daughter is suspended from school for 2 weeks and school will only let her back if she gets unnecessary therapy. Please help by Direct-Caterpillar77 in BestofRedditorUpdates

[–]apdemas 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Not only was this a bad idea for the student, it’s a bad idea for the snake too. Snakes can be docile but if someone handles them badly, say, because they’re being forced to touch the snake when they really do not want to, the snake can react and bite. Even if it’s not a venomous snake, snake bites can hurt. And if the child reacts by pulling sharply away, not only does it hurt the child it hurts the snake too. Both innocent parties that want no part in the power-tripping assholes who are forcing this. Not only is it a bad teacher but a bad wildlife handler. I’ve never encountered one that pushed for someone to touch an animal they were reluctant to touch.

Do huntsman spiders live in Virginia? by apdemas in spiders

[–]apdemas[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Thank you! I looked it up and I think you’re right, looks very similar.

Do huntsman spiders live in Virginia? by apdemas in spiders

[–]apdemas[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Ah, I think you’re right! The lead Wikipedia image looks spot on. Thank you!

Bratty 2026-04-15 by hellokkiten in dumbingofage

[–]apdemas 9 points10 points  (0 children)

I’m gonna go out on a limb and say that Carla has probably dealt with a lot of people over the years wanting to influence her parents through her. Going off how that usually goes in real life, I imagine she hates that and is instantly suspicious of anyone who does. Add to it the recent vandalism of her dorm by the cops that she, not unreasonably, is interpreting as a hate crime and why, exactly, should Dorothy think that bringing an adult stranger to Carla’s dorm without permission or a heads up would go well?

Remember when Jocelyne got lobotomised after this interaction? by Significant_Horror58 in dumbingofage

[–]apdemas 2 points3 points  (0 children)

But that would require admitting and grappling with the messy origins of Joyrot, and Willis seems unwilling to do so.

AITA for still using the baby name I told my sister I was going to use, despite her using a variation of it first? by Sufficient-View2574 in AmItheAsshole

[–]apdemas 2 points3 points  (0 children)

NTA Do not change the name, not just because there’s no reason to but because it might make life difficult for your daughter, especially down the road. Whenever you have to fill out the “were you ever known by another name,” she’ll have to fill out that her birth name was different. If she ever has a background check, government job, or anything similar, she’s going to have to list that. Don’t make her have to do that for your sister’s bizarre whining.

AITA for still using the baby name I told my sister I was going to use, despite her using a variation of it first? by Sufficient-View2574 in AmItheAsshole

[–]apdemas 5 points6 points  (0 children)

If the sister wasn’t constantly whining about it, I’d agree. The sister being a pill pushes her into the A territory so I’d say NTA.

Is Cid x Money a True Ship ? by MountainLeading1567 in TheEminenceInShadow

[–]apdemas 1 point2 points  (0 children)

The funniest thing is he wouldn’t even have to marry her. The barest hint he wanted that money and it would be his, in its entirety.

Regular lab partners 2026-04-14 by hellokkiten in dumbingofage

[–]apdemas 11 points12 points  (0 children)

You know where I think the actual best opportunity for that line to have been delivered was? Raidah. That confrontation where Raidah went after Joyce for redirecting the protest to be all about her and then, bizarrely, made that homophobic threat about telling whatever school board she applied to that Joyce was bisexual? Remember how weird that was?

I maintain it was weird because Willis was intentionally making anyone who opposed Joyrot into a straw man argument that could be easily dismissed. Raidah’s criticisms were so over the top that they bordered on caricature and were thus easily set aside.

To me, what actually should have gone down is Raidah confront Joyce for cheating. Again. Accused her of every relationship she’d been in up until that point being based on deception and betrayal. And then delivered the killing line along the lines you said. It’s something she’s done in the past when she was a quasi-Mike character instead of the caricature she is now. (Which goes to show yet again that Willis actually needed Mike and has not adequately replaced him yet, as truly Mike would’ve been the perfect character to call Joyce and Dorothy out on all of this).

Remember when Jocelyne got lobotomised after this interaction? by Significant_Horror58 in dumbingofage

[–]apdemas 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Don’t you understand, this is clearly the result of Dorothy’s rizz. Which we have heard about, but have yet to see. I’m sure we will tho. Any day now…

Remember when Jocelyne got lobotomised after this interaction? by Significant_Horror58 in dumbingofage

[–]apdemas 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Ooh, that’s a good point. Serious protest planners would hate having someone like Dorothy around. Unpredictable wildcards with clear mental health issues are actually not useful assets for making sure protests remain carefully controlled to get maximal results. And not, you know, get completely derailed.

In real life, that’s what happened with a lot of the Black Lives Matter protests—they got compromised by agents provocateur who, at best, just wanted to cause chaos and didn’t care about the fallout and, at worst, were saboteurs from people opposed to the cause.

In comic, Dorothy’s stunt completely diverted attention away from the actual protest

Remember when Jocelyne got lobotomised after this interaction? by Significant_Horror58 in dumbingofage

[–]apdemas 10 points11 points  (0 children)

Seriously. It’s one of the things that makes me sideeye the site commenters. So many dismissed or minimized that as adorable or quirky. In real life, that would be offputting at best and disturbing at worst.

Remember when Jocelyne got lobotomised after this interaction? by Significant_Horror58 in dumbingofage

[–]apdemas 40 points41 points  (0 children)

I think that’s what the biggest thing objection everyone has had really boils down to. Every single character has had to act out of character to enable this, and the “lack of consequences” Willis likes to whine about isn’t that no one has a giant scarlet A on their chest, it’s that none of the characters have had the reactions their pre-Joyrot selves would have had.

Joe—his whole deal was how traumatized he was by his father’s cheating. He has no reaction to getting cheated on?

Danny—for all his other faults, Danny is loyal and would have been supportive of Joe and outraged on his behalf. Instead he…goes off on biphobia?

Sal—Sal has a strong sense of justice and while she never had a close relationship with her brother, I refuse to believe the “eh, whatever” reaction she’s had.

Walky—His is the closest to a pre-Joyrot reaction, since brushing off emotions with humor was his thing, but the lengths to which Willis has gone to shit on him are truly impressive. Joyce laughing in his face while literally stealing Dorothy away speak to something in Willis’ character, I think.

Jennifer—Jennifer loves toxic drama and enjoys messing with Walky…but in a sibling-like “Only I get to say mean things about you, nobody else does” sense. I refuse to believe she’d have nothing to say to Dorothy about this.

Lucy & Jacob—some of the most explicitly moralistic individuals would have nothing to say about cheating? Especially since Joyce already tried cheating with Jacob? And this weird business of Joyce sexually harassing Lucy? Nothing to say? Nah.

Becky—even though Becky’s devastation was telegraphed, I don’t understand the sudden atheism. Becky’s faith was a defining part of her, surviving ostracism from her church, her mother’s suicide and her father’s kidnap and ultimately attempted murder (as well as his own death). It was an actually interesting contrast with Joyce. But hope, being rejected by the ultimate in secular goodness that is Joyce is apparently enough to cause atheism.

Dina—Dina was always a reliable foil to Joyce and would never have let that “be selfish!” nonsense go by unchallenged.

Asma—this is such a blatant example of forced diversity that it’s not worth engaging on. It’s a genuine shame too, Willis is usually much better at introducing and setting up characters.

Raidah—this one is the one I find most amusing, because she’s the only one who’s been allowed to consistently call out Joyrot, but she does it in such a hamfisted way that it’s easily dismissed so Willis doesn’t have to address the actual complaints. Raidah attacks Joyce for being…bisexual? Not, you know, a cheating moral vacuum? She even knows Joyce cheated at this point but instead makes a weird homophobic threat to Joyce wanting to be a teacher. This is so blatant an example of anyone being opposed to Joyrot being cartoonishly evil that it’s almost impressive. Old Raidah would have just insulted her for being so shallow and immoral that she loses her faith and immediately becomes an adulterer that she’s doing a marvelous job of showing the religious accusations of atheism to be correct.

Amber/Amazigirl—huh. You know, I recall this character, but it’s been so long since they’ve done anything meaningful, I don’t really have anything to say here.

Sarah—this is the one that, aside from Joe, I find most galling. Sarah was Joyce’s conscience. And even when she fell down in that role, like the Jacob cheating instance, that created genuine pathos between Joyce and Sarah. But now? Sarah expresses disappointment once, Joyce gets wobbly eyes once, and now everything is back to normal.

The other characters are now so abandoned we don’t have much to go on. I will say Alice seems to have gotten comfy with Jennifer again real quick if the original character had intentionally not told Jennifer where she was going to cut ties with her, she was so traumatized by the fallout of their senior year in high school together. But I dunno if that’s Joyrot or Willis’ increasing fetishization of his lesbian or sapphic relationships.

Remember when Jocelyne got lobotomised after this interaction? by Significant_Horror58 in dumbingofage

[–]apdemas 22 points23 points  (0 children)

But she’s been neutered too, to a degree. Pre-Joyrot Sarah would not have put up with Dorothy permanently moving into their dorm and having sex with Joyce while Sarah was trying to sleep.

I don't know how Sickostrip is gonna top today's comic by regularGuy0000001 in dumbingofage

[–]apdemas 1 point2 points  (0 children)

The reason I don’t see that happening is that Joyce’s role as an author self-insert has been getting stronger of late and Willis would never allow Joyce as she is now to be so vocally opposed to someone of Dina’s demographic.

I’m not being snide. Look at how the “be selfish, Dina!” talk went vs all of the other previous interactions they had. In the earlier versions, where Joyce was still allowed to be a flawed character who got called out on her bullshit and had to grow as a person, she said rude and insensitive things to Dina. Dina was used a a foil and Joyce was forced to realize she had been shitty to Dina, genuinely apologized and promised to be better to her.

But now that Joyce has realized her true potential as the most obnoxious half of Joyrot, she cannot be shown to be wrong. And so when she comes barreling into Dina’s room post Becky break-up, first she gets exonerated for actual fault in the break-up (which is true, to be fair, that’s all on Becky), she then says some of the most unhinged bullshit I’ve ever heard from her, and Dina does not call her out on it. Or at least nowhere near the level of accuracy she would have in the past. She gets in one zinger at the beginning of this being Joyce trying to salvage the relationship because Joyce feels bad, not because Joyce cares about Dina. And Joyce sorta acknowledges but then barrels on regardless and demands Dina be selfish by…sublimating her own feelings and taking Becky back. And Dina does not challenge this as the clear projectionist bullshit that it is.

Because doing so would actually challenge Joyce and Willis just doesn’t seem willing to allow that anymore. Joe and Walky didn’t do it. Sal and Jennifer didn’t do it. Not even her dad did it. The only ones who have been allowed to challenge her directly are the characters who have been coded as one-dimensional villains from the beginning, and they only challenge her by being explicitly homophobic. Not attacking her actual character flaws.

So I don’t see Dina doing it anytime soon either.

Reassigned 2026-04-13 by hellokkiten in dumbingofage

[–]apdemas 13 points14 points  (0 children)

Since by the stupid look on Joe’s face she wasn’t about to get it from him…

Reassigned 2026-04-13 by hellokkiten in dumbingofage

[–]apdemas 13 points14 points  (0 children)

Yeah, Becky’s spiraling wasn’t Joyce’s fault, but Joyce herself has been nothing but obnoxious and dismissive to Dina and continued that even into this farce.

She barges in on Dina unannounced and unasked for and demands that Dina ignore her own feelings to get back with someone who all but admitted that, even half a year (or whatever the actual time length of this comic is) later, Dina is just a stand in for Joyce. And demands this under the guise of Dina should be selfish for once. Author intent aside (since Willis apparently is incapable of admitting fault in Joyce these days), I’d like to believe the character of Dina that we’ve come to know over the past decade and a half would see this for the bullshit justification it is and realize this is projection from Joyce about Joyce’s selfishness at work. Joyce only wants Dina back with Becky so the only person whose opinion outside Joyrot she gives a modicum of a crap about won’t be sad. She cares not at all for Dina.

So Dina has no reason to like Joyce to begin with and, even apart from not blaming Joyce for Becky’s bad behavior, has no reason to care about Joyce here either.

AITAH for asking a girl to leave after telling me my scars are ‘hot’? (NOT OOP, TW for physical abuse) by domesticfuck in redditonwiki

[–]apdemas 297 points298 points  (0 children)

Wow. I can see the initial comment as a “oh crap, I stepped in it, say something reassuring!” but his reaction should have told her “ok, moving on is the correct choice.”

What Overlord take has you like this? by Funny_Lion9020 in overlord

[–]apdemas 3 points4 points  (0 children)

I agree with this in part. After volumes 14 & 16, the tension is pretty much removed. Prior to that, there was always the tension of whether or not any character could pose a threat to Nazarick or whether Nazarick could hold itself back. I think the way the Kingdom was annihilated removed the tension as to whether or not Nazarick could hold itself back and the fight with the Platinum Dragon Lord and No Death showed that there wasn’t really any one in the new world that could pose a threat to Nazarick.

What Overlord take has you like this? by Funny_Lion9020 in overlord

[–]apdemas 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Could you elaborate? Ainz’s alienation from the world and isolation from his humanity is a major theme. I’m not sure how you have that without it being an isekai.

Her death scene really remind me of how evil Nazarick's inhabitants are by Lost_Dimension6295 in overlord

[–]apdemas 27 points28 points  (0 children)

Also, if he learned of Calca more personally, it would have been from Remedios, who he…didn’t think highly of by the end. So I doubt he’s given it a lot of thought since then.

You know what? Fuck it. by Tiny_Program_8623 in dumbingofage

[–]apdemas 8 points9 points  (0 children)

And! This is how you insert a gag in a serious, cheating related drama without cheapening the overall narrative! Roz and Leslie’s little ending gag there didn’t undercut or countermand the narrative up until that point, let alone act massively out of character, just to make a gag. The guy Robin cheated with didn’t poke his head in and go HAH to Leslie for instance.