Iris Black is a self-proclaimed inventor with the curious ability to bring his drawings to life, and yearns to find a space where he can use his powers freely.
Dumbing of Age
David M Willis
Joyce has been homeschooled her entire life until now, when she's suddenly a freshman in college! Things don't go well.
Beeserker
TJ Cordes
This comic is about a robot powered by bees, but it's also about the kind of people who think filling a robot with bees is a good idea, and why they're wrong.
Guilded Age
T Campbell, John Waltrip, Florence Machina
Welcome to the saga of the working-class adventurer! Enjoy the complete story with new annotations daily!
Namesake
Isa, Meg
There's ghosts at your heels and fairy tale worlds ahead. What do you do? Jump down the rabbit hole!
Blindsprings
Kadi Fedoruk
Tamaura, wrested into a world 300 years in the future, must find a way to save the magic fading from her country.
2 Slices
RJ Morel
After a case of mistaken identity, will awkward Daisuke find help from excitable Mamo, or will his love life be thrown completely off track?
Paint the Town Red
Windy, Winter Jay Kiakas
Winona runs a werewolf shelter with partner in crime, Odile in the Gothic city of Merlot. One day they take in an injured vampire, and soon unravels many of the dark secrets of Merlot.
Slightly Damned
Chu
Rhea Snaketail returns from the dead, befriending a Demon who falls in love with an Angel. The afterlife ain't what it used to be!
The Otherknown
Lorian Merriman
Chandra is a 12-year-old accidental time traveler with a reluctant new dad, who happens to be a member of a feared galactic crime syndicate.
Mac Hall
Matt Boyd
The legendary early-aughts webcomic that inspired a wave of webcomic creators.
Fantomestein
Beka Duke
Desperate for companionship, Frankenstein's Monster pretends to be the Opera Ghost. A grave mistake.
Cyanide & Happiness
Explosm
Satire, dark humor and surreal humor.
BOOKMARK Click "Tag Page" to bookmark a page. When you return to the site, click "Goto Tag" to continue where you left off.
BUFFER WATCH
Comics are currently drawn and uploaded through:
oh have they improved it in the last few years? last I heard it was more in the 96-97% range
actually for that matter, I should see if the sperm-pill has made any progress yet
From what I can tell, it’s supposed to be 99% effective if taken properly. That drops a few percent for typical users, since most will miss (or take late) every once in a while.
That efficiency isn’t even as bad as it sounds, since it’s on a yearly basis, rather than per sexual encounter: 1 in a 100 women taking it correctly will get pregnant in a year.
from what I remember, most to all of the remaining percent are the people who are flat-out immune to it, so if it’s been working for you it’s not supposed to stop working.
there are also detailed instructions on how to handle missed/late pills and at what point you need to add condoms for a bit.
it’s one of the others (depo shot or implant?) that I don’t trust so much; my sister was told she couldn’t get pregnant for at least 3 more months when she was coming off of it, and that’s how I got my first nephew.
She clearly has a face. Then again she has hair over half her face. So there’s a chance she actually only has HALF a face. So she may have less face than others. Face…less…naw I’m stretching.
That does make it seem more likely than in high school, since Joe wouldn’t have needed to add her to the Do List at the very stat of the strip if she’d already been done, so to speak.
I wish I could credit my memory. You can use multiple character tags to see when they’ve interacted on screen, which has been very little since the timeskip in 2020. https://www.dumbingofage.com/tag/joe+dorothy/
If Dorothy got with Joe, that means she took his virginity as she mentioned that she’s always ends up as the more experienced one in her relationships.
Not impossible, but feels unlikely considering their interactions in the past and how Joe has talked about her as someone being available after breaking up with Danny as it at least implies that he had no previous experience with her.
It’s also possible that Dorothy had a hookup with Joe during the timeskip, as someone else suggested, but I doubt it for a couple reasons:
1. It’s hard to picture her being so horny that she not only took a break from school work, not only craved human contact so much that masturbation wasn’t an option, but she ALSO chose to mess with Joe over messing with either of her exes, especially considering how little she cares for Joe in regards to his sexual activities and that she, Danny, and Walky were all single during the timeskip.
2. Danny might feel some type of way about it, at least before recent events, and Dorothy is sensitive to that type of thing even if she’s ok with a casual hookup with Joe.
Except we have evidence that #1 is false. She got so worked up while she and Walky were “on pause” that they had sex.
To be faie, she was overworked and overstressed and needed some kind of outlet, but thr point is it *has* happened before, and now that Walky isn’t available, she had to find a substitute that wouldn’t make a big deal out of it or fall in love (or her fall for him).
No, you’re missing my point that it’s hard to picture the COMBINATION of her taking a break, being so horny that she needed human contact, and would seek out JOE over seeking out the two guys she’d been with previously (you’re also ignoring the fact that she didn’t take a break to have sex, but instead took a break to eat and just ran into Walky, and that the person she had sex with WAS Walky, who she both loved and desired).
That’s why I put “also” in all caps, to emphasize that it’s the combination, not just being horny.
And if you’re suggesting that she hooked up with Joe in the week or so since she told Walky to ask out Lucy, I find that even more doubtful as she was only having horny thoughts for Walky specifically and not simply feeling horny in general.
Yes, having denied herself that feeling, she might then want to get rid of that unresolved lust by having a random fling, but that again would mean she chose Joe who she has little regard for when it comes to his sexual escapades.
A super horny Dorothy with no better options might go for Joe just to take the edge off.
A just generally horny Dorothy? I’d bet money she wouldn’t even think about it.
The unfortunate thing with people not personally seeing your character growth is they are still going to treat you as who you were before that as they didn’t get the patchnotes of your updates and can only act on what they know/knew.
Dorothy has known Joe for years. She hasn’t seen most of his recent character development, so throughout that time, she’s only seen Joe interact with girls as objects that provide sex. She’s got no reason to think he’s interested in anything else.
You know, people keep talking about Joe changing, and maybe he has, but change isn’t something you declare ahead of time or really even when you’re in the midst of changing. The sorts of fundamental personality shifts that Joe is notionally going through are really only demonstrable in retrospect. In two years, yeah, you can look back and say this was the moment he’d gotten better, but in the moment? Backsliding is very, very common, particularly early in that process; remember that Joe went through a period of contrition when the Do List came out, and then went back to his “don’t care no feelings” personality within a month or two. Saying Dorothy has “missed” his character growth elides all of that and jumps way ahead in the process.
Which, you know, is fine if we’re dealing with comic book time; it’s been, what, years of plausible growth for the audience? but the trauma of those years-past events still linger for the characters, and it feels… weird… that so many people think Dorothy is doing something particularly uncharitable or possessive here. She is, if anything, way more friendly with Joe than he has earned.
Joyce adores Dorothy, but if Dorothy succeeds in scaring Joe away just when Joyce was getting into the joy of flirtation…I am pretty sure Joyce’s rage will be epic to behold
I’ll be honest, as someone who…only dabbles in one-sided crush I feel compelled to take Joe’s side here. Insomuch that Dorothy’s “not scared enough” hits me wrong because I can’t fathom anything scarier than being rejected.
Joe’s not afraid of rejection. He’s afraid he’s afraid, in his own words, that he’s going to “ruin” her. Corrupt her I assume or badly break her heart because he’s worried he can’t stop being who he’s been/will become his father. Either way that he’ll do something that will make her stop being so . . . her.
She’s already changed and stopped being “her” – at least the her she was when she started school. And that’s not a bad thing. Joyce was very rigid, judgmental, and sure – even if pleasant and friendly about it, unlike Mary. While she is now a little too judgmental and sure the other way – rejecting her earlier views – she’s less rigid and more accepting that there is gray. She still has growing to do (as all 18 year olds do), but she’s changed and has shown she is more resilient than some give her credit for. At the same Joe has changed, even though neither he nor others (with the possible exception of Joyce) really recognize or accept that.
It’s not that Joe thinks he hasn’t changed. It’s that he honestly fears he’s going to cause some sort of mental crisis if he does or says the wrong thing. He’s one of the people questioning of her sudden change of faith least, but he saw firsthand how Liz freaked out when her religious upbringing reared its head at the worst moment. He has no possible way to know what will happen with Joyce, a girl who has quite a number of quirks that have caused her to act irrationally even when religion and parental/social expectations weren’t involved. His fear isn’t entirely misplaced.
There’s that, but he’s also still worried that he hasn’t really changed. That if he does get together with Joyce, that he’ll still wind up being like his dad and betray her.
If nothing else, maybe he can eventually draw that comparison and draw strength from his dad having kept on the straight and narrow with Stacy. and/or verbalize to Dorothy that she’s basically having the same conversation that he had with HIS dad, but with her as him and him as his dad.
Yeah, I’m sure that a hasty marriage and a couple months of his dad apparently not feeling the urge to cheat is going to reassure him. Now, if his dad really is somehow magically cured of his cheating by how wonderful Stacy is, that’ll be a different story, but it’ll be years before Joe has any reason to trust that.
Until then, Dorothy basically having the same conversation he had with his dad is going to hit him a bit differently.
“Somebody is angry” is true even if there are several somebodies who are angry, as long as the somebody in particular that was referred to is included in the somebodies that are angry.
Okay Dorothy, but have you considered that while you weren’t looking, we, the omniscient, all-seeing, incredibly sexy audience got to watch Joe grow the fuck up a little bit and stop being exactly the only way you’ve ever personally seen him???
Evil, evil person, this alleged “Dorothy”, just really the worst, for acting on the information she has available. I wish to see her punished in some indistinct way, and will go to great lengths to inform real people how implicitly worse than me they are in a moral sense if they don’t match my exact level of intensity.
Okay, maybe that’s hyperbollocks, but sometimes it’s fun to talk like an unhinged weirdo. They’re all fake, so it causes approximately zero problems, anyway.
What I took away from that is you think we’re hot – kind of a wild assumption given that we all hide behind avatars and internet aliases, but my ego will take what it can get at this point.
Eh, Dorothy is one my favourite characters, but I still think she is overstepping here. Joyce is just as capable of Dorothy of making her own decisions, and if that is jumping Joe and maybe getting her heart broken that is her choice. Joe has been a sleazebag before, but the evidence he was an aggressively predatory or dangerous sleazebag is slight. Even if Dorothy knew SOMETHING we don’t about Joe being dangerous she should TALK TO JOYCE about it. Not warn Joe off behind her back. It is infantilising. I still like Dot, but she is not covering herself with glory here.
He was a sleazy womaniser but he never engaged in predatory behaviour, and like you say if dorothy knows something that means he WAS Like that she should have said something to a few people ages ago
Dude, he was talking behind Joyce’s back about ‘fixing her with his penis’ when he knew she was looking for an innocent night out. Dorothy wasn’t privy to that chat but she’s known him for years. I doubt that was his first time.
She doesn’t trust Joe or that Joe’s been particularly upfront about what she assumes he wants (just sex). So, just like Joe at the start of the comic was like. Hence telling him to find other prey.
I know she doesn’t trust Joe. I’m asking about the last panel. Is she talking about Joyce or Joe? Because I read it as “I know exactly how much I trust Joyce!” But I may be wrong.
I would say it’s less her saying “I don’t trust Joyce!” and more her saying “I trust the years of experience I have with your shitty behavior!” Which is kinda the same thing, in this case, but I don’t think she’s really realized that just yet.
Sexual coercion is a thing. Intelligent and reasonable people get pressured into doing things they wouldn’t ordinarily do all the time.
I don’t know why some folks in here are acting like telling people to avoid sexual predators is the one and only approach to ending predation. You can and should address the source of the problem, too.
I think Dorothy should *also* talk to Joyce, but that doesn’t mean she can’t, additionally, talk to Joe.
Joe isn’t a predator, though. He sleeps around but has he been shown to, like, actively hurt people through it? Afaik he’s always up front about his intentions, which is a hell of a lot better than I can say for some of the dudes I knew in college.
Joe doesn’t invite people into the bedroom with him when he fucks (except for that one time with Roz, I guess), so they primarily judge his behavior off of how he presents it. It’s been said by several other people in the past two days, but he’s been saying things like “I’ll fix her with my dick” and “I use alcohol to facilitate threesomes” and “Here’s an itemized list of how fuckable I think every girl in my vicinity is, and how they might be plied.” These are words that make people think you’re some kind of deplorable sex monster. And far from doing anything to dissuade people from this notion, he has reveled in it.
The only people who have seen other sides of Joe are his best friend, his regular workout buddy, Dina a little bit, and Joyce. So, the three characters who have spent the most time interacting with him, and the autistic girl who rarely ever judges anyone. Dorothy and Sarah treat Joe based on their knowledge of him, and how that knowledge intersects with their knowledge of abusers, and in that context, their actions are entirely reasonable.
It is certainly difficult for Joe to face this obstacle to his legitimate attempt at personal growth, given that he’s terrified he will inevitably become his father (something he and his sister share). How painful it must be for him to be faced with someone who is convinced that he is and will always be who he is afraid he is and will always be. Joe is facing an obstacle of his own creation and overcoming it is his job, not Dorothy’s.
As many others have said, I cannot be convinced that Dorothy’s actions are unreasonable based on the knowledge available to her. You can be wrong and reasonable at the same time. That’s good character writing.
He hasn’t been shown being coercive iirc, but he’s definitely not been upfront about his intentions at all times. He certainly wasn’t with Joyce on their first date.
She does not. Dorothy basically seems to believe Joyce is not capable of making any rational decisions, or at least that it’s not even worth checking to see if Joyce might have context that she, Dorothy, is lacking.
I mean, i can understand where she’s coming from as a friend (and we have to remember, a teenager who’s not gonna be right 100% of the time). Joyce doesn’t exactly have the best track record with seeing the red flags in guys. So far we have have start of comic joe, a scumbag, a guy who was perfect but had a girlfriend and crossed relationship boundaries. I don’t want it to come off like I’m victim blaming, I’m just in the same position. I have so consistently given scumbags a chance that now my friends are like “hey i love you but until I get to vet this guy for myself I’m not gonna trust that he’s as great as you say he is.”
Sometimes people in your life have the permanent rose colored glasses that camouflage the neon red flags until it’s too late, and when you’re this young it can be really tempting to just try to save your friends from the heartache in the first place rather than letting them get burned again and learn from it.
I’m not saying Dorothy is right here, she’s overstepping, but i can understand where she’s coming from
Mixed feelings continue to be mixed. And those mixed feelings veer straight into bad territory when I consider how many more times this exact conversation is likely to happen should things between Joe and Joyce continue to develop.
The only characters I can see backing Joe up besides Joyce herself are Amber… and maybe Walky, for some reason? Not sure why he’s making the list but my brain seems to think he fits there.
As someone who generally hates when Becky breathes (exaggeration, but not much) I agree. If nothing else, I think Becky would actually make an effort to evaluate Joe’s feelings regarding Joyce and Joyce’s magnificent pants (remember she initially chased off Ethan because he didn’t have what she considered to be proper enthusiasm) instead of what Dorothy’s doing: making a token effort and leaping to ‘leave and never return!’
Becky would, I think, genuinely be all in on Joyce and Joe as soon as she confirms that Joe is fully apprised of and enthusiastic about the entirety of Joyce.
Danny could vouch for Joe’s character development, too. He was there for at least a couple of the bigger events Dorothy wouldn’t have firsthand knowledge of.
But then you’d need someone to vouch for Danny that he has grown past glossing past and low-key enabling Joe’s shittier behaviors (or high-key enabling, in the case of coding up the Do List for him)
Walky definitely would weigh in on this relationship given his frenemy status with Joyce and the fact that Joe is probably Walky’s only male friend besides Jason if you consider either of them close enough to be his friend.
And Walky has never expressed condemnation of Joe’s behavior when it comes to sex that I can recall, though I don’t know if that’s due to a lack of experience, context, or empathy with women being sexualized and objectified as he simply doesn’t do that himself (other than calling Amber Thicc Dorothy) having only been interested in 3 women in his life (he’s definitely aware of sexual objectification and how bad it can be due to his gender studies class, but that may only be conceptually vs it’s something that he feels strongly enough to vocalize).
And Walky, and a couple others, have long held the belief that Joyce is sexually repressed and will eventually let it out in a big way, and I wouldn’t be surprised if he said something along the lines of it might as well being with Joe considering his seemingly vast experience.
Hell, Walky has been more condemning of Joyce for her horniness towards Jacob, though that was really more about messing with her for being fake about it.
So yeah, I think Walky would be indifferent or even supportive, though his comment would probably be so snarky that no one could tell the difference.
Yes, once again, two characters I’ve grown to love and relate to, acting in ways that are entirely justified by their own lived experiences ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
I am on Team Joe, but I do get it with Dorothy. She’s known him a long time, and while she has seemingly had faith in him not being a terrible person based on some of her ‘allowances’, shall we say, she has made for him, I still know she’s also seen him in many of his least flattering moments. She really doesn’t want Joyce to get hurt.
That said, I am with Joe in that Dorothy is not giving Joyce enough credit. She’s handling her with kid gloves too often, especially with the autism possibility, but even before that.
This isn’t a “good guy vs bad guy” thing to me, but two people who genuinely care about Joyce, with a conflict stemming from a difference in perspective.
This, yes. If Dorothy wants Joyce to stop being friendly with Joe, that’s a conversation to be had with Joyce.
Probably a conversation held at high volume in places, involving a tirade about exactly why Joyce trusts Joe, and ultimately ending with Dorothy realizing she’s made some incorrect assumptions based on old information, but a conversation with Joyce as the ultimate arbiter of Joyce’s relationships.
That will have to come later, maybe even near the end of this chapter.
She had the opportunity to swat at Joe first. (And from a Doylist perspective, this sets us up for that future conversation. I don’t think we’ve seen much insight into how little Dorothy thinks of Joe until this chapter.)
Remember, Dorothy doesn’t know everything we know. She knows Joe talked about how alcohol can really facilitate the threesomes, but she wasn’t there when he told Danny that, actually, that was all bullshit and he’s never had a threesome.
Whether it matches the reality of his sex life or not, Joe used to say some pretty predatory things, including about Joyce (though not in Dorothy’s presence) so I don’t blame her for being worried.
Sorry, Joe, she still knows you as the guy who went around talking about upgrading girls to a 10 and fixing them with your penis who you’ve been for the past four years. It’s gonna take a while before she realizes you’ve changed from that.
Which is a good demonstration of why it’s generally not a great idea to do what Dorothy is doing here. Every human is complicated and just being in someone’s general vicinity for a few years doesn’t mean you actually know them as a person. Dorothy’s concerns are entirely reasonable, but she should be discussing them with Joyce rather than hurling them at Joe.
She should be, but given she was alone with Joe first, I’m not gonna blame her too much for telling Joe to fuck off first. Sarah’s done the same thing when Joe was, legitimately, much skeezier.
In a more serious sense, I’ve kinda been where Joe is. That first stretch when you start to put real effort into changing yourself, but nobody believes you (or if they do, they just don’t care), that’s fuckin’ rough. Taken too far, it can lead a person to ask why they’re even bothering of they’re still gonna be punished, and then you can easily fall back on your old behaviors out of, essentially, despair. Because why bother with the supposedly-better behavior if it gets identical treatment?
It doesn’t just get identical treatment, rather it tends to get even worse treatment- as people seem to decide that is the time for them to really dig into you, starting all the fights that they’re afraid/not interested in starting when they feel that you are an asshole.
Oh my fucking GODS, I cannot stand that shit. Zero fucking tolerance for it in any context. It’s like they’re afraid of you improving as a person, because then they don’t have a convenient excuse to dislike you since you’re actively dragging yourself out of the pit, so they can’t feel better about themselves by comparison anymore. At least, that’s how it feels.
I guess it’s partly that if you’re still an asshole, they can sort of stop paying attention and disregard you with that expectation, but once you start trying to improve, you almost inherently draw attention to yourself, so they now have a much easier target for whatever ire they’ve built up for you over time. And like, I get it, people often suck and nobody wants to be reminded of someone who was shitty to them in the past (okay that’s not entirely true, some people revel in dwelling on stuff), and nobody is “oWeD” forgiveness or whatever, but I don’t feel like it’s warranted to then turn around and dwell on things from the past like they’re still happening in a deliberate attempt to tear someone down when they’re visibly making an effort.
This is the reason I hate Tall Rachel. She stayed just close enough to Ruth for two years after their Freshman year to wait for an opportunity to tear her down, and she waited until Ruth’s absolute lowest moment. After that, she is still in Ruth’s dorm for the apparent purpose of sniping at her when Ruth tries to do her job.
And people defend her for some reason, too. “ooh she shouldn’t have to leave” Yes she fucking should. She’s become the aggressor and is clearly stressing out over a situation she has the power to remedy. She wants to be there, so she can keep it up. Any real person who did that would get treated like the asshole they are.
It’s her assigned dorm room. At the start of the year, she probably wouldn’t have known Ruth was going to be RA and moving during the year isn’t easy. It’s dependent on vacancies coming open or someone pulling strings.
I don’t really care if it’s easy to move, that’s still only part of the problem. I’m not getting into the nasty little logistical details on this because it’s frankly a hot-button issue for me, but there’s no good reason why Rachel needs to be deliberately and consciously approaching or engaging with Ruth at every available opportunity. She is doing it on purpose and it is wrong.
Having been on both sides of this phenomenon: it both sucks as the person changing and as the person around them it’s a bit of a once bitten twice shy & confirmation bias type thing.
Like I have it in my head this person is an ass based on my past interactions, so if they don’t act as expected it’s natural to assume some ulterior motive and try to re-establish the known, comfortably dysfunctional pattern.
Which is unfair to the person who is changing because it sets them up to fail.
Would also add tI think his holds true for all forms of personal growth. As a former doormat learning to enforce my boundaries it’s interesting how much more disrespectful of my boundaries people are the moment I try to assert them.
i worry that folks will be hard on dorothy. she has not only known joe fairly well for a fairly long time, but she’s also joyces best friend and knows that joyce is going through a lot. i think it’s also important to know that dorothy is going to yale next semester, and she won’t get to see joyce anymore, which i’m sure is hard on her because dorothy sees her as HER best friend as well
i also understand joes point of view. he knows this is new for him and he doesnt want to hurt her, and is scared he might because he’s never done this before. and he’s right, dorothy should have faith in joyce, she has made great strides and is continuing to do so
at the end of the day, they want the same thing: for joyce to be happy
She’s not going over Joyce’s head, she’s talking to Joe, whom she has known for much, much longer than she has Joyce. She’s talking *to her own friend* about his established and durable patterns of behavior with regards to women. She’s allowed to do that without getting permission from Joyce!
I think, not only that Joe is afraid he’ll revert to old behavior and hurt Joyce, but also that he hasn’t done this before and isn’t confident in his ability to do it right, while something deep in his brain is screaming this is IMPORTANT, don’t blow it!!!
Dorothy is operating on a lot of old information, sure Joe wasn’t great in the past, though he was always upfront about it, he has been trying to change.
More than that though Joe and Joyce have actually been friends for a while now if we go back to when she was having those texting conversations with him when she went back home as a start.
Hell besides Dorothy Joyce is probably Joe’s strongest female friend at this point, even that is giving a lot of credit to their pre college friendship because currently they don’t exactly interact much.
Joyce has not been updating Dorothy with new information, i.e. I don’t think Dorothy has any idea they’ve been texting since Joyce and Becky’s trip home last term.
She hasn’t had the opportunity to do so yet. She learned Joe was trying to get closer to Joyce when he popped up for lunch a few strips ago.
What remains to be seen is whether Dorothy believes Joe can change, and if she tries to convince Joyce that he hasn’t. Because she is missing a lot of current information, but she assumes she’s right because that’s what she does.
I feel like she has that choice literally right now. If joe is alone enough to talk to that means Joyce is alone enough to talk to. Even just a casual “what’s with you and Joe”. It’s not that she couldn’t, she didn’t want to.
Does anyone know that Joe and Joyce have been texting like that? I get the feeling that both would be reluctant to reveal it, because it doesn’t quite fit either one’s public persona.
I hope that I’m being uncharitable towards Dorothy here and nothing of the sort is going to happen, but I’m a little worried that she’s about to thoughtlessly out Joyce’s past assault by Ryan in her protective rage trying to get it into his head why he absolutely can not take advantage of her if he’s somehow managed to win her trust after that. It’s doubtful Dotty knows that Joe already knows, I could see in the heat of the moment the voice in her head telling her “this is not my secret to tell” being drowned out by the uninformed one that would think “There’s no way someone as sexually skittish as Joyce would reveal this herself and if Joe has any shreds of decency in him he will not take advantage of an assault victim”, and if she does it is definitely going to end up being the exact moment Joyce comes back with their food.
Joe and Dorothy are arguing? About sex? And it’s been a while since Dorothy broke up with Walky, and Joe is easy, and they’re going to end up in bed together, aren’t they. Cuz we need more drama.
I have no doubt Dorothy is doing what she thinks is best with the information but this is also looking a bit like low hanging fruit
In that this is an easy way for Dorothy to reassert her position as Joyce ‘mom’ by making the bad man go away irrespective of what Joyce may want (because theres no way Joyce knows what she wants without Dorothy to tell her)
Considering that Dorothy actually encourages Joyce to explore her feelings of lust and we know Dorothy has no issue with casual sex or at least doesn’t feel one needs to be in a serious and formal relationship to have sex, this really tells us how poorly she thinks of Joe since she’d pretty much support Joyce being with any other single guy.
I dunno. I don’t disagree that Dorothy is especially against Joe (and from her perspective, has reason to be), but she hasn’t been confronted yet with Joyce actually dating any guys, and she has been treating Joyce like Joyce’s beliefs changing are just an angry phase.
So I think it is especially Joe, but I think it would be happening with anyone (or at least, anyone Dorothy would expect to be sexually active)
When Joyce set her eyes in Jacob, Dorothy’s issue was that she was trying to steal him from Raidah, that she was a better person than that.
At no point was there anything negative about Jacob from her except for the possibility of his fickleness towards Joyce if he was fickle enough to leave Raidah for her.
She then encouraged Joyce to explore her feelings of lust because they are normal.
“she has been treating Joyce like Joyce’s beliefs changing are just an angry phase.”
The angry phase where she was calling Becky an idiot for not being a hardcore atheist? Yeah, joyce was being a jerk there. Becky has a deep belief in god that is her base. Becky’s fine believing in god. Joyce needs to separate her beliefs and growths from Becky’s. She started to realize that most recently. I dunno if joyce is all the way there or not yet.
I agree. Dorothy has an issue and isn’t reserving her judgement specifically because she knows Joe. She also knows about the assault Joyce experienced since she was there.
I’m pretty sure most of them experienced trauma in a way that was acknowledged, with Joyce specifically having had flashbacks and nightmares on screen, fake Dali Lama quote guy.
I also don’t find that level of violence to be unrealistic, but I recognize that I’ve faced an unusual amount of violence in my life compared to seemingly most people.
So nice to see how Joe is not trying to defend himself, but is trying to make Dorothy understand that Joyce is not naive as she thinks. Let’s see if this will become a big fight or I’d Dorothy will change her ideas.
See while I understand why dorothy is very “mmmmmm” about Joe, he is also right that
Joyce can make her own decisions here, and while dorothy has not seen the growth joe has made she should trust joyce who she is aware brought Mike when they went on that date (remember that? Wild) and is well aware of the type of person he was
Like, no one trusts joyce to make her own decisions, like yes she was oart of a culture and was unbelievably sheltered but she has made serious progress.
And Dorothy, means we’ll and generally does well by joyce but she’s waaaay to overprotective of her and infantalizes her just a bit thinking she cannot possibly make these decisions herself, becky is just as bad too if not worse
This is going to blow up in their faces if they don’t examine themselves
Dorothy’s definitely overstepping here, but I get it. Both because she’s known Joe a very long time and hasn’t been privvy to his recent character growth, and also because she still has that recent trauma of being helpless to do anything but watch when Joyce was kidnapped by Blaine the second time. I’m not surprised she’s overcompensating now, and will continue to do so until she actually realizes that’s what she’s doing.
That said, while I don’t think Joe is wrong to point out she’s not being fair to Joyce’s judgment, I do think proving he’s serious about this to the people in Joyce’s life is just something he should expect to have to do repeatedly. Maybe he ought to prepare notecards.
Here’s the thing, Dotty. You like to think you’re sex positive, yet you’re behaving as if Joe is some kind of a monster. I’ve frankly not seen any evidence of this.
He’s a horn dog who is always up for sex, but AFAIK it’s entirely on a volunteer basis. Has he manipulated women into sleeping with him? Does he lie or pressure people into sex, or is he just a fun, sexy hunk who is available?
For all we’ve seen, it’s the latter. If this is true, what exactly do you disapprove of here?
The “do” list comes to mind. His utter inability to provide Danny any sort of emotional support also occurs. His complete and utter fear of commitment, relationships and feelings probably also makes the list.
And this is my big problem with Joe as a character throughout this entire comic. From the beginning, he was a walking red flag. Everything about his behavior just screams out “sex predator”. The list, obviously. Talking about fixing Joyce with his penis before their date. Only interacting with women to hit on them. To paraphrase Rachel, approaching strange women to tell them how much he wants to fuck them. He talked a good game about consent, but we rarely actually see him take a “no” as a “no”, unless it’s accompanied by yelling or punches. He talks about using alcohol to have threesomes. We’re led to believe that he’s getting laid regularly, but we’re not shown the lead up to any of these (nor after effects for most), so we don’t get to see how he’s successful.
This isn’t someone to trust. This is someone you warn your friends away from, even if you’re not sure he’s actually done anything. Whisper networks and missing stairs.
But, he’s a protagonist, so we know it’s all about his growth arc and thus can’t be allowed to be too bad. He can’t actually be a rapist. Can’t have actually directly hurt any of the women he’s been with, if he’s going to be redeemed. And we find out eventually that much of it was just a pose – though it’s never clear quite how much.
But the problem here is that he’s a character who gives off so many red flags about being dangerous, but actually isn’t portrayed as dangerous. Which lets readers ignore those red flags and treat both characters and other readers who do point them out as overreacting. Even though both the list and the objectification were clearly called out in the narrative as serious problems he needed to overcome, he’s still being treated as “just a fun, sexy hunk who is available”.
I think you make good points here, in that the narrative reality is that Joe has to be written with all these initial face value flaws/flags that he has to overcome in order to have a growth arc (particularly because I think he’s initially supposed to represent a significant foil against Danny, who he’d probably be pretty similar to otherwise had he not had all his himbo attributes.) Then there’s also the blurred reality of the comic where it’s been written over 10 years while taking place over less than a year, i.e. the way Willis has viewed Joe’s character (and others) likely shifts somewhat over time, leading to some exaggerated changes in behavior/attitude that likely wouldn’t happen as quickly in real life as they are in the comic timeline.
I think the intent is that Joe’s sexual behavior/reputation is primarily learned behavior based on receiving approval/affirmation as a young person and a lot of his arc will be about overcoming/questioning what any of that means/why he was so apt to go down that path. Just as much, I think Dorothy’s arc & attitude towards Joe contributes to an overall commentary about perception of gendered roles/behaviors, and the whole point is that most people in general would be skeptical of Joe, and for Joe as a cishet white man, he’s got a high wall to climb to realistically convince others that any change of heart he experiences is authentic and not a carefully tailored, subversive/manipulative ruse in order to just succeed at sleeping with Joyce, who could represent a sort of “rare game/difficult conquest that requires a long game.”
In context of the writing itself, I imagine we will see other characters besides Dorothy also exhibit a similar level of skepticism, though Amber will play a role in being an ally for Joe, and Joe will be put in some sort of position where he has to publicly take some action that illustrates him as a “good guy beneath it all” instead of that persona being just some outfit he is wearing for the moment.
Fiction ultimately can be manipulative for readers in the way that you describe at the end of your comment. We are impossibly privy to all these different perspectives into the characters lives, and readers rooting for certain outcomes can lead them to viewing certain characters as antagonists based on them representing barriers to what they want to see. Many are giving Joe the benefit of the doubt because of what we know that basically no one else but Joyce knows (really, has just had a glimpse of) about Joe’s personal feelings/experiences,) but this could in itself also be viewed as social commentary that often times irl cishet white men get this institutional “benefit of the doubt” (particularly in sexual misconduct cases) that others do not receive. IRL, it’s not warranted, we DON’T have that insight into those people or their personal feelings and it is often based on projecting personal viewpoints, but here we have the otherwise unknowable evidence about Joe’s experiences.
Basically none of that is what I meant. I think Joe is unrealistically nice and good for someone with the character traits he showed at the beginning. He should have been worse and more dangerous to women at the beginning of his arc. Portraying someone with that many red flags as really harmless is what I see as the problem.
That’s what allows so many readers to right off there ever having actually been a problem with Joe. He gets all the benefit of the doubt. Even the things that were called out in canon get glossed over or ignored in favor of him just being a big sex-positive sweetheart.
Since I started reading this comic, I’ve gotten the impression that Joe talks a big game, but for the most part he really is all talk when it comes to anything sex-related. We have proof he had sex with Roz and Malaya and got as far as bra-on makeouts with Liz, and everything else has just been him saying things. Now, the things he says are often really fuckin’ gross, and the list is obviously super shitty, I’m not excusing those, but he really hasn’t done damn near anything he’s bragged about. He’s mostly smoke and mirrors, I think, and once he’s finished getting rid of those, I wonder if he won’t just be a decent guy with a lot to apologize for.
That’s my point though. He’s a person who’s presentation comes across all red flags, but really isn’t nearly that bad deep down. That’s why we’ve got people mad at Dorothy for not trusting him and why I’m uncomfortable with the presentation of “red flag guy” as really being someone to trust all along.
Also, I really can’t tell how often he’s supposed to be succeeding with the ladies – we know about Roz, Penny, Malaya and Liz and for awhile I’d thought the rest was probably just him talking, but during the Liz incident, Danny talks about being regularly sexiled, so it seems it really is more? Even still.
I don’t find Joe particularly unrealistic. I knew some real people very much like him. Some of them turned out to be nice people who later remembered their teens with shame, others turned to be simply bad people.
I guess commenters get mad at Dorothy because the strip is now focusing more on her issues. I suspect this is a result of how many commenters tended to ignore them in the past and take the character as the trope Willis is caricaturizing.
Really like Joe? In that they were really nice safe people all along, but talked a big game?
Or people who presented the same kinds of red flags Joe did? And did have things to remember with shame.
Because the second are quite common, even some who grow out of it.
Not disagreeing with anything you’re saying, just thinking about the role of time in the writing of his character. As others have mentioned, it’s been ten years of real time since the first strip, so Willis’ opinions and way of writing characters may have changed over that time. Joe is (rightfully!) seen as a walking red flag because in general society has become better about noticing them. Maybe Willis always intended him to be a red flag with legs, or maybe he started out as a pastiche of an archetype that wasn’t that uncommon in the early ’00s and Willis started highlighting just how awful such a character would be in real life later.
Maybe at the very beginning and I obviously can’t really speak to Willis’s intentions. That really seems to be true of Joe’s appearances back in Roomies!, but by the time DoA started, it really seemed more intentional.
“Red flags” can be a self fulfilling prophecy. That can end up being just another form of prejudice. Joe is enthusiastic about sex, but I don’t remember him literally not taking a no as a no. Feels like in general he thinks there are plenty of fish in the sea.
There are also at least two slipshine comic which exists in the continuity, which show him in-the-act, so to speak.
I realise I live in the “utopian” Nordics, where universities aren’t a hotbed of sexual predation and misogyny. Reading your comments in this thread makes me feel the US is even more messed up than I thought.
Thank you so much for pointing all of this out. I like Joe as a character and I’m mostly enjoying this as catharsis. Like, part of his growth means facing the negative consequences of his actions. Realizing that Danny has better game than him because Danny’s consistently nice and doesn’t creep women out. Learning about Ryan. Understanding and recognizing sexism even when he doesn’t experience it.
And his growth is good for him because he’ll view himself as an object less, and because he’ll be able to form more meaningful connections with people. The unpleasantness of doing it is enjoyable for me to watch through the lense of fiction. Schadenfreude is and has been a big part of his narrative role in dumbing of age.
I feel like I’m really missing something, because this kind of sounds like your big issue with Joe is that Joe, the fictional character, is being written as if he could be a complex person capable of both genuine harm AND genuine growth, and NOT as a cartoon PSA about sexual predators.
I think I really hate the idea that an author of an ongoing work should feel locked into the most unflattering and reductive idea of a character based on creative decisions they made a long time ago. It really feels like saying that characters in long-form storytelling formats shouldn’t be allowed to grow at all, which is insane to me when a creator has done *years-long* work on showing us concrete character evolution. (How many times have people here insisted that Joyce has no right to even begin to assert personal boundaries, because she didn’t have them at the beginning of the comic…even through she’s been slowly and steadily learning to respect other people’s boundaries for…several years now?)
@Cerusee: what you are missing, I think, is that thejeff is not saying Willis did a Bad Thing that we need to agree to condemn in the strongest terms or something. A conversation about representation doesnt have to be prescriptive to be worth having. It doesn’t have to draw a line between Good and Bad (aka PrObLeMaTiC) representations.
And look, you know you’re doing a strawman argument when you start forming this sort of sentences:
It really feels like saying that characters in long-form storytelling formats shouldn’t be allowed (etc)
It’s not at all that I don’t think he should be capable of growth, it’s that I think the original pre-growth version still came across as “all the red flags, but really harmless”. Which lets so many people still whitewash him as just a sex-positive himbo and ignore his actual growth (other than maybe that he’s now ready settle down and find romance). All of the harm and his early growth arc focused on indirect stuff like the list, which makes it easy to dismiss.
I think where you’re losing me is that you’re having an ongoing argument with *audience reaction* to the work—a thing no one can control, including the author of the work—and not with the work itself.
There is a shit-ton of wanky meta commentary in this comments section every single day about how everyone ELSE is reacting to the work, and whether they’re right or wrong about it, to the point where it regularly eclipses….the actual work, and what’s being presented. People are interpreting the strip wrong! People are misunderstanding the characters! People are *excusing inexcusable sins!* of fictional characters! I’m not immune; I am constantly biting my tongue on commenting on other people’s comments, although clearly not enough.
It’s exhausting, and it’s so much heat for so little light.
Do you ever consider, thejeff, that you might actually be in the wrong here? You seem to be so convinced that your reading is the one true way to look at how Joe has been presented and depicted in the comic, that you’re just straight up ignoring everything else and belittling differing takes.
Joe is an extremely contrived character. If you look at all the red flags he throws off, you’d swear he’s a lying, manipulating, roofying, rapist. You wouldnt get a conviction, but most people who talk like him would be perfectly fine having sex with an unconscious woman who passed out drunk at a party.
But he isnt like that. He talks the game, but we get these little clues that a bunch of it is a facade. He once said alcohol helps with threesomes, but then later confessed he had never been in a threesome. He had a list, then did a donut apology tour.
I cant tell where joes character is going. . the male characters as a whole arent very impressive and dont hint at a big transformation for Joe.
Joyce had a huge transformation from fundie to atheist. Dorothy dumped wet noodle Danny, has been accepted to yale, and wants to be president. Becky stood up to her father, risked her life to save her friend, is a natural born leader, gave up her fundamentalism, but kept the core of her religion, and wants to be a scientist who studies evolution. Amber is friggen superhero who saved how many lives. Sal is a badass motorcycle chick with a heart of gold.
Danny is a wet noodle who’s biggest accomplishment is finding out hes a ukekele guy. Walky superpower is eating 50 nuggets and dressing like a slob. Ethan was in the closet, then shagging every guy he could and is grieving Mike in goth mode. Joe is a pig, maybe with a heart of gold? Jacob was a thing joyce could try to steal. And asher helped kidnap the characters and then arranged for ambers father to be murdered.
Pretty lopsided cast. The women have drive, have goals, overcome terrible obstacles, are powerhouses in their lives, are passionate, make mistakes, learn, etc.
Danny got a hat. Walky will wear a nice shirt if you buy one for him. Ethan is sulking and grieving. And joe?
Seriously, where can Joes character arc go in this world? He could conceivably become the male version of Becky, he’s generally outwardly positive, he could fall for joyce, and his lust could match becky’s but be durectee in a positive way.
But that would actually end up with Joe head and shoulders above every other male character in the cast. Becky rocks. Joe could rock like Becky in a positive way. But that would make joe the lead male character? Far beyond any other guy in the cast? I guess that could happen.
What i think might hapoen instead is Joe reveals his entire “bro” behavior has been a facade, he’s only had sex with 2 people, and he does a heel-face turn that makes him an ‘adorable’ weenus like the other male characters.
Ugh. Think the male weenus demogrsphic has plenty of representation already. But that might be Joes future.
One thing that I think is neat about the last two comics is the ability to interpret the last panel as Dorothy is actually super evil/predatory when you remove prior context. In that “Find different prey” could be interpreted as “she is MY prey,” followed by “I know EXACTLY what I’m putting my faith in” being about Joyce, rather than about Joe. Clearly, neither of these pieces of dialogue actually mean this, but imagine if these were the reveal for Dorothy as a new malicious supervillain, deciding to show their true colors to Joe of all people at this moment, for whatever reason (perhaps in belief that he is also a supervillain.)
Considering the Mentality is which the United States considers ourselves to be a Superpower, we are like Dorothy that way, protecting all the lesser countries in a grooming, predatory manner.
Dorothy wins as a President if that is what she represents.
As a US President, considering what the US is, the rank would be appropriate.
I take back my previous statement.
Joe would lose to her because someone went and castrated him.
Maybe the previous Joe would have been worth a fraction of the Vote, but not this one.
We found the infantilizing, folks! Especially after yesterday’s panel, imagine if Joyce found out this is how Dorothy spoke about her. Suddenly, Dina’s words would be a lot more immediately relatable.
I don’t really blame Dorothy so much as it really takes time for people to change. I would also find it hard if a friend like Joe suddenly changes after a couple months because in reality it’s only been a couple of months. I had a few friends like Joe and it took them years to change like late 20s to early 30s. I would be also kind of skeptical of the “new Joe” but it’s Joyce’s decision so Dorothy should let her handle it.
We will see long term whether “new Joe” sticks in perpetuity or if this is him just following an ideal based on an emotion he feels that he doesn’t fully understand yet. Regardless, having read the entirety of this comic within the last year, I find Joe’s presentation really interesting because while he is presented as being/having been a total himbo, he’s more or less always maintained a certain line of respectfulness for other people and their boundaries, made more interesting by his admission that his mother is autistic. I think this has always been a sort of intent in the way Joe is written, to contrast him against someone like the malicious scar-face rapist guy.
To me, I see Joe as actually somewhat similar to Joyce (and others in the strip,) in that they’ve had one way to learn how to move in the world up until this point. While Joyce had her lens of fundamentalism to view everything, Joe was in a place where as “the hot guy” he was likely constantly praised for being so, as well as being praised for his sexual prowess. I think at his core, you’ve got moreso an innocence and a person that’s never got to grow much beyond how they are viewed/valued by others. Rather than merely being a hedonist, I think a lot of Joe’s sexual encounters are more about going down a familiar path of external validation vs. his own internal desire, and this situation with his feelings about Joyce is him beginning to question what he actually feels as an individual / what he himself really wants beyond external validation. As such, both he and Joyce are in “uncharted territory” as something in their life triggered their questioning of how they knew/saw/did things.
Dorothy of course has every right to be skeptical of this because she’s not part of the audience and hasn’t got to see any of the personal moments Joe has experienced. At face value, he is what he is, a braggadocios himbo, but we are privy to personal solitary moments he has experienced that show us that there is more to him than that.
Also if someone who I’d known for years to be an objectifying horndog and had had a Do List started cozying up to one of my really good friends, I’d go a step past Dorothy and threaten him with bodily injury if he hurt my friend. Maybe that makes me an overprotective bongo myself, but eh.
Dorothy: “I know exactly what i’m putting my faith in”
Joe: “??”
Dorothy: “The power of logic and reason!”
Joyce: “??”
Dorothy: “Joyce, don´t cast yourself into the cragged pit of the lustwolf, please!”
DOROTHY! DONT YOU KNOW YOU CANNOT TALK DIRECTLY TO JOE! YOU CAN ONLY BRING YOUR CONCERNS TO JOYCE AND LET HER DECIDE! YOU ARE SO TERRIBLE AND CONTROLLING! YOURE SUBVERTING JOYCES AUTONOMY!
Sarah to Joe just last semester, a few months on comic time: Joyce is a sweetie, ok? An ignorant little naif of a sweetie, but a sweetie. And your some kind of sex monster. Dont break her, ok?
Sarah just met both Joyce and Joe. Joyce as a toommate. Joe in genders study class.
Take Sarahs response to Joe, subtract sarahs misanthropy, add dorothy’s actual caring about people, then multiply by 4 years of knowing how low joe can go, and you land smack in tbe neighbohood of Dorothy saying “find different prey” just a few months later.
Dorothy deciding to confront Joe and feeling the way she does is perfectly reasonable. Dorothy is also being overly aggressive about this, more than she would normally, because she is being slightly overprotective and a bit controlling due to being insecure about her relationship with Joyce at the moment, and also trauma. She’s overstepping slightly, but it’s nothing egregious, really. However, Joyce is overly sensitive about her own agency at the moment due to HER trauma, and this may likely cause further conflict between Joyce and Dorothy.
Thats a different way of putting it, but the same thing im trying to say.
Everyone gets to have their own relationship with
other people, and they dont have to liine up, they dont need someones permission to hate joe just because someone else loves joe, or whatever.
People can be different. People can have different experiences. People can have different opinions. And likely everyone is at least a little wrong about something. Thats what happens when people live different lives. Dorothy has a lot longer history with joe and seen years of bad behavior. Joyce has seen a couple months of bad behavior and a few months of trying to change. Theyre going to have different opinions of joe. Neither one is the whole picture of joe. Neither one is “right”. They are both skewed on their own ways. But thats a linitation we all get as humans.
Did dorothy over react compared to what “real” joe, “today” joe deserves? Probably. But joe is a big boy. He can put on his big boy pants and deal with this very real example of how his past behavior hurt people and scared people around him.
Joyce confronted Joe about the list and explained how that list scared women to know predators are out their ranking their bodies. But it really isnt just the list. Joe has years of behavior that made people afraid. A single donut apology tour isnt gonna cut it. If he has any self awareness, he might notice how his past behavior has scared dorothy into rage to protect her friend.
All of that is shit in the background that could be brought to the forefront and these characters actually get to grow as adults.
But thens theres this idea that dorothy now has to suspend her experience of joe and run all her opinions through joyce before getting approval to talk to joe. And its ludicrously childish. These characters arent in middle school.
Yeah. Maybe?
Dorothy pushed Walky into Lucy’s arms so he had someone to take care of him once dirothy left.
But that was planned. She seemed to keep having pity-sex with walky cause she didnt like seeing him sad. So i guess if walky had a girlfriend, it would free her conscience about leaving
This just blindsided Dorothy maybe twenty minutes ago? She couldnt have planned this. She literally just found out Joe is pursuing Joyce on their way to taco bell.
Joyce returns to table, sees serious looks: “What were you guys talking about?”
Joe: “Dorothy knows my past and is concerned that I would use you and then abandon you.”
Dorothy: …
=========
I mean, Dorothy, you clearly care about Joyce but you also don’t know every conversation they’ve had
Joe sings the dogwhistle of a scumbag. He’s also done some scummy things. But while he has the same bark as a dog who might roofie a woman, we have seen some glimpses that his bark is wprse than his bite, and he is trying to ckean up some of his more egregious past behaviors
Doesnt mean everyone has to instantly forgive him.
He’s got work to do.
I don’t think the vast majority of commenters think he’s a scumbag. I don’t think he’s a scumbag. If you go back to the Joe/Joyce strips everybody is basically in favor and thinks it’s adorable.
What some people, including me, think is that it’s reasonable for Dorothy to think he’s a scumbag. She’s known him for years. Seen him at his worst. Hasn’t seen the recent development that he’s mostly been trying to hide. She’s wrong, but she has good reasons.
Maybe if joe does a donut apology tour for dorothy.
I dont think dorothy has seen or heard many of joes apologies. Definitely hasnt seen joes attempts at growth.
You might find it frustrating but the narrative is better because of this scene IMHO. Frankly I would worry that Willis had a misogyny issue if his female characters automatically coddled men. It’s good writing.
Ok, c’mon guys. Looking at it from Dorothy’s perspective, who has not been privvy to Joe’s whole character arc, Joe and Joyce want different things. Joyce wants a boyfriend, Joe wants sex, at least that’s what Dorothy thinks. Joe has massive issues when it comes to relationships. He was weird about having a close friendship with Danny, probably his oldest friend. Even though he now apparently (from Dorothy’s perspective) wants to get into a relationship, she might not trust him to stick with it or not freak out about him messing up.
This might have happened before, I doubt Joe has never been in love, but he might not have let himself be in a relationship because he is so scared to hurt his partner.
And Dorothy does not want Joyce hurt. From her perspective, as someone who soon might not be able to help Joyce out, because there is still the Harvard letter, she sees this as doomed, maybe. Maybe she also just wants to put the fear of god into Joe, so he doesn’t do something he isn’t ready to, but idk. This is just guesswork.
Point is, this is very understandable. Should she talk to Joyce about it? Yes, but she can… still do that? Not sure Joyce would be receptive of it though, after feeling smothered by Dorothy just the same morning.
And here’s a reminder how switching Sal out for Dorothy doesn’t make so much sense in the backstories. Sal putting up with Joe? Yeah. Dorothy putting up with Joe as Danny’s friend in HS, not so much. Even as kind of distanced, but it’s not really presented as distanced anyway. IMHO.
I dunno Dorothy, I think Joyce can handle this situation… She technically already dated Joe over a decade ago but by my count of the sliding timescale it was probably only like 4-some odd months ago.
And she let Mike beat the absolute crap outta him, so she’s not taking anything lightly methinks.
Even if she knew that Joe’s trying to be a better person, she cares enough about Joyce that she likely wouldn’t be happy with this development. After all, “trying” doesn’t always mean “succeeding”.
Ah, the being scared part, that hits home. I was never a Joe-level chad, but I could be casually flirty with the ladies… until I ran into her.
Nearly crapped my pants.
Took me like two months to ask her out, I was scared out of my mind. And it turns out I was right – she’s been scaring me for nearly 25 years now.
So there’s a lot, I guess, about how Dorothy is running the wrong play here, as a friend to Joyce, going over her head etc.
But she’s been Joe’s friend for longer. Maybe she’s being Joe’s friend here, more so than Joyce’s.
Im probably too judgy to be friends with a Joe irl, without being omniscient to his private moments of personal development, but if I WERE, I’d rip fully into him for a choice like this. ‘your decision to pursue this person WILL impact our friendship’. It’s not like the fail-state here affects only Joyce- it’s a real high-risk sitch for Joe too.
I don’t think she’s really been Joe’s friend. She’s known him a long time and I’m sure once tolerated him for Danny’s sake, but there’s been little sign of actual friendship there.
Which is also partly why she doesn’t know about him changing.
It’d be really funny if Joe and Dorothy suddenly started aggressively (and willingly, since that probably can’t just go left unsaid today) making out right there on the table, then Joyce walked over and started nonchalantly eating her food like it’s the most nondescript thing she’s seen all day.
Me if I ever see Tony Hawk: Hey you’re Tony Hawk the famous skateboarder. That’s right I recognise you. Won’t be able to get any content out of this will you, you piece of shit
How to read all 28 issues of my Spider-Man Loves Mary Jane run on Marvel Unlimited:
1: The first four issues were published as the miniseries "Mary Jane."
www.marvel.com/comics/serie...
today in #9chickweedlane i learned we have to be shown children learning and relearning what sex is, for Reasons, even though they already clearly know and have prepared nuanced questions about it!
also that Gran must hate, if she's still alive, how Old Juliette is the same but with gray hair
one of my favorite things is when a commenter explodes WHEN DO THESE CHARACTERS GET THERAPY but directed towards a character who canonically has a regular therapist
Hot Toys Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith 1/6 Scale Darth Vader Deluxe ($495) & Standard ($315) is up for preorder at Sideshow - shrsl.com/4wcx6 #ad
If you preorder make sure to hit the Exclusive versions since they include a commemorative plaque and cost the same.
btw if you're one of those rando bluesky weirdos who doesn't know me but sees me in the wild being sarcastic and don't know i'm being sarcastic because you haven't taken like 30 seconds to, like, maybe look at my user profile or something, keep walking, you're not going to score internet points here
Here's an entertaining cite at the bottom of the first page
Josh Gerstein@joshgerstein.bsky.social ⋅ 3d
JUST IN: Milwaukee Judge Hannah Dugan moves to dismiss federal criminal case against her for allegedly helping immigrant hide from ICE. Her lawyers say she's protected by official acts & judicial immunity and 10th Amendment. Doc: storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.us...
Where did Hollywood go so wrong? I thought movies were supposed to be an escape from reality, a chance to put your worries aside and not have to think about any underlying ideas or concepts. Well, not anymore.
theonion.com/you-can...
preternia @preternia.com ⋅ 2d
Josh Gerstein @joshgerstein.bsky.social ⋅ 3d
Loading ...
The world population explosion
Is making you feel rather ill
The doctors have said
You can hop into bed
And put all your faith in the pill
Great poem. Not great medical advice from those doctors though (those things don’t have a fantastic efficacy rate given their purpose).
Since when is 98-99% not a fantastic efficacy rate?
Sure, only a fool would rely on the pill alone, but its still very effective
I disagree that relying only on the pill for pregnancy prevention is foolish.
You can’t be too careful.
Well… we actually can be too careful, but it’s a matter of situation and intent.
oh have they improved it in the last few years? last I heard it was more in the 96-97% range
actually for that matter, I should see if the sperm-pill has made any progress yet
From what I can tell, it’s supposed to be 99% effective if taken properly. That drops a few percent for typical users, since most will miss (or take late) every once in a while.
That efficiency isn’t even as bad as it sounds, since it’s on a yearly basis, rather than per sexual encounter: 1 in a 100 women taking it correctly will get pregnant in a year.
from what I remember, most to all of the remaining percent are the people who are flat-out immune to it, so if it’s been working for you it’s not supposed to stop working.
there are also detailed instructions on how to handle missed/late pills and at what point you need to add condoms for a bit.
it’s one of the others (depo shot or implant?) that I don’t trust so much; my sister was told she couldn’t get pregnant for at least 3 more months when she was coming off of it, and that’s how I got my first nephew.
i-is that what you kids call it these days
Is faith a codeword for penis now, or
I think it’s a play on how she doesn’t have faith because she’s an atheist
《eyeroll》There are ^other^ kinds of faith than those involving … religion! !
Like faith… of the heart? *power chords ringing, Enterprise flies away*
If so, what exactly is Dorothy putting her penis in???
“Faceless conquests”
*Conquest shows up* “Someone called?”
She clearly has a face. Then again she has hair over half her face. So there’s a chance she actually only has HALF a face. So she may have less face than others. Face…less…naw I’m stretching.
Face… off…
Leave those poor peaches alone.
They’ve suffered enough.
Conquest: “Sorry I look like Hel.”
maybe she has a(n evil?) twin, Two-Faced Conquest?
Ok, so plot twist: Dorothy and Joe had a fling before she got with Danny
Probably not given how young they would have been.
They would have been in their mid teens most likely, so… Not exactly unheard of.
That’s an interesting idea! It would be cool to see that explored. I just assumed Dorothy has seen Joe mistreat several of her other friends before.
Dorothy mentioned she had sex with three people, but we only know about two.
had had
I was just thinking that was seeming increasingly likely.
Or a fling during the timeskip. Busy Dorothy got a bit horny and knew exactly who could provide relief..
I’m not convinced, but her reaction in this strip could support that. https://www.dumbingofage.com/notinterested/
That does make it seem more likely than in high school, since Joe wouldn’t have needed to add her to the Do List at the very stat of the strip if she’d already been done, so to speak.
Wow that was more than a year ago.
Good memory!
It does indeed.
I wish I could credit my memory. You can use multiple character tags to see when they’ve interacted on screen, which has been very little since the timeskip in 2020. https://www.dumbingofage.com/tag/joe+dorothy/
ooo, I didn’t even notice Dorothy’s face in that last panel. Yeah that does indicate she maybe came to him for a sin session.
oh man, her facial expressions sure support that theory too
I like this idea better than my high school idea
If Dorothy got with Joe, that means she took his virginity as she mentioned that she’s always ends up as the more experienced one in her relationships.
Not impossible, but feels unlikely considering their interactions in the past and how Joe has talked about her as someone being available after breaking up with Danny as it at least implies that he had no previous experience with her.
It’s also possible that Dorothy had a hookup with Joe during the timeskip, as someone else suggested, but I doubt it for a couple reasons:
1. It’s hard to picture her being so horny that she not only took a break from school work, not only craved human contact so much that masturbation wasn’t an option, but she ALSO chose to mess with Joe over messing with either of her exes, especially considering how little she cares for Joe in regards to his sexual activities and that she, Danny, and Walky were all single during the timeskip.
2. Danny might feel some type of way about it, at least before recent events, and Dorothy is sensitive to that type of thing even if she’s ok with a casual hookup with Joe.
Except we have evidence that #1 is false. She got so worked up while she and Walky were “on pause” that they had sex.
To be faie, she was overworked and overstressed and needed some kind of outlet, but thr point is it *has* happened before, and now that Walky isn’t available, she had to find a substitute that wouldn’t make a big deal out of it or fall in love (or her fall for him).
Enter Joe.
No, you’re missing my point that it’s hard to picture the COMBINATION of her taking a break, being so horny that she needed human contact, and would seek out JOE over seeking out the two guys she’d been with previously (you’re also ignoring the fact that she didn’t take a break to have sex, but instead took a break to eat and just ran into Walky, and that the person she had sex with WAS Walky, who she both loved and desired).
That’s why I put “also” in all caps, to emphasize that it’s the combination, not just being horny.
And if you’re suggesting that she hooked up with Joe in the week or so since she told Walky to ask out Lucy, I find that even more doubtful as she was only having horny thoughts for Walky specifically and not simply feeling horny in general.
Yes, having denied herself that feeling, she might then want to get rid of that unresolved lust by having a random fling, but that again would mean she chose Joe who she has little regard for when it comes to his sexual escapades.
A super horny Dorothy with no better options might go for Joe just to take the edge off.
A just generally horny Dorothy? I’d bet money she wouldn’t even think about it.
“Enter Joe”
Wait… Dorothy is into pegging now? Yotomoe, were you aware of this?
Nah, it’s supposed to be “Enter, Joe”, implying that he is the one doing the entering.
Joe is trying to be a better person. It’s unfortunate Dorothy doesn’t see that, but I’m sure she has her reasons.
Today’s hovertext: “Dorothy’s known you for a while, Joe”
The unfortunate thing with people not personally seeing your character growth is they are still going to treat you as who you were before that as they didn’t get the patchnotes of your updates and can only act on what they know/knew.
^ That.
And that’s if they even believe people can grow in the first place (see: Rachel).
i mean even if they did start dating i doubt either of them would rush into sex
Dorothy has known Joe for years. She hasn’t seen most of his recent character development, so throughout that time, she’s only seen Joe interact with girls as objects that provide sex. She’s got no reason to think he’s interested in anything else.
What she never considered is that Joe also saw himself as an object that provides sex.
I guess, but pretty much irrelevant to a read on his intentions or to the threat he poses.
She hasn’t been around to see any of his growth.
I think that’s one reason the story brought Joe and Amber into each others’ orbits. Dorothy trusts her, and she can corroborate his intentions.
I feel like Joyce can probably relate to him a little bit here
You’ve said your piece Dorothy and done your duty so now its time to back off and/or speak to Joyce about this later
ah, but see that would involve 1. not being In Charge and 2. treating Joyce like an adult
Can’t have any of that, now can we?
dorothy has a relationship with joe independent of joyce
In fact, Dorothy’s known Joe far longer than she’s known Joyce!
(She’s known Joyce for less than five months—she’s known Joe for nearly five years at the minimum)
How well does she really know Joe?
Well enough to keep him at a distance and not trust his intentions.
Which means she’s missed him changing.
You know, people keep talking about Joe changing, and maybe he has, but change isn’t something you declare ahead of time or really even when you’re in the midst of changing. The sorts of fundamental personality shifts that Joe is notionally going through are really only demonstrable in retrospect. In two years, yeah, you can look back and say this was the moment he’d gotten better, but in the moment? Backsliding is very, very common, particularly early in that process; remember that Joe went through a period of contrition when the Do List came out, and then went back to his “don’t care no feelings” personality within a month or two. Saying Dorothy has “missed” his character growth elides all of that and jumps way ahead in the process.
Which, you know, is fine if we’re dealing with comic book time; it’s been, what, years of plausible growth for the audience? but the trauma of those years-past events still linger for the characters, and it feels… weird… that so many people think Dorothy is doing something particularly uncharitable or possessive here. She is, if anything, way more friendly with Joe than he has earned.
I think she knew him pretty well, honestly.
Past tense. Now … I don’t think anybody currently knows Joe very well. Especially not Joe.
Joyce adores Dorothy, but if Dorothy succeeds in scaring Joe away just when Joyce was getting into the joy of flirtation…I am pretty sure Joyce’s rage will be epic to behold
100% waiting on Joyce to go apeshit on Dorothy and pull the “you’re acting just like my mother” pin.
Sick’er Joyce!
“Is this you smothering me again? You are not my Mother!”
This becomes the emotional catalyst for Joyce to drag Joe back to her room.
She is riding him. She guides one of his hands to grab her left tit.
“In the name of the Father…” and she guides his other hand to grab her right tit. “…the Son, and the,..and the…and The Holy Fuck!”
Joe: “Language!”
Don’t make me get the hose!
Science?
CTHULHU?
“Be Afraid. Be very afraid.”
i sense a flashback incoming that will make a bunch of people regret previously made comments (as usual)
What flashback do you prophesize? Can you foretell a flashback, if it is a memory about the past? I, guess, you can. Seems oddly strange though.
I’ll be honest, as someone who…only dabbles in one-sided crush I feel compelled to take Joe’s side here. Insomuch that Dorothy’s “not scared enough” hits me wrong because I can’t fathom anything scarier than being rejected.
Joe’s not afraid of rejection. He’s afraid he’s afraid, in his own words, that he’s going to “ruin” her. Corrupt her I assume or badly break her heart because he’s worried he can’t stop being who he’s been/will become his father. Either way that he’ll do something that will make her stop being so . . . her.
She’s already changed and stopped being “her” – at least the her she was when she started school. And that’s not a bad thing. Joyce was very rigid, judgmental, and sure – even if pleasant and friendly about it, unlike Mary. While she is now a little too judgmental and sure the other way – rejecting her earlier views – she’s less rigid and more accepting that there is gray. She still has growing to do (as all 18 year olds do), but she’s changed and has shown she is more resilient than some give her credit for. At the same Joe has changed, even though neither he nor others (with the possible exception of Joyce) really recognize or accept that.
It’s not that Joe thinks he hasn’t changed. It’s that he honestly fears he’s going to cause some sort of mental crisis if he does or says the wrong thing. He’s one of the people questioning of her sudden change of faith least, but he saw firsthand how Liz freaked out when her religious upbringing reared its head at the worst moment. He has no possible way to know what will happen with Joyce, a girl who has quite a number of quirks that have caused her to act irrationally even when religion and parental/social expectations weren’t involved. His fear isn’t entirely misplaced.
There’s that, but he’s also still worried that he hasn’t really changed. That if he does get together with Joyce, that he’ll still wind up being like his dad and betray her.
If nothing else, maybe he can eventually draw that comparison and draw strength from his dad having kept on the straight and narrow with Stacy. and/or verbalize to Dorothy that she’s basically having the same conversation that he had with HIS dad, but with her as him and him as his dad.
Yeah, I’m sure that a hasty marriage and a couple months of his dad apparently not feeling the urge to cheat is going to reassure him. Now, if his dad really is somehow magically cured of his cheating by how wonderful Stacy is, that’ll be a different story, but it’ll be years before Joe has any reason to trust that.
Until then, Dorothy basically having the same conversation he had with his dad is going to hit him a bit differently.
Maybe . But thats also a story of invulnerability joe tells himself while never taking any serious or moderate emotional risks.
and that story allows himself to take a greater risk in his head while not actually doing it in the real world.
When it comes to taking emotional risks with opposite sex , he might practically be a virgin.
This whole conversation reminds me of this:
https://music.youtube.com/watch?v=oTUSeac7IuQ
This is the best part; waiting for the other shoe to drop and what’ll happen when it does.
Somebody will be angry, I can tell.
I’m insulted that you think only one somebody will be angry. How dare you?
“Somebody is angry” is true even if there are several somebodies who are angry, as long as the somebody in particular that was referred to is included in the somebodies that are angry.
Given your name, I’m inclined to trust you as an expert.
Yeah, me too,
Plays “Torn” by Natalie Imbruglia on hacked muzak.
“I’m all out of faith, this is how I feel”
“I’m cold and I am shamed”
Is that what that song is called? Well alright, then.
Wait so is Joe or Dorothy the one naked on the floor…?
Dorothy is worried about it being Joyce. Who we already know is all out of faith.
Okay Dorothy, but have you considered that while you weren’t looking, we, the omniscient, all-seeing, incredibly sexy audience got to watch Joe grow the fuck up a little bit and stop being exactly the only way you’ve ever personally seen him???
Evil, evil person, this alleged “Dorothy”, just really the worst, for acting on the information she has available. I wish to see her punished in some indistinct way, and will go to great lengths to inform real people how implicitly worse than me they are in a moral sense if they don’t match my exact level of intensity.
Okay, maybe that’s hyperbollocks, but sometimes it’s fun to talk like an unhinged weirdo. They’re all fake, so it causes approximately zero problems, anyway.
What I took away from that is you think we’re hot – kind of a wild assumption given that we all hide behind avatars and internet aliases, but my ego will take what it can get at this point.
Just because the data is insufficient doesn’t mean the conclusion is incorrect.
Eh, Dorothy is one my favourite characters, but I still think she is overstepping here. Joyce is just as capable of Dorothy of making her own decisions, and if that is jumping Joe and maybe getting her heart broken that is her choice. Joe has been a sleazebag before, but the evidence he was an aggressively predatory or dangerous sleazebag is slight. Even if Dorothy knew SOMETHING we don’t about Joe being dangerous she should TALK TO JOYCE about it. Not warn Joe off behind her back. It is infantilising. I still like Dot, but she is not covering herself with glory here.
He was a sleazy womaniser but he never engaged in predatory behaviour, and like you say if dorothy knows something that means he WAS Like that she should have said something to a few people ages ago
Dude, he was talking behind Joyce’s back about ‘fixing her with his penis’ when he knew she was looking for an innocent night out. Dorothy wasn’t privy to that chat but she’s known him for years. I doubt that was his first time.
Is it violence? or blackmail maybe?
She’s gonna plant one of those cortex bombs from cyberpunk novels in his brain.
EXCUSE ME?? Does she not trust Joyce AT ALL? Am I misreading???
Doesn’t seem like it no
She doesn’t trust Joe or that Joe’s been particularly upfront about what she assumes he wants (just sex). So, just like Joe at the start of the comic was like. Hence telling him to find other prey.
I know she doesn’t trust Joe. I’m asking about the last panel. Is she talking about Joyce or Joe? Because I read it as “I know exactly how much I trust Joyce!” But I may be wrong.
I would say it’s less her saying “I don’t trust Joyce!” and more her saying “I trust the years of experience I have with your shitty behavior!” Which is kinda the same thing, in this case, but I don’t think she’s really realized that just yet.
Yeah, she’s avoiding Joe’s question. And it’s implications.
Nah, that was the impression I was also getting from this – especially since she didn’t even try to ask to Joyce about this first.
I feel like if anything’s gonna make Joyce legitimately explode at Dorothy, it might be this.
Nope.
Fully thinks Joyce is a child that will fuck Joe just because.
Yup. She’s not even trying to hide it anymore.
Sexual coercion is a thing. Intelligent and reasonable people get pressured into doing things they wouldn’t ordinarily do all the time.
I don’t know why some folks in here are acting like telling people to avoid sexual predators is the one and only approach to ending predation. You can and should address the source of the problem, too.
I think Dorothy should *also* talk to Joyce, but that doesn’t mean she can’t, additionally, talk to Joe.
Joe isn’t a predator, though. He sleeps around but has he been shown to, like, actively hurt people through it? Afaik he’s always up front about his intentions, which is a hell of a lot better than I can say for some of the dudes I knew in college.
Joe doesn’t invite people into the bedroom with him when he fucks (except for that one time with Roz, I guess), so they primarily judge his behavior off of how he presents it. It’s been said by several other people in the past two days, but he’s been saying things like “I’ll fix her with my dick” and “I use alcohol to facilitate threesomes” and “Here’s an itemized list of how fuckable I think every girl in my vicinity is, and how they might be plied.” These are words that make people think you’re some kind of deplorable sex monster. And far from doing anything to dissuade people from this notion, he has reveled in it.
The only people who have seen other sides of Joe are his best friend, his regular workout buddy, Dina a little bit, and Joyce. So, the three characters who have spent the most time interacting with him, and the autistic girl who rarely ever judges anyone. Dorothy and Sarah treat Joe based on their knowledge of him, and how that knowledge intersects with their knowledge of abusers, and in that context, their actions are entirely reasonable.
It is certainly difficult for Joe to face this obstacle to his legitimate attempt at personal growth, given that he’s terrified he will inevitably become his father (something he and his sister share). How painful it must be for him to be faced with someone who is convinced that he is and will always be who he is afraid he is and will always be. Joe is facing an obstacle of his own creation and overcoming it is his job, not Dorothy’s.
As many others have said, I cannot be convinced that Dorothy’s actions are unreasonable based on the knowledge available to her. You can be wrong and reasonable at the same time. That’s good character writing.
He hasn’t been shown being coercive iirc, but he’s definitely not been upfront about his intentions at all times. He certainly wasn’t with Joyce on their first date.
Coercion is a thing, and it’s not a thing that Joe has ever been shown doing.
I gotta tell ya that, as a victim of sexual predation, Joe ain’t one.
ppl do crazy illogical things in love but at least any mistakes with joe is better than her dating like, asher or so
She does not. Dorothy basically seems to believe Joyce is not capable of making any rational decisions, or at least that it’s not even worth checking to see if Joyce might have context that she, Dorothy, is lacking.
I mean, i can understand where she’s coming from as a friend (and we have to remember, a teenager who’s not gonna be right 100% of the time). Joyce doesn’t exactly have the best track record with seeing the red flags in guys. So far we have have start of comic joe, a scumbag, a guy who was perfect but had a girlfriend and crossed relationship boundaries. I don’t want it to come off like I’m victim blaming, I’m just in the same position. I have so consistently given scumbags a chance that now my friends are like “hey i love you but until I get to vet this guy for myself I’m not gonna trust that he’s as great as you say he is.”
Sometimes people in your life have the permanent rose colored glasses that camouflage the neon red flags until it’s too late, and when you’re this young it can be really tempting to just try to save your friends from the heartache in the first place rather than letting them get burned again and learn from it.
I’m not saying Dorothy is right here, she’s overstepping, but i can understand where she’s coming from
Yes, you are misreading.
Mixed feelings continue to be mixed. And those mixed feelings veer straight into bad territory when I consider how many more times this exact conversation is likely to happen should things between Joe and Joyce continue to develop.
The only characters I can see backing Joe up besides Joyce herself are Amber… and maybe Walky, for some reason? Not sure why he’s making the list but my brain seems to think he fits there.
As an astute commenter pointed out yesterday, there’s a decent chance that Becky would be supportive in general, if not defending Joe specifically.
As someone who generally hates when Becky breathes (exaggeration, but not much) I agree. If nothing else, I think Becky would actually make an effort to evaluate Joe’s feelings regarding Joyce and Joyce’s magnificent pants (remember she initially chased off Ethan because he didn’t have what she considered to be proper enthusiasm) instead of what Dorothy’s doing: making a token effort and leaping to ‘leave and never return!’
Becky would, I think, genuinely be all in on Joyce and Joe as soon as she confirms that Joe is fully apprised of and enthusiastic about the entirety of Joyce.
Danny could vouch for Joe’s character development, too. He was there for at least a couple of the bigger events Dorothy wouldn’t have firsthand knowledge of.
But then you’d need someone to vouch for Danny that he has grown past glossing past and low-key enabling Joe’s shittier behaviors (or high-key enabling, in the case of coding up the Do List for him)
Walky definitely would weigh in on this relationship given his frenemy status with Joyce and the fact that Joe is probably Walky’s only male friend besides Jason if you consider either of them close enough to be his friend.
And Walky has never expressed condemnation of Joe’s behavior when it comes to sex that I can recall, though I don’t know if that’s due to a lack of experience, context, or empathy with women being sexualized and objectified as he simply doesn’t do that himself (other than calling Amber Thicc Dorothy) having only been interested in 3 women in his life (he’s definitely aware of sexual objectification and how bad it can be due to his gender studies class, but that may only be conceptually vs it’s something that he feels strongly enough to vocalize).
And Walky, and a couple others, have long held the belief that Joyce is sexually repressed and will eventually let it out in a big way, and I wouldn’t be surprised if he said something along the lines of it might as well being with Joe considering his seemingly vast experience.
Hell, Walky has been more condemning of Joyce for her horniness towards Jacob, though that was really more about messing with her for being fake about it.
So yeah, I think Walky would be indifferent or even supportive, though his comment would probably be so snarky that no one could tell the difference.
I didn’t expect the “trust joyce’s judgment” argument so soon
Yes, once again, two characters I’ve grown to love and relate to, acting in ways that are entirely justified by their own lived experiences ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Purty much! Gotta love these kids.
I am on Team Joe, but I do get it with Dorothy. She’s known him a long time, and while she has seemingly had faith in him not being a terrible person based on some of her ‘allowances’, shall we say, she has made for him, I still know she’s also seen him in many of his least flattering moments. She really doesn’t want Joyce to get hurt.
That said, I am with Joe in that Dorothy is not giving Joyce enough credit. She’s handling her with kid gloves too often, especially with the autism possibility, but even before that.
This isn’t a “good guy vs bad guy” thing to me, but two people who genuinely care about Joyce, with a conflict stemming from a difference in perspective.
I think it’s the part of her going completely over Joyce’s head like this that rubs most people the wrong way.
Bingo.
This, yes. If Dorothy wants Joyce to stop being friendly with Joe, that’s a conversation to be had with Joyce.
Probably a conversation held at high volume in places, involving a tirade about exactly why Joyce trusts Joe, and ultimately ending with Dorothy realizing she’s made some incorrect assumptions based on old information, but a conversation with Joyce as the ultimate arbiter of Joyce’s relationships.
That will have to come later, maybe even near the end of this chapter.
She had the opportunity to swat at Joe first. (And from a Doylist perspective, this sets us up for that future conversation. I don’t think we’ve seen much insight into how little Dorothy thinks of Joe until this chapter.)
Remember, Dorothy doesn’t know everything we know. She knows Joe talked about how alcohol can really facilitate the threesomes, but she wasn’t there when he told Danny that, actually, that was all bullshit and he’s never had a threesome.
Whether it matches the reality of his sex life or not, Joe used to say some pretty predatory things, including about Joyce (though not in Dorothy’s presence) so I don’t blame her for being worried.
Sorry, Joe, she still knows you as the guy who went around talking about upgrading girls to a 10 and fixing them with your penis who you’ve been for the past four years. It’s gonna take a while before she realizes you’ve changed from that.
Yeah, but you know who else didn’t know everything we know? And was also maybe partly Jewish like Dorothy too?
Joe?
Red Herring?
Which is a good demonstration of why it’s generally not a great idea to do what Dorothy is doing here. Every human is complicated and just being in someone’s general vicinity for a few years doesn’t mean you actually know them as a person. Dorothy’s concerns are entirely reasonable, but she should be discussing them with Joyce rather than hurling them at Joe.
She should be, but given she was alone with Joe first, I’m not gonna blame her too much for telling Joe to fuck off first. Sarah’s done the same thing when Joe was, legitimately, much skeezier.
don’t ya hate when two of your favorite characters fight about your favorite character
I wouldn’t know, none of them have been on screen for weeks
“Not scared enough. No, seriously, have you met her friend group? There’s at least two of them that beat up muggers and criminals for fun!”
Joe has met every woman who might use violence against him in that friend group, one of which he encourages to take her hate out on him.
In a more serious sense, I’ve kinda been where Joe is. That first stretch when you start to put real effort into changing yourself, but nobody believes you (or if they do, they just don’t care), that’s fuckin’ rough. Taken too far, it can lead a person to ask why they’re even bothering of they’re still gonna be punished, and then you can easily fall back on your old behaviors out of, essentially, despair. Because why bother with the supposedly-better behavior if it gets identical treatment?
It doesn’t just get identical treatment, rather it tends to get even worse treatment- as people seem to decide that is the time for them to really dig into you, starting all the fights that they’re afraid/not interested in starting when they feel that you are an asshole.
Oh my fucking GODS, I cannot stand that shit. Zero fucking tolerance for it in any context. It’s like they’re afraid of you improving as a person, because then they don’t have a convenient excuse to dislike you since you’re actively dragging yourself out of the pit, so they can’t feel better about themselves by comparison anymore. At least, that’s how it feels.
I guess it’s partly that if you’re still an asshole, they can sort of stop paying attention and disregard you with that expectation, but once you start trying to improve, you almost inherently draw attention to yourself, so they now have a much easier target for whatever ire they’ve built up for you over time. And like, I get it, people often suck and nobody wants to be reminded of someone who was shitty to them in the past (okay that’s not entirely true, some people revel in dwelling on stuff), and nobody is “oWeD” forgiveness or whatever, but I don’t feel like it’s warranted to then turn around and dwell on things from the past like they’re still happening in a deliberate attempt to tear someone down when they’re visibly making an effort.
This is the reason I hate Tall Rachel. She stayed just close enough to Ruth for two years after their Freshman year to wait for an opportunity to tear her down, and she waited until Ruth’s absolute lowest moment. After that, she is still in Ruth’s dorm for the apparent purpose of sniping at her when Ruth tries to do her job.
And people defend her for some reason, too. “ooh she shouldn’t have to leave” Yes she fucking should. She’s become the aggressor and is clearly stressing out over a situation she has the power to remedy. She wants to be there, so she can keep it up. Any real person who did that would get treated like the asshole they are.
It’s her assigned dorm room. At the start of the year, she probably wouldn’t have known Ruth was going to be RA and moving during the year isn’t easy. It’s dependent on vacancies coming open or someone pulling strings.
I don’t really care if it’s easy to move, that’s still only part of the problem. I’m not getting into the nasty little logistical details on this because it’s frankly a hot-button issue for me, but there’s no good reason why Rachel needs to be deliberately and consciously approaching or engaging with Ruth at every available opportunity. She is doing it on purpose and it is wrong.
Having been on both sides of this phenomenon: it both sucks as the person changing and as the person around them it’s a bit of a once bitten twice shy & confirmation bias type thing.
Like I have it in my head this person is an ass based on my past interactions, so if they don’t act as expected it’s natural to assume some ulterior motive and try to re-establish the known, comfortably dysfunctional pattern.
Which is unfair to the person who is changing because it sets them up to fail.
Would also add tI think his holds true for all forms of personal growth. As a former doormat learning to enforce my boundaries it’s interesting how much more disrespectful of my boundaries people are the moment I try to assert them.
i worry that folks will be hard on dorothy. she has not only known joe fairly well for a fairly long time, but she’s also joyces best friend and knows that joyce is going through a lot. i think it’s also important to know that dorothy is going to yale next semester, and she won’t get to see joyce anymore, which i’m sure is hard on her because dorothy sees her as HER best friend as well
i also understand joes point of view. he knows this is new for him and he doesnt want to hurt her, and is scared he might because he’s never done this before. and he’s right, dorothy should have faith in joyce, she has made great strides and is continuing to do so
at the end of the day, they want the same thing: for joyce to be happy
The problem is that she didn’t even consider talking to Joyce about this first – she’s pretty much going over her head.
Considering Joyce’s already irriated about people trying to mother her etc, this might seriously piss her off.
She’s not going over Joyce’s head, she’s talking to Joe, whom she has known for much, much longer than she has Joyce. She’s talking *to her own friend* about his established and durable patterns of behavior with regards to women. She’s allowed to do that without getting permission from Joyce!
I mean. The fact remains that Joyce may well probably get angry about it anyway. Because Joyce has issues with that sort of thing, rational or no.
I think, not only that Joe is afraid he’ll revert to old behavior and hurt Joyce, but also that he hasn’t done this before and isn’t confident in his ability to do it right, while something deep in his brain is screaming this is IMPORTANT, don’t blow it!!!
“…In your face! I’m putting my faith in your face! Your FAAAAAAAAAAAAACE!”
For a nickel?
“My Face is my shield!!!” (110 internet point to anyone who gets this old and nerdy reference to a game I never played)
NOW! FAITH IN THE FACE! WANT EM! NEED EM! GIMMEGIMMEGIMME! AT THE SOUND OF THE BELL IT WILL BE FAITHSHOOTING O’CLOCK!
Wow, you went full mak off, didn’t you, Dotty?
Joyce might just fuck Joe because absolutely none of her other friends at this point in time view her as anything more than a Thing.
Dorothy is operating on a lot of old information, sure Joe wasn’t great in the past, though he was always upfront about it, he has been trying to change.
More than that though Joe and Joyce have actually been friends for a while now if we go back to when she was having those texting conversations with him when she went back home as a start.
Hell besides Dorothy Joyce is probably Joe’s strongest female friend at this point, even that is giving a lot of credit to their pre college friendship because currently they don’t exactly interact much.
Joyce has not been updating Dorothy with new information, i.e. I don’t think Dorothy has any idea they’ve been texting since Joyce and Becky’s trip home last term.
I don’t think Dorothy needs to know this in order to trust Joyce, though
Or even just to, you know, ASK Joyce ‘hey, what’s up with this, how long have you two been friends?’
She hasn’t had the opportunity to do so yet. She learned Joe was trying to get closer to Joyce when he popped up for lunch a few strips ago.
What remains to be seen is whether Dorothy believes Joe can change, and if she tries to convince Joyce that he hasn’t. Because she is missing a lot of current information, but she assumes she’s right because that’s what she does.
*She hasn’t had the opportunity to ask Joe-related questions to Joyce without Joe being around yet.
I feel like she has that choice literally right now. If joe is alone enough to talk to that means Joyce is alone enough to talk to. Even just a casual “what’s with you and Joe”. It’s not that she couldn’t, she didn’t want to.
Why would she seek answers like that when she’s right?
/s
Does anyone know that Joe and Joyce have been texting like that? I get the feeling that both would be reluctant to reveal it, because it doesn’t quite fit either one’s public persona.
I have actually so much respect for Joe (not that I was against him yesterday) for framing this as believing in Joyce, not him.
I hope that I’m being uncharitable towards Dorothy here and nothing of the sort is going to happen, but I’m a little worried that she’s about to thoughtlessly out Joyce’s past assault by Ryan in her protective rage trying to get it into his head why he absolutely can not take advantage of her if he’s somehow managed to win her trust after that. It’s doubtful Dotty knows that Joe already knows, I could see in the heat of the moment the voice in her head telling her “this is not my secret to tell” being drowned out by the uninformed one that would think “There’s no way someone as sexually skittish as Joyce would reveal this herself and if Joe has any shreds of decency in him he will not take advantage of an assault victim”, and if she does it is definitely going to end up being the exact moment Joyce comes back with their food.
I thought Joe had reached the realization that he liked Joyce
Did i miss something?
He is. He also got scared of “ruining her” somehow, after the liz fiasco. maybe thats it.
Then why the panic at Dorothy? He clearly doesn’t see Joyce as a conquest
Man I should have listened to my friends’ misgivings about my first bf, but I guess similarly, they didn’t really listen to me, so.
Mood.
Joe and Dorothy are arguing? About sex? And it’s been a while since Dorothy broke up with Walky, and Joe is easy, and they’re going to end up in bed together, aren’t they. Cuz we need more drama.
Cue the Joe/Dotty Slipshine, and 2-3 years later we will learn it was just a vivid daydream.
I have no doubt Dorothy is doing what she thinks is best with the information but this is also looking a bit like low hanging fruit
In that this is an easy way for Dorothy to reassert her position as Joyce ‘mom’ by making the bad man go away irrespective of what Joyce may want (because theres no way Joyce knows what she wants without Dorothy to tell her)
Dorothy does not approve
Considering that Dorothy actually encourages Joyce to explore her feelings of lust and we know Dorothy has no issue with casual sex or at least doesn’t feel one needs to be in a serious and formal relationship to have sex, this really tells us how poorly she thinks of Joe since she’d pretty much support Joyce being with any other single guy.
I dunno. I don’t disagree that Dorothy is especially against Joe (and from her perspective, has reason to be), but she hasn’t been confronted yet with Joyce actually dating any guys, and she has been treating Joyce like Joyce’s beliefs changing are just an angry phase.
So I think it is especially Joe, but I think it would be happening with anyone (or at least, anyone Dorothy would expect to be sexually active)
When Joyce set her eyes in Jacob, Dorothy’s issue was that she was trying to steal him from Raidah, that she was a better person than that.
At no point was there anything negative about Jacob from her except for the possibility of his fickleness towards Joyce if he was fickle enough to leave Raidah for her.
She then encouraged Joyce to explore her feelings of lust because they are normal.
“she has been treating Joyce like Joyce’s beliefs changing are just an angry phase.”
The angry phase where she was calling Becky an idiot for not being a hardcore atheist? Yeah, joyce was being a jerk there. Becky has a deep belief in god that is her base. Becky’s fine believing in god. Joyce needs to separate her beliefs and growths from Becky’s. She started to realize that most recently. I dunno if joyce is all the way there or not yet.
I agree. Dorothy has an issue and isn’t reserving her judgement specifically because she knows Joe. She also knows about the assault Joyce experienced since she was there.
“She also knows about the assault Joyce experienced”
The many, varied, wildly violent, insane how many times this happened to these kids in one school year, assaulrs.
If Willis keeps this up, DoA might end up with a school more dangerous and deadly than Hogwarts.
How half these kids dont have ptsd, flashbacks, and nightmares us beyond me.
I’m pretty sure most of them experienced trauma in a way that was acknowledged, with Joyce specifically having had flashbacks and nightmares on screen, fake Dali Lama quote guy.
I also don’t find that level of violence to be unrealistic, but I recognize that I’ve faced an unusual amount of violence in my life compared to seemingly most people.
Stop remembering and understanding the comic correctly, it’s impolite.
“fake Dali Lama quote guy.”
At least this isnt fake:
https://www.dumbingofage.com/2011/comic/book-1/03-men-are-from-beck-women-are-from-clark/penis/
Dorothy really want Joyce as her personal conquest, isn’t?
Like, to put it in her resumeé and shit: “hey, look, I’m a nice person to autistic people…”
I don’t trust Joe, but I’m starting to distrust Dorothy, too.
hmm, I’m seeing irreconcilable differences. And a Dorothy seeing her grip on everything slipping away. Something gonna give.
So nice to see how Joe is not trying to defend himself, but is trying to make Dorothy understand that Joyce is not naive as she thinks. Let’s see if this will become a big fight or I’d Dorothy will change her ideas.
Damn you Willis. Now I’ve gotten some half forgotten Jesus song bits on loop in my head.
Something something put your faith in Jesus something something
See while I understand why dorothy is very “mmmmmm” about Joe, he is also right that
Joyce can make her own decisions here, and while dorothy has not seen the growth joe has made she should trust joyce who she is aware brought Mike when they went on that date (remember that? Wild) and is well aware of the type of person he was
Like, no one trusts joyce to make her own decisions, like yes she was oart of a culture and was unbelievably sheltered but she has made serious progress.
And Dorothy, means we’ll and generally does well by joyce but she’s waaaay to overprotective of her and infantalizes her just a bit thinking she cannot possibly make these decisions herself, becky is just as bad too if not worse
This is going to blow up in their faces if they don’t examine themselves
A cult* thank you autocorrect
Dorothy’s definitely overstepping here, but I get it. Both because she’s known Joe a very long time and hasn’t been privvy to his recent character growth, and also because she still has that recent trauma of being helpless to do anything but watch when Joyce was kidnapped by Blaine the second time. I’m not surprised she’s overcompensating now, and will continue to do so until she actually realizes that’s what she’s doing.
That said, while I don’t think Joe is wrong to point out she’s not being fair to Joyce’s judgment, I do think proving he’s serious about this to the people in Joyce’s life is just something he should expect to have to do repeatedly. Maybe he ought to prepare notecards.
Here’s the thing, Dotty. You like to think you’re sex positive, yet you’re behaving as if Joe is some kind of a monster. I’ve frankly not seen any evidence of this.
He’s a horn dog who is always up for sex, but AFAIK it’s entirely on a volunteer basis. Has he manipulated women into sleeping with him? Does he lie or pressure people into sex, or is he just a fun, sexy hunk who is available?
For all we’ve seen, it’s the latter. If this is true, what exactly do you disapprove of here?
The “do” list comes to mind. His utter inability to provide Danny any sort of emotional support also occurs. His complete and utter fear of commitment, relationships and feelings probably also makes the list.
And this is my big problem with Joe as a character throughout this entire comic. From the beginning, he was a walking red flag. Everything about his behavior just screams out “sex predator”. The list, obviously. Talking about fixing Joyce with his penis before their date. Only interacting with women to hit on them. To paraphrase Rachel, approaching strange women to tell them how much he wants to fuck them. He talked a good game about consent, but we rarely actually see him take a “no” as a “no”, unless it’s accompanied by yelling or punches. He talks about using alcohol to have threesomes. We’re led to believe that he’s getting laid regularly, but we’re not shown the lead up to any of these (nor after effects for most), so we don’t get to see how he’s successful.
This isn’t someone to trust. This is someone you warn your friends away from, even if you’re not sure he’s actually done anything. Whisper networks and missing stairs.
But, he’s a protagonist, so we know it’s all about his growth arc and thus can’t be allowed to be too bad. He can’t actually be a rapist. Can’t have actually directly hurt any of the women he’s been with, if he’s going to be redeemed. And we find out eventually that much of it was just a pose – though it’s never clear quite how much.
But the problem here is that he’s a character who gives off so many red flags about being dangerous, but actually isn’t portrayed as dangerous. Which lets readers ignore those red flags and treat both characters and other readers who do point them out as overreacting. Even though both the list and the objectification were clearly called out in the narrative as serious problems he needed to overcome, he’s still being treated as “just a fun, sexy hunk who is available”.
I think you make good points here, in that the narrative reality is that Joe has to be written with all these initial face value flaws/flags that he has to overcome in order to have a growth arc (particularly because I think he’s initially supposed to represent a significant foil against Danny, who he’d probably be pretty similar to otherwise had he not had all his himbo attributes.) Then there’s also the blurred reality of the comic where it’s been written over 10 years while taking place over less than a year, i.e. the way Willis has viewed Joe’s character (and others) likely shifts somewhat over time, leading to some exaggerated changes in behavior/attitude that likely wouldn’t happen as quickly in real life as they are in the comic timeline.
I think the intent is that Joe’s sexual behavior/reputation is primarily learned behavior based on receiving approval/affirmation as a young person and a lot of his arc will be about overcoming/questioning what any of that means/why he was so apt to go down that path. Just as much, I think Dorothy’s arc & attitude towards Joe contributes to an overall commentary about perception of gendered roles/behaviors, and the whole point is that most people in general would be skeptical of Joe, and for Joe as a cishet white man, he’s got a high wall to climb to realistically convince others that any change of heart he experiences is authentic and not a carefully tailored, subversive/manipulative ruse in order to just succeed at sleeping with Joyce, who could represent a sort of “rare game/difficult conquest that requires a long game.”
In context of the writing itself, I imagine we will see other characters besides Dorothy also exhibit a similar level of skepticism, though Amber will play a role in being an ally for Joe, and Joe will be put in some sort of position where he has to publicly take some action that illustrates him as a “good guy beneath it all” instead of that persona being just some outfit he is wearing for the moment.
Fiction ultimately can be manipulative for readers in the way that you describe at the end of your comment. We are impossibly privy to all these different perspectives into the characters lives, and readers rooting for certain outcomes can lead them to viewing certain characters as antagonists based on them representing barriers to what they want to see. Many are giving Joe the benefit of the doubt because of what we know that basically no one else but Joyce knows (really, has just had a glimpse of) about Joe’s personal feelings/experiences,) but this could in itself also be viewed as social commentary that often times irl cishet white men get this institutional “benefit of the doubt” (particularly in sexual misconduct cases) that others do not receive. IRL, it’s not warranted, we DON’T have that insight into those people or their personal feelings and it is often based on projecting personal viewpoints, but here we have the otherwise unknowable evidence about Joe’s experiences.
Basically none of that is what I meant. I think Joe is unrealistically nice and good for someone with the character traits he showed at the beginning. He should have been worse and more dangerous to women at the beginning of his arc. Portraying someone with that many red flags as really harmless is what I see as the problem.
That’s what allows so many readers to right off there ever having actually been a problem with Joe. He gets all the benefit of the doubt. Even the things that were called out in canon get glossed over or ignored in favor of him just being a big sex-positive sweetheart.
Since I started reading this comic, I’ve gotten the impression that Joe talks a big game, but for the most part he really is all talk when it comes to anything sex-related. We have proof he had sex with Roz and Malaya and got as far as bra-on makeouts with Liz, and everything else has just been him saying things. Now, the things he says are often really fuckin’ gross, and the list is obviously super shitty, I’m not excusing those, but he really hasn’t done damn near anything he’s bragged about. He’s mostly smoke and mirrors, I think, and once he’s finished getting rid of those, I wonder if he won’t just be a decent guy with a lot to apologize for.
That’s my point though. He’s a person who’s presentation comes across all red flags, but really isn’t nearly that bad deep down. That’s why we’ve got people mad at Dorothy for not trusting him and why I’m uncomfortable with the presentation of “red flag guy” as really being someone to trust all along.
Also, I really can’t tell how often he’s supposed to be succeeding with the ladies – we know about Roz, Penny, Malaya and Liz and for awhile I’d thought the rest was probably just him talking, but during the Liz incident, Danny talks about being regularly sexiled, so it seems it really is more? Even still.
“Portraying someone with that many red flags as really harmless is what I see as the problem.”
(public service announcement voice)
Here are signs of a sexual predator.
….
Wait. No. This is the one in a million instance where deep down he’s a nice guy.
The more you know
(Shooting star)
Exactly.
I don’t find Joe particularly unrealistic. I knew some real people very much like him. Some of them turned out to be nice people who later remembered their teens with shame, others turned to be simply bad people.
I guess commenters get mad at Dorothy because the strip is now focusing more on her issues. I suspect this is a result of how many commenters tended to ignore them in the past and take the character as the trope Willis is caricaturizing.
Really like Joe? In that they were really nice safe people all along, but talked a big game?
Or people who presented the same kinds of red flags Joe did? And did have things to remember with shame.
Because the second are quite common, even some who grow out of it.
Yeah, I’m talking about people that were mostly talk and “attitude” and later regretted the kind of image they were projecting.
Not disagreeing with anything you’re saying, just thinking about the role of time in the writing of his character. As others have mentioned, it’s been ten years of real time since the first strip, so Willis’ opinions and way of writing characters may have changed over that time. Joe is (rightfully!) seen as a walking red flag because in general society has become better about noticing them. Maybe Willis always intended him to be a red flag with legs, or maybe he started out as a pastiche of an archetype that wasn’t that uncommon in the early ’00s and Willis started highlighting just how awful such a character would be in real life later.
Maybe at the very beginning and I obviously can’t really speak to Willis’s intentions. That really seems to be true of Joe’s appearances back in Roomies!, but by the time DoA started, it really seemed more intentional.
“Red flags” can be a self fulfilling prophecy. That can end up being just another form of prejudice. Joe is enthusiastic about sex, but I don’t remember him literally not taking a no as a no. Feels like in general he thinks there are plenty of fish in the sea.
There are also at least two slipshine comic which exists in the continuity, which show him in-the-act, so to speak.
I realise I live in the “utopian” Nordics, where universities aren’t a hotbed of sexual predation and misogyny. Reading your comments in this thread makes me feel the US is even more messed up than I thought.
Joe isn’t white and I’m not entirely convinced he’s het
Joe is definitely white. WASPs aren’t the only white folks out there.
Signed, someone of Ashkenazi Jewish background.
What do you mean Joe isn’t white?
He’s Jewish.
Which is complicated when it comes to whiteness.
What Nazi shit is this?
Thank you so much for pointing all of this out. I like Joe as a character and I’m mostly enjoying this as catharsis. Like, part of his growth means facing the negative consequences of his actions. Realizing that Danny has better game than him because Danny’s consistently nice and doesn’t creep women out. Learning about Ryan. Understanding and recognizing sexism even when he doesn’t experience it.
And his growth is good for him because he’ll view himself as an object less, and because he’ll be able to form more meaningful connections with people. The unpleasantness of doing it is enjoyable for me to watch through the lense of fiction. Schadenfreude is and has been a big part of his narrative role in dumbing of age.
I feel like I’m really missing something, because this kind of sounds like your big issue with Joe is that Joe, the fictional character, is being written as if he could be a complex person capable of both genuine harm AND genuine growth, and NOT as a cartoon PSA about sexual predators.
I think I really hate the idea that an author of an ongoing work should feel locked into the most unflattering and reductive idea of a character based on creative decisions they made a long time ago. It really feels like saying that characters in long-form storytelling formats shouldn’t be allowed to grow at all, which is insane to me when a creator has done *years-long* work on showing us concrete character evolution. (How many times have people here insisted that Joyce has no right to even begin to assert personal boundaries, because she didn’t have them at the beginning of the comic…even through she’s been slowly and steadily learning to respect other people’s boundaries for…several years now?)
@Cerusee: what you are missing, I think, is that thejeff is not saying Willis did a Bad Thing that we need to agree to condemn in the strongest terms or something. A conversation about representation doesnt have to be prescriptive to be worth having. It doesn’t have to draw a line between Good and Bad (aka PrObLeMaTiC) representations.
And look, you know you’re doing a strawman argument when you start forming this sort of sentences:
It really feels like saying that characters in long-form storytelling formats shouldn’t be allowed (etc)
It’s not at all that I don’t think he should be capable of growth, it’s that I think the original pre-growth version still came across as “all the red flags, but really harmless”. Which lets so many people still whitewash him as just a sex-positive himbo and ignore his actual growth (other than maybe that he’s now ready settle down and find romance). All of the harm and his early growth arc focused on indirect stuff like the list, which makes it easy to dismiss.
I think where you’re losing me is that you’re having an ongoing argument with *audience reaction* to the work—a thing no one can control, including the author of the work—and not with the work itself.
There is a shit-ton of wanky meta commentary in this comments section every single day about how everyone ELSE is reacting to the work, and whether they’re right or wrong about it, to the point where it regularly eclipses….the actual work, and what’s being presented. People are interpreting the strip wrong! People are misunderstanding the characters! People are *excusing inexcusable sins!* of fictional characters! I’m not immune; I am constantly biting my tongue on commenting on other people’s comments, although clearly not enough.
It’s exhausting, and it’s so much heat for so little light.
Do you ever consider, thejeff, that you might actually be in the wrong here? You seem to be so convinced that your reading is the one true way to look at how Joe has been presented and depicted in the comic, that you’re just straight up ignoring everything else and belittling differing takes.
I think I’ve had enough of you. Good day.
Joe is an extremely contrived character. If you look at all the red flags he throws off, you’d swear he’s a lying, manipulating, roofying, rapist. You wouldnt get a conviction, but most people who talk like him would be perfectly fine having sex with an unconscious woman who passed out drunk at a party.
But he isnt like that. He talks the game, but we get these little clues that a bunch of it is a facade. He once said alcohol helps with threesomes, but then later confessed he had never been in a threesome. He had a list, then did a donut apology tour.
I cant tell where joes character is going. . the male characters as a whole arent very impressive and dont hint at a big transformation for Joe.
Joyce had a huge transformation from fundie to atheist. Dorothy dumped wet noodle Danny, has been accepted to yale, and wants to be president. Becky stood up to her father, risked her life to save her friend, is a natural born leader, gave up her fundamentalism, but kept the core of her religion, and wants to be a scientist who studies evolution. Amber is friggen superhero who saved how many lives. Sal is a badass motorcycle chick with a heart of gold.
Danny is a wet noodle who’s biggest accomplishment is finding out hes a ukekele guy. Walky superpower is eating 50 nuggets and dressing like a slob. Ethan was in the closet, then shagging every guy he could and is grieving Mike in goth mode. Joe is a pig, maybe with a heart of gold? Jacob was a thing joyce could try to steal. And asher helped kidnap the characters and then arranged for ambers father to be murdered.
Pretty lopsided cast. The women have drive, have goals, overcome terrible obstacles, are powerhouses in their lives, are passionate, make mistakes, learn, etc.
Danny got a hat. Walky will wear a nice shirt if you buy one for him. Ethan is sulking and grieving. And joe?
Seriously, where can Joes character arc go in this world? He could conceivably become the male version of Becky, he’s generally outwardly positive, he could fall for joyce, and his lust could match becky’s but be durectee in a positive way.
But that would actually end up with Joe head and shoulders above every other male character in the cast. Becky rocks. Joe could rock like Becky in a positive way. But that would make joe the lead male character? Far beyond any other guy in the cast? I guess that could happen.
What i think might hapoen instead is Joe reveals his entire “bro” behavior has been a facade, he’s only had sex with 2 people, and he does a heel-face turn that makes him an ‘adorable’ weenus like the other male characters.
Ugh. Think the male weenus demogrsphic has plenty of representation already. But that might be Joes future.
“Dotty… you’re behaving as if Joe is some kind of a monster”
Uhhhhhhh interesting choice of words…
https://www.dumbingofage.com/2011/comic/book-1/03-men-are-from-beck-women-are-from-clark/penis/
Like VERBATIM
Still not a monster. You’re adding a lot of baggage onto Joe which isn’t there.
One thing that I think is neat about the last two comics is the ability to interpret the last panel as Dorothy is actually super evil/predatory when you remove prior context. In that “Find different prey” could be interpreted as “she is MY prey,” followed by “I know EXACTLY what I’m putting my faith in” being about Joyce, rather than about Joe. Clearly, neither of these pieces of dialogue actually mean this, but imagine if these were the reveal for Dorothy as a new malicious supervillain, deciding to show their true colors to Joe of all people at this moment, for whatever reason (perhaps in belief that he is also a supervillain.)
Considering the Mentality is which the United States considers ourselves to be a Superpower, we are like Dorothy that way, protecting all the lesser countries in a grooming, predatory manner.
Dorothy wins as a President if that is what she represents.
As a US President, considering what the US is, the rank would be appropriate.
I take back my previous statement.
Joe would lose to her because someone went and castrated him.
Maybe the previous Joe would have been worth a fraction of the Vote, but not this one.
Grooming and predatory
https://www.dumbingofage.com/2011/comic/book-1/03-men-are-from-beck-women-are-from-clark/penis/
Vitamin D. It cures what ails yah.
We found the infantilizing, folks! Especially after yesterday’s panel, imagine if Joyce found out this is how Dorothy spoke about her. Suddenly, Dina’s words would be a lot more immediately relatable.
Imagine
https://www.dumbingofage.com/2011/comic/book-1/03-men-are-from-beck-women-are-from-clark/penis/
A agree with Sarah.
I don’t really blame Dorothy so much as it really takes time for people to change. I would also find it hard if a friend like Joe suddenly changes after a couple months because in reality it’s only been a couple of months. I had a few friends like Joe and it took them years to change like late 20s to early 30s. I would be also kind of skeptical of the “new Joe” but it’s Joyce’s decision so Dorothy should let her handle it.
We will see long term whether “new Joe” sticks in perpetuity or if this is him just following an ideal based on an emotion he feels that he doesn’t fully understand yet. Regardless, having read the entirety of this comic within the last year, I find Joe’s presentation really interesting because while he is presented as being/having been a total himbo, he’s more or less always maintained a certain line of respectfulness for other people and their boundaries, made more interesting by his admission that his mother is autistic. I think this has always been a sort of intent in the way Joe is written, to contrast him against someone like the malicious scar-face rapist guy.
To me, I see Joe as actually somewhat similar to Joyce (and others in the strip,) in that they’ve had one way to learn how to move in the world up until this point. While Joyce had her lens of fundamentalism to view everything, Joe was in a place where as “the hot guy” he was likely constantly praised for being so, as well as being praised for his sexual prowess. I think at his core, you’ve got moreso an innocence and a person that’s never got to grow much beyond how they are viewed/valued by others. Rather than merely being a hedonist, I think a lot of Joe’s sexual encounters are more about going down a familiar path of external validation vs. his own internal desire, and this situation with his feelings about Joyce is him beginning to question what he actually feels as an individual / what he himself really wants beyond external validation. As such, both he and Joyce are in “uncharted territory” as something in their life triggered their questioning of how they knew/saw/did things.
Dorothy of course has every right to be skeptical of this because she’s not part of the audience and hasn’t got to see any of the personal moments Joe has experienced. At face value, he is what he is, a braggadocios himbo, but we are privy to personal solitary moments he has experienced that show us that there is more to him than that.
I never thought I’d say this about Dorothy of all people, and I’d never say this about a real person, but…she’s actually pretty hot when she’s pissed.
Also if someone who I’d known for years to be an objectifying horndog and had had a Do List started cozying up to one of my really good friends, I’d go a step past Dorothy and threaten him with bodily injury if he hurt my friend. Maybe that makes me an overprotective bongo myself, but eh.
Just wanted to say for whatever reason I found myself tickled by the phrase “overprotective bongo”
Let it be known that I specifically typed out b-o-n-g-o, not the other word!
It makes you a normal adult
https://www.dumbingofage.com/2011/comic/book-1/03-men-are-from-beck-women-are-from-clark/penis/
I dunno if I’d call Sarah “normal,” but I like her a lot so I’ll take it!
Look, this is DoA. There are no “normal” people here.
Sarah is probably the closest thing the cast has to “normal”. Pretty much everyone else is fucked three ways to sunday.
Oh? And what about Dina?
I dont know? What about Dina?
Would you also consider her “fucked three ways to sunday”?
She is if Becky has anything to say about it…
They’re all puppets on Willis’s strings.
I appreciate you. :3
Kinda hoping Dorothy gets to see how Joe has changed for the better soon.
Dorothy: “I know exactly what i’m putting my faith in”
Joe: “??”
Dorothy: “The power of logic and reason!”
Joyce: “??”
Dorothy: “Joyce, don´t cast yourself into the cragged pit of the lustwolf, please!”
DOROTHY! DONT YOU KNOW YOU CANNOT TALK DIRECTLY TO JOE! YOU CAN ONLY BRING YOUR CONCERNS TO JOYCE AND LET HER DECIDE! YOU ARE SO TERRIBLE AND CONTROLLING! YOURE SUBVERTING JOYCES AUTONOMY!
https://www.dumbingofage.com/2011/comic/book-1/03-men-are-from-beck-women-are-from-clark/penis/
Sarah to Joe just last semester, a few months on comic time: Joyce is a sweetie, ok? An ignorant little naif of a sweetie, but a sweetie. And your some kind of sex monster. Dont break her, ok?
Sarah just met both Joyce and Joe. Joyce as a toommate. Joe in genders study class.
Take Sarahs response to Joe, subtract sarahs misanthropy, add dorothy’s actual caring about people, then multiply by 4 years of knowing how low joe can go, and you land smack in tbe neighbohood of Dorothy saying “find different prey” just a few months later.
Dorothy deciding to confront Joe and feeling the way she does is perfectly reasonable. Dorothy is also being overly aggressive about this, more than she would normally, because she is being slightly overprotective and a bit controlling due to being insecure about her relationship with Joyce at the moment, and also trauma. She’s overstepping slightly, but it’s nothing egregious, really. However, Joyce is overly sensitive about her own agency at the moment due to HER trauma, and this may likely cause further conflict between Joyce and Dorothy.
All of these things can be true at once!
“All of these things can be true at once!”
Thats a different way of putting it, but the same thing im trying to say.
Everyone gets to have their own relationship with
other people, and they dont have to liine up, they dont need someones permission to hate joe just because someone else loves joe, or whatever.
People can be different. People can have different experiences. People can have different opinions. And likely everyone is at least a little wrong about something. Thats what happens when people live different lives. Dorothy has a lot longer history with joe and seen years of bad behavior. Joyce has seen a couple months of bad behavior and a few months of trying to change. Theyre going to have different opinions of joe. Neither one is the whole picture of joe. Neither one is “right”. They are both skewed on their own ways. But thats a linitation we all get as humans.
Did dorothy over react compared to what “real” joe, “today” joe deserves? Probably. But joe is a big boy. He can put on his big boy pants and deal with this very real example of how his past behavior hurt people and scared people around him.
Joyce confronted Joe about the list and explained how that list scared women to know predators are out their ranking their bodies. But it really isnt just the list. Joe has years of behavior that made people afraid. A single donut apology tour isnt gonna cut it. If he has any self awareness, he might notice how his past behavior has scared dorothy into rage to protect her friend.
All of that is shit in the background that could be brought to the forefront and these characters actually get to grow as adults.
But thens theres this idea that dorothy now has to suspend her experience of joe and run all her opinions through joyce before getting approval to talk to joe. And its ludicrously childish. These characters arent in middle school.
Or at least i hope not.
I also think she is trying to squeeze in as much helping as she can, because she might still go to Harvard, there is that letter…
Or was it Yale? idk, one of the two.
Yale.
Yeah. Maybe?
Dorothy pushed Walky into Lucy’s arms so he had someone to take care of him once dirothy left.
But that was planned. She seemed to keep having pity-sex with walky cause she didnt like seeing him sad. So i guess if walky had a girlfriend, it would free her conscience about leaving
This just blindsided Dorothy maybe twenty minutes ago? She couldnt have planned this. She literally just found out Joe is pursuing Joyce on their way to taco bell.
Joyce returns to table, sees serious looks: “What were you guys talking about?”
Joe: “Dorothy knows my past and is concerned that I would use you and then abandon you.”
Dorothy: …
=========
I mean, Dorothy, you clearly care about Joyce but you also don’t know every conversation they’ve had
am I the only person who doesn’t think joe is a scumbag lol
No. No you are not.
He’s a messed up kid trying to be a better person and he’s scared he’s going to fail.
No, you’re not.
Joe sings the dogwhistle of a scumbag. He’s also done some scummy things. But while he has the same bark as a dog who might roofie a woman, we have seen some glimpses that his bark is wprse than his bite, and he is trying to ckean up some of his more egregious past behaviors
Doesnt mean everyone has to instantly forgive him.
He’s got work to do.
I don’t think the vast majority of commenters think he’s a scumbag. I don’t think he’s a scumbag. If you go back to the Joe/Joyce strips everybody is basically in favor and thinks it’s adorable.
What some people, including me, think is that it’s reasonable for Dorothy to think he’s a scumbag. She’s known him for years. Seen him at his worst. Hasn’t seen the recent development that he’s mostly been trying to hide. She’s wrong, but she has good reasons.
His dad raised him to be a scumbag. He is trying to change.
There is no narrative where Dorothy sees Joe making ever modest moves on her friend and doesn’t intervene.
Maybe if joe does a donut apology tour for dorothy.
I dont think dorothy has seen or heard many of joes apologies. Definitely hasnt seen joes attempts at growth.
Shitty! Misogynistic! Behavior! Has! Negative! Consequences!
You might find it frustrating but the narrative is better because of this scene IMHO. Frankly I would worry that Willis had a misogyny issue if his female characters automatically coddled men. It’s good writing.
Ok, c’mon guys. Looking at it from Dorothy’s perspective, who has not been privvy to Joe’s whole character arc, Joe and Joyce want different things. Joyce wants a boyfriend, Joe wants sex, at least that’s what Dorothy thinks. Joe has massive issues when it comes to relationships. He was weird about having a close friendship with Danny, probably his oldest friend. Even though he now apparently (from Dorothy’s perspective) wants to get into a relationship, she might not trust him to stick with it or not freak out about him messing up.
This might have happened before, I doubt Joe has never been in love, but he might not have let himself be in a relationship because he is so scared to hurt his partner.
And Dorothy does not want Joyce hurt. From her perspective, as someone who soon might not be able to help Joyce out, because there is still the Harvard letter, she sees this as doomed, maybe. Maybe she also just wants to put the fear of god into Joe, so he doesn’t do something he isn’t ready to, but idk. This is just guesswork.
Point is, this is very understandable. Should she talk to Joyce about it? Yes, but she can… still do that? Not sure Joyce would be receptive of it though, after feeling smothered by Dorothy just the same morning.
And here’s a reminder how switching Sal out for Dorothy doesn’t make so much sense in the backstories. Sal putting up with Joe? Yeah. Dorothy putting up with Joe as Danny’s friend in HS, not so much. Even as kind of distanced, but it’s not really presented as distanced anyway. IMHO.
I feel that it characterizes Dorothy as someone who’s been politely sick of his shit for years and is only just expressing it.
I dunno Dorothy, I think Joyce can handle this situation… She technically already dated Joe over a decade ago but by my count of the sliding timescale it was probably only like 4-some odd months ago.
And she let Mike beat the absolute crap outta him, so she’s not taking anything lightly methinks.
“And she let Mike beat the absolute crap outta him”
Remember that time Joyce repeatedly proxy-punched Joe for his naughty thoughts?
And now people say Dorothy is crushing Joyce’s autonomy with a legit conversation.
How far we’ve come…
Even if she knew that Joe’s trying to be a better person, she cares enough about Joyce that she likely wouldn’t be happy with this development. After all, “trying” doesn’t always mean “succeeding”.
Ah, the being scared part, that hits home. I was never a Joe-level chad, but I could be casually flirty with the ladies… until I ran into her.
Nearly crapped my pants.
Took me like two months to ask her out, I was scared out of my mind. And it turns out I was right – she’s been scaring me for nearly 25 years now.
Good for you, man. Me, I never did get up the courage.
Incidentally, yesterday’s tags still credit Walky as being the one in the strip instead of Joe.
So there’s a lot, I guess, about how Dorothy is running the wrong play here, as a friend to Joyce, going over her head etc.
But she’s been Joe’s friend for longer. Maybe she’s being Joe’s friend here, more so than Joyce’s.
Im probably too judgy to be friends with a Joe irl, without being omniscient to his private moments of personal development, but if I WERE, I’d rip fully into him for a choice like this. ‘your decision to pursue this person WILL impact our friendship’. It’s not like the fail-state here affects only Joyce- it’s a real high-risk sitch for Joe too.
I don’t think she’s really been Joe’s friend. She’s known him a long time and I’m sure once tolerated him for Danny’s sake, but there’s been little sign of actual friendship there.
Which is also partly why she doesn’t know about him changing.
She has indeed known Joe for many years, so there is something to say about that. She also hasn’t had any opportunity to get Joyce alone, either.
Yes, she needs to talk to Joyce, but I think people are overlooking these factors, too.
It’d be really funny if Joe and Dorothy suddenly started aggressively (and willingly, since that probably can’t just go left unsaid today) making out right there on the table, then Joyce walked over and started nonchalantly eating her food like it’s the most nondescript thing she’s seen all day.
starting to think dorothy is projecting some misplaced rage. she seems frustrated lately.
Joes low hanging fruit, an easy target.
Who in Dorothys circle is going to blame her for going off at Joe.
But going off at Jennifer or Becky is a more tricky proposition….
Yeah, she must of taken Sarah’s suggestion that she might be ND really hard
C’mon, Dorothy. Joe’s trying to change for the better – give him a chance.
If he falls back into his old ways, THEN you can tear him a new one.
I bet Roz would LOVE being considered a “faceless conquest.”
I have never liked Joe more than I do right now.