Yeah, I think it would be better written as “Joe’s voice in my head is now officially Nathan Fillion.” That’s what he meant, whatever you thought he meant by “official”…
On the subject of the Venture Brothers, I followed that link and I’ve never watched any of that before and now I want to watch it so fuck you. I watched a summary going up to season five and fuck, that seems screwed up. So maybe I should watch it.
Season 1 is a little bit of a slow starter, since it needs to set up everything, and the titular brothers’ personalities hadn’t really “diverged” yet, but everything from season 2 onward is solid gold.
Dr. Horrible is pretty, um, horrible as soon as you dig down more than a layer and start to think about it. But the music is great so I prefer to separate the two. Because nuance is a thing, but perfection is not.
You’re not great with tragedies in general, are you? Billy is a tragic hero, and his flaw is being a modern man. He’s attracted to his career and his rivalries to prove his worth, when the only measure that matters is that he’s compassionate and devoted and romantic to a fault. He listens to what society tells him he should be (which he sucks at) instead of exploring who he really is.
Penny was ready to show him his flaws, and told him how to be who he really is, like she did. “Grief replaced with pity, for a city barely coping. Dreams are easy to achieve if hope is all I’m hoping to be…” But he couldn’t see it, he couldn’t listen to her, because she’s the goal, not a friend, not someone to pursue on the side, she’s someone he had to win when all she needed was someone to really be there. “This is perfect for me, so they say, I guess he’s pretty okay. After years of stormy sailing have I finally found the bay?”
So, he had his flaws, he was given a chance to fix them, and instead took the encouragement to solve things the way he was going to anyway. It’s so dumb. He was doing it for Penny, and he knew it wasn’t going to work: “the thoroughbred of sin?” “I mean, Gandhi.” and “and though she may cry, her tears will dry when I hand her the keys to a shiny new Australia!”
Penny went through the same grief Billy did, but she took it in stride. Billy had to try to get even. he wanted to show them all, but when he finally succeeded, there was no one left to show, just because his own true nature got in the way for a minute.
“There’s no happy endings, so they say, (not for me anyway), should I stop pretending, or is this a brand new day? (and take a chance to build a brand new day?)” Billy says that he’s been told all his life he’s a loser, a nerd, what society hates, and that the hero, the jock, the deceiving ass, will always win, always defeat him, and his only chance is to stop pretending he can be the good guy, fully embrace his role as evil and build his own new day. Penny is only going along with liking Capt. Hammer because everyone says he’s perfect, and only she is starting to see the cracks, and she’s wondering if she should stop pretending she can’t, or if things really are as people says, and this is her new day. Neither of these new days are happy endings, and neither is the real one.
The earliest time you could see it coming is Billy almost brushing off Penny in favor of the wonderflonium. Penny is working with those around her, and Billy is focused on the big picture and thinks she won’t change anything. He thinks he can’t change anything either, yet. “A man’s gotta do what a man’s gotta do, don’t plan the plan if you can’t follow through, all that matters is taking matters into your own hands, soon I’ll control everything, my wish is your command-“
The bomb explodes in his face but it completely misses him and hits Penny with shrapnel even though she’s across the room, and had no reason to even be in there in the first place.
Penny is there as the guest of honor and one of the people who made the homeless shelter happen. But, besides that, you’re missing the point: would Billy not killing Penny have made a happy ending? The entire story is building up to calling Billy a heartless idiot for wanting to be Dr. Horrible. Penny never could have accepted Billy that way. her dying words were “Captain Hammer will save us…” Even after she started to have doubts, being the one non villain that understood Hammer as an ass, she still prefers him to Dr. Horrible. Billy never could have redeemed himself that way.
What you’re describing sounds really awesome, but in practice it was a total mess, with Whedon’s trademark surprise death scene for a character with no actual personality beyond being a piece of meat for Dr. Horrible to pine over. I didn’t care about any of them.
You might as well be trying to tell me that The Room was actually the subversive masterpiece Tommy Wiseau insists it was.
Dude, it was only 45 minutes long. Of course it was a huge mess, and it takes several watchings and perhaps reading what other people got out of it to get the message across. Idea 9/10, execution 7/10, and that only because it’s so damn rewatchable, with the interleaving lyrics and catchy music and cohesiveness. Penny in particular really doesn’t get any characterization beyond cute activist girl swooning and then unsure. If you think about it, you realize she must have gone through basically everything Dr. Horrible did except the supervillain result, but there’s no more than hints of that in the actual video.
But claiming that the tragic ending is slapped on completely ignores that any happy ending would have been completely incongruous with any of the characters. It’s a deliberately screwed up world. If Penny had lived, it would have served to shove it in your face even more.
Like I said, what you’re describing sounds really cool and interesting, but in practice, it sucked. None of the characters were enjoyable or interesting. The death at the end was ridiculous because Horrible is right next to the bomb when it goes off but he’s fine, but Penny just decided to hide in the auditorium instead of run, and then stand up.
I don’t know, I think it’s perfectly in character that the one thing the death ray can’t possibly harm is what it’s pointing at. In fact, they almost lampshade it before the fact. “Let’s see if this works any better than the others.”
She stood up to see what was happening.
Anyway, it’s still my favorite shortform thing of all time, including tv episodes.
Dr. Horrible was lying on the floor, below the level of the shrapnel. Captain Hammer took a direct hit, but is nigh-invulnerable, so while it caused him actual pain (for the first time in his life), it didn’t damage him. Penny was standing and caught a direct chunk. If the gun had exploded radially then Dr. Horrible would have taken hits as well, but like bouncing betty bombs, it went off laterally.
i mean. of the three of them (penny, hammer and horrible), penny was the only one working to affect real change that wasn’t just holding up the status quo. the central irony is that horrible had to kill a hero in order to become a villain, and that hero was penny. hammer was, arguably, just as much of a villain as horrible was trying to be, he was just societally approved.
penny’s absence from the narrative is a weakness of the story, and i can’t look at it without thinking what a loss she is to the world. and horrible was able to recognize that, which is the tragedy of it. she’s killed for manpain, but she’s also a loss in and of herself. in her own value. maybe my standards here are low, but like. it’s not like her death is long and drawn out for the audience’s pleasure?
i mean, like. whedon was revolutionary in the 90s, and this sort of marks his decline into just being behind the times. it probably would be a much more effective twist to have, say, horrible kill hammer and then to have penny take hammer’s place as a hero because she doesn’t want a brand new australia, horrible, what’s even the point of that?
…it’s probably more a point of what you compare it to.
That’s actually a really cool analysis of Penny, and I think it’s something that would have made the story a lot better, that with her dead and Hammer broken, Horrible starts getting cheers from the villain community, but we see the breakdown of the work Penny tried to achieve. As it is, she just comes off as the girl-du-jour for Horrible to moon over and then sob about. The only impact of her death is that now Horrible feels sad.
Yeah, but I wonder if he’d ever try it out just to make sure. Sounds like something he might do. *shrugs* But his response to Danny’s question about him potentially doing dudes was “of course not” so I might actually be wrong about that.
His needs are simple. Since this comic has a floating timescale, if we as a culture ever invent holodecks or sexbots, he will never be seen in a strip again. His life will be complete.
My theory used to be that the reason UC ended up as a girl-bot was that Joe just happened to have a ton of female robot bodies lying around and UC didn’t care about gender so she just pointed to one and said it’ll do.
Gave up on that idea when we saw that she lacks ladyparts under her clothes. No way any bots Joe made for his own use wouldn’t be anatomically correct. Hell, they might have spares.
He is also interested in making sure the lady has a good time, too.
Also he has a secret but deep interest in toys (unless I’m getting this mixed up with the Walky-verse; I’m rereading both) and is thinking of going into engineering design or something like that so he can design Transformers. Which would be cool. Sadly, I think doing that would ideally mean transferring to MIT or something because IU doesn’t have all of the course requirements.
Like, yes, he wants to get laid and currently, he’s getting laid. But he’s got a lot of toxic values that are a detriment long-term to his current goals (that women are willing to overlook his creepy views on consent and his predatory way of hitting on women and the way he views women as numbers because he is currently hot enough for some to say, yeah, I’m horny, fuck it, I can always gag him doesn’t mean that’s going to work forever).
So yeah, he’s got his right now figured out at least with regards to his goals (1. Get laid regularly; 2. Push away Danny enough that Joe can pretend to live in an emotionless universe; 3. More laid), but yeah, not really building any long term skills even if his goals stay consistent as he matures-… ok, gets older.
I think you are thinking of Walky-verse Joe. While similar in a lot of respects, this Joe isn’t a creep like the other version is. He knows what consent, and always makes sure to get it. The official cast page even says “thankfully he’s pretty big on consent.” Remember when he schooled Danny on consent when Danny thought he knew what the girl wanted more then she did?
I will agree that he has absolutely no long term goals, though. I don’t believe he has even decided on a major (though correct me if I’m wrong there). But out of the cast, Id definitely say he has his life figured out more then most (not Dorothy, obviously).
The trouble with Joe is that he behaves just the typical creep, but we’re told he’s not. We’re told he’s “pretty big on consent”, but he’s a minor character and we don’t get to see enough of his exploits to see how different he really is.
That said, I don’t think he really “has his life figured out”. The whole “I don’t deal with emotions” thing is a huge sign that he’s got issues he’s not handling.
So far that would be Joyce, who he intended to break out of her sheltered upbringing by the might of his penis, and Sarah, who screamed in his face to get him to stay away from her, whereupon he went on a little spiel about how he wanted to harvest her angry sex energy or something.
Also his first action upon meeting Becky was to refer to her as “tasty” and lift his shirt up, and he was just kind of a douchebag to Billie when he walked away mid-conversation because he decided there was a cheerleader to bang.
I mean, yeah, he’s big on consent, but it seems weird that a basic standard of human decency is a bulletin point for the character.
For a guy “big on consent” we’ve seen him be really objectifying towards women, especially queer women, and dismissive towards anyone who doesn’t pursue sex like he does. Like, even that one part with Danny, he was still mad at him beforehand because he didn’t want to have sex with Billie, and when Danny gave his actual reasoning, Joe just skipped out.
The nicest thing I can say about him is that he’s not a rapist. That isn’t particularly endearing.
Like, even that one part with Danny, he was still mad at him beforehand because he didn’t want to have sex with Billie, and when Danny gave his actual reasoning, Joe just skipped out.
This! (I know i had commented different about this in the past, but in hindsight, Joe was right calling Dannies’ bluff why he didn’t have sex with Billie.
But the context of that one strip (the one immediately before and after it) makes him still a jerk.
And the only reason he is big in consent is he has seen how much of a creep his father is.
There’s a long distance between not physically forcing himself on a girl who’s punching him or screaming at him to stay away and backing off whenever told to. There’s a lot of manipulation you can do, along with a lot of picking vulnerable targets.
He may well not. I suspect that Willis doesn’t think of him that way, but since we haven’t seen his successful techniques.
Part of my problem is that I’ve never seen anyone as successful with the ladies as he appears to be without being a serious creep. No one scoring regularly with different girls and threesomes and everything else that’s been implied and apparently with no hard feelings from any of them.
Those I saw come close, even without crossing the line into rape, used alcohol to lower inhibitions & judgement, picked emotionally vulnerable targets and lied to them about intent, etc.
That we’re not seeing any of how he does it, other than just being hot, makes it hard to shake that impression.
Does that make Roz just as bad? Or is it a guy thing? Because Roz is very overtly sexual, and has no problems with using her body for her own agendas, even if it’s just to try and tempt guys like Jacob.
I don’t find Joe that bad, because at the moment he strikes me as just having enough confidence to simply hit on random ladies. And to be fair, the two that have yelled at him (Joyce and Sarah) aren’t exactly paragons of calmness, and he’s backed straight off.
He’s got his facepalm-worthy moments, but I don’t really consider him a bad person. Just a guy going through college.
No, I don’t think it does. Partly it’s a guy thing, which can’t be ignored since the genders are still treated very differently.
Partly though it’s that Roz has motivations and philosophy behind what she’s doing. She enjoys the sex, obviously, but she’s not just following a stereotyped path. She’s thought about it.
Joe on the other hand is a stereotype, but one with the creepy bits handwaved away.
Maybe if we saw more of the famous Joe seduction in progress, my opinion would change. As I said above, I find it hard to reconcile how successful he is with how he’s portrayed. I knew guys with “enough confidence to simply hit on random ladies” and they weren’t anywhere near that successful. They got lucky occasionally. The ones who actually were picking up different random girls on regular basis were the ones cruising parties looking for drunk girls and other vulnerable targets.
so like: to make Joe more likable, we’d have to see him being genuinely knock-your-socks-off charming, not just schmoozer charming. amp up the Carey Grant, tone down the fratboy.
or maybe he’s talking a bigger game than he’s actually performing. which would be hilarious.
Eh, Joe’s got a lot of problems, but ‘consent’s not an issue he’s been shown to have. The closest we’ve come to seeing him disrespect it was his assumption that his charm would earn his way into Joyce’s pants. We don’t get to see, granted, how he’d have reacted if she’d declined to consent in a non-punchy way, but the bulk of the evidence is in favour of him not being a jackass on that front.
You know, I bet Joe would still ask Danny this if he knew Danny was bi. But he’d change it up. “Danny is my stubble too thick? Am I sexy? Would you bang me? IS YOUR DICK HARD RIGHT NOW?”
I dunno, Joe, my experience is that while some ladies are into facial hair, very few are into stubble. I mean, sure, it makes you look all rugged and whatever, but when you get right down to it, it chafes their thighs.
Facial hair is nice when it grows out a bit, never had any discomfort issues with it. But I also have never had experience with stubble. The bearded men I’ve been with kept it grown out a little, so it was kinda soft.
Like I implied in my reply to Bill, below, I wear a full beard long enough that I can, and sometimes do, braid it. Some ladies think that’s a turn-off, others think it’s hot. But I’ve never had any complaints about it from ladies who got up close and personal with me, and some have reported that they like how it feels on, uh… parts.
I haven’t been clean-shaven since I could grow a beard worthy of the name, but I used to wear my beard Riker-style, and I did get complaints if I didn’t keep the parts I shaved shaved clean.
Panel 5 is probably not doing Danny any good in working out his crush on Ethan, but then it’s for the best that he learn it’s not something he needs to relentlessly smother. Having someone to fall back on when he’s overwhelmed by Amber’s problems will do him a world of good, and probably help him feel less like being there for her is less of a divine mandate that he has to accept, and more something that he’s choosing to do.
Ethan provides a lot of understanding, support, and advice with regards to his girlfriend that he needs right now. He’s providing a strong friendship and connection that is very special.
And ironically, it’s the crush itself that is threatening to that. If it was just a friendship to him, then there wouldn’t be a desire on his part to smash it all inside. But because he catches himself smiling and wanting more, he has a lot of angst about it.
Much more interesting to note is that I notice that Danny may not be well-versed in fighting off/recognizing his romantic/emotional attractions as much as his sexual. Like, when he feels the sexual, he’s right across the room and in full suppress mode. But when he’s sharing a sweet connection or smiling and blushing at the thought of a person, or falling into NRE, he seems to react much less.
I think he might be much more used to fighting off multiple sexual attractions and this might be the first time he’s ever been emotionally attracted to two people since Amber and Amazi-Girl (well, at the time he didn’t know that they were alters in the same person). So, I’m not sure he’s used to noticing it until it gets full on at that moment of thinking about dating them.
These last couple of strips make me wonder if they’re actually right or if this time Amber is reaching a new level of instability. It feels like their reaction is a bit… minimizing. Tame? What’s the word I’m looking for here.
Kind of surprised at Ethan, being so nonchalant about Amber’s situation. Guess he doesn’t realize that this is the kind of attitude that makes someone like Amber even worse.
On the outside they appear fine, on the inside they are crying for help and no one hears them. If Ethan had realized she needed help sooner…oh, well.
Well, I mean, that’s Ethan’s character. He’s always been pretty passive and isn’t really good at the whole strong intervention thing. And well, he’s working from past experience. He’s probably been through a fair share of meltdowns in situations where he has literally zero power to encourage her to healthy resources (when someone is a minor and especially when they have a controlling parent, you can think they need therapy, you can recommend they look into it, but you can’t really do much of anything without the approval of the parents outside of like full-on hospitalization levels (which she isn’t)).
And he acknowledges that the form of being steady might not involve straight up being passive. When Danny follows up with “should I let her be” or “should I intervene”, he shrugs his shoulders and says it’s complicated. Basically he’s a friend who’s tried their best with a friend who has no interest in seeking out care to help themselves and who can be very antagonistic at times when pushed against.
It is a complicated situation and the right approach at the right moment might not be initially clear, especially to someone who doesn’t actually have psychological education.
When one has an alter that dresses up as a fucking vigilante and is nearing getting herself killed and is potentially a real threat to others…. I ain’t so sure about the whole hospitalization level thing.
We don’t know how much Ethan really knows about Amber’s condition. He’s had his own questions to deal with, and Amber seems like she might be good at hiding things. She must have been cooking up the Amazi-girl concept for a good while without anyone who might intervene to stop her, like her mother, finding out. So she may have successfully hidden some things from Ethan as well.
I think the most he’s seen (recently) is her flipping-the-tables because of *himself*. He felt guilty for that debacle. I don’t think he is really aware of more than her occasional AG antics. Like, I don’t think he has gotten the *full* account of The Incident, yet. I don’t think he has really spoken with Joyce, yet, either.
I dunno. The way he dealt with Amber after she confronted Joyce, he made it clear that he loved her but wasn’t going to let her boss him around over his sexuality, and he didn’t come off as taking responsibility for Amber lashing out (nor should he have).
He also knows enough about Amber’s double life and he pretty loudly condemned it the last time they spoke.
I’m gay, and I thought I knew what my taste in men would be like, but it keeps changing. What I liked when I was much younger no longer appeals to me, and what I liked when I was not-as-young is much narrower than what I like now.
It’s all about what you’re comfortable with, and that changes depending on what you associate with different body types and physical features, and can be changed if you open yourself up and relax.
Unless that’s just me.
Not just you…what I find appealing in men and women has changed over the years. (The centre of the target has shifted for dudes. For dudettes, the grouping has just gotten more erratic.)
Joe, how long have you been right outside the door? How much did you hear? Is this question of stubble simply hiding the fact that you came over looking for Jacob but instead heard Danny and Ethan talking about Amber’s slashfic and the mechanics of gay sex? Or are you just comic relief character number #2 now?
Also, today’s my birthday. I would have preferred a Joe-less strip on my birthday. Mr. Willis, please make sure my next year’s birthday strip has no Joe in it. Thank you very much!
My birthday is on Friday, and you know what I’m getting? Bullshit, same as every year, because everybody is busy celebrating something else. 😐 Back in my heyday, we’d take a DoA strip with Joe and enjoy it! /grumpyoldman :p
(Also: Happy solstice birthday! It’s a much cooler day than mine…I’ve always wished I was a solstice baby instead. 🙁 )
This Joe is simpler than Walkyverse Joe, I think, because some of his complicating traits were eliminated as redundant with the other tall, dark and handsome Jewish dude into Transformers around, but I think he’s still more complicated than he likes to let on. I’m not sure if there’s another story to tell about him that Walkyverse Joe didn’t already cover, though. (Watch Willis prove that wrong.)
I still see Joe/Joyce as a legitimately plausible ship, too, though they’ve both got a lot of development to do to get there.
Hi! I’m a girl who likes stubble. Preferably about 1-3mm long. Longer is okay, but I’m not a fan of thick scraggly beards. Shaved is meh, and “two days after the shave” is irritating.
I don’t really think so. We’re never going to see the excessive lengths of the car chase ever again, and the only person who’s really in danger is Sal, and Amber’s never actually going to be able to hurt her, not unless Willis is really devoted to making us hate Amber.
Things are going to get worse, they kind of have to, but we’re never going to see anything as outlandish as the car chase again. Amber’s not going to endanger dozens of people and then get a thank you hug from Dina this time.
The absolute worst that could happen, and the only thing with any dramatic weight, is that she goes after Sal again, and then Sal would come out unscathed because otherwise Amber would definitely, absolutely need to go to jail and also literally nobody in the fandom would be able to like her ever again. The only people in any danger from Amber are the occasional randoms who show up to get beaten up with no consequence or relevance to Amber’s narrative.
Blaine will return. That’s likely to be a major, possibly the final turning point in Amber’s arc.
She’ll need to face Sal again as well. Probably some kind of reconciliation. The seeds for that have been laid.
Blaine could easily involve outlandish heroics again. We may not get quite as crazy as the car chase scene again, but we will see action sequences. Willis likes drawing them every now and again and that’s a good part of what Amazi-Girl is there for.
It’s also worth repeating that in-world and by Word of God that wasn’t “endanger dozens of people and then get a thank you hug”, that was sending a super-hero to rescue Becky. The Amber/Amazi-Girl arc is partly about her abuse and her issues, but it’s also about her being a super-hero. She’s not just a crazy who puts on a costume, even if she is crazy. She’s a super-hero. She gets to play with the super-hero tropes, from the secret id that somehow no one guesses to the physics defying stunts. That’s important to how this plays out.
The problem with Amber’s presence being a positive during the car chase is that the comic itself showed that she constantly endangered everyone around her. The idea of a teenage girl being a superhero is fantastical enough for this comic, but she nearly got herself and Becky killed because she isn’t the invincible hero she thinks she is.
Amber’s violent power fantasy can’t be okay to indulge some of the time. Amazi-Girl can’t be a good thing for Amber to pursue just as long as she’s pointing at the right people. Even when she was beating up Blaine, it was less about the coolness of seeing him get punched and more the horror of Amber completely losing herself in a violent rage.
She may be using the superhero tropes, but she’s also exhibiting how exactly dangerous and dysfunctional they are. Me, I don’t see it ending with Blaine’s final comeuppance. I see her riding a series of ‘successes’, becoming more and more erratic before finally imploding in some fashion.
UPS-delivery-guy: Mr. Daniel Wilcox?
Danny: Yes?
UPS-delivery-guy: You remember that crossword puzzle contest you participated in?
Danny: Not really…
UPS-delivery-guy: Thing is: You won! You won a really big refrigerator!
UPS-delivery-guy: And here it is! Where should i place it?
Danny: Eat’s a lot of space, but it almost fits in here.
UPS-delivery-guy: (unpacking refrigerator)
UPS-delivery-guy: So here it is! Please sign here!
Danny: (really amazing-refrigerator… I almost can climb into that…)
I think you missed the part where the mentally ill can’t be forced into treatment until they seriously injure or kill someone, and even then, it’s often just a temporary medical hold until they’re done freaking out unless their crime made the news and has hordes clamoring for them to stand trial. There is really nothing Danny or Ethan can do other than be there as friends and hope she sorts it out. Should they run to the school counselor? “I have a friend who needs help, and she’s seriously dangerous to herself, but she won’t come in for help.” Even IF the counselor was willing to take her name and go seek out Amber out of some sense of professional duty and empathy, how well do you think that conversation would go? “You have friends who are concerned about you and are worried you could get hurt. Would you like to talk?” “No.” “Okay, we’re here if you ever feel like you need someone to talk to.” *Amber narrows down list of people who could have told on her; makes notes that they’re willing to tell on her.*
The vast majority of mass shooters have not been considered “mentally ill,” even though basically everyone can agree that going out and injuring/killing a bunch of people you may or may not know because you got a little pissed off is not a healthy form of problem solving. And, despite what many would have you believe about (white) shooters, they didn’t just “suddenly snap,” either. They have long-term issues with anger that didn’t qualify them for a forcible mental health hold or treatment and that they didn’t think was a problem on their own, so they were never diagnosed as mentally ill, never treated, and thus “not mentally ill” at the time they committed their crime.
Blaine could have easily been a mass shooter; back when he was kicked out of the dorm for coming to Parents’ Day without an invite and getting into a fight with Amber, I worried that was exactly what he was doing when he “left without incident” – going home to get a weapon to come back and threaten Amber and the others who’d gotten in his way with. Essentially, pulling a ToeDad, only without the religious spouting.
I know too many mentally ill people in my life to know how the “treatment” game works. Attempts at suicide get them sent home in a squad car and an reminder to their family to “keep an eye on them.” ODing gets them a couple of days drying out in the hospital and then sent home. Addiction gets them hand-waving and “maybe the local dry-out center will take your insurance, try them.” Sometimes, ER nurses get so tired of seeing the same person back in there for the umpteenth time that month that they’ll let the person sit and cry in the waiting room until a family member can come and pick them up, because they’re just not going to deal with it, and “she’s only here for more drugs, anyway.”
Those of us who got help got it because we were educated enough to know that something was very much wrong and were humble enough to know that we were not able to handle it on our own, no matter how much others might shame us or sneer at us for needing to seek professional help.
Amber is in a place where she’s very much afraid of what she is and what she could become, but she’s internalized that shame and sneering from her father as an additional layer of fear that’s making her put on a “brave” front – Amazi-girl – to deal with it herself. Unfortunately, the vast majority of individuals who try to “deal with it” without professional help end up dead well before a natural human lifespan ends.
That’s very reassuring Ethan but I’m afraid that sitting back and hoping that Amber ‘finds her way back’ is possibly unduly optimistic. If I were Danny, I would try to track her down. Even if I didn’t want to approach her (because she isn’t in the mood), I’d at least want to reassure myself that she was safe and not self-harming or anything like that.
As for Joe… I’m not sure, has Danny and/or Ethan come out to him? Is he looking for their aesthetic opinion? He’s not a bad bloke but sensitive is something he is not.
weirdly enough i think this is probably the best thing ethan can do for amber until she decides that she needs help. you can’t really force someone to seek help? you can’t make that decision for them. as the friend of someone who’s struggling, the best thing you can do for them is be there for them when they allow you to be there for them. if amber isn’t answering her cellphone, ethan can’t make her, y’know?
They are both very young. I know Ethan spoke of everyone wanting to put Amber in therapy back then but I am not sure they realize how serious her issues are and how to deal with them.
I understand Amber’s mom didnt have much authority before but if they are separated now, shdnt she be a bit more active in her daughter’s life? Is she even aware of Amber’s anger issues?
Probably not. Stacy in Shortpacked mentioned how she tried to make up for Blaine’s abuse by being constantly permissive, and from what I’ve gleamed from flashback panels, she wasn’t with Amber much as she was working.
People are complicated. But not many would stab someone through the hand. Amber is a full on cyclepath, and nobody seems to realise this. Except maybe Sal, but she’s not the right sort of person to make people aware of it (if you follow. There are certain roles in friend groups, and Sal isn’t the right person to everyone to say the sort of things that need to be said… If that makes sense).
It doesn’t really apply, because current Sal is not aware of this and Longdistancetraveler was referencing the discussion between Sal and Amazi-Girl after the car chase.
However Amber in her last conversation with Danny really blained it up, and that is worrysome.
Longdistancetraveler mentioned the time Amber stabbed Sal. I was explaining why that was a bit more complex than Amber being a “cyclepath”.
And, yeah, it’s worrisome; Amber knows that too and probably always has. Doesn’t mean one moment she immediately regretted and beat herself up over means she’s going to go Full Blaine.
As I mentioned above, has Danny come out to him in any way? Or did Joe just guess? Joe strikes me as one of those guys who would somehow consider a gay/bi man to be someone to whom you could ask these sort of questions without it somehow being creepy.
Of course, almost everything about Joe’s attitude to women is creepy but I digress…
We haven’t gotten a concrete answer. Anyone with a lick of sense could figure that Danny was trying to field questions about his own sexuality, but Joe was too busy trying to shut it down.
Well, they are childhood friends. It might just be that they’re used to asking each other’s opinions before anybody else’s. I mean, when Danny was confused about his feelings for Ethan, Joe was the first person he went to for advice. (If I’m remembering correctly.)
Honestly, I get the feeling Joe IS a more complicated individual – it’s just that no one’s super interested in dealing with him. Joe would be an amazing voice of reason (yes, that’s right!) and stability if Danny or other characters would just let him. Yeah he has a lot of sex, but he uses protection and respects those he has sex with. He understood before Danny that he and Dorothy weren’t working out. It’d be great if both him and Danny could open up enough that Joe can help him.
Danny’s tried opening up to him. Joe decided that having a conversation with his best friend about anything other than boobs was just too much. Every piece of advice Joe has imparted onto Danny has been somewhere along the lines of “You’re dumb. Love is pointless. Just fuck random people like I do.”
The only time Joe’s ever been a voice of reason was when he called out Danny and Walky for saying dumb, sexist shit. Otherwise he’s just been an uncaring meathead concerned only for his own pleasure.
Going back through his conversations, it’s pretty obvious that Joe in general is just not an open up to people kind of person in general. In this one at least : http://www.dumbingofage.com/2015/comic/book-5/02-threes-a-crowd/fetishy/ He obviously just wanted a normal conversation with Danny and Danny turned it into this heart-to-heart Joe wasn’t ready for.
And I think in his own way he was trying to help Danny during the whole Dorothy situation. In a way that didn’t appeal to Danny at all, but the message was “move on, don’t pine, stop making your significant other the only thing in your life.” Joe’s blunt and doesn’t open himself up but he does have gems of advice under all that Joe-y-ness.
Joe literally told Danny that he wanted to sleep with Dorothy. The minute they broke up he told Danny, to his face, he was going to try and sleep with her.
His “own way” sucks. He doesn’t try to support or understand; he just tells Danny to stop having feelings and fuck women like a real man.
To be fair, I don’t think he cares who Danny fucks, as long as Danny’s fucking someone. “Hope you’re getting laid,” is as close to, “I care about you,” as he’s willing to let himself get.
Thinking back… It seems Joe is intentionally acting like this; some sort of defence mechanism to avoid talking about feelings. I wonder if his parents’ divorce has anything to do about this…
Yes, I know not all the children of divorced parents turn into psychological messes, but it’s the only event from Joe’s past* which we really know something about and which is potentially traumatic enough to make him retire in a “I don’t care about feelings, sex is awesome, what do you mean ‘relationships’ AHAHAHAHAHAHAH I’m not sad” attitude.
*that and the fact his parents fought a lot, which is connected to the divorce.
It makes a lot of sense and it’s how I picture him, the same way I headcanon Mary as previously having an abortion and attempting suicide, but until we actually get some delving into it, it’s hard to look at Joe on the same level of the rest of the nuanced, developed cast.
Alt text: yeah, that’s what I was about to say. If it’s scratchy, grow it a bit longer. Making out with fucking fifty-grit sandpaper is not sexy. I’ve gotten razor burn on my lips from my husband’s five o’clock shadow and damn, dude, go shave first.
I wonder if we’ll ever see Joe develop, or if he’s just going to be a perennial joke character.
Like, I actually enjoy that he’s a big horndog whose focus on sex is still treated with dignity, like we’re never going to see a point where we learn that what Joe *really* wanted was a monogamous relationship all along.
I don’t think Joe would ever really want to be in a monogamous relationship. I don’t really see him as the type to date people at all. I think he’s more of a hook up guy, and there’s not really a problem with that. But I think there’s more to Joe than just sex. He’s hinted that he’s got “stuff” when he told Danny he doesn’t like opening up to people, because opening up can cause problems. I think I’d like to learn more about that. What makes him say that? Who burned him?
So a freshman who is in serious trouble, but all her friends are enablers and even encourage her risky and dangerous behavior. Only one person sees her and suggests she gets help, but that’s not happening.
Is Amazi-Girl / Amber a replay of Sarah’s first year roommate?
Also, I realized that I sounded like an uppity a-hole. Sorry for that. What I meant was that I dislike how sometimes people (and I’ve seen it a lot in comments for DoA) assume there is one right way to deal with problems and fault characters for not doing that one thing when in reality people ARE complicated and there’s no easy fix.
Also, people have their own problems, and sometimes dealing with your issues is more important than dealing with someone else’s, even if they are Amazi-Girl size issues.
I am amused about the proportion of comments involving Joe and his trivial punchline issues in the last panel vs. comments involving Amber and her serious issues in the first five panels.
The comments have been hashing out Amber’s issues for a while, but Joe hasn’t been seen for a bit, so he’s kind of a “breath of fresh air,” even if he’s still on the same record skip as the beginning of the year. ^^; It’s a kind of dichotomy the comments struggle with. XD
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Joe’s practically a cardboard cutout with hammer attached
[the hammer is his penis]
No,no. It’s not a hammer. It’s a multi tool.
Or maybe a drill with multiple bits. So it’s good for holes of various sizes.
Just as long as it’s not a Snap-On tool.
OK Sue Johanson, but you know the hammer technically is a multi tool. It can remove nails too!
… Huh. I never expected to see a Sex With Sue reference, here.
Joe’s official voice in my head is now Nathan Fillion.
Honestly, I’m surprised it wasn’t already.
Yas
Not really “official,” but whatever.
On a related note, I can’t wait for his episode(s) in Season 6 of The Venture Bros. next year.
Yeah, I think it would be better written as “Joe’s voice in my head is now officially Nathan Fillion.” That’s what he meant, whatever you thought he meant by “official”…
On the subject of the Venture Brothers, I followed that link and I’ve never watched any of that before and now I want to watch it so fuck you. I watched a summary going up to season five and fuck, that seems screwed up. So maybe I should watch it.
Watch all if it!
Season 1 is a little bit of a slow starter, since it needs to set up everything, and the titular brothers’ personalities hadn’t really “diverged” yet, but everything from season 2 onward is solid gold.
We started watching from the “Yard Sale” episode (S1E6) and were HOOKED
When all you’ve got is a hammer, every lady looks like someone to nail.
take that, maslow!
In Enchanted, books was used instead. Interesting
I never could bring myself to actually like Dr. Horrible, as great as the music was.
Then again, I hated most everything Whedon is attached to.
Dr. Horrible is pretty, um, horrible as soon as you dig down more than a layer and start to think about it. But the music is great so I prefer to separate the two. Because nuance is a thing, but perfection is not.
Mostly I just hate how it’s quirky and funny and then has an out of nowhere, completely arbitrary tragic ending tacked on.
I know that’s Whedon’s thing, but it stopped being shocking and interesting after the millionth time.
You’re not great with tragedies in general, are you? Billy is a tragic hero, and his flaw is being a modern man. He’s attracted to his career and his rivalries to prove his worth, when the only measure that matters is that he’s compassionate and devoted and romantic to a fault. He listens to what society tells him he should be (which he sucks at) instead of exploring who he really is.
Penny was ready to show him his flaws, and told him how to be who he really is, like she did. “Grief replaced with pity, for a city barely coping. Dreams are easy to achieve if hope is all I’m hoping to be…” But he couldn’t see it, he couldn’t listen to her, because she’s the goal, not a friend, not someone to pursue on the side, she’s someone he had to win when all she needed was someone to really be there. “This is perfect for me, so they say, I guess he’s pretty okay. After years of stormy sailing have I finally found the bay?”
So, he had his flaws, he was given a chance to fix them, and instead took the encouragement to solve things the way he was going to anyway. It’s so dumb. He was doing it for Penny, and he knew it wasn’t going to work: “the thoroughbred of sin?” “I mean, Gandhi.” and “and though she may cry, her tears will dry when I hand her the keys to a shiny new Australia!”
Penny went through the same grief Billy did, but she took it in stride. Billy had to try to get even. he wanted to show them all, but when he finally succeeded, there was no one left to show, just because his own true nature got in the way for a minute.
“There’s no happy endings, so they say, (not for me anyway), should I stop pretending, or is this a brand new day? (and take a chance to build a brand new day?)” Billy says that he’s been told all his life he’s a loser, a nerd, what society hates, and that the hero, the jock, the deceiving ass, will always win, always defeat him, and his only chance is to stop pretending he can be the good guy, fully embrace his role as evil and build his own new day. Penny is only going along with liking Capt. Hammer because everyone says he’s perfect, and only she is starting to see the cracks, and she’s wondering if she should stop pretending she can’t, or if things really are as people says, and this is her new day. Neither of these new days are happy endings, and neither is the real one.
The earliest time you could see it coming is Billy almost brushing off Penny in favor of the wonderflonium. Penny is working with those around her, and Billy is focused on the big picture and thinks she won’t change anything. He thinks he can’t change anything either, yet. “A man’s gotta do what a man’s gotta do, don’t plan the plan if you can’t follow through, all that matters is taking matters into your own hands, soon I’ll control everything, my wish is your command-“
The bomb explodes in his face but it completely misses him and hits Penny with shrapnel even though she’s across the room, and had no reason to even be in there in the first place.
Yer stubble’s getting thick…
Penny is there as the guest of honor and one of the people who made the homeless shelter happen. But, besides that, you’re missing the point: would Billy not killing Penny have made a happy ending? The entire story is building up to calling Billy a heartless idiot for wanting to be Dr. Horrible. Penny never could have accepted Billy that way. her dying words were “Captain Hammer will save us…” Even after she started to have doubts, being the one non villain that understood Hammer as an ass, she still prefers him to Dr. Horrible. Billy never could have redeemed himself that way.
What you’re describing sounds really awesome, but in practice it was a total mess, with Whedon’s trademark surprise death scene for a character with no actual personality beyond being a piece of meat for Dr. Horrible to pine over. I didn’t care about any of them.
You might as well be trying to tell me that The Room was actually the subversive masterpiece Tommy Wiseau insists it was.
Dude, it was only 45 minutes long. Of course it was a huge mess, and it takes several watchings and perhaps reading what other people got out of it to get the message across. Idea 9/10, execution 7/10, and that only because it’s so damn rewatchable, with the interleaving lyrics and catchy music and cohesiveness. Penny in particular really doesn’t get any characterization beyond cute activist girl swooning and then unsure. If you think about it, you realize she must have gone through basically everything Dr. Horrible did except the supervillain result, but there’s no more than hints of that in the actual video.
But claiming that the tragic ending is slapped on completely ignores that any happy ending would have been completely incongruous with any of the characters. It’s a deliberately screwed up world. If Penny had lived, it would have served to shove it in your face even more.
Like I said, what you’re describing sounds really cool and interesting, but in practice, it sucked. None of the characters were enjoyable or interesting. The death at the end was ridiculous because Horrible is right next to the bomb when it goes off but he’s fine, but Penny just decided to hide in the auditorium instead of run, and then stand up.
The music was really good, though.
I don’t know, I think it’s perfectly in character that the one thing the death ray can’t possibly harm is what it’s pointing at. In fact, they almost lampshade it before the fact. “Let’s see if this works any better than the others.”
She stood up to see what was happening.
Anyway, it’s still my favorite shortform thing of all time, including tv episodes.
Dr. Horrible was lying on the floor, below the level of the shrapnel. Captain Hammer took a direct hit, but is nigh-invulnerable, so while it caused him actual pain (for the first time in his life), it didn’t damage him. Penny was standing and caught a direct chunk. If the gun had exploded radially then Dr. Horrible would have taken hits as well, but like bouncing betty bombs, it went off laterally.
i figure that at the time that was supposed to be potshot commentary at comic books and fridging.
it doesn’t age very well, though, which is why i’m holding out for a sequel. tagline: a bad penny always shows up.
Does it count as a potshot if it’s just the thing it’s making fun of with no subversion or hint of irony?
depends?
i mean. of the three of them (penny, hammer and horrible), penny was the only one working to affect real change that wasn’t just holding up the status quo. the central irony is that horrible had to kill a hero in order to become a villain, and that hero was penny. hammer was, arguably, just as much of a villain as horrible was trying to be, he was just societally approved.
penny’s absence from the narrative is a weakness of the story, and i can’t look at it without thinking what a loss she is to the world. and horrible was able to recognize that, which is the tragedy of it. she’s killed for manpain, but she’s also a loss in and of herself. in her own value. maybe my standards here are low, but like. it’s not like her death is long and drawn out for the audience’s pleasure?
i mean, like. whedon was revolutionary in the 90s, and this sort of marks his decline into just being behind the times. it probably would be a much more effective twist to have, say, horrible kill hammer and then to have penny take hammer’s place as a hero because she doesn’t want a brand new australia, horrible, what’s even the point of that?
…it’s probably more a point of what you compare it to.
That’s actually a really cool analysis of Penny, and I think it’s something that would have made the story a lot better, that with her dead and Hammer broken, Horrible starts getting cheers from the villain community, but we see the breakdown of the work Penny tried to achieve. As it is, she just comes off as the girl-du-jour for Horrible to moon over and then sob about. The only impact of her death is that now Horrible feels sad.
hey Jen, what happened to Ana?
felt like some licky-time
Or Sue, for that matter?
Just when I thought there couldn’t be any more sexual tension. Joe walks in.
DO EACH OTHER. DO EACH OTHER. (I’m sorry my shipping juices are flowing)
We don’t need to know about that. That is private.
I take it you haven’t been here long?
Are those real shipping juices, or just reconstituted from concentrate?
I hear it’s just high fucktose porn syrup and artificial savorings these days.
+1 Internet
Here, have an internet.
*slow clap*
http://www.reactiongifs.us/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/picard_clapping.gif
the shipjuice must flow
I don’t think Joe is into dudes.
“C’mon, think of all the yaoi-nerd chicks you’ll score if you tell them about this!”
Yeah, but I wonder if he’d ever try it out just to make sure. Sounds like something he might do. *shrugs* But his response to Danny’s question about him potentially doing dudes was “of course not” so I might actually be wrong about that.
Why should Joe become more complicated? He is getting everything he wants already.
When has becoming complicated ever gotten people things?
Shaving Cream/Be nice and clean/Shave every day and you’ll alway look keen!
I have a sad story to tell you
It hurt Amber’s feelings a bit
At noon when Danny had kissed her,
he just swallowed a big pile of…
(wait, why is he eating shaving cream!?)
Does your husband misbehave
Grunt and grumble
Rant and rave?
Shoot the brute some BURMA SHAVE
I’ll have you know I am not clean shaven!
Whiskers long
Made Samson strong
But Samson’s gal
She done
Him wrong
BURMA SHAVE!
If you think
She likes
your bristles
Walk bare-footed
Through some thistles
BURMA SHAVE
Why does Joe have life more figured out than everyone? Is this some weird commentary on adulthood?
His needs are simple. Since this comic has a floating timescale, if we as a culture ever invent holodecks or sexbots, he will never be seen in a strip again. His life will be complete.
We’re probably not that far off from inventing sexbots. If we haven’t already.
>.>
We have.
If we don’t and tell Joe that…well just look at the Walky-verse. He’s smart…he just needs motivation.
My theory used to be that the reason UC ended up as a girl-bot was that Joe just happened to have a ton of female robot bodies lying around and UC didn’t care about gender so she just pointed to one and said it’ll do.
Gave up on that idea when we saw that she lacks ladyparts under her clothes. No way any bots Joe made for his own use wouldn’t be anatomically correct. Hell, they might have spares.
Two of everything.
Vagin-A and Vagin-B.
A-nus and B-nus.
And so on.
Instead of orifice, andifice?
Boo-ravo.
Just lots of nadifices. You van make anything with those.
Give Joe some undetermined amount of time and he’ll suddenly realise how utterly shallow his life is, prompting a giant existential crisis.
prompting him to team up with Danny, Howard and Rachel, and go fight aliens in space.
Shallow – someone with a value-set other than that I hold.
So far Joe has demonstrated little more than an interest in getting laid. If there’s more depth there we haven’t seen it yet.
He is also interested in making sure the lady has a good time, too.
Also he has a secret but deep interest in toys (unless I’m getting this mixed up with the Walky-verse; I’m rereading both) and is thinking of going into engineering design or something like that so he can design Transformers. Which would be cool. Sadly, I think doing that would ideally mean transferring to MIT or something because IU doesn’t have all of the course requirements.
That’s Walkyverse Joe; I’m pretty sure DOA-verse Joe hasn’t mentioned any engineering interest.
Joe doesn’t really have life figured out insofar as he’s figured out what he wants right now.
He doesn’t.
Like, yes, he wants to get laid and currently, he’s getting laid. But he’s got a lot of toxic values that are a detriment long-term to his current goals (that women are willing to overlook his creepy views on consent and his predatory way of hitting on women and the way he views women as numbers because he is currently hot enough for some to say, yeah, I’m horny, fuck it, I can always gag him doesn’t mean that’s going to work forever).
So yeah, he’s got his right now figured out at least with regards to his goals (1. Get laid regularly; 2. Push away Danny enough that Joe can pretend to live in an emotionless universe; 3. More laid), but yeah, not really building any long term skills even if his goals stay consistent as he matures-… ok, gets older.
I think you are thinking of Walky-verse Joe. While similar in a lot of respects, this Joe isn’t a creep like the other version is. He knows what consent, and always makes sure to get it. The official cast page even says “thankfully he’s pretty big on consent.” Remember when he schooled Danny on consent when Danny thought he knew what the girl wanted more then she did?
I will agree that he has absolutely no long term goals, though. I don’t believe he has even decided on a major (though correct me if I’m wrong there). But out of the cast, Id definitely say he has his life figured out more then most (not Dorothy, obviously).
The trouble with Joe is that he behaves just the typical creep, but we’re told he’s not. We’re told he’s “pretty big on consent”, but he’s a minor character and we don’t get to see enough of his exploits to see how different he really is.
That said, I don’t think he really “has his life figured out”. The whole “I don’t deal with emotions” thing is a huge sign that he’s got issues he’s not handling.
He’s backed off of every woman who has told him to.
So far that would be Joyce, who he intended to break out of her sheltered upbringing by the might of his penis, and Sarah, who screamed in his face to get him to stay away from her, whereupon he went on a little spiel about how he wanted to harvest her angry sex energy or something.
Also his first action upon meeting Becky was to refer to her as “tasty” and lift his shirt up, and he was just kind of a douchebag to Billie when he walked away mid-conversation because he decided there was a cheerleader to bang.
Nobody’s arguing that he’s not a douche and an ass. Just that one particular manifestation of that doesn’t seem to apply to him.
I mean, yeah, he’s big on consent, but it seems weird that a basic standard of human decency is a bulletin point for the character.
For a guy “big on consent” we’ve seen him be really objectifying towards women, especially queer women, and dismissive towards anyone who doesn’t pursue sex like he does. Like, even that one part with Danny, he was still mad at him beforehand because he didn’t want to have sex with Billie, and when Danny gave his actual reasoning, Joe just skipped out.
The nicest thing I can say about him is that he’s not a rapist. That isn’t particularly endearing.
This! (I know i had commented different about this in the past, but in hindsight, Joe was right calling Dannies’ bluff why he didn’t have sex with Billie.
But the context of that one strip (the one immediately before and after it) makes him still a jerk.
And the only reason he is big in consent is he has seen how much of a creep his father is.
There’s a long distance between not physically forcing himself on a girl who’s punching him or screaming at him to stay away and backing off whenever told to. There’s a lot of manipulation you can do, along with a lot of picking vulnerable targets.
He may well not. I suspect that Willis doesn’t think of him that way, but since we haven’t seen his successful techniques.
Part of my problem is that I’ve never seen anyone as successful with the ladies as he appears to be without being a serious creep. No one scoring regularly with different girls and threesomes and everything else that’s been implied and apparently with no hard feelings from any of them.
Those I saw come close, even without crossing the line into rape, used alcohol to lower inhibitions & judgement, picked emotionally vulnerable targets and lied to them about intent, etc.
That we’re not seeing any of how he does it, other than just being hot, makes it hard to shake that impression.
Does that make Roz just as bad? Or is it a guy thing? Because Roz is very overtly sexual, and has no problems with using her body for her own agendas, even if it’s just to try and tempt guys like Jacob.
I don’t find Joe that bad, because at the moment he strikes me as just having enough confidence to simply hit on random ladies. And to be fair, the two that have yelled at him (Joyce and Sarah) aren’t exactly paragons of calmness, and he’s backed straight off.
He’s got his facepalm-worthy moments, but I don’t really consider him a bad person. Just a guy going through college.
No, I don’t think it does. Partly it’s a guy thing, which can’t be ignored since the genders are still treated very differently.
Partly though it’s that Roz has motivations and philosophy behind what she’s doing. She enjoys the sex, obviously, but she’s not just following a stereotyped path. She’s thought about it.
Joe on the other hand is a stereotype, but one with the creepy bits handwaved away.
Maybe if we saw more of the famous Joe seduction in progress, my opinion would change. As I said above, I find it hard to reconcile how successful he is with how he’s portrayed. I knew guys with “enough confidence to simply hit on random ladies” and they weren’t anywhere near that successful. They got lucky occasionally. The ones who actually were picking up different random girls on regular basis were the ones cruising parties looking for drunk girls and other vulnerable targets.
so like: to make Joe more likable, we’d have to see him being genuinely knock-your-socks-off charming, not just schmoozer charming. amp up the Carey Grant, tone down the fratboy.
or maybe he’s talking a bigger game than he’s actually performing. which would be hilarious.
That’s always been my suspicion, heh.
Eh, Joe’s got a lot of problems, but ‘consent’s not an issue he’s been shown to have. The closest we’ve come to seeing him disrespect it was his assumption that his charm would earn his way into Joyce’s pants. We don’t get to see, granted, how he’d have reacted if she’d declined to consent in a non-punchy way, but the bulk of the evidence is in favour of him not being a jackass on that front.
and so, danny felt the need to reexamine his bisexuality, because interacting with joe made him feel an inverse-boner
Does a boner eventually become a dickbutt if it inverses enough?
yes
Well, Joe’s taken Danny liking dudes in stride! 🙂
I don’t think Joe has made that connection yet. When Danny started to bring it up it turned into a convo about their dwindling friendship. http://www.dumbingofage.com/2015/comic/book-5/02-threes-a-crowd/extracredit/ (took forever but I found it.)
You know, if you click on a tag and use a plus sign to add a second name then that comic would’ve shown up on the first page of results.
Thanks! I was wondering how to search on the intersection of two tags.
Thanks! I was wondering how to search on the intersection of two tags.
…Peduncle, did you clone yourself?
You know, I bet Joe would still ask Danny this if he knew Danny was bi. But he’d change it up. “Danny is my stubble too thick? Am I sexy? Would you bang me? IS YOUR DICK HARD RIGHT NOW?”
TELLL MEEEEEE!!!!!
Literally made me burst into laughter.
+1 to you. 😛
Someone needs to write the continuation of this. It’s just pure gold.
I dunno, Joe, my experience is that while some ladies are into facial hair, very few are into stubble. I mean, sure, it makes you look all rugged and whatever, but when you get right down to it, it chafes their thighs.
Yes, nothing is worse than beard burn on the most delicate places.
This. Either grow it out and condition it or shave it off and keep it shaved off.
That pretty much goes for whatever “it” you want to fill in there. Stubble burn isn’t any more fun going the other direction.
Facial hair is nice when it grows out a bit, never had any discomfort issues with it. But I also have never had experience with stubble. The bearded men I’ve been with kept it grown out a little, so it was kinda soft.
Like I implied in my reply to Bill, below, I wear a full beard long enough that I can, and sometimes do, braid it. Some ladies think that’s a turn-off, others think it’s hot. But I’ve never had any complaints about it from ladies who got up close and personal with me, and some have reported that they like how it feels on, uh… parts.
I haven’t been clean-shaven since I could grow a beard worthy of the name, but I used to wear my beard Riker-style, and I did get complaints if I didn’t keep the parts I shaved shaved clean.
Panel 5 is probably not doing Danny any good in working out his crush on Ethan, but then it’s for the best that he learn it’s not something he needs to relentlessly smother. Having someone to fall back on when he’s overwhelmed by Amber’s problems will do him a world of good, and probably help him feel less like being there for her is less of a divine mandate that he has to accept, and more something that he’s choosing to do.
Also Joe can just go die now. That’d be splendid.
Yeah, it’s an interesting thing.
Ethan provides a lot of understanding, support, and advice with regards to his girlfriend that he needs right now. He’s providing a strong friendship and connection that is very special.
And ironically, it’s the crush itself that is threatening to that. If it was just a friendship to him, then there wouldn’t be a desire on his part to smash it all inside. But because he catches himself smiling and wanting more, he has a lot of angst about it.
Much more interesting to note is that I notice that Danny may not be well-versed in fighting off/recognizing his romantic/emotional attractions as much as his sexual. Like, when he feels the sexual, he’s right across the room and in full suppress mode. But when he’s sharing a sweet connection or smiling and blushing at the thought of a person, or falling into NRE, he seems to react much less.
I think he might be much more used to fighting off multiple sexual attractions and this might be the first time he’s ever been emotionally attracted to two people since Amber and Amazi-Girl (well, at the time he didn’t know that they were alters in the same person). So, I’m not sure he’s used to noticing it until it gets full on at that moment of thinking about dating them.
re:alt text – “quick, let’s test it against your inner thighs!”
Wold you fuck me
With your Penis
For a nickel
Danny: Yes
Joe: Okay…wait what?
‘It hasn’t happened yet, so therefore it won’t happen’ is terrible reasoning.
Ill get that homework done one of these days!
These last couple of strips make me wonder if they’re actually right or if this time Amber is reaching a new level of instability. It feels like their reaction is a bit… minimizing. Tame? What’s the word I’m looking for here.
Kind of surprised at Ethan, being so nonchalant about Amber’s situation. Guess he doesn’t realize that this is the kind of attitude that makes someone like Amber even worse.
On the outside they appear fine, on the inside they are crying for help and no one hears them. If Ethan had realized she needed help sooner…oh, well.
Well, I mean, that’s Ethan’s character. He’s always been pretty passive and isn’t really good at the whole strong intervention thing. And well, he’s working from past experience. He’s probably been through a fair share of meltdowns in situations where he has literally zero power to encourage her to healthy resources (when someone is a minor and especially when they have a controlling parent, you can think they need therapy, you can recommend they look into it, but you can’t really do much of anything without the approval of the parents outside of like full-on hospitalization levels (which she isn’t)).
And he acknowledges that the form of being steady might not involve straight up being passive. When Danny follows up with “should I let her be” or “should I intervene”, he shrugs his shoulders and says it’s complicated. Basically he’s a friend who’s tried their best with a friend who has no interest in seeking out care to help themselves and who can be very antagonistic at times when pushed against.
It is a complicated situation and the right approach at the right moment might not be initially clear, especially to someone who doesn’t actually have psychological education.
Also, Ethan’s been pretty far out of the loop about Amber lately. He doesn’t realise just how messed up she is right now.
Amber said she’d been avoiding Ethan due to the effort she went through trying to help his family accept his being gay. Of course it’s possible she’d been avoiding him for other reasons as well.
http://www.dumbingofage.com/2011/comic/book-2/01-pajama-jeans/wronged/
Specifically, she said she needed some time to heal from it, but the main thing is that she’s devoting time to being Amazi-Girl.
It was only last year that they started hanging out again.
When one has an alter that dresses up as a fucking vigilante and is nearing getting herself killed and is potentially a real threat to others…. I ain’t so sure about the whole hospitalization level thing.
Remember Ethan has known Amber a lot longer than we or Danny have.
If Danny and Ethan really put their heads together, compared notes and worked through it, I’m sure they could come up with a good way to help Amber.
Shame that their ‘Other Heads’ are more preoccupied with ‘Getting Together’ and is a distraction.
I agree! Danny doesn’t have a history to compare it to, and Ethan hasn’t seen how bad she is getting. (so much red backgrounds)
A pity life isn’t color coded for our convenience like that!
We don’t know how much Ethan really knows about Amber’s condition. He’s had his own questions to deal with, and Amber seems like she might be good at hiding things. She must have been cooking up the Amazi-girl concept for a good while without anyone who might intervene to stop her, like her mother, finding out. So she may have successfully hidden some things from Ethan as well.
I think the most he’s seen (recently) is her flipping-the-tables because of *himself*. He felt guilty for that debacle. I don’t think he is really aware of more than her occasional AG antics. Like, I don’t think he has gotten the *full* account of The Incident, yet. I don’t think he has really spoken with Joyce, yet, either.
I dunno. The way he dealt with Amber after she confronted Joyce, he made it clear that he loved her but wasn’t going to let her boss him around over his sexuality, and he didn’t come off as taking responsibility for Amber lashing out (nor should he have).
He also knows enough about Amber’s double life and he pretty loudly condemned it the last time they spoke.
You know when your stubs thick when you can us your face like sandpaper.
He is elegant in his simplicity.
Good old Joe.
No dramatics other than having his face graded at the correct sandpaper level to impress his ladies.
Sounds like someone’s jealous.
This comment section is literally the best thing.
Mike gave your mom his best thing.
For a nickel
My mom actually received a package the other day. It was C.O.D.
….Are you implying your mom is sleeping with a cold fish?
Don’t you mean NOD?
While I’m not gay I always assumed if I know what my taste in men would be. That’s not just me, right?
I’m gay, and I thought I knew what my taste in men would be like, but it keeps changing. What I liked when I was much younger no longer appeals to me, and what I liked when I was not-as-young is much narrower than what I like now.
It’s all about what you’re comfortable with, and that changes depending on what you associate with different body types and physical features, and can be changed if you open yourself up and relax.
Unless that’s just me.
Not just you…what I find appealing in men and women has changed over the years. (The centre of the target has shifted for dudes. For dudettes, the grouping has just gotten more erratic.)
While I find this question interesting, I cannot contribute, since I’ve been bi since childhood XD
Joe, how long have you been right outside the door? How much did you hear? Is this question of stubble simply hiding the fact that you came over looking for Jacob but instead heard Danny and Ethan talking about Amber’s slashfic and the mechanics of gay sex? Or are you just comic relief character number #2 now?
I think in your heart of hearts, you already know the answer to that one.
Did Joe track Danny down in Ethan’s room just to ask him this question?
Don’t they live on the same hall? He could just be on his way someplace.
I just figured Joe was walking by when Danny stepped out of the room and figured he might as well ask him now.
Well, at least its not a goatee.
I wonder how Joe’s evil counterpart would be like.
Didn’t we see his (bearded) “father”? Was his being the father definitely confirmed or just assumed by everyone?
Joe refers to the bearded guy as his dad. So I’d assume yes? I mean I assume that Joe knows his own father.
Considering once we got to see what he is like, we immediately understood how Joe got the way he is, I’d say, yes, Bearded Joe is Joe’s dad. 😐
Nooooo I love goatees! Maybe I just like villains? HMMMM.
I think that explains why Joe has been out of focus in DoA compared to Willis’s earlier series: Willis prefers to write about complex characters.
Also, today’s my birthday. I would have preferred a Joe-less strip on my birthday. Mr. Willis, please make sure my next year’s birthday strip has no Joe in it. Thank you very much!
Happy Birthday, have an internet
My birthday is on Friday, and you know what I’m getting? Bullshit, same as every year, because everybody is busy celebrating something else. 😐 Back in my heyday, we’d take a DoA strip with Joe and enjoy it! /grumpyoldman :p
(Also: Happy solstice birthday! It’s a much cooler day than mine…I’ve always wished I was a solstice baby instead. 🙁 )
This Joe is simpler than Walkyverse Joe, I think, because some of his complicating traits were eliminated as redundant with the other tall, dark and handsome Jewish dude into Transformers around, but I think he’s still more complicated than he likes to let on. I’m not sure if there’s another story to tell about him that Walkyverse Joe didn’t already cover, though. (Watch Willis prove that wrong.)
I still see Joe/Joyce as a legitimately plausible ship, too, though they’ve both got a lot of development to do to get there.
i bet this iteration likes teenage mutant ninja turtles the best
Joe, he doesn’t have to be a chick to want to do you.
Men should be clean-shaven.
Women should not.
Unless they happen to be special.. “cough bearded lady cough”.
I think you have confused “men” with “prepubescent boys”. Men have beards. Real men braid their beards.
As for women, carpets, hardwood floors, little throw rugs, whatever, it’s all good.
JUST KISS ALREADY!!!!!
~heavy panting~
Danny, look at me. My eyebrows. Are they too high? If you were a chick, would you scream and run away?
Oh, Joe.
I don’t think Joe and Danny are flirting, but it sure sounds like they are flirting.
What are those two tiny white lines hanging just above Ethan’s shoulder in panel 3? I see them and now they will bug me til I know
I think those are motion lines of him shrugging.
I’ve never met a girl who liked stubble. Heck, the most attractive girl I ever dated dumped me because I didn’t shave often enough.
Hi! I’m a girl who likes stubble. Preferably about 1-3mm long. Longer is okay, but I’m not a fan of thick scraggly beards. Shaved is meh, and “two days after the shave” is irritating.
Same! 1 week to 10 days is just about perfect. IMO.
These two are so goddamn dumb about Amber. SHE’S MORE THAN COMPLICATED! SHE HAS SEVERE MENTAL HEALTH ISSUES AND NEEDS HELP!
Goddamn dumb idiots.
If only they were psychic and could see inside Amber’s head every time that she has the red panel flashbacks.
(To be fair to Ethan, he’s been spending less time with Amber lately. He hasn’t seen anything that suggests that things might be getting worse).
Yeah, I can’t see Amber’s arc ending anyplace good. She’s a threat to herself and others, quite simply.
I don’t really think so. We’re never going to see the excessive lengths of the car chase ever again, and the only person who’s really in danger is Sal, and Amber’s never actually going to be able to hurt her, not unless Willis is really devoted to making us hate Amber.
Don’t discount the possibility of the crazy escalating again; there’s plenty of directions which a crisis could constitute itself, or be constituted.
And frankly, with that confrontation we saw between her and Sal… that’s going to escalate, sooner or later.
Things are going to get worse, they kind of have to, but we’re never going to see anything as outlandish as the car chase again. Amber’s not going to endanger dozens of people and then get a thank you hug from Dina this time.
The absolute worst that could happen, and the only thing with any dramatic weight, is that she goes after Sal again, and then Sal would come out unscathed because otherwise Amber would definitely, absolutely need to go to jail and also literally nobody in the fandom would be able to like her ever again. The only people in any danger from Amber are the occasional randoms who show up to get beaten up with no consequence or relevance to Amber’s narrative.
Blaine will return. That’s likely to be a major, possibly the final turning point in Amber’s arc.
She’ll need to face Sal again as well. Probably some kind of reconciliation. The seeds for that have been laid.
Blaine could easily involve outlandish heroics again. We may not get quite as crazy as the car chase scene again, but we will see action sequences. Willis likes drawing them every now and again and that’s a good part of what Amazi-Girl is there for.
It’s also worth repeating that in-world and by Word of God that wasn’t “endanger dozens of people and then get a thank you hug”, that was sending a super-hero to rescue Becky. The Amber/Amazi-Girl arc is partly about her abuse and her issues, but it’s also about her being a super-hero. She’s not just a crazy who puts on a costume, even if she is crazy. She’s a super-hero. She gets to play with the super-hero tropes, from the secret id that somehow no one guesses to the physics defying stunts. That’s important to how this plays out.
The problem with Amber’s presence being a positive during the car chase is that the comic itself showed that she constantly endangered everyone around her. The idea of a teenage girl being a superhero is fantastical enough for this comic, but she nearly got herself and Becky killed because she isn’t the invincible hero she thinks she is.
Amber’s violent power fantasy can’t be okay to indulge some of the time. Amazi-Girl can’t be a good thing for Amber to pursue just as long as she’s pointing at the right people. Even when she was beating up Blaine, it was less about the coolness of seeing him get punched and more the horror of Amber completely losing herself in a violent rage.
She may be using the superhero tropes, but she’s also exhibiting how exactly dangerous and dysfunctional they are. Me, I don’t see it ending with Blaine’s final comeuppance. I see her riding a series of ‘successes’, becoming more and more erratic before finally imploding in some fashion.
UPS-delivery-guy: Mr. Daniel Wilcox?
Danny: Yes?
UPS-delivery-guy: You remember that crossword puzzle contest you participated in?
Danny: Not really…
UPS-delivery-guy: Thing is: You won! You won a really big refrigerator!
UPS-delivery-guy: And here it is! Where should i place it?
Danny: Eat’s a lot of space, but it almost fits in here.
UPS-delivery-guy: (unpacking refrigerator)
UPS-delivery-guy: So here it is! Please sign here!
Danny: (really amazing-refrigerator… I almost can climb into that…)
I think you missed the part where the mentally ill can’t be forced into treatment until they seriously injure or kill someone, and even then, it’s often just a temporary medical hold until they’re done freaking out unless their crime made the news and has hordes clamoring for them to stand trial. There is really nothing Danny or Ethan can do other than be there as friends and hope she sorts it out. Should they run to the school counselor? “I have a friend who needs help, and she’s seriously dangerous to herself, but she won’t come in for help.” Even IF the counselor was willing to take her name and go seek out Amber out of some sense of professional duty and empathy, how well do you think that conversation would go? “You have friends who are concerned about you and are worried you could get hurt. Would you like to talk?” “No.” “Okay, we’re here if you ever feel like you need someone to talk to.” *Amber narrows down list of people who could have told on her; makes notes that they’re willing to tell on her.*
The vast majority of mass shooters have not been considered “mentally ill,” even though basically everyone can agree that going out and injuring/killing a bunch of people you may or may not know because you got a little pissed off is not a healthy form of problem solving. And, despite what many would have you believe about (white) shooters, they didn’t just “suddenly snap,” either. They have long-term issues with anger that didn’t qualify them for a forcible mental health hold or treatment and that they didn’t think was a problem on their own, so they were never diagnosed as mentally ill, never treated, and thus “not mentally ill” at the time they committed their crime.
Blaine could have easily been a mass shooter; back when he was kicked out of the dorm for coming to Parents’ Day without an invite and getting into a fight with Amber, I worried that was exactly what he was doing when he “left without incident” – going home to get a weapon to come back and threaten Amber and the others who’d gotten in his way with. Essentially, pulling a ToeDad, only without the religious spouting.
I know too many mentally ill people in my life to know how the “treatment” game works. Attempts at suicide get them sent home in a squad car and an reminder to their family to “keep an eye on them.” ODing gets them a couple of days drying out in the hospital and then sent home. Addiction gets them hand-waving and “maybe the local dry-out center will take your insurance, try them.” Sometimes, ER nurses get so tired of seeing the same person back in there for the umpteenth time that month that they’ll let the person sit and cry in the waiting room until a family member can come and pick them up, because they’re just not going to deal with it, and “she’s only here for more drugs, anyway.”
Those of us who got help got it because we were educated enough to know that something was very much wrong and were humble enough to know that we were not able to handle it on our own, no matter how much others might shame us or sneer at us for needing to seek professional help.
Amber is in a place where she’s very much afraid of what she is and what she could become, but she’s internalized that shame and sneering from her father as an additional layer of fear that’s making her put on a “brave” front – Amazi-girl – to deal with it herself. Unfortunately, the vast majority of individuals who try to “deal with it” without professional help end up dead well before a natural human lifespan ends.
That’s very reassuring Ethan but I’m afraid that sitting back and hoping that Amber ‘finds her way back’ is possibly unduly optimistic. If I were Danny, I would try to track her down. Even if I didn’t want to approach her (because she isn’t in the mood), I’d at least want to reassure myself that she was safe and not self-harming or anything like that.
As for Joe… I’m not sure, has Danny and/or Ethan come out to him? Is he looking for their aesthetic opinion? He’s not a bad bloke but sensitive is something he is not.
Unless it’s been off panel, neither Danny nor Ethan have come out to him. I think it’s aesthetic question that he’s asking.
weirdly enough i think this is probably the best thing ethan can do for amber until she decides that she needs help. you can’t really force someone to seek help? you can’t make that decision for them. as the friend of someone who’s struggling, the best thing you can do for them is be there for them when they allow you to be there for them. if amber isn’t answering her cellphone, ethan can’t make her, y’know?
They are both very young. I know Ethan spoke of everyone wanting to put Amber in therapy back then but I am not sure they realize how serious her issues are and how to deal with them.
I understand Amber’s mom didnt have much authority before but if they are separated now, shdnt she be a bit more active in her daughter’s life? Is she even aware of Amber’s anger issues?
Probably not. Stacy in Shortpacked mentioned how she tried to make up for Blaine’s abuse by being constantly permissive, and from what I’ve gleamed from flashback panels, she wasn’t with Amber much as she was working.
People are complicated. But not many would stab someone through the hand. Amber is a full on cyclepath, and nobody seems to realise this. Except maybe Sal, but she’s not the right sort of person to make people aware of it (if you follow. There are certain roles in friend groups, and Sal isn’t the right person to everyone to say the sort of things that need to be said… If that makes sense).
Normally I’d ask under what definition is Amber a psychopath but I guess that’s technically not what you said.
I’ve never seen Amber on a cycle – although, she probably has a period, that’s cyclical.
Or, did you mean this?
Amber stabbed Sal in a fit of rage after being:
A. Seeing her best friend get taken hostage.
B. Insulted by her father because she didn’t stand up to Sal.
Which isn’t even getting into how the reason she could even be pushed so far was the years of constant abuse at Blaine’s hands.
It doesn’t really apply, because current Sal is not aware of this and Longdistancetraveler was referencing the discussion between Sal and Amazi-Girl after the car chase.
However Amber in her last conversation with Danny really blained it up, and that is worrysome.
Longdistancetraveler mentioned the time Amber stabbed Sal. I was explaining why that was a bit more complex than Amber being a “cyclepath”.
And, yeah, it’s worrisome; Amber knows that too and probably always has. Doesn’t mean one moment she immediately regretted and beat herself up over means she’s going to go Full Blaine.
Really, the most worrying thing here is that Joe thinks _Danny_ is the right person to ask for tips regarding women, or relationships in general.
As I mentioned above, has Danny come out to him in any way? Or did Joe just guess? Joe strikes me as one of those guys who would somehow consider a gay/bi man to be someone to whom you could ask these sort of questions without it somehow being creepy.
Of course, almost everything about Joe’s attitude to women is creepy but I digress…
We haven’t gotten a concrete answer. Anyone with a lick of sense could figure that Danny was trying to field questions about his own sexuality, but Joe was too busy trying to shut it down.
Well, they are childhood friends. It might just be that they’re used to asking each other’s opinions before anybody else’s. I mean, when Danny was confused about his feelings for Ethan, Joe was the first person he went to for advice. (If I’m remembering correctly.)
Honestly, I get the feeling Joe IS a more complicated individual – it’s just that no one’s super interested in dealing with him. Joe would be an amazing voice of reason (yes, that’s right!) and stability if Danny or other characters would just let him. Yeah he has a lot of sex, but he uses protection and respects those he has sex with. He understood before Danny that he and Dorothy weren’t working out. It’d be great if both him and Danny could open up enough that Joe can help him.
Mike with less punching?
Danny’s tried opening up to him. Joe decided that having a conversation with his best friend about anything other than boobs was just too much. Every piece of advice Joe has imparted onto Danny has been somewhere along the lines of “You’re dumb. Love is pointless. Just fuck random people like I do.”
The only time Joe’s ever been a voice of reason was when he called out Danny and Walky for saying dumb, sexist shit. Otherwise he’s just been an uncaring meathead concerned only for his own pleasure.
Going back through his conversations, it’s pretty obvious that Joe in general is just not an open up to people kind of person in general. In this one at least : http://www.dumbingofage.com/2015/comic/book-5/02-threes-a-crowd/fetishy/ He obviously just wanted a normal conversation with Danny and Danny turned it into this heart-to-heart Joe wasn’t ready for.
And I think in his own way he was trying to help Danny during the whole Dorothy situation. In a way that didn’t appeal to Danny at all, but the message was “move on, don’t pine, stop making your significant other the only thing in your life.” Joe’s blunt and doesn’t open himself up but he does have gems of advice under all that Joe-y-ness.
Joe literally told Danny that he wanted to sleep with Dorothy. The minute they broke up he told Danny, to his face, he was going to try and sleep with her.
His “own way” sucks. He doesn’t try to support or understand; he just tells Danny to stop having feelings and fuck women like a real man.
To be fair, I don’t think he cares who Danny fucks, as long as Danny’s fucking someone. “Hope you’re getting laid,” is as close to, “I care about you,” as he’s willing to let himself get.
Thinking back… It seems Joe is intentionally acting like this; some sort of defence mechanism to avoid talking about feelings. I wonder if his parents’ divorce has anything to do about this…
Yes, I know not all the children of divorced parents turn into psychological messes, but it’s the only event from Joe’s past* which we really know something about and which is potentially traumatic enough to make him retire in a “I don’t care about feelings, sex is awesome, what do you mean ‘relationships’ AHAHAHAHAHAHAH I’m not sad” attitude.
*that and the fact his parents fought a lot, which is connected to the divorce.
It makes a lot of sense and it’s how I picture him, the same way I headcanon Mary as previously having an abortion and attempting suicide, but until we actually get some delving into it, it’s hard to look at Joe on the same level of the rest of the nuanced, developed cast.
Alt text: yeah, that’s what I was about to say. If it’s scratchy, grow it a bit longer. Making out with fucking fifty-grit sandpaper is not sexy. I’ve gotten razor burn on my lips from my husband’s five o’clock shadow and damn, dude, go shave first.
“Joe, not all women would-”
“Okay, okay, if you were a straight woman with good taste would you.”
Please change to some degree, Joe.
I wonder if we’ll ever see Joe develop, or if he’s just going to be a perennial joke character.
Like, I actually enjoy that he’s a big horndog whose focus on sex is still treated with dignity, like we’re never going to see a point where we learn that what Joe *really* wanted was a monogamous relationship all along.
I don’t think Joe would ever really want to be in a monogamous relationship. I don’t really see him as the type to date people at all. I think he’s more of a hook up guy, and there’s not really a problem with that. But I think there’s more to Joe than just sex. He’s hinted that he’s got “stuff” when he told Danny he doesn’t like opening up to people, because opening up can cause problems. I think I’d like to learn more about that. What makes him say that? Who burned him?
So a freshman who is in serious trouble, but all her friends are enablers and even encourage her risky and dangerous behavior. Only one person sees her and suggests she gets help, but that’s not happening.
Is Amazi-Girl / Amber a replay of Sarah’s first year roommate?
Missed the “people are complicates” panel, did we?
Complicated*
Also, I realized that I sounded like an uppity a-hole. Sorry for that. What I meant was that I dislike how sometimes people (and I’ve seen it a lot in comments for DoA) assume there is one right way to deal with problems and fault characters for not doing that one thing when in reality people ARE complicated and there’s no easy fix.
Also, people have their own problems, and sometimes dealing with your issues is more important than dealing with someone else’s, even if they are Amazi-Girl size issues.
Can I just comment to approve of this comment? I approve of this comment. Thank you for making it.
No, I’m sorry there isn’t time. The Ambiguity has put on weight.
Pretty much, hof.
I like that Danny is friends with the hot guy.
I am amused about the proportion of comments involving Joe and his trivial punchline issues in the last panel vs. comments involving Amber and her serious issues in the first five panels.
The comments have been hashing out Amber’s issues for a while, but Joe hasn’t been seen for a bit, so he’s kind of a “breath of fresh air,” even if he’s still on the same record skip as the beginning of the year. ^^; It’s a kind of dichotomy the comments struggle with. XD
It is a lot easier to write smartass quips than to write serious discussion of a serious issue.
It’s more fun to hate on Joe.
You’re a good man, Ethan.
Wry commentary looks good on you, Danny.