412

Prickly
Posted on June 29, 2025 by David M Willis

412 thoughts on “Prickly”

  1. shadowcell

    don’t forget to wipe down your station first though

    1. Sirksome

      He really hasn’t changed. Redemption isn’t real.

      1. J

        … based on what, exactly?

        1. Sirksome

          This mostly. https://www.dumbingofage.com/2020/comic/book-10/02-to-remind-you-of-my-love/towel/

          Without the loyal Jacob near to keep Joe in check he went right back to his bullshit. Taking no responsibility for his sweat. People don’t change. Belief in redemption is self serving. Other vague sayings that likely don’t really mean anything but sound kinda cool that I probably stole from a comic, manga, or novel.

        2. Needfuldoer

          The loyal Jacob, eh?

        3. Arillius

          Thought you were serious for a moment but this was a hilarious troll.

        4. Decidedly Orthogonal

          Sarcasm and trolling.

      2. Cimorene

        Joe’s always been a good egg with a fakey man ho exterior.

        1. Shogeton

          I think saying that is actually indulging in Rachel’s idea. That people don’t change. If someone who did bad things before now does good things, it means they were always good and the bad things were fake. Joe wasn’t the worst, but I would hesitate at calling Joe at the start ‘a good egg’. He is better now, not because he always was that good deep down inside, but because he recognized the bad parts of him and made changes to himself.

        2. ESM

          It’s indulging in Rachel’s idea, but also Rachel’s idea is kind of true, at least with regards to DoA. Joe has basically never been intentionally hurtful.

        3. ESM

          Actually I may be misremembering the details of the list arc

      3. Nebulous

        What about growing up?
        Does that ever happen to people?

    2. anon

      maybe he did off screen/earlier since it was mostly him helping sarah earlier

    3. Shade

      He was helping Sarah with her workout so he probably doesn’t have a station to wipe down.

    4. Dean

      Coming back with a towel in a couple of minutes will really detract from his exit.

      1. Longshot97

        But it would be a hilarious callback.

  2. Sirksome

    But what is today if not yesterday’s tomorrow?!

    1. Clif

      If yesterday was tomorrow, then today is Friday

      1. Slartibeast Button, BIA

        “At this rate, by Tuesday it will be Thursday, by Wednesday it will be August, and by Thursday it will be the end of existence as we know it!”

        1. Osopescado

          Just in time for breakfast at Milliways.

        2. SillyGoose

          To you it was the end of existence as we know it, but to me it was just Tuesday. It says so right here on the calendar.

      2. Lysbeth

        in California!

      3. Ed Callahan

        And if it is Tuesday, then it is Belgium. And Wimpy had better pay me back for that hamburger I bought him the other day…

    2. yak

      When today is tomorrow, and tomorrow today
      and yesterday is weaving in and out
      And the fluffy white lines that the airplane leaves behind
      are drifting right in front of the waning of the moon

      1. Linkara

        All I asked was “so when’s lunch?”

        1. Agemegos

          “Time is an illusion. Lunchtime doubly so.”

        2. morleuca

          “I spent my time jumping in and out of a gin and tonic.”

      2. That other Sierra

        He is handling the money, he’s serving the food
        He knows about your party, he is calling you ‘dude’

        Not particularly relevant, but I was actually listening to that album today and felt compelled to add the next couple lines.

  3. anon

    Roast herrr

  4. butts

    i mean of the not-so-nice things Joe’s been in the past, i don’t think “disloyal” is particularly one of them

    1. Dot

      He’s never put himself in a position where he has to be romantically disloyal, but he has been a flaky friend to Danny in the past.

      1. drs

        Eh? He’s been a grousing friend at times, but I think he’s been there when Danny needed him, and volunteered to help counsel.

        1. Nono

          I guess going with “can I put Dorothy on the do-list?” when she just broke up with Danny isn’t really “been there when Danny needed him”.

        2. morleuca

          Isn’t it though?

        3. Bagfaceman

          Hey, when I went through my first breakup my best friend was such a dick about it and it was exactly what I needed, because it made me channel the energy into playful teasing instead of wallowing in self pity and negativity

    2. Slartibeast Button, BIA

      The idea that you can sleep around a lot with cheating on anyone may be an idea Rachel has trouble getting her head around.

    3. anon

      I dont think joe would’ve ever had a ‘proper’ gf bduring high schoolversus hooking up (wouldn’t put it past some hormonal teenage girls to cheat on their bfs with joe to spite them or so tho)

      1. GholaHalleck

        His ENTIRE DEAL was not having an actual GF because he feared hurting people like his dad hurt his mom.

        His blind spot was that he thought he could *only* hurt people by them catching feelings for him, and didn’t realize his Revenge of the Nerds Persona was also harmful until the List repercussions happened.

    4. Kyulen

      I’m pretty sure all the women Joe’s been with before Joyce were all one-night stands. He never was in a committed relationship with any of them, so he really couldn’t be “disloyal” to them.

    5. DashWallkick

      Rachel, like a lot of people, believes Joe’s act was because he was sexually insatiable, and not that it was a complex mechanism to keep people at arm’s length while having a lot of sex. She thinks he is disloyal, and he’s not — he’s *fanatically* loyal and is taking the long way around to express that.

      Not surprisingly, Joe correctly pegs that Rachel’s “people don’t change” might be about something besides him.

      1. Azrael

        Yep.

        I’m wondering what Rachel’s been up to in this timeline that she’s trying to justify to herself.

        1. thejeff

          Seems more likely to me that she’s been hurt by someone who promised/pretended to change, but actually hadn’t.
          This doesn’t really seem like rhetoric people use to justify themselves

        2. Needfuldoer

          Maybe it has something to do with Ruth and their freshman year as roommates.

          https://www.dumbingofage.com/blankslate/

        3. thejeff

          Definitely linked, especially for her attitude towards Ruth specifically. There was also this, which is suggestive that something bad happened then.
          Still, it feels to me like it probably runs deeper than that.

        4. DashWallkick

          Ruth’s cratered mental health and cruelty will do that to you.

  5. NGPZ

    yeah it’s clear the kind of headspace Rachel’s in

    she’s saying what she’s saying here not to solve problems, but as a means of venting and validating her anger

    1. Charles Phipps

      Which is notably something Joe doesn’t owe her.

      1. NGPZ

        I didn’t say that she did, but yeah Joe shouldn’t have even bothered telling her all that

        1. TrueVCU

          I mean credit to him for not only not taking her bait but putting the ball back in her court

        2. NGPZ

          um, no?

          like the way I see it he ain’t trying to one up her, but just saying it as it is like

          “fuck this shit im done”

        3. Nadamás

          Nice mixed metaphor

        4. deliverything

          If Joe hits that bullseye, the rest of the dominoes will fall like a house of cards. Checkmate.

    2. anon

      i mean that’s how a lot of ppl are when they’re angry but considering rachels’ like “ppl can’t change”/redemption is a lie, there wouldn’t rly be a problem/would be ‘impossible’ to fix for her mindset unless she goes on some teaching career and tries to get like ,first graders to behave a certain way

  6. Taigan

    Rachel needs to make an AITA post.

    1. chuckroast

      “AITA for being skeptical about a known sexual predator being in women’s spaces?

      EDIT: What do you mean, yes?!”

      Or something like that

      1. yak

        The dorm gym is a woman’s space? Is there a layer of sarcasm I’m missing here?

        1. DashWallkick

          note the “EDIT: What do you mean, yes?!” part.

          He’s suggesting Rachel went to the forum asking for advice dealing with a “known sexual predator” and everyone read the full story in detail and went “What the fuck is wrong with you??” I’m pretty sure ‘known sexual predator’ is adding to the joke of believing your own bullshit so much that recounting the tale gets everyone against you.

        2. Needfuldoer

          It happens a lot on r/AITA, and that’s in spite of the post authors writing themselves in the best light possible.

        3. DashWallkick

          A *lot* a lot.

        4. yak

          ahhhhh
          ty

        5. Davus

          Yes.
          The idea is that Rachel made a post and was surprised people said that she fucked up. Her post title is a misrepresentation of the situation, but such was the intent of chuckroast.

      2. MisterJinKC

        Joe is not, and has never been, a sexual predator. He’s been open about his desire to have sex, but he also gets affirmative consent every time and if someone says no wants to stop in the middle he immediately is fine with it and respects their choice.

        1. thejeff

          Old Joe wasn’t actually a sexual predator, but he did give off every red flag for being dangerous, despite some talk about the value of consent. He was not great at respecting consent for hitting on women – seeming to back off temporarily only when they’d yell at him.

          He was likely never as bad as he pretended to be, but the scene with Liz was well into his shift to New Joe, so it’s hard to tell how he would have reacted in that situation early on. And of course Rachel knows nothing of that, just his public presentation and it’s generally a really bad idea to assume that a dude will behave a lot better in private than in public.

      3. PedanticJerkass

        “AITA for implying that this fictional character is a sexual predator when he’s not actually a sexual predator?”

        1. Felgraf

          I think Chuck was writing it the way Chuck thinks Rachel would write it, not actually as an expression of Chuck’s own opinion on Joe.

      4. Kyulen

        Joe is not a sexual predator. Don’t be ridiculous.

        1. Felgraf

          Yes.

          But Rachel certainly seems to think he is, so that’s probably what she’d title here AITA.

      5. egon

        some of the people replying haven’t seen those reddit stories with misleading titles on tiktok and it shows

      6. Mr D phone posting

        You can absolutely tell the people who don’t read AITA by the responses

    2. Jo_cubstar

      Absolutely ?

    3. Nymphie

      “AITA for putting people back in their place and keeping them accountable?”

      The verdict starts with NTA but people swiftly change to YTA due to discussions in the comments revealing her philosophy

  7. Clif

    Mmm. Stormoff.

    1. TrueVCU

      He’s not storming off but that WAS a hell of a mic drop

      1. Li

        Check the alt text

        1. TrueVCU

          I am vanquished

  8. Doopyboop

    Sarah would never hurt Joyce that way, and honestly, neither would Joe. I know Rachel doesn’t have the insight we do about his past, but just because he was a horn dog in the past doesn’t mean he’s a home wrecker.

    1. anon

      Plus i don’t think she was ever that physically attracted to joe anyways, nmot that it really matters in this situation

      1. yak

        He is, physically, exactly her type. I think if he was a completely different person she’d be into him.

        1. Shade

          Yeah physically her type, but the personality is a turn off is probably correct.

        2. Nadamás

          Well if she meet only as how he is now it might be s different story.

        3. DashWallkick

          Yeah it would be kind of hard to get over the whole “Do list” Saga as well as his accusing her of hacking it *and* saying “you’re too hot to be a computer science major.” Current Joe’s a good dude but he’s kind of built this.

        4. Nadamás

          I was referring to Sarah not Rachel.

        5. anon

          https://www.dumbingofage.com/2025/comic/book-15/04-the-only-exception/energized/ I mean, ‘buffness’ aside he only looks like 2 inches taller tbh and she mentioned wanting to ‘climb someone like an obstacle course’
          But at this point ti don’t think tehy’d get in a flirty/click well that way/chemistry together

        6. cbwroses

          He and Jacob are the same size and build, so she definitely considers him tall enough.
          Also, I think the obstacle course thing isn’t just height, but also size.
          I doubt Sarah would be into a really tall skinny guy, with the possible exception of a fit basketball player.

  9. Joy

    Finally, someone’s being real with Rachel. She’s a bit of a bully.

    1. Ragnarok

      She’s absolutely a bully. I don’t know what her damage is but at some point she decided to just relentlessly go after people in public. I don’t know if she prioritizes the people she’s gone after because she thinks change is dishonest or if she’s just getting her jollies off by attacking people who are acceptable targets, but she keeps walking up to people just to be a jackass.

      1. Abdomino

        C.S. Lewis had a quote I like,

        “Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron’s cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.”

        It is never easier to perpetuate cruelty than when you believe your target deserves it.

        1. Skater Girl

          In the context of that quote, as I understand it, it’s not that they deserve it, it’s that, in your mind, you’re actually helping them. Your conscience isn’t clear because they deserve cruelty, it’s because you’re not being cruel at all. That’s the real danger.

        2. Thing2

          Maybe we can have a poll on living under Robber Barons or under Omnipotent Moral Busybodies…

        3. morleuca

          What about when they are the former, but think of themselves in terms of the latter?

        4. thejeff

          Not to excuse the moral busybodies, but Lewis had clearly never lived under robber barons.

      2. DashWallkick

        She strikes me as the kind of woman who has been treated one way for decades and is left deeply cynical and pessimistic as a result. Not just because people are constantly trying to fuck her but just general vibes of “everyone views you as someone to be taken from.”

  10. Speedball

    At some point, Rachel, you gotta stop dumping your damage on other people.

    1. Bryy

      But then how would she be in control of it? HMMMMMMMM? Thought about THAT?

  11. Tequila Mockingbird

    Attaboy Joe, well said. She was called out, but it was done without closing the door to future reconciliation.

  12. Alongcameaspider

    Rachel: “how dare you apply my philosophy to me”

  13. Vaishino

    In before the comments section starts with violent fantasies about fictional women.

    1. Joy

      Willis is good about deleting those.

      :3

      1. Vaishino

        There’s at least a few still floating around from her last few appearances.

    2. anon

      i mean, not that it makes it right but i’ve seen more vitriol towards Mary than rachel

      At most i’d just want karma to befall rachel in the form of her having no real friends for now, but i suppose you can bounce back from it by the time ur in ur 30s and focusing on one’s career (well, we don’t know what rachel wants to be but while it’s not the most emotionally healthy i can imagine her cutting ppl off that way and only having a business focused relationships)

      1. Vaishino

        I mean Mary getting more heat than Rachel would make perfect sense though. Mary’s a bigot who when last we saw her, she was off to march in support of armed conflict. Rachel’s just got beef with a guy who painted a target on her back at a time when there was an active rapist on campus, and is going about expressing it in a way that’s dickish.

        1. MisterJinKC

          Joe didn’t paint the target on her back. Whomever leaked the list did. Joe’s list was private until someone who wasn’t him leaked it out.

        2. Bryy

          Whether or not it got leaked does not matter. Joe was actively a dick without the list being public.

        3. MisterJinKC

          It does matter very much. Joe did not paint a target on her back since he is not the one who leaked the list. Your opinion on whether he was a dick are irrelevant to the conversation since it’s not about whether he was a dick, but whether he was responsible for the target on her back. He didn’t release the list, so he is not responsible.

        4. Taffy

          Heyooo

        5. Taffy

          Damn it,

        6. Thing2

          Joe *had* an active dick…

        7. Taffy

          HEYOOOO!

        8. Agemegos

          Joe told people the RSS feed to his list.

        9. Vaishino

          Joe loaded the gun and put it on the table. If someone else comes along and shoots someone with it, that’s got nothing to do with him.

        10. Taffy

          THE LIST WAS NOT PRIVATE. IT HAD A WEAK PASSWORD HE HANDED OUT LIKE CANDY. THAT IS NOT PRIVATE.

        11. Taffy

          Also it’s hardly a “leak” if it’s so easily accessed. You’d just have to tell your buddy the password. I’ve seen the idea floated that Joe kept it in a .txt file on his laptop and some nefarious hacker somehow extracted it through the wifi or someshit, and then I guess they also sent it to every woman’s phone, which is definitely the more plausible answer for how it went down. “He gave someone the password of his own free will, they spread it, and the women found out about the whole thing that way” is definitely the stranger sequence of events, you’re so right oomfie

        12. Li

          The fact is that, if Joe had met “Ryan”, he would have given the list to him directly. It was not, nor was it meant to be, Joe’s personal private list, and him getting flustered about and accusing people of leaking it was refuted in-comic by Danny pointing out the weakness of the security, but.

          (IIRC, the list has enough identifying info on at least some girls to have presented a real danger, but ofc the ultimate responsibility for the attack “Ryan” attempted remains with him.)

        13. temporaryobsessor

          Exactly I don’t get why people keep calling it private, he only meant it to be private from women.

        14. temporaryobsessor

          Exactly I don’t get why people keep calling it private, he only meant it to be private from women.

        15. thejeff

          And even then only the low rated women.

        16. PigmyWurm

          @temporaryobsessor I think part of this is that (for those of us reading since the start) IRL this all happened about 15 years ago. I remembered that he would go around telling people their scores and that it had really weak security. I genuinely do not remember him giving out actual access to other people (not saying you are wrong, just that it has been a while and my limited lookback at older strips when trying to remember this stuff didn’t stumble on it).

        17. Yumi

          Here’s where he mentioned the RSS feed, way back near the beginning: https://www.dumbingofage.com/2010/comic/book-1/01-move-in-day/prediction/

        18. Li

          He also reacted to at least one person not having heard about his list by saying “have I not shared my RSS feed with you? How remiss“, but I wasn’t able to find the strip on a quick archive dive just now.

        19. Taffy

          https://www.dumbingofage.com/2017/comic/book-7/02-everything-youve-ever-wanted/boyspizzaretreat/

          So, this one is kinda funny. I knew it was a Joe+Raidah strip when I went to find it. What I didn’t realize was, it’s the only Joe+Raidah strip. They’ve coexisted in a single strip over the last 15 years, and it’s the one I consistently remember when people bring up the lie that he was keeping the Do List private.

        20. AnonGrouch

          Having weak discretion and terrible reasoning behind that discretion does not make that discretion not removed from the public sphere. Having a weak password does not make someones emails suddenly public. Sharing those thoughts actively with ‘only people you are comfortable with sharing’ is at least one step removed from ‘public’. So sure I agree ‘it wasn’t done privately’ but I don’t think it was done publicly either.

        21. Temporaryobsessor

          In my opinion Joe’s circle was large enough that he was effectively trying to publicly talk shit behind people’s backs. I don’t care that he had a weak password. I care that he seemed to want it to be known and public.

        22. Li

          That he gave the password to Raidah in their one and only interaction is pretty strong fuel for my statement that, had Joe met Ryan, he would have also given the list to him.

        23. Random832

          It’s been literally forever since that arc and i don’t know how to find it so please bear with me if this is a dumb question but,

          how did whoever leaked the list have access to it?

        24. thejeff

          We don’t know, since we don’t know who did it.
          They could have just heard about it and hacked whatever security Danny had put in place years ago. It could have been someone Joe gave the password to – that seems more likely to me. Most hacking is actually social engineering and in this case, just asking probably would have been enough.

        25. furubatsu

          Throwing my 2 pennies into this “How complicit was Joe’s list in helping Ryan and his cohorts” debate; Joyce herself even explains this to Joe, that a list like that being shared about by the male student body was emboldening to people like Ryan. It was that conversation that kinda triggered Joe’s long look in the mirror and descision to change.

    3. Kyulen

      You do realize that having fantasies, violent or otherwise, about fiction characters harms nobody, right? Doesn’t matter whether they’re fictional women or fictional men, fantasies about them still harms no real people.

      1. Vaishino

        Nah, it’s creepy to come in and make daily comments fantasizing about how badly you want a character dead. That’s a crimson red flag.

      2. Nadamás

        Maybe but it is annoying and weird. Something doesn’t have to be harmful to unlikable.

        1. Purple Floof

          True, but something that people don’t like but isn’t harmful shouldn’t be censored

        2. Vaishino

          The first amendment protects you from the government, not the Justin David Willis

        3. Nadamás

          Telling someone what they say is weird or annoying is not censorship.

        4. Purple Floof

          No, but removing comments is, which someone had mentioned, but I don’t see the comment anymore, so maybe it got removed, lol

        5. Nadamás

          Removing comments is like one of the main things that make the internet remotely bearable.

        6. Purple Floof

          Okay, so if I and enough people reported your comment because we don’t agree with you and don’t like you saying stuff that we don’t agree with, you’d be fine with having your opinions removed?

        7. Nadamás

          Yes actually. That is how moderation works.

        8. Purple Floof

          Okay, so your views are consistent. I disagree with them, but I’m glad you’re not hypocritical about it at least.

        9. Nadamás

          I don’t care

        10. Bittersweet

          If someone walks into a restaurant and writes a slur or how much they want someone to die on the wall, it’s not censorship for the manager to paint over it. This website is Willis’ place of business on the internet, a virtual building of sorts. It is not censorship to remove the comment, it’s keeping house.

        11. Purple Floof

          Well yeah, cuz that’s a harmful statement that you could be legally held liable for – except for fictional characters, which is fine to say anything about so long as it’s not obscene (usually sex-related)

      3. SillyGoose

        Having the fantasies harms no one.
        Writing publicly about them does, via desensitization.
        Similarly, indulging them in the privacy of your own head – sometimes a slippery slope isn’t a logical fallacy because human brains feed on repetition.

        1. Taffy

          I’m the main (only?) one writing “fantasies” about character deaths. Can you please elaborate on what you mean about “desensitization”, as well as the “slippery slope” part, especially as applied to “the privacy of your own head”?

          I want to understand your point, rather than assuming something wild, like you saying my comment about drowning Rachel in the digital lake will lead to me drowning a real woman in the digital lake if I think about it enough.

        2. Bryy

          “like you saying my comment about drowning Rachel in the digital lake will lead to me drowning a real woman in the digital lake if I think about it enough.”

          This happens all the time in real life, though, enough to make it a super sleazy thing to say.

          Like. I’m totally sure *you* mean nothing by it, but defaulting to death “because it’s fiction” when death would be a super over-exaggeration is demeaning to those reading your comment, especially if they are women.

          The idea that talking about killing fictional characters just because they are annoying *is* a red flag because it *does*, in most cases, showcase a person’s morals.

        3. Taffy

          I’m not responsible for other people’s inability to differentiate between “I’d like to see this character killed off” and “I am going to murder a real woman in a cartoonish fashion”, though. I’m not demeaning them by assuming they’re intelligent enough to understand the difference between a fake and real woman.

        4. Li

          @Bryy [citation needed]

          You are confusing correlation and causation. People who want to do real world violence do also often fantasize about violence, but we have literally no evidence, at all, despite many studies looking to prove otherwise, that fantasizing about violence leads to committing violent acts.

        5. Bryy

          Except every single sexist and political manifesto ever?

        6. SillyGoose

          I wasn’t talking about you, or even aware of your specific thing, just replying to nuance the “fantasies harms no one” comment.

          Desensitization is very well documented, I’m not sure what’s unclear? For example people exposed to a lot of violent media, as a rule, display decreased empathy, a sort of inner Overton window shifting.

          Or to take a boring example, you know when someone bumps into you in a crowded subway train? Spend all your journey deliberately fantasizing about bashing their head in, and maybe you’ll find yourself just “happening” to step on their toes “by accident” as you exit the car, more likely than if you had focused your energy on thinking about what you’ll have for dinner.

        7. Taffy

          I take in a lot of violent media, and my empathy is perfectly intact, often to the point of being overactive. The same applies to everyone I know. The biggest horror movie buffs I know are also the sweetest people I’ve ever met. It’s weird to think those violent movies are supposedly weakening our empathy, when I’ve never seen that play out once.

        8. SillyGoose

          No, I don’t mean it like that, nor do I mean anyone in particular.

          And I should probably have specified that the documented effects are not about any kind of violence, but the kind that goes in the same direction. Uuuh not very clear I realize
          – I mean it depends on the representation. Is the victim painted as having deserved it, typically, is the protagonist a hero who’s doing a good thing by [insert exactions], glorifying esthetics, humanizing/dehumanizing? Etc.

          So seeing murders, playing a video game with murders, saying “God I hate this character I hope she chokes on her self righteousness” once in a while is very different from, say, watching snuff movies every day or spending all your free time commenting on Tate videos with a community reinforcing that they too will happily abuse whoever is the current object of their collective ire.

        9. Joyfulldreams

          I’m sorry, I agree that it can be uncomfortable socially for people to make comments like that, but I hope we’re not seriously entertaining “Video Games Make You More Violent” thought crime-based rhetoric?

        10. Taffy

          I doubt they mean it in that specific way. That phrase is extremely loaded, after all.

        11. SillyGoose

          I meant to reply here but I replied just before, to your previous comments, apologies.

          The tl;dr on my reply is “no, not like that, but let’s acknowledge the huge diversity covered by the terms “violence”, “exposure”, and “desensitization”.”

    4. Bajja

      A lot of people don’t understand why Rachel is in attack mode.

      Personal experience: I’ve been assaulted in almost every workplace. I was assaulted by schoolmates throughout high school. I was always treated as different in positive or negative ways due to being “so pretty.”
      It is dehumanizing. It makes you defensive, which can transition to aggression without a clear line between. It makes you so aware of RISK of dehumanization, it’s hard to forget what other options there are anymore.

      Maybe if people saw the comments being deleted, people would have a better grasp of why Rachel acts the way she does.

      1. Doopyboop

        I understand why Rachel is in attack mode. I once had a 70 year old man mistake my friendly small talk as sexual interest. He asked for my name and number and attempted to invite himself over to my house. I was very much put on the spot in a public place, all on my own. I gave him fake information and left as soon as I can, but was still panicked enough that I made a few detours and stops on my drive home just in case I was tailed. I also warned my neighbors and gave them his description, just in case he did anything, which he thankfully did not wind up doing.

        I also once witnessed a grown man chat up a group of teenage girls under the pretense of ‘inviting them to his church’ while making leering comments about how they were dressed. Much like me in the example above, they were put on the spot in a public space, so I stepped in, got his attention on me, and allowed them a get away while also pointing out how creepy he was being, by asking him “Sir do you know personally know these girls?”.

        For me, the difference is in filtering between people who are an active threat, or could be one, versus people like Joe in these strips who is literally going about his day and usually avoids her anyway.

        1. Vaishino

          Rachel isn’t privy to what we see though. She doesn’t know he’s gone through some soul searching, and honestly I wouldn’t trust someone to have pulled the complete 180 he seems to have in a few months either.

        2. Doopyboop

          She doesn’t know what we know, but what she does see is a lot less Joe hanging around her or trying to ask her out. If nothing else, that does at least mean he’s leaving her alone even if she could have the worry that he’s still being a horn dog to other women. She should at least wait until she sees him in action before yelling at him for doing something wrong.

          You gotta keep in mind that what literally kicked off this latest exchange is Joe working out in the gym. He wasn’t around any women, he wasn’t talking to another guy about sex, he was literally just alone and working out. And she still immediately came at him in attack mode.

        3. Vaishino

          Yeah she’s being kind of a dick, but from her perspective she’s coming to the gym regularly and was happy to be rid of this creep, and oh no he’s back. She probably thought he’d slunk off with his tail between his legs after the list was published because no woman on campus would give him the time of day after that, and she wouldn’t have to see him again in this setting.

          I get why she’s acting this way, again yes she’s being a dick, but it’s not like it’s unearned.

        4. Doopyboop

          We’ll just have to agree to disagree on that front.

        5. Vaishino

          Wait, what do you disagree with? That she didn’t expect to run into him at the gym again, or that Joe earned her scorn?

        6. Doopyboop

          I disagree that it is earned in this scenario. This is the last I’m gonna comment about it.

        7. Vaishino

          Can’t reply to the last two comments on the thread so putting it here.
          “I disagree that it is earned in this scenario”
          https://www.dumbingofage.com/2017/comic/book-7/03-the-thing-i-was-before/hiatus/
          https://www.dumbingofage.com/2017/comic/book-7/04-the-do-list/treasuremap/
          Up until recently he didn’t even use her name, he just called her “eleven.” He showed up outside of her dorm room specifically to creep on her, and he accused her of hacking his Do-List when she was one of the folks put at risk by it. He 100% earned her scorn.

        8. Doopyboop

          What part of I don’t want to continue this discussion do you not understand????

        9. Vaishino

          You didn’t say that, you said you were done commenting. You don’t get to say “oh by the way, I get the last word.”

        10. Taffy

          Oh, you’re one of those people who care who gets the last word. Sorry for engaging with anything you’ve said.

        11. Vaishino

          You’re right about one thing, you’re definitely sorry.

        12. Doopyboop

          Oh I get it, so you’re like a professional asshole. Cool!

        13. Vaishino

          Nah, Taffy just brings that out in people. You said you disagreed and peaced out, but I have actual things Joe did to Rachel to show why she justifiably doesn’t like him, so I presented them. Even if you weren’t going to engage, anyone else reading the comments might have benefited from seeing their past.

        14. Doopyboop

          You accused me of trying to have the last word. You can’t double back and now say “oh well you said you disagreed and just peaced out”. I don’t take kindly to that. I didn’t care about having the last word. I just saw the fact that you clearly don’t wanna hear anything I have to say, and I disagree with the fact that Joe being a dick 5 months ago and APOLOGIZING for it (which Rachel is allowed to not accept!!) means she’s allowed to harass him.

        15. Vaishino

          I’m not doubling back on anything. The fact that you came back bent out of shape that I didn’t let you get the last word means yeah, you were trying to dictate that you get the last word. When you tried to get the last word, you said “I disagree that it is earned in this scenario. This is the last I’m gonna comment about it.” You didn’t substantiate anything you just said “no, also I’m leaving.” I’m absolutely willing to hear what people have to say, you’re the one who said “I’m done saying anything.”

          I said she’s being a dick to him, I never contested that. What I said, that you found egregious, was that Joe earned this level of scorn. You can’t say “she’s allowed to not accept his apology” and also get mad that she still doesn’t like him. In a situation where there’s kidnappings and stabbings and murders and attempted rapes on campus, Joe putting a big flashing sign on the women he considers fuckable is something I think earns more than a few months of being annoyed. Aside from his small group of friends who’ve seen some personal growth from him, that is what defines him to the rest of the school.

        16. Doopyboop

          Blah blah blah blah blah blah blah asshole blah blah

        17. Vaishino

          “I just saw the fact that you clearly don’t wanna hear anything I have to say”

          Excellent projection you’ve got going. Don’t engage with what’s said, don’t defend your position, just say “you aren’t willing to hear me out” and when given the mic resort to pithy insults and nothing else.

        18. Doopyboop

          By the way what’s happening is that since you accused me of trying to get the last word when I wasn’t, now I’m being petty and showing you what it REALLY looks like when I’m trying to have the last word. You can dislike someone and just walk the fuck away or ignore them but clearly you defend Rachel so much because you think, like her, that if you don’t like someone you have carte blanche to keep going at them even when they try to back down, leave, or just exist somewhere in a public space! So, blah blah blah asshole blah blah blah.

        19. Vaishino

          I literally said she’s being a dick. I’m not defending her behaviour, I just think she’s justified in not liking Joe and I think the reaction to her in the comments is well beyond the pale. I didn’t start today with an opinion about you, I was engaging in fandom discussion and you got mad that I made my point after you left. I definitely have an opinion of you now though, because you’ve behaved like a child. I didn’t insult you, I engaged with what you had to say honestly, and you came back stomping your feet and calling me an asshole for it.

        20. Doopyboop

          I agreed to disagree. Dislike and scorn are not the same thing. She can dislike him and still manage not to harass him and keep implying he’s gonna fuck everyone in the vicinity with a vagina.

        21. Vaishino

          Scorn is an intense form of dislike. Synonymous with despise, disdain, and contempt. It’s got other usages but that’s the one I’m going with. Again, I’ve said she’s being a dick, and that how she feels about him is justifiable. If you can see me saying both of those things and somehow draw the conclusion that I’m actually saying that her needling him is fine and dandy, that’s not my fault.

        22. Lee

          She knows, or easily could know, that the girl on her floor who once had a cast on her wrist from punching her own kidnapper–probably a person whose radar is up for predators–now trusts Joe enough to date him.

          I’d agree that’s not necessarily enough to “trust that he’s done a complete 180 in a couple months”–I’ve commented myself that his redemption has felt a little easy, easier than it would’ve been for someone with less Pretty Privilege. But it probably *is* enough for her to just shut up and give him a wide berth in public spaces that he has as much right as her to be in. And I think the latter is all anyone is asking her to do.

        23. Taffy

          “And I think the latter is all anyone is asking her to do.”

          You’re exactly correct about this, but apparently that’s a bridge too far for the violent contrarians.

        24. EmCaCo

          It just occurred to me, has Rachel ever talked to Joyce about Joe? To check in if she is ok or expressed her concerns that he is still predatory? If you know someone who *is known for having been attacked by predators*, you see a guy who you think is a predator hanging around her, my thought wouldn’t be “oh he’s cool” so much as “Better check on her because she is a wounded antelope on the serengeti to these creeps.” But I don’t recall Rachel having that kind of interaction with Joyce, or with warning off girls, which does cast some shade on her modus opperandi as being less “protect self and others” and more “project own issues.”

        25. Doopyboop

          It’s consistent because Rachel also never checked in with Billie despite thinking she was in an abusive relationship with Ruth.

  14. Charles Phipps

    I disapprove of Rachel continuing to try to pick a fight (verbal) with Joe when the appropriate thing to do is avoid him or not engage with him. I think that’s reasonable position between, “Rachel is the WORSTTTT” and “She’s justified in hating Joe.”

    1. Rose by Any other Name

      I mean, yes.
      The annoying part of this argument for me is that both sides are right and yet fail to acknowledge one another.
      She is absolutely justified in hating Joe – and she is dealing with that hatred in an inappropriate fashion. Even if he was as bad as she says, what she’s doing would still be wrong.

      1. MisterJinKC

        How is she justified? What action has he himself taken that would justify her hatred of him?

        1. Bryy

          The Do List.

        2. PedanticJerkass

          She’s allowed to hate Joe for any and all reasons she may choose to hate him, justifiable or otherwise, sensible or batshit insane or anywhere in between.

          Also, Joe is allowed to call her out for being a loud, repetitive, banal asshole about it and walk away.

        3. Nadamás

          I mean she is not really loud she doesn’t use that many exclamation points.

        4. Purple Floof

          Any amount of talking shit to someone minding their own business not doing anything wrong is several decibels too loud

        5. Mr D phone posting

          You could whisper that stuff and it would still be too loud.

          As a side note, the color of your grav’s (horns?) makes them look like they are the character’s hair, and the hair looks like she has a head pet hanging on for dear life, butt leaning over the character’s eyes, because the ponytail/bun looks like a little head. Imagine a guinea pig, basically.

        6. Thing2

          Ooo yeah!

        7. Purple Floof

          Oh, yeah no the gravitar messed up and it has a smaller version of itself in the background

        8. thejeff

          To quote Rachel from their first encounter:
          “So I, a human being in the middle of going outside to smell the autumn
          leaves, wanted to know how much a stranger wanted to fuck her.”

      2. Nadamás

        I disagree in the part that if Joe was and still is as bad as she think he is yhen yesh i would be perfectly okay with her telling him to eat shit. It is only wrong because Joe actually is a better person. (And her whole “nobody can change” belief is kinda bogus).

        1. Charles Phipps

          I mean even if Joe were a complete tool, what does she get out of hanging around him trying to remind him of it?

        2. Nadamás

          Nothing but i would not have a problem with her doing so. Being a thorn on a genuine asshole is a worthy endeavor if you oull it off

        3. Purple Floof

          Even if Joe was only pretending to change, he hasn’t done anything but have a journal of his personal opinions about women he’s seen/interacted with that got shared without his permission. Even if the opinions are gross, they’re still not at all harmful in and of themselves if he doesn’t share them with anyone, which was the intention.

          Like, imagine you have a box you keep under your bed that you store your sex toys in – some of which are what people would consider “weird” if they knew about it, and by extension, would consider you weird for having them – then someone goes into your room, takes the box, and shows everyone all that private stuff you kept under your bed (not good security, but you went to reasonable lengths to keep your privacy).

          It’s not fair to say that you’re the problem for having those private items that you meant only for personal use, even if they’re what most would call weird and people dislike you for knowing you have them – it’s whoever (*cough cough* Danny, in Joe’s case *cough*) revealed them.

        4. Agemegos

          Joe published an RSS feed of his “Do” list and invited people to subscribe.

        5. Purple Floof

          Did he? If so, yeah that’s scummy af and harmful, instead of just scummy af

        6. Charles Phipps

          To be fair, it was apparently private and he shared it with friends.

          Except he seemed to offer it very quickly.

        7. Li

          The server itself was password protected. RSS feeds are not private by definition. And he gave at least one person the link to subscribe shortly after meeting them, saying, “Did I not already share my RSS feed with you? How remiss.”

          Don’t confuse “low-ranked women weren’t supposed to know” (he thought women like Rachel would take it as a compliment) with “private”.

        8. Li

          https://www.dumbingofage.com/boyspizzaretreat/

          My bad, I misremembered.

          Not in a way that’s at all redeeming for the list, though.

          And I stand by what I said about RSS feeds, because their purpose is to let other people see what you’re posting. A password-protected RSS feed is… a bit of a strange concept, and would NOT be secure, because you’d have to store the password on multiple devices to access it…? And Danny didn’t make it sound like he’d done a great job with the security… so it probably wasn’t a long complex password.

        9. Bryy

          Still scummy AF and actively harmful.

        10. Nadamás

          I not even gonna reading this past the first paragraph.

        11. Purple Floof

          k

        12. Tan

          So besides the fact that, as pointed out, Joe shared the Do List widely even before it got “leaked” (see for example Joe’s only on-screen interaction with Raidah), there is also the fact that Joe’s first interaction with Rachel specifically was walking up to her and unpromptedly telling her her rating. So this is not “box of sex toys under the bed”. This is “display case of sex toys you carry around with you and occasionally pull one out to wave under the nose of a stranger.”

        13. Purple Floof

          How do you do shared tag search for the archive? I swear I remember it as either him not remembering her and Rachel saying he’d rated her as a 10 on the list when he was giving out donuts, but I may be wrong – it’s been years

        14. Tan

          /tag/name1+name2, e.g. https://www.dumbingofage.com/tag/joe+rachel

        15. Rose by Any other Name

          Here’s the thing, Nadamas.
          You’re right that speaking out would be a good thing if she was doing it to protect others. To warn other women or to tell him to leave her alone.
          However, she went after him when he was alone in the gym. She’s not helping anyone.
          And if he was bad, she would be putting herself in physical danger. You don’t confront someone like that alone. Ever.

        16. Nadamás

          The point is that i wouldn’t think she would be wrong for doing so. And we don’t really know that tgey are the only people in the gym?

        17. Purple Floof

          Yeah no it can be assumed that, in this public space (school gym), there’s probably other people off-screen that would easily be able to see if anything happened and respond, even under the scenario where Joe was an actual predator (which he isn’t, and hasn’t even been portrayed as such in the past – just scummy)

  15. DailyBrad

    I really like the person Joe’s become.

    That, plus I think it makes sense. If he’s turned the other cheek with Dorothy and Sarah, I doubt Rachel would be the one who could get him heated, not when those two had much more personal stakes in it.

    I do also think that what she’s saying here would be a reach, anyway, since his dehumanizing behavior with women in the past wouldn’t qualify as a matter of loyalty. It’s more like she’s just kind of treating him as an avatar for all sexual impropriety, rather than focusing on anything particular to his own transgressions.

    1. Alongcameaspider

      I actually wonder if her mentioning loyalty and disloyalty is her letting slip a hint about what exactly happened to cause her to hold the views she does

      1. Illjwamh

        I’m almost completely certain not only that you’re right, but that we’re meant to read it that way

    2. Charles Phipps

      Rachel really wants Joe to blow up or do something sexist. The fact he’s not is really bugging her and I keep thinking she’ll bug him until he does. Which is easy to understand since this is the guy who entered Gender Studies class talking about scissoring.

  16. Morhek

    “How dare you be considerate toward me, I am also going to hold THAT against you.”

  17. HueSatLight

    Joe has the “Today is Tomorrow’s Yesterday” poster from Bob’s Burgers.

  18. Taffy

    Joe is so fucking hot right now.

    1. PedanticJerkass

      Maybe he and Mary should fuck.

    2. Shade

      Plus the bonus butt at the end.

    3. SarahTerra

      I WAS GONNA SAY

      this is the first time I’ve found Joe attractive oh no

  19. Nathan

    Today is Tomorrow’s Yesterday

  20. Suet

    Cockleburs are prickly and loyal too, but you don’t see Rachel complaining about them

  21. Sirksome

    Just gotta make an observation, but Sarah left all sweaty because she was working out. Joe not sweaty because he was coaching Sarah. Why isn’t Rachel sweating? Was she working out or just watching Sarah workout as she waited for her finish and leave so she could slide back up to Joe? Cause that’s kinda sad and creepy just a bit.

    1. Vaishino

      Rachel’s just doing some light weights, probably not enough to get her seriously going if she’s at the gym regularly.

      1. Sirksome

        Well I won’t begrudge her if she ever wants to change that.

      2. TrueVCU

        Also different ppl sweat at different rates for different things. I don’t sweat much when I lift, but I sweat buckets on cardio

  22. IntangibleMatter

    We all know Rachel isn’t going to meaningfully change as a person, she doesn’t show up enough for that :p

    …though I really wish she would change…

  23. Rocketboy1313

    I would have been less eloquent in such situations.
    More like, “you can stop being a bongo to me any time you want.”

  24. WAhydrohead

    Burn!

  25. PigmyWurm

    Can I just clarify, as far as we know this is all just about the “do list” and him saying some kind of misogynistic stuff during the first month or so? Like, I’m not defending past Joe or saying people are wrong to call him out on his past behavior (when relevant), but Racheal has real “you cheated on my sister and left her at the alter to run off with her bridesmaid” vibe in this whole exchange.
    At no point did Joe betray her, because their was no actual relationship of any kind between them. On a personal website that he thought was private he wrote that he thought she was attractive (in a less ideal way).

    1. Nadamás

      *First several months. And calling less that ideal is is way too nice a way to put it “incredibly objectifying” woild be more accurate. And it wasn’t that private he would give it away to people just because.

      1. Purple Floof

        IIrc, wasn’t it just a number rating with a comment about a feature of the person that stuck out to him (body and/or personality)?

        1. Nadamás

          Yes. What you say don’t contradict my statement, and it would be weird if yiu think it did

        2. Purple Floof

          I only meant it in regards to “incredibly” objectifying – it’s objectifying, sure, but women rate guys on a scale from 1 to 10 as well – it’d be hypocritical of us to hold guys to a standard that we don’t apply to ourselves for the same thing.

        3. Nadamás

          I believe you are wrong about all that you said.

        4. morleuca

          You believe that women don’t rate guys on a scale of 1 to 10? And that it wouldn’t be hypocritical to hold guys to a standard that we don’t apply to ourselves for the same thing?

        5. Nightsbridge

          I mean, yeah? I’ve never heard of women ‘ranking’ dudes like that. We don’t do that shit.

          But like…Even if the odd weirdo chose to try…The sheer weight of the imbalance of the power dynamics makes it kind of incomparable. That’s like saying that ‘calling a white person a cracker is a slur.’

          We strive to create and enforce a fair world. And that’s laudable. But when we just look at the surface, without taking into account how different it all is, lined up against everyone else, we just perpetuate inequality in more fundamental ways.

        6. PigmyWurm

          Hasn’t Amber also rated guys? At the very least she has written porn heavily based on guys she knows. She is, usually, more private about it than Joe was, but she still objectifies the hell out of people.

        7. Purple Floof

          @Nightsbridge
          I’ve heard it quite a lot – in middle school, high school, and college sororities, mostly, but still. It’s a clique thing, which is why guys do it as well – in its most basic form, it’s a way groups get a consensus on what the group views as viable relationship partners. When you get out of those areas where those kinds of social groups aren’t prevalent, you stop hearing about it as much, since the peer pressure to corroborate on one’s personal social life is gone.

          Regardless, all injustice is still injustice – excusing it because it happened in the past is just how cycles of revenge are perpetuated. The only way to create an equal society is to apply the same rules to everyone, regardless of the past. Racism is racism, and sexism is sexism – doesn’t matter who’s doing it to whom, it should be treated just as bad as one kind vs another.

          @PigmyWurm
          Yes, and in fact her doing that is significantly more public than what Joe did (she posts her fics on public smutfic sites), but she does it anonymously.

        8. thejeff

          Sort of more public. Since not only is she anonymous, but so are the characters in them, while Joe’s ratings were linked to him and thus much more easily traced back to people he knows.

        9. Li

          People bringing up Amber for comparison, as if…

          a.) anyone’s problem with Joe has ever been “he’s horny about people and that’s wrong :/ ”
          b.) Amber herself hasn’t been called out by the narrative for being creepy

        10. Vaishino

          Danny described it as a “road map” so I’m inclined to think it had, if not dorm rooms, then at least which building/floor they lived on. We know Joe knew where Rachel lived because he ambushed her leaving her room for the day here:
          https://www.dumbingofage.com/2017/comic/book-7/03-the-thing-i-was-before/hiatus/

        11. Purple Floof

          Was it Danny that called it a road map? I remember Danny being like “Oh shit I didn’t think of that” in response to Rachel or someone else saying it was a road map

        12. Vaishino

          Oh you’re right. Rachel described it as a road map, and Danny agreed with a horrified realization. Have we ever gotten like, an actual example of the list other than Joe rattling off descriptions and numbered ratings? I feel there’s a lot of back and forth about something that might not be substantiated.

        13. Purple Floof

          Not that I know of, no – feel free to correct me anyone if I’m wrong on that

        14. Charles Phipps

          I think it was enough he was describing the girls and sometimes their names.

      2. PigmyWurm

        Okay, this was me checking to see if I had missed something else that had happened. I am no trying to argue that he wasn’t being very objectifying, and that is plenty of reason for her to label him as a creep not want to deal with him again (which Joe seems to understand). But that doesn’t seem to be what is going on here.
        And while he did openly tell everyone what number they where (again, very gross), I’m pretty sure that he thought all the personal information that was on it was private, and a lot of the anger was how that put people at risk when it got leaked. Maybe this is only about that, characters are not required to be beings of pure logical detachment, but it feels like there is something more. Maybe he reminds her of someone else who hurt her or someone she cared about? Maybe there was something else Joe did that he isn’t fully aware of? Or maybe Rachel is just a bully and can’t help but to latch onto any negative thing a person has done and judge them aggressively for it forever.

        1. thejeff

          Again, his list had an RSS feed and he regularly offered to handout the password.

        2. Li

          Thank you, I knew he’d done that but I couldn’t find it my quick archive dive. Surprised he was trying to give the password to Raidah, but then, she’s probably high-ranked, and he seems to think women who are will want to know.

        3. thejeff

          That sparked my long time theory that it’s Raidah who leaked the list, as the best thing that she’d ever done.

        4. Li

          Pff. It’s certainly possible, but tbh I think Raidah is as likely as Rachel to have the objection that “making this public would be dangerous for the women whose entries are more identifying, as well as humiliating for a lot of women who recognize their own entries”.

          I think the canon answer to who leaked it is probably “it doesn’t matter”, but logically it’s more likely to be a guy who was mad about Joe’s rating of a girl he liked (whether because it was unflattering or because it indicated Joe had slept with her), because I think an 18-year-old guy is more likely to think of leaking the list as reflecting badly on Joe, while most 18-year-old girls are more likely to think of it as reflecting badly on the women he rated.

        5. Li

          I should stress that a lot of young women and young people presumed to be women have a disproportionate sense of how “in danger” we are at any point, especially if we’re white (because being white makes us less at risk, but most televised news coverage and true crime stuff focuses on white victims); it’s not that Raidah would necessarily be more correct to think of the list as potentially dangerous, just, I think, a lot more likely.

    2. temporaryobsessor

      This wasn’t his private journal. This was the thing he talked about and shared with anyone who would listen to him for two seconds.
      I think he once low key weaponized it against Roz at one point.

    3. The Queer Agenda [frog memes]

      I think Joe hit on Rachel in passing at least once back in the list days? His old unserious bit would’ve still qualified as sexual harassment. That’s what she seemed to be expecting him to say to Sarah, which goes to show she hasn’t seen him in a long time.

      1. thejeff

        https://www.dumbingofage.com/2017/comic/book-7/03-the-thing-i-was-before/hiatus/
        And then after the list came out, he calls her “eleven” again and in the next strip talks about neglecting the computer science building as a “fertile hunting ground.”

  26. Chaucer59

    That’s got to be the nicest way I’ve ever heard anyone call someone out for acting like a bongo.

  27. drs

    “people can’t change, so I’m going to keep guilting you until you… uh… let me check my notes.”

    1. Sirksome

      The point was to get him to leave so she could look at his butt. I see you Rachel. Goal achieved.

  28. BarerMender

    I think the right response to Rachel is to walk away shaking your head. Still, I’d have had to respond to her second frame speech. Something like, “You just now pulled that out of your ass, didn’t you?”

    1. Taffy

      Seriously. “Disloyal”? That’s nothing. Who the hell does she think he’s been “disloyal” to? He’s been dating Joyce for like a week (exact number irrelevant), and every hook-up before that was a casual exchange with no attachments. She has no information to support the accusation, so she’s jumping to yet another pointless conclusion.

  29. AnonGrouch

    So can someone explain to me Joe’s retort, I don’t get why everyone seems to find it witty and I feel like I’m not parsing it properly.

    1. AnonGrouch

      NVM rereading it a third time worked.

    2. Bryy

      He’s saying that she’s in charge of the things she says.

    3. Freezer

      “You’re being a bongo about me not changing but I believe you can change and stop being a bongo.”

  30. Freezer

    Someone hand this man a mic to drop.

  31. Bryy

    Joe needs to be locked up for murdering Rachel.

  32. Kyulen

    Even if Rachel’s had bad stuff happen to her in the past, the idea that nobody can ever change for the better just seems like an odd way to think. Especially when there’s tons of evidence to the contrary, if you bother to look.

    1. Uly

      It can be safer and healthier to believe that abusers – specifically, your abuser – cannot ever change. If you tie yourself down to the idea that they can change then you might stay in the hopes of effecting that change yourself.

      But honestly, Rachel needs to just drop it. If Joe can’t change then telling him he can’t change isn’t going to… well, do anything.

      1. morleuca

        It makes her feel better. Or at least gives her a smug sense of superiority. It really has nothing to do with Joe aside from him being her immediate target.

      2. thejeff

        Especially when they keep promising to change and don’t.

        And this can apply to creepy pick up artist dudes too.

  33. Coatl

    KO!
    Joe Wins!
    PERFECT!!

  34. Shade

    Honestly Rachel is kinda just saying words at this point.

    1. Masha

      “Everything you’re saying to me today is your tomorrow’s past behavior”

      They’re both just saying words. This entire exchange is babbling nonsense.

      1. Nadamás

        Bit what Joe says actually makes sense for the person he is talking to? I think that might just be you.

      2. egon

        real

      3. dgf

        I think Rachel’s just doubling down on her view of Joe. To her, he can’t ever change. Any evidence to the contrary is all an act. Case in point, Joe and Sarah’s sorta-friendship is, to Rachel, just another way to cover up.

        As for Joe, he’s pointing out that Rachel’s behavior (i.e. judging people) is consistent too. However, he won’t give her shit if she ever tries to change it.

        Cue grumpy Rachel face because she doesn’t believe people (including herself) can truly change.

        1. Taffy

          Rachel the kinda person to see someone in a different outfit from what they wore last time she saw them and say “You haven’t really changed. You still own the clothes I saw before.”

  35. Lamppost

    Joe has absolutely had some flaws but I don’t ever think disloyalty was one of them? Seems like Rachel is just dumping stuff on him now.

    1. Brendan of 6

      His whole deal was avoiding disloyalty by never being in a position where he could do that.

  36. Taffy

    Drown her in the digital lake.

  37. Veronica

    Boy, that first sentence is a real…collection of words.

  38. Florence

    Right for the weak spot! How dare you Joe! Not fair!

    1. Florence

      Jokes aside, really good stuff, love this turn for Rachel

      Interested to see where she takes this hit to what seems like an essential component of her being. She’s always been static as a character and this is the first time someone seems to have successfully pushed back at her “no one can change” ideology

      1. Li

        +1

        I want to see more of Rachel. I think she’s suffering rn from Willis having so many characters and so many balls in the air — if they’ve decided to dig into Rachel some more, it WAS genuinely kind of necessary to first reestablish her deal. Unfortunately the comment section is full of folks who’re either hyper fixated on this strip or do a good impression of it, so too many of us reacted to this sequence with “OH MY GOD RACHEL WE KNOW, YOU SAY THIS EVERY TIME YOH SHOW UP”…

        Anyway fingers crossed for more Rachel screen time, I really do want to know what’s up with her.

        1. Florence

          It’s definitely tricky, and plus these are structured around books so there’s also that extra need for certain turns to happen at certain points

          I definitely don’t have the energy(though I understand the instinct) to get all moral about her. There’s a point where I’ve already said that and what does reiterating that point do. But I’m more narrative minded I guess so ?

        2. Li

          Me too. I have some sympathy with folks who want her to go away but it also boggles me a little because… she’s not showing up out of random happenstance. Things happen in a story for a reason. ?

  39. animedingo

    i think my comment got caught by the spam detector lol

  40. Steamweed

    Mayyybe Rachel will have a change of heart or mind (even if slight). Or at least maybe she’ll just lay off biting at Joe. Hopefully both.

  41. AlexanderHammil

    i mean okay joe but it’s been, what, less than six months in-universe since the do list, i’m not sure you’re quite at the “deliver takedowns of someone you harmed as you leave” stage.

    i know it’s been years for us as the audience, but this opinion of the man is perfectly reasonable for rachel, and he was right to avoid her. she’s never going to like you, man, and you just need to accept that.

    1. Nadamás

      I mean he probably wouldn’t mind and respect she doesn’t like him if she didn’t come at him to let him know unprompted when she could ignore him?

      1. AlexanderHammil

        yes, how annoying it must be for him to be judged and given an arbitrary rating by someone who only knows him at a surface level

        1. Charles Phipps

          So Rachel has to buy Joe doughnuts?

        2. Insanenoodlyguy

          No the equivalent would be her posting some kinda “assholes at my school” list. What she’s doing is repeatedly picking a fight.

        3. Alongcameaspider

          She has initiated every interaction between the two of them

          Is he just supposed to sit there and not say anything?

        4. Taffy

          That’s how it seems. He should sit there and take infinite badgering without a word, with no end point.

        5. Vaishino

          “She has initiated every interaction between the two of them”
          How about the time he waited outside of her dorm room to announce she was an eleven? Or the time he approached her in the computer science building to ask what a hottie like her is doing in a place like that? Or the time he came to her wing of the dorm to apologize because he just thought he was being funny?
          In actuality, he’s the one who’s initiated most of their interactions, usually for some mild sexual harassment, and the gym here is the only time it’s been her.

        6. AlexanderHammil

          honestly, the way the comments section here reacts to what is very mild verbal scorn towards joe is so strange.

        7. Taffy

          Joe should kill Rachel with his bare hands.

        8. AnonGrouch

          She should do it like a ‘normal person’ and post it to herself on her private website and have her relatively private thoughts leaked by a 1337 h4x0r

      2. Dandi Andi

        She knows Joe to be a sex pest. She knows he kept a detailed list of how fuckable he finds literally all of the women on campus. She knows they’re has been a confirmed rapist on campus already who attacked at least two women she knows. If Joe decides to become a problem, who will she go to for help? Her violent alcoholic RA who repeatedly assaulted and threatened her and her friends? The administration who, upon finding out in dramatic fashion that Ruth is a violent alcoholic, decided to leave her in that position of power?

        Ruth has good reason to feel *unsafe* around Joe and even better reason to think that absolutely nobody with a shed of authority is going to lift a finger to keep her safe. I’d be rude to Joe every chance I got, too. Because I wouldn’t want Joe to feel welcome spending a second in my company because I don’t feel safe spending a second in his.

        1. Dandi Andi

          Rachel has good reason*

          Edit button please

    2. Bobby

      she keeps harassing him at this point and she needs to get a life

      1. Plaaaaaa

        She needs to get laid, but her flirting is atrocious

        1. Taffy

          Having sex won’t fix her dogshit personality.

        2. AlexanderHammil

          you’re so weird

        3. Taffy

          That’s not a remotely weird thing to say, it’s just true.

    3. Ornathe

      I mean, he has been putting up with here the whole time here, showing up while he was exercising and spending the whole time dunking on him. All he’s done in return is occasionally respond so as to not be rude, and try to make it clear that he’s not who he used to be, even though he also acknowledges that he understands why she’s got it out for him.

      His wrap-up here, if anything, seems to me like he’s just saying that he gets perfectly well that she may never like him or change her mind, but that if she does, then he won’t hold today’s barrage against her, because anything else would be hypocritical of him. I don’t think he’s “delivering takedowns” by pointing out as neutrally as possible that she’s being kind of a bongo, but that he also won’t consider it to define her forever if she decides to change her attitude someday. I think it’s actually a pretty well handled, minimally confrontational response towards someone who’s spent the entire scene telling him he’ll never be better than he was at his worst.

    4. Strawb

      I see both sides.

      Rachel should have just ignored him. I get why his presence bothers her and she can’t just ignore it. It makes her angry and so she decided to poke at him. Which is a bad decision and makes her look like a bongo but I think it makes sense. You don’t undo your past by changing anyway, and she doesn’t even believe that’s possible.

      Joe should have just ignored her comments. It seems like he half accepts some people are just going to assume he’s a bad person but he also can’t just let it go. Some people aren’t going to ever like you if you’ve done something bad enough. You can change how you act now but not the past. So to me he’s being too defensive (though he’s doing his best) but that makes sense when someone accuses you of stuff randomly in person.

      So I think the whole interaction makes sense. Neither of them can control how they feel about it. I do hope Rachel sees people can change because it’s clearly doing her a disservice. It would be better if she could tolerate Joe’s presence.

    5. BorkBorkBork

      Joe didn’t seek Rachel out; rather, he’s been actively avoiding confrontation.

      When SHE confronts HIM, he’s simply honest, forthright, and respectful, despite jab after jab, and accepts responsability for the past. And if THAT was a scathing takedown, then things have certainly tamed up for you young’uns.

      Joe, clearly, never expected her to like him, and isn’t actively trying to get her to like him. Rather, I think that in this moment he pities her. He sees how her viewpoint is so twisted that it just doesn’t work in the real world, and what loops she has to jump through to maintain that illusion.

  42. Felgraf

    When a person has decided that your every action is either
    1) Proof of your reprehensible behavior
    2) Proof that you are sneakily trying to hide your true nature

    then yeah, there is 0 point in engaging.

  43. Nadamás

    Honestly, probably wasn’t worth it reading tge comments today either if it’s gonna the same arguments all over again from the previous strips with Rachel.

    1. SarahTerra

      I recommend going back through and looking at how you’re speaking at people.

      1. Taffy

        They already know, because they do it on purpose.

        1. Nadamás

          Whatever it is you made up on your head that i do “on purpose” please keep it to yourself.

        2. Taffy

          The constant, relentless negativity and vitriol in 100% of all cases? Let’s not pretend that’s an accident.

        3. Nadamás

          Sure buddy whatever you say

        4. Taffy

          You owe me $1000.

        5. Nadamás

          I don’t care.

        6. Taffy

          No, of course not. Because all you care about is being shitty to people in place of having a personality.

        7. Nadamás

          Take one to know one i suppose.

        8. Taffy

          You’re not a person though, you’re an affected front put out by a person to cope with some sort of absence in their life.

        9. Nadamás

          Is there any point to this? Because i don’t see unless you just like being an obnoxious weirdo for fun?

        10. Taffy

          No, there really isn’t a lot of point to interacting with you. I just needed something to do while I took a shit.

        11. Nadamás

          Well good riddance then.

        12. Yumi

          Remember when you two used to get along decently…

        13. Taffy

          No? They showed up at random a few weeks ago and started shitting on everything everyone else has to say. I have no recollection of them before that.

        14. Yumi

          I’ve just assumed from like a couple days since they started posting that it’s Jeremiah commenting under a different name.

        15. Nadamás

          Not really i don’t have that good a memory :/

        16. Nadamás

          I deleted the previous one because i needed a break from here at the time. For reason that should be apparent by now.

        17. Vaishino

          You accusing anyone of relentless negativity and vitriol is rich given your reaction to seeing Rachel is to post fantasies about her violent death. Yesterday you said you wanted her lit on fire, before that it was stabbed, today it’s drowning.

        18. Taffy

          Okay, but I also say other things. It’s not my responsibility for you to notice that.

      2. Nadamás

        Did and you know what? I am perfectly ok with the way i “speak at people” thanks you very much.

    2. Xujhan

      I like to imagine that in the DoA universe, one of Amber’s favourite webcomics is populated by all the people from this comment section and she spends as much of her time having awful opinions about us as we do about DoA characters. It only seems fair, really.

      1. Nadamás

        I hope she hates me with all her heart.

  44. Acher4

    Disloyal? Joe? Joe???

    Seriously Rachel…. f off.

  45. Lysbeth

    Joe is being incredible. Ever since the Dorothy storm… it’s just… He’s what, barely eighteen? And a bigger person than I am at 26. Not a strictly impossible standard he’s setting but for sure an impressive one.

  46. Amelie Wikström

    When Rachel figures out she’s being an asshole to everyone and wants to change, do you think she’ll decide she has always been pro-change or start fighting herself Gollum style?

    1. morleuca

      From what we’ve seen, Rachel isn’t really one for introspection. But then, people who refuse to believe in personal change wouldn’t, would they?

    2. Vaishino

      TBF she isn’t an asshole to everyone, just people who hurt her.

      1. Amelie Wikström

        It’s possible, but the only people we have seen her interact with is Ruth and Joe, and the only thing she does with either of them is confront them in public about how they should not try to change their wicked ways because it’s impossible. No difference if they’ve terrorized her for over a school year or made her uncomfortable with unwelcome advances twice.

        1. Vaishino

          It’s almost like it’s not really fair to draw conclusions about the entirety of a character’s personality from how they interact with two people.

  47. Yeet

    I think this is basically the best way joe could have handled this
    I wonder if we’re gonna hear more about what happened between rachel and ruth or whatever else her damage is

    1. Bryy

      It’s gonna be fucking nuts, whatever it is.

  48. Vulcanodon

    Fantastic response from Joe. Cynicism destroys hope that healing is possible. Objectively, some people learn about a better way and realize they are tired of being the way they are. Maybe they learned hurtful attitudes from their parents, and/or society, but they’ve had enough of that.

  49. The Queer Agenda [frog memes]

    Joe’s right, this is a grave insult to Sarah. If he were still behaving how Rachel expected, Sarah would’ve been getting her workout by threatening him with a bat.

    Jokes aside, it is certainly true that shitty people can try to launder their reputations via who they’re seen with. His act would need to be perfect around Sarah’s entire social circle to be tolerated whatsoever by her, though.

    Perfectly reasonable for Rachel to still not trust him or want anything to do with him, but until he re-offends, she doesn’t have much excuse to harass him while he’s minding his own business. Evisceration would be be justified if he approached her and demanded she accept him now because he’s “changed,” but there’s none of that happening here.

  50. Andrusi

    People change, but comment sections don’t.

    1. Taffy

      My personal theory is that more people should re-read the comic more frequently. Lots of little misunderstandings and misrememberings that lead to unnecessary arguments.

  51. John

    Fuck yes, Joe.

  52. Nullset

    Joe really has changed a lot! He’s now giving Roomies era Danny style moral speeches.

    1. Nadamás

      Not really.

      1. Nullset

        Good talk.

  53. Dandi Andi

    I’m 100% with Rachel here. People can change, but he still did what he did and nobody owes him a second chance. He has given her at least one very good reason not to trust him and zero reasons to change her mind.

    1. Taffy

      The word “owe” shows up constantly about this, but he’s not asking her for a second chance, so it does make sense to say he’s not owed what he’s not seeking.

      1. Purple Floof

        Exactly – it’d be one thing if Joe was trying to interact with Rachel, but every time they’ve talked recently it’s been Rachel initiating contact specifically to give Joe shit casting doubt on him changing, citing her belief that people can’t change.

        1. Vaishino

          The gym encounter here is literally the only time Rachel’s initiated contact, and it’s because he’s in a space she thought she wouldn’t find him in.

        2. Purple Floof

          True, but it was two separate instances at the gym where she went out of her way to interact with him while he was minding his own business – their first interaction – then Sarah shows up and shows she trusts him enough to be her spotter (not-so-subtle Willis-given BTFO for Rachel), then she circles back to be a jerkass to Joe again while he continues to mind his own business after Sarah leaves.

      2. Taffy

        *Doesn’t make sense, rather.

    2. Bittersweet

      The only thing Joe is asking for, he isn’t even asking for, and that’s the ability to work out in peace without Rachel coming up and chewing him out completely unprompted. It would be shitty enough if she just made snide comments from a distance, but way more normal and defensible behavior in general. Like, if she were talking to a friend or just to herself I’d be like “Ah, cool, yeah, we’ve all done that before.”

      HE DOES NOT KNOW THIS WOMAN. They have no history outside of his admittedly shitty comments. I got catcalled once at a Petsmart, I do not have the right to run into that man at Planet Fitness and berate him while he’s on the machines, even if I found out that he did something legal yet morally reprehensible. That’s Twitter style behavior and people absolutely should not engage in internet behavior irl, for their safety/sanity and others’!

      Like, if Joe really was the outright monster Rachel believes, she is putting herself in incredible danger trying to bait him like this. She has every right to hate him and be disgusted by him, but she’s so focused on the past that she’s completely neglecting to actually finish the follow through on her logic and thoughts. Maybe that’s just me being a chronic overthinker though.

    3. Jammy

      So you’re super into aggressively walking up and judging people and holding grudges, even when they’re not really relevant to your current life? Well, that says something. I guess you’re allowed to be superior and rude to people if it makes you feel better, but I don’t endorse it.

      1. Dandi Andi

        Being rude to sex pests who have done nothing to indicate that they are not sex posts anymore? Yes. Yes I am.

        1. Amelie Wikström

          But in Rachel’s world people can’t change. There’s nothing that would indicate he’s stopped being a sex pest. And there’s nothing she can say to change that either. So what’s the point? Making sure he’s going to stop bother her and go out of his way to avoid her in the future? He already did that, but then again, it’s not possible to change so clearly he hasn’t, and won’t.

        2. Amelie Wikström

          Maybe the point is to get him to stop being nice to his girlfriend and her friends and go back to being unpleasant to everyone with boobs? Making the campus less fun and less safe for everyone right now cause he’s just pretending and he’ll hurt them eventually anyway? I really don’t see any other endgame for Rachel.

        3. Dandi Andi

          Or maybe the point is that he’s a sex pest in an environment where Rachel has no reasonable expectation that the people with institutional authority will keep her safe and she has to share space with a man who has harassed her and her friends. Could be that.

        4. Amelie Wikström

          That is a completely useless answer to the question “what is the point of being rude to him?”

        5. Amelie Wikström

          I mean if I reframe the question as “what does Rachel want and how is this strategy working for her in accomplishing that?” is the answer still going to be “Joe is a bad person”?

        6. Dandi Andi

          The answer is “Joe is a danger to her and she wants him to go away”

        7. Amelie Wikström

          Well, if that’s what she wants she’s certainly not communicating it with her words and deeds, let alone accomplishing it.

        8. Dandi Andi

          I mean… he left. He literally went away. Maybe I’m the idiot but I don’t see how she’s “not accomplishing” making him go away when he clearly went away.

        9. Nadamás

          I mean he didn’t go away because of her he was just finished with he was doing, we don’t even know if he actually left and not just move to another part of the gym.

        10. Amelie Wikström

          Oh no it was clearly her cutting remarks about how Joe doesn’t belong in public spaces that drove him away from the gym once he had done what he came there to do. What

        11. Amelie Wikström

          But seriously, on what planet does whining about philosophy at a guy for, let’s assume 30 minutes until he feels sorry enough for you to impart some advice to let you know you’re being a jackass work better to be left alone than saying something like “I don’t want to be around you, do you want to leave or are you going to make me?” Or even communicating what she wants a little bit?

        12. Amelie Wikström

          Me, when I talk to people as vague about her intentions as Rachel (mostly white supremacists on Twitter) I never stop pestering them to explain what they want or how I can help them. Or if they insinuate there’s something they want but don’t just say it, I’m going to be as obstinate as possible. If you have guessed her motivations correctly, and if it was me in Joe’s place, I’d definitely make her whole day miserable, probably without realizing it.

          I’m not complaining that she doesn’t trust Joe’s change of heart. I’m not even particularly pushing back on her “change is impossible” philosophy at this particular point. All I’m saying is, whatever Rachel wanted to do here there had to be fifteen better ways to do it.

        13. Dandi Andi

          And maybe what she wanted was to be mean to the guy who sexually harassed her and her friends. Maybe she wanted to make the sexual predator feel bad about himself because she’s now forced to either share space with him or withdraw from public spaces herself. Maybe she just want to vent her anger at the guy who EVERY SINGLE INTERACTION with him has been harassing her or insulting her or one singular apology claiming “he thought he was being funny”. And if she wants to be mean to him for the sake of being mean to him?

          GOOD
          FOR
          HER

          Because fuck that guy. If she just wants him to feel bad, I hope she gets what she wants. Because Joe SHOULD feel bad and he should continue to feel bad as long as he continues to impose his presence on the women he’s hurt.

        14. Amelie Wikström

          Alright. Mission accomplished. He’s definitely feeling bad and changing his ways to avoid being near women he has hurt because of this interaction.

        15. Bryy

          You’d have a point if this entire encounter was not Rachel verbally refusing reality in order to keep her view of people as well as actively engaging with Joe.

        16. Taffy

          Ironically, the anti-anti-Rachel camp does the same thing she does, refusing reality to keep their negative views of (real) people intact.

    4. Hambone Jones

      He’s done literally nothing to change her mind and one very bad thing, you say? So these last handful of comics where he literally helped Sarah for no personal gain didn’t happen? I thought everything was canon. My bad.

  54. Opus the Poet

    Rachel seems to function like the current ruling party, very transactional. Everything is done in exchange for something, which makes their outlook on prostitution bizarre. That’s the logical outcome of transactional relationships with money instead of barter.

  55. Elsewise

    Joe: I’m not cheating on Joyce with Sarah, and frankly it’s rude that you think Sarah would do that to her best friend.

    Rachel: Yeah, cheaters LOVE not cheating on people, it gives them plausible deniability!

    Joe: wut

    1. levana

      I think Rachel’s parsing it more as “I’m not cheating on Joyce with Sarah- that makes me look good, right?” She’s not correct about it, but she’s also not particularly privy to all of Joe’s sadboy arc.

    2. Taffy

      She’s grasping at straws so desperately, it makes her look like a lunatic.

    3. Brendan of 6

      …No.

      Joe: I’m not cheating on Joyce with Sarah, and frankly it’s rude that you think Sarah would do that to her best friend.

      Rachel: Yeah, cheaters *love* surrounding themselves with people that quote “wouldn’t cheat” end quote. It gives them plausible deniability!

      1. Taffy

        Either way, she’s shitting on Sarah for no reason.

        1. Vaishino

          The last time she encountered Sarah, Sarah tried to recruit her to seduce Joe. She probably doesn’t have a very high opinion of Sarah either and I couldn’t blame her based on that interaction.

        2. Taffy

          She didn’t even hear her out in that strip. She just automatically shut down whatever Sarah was gonna say. We have no information in either direction on whether she heard Sarah’s request to Threesome Girl, so I don’t think it’s useful for gauging this.

        3. Vaishino

          She was standing right there when the door closed, she’d have to be deaf to not catch that. I love the selective charitability as long as it paints Rachel in the worst light possible.

        4. Taffy

          What are you on about, “selective charitability”? Like that would be the only time a character hasn’t heard something another character has said just by nature of not having been in the panel. You need to get the pre-existing notion out of your head that I’m trying to paint Rachel in the worst light possible, it’s not valuable.

          That aside, even if we assume she heard the exchange in full, that doesn’t justify her shitting on Sarah like she’s ever wronged her. Rachel is a useless piece of shit who exists only to being others down, that is her entire function in this comic. She has no friends to bounce off of, no hobbies, no role outside of belittling other characters. I don’t need to paint her in the worst light possible, because she’s already a fully negative presence in the comic.

        5. Vaishino

          It’s not a pre-existing notion, it’s literally the conclusion I’ve drawn from observing your behaviour.
          Case in point here, she’s barely in the strip, so you’ve decided in your head that her entire personality is to shit on people, that she has no friends and no hobbies, she only goes to places to be a dick to people. You say you aren’t trying to paint her in the worst light possible, and then you invent a one-dimensional representation of her as a moustache twirling misanthrope.
          She’s off doing normal student things when she’s not showing up in the comic, she’s not in some stasis pod waiting to be thawed out for when Joe needs to dunk on someone.

        6. Taffy

          Except I’m describing the function of a fictional character, so no, she’s not doing those things when she’s not appearing. She’s just non-existent beyond these appearances, in which she’s fully negative to everyone. I don’t care about what she’s hypothetically doing within the world of the fiction, because that world isn’t real and doesn’t have any bearing on what we see of her. You’re treating this like she’s a real person with thoughts and a deep inner world, and I like to indulge in that luxury myself from time to time, but it’s just simply not how I look at this comic most days. We’re coming at this character from different angles, and it would help if you’d reconcile that fact with how you’re responding to the things I’ve said.

          In the comic as presented, Rachel’s never shown having friends, never shown with a hobby, and always has something negative to say to anyone she encounters. Nothing is ever good enough for her and she makes that everyone else’s problem. That is what Rachel is as a character. I do not care about her beyond what’s shown, and any assumptions to the contrary are based on a misunderstanding of what I’ve said. Hell, I can say I wanna see her killed off and people treat that like it’s a harmful thing to say.

        7. Vaishino

          “I’m describing the function of a fictional character, so no, she’s not doing those things when she’s not appearing”
          Oh okay. You could have just saved a lot of typing by saying “I don’t think David Willis has written her as a character with any depth” which says more about how you approach his writing than anything else. He’s spoken about characters beyond their in-strip appearances a lot over on his tumblr. You don’t seem to understand how writing works if you think characters don’t have existence outside of their appearance in the narrative.

        8. Taffy

          I understand how writing works just fine, and your condescending attitude is less important than playing Final Fantasy 13 for my first time. Please have the day you earn for yourself, and feel free to imagine my evening as atrocity-filled as you’d like.

        9. Vaishino

          Lol, clearly you don’t if you don’t understand how a character’s background or daily life doesn’t need to be explicitly shown for it to actually play a part in their story. I don’t need to imagine you having an atrocity filled evening, I just need to wait for Rachel to appear again in the strip and you’ll live up to the hype.

        10. Taffy

          Lightning is very pretty. I like her pink hair.

  56. Annika

    I know a lot of people in the comments section think that what Joe says here is good, but to me it reads as kinda shitty and patronizing. Like, you were super gross to this girl and many others and she’s still angry with you for it and that’s totally understandable. It’s crappy to essentially chide her about it.

    1. Vaishino

      Careful, applying more than one dimension to a minor character in the comments section is liable to get you a stern talking to from the regulars.

      1. Bryy

        I will admit I did get a chuckle from that.

        “The Regulars”

    2. Amelie Wikström

      Well, what should he say? Most of what Rachel talks about doesn’t even have to do with Joe, less any anger she has towards him. She’s talking about her childish personal philosophy at him and not expecting any conversation, maybe the correct response would be ignoring her? Except that’s also rude and patronizing.

      1. Vaishino

        He could have tried “Hey I’m just working out, leave me alone and I’ll leave you alone” and established an actual boundary instead of engaging.

        1. Amelie Wikström

          But of course that’d be arrogant, like he’s not willing to be held accountable and hear out the people he’s wronged.

      2. Taffy

        It would be extremely funny if the other characters just fully ignored her and didn’t so much as acknowledge her presence whenever she shows up to berate them. It’s rude, sure, but it’s what she’s earned for herself.

  57. Caro

    joe has got so profound

    1. Taffy

      If nothing else he’s gotten more mature. If he had to engage with Rachel at all, at least he’s got the self-control to keep it civil and direct, without ever giving her more ammo.

  58. Snoopy

    “I won’t begrudge you if you ever want to change”

    That right there is the crux of everything. Yes, you don’t get to change your past behavior. You are responsible to it, absolutely. You are not beholden to it being who you are for the rest of your life. Meaningful change happens one day at a time and people who will not allow you to do that because they don’t want to allow you to leave THEIR paradigm? That is really disappointing.

  59. Lenks

    I had been wondering how deep Rachel’s beliefs go and whether she also believes herself to be incapable of change or growth. I think lots of us know we’ve changed as we’ve become more aware of social and economic power structures that privilege us—does she think she’s as bad as she was before she learned of unconscious bias or does she think she’s always been perfectly moral? Or is this the crack in her philosophy that might get her to start coming around?

    1. Bryy

      Yeah, we don’t have enough evidence to know what Rachel thinks of herself.

  60. SpongegirlCircleskirt

    Love has made Joe grow up so much, but since this is his first time being in love, it makes him extremely vulnerable. Joyce has no idea the power she has over him. It’s a good thing she is a sweetheart.

  61. AnonGrouch

    The comments sure are ‘normal’ today and not the fun kind.

    1. Taffy

      Yeah, sorry for that. Unfortunately, I saw a preview on Bluesky that looks like we’re heading back to the protest tomorrow, so that’ll be fun.

  62. AnonGrouch

    At least this side story involved getting Sarah the tools to get jacked. The most I can hope for the protest story arc is no one dying or acting bigotedly which given the reality it is drawing from is not good odds. I’m sure that’ll be a very ‘normal’ comments section too… Yay /s

    1. AnonGrouch

      Whoops dunno why that didnt get made as a reply to Taffy, ahwell

    2. Taffy

      I think we should all start focusing on the good things, like Sarah getting muscular arms and Jocelyne getting a 193lb Mexican-Greek girlfriend.

      1. AnonGrouch

        A couple that can lift each other up literally and metaphorically are one that can conquer all

  63. Badger

    A LONG overdue, and yet composed, telling off. Well done, Joe.

  64. Owlmirror

    So I had this idea about Rachel, and it just keeps banging around in my head, so I think I need to post it here to exorcise it . . .

    Probably no-one will read it. Or maybe I’ll link to it or repost it next time the Joe+Rachel subplot comes up, and see what happens.

    Joe seeks out Rachel:

    Joe: Uh, hey, it occurred to me that maybe you were being so accusatory towards me because I remind you of some abuser in your life. So, I just wanted to acknowledge that we can’t always choose how we process trauma, and I guess, if you feel the need to lash out at me, I can take it.

    Joe: So . . . that’s all. Unless you want to yell at me right this minute.

    Rachel: . . .

    Rachel: You know, maybe I should in fact vent to you. It might help me to unburden myself. I don’t know how it will make you feel, though.

    Rachel: OK, so do you know what a whisper network is?

    Joe: *ohshit expression*

    Joe: Yeah . . . that came up in gender studies . . .

    Rachel: My mom works at the hospital where Dr. Richard Rosenthal has his residency.

    Joe: *ohshit expression intensifies*

    Rachel: She’s not a nurse or anything; she’s in the administrative side of things.

    Rachel: On the few times a year that I went to work with my mom because of school closings and “Bring Your Daughter to Work” days and so on, the women who worked with my mom would talk about various things, but eventually, they would talk about all the men who . . . did stuff to women. They toned their language down when they knew I was listening, but were more explicit when they thought I had gone to the bathroom and not come back yet.

    Rachel: And Richard Rosenthal inevitably came up as a topic, with warnings given to the newer hires.

    Rachel: And when they did talk about Doctor Rosenthal, the older women — the ones who had been there before I was born — would glance at me, and glance at my mom with this subtle questioning look. And my mom would give the smallest shake of her head.

    Rachel: When I got older, I decided to snoop a little. My mom hadn’t locked anything away. There was an envelope in the important papers box. And inside it was letters, and notes, and printouts of e-mails, and photocopies of checks, and small gifts, and so on. All from Dr. Rosenthal.

    Rachel: Some of the letters were promises that he and his wife were separated, and he was going to finalize the divorce and marry my mom, and other such lies and nonsense.

    Rachel: The last letter . . . I can do math, and it was about 8 months before I was born. And it said something along the lines of “Here’s a lot of money to go to a clinic in New York City and take care of the problem, and take a few months off afterwards”.

    Rachel: I finally confronted my mom, and she confirmed that, yes, Dr. Richard Rosenthal was the sperm donor half responsible for my existence, and she didn’t want anything more to do with him, and she didn’t want to talk about it anymore.

    Rachel: Imagine my feelings when I saw Dr. Rosenthal at the beginning of this semester, with his son, born a year after me. And imagine my feelings when I see that the son is a physical and behavioral clone of his father.

    Rachel: How am I supposed to believe in change when I see history repeating before my eyes?

    Rachel: So. Anyway. I guess I’ve been needling you, my biological half-brother, because I’m trying to shift my trauma onto you, even though you couldn’t have known where it came from. But now you do know, so maybe I can stop.

    Rachel: Huh. I do feel a little better. Ok, bye now. *walks away*

    Joe: *looks horrified and heartbroken*

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