Yes you should, Animaniacs and Tiny Toon Adventures are some of the best cartoons ever made, and they managed to get the best voice actors as well. I grabbed the box sets for both of them as soon as they were available, and I have come as close to wearing out DVDs as it is possible to get.
I’m pretty sure that the gonads aren’t located in the brain, actually. They may not be in quite the same place for men and women, but thinking with them instead of the gray matter is usually a problem for anyone.
What about the metaphorical “lizard brain”, i.e. the parts that deal with base desires like sex and food sometimes overriding a person’s rational, logical reasoning.
Probably not Ryan. I mean, sure, it’s possible that he sees the error of his ways, reforms, and becomes nothing but a boon to all, but redemption kinda means that the audience feels okay about him too, or at least kinda-conflicted-but-leaning-his-way, and I don’t think that’s happening.
Probably not Blaine either.
Toedad could have a redemption, I think. Carol. Those are the two big ones in my head.
I’m still wondering why people seem to think Joe needs redemption. He hasn’t actually done anything wrong. At all. He might have some decidedly un-feminist reasons for doing what he does, but you don’t see the all the girls happily lining up to bang him complaining about it, either. And I’m sure you would all consider those women’s decision to seek out those sexual encounters for purely lust-related reasons empowered for doing so.
So why the double standard? In fact, I’m pretty sure Joe pointed out one of the biggest double-standards of all when he was talking to Danny about why he didn’t sleep with Billy. Why is it your place, or anyone elses, to tell a woman who she should or shouldn’t have sex with, and Joe’s made it clear that he expressly doesn’t pursue women who aren’t interested.
Also, if it wasn’t a gimmick played for laughs because he’s a ‘dudebro’, Joe would have a very real and very serious legal case against both Joyce and Mike for felony assault and battery. You can’t treat the comic as ‘serious business’ when feminist issues are involved but all in good fun when your ‘acceptable targets’ are on the receiving end.
This double-standard that the alt-left has is…okay, not nearly as horrible as the alt-right’s craziness, but still pretty damn toxic. I’m prepared to recive flak for saying this, but I’m cool with it. Crucify away. I’ll load you a little more ammunition. Yes, I’m a white, suburban, middle-class privileged piece of shit.
Sure, I’m also bisexual, but it’s been made clear to me by now that I’m not a ‘real’ LGBT because of my passing privilege, as if it’s wrong to out anyone else, but bisexuals are expected out themselves to all and sundry if we want to be part of the conversation.
DISCLAIMER:Commenting Drunk, spellcheck is awesome.
The short of it is, while Joe may *technically* think consent is important, his standards for both what constitutes consent and what requires consent suck.
In my mind, the plainest example is when Joe hit on Sarah, and she to literally told him to fuck off. Not long afterwards, he was trying it again. He accepts “no”, but he forces women to repeat it, over and over, and when he hears it, he acts like they were being unreasonable for getting upset about his persistent badgering.
By that logic if I ask you for beer money again and again and you keep saying no but finally you give in just to shut me up I am guilty of theft. That’s stupid. Should you be able to send the police after me?
A person who keeps asking again may be annoying, they may even be creepy and it is ok for you to feel that way about them. It may even be so bad that you decide to cut them out of your life and that is cool too because who you spend time with is your business. Lonliness is the natural price to pay for beeing an annoying creep.
That’s all it is though, an annoying person you are better off not hanging out with. A person who violates consent is a rapist. A mere annoying person does not deserve that label likewise an actual rapist does not deserve to have the meaning of their label reduced by throwing in mere annoying people who are NOT guilty of rape.
It’s kind of like finding out your neighbor is on the sex offender list. And then you find out that people can get on that list by relatively harmless things like peeing in an alley outside a bar or something like that. Maybe your neighbor is only guilty of something like that which they did one drunk night that they regret and will never repeat. Or maybe they rape children for kicks. See, widening your definitions of offenses to include everyone who does something you don’t like kind of destroys the meaning and purpose of words doesn’t it?
You’re right. If Joe did that he would not be a rapist. He’d be a creep and an asshole and I’d avoid him. If that was the behavior I observed in public (or heard of from other women), it would also raise sufficient warning flags that I’d would be wary as hell of being alone with him if I was a woman and would warn others of my suspicions.
Which is all about what people are saying about Joe here. What we’ve seen of his behavior is creepy and concerning. I don’t recall accusations that he’s actually raped anyone.
@theJeff – “I was commenting on the statement that “his standards for both what constitutes consent and what requires consent suck.”
That implies that what he considers consent isn’t really consent and logically that would make it rape.
So, what would you be warning others about? That he will nag them for sex? That’s pretty fair. That you think he might go beyond that? it’s all up to Willis of course but i don’t get the impression at all that he would.
At what point does a warning about what somebody ‘might’ do change from a ‘public service anouncement’ to the spreading of hurtful rumors? That’s a pretty vicious thing to have people thinking about you. There is a fine line there one should be careful of crossing. This is why in the legal system we have the concept of innocent until proven guilty. We do not have this in our everyday social interactions though. You should be careful what you say about people because you can really cause a lot of damage.
What he considers consent is consent, but just barely. Badgering someone until they give in isn’t as bad as forcing yourself on them, but it’s still shitty behavior.
In general, he just pursues sex without regard for what the woman wants. From the minute he met Joyce, it was painfully obvious that she was looking for a long-term relationship, not casual sex. Joe feigned interest in a relationship, and decided she needed to be “broken in”. He actually thought manipulating her into having sex with him, going against deeply held beliefs, would have been good for her.
Joe may not be a rapist, but the margin by which he is not is uncomfortably narrow.
About what he might do. About where he might stop.
Yeah, warning people “I don’t trust this creepy guy, be careful about being along with him” might “cause a lot of damage”, though I’m not sure exactly what.
I’d feel an awful lot worse if someone I could have warned did get raped by the guy I thought was creepy.
Should we never caution anyone or even be careful ourselves until and unless someone’s been proven guilty in a court of law? (And of course once they’ve served their time, there’s no reason to not trust them again and having committed one crime doesn’t mean they’d commit others.)
Honestly, from the meta point of view, knowing Willis, Joe isn’t going to rape anyone. He’s not even going to actually get laid in any situation where he did push the line and got uncomfortably close to rapey. But that’s meta stuff that I wouldn’t be able to rely on dealing with a real world Joe. And the behavior we’ve seen from Joe would be raising huge red flags in the real world. Not proof of anything, but all the signs.
Which is why, as I’ve said before, I’d really like to see more of Joe’s “game”. I’d like to see him trying to seduce someone and see how he handles the resistance. See when and if he backs off with the screaming at him or punches and threats of baseball bats. I’d like to see more of what Joe’s idea of consent looks like in practice, rather than just in theory.
Except when Joe found out how earnestly Joyce wanted to be in a relationship he stopped trying to have sex with her and actually tried to have a real date. His desire to “break her in” is only coming with the assumption that she’s the “represses christian girl who’s looking for an excuse to let loose”. He doesn’t continue trying to coax her into sex beyond the point she shows up to the date. In fact he feels inadequate in his attire and tries to change.
Joe is very pushy sure, but not more pushy than say…Billie or Ruth. Billie who literally kissed Danny suddenly and started disrobing on top of him without a seconds warning, or Ruth the girl who started making out with the girl she was physically abusing. Had Joe done EITHER of these things (regardless of stopping when consent was pushed away) everyone here would have a much lower opinion of him. But he doesn’t. He’s pushy and persistent but he does back off when he feels he can’t get further with someone.
Any supposed rape vibes to Joe is due to the natural fear of men by women because men are imposing and strong and they feel they couldn’t do anything if he DID start raping them.But as far as flirting goes, Joe tries to get with girls and insists on it, because he loves having sex, and it takes two to tango. It might seem disrespectful to keep pushing after one attempt, but I’ll be honest, a LOT of relationships or hookups don’t just…immediately click.
“Sex?”
“Yes”
“And then they had sex together forever”
And even in that above situation, one or maybe both of them could theoretically see it as a mistake in hindsight or regret it. I think a lot of people who don’t take the first “no” as a hard stop probably don’t view as a very traumatic or life affirming event like a lot of people seem to.
Then again I’m not a woman so anything I say is somewhat irrelevant.
Yomatoe, those “supposed rape vibes” never seem to emanate from other male characters, like Walky, Danny, Ethan, or Jacob.
Joe’s behavior is absolutely the reason why. Ethan and Jacob are just as tall, just as masculine, and just as physically intimidating as Joe would be, but we’ve never seen a single instance where either of them made a woman feel unsafe or even uncomfortable.
There’s also a huge difference between not immediately giving up completely at the first “no”, and soldiering on even after being told “fuck off”.
And Ruth really isn’t a strengthening your point. I like her and Billie, but she was incredibly lucky that Billie didn’t file charges against her, because that forced kiss was fucked up. She assaulted Billie there, physically, then sexually. She was just fortunate in that Billie ended up forgiving her for it. That does not by any means make it okay.
“By that logic if I ask you for beer money again and again and you keep saying no but finally you give in just to shut me up I am guilty of theft. That’s stupid. Should you be able to send the police after me?”
No, but you would have pressured someone into giving you money which is not illegal. Only with sex, pressuring someone into giving it up IS rape via coercion. Pressuring someone via repeated insistence counts. Sex requires active (or enthusiastic) consent. Just ‘the absence of a no’ isn’t good enough. It requires a freely given (aka un-coerced, sober, non manipulated and informed) yes.
Joe continuously trying to pressure people into bed is skeevy as fuck and if he succeeded, yes, he’d be a rapist. He probably wouldn’t go to jail, no, but that’s hardly the authority on what does or does not make someone a rapist since most rapists don’t ever get convicted (either due to lack of report, lack of evidence, etc). Sex crime and abuse in general have abysmal conviction rates because they’re difficult to prove – which is also why legal definitions don’t tend to cover everything sociological definitions of rape and abuse do, because those are much trickier to prove to court standards.
Fair enough. As a counterpoint though, Ethan is gay and the closest to “flirting” he’s ever gotten is just being shy around Danny.
Jacob hasn’t really been seen being flirty with anyone. Even with his own girlfriend he’s been nothing but doting. Danny’s also taken a very submissive route to most of his relationship, considering he’s dating a super hero. He rarely “takes the lead”. Walky is probably the only guy who you could say does and he’s also really scrawny and tiny. If Joe acted more like Walky it’d also be kinda suspect. (Like throwing a toy at a girl) But that’s because he’s a big guy.
I feel like Joe’s Bravado can make people uncomfortable for sure, but I think it kinda underlies how scary a rape really is. If someone carries a gun around all the time I might be nervous around them, but I wouldn’t call them a murderer, until they murder someone.
Yotomoe: It’s not just or even mostly Joe’s actual flirting. He said he was going to fix Joyce with his penis. He posts a public “todo list” rating girls he knows. He talks about alcohol helping with threesomes.
He’s creepy as hell and it’s not just his bravado or that he flirts or him being a big guy. He says the right things about consent, but he seems to actually just view it as an obstacle to overcome.
And to jump back a post or two: He very definitely does not stop trying with Joyce and just have a normal date. He’s still on his game, it’s just a slightly longer game. He tries to bribe Mike to get out of the way. He keeps circling the conversation back to sex. He keeps working it until the punching gets too much.
Mind you, Joyce & Mike were far worse during that date. There’s no excuse for it. I likely would have begged off when she announced the chaperone and certainly when the punching was mentioned. OTOH, had I gone on the date I would have been trying to get to know her, not just focusing on sex.
Fart Captor’s statement that Joe tries to hit on Sarah again after she tells him no is wrong. I looked throughout the tags for the comic and it doesn’t happen.
No, you’re right, after she explicitly tells him she’s not interested in him he doesn’t hit on her again.
On the other hand, by that point she had already told him that she hated him and he should fuck off. His reaction, albeit not to her face, was that she would be great in the sack, and the next time they met he followed up by flirting with her even though she looked disgusted. So Joe will accept a direct “no”, but he will ignore any other signals, no matter how vehement.
I kinda view Joe as…. borderline in all the cases you mention. He’s not really crossing serious boundaries, but he’s edging near them in ways that make people uncomfortable and pressured. Not someone you revile as despicable, but also not someone you want near you.
I don’t think that’s why Joe might need redeeming, though. My problem with him is mostly how terrible of a friend he’s been to Danny.
(And yeah, what Mike did was definitely A&B. Questionable how liable Joyce is, but there would be a case there. I think it got a pass less because of Joe being a designated bad-guy and more because Mike never faces consequences for his actions. Different conversation entirely.)
“Not really crossing serious boundaries”? Come the hell on. You realize sexual harassment is a thing, right?
Joe views consent as a legal technicality, not as aomething he, personally, needs to be concerned with on a moral level. He is the kind of guy who wouldn’t pull a Ryan because he might get caught… but he will badger women to see if he can coerce consent though harassment, he is not above using alcohol to get women to agree to stuff they wouldn’t while sober (alcohol is the most common date rape drug btw), and he has shown repeatedly that he views any boundaries not enforced with violence or the threat thereof as a challenge.
The difference between Joe and Ryan is one of degree not of kind.
Joe is the kind of creepy-ass sexual harasser who pretends to be European to coerce strange North American women into kissing him. He’s the business man who uses his position to coerce junior women into accepting his wandering hands. He’s the jock bro who won’t take no for an answer until his target blows up at him, and then she is “crazy” and unfuckable anyway.
The Joes of the world are a lot of why women don’t stay in male dominated fields or often go anywhere alone. Because where you see a macho doofus trying his best moves, I see Schroedinger’s rapist showing a heavy rapey vibe and I don’t want to take the risk of finding out the hard way.
@ischemgeek “The Joes of the world are a lot of why women don’t stay in male dominated fields or often go anywhere alone.”
Which male dominated fields are you talking about? I’m a computer programmer. Every other day I read a story about how somebody is doing this or that to try to encourage more women into the field. Ok.. are they not here because they are worried about “a macho doofus trying his best moves”? Really? Have you ever actually walked into a computer science classroom? What did you see that was macho? What school were you at? Are you for real?
Maybe if the male dominated field you want to enter is “football jock”, then you might have a point. Otherwise I think you have drank too much of the kool aide and no longer see the world as it really is.
So.. I see your name implies you are in chemistry. Tell me.. do you get a lot of “Joes” there?
I’m also a computer programmer. One of my friends was one of the 2 female computer science majors at my school. On group projects, she had to constantly deal with dudes who never listened to her because she was just a girl, and obviously girls don’t know computers.
On one project, I was in the same group, and literally repeated a suggestion she’d made that had been ignored, and suddenly it was a good idea!
Computer nerds have a very different flavor of macho than jocks, but it’s fucking there, I assure you.
I’m also a computer programmer, with decades of experience, and… I’m sorry, but you seem to be in denial.
“Have you ever actually walked into a computer science classroom? What did you see that was macho?” Yes, and I can tell you the classroom is not the workplace (although with the rise of social forums, I know damn well the classroom is no longer the haven of academia that we gave lip service to).
Since I am using a handle myself, I can hardly point to my own unsupported observations (although I’ll offer them if asked), but surely the lawsuits and the news reports didn’t just go by you without registering? The one that sticks in my memory involved Github, an otherwise well-regarded business (which to their credit did take action, although their foot-dragging remains a blot).
Oh this is adorable. Nerds are frankly way the hell more obsessed with macho culture than jocks. It’s like figure skaters – the general population gives them short shriff on the subject, so they go all in on replicating it in their culture, just to make themselves feel better (They’ve sure as hell successfully sold that they don’t listen to women better than figure skaters do, at least).
The classroom is only barely the beginning of brogrammer culture (And from my limited experience, contains plenty of dismissal, darlin’s, and lack of concern with the concept of consent to start with) – startups, in particular, but still just business in general, enforces it as well. It’s hilariously awful – and the programmers I’ve known were mostly women who hate it (But already learned the job, so.)
Also, I really hope you’re not still concerned with ‘jocks’ at the age of 20. But at any rate, handegg jocks perform less macho-ness. They already have culture telling them they’re macho af. They don’t need to go the extra mile of hurling women out of their hobbies and work. A lot of what they do perform is still toxic af, but like…. movies lied. Jocks care more about women. Mildly. Of course, they have for more leeway for the awful among them, but…
In addition to what everyone else has said…you realize those girls lining up to bang Joe aren’t fuckin’ real, right? Fictional characters’ opinions don’t count. And the VERY VERY REAL women here have repeatedly fallen on the side of “would not feel safe around him.”
Yes, I’m not that stupid. But Joe is a microcosm(I think I’m using that word right) of a real type of person and those fictional women are a microcosm of the type of real women who sleep with that type of person. I know because my best friend is one of those dudes, totally politically-incorrect asshole who acts like he’s god’s gift to women, and it works like a charm because he’s unreasonably attractive.
That’s probably why I got so heated about this. I’m the Danny to his Joe, grade-school insanely close friendship and all, so I know the in’s and outs of what creates that attitude, and there’s no actual malice in it, just a massive ego fed by the praises of every woman he’s ever slept with. He can’t wrap his head around the concept of one that doesn’t want him. And, like Joe, he’s been rankled by the rare rejection and had to get beaten over the head with it a time or three, and it’s cringe-worthy and a little pathetic, but by no means deserving of physical harm.
Just so we can head off that rabbit hole, I’m not one of those people who believes consent can be negated by the consumption of alcohol prior to the sexual encounter. Because I’ve known plenty of people of both genders who enjoy drinking and fucking with equal zeal and often combine the two, and none of them are monsters. Does date-rape via alcohol occur? Yes, and it’s despicable, and I’ll at least try to step in if I see something that looks like that going down(which usually results in getting told off by the GIRL, not the guy), but it’s seems to be such a small minority of all cases that painting with such a wide brush is unwise.
If you don’t mind my saying so Unusually Angry Hippie, it’s a delightful bit of synchronicity to see someone come forward declaring “I’m basically this character” and have a matching randomly generated avatar. I think I can count all of them on one hand, and right now only Sal comes to mind.
For the record, I think your interpretation of Joe is the intended one. It wouldn’t be the first time a narrow consensus formed around a character in this comic that missed the forest for the trees. Though I do think Joe is due for a wake-up call.
To elaborate on my previous comment further: I’d say Joe has a very real problem of being easily confused with serious dudebro predators, and sooner or later he’s going to be informed of that fact. Much like how Joyce had to come to terms with how her innocent performances of her programming were indistinguishable from genuine bigotry.
Zaidyer: I think in his current form, Joe is a dudebro predator. Maybe not as extreme of one as Ryan, but he views women as targets not as people, he actively sets out to “defeat” womens’ “defenses” and he refuses to respect any boundary which is not defended with violence. That’s pretty friggin’ predatory.
Fact is, that 6% of male college students and 13% of military recruits will admit to at least one attempted or completed rape (if you avoid using the word rape, and the source is here which links to a blog post which reviews current-at-the-time-of-the-writing research on the subject). Of those who admit to at least one, a supermajority (somewhere between 63% and 75% depending on the study) have done more than one.
In other words: Better than one in 10 male military recruits is a rapist or attempted rapist. Better than 1 in 20 male college students is one, too.
And if you read that article? Joe shows a fuckload of the same thinking as the men in those studies.
He triggers peoples “predator” warning bells because in his current form, he is one. That he (by his report) hasn’t completed a rape doesn’t mean he doesn’t behave in a predatory way. And I should note – if you use the word “rape” in those surveys, the admission drops off – because the men who do these things convince themselves it’s not rape if she doesn’t say no, scream, and beat the shit out of them (sound familiar?).
Can he be redeemed? Yes. Does he show the same sort of thinking as actual rapists? Also yes.
I think Joe’s turning point is going to be realizing that Ryan thinks of women the same way he does. And then it’ll be him trying to figure out whether that’s an association he wants to keep.
It’s also worth noting that “those women lining up to bang Joe” haven’t actually appeared in comic either. We’ve heard his reports and we’ve seen him with Roz and Penny. That’s it.
Not that I doubt his stories, but we haven’t seen his “game” in action – other than against Joyce and Sarah who were both loudly and violently opposed. We don’t know how he reacts to weaker forms of resistance or how those he does succeed with react afterwards. Are they all happy and content with the purely casual nature of it all (once they sober up?) Were they misled about the casual nature of it all? How did he talk them into it? We don’t know.
Or do they all just jump at him immediately, like Roz & Penny apparently did?
Just a personal note: I read this statement as ‘We don’t know he’s not a rapist, so he definitely is’. And elsewhere in this conversation someone else said the difference between Ryan and Joe is the degree to which they are both rapists.
You said earlier that no one accuses Joe of actually being a rapist. Two separate people have done so in this single conversation.
Another note: I don’t deny Joe is periodically a creep and needs to grow the F up. He very decidedly is and does. But I would call that ‘character development’ rather than ‘redemption arc’.
Third note: I am a woman, but I am an ace one so my sexual opinions never count. Please feel free to ignore me.
For clarity: I am not accusing Joe of being a rapist. I AM saying women he encounters have 0 way of knowing whether he is or not, and he gives off rapey as fuck vibes, so many women he meets probably wouldn’t be comfortable being alone with him.
Joe is a creep. A relatively non-malicious creep – but still a creep
Ok but you do realize that your own feelings about who someone is and what they might do are a totally separate thing from who they actually are and what they might actually do right?
Have you never know someone who acted like Joe and DID have girls lining up? I had a college roomate like that and yes, they lined up, often multiple in the same night. These were real girls not comic book characters. I suspect that Willis knew some very similar people in college and his characters are based on reality.
You have never seen girls lining up for Joe, either.
He gets laid, sure, but we have not once seen how that is accomplished. Instead, all the women we see Joe try his moves on in-comic have been creeped out or told him to fuck off.
Well, if Joe is based on reality from Willis’s college days, we might look back at Joe’s origins in Roomies. Where his behavior is even creepier and less acceptable.
As for the “alt left”, fuck it. It barely exists, mostly as a bogeyman for the alt-right to whine about. Certainly doesn’t exist under that name.
Meanwhile the alt right just won an election based at least partly on “Muslims are terrorists”, “Mexicans are rapists and drug smugglers”, “blacks are criminals and welfare cheats stealing your hard earned money” and “trans people are invading your daughters bathrooms”.
Meanwhile, the most toxic thing about the “alt left” is that they sometimes go a little too far in calling this shit out. It’s bullshit. The whole political correctness run amok argument is a stalking horse designed to make bigots feel better and be more open about their bigotry. And you’re playing right into it.
Side note: I do absolutely agree that Joyce and Mike were far worse on that date than Joe was. Played for laughs or not. That doesn’t mean we should ignore the creepy moves he made during the date, since they weren’t in response to the punching and are the only real look we’ve had at his “game”.
I don’t want Mary to be redeemed just like I don’t want Mike to be redeemed. Sometimes bad people exist and don’t change for the better because like Mary, they believe they are right no matter what or like Mike, they enjoy stabbing you right in your insecurities until you are forced to either face them or cry in a corner. But maybe in 20 years when we’ve reached January in comic I’ll have changed my mind.
The most out of a “Marydemption” would be her begrudgingly saying she won’t antagonize anyone anymore. Maybe even a peace offering to Billie or Carla (In the form of an animu doodle) and keeping to herself. I doubt she’d completely change, but I also know nobody likes feeling like everyone hates them, even if they think they’re right.
Probably too toxic, but if he isn’t, then probably need tempering with lime, … NO, Wait, tempering with sulphur, because he’s caustic. Caustic is a form of toxicity? Isn’t it?
I mean, we know that Robin has the potential to be a good person from her other life. She’s not like Mary or Ryan; it’d just be weird for her to never get better in this verse…
I believe there’s a chance to redeem near anyone. Whether or not someone forgives them is up to each person individually but anyone can redeem themselves.
I personally have a large capacity for forgiving people.
Lives could be at stake. You shouldn’t just let the teacher sit you down and calmly wait through the remainder of a class rather than using the rare opportunity you have to pursue your case. It seems incredibly negligent. More negligent than calling a political figure to seduce her.
The legal system that can’t be counted on to put shits like Ryan in jail is negligent.
Dorothy is an 18-year-old kid going above and beyond anything that aught to be her responsibility.
And while she may have hesitated at an unfortunate moment, but she’s back on it now by talking to Leslie. Robin might still be on campus, or not far. They can go catch Roz, have her call Robin, and figure something out.
None of that doesn’t excuse Dorothy’s lack of pursuing the issue or her lack of innitiative. She’s basically complacent enough in pursuing Ryan that she feels COMFORTABLE sitting through the rest of class. She didn’t put up any fight. She didn’t refuse. Not upsetting her teacher takes priority to catching a rapist.
It’s not great, but I really think you’re being too hard on her.
What could she have done? Told Leslie in front of the whole class – and Joyce – why she needed that intern’s name?
Because unless Leslie understood why Dorothy was asking those questions, she wouldn’t have stopped pushing Robin out the door. Getting her to understand while she was still so flustered and not thinking clearly would have required spelling it out for her.
Joyce would have reacted badly and the entire class would do the math to figure out that she was the one who was attacked. Both are understandable reasons to hesitate.
And the instant Robin’s aide heard the reason Dorothy was asking those questions, he would have ushered Robin out the door as quickly as possible.
That’s all worst case scenario. I mean, 1. This is a college. and 2. She could’ve still asked to be excused. Or hell, even asked Roz if she can get her in contact with her sisters. Dorothy isn’t being proactive. I probably wouldn’t be so adamant about this if Leslie wasn’t blaming herself so severely or if Dorothy showed even an iota of “I should’ve pursued further instead of letting myself be easily daunted”
I had a problem with it, too. I get why it happened. I get that Dorothy is used to following orders from “adults.” She’s the “good girl” who does what she’s told, in her bid to be able to become powerful enough to affect world change. She plays the game.
But that doesn’t change that she should have run after her, no matter what Leslie said.
As Fart Captor hints, she likely wouldn’t have gotten the name anyway. Robin wouldn’t have known it and as soon as Kyle realized she was asking about the intern who was assaulted* at the rally, he never would have given it out. Nor should he, for that matter.
*Whatever the actual truth of the events, “assaulted” is how it’ll be treated internally.
Exactly. Obeying the teacher is something we’re all practically conditioned to do ever since elementary school and not everyone are able to lose that habit at the same pace, especially when they come right out of high school and that’s not very long ago for Dorothy.
You all realize that she still can get to Robin through Roz any time right? it’s not like she will never ever again have a chance to get this information just because Leslie wouldn’t let her ask in her class or just because she didn’t have the backbone to go against Leslie.
FCOL, the only part of her actions that I don’t get is why she is now wasting time after class talking to Leslie when she could be following Roz out the door!
This is basically one of those moments where she’ll be given the chance to redeem herself ala A Christmas Carol. Let’s hope she doesn’t fumble the ball.
This has been an excellent gender studies class really; the class learned that acting like an idiot to impress a girl you like truly transcends genders.
Yeah, except in the opposite direction of transcendence. Less rises above and more sinks below. … descends? Undermines? Sublimes? Subverts? … none of those are quite right to describe the least common denominator.
Not really? That would imply Robin had made it clear she wasn’t interested and Leslie ignored that, or that Leslie never made her intentions known, and just got bitter at how her being nice was not being rewarded appropriately.
She’s just got a crush on Robin, with whom she has interacted twice now. She was working herself up to actually make a move, when she aborted the mission, so it never even got to the point where Robin’s say in the matter could have been ignored.
Danny, when Dorothy broke up with him, was letting his desperation turn him into one of those “Nice Guys”. Thankfully, getting dumped and moving on snapped him out of it, because he actually is a nice guy
I’m actually really interested in the prospect of Robin as an…antagonist (feels weird to use that term for a comic like this).
Mainly because she was just another member of the good guys in It’s Walky and I like to see how the (vaguely) same character can change alignments between universes.
It’s not really a change of alignment so much as a change of situation. This is what Robin is like when she’s given power and nobody to keep her sane. Hell, she pretty much was the antagonist of early Sgortpacked, wrecking everyone’s lives without a care.
Robin wasn’t as completely cold (best word I can think of but not quite it) in Shortpacked as she is here. Or maybe unfeeling?
In Shortpacked she tried to be a responsible congresswoman (ban Cancer bill? not bright but thinking of others for the good). She misused funds she had no idea what to do with, but she bought Leslie a house for her and for all of their friends to live in. And not for ‘lust’, she didn’t love Leslie at the time, she was still after men.
Here, Robin is just straight forward going for the vote with out caring what she has to say to get it or do for it, without worrying about the consequences. Maybe there is hope for her. I liked Robin before.
I think part of it is how much time she’s spent with the main cast. Robin is selfish, there has to be something in it for her. She’s fiercely loyal to those she choses to let close, but is indifferent at best to everyone else.
In SP!, she was one of the main characters. She spent a lot of time with Amber, Ethan, Mike, and eventually Leslie because she had to as their co-worker. She played pranks on them for her amusement, but it took a while to really let them in. Of course she bought the house, but even that wasn’t an entirely selfless gesture; her group of friends became her family ánd she wanted to keep them close.
Here she’s like her avian namesake: swoop in, make some noise, crap on a few things, and leave. There’s nothing tying her to IU except Roz, and even that relationship may be conditional. Blood relatives didn’t get an automatic pass from Shortpacked Robin, so that may carry over to DoA. She may have agreed to come mostly for the opportunity to hold a political rally in the blue corner her red district. She has spent little time with anyone here, so we only see her in “keep everyone at a distance” mode. She doesn’t have anything to gain here in the short term.
We the audience know “I will fight to the death to keep my friends” Robin. This is not her. This “what’s in it for me” Robin. We don’t have the perspective of a character she’s close to this time around.
DISCLAIMER: It’s been a while since I read through Shortpacked. Some of this is probably wrong.
I agree with most of this but my take of Robin from SP was that she was a pretty horribly selfish person and treated her “friends” badly, bit like Faye from QC, and while she may have done some good things it still just makes her a pretty shitty person that does something good every now and then
Maybe it’s less that Robin’s new iteration is significantly different and more that this universe is different; that her flaws and antics don’t end in forgivable sillyness anymore.
Thisssss. I still can’t care about some things in the comic because they’re so… slapsticky. Like Mike. Or the beginning of the Mary/Carla confrontation, before it devolved into transphobia. Shortpacked was crazy comic – bad stuff there is like bad stuff in Coyote versus the Roadrunner. DoA gives a more real-world feel, so Robin’s approach of running roughshod over everyone actually MEANS something.
The look on her face when it hits her that the drugging not only happened for sure, but happened to people she knows – to her students who she feels responsible for – and that her emotions got in the way of them finding out who it was… it’s like her heart breaks right before she got punched in the gut. I hope she can find a way to help without hurting herself more in the process. She has a good heart and a good head on her shoulders. I’m sure she will think of something.
I think it’s doubly going to hit her that she was attempting to impress her crush like it was high school while they’re dealing with an attack as amateur detectives. It’s like they’re in Veronica Mars and she’s on the Disney channel.
But she DOES know how to delegate annoying details like keeping track of interns’ names, and answering questions about her interns names, and it’s not hard to imagine she delegates them to the same person.
Even if they can’t find a full name, Sal and Amazi-Girl got the name ‘Ryan’. Worst case scenario, they pour through the social media (or stake out the residence) of every single Ryan in the student directory.
On one hand, Robin probably should have been kicked out because that Q&A session was A) Toxic and B) Increasingly becoming a waste of time, as she had NO good answers or even serious ones.
Eh, not necessarily as a lot can be learned from a complete clusterfuck. The most educational guest speaker experience I ever had was when a speaker talked about school violence and bullying where all of the question askers had horrible experiences with bullying (myself included) where her advice was complete crap.
It was also surreal and horrifying in retrospect because I just remembered that was also the trip to Washington D.C. (I forget what those trips were called but hundreds of schools did them) when Columbine happened.
Eh, true enough on the incompetency and seriousness, but honestly, the toxicity by itself would be enough to justify telling her ‘nope, pack it in, you’re done’ imo.
It could have been fine, even with Robin as she is, if Leslie had been prepared and actually in a state to manage the situation. With her focused on the seduction and then on her horror at herself, it was hopeless. Cut your losses.
One of the things that is so frustrating about this whole situation is that if Robin had any foresight, she might have prepped before going into a gender studies classroom, and had actual answers. I took a class this semester studying the election, and one of the most interesting parts of it has been the guest speakers who came in that were politicians involved in the republican party, and were voting for Trump. The answers weren’t always satisfying, but they were educational. This feel like a huge missed opportunity.
Yes Stupid Leslie, cause beating up on yourself for something you knew nothing about is wasting valuable chasing after a Robin for the answer and another chance time.
For some reason it feels kind of weird for Leslie to be talking about Amazi-Girl like she’s a normal thing, in a way that it doesn’t for Dorothy or the other students.
And it’s okay, Leslie. It’s not your fault that your brain doesn’t work right when Robin is involved.
Don’t beat yourself off. Dorothy could’ve
1. Ignored you and left class anyway
2. Bring up her question earlier
3. Have taken the time to tell you WHY she wanted to follow Robin
4.Not waited until the end of class and then stayed afterwards to shoot the shit with her.
5. Asked Roz to help get in contact with her.
Despite the fact that a rapist is on campus Dorothy seems to not be treating this event with any amount of Urgency or importance. It honestly makes it seem like she doesn’t really care.
Don’t worry too much about the logical consistency.
A lot of the stuff in this strip could be resolved if the characters stopped and really thought about what they were doing, yeah, but that’s not how college-aged students tend to act (and it’s no fun to read!)
2 or 3 wouldn’t work if the objective is still to hide this from Joyce, but she really should be utilizing Roz for this. Give her something constructive to do. Or, seriously, 1 or running like hell to do 4.
The most important information here is that the story of Ryan using drugs to rape women is public knowledge – if Leslie heard it, lots of others did, too – and still
a) his friend came to rescue him
b) no one in the rally came foreward with his name though there must be several people who know him.
Panel 6 – the bomb drops. Lesllie is putting 2 + 2 together to get a hint as to why Dorothy wants to find out who Ryan is. And that Robin should have the means to identify him.
Keeping in mind that Robin doesn’t appear to know her aides name and he’s closer to her than the interns: whom she said she doesn’t pay. If they work free, there may be no record of their names?
USAmericans seem to have weird-ass campaign procedures (and everything else), so I’m not sure, but I find it unlikely that they wouldn’t have SOME record of who they have representing them officially, paid or not.
They probably would for safety/accountability reasons. For instance, if there’s a fire somewhere at one of their rallies, they’d want to make sure their interns all got out safe – to avoid lawsuits, if nothing else. So it makes sense they’d have a record of who was working that event.
If not, the school might, as its an event on their property worked by their students.
That too! Even if they end up hating you, presumably they don’t want your family to sue them into oblivion if an accident occurs and you can’t be accounted for because they weren’t keeping track of employees/volunteers.
Joyce was interested in Joe as a future husband. She dressed up for the occasion, so all signals he received (up to meeting Mike) were consent in his book.
Additionally, there seems to be some momentum towards Joyce and Joe finally settling on a weird kind of friendship, so it all turned out more-or-less okay in the end.
Judge not a politician by her local-level interns. I bet that Robin wouldn’t know Ryan’s face even if Dorothy had a chance to ask her. It’s okay to judge her by the policies she supports without thinking through but don’t judge her by the hiring decisions made by her local-level campaign team without telling her (because, let’s face it, who kicks vetting interns upstairs to the boss?).
Yeah… Leslie really needs a hug from a friend right now.
I feel compelled to repeat a statement I read a in the comments not long ago. Even if able to talk to Robin, she’d probably be no closer to getting a name than she is now. Going by Robin’s behaviour so far and how little she knows about the people who work for her, if she’s even aware that they work for her, I doubt she would be able to tell Dorothy anything she doesn’t already know.
Although Leslie behaved inappropriately, I hope she’ll realize that her actions probably didn’t sabotage Dorothy’s efforts.
She shouldn’t feel too bad. Even if Dorothy asked Robin about the intern she wouldn’t get a name. Robin can’t be troubled to remember her own aide’s name let alone some underlings that work for free.
Someone (I forget who, sorryyyyy – I think it was thejeff) pointed out to me that Kyle, being the competent one of the ensemble, probably knows Ryan’s name, even if it is so he can do damage control about the fight at the rally. Most everyone I commented with seems to agree that there’s no way he’d reveal the name just because he was asked to, though, and there’s no not-terrible way for Dorothy to tell him why she wants it.
Frieda likely also does, since it was at least implied that she hired the other three interns (is ‘hired’ even the right word for an unpaid internship?), though it was never mentioned if she also hired Ryan.
Am I wrong, AGAIN? I took that Robin knew the name of her aide, and was demoted to Aide for some nameless failure, and then for not prepping her properly, was demoted from ‘Aide’ to “You!” Unless I’m wrong, Again…
I mean Robin’s a destructive moron, in her way, but I don’t feel like you can hold her responsible for someone volunteering to help her being a shit-heel themselves.
Dorothy and Leslie are good people, and sad as it is – especially the last panel – this strip shows a wonderful, wonderful connection between them.
Dorothy is the student all teachers dream of. She is ambitious, smart, driven, curious and shares your core values. In a few years time, Leslie will point at the news and say “you know, that is one of mine.”, and her teacher colleges will be all “daaaang.”
And Leslie is the teacher Dorothy dream of. She is smart, funny, knowledgeable, has principles, values, she is in the trenches herself, so to speak, and Dorothy admires that tremendously. That is why her voice quivered when she asked if Leslie had planned to out Robin.
I’m so, so glad for their connection. Dorothy both acknowledge that yes, Leslie fucked up. Because Dorothy think higher of her than this. And Leslie takes comfort in that she can be – she usually IS – the Leslie Dorothy looks up to.
So I might be late to this, but considering how similar people have noted Dorothy and Amber look, do you think Leslie might be mentally putting a brown wig on Dorothy and kinda reeling from the “revelation”?
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If Leslie’s so stupid, why is she smarting?
One of my favorite Animaniacs exchanges:
Ralph: Ow, that smarted me!
Yakko: I doubt it.
Hey, I was thinking the same thing!
I probably should have watched Animaniacs.
I’m so culturally illiterate!
It’s never too late.
Last I saw it was on Netflix.
Yes you should, Animaniacs and Tiny Toon Adventures are some of the best cartoons ever made, and they managed to get the best voice actors as well. I grabbed the box sets for both of them as soon as they were available, and I have come as close to wearing out DVDs as it is possible to get.
everyone has a part of their brain that makes them stupid.
some people only go there from time to time and some people dont stay in that part to often
other people visit all the time and stay for days on end.
she is just visiting that part of her brain for a little. she can still be smart. just…… later
I think she was talking about a different part of the neuronal network linked with hormone regulation.
Specially the left half of the brain
https://youtu.be/oNuQZPTHALI?t=6m35s
I’m pretty sure that the gonads aren’t located in the brain, actually. They may not be in quite the same place for men and women, but thinking with them instead of the gray matter is usually a problem for anyone.
What about the metaphorical “lizard brain”, i.e. the parts that deal with base desires like sex and food sometimes overriding a person’s rational, logical reasoning.
+1
Well here’s hoping for Robindemption.
Your avatar reveals exactly what you are for hoping for that, yes you are multiple.
Also hoping for Marydemption, any other characters who could conceivably be redeemed?
Probably not Ryan. I mean, sure, it’s possible that he sees the error of his ways, reforms, and becomes nothing but a boon to all, but redemption kinda means that the audience feels okay about him too, or at least kinda-conflicted-but-leaning-his-way, and I don’t think that’s happening.
Probably not Blaine either.
Toedad could have a redemption, I think. Carol. Those are the two big ones in my head.
Ethan’s parents. Danny’s parents. Maybe Joe?
I’m still wondering why people seem to think Joe needs redemption. He hasn’t actually done anything wrong. At all. He might have some decidedly un-feminist reasons for doing what he does, but you don’t see the all the girls happily lining up to bang him complaining about it, either. And I’m sure you would all consider those women’s decision to seek out those sexual encounters for purely lust-related reasons empowered for doing so.
So why the double standard? In fact, I’m pretty sure Joe pointed out one of the biggest double-standards of all when he was talking to Danny about why he didn’t sleep with Billy. Why is it your place, or anyone elses, to tell a woman who she should or shouldn’t have sex with, and Joe’s made it clear that he expressly doesn’t pursue women who aren’t interested.
Also, if it wasn’t a gimmick played for laughs because he’s a ‘dudebro’, Joe would have a very real and very serious legal case against both Joyce and Mike for felony assault and battery. You can’t treat the comic as ‘serious business’ when feminist issues are involved but all in good fun when your ‘acceptable targets’ are on the receiving end.
This double-standard that the alt-left has is…okay, not nearly as horrible as the alt-right’s craziness, but still pretty damn toxic. I’m prepared to recive flak for saying this, but I’m cool with it. Crucify away. I’ll load you a little more ammunition. Yes, I’m a white, suburban, middle-class privileged piece of shit.
Sure, I’m also bisexual, but it’s been made clear to me by now that I’m not a ‘real’ LGBT because of my passing privilege, as if it’s wrong to out anyone else, but bisexuals are expected out themselves to all and sundry if we want to be part of the conversation.
DISCLAIMER:Commenting Drunk, spellcheck is awesome.
We’ve been over this many times now. Cerberus and Emperor Norton even did a whole podcast on the subject.
The short of it is, while Joe may *technically* think consent is important, his standards for both what constitutes consent and what requires consent suck.
In my mind, the plainest example is when Joe hit on Sarah, and she to literally told him to fuck off. Not long afterwards, he was trying it again. He accepts “no”, but he forces women to repeat it, over and over, and when he hears it, he acts like they were being unreasonable for getting upset about his persistent badgering.
By that logic if I ask you for beer money again and again and you keep saying no but finally you give in just to shut me up I am guilty of theft. That’s stupid. Should you be able to send the police after me?
A person who keeps asking again may be annoying, they may even be creepy and it is ok for you to feel that way about them. It may even be so bad that you decide to cut them out of your life and that is cool too because who you spend time with is your business. Lonliness is the natural price to pay for beeing an annoying creep.
That’s all it is though, an annoying person you are better off not hanging out with. A person who violates consent is a rapist. A mere annoying person does not deserve that label likewise an actual rapist does not deserve to have the meaning of their label reduced by throwing in mere annoying people who are NOT guilty of rape.
It’s kind of like finding out your neighbor is on the sex offender list. And then you find out that people can get on that list by relatively harmless things like peeing in an alley outside a bar or something like that. Maybe your neighbor is only guilty of something like that which they did one drunk night that they regret and will never repeat. Or maybe they rape children for kicks. See, widening your definitions of offenses to include everyone who does something you don’t like kind of destroys the meaning and purpose of words doesn’t it?
You’re right. If Joe did that he would not be a rapist. He’d be a creep and an asshole and I’d avoid him. If that was the behavior I observed in public (or heard of from other women), it would also raise sufficient warning flags that I’d would be wary as hell of being alone with him if I was a woman and would warn others of my suspicions.
Which is all about what people are saying about Joe here. What we’ve seen of his behavior is creepy and concerning. I don’t recall accusations that he’s actually raped anyone.
@theJeff – “I was commenting on the statement that “his standards for both what constitutes consent and what requires consent suck.”
That implies that what he considers consent isn’t really consent and logically that would make it rape.
So, what would you be warning others about? That he will nag them for sex? That’s pretty fair. That you think he might go beyond that? it’s all up to Willis of course but i don’t get the impression at all that he would.
At what point does a warning about what somebody ‘might’ do change from a ‘public service anouncement’ to the spreading of hurtful rumors? That’s a pretty vicious thing to have people thinking about you. There is a fine line there one should be careful of crossing. This is why in the legal system we have the concept of innocent until proven guilty. We do not have this in our everyday social interactions though. You should be careful what you say about people because you can really cause a lot of damage.
@morg:
What he considers consent is consent, but just barely. Badgering someone until they give in isn’t as bad as forcing yourself on them, but it’s still shitty behavior.
In general, he just pursues sex without regard for what the woman wants. From the minute he met Joyce, it was painfully obvious that she was looking for a long-term relationship, not casual sex. Joe feigned interest in a relationship, and decided she needed to be “broken in”. He actually thought manipulating her into having sex with him, going against deeply held beliefs, would have been good for her.
Joe may not be a rapist, but the margin by which he is not is uncomfortably narrow.
About what he might do. About where he might stop.
Yeah, warning people “I don’t trust this creepy guy, be careful about being along with him” might “cause a lot of damage”, though I’m not sure exactly what.
I’d feel an awful lot worse if someone I could have warned did get raped by the guy I thought was creepy.
Should we never caution anyone or even be careful ourselves until and unless someone’s been proven guilty in a court of law? (And of course once they’ve served their time, there’s no reason to not trust them again and having committed one crime doesn’t mean they’d commit others.)
Honestly, from the meta point of view, knowing Willis, Joe isn’t going to rape anyone. He’s not even going to actually get laid in any situation where he did push the line and got uncomfortably close to rapey. But that’s meta stuff that I wouldn’t be able to rely on dealing with a real world Joe. And the behavior we’ve seen from Joe would be raising huge red flags in the real world. Not proof of anything, but all the signs.
Which is why, as I’ve said before, I’d really like to see more of Joe’s “game”. I’d like to see him trying to seduce someone and see how he handles the resistance. See when and if he backs off with the screaming at him or punches and threats of baseball bats. I’d like to see more of what Joe’s idea of consent looks like in practice, rather than just in theory.
Except when Joe found out how earnestly Joyce wanted to be in a relationship he stopped trying to have sex with her and actually tried to have a real date. His desire to “break her in” is only coming with the assumption that she’s the “represses christian girl who’s looking for an excuse to let loose”. He doesn’t continue trying to coax her into sex beyond the point she shows up to the date. In fact he feels inadequate in his attire and tries to change.
Joe is very pushy sure, but not more pushy than say…Billie or Ruth. Billie who literally kissed Danny suddenly and started disrobing on top of him without a seconds warning, or Ruth the girl who started making out with the girl she was physically abusing. Had Joe done EITHER of these things (regardless of stopping when consent was pushed away) everyone here would have a much lower opinion of him. But he doesn’t. He’s pushy and persistent but he does back off when he feels he can’t get further with someone.
Any supposed rape vibes to Joe is due to the natural fear of men by women because men are imposing and strong and they feel they couldn’t do anything if he DID start raping them.But as far as flirting goes, Joe tries to get with girls and insists on it, because he loves having sex, and it takes two to tango. It might seem disrespectful to keep pushing after one attempt, but I’ll be honest, a LOT of relationships or hookups don’t just…immediately click.
“Sex?”
“Yes”
“And then they had sex together forever”
And even in that above situation, one or maybe both of them could theoretically see it as a mistake in hindsight or regret it. I think a lot of people who don’t take the first “no” as a hard stop probably don’t view as a very traumatic or life affirming event like a lot of people seem to.
Then again I’m not a woman so anything I say is somewhat irrelevant.
Also a virgin.
Yomatoe, those “supposed rape vibes” never seem to emanate from other male characters, like Walky, Danny, Ethan, or Jacob.
Joe’s behavior is absolutely the reason why. Ethan and Jacob are just as tall, just as masculine, and just as physically intimidating as Joe would be, but we’ve never seen a single instance where either of them made a woman feel unsafe or even uncomfortable.
There’s also a huge difference between not immediately giving up completely at the first “no”, and soldiering on even after being told “fuck off”.
And Ruth really isn’t a strengthening your point. I like her and Billie, but she was incredibly lucky that Billie didn’t file charges against her, because that forced kiss was fucked up. She assaulted Billie there, physically, then sexually. She was just fortunate in that Billie ended up forgiving her for it. That does not by any means make it okay.
“By that logic if I ask you for beer money again and again and you keep saying no but finally you give in just to shut me up I am guilty of theft. That’s stupid. Should you be able to send the police after me?”
No, but you would have pressured someone into giving you money which is not illegal. Only with sex, pressuring someone into giving it up IS rape via coercion. Pressuring someone via repeated insistence counts. Sex requires active (or enthusiastic) consent. Just ‘the absence of a no’ isn’t good enough. It requires a freely given (aka un-coerced, sober, non manipulated and informed) yes.
Joe continuously trying to pressure people into bed is skeevy as fuck and if he succeeded, yes, he’d be a rapist. He probably wouldn’t go to jail, no, but that’s hardly the authority on what does or does not make someone a rapist since most rapists don’t ever get convicted (either due to lack of report, lack of evidence, etc). Sex crime and abuse in general have abysmal conviction rates because they’re difficult to prove – which is also why legal definitions don’t tend to cover everything sociological definitions of rape and abuse do, because those are much trickier to prove to court standards.
Fair enough. As a counterpoint though, Ethan is gay and the closest to “flirting” he’s ever gotten is just being shy around Danny.
Jacob hasn’t really been seen being flirty with anyone. Even with his own girlfriend he’s been nothing but doting. Danny’s also taken a very submissive route to most of his relationship, considering he’s dating a super hero. He rarely “takes the lead”. Walky is probably the only guy who you could say does and he’s also really scrawny and tiny. If Joe acted more like Walky it’d also be kinda suspect. (Like throwing a toy at a girl) But that’s because he’s a big guy.
I feel like Joe’s Bravado can make people uncomfortable for sure, but I think it kinda underlies how scary a rape really is. If someone carries a gun around all the time I might be nervous around them, but I wouldn’t call them a murderer, until they murder someone.
Yotomoe: It’s not just or even mostly Joe’s actual flirting. He said he was going to fix Joyce with his penis. He posts a public “todo list” rating girls he knows. He talks about alcohol helping with threesomes.
He’s creepy as hell and it’s not just his bravado or that he flirts or him being a big guy. He says the right things about consent, but he seems to actually just view it as an obstacle to overcome.
And to jump back a post or two: He very definitely does not stop trying with Joyce and just have a normal date. He’s still on his game, it’s just a slightly longer game. He tries to bribe Mike to get out of the way. He keeps circling the conversation back to sex. He keeps working it until the punching gets too much.
Mind you, Joyce & Mike were far worse during that date. There’s no excuse for it. I likely would have begged off when she announced the chaperone and certainly when the punching was mentioned. OTOH, had I gone on the date I would have been trying to get to know her, not just focusing on sex.
Fart Captor’s statement that Joe tries to hit on Sarah again after she tells him no is wrong. I looked throughout the tags for the comic and it doesn’t happen.
No, you’re right, after she explicitly tells him she’s not interested in him he doesn’t hit on her again.
On the other hand, by that point she had already told him that she hated him and he should fuck off. His reaction, albeit not to her face, was that she would be great in the sack, and the next time they met he followed up by flirting with her even though she looked disgusted. So Joe will accept a direct “no”, but he will ignore any other signals, no matter how vehement.
It happened right here:
http://www.dumbingofage.com/2013/comic/book-4/01-the-only-dope-for-me-is-you/chaps/
Joe totally accepts “no”. If you repeat it several times, and get angry about it.
At that point, he declares that you’re either crazy or a lesbian, and finally gives up.
I kinda view Joe as…. borderline in all the cases you mention. He’s not really crossing serious boundaries, but he’s edging near them in ways that make people uncomfortable and pressured. Not someone you revile as despicable, but also not someone you want near you.
I don’t think that’s why Joe might need redeeming, though. My problem with him is mostly how terrible of a friend he’s been to Danny.
(And yeah, what Mike did was definitely A&B. Questionable how liable Joyce is, but there would be a case there. I think it got a pass less because of Joe being a designated bad-guy and more because Mike never faces consequences for his actions. Different conversation entirely.)
(Wait, Joyce joined in at one point. Yup, definitely liable then.)
“Not really crossing serious boundaries”? Come the hell on. You realize sexual harassment is a thing, right?
Joe views consent as a legal technicality, not as aomething he, personally, needs to be concerned with on a moral level. He is the kind of guy who wouldn’t pull a Ryan because he might get caught… but he will badger women to see if he can coerce consent though harassment, he is not above using alcohol to get women to agree to stuff they wouldn’t while sober (alcohol is the most common date rape drug btw), and he has shown repeatedly that he views any boundaries not enforced with violence or the threat thereof as a challenge.
The difference between Joe and Ryan is one of degree not of kind.
Joe is the kind of creepy-ass sexual harasser who pretends to be European to coerce strange North American women into kissing him. He’s the business man who uses his position to coerce junior women into accepting his wandering hands. He’s the jock bro who won’t take no for an answer until his target blows up at him, and then she is “crazy” and unfuckable anyway.
The Joes of the world are a lot of why women don’t stay in male dominated fields or often go anywhere alone. Because where you see a macho doofus trying his best moves, I see Schroedinger’s rapist showing a heavy rapey vibe and I don’t want to take the risk of finding out the hard way.
@ischemgeek “The Joes of the world are a lot of why women don’t stay in male dominated fields or often go anywhere alone.”
Which male dominated fields are you talking about? I’m a computer programmer. Every other day I read a story about how somebody is doing this or that to try to encourage more women into the field. Ok.. are they not here because they are worried about “a macho doofus trying his best moves”? Really? Have you ever actually walked into a computer science classroom? What did you see that was macho? What school were you at? Are you for real?
Maybe if the male dominated field you want to enter is “football jock”, then you might have a point. Otherwise I think you have drank too much of the kool aide and no longer see the world as it really is.
So.. I see your name implies you are in chemistry. Tell me.. do you get a lot of “Joes” there?
@morg:
I’m also a computer programmer. One of my friends was one of the 2 female computer science majors at my school. On group projects, she had to constantly deal with dudes who never listened to her because she was just a girl, and obviously girls don’t know computers.
On one project, I was in the same group, and literally repeated a suggestion she’d made that had been ignored, and suddenly it was a good idea!
Computer nerds have a very different flavor of macho than jocks, but it’s fucking there, I assure you.
@morg:
I’m also a computer programmer, with decades of experience, and… I’m sorry, but you seem to be in denial.
“Have you ever actually walked into a computer science classroom? What did you see that was macho?” Yes, and I can tell you the classroom is not the workplace (although with the rise of social forums, I know damn well the classroom is no longer the haven of academia that we gave lip service to).
Since I am using a handle myself, I can hardly point to my own unsupported observations (although I’ll offer them if asked), but surely the lawsuits and the news reports didn’t just go by you without registering? The one that sticks in my memory involved Github, an otherwise well-regarded business (which to their credit did take action, although their foot-dragging remains a blot).
Oh this is adorable. Nerds are frankly way the hell more obsessed with macho culture than jocks. It’s like figure skaters – the general population gives them short shriff on the subject, so they go all in on replicating it in their culture, just to make themselves feel better (They’ve sure as hell successfully sold that they don’t listen to women better than figure skaters do, at least).
The classroom is only barely the beginning of brogrammer culture (And from my limited experience, contains plenty of dismissal, darlin’s, and lack of concern with the concept of consent to start with) – startups, in particular, but still just business in general, enforces it as well. It’s hilariously awful – and the programmers I’ve known were mostly women who hate it (But already learned the job, so.)
Also, I really hope you’re not still concerned with ‘jocks’ at the age of 20. But at any rate, handegg jocks perform less macho-ness. They already have culture telling them they’re macho af. They don’t need to go the extra mile of hurling women out of their hobbies and work. A lot of what they do perform is still toxic af, but like…. movies lied. Jocks care more about women. Mildly. Of course, they have for more leeway for the awful among them, but…
@morg
Long time programmer here.
Computer programmers are mostly male and mostly stone age when it comes to sexual relations.
All because they’re not jocks doesn’t mean they aren’t just as big arseholes when it comes to women.
I’m with Inspector Hound here: too many IRL instances mount up to a real problem for the computer programming industry.
In addition to what everyone else has said…you realize those girls lining up to bang Joe aren’t fuckin’ real, right? Fictional characters’ opinions don’t count. And the VERY VERY REAL women here have repeatedly fallen on the side of “would not feel safe around him.”
Yes, I’m not that stupid. But Joe is a microcosm(I think I’m using that word right) of a real type of person and those fictional women are a microcosm of the type of real women who sleep with that type of person. I know because my best friend is one of those dudes, totally politically-incorrect asshole who acts like he’s god’s gift to women, and it works like a charm because he’s unreasonably attractive.
That’s probably why I got so heated about this. I’m the Danny to his Joe, grade-school insanely close friendship and all, so I know the in’s and outs of what creates that attitude, and there’s no actual malice in it, just a massive ego fed by the praises of every woman he’s ever slept with. He can’t wrap his head around the concept of one that doesn’t want him. And, like Joe, he’s been rankled by the rare rejection and had to get beaten over the head with it a time or three, and it’s cringe-worthy and a little pathetic, but by no means deserving of physical harm.
Just so we can head off that rabbit hole, I’m not one of those people who believes consent can be negated by the consumption of alcohol prior to the sexual encounter. Because I’ve known plenty of people of both genders who enjoy drinking and fucking with equal zeal and often combine the two, and none of them are monsters. Does date-rape via alcohol occur? Yes, and it’s despicable, and I’ll at least try to step in if I see something that looks like that going down(which usually results in getting told off by the GIRL, not the guy), but it’s seems to be such a small minority of all cases that painting with such a wide brush is unwise.
If you don’t mind my saying so Unusually Angry Hippie, it’s a delightful bit of synchronicity to see someone come forward declaring “I’m basically this character” and have a matching randomly generated avatar. I think I can count all of them on one hand, and right now only Sal comes to mind.
For the record, I think your interpretation of Joe is the intended one. It wouldn’t be the first time a narrow consensus formed around a character in this comic that missed the forest for the trees. Though I do think Joe is due for a wake-up call.
To elaborate on my previous comment further: I’d say Joe has a very real problem of being easily confused with serious dudebro predators, and sooner or later he’s going to be informed of that fact. Much like how Joyce had to come to terms with how her innocent performances of her programming were indistinguishable from genuine bigotry.
Zaidyer: I think in his current form, Joe is a dudebro predator. Maybe not as extreme of one as Ryan, but he views women as targets not as people, he actively sets out to “defeat” womens’ “defenses” and he refuses to respect any boundary which is not defended with violence. That’s pretty friggin’ predatory.
Fact is, that 6% of male college students and 13% of military recruits will admit to at least one attempted or completed rape (if you avoid using the word rape, and the source is here which links to a blog post which reviews current-at-the-time-of-the-writing research on the subject). Of those who admit to at least one, a supermajority (somewhere between 63% and 75% depending on the study) have done more than one.
In other words: Better than one in 10 male military recruits is a rapist or attempted rapist. Better than 1 in 20 male college students is one, too.
And if you read that article? Joe shows a fuckload of the same thinking as the men in those studies.
He triggers peoples “predator” warning bells because in his current form, he is one. That he (by his report) hasn’t completed a rape doesn’t mean he doesn’t behave in a predatory way. And I should note – if you use the word “rape” in those surveys, the admission drops off – because the men who do these things convince themselves it’s not rape if she doesn’t say no, scream, and beat the shit out of them (sound familiar?).
Can he be redeemed? Yes. Does he show the same sort of thinking as actual rapists? Also yes.
I think Joe’s turning point is going to be realizing that Ryan thinks of women the same way he does. And then it’ll be him trying to figure out whether that’s an association he wants to keep.
It’s also worth noting that “those women lining up to bang Joe” haven’t actually appeared in comic either. We’ve heard his reports and we’ve seen him with Roz and Penny. That’s it.
Not that I doubt his stories, but we haven’t seen his “game” in action – other than against Joyce and Sarah who were both loudly and violently opposed. We don’t know how he reacts to weaker forms of resistance or how those he does succeed with react afterwards. Are they all happy and content with the purely casual nature of it all (once they sober up?) Were they misled about the casual nature of it all? How did he talk them into it? We don’t know.
Or do they all just jump at him immediately, like Roz & Penny apparently did?
Just a personal note: I read this statement as ‘We don’t know he’s not a rapist, so he definitely is’. And elsewhere in this conversation someone else said the difference between Ryan and Joe is the degree to which they are both rapists.
You said earlier that no one accuses Joe of actually being a rapist. Two separate people have done so in this single conversation.
Another note: I don’t deny Joe is periodically a creep and needs to grow the F up. He very decidedly is and does. But I would call that ‘character development’ rather than ‘redemption arc’.
Third note: I am a woman, but I am an ace one so my sexual opinions never count. Please feel free to ignore me.
I’m not sure which statement. If it’s mine, I don’t think he’s a rapist. Mostly because I think Willis likes him and wouldn’t go anywhere near there.
I think his behavior is such that in real life I wouldn’t trust that he isn’t.
I read ischemgeek’s line about “degree” differently, so I can’t really speak that.
For clarity: I am not accusing Joe of being a rapist. I AM saying women he encounters have 0 way of knowing whether he is or not, and he gives off rapey as fuck vibes, so many women he meets probably wouldn’t be comfortable being alone with him.
Joe is a creep. A relatively non-malicious creep – but still a creep
Ok but you do realize that your own feelings about who someone is and what they might do are a totally separate thing from who they actually are and what they might actually do right?
Have you never know someone who acted like Joe and DID have girls lining up? I had a college roomate like that and yes, they lined up, often multiple in the same night. These were real girls not comic book characters. I suspect that Willis knew some very similar people in college and his characters are based on reality.
You have never seen girls lining up for Joe, either.
He gets laid, sure, but we have not once seen how that is accomplished. Instead, all the women we see Joe try his moves on in-comic have been creeped out or told him to fuck off.
Well, if Joe is based on reality from Willis’s college days, we might look back at Joe’s origins in Roomies. Where his behavior is even creepier and less acceptable.
As for the “alt left”, fuck it. It barely exists, mostly as a bogeyman for the alt-right to whine about. Certainly doesn’t exist under that name.
Meanwhile the alt right just won an election based at least partly on “Muslims are terrorists”, “Mexicans are rapists and drug smugglers”, “blacks are criminals and welfare cheats stealing your hard earned money” and “trans people are invading your daughters bathrooms”.
Meanwhile, the most toxic thing about the “alt left” is that they sometimes go a little too far in calling this shit out. It’s bullshit. The whole political correctness run amok argument is a stalking horse designed to make bigots feel better and be more open about their bigotry. And you’re playing right into it.
Side note: I do absolutely agree that Joyce and Mike were far worse on that date than Joe was. Played for laughs or not. That doesn’t mean we should ignore the creepy moves he made during the date, since they weren’t in response to the punching and are the only real look we’ve had at his “game”.
I don’t want Mary to be redeemed just like I don’t want Mike to be redeemed. Sometimes bad people exist and don’t change for the better because like Mary, they believe they are right no matter what or like Mike, they enjoy stabbing you right in your insecurities until you are forced to either face them or cry in a corner. But maybe in 20 years when we’ve reached January in comic I’ll have changed my mind.
I don’t think that mike believes he’s right no matter what – I think that he just doesn’t care about being right.
Right. That’s how Sam described Mary, while Mike was described as just enjoying “stabbing people right in the insecurities.”
The most out of a “Marydemption” would be her begrudgingly saying she won’t antagonize anyone anymore. Maybe even a peace offering to Billie or Carla (In the form of an animu doodle) and keeping to herself. I doubt she’d completely change, but I also know nobody likes feeling like everyone hates them, even if they think they’re right.
Marydemption? Don’t hold your breath, kid.
Eh, weirder things have happened in Walkyverse.
*Willisverse I should say, since this is Dumbing of Age.
I guess Blaine could make decent fertilizer.
Probably too toxic, but if he isn’t, then probably need tempering with lime, … NO, Wait, tempering with sulphur, because he’s caustic. Caustic is a form of toxicity? Isn’t it?
I mean, we know that Robin has the potential to be a good person from her other life. She’s not like Mary or Ryan; it’d just be weird for her to never get better in this verse…
I believe there’s a chance to redeem near anyone. Whether or not someone forgives them is up to each person individually but anyone can redeem themselves.
I personally have a large capacity for forgiving people.
Anyone can. Redemption is always possible. Not everyone will however.
It’s not your fault Leslie, it’s… um… Aide’s fault?
But now Leslie might be able to help…
I blame the increasingly divisive tone of political debate that has created a “with us or against us” and “enemy of my enemy is my friend” atmosphere.
I blame Willis. Damn you, Willis!
i’m still a little offended that his name isn’t Aiden
You forget his name’s not Aide any more.
It’s not your fault, Leslie, it’s all You’s fault! …. no, not your fault, you’s fau-… I’M NOT A MAFIOSO OKAY???
You’s on first.
Naturally
Naturally! Same as you.
It’s more Dorothy’s fault than anything. She hardly tried to pursue answers.
Leslie cut her off pretty sharply in her rush end her shame and hurry Robin out the door.
But while Leslie’s thirst for Robin kept her from realizing why Dorothy was asking that question, it’s also the only reason Robin was in class at all.
Lives could be at stake. You shouldn’t just let the teacher sit you down and calmly wait through the remainder of a class rather than using the rare opportunity you have to pursue your case. It seems incredibly negligent. More negligent than calling a political figure to seduce her.
The legal system that can’t be counted on to put shits like Ryan in jail is negligent.
Dorothy is an 18-year-old kid going above and beyond anything that aught to be her responsibility.
And while she may have hesitated at an unfortunate moment, but she’s back on it now by talking to Leslie. Robin might still be on campus, or not far. They can go catch Roz, have her call Robin, and figure something out.
None of that doesn’t excuse Dorothy’s lack of pursuing the issue or her lack of innitiative. She’s basically complacent enough in pursuing Ryan that she feels COMFORTABLE sitting through the rest of class. She didn’t put up any fight. She didn’t refuse. Not upsetting her teacher takes priority to catching a rapist.
It’s not great, but I really think you’re being too hard on her.
What could she have done? Told Leslie in front of the whole class – and Joyce – why she needed that intern’s name?
Because unless Leslie understood why Dorothy was asking those questions, she wouldn’t have stopped pushing Robin out the door. Getting her to understand while she was still so flustered and not thinking clearly would have required spelling it out for her.
Joyce would have reacted badly and the entire class would do the math to figure out that she was the one who was attacked. Both are understandable reasons to hesitate.
And the instant Robin’s aide heard the reason Dorothy was asking those questions, he would have ushered Robin out the door as quickly as possible.
That’s all worst case scenario. I mean, 1. This is a college. and 2. She could’ve still asked to be excused. Or hell, even asked Roz if she can get her in contact with her sisters. Dorothy isn’t being proactive. I probably wouldn’t be so adamant about this if Leslie wasn’t blaming herself so severely or if Dorothy showed even an iota of “I should’ve pursued further instead of letting myself be easily daunted”
I had a problem with it, too. I get why it happened. I get that Dorothy is used to following orders from “adults.” She’s the “good girl” who does what she’s told, in her bid to be able to become powerful enough to affect world change. She plays the game.
But that doesn’t change that she should have run after her, no matter what Leslie said.
It’s really danged easy to sit behind a computer screen and second-guess what people should or should not have done.
As Fart Captor hints, she likely wouldn’t have gotten the name anyway. Robin wouldn’t have known it and as soon as Kyle realized she was asking about the intern who was assaulted* at the rally, he never would have given it out. Nor should he, for that matter.
*Whatever the actual truth of the events, “assaulted” is how it’ll be treated internally.
This is how you can tell they’re freshmen. (Since they’re not grad students, of course.)
Juniors or seniors would just walk right out.
Exactly. Obeying the teacher is something we’re all practically conditioned to do ever since elementary school and not everyone are able to lose that habit at the same pace, especially when they come right out of high school and that’s not very long ago for Dorothy.
What’s more, they’re still really early in that first year. Like, I think it’s October? I lose track of the comic time.
I don’t think they’ve even had midterms of the fall semester yet.
It’s roughly October 4th-ish. So yeah, very very early October. They’ve probably not had their midterms yet.
You all realize that she still can get to Robin through Roz any time right? it’s not like she will never ever again have a chance to get this information just because Leslie wouldn’t let her ask in her class or just because she didn’t have the backbone to go against Leslie.
FCOL, the only part of her actions that I don’t get is why she is now wasting time after class talking to Leslie when she could be following Roz out the door!
Well, this isn’t going to go well for Robin…
This is basically one of those moments where she’ll be given the chance to redeem herself ala A Christmas Carol. Let’s hope she doesn’t fumble the ball.
I’m just hoping she listens to the voice in her pants telling her to listen to the pretty teacher lady.
The one in her head doesn’t have a great track record so far
This has been an excellent gender studies class really; the class learned that acting like an idiot to impress a girl you like truly transcends genders.
Yeah, except in the opposite direction of transcendence. Less rises above and more sinks below. … descends? Undermines? Sublimes? Subverts? … none of those are quite right to describe the least common denominator.
I got so much flack for saying that whole experience was a good lesson to be learned
Aww Leslie, you weren’t stupid, Just blinded.
Blinded by love.
Or… something like that. 😛
more like unreasonable infatuation but yeah same thing
I feel like you should be joyce and I should be sarah
Love? Well, you got the first letter, and number of letters, right…
Can’t help but wonder if you would have typed that if Leslie was a guy, all other factors (excep Roz being gay) unchanged…
in that case s/he’d probably be that super creepy “nice” guy everyone claims danny is
but I actually love danny…
Not really? That would imply Robin had made it clear she wasn’t interested and Leslie ignored that, or that Leslie never made her intentions known, and just got bitter at how her being nice was not being rewarded appropriately.
She’s just got a crush on Robin, with whom she has interacted twice now. She was working herself up to actually make a move, when she aborted the mission, so it never even got to the point where Robin’s say in the matter could have been ignored.
Danny, when Dorothy broke up with him, was letting his desperation turn him into one of those “Nice Guys”. Thankfully, getting dumped and moving on snapped him out of it, because he actually is a nice guy
she was stalking her at the rally though remember?
I wasn’t talking about Dorothy, I was talking about the billie thing and how he hit on her super weirdly
I’m sorry if I offended you
Don’t worry, Dorothy. Robin’s actually just around the corner.
She got distracted by a vending machine full of Honey Buns.
More likely she was distracted by seeing her reflection in a pane of glass.
Robin’s a unicorn?
thanks obama
:'[
https://www.reddit.com/r/ThanksObama/comments/2vpleh/game_over_folks/
“Meaningful looks: the webcomic” returns!
🙁 Leslie…
I mean, you still have a valid reason outside of the whole “Ryan” thing to go talk to her.
You could.
Go…
Talk to her?
Or see if Roz would be willing to find out.
she should claim she wants to apologize and appeal to robin’s ego
I love their exchange here with the looks.
I’m actually really interested in the prospect of Robin as an…antagonist (feels weird to use that term for a comic like this).
Mainly because she was just another member of the good guys in It’s Walky and I like to see how the (vaguely) same character can change alignments between universes.
It’s not really a change of alignment so much as a change of situation. This is what Robin is like when she’s given power and nobody to keep her sane. Hell, she pretty much was the antagonist of early Sgortpacked, wrecking everyone’s lives without a care.
Robin wasn’t as completely cold (best word I can think of but not quite it) in Shortpacked as she is here. Or maybe unfeeling?
In Shortpacked she tried to be a responsible congresswoman (ban Cancer bill? not bright but thinking of others for the good). She misused funds she had no idea what to do with, but she bought Leslie a house for her and for all of their friends to live in. And not for ‘lust’, she didn’t love Leslie at the time, she was still after men.
Here, Robin is just straight forward going for the vote with out caring what she has to say to get it or do for it, without worrying about the consequences. Maybe there is hope for her. I liked Robin before.
I think part of it is how much time she’s spent with the main cast. Robin is selfish, there has to be something in it for her. She’s fiercely loyal to those she choses to let close, but is indifferent at best to everyone else.
In SP!, she was one of the main characters. She spent a lot of time with Amber, Ethan, Mike, and eventually Leslie because she had to as their co-worker. She played pranks on them for her amusement, but it took a while to really let them in. Of course she bought the house, but even that wasn’t an entirely selfless gesture; her group of friends became her family ánd she wanted to keep them close.
Here she’s like her avian namesake: swoop in, make some noise, crap on a few things, and leave. There’s nothing tying her to IU except Roz, and even that relationship may be conditional. Blood relatives didn’t get an automatic pass from Shortpacked Robin, so that may carry over to DoA. She may have agreed to come mostly for the opportunity to hold a political rally in the blue corner her red district. She has spent little time with anyone here, so we only see her in “keep everyone at a distance” mode. She doesn’t have anything to gain here in the short term.
We the audience know “I will fight to the death to keep my friends” Robin. This is not her. This “what’s in it for me” Robin. We don’t have the perspective of a character she’s close to this time around.
DISCLAIMER: It’s been a while since I read through Shortpacked. Some of this is probably wrong.
I agree with most of this but my take of Robin from SP was that she was a pretty horribly selfish person and treated her “friends” badly, bit like Faye from QC, and while she may have done some good things it still just makes her a pretty shitty person that does something good every now and then
Maybe it’s less that Robin’s new iteration is significantly different and more that this universe is different; that her flaws and antics don’t end in forgivable sillyness anymore.
Thisssss. I still can’t care about some things in the comic because they’re so… slapsticky. Like Mike. Or the beginning of the Mary/Carla confrontation, before it devolved into transphobia. Shortpacked was crazy comic – bad stuff there is like bad stuff in Coyote versus the Roadrunner. DoA gives a more real-world feel, so Robin’s approach of running roughshod over everyone actually MEANS something.
Awww, I feel bad for Leslie. But yeah it wasn’t a great job in the class by her.
The look on her face when it hits her that the drugging not only happened for sure, but happened to people she knows – to her students who she feels responsible for – and that her emotions got in the way of them finding out who it was… it’s like her heart breaks right before she got punched in the gut. I hope she can find a way to help without hurting herself more in the process. She has a good heart and a good head on her shoulders. I’m sure she will think of something.
I think it’s doubly going to hit her that she was attempting to impress her crush like it was high school while they’re dealing with an attack as amateur detectives. It’s like they’re in Veronica Mars and she’s on the Disney channel.
Let’s hope she doesn’t go crazy like so many former Disney Channel stars O_O
A good heart? Definitely.
A good head on her shoulders? Eh.
Oh she’s smart all right. It’s her other brain that’s dumb as a stump and has a way of somehow overriding the logical one.
glad Leslie kept control of the conversation and enumerated and apologized for her own mistakes
This strip is hitting me very hard in the feels and I don’t like it
I’m wondering if Willis should change the title. Give people some warning about the feels trip they will be entering
http://www.dumbingofage.com/2016/comic/book-7/01-glower-vacuum/feelshypnol/
I doubt Robin would remember the names of her interns anyway. She doesn’t appear to remember the name of her aide, after all.
But she DOES know how to delegate annoying details like keeping track of interns’ names, and answering questions about her interns names, and it’s not hard to imagine she delegates them to the same person.
ONE OF HER INTERNS!
(Okay, no, probably Frieda. Or You.)
Even if they can’t find a full name, Sal and Amazi-Girl got the name ‘Ryan’. Worst case scenario, they pour through the social media (or stake out the residence) of every single Ryan in the student directory.
Probably not, but that’s because she has people for that. And she has the authority to make them give up the information.
On one hand, Robin probably should have been kicked out because that Q&A session was A) Toxic and B) Increasingly becoming a waste of time, as she had NO good answers or even serious ones.
On the other…..yeah. Ouch.
Eh, not necessarily as a lot can be learned from a complete clusterfuck. The most educational guest speaker experience I ever had was when a speaker talked about school violence and bullying where all of the question askers had horrible experiences with bullying (myself included) where her advice was complete crap.
It was also surreal and horrifying in retrospect because I just remembered that was also the trip to Washington D.C. (I forget what those trips were called but hundreds of schools did them) when Columbine happened.
Eh, true enough on the incompetency and seriousness, but honestly, the toxicity by itself would be enough to justify telling her ‘nope, pack it in, you’re done’ imo.
It could have been fine, even with Robin as she is, if Leslie had been prepared and actually in a state to manage the situation. With her focused on the seduction and then on her horror at herself, it was hopeless. Cut your losses.
One of the things that is so frustrating about this whole situation is that if Robin had any foresight, she might have prepped before going into a gender studies classroom, and had actual answers. I took a class this semester studying the election, and one of the most interesting parts of it has been the guest speakers who came in that were politicians involved in the republican party, and were voting for Trump. The answers weren’t always satisfying, but they were educational. This feel like a huge missed opportunity.
Yes Stupid Leslie, cause beating up on yourself for something you knew nothing about is wasting valuable chasing after a Robin for the answer and another chance time.
exactly
but with this comic time this conversation probably only took 5 seconds
Shit.
For some reason it feels kind of weird for Leslie to be talking about Amazi-Girl like she’s a normal thing, in a way that it doesn’t for Dorothy or the other students.
And it’s okay, Leslie. It’s not your fault that your brain doesn’t work right when Robin is involved.
Don’t beat yourself off. Dorothy could’ve
1. Ignored you and left class anyway
2. Bring up her question earlier
3. Have taken the time to tell you WHY she wanted to follow Robin
4.Not waited until the end of class and then stayed afterwards to shoot the shit with her.
5. Asked Roz to help get in contact with her.
Despite the fact that a rapist is on campus Dorothy seems to not be treating this event with any amount of Urgency or importance. It honestly makes it seem like she doesn’t really care.
Beat yourself up, Leslie*
Whoops. fucked that up.
6) You’re still in class, and beating yourself off in front of students will definitely get you fired
Don’t worry too much about the logical consistency.
A lot of the stuff in this strip could be resolved if the characters stopped and really thought about what they were doing, yeah, but that’s not how college-aged students tend to act (and it’s no fun to read!)
There really is an excess of well-meaning inaction in this strip.
2 or 3 wouldn’t work if the objective is still to hide this from Joyce, but she really should be utilizing Roz for this. Give her something constructive to do. Or, seriously, 1 or running like hell to do 4.
Re #4 (and kinda #3), since Leslie was desperately trying to reassert control I don’t think any further interruption would have been tolerated either.
Plus there’s the risk of causing Joyce to notice what’s going on.
STUPID, STUPID RAT CREATURE- er, Leslie!
Wow, we sure could use a distraction! Ladies and gentlemen, Mr. Conway Twi—
*gets brained by a huge leather boot* NO!
Seriously though, poor Leslie. 🙁
The most important information here is that the story of Ryan using drugs to rape women is public knowledge – if Leslie heard it, lots of others did, too – and still
a) his friend came to rescue him
b) no one in the rally came foreward with his name though there must be several people who know him.
To be accurate, though, his friend came to rescue him minutes after the fight, probably before too much information leaked.
I’d be surprised if nobody knew him though.
To be fair, Dorothy could have given you a little freaking heads up, I feel.
for some reason I’m connecting Robin to Trump like Robin is their world’s trump for some weird reason.
There are some parallels. Like the tiny hands. So, I’d say it’s an intentional connection. Really not warming me to her character though.
Nah, she’s
how do I always manage to break my comments
Leslie just has the best day 🙁
You lied to me, Jessica. YOU LIED!
Panel 6 – the bomb drops. Lesllie is putting 2 + 2 together to get a hint as to why Dorothy wants to find out who Ryan is. And that Robin should have the means to identify him.
Keeping in mind that Robin doesn’t appear to know her aides name and he’s closer to her than the interns: whom she said she doesn’t pay. If they work free, there may be no record of their names?
USAmericans seem to have weird-ass campaign procedures (and everything else), so I’m not sure, but I find it unlikely that they wouldn’t have SOME record of who they have representing them officially, paid or not.
They probably would for safety/accountability reasons. For instance, if there’s a fire somewhere at one of their rallies, they’d want to make sure their interns all got out safe – to avoid lawsuits, if nothing else. So it makes sense they’d have a record of who was working that event.
If not, the school might, as its an event on their property worked by their students.
Oh they absolutely track volunteers. If nothing else, they want to be able to contact you for more volunteer work 🙂
That too! Even if they end up hating you, presumably they don’t want your family to sue them into oblivion if an accident occurs and you can’t be accounted for because they weren’t keeping track of employees/volunteers.
If Joe doesn’t chase girls that aren’t interested, why did he go out with Joyce? HIs plan was rather nefaropus, tricking her out of her virginity.
P. S. You people are the strangest people I’ve met (online).
Joyce was interested in Joe as a future husband. She dressed up for the occasion, so all signals he received (up to meeting Mike) were consent in his book.
Additionally, there seems to be some momentum towards Joyce and Joe finally settling on a weird kind of friendship, so it all turned out more-or-less okay in the end.
He was going to fix her. With his penis.
He explained that to Sarah.
Judge not a politician by her local-level interns. I bet that Robin wouldn’t know Ryan’s face even if Dorothy had a chance to ask her. It’s okay to judge her by the policies she supports without thinking through but don’t judge her by the hiring decisions made by her local-level campaign team without telling her (because, let’s face it, who kicks vetting interns upstairs to the boss?).
Yeah… Leslie really needs a hug from a friend right now.
Especially since she probably has no idea and had nothing to do with them being hired.
Someone really needs to give poor Leslie a hug…
Well at least Leslie is clued in now. Time for a field trip to wherever Rep. DeSanto works.
Stupid sexy Robin.
I’m glad someone else linked it so I wouldn’t have to lol
Stupid stupid Rat Creatures!!!
You win.
I feel compelled to repeat a statement I read a in the comments not long ago. Even if able to talk to Robin, she’d probably be no closer to getting a name than she is now. Going by Robin’s behaviour so far and how little she knows about the people who work for her, if she’s even aware that they work for her, I doubt she would be able to tell Dorothy anything she doesn’t already know.
Although Leslie behaved inappropriately, I hope she’ll realize that her actions probably didn’t sabotage Dorothy’s efforts.
Aw, Les’! She’s beating herself up too much over this one. I just want to hug her.
She shouldn’t feel too bad. Even if Dorothy asked Robin about the intern she wouldn’t get a name. Robin can’t be troubled to remember her own aide’s name let alone some underlings that work for free.
Someone (I forget who, sorryyyyy – I think it was thejeff) pointed out to me that Kyle, being the competent one of the ensemble, probably knows Ryan’s name, even if it is so he can do damage control about the fight at the rally. Most everyone I commented with seems to agree that there’s no way he’d reveal the name just because he was asked to, though, and there’s no not-terrible way for Dorothy to tell him why she wants it.
Frieda likely also does, since it was at least implied that she hired the other three interns (is ‘hired’ even the right word for an unpaid internship?), though it was never mentioned if she also hired Ryan.
Man I hope Leslie keeps her hair this way. Doubtful, I know, but it’s totes cute.
This has already imprinted on me as “what Leslie looks like”, to the point where it feels off when I go back to older strips she’s in
Am I wrong, AGAIN? I took that Robin knew the name of her aide, and was demoted to Aide for some nameless failure, and then for not prepping her properly, was demoted from ‘Aide’ to “You!” Unless I’m wrong, Again…
Is that Robin’s jacket, on the desk?
Alas, it isn’t. Had a hopeful moment there but it’s Leslie’s purse. It was there before Robin entered the room.
I mean Robin’s a destructive moron, in her way, but I don’t feel like you can hold her responsible for someone volunteering to help her being a shit-heel themselves.
To be fair to Leslie, she couldn’t have possibly known that.
You know, I wouldn’t be surprised if this little exchange causes Leslie think Ryan attacked DOROTHY.
Stupid sexy Leslie XD
Dorothy and Leslie are good people, and sad as it is – especially the last panel – this strip shows a wonderful, wonderful connection between them.
Dorothy is the student all teachers dream of. She is ambitious, smart, driven, curious and shares your core values. In a few years time, Leslie will point at the news and say “you know, that is one of mine.”, and her teacher colleges will be all “daaaang.”
And Leslie is the teacher Dorothy dream of. She is smart, funny, knowledgeable, has principles, values, she is in the trenches herself, so to speak, and Dorothy admires that tremendously. That is why her voice quivered when she asked if Leslie had planned to out Robin.
I’m so, so glad for their connection. Dorothy both acknowledge that yes, Leslie fucked up. Because Dorothy think higher of her than this. And Leslie takes comfort in that she can be – she usually IS – the Leslie Dorothy looks up to.
+1
So I might be late to this, but considering how similar people have noted Dorothy and Amber look, do you think Leslie might be mentally putting a brown wig on Dorothy and kinda reeling from the “revelation”?
Considering that Amber’s body type is so dissimilar from Dorothy’s, I dunno how people even think that.
Yeah, they really don’t look that similar when you get a good look at them.
– Amber’s shorter and curvier
– Their hairstyles are different
– Different glasses
– Different head shapes
Even in the strip where that was the punchline, most of the similarity is actually just that they’re in the same pose.
I can see a sort of similarity, but there’s too many differences for them to actually be clones. Joe’s just being factitious.
Oof. Leslie’s face in the panel 5 split.. right in the heart
in the words of Amber A’lee Frost, “no one’s genitals are woke”
Now I’m worried about Leslie. Way too easy for something like this to start spiraling down. And down.