I don't 100% trust what may happen if they're questioned by authorities. There's nothing Dorothy can currently do to fix Amber's situation, so again the best thing to do is to stay out of it for now; at least to keep some semblance of plausible deniability.

5099 5618 v2.0

@Simon Magic Willis very carefully dropped it, I assume.

Harold

@voyager-ngc5195: Got it!

Anna Phylaxis

man, you really don’t think much of her, huh.

Sajuuk-Khar

But with your donation of $25,

Shane Wegner

Consequences besides just the smooching! Come to think of it, we didn’t see Joyce mention she got takedowned to the ground and nearly detained but for Amazigirl launching a knee at a cop to Dorothy either.

Irene Knapp

so I chewed on it a bit... I think, as others say, it's possible Amazi-girl would still have been wounded regardless of Dorothy and Joyce. however, remember that the wound may not even be the most important consequence for her. she's taken an immense risk, which could well result in jail time, and she took it for them. so ... Dorothy and Joyce need to get it together in a hurry and take this seriously, or else their good friend-system who risked life and freedom is unlikely to remain their friend-system... besides, Amber and Amazi-girl are going to be having their own complex and possibly divergent feelings about this, and could doubtless use support.

Shane Wegner

“Meh she’s probably fine, I won’t even bother sending a text to make sure” doesn’t exactly radiate the Power of Friendship. Finding out if she’s ok after directly intervening on their behalf could have been at the top of her priorities, but wasn’t.

Albi

You, too, can injure hundreds with yuri shrapnel /me starts playing "In the Arms of A Shipper" on the hacked MIDI keyboard

Smoochie

Why yes. Yes I do. >_>

tifani

@anna: are you talking to me? I have made my feelings about Dorothy very clear and also the fact that I don’t feel like being critical of a character’s behaviors means I don’t like them or “think much of them”. Do you really think I’d be putting this much mental energy into analyzing a character I’m not invested in or I don’t care about? You can either trust what I’m actually saying or not but I don’t have to keep explaining myself.

Maude Reads Things

Bad for her, good for me as a reader and isn't this REALLY all about the readers? :P

Sajuuk-Khar

I don’t really understand this line of thinking because it’s presupposed upon the idea that AG wouldn’t have been at the protest if Dorothy and Joyce weren’t, which is patently false? Like… -Joyce and Dorothy don’t have their phones, so she’s not tracking them. -AG is shown headed to Dunn Meadow in the early morning before their sapphic adventure, explicitly because of the protest. -AG is shown doing what she did for Dorothy, Joyce, and Jocelyne for both Asma and many nameless individuals -Dorothy explicitly says to leave with them, and AG refuses out of a sense of duty So…no. AG did not, at all, take the risk for them. She’s like a firefighter who happened to rescue two of her friends having an affair from a burning town hall. She can be mad at the affair, but if she got injured by the fire, they’re not at fault, and to pretend they are is asinine. Like, I’m not saying Joyrothy are morally right! I’m not even saying they shouldn’t get their shit together, they should! But we don’t need to lie about it to ourselves. This is like the whole “Asher killed Mike” myth all over again but worse.

William Lewis

@Sajuuk-Khar I know. Tonight's comments are just bizzaro to me. I don't understand them at freaking all.

Irene Knapp

the first felony we saw Amazi-girl engage in was specifically to rescue Joyce, and though you're free to disagree, I question whether she would have done it for someone she wasn't close to. there was certainly other stuff we didn't see, but I think the in-panel text[1] makes it clear that first assault was on her mind as a big deal, so if she intentionally committed other felonies it was probably after that, not before. it's not really a thing one does casually... that said, I think you're hearing something I didn't say. it's not that Joyce and Dorothy are to blame, necessarily. I'm not really interested in assigning blame at all. Amazi-girl gave Joyce the gift of not getting beat up and sent to jail, and it would be weird to hold that freely-given gift against the recipient. it's just, now that things are at this point, there are a lot of ways they could mishandle things that would be unforgivable. among other things, we haven't seen Joyce or Dorothy be successful at keeping any kind of actual important secret, before, and now they have a really big one. there's a lot of other sources of tension that I imagine are going to come into play pretty soon, too, because all the moral and practical disagreements we're having as commenters? that's going to feel even more intense to the characters. that's all I'm really trying to say. I feel I've been perhaps not made my own feelings clear enough, so: Mostly I'm nervous for the characters I care about, and excited to see what happens next. The possibilities branch out a lot and I can't predict it, and it's a topic that's close to home for me. [1] https://www.dumbingofage.com/2025/comic/book-15/04-the-only-exception/cuffed/

Sajuuk-Khar

See above, but I will, I guess, be doomed to repeat this a lot: Amber was not at the protest for Dorothy or Joyce. Amber was a superhero going to save lives. She is like a firefighter. She went there because there was a fire, made of cops. Joyce and Dorothy *happened* to be there. You can judge them as harshly as you want, you can predict Amber will be real mad at the affair, you can do all that, but Amber getting injured has ZERO CAUSATION to Dorothy and Joyce having an affair!

Jayne Lindgren

The fact that people already seem to be blaming Amazi-Girl's injury on Dorothy and Joyce is fucking ghoulish. Are people really so eager for them to be punished that they're willing to blame goddamn police violence on them? Please, have some shame.

Sajuuk-Khar

Monsieur Willis, since I know you do peruse the comments occasionally can you please answer this question: would AG truly have not intervened to fight the cops if Joyce was not the first victim of police very she encountered? Is correlation here actually causation? Because if that’s true, I will shut up. I don’t usually do this sort of appeal to the living author thing but like, I feel like we need clarification here, I guess.

Katrina Marie Paton

And we actually have ZERO proof Amber was injured at the protest anyway. As someone pointed out earlier, it seems extremely unlikely that AG was shot by a sniper or cop and they then allowed her to just crawl away into the woods rather than being detained and rushed to an ER. It's been hinted at that Asher finally figured out who AG actually IS and I'm fairly surely (and almost certainly wrong) that Willis didn't just do that as a red herring.

MiqoRems

It's also just ludicrous. Like. They didn't drag her there, and they sure as hell didn't KEEP her there- Amazi-Girl explicitly turned back to help MORE protestors *after getting the two of them out and being asked to come with them*. Absolute wild thinking to put any of what happened to Amazi-Girl/Amber on them.

tifani

I am not blaming the affair. I AM BLAMING THEM NOT LEAVING SOONER. Dorothy and Joyce walked into the situation with the good intention of warning Jocelyne. Once there they were given repeated clues that the situation was dangerous and rapidly escalating. Jocelyne asked them to leave. Amazigirl told them to leave. They both decided to run directly back into the danger. Yes Amazigirl was already there and doing damage control but every second she was there managing Dorothy and Joyce was keeping all of them there in a situation that was getting very bad very fast where any one of them could have gotten hurt. I don’t know what would have happened if they hadn’t been there and neither do you! They were there! And they were so wrapped up in what was happening between them that they put themselves in a dangerous situation! And then afterwards neither stopped for a second to consider checking on the person who saved their asses. Like Jesus Christ why is it so hard for people to just admit these two fucked up? We can still like them! Yay for them realizing their true selves and finding love but they were stupid! And someone got hurt! And maybe it wasn’t the ripple effects of their own actions but it very well could have been! You walk into a situation you know nothing about that’s dangerous? YOU FUCKING TAKE IT SERIOUSLY AND LISTEN TO THE PEOPLE WHO KNOW HOW TO HANDLE THEMSELVES. Did they shoot her? No! Did they create police violence? No! But did they have the potential to make a volatile situation worse by keeping themselves there way past the point they should have? Yes! Random people walking unprepared into protests is a dumb thing to do!

MiqoRems

This exactly! I've given probably some of the harshest words on what they're actually doing, but putting THIS on them? That's *ridiculous*.

Alexandra Falk

Excited for this. Willis is a genius at record-scratching the other plot back in when you don't expect it.

tifani

I think I’m taking a break from this comments section for awhile.

Sajuuk-Khar

@Smoochie: I want to say, though, the idea of Jeremiah Keener, Master of Puppets sitting in the shadows all Sin City is very funny

Logibear

Are Joyce and Dorothy responsible for this? No, god no. Absolutely not... but will Dorothy believe that? Tune in next time folks

Heatth

We don't even need to infer Amazi-Girl would have started punching cops for people other than Joyce, we, people on this Patreon, have already seem it! That is June's second bonus strip. That takes place immediately before the one she saves Joyce. And, like, bonus comics are not critically important for the narrative. We are not meant to actually wonder if Amazi-Girl would have kicked a cop for people other than Joyce and Dorothy. That should be obvious.

Heatth

Yeah. I said in another thread but It bear repeating: Amazin-Girl was not there for them and she didn't stay there for them. If she got injuries while the two were delaying running away it would be one thing, but that isn't what happened. She got injured after the 2 were long gone so there is no way they are even remotely responsible.

Joey245

Dinaaaaa! I adore her face in panel 3, it so perfectly encapsulates the feeling of "I do not know what is going on with you but it already annoys me"

Smoochie

@Sajuuk “The Servant” by Cells plays the entire time of course

Rob McBobson

I just wanna say that if (as people keep saying) Joyce and Dorothy need to learn that not everything is about them, then maybe we don't need to make Amazi-Girl's wound about those two either? Also, I feel that maybe the main amount of criticism for AG being wounded should go to the police who wounded her, and not Joyce and Dorothy. That seems like a reasonable way to allocate criticism. People who physically hurt A-G should get more criticism for physically hurting A-G than people who didn't.

Rob McBobson

POLICE OFFICER: *hurts Amazi-Girl horribly* COMMENTS FIELD: "Why would Joyce and Dorothy do something like this to Amazi-Girl?"

zee

I was gonna get annoyed and do the whole "me when I win an argument I made up/I only see people complaining about this thing but not the thing" thing bc there's no way people are actually that stupid Lo and behold, people are in fact paying money to be that stupid

zee

Look she caught a case of the stupids but it's not that bad

Rob McBobson

I'm having trouble understanding what you're saying. Could you rephrase it?

Rob McBobson

Noticing that Dorothy is indeed untagged at the main site today, and also noticing that it is indeed funny. :)

Jozan

Yall... AG got hurt cause she was doing her thing, Joyce and Dorothy had nothing to do with it. Frankly they tried to STOP her from getting hurt more. Chill.

Sajuuk-Khar

Yessss! Willis you MADLAD

zee

Sorry, I meant i was at first incredulous that people were legitimately saying "this is dojos fault". it seemed like an argument made pre-emptively because surely, no one is that stupid. Then I scrolled down some more and yeah, people are in fact that stupid. And paying 5 bucks a month to be stupid early. Sorry for the confusing phrasing, I'd just woken up

Rob McBobson

Ah, now I get it. Thankee kindly!

Ilana Feldman

To be fair, the best time to be stupid is as early as possible. Gives you more time to learn from it.

Ilana Feldman

"You're escaping with us, right?" - Direct quote from Dorothy exactly 1 month ago

Donny K

Self conscience and deserved anxiety train derailed for real life problems, sorry Dorothy lol

Anna Phylaxis

hahaha oh man the comments are going to be a NIGHTMARE tomorrow. but as bad as the comments have been, the reddit is so much worse - I am genuinely confused why those folks are still reading at all

Harold

Amazi-Girl was *so* angry at Dorothy and Joyce for kissing that she chose to stay and risk bodily harm rather than spend one more second in their company. /s /s /s

Eli Sheep

LOL that look of suspicion Dina has is so good. Excited to see where this goes

Rob McBobson

I mean, I finished "Modelland" by Tyra Banks. People can be fascinated with things that they find awful. (Not that anyone should find Dumbing of Age awful, since it's excellent, but you get what I mean.)

Railway Series Book Club

Something funny about the comments these comics get is that the people posting bad-faith takes about Dorothy end up being a perfect mirror for what Dorothy's self-sabotaging anxiety brain is constantly telling her about herself. Like, the takes are all incorrect and bad, but Dorothy still thinks them anyway because she's plagued by The Demon Anxiety, so in a sense they're half-right!

Sajuuk-Khar

It’s both really funny and really frustrating because I’m like, yeah!! These would be juicy reactions for the characters to have!! That will drive the plot!! and I’m also like no!! you’re an audience member! If you’re not engaging with the plot as it exists and just making shit up or doing insane logic pretzels it’s not useful!!

tifani

Yes my controversially dumb take of *checks notes* people shouldn’t walk unprepared into dangerous situations because their lack of knowledge can create danger for others. How dare I. How dumb of me. 🙄I had told myself to stay out of this but yeah, can’t. To be absolutely clear for who needs clarification yet again: I do not think that Dorothy and Joyce are absolutely directly responsible for Amber’s injuries. I do not think they should be tarred and feathered and publicly shamed for the crime of falling in love. I think that they did a dumb thing and my reaction is largely to do with taking into consideration the protests that are currently going on in the real world where things like someone showing up just to show up in an open carry state bringing their gun because they don’t consider all the potentialities leads to some one else being shot and killed. I think that situations that are obviously dangerous and take preparation and planning where you are actively being warned to get your ass away because you don’t know what you’re in for need to be handled with sensitivity and seriousness to limit the potentiality of danger for others. My pissed off ness at Dorothy is about her actively running back into the danger when she had been told to get the fuck out and Joyce also running back into the danger. I think that situation could have lead to anyone at that protest getting hurt as a result of that those bad decisions. It doesn’t actually matter to me at all that Amazigirl was already there. I’m talking about the added danger of Dorothy and Joyce putting themselves there. They aren’t the reason bad cops exist (acab) or Amzigirl puts herself in danger but they need to practice better judgment in the future because actions don’t exist in a vacuum and there can be consequences to impulsive choices that lead to unforeseen circumstances. That is my point. That is my entire point.

Mariah

there is a whole subreddit dedicated to hate reading questionable content it does not really suprise me.

Mariah

yes we are in " women eating crackers" territory where every little thing joyce and dorothy do is being seen as evil and malicous fair or not. Its something that happens almost exculsivly to female characters and women in real life.

tifani

I feel like one thing these comments have made clear to me lately is that there are a lot of people who can’t just sit in their discomfort when it comes to difficult subject matter. It shouldn’t be so hard for people to get that yes I like this comic very much and yes I actually like Joyce and Dorothy very much. I don’t actually need my fiction to align with my real world morals to enjoy it. Sometimes characters I like will do things I don’t agree with and I will call them out on it and continue to like them and continue to like the story. But I think a lot of people can’t really align with liking Joyce and liking Dorothy and having any kind of judgment over the decisions they make. Like this is some kind of judgment free zone. That’s not a luxury my autistic ass can give to even my closest friends and family let alone these fictional characters I can’t stop having thoughts and opinions about. I will judge you for a bad choice. I will call you out when I think you’re being shitty. I will still care about you after and wish the best….okay I’m Sarah. I think I’m Sarah. Ok. Anyway David if you’re reading this: love this story you’re telling. Big fan. You have broken my brain and I paid you for it and will continue paying you for it. Please use my $5 to buy headache medication in honor of that.

Jayne Lindgren

I appreciate your clarifications, and I do think that your take is reasonable. I would gently disagree with the idea that this is a "judgement-free zone," though. In my experience it's basically been a nothing-but-judgement zone for weeks, with people constantly picking apart Dorothy and Joyce's actions and talking about bad of people they are because of them. For every person who likes them and doesn't want to judge them....there's several more who seem to have gone the other way, they liked Dorothy and Joyce and now that they've sinned they're suddenly terrible and need to be punished somehow, anyhow. There also seem to be two groups, with some hating them because of the cheating and some hating them because they see their actions at the protest as being basically racist (by focusing on their own feelings and emotional journey while there instead of being 100% about the subject of the protest). And the latter group, I think, has a lot of people who still want to see them punished in some way for those actions. I think those are the people who are being quick to place responsibility for AG/Amber's injuries on Dorothy and Joyce, because that would be a concrete consequence that could be used to further shame them for their perceived misdeeds. It's clear you're not part of that group, but I do think that's where a lot of the pushback is directed toward. This idea that we have to assign blame for this to Dorothy and Joyce as a way to underscore how "wrong" their choices were/are.

Heatth

You really should start making paragraphs. It is honestly really hard to read this. Anyway, you are walking back now, but you did say that "Because Dorothy decided to put herself at the center of that protest instead of getting her ass away asap and Joyce decided to join her Amber got physically hurt" These are the words you used, you established a direct causal link between Dorothy and Amber getting hurt. People pushed back because said causal link doesn't actually exist. If you instead have said that Dorothy going back *could* have led much more serious consequences and Dorothy should reflect on that, I don't think people would have pushed back so hard. But as it was, you were blaming Dorothy and Joyce for something that was just not their fault. And that looks extra bad when considering all the other people asking for their heads for any offense (though admittedly that is more in the site than over here)

Irene Knapp

@heathh I went and looked at that to refresh my memory, and thank you for calling my attention to it. I do think you're drawing slightly too strong a conclusion about authorial intent... but in trying to explain why, I realized that I probably am, too. I enjoy fangirling about this stuff and, to me, it's fun to discuss characters' possible motivations. I think it's clear not everyone is having fun with it, and, uh, sorry for not reading the room correctly.

Rob McBobson

Please understand that people usually don't read every comment posted here, and even if they do it's hard to remember what was said by whom. I agree that somebody can like characters while criticizing those character's actions, but other commenters aren't gonna know, automatically, if you're doing that. Even if you clarify that in one comment, they might not read that particular one. If I say "This character is being such a douchebag" then other people aren't gonna know I like that character. They just know that at this point, I regard the character as a douchebag. People can absolutely align with liking Joyce and liking Dorothy and having any kind of judgment over the decisions they make. They're just not always gonna know when somebody is doing both those things.

tifani

@jayne When I was talking about a judgment free zone I was speaking more on me interacting with a loved one. It’s more of a metaphor or an invisible bubble with me and whoever idk. Anyway I appreciate you hearing me out.

tifani

@rob fair point

tifani

@heatth: I deleted my previous comment because I reread your comment and decided it might have been harsher than intended but first of all: nitpicking my lack of paragraphs? Not cool. Immediately comes off as nitpicky and aggressive and makes me really not want to engage with anything else you have to say. I type on my phone. Spacing is hard. Next point: This has been an ongoing dialogue where I have been put in the position of having to clarify my point over and over so going back to a comment I made yesterday after having time to think about it and better explain my point is really just wasting both our time. Whatever I said in earlier comments when I wrote the post clarifying my actual point and said that it should have been the end of things. Fine tuning a point is not the same thing as lying. Lastly I don’t even think I’m the person you want to be arguing with. It has been pointed out to me that there are two other groups of people hating on Joyce and Dorothy for other reasons and I am in neither group. I don’t even read the main site comments and I don’t hate Dorothy or Joyce. I like them. I’m just perfectly willing to call them out on shit. One thing doesn’t cancel the other out. So with this last comment I hope people could please stop coming at me over this. The comments have not been fun for me for the past couple of days. I’m done.

Jeremy AR

I mean people do that all the time, putting a lot of energy into arguing characters they don't care about are bad and you shouldn't like them either. A couple comment on this comic even.

Anna Phylaxis

I think some of us have gotten tired of seeing the characters called out, screamed at, yelled at, endlessly, over the course of these last weeks. I know I've, personally, gotten very tired of the insulting implications and inferences thrown at everyone who isn't sharing the fury that oh my gosh fictional characters in a dramatic story would make imperfect choices and cheat. Like, there has been some REALLY large resentment expressed over and over and over again, and I think it's difficult to be enjoying this story and the direction it has been going without feeling like some of that vituperative sentiment is being directed at you. And, indeed, it is frequently *literally* being directed at "sicko" commenters, especially on the website and on reddit.

Anna Phylaxis

And beyond that, it's honestly just been ROUGH seeing people show up, every single night, to express how disgusted and angry they are, and how much they want to see these two girls punished. It's an alienating and uncomfortable feeling, knowing so many people in the audience for this comic, in this community, now harbor such rage and animosity and disgust towards both the story itself and their fellow community members. And I think for some of us, it's also hard seeing all this rage and disgust pointed at two queer characters and separating it from the rage and disgust being directed at us, constantly, in the real world, for being queer ourselves. I hope some of that makes sense?

Anna Phylaxis

"someone showing up just to show up in an open carry state bringing their gun because they don’t consider all the potentialities leads to some one else being shot and killed." That is not, at all, what actually happened at the No Kings protest, if that is what you are referring to. The person who brought the long arm and was then shot at (by trigger happy fools who should NEVER have been recruited for this work) was a well known member of the community who has been attending events, with a long gun, as a means of discouraging right wing violence, and has been doing so for years. He was shot at by two "peacekeepers" who were deeply unsuited for the task, should never have been open carrying, and should never have been recruited. The responsibility for the bloodshed lies at the feet of the organizers. And I don't usually do this, but my credentials are that I am an event marshal, I founded a group that provides protection and security and volunteers to protect local drag and queer events, I teach groups of students de-escalation and marshal techniques, and every year I personally lead a queer march with 4000+ plus attendees. Five years, no violence. It upsets me to see people misrepresent what happened, and use it to slander someone who did not cause the violence that occurred, so I hope you will stop repeating the story you are currently telling about that event and situation.

Anna Phylaxis

Haha, okay, fair, but you're not showing up in a Chickweed Lane community to rant about how much you hate it every day - you're mocking it on your bsky and your tumblr, as god intended

tifani

@anna hey I get it. I’m autistic, I’m bisexual. I get protective over characters that make me feel seen too and I’m going to try and make my next point carefully to be considerate for all the raw feelings going around: I get the knee jerk instinct to protect these two girls. This is a very special story being told. You don’t see it everyday. It is a beautiful thing and I think that there are going to be people critiquing from a place of hate and feeling good about it because they love to cloak their disgust in moral outrage but there is a difference between those types of people and people who are calling out bad behavior from a place of love and we have to be willing to know the difference and allow it to give the text the analysis it deserves but also to be able to let go of the puritanical all or nothing black and white bullshit thinking that poisons everything around us.

tifani

@anna: Okay this is awkward because I wasn’t intentionally referring to any specific event when I made that reference I was thinking more along the lines of a worst case scenario potentiality but I do acknowledge that you’re repeating the likely origin story of a specific event I heard about second hand that got stuck in my head until I mentioned it here. I freely admit I don’t have all the info on everything that went down at the no kings protests. So yeah I won’t repeat it again. Apologies, there was no deliberate malice intended.

Anna Phylaxis

@Tifani Hey, thank you so much for listening. Yeah, it was a really ugly situation where organizers behaved with shockingly poor judgement, and a father died because of it. And since it’s my field, I’m probably always gonna be upset about it.