Three shall be the number thou shalt count, and the number of the counting shall be three. Four shalt thou not count, neither count thou two, excepting that thou then proceed to three. Five is right out. Once the number three, being the third number, be reached, then shovest thou thy Joey Bang Brigade of Rosenthal towards thy door, and, being naughty in My sight, shall stuff it.
Oh, it’s absolutely true! Once you turn 18, they dip you in carbonite so that you can never change. I’m pretty sure it’s in the Constitution somewhere. It’s right next to the part where it says that rich people can pick & choose what laws they obey or disregard. (just like American Christianity lets you pick & choose the parts of the Bible you obey or ignore!)
I hope that’s a joke/sarcasm because I have changed more in my late 20s/early 30s so far than I had as a teenager. I may not be a fan of Joe and I think changing for someone else is usually doomed to fail, you really have to want to change for you.
Koname
which is why I feel its good to acknowledge that while he does want to be better for Joyce, Joe was already changing just as a result of everything that happened in the first semester. Because of this, I feel he is more likely to reach a stage where he is entirely different than the Joe who first walked into the school. (a “better person” is desired in this change, but we shall see)
thejeff
Though a lot of that was because of Joyce as well.
And his attraction to her played a big role even as early as the aftermath of the list being revealed. It was just masked by him fearing he couldn’t change enough to not hurt her.
StoreyofaGirl
I think they’re wrong though. Joe isn’t changing FOR Joyce but he is changing in part BECAUSE of Joyce.
Joe was changing long before he realized his feelings for her. Before he even HAD those feelings. He couldn’t have developed those feelings without having changed, at least a little, to begin with. He to had become the kind of person who COULD fall in love.
Changing? A lot? that’s what people do at this age. It’s what they’re supposed to do. You learn who you are and what you want and what actually matters to you. Who you want to be and what you have to do to get there.
Joe changed for a lot of reasons. He’s been forced, time and time again, to confront his behavior and understand how it hurts people. He’s grown to see it doesn’t make him feel happy or fulfilled either. He’s seen the end result of said behavior (his father) but he’s also seen his father, even at the late stage he’s in, TRY and change too! Whether he actually has remains to be seen but he’s watching his father also want to be a better person. And yes, Joyce. Seeing her growing and changing so much right in front of him and developing an actual friendship with her that (at the time) no expectation of sex or romance between the two of them.
That being said, at some point Joe and Joyce are going to have to address how this works, that you don’t change ‘for’ a person and it’s unhealthy to expect that, but Joyce is also right. Change is slow and gradual. People make mistakes. And also Sarah IS very cute and pretty.
I think it’s true that people don’t change, but I also believe that they do find new aspects of themselves from time to time which can affect their priorities.
People change all the time. What you can’t do is change other people. People can only change themselves, and they usually have to be self motivated to want to change for their own reasons. Changing yourself for another person, even it it’s good change, generally doesn’t stick.
I don’t support this ship, but I do remember high fiving with a couple of my friends in high school when we learned that two people we really didn’t like had started dating each other– because that meant that now they could just bother each other and not the people we actually cared about. So, like. I get it.
Sirksome
That didn’t ironically and comedically backfire by them joining forces and multiplying their power did it?
Yumi
It was getting close to the end of senior year by this point, so maybe it did, but I wasn’t close enough to either of them to keep tabs on them to know for sure.
Mym
NO I DON’T NEED DOUBLE LUCY AND JOE.
I TAKE IT BACK
Actually I think it’s probably like 5 now. Remember that time she was walking with the group and commented about how black they were? That was like a week ago.
I like the “not raised in a cornfield” qualifier at the end…
thejeff
Is that still problematic or more at least partly self-aware commentary on how problematic she used to be?
RacingTurtle
It’s the sort of thing that’s not necessarily weird to think, but saying it out loud to the actual Black people present is not cool. Joyce, they’re just trying to live their lives, don’t randomly tell them they are Learning Experiences for white girls
We could argue that Joyce is a character in a comic that doesn’t typically use thought bubbles, but I think the fact that she said it out loud and made her friends’ day a tiny bit worse is supposed to be a sign that she still makes mistakes
zee
I don’t think registering for the same class as your new friends counts as subtle manipulation. Unless you’re referring to something else
Sirksome
No I’m referring to that. The “new friends” term is very generous to Lucy at that point in time. The only person she’d spent any significant time with by then was Walky. That’s why Sarah said she was only there to bang him. She wasn’t invited to the Halloween party, she wasn’t invited to Becky’s mom’s birthday. She tagged along with Walky to the RA floor meeting, which he wasn’t even supposed to be at. She had only introduced herself to Joyce once and had legitimately spent more time with Carla. She only really knew Walky and Jennifer yet she switched classes specifically to attach herself to a group of people she desired to hang with. Innocent enough, but also slightly manipulative which is not always a malicious action mind you. It makes Lucy clever and maybe not as naive as she presents herself as.
1) I’m in software so I use math by telling a computer to do it via a series of instructions that will probably take me 5x as long to write as it will save vs just doing the math myself.
2) Math Blaster, ironically.
Sirksome
Yo! I remember math blaster. It reminds me of my days in middle school learning typing from Mavis Beacon on those Imac computers with the different colored back humps. Jumps scare a gen z by showing them what an Imac CRT computer looked like!
Hehehe, same here for software maths, as I code games for work!
Right now, I am using calculus to determine how mobile gestures like dragging and flicking should work on a GUI I’m coding, essential for a cross-platform physics puzzle game 😉
1) I work at a call center, fot customer service. So I have to use math on almost every call. Usually for something related to pricing.
2) EcoQuest 1 & 2. They’re old point & click adventure games by Sierra. Their main point was about teaching and raising awareness in pollution and the environment.
What was my favorite educational game back in the ’50s? too long ago. Don’t remember educational games. i remember one I hated. In third grade we had “workbooks” that sometimes involved cutting out little bits of paper and gluing them to other paper. I hated that. Mine never came out right.
1. I work in a school, so I use math to teach kids math. Outside of work, I recently used the Pythagorean theorem to help work out the dimensions of some ceramic bookends I was making.
2. There was a computer game to go along with the PBS cartoon Liberty’s Kids, about the American Revolution. The game was about those historic events and also about selecting good sources and quotes for the “newspaper article” you’d publish for each event.
1. Crochet requires some irritating mathematics. Most of my crafts require some level of mathematics. I am not good at maths.
2. Zoombinis and Clue Finders 1000%
1) As a subtitler there are times when i have to convert a subtitle file from some obscure format into one that i can use. If i can’t find a converter online i’ll often fix up a spreadsheet with convoluted regex and formulas to extract the relevant timing info. Itdoesnt usually require math so much as math-adjacent rigour. It’s fun..?
2) I remember playing the Rayman Spanish learning game on PC as a kid. I was really into it for a bit. Turns out i was always a language nerd ?
Mark
1) Most generally, mathematics is the science of patterns and relationships. And yes, it’s fun!
1) I handle our finances for the household and code for funsies on the side, but the big thing that has been super cost-effective is the architectural design adjacent stuff I learned in a computer class. So basic arithmetic, algebra and a bit of whatever that last thing counts as.
2) Math Blaster: In Search of Spot and Outnumbered.
Other than that second panel, Joyce is right, but oof that second panel. No. Sarah can and SHOULD fault Joe for that. She should not have had to scream at him for him to back off and Joyce you should know that by now.
I’m not talking about last strip, where neither of them were serious. I’m talking about way earlier in the strip when Joe was ‘hunting’ for women and would not stop sniffing around until Sarah screamed at him.
RacingTurtle
But Joyce *is* talking about that strip.
Schpoonman
Bingo.
BBCC
That would be a lot less shitty than Joyce going ‘Sure he wouldn’t leave you alone before until you screamed at him but you’re CUTE and PRETTY so you can’t blame him’ for sure. It’s the word initially that made me think of those first meetings.
209 thoughts on “Hard”
Ana Chronistic
Three shall be the number thou shalt count, and the number of the counting shall be three. Four shalt thou not count, neither count thou two, excepting that thou then proceed to three. Five is right out. Once the number three, being the third number, be reached, then shovest thou thy Joey Bang Brigade of Rosenthal towards thy door, and, being naughty in My sight, shall stuff it.
Ana Chronistic
also, absolutely NO ONE changes once they’re like 18-19 lol
Corronchilejano
I don’t know about that.
Cholma
Oh, it’s absolutely true! Once you turn 18, they dip you in carbonite so that you can never change. I’m pretty sure it’s in the Constitution somewhere. It’s right next to the part where it says that rich people can pick & choose what laws they obey or disregard. (just like American Christianity lets you pick & choose the parts of the Bible you obey or ignore!)
Sambo
Sarcasm?
Ana Chronistic
I was typing it in this voice
A wilting lily
I hope that’s a joke/sarcasm because I have changed more in my late 20s/early 30s so far than I had as a teenager. I may not be a fan of Joe and I think changing for someone else is usually doomed to fail, you really have to want to change for you.
Koname
which is why I feel its good to acknowledge that while he does want to be better for Joyce, Joe was already changing just as a result of everything that happened in the first semester. Because of this, I feel he is more likely to reach a stage where he is entirely different than the Joe who first walked into the school. (a “better person” is desired in this change, but we shall see)
thejeff
Though a lot of that was because of Joyce as well.
And his attraction to her played a big role even as early as the aftermath of the list being revealed. It was just masked by him fearing he couldn’t change enough to not hurt her.
StoreyofaGirl
I think they’re wrong though. Joe isn’t changing FOR Joyce but he is changing in part BECAUSE of Joyce.
Joe was changing long before he realized his feelings for her. Before he even HAD those feelings. He couldn’t have developed those feelings without having changed, at least a little, to begin with. He to had become the kind of person who COULD fall in love.
Changing? A lot? that’s what people do at this age. It’s what they’re supposed to do. You learn who you are and what you want and what actually matters to you. Who you want to be and what you have to do to get there.
Joe changed for a lot of reasons. He’s been forced, time and time again, to confront his behavior and understand how it hurts people. He’s grown to see it doesn’t make him feel happy or fulfilled either. He’s seen the end result of said behavior (his father) but he’s also seen his father, even at the late stage he’s in, TRY and change too! Whether he actually has remains to be seen but he’s watching his father also want to be a better person. And yes, Joyce. Seeing her growing and changing so much right in front of him and developing an actual friendship with her that (at the time) no expectation of sex or romance between the two of them.
That being said, at some point Joe and Joyce are going to have to address how this works, that you don’t change ‘for’ a person and it’s unhealthy to expect that, but Joyce is also right. Change is slow and gradual. People make mistakes. And also Sarah IS very cute and pretty.
Abel Undercity
I am not the guy I was when I was 18, thank Grodd.
Mark
I think it’s true that people don’t change, but I also believe that they do find new aspects of themselves from time to time which can affect their priorities.
HueSatLight
That’s a kind of changing.
danimagoo
People change all the time. What you can’t do is change other people. People can only change themselves, and they usually have to be self motivated to want to change for their own reasons. Changing yourself for another person, even it it’s good change, generally doesn’t stick.
Steelbright
Being naughty in one’s sight is an excellent euphemism
CianM1301
Amen.
Doctor_Who
Sarah: “And this incident counts as number four, so…” (fetches baseball bat)
RassilonTDavros
Happy anniversary! As of today, the first Dumbing of Age strip is 13 years old, exactly the same age as the first Roomies! strip was when the first Dumbing of Age strip was published. Have fun with this knowledge
UrsulaDavina
? ? ? ? happy Bat Mitzpha Dumming of Age!
UrsulaDavina
*Dumbing of Age
UrsulaDavina
*mitzvah
Icarus
*Bar
Bruno
Is Dumbing of Age a boy?
elebenty
*Bat
CianM1301
Only feels like yesterday they were talking about inaugural poops.
Needfuldoer
In five years, DoA will be older than its principal cast!
EpochFlame
wow, time flies
Mym
I’m just on Sarah’s side here. I really don’t like joe
Mym
But I also don’t like Lucy. So I’m going to start shipping Joe and Lucy instead
Doctor_Who
I can see absolutely no reason to ship those two, except that you could pronounce the pairing name “juicy”.
Yotomoe
Good enough for me.
Jamie
Honestly, this is more reason than some people give.
Mym
Well, now I have TWO reasons
Three if we include how unreasonably cute they are as individuals. V.V
Nicoleandmaggie
Oh man.. that is a compelling argument.
Yumi
I don’t support this ship, but I do remember high fiving with a couple of my friends in high school when we learned that two people we really didn’t like had started dating each other– because that meant that now they could just bother each other and not the people we actually cared about. So, like. I get it.
Sirksome
That didn’t ironically and comedically backfire by them joining forces and multiplying their power did it?
Yumi
It was getting close to the end of senior year by this point, so maybe it did, but I wasn’t close enough to either of them to keep tabs on them to know for sure.
Mym
NO I DON’T NEED DOUBLE LUCY AND JOE.
I TAKE IT BACK
Sirksome
Actually I think it’s probably like 5 now. Remember that time she was walking with the group and commented about how black they were? That was like a week ago.
DailyBrad
Oh god, I remember that. Lucy, Walky, Sarah, I think Sal also? Like this was right before the Walkerton Jump Scare, right?
Sirksome
It was a little earlier than that actually. First day Lucy joined the group. Isn’t Joyce still so adorably problematic?
https://www.dumbingofage.com/2020/comic/book-11/02-look-straight-ahead/overfriendly/
You know in retrospect that reveals a bit of subtle manipulation on Lucy’s end but that’s discourse for another day and another strip.
Opus the Poet
I like the “not raised in a cornfield” qualifier at the end…
thejeff
Is that still problematic or more at least partly self-aware commentary on how problematic she used to be?
RacingTurtle
It’s the sort of thing that’s not necessarily weird to think, but saying it out loud to the actual Black people present is not cool. Joyce, they’re just trying to live their lives, don’t randomly tell them they are Learning Experiences for white girls
We could argue that Joyce is a character in a comic that doesn’t typically use thought bubbles, but I think the fact that she said it out loud and made her friends’ day a tiny bit worse is supposed to be a sign that she still makes mistakes
zee
I don’t think registering for the same class as your new friends counts as subtle manipulation. Unless you’re referring to something else
Sirksome
No I’m referring to that. The “new friends” term is very generous to Lucy at that point in time. The only person she’d spent any significant time with by then was Walky. That’s why Sarah said she was only there to bang him. She wasn’t invited to the Halloween party, she wasn’t invited to Becky’s mom’s birthday. She tagged along with Walky to the RA floor meeting, which he wasn’t even supposed to be at. She had only introduced herself to Joyce once and had legitimately spent more time with Carla. She only really knew Walky and Jennifer yet she switched classes specifically to attach herself to a group of people she desired to hang with. Innocent enough, but also slightly manipulative which is not always a malicious action mind you. It makes Lucy clever and maybe not as naive as she presents herself as.
NGPZ
Happy Anniversary Dumbing of Age!!!!
Now, how to celebrate…
Amós Batista
Reading everything from the start again?
Mark
I do that every time a new book arrives, because it’s been so long I can’t remember the story coherently.
Nick Piers
In DoA math, three Sarah chances are worth ten Joyce chances.
NGPZ
Ooo speaking of which, how’s for another game if anyone is up for it?
1. What are some ways you use math at work or on the day to day?
2. What was your favorite educational game as a kid, if you’ve ever played one?
Doctor_Who
1) I’m in software so I use math by telling a computer to do it via a series of instructions that will probably take me 5x as long to write as it will save vs just doing the math myself.
2) Math Blaster, ironically.
Sirksome
Yo! I remember math blaster. It reminds me of my days in middle school learning typing from Mavis Beacon on those Imac computers with the different colored back humps. Jumps scare a gen z by showing them what an Imac CRT computer looked like!
NGPZ
Hehehe, same here for software maths, as I code games for work!
Right now, I am using calculus to determine how mobile gestures like dragging and flicking should work on a GUI I’m coding, essential for a cross-platform physics puzzle game 😉
Nick Piers
1) I work at a call center, fot customer service. So I have to use math on almost every call. Usually for something related to pricing.
2) EcoQuest 1 & 2. They’re old point & click adventure games by Sierra. Their main point was about teaching and raising awareness in pollution and the environment.
BarerMender
What was my favorite educational game back in the ’50s? too long ago. Don’t remember educational games. i remember one I hated. In third grade we had “workbooks” that sometimes involved cutting out little bits of paper and gluing them to other paper. I hated that. Mine never came out right.
Yumi
1. I work in a school, so I use math to teach kids math. Outside of work, I recently used the Pythagorean theorem to help work out the dimensions of some ceramic bookends I was making.
2. There was a computer game to go along with the PBS cartoon Liberty’s Kids, about the American Revolution. The game was about those historic events and also about selecting good sources and quotes for the “newspaper article” you’d publish for each event.
v.gay.person
1. Crochet requires some irritating mathematics. Most of my crafts require some level of mathematics. I am not good at maths.
2. Zoombinis and Clue Finders 1000%
BBCC
1) I play D&D.
2) I don’t remember what they were called but I loved the games my elementary school had on their computers.
a/snow/mous/e
“Where in Time is Carmen Sandiego?” was a good one 🙂 Puzzles are fun!
Kyrik Michalowski
1) I use math when playing games(mostly RPG’s) to figure out how much grinding I need to do for top tier equipment and items.
2) Sonic’s Schoolhouse
milu
1) As a subtitler there are times when i have to convert a subtitle file from some obscure format into one that i can use. If i can’t find a converter online i’ll often fix up a spreadsheet with convoluted regex and formulas to extract the relevant timing info. Itdoesnt usually require math so much as math-adjacent rigour. It’s fun..?
2) I remember playing the Rayman Spanish learning game on PC as a kid. I was really into it for a bit. Turns out i was always a language nerd ?
Mark
1) Most generally, mathematics is the science of patterns and relationships. And yes, it’s fun!
Azhrei Vep
1. I don’t, really. It’s pretty mindless, honestly.
2. Mavis Beacon Teaches Typing. What can I say? Shit works. May not be the most fun, but it was super effective.
Mark
1) Dunno. It’s too deeply embedded in everything we do.
2) Hard to choose: TOPS-10, DOS/360 or the 1620 FORTRAN compiler.
I remember installing edgames for my kids. I don’t recall any from the time of my own childhood.
Savail
1) I handle our finances for the household and code for funsies on the side, but the big thing that has been super cost-effective is the architectural design adjacent stuff I learned in a computer class. So basic arithmetic, algebra and a bit of whatever that last thing counts as.
2) Math Blaster: In Search of Spot and Outnumbered.
BBCC
Other than that second panel, Joyce is right, but oof that second panel. No. Sarah can and SHOULD fault Joe for that. She should not have had to scream at him for him to back off and Joyce you should know that by now.
DailyBrad
Yes, though it’s also generally considered poor practice to randomly proposition people for weird purposes.
BBCC
I’m not talking about last strip, where neither of them were serious. I’m talking about way earlier in the strip when Joe was ‘hunting’ for women and would not stop sniffing around until Sarah screamed at him.
RacingTurtle
But Joyce *is* talking about that strip.
Schpoonman
Bingo.
BBCC
That would be a lot less shitty than Joyce going ‘Sure he wouldn’t leave you alone before until you screamed at him but you’re CUTE and PRETTY so you can’t blame him’ for sure. It’s the word initially that made me think of those first meetings.