Uh, I immediately assumed c- proving Sarah right by going after Joyce’s “friends with benefits”. Either because of or despite the fact that she thinks Joyce regularly sleeps with him.
Does anyone else think Danny has the capacity to cheat? Because the boy tore himself into pieces realizing he had a bit of feels for Amber while dating Amazi-Girl, who, much to the surprise of many, is the same person.
Like if Sal walked in on a Harem Anime Cliche Scene would she get upset or would she go “pft right.”
I think Sal’s fear of trusting would take over before she realized just how ridiculous the idea of Danny cheating is. She’s more likely to assume “I was right, can’t trust these hoes” instead of “I’m sure there’s a reasonable explanation for this”.
It’d still be funny if Sal’s crippling fears of opening up to someone failing to take hold when confronted with the possibility of Danny being unfaithful.
Like this big misunderstanding happens, Sal tells Amber and she just starts laughing before “oh you were serious. Have you met him? He thought he was cheating on me with me.“
Also I am admittedly making a lot of assumptions based on previous knowledge but Liz is looking like kind of a scumbag right now. Cause the only reason she could be here is to try and bang Joe who she believes is in a relationship (albeit casual) with Joyce. Not a good look.
I admit that I completely forgot that was foreshadowed, but now that you bring it up that is definitely the established plotline, given we’re establishing Liz as a bad person.
Though also given the track record of Willis’ writing, I fully expect us to see some good facets of her eventually. Like with Ruth and Radiah, who when we first met them weren’t shown with any redeeming qualities, but we eventually wrapped around to get a full scope. Which doesn’t justify shitty behavior, of course.
You know how sometimes when we’re getting introduced to characters, they seem like arseholes, but when we get to know them more, that impression fades?
Raidah less has redeeming qualities, more you feel a little bad that someone was outright conspiring to steal her boyfriend/make him cheat. Or the commentariat guilt tripped you for hating a brown woman despite the fact that she’s insanely elitist and classic, and has been shown in a purely negative light
I think it’s normal to hate her now, because we don’t really know anything about her other than in relation to Sarah, a sympathetic protagonist who has a beef with her.
Like Ruth at the start, or how Daisy’s personality for 11 years was Lesbian until she went out with Ruth and got some character depth.
I don’t doubt that she’ll get some redeeming traits in the future. And we also know her in relation to other sympathetic protagonists (condescending to Dina bc she’s ND, looking down on Joyce for being slightly younger and not aiming to be a millionaire. Y’know instead of looking down on her for trying to seduce her boyfriend which would be very valid and reasonable)
She did look down on Dina for her socialization problems (in that Raidah was judging her on those since she obviously doesn’t know that Dina is neurodivergent as a fact), much like Amber does, and the rest of the cast that one time at Joyce’s dorm party before Dina told them all to fuck off.
So here’s how I see it as someone with ASD and ADHD; it is extremely easy for people to be compassionate, but through the lens of outright condescension. They want to help us because we’re helpless idiot children who need the world patiently explained to us, and displaying any kind of resentment for this treatment is baffling to them because omg, I’m just trying to be nice.
Much like Becky’s complete misunderstanding of Dina’s sexual appetite, the misunderstanding of neurodivergent people is a blaring white noise to our lives, and it’s a blaring white noise because otherwise normal and understanding people indulge in it without really understanding, the way one would used to say “I’m not gay… not that there’s anything wrong with that!” It’s something that needs to change, but it’s not where it should be now, and so stories about living with neurodivergence can depict that lived reality even as it also shows ways to be healthy and respectful, like how Becky is super respectful and admiring of Dina and treats everything she says at face value with dignity, or how Joe is comfortable talking about sex with her because he knows Sex Things and understands it’s a topic Dina doesn’t feel the need to dance around.
As for the Joyce thing, well, I do think that was indicative of Raidah as a social climber, I think that’s at least a fairly clearly textual element to her character for all the ones she’s got given her new posse of weird jerks patting themselves on the back for growing up (and Carl who has done nothing wrong), but I don’t think her talking down to Joyce was entirely based on Joyce’s career choice, so much as she needed to find a way to diminish someone her friends told her was sniffing around her boyfriend and she should worry, and so settled on why her career choice was dumb.
I’m being open to other interpretations of Raidah’s character if only because we haven’t really seen her enough for me to make a hard read, but I think we’ve seen enough of her that room for interpretation exists, like how Daisy had no personality until she suddenly did with Ruth.
Let’s also remember that Raidah criticized her friend for using a slur against Dina in that same scene, which implies her ‘condescension’ wasn’t some false show to mock, but rooted in an actual feeling she had. Her reaction against Sarah feels to me like an overactive defensive mechanism. For all her behavior is crappy, she mostly tries to maintain distance (spare the beginning when the situation was fresh and she was being an asshole). And let’s not forget that Sarah’s engaged in crappy behavior back (violent assault, a long term plan to break her up with her boyfriend), she’s just more sympathetic due to being the PoV.
Really, if we knew as little about Sarah as we knew about Raidah, and we knew as much about Raidah as we do Sarah, I could honestly see a lot of people being on her side. Especially if it turns out the friend who got sent home got sent to a place that Isn’t Safe like Ruth would have been if she’d been sent packing.
There’s too much room for ambiguity and interpretation with Raidah for me to just go ” yep, evil”, especially when the last two strips had Sarah at her worst
@Rocket Relm: The situation wasn’t that fresh in the beginning, when she harassed Sarah out of the blue a couple of times. Fresh to us, but the entire summer and a good part of the previous year had passed for them. It’s at least implied that those interactions were the resumption of a long campaign of harassment, which had helped to isolate Sarah for the past year. Raidah only started maintaining difference after that violent assault, for better or worse.
Without the context of a year of social bullying, Sarah punching her seems really bad. Even with it, the plan to take Jacob from her was bad – and was portrayed as such throughout, leading to Sarah dropping it and it blowing up in Joyce’s face.
I don’t think that’s implied at all, but it’s certainly a reasonable conclusion to draw. The last thing Raidah says to Sarah in the flashback is to stay away from her, so I think that’s an implication that Raidah only ever lashes out at her when they crossed paths, which, still wrong.
And, y’know, whatever “not according to Dana, last I checked” means.
I kinda read that initial (of two) instances where Raidah provokes her as a way of setting up the late reveal of why Sarah ratted her roommate out for using illegal drugs, since it initially comes off as Sarah being a narc.
That was an arguable point before the whole Jacob/Joyce/Raidah thing. During that though we learned that she was classist, manipulative and scheming and we learned absolutely nothing redeeming about her.
Maybe she does have hidden depths, but at this point Willis has gone out of his way to avoid showing them to us.
She was shown not just in relation to Sarah, but also Jacob and Joyce, in a sequence in which the narrative clearly put Joyce in the wrong and yet we still didn’t get anything positive about her.
I don’t think any of that was made absolutely clear, but we have different reads on her on account of there not being much there, if only for the time being.
Like I sure as hell don’t read that little “Jacob needs me” thing as “I need to control Jacob” without room for interpretation, given how torn up she was after he broke up with her, it kind of struck me more as “Jacob needs me because I have worth to him.”
But, again, we’re talking about a character who only shows up in an antagonistic capacity to someone we like more than her.
The only reason that comes to mind to me is she actually cares about Joyce and/or the consequences of her running off when voices got raised and Joe is a low risk source
What could Joe possibly offer in this situation at all? He wasn’t involved. Not saying she couldn’t be seeking advice from Joe but the question is why? If Liz cared about Joyce she’d go apologize to her, she knows where her dorm is.
Going to Joyce’s room means seeing Sarah, and she might not want to be vulnerable in front of Sarah by doing something like apologizing. I don’t personally think it’s why she’s here, but going to Joyce’s supposed best friend because she cares isn’t out of the realm of possibility.
Joe was there when the drama bomb went off, she can at least get background information from him. We can’t assume she knows who Becky is and why this conflict is so important.
I mean, logically there are many reasons she could be there, considering she spent an entire afternoon there playing Mario Kart.
Maybe she forgot her wallet.
Maybe she feels guilty about abusing Joe’s hospitality and is here to say thank you.
Maybe she missed her bus and wants to look up a schedule, but feels awkward going back to Sarah/Joyce seeing how poorly they left off.
Maybe she wants to apologize to Sarah/Joyce and doesn’t know how to because she doesn’t know what the hell happened, and Joe seemed to actually know.
Maybe she’s here to buy weed off Joe.
Personally, I like the idea that she’s trying to buy an edible off Joe. Or decided her Men’s Vitamin was laced with something and is here to punch him over it.
While I’d be tremendously and pleasantly surprised if she was actually back for some benign or positive reason, I’m pretty sure Liz’s role in this story is to serve as the Bad Gal, something to point to and say “don’t have the thought that christianity is dumb, you don’t want to become her, do you?” She’ll be allowed to have nuance in later elements of the story I’m sure, but until Joyce gets his with the karma anvil and learns her lesson (which Liz will probably be part of), I don’t think Liz will be presented with redeeming qualities.
I’d be delighted to be wrong about the narrative here, though.
I mean, she’s not really bad on any capacity. At worst she thinks Christianity is dumb, which could be born from whatever is compelling her to continue lying to her folks, or maybe she’s 18 and sorts edgy about the most powerful religious institution in the continent she lives on
Take it from someone who’s been where you’re at: you gotta let characters exist instead of thinking about their purpose.
I mean, Joyce indicated it was casual, not committed. And Joyce’s comments could be read as a recommendation of Joe’s skill. Liz might believe that Joyce would be fully okay with her banging Joe as well.
Not that I think Liz needs benefit of the doubt after her previous actions – just that, in this case, I don’t really see any issue based on the information Liz was given.
Admittedly not experience with modern interpersonal sexual relationships between friends but that feels like something you at least run by both people in the relationship first instead of visiting one on the side after dark. But I am no longer hip so maybe it’s cool and I’m just a square as proven by me using vocabulary like “hip” and “square”.
i’d say it’s a gray area? on the face of it, Joyce did say they were casual. in Liz’s fantasy, which Joyce did nothing to dissuade, Joe’s the “den of sin” guy. he’s just getting it on with half the campus anyway.
but yeah i would absolutely advise caution and communication etc, esp when you’re being posturing 18 year olds who think they’ve got the hang of this free love thing, and then find out that they actually have Strong Feelings about who who they bang, bangs (story as old as… well, the 60’s at least)
source: i may have fucked around and found out! quite literally.
Joe and Joyce are friends with reward programs, or, there’s no stated commitment. It’s not something where anyone involved would be expected to run it by anyone else.
eh, it’s the difference between a contractual obligation and social etiquette. it’s not that it’s your fault if it blows up, but had you erred on the side of caution you might have avoided a blowup in the first place.
if it’s me, i’m absolutely checking in with the pal who said they were happy-go-lucky, no-strings-attached fuckbuddies. if it is that simple and straightforward, good, glad i got it confirmed, on to the fun part. if it isn’t, well that’s a bullet dodged y’know?
We know Joe’s got it bad for Joyce. Even if Liz is genuinely here for a roll in the hay, this could be the story setting him up to decide for himself if he really wants more casual hookups, or…
Mostly because I don’t think Joe is capable of saying out loud that he likes her, because the minute he does he’s made it Feelings, and all Joe can do with Feelings is ruin them, especially Joyce’s; he’s already done wrong there.
Now you have me wondering where that “roll in the hay” phrase came from. Seems to me that it would be scratchy, stabby and painful, and certainly not fun.
Expected? No. But should you anyway to absolutely make sure there is no blow up? Yes. Because if you’re just looking for a fun casual thing, you don’t want to accidentally knock a bee’s nest onto your own head because your friend or the other person postured in front of the other but things are actually messier than stated.
Liz is dead wrong. On that note, I think we lost something as a civilization, when it stopped being cool to kill people for insulting you in your own home.
“Ugh, fine, I guess I’ll get the door, even if it’s not my cool and pretty girlfriend who still has hangups about going through the front door, but she deal with that at her own pace.”
BAD Joe! BAD! …but I suppose if anything will help to snap Joyce out of her current spiral it’s the friend she feels is most supportive of it banging the shit out of her not-so-secret object of desire.
(Clothes continue to be banished until Danny stands there nude. We conclude that the clothes were actually fine, and the source of the dorkiness was him all along).
He looks like a 1920s accountant or stockbroker, frantically cashing everything out before the Great Depression hits and suddenly everyone has to live out of a mud hut next to their Model T.
Controversial opinion apparently: All parts of his outfit are great, but his vest is too short for my personal liking and therefore he should get one that is longer to match his shirt.
“It’s a-me, Liz, and I have come to bang my new-ish “friend” Joyce’s *secret* crush, the Joe. Lead me to him, minion. And I really don’t like the hat.”
I don’t think Liz had her own car, so she was getting a ride or taking a bus out of town. Obviously at this point she’s missed that opportunity. And if she deliberately missed her ride to meet joe, she is definitely taking a big risk (since Joe might not have been available that evening.)
Joe made the comment about darkness being for others who need it…. was it just a coincidence or was he expecting Liz to show up. And how would they have arranged a meeting, since I doubt Sarah would have been willing to let Liz and Joe talk in private.
Way back in the arc where Joyce and Becky return home for a day at their old church, Joe and Joyce were chatting on an app that looked very much like Facebook messenger. So perhaps we can just assume he is.
I think it’s safe for the moment to assume that Joe is speaking generally and doesn’t know that Liz is coming, and the fact that Liz shows up immediately after his statement is just comedic timing. But we’ll see!
I know it’s insanely unlikely, but it’d be a hell of a plot twist if she was there to talk about how she’s concerned for Joyce. Her IG said “Pray for me ya’ll. I’m heading into the den of sin. In theory she could have been there “undercover” as an atheist to see how bad Joyce has gotten.
Now I realize I may have used the wrong mushrooms in my stew, because Liz being here for a good reason can only mean I’m tripping balls.
There’s so much I could say about this strip regarding Joe and his character development, and the many different ways that this might go that could affect his relationship with Joyce, but I’ll leave that to those more eloquent than me. But man, oh man, this is actually incredible, potential-wise.
And now I’m imagining Danny’s surprise at discovering he has an arch-nemesis, but still engaging them in a truly epic duel (doubtless involving ukuleles) in order to claim their hat.
HAHAH OHNOOOO
Liz is down to bang Joe and Joe Thinks he’s down to bang Liz (Sarah notwithstanding) BUT it’s going to end up being All About Joyce, that’s where my money is!
My only assumption is that Liz is here for the Friends with a Rewards Program situation. Money’s on Joe turning her down for the first time in his life, not because he doesn’t want to or even because he’d feel bad about it regarding Joyce, but because he’s preoccupied.
It’d really only be an unhealthy development for Joe because his experiences with sex so far have been really shallow and without any kind of emotional depth even beyond just casually hooking up.
Like it’s not necessarily that Joe sleeping around is icky, so much that Joe himself has made it icky when he sleeps around, because he based so much of his identity on being Fun No Feels Sex Bro that he treats sex as this purely transactional means of getting off that makes him a real man. Whereas, say, Ethan was sleeping around all over the place for a bit there but he was clearly bonding with his hookups in the moment.
and seeing sex as purely transactional, and being pretty clear about it all the while, is bad because…?
ok, maybe it’s not who he wants to be, and i know you have this whole character sheet where he’s got +10 daddy issues etc, so i’m leaving it to you to overanalyze this one XD (but you know, no pressure) it just vaguely sounds to me like you’re saying that sleeping around is fine as long as you’re emotionally invested. meh?
Thank you, I think I will overanalyze Joe instead of going back to sleep like a normal person.
It’s bad for Joe because Joe’s views on sex are something he made in response to his dad serially cheating.
Roz and Ethan have friends and feelings and things they care about. They slept with people and bonded with them in the moment, even if only then. It wasn’t deep, but it wasn’t a transaction. Like, they were still cognizant that they were sleeping with another human being.
Joe doesn’t really get that.
Joe based his entire personality around a view of masculinity predicated on how he wants sex all the time, pursues it all the time, and needs to be as loud about that as possible. Specifically, Joe saw his dad cheat on his mom over and over because he was a randy ol’ stallion who just couldn’t help himself, he saw how emotionally devastating it was to his mom and probably even to his dad who couldn’t stop even if he wanted to (he sure as hell does mean well by Stacy), and more to the point, he saw what happens when he gives a shit about people.
Joe wants to have sex, extremely shocking. As far as he knows, because he’s looking at his future and his future is his dad, who is Joe with a beard, there’s no way for him to have sex with a woman with feelings involved. Joe has clearly indicated that he’s not against emotional connections so much as he thinks they’re impossible to have, it’s less that he hates them and more that he rejects them, because Joe is doomed to stomp on those feelings and hate himself for stomping on them.
So he built himself around it.
Aw yeah, here comes Big Joe, and Big Joe is his dick. Everyone’s going to know, immediately, that Joe is here because he’s DTF, there are no strings attached, and he won’t even think about you after it’s over. In pursuit of sex, that thing Joe needs to want all the time because he’s a man, Joe will make his intentions towards Casual Sex with No Feelings as loud as possible so everyone understands what they’re getting into and everyone else knows what to avoid. If you sleep with Joe, it’s because you want Joe as he is advertising himself.
Or: Joe’s put himself in a box where sex isn’t really casual, it’s mindless. It’s a purely physical act of release, and then that release is the only thing he’ll admit to caring about.
Joe is deathly terrified of getting attached, and he’s even more deathly terrified of someone getting attached to him, because he’s learned that there’s no way he can be emotional with someone without it blowing up in his face. He barely lets himself talk about anything with Danny, his Eternal BFF, because dudes don’t talk about feelings with each other, that’s lame. When it comes to his sexual partners, he sleeps with women who only want him as a lump of meat, because that’s all Joe wants from them and that’s all he’ll let himself be to them, but the difference there is that, say, Roz will have sex with him and then go on with her day and do something that’s important to her, but Joe’s just gonna go back to thinking about his next lay.
Because he can’t let anything he does matter, and he can’t let anyone care about him. Any mistake he makes, like, say, numerically rating all the women at his college and leaving notes about them and then publishing it to anyone who asks, well, that’s something he can fix with apology donuts. It’s super fucked up, but you know why apology donuts can fix it?
Because no one has standards for Joe in the first place, least of all Joe himself.
@Spencer hm, yes, Joe has problems with feelings. and he’s overcompensating with this hypersexual attitude. but also, i think he’s genuinely proud of his sexy skills. that doesn’t contradict anything you’re saying, mind, quite the opposite. except that i don’t feel that sex is “mindless release” for him. i think he thinks sex is fun, and he’s good at it, and he takes pride in that, and that’s cool. that doesn’t mean he can’t have some kind of an addictive behaviour. People get addicted to their job, and they might be excellent at it, and legitimately enjoy it, that doesn’t take away from it being an unhealthy behaviour.
“To Joe sex is a transaction, therefore women are commodities.”
i’m not sure that follows?
You can have sex purely to get yourself and the other person off, without giving it any further meaning, and if you’re both approaching it that way then it might be transactional but it’s fine (see Joe & Roz).
Joe being a sexist cringelord is a separate issue (of course it’s related to his sexuality in his case because toxic masculinity, but it doesn’t have to be). i think he’s been less outrageously sexist in the last few years though? (?)
It’s only bad because he doesn’t get emotionally attached because he is *afraid* to and lets his self-esteem issues and belief that he is a bad person stop him rather than because for him sex is actually just a fun thing you do with no feels. His particular use of casual sex is a bit self-destructive in that it lets him reinforce his only belief that he is only good for sex.
Like, there is nothing wrong with casual sex, for some people it is an emotional thing, for some people it is not and it is just a fun thing to do. Joe likes to pretend he is the latter. That he doesn’t care, won’t care, can’t care.
But we know he is more the former where as much as he wants to be the person that can’t get attached through sexual encounters, he absolutely avoids having it with people he has actual feels for. Because that would be a ~connection~ he would want to have and keep and protect and he thinks he would drop it and shatter it like it is a piece of glass in 0.5 seconds.
A very classic Joe/Joyce moment in the Walkyverse was that Joyce pinpointed that Joe was afraid to love with both his mind and body together.
Looks like that may still hold true over here.
The list, the only interacting with women to hit on them, the constant need to boast about his conquests, even if they were largely made up.
The list was the most obvious example, but the whole package was pretty icky. He was never as bad as he pretended to be, but there were definitely red flags all over the place.
You’re missing one detail: Sleeping with Liz, for Joe, is one hundred percent “sleeping with Joyce, Lite.” Which means he is absolutely gonna get feelings, just, everywhere.
I’m thinking this is gonna end with Joe deflecting and putting it off until Liz realizes something’s up, but it’d sure be dramaaaaaaaaa if it happens and as Joe passes out he goes “you’re almost as beautiful as Joyce.”
If Joe does this, it’s likely to be Important that Danny is present too. Danny knows Joe better than anyone, and not only is Danny not an idiot, he’s leveled up a bunch since the strip began. He could wingman Joe’s deflection and help get Liz out the door, sure, but I think he could really, really help Joe sort through the emotional stuff and offer support. Because one of the things Danny knows about Joe is this: he’s never been what he wants to present. Real Joe has been his best friend since they were toddlers, and not even this lengthy performative No Feels Bro phase has shaken either of them from Eternal Best Friends. Danny, maybe alone among characters in the strip, knows for a fact that Joe is entirely capable of love and loyalty, he just has to let himself.
I think Joe hooking up with Liz would produce the same effect as when he hooked up with Malaya – reminding him once again that he would rather be with Joyce.
(For those confused by the Malaya reference, see Slipshine)
Joe who is overdramatic is funny and all. But Danny has to see it every day and he’s so tired of it. I’m with the ones who think Liz is back to find out how Joyce is doing avoiding Sarah. But if she’s not… Joe, please, just say no for once!
I feel like this could be the beginning of a beautiful friendship between Danny and Liz. She just needs to stop insulting the hat Sal gifted to Danny.
Listen, a lot of people seem to be focusing on Liz, and Joe, and opinions on Danny’s hat. But you’re all missing out the most important thing.
Danny’s handling of the hat criticism. That? That right there? That’s a perfect handling of that situation, and I applaud him for it. No self-consciousness, no defensiveness, and no capitulation. “The Hat is great, and who are you?” Perfect. Beautiful.
So I guess that was a lie then to get out of the situation? And now she needs to crash somewhere, because she doesn’t want to face the music. (In the end, I don’t think it’s really her fault what happened, but she DID enable Joyce.)
Definitely seems to have been a lie. I’m curious about the motivation.
Was she just running out on the situation and now coming back hoping to get in on the rewards program or is there some deeper motivation for her being here? Or for showing up at all?
Would not say it was definitely a lie that she had a ride.
Could be that she had a ride lined up but missed it due to the earlier drama (and Sarah’s hug trap). Or she decided to cancel it at the last minute, either to hook up with joe, or (less likely) spend more time with joyce.
Yeah i am thanks. I was basically there for 3 hours for what was supposed to be an hour long scan, and we’re still not done bc the machine kept breaking down. Some pizza and a good night’s sleep helped a lot
I gotta agree with Liz, newsboy caps are lame, you can only wear them if you’re a 50yo English professor, and you’d better be at least a little daddy or else even that can’t save u
I mean jeez, I know she bought into every one of Joyce’s obvious lies about weeding it up while looking at saucy pictures on the Dark Web and her friends with reward programs relationship with Joe, but Liz probably isn’t that bad at sex.
I’m probably in the minority here in that I really like Liz, I think she’s really interesting and fun. But then I also love Raidah and Rachel and Mike, so I guess I tend to like the characters that get a bad rap.
Cheerful and friendly and affectionate, doesn’t take things seriously, has a fair amount of social awareness. I like her too. Though I can’t say the same for the others, even if I don’t terribly dislike them either (Mike I like as a *character*, and if he stayed alive I think he coulda been redeemed into something super interesting).
I mean yeah I “like” Raidah and actually totally like Rachel because I enjoy the existence of characters who act as antagonists to characters I like and they have sensible reasoning and personality of their own where I go “hey yeah maybe this sympathetic protagonist is actually worthy of scorn.”
I think she’s pretty great myself. Or at least highly interesting. She’s judgmental, which really rubs people the wrong way, but eh. Every character in the comic is flawed in some way. That’s what MAKES them interesting.
I personally don’t judge her too harshly on her words to Ruth which I know people were up in arms about, because she actually knows Ruth better than anyone else in the comic – she LIVED with her, day in and day out, for an entire semester. We don’t know what Ruth did or said to her during that time, but it seems like it was pret-ty bad.
I can’t bring myself to dislike Liz just cuz. Man i love dark skin female characters and her hair and body look like mine (before i chopped all my hair off this week ig) and i don’t feel that a lot. So I’m desperately clinging to her good points
This is related to the previous Sarah and Joyce strips, as well as the Faith-Off in general, but I backtracked this chapter and found these to be a pretty clear summary of how Joyce processes her belief, why she liked Liz so much, and, more to the point, why Joyce thought Sarah would be proud of her.
Having gone back to look at the archive for various reasons, I’ll just make the comment that the new trend of Joyce doing this thing where she puts her hands on her hips, does a Joyce Smile, while being somewhat smug and cheeky about a given thing gives me a lot of energy.
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You thought it was not Sal, but it was I, LIZ!
DAMN YOU, LIZ! (Yelled in the most dramatic and theatrical way)
Liz is only here for a few hours? She has a ride back. And yet, here she is? Something is off kilter.
She’s now hopelessly addicted to the men’s multivitamins and can’t help herself. It’s the only logical explanation.
It’s Liz. I think she’s here for either
a) being where she was hanging out/looking for the gang (unlikely)
or
b) the dispenser of afformentioned ‘edibles’ for another kind of edible.
Danny’s got the right answer: “things are good here, sod off thine disturber of feces”
Uh, I immediately assumed c- proving Sarah right by going after Joyce’s “friends with benefits”. Either because of or despite the fact that she thinks Joyce regularly sleeps with him.
Oh wait that’s what you meant when you said “another kind of edible” isn’t it? Sorry, I missed the subtext there.
Know what I mean, know what I mean? Say no more. Say. No. More.
“Liz, freelance haberdashery critic. My work here is done!”
(Later)
**Knock knock**
“Don’t like the hat.”
“HOMPKE!”
(violence ensues)
my ass, i have laughed it off XD
That had me laughing picturing it, nicely done.
Please don’t let there be some misunderstanding involving Sal and Liz 🙁
I dunno, I can think of several misunderstandings between the two that would make the slipshine patrons rather happy…
You know, that’s a conundrum.
Does anyone else think Danny has the capacity to cheat? Because the boy tore himself into pieces realizing he had a bit of feels for Amber while dating Amazi-Girl, who, much to the surprise of many, is the same person.
Like if Sal walked in on a Harem Anime Cliche Scene would she get upset or would she go “pft right.”
I think Sal’s fear of trusting would take over before she realized just how ridiculous the idea of Danny cheating is. She’s more likely to assume “I was right, can’t trust these hoes” instead of “I’m sure there’s a reasonable explanation for this”.
Yeah, probably.
It’d still be funny if Sal’s crippling fears of opening up to someone failing to take hold when confronted with the possibility of Danny being unfaithful.
Like this big misunderstanding happens, Sal tells Amber and she just starts laughing before “oh you were serious. Have you met him? He thought he was cheating on me with me.“
Pretty sure this is more about Joe than Danny
Meh, I think Joe would be better off not in a Liz situation.
Also I am admittedly making a lot of assumptions based on previous knowledge but Liz is looking like kind of a scumbag right now. Cause the only reason she could be here is to try and bang Joe who she believes is in a relationship (albeit casual) with Joyce. Not a good look.
I admit that I completely forgot that was foreshadowed, but now that you bring it up that is definitely the established plotline, given we’re establishing Liz as a bad person.
Though also given the track record of Willis’ writing, I fully expect us to see some good facets of her eventually. Like with Ruth and Radiah, who when we first met them weren’t shown with any redeeming qualities, but we eventually wrapped around to get a full scope. Which doesn’t justify shitty behavior, of course.
Raidah has redeeming qualities?
Seconded. When has Raidah ever demonstrated any redeeming qualities?
Yeah. Raidah has outright stated that she is controlling Jacob’s life, and she is also in the New Bad Group.
You know how sometimes when we’re getting introduced to characters, they seem like arseholes, but when we get to know them more, that impression fades?
Raidah is not that.
We should probably save that call for when we, like, get to know her more.
(Like in the upcoming chapter called Trial and Sarah)
Raidah less has redeeming qualities, more you feel a little bad that someone was outright conspiring to steal her boyfriend/make him cheat. Or the commentariat guilt tripped you for hating a brown woman despite the fact that she’s insanely elitist and classic, and has been shown in a purely negative light
I think it’s normal to hate her now, because we don’t really know anything about her other than in relation to Sarah, a sympathetic protagonist who has a beef with her.
Like Ruth at the start, or how Daisy’s personality for 11 years was Lesbian until she went out with Ruth and got some character depth.
I don’t doubt that she’ll get some redeeming traits in the future. And we also know her in relation to other sympathetic protagonists (condescending to Dina bc she’s ND, looking down on Joyce for being slightly younger and not aiming to be a millionaire. Y’know instead of looking down on her for trying to seduce her boyfriend which would be very valid and reasonable)
She did look down on Dina for her socialization problems (in that Raidah was judging her on those since she obviously doesn’t know that Dina is neurodivergent as a fact), much like Amber does, and the rest of the cast that one time at Joyce’s dorm party before Dina told them all to fuck off.
So here’s how I see it as someone with ASD and ADHD; it is extremely easy for people to be compassionate, but through the lens of outright condescension. They want to help us because we’re helpless idiot children who need the world patiently explained to us, and displaying any kind of resentment for this treatment is baffling to them because omg, I’m just trying to be nice.
Much like Becky’s complete misunderstanding of Dina’s sexual appetite, the misunderstanding of neurodivergent people is a blaring white noise to our lives, and it’s a blaring white noise because otherwise normal and understanding people indulge in it without really understanding, the way one would used to say “I’m not gay… not that there’s anything wrong with that!” It’s something that needs to change, but it’s not where it should be now, and so stories about living with neurodivergence can depict that lived reality even as it also shows ways to be healthy and respectful, like how Becky is super respectful and admiring of Dina and treats everything she says at face value with dignity, or how Joe is comfortable talking about sex with her because he knows Sex Things and understands it’s a topic Dina doesn’t feel the need to dance around.
As for the Joyce thing, well, I do think that was indicative of Raidah as a social climber, I think that’s at least a fairly clearly textual element to her character for all the ones she’s got given her new posse of weird jerks patting themselves on the back for growing up (and Carl who has done nothing wrong), but I don’t think her talking down to Joyce was entirely based on Joyce’s career choice, so much as she needed to find a way to diminish someone her friends told her was sniffing around her boyfriend and she should worry, and so settled on why her career choice was dumb.
I’m being open to other interpretations of Raidah’s character if only because we haven’t really seen her enough for me to make a hard read, but I think we’ve seen enough of her that room for interpretation exists, like how Daisy had no personality until she suddenly did with Ruth.
Let’s also remember that Raidah criticized her friend for using a slur against Dina in that same scene, which implies her ‘condescension’ wasn’t some false show to mock, but rooted in an actual feeling she had. Her reaction against Sarah feels to me like an overactive defensive mechanism. For all her behavior is crappy, she mostly tries to maintain distance (spare the beginning when the situation was fresh and she was being an asshole). And let’s not forget that Sarah’s engaged in crappy behavior back (violent assault, a long term plan to break her up with her boyfriend), she’s just more sympathetic due to being the PoV.
Really, if we knew as little about Sarah as we knew about Raidah, and we knew as much about Raidah as we do Sarah, I could honestly see a lot of people being on her side. Especially if it turns out the friend who got sent home got sent to a place that Isn’t Safe like Ruth would have been if she’d been sent packing.
Yeah that’s how I’m rolling with it.
There’s too much room for ambiguity and interpretation with Raidah for me to just go ” yep, evil”, especially when the last two strips had Sarah at her worst
@Rocket Relm: The situation wasn’t that fresh in the beginning, when she harassed Sarah out of the blue a couple of times. Fresh to us, but the entire summer and a good part of the previous year had passed for them. It’s at least implied that those interactions were the resumption of a long campaign of harassment, which had helped to isolate Sarah for the past year. Raidah only started maintaining difference after that violent assault, for better or worse.
Without the context of a year of social bullying, Sarah punching her seems really bad. Even with it, the plan to take Jacob from her was bad – and was portrayed as such throughout, leading to Sarah dropping it and it blowing up in Joyce’s face.
I don’t think that’s implied at all, but it’s certainly a reasonable conclusion to draw. The last thing Raidah says to Sarah in the flashback is to stay away from her, so I think that’s an implication that Raidah only ever lashes out at her when they crossed paths, which, still wrong.
And, y’know, whatever “not according to Dana, last I checked” means.
I kinda read that initial (of two) instances where Raidah provokes her as a way of setting up the late reveal of why Sarah ratted her roommate out for using illegal drugs, since it initially comes off as Sarah being a narc.
That was an arguable point before the whole Jacob/Joyce/Raidah thing. During that though we learned that she was classist, manipulative and scheming and we learned absolutely nothing redeeming about her.
Maybe she does have hidden depths, but at this point Willis has gone out of his way to avoid showing them to us.
She was shown not just in relation to Sarah, but also Jacob and Joyce, in a sequence in which the narrative clearly put Joyce in the wrong and yet we still didn’t get anything positive about her.
I don’t think any of that was made absolutely clear, but we have different reads on her on account of there not being much there, if only for the time being.
Like I sure as hell don’t read that little “Jacob needs me” thing as “I need to control Jacob” without room for interpretation, given how torn up she was after he broke up with her, it kind of struck me more as “Jacob needs me because I have worth to him.”
But, again, we’re talking about a character who only shows up in an antagonistic capacity to someone we like more than her.
The only reason that comes to mind to me is she actually cares about Joyce and/or the consequences of her running off when voices got raised and Joe is a low risk source
What could Joe possibly offer in this situation at all? He wasn’t involved. Not saying she couldn’t be seeking advice from Joe but the question is why? If Liz cared about Joyce she’d go apologize to her, she knows where her dorm is.
Going to Joyce’s room means seeing Sarah, and she might not want to be vulnerable in front of Sarah by doing something like apologizing. I don’t personally think it’s why she’s here, but going to Joyce’s supposed best friend because she cares isn’t out of the realm of possibility.
Moar Man-Pills(TM)
Joe was there when the drama bomb went off, she can at least get background information from him. We can’t assume she knows who Becky is and why this conflict is so important.
I mean, logically there are many reasons she could be there, considering she spent an entire afternoon there playing Mario Kart.
Maybe she forgot her wallet.
Maybe she feels guilty about abusing Joe’s hospitality and is here to say thank you.
Maybe she missed her bus and wants to look up a schedule, but feels awkward going back to Sarah/Joyce seeing how poorly they left off.
Maybe she wants to apologize to Sarah/Joyce and doesn’t know how to because she doesn’t know what the hell happened, and Joe seemed to actually know.
Maybe she’s here to buy weed off Joe.
Personally, I like the idea that she’s trying to buy an edible off Joe. Or decided her Men’s Vitamin was laced with something and is here to punch him over it.
While I’d be tremendously and pleasantly surprised if she was actually back for some benign or positive reason, I’m pretty sure Liz’s role in this story is to serve as the Bad Gal, something to point to and say “don’t have the thought that christianity is dumb, you don’t want to become her, do you?” She’ll be allowed to have nuance in later elements of the story I’m sure, but until Joyce gets his with the karma anvil and learns her lesson (which Liz will probably be part of), I don’t think Liz will be presented with redeeming qualities.
I’d be delighted to be wrong about the narrative here, though.
I mean, she’s not really bad on any capacity. At worst she thinks Christianity is dumb, which could be born from whatever is compelling her to continue lying to her folks, or maybe she’s 18 and sorts edgy about the most powerful religious institution in the continent she lives on
Take it from someone who’s been where you’re at: you gotta let characters exist instead of thinking about their purpose.
I mean, Joyce indicated it was casual, not committed. And Joyce’s comments could be read as a recommendation of Joe’s skill. Liz might believe that Joyce would be fully okay with her banging Joe as well.
Not that I think Liz needs benefit of the doubt after her previous actions – just that, in this case, I don’t really see any issue based on the information Liz was given.
Admittedly not experience with modern interpersonal sexual relationships between friends but that feels like something you at least run by both people in the relationship first instead of visiting one on the side after dark. But I am no longer hip so maybe it’s cool and I’m just a square as proven by me using vocabulary like “hip” and “square”.
i’d say it’s a gray area? on the face of it, Joyce did say they were casual. in Liz’s fantasy, which Joyce did nothing to dissuade, Joe’s the “den of sin” guy. he’s just getting it on with half the campus anyway.
but yeah i would absolutely advise caution and communication etc, esp when you’re being posturing 18 year olds who think they’ve got the hang of this free love thing, and then find out that they actually have Strong Feelings about who who they bang, bangs (story as old as… well, the 60’s at least)
source: i may have fucked around and found out! quite literally.
Joe and Joyce are friends with reward programs, or, there’s no stated commitment. It’s not something where anyone involved would be expected to run it by anyone else.
eh, it’s the difference between a contractual obligation and social etiquette. it’s not that it’s your fault if it blows up, but had you erred on the side of caution you might have avoided a blowup in the first place.
if it’s me, i’m absolutely checking in with the pal who said they were happy-go-lucky, no-strings-attached fuckbuddies. if it is that simple and straightforward, good, glad i got it confirmed, on to the fun part. if it isn’t, well that’s a bullet dodged y’know?
We know Joe’s got it bad for Joyce. Even if Liz is genuinely here for a roll in the hay, this could be the story setting him up to decide for himself if he really wants more casual hookups, or…
[Dramatic *dun DUN DUUNN* sfx]
a monogamous relationship with Joyce.
Oh, that’ll be for a while.
Mostly because I don’t think Joe is capable of saying out loud that he likes her, because the minute he does he’s made it Feelings, and all Joe can do with Feelings is ruin them, especially Joyce’s; he’s already done wrong there.
Mommy? If that man is so important, how come he’s not wearing any clothes?
Now you have me wondering where that “roll in the hay” phrase came from. Seems to me that it would be scratchy, stabby and painful, and certainly not fun.
Expected? No. But should you anyway to absolutely make sure there is no blow up? Yes. Because if you’re just looking for a fun casual thing, you don’t want to accidentally knock a bee’s nest onto your own head because your friend or the other person postured in front of the other but things are actually messier than stated.
…well, this was unexpected.
Liz is right. The hat must go.
NOOOOOO! That hat is Sal’s gift for Danny and it’s precious and beautiful!
It’ll come back. The Hat always comes back
The very next day.
The hat came back, we thought it was a goner.
Liz is dead wrong. On that note, I think we lost something as a civilization, when it stopped being cool to kill people for insulting you in your own home.
Danny is right, the hat is great.
Hat is a good egg.
Did Liz come back for Joe?
Joe who?
Joe mama
She’s at the wrong address then
GOTTEM!
Who the HELL is Mark Zuckerburg???
Mark Zuckerberg’s less evil cousin?
I will be surely disappointed if that is the case even if I can’t think of another reason why she’d come back.
Maybe she wants to know where to get some of those edibles.
*plays “I LIKE YOUR HAT” by Dan Paladin on Hacked Muzak*
https://www.newgrounds.com/audio/listen/10836
cool song!
Hi, Liz!
And omg Danny is already being such an adorable boyfriend here, don’t mind me, I’m just over here squeeing.
“Ugh, fine, I guess I’ll get the door, even if it’s not my cool and pretty girlfriend who still has hangups about going through the front door, but she deal with that at her own pace.”
I’m pretty sure that Sal, to quote George Carlin, was born by cesarean. That is her reason for using the window.
“OK so someone’s is knocking at the door so it’s probably not my hot girlfriend but I’ll answer anyway.”
*Opens to to see hot stranger*
“OK it is a hot girl, but it isn’t my hot girlfriend so I don’t give a damn.”
BAD Joe! BAD! …but I suppose if anything will help to snap Joyce out of her current spiral it’s the friend she feels is most supportive of it banging the shit out of her not-so-secret object of desire.
Wow. I first read that as Joe/Dorothy and wondered at what I’d missed/the mental work to get there. Then *plonk*, the Liz/Joe penny dropped. 🤦♂️
The hats good but that tie needs to go
The tie is great but the vest he could lose.
Forget the vest, that shirt…!
(Clothes continue to be banished until Danny stands there nude. We conclude that the clothes were actually fine, and the source of the dorkiness was him all along).
We have to go deeper, first.
Nah the shirt is fine but the pants have to go!
Danny is wearing altogether too many socks. the door handle, on the other hand, is looking deplorably under-socked.
So we all agree the issue is there’s just too much going on?
He looks like a 1920s accountant or stockbroker, frantically cashing everything out before the Great Depression hits and suddenly everyone has to live out of a mud hut next to their Model T.
Yeah not feeling the tie.
No.
The tie helps him tap into bisexual no fashion sense energy.
Hey now.
It is one of our four holy tenants alongside bad hair, puns, and not sitting properly in chairs.
Wait wait… does that mean I’m bisexual?
Besides, I would have thought neckwear would have tied “him into bisexual no fashion sense energy.”
See? Puns.
Controversial opinion apparently: All parts of his outfit are great, but his vest is too short for my personal liking and therefore he should get one that is longer to match his shirt.
Is it a short vest or that his shirt appears to be untucked?
Figured this was coming, I was surprised she left in the first place without anything going down with Joe.
Rude
“It’s a-me, Liz, and I have come to bang my new-ish “friend” Joyce’s *secret* crush, the Joe. Lead me to him, minion. And I really don’t like the hat.”
Gotta disagree, Joe. Early sunsets are one of the joys of living in the Midwest.
Man, do I feel silly now for thinking that Liz was at all remotely telling the truth about her ride needing to go.
Yeah, definitely looks now in retrospect more like she was trying to dip out of the situation altogether.
Oh crap, she’s come to spoil the other story now!
Danny! Get out of there before Sal shows up out of nowhere!
I feel like Sal’s smart enough to know Danny is too pure to even think about cheating on her
I do have to wonder about the logistics here.
I don’t think Liz had her own car, so she was getting a ride or taking a bus out of town. Obviously at this point she’s missed that opportunity. And if she deliberately missed her ride to meet joe, she is definitely taking a big risk (since Joe might not have been available that evening.)
Something else I was wondering…
Joe made the comment about darkness being for others who need it…. was it just a coincidence or was he expecting Liz to show up. And how would they have arranged a meeting, since I doubt Sarah would have been willing to let Liz and Joe talk in private.
Liz’s use of Facebook has already been established.
Liz’s use of factbook is established. But do we know if Joe uses it?
Way back in the arc where Joyce and Becky return home for a day at their old church, Joe and Joyce were chatting on an app that looked very much like Facebook messenger. So perhaps we can just assume he is.
i assume that was just comedic timing but now that you mention it! maybe they did plan this! are they gonna elope
Now that my fridge, stove and my washer are blue-tooth enabled by default, I think the spelling changed to E-Lope
eLope, iLope, anteLope
I think it’s safe for the moment to assume that Joe is speaking generally and doesn’t know that Liz is coming, and the fact that Liz shows up immediately after his statement is just comedic timing. But we’ll see!
I know it’s insanely unlikely, but it’d be a hell of a plot twist if she was there to talk about how she’s concerned for Joyce. Her IG said “Pray for me ya’ll. I’m heading into the den of sin. In theory she could have been there “undercover” as an atheist to see how bad Joyce has gotten.
Now I realize I may have used the wrong mushrooms in my stew, because Liz being here for a good reason can only mean I’m tripping balls.
Is Liz pulling a Becky
But Becky isn’t there
Liz seems like the kind of person I’d qualify as shenanigans ‘n dash.
There’s so much I could say about this strip regarding Joe and his character development, and the many different ways that this might go that could affect his relationship with Joyce, but I’ll leave that to those more eloquent than me. But man, oh man, this is actually incredible, potential-wise.
The reader in me says “Oh no.”
The writer in me says “OH YES!”
The hat IS great
A verra nize hat, in fact!
Danny is probably the least Jaeger-like person I’ve ever seen.
And now I’m imagining Danny’s surprise at discovering he has an arch-nemesis, but still engaging them in a truly epic duel (doubtless involving ukuleles) in order to claim their hat.
Jaegers would totally agree to a ukulele duel for the hat (and still be able to do considerable property damage)
If Hat is great, and Faz is great, does that mean Hat is Faz?
By the Transitive Property of Equality; yes.
Darkness falls.
I wonder if we’ll be getting the Halloween strips soon…..
I’m still kinda hoping we see them in a flashback eventually.
Danny’s not dressed to impress you, Liz. 😛
Gross
Liz, don’t you dare bang Joe!!
…Wait, isn’t she supposed to be at Ball State? How’d she get back in one day?
Maybe she was lying about needing/having a ride.
No, it looks like she’s about to have a ride.
She’s about to hail one, anyway.
HAHAH OHNOOOO
Liz is down to bang Joe and Joe Thinks he’s down to bang Liz (Sarah notwithstanding) BUT it’s going to end up being All About Joyce, that’s where my money is!
same!
*hands over pile of cash*
Even Dave Hester doesn’t have enough “Yuuup”s for this.
Seems likely which makes me think that’s not where this is going. We will see!
My only assumption is that Liz is here for the Friends with a Rewards Program situation. Money’s on Joe turning her down for the first time in his life, not because he doesn’t want to or even because he’d feel bad about it regarding Joyce, but because he’s preoccupied.
The hat is great, at least if the uni forgot to put the heating on.
Oh, there’s the bag of mulch that fell out of the truck earlier.
Come now, the hat isn’t THAT bad.
I literally gasped. LIZ, NO.
I would love to reply with a classic “LIZ, YES.” but…
Joe will get to that soon enough?
I guess hoping for the start of the Halloween Arc *on* Halloween was way too much to ask.
Damn you, Willis.
What actually is wrong with the hat? It’s… just a hat?
It looks as though it belongs on a middle-aged golfer or a balding man in a convertible.
Dress for the job you want.
Go for it Liz, nothing wrong with some casual fun. It’s surprisingly healthy for Joe even that it’s casual sex that has no icky element
wait were there icky elements to Joe’s previous hookups?
don’t remember the specifics well enough.
anyway, i’m not so confident yet there’ll be nothing unsavoury about this tryst, but i guess we’ll see
Kiiiiiiiiinda.
It’d really only be an unhealthy development for Joe because his experiences with sex so far have been really shallow and without any kind of emotional depth even beyond just casually hooking up.
Like it’s not necessarily that Joe sleeping around is icky, so much that Joe himself has made it icky when he sleeps around, because he based so much of his identity on being Fun No Feels Sex Bro that he treats sex as this purely transactional means of getting off that makes him a real man. Whereas, say, Ethan was sleeping around all over the place for a bit there but he was clearly bonding with his hookups in the moment.
and seeing sex as purely transactional, and being pretty clear about it all the while, is bad because…?
ok, maybe it’s not who he wants to be, and i know you have this whole character sheet where he’s got +10 daddy issues etc, so i’m leaving it to you to overanalyze this one XD (but you know, no pressure) it just vaguely sounds to me like you’re saying that sleeping around is fine as long as you’re emotionally invested. meh?
Thank you, I think I will overanalyze Joe instead of going back to sleep like a normal person.
It’s bad for Joe because Joe’s views on sex are something he made in response to his dad serially cheating.
Roz and Ethan have friends and feelings and things they care about. They slept with people and bonded with them in the moment, even if only then. It wasn’t deep, but it wasn’t a transaction. Like, they were still cognizant that they were sleeping with another human being.
Joe doesn’t really get that.
Joe based his entire personality around a view of masculinity predicated on how he wants sex all the time, pursues it all the time, and needs to be as loud about that as possible. Specifically, Joe saw his dad cheat on his mom over and over because he was a randy ol’ stallion who just couldn’t help himself, he saw how emotionally devastating it was to his mom and probably even to his dad who couldn’t stop even if he wanted to (he sure as hell does mean well by Stacy), and more to the point, he saw what happens when he gives a shit about people.
Joe wants to have sex, extremely shocking. As far as he knows, because he’s looking at his future and his future is his dad, who is Joe with a beard, there’s no way for him to have sex with a woman with feelings involved. Joe has clearly indicated that he’s not against emotional connections so much as he thinks they’re impossible to have, it’s less that he hates them and more that he rejects them, because Joe is doomed to stomp on those feelings and hate himself for stomping on them.
So he built himself around it.
Aw yeah, here comes Big Joe, and Big Joe is his dick. Everyone’s going to know, immediately, that Joe is here because he’s DTF, there are no strings attached, and he won’t even think about you after it’s over. In pursuit of sex, that thing Joe needs to want all the time because he’s a man, Joe will make his intentions towards Casual Sex with No Feelings as loud as possible so everyone understands what they’re getting into and everyone else knows what to avoid. If you sleep with Joe, it’s because you want Joe as he is advertising himself.
Or: Joe’s put himself in a box where sex isn’t really casual, it’s mindless. It’s a purely physical act of release, and then that release is the only thing he’ll admit to caring about.
Joe is deathly terrified of getting attached, and he’s even more deathly terrified of someone getting attached to him, because he’s learned that there’s no way he can be emotional with someone without it blowing up in his face. He barely lets himself talk about anything with Danny, his Eternal BFF, because dudes don’t talk about feelings with each other, that’s lame. When it comes to his sexual partners, he sleeps with women who only want him as a lump of meat, because that’s all Joe wants from them and that’s all he’ll let himself be to them, but the difference there is that, say, Roz will have sex with him and then go on with her day and do something that’s important to her, but Joe’s just gonna go back to thinking about his next lay.
Because he can’t let anything he does matter, and he can’t let anyone care about him. Any mistake he makes, like, say, numerically rating all the women at his college and leaving notes about them and then publishing it to anyone who asks, well, that’s something he can fix with apology donuts. It’s super fucked up, but you know why apology donuts can fix it?
Because no one has standards for Joe in the first place, least of all Joe himself.
@Spencer hm, yes, Joe has problems with feelings. and he’s overcompensating with this hypersexual attitude. but also, i think he’s genuinely proud of his sexy skills. that doesn’t contradict anything you’re saying, mind, quite the opposite. except that i don’t feel that sex is “mindless release” for him. i think he thinks sex is fun, and he’s good at it, and he takes pride in that, and that’s cool. that doesn’t mean he can’t have some kind of an addictive behaviour. People get addicted to their job, and they might be excellent at it, and legitimately enjoy it, that doesn’t take away from it being an unhealthy behaviour.
To Joe sex is a transaction, therefore women are commodities. Remember how he hit on Rachel by telling her she was hotter than other women?
Get laid all you want, but remember that your partners are human beings.
“To Joe sex is a transaction, therefore women are commodities.”
i’m not sure that follows?
You can have sex purely to get yourself and the other person off, without giving it any further meaning, and if you’re both approaching it that way then it might be transactional but it’s fine (see Joe & Roz).
Joe being a sexist cringelord is a separate issue (of course it’s related to his sexuality in his case because toxic masculinity, but it doesn’t have to be). i think he’s been less outrageously sexist in the last few years though? (?)
It’s only bad because he doesn’t get emotionally attached because he is *afraid* to and lets his self-esteem issues and belief that he is a bad person stop him rather than because for him sex is actually just a fun thing you do with no feels. His particular use of casual sex is a bit self-destructive in that it lets him reinforce his only belief that he is only good for sex.
Like, there is nothing wrong with casual sex, for some people it is an emotional thing, for some people it is not and it is just a fun thing to do. Joe likes to pretend he is the latter. That he doesn’t care, won’t care, can’t care.
But we know he is more the former where as much as he wants to be the person that can’t get attached through sexual encounters, he absolutely avoids having it with people he has actual feels for. Because that would be a ~connection~ he would want to have and keep and protect and he thinks he would drop it and shatter it like it is a piece of glass in 0.5 seconds.
yes. i agree with all of this.
A very classic Joe/Joyce moment in the Walkyverse was that Joyce pinpointed that Joe was afraid to love with both his mind and body together.
Looks like that may still hold true over here.
The icky is the list. Everything else was mostly fine but making the list was really shitty regardless of whether it got out
oh definitely. the list was very icky.
The list, the only interacting with women to hit on them, the constant need to boast about his conquests, even if they were largely made up.
The list was the most obvious example, but the whole package was pretty icky. He was never as bad as he pretended to be, but there were definitely red flags all over the place.
You’re missing one detail: Sleeping with Liz, for Joe, is one hundred percent “sleeping with Joyce, Lite.” Which means he is absolutely gonna get feelings, just, everywhere.
I’m thinking this is gonna end with Joe deflecting and putting it off until Liz realizes something’s up, but it’d sure be dramaaaaaaaaa if it happens and as Joe passes out he goes “you’re almost as beautiful as Joyce.”
Dang it your both right. That’s a very Joe thing to do.
If Joe does this, it’s likely to be Important that Danny is present too. Danny knows Joe better than anyone, and not only is Danny not an idiot, he’s leveled up a bunch since the strip began. He could wingman Joe’s deflection and help get Liz out the door, sure, but I think he could really, really help Joe sort through the emotional stuff and offer support. Because one of the things Danny knows about Joe is this: he’s never been what he wants to present. Real Joe has been his best friend since they were toddlers, and not even this lengthy performative No Feels Bro phase has shaken either of them from Eternal Best Friends. Danny, maybe alone among characters in the strip, knows for a fact that Joe is entirely capable of love and loyalty, he just has to let himself.
That’s an interesting take.
I think Joe hooking up with Liz would produce the same effect as when he hooked up with Malaya – reminding him once again that he would rather be with Joyce.
(For those confused by the Malaya reference, see Slipshine)
who was it said we would likely never see Liz again? WELL WELL WELL
…wait was it me did i say that
Maybe. I definitely did
Lizzed by your own commentard.
Aw Hell no, go away Liz, go away, you caused enough drama already!
Liz is an unstoppable wrecking ball of drama, apparently
The world is a can of worms and she is the can opener!
Joe who is overdramatic is funny and all. But Danny has to see it every day and he’s so tired of it. I’m with the ones who think Liz is back to find out how Joyce is doing avoiding Sarah. But if she’s not… Joe, please, just say no for once!
I feel like this could be the beginning of a beautiful friendship between Danny and Liz. She just needs to stop insulting the hat Sal gifted to Danny.
Liz’s dismissal of Danny’s sweet hat is when she descended from roguish heel to actual villainy.
she is so cancelled now.
There are crimes that can never be forgiven.
Definitely a cap-ital offense.
…i hat you.
Top pun, my bonnethomme.
You thought it was safe,
That we were done with all this biz,
But you were wrong cause she’s back,
cause she’s back,
It’s the return of the Liz.
Did you murmur “gee whiz,
good thing she’s gone, this Liz!”
Guess what though?!
that’s right, bro!!
She’s come back for your jizz!
I would NEVER have thought of rhyming “though” with “bro”, and it’s GENIUS!
awww you’re too kind *v*
…btw i don’t know what game you were playing exactly haha. is yours a filk of a song?? couldn’t figure it out
If it is, it’s entirely by accident. XD
Wasn’t really playing at anything, sometimes my brain just puts words in my head and I feel better when I put them out there.
well, i like your game C=
Watch Danny write “no hat opinions” on their whiteboard because… well there will be a lot more of those.
Listen, a lot of people seem to be focusing on Liz, and Joe, and opinions on Danny’s hat. But you’re all missing out the most important thing.
Danny’s handling of the hat criticism. That? That right there? That’s a perfect handling of that situation, and I applaud him for it. No self-consciousness, no defensiveness, and no capitulation. “The Hat is great, and who are you?” Perfect. Beautiful.
Fuck yeah, Danny. Well done.
… Even though you’re totally wrong.
Yeah it’s great. Danny has found enough self-respect to assert himself and his dapper ha-
“… Even though you’re totally wrong.”
How dare.
Danny’s become a lot more confident in himself and I like it. Dare I say he’s actually become somewhat sexy lately?
You dared to say it and you will never be forgiven for doing so
The hat is a gift from sal, it’s by default great
Hell yeah, Danny.
I didn’t expect Liz to come back. I thought she had a car ride to catch or whatever.
So I guess that was a lie then to get out of the situation? And now she needs to crash somewhere, because she doesn’t want to face the music. (In the end, I don’t think it’s really her fault what happened, but she DID enable Joyce.)
Definitely seems to have been a lie. I’m curious about the motivation.
Was she just running out on the situation and now coming back hoping to get in on the rewards program or is there some deeper motivation for her being here? Or for showing up at all?
Would not say it was definitely a lie that she had a ride.
Could be that she had a ride lined up but missed it due to the earlier drama (and Sarah’s hug trap). Or she decided to cancel it at the last minute, either to hook up with joe, or (less likely) spend more time with joyce.
Or she decided to return and got another ride back, or borrowed someone’s car.
Oh, guess I’m back to the comments already. Sup y’all
Feeling any better after the MRI?
Yeah i am thanks. I was basically there for 3 hours for what was supposed to be an hour long scan, and we’re still not done bc the machine kept breaking down. Some pizza and a good night’s sleep helped a lot
ohmigod it’s so good to have you back!!! xP
Lol thanks, appreciate the warm welcome ❤️
I gotta agree with Liz, newsboy caps are lame, you can only wear them if you’re a 50yo English professor, and you’d better be at least a little daddy or else even that can’t save u
Danny is only two letters away
Or a stuffy nose
Danny is not and never will be daddy, he must get rid of the newsboy cap
Oh great. Two more lives to be irrevocably destroyed. Hurray……
I mean jeez, I know she bought into every one of Joyce’s obvious lies about weeding it up while looking at saucy pictures on the Dark Web and her friends with reward programs relationship with Joe, but Liz probably isn’t that bad at sex.
I’m probably in the minority here in that I really like Liz, I think she’s really interesting and fun. But then I also love Raidah and Rachel and Mike, so I guess I tend to like the characters that get a bad rap.
…chibi Liz? *w*
>:)
Cheerful and friendly and affectionate, doesn’t take things seriously, has a fair amount of social awareness. I like her too. Though I can’t say the same for the others, even if I don’t terribly dislike them either (Mike I like as a *character*, and if he stayed alive I think he coulda been redeemed into something super interesting).
The story needs dirtbags to drive the plot forward
I mean yeah I “like” Raidah and actually totally like Rachel because I enjoy the existence of characters who act as antagonists to characters I like and they have sensible reasoning and personality of their own where I go “hey yeah maybe this sympathetic protagonist is actually worthy of scorn.”
Counterpoint: Rachel is great as a person, actually.
Super great.
I think she’s pretty great myself. Or at least highly interesting. She’s judgmental, which really rubs people the wrong way, but eh. Every character in the comic is flawed in some way. That’s what MAKES them interesting.
I personally don’t judge her too harshly on her words to Ruth which I know people were up in arms about, because she actually knows Ruth better than anyone else in the comic – she LIVED with her, day in and day out, for an entire semester. We don’t know what Ruth did or said to her during that time, but it seems like it was pret-ty bad.
I can’t bring myself to dislike Liz just cuz. Man i love dark skin female characters and her hair and body look like mine (before i chopped all my hair off this week ig) and i don’t feel that a lot. So I’m desperately clinging to her good points
tomorrow:
Joe: why aren’t you back at Ball State?
Liz: For me classes were cancelled forever
comment section: oh SHIT
Next next strip: “I’m actually on the run from the law, I blew up my campus while experimenting with the quantum entanglement theory of my eyebrows”
“Also I killed M’aiq”
Looks like Joe is getting some brown sugar.
Maybe, let’s not assume just yet. (I mean yeah probably but I have high hopes for Joe)
I know what you mean, but my thoughts immediately snapped to the Rolling Stones song that’s as catchy as it is problematic. :\
This is related to the previous Sarah and Joyce strips, as well as the Faith-Off in general, but I backtracked this chapter and found these to be a pretty clear summary of how Joyce processes her belief, why she liked Liz so much, and, more to the point, why Joyce thought Sarah would be proud of her.
https://www.dumbingofage.com/2021/comic/book-12/01-sister-christian/judas/
https://www.dumbingofage.com/2021/comic/book-12/01-sister-christian/aticking/
Having gone back to look at the archive for various reasons, I’ll just make the comment that the new trend of Joyce doing this thing where she puts her hands on her hips, does a Joyce Smile, while being somewhat smug and cheeky about a given thing gives me a lot of energy.
“Don’t like your hat.”
“The girl I just gave cunnilingus too in mid-grappling hook does.”
Noice.
I’m sorry, if you are wearing that hat, you are always soliciting opinions.
So Joe is actually Darkwing Duck?