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Early update for May 5, 2026 (Patreon)

Published:
2026-05-04 03:55:01
Imported:
2026-10

Content

all true things

obligatory book 15 kickstarter link: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/dumbingofage/dumbing-of-age-a-fifteenth-book-collection

Files

Comments

William Lewis

That is an amazing thing to do, Joe.

Sajuuk-Khar

(Mr. Willis’ Wild Ride has CLOSED) Mx. Willis’ Torment Nexus continues apace

C

"I still love you, you magnificent dumbass...please keep things going smooth with Dorothy."

tifani

Joe you dramatic shit. You did NOT have to do this.

Sajuuk-Khar

Joe: Never tell Dorothy [about the polycule idea]. Narrator: Joyce was going to, immediately, spill the beans to Dorothy about the polycule idea.

MrShoggoth

JOE earned the POWER of SELF RESPECT LEVEL UP! Guts +5 Heart +6 Smarts +7 Balls +8

Logibear

Like... under ZERO pressure as well

Andrea Andrew

Is,,,this it? No polycule, yet? They’re done for now?

C

Let's be honest, with how Joyce works, this might actually lead to Joyce telling Dorothy. >_>

Logibear

Them Joe stocks just keep rising and rising.

James Miller

Huh, I guess Danny isn’t the only one cursed by these stairs.

Sajuuk-Khar

Dorpy: OH MAN what a long and awkward day, babe. How was your class? It wasn’t too awful, right? You were talking to Becky now, I think? Joyce: JOE WANTED TO DO A POLYCULE

Dustin Crump

So does Joyce still have to fight Dorothy's exes now or nah

Astariel

Aw, man, poor Joe. Massive respect for him, though.

MrShoggoth

But you know what? I’m glad he did. It’ll hurt now but eventually it won’t. This is better for the both of them.

MrShoggoth

Mine too. But I’m both surprised and glad he’s taken the initiative here, it’s going to prevent a lot more pain and heartache for the both of them.

Harold

I don't believe this is going to be the end of it, not by a long shot. Because Joyce and Joe *do* love each other, and she's ever-so-slowly coming around to the fact that it *is* possible to love more than one person (and envision building a home and a life with those multiple people). And I don't think she's going to be able to keep from telling Dorothy everything, eventually.

KiasyonSFM

Joe deserved better than this.

tifani

Well yeah done for now. Joyce fucked up. I think she can fix this though.

Jennifer Novelli

"Jesus Christ, I have to do everything around here!" -Joe Rosenthal

Jayne Lindgren

Haha, godDAMN. I have been very vocal about not liking Joyce/Joe, and I stand by that, but even I feel pretty bad for him here. Dude just wanted a lifeline to happiness, and Joyce kinda went and strangled him with it.

Logibear

I wonder if Joyce thought she was going to get dumped when she woke up this morning

Sajuuk-Khar

I doubt this is the end of it very very much

Sajuuk-Khar

“Eventually” is doing some insane lifting there

tifani

Welp. Yeah. This sucks. Joyce finally reached the limits of what Joe could reasonably expect to put up with. He was fully on board with poly. But a part of that is being open and honest with all people involved. Joyce wasn’t honest with Dorothy and before Joe decided to pull the plug Joyce was already in the process of trying to spin her bad behavior into not that big a deal. When it absolutely was. And part of why he’s so good for her is that he does NOT enable her. Rather than risk Dorothy dumping Joyce for Joyce’s mistake Joe decided to just be obnoxiously selfless. And right when he decides to do that Joyce realizes just what she’s lost by being so cavalier about this shit. I think the truth is going to end up coming out now because Joyce is going to be acting like someone who just got dumped and Dorothy is going to notice that.

Logibear

Yeah, these last few strips have definitely shown Joe that Joyce is at least open to the idea of something continuing. But he has the emotional intelligence to realize that due to Joyce telling a lie of omission it would crater absolutely everything if it started under current circumstances

Ragtime

The day Ruth gets to do it will be day the comic ends.

Logibear

Also Joe with the "You fumbled one baddy, I absolutely refuse to let you fumble two"

voyager-ngc5195

Interesting how Joe thinks Dorothy would have cared in the slightest, let alone broken up with Joyce over any of this.

tifani

I think she’s just kind of doing what feels good in the moment and not really thinking through any potential consequences at all. So no. Idk WHAT she thought was going to happen. She probably just assumed it would all work out… because.

KiasyonSFM

She's not gonna see it that way, I fear.

tifani

I think Dorothy would forgive Joyce but I think assuming she wouldn’t be pissed and this isn’t the kind of violation that could lead to a break up for any other couple isn’t realistic. This was bad enough Joe felt like breaking up with Joyce and rewriting history was the only way to fix it.

Kelly (they-them)

Joe is playing for Team Sickos AND Team Paladins. Look at this non-bisexual man playing for both teams

tifani

Joyce has fully accepted you can love two people at the same time as she is currently sitting there realizing she is in love with two people at the same time. Coming clean to Dorothy is the only way to fix what she’s broken. But doing that risks potentially breaking things further. Is she willing to risk potentially losing Dorothy to have Joe back too? Dorothy the person she has said over and over she would sacrifice anything and anyone to keep.

Logibear

Oh god, this is going to lead to an absolutely crushing Dorothy/Joe interaction where she tries to give a heart to heart and Joe is just DEVASTATED.

Gale Tazzin

dang it was on the dumping stairs too

Gale Tazzin

JOE IT'S JOYCE'S BIRTHDAY

LupinThe8th

Does he at least get a cool sword?

Irene Knapp

oh wow. yeah... good for Joe, but wow.

cat

and with that, the Real Sickos went to Team Joyce/Joe Cheating Storyline. >:)

MrShoggoth

That’s up for Willis to decide, not me, unfortunately

Sajuuk-Khar

RUTH X JASON ENDGAME THE SS “GOOD ENOUGH” SAILS FOREVER

Sajuuk-Khar

and then Joyce tries to leverage this into Dotty kissing Joe and they both look at her like she is an Alien

Logibear

The sickos were the paladins we made along the way.

Tessea

Oh nooooo. That went about as south as it could go while remaining civil. Joe REALLY grew up a lot for Joyce. He is absolutely not the person he started the story as. He deserved a better resolution than to have to pull himself out of a train wreck in progress. And that goes double for his Roomies incarnation which I just finished reading yesterday. I feel that this is going to really gnaw at Joyce as well. I think she really believed she could have her cake and eat it, so why rock the boat? Will she be able to hide this from Dorothy now that it'll be on her mind? What happens when Joe and Dorothy meet up again? If there is to be any salvaging of maybe even the friendship here, Joyce needs to risk damaging her relationship with Dorothy, get both her and Joe into a room and apologize to them both for not trusting them enough to really discuss something so important.

darklion

Feels hollow. Sometimes you have to say "I love you, so I'm going to let you go," but this isn't one of those times.

Girlycore

My heart hurts for the possibility of poly rep in the main characters :( I still have HOPE but it's a lil lopsided in the water now.

Girlycore

You can't prove he isn't bisexual. And if you CAN then I refuse to pay attention to that proof.

Girlycore

So first of all, I have FEELINGS. Second of all, great job crushing them. Really A+ work.

Dan Rabin

Panels 4 and 6 of this sadness have Joyce and Joe respectively in the same pose with the same sad expression. Joe has made the breakup definite (and retrospective) after a couple of rounds of Joyce hedging. Joe's gesture in panel 2 shows how hard he's working to process and decide what to do. He is working with Joyce's representation of what Dorothy would want—he knows this (see previous strip). He also asks Joyce not to tell Dorothy about his dumping of Joyce, but prohibitions of this sort have never worked among this group, and their unravellings have fueled some good drama.

George Simpson

I think this was the right call. The polycule idea doesn't seem very likely to work out (at least given what Joe knows of Dorothy and vice versa), and Joyce slow-rolling it is going to look shady as hell. My concern would be more whether Joyce and Joe can *actually* keep apart, given that they're actually quite smitten with each other?

George Simpson

When the partner (basically) cheats on you, and tells you that you're choice #2, I'd be doing more than merely "letting" them go.

Amós Batista

It was in front of us, All the time.

5099 5618 v2.0

@Kelly (they-them) Three -pointer in the air at the buzzer, in with a swish. I am livid, but it *is* a win.

Amós Batista

Something says to me this dump was not that definitive.

5099 5618 v2.0

@S-K D: "oh. Well, that would have been fine." J: "I... Wh-..." D: "Yeah, he's a good guy. You do recall I wasn't bothered by you giving him head, a couple days ago, right?" J: "..." D: "Hey, do I have to cover one eye next time you two get it on, or can I just play, too?" J: (/glitches through the wall)

5099 5618 v2.0

@tifani There are steps and a process to these things, its true. Even now,it's still possible to do. It requires a number of conversations and a decent amount of risk, but yeah. Mind you, I suspect today is simply not the day, and that Joe has earned a little bit of misbehaving after all this. Curious if he'll do anything with all that, myself.

5099 5618 v2.0

"I'd love partners who've figured out the "open and honest" part of the whole ethical non-monogamy thing, myself. Know where I can find some?"

5099 5618 v2.0

@C "I can promise you I will not do that. But I will love her [1] as best I can ." [1] - And you, in my way. And in other ways, if I can figure out how to hack that mainframe...

5099 5618 v2.0

@tifani Bit of the old "Gift of the Magi", no?

Empress of Robots

Dang. The Dorothy/Joyce/Joe throuple futures just nose dived on Kalshi.

5099 5618 v2.0

@S-K "...."the end'? Nothing ends, [Joyce]. Nothing ever ends." --Joe, probably "I am tired of [College]. These people. Being caught in the tangle of their [relationship drama]." --Probably also Joe

5099 5618 v2.0

@Amós Batista A bit like the last one, that.

5099 5618 v2.0

@Empress of Robots Buy the dip? (And be prepared to hold for quite some time. Remember: DoJo took *15 years* to finally happen.)

5099 5618 v2.0

@Gale Tazzin ~Happy Birthday TO THE GROUND (I threw the rest of the [polycule], too!)~

Logibear

The dumps will continue until morale improves

Jennifer Novelli

She kinda does. At least, she brings out the worst in her and doesn't seem willing to confront that.

MiqoRems

Joe over here racking up W after W on the character development board

Sajuuk-Khar

(The trick to this is that after her immediately transparent goal is made clear, Joe and Dotty bond over their mutual exasperation with the girl they both love and the “Joyce we would NEVER” becomes an “…unless…”)

thejeff

Sure. And that's completely valid. But it's not what Joe's doing here, which is why it's not one of those times.

thejeff

I don't think it's quite that she thought she could have both. More that she really wanted both, but thought she couldn't have them both, but couldn't bring herself to either give up hope or take the chance of losing Dorothy by asking her about poly with Joe

5099 5618 v2.0

@S-K Oh, if only. Also, bonding over your mutual partner's failings (and how cute they are) is *such* a poly experience. Bonus points if this happens [ during | around ] a board game.

tifani

Now I’m just having flashbacks to all the people telling me that there was no reason Joyce needed to say anything to Dorothy about Joe before they had sex because it would kill the romance and she was caught up in her feelings so it was fine and that no one would care not even Dorothy and “Joe would get it”. And now we have Joe the character who is obviously objectively right as far as ethics go saying, “No! It’s bad! Dumps you!” So guess what past Tifani!? You were RIGHT to worry! You were RIGHT to insist Joyce take two fucking seconds to just have a conversation with Dorothy before fucking! In your face everybody I got into arguments over this exact thing 9 months ago! WHO’S LAUGHING NOW (cries)

tifani

It’s going to happen it just has been pushed FURTHER down the road because Joyce has to a) be sad about these latest events b) come clean to Dorothy c) fight with Dorothy d) persuade Dorothy to go poly e) win back Joe. It’s likely to take months! Are you happy @robmcbob: you got your Christmas wish!

tifani

I am bummed but can’t help feeling relieved about no longer having to live in the ambiguity of the Joe and Joyce scheodinger’s break up. THIS is what an unambiguous dumping looks like for those who were confused. I know some people are still going to try to twist facts but for me the objective facts are out there. We have FINALLY progressed the plot. I can exhale.

thejeff

Though I think the "Joe would get it" part was right. Joe's not bothered for himself here. He understood Joyce and Dorothy were going to do sex stuff. He's retroactively dumping her so that Dorothy isn't bothered that Joyce hadn't completely broken up with Joe first.

Dmitri0240

I'll preface this by saying that I do not think Joe is a monster; he's shown enormous growth as a person over the last several storylines. However, him taking Joyce's clear and unambiguous attempt to break up with him immediately after the kiss and spinning it into him heroically saving Joyce and Dorothy's relationship by preemptively breaking up with her several days later doesn't sit right with me. And then following it up by demanding she keep secret from her new partner the thing he was *just* telling her she was obligated to confess... I can rationalize it as Joe processing this the way he needs to, as long as Joyce eventually comes to understand that she *did* do her due diligence to handle this breakup quickly, and it was Joe who refused to accept it.

Shane Wegner

Sickos + Paladins is the ultimate forbidden romance.

Shane Wegner

I can dimly imagine some kind of hall pass/hinge situation where Dorothy accepts Joyce likes some Joe and some Dorothy in her life, even if Joe and Dorothy aren’t into each other. But at this point “it just wasn’t meant to be” seems feasible too.

Greg Willickers

I think Joe has come to respect and admire Joyce, but he's still in this mindset that she's this naive girl who needs the social world navigated for her. I don't think he perceives that she's getting into a streak of something more like manic self-centeredness and breaking hearts left and right, she represents Goodness to him right now. She's in the middle of figuring out which rules apply to her at all, and why. It was all just about Not Upsetting God, before. Now there's no God, and her foundation for how to act is built on basically nothing except that her church was wrong. Happens to a lot of people at that point. She hasn't taken the next step into understanding that a lot of those customs and taboos exist to protect people's most sensitive feelings and anxieties, regardless of whether God is real.

Andrea Andrew

She literally inspired Joyce to be better. Stand up for her sister against her parents.

Shane Wegner

This one complicated! That means complex storytelling. It’s just facts Joyce couldn’t/didn’t get around to pulling the trigger on telling Dorothy for various reasons. So Joe felt he needed to pull it for her, right now? And while Joyce did say many true things, the left out parts are basically a Lie of Omission with growing liability. I don’t usually counsel untruth, but Joe’s revisionist history of “I dumped you (retroactively) (for your own good)” basically IS true. It’s plausible, only missing thing is them considering polycule willingness to varying degrees. If Joyce couldn’t get around to having an honest conversation with Dorothy about her wants, odds of polycule success were low, maybe that factored somewhat into Joe’s snap decision. It also means Dorothy has incomplete information about Joyce’s wants…because Joyce hasn’t said yet! I have no guess about how Dorothy would have reacted or how much Dorothy is into monogamy. I do think Dorothy thinks Joe is some kind of sex pest who naive Joyce needs to be Protected from, an increasingly obsolete understanding.

Yue Ryong

Act with integrity, Joe. No regrets.

Rob McBobson

@tifani: Thing is, it's not a Christmas wish, it's a Christmas being-too-aware-of-how-Dumbing-of-Age-tends-to-take-enormous-amounts-of-time-to-get-somewhere-so-I-should-avoid-getting-my-hopes-up, which I will admit does not roll off the tongue.

tifani

He has consistently been extremely emotionally intelligent for quite a while now.

Harold

Joe Van Pelt pulls the football away at the last second, launching Joyce Brown into the stratosphere. (Huh. Didn't even need to change Joyce's last name. Has she deliberately been "Good Ol' Joyce Brown" this whole time?)

DramaQueen

Finally. She did break up with him, nice that he finally acknowledges that.

tifani

Sal and Danny better hide.

DramaQueen

Yes, exactly. It’s his fault that he left himself hanging. At least he took care of that finally but now he’s dumped this whole load of secrets on Joyce. She should run off and tell Dorothy the whole story right away.

tifani

I don’t think he’s just doing this for Dorothy. I think by not being honest with Dorothy when he gave her more than enough time Joyce crossed a line with Joe he can’t get over. He dealt with a dad who cheated. And the first thing he asked when he found out about his dad’s new relationship with Stacy was if Stacy KNEW it would be an open relationship because he doesn’t think his dad is capable of monogamy. I think he gets why Joyce wasn’t honest with Dorothy. I mean I’m sure he gets what she was afraid of because the entire reason he’s insisting she not tell Dorothy is that he knows what’s at stake. But primarily I think he’s just so disappointed in her. This whole time he was clearly thinking Joyce was being open with Dorothy about everything. That’s why he was willing to be so patient and give Joyce time instead of demanding an answer though he was obviously suffering. That’s why he thought Joyce could handle a potentially polyamorous set up. And he has to have thought Dorothy would be willing to at least consider it to even suggest it. But now he knows that after cheating on him and after he gave Joyce four whole days to do the right thing she just…didn’t. And then she was about to go into a whole thing about how her lie of omission wasn’t really a lie. She’s making the kind of excuses his dad likely did to downplay her own bad actions. Cheating he can move past. Lying he cannot.

VengeanceKnight

…See, now that you say this I want Joe and Walky to date.

thejeff

I mean, she should, but not for that reason. He's not dumping a load of secrets on Joyce. He's letting her keep the secret she was already keeping. Joyce wasn't going to pull that trigger and it was eventually going to explode if no one did something.

Maude Reads Things

I'm torn between 'Oh thank god, they finally put the nail in this conversation' and 'Oh, BOO, I was hoping to see a more drawn out quasi-affair story'. So, uh, conflicted feelings here. Tifani, are you alive?

tifani

I just had this vision of Joyce going to Dorothy looking visibly upset and when Dorothy asks how bad seeing Joe went Joyce ends up confessing everything. Dorothy who has already been experiencing complicated feelings about all this decides she needs “space” just in time for Dina and Becky to come back and announce an (off screen) reconciliation. Dorothy then says she’s going to go check on Amber and Dina let’s slip she’s in Walky’s room.

tifani

Thriving (🤷🏽‍♀️) and surviving (👍). Scroll down bud, I said a lot of shit.

Harold

@VengeanceKnight: Ship name: FUNNIEST THING EVER

Harold

"What do you think about all this, Dorothy from SCANNERS?"

thejeff

This does feel a little anti-climactic. I think this isn't done yet, one way or another. Though it's probably going to cook a bit before we come back to it.

5099 5618 v2.0

@Shane Wagner If this were the original Walkyverse, I would have also accepted "Body/gender swap scenario, and/or Anti-Joyce was involved" being the thing that finally gets all stakeholders to come together and have the necessary [ conversations | negotiations ], likely over food and board games.

5099 5618 v2.0

@Yue Ryong (/Winces across multiple decades *and* timelines...) (Elsewhere, Ruth suddenly stops, checks over her shoulder, reflexively shudders, and gets back to what she was doing)

GundamBradley

Absolutely lethal last few strips for the contingent who may have thought Joyce didn't/doesn't care about Joe, it must be said. I do feel like this is absolutely not going to be the last we see of these two romantically entwined, but I do think he's being prudent here, that this was definitely going to be a problem. Still might be, even.

Maude Reads Things

One ship cannot live whilst the other survives between Joyrothy and Dina/.Becky huh? XD

Calder Johnson

Since the debate over whether or not Joyce, in fact, did clearly break up with Joe earlier has been coming up a lot the last few days, I feel compelled to offer an abbreviated version of my thoughts. I think there is room for ambiguity in the textual analysis of that initial conversation, a debate to be had whether "This is why I have to break up with you" is content-equivalent to "I am breaking up with you." I personally fall very much in the camp of they weren't broken up yet, particularly given Joyce's promise to talk more later, but I can see a case for the other side (she could have meant that they're broken up, but she's willing to talk about what that means for the future of their friendship, etc. Not what I would consider A+ communication, but again, I could see a case for that interpretation.) The thing that sways me actually isn't that conversation, but the August 31st strip where Dorothy and Joyce are at the newspaper and Joyce refers to Joe as her 'boyfriend', Dorothy immediately 'corrects' her and refers to Joe as 'her EX-boyfriend', and Joyce (in the background where Dorothy doesn't notice) gives a quiet "Yeeeeaaaah...?" while nervously looking off to the side. I just can't parse a reading of that strip in any way that supports that Joyce actually believed that she had 100%, clearly broken up with Joe.

Maude Reads Things

@ Tifani - Yeah, I saw a lot of your comments. Over dramatizing aside, I agree that this isn't over but this is the healthiest option for Joe and Joyce at the time.