Maybe he was about to take his daily vitamin (this IS roundabout breakfast time) when he answered a knock at the door, so he’s just been carrying them around?
I don’t think it’s for Liz.
I think that’s for Joyce.
I think we’re about to have the pleasure of seeing how Joyce behaves when she THINKS she’s high and can thus use it as an excuse later.
**makes popcorn**
Upon further consideration, my doubt is because I would never amuse myself by daring someone to take something that (as far as I know) actually is a drug – no matter how “harmless”, or how “hi-larious” watching them be affected by it – because they might.
But I’m old and boring and Liz is… well, see the strip title. Like most of the cast, she’s at the age where they’re still discovering things like “consequences”.
Powerful enough. My mother, in her wayward youth, drank most of the vodka in a bottle and filled it with water. My uncle got absolutely smashed on shots of the homeopathic vodka.
Oh! I hadn’t realized they’d gone into Joe’s room. That makes the vitamins make a lot more sense. Although, with this newly realized context and Sal pitching rocks at the window earlier, I’m going to transition over to saying that Joe’s having a really weird day this arc.
Vitamin gummies are my adhd brain’s way of tricking me into losing 6 hours of my life because I jumped online to try to find out whether this brand is vegetarian.
…. or is that just neurosis?
… Look, multivitamins = multiple brain disorders. It’s a fact, okay? I’ve proven it, it’s a fact now!
It’s more just she generally doesn’t like him, both for past… Joe-ness, and because I think it really got under her skin that he had the moral highground during the Jacob saga, and seeing him reminds her of that.
He also didn’t promote any good will from Sarah in their last significant interaction. What with the whole. “We’ll never be friends but maybe you can use me as a focus of anger” speech from Joe after pissing her off with a mildly sexist comeback.
Believing that your greatest, or only, value/utility to others is as something they can hate is a level of self-loathing I’d expect of… Amber, actually. 🙁
First panel: asking about her age makes it sound like he wants to have sex with her and checking to see if she’s at least 18, which is especially weird to ask Sarah since they’re sisters.
Second and third panel: Liz was born after Sarah’s parents’ divorce, so talking about their ages is implicitly asking, “How long did it take for your mom to start a new family?” I don’t think Joe means any of this, but I can see why it sounds bad. Plus, Sarah’s already in a bad mood (worse than usual).
Sarah and her sister share me and my older brother’s almost exact age difference. 16 months apart for me. No, I don’t know how my mom pulled that off. I also started school a year late. Huh.
My brother is 13 months younger than me. But I skipped a grade and graduated high school 2 years before him.
Also, my sister’s 2 youngest are, 14(? something like that) months apart.
Also, also, we had a neighbor whose 2 youngest were 9 months apart, because the youngest was born more than 2 months premature.
I went to school with a brother and sister who I thought were twins. Turns out he was born in January and she was born in November. Because the cutoff date for starting school where we lived was December 1, they were in the same grade.
My younger brother and I also have a sixteen month age difference. Although he had to repeat kindergarten so he was one more grade level behind me than expected.
My brother and I were born 15 months apart, and were always one grade apart in school, just like Sarah and her sister. My parents did want two kids, but they did NOT intend to have me so quickly after my brother.
Man, I envy all of you with the closely aged siblings. I’ve got seven years and eleven months between my sister and I. To the day. Hooo boy, that sucked a fat one.
My kids are 16 months/1 school grade apart because the oldest was born in October
Except the youngest child is smol and the oldest child is tol so they look like they’re 4-5 years apart, lol
My older brother and I are one year and one week apart but he was a preemie and I was a chunky baby so people thought we were twins for awhile.
Then he started balding when he was twenty and I still looked like a grade schooler when I was 19 so… People thought he was my dad.
My sister is 15 months younger than me but I kind of raised an eyebrow at Joe because I’ve never considered it really THAT weird. Like I had several classmates/friends with similar age gaps, though admittedly they were in bigger families than the two daughters my parents had.
Hard to say. After this strip, I’m starting to think she might be fronting almost as much as Joyce. Guess I’ll just have to tune in again tomorrow to see.
Seconded. Batman is a doucebag. Core fans will talk about a particular issue that credits the wayne foundation with supporting Arkham, but really, Bruce’s home town has what is consistently supported as the worst mental health institution in fiction. Instead of fixing that, Bruce Wayne spends millions on armouring and kitting up, so he can run around in the dark beating up mental health patients to work out his issues that he was an orphan.
The most annoying part of Batman for like the last 20 years is that we’ve all forgotten he’s a dude who suffered the worst tragedy a child can go through and so spends the rest of eternity tirelessly preventing the same tragedies from befalling everyone around him.
Um… you claimed that the worst thing to happen to a kid is being orphaned. Batman is largely irrelevant to that statement.
I respectfully, if teresely, disagreed. Then provided an example of something that is arguably worse that being orphaned. If being abused isn’t worse than being orphaned, then how about dying? Normally if one is to disagree, it’s reasonable to provide a reason why we do. Ergo, there are provided for the reader, other examples that are reasonably, “the worst tragedy a child can go through.” Hopefully experience with being disagreed with will make it easier to process. At any rate we simply have differing world views on some things (like orphans, batman, and so on). That’s ok.
Art is found in all forms. In literature, in pictures, and in both combined. Batman comics (and comics in general) are produced targetting a number of age demographics. Freedom of expression allows us to analyze and interpret them from different perspectives. Including it being respectable for someone to apply an adult perspective to what is claimed to be, “for children.” Beauty and truth are in the eye of the beholder, not the creator.
Obviously we can do as we please, but it’s definitely leads to weirdness to analyze children’s genre fiction (especially when produced over nearly a century now) as if it was meant to be realistic adult fiction. Even stranger when it gets written that way, while still meant to be part of the same broad continuity.
The problem isn’t that kids media or pulp media isn’t art, it’s the insecurity that creators and fans of those types of media feel that results in them pursuing surface level signifiers of depth or maturity rather than just letting a thing be a good version of itself.
He’s making a light observation about people having kids all in a row, but because Joe is…Or used to be Joe, Sarah assumes he’s either being gross or just won’t give him the benefit of the doubt.
Joe is relieved that Sarah’s mother was not non-stop pregnant for 18 months, which is a weird thing to think about, but I think Sarah’s annoyance is not specific to that, but just all of the unwanted interaction. Though, the brief thought that Joe was checking to make sure Liz was past the age of consent was part of that.
Men’s and women’s supplements often have different combinations and concentrations of vitamins and minerals. Not that they do most people much good in any case.
Yep, pretty much this. As a general rule if you’re in good-average health and eating a balanced diet, you don’t need dietary supplements at all. You’ll get all the vitamins and minerals you need from your food. You should only take supplements on the recommendation of your doctor or if you’re suffering from a deficiency (or a condition that causes said deficiency). Anything else and you’re basically just wasting your money on excess vitamins/minerals that your body will promptly excrete out anyway.
This definitely leads credence to the theory that Liz is equally as unknowledgeable about things as Joyce is, with the both of them trying to impress the other about how “worldly” they are.
I find cringe comedy really hard to watch with any character, period, likeable or not. I’m probably too empathetic for my own good in that regard. I tend to skip past the real cringe sections, or if it’s plot important I’ll turn sound off and only read the subtitles (somehow, that makes it marginally more tolerable).
It’s annoying because I recognise that, say, Fawlty Towers is funny and that the nasty hotel owner has brought this on himself, but I’m still like “Is there a way I can watch this without actually going through it?”
This. I found Dumb and Dumber palatable, because the leads were meant to be somewhat unpaletable. So it was easier to watch them suffer, much like Basil Fawlty. The cringe stuff that’s come after, has been with generally more sympathetic characters and is much, much harder to watch.
It’s actually a thing with neurodiversity such as ADHD and ASD. I personally find cringe stuff to be physically uncomfortable. It feels like my entire body is being compressed. I’ve seen a lot of ADHDers say similar.
Not to imply anything about you or anyone else who finds cringe uncomfortable, but yeah. It’s a thing.
I am definitely accursed with ADHD. My cousin is pretty sure I have ASD as well but I’m not so sure. Have not had any sort of official diagnosis though so
Tests keep coming back negative, but damn if cringe “comedy” doesn’t leave me climbing the back of my seat in discomfort. One more datapoint to feed the doc I suppose.
The cringe stuff I can’t deal with are the moments where the character is publicly humiliated and in a way that’s not so over the top that the inherent discomfort just kind of fades away.
That may run into sliding timescale issues. When did the term “edibles” for food with THC in it become common? I don’t recall it before states started legalizing it.
I have definitely known about it as a word for at least 10ish years from comedic movies but I have no firsthand experience with drugs, so it is likely old enough that Joyce could know it but whether she would have an accurate definition is… questionable. But then again, she also has a phone and internet access so she could learn if she really wanted to.
I grew up in Michigan, and back in the 60s/70s at least, I believe you had to be 5 on or before Sept 1st to enroll in Kindergarten. I’m pretty sure that’s why my sister was two grades behind me instead of one. No idea what it is now since I don’t have kids (nor live in that state anymore).
It was different in Michigan when I was a kid (90s), allowing me to start kindergarten when I was 4. Now I believe it’s been changed back, though I’m not sure.
It apparently depends on the state. In my experience, it was the same. We also had junior kindergarten so the September-December kids were 3 turning 4.
It’s not just football. Or even just sports.
Being most of year older and more mature throughout your school career is a pretty big advantage. You’ll very likely do better academically, as well as be bigger and more physically developed for sports.
Yes, people whose birthdays are closest to the start of the cut off for their sport of choice, are more likely to succeed at it. Or more correctly, those who have succeeded at a sport, are disproportiinately represented by having their birthdays be close to the start of the cut-off for their cohort.
So ever since I started reading Roomies, I’ve started to notice neat little background details like the posters in Danny & Joe’s wall. I’ve always known Willis paid attention to detail but goddamn this is commitment.
In this case more likely to sell men’s for more and market them as being super useful for working out. Which is why I’m not remotely surprised at Joe having them.
Only seen vitamins as gummies for kids here though, but it’s not like I go looking.
Yeah, they make gummies so potent with masculinity that women can’t consume them. If a woman puts one in her mouth her titties fall off and a ballsack drops out of her vagina. This is the true origin of the phrase “your balls have dropped.”
they’re a little different to make up for… uh… differences in lost bodily fluids, mostly. i think women’s might have more calcium or vitamin d or something too.
there’s also children’s, senior’s, and prenatal. i don’t know what’s different about them. the beauty multis are basically a crapton of biotin and some other stuff you don’t need an entire vitamin for if you’re eating food.
“If you’re eating food” being the key words. It seems like the demographic ‘beauty supplements’ are marketed to may be more prone to eating disorders than the populace in general. :/
Could also be absorption issues, depending, but I’d expect that more from things like iron than ‘beauty supplements’, yeah.
That and supplements are a weird and not particularly well-regulated field in a lot of cases. Wouldn’t be shocked if a lot of them aren’t actually in need of whatever nutrient, but you can sell it as TOTALLY necessary and helpful and you don’t actually have to see a doctor to confirm things are low to buy the supplements.
I remember a few years ago, one brand was marketed to late Gen-Xers and early Millennials as “gummies for grown-ups”. Because I guess swallowing a pill the size of a pea is difficult?
Could this arc be the start of a better relationship between Joe and Sarah? I know it’s difficult. But maybe being the responsible people in this situation might bring them closer.
Hi guys and gals, a bit off topic but I have a question: is there a way to search for all the comments I have made here in the comments sections? I’m pretty sure I have made other comments before, but searching day by day is… you know… slow lol
I just wanted to say that, while I think Joyce’s plan here is terrible for multiple reasons, kudos to Joe for Getting It, and finding a way to keep it going if that’s what Joyce wants. I feel like This Time Last Year Joe would have exposed the deception, either because he hadn’t bothered figuring out what was going on or had and wanted to upset her.
I think at this point Joe’s more likely to corner Joyce with a “what the hell are you doing, this isn’t you” interrogation than to just outright spoil it himself.
Really? When I run across siblings that seem really close in age, I wonder how their poor mother managed to handle it. In particular, I always boggled at my poor grandmother managing to crank out five kids in six years.
I mean, jeeze … give yourself a chance to recover, for fuck’s sake.
…okay, think the reveal here is gonna be that Liz is *also* not nearly as cool as Joyce is thinking she is. I was thinking Liz was just letting Joyce talk out of politeness, but I think being handed a men’s multivitamin and not immediately realizing it’s not an edible is… a sign that she’s maybe not as wild as Joyce thinks she is.
I think they’re both faking to try and impress each other!
It is slang for food with marijuana in it specifically as that is an edible form of it instead of having to smoke it. Most stereotypically it is baked into brownies, but people do makes gummies with it too.
Actually, the edibles sold in SW Michigan dispensaries is fairly potent edibles, last for like 5-9 hours. They are gummies, mine were just squares. It is conceivable that weed edible gummies could be floating around the dorms, it’s only a few hours’ drive to MI dispensaries.
Had a thought about the recent Sal/Danny strips: there’s a real interesting parallel between Sal and Jennifer right now.
Sal went to go see Asher and he and his entourage were talking about how they were all settling down and growing up like real adults even though they’re like 20 tops. This is a really common narrative, where you have your wild crazy parties and once you’re over them you’re a real adult, but it’s transparently obvious that they’re all immature kids playing pretend to make themselves feel big. That doesn’t mean they’re villains or particularly bad people, but it’s pretty obviously insincere and misguided.
Sal, meanwhile, is someone who’s come to realize she values that comfort and structure Asher and co. were talking about, except it’s not about telling herself it’s “adult”, it’s that her life has been chaotic and deprived of affection for so long that she can earnestly seek someone out who gives her that comfort and structure.
Beautifully put Spencer. I would summarize it as Ms. Billingsworth is fronting while Sal is doing, but they are both striving for that thing which superficially looks the same.
It is conceivable that a college student in Indiana might have marijuana edibles from a dispensary in SW Michigan that can get you hiiiiiigh if you eat a bunch. Just one on an inexperienced user could get you fairly high, experienced maybe lightly buzzed. I don’t know about Placebo effect. But this is what is meant here.
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the best edibles
gummies are Top Tier amongst things that can be eaten
Though they are always better when long.
Wow. I just went on a *journey*. And I have no regrets.
Savor it. You can only watch long long man for the first time once in your life.
Ok, I suppose, that goes for many things, but this is one of the few I definitely wish I could take in again with a blank slate.
That was worth every minute.
… I thought I’d seen them all already, but that video was about 2 minutes longer than I’ve ever lived before and I’m a more complete person for it
YESSSSSSSSSSSSS I HOPED WHEN I CLICKED AND IT ISSSSS
That was incredible.
I knew this was going to be that. And I’m so so happy I spent these 6 minutes watching it too
I… what? Yes! Good, but also… what?
Clap. Clap. Clap.
They may blow her mind, but it’s still neither of them blowing Joe.
…
Why does Joe have those *on his person?*
Maybe he was about to take his daily vitamin (this IS roundabout breakfast time) when he answered a knock at the door, so he’s just been carrying them around?
+1
I would also have accepted “spooky comic book action at a distance.”
Well this is his dorm room.
It looks like he’s in arm’s reach of the desk, or they could have been sitting on the mini-fridge next to the door.
https://www.dumbingofage.com/2021/comic/book-11/03-see-you-in-the-funny-page/rainorsunshine/
It is his dorm room. Probably on a desk behind him, and we just skipped the panel where he turns around for pacing.
Liz ’bout to get fuuucked up on 150% of her daily recommended Selenium intake.
I don’t think it’s for Liz.
I think that’s for Joyce.
I think we’re about to have the pleasure of seeing how Joyce behaves when she THINKS she’s high and can thus use it as an excuse later.
**makes popcorn**
That was my first thought too, but how would Liz know it’s not “really” an edible?
If Liz ever had an edible before and tasted it she should know. Joyce would not know.
Upon further consideration, my doubt is because I would never amuse myself by daring someone to take something that (as far as I know) actually is a drug – no matter how “harmless”, or how “hi-larious” watching them be affected by it – because they might.
But I’m old and boring and Liz is… well, see the strip title. Like most of the cast, she’s at the age where they’re still discovering things like “consequences”.
No no, the strip titled “consequences” is another one
Now, just how powerful is the Placebo Effect?
Powerful enough. My mother, in her wayward youth, drank most of the vodka in a bottle and filled it with water. My uncle got absolutely smashed on shots of the homeopathic vodka.
Given that I don’t think Liz or Joyce KNOW what affect THC is supposed to have, and are already kinda hyper about meeting each other?
I’m pretty sure that the placebo effect’s going to have them bouncing here and there and everywhere.
*runs from the three people who got that reference and now have the song stuck in their head*
Bouncing here and there and everywheeeere
ah yes, been a while.
For the record, I’m running from the three people who didn’t need the link. Crotonhurst is running from everyone else.
But only in the best slow jam sort of running
That is at least one successful Bluff check.
Bluff: 4
Insight: 3
Joe doesn’t really seem like a weed type to me anyway.
Nutrition is the ultimate high
But where was he keeping them…!?
This arc is already a trip.
Since this is his room presumably like the counter or something.
Oh! I hadn’t realized they’d gone into Joe’s room. That makes the vitamins make a lot more sense. Although, with this newly realized context and Sal pitching rocks at the window earlier, I’m going to transition over to saying that Joe’s having a really weird day this arc.
Why and how the hell did they… ooohh wait, didn’t joyce say she was taking Liz to meet Joe?
Ah.. It’s Sarah’s fault (not really)
Is that a multivitamin jar in his pocket or…
Vitamin gummies are my way of tricking my adhd brain into taking meds
Vitamin gummies are my adhd brain’s way of tricking me into losing 6 hours of my life because I jumped online to try to find out whether this brand is vegetarian.
…. or is that just neurosis?
… Look, multivitamins = multiple brain disorders. It’s a fact, okay? I’ve proven it, it’s a fact now!
Yay for Science?
😛 I definitely am channeling too much Joe here, but in my defense, I do draw some saucy stuff sometimes so it’s good to know.
Not getting one for Joyce?
…or only getting one for Joyce…
Or sharing. A lot of people will section a gummy, because they are often so insanely potent.
What did Joe say wrong this time?
could someone explain for those of us who are slow?
It’s more just she generally doesn’t like him, both for past… Joe-ness, and because I think it really got under her skin that he had the moral highground during the Jacob saga, and seeing him reminds her of that.
They’re also just uncomfortably personal remarks from a dude you just generally don’t like.
He also didn’t promote any good will from Sarah in their last significant interaction. What with the whole. “We’ll never be friends but maybe you can use me as a focus of anger” speech from Joe after pissing her off with a mildly sexist comeback.
Believing that your greatest, or only, value/utility to others is as something they can hate is a level of self-loathing I’d expect of… Amber, actually. 🙁
Nah, Amber wouldn’t like being the focus of so much attention.
Maybe Mike? No, he valued being perceptive and puncturing bubbles, and the hate was just proof that he was good at his job. (And maybe funny.)
Maybe Ruth or Billie, at previous points in the story?
Uh, StClair, it’s not, only it is, but it isn’t. It’s complicated.
First panel: asking about her age makes it sound like he wants to have sex with her and checking to see if she’s at least 18, which is especially weird to ask Sarah since they’re sisters.
Second and third panel: Liz was born after Sarah’s parents’ divorce, so talking about their ages is implicitly asking, “How long did it take for your mom to start a new family?” I don’t think Joe means any of this, but I can see why it sounds bad. Plus, Sarah’s already in a bad mood (worse than usual).
I doubt Joe knows that Liz is her half-sister, so he’s just reacting to them being that close in age.
I think it’s really impressive that Joe did the edible thing without missing a beat. He’s pretty quick.
I’m sure he would be sure to point out that he’s quick in *some* things.
Sarah and her sister share me and my older brother’s almost exact age difference. 16 months apart for me. No, I don’t know how my mom pulled that off. I also started school a year late. Huh.
My brother is 13 months younger than me. But I skipped a grade and graduated high school 2 years before him.
Also, my sister’s 2 youngest are, 14(? something like that) months apart.
Also, also, we had a neighbor whose 2 youngest were 9 months apart, because the youngest was born more than 2 months premature.
I went to school with a brother and sister who I thought were twins. Turns out he was born in January and she was born in November. Because the cutoff date for starting school where we lived was December 1, they were in the same grade.
My younger brother and I also have a sixteen month age difference. Although he had to repeat kindergarten so he was one more grade level behind me than expected.
My brother and I were born 15 months apart, and were always one grade apart in school, just like Sarah and her sister. My parents did want two kids, but they did NOT intend to have me so quickly after my brother.
Man, I envy all of you with the closely aged siblings. I’ve got seven years and eleven months between my sister and I. To the day. Hooo boy, that sucked a fat one.
My grandma had her third child, then 11 months later she had twins.
My sister is 359 days younger than me.
My kids are 16 months/1 school grade apart because the oldest was born in October
Except the youngest child is smol and the oldest child is tol so they look like they’re 4-5 years apart, lol
My older brother and I are one year and one week apart but he was a preemie and I was a chunky baby so people thought we were twins for awhile.
Then he started balding when he was twenty and I still looked like a grade schooler when I was 19 so… People thought he was my dad.
It has been a wild ride.
My brother was on the big side for his age, and I was a little short, so people frequently thought we were twins.
My sister is 15 months younger than me but I kind of raised an eyebrow at Joe because I’ve never considered it really THAT weird. Like I had several classmates/friends with similar age gaps, though admittedly they were in bigger families than the two daughters my parents had.
I really wonder if Liz is naive and talking a mean game, or if everyone here is humoring Joyce on multiple levels.
Hard to say. After this strip, I’m starting to think she might be fronting almost as much as Joyce. Guess I’ll just have to tune in again tomorrow to see.
Reminds me of when Becky did the same thing to Joyce.
This is going to get very interesting if Liz is into Joyce.
I think this is the moment where we start to realize both she and Joyce are a little not-on-the-level.
I thought Liz was humoring Joyce last strip, but now I’m not so sure.
OK, not entirely getting the “Nice Guy ->” shirt thing. Huh?
It’s like an “I’m with stupid” thing
He was probably counting on having Danny stand to his left. But Danny is elsewhere.
He’s not used to Danny having Things To Do™.
That’s rude. She’s a person, and her name is Sal.
I guess you could say Danny… left.
And the reason that Sal wanted him to leave with her is that he’s an unironically nice guy.
Liz is too sober for Bad Girl Joyce.
Joe’s really Zinced to a new low here.
The past participle of zinc, is zunc.
I don’t know whether to quote David Bowie or the Flintstone vitamins jingle. 😐 Maybe neither.
Bowie covering the Flintstones vitamin jingle?
Batman is not a nice guy.
Batman is the nicest guy.
the tick is definitely nicer.
But can he breathe in space?
Seconded. Batman is a doucebag. Core fans will talk about a particular issue that credits the wayne foundation with supporting Arkham, but really, Bruce’s home town has what is consistently supported as the worst mental health institution in fiction. Instead of fixing that, Bruce Wayne spends millions on armouring and kitting up, so he can run around in the dark beating up mental health patients to work out his issues that he was an orphan.
Yeah it’s because he’s a cartoon superhero and thus solves superhero problems.
Why the hell would anyone write a Batman story that invalidates the premise of Batman.
The most annoying part of Batman for like the last 20 years is that we’ve all forgotten he’s a dude who suffered the worst tragedy a child can go through and so spends the rest of eternity tirelessly preventing the same tragedies from befalling everyone around him.
Disagree. Being orphaned is not the worst tragedy. There are plenty of kids who would be blessed to be orphaned. Child abuse is awful to live through.
I don’t even know how to process this post
Do you think there’s an objective metric for suffering personal tragedy or something
Like I think “suffering the death of your loving parents before your eyes” is probably the most primal and widely understood fear a kid can have
So I don’t know how you decided to jump from that conversation about this children’s fantasy character into “yeah well what about abusive parents”
I think “being orphaned is not the worst tragedy” made me phase out of this material universe
Um… you claimed that the worst thing to happen to a kid is being orphaned. Batman is largely irrelevant to that statement.
I respectfully, if teresely, disagreed. Then provided an example of something that is arguably worse that being orphaned. If being abused isn’t worse than being orphaned, then how about dying? Normally if one is to disagree, it’s reasonable to provide a reason why we do. Ergo, there are provided for the reader, other examples that are reasonably, “the worst tragedy a child can go through.” Hopefully experience with being disagreed with will make it easier to process. At any rate we simply have differing world views on some things (like orphans, batman, and so on). That’s ok.
Please stop talking to me.
Most Batmans are assholes though. Like he is generally noy portrayed as anything resembling a nice dude
Yeah lowest common denominator Batman gets written badly all the time.
This is because grown-ass dudes don’t want to admit Batman is for children.
Art is found in all forms. In literature, in pictures, and in both combined. Batman comics (and comics in general) are produced targetting a number of age demographics. Freedom of expression allows us to analyze and interpret them from different perspectives. Including it being respectable for someone to apply an adult perspective to what is claimed to be, “for children.” Beauty and truth are in the eye of the beholder, not the creator.
Obviously we can do as we please, but it’s definitely leads to weirdness to analyze children’s genre fiction (especially when produced over nearly a century now) as if it was meant to be realistic adult fiction. Even stranger when it gets written that way, while still meant to be part of the same broad continuity.
The problem isn’t that kids media or pulp media isn’t art, it’s the insecurity that creators and fans of those types of media feel that results in them pursuing surface level signifiers of depth or maturity rather than just letting a thing be a good version of itself.
I don’t understand the “summer off” comment and why Sarah is so angry about it. Can someone explain please? Thanks
He’s implying that she had “time off” from being pregnant, I think. Which is probably just to wind Sarah up a bit more.
He’s making a light observation about people having kids all in a row, but because Joe is…Or used to be Joe, Sarah assumes he’s either being gross or just won’t give him the benefit of the doubt.
Joe is relieved that Sarah’s mother was not non-stop pregnant for 18 months, which is a weird thing to think about, but I think Sarah’s annoyance is not specific to that, but just all of the unwanted interaction. Though, the brief thought that Joe was checking to make sure Liz was past the age of consent was part of that.
What makes the gummies for men? Are they black in colour or something?
Different amounts of different vitamins than the “For women” gummy vitamins.
Very, very slightly different.
Also, branding.
MOre saw palmetto, less iron, for starters.
Men’s and women’s supplements often have different combinations and concentrations of vitamins and minerals. Not that they do most people much good in any case.
Yep, pretty much this. As a general rule if you’re in good-average health and eating a balanced diet, you don’t need dietary supplements at all. You’ll get all the vitamins and minerals you need from your food. You should only take supplements on the recommendation of your doctor or if you’re suffering from a deficiency (or a condition that causes said deficiency). Anything else and you’re basically just wasting your money on excess vitamins/minerals that your body will promptly excrete out anyway.
…How many students have a balanced diet though?
Chicken flavor ramen is balanced by sesame chicken flavor ramen.
you can see they’re not black because there’s an orange one 😛
careful, if you take men’s gummies as a lady you may girlboss uncontrollably hard
https://imgur.com/a/uH7Eohz
oops my pen slipped.
Joe still with the glassy “I have no idea what is going on here” thousand-yard stare.
One man’s pen slip is everyone else’s blessing. I’m not sure who looks less comfortable in that drawing, Joe or Joyce.
Oooops!
Joe in this pic: totally okay with being an object, please continue objectifying me
for a moment i thought joyce was dorothy and i was confused.
Nice slip of the pen there.
I love how Joe’s just standing there like
“Welp. That just happened.”
\
:^|
You need to get some grippier gloves, Yoto.
*follows link*
Oh hey ya know nevermind
Solid gold as always Yotomoe!
Oh please, yes, this is gonna be hilarious.
This definitely leads credence to the theory that Liz is equally as unknowledgeable about things as Joyce is, with the both of them trying to impress the other about how “worldly” they are.
Which is funny but also I’m cringing still.
I find it both hilarious and dying of secondhand embarassment.
I find cringe comedy really hard to watch with any character who is even remotely likeable.
I find cringe comedy really hard to watch with any character, period, likeable or not. I’m probably too empathetic for my own good in that regard. I tend to skip past the real cringe sections, or if it’s plot important I’ll turn sound off and only read the subtitles (somehow, that makes it marginally more tolerable).
That makes it more tolerable because it takes the tone of voice out.
+1
It’s annoying because I recognise that, say, Fawlty Towers is funny and that the nasty hotel owner has brought this on himself, but I’m still like “Is there a way I can watch this without actually going through it?”
This. I found Dumb and Dumber palatable, because the leads were meant to be somewhat unpaletable. So it was easier to watch them suffer, much like Basil Fawlty. The cringe stuff that’s come after, has been with generally more sympathetic characters and is much, much harder to watch.
It’s actually a thing with neurodiversity such as ADHD and ASD. I personally find cringe stuff to be physically uncomfortable. It feels like my entire body is being compressed. I’ve seen a lot of ADHDers say similar.
Not to imply anything about you or anyone else who finds cringe uncomfortable, but yeah. It’s a thing.
I am definitely accursed with ADHD. My cousin is pretty sure I have ASD as well but I’m not so sure. Have not had any sort of official diagnosis though so
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
They’re pretty tightly linked, or so I’ve been told.
I was diagnosed with ASD in late 2018 and this year got an ADHD diagnosis.
Tests keep coming back negative, but damn if cringe “comedy” doesn’t leave me climbing the back of my seat in discomfort. One more datapoint to feed the doc I suppose.
The cringe stuff I can’t deal with are the moments where the character is publicly humiliated and in a way that’s not so over the top that the inherent discomfort just kind of fades away.
Oh, what a tangled web we weave
When first we practice to deceive.
I thought Liz might be humoring Joyce in yesterday’s strip, but this strip definitely has me thinking Liz is about as unknowledgeable as Joyce.
Probably not quite as unknowledgable, since I’m pretty darn sure Joyce has no idea what “an edible” is. (I figured it out from context.)
I thought joyce might have been taught was an edible was as part of her christian upbringing/schooling.
“Look at what those godless commie hippie atheists are doing… Putting drugs in candy!”
That may run into sliding timescale issues. When did the term “edibles” for food with THC in it become common? I don’t recall it before states started legalizing it.
I have definitely known about it as a word for at least 10ish years from comedic movies but I have no firsthand experience with drugs, so it is likely old enough that Joyce could know it but whether she would have an accurate definition is… questionable. But then again, she also has a phone and internet access so she could learn if she really wanted to.
Looks like Joe got on Sarah’s good side for once.
It’s a good thing those weren’t Flintstones gummy vitamins, or else their terrible power would have overwhelmed Liz and destroyed her from within.
I think we’ve hit peak grumpy Sarah.
Strange … I was born in November and I was allowed to start kindergarten when I was four years old (well, four years, nine months)….
I grew up in Michigan, and back in the 60s/70s at least, I believe you had to be 5 on or before Sept 1st to enroll in Kindergarten. I’m pretty sure that’s why my sister was two grades behind me instead of one. No idea what it is now since I don’t have kids (nor live in that state anymore).
It was different in Michigan when I was a kid (90s), allowing me to start kindergarten when I was 4. Now I believe it’s been changed back, though I’m not sure.
It apparently depends on the state. In my experience, it was the same. We also had junior kindergarten so the September-December kids were 3 turning 4.
I think where I grew up the rule was if you would be 5 on 31 December, you could start school the previous September.
Unless your parents wanted to hold you back a year so you’d be bigger for high school football.
In Ontario now, parents can choose, if their kids are in the Sept-Dec range, to start their kids that year or the one after.
It’s not just football. Or even just sports.
Being most of year older and more mature throughout your school career is a pretty big advantage. You’ll very likely do better academically, as well as be bigger and more physically developed for sports.
Yes, people whose birthdays are closest to the start of the cut off for their sport of choice, are more likely to succeed at it. Or more correctly, those who have succeeded at a sport, are disproportiinately represented by having their birthdays be close to the start of the cut-off for their cohort.
But again, it’s not just sports.
oh absolutely. Sports just provide a convenient source of well supported data for the phenomenon.
That sure helps to explain why Sarah acts like she’s soooo much older than everyone else….
So ever since I started reading Roomies, I’ve started to notice neat little background details like the posters in Danny & Joe’s wall. I’ve always known Willis paid attention to detail but goddamn this is commitment.
I didn’t know they made gummies specifically for men.
They do. Also for women.
They’re basically the same, for reasons you’d expect.
So they can charge twice as much for the women’s version? (seems to be the reason behind soap/shampoo/shaving cream/etc)
In this case more likely to sell men’s for more and market them as being super useful for working out. Which is why I’m not remotely surprised at Joe having them.
Only seen vitamins as gummies for kids here though, but it’s not like I go looking.
They taste like crap, unfortunately.
Yeah, they make gummies so potent with masculinity that women can’t consume them. If a woman puts one in her mouth her titties fall off and a ballsack drops out of her vagina. This is the true origin of the phrase “your balls have dropped.”
they’re a little different to make up for… uh… differences in lost bodily fluids, mostly. i think women’s might have more calcium or vitamin d or something too.
there’s also children’s, senior’s, and prenatal. i don’t know what’s different about them. the beauty multis are basically a crapton of biotin and some other stuff you don’t need an entire vitamin for if you’re eating food.
“If you’re eating food” being the key words. It seems like the demographic ‘beauty supplements’ are marketed to may be more prone to eating disorders than the populace in general. :/
Could also be absorption issues, depending, but I’d expect that more from things like iron than ‘beauty supplements’, yeah.
That and supplements are a weird and not particularly well-regulated field in a lot of cases. Wouldn’t be shocked if a lot of them aren’t actually in need of whatever nutrient, but you can sell it as TOTALLY necessary and helpful and you don’t actually have to see a doctor to confirm things are low to buy the supplements.
Women’s multivitamins have more iron in them than men’s.
I remember a few years ago, one brand was marketed to late Gen-Xers and early Millennials as “gummies for grown-ups”. Because I guess swallowing a pill the size of a pea is difficult?
What’s next, adult-size Flintstones chewables?
Well… they aren’t _not_ for adults.
Could this arc be the start of a better relationship between Joe and Sarah? I know it’s difficult. But maybe being the responsible people in this situation might bring them closer.
Joe’s strategy with Sarah is kind of … lateral. But it seems to be working. What we do not know is what Joe wants his relationship with Sarah to be.
MANLY VITAMINS FOR MEN!
VITAMEN!
vitameatavegeMEN
Why is Batman not taged?
No one sees him come. No one sees him go. He is The Night.
Ohhh ok so they’re both faking it
Hi guys and gals, a bit off topic but I have a question: is there a way to search for all the comments I have made here in the comments sections? I’m pretty sure I have made other comments before, but searching day by day is… you know… slow lol
There’s always the Google with whatever term:
Marrow site:www.dumbingofage.com
should make things a bit easier.
Linked Marrow’s comment pages on DoA.
that… does not look like a properly formatted link.
Smart, thank you ValdVin!
LOL I was able to find this old comment of mine with another nickname https://www.dumbingofage.com/2015/comic/book-5/02-threes-a-crowd/dangerous/#comment-547490
DoA Book 12: You Can Unsheathe Your Ugliness
I just wanted to say that, while I think Joyce’s plan here is terrible for multiple reasons, kudos to Joe for Getting It, and finding a way to keep it going if that’s what Joyce wants. I feel like This Time Last Year Joe would have exposed the deception, either because he hadn’t bothered figuring out what was going on or had and wanted to upset her.
I think at this point Joe’s more likely to corner Joyce with a “what the hell are you doing, this isn’t you” interrogation than to just outright spoil it himself.
The suspense is terrible. … I hope it lasts.
-Wilder/Wonka
That’s… not something people usually think about, Joe.
And if they do think about it, they keep it between their ears.
Really? When I run across siblings that seem really close in age, I wonder how their poor mother managed to handle it. In particular, I always boggled at my poor grandmother managing to crank out five kids in six years.
I mean, jeeze … give yourself a chance to recover, for fuck’s sake.
Well maybe their choices were made, indeed, for fuck’s sake.
JOE: “I keep these for Joyce when she has her occasional urges to ‘try the hard stuff’.”
SARAH: “Does she know that you’re just giving her vitamins?”
JOE: “I… honestly don’t know.”
+1 Internet
It’s all “these edibles ain’t shit” until the lycopene hits
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mDaXfU_58GI
Sarah: Dude, did you just DOSE my little sister?
Joe: She ASKED me for it! And, there’s like, no drugs in it!
Sarah: Placebo effect, dude!
…okay, think the reveal here is gonna be that Liz is *also* not nearly as cool as Joyce is thinking she is. I was thinking Liz was just letting Joyce talk out of politeness, but I think being handed a men’s multivitamin and not immediately realizing it’s not an edible is… a sign that she’s maybe not as wild as Joyce thinks she is.
I think they’re both faking to try and impress each other!
ah, right, an “edible” is a slang for drug in english. Weirdo language.
It is slang for food with marijuana in it specifically as that is an edible form of it instead of having to smoke it. Most stereotypically it is baked into brownies, but people do makes gummies with it too.
Well to be fair, it is Angle-ish.
Actually, the edibles sold in SW Michigan dispensaries is fairly potent edibles, last for like 5-9 hours. They are gummies, mine were just squares. It is conceivable that weed edible gummies could be floating around the dorms, it’s only a few hours’ drive to MI dispensaries.
Had a thought about the recent Sal/Danny strips: there’s a real interesting parallel between Sal and Jennifer right now.
Sal went to go see Asher and he and his entourage were talking about how they were all settling down and growing up like real adults even though they’re like 20 tops. This is a really common narrative, where you have your wild crazy parties and once you’re over them you’re a real adult, but it’s transparently obvious that they’re all immature kids playing pretend to make themselves feel big. That doesn’t mean they’re villains or particularly bad people, but it’s pretty obviously insincere and misguided.
Sal, meanwhile, is someone who’s come to realize she values that comfort and structure Asher and co. were talking about, except it’s not about telling herself it’s “adult”, it’s that her life has been chaotic and deprived of affection for so long that she can earnestly seek someone out who gives her that comfort and structure.
TLDR: Sal wins again, Billie.
Beautifully put Spencer. I would summarize it as Ms. Billingsworth is fronting while Sal is doing, but they are both striving for that thing which superficially looks the same.
It is conceivable that a college student in Indiana might have marijuana edibles from a dispensary in SW Michigan that can get you hiiiiiigh if you eat a bunch. Just one on an inexperienced user could get you fairly high, experienced maybe lightly buzzed. I don’t know about Placebo effect. But this is what is meant here.
Is anyone else weirded out by the art? Sarah’s better rendered than usual,but Joe isn’t?