long time no see Laura, and thanks! I hope you’ve been doing well
and yeah ngl, having to leave the country or even become a refugee for a while seems like… a very real possibility in the coming decade
heck I’m trying to save up to get a laptop as well as a survival bag so that in the worse case scenario, I’ll still be able work after such an event that I’d need to JUMP 👀
Looks like the cheapest complete laptop is $48, but you might need something more powerful for your work. An external SSD can compensate, though.
You’re in Cali, right? The California website doesn’t yet have all the COVID shot sites mapped out yet, but it’s getting there. Best to get all vaxxed before any travel:
i thankfully already got a passport, and as for the laptop, my friend from the UK (who also reads this comic) is a professional gamer and said she’d help me pick out a great one that fits my needs and budget
granted the best deal may require a really long day-trip to Silicon Valley to pick it up, but ah well
Jumping in, it would be good to put together an emergency fund. Have enough cash to get you someplace safe and survive for more than a few days. By “cash” I mean actual cash, the green paper stuff. If things go bad you may not be able to access your bank accounts. If you have meds you take regularly (antidepressants, insulin, etc), make sure you have paper copies of your prescription and don’t let your supply get too low. You don’t want to have to navigate a foreign country’s health care system while you’re still looking for shelter.
BTW, when you make the trip to Silicon Valley to pick up your laptop, hit Falafel’s Drive In. It’s the best falafel in the Bay Area.
I actually have a german friend who talked about looking into founding a relocation service for US queer folk when the orange nepobaby got elected for the second time.
Private li´l company helping folks with bureaucracy, living arrangements, job search ect.
I should write him about how that plan is going. Sounds like a winner in the current “market”. If somewhat opportunistic.
Although the wind against migrant is blowing colder week by week there too, it seems.
Yes, the wind against immigrants (and queer folks too, sadly, and anything remotely “woke”) is blowing strongly. Though most immigrants which are not readily recognizable as such – meaning being white, and not speaking a language other than German or English- will probably have considerably less problems.
But yes, politics in Germany suck at the moment.
Yeah you’d think that Germany would take some considerable counter-measures against what they know they were responsible for 80 years ago 👀
and while it’s true that they have some exceptionally strong censorship laws against Nazi and other fascist iconography, they seem to mainly compensate by being pro-Israel, go figure (-_-)
for a queer, disabled, barely white-passing Jewish person such as myself?
within the European Union, it seems that Spain and Finland are my best options
To hear him tell it, those laws dont mean much in the online sphere anymore.
The state seems woefull inadequate to the task, and the US new media firms dont lift a finger to help, dubbing it censoship. And hindering regulatory entities as much as they legally can.
That said, we just talked a bit – he didnt do it after all.
Finding the tasks brutally bureaucratic upon looking into it.
Which kinda figures, knowing him and the reputation of german officials.
But there are such companies on the market , iamexpat dot de and Relosophy being run by US expats for example
I just learned that the head of your nazi party is actually a lesbian woman living with her phillipino wife in switzerland?
Man!
And I thought blacks for Trump or log cabin republicans was ridiculous.
Thats top-level trolling right there. How is it even possible for a german elected official to live in another state? Non-EU, even.
I continue to be weirded out by the surreal-ass timeline I ended up in.
Best unrelated to comic comment ever. Reading this comic for ….well let’s just say there was a head Alien, Joyce and Joe had a weird thing, Dina was into dinosaurs…hmm.., anyway never commented before.
big same on the bananas. Can’t stand smell, texture, or taste of fresh banana (including in smoothies or as “banana flavoring”). Cooked, though? Gimme those plantains in every form, banana bread…
Yup, this. It’s kind of like how back in the earlier days of feminism, it half-turned into an anti-sex, “women can’t be sexy, you’re sexist if you want to see sexy women!” crusade. There’s nothing wrong with being a sex object; the problem is when you ONLY see someone as a sex object. There’s a time and place for everything.
Nah, this isn’t quite the same as Joe’s rankings, but it’s bad too.
This definitely leans into the same attitudes, especially with the “You’ll find some other four eventually” bit.
Even my ugly face occasionally gets ranked as “handsome”, so, come on, Jennifer: scrape off the Cheeto dust and there’s probably a seven under there already.
She’s absolutely ranking him as a sibling though, making cynical hearts everywhere grow two sizes.
Really comforting. A four. Like those costume dramas where you could only marry someone as wealthy (or not) as you. Cos, if they are”better, they are not gunna marry “down”, and neither are you…
not up her in canuckistan, they start getting the xmas decks out for sale oct 15 at some stores it sickens me, but my vote is Halloween decks are sold year round at the same level of prominence as they currently are. spooky world is best world!
That’s kind of the problem though. Booster was the only one even trying to support Walky as a friend. Lucy had ulterior motives and Amber did as well, on top of also having her own baggage with Mike. No one is around just to support Walky except Jennifer and Sal sometimes.
“Ulterior motives” is a really really unkind way of referring to “being supportive while also having romantic feelings”. The bad part of Nice Guy behavior is the entitlement and the angry lashing out when the object of their affections doesn’t “reward” their supportive behavior with a relationship or sex, not the “being too socially awkward to directly express your crush”.
I’m not trying to classify Lucy as a “nice guy” or gal or whatever that would be, but my point is kind of where is she now? Spending time with Jacob I assume and it stings a little more considering Walky valued her companionship as a friend and misses it, but now that the romance ended so has that companionship. That’s the problem with his only friends being people he dated, whether from awkwardness, or valid sensitive emotions, or moving on, they’re not here now to be a support network. He can’t talk to Lucy about Dorothy dumping him again, she’s the one he rebounded to after Lucy. If Amber were not currently passed out would she even be a valid option as support? Not likely because she’s admitted she was enabling Dorothy to fall for Joyce to free up Walky.
“Ulterior motives” may be a poor choice of words but I don’t know how else to classify how Walky has been treated here and it’s almost a bit unfair because all of his friends have seen him as a romantic prospect first before even an individual and it’s kind of left him isolated when the romance spoils. Especially since he seems to want someone to no complications hangout with even before romance and he can’t get that.
honestly lucy’s desires towards walky do not have to taint her actions during that time, as she was there with him through it, she didnt make a horny move till the new semester started. in that time she was present for him, which is the best we can do for another when grieving, be there for what ever they need you for, be t companionship, a sounding board, a distraction. and yes unfortunately when they moved to romantic shenanagins it didnt work, but that is just part of life not evrything is going to work out, we can do 100000000% right, and fail and fail hard, and fail for no reason. and there is n othing to say that they may resume a friendship in the future, especially if they both valued it. I mean they split less than 2 weeksago in comic.
amber and walky had the comfort of being able to be their worst selves with eachother without judgement, and that can be incredibly healing, especially as they were 2 of the people closest to mike, so i do not see any reason that ambers motivations would have mattered or make a difference
Amber and Lucy’s motivations matter in this specific circumstance where Walky is depressed over his relationship. Amber especially admitted to encouraging Dorothy to pursue Joyce through that sext to sabotage her relationship with Walky. Booster coaxed that confession through omission.
He could still go to his exes for relationship advice but that has already proven to fail him because his whole relationship with Lucy only happened because his ex had separate motivations that were not in his best interest.
Strongly disagree that that strip reveals that it was conscious choice on Amber’s part to encourage the lewd so as to break up Walky and Dorothy. She seems genuinely horrified by the idea.
Halloween would disagree on the whole “neutral feelings” idea.
Also, he confirmed that dead roommates equaling free pass on grades was a myth, so I’m not sure what you’re referring to when you say it kept him from flunking.
As far as I recall, math was his only issue, and Amber changed his grades before Mike died, so he was ok prior to Mike’s death.
Basically everything disagrees on the neutral feelings thing.
And it was more than Amber changing his grades, she also helped him figure out how to study. Just changing his grades before the midterms wouldn’t have been enough to keep him from failing.
(I went looking because my memory was more like “she hacked his grades and that gave him hope”, and I forgot the tidbit in the middle about Amazi-Girl apparently having him set timers. Sadly the nature of ADHD is that that sort of thing only helps for a limited period of time: you have to keep coming up with new strategies.)
More recent strips showed it was still very much a struggle for him:
Maybe. The whole plot could come up again, but I don’t think we’ve seen anything about Walky’s bad grades since the time skip. That last strip you linked, with him talking about going to take the midterm felt like a character growth resolution to the arc, whether that’s realistic or not. He obviously passed, both the midterm and the course.
(It was Amazi-Girl who did something like “help him figure out how to study”, and more recent strips from 2020 showed him still struggling to focus, as well as his and Amber’s attraction to each other being a barrier to EITHER of them studying.)
To be fair Walky isn’t the best at dealing with genuine difficult emotions either. If she had been super sincere and caring here he probably would have made some sort of joke to deflect.
From my line of experience 4 is below average, this is not the best pep talk but it’s the best Jennifer will probably be able to give… But hey Walky can Atleast look at the upside that he proved to be too good for Dorothy, not the other way around.
My inner desire to make tier lists is always being tempered by there being an in-universe list which is the worst thing ever making me hesitate to rate them even though they’re fictional.
Billie and Amber are at the top for me though.
I have problems with this list. The top 3 are obviously pretty accurate. I’ll even give you Sarah over Ruth because Sarah has technically been in more conflicts even if the bat equipped weapon can skew the parameters.
Tony is way oversold, dude’s only feat is manhandling Incelerator. Is it cause he plays football? I guess? I still need to see more from him.
Ethan, Danny, and Walky should be in the bottom 3. Maybe Walky slightly over them because he’s a least thrown a punch, but Ethan especially is no fighter. Plus he lost a lot of muscle. You can’t just give a guy the rub because he’s tall. He has to buy you dinner first. And is Asher up so high because he’s a criminal? No trust on that guy in a fight. All them boys are losing to Leslie, Booster, maybe even Charlie if she’s locked in!
Admittedly most of it is based on vibes because DoA is not a battle manga. Dina’s pretty accurate though. I do think the raptor can wash Joyce in a fair and honest 1v1 though. She’s just consistently been more active which is all we really have. Technically Malaya also beat Sal but it doesn’t feel right to put her up. I agree with their placement too. I also like that Dorothy is not even on this list cause lol no way!
Can’t believe I literally went through the whole cast list and still managed to miss Dorothy! D tier, lack of inclination but reasonably in shape cardio wise.
I often wonder who the best fighter in DoA is. It’s probably Amber/Amazi-Girl but she did lose the 1v1 to Sal. There is an argument she was sandbagging but a loss is a loss to me, it’s easy to argue a sandbag when you’re already losing. Also Ruth seems pretty tough but Amber was very confident she could take her despite being sleep deprived. Joyce also has a surprising amount if rage strength. She’s probably not beating any of the established, experienced brawlers but she could probably beat most of the rest.
All that being said AG is still easily the most active fighter so it’s probably still her at top 1.
I was going to post an alternative interpretation of the 1v1 against Sal, but it got a little unfun, so instead I’ll just note that Amazi-Girl wasn’t involved in that fight.
I do wonder if we count Amber and AG as separate cause there’s tons of contradictory moments where they’ve both done impressive combat yet Amber has also sort of chickened out for lack of a better term and regressed to her more wall flower nerdish habits. It’s a little confusing. So are they both ranked the same cause they share a body and are aspects of the same person or do we count them as separate individuals just for this imagined tier list cause I’d probably put AG over Amber in that case.
They’re both capable of absurd action movie level feats. Originally Amber seemed only to fight in a rage, while Amazi-Girl was controlled. A lot of her seeming to chicken out was more being afraid of not being able to stop than anything else. Which is how I see her fight with Sal – she proved to herself she could take Sal on without losing control.
Can you show me where in their comment they compared Walky to Joe?
Walky dealing with something well despite the drama in his life has nothing to do with Joe, and entirely to do with Walky’s own willpower/mental strength.
They aren’t responding just to this comment, they’re responding to the fact that this person has frequently suggested walky -and- Joe should be a lot more hurt/upset/angry about this.
I maintain that I don’t think Walky is handling it all that well. I think Walky’s buried all of that trauma under as much self-deprecation and outright repression as he can. He wants to maintain that image of someone who is totally fine and chill with everything and no one needs to worry about him at all, at least up until something causes it to break containment in a big moment (like at Halloween).
Yeah, lots of bottling. And I think Walky’s suffering the problem of “act like you don’t care and aren’t invested, and people will wind up thinking you in fact don’t care and aren’t invested”.
With Jennifer and Walky in bed together, now’s a good time to link to that *other* fan art penciled strip where the two of them go at it like starving rabbits. Wish I still had the link…
David Anthony “Walky” Walkerton, known character, has displayed several behaviors (of which I will list zero here) which have caused multiple (also unlisted) commenters on this site to theorize that he (or possibly “he”) is a transgender woman. His use of the words “left me for another girl” can be interpreted to mean he’s including himself among the “girl” category, perhaps subconsciously. For a more elaborate explanation, I recommend asking one of the participants in this theory.
In context, however, it seems more likely to refer to Dorothy’s and Joyce’s statuses as cisgender females. I mean, when my brother’s first wife left him for another woman, that didn’t make him suddenly trans, it just made her bi but preferring women (or possibly fully closeted gay until meeting her girlfriend, I never had an in-depth conversation with her about it, but her daughter is just plain gay and happily married to a very nice and funny woman in Portland).
Walky’s use of “another” there is what we call “syntactically ambiguous”. He could certainly be referring to himself! But also Dorothy is a girl and thus “another” very well could be referencing her.
Walky referring to himself as a girl is absolutely a valid reading of this, but it’s not the only reading. Ambiguity!
Honestly, it’s one of those things where we as commenters can dive very deeply into both the Doylist & Watsonian readings of the line, but I think in reality the truth is that most native speakers don’t actually think all that much about the grammar of their statements. The occasional ambiguity in English is inevitable, so most folks tend not to worry about it.
Also, some of us enjoy reading too much into these things.
And sometimes it turns out we weren’t actually reading too much into them after all (for example, the hints that Joyce might be attracted to girls). This one seems more doubtful to me, but we can’t be certain.
I think the issue is that using “another” creates a comparison between two things, emphasizing that they are both of the same type. So when Walky uses “another” we would assume he is trying to emphasize that similarity since it is important to what he is trying to say.
If he’d said “left me for another person” he would be emphasizing how Joyce and himself are two different people. This changes the “she left me” which could just be a break up to “she left me for someone else”.
“She left me for another girl” however is presumably emphasizing how Dorothy and Joyce are two different girls… which is true, but why emphasize it?
Now Walky could be suggesting that Dorothy leaving him for a girl in particular has a different impact than being left for someone who wasn’t a girl. More than that the sapphic nature of the new relationship has to be relevant since “another” also emphasizes that both Joyce and Dorothy are girls.
This sees like a bit of a funky phrasing, however, because it isn’t as clear why it matters to Walky that Joyce and Dorothy are both girls.
> This sees like a bit of a funky phrasing, however, because it isn’t as clear why it matters to Walky that Joyce and Dorothy are both girls.
I suspect, in context, that’s it’s meant to emphasize that the sapphic nature of things is newly outside of the realm of innuendo and supposition (and the occasional teasing from Walky himself) and now actualized. Frankly, it seems a more natural reading to me than the other way.
There’s also plausibly some tacit acknowledgement of the sense that, even here in 2025, there are still a lot of guys who’d feel very differently about “my girlfriend left me for another girl” vs. “my girlfriend left me for a guy”.
There’s definitely a weird comfort in “oh she left me for someone who is different from me in a way I could never hope to replicate” and “oh she left me for a better version of a thing I already am.”
this whole tangent reminds me of a claim I heard years back, which is that in German, asking for “another” beer will get you a weird look from the server and the question of what was wrong with the first one and why did you drink it?
(idiom, it’s a thing, and it varies from language to language and culture to culture.)
Y’know, I’ll have to file that away, since I’d assume “get me another beer” generally means “give me a second beer of the same kind as the one I just finished”.
I mean, Walkerton, people DID try to reach out to you during Mike’s death and you were pissed that you were trying to have something in your life that didn’t remind you of Mike’s death.
To play Devil’s advocate, that’s not exactly what happened. People didn’t reach out personally to Walky, they were having a fun Halloween party and then Dorothy decided to bring up Mike’s death out of nowhere as a generalized memorial thing, NOT to personally check in on Walky’s mental health. In which case I think he is within his rights to point out that he wanted to have something in his life that didn’t remind him of that. Also, he DEFINITELY did not dump Amber over it, her pushing him into the candy table kinda means she was the one doing the dumping.
Just gonna link it because this is very much NOT people reaching out to him about Mike’s death, this is an argument. Yes, Walky is being rude and memeing here, and I do not defend the things he is saying because they are insensitive, but neither is this people sincerely reaching out to say “hey man sorry about your roommate dying, are you alright?”, this is an argument that ends with Walky being shoved into a table.
Okay but that doesn’t disprove what Walky said here though. He rejected memorializing Mike. I get that the others might assume that he wouldn’t want to talk about it and thus no one reached out. But that means Walky’s statement of “Jennifer didn’t reach out to me about my roommate’s death” is still… true.
Sorry, argument? Mike has been one of Amber’s closest friends since they were kids, she feels personally responsible for him falling off the building, and walky is here suggesting the funeral was fake and that mike is actually alive somewhere. This is the same bs as false flag/crisis actor nonsense and in her shoes I would also lose my crap because this is wildly disrespectful. You don’t get to have empathy when you cannot show empathy to others.
Also I 100% understand why Amber’s upset, I’m not saying she isn’t allowed to be really upset and even lose her shit here. However, Walky was also her… sort-of-situationship at this time? So her pushing him into the table and then walking away with the implication they didn’t talk for a while afterwards means she clearly did the dumping here. Justifiably so.
Also I understand your last sentiment there but also keep in mind that grief and mourning are complicated and sometimes part of showing empathy is still displaying empathy to someone even if they’re not going to be kind to you in that moment or aren’t being empathetic back. The Halloween party was all around a very messy situation.
Just to add, because I think a lot of people missed it: note the shapes of the speech bubbles in the strip Doopyboop linked above. For the first three panels, Walky’s speaking as Head Alien and not himself, I’m pretty sure.
That’s a good point too. Which, I’m not saying “it’s okay that Walky said this stuff in a stupid doofy alien voice”, but this is still Walky and in response to being unwillingly reminded of his dead roommate, he fell back on goofy Walky shenanigans and said goofy stupid things ‘in-character’ as his costume. Amber is allowed to be pissed off about that. However, it’s also Walky defaulting to humor as he always does.
Plus, honestly, if I was at a party, and in response to “hey guys remember that dead guy”, one of the members of the party started using a cartoony voice to spin a funny haha conspiracy about the dead guy, I would honestly wanna check on him after to make sure everything is okay cause that sounds like some pretty bad denial or if nothing else, a very bad coping mechanism… which it is.
I don’t know, I just understand Walky’s feelings a lot in those strips. I feel for him. Mike wasn’t his friend, but Mike lived with him. It’s still a loss. One he was reminded of every time he tried to sleep, every time he returned to his room.
That is SUCH a weird way of describing the Halloween party that I think you should go back to reread it.
Dorothy calling for a moment of silence was not “reaching out” to Walky in any way, shape, or form.
Walky didn’t “dump” Amber, Amber very much dumped Walky for using (extremely inappropriate) humor to cope in the middle of Dorothy’s called-for moment of silence. (And she did it while lashing out physically in a way that definitely hurt Walky and COULD have caused lasting injuries, that was a horrible moment for her.)
Like. What are you even talking about, C.T. Yes, Walky was also angry in that scene, but he wasn’t angry at “people trying to reach out to him after Mike’s death”, because that’s not a thing that happened.
Dorothy interrupted a Halloween party to ask everyone to be silent for a moment, Walky interrupted that silence by saying Mike wasn’t dead (extremely inappropriate humor-coping), and Amber was both horrified and infuriated with him for it.
(This is not me shitting on Dorothy for wanting a moment of silence, pretty much every character in that scene was traumatized and trying to cope with it. She opted for the comfort of rituals.
But if she or anyone else ever reached out to Walky after Mike’s death, it was off-panel.)
It’s often wild to me, as an aside, how different some moments I remember in this comic went from the way they actually went down. I suspect a lot of us are the same.
If I go back to something that happened previously anymore, I go actually re-read that section of archives to make sure my brain isn’t making up stories. (sometimes this even reinforces my point like when I discovered Joe/Joyce being confidants a bit substantially predated when even I originally thought it was)
Oh absolutely a good point! I reread fairly recently but I should still have double checked tbh. Esp when it involves a character I’m less inclined to be kind to OR one of my long-time faves.
I think it would gross and disturbing if someone reached out after they reacted that way to a moment of silence. People grieve in their own way and Walky made it clear he wanted nothing to do with any acknowledgement of Walky’s death. Given how Amber was friends with Mike, that absolutley torpedoed their relationship and he had to have known that.
He clearly didn’t know that. He didn’t ‘plan’ that interaction, it happened in the moment. Sometimes people just do or say things without thinking of the consequences. Also, we have Walky here clearly making it known that he would have appreciated someone reaching out to him.
He wasn’t against ANY acknowledgement, he was against acknowledgement when he wasn’t expecting it. That. Is. Reasonable. What he said after was out of pocket but you can’t put yourself in his shoes for a second to understand why having Mike’s death brought up when he wasn’t expecting it, could be upsetting? When he was also involved in the kidnapping that came about with Mike’s death? C’mon, man.
Like I don’t think Dorothy was doing something terrible by calling for a moment of silence, but it’s still understandable that it hit Walky so sourly, especially if he’d spent a month or so, by that point, having people not reach out to him. And this comic says that no one DID reach out to him.
Which, to be clear, is kind of understandable too! I think the cast members who thought to reach out to anyone about Mike would have prioritized reaching out to Amber and Ethan, the only people in the cast who had known Mike for more than a couple of months, and both of whom would, I think it’s safe to say, not have reacted very well to being approached about it.
(Especially not Ethan, after how his conversation with Danny went.)
All of this is complicated further by two factors:
1. Mike was an asshole. Almost nobody liked him, among the cast. It’s genuinely difficult and awkward to extend sympathy about the passing of someone who was singularly unpleasant.
2. So many of the people who did know Mike at all……. also had their own feelings of guilt to contend with. Not as much guilt as Amber/Amazi-Girl, but like. I cannot imagine Dorothy, for example, hasn’t put it together that Mike died trying to kill Blaine, which by the transitive property means he died trying to save her, Joyce, and the other kidnappees.
Which, to be clear, was Mike’s choice, and not something any of them asked him to do or even knew about, but we’ve got a fair few people in this cast who are already looking for reasons yi be hard on themselves. “Mike died trying to protect me and I didny even know about it and I didn’t even like him” is a big ugly thing to feel.
3. Even Walky himself isn’t sure how to feel about Mike’s death. He’s not sure Mike was a friend. He’s probably wished he hadn’t gotten stuck with Mike as a roommate on more than one occasion! Which, you know, would make him feel worse.
…anyway, it’s entirely possible for no one to do anything wrong but STILL hurt each other, and that is mostly what happened in this situation.
Mostly. Amber shoving Walky back into a table? Remains a very wrong thing for her to have done!
…Just wanted to share these for the folks around the world who might want to talk with someone a little more practiced at support and resource referrals than Jennifer…
Some of these free support services do have direct connections to police and emergency medical responders. So folks might want to ask that up front, or sift through these lists to find services that explicitly deny connections with law enforcement.
Subject-specific multilingual “help lines” in countries around the world:
findahelpline.com
insighttimer.com/help-now
International support network for people questioning sensory perceptions:
intervoiceonline.org/national-networks#content
Non-emergency mental health support in the UK and Ireland:
…Folks here know I’m a compulsive resource-cataloguer, so when I see a comic about someone needing support, I just get the Pavlovian response to “chime” in…
Thank you for saying so, Deckard. I’ve always lived my life surrounded by the kindness of those around me. “Unearnèd luck, now to ‘scape the serpent’s tongue,” as the Bard said.
You too, Deckard. Take good care of YOU and stay safe.
Walky makes a very good argument here for why he’s so emotionally checked out of this plot development. We don’t tend to think about it because he’s an increasingly minor character largely used for punchlines, but dude is mega traumatized.
I love this scene. This, and to a lesser extent the Hank stuff, has been much more want I want from DoA. I do hope we check in on the Amber/AG/Sal/Asher thread soon, though.
Yeah, that’s NOT what Walky needs to hear. His problem is that his defense mechanism is putting himself down and telling himself that he’s not worthy of the relationships that he’s found. Sure, he has problems with being immature and does have some growing to do as a person – but he got three cute girls just by being himself, since he genuinely had something that they wanted in a relationship. Sure, this defense mechanism is keeping him from hurting too much from most of the relationships he’s been in so far – but it’s also keeping him from learning and growing in the ways that he needs to in order to be happy and have a fulfilling relationship.
Well, here’s hoping someone will help him understand that it’s OK to be vulnerable in a relationship, to actually believe that he’s worthy of the love that he’s found. Sure, it’ll hurt more if the relationship ends – but he’ll actually have a shot at keeping a relationship if he thinks that he actually deserves a shot at it and is willing to grow in order to do so.
I do think think it’s a bit sad that whenever Walky’s feeling down on himself everyone’s advice is usually like “yeah you do suck. But you got done a bad deal, despite your obvious inherent suckage.”
Well, part of the reason he sucks is because he wallows in feeling like he sucks. I mean, it was his modus operandi through his entire first relationship with Dorothy and the entire foundation of his relationship with Amber. I was hoping his relationship with Lucy would work out, since he wasn’t viewing himself as garbage in that relationship, and while he did mess up there, it was nothing that should have ever ended the relationship, and I genuinely felt sorry for him after that turn. And we’re back here again with him putting himself down and thinking he’s only good enough to be worthy of someone rebounding off of someone they love, and… Well, it sucks.
Honestly, I think fewer people would think he sucked if he would just stop telling us that he sucked every time he got into or fell out of a relationship. It just sucks.
As someone who thinks he sucks it’s pretty hard to feel like you don’t suck. If anything one thing I liked about garbage roof was that instead of telling walky he doesn’t suck amber posits ” yeah. I suck too”. And being able to be with someone who hr didn’t put on a pedestal and allowed him the freedom to suck paradoxically made him suck less.
So:
A) Nah, she’s still being gross. I’m not sure what part of this comic read like approval of the behavior, especially with that alt-text making the author’s mindset about it clear.
B) Institutionalized misogyny (for example, when my mother was born she could not open a bank account, get a credit card, or a home loan without her husband or another man’s co-signing) makes actions like that take on a different level of impact.
C) He didn’t just privately rate women to their face (already yuck) he maintained and published and shared an ongoing list of those ratings in the hopes they would be seen by others. He also engaged in a litany of other misogynistic acts outside of “only” keeping a list of women on campus, how to find and ingratiate yourself to them, and how hot he thought they were/how big a challenge they were.
TL;DR – Jen is gross for this, Joe was disgusting and a menace.
Joe shared the list. It was password protected and he gave people the password on purpose so they could read the list. Nobody broke into it, he explicitly gave entry and was shocked when it was inevitably spread further. There was so little security, there may as well have been none.
And I have to emphasize here that he is SHARING IT WITH RAIDAH, a visibly disgusted woman he barely knows, while saying, “Oh have I not offered you the password to the feed? How remiss.”
To paraphrase Jacob in the strip, on what version of earth is that not “Joe sharing his list with anyone and everyone”. Even women. Even people he barely knows. Even people who are visibly disgusted to hear he has a list.
He thought it was funny, as he later admits to Rachel, and he very much intended it for other people’s eyes.
Also to I think now paraphrase thejeff, it bums me out when people do this with Joe because it really robs him of character development. He wouldn’t be so cool now if he hadn’t kinda sucked back in the day.
Not to mention how weird the whole narrative becomes back then if you assume the “villain” was whoever “leaked” the list… what exactly then is the lesson Joe is meant to have learned there? “Get better security”? Bleh.
I mean, I’ll be the first to say that Joe’s jackass behavior with the list is just about as far as you can go in a humorous webcomic before a guy’s behavior becomes irredeemable in the context of the amount of real-time happening in the comic. Hell, I’m pretty sure for several folks here he’s across that line and there’s no easy return, regardless of his subsequent character development.
I’m not sure if we had the accelerated perception if we were experiencing all this in the 1-2 semesters the characters have if it’d seem worse (he can’t get better that fast) or better (the fact he wised up relatively fast after pushback indicates he wasn’t rotten to the core, just stupid/misled/misguided/watched too much Andrew Tate without meaningful non-toxic male role models in his life as a teen).
Oh yeah let me not be misinterpreted as endorsing rating people by attractiveness on a numerical scale. It’s shitty no matter what, it’s just more structurally harmful when Joe does it to women.
Besides the fact that Walky is clearly a 12 with some penalty points docking his score for not quite having the emotional maturity to be in a proper and equal relationship, I do think Billifer is showing some growth here.
Like when we started off Walky was just her annoying acquaintance she would occasionally do favors for just to get him out of her way but now she’s here, completely unprompted just because she figured he’d be having a shitty day. And even though she still has a tough time admitting how much she cares for people, she does clearly still care and is finally show she does which is still growth if anything
Nah, this is what Jennifer’s always been. She routinely harasses him, but she also reached out to him after he and Dorothy broke up the first time. And of course she turns to him when she hits rock bottom too.
She knows the words better now. She’s making progress in responding to how people feel *in their view,* not just Jennifer’s own. She’s giving good advice trying to comfort him that she was just one and he deserves better. It’s not just “the way to get over this is to dangle it over your ex in a form of revenge.”
I’m assuming you’re counting Sunday as the beginning of the week, because “since he woke up this morning” is about as far as I can stretch my disbelief for.
Walky did not take Lucy for granted. He regularly put effort into their relationship, arguably more than Lucy since he actually did the work of asking her out to begin with. He just wasn’t ready to speedrun the relationship like Lucy wanted.
It’d get a disapproving squiggle from an English teacher, but only for ending a sentence with a preposition. Compare “this is what you came to comfort me about.”
As an English teacher, I can confirm that I don’t give a fuck about ending sentences with prepositions.
We think that Harvard professor is just as much of a punchline as anyone else.
(For context:
A young man is at his first day of classes at Harvard. He asks a passing professor: “Excuse me, where is the library at?”
The professor answers “Young man, at Harvard we do not end our sentences with prepositions.”
The young man responds “OK. Where is the library at, asshole?”
Ooooooh. I couldn’t parse the context of “over” being used to mean “about”. I thought it was over as in “you came over to comfort me” and the order of words was just scrambled up weird.
Today is the Wiccan holiday of Mabon, the second harvest of fruits and vegetables. First harvest is the second of August, the grain harvest, third harvest is Samhain (pronounced “Sow-wen”) on the 31st of October, the meat harvest
honestly the whole “Girl I was dating left me for another girl” has me sitting here like yea, that only makes sense
like if that happened to me pre-hormones, I’d take that a whole lot better than most other ways a breakup might occur. I wouldn’t blame them, I’d’ve done the same thing in their shoes; guys are yucky and have cooties
The feeling that guys are yucky and have cooties. Cuz I also feel like guys are yucky and have cooties. And I’m a guy.
Imagine having to try to sell goods that you yourself don’t value. Makes it hard to find love when you cannot love yourself.
I think maybe you shouldn’t take trans lesbians’ opinions on men having an imaginary childhood “disease” quite so seriously.
I’m sorry you have such a terrible self-image, but I’m not sure that bringing it up on someone’s entirely unrelated comment is a great plan for dealing with those kind of feelings.
I think Nadamas is right about therapy. Maybe start with asking for tools to learn to value and love yourself before you worry about “having to try to sell goods” to anyone else. It’s not a one-size-fits-all approach, but it can be genuinely helpful.
Sorry. Didn’t mean to come across as severe as I typed it out. Moreso just something that’s been on my mind and that post made me think about it. Didn’t mean to hijack their post or anythin’
As a total aside, I really dislike that we live in the kind of world where there’s a plausible interpretation of “not liking men in general (disparaging)” here when it’s clearly light-hearted enough that it’s “not liking men for me as partners (goofy)”.
too many have internalized the messaging that the other/desired gender are impossibly perfect, effortlessly beautiful creatures with no offending biological functions, while they and all their fellow ____s are blobs of disgusting meat which can only be wrestled and disguised as something attractive to the first by great expenditure of time, money, and effort (especially money, according to those in the business of selling “product” which claims to do just that).
I’m so glad after Jennifer decided to “go be a friend to Walky” and folks were like “she really is a good sister to him!” my doubts of that were vindicated. She ditched that entire group the second she was out of the building and has tried to never look back.
I think she’s only here to satisfy her self-applied “head cheerleader/problem solver” label. She’ll leave and feel like she’s got one up on Dorothy (which she might but that ain’t hard in the current situation).
Loading ...
wow Jennifer ya think this works like a visual novel or some shit where ya do the bare minimum to hit an event flag XD
also happy Fall Equinox for all those here who celebrate! ^-^
It’s the equinox already???
> Astronomical autumn begins this year on Monday, Sept. 22, 2025, with 2:19 p.m. EDT the precise moment of the September equinox.
Soon.
she didn’t even bring the box of chocolates for a +2 affection rating smdh
Right now, even Walky would probably turn down chocolate.
He’s like Mr Creosote at the end of Monty Python and the Meaning of Life: a single wafer-thin mint would cause him to burst like a balloon.
…BTW, @NG, I remember you were asking about this a while back, so when I found it today I thought you might be interested:
https://www.helpmeleave.us/
For folks who want or need to find somewhere else to be besides the USA. Just FYI.
long time no see Laura, and thanks! I hope you’ve been doing well
and yeah ngl, having to leave the country or even become a refugee for a while seems like… a very real possibility in the coming decade
heck I’m trying to save up to get a laptop as well as a survival bag so that in the worse case scenario, I’ll still be able work after such an event that I’d need to JUMP 👀
Good luck with that! And make sure your passport is current: the most important thing, as it is getting harder and harder to get passports.
The refurbished laptops on NewEgg are surprisingly affordable, depending on what you are looking for.
https://www.newegg.com/p/pl?N=100006740&d=laptop&isdeptsrh=1&Order=1
Looks like the cheapest complete laptop is $48, but you might need something more powerful for your work. An external SSD can compensate, though.
You’re in Cali, right? The California website doesn’t yet have all the COVID shot sites mapped out yet, but it’s getting there. Best to get all vaxxed before any travel:
https://myturn.ca.gov/
…I’m sorry, you know all this already. It’s just my “look at this shiny rock I found!” reflex. Old habit, no offense meant. *Facepalm*
hey no worries, i appreciate very much ^^
i thankfully already got a passport, and as for the laptop, my friend from the UK (who also reads this comic) is a professional gamer and said she’d help me pick out a great one that fits my needs and budget
granted the best deal may require a really long day-trip to Silicon Valley to pick it up, but ah well
Safe travels. 🙂
Jumping in, it would be good to put together an emergency fund. Have enough cash to get you someplace safe and survive for more than a few days. By “cash” I mean actual cash, the green paper stuff. If things go bad you may not be able to access your bank accounts. If you have meds you take regularly (antidepressants, insulin, etc), make sure you have paper copies of your prescription and don’t let your supply get too low. You don’t want to have to navigate a foreign country’s health care system while you’re still looking for shelter.
BTW, when you make the trip to Silicon Valley to pick up your laptop, hit Falafel’s Drive In. It’s the best falafel in the Bay Area.
I actually have a german friend who talked about looking into founding a relocation service for US queer folk when the orange nepobaby got elected for the second time.
Private li´l company helping folks with bureaucracy, living arrangements, job search ect.
I should write him about how that plan is going. Sounds like a winner in the current “market”. If somewhat opportunistic.
Although the wind against migrant is blowing colder week by week there too, it seems.
If you find anything out on this, I’d love to know more as one of the said queer folk.
Yes, the wind against immigrants (and queer folks too, sadly, and anything remotely “woke”) is blowing strongly. Though most immigrants which are not readily recognizable as such – meaning being white, and not speaking a language other than German or English- will probably have considerably less problems.
But yes, politics in Germany suck at the moment.
Yeah you’d think that Germany would take some considerable counter-measures against what they know they were responsible for 80 years ago 👀
and while it’s true that they have some exceptionally strong censorship laws against Nazi and other fascist iconography, they seem to mainly compensate by being pro-Israel, go figure (-_-)
for a queer, disabled, barely white-passing Jewish person such as myself?
within the European Union, it seems that Spain and Finland are my best options
To hear him tell it, those laws dont mean much in the online sphere anymore.
The state seems woefull inadequate to the task, and the US new media firms dont lift a finger to help, dubbing it censoship. And hindering regulatory entities as much as they legally can.
That said, we just talked a bit – he didnt do it after all.
Finding the tasks brutally bureaucratic upon looking into it.
Which kinda figures, knowing him and the reputation of german officials.
But there are such companies on the market , iamexpat dot de and Relosophy being run by US expats for example
I just learned that the head of your nazi party is actually a lesbian woman living with her phillipino wife in switzerland?
Man!
And I thought blacks for Trump or log cabin republicans was ridiculous.
Thats top-level trolling right there. How is it even possible for a german elected official to live in another state? Non-EU, even.
I continue to be weirded out by the surreal-ass timeline I ended up in.
But twice a year, he’s Captain Equinox!
I see ya.
happy Fall Equinox (over here, it’s te start of spring, so, lot’s of rainning and strong winds here)
Please let me know how we get back on the Billie/Ruth route
Happy Autumnal Equinox to you too!
i’m pretty sure last time she ranked him he was a two, so massive improvement!!!
It’s the lingering McNugget aroma, it’s worth a +2 Charisma bonus.
The scent of McNuggets makes me nauseous, ever since this time when I was about 10 when I got sick after eating them.
I have a similar relationship with Southern Comfort.
my mother and rum.
bananas and myself. cannot understand why humanity ever fucking touched em, but yeah fully triggers my gag reflex
You’re supposed to bite pieces off and chew them.
I fucking laughed, damn it
Best unrelated to comic comment ever. Reading this comic for ….well let’s just say there was a head Alien, Joyce and Joe had a weird thing, Dina was into dinosaurs…hmm.., anyway never commented before.
“ We are beautiful. It’s the world that’s ugly”
Id peel it first John, but you do you
big same on the bananas. Can’t stand smell, texture, or taste of fresh banana (including in smoothies or as “banana flavoring”). Cooked, though? Gimme those plantains in every form, banana bread…
Mmmm…plantains….oh, yeah. Good cookin’. (speshly them maduros)
my wife cooks her banana bread when i am not home cause the the smell of them cooking is still nasty as fuck.
Dr. Pepper for me, it reminds me too much of theophylline, a wonderful medicine that tastes horrible.
Yeah, 10 year olds really shouldn’t eat too much Southern Comfort… (Jelly shots or ice cubes? Does it freeze?)
Every fluid will freeze at some point.
For alcoholic beverages the rule-of-thumb is
volume-percent divided by two = freezing oint in degrees Celsius.
So southern comfort at 35% would freeze at about -18°C
(-0.4 in Freedom units)
mine was Grand Marnier. vaguely funny, quite possibly horrifying story about that nigh.
I got mono after eating a mcrib.
Roz: Don’t rank men, Jennifer.
Jennifer: Why?
Is ranking very different than comparison? Should she not compare men.
The problem is never ranking; it’s objectification.
Yup, this. It’s kind of like how back in the earlier days of feminism, it half-turned into an anti-sex, “women can’t be sexy, you’re sexist if you want to see sexy women!” crusade. There’s nothing wrong with being a sex object; the problem is when you ONLY see someone as a sex object. There’s a time and place for everything.
Nah, this isn’t quite the same as Joe’s rankings, but it’s bad too.
This definitely leans into the same attitudes, especially with the “You’ll find some other four eventually” bit.
Even my ugly face occasionally gets ranked as “handsome”, so, come on, Jennifer: scrape off the Cheeto dust and there’s probably a seven under there already.
She’s absolutely ranking him as a sibling though, making cynical hearts everywhere grow two sizes.
“Caramel abs”.
Also apparently hot hair if he doesn’t get it cut often enough.
Hard left into Mike drama!
Mike is a force of nature and can be neither avoided nor destroyed. Strike him down and he becomes more powerful than you can imagine.
Your mom is another story and she doesn’t have to imagine, at least as long as the nickels last.
nah inflation say they pay him in quarters now
Entire quarters?! In THIS economy?!?
“Listen up, 5s, a 10 is speaking.”
*listens intently*
Because that gives me *so* much insight into your situation….
(it’s a 30 Rock quote)
“I’m an 11, but continue.”
As always, billifer absolutely nails every social interaction (as far as she can tell).
She’s the best, but never for the reasons she wants to be
It’s progress!
“Yeah, but Mike was an asshole, Dorothy is a nice person, more or less, not that I like her or anythingSHUT UP!”
Look she’s your pseudo-sister, take what you can get.
To be fair, the roommate was Mike.
Though, on the other hand, he got replaced by Booster, so… win some, lose some?
Booster is great, actually. It’s a pity Mike is gone, but booster is an amazing addition to the cast and I wish they had got more screen time.
I disagree but I’m glad you get something outta their presence.
A great character or a great roommate? They might not always be the same thing.
booster is a better roommate than character for me, but thats cause he has been a damn good roommate so far!
Yeah Booster let Walky play their video games, that’s a pretty good roommate honestly.
And tells him not to skip his classes unless it’s to go catch a unicorn and the first time I read that strip I didn’t know what he meant
*they
obligatory “they”
they*
apologies, didnt mean to mispronoun there, was very tired before heading to bed last night
Mike was the special sauce. Without him, all of them are doomed to lives of misery and self-destruction.
Which is why that he will reveal he’s been alive this entire time.
He’ll just walk out of the closet he’s been in the entire time.
And he had Dorothy for support at that time
Don’t trust your dead roommate who is definitely dead and not in witness protection……unless?🤨
Really comforting. A four. Like those costume dramas where you could only marry someone as wealthy (or not) as you. Cos, if they are”better, they are not gunna marry “down”, and neither are you…
As a 3, I’d be flattered to be called a 4.
I mean, Walky has a point.
Also, Fall Equinox is the beginning of October country*! Remember: Endings are just as important as beginnings.
*whereas Orctober country is just big green guys with tusks 😉
According to the seasonal stuff aisle at the grocery store, August 1st is the beginning of October country. Christmas starts on the 1st of November.
not up her in canuckistan, they start getting the xmas decks out for sale oct 15 at some stores it sickens me, but my vote is Halloween decks are sold year round at the same level of prominence as they currently are. spooky world is best world!
In places without Halloween, Christmas-themed baked goods are sold from the middle of August.
i am ashamed of my nation, was in a dolloerama today,,,,,, whole isle xmas decks and stuff out already.
Acording to the seasonal stuff asile of the Dollar Tree Christmas has already started.
Please can you direct me toward Orctober Country? I know what I’m doing.
The orcs?
Yeah, you get it.
Omg she never checked up on Walky after Mike?!
I stand by what I said, Walky desperately needs more actual friends lol. She did good here, but this cannot be all he really has
booster has been there for walky, as was lucy and amber
That’s kind of the problem though. Booster was the only one even trying to support Walky as a friend. Lucy had ulterior motives and Amber did as well, on top of also having her own baggage with Mike. No one is around just to support Walky except Jennifer and Sal sometimes.
“Ulterior motives” is a really really unkind way of referring to “being supportive while also having romantic feelings”. The bad part of Nice Guy behavior is the entitlement and the angry lashing out when the object of their affections doesn’t “reward” their supportive behavior with a relationship or sex, not the “being too socially awkward to directly express your crush”.
I’m not trying to classify Lucy as a “nice guy” or gal or whatever that would be, but my point is kind of where is she now? Spending time with Jacob I assume and it stings a little more considering Walky valued her companionship as a friend and misses it, but now that the romance ended so has that companionship. That’s the problem with his only friends being people he dated, whether from awkwardness, or valid sensitive emotions, or moving on, they’re not here now to be a support network. He can’t talk to Lucy about Dorothy dumping him again, she’s the one he rebounded to after Lucy. If Amber were not currently passed out would she even be a valid option as support? Not likely because she’s admitted she was enabling Dorothy to fall for Joyce to free up Walky.
“Ulterior motives” may be a poor choice of words but I don’t know how else to classify how Walky has been treated here and it’s almost a bit unfair because all of his friends have seen him as a romantic prospect first before even an individual and it’s kind of left him isolated when the romance spoils. Especially since he seems to want someone to no complications hangout with even before romance and he can’t get that.
Totally fair. Sorry, Lucy gets such a bad rap so often, I’m probably overcorrecting.
honestly lucy’s desires towards walky do not have to taint her actions during that time, as she was there with him through it, she didnt make a horny move till the new semester started. in that time she was present for him, which is the best we can do for another when grieving, be there for what ever they need you for, be t companionship, a sounding board, a distraction. and yes unfortunately when they moved to romantic shenanagins it didnt work, but that is just part of life not evrything is going to work out, we can do 100000000% right, and fail and fail hard, and fail for no reason. and there is n othing to say that they may resume a friendship in the future, especially if they both valued it. I mean they split less than 2 weeksago in comic.
amber and walky had the comfort of being able to be their worst selves with eachother without judgement, and that can be incredibly healing, especially as they were 2 of the people closest to mike, so i do not see any reason that ambers motivations would have mattered or make a difference
Amber and Lucy’s motivations matter in this specific circumstance where Walky is depressed over his relationship. Amber especially admitted to encouraging Dorothy to pursue Joyce through that sext to sabotage her relationship with Walky. Booster coaxed that confession through omission.
https://www.dumbingofage.com/2025/comic/book-15/03-me-and-who-you-say-i-was-yesterday/temerity/
He could still go to his exes for relationship advice but that has already proven to fail him because his whole relationship with Lucy only happened because his ex had separate motivations that were not in his best interest.
Strongly disagree that that strip reveals that it was conscious choice on Amber’s part to encourage the lewd so as to break up Walky and Dorothy. She seems genuinely horrified by the idea.
Unconscious motivation, maybe.
Jennifer knew that Walky didn’t want to discuss Mike and respected that.
Besides, if she did, she’d say, “Listen, it’s okay to be glad Mike is dead. Maybe even sexually aroused by it.”
“WHAT THE HELL, BILLIE!”
“JENNIFER!”
Did you even read today’s strip???
I read the alt-text. Does that count?
Frankly, Walky could use some guy friends too.
To be fair, Walky, you’ve been fairly neutral about the whole dead roommate thing. Sometimes positive given that it kept you from flunking.
Halloween would disagree on the whole “neutral feelings” idea.
Also, he confirmed that dead roommates equaling free pass on grades was a myth, so I’m not sure what you’re referring to when you say it kept him from flunking.
As far as I recall, math was his only issue, and Amber changed his grades before Mike died, so he was ok prior to Mike’s death.
Basically everything disagrees on the neutral feelings thing.
And it was more than Amber changing his grades, she also helped him figure out how to study. Just changing his grades before the midterms wouldn’t have been enough to keep him from failing.
I think “helped him figure out how to study” is a bit of an overstatement. Also that part was Amazi-Girl, apparently.
https://www.dumbingofage.com/2019/comic/book-10/01-birthday-pursuit/onetruelove/
(I went looking because my memory was more like “she hacked his grades and that gave him hope”, and I forgot the tidbit in the middle about Amazi-Girl apparently having him set timers. Sadly the nature of ADHD is that that sort of thing only helps for a limited period of time: you have to keep coming up with new strategies.)
More recent strips showed it was still very much a struggle for him:
https://www.dumbingofage.com/2020/comic/book-10/02-to-remind-you-of-my-love/fleshballs/
https://www.dumbingofage.com/2020/comic/book-10/04-is-a-song-forever/freely/
(No idea if there’s something MORE recent, tho.)
Maybe. The whole plot could come up again, but I don’t think we’ve seen anything about Walky’s bad grades since the time skip. That last strip you linked, with him talking about going to take the midterm felt like a character growth resolution to the arc, whether that’s realistic or not. He obviously passed, both the midterm and the course.
Agreed, I just think unless Amber did something more off-screen, it’s a bit strong to say she taught him how to study.
It is not, however, strong to say he wouldn’t have passed the class without her. That is 100% true.
I replied to this with three links, more fool me. Moderation jail!
Anyway, yes and no.
https://www.dumbingofage.com/2019/comic/book-10/01-birthday-pursuit/onetruelove/
(It was Amazi-Girl who did something like “help him figure out how to study”, and more recent strips from 2020 showed him still struggling to focus, as well as his and Amber’s attraction to each other being a barrier to EITHER of them studying.)
She probably should’ve had someone on standby to tag in when she inevitably reverted back to herself after 30 seconds of being a decent person
Jennifer isn’t great at emotion or being genuine, she’s doing her best, Walky.
That said, Jennifer you’re being an asshole.
(also side note- hell yeah glad to see the server is working again!)
To be fair Walky isn’t the best at dealing with genuine difficult emotions either. If she had been super sincere and caring here he probably would have made some sort of joke to deflect.
It has to involve girls kissing girls to warrant Jennifer’s direct attention.
definite empathy for that
Breakups fall within her purview. Murders do not.
“Sometimes I even winked!”
I’d call that a backhanded compliment but I don’t think it even qualifies as a compliment
A fronthanded insult maybe?
Never underestimate the power of a nod from across a room!
From my line of experience 4 is below average, this is not the best pep talk but it’s the best Jennifer will probably be able to give… But hey Walky can Atleast look at the upside that he proved to be too good for Dorothy, not the other way around.
“Well, I wasn’t hot for Mike.”
i have a sudden desperate need to rate Walkys but something is telling me no
My inner desire to make tier lists is always being tempered by there being an in-universe list which is the worst thing ever making me hesitate to rate them even though they’re fictional.
Billie and Amber are at the top for me though.
I’m most familiar with tier lists in relation to fighting games and so read that differently at first…
Don’t count on Billifer in a matchup with Ruth, anyway:
https://www.dumbingofage.com/2010/comic/book-1/01-move-in-day/pun/
Dumbing of age fighting tier list!
S: Amazigirl, Amber
A: Sal, Sarah, Tony, Ruth, Asher
B: Joyce, Dina, Billy, Mike, Malaya,
C: Becky, Joe, Ethan, Carla, Jacob
D: Danny, Walky, Lucy, Roz, Robin
E: Booster, Charlie, Leslie, Jason
I have problems with this list. The top 3 are obviously pretty accurate. I’ll even give you Sarah over Ruth because Sarah has technically been in more conflicts even if the bat equipped weapon can skew the parameters.
Tony is way oversold, dude’s only feat is manhandling Incelerator. Is it cause he plays football? I guess? I still need to see more from him.
Ethan, Danny, and Walky should be in the bottom 3. Maybe Walky slightly over them because he’s a least thrown a punch, but Ethan especially is no fighter. Plus he lost a lot of muscle. You can’t just give a guy the rub because he’s tall. He has to buy you dinner first. And is Asher up so high because he’s a criminal? No trust on that guy in a fight. All them boys are losing to Leslie, Booster, maybe even Charlie if she’s locked in!
Admittedly most of it is based on vibes because DoA is not a battle manga. Dina’s pretty accurate though. I do think the raptor can wash Joyce in a fair and honest 1v1 though. She’s just consistently been more active which is all we really have. Technically Malaya also beat Sal but it doesn’t feel right to put her up. I agree with their placement too. I also like that Dorothy is not even on this list cause lol no way!
We do know that, when Walky punched Asher, the former’s hand was hurt more than the latter’s face.
Also, here’s Joyce punching Toedad into hospital. I’m not sure whether I’m making a point here or just wanted to revisit the moment.
Objection!
Joyce punching Toedad literally broke her hand.
Objection sustained!
But it was still quite a punch. Maybe if she wore hand protection?
Sprained her wrist, not broke her hand. https://www.dumbingofage.com/2016/comic/book-6/02-that-perfect-girl/sprained/
Compared to K.O.’ing Toedad, leaving him like this in the immediate aftermath: https://www.dumbingofage.com/2015/comic/book-6/01-to-those-whod-ground-me/alive/
Can’t believe I literally went through the whole cast list and still managed to miss Dorothy! D tier, lack of inclination but reasonably in shape cardio wise.
You’re gonna rag on Tony? the only guy in the list for whom putting another man on the ground is his actual, professional job?
I often wonder who the best fighter in DoA is. It’s probably Amber/Amazi-Girl but she did lose the 1v1 to Sal. There is an argument she was sandbagging but a loss is a loss to me, it’s easy to argue a sandbag when you’re already losing. Also Ruth seems pretty tough but Amber was very confident she could take her despite being sleep deprived. Joyce also has a surprising amount if rage strength. She’s probably not beating any of the established, experienced brawlers but she could probably beat most of the rest.
All that being said AG is still easily the most active fighter so it’s probably still her at top 1.
I was going to post an alternative interpretation of the 1v1 against Sal, but it got a little unfun, so instead I’ll just note that Amazi-Girl wasn’t involved in that fight.
I do wonder if we count Amber and AG as separate cause there’s tons of contradictory moments where they’ve both done impressive combat yet Amber has also sort of chickened out for lack of a better term and regressed to her more wall flower nerdish habits. It’s a little confusing. So are they both ranked the same cause they share a body and are aspects of the same person or do we count them as separate individuals just for this imagined tier list cause I’d probably put AG over Amber in that case.
They’re both capable of absurd action movie level feats. Originally Amber seemed only to fight in a rage, while Amazi-Girl was controlled. A lot of her seeming to chicken out was more being afraid of not being able to stop than anything else. Which is how I see her fight with Sal – she proved to herself she could take Sal on without losing control.
Oh come on, you dont like him anyway
I’m kinda surprised Walky is doing as well as he is, considering some of the stuff he’s been through.
Walky and Joe might think totally differently to you. Have you ever considered that? That people differ?
I mean regardless it’s not weird to see someone dealing with death and a breakup well and say “wow this guy’s taking this pretty well”.
Can you show me where in their comment they compared Walky to Joe?
Walky dealing with something well despite the drama in his life has nothing to do with Joe, and entirely to do with Walky’s own willpower/mental strength.
They aren’t responding just to this comment, they’re responding to the fact that this person has frequently suggested walky -and- Joe should be a lot more hurt/upset/angry about this.
That’s unnecessarily pointed
Context.
I maintain that I don’t think Walky is handling it all that well. I think Walky’s buried all of that trauma under as much self-deprecation and outright repression as he can. He wants to maintain that image of someone who is totally fine and chill with everything and no one needs to worry about him at all, at least up until something causes it to break containment in a big moment (like at Halloween).
He’s up there with Becky.
They’re both out-of-control water heaters, but I’d say the difference is that Becky has a working release valve, while Walky’s is fully sealed off…
You DON’T think eating 237 McNuggets is a working pressure release?
Yeah, lots of bottling. And I think Walky’s suffering the problem of “act like you don’t care and aren’t invested, and people will wind up thinking you in fact don’t care and aren’t invested”.
Top quality friendship from Jennifer here. I don’t see no one else stepping up. Who said she couldn’t do it? Who doubted her?
https://imgchest.com/p/6eyrljbeeyp
Meanwhile in an alternate reality.
Day-YUM! 🤯
Thank you for the work you do; I love your stuff.
And then Walky pukes McNuggets into her cleavage.
That’s just Walky’s form of foreplay.
With Jennifer and Walky in bed together, now’s a good time to link to that *other* fan art penciled strip where the two of them go at it like starving rabbits. Wish I still had the link…
Check yesterday’s comments :3
Was that supposed to be Amber imagining herself as a guy, or Amber and Joe?
Didn’t seem big enough to be Joe.
Whoops! That wasn’t supposed to be part of that post!
“Another girl”
Trans Walky headcanoners are gonna go crazy tonight.
Do I even want to know what that means
Seems fairly self explanatory, people who headcanon Walky as Trans
well dont sound too excited
I feel like this is not a theory which requires particularly elaborate explanation.
David Anthony “Walky” Walkerton, known character, has displayed several behaviors (of which I will list zero here) which have caused multiple (also unlisted) commenters on this site to theorize that he (or possibly “he”) is a transgender woman. His use of the words “left me for another girl” can be interpreted to mean he’s including himself among the “girl” category, perhaps subconsciously. For a more elaborate explanation, I recommend asking one of the participants in this theory.
“You still have time to reach your full potential” – Carla, to Walky.
Found it:
https://www.dumbingofage.com/2023/comic/book-14/02-its-the-love-i-havent-got/pacing-2/
In context, however, it seems more likely to refer to Dorothy’s and Joyce’s statuses as cisgender females. I mean, when my brother’s first wife left him for another woman, that didn’t make him suddenly trans, it just made her bi but preferring women (or possibly fully closeted gay until meeting her girlfriend, I never had an in-depth conversation with her about it, but her daughter is just plain gay and happily married to a very nice and funny woman in Portland).
Oh thank the goddesses someone else already picked that up and pointed it out so I don’t have to
LETS GOOOOO
As an English teacher posting before work starts,
Walky’s use of “another” there is what we call “syntactically ambiguous”. He could certainly be referring to himself! But also Dorothy is a girl and thus “another” very well could be referencing her.
Walky referring to himself as a girl is absolutely a valid reading of this, but it’s not the only reading. Ambiguity!
Thanks! English is not my first language and I would have said “a girl” or “someone else” to keep it gender neutral.
Honestly, it’s one of those things where we as commenters can dive very deeply into both the Doylist & Watsonian readings of the line, but I think in reality the truth is that most native speakers don’t actually think all that much about the grammar of their statements. The occasional ambiguity in English is inevitable, so most folks tend not to worry about it.
Also, some of us enjoy reading too much into these things.
And sometimes it turns out we weren’t actually reading too much into them after all (for example, the hints that Joyce might be attracted to girls). This one seems more doubtful to me, but we can’t be certain.
I tend to agree unless we’re specifically analyzing grammar, as is the case here.
I think the issue is that using “another” creates a comparison between two things, emphasizing that they are both of the same type. So when Walky uses “another” we would assume he is trying to emphasize that similarity since it is important to what he is trying to say.
If he’d said “left me for another person” he would be emphasizing how Joyce and himself are two different people. This changes the “she left me” which could just be a break up to “she left me for someone else”.
“She left me for another girl” however is presumably emphasizing how Dorothy and Joyce are two different girls… which is true, but why emphasize it?
Now Walky could be suggesting that Dorothy leaving him for a girl in particular has a different impact than being left for someone who wasn’t a girl. More than that the sapphic nature of the new relationship has to be relevant since “another” also emphasizes that both Joyce and Dorothy are girls.
This sees like a bit of a funky phrasing, however, because it isn’t as clear why it matters to Walky that Joyce and Dorothy are both girls.
> which is true, but why emphasize it?
> This sees like a bit of a funky phrasing, however, because it isn’t as clear why it matters to Walky that Joyce and Dorothy are both girls.
I suspect, in context, that’s it’s meant to emphasize that the sapphic nature of things is newly outside of the realm of innuendo and supposition (and the occasional teasing from Walky himself) and now actualized. Frankly, it seems a more natural reading to me than the other way.
There’s also plausibly some tacit acknowledgement of the sense that, even here in 2025, there are still a lot of guys who’d feel very differently about “my girlfriend left me for another girl” vs. “my girlfriend left me for a guy”.
There’s definitely a weird comfort in “oh she left me for someone who is different from me in a way I could never hope to replicate” and “oh she left me for a better version of a thing I already am.”
Yup, and in the context of Walky minimizing this incident (kinda rightly) vs. “my roommate died”, that makes even more sense.
this whole tangent reminds me of a claim I heard years back, which is that in German, asking for “another” beer will get you a weird look from the server and the question of what was wrong with the first one and why did you drink it?
(idiom, it’s a thing, and it varies from language to language and culture to culture.)
Y’know, I’ll have to file that away, since I’d assume “get me another beer” generally means “give me a second beer of the same kind as the one I just finished”.
I would too! But apparently not.
If I Recall Correctly, the (translated) idiom comes out to something like “still one”.
“Look, I can handle post-breakup pep talks no problem, but even I’m not gonna act like I’m experienced at dealing with dead roommates.”
“This is supposed to be a pep talk?”
Billie/Jennifer: “Yeah, but it was Mike, and we are all better off without him.”
I mean, Walkerton, people DID try to reach out to you during Mike’s death and you were pissed that you were trying to have something in your life that didn’t remind you of Mike’s death.
You even dumped Amber over it.
To play Devil’s advocate, that’s not exactly what happened. People didn’t reach out personally to Walky, they were having a fun Halloween party and then Dorothy decided to bring up Mike’s death out of nowhere as a generalized memorial thing, NOT to personally check in on Walky’s mental health. In which case I think he is within his rights to point out that he wanted to have something in his life that didn’t remind him of that. Also, he DEFINITELY did not dump Amber over it, her pushing him into the candy table kinda means she was the one doing the dumping.
https://www.dumbingofage.com/2022/comic/book-12/05-this-was-halloween/booing/
Just gonna link it because this is very much NOT people reaching out to him about Mike’s death, this is an argument. Yes, Walky is being rude and memeing here, and I do not defend the things he is saying because they are insensitive, but neither is this people sincerely reaching out to say “hey man sorry about your roommate dying, are you alright?”, this is an argument that ends with Walky being shoved into a table.
Walky rejected the attempt to memorialize Mike.
Which is kind of the point. Maybe reaching out is what they assumed he didn’t want.
Okay but that doesn’t disprove what Walky said here though. He rejected memorializing Mike. I get that the others might assume that he wouldn’t want to talk about it and thus no one reached out. But that means Walky’s statement of “Jennifer didn’t reach out to me about my roommate’s death” is still… true.
Sorry, argument? Mike has been one of Amber’s closest friends since they were kids, she feels personally responsible for him falling off the building, and walky is here suggesting the funeral was fake and that mike is actually alive somewhere. This is the same bs as false flag/crisis actor nonsense and in her shoes I would also lose my crap because this is wildly disrespectful. You don’t get to have empathy when you cannot show empathy to others.
When I say argument I moreso mean Joyce getting in Walky’s face and yelling at him.
Also I 100% understand why Amber’s upset, I’m not saying she isn’t allowed to be really upset and even lose her shit here. However, Walky was also her… sort-of-situationship at this time? So her pushing him into the table and then walking away with the implication they didn’t talk for a while afterwards means she clearly did the dumping here. Justifiably so.
Also I understand your last sentiment there but also keep in mind that grief and mourning are complicated and sometimes part of showing empathy is still displaying empathy to someone even if they’re not going to be kind to you in that moment or aren’t being empathetic back. The Halloween party was all around a very messy situation.
Just to add, because I think a lot of people missed it: note the shapes of the speech bubbles in the strip Doopyboop linked above. For the first three panels, Walky’s speaking as Head Alien and not himself, I’m pretty sure.
That’s a good point too. Which, I’m not saying “it’s okay that Walky said this stuff in a stupid doofy alien voice”, but this is still Walky and in response to being unwillingly reminded of his dead roommate, he fell back on goofy Walky shenanigans and said goofy stupid things ‘in-character’ as his costume. Amber is allowed to be pissed off about that. However, it’s also Walky defaulting to humor as he always does.
Plus, honestly, if I was at a party, and in response to “hey guys remember that dead guy”, one of the members of the party started using a cartoony voice to spin a funny haha conspiracy about the dead guy, I would honestly wanna check on him after to make sure everything is okay cause that sounds like some pretty bad denial or if nothing else, a very bad coping mechanism… which it is.
I don’t know, I just understand Walky’s feelings a lot in those strips. I feel for him. Mike wasn’t his friend, but Mike lived with him. It’s still a loss. One he was reminded of every time he tried to sleep, every time he returned to his room.
That is SUCH a weird way of describing the Halloween party that I think you should go back to reread it.
Dorothy calling for a moment of silence was not “reaching out” to Walky in any way, shape, or form.
Walky didn’t “dump” Amber, Amber very much dumped Walky for using (extremely inappropriate) humor to cope in the middle of Dorothy’s called-for moment of silence. (And she did it while lashing out physically in a way that definitely hurt Walky and COULD have caused lasting injuries, that was a horrible moment for her.)
Like. What are you even talking about, C.T. Yes, Walky was also angry in that scene, but he wasn’t angry at “people trying to reach out to him after Mike’s death”, because that’s not a thing that happened.
Dorothy interrupted a Halloween party to ask everyone to be silent for a moment, Walky interrupted that silence by saying Mike wasn’t dead (extremely inappropriate humor-coping), and Amber was both horrified and infuriated with him for it.
(This is not me shitting on Dorothy for wanting a moment of silence, pretty much every character in that scene was traumatized and trying to cope with it. She opted for the comfort of rituals.
But if she or anyone else ever reached out to Walky after Mike’s death, it was off-panel.)
It’s often wild to me, as an aside, how different some moments I remember in this comic went from the way they actually went down. I suspect a lot of us are the same.
If I go back to something that happened previously anymore, I go actually re-read that section of archives to make sure my brain isn’t making up stories. (sometimes this even reinforces my point like when I discovered Joe/Joyce being confidants a bit substantially predated when even I originally thought it was)
Oh absolutely a good point! I reread fairly recently but I should still have double checked tbh. Esp when it involves a character I’m less inclined to be kind to OR one of my long-time faves.
I think it would gross and disturbing if someone reached out after they reacted that way to a moment of silence. People grieve in their own way and Walky made it clear he wanted nothing to do with any acknowledgement of Walky’s death. Given how Amber was friends with Mike, that absolutley torpedoed their relationship and he had to have known that.
He clearly didn’t know that. He didn’t ‘plan’ that interaction, it happened in the moment. Sometimes people just do or say things without thinking of the consequences. Also, we have Walky here clearly making it known that he would have appreciated someone reaching out to him.
He wasn’t against ANY acknowledgement, he was against acknowledgement when he wasn’t expecting it. That. Is. Reasonable. What he said after was out of pocket but you can’t put yourself in his shoes for a second to understand why having Mike’s death brought up when he wasn’t expecting it, could be upsetting? When he was also involved in the kidnapping that came about with Mike’s death? C’mon, man.
Like I don’t think Dorothy was doing something terrible by calling for a moment of silence, but it’s still understandable that it hit Walky so sourly, especially if he’d spent a month or so, by that point, having people not reach out to him. And this comic says that no one DID reach out to him.
Which, to be clear, is kind of understandable too! I think the cast members who thought to reach out to anyone about Mike would have prioritized reaching out to Amber and Ethan, the only people in the cast who had known Mike for more than a couple of months, and both of whom would, I think it’s safe to say, not have reacted very well to being approached about it.
(Especially not Ethan, after how his conversation with Danny went.)
All of this is complicated further by two factors:
1. Mike was an asshole. Almost nobody liked him, among the cast. It’s genuinely difficult and awkward to extend sympathy about the passing of someone who was singularly unpleasant.
2. So many of the people who did know Mike at all……. also had their own feelings of guilt to contend with. Not as much guilt as Amber/Amazi-Girl, but like. I cannot imagine Dorothy, for example, hasn’t put it together that Mike died trying to kill Blaine, which by the transitive property means he died trying to save her, Joyce, and the other kidnappees.
Which, to be clear, was Mike’s choice, and not something any of them asked him to do or even knew about, but we’ve got a fair few people in this cast who are already looking for reasons yi be hard on themselves. “Mike died trying to protect me and I didny even know about it and I didn’t even like him” is a big ugly thing to feel.
3. Even Walky himself isn’t sure how to feel about Mike’s death. He’s not sure Mike was a friend. He’s probably wished he hadn’t gotten stuck with Mike as a roommate on more than one occasion! Which, you know, would make him feel worse.
…anyway, it’s entirely possible for no one to do anything wrong but STILL hurt each other, and that is mostly what happened in this situation.
Mostly. Amber shoving Walky back into a table? Remains a very wrong thing for her to have done!
…Just wanted to share these for the folks around the world who might want to talk with someone a little more practiced at support and resource referrals than Jennifer…
Some of these free support services do have direct connections to police and emergency medical responders. So folks might want to ask that up front, or sift through these lists to find services that explicitly deny connections with law enforcement.
Subject-specific multilingual “help lines” in countries around the world:
findahelpline.com
insighttimer.com/help-now
International support network for people questioning sensory perceptions:
intervoiceonline.org/national-networks#content
Non-emergency mental health support in the UK and Ireland:
samaritans.org
samaritans.org/how-we-can-help/if-youre-having-difficult-time/other-sources-help
Social services and supports around the USA for everyday needs:
helpguide.org/find-help
findhelp.org
211.org
(United Way service referral guides in every US State,
211.ca for Canada)
Community services by topic in any US ZIP code:
healthy.kaiserpermanente.org/health-wellness/social-health/resource-directory/resource-directory
For financial and basic needs support in the USA:
needhelppayingbills.com
usa.gov/benefit-finder
Energy bills:
liheap.org/directory
feedingamerica.org/find-your-local-foodbank
Legal Aid in every state:
lawhelp.org
US Immigration Legal Aid:
immi.org/en
Free and Low-Cost Health Clinics across the USA:
findahealthcenter.hrsa.gov
Peer-run “warm lines” (volunteer listeners) In the USA:
warmline.org
nami.org/NAMI/media/NAMI-Media/Helpline/NAMI-National-HelpLine-WarmLine-Directory.pdf
power2u.org/consumer-run-statewide-organizations
Public Health Agency lines across the USA:
councilforhelplines.org/member-organizations
…Folks here know I’m a compulsive resource-cataloguer, so when I see a comic about someone needing support, I just get the Pavlovian response to “chime” in…
…Spacing between categories didn’t come through properly. Ah, well.
A+, no notes.
Aw, thank you! I’m glad. I hope folks pass these along wherever they might be useful.
❤️🩹
Thank you for the resources. I hope your kindness returns back to you in these trying times 🫡
Thank you for saying so, Deckard. I’ve always lived my life surrounded by the kindness of those around me. “Unearnèd luck, now to ‘scape the serpent’s tongue,” as the Bard said.
You too, Deckard. Take good care of YOU and stay safe.
Walky makes a very good argument here for why he’s so emotionally checked out of this plot development. We don’t tend to think about it because he’s an increasingly minor character largely used for punchlines, but dude is mega traumatized.
I, Walky is not a minor character? He is one of the main cast.
According to the sorting of the cast page, he’s actually the third most major character after Joyce and Dorothy.
If this arc is going to explore Walky’s trauma over Mike’s death then I’m here for it.
Oh, Jennifer.
Ratings are not facts.
Please let Billie learn she has to be a better friend.
Stuff like this makes me miss Jennifer!
I hope she takes a bigger presence in the comic again!
And also more of this!
The emotional fallout of the new couple, the new status quo 😀
(Happy smiley face because I wanted more consequences)
Jennifer, why are you so consistently terrible?
I love this scene. This, and to a lesser extent the Hank stuff, has been much more want I want from DoA. I do hope we check in on the Amber/AG/Sal/Asher thread soon, though.
Yeah, that’s NOT what Walky needs to hear. His problem is that his defense mechanism is putting himself down and telling himself that he’s not worthy of the relationships that he’s found. Sure, he has problems with being immature and does have some growing to do as a person – but he got three cute girls just by being himself, since he genuinely had something that they wanted in a relationship. Sure, this defense mechanism is keeping him from hurting too much from most of the relationships he’s been in so far – but it’s also keeping him from learning and growing in the ways that he needs to in order to be happy and have a fulfilling relationship.
Well, here’s hoping someone will help him understand that it’s OK to be vulnerable in a relationship, to actually believe that he’s worthy of the love that he’s found. Sure, it’ll hurt more if the relationship ends – but he’ll actually have a shot at keeping a relationship if he thinks that he actually deserves a shot at it and is willing to grow in order to do so.
Three cute girls and he could have Joyce at the cost of dressing in a mouse costume.
He could have Joyce if they met while they were both relatively immature and fighting aliens together for the government.
And even then there’d be a lot of “will they won’t they” padding.
I do think think it’s a bit sad that whenever Walky’s feeling down on himself everyone’s advice is usually like “yeah you do suck. But you got done a bad deal, despite your obvious inherent suckage.”
Well, part of the reason he sucks is because he wallows in feeling like he sucks. I mean, it was his modus operandi through his entire first relationship with Dorothy and the entire foundation of his relationship with Amber. I was hoping his relationship with Lucy would work out, since he wasn’t viewing himself as garbage in that relationship, and while he did mess up there, it was nothing that should have ever ended the relationship, and I genuinely felt sorry for him after that turn. And we’re back here again with him putting himself down and thinking he’s only good enough to be worthy of someone rebounding off of someone they love, and… Well, it sucks.
Honestly, I think fewer people would think he sucked if he would just stop telling us that he sucked every time he got into or fell out of a relationship. It just sucks.
As someone who thinks he sucks it’s pretty hard to feel like you don’t suck. If anything one thing I liked about garbage roof was that instead of telling walky he doesn’t suck amber posits ” yeah. I suck too”. And being able to be with someone who hr didn’t put on a pedestal and allowed him the freedom to suck paradoxically made him suck less.
Is it wallowing? That’s just having low self esteem.
There is somebody else already! Walky had way more chemistry with Amber than he ever did with Dorothy.
He never threw a toy at Amber, so I’m not sure that’s really true.
WRONG: https://www.dumbingofage.com/2017/comic/book-8/02-this-is-the-way-that-we-love/simpler/
Oh, yeah. That was Amber and not Amazigirl.
alt-text got a point here.
When joe rates woman than its disgusting but Jennifer is aloud to Rate walkies?
i dont think so.
It isn’t misogynistic when Billie does it.
Of course, considering how fond some in this comment section are of transfem Walky…
So:
A) Nah, she’s still being gross. I’m not sure what part of this comic read like approval of the behavior, especially with that alt-text making the author’s mindset about it clear.
B) Institutionalized misogyny (for example, when my mother was born she could not open a bank account, get a credit card, or a home loan without her husband or another man’s co-signing) makes actions like that take on a different level of impact.
C) He didn’t just privately rate women to their face (already yuck) he maintained and published and shared an ongoing list of those ratings in the hopes they would be seen by others. He also engaged in a litany of other misogynistic acts outside of “only” keeping a list of women on campus, how to find and ingratiate yourself to them, and how hot he thought they were/how big a challenge they were.
TL;DR – Jen is gross for this, Joe was disgusting and a menace.
Joe did not share the list. It was password protected and a “hacker” broke into it and shared it without his knowledge.
Joe shared the list. It was password protected and he gave people the password on purpose so they could read the list. Nobody broke into it, he explicitly gave entry and was shocked when it was inevitably spread further. There was so little security, there may as well have been none.
https://www.dumbingofage.com/2017/comic/book-7/02-everything-youve-ever-wanted/boyspizzaretreat/
Here he is in the act.
And I have to emphasize here that he is SHARING IT WITH RAIDAH, a visibly disgusted woman he barely knows, while saying, “Oh have I not offered you the password to the feed? How remiss.”
To paraphrase Jacob in the strip, on what version of earth is that not “Joe sharing his list with anyone and everyone”. Even women. Even people he barely knows. Even people who are visibly disgusted to hear he has a list.
He thought it was funny, as he later admits to Rachel, and he very much intended it for other people’s eyes.
Yeah, the worst part about Joe’s list were the couple of occasions he specifically weaponized it.
+1
Also to I think now paraphrase thejeff, it bums me out when people do this with Joe because it really robs him of character development. He wouldn’t be so cool now if he hadn’t kinda sucked back in the day.
Not to mention how weird the whole narrative becomes back then if you assume the “villain” was whoever “leaked” the list… what exactly then is the lesson Joe is meant to have learned there? “Get better security”? Bleh.
In reference to Li’s comments:
“What is better — to be born good or to overcome your evil nature through great effort?” — Paarthurnax
I mean, I’ll be the first to say that Joe’s jackass behavior with the list is just about as far as you can go in a humorous webcomic before a guy’s behavior becomes irredeemable in the context of the amount of real-time happening in the comic. Hell, I’m pretty sure for several folks here he’s across that line and there’s no easy return, regardless of his subsequent character development.
I’m not sure if we had the accelerated perception if we were experiencing all this in the 1-2 semesters the characters have if it’d seem worse (he can’t get better that fast) or better (the fact he wised up relatively fast after pushback indicates he wasn’t rotten to the core, just stupid/misled/misguided/watched too much Andrew Tate without meaningful non-toxic male role models in his life as a teen).
What Taffy said.
His standard method of introducing himself, as I recall, was to offer a link to his list’s RSS feed.
While it *was* password-protected, Joe absolutely shared the list openly.
And even if he did have a password, I don’t expect it was anything more difficult to guess than “362436”
I’m guessing “12345”.
https://giphy.com/gifs/spaceballs-password-12345-xT0GqJfdLcrcpSbZf2
It should definitely have been 80085.
5318008
https://youtu.be/nz7B9zVGowI?list=PLRWvNQVqAeWL-7a_WW4Z39sNvq12z7mVS&t=180
Sage nod
Oh yeah let me not be misinterpreted as endorsing rating people by attractiveness on a numerical scale. It’s shitty no matter what, it’s just more structurally harmful when Joe does it to women.
Besides the fact that Walky is clearly a 12 with some penalty points docking his score for not quite having the emotional maturity to be in a proper and equal relationship, I do think Billifer is showing some growth here.
Like when we started off Walky was just her annoying acquaintance she would occasionally do favors for just to get him out of her way but now she’s here, completely unprompted just because she figured he’d be having a shitty day. And even though she still has a tough time admitting how much she cares for people, she does clearly still care and is finally show she does which is still growth if anything
But she’s messing it up, because she’s still Billie and that’s what she does.
Nah, this is what Jennifer’s always been. She routinely harasses him, but she also reached out to him after he and Dorothy broke up the first time. And of course she turns to him when she hits rock bottom too.
She knows the words better now. She’s making progress in responding to how people feel *in their view,* not just Jennifer’s own. She’s giving good advice trying to comfort him that she was just one and he deserves better. It’s not just “the way to get over this is to dangle it over your ex in a form of revenge.”
See evaluating him as a 4 is proof that shes known him since booger eatin’ days.
What, last week?
I’m assuming you’re counting Sunday as the beginning of the week, because “since he woke up this morning” is about as far as I can stretch my disbelief for.
…this ain’t great, and the fact this is the most anyone seems to actually gaf about Walky ain’t great either.
self-caused as Lucy would have cared if he didn’t take her for granted and pushed Amber away, but still.
Walky did not take Lucy for granted. He regularly put effort into their relationship, arguably more than Lucy since he actually did the work of asking her out to begin with. He just wasn’t ready to speedrun the relationship like Lucy wanted.
jesus christ jennifer you should better at this by now, it’s like the fourth time walky’s had a breakup in as many months
Walky: Keeper of Perspectives
“This is what prompted you to come comfort me over.”
Is my brain not working properly or is that line just a massive jumble?
It’d get a disapproving squiggle from an English teacher, but only for ending a sentence with a preposition. Compare “this is what you came to comfort me about.”
As an English teacher, I can confirm that I don’t give a fuck about ending sentences with prepositions.
We think that Harvard professor is just as much of a punchline as anyone else.
(For context:
A young man is at his first day of classes at Harvard. He asks a passing professor: “Excuse me, where is the library at?”
The professor answers “Young man, at Harvard we do not end our sentences with prepositions.”
The young man responds “OK. Where is the library at, asshole?”
Ooooooh. I couldn’t parse the context of “over” being used to mean “about”. I thought it was over as in “you came over to comfort me” and the order of words was just scrambled up weird.
Panel 2: SO comforting. SO inspiring. Jennifer, switch your major to counseling and therapy. Yer a total natural.
… well at least he’s acknowledging Mike’s death being real! That’s a promising sign of growth
and not a sign of trauma at alli stand by the witness-protection theory though
also @ panel 2: Jennifer really is never beating the allegations, is she?
Jennifer has never met an allegation that she could beat.
Today is the Wiccan holiday of Mabon, the second harvest of fruits and vegetables. First harvest is the second of August, the grain harvest, third harvest is Samhain (pronounced “Sow-wen”) on the 31st of October, the meat harvest
Today is also my 67th birthday.
Happy birthday! May you find all the veggies you like this year.
Happy birthday!
Wait, Jennifer, did you seriously not comfort your childhood friend when his roommate died?!
Actually I’m going to be honest, that tracks way too well given how you were back then
honestly the whole “Girl I was dating left me for another girl” has me sitting here like yea, that only makes sense
like if that happened to me pre-hormones, I’d take that a whole lot better than most other ways a breakup might occur. I wouldn’t blame them, I’d’ve done the same thing in their shoes; guys are yucky and have cooties
Man…this kinda thing is why I often loathe my own existance.
People being trans lesbians?
People not liking men in general?
I’m honestly not sure what part of this dinged you personally.
The feeling that guys are yucky and have cooties. Cuz I also feel like guys are yucky and have cooties. And I’m a guy.
Imagine having to try to sell goods that you yourself don’t value. Makes it hard to find love when you cannot love yourself.
I think that’s the sort of things you probably should talk to a therapist about
I think maybe you shouldn’t take trans lesbians’ opinions on men having an imaginary childhood “disease” quite so seriously.
I’m sorry you have such a terrible self-image, but I’m not sure that bringing it up on someone’s entirely unrelated comment is a great plan for dealing with those kind of feelings.
I think Nadamas is right about therapy. Maybe start with asking for tools to learn to value and love yourself before you worry about “having to try to sell goods” to anyone else. It’s not a one-size-fits-all approach, but it can be genuinely helpful.
Moreso than random comments online.
Sorry. Didn’t mean to come across as severe as I typed it out. Moreso just something that’s been on my mind and that post made me think about it. Didn’t mean to hijack their post or anythin’
As a total aside, I really dislike that we live in the kind of world where there’s a plausible interpretation of “not liking men in general (disparaging)” here when it’s clearly light-hearted enough that it’s “not liking men for me as partners (goofy)”.
too many have internalized the messaging that the other/desired gender are impossibly perfect, effortlessly beautiful creatures with no offending biological functions, while they and all their fellow ____s are blobs of disgusting meat which can only be wrestled and disguised as something attractive to the first by great expenditure of time, money, and effort (especially money, according to those in the business of selling “product” which claims to do just that).
I’m so glad after Jennifer decided to “go be a friend to Walky” and folks were like “she really is a good sister to him!” my doubts of that were vindicated. She ditched that entire group the second she was out of the building and has tried to never look back.
I think she’s only here to satisfy her self-applied “head cheerleader/problem solver” label. She’ll leave and feel like she’s got one up on Dorothy (which she might but that ain’t hard in the current situation).
I think she has a more interesting arc coming than that, particularly with the other stuff we’ve seen about Raidah’s group.
Man, they really do deserve each other, huh?
This scene is impacting me greatly, and by that I mean it’s making me really crave McNuggets.
Good ol’ Walky, staying grounded and keeping everything in perspective.
how plenty is plenty
a four? he’s like a seven with filters!