As a chronically I’ll/disabled person, I basically have to shower at night cause the entire concept of “starting my day” with a shower is completely inaccessible to me. Sometimes showering takes basically all of my spoons and physical exertion so if it was the first thing I tried to do that day, I’d basically be able to do nothing else.
If I shower at night, I have to wait hours before I go to bed, or my hair and beard will be all weird in the morning. And ten minutes in a hot shower wakes me up better than trying to sleep for another ten minutes.
Well, one thing that stuck from being in the Army for 20 years was keeping my hair pretty short. So, out of the shower, towel off my head, and it’s dry in 10 minutes. My beard is pretty short too.
I also prefer evening showers. I don’t care if I’m stank-XL all day, but I can’t go to sleep when I’m sweaty and/or grimy.
I need the transition to tell my brain the day has started. Plus its so easy to get hot and sweaty during sleep where I live, i feel gross not showering after I wake up. The ideal would be morning and evening ig but my eczema would not appreciate that
I used to do morning showers because that’s how I was taught, but it was always an agonizingly long process because I’d spend 15-30 minutes nodding off under the downpour
Then one summer I got a job as a dishwasher, and when I came home not only did I feel covered in grime, but I could not convince myself to get into bed with that grime still on me, so I’d basically shower when I got home
Arguably, it was still a “morning” shower since I was working close shifts, and that would keep me until 2amish, but I quickly turned into an evening showerer. Saved me time overall too since I was awake and eager to feel clean again
Um… Why? Seriously, I don’t get why people like Roz-the-person, or even really, Roz-the-character. Her politics are generally spot-on, but she’s, like, literally the worst advocate possible for them. And the worst part is, she’s never seriously called out for her conduct. The closest was Leslie shutting her down in class, and even then, there was no actual recognition on Roz’s part that she’d been out of line.
Roz is what you’d get if Mary were a hyper-progessive.
She’s *waiting* to be called out on her B.S. is the problem…But, yes, it would be nice if everybody started to sarcastically call her “Jane Fonda” or comment about how she’s basically an obligatory 4-year college student cliche as if she was in the middle of another adolescent ‘phase’…Or call her “Short Robin DeSanto”. That would set her off.
That is an interesting choice for “Roz has been called out for her conduct”. Which part of “made a consensual sex tape with an enthusiastically consensual partner” needed calling out? (Visual gag about having taped the camera to Danny’s unconscious foot notwithstanding.)
I think consent of having the tape released was given after the fact which is not how you go about releasing a sex tape, also you shouldnt film a sex tape when all parties (Dany being party) did not consent The issue with Roz it seems to be she acts before she thinks, and her poltics and overall goals are in my opinion correct her attitude of devil takes the hindmost, when it comes to achieving said aims and her quick judgments of folks and knowitallism can be frustrating. She is not villainous though.
I mean she correctly gauged that Joe would be fine with it tho, and Danny was asleep and not on camera, so.
My comment remains directed at tbf. Consciously or not, they seem to have internalized the idea that the sex tape itself was something Roz deserved backlash for, and I think that’s worth examining.
By ‘calling out’, I mean as part of the narrative, being forced to consider her own actions in some fashion. It never happens; people who disagree with her are summarily dismissed, every time. The closest she’s ever come to being shown as losing an argument was, again, the scene with Leslie, and even then she only conceded to a withdrawal, never actually acknowledged the original point that Leslie was trying to make (namely, that the purpose of the class was not to call out individual fellow students for their perceived lack of progressive credentials).
Getting rebuked by authority is not the same thing as getting called out on your actions by the narrative itself. Compare, say, Joe being forced to confront the actual effects of his horndog misogyny, or Walky being smacked upside the head with a clue-by-four about his lax study habits.
On the other hand, consider that Joe and Walky are major characters, and Roz is not. She’s been tagged in a grand total of 134 comics, and how many of those appearances lasted for more than one strip consecutively?
I’d also argue that the narrative doesn’t back Roz up as often as you say. All of the Roz Moments I can think of off the top of my head actually have her failing to achieve or goals or embarrassing herself or being told to shut up and go away. Getting called out by Leslie, yes, but also the sex tape gambit didn’t work out the way she wanted it to, nor did her attempt to hook Leslie up with Robin. She didn’t win the RA position and she really embarrassed herself with Joyce after the frat party, though she didn’t know it at the time. Trying to teach Leslie’s class also didn’t really work out the way she wanted it to or paint her in a flattering light, apart from a brief acknowledgement that Joe’s misogyny still sucked.
Like. Just because she has a point sometimes doesn’t mean the narrative is always on her side.
Okay, but then Raidah’s been in only 73 strips, and she’s already had a major setback as a result of the narrative (breaking up with Jacob). I will concede that we’ve gotten little by way of an actual arc about her–but that’s actually one of the things I find frustrating about her, as a character. She doesn’t seem to have any development at all–but she’s constantly thrust into situations of interacting with the main cast as if she were one of them.
Huh.
So, weird thing, here. I was doing an archive-dig to see where Mike’s character development was at 134 appearances, just as a baseline comparison point (since Mike is, per Word of God, the character who was so one-note that he simply couldn’t continue to be useful to the strip). And we did have some strong indications of just how loyal he was to Ethan and Amber, a personal connection unlike anything we’ve seen from Roz.
But then, I was reading adjacent strips, because I do enjoy this comic, and some of those older ones still make me giggle.
This is exactly the sort of thing I’d like to see from Roz. It’s a pity I forgot about it, but then again, that’s not entirely my fault, since what is arguably her greatest character growth happened off-screen, and in the third person.
Oh, I like villainous villains. That’s kind of my point, actually. Roz is presented and framed as a hero. Her actions are generally lauded in the story, as at least well-intentioned and at worst “correct, but tactless”. But I’ve seen no evidence that she’s not as much of a malignant narcissist as Mary, yet she never gets treated as one.
Really not a fan of narcissist being used in this way. Maybe someday when the actual personality disorder isn’t so highly stigmatized, but for now I strongly prefer just calling people (and characters) self-absorbed/self-righteous/whatever more specific thing you mean.
Anyway, I’d say the evidence for that is… kind of all over Roz’s appearances, so I’m not sure how else to respond. She’s repeatedly demonstrated concern for Joyce’s well-being even though they’re not even slightly friends, for one. For another, before we can put someone in Mary’s league, I think they have to be smugly declaring their superiority to other characters on panel, and the closest Roz has ever gotten to that was her “everyone’s a centrist compared to me” line, which. Nah. That was just her briefly being a very realistic teenager.
(And for her age, like, her politics are light years ahead of the curve. I’m sure it helps that she grew up with a politically ambitious sister to rail against, really gave that adolescent rebelliousness a concrete direction to rebel in. She exhibits some black and white thinking and oversimplifies people who disagree with her politically, but like. Give her five years. I don’t think the readership of this comic would measure up very favorably if they compared themselves at nineteen to Roz; I know I wouldn’t have.)
Narcissism is one of those things that can both be considered a personality disorder, and a personality trait; the latter is far more common, of course, and usually doesn’t actually inhibit the person from living life the way the actual disorder can. But in the interest of continuing a discussion I’m enjoying, I’ll defer to you on this–‘self-absorbed/self-centered’ covers it closely enough.
As for her concern about Joyce… I don’t think she has demonstrated concern about Joyce. Her interactions on that front have been largely stock responses that often missed the mark precisely because she has made no effort whatsoever to engage Joyce as a person. She gave advice on the pill before finding out why Joyce was taking it, and she spouted off to Dorothy to accuse her of slut-shaming, not to find out why Dot might’ve found Joyce’s specific choice of paramour concerning.
And, of course, that is weighed against her attempts to hold Joyce responsible for every ill Christianity has caused, and to accuse her of having no business taking an intro to poli-sci course.
On Roz’s political views… I agree with some of your points. Her current positions are, by and large, ones I wished I had held when I was her age. OTOH, I know damned well I was vastly more approachable and willing to listen to others than she is at that age, precisely because of just how far my political views shifted at that time of my life. That’s actually one of the things that drives me up the wall about her–she’s the worst possible sort of advocate for what should be the best possible positions.
That’s like, most of those people. Self-righteous congratulatory humorless puritans who don’t even realize they share the same ideology as the fuckers who run the world imperial system.
Do you mean menstruation? Menses? Bleeding? Like with the cramps, discharge, mucous plug, clots, dysmenorrhea, bloating, constipation /and/ diarrhea, and stuff? Yeah, I hear it’s quite rough for some.
@MrD: Imagine a cork in a bottle of champagne.
Now imagine shaking the bottle to build up pressure within.
Eventually, the pressure pushes out the cork…
More likely she knows when Joyce showers, and she seems to be the only one there other than Joyce. Besides if Joyce was vocal enough that Roz heard her then Roz wouldn’t have looked so surprised.
Bothered to learn when and where Joyce showers as a means to use someone she knows but is hardly even friends with to figure out which stall is the least grimy for her, rather than figure it out herself, like someone who both has better things to prioritize her time with and someone who gets she isn’t the center of the Universe…
Why? Joyce makes the effort to find the cleanest one, and waits until one that meets her standards (or at least, falls the least distance short of them) is available. Roz can bloody well do the same.
You know, if she wasn’t the Center of the Universe.
Because it’s a shared facility and while they all suck, at some point hogging the least shitty one becomes rude (hell, even hogging a shitty one would be rude but it’d be less likely someone would be waiting for it). Joyce doesn’t need to rush through a shower but it’s not a great time to be lollygagging while she focuses either.
I was reading this thread internally going, “ah yes as opposed to the truly altruistic motives for remembering that someone prefers clean shower stalls, like……………”
It’s all very silly. This is the kind of over the top melodramatic readings of Roz that led to the bongo filter.
“… like telling that person as you pass in the hallways, ‘Hey, shower stall 4 isn’t too gross today.'” See, it wasn’t that hard to not be a narcissistic twit–it’s simply beyond Roz’s capabilities.
She’s going to turn into the Masturbation Avatar by flicking the bean with all four elements. All we need now is a hair dryer for Air and a motorcycle for Earth.
… it’s funny you should mention Avatar in relation to orgasms.
In my romance novel series, I tend to use sexual metaphors based on an element associated with the character’s personality. So the really passionate character gets fire and heat based descriptions, the very grounded character gets earth based descriptions, etc.
I bring this up because one of my beta readers made a joke calling my series “Avatar: the last Fuck bender”. Cause she ends up having sex with people of each of the four elements over the course of the story.
Anyway, your comment reminded me of that, so I thought I’d share.
Honestly though, I have never, and don’t think that I ever will, want to use a public toilet stall (or shower stall!) For this or similar purposes. Like, I barely want to be in said spaces at all. Apparently I am more allergic to the ick-factor of public toilets than Joyce is…
I have never been able to do this in a shower, even my own. Partially because hearing other people, or know that people are waiting for you to be done; plus partially because the process makes it hard for me to keep standing.
Although, if I ever made another attempt, I would not want to do it in any kind of communal shower area, even with stalls.
In this scene i have more wtf moment with Rose than Joyce, who knocks on the shower cabin?
For Joyce im suprised that she can “focus” in a public shower.
Roz is awful. She’s on the list of a handful of characters whom I tend to regard as ‘the worst’ for as long as they are in the strip, until such time as they are gone and one of the others comes in–at which point, they’re the new worst.
Is it just me or is this incredibly rude of Roz, regardless of what she’s interrupting? Joyce did not volunteer to be Roz’s clean stall canary. If Roz chooses to exclusively use the stall Joyce used, that’s her option, but she doesn’t get to rush Joyce to her schedule when there are other usable stalls free.
Nope, Roz is being completely insane, here–as in, Joyce would be justified in complaining to Ruth about it levels of obnoxious. But it’s par for the course for her; her ability to recognize others’ boundaries has never once been on display in this comic, so why start now?
Roz isn’t a real person, she’s a fictional character. She’s not going to be hurt by my disdain for her, nor for my admittedly aggressive critique of her personality.
Lots of folks hate characters I like, at least in the sense of appreciating them as characters, even if I’d dislike them in real life (Mike, for example). If I choose to dissent on this board with such individuals, I give my reasons for liking them, address their critiques with my own takes, or maybe acknowledge a well-stated point against the character in question.
But hey, if sarcasm’s all you got, you do you.
She’s not hogging it, though. She specifically made sure there were other shower stalls available. However long Roz may have been waiting WHILE THERE WERE OTHER PERFECTLY USABLE SHOWER STALLS AVAILABLE was 100% Roz’s choice and responsibility.
She “specifically made sure there were other shower stalls available”? I mean. I think that’s a bit of a reach. She didn’t say “there are other available shower stalls”, she said there are other stalls. Which there are, 24/7, because this is a room with many stalls in it. Her objection is that Roz doesn’t need to be waiting for her stall specifically, not that Joyce made sure she wasn’t inconveniencing anyone else.
I mean, there might be no one else in the communal shower right now, but if so, I would assume Joyce was way more concerned about her own privacy than about making anyone else wait.
Also Joyce would also have waited this long to use the cleanest stall, no matter how long other stalls were available. We know this about her. I can easily picture this whole exchange happening in reverse, just with Joyce being a little more shy about asking how much longer Roz was planning on showering for, and being a lot more over the top shocked and embarrassed if Roz indicated she was masturbating.
Those shower stalls are not hermetically sealed sound studios. It’s very obvious if other stalls are actually in use or not, just based on the sound of running water that isn’t your own.
Whether or not Joyce was deliberately doing this when other stalls were available, or just knows that the stalls are free by the lack of noise is irrelevant. Other stalls are available. And no, I don’t think she’d be asking someone to ‘hurry up’ to clear out of a stall she was hoping to use; she’d be far more inclined to stand outside an absurdly long period of time without saying a word, and then just look sheepish when the other person finally came out, and failed to understand why Joyce was waiting when there were other stalls available. Joyce has lots of boundary issues of her own, though she’s working on them, but ‘knowingly intruding on naked people’ is not one of them.
Roz talking to Joyce while she’s in the shower is not intruding on naked people. It’s not like she’s barging in or looking over or under the stall while Joyce is naked.
Also have we not seen Joyce talk to other people both before and during showers? I’m pretty sure we have. If this strip tagged locations like the Walkyverse ones did, I’d check, but I feel like I remember multiple shower conversations.
Like what about when she (comically, for sure) jump scared Dorothy in a bathroom stall by peering over the privacy walls?? Some folks are being real selective in their estimations of what is inappropriate by Joyce standards.
It strikes me as mildly dickish, but not unbelievably so. Mostly because if you’re using a communal shower, you should be going in with fairly low expectations for both privacy and duration, so asking someone to hurry up when they’re taking a while isn’t too far beyond the pale, regardless of the reason. That’s just me, though, idk what other people have experienced w.r.t. communal shower ettiquette.
This isn’t a case of a long line waiting for the showers in general, and then one person clogging one up (thereby forcing everyone else to wait for one of the other three), though. It’s more akin to having a favorite bench in the quad, and then demanding that someone who is sitting there for their lunch ‘hurry up and finish eating’, even though there’s a half-dozen empty benches in view.
I actually did not figure it out till I came to the comments. I genuinely thought it was Joyce’s time of the month and she was having some trouble with the pads/tampon due to her fixations. XD
Hovering outside a shower stall door and knocking to demand it when there are other open stalls is a little obnoxious though.
Like, if it were like how my dorms were and there were two bathrooms in each wing with one toilet and one shower each, yeah, knock away, but this is kinda Roz taking mild advantage of Joyce’s Joyce-ness to bully her out of her shower early (as Joyce in any other situation would probably be apologetic despite, again, there being like six other open stalls)
It’s not necessarily early, especially since Joyce is using the shower for masturbating today and not just showering. There is a point where it becomes communal shower, especially if it’s the cleanest one. And frankly, if this were any other character, the comments would be calling Joyce the asshole for masturbating in a shared facility.
Sometimes showers can take 30-40 minutes because long hair sometimes holds onto conditioner way too well (and said conditioner needed to rest for 30 minutes too), sometimes people are hurt and need hot water, I don’t care lol. I’m just saying that from my personal standards, I don’t really care if someone is hogging a shower for five hours as long as it’s not the only working shower. Kinda like if someone’s hogging a public toilet stall. Kinda not my business what’s going on back there, even if the others are gross.
And yeah, masturbating in shared spaces is really gross and I have voiced my displeasure with Joyce doing so before (like with the washer) and everyone acted like I was the weird one for thinking that maybe masturbating in a shared room was bad, but at least showers have individual stall doors. Idk if she’s doing a handstand or what, but it’s a massive improvement imo over sitting on a public washer.
I have long hair and condition but if it’s a shared stall, I’d still consider it rude to be in there for over half an hour. It’d be one thing if someone was hurt but I’m not terribly sympathetic to taking longer in a shared shower because you want to masturbate in it. Sure, there’s no non-shared spaces but if the stalls are already gross, please don’t make them unnecessarily grosser. At least I can be reasonable confident Joyce will use the shower to clean anything up. And at least she had clothes on and so was less likely to get anything on the drier. But still.
Yeah, where IS that contingent? They were so upset about the dryers, and imho this is “worse” as far as risking other people hearing you and being made uncomfortable. But I guess there they were able to blame Dorothy, so.
(I also think the reaction at the time was……. outsized, shall we say. Idk, I do NOT understand the argument that walking in on a random stranger masturbating is enormously traumatizing. It’s several levels less awful than walking in on your parents, lol. TURN AROUND AND LEAVE THE ROOM. It’s awkward but you’re going to be fine, I promise!)
I sometimes feel the comments here tend to baby Joyce (and are seriously SERIOUSLY way too harsh in other times). This isn’t really the hugest deal but the difference in reaction to what she gets versus other characters is noticeable. I can only imagine the unholy fit in the comments if the shoe was on the other foot and Roz was hogging a stall so she could masturbate.
Bullying is when people interact in any way that’s not 100% supportive and wholesome and uwu smol bean. The slightest inconvenience or misalignment with anyone means I’m being encroached upon and ruined permanently.
Joyce is ‘entitled’ to that space in the sense of ‘first come, first serve’, which is pretty much the rule of thumb with any communal space that doesn’t offer reservations. If Joyce was hogging a shower while all of them were in use, that would be a different thing–cutting down availability of a scarce resource that’s in demand is selfish. But there are plenty of stalls available, a fact which Roz acknowledges. If Roz wanted a cleaner stall, she was fully capable of dragging her ass out of bed a little earlier, seeing which one was cleanest, and taking advantage of the sanitary conditions all on her own.
Roz isn’t bad. She’s only here so we can observe this. It’s like a tree falling in the woods. Someone needs to be there or we’re not sure it happened. Schroedingers shower stall.
I don’t know how this would eventually link back to Dorothy’s “reasons” for pushing Joyce to masturbate for the first time, but I still want to see Roz’s reaction at “I did something I thought you would do/approve.”
-Don’t masturbate in empty rooms, somebody might walk in and see you.
-Don’t masturbate in the shower room, somebody might badger you for your stall despite having other options.
-Don’t masturbate in a storage closet, somebody might open it.
-Don’t masturbate in your dormitory bedroom, you might have a roommate who might walk in or overhear.
-Don’t masturbate on camera, somebody you know might see it. And don’t upload it or someone you don’t know will see it.
-Don’t masturbate in the privacy of your own home, somebody might knock on your door.
-Don’t masturbate in the depths of space with all the equipment you’d need to perform the activity, an astronaut or alien might see you.
There’s no optimal place to jack off, just do it and deal with the consequences as they pop up. Don’t be a chickenshit wuss about it, but also don’t be a creep, and there’s a massive gaping canyon of acceptability in between those two extremes.
Yeah, the episode where the Doctor and Bill teleport somewhere in space and find a schlicking alien floating through the void. Turns out they were exiled from Fuckulon 7, one of the Galaxy’s last remaining nudist planets, for being too horny. They only aired the episode once, because it was so hot that Chiswick erupted into a public orgy. The whole incident had to be covered up, so I’m very brave for telling you about it.
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I guess staring at Joe for 8 hours straight will do that.
You know Joyce, there’s someone who can describe the whole Joe Experience in explicit detail right there.
She knows. She has seen the video.
(totally wonder if she kept a copy)
why I always waited for the cleaning crew to come through
also fuck MORNING showers, who has all that extra time in the morning that could be used for extra sleeps!
I can’t stand to go to bed feeling grimy, so evening showers for me.
And yes, 15 minutes extra sleep is a lifesaver some days.
i do an evening shower or bath, and a quick morning rinse, especially in the summer because it’s already hot at 6 am where i am.
Where I live, taking a cold shower at least twice a day during summer, sometimes up to 4, is the standard.
I usually don’t feel gross in the evening, but I do when I wake up, so that’s when I shower.
Complete disagreement on extra sleep vs a quick shower; the shower is 10x as refreshing as an equivalent amount of ‘extra’ sleep.
As a chronically I’ll/disabled person, I basically have to shower at night cause the entire concept of “starting my day” with a shower is completely inaccessible to me. Sometimes showering takes basically all of my spoons and physical exertion so if it was the first thing I tried to do that day, I’d basically be able to do nothing else.
sort of this for me, but also I can’t get daytime clothes on after a shower, they just feel gross
and heck to going out with wet hair (blowdrying also, heck to that)
If I shower at night, I have to wait hours before I go to bed, or my hair and beard will be all weird in the morning. And ten minutes in a hot shower wakes me up better than trying to sleep for another ten minutes.
Well, one thing that stuck from being in the Army for 20 years was keeping my hair pretty short. So, out of the shower, towel off my head, and it’s dry in 10 minutes. My beard is pretty short too.
I also prefer evening showers. I don’t care if I’m stank-XL all day, but I can’t go to sleep when I’m sweaty and/or grimy.
I sweat when I sleep, always have. Evening showers would be completely pointless for me, I’d wake up sweaty and grimy regardless
I need the transition to tell my brain the day has started. Plus its so easy to get hot and sweaty during sleep where I live, i feel gross not showering after I wake up. The ideal would be morning and evening ig but my eczema would not appreciate that
I used to do morning showers because that’s how I was taught, but it was always an agonizingly long process because I’d spend 15-30 minutes nodding off under the downpour
Then one summer I got a job as a dishwasher, and when I came home not only did I feel covered in grime, but I could not convince myself to get into bed with that grime still on me, so I’d basically shower when I got home
Arguably, it was still a “morning” shower since I was working close shifts, and that would keep me until 2amish, but I quickly turned into an evening showerer. Saved me time overall too since I was awake and eager to feel clean again
I do both. +shrug+ It takes extra time and water and all that, but I don’t think I could go back to just once per day.
Quit stalling, Joyce.
only important comment
r/angryupvote
stalling? STALLING
stalling? STALLING!!!
And now, *that’* what the kids are calling it these days.
Shower? I hardly know her!
Sex positivity, Roz, remember the sex positivity.
I’m positive Joyce is playing sex in the shower.
Exhibition kink unlocked
😏😂
I like goofy little comics like this. Always nice to see Roz onscreen.
Um… Why? Seriously, I don’t get why people like Roz-the-person, or even really, Roz-the-character. Her politics are generally spot-on, but she’s, like, literally the worst advocate possible for them. And the worst part is, she’s never seriously called out for her conduct. The closest was Leslie shutting her down in class, and even then, there was no actual recognition on Roz’s part that she’d been out of line.
Roz is what you’d get if Mary were a hyper-progessive.
Boo-hoo, suck it up and like a different character then.
She’s *waiting* to be called out on her B.S. is the problem…But, yes, it would be nice if everybody started to sarcastically call her “Jane Fonda” or comment about how she’s basically an obligatory 4-year college student cliche as if she was in the middle of another adolescent ‘phase’…Or call her “Short Robin DeSanto”. That would set her off.
Oooooh short Robin DeSanto thats buuurn and we are in the showers
She was threatened with expulsion if she released another tape.
That is an interesting choice for “Roz has been called out for her conduct”. Which part of “made a consensual sex tape with an enthusiastically consensual partner” needed calling out? (Visual gag about having taped the camera to Danny’s unconscious foot notwithstanding.)
I think consent of having the tape released was given after the fact which is not how you go about releasing a sex tape, also you shouldnt film a sex tape when all parties (Dany being party) did not consent The issue with Roz it seems to be she acts before she thinks, and her poltics and overall goals are in my opinion correct her attitude of devil takes the hindmost, when it comes to achieving said aims and her quick judgments of folks and knowitallism can be frustrating. She is not villainous though.
I mean she correctly gauged that Joe would be fine with it tho, and Danny was asleep and not on camera, so.
My comment remains directed at tbf. Consciously or not, they seem to have internalized the idea that the sex tape itself was something Roz deserved backlash for, and I think that’s worth examining.
By ‘calling out’, I mean as part of the narrative, being forced to consider her own actions in some fashion. It never happens; people who disagree with her are summarily dismissed, every time. The closest she’s ever come to being shown as losing an argument was, again, the scene with Leslie, and even then she only conceded to a withdrawal, never actually acknowledged the original point that Leslie was trying to make (namely, that the purpose of the class was not to call out individual fellow students for their perceived lack of progressive credentials).
Getting rebuked by authority is not the same thing as getting called out on your actions by the narrative itself. Compare, say, Joe being forced to confront the actual effects of his horndog misogyny, or Walky being smacked upside the head with a clue-by-four about his lax study habits.
On the other hand, consider that Joe and Walky are major characters, and Roz is not. She’s been tagged in a grand total of 134 comics, and how many of those appearances lasted for more than one strip consecutively?
I’d also argue that the narrative doesn’t back Roz up as often as you say. All of the Roz Moments I can think of off the top of my head actually have her failing to achieve or goals or embarrassing herself or being told to shut up and go away. Getting called out by Leslie, yes, but also the sex tape gambit didn’t work out the way she wanted it to, nor did her attempt to hook Leslie up with Robin. She didn’t win the RA position and she really embarrassed herself with Joyce after the frat party, though she didn’t know it at the time. Trying to teach Leslie’s class also didn’t really work out the way she wanted it to or paint her in a flattering light, apart from a brief acknowledgement that Joe’s misogyny still sucked.
Like. Just because she has a point sometimes doesn’t mean the narrative is always on her side.
Okay, but then Raidah’s been in only 73 strips, and she’s already had a major setback as a result of the narrative (breaking up with Jacob). I will concede that we’ve gotten little by way of an actual arc about her–but that’s actually one of the things I find frustrating about her, as a character. She doesn’t seem to have any development at all–but she’s constantly thrust into situations of interacting with the main cast as if she were one of them.
Huh.
So, weird thing, here. I was doing an archive-dig to see where Mike’s character development was at 134 appearances, just as a baseline comparison point (since Mike is, per Word of God, the character who was so one-note that he simply couldn’t continue to be useful to the strip). And we did have some strong indications of just how loyal he was to Ethan and Amber, a personal connection unlike anything we’ve seen from Roz.
But then, I was reading adjacent strips, because I do enjoy this comic, and some of those older ones still make me giggle.
And then I hit this one: https://www.dumbingofage.com/2016/comic/book-7/01-glower-vacuum/sisters-4/
This is exactly the sort of thing I’d like to see from Roz. It’s a pity I forgot about it, but then again, that’s not entirely my fault, since what is arguably her greatest character growth happened off-screen, and in the third person.
Some of us even dare to like actual villainous characters!
Oh, I like villainous villains. That’s kind of my point, actually. Roz is presented and framed as a hero. Her actions are generally lauded in the story, as at least well-intentioned and at worst “correct, but tactless”. But I’ve seen no evidence that she’s not as much of a malignant narcissist as Mary, yet she never gets treated as one.
Really not a fan of narcissist being used in this way. Maybe someday when the actual personality disorder isn’t so highly stigmatized, but for now I strongly prefer just calling people (and characters) self-absorbed/self-righteous/whatever more specific thing you mean.
Anyway, I’d say the evidence for that is… kind of all over Roz’s appearances, so I’m not sure how else to respond. She’s repeatedly demonstrated concern for Joyce’s well-being even though they’re not even slightly friends, for one. For another, before we can put someone in Mary’s league, I think they have to be smugly declaring their superiority to other characters on panel, and the closest Roz has ever gotten to that was her “everyone’s a centrist compared to me” line, which. Nah. That was just her briefly being a very realistic teenager.
(And for her age, like, her politics are light years ahead of the curve. I’m sure it helps that she grew up with a politically ambitious sister to rail against, really gave that adolescent rebelliousness a concrete direction to rebel in. She exhibits some black and white thinking and oversimplifies people who disagree with her politically, but like. Give her five years. I don’t think the readership of this comic would measure up very favorably if they compared themselves at nineteen to Roz; I know I wouldn’t have.)
Narcissism is one of those things that can both be considered a personality disorder, and a personality trait; the latter is far more common, of course, and usually doesn’t actually inhibit the person from living life the way the actual disorder can. But in the interest of continuing a discussion I’m enjoying, I’ll defer to you on this–‘self-absorbed/self-centered’ covers it closely enough.
As for her concern about Joyce… I don’t think she has demonstrated concern about Joyce. Her interactions on that front have been largely stock responses that often missed the mark precisely because she has made no effort whatsoever to engage Joyce as a person. She gave advice on the pill before finding out why Joyce was taking it, and she spouted off to Dorothy to accuse her of slut-shaming, not to find out why Dot might’ve found Joyce’s specific choice of paramour concerning.
And, of course, that is weighed against her attempts to hold Joyce responsible for every ill Christianity has caused, and to accuse her of having no business taking an intro to poli-sci course.
On Roz’s political views… I agree with some of your points. Her current positions are, by and large, ones I wished I had held when I was her age. OTOH, I know damned well I was vastly more approachable and willing to listen to others than she is at that age, precisely because of just how far my political views shifted at that time of my life. That’s actually one of the things that drives me up the wall about her–she’s the worst possible sort of advocate for what should be the best possible positions.
That’s like, most of those people. Self-righteous congratulatory humorless puritans who don’t even realize they share the same ideology as the fuckers who run the world imperial system.
Y’know, I thought this was referring to something a bit less…hands on, but then I read the alt-text.
I thought she was perhaps referring to something that most women her age deal with on a monthly basis.
We just finished that arc. Joyce should be clear for a while.
Oh, like a period.
Do you mean menstruation? Menses? Bleeding? Like with the cramps, discharge, mucous plug, clots, dysmenorrhea, bloating, constipation /and/ diarrhea, and stuff? Yeah, I hear it’s quite rough for some.
How do you even get both constipation and diarrhea at the same time, how does that work
It is absolutely possible to be constipated, and for the feces to be liquid when it finally gets out of one’s system.
Cursed Knowledge. Thanks.
But in answer to your question, “how does that work,” the answer is “not well.”
@MrD: Imagine a cork in a bottle of champagne.
Now imagine shaking the bottle to build up pressure within.
Eventually, the pressure pushes out the cork…
That’s how it works.
You expel substances Moët and Chandon could never have imagined in their worst nightmares.
Best thread today, not even close
“Come quick, I am tasting the sharts!”
Why.
Maybe she just forgot her towel?
Not hoopy.
Concentrate, Joyce: Washing machine, rinse circle, centrifuge… 🥵😈😩
No, the dryer should be for after the shower.
How’d she drag that thing all the way upstairs, anyway?
Wax on, right hand. Wax off, left hand. Wax on, wax off.
Joyce has evolved beyond needing the washing machine, it seems.
This isn’t even her final form!
Haha I guess Joyce has discovered other ways to masturbate, other than the Laundromat
“Stay curious!”
She’s really come such a long way since Roz first met her.
Roz you are being VERY orgasm-negative right now
…how did Roz know Joyce was even in that stall? Was she making, uh, sounds?
More likely she knows when Joyce showers, and she seems to be the only one there other than Joyce. Besides if Joyce was vocal enough that Roz heard her then Roz wouldn’t have looked so surprised.
She clearly stated why she bothered to learn this. Another look at Roz’s true colors when you take her progressive politics out of the equation…
If you take Roz’s progressive politics out of the equation, she’s … someone who likes clean showers and knows Joyce does as well?
I mean, I don’t like her either, but I’m not sure that’s a reason why.
Well, she is asking Joyce to inconvenience herself by finishing her shower quickly so that she (Roz) doesn’t have to use a slightly less clean shower.
Yes, absolutely, she’s terrible. But that’s what she’s doing not “why she bothered to learn this”.
Am I being overly literal again?
Bothered to learn when and where Joyce showers as a means to use someone she knows but is hardly even friends with to figure out which stall is the least grimy for her, rather than figure it out herself, like someone who both has better things to prioritize her time with and someone who gets she isn’t the center of the Universe…
It’s a communal shower. If it’s the cleanest one, yeah, hurry the fuck up.
Why? Joyce makes the effort to find the cleanest one, and waits until one that meets her standards (or at least, falls the least distance short of them) is available. Roz can bloody well do the same.
You know, if she wasn’t the Center of the Universe.
Because it’s a shared facility and while they all suck, at some point hogging the least shitty one becomes rude (hell, even hogging a shitty one would be rude but it’d be less likely someone would be waiting for it). Joyce doesn’t need to rush through a shower but it’s not a great time to be lollygagging while she focuses either.
??????????
I don’t like Roz much either but fuck y’all are weird with these takes
I was reading this thread internally going, “ah yes as opposed to the truly altruistic motives for remembering that someone prefers clean shower stalls, like……………”
It’s all very silly. This is the kind of over the top melodramatic readings of Roz that led to the bongo filter.
“… like telling that person as you pass in the hallways, ‘Hey, shower stall 4 isn’t too gross today.'” See, it wasn’t that hard to not be a narcissistic twit–it’s simply beyond Roz’s capabilities.
Yikes lol
Yeah, Roz… just get out of there.
And maybe, after you do, go catch a bus out of town…..
She’s going to turn into the Masturbation Avatar by flicking the bean with all four elements. All we need now is a hair dryer for Air and a motorcycle for Earth.
Go-karts are also acceptable for Earth.
I will offer Linda to The Beast if it means we get to see Sal back on her motorcycle
… it’s funny you should mention Avatar in relation to orgasms.
In my romance novel series, I tend to use sexual metaphors based on an element associated with the character’s personality. So the really passionate character gets fire and heat based descriptions, the very grounded character gets earth based descriptions, etc.
I bring this up because one of my beta readers made a joke calling my series “Avatar: the last Fuck bender”. Cause she ends up having sex with people of each of the four elements over the course of the story.
Anyway, your comment reminded me of that, so I thought I’d share.
I heartily approve of your beta’s sense of humour.
…wait, hair dryer?
On “cool” setting definitely
Honestly though, I have never, and don’t think that I ever will, want to use a public toilet stall (or shower stall!) For this or similar purposes. Like, I barely want to be in said spaces at all. Apparently I am more allergic to the ick-factor of public toilets than Joyce is…
Good strategy on Roz’s part, nine times out of ten
Try to not fall asleep in there
Joyce, I support you. I, too, like to prepare for my day. Which requires focus, commitment, and sheer will.
honestly; hearing her voice would probably kill any mood I had going in there lol
Those are fixed showerheads, so is she doing a hand stand?
She can be jilling off without the shower head. I’m guessing she hasn’t purchased a toy yet, but maybe this will inspire her to go get one.
Them being able to communicate indicates the shower is not running. I think Joyce needs the privacy more than the bathroom facilities.
It’s not that hard to talk over a running shower.
“Yes, Joyce! Your agency is yours!”
If these restrooms have eyes, they’ve seen things beyond their wildest comprehension.
can confirm, my inner circle of friends within our larger friends group were responsible for several changes in signage.
I have never been able to do this in a shower, even my own. Partially because hearing other people, or know that people are waiting for you to be done; plus partially because the process makes it hard for me to keep standing.
Although, if I ever made another attempt, I would not want to do it in any kind of communal shower area, even with stalls.
I agree but Joyce also has a critical shortage of private places. Will we see her learn to ask Sarah to step out for a bit??? Maybe.
In this scene i have more wtf moment with Rose than Joyce, who knocks on the shower cabin?
For Joyce im suprised that she can “focus” in a public shower.
Roz is awful. She’s on the list of a handful of characters whom I tend to regard as ‘the worst’ for as long as they are in the strip, until such time as they are gone and one of the others comes in–at which point, they’re the new worst.
this from roz of all people 🙄
I thought for a moment she was shaving her nethers
Is it just me or is this incredibly rude of Roz, regardless of what she’s interrupting? Joyce did not volunteer to be Roz’s clean stall canary. If Roz chooses to exclusively use the stall Joyce used, that’s her option, but she doesn’t get to rush Joyce to her schedule when there are other usable stalls free.
Nope, Roz is being completely insane, here–as in, Joyce would be justified in complaining to Ruth about it levels of obnoxious. But it’s par for the course for her; her ability to recognize others’ boundaries has never once been on display in this comic, so why start now?
Roz’s insanity is made even more blatant thanks to your exemplary level-headed and reasonable reaction
Sarcasm I think
(this is the 69th commenr ^^)
Well said.
Roz isn’t a real person, she’s a fictional character. She’s not going to be hurt by my disdain for her, nor for my admittedly aggressive critique of her personality.
Lots of folks hate characters I like, at least in the sense of appreciating them as characters, even if I’d dislike them in real life (Mike, for example). If I choose to dissent on this board with such individuals, I give my reasons for liking them, address their critiques with my own takes, or maybe acknowledge a well-stated point against the character in question.
But hey, if sarcasm’s all you got, you do you.
We don’t know how long Roz has been standing there waiting. There is such a thing as hogging a shared facility for longer than is generally expected.
True: there is also giving up, muttering “to each her own,” and using another station.
She’s not hogging it, though. She specifically made sure there were other shower stalls available. However long Roz may have been waiting WHILE THERE WERE OTHER PERFECTLY USABLE SHOWER STALLS AVAILABLE was 100% Roz’s choice and responsibility.
She “specifically made sure there were other shower stalls available”? I mean. I think that’s a bit of a reach. She didn’t say “there are other available shower stalls”, she said there are other stalls. Which there are, 24/7, because this is a room with many stalls in it. Her objection is that Roz doesn’t need to be waiting for her stall specifically, not that Joyce made sure she wasn’t inconveniencing anyone else.
I mean, there might be no one else in the communal shower right now, but if so, I would assume Joyce was way more concerned about her own privacy than about making anyone else wait.
Also Joyce would also have waited this long to use the cleanest stall, no matter how long other stalls were available. We know this about her. I can easily picture this whole exchange happening in reverse, just with Joyce being a little more shy about asking how much longer Roz was planning on showering for, and being a lot more over the top shocked and embarrassed if Roz indicated she was masturbating.
It’s like you deliberately took the least important part of the comment to write a book about.
Hello to you too
Those shower stalls are not hermetically sealed sound studios. It’s very obvious if other stalls are actually in use or not, just based on the sound of running water that isn’t your own.
Whether or not Joyce was deliberately doing this when other stalls were available, or just knows that the stalls are free by the lack of noise is irrelevant. Other stalls are available. And no, I don’t think she’d be asking someone to ‘hurry up’ to clear out of a stall she was hoping to use; she’d be far more inclined to stand outside an absurdly long period of time without saying a word, and then just look sheepish when the other person finally came out, and failed to understand why Joyce was waiting when there were other stalls available. Joyce has lots of boundary issues of her own, though she’s working on them, but ‘knowingly intruding on naked people’ is not one of them.
Roz talking to Joyce while she’s in the shower is not intruding on naked people. It’s not like she’s barging in or looking over or under the stall while Joyce is naked.
Also have we not seen Joyce talk to other people both before and during showers? I’m pretty sure we have. If this strip tagged locations like the Walkyverse ones did, I’d check, but I feel like I remember multiple shower conversations.
Like what about when she (comically, for sure) jump scared Dorothy in a bathroom stall by peering over the privacy walls?? Some folks are being real selective in their estimations of what is inappropriate by Joyce standards.
It strikes me as mildly dickish, but not unbelievably so. Mostly because if you’re using a communal shower, you should be going in with fairly low expectations for both privacy and duration, so asking someone to hurry up when they’re taking a while isn’t too far beyond the pale, regardless of the reason. That’s just me, though, idk what other people have experienced w.r.t. communal shower ettiquette.
This isn’t a case of a long line waiting for the showers in general, and then one person clogging one up (thereby forcing everyone else to wait for one of the other three), though. It’s more akin to having a favorite bench in the quad, and then demanding that someone who is sitting there for their lunch ‘hurry up and finish eating’, even though there’s a half-dozen empty benches in view.
Joyce, are you a shower or a growler
Lmao
Hopefully both. Growling is hot.
I usually just angrily ask the person if they wanna help, and if they don’t then they can buzz off. The results may surprise you.
“usually”
this one weird trick
Doctors Hate Them!
I’m embarrassed to say it took me a few seconds to figure this one out.
I actually did not figure it out till I came to the comments. I genuinely thought it was Joyce’s time of the month and she was having some trouble with the pads/tampon due to her fixations. XD
Struggling to find a place to jerk off that’s isolated and peaceful — the college experience.
or trying to find one where assistance is available – the shadow college experience
You’re being a terrible advocate for sexual positivity and pleasure right now, Roz!
That’s OK, being a terrible advocate is kind of her thing.
Sorry, all the other showers are broken! Guess you’ll have to share! Also, oh no, Joe needs a shower too! At the same time!
Just because you don’t like Roz doesn’t mean everything she does is bad.
Thanks you!
Hovering outside a shower stall door and knocking to demand it when there are other open stalls is a little obnoxious though.
Like, if it were like how my dorms were and there were two bathrooms in each wing with one toilet and one shower each, yeah, knock away, but this is kinda Roz taking mild advantage of Joyce’s Joyce-ness to bully her out of her shower early (as Joyce in any other situation would probably be apologetic despite, again, there being like six other open stalls)
It’s not necessarily early, especially since Joyce is using the shower for masturbating today and not just showering. There is a point where it becomes communal shower, especially if it’s the cleanest one. And frankly, if this were any other character, the comments would be calling Joyce the asshole for masturbating in a shared facility.
This
Sometimes showers can take 30-40 minutes because long hair sometimes holds onto conditioner way too well (and said conditioner needed to rest for 30 minutes too), sometimes people are hurt and need hot water, I don’t care lol. I’m just saying that from my personal standards, I don’t really care if someone is hogging a shower for five hours as long as it’s not the only working shower. Kinda like if someone’s hogging a public toilet stall. Kinda not my business what’s going on back there, even if the others are gross.
And yeah, masturbating in shared spaces is really gross and I have voiced my displeasure with Joyce doing so before (like with the washer) and everyone acted like I was the weird one for thinking that maybe masturbating in a shared room was bad, but at least showers have individual stall doors. Idk if she’s doing a handstand or what, but it’s a massive improvement imo over sitting on a public washer.
In college there are no non-shared spaces, that’s the problem.
These showers have doors for privacy and a shower for cleaning up any mess. If you can keep it basically quiet, it’s not a big deal.
I have long hair and condition but if it’s a shared stall, I’d still consider it rude to be in there for over half an hour. It’d be one thing if someone was hurt but I’m not terribly sympathetic to taking longer in a shared shower because you want to masturbate in it. Sure, there’s no non-shared spaces but if the stalls are already gross, please don’t make them unnecessarily grosser. At least I can be reasonable confident Joyce will use the shower to clean anything up. And at least she had clothes on and so was less likely to get anything on the drier. But still.
Yeah, where IS that contingent? They were so upset about the dryers, and imho this is “worse” as far as risking other people hearing you and being made uncomfortable. But I guess there they were able to blame Dorothy, so.
(I also think the reaction at the time was……. outsized, shall we say. Idk, I do NOT understand the argument that walking in on a random stranger masturbating is enormously traumatizing. It’s several levels less awful than walking in on your parents, lol. TURN AROUND AND LEAVE THE ROOM. It’s awkward but you’re going to be fine, I promise!)
Turning around and leaving a room is hard though. 😟
i feel ya bruh
executive disfunction BITES T_T
Much easier to just lock eyes with the person as a show of dominance.
Extremely belatedly: I laughed.
I sometimes feel the comments here tend to baby Joyce (and are seriously SERIOUSLY way too harsh in other times). This isn’t really the hugest deal but the difference in reaction to what she gets versus other characters is noticeable. I can only imagine the unholy fit in the comments if the shoe was on the other foot and Roz was hogging a stall so she could masturbate.
It’s also taken kind of a hard turn into infantilization of late.
Which I’m not gonna say is because of the Autism, but I will say is a bad look that folks should maaaaaaybe be hesitating over.
And yeah, fully agreed, there would be far fewer people yelling at Joyce to just pick another stall and leave Roz alone.
Some might, but I wouldn’t. The shower is just about the closest thing you have in college to a ‘private space’, and it’s self-cleaning, to boot.
I’d disagree with that. You have a room. Sure, you have a roommate but Sarah’s not there 24/7.
This is not bullying, come on
Bullying is when people interact in any way that’s not 100% supportive and wholesome and uwu smol bean. The slightest inconvenience or misalignment with anyone means I’m being encroached upon and ruined permanently.
I’ll agree with this–it’s narcissistic, obnoxious and self-centered, but not bullying. Roz only bullies Joyce in classes they share.
Just because you like Roz doesn’t mean everything she does is OK. This is clearly one of the not OK things.
She did not know that Joyce was flicking the bean.
She wanted a clean shower stall. Something she has in common with Joyce.
And when she figured out Joyce was doing she decided to go to another stall.
Someone people have decided to paint this as Roz encroaching on Joyce’s entitled space and that she’s slut shaming Joyce somehow.
You made that last part up.
You can read the comments like I have.
Joyce is ‘entitled’ to that space in the sense of ‘first come, first serve’, which is pretty much the rule of thumb with any communal space that doesn’t offer reservations. If Joyce was hogging a shower while all of them were in use, that would be a different thing–cutting down availability of a scarce resource that’s in demand is selfish. But there are plenty of stalls available, a fact which Roz acknowledges. If Roz wanted a cleaner stall, she was fully capable of dragging her ass out of bed a little earlier, seeing which one was cleanest, and taking advantage of the sanitary conditions all on her own.
Wouldn’t want to accidentally climax to the sound of a woman’s voice, huh Joyce
well maybe not THAT woman’s
Does Joyce saw Desanto sextape with some random jock who agree to record?
She did start to watch it, then got too ashamed and shut the laptop. We don’t know if she’s ever revisited it, or if it’s still online to watch.
Joyce have more sure that Roz was on tape than Joe.
(FR, I think Joyce is aware Joe is on tape, because he was printed on first page.)
I know you meant Roz instead of Joyce in that first clause, but I really enjoyed the brief mental giggle image of Joyce as a sex tape director.
How’d she get the washer in the shower?
Ask a submariner about sub showers. They will tell you you do NOT want to touch the walls of the stall.
Yeah, if that was the cleanest one, it’s probably not anymore. XD
Roz isn’t bad. She’s only here so we can observe this. It’s like a tree falling in the woods. Someone needs to be there or we’re not sure it happened. Schroedingers shower stall.
Someone needs to get Joyce a lil bullet vibe or something. This girl needs to learn how to make pleasure efficient
I don’t care if it encapsulates this chapter or not. Pleeeeeeaase say you thought about making this alt text the chapter title. :/
I mean, I wrote the chapter title weeks before this strip’s alt text, so I don’t think linear time was in its favor
I don’t know how this would eventually link back to Dorothy’s “reasons” for pushing Joyce to masturbate for the first time, but I still want to see Roz’s reaction at “I did something I thought you would do/approve.”
Roz doesn’t like it when people do what she’d approve of, because then she can’t badger them for not doing it.
She likes being smug and correct more than badgering people.
-Don’t masturbate in empty rooms, somebody might walk in and see you.
-Don’t masturbate in the shower room, somebody might badger you for your stall despite having other options.
-Don’t masturbate in a storage closet, somebody might open it.
-Don’t masturbate in your dormitory bedroom, you might have a roommate who might walk in or overhear.
-Don’t masturbate on camera, somebody you know might see it. And don’t upload it or someone you don’t know will see it.
-Don’t masturbate in the privacy of your own home, somebody might knock on your door.
-Don’t masturbate in the depths of space with all the equipment you’d need to perform the activity, an astronaut or alien might see you.
There’s no optimal place to jack off, just do it and deal with the consequences as they pop up. Don’t be a chickenshit wuss about it, but also don’t be a creep, and there’s a massive gaping canyon of acceptability in between those two extremes.
If the astronaut sees you and turns around and says wow thats really disturbing, you’ll have to say “always has been” and shoot them.
Either that’s a Dr Who story or my edible starting to kick in
Yeah, the episode where the Doctor and Bill teleport somewhere in space and find a schlicking alien floating through the void. Turns out they were exiled from Fuckulon 7, one of the Galaxy’s last remaining nudist planets, for being too horny. They only aired the episode once, because it was so hot that Chiswick erupted into a public orgy. The whole incident had to be covered up, so I’m very brave for telling you about it.
> Don’t masturbate in empty rooms.
Tautology much? The room isn’t empty if you’re masturbating in it.
Ha. Got ‘eem. /jk 😉
She was just up staring at her hot boyfriend for 8 hours straight.
She might need this.
Also therapy.
But definitely this.
Showers: They help you get clean, they also help you get dirty.
Fun fact: I have never masturbated in the city I went to college in.
First day?
Suburbs don’t count, but it’s a bit of a drive.
meanwhile, she’s in there trying to focus on scrubbing off all the dirt.
proper bathing requires sniper-like focus.