Just finished the chapter finally, and I can still say wholeheartedly that it is still the best thing I have read. Mostly because it’s so nonsensical and yet it fits in perfectly into the narrative. Joe’s narrative. Joe’s BRO and CHICKS narrative.
I feel like “You’re welcome” is a song a bro could sing, but they’d need an excuse like being drunk and still wouldn’t get to play the ukulele. Bros miss out on a lot.
I’m with him on the “eliminate the ukulele and hat at all costs” train, and all, but… the current prevalence of this dudebro-tier misogyny is getting real grating.
I think I may have a partial grasp on the problem. As far as Joe is concerned, I think he’d like it if everybody, male and female, started to act like him. I doubt that Joe believes that his actions may be detrimental to female equality at all.
If asked, Joe would probably squint and say that Joe being Joe has led to people having sex and mutually enjoying themselves with informed consent. That’s all that is happening in Joe’s perception.
He pretty much did in Shortpacked, but that was long after 1st Year of college, so we’re unlikely to see that degree of growth in DOA … I think … unless he has a an Epiphany … Road to Damascus kind of thing?
Moana is a surprisingly good film with a ridiculously awesome soundtrack. If you haven’t heard any of them yet go check them out; they’re all over YouTube.
Lin-Manuel Miranda (the creator of Hamilton) worked on the soundtrack, along with Opetaia Foa’i, a renowned Polynesian composer, and Mark Mancina who (from what I read) did most of the background score and has been working on movie soundtracks since the early 1990s.
The result is that the Moana soundtrack is one of Disney’s best, and its “I Want” song (How Far I’ll go) is freaking amazing.
–Minimal spoilers in this clip from the movie, for those who haven’t seen it yet to see it; but the lyrics themselves don’t give away anything so if you guys really really want to avoid all spoilers, just listen to the audio.
But if anyone is not bothering to watch this because, meh, Disney princess movie, then definitely watch this clip first, because the movie is fantastic and definitely worth seeing. 😀
I think his point is that the last time we saw mention of Joe’s list, Rachel was getting annoyed by it, and now here’s Mandy with foreknowledge of her score.
Rachel found the list and shared it with her floor.
You know, I’m probably wrong, but I kinda read that as it being at least semi-important to them to read his “‘do’ list” and know their ranking. Like, if it didn’t matter, then why bother learning? There must be some subtlety that I’m missing.Well, that, or just some massive social cue/interaction that I can’t see owning to being a cis-straight male, or something like that.
Because sharing stories together about the gross creeper who keeps invading over to your wing to be predatory towards girls just going about their day and mocking their fucked up systems is what gives us enough catharsis to not go on a dick stabbing spree.
In addition to the other answers it could also just be morbid curiosity. If you knew some random creeper was ranking people based on appearance you’d probably be curious where you were on the ranking even as you felt disgusted/creeped out.
Let’s be fair, Rachel has only the one interaction with Joe and the fact he maintains an updated online list isn’t something that came up. Meanwhile, there is at least one person on that floor that explicitly knew about the list previously and was recently pissed at him due to it’s continued existence.
It’s weird to think that in like ten years he’ll be playing it because he saw the movie as a smol and in twenty it’ll be one of those Disney films his parents bought because why not, it’s probably recent, it’s on home video isn’t it
Rather, it’s the opposite problem. If the data Joe collected was anonymized, people probably wouldn’t be so annoyed with Joe. Data can be beautiful, but it should probably be sanitized for the sake of other people.
Personally, I don’t hate Joe. As far as I can tell, he’s shown no indication of being deliberately sexist. I do not recall him ever putting down women or making any statement or action that demonstrated a belief in female inferiority or even of a need for women to be protected as fragile. His behavior would also probably be almost exactly the same if he were gay. The only rationale for his behavior that I can tell is that he just wants to have sex with people who want to have sex with him, and that, at heart, is a decent motivation.
Yes, the details of how Joe interacts with people could be improved by a large margin. He legitimately appears to have no idea that he’s annoying a lot of people by hitting on them. When, for example, Sarah got angry at Joe for doing his waggly eyebrow thing on her, he apologized, gave a full explanation of the rationale for his behavior, and backed off.
Joe, when he turns his balls off, is capable of interacting with men and women as human beings, and does so in a fairly gender-fair way. He texted with Joyce and legitimately tried to help her out as a human being, and he’s trying to be a normal human guy for Danny.
Joe is a bit dumb. However, every character in this cast is defective in some manner, and Joe, to me, is as good as the rest of them.
I wholeheartedly agree. I hate guys who act similar to Joe irl, but in DoA he’s always backed off (onscreen anyway) when he senses discomfort.
It’s really weird, but I’d honestly rate Joe in the top 5 for integrity on the DoA cast, even though most of the people like him that I know irl are the complete opposite, because I don’t see any indication that he’s doing anything he knows is malicious, ever.
That’s the issue. Joe doesn’t back off when people are uncomfortable and he does try to duck boundaries. He uses alcohol to get sex he wouldn’t otherwise be getting, and tried to ditch Joyce’s chaperone in a way where she could not easily get another one. He also tends to act like women are overreacting when they tell him to fuck all the way off (because he doesn’t listen any other way).
What? Joe CONSISTENTLY backs off when people say they’re uncomfortable. The only exception was the sex swing line he uses when Joyce is pushing him, that joke I thought might have been a bit much.
He doesn’t use alcohol to get sex at all on-screen, in fact it’s in one of his “Commandments of Consent” that he gives Danny not to do so.
And saying “He also tends to act like women are overreacting when they tell him to fuck all the way off” doesn’t fit his character at all either, he’s constantly said stuff like “Mission abandoned at the lady’s request” or whatever.
Him trying to ditch Joyce’s chaperone is the ONLY thing in that list that’s true. I feel like you’re confusing Joe’s character with similarly-acting people you know in real life or you’ve seen something I haven’t.
Joe’s one of my favorite portrayals in this series because he’s a humanized version of an archetype I don’t like, and I actually sympathize with him. He’s not a comically overblown evil incarnate character like Mary.
Joe “abandoning the missing” was the only time he’s been that polite, and even then it was after repeatedly ignoring Sarah telling him to fuck off, and actually pursuing her because of how sternly she rejected him.
We’ve also repeatedly see him make really inappropriate, boundary violating advances on women he just met. When he met Becky, he lifted his shirt up and referred to her as “tasty”. He came up on Sierra from behind and put his arm around her waist. The way he approached Rachel the other day, he didn’t even bother to introduce himself before announcing he wanted to fuck her.
He’s good at “no means no”, at least when it comes to sex. What he sucks at is accepting a “no” anywhere leading up to that, and actually making sure he’s gotten a “yes” (verbal or otherwise).
But nobody is saying he’s evil incarnate. He’s not Ryan or Mary. But this is still an area where he desperately needs to improve on, because for every woman he finds who does sleep with him, he leaves dozens in his wake who are creeped the fuck out, pissed off, or even feeling concerned for their safety, like what nearly happened with Joyce here:
Luckily, Joyce actually knows him well enough that she was just really pissed off, but that’s the thing: most of the women he pulls this shit with don’t know him at all. They don’t actually know whether he’s like Ryan or not. They don’t know whether he’s “safe” to reject, or if he’ll get mad or violent.
What Joe doesn’t seem to understand that while casual, frequent sex is a totally fine thing to pursue, there are times, places, and ways of going about it which absolutely are not.
Asma can provide up to six healing spells per day, ranging from minor to critical wounds, as well as her daily power, which heals 2d8 HP for up to 5 people at once. This is, of course, not including healing potions, of which she can craft 3 during an extended rest. The potions are how she makes her profits.
Best way to get chicks? 1. Be sapphic. 2. Subscribe to Joe’s To-Do List. 3. Engage Joe in a game of cat and mouse in which you try to cockblock him and he tries to clam jam you. There’s literally no downside to this. You’re like the Amazi-Girl of queer college women now.
I hope so, I mean I’m a fan of Joe (probably because I recognize some similarities) but when it comes to redemption I think you have to face the consequences of your actions first
So hopefully he’ll see what hurt his actions have caused and, hopefully, will help knock some of the rougher edges of his personality off while still retaining his essential “Joeness”
*points to the relatively new sign reading “NO Free Bird” hanging next to the very faded and hardly legible “NO Stairway to Heaven” sign*
*hands Woobie a lighter* Really shouldn’t do that, it’s a fire hazard.
*starts to walk away then stops* You all know at some point during this story, Danny is very likely going to sing Let It Go at Joe and nearly everyone will say “Damn you, Willis!!” when he does because of how overplayed that song is. *resumes walking away*
Since I don’t find Joe and Danny particularly interesting, and therefore have nothing much to say about them, here’s a quick update about the podcast I mentioned yesterday.
The microphone I’ve had my eyes on is starting to look closer than I had initially thought. Along with that, I thought it might be a good idea to start considering folks to bring on as guests, so I’m not starting off struggling. If anyone has any suggestions, please, feel free to make them.
I’d like it to be more akin to talk radio than a structured, segmented sort of thing. Topics could be anything, from anecdotes about life experiences, to a lighthearted discussion about pizza toppings. If it gains traction, I’d also like to introduce a where listeners can submit questions for the cast to discuss.
An important thing for me is for the discussions to be allowed to get heated, but with the understanding that everyone should still be civil to one another. This is especially important for any cast members and/or guests who want to bring up a sensitive subject, since those can so easily get derailed into shouting matches.
If you listen to the SleepyCast (I recommend S1:E15 in particular), that’s generally the sort of mood I’m aiming for. If it gets dark and personal, that’s totally fine, but it’s not required, nobody has to talk about anything they don’t feel comfortable with, and an entire episode can be dedicated to just fun stories about the cast/guest’s childhoods.
Please don’t buy a Blue Yeti. For the money you’re better off getting something from Audio-Technica or Shure and a USB interface. Two cardioid mics, one for you and one for the guests, will give you cleaner sound and less room noise than picking everyone up off a single omni. SM57s are an audio industry standard, and most of the cheap clones are 95% as good.
Once you’re at that post, also look in the left column under “DIY/Maker topics.” You might find the “The Studio Buildout Series” to be relevant to that interests. It is absolutely more than you need, but nonetheless, there is a lot you can learn that can save you a lot of money and get you vastly better quality.
The link in the post is to my Kitting Out Cheap workshop handout, which is literally how to do this as cheaply as possible – modulo getting the best possible results at a minimalist budget point.
I had a (nearly) $0 budget as well. I get it, believe me. Some of the stuff I talk about is specifically how to do this for free using stuff you already have, or things you can download.
(I’m not trying to get you to build your own microphones, though. It’s fun! But not for the beginner. 😀 )
Serious question – what’s wrong with Blue? I mean, sure, the Yeti is the low end, but everybody I know who has had one (mostly podcasters, but also a banjo player) has been really happy – particularly for the $100-$150 street straight to USB. It’ll be real hard to beat that with an external XLR interface worth having and two mics, not at that price.
(It certainly beats the hell out of a pair of MXL-990s and interface. The only thing worth having in a 990 is the case, into which you can build a real microphone, which I have done. I cannot stress how much I hate a stock 990. Here, I’ll just CARVE THE BITS MYSELF, it’ll be BETTER.)
(Also, the Yeti’s pickup pattern is selectable, including cardioid and figure-eight – or was last I looked.)
(Also also, if you’re throwing classic dynamic Shure at people, throw the SM58, the grille matters for vocals and it doesn’t cost any more. I mean, you’re right about lower noise and dynamic mics, I’m not arguing there, even if you do need to learn about microphone discipline in ways you don’t with a condenser. But even with that, it’s going to cost a lot more once you have a decent interface, like, idk, a two-channel Scarlett Focusrite, those are quite tasty for the price. But I don’t see how you get a pair of SM58s, two XLR cables, and Focusrite 2i2 for anywhere near $120. Street used if you’re lucky for the mics is $50ish each, the cables are another $10 each if you go cheap, I’ve seen a 2i2 going for $70 so… $190+? If you’re very lucky.)
(Hi, I built my own recording studio. I can go for a while once I get started.)
IIRC something like an SM57 or SM58 can be plugged straight to a PC via a $20 XLR to USB cable without the need for phantom or other external power solutions. That can be a big boon if you have nearly no startup budget (new the cable plus one SM58 is going to run $120ish, and used maybe as low as $30 to $50 if you dig a lot to get a good deal) as you can expand from there without needing to upgrade to a new mic as part of the process and can be using the mic in the meantime to, hopefully, bring in more money to invest back into other kit.
Whether any of that is meaningful for a podcast, however, is debatable, and I’d personally suggest a Yeti or other similar native USB mic is plenty for discussion based formats recorded using Skype or other VOIP clients provided one has a reasonable recording space. XLR doesn’t start making as much sense as an investment for podcasting unless one is doing a narrative podcast, dramatic readings, full production radio dramas, having in studio guests, etc.
Oh yeah, I’ve seen some of those embedded D/A converter cables, I forgot. (They’re below my quality bar, historically? But I’m doing music, they might well do the job just fine for a podcast.)
Anything you can ever consider doing has been done better than you will ever be able to do by someone sometime. It’s not a reason for not doing it.
What you do will be different. It can find its own audience and make a difference to them. You don’t know what you’ll be able to do or what you’ll learn until you try. And if you and your cast enjoy the process, it’s not really a competition anyway unless you make it one.
I’m with Clif, you’ve been trying to do this thing for a bit, so it wouldn’t make sense to not at least try to do the first installment. You might even be pleasantly surprised by what good comes of it.
As both Clif and SgtWadeyWilson said, don’t give up on doing something before you’ve actually tried to do it. Even a prototype/pilot version that never goes beyond recording and uses cheaper quality equipment than you intend to use for core production can tell you a lot about whether you really wish to stick with it and will leave you with fewer future regrets than not actually trying.
Right, I need to remind myself not to post when I’ve been up several hours past when I needed to be asleep. It does strange things to the mind, and things come out that I wouldn’t even have said while drunk off my ass. Thanks for the encouraging words, all.
Hmm, I wonder who could possibly have made Joe’s rating list fully accessible after being given the password…. It’s a complete and utter mystery to me.
See, if we just increase the image size exactly 246 times, then focus on the lower left of Jacob’s glasses and then sharpens the image and press the “increase contrast on transparent effects such as drawn glasses buttons, we find out which brand of glasses he’s wearing.
Because that is totally a thing one can do with computers.
(Incidentally, they are some sort of Sferofex glasses, though I can’t quite figure out the exact type. In any case, kudos to Willis for researching this kind of thing when making the comics.)
So, now we only have to figure out who is sharing Jacob’s brand of glasses, because as we all know, all brands of glasses have hidden microphones, cameras, and earplug discreetly installed in them. From there, we then have to figure out which of them are most likely to be annoyed enough with Joe’s comments to steal a look at Raida’s phone as she’s sent the password, and then take action.
It really is quite simple when you think about it.
That was sort of the whole point with my comments: To make it clear that the main suspect is a woman that we have seen Joe sharing his password with.
And I really tried my best to make the whole “how to solve this mystery” as completely over-the-top as possible, by applying one of the most ridiculous tropes that movies and TV shows have portrayed as possible to do on a computer.
Indeed. And while it’s dangerous to make assumptions as such, I am confident that Mandy a) simply is not playing on a team that includes Joe the cis male, or b) even if she was, she probably has higher standards than that.
Hence, Joe has not slept with her, and hence he’s still in “hunting” mode.
I’m ready for the karma of Joe becoming emotionally attached to an overnight visitor, who only wants to Joe him, and leave. I don’t know what else it would take to get it thru his skull, and I don’t care much except he’s actually trying to be a better friend to Danny.
As others mentioned, Joe’s toolkit for this situation is lacking.
My current theory is that Roz’s latest political move is actively sharing Joe’s Do List in order to destabilize him and the Dudebro Misogyny he propagates. This might be related to a renewed need for it or a renewed confidence in how well such a move would be received, which has Implications on what might have become the fallout for what happened with Ryan.
So Danny is currently trying to mold a new identity for college and Joe already did that but Joe’s whole idea of what a man should be is becoming more and more repellent and leading to a lot of disconnection meanwhile Danny’s journey towards himself is just so pure. I’m wondering if the pureness might have to do with Danny’s search for self being an actual journey towards figuring out who he is meanwhile Joe’s whole thing seems to be carefully crafted to avoid any real introspection?
….I don’t know if this makes sense or if it’s just rambley.
But there’s also Danny’s search for identity also having to factor in his bisexuality and Joe’s journey’s all about being the straightest of the straight dudes.
….Again I feel like I have a point here but I’m not quite making it as well as I’d like.
I was generally of the mind Joe was harmless in the context of being a guy looking for sex and sex being something good which everyone who wants more of should be able to get when it’s safe, sane, and consensual. Joe’s attitude has gone from understanding limits or seeming to, however, to being unable to interact with women save as sex objects, though.
Which is deeply deeply disappointing and the very definition of misogyny.
Joe hasn’t changed. This has all been here since the beginning. His rss feed “do list” showed up when he added Dorothy to it after she broke up with Danny. His line about “fixing Joyce with his penis” was before their date way back in the first year of the strip.
Joe’s never been able to interact with women except as sex objects – with the exception of the brief online thing with Joyce, which fell apart when he saw her in person again.
Joe seems to have a basic understanding of consent and shows no signs of being a blatant rapist, but that’s about all you can say. It’s not clear how far he’s willing to go to get that consent. He has said that alcohol helps though, which is a really bad sign. Nor does he know when to back off, but keeps pushing.
All of this established long ago. None of it new. None of it a change in his character or even its presentation.
Funny how we then get glimpses of Joe and Joyce texting late at night, yet with no indication of it being about sex (as one part wouldn’t discuss hanky-panky).
You, like a fair share of people here, seem unwilling to see Joe in any other way to the point of dogma.
“Joe’s never been able to interact with women except as sex objects – with the exception of the brief online thing with Joyce, which fell apart when he saw her in person again.”
It’s funny how you didn’t actually read the comment you were replying to…
My point was to refute the previous comment that Joe’s presentation has changed from harmless consent guy to more of a sleazy bro type, by showing that the sleazy aspects had been there from the very beginning.
As you suggest, if there have been changes, they’ve been positive, but they’re not very drastic.
Made sense! Danny is trying to find who he is and show it genuinely. Joe is not trying to find anything, he’s specifically avoiding having genuine feelings or vulnerabilities. Both are engaged in a lot of posturing, but Danny is flailing towards a sense of genuine self, while Joe is flailing away from it. Yeah?
I’m of the mind Danny’s search for self-discovery is not actually a good thing because he’s hiding behind a bunch of trappings. There’s no difference between being the small guitar guy and defining himself next to his girlfriends. He’s trying to be a image rather than just trying to enjoy himself.
But, he is enjoying himself. He’s wearing a hat he likes and learning an instrument. Granted it’s probably because he doesn’t think he’s worthwhile just by himself (thanks, Wilcoxen), but still, it’s perfectly OK to begin experimenting with your fashion and hobbies.
‘Fuck you, Joe, you refused to listen to me when I needed it, I’m not going to open up to you, now’ is not ‘walling himself off’, it’s ‘cutting off the toxic asshole.’
Danny is actively acquiring a skill. He is -doing- something, anything at all. He’s not just being someone-next-to-someone else. And in acquiring an actual skill, he will most likely also acquire more confidence in himself.
And people who actively acquires skills on their own tend to stick out in a positive way; both for the skill and for the confidence that comes along with it.
True! And he’s not even doing it to attract his next true love. It’s very probably the first time in years that he’s explored something simply because he wants to explore it.
And, if he’s using the kitchiness as a confidence-crutch, after years of his parents putting him down, hey, that seems like he just invented a great step towards building some confidence, and more power to him.
“pfft, look at that guy using crutches while learning to walk on legs that have been systematically bound and/or crippled for all his life until now! weeeeeak.”
The problem I see is that he’s not acquiring this skill for ghee sake of a skill or to help his confidence, it seen more line he’s doing something – anything to avoid talking about whatever what down that’s got Joe so worried about him. He’s avoiding real problems.
I feel like in this case Danny’s journey of self discovery isn’t actually a journey of self discovery, but more of a retreat behind a facade of stereotypes. He’s tried putting himself out there, as the likable dork character that he is, and when he was in a relationship with Amber/Amazi-Girl he genuinely tried to reach out and help and be understanding, and he just got burned.
Now he’s got even less self confidence than before, but rather than try and recover and reassert himself he’s put on a bowler cap and ukulele and is trying to be a jolly guy who doesn’t have a care in the world and just plays songs and acts happy. And it’s not that this is an inherrently bad identity to have, but it’s not really Danny’s, this feels like him just running away from his issues.
I don’t know how much of this Joe is thinking of, but on some level he seems to realize that this transformation in Danny is a result of his relationship pains and whatnot, and he’s genuinely trying to get Danny to come out and be open about his feelings and issues. Will he be able to really understand Danny’s feelings/issues once they are out in the open…? Ehhhhhhhh probably not, but he’s trying, and that’s a big step for him.
I think so. Danny wants to know who he is, while Joe wants to avoid actually knowing who he is, because he’s afraid of what he might find and how that might make him feel.
There’s a point trying to form in my mind about there being no such thing as objective attractiveness and Joe’s self-centeredness thinking his preferences dictate what “objective attractiveness” is, because even within societal beauty standards there’s variation on what qualities are valued over others, but I’m just awake from a nap and the dominant coherent thought it just “fuck yooooooou dudebro”
I don’t have the memory to remember how Joe presented his list, nor the desire to go back and find it, but did he present it as objective?
It seems likely to me that there’s an “in my opinion” semi-consciously attached at the end of every rating.
I’m not really sure if that’s better or worse. Maybe a little better, since he’s rating something with regards to the relationship between himself and another person, rather than purely this person with regards to reality, but still totally terrible for lots of other reasons.
Perhaps, but here he comments on her comment being a “freakily accurate self-evaluation” apparently because it matches his, which implies that he does think it’s objective or there would be no meaning to it being “accurate”.
Ayup and it’s super common in a certain type of douchebag where they presume their personal sexual tastes are or should be a universal system and that if someone is attracted to different people or have different things that are important to them in that field then they are wrong and need to be corrected and that random people they are attracted to need to know exactly what their junk thinks of their attractiveness.
So if you’re traditionally attractive, you get a lot of these creepers creeping on you and basically telling you over and over how “you make their junk feel” in escalatingly creepy and invasive and harassing ways.
And if you’re not, you get these creepers getting violently angry in your face for daring to exist in their world without thinking about their poor junk and whether or not their junk wants to fuck you.
It’s a potent mix of inappropriate belief of people they are attracted to being literal objects and entitled lack of imagination to realize that everyone’s attractions are subjective and what is smoking hot to one person is not even going to raise an eyebrow to another.
And I extra hate these douches, because well… I’m a trans woman. So when these folks and their invasive junk updates realize that, they get violent and murdery because I dared “give them gay boners” and now that their boner has been “tricked”, I gotta die for it.
You just reminded me of “Beautiful Girls” ,
Esp this scene with Rosie O’Neil, Timothy Hutton , & Matt Dillon. https://youtu.be/RqCVbiHCYAA
Now I that rewatched it I can totally imagine your comment acted out in Rosies voice.
( Tim and Matt would have positively and Transnormitively affirm they have “Gay Boners for it to be a Rhyming scene.)
Cerberus, you have a lot of deeply thought through and well analyzed , unique ( less common ) life experiences.
INMHO , You should write a screenplay. I can imagine a whole scene titled “Invasive Junk Updates” where Different characters, Friends and Acquintances work out their experiences in conversation , Beautiful Girls style. Some presuming this Objective Default, others believing in the default but trying to see past it; and other characters just smashing it Entirely. I’d watch it.
There is a lot Subjects you could humanize you have first hand experience of.
And when doing scientific studies, it’s also important to document the measures used. For this user, we have Joe’s rating scale on a number of people, and if I would happen to do the same, the science comes in how the ratings correlate.
If you get enough users, people and datapoints on them, you can build a system to make rating predictions for users on people they haven’t met.
There’s no such thing as an objectively good film, yet we have ratings on them anyway based on the above system. It’s how Netflix makes movie recommendations.
Beauty is the same, albeit more controversial. So it’s not that no metric is valid, because no metric is true. They’re all true to that person, and they can be predicted based on your peers.
Nope, there’s just a system for shaming folks with tastes that are not rated by the majority, which is why a lot of folks trapped in systems where this type of rating is common frequently live in fear of external judgment of the sort of people they feel attracted to and get violently angry with folks they are attracted to that don’t fit that normative model they are “supposed” to be attracted to.
Sexual attraction is personal. What drives chemistry and arousal is extremely varied.
Poor Joe has been blogging hasn’t he? Unfortunate. Then again, this is probably the wake-up call he needs. It’s okay to have varying levels of attraction to people and even to be pursuing a active non-relationship-based sex life. However, keep that stuff private as women have enough crap to deal with on the fact they’re pursued all the time when NOT interested in that.
If only there were designated hook-up zones like…I dunno, parties.
Yup, hell I think Roz in a slipshine comic literally said she has to forbid him from talking so as to just enjoy herself with his stamina without being reminded of his creepy awful misogyny.
In the eternally slow GOBLINS comic, Minmax is a racist and murderous monster-slayer who finds out his idol is also a rapist (keeping a Lamia as a slave). This causes an instant 3 second heel-face turn where he turns on him and abandons his beliefs by throwing the guy out a window then freeing his slaves.
I like to think that would happen with Joe and Ryan’s posse of sycophants.
I agree; Joe is a major creep, but I’d like to think he’d draw the line somewhere before, like, attempting to rape people.
I think Ryan’s existence wouldn’t make him reevaluate his list, though. He just want to distance himself from rapists, and he’d blame them for making all the women more cautious and uncomfortable. Rapists wreck Joe’s game, type of thing. Ugh.
As bad as Joe’s behavior has been recently, I think he actually believes he’s with women who are (to quote, of all things, The Real World: New Orleans) players like himself. He’s not, though. He’s throwing come ons in every direction 24/7 with no thought to context or approach or receptivity.
yeAH he could rape through just like. not seeing fluid boundaries as legitimate boundaries. and not be ill-intentioned or anything, but like…still be putting his own desires over the other person’s, and not taking a no for an answer
which is kind of scary imo b/c that is about the one thing that would drive him fully over that very thin line he’s walking between horny dude and the sex-driven creep, that he has crossed more than once before as evidenced by all the women we have seen visibly creeped out by him
That comic was about him intentionally using alcohol to the point where he and his partner were no longer even capable of remembering what type of sex they were having and the gender of his partners because they “lubricated” threesomes.
I.e. drinking to near-blackout impairment as an intentional strategy to end-run around what the person wouldn’t have consented to under sober circumstances.
And it wasn’t even a one-off. He repeats the same idea later with Joyce, stating that while sober her wouldn’t sleep with him, drunk and impaired Joyce would, implying that he’s intentionally using the alcohol to move past stated boundaries when sober.
That all is many many miles removed from two people already planning and intending to get frisky under sober circumstances having sex while slightly tipsy.
Honestly, in general, any attempt to end-run around consent is fucked and in serious danger of raping someone. Like, consent and boundaries are a thing. If someone wouldn’t do X sober, using alcohol to impair that judgment and do away with that or otherwise coercing someone like he tried to do to Joyce is a predatory and often sexual assaulting action.
I don’t believe Joe has crossed that line, but he’s danced way closer to that lava then anyone ever should.
That’s a different thing over just ‘lubricating with alcohol’. Getting people drunk with the explicit aim of having sex with them is predatory bullshit, but hitting it off with someone at a party where drinks are being served is a very different thing, y’know? Or, say, a beach vacation with hot weather and cold drinks for married folk. Etc.
Of course, a lot of these times these discussions take a hard swerve into the hedge of “yes but exactly how drunk can I get someone” so I think I’m going to stop here, because that is incredibly creepy bullshit.
Well, yeah, of course, getting tipsy with someone where there was already plans of sex and you have consented to the sex under sober circumstances is very different than Joe’s statements regarding alcohol.
He deliberately and repeatedly talks about the lubrication under alcohol as creating sexual circumstances that would not happen under sober conditions. That’s using alcohol to bypass consent and using impairment to remove the ability or judgment to say no to things they would say no to normally which is non-consent.
And that gets super explicit with Joyce where he’s like, yeah, under sober circumstances you would never willingly get together with me, but a drunker version of you could and so I would target the drunker version of you that had the impaired judgment. Additionally when he talks about drinking to impairment as a strategy to encourage sexual activity that wouldn’t happen when sober.
Again, both of these are very different than two people already planning to have sex, having one or two drinks in a manner that makes them slightly tipsy but not so much that meaningful consent is no longer involved or their judgment is severely impaired.
There are very few circumstances where a couple already planning on having sex having a few beers would describe the sexual encounter as having been lubricated by the alcohol. Nor would they likely describe the sexual encounter as something that wouldn’t occur under sober circumstances.
“He repeats the same idea later with Joyce, stating that while sober her wouldn’t sleep with him, drunk and impaired Joyce would, implying that he’s intentionally using the alcohol to move past stated boundaries when sober.”
Didn’t he say “let’s face it, a drunk version of ME”? He was saying he’d have to get himself drunk, not Joyce
Interestingly enough, nothing blunts people’s opinion of someone as a good egg more than seeing them show no compunction or confliction about hanging out with a known bad egg.
You can be the nicest, warmest person on the planet, but if you regularly hang out with someone unsafe or openly hostile to others, I’m going to be wary for a long while until I get to know you more. Especially if you’re a white allo cis dude. Cause I’ve just had too many “good eggs” who “just have a shitty friend” turn around and participate in that shittiness at the drop of a hat.
Rating women is bad, rating them in a public forum is worse, but I’m actually of the horrifying realization Joe probably has rated women he’s slept with in a public forum.
I wonder if Danny realizes that he needs to play the ukulele for himself as he’s otherwise just trying to define for himself a role when all he has to be is himself. Otherwise he’s just Danning it up again.
– Call out his stupid list
– Refuse to let the conversation be about her rather than involve her
– Turn him down (seems like an EIGHT does not want to sleep with you, Joe).
He’s certainly stopped listening to women in any capacity with regards to what they want, which makes me severely question how good he could possibly be in the sack.
Obnoxious as Joe is about it, I love that he genuinely tries to reach out to Danny.
I actually think Danny WOULD benefit from a bro-talk about man-feelings, but after all the crap Joe has put him through I don’t begrudge him for playing the ukulele instead.
from one to ten the middle is five point five. so five or six is basically average and i only did that because if i dye my hair and some other stuff i dont usually care about i can look a bit better.
Okay, I’ve been wanting to ask this question for awhile even though I know it’s stupid and I’ll probably be disappointed by the answers, but this chapter IS called “The Do List,” so what the hell:
How does The Do List work?
Is it point-based? How many different parameters are there? Is there a separate Do List for each person? What about each age-range? Where is it written down and how often is it updated?
After you’ve done the Dirty Darwin with someone, do you get removed from their list or is it a lifetime appointment? Does Roz have a Do List of men? Does Joe compare notes with Daisy?
If you don’t like your ranking, can you appeal it? How far up the federal court system can your appeal go? If you slay another woman in single combat, do you get her ranking or do you just automatically level up? Does the list only go up to 10, or is there an “S” rank reserved for elite women like super heroines, secret agents, famous historical figures, and Saoirse Ronan?
A porn version. Of The Handmaid’s Tale. That has to be one of the most convoluted porn setups I’ve ever heard of. Like, I won’t get into the book’s quality, but let’s just talk logistics, here. The backstory alone requires women to lose all rights at least a decade beforehand, the United States government to be overthrown by a bizarre religious sect, a brand-new caste system to be introduced, and several other factors.
And who are the subjects of this porno? Is it a handmaid and the man she’s been assigned to? Because, unless it’s a secret meet-up, that would require the man’s wife to be present, fully clothed and holding hands with the handmaid, which is just strange. Is it the man and the wife? What’s the handmaid there for, then? Is it two handmaids? Do they get caught by guards and have to run away to join the resistance?
There are so many variables, and none of them make nearly enough sense to justify the setup in the first place. This really is both fascinating and disturbing, because on the one hand, who’s this porno even for? And on the other hand, who the fuck is this for?
i mean like the world of the Handmaid’s Tale is, essentially, porn for its male characters in power: who can literally do and have whatever they friggin’ want. it is pretty much a male privilege paradise
and like pretty much Gilead ranks its women accordingly!! you have the local sex workers; the women who can have babies (of which subset are the women who are available to everybody and the women who are privately available); and the women who are high-class enough to be Wives. it is, pretty much, a do list wherein the doability of each woman is clearly outlined and ranked. it is a do list where your doability is your value, and your value is either your ability to provide sexual pleasure, your ability to provide children, or your ability to hold power accorded by your husband.
so like: a porn version of the Handmaid’s Tale would have to either subvert the hell out of this, or play it excruciatingly, painfully straight.
personally i would be up for the porn adventures of Moira, Unfortunate Lesbian
Okay, most everyone’s talking about what’s terrible about Joe here and how much they dislike him. And that’s fine. But I want to talk a bit about how I’m finding positive things in what Joe’s doing here.
… now don’t get me wrong, what he’s doing here is…. well, bad. I started off viewing Joe as a clownish buffoon, likeable for comedy relief as a parody. I’ve since soured to him as I started seeing ways in which his actions were harmful to others and his indifference to that, and how they’re analogous to similarly harmful actions IRL. I am not defending or endorsing what he does.
And there might be a bit of dramatic tension in his attempts to drag Danny back into his circle. (Rather than expanding his circle out to include Danny wherever he goes.)
But right now I am delighting in his denseness, his lack of empathy, and his inability to learn.
One of my favorite tropes in writing is when what makes a villain an evil guy, the critical flaw in their personality or world view, gets turned on them and ultimately foils their plans. Yeah, it can be done in ways that are hokey or obvious, but done right it’s amazing. And while I don’t think Joe elevates to the level of villain (he’s not important enough and has yet to do enough damage or really stand in any protagonist’s way), that trope seems to be playing out here.
Because Joe IS being dense here. He completely lacks empathy for Danny. He can’t see through Danny’s eyes. He doesn’t understand what the ukulele means to Danny. He doesn’t comprehend what needs of Danny’s it meets. He doesn’t even comprehend that those needs exist.
Is that loathsome? Maybe. But it’s also great. Because it means he doesn’t have a chance in hell of succeeding in his rehabrolitation. That transition from Panel 1 to Panel 2 shows just how flat his efforts fall. Panel 3 shows Danny beginning to get irritated by them. (I think. I no read face good.)
The reason Joe is failing is exactly the same reason that he sucks. So long as he keeps sucking, he will keep failing. For him to succeed would require him to stop sucking. (At least in this way.)
And this brings us to Joe’s biggest weakness. He doesn’t learn. He doesn’t grow. He doesn’t even recognize that there’s ROOM for him to grow or that it’s desirable to do so. As a result, he is (further) incapable of understanding Danny, and more significantly he’s STUCK with his other weaknesses.
So the only way for Joe to undo Danny’s (attempts at) growth and development are to grow and develop himself. And him growing and developing? Are good things in their own right.
(Of course, it’s quite possible for something ELSE to sabotage Danny’s growth, and for him to run back to Joe. But it won’t be Joe who pulls it off.)
Mm hmm, hell, he actively resists growth, seeing it as a path down the road of feelings and divorce and feeling less manly. So he actively sabotages his own self-improvement regularly out of fear.
Yup. In Joe’s eyes, Danny’s biggest character flaw is that he is not more like Joe. That’s not a great foundation for a supportive talk.
…but at the same time, Joe IS reaching out to Danny. Joe DID comfort Joyce over the phone. Joe DID apologise to Dorothy. Small steps, but all of them leaving the comfort zone of the bro-zone, and all of them leaving hope that even he will grow up eventually.
I have long had the feeling that Danny and Joe are growing apart, and that it would not necessarily be a bad thing. Childhood friends do not always stay adult friends. But interactions like this make me think they will manage to find a new relationship, kinda like Walky and Billie, and that it would be good for them.
And well, that’s one of the really toxic things about guys in states like Joe. They become toxic to guys who aren’t toxic, because they are always pushing the non-toxic guys to “start being a man” and being toxic like them.
So they’re always needling them about non-normative hobbies, about respecting women, about acting like they care about their romantic or sexual partners, and try and pressure them into participating in the gross sexist jokes and behaviors.
And it so often bleeds through. I’ve known too many women who date men who’ve had a partner get more and more toxic to them because those partners had douchey friends who encouraged them to become worse and worse to be seen as “worthy” in their esteem.
So it seems I’m part of a very small minority that is interpreting Joes actions and motivations as not completely awful. At the moment it seems like Joe has recognized that Danny’s gone through some emotional issues that were far worse than he realized when he blew them off in the past. Now that he sees how bad things have gotten he’s making a genuine attempt to reach out to Danny and get him to talk about his emotions… which is a VERY un-Joe thing to do usually.
Now of course Joe’s approach isn’t very good, because this is Joe, and this sort of emotional thing is not his strong suit by any stretch of the imagination. But the mere fact that he is trying shows growth on his part, and is a good step for him. The mere fact he is able to recognize his friend is hurting, care about the fact that his friend is hurting, and make a determined effort to actually help his friend sort through emotional baggage is a lot of growth from what Joe used to be like (especially important to note the determination here, normally even if Joe were to do something like this we wouldn’t really expect him to keep at it for long).
That isn’t to say that Joe isn’t still a unrepentant player and dudebro jock and isn’t what we’d call a good person, but he’s growing, and that’s important. He grew (in some regards) back in the walkyverse, and he’s around more in this universe so I’m hoping we’ll see him develop further.
Now as for Danny’s side of things, I also appear to be in the minority here in thinking that this new ukulele guy persona is the exact opposite of growth for him.
Danny trying to figure out who he is outside of a relationship is a good thing yes, but I don’t think he’s doing it for the right reasons. He’s recently put himself out there, tried to do everything right with Amber/Amazi-girl, and failed miserably without even comprehending why, and knowing his personality and lack of self confidence he likely is blaming himself to some extent. He said to Amber that he really wanted to try and do things right this time around and whatnot, but he still got burned in the end despite his efforts
Now it seems like he’s adopting this persona of a person that is not him at all so he can just be the guy everyone likes and not the screw-up he perceives his actual self to be. He’s hiding from his issues and from himself, not truly trying to understand himself. This Ukulele Danny feels way too much like a facade to me, it’s too large of a departure from his usual self for me to feel like this is just a side of himself that he discovered and it’s just who he is outside of a relationship naturally.
There’s also the fact that I wasn’t getting the sense that Danny was in a mental and emotional space where discovering himself in this way would be the natural next step for him. It’s worth noting that in the dumbiverse not all that much time has passed since Danny’s recent attempts to keep reaching out to Amber… and I don’t see him getting burned, getting over it all, and then making this sort of development in himself over the course of a couple of days. Maybe he did, but it seems too quick to me.
Now this is mostly just my gut instincts here, and as this storyline progresses things may change. But the tl;dr version here is
1) He sucks at it, but Joe is making a genuine effort to get Danny to open up and connect emotionally and that’s a pretty big deal for Joe to be doing something like that.
2) Danny really needs to open up and connect emotionally with someone because I don’t think this ukulele thing is him actually making progress, but rather him trying to run and hide from his issues
We’ll see if my current interpretation of events stays consistent or if Joe is gonna go ahead and ruin it for himself, but that’s where I stand for the moment
This was my read of the situation too!
I am totally down with Danny’s new ukulele skills but I also think he’s just doing this to run from his own issues.
And either Joe’s realizing Danny’s dealing with a lot and he needs to be a better friend to support him or he’s realizing Danny’s moving on without him and he needs to be a better friend or he’ll lose him. Either way, I’m thrilled and 100% invested, regardless of Joe’s shitty antics
joe is not a completely awful person. he does have good intentions here. but the way he has treated danny in the past and the way he is treating women now and the toxic masculinity that is his whole mindset is just…not a good combination
and, i mean, he’s not being a very supportive friend. like: maybe danny is running from issues but that’s not always a bad thing?? he has found a new hobby to fill up his life, a new way to interpret himself. and sometimes you really do quite honestly need a break from The Issues. and music is a pretty healthy interest all things considered, both as a form of expression and just as a way to spend time
idk you don’t solve everything you’re going through just because you focus real hard
1) Yes, Joe showing concern for Danny and genuinely trying to talk to Danny about his feelings IS meaningful progress. There’s still LOTS he needs to work on. Like everything about how he’s going about this.
2) Danny is not the one who has trouble opening up or connecting with people.
His problem has been that he only really saw himself as somebody’s boyfriend, and didn’t prioritize his own needs, ambitions, hobbies, etc. Even if he IS doing this in part as a way to distract himself, it’s something he needed to do anyway.
Ugh… okay, yes, the obvious. I don’t like hating Joe. I don’t want to hate him. I can’t wait for his arc where he sheds his toxic masculinity and his terrible faux understanding of consent and owns the harm he has caused others. I rub my hands in glee at the tiny signs that things might finally be getting through to him. I want that arc so so bad.
But Joe as he exists now, in the state of his life he is currently in. That Joe is a complete asshole and damn does he keep giving me reasons to loathe him.
And this comic reaction is unlikely to be very kind, cause I just watched a really kind and sweet bi kid of mine who is like Danny made flesh get frog-marched out of the school in cuffs today on an abusive 5150 because the parents intentionally demanded it as a means of silencing him telling teachers about how they tended to use 5150 as a tool of abuse seeing it as easier than talking to him about anything. So I’m kind of running on pure anger to begin with. I’ll try and be fair though.
Panel 1: So to start with, let me note something positive. This is Joe reaching out to his friend. It’s in a shitty toxic way that demeans Danny’s attempt at growth because Joe is still fixated on the idea that he can mold Danny into a clone of himself that he can share bro stories with, but it’s still reaching out.
And that’s big for Joe, because his arc with Danny has been him pushing Danny farther and farther away because of sexist fear of feelings and Danny’s lack of investment in traditional hyper-masculinity. So he’s recognizing that things have been broken and need to be fixed and that quality time of the type he used to have for Danny is key to that.
That being said, ugh, I’m never a fan of Joe using “fixing” language to describe others. Like this is nowhere near as bad as the literal echoing of corrective rape logic used against asexuals when he said Joyce needed to be “fixed with his penis”, but it’s still this similar toxic ownership of another person.
Like, there’s nothing wrong with Danny. He’s exploring an interesting new hobby and a cool new look. He’s literally harming no one, but Joe is hard-selling the idea that this is somehow a great wrong to the world and must be corrected. And corrected in the direction of moving Danny from a hipster to a bro even though Danny is incredibly uncomfortable with that presentation.
And it’s especially twisted when you note how Danny’s parents hard push him to emulate their own life story and diminish his attempts to forge his own identity and to realize that Joe has just done the same thing as Danny’s parents, trying to crap on whatever Danny does for Danny reasons and trying to constantly push Danny to be as awful as him.
And that last part deeply bothers me, because well… that’s part of the toxicity of toxic masculinity. That it’s always looking to recruit, to get others invested in the system. So it chips and it chips like this, trying to push guys who aren’t shit into being shit and I’ve seen so many men partners of friends who date men slip into this, where they get absorbed in trying to impress their friends and so start mistreating their partners in those friends’ presence.
And there’s just only so many times you can watch slightly okay boyfriend become shitty abusive boyfriend who publicly demeans your close friend to their and other’s faces so his shitty crew of misogynist asswipes doesn’t think he’s “whipped”.
I think what we’re seeing here is intrinsic to finally being able to start Joe’s development/redemption arc (which I have also been desperately waiting for all these years). Joe can’t grow as a person until he lets even one wall down, but he’s so unwilling to display a normal range of normal emotion instead of his smug player persona. Joe’s subtly growing loneliness due to his behavior has turned him into the guy we see in this strip, pretty desperately pleading with his childhood best friend to let him in, even if it involves having to deal with feelings. I think we’re finally gonna see the first wall go down!
I am BEYOOOOOND ready. Characters like Joe (or historically, Joyce) are always hard to parse. On one hand, you can absolutely tell they’re going to end up growing out of their crappy ways and you know how great the writing will be, and you love them for it. On the other hand, they’re being crappy now and they GOTS to stop that.
Panel 2: Oh Danny… you’re a good egg, Danny. You Moana-loving gentle soul. And well, that response by Joe…
I mean, that facial expression. He’s genuinely upset at Danny. He’s hoping intensely to get him to stop being what he is and it’s hard not to read into it that Danny’s particular choice of a song sung by a woman is a factor in this given how much Joe in the other panels emphasizes notions of being a “traditional man”.
Especially as that tends to be defined by rejection of the feminine and viewing the feminine almost like an infection that needs to be discouraged by any means necessary including belittling of harmless hobbies like this.
And it’s… frustrating. Because Joe has failed to be there for Danny all the times Danny has actually needed him. But now that Danny has taken up a presentation that is not traditionally masculine and speaks to him and exploring that and doesn’t necessarily need Joe getting all up in that and sabotaging that, suddenly Joe wants to be super involved.
Like, this is the one time he needs to bugger off and let Danny explore himself, but he doesn’t.
Panel 3: And like it colors this. Like I want to view this as a universal positive. He’s asking Danny to share feelings and making a space for that. That’s growth… but it gets tainted by that other stuff. Like, he doesn’t want Danny to share feelings because that’s a thing important to Danny. He wants Danny to share feelings so he can use it as a bartering tool for Danny rejecting his new explorations. Trapping Danny in a state he was not overly happy in because that’s stable and unchanging.
And yeah, that last bit is probably the real antipathy here more than anything else. His friend is changing. All his friends are changing and he’s getting left in the dust and that’s terrifying. But it doesn’t make what he’s doing ok.
Yeah… Having just read all of Assigned Male, there’s an extra layer of awfulness I can partly see here now. The unconscious bias that makes Joe assume the ukulele is a cry for help and not a “real” hobby.
To be fair, considering what Apparently happened just recently, it is hard for Joe to consider it as “Just a hobby”. But we’ll have to wait and see just how much of a SNAFU Amber’s fight with Ryan was.
I’ll repeat that this is a large part of my frustration with this time skip: If this change in Danny is a sudden reaction to whatever horrific thing happened with Dorothy, Amber and Ryan, then it’s likely a real problem, kind of a minor breakdown, denial of reality sort of thing. If it’s just a response to the longer term things Danny’s dealt with, then it’s a kind of personal growth.
The longer this goes on and the more people we see without it being mentioned, the more likely the latter seems, which is good, but it was genuinely worrying me in the first bit of the Ukelele Danny sequence.
And Joe, being a rather insensitive guy that he is probably wouldn’t be able to realize that this MIGHT be a real change in Danny. He is probably utterly convinced that his buddy is half a step away from going insane…
Again, depends on the context, which we lack. If this was in response to something drastic happening to Dorothy & Amber, then I’d be right there with him in thinking Danny was having a breakdown.
Panel 4: Oi. First I’ll echo Bagge’s excellent point. Mandy shuts this down masterfully while minimizing even the possibility of further interaction.
Second, I get that Joe is trying in his way and I want to give him points for that as I know that isn’t easy for him, but Joe is a very trying person so it’s hard to give him that many points for it.
And we see that here. Like, number one, he’s doing the exact opposite of what he’s telling Danny he’s doing. He’s trying to argue he’s so focused on Danny that he’s not chasing girls, but at the first sign of a girl walking past, his attention fully shifts over to her to “prove” a point he thus disproves.
Number two, fuck creepy PUA number systems for women. Also fuck dismissively referring to a human being with a name, a name he undoubtedly knows because Mandy has clearly seen his RSS feed and found herself on it as “this hot chick”.
Like, giant pet peeve is this reduction of a person into their sexual utility and whether or not they please the person’s junk. Both because it is dehumanizing especially when spoken out loud in the direct presence of the person as it is here, but also because well, I have lots of identities that don’t pair well with this.
As an asexual, being reduced to my sexual utility and external judgment of my usefulness to a junk I most likely have no intention of getting near is a frequent source of general harassment. Moreso if I’ve come out as these types of assholes tend to play it extra up when you note that you’re ace.
As a trans woman, this public sizing up in terms of boner-pleasing or not can be downright fatal. Like, I’ve told the story of the guy who harassed me and my girlfriend and then when he found out that one of the “lesbians” he was harassing was a trans woman, tried to convince the driver to come back around to kill me. Those aren’t isolated incidents. Joe isn’t those guys, nor am I arguing he is. But it means that whole “this is what my boner thinks about you random lady” is always going to trigger a bit of incidents like that because I’m made way too aware of how quickly someone entitled enough to publicly consider me only in terms of utility to their dick can then feel “cheated” and “betrayed” and like they were “tricked” into being “gay” and thus turn to violence.
Number three, he’s directly pointing at and talking about Mandy entirely in the third person as if she were a hanging piece of art rather than a living breathing person who can very much hear that shit. Like, that is so fucked up and rude and Mandy was right to shut that down as quickly as possible, because that sort of dismissal of humanity needs that type of immediate shut down.
Panel 5: Ugh. Like, again, if you find yourself in this position, never ever say shit like this. Like there’s so much wrong with it between the dehumanization and objectification, the continued lack of direct interaction, and of course the treatment of his boner notes as some sort of important all objective thing that matters one bit to anyone that isn’t him.
Like, spoiler everyone. Porn is a liar, people’s personal preferences for body shapes or personalities that are hot vary wildly and what one person might not see as all that interesting might be the hottest person in the universe for another.
And additional spoiler, chemistry trumps “hot” any day of the week. If there is mutual chemistry, there’s sexual sparks regardless of any rating system bullshit*
*And it’s worth noting that the PUA rating system shit is also just a test of how closely the person fits normative standards of attractiveness usually shaped by Hollywood or porn depictions. And well, women unfortunately already deal with too much crap from society regarding whether or not they fit into some normative beauty standard.
Finally, we have his RSS feed. His RSS feed is public, likely very google-able and even if it weren’t, he’s constantly handing out the url to it like it was candy and his interaction with Roz suggests he regularly hands it out to people he is interested in or with so they can, in his mind, be impressed with his numbering and so touched that they were high on the number that they’ll have gratitude sex.
And well, he chases nearly everyone. So of course his RSS feed bullshit got out more wide-spread and of course women are going to hate it. Because this type of PUA shit is vile.
Oi. So yeah, I know these are the early steps of him escaping the system he has mired in and I’m rooting so hard for him. But it’s definitely going to be a long and rocky road.
“Number two, fuck creepy PUA number systems for women. Also fuck dismissively referring to a human being with a name, a name he undoubtedly knows because Mandy has clearly seen his RSS feed and found herself on it as “this hot chick”.”
Not quite sure about this. I mean, you may still be right, but I was thinking that a “mystery person” who recently got, against her wishes, access to the feed, decided to make that content more public, adding her own opinions to it. Opinions that are, shall we say, not very flattering.
I mean, I can absolutely see Joe find/take a picture of a woman, rate her, and then completely forget about her name or not even bothering to get it in the first place.
Wait, why am I arguing about which particular way Joe is fucking horrible?
Because Danny said, back in the first little bit with the ukelele, that people would say when he walked by “It’s Danny! With the ukulele! He’s a good egg!”
so uh. Danny’s face in the last panel has prompted me to a mental comparision between Dorothy, Amber and Asma. She’s certainly on-trend for him appearance-wise, and time-for-Joe’s-bullshit-wise
You mean Mandy. Asma is the one behind the desk and shares literally no physical characteristics with Dorothy or Amber. Though since Mandy is with Grace (I think?), such attraction would likely be unreciprocated. Though she could still call him a good egg one day and make his day.
I can believe he can arrange his not-too-talented-or-trained-yet fingers that way. That’s not to say he can go through the entire chord progression like he was in the School of Music.
(Don’t ask me how I know the limits of said fingers on a fretboard.)
I’m envisioning (enhearening?) Danny being at the stage of learning his instrument where he has to hold the note he’s singing at each chord change to give his fingers time to shift to the new pattern.
With me little ukulele in me hand,
Of course, the people do not understand,
Some say “why don’t you be a scout, why don’t you read a book?”
But I get lots more pleasure when I’m playing with me uke.
Although, technically, Formby played a banjolele, or banjo-uke.
I first learned this from the comic musician Ronnie Golden at a gig he did with Barry Cryer. Barry’s response was “Yes, we often discuss this down at my local Get A Life Club.”
Joe actually offered Danny a hug – but only if he put down the ukulele. That’s not a real offer, Joe. And now he’s trying to tutor Danny in his manly ways? Ugh. Keep the hat and ukulele, Danny, as long as you want them.
for lack of anything else to talk about, Mandy wearing a crop top that’s a hoodie and shorts in what’s about mid-late Autumn is a whole lotta confusing information
Contemplating how Joe lives in a world where some people matter more than others, and their quality is determined only by their fuckability, and anyone who says different is just lying to themselves so they can live with their low numbers, is getting more and more sad to me. Let his lesson be swiftly forthcoming please.
Joe ran away from his problems by becoming a hyper-masculine lothario who rates every woman he sees in a quest to fuck as many of them as he can as soullessly as possible.
Danny ran away from his problems by donning a newsboy cap and learning how play meaningful songs on an adorable tiny guitar that’s painted his favorite color.
One of these boys needs to be “rehabrolitated” and it’s certainly not the one who feels like he needs to use that word.
Danny might be running away from some of his problems, but he’s confronting one of his other problems in the process.
Figuring out what the hell he wants to do with himself, and who he is? Those are both excellent things for him to be doing, even as a distraction from his relationship woes and/or concern about Amber. Hell, even if he ends up tossing this aside in a week for something else.
All the more so since having hobbies will help him cope with his relationship woes. Sometimes you need a distraction. Especially if the alternative is dwelling on something you can’t do anything about.
As long as he doesn’t try to avoid his problems forever, I’d say this is a healthy direction for Danny
On the plus side his way of running away from some of his problems, if he is doing so, at least isn’t particularly likely to harm anyone.
He definitely seems like he’s trying to make a new image for himself, which I mean is kind of what college is for most people anyways. I mean, even if he’s not going to be “the cool guy who plays an instrument”, at least he’s not Joeing it up, or going the Roomies route and being the “Bad Boy” as he loses more and more control of his life until tragedy results.
Whether Danny is actually being true to himself….well, that’ll probably be confronted sometime after Joe gets put through the gauntlet he unthinkingly created when he put his list online and started handing out the password to random strangers.
Passive Agressive Snark seems to hit deeper than just telling Joe not to do stuff though.
That said, Danny really needs to swap out that hoodie for like a vest or something if he wants to look snazzy in that hat.
Loading ...
rehaBROlitated is honestly the most important thing I have read all day, and I just spent like 6 hours writing a story.
I have spent an hour and a half writing and much longer reading stuff today – yes it’s 10 pm thursday here – and I can agree with this.
Just finished the chapter finally, and I can still say wholeheartedly that it is still the best thing I have read. Mostly because it’s so nonsensical and yet it fits in perfectly into the narrative. Joe’s narrative. Joe’s BRO and CHICKS narrative.
I’m pleased.
Welcome to my Velvet Room! I am Igor, and today, your rehaBROlitation begins now.
it sounds like the title of a crappy rehab-themed bro-job ‘straight acting’ gay porno. Not that I’m complaining!
“more like BROana”
I love the scene with TomaBROa.
“One day I’ll know how far I’ll BRO”
So, you’re an 8?
I feel like “You’re welcome” is a song a bro could sing, but they’d need an excuse like being drunk and still wouldn’t get to play the ukulele. Bros miss out on a lot.
More Joe and Mandy! Only good things can come of it!
This storyline is called “The ‘Do’ List.”
Joe’s shitty list is accesibly enough to have an RSS feed.
HMMMMM.
No, Joe, I think this arc is for YOU.
Way to ruin the plot twist. /s
if he opens it will spooky ghosts melt his face
probably not because he’s one of god’s chosen people
but a boy has the right to dream
JOE OF ARC
Man I hate Joe.
I’m with him on the “eliminate the ukulele and hat at all costs” train, and all, but… the current prevalence of this dudebro-tier misogyny is getting real grating.
He’s saying that being there for Danny is more important to him than hitting on random women. That’s a step up for Joe.
A very tiny stepped since his communication is still deeply steeped misogyny
>thoughtful squint
I think I may have a partial grasp on the problem. As far as Joe is concerned, I think he’d like it if everybody, male and female, started to act like him. I doubt that Joe believes that his actions may be detrimental to female equality at all.
If asked, Joe would probably squint and say that Joe being Joe has led to people having sex and mutually enjoying themselves with informed consent. That’s all that is happening in Joe’s perception.
Yup. He… he needs to change and escape the toxic masculinity sewer level he’s trapped himself into.
He pretty much did in Shortpacked, but that was long after 1st Year of college, so we’re unlikely to see that degree of growth in DOA … I think … unless he has a an Epiphany … Road to Damascus kind of thing?
THE HAT STAYS!
She’s subscribed to his rss.
I read that as “subscribed to his ass” and had follow up questions.
Gives whole new meanings to downloads and push notification.
Oh my 🙂
That too.
Awww! Moana!
Now play Shiny and You’re Welcome!
… What am I saying, Shiny’s clearly not for strings.
Also, this is Danny. He’s nowhere flamboyant enough to pull off Shiny.
There is actually a pretty decent metal cover of Shiny, but it still probably isn’t for ukulele.
Really? I gotta see this.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tlvldhYUXaw
I thought it was pretty decent, anyway?
That’s from Moana?
Moana is a surprisingly good film with a ridiculously awesome soundtrack. If you haven’t heard any of them yet go check them out; they’re all over YouTube.
Lin-Manuel Miranda (the creator of Hamilton) worked on the soundtrack, along with Opetaia Foa’i, a renowned Polynesian composer, and Mark Mancina who (from what I read) did most of the background score and has been working on movie soundtracks since the early 1990s.
The result is that the Moana soundtrack is one of Disney’s best, and its “I Want” song (How Far I’ll go) is freaking amazing.
Yup! And Opetaia Foa’i sang on some of the songs as well, for example, this one, “We Know the Way”:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ubZrAmRxy_M
–Minimal spoilers in this clip from the movie, for those who haven’t seen it yet to see it; but the lyrics themselves don’t give away anything so if you guys really really want to avoid all spoilers, just listen to the audio.
But if anyone is not bothering to watch this because, meh, Disney princess movie, then definitely watch this clip first, because the movie is fantastic and definitely worth seeing. 😀
… I wonder if Rachel is becoming a part of the main cast now.
Signs point to yes.
That’s Mandy.
I think his point is that the last time we saw mention of Joe’s list, Rachel was getting annoyed by it, and now here’s Mandy with foreknowledge of her score.
Rachel found the list and shared it with her floor.
You know, I’m probably wrong, but I kinda read that as it being at least semi-important to them to read his “‘do’ list” and know their ranking. Like, if it didn’t matter, then why bother learning? There must be some subtlety that I’m missing.Well, that, or just some massive social cue/interaction that I can’t see owning to being a cis-straight male, or something like that.
It’s called knowing your enemy.
Because that knowledge disarms him.
Because sharing stories together about the gross creeper who keeps invading over to your wing to be predatory towards girls just going about their day and mocking their fucked up systems is what gives us enough catharsis to not go on a dick stabbing spree.
In addition to the other answers it could also just be morbid curiosity. If you knew some random creeper was ranking people based on appearance you’d probably be curious where you were on the ranking even as you felt disgusted/creeped out.
Well then, thank you.
Let’s be fair, Rachel has only the one interaction with Joe and the fact he maintains an updated online list isn’t something that came up. Meanwhile, there is at least one person on that floor that explicitly knew about the list previously and was recently pissed at him due to it’s continued existence.
They knoooow
How far they’ll gooooooo.
(Not far with Joooooooe)
He’s such a brooooooo.
There’s a feed, that I read, on the net, and it tellllls me
That I’m a siiiiiix
I’ll kick Joe’s diiiiick
I appreciate Danny’s song choice.
It’s weird to think that in like ten years he’ll be playing it because he saw the movie as a smol and in twenty it’ll be one of those Disney films his parents bought because why not, it’s probably recent, it’s on home video isn’t it
So everyone has heard their place on the List at this point, and no one cares, Joe. That’s what I’m getting here.
yup
it’s getting stale joe. like old toast that’s not even good enough to make french toast out of
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Rather, it’s the opposite problem. If the data Joe collected was anonymized, people probably wouldn’t be so annoyed with Joe. Data can be beautiful, but it should probably be sanitized for the sake of other people.
Personally, I don’t hate Joe. As far as I can tell, he’s shown no indication of being deliberately sexist. I do not recall him ever putting down women or making any statement or action that demonstrated a belief in female inferiority or even of a need for women to be protected as fragile. His behavior would also probably be almost exactly the same if he were gay. The only rationale for his behavior that I can tell is that he just wants to have sex with people who want to have sex with him, and that, at heart, is a decent motivation.
Yes, the details of how Joe interacts with people could be improved by a large margin. He legitimately appears to have no idea that he’s annoying a lot of people by hitting on them. When, for example, Sarah got angry at Joe for doing his waggly eyebrow thing on her, he apologized, gave a full explanation of the rationale for his behavior, and backed off.
Joe, when he turns his balls off, is capable of interacting with men and women as human beings, and does so in a fairly gender-fair way. He texted with Joyce and legitimately tried to help her out as a human being, and he’s trying to be a normal human guy for Danny.
Joe is a bit dumb. However, every character in this cast is defective in some manner, and Joe, to me, is as good as the rest of them.
I wholeheartedly agree. I hate guys who act similar to Joe irl, but in DoA he’s always backed off (onscreen anyway) when he senses discomfort.
It’s really weird, but I’d honestly rate Joe in the top 5 for integrity on the DoA cast, even though most of the people like him that I know irl are the complete opposite, because I don’t see any indication that he’s doing anything he knows is malicious, ever.
That’s the issue. Joe doesn’t back off when people are uncomfortable and he does try to duck boundaries. He uses alcohol to get sex he wouldn’t otherwise be getting, and tried to ditch Joyce’s chaperone in a way where she could not easily get another one. He also tends to act like women are overreacting when they tell him to fuck all the way off (because he doesn’t listen any other way).
What? Joe CONSISTENTLY backs off when people say they’re uncomfortable. The only exception was the sex swing line he uses when Joyce is pushing him, that joke I thought might have been a bit much.
He doesn’t use alcohol to get sex at all on-screen, in fact it’s in one of his “Commandments of Consent” that he gives Danny not to do so.
And saying “He also tends to act like women are overreacting when they tell him to fuck all the way off” doesn’t fit his character at all either, he’s constantly said stuff like “Mission abandoned at the lady’s request” or whatever.
Him trying to ditch Joyce’s chaperone is the ONLY thing in that list that’s true. I feel like you’re confusing Joe’s character with similarly-acting people you know in real life or you’ve seen something I haven’t.
Joe’s one of my favorite portrayals in this series because he’s a humanized version of an archetype I don’t like, and I actually sympathize with him. He’s not a comically overblown evil incarnate character like Mary.
Joe “abandoning the missing” was the only time he’s been that polite, and even then it was after repeatedly ignoring Sarah telling him to fuck off, and actually pursuing her because of how sternly she rejected him.
We’ve also repeatedly see him make really inappropriate, boundary violating advances on women he just met. When he met Becky, he lifted his shirt up and referred to her as “tasty”. He came up on Sierra from behind and put his arm around her waist. The way he approached Rachel the other day, he didn’t even bother to introduce himself before announcing he wanted to fuck her.
He’s good at “no means no”, at least when it comes to sex. What he sucks at is accepting a “no” anywhere leading up to that, and actually making sure he’s gotten a “yes” (verbal or otherwise).
But nobody is saying he’s evil incarnate. He’s not Ryan or Mary. But this is still an area where he desperately needs to improve on, because for every woman he finds who does sleep with him, he leaves dozens in his wake who are creeped the fuck out, pissed off, or even feeling concerned for their safety, like what nearly happened with Joyce here:
http://www.dumbingofage.com/2012/comic/book-2/01-pajama-jeans/touch/
Luckily, Joyce actually knows him well enough that she was just really pissed off, but that’s the thing: most of the women he pulls this shit with don’t know him at all. They don’t actually know whether he’s like Ryan or not. They don’t know whether he’s “safe” to reject, or if he’ll get mad or violent.
What Joe doesn’t seem to understand that while casual, frequent sex is a totally fine thing to pursue, there are times, places, and ways of going about it which absolutely are not.
Brohabilitated.
Rehabilibroated
Rebrobilitated
man i thought that said cleric desk, much more interesing
Asma can provide up to six healing spells per day, ranging from minor to critical wounds, as well as her daily power, which heals 2d8 HP for up to 5 people at once. This is, of course, not including healing potions, of which she can craft 3 during an extended rest. The potions are how she makes her profits.
I believe this about Asma.
If I had the talent, I’d draw Dumbing of Age characters in Fire Emblem garb.
Asma and Joe should end up together on a date somehow. Joe finds out talking with women actually has its benefits.
No way, I bet Asma is awesome, and has standards. 🙂
I like Asma way too much to inflict Joe upon her.
And she can heal your pokemon.
huh
guess Mandy subscribes to Joe’s to-do list
But she does not subscribe to the “Do-Joe”-list.
Best way to get chicks? 1. Be sapphic. 2. Subscribe to Joe’s To-Do List. 3. Engage Joe in a game of cat and mouse in which you try to cockblock him and he tries to clam jam you. There’s literally no downside to this. You’re like the Amazi-Girl of queer college women now.
This is beautiful
That’s how you get a female Joe, I think.
Yeah…girls being creepy is still creepy.
Is it okay to say “sapphic”, now? I ask because I got screamed at for saying it, on a different site.
It just means wlw. I can’t imagine what would drive someone into a frenzy over that.
…
suffering sappho. someone must hate greek poetry
I am starting to get the sense that maybe Joe’s totally public RSS feed is about to backfire horribly.
And then he’ll finally get the point. Or not.
At most, I think he’ll just get tired of taking flack for it and discontinue it without learning anything of value. it’s the best we can hope for.
Dapper hat (and it issssss) › rehabrolitation, obviously.
Dapper hat should stay
The list is going to bite Joe in the ass then?
I hope so, I mean I’m a fan of Joe (probably because I recognize some similarities) but when it comes to redemption I think you have to face the consequences of your actions first
So hopefully he’ll see what hurt his actions have caused and, hopefully, will help knock some of the rougher edges of his personality off while still retaining his essential “Joeness”
PLAY FREE BIRD !
(holds up lighter)
(don’t really have a lighter)
*points to the relatively new sign reading “NO Free Bird” hanging next to the very faded and hardly legible “NO Stairway to Heaven” sign*
*hands Woobie a lighter* Really shouldn’t do that, it’s a fire hazard.
*starts to walk away then stops* You all know at some point during this story, Danny is very likely going to sing Let It Go at Joe and nearly everyone will say “Damn you, Willis!!” when he does because of how overplayed that song is. *resumes walking away*
Do the song from the Lava short!
Smoke on the Water, or Streets of London.
How can you play “smoke on the water” on an ukulele?
Badly.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8z1Ns8ZhMkY
Nobody wants to hear Freebird.
Goodbye, shirtless Joe. May we meet again soon.
✧ (ﾉ◕ヮ◕)ﾉ*:･ﾟ✧
Where have you gone, Joe Noshirteo, this nation turns its lonely eyes to you
But dyed hair! That’s worth so many points on its own!
Why not? It’s a perfectly cromulent word.
Mandy’s into ladies too. She is qualified to perform a self-evaluation.
Since I don’t find Joe and Danny particularly interesting, and therefore have nothing much to say about them, here’s a quick update about the podcast I mentioned yesterday.
The microphone I’ve had my eyes on is starting to look closer than I had initially thought. Along with that, I thought it might be a good idea to start considering folks to bring on as guests, so I’m not starting off struggling. If anyone has any suggestions, please, feel free to make them.
What’s the podcast going to be about?
Why candies of course! Particularly the stringy chewy varieties.
Those are pretty darn tasty.
I’d like it to be more akin to talk radio than a structured, segmented sort of thing. Topics could be anything, from anecdotes about life experiences, to a lighthearted discussion about pizza toppings. If it gains traction, I’d also like to introduce a where listeners can submit questions for the cast to discuss.
An important thing for me is for the discussions to be allowed to get heated, but with the understanding that everyone should still be civil to one another. This is especially important for any cast members and/or guests who want to bring up a sensitive subject, since those can so easily get derailed into shouting matches.
If you listen to the SleepyCast (I recommend S1:E15 in particular), that’s generally the sort of mood I’m aiming for. If it gets dark and personal, that’s totally fine, but it’s not required, nobody has to talk about anything they don’t feel comfortable with, and an entire episode can be dedicated to just fun stories about the cast/guest’s childhoods.
Please don’t buy a Blue Yeti. For the money you’re better off getting something from Audio-Technica or Shure and a USB interface. Two cardioid mics, one for you and one for the guests, will give you cleaner sound and less room noise than picking everyone up off a single omni. SM57s are an audio industry standard, and most of the cheap clones are 95% as good.
I understood the first sentence of that. I’m planning on getting a Samson Meteor Microphone. I’ve used one before, and it’s worked out just fine.
Okay! Hi! Jumping in here – I have written extensively about this. Here is a starter post that points you to a PDF handout I use when I give talks on home/beginner recording. It includes information on resources.
Once you’re at that post, also look in the left column under “DIY/Maker topics.” You might find the “The Studio Buildout Series” to be relevant to that interests. It is absolutely more than you need, but nonetheless, there is a lot you can learn that can save you a lot of money and get you vastly better quality.
I’m not really looking to make my own microphone, though. Or a studio, for that matter. I have a budget of exactly $0, so that’s not an option.
The link in the post is to my Kitting Out Cheap workshop handout, which is literally how to do this as cheaply as possible – modulo getting the best possible results at a minimalist budget point.
I had a (nearly) $0 budget as well. I get it, believe me. Some of the stuff I talk about is specifically how to do this for free using stuff you already have, or things you can download.
(I’m not trying to get you to build your own microphones, though. It’s fun! But not for the beginner. 😀 )
After reading through the PDF, I think I get the gist of it. Thanks for the link.
Serious question – what’s wrong with Blue? I mean, sure, the Yeti is the low end, but everybody I know who has had one (mostly podcasters, but also a banjo player) has been really happy – particularly for the $100-$150 street straight to USB. It’ll be real hard to beat that with an external XLR interface worth having and two mics, not at that price.
(It certainly beats the hell out of a pair of MXL-990s and interface. The only thing worth having in a 990 is the case, into which you can build a real microphone, which I have done. I cannot stress how much I hate a stock 990. Here, I’ll just CARVE THE BITS MYSELF, it’ll be BETTER.)
(Also, the Yeti’s pickup pattern is selectable, including cardioid and figure-eight – or was last I looked.)
(Also also, if you’re throwing classic dynamic Shure at people, throw the SM58, the grille matters for vocals and it doesn’t cost any more. I mean, you’re right about lower noise and dynamic mics, I’m not arguing there, even if you do need to learn about microphone discipline in ways you don’t with a condenser. But even with that, it’s going to cost a lot more once you have a decent interface, like, idk, a two-channel Scarlett Focusrite, those are quite tasty for the price. But I don’t see how you get a pair of SM58s, two XLR cables, and Focusrite 2i2 for anywhere near $120. Street used if you’re lucky for the mics is $50ish each, the cables are another $10 each if you go cheap, I’ve seen a 2i2 going for $70 so… $190+? If you’re very lucky.)
(Hi, I built my own recording studio. I can go for a while once I get started.)
IIRC something like an SM57 or SM58 can be plugged straight to a PC via a $20 XLR to USB cable without the need for phantom or other external power solutions. That can be a big boon if you have nearly no startup budget (new the cable plus one SM58 is going to run $120ish, and used maybe as low as $30 to $50 if you dig a lot to get a good deal) as you can expand from there without needing to upgrade to a new mic as part of the process and can be using the mic in the meantime to, hopefully, bring in more money to invest back into other kit.
Whether any of that is meaningful for a podcast, however, is debatable, and I’d personally suggest a Yeti or other similar native USB mic is plenty for discussion based formats recorded using Skype or other VOIP clients provided one has a reasonable recording space. XLR doesn’t start making as much sense as an investment for podcasting unless one is doing a narrative podcast, dramatic readings, full production radio dramas, having in studio guests, etc.
Oh yeah, I’ve seen some of those embedded D/A converter cables, I forgot. (They’re below my quality bar, historically? But I’m doing music, they might well do the job just fine for a podcast.)
you know i was thinking about it and maybe a podcast is a bad idea after all
not like i have much to say that hasnt been said better by better people anyway
nothing anyone here said just my thoughts
Anything you can ever consider doing has been done better than you will ever be able to do by someone sometime. It’s not a reason for not doing it.
What you do will be different. It can find its own audience and make a difference to them. You don’t know what you’ll be able to do or what you’ll learn until you try. And if you and your cast enjoy the process, it’s not really a competition anyway unless you make it one.
I’m with Clif, you’ve been trying to do this thing for a bit, so it wouldn’t make sense to not at least try to do the first installment. You might even be pleasantly surprised by what good comes of it.
As both Clif and SgtWadeyWilson said, don’t give up on doing something before you’ve actually tried to do it. Even a prototype/pilot version that never goes beyond recording and uses cheaper quality equipment than you intend to use for core production can tell you a lot about whether you really wish to stick with it and will leave you with fewer future regrets than not actually trying.
Nah, hell with that, do it anyway. If you like doing it, do another one. Wash rinse repeat.
Right, I need to remind myself not to post when I’ve been up several hours past when I needed to be asleep. It does strange things to the mind, and things come out that I wouldn’t even have said while drunk off my ass. Thanks for the encouraging words, all.
Did Dudley Moore die in vain?
*plays Christopher Cross’ song from the Arthur soundtrack on the hacked Muzak*
He died for Dudley Less
Dud Lee have enough?
Eat at Arbys.
Look Danny, we need to talk. That hat does not go with that hoodie.
Agreed, the colours are all wrong
NOTHING goes with an Indiana hoody.
Sorry, my former Illinoisishnesh might be showing just a smidge.
Though I really didn’t mind either Bloomington.
Speaking as a former Illinoisian: I wouldn’t call Bloomington weird, but it’s definitely not Normal.
But it’s next to Normal… (playing soundtrack on the hacked Muzak)
Yeah, man. Get a dress shirt or something. Classy-Casual and Modern-Casual rarely if ever mix right.
it’s only until he gets a nice red knitted sweater in that exact shade
#college kid fashion
frick asma renamed her center desk to the RAD center desk
damn straight
Hmm, I wonder who could possibly have made Joe’s rating list fully accessible after being given the password…. It’s a complete and utter mystery to me.
I think your avatar may be a vital clue
Oh my god, you are right!
See, if we just increase the image size exactly 246 times, then focus on the lower left of Jacob’s glasses and then sharpens the image and press the “increase contrast on transparent effects such as drawn glasses buttons, we find out which brand of glasses he’s wearing.
Because that is totally a thing one can do with computers.
(Incidentally, they are some sort of Sferofex glasses, though I can’t quite figure out the exact type. In any case, kudos to Willis for researching this kind of thing when making the comics.)
So, now we only have to figure out who is sharing Jacob’s brand of glasses, because as we all know, all brands of glasses have hidden microphones, cameras, and earplug discreetly installed in them. From there, we then have to figure out which of them are most likely to be annoyed enough with Joe’s comments to steal a look at Raida’s phone as she’s sent the password, and then take action.
It really is quite simple when you think about it.
You forgot the most important step:
Clicking the GUI’s “Enhance” tool 1-3 times.
As always, my policy is to carefully refrain from talking about any sort of enhancements in polite company.
*looks at the DOA commentary*
Never mind, you’re right, I totally forgot my enhancement tool today. Sorry about that.
You realize that Joe blogged his password so people could see it was perfect.
Yes. Yes I do.
That was sort of the whole point with my comments: To make it clear that the main suspect is a woman that we have seen Joe sharing his password with.
And I really tried my best to make the whole “how to solve this mystery” as completely over-the-top as possible, by applying one of the most ridiculous tropes that movies and TV shows have portrayed as possible to do on a computer.
I think Joe just rated Mandy before and then forgot her.
Joe never forgets an 8 or above until he’s had sex with them. -Then- he usually forgets about them immediately.
Also, writing those two sentences made me feel incredibly filthy, and not in a good way. I’ll be in the shower with some steel scrubs now.
doesn’t Mandy have a girlfriend, Mr. Emperor? might she even possibly have two??
Indeed. And while it’s dangerous to make assumptions as such, I am confident that Mandy a) simply is not playing on a team that includes Joe the cis male, or b) even if she was, she probably has higher standards than that.
Hence, Joe has not slept with her, and hence he’s still in “hunting” mode.
In the other universe, Mandy, Grace, and Sierra (and Marcie, and Guns) were all apparently bi. And all of them banged Joe. Together.
The former will have carried over to the Dumbiverse. The latter may not.
I don’t think we’ve seen any prior interaction between Joe and Mandy. I have a suspicion that Joe may have banged Sierra, though.
Ugh, I hope not. Sierra doesn’t deserve that.
I’m ready for the karma of Joe becoming emotionally attached to an overnight visitor, who only wants to Joe him, and leave. I don’t know what else it would take to get it thru his skull, and I don’t care much except he’s actually trying to be a better friend to Danny.
As others mentioned, Joe’s toolkit for this situation is lacking.
If Joe’s toolkit were lacking, everyone would know. He’s been on video.
I take pride in my ability to setup someone else for a joke.
Well done.
it Apparently does not take much to be anti-Joe-sexual
although tbh does it take much for Joe to be in hunting mode
I was about to write a reply, and then I thought… “Why the hell are we talking about Joe’s hunting mode anyway? It’s pretty appaling, the end.”
honestly i need a rewrite of The Most Dangerous Game, only it’s a horror romcom starring a man chasing women
My current theory is that Roz’s latest political move is actively sharing Joe’s Do List in order to destabilize him and the Dudebro Misogyny he propagates. This might be related to a renewed need for it or a renewed confidence in how well such a move would be received, which has Implications on what might have become the fallout for what happened with Ryan.
Joe’s gonna get bit in the ass by his stupid fucking list and I am here for it.
So Danny is currently trying to mold a new identity for college and Joe already did that but Joe’s whole idea of what a man should be is becoming more and more repellent and leading to a lot of disconnection meanwhile Danny’s journey towards himself is just so pure. I’m wondering if the pureness might have to do with Danny’s search for self being an actual journey towards figuring out who he is meanwhile Joe’s whole thing seems to be carefully crafted to avoid any real introspection?
….I don’t know if this makes sense or if it’s just rambley.
But there’s also Danny’s search for identity also having to factor in his bisexuality and Joe’s journey’s all about being the straightest of the straight dudes.
….Again I feel like I have a point here but I’m not quite making it as well as I’d like.
I was generally of the mind Joe was harmless in the context of being a guy looking for sex and sex being something good which everyone who wants more of should be able to get when it’s safe, sane, and consensual. Joe’s attitude has gone from understanding limits or seeming to, however, to being unable to interact with women save as sex objects, though.
Which is deeply deeply disappointing and the very definition of misogyny.
He has become Joey Bravo, all that’s left are the sunglasses and the hair.
Joe hasn’t changed. This has all been here since the beginning. His rss feed “do list” showed up when he added Dorothy to it after she broke up with Danny. His line about “fixing Joyce with his penis” was before their date way back in the first year of the strip.
Joe’s never been able to interact with women except as sex objects – with the exception of the brief online thing with Joyce, which fell apart when he saw her in person again.
Joe seems to have a basic understanding of consent and shows no signs of being a blatant rapist, but that’s about all you can say. It’s not clear how far he’s willing to go to get that consent. He has said that alcohol helps though, which is a really bad sign. Nor does he know when to back off, but keeps pushing.
All of this established long ago. None of it new. None of it a change in his character or even its presentation.
Funny how we then get glimpses of Joe and Joyce texting late at night, yet with no indication of it being about sex (as one part wouldn’t discuss hanky-panky).
You, like a fair share of people here, seem unwilling to see Joe in any other way to the point of dogma.
“Joe’s never been able to interact with women except as sex objects – with the exception of the brief online thing with Joyce, which fell apart when he saw her in person again.”
It’s funny how you didn’t actually read the comment you were replying to…
My bad. Sloppiness on my part. No excuse.
I still think people are being unfair to Joe though.
My point was to refute the previous comment that Joe’s presentation has changed from harmless consent guy to more of a sleazy bro type, by showing that the sleazy aspects had been there from the very beginning.
As you suggest, if there have been changes, they’ve been positive, but they’re not very drastic.
Made sense! Danny is trying to find who he is and show it genuinely. Joe is not trying to find anything, he’s specifically avoiding having genuine feelings or vulnerabilities. Both are engaged in a lot of posturing, but Danny is flailing towards a sense of genuine self, while Joe is flailing away from it. Yeah?
Well, Joe already found an identity. It’s just that it was basically a disembodied penis with no personality attached.
And it seems to be taking a toll.
Lol, now I’m thinking of Red Dwarf. 🙂 I’d post a quote if I wasn’t on mobile… My phone can barely handle this site :/
Did you mean detachable
Yeah!
It makes sense to me. But then again, I am excellent at making sense of things. Just see my posts a bit above yours.
I’m of the mind Danny’s search for self-discovery is not actually a good thing because he’s hiding behind a bunch of trappings. There’s no difference between being the small guitar guy and defining himself next to his girlfriends. He’s trying to be a image rather than just trying to enjoy himself.
Is it the same thing though if he genuinely enjoys wearing the dapper hat and playing the ukulele?
He genuinely enjoyed the girlfriends too.
But, he is enjoying himself. He’s wearing a hat he likes and learning an instrument. Granted it’s probably because he doesn’t think he’s worthwhile just by himself (thanks, Wilcoxen), but still, it’s perfectly OK to begin experimenting with your fashion and hobbies.
If he was fine, then why would he wall himself off to Joe.
I wouldn’t be surprised if Danny was sliding into depression.
The hell?
Joe is the one who built the wall.
‘Fuck you, Joe, you refused to listen to me when I needed it, I’m not going to open up to you, now’ is not ‘walling himself off’, it’s ‘cutting off the toxic asshole.’
Yeah. Danny already tried opening up to Joe. This is the first time in the entire semester that Joe isn’t actively discouraging it.
Danny has plenty of good reasons not to jump at his offer now.
I see the difference:
Danny is actively acquiring a skill. He is -doing- something, anything at all. He’s not just being someone-next-to-someone else. And in acquiring an actual skill, he will most likely also acquire more confidence in himself.
And people who actively acquires skills on their own tend to stick out in a positive way; both for the skill and for the confidence that comes along with it.
True! And he’s not even doing it to attract his next true love. It’s very probably the first time in years that he’s explored something simply because he wants to explore it.
And, if he’s using the kitchiness as a confidence-crutch, after years of his parents putting him down, hey, that seems like he just invented a great step towards building some confidence, and more power to him.
(PS. he is totally using it as a confidence crutch, and that is a-ok.)
“pfft, look at that guy using crutches while learning to walk on legs that have been systematically bound and/or crippled for all his life until now! weeeeeak.”
Exactly! He even invented and built the crutches himself!
He’s learning it pretty dang fast too. I know I couldn’t be that good on a ukelele on three day’s practice.
The problem I see is that he’s not acquiring this skill for ghee sake of a skill or to help his confidence, it seen more line he’s doing something – anything to avoid talking about whatever what down that’s got Joe so worried about him. He’s avoiding real problems.
No, he’s dealing with his biggest real problem, he’s cutting off a toxic influence.
I feel like in this case Danny’s journey of self discovery isn’t actually a journey of self discovery, but more of a retreat behind a facade of stereotypes. He’s tried putting himself out there, as the likable dork character that he is, and when he was in a relationship with Amber/Amazi-Girl he genuinely tried to reach out and help and be understanding, and he just got burned.
Now he’s got even less self confidence than before, but rather than try and recover and reassert himself he’s put on a bowler cap and ukulele and is trying to be a jolly guy who doesn’t have a care in the world and just plays songs and acts happy. And it’s not that this is an inherrently bad identity to have, but it’s not really Danny’s, this feels like him just running away from his issues.
I don’t know how much of this Joe is thinking of, but on some level he seems to realize that this transformation in Danny is a result of his relationship pains and whatnot, and he’s genuinely trying to get Danny to come out and be open about his feelings and issues. Will he be able to really understand Danny’s feelings/issues once they are out in the open…? Ehhhhhhhh probably not, but he’s trying, and that’s a big step for him.
I think so. Danny wants to know who he is, while Joe wants to avoid actually knowing who he is, because he’s afraid of what he might find and how that might make him feel.
I’m gonna hazard a guess that the guy who’s getting rehaBROlitated in this arc… is Joe
There’s a point trying to form in my mind about there being no such thing as objective attractiveness and Joe’s self-centeredness thinking his preferences dictate what “objective attractiveness” is, because even within societal beauty standards there’s variation on what qualities are valued over others, but I’m just awake from a nap and the dominant coherent thought it just “fuck yooooooou dudebro”
I don’t have the memory to remember how Joe presented his list, nor the desire to go back and find it, but did he present it as objective?
It seems likely to me that there’s an “in my opinion” semi-consciously attached at the end of every rating.
I’m not really sure if that’s better or worse. Maybe a little better, since he’s rating something with regards to the relationship between himself and another person, rather than purely this person with regards to reality, but still totally terrible for lots of other reasons.
Perhaps, but here he comments on her comment being a “freakily accurate self-evaluation” apparently because it matches his, which implies that he does think it’s objective or there would be no meaning to it being “accurate”.
Ayup and it’s super common in a certain type of douchebag where they presume their personal sexual tastes are or should be a universal system and that if someone is attracted to different people or have different things that are important to them in that field then they are wrong and need to be corrected and that random people they are attracted to need to know exactly what their junk thinks of their attractiveness.
So if you’re traditionally attractive, you get a lot of these creepers creeping on you and basically telling you over and over how “you make their junk feel” in escalatingly creepy and invasive and harassing ways.
And if you’re not, you get these creepers getting violently angry in your face for daring to exist in their world without thinking about their poor junk and whether or not their junk wants to fuck you.
It’s a potent mix of inappropriate belief of people they are attracted to being literal objects and entitled lack of imagination to realize that everyone’s attractions are subjective and what is smoking hot to one person is not even going to raise an eyebrow to another.
And I extra hate these douches, because well… I’m a trans woman. So when these folks and their invasive junk updates realize that, they get violent and murdery because I dared “give them gay boners” and now that their boner has been “tricked”, I gotta die for it.
You just reminded me of “Beautiful Girls” ,
Esp this scene with Rosie O’Neil, Timothy Hutton , & Matt Dillon.
https://youtu.be/RqCVbiHCYAA
Now I that rewatched it I can totally imagine your comment acted out in Rosies voice.
( Tim and Matt would have positively and Transnormitively affirm they have “Gay Boners for it to be a Rhyming scene.)
Cerberus, you have a lot of deeply thought through and well analyzed , unique ( less common ) life experiences.
INMHO , You should write a screenplay. I can imagine a whole scene titled “Invasive Junk Updates” where Different characters, Friends and Acquintances work out their experiences in conversation , Beautiful Girls style. Some presuming this Objective Default, others believing in the default but trying to see past it; and other characters just smashing it Entirely. I’d watch it.
There is a lot Subjects you could humanize you have first hand experience of.
And when doing scientific studies, it’s also important to document the measures used. For this user, we have Joe’s rating scale on a number of people, and if I would happen to do the same, the science comes in how the ratings correlate.
If you get enough users, people and datapoints on them, you can build a system to make rating predictions for users on people they haven’t met.
There’s no such thing as an objectively good film, yet we have ratings on them anyway based on the above system. It’s how Netflix makes movie recommendations.
Beauty is the same, albeit more controversial. So it’s not that no metric is valid, because no metric is true. They’re all true to that person, and they can be predicted based on your peers.
Nope, there’s just a system for shaming folks with tastes that are not rated by the majority, which is why a lot of folks trapped in systems where this type of rating is common frequently live in fear of external judgment of the sort of people they feel attracted to and get violently angry with folks they are attracted to that don’t fit that normative model they are “supposed” to be attracted to.
Sexual attraction is personal. What drives chemistry and arousal is extremely varied.
Poor Joe has been blogging hasn’t he? Unfortunate. Then again, this is probably the wake-up call he needs. It’s okay to have varying levels of attraction to people and even to be pursuing a active non-relationship-based sex life. However, keep that stuff private as women have enough crap to deal with on the fact they’re pursued all the time when NOT interested in that.
If only there were designated hook-up zones like…I dunno, parties.
Seriously, he needs to get his ass to the local kink scene or a hook up party or something and leave random passerby alone.
Agreed. None of Joe’s partners seem interested in him as a person for, sadly, good reasons.
Yup, hell I think Roz in a slipshine comic literally said she has to forbid him from talking so as to just enjoy herself with his stamina without being reminded of his creepy awful misogyny.
i wonder if joe is aware of the circulation of ryan’s photo. would that prompt a realization of how his pick up list comes across? (probably not?)
In the eternally slow GOBLINS comic, Minmax is a racist and murderous monster-slayer who finds out his idol is also a rapist (keeping a Lamia as a slave). This causes an instant 3 second heel-face turn where he turns on him and abandons his beliefs by throwing the guy out a window then freeing his slaves.
I like to think that would happen with Joe and Ryan’s posse of sycophants.
I agree; Joe is a major creep, but I’d like to think he’d draw the line somewhere before, like, attempting to rape people.
I think Ryan’s existence wouldn’t make him reevaluate his list, though. He just want to distance himself from rapists, and he’d blame them for making all the women more cautious and uncomfortable. Rapists wreck Joe’s game, type of thing. Ugh.
As bad as Joe’s behavior has been recently, I think he actually believes he’s with women who are (to quote, of all things, The Real World: New Orleans) players like himself. He’s not, though. He’s throwing come ons in every direction 24/7 with no thought to context or approach or receptivity.
The only positive thing about Joe is that he does seem to take consent very seriously.
The thing is, Joe-consent includes things that real-consent doesn’t, like he’s mentioned lubricating the transaction with alcohol.
Oh I agree, he’s quite terrible and misunderstands consent, but he at least recognizes the importance of it.
He has indeed definitely heard of a thing called consent, yes.
Applying it? Bob no. But he’s definitely heard of it.
yeAH he could rape through just like. not seeing fluid boundaries as legitimate boundaries. and not be ill-intentioned or anything, but like…still be putting his own desires over the other person’s, and not taking a no for an answer
which is kind of scary imo b/c that is about the one thing that would drive him fully over that very thin line he’s walking between horny dude and the sex-driven creep, that he has crossed more than once before as evidenced by all the women we have seen visibly creeped out by him
Lots and lots and LOTS of people have sex after drinking. I don’t buy that a bit of alcohol is enough to invalidate someone’s decision there.
That comic was about him intentionally using alcohol to the point where he and his partner were no longer even capable of remembering what type of sex they were having and the gender of his partners because they “lubricated” threesomes.
I.e. drinking to near-blackout impairment as an intentional strategy to end-run around what the person wouldn’t have consented to under sober circumstances.
And it wasn’t even a one-off. He repeats the same idea later with Joyce, stating that while sober her wouldn’t sleep with him, drunk and impaired Joyce would, implying that he’s intentionally using the alcohol to move past stated boundaries when sober.
That all is many many miles removed from two people already planning and intending to get frisky under sober circumstances having sex while slightly tipsy.
Honestly, in general, any attempt to end-run around consent is fucked and in serious danger of raping someone. Like, consent and boundaries are a thing. If someone wouldn’t do X sober, using alcohol to impair that judgment and do away with that or otherwise coercing someone like he tried to do to Joyce is a predatory and often sexual assaulting action.
I don’t believe Joe has crossed that line, but he’s danced way closer to that lava then anyone ever should.
That’s a different thing over just ‘lubricating with alcohol’. Getting people drunk with the explicit aim of having sex with them is predatory bullshit, but hitting it off with someone at a party where drinks are being served is a very different thing, y’know? Or, say, a beach vacation with hot weather and cold drinks for married folk. Etc.
Of course, a lot of these times these discussions take a hard swerve into the hedge of “yes but exactly how drunk can I get someone” so I think I’m going to stop here, because that is incredibly creepy bullshit.
Well, yeah, of course, getting tipsy with someone where there was already plans of sex and you have consented to the sex under sober circumstances is very different than Joe’s statements regarding alcohol.
He deliberately and repeatedly talks about the lubrication under alcohol as creating sexual circumstances that would not happen under sober conditions. That’s using alcohol to bypass consent and using impairment to remove the ability or judgment to say no to things they would say no to normally which is non-consent.
And that gets super explicit with Joyce where he’s like, yeah, under sober circumstances you would never willingly get together with me, but a drunker version of you could and so I would target the drunker version of you that had the impaired judgment. Additionally when he talks about drinking to impairment as a strategy to encourage sexual activity that wouldn’t happen when sober.
Again, both of these are very different than two people already planning to have sex, having one or two drinks in a manner that makes them slightly tipsy but not so much that meaningful consent is no longer involved or their judgment is severely impaired.
There are very few circumstances where a couple already planning on having sex having a few beers would describe the sexual encounter as having been lubricated by the alcohol. Nor would they likely describe the sexual encounter as something that wouldn’t occur under sober circumstances.
“He repeats the same idea later with Joyce, stating that while sober her wouldn’t sleep with him, drunk and impaired Joyce would, implying that he’s intentionally using the alcohol to move past stated boundaries when sober.”
Didn’t he say “let’s face it, a drunk version of ME”? He was saying he’d have to get himself drunk, not Joyce
I can’t seem to find that strip, but I remember it as referring to a drunker version of Joyce
The drunken version of Joyce thing could just be referring to how people are generally happier and “more fun” after having alcohol.
No. It was A drunker version of you, maybe. And, let’s face it an insane version of me.
In response to commenting to Joyce about the sex tape and after their disastrous date: “That could have been you.”
It wasn’t about people just being generally more fun after alcohol.
Can he sing Giant Woman tomorrow?
He seems to be sticking to exclusively Disney songs at the moment.
im totally here for Joe Learns About Respecting Women and Danny Gets Real Good At Ukelele
Me too, but frankly I’d still be here for Joe Learns Nothing And Danny Annoys the Crap Out of Him
She walked right past Danny without calling him a good egg. I blame Joe.
That can be the only possible reason. Danny is radiating good egg here.
Wouldn’t a good egg and a bad egg radiate the same, provided they were at the same temperature?
(I find blackbody radiation jokes funny, okay.)
Interestingly enough, nothing blunts people’s opinion of someone as a good egg more than seeing them show no compunction or confliction about hanging out with a known bad egg.
You can be the nicest, warmest person on the planet, but if you regularly hang out with someone unsafe or openly hostile to others, I’m going to be wary for a long while until I get to know you more. Especially if you’re a white allo cis dude. Cause I’ve just had too many “good eggs” who “just have a shitty friend” turn around and participate in that shittiness at the drop of a hat.
No. A bad egg has a strong signature in the infrastench.
Don’t rate women, Joe.
Rating women is bad, rating them in a public forum is worse, but I’m actually of the horrifying realization Joe probably has rated women he’s slept with in a public forum.
Which may be a MEH for me.
Oh, we know he rates women he slept with on the list. Roz was a nine because she filmed their encounter.
If you like a ukulele Danny
THen ukelele Danny lik-a you!
‘The Man With Two Brains’ reference?
Not seen that movie, though that song might well have appeared there.
But I first heard “Ukulele lady” on Muppet Show.
I appreciate that the uke tabs are included.
I wonder if Danny realizes that he needs to play the ukulele for himself as he’s otherwise just trying to define for himself a role when all he has to be is himself. Otherwise he’s just Danning it up again.
Next Danny should play Somewhere Over the Rainbow on his ukulele.
Or he could not do that, and save the eardrums of everyone around him.
This whole Joe-Danny story-line is really starting to cheese me off.
SICK BURN, Mandy.
– Call out his stupid list
– Refuse to let the conversation be about her rather than involve her
– Turn him down (seems like an EIGHT does not want to sleep with you, Joe).
All in one sentence. HIGH FIVE!
It’s well-done by her. She deserves all the Sierra/Grace cuddles tonight!
Joyce: EVERYTHING IS UNRAVELING!!!!
Mandy/Sierra/Grace: On the contrary, we will actually be raveling things tonight.
Mostly our tongues and bodies. And we won’t stop until you need to call emergency personell to unravel us!
Yep. Joe may have been better advised to keep his rating system to himself.
I think he’s past listening to advice on anything related to women.
He’s certainly stopped listening to women in any capacity with regards to what they want, which makes me severely question how good he could possibly be in the sack.
I still want him to come up to some lady who knows his game off the bat and just refuses to take him seriously, snarking her way through it.
Something just occurred to me… Walky was supposed to meet with Jason. How did that go?
They ate at Arby’s.
Ryan wasn’t the only one to get killed off during the time-skip.
Don’t rate women, Joe.
Obnoxious as Joe is about it, I love that he genuinely tries to reach out to Danny.
I actually think Danny WOULD benefit from a bro-talk about man-feelings, but after all the crap Joe has put him through I don’t begrudge him for playing the ukulele instead.
yeah if joe wants to talk the feelings he has got to earn it at this point and not put danny through more of this toxic masculinity drivel
im a six. not ugly enough to make people cringe but not physically appealing enough to make peoples eyes linger on me
Six would be above average attractiveness. What you describe would eb more like a four. But you’re probably being too hard on yourself either way.
from one to ten the middle is five point five. so five or six is basically average and i only did that because if i dye my hair and some other stuff i dont usually care about i can look a bit better.
I’m guessing that Joe has spoken to Mandy on this subject before. However, he pesters so many girls in this manner, he forgot that he’d done so!
His To Do list is posted online, it likely comes with their rankings.
Okay, I’ve been wanting to ask this question for awhile even though I know it’s stupid and I’ll probably be disappointed by the answers, but this chapter IS called “The Do List,” so what the hell:
How does The Do List work?
Is it point-based? How many different parameters are there? Is there a separate Do List for each person? What about each age-range? Where is it written down and how often is it updated?
After you’ve done the Dirty Darwin with someone, do you get removed from their list or is it a lifetime appointment? Does Roz have a Do List of men? Does Joe compare notes with Daisy?
If you don’t like your ranking, can you appeal it? How far up the federal court system can your appeal go? If you slay another woman in single combat, do you get her ranking or do you just automatically level up? Does the list only go up to 10, or is there an “S” rank reserved for elite women like super heroines, secret agents, famous historical figures, and Saoirse Ronan?
Most of the questions here are unexpected, but the single combat one is the only one which actually caught me off guard.
And it’s also the most interesting.
i am both fascinated and disturbed
i am imagining a porn version of the handmaid’s tale
A porn version. Of The Handmaid’s Tale. That has to be one of the most convoluted porn setups I’ve ever heard of. Like, I won’t get into the book’s quality, but let’s just talk logistics, here. The backstory alone requires women to lose all rights at least a decade beforehand, the United States government to be overthrown by a bizarre religious sect, a brand-new caste system to be introduced, and several other factors.
And who are the subjects of this porno? Is it a handmaid and the man she’s been assigned to? Because, unless it’s a secret meet-up, that would require the man’s wife to be present, fully clothed and holding hands with the handmaid, which is just strange. Is it the man and the wife? What’s the handmaid there for, then? Is it two handmaids? Do they get caught by guards and have to run away to join the resistance?
There are so many variables, and none of them make nearly enough sense to justify the setup in the first place. This really is both fascinating and disturbing, because on the one hand, who’s this porno even for? And on the other hand, who the fuck is this for?
lmao
i mean like the world of the Handmaid’s Tale is, essentially, porn for its male characters in power: who can literally do and have whatever they friggin’ want. it is pretty much a male privilege paradise
and like pretty much Gilead ranks its women accordingly!! you have the local sex workers; the women who can have babies (of which subset are the women who are available to everybody and the women who are privately available); and the women who are high-class enough to be Wives. it is, pretty much, a do list wherein the doability of each woman is clearly outlined and ranked. it is a do list where your doability is your value, and your value is either your ability to provide sexual pleasure, your ability to provide children, or your ability to hold power accorded by your husband.
so like: a porn version of the Handmaid’s Tale would have to either subvert the hell out of this, or play it excruciatingly, painfully straight.
personally i would be up for the porn adventures of Moira, Unfortunate Lesbian
Monogolander! There can only be one!
And then somebody hijacks a subway train because they can!
It’s probably entirely subjective: What he does and does not find attractive in a woman on a physical level, no more and no less
I like that hat. It suits Danny.
Just swap out the ukulele for a trombone, and you’re set.
Ska Danny! With checkerboard shoes!
needs a goatee, a plaid shirt …
This strip is love.
Also, Joe gets credit for trying. Danny, you keep doing you, buddy.
Okay, most everyone’s talking about what’s terrible about Joe here and how much they dislike him. And that’s fine. But I want to talk a bit about how I’m finding positive things in what Joe’s doing here.
… now don’t get me wrong, what he’s doing here is…. well, bad. I started off viewing Joe as a clownish buffoon, likeable for comedy relief as a parody. I’ve since soured to him as I started seeing ways in which his actions were harmful to others and his indifference to that, and how they’re analogous to similarly harmful actions IRL. I am not defending or endorsing what he does.
And there might be a bit of dramatic tension in his attempts to drag Danny back into his circle. (Rather than expanding his circle out to include Danny wherever he goes.)
But right now I am delighting in his denseness, his lack of empathy, and his inability to learn.
One of my favorite tropes in writing is when what makes a villain an evil guy, the critical flaw in their personality or world view, gets turned on them and ultimately foils their plans. Yeah, it can be done in ways that are hokey or obvious, but done right it’s amazing. And while I don’t think Joe elevates to the level of villain (he’s not important enough and has yet to do enough damage or really stand in any protagonist’s way), that trope seems to be playing out here.
Because Joe IS being dense here. He completely lacks empathy for Danny. He can’t see through Danny’s eyes. He doesn’t understand what the ukulele means to Danny. He doesn’t comprehend what needs of Danny’s it meets. He doesn’t even comprehend that those needs exist.
Is that loathsome? Maybe. But it’s also great. Because it means he doesn’t have a chance in hell of succeeding in his rehabrolitation. That transition from Panel 1 to Panel 2 shows just how flat his efforts fall. Panel 3 shows Danny beginning to get irritated by them. (I think. I no read face good.)
The reason Joe is failing is exactly the same reason that he sucks. So long as he keeps sucking, he will keep failing. For him to succeed would require him to stop sucking. (At least in this way.)
And this brings us to Joe’s biggest weakness. He doesn’t learn. He doesn’t grow. He doesn’t even recognize that there’s ROOM for him to grow or that it’s desirable to do so. As a result, he is (further) incapable of understanding Danny, and more significantly he’s STUCK with his other weaknesses.
So the only way for Joe to undo Danny’s (attempts at) growth and development are to grow and develop himself. And him growing and developing? Are good things in their own right.
(Of course, it’s quite possible for something ELSE to sabotage Danny’s growth, and for him to run back to Joe. But it won’t be Joe who pulls it off.)
Mm hmm, hell, he actively resists growth, seeing it as a path down the road of feelings and divorce and feeling less manly. So he actively sabotages his own self-improvement regularly out of fear.
Yup. In Joe’s eyes, Danny’s biggest character flaw is that he is not more like Joe. That’s not a great foundation for a supportive talk.
…but at the same time, Joe IS reaching out to Danny. Joe DID comfort Joyce over the phone. Joe DID apologise to Dorothy. Small steps, but all of them leaving the comfort zone of the bro-zone, and all of them leaving hope that even he will grow up eventually.
I have long had the feeling that Danny and Joe are growing apart, and that it would not necessarily be a bad thing. Childhood friends do not always stay adult friends. But interactions like this make me think they will manage to find a new relationship, kinda like Walky and Billie, and that it would be good for them.
And well, that’s one of the really toxic things about guys in states like Joe. They become toxic to guys who aren’t toxic, because they are always pushing the non-toxic guys to “start being a man” and being toxic like them.
So they’re always needling them about non-normative hobbies, about respecting women, about acting like they care about their romantic or sexual partners, and try and pressure them into participating in the gross sexist jokes and behaviors.
And it so often bleeds through. I’ve known too many women who date men who’ve had a partner get more and more toxic to them because those partners had douchey friends who encouraged them to become worse and worse to be seen as “worthy” in their esteem.
Sadly, true.
Whom do you consider Joe’s best friend, after Danny?
Best *for* him (to cultivate, rather than lose, as a friend?
(Throwing this “study question” out to anyone who cares to.answer.)
I think the only friend he HAS aside from Danny is Jacob.
… and Jacob has so far come across as a pretty centered, sensible guy as far as far as relationships with women go.
If Joe will take a hint once in a while, Jacob could be a good influence. And that’s just Jacob being himself, not sticking his nose into things.
….. though I suppose it does keep him being toxic to every double-x chromosome out there. …. hmmm. Okay, more broadly, it’s bad.
….. and a bunch of others too….
…. mrrr….
…. this bright side of mine is seeming more and more funky and gloomy now. And not a good type of funky.
So it seems I’m part of a very small minority that is interpreting Joes actions and motivations as not completely awful. At the moment it seems like Joe has recognized that Danny’s gone through some emotional issues that were far worse than he realized when he blew them off in the past. Now that he sees how bad things have gotten he’s making a genuine attempt to reach out to Danny and get him to talk about his emotions… which is a VERY un-Joe thing to do usually.
Now of course Joe’s approach isn’t very good, because this is Joe, and this sort of emotional thing is not his strong suit by any stretch of the imagination. But the mere fact that he is trying shows growth on his part, and is a good step for him. The mere fact he is able to recognize his friend is hurting, care about the fact that his friend is hurting, and make a determined effort to actually help his friend sort through emotional baggage is a lot of growth from what Joe used to be like (especially important to note the determination here, normally even if Joe were to do something like this we wouldn’t really expect him to keep at it for long).
That isn’t to say that Joe isn’t still a unrepentant player and dudebro jock and isn’t what we’d call a good person, but he’s growing, and that’s important. He grew (in some regards) back in the walkyverse, and he’s around more in this universe so I’m hoping we’ll see him develop further.
Now as for Danny’s side of things, I also appear to be in the minority here in thinking that this new ukulele guy persona is the exact opposite of growth for him.
Danny trying to figure out who he is outside of a relationship is a good thing yes, but I don’t think he’s doing it for the right reasons. He’s recently put himself out there, tried to do everything right with Amber/Amazi-girl, and failed miserably without even comprehending why, and knowing his personality and lack of self confidence he likely is blaming himself to some extent. He said to Amber that he really wanted to try and do things right this time around and whatnot, but he still got burned in the end despite his efforts
Now it seems like he’s adopting this persona of a person that is not him at all so he can just be the guy everyone likes and not the screw-up he perceives his actual self to be. He’s hiding from his issues and from himself, not truly trying to understand himself. This Ukulele Danny feels way too much like a facade to me, it’s too large of a departure from his usual self for me to feel like this is just a side of himself that he discovered and it’s just who he is outside of a relationship naturally.
There’s also the fact that I wasn’t getting the sense that Danny was in a mental and emotional space where discovering himself in this way would be the natural next step for him. It’s worth noting that in the dumbiverse not all that much time has passed since Danny’s recent attempts to keep reaching out to Amber… and I don’t see him getting burned, getting over it all, and then making this sort of development in himself over the course of a couple of days. Maybe he did, but it seems too quick to me.
Now this is mostly just my gut instincts here, and as this storyline progresses things may change. But the tl;dr version here is
1) He sucks at it, but Joe is making a genuine effort to get Danny to open up and connect emotionally and that’s a pretty big deal for Joe to be doing something like that.
2) Danny really needs to open up and connect emotionally with someone because I don’t think this ukulele thing is him actually making progress, but rather him trying to run and hide from his issues
We’ll see if my current interpretation of events stays consistent or if Joe is gonna go ahead and ruin it for himself, but that’s where I stand for the moment
This was my read of the situation too!
I am totally down with Danny’s new ukulele skills but I also think he’s just doing this to run from his own issues.
And either Joe’s realizing Danny’s dealing with a lot and he needs to be a better friend to support him or he’s realizing Danny’s moving on without him and he needs to be a better friend or he’ll lose him. Either way, I’m thrilled and 100% invested, regardless of Joe’s shitty antics
i mean liiike
joe is not a completely awful person. he does have good intentions here. but the way he has treated danny in the past and the way he is treating women now and the toxic masculinity that is his whole mindset is just…not a good combination
and, i mean, he’s not being a very supportive friend. like: maybe danny is running from issues but that’s not always a bad thing?? he has found a new hobby to fill up his life, a new way to interpret himself. and sometimes you really do quite honestly need a break from The Issues. and music is a pretty healthy interest all things considered, both as a form of expression and just as a way to spend time
idk you don’t solve everything you’re going through just because you focus real hard
1) Yes, Joe showing concern for Danny and genuinely trying to talk to Danny about his feelings IS meaningful progress. There’s still LOTS he needs to work on. Like everything about how he’s going about this.
2) Danny is not the one who has trouble opening up or connecting with people.
His problem has been that he only really saw himself as somebody’s boyfriend, and didn’t prioritize his own needs, ambitions, hobbies, etc. Even if he IS doing this in part as a way to distract himself, it’s something he needed to do anyway.
Comic Reactions:
Ugh… okay, yes, the obvious. I don’t like hating Joe. I don’t want to hate him. I can’t wait for his arc where he sheds his toxic masculinity and his terrible faux understanding of consent and owns the harm he has caused others. I rub my hands in glee at the tiny signs that things might finally be getting through to him. I want that arc so so bad.
But Joe as he exists now, in the state of his life he is currently in. That Joe is a complete asshole and damn does he keep giving me reasons to loathe him.
And this comic reaction is unlikely to be very kind, cause I just watched a really kind and sweet bi kid of mine who is like Danny made flesh get frog-marched out of the school in cuffs today on an abusive 5150 because the parents intentionally demanded it as a means of silencing him telling teachers about how they tended to use 5150 as a tool of abuse seeing it as easier than talking to him about anything. So I’m kind of running on pure anger to begin with. I’ll try and be fair though.
Panel 1: So to start with, let me note something positive. This is Joe reaching out to his friend. It’s in a shitty toxic way that demeans Danny’s attempt at growth because Joe is still fixated on the idea that he can mold Danny into a clone of himself that he can share bro stories with, but it’s still reaching out.
And that’s big for Joe, because his arc with Danny has been him pushing Danny farther and farther away because of sexist fear of feelings and Danny’s lack of investment in traditional hyper-masculinity. So he’s recognizing that things have been broken and need to be fixed and that quality time of the type he used to have for Danny is key to that.
That being said, ugh, I’m never a fan of Joe using “fixing” language to describe others. Like this is nowhere near as bad as the literal echoing of corrective rape logic used against asexuals when he said Joyce needed to be “fixed with his penis”, but it’s still this similar toxic ownership of another person.
Like, there’s nothing wrong with Danny. He’s exploring an interesting new hobby and a cool new look. He’s literally harming no one, but Joe is hard-selling the idea that this is somehow a great wrong to the world and must be corrected. And corrected in the direction of moving Danny from a hipster to a bro even though Danny is incredibly uncomfortable with that presentation.
And it’s especially twisted when you note how Danny’s parents hard push him to emulate their own life story and diminish his attempts to forge his own identity and to realize that Joe has just done the same thing as Danny’s parents, trying to crap on whatever Danny does for Danny reasons and trying to constantly push Danny to be as awful as him.
And that last part deeply bothers me, because well… that’s part of the toxicity of toxic masculinity. That it’s always looking to recruit, to get others invested in the system. So it chips and it chips like this, trying to push guys who aren’t shit into being shit and I’ve seen so many men partners of friends who date men slip into this, where they get absorbed in trying to impress their friends and so start mistreating their partners in those friends’ presence.
And there’s just only so many times you can watch slightly okay boyfriend become shitty abusive boyfriend who publicly demeans your close friend to their and other’s faces so his shitty crew of misogynist asswipes doesn’t think he’s “whipped”.
And 5150 appears to be https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/5150_(involuntary_psychiatric_hold)
Well fuck 🙁
haah oh my god knott’s berry farm had a friggin theme park ride made out of it
woooow
I think what we’re seeing here is intrinsic to finally being able to start Joe’s development/redemption arc (which I have also been desperately waiting for all these years). Joe can’t grow as a person until he lets even one wall down, but he’s so unwilling to display a normal range of normal emotion instead of his smug player persona. Joe’s subtly growing loneliness due to his behavior has turned him into the guy we see in this strip, pretty desperately pleading with his childhood best friend to let him in, even if it involves having to deal with feelings. I think we’re finally gonna see the first wall go down!
I think so too and I’m so so ready to see that. Like turbo mega ultra ready.
I am BEYOOOOOND ready. Characters like Joe (or historically, Joyce) are always hard to parse. On one hand, you can absolutely tell they’re going to end up growing out of their crappy ways and you know how great the writing will be, and you love them for it. On the other hand, they’re being crappy now and they GOTS to stop that.
*AGOS*
Panel 2: Oh Danny… you’re a good egg, Danny. You Moana-loving gentle soul. And well, that response by Joe…
I mean, that facial expression. He’s genuinely upset at Danny. He’s hoping intensely to get him to stop being what he is and it’s hard not to read into it that Danny’s particular choice of a song sung by a woman is a factor in this given how much Joe in the other panels emphasizes notions of being a “traditional man”.
Especially as that tends to be defined by rejection of the feminine and viewing the feminine almost like an infection that needs to be discouraged by any means necessary including belittling of harmless hobbies like this.
And it’s… frustrating. Because Joe has failed to be there for Danny all the times Danny has actually needed him. But now that Danny has taken up a presentation that is not traditionally masculine and speaks to him and exploring that and doesn’t necessarily need Joe getting all up in that and sabotaging that, suddenly Joe wants to be super involved.
Like, this is the one time he needs to bugger off and let Danny explore himself, but he doesn’t.
Panel 3: And like it colors this. Like I want to view this as a universal positive. He’s asking Danny to share feelings and making a space for that. That’s growth… but it gets tainted by that other stuff. Like, he doesn’t want Danny to share feelings because that’s a thing important to Danny. He wants Danny to share feelings so he can use it as a bartering tool for Danny rejecting his new explorations. Trapping Danny in a state he was not overly happy in because that’s stable and unchanging.
And yeah, that last bit is probably the real antipathy here more than anything else. His friend is changing. All his friends are changing and he’s getting left in the dust and that’s terrifying. But it doesn’t make what he’s doing ok.
At least Danny spectical about his friend new found “reaching”
Yeah… Having just read all of Assigned Male, there’s an extra layer of awfulness I can partly see here now. The unconscious bias that makes Joe assume the ukulele is a cry for help and not a “real” hobby.
To be fair, considering what Apparently happened just recently, it is hard for Joe to consider it as “Just a hobby”. But we’ll have to wait and see just how much of a SNAFU Amber’s fight with Ryan was.
I’ll repeat that this is a large part of my frustration with this time skip: If this change in Danny is a sudden reaction to whatever horrific thing happened with Dorothy, Amber and Ryan, then it’s likely a real problem, kind of a minor breakdown, denial of reality sort of thing. If it’s just a response to the longer term things Danny’s dealt with, then it’s a kind of personal growth.
The longer this goes on and the more people we see without it being mentioned, the more likely the latter seems, which is good, but it was genuinely worrying me in the first bit of the Ukelele Danny sequence.
And Joe, being a rather insensitive guy that he is probably wouldn’t be able to realize that this MIGHT be a real change in Danny. He is probably utterly convinced that his buddy is half a step away from going insane…
Again, depends on the context, which we lack. If this was in response to something drastic happening to Dorothy & Amber, then I’d be right there with him in thinking Danny was having a breakdown.
I do love the fact that Danny’s singing songs initially written from a female perspective and he’s not changing the lyrics.
Panel 4: Oi. First I’ll echo Bagge’s excellent point. Mandy shuts this down masterfully while minimizing even the possibility of further interaction.
Second, I get that Joe is trying in his way and I want to give him points for that as I know that isn’t easy for him, but Joe is a very trying person so it’s hard to give him that many points for it.
And we see that here. Like, number one, he’s doing the exact opposite of what he’s telling Danny he’s doing. He’s trying to argue he’s so focused on Danny that he’s not chasing girls, but at the first sign of a girl walking past, his attention fully shifts over to her to “prove” a point he thus disproves.
Number two, fuck creepy PUA number systems for women. Also fuck dismissively referring to a human being with a name, a name he undoubtedly knows because Mandy has clearly seen his RSS feed and found herself on it as “this hot chick”.
Like, giant pet peeve is this reduction of a person into their sexual utility and whether or not they please the person’s junk. Both because it is dehumanizing especially when spoken out loud in the direct presence of the person as it is here, but also because well, I have lots of identities that don’t pair well with this.
As an asexual, being reduced to my sexual utility and external judgment of my usefulness to a junk I most likely have no intention of getting near is a frequent source of general harassment. Moreso if I’ve come out as these types of assholes tend to play it extra up when you note that you’re ace.
As a trans woman, this public sizing up in terms of boner-pleasing or not can be downright fatal. Like, I’ve told the story of the guy who harassed me and my girlfriend and then when he found out that one of the “lesbians” he was harassing was a trans woman, tried to convince the driver to come back around to kill me. Those aren’t isolated incidents. Joe isn’t those guys, nor am I arguing he is. But it means that whole “this is what my boner thinks about you random lady” is always going to trigger a bit of incidents like that because I’m made way too aware of how quickly someone entitled enough to publicly consider me only in terms of utility to their dick can then feel “cheated” and “betrayed” and like they were “tricked” into being “gay” and thus turn to violence.
Number three, he’s directly pointing at and talking about Mandy entirely in the third person as if she were a hanging piece of art rather than a living breathing person who can very much hear that shit. Like, that is so fucked up and rude and Mandy was right to shut that down as quickly as possible, because that sort of dismissal of humanity needs that type of immediate shut down.
Panel 5: Ugh. Like, again, if you find yourself in this position, never ever say shit like this. Like there’s so much wrong with it between the dehumanization and objectification, the continued lack of direct interaction, and of course the treatment of his boner notes as some sort of important all objective thing that matters one bit to anyone that isn’t him.
Like, spoiler everyone. Porn is a liar, people’s personal preferences for body shapes or personalities that are hot vary wildly and what one person might not see as all that interesting might be the hottest person in the universe for another.
And additional spoiler, chemistry trumps “hot” any day of the week. If there is mutual chemistry, there’s sexual sparks regardless of any rating system bullshit*
*And it’s worth noting that the PUA rating system shit is also just a test of how closely the person fits normative standards of attractiveness usually shaped by Hollywood or porn depictions. And well, women unfortunately already deal with too much crap from society regarding whether or not they fit into some normative beauty standard.
Finally, we have his RSS feed. His RSS feed is public, likely very google-able and even if it weren’t, he’s constantly handing out the url to it like it was candy and his interaction with Roz suggests he regularly hands it out to people he is interested in or with so they can, in his mind, be impressed with his numbering and so touched that they were high on the number that they’ll have gratitude sex.
And well, he chases nearly everyone. So of course his RSS feed bullshit got out more wide-spread and of course women are going to hate it. Because this type of PUA shit is vile.
Oi. So yeah, I know these are the early steps of him escaping the system he has mired in and I’m rooting so hard for him. But it’s definitely going to be a long and rocky road.
“Number two, fuck creepy PUA number systems for women. Also fuck dismissively referring to a human being with a name, a name he undoubtedly knows because Mandy has clearly seen his RSS feed and found herself on it as “this hot chick”.”
Not quite sure about this. I mean, you may still be right, but I was thinking that a “mystery person” who recently got, against her wishes, access to the feed, decided to make that content more public, adding her own opinions to it. Opinions that are, shall we say, not very flattering.
I mean, I can absolutely see Joe find/take a picture of a woman, rate her, and then completely forget about her name or not even bothering to get it in the first place.
Wait, why am I arguing about which particular way Joe is fucking horrible?
On Patreon canon, we see his list – it’s done by description. I believe he called Billie a ‘desperate chubby cheerleader’ or something like that.
Cerberus said: Joe is trying in his way… but Joe is a very trying person
I see what you did there.
I forget Mandy’s existance from time to time.
I like her colour
Danny needs a goatee.
And a beenie?
YES!
Ok I was sceptical of Danny’s ukulele dreams but I didn’t realise he’d be singing DISNEY SONGS, I am charmed, well done.
He is a good egg
OK, what is up with that? What is the reference?
Danny wants people to think he’s a good egg.
It’s from the Walkyverse (where he wanted to be called ‘DJ’ and named his daughter that), and got referenced when Danny pulled out the ukulele.
A “good egg” is a nice person.
I know what a good egg is, what I wanted to know is why it was constantly, insistently, excessively used in the comments on the last couple strips.
Because Danny said, back in the first little bit with the ukelele, that people would say when he walked by “It’s Danny! With the ukulele! He’s a good egg!”
And the comment section obliged 🙂
so uh. Danny’s face in the last panel has prompted me to a mental comparision between Dorothy, Amber and Asma. She’s certainly on-trend for him appearance-wise, and time-for-Joe’s-bullshit-wise
You mean Mandy. Asma is the one behind the desk and shares literally no physical characteristics with Dorothy or Amber. Though since Mandy is with Grace (I think?), such attraction would likely be unreciprocated. Though she could still call him a good egg one day and make his day.
Mandy’s bi and into polyamory. That said, I don’t think Danny would be, so he can get his ‘good egg’ comment and be on his way.
HAHA I can’t read or remember things
Anyone else think it wasn’t Asma, but someone different with red hair in the background, before.checking the tags?
My first thought was Asma was affected by the aftermath and needed some time off.
The Good, The Bad and The Ugy – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pLgJ7pk0X-s – ukulele style
I cannot believe that Danny knows how to play a G Flat minor chord.
Although technically, if the song is in E, those two chords should be marked F# minor and C# minor. 🙂
I can believe he can arrange his not-too-talented-or-trained-yet fingers that way. That’s not to say he can go through the entire chord progression like he was in the School of Music.
(Don’t ask me how I know the limits of said fingers on a fretboard.)
I’m envisioning (enhearening?) Danny being at the stage of learning his instrument where he has to hold the note he’s singing at each chord change to give his fingers time to shift to the new pattern.
I like Mandy’s color scheme. It feels modern, somehow.
To hovertext: You mean this name proBRObly hasn’t been used yet, amirite?
I think Brobably would work even better. But I’m willing to hear people’s bros and cons about either word.
I wonder how Joe would react if Danny started playing George Formby songs on the Ukelele instead. Especially with words like:
Pyjamas lyin’ side by side,
Ladies nighties I have spied
I’ve often seen what goes inside
When I’m cleanin’ windows
She pulls her hair all down behind,
Then pulls down her… Never mind,
And after that pulls down the blind,
When I’m cleanin’ windows
With me little ukulele in me hand,
Of course, the people do not understand,
Some say “why don’t you be a scout, why don’t you read a book?”
But I get lots more pleasure when I’m playing with me uke.
Although, technically, Formby played a banjolele, or banjo-uke.
I first learned this from the comic musician Ronnie Golden at a gig he did with Barry Cryer. Barry’s response was “Yes, we often discuss this down at my local Get A Life Club.”
HAT IS BACK, BABY!
Joe actually offered Danny a hug – but only if he put down the ukulele. That’s not a real offer, Joe. And now he’s trying to tutor Danny in his manly ways? Ugh. Keep the hat and ukulele, Danny, as long as you want them.
Is it just me or has Mandy had a lot of screen time lately?
Someone may be moving up into the main cast…
We’ll get Grace too, if so (and this isn’t a wish for them to break up).
How many hair colors has Mandy had in DofA?
2. This one and red.
Everybody here discussing Joe and the comic and I’m just thinking, “I know those chords. I should try learning this song.”
BROS! BROS! BROS! BROS!
BROS! BROS…
BROS…
…
Why is everyone glaring at me?
for lack of anything else to talk about, Mandy wearing a crop top that’s a hoodie and shorts in what’s about mid-late Autumn is a whole lotta confusing information
Contemplating how Joe lives in a world where some people matter more than others, and their quality is determined only by their fuckability, and anyone who says different is just lying to themselves so they can live with their low numbers, is getting more and more sad to me. Let his lesson be swiftly forthcoming please.
Joe ran away from his problems by becoming a hyper-masculine lothario who rates every woman he sees in a quest to fuck as many of them as he can as soullessly as possible.
Danny ran away from his problems by donning a newsboy cap and learning how play meaningful songs on an adorable tiny guitar that’s painted his favorite color.
One of these boys needs to be “rehabrolitated” and it’s certainly not the one who feels like he needs to use that word.
*certainly IS the one who feels like he needs to use that word
I checked this sentence three times and didn’t catch that until it was too late. My point has been ruined!!
Anyway, Danny is a good egg.
I’m comfortable saying both are dealing with problems unhealthily, albeit one is far grosser.
Danny might be running away from some of his problems, but he’s confronting one of his other problems in the process.
Figuring out what the hell he wants to do with himself, and who he is? Those are both excellent things for him to be doing, even as a distraction from his relationship woes and/or concern about Amber. Hell, even if he ends up tossing this aside in a week for something else.
All the more so since having hobbies will help him cope with his relationship woes. Sometimes you need a distraction. Especially if the alternative is dwelling on something you can’t do anything about.
As long as he doesn’t try to avoid his problems forever, I’d say this is a healthy direction for Danny
On the plus side his way of running away from some of his problems, if he is doing so, at least isn’t particularly likely to harm anyone.
He definitely seems like he’s trying to make a new image for himself, which I mean is kind of what college is for most people anyways. I mean, even if he’s not going to be “the cool guy who plays an instrument”, at least he’s not Joeing it up, or going the Roomies route and being the “Bad Boy” as he loses more and more control of his life until tragedy results.
Whether Danny is actually being true to himself….well, that’ll probably be confronted sometime after Joe gets put through the gauntlet he unthinkingly created when he put his list online and started handing out the password to random strangers.
Passive Agressive Snark seems to hit deeper than just telling Joe not to do stuff though.
That said, Danny really needs to swap out that hoodie for like a vest or something if he wants to look snazzy in that hat.
The E chord is incredibly hard to play on a ukulele. If Danny is pulling it off already, leave him alone! He’s clearly a natural.
Too bad they don’t have enharmonic spell check.