144

Pleasingly
Posted on September 29, 2021 by David M Willis

144 thoughts on “Pleasingly”

  1. Ana Chronistic

    dang, how many d’ya EAT, Joe??

    also, one Big Sisters by taunting the shit out of Li’l Sibs, thought ya knew that

    1. A Red Balloon

      https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/MarijuanaIsLSD

    2. Reltzik

      That, or just spending as much time away from the pest as possible.

    3. Shade

      One a day everyday, its clearly a real problem that he can’t go a day without one.

      1. temporaryobsessor

        I’m that way with water.

        1. I am Nothing

          You are clearly suffering from an unhealthy water addiction.

        2. Needfuldoer

          Yeah, don’t you realize everyone who’s ever died has come into contact with that stuff? And it’s everywhere?!

        3. Slartibeast Button, BIA

          They use it in NUCLEAR REACTORS, for God’s sake!

        4. Keulen

          It’s a major component in acid rain too

        5. thejeff

          One study showed that all murderers had used water.

        6. Decidedly Orthogonal

          Not just murderers! Freaking Nazi’s used water! And that jerk Godwin is even known to drink a glass on occasion.

        7. Stanistani

          I’ve known Godwin for about a decade. Relatively nice guy, for a lawyer.

        8. Reltzik

          If you think that’s bad, I’m pretty much mainlining oxygen, using an over-glorified bellows to pump it into my veins 24/7. At this point if I quit the withdrawal symptoms could kill me in a matter of minutes. And yes, I know a lot of people minimize it because it’s so dang common, but we’re talking about one of the most notoriously corrosive gasses there is, responsible for rot and decay than can ever be tallied.

        9. Fist_of_Life

          One of my teachers once told me that fire needs oxygen to burn. He put an equation on the board and everything. and that is going into my body!? YIKES.

        10. Slartibeast Button, BIA

          This is why newborns cry, from rage at being forced into oxygen addiction.

        11. Decidedly Orthogonal

          Good golly man be careful! Oxygen is responsible for one of the biggest extinctions in earths history.

  2. Doctor_Who

    Huh, I forget, does Joyce do video games? Was she allowed Mario as a kid, or was it evil somehow?

    1. Sirksome

      Evil is probably a safe bet if you don’t know. Joyce’s parents could probably twist Sesame Street into being sin. I think they actually might have. Sesame Street has been rather progressive from the start.

      1. Reltzik

        Well we all know what Bert and Ernie are promoting.

        1. Clif

          Child abuse.

          No, I couldn’t make something that stupid up.
          https://archive.thinkprogress.org/bryan-fischer-the-new-yorker-is-promoting-child-abuse-with-bert-and-ernie-cover-9986178e2b43/

        2. Needfuldoer

          Never mind what what happens to Brad when he won’t eat his peas.

    2. Thag Simmons

      She might have been allowed to play some approved christian games, but I get the vibe that most secular media was off limits

      1. Khyrin

        I think this is a good place to mention that there was a officially sanctioned Doomclone based on Noah’s Ark. You were feeding the animals instead of killing demons.

        1. Slartibeast Button, BIA

          Was there a BFS (Big Feeding Spoon) that let you feed every animal in sight at once?

        2. Stanistani

          Remember ChexQuest? A Doom reskin based on nutrition and mucus. They gave it away in cereal boxes.

          Steam has a new version.

    3. Shade

      I remember a friend who had religious parents, but they didn’t know much about media itself. So as long as he explained any magic in the games as actually not being magic he was allowed to play them.

  3. Sirksome

    Yelling and growling is actually a very solid base. It’s pretty much how my older brother communicated to me for a decade.

    1. brionl

      Grunting is good too.

  4. Yotomoe

    “If you’ve done everything right, nobody will know you’ve done anything at all.”

    1. woobie

      I think the quote is inexact, but I get you.

    2. Reltzik

      I don’t know the quote origin, but that phrase is either hype talk for some type of covert operation or the destruction of someone’s soul.

      1. Yotomoe

        It’s a line by god in Futurama.

        1. I am Nothing

          Or an AI that believes its god, anyway.

  5. Yotomoe

    I mean I wouldn’t say it out loud but…Yeah I concur. Extremely pleasingly shaped. (Though my favorite shape is that HAIR BABY. I love the poof.)

    1. Zaxares

      As a child of the 80’s/90’s, my tastes are unfortunately pretty locked into the “waif” archetype by this point, but I think that it’s awesome that there’s a growing trend towards various female body shapes being considered “attractive” than the old “you gotta be thin to be hot” adage that was omnipresent when I was growing up. 🙂

      1. Opus the Poet

        Not just when you were growing up as witnessed by this icon of my youth:
        https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twiggy

    2. Steelbright

      I am tipsy & checking webcomics so I decided to actually go back to figure out if we’ve ever actually SEEN a full-body panel of Liz’s body shape? I think we have seen exactly one frame of 2/3rds of her body, haha. I guess that’s enough…

  6. StClair

    It’s too bad Joe isn’t that sort of friend. I think he’d be pretty good at it.

    1. Needfuldoer

      He kind of is, but pretends he isn’t.

      1. StClair

        ( thatsthejoke.jpg, except it’s not funny 😐 )

  7. Aphid

    Pretty sure yelling and growling is approved big sister technique.

  8. LiterallyJustSomeGuy

    Joe, you didn’t have to keep going. Sarah, you don’t have to take back your thanks. I swear, these two could be friends if they weren’t so determined to avoid being nice to each other. (Alternatively, Joe is already one of Sarah’s closest friends.)

    1. Josh Spicer

      Your first two sentences are pretty good because they’re both valid for the same reason.

      That last sentence (parenthetical withstanding, but I’ll get to that) is amazing because it’s so true.

      Your parenthetical is astounding because there’s a point to be mad there.

      1. Rabid Rabbit

        I’d say panel 4 supports the parenthetical.

  9. Stephen Bierce

    *cues up some REO Speedwagon*

    1. RassilonTDavros

      I mean if we’re calling the ship JoJo then we might as well

    2. Stephen Bierce

      Deep Cuts Are Appropriate

  10. CC

    Placement tells us Sarah is gonna go be a Nice Guy

    1. powerpowerpow

      Yes! Was waiting to see if anyone else saw this. Sarah is the new Danny.

      1. Decidedly Orthogonal

        New Danny!? Not hardly. Sarah always has been and is nice. She doesn’t portray herself as nice, as a defense mechanism, but in the end she just does nice things, even if they’re brutally hard for her to do.

        On topic, Joe’s flustered dive away from having exposed his feels in panel one is hillarious. That look like “ZOMG What did I just SAY?! Abort, abort, abort, distract by being pervy but not gross, uh… ” is Joyce and Liz is pleasingly shaped.”

        1. Amias

          I personally make a distinction between “nice” and “kind.” Many people in my evangelical hometown are extremely nice – they’re polite, they talk to you, they send you brownies – but they’re not kind. They wouldn’t do more to help you out of a bind than send a sympathy casserole, and they’ll probably talk about your problems to half the town before they try to find a solution.

          Sarah, on the other hand, will absolutely take matters into her own hands to help you solve your problems. She won’t be polite at all while she does it, though, and she’ll make the hard choices for you if you can’t make a choice under pressure. And she knows the meaning of privacy better than most.

        2. Decidedly Orthogonal

          That’s actually really cool. Don’t get me wrong, I loves me a surprise casserole, but I absolutely take your point. Thanks for sharing.

  11. RassilonTDavros

    …are there any Mario games that have 3-player but not 4-player?

    Oh right I forgot non-optional Toadette Super Crown was a thing

    1. RacingTurtle

      Joe’s not planning to play; he’s the host. Gotta keep their sodas and vitamans topped up.

      1. thejeff

        You mean “drinks and edibles”, right?

        1. Opus the Poet

          I think this is the appropriate place to remind people that some vitamins are toxic in high doses.

        2. egg egg

          I remember that episode of House!

        3. Roborat

          Every episode of House: “It’s not lupus.” Except the one time it was.

        4. Decidedly Orthogonal

          While true, most vitamin gummies have ridiculously low levels of supplemental vitamins in them. And there seems to be an inverse relationship between gummy quality and amount of vitamins. Good vitamins are kinda crap visually as gummies, but say take 1 or 2 a day. Gummy supplements that are good gummies, tend to be crap vitamin sources, saying take 4 per day. source: am parent, have tried lots. As for flavour, they (gummies, not ‘chewables’) actually all seem pretty alright. The more opaque ones taste closer to a ‘fruit snack’ and the clearer ones taste like traditional gummies.

        5. RacingTurtle

          Oh, absolutely. May he interest you in a weed? Perhaps some boozes?

    2. Decidedly Orthogonal

      I saw a version of HD Mario that was multi-player and would zoom in and out based on how close the players were to each other. It would kind of follow the center of mass of the players so they were supposed to move together like a flock or something, but I’ve forgot which one it was, and haven’t been able to figure it out. Anyone have any idea which Mario I’m talking about?

  12. BBCC

    Awww, Big Sis is Big Sis-ing!

  13. Diane

    And for a moment in time, Sarah was the Nice Guy.

  14. Sirksome

    Do kind of like how the Nice Guy disappeared in the last panel when Sarah game back to gaslight Joe.

    1. Slartibeast Button, BIA

      It must be a smart matter t-shirt that erases the message when it is invalid.

      1. Clif

        It never said Nice Guy. That was a hallucination.

      2. Bicycle Bill

        Or one of those old ‘Hypercolor’ shirts with the ink that faded with an increase in temperature. In fact, those are so outdated that they’re about due to come back into style again.

    2. DrunkenNordmann

      I’m not sure that actually counts as gaslighting.

      1. Sirksome

        Really? Cause I find it to be almost a textbook definition of it, especially since she mentioned him hallucinating. It’s just a more tame and humorous version than what is commonly associated with the term. Less..mean spirited I guess. Although I’m not really sure what counts since the use of the term and practice of it is rather liberally used.

        1. BBCC

          If Sarah’s not trying to genuinely make him doubt his own memories and perception of reality, she’s not gaslighting him.

        2. Derek

          Absolutely not.
          Gaslighting is not lying to someone, especially when they KNOW you’re lying.
          Gaslighting is a PATTERN of abuse, OVER TIME. Sarah would have to spend days or weeks convincing Joe that his memory of the events is wrong and that’s he’s literally crazy for thinking she was ever in his room. She would constantly have to belittle his ability to remember things correctly, and make him doubt he can truly remember his own version of events instead of Sarah’s.

          STOP using gaslighting as a synonym for lying, please and thank you. Gaslighting is an abusive tactic that involves lying and manipulation, but just doing those two things is not gaslighting by itself

        3. Clif

          So then Derek isn’t gasslighting us by convincing us that the word doesn’t mean what we use it to mean?

        4. Derek

          are you fucking shitting me right now
          are you really claiming that a person teaching the meaning of a term to other people is gaslighting because it’s different from what you thought it was
          I’m….I’m going to go scream in the woods now

        5. BBCC

          99% sure that was a joke.

        6. Sirksome

          Yeah, see I’m just confused now. I thought gaslighting was a general term since the act itself has a general application more than just the malicious one. From casual interactions, to entertainment and jokes. But from what you’re saying it only applies to the specific practice of psychological manipulation.

          I was thinking it was more like the term “homicide” which is the general killing of a human

          But it’s actually more like the term “murder” which is the specific, malicious, premeditated killing of a human.

          Sorry if that’s a dark comparison. Is was the first one I could think of.

        7. thejeff

          I think it’s broader than the full on abusive practice, but not nearly as broad as “tells an obvious lie”.

          You have to actually make an attempt to convince the other person that their perception/memory is wrong.

        8. Decidedly Orthogonal

          I think you’ve got it Sirksome, and frankly the darkness of the comparison is absolutely appropriate. Clinical gas-lighting (not actually a clinical term but…) is about destroying someone’s mind. Murder is about destroying their mind via destroying their body. Both of them make the person go away, either as ashes, or as a shell of a person occupying the husk of their body.

          @Derek You are absolutely right about the meaning, but you aren’t going to succeed in policing language mate. (especially because it’s not a clinical term, even though it’s recognized in clinical contexts) And people use words, and are *free* to use words how they please. Even Sirksome’s wonderful example of ‘Murder’ is used elsewise, as in reddit’s wonderful sub: r/MurderedByWords. You’re doing good work in sharing the precise meaning, especially in cases like this. But you may as well shovel back the tide if you think you’ll be able to stop people using “gas-lighting” as they please. I mean even the term itself is borrowed from a movie about a villain who literally takes advantage of the house’s gas-lighting, to dim and flicker the lights and then ignore and lie to the victim about the lights dimming. Heck, the _real_ meaning of gas-lighting is literally, “to be illuminated by, or furnished with, a source of light derived from the combustion of gaseous petro-chemicals”.

        9. Derek

          you’re probably right that people are going to do whatever they want anyway, but by the same token I’m going to hold fast to the proper definition of things.

        10. Decidedly Orthogonal

          Power to ya. And yeah, especially here, where Joe is playing along with Sarah’s “you didn’t see anything” *waves penguin flippers*, is definitely not what people mean by an abuser gas-lighting someone.

        11. Spencer

          If the term is being liberally used that means it’s being misused.

          Gaslighting is in reference to a specific pattern of behaviour. It doesn’t mean “character makes an obvious joke to another character.”

        12. june gloom

          It’s past time we acknowledge that “gaslighting” isn’t what people think it is.

          Gaslighting is slowly eroding someone’s ability to tell what’s real. Lying is not telling the truth. What Sarah is doing is neither, but being self-referential about her own grumpiness, which Joe, who knows Sarah fairly well at this point, is well aware of.

    3. JBento

      Gods, not this misuse again. It’s going to be like Joe crawling out of gender studies saying “I was never here” all over again, isn’t it?

      1. Decidedly Orthogonal

        Right? These are dorms. Both they and the classroom are, I’m certain, lit by flourescent tubes, unless they’ve been transitioned to LED’s.

        1. Pizzasgood

          Fluorescent tubes do contain and rely on gases to produce light, though. You can argue that fluorescent lighting is gas lighting, in the same way that incandescent lighting is tungsten lighting.

        2. Decidedly Orthogonal

          Oooo, I *like* you, we’re going to have fun. ? Flourescent tubes are unfortunately notouriously bad at dimming (they don’t until they’re failing, and *then* it’s erratic), so they’re still not particularly good for classicaly gas-lighting someone. … Although, given how prevalent the *flickeringly dim flourescent bulb* is in horror and suspense films, it does have a whole host of other emotions already laden with it’s use. One could even have a janitor (even *that* Janitor) come in and put in a “new” bulb, and *then* gas-light a victim by refusing to acknowledge that the replacement is flickering, because it’s ‘new’ obviously.

          Are you perchance a child of Galasso’s? Do you have an inside slice on the quality of his dish?

  15. woobie

    Are they not heard by the other two who are maybe 8 feet away?

    1. Slartibeast Button, BIA

      They are stoned out of their heads on edibles by now, remember?

      1. Clif

        Joe is a beta tester for the new Ruttech Cone of Silence.

    2. Decidedly Orthogonal

      It’s a comic and they’re out of frame. Think of it like stage whispering where the audience is meant to hear, but ‘not’ cast members on stage right (or left).

    3. Alaric

      I think the other two are a bit too focused on each other to notice.

  16. Black

    How the hell does Sarah plan on making it in life if she has literally zero people skills? I hate damn near everyone, but I can at least fake it through a work week.

    1. Slartibeast Button, BIA

      What is she majoring in again? Law, or am i thinking of someone else?

      1. A Red Balloon

        Speaking of stoning and majors, I wonder what Meredith’s major is.

      2. Norah

        You’re right, she’s majoring in law.

      3. thejeff

        She could wind up as the kind of lawyer who does the research, rather than actually trying the case.

        And technically, she’s not majoring in law, since that’s not an undergrad major, but she is aiming at law school, so it’s close enough.

        1. Decidedly Orthogonal

          Even trying the case isn’t about amazing people drama the way hollywood portrays and schysters try and make it seem. Actual trials are about laying out the facts, providing the relevant laws and case precedents, and then letting the Judge and/or Jury come to a decision. I mean, no mistake, there *are* lawyers who fancy themselves as showmen, but they are clowns.

        2. thejeff

          You don’t need to be an amazing showman, but both judges and juries are people and presentation and personality matter.

    2. Keulen

      Maybe she plans to become a hermit and live in the woods or on a mountaintop or something?

      1. Slartibeast Button, BIA

        I though you can only do that if you were a retired superhero or spy.

    3. BBCC

      There’s a world of difference between being polite in professional contexts and hanging out with your friends who know and accept your crusty shell.

  17. sultryglebe

    Joe is aiming to lose his arrow.

    1. misanthropope

      owitch

  18. carms

    does joe assume sarah knows how he only recognises he feels about Joyce? what was that line, joyce is joyce?

    1. thejeff

      We know what he means, but from Sarah’s point of view it’s easy to see it as just referring to Joyce being physically attractive

      1. Spencer

        Yeah.

        Joe is making a note of Joyce’s physical attraction alongside Liz, but he can’t bring himself to say “lmao shes hot” the way he can for another woman because he knows that’s at least tangential to major trauma and also he likes her beyond just her body.

        1. Decidedly Orthogonal

          Even about Liz he kinda flubs the pitch with, “pleasingly shaped.”

        2. Decidedly Orthogonal

          Whoops, that was a reply to @thejeff

  19. P!enapple

    D’awww 🙂 love the smile on joe’s face, btw. Very nice touch, and excellent drawing/composition skills. It’s these that keep my opinion elevated 🙂

  20. Samantha

    I am actually surprised by how much I like Joyce and Joe and how well I think they could work with the growth were seeing teased

  21. Nayann Martinelli

    What a nice 5-panel arrangement we’ve got today!

  22. MrSmith

    Hopefully we’ll see some growth for Sarah this storyline

  23. Throwatron

    the nice guy shirt is my new favorite character

  24. Just_IDD

    I saw panel 5 and put down my phone to look for flying pigs.

  25. BenRG

    I’m going to spend all day thinking about Joe’s smile in panel 5. I think that he’s found that being helpful to his friends is more fun and fulfilling than he thought.

    I’m going to wait but my feeling that panel 1 was Joe realising that his mask was slipping a little.

    1. Needfuldoer

      Yup. He almost admitted he’s got it bad for Joyce again.

      1. chuckroast

        Yeah, that would just be awful.

  26. Judas Peckerwood

    Joe and Sarah — you heard it here first. Or maybe not.

  27. Greg

    I really wanted to say that these are some excellent Sarah faces in this strip

  28. Rabisch

    Joe has more experience in being a brother than Sarah because he and Danny are like brothers.

  29. Sombrero

    Joe is making giant steps with Sarah, still not sure where he wants to go with her.

    1. Eldritchy

      Away from the baseball bat

  30. Keulen

    I played video games with my older sister, mostly when I was a little kid. There’s one or two video games we’ve played together more recently, but we both work so we rarely have time to play them together now.

  31. Mravac Kid

    Are we getting into a harem anime here? Because that’s what it sounds like. 🙂

    1. Spencer

      Dumbing of Age is now an isekai

      1. cbwroses

        Ok, but which character came from a different reality then?

        1. egg egg

          Faz, clearly.

        2. Decidedly Orthogonal

          Galasso
          Asma because she’s in the back, watching. Always watching.
          Oh, and the Janitor

        3. Slartibeast Button, BIA

          Turns out Amazi-Girl is not part of Amber’s MPD, she is Amber’s Magical Girl form, but DYW is too much of a prude to show us the transformation scenes with implied nudity.

          Sal, of course, is or was her Dark Magical Girl Nemesis.

    2. drs

      But who’s the center of the harem?

  32. ValdVin

    That literal wandering eye on Joe in panel one: On purpose, or happy accident?

  33. thumb

    Yes, Joe. Hide behind your horrible reputation. Godforbid it might get out that you like somebody for who they are.

    1. Spencer

      Well yeah, if Joe ever admitted he liked someone that he means he has the capacity, and thus the inevitability, of ruining them.

      Joe actually, earnestly thinks that all relationships end up like his parents did. His mom didn’t just love his dad, his dad loved her back, but he still cheated. He still kept inflicting misery and despair onto his family until she couldn’t take it anymore because he was a randy ol’ stallion and just couldn’t help himself when surrounded by all these pretty ladies.

      Joe has seen what a “real man” is like, and he thinks that he himself will be that way too, so he rejected and embraced it at the same time. He will be just as much of a horny goat but he’ll make sure he never gets attached and that no one gets attached to him. He’ll be a loathsome person, and anyone who wants him will know what they’re getting into and not want him for anything else.

      Joe trapped himself in a cage of toxic masculinity.

      1. Alex

        I never thought I would feel bad for Joe.

        1. Spencer

          Well yeah where do you think he got it from?

          Joe saw what it meant to be a real man, and like all men he hates it but can’t defy it.

          So he changes the labels. He won’t care about anyone, and he won’t let anyone care about him. He will always hurt people if he cares, so he never will.

          He’s a man, after all. He can take it. He’s no pussy.

        2. Decidedly Orthogonal

          Yeah, Joe’s got stuff to work through. I wouldn’t go so far as to say he thinks /all/ relationships are doomed. Just that based on his awareness of his own role-model and whatever he perceives as having happened to his mom, all relationships with *him* are doomed. (n.b. he doesn’t discourage others from being in relationships)

          Also, Joe’s perception of his relationship potential is based on that particular aspect of toxic masculinity, not all available aspects. We’ve already seen many more examples of more emphasized toxic masculinity in the comic, including ones still alive (college dude bros). Joe is growing, and by all appearances it seems he’ll get there. The journey may be a little painful, but he’ll get there.

  34. Bagge

    Joe is helping

  35. Marrow

    Sarah is now a Nice Guy, according to the tee 🙂

    1. BenRG

      It’s not as if the other two people in the room didn’t know t hat already! 🙂

  36. darkoneko

    3 players because he has no intention to join ?

  37. Axel

    Joe forgot that he’s trying to be the worst again

  38. Steelbright

    I love that “Joyce is Joyce” could be interpreted as a negative, but can also be interpreted as…not

    1. Liliet

      Considering it’s put right next to an argument IN FAVOR of banging Liz, I think we know what Joe thinks of Joyce’s Joyce-ness.

  39. Arianod

    Not the wingman you deserve, but the wingman you need.

  40. Liliet

    I love Sarah so much. And Joe also.

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