450

Self-serving
Posted on June 10, 2025 by David M Willis

450 thoughts on “Self-serving”

  1. NGPZ

    Sarah, phrasing XD

    1. darkoneko

      yes. It’s not polycule time (yet)

      1. Steamweed

        The polycule must form organically. From one or maybe two seed couples, who slowly bring in more. Then eventually coalesce. The quantum superposition soon collapses to the natural state. And then they all cuddle-puddle each other at all times.

    2. anon

      tbf not a lot of available idioms out there that would fit inthis case

      tho busy-ness aside i’d think she’d wanna ask tony himself as like an exercise date or so (but i just keep thinking of that one parks&recs quote like “god it keeps you healthy but at what cost”)

  2. ZombieKyrik

    I wonder what happened to make Rachel believe that. Clearly this isn’t just a response to Joe.

    1. Taigan

      I think it started as “something happened to her,” but has since evolved into an excuse to not try changing herself.

      1. Archieve

        Her basically telling Joe to give up on being better does seem like a crab bucket mentality “I can get out so you shouldn’t either”

        1. Archieve

          *cant

        2. James

          Yeah at this point it definitely feels more like she’s convincing herself than anything, but I guess we’ll see.

      2. Qube

        yeah because if everyone can’t change that means there’s justification for why she hasn’t, and if she was projecting any goddamn harder you could point her at a wall and watch a movie

      3. CrimsonStorm

        “I used to be a piece of shit. Spiked up blonde hair, little bitty jeans, chicken spaghetti at Chickelittis. People can change.”

        1. Osopescado

          You think this is slicked back?? This is PUSHED back!

      4. MyBlueBox

        Which, ironically, is self-serving too. She can’t be arsed to change so she develops an ideology that change, self-improvement perhaps in particular, is selfish and selfishness is bad so change is bad.

    2. Nono

      Rooming with Ruth.

      1. Adam Black

        I half remember a speech about abusers, so I think there is more than that.

    3. Ovan-Creator

      Might have something to do with what happened when she was roommates with Ruth. She did the same song and dance when Ruth apologized to the residents regarding her drinking.

      1. Masumi

        That probably contributed, but her issue seems to run deeper than “shitty roommate for a semester”. I’m guessing a never-changing (despite repeated promises) parent.

        1. Nono

          I’m guessing it was at least a year, unless one of them asked for a room change.

    4. Charles Phipps

      I think the implication is someone was given a chance by Rachel and they really took advantage of it.

      Sort of like how Becky offered a chance for her father to be her father again but he rejected her.

      1. Psi baka onna

        Well I don’t remember Rachel’s dad appearing during the flashback and certain patterns have cropped up in this comic…

        Seems good odds that she’s a member of the evil dad havers club is what I’m saying

        1. Steamweed

          A distinct possibility. Possibly a member of the related group, Evil Mom Havers.

        2. thejeff

          She was with her mom in the flashback and there weren’t any obvious signs, though it’s always possible.

    5. Rose by Any other Name

      I will say, “people don’t change” is a fundamentally flawed stance.
      Do people not overcome fears?
      Do people not learn new skills?
      Do people not exercise to improve their bodies?
      Everyone changes. Constantly.
      Whether that change is positive, negative, or lateral – that is the question. A far more nuanced question as Sarah has just so aptly demonstrated.

      1. Charles Phipps

        I’m sure Willis has a much deeper story but my present theory is that Rachel and Ruth went through some serious shit that led to the former being horribly disillusioned by her. Something that is a life defining betrayal.

        And Ruth doesn’t even remember because it was just another Thursday to her.

      2. Bogeywoman

        All that you touch
        You Change.
        All that you Change
        Changes you.
        The only lasting truth
        Is Change.
        God
        Is Change.

        1. Bogeywoman

          (source: Parable of the Sower, Octavia Butler.)

      3. Regret

        I’m assuming Rachel has a very flexible definition of “change”.

      4. Psychie

        There’s also the fact that her logic here doesn’t even really add up, like she’s basically trying to claim that the change isn’t a change because it’s self-serving.

        An action being self-serving does not make it fundamentally bad, literally all acts of charity or generosity are self-serving on some level, that doesn’t negate the good, and it doesn’t make charity bad. So trying to be a better person would also be fundamentally self-serving, but so what? Once he’s achieved that long-term goal and successfully become a better person, change still will have occurred, and the people around him will have benefitted from it, even if he ultimately did it for himself.

        1. shikomekidomi

          Even further, putting aside moral questions, if Joe is now capable of more self control in pursuit of ‘delayed gratification’ than he was before, that is, itself, a change.

    6. UrsulaDavina

      Apparently something that happened with Ruth who was her roommate at some point.

    7. TheLurkerAbove

      I’ve said this before, but Rachel is BITTER.

      1. Nymph

        Yes, definitely. But bitterness comes from somewhere, and given that she’s very young to be that bitter already, I’m assuming whatever happened was extremely difficult and painful. I wanna know what that was.

      2. Steamweed

        A wee bit of bitterness, mixed in with a wee bit of cynicism.

    8. Straximus

      I have a feeling we’ll be finding out sooner rather than later.

    9. Jon

      Sounds to me like someone made her read Ayn Rand at an early age. That’s exactly the sort of rhetoric I hear from Randians who refuse to believe in any form of altruism – you’re not helping people out of the goodness of your heart, you’re doing it to get something! (Even when that “something” is “feeling good about how you acted”.)

      1. thejeff

        Yeah, but Randians usually take it as “And that’s right. That’s how people should be.”

        1. Buli-Buli

          Nah. Randians are more “that is how it is” and insisting to the contrary makes you delusional or a liar.

    10. StarfighterVicki

      I’m guessing someone before Ruth hurt her. This feels like she’s heard “I promise I’ll change” from someone who didn’t too many times, and as far as we know, by the time she met Ruth, Ruth was deep in “this is going to kill me and I’m going to let it.”

  3. TheFungus

    And three’s company! Now BOTH of Joe’s Walkyverse exes are in the room!

    1. Needfuldoer

      Come and knock on our door
      We’ve been waiting for you
      And the something then John Ritter crashes his bike
      Three’s Company, too

  4. The 25th

    I never really thought Joe was that attractive but the sleeveless look does wonders for him.

    1. Rose by Any other Name

      He is a fine hunk of man meat, tis true.
      I tend to prefer my men more on the twink side, but I can appreciate him from a purely aesthetic pov.

    2. Nono

      Man knows he has good shoulders and is dressing to flatter them.

      And assuming he doesn’t skip leg days, short shorts are also great for accentuating those assets.

      1. Nymph

        A loud and enthusiastic upvote for beefy men in short-shorts.

    3. Purple Floof

      Imagine Joyce’ thoughts on the matter

      1. Steamweed

        Little bit of thoughts…quite a bit of hormones.

  5. Lumino

    Sarah and Joe are in a strip together and are NOT the source of animosity.

    Can somebody go check the wet bulb temperature in Hell?

    1. Charles Phipps

      I wonder if Rachel is more pissed off that Sara has a boyfriend, is socializing, or socializing with Joe.

      Because that is a bigger contradiction to her philosophy than Scrooge changing due to the ghosts.

      1. Shade

        Oh I was just thinking it was because Sarah trusts him, but yeah now that you mention it Sarah is also throwing a lot of change into that discussion.

      2. Nymph

        She doesn’t really look pissed off at all in that last panel. She looks… contemplative/thoughtful? Maybe a little confused. Not seeing pissed off, though.

        1. Insanenoodlyguy

          She’s wrestling with her perverse sexual lust for Joe. And now Sarah’s talking about football boys so it’s getting worse.

        2. Nymph

          Sure, that’s the wrongest possible take on the situation. Go for it.

  6. apricot

    Setup, meet punchline ? thank you, Sarah

  7. Sirksome

    Everyone in Reed hall is a fitness model! I am now convinced!

    1. Sirksome

      “Read hall”

    2. Nono

      I dunno, Ethan is looking a bit Hot Topic these days.

    3. Nadamás

      This is not Portland.

    4. Purple Floof

      Front Desk Lady must be a hidden gem, by that logic

      1. Dean

        The glass is there to protect visitors from being blinded.

  8. Dot

    What a boring and myopic view of humanity. Rachel must be fun at parties.

    1. Quinn

      Who is inviting her to parties?

      1. Purple Floof

        Nobody, and that will never change because people don’t change, obviously

      2. tim gueguen

        Hardcore goths who turn dark and gloomy up to 110?

        1. VicMortimer

          Definitely NOT. I’ve never met a single goth who would want THAT shit around. Goths can be pretty dark and gloomy, but they’re almost always friendly.

    2. Nymph

      Yeah, sometimes trauma makes you not fun at parties. That’s life.

      1. Dot

        I have no idea what Rachel’s supposed trauma is and therefore I am under no obligation to give her any benefit of the doubt vis a vis her terrible attitude that makes me actively groan anytime she’s on panel to shit on every other person actively attempting to better themselves.

        1. Nymph

          lmao, who said you were obligated to do anything?

    3. Queen Anthai

      In her defense, have you met humanity?

      1. Clif

        You should introduce us sometime.

  9. Nono

    I thought the better play would be to ask Tony for help in the gym so she could feel his strong, warm, helping hands assisting her.

    1. Alongcameaspider

      Maybe she wants to figure out some basics first so she doesnt make a complete fool of herself in front of Tony

      Not that Tony would care that much but it could be a concern in her mind

      1. Boop

        That’s it for sure. Shows how serious Sarah’s taking this relationship and I totally love it

      2. Tan

        Also if Sarah learns on her own time first, she can then spend more time with Tony both of them working out in parallel. Tony teaching her from scratch would be an extra trip to the gym for him. Not that I think he’d mind doing that for her, but this makes it a nice surprise.

    2. DailyBrad

      Tony probably doesn’t have a lot of time for that kind of thing given his athletics. Like, if he’s working out, it’s probably with teammates or pushing himself, whereas Joe doesn’t have some of those constraints.

    3. Li

      On top of other good points here, I think Sarah would probably feel a lot shyer about asking Tony to help — as well as more distracted by said strong, warm, helping hands.

      Plus, if the idea occurred to her, it probably reminded her too much of the last time she was at the gym with Jacob, which went poorly for her.

    4. Shade

      It could also be that she wants it to be a surprise.

  10. Taffy

    “You’re still after something you want”
    Everyone is always after something they want. Stupid piece of shit.

    1. Doopyboop

      It reminds me of a scene in Bojack where some character were discussing selfishness and selflessness, hedonism and such, with one character saying “if you do charity and it feels good, it’s not truly selfless, you’re doing it to make yourself feel good”. I’m also being vague about the characters discussing this because it’s a bit of a spoiler lmao but it reminds me of this with Rachel. Everyone wants something and if it does something good… why not do it?

      1. Yotomoe

        There’s an episode of Apple and Onion basically built around the premise.

        1. CidGregor

          There’s an episode of Friends about it too!

        2. Dan

          Pretty sure some followers of Ayn Rand have made this argument too.

      2. Taffy

        Delayed gratification is constantly talked about as a good thing, too! Being patient and “earning” what you want instead of demanding it now now now, it’s super healthy for the human mind. Rachel treating it as something that’s Still Wrong™ is definitely her grasping at straws, and I wonder if her expression in the last panel is her starting to realize that.

        1. Doopyboop

          I think it’s especially something for her to hear Sarah, Sarah of all people, actually bending and showing some degree of trust in Joe. Tony’s been very good for her!

        2. Needfuldoer

          She always felt a little pity for Veruca Salt.

        3. Doopyboop

          I feel pity for Veruca, but only because she didn’t get to be a spoiled brat all by herself.

        4. Nymph

          And likely neither did Rachel. I’m betting something happened to make her that miserable about people changing.

      3. Charles Phipps

        Ayn Rand actually made the reverse of that argument. She said you should only do charity if it makes you feel good because selfishness was the only good thing.

        It was certainly a take.

        Why I prefer Bioshock’s read on her philosophy.

        1. Doopyboop

          Oh Ayn… she’s certainly… something…

        2. BarerMender

          Rand didn’t say that. She didn’t say either of those things. She said, “If you want to help the poor, you won’t be stopped.” She came out for rational self interest. I read her work in depth when I was a young man, and nowhere in there did she say “selfishness is the only good thing.” She was a brilliant person, but she did have hang ups. Of course, she grew up Jewish in the Soviet Union, and she lived through the Revolution, both February and October. Saw the bodies of the slaughtered lawmakers carried under her window. You’d have hangups, too.

        3. eh, whatever

          …but rather the opposite ones, as Hillary Clinton said about Putin.

        4. Charles Phipps

          This is the Ayn Rand that had a pirate hero who robbed humanitarian aid, Baremender? That Ayn Rand?

          https://aynrandlexicon.com/lexicon/charity.html

          “I do not consider charity a moral virtue nor do I consider it a moral duty.”

        5. thejeff

          “If you want to help the poor, you won’t be stopped” even by pirates. Who are heroes. For reasons.

        6. PB

          Yeah, I don’t agree with Rand’s beliefs, but once I read her history, a huge chunk of my brain went “ohhhhh, that explains it.”

        7. thejeff

          Yeah. Even without reading much of her history, I’d heard about her philosophy and argued with Objectivists online for a long time before I finally read Atlas Shrugged.

          The recurring talk of “People’s States” nationalizing businesses flipped the switch in my head to “This is just Red Scare stuff”. Learning even a small summary of her history just confirmed it.

          There really isn’t any more depth to it than that.

      4. Tequila Mockingbird

        To be fair, there is a long history of philosophical discussion on what the “true” definition of altruism and charity is. Some have said that “if you get something out of it or feel good doing it, then it’s not charity” others have come down on the side of “who cares about the side benefits, doing good is doing good.”

        Existential comics does a good job of laying out the different positions (at least I thought so.)

        1. Tequila Mockingbird

          Guess it doesn’t let me post links. Just go the Existential Comics 258, “An Ethical Dilemma Finally Resolved.”

        2. Doopyboop

          I don’t mind it as a thought experiment. It’s an interesting thing to ponder. For example, there’s a character in The Good Place who believes because they do charity they’re a good person, but they do the charity for attention and validation which renders their good will kinda null. I believe if you give a homeless person money or food, doing a good deed for the person is enough. I do think it in poor taste if someone say, live streams themselves giving assistance to the homeless.

        3. Dana

          I think if I were homeless and hungry I wouldn’t care too much if someone’s giving me a meal or a roof was in poor taste so long as I got help and wasn’t hassled about it.

        4. Doopyboop

          When I say it’d be in poor taste, I mainly mean the fact that sometimes people will film themselves ‘helping’ a homeless person and basically treat that person like an NPC or something. Like badgering them or turning them into a spectacle, you know? It’s just disrespectful. I’m sure if I were homeless I’d appreciate any help even if it came from a disrespectful person, I just think it’s shitty to act that way in general.

        5. Doopyboop

          I’m just saying I’ve given money, food, water, and SOMEHOW been able to avoid the “urge” to whip out my phone and put it in someone’s face while helping them out.

        6. Masumi

          I’d argue that the fact that humans tend to enjoy the attention they get for behaving charitably is one of evolutions ways to get us to cooperate more. So, while I agree that these things are sometimes done in poor taste, they’re still a net positive. And hey, maybe some of the people watching those streams will be like ‘oh wow that felt nice to watch, maybe I’ll go help someone out too’.

          Now, can we make fighting climate change the next big social media thing?

        7. Laura

          Depends on the situation. Lots of people value their privacy almost as much as they value material assistance in times of need. Or value privacy even more.

        8. Stiney

          I mean the whole arc of the Good Place was that the system used in Heaven and Hell was broken af and there were a lot of really nuanced discussions about what it means to be a good person. Saying Tahani really was awful, or that she deserved to be in hell because of her actions in life, kinda misses the point of the show IMO.

        9. Doopyboop

          It’s a good thing I didn’t say that about Tahani at all.

        10. Doopyboop

          Also I was trying to avoid mentioning spoilers for the show so thanks for that. It’s partially why I DIDN’T go in depth about Tahani, to avoid spoilers but fuck it then. I don’t think she deserved Hell and I think she was ultimately a good person. I feel for her, having such emotionally abusive parents. However, the show did have a point about Tahani using charity to bolster her own image and self worth. That doesn’t make her worthy of Hell, it just makes her motivations a bit flawed. And if I remember right, she winds up doing good charitable deeds without seeking recognition for it to make up for it. And goes too far and gives Jason like all her money or something lmao. But yeah. At no point did I say she deserved Hell.

        11. Strawb

          I’d argue if you’re ONLY doing it to feel good or say someone told you to and you want to make them happy then yeah it’s selfish (still a bet good to the world though). The fact we get warm fuzzies when we help is more likely evolution encouraging co-operation or it makes others happy so we feel empathetically happy (if you directly help someone). The fact someone feels good about charity while also being glad they helped (i.e. you donate to a cat shelter and you’re happy the cats have a home) means, to me at least, its not selfish. The philosophical argument always seemed too simplistic to me. People can feel more that one thing at once (I could obviously be ignorant of the full depth of the debate, philosophy is not my name).

        12. Strawb

          Omg I meant *net good and *not my jam

        13. DaveM

          “No greater love hath a man, than he lay down his life for his brother. Not for millions, not for glory, not for fame, but for one person, in the dark, where no one will ever know or see.” : Mr Sebastian.

      5. TulipKitten

        But that’s just confirmation bias with extra steps.

        Selfishness and selflessness are not inherently opposites. Yes, a self-serving motivation can be a conduit to a selfless action, but the idea that charity must be given with arduousness and pain for it to be truly “good” sounds like Puritanical bullshit.

        1. Shade

          Right telling someone that feeling good about doing good is wrong seems silly to me. It’s when you’re using it for exploitation and monetisation it starts to get questionable, you might still be helping people but using people is a bad thing to do as well.

      6. PB

        This is what bugged me so much about Kant’s philosophy. He argued that the only true good was done for no reward, but the problem is he also counted the good feeling that everyone gets from doing nice things as a “reward.” And all I could think was that if that’s how he feels, then he would say literally no one has ever done anything good for no reward. That feeling is a natural feeling and you can’t just turn it off, so what are people supposed to do?

    2. Yotomoe

      What? You’re not after stuff you don’t want? You don’t spend your time seeking negative stimuli?

      1. Taffy

        Well no, because [easy joke about rage bait and social media].

  11. Sirksome

    Also I don’t know what everyone else’s take on Rachel is but to me she’s giving off a lot of cat energy.

  12. Nono

    Also I’ll give Joe this: he’s pretty in shape. And I like that his general colour scheme of green has extended to his workout gear.

  13. Masha

    Any longer and I would’ve started hoping Joyce maliciously cheated on Joe for subjecting the viewer to this conversation and the subsequent comment section

    1. Rabbit

      Oh yeah, the last strip with Joyce in it totally cut any emotional investment I had in her which sucks. I’m just enjoying joe bs cuz he’s pretty til the inevitable shitstorm is on the horizon at this point.

      1. Risky

        You may be Rachel.

        1. Rabbit

          Unrelated. I believe people can change, but I can’t help my emotional reaction to certain events. It’s happened a handful of other times in other media I consume.

          It sucks, it feels bad, but It happened.

  14. Charles Phipps

    Rachel is creating an entire ideology that people are either good or bad and that they can only act within a framework of said thing.

    Which is actually something a friend of mine believed to prove free will didn’t exist.

    It was a very stupid argument because his argument for explaining why it didn’t exist still made the appearance of it exist.

    1. Dana

      Free will does appear to exist if I don’t think about it much but if I give it any thought I can’t find reason to believe that that appearance is more than an illusion. I’d be interested to know if you think my viewpoint is stupid or if it’s something more specific to his specific ideology.

      1. yak

        Compatibilism is the philosophical position that the belief in free will and the belief in determinism are mutually compatible. I actually consider determinism necessary for free will. If I am, roughly, the physical state of my body, and my decisions are not determined completely by the physical state of my body, then my decisions are not completely determined by me.

        Incompatibilism isn’t stupid by any means, but a lot of people just assume it’s true.

        Charles’ friend seems to just have a circular argument.

      2. OBBWG

        I do not know with certainty what will happen next nor do I know my specific future actions. Therefore, if things are predetermined, I do not know the predetermination. Thus, from my perspective, free will exists.

        1. thejeff

          I believe that I have free will. If I’m correct, then it was my logic and deductive abilities that led me to that conclusion. If I’m wrong, then I had no choice in the matter and can’t be responsible for reaching the wrong conclusion.

        2. Clif

          I define free will as the ability to make decisions and act on those decisions. I’m not sure how determinism affects that. I’ve certainly written completely deterministic software that analyses situations, makes decisions and then carries out those decision. If free will is something magical beyond the ability to make decisions and then act on those decisions, you will have to explain to me just what you mean by free will.

    2. Slartibeast Button, BIA

      So, Predestination, only God is optional?

      1. Charles Phipps

        We’re all just NPCs acting our roles in the Simulation!

    3. Risky

      You either came from a good sperm or a bad sperm, nothing you can do about it now.

      1. yak

        sounds awfully familiar to something about sex, now that you phrase it this way

      2. Slartibeast Button, BIA

        So that is where Evil Twins come from?

    4. Regret

      If you’re interested in the subject of free will, I can recommend reading Robert Sapolsky’s Determined: A Science Of Life Without Free Will.

  15. Sol

    I’m beginning to think that Rachel did something terrible and is full of guilt about it, based on the expressions she’s drawn with here and in another strip: https://www.dumbingofage.com/2017/comic/book-7/04-the-do-list/oath/

    Like… that looks like a guilty face to me. “We all have to live with our mistakes”.

    1. Taffy

      I’m telling you, she accidentally got her twin sister killed.

      1. Vanessa

        That seems plausible.

      2. Dante

        Only Joyce in a quest of righteous revenge can take this on

      3. JA

        Rachel has/had a twin?

        1. Taffy

          Yeah, her name was Diane and she died in a horrible clifftop accident.

        2. Needfuldoer

          To be clear, she didn’t fall off the cliff. That’s just where the accident just so happened to occur.

        3. Taffy

          No no, Diane fell. She fell in eerie silence, nearly half a mile down the side of the cliff. Rachel watched the entire time, knowing she handed Diane the wrong end of the stick when she couldn’t reach her.

        4. Thing2

          Liiiink.

        5. Nymph

          Okay I had to go hunting through the archives, but here you go!

        6. Steamweed

          “Yet.”

          Important note.

        7. Taffy

          Me when I’m running around Hyrule at random

        8. Clif

          Spoilers!

        9. Needfuldoer

          Eerie silence? No Wile E. Coyote descending whistle sound effect?

          Did she at least dizzily climb out of a perfectly-her-shaped impact crater?

        10. Taffy

          See, we don’t actually know what happened to her when she reached the bottom. Diane’s body was never found, but the area had so much snowfall and the trees were so dense, nobody had much hope of recovering her to begin with. It’s like genuinely bleak.

  16. EmTaya

    Every behaviour is self-serving. That’s not a bad thing

    1. Charles Phipps

      I mean, people can and do sacrifice themselves for their principles all the time.

      You could argue that Dorothy being willing to die or injure herself for Joyce is self-serving because she loves Joyce.

      But then you’ve eliminated any meaning for the word self-serving.

      1. Lilith

        i think more words should have their meanings eliminated and i’m NOT joking

        1. BarerMender

          Yes. Let’s start with “masculine” and “feminine.” And while we’re at it, let’s get “virginity.”

        2. Nymph

          Fuck yes. I would also like “cysts” eliminated because that is the ugliest word.

        3. Charles Phipps

          I dunno, a lot of my transwomen friends really love feminine as a concept.

          They revel in it as a fun and awesome pasttime.

        4. Regret

          You can just stop interacting with people, words only have meaning between two or more persons, if you’re alone, you won’t have words.

        5. Dwampre Scorrigank

          Tell that to my intrusive thoughts!

        6. Clif

          I wouldn’t want to intrude on the voices.

    2. Regret

      No it isn’t, behaviour doesn’t require a self.

      1. Dwampre Scorrigank

        Interesting statement, got an example of what your mean?

        1. Clif

          Spacetime moves in (gravitational) waves but space and time are only relationships between events.

      2. Taffy

        Are you drunk?

      3. Nymph

        It doesn’t require an internal and complete awareness of self (sentience/sapience), which is what I think you’re getting at, but it absolutely requires there to be an individual which can be called “itself” or other self-based pronouns.

        Even a bacteria has self-serving behavior.

    3. Carl Muckenhoupt

      I disagree. Lots of us have behaviors that are downright self-destructive. You’re mistaking humans for rational agents or something.

  17. Yotomoe

    It is kinda interesting idea. Is bettering yourself with the hope/expectations that you’ll be rewarded in some way even that bad? Like obviously everyone should ideally be good for goodness sake, but the end result is that you’re going to become a better version of yourself. Even if you’re selfishly doing it in pursuit of something or out of a fear of judgement. After all, nobody lives in a Vaccuum. When I’m kind I feel good about myself. It gives me dopamine. Does that mean that my kindness is self serving? A little. But the end result is more kindness in the world. Which is a net positive.

    1. Charles Phipps

      I feel like you can stretch the meaning of selfishness to be selfless but then that just makes it not selfishness anymore.

      1. Yotomoe

        I often allow myself to be selfish so long as it’s not selfishness that greatly inconveniences anyone. Being self serving is actually good, within reason.

        1. Shade

          Right like it is selfish to put yourself first sometimes, but its not wrong. If you’re always selfless that just opens you up to being used by other people.

        2. Charles Phipps

          A very wise man of mine said that good wasn’t always selfless because you deserve to be happy to.

    2. Armadillo

      It’s an interesting idea only in that it’s interesting how completely flawed it is. Humanity is not static. Change is a constant process whether you’re putting in the effort or not. People don’t change? Ridiculous. People ONLY change. It’s all they do. It’s unstoppable. All you can do is direct it in a certain direction, as Joe is doing.

      Rachel isn’t speaking a truth, she’s fighting against reality with everything in her being. She’s trying to insist change is a lie because she wants to remain stagnant on some level. Wants to cling to whatever meaning she found in whatever past mistake made her this way. But even then things are still changing beneath the surface. Pressure is building. Reality is rejecting her illusion of stillness, and her delusion is being weathered away.

      So yeah. It’s a very interesting idea. Fallacies can be like that sometimes.

    3. Risky

      It’s not a universal concept but it is in the bible, that if you do good works for personal gain, your reward is the personal gain and you can’t expect any eternal reward, and those good works prove nothing to god. A moral authority that knows you are doing good only for personal gain would thus not count you as “good” because of it, because even the most evil man can do some “good” just to fill their heavenly accounts.

      She’s not creating these concepts from whole cloth, but her position doesn’t bear even light scrutiny here.

      1. Taffy

        “and those food works prove nothing to God”

        Okay, well, God’s a huffy little unpleasable faggot then.

        1. Armadillo

          Just what you’d expect from a guy who wrote thought crimes into the ten commandments, eh?

        2. Taffy

          I don’t know any of those, but I think they’re probably shit and don’t command anything fun.

        3. Risky

          Free love! For everyone! Love your neighbor’s wife as you love yourself! It’s the same as loving Jesus! Just don’t be jealous! Same goes for your neighbor! No jealousy! No murder. No testifying against a defendant if you are lying. Nothing else about lying! No gay PinV sex (seems unnecessarily anti-trans but okay)! No saying the word f*ggot! That’s their word! Be nice to your parents unless you’ve disowned them or vice versa!

        4. Risky

          Technically gay PinV sex is okay if you would never have PinV sex with a woman, still seems unfair to to bisexuals.

        5. Risky

          Technically not one of the ten commandments anyway. I’m realizing I don’t know them by heart, just the things cultists yell at people.

        6. Risky

          No worshipping anyone or anything else other than him (wow okay that seems hypocritical that’s just jealousy). Don’t say god’s name because he’ll never answer so it will always be in vain!

          Okay so the first one about Free Love is technically not in the commandments but it’s considered the most important rule anyway, even more important than the Golden Rule, which you should follow if you love everyone anyway.

        7. Risky

          Bless me father for I have sinned. It’s been 20 hours since my last confession. I commented 5 times on the same comment, mostly to myself, without waiting for a response. I don’t play football so a hail mary is out of the question.

      2. Charles Phipps

        I’d argue that the Book of Job fumbles the message that would have otherwise been great and Jesus is much more clear.

        “Don’t be a good person when it’s easy because you won’t be rewarded in this life.”

        The Job absolutely is. Like, way to ruin the message.

      3. Strawb

        Tbf that stance makes sense as God (if he exists) would know with 100% certainty that thats what you were doing. So he’s kind of allowed to be judgey about it.

        Like I personally don’t want bad people to change their behaviour, I want them to change their viewpoint so they don’t want to do the bad behaviour. The first part is better than continuing to be bad but I don’t think it’s enough on its own really.

        My interpretation of the god and heaven thing is that if you want your soul rewarded you have to have a good soul. You can’t trick God. That’s why if you turn it around I the eleventh hour that’s also fine. If you’re trying to be good but don’t really believe in it then the implications is you gotta keep working on yourself. I think that’s the message.

    4. Queen Anthai

      IDGAF about motivations as long as the actions are positive. Thought crimes aren’t a thing.

  18. William

    Damn. Her goal posts are hitting hyperspace level velocity. 🙁

  19. IntangibleMatter

    According to Femtanyl, “People never change but skin will rot in any weather”.

    This isn’t exactly relevant but when confronted with phrases about people never changing it’s what I think of

  20. Archieve

    Does Rachel have any actual friends? weird to go put of your way to talk to someone who you believe is bad to the core.

    1. Charles Phipps

      A lot of Dumbing of Age is people being confronted by things that contradict their worldviews.

      Joe actually changing and not remaining a toxic masculinity himbo is something that bothers her because it implies that he isn’t a waste of space who can only do things like the Do List.

      She needs to confirm he’s not because if he’s done it….well, she’s wrong.

      1. PB

        And if she was wrong about that, then what ELSE is she wrong about?

        Yeah, she’s afraid of pulling this thread and unraveling the whole damn sweater.

    2. Reaver

      Naw they’d just want to be friends to make themselves feel good and that’s bad.

  21. Acebender

    Can’t win with Rachel. I wonder if she thinks that Joyce is still the same repressed fundie.

    1. Bryy

      Most likely would rephrase it as “your issue wasn’t religion”.

  22. Florence

    On the a narrative level I love this insight into the why of Rachel as a character

    I would find her deeply annoying if I heard what she said here in real life but character and story wise, we’ve finally struck gold

  23. Suet

    Desire from Lack, and Change from Desire

    i know writers who use static characters, and they’re all cowards

  24. Shakes

    No change.

    Exact emotional currency only.

    1. Nymph

      Amazing, bravo. Good joke.

  25. Amós Batista

    It’s 1AM and now I want to eat in a Self-service.
    Thank you, Willis. ???‍?

    1. Clif

      Fortunately my fridge is self-service.

  26. Creatrix Tiara

    Did Rachel do something that she thinks she can’t atone or forgive herself for?

    1. Charles Phipps

      Her reaction to Ruth implies it was done to her.

      Someone she gave a chance betrayed her trust.

  27. Victor Riley

    No, people don’t change. But we do evolve. It takes longer, but it works.

    1. Regret

      You’re using people in two different ways, to describe individuals and to describe a population. Individuals don’t evolve, populations do.

      1. Taffy

        Evolution is a word that exists outside of the biological phenomenon. You know that.

      2. Risky

        Individuals do evolve. You two are using evolve in two different ways. Even if you aren’t, individuals do evolve.

        1. eh, whatever

          Why was “evolve” ever extended from “descent with heritable modification” as a metaphor to the change of individual people?

        2. Liara

          Pretty sure evolve as a change is the older usage than Evolution

        3. Hastur

          Because languages evolve.

        4. Proxiehunter

          Like people do.

      3. Adept

        +1 science point to Regret.

  28. Wereg

    “Belief in change is a self-serving need”

    Oh my GOD Rachel is so insufferable.

    1. David

      Only a sith talks in absolutes :p

  29. dgf

    hol up, but if the selfish act also directly benefits other people, is it still selfish? probably, but I’d still call it a net positive overall.

    let joe cook

  30. Username Taken

    So according to Rachel “people” don’t change (I assume she means someone’s core personality), but their behavior and goals can change though… So why discourage anyone from turning to more benevolent behavior or pursuing less harmful goals? They are who they are, you can’t change that, so do you WANT them to behave in a way that harms others?

    Not sure I get what Rachel wants out of her interactions. Is this all sour grapes that she’s seeing people she thinks are unchangingly bad putting on masks and getting away with it? Projection due to her own trauma or failures?

    1. Queen Anthai

      “she’s seeing people she thinks are unchangingly bad putting on masks and getting away with it”

      …oh damn that’s a great insight

    2. Charles Phipps

      She wants Joe to confirm he’s Ryan.

      If he’s not Ryan then that throws.

  31. Wilde

    I listened to a podcast episode where they interviewed a personality researcher, and when asked if they thought people could change. It then became clear over the course of the episode that the researcher was kind of a hot mess.

    The self serving comes with conviction that people can’t change, because then she has to ask herself, why haven’t I?

    1. Charles Phipps

      Maybe Rachel thinks she’s perfect.

  32. Ray Radlein

    Yeah, “People don’t ever change” is a deeply stupid thing to say, and especially when you are talking about people who are teenagers and young adults.

    1. Zamperla

      Yeah “I, at 20ish, have Definitely Figured Life Completely Out and am unassailable In This, and have experienced all life can show me of peoples capacity to change” is, regrettably, very…. 20ish year old.

  33. Wilde

    Wow left out words. The researcher when asked if people could change, said they couldn’t.

    1. Strawb

      This is the problem with psych research I sometimes get the impression it says a lot more about the researcher than the topic of study (how’s that for some psychology, eh?).

      Unlike in social sciences psych doesn’t encourage people to explicitly acknowledge their biases and viewpoint. Despite the fact they’re studying human minds and they are a human with a mind.

  34. JessWitt

    Huh, Rachel and Sarah haven’t been in a lot of strips together.

  35. The Blueprint System

    Rachel actually has this exactly backwards. True change *has* to be for yourself. If you change for someone else, the performance of the change becomes more important than what’s happening under the hood, which leads to hiding indications that the change wasn’t successful. If you change for yourself, whether or not people believe that you have changed is irrelevant to the choices you make. Going after something you want is not inherently unethical, either, especially if what you want is “to be a better person.”

    1. Slartibeast Button, BIA

      Yes. Changing for someone else is just faking it, and a lot of people have trouble keeping up the pretense for the rest of their lives.

  36. Yotomoe

    “People don’t change.You’re thinking of Changelings”-Roger Smith

    1. Slartibeast Button, BIA

      Cast In The Name Of God – Ye Not Guilty

  37. Erica

    Ah, Rachel had figured out philosophy 101. There is no such thing as altruism, all good deeds are inherently selfish because people only do good because it makes them feel good

    1. Erica

      Which is an interesting discussion because it’s TRUE, but that doesn’t make it bad. Selfishness is a necessary motivator to good deeds. Better to do good for selfish reasons than to not do good at all, or to do harm for selfish reasons

      1. dalniente

        Yeah, the idea that something only has worth if it’s completely divorced from the self is…not my favorite idea.

      2. 3oranges

        It’s not really true, it’s based on bad definitions. If the only reason you feel good about something is because it helped someone else, then it’s not what people mean by selfish.

      3. Regret

        No it isn’t, your motivations are irrelevant. If you help someone they end up helped, regardless of your motivations.

        Conversely, if you have non-selfish intentions you can still hurt someone. Your intentions do not actually completely determine the outcome.

        When it comes to doing good, it doesn’t matter how much you meditate or think peaceful thoughts, if you don’t actually help someone then you’ve done nothing great.

      4. Charles Phipps

        I mean it’s true in the sense of being false.

        Because a lot of people do things that hurt horribly and feel terrible because they think they’re right.

        And if that’s Because it feels “good” then you’ve just said ethics are a form of self-pleasure, which robs the words of any real meaning of pleasure versus pain.

        1. Astariel

          People who do those things do them because they believe that being right is better for them than feeling good or being free of pain. It’s still a selfish decision.

        2. 3oranges

          It’s not selfish if the only reason you that think it’s better is the effect on other people. That’s just not what the word means.

    2. Dante

      Girl, that’s the MOST CATHOLIC thing I’ve heard in a while. “If you derive any pleasure from it then it’s tainted.” I’m having war flashbacks to certain uni classes.

      AND THEN SARAH COMES IN WITH THE ASSIST! WOHOOO!

    3. Dante

      kdlsgjsdkljg OH MY GOD I was trying to post that as a comment, not as a reply. I was addressing Rachel 8’DD Sorry

    4. Big Z

      Rachel had figured out philosophy Randian Objectivism 101

      FTFY

  38. Carm

    Yay Calvinism! Lucky you were born one of the Elect huh!

  39. Amós Batista

    Maybe Sarah has opened up because she was already healed, even she didn’t know about it. That’s why people got surprised when she started to be friendly.

    1. darkoneko

      I’m sure getting laid is going wonders to her mood XD

  40. Pappenheimer

    There was an Alfred Bester character (yes I am an old) who was basically a sociopath but also an empath, and would storm Hell to make the people around him feel better because their painful thoughts hurt him. He pretty much hated everyone and everything, and I’d still nominate him for secular sainthood.
    Having a character believably change can be a hard sell for a creator…look at how George Lucas hamfisted the fall of (spoiler alert) Darth Vader.

    1. Charles Phipps

      George’s opinion was complicated by his desire to avoid what happened with Kylo Ren.

      George wanted it clear:

      1. Vader was a fascis
      2. Vader was scum
      3. Evil is uncool

      While also redeeming him. He’d dealt with a lot of Empire fanboys over the years after all.

      1. Rogue 7

        I also think Anakin’s story suffers from being 3 movies of varying quality, as opposed to more longform storytelling. Like, The Clone Wars introducing the angle that Anakin was angry at the council for doing his apprentice dirty is a great angle, but also there simply wasn’t enough focus on the Anakin/Padme relationship to make Anakin being willing to fall to save her to work because Star Wars is an action movie.

        The prequel trilogy was legit good ideas hampered by middling to bad execution.

  41. BBCC

    Whether or not you can change your nature depends a lot on how much work you’ll put into it and how willing you’re willing to do that work. Like I said, people can, it’s just that a lot of people don’t, for a lot of reasons. I am DESPERATE to know more about Rachel.

  42. Rabbit

    Am I the only one completely not following what the fuck Rachel is talking about? “It’s still something you want” Like that’s completely unrelated……?????????????

    I’m so lost. Rachel what the fuck.

    1. Erica

      She’s grasping to have the last word

    2. Archieve

      Apparently it only counts as good change if you hate what your doing at every step of the way.

      1. Erica

        It’s only change if you don’t actually WANT to change

    3. segnosaur

      Sounds like to me she is taking an extremely broad notion of “staying the same”.

      If you get ANY pleasure out of life, then even if you completely change your personality, how you view relationships, basic actions, you still haven’t changed if you get any pleasure out of life, even if how and what you get pleasure from changes.

      Joe used to enjoy sex… he liked it with random women. He found a woman he wants a relationship with. But because “its still sex that he wants” he hasn’t changed (even though he has become someone now wanting monogamy, and has a different way of viewing women.)

    4. DailyBrad

      It’s not that complicated, it’s just a weak perspective in my opinion. What she’s saying is that trying to do the right thing isn’t cut and dry a good thing because he’s doing it to further his own interests, and that people only really change, ultimately, with me inferring she means that even if methods might shift, it’s still them doing what they want to do.

      I don’t agree with this because I think it really ignores the “intent vs impact” reality of our actions. If you’re feeding a stray cat with pure intentions or out of some sort of agenda, the calories are going to be exactly the same. We’re not totally divorced from our intentions, like they DO carry some weight, but impact is the majority of what we should consider instead of turning into puritan thoughtpolicemen.

      1. darkoneko

        isn’t she just saying all that because she hate Joe, anyway ?

      2. Regret

        All you can do with another person’s intentions is modify your expectations of their behaviour. Are they the kind of person who is affected by their intentions? If so, does this change their behaviour in a way that makes them less trustworthy?

        Other than that, intentions do not matter, unless you enjoy forgiving people who’ve consistently proven that they will hurt you, that’s the only other use case for intentions.

    5. Tan

      It doesn’t count as being a good person unless your motives are pure, and a desire to be liked and accepted by the people around you is an impure motive, because you are acting good transactionally.

      Which is one of those things where it can be some degree of true about particular situations, but as a sweeping generalization is bullshit.

      1. Shade

        Right as long as you’re not being a “nice” guy about it where you think you’re owed something for it and then flip out when you don’t get it, you’re probably fine.

      2. Big Z

        With the implication, no doubt, that NO ONE has pure motives unless they somehow started with them and never deviated from them.

  43. Amós Batista

    “you’re still after something you want”
    Isn’t this true?

    1. Nymph

      Absolutely! The flaw in her logic is assuming that just because something is for you and beneficial to you, it isn’t also just the right thing to do for those around you as well.

      Or that doing things because you want to is somehow a bad motivation.

    2. AnonGrouch

      Even if we take the face value interpretation of her argument, which we shouldn’t, being selfish is NOT A PROBLEM. Being selfish about the wrong things in the wrong moderation is the problem. Changing to improve the way you comport yourself and your general behavior that negatively effects others because you want them to not be negatively effected and possibly not hate you ISN’T THAT.

  44. Pappenheimer

    Calvinism…Douglas Adams related the story of his flight between minor African airports with a minister next him…”The closer to Heaven we got, the smugger he got.”
    (From a work of nonfiction, “Last Chance to See” nearly impossible to find but I recommend it for the photos and descriptions of endangered species alone. Also includes ‘Douglas Adams asks to test-drive a manta ray’)

    1. Holly

      Nearly impossible to find? Sad to hear that, I think I just read it from a regular (UK) library c.20 years ago.

      1. Holly

        (Though I have to admit that all I remember is the bird of prey so attached to its carer that he had to wear a spunk collecting hat).

  45. Joe Angel

    We’ve covered “there is no practical difference between unattainable altruism and morally fueled egoism”, now let’s go over “there is no difference between your goals changing and yourself changing”.

  46. june gloom

    Rachel’s attitude has to be one of the most toxic things I’ve seen in this comic and that’s saying something. And it’s not just a Bad Take, it can literally destroy you. I was in an extremely abusive friendship not so many years ago that had deteriorated so badly that I was led to believe that everything bad that had happened was my fault and that there was no coming back from it. If I didn’t have my friends and partner (who by that point all hated my now-ex best friend) to pull me back I don’t know what I would have done.

  47. Zamperla

    holy SHIT girl thats a. Fun. Attitude in life. So not only can people not get better, can a good person get worse? Thats. Boy thats incherestin.

    Well anyhow. Good f’ Sarah, and good f’ Joe honestly. I wonder if Sarah overheard the… (gestures) This and interrupted on purpose? Either way, either way.

  48. BorkBorkBork

    This makes me wonder who Rachel is really saying this about, when she continues to reiterate that People Don’t Change.

    I mean, yeah, there’s Joe, he’s right there, but clearly she didn’t form this worldview from an interaction with him. More likely, this worldview helped her cope with him and easily categorize him into a box where she could simply dismiss him as “a predator” and she could keep him back where he couldn’t hurt her.

    My guess is either (a) there’s a parent who she always believed would come through for her, and didn’t, and she had to rationalize a lifetime of disappointment by believing she was stupid to think differently, or (b) uses it to tear *herself* down for failing to live up to some ideal that she can never reach but someone else has for her.

    Or both. I mean, these are some smart college kids, they’re totally capable of complex, multifaceted neuroses.

    1. DashWallkick

      My theory is her beauty and intelligence has made her a very jaded person, since every interaction always means people try to get something from her, and since she’s precocious at the age of 18-19 she fully expects the worst from everyone.

    2. Bogeywoman

      I’ve been theorising the first option, mostly because it opens the option of her and Joe starting from the same place- a parent who swears they’ll change but goes back to the same behaviour. Even if they never end up as friends I think it’d be a natural way for them to find some common ground.

  49. I Know Why the Mowed Lawn Screams

    Rachel having this absolutely insane calvinistic dogma is such an incredible escalation of her walkyverse characterization. i genuinely kinda love it, out of everyone in the wider cast i want to know what her fucking damage is so badly

  50. perpetual sea

    Kind of disappointing as a scene. I don’t really feel like I got anything out of that for Rachel or Joe as characters. We already had a (very recent) scene of Joe being emotionally mature that hit way better, and Rachel just repeats herself – I have to believe Willis is going somewhere with that eventually though.

    That said I’m ready to get back to the messy sappics now thanks

    1. Regret

      Rachel repeating herself is kinda the point, she doesn’t make coherent arguments.

      1. Charles Phipps

        Also, Rachel hasn’t been seen in God knows how long so reiterating her stuff is important according to cartoonist Joyce.

        “Dorothy needs to say she wants to be the President every strip.”

    2. Username Taken

      IMO, as a storytelling device, Rachel can serve as a voice for any of the women that Joe wronged with his Do List and who might not be inclined to forgive him. We’ve seen how Joe’s personal journey impacts his close relationships, and now we get to see whether it earns him forgiveness from someone outside that circle.

      Rachel’s philosophy is at odds with this comic about learning and changing as you come of age. I don’t think we’re supposed to agree with her. We’ve had characters challenge Joyce’s change and growth, and Rachel is serving that purpose for Joe.

  51. Li

    Loved this strip, Willis! An especially nice little beat for Sarah+Joe. Sarah had to want something she reasonably believed Joe could provide (and in the past, something she would probably have at least been tempted to seek out from Jacob…), so I for one think it feels very natural as a character progression.

    Like, Sarah’s too tsun to be willing to directly apologize for misjudging Joe earlier, but this still accomplishes the same thing. (And if Joe wants the apology and asks for it… I imagine she’ll force herself to give it.) (But a lot of the time, apologies are kind of mutually assumed between people, when it’s something like this, where Sarah didn’t directly wrong Joe, exactly.)

    1. Big Z

      Yeah, I don’t even think Joe really would perceive a NEED for an apology –they had friction, for understandable reasons, it’s in the past.

      1. BorkBorkBork

        Hell, after this lovely conversation with Rachel, I bet it feels like a huge compliment and a much-needed confidence boost. Sarah is *literally* acknowledging with three sentences that people change and change matters, because she is demonstrating not only Joe’s change, but her change.

        1. Li

          @BorkBorkBork: I actually don’t think Joe has even minded said conversation with Rachel, really. Which isn’t to say she hasn’t been a jerk!

          Just that I don’t think Rachel is someone whose opinion of Joe matters enough to Joe for this conversation to have been unpleasant for him. I think it’s more or less rolled off his back, and that the first panel here was genuine intellectual curiosity from him, followed by genuine intellectual incredulity.

          He gets that she doesn’t think he can change, and he remains committed to doing the best he can.

          Now, if LIZ showed up and treated him like a scary predator and then topped it off by saying she doesn’t think he’s capable of change — that would be a completely different kettle of fish, mostly because he compared Liz directly to Joyce and at least was, quite recently, still worried that she was a preview of how things were gonna go with Joyce. (Certainly I think that fear is part of why he’s currently trying to will erections away instead of even jerkin’ it. He did pretty much everything right* with Liz, but he’s still living in the shadow of the possibility that Joyce will one day sob with relief about how she almost ruined herself forever by being with him……. and that’s the better of the possibilities, in his mind!)

          I agree with everything else though, very much including how Sarah is providing a warm contrast to Rachel — and, if any tiny part of Joe WOULD have internalized what Rachel was saying, I think Sarah very effectively stopped that. It really helps that she was herself previously someone he hit on more… pushily??? And that she knows him a lot better than Rachel at this point. Even though Sarah herself probably wouldn’t make Joe’s Top 5 People Whose Opinions of Me Matter, she’s definitely higher up on the ladder than Rachel.

          * also, the part he didn’t “do right” isn’t his responsibility. The only thing he could have “done better” was basically turn her away immediately, and while Joe might wish he’d done that, I think it’s MUCH better for Liz that she wound up pushing her own boundaries so hard with a guy who was as quick as Joe was to back off. So many folks don’t take (perceived) rejection as well as Joe did in that moment, and Liz was explicitly trolling for someone with Joe’s reputation to relieve her of her virginity.

        2. Li

          Addendum to an already TLDR comment:

          I would bet that a lot of folks who dislike Rachel the most aren’t imagining her as someone in their lives whose opinion doesn’t matter to them; I bet for a lot of readers, the buttons she’s pushing are much closer to home. Sadly, the people who tell us we can’t change are often intimate partners, family, and people we think of as close friends. ?

      2. Li

        @Big Z: very, very true.

        Honestly, Joe probably has a disproportionate sense of what kind of karmic retribution he should put up with here; I bet if you asked him he’d say every woman who was on or adjacent to his “do” list gets a free pass from him to punch him in the stomach as often as they want for the next like five years. That’s not a healthy mindset for him to have!! I sure as heck hope it doesn’t form any part of his reaction, if Joyce tells him she wants to try an open relationship*. But I bet he’d say it sincerely.

        * this asterisk is assuming: Joyce asks for an open relationship, Joe KNOWS that will make him miserable — but agrees anyway because he thinks it’s the least he deserves**.

        ** this asterisk is to assert nuance: Joe isn’t actually owed forgiveness by anyone, but there’s a difference between “Rachel doesn’t have to forgive Joe” and “Joe deserves to be punished for the next five years”. There’s a lot of middle ground between those extremes, like Rachel choosing to not interact with Joe ever again, which would be completely fine. That I think Joe would think the “punishment for five years” option is fair does not mean I think it would actually be fair.

  52. darkoneko

    You sure Sarah ? If you have too much muscle ache later, you’ll miss on the great sex

    1. Taffy

      Nothin’ a little oral can’t help.

  53. Amelie Wikström

    Rachel why are you in college.

    1. Amelie Wikström

      People don’t change.
      And if you want to change you just want to feel better about yourself.
      And if you think you can change you just need to feel guilty instead.
      And if you feel guilty you haven’t changed.
      And if you haven’t changed you weren’t perfect to begin with.
      And if you’ve changed you’ve still done the things you’ve done.

      Okay we get it, you’re surrounded by teenagers who are in large part encountering a wider world outside their homes for the first time and learning new things every day and this is bad, fake and/or pointless for some obscure reason. Rachel could just print a newsletter and make these tedious, repetitive conversations fully non-interactive.

      1. Taffy

        It’s not like she needs anyone else to be around for this anyway.

        1. Wereg

          Of course she does. If she was alone, she wouldn’t have anyone to start shit with.

        2. Taffy

          Her jabbering would be exactly as valuable aimed at a folding chair. She could get mad at the chair for not being a stuffed herring.

        3. Charles Phipps

          She’s related to Clint Eastwood?

        4. Taffy

          Well yeah, they even have the same surname.

      2. Bryy

        Rachel would definitely shadow vote Trump just to spite people.

    2. Nymph

      To get a piece of paper that companies require in most cases just to hire you. The same reason everyone is in college.

      1. Amelie Wikström

        I thought about that, but a degree doesn’t even do anything anymore. Since the last 15 years or so there’s no entry level jobs in this world, you need experience, personal connections or self-employment. The reasons to go to college today seem to be either inertia or wanting to learn things. Or purchasing social status in the case of the ivy league.

        Ah, I managed to think of something even more depressing than Rachel’s philosophy that human beings do not learn new things when confronted with new information.

        1. Nymph

          A degree absolutely does some things. It doesn’t do what it’s supposed to do (i.e. get you a job in the career of your choice) but it does put you one step ahead of a nearly identical candidate who didn’t get the expensive piece of paper.

          I think suggesting that Rachel A) Meant actual learning instead of behavior changing and B) Isn’t still getting pushed by her parents at this age or C) Isn’t likely to hold contradicting opinions like literally all of humanity… is just silly. You’re a silly goose.

        2. BorkBorkBork

          “Since the last 15 years or so”

          I know it’s only been like a semester, but gosh, it feels longer, doesn’t it?

        3. Li

          Trust me the degree still matters. I have 12 years of experience but I haven’t managed to get even one real job interview in six months of looking, and I’ve been told repeatedly that most candidates for the positions I’m seeking have my experience AND a degree lol.

      2. Charles Phipps

        The GOP is annoyed college wants to train people in more than this and things like critical thinking and social awareness and other countries.

  54. Aviator

    Breaking news: People have wants, and do things to get them.

    Tune in at 11 when we find out if the stories on water being wet turn out to be true.

  55. Mal

    Not against Rachel as a character or Willis for exploring her, but I rarely have such a strong “utterly screw that” to a comic.
    Whatever she means to say, this lecture is toxic as hell, and I’ve seen this attitude impact real people. A friend of mine who was a destructive person and addict for YEARS recently got sober and has been working so, so hard to stay sober and change. It’s not always perfect, it doesn’t magically fix everything they’ve done, but they are trying. What would this lecture do, in any way, to benefit them or anyone else? “You can’t change, why try.”
    What does Rachel actually want, then? People can’t change, so it would be easier [for her] if Joe just stayed the bad person she thinks he is, and/or wallow in his awfulness because he’ll never chance? He shouldn’t even make an effort? Screw that. In no way is Rachel required to forgive Joe, or Ruth, or anyone. But this attitude when she is the one who started engaging with Joe by her own choice and Joe has been straightforward after all of her accusations? Screw this philosophy, and screw her for perpetuating it.

    1. Nymph

      My guess about what Rachel wants is: She wants to stop being hurt by people either trying and failing to change, or claiming they’re trying to change and not actually trying at all.

      1. Pergola

        People keep shoving self-help books at her and she wants it to STOP.

  56. 3oranges

    Pretty sure I used to be a baby who didn’t want anything I do now, except maybe nipples and for different reasons, but ok.

  57. Rex Vivat

    Not such thing as a fully selfless deed, but self-interest doesn’t erase the good they do. Sarah’s fitness may come from a desire you could describe as self-serving, but it will still make her healthier if she sticks to it. 20 bucks given to a beggar because it makes you feel good to help people still buys them food. A person saved to prevent having to live with the guilt of doing nothing will still result in their life continuing. Care given to those you love is not wasted because it’s borne out of your love, not theirs.

  58. Kyulen

    Rachel’s explanation still makes no sense. Some people may not change, but a lot of people do. And if it makes them a better person, who cares what the reason is for them trying to change?

    1. anon

      i think she’s just kinda bitter(?)/averse to that specific term given all teh bs with ruth unless ther’es some past family trauma we haven’t unpacked yet

      nitpicking it as self-serving or delayed gratification does seem like semantics or whatever

  59. Vukodlak

    Will Rachel
    A: Forgive Joe
    B: Not forgive Joe but accept the fact others have.
    C: Not forgive Joe but refuse to accept that others have forgiven him and become the villain by trying to prove Joe hasn’t changed.

    1. Bryy

      C.

      This is how these people work.

      1. Clif

        These people?

        1. RedCat

          Bitter misanthropes. But you could also have called Sarah that and she did change.

  60. Amelie Wikström

    Anyway, I recall a parable.
    A wealthy man starts thinking about what he might do to ease the suffering in the world, and he thinks he could build an orphanage. He talks to his rabbi (a lot of people in parables are Jewish) and the rabbi is willing to organize everything. He arranges land purchase, carpenters, plumbers, teachers, secondhand clothing, collaboration from local restaurants to provide cheat foot, he’s even got fifty kids lined up to live in the orphanage. Everything is set to begin construction, every step planned out. But then the wealthy man begins to doubt. He tells the rabbi, in private, “Am I just doing this to feed my own ego? Because I want to be known as a kind man rather than an exploiter of workers? Truly, how can it possibly be a selfless act when I myself gain so much from it?” And the rabbi says, “The children don’t give a shit what you want, they need somewhere to live.”

    1. Amelie Wikström

      Cheap food ugh

    2. anon

      makes me think of The good place and their ‘points’ system lol, i’m sure there are ppl also refusing help and boycotting certain brands outta principle/beliefs as much ppl being like “well, i got bills to pay/kids to feed” tho that’s kinda a tangent/diff convo XP

    3. BlackCatGodess

      I’ve been thinking of this parable the entire time I was reading the comments

      1. Amelie Wikström

        oh, I didn’t completely imagine it

  61. anon

    “Learn how” i mean other than bulking up or maybe something tony might be used to doing/more familiar with but it’s not like sarah hasn’t used the gym b efore lol

    1. Taffy

      She’s exercised once or twice, but Joe does it all the time. She probably assumes he knows some proper techniques and form that’ll help her avoid hurting herself. Yeah, she could look it up on her phone, but I think it’s important she’s not doing that and is instead seeking him out for assistance.

    2. Big Z

      Sarah strikes me as smart enough to know that if you’re going to CHANGE your workout routine, especially when weights (and the increase thereof) are involved, it’s a good idea to get advice from someone who knows how to do that safely.

      1. Li

        This.

        I hurt myself when I tried to start jogging cold turkey on my lunch breaks at work. Specifically I gave myself shin splints. Could’ve been MUCH worse, too, especially if I’d wanted to lift weights. One of the things Joe could do for Sarah is point her at some apps for personal training on the cheap; I did much better after I discovered the existence of Couch to 5k apps, but they’re the kind of thing you need to know exists in order to find.

        (PS: don’t exercise instead of taking a lunch break.)

    3. StClair

      Walky couldn’t study when he finally had to, because he never learned how.
      (Also, IMO, because he probably has undiagnosed ADHD.)

  62. Taffy

    I love Sarah seeing Joe here, knowing he’s got plenty of experience with exercise, and asking him to help her with it. He has something to give besides his dick, and someone is asking him for that. Not just anyone, but Sarah, who’s been on his ass from day one, who facetiously asked if he wanted to fuck her as a “gotcha” when she wanted to split him and Joyce up on the grounds of not trusting him around her. She’s seen him making an effort to change, she’s heard Joyce defending him and trusting him, so she’s dropping her guard at least a little bit, in at least this context. It’s nice.

    1. Wereg

      This is a very good dissection of her role in the scene.

    2. Josh

      I agree with everything here, but also it feeeels a little bit like Sarah subtly coming in to rescue Joe here? Like witnessing a train wreck in progress and trying to help instead of rubbernecking the situation.

      1. Taffy

        It’s very kind of her.

    3. RedCat

      It’s a good development for both of them. Which is funny, because Rachel was so against people changing and now she sees two people who have changed. Sarah a bit more obviously than Joe, maybe, because Sarah isn’t hitting Joe with a bat, and that’s a massive improvement.

  63. Bryy

    Something deeply fucked happened to Rachel to get her to think that existence itself is a lie.

    1. Taffy

      It turns out she’s just constantly injecting salvia into her armpits and watching The Matrix.

      1. Nymph

        Are YOUR kids injecting saliva into their armpits and watching classic movies like The Matrix?

        It’s more likely than you’d think.

        1. Josh

          Wait, is The Matrix considered a classic now? … Oh no

        2. Taffy

          It’s been a classic for decades, whatcha mean “now”?

        3. Schpoonman

          It’s almost 30 years old. And yeah, I think it instantly hit “classic” status upon release. There still hasn’t been a more faithful live action adaptation of GITS to this day!

        4. RedCat

          It’s been a classic for at least 15 years I’m afraid.

  64. Acher4

    “People can’t change” is such a cop-out.

    People can definitely become worse… so people can change.

    Also people can also get better, it’s just needs more energy than becoming worse.

    1. CJ

      Upvote that.

    2. Nadamás

      Your mom is a cop out

      1. Nymph

        ACAB? ACAB.

  65. jeffepp

    Cue Joyce teleporting in, with Dottie in tow (disoriented from the sudden change of location, but still holding Joyce’s hand). She blurts out that she’s ready, NOW, and she wants Joe AND Dorothy together. Then she notices the rest of the room.

    1. jeffepp

      To the alt-text: I approve this message.

  66. eskimolos

    Okay, still wary that this may be groundwork for eventual Joe/Rachel OTP *again*, but I want to weigh in about the concept of change too.

    Rachel isn’t wrong in her beliefs, in that there are certain behaviours that people rarely shake – serial cheating is pretty common. These behaviours tend to be linked to neurodevelopmental differences, and are extremely hard to change without medication, therapy, and a strong support network, in addition to the will to change.

    Then there are habits and routines, like it is truly bizarre to me that someone probably under 25 is sure that people can’t change, because that’s literally *all* that adolescence is? If we stayed the same exact person with the same beliefs and habits from 10 years old to 25 years old then we wouldn’t even really call puberty a different stage on its own.

    As an ADHD, I know that ADHD dopamine seeking can manifest in seeking new relationships or casual s*x to get that sweet excitement adventure thrill, but it’s been clearly indicated in the course of this comic that this is not Joe’s main reason for his behaviour. He has deep trust issues (including in himself, as well as in beginning relationships) from the attitude of his father and the dissolution of his parents’ marriage. Yes, there are people like who Rachel is worried about, that are motivated to change for as long as they’re seeking a specific reward, and then drop that once the joy of having obtained that wears off. I remember dating a guy for a month that took all my salary that month and my savings to get drugs – I looked him up 12 years later and he was still doing the same thing, getting into relationships with women for a few months, escalating it to the point of being engaged, then being an enormous sh*thead until he got dumped and could find a new sugar momma. He’ll never change, or he’ll only change when he’s no longer at all appealing to women. But that’s not the only sort of person that exists, people contain multitudes.

    1. Risky

      Rachel is wrong. She isn’t saying “rarely shake” or that repeating past bad behavior is “pretty common”. She would argue with your implication that changing bad behaviors is possible with medication, therapy, a strong support network, and will (I would add education). I think it is possible. For a moment yesterday it seemed like she was coming around but that reverses with her statement today.

      With the guy in your life who didn’t change, you never mentioned him trying to change or saying he changed. Have you ever changed?

    2. eh, whatever

      If we stayed the same exact person with the same beliefs and habits from 10 years old to 25 years old then we wouldn’t even really call puberty a different stage on its own.

      …huh. In my experience puberty isn’t a term of psychology, it’s a term of biology. It’s about the hormonal changes and their effects on body shape and behavior.

      1. superglucose

        so you agree, people change during puberty

    3. Charles Phipps

      Speaking as a neurodivergent person, I deal with unwanted compulsions all the goddamn time.

      I do my best to clamp that shit down.

    4. Big Z

      A reminder, that may or may not be strictly relevant, that the latest research is that the “age 25” cutoff was a spurious result due to how changes in brain structures were measured and the sample population and the most recent research suggests the brain continues to change at approximately the same rate for the duration of one’s lifetime.

  67. I Know Why the Mowed Lawn Screams

    hggn ok gave it like a few minutes to digest and it just hit me how cook it is that Rachel is kinda reflecting some of Joe’s worst internal beliefs ( people can’t change, especially if they have engaged in shitty behavior for a prolonged amount of time (( see; Joe’s feelings on his Dad)) ) and flipping it on it’s head by showing the absurdity of that mindset.

    1. I Know Why the Mowed Lawn Screams

      mind you i still think it’s fine that Rachel is a bitter fucking hater, even if she’s wrong, but that’s 50% knowing that at least some of that resentment towards Joe ( and by extension, Ruth ) came from a very real place of hurt and 50% me being a little bit of a freak and going “haha neat” everytime a DOA cast member reaches nuclear levels of self-sabotaging and caustic

  68. sunny

    people are giving rachel a hard time, but she’s speaking truth, with sarah coming in at the end to drive it home that people dont change unless they desire something. what shes wrong in is believing that being selfish and wanting to change to achieve a goal is inherently a bad thing. she’s clearly a hurt character, trying to hurt someone who hurt her, which is not cool but can we blame her for not seeing joe’s character arc in person? also he said he didnt apologize to her bc she wouldnt accept his apologies, but it would have been nice of him to at least try after everything he pulled. idk, the comic is long and theres gaps in my memory of it but joe was not nice to the women around him especially if they werent his tyoe

    1. yak

      She seems to be flatly saying that people don’t change period, and only appear to change because they want something. This is not only a ridiculous claim to make, but also, not helpful.

      Also, he did actually apologize in a comic (I think it was linked somewhere in this comments section) and she rejected his apology.

      1. yak

        I just realized the absurdity of using “period, ” in a sentence. Very good syntactic device.

    2. GUIGUI

      That people want to change because they desire something doesn’t make it any less of a change.

    3. thejeff

      Sarah isn’t coming in at the end to drive it home that people don’t change unless they desire something. She’s coming in at the end to showcase how she and Joe have both changed – both by her opening up enough to find a boyfriend and by trusting Joe.

  69. GUIGUI

    Most change happen because of a reason, motivation to obtain something or see yourself deserving of it often being one of them. That doesn’t mean the change isn’t real.

    There is, usually, many ways to obtain something that you want, scummy ways and legit way. How you decide to do it is what define you.

  70. yak

    Buildings that you know
    People come and go
    Are a certain way
    Always are the same
    And then you get the news that obliterates your view
    Amputate your truths
    The significance has changed

    (Change by KGATLW)

  71. Animedingo

    Oh look, someone who changed

  72. mel

    sarah dropping some pure bojack lines

  73. Thing2

    Bwahahahahaha. The ultimate pessimism. You are only nice because it makes you feel good!

  74. Bruno

    You know who ELSE pursued a long-term goal???

    1. Nymph

      Mr. Rogers.

    2. Nymph

      Florence Nightingale.

    3. Nymph

      TELL ME IF I’M CLOSE!!

    4. Nadamás

      Your mom?

    5. Taffy

      [Muscle Man voice] MY MOM!

  75. Buforana

    Change is all around us, always. How can a person get themselves to believe people are the one thing excempt from change? What a grand and intoxicating innocence.

    1. Nymph

      I think it’s likely to be the opposite of innocence. This kind of viewpoint often comes from trauma, having someone promise not to hurt you over and over again and then fail to change the way they said they would.

      Innocence is assuming she’s not mostly right about people. Very often, human beings struggle to intentionally change shitty behaviors and addictions. She’s not wrong entirely, she’s just 19/20 and far too black-and-white about it.

      1. Taffy

        I wouldn’t take the “innocence” part too literal-in-this-contextually (is there a snappier word for that?), Buforana is Dagothposting.

        1. StClair

          In context of the quote, a better term would be “naivete”. The speaker is being extremely condescending.
          (Compare: “oh, you sweet summer child.”)

        2. Taffy

          Why are you explaining it to me? I was obviously able to identify the source of the quote, it should naturally follow that I understand what Dagoth is getting at.

    2. Carl Muckenhoupt

      It’s easy: all you have to do is dismiss all the obvious changes. “So you’re acting different now? That’s superficial. You can pretend all you want, but underneath it all, you haven’t changed what you really are.”

      The great thing about this approach is that it’s completely unfalsifiable. Anything at all can be dismissed as unimportant.

      1. Taffy

        Remember, kids: If someone’s entire argument hinges on unfalsifiable natter, nothing they’re saying has any value! You could strangle them with your bare hands and the horrible noises they made would be better conversation! They want to make your mind as worthless as theirs is in that moment, but don’t let ’em! Why should they get to choose your thoughts for you when they’re demonstrably incapable of forming their own?

        ?

  76. Yumi

    I’ve done good things/acts of charity and not felt good about it– feeling either nothing or actively bad for it– but that, friends, was the effect of mental illness and didn’t make those actions any better than if I had actually felt good about myself doing them.

    And if Rachel wants to, she could still argue that it was selfish– I think the world’s better when people help each other, and I personally want a better world, and since I’m working toward something I want…

    1. Nymph

      I think there’s a second (third? fourth?) flaw in her logic that suggests being selfish is inherently immoral or negative. Selfishness to a point, one where you don’t start ruining the people around you for your own sake, is a healthy mentality. Trying to purge yourself of all selfishness makes you a doormat and no help to anyone.

  77. Charles Phipps

    I feel like “people only do charity to feel good” is such a weird thing. A lot of charity is hot, annoying, and pisses you off. As anyone who has done a project to build a house for someone.

    1. Cory

      Also, so? We’re all monkeys at heart. Idealism against our own needs and desires is a lifestyle choice for a rare few. Doing good things because it feels good to do good things, is the best of both worlds!

      And ok, maybe it would make a better person if I did good things just for the ideological commitment of ‘being a good person’. You know who doesn’t care, the people benefiting from the good things.

      1. Charles Phipps

        No, Cory, I’m saying I disagree with the entire premise and think, “Doing good to feel good” is dumb and not true. Also, monkeys as an insult is weird because it’s like, “the most intelligent on Earth that is self-aware to question instinctual ethics” is not a downput.

        1. Nymph

          I really don’t think the monkeys thing was meant to be a put down, Chuck. I think it was a literal statement. We’re apes, literally. Our brains work on positive reinforcement like any other animal.

    2. Big Z

      It’s a fundamentally Randian/Objectivist doctrine at heart, which goes a long way to explaining why it’s inhumane AND contra to most people’s lived experience. It’s also the ancestor of the even dumber “that’s just virtue signalling” argument.

      But if you’re bound and determined to live in a world where everyone is perpetually and only looking out for their own best interests, the only way to make that match ANYTHING approximating the reality where people ARE altruistic sometimes is to try to make altruism only possible if it’s motivated by self-interest, and the only way that makes sense is “you’re only doing it to reward yourself” or “you’re only doing it to appear good to others”.

      1. Charles Phipps

        Said it better than me.

      2. thejeff

        It’s a bit awkward though, because there are definitely are people who “virtue signal” – who arrange whatever good deeds they do for public consumption, even at the expense of actually doing more good. Doing things performatively to whitewash their own issues or to encourage donations they can profit from or whatever.

        This obviously doesn’t extend to “doing good because it makes you feel good isn’t really good”, but it can cover a lot of corporate or even individual rich person philanthropy.

    3. Yumi

      I agree that it’s not an accurate take, but your counter doesn’t really work when what people mean is “to feel good about yourself.” Physical discomfort or frustration during the task doesn’t mean one doesn’t feel good about doing it.

      I also think that’s a good thing, though– doing good and feeling good about it is just a double win. More people feeling good is good, and you are a person.

    4. Nadamás

      They don’t mean “fell good” as in the act itself give you a positive felling but that it makes you fell like you are a good person doing good and that’s… Bad?? For some reason??

      1. Taffy

        It’s interesting, because feeling like you’re a good person oughta be a universal goal of humanity. Why should I want to feel like I’m a bad person, after all? That seems like the something a tyrant would want to enforce as a means to control me, doesn’t it? Make me feel permanently shitty so I’ll do their bidding, give them my money, probably rope others into doing the same? Bit fashy, bit of a cult leader mentality, innit.

  78. AnonGrouch

    Wow, fuck yeah Sarah let’s go

  79. brumagem

    I wonder if Rachel even knows how dumb her logic is. Like, even if you don’t think people change (they do, though usually not intentionally) telling Joe that is basically saying “Yes, save yourself the effort and go back to being the third biggest creep on campus please.”

    1. Rectilinear Propagation

      Right?! Even if this change is doomed to fail or isn’t “real” change, he’s at least not being a jerk right now. The situation has improved, don’t ruin it!

    2. thejeff

      Good point. Even a fake change makes Joe less obnoxious for women to be around.

      The only real counterargument would be if she assumes he’s actually faking it for some nefarious goal – pretending to have changed to seduce more women, for example. Which is still a possible read on what she’s saying.

  80. Big Z

    Man, I almost dislike Rachael as much as I dislike Mary now — despite their different approaches, they have converged on EXACTLY the same philosophy (namely, “Everyone I don’t like is evil, and can never be redeemed unless *I* say they can be.”)

    1. Rectilinear Propagation

      I think there’s also some “Some types of people are just bad and can’t be fixed, only punished” in there. I think that’s why Rachel insists on telling the people she dislikes that they’re awful every time she sees them.

    2. RedCat

      They’re impossible to argue with, even though Mary is objectively a worse person, they are similarly frustrating to see interact with people, and we’ve all met people with a self-fulfilling prophecy sorta mindset. And they’re very annoying.

  81. Ian Clark

    Somehow, this actually represents progress for Rachel. She’s willing to discuss her beliefs, and seems somewhat open to reexamining them, even though the latter might not be entirely conscious yet.

  82. Big Z

    Y’know, the more I think about this, the more I want Rachael to turn out to be a full-blown Atlas Shrugged-carrying Randian Objectivist, based solely on how funny as hell that being the reason for her “no one changes, they’re always self-serving” would be to me.

  83. Steamweed

    Dang, Rachel, you’re wrong on two fronts: about Joe and about personal growth in general.

  84. HueSatLight

    Rachel just really didn’t like Scrooged.

    1. Steamweed

      She picketed the movie Groundhog Day when it came out. Even with ten thousand or more repetitions, she believes a person cannot change.

  85. ValdVin

    Joe: Step one in working out is to ask Joyce how she uses this machine. Then do the opposite.

  86. Rectilinear Propagation

    All they need to do is force Rachel to play Slay the Princess a couple of times and then, everything will be fine.

  87. Hat

    It’s always funny when I remember most of these characters are college freshmen or sophomores.

    A college freshman insisting that People Don’t Change is hilarious.

    1. Ian Clark

      It’s hilarious, but also the most believable aspect of all of this. College freshmen are always coming up with bold and elaborate theories about the nature of the universe and the human condition that don’t stand up to even the tiniest bit of scrutiny.

      She may be majoring in computing, but she’s definitely taking a first-year philosophy and/or psych course on the side.

  88. OLD

    You cannot change who you are, but I think people conflate behaviours with identiy because that’s the part of the person they can see. Rachel saw his list and conflated his behaviour with Joe himself. However, values and behaviours are choices, and choices can be changed. Joe has changed in that he no longer puts as much value on his sex life. Values are based on a mix of emotion and information, and there has been a change in both for Joe.

    1. Olav

      I agree with your conclusions. I would comment on one thing, though.

      I think that “who [we] are’ is a fairly nebulous idea. I can grant the possibility that, by the onset of adulthood, that most fundamental aspects of our identity and personality could be set to a large degree. But that doesn’t mean that our understanding of our own identity is set.

      Figuring out who we are and how to deal with that could be a kind of “change” that isn’t really that different on a functional level than what Joe wants to change about what he and Rachel might think are in his nature.

      I think I might be saying the same thing you did, but with different words.

    2. Taffy

      “Who you are” isn’t set in stone, it’s just as malleable as the rest of you. You can absolutely change it, and to suggest otherwise is silly. I used to be an always-angry, frequently violent little boy who wanted to be an author, and now I’m a grown faggot who’s actively trying to start a career as a performing guitarist and knows how to experience joy. Some core traits have stayed over the decades, like the ’tism, creativity, love of all forms of artistic creation, and willingness to pick up something new on a whim, but I wear shorts now and can actually express genuine emotions around other people. Nobody who knew me as a kid and hasn’t seen me since then would be able to identify me, by sight , behavior, or instinct. I’m not the same person I used to be, just because I happen to be the same consciousness in the same physical body. That would be stupid.

  89. CallynD

    I refuse to believe that Dina owns any clothing that can be described as “athleisure”. Any exercise she does is in full dinosaur outfit.

  90. wakeangel2001

    saying “people don’t change” is just justification to not bother with self reflection and improvement, because if they don’t change then why should you?

    1. Sprout

      This was my immediate feeling. Sounds like unexamined self-hatred projected onto an easy target who was frankly minding his own business.

      Or she’s bitter ?‍♀️

      1. Taffy

        Amend that “or” to “and”, and you’re on the money. Rachel does nothing but badger others about their inability to change, acts like they’re stained forever because they did something bad before they were even 20, and never lets up about it. No way she’s not projecting, and I’d go as far as saying she’s hyper-defensive about it. Any hint or whisper that someone isn’t the first thing she decided they were, and she goes off. She starts conversations purely to bait them into the topic, so she can go the fuck off on them for not fitting her narrow view of them, and if they stopped fitting, actually no they didn’t, because everything is actually evidence she’s right no matter what.

        I imagine all of her dialogue is either spluttered out or delivered in that tone people get when they’re dismissing you outright. Y’know, the one where they get all performatively indifferent, every other word is also a sigh, they pause in weird places because they don’t know where their sentences are going but damn it they’re gonna keep yappin’, that one.

  91. Ac

    i want masculine-yet-slutty short shorts like joe’s

    1. Taffy

      Joe in his tiny little skank shorts, bottom kind of jutting out and impudent or whatever

  92. Vaishino

    I’m curious, comments section, do we think that if Joyce left Joe for Dorothy, would Joe backslide into being a creep, or would he apply his new un-creepy persona to a new romantic pursuit?

    I also continue to give Rachel wiggle room because it’s only been a few months since Joe’s “map to the campus hotties” dropped and she’s allowed to be hyperbolic and upset still. Not sure what people think is the reasonable timeframe for being mad about what he did is, but the general vibe I’m picking up is she should be able to read his mind and forgive him immediately and she’s a B if she doesn’t.

    1. Raven

      I don’t think that’s it. It’s people objecting to her saying *no one* can change and that trying to become a better person is just about essentially ego-stroking

    2. Taffy

      If that’s the vibe you choose to pick up, after putting it out on your own and ignoring what’s actually been said.

      1. Vaishino

        I like the part where you replied but didn’t engage with anything. Just condescension and snark. Truly the most comments-section of comments.

        1. Taffy

          What’s worth engaging? You’re just making shit up for people to have said, without a shred of evidence to back it up. It’s identical to a hallucination.

        2. Vaishino

          I see, so the problem is you completely skipped over the first thing I wrote and decided to jump at the second. Also, you’re blaming Rachel’s attitude toward Joe on a bad sandwich rather than his behaviour toward her, and you’re accusing me of hallucination, rich.

        3. Taffy

          Oh, you’re one of those people who can’t identify a joke. See, the sandwich thing was a joke about her getting set off by a minor bit of imperfection. Slightly stale bread leading to a worthlessly cynical worldview is funny, because it’s such a disproportionate response.

          I don’t really care about the stuff you said before the vibes part though, so I don’t get why you feel entitled to my thoughts on it.

        4. Vaishino

          How come you get to do hyperbole, but it’s not possible that Rachel’s being hyperbolic? Also I don’t feel entitled to your thoughts on it. I didn’t ask for your thoughts specifically, I asked a question in general of the comments section, and you came in and ignored that in order to act like a dick to me unprompted. Hey you’re acting like Rachel from a few days back!

        5. Taffy

          There you go again, replying to phantoms that only exist in your mind.

        6. Bryy

          Vaish, buddy, friendo, Taffy was making a fucking joke and you’re comparing that to the author of the strip making a conscious effort to show that Rachel is an asshole.

        7. Clif

          Well, yeah, but Willis is setting us up to feel bad when Rachel is hit by a truck while saving Mary.

    3. Li

      I think he’d be hurt for a while but I don’t think he would abandon all the good work he’s done on himself just because a relationship ended.

      I think it would be worse if she cheated on him instead of ending things, but I also don’t think he’d turn into a supervillain, despite the Divorced Man to Fascist Pipeline.

      (It’s a real thing and it has a lot to do with societal programming telling straight men that having a wife and kids is part of the necessary package for Being A Real Man. Divorce destroys a huge pillar of their identity, and they have nothing to fall back on and often no support network because society also programmed them to think that you’re supposed to be emotionally intimate with one (1) person only — that intimate male friendships are gay, and that intimate female friendships are fake/cheating (sooooo many women and men seem to think “you’re not allowed friends of the ”’opposite”’ gender” is a reasonable relationship boundary) and also gay (“sex always gets in the way,” says the conventional wisdom; so, if your friendship with a woman seems real, are you sure you’re even straight?), so……….. you can guess what “having a therapist” would be seen as by this type of man. So: they lose everything when a divorce happens.

      And I’m not even saying they shouldn’t BE divorced, because this type of man is typically also neglectful (he sees wife-and-kids as a trophy to earn and then place in a display case to admire, not relationships to maintain), if not abusive (they often have very dim views of women as people)… they often cheat on their wives, too!

      But I am saying that the fact that so many of them wind up sliding into reactionary political movements does make sense. That kind of movement preys on insecure, isolated people with holes in their hearts.)

      1. Vaishino

        Thank you for being the only one to actually engage with the salient point. That’s the test of the change. If he’s changing for the sake of being better then Rachel is wrong. If he’s only changing for a shot at Joyce then she’s not entirely off the mark with her judgment of him imo.

        Like I’m not even saying Joe would go Elon levels of divorced man if Joyce left him (or cheated on him as in your worst case scenario) but I could easily see a backslide. Hell even just a temporary one where he hooks up with someone and afterward thinks about how he isn’t getting the parts of a person he liked with Joyce, so he realizes that’s not what he wants in the end.

        1. Li

          I think there’s a lot of background radiation hostility around the concept of Joe changing at this point that makes even the best-faith questions sound kinda suspect.

    4. Da Boy

      Well his mentality before he started to change stemmed from his father’s behaviour. If Joyce, a person Joe sees as peak of kindness and morality, basically cheated on him that might just reinforce his original belief.

    5. Yak

      I think he would be depressed, but that doesn’t mean he’d backslide.

      Honestly I think the true impetuous for him to change was his encounter with Liz, not his desire for Joyce.

  93. Icalasari

    So if Rachel thinks nobody can change, does this mean everybody is a literal cry baby since they as a baby, well, cried a lot?

    Like, her philosophy has *so many holes in it*

    1. Vaishino

      It’s almost like it’s selectively applied and not meant to be a universal standard.

  94. Felian

    This argument is not serving anyone.

    most of the things we do for our community are self-serving if that means “i get something out of it”. Humanity works this way. We do things that build community, because we benefit from having community.
    Downplaying it as self-serving is pointless, and then everything you ever do is pointless.

    Self-serving is only a problem if you harm others by what you do for yourself (so yes, Joe’s past). Doing something good that also happens to be good for yourself is GOOD.

    And yeah, i do believe people can change. It’s slow and hard work though.

    1. Felian

      And i thing we need to tell ourselves that we are able to change. Because otherwise, we’d despair with our flaws and troubles and patterns that harm us and lack of self regulation. We need to cling to the hope that it matters that we try!

      If i can’t change i hope i’ll never know.

  95. Da Boy

    Rachel has some… really weird ideas. Yeah? People pursue goals? To achieve things they desire? It’s part of basically any biological being, what’s wrong with that?

    1. Taffy

      One time, she ate a sandwich and the bread was very slightly stale, and now she’s on some unhinged crusade against the world.

      1. Clif

        Truly it is said, bad bread is the root of all evil.

  96. Some Guy

    Holy shit, The People could not have asked for a better counter-argument against Rachel’s bullshit. Sarah does not fuck around with trust.

    I wonder if we’ll ever learn who hurt Rachel so bad?

    1. anon

      i mean there might be familoy stuff to but so far/instory wise wasn’t it with ruth and such?

      I do distinctly remember a strip of her telling Joyce “a few tears won’t erase Ruth’s bullying” when she was having a break down in the shower room after she got on her meds

      i wonder if we’ll see booster come across this and them analyzing/trying to give rachel advice too lol, if not makign a snarky joke about her projecting/being in denial

      1. thejeff

        The only problem with it just being Ruth is that her attitude would make more sense if she had experience with someone who kept promising to change and failing, which doesn’t really sound like pre-story Ruth.

  97. reddslym

    This discussion feels interestingly meta when you think about the natural pacing of this comic and the resulting sliding timescale.

  98. Vukodlak

    I think Joe should go as Kratos next Halloween, symbolizing a big jock who struggles to change his ways and be better. Also I’m sure Joyce would appreciate it.

    1. RedCat

      Joyce as Freya? Are either of them big enough nerds?

  99. Rafinius

    If people can’t change, what should happen to people who realize they’ve been bad? Should they all get purged? Exiled to Australia?Voluntarily unalive themselves?

    1. Taffy

      There was some pushback against the suicide thing, yesterday or the day before, on the grounds of flippancy or making light. But I’m being so serious and genuine when I say this, it 100% feels like an unspoken expectation. “You can never be better, so kill yourself”, to put the perceived sentiment into words. Rachel in particular exhibits behaviors that real people have aimed at me, personally, echoing that exact sentiment. She constantly berates people about their inability to change, then keeps engaging with them to remind them how much she thinks they suck, no matter how little they’re engaging her back. Real people do that when they want to bully you into suicide. It’s part of why I want to see Rachel killed off.

      1. Bryy

        I 100000% do not agree with “I dislike this person, they should be killed”, but I do agree Rachel is skirting the line. I mean, she legit ignored Mary’s bullshit in order to go after Ruth, and that says A LOT.

        1. Taffy

          But Rachel’s not a person to me. I differentiate my stances based on who’s fictional and who’s not, and since Rachel categorically Is Fictional, it’s perfectly acceptable for me to wanna see her killed off. That’s not me reminding you she’s not real, for the record, I’m only clarifying my own stance and mindset.

        2. Bryy

          I’m very confused cause you go after people for commenting on the comic as if they are commenting on real people.

        3. Yumi

          I’ve been confused by similar things in this comment section a couple times in recent months. It feels kinda bizarre sometimes! But at a point, I’m just shrugging my shoulders and moving on.

        4. Taffy

          Sometimes I think it’d be better if a character died. What’s confusing about that?

        5. Taffy

          To elaborate, there’s a difference to me between wanting a character killed off and wanting a real person to die. I don’t see “I want Rachel to die a violent death and go unmourned” as treating her like a real person who’s affecting me, I see it as a character being a drag to read and so pointless that dying in the background is a step up from what’s currently presented.

        6. thejeff

          I don’t remember her ignoring Mary’s bullshit to go after Ruth? In the infamous scene of her original “redemption isn’t real” speech, Ruth had already dealt with Mary and then turned to ask Rachel if an apology would be sufficient for her.

    2. anon

      “You’re just being performative!” 8D;

      And lol, hopefully she can meet better ppl out of college or just get used to ppl if she has to work with ppl she don’t think will change

      although while more of an extreme examples, i’m sure there are ex nazis out there that were ashamed , as well as former KKK members or so

  100. S.R.

    Ah yes, everyone knows people are born as babies and then just grow up into big giant infant babies. Nobody ever changes in any way. Nobody ever learns to talk or anything, or develops a complex view of the world.

  101. Cloud

    I’ve met people like tall Rachel irl and they all have something in common, they have something they want or need to change about themselves but use this poor argument as an excuse not to.

  102. Uly

    Rachel has no obligation to like, trust, or forgive Joe – but please, baby, get some therapy.

  103. Kazuma Shouri

    oh? if people aren’t capable of change, then tell me Rachel
    why are you working out?

    1. Taffy

      She’s maintaining her exact physique with a very precise routine.

  104. NGPZ

    420+ comments, blaze it!

    I know I am XD

  105. Kristine

    Oh, so she’s the worst kind of person.

    Look change is hard but it’s possible

  106. Doctor Synth

    (athleisurewear for the whole cast) – oh great, now the Roomies cast is going to become a team of superheroes.

  107. Theozilla

    Rachel also has a very narrow of what qualifies as “change”, the fact that people can change for the worse and/or the mere fact that all humans start out as as babies with virtually zero sapience already literally disproves the assertion that “people don’t change”.
    Rachel is more arguing that true altruism isn’t real, which isn’t really the same as “change”. And let’s say that all altruism is reciprocal in some way, even if someone were to literally sacrifice their life for complete strangers (like maybe giving up all their organs or something) one could still say that’s gratifying one’s own desire to be satisfied by doing the act of sacrifice. All that ultimately proves is that any conscious action or impulse can’t exist without a concept of a self.

  108. BCGeiger

    the thing is, she’s demonstrably wrong. Someone at age 10 is not the same as at age 20, is not the same as at age 30, is not the same as at age 40, is not the same as at age 50, is not the same as at age 60, is not the same as at age 40 is not the same as at age 70. We grow we learn, we, if you pardon my use of the word, repent. A major part of civilization is based on the idea of people changing, both through growth and by deliberatly setting out to make themselves better.

  109. motorfirebox

    Rachel doesn’t owe Joe any amount of trust, but she’s being a bit teenage edgelord here. Everyone always pursues what they want. But what people want can change, and not all wants are equal.

  110. RedCat

    “People don’t change” is probably a very comforting mindset, because 1) then you don’t have to forgive people and 2) YOU don’t have to change. It’s “safe”, but it’s unhealthy and unhelpful.
    And annoying.

    1. RedCat

      Trying out for gravatars and this was a very funny coincidence ^
      ok next try.

      1. RedCat

        one more for good measure –

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