He uses sex as an ice breaker, but he does have set standards.
He seems to think of himself as a “joy-giver”.
So by doing the do with as many women as possible, he’s making a lot of people happy.
I do think he has good intentions, but doesn’t or doesn’t want to think of the emotional implications that he leaves behind for the women who want more.
His problem seemed to be that he comes on too strong, no? Like I think with his date with Joyce, neither of them really communicated properly. But for the most part he seems really up front to the point where it’s uncomfortable to women who don’t want his advances or feel that it’s too much. I could be remembering badly, it’s been a while since i’ve seen him in action.
Hey, women can want guilt-free casual sex as much as men and Joe always makes it clear what he’s interested in. Part of the reason Joyce and he had such a problem.
That’s what I was thinking. Joe can be inappropriate, but he’s only interested in having a good time with women who want to have a good time with him (in the same sense) and there’s nothing wrong with that. I agree that to imply that he’s emotionally damaging the women he sleeps with could be interpreted as denying the desires of the women who want to sleep with him.
Oh, that’s not what I meant.
I meant that some people attach a lot of emotional meaning to sex, and not all of Joe’s partners are going to have the same views as he does.
In broader strokes, not all of his partners will have Roz’s disposition. Some of them may have been looking for more.
What I was trying to convey is that Joe doesn’t seem to think about that too deeply. He has standard rules for making sure that it IS going to help someone though.
What I mean by all this is that I think that Joe believes that texting Joyce in this way is helpful and will make someone happier in the long run.
And Joe is all about that.
“Some of them may have been looking for more.
What I was trying to convey is that Joe doesn’t seem to think about that too deeply.”
And nor should he have to. From what we’ve seen, Joe makes it perfectly clear what he’s looking for before he sleeps with a woman. He sets the boundaries ahead of time. If they end up wanting something outside the boundaries he set, that’s on them. They have moral agency.
While, I’m the one to be really down on Joe, I see this as a major positive sign. If he can see the humanity and build a stronger personal friendship with the person he’s just been sexually harassing, maybe this can be the impetus he needs to improve in general and become a sexually confident dude instead of the weird creeper he is now.
And this will also let him deal with the emotions surrounding the breakup of his own parents and become less resistant to the existence of emotions in his space as that is proving toxic to his friendship with Danny.
Plus, it’s about time for him to grow and become more complex with the rest of the cast before he was left behind entirely.
Why not? He’s already getting close to no screen time because every one else’s development is leaving him behind, so some complexity might do him good. I’m definitely a fan of characters I hate making me hate them less by maturing and growing as people.
Heh, maybe. But there’s so much story potential in her being an amazing foil to the other characters that I don’t see it happening any time soon. But I definitely wouldn’t mind a redemption arc sometime in the future after her potential has been more fully mined.
I think it’ll be a different type of maturation, more surrounding the rejection of toxic masculinity (fingers crossed), especially since the path he was on, the only real development that was seeming likely was having a plotline where Joe realizes that only having a “no means no” outlook on sexual encounters is a great way to trip into pushing past someone’s boundaries and sexually assaulting them.
So anything that lessens his bro-y toxic masculinity in that manner is nothing but a good thing in my eyes.
I think Joe is interesting because he’s come to college to not have to worry about complex deep soul searching but just relax as well as let his hair down. It’s an interesting and not wrong contrast.
There are other things that will need to change as well for Joe’s relationship with Danny to become less toxic. For example, Danny will have to be more direct, and ask the questions he really needs answered. Joe has indicated that he’s willing to have the emotional conversations and provide support, if Danny will actually say that’s what Danny needs.
So I don’t actually foresee their friendship improving no matter how much Joe improves. Danny is not an open/direct person.
(Which is incidentally, I feel, why Joe has been fairly successfully having a 24-hour emotions-in-Joe’s-space conversation with Joyce: she’s been direct enough that he knows what kind of conversation they’re having, instead of saying one thing and meaning something else.)
What? Joe’s consistently been one of the more complex characters in DoA despite (or perhaps because of) his comparative lack of screen time.
You may not have noticed, but even though Joe’s been used as a punch line pretty often, a lot of it is really telling about why he acts the way he does.
Isn’t is a little significant that Joe is *just like his dad*?
Joe’s actually been one of the more consistently decent characters, despite having a one-track mind. (Heck, if anything Joyce is the one who should be trying to make amends with him for, you know, punching him in the face.)
I think I called it in the comments. The possibility of a connection between them . . . but not this particular texting spree. WOW! Willis, fatherhood has not gotten in your way—you are still the maestro!
The theory was going around from the first time we see her texting someone. Then it seemed to lose traction when dorothy responded to one of her texts.
Are you sure we ever saw Dorothy responding? I could not track that down. We know that Joyce texted her during the gun episode, but did we ever see an answer?
Same here. I saw a bunch of people saying it was gonna be Joe, and I just didn’t think they’d reach a point of doing anything more than begrudgingly tolerating each other.
Joyce’s hatred of Joe has always been a classic case of ‘methinks the lady doth protest too much’. Yes, he’s a horndog, but he’s always been upfront about it, and treated Joyce like a perfect gentleman during their date (even walked her back to her room, even after they’d fought). Now that Joyce’s standards are changing, Joe is one of the first people she’d rethink her stance on.
I mostly didn’t think it’d be Joe because he’s been not-so-great at offering comfort/advice to Danny and Joyce, while pretty open with her feelings, seems more reluctant to actually discuss negative aspects of her life with people she doesn’t know/trust. Especially since, if she just wanted to talk to someone with parent issues, she could have gone to Ethan.
And I’d say that, while Joe is overall probably a decent guy, his forwardness was not his only issue with Joyce. He openly mocked her beliefs and could get pretty disrespectful.
Joe is someone she knows that has experiences parental marital strife before. She may not like him at first, but she is familiar with him in that they have something in common. He’s also not connected to any of her situation in any way.
Mike is a no, for obvious reasons,
She and Dorothy are kind of awkward right now, and Dorothy is one of the reasons she has tensions with her parents.
Walky isn’t the type to talk about deep feelings, would probably make inappropriate jokes.
Sal just isn’t available, she’s a loner and is part of Amber’s arc right now.
Sarah is way too judgmental, even if she’s right about most things.
We know that it wasn’t Dina because Becky asked to talk to her.
A combination of the context clues people mentioned and dramatic awareness. We saw her texts but not anyone’s replies, which meant that whoever she was texting was planned to be surprising at a later point. That immediately rules out anyone we know she talks to regularly; if it were Dorothy, for example, this would have been 100% a non-reveal. There aren’t that many people who Joyce has been in contact with but wouldn’t be expected to be texting her.
Because it’s being structured as a reveal, which means that the identity is a surprise. And it has to be a surprise which makes some kind of narrative sense. (I did have an outside flutter on Roz, but Joe was always my main.)
I know, not exactly a heel turn but, still unexpected. I bow to you sir willis. tomorrow should just be four panels of Billie and Ruth making out with the fifth being the same thing but, there also giving Mary the bird, than all will be right again (mostly)
(but, isn’t their relationship entirely toxic due to their shared alcoholism and encouragement to continue said activity)
okay, yea, you got me on that one. I’d like to say it was some really convincing reason I completely misspelled it but, I just didn’t bother. I admit to that. though, at least you got what I was going for, just for comparison, here’s the actual word -RATIONALITY
Wow, I’m surprised no one has taken this opportunity already.
Takes remote and plays “Old Letters” by Company of Thieves on the hacked Muzak.
A close second was “Girl Sailor” by the shins. Because “Oh girl, sail her don’t sink her this time”. Referring to the ship that we’re all about to climb aboard.
It seems like he has fairly distanced himself from the family as a whole, so it seems unlikely she’d look to him for guidance as one of the first choices.
….my only real question is, how did she even get Joe’s number? I don’t recall them being exchanged before the catastrophic facepunching date, and Joyce wouldn’t have wanted it afterwards. Did this happen offscreen?
Also, liking that we get to see Joe’s more human side. He may hide it from the world, but he can’t hide it from the readers.
They probably exchanged numbers when Joe first asked her out. It’s the normal thing to do and deleting the number afterwards requires effort that wasn’t really necessary- neither of them wanted to contact the other after that disaster but it’s not like the number would have tempted them much. Until Joyce got around to going through her contact list and clearing it out (something I doubt has ever been an issue for her) there wouldn’t have been any reason for her to delete it.
Could be a non-texting messenger app? It’s not too implausible for them to be FB friends despite their animosity (if Joyce has a FB I can see her being the person who goes around friending literally EVERYONE in the incoming students group on FB), and the formatting could go with that.
That said, I was not really expecting this at all.
Sounds like she’s using a browser to me, ’cause she mentions opening a new tab, which isn’t something you can do in a regular texting app as far as I’m aware.
Also, I dunno what browser Joyce would be using, but on Google Chrome (and probably others) you can delete browser history for chunks of time, like a 24-hour period. (I hope for Joyce’s sake that’s the case, deleting that many individual texts sounds awfully tedious.)
When i was in college, it was pretty normal for newbie freshman to excitedly exchange numbers with nearly everyone they met. I still have some of those numbers on my phone, 5 years later. I’m too lazy to delete them lol
Yaaaas I had dared not even hope for this; I always loved the dynamic they had in the original comic and wow I would just love to see it get actual intentional focus this time around
On another note, I’m glad Joyce has someone she can talk to about it? She feels like she has to be strong for Becky, perfect for Dorothy and Sarah doesn’t like drama- Joe’s kind of the perfect person for her to vent to if they’re friends now.
It’s ironic to think, but the fact that she has reasons to dislike him actually help out for the reasons you note. With Becky, she believes Becky needs her sacrifice because Becky’s situation is “worse”. With Dorothy, she’s scared of losing her respect. With Sarah, she knows Sarah dislikes drama and negative emotions. But Joe’s just that asshole who harasses her so if she comes off as a bit of a mess, well, she’s already considered to be crazy by him so… And thus, they are able to react to each other openly and more honestly and build what looks to be a genuine meaningful friendship. So huzzah!
I agree, I think he’s great because he’s like the only person not connected to her mess of a life right now. It’s always great to have a perspective that has no investment in the outcome of your situation.
And conversely, Joe KNOWS he is not getting into Joyce’s pants, but it is not for lack of trying so he can talk to her like a human being without risking losing “bro-points” or whatever.
Basically, Joyce and Joe both like to view the world in term of a pre-prepared script that they don’t like to deviate from (that’s why their date went so hilariously wrong), but since both of them already has broken each other’s script they have to figure out a new way to interact (kinda like in Dorothy’s and Joyce’s hypothetical marriage)
This. Joe is actually the perfect person for Joyce to talk to right now, because he’s distanced enough from Joyce’s personal life that she doesn’t have to worry she’s going to sabotage any more of her relationships, but has also experienced all the pain Joyce is going through now.
I also feel that Joe feels better about listening to a woman complain about her problems than a man. Joe is straight up a terrible friend to Danny because Joe thinks men talking about feelings is stupid dumb poop and he needs to be a real man. Joyce also taps into a niche of being a woman that Joe isn’t interested in for sex, so he needs to approach this differently. I think he is genuinely just trying to be supportive right now because unlike with Danny he doesn’t have to add all these conditions that contradict his views on perfect masculinity.
When it comes to Danny I suspect part of the problem is their shared history. I’m willing to bet at least some of Joe’s definition of “how to be a man” include “don’t be like Danny”
Remember that part where Joyce married Dorothy and went “oh so we’re both girls I guess that means all the patriarchal, sexist glop I’ve learned doesn’t apply”? I think that’s how Joe is processing this. “Joyce is a girl so I should pile on the patented Joe charm, but also I don’t want to have sex with her. I guess I should try listening to her talk about things and relate over shared painful experiences.”
And, yeah, I imagine that when Joe sees Danny hurting over seeing someone he loves in pain, Joe feels all the more validated for not following in Danny’s/his parents’ footsteps.
I can definitely see that, given his previous views of emotions and his sexism surrounding them.
I also like seeing him learn a different way of dealing with “woman doesn’t want to sleep with me” than he has so far, because one of his worst habits has been his tendency to “punish” women who won’t sleep with him with angry accusations of being unfair or unreasonable, sexual harassment and intentional jokes to keep them off balanced, and otherwise trying to imply that sexual repression is involved or that it is on the woman who rejected him to cheerlead his “excellent consent habits”.
Plus Joyce is very protective of Becky. Her texts about Becky’s situation weren’t tailored for Becky as an audience, she could’ve spoken in a way that might hurt her feelings.
Perhaps she’s worried about her parents getting ahold of her phone. Telling who Joe is, how they met, and what happened when they went on a date, might not be a good thing.
He IS the only person she told Becky wasn’t invited to the dorm party. Specifically ‘Joe is not invited’. Becky’d never stop asking ‘what’s up with that?’
Also, if Joe is the person she’s been talking to about her feelings of the moment, she definitely doesn’t want Becky reading that. There’s too much that Becky would feel guilty over, which Joyce doesn’t want.
Huh, I mean, I can see how this makes sense. I could see how Joyce and Joe could manage to be good friends to each other actually. When they’re not warring, anyway.
I knew it! I think it’s nice that she’s talking to someone who can understand part of what she’s going through. I’ve always liked Joe, anyway. He’s not that bad to me. He’s got a long way to go for certain things, but it’s nice to see the not-cassanova side of him here.
Off-topic: Joe doesn’t seem to swipe, but Joyce does. I’ve always preferred to tap, so i buy large phones. A lot of phones have teeny-weeny keyboards these days.
He can be great about very specific things, like he wouldn’t let Mike hit Joyce at all on their date, and when he called out Walky on his stupid shoe rule nonsense.
But MOST of his screentime is spent being a jerk so I feel he has a long way to go for a LOT of things. I do hope he gets there though – I feel he’s a redeemable character, and his views will eventually change for the better.
Yeah, he’s got a lot to work on. I’m just not too worried because he seems the type that actually will grow out of the Bro-phase. Some people do, so I’m not too worried. he’s also not super fleshed out right now so I’m not ready to say he’s irredeemable yet.
Never understood swiping, either. I just can’t see how it’s any faster. And boy howdy is it extremely error prone. Even on a keyboard with less than 3 inches of width, I can type faster with fewer mistakes if I tap with my thumbs.
I’m glad it’s Joe – not really because it means I called it, but more because it makes things more interesting (i.e. more so than someone expected, like Dorothy.)
People called this…I didn’t believe it, but here we are 😛 Anyway, it is good really. There’s more to Joe than sex fiend. Of course he is a person in the story too. It’s actually cool the person who rejected him so soundly on their “date” early on is who Joe is chatting with. From all their arguing and jousting throughout the story so far, the last frame is one of those “dundun…dun!” moments.
Holy Shit this is a new level of Innocence, I not even making fun of Joyce right now I am generally amazed right now that she’s just discovering that couples argue and disagree with each other.
Like right now I’m happy that Joyce and Joe are bonding but I’m just wondering if this is really and legitly the first time she seen her parents have a disagreement let alone a fight out of the 18-19 years she’s been alive.
I know my parents keep their disagreements to themselves to this day. They like to present a “united front.” So I basically have to infer from subtext when they’re not on the same page about something. It’s kinda weird, but it happens.
My dad is still kind of pissed at his parents for never letting him or his sister see them disagree. He says he doesn’t know how to navigate that properly with my mother as a result. I think it may even affect me, another generation along.
Of all the people I thought Joyce would be texting, Joe was the _least_ likely. But then, it makes sense. It’ll be a weird, broken, platonic broly friendship, but I watch it intrigued.
Tomorrow…in comic time…
Becky: “Joe! This is Becky! I’m using Joyce’s phone to text you! You’re apparently a friend, even though I’m not sure who you are. We’re in our church, and the sermon got pretty hate heavy. All of a sudden Joyce just went berzerk!! There’s blood and bodies everywhere!!! The pastor’s entrails are strewn across the podium and Joyce’s dad has been reduced to dry heaving!! Joyce is rocking back and forth in corner chanting “There is no blood, there is no blood.”
Joe: …I’ll bring a couple other guys and some shovels and see what we can do.
So, just to be clear, that “Twilight” tag is referring to Joyce’s poster, right?
I swear, cartoonists find the weirdest ways to amuse themselves…
(also, great twist. I’m a little curious how they started talking, but I can definitely see Joe being a sympathetic ear when it comes to Parent Stuff.)
Actually in another comic Joyce was using ‘Tappity tap’ too, so I don’t think you can defer the type of phone based on swipes/taps. Her swiping could just be her clearing the screen.
That’s quite the surprise, but it makes sense and I am pleased with this progression of things. Joyce is branching out to people, and maybe Joe will learn how to -gasp- talk about things?
Lol, why is Twilight in the tags? Is that the name of this ship? (Was it always? I guess so…)
Regardless, I’m really happy about this. Both of these two need good, healthy human contact, and Joyce’s side of the conversation that we’ve seen fits that.
I like to imagine maybe he reached out to her after the whole Toedad gun thing went down, just to check that she’s doing alright.
I have known guys who are never-ending fountains of machismo in groups, but are actually decent when you talk to them one-on-one. I think it’s a confidence an maturity issue. That might be part of what’s going on with Joe here.
YES. A couple of my best friends are like this. Both military guys, both full of machismo, both extremely decent and kind and caring when you talk one-on-one with them. My favorite type of guy, TBH.
Part of maybe, but we’ve never seen it before. He’s stayed with the machismo talking to Danny. He’s never shown any interest in anything with girls other than sex.
I’m a little bothered by this reveal, mostly because we didn’t see any of it develop from his side, so we don’t know what got him to this point. We saw the little bit of set up when she texted him in class, but that’s all.
Definitely prefer you keeping them looking like they do in the comic, as you did here. That 20-something woman you drew in other stuff never seemed like the 50+ Carol to me.
Plus, as I always suspected, when you want to, you can pretty much make them look like Willis drew them, especially on the top. If someone just linked that top one (without the handwriting) and said they were sketches by Willis, I’d’ve believed them.
Panel 1: That’s an important point for Joyce. Not just that her parents fight, but that they aren’t a monolithic voting bloc. Like, this morning, she freaked out and ran away because her parents were discussing her being pulled out of school, but then she found out that that was actually an argument rather than a plan and that changes the landscape a lot… but maybe not in a way that makes sense.
And the reason that feels new is that her folks have always presented decisions, not only as what they both feel is right, but as what God feels is right (I’m thinking of the “let’s take it to God” strip). Which means, if they can disagree, maybe her parents aren’t actually direct lines of communication with God after all.
Also, Becky slumped in the corner, shoulders slumped forward, completely disconnected. A person in the Patreon noted that its the same pose she had in the flashback in Toedad’s house of right after her mom died. Maybe it’s related, but it’s definitely at least her completely drained, head full of dark thoughts pose and it just makes me want to hug her.
She’s been through hell tonight and is probably feeling guilty and worried that Hank thinks she’s some awful influence on Joyce and just generally down. Unfortunately tomorrow and church is so likely to be so much worse.
Panel 2: That line of Joyce’s is so forlorn. Like, no, a married couple does not have to agree on everything, but she might be starting to notice that there’s something off about them disagreeing on something as fundamental as whether or not to mistreat her or not.
And holy hell, that face on Becky. That desperate pleading, hands clasped, eyebrows sad, and eyes nearly ready to cry. Becky’s wacky armor looks totaled here and so far the only person she’s felt safe to completely collapse to even for a second has been her dinosaur girlfriend.
Not to mention that as much as she’s been putting on a brave face for Joyce, she hates it here and wants to be home just as much if not more. And she misses her Dina about as much as Dina misses her. And it really gives me hope that tomorrow evening, we’re going to see them being super cute with each other in their reunion.
Panel 3: Joyce has been stuck in her head, hasn’t she?
Also, I think she may have finally realized why Dina was texting her random dino facts all day and is quietly trying to delete the record of all the angry creationist rants she sent back.
Panels 4 and 5: I’m genuinely hopeful for this interaction. Like, Joe has a long way to go before I’ll genuinely like him, but I think this represents a major step in his character arc and is an important moment of growth to help catch him up to some of the other characters. And it’s a sign of the better traits he’s been trying to bury so he can better embody Broseidan, King of the Brocean.
Like, there must have been some genuine supportive and caring fellow that made Danny feel he could open up to him and consider him his best friend. There must have been something that led Dorothy to try and sell him all the line he needed to save himself. And here we see that. He can be warm and supportive, caring and understated and not all about some weird PUA-infested idea of how to “get sex”.
And it gives me genuine hope that Joe might one day become a man who indeed has lots of sex and values sex very highly, but also who understands boundaries and fully views women as people rather than sex dispensers or broken sex dispensers. And that he may heal from the frictions of his own family and thus break away from his dad’s creepy lothario into a sexual young gentleman who’s into kink and good consent practices.
At the very least, I have high hopes that this Monday, he won’t try and open with a sexual dig at Joyce and may in fact be more willing to engage in general. And that this friendship may actually develop some real legs and sweetness.
I would disagree with Becky putting on a brave face purely for Joyce. It’s her coping mechanism, but perhaps Becky waited so long to ask about Dina because she’s been feeling like such a burden in reality. So her putting on a brave face and not asking for anything not necessary at all and curling in the corner so she takes up as little space as possible, is her way of showing appreciation and gratitude. I agree, her asking after Dina is a beacon of hope for their relationship to me.
I actually like Joe a lot. I think that he enjoys sex and at the least comes on to women very strong and at times inappropriate, but I don’t see him as a predator in that sense. What I see in him is that he uses a lot of the bravado and hyper-masculinity as a front. He could be trying to take after his dad as well, because his dad is his male role model.
I feel as though like Joyce having certain beliefs about women in heterosexual relationships, Joe also has beliefs about men heterosexual relationships. A lot of guys that age, like you said, don’t see women as complete people, which means that they only have each other and their often equally clueless (at best, at worst- have you seen the news these past few days? Geez) fathers as guides. It’s like the blind mouse leading the blind mouse.
I like him, because it seems that he’s not a total tool, and he is capable of being decent -especially to Joyce, whom he previously wrote off. He will hopefully learn to quite chasing the futile dream of becoming the perfect masculine “man”, quit equating becoming his dad with that dream, and just learn that he can be his decent emtion-having-self, treat women better and not violate the mythical Bro Code. Because the Bro Code is just that, a cultural myth, and it (ironically) takes a great amount of strength to be vulnerable and fallible.
I would agree that she’s putting on a brave face in general rather than only specifically for Joyce. And I can definitely see the feeling like a burden emotion. It’s hard to avoid when you’re relying on others to survive and there’s external crap undermining self-esteem.
I would agree also on the last paragraph. He’s long needed to break free of the toxic masculinity he’s been raised in and accept that emotions and vulnerability and not being a dick to women to raise himself up do not make him less than a man or make him any less successful in what he wants to become.
It’s a common mythology for young men. But for young men of worth, rejecting it is a rite of passage that I’m very excited to see Joe start doing.
Yes! “For young men of worth, rejecting it is a rite of passage” I like that very much. And yes! To character development
Poor Becky. It’s so hard to let others support you sometimes. There’s few things worse than feeling like you’re not autonomous and ok and you have no agency, especially as a young adult/adult.
About Joyce’s line in panel 2… Yeah, and that is another reason for her stress the latest weeks. Not only was she supposed to find someone to marry NOW. She and that person would also be in perfect agreement on everything and through their love open a direct line of communication with God. No wonder she felt she was doing it wrong, and got increasingly stressed by Dorothy saying smart things she didn’t agree on.
A perfect recipe for her to think it was something wrong with her.
Heh, your first paragraph is a very nice distillation of why Joyce has essentially been developing a queer platonic relationship with Dorothy with a lot of coupley elements and assumptions (no wonder Becky is so jealous).
And thus serves as another reason why she was bothered by the boozeahol, because it was another sign of a point of disagreement between them in lifestyles.
Yeah, i can see that. Joe’s character (in both universes) is definitely miles better at expressing emotion and sympathy when it’s not face-to-face. Also the plot twist aspect, not sure if that was what you meant
So happy to see Joe get his character development over here. It’s always weird seeing people shit on Williss’ characters in either universe. He always does such a great job, but people tend to hate anyone who isn’t perfect. Then he destroys the precious ones because Damn You Willis. Guess that means everybody wins?
Well, some are amazing because they are such perfectly evocative complete fucks and allow such amazing character development for the other characters *cough cough* Mary *cough cough* Blaine.
But overall, I’m very excited to see Joe grow up a little. I’m very curious to see where he goes next.
People shit on his characters precisely BECAUSE they are not perfect, and sometimes those imperfections lead them to do stupid, bad, ignorant things that we can see is definantely not the right thing to do.
And people kinda go “What what the hell were they thinking!?”
Several times people have pissed on Amber, Danny, Joyce, Joe, and Becky several other characters for the choices they made that from an outsider looking in we can say “yeah you shouldnt have done that”.
If there was a character who was “perfect” no one would like them because they would be boring anyway.
That tends to be a common human thing, especially in America. We’re not big on people having dualities where they have positive and negative qualities.
Sadly, this often leads to erasing negative actions for people we admire (see prominent actors/directors/sports stars who commit sexual assault or child molestation or domestic violence who then get a bunch of defenders simply because “but I like their work, so they can’t be bad”).
Add to that the tendency of people to assume that they’d handle a traumatic or difficult scenario with much more aplomb or a more level head, some general victim-blaming and mild social -isms, and some people who are despairing at seeing their younger selves’ mistakes repeated by the characters and you’ve got a recipe for being overly down on a lot of the characters for personality quirks or being overly forgiving of negative flaws that harm others.
There are precious few at ease with moral ambiguities,
So we act as though they don’t exist!
THEY CALL ME WONDERFUL
oh wait we’re losing relevance now.
I went on a mandatory good behavior field trip to watch it in school once, and it had werewolf fighting? I fell asleep during most of the movie though whoops
I loved Joe and Joyce’s relationship in Walkyverse. It developed very naturally and even though through Roomies they had a highly antagonistic relationship while she fawned over Danny, you could see how Joe cared for her a whole damn lot more than Danny ever did. I’m really glad to see a bit of that here too.
…This is heartbreaking. Becky and Joyce are too drained by the day to do anything than sit by themselves, Joyce with her phone, Becky with her… nothing.
You just know that a month ago they would have shared the bed, but now they don’t dare because of fear of provoking Carol.
I’m glad they both have someone to talk to, and that they can share the phone. A little thing, but so important.
And I totally called it with Joe, much later than most other people. It was a finely constructed twist and a good moment of character growth for both Joyce and Joe. Now, if he only showed this side of himself to Danny their friendship might be much less strained.
…This comment sorta made it occur to me that Joe may be the type of person who can’t really talk about serious topics face to face. Perhaps thats part of the reason why they were texting so much and not talking on the phone (beyond willis hiding who it was from us)
Which may explain why he tends to treat Danny’s problems as jokes.
Maybe he wants to help but he cant really bring himself to speak of it in person.
In that respect, I may have been Joe-like at some stage.
Twitter makes me compress my sentences, leaves less room for any … fudging … so it’s nearer my “real” personality – angry, over-enthusiastic, zealous, hater of bullshit – avoids those real-life awkward silences that Joe (and I) don’t like.
I’m not actually sure that’s true, Bagge. Part of the reason I see Joyce and Joe having a successful 24-hour supportive and meaningful conversation is that Joyce has at every text point we’ve seen been very forthright and direct about what she thinks and feels. Joe has zero confusion about what she’s really talking about and why, and that means he has the wherewithal to determine an appropriate response.
To contrast, the last time Danny tried to talk to Joe about his problems, he was neither forthright or direct. He asked an indirect question, Joe asked ‘why are you asking’, Danny got annoyed because ‘why would that matter’, and Joe explained that if it’s simple curiosity there’s a simple yes/no, but if it’s actually about Danny there’s probably nothing simple about it and he needs to know which it is so he can do the right thing. (Plus he really wishes they COULD have simple/shallow conversations once in a while.) And then Danny dropped the whole thing, reading Joe’s frustration and desire for honesty as a refusal to have any real conversation at all.
The sense I got is that the indirect ‘no reason! but there’s totally an important reason’ BS is something Danny does All The Time and Joe was tired of navigating it. The result has actually been that the lesson Danny learned is ‘don’t talk to Joe’ instead of ‘be honest with Joe’. (I expect that Danny will learn ‘be honest with Joe’ when/if he finds out that Joe is a good emotionally supportive friend to Joyce and has a WHY NOT ME? confrontation.)
Joe certainly DOES have to grow to address his side of the Danny/Joe gulf, in terms of ability to accept emotion without distancing himself, but Danny needs to own his side of their problems as well. If only Joe learns, and Danny doesn’t, there will be no lessening of strain because Danny will still frustrate the hell out of Joe.
That’s a very good read on it, and I think you are right.
In the end, Danny and Joe don’t HAVE to bridge their gulf. They were friends as children, they are not anymore. That is sad but it happens. But I think they both would benefit from becoming the kind of person that COULD bridge that rift.
Yeah the interesting part in that strip was Joe offering “handholding you through some excruciating self-discovery”.
This could be read as sarcasm, but it also could be that Joe was offering this in total honesty and only wanted to know if that is what Danny asks for.
So not wanting to get into the whole gender differences thing but it sounds like Danny is wanting more emotional support (communicating like a women) and expecting Joe to almost guess what he’s talking about whereas Joyce is communicating like a man (direct questions and wanting answers) which means Joe can answer the question and “fix” the problem
For me, it’s more like Joe treats conversations/friendship as a machine. He’s totally willing to do the routine maintenance/fixes when things go boing, because he loves the machine, but being asked to troubleshoot the machine without knowing the issue pisses him off. Not a gendered thing, necessarily, but very much about how Joe wants things to work still.
So many people called this that I was convinced Willis would make it someone else. This means I was actually surprised because I kinda inceptioned myself. Also, good on Joe for appearing to experience some real character growth potential. He might become an actually like able character. Wondering if he’ll eventually have a moment were he wakes up and thinks “what am I really doing with my life?” Because so far all he’s accomplished is growing a stuble, having a couple hook-ups, and slowly driving away his best friend from before college and roommate Danny. All completely hypothetical though, and probably requiring years of real life time if it does happen.
I’ve always been kind of a Joyce x Joe shipper. If it weren’t for Rachel and Walky they’d go very well together. I’m glad that side of their relationship is still present in DoA.
Does Joe really need all that much character development? I don’t think he’s actually a fratbro, he’s just trying to live a simple and uncomplicated life of partying with no deception about his intentions. I think Joe’s problem is he’s not interested in turning college into a time of great reinvention or emotional soul gazing. He’s comfortable with who he is and what he wants to be.
Joe came into college deciding that he already knew exactly what he wanted and he was going to devote all his time to that, to the exclusion of everything else. Joe was always going to start growing out of that the same way Danny decided that college was going to end with him marrying Dorothy.
He’s not suddenly going to put on a chastity belt because he’s letting Joyce lean on him a bit, and fact is, when it comes to Danny especially, Joe is a terrible friend.
I agree, Joe tends to mock Danny whenever he is trying to be sincere but he also didn’t get along well with Joyce and I’m just curious as to when this friendship popped up.
Maybe Joyce’s influence will allow him to be a bit more compassionate toward his roomate and Joe’s influence will help Joyce be more comfortable discussing certain topics that she likely would never really consider talking about, since joe speaks his mind and speaks it honestly.
I did feel there wasn’t much Joe in the comic and was wondering if Willis just didn’t have anything to do for him (kinda like Mike tbh)
Joe’s been kind of boxed out of the comic lately because his main role is to hang around Danny or in Gender Studies, and in the former case there’s really nothing he can bring to the table that Ethan can’t, while also having a lot of their panel time together showing him to be a really terrible friend. Developing a relationship with Joyce, who by the by only really has Joe as any kind of potential romance option in this series, seems like a good way to develop him more, especially given the great chemistry they had in It’s Walky!.
I really would have liked to have seen a relationship or two for Joe before this started up. Not just the no-strings casual sex with Roz, but something a little more complicated.
See how his “game” works when the target doesn’t either happily jump into bed or react with violence – how hard does he push, does he accept a “no” that doesn’t come with threats, etc. Maybe see someone he slept with that thought she was getting a into an actual relationship. Or for that matter, someone he winds up wanting for more than casual sex, but she doesn’t – that could even have been done with Roz.
You know, some of the downsides of his approach, before he changes his ways.
That could easily be explored with Joyce. Part of why I’m interested in seeing a relationship between the two is that they’re fundamentally different people who want different things, but who can also provide one another with some better perspective. That if this does happen, this won’t just be the stock Ladykiller in Love story. Heck, it wasn’t even that in IW!, where Joe realized that he and Joyce wanted things the other couldn’t provide and it’d be unfair of them to try to and force it.
It could be explored with Joyce. He’s really going to have to have already changed to have any sort of relationship with Joyce (Or she’ll have to change, even more drastically).
I’d rather get a look at how he currently operates. We’ve never seen him successfully pick someone up – we’ve just seen and heard about the aftermath. We’ve never seen him handle someone who’s attracted and might be interested in sex, but not just a casual hookup. We’ve never seen him handle anyone who isn’t interested, but is also hesitant to got to screaming threats to get him to back off.
I don’t see how much of his normal pattern can be explored with Joyce – and still leave room for a relationship. If he pushes for sex, he’s going to hit the violent reaction. If he doesn’t, he’s already off his normal game.
Yup, at which point, he immediately started treating her negatively for saying no to him, because “gah, crazy much” including calling her cranky because he harassed her to the point, after she previously made it very clear that that wasn’t going to happen, where she had to explode at him and straight up threaten him to get him to back off.
These are not good consent habits. In fact, these are terrible consent habits, because if you do not create a space where noes are taking seriously or you create a space where you have to blow up and be called crazy to say no, then there is a strong social cost in actually rejecting him and thus coercive pressure to say yes or at least stop fighting.
These are excellent habits if you want to be a sexual harasser that women warn each other about. Which is precisely what Sarah did when Joyce tried to sit with her with Joe on the prowl.
In general Joe’s consent practices are awful, and a lot of the reason is he’s clearing the very low bar set for him by toxic masculinity (don’t force yourself on people who say no), but is actively avoiding getting a consent education in how to actually be a good consent-focused sexual being and it’s causing him to play fast and loose with things that would cause him to rape someone eventually (believing alcohol is great for lowering inhibitions and getting someone who would normally say no to a sexual encounter to say yes or at least “imply” yes by his measures).
I keep seeing this point being raised every time Joe has a strip. But I always read the strip as Sarah being aggressively and exagerattedly anti-social, not as Joe being bad at consent. I mean, the whole finger-waggle to screaming is about ten seconds in strip.
Yes, but you’re forgetting that they’d had several previous encounters where Sarah made it achingly clear she was not interested in him in any way and which he responded by flirting harder or assuming she’d be a great sexual partner he should keep pursuing.
Her snapping on him was literally the only thing that got him to back off. Hell, even adopting intensely negative body posture and referring to him as a negative presence didn’t even get him to back off. He literally ignores all body language and social signs of “I’m not interested in you” outside of someone “snapping”.
Which, in essence, makes him the Faz of this comic.
So I’m really glad to see signs that he might be evolving.
Cerberus –
Actually, they had a grand total of two encounters between Joe and Sarah prior to that strip. One where Joe doesn’t even talk to Sarah when he asks Joyce out, and a second very brief one where Sarah asks him not to overwhelm Joyce with sex. It’s there is zero flirting directed at Sarah by Joe, but a whole lot of Sarah’s default grumpiness. He does speculate that she’d be great in bed, but that’s after Sarah has walked off.
In the strip in question Joe doesn’t seem to be interacting with Sarah at all until Dorothy and Joyce sit down. At which point he says “hello ladies” waves at all three and I assume adopted some sort of flirty tone. He’s barely even engaged in conversation, literally the first time that he has directed any flirtation towards Sarah, before starts snapping.
As for body posture/referring to Joe as a negative presence…”fuck off” is kind of Sarah’s default vibe…
JQuire: Thing is, we’ve never seen him back off, with anyone, without that level of screaming and threats.
In his date with Joyce, before the violence really started, he responded to every bit of pushback by spinning back around to sex.
There’ve been times he hasn’t actually started anything, but any time he’s gone into his game, he’s either been successful or only driven off by an extreme reaction.
Now, that may not be Willis’s intent, but it’s definitely what he’s shown us. I’ve said before I’d like to see more of Joe’s game. See how he responds to various reactions.
Not to mention how alcohol is involved, other than facilitating threesomes that he doesn’t quite remember who was involved in.
Cerberus –
I think that your first assertion is accurate – we haven’t seen him back off a lot. But I’d argue that we haven’t seen him asked to back off without it being done at the level of screaming and threats straight off. There have been a few ‘ugh, Joe that joke/comment was gross’ – but not a whole lot of Joe actually flirting and being rejected. I can only think of the instances with Joyce and Sarah.
And I don’t agree with your characterization of the date with Joyce. Joe engaged on topic for the most part. She asked about his parents, he talked about their divorce, next strip they’re at Galasso’s. Joyce tries to interrogate him about his beliefs, which he isn’t comfortable about so asks him to talk about herself instead. She them mentions she believes lust is a sin (without prompting) and he asks her why she views it as necessarily bad. A totally fair follow up and date discussion topic…but then the punches start flying.
To the first part, that’s why I’d really like to see more of his game – especially if he’s going to get more than a bit part. He could really live up to his words, but what we’ve seen just doesn’t convince me.
Yeah, what we’ve seen of his hunting method is super gross and his habit of always circling back to sex no matter what makes him super skeezy at the least. Honestly, of what we’ve seen on panel, we’ve not seen a comic where he’s “on game” where he hasn’t either been being intentionally dishonest and disinterested in a girl’s stated or unstated boundaries or being openly creepy and requiring an epic blowup to back off.
JQuire-
Well, I’ve done a few breakdowns of all of Joe’s negative moments before, but keeping it specific to his interactions with Sarah.
2nd encounter:
Sarah decides to talk with him privately to express her concerns about him pursuing her friend because she’s sheltered and not at all accustomed to fighting off horndogs. Joe is openly hostile to her and says that he plans on “fixing her with my penis” *. Sarah angrily stomps off, giving up on him entirely and says that interacting with him makes her hate him more and tells him to fuck off. Joe ends the comic musing on how great she’d be in the sack despite there being literally no sign she is in any way interested in him: http://www.dumbingofage.com/2011/comic/book-1/03-men-are-from-beck-women-are-from-clark/children/
3rd encounter:
He and his dad corner her in a hallway. Sarah adopts defensive posture (arms in front of her pushing away), says that Joe’s dad is just him with a beard. Joe watches as his father corners her against a doorway, her body posture intensely uncomfortably and bending away, and she threatens to twist his dad’s balls into a knot. Joe, to his credit, seems to show awareness that his dad’s behavior is negative.
This then escalates her to yelling at him and having her eyes go all pointy and death-glaring at him to get him to back off and even that doesn’t work. She has to escalate further to getting up in his face and telling him that she’s “not on the menu”, “not now, not ever”.
Only then does he back off, but does so in a blamey sort of “oh, geez lady, what the hell” way while still trying to hit on her by saying she’s got a hot angry energy and that it’d be stupid to hit on her and frames him no longer hitting on a disinterested person as some sort of personal favor to her: http://www.dumbingofage.com/2013/comic/book-4/01-the-only-dope-for-me-is-you/harness/
And you note, “fuck off” is Sarah’s default vibe. So why the fuck was he hitting on her in the first place? Like, a person giving big ol’ “go the fuck away” signals all over the place is not someone you hit on.
I mean, I know we as a society pretend that straight men seeking sex couldn’t possibly understand body language, but her body language in every encounter does not ever even hint at the notion of wanting sexual attention from Joe-shaped individuals. And yet he persisted despite getting active body and auditory warning from her personally that this would be a bad idea.
And that singular aspect makes him a creeper, because someone who harrangues you until you give in or explode is not creating an environment where it is socially acceptable to give a no and actively mistreats people who do give no, making it seem like a personal issue on their part.
That is not cool consent behavior, that’s the guy at the end of the bar you keep an eye on to make sure he doesn’t try and follow someone into the bathrooms.
And it’d be bad enough if he only did it to Sarah, but the only other person we’ve seen him actively pursue on panel, Joyce, gave many signals that premarital hanky-panky was not something she was comfortable with (to the point of hiring a chaperone) and yet he continued to pursue and escalate and bring conversations back to sex and try and argue his way into her pants until she and Mike literally assaulted him. He then on multiple occasions afterwards sexually harassed her or made sexual jokes at her expense, including making a lewd comment about her ass when she was crying and in emotional distress. He then immediately got angry with her afterwards and demanded that she defend his totally awesome consent reputation despite triggering her in that way (she was reaching out in to Becky on the phone in this moment specifically because of a recent attempted sexual assault): http://www.dumbingofage.com/2012/comic/book-2/01-pajama-jeans/touch/
I’m so ready for him to grow up and move away from this toxic masculinity understanding of consent and this “I don’t notice body language” pose and to show more positive elements on panel, cause what’s there right now is not okay behavior by anyone, man or woman.
*On a side note, this (the comment about “fixing her with my penis”) is probably the thing that was always going to have me militantly against Joe. This is straight up the logic of corrective rape and this idea that “repressed” people need to be “fixed” with sex is used to justify all manner of assault and sexual violence against asexual people and is responsible for that orientation facing sexual violence at the level of sex workers and trans people.
Like, yes, that’s “my” thing in that not many people get as apoplectic about that issue as I do, but the use of that rationale for bad behavior when combined with his “sex at all costs” persona scream mega red flags for me and make it very difficult for me to view him as anything other than a predator in waiting without character development and self-awareness.
Oh, he was intentionally designed as a bro. I mean, the Ed Hardy tees were not unintentionally selected. And he’s comfortable with what he is, because he’s young and has no idea of how the vast majority of women in the cast see him (hell, even Roz who sleeps with him regularly is not actually a big fan of him as a person) and thinks that he’s created more of a separation than he has from the creepy sleazy tactics of his father.
Like, I’d love to see him just become a genuinely consent-aware sexual dude. I see plenty of those types in kink and poly communities. But he’s going to need to shed the toxic masculinity and “hunter” persona to get there.
I could pretend I was surprised, but I started reading the comments before the strip loaded and then I accidentally glanced at the last panel before reading, whoops
Interesting that, for you, the comments load before the image. I almost always have to wait a while for the comments, but get the strip right away–which makes sense as it’s the primary content.
The comic usually loads first on my computer, but I was reading on my phone yesterday. And around the time the strip updates, when the website is slow, sometimes I get the comments while the strip is only half-loaded.
Could someone please explain why twilight is tagged?
Joyce is texting a guy whose anger seemed familiar to her, so it makes perfect sense to share what’s happening right now with him.
The really astonishing thing is that Joe accepts and responds to it.
well, there is a twilight poster just above the bed. But maybe he’s alluding to the romantic potential of Joe being a source of contention for readers who had shipped her with a certain other character. But maybe I’m reading to much into it. It’s probably just the poster
Most likely, Twilight is tagged because of the poster.
But, if you click the tag you’ll find that not only is Twilight only mentioned in strips that involve both Joe and Joyce (albeit, one strip we couldn’t prove it was Joe when it was posted), but the first time Twilight was mentioned was before Joyce’s date with Joe. Joyce states her intention to save him, comparing their future interactions to the Twilight novel. You could almost take the tag to imply a Joe/Joyce relationship :p
I’m surprised Joyce is allowed a Twilight poster, as I’ve seen many in a strong Christian belief, much like Joyce’s family, who see Twilight, among others, as an occult activity and a link to the devil.
Neat. I kinda figured he was the one she was texting. Mainly because I don’t remember Joyce texting anyone else throughout the series. But then I have terrible memory issues so OH WELL :V
They hated each other, but Joyce opened the door to a more tender friendship when she texted him during Friday’s class with an extension of emotional support and Joe is also the person she knows has had tense family stuff in the past that doesn’t also have dead and in-jail parents (she never found out how toxic Ethan’s parents are or how toxic Sal and Walky’s parents are).
Because Danny’s a dude, dude! Danny’s gotta learn that feelings are dumb and caring that your girlfriend is mentally unwell and that you’re confused about your sexuality is a total buzzkill to kegstands and threesomes, dawg! He’s harshing on Joe’s radical steeze!
Kinda definitely this. Joe’s currently a true believer in toxic masculinity and part of that is viewing emotions and deep emotional conversation as girl stuff for girls that men should avoid.
Though his last comic with Danny might be the one where he started to realized that constantly putting down Danny when he tried to start a conversation is a great way to get a Danny who stops fighting for the friendship entirely and stops hanging out at all: http://www.dumbingofage.com/2016/comic/book-6/03-when-god-closes-the-door/upset-2/
I personally think that while Joe has a lot of toxic masculinity stuff that he’ll hopefully grow out of, that’s not why he avoids emotions and deep emotional conversation. It’s Walky who believes that stuff is ‘girly’ like owning more than one pair of shoes. And definitely Danny has stopped talking to Joe… not that he made many honest attempts to start in my view, but yes.
Joe views emotions and deep emotional conversation as painful, so he avoids them. Only hurt and trauma lies down the path of emotion (as Danny proves to him daily), so only idiots go there.
It’s no less toxic an opinion, but it’s not rooted in gender so much in my view.
I mean, Joe has explicitly stated why he’s against having emotional conversations and it ain’t about fearing that it will make him effeminate. His chosen method for deflecting is up to its eyeballs in toxic masculinity, but the motivation is not.
I don’t really think they’re completely separated from one another. Joe’s mature enough about masculine identity to recognize that thinking owning multiple pairs of shoes is girly or that you should decide for women whether they’re fit enough to have sex is goddamn stupid, but we’ve still seen him creep on Dorothy, Joyce, Sarah and Sierra, we’ve seen him decide having any kind of serious discussion with Danny is grounds for Joe to throw a fit about how Danny is whining or getting in the way of doing awesome college stuff, and we’ve seen how so much of his identity is wrapped around needing to get laid.
It’s true we haven’t, like, seen him say “yes I feel these things because of my perceptions of masculinity”, but I don’t think ascribing them to it is that much of a stretch.
– anonymsly
Danny’s tried to talk to Joe numerous times. It’s just every single time he does Joe insults him or refuses to hear him. Danny could stand to be a bit more blunt, you know, if he was a fucking robot and wasn’t confused and scared out of his wits about being attracted to men and trying to work through that confusion with his supposed best friend.
Not to mention worried about his supposed best friend would react to it.
Macho “players” aren’t usually known for their acceptance of homosexuality. Nor is someone you’ve known all your life and still don’t know their take on it.
Yeah, it’s also worth noting that whenever Danny has tried to bring up stuff, it tends to go badly for him. Either Joe shits on him for it and calls it excruciating as if Danny is having feelings or doubts about his life specifically to hurt Joe personally or his parents treat it as a personal flaw that a good girlfriend will fix for him.
Like, we’ve seen with Ethan that when he trusts that conversations go well, he’s a bit more willing to share some things and we’ve seen him cut to the chase and blurt it out in his last interaction with Ethan, but it’s understandable he’d have trepidation bringing up emotional stuff and try and couch it given how often that has gone negatively for him…
Before we even take into account that Danny has been raised as a boy in this world and thus has dealt with all the negative treatment of boys who show sadness or confusion in their lives.
He didn’t ignore Danny’s problems. He just was shit at helping him deal with them. And then, most recently, Danny decided not to even get him involved.
We’ve seen how Danny tries to get Joe’s help with his problems, though. It involves never actually coming out and saying ‘this is my problem’ or ‘this is what I’m worried about’. It involves asking Joe questions that Joe can answer one of two ways and never indicating which answer he’s looking for. It doesn’t set the parameters correctly for Joe to know what the good friend response would be. ( http://www.dumbingofage.com/2015/comic/book-5/02-threes-a-crowd/knockers/ )
Like, Joe has even spelled out that that’s his problem. Danny asks ‘have you ever thought about guys’ and Joe responds that depending on why Danny’s asking there are two answers: a cheerful ‘no way dude’ and another answer that involves handholding and being supportive. At no point does he ever say that he wouldn’t do the handholding, he just indicates he wouldn’t enjoy it. Which is fair: friends do the support because that’s friendship, but if you’re enjoying the fact that your friend is in pain or confused enough to need it I feel like that’s a totally different problem.
They’ve been friends for long enough that my read is that’s how Danny always does it. And it gets really old whenever there’s different answers depending on the situation but no one ever actually tells you what the situation is.
I agree with much of this. Danny’s relationship with Joe is not all on Joe. Joe can be a blockhead, but we also know that one of Danny’s main issues is that he ALSO doesn’t like to directly talk about his issues, which is very passive and gets him into a lot of situations. Remember Dorothy – he didnt want to deal with her feelings about him, too painful. Didn’t think to give dating an unstable woman’s alter any more thought than “so cool!” Until it blew up in both their faces, for different reasons (let me be clear that I’m glad he got out of there because he didn’t deserve Amber’s crap). Joe doesn’t know anything about Amber. But its NOT because he didn’t ask.
Not letting someone know the situation and expecting them to respond perfectly can be considered as passive aggressive. Additionally, if Joe is not the outlet here, then he needs to take it upon himself to make more friends and reach out more, instead of being disappointed by the same people. Joe is not stopping him from doing that.
I said in another comment that Joe is hypermasculine, which I definitely think is a factor in him not talking emotions with men. But you could also be right that he just feels uncomfortable, which is fair. Someone not wanting to talk to you is also life. But I think Danny’s unwillingness to speak is more passive, hence why some don’t see is as clearly as Joe’s non desire to speak with him (as direct as he can be).
I don’t think Amber’s just a huge burden for everyone. I just think it’s not so great that she’s negatively affecting herself and a lot of people, Danny included. I myself suffer from mental illness and a LOT of that is attributed to being raised by someone who also suffers from a disorder which makes them treat people like utter shit. Literally all the time. So I’m biased against her, I don’t think Danny or anyone else owes her the time of day when she treats them like crap.
I understand that Amber is a whole person, and not just her illness, and I’m sorry that these strips dredge up a lot of emotions in you. But understand that’s where I’m coming from too, hence why I wrote it that way.
People hurt each other all the time. That’s a fact of life. We hurt people and we fuck up and we break things and we try to fix them, and Amber’s mental health doesn’t somehow make those acts inherently worse. She shouldn’t have to try twice as hard to be loved when she has the deck stacked against her.
And to be frank, I feel like the “nobody owes her anything” line of thinking is extremely harmful to folks in Amber’s place in life, fuck knows it would have been for me if I didn’t have people to rely on when I was at my worst. If I didn’t have people who could forgive me for lashing out and getting angry. Who were willing to understand where it came from and talk to me like I was a human being and not just some violent gorilla. We’re adding conditions to how people who suffer from mental health issues deserve love. That because they suffer from mental health issues, then they have to try extra hard to be Not Shit, and if any of their inherent mental health problems flare up in a way that inconveniences me, well get the fuck out of here, I tried and that’s more than you were ever owed.
Like, my abuser was an alcoholic, and to this day still downplays responsibility of their actions. Because of them I’m actually genuinely terrified of ever drinking, but it’d be fucking stupid of me to decide that all alcoholics ever are all shitty damaged broken goods and inherently cause more pain than I would think otherwise had I not been victimized by one.
I understand where you’re coming from, because I feel the same way about my abuser, and I will never try to take that from you. There’s no set rules for when someone becomes too harmful to you to help, and the fact is that it’s something that has to be approached individually. I just wish more people were willing to extend an open hand instead of condemning. That’s fine when we’re talking about a cartoon character, but I’m worried about how we apply that in our day-to-day lives.
– Not everyone who hits and yells at people are actually suffering from mental illness. I don’t think that Amber’s mental illness is what makes her hit people. She COPES by hitting people because it releases her energy and makes her feel good, but regardless of whether she was ill or not I disapprove of violent actions in general. In terms of the Danny remark, when a relationship hurts more than it helps, it’s time to go. Danny would have been hurt by Amber. Amber would have been hurt because Danny would have kept enabling her.
– Everyone in my opinion deserves these things: basic human respect, to be loved whether by family, friends, etc. But, respect is a two way street. Like I said above, we all go through rough patches, but in Danny’s case he would not also be getting the love and respect he deserves as a human were he to stay with Amber. This does NOT mean that Amber is a lost cause, may never change, she’s a horrible demon. It just means that if Amber is going to learn better coping skills and reciprocate, she must ALSO do the SELF-work required to not physically and emotionally abuse. Her bottling it up inside and assuming she’s unlovable and running away is not helping.
-I am in NO way saying that being mentally ill automatically makes you unlovable. Nor are all mentally ill people awful human beings. I am saying that IF a person gets to certain point where they are hurting others in extreme ways, like Amber is here, that changes the stakes. Like a lot. Yes she is ill, but we also can’t discount the effects she has on herself and the people she loves.
-I guess I’d put it this way. I think to say that people are inherently always the same is a fallacy for the most part. That’s why mental healthcare can be useful for those suffering. Most of us can change our coping mechanisms. What I say about Amber comes off strongly because as people, not just mentally ill people, we must experiences different things and we must GROW from them. Some people grow early in that journey, some people unfortunately hit bottom before they do.
Sometimes stuff gets too far, you try to amend things , and that doesn’t work. The friend or relationship leaves you. It’s painful, but that’s fair, in the sense that it’s fair that neither of us have to be around our abusers. See what I’m saying? We don’t owe them our time and energy, because we don’t get anything out of it and they have hurt us too much. That’s also why I call her out, because to me it’s totally harmful to discount the effects of violence on children, SOs, etc. Not everyone who is violent is mentally ill, but it also doesn’t help the mentally ill person trying to get help to go around as if everything is fine when it’s not. Support means love, but it can also mean pointing out unhealthy patterns and behaviours, and it can mean professional help for the person afflicted.
But for most people, mental illness or not, making mistakes doesn’t make you irredeemable, but what is also true is that we can’t MAKE people react the way we want them to. I have given my person a million chances – she doesn’t care and hurts me more everyday. I am distancing myself from her. She’s locked in her cycle, there’s nothing more I can do for her because I couldn’t MAKE her better, she has to want to be better enough to actually do something about it, while I support her. Ex. It’s really hard to get someone to willingly go to a facility, even if they really need it.
Some people leave, maybe because of stigma, maybe they’re assholes, maybe because we’ve hurt them too much – examine the situation, learn from it and move on. That may mean therapy, a long vacation, change in work, exercise, medication – whatever works for people. It never helps to stew in it, although a lot of mental illnesses (mine included) automatically make us stew and feel like shit. A person may not forgive you. That’s alright, because you can forgive yourself (and what’s the point of being forgiven if you won’t accept it?)
Some people forgive- keep those people, because people who know our truths, no matter how ugly and accept us and love us are unfortunately a dime a dozen.
Okay let’s be real about the way Amber treated Danny last time. She was being a raging dick and made it abundantly clear that, right now, Amber really cannot contribute to a relationship until she starts to get a handle on her mental health problems, but it basically just amounted to telling him to fuck off and never speak to him again while she was in the midst of a PTSD driven DID episode and the alter she relies on to be perfect was making all the decisions. That isn’t slamming him into a wall and telling him to fall in line. That’s Amber being in such a precarious mental state that she values the narrative she’s built over Danny because she can’t conceptualize anything different right now.
And that’s fucking sad. That doesn’t make her Blaine. That doesn’t mean she’s in the Cycle of Abuse *ooh scare chords for the buzzword used to cudgel abuse victims*. That means she’s unwell and needs support, which, you know, both Danny and Ethan seem pretty fucking determined to give her, since Danny says that seeing how much Amber hates herself hurts him and then the both of them kind of casually admit them dating isn’t something they’d want because they think they’d be awful to her. Amber pretty clearly is still someone the two of them value a lot, and more than that, she’s someone who’s worth valuing.
As for the rest of your genuinely well put together and thoughtful post that I read numerous times trying to contribute anything of value, I just really don’t know what to say anymore. I have that conversation with myself enough.
I’m excited about this! And I was actually hoping it would be Joe all along (can’t take credit for that – IIRC someone else predicted it ages ago). Joe gets a bad rep around here, but I enjoyed his character arc in It’s Walky!
I’m glad too – Joe’s lack of comic time meant he was coming off a bit one-note. Also yay to another person who liked Joe and Joyce and Joe’s interactions in the Walkyverse!
My guess is that Becky was watching Joyce completely retreat into the TextWorld as a refuge from her RL reality and was probably wondering how she could snap her out of it but was a little afraid to try.
Ha yeah, I was thinking the same thing. “OK Becky, I’m going to text with someone who’s not even here right now. You can sit on the floors and stare at your shoes. It’s too bad you don’t have any pajamas.”
At first this surprised me as much as I’m sure Willis intended. Looking over the brief convo, though, I see no sign that Joewas actually offering anything more profound than a sounding board. For that task, a shallow individual like Joe makes an excellent model. He’s unlikely to offer any advice, which for good or ill would be intrusive. He’s the closest thing to a tabula rasa (lacking the presence of any small children). Anyway, just an opinion—I’m sure someone will tell me if I’m missing anything important.
Sometimes a sympathetic listening ear is the best you can offer anyone. Joe isn’t the sort of guy I’d imagine to have the emotional depth to offer profound advice but an offer of solidarity and empathy might be all that Joyce really needed.
When women come to you with a problem, they just want you to listen. They don’t want you to fix it unless they specifically say so. A wife and two daughters taught me that lesson very well. A sympathetic ear, and your complete attention, will help them more than anything else. Of course, once you’re asked to fix it, give it your best effort, and the sooner the better.
I think that’s true of most people. Like, yeah, there’s specific times when people want a solution or an action (like when reporting a harassing coworker to a boss), but I think with bigger life stuff, we humans have a desire and want to figure things out ourselves if there’s a solution. And so, oftentimes, when we reach out, what we’re looking for is a lot of emotional support. Confirmation that our feelings matter and that we’re emotionally perceiving a situation more or less accurately, an ability to get some of the pain and hurt out, or just a person to be there while we cry it out.
We human creatures don’t do so well when we bottle all our feelings deep inside.
I found that women, more than men, need to verbalize their feelings. Men will sit and mull a problem in silence, and even get upset when women try to help by talking it through with them. My wife and I figured that out early in our marriage. When she has a problem and starts talking, I listen silently and wait for her cue to respond. When I have a problem and stop talking, she waits silently and doesn’t try to help me talk it through. With my daughters, I sat through many one sided conversations where my only contribution was a shoulder, an ear, and at least one hug.
I don’t think it is so much that women need to verbalize feelings more as that we are socialized to verbalize feelings more as part of being socialized to compromise and cognitive empathy more.
Cuz like, I grew up in a very stiff upper lip type household and was actively socialized not to talk feelings and emotions stuff. Feelings don’t matter, results matter tupelo of thing. Even now, I am far more comfortable writing about feelings than talking about them – and that only because Journaling was something a therapist and two of my teachers worked with me on to address my violence in grade school. By contrast, my partner is a dude and spends a lot of time doing that thing you described about basically wanting a sympathetic ear – but his family was big on the talk-about-feelings stuff.
This. Those who are raised as if men are frequently socialized to believe that expressing emotions, emotional confusion, or emotional turmoil are somehow unmanly or reflect negative on one’s personal character. And raised in a style where it is discouraged to express sorrow and instead encouraged to express anger and blame a given designated enemy for emotional distress.
Whereas those raised as if women frequently are discouraged from expressing anger directly or expressing an emotion of “this person has wronged me” otherwise they are labeled a b-word-that-gets-moderated-to-be-a-percussion-instrument.
I’m very fond of new cartoons and the like aimed at young folk that model styles of masculinity that include being in touch with one’s feelings and crying and talking out things when they feel sad (looking at you Steven Universe). As it doesn’t do our species any good to try and enforce these “no, those emotions are no good for those of your gender” systems.
Dang it, now I have to go back and read all of these with this new context!
Oh who am I kidding, I was always going to re-read this.
(My phone auto corrected Dang it to Danny it. I don’t think I have ever written Danny’s name in a comment so I assume my phone is using the existing text on the page for context. Yes?)
I think it would be nice if Joyce were to apologise to Dina when she gets back to the college. She doesn’t have to compromise anything, simply apologise for being rude to her (in text terms, at least). They don’t have to agree on the matter of evolution but that is no excuse for Joyce to be aggressive to her.
Although, from what I’ve seen of Dina’s end of the argument, she wasn’t offended, it would still be a gracious and nice thing to do.
Ah, and there it is. The reason Danny and Joe are friends. Joe is very upfront about the things he likes and wants, but he’s otherwise not a total dick. He tries to be supportive to Danny in his own way, and when Joyce reached out to him for advice and support, he wouldn’t exactly be the type to turn her down. He may have joked about it a little a first, but then I can easily see him winding down and ‘hoo that was funny. but seriously, what can I do to help?’
It’s nice to get to see this side of Joe again. It’s been a good long while.
Waitaminnute. Joe “Bored” Rosenthal, who leaves the second Danny emotes, has been talking feelings with a girl he’s not even got a chance of going to bed with all day?
I shouldn’t be shocked, considering how their friendship evolved in the other universe, but… this is just more real.
And I thought to myself several times “Hmm, it’s weird that we only get to see Joyce’s messages and not Dorothy’s replies”, but I never stopped to think about why we didn’t. GRAAGH stupid.
Of course, now I have to go back and read all these conversations with this new knowledge in mind.
I’m glad that Joe is getting more screen time, hes one of the characters I can identify with more and he gets a lot of (unfair) stick from posters on here so hopefully we can see a bit more of Joe including more insights into his personality
Joe likes sex and is upfront about it and that, I think, offends peoples sensibilities especially if he (Joe) doesn’t fit into the box they’ve decided he (as a straight male) should be in
Joyces reactions to Joe on their date was because he didn’t live up to her expectations and she responded with violence while still claiming the moral high ground which echoed a lot of the reactions to Joe on these comments
But when he burned Walky over Walkys views on masculinity and explained to Danny what his problem with Danny was it showed me there more to Joe then him wanting to merely Joe everyone (with his penis of course)
Joyce was horribly out of line on the date – played for laughs though it was.
Even so, there were some damn scary signs from Joe during that sequence – the “fix her with my penis” thing was ugly, trying to pay Mike to go away removing the protection that made her comfortable enough to go on the date, the bits of “game” we did see – mostly him focusing the discussion back on sex.
Mind you, the violence was worse. He would have easily been justified in just walking away when she showed up with Mike and even more when he learned about the punching.
He’s made some other comments that creep me out as well – the reference to alcohol helping with threesomes – using booze to get sex that wouldn’t otherwise happen? That’s not really good on consent.
As I said above, we really haven’t seen enough of his game to see how he responds to rejection, except when it’s way over the top and threatening violence. From what little we’ve seen, he keeps pushing, keeps suggesting and trying until the girl gets really emphatic, but it’s a small sample. And those were in group settings and not dates or party/hookup scenes.
If we’re actually going to bump him up to a more major character/potential boyfriend for Joyce, I’d really like to see more of his current approach before he changes too much. There should be some negative sides to his horn dog style.
And frankly, I’ve met guys who came on like that and had some success with it and none of them were people I’d suggest a girl trust. It’s possible Joe really is the exception, but we haven’t seen enough to convince me of that. Talking about consent isn’t enough.
Personally, I think Joyce acted entirely appropriately. The fact is that Joe was just some random boy she’d met in an elevator like, earlier that day, and though she couldn’t possibly have known this, Joe is a guy with serious problems in terms of… whether or not women should trust him…. and she couldn’t have known that, but women have to be prepared for that kind of possibility and Joyce was able to do so because she was reacting to a different idea of appropriate date etiquette than her classmates.
Personally, I read that arc as showcasing a positive side of Joyce’s character — Joe is definitely predatory, and he reacted like a total skeeze to Joyce changing the situation to one he couldn’t take advantage of. It was an unfamiliar situation to him, and it showed. Meanwhile, Joyce showed herself to be in that specific respect *less* naive than lots of other college freshmen who would have at the VERY least, at the absolute MOST generous interpretation of Joe’s character, been put in an extremely uncomfortable situation with Joe.
“Hire some other near random boy to punch him if he even thinks about sex” is not “entirely appropriately”.
Be cautious around him, certainly would. Even a more sane chaperone would have been weird, but acceptable. Staying in public places, not being alone, not drinking, all reasonable behaviors.
Hell, even the punching if he tried manhandling her. As set up though, Joyce was definitely the one out of line there. (Well, Mike too, but we expect that.)
They had a moment a while ago where Joyce saw how disillusioned he was with marriage, and she was similarly going through pain with her mother.
If you go back and check the archives for this chapter, you’ll find that Joyce started texting him after her parents were arguing about pulling Joyce out of IU.
I had a feeling it was him. He’s probably one of the few who can give her a neutral viewpoint on this. Everyone else is either too emotionally involved or she’s just too close to them.
Also, poor Beck. Look at her being so nervous to impose 🙁 bb it’s okay to want to talk to your girlfriend. It’s okay to ask your best friend for a favor.
i dont know what’s breaking my heart harder; joe’s remarkably gentle help for a girl who got him punched in the face approximately 42 times or the fact that joyce has grown so much that she can find comfort talking to “”””someone like”””” joe, and that she feels safe and comfortable with him. i have so many emotions, but i think the main one is pride. be happy you glorious children
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I’m not sure I like this….
Joe thinks with his penis… but at least he thinks.
I’ll trust him for now.
Yep.
Joe has confirmed turned face to the DOA universe.
Joe is basically Finn Balor isn’t he?
Ooooh, I wanna see fanart of Demon Joe.
considering who he’s feuding with, that made me do a double take.
He uses sex as an ice breaker, but he does have set standards.
He seems to think of himself as a “joy-giver”.
So by doing the do with as many women as possible, he’s making a lot of people happy.
I do think he has good intentions, but doesn’t or doesn’t want to think of the emotional implications that he leaves behind for the women who want more.
His problem seemed to be that he comes on too strong, no? Like I think with his date with Joyce, neither of them really communicated properly. But for the most part he seems really up front to the point where it’s uncomfortable to women who don’t want his advances or feel that it’s too much. I could be remembering badly, it’s been a while since i’ve seen him in action.
Hey, women can want guilt-free casual sex as much as men and Joe always makes it clear what he’s interested in. Part of the reason Joyce and he had such a problem.
That’s what I was thinking. Joe can be inappropriate, but he’s only interested in having a good time with women who want to have a good time with him (in the same sense) and there’s nothing wrong with that. I agree that to imply that he’s emotionally damaging the women he sleeps with could be interpreted as denying the desires of the women who want to sleep with him.
Oh, that’s not what I meant.
I meant that some people attach a lot of emotional meaning to sex, and not all of Joe’s partners are going to have the same views as he does.
In broader strokes, not all of his partners will have Roz’s disposition. Some of them may have been looking for more.
What I was trying to convey is that Joe doesn’t seem to think about that too deeply. He has standard rules for making sure that it IS going to help someone though.
What I mean by all this is that I think that Joe believes that texting Joyce in this way is helpful and will make someone happier in the long run.
And Joe is all about that.
“Some of them may have been looking for more.
What I was trying to convey is that Joe doesn’t seem to think about that too deeply.”
And nor should he have to. From what we’ve seen, Joe makes it perfectly clear what he’s looking for before he sleeps with a woman. He sets the boundaries ahead of time. If they end up wanting something outside the boundaries he set, that’s on them. They have moral agency.
I’d like to point at “casual bang” from Book 2: http://www.dumbingofage.com/2012/comic/book-2/02-choosing-my-religion/casualbang/
As Joe says, “I’m the one who doesn’t respect women when you’re the due who thinks he knows better than the girl about whether she wants to have sex.”
http://www.leasticoulddo.com/comic/20061222/ If you read LICD that is.
And if you don’t, you should. Shame on you.
I used to read LICD. Stopped because I got sick of the dudebro Marty Stu wish-fulfillment fantasy.
Actually, Rayne is a pretty awful human being, so I don’t think this comparison works.
I had forgotten about LICD – aaaand all caught up – I think I’ll put it on hiatus for another year, or so, again.
I like the weekend kid vision ones better. At least he did touch on the progress of all those projects story arcs that just stopped.
See also: Roz
I can respect that
While, I’m the one to be really down on Joe, I see this as a major positive sign. If he can see the humanity and build a stronger personal friendship with the person he’s just been sexually harassing, maybe this can be the impetus he needs to improve in general and become a sexually confident dude instead of the weird creeper he is now.
And this will also let him deal with the emotions surrounding the breakup of his own parents and become less resistant to the existence of emotions in his space as that is proving toxic to his friendship with Danny.
Plus, it’s about time for him to grow and become more complex with the rest of the cast before he was left behind entirely.
So who’s next then, Mike?
Mike doesn’t need character development. He’s already a perfect asshole.
Why not? He’s already getting close to no screen time because every one else’s development is leaving him behind, so some complexity might do him good. I’m definitely a fan of characters I hate making me hate them less by maturing and growing as people.
Sooo….Mary actually has a chance then?
Heh, maybe. But there’s so much story potential in her being an amazing foil to the other characters that I don’t see it happening any time soon. But I definitely wouldn’t mind a redemption arc sometime in the future after her potential has been more fully mined.
Yeah, but can Willis do it without RedemptionEqualsDeath (TVtropes link)?
@Cerberus
Characters can pull heel face turns and still remain foils!
See Vegeta, Zuko, Magus, Peridot, Dinobot, Venom, Scar Etc.
I think he might not this go around because he was pretty well filled out in Shortpacked and I’m not sure how he’d be much different now.
I think it’ll be a different type of maturation, more surrounding the rejection of toxic masculinity (fingers crossed), especially since the path he was on, the only real development that was seeming likely was having a plotline where Joe realizes that only having a “no means no” outlook on sexual encounters is a great way to trip into pushing past someone’s boundaries and sexually assaulting them.
So anything that lessens his bro-y toxic masculinity in that manner is nothing but a good thing in my eyes.
But Mike needs company !
Yes to Joe becoming more complex.
I sure hope so. Dudebro needs a second track in his mind-highway.
I think Joe is interesting because he’s come to college to not have to worry about complex deep soul searching but just relax as well as let his hair down. It’s an interesting and not wrong contrast.
There are other things that will need to change as well for Joe’s relationship with Danny to become less toxic. For example, Danny will have to be more direct, and ask the questions he really needs answered. Joe has indicated that he’s willing to have the emotional conversations and provide support, if Danny will actually say that’s what Danny needs.
So I don’t actually foresee their friendship improving no matter how much Joe improves. Danny is not an open/direct person.
(Which is incidentally, I feel, why Joe has been fairly successfully having a 24-hour emotions-in-Joe’s-space conversation with Joyce: she’s been direct enough that he knows what kind of conversation they’re having, instead of saying one thing and meaning something else.)
What? Joe’s consistently been one of the more complex characters in DoA despite (or perhaps because of) his comparative lack of screen time.
You may not have noticed, but even though Joe’s been used as a punch line pretty often, a lot of it is really telling about why he acts the way he does.
Isn’t is a little significant that Joe is *just like his dad*?
And specifically says he wishes he could say his dad was only like that AFTER the divorce. Yup. There’s depth no one’s really explored yet.
Joe’s actually been one of the more consistently decent characters, despite having a one-track mind. (Heck, if anything Joyce is the one who should be trying to make amends with him for, you know, punching him in the face.)
At least he doesn’t text with it.
I called it.
Yeah, lots of people called it, and I like where it’s going. I just hope it doesn’t betray me.
Hee hee! The Joece ship, long thought lost at sea, finally limps into port for repairs and to take on supplies – and passengers! All aboard!!
Don’t worry, I fixed it.
“Is this Glassco’s?
NO! THIS IS JOE!”
Well, at least Patrick would listen kindly to Joyce’s problems. Too bad he’d probably give her godawful advice.
Oooh I called this in my head
I think I called it in the comments. The possibility of a connection between them . . . but not this particular texting spree. WOW! Willis, fatherhood has not gotten in your way—you are still the maestro!
I think it was apx 10% of the commenters. Though I wonder when the theory started and when this was made.
The theory was going around from the first time we see her texting someone. Then it seemed to lose traction when dorothy responded to one of her texts.
Are you sure we ever saw Dorothy responding? I could not track that down. We know that Joyce texted her during the gun episode, but did we ever see an answer?
Pretty sure AndyStardust is refering to this strip.
Dorothy says she’s “checking in with Joyce” which may or may not include responding.
I think a few of us may have. If it’s being withheld from the audience for a reveal, who else is it going to be?
CALLLLLED IIIIIIT
Called it.
WOT
I
WOT
*GASP*
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5JSCbEKsguQ
This one’s better.
Very funny.
whut
Seconded
WHO CALLED THIS WEEKS AGO OMG
I was trying to remember that too. Nice call, whoever you were. Well done.
I sorta did. For me it was between Joe and Dorothy.
Everybody! (except me apparently, I didn’t think this’d be it at all, idk why lol)
Same here. I saw a bunch of people saying it was gonna be Joe, and I just didn’t think they’d reach a point of doing anything more than begrudgingly tolerating each other.
Joyce’s hatred of Joe has always been a classic case of ‘methinks the lady doth protest too much’. Yes, he’s a horndog, but he’s always been upfront about it, and treated Joyce like a perfect gentleman during their date (even walked her back to her room, even after they’d fought). Now that Joyce’s standards are changing, Joe is one of the first people she’d rethink her stance on.
Joe is an island of unchanging straightforwardness in a sea of newly-revealed shadowy motivations.
He’s also an island of dependably straight in a sea of newly-revealed mysterious sexual orientations, though Joyce won’t be aware of all of that yet.
I mostly didn’t think it’d be Joe because he’s been not-so-great at offering comfort/advice to Danny and Joyce, while pretty open with her feelings, seems more reluctant to actually discuss negative aspects of her life with people she doesn’t know/trust. Especially since, if she just wanted to talk to someone with parent issues, she could have gone to Ethan.
And I’d say that, while Joe is overall probably a decent guy, his forwardness was not his only issue with Joyce. He openly mocked her beliefs and could get pretty disrespectful.
ok, but why? why was Joe the one so many people immediately jumped to?
Joe is someone she knows that has experiences parental marital strife before. She may not like him at first, but she is familiar with him in that they have something in common. He’s also not connected to any of her situation in any way.
Mike is a no, for obvious reasons,
She and Dorothy are kind of awkward right now, and Dorothy is one of the reasons she has tensions with her parents.
Walky isn’t the type to talk about deep feelings, would probably make inappropriate jokes.
Sal just isn’t available, she’s a loner and is part of Amber’s arc right now.
Sarah is way too judgmental, even if she’s right about most things.
We know that it wasn’t Dina because Becky asked to talk to her.
Because we saw her texting with him in class a day or two ago in-universe.
Yeah, this. I’m not at all surprised.
Which was when IRL, half a year ago?
January 11. 2016, just to avoid ambiguities!
Because worry about Joyce was how Joe first showed some depth in the Walkyverse.
A combination of the context clues people mentioned and dramatic awareness. We saw her texts but not anyone’s replies, which meant that whoever she was texting was planned to be surprising at a later point. That immediately rules out anyone we know she talks to regularly; if it were Dorothy, for example, this would have been 100% a non-reveal. There aren’t that many people who Joyce has been in contact with but wouldn’t be expected to be texting her.
Because it’s being structured as a reveal, which means that the identity is a surprise. And it has to be a surprise which makes some kind of narrative sense. (I did have an outside flutter on Roz, but Joe was always my main.)
Knew it. As someone who I can’t remember said, if it wasn’t a twist (read: Joe) there would be no need to hide the other person.
My brain told me Dorothy, my heart told me Joe. Brain’s never gonna hear the end of this
Of course it’s Joe. He’s the only one she knows has divorced parents, isn’t he.
Right she wanted to Parent Trap his parents.
Well, from what i remember, yes.
Aren’t Amber’s parents divorced?
Yeah but Amber and Joyce don’t have the greatest relationship….
Yes, this is true. But on counterpoint, she and Joe haven’t particularly been nice to each other either.
They are, but I don’t think Joyce knows Amber well enough to know that.
AWWWWWW, Joe?!
I dunno why, but this makes me want to cry. Damn it Joe, I love you
Happy ending!?…
I can sense the truck heading for Joyce’s block
BUT WHO WAS PHONE
DUN DUN DUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUN!!!!!
I believe you forgot this.
WHAT?!
to all those who predicted this: you people are wizards!
Well, technically I’m more like a shaman, but magic is involved.
Well, Time Traveler actually. Those other guys probably are though.
Does Yin-Yang Priestess count?
WHAT.
I’m so torn, because WHAT but also it makes sense?
D:
I knew it!…Joe doesn’t shave before bed.
I am too uncoordinated to handle a razor in the morning, so I always shave before bed.
I shave before bed because I’m literally abrasive if I don’t. Beard rash can be like getting sandpapered.
Growing a beard makes sense. You know it.
WAIT PAUSE WHAT
I know, not exactly a heel turn but, still unexpected. I bow to you sir willis. tomorrow should just be four panels of Billie and Ruth making out with the fifth being the same thing but, there also giving Mary the bird, than all will be right again (mostly)
(but, isn’t their relationship entirely toxic due to their shared alcoholism and encouragement to continue said activity)
QUIET RASHANALITY, no body asked you!
“RASHANALITY” — I’m saving that for the next time I need a forum handle.
okay, yea, you got me on that one. I’d like to say it was some really convincing reason I completely misspelled it but, I just didn’t bother. I admit to that. though, at least you got what I was going for, just for comparison, here’s the actual word -RATIONALITY
I was going to play something, but I guess I’ll pass the remote to the hacked Muzak to the next in line.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ODdze7tw95k
Wow, I’m surprised no one has taken this opportunity already.
Takes remote and plays “Old Letters” by Company of Thieves on the hacked Muzak.
A close second was “Girl Sailor” by the shins. Because “Oh girl, sail her don’t sink her this time”. Referring to the ship that we’re all about to climb aboard.
Indeed, the good ship Joece has seen better days, but better days are ahead! We’ll spruce her up, get her ship-shape in no time!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wdrp4KUFvkY – skip to 0:56
Well done Joyce
Holy shit!
I ship it!
I definitely don’t. Remember that first “date”? But I’ll friendship it 🙂 I think if they can be friends it will stretch and help them both.
I think Joyce has grown a lot since that first date, and Joe at least wouldn’t be going in with a lot of false “maybe I can get laid” assumptions.
… so they’d be free to make a lot of NEW mistakes instead of revisit old ones.
fair point. but it’s gonna be awhile before I really ever think they’d work well together.
Meh, not every relationship has to be heading for permanence. Sometimes comfort and emotional growth are way more important.
Yeah, but remember how Digger and Grim Eyes first met? And they wound up being friends!
Friends, not in a relationship. that one would rub me wrong too. But I’m also super happy you know Digger 🙂
Oooo, cookies for everyone who called it.
I gasped. But then I was like, “Aww.” I like this.
Oh, hey, those people who guessed she was chatting with Joe were right.
I kinda like this. Gives some development to both of them and fleshes out their relationship in an interesting way.
Definitely and ditto on the props to everyone who guessed this one. Well called!
yas. this.
Huh. Didn’t see that coming, but it does make sense.
GASP! i mean it would make sense to txt him. but i had no idea she’d actually reached out. or did he reach out?
Check the Joe tag, and scroll down 3 or 4 comics.
I am… Legitimately surprised. I was expecting the brother we’ve never seen.
Actually me too!
It seems like he has fairly distanced himself from the family as a whole, so it seems unlikely she’d look to him for guidance as one of the first choices.
Awww.
hmmm
https://media.giphy.com/media/TPl5N4Ci49ZQY/giphy.gif
YES, I knew it and I love it.
:O didn’t see that coming!
And yay for Joe! Glad to see he has it in him. I might ship this (?)
Never before have i so perfectly had the soundclip of “wwwhhhaaaat?” from despicable me play in my head for a scene.
Well done Willis, totally unexpected.
YES MY SHIP!
I see that it sails gloriously, despite being held together by duct tape and wishes.
And paperclips and bubblegum and dong drawings.
….my only real question is, how did she even get Joe’s number? I don’t recall them being exchanged before the catastrophic facepunching date, and Joyce wouldn’t have wanted it afterwards. Did this happen offscreen?
Also, liking that we get to see Joe’s more human side. He may hide it from the world, but he can’t hide it from the readers.
How she got it is yet unexplained, but she HAS at least had it since before their last Gender Studies class together.
They probably exchanged numbers when Joe first asked her out. It’s the normal thing to do and deleting the number afterwards requires effort that wasn’t really necessary- neither of them wanted to contact the other after that disaster but it’s not like the number would have tempted them much. Until Joyce got around to going through her contact list and clearing it out (something I doubt has ever been an issue for her) there wouldn’t have been any reason for her to delete it.
Could be a non-texting messenger app? It’s not too implausible for them to be FB friends despite their animosity (if Joyce has a FB I can see her being the person who goes around friending literally EVERYONE in the incoming students group on FB), and the formatting could go with that.
That said, I was not really expecting this at all.
interesting thought, and she does talk about browser history, which is weird if this is texting.
Nah. Texting has a history, too. It’s really annoying on older phones that don’t delete it when it gets full.
Still, so does Facebook Messenger.
Sounds like she’s using a browser to me, ’cause she mentions opening a new tab, which isn’t something you can do in a regular texting app as far as I’m aware.
Also, I dunno what browser Joyce would be using, but on Google Chrome (and probably others) you can delete browser history for chunks of time, like a 24-hour period. (I hope for Joyce’s sake that’s the case, deleting that many individual texts sounds awfully tedious.)
Maybe they’re chatting in a public forum, like the comments section of a popular webcomic.
Nah, who does that??
*glances around nervously*
When i was in college, it was pretty normal for newbie freshman to excitedly exchange numbers with nearly everyone they met. I still have some of those numbers on my phone, 5 years later. I’m too lazy to delete them lol
i .thought. those txts smelled nice
Yaaaas I had dared not even hope for this; I always loved the dynamic they had in the original comic and wow I would just love to see it get actual intentional focus this time around
^ This!!!
Yeah, I started here, but after I binge-read all of that stuff, I came back to find that I missed their interactions in the old comics.
Same here. Joe made for a really good big brother kind of figure after a while.
For some reason, your Gravatar is making that statement oddly intimidating.
That’s coming from somebody with a mad scientist gravatar and an apocalyptic username, so Amber must be truly terrifying!
Twisting plots, aren’t we?
I KNEW IT yesss my old ship. I’m so glad.
On another note, I’m glad Joyce has someone she can talk to about it? She feels like she has to be strong for Becky, perfect for Dorothy and Sarah doesn’t like drama- Joe’s kind of the perfect person for her to vent to if they’re friends now.
It’s ironic to think, but the fact that she has reasons to dislike him actually help out for the reasons you note. With Becky, she believes Becky needs her sacrifice because Becky’s situation is “worse”. With Dorothy, she’s scared of losing her respect. With Sarah, she knows Sarah dislikes drama and negative emotions. But Joe’s just that asshole who harasses her so if she comes off as a bit of a mess, well, she’s already considered to be crazy by him so… And thus, they are able to react to each other openly and more honestly and build what looks to be a genuine meaningful friendship. So huzzah!
I agree, I think he’s great because he’s like the only person not connected to her mess of a life right now. It’s always great to have a perspective that has no investment in the outcome of your situation.
And conversely, Joe KNOWS he is not getting into Joyce’s pants, but it is not for lack of trying so he can talk to her like a human being without risking losing “bro-points” or whatever.
Basically, Joyce and Joe both like to view the world in term of a pre-prepared script that they don’t like to deviate from (that’s why their date went so hilariously wrong), but since both of them already has broken each other’s script they have to figure out a new way to interact (kinda like in Dorothy’s and Joyce’s hypothetical marriage)
This. Joe is actually the perfect person for Joyce to talk to right now, because he’s distanced enough from Joyce’s personal life that she doesn’t have to worry she’s going to sabotage any more of her relationships, but has also experienced all the pain Joyce is going through now.
I also feel that Joe feels better about listening to a woman complain about her problems than a man. Joe is straight up a terrible friend to Danny because Joe thinks men talking about feelings is stupid dumb poop and he needs to be a real man. Joyce also taps into a niche of being a woman that Joe isn’t interested in for sex, so he needs to approach this differently. I think he is genuinely just trying to be supportive right now because unlike with Danny he doesn’t have to add all these conditions that contradict his views on perfect masculinity.
When it comes to Danny I suspect part of the problem is their shared history. I’m willing to bet at least some of Joe’s definition of “how to be a man” include “don’t be like Danny”
Yeah, I think this is pretty spot on.
Remember that part where Joyce married Dorothy and went “oh so we’re both girls I guess that means all the patriarchal, sexist glop I’ve learned doesn’t apply”? I think that’s how Joe is processing this. “Joyce is a girl so I should pile on the patented Joe charm, but also I don’t want to have sex with her. I guess I should try listening to her talk about things and relate over shared painful experiences.”
And, yeah, I imagine that when Joe sees Danny hurting over seeing someone he loves in pain, Joe feels all the more validated for not following in Danny’s/his parents’ footsteps.
I can definitely see that, given his previous views of emotions and his sexism surrounding them.
I also like seeing him learn a different way of dealing with “woman doesn’t want to sleep with me” than he has so far, because one of his worst habits has been his tendency to “punish” women who won’t sleep with him with angry accusations of being unfair or unreasonable, sexual harassment and intentional jokes to keep them off balanced, and otherwise trying to imply that sexual repression is involved or that it is on the woman who rejected him to cheerlead his “excellent consent habits”.
*Interesting…*
And is Joyce just being generally private, or does she really not want Becky to know who she’s been speaking with?
Plus Joyce is very protective of Becky. Her texts about Becky’s situation weren’t tailored for Becky as an audience, she could’ve spoken in a way that might hurt her feelings.
Like, it’s about how Becky’s situation impacts Joyce, and Becky already feels a lot of (misplaced) guilt about that.
Also plausible that she doesn’t want people to know she’s talking to the sexist meathead that she normally hates.
Yup. That’s a very good point. Private conversations are often private for everyone’s benefit.
Perhaps she’s worried about her parents getting ahold of her phone. Telling who Joe is, how they met, and what happened when they went on a date, might not be a good thing.
Yes. The last thing Joyce needs after all this is to be caught talking to a young man in secret.
He IS the only person she told Becky wasn’t invited to the dorm party. Specifically ‘Joe is not invited’. Becky’d never stop asking ‘what’s up with that?’
Also, if Joe is the person she’s been talking to about her feelings of the moment, she definitely doesn’t want Becky reading that. There’s too much that Becky would feel guilty over, which Joyce doesn’t want.
Nice twist.
So Joyce confides with Joe ’cause parents.
Oooh, the thick plottens.
The thought plickens.
The thing stuffens
The plit thockens.
The ship happens!
Swipe, swipe, swipity swipe
Tap, tap, tappity tap
Bang, bang, bangitty bang
Makes me think of the cup song for some reason. Dunno why…
Huh, I mean, I can see how this makes sense. I could see how Joyce and Joe could manage to be good friends to each other actually. When they’re not warring, anyway.
Joe and Joyce hitting it off as penpal is really fun ; Works a lot better than their respective ideas of a couple back then.
*Look up the comments*
I don’t get why some of you are so surprised. RL and text/internet interaction can bring up pretty different sides of a person.
THIS IS SO TRUE. I’ll never forget my first tinyGF – man, that relationship did NOT work in RL…
Joyce and Joe, sittin’ in their beds
Talk-in’-bout-folks-who-are-wed
I SHIP IT
I FRIEND-SHIP IT
I LOVE BOAT IT
I knew it wasn’t Dorothy!! Yay for Joe and Joyce friendship! (I honestly think it’ll be good for both of them.)
Awww man, everyone and their mother called this, but it’s still hella cute and satisfying to see it confirmed. I am here for this unlikely friendship!
It was Joe all along??
Now we know!
.
And knowing is half the battle.
*dodges H.I.S.S. Tanks*
I am so glad I called this, it makes me happy to know those two are now getting along, at least enough to talk to each other about something this big.
I’m sure Joe likes to talks about something else “this big”.
I want this ship to happen now…
I don’t, its the last thing either of them need right now…but a friendship definately
Well if romantic ship doesn’t happen then I’ll be happy with a friendship regardless 🙂
So it was Joe all along. It’s nice to see that he’s listening to Joyce problems and maybe even advices her.
I KNEW IT!
I knew it! I think it’s nice that she’s talking to someone who can understand part of what she’s going through. I’ve always liked Joe, anyway. He’s not that bad to me. He’s got a long way to go for certain things, but it’s nice to see the not-cassanova side of him here.
Off-topic: Joe doesn’t seem to swipe, but Joyce does. I’ve always preferred to tap, so i buy large phones. A lot of phones have teeny-weeny keyboards these days.
He can be great about very specific things, like he wouldn’t let Mike hit Joyce at all on their date, and when he called out Walky on his stupid shoe rule nonsense.
But MOST of his screentime is spent being a jerk so I feel he has a long way to go for a LOT of things. I do hope he gets there though – I feel he’s a redeemable character, and his views will eventually change for the better.
Yeah, he’s got a lot to work on. I’m just not too worried because he seems the type that actually will grow out of the Bro-phase. Some people do, so I’m not too worried. he’s also not super fleshed out right now so I’m not ready to say he’s irredeemable yet.
I guess i say that in the spirit of Joyce in the beginning of the comic being a lot different and more bigoted, and look where she is now.
Never understood swiping, either. I just can’t see how it’s any faster. And boy howdy is it extremely error prone. Even on a keyboard with less than 3 inches of width, I can type faster with fewer mistakes if I tap with my thumbs.
Right! I type way faster, my phone can’t keep up when I swipe.
WHAAAA JOE IS
NOT A SCUMBAG IN THIS STRIP😱 THE END IS NIGH
My obsession with clearing history borders on crazy, gotta leave my computer for 30 seconds better clear history!
I doesn’t matter what I’ve been searching.
Seriously? How did all of those people figure this out?
Joyce isn’t close to/gave phone number to that many people. Theory wise I’ve have gone for Ethan personally, tho.
Because it was specifically never shown as Dorothy, and because Joyce texted Joe about feelings (“your anger seems familiar”) in gender studies class.
Does anyone have a link to that strip?
Here you go: http://www.dumbingofage.com/2016/comic/book-6/02-that-perfect-girl/sorry-3/
It’s like the 4th one down on the Joe tag.
Rayrayravona, your gravatar is fantastic, what is it from?
Bad Machinery!
That’s awesome. Hope they can have a meaningful friendship. Maybe more than that, but that seems pretty unlikely. Stranger things have happened.
That ship sailed, and sunk spectaculary.
Alright, who’s the bookie for the comment section? Some people just won 5 bucks and some people just lost it.
KNEW IT!
Yay, I’ve been hoping for a long time these two would stop fighting and start talking.
Cue the dozens of people who called it being Joe that Joyce was texting since I think months ago.
Is this… the fabled ghost ship, Joece?! Returned from the briny depths to breathe salty air?
I’m glad it’s Joe – not really because it means I called it, but more because it makes things more interesting (i.e. more so than someone expected, like Dorothy.)
People called this…I didn’t believe it, but here we are 😛 Anyway, it is good really. There’s more to Joe than sex fiend. Of course he is a person in the story too. It’s actually cool the person who rejected him so soundly on their “date” early on is who Joe is chatting with. From all their arguing and jousting throughout the story so far, the last frame is one of those “dundun…dun!” moments.
Wait wait wait wait WHAT
I’m having Roomies flashbacks.
Wait, you mean this comic?
wow i genuinely didn’t see this one coming
Holy Shit this is a new level of Innocence, I not even making fun of Joyce right now I am generally amazed right now that she’s just discovering that couples argue and disagree with each other.
Like right now I’m happy that Joyce and Joe are bonding but I’m just wondering if this is really and legitly the first time she seen her parents have a disagreement let alone a fight out of the 18-19 years she’s been alive.
Not couples at large ; her parents. The immuable, infaillible, rock Autority Figure. Or so she thought.
I know my parents keep their disagreements to themselves to this day. They like to present a “united front.” So I basically have to infer from subtext when they’re not on the same page about something. It’s kinda weird, but it happens.
My dad is still kind of pissed at his parents for never letting him or his sister see them disagree. He says he doesn’t know how to navigate that properly with my mother as a result. I think it may even affect me, another generation along.
yay. things to look forward to. he said with deadpan sarcasm.
You know, that’s a good point. Everyone’s been just reacting to the Joe reveal and missing everything else in this strip.
Hee, Joe’s icon is the same as on the cast page.
They all have gravitars of themselves.
Too bad Joyce doesn’t have an icon of her D8 face.
Of all the people I thought Joyce would be texting, Joe was the _least_ likely. But then, it makes sense. It’ll be a weird, broken, platonic broly friendship, but I watch it intrigued.
I think the bulk of the comments have been “I was right” or “What just happened”. And I’m here wondering “Monolithic Voting Bloc”?
It’s made out of stone. ONE stone.
And I keep reading you as ‘Onion Fury’ for some reason.
Huh, I normally get ‘Furry’.
Hmmm, does this mean we don’t get to see church tomorrow?
Oh, we’re definitely seeing church tomorrow. The preview panels prove it. Sadly, there may not be any survivors.
Sunday, Bloody Sunday.
Tomorrow…in comic time…
Becky: “Joe! This is Becky! I’m using Joyce’s phone to text you! You’re apparently a friend, even though I’m not sure who you are. We’re in our church, and the sermon got pretty hate heavy. All of a sudden Joyce just went berzerk!! There’s blood and bodies everywhere!!! The pastor’s entrails are strewn across the podium and Joyce’s dad has been reduced to dry heaving!! Joyce is rocking back and forth in corner chanting “There is no blood, there is no blood.”
Joe: …I’ll bring a couple other guys and some shovels and see what we can do.
…
Sorry if that was a bit dark.
… You mentioned you were willing to be a capable minion a few days ago, you still interested?
Yes.
Just like in Kingsman!
So, just to be clear, that “Twilight” tag is referring to Joyce’s poster, right?
I swear, cartoonists find the weirdest ways to amuse themselves…
(also, great twist. I’m a little curious how they started talking, but I can definitely see Joe being a sympathetic ear when it comes to Parent Stuff.)
WAIT WAIT SHUT UP MUCH MORE IMPORTANT:
Joyce uses “SWIPE SWIPETY SWIPE” while Joe uses “TAPTAP TAPPITY TAP” Joyce confirmed Droid user, Joe confirmed iPhone?
Although they both look about the same size and shape. Maybe a Nexus and a 6+?
Actually in another comic Joyce was using ‘Tappity tap’ too, so I don’t think you can defer the type of phone based on swipes/taps. Her swiping could just be her clearing the screen.
http://www.dumbingofage.com/2016/comic/book-6/02-that-perfect-girl/sorry-3/
Tis optional to use swipe-swipe on a droid
Interesting, it’s always been the default for me (well, for the last few years)
With Willis it’s good to notice the unimportant things first
yes!!!!!!!! i knew it
That’s quite the surprise, but it makes sense and I am pleased with this progression of things. Joyce is branching out to people, and maybe Joe will learn how to -gasp- talk about things?
Can be easier to do throught a screen.
JOYCE-JOE FRIENDSHIP GIVES ME LIFE AND I’M GLAD IT EXISTS IN THIS UNIVERSE NOW.
Lol, why is Twilight in the tags? Is that the name of this ship? (Was it always? I guess so…)
Regardless, I’m really happy about this. Both of these two need good, healthy human contact, and Joyce’s side of the conversation that we’ve seen fits that.
I like to imagine maybe he reached out to her after the whole Toedad gun thing went down, just to check that she’s doing alright.
It’s the poster on the wall behind Joyce.
Joe is one of those vampires that sparkles in sunlight.
Ah, so it is!
Also, it looks like they started texting back and forth in this panel, the day that Joyce was preparing to head home: http://www.dumbingofage.com/2016/comic/book-6/02-that-perfect-girl/sorry-3/
*strip. This strip. Not Panel.
answer : http://www.dumbingofage.com/2010/comic/book-1/03-men-are-from-beck-women-are-from-clark/twilight/
I have known guys who are never-ending fountains of machismo in groups, but are actually decent when you talk to them one-on-one. I think it’s a confidence an maturity issue. That might be part of what’s going on with Joe here.
YES. A couple of my best friends are like this. Both military guys, both full of machismo, both extremely decent and kind and caring when you talk one-on-one with them. My favorite type of guy, TBH.
Part of maybe, but we’ve never seen it before. He’s stayed with the machismo talking to Danny. He’s never shown any interest in anything with girls other than sex.
I’m a little bothered by this reveal, mostly because we didn’t see any of it develop from his side, so we don’t know what got him to this point. We saw the little bit of set up when she texted him in class, but that’s all.
YYYEEEEEESSSS
Ok I did not see this coming.
WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOT
Huh. Didn’t call that. Well-played, Willis. Well-played.
Intrigued about what direction this will go in.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6tWLffi-XUg
I am FOR IT.
And just before she hands the phone to Dina, she texts Mike to punch Joe.
I found out why Hank and Carol didn’t call Joyce all day.
http://i.imgur.com/ml8RIfh.jpg
Little bit of the Mike and Amber hatesex vibe, nice.
I hope you just realized you just created desire for a Hank/Carol slipshine.
You monster.
All according to plan.
Definitely prefer you keeping them looking like they do in the comic, as you did here. That 20-something woman you drew in other stuff never seemed like the 50+ Carol to me.
Plus, as I always suspected, when you want to, you can pretty much make them look like Willis drew them, especially on the top. If someone just linked that top one (without the handwriting) and said they were sketches by Willis, I’d’ve believed them.
Great stuff as usual, Yoto!
I do feel like Carol wouldn’t ask “Where’s […] Becky?” even as part of a package deal with Joyce, though.
I disagree for several reasons but I’m too lazy to get into it atm.
Comic Reactions:
Panel 1: That’s an important point for Joyce. Not just that her parents fight, but that they aren’t a monolithic voting bloc. Like, this morning, she freaked out and ran away because her parents were discussing her being pulled out of school, but then she found out that that was actually an argument rather than a plan and that changes the landscape a lot… but maybe not in a way that makes sense.
And the reason that feels new is that her folks have always presented decisions, not only as what they both feel is right, but as what God feels is right (I’m thinking of the “let’s take it to God” strip). Which means, if they can disagree, maybe her parents aren’t actually direct lines of communication with God after all.
Also, Becky slumped in the corner, shoulders slumped forward, completely disconnected. A person in the Patreon noted that its the same pose she had in the flashback in Toedad’s house of right after her mom died. Maybe it’s related, but it’s definitely at least her completely drained, head full of dark thoughts pose and it just makes me want to hug her.
She’s been through hell tonight and is probably feeling guilty and worried that Hank thinks she’s some awful influence on Joyce and just generally down. Unfortunately tomorrow and church is so likely to be so much worse.
Panel 2: That line of Joyce’s is so forlorn. Like, no, a married couple does not have to agree on everything, but she might be starting to notice that there’s something off about them disagreeing on something as fundamental as whether or not to mistreat her or not.
And holy hell, that face on Becky. That desperate pleading, hands clasped, eyebrows sad, and eyes nearly ready to cry. Becky’s wacky armor looks totaled here and so far the only person she’s felt safe to completely collapse to even for a second has been her dinosaur girlfriend.
Not to mention that as much as she’s been putting on a brave face for Joyce, she hates it here and wants to be home just as much if not more. And she misses her Dina about as much as Dina misses her. And it really gives me hope that tomorrow evening, we’re going to see them being super cute with each other in their reunion.
Panel 3: Joyce has been stuck in her head, hasn’t she?
Also, I think she may have finally realized why Dina was texting her random dino facts all day and is quietly trying to delete the record of all the angry creationist rants she sent back.
Panels 4 and 5: I’m genuinely hopeful for this interaction. Like, Joe has a long way to go before I’ll genuinely like him, but I think this represents a major step in his character arc and is an important moment of growth to help catch him up to some of the other characters. And it’s a sign of the better traits he’s been trying to bury so he can better embody Broseidan, King of the Brocean.
Like, there must have been some genuine supportive and caring fellow that made Danny feel he could open up to him and consider him his best friend. There must have been something that led Dorothy to try and sell him all the line he needed to save himself. And here we see that. He can be warm and supportive, caring and understated and not all about some weird PUA-infested idea of how to “get sex”.
And it gives me genuine hope that Joe might one day become a man who indeed has lots of sex and values sex very highly, but also who understands boundaries and fully views women as people rather than sex dispensers or broken sex dispensers. And that he may heal from the frictions of his own family and thus break away from his dad’s creepy lothario into a sexual young gentleman who’s into kink and good consent practices.
At the very least, I have high hopes that this Monday, he won’t try and open with a sexual dig at Joyce and may in fact be more willing to engage in general. And that this friendship may actually develop some real legs and sweetness.
I would disagree with Becky putting on a brave face purely for Joyce. It’s her coping mechanism, but perhaps Becky waited so long to ask about Dina because she’s been feeling like such a burden in reality. So her putting on a brave face and not asking for anything not necessary at all and curling in the corner so she takes up as little space as possible, is her way of showing appreciation and gratitude. I agree, her asking after Dina is a beacon of hope for their relationship to me.
I actually like Joe a lot. I think that he enjoys sex and at the least comes on to women very strong and at times inappropriate, but I don’t see him as a predator in that sense. What I see in him is that he uses a lot of the bravado and hyper-masculinity as a front. He could be trying to take after his dad as well, because his dad is his male role model.
I feel as though like Joyce having certain beliefs about women in heterosexual relationships, Joe also has beliefs about men heterosexual relationships. A lot of guys that age, like you said, don’t see women as complete people, which means that they only have each other and their often equally clueless (at best, at worst- have you seen the news these past few days? Geez) fathers as guides. It’s like the blind mouse leading the blind mouse.
I like him, because it seems that he’s not a total tool, and he is capable of being decent -especially to Joyce, whom he previously wrote off. He will hopefully learn to quite chasing the futile dream of becoming the perfect masculine “man”, quit equating becoming his dad with that dream, and just learn that he can be his decent emtion-having-self, treat women better and not violate the mythical Bro Code. Because the Bro Code is just that, a cultural myth, and it (ironically) takes a great amount of strength to be vulnerable and fallible.
I would agree that she’s putting on a brave face in general rather than only specifically for Joyce. And I can definitely see the feeling like a burden emotion. It’s hard to avoid when you’re relying on others to survive and there’s external crap undermining self-esteem.
I would agree also on the last paragraph. He’s long needed to break free of the toxic masculinity he’s been raised in and accept that emotions and vulnerability and not being a dick to women to raise himself up do not make him less than a man or make him any less successful in what he wants to become.
It’s a common mythology for young men. But for young men of worth, rejecting it is a rite of passage that I’m very excited to see Joe start doing.
Yes! “For young men of worth, rejecting it is a rite of passage” I like that very much. And yes! To character development
Poor Becky. It’s so hard to let others support you sometimes. There’s few things worse than feeling like you’re not autonomous and ok and you have no agency, especially as a young adult/adult.
About Joyce’s line in panel 2… Yeah, and that is another reason for her stress the latest weeks. Not only was she supposed to find someone to marry NOW. She and that person would also be in perfect agreement on everything and through their love open a direct line of communication with God. No wonder she felt she was doing it wrong, and got increasingly stressed by Dorothy saying smart things she didn’t agree on.
A perfect recipe for her to think it was something wrong with her.
Heh, your first paragraph is a very nice distillation of why Joyce has essentially been developing a queer platonic relationship with Dorothy with a lot of coupley elements and assumptions (no wonder Becky is so jealous).
And thus serves as another reason why she was bothered by the boozeahol, because it was another sign of a point of disagreement between them in lifestyles.
OH MY GOD on hindsight i probably should’ve seen it coming
I can’t help but feel that it’s a parallel to Walkyverse Joe where he messages Rachel for some reason…
Yeah, i can see that. Joe’s character (in both universes) is definitely miles better at expressing emotion and sympathy when it’s not face-to-face. Also the plot twist aspect, not sure if that was what you meant
Oh shit you’re right, now that I think about it
What a wonderful world this is! I am SO thrilled.
These storylines NEVER end!
So happy to see Joe get his character development over here. It’s always weird seeing people shit on Williss’ characters in either universe. He always does such a great job, but people tend to hate anyone who isn’t perfect. Then he destroys the precious ones because Damn You Willis. Guess that means everybody wins?
Well, some are amazing because they are such perfectly evocative complete fucks and allow such amazing character development for the other characters *cough cough* Mary *cough cough* Blaine.
But overall, I’m very excited to see Joe grow up a little. I’m very curious to see where he goes next.
People shit on his characters precisely BECAUSE they are not perfect, and sometimes those imperfections lead them to do stupid, bad, ignorant things that we can see is definantely not the right thing to do.
And people kinda go “What what the hell were they thinking!?”
Several times people have pissed on Amber, Danny, Joyce, Joe, and Becky several other characters for the choices they made that from an outsider looking in we can say “yeah you shouldnt have done that”.
If there was a character who was “perfect” no one would like them because they would be boring anyway.
Well, yeah. And that’s what’s shitty. They don’t distinguish between thinking an action is bad and thinking the character is bad.
I’ve not seen anyone get mad at someone for saying “you shouldn’t have done that.” It’s stuff like “X is a horrible person.”
That tends to be a common human thing, especially in America. We’re not big on people having dualities where they have positive and negative qualities.
Sadly, this often leads to erasing negative actions for people we admire (see prominent actors/directors/sports stars who commit sexual assault or child molestation or domestic violence who then get a bunch of defenders simply because “but I like their work, so they can’t be bad”).
Add to that the tendency of people to assume that they’d handle a traumatic or difficult scenario with much more aplomb or a more level head, some general victim-blaming and mild social -isms, and some people who are despairing at seeing their younger selves’ mistakes repeated by the characters and you’ve got a recipe for being overly down on a lot of the characters for personality quirks or being overly forgiving of negative flaws that harm others.
There are precious few at ease with moral ambiguities,
So we act as though they don’t exist!
THEY CALL ME
WONDERFUL
oh wait we’re losing relevance now.
I forget, is Eclipse one of the actually kind of tolerable Twilight movies? (Not judging Joyce if it’s not)
I went on a mandatory good behavior field trip to watch it in school once, and it had werewolf fighting? I fell asleep during most of the movie though whoops
I’m not at all surprised… but it’s been so long that I don’t recall if I thought he was the likely culprit previously…
First I thought she was texting Joe. Then I thought she was texting Dorothy and it was much ado about nothing. Then it turns out she’s texting Joe.
Yeah me too!!
It’s not the support system we deserve, but it’s the support system… how does this quote go?
It’s either “not the one we deserve but the one we need right now” OR “not the one we need but the one we deserve right now”
It could be either
It’s an older pair sir, but it checks out.
I loved Joe and Joyce’s relationship in Walkyverse. It developed very naturally and even though through Roomies they had a highly antagonistic relationship while she fawned over Danny, you could see how Joe cared for her a whole damn lot more than Danny ever did. I’m really glad to see a bit of that here too.
This makes me really happy and I don’t know why. Just two very different people talking and being there for each other 🙂
That’s what I was thinking. And Joe, for all his faults, isnt a terrible guy.
…This is heartbreaking. Becky and Joyce are too drained by the day to do anything than sit by themselves, Joyce with her phone, Becky with her… nothing.
You just know that a month ago they would have shared the bed, but now they don’t dare because of fear of provoking Carol.
I’m glad they both have someone to talk to, and that they can share the phone. A little thing, but so important.
And I totally called it with Joe, much later than most other people. It was a finely constructed twist and a good moment of character growth for both Joyce and Joe. Now, if he only showed this side of himself to Danny their friendship might be much less strained.
Then they need to text.
That works for Danny and Amazi-girl afteral…
TOO SOON!!!!
…This comment sorta made it occur to me that Joe may be the type of person who can’t really talk about serious topics face to face. Perhaps thats part of the reason why they were texting so much and not talking on the phone (beyond willis hiding who it was from us)
Which may explain why he tends to treat Danny’s problems as jokes.
Maybe he wants to help but he cant really bring himself to speak of it in person.
That’s sorta my take on it, as well.
In that respect, I may have been Joe-like at some stage.
Twitter makes me compress my sentences, leaves less room for any … fudging … so it’s nearer my “real” personality – angry, over-enthusiastic, zealous, hater of bullshit – avoids those real-life awkward silences that Joe (and I) don’t like.
I’m not actually sure that’s true, Bagge. Part of the reason I see Joyce and Joe having a successful 24-hour supportive and meaningful conversation is that Joyce has at every text point we’ve seen been very forthright and direct about what she thinks and feels. Joe has zero confusion about what she’s really talking about and why, and that means he has the wherewithal to determine an appropriate response.
To contrast, the last time Danny tried to talk to Joe about his problems, he was neither forthright or direct. He asked an indirect question, Joe asked ‘why are you asking’, Danny got annoyed because ‘why would that matter’, and Joe explained that if it’s simple curiosity there’s a simple yes/no, but if it’s actually about Danny there’s probably nothing simple about it and he needs to know which it is so he can do the right thing. (Plus he really wishes they COULD have simple/shallow conversations once in a while.) And then Danny dropped the whole thing, reading Joe’s frustration and desire for honesty as a refusal to have any real conversation at all.
The sense I got is that the indirect ‘no reason! but there’s totally an important reason’ BS is something Danny does All The Time and Joe was tired of navigating it. The result has actually been that the lesson Danny learned is ‘don’t talk to Joe’ instead of ‘be honest with Joe’. (I expect that Danny will learn ‘be honest with Joe’ when/if he finds out that Joe is a good emotionally supportive friend to Joyce and has a WHY NOT ME? confrontation.)
Joe certainly DOES have to grow to address his side of the Danny/Joe gulf, in terms of ability to accept emotion without distancing himself, but Danny needs to own his side of their problems as well. If only Joe learns, and Danny doesn’t, there will be no lessening of strain because Danny will still frustrate the hell out of Joe.
That’s a very good read on it, and I think you are right.
In the end, Danny and Joe don’t HAVE to bridge their gulf. They were friends as children, they are not anymore. That is sad but it happens. But I think they both would benefit from becoming the kind of person that COULD bridge that rift.
Yeah the interesting part in that strip was Joe offering “handholding you through some excruciating self-discovery”.
This could be read as sarcasm, but it also could be that Joe was offering this in total honesty and only wanted to know if that is what Danny asks for.
So not wanting to get into the whole gender differences thing but it sounds like Danny is wanting more emotional support (communicating like a women) and expecting Joe to almost guess what he’s talking about whereas Joyce is communicating like a man (direct questions and wanting answers) which means Joe can answer the question and “fix” the problem
No wonder Joe gets annoyed with Danny
For me, it’s more like Joe treats conversations/friendship as a machine. He’s totally willing to do the routine maintenance/fixes when things go boing, because he loves the machine, but being asked to troubleshoot the machine without knowing the issue pisses him off. Not a gendered thing, necessarily, but very much about how Joe wants things to work still.
So many people called this that I was convinced Willis would make it someone else. This means I was actually surprised because I kinda inceptioned myself. Also, good on Joe for appearing to experience some real character growth potential. He might become an actually like able character. Wondering if he’ll eventually have a moment were he wakes up and thinks “what am I really doing with my life?” Because so far all he’s accomplished is growing a stuble, having a couple hook-ups, and slowly driving away his best friend from before college and roommate Danny. All completely hypothetical though, and probably requiring years of real life time if it does happen.
omgomgomgomgomgomgomgomgomgomgomgomgomgomg
Why is this making me squee so much I’m not even drunk
Because this is the ship we all didn’t know we really wanted and now OMG. :O
Oh, no. Some of us really wanted it. 😀 And now we’re using way too many As to yell YAS at the screen. 😀
For a long time.
Like, a really long time.
The longy-est time.
Is this the slowest-burn friendship in DOA yet?
I’ve always been kind of a Joyce x Joe shipper. If it weren’t for Rachel and Walky they’d go very well together. I’m glad that side of their relationship is still present in DoA.
At first I read that as Joyce x Joyce. That’s challenging for her in other ways, poor girl.
Holy shit TWIST!
Hah, I wasn’t crazy!!
WTFFFFFF?
I’ve been waiting for this!!!
There was this strip, http://www.dumbingofage.com/2016/comic/book-6/02-that-perfect-girl/sorry-3/
For everyone that says they called it, speculation started with, http://www.dumbingofage.com/2016/comic/book-6/02-that-perfect-girl/complain/
Does Joe really need all that much character development? I don’t think he’s actually a fratbro, he’s just trying to live a simple and uncomplicated life of partying with no deception about his intentions. I think Joe’s problem is he’s not interested in turning college into a time of great reinvention or emotional soul gazing. He’s comfortable with who he is and what he wants to be.
Joe came into college deciding that he already knew exactly what he wanted and he was going to devote all his time to that, to the exclusion of everything else. Joe was always going to start growing out of that the same way Danny decided that college was going to end with him marrying Dorothy.
He’s not suddenly going to put on a chastity belt because he’s letting Joyce lean on him a bit, and fact is, when it comes to Danny especially, Joe is a terrible friend.
I agree, Joe tends to mock Danny whenever he is trying to be sincere but he also didn’t get along well with Joyce and I’m just curious as to when this friendship popped up.
Maybe Joyce’s influence will allow him to be a bit more compassionate toward his roomate and Joe’s influence will help Joyce be more comfortable discussing certain topics that she likely would never really consider talking about, since joe speaks his mind and speaks it honestly.
I did feel there wasn’t much Joe in the comic and was wondering if Willis just didn’t have anything to do for him (kinda like Mike tbh)
Joe’s been kind of boxed out of the comic lately because his main role is to hang around Danny or in Gender Studies, and in the former case there’s really nothing he can bring to the table that Ethan can’t, while also having a lot of their panel time together showing him to be a really terrible friend. Developing a relationship with Joyce, who by the by only really has Joe as any kind of potential romance option in this series, seems like a good way to develop him more, especially given the great chemistry they had in It’s Walky!.
I really would have liked to have seen a relationship or two for Joe before this started up. Not just the no-strings casual sex with Roz, but something a little more complicated.
See how his “game” works when the target doesn’t either happily jump into bed or react with violence – how hard does he push, does he accept a “no” that doesn’t come with threats, etc. Maybe see someone he slept with that thought she was getting a into an actual relationship. Or for that matter, someone he winds up wanting for more than casual sex, but she doesn’t – that could even have been done with Roz.
You know, some of the downsides of his approach, before he changes his ways.
That could easily be explored with Joyce. Part of why I’m interested in seeing a relationship between the two is that they’re fundamentally different people who want different things, but who can also provide one another with some better perspective. That if this does happen, this won’t just be the stock Ladykiller in Love story. Heck, it wasn’t even that in IW!, where Joe realized that he and Joyce wanted things the other couldn’t provide and it’d be unfair of them to try to and force it.
It could be explored with Joyce. He’s really going to have to have already changed to have any sort of relationship with Joyce (Or she’ll have to change, even more drastically).
I’d rather get a look at how he currently operates. We’ve never seen him successfully pick someone up – we’ve just seen and heard about the aftermath. We’ve never seen him handle someone who’s attracted and might be interested in sex, but not just a casual hookup. We’ve never seen him handle anyone who isn’t interested, but is also hesitant to got to screaming threats to get him to back off.
I don’t see how much of his normal pattern can be explored with Joyce – and still leave room for a relationship. If he pushes for sex, he’s going to hit the violent reaction. If he doesn’t, he’s already off his normal game.
Joe has also explained very clearly to Sarah, “I understand no means no and I do not press after it.”
After she screamed at him to stop hitting on her.
Yup, at which point, he immediately started treating her negatively for saying no to him, because “gah, crazy much” including calling her cranky because he harassed her to the point, after she previously made it very clear that that wasn’t going to happen, where she had to explode at him and straight up threaten him to get him to back off.
These are not good consent habits. In fact, these are terrible consent habits, because if you do not create a space where noes are taking seriously or you create a space where you have to blow up and be called crazy to say no, then there is a strong social cost in actually rejecting him and thus coercive pressure to say yes or at least stop fighting.
These are excellent habits if you want to be a sexual harasser that women warn each other about. Which is precisely what Sarah did when Joyce tried to sit with her with Joe on the prowl.
In general Joe’s consent practices are awful, and a lot of the reason is he’s clearing the very low bar set for him by toxic masculinity (don’t force yourself on people who say no), but is actively avoiding getting a consent education in how to actually be a good consent-focused sexual being and it’s causing him to play fast and loose with things that would cause him to rape someone eventually (believing alcohol is great for lowering inhibitions and getting someone who would normally say no to a sexual encounter to say yes or at least “imply” yes by his measures).
I keep seeing this point being raised every time Joe has a strip. But I always read the strip as Sarah being aggressively and exagerattedly anti-social, not as Joe being bad at consent. I mean, the whole finger-waggle to screaming is about ten seconds in strip.
JQuire-
Yes, but you’re forgetting that they’d had several previous encounters where Sarah made it achingly clear she was not interested in him in any way and which he responded by flirting harder or assuming she’d be a great sexual partner he should keep pursuing.
Her snapping on him was literally the only thing that got him to back off. Hell, even adopting intensely negative body posture and referring to him as a negative presence didn’t even get him to back off. He literally ignores all body language and social signs of “I’m not interested in you” outside of someone “snapping”.
Which, in essence, makes him the Faz of this comic.
So I’m really glad to see signs that he might be evolving.
Cerberus –
Actually, they had a grand total of two encounters between Joe and Sarah prior to that strip. One where Joe doesn’t even talk to Sarah when he asks Joyce out, and a second very brief one where Sarah asks him not to overwhelm Joyce with sex. It’s there is zero flirting directed at Sarah by Joe, but a whole lot of Sarah’s default grumpiness. He does speculate that she’d be great in bed, but that’s after Sarah has walked off.
In the strip in question Joe doesn’t seem to be interacting with Sarah at all until Dorothy and Joyce sit down. At which point he says “hello ladies” waves at all three and I assume adopted some sort of flirty tone. He’s barely even engaged in conversation, literally the first time that he has directed any flirtation towards Sarah, before starts snapping.
As for body posture/referring to Joe as a negative presence…”fuck off” is kind of Sarah’s default vibe…
JQuire: Thing is, we’ve never seen him back off, with anyone, without that level of screaming and threats.
In his date with Joyce, before the violence really started, he responded to every bit of pushback by spinning back around to sex.
There’ve been times he hasn’t actually started anything, but any time he’s gone into his game, he’s either been successful or only driven off by an extreme reaction.
Now, that may not be Willis’s intent, but it’s definitely what he’s shown us. I’ve said before I’d like to see more of Joe’s game. See how he responds to various reactions.
Not to mention how alcohol is involved, other than facilitating threesomes that he doesn’t quite remember who was involved in.
Cerberus –
I think that your first assertion is accurate – we haven’t seen him back off a lot. But I’d argue that we haven’t seen him asked to back off without it being done at the level of screaming and threats straight off. There have been a few ‘ugh, Joe that joke/comment was gross’ – but not a whole lot of Joe actually flirting and being rejected. I can only think of the instances with Joyce and Sarah.
And I don’t agree with your characterization of the date with Joyce. Joe engaged on topic for the most part. She asked about his parents, he talked about their divorce, next strip they’re at Galasso’s. Joyce tries to interrogate him about his beliefs, which he isn’t comfortable about so asks him to talk about herself instead. She them mentions she believes lust is a sin (without prompting) and he asks her why she views it as necessarily bad. A totally fair follow up and date discussion topic…but then the punches start flying.
Whoops, that last one should’ve been to theJeff. Darn you people with your similarly reasonable commenting and identical gravatars!
To the first part, that’s why I’d really like to see more of his game – especially if he’s going to get more than a bit part. He could really live up to his words, but what we’ve seen just doesn’t convince me.
thejeff-
Yeah, what we’ve seen of his hunting method is super gross and his habit of always circling back to sex no matter what makes him super skeezy at the least. Honestly, of what we’ve seen on panel, we’ve not seen a comic where he’s “on game” where he hasn’t either been being intentionally dishonest and disinterested in a girl’s stated or unstated boundaries or being openly creepy and requiring an epic blowup to back off.
JQuire-
Well, I’ve done a few breakdowns of all of Joe’s negative moments before, but keeping it specific to his interactions with Sarah.
1st encounter:
No direct conversation with Sarah, but hits on Joyce in faux-gentleman persona and then literally shoves Danny at Sarah and tells him to wear a condom. She is not present for the gross way he describes Sarah before or after:
http://www.dumbingofage.com/2010/comic/book-1/03-men-are-from-beck-women-are-from-clark/piece/
2nd encounter:
Sarah decides to talk with him privately to express her concerns about him pursuing her friend because she’s sheltered and not at all accustomed to fighting off horndogs. Joe is openly hostile to her and says that he plans on “fixing her with my penis” *. Sarah angrily stomps off, giving up on him entirely and says that interacting with him makes her hate him more and tells him to fuck off. Joe ends the comic musing on how great she’d be in the sack despite there being literally no sign she is in any way interested in him:
http://www.dumbingofage.com/2011/comic/book-1/03-men-are-from-beck-women-are-from-clark/children/
3rd encounter:
He and his dad corner her in a hallway. Sarah adopts defensive posture (arms in front of her pushing away), says that Joe’s dad is just him with a beard. Joe watches as his father corners her against a doorway, her body posture intensely uncomfortably and bending away, and she threatens to twist his dad’s balls into a knot. Joe, to his credit, seems to show awareness that his dad’s behavior is negative.
4th encounter (the beginning):
Sarah is sitting alone and has angry “fuck off” body language and posture and is partially curled away from the direction Joe is coming from. She openly warns her friends about him, while he leans in all “game” face:
http://www.dumbingofage.com/2013/comic/book-4/01-the-only-dope-for-me-is-you/sitnext/
This then escalates her to yelling at him and having her eyes go all pointy and death-glaring at him to get him to back off and even that doesn’t work. She has to escalate further to getting up in his face and telling him that she’s “not on the menu”, “not now, not ever”.
Only then does he back off, but does so in a blamey sort of “oh, geez lady, what the hell” way while still trying to hit on her by saying she’s got a hot angry energy and that it’d be stupid to hit on her and frames him no longer hitting on a disinterested person as some sort of personal favor to her:
http://www.dumbingofage.com/2013/comic/book-4/01-the-only-dope-for-me-is-you/harness/
And you note, “fuck off” is Sarah’s default vibe. So why the fuck was he hitting on her in the first place? Like, a person giving big ol’ “go the fuck away” signals all over the place is not someone you hit on.
I mean, I know we as a society pretend that straight men seeking sex couldn’t possibly understand body language, but her body language in every encounter does not ever even hint at the notion of wanting sexual attention from Joe-shaped individuals. And yet he persisted despite getting active body and auditory warning from her personally that this would be a bad idea.
And that singular aspect makes him a creeper, because someone who harrangues you until you give in or explode is not creating an environment where it is socially acceptable to give a no and actively mistreats people who do give no, making it seem like a personal issue on their part.
That is not cool consent behavior, that’s the guy at the end of the bar you keep an eye on to make sure he doesn’t try and follow someone into the bathrooms.
And it’d be bad enough if he only did it to Sarah, but the only other person we’ve seen him actively pursue on panel, Joyce, gave many signals that premarital hanky-panky was not something she was comfortable with (to the point of hiring a chaperone) and yet he continued to pursue and escalate and bring conversations back to sex and try and argue his way into her pants until she and Mike literally assaulted him. He then on multiple occasions afterwards sexually harassed her or made sexual jokes at her expense, including making a lewd comment about her ass when she was crying and in emotional distress. He then immediately got angry with her afterwards and demanded that she defend his totally awesome consent reputation despite triggering her in that way (she was reaching out in to Becky on the phone in this moment specifically because of a recent attempted sexual assault):
http://www.dumbingofage.com/2012/comic/book-2/01-pajama-jeans/touch/
I’m so ready for him to grow up and move away from this toxic masculinity understanding of consent and this “I don’t notice body language” pose and to show more positive elements on panel, cause what’s there right now is not okay behavior by anyone, man or woman.
*On a side note, this (the comment about “fixing her with my penis”) is probably the thing that was always going to have me militantly against Joe. This is straight up the logic of corrective rape and this idea that “repressed” people need to be “fixed” with sex is used to justify all manner of assault and sexual violence against asexual people and is responsible for that orientation facing sexual violence at the level of sex workers and trans people.
Like, yes, that’s “my” thing in that not many people get as apoplectic about that issue as I do, but the use of that rationale for bad behavior when combined with his “sex at all costs” persona scream mega red flags for me and make it very difficult for me to view him as anything other than a predator in waiting without character development and self-awareness.
Lots of creeps who pretty much ignore the concept of consent will talk about how much they respect it. Words mean very little here.
Oh, he was intentionally designed as a bro. I mean, the Ed Hardy tees were not unintentionally selected. And he’s comfortable with what he is, because he’s young and has no idea of how the vast majority of women in the cast see him (hell, even Roz who sleeps with him regularly is not actually a big fan of him as a person) and thinks that he’s created more of a separation than he has from the creepy sleazy tactics of his father.
Like, I’d love to see him just become a genuinely consent-aware sexual dude. I see plenty of those types in kink and poly communities. But he’s going to need to shed the toxic masculinity and “hunter” persona to get there.
Joe is losing his eyebrows
Joyce has the unerring ability to turn anyone into a good guy, it seems. She just seems to be the strip’s universal ‘baby sis’!
Is that why, try as I might, I can’t stop shipping her with Mike?
That is with out a doubt the last person I was expecting her to be texting.
Ditto.
Although I can’t exactly provide a valid reason as to ‘why’.
Joyce is texting with a non-Christian boy who has had sexual congress outside the confines of holy matrimony?
I sense that Joyce’s mom is totally going to pull a repeat of Becky’s dad when she gets wind of this.
Well, I was hopping for Mike, but Joe’ll do…..he’ll do nicely
I could pretend I was surprised, but I started reading the comments before the strip loaded and then I accidentally glanced at the last panel before reading, whoops
Interesting that, for you, the comments load before the image. I almost always have to wait a while for the comments, but get the strip right away–which makes sense as it’s the primary content.
The comic usually loads first on my computer, but I was reading on my phone yesterday. And around the time the strip updates, when the website is slow, sometimes I get the comments while the strip is only half-loaded.
Could someone please explain why twilight is tagged?
Joyce is texting a guy whose anger seemed familiar to her, so it makes perfect sense to share what’s happening right now with him.
The really astonishing thing is that Joe accepts and responds to it.
well, there is a twilight poster just above the bed. But maybe he’s alluding to the romantic potential of Joe being a source of contention for readers who had shipped her with a certain other character. But maybe I’m reading to much into it. It’s probably just the poster
Most likely, Twilight is tagged because of the poster.
But, if you click the tag you’ll find that not only is Twilight only mentioned in strips that involve both Joe and Joyce (albeit, one strip we couldn’t prove it was Joe when it was posted), but the first time Twilight was mentioned was before Joyce’s date with Joe. Joyce states her intention to save him, comparing their future interactions to the Twilight novel. You could almost take the tag to imply a Joe/Joyce relationship :p
http://www.dumbingofage.com/2010/comic/book-1/03-men-are-from-beck-women-are-from-clark/twilight/
i cant believe joe/joyce’s ship name is twilight
The Joe/Joyce shipname is JoJo and I will fight anybody who says otherwise.
If the ship’s official name is twilight, doesn’t that mean it’s horribly screwed up?
Joe mah God
PREDICTION: They are already having sex.
I’m surprised Joyce is allowed a Twilight poster, as I’ve seen many in a strong Christian belief, much like Joyce’s family, who see Twilight, among others, as an occult activity and a link to the devil.
YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAS
New ship launched! 😀
YUS! I belong to the group that correctly predicted it was Joe! 😀
JoJo lives!
Yare yare daze…
Neat. I kinda figured he was the one she was texting. Mainly because I don’t remember Joyce texting anyone else throughout the series. But then I have terrible memory issues so OH WELL :V
*flail flail flail* omg this is great
In the immortal words of M. Night Shyamalan:
“What a tweest!”
Two more for Joyce’s crime-sheet:
Relations with a non-Christian boy.
Relations with an atheist.
If this all comes to a head at once, La Porte will flattened by the fall-out.
Joe is Jewish (although either lapsed or extra-Reform) isn’t he? In some fundamentalist subcultures, that’s worse than being an atheist!
Walkipedia says non-practicing Jew.
Joyce may want to make sure that her place at uni is secure and independent of her parents.
I noticed a thing.
http://www.dumbingofage.com/comics/2016-02-26-deviations.png
http://www.dumbingofage.com/comics/2016-04-21-ldr.png
http://www.dumbingofage.com/comics/2016-05-04-upset.png
http://www.dumbingofage.com/comics/2016-04-12-checkingin.png
All since Joyce starting texting a mysterious someone. Willis is so tricky. I’m glad it was Joe though ^_^
Huh so it wasn’t dorothy she was talking with?
When did they get so buddy buddy? I thought Joyce hated Joe?
Well this should be interesting!
I think Joe is someone who she feels won’t immediately judge her or try to coddle her so in her time of rebllian, she goes to him.
They probably started talking after that one incident with the “faux-marriage” stuff a few months ago.
They hated each other, but Joyce opened the door to a more tender friendship when she texted him during Friday’s class with an extension of emotional support and Joe is also the person she knows has had tense family stuff in the past that doesn’t also have dead and in-jail parents (she never found out how toxic Ethan’s parents are or how toxic Sal and Walky’s parents are).
Ohhh sure, he’ll talk to Joyce about her problems but he’ll totally ignore Danny’s problems.
Douche move, Bro, Douche Move.
Because Danny’s a dude, dude! Danny’s gotta learn that feelings are dumb and caring that your girlfriend is mentally unwell and that you’re confused about your sexuality is a total buzzkill to kegstands and threesomes, dawg! He’s harshing on Joe’s radical steeze!
Kinda definitely this. Joe’s currently a true believer in toxic masculinity and part of that is viewing emotions and deep emotional conversation as girl stuff for girls that men should avoid.
Though his last comic with Danny might be the one where he started to realized that constantly putting down Danny when he tried to start a conversation is a great way to get a Danny who stops fighting for the friendship entirely and stops hanging out at all:
http://www.dumbingofage.com/2016/comic/book-6/03-when-god-closes-the-door/upset-2/
I personally think that while Joe has a lot of toxic masculinity stuff that he’ll hopefully grow out of, that’s not why he avoids emotions and deep emotional conversation. It’s Walky who believes that stuff is ‘girly’ like owning more than one pair of shoes. And definitely Danny has stopped talking to Joe… not that he made many honest attempts to start in my view, but yes.
Joe views emotions and deep emotional conversation as painful, so he avoids them. Only hurt and trauma lies down the path of emotion (as Danny proves to him daily), so only idiots go there.
It’s no less toxic an opinion, but it’s not rooted in gender so much in my view.
Yes. This. What anonymsly said.
I mean, Joe has explicitly stated why he’s against having emotional conversations and it ain’t about fearing that it will make him effeminate. His chosen method for deflecting is up to its eyeballs in toxic masculinity, but the motivation is not.
I don’t really think they’re completely separated from one another. Joe’s mature enough about masculine identity to recognize that thinking owning multiple pairs of shoes is girly or that you should decide for women whether they’re fit enough to have sex is goddamn stupid, but we’ve still seen him creep on Dorothy, Joyce, Sarah and Sierra, we’ve seen him decide having any kind of serious discussion with Danny is grounds for Joe to throw a fit about how Danny is whining or getting in the way of doing awesome college stuff, and we’ve seen how so much of his identity is wrapped around needing to get laid.
It’s true we haven’t, like, seen him say “yes I feel these things because of my perceptions of masculinity”, but I don’t think ascribing them to it is that much of a stretch.
– anonymsly
Danny’s tried to talk to Joe numerous times. It’s just every single time he does Joe insults him or refuses to hear him. Danny could stand to be a bit more blunt, you know, if he was a fucking robot and wasn’t confused and scared out of his wits about being attracted to men and trying to work through that confusion with his supposed best friend.
Not to mention worried about his supposed best friend would react to it.
Macho “players” aren’t usually known for their acceptance of homosexuality. Nor is someone you’ve known all your life and still don’t know their take on it.
Yeah, it’s also worth noting that whenever Danny has tried to bring up stuff, it tends to go badly for him. Either Joe shits on him for it and calls it excruciating as if Danny is having feelings or doubts about his life specifically to hurt Joe personally or his parents treat it as a personal flaw that a good girlfriend will fix for him.
Like, we’ve seen with Ethan that when he trusts that conversations go well, he’s a bit more willing to share some things and we’ve seen him cut to the chase and blurt it out in his last interaction with Ethan, but it’s understandable he’d have trepidation bringing up emotional stuff and try and couch it given how often that has gone negatively for him…
Before we even take into account that Danny has been raised as a boy in this world and thus has dealt with all the negative treatment of boys who show sadness or confusion in their lives.
Eh, noone can do everything, everyone can do something. For me, that doesn’t make his behaviour against Danny worse or better.
I thought that, umm, “dudes” do fist-bumps and that’s about it. Emotions taken care of!
He didn’t ignore Danny’s problems. He just was shit at helping him deal with them. And then, most recently, Danny decided not to even get him involved.
We’ve seen how Danny tries to get Joe’s help with his problems, though. It involves never actually coming out and saying ‘this is my problem’ or ‘this is what I’m worried about’. It involves asking Joe questions that Joe can answer one of two ways and never indicating which answer he’s looking for. It doesn’t set the parameters correctly for Joe to know what the good friend response would be. ( http://www.dumbingofage.com/2015/comic/book-5/02-threes-a-crowd/knockers/ )
Like, Joe has even spelled out that that’s his problem. Danny asks ‘have you ever thought about guys’ and Joe responds that depending on why Danny’s asking there are two answers: a cheerful ‘no way dude’ and another answer that involves handholding and being supportive. At no point does he ever say that he wouldn’t do the handholding, he just indicates he wouldn’t enjoy it. Which is fair: friends do the support because that’s friendship, but if you’re enjoying the fact that your friend is in pain or confused enough to need it I feel like that’s a totally different problem.
They’ve been friends for long enough that my read is that’s how Danny always does it. And it gets really old whenever there’s different answers depending on the situation but no one ever actually tells you what the situation is.
I agree with much of this. Danny’s relationship with Joe is not all on Joe. Joe can be a blockhead, but we also know that one of Danny’s main issues is that he ALSO doesn’t like to directly talk about his issues, which is very passive and gets him into a lot of situations. Remember Dorothy – he didnt want to deal with her feelings about him, too painful. Didn’t think to give dating an unstable woman’s alter any more thought than “so cool!” Until it blew up in both their faces, for different reasons (let me be clear that I’m glad he got out of there because he didn’t deserve Amber’s crap). Joe doesn’t know anything about Amber. But its NOT because he didn’t ask.
Not letting someone know the situation and expecting them to respond perfectly can be considered as passive aggressive. Additionally, if Joe is not the outlet here, then he needs to take it upon himself to make more friends and reach out more, instead of being disappointed by the same people. Joe is not stopping him from doing that.
I said in another comment that Joe is hypermasculine, which I definitely think is a factor in him not talking emotions with men. But you could also be right that he just feels uncomfortable, which is fair. Someone not wanting to talk to you is also life. But I think Danny’s unwillingness to speak is more passive, hence why some don’t see is as clearly as Joe’s non desire to speak with him (as direct as he can be).
(let me be clear that I’m glad he got out of there because he didn’t deserve Amber’s crap)
I like how whenever anyone brings up Amber nowadays it’s to talk about how she’s a burden.
*hugs* Sorry for bugging out during the last Amber strip instead of staying in and talking about DID stuff.
Eh, don’t give yourself any guff over it. I seriously can’t blame you for wanting to check out when it’s just more of the same every single time.
I don’t think Amber’s just a huge burden for everyone. I just think it’s not so great that she’s negatively affecting herself and a lot of people, Danny included. I myself suffer from mental illness and a LOT of that is attributed to being raised by someone who also suffers from a disorder which makes them treat people like utter shit. Literally all the time. So I’m biased against her, I don’t think Danny or anyone else owes her the time of day when she treats them like crap.
I understand that Amber is a whole person, and not just her illness, and I’m sorry that these strips dredge up a lot of emotions in you. But understand that’s where I’m coming from too, hence why I wrote it that way.
People hurt each other all the time. That’s a fact of life. We hurt people and we fuck up and we break things and we try to fix them, and Amber’s mental health doesn’t somehow make those acts inherently worse. She shouldn’t have to try twice as hard to be loved when she has the deck stacked against her.
And to be frank, I feel like the “nobody owes her anything” line of thinking is extremely harmful to folks in Amber’s place in life, fuck knows it would have been for me if I didn’t have people to rely on when I was at my worst. If I didn’t have people who could forgive me for lashing out and getting angry. Who were willing to understand where it came from and talk to me like I was a human being and not just some violent gorilla. We’re adding conditions to how people who suffer from mental health issues deserve love. That because they suffer from mental health issues, then they have to try extra hard to be Not Shit, and if any of their inherent mental health problems flare up in a way that inconveniences me, well get the fuck out of here, I tried and that’s more than you were ever owed.
Like, my abuser was an alcoholic, and to this day still downplays responsibility of their actions. Because of them I’m actually genuinely terrified of ever drinking, but it’d be fucking stupid of me to decide that all alcoholics ever are all shitty damaged broken goods and inherently cause more pain than I would think otherwise had I not been victimized by one.
I understand where you’re coming from, because I feel the same way about my abuser, and I will never try to take that from you. There’s no set rules for when someone becomes too harmful to you to help, and the fact is that it’s something that has to be approached individually. I just wish more people were willing to extend an open hand instead of condemning. That’s fine when we’re talking about a cartoon character, but I’m worried about how we apply that in our day-to-day lives.
– Not everyone who hits and yells at people are actually suffering from mental illness. I don’t think that Amber’s mental illness is what makes her hit people. She COPES by hitting people because it releases her energy and makes her feel good, but regardless of whether she was ill or not I disapprove of violent actions in general. In terms of the Danny remark, when a relationship hurts more than it helps, it’s time to go. Danny would have been hurt by Amber. Amber would have been hurt because Danny would have kept enabling her.
– Everyone in my opinion deserves these things: basic human respect, to be loved whether by family, friends, etc. But, respect is a two way street. Like I said above, we all go through rough patches, but in Danny’s case he would not also be getting the love and respect he deserves as a human were he to stay with Amber. This does NOT mean that Amber is a lost cause, may never change, she’s a horrible demon. It just means that if Amber is going to learn better coping skills and reciprocate, she must ALSO do the SELF-work required to not physically and emotionally abuse. Her bottling it up inside and assuming she’s unlovable and running away is not helping.
-I am in NO way saying that being mentally ill automatically makes you unlovable. Nor are all mentally ill people awful human beings. I am saying that IF a person gets to certain point where they are hurting others in extreme ways, like Amber is here, that changes the stakes. Like a lot. Yes she is ill, but we also can’t discount the effects she has on herself and the people she loves.
-I guess I’d put it this way. I think to say that people are inherently always the same is a fallacy for the most part. That’s why mental healthcare can be useful for those suffering. Most of us can change our coping mechanisms. What I say about Amber comes off strongly because as people, not just mentally ill people, we must experiences different things and we must GROW from them. Some people grow early in that journey, some people unfortunately hit bottom before they do.
Sometimes stuff gets too far, you try to amend things , and that doesn’t work. The friend or relationship leaves you. It’s painful, but that’s fair, in the sense that it’s fair that neither of us have to be around our abusers. See what I’m saying? We don’t owe them our time and energy, because we don’t get anything out of it and they have hurt us too much. That’s also why I call her out, because to me it’s totally harmful to discount the effects of violence on children, SOs, etc. Not everyone who is violent is mentally ill, but it also doesn’t help the mentally ill person trying to get help to go around as if everything is fine when it’s not. Support means love, but it can also mean pointing out unhealthy patterns and behaviours, and it can mean professional help for the person afflicted.
But for most people, mental illness or not, making mistakes doesn’t make you irredeemable, but what is also true is that we can’t MAKE people react the way we want them to. I have given my person a million chances – she doesn’t care and hurts me more everyday. I am distancing myself from her. She’s locked in her cycle, there’s nothing more I can do for her because I couldn’t MAKE her better, she has to want to be better enough to actually do something about it, while I support her. Ex. It’s really hard to get someone to willingly go to a facility, even if they really need it.
Some people leave, maybe because of stigma, maybe they’re assholes, maybe because we’ve hurt them too much – examine the situation, learn from it and move on. That may mean therapy, a long vacation, change in work, exercise, medication – whatever works for people. It never helps to stew in it, although a lot of mental illnesses (mine included) automatically make us stew and feel like shit. A person may not forgive you. That’s alright, because you can forgive yourself (and what’s the point of being forgiven if you won’t accept it?)
Some people forgive- keep those people, because people who know our truths, no matter how ugly and accept us and love us are unfortunately a dime a dozen.
Whoops, used the wrong phrase at the end. A person who loves and accepts you as a whole person, is pretty rare, but not impossible to find.
Okay let’s be real about the way Amber treated Danny last time. She was being a raging dick and made it abundantly clear that, right now, Amber really cannot contribute to a relationship until she starts to get a handle on her mental health problems, but it basically just amounted to telling him to fuck off and never speak to him again while she was in the midst of a PTSD driven DID episode and the alter she relies on to be perfect was making all the decisions. That isn’t slamming him into a wall and telling him to fall in line. That’s Amber being in such a precarious mental state that she values the narrative she’s built over Danny because she can’t conceptualize anything different right now.
And that’s fucking sad. That doesn’t make her Blaine. That doesn’t mean she’s in the Cycle of Abuse *ooh scare chords for the buzzword used to cudgel abuse victims*. That means she’s unwell and needs support, which, you know, both Danny and Ethan seem pretty fucking determined to give her, since Danny says that seeing how much Amber hates herself hurts him and then the both of them kind of casually admit them dating isn’t something they’d want because they think they’d be awful to her. Amber pretty clearly is still someone the two of them value a lot, and more than that, she’s someone who’s worth valuing.
As for the rest of your genuinely well put together and thoughtful post that I read numerous times trying to contribute anything of value, I just really don’t know what to say anymore. I have that conversation with myself enough.
Joyce initiated contact with Joe. And they are talking to each other. Politely.
THE APOCALYPSE IS COME, NONE SHALL ESCAPE, ALL ARE DOOMED. WOE, WOE!
Me about everything ever
I’m excited about this! And I was actually hoping it would be Joe all along (can’t take credit for that – IIRC someone else predicted it ages ago). Joe gets a bad rep around here, but I enjoyed his character arc in It’s Walky!
I’m glad too – Joe’s lack of comic time meant he was coming off a bit one-note. Also yay to another person who liked Joe and Joyce and Joe’s interactions in the Walkyverse!
okay but exactly why is becky sitting on the floor couldnt joyce offer her a piece of the bed to sit on or like maybe a chair
At my house we sit on the floor because we enjoy it.
But on another note, maybe she doesn’t have a chair in the room, and for a piece of the bed, this might be your answer : http://www.dumbingofage.com/2016/comic/book-6/02-that-perfect-girl/complain/
My guess is that Becky was watching Joyce completely retreat into the TextWorld as a refuge from her RL reality and was probably wondering how she could snap her out of it but was a little afraid to try.
Ha yeah, I was thinking the same thing. “OK Becky, I’m going to text with someone who’s not even here right now. You can sit on the floors and stare at your shoes. It’s too bad you don’t have any pajamas.”
At first this surprised me as much as I’m sure Willis intended. Looking over the brief convo, though, I see no sign that Joewas actually offering anything more profound than a sounding board. For that task, a shallow individual like Joe makes an excellent model. He’s unlikely to offer any advice, which for good or ill would be intrusive. He’s the closest thing to a tabula rasa (lacking the presence of any small children). Anyway, just an opinion—I’m sure someone will tell me if I’m missing anything important.
Sometimes a sympathetic listening ear is the best you can offer anyone. Joe isn’t the sort of guy I’d imagine to have the emotional depth to offer profound advice but an offer of solidarity and empathy might be all that Joyce really needed.
When women come to you with a problem, they just want you to listen. They don’t want you to fix it unless they specifically say so. A wife and two daughters taught me that lesson very well. A sympathetic ear, and your complete attention, will help them more than anything else. Of course, once you’re asked to fix it, give it your best effort, and the sooner the better.
I think that’s true of most people. Like, yeah, there’s specific times when people want a solution or an action (like when reporting a harassing coworker to a boss), but I think with bigger life stuff, we humans have a desire and want to figure things out ourselves if there’s a solution. And so, oftentimes, when we reach out, what we’re looking for is a lot of emotional support. Confirmation that our feelings matter and that we’re emotionally perceiving a situation more or less accurately, an ability to get some of the pain and hurt out, or just a person to be there while we cry it out.
We human creatures don’t do so well when we bottle all our feelings deep inside.
I found that women, more than men, need to verbalize their feelings. Men will sit and mull a problem in silence, and even get upset when women try to help by talking it through with them. My wife and I figured that out early in our marriage. When she has a problem and starts talking, I listen silently and wait for her cue to respond. When I have a problem and stop talking, she waits silently and doesn’t try to help me talk it through. With my daughters, I sat through many one sided conversations where my only contribution was a shoulder, an ear, and at least one hug.
I don’t think it is so much that women need to verbalize feelings more as that we are socialized to verbalize feelings more as part of being socialized to compromise and cognitive empathy more.
Cuz like, I grew up in a very stiff upper lip type household and was actively socialized not to talk feelings and emotions stuff. Feelings don’t matter, results matter tupelo of thing. Even now, I am far more comfortable writing about feelings than talking about them – and that only because Journaling was something a therapist and two of my teachers worked with me on to address my violence in grade school. By contrast, my partner is a dude and spends a lot of time doing that thing you described about basically wanting a sympathetic ear – but his family was big on the talk-about-feelings stuff.
This. Those who are raised as if men are frequently socialized to believe that expressing emotions, emotional confusion, or emotional turmoil are somehow unmanly or reflect negative on one’s personal character. And raised in a style where it is discouraged to express sorrow and instead encouraged to express anger and blame a given designated enemy for emotional distress.
Whereas those raised as if women frequently are discouraged from expressing anger directly or expressing an emotion of “this person has wronged me” otherwise they are labeled a b-word-that-gets-moderated-to-be-a-percussion-instrument.
I’m very fond of new cartoons and the like aimed at young folk that model styles of masculinity that include being in touch with one’s feelings and crying and talking out things when they feel sad (looking at you Steven Universe). As it doesn’t do our species any good to try and enforce these “no, those emotions are no good for those of your gender” systems.
called it, so totally called it
also glad to see joe being a decent human being, it suits him well 😀
So that beating that Joe took from Joyce via Mike was good for something!
It’s that age-old story.
Boy meets Girl
Girl beats Boy
Girl gets Boy
Called it.
Wow Joe is a one finger texter. Now we know his true character
Great, I’m a one finger texter. Is that good or bad? In my defense (if it’s bad), I’m old and somewhat decrepit.
Everyone reply with three words, lets make a story.
This jerk named-
Sir Jerky McJerkface
faught a duel
With a stool
And his penis
fell off.
He ran around with blood going everywhere
Dang it, now I have to go back and read all of these with this new context!
Oh who am I kidding, I was always going to re-read this.
(My phone auto corrected Dang it to Danny it. I don’t think I have ever written Danny’s name in a comment so I assume my phone is using the existing text on the page for context. Yes?)
Your phone knows more about you than you think.
I think it would be nice if Joyce were to apologise to Dina when she gets back to the college. She doesn’t have to compromise anything, simply apologise for being rude to her (in text terms, at least). They don’t have to agree on the matter of evolution but that is no excuse for Joyce to be aggressive to her.
Although, from what I’ve seen of Dina’s end of the argument, she wasn’t offended, it would still be a gracious and nice thing to do.
I KNEW THAT’S WHO SHE WAS TEXTING!!!! 😀
Love it! 😀
Wow…
This text conversation makes me unreasonably happy.
Ah, and there it is. The reason Danny and Joe are friends. Joe is very upfront about the things he likes and wants, but he’s otherwise not a total dick. He tries to be supportive to Danny in his own way, and when Joyce reached out to him for advice and support, he wouldn’t exactly be the type to turn her down. He may have joked about it a little a first, but then I can easily see him winding down and ‘hoo that was funny. but seriously, what can I do to help?’
It’s nice to get to see this side of Joe again. It’s been a good long while.
Hey, guess what?
EVERYONE CALLED IT!
Didja know? Every time the page scrolls upward, your gravatar blushes.
People keep saying that. I never see it.
Screen angle.
Some other gravs with dark hair also show the effect to a degree, but you have a unique combo of light skin, dark hair, and dark blue background.
The only way that last panel could have surprised me more would have been for it to be Mike that Joyce was texting.
………………………………………………………………………………………………I would never expect that last panel.
Waitaminnute. Joe “Bored” Rosenthal, who leaves the second Danny emotes, has been talking feelings with a girl he’s not even got a chance of going to bed with all day?
Well, her being clearly off limit is probably the very reason he could.
OH
Wait, what? How is this even happening right now??
Called it!
I KNEW IT!!!!
Yes.
Is…is Joe actually a decent guy?
…Your comment made me relies Joe IS Barney Stinson…
Holy shit. All he needs is an obsession with suits…
WHA…WHA…WHA?!?!
This is will not end well.
Joe’s going to break so many hearts when Willis trashes the relationship … as he inevitably will.
Woe, woe, woe is me!
what could possibly go wrong in this comic, I predict nothing but good will come of this
Holy fuck! It was Joe all along! O_O
I shouldn’t be shocked, considering how their friendship evolved in the other universe, but… this is just more real.
And I thought to myself several times “Hmm, it’s weird that we only get to see Joyce’s messages and not Dorothy’s replies”, but I never stopped to think about why we didn’t. GRAAGH stupid.
Of course, now I have to go back and read all these conversations with this new knowledge in mind.
I like that Twilight has its own Tag. Like it’s a character sliding through the background.
I’m glad that Joe is getting more screen time, hes one of the characters I can identify with more and he gets a lot of (unfair) stick from posters on here so hopefully we can see a bit more of Joe including more insights into his personality
Seriously LoLing at all the people underestimating Joe.
Joe likes sex and is upfront about it and that, I think, offends peoples sensibilities especially if he (Joe) doesn’t fit into the box they’ve decided he (as a straight male) should be in
Joyces reactions to Joe on their date was because he didn’t live up to her expectations and she responded with violence while still claiming the moral high ground which echoed a lot of the reactions to Joe on these comments
But when he burned Walky over Walkys views on masculinity and explained to Danny what his problem with Danny was it showed me there more to Joe then him wanting to merely Joe everyone (with his penis of course)
Joyce was horribly out of line on the date – played for laughs though it was.
Even so, there were some damn scary signs from Joe during that sequence – the “fix her with my penis” thing was ugly, trying to pay Mike to go away removing the protection that made her comfortable enough to go on the date, the bits of “game” we did see – mostly him focusing the discussion back on sex.
Mind you, the violence was worse. He would have easily been justified in just walking away when she showed up with Mike and even more when he learned about the punching.
He’s made some other comments that creep me out as well – the reference to alcohol helping with threesomes – using booze to get sex that wouldn’t otherwise happen? That’s not really good on consent.
As I said above, we really haven’t seen enough of his game to see how he responds to rejection, except when it’s way over the top and threatening violence. From what little we’ve seen, he keeps pushing, keeps suggesting and trying until the girl gets really emphatic, but it’s a small sample. And those were in group settings and not dates or party/hookup scenes.
If we’re actually going to bump him up to a more major character/potential boyfriend for Joyce, I’d really like to see more of his current approach before he changes too much. There should be some negative sides to his horn dog style.
And frankly, I’ve met guys who came on like that and had some success with it and none of them were people I’d suggest a girl trust. It’s possible Joe really is the exception, but we haven’t seen enough to convince me of that. Talking about consent isn’t enough.
Personally, I think Joyce acted entirely appropriately. The fact is that Joe was just some random boy she’d met in an elevator like, earlier that day, and though she couldn’t possibly have known this, Joe is a guy with serious problems in terms of… whether or not women should trust him…. and she couldn’t have known that, but women have to be prepared for that kind of possibility and Joyce was able to do so because she was reacting to a different idea of appropriate date etiquette than her classmates.
Personally, I read that arc as showcasing a positive side of Joyce’s character — Joe is definitely predatory, and he reacted like a total skeeze to Joyce changing the situation to one he couldn’t take advantage of. It was an unfamiliar situation to him, and it showed. Meanwhile, Joyce showed herself to be in that specific respect *less* naive than lots of other college freshmen who would have at the VERY least, at the absolute MOST generous interpretation of Joe’s character, been put in an extremely uncomfortable situation with Joe.
“Hire some other near random boy to punch him if he even thinks about sex” is not “entirely appropriately”.
Be cautious around him, certainly would. Even a more sane chaperone would have been weird, but acceptable. Staying in public places, not being alone, not drinking, all reasonable behaviors.
Hell, even the punching if he tried manhandling her. As set up though, Joyce was definitely the one out of line there. (Well, Mike too, but we expect that.)
Oh shit did not see him coming into this and he seems actually helping… My wold is rocked.
Now this is interesting.
Oh I ship this the most.
Wait, Didn’t Joyce dislike Joe when she found out he was a misogynist pig when they went on a date?
They had a moment a while ago where Joyce saw how disillusioned he was with marriage, and she was similarly going through pain with her mother.
If you go back and check the archives for this chapter, you’ll find that Joyce started texting him after her parents were arguing about pulling Joyce out of IU.
Knew it!!
I knew that he was no Average Joe!
…I regret nothing.
Speaking of nothing, apparently tomorrow’s storyline is called “Return to Nothing.”
And it’s probably gonna detail the misadventures that happen that Sunday, likely at church.
…This next storyline’s gonna be a fun one, ain’t it.
Fucking. Called it.
Willis may or may not take away the Joy in Joyce though. We’ll see
I had a feeling it was him. He’s probably one of the few who can give her a neutral viewpoint on this. Everyone else is either too emotionally involved or she’s just too close to them.
Well, it was predicted.
I’m kinda glad it was him.
Also, poor Beck. Look at her being so nervous to impose 🙁 bb it’s okay to want to talk to your girlfriend. It’s okay to ask your best friend for a favor.
i dont know what’s breaking my heart harder; joe’s remarkably gentle help for a girl who got him punched in the face approximately 42 times or the fact that joyce has grown so much that she can find comfort talking to “”””someone like”””” joe, and that she feels safe and comfortable with him. i have so many emotions, but i think the main one is pride. be happy you glorious children