Stepping back to a cultural/historical perspective, orthodox Judaism heavily emphasizes ritual and behavioral strictures — dietary laws, ritual purity rules for festivals, that sort of thing. Since many of these strictures can be quite onerous, we look for ways to bend them. For instance, last night Pessach (passover) started. Orthodox Jews not only cannot eat leavened bread during Pessach, they’re not supposed to have any in the house, and some say you’re not allowed to own any at all during passover. Rather than throwing away all that food, Orthodox Jews will “sell” it to a non-Jewish friend and then “buy it back” at the end of the holiday. Another element of Pessach services is the reading of the Haggaddah, an account of the exodus of Jews from Egypt. The Haggaddah contains several ritualized arguments for the family to recite, including a story of four medieval rabbis staying up all night arguing about the number of plagues that God visited on Egypt (they all come up with reasons for the traditional number 10 to be wrong).
This kind of logic-chopping and rules lawyering, so central to orthodox Jewish religious practice, spread to other aspects of Jewish life. It’s a game to us, and sometimes a profession. Rabbis, lawyers, teachers and professional students are highly regarded in Jewish culture, in part for having found ways to make a living at arguing. We even make jokes about arguing with God — and winning.
It’s true, we do. I once witnessed my grandmother and her sister arguing over which direction was the proper way for toilet paper to come off the roll. It can occasionally backfire though, which is what I expect in this instance.
hehe, for some reason, jew jokes have always flew over my head. Especially Kumar and Harold movie and Family guy and Drawn Together <_< Is it because society is improving?
By “overpowers” does he mean that people can’t see past him being gay for the geek that he is? Or that him being gay overpowers his ability to indulge in the internet and robot-collecting?
You wouldn’t believe how much your sexual preference can cause people to stop looking at you as the person who likes the same stuff as you do, and start looking at you as ‘the guy that could be checking out my ass’
I think, on that note, that Ethan’s in an interesting position to comment not just on real life, but also for gay fictional characters like himself and the way they may be crudely perceived or written.
Sexual orientation affects shipping potential, the sooner you know the potential options the sooner you can explore those options. As the DoA verse Ethan is many years younger than Shortpacked Ethan his childhood, hobbies and such will naturally shift. His age makes the fact that certain thinsg will be different obvious, but sexuality is a question that can only be answered through direct evidence.
Gangler has a decent point, Ethan’s the gay character in the comic, we think of him as gay first, geek second. Honestly his entire DOA character wouldn’t make sense if he was straight. Meanwhile characters such as Dorothy and Walky aren’t called the straight characters.
He’s the gay character because that’s what’s constantly referenced in the storyline. DoA is largely about feels and t3h s4x. If DoA were more like Shortpacked, where toys are equally as central to the characters, then Ethan would again be That Guy With The Robot Addiction.
Agreed, I only occasionally go to Shortpacked, but I identify Ethan there as a Transformers nerd more than his sexual orientation. I don’t even remember the last time that was brought up here.
Yup, I know that many of those questions were in jest, but it still annoyed me. At the time I was thinking “Does it really matter?” and “We will learn when it becomes relevant to the story, so stop asking”. Maybe I should have posted instead of just thinking it :/
Sexual orientation is also more broadly interesting. I’ve been reading David Willis’ webcomics since I was in middle school, and it sure as hell isn’t because of all the funny discussions about Transformers.
Not that they’re not funny, I’m just not a Transformers guy. It’s a bit like how I read Penny Arcade even in the 2000s, when I didn’t own a game console.
Being transgender is both better and worse. Better because if you’re good enough to blend in there’s no difference in the way people treat you. Worse because if you are good enough to blend in you always wonder if people can still tell – and on the rare times that they do accidentally or deliberately misgender you (… as SOMEONE did to me at ECCC … ) it can send you into a tailspin, whether for a moment or a month.
And if you *aren’t* able to blend in perfectly, you are always sitting there waiting for the next person to freak out.
Also, transgender rights, for things like discrimination in the workplace, or being recognized as your chosen gender by Social Security, always takes a backside in the press and general political discussion to everything else. That really f***ing ticks me off.
Hate to sound like a horrible broken commercial, but I hope it gets better. Or Hang In There (complete with cute kitten hanging by its paws).
Yea this, so very this. The number of hoops I have had to jump through just to get my new name recognized, and to get my ID change to reflect that. I have had to put up with a bunch of stuff at work. I once had a small child come right up to me and say ‘hi freak’ and his parents didn’t see the need to correct him.
Is he an active sword swallower or just acknowledging that he now knows he wants to? I have no clarity on this point with his character – and don’t want to search a thousand comics, when 2nd semester is *actually* half over, and they are only into week #2 of first semester!!
As far as we know, he is simply aware of the fact he like dudes.
We have never seen him with anyone else, and judging by his lack of social-life, he doesn’t seem to be…
I mean, if you had anyone else (and you were male-gay), would you go to the church with Joyce?
Being gay totally ruins the internet for him! Before he realized his preference, he was ambivalent about porn. Now he can’t browse without thinking “Screw this intelligent and thought-provoking forum, I could be looking at naked dudes!”
I know, I went through the same thing when I got old enough to realize that boobs are awesome.
Urgh…yaoi. Mind you, I don’t hate yaoi, it’s the fangirls that I really hate. Specifically, the rabid ones. Then again, as my friend said when his favorite series focuses more on the fangirl bait character rather than the main character: “Fangirls ruin EVERYTHING!”(The all caps was for emphasis).
I know, man! When a series focuses more on the fangirl bait than the main character/story: “Fangirls ruin EVERYTHING!” But when a series focuses on fanboy bait – that’s just normal and ‘real life’ and completely the natural order of things, right?
Not really, in my humble opinion, creators of the series shouldn’t really pander to the extreme side of the fandom(that includes fanboys and fangirls).
Well some people simply don’t like anime/manga/fanfiction. On the other hand, it has been scientifically proven that those people are crazy. Yeah…Sciency…
if being gay was putting you in the yaoi club, then why would the yuri club imply straight membership? Shouldn’t the sexual orientation in that sentence be ‘lesbian’?
I would think that yuri club implying/not implying straightness, would be… equivalent to yaoi club implying/not implying the same. The hetero anime club, now that does seem to make sense.
The actual percentage of yuri that I find actually sexy instead of ragingly offensive and annoying is miniscule. :\ Of course, same for a lot of yaoi. And…okay, let’s be honest, a lot of manga and anime is really bad at gender and sexuality and not being rapey in relationships involving sex. And I like manga.
No, because yaoi is written by and for women. Some gay men like it and some don’t, but they are neither its creators nor its audience.
If you were ever to compare doujinshi for straight men to yaoi, you would notice a fairly large difference in — well, to be blunt, dicks.
The vast majority of yaoi in Japan kind of hides the genitals. The sex going on might be intense or not, but the intensity is MOSTLY conveyed by the dialogue rather than the art. You won’t see erections in any detail or (even during scenes of anal sex) will you see anyone’s anus or balls.
Compare this to a typical doujinshi for men, and OMG the dick worship. There will be multiple pages devoted to showing it being licked and sucked. There will be “transparent” illustrations so that you can see the dick inside the girl’s throat, inside her vagina, mysteriously penetrating her WOMB.
And in these doujinshi, you can always tell how into anal the artist was by how intensely detailed the girl’s anus is when she spreads her legs.
I mean, the “men are more visual thing women” thing is bull. But I think that even straight ladies are less interested in seeing the dick than straight men, so I can’t help assuming gay men would be even more interested in seeing it?
(I mean comparatively there’s almost no vag in straight doujinshi, and boobs exist mostly for titty fucking. The guy in the doujinshi gets all the pleasure, so it being for male gaze is really obvious.) (And all of this is without even going into the interesting phenomenon of “futanari”, where straight dudes add even more dick camera time.)
Did that clear everything up or am I just rendering readers blind?
Oh and I’m not saying that straight doujinshi porn should be more for women or that yaoi should be more for gay men — I just wish I knew where to find the rest of the doujinshi. The gay dude doujinshi for gay dudes would be interesting to read, I’d love to see yuri for ladies, etc. Porn is fantasy and we shouldn’t really be shamed for our fantasies IMHO.
Okay, yesterday’s strip took me from sympathizing with his attempt at self-delusion due to the misery that caused it to being disgusted with Ethan’s manipulation of the situation.
Today’s strip has taken me from being simply disgusted with Ethan to having really mixed feelings including both disgust and sympathy.
Tomorrow’s strip will make you feel apathetic with a hint of stomach discomfort, followed by Thursday’s cloudy with a chance of meatballs, and then you will cap off the week with a strange desire to dress as a squirrel and dance the Batusi.
Keep in mind that if Batusi Squirreling occurs for longer than 3 hours, consult your doctor or physician. You may be suffering from a condition known as Squirrel Dance Fever. Not to be confused with Ants in my pants Fever or Boogie Fever.
>>>Today’s strip has taken me from being simply disgusted with Ethan to having really mixed feelings including both disgust and sympathy.
——
That would be called “Inappropriate Emotional Attachment/Concern for an Multi-Personality Disordered Imaginary Entity” (or just plain ‘disgustpathy’)
Doesn’t remotely justify leading Joyce on though. He could have just NOT dated for a while until he was comfortable with people knowing. Now he’s being a manipulative ass.
I agree. If he wanted new friends he could have made them without getting a new beard. If he’d told Joyce he just wanted to be friends I’m sure she would have been fine with it.
Ironically a sure way to ward her off would’ve been to express sexual interest in her. A quick and simple “Hey there hot stuff” and he could’ve asserted his heterosexuality while avoiding this whole debacle.
Technically, sexuality isn’t something people talk about all day long, or need to, anyway. He doesn’t have to hide it. He’s more asexual, anyway, if he’s anything like the Shortpacked Ethan, who usually focuses more on his toys than his boyfriend anyway. Let’s face it, Ethan doesn’t really care about sex. Why should he talk about it? Why should he pretend to be straight to Joyce, or even bother telling anyone the truth, when it’s not a part of his life he considers important? He doesn’t enjoy any of those things. It seems like he doesn’t even really enjoy relationships aside from the platonic aspects. Why shouldn’t he just never talk about sex? Forget straight or gay or all those other labels we throw on people so we can spend more time talking about configuring penises and vaginas. Let him focus on what he really cares about–toys. If talking about sex makes him uncomfortable, why talk about it?
Who really needs sex? I do, but I know for a long time I didn’t, and I’ve got friends who could totally care less. Ethan acts like them.
I know we’re so accustomed with labelling people and putting them in boxes that this sounds like a weird idea. It’s like reverse hedonism. But I think it works. Forget sex, more transformers. Less cooties FTW!
Eh, generally in Shortpacked once he’s had a boyfriend there has been sex and he does generally enjoy it, but the point still stands. When he’s been out of relationships it hasn’t looked like he was missing anything too much.
Well, he’s probably that kind of asexual, where sex is favorable if you can get it but is not needed and not worth worrying about when you can’t get it. Sexuality has all these layers and loops to it that honestly we’d be better off just not labeling everything.
Yeah. Basically, he’s using Joyce as “protection” for his new identity. She is an unwilling and unwitting beard. It’s only because of her own hangups about sex that this situation’s tenable even in the short term.
Your mileage may vary on the fact that he is doing this out of fear, not mere convenience. And it’s worth pointing out that Joyce is also with him out of fear– she does not know why, but she knows that he feels “safe,” that he doesn’t show the urge to make a move on her like Joe would. He would also have reason to feel used if he weren’t being a user, and so wrapped up in his own problems that he can’t really see the person on his arm.
Ethan’s summation of the situation in panel 4 isn’t exactly fair, but it’s certainly understandable that he feels that way. Still, it’s kind of a toxic thing to say, because now Amber can’t try to spend more time with him without both of them feeling like she’s just trying to prove something.
And though Amber’s coping well with it, it simply has to hurt her deeply that her ex-boyfriend (ex-prom date, at least), who tried and failed to overcome his orientation on their special night, thinks that maybe he can overcome his orientation with someone else now, someone he barely knows. The silver lining in that horrible prom experience for Amber was that she could say “It wasn’t ME. If he could’ve had sex with any woman, it would have been with me.” Ethan isn’t exactly planning to have sex with Joyce eventually, but when he says that he hopes his desires for men are transient, he is at least not closing off that possibility. And therefore he is robbing Amber of the small comfort she’d clung to.
Sure she can try and spend more time with him; she can apologize, and they can hang out like before. Preferably with the caveat that he comes out to them immediately (Not that it matters, seeing as how she apparently announced it on twitter with all the other characters around…) and makes his own quite necessary apologies.
Is it as easy as I make it sound? Nope. But it can be done.
She could, or Ethan could stop letting the fact that he’s gay completely control him as a person. Yes, people approach you and interact with you differently when they are aware of that fact, but it doesn’t completely ruin your life. Considering this is supposed to take place in a modern setting, I find it unbelievable that everyone on campus would shun him if they found out.
What he’s doing is trying to guilt Amber into spending more time with him, which is horribly cruel. She was completely devestated by Ethan, considering she was wildly in love with him, and on the night they intended to lose their virginity, comes out as gay, and then relies on her to be his emotional crutch in the following months. I would be amazed if anyone was able to recover from that instantly. What he’s doing to Joyce is both cruel and morally bankrupt, she’s already an emotional wreck, add in the fact that her upbringing probably has her convinced Homosexuals are akin to the Devil, and it’s going to end horribly for everyone…
He isn’t trying to guilt Amber into anything. He’s trying to rationalize what he’s doing for the sake of giving himself a little normalcy. It’s not that he expects to be universally shunned, but that he doesn’t want to be thought of as gay first, Ethan second, negatively or even positively.
Which doesn’t justify him being crappy to Joyce, but it doesn’t make him cruel, just flawed. The past several months have certainly been at least as emotionally taxing on Ethan as on Amber, so it’s not exactly hard to understand him wanting to get to “take a break” from it too. The way he’s going about it is selfish, but the motivation isn’t -that- unreasonable.
I just realized how similar this situation is to something I dealt with in college: I lost my virginity to a lesbian, who broke up with her boyfriend/prom date over her attraction to girls.
Six months later in the dorms, she invited me to go with her to Walmart to buy batteries for some… things… which lead to flirtation and ultimately sex.
A year later, my (new) girlfriend was teasing me for having sex with this lesbian in front of a new friend who turned out to be her ex-boyfriend. Boy, that was awkward. And hilarious.
wait so i was always under the impression that ethan led amber on, also. and then his unfortunate “coming out” was in the middle of prom. i mean, that’s really something pretty hard for most girls to stomach, i’d imagine.
If he didn’t want being gay to be an issue, he could just not talk about it. It’s like he said, they’re strangers. They’ll assume straightness, sure, but if you just don’t bring it up you don’t have to deal with always always always and you are only lying by omission. Straight up dating a lady is probably taking it too far.
See, Ethan, there’s a difference between letting people presume you’re straight so they won’t see you as the gay guy and letting an unsuspecting girl be your beard to convince folks you’re straight. There are LOTS of single straight guys and if it means that much to you you can pretend to be one of THOSE.
Sometimes it seems like there are very few. Walking around campus surrounded by horny young adults discovering and exploring their sexuality with a newfound freedom feeling like he’s gonna stick out like a sore thumb if he doesn’t play along. Career-minded Dorothy’s got her hands all over some caramel, Walky “Girls are Icky” Walkerton is down for some sexytimes if you are, the nun to his side wants a husband and is looking at him with Hungry eyes, Roz parades down the halls shouting about safe sexual liberty and the newspapers are going on about Joe’s latest sexual escapades.
“You’re not looking for that kind of relationship right now, why not? Everybody else is.”
When you’re pre-occupied you don’t always notice everybody who isn’t something. You don’t see Sarah happy enough on her own, you see her roommate the religious one who claims to be against sex but is still clearly so into it. You notice Sal pulling the TA around while the deaf girl tagging along behind somehow remains in your blind spot.
Hell, it’s how our fiction is structured. Not currently coupled or actively engaged in establishing a coupling, you’re a secondary character. You’re in the background. You provide a snappy comment at the end of the scene while all the couplers talk about their couplestuff.
People talk about sex like it’s a primary drive akin to the need to sleep or eat, only more interesting because comic book covers have a lot more sex items on them than delicious food items. It doesn’t seem like a difficult conclusion to reach that being sexually unexpressive would be conspicuous if you feel like you’re hiding something.
Very well written, gangler. Oh and your secondary character argument will fall once Mike or the Pizza Lord guy gets their own webcomic. You’ll see, you’ll all see!
@Wack’d: My view on this matter is that Ethan’s behavior is completely fine in regard to the fact that he is hiding this information from his friends. His friends do not “have a right to know”, just as they would not “have a right to know” if their friend was transgendered or something. On the other hand, he is making it clear that he is dating Joyce. She sort of Does have a right to know that he is gay.
On my third hand though, Joyce seems to be the kind of person that would blab to everybody (who hadn’t already known/figured it out) about her new discovery during her subsequent freak out. If he feels fairly confident that she might blab his secret all over campus then I’d say his actions are justified. Deciding to go on a date with Joyce at all was still a bad idea, but he can always say that he would prefer to be friends with her. He really does not have to tell Joyce despite how things seem right now. He could always just say that he just wants to be friends and I think Joyce would be able to settle for that (after a much milder freak out).
I thought she wasn’t hanging out with him because a) they’re both meeting new people in college and it’s been what, two weeks now? and b) her feelings had been hurt because of his coming out while they were dating, and presumably she liked him at the time, so things were confusing what with having to simultaneously support her ex boyfriend’s coming out which was more important than dealing with her own hurt feelings? (guessing…)
I hadn’t gotten the impression of ‘ugh, too much dealing with the gay stuff, buh bye Ethan’ from her; Guess we’ll just have to find out more context about their past relationship in the last year or so that we don’t have (or I guess I missed/don’t remember).
It’s sad because this is the justification that one goes through because they are afraid that people’s opinions will change of them, and in the process of trying to bury the ‘problem’, end up dragging people who have nothing to do with it down, and end up hurting them one way or another. Fear. It’s a bongo.
I really wish I had the self control to not read this for a few weeks. Then I could go through a bunch at once and NOT BE AT THE EDGE OF MY SEAT EVERY SINGLE DAY. Damn you, David Willis! Why must you write so well but share so few panels at a time?
What I said on yesterday’s strip still applies. You don’t have to date in college. You could just say you’re focusing on your studies. And while I can understand his position it does not excuse leading Joyce on.
Agreed. Or just say “Thanks, but I don’t feel like dating at the moment.” It’s okay if you’re kinda burned out on that for now. If you really feel the need to go into more detail without actually coming out, your last relationship ended in a way that could definitely be described as “messy”. I think Joyce would understand. Possibly, anyway. The others certainly would.
Oh, and also, Ethan, if you had gone through any trauma I expect Amber would’ve stopped hanging out with you if only because she spent all summer helping you and now wants her own time. It has NOTHING to do with you being gay, and is absolutely not unreasonable.
In fairness, what she spent the entire summer “helping” him with was the fallout from the discovery that he was gay. He’s oversimplifying, but they’re close enough that she’s probably not going to misunderstand.
Well, Ethan leading Joyce on IS more dickish than we’ve come to expect from him in either universe. I didn’t have a problem with it so much when he was just being friendly and letting Joyce think what she wanted (so long as she didn’t, like, bring up “we’re totally boyfriend and girlfriend now” only for him to lie about it) but now, yeah, he’s actively BSing. Even I can’t side with him on this one. I’m not unsympathetic but this is so very clearly a disaster waiting to happen.
Huge flaw in you’re argument Ethan, the reason she left you alone in the first place is because you came out while DATING HER. What are you doing with Joyce? THE SAME DAMN THING. What happens when she wants more out the relationship?!
I actually think this comic makes Ethan seem like a completely self-centered twit. He says being gay defines him, but it’s because he allows it to define him. I don’t know many people that completely changed when they came out, so why is he trying to say that accepting the fact that he is gay completely nullifies his hobbies?
To add to that, he is being a terrible friend to Amber. She was there by his side all summer to help with the fallout of his coming out of the closet, even though it was probably wrecking her emotionally. God forbid she be allowed to have some time to herself and live independant of Ethan and his problems. I think Amber is probably one of my favorite characters, so I may be a bit biased, but I think Ethan comes off as a huge douche at this point.
To add to all of that, after basically leading Amber on, he is now doing the exact same thing to Joyce, who is already an emotional wreck considering what she’s been through in her first couple weeks at school. If\when Ethan reveals to her that he is in fact gay, she will be absolutely devestated.
He ‘came out’ while in bed with her on prom night. They were both virgins. He is lucky she talks to him at all imo. I mean damn Ethan, you were the only one in the bed that night right? You are the only one tramatized right?
Nope, can’t say as how I feel (in any way shape or form) that what he is doing is right, no matter how he feels.
I’m sorry for anyone that is hurting. But, it stops when that person seems incapable of coping without hurting others. And he is hurting Joyce.
While I agree with what you say, I would probably think Amber’d be kind of a shitty person if she DID stop being friends with him because of prom night.
I’m also not entirely sure how the fact that his homosexuality has turned his best friend into his spurned and distant ex-lover makes any of this any easier for him. It’s not like he’s condemning her or anything. He’s just being plain and truthful. Amber says “They were bad friends”, Ethan says “They were the best of friends”. He’s not just talking about some assholes at the toy store who won’t hang out with him anymore. Real solid relationships which he values have been fundamentally altered in unfavorable ways by this development. Used to be he could just be geeky pals with people and now there’s always this hanging over their heads. He seems to be trying to rebuild what he once had. Unfortunately as many are pointing out you rebuild a faulty structure and it’ll just collapse again.
More pointedly if two people know something it’s not a secret anymore. Can’t start fresh when you’re bringing people with you from back home.
Yeah, this. I mean, yes, there’s a distinction between “Because you’re gay, I don’t want to spend time with you” and “Because supporting you through your coming out was so emotionally exhausting, I don’t want to spend time with you,” but it still amounts to Ethan’s best friend not wanting to spend time with him anymore. And it wouldn’t have happened if he hadn’t come out.
This doesn’t justify leading Joyce on, of course it doesn’t, but Ethan’s hurt and abandonment are real, and they aren’t going to magically go away just because Amber has her reasons.
Oh Ethan, Amber wasn’t exhausted from the gay thing. She was exhausted from being your emotional crutch for the whole summer. That can be exhausting for anyone of any sexuality.
A man and a woman are close friends. One friend develops feelings for the other and tries to act on them. The other friend isn’t interested and rebuffs the attempt. This happens all the time in friendships between a straight man and a straight woman. When it does, no one thinks twice about the likelihood that the two of them aren’t going to remain close friends, because of the frustrated feelings, the rejection, and the awkwardness.
Blaming the cooling of the friendship on his being gay is frankly self-centered on Ethan’s part. He’s totally failing to see what Amber’s point of view would have been. Just like he’s doing with Joyce.
The thing is, Amber told Ethan why she didn’t want to spend time with him right now, and that isn’t what she said. Yes, the awkwardness of the rejection is almost certainly part of it, but is it really fair to say that Ethan is failing to see Amber’s point of view when he listened to what she said and took her at her word?
I know those feels Ethan, I know them good. I’m only out to a few people IRL, but sometimes it seems that the only thing they want to talk about is my sexuality. They say things like “Hey, what do you think about this, you know, as a gay guy?” and they mean well, trying to include me, but it sometimes hurts that that’s all I am.
Sorry man, that people dont mean bad, but also neither they are doing good to you. What you need its just friends not “considerate friends”. You got to talk about this with them.
It takes friends time to get used to it. My friends were all really quite good about it, but there was definitely a little while before I started getting treated the same again.
Whenever she got drunk, my best friend since high school would introduce me at parties as “this is ___, she’s a lesbian!” I feel the same way about my orientation that I do about being right handed – it’s a little depressing when people you’ve known for ten years suddenly think it’s the most relevant piece of information about you.
While Ethan’s points are valid he lost the right to have it as a valid excuse when he kissed Joyce and called her his girlfriend. Letting himself be Joyce’s boyfriend I can understand, but that’s not what Amber saw.
And as others have said his argument for Amber is incorrect. I feel bad for Ethan but he’s in the wrong here.
His argument for Amber is not incorrect. It’s not entirely fair, but it’s totally spot on-hurtfully so. What he’s doing with Joyce is wrong, and yes he is in the wrong, but everything he’s said these last couple strips is accurate.
Leading Joyce on is wrong, and it takes time for these things to stabilize with people, but from what we’ve been given it sounds like yeah, being gay has turned his life completely upside-down. It’s not Amber’s fault but that doesn’t make it not true.
While it’s true that the media tends to latch onto the extreme gay stereotypes, many gays do try to make themselves distinct from straights for two main reasons; The Coolness factor and to make it easier to find other gay men.
[hugs for concerned citizen] I hope it gets better. (And that your best friend doesn’t become a vigilante crimefighter, no matter how awesome it may seem at the time.)
Man, this one made me tear up a little, and I’m not quite sure why.
I’m getting to be known as ‘the asexual’, and finding conversation topics tend to dry up once I come out, but I’m still the same person I always was. I still like Doctor Who, webcomics, computer games. I still want to travel, and maybe have kids one day. (More complicated, but never impossible.)
If I’d figured it out at Ethan’s age, I would probably have done the exact same thing: pretended to be straight. (At the time, I just thought I was a late bloomer, and shrugged it off. No big deal, right?)
Honestly, a part of me now is tempted to do what Ethan is doing now. (‘Wouldn’t it be easier to have and raise kids with a heterosexual life partner?’) But I’ve seen enough of the world now to have an idea of how that would go: badly. I really feel for Ethan, he has to learn the hard way. I don’t envy him. Much.
Ah, i’m sorry. How did that happen? Somehow with me it was a curiosity for a few minutes and then it was never mentioned again. Then again they keep forgetting other things about me and often talk about things that are painful for me.
I’m mostly out to family in the offline world, and some of them can’t seem to get over not wanting to make more family (even though I DO want that)
They don’t understand, and I get so hung up on that that I can’t find the words to explain. (I’ve read the ‘for family’ page on AVEN so many times, but knowing what to say, and knowing when/how to say it are entirely different things.) So partly I blame myself, I guess?
I’m sorry that it’s hard for you right now. I hope you find your people. Or that your people get hit by a clue-by-four soon and drop the stupid label thing.
“Yes Amber, You got to let me abuse a naive girls feelings for me so that I can out myself when I feel for it, godsake Amber, Its not like Joyce will suffer because of me, right!?”
Wait, hasn’t he also been avoiding her? I mean, I realize this was partially to avoid revealing his “new friend” was also a “new beard”, but he hasn’t exactly been tripping over himself to rekindle that relationship.
The first time we see Ethan in DoA, he and Mike are trying to get a very reluctant Amber to come to lunch with them. He does this twice more (this is most of his appearances at that point) and the third time Amber tells him point-blank that she needs some space right now. After that Ethan stops trying to spend time with her, because, well, she told him not to.
Now, by the time he runs into her in this strip (which is, I dunno, two weeks later? I can never keep track of the timeline), he’s obviously avoiding her in an effort to put off the scene they’re having now. And I’d forgotten that Amber asks him to lunch in that scene, which is what he wanted in the first place. So, okay, she avoids him to begin with and now he’s avoiding her to the point of rejecting an overture. Noted.
I don buy this excuse, it’s not a very good one. His inability to deal with his sexuality is what exhausted Amber, not his gayness. He came out on prom night, in bed, when she wanted to have sex with him. One thing I’ve learned, people get over your sexuality. If not, like Amber said, they’re not very good friends. He never had to discuss his sexuality to have friends. He made this sexual by ‘dating’ Joyce. Who deserves to have someone she can POSITIVELY explore her sexuality with. He needs friends that’ll take him to a gay bar for support, and be geeks with him. He doesn’t need to hurt anyone to ‘not be gay.’
It seems to me Amber has stopped hanging out with Ethan because she’s busy pursuing another guy. Maybe that does have to do with his gayness since isn’t available to be pursued. But seriously, I think Amber would also react if she saw him throwing away/destroying his toys.
Looooooooooooooooooootta hate for a /fictional character/ in this here thread. Chillllllllllllax folks.
Anyway, all I wanted to personally say was… I am now officially following too many storylines. I can’t actually recall what Ethan is referring to here. Amber stopped being friends with him because he’s gay?! I can’t deal with an archive trawl right now…
WACK’D COME HERE I NEED YOU
(/r/ link plz, you wonderful font of walky/dumbiverse knowledge:)
I did this. For those reasons. Worse, I stayed back in the closet for 13 years and a failed 5-year marriage trying to chase the idea that if I was one thing, I couldn’t have or be the things I loved.
I got better, but it hurt a lot of people. I wish I could say the person I hurt most was myself, but that’s really horribly wrong.
Please get better, Ethan. Stop hurting Joyce, stop hurting amber, but most of all, stop hurting yourself.
I’m going to congratulate Dave on an exceptionally good comic, and go hide in a dark room until my husband gets back home.
I wonder is it exhaustion at him being gay or the fact he is angsty as hell about it? He has clearly never just owned his sexuality he still sees it as this separate entity that annoys him making him angsty and whiny about it that can be very exhausting.
After today’s script, I can’t be mad at Ethan. I’m not sure he even fully realizes what he’s doing here. I think even his anointing Joyce as his “new girlfriend” could have just been a gesture to save Joyce’s dignity after her little freak out earlier. It’s like someone upthread said–he doesn’t know how to cope without hurting others. I agree the guy is toxic, but I’m sorry for him more than anything else.
Poor Ethan. [hugs] He is clearly miserable and confused and not handling this well.
He is wrong to use Joyce. And while I understand why he’s hurt by Amber’s actions, she is still in the right to take time to heal. He’s obviously caught up in his vortex of misery and confusion and not particularly able to see other people’s points of view right now. Also known as being 18. I hope he sorts through this before he hurts too many people, including himself.
See, many silly people assume geeks are celibate anyway, so if he just dives head long into and broadcasts his identity as a geek, people won’t question him not dating any girls. Of course, its more complicated if he’s seeking romantic companionship, but he can cross that bridge once everyone knows him as “the internet addicted robot-collecting geek”. Sexuality can be a very private affair for a person for a multitude of reasons, so I think Ethan should be able to get by with downplaying his sexuality rather then lying about it.
just reread the archives, and have noticed a few things… mostly relating to the current situation.
1. Mike is the best asshole/character.
2. Ethan is a huge asshole, who has forgotten in a few weeks that Amber spent the last 3 or so months helping him deal with the problems that came up with his family and coming out.
3. Ethan has been angling to this for a while now a fresh start with new lies to cover lies to cover lies.
4. While hints have been pretty heavily dropped, Joyce hasn’t been directly told that Ethan is gay and her tunnel vision view of the world made her blind to the signs.
5. Mike has been setting Ethan up for this fall, and it may be denied him by Amber soon.
Finally something I noticed which may just be a fluke of the art style, or some long hidden thing…
6. Dana(now Dan) was the guy that attempted to rape/assault/kill/make a skin suit out of… Joyce.
I went through the archives too, just to see the strip where Amber dumped Ethan as a friend and to see if it seemed as bad as Ethan made it sound. It was. I also noticed something else that might be germane: Joyce has a crush on Sal. Could Joyce be gay herself? I know Amber, Billie, Danny Joe, and Sal have been edged out of their original spots as leads to the strip by natural evolution of creative ideas but Sal being dumped DOES open the door to this kind of reinterpration of her reaction to Sal since Sal is no longer even much of a recurring character…
The guy who attempted to assault Joyce (the one at the party, at least — I don’t think there were any more) was a guy called Ryan, not Dan. He was also Ruth’s cheating ex-boyfriend in It’s Walky.
The majority of rapists are straight white dudes for a reason, and a big part of that reason is that straight white dudes have been trained by society (literally every form of media!) to think that they have the right to other people’s bodies*. We have now added “friendzone” to real dictionaries in reflection of this. (Because if a girl doesn’t like you, it’s not just unrequited love, which would be your problem, but a terrible wrong she has done to you, denying you the sex you have so rightly earned just by being a halfway decent human being in her vicinity.)
So: transgendered characters should not be evil rapists, unless we are positing a fantasy society where for some reason they’ve been encouraged to have a similar view of other people’s bodies, rather than — as has actually happened — being encouraged to believe they don’t even have the right to their own bodies, let alone other people’s.
*In case you for some reason doubt this, Canada started a campaign in 2011 called “Don’t Be That Guy” which simply encourages men to consider what effect their actions have on other people. There was an immediate declined of sexual assault by 10% in the city where the ads were run.
Ummm Ethan. It’s only been what Three weeks in universe time?
you have no classes together. And because of you, amber goes out to fight crime so she can take out any aggressions She has due to the nature of you coming out.
Nope, sorry, not good enough. I like being a geek, too, but that still isn’t an excuse for taking advantage of an innocent person. And really? Amber’s letting him get away with using her as an excuse? She, of all people, is going to let him tell her how she feels, and get away with that?
Well, this strip was for Ethan explaining himself. I expect we’re going to get Amber’s rebuttal tomorrow; at minimum I will be very surprised if she doesn’t join in with the commentariat in pointing out that staying in the closet doesn’t require using Joyce.
Well, what everyone’s said already: Ethan being gay didn’t exhaust Amber. The consequences of him being gay did. (Ethan’s side is understandable too, but didn’t Amber tell him she was exhausted and just needed some space? Maybe she would have gone back to hanging out with him eventually. On the other hand, until then, his only friend was Mike, which would definitely sap your energy.)
Oh yes, and no matter if Ethan’s explanation works or not, what he did to Joyce was wrongity-wrongity-wrong. I’m actually wondering now, though, if he got so much into the pretending that he seriously forgot he was pretending.
One thing we should also keep in mind here is that as far we’ve seen Joyce is the first person who has actively tried to get to know Ethan since he started college. He shouldn’t be expected to tell people his orientation when he meets them. Also Joyce is very intense with her husband search, she basically decided she wanted to marry him after an elevator ride.
Looking at the archives, Joyce is the one who has decided that they are boyfriend and girlfriend because be asked if she wanted to get lunch 2days earlier.
The most unfortunate issue here is that Amber walked in as Ethan called Joyce his girlfriend (IMO to placate her freak out). She also doesn’t know the rest of the context of what he has been going through including Joyce’s surprise kiss and reaction.
Oh yes, that’s true — he might have originally considered her a friend, then made the segue from friend to boyfriend because it didn’t make too much of a difference from him, whereas she placed a lot of investment in it. And you’re right about Amber walking in on the worst possible moment.
I don’t think it was just to placate her freakout; but I do agree that it was the first active step he took towards leading her on deliberately, rather than passively. So far Ethan has been pretty content to let Joyce make assumptions about him, and their relationship status, but it’s really been laid out for him here by the kissing, and he could have taken her aside and told her he just wants to be friends (WHICH DOES NOT NEED TO EXTEND TO “I’m gay”), but instead he chose to kiss her cheek and call her his girlfriend.
These days internet addicted robot collecting geeks are much more acceptable targets for ridicule and other forms of public shaming than gay people are. Though small group dynamics is a different ballgame.
Currently, you are on a date. That is not something an internet-addicted, robot-collecting geek would do. You would be more like Dina, somehow find your way into the situation, but not dating anyone.
So while your gayness is not overwriting your identity, your attempt to be straight is doing it for you. So rather than allowing some small aspect of your identity overwrite what you find important, you are allowing a large aspect of a completely false identity to do it.
Then again, hey, you are in control. You are in control of your decision to push away everybody at best and outright screw up their lives at worst. You are in control, though. It’s important to have priorities and be in control. It’s also important to be a decent fucking human being and not a controlling, manipulative dick. So Fuck You.
As a video game addicted, lego collecting geek (a close cousin of the internet addicted, robot collecting geek) who has been on many dates and has a girlfriend, I can assure you that your time will come.
People who think their sexual identity has no consequences for the rest of their lives and will never define them as a person — are straight.
The rest of us have to deal with this. Be glad you don’t, but know that you are missing an experience and try not to judge Ethan’s “geek cred” or anything like it, especially in your real life.
(Keep in mind also that Ethan is, like, 18. Fresh out of high school. And he only came out a few months ago. It’s something I keep forgetting myself.)
First time I’ve ever posted on this website, but I had to say: this broke my heart. I like Ethan as much as I’ve liked any fiction character ever. Hang in there buddy!
Yes – in the Walkyverse he’s currently annihilating Drew in conversation. His surprised comment yesterday may have been in debatably poor taste, but his comments today show a clear-headed upper hand.
To be completely 100% honest if I was hanging with Ethan I would probably find it easier to, like, relate to his gayness than his particular brand of nerdiness.
Because like, I don’t know much about Megatron bongoslapping Mecha-Godzilla or whatever but I DO know about DICK2DICK, I know TONS about THAT
Huh… I was assuming that Amber stopped hanging out with him because he pretty much came out of the closet after sleeping with her. Hell, I’d stop hanging with him too for a while after that.
But exhausted, huh? Well, good luck. Ethan’s gonna need it.
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She had a perfectly valid excuse! She was killing spiders!
Spiders, a giant legion of spiders.
Were the spiders larger thelan normal, or the legion larger than normal?
It’s a giant legion of giant spiders.
Actually it was a regular-sized legion of regular-sized spiders that were part of a sports team.
It’s the first time I laugh at a comment in Dumbing of Age. Congratulations. You win 1 internet.
Sounds like you need to read more comments.
Seconded.
If you’re going for a Nostalgia Critic reference I salute you.
http://www.dumbingofage.com/2011/comic/book-2/01-pajama-jeans/wronged/
Trigger warning 🙁
Nooooooo *hugs Ethan*
*tandem HUGZ w/ floater text*
I’m just glad the floaty text is only about a week old. Otherwise I’d be going back through the archives for all the floaty text I’d missed.
Ethan makes a very good argument. Then again he IS Jewish.
Aye. “What about Joyce?” is the only rebuttal. Poor girl and her continuously persecuted self-esteem…
And? Am I missing something here?
Yes. Your aim needs improvement.
Well, we don’t sell guns in my country…so, I’m spitballing here.
Boring serious answer: “Jews like to argue” is a common stereotype.
They make good lawyers for a reason. This is coming from a Jewish guy.
I don’t personally know any Jews so it’s not like I can comment on its accuracy or lack thereof. 😉
Going by my family, it’s dead accurate.
Stepping back to a cultural/historical perspective, orthodox Judaism heavily emphasizes ritual and behavioral strictures — dietary laws, ritual purity rules for festivals, that sort of thing. Since many of these strictures can be quite onerous, we look for ways to bend them. For instance, last night Pessach (passover) started. Orthodox Jews not only cannot eat leavened bread during Pessach, they’re not supposed to have any in the house, and some say you’re not allowed to own any at all during passover. Rather than throwing away all that food, Orthodox Jews will “sell” it to a non-Jewish friend and then “buy it back” at the end of the holiday. Another element of Pessach services is the reading of the Haggaddah, an account of the exodus of Jews from Egypt. The Haggaddah contains several ritualized arguments for the family to recite, including a story of four medieval rabbis staying up all night arguing about the number of plagues that God visited on Egypt (they all come up with reasons for the traditional number 10 to be wrong).
This kind of logic-chopping and rules lawyering, so central to orthodox Jewish religious practice, spread to other aspects of Jewish life. It’s a game to us, and sometimes a profession. Rabbis, lawyers, teachers and professional students are highly regarded in Jewish culture, in part for having found ways to make a living at arguing. We even make jokes about arguing with God — and winning.
That was a pretty good argument… :I
It’s true, we do. I once witnessed my grandmother and her sister arguing over which direction was the proper way for toilet paper to come off the roll. It can occasionally backfire though, which is what I expect in this instance.
hehe, for some reason, jew jokes have always flew over my head. Especially Kumar and Harold movie and Family guy and Drawn Together <_< Is it because society is improving?
By “overpowers” does he mean that people can’t see past him being gay for the geek that he is? Or that him being gay overpowers his ability to indulge in the internet and robot-collecting?
I’d say the former.
You wouldn’t believe how much your sexual preference can cause people to stop looking at you as the person who likes the same stuff as you do, and start looking at you as ‘the guy that could be checking out my ass’
I think, on that note, that Ethan’s in an interesting position to comment not just on real life, but also for gay fictional characters like himself and the way they may be crudely perceived or written.
Now that you mention it we did get a lot more people asking if he was gay in the Dumbiverse than if he still collects toys.
Sexual orientation affects shipping potential, the sooner you know the potential options the sooner you can explore those options. As the DoA verse Ethan is many years younger than Shortpacked Ethan his childhood, hobbies and such will naturally shift. His age makes the fact that certain thinsg will be different obvious, but sexuality is a question that can only be answered through direct evidence.
Gangler has a decent point, Ethan’s the gay character in the comic, we think of him as gay first, geek second. Honestly his entire DOA character wouldn’t make sense if he was straight. Meanwhile characters such as Dorothy and Walky aren’t called the straight characters.
when someone asks “who’s Ethan again?”, “the geeky one” just isn’t specific enough. “the gay guy” is
I’ve always thought of him as the arguementative one on Shortpacked and the whiney one here on DoA.
He’s the gay character because that’s what’s constantly referenced in the storyline. DoA is largely about feels and t3h s4x. If DoA were more like Shortpacked, where toys are equally as central to the characters, then Ethan would again be That Guy With The Robot Addiction.
Agreed, I only occasionally go to Shortpacked, but I identify Ethan there as a Transformers nerd more than his sexual orientation. I don’t even remember the last time that was brought up here.
Yup, I know that many of those questions were in jest, but it still annoyed me. At the time I was thinking “Does it really matter?” and “We will learn when it becomes relevant to the story, so stop asking”. Maybe I should have posted instead of just thinking it :/
Gunnerkrigg Court ftw.
Since when has a character’s canon sexual orientation /ever/ affected who that character gets shipped with?
It affects which ships we take seriously. Sure, people will ship with whomever they want but we know some ships are just for funsies.
“It affects which ships we take seriously. ”
Yes, because fans pitting two random characters in a relationship together that has literally no real bearing on the story is very serious business.
Sexual orientation is also more broadly interesting. I’ve been reading David Willis’ webcomics since I was in middle school, and it sure as hell isn’t because of all the funny discussions about Transformers.
Not that they’re not funny, I’m just not a Transformers guy. It’s a bit like how I read Penny Arcade even in the 2000s, when I didn’t own a game console.
Being transgender is both better and worse. Better because if you’re good enough to blend in there’s no difference in the way people treat you. Worse because if you are good enough to blend in you always wonder if people can still tell – and on the rare times that they do accidentally or deliberately misgender you (… as SOMEONE did to me at ECCC … ) it can send you into a tailspin, whether for a moment or a month.
And if you *aren’t* able to blend in perfectly, you are always sitting there waiting for the next person to freak out.
Also, transgender rights, for things like discrimination in the workplace, or being recognized as your chosen gender by Social Security, always takes a backside in the press and general political discussion to everything else. That really f***ing ticks me off.
Hate to sound like a horrible broken commercial, but I hope it gets better. Or Hang In There (complete with cute kitten hanging by its paws).
Yea this, so very this. The number of hoops I have had to jump through just to get my new name recognized, and to get my ID change to reflect that. I have had to put up with a bunch of stuff at work. I once had a small child come right up to me and say ‘hi freak’ and his parents didn’t see the need to correct him.
Is he an active sword swallower or just acknowledging that he now knows he wants to? I have no clarity on this point with his character – and don’t want to search a thousand comics, when 2nd semester is *actually* half over, and they are only into week #2 of first semester!!
As far as we know, he is simply aware of the fact he like dudes.
We have never seen him with anyone else, and judging by his lack of social-life, he doesn’t seem to be…
I mean, if you had anyone else (and you were male-gay), would you go to the church with Joyce?
Being gay totally ruins the internet for him! Before he realized his preference, he was ambivalent about porn. Now he can’t browse without thinking “Screw this intelligent and thought-provoking forum, I could be looking at naked dudes!”
I know, I went through the same thing when I got old enough to realize that boobs are awesome.
But that’s more of a being a human, thing.
I got sick of boobs thanks to anime. Now, the only thing I get off on is…well…is kinda misogynistic.
Uh… Those things you see in anime aren’t boobs. They’re gravity-independent water balloons in self-contained boobsocks.
Does this mean that you now prefer the DFCs?
…
Dairy Farmers of Canada?
Dragon Fairy Cannons?
Distinguished Flying Crosses?
I hope Ethan gets his act together and find himeslf as the newest member of a yaoi fanclub, that way his gayness will become moe.
Urgh…yaoi. Mind you, I don’t hate yaoi, it’s the fangirls that I really hate. Specifically, the rabid ones. Then again, as my friend said when his favorite series focuses more on the fangirl bait character rather than the main character: “Fangirls ruin EVERYTHING!”(The all caps was for emphasis).
I know, man! When a series focuses more on the fangirl bait than the main character/story: “Fangirls ruin EVERYTHING!” But when a series focuses on fanboy bait – that’s just normal and ‘real life’ and completely the natural order of things, right?
Not really, in my humble opinion, creators of the series shouldn’t really pander to the extreme side of the fandom(that includes fanboys and fangirls).
Sure, but… if you don’t see the fanboy bait in literally every form of media ever, it’s only because you’re so used to it you’ve stopped noticing it.
wouldn’t being gay automatically place you in the yaoi fanclub?
or do you need to fill out an aplication form?
Well some people simply don’t like anime/manga/fanfiction. On the other hand, it has been scientifically proven that those people are crazy. Yeah…Sciency…
no more than being straight would place you in the yuri fanclub. Or even the hetero anime fanclub.
if being gay was putting you in the yaoi club, then why would the yuri club imply straight membership? Shouldn’t the sexual orientation in that sentence be ‘lesbian’?
I would think that yuri club implying/not implying straightness, would be… equivalent to yaoi club implying/not implying the same. The hetero anime club, now that does seem to make sense.
The actual percentage of yuri that I find actually sexy instead of ragingly offensive and annoying is miniscule. :\ Of course, same for a lot of yaoi. And…okay, let’s be honest, a lot of manga and anime is really bad at gender and sexuality and not being rapey in relationships involving sex. And I like manga.
On the other hand, Japan is way better than us at not being rapey IRL, and western porn does very similar stuff. So. I’d trade.
No, because yaoi is written by and for women. Some gay men like it and some don’t, but they are neither its creators nor its audience.
If you were ever to compare doujinshi for straight men to yaoi, you would notice a fairly large difference in — well, to be blunt, dicks.
The vast majority of yaoi in Japan kind of hides the genitals. The sex going on might be intense or not, but the intensity is MOSTLY conveyed by the dialogue rather than the art. You won’t see erections in any detail or (even during scenes of anal sex) will you see anyone’s anus or balls.
Compare this to a typical doujinshi for men, and OMG the dick worship. There will be multiple pages devoted to showing it being licked and sucked. There will be “transparent” illustrations so that you can see the dick inside the girl’s throat, inside her vagina, mysteriously penetrating her WOMB.
And in these doujinshi, you can always tell how into anal the artist was by how intensely detailed the girl’s anus is when she spreads her legs.
I mean, the “men are more visual thing women” thing is bull. But I think that even straight ladies are less interested in seeing the dick than straight men, so I can’t help assuming gay men would be even more interested in seeing it?
(I mean comparatively there’s almost no vag in straight doujinshi, and boobs exist mostly for titty fucking. The guy in the doujinshi gets all the pleasure, so it being for male gaze is really obvious.) (And all of this is without even going into the interesting phenomenon of “futanari”, where straight dudes add even more dick camera time.)
Did that clear everything up or am I just rendering readers blind?
Oh and I’m not saying that straight doujinshi porn should be more for women or that yaoi should be more for gay men — I just wish I knew where to find the rest of the doujinshi. The gay dude doujinshi for gay dudes would be interesting to read, I’d love to see yuri for ladies, etc. Porn is fantasy and we shouldn’t really be shamed for our fantasies IMHO.
Okay, yesterday’s strip took me from sympathizing with his attempt at self-delusion due to the misery that caused it to being disgusted with Ethan’s manipulation of the situation.
Today’s strip has taken me from being simply disgusted with Ethan to having really mixed feelings including both disgust and sympathy.
For me today’s strip is exactly what I thought he’d say and doesn’t explain the most problematic parts of the situation: leading Joyce on.
Tomorrow’s strip will make you feel apathetic with a hint of stomach discomfort, followed by Thursday’s cloudy with a chance of meatballs, and then you will cap off the week with a strange desire to dress as a squirrel and dance the Batusi.
Keep in mind that if Batusi Squirreling occurs for longer than 3 hours, consult your doctor or physician. You may be suffering from a condition known as Squirrel Dance Fever. Not to be confused with Ants in my pants Fever or Boogie Fever.
Does it still count if it’s because my zipper’s jammed and my iPod is stuck on repeat?
Isn’t it called Squirrels In My Pants? S-I-M-P Squirrels in my pants!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0nKG_O0Ei_o
*high-five* for also digging Phineas and Ferb.
…Is that considered strange? Oh dear.
Yeah, I just…I dunno how to emote with this anymore. It’s playing with my feelings, and I wanna like Ethan, but…agh.
>>>Today’s strip has taken me from being simply disgusted with Ethan to having really mixed feelings including both disgust and sympathy.
——
That would be called “Inappropriate Emotional Attachment/Concern for an Multi-Personality Disordered Imaginary Entity” (or just plain ‘disgustpathy’)
Doesn’t remotely justify leading Joyce on though. He could have just NOT dated for a while until he was comfortable with people knowing. Now he’s being a manipulative ass.
I agree. If he wanted new friends he could have made them without getting a new beard. If he’d told Joyce he just wanted to be friends I’m sure she would have been fine with it.
Sure. As pointed out, the title of the strip isn’t “Smart People Making Good Decisions.”
That’s true. If that were the title, the subtitle would be “Now with almost 10 readers!”
That’s binary or ternary?
…Dibs on actually making this into a webcomic.
…This is Joyce we’re talking about. Probably not. At least, not without her going “You’ll be mine soon enough Ethan. Mwahahahahaha!”
Ironically a sure way to ward her off would’ve been to express sexual interest in her. A quick and simple “Hey there hot stuff” and he could’ve asserted his heterosexuality while avoiding this whole debacle.
Of course, Ethan wants people to like him. He’s not gonna say something that could ruin that for him.
Third option.
Technically, sexuality isn’t something people talk about all day long, or need to, anyway. He doesn’t have to hide it. He’s more asexual, anyway, if he’s anything like the Shortpacked Ethan, who usually focuses more on his toys than his boyfriend anyway. Let’s face it, Ethan doesn’t really care about sex. Why should he talk about it? Why should he pretend to be straight to Joyce, or even bother telling anyone the truth, when it’s not a part of his life he considers important? He doesn’t enjoy any of those things. It seems like he doesn’t even really enjoy relationships aside from the platonic aspects. Why shouldn’t he just never talk about sex? Forget straight or gay or all those other labels we throw on people so we can spend more time talking about configuring penises and vaginas. Let him focus on what he really cares about–toys. If talking about sex makes him uncomfortable, why talk about it?
Who really needs sex? I do, but I know for a long time I didn’t, and I’ve got friends who could totally care less. Ethan acts like them.
I know we’re so accustomed with labelling people and putting them in boxes that this sounds like a weird idea. It’s like reverse hedonism. But I think it works. Forget sex, more transformers. Less cooties FTW!
Eh, generally in Shortpacked once he’s had a boyfriend there has been sex and he does generally enjoy it, but the point still stands. When he’s been out of relationships it hasn’t looked like he was missing anything too much.
Well, he’s probably that kind of asexual, where sex is favorable if you can get it but is not needed and not worth worrying about when you can’t get it. Sexuality has all these layers and loops to it that honestly we’d be better off just not labeling everything.
Yeah. Basically, he’s using Joyce as “protection” for his new identity. She is an unwilling and unwitting beard. It’s only because of her own hangups about sex that this situation’s tenable even in the short term.
Your mileage may vary on the fact that he is doing this out of fear, not mere convenience. And it’s worth pointing out that Joyce is also with him out of fear– she does not know why, but she knows that he feels “safe,” that he doesn’t show the urge to make a move on her like Joe would. He would also have reason to feel used if he weren’t being a user, and so wrapped up in his own problems that he can’t really see the person on his arm.
Ethan’s summation of the situation in panel 4 isn’t exactly fair, but it’s certainly understandable that he feels that way. Still, it’s kind of a toxic thing to say, because now Amber can’t try to spend more time with him without both of them feeling like she’s just trying to prove something.
And though Amber’s coping well with it, it simply has to hurt her deeply that her ex-boyfriend (ex-prom date, at least), who tried and failed to overcome his orientation on their special night, thinks that maybe he can overcome his orientation with someone else now, someone he barely knows. The silver lining in that horrible prom experience for Amber was that she could say “It wasn’t ME. If he could’ve had sex with any woman, it would have been with me.” Ethan isn’t exactly planning to have sex with Joyce eventually, but when he says that he hopes his desires for men are transient, he is at least not closing off that possibility. And therefore he is robbing Amber of the small comfort she’d clung to.
Sure she can try and spend more time with him; she can apologize, and they can hang out like before. Preferably with the caveat that he comes out to them immediately (Not that it matters, seeing as how she apparently announced it on twitter with all the other characters around…) and makes his own quite necessary apologies.
Is it as easy as I make it sound? Nope. But it can be done.
He doesn’t have to come out to them, but he should break off the thing with Joyce.
How can Joyce “be his beard” if we don’t even know if Joyce shaves her cooter, let alone imagine it on HIS chin, if she doesn’t shave it!
I think it’s in the Bible……………..
1) Thou must not shave.
2) Thou shalt have thy curtains match thy drapes.
Republicans 5: 1,2
She could, or Ethan could stop letting the fact that he’s gay completely control him as a person. Yes, people approach you and interact with you differently when they are aware of that fact, but it doesn’t completely ruin your life. Considering this is supposed to take place in a modern setting, I find it unbelievable that everyone on campus would shun him if they found out.
What he’s doing is trying to guilt Amber into spending more time with him, which is horribly cruel. She was completely devestated by Ethan, considering she was wildly in love with him, and on the night they intended to lose their virginity, comes out as gay, and then relies on her to be his emotional crutch in the following months. I would be amazed if anyone was able to recover from that instantly. What he’s doing to Joyce is both cruel and morally bankrupt, she’s already an emotional wreck, add in the fact that her upbringing probably has her convinced Homosexuals are akin to the Devil, and it’s going to end horribly for everyone…
He isn’t trying to guilt Amber into anything. He’s trying to rationalize what he’s doing for the sake of giving himself a little normalcy. It’s not that he expects to be universally shunned, but that he doesn’t want to be thought of as gay first, Ethan second, negatively or even positively.
Which doesn’t justify him being crappy to Joyce, but it doesn’t make him cruel, just flawed. The past several months have certainly been at least as emotionally taxing on Ethan as on Amber, so it’s not exactly hard to understand him wanting to get to “take a break” from it too. The way he’s going about it is selfish, but the motivation isn’t -that- unreasonable.
I just realized how similar this situation is to something I dealt with in college: I lost my virginity to a lesbian, who broke up with her boyfriend/prom date over her attraction to girls.
Six months later in the dorms, she invited me to go with her to Walmart to buy batteries for some… things… which lead to flirtation and ultimately sex.
A year later, my (new) girlfriend was teasing me for having sex with this lesbian in front of a new friend who turned out to be her ex-boyfriend. Boy, that was awkward. And hilarious.
ALL OF THE SADNESS.
The wild Ethan tends to bare its teeth when it feels its happiness is threatened.
wait so i was always under the impression that ethan led amber on, also. and then his unfortunate “coming out” was in the middle of prom. i mean, that’s really something pretty hard for most girls to stomach, i’d imagine.
This strip seems to indicate that Ethan didn’t fully realize he was gay until he was trying and failing to have post-prom sex with Amber.
If he didn’t want being gay to be an issue, he could just not talk about it. It’s like he said, they’re strangers. They’ll assume straightness, sure, but if you just don’t bring it up you don’t have to deal with always always always and you are only lying by omission. Straight up dating a lady is probably taking it too far.
See, Ethan, there’s a difference between letting people presume you’re straight so they won’t see you as the gay guy and letting an unsuspecting girl be your beard to convince folks you’re straight. There are LOTS of single straight guys and if it means that much to you you can pretend to be one of THOSE.
Sometimes it seems like there are very few. Walking around campus surrounded by horny young adults discovering and exploring their sexuality with a newfound freedom feeling like he’s gonna stick out like a sore thumb if he doesn’t play along. Career-minded Dorothy’s got her hands all over some caramel, Walky “Girls are Icky” Walkerton is down for some sexytimes if you are, the nun to his side wants a husband and is looking at him with Hungry eyes, Roz parades down the halls shouting about safe sexual liberty and the newspapers are going on about Joe’s latest sexual escapades.
“You’re not looking for that kind of relationship right now, why not? Everybody else is.”
When you’re pre-occupied you don’t always notice everybody who isn’t something. You don’t see Sarah happy enough on her own, you see her roommate the religious one who claims to be against sex but is still clearly so into it. You notice Sal pulling the TA around while the deaf girl tagging along behind somehow remains in your blind spot.
Hell, it’s how our fiction is structured. Not currently coupled or actively engaged in establishing a coupling, you’re a secondary character. You’re in the background. You provide a snappy comment at the end of the scene while all the couplers talk about their couplestuff.
People talk about sex like it’s a primary drive akin to the need to sleep or eat, only more interesting because comic book covers have a lot more sex items on them than delicious food items. It doesn’t seem like a difficult conclusion to reach that being sexually unexpressive would be conspicuous if you feel like you’re hiding something.
Very well written, gangler. Oh and your secondary character argument will fall once Mike or the Pizza Lord guy gets their own webcomic. You’ll see, you’ll all see!
@Wack’d: My view on this matter is that Ethan’s behavior is completely fine in regard to the fact that he is hiding this information from his friends. His friends do not “have a right to know”, just as they would not “have a right to know” if their friend was transgendered or something. On the other hand, he is making it clear that he is dating Joyce. She sort of Does have a right to know that he is gay.
On my third hand though, Joyce seems to be the kind of person that would blab to everybody (who hadn’t already known/figured it out) about her new discovery during her subsequent freak out. If he feels fairly confident that she might blab his secret all over campus then I’d say his actions are justified. Deciding to go on a date with Joyce at all was still a bad idea, but he can always say that he would prefer to be friends with her. He really does not have to tell Joyce despite how things seem right now. He could always just say that he just wants to be friends and I think Joyce would be able to settle for that (after a much milder freak out).
I thought she wasn’t hanging out with him because a) they’re both meeting new people in college and it’s been what, two weeks now? and b) her feelings had been hurt because of his coming out while they were dating, and presumably she liked him at the time, so things were confusing what with having to simultaneously support her ex boyfriend’s coming out which was more important than dealing with her own hurt feelings? (guessing…)
I hadn’t gotten the impression of ‘ugh, too much dealing with the gay stuff, buh bye Ethan’ from her; Guess we’ll just have to find out more context about their past relationship in the last year or so that we don’t have (or I guess I missed/don’t remember).
She did tell him she needs some time alone. She spent almost the entire summer supporting him.
Also, Amber, it’s not like you haven’t been hiding stuff to your friends yourself.
Like the fact that your roommate is a vigilante. (oops, spoilers!)
When did Galasso move in with Amber?!
It’s sad because this is the justification that one goes through because they are afraid that people’s opinions will change of them, and in the process of trying to bury the ‘problem’, end up dragging people who have nothing to do with it down, and end up hurting them one way or another. Fear. It’s a bongo.
I really wish I had the self control to not read this for a few weeks. Then I could go through a bunch at once and NOT BE AT THE EDGE OF MY SEAT EVERY SINGLE DAY. Damn you, David Willis! Why must you write so well but share so few panels at a time?
I have the self control to not read it…I only come here to make jokes in the comments. 😛 What a weary existence I lead.
What I said on yesterday’s strip still applies. You don’t have to date in college. You could just say you’re focusing on your studies. And while I can understand his position it does not excuse leading Joyce on.
Agreed. Or just say “Thanks, but I don’t feel like dating at the moment.” It’s okay if you’re kinda burned out on that for now. If you really feel the need to go into more detail without actually coming out, your last relationship ended in a way that could definitely be described as “messy”. I think Joyce would understand. Possibly, anyway. The others certainly would.
Oh, and also, Ethan, if you had gone through any trauma I expect Amber would’ve stopped hanging out with you if only because she spent all summer helping you and now wants her own time. It has NOTHING to do with you being gay, and is absolutely not unreasonable.
In fairness, what she spent the entire summer “helping” him with was the fallout from the discovery that he was gay. He’s oversimplifying, but they’re close enough that she’s probably not going to misunderstand.
While I can understand where Ethan’s coming from, it’s still not fair for him to lead Joyce on like this.
Man, I’m not usually “get angry with fictional characters for making stupid decisions” guy. I think something’s wrong with me.
Well, Ethan leading Joyce on IS more dickish than we’ve come to expect from him in either universe. I didn’t have a problem with it so much when he was just being friendly and letting Joyce think what she wanted (so long as she didn’t, like, bring up “we’re totally boyfriend and girlfriend now” only for him to lie about it) but now, yeah, he’s actively BSing. Even I can’t side with him on this one. I’m not unsympathetic but this is so very clearly a disaster waiting to happen.
Huge flaw in you’re argument Ethan, the reason she left you alone in the first place is because you came out while DATING HER. What are you doing with Joyce? THE SAME DAMN THING. What happens when she wants more out the relationship?!
He’ll fake it till he makes it.
It seems like the comments are all in agreement.
Well, not me. I have no comment on the matter.
Screw you man! I disagree entirely! You don’t know me!
I didnt agree either… but also im waiting for some wicked turn of events that finally put some sense on Ethan.
I actually think this comic makes Ethan seem like a completely self-centered twit. He says being gay defines him, but it’s because he allows it to define him. I don’t know many people that completely changed when they came out, so why is he trying to say that accepting the fact that he is gay completely nullifies his hobbies?
To add to that, he is being a terrible friend to Amber. She was there by his side all summer to help with the fallout of his coming out of the closet, even though it was probably wrecking her emotionally. God forbid she be allowed to have some time to herself and live independant of Ethan and his problems. I think Amber is probably one of my favorite characters, so I may be a bit biased, but I think Ethan comes off as a huge douche at this point.
To add to all of that, after basically leading Amber on, he is now doing the exact same thing to Joyce, who is already an emotional wreck considering what she’s been through in her first couple weeks at school. If\when Ethan reveals to her that he is in fact gay, she will be absolutely devestated.
Yep. Most of the comments said that. So you’re kinda in agreement.
Not really. The bigger issue is, he says “you stopped hanging out with me” like its been years or something. I’m pretty sure this is what, day three?
Maybe she really stopped hanging with him because he’s as boring as heck.
Or maybe I just have to be the right flavor of geek to appreciate him.
He ‘came out’ while in bed with her on prom night. They were both virgins. He is lucky she talks to him at all imo. I mean damn Ethan, you were the only one in the bed that night right? You are the only one tramatized right?
Nope, can’t say as how I feel (in any way shape or form) that what he is doing is right, no matter how he feels.
I’m sorry for anyone that is hurting. But, it stops when that person seems incapable of coping without hurting others. And he is hurting Joyce.
While I agree with what you say, I would probably think Amber’d be kind of a shitty person if she DID stop being friends with him because of prom night.
I’m also not entirely sure how the fact that his homosexuality has turned his best friend into his spurned and distant ex-lover makes any of this any easier for him. It’s not like he’s condemning her or anything. He’s just being plain and truthful. Amber says “They were bad friends”, Ethan says “They were the best of friends”. He’s not just talking about some assholes at the toy store who won’t hang out with him anymore. Real solid relationships which he values have been fundamentally altered in unfavorable ways by this development. Used to be he could just be geeky pals with people and now there’s always this hanging over their heads. He seems to be trying to rebuild what he once had. Unfortunately as many are pointing out you rebuild a faulty structure and it’ll just collapse again.
More pointedly if two people know something it’s not a secret anymore. Can’t start fresh when you’re bringing people with you from back home.
Yeah, this. I mean, yes, there’s a distinction between “Because you’re gay, I don’t want to spend time with you” and “Because supporting you through your coming out was so emotionally exhausting, I don’t want to spend time with you,” but it still amounts to Ethan’s best friend not wanting to spend time with him anymore. And it wouldn’t have happened if he hadn’t come out.
This doesn’t justify leading Joyce on, of course it doesn’t, but Ethan’s hurt and abandonment are real, and they aren’t going to magically go away just because Amber has her reasons.
Oh Ethan, Amber wasn’t exhausted from the gay thing. She was exhausted from being your emotional crutch for the whole summer. That can be exhausting for anyone of any sexuality.
In this instance, the emotional crutch aspect is a direct result of Ethan’s realizing he’s gay.
A man and a woman are close friends. One friend develops feelings for the other and tries to act on them. The other friend isn’t interested and rebuffs the attempt. This happens all the time in friendships between a straight man and a straight woman. When it does, no one thinks twice about the likelihood that the two of them aren’t going to remain close friends, because of the frustrated feelings, the rejection, and the awkwardness.
Blaming the cooling of the friendship on his being gay is frankly self-centered on Ethan’s part. He’s totally failing to see what Amber’s point of view would have been. Just like he’s doing with Joyce.
Yes! This.
The thing is, Amber told Ethan why she didn’t want to spend time with him right now, and that isn’t what she said. Yes, the awkwardness of the rejection is almost certainly part of it, but is it really fair to say that Ethan is failing to see Amber’s point of view when he listened to what she said and took her at her word?
I know those feels Ethan, I know them good. I’m only out to a few people IRL, but sometimes it seems that the only thing they want to talk about is my sexuality. They say things like “Hey, what do you think about this, you know, as a gay guy?” and they mean well, trying to include me, but it sometimes hurts that that’s all I am.
Sorry man, that people dont mean bad, but also neither they are doing good to you. What you need its just friends not “considerate friends”. You got to talk about this with them.
It takes friends time to get used to it. My friends were all really quite good about it, but there was definitely a little while before I started getting treated the same again.
Whenever she got drunk, my best friend since high school would introduce me at parties as “this is ___, she’s a lesbian!” I feel the same way about my orientation that I do about being right handed – it’s a little depressing when people you’ve known for ten years suddenly think it’s the most relevant piece of information about you.
While Ethan’s points are valid he lost the right to have it as a valid excuse when he kissed Joyce and called her his girlfriend. Letting himself be Joyce’s boyfriend I can understand, but that’s not what Amber saw.
And as others have said his argument for Amber is incorrect. I feel bad for Ethan but he’s in the wrong here.
His argument for Amber is not incorrect. It’s not entirely fair, but it’s totally spot on-hurtfully so. What he’s doing with Joyce is wrong, and yes he is in the wrong, but everything he’s said these last couple strips is accurate.
Leading Joyce on is wrong, and it takes time for these things to stabilize with people, but from what we’ve been given it sounds like yeah, being gay has turned his life completely upside-down. It’s not Amber’s fault but that doesn’t make it not true.
OH GOSH THE FEELS!
The trials of being a straight gay trying to squeeze back into the closet…
No one said he can’t swing both ways. Or live a lie because believe it or not, everybody is living a lie.
When I said straight gay, I didn’t mean bisexual, I meant a guy who shows little to none of the ‘standard gay traits’ beyond wanting to shag guys.
In other words, the opposite of how the media portray gay people.
While it’s true that the media tends to latch onto the extreme gay stereotypes, many gays do try to make themselves distinct from straights for two main reasons; The Coolness factor and to make it easier to find other gay men.
Also known as “gay”.
huh?
To be fair, it is a nice closet. It (probably) has more toys in it! It’ll be an adventure!
Unless it’s a walk-in closet, it will be very cramped in there.
He’s trying to find Narnia.
Tell him, Narnia sucks. I’m going to Mordor.
One does not simply walk into a closet and find Mordor.
How many doors are there in that closet?
I’m sure it’ll be quite an adventure, finding the toys the gay guy has in his closet.
Suddenly scenery! O_O In perspective!
I just wanna get back to the Billie/Ruth storyline ><
Relevant:
http://www.dumbingofage.com/2011/comic/book-2/01-pajama-jeans/wronged/
Also relevant: http://www.dumbingofage.com/2011/comic/book-2/01-pajama-jeans/behind/
Think Dina is explaining to everyone that Ethan is gay and that’s what they’re talking about right now?
+2 interweb_thx for those
More relevance:
http://www.dumbingofage.com/2012/comic/book-2/02-choosing-my-religion/lincoln/
In a sense where it begins.
I’m relating to Ethan a little too much here. 🙁
[hugs for concerned citizen] I hope it gets better. (And that your best friend doesn’t become a vigilante crimefighter, no matter how awesome it may seem at the time.)
i know that feels bro, but it will work out, you just need to find the balance.
I… actually have had that happen… sorta…
Man, this one made me tear up a little, and I’m not quite sure why.
I’m getting to be known as ‘the asexual’, and finding conversation topics tend to dry up once I come out, but I’m still the same person I always was. I still like Doctor Who, webcomics, computer games. I still want to travel, and maybe have kids one day. (More complicated, but never impossible.)
If I’d figured it out at Ethan’s age, I would probably have done the exact same thing: pretended to be straight. (At the time, I just thought I was a late bloomer, and shrugged it off. No big deal, right?)
Honestly, a part of me now is tempted to do what Ethan is doing now. (‘Wouldn’t it be easier to have and raise kids with a heterosexual life partner?’) But I’ve seen enough of the world now to have an idea of how that would go: badly. I really feel for Ethan, he has to learn the hard way. I don’t envy him. Much.
Ah, i’m sorry. How did that happen? Somehow with me it was a curiosity for a few minutes and then it was never mentioned again. Then again they keep forgetting other things about me and often talk about things that are painful for me.
I’m mostly out to family in the offline world, and some of them can’t seem to get over not wanting to make more family (even though I DO want that)
They don’t understand, and I get so hung up on that that I can’t find the words to explain. (I’ve read the ‘for family’ page on AVEN so many times, but knowing what to say, and knowing when/how to say it are entirely different things.) So partly I blame myself, I guess?
I’m sorry that it’s hard for you right now. I hope you find your people. Or that your people get hit by a clue-by-four soon and drop the stupid label thing.
“Yes Amber, You got to let me abuse a naive girls feelings for me so that I can out myself when I feel for it, godsake Amber, Its not like Joyce will suffer because of me, right!?”
No! Bad Ethan! Bad! *hits with rolled up paper* That’s completely bias and you know it!
She avoided you because you dragged her through months of backlash from your family, not because you’re gay.
Does it make a difference? Ethan came out, and in directly related news, his best friend, who has known him for years, isn’t speaking to him anymore.
Ethan didn’t say Amber was a bigot. He said his being gay had overpowered the relationship. He’s right.
Wait, hasn’t he also been avoiding her? I mean, I realize this was partially to avoid revealing his “new friend” was also a “new beard”, but he hasn’t exactly been tripping over himself to rekindle that relationship.
The first time we see Ethan in DoA, he and Mike are trying to get a very reluctant Amber to come to lunch with them. He does this twice more (this is most of his appearances at that point) and the third time Amber tells him point-blank that she needs some space right now. After that Ethan stops trying to spend time with her, because, well, she told him not to.
Now, by the time he runs into her in this strip (which is, I dunno, two weeks later? I can never keep track of the timeline), he’s obviously avoiding her in an effort to put off the scene they’re having now. And I’d forgotten that Amber asks him to lunch in that scene, which is what he wanted in the first place. So, okay, she avoids him to begin with and now he’s avoiding her to the point of rejecting an overture. Noted.
I just realized that while all this is going on, Danny is just standing there, glaring at Dorothy.
I don buy this excuse, it’s not a very good one. His inability to deal with his sexuality is what exhausted Amber, not his gayness. He came out on prom night, in bed, when she wanted to have sex with him. One thing I’ve learned, people get over your sexuality. If not, like Amber said, they’re not very good friends. He never had to discuss his sexuality to have friends. He made this sexual by ‘dating’ Joyce. Who deserves to have someone she can POSITIVELY explore her sexuality with. He needs friends that’ll take him to a gay bar for support, and be geeks with him. He doesn’t need to hurt anyone to ‘not be gay.’
This.
It seems to me Amber has stopped hanging out with Ethan because she’s busy pursuing another guy. Maybe that does have to do with his gayness since isn’t available to be pursued. But seriously, I think Amber would also react if she saw him throwing away/destroying his toys.
Looooooooooooooooooootta hate for a /fictional character/ in this here thread. Chillllllllllllax folks.
Anyway, all I wanted to personally say was… I am now officially following too many storylines. I can’t actually recall what Ethan is referring to here. Amber stopped being friends with him because he’s gay?! I can’t deal with an archive trawl right now…
WACK’D COME HERE I NEED YOU
(/r/ link plz, you wonderful font of walky/dumbiverse knowledge:)
NM, MeMyself and Aydr just sorted it.
Hate? Only a couple people expressed actual anger, most just think he’s WRONG.
This comic made me ill. Physically ill.
I did this. For those reasons. Worse, I stayed back in the closet for 13 years and a failed 5-year marriage trying to chase the idea that if I was one thing, I couldn’t have or be the things I loved.
I got better, but it hurt a lot of people. I wish I could say the person I hurt most was myself, but that’s really horribly wrong.
Please get better, Ethan. Stop hurting Joyce, stop hurting amber, but most of all, stop hurting yourself.
I’m going to congratulate Dave on an exceptionally good comic, and go hide in a dark room until my husband gets back home.
The cries.
I wonder is it exhaustion at him being gay or the fact he is angsty as hell about it? He has clearly never just owned his sexuality he still sees it as this separate entity that annoys him making him angsty and whiny about it that can be very exhausting.
After today’s script, I can’t be mad at Ethan. I’m not sure he even fully realizes what he’s doing here. I think even his anointing Joyce as his “new girlfriend” could have just been a gesture to save Joyce’s dignity after her little freak out earlier. It’s like someone upthread said–he doesn’t know how to cope without hurting others. I agree the guy is toxic, but I’m sorry for him more than anything else.
Poor Ethan. [hugs] He is clearly miserable and confused and not handling this well.
He is wrong to use Joyce. And while I understand why he’s hurt by Amber’s actions, she is still in the right to take time to heal. He’s obviously caught up in his vortex of misery and confusion and not particularly able to see other people’s points of view right now. Also known as being 18. I hope he sorts through this before he hurts too many people, including himself.
See, many silly people assume geeks are celibate anyway, so if he just dives head long into and broadcasts his identity as a geek, people won’t question him not dating any girls. Of course, its more complicated if he’s seeking romantic companionship, but he can cross that bridge once everyone knows him as “the internet addicted robot-collecting geek”. Sexuality can be a very private affair for a person for a multitude of reasons, so I think Ethan should be able to get by with downplaying his sexuality rather then lying about it.
just reread the archives, and have noticed a few things… mostly relating to the current situation.
1. Mike is the best asshole/character.
2. Ethan is a huge asshole, who has forgotten in a few weeks that Amber spent the last 3 or so months helping him deal with the problems that came up with his family and coming out.
3. Ethan has been angling to this for a while now a fresh start with new lies to cover lies to cover lies.
4. While hints have been pretty heavily dropped, Joyce hasn’t been directly told that Ethan is gay and her tunnel vision view of the world made her blind to the signs.
5. Mike has been setting Ethan up for this fall, and it may be denied him by Amber soon.
Finally something I noticed which may just be a fluke of the art style, or some long hidden thing…
6. Dana(now Dan) was the guy that attempted to rape/assault/kill/make a skin suit out of… Joyce.
I went through the archives too, just to see the strip where Amber dumped Ethan as a friend and to see if it seemed as bad as Ethan made it sound. It was. I also noticed something else that might be germane: Joyce has a crush on Sal. Could Joyce be gay herself? I know Amber, Billie, Danny Joe, and Sal have been edged out of their original spots as leads to the strip by natural evolution of creative ideas but Sal being dumped DOES open the door to this kind of reinterpration of her reaction to Sal since Sal is no longer even much of a recurring character…
When did she dump him as a friend? All I remember is her saying she needed space, which seems pretty reasonable.
The guy who attempted to assault Joyce (the one at the party, at least — I don’t think there were any more) was a guy called Ryan, not Dan. He was also Ruth’s cheating ex-boyfriend in It’s Walky.
i am also pretty damn sure my first transgendered character would not be an evil rapist
give me like a tiny bit of credit here
Y’see this, Tab? Y’see it?
I got that reference!
Unfortunately, it’s as possible for the transgendered to be evil rapists as it is for anyone else.
Naturally, but it would be a touch of unfortunate implications if his first and only tansgendered character was an evil rapist.
Well, it would lead to unfortunate inferences. That much I agree with.
Possible, yes. Likely? No.
The majority of rapists are straight white dudes for a reason, and a big part of that reason is that straight white dudes have been trained by society (literally every form of media!) to think that they have the right to other people’s bodies*. We have now added “friendzone” to real dictionaries in reflection of this. (Because if a girl doesn’t like you, it’s not just unrequited love, which would be your problem, but a terrible wrong she has done to you, denying you the sex you have so rightly earned just by being a halfway decent human being in her vicinity.)
So: transgendered characters should not be evil rapists, unless we are positing a fantasy society where for some reason they’ve been encouraged to have a similar view of other people’s bodies, rather than — as has actually happened — being encouraged to believe they don’t even have the right to their own bodies, let alone other people’s.
*In case you for some reason doubt this, Canada started a campaign in 2011 called “Don’t Be That Guy” which simply encourages men to consider what effect their actions have on other people. There was an immediate declined of sexual assault by 10% in the city where the ads were run.
Like I said, could have just been a strangeness of the art
haven’t read “it’s walky”
I’ve tried to find It’s Walky to read but it seems to have been wiped off the face of the internet!
This week is hitting me right in the feels, as you youngsters would say. (Oh god, I’m old. Like Larry Kramer used to be before he became ancient)
Ummm Ethan. It’s only been what Three weeks in universe time?
you have no classes together. And because of you, amber goes out to fight crime so she can take out any aggressions She has due to the nature of you coming out.
You sir, are a dick in any universe
There may also have been a large part of summer during which Amber was requiring her space.
Never mind, just reread the comic where she took her break. It’s only been weeks.
Nope, sorry, not good enough. I like being a geek, too, but that still isn’t an excuse for taking advantage of an innocent person. And really? Amber’s letting him get away with using her as an excuse? She, of all people, is going to let him tell her how she feels, and get away with that?
Well, this strip was for Ethan explaining himself. I expect we’re going to get Amber’s rebuttal tomorrow; at minimum I will be very surprised if she doesn’t join in with the commentariat in pointing out that staying in the closet doesn’t require using Joyce.
Well, what everyone’s said already: Ethan being gay didn’t exhaust Amber. The consequences of him being gay did. (Ethan’s side is understandable too, but didn’t Amber tell him she was exhausted and just needed some space? Maybe she would have gone back to hanging out with him eventually. On the other hand, until then, his only friend was Mike, which would definitely sap your energy.)
Oh yes, and no matter if Ethan’s explanation works or not, what he did to Joyce was wrongity-wrongity-wrong. I’m actually wondering now, though, if he got so much into the pretending that he seriously forgot he was pretending.
One thing we should also keep in mind here is that as far we’ve seen Joyce is the first person who has actively tried to get to know Ethan since he started college. He shouldn’t be expected to tell people his orientation when he meets them. Also Joyce is very intense with her husband search, she basically decided she wanted to marry him after an elevator ride.
Looking at the archives, Joyce is the one who has decided that they are boyfriend and girlfriend because be asked if she wanted to get lunch 2days earlier.
The most unfortunate issue here is that Amber walked in as Ethan called Joyce his girlfriend (IMO to placate her freak out). She also doesn’t know the rest of the context of what he has been going through including Joyce’s surprise kiss and reaction.
Oh yes, that’s true — he might have originally considered her a friend, then made the segue from friend to boyfriend because it didn’t make too much of a difference from him, whereas she placed a lot of investment in it. And you’re right about Amber walking in on the worst possible moment.
I don’t think it was just to placate her freakout; but I do agree that it was the first active step he took towards leading her on deliberately, rather than passively. So far Ethan has been pretty content to let Joyce make assumptions about him, and their relationship status, but it’s really been laid out for him here by the kissing, and he could have taken her aside and told her he just wants to be friends (WHICH DOES NOT NEED TO EXTEND TO “I’m gay”), but instead he chose to kiss her cheek and call her his girlfriend.
These days internet addicted robot collecting geeks are much more acceptable targets for ridicule and other forms of public shaming than gay people are. Though small group dynamics is a different ballgame.
I’d bet money this varies wildly by region.
Huh, in both the Walkyverse and the Dumbing-verse Ethan is in an emotional tight spot at the moment.
Dear Ethan,
Currently, you are on a date. That is not something an internet-addicted, robot-collecting geek would do. You would be more like Dina, somehow find your way into the situation, but not dating anyone.
So while your gayness is not overwriting your identity, your attempt to be straight is doing it for you. So rather than allowing some small aspect of your identity overwrite what you find important, you are allowing a large aspect of a completely false identity to do it.
Then again, hey, you are in control. You are in control of your decision to push away everybody at best and outright screw up their lives at worst. You are in control, though. It’s important to have priorities and be in control. It’s also important to be a decent fucking human being and not a controlling, manipulative dick. So Fuck You.
That is all.
What? He was dating before he knew he was gay. That’s not new behavior for him.
Internet addicted robot collecting geeks can still date you know.
Any day now, I’m sure my life will prove me right 😉
As a video game addicted, lego collecting geek (a close cousin of the internet addicted, robot collecting geek) who has been on many dates and has a girlfriend, I can assure you that your time will come.
See this is why I stuck with comics as my addiction. bongoes love comics. 😉
Your joe avatar further serves to prove your point
If being gay, straight or other interferes with getting your geek on – you aren’t the geek you think you are.
wow that misses the point
People who think their sexual identity has no consequences for the rest of their lives and will never define them as a person — are straight.
The rest of us have to deal with this. Be glad you don’t, but know that you are missing an experience and try not to judge Ethan’s “geek cred” or anything like it, especially in your real life.
(Keep in mind also that Ethan is, like, 18. Fresh out of high school. And he only came out a few months ago. It’s something I keep forgetting myself.)
Ok so be a geek without a girlfriend, it’s not like that would stand out or anything but YOU DON’T HAVE TO FUCKING LIE ABOUT IT!
First time I’ve ever posted on this website, but I had to say: this broke my heart. I like Ethan as much as I’ve liked any fiction character ever. Hang in there buddy!
Is there a universe where he isn’t a looser making stupid choices, albeit for dubious, but understandable reasons?
That said, I do pity him.
Yes – in the Walkyverse he’s currently annihilating Drew in conversation. His surprised comment yesterday may have been in debatably poor taste, but his comments today show a clear-headed upper hand.
To be completely 100% honest if I was hanging with Ethan I would probably find it easier to, like, relate to his gayness than his particular brand of nerdiness.
Because like, I don’t know much about Megatron bongoslapping Mecha-Godzilla or whatever but I DO know about DICK2DICK, I know TONS about THAT
LIKE MAYBE IF YOU HAD A MORE ACCESSIBLE HOBBY OR SOMETHING I’M JUST SAYING
WE COULD DO ROCK CLIMBING OR SOMETHING I WON’T EVEN TRY TO GRAB YOUR BUTT I’LL JUST LOOK AT IT WHILE YOU’RE BOULDERING OR WHATEVS
Huh… I was assuming that Amber stopped hanging out with him because he pretty much came out of the closet after sleeping with her. Hell, I’d stop hanging with him too for a while after that.
But exhausted, huh? Well, good luck. Ethan’s gonna need it.