Album? Dude, there’s the internets now. You get to use these thingmajigs called GooTube and YouGle or somethin’ and listen to whatevs you into on demand. It’s the darndest thing!
More importantly, does he know Mary is crazy, he hasn’t been around for most of her bullshit. Actually I’m not sure even then he would regard as crazy even then, because she’s not that out there just sanctimonious and nasty.
Why not? She’s pretty and I don’t think he knows her well enough to be repulsed by her (though he also doesn’t seem like the type to not sleep with somebody just because they’re a bad person)
I don’t Twitter, yet even this middle-of-night half-awake me had a correct guess of the person whose Twitter acpcount you linked, in a nanosecond. And I like the guy, but I’m asleep then and don’t consume his.show.
Do I.follow political media too much, or the right amount?
I think it has something to do with Ryan suffering whatever fate in front of the residence hall. Though why Mary should be like this is questionable. Did Mary have a bad encounter with Stabby McStabface before his face got stabbed?
entirely possible since he played the pastors kids card before it is possible he did it with others more successfully and gave mary some self guilt that she can strip away with him being punished.
honestly seems a stretch that that is likely the reason she was like that but assuming it has to do with not ryan i could see him having tried something with someone like her.
Not sure why Mary would get satisfaction out of Ryan being hurt. She’s not in Joyce’s social circle, and since Ryan’s methodology seems to be drugging people at parties, its unlikely Mary would have run across him herself.
Heck, given Mary’s habit of exhibiting the worst aspects of Christianity and being a terrible person overall, if anything she’d probably side with Ryan. “Ryan was a good christian beaten up by evil atheists who was slandered.. Besides, anyone who goes to a party deserves to be sexually assaulted”.
On the other hand, by every indication Ryan is a serial rapist who preferentially targets devout Christians. That likely doesn’t mean Mary personally, but it could easily be one of her fellow travelers that she personally knows and likes.
She was already in a good mood last time we saw her, in Ruth’s floor meeting, which was at least three days ago. We interpreted that as she relishing in Ruth’s potential suffering but I think it is something entirely unrelated o.o
Maybe she got a higher rating than most of the other ladies on their floor. (It’s easy to find her physically attractive, especially if you don’t know the depth of the shit she keeps between her ears. Correct me if I’m wrong but I don’t think Joe knows her that well.)
Or maybe she’s still floating from eating that puppy.
Joe’s list is pretty much based on physical attractiveness so she got a high score. Her rivals also got torn to shreds – Billie got called fat and desperate, Joyce got ripped apart, we haven’t seen Ruth’s entry yet but you just know it’s going to be a long litany of insults.
It’s hard to imagine her ranking could possibly be higher than Joyce’s. Mary is all of the churchiness of Joyce without any of the fun. Could she possibly be happy about that? Nah — she’s a hypocrite and being ranked in negative numbers would probably piss her off.
Mary’s got a leaner figure than Joyce, because superficial judgments like that count for a lot to folks like Joe. She’s also kind of domineering, but not in the cheery bugnuts way Joyce can be–and we can tell from Joe’s interest in Roz and Penny that he’s into that. And you know he’s got to assume Roz will help him “fix” Mary, since they’re roommates and all.
I don’t think he knows much about Mary’s behavior. Roz didn’t sound like someone shooting her mouth about her problems while she’s having sex, and he seldom talks to women outside of his spiel.
And Joyce had other things on her mind when they were texting. So, yes, I suppose she has a very high score for her physical attractiveness.
But beats me why this should make her happy.
It doesn’t. But I can see why Agatha might suggest–either earnestly or jokingly–that it might.
(We also know from his encounters with Sierra and Rachel that he visits the girl’s wing often enough that he might’ve just happened to observe Mary at some point.)
Sexual orientations cross over from Walkyverse, and Willis has said before she’s not into it and that’s why she’s probably never gonna be in the slipshines.
I mean, I guess she could be in the Slipshine pin-ups, still. He’s shown characters showering or changing clothes before. But I guess it gets a level of weirdness when it’s a character that’s grossed out by sex.
Yeah, the characters in the pin-ups are, by design, happy to be in that position (whether it’s posing or having sex). Carla wouldn’t be okay sexy posing either.
Plot twist: Turns out Joe gave her a high rating, along with the note that says: Fond of technology used in hilarious ways, but shows no sign of sexual interest. Off limits for sex, but possible buddy for secret nerd projects.
Carla isn’t really closeted. I figure Carla assumes:
If she’s not on the list when even 0 minuses get listed, it’s because Joe thinks of her as male.
If she is on the list, Joe ranked her on her “doability” and she objects for the same reason the other girls on the floor do.
Honestly, best thing for her mental health is probably just what she’s doing here, ignoring it and focusing on other people/things instead.
OTOH, given that everyone else is reading the list, I’d kind of want to know what they’re reading, if only so I could brace myself for reactions. Especially if Joe had clocked her. She might not be deeply closeted, but there are definitely people who don’t know and I’d want to be ready for that.
OTGH, If I was Carla, I’d keep up the facade. Check it privately. Get myself together again and go back to showing lack of interest.
Maybe it exposed a ‘hypocritical’ Christian. Hell, maybe Mary is seeing Joyce differently for being attacked and having the gall to fight back. Maybe she thinks she is now the ONLY ‘Christian’ on campus because she’s sooo holy and untouched. Some people think like that. Amber and Dorothy would also be shaken up – especially with Dorothy being an atheist, that too could be a cherry for Mary’s shit cake.
Or maybe Mary was one of Ryan’s roofie victims, and the reason she acts like such a manipulative bongo is because she’s absolutely TERRIFIED to trust anyone anymore after being taken advantage of. Maybe she’s ecstatic because something justifiably awful happened to him.
…or maybe I’m giving Mary WAY too much credit here. I’ll shut up now >.>
That isn’t a bad theory. Ryan’s part of the local christian community, as far as I know, so is Mary. Who knows what may had happened save Willis? Even villains to one story can be victims in their own. Mary will still have a lot to answer for, but to be a target of a rapist is something I wouldn’t wish on even her.
This IS Mary we’re talking about here. She takes pleasure in others suffering and goes out of her way to torment and manipulate others. Of course she’s psychotic
As a person who has psychosis, I take offense to to this ignorant nonsense.
To begin with, psychosis causes breaks with reality, not awful behavior. That’s psychopathy – and most psychopaths are perfectly alright. Those ones who aren’t have limited capacity to grasp why they are judged or end up in jail due to the lack of empathy that comes with the condition.
There is no ‘asshole disease’ that makes you predisposed to be an unrestrained sadistic dickbag. Nothing excuses Mary, and labels ofpeople with mental disorders shouldn’t be used as insults.
100% this. Bigotry isn’t a mental illness, and Mary’s behavior is perfectly rational from the perspective of someone who does not consider most other people to be full fledged human beings.
I agree with you. PLUS a lack of empathy doesn’t necessarily mean they are sadistic or cruel, it may mean they try to be helpful, but they don’t recognise that from the other perspective, their actions are frightening.
A lack of empathy doesn’t make someone cruel, evil or uncaring (several personality disorders and mental health issues reduce empathy), it means they might not always know why you’re upset or how they upset you. Doesn’t mean they won’t apologise or won’t try to make you feel better. They may even understand why you found it upsetting but their mood just isn’t impacted by yours having changed but that doesn’t mean they won’t show sympathy or try to make things better.
Mary is SADISTIC but that doesn’t make her psychotic or psychopathic, plenty of psychopaths would look at Mary and go ‘WTF is wrong with you’ because a lack of empathy doesn’t mean you enjoy hurting other people or want to see other people be hurt.
While unsettling, I can’t complain about Mary not being terrible to everyone. Like the expression goes, “Don’t bite the gift horse that feeds you in the mouth.” Or something..
So yeah, re, Carla: obviously, she wants to be seen as a woman, so from that perspective, being the one woman not rated would definitely rankle.
On the other hand–look, obviously being on the list draws unwanted attention from POAs and assorted male scumbag. And that’s not great for anyone. But when you’ve got no romantic interest in men and no interested in sex period–like, that’s a double-whammy of risk for specifically corrective rape.
(We’ve not seen Joe and Carla interact, but if she is on there–we don’t know how much of this information Joe has or listed, which is even worse. And we know he’s not above putting in demographic information, often in the least sensitive way possible.)
Did Mary see a news report about some unspeakable tragedy? I can’t imagine something that would make her that happy not being horrible for everyone else.
That’s not nearly bizarre enough for Florida. We need something involving a motorized shopping cart and using the whole of Wal-Mart as their own personal free buffet. Which actually happened in my hometown. Stay classy, Florida.
Obviously, Mary feeds on the suffering of the innocent like a vampire feeds on blood. The whole hall is up in arms about Joe’s stupid list, so it follows that she’s high as a kite right now.
Earlier this week, I played got-your-nose with a three-year-old. I’m pretty sure I made the same face she did at Mary there.
Joe continues to be scum. Like, to the point where I want to be angry over the real names on there but I’m already at the maximum amount of angry I can be at a comic storyline so there’s no more room.
She feeds on the misery of others. She’s just cranky when she’s hungry. Between Billy, Ruth, Carla, Joe and all he’s ranked, Amber, Dorothy, and so many others, she’s full for the first time in weeks!
When she’s hungry, she goes hunting for misery to psychologically feast on, but recently it’s been a buffet of misery and pain dropped right in her lap the likes of which she has never seen! It’s so much that she’s delirious with happiness and joy, but she will soon have to hunt once again.
Yeah, that could have some bad consequences- Wait a minute Joe not the one who posted it though somebody else hacked into his digital black book. That be like someone sharing all your contacts online.
Joe posted the damn thing online in the first place. He had a password for it, but he gave the password out like candy because he thought he was making a help guide for guys who couldn’t get laid – hence why his ‘digital black book’ had an RSS feed and a subscriber button. All it takes is one person telling someone who wasn’t supposed to know the password.
Wait really ? Guess I missed that, here I thought it was just some personal list of his. But if that’s the case I’m surprised this didn’t happened sooner.
Nah, like I said I swear all the time, angry or no. It’s just something I do – my whole family except my brother have mouths like that. I won’t lie, I was a little irritated because the ‘it’s a private list’ thing keeps coming up whenever the list is mentioned and it’s not true, but it’s not fair to get irritated with you for not remembering, and for that I apologize.
Me, I’m holding off until we learn why it was leaked. If it was under a rationale like ‘Oh wow, this list is awful, the girls on it deserve to know this guy’s being a creepy asshole about them’ or ‘Oh, what the fuck did this guy say about me, hey, guys, has anyone else seen this?’ then I can’t get too mad.
On top of the chill Marry is giving me down my spine, Do all these girls really have all day to focus on some list some random ass smuck made ? Then again If someone had made a list about all the guys on my campus I would be curious on where I weigh in…God am I that desperate for approval?
I guess We’ll have a chapter with how Roz secretly rank every guy she’s seen on campus just to make it even.
Yeah they’re totally different, not the same at all, definitely wouldn’t have like catalogue of guys she dying to have a go at just lying around somewhere.
And even false equivalence aside, while I can see Roz making a mental note of dudes that she might like to get with, I can not see her making painstaking and insulting rankings of every dude in the dorm and compiling them into a list and referring to dudes as numbered specimens, or we’d certainly have seen her doing so before this.
Like there’s a difference between having a ‘I’d hit that’ list and actively ranking people into dehumanizing categories and passing around this info as a guide to random dudes- guys he doesn’t know and may very well be predators.
Oh no no no I get they’re totally different she just has sex for fun like Captor said and not to bloat her ego… unless you ignore that one time she leaked a sex tape for the soul purpose of getting 15 minutes of fame but who’s keeping track.
Also it’s a false equivalence because why ? Because the male sex wouldn’t be offended ? Like we all like being compared to each other ?
Well for that she wasn’t doing it for fame so much as to make a public point against her sister’s politics. It had to involve her because she was the one being affected by it, as the sister to the politician most likely courting the purity, anti-sex ed, anti-birth control crowd, she was sending a message that her body was her own. And she picked out Joe because he was sexually appealing, but she didn’t select him from a list of fives and tens, she doesn’t dehumanize him and makes sure she has consent to tape.
Joe actively dehumanizes the women he pursues, ignoring boundaries until he’s yelled at and categorizing women solely by how attractive physically he thinks they are. He has sex with women as a way of reaffirming how masculine and sexually virile he is. He thinks of sex as a game with trophies. These are two totally different viewpoints.
Ok I got to admit that’s a strong argument. Though I have one objection, if it wasn’t a publicity stunt then why she giving out signed merchandise ? But I might remembering that wrong though I might haft to remind read that part.
There’s a difference between a publicity stunt and a public statement.
Roz was very clear that she was declaring ownership over her own body, and that she is free to do what she wants on it. (No matter what Sis says.) The sex tape was both the message, and a demonstration of the message. That’s a public statement, not a publicity stunt.
As for signed merchandise, well, if the demand’s there… I’d call that less defensible than the tape, except why does it need a defense?
She was giving out signed condoms to encourage people to use protection. Signing them was just a marketing move. She wasn’t selling anything, and it wasn’t “merchandise”.
Until there is a culture of systematically dehumanizing dudes the way there is women, Roz hypothetically having a list of dudes she’d want to bang is not equivalent to Joe’s Do list.
While I agree she put out the video in part for her ego, she also did that as for a cause, to promote sex-positivity, and to fuck with her sister’s campaign.
And the difference isn’t because “it’s okay when women do it”, it’s that we’ve been given no reason to think she’d actually create a list like Joe’s. There’s nothing wrong with simply having a list (even an actual, physical list) of people you’d like to have sex with. You’re allowed to want to have sex with people.
The problems with Joe’s do list are the numeric ranking, the demeaning descriptions, the way he obsesses over it to the point where he’s cataloged the ENTIRE DORM, including explicit listings for women he DOESN’T find attractive at all. Worst of all is the way he DISTRIBUTES THE LIST to just about anyone.
On top of being demeaning and reductive as hell towards the women on it, it’s basically a shopping list for sexual predators.
And of course there’s the way it demonstrates that Joe doesn’t just really like thinking about sex, that’s the only thing he’s interested in when he interacts with a woman.
We’ve seen no evidence Roz being anywhere near as bad as Joe is about any of those things. So it really looks like you’re equating “a woman who likes sex and isn’t ashamed of it” with “a completely sleazy, misogynistic douchebag who thinks about little else”, because I’m not seeing any better basis for your assumptions here.
Roz having a bunch of phone numbers or just a mental list of names of dudes she’d like to bang both seem like they’re within realm of possibility based on what we’ve seen of her.
Those are still both drastically different from curating and distributing a demeaning list reducing every woman you’ve ever met to a numeric value, complete with a detailed, judgemental and objectifying description.
Actually no, I don’t see her spending time with that. She’s too busy having a life, staffing meetings and giving out sex-positive information and condoms.
Maybe you mistook those for merchandise items?
Worth noting—Roz in Shortpacked was a WAY bigger jerk. So Newllend might be allowing elements of Roz In Shortpacked to mix with how they see Roz In DOA.
One more element of the false equivalence to add to the pile:
Joe fully and eagerly consented to being on an available-for-public sex tape. (Danny didn’t consent to filming it, and I’m not sure how wrong that was, but it was at least a little shady.) He was more than happy to be presented to the world in a sexual way.
Few to NONE of the women on the Do List consented to being presented to the world in a sexual way.
You know how it is, when something this out-of-the-blue happens that somehow effects everyone. Everyone’s talking about it for a few days, and then everyone except 3-5 people forget about it and move on.
Well, there’s also the fact that most of the floor barely knows Amber at all, and even then, at some point you need to go about your day.
The fact that 3 days later they’re not spending their entire day talking and visibly worrying about it does not mean they aren’t affected by it or that they don’t care or forgot.
You’re assuming this has been going on ‘all day’. The way this comic moves, this whole thing might be occurring over the span of an hour. It just feels like all day because you’re reading it over the course of several. For all we know, word only really started to get out shortly before the bits we’re seeing.
Also, people might be finding out about it in different stages of the day, leading to spikes in interest. Since it’s the focus of the story line, obviously those are the parts of the day we’re seeing.
Plus, look who specifically is talking – Mandy. We know she’s mad about the list because we saw her snarking at Joe about it. I think it’s reasonable she’d want to vent to her friend (Agatha) and her girlfriend (Grace). It seems like Agatha didn’t know about the list, so this also could be a ‘hey, head’s up, this thing is going around and you’re on it, it’s pretty gross and I thought you deserved to know’.
Mary smiling is really creeping me out. Why the fuck is she smiling? I really hope it’s not because Joe gave her a really good ranking on his do list or something.
I don’t believe Mary and Joe have ever actually met. There’s only a single strip with both of them in it, and they weren’t even in the same place. Maybe she found out about his list somehow and released it to piss off the other girls in her dorm, but I get the feeling she’s happy about something far worse than Joe’s do list.
Mary either A) Ate a puppy, B) realized the error of her ways and is now wants to be on friendly terms with everyone (possibly even started having sex now that her “morals” are looser) or C) (and more likely), she found out something that will make her happy and everyone else miserable, and add to that, only she knows and no one else does and that makes it extra sweet.
Mary is so high right now. Like, what the hell did she take? She’s practically shedding sparkly pixie dust. It’s disturbing me on so many levels. I mean, at this point I think she may have accidentally taken a hit if LSD and is hallucinating that she’s an angel in heaven.
she found out when the rapture is coming and she’s ninety nine point nine percent sure she’s going and everybody else on the floor is going to weep her passing and bewail their lack of faith
Agh. That bongo Mary is smiling! Lemme at her! Anyone care to join me in attacking Mary? It’s never good when she’s happy. *incoherent muttering and grumbling about Mary*
Okay, so my question is, is the administration going to take notice and come down on Joe for this?
I think he deserves a little bit of come-down-ance (er, comeuppance?). Not full-on punishment, but perhaps a bit of a talking to and warning. Something along the lines of “this behavior has made a lot of our residents and students uncomfortable in a way that’s disruptive, so stop it or we’ll find some way to punish you”.
In actuality? … given that the Dean dressed Roz down for the sex video, and said not a word to Joe, and warned her that she wasn’t allowed to shoot porn in her dorm room… when it was actually Joe’s dorm room…. I’m guessing Joe won’t get the least bit of official comedownance.
He MIGHT get a talking to if the administration gets flooded with complaints from the ladies on the list. Especially if they consider it sexual harassment or the lower ranked have mean comments that could be considered bullying.
A public university can’t do anything about something like this. They must respect freedom of speech and posting your opinions of people online definitely qualifies.
And bear in mind (because people appear to having trouble with this): Joe may not have intended for the list to be widely available, but he WAS sharing the list. It was not remotely private.
But I kinda agree with the others—the Dean probably has a bit of a double-standard.
Eh. If he didn’t deliberately mean to make the list completely public, and sorta took no for an answer (as with Sarah… he didn’t do a good job of taking no for an answer, but he did back off when told, albeit passively aggressively) it would be hard to make sexual harassment stick.
Still scummy, but not harrassment…..
…. waitaminute…
…. okay, just pulled up IU’s sexual misconduct policy.
“Sexual harassment is unwelcome conduct or behavior of a sexual nature. Sexual harassment includes sexual violence (see definition). Both violent and non-violent sexual harassment is prohibited. Sexual harassment can include unwelcome sexual advances, requests for sexual favors and other verbal, nonverbal, written, electronic (e.g. by e-mail, text, social media, etc.), or physical conduct of a sexual nature. Sexual harassment occurs when:
1. submission to or rejection of such conduct is made either explicitly or implicitly a condition of an individual’s employment or academic standing or is used as the basis for employment decisions or for academic evaluation, grades, or advancement (quid pro quo), or when
2. such conduct is sufficiently severe, pervasive or persistent to limit or deny a person’s ability to participate in or benefit from the University’s educational programs or affects employment, creating a hostile environment.”
There’s a bit of a judgement call about how much Joe’s creating a hostile environment, but this definitely COULD qualify as harassment.
And all students agree, contractually, to comply by this policy, and free speech can be limited by one’s own acceptance of a contract (same as with any N.D.A.), so that argument’s out.
Good to know. I was looking through the Canadian criminal code to see how long Joe could get for sexual harassment if he were to be charged for it here but I couldn’t find it. It might be considered part and parcel of sexual assault here. Then again, I may have missed it – I rushed through those pages. They make my skin crawl.
I was thinking “hate speech ain’t free speech” but I doubt joe’s BS qualifies as hate speech…
and sadly, on a practical level, well, my university still used “free speech” as an excuse for inaction when some anti-abortion assholes put up big nightmare-fuel holocaust photos in an area that groups of children regularly went through. Ugh. I think eventually they pissed off enough parents that the posters were flipped around to only be visible from inside their little protest area 😛
so even if there’s a legal justification for consequences, I don’t expect the school to do jack shit.
it covers:
” Every one who, by communicating statements in any public place, incites hatred against any identifiable group where such incitement is likely to lead to a breach of the peace…”
” Every one who, by communicating statements, other than in private conversation, wilfully promotes hatred against any identifiable group…”
but there are exceptions to the second one for:
“a) if he establishes that the statements communicated were true;
(b) if, in good faith, the person expressed or attempted to establish by an argument an opinion on a religious subject or an opinion based on a belief in a religious text;
(c) if the statements were relevant to any subject of public interest, the discussion of which was for the public benefit, and if on reasonable grounds he believed them to be true; or
(d) if, in good faith, he intended to point out, for the purpose of removal, matters producing or tending to produce feelings of hatred toward an identifiable group in Canada.”
….fuck. I didn’t know there was an exception for religion in there. at least they can be convicted if it’s in public and disruptive? but ick. I wonder if that was Harper’s doing… no, the “based on a belief in a religious text” was added in 2004 under the Liberals! but the “on a religious subject” has been around longer; that site doesn’t seem to have the full history.
It was intended to pacify the “oh help, this means we can be thrown in jail for quoting the Bible” people. I hold no brief for those types, so the exemption annoys me.
The only way I can see the first part (arguments on a religious subject) coming in handy is if people were arguing doctrine or protesting a religious authority’s decision. The second one sounds like it’d be a very ‘fun’ get out of trouble free card.
But I’m not talking about the Canadian definition of hate speech, I’m talking about sexual harassment.
Depends on how you define “sexual harassment. Let’s be real, in a nation where so-called “locker room talk” doesn’t disqualify you from the presidency, it stands to reason that the kind of people who typically run universities — older, white, male — will define “sexual harassment” any way they please, usually in whatever fashion requires the least effort from them.
Free speech means Joe can’t be arrested, not that Joe can’t suffer consequences for what he says. If the school has rules against this sort of thing, they absolutely can punish Joe for this and I can think of at least two rules this might fall afoul of – sexual harassment (which is also illegal) and bullying, depending on what’s said about lower ranked girls.
Indiana University is a public institution and as such has to respect free speech the same as the justice system does. It cannot punish people for protected speech. If it were a private institution they could censure or expel him, but a public university can’t.
This protection is pretty wide-ranging, for example, Oklahoma University definitely broke the law when they expelled the three SAE fraternity members for their racist bus chant.
There’s no such thing as “pure free speech”, even in America, the country where it’s generally perfectly legal to circulate nude photos of people on the internet without their consent. There are limits.
And, again, you’re missing what free speech is – it means you cannot be arrested for it. It’s not a ‘get out of consequences’ free card. Public universities are allowed to set rules of conduct and their own policies and if you violate ones regarding, for this list, sexual harassment or bullying, they can toss you out on your ass, free speech be damned. Oklahoma University most likely has similar rules about bullying or hate speech and they can and did kick him out. It’s the same reason you can be fired from a government job for posting a bunch of racial slurs – you have free speech, but firing you does not violate that and employers, including government employers, are allowed to set rules, standards, and policies.
I’m 5000% done with this ‘free speech means no consequences for speech ever’ nonsense going around. Unless Joe is actually arrested for something, it’s not a free speech violation. And even that has its limits – which is why, for example, you’re not allowed to yell ‘fire’ in a theatre or harass people, sexually or otherwise. Because while you may have the right to speak, other people deserve to be safe and have the right to want you to keep away from them.
Er, you’re just incorrect, I don’t know what to tell you. You’re confusing criminal law and civil law. You can be fired from a government job or expelled from a public school if you violate the school’s code, even if you don’t violate a criminal law.
For example, in my state (Ohio) concealed carry / open carry is a big deal. It has been ruled than an adult with a gun license may legally carry a concealed weapon in public. This is a 2nd amendment right in the constitution, according to recent rulings of the Ohio Circut Court as well as the Supreme Court.
However, a public University (like my own alma mater Kent State) has the right to enforce a “no weapons” policy, with consequences including expulsion. Thus, if a student exercises their second amendment right to carry a lethal weapon on campus, they will be expelled.
Now, KSU students have frequently fought and won the right to demonstrate anywhere on campus, at any time. So, for instance, there were pro-union protests at graduation, even though it irritated many parents (and hey! Look at that, suddenly the staff got a union. Interesting.) The price of that, though, is that we have a high number of Westboro Baptist Church-esque groups protest on our campus, spreading bigoted messages.
I’m okay with that trade-off. The ability to protest, and to make videos in which we were able to confront the university president without regard to how good or bad they made her look, enabled us to use non-violent methods to pressure the administration to allow the staff to negotiate for fair pay and benefits, including life-saving health insurance. On top of that, nearly every hate-group protest had a counter-protest organized by Kent PRIDE that was bigger and louder.
THAT is the kind of free speech I want protected. If they tried to put anything in the school code against organized protests or ambush videos, it’d take vital negotiating tools away from students and staff with urgent causes.
But Joe’s list doesn’t have a cause. It targets specific people, and it could definitely be grounds for a harassment suit.
Harassment in a place where there is a conduct code against harassment is a violation of Civil Law, not constitutional law. That is to say, just as libel and slander won’t get you thrown in jail, neither with verbal / written harassment. BUT! Libel, slander, and harassment are violations of civil law, NOT protected speech, which means a person could be found guilty in civil court and face expulsion or fines.
This doesn’t really have anything to do with the distinction between criminal and civil law. An institution of the government is simply not allowed to penalize you for exercising your Constitutional rights.
Government jobs and public schools are actually severely limited in how they’re allowed to penalize people for speech, they are actually not allowed to just fire or expel you for the things you say. Their conduct codes can say whatever they want, those codes will get quashed in court if they infringe on your freedom of speech and you sue to get whatever penalty you got hit with eliminated.
The gun thing isn’t analogous because while you have the right to own a gun, you don’t have the right to carry it anywhere. The school can ban you from bringing the gun on school property, it can’t penalize you simply for owning one. Similarly, speech that is done without using school resources is something that they’re just not allowed to penalize people for.
Volokh’s perspective is strongly libertarian and not necessarily inline with current practice. He’s saying “It should be this way”, not “This is how the law is currently interpreted.”
It doesn’t make sense to say this is “definitely against the law” in cases where the courts haven’t actually ruled in that direction. Is there even an ongoing court case on the Oklahoma thing?
Mind you, if the court shifts a little further to the right, they may just rule that racism and sexism are actually protected, but protests and complaints aren’t.
But now I’m confused. Are you a Goblin Scribe who Cleaves Kobolds, or a Kobold Cleaver who writes on Goblins?
This is why I use the same name most places 🙂
Government employees can’t be fired simply for being bigots, or even expressing bigoted, hateful views while off-duty. But if they’re on duty and direct hate speech towards a coworker or a member of the public, they be fired for it, because that’s where it crosses over from speech into conduct.
A government employee absolutely can be fired for hate speech, while they’re on the job. They just can’t be fired simply for being a bigot.
If you work at the DMV and you say racist shit to very black person who comes to your counter, you can be fired for that. Because it would be reasonable to fire you not simply for the “views” you expressed, but because of the effect it had on the people trying to access an important public service. Same if you make lewd sexual comments to them, or you’re just rude and insult people.
Because while they constitution forbids the government from criminal punishment for that (at least if you stop short of actual harassment), nowhere does it say the government must continue employing you even if you can’t act like a professional while on the job.
For this same reason, public colleges and even K-12 schools are allowed to set standards of conduct, which can include rules which forbid directing hate speech towards staff or fellow students while on school property.
I notice that Carla doesn’t have her skates on. This might be why she’s having a bad day. Not only did Ruth persuade her not to do something by being nice, she probably ended up having to apologise to Billie and Joyce about the whole thing whilst a sad-eyed Ruth looked on. Not something likely to improve her Zen!
Heh great. Not only will Joe be called sexist but transphobic too. This day is getting worse and worse for him XD
And seriously Mary is making me uncomfortable, I expect her to grab an umbrella out of thin air and start quoting Harime Nui…
I’m gonna say Mary is a prime suspect for the hacker who revealed the do list. And I’m gonna guess Carla ISN’T on it, indicating Joe views her as male, which would be something Mary would take some sick pleasure in (and then the compliment on her hair is a way of mocking this fact)
Plus now Mary gets to A) out a sexual deviant who engages in lots of premarital “hankypanky” as Joyce would say B)Mock Carla and C) just generally make everyone around her more miserable so she can feed on their anger like a misery vampire
Of course this would require Mary have hacking skills good enough to accomplish this, but I’m sure if it’s a skill that can be used to attack people she hates, Mary will have studied up on it
It could also be a conspiracy to get laid. With all the other women effectively giving Joe the cold shoulder. Mary’s unholy place is about all Joe can get. Of course she’ll rationalize that she can bring him to Jesus.
The “hacking” skills involved are 1) Talking to Joe for 5 minutes. 2) Remembering the password when he offers it to you.
1a) If female, you probably have to be physically attractive enough that he thinks you’ll be flattered by your ranking.
No problem there. Mary is as pretty as she is malicious…
There is some irony to this if Mary turns out to be the culprit. Joe has VERY bad luck with religious girls. First Joyce destroys him physically and now Mary destroys him psychologically.
Panel 1: Oh wow, he put in some real names, some reductive descriptions? Way to make it A) even more useful for doxxing and B) even more dehumanizing for the folks he didn’t bother to name, thus cementing even more that they were just a pair of tits to him.
And poor Agatha, she seems genuinely taken aback at being targeted like this. This may even be the first form of this open dehumanization she’s faced, or at least faced in this form.
And of course there’s the exhaustive nature of this. He’s named every woman in the residence hall in his little list and they’ve likely seen him skulking around the women’s dorms, which likely makes it feel retroactively threatening that he was around here being super creepy sizing them all up in the place where they live. There’s an extra layer of vulnerability to that.
Panel 2: Oh, wow, those feels. Like, yes, I feel this panel so so intensely.
Cause yeah, when you’re trans and ace, this is basically a no-win scenario designed to make you feel intensely like shit.
Either you’re included which means you are being objectified in your home and treated like a piece of meat to be sized up and measured for consumption. And there’s so many threatening pieces to that beyond just the standard objectification and reduction.
I mean, I’ve already mentioned Joe’s previous usage of corrective rape logic with regards to asexuals and my own experience with Joe types who view asexuals as a “challenge” and so get extra creepy. But yeah, that sort of thing is a genuine threat. There are a lot of Joe-like guys who view “bagging” an asexual as some sort of grand-prize proof of their virility and who will never let up trying to pressure and coerce hard for that intoxicating rush.
And consent (already something Joe has demonstrated himself to be terrible at) can often go out the window for that “grand prize”. Like, I have no doubt the man who correctively raped me felt like a million bucks forcing himself on an asexual and “fixing” her. So yeah, being on there is an extra layer of bad day.
But so is being left off. Especially if it includes every woman in the residence hall. Like, okay, this is some complicated gender feels, but like street harassment sucks, but it’s really dysphoric to watch all the folks with you get street harassed and be left alone as if you were a guy.
Because you’re not being respected, you’re just not being seen as a woman.
And for Carla, her being left off this shitty list of dehumanization, it wouldn’t be because of some random respect for how she’d make the man who wrote this eat it, but rather because that man didn’t view her as a woman at all.
And that sucks. It also leads to another element to being included on the list, which is guys that make lists like this tend on average to react very angrily to trans women blipping on their radar, because they tend to view that as a personal affront where their boner has been “tricked”. This has led to the deaths of way too many trans women, especially trans women of color.
So yeah, any option here is a bad one for Carla, so I feel her position deeply.
I feel you, Carla. I’d feel exactly the same way. Which is going to make me angrier- being targeted by misogyny, or not being targeted because my gender identity isn’t seen as valid? Both hurt.
I’m not sure it was ‘discovered’. Joe has been handing out the link to any guy who asks. I just think that it shocked him that someone told the women about it!
Panel 3: And I also feel this. Like, both Grace, Agatha, or Mandy hesitantly offering to tell Carla (because sometimes it can feel good to rip off that bandaid and see how bad the rot is), but also Carla’s complete lack of interest in knowing.
Like, as I said, all options involved are terrible and scary options, so knowing is just putting a specific shape to which aspect of herself is going to feel the most awful about the whole affair. And yeah, it’s likely to hit harder in ways that will be in addition to the standard dehumanization and awfulness, so yeah, once she knows she’ll be having the worst day of all.
That said, I suspect the way her brain works, she won’t be able to resist taking a peek and on that day, Joe’s going to very much learn to regret what he did, because Carla doesn’t play about dehumanizing shit like this.
Panels 4-5: Now, what is making Mary so incredibly pleased with herself is likely something horrible and harmful to others, especially given her overly pleased with herself smile she gave Billie and Ruth.
But there’s a large part of me that just wants her to have had a good time that didn’t involve the harming of another person. A good date, nice news from home, having an art piece featured in a thing she really wanted it to. Something positive and based on her own actions for herself rather than her actions against someone she hates.
Because she kind of needs that. Connections and valuations that have nothing to do with vicariously enjoying the suffering of others she has labeled as bad, that makes her way less likely to snipe and attack those she views as sinners, where her self-esteem isn’t tied entirely to how miserable “bad people” are.
It’s what I want all bullies to one day have. A best life that isn’t tied to making others miserable, where they don’t feel that need to judge and tear down and actively make lives worse, but where they just have a good life for themselves far far away from anyone they could hurt.
And so I hope that’s the case for Mary.
Panel 6: But yeah, I’m also deeply Mandy here. Wanting to know how (and hoping it isn’t happiness about someone being screwed over) and hoping it continues for a period of time.
And oof, there’s such a nasty stinger in her rating being high. Because there’s a reason for that. We know from Joe that Joyce was a 4 he upgraded to a 10 because he viewed her sexual inexperience and thus inability to realize how crap a lay he was as an incredibly valuable and sexy thing. So it’s very likely that Mary would be highly valued for the same thing, his toxic ideas of “fixing” her “repression” and “making her” a “sex beast”.
And as much as I intensely hate how much Mary has hurt others, I would never wish being subjected to that ever, because no one deserves to be subjected to that. And I hope she stays far far away from Joe (and hopefully Ryan as well) and is spared that specific form of pain.
It seems sort of weird to me that Mary would be highly rated. Because Joyce’s initial rating was a four, so if Mary was rated in a similar way, her initial rating would also be low.
And Willis has gone on record that he regretted having Mary in the Walkyverse be seemingly punished for being such a crappy person via sex-shaming (unplanned pregnancy, and iirc an abortion), so it seems unlikely to me that this version of Mary is not a virgin, but… maybe I’m reading too much into that.
I can more easily see Mary being pleased that her enemies were unanimously humiliated by Joe’s list than being pleased that she’s highly-rated, but right now I’m banking on her happiness being unrelated and her not knowing about the list, rather than being based in a high rating from Joe, a guy whose good opinion she can’t possibly value.
Okay, I’m trying to come up with a list of things she could be happy about that won’t make me hate her more than I already do. It isn’t Church, because it’s Saturday and we know Mary goes on Sunday.
(Cerberus’ suggestions)
– A good date
– Art being featured somewhere
– A birth in the family (new sibling, niece, nephew, cousin, whatever)
– Wedding or anniversary somewhere maybe?
– Received something sweet in the mail
– Got a good grade on something
– It’s her birthday or there is a birthday going on
Joyce was a four because Joe knew she wasn’t interested in casual sex. She also communicated innocence with her cloath. Mary wore normal cloath and Joe might just know that she’s usually angry which might be a plus for him.
I mean, Mary is pretty. Awful as a person, but pretty. I don’t think Joe necessarily rated her low, just that IF he rated her in a similar way to Joyce, it would be low. My bad for the phrasing confusion 🙂
As I understand it, he rated Joyce after there initial conversation, in which she made it clear how Christian and “pure” she was.
He may never have talked to Mary, or only talked more superficially, so he’s rating her purely visually. He may not have realized she was in need of “upgrading”.
It was the other way around – he said Joyce was a four for her inexperience but he hoped to ‘upgrade’ her with his dick, presumably by ‘teaching her’ everything he knows about sex (presumably without her knowing he probably sucks at it)
I think it’s entirely possible that Mary is so happy because she’s the one who leaked the list to the women. It seems like a thing she’d do: she gets to witness the pain and humiliation of others, but if/when her involvement is discovered she has a high horse to sit on all ‘I know, it’s so horrible, that’s why I sent it around!’
If its isn’t too late to post an opinion,
Isnt possible that this reaction to the list is also a reaction to the now known presence of a por
tential rapist on campus? Like a guy has this list he hands out to other guys trying to pick up chicks and any one of them could have been that rapist?
That definitely wouldn’t be helping, but I think that it’s the sort of concern they’d have regardless. Especially since most of the women barely know Joe, if at all. They don’t really know just how much of a creep he might be himself.
@Fart Captor; it’s definitely that they’re upset about the stupid list i just figure with the recent news fresh in their heads it’s like an added layer. So basically I agree with you.
@Scar Man; Oh god no I never even thought that far into the implications, but since you mention it there’s a lot to consider. Like, if joe was partially responsible for that event then how would it affect his line of thinking; would he reassess his behavior at all?
Also chronologically was the party before or after joe and Joyce’s date? Because if before then assuming “ryan” saw the list he saw Joyce as rated rather high(a ten if that assumption is also correct) so then that would make her suuuuper targetable…… but I want to believe their date was before the party not after.
It’s a bit of stretch, honestly. He met Joyce at a party where her profile would given him no idea to expect her. Without context of being in the dorm or knowing anything about her beforehand it would have been hard to recognize her from the info on the list.
He really would have to have picked earlier and followed her to the party for that to make sense and that’s not the vibe I got from the setup. I think he really did just pick the isolated uncomfortable looking one at the party as a likely easy target.
I see a certain comment about carla got deleted; if the author (or anyone else) wants to learn not to stick their foot in their mouth so badly, go read http://assignedmale.tumblr.com/
I forget how short Mary is. If this was the first Dumbing of Age comic someone ever saw, one might even get the impression she’s supposed to be some overtly saccharine bit character.
Fortunately, we know the truth, and by extension we know her being so small just makes throwing her into a ravine easier.
This is the thing with this list. I know it’s this terrible thing that Joe never should’ve done, but why are all the girls focusing their attention on it and not the guy who made it?
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that’s a face like she found a way to get Trumpcare to pass, even with single-digit votes
or she got laid.
by the ghost of Reagan?
With her special Son O’God model dildo that plays highlights from Jesus Christ Superstar…
I’m sure it doesn’t look a thing like Jesus, though.
But does it talk like a gentleman?
This excellent reply deserves to be acknowledged.
She probably released the list and is enjoying the chaos and misery
Yooo, I haven’t listened to that album in years.
Album? Dude, there’s the internets now. You get to use these thingmajigs called GooTube and YouGle or somethin’ and listen to whatevs you into on demand. It’s the darndest thing!
OH
she closed her eyes and saw the place where she used to live
I can’t help but feel Jesus Christ Superstar would be far too impious for Mary’s taste.
or her pregnancy test came out negative ;P
You know, I don’t even think Joe would hit that.
to be fair if a person is drunk they might do lots of stuff they ddint plan on.
Maybe Joe just sees her as a pseudo-Joyce? Can’t imagine he’s gotten to know her very well…
you need to read the last panel again.
He knows you don’t stick your dick in crazy
I doubt that
More importantly, does he know Mary is crazy, he hasn’t been around for most of her bullshit. Actually I’m not sure even then he would regard as crazy even then, because she’s not that out there just sanctimonious and nasty.
The Joes I have known would. It basically goes something like this: “Greater challenge = more points”.
Ever read the original Roomies?
Why not? She’s pretty and I don’t think he knows her well enough to be repulsed by her (though he also doesn’t seem like the type to not sleep with somebody just because they’re a bad person)
I don’t Twitter, yet even this middle-of-night half-awake me had a correct guess of the person whose Twitter acpcount you linked, in a nanosecond. And I like the guy, but I’m asleep then and don’t consume his.show.
Do I.follow political media too much, or the right amount?
> mary smiling
WTF KILL IT WITH FIRE
(huh that’s the same reaction I have to Mary always)
I’m so uncomfortable with this. Can we not? Please?
Mary, stappit!!!
The smile doesn’t bother me… it’s the sing-songey “Hello” that has me weirded out…
It’s like she took lessons from the way Carla dealt with her~
Legitimately terrifying.
Gosh, Carla’s cute. She pulls off plaid pretty well.
+1
she is a cutie. of course apparently i have a thing for red heads.
Agreed. Also, I’m all about those socks.
its a good outfit all together. black goes with a lot after all from what i can tell.
That’s what we’d call a good Grade B Zettai Ryouiki. I highly approve. There’s also my crippling weakness for redheads (ask my wife of 27 years).
fuck she always has the best styles. carla’s style is my life goal
that version of mary is unsettling. its to fast a change to feel right. should we kill it with fire or try to get her evil again?
I think it has something to do with Ryan suffering whatever fate in front of the residence hall. Though why Mary should be like this is questionable. Did Mary have a bad encounter with Stabby McStabface before his face got stabbed?
entirely possible since he played the pastors kids card before it is possible he did it with others more successfully and gave mary some self guilt that she can strip away with him being punished.
honestly seems a stretch that that is likely the reason she was like that but assuming it has to do with not ryan i could see him having tried something with someone like her.
Mary is nursing Ryan back to health in her dorm room on the QT.
It’s a Misery-style psycho-nurse, unwilling patient situation. Question is, has Ryan tried to escape yet, and has she shattered his ankles?
One can only hope.
Not sure why Mary would get satisfaction out of Ryan being hurt. She’s not in Joyce’s social circle, and since Ryan’s methodology seems to be drugging people at parties, its unlikely Mary would have run across him herself.
Heck, given Mary’s habit of exhibiting the worst aspects of Christianity and being a terrible person overall, if anything she’d probably side with Ryan. “Ryan was a good christian beaten up by evil atheists who was slandered.. Besides, anyone who goes to a party deserves to be sexually assaulted”.
On the other hand, by every indication Ryan is a serial rapist who preferentially targets devout Christians. That likely doesn’t mean Mary personally, but it could easily be one of her fellow travelers that she personally knows and likes.
She was already in a good mood last time we saw her, in Ruth’s floor meeting, which was at least three days ago. We interpreted that as she relishing in Ruth’s potential suffering but I think it is something entirely unrelated o.o
i think……….she’s still evil
rip
I have the wooden stakes, the torches, and the matches. Anyone got gasoline? If so I think we can kill it with fire.
I just assume she has a plot brewing that we don’t know about yet.
You don’t want to perpetuate it.
maybe they just want everyone to be happy. maybe everyone can be happy and then we all win? right guys?
…guys? this is that kind of webcomic, right? maybe?
I mean, her being happy apparently means leaving everyone alone, but what’s she so happy about….? O_o
And that is why I want everyone to be happy, so they will leave me alone.
relatable
that’s the problem. If she’s so happy, it usually mean she’s up to something nasty.
Maybe she got a higher rating than most of the other ladies on their floor. (It’s easy to find her physically attractive, especially if you don’t know the depth of the shit she keeps between her ears. Correct me if I’m wrong but I don’t think Joe knows her that well.)
Or maybe she’s still floating from eating that puppy.
Definitely the puppy.
This is some ass-backwards status-quo
Learn why before you decide you want to perpetuate it.
Joe’s fetish is corrupting abstinence-only Christian girls.
Seriously, what is making her like this and is it too late to reverse the process?
Oddball thought, maybe she managed to rile up the crowd at church and there’s going to be a massive anti-lgbt protest in front of the university.
Alternately, she’s got a plan to get at billie.
Joe’s list is pretty much based on physical attractiveness so she got a high score. Her rivals also got torn to shreds – Billie got called fat and desperate, Joyce got ripped apart, we haven’t seen Ruth’s entry yet but you just know it’s going to be a long litany of insults.
Agatha’s last-panel statement could go either way, but I like to think she’s implying Mary’s a 10.
This would mean Joe would one day try to hit on her, which would end up being mortifying and horrible for both parties. It would be a joy to watch.
It’s hard to imagine her ranking could possibly be higher than Joyce’s. Mary is all of the churchiness of Joyce without any of the fun. Could she possibly be happy about that? Nah — she’s a hypocrite and being ranked in negative numbers would probably piss her off.
Mary’s got a leaner figure than Joyce, because superficial judgments like that count for a lot to folks like Joe. She’s also kind of domineering, but not in the cheery bugnuts way Joyce can be–and we can tell from Joe’s interest in Roz and Penny that he’s into that. And you know he’s got to assume Roz will help him “fix” Mary, since they’re roommates and all.
Well, Mary never punched Joe in the face, she has that going for her.
True…as far as we know.
I don’t think he knows much about Mary’s behavior. Roz didn’t sound like someone shooting her mouth about her problems while she’s having sex, and he seldom talks to women outside of his spiel.
And Joyce had other things on her mind when they were texting. So, yes, I suppose she has a very high score for her physical attractiveness.
But beats me why this should make her happy.
It doesn’t. But I can see why Agatha might suggest–either earnestly or jokingly–that it might.
(We also know from his encounters with Sierra and Rachel that he visits the girl’s wing often enough that he might’ve just happened to observe Mary at some point.)
Because she’s white, straight, able-bodied and thin, and gives no fucks about underlying mechanisms that govern such judgements?
Beauty standards is another tool she can wield like a cudgel against all folks lower on the ranking than her.
Even she must know that “Joe finds me more fuckable than you” doesn’t really fit in with her holier-than-thou image.
Many, many people have no problem at all with that seeming contradiction.
Nnnnnnnneehhhhhhhhhhh, why is she so happy, this is wrong.
*plays U2’s “Beautiful Day” on the hacked Muzak*
and now that’s playing in my head. Not sure if I want to punch you or hug you because I haven’t thought of that song in forever.
Mary you can’t literally be spending all day walking up and down the halls smiling and greeting people, that’d be creepy.
Oh, wait, she is. :p
I’m guessing Carla doesn’t want to know whether Joe clocked her as trans and excluded her from the list because of it?
That plus she’s sex repulsed.
Is she? I know UC in Shortpacked! wasn’t into sex, but has Carla in this universe been shown to dislike sex?
Sexual orientations cross over from Walkyverse, and Willis has said before she’s not into it and that’s why she’s probably never gonna be in the slipshines.
Okay, cool, thanks.
I mean, I guess she could be in the Slipshine pin-ups, still. He’s shown characters showering or changing clothes before. But I guess it gets a level of weirdness when it’s a character that’s grossed out by sex.
Yeah, the characters in the pin-ups are, by design, happy to be in that position (whether it’s posing or having sex). Carla wouldn’t be okay sexy posing either.
Wanting to know would imply that she cares what other people think about her. She’d prefer to not give anybody that impression.
I do think it’s a simple matter of wondering whether she “qualifies” or not even as she recognizes there’s no answer which wouldn’t be offensive.
Plot twist: Turns out Joe gave her a high rating, along with the note that says: Fond of technology used in hilarious ways, but shows no sign of sexual interest. Off limits for sex, but possible buddy for secret nerd projects.
Minds will be blown.
Carla isn’t really closeted. I figure Carla assumes:
If she’s not on the list when even 0 minuses get listed, it’s because Joe thinks of her as male.
If she is on the list, Joe ranked her on her “doability” and she objects for the same reason the other girls on the floor do.
Honestly, best thing for her mental health is probably just what she’s doing here, ignoring it and focusing on other people/things instead.
^^^accurate
Well, moreover I think she’s figured that whether she’s on the list or not on the list she’s going to be pissed off about it.
OTOH, given that everyone else is reading the list, I’d kind of want to know what they’re reading, if only so I could brace myself for reactions. Especially if Joe had clocked her. She might not be deeply closeted, but there are definitely people who don’t know and I’d want to be ready for that.
OTGH, If I was Carla, I’d keep up the facade. Check it privately. Get myself together again and go back to showing lack of interest.
Oh Joe…no…you didn’t.
That hissing noise I just made was not human.
Mary’s adorableness here is truly unnerving.
even though im worried about the why of her happiness I do like her outfit.
Mary got styles, yo.
wonder if it has to do with the Ryan incident, seems unlikely but the timing…
It would be a bit psychotic to be the happy about that situation.
Maybe it exposed a ‘hypocritical’ Christian. Hell, maybe Mary is seeing Joyce differently for being attacked and having the gall to fight back. Maybe she thinks she is now the ONLY ‘Christian’ on campus because she’s sooo holy and untouched. Some people think like that. Amber and Dorothy would also be shaken up – especially with Dorothy being an atheist, that too could be a cherry for Mary’s shit cake.
Or maybe Mary was one of Ryan’s roofie victims, and the reason she acts like such a manipulative bongo is because she’s absolutely TERRIFIED to trust anyone anymore after being taken advantage of. Maybe she’s ecstatic because something justifiably awful happened to him.
…or maybe I’m giving Mary WAY too much credit here. I’ll shut up now >.>
That isn’t a bad theory. Ryan’s part of the local christian community, as far as I know, so is Mary. Who knows what may had happened save Willis? Even villains to one story can be victims in their own. Mary will still have a lot to answer for, but to be a target of a rapist is something I wouldn’t wish on even her.
This IS Mary we’re talking about here. She takes pleasure in others suffering and goes out of her way to torment and manipulate others. Of course she’s psychotic
As a person who has psychosis, I take offense to to this ignorant nonsense.
To begin with, psychosis causes breaks with reality, not awful behavior. That’s psychopathy – and most psychopaths are perfectly alright. Those ones who aren’t have limited capacity to grasp why they are judged or end up in jail due to the lack of empathy that comes with the condition.
There is no ‘asshole disease’ that makes you predisposed to be an unrestrained sadistic dickbag. Nothing excuses Mary, and labels ofpeople with mental disorders shouldn’t be used as insults.
100% this. Bigotry isn’t a mental illness, and Mary’s behavior is perfectly rational from the perspective of someone who does not consider most other people to be full fledged human beings.
I agree with you. PLUS a lack of empathy doesn’t necessarily mean they are sadistic or cruel, it may mean they try to be helpful, but they don’t recognise that from the other perspective, their actions are frightening.
A lack of empathy doesn’t make someone cruel, evil or uncaring (several personality disorders and mental health issues reduce empathy), it means they might not always know why you’re upset or how they upset you. Doesn’t mean they won’t apologise or won’t try to make you feel better. They may even understand why you found it upsetting but their mood just isn’t impacted by yours having changed but that doesn’t mean they won’t show sympathy or try to make things better.
Mary is SADISTIC but that doesn’t make her psychotic or psychopathic, plenty of psychopaths would look at Mary and go ‘WTF is wrong with you’ because a lack of empathy doesn’t mean you enjoy hurting other people or want to see other people be hurt.
Shiiiiiiiiit….
While unsettling, I can’t complain about Mary not being terrible to everyone. Like the expression goes, “Don’t bite the gift horse that feeds you in the mouth.” Or something..
See, that would make sense if it weren’t for the fact that Mary can only feel happiness from the suffering of others.
So yeah, re, Carla: obviously, she wants to be seen as a woman, so from that perspective, being the one woman not rated would definitely rankle.
On the other hand–look, obviously being on the list draws unwanted attention from POAs and assorted male scumbag. And that’s not great for anyone. But when you’ve got no romantic interest in men and no interested in sex period–like, that’s a double-whammy of risk for specifically corrective rape.
(We’ve not seen Joe and Carla interact, but if she is on there–we don’t know how much of this information Joe has or listed, which is even worse. And we know he’s not above putting in demographic information, often in the least sensitive way possible.)
Pick Op Artists?
oh goddammit
Is it transphobic of me to think that’s a good pun? Because “op” is short for “operation?” Like it’s a PUA that specifically looks for trans ladies?
I don’t think it is transphobic to think it is a good pun but my god is it disturbing regardless because there are likely people just like that.
They’re called “chasers”.
That would be kind of cute if being ranked high just made Mary really happy, I’m sure she’s just evil plotting though
Did Mary see a news report about some unspeakable tragedy? I can’t imagine something that would make her that happy not being horrible for everyone else.
“Breaking news: Florida man who eats 3 slices of cheesecake immediately stuck by lightning as punishment for his gluttony.”
That’s not nearly bizarre enough for Florida. We need something involving a motorized shopping cart and using the whole of Wal-Mart as their own personal free buffet. Which actually happened in my hometown. Stay classy, Florida.
Wal-Mart brings a little slice of Florida to every community in America.
Obviously, Mary feeds on the suffering of the innocent like a vampire feeds on blood. The whole hall is up in arms about Joe’s stupid list, so it follows that she’s high as a kite right now.
Yeesh, she’s 1-upping over Sarah’s misanthropy if that’s the case.
Somebody show Mary her ranking, please!
Earlier this week, I played got-your-nose with a three-year-old. I’m pretty sure I made the same face she did at Mary there.
Joe continues to be scum. Like, to the point where I want to be angry over the real names on there but I’m already at the maximum amount of angry I can be at a comic storyline so there’s no more room.
A noseless one?
I can’t tell if that’s a reference to virginity loopholes, to Mary being an asshole, or both.
Why is this comment
She feeds on the misery of others. She’s just cranky when she’s hungry. Between Billy, Ruth, Carla, Joe and all he’s ranked, Amber, Dorothy, and so many others, she’s full for the first time in weeks!
I feel like if that were the case, Mary would actually be a more sympathetic character. I mean, I don’t want anyone to starve to death.
When she’s hungry, she goes hunting for misery to psychologically feast on, but recently it’s been a buffet of misery and pain dropped right in her lap the likes of which she has never seen! It’s so much that she’s delirious with happiness and joy, but she will soon have to hunt once again.
I predict Mary had sex with Joe and believes it was actually something meaningful as it was her lost virginity.
It’s like watching Moldywort give Draco that hug at the end of the last Harry Potter movie.
He’s cheerful, and everyone else is creeped the hell out.
Oh, good, Joe DID post some real names.
FUCK. YOU. JOE.
yuuuuuuuuuuuuup
Yeah, that could have some bad consequences- Wait a minute Joe not the one who posted it though somebody else hacked into his digital black book. That be like someone sharing all your contacts online.
Joe posted the damn thing online in the first place. He had a password for it, but he gave the password out like candy because he thought he was making a help guide for guys who couldn’t get laid – hence why his ‘digital black book’ had an RSS feed and a subscriber button. All it takes is one person telling someone who wasn’t supposed to know the password.
Wait really ? Guess I missed that, here I thought it was just some personal list of his. But if that’s the case I’m surprised this didn’t happened sooner.
Yeah, we’ve seen him handing out the password before and he asked Danny in the first storyline if he was subscribed to the feed.
I’m sorry if I came off strong in my response – I swear a lot, regardless of whether I’m angry, and I’m sorry if I seemed hostile.
Nah, I kind of deserve it tonight considering I’m being smug to everyone else and besides it’s better to get the anger out.
Nah, like I said I swear all the time, angry or no. It’s just something I do – my whole family except my brother have mouths like that. I won’t lie, I was a little irritated because the ‘it’s a private list’ thing keeps coming up whenever the list is mentioned and it’s not true, but it’s not fair to get irritated with you for not remembering, and for that I apologize.
This said, it DOES kinda make leaking the list publicly a dick move. So there’s two dicks involved here.
Me, I’m holding off until we learn why it was leaked. If it was under a rationale like ‘Oh wow, this list is awful, the girls on it deserve to know this guy’s being a creepy asshole about them’ or ‘Oh, what the fuck did this guy say about me, hey, guys, has anyone else seen this?’ then I can’t get too mad.
Better yet.
Don’t fuck him.
Allow me to rephrase:
FUCK. OFF. JOE.
On top of the chill Marry is giving me down my spine, Do all these girls really have all day to focus on some list some random ass smuck made ? Then again If someone had made a list about all the guys on my campus I would be curious on where I weigh in…God am I that desperate for approval?
I guess We’ll have a chapter with how Roz secretly rank every guy she’s seen on campus just to make it even.
False equivalence.
Also not something Roz would do, since she has sex for fun not to stave off incredible insecurity like Joe does.
Yeah they’re totally different, not the same at all, definitely wouldn’t have like catalogue of guys she dying to have a go at just lying around somewhere.
Are you unfamiliar with the phrase “false equivalence” then?
And even false equivalence aside, while I can see Roz making a mental note of dudes that she might like to get with, I can not see her making painstaking and insulting rankings of every dude in the dorm and compiling them into a list and referring to dudes as numbered specimens, or we’d certainly have seen her doing so before this.
Like there’s a difference between having a ‘I’d hit that’ list and actively ranking people into dehumanizing categories and passing around this info as a guide to random dudes- guys he doesn’t know and may very well be predators.
Oh no no no I get they’re totally different she just has sex for fun like Captor said and not to bloat her ego… unless you ignore that one time she leaked a sex tape for the soul purpose of getting 15 minutes of fame but who’s keeping track.
Also it’s a false equivalence because why ? Because the male sex wouldn’t be offended ? Like we all like being compared to each other ?
i think because just because joe’s doing it, doesn’t mean that roz is gonna do the same thing
Maybe but “Would” and “gonna” ain’t the same thing.
Well for that she wasn’t doing it for fame so much as to make a public point against her sister’s politics. It had to involve her because she was the one being affected by it, as the sister to the politician most likely courting the purity, anti-sex ed, anti-birth control crowd, she was sending a message that her body was her own. And she picked out Joe because he was sexually appealing, but she didn’t select him from a list of fives and tens, she doesn’t dehumanize him and makes sure she has consent to tape.
Joe actively dehumanizes the women he pursues, ignoring boundaries until he’s yelled at and categorizing women solely by how attractive physically he thinks they are. He has sex with women as a way of reaffirming how masculine and sexually virile he is. He thinks of sex as a game with trophies. These are two totally different viewpoints.
Ok I got to admit that’s a strong argument. Though I have one objection, if it wasn’t a publicity stunt then why she giving out signed merchandise ? But I might remembering that wrong though I might haft to remind read that part.
There’s a difference between a publicity stunt and a public statement.
Roz was very clear that she was declaring ownership over her own body, and that she is free to do what she wants on it. (No matter what Sis says.) The sex tape was both the message, and a demonstration of the message. That’s a public statement, not a publicity stunt.
As for signed merchandise, well, if the demand’s there… I’d call that less defensible than the tape, except why does it need a defense?
She was giving out signed condoms to encourage people to use protection. Signing them was just a marketing move. She wasn’t selling anything, and it wasn’t “merchandise”.
Until there is a culture of systematically dehumanizing dudes the way there is women, Roz hypothetically having a list of dudes she’d want to bang is not equivalent to Joe’s Do list.
Ok, that’s fair.
While I agree she put out the video in part for her ego, she also did that as for a cause, to promote sex-positivity, and to fuck with her sister’s campaign.
And the difference isn’t because “it’s okay when women do it”, it’s that we’ve been given no reason to think she’d actually create a list like Joe’s. There’s nothing wrong with simply having a list (even an actual, physical list) of people you’d like to have sex with. You’re allowed to want to have sex with people.
The problems with Joe’s do list are the numeric ranking, the demeaning descriptions, the way he obsesses over it to the point where he’s cataloged the ENTIRE DORM, including explicit listings for women he DOESN’T find attractive at all. Worst of all is the way he DISTRIBUTES THE LIST to just about anyone.
On top of being demeaning and reductive as hell towards the women on it, it’s basically a shopping list for sexual predators.
And of course there’s the way it demonstrates that Joe doesn’t just really like thinking about sex, that’s the only thing he’s interested in when he interacts with a woman.
We’ve seen no evidence Roz being anywhere near as bad as Joe is about any of those things. So it really looks like you’re equating “a woman who likes sex and isn’t ashamed of it” with “a completely sleazy, misogynistic douchebag who thinks about little else”, because I’m not seeing any better basis for your assumptions here.
“for the sole purpose of” Let me just stop you right there and send you back to reread that chapter. Clearly you skipped some parts.
Roz having a bunch of phone numbers or just a mental list of names of dudes she’d like to bang both seem like they’re within realm of possibility based on what we’ve seen of her.
Those are still both drastically different from curating and distributing a demeaning list reducing every woman you’ve ever met to a numeric value, complete with a detailed, judgemental and objectifying description.
Call it having a poor opinion of her but uh, I still feel like she would do that exactly.
Actually no, I don’t see her spending time with that. She’s too busy having a life, staffing meetings and giving out sex-positive information and condoms.
Maybe you mistook those for merchandise items?
Worth noting—Roz in Shortpacked was a WAY bigger jerk. So Newllend might be allowing elements of Roz In Shortpacked to mix with how they see Roz In DOA.
Dildo hats ?
The condom hat was explicitly part of her campaign to pass out condoms and promote safe sex.
One more element of the false equivalence to add to the pile:
Joe fully and eagerly consented to being on an available-for-public sex tape. (Danny didn’t consent to filming it, and I’m not sure how wrong that was, but it was at least a little shady.) He was more than happy to be presented to the world in a sexual way.
Few to NONE of the women on the Do List consented to being presented to the world in a sexual way.
You know how it is, when something this out-of-the-blue happens that somehow effects everyone. Everyone’s talking about it for a few days, and then everyone except 3-5 people forget about it and move on.
Well, there’s also the fact that most of the floor barely knows Amber at all, and even then, at some point you need to go about your day.
The fact that 3 days later they’re not spending their entire day talking and visibly worrying about it does not mean they aren’t affected by it or that they don’t care or forgot.
You’re assuming this has been going on ‘all day’. The way this comic moves, this whole thing might be occurring over the span of an hour. It just feels like all day because you’re reading it over the course of several. For all we know, word only really started to get out shortly before the bits we’re seeing.
Also, people might be finding out about it in different stages of the day, leading to spikes in interest. Since it’s the focus of the story line, obviously those are the parts of the day we’re seeing.
Damn it, comic time is confusing.
It’s about two months into the term, classes and schedules have settled into the routine, and suddenly a whole bunch of juicy gossip comes along.
Of COURSE a lot of them have time to talk about it.
(Probably some avoiding it like the plague, though. Either better things to do or anything else to do.)
Plus, look who specifically is talking – Mandy. We know she’s mad about the list because we saw her snarking at Joe about it. I think it’s reasonable she’d want to vent to her friend (Agatha) and her girlfriend (Grace). It seems like Agatha didn’t know about the list, so this also could be a ‘hey, head’s up, this thing is going around and you’re on it, it’s pretty gross and I thought you deserved to know’.
Plus-plus, it’s Mandy and Grace. The Greek Chorus. It’s their JOB to gossip.
Usually that’s the Rachels job, but they can take over for today! 😀
Well, Rachel’s kind of auditioning for a larger role these days, so Mandy and Grace will have to step up.
Works for me!
*Found out there are people who don’t like Carla, today…*
*HUGS CARLA EXTRA*
*DOESN’T CARE HOW MANY PIES TO THE FACE I GET*
ALL THE PIES!!!
oh my god
same
Mary smiling is really creeping me out. Why the fuck is she smiling? I really hope it’s not because Joe gave her a really good ranking on his do list or something.
She probably is the one that released the list to the world. Now she doesn’t need to deal with Joe being in the girls dorm anymore.
I don’t believe Mary and Joe have ever actually met. There’s only a single strip with both of them in it, and they weren’t even in the same place. Maybe she found out about his list somehow and released it to piss off the other girls in her dorm, but I get the feeling she’s happy about something far worse than Joe’s do list.
This is a neat theory, and it would be a good twist. We’ll see if it’s true soon enough.
She’s super-happy because the police have released an official missing persons report for the hallway atheist.
Mary either A) Ate a puppy, B) realized the error of her ways and is now wants to be on friendly terms with everyone (possibly even started having sex now that her “morals” are looser) or C) (and more likely), she found out something that will make her happy and everyone else miserable, and add to that, only she knows and no one else does and that makes it extra sweet.
Mary is so high right now. Like, what the hell did she take? She’s practically shedding sparkly pixie dust. It’s disturbing me on so many levels. I mean, at this point I think she may have accidentally taken a hit if LSD and is hallucinating that she’s an angel in heaven.
she found out when the rapture is coming and she’s ninety nine point nine percent sure she’s going and everybody else on the floor is going to weep her passing and bewail their lack of faith
Weren’t you paying attention to Harold Camping?
The Rapture was May 21st, 2011.
No one qualified.
i guess i wasn’t!! they’re gonna revoke my card
I just got a similar high like that today after eating a lot of Wonka candy.
There are only two options here:
1) Something really effin’ bad happened.
2) Something completely unrelated happened.
It’s still that puppy thing, isn’t it?
i don’t know what’s grosser, mary’s happiness or joe’s list
i know mary’s happiness creeps me out because i don’t know why she’s happy and i know it’s gotta be something horrific
joe’s list, at least, is a known quantity
Let’s focus on the positives:
Agatha is still cute as a button.
And a Rose character model on the tumblr. All the McAwesome’s awesomeness!
I mean, Mary’s good mood primary comes from the kitten she hurt emotionally this morning,
but I also think it might be because of the stupid list – that she sees it as validation of the misery sex brings.
There is still a chance that she is happy for a completely innocent reason. I mean, it’s not likely, but it would be a nice change of pace.
Agreed. She might just have met someone and fallen in love or something. That would also explain the cute dress?
Wait, now that I think about it, how horrible a person would have to be for Mary to like them? That’s scary.
New theory. Over the weekend, Mary was visited by three ghosts.
+1
😀 This made me laugh out loud.
Joe betrayed us!
Again!
CURSED STRIP DDD:
Mary is smiling. Urge to punch rising.
Agh. That bongo Mary is smiling! Lemme at her! Anyone care to join me in attacking Mary? It’s never good when she’s happy. *incoherent muttering and grumbling about Mary*
“Until I know, everyone’s having a worse day than me.”
And this is why we love Carla.
“THAT COUNTS AS A WIN, DAMMIT!”
Okay, so my question is, is the administration going to take notice and come down on Joe for this?
I think he deserves a little bit of come-down-ance (er, comeuppance?). Not full-on punishment, but perhaps a bit of a talking to and warning. Something along the lines of “this behavior has made a lot of our residents and students uncomfortable in a way that’s disruptive, so stop it or we’ll find some way to punish you”.
In actuality? … given that the Dean dressed Roz down for the sex video, and said not a word to Joe, and warned her that she wasn’t allowed to shoot porn in her dorm room… when it was actually Joe’s dorm room…. I’m guessing Joe won’t get the least bit of official comedownance.
Yes, that’s a word now dammit.
While I’m sure being a guy helped, Joe also didn’t bring negative media attention on the school the way a congressional family member could.
The Dean only dressed down Roz after letting Leslie attempt to solve the issue and while Roz was making it an issue (broadcasting)
He MIGHT get a talking to if the administration gets flooded with complaints from the ladies on the list. Especially if they consider it sexual harassment or the lower ranked have mean comments that could be considered bullying.
A public university can’t do anything about something like this. They must respect freedom of speech and posting your opinions of people online definitely qualifies.
Sexual harassment isn’t really freedom of speech.
And bear in mind (because people appear to having trouble with this): Joe may not have intended for the list to be widely available, but he WAS sharing the list. It was not remotely private.
But I kinda agree with the others—the Dean probably has a bit of a double-standard.
Eh. If he didn’t deliberately mean to make the list completely public, and sorta took no for an answer (as with Sarah… he didn’t do a good job of taking no for an answer, but he did back off when told, albeit passively aggressively) it would be hard to make sexual harassment stick.
Still scummy, but not harrassment…..
…. waitaminute…
…. okay, just pulled up IU’s sexual misconduct policy.
“Sexual harassment is unwelcome conduct or behavior of a sexual nature. Sexual harassment includes sexual violence (see definition). Both violent and non-violent sexual harassment is prohibited. Sexual harassment can include unwelcome sexual advances, requests for sexual favors and other verbal, nonverbal, written, electronic (e.g. by e-mail, text, social media, etc.), or physical conduct of a sexual nature. Sexual harassment occurs when:
1. submission to or rejection of such conduct is made either explicitly or implicitly a condition of an individual’s employment or academic standing or is used as the basis for employment decisions or for academic evaluation, grades, or advancement (quid pro quo), or when
2. such conduct is sufficiently severe, pervasive or persistent to limit or deny a person’s ability to participate in or benefit from the University’s educational programs or affects employment, creating a hostile environment.”
There’s a bit of a judgement call about how much Joe’s creating a hostile environment, but this definitely COULD qualify as harassment.
And all students agree, contractually, to comply by this policy, and free speech can be limited by one’s own acceptance of a contract (same as with any N.D.A.), so that argument’s out.
“(as with Sarah… he didn’t do a good job of taking no for an answer, but he did back off when told, albeit passively aggressively)”
And then tried again.
And again.
And even tried again while appearing to back off.
Good to know. I was looking through the Canadian criminal code to see how long Joe could get for sexual harassment if he were to be charged for it here but I couldn’t find it. It might be considered part and parcel of sexual assault here. Then again, I may have missed it – I rushed through those pages. They make my skin crawl.
I was thinking “hate speech ain’t free speech” but I doubt joe’s BS qualifies as hate speech…
and sadly, on a practical level, well, my university still used “free speech” as an excuse for inaction when some anti-abortion assholes put up big nightmare-fuel holocaust photos in an area that groups of children regularly went through. Ugh. I think eventually they pissed off enough parents that the posters were flipped around to only be visible from inside their little protest area 😛
so even if there’s a legal justification for consequences, I don’t expect the school to do jack shit.
but for the curious, I found canada’s hate speech laws! http://laws-lois.justice.gc.ca/eng/acts/C-46/section-319.html
it covers:
” Every one who, by communicating statements in any public place, incites hatred against any identifiable group where such incitement is likely to lead to a breach of the peace…”
” Every one who, by communicating statements, other than in private conversation, wilfully promotes hatred against any identifiable group…”
but there are exceptions to the second one for:
“a) if he establishes that the statements communicated were true;
(b) if, in good faith, the person expressed or attempted to establish by an argument an opinion on a religious subject or an opinion based on a belief in a religious text;
(c) if the statements were relevant to any subject of public interest, the discussion of which was for the public benefit, and if on reasonable grounds he believed them to be true; or
(d) if, in good faith, he intended to point out, for the purpose of removal, matters producing or tending to produce feelings of hatred toward an identifiable group in Canada.”
….fuck. I didn’t know there was an exception for religion in there. at least they can be convicted if it’s in public and disruptive? but ick. I wonder if that was Harper’s doing… no, the “based on a belief in a religious text” was added in 2004 under the Liberals! but the “on a religious subject” has been around longer; that site doesn’t seem to have the full history.
It was intended to pacify the “oh help, this means we can be thrown in jail for quoting the Bible” people. I hold no brief for those types, so the exemption annoys me.
The only way I can see the first part (arguments on a religious subject) coming in handy is if people were arguing doctrine or protesting a religious authority’s decision. The second one sounds like it’d be a very ‘fun’ get out of trouble free card.
But I’m not talking about the Canadian definition of hate speech, I’m talking about sexual harassment.
Depends on how you define “sexual harassment. Let’s be real, in a nation where so-called “locker room talk” doesn’t disqualify you from the presidency, it stands to reason that the kind of people who typically run universities — older, white, male — will define “sexual harassment” any way they please, usually in whatever fashion requires the least effort from them.
Free speech means Joe can’t be arrested, not that Joe can’t suffer consequences for what he says. If the school has rules against this sort of thing, they absolutely can punish Joe for this and I can think of at least two rules this might fall afoul of – sexual harassment (which is also illegal) and bullying, depending on what’s said about lower ranked girls.
Indiana University is a public institution and as such has to respect free speech the same as the justice system does. It cannot punish people for protected speech. If it were a private institution they could censure or expel him, but a public university can’t.
This protection is pretty wide-ranging, for example, Oklahoma University definitely broke the law when they expelled the three SAE fraternity members for their racist bus chant.
There’s no such thing as “pure free speech”, even in America, the country where it’s generally perfectly legal to circulate nude photos of people on the internet without their consent. There are limits.
And, again, you’re missing what free speech is – it means you cannot be arrested for it. It’s not a ‘get out of consequences’ free card. Public universities are allowed to set rules of conduct and their own policies and if you violate ones regarding, for this list, sexual harassment or bullying, they can toss you out on your ass, free speech be damned. Oklahoma University most likely has similar rules about bullying or hate speech and they can and did kick him out. It’s the same reason you can be fired from a government job for posting a bunch of racial slurs – you have free speech, but firing you does not violate that and employers, including government employers, are allowed to set rules, standards, and policies.
I’m 5000% done with this ‘free speech means no consequences for speech ever’ nonsense going around. Unless Joe is actually arrested for something, it’s not a free speech violation. And even that has its limits – which is why, for example, you’re not allowed to yell ‘fire’ in a theatre or harass people, sexually or otherwise. Because while you may have the right to speak, other people deserve to be safe and have the right to want you to keep away from them.
Er, you’re just incorrect, I don’t know what to tell you. You’re confusing criminal law and civil law. You can be fired from a government job or expelled from a public school if you violate the school’s code, even if you don’t violate a criminal law.
For example, in my state (Ohio) concealed carry / open carry is a big deal. It has been ruled than an adult with a gun license may legally carry a concealed weapon in public. This is a 2nd amendment right in the constitution, according to recent rulings of the Ohio Circut Court as well as the Supreme Court.
However, a public University (like my own alma mater Kent State) has the right to enforce a “no weapons” policy, with consequences including expulsion. Thus, if a student exercises their second amendment right to carry a lethal weapon on campus, they will be expelled.
Now, KSU students have frequently fought and won the right to demonstrate anywhere on campus, at any time. So, for instance, there were pro-union protests at graduation, even though it irritated many parents (and hey! Look at that, suddenly the staff got a union. Interesting.) The price of that, though, is that we have a high number of Westboro Baptist Church-esque groups protest on our campus, spreading bigoted messages.
I’m okay with that trade-off. The ability to protest, and to make videos in which we were able to confront the university president without regard to how good or bad they made her look, enabled us to use non-violent methods to pressure the administration to allow the staff to negotiate for fair pay and benefits, including life-saving health insurance. On top of that, nearly every hate-group protest had a counter-protest organized by Kent PRIDE that was bigger and louder.
THAT is the kind of free speech I want protected. If they tried to put anything in the school code against organized protests or ambush videos, it’d take vital negotiating tools away from students and staff with urgent causes.
But Joe’s list doesn’t have a cause. It targets specific people, and it could definitely be grounds for a harassment suit.
Harassment in a place where there is a conduct code against harassment is a violation of Civil Law, not constitutional law. That is to say, just as libel and slander won’t get you thrown in jail, neither with verbal / written harassment. BUT! Libel, slander, and harassment are violations of civil law, NOT protected speech, which means a person could be found guilty in civil court and face expulsion or fines.
This doesn’t really have anything to do with the distinction between criminal and civil law. An institution of the government is simply not allowed to penalize you for exercising your Constitutional rights.
Government jobs and public schools are actually severely limited in how they’re allowed to penalize people for speech, they are actually not allowed to just fire or expel you for the things you say. Their conduct codes can say whatever they want, those codes will get quashed in court if they infringe on your freedom of speech and you sue to get whatever penalty you got hit with eliminated.
The gun thing isn’t analogous because while you have the right to own a gun, you don’t have the right to carry it anywhere. The school can ban you from bringing the gun on school property, it can’t penalize you simply for owning one. Similarly, speech that is done without using school resources is something that they’re just not allowed to penalize people for.
This guy explains it much better than I can.
Volokh’s perspective is strongly libertarian and not necessarily inline with current practice. He’s saying “It should be this way”, not “This is how the law is currently interpreted.”
It doesn’t make sense to say this is “definitely against the law” in cases where the courts haven’t actually ruled in that direction. Is there even an ongoing court case on the Oklahoma thing?
Mind you, if the court shifts a little further to the right, they may just rule that racism and sexism are actually protected, but protests and complaints aren’t.
Hey, are you thejeff from Paizo? If so, hey! I’m Kobold Cleaver. We’ve interacted. 🙂
Hey KC. Small internet, isn’t it?
But now I’m confused. Are you a Goblin Scribe who Cleaves Kobolds, or a Kobold Cleaver who writes on Goblins?
This is why I use the same name most places 🙂
Tarmaniel, that’s not entirely correct.
Government employees can’t be fired simply for being bigots, or even expressing bigoted, hateful views while off-duty. But if they’re on duty and direct hate speech towards a coworker or a member of the public, they be fired for it, because that’s where it crosses over from speech into conduct.
A government employee absolutely can be fired for hate speech, while they’re on the job. They just can’t be fired simply for being a bigot.
If you work at the DMV and you say racist shit to very black person who comes to your counter, you can be fired for that. Because it would be reasonable to fire you not simply for the “views” you expressed, but because of the effect it had on the people trying to access an important public service. Same if you make lewd sexual comments to them, or you’re just rude and insult people.
Because while they constitution forbids the government from criminal punishment for that (at least if you stop short of actual harassment), nowhere does it say the government must continue employing you even if you can’t act like a professional while on the job.
For this same reason, public colleges and even K-12 schools are allowed to set standards of conduct, which can include rules which forbid directing hate speech towards staff or fellow students while on school property.
Also, again, firing or expelling someone is not criminal punishment.
It’s the University of Oklahoma and it was damn well more than three people who should’ve been expelled.
Yep! Mary’s got a boyfriend alright!
God have mercy on him.
If Mary’s conception of God is accurate then he’s screwed. Especially is he’s screwed.
I refuse to dignify the idea Mary’s conception of God is at all accurate enough to give it consideration.
Well, we know God exists in their world. It’s just he’s a pornographer Transformers fan. 🙂
And she doesn’t know she’s being cuckolded by Mike.
See, Joyce was right! EVERYTHING is solved by falling in love.
…is that rabbits and birds around Mary ?
…yeah, vultures and that thing from Monty Python, perhaps
Quick comrades, the Holy Hand Grenade!
“I feel pretteeeeee, oh so witteeeeee!”
I notice that Carla doesn’t have her skates on. This might be why she’s having a bad day. Not only did Ruth persuade her not to do something by being nice, she probably ended up having to apologise to Billie and Joyce about the whole thing whilst a sad-eyed Ruth looked on. Not something likely to improve her Zen!
Carla sans skates is like the childhood me forced to put on nice clothes for Mass. The ceiling of “how good I can feel” is instantly lowered.
Hi yes I would like to solve the mystery of Mary’s happiness:
Panel 4: She is ninja-running.
Therefore, she has been accepted for training by the Hidden Leaf Village.
By Danzo I’m sure, she’d definitely be working with him
oh my god, mary is a 10
Heh great. Not only will Joe be called sexist but transphobic too. This day is getting worse and worse for him XD
And seriously Mary is making me uncomfortable, I expect her to grab an umbrella out of thin air and start quoting Harime Nui…
I’m gonna say Mary is a prime suspect for the hacker who revealed the do list. And I’m gonna guess Carla ISN’T on it, indicating Joe views her as male, which would be something Mary would take some sick pleasure in (and then the compliment on her hair is a way of mocking this fact)
Plus now Mary gets to A) out a sexual deviant who engages in lots of premarital “hankypanky” as Joyce would say B)Mock Carla and C) just generally make everyone around her more miserable so she can feed on their anger like a misery vampire
Of course this would require Mary have hacking skills good enough to accomplish this, but I’m sure if it’s a skill that can be used to attack people she hates, Mary will have studied up on it
Tech-Savvy Mary. Okay that’s just plain scary and disturbing…
It could also be a conspiracy to get laid. With all the other women effectively giving Joe the cold shoulder. Mary’s unholy place is about all Joe can get. Of course she’ll rationalize that she can bring him to Jesus.
Okay if that would happen I’d be laughing my ass off for days…
The “hacking” skills involved are 1) Talking to Joe for 5 minutes. 2) Remembering the password when he offers it to you.
1a) If female, you probably have to be physically attractive enough that he thinks you’ll be flattered by your ranking.
No problem there. Mary is as pretty as she is malicious…
There is some irony to this if Mary turns out to be the culprit. Joe has VERY bad luck with religious girls. First Joyce destroys him physically and now Mary destroys him psychologically.
Mary knowing even basic hacking is a scary ass prospect
And Mary continues to be terrifying beyond all reason.
Fourth panel Mary is quite fetching
Physically speaking, Mary is an attractive young woman; it’s just the stuff inside her heart and mind that makes her really, really ugly.
I think Mary has discovered Roz’s secret stash of “herbal” incense. 🙂
I’m with the people who think that Carla won’t turn out to be on the list. And Mary (whether she hacked the list or not) knows.
What the freak, Mary?! I mean it’s an improvement, but this is not gonna last.
Mary being pleasant sounds like a good thing until you consider what sort of things make her happy.
Her clothing style has changed too. Either this is a pod person or something really big has happened to her that has really buoyed her up.
It’s like watching Darth Vader humming a happy little tune
https://youtu.be/TH912rw68JA
I swear, it’s like Palpatine found the Rebel Alliance main base and drops in saying “who wants brownieeeees? I baked in an extra somethiiiiing…”
Oh my, that’s even better! (I wrote my Vader comment before I saw your Palpatine scenario.)
Content Warning: Corrective rape, acephobia, harassment, transphobia
Comic Reactions:
Panel 1: Oh wow, he put in some real names, some reductive descriptions? Way to make it A) even more useful for doxxing and B) even more dehumanizing for the folks he didn’t bother to name, thus cementing even more that they were just a pair of tits to him.
And poor Agatha, she seems genuinely taken aback at being targeted like this. This may even be the first form of this open dehumanization she’s faced, or at least faced in this form.
And of course there’s the exhaustive nature of this. He’s named every woman in the residence hall in his little list and they’ve likely seen him skulking around the women’s dorms, which likely makes it feel retroactively threatening that he was around here being super creepy sizing them all up in the place where they live. There’s an extra layer of vulnerability to that.
Panel 2: Oh, wow, those feels. Like, yes, I feel this panel so so intensely.
Cause yeah, when you’re trans and ace, this is basically a no-win scenario designed to make you feel intensely like shit.
Either you’re included which means you are being objectified in your home and treated like a piece of meat to be sized up and measured for consumption. And there’s so many threatening pieces to that beyond just the standard objectification and reduction.
I mean, I’ve already mentioned Joe’s previous usage of corrective rape logic with regards to asexuals and my own experience with Joe types who view asexuals as a “challenge” and so get extra creepy. But yeah, that sort of thing is a genuine threat. There are a lot of Joe-like guys who view “bagging” an asexual as some sort of grand-prize proof of their virility and who will never let up trying to pressure and coerce hard for that intoxicating rush.
And consent (already something Joe has demonstrated himself to be terrible at) can often go out the window for that “grand prize”. Like, I have no doubt the man who correctively raped me felt like a million bucks forcing himself on an asexual and “fixing” her. So yeah, being on there is an extra layer of bad day.
But so is being left off. Especially if it includes every woman in the residence hall. Like, okay, this is some complicated gender feels, but like street harassment sucks, but it’s really dysphoric to watch all the folks with you get street harassed and be left alone as if you were a guy.
Because you’re not being respected, you’re just not being seen as a woman.
And for Carla, her being left off this shitty list of dehumanization, it wouldn’t be because of some random respect for how she’d make the man who wrote this eat it, but rather because that man didn’t view her as a woman at all.
And that sucks. It also leads to another element to being included on the list, which is guys that make lists like this tend on average to react very angrily to trans women blipping on their radar, because they tend to view that as a personal affront where their boner has been “tricked”. This has led to the deaths of way too many trans women, especially trans women of color.
So yeah, any option here is a bad one for Carla, so I feel her position deeply.
I feel you, Carla. I’d feel exactly the same way. Which is going to make me angrier- being targeted by misogyny, or not being targeted because my gender identity isn’t seen as valid? Both hurt.
Wait.. Who first discovered Joe’s list? Did I miss that or has it not been shown? Could it be MARY?
I’m not sure it was ‘discovered’. Joe has been handing out the link to any guy who asks. I just think that it shocked him that someone told the women about it!
Panel 3: And I also feel this. Like, both Grace, Agatha, or Mandy hesitantly offering to tell Carla (because sometimes it can feel good to rip off that bandaid and see how bad the rot is), but also Carla’s complete lack of interest in knowing.
Like, as I said, all options involved are terrible and scary options, so knowing is just putting a specific shape to which aspect of herself is going to feel the most awful about the whole affair. And yeah, it’s likely to hit harder in ways that will be in addition to the standard dehumanization and awfulness, so yeah, once she knows she’ll be having the worst day of all.
That said, I suspect the way her brain works, she won’t be able to resist taking a peek and on that day, Joe’s going to very much learn to regret what he did, because Carla doesn’t play about dehumanizing shit like this.
Panels 4-5: Now, what is making Mary so incredibly pleased with herself is likely something horrible and harmful to others, especially given her overly pleased with herself smile she gave Billie and Ruth.
But there’s a large part of me that just wants her to have had a good time that didn’t involve the harming of another person. A good date, nice news from home, having an art piece featured in a thing she really wanted it to. Something positive and based on her own actions for herself rather than her actions against someone she hates.
Because she kind of needs that. Connections and valuations that have nothing to do with vicariously enjoying the suffering of others she has labeled as bad, that makes her way less likely to snipe and attack those she views as sinners, where her self-esteem isn’t tied entirely to how miserable “bad people” are.
It’s what I want all bullies to one day have. A best life that isn’t tied to making others miserable, where they don’t feel that need to judge and tear down and actively make lives worse, but where they just have a good life for themselves far far away from anyone they could hurt.
And so I hope that’s the case for Mary.
Panel 6: But yeah, I’m also deeply Mandy here. Wanting to know how (and hoping it isn’t happiness about someone being screwed over) and hoping it continues for a period of time.
And oof, there’s such a nasty stinger in her rating being high. Because there’s a reason for that. We know from Joe that Joyce was a 4 he upgraded to a 10 because he viewed her sexual inexperience and thus inability to realize how crap a lay he was as an incredibly valuable and sexy thing. So it’s very likely that Mary would be highly valued for the same thing, his toxic ideas of “fixing” her “repression” and “making her” a “sex beast”.
And as much as I intensely hate how much Mary has hurt others, I would never wish being subjected to that ever, because no one deserves to be subjected to that. And I hope she stays far far away from Joe (and hopefully Ryan as well) and is spared that specific form of pain.
It seems sort of weird to me that Mary would be highly rated. Because Joyce’s initial rating was a four, so if Mary was rated in a similar way, her initial rating would also be low.
And Willis has gone on record that he regretted having Mary in the Walkyverse be seemingly punished for being such a crappy person via sex-shaming (unplanned pregnancy, and iirc an abortion), so it seems unlikely to me that this version of Mary is not a virgin, but… maybe I’m reading too much into that.
I can more easily see Mary being pleased that her enemies were unanimously humiliated by Joe’s list than being pleased that she’s highly-rated, but right now I’m banking on her happiness being unrelated and her not knowing about the list, rather than being based in a high rating from Joe, a guy whose good opinion she can’t possibly value.
Okay, I’m trying to come up with a list of things she could be happy about that won’t make me hate her more than I already do. It isn’t Church, because it’s Saturday and we know Mary goes on Sunday.
(Cerberus’ suggestions)
– A good date
– Art being featured somewhere
– A birth in the family (new sibling, niece, nephew, cousin, whatever)
– Wedding or anniversary somewhere maybe?
– Received something sweet in the mail
– Got a good grade on something
– It’s her birthday or there is a birthday going on
– New outfit that she loves.
– She just drew something she’s very proud of.
– Accepted for a prestigious scholarship.
– Parents won the lottery.
– An episode of her favorite anime was released recently
– A relative whose health was in dire straits pulled through
– Saw a pretty flower
Joyce was a four because Joe knew she wasn’t interested in casual sex. She also communicated innocence with her cloath. Mary wore normal cloath and Joe might just know that she’s usually angry which might be a plus for him.
I mean, Mary is pretty. Awful as a person, but pretty. I don’t think Joe necessarily rated her low, just that IF he rated her in a similar way to Joyce, it would be low. My bad for the phrasing confusion 🙂
As I understand it, he rated Joyce after there initial conversation, in which she made it clear how Christian and “pure” she was.
He may never have talked to Mary, or only talked more superficially, so he’s rating her purely visually. He may not have realized she was in need of “upgrading”.
It was the other way around – he said Joyce was a four for her inexperience but he hoped to ‘upgrade’ her with his dick, presumably by ‘teaching her’ everything he knows about sex (presumably without her knowing he probably sucks at it)
I think it’s entirely possible that Mary is so happy because she’s the one who leaked the list to the women. It seems like a thing she’d do: she gets to witness the pain and humiliation of others, but if/when her involvement is discovered she has a high horse to sit on all ‘I know, it’s so horrible, that’s why I sent it around!’
That! makes a lot of sense actually
When Dolores Umbridge is in a good mood, run.
I’m pretty sure that Mary just singing the song ‘Sunshine, Lollipops and Rainbows in her head. Nothing to be afraid of.
…as long as you have an EXTERMINATUS at the ready.
Or “Do you believe in magic” with Pyro visuals in her head…
If its isn’t too late to post an opinion,
Isnt possible that this reaction to the list is also a reaction to the now known presence of a por
tential rapist on campus? Like a guy has this list he hands out to other guys trying to pick up chicks and any one of them could have been that rapist?
That definitely wouldn’t be helping, but I think that it’s the sort of concern they’d have regardless. Especially since most of the women barely know Joe, if at all. They don’t really know just how much of a creep he might be himself.
Are you saying Joe was the reason that Joyce got targeted? Cause that is just sadistic and twisty enough for this comic
@Fart Captor; it’s definitely that they’re upset about the stupid list i just figure with the recent news fresh in their heads it’s like an added layer. So basically I agree with you.
@Scar Man; Oh god no I never even thought that far into the implications, but since you mention it there’s a lot to consider. Like, if joe was partially responsible for that event then how would it affect his line of thinking; would he reassess his behavior at all?
Also chronologically was the party before or after joe and Joyce’s date? Because if before then assuming “ryan” saw the list he saw Joyce as rated rather high(a ten if that assumption is also correct) so then that would make her suuuuper targetable…… but I want to believe their date was before the party not after.
Thoughts anyone?
Date was before.
It’s a bit of stretch, honestly. He met Joyce at a party where her profile would given him no idea to expect her. Without context of being in the dorm or knowing anything about her beforehand it would have been hard to recognize her from the info on the list.
He really would have to have picked earlier and followed her to the party for that to make sense and that’s not the vibe I got from the setup. I think he really did just pick the isolated uncomfortable looking one at the party as a likely easy target.
ohthankgod
I’m really curious on if she’s on the list and where she is though. Mostly because I think it’d tell us a lot about Joe
I think we found our culprit.
Joe you fucking traitor to your people. You didn’t just give the most undoubtedly anti-semitic evangelist Christian uber-goy a high rating, did you?
The only thing Joe owns an allegiance to is his Ponos.
what’s a Pono?
HOLY CRAP SAYID AND DANNY IN A PATREON STRIP TOGETHER
MY BODY IS READY
I see a certain comment about carla got deleted; if the author (or anyone else) wants to learn not to stick their foot in their mouth so badly, go read http://assignedmale.tumblr.com/
I needed a hug and a cheerful strip after the last few Stand Still, Stay Silent pages.
Mary is the opposite of either.
I forget how short Mary is. If this was the first Dumbing of Age comic someone ever saw, one might even get the impression she’s supposed to be some overtly saccharine bit character.
Fortunately, we know the truth, and by extension we know her being so small just makes throwing her into a ravine easier.
Mary is 5’8″.
I’m a fool
Well, Carla’s just very tall.
Carla wearing shoes!! This is my momentous take-away from this strip. Because Mary being happy is something I don’t want to dwell on lol.
This is the thing with this list. I know it’s this terrible thing that Joe never should’ve done, but why are all the girls focusing their attention on it and not the guy who made it?