Joyce, fighting her way out of fundamentalism, and Dorothy, disentangling herself from the Achievement Imperative are very much partners in their individual struggles. Consider the following...
Ok, illustrative, not exhaustive; there's plenty of other, better strips that I can't quite put my finger on immediately that make similar points. They give each other space to be their contrasting selves. They challenge one another. They express concern and compassion for each other. They value the other's differences. And as much as I, a former fundie, read the strip primarily through Joyce's experience, re-reading shows me how very dysfunctional Dorothy has been, too. Sure, their shared journey makes them enablers of each other's dysfunction at times, and they have used their individual rebellions against their old attitudes to justify things unjustly, but they're very much on parallel tracks. And that works for them.
Excerpts from Liveblogging Dumbing of Age (Book Two: Storyline Four - The End of Book Two)
Well, hopefully you guys know the drill by this point, but if you're just seeing one of these for the first time, please look at my previous liveblogs under this tag. The very first one is linked here.
Let's get right into it.
Last time on Dumbing of Age:
Joe screwed Roz, the younger sister of a senator. This is the least surprising news at Indiana University since the story about the water in the fountain being wet.
Walky imprints on Dorothy like a baby bird and they strike up a "for fun" relationship. Joyce is jealous about sharing time with Dorothy for Totes Straight Reasons, Ya'll.
Joyce went to a party. It went fuuuuuckin' bad! She got drugged by a creep that her friend thankfully were able to beat the shit out of, but it was still a deeply traumatic experience.
Billie almost screws Danny because he flattered her while she was having especially low self-esteem at that time, but he turns her down because he's attracted to someone else. Amber is encouraged because she thinks that's her ... and to be fair she's ... kinda right. Danny turns out to have a crush on Amazi-Girl, Amber's secret alter-ego. And despite it not being the best idea, Amber-As-Amazi-Girl kinda takes him up on it.
Also! Joyce and Ethan sorta-kinda start going out... with Ethan hiding the fact that he knows he's gay to stay in the closet. I'm sure nothing messy will come from that.
Continuing!
Chapter One: Dorothy and Walky Having the Authentic 20's Relationship Experience and Fighting Over Some Shit That Doesn't Matter
Someone help him.
I’m not sure what kind of help Danny needs but someone help him
Note from Future Me: As of this reading I made it to the end of Book 5 and amusingly Danny DOES get some of the help he needs, and its DEFINITELY not the kind of help I thought when I first read this. Stay tuned...
Note from Future Me: You know at a certain point doing these I stop copying each and every "Joyce is clearly gay for Dorothy" comics because it comes up SO FUCKING OFTEN, like genuinely. The closet doesn't even have 4 walls around it.
Okay like….god…there’s so much you get from these three from just this one comic, holy shit
It’s not the context it was used for but I feel like there’s plenty in the ace community who could make use of this panel as a meme.
This is supporting my Walky is on the Grey Ace Spectrum agenda.
Note from Future Me: I don't think it was author intent but as a demisexual person in real life I will continue to die on this hill.
Anyway, while we're at it, let's reference what little I know of Current Storyline a little bit and talk about Dorothy's sexuality! That'll put butts in the seats:
I think this is the first laugh I’ve gotten from Sarah. Hurray!
This is a great payoff gag for Billie being the only one to not know Dorothy and Walky are already dating. I love this capper to that running gag so much.
Oh my god, really? We’re doing this?
This is titanically stupid behavior for everyone involved.
Like it’s stupid on Dorothy’s part cause, really, Who Gives A Shit. But it’s very very stupid on Walky’s part to let this be the hill he chooses to die on.
@greatdinn says: "Correct! But I have also seen dumber reasons for a breakup."
You're not wrong.
The bottom line is ... I kinda also want those pants.
See, Joyce gets it!
Mike's a dick.
Note from Future Me: You're gonna see me bring up Mike quite a lot, mostly because @greatdinn who helped get me into this and @crooked-mantis who started reading this after I did are pretty big fans of Mike.
Joking aside, I quite like Mike. I love black comedy and Mike's committment and effort to being just the biggest asshole paired against ANYTHING his friends happen to be going through at the moment is hard not to respect. He's not my favorite character personally, but he's fun to see. (I hope that doesn't come back to hurt me in some significant way later or anything...)
Chapter Two: Sarah's Grumpiness Gets (Mostly) Completely Justified by Her Old Shitty Friends
Note from Future Me: ALRIGHT, we get to talk about another dramatic storyline I quite like.
To summarize, Billie and Joyce go shopping, Sarah goes because she ... aaaaa bit unfairly but understandably doesn't trust Billie to be a good influence on what Joyce would get. Dina also just ENDS UP here as well cause she just kinda does that.
Sarah runs into her old "friend" Raidah, who we've seen a couple times before who just appeared to talk shit to Sarah about getting her old roommate out of school, which she does again here with her entourage. Dina is also around and Raidah is like ... just the biggest fucking bitch to Dina, like straight up says Dina is mentally challenged to her face and infintizes her, that shit. Sarah then tells Raidah to go fuck herself (and There Was Much Rejoycing) ...
Only for Raidah, by coincidence, run into Joyce and Billie and try to make friends with them. It's legitimately a coincidence (she doesn't know Sarah's connected to them in any way) and is a pretty brief conversation ... but Sarah shows up and gets pissed off, not wanting Raidah to have anything to do with Joyce. It gets heated and Sarah punches Raidah in the face which everyone feels is a bit far for the situation...
Then Sarah finally goes into detail as far as what happened with her previous roommate, Dana. Long story short, Dana was a bit of a stoner but like ... it's college, Sarah didn't consider it a big deal cause she was still able to get her stuff done. Raidah and her friends were close with Dana and Sarah kept them at arms length at first cause That's How She Rolls, but eventually opened up to them. And life was pretty good... unnnnnntil Dana's mother dies and her recreational drug use just turns into full on depression and drug addiction.
Raidah and Dana's other friends brush it off, not seeing this as alarming as it is, but Sarah doesn't have that luxury, being the one living with Dana. She ends up not being able to sleep over this and her grades start to suffer (which is a problem since she's only able to go to college on her scholarship). Eventually, Sarah calls Dana's parents, tell them whats going on, and Dana is pulled from school so her family can try to help her (or at least thats Sarah's understanding of it). Raidah and Dana's other friends find out, blame Sarah completely, and just cut her off.
So like ... before this storyline, Sarah was a character I thought was Fine, but wasn't a major draw for me. I really liked her part in saving Joyce during the Party arc, but aside from that I was still a little cool on her.
But this storyline ... everything just clicked. It does a fantastic job of delving into stuff we knew the basics of from the very beginning, but adds depth to it in a way where a lot of the stuff that didn't 100% make sense with her before makes perfect sense now.
Why does Sarah keep people at arms length so often? Cause the last time she let people in everyone eventually turned on her.
Why is she grumpy to Joyce so often? Cause Sarah is afraid of being put in a similar position she was with Dana.
Why does she seem extra harsh to Billie? Cause Billie has an obvious substance abuse problem like Dana.
Why did she bother to follow Joyce to eventually save her at the Party? Because despite how much she wishes it wasn't the case, she still cares about the people around her.
Its great recontextualization. At the time I first read this, I thought this was the best dramatic writing in the strip so far. It's set up from the beginning and pays off in a major way, and it made me appreciate Sarah a lot more than I did prior.
Now it does make me hate Raidah. Like a lot. I think even though from her point of view Dana was wronged, she comes off as a huge asshole, but that's pretty intentional, especially with how she treats Dina who had nothing to do with anything. Like Raidah isn't written bad, she's written as an Asshole very well.
A lot of times when someone says they hate a character, they're not super clear on if they mean "I hate this character because they're written bad" or "I hate this character because the story wants me to hate this character." This is definitely the latter.
Me from the Future: We get more of these two together in the stuff later and I just want to say these two play off eachother really well.
Oh fuck
Note from Future Me: (Sigh). So ... I'm gonna be serious right now. This strip didn't hit me as hard until I wrote up this post, with some of the knowlege that comes after.
Billie ... is a character I adore. If you held a gun to my head, she'd be my second favorite after Dina. We'll be talking quite a bit more about Billie as these go on but like ... what makes Billie interesting is that there's a tragedy to her very nature.
At first we kinda think she only cares about herself ... but its pretty clear after not very long that's not true. What makes it sad is that she DOES care about other people, maybe too much in some cases. She has a lot of problems-- A LOT OF PROBLEMS-- with herself that she can't fix, but she truly wants to fix other people's problems, she wants to help.
So in this strip, she does care about, she does think she's acting in Joyce's best interest. She thinks Sarah is looking for a reason to cut her off when Joyce is perfectly fine. She truly believes she understands whats up and knows whats best to do.
And she's wrong.
And it won't be the last time.
Chapter Three: Oh Right, Joyce and Ethan is Still a Thing That's Sorta Happening ...
That’s a good strip, this is going to end badly, Ethan kinda sucks for letting it get this far.
Also several people in their lives have clocked what’s going on and also haven’t said anything, so there’s kind of a lot of blame to go around for this when it blows up.
Me from the Future: So two things.
One) I'm pretty harsh on Ethan for a bit just based on his whole... hiding his preferences from Joyce stage we're currently in. It's stringing her along and it really is hard to like him at this stage, especially if you have empathy for Joyce. Having said that, the way this ultimately gets resolved I liked a lot and as of the end of Book 5, Ethan is a character I genuinely enjoy. We'll just take a bit to get there.
Two) Only noticed this as I was compiling this document but its cool we get this brief apparence from Becky's roommate considering some stuff we'll find out later...
Yayyyy two people with sense, mostly
Two people without sense, yaaay
Okay so Mike is still being a total dick but someone had to rip this band-aid off if Ethan wasn’t gonna...
Okay at least this bear is getting poked until it kinda resolves itself
I feel this way about Peanut Butter and Banana sandwiches so I get it
These two are great together.
Chapter Four: Okay Fine, Let's See What the Straight(ish) Couples are Up To, I Guess
I’ve never related to Walky more than this moment right now.
God, Danny’s dumb as hell.
Okay Amber, what's the play here lol
OKAY SO HE KNOWS THE TROPES AND HES STILL NOT SEEING IT!
Everybody shut up, Dina’s being awesome!
Chapter Five: Okay the Book Ends with One of Joyce's Nightmares, Well How Bad Could That BeeeeeOH MY GOD
Me from the Future: So ... I'm only gonna talk very briefly about these strips, but my genuine reaction to these strips were that they were the most uncomfortable strips I felt reading the whole comic ... and that was definitely the intent. It's a very well done horrible nightmare.
Like it gives us a lot in just a few short strips about what makes Joyce tick: her lust and her internalized shame over that, the trauma she's still working through from the party, the idea that she knows she has to hide aspects of her true feelings from her parents or she won't be able to survive ... it's all there without ever really saying it.
And its told in a very intimate way. Like I felt like I should not be seeing this, like it was a horrible violation of privacy, and I think that's how you'd want a really good nightmare scene to feel like.
It's ... fuck man, it's done really well but holy fuck. Willis is really good about packing A LOT of emotion in a small number of strips sometimes and this is a great example.
Well, we've hit the image limit on the post again, so it's time to go. I'll do another one of these soon because by this point we're Really Cooking and I'm excited to share how I reacted to the upcoming storylines especially.
Till next time. Share this around if you enjoyed it, let me know what you think, send an ask if you want. Have a great day!
