Thank you. Seriously, just... thank you.

Her dad is gonna love seeing that on the news, for sure

SICKOS VALIDATION

@damnyouwillis.bsky.social I would _love_ to see an age breakdown of the people in comments who are enraged about 'cheating' and people who, like me, are firmly in Camp Sickos. Because I really wanna know if this is Zoomers Being Puritan as Fuck or if it's random, and orthogonal to ages.

Being against cheating is being a Puritan?

It's fiction. You can be fine with something in fiction that you are not ok with in real life. It's why people are reylos.

Also, some people are treating this as particularly heinous, like, as if this was a moral horizon one doesn't come back from. But it is not even the worst thing Joyce alone have done in this comic, much less other "good" characters.

I support both gay rights and gay wrongs.

🫡🫡🫡🫡

Kinda. People find love in innoportune moments, and that includes while in relationships with other people. There’s degrees of how shitty it is to act on it depending on what commitments have been made, but I don’t think emotions work on a dibs basis.

being against it's depiction in fiction? yes, very much so

They decided to be gay and do crimes!

(Oh lord, I promise I didn't see that that was the first comment when I posted this 🤦.)

Okay, everyone's jumping to conclusions, but Joyce was hit with a mysterious pink gas in Thursday's strip. Now, in recent years, the police are known to increasingly use military grade weapons. Which reminded me of this bit of proposed technology from the 1990s: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gay_bomb

I thought that was just a lowbrow 30 Rock bit! It was real?

I remember seeing it on the news when I was a teenager! Everyone made fun of it.

No wait, I wasn't a teenager. It was leaked in 2007. I was 30. Oh well, teenager, thirty-something, same thing.

Wait, January 2005? I was 27? I really should read the sources to these articles before making self-assured statements about half-remembered memories from years ago.

everything in 30 rock is real eventually

This was how I learned about it. www.threepanelsoul.com/comic/on-hea...

~Girl! / I wanna to take ya to a Gay Bomb / I wanna take ya to a Gay Bomb / I wanna take ya to a Gay Bomb, Gay Bomb, Gay Bomb!~ --Electric Six (probably)

Let's start a war! Let's start a nuclear war! With a Gay Bomb, Gay Bomb, Gay Bomb!

(/gratuitous guitar riff)

(I just wanna know how they keep starting fires)

Homokaasu!

Team Sickos win.

LMAO that's a good title

I mean, we've always known Joyce is a friend of Dorothy

this is really gonna hurt joe isn't it. i mean he's been a pretty free loving kind of guy but he's not exactly down with cheating iirc. i think walky can handle it he doesn't seem like he'd be that broken up over it but, man, joe.

I think they can try and work things out. Whether they will succeed is another matter but we'll see.

Probably shouldve a bit earlier! But it could be

eyyyyy. Good for them 👍🏻

thank fuck

YES... YES!!!

SICKOS WIN

www.patreon.com/posts/early-... tomorrow's strip! EARLY.

today, incredibly, dorothy overtakes walky in appearances

guess they just wanted to be together

@damnyouwillis.bsky.social Well, that's how they've been on my fridge in magnet form for literally years, so 'bout time xD

this had to be planned

Omg 😂

ok this is the thing that actually got me to think the words damn you willis

I didn't see anything about it on the comic's FAQ and I was curious. is it alright for use to use character faces like these as avatars in places like here or Discord?

knock yerself out

Excellent, thank you! *runs off to find an image of a Happy Ruth* ...... This may be a while.

Definitely ended up getting sidetracked by reading a bunch of big storylines I came across in the archive. But I found a few options!

.... for us to use .... Cursed awful typing skills.

"you cheat on me, and then steal second place from me"

no way lololol

I choose to believe you, somehow, calculated it.

It's Dorothy!

Oh admit it, you did the math and tweaked this.

The comment section as things go from theoretical to actual Steve Eating Cereal

Me, I'm just happy to be there, though

Alright, fuck it, I'm in.

the alt text though lol

This is just a very exciting panel.

SICKOS CHEERING

OVER 2000 COMMENTS!!!! IT'S FINALLY FUCKING HAPPENED!!!!

but at what cost

don't look now but the RELATIONSHIP PALADINS just had their

Were you waiting and refreshing for this one because daaaaamn

So, was Check, Please! an inspiration for this particular page?

The fallout is going to be spectacular but for now let us enjoy the moment.

I love that it's extremely clear the bluesky audience is sickos and sickos almost exclusively. Are they cheating? Who cares they're finally making out let's gooooooo

I'm not reading a webcomic named dumbing of age for the characters to make good decisions.

Is this cheating? Sure. Is it both hot and going to be a fantastic mess for (real world) years to come in the strip? Oh baby absolutely and I'm here for it, gimme that delicious mess

Sign them up for Google Calendar and Polyamory.

I mean as much as I’m here for the FINALLY of it all I’m also here for the absolute drama that will be the aftermath. I swear some people just don’t like stories as a concept.

When you definitely are a regular reader who knows the characters getting mad about this

Them cheating with one another is interesting! t's consistent with their behavior up to this point! It furthers SEVERAL character arcs! It's messy in a way that reads as familiar to both (my) college and wlw experience! I genuinely do not understand why people are so fucking pressed about it.

it is apparently impossible for most people, including the ones who complain about other people's lack of reading comprehension, to be able to clearly state "I like/dislike this in an in-universe|personal|stylistic choice|if they were real|actually think Willis did bad level" so they generalize...

One thing I've not seem people talk about enough is that this is the one way for the story to show Joe's change is genuine and not just a way for him to get with with the woman he fancies. If he can deal with being wronged without backsliding we know he is for real.

And, like, I don't think this is something that "needed" to happen as some sort of karmic justice. Or that the story "needed" to prove Joe is better now. But this is still interesting. I want to see Joe trying to be better even without anyone to impress.

I feel like people have memory-holed Joyce doing this w/Jacob barely a few months ago in-story, on a much flimsier pretext. She's been romantically impulsive this whole time, without much regard for consequences. That she has largely skated past it with only mild scolding might be about to change.

Yeah, so many people treating this as some particularly heinous things that tops anything they, or any of the other protagonista, have ever done before. I am honestly having trouble to discerning if it is bath faith or if some people just really cheating THAT much.

I genuinely think that while this is a pretty stupid thing for them to do, it's not even close to the stupidest thing either of them have done.

I really like this ship! It's the only one I've really had throughout the comic! (I simply do not find Joe that interesting as a character.) But the thing about this storyline that I've liked so much is how it's shown both why they love each other AND why they're both complete boneheads. Cinema.

I think the biggest problem is everyone, including some sickos, treating this like The End when the backdrop is selfish and impulsive behavior that centres themselves at the expense of others. Like, doing this as a "statement" in a protest they weren't even attending is kinda on the nose here.

We now go live to a reaction from Becky Macintyre

Well now the tear gas looks even more like cherry blossoms surrounding that action.

okay, next stop is Joyce figures out she's poly and dates both Joe AND Dorothy, right? because I am so here for that

Oh my heart. My heart. I know this feeling. I had a girlfriend tell me about this feeling and I've recognized it ever since. See Joyce's sister in the background. She knows.

The comic we were waiting for!

Anthy thing can happen

It worked! Thanks, Joe! Also, sorry, Joe.

Joes a power bottom

It's really going to suck if Willis makes Joe go full a-hole. I understand the temptation narratively speaking, but I'd like to see him keep the growth he's had and it just seems lazy otherwise.

Thing is, Sarah tried to prevent a bad heartbreak and cut the middle-man, but no one listen to her: www.dumbingofage.com/2023/comic/b...

The logical next step is Joe/Walky revenge sex.

...oh, the irony

The tv show was The Simpsons and, well…

I'm sad because Joe does not deserve this. But I am sort of looking forward to how Joyce explains the part where Dorothy was so pent up she nearly got herself arrested out of frustration

first frame: FINALLY

SICKOS VICTORIOUS

youtu.be/HSxECJNYPuA

YEAHHH LETS GO!!!!!

Man I am not a fan of where this has been going Obviously it won't change anything and your buffer is huge but this might be my hopping off point

🥹 my heart can't take this 💞💗💞💗💞💗

I just yelled so loud I'm sure my neighbors heard. I'm with the website commenters - boo to cheating and boo to the trope of cheating on your man with a woman Now we'll wait another six years for the fallout 🤣

How common a trope IS that? A bunch of people are saying that (some with the phrase GOOD man) and even reading yuri as much as I have and watching all the TV I do I can't think of a lot of examples? Korrasami I guess?

it's less a trope of something that happens in media (though it does) and more something people constantly assume bi people will do irl it's very very much not a yuri trope, no, bc yuri is treating the f/f relationship as a *good* thing. it's from a straight guy perspective: fetishize or demonize

Aaaah. Yeah okay. Also I take back Korrasami because I remembered it was Mako cheating on his current gf with another woman multiple times so yeaaaah

I can think a couple of yuri examples ("A Lying Bride's Case for Same-Sex Marriage" is the most obvious one). But all of them are married closeted women trapped in a loveless marriage, a situation that is not only very unlike DoA, but also much less morally complex in my opinion.

THE CONSEQUENCES WILL BE HARSH AND TERRIBLE BUT WE HAVE THIS FOR NOW WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

Comment section go boom 💥 🤭

omg, comment section STILL goin boom 💥😮

People are very concerned about the actions of fictional characters

Yeah, I saw this strip and was just like "Ah, good, new reaction image face just dropped" in regards to Jocelyne.

Also, I see we're bringing back the ol' love octagon.

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

Saving this one as a reaction image

Dumbing Of Age book N+1: "THE RAMIFICATIONS WILL BE HARSH AND PLENTIFUL BUT THEY WON’T BE HERE FOR AT LEAST THIRTY MORE SECONDS, LET’S FUCKIN GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!"

This was an homage to a comment at the very beginning of the arc when they almost kissed in bed, so full credit to the OG. bsky.app/profile/irre...

....oh! you're welcome! I'd been thinking that quote sounded familiar XD

You have no idea how many times I have used that screencap.

i am happy to have provided a service UwU

Someone had the perfect pfp for this one and went for it

Nice.

oh my god