228

Romance
Posted on March 5, 2014 by David M Willis

228 thoughts on “Romance”

  1. itachi_0501

    First! And, go Danny!

  2. Mr. Random

    I think some commentors would like to volunteer.

    1. Porglezomp

      I volunteer as tribute!

      1. Spliced

        still know nothing about that franchise

      2. Jen Aside

        Joe: *walks around with Danny on a leash* “DANNY, NO”

        1. Jay Eff

          “No, Danny, No.”

          “Bad Danny.”

          “Stop, Danny, or you get no Din-Din.”

        2. Reltzik

          I didn’t realize Joe swung that way.

        3. Spliced

          with a bat that big, I don’t think it’s possible to hit home run after home run, and not accidentally score for the other team

        4. Plasma Mongoose

          So you’re suggesting that Joe has had some accidential gay sex at some point?

        5. Deathjavu

          “It was an accident.”

          Ah, c’mon newbie. It’s not like he tripped and fell into [a dude’s butthole]…and then out of, and then into, and then out of.”

          (1 e-cookie for anyone who gets the reference)

        6. John

          Joe’s not ruling it out!

        7. Aeyt

          Well I’m not the world’s most masculine man
          But I know what I am and I’m glad I’m a man
          And so is Lola
          La-la-la-la Lola la-la-la-la Lola

        8. nick

          Just reminding you that this happened
          http://www.dumbingofage.com/2013/comic/book-3/01-if-the-shoes-split/exploits/

        9. Nicholas

          @Deathjavu, you mean Faz, and I want my cookie.

          can’t find the link now 🙁

        10. Roborat

          Deathjavu, I am not sure, but going to guess Scrubs?

        11. Deathjavu

          Roborat gets the cookie. It’s when JD apologizes for sleeping with Jordan when he didn’t know she was Dr. Cox’s ex.

        12. Hoop

          Accidental? Shit. Joe is a sexual being. There were BOUND to be some dudes in there at some point.

        13. TemplarKnight

          I’m not sure you know how baseball is played.

        14. Dibullba

          You give me the strangest urge to quote Cartman on cats >.> except with Danny

        15. nothri

          Michael J. Fox is brought forth from the 80s and follows him around with a guitar prepared to sing “No, Danny, No…Danny be good” as appropriate.

        16. Livinthelife

          Now, now, Dina’s not Joe’s to give.

    2. Yotomoe

      I’ve got my nail studded Baseball bat ready.

    3. newllend

      Either get this boy a babysitter or dont let him out your site at all.

      1. TheSuicidalGiraffe

        that face with that comment ROFL knowing Luffy it doesn’t work that wel lfor me but still its all pretty awesome

      2. Roborat

        And don’t let him out of your sight either.

    4. Jammy

      Get the spray bottle

  3. Megasteve

    Is Dan finally starting to realize how hard he dans at everything?

    1. Spliced

      I think it’s kind of like noticing all these trees are really the forest

      1. Yotomoe

        Woah, there’s a lot of water in that ocean!

        1. Mr. Random

          This beach has a lot of cacti… Wait.

  4. JAD

    …wow, only four weeks? Willis, you’ve made them last a lot… kudos.

  5. sentrythedefiant

    Kinda feel bad for Danny at this point…

    1. TBeckett

      He’s finally on the right track for self-awareness, but reaching that point is basically a painful experience by its very nature.

  6. Opus the Poet

    Danny is having an epiphany.

    1. Plasma Mongoose

      Is that a Fairy/Ground type Pokemon?

      1. Kernanator

        It would not surprise me.

        (And who is today’s gravatar?)

        1. Yotomoe

          Looks Like Launch from Dragonball in her Gangsta form.

        2. Plasma Mongoose

          Lunch from Dragonball

        3. LiaHansen

          yessssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssss

        4. Deathjavu

          I kinda thought that’s who it was. The orange hair instead of blond is kind of throwing me off though.

        5. Arkantos

          Huh. I forgot about her. What ever happened to her after Dragonball anyway?

        6. Bill M.

          She stuck around in Z, making a few appearances, but the vast majority were cut from the North American version in the original broadcast because it was assumed fans would have no idea who she was. Her hair color change with the sneezes didn’t help.

        7. Pivitor

          The story I’ve always heard is that Toriyama completely forgot she existed after a certain point and instead of inserting her back into the story after she’d been missing for a while (and after she’d been becoming a less and less important character) he just made up an excuse for her absence (In canon Roshi says that “she went running off after Tien”) and called it a day. In the anime she was seen lending energy to the final Spirit Bomb against Buu amongst a few other cameos, but I’m not sure if those cameos were in the manga as well.

        8. Tunaro

          I think it’s Lunch from Dragon Ball. Launch? How the Hell do you spell her name?

        9. Dante

          It’s spelled Lunch, apparently, but said Launch. *shrug* :\

        10. Spliced

          What if we turned the “a” into a “u”?

        11. Spliced

          fail. I had it backwards.

        12. Plasma Mongoose

          Some translations say Launch, others say Lunch.

        13. Eolirin

          The confusion stems from the Japanese pronunciation of both of those (English) words sounding exactly the same, and since written Japanese uses phonetic characters… well.

          This is a problem for all transliteration into English, but is especially problematic for foreign loan words that are homophones under Japanese pronunciation.

        14. Opus the Poet

          Ah yes, the transliteration problem. My family name IRL transliterates the same as a deadly poison in Japanese.

        15. Dragon_Nataku

          considering the sheer number of food-related names in the Dragon Ball universe, I’m pretty sure it’s Lunch

        16. Kelly

          Pretty sure Lunch is manga, maybe JP anime as well? Launch is used in the English dub.

          After all something like 90% of names in the series are puns, and a great many are food-based.

        17. Kirby

          Put yer Piccolo back in the Frieza if you’re not gonna eat your Vegetas!

        18. Yotomoe

          Well Piccolo is based on the instrument. You can however slice up your Kakarots and Raditz and put them in the Cooler, however.

        19. LiaHansen

          There are a couple variations throughout the various translations and publications, just like how some people know Krillin as Kulilin and Tien as Ten.

        20. Eolirin

          Man, that’s a weird one. Kulilin is an attempt to be closer to the actual Japanese characters used, I’d guess, but the u isn’t be voiced, so the transliteration of Krillin is closer to what the actual sound should be. And if you’re attempting to do a proper, to commonly used guidelines, transliteration of a word, you cannot use Ls, because there aren’t any. It’d be Kuririn.

        21. Aeyt

          This is the truth, but the r is made more like the Latin rolled r, soft against the roof of your mouth which many English speakers find difficult and others simply don’t know that that’s the correct pronunciation. So to make it easier for those people, L’s have been used to get a better sound, that’s more audibly correct than the throaty sound of the English R.

        22. Deathjavu

          Krillin wears hats and shirts that say both, if I remember correctly. DB had a shirt with Kuririn, and DBZ had a hat with Kulilin…

        23. StClair

          The proper way to pronounce Krillin is “Charlie Brown.”

          (“I can’t stand it.”)

        24. Betty Anne

          At this point I want to make a Team Four Star Tenshinhan “freaking weeaboo” reference, but…considering it’s a racial slur and we just had the “racist joke” discussion the other day… -___-

          I just can’t believe this “discussion” is still going strong…I thought we could have been done with it a decade ago. ^^;

      2. newllend

        Hears a Question, how come every avatar you have has a green background how do you do that?

        1. Plasma Mongoose

          Simple, I create my own avatars mostly by finding pictures(typically from the ‘boorus), cropping said images as well as editing/colouring the image and including the minty aquamarine background to all of my gravs.

        2. Ocbrad1

          One of the many goofy things I love about the Willis-verse commentariat is how we can get thread-jacked onto topics like the gravs for the regular commenters (Plas, Yotomoe, Kern, etc). It’s kinda fun for a relative new arrival like myself to get to witness some of the backstory. Plus, butts.

        3. Roborat

          I would think the newer readers would find the grav threads strange, particularly in Plasma’s case, as everytime he changes his grav, it permeates back through the forum pages, making the older discussions really confusing.

  7. Tunaro

    Ya know, Joe’s actually gotten kinda lazy about keeping Danny from Danning things up lately.

    1. Doctor_Who

      Been too busy Joeing things.

      Lets hope those verbs never get confused.

      1. Spliced

        Once you go Joe, you never let go?

        1. Yotomoe

          Once you go Danny, You kick him in the fanny.

        2. Plasma Mongoose

          Once you go Joe, it will be the more you know!

        3. Spliced

          Once you go Joe, it’s all you need know 😉

        4. TDangerously

          …G.I. JOE

        5. John

          Joeing is half the battle!

      2. Zana

        It is amusing that both their names are synonymous with fucking up, however in Joe’s case it is considerably more literal.

    2. Calvin

      He’s never done much there, really.

  8. JA

    Bad Danny! *smack*

    1. Doctor_Who

      No biscuit!

    2. JAD

      Given your avatar, I gotta ask… a *smack* as in slap or as in kiss?

      1. Plasma Mongoose

        Smack as in heroin, ideally from a heroine.

        1. nothri

          Lady Snowflame?

          http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1r-SpfX2n_E

        2. nothri

          Okay, I’m getting the drug wrong, but the concept seems valid.

        3. Plasma Mongoose

          Common mistake as they are often found in a white powdery form.

          Heroin is made from the opium poppy while Cocaine is made from the coca plant.

        4. Plasma Mongoose

          ♬“She don’t lie, she don’t lie… SNOWFLAMMMMME!”♬

  9. Yotomoe

    All of Danny’s problems could be so easily avoided….

    1. Shadic

      Yeah, he could have just avoided a girl with well-hidden parental (and mental) issues, and he definitely should have seen through the well-practiced, sociopathic manipulator of ultra twatitude!

      1. DailyBrad

        You read the comics and actually retain information and view them in the context in which they take place, not as an omniscient bystander. you get a gold star.

        1. LJoL

          Yeah, it’s sad how many haters of Danny refuse to treat him like a character in a story and instead expect him to be a comic viewer able to break the wall and see everything from a god’s eye view.

          The worst part is that if his behavior was portrayed by a female character instead of a male they would be FAAAAR more forgiving. If a girl acted slightly needy / clueless and asked questions like “Is it so wrong to love?!” these bashers would say that it was adorable, or at worst say she was slightly weird. But stick that behavior onto a guy and instantly all these people want to do is bash and give euphemisms like “danning it up”.

          Don’t believe me? Give Dina’s quirks to Danny and Danny’s quirks to Dina. Dina would remain cute to her fans as a believer in love. Her fans would call her “naive but adorable”. Danny would remain reviled. People would say he needed to grow up. They would say he was creepy for acting like a dinosaur. When he stared at her a girl’s mouth because that was what was moving they would call him stupid.

          I have one word to describe all the Danny haters… Sexists.

        2. John

          You really told that straw man.

        3. The E-man

          new favorite comment

        4. Kerry

          I… I’m having trouble figuring out how to respond to this. I guess the best way is to address your weird assumptions about how the readership would respond to switching around Dina and Danny’s personalities.

          From what I’ve gathered from various comments sections discussing Danny, his negative traits (according to people who dislike him, anyway) are as follows:

          Danny
          – oblivious
          – unable to reflect on his actions
          – obsessive/clingy
          – self-centered
          – weak/unable to stand up for himself/support Amber

          It’s a bit harder to list Dina’s positive traits, as it seems that readers don’t necessarily like her because of, say, her intelligence, but because of things like her devotion to dinosaurs, which they find endearing.

          However, a better explanation of why people like Dina, I think, comes from this exchange between 3oranges and ninja_jesus, who made these comments on The Raptor:

          3oranges
          “Hm. Dina and Marigold are both socially awkward at a level where they’ve been avoiding other people and are only now learning to have friends. Something a little weird about that making them the most popular, because it obviously doesn’t work for people like that in their own universes.”

          ninja_jesus
          “It’s not that weird if you take into consideration the amount of people who like both characters because the characters may or may not embody a part of themselves, if not themselves entirely. Dina and Marigold give those people someone to relate to and root for in the comic, and maybe even an inspiration or starting point to boost confidence in themselves, to try being social as well.

          Then there’s the idea that the internet is made up of a good population of socially introverted people, and that a character in a webcomic that they feel represented by is an inevitable occurrence.”

          In order to figure out whether or not your claim that people would still retain their Danny-hate if he had Dina’s traits, and vice versa, we need to look at a few different factors.

          First, are there any girls that share the traits Danny possesses, and are there any guys who share the traits Dina possesses in the cast of DoA? The closest I can think of for Dina, re: perceived impaired sociability and a narrow set of interests is Walky, but it’s pretty clear that he isn’t anywhere near Dina’s level, so I’m going to go outside of DoA and look to Abed from Community.

          For anyone who’s watched Community, the example is self-explanatory, but for those who haven’t, Abed resembles Dina to a considerable degree, only instead of dinosaurs, he’s obsessed with pop culture (notably, TV and film).

          And the fan reaction to Abed? He’s adorable.

          Of course, the Community fandom is not the DoA fandom. But I think there’s good reason to believe there’s considerable overlap, if only because Community appeals to the types of people Dumbing of Age appeals to (or at least, the nerds among us, anyway). Of course, this is opinion, but even if not necessarily true, I think people’s adoration of Abed extends to the general population anyway, so it seems that particular claim has been sufficiently rebutted.

          Next, Danny… hm, a girl who’s oblivious, unable to reflect on her actions, obsessive, self-centered, and weak…

          You could argue Billie and Ruth share these traits. Billie’s more on the self-centered side, while Ruth keeps making bad choices and yet is unable to foresee the consequences/learn from them i.e reflect. Joyce is naive. Amber’s obsessive. And when those traits come out, and especially when they lead to undesirable situations, the readers by-and-large call them out on it.

          I do think they are cut more slack than Danny a good amount of the time though. I postulate that one of the reasons they are is that their shortcomings have clear and definite roots. Billie was neglected, Ruth lost her parents and seems to have been emotionally abused by her grandfather (if memory serves), Joyce was raised in a fundie Christian home, and Amber was abused by her father and traumatized by a robbery. Danny’s just that way because… he’s just that way.

          Regardless, your accusation of “sexism” is bullshit.

          Note: I don’t actually hate Danny, or even necessarily agree with people who do so. I think it’s kinda pointless now that he knows Amber is Amazi-Girl, and after everything that’s happened.

        5. Kerry

          woah that post was really long whoops

        6. John

          Yeah, but it was really good, whoops.

        7. ninja_jesus

          Woo, I’ve been quoted! 😀

          I would argue that Joyce embodies a good amount of what Danny embodies, and the parallel between the two of them is pretty clear; they’ve both been chasing after an ideal version of who they want their significant others to be, they both will actively indulge their own delusions, they both have a snarky black friend who acts as the voice of reason, both of them have been in a situation where there was direct conflict between parent and child, and finally, both of them see being in a relationship with someone as a defining point in their lives and in themselves.

          For Joyce, this is made pretty very clear early in the series, and the reasons laid out were just as clearly made later on. For Danny, it seems like we haven’t been given a whole lot of information on why he acts the way he does, but we were given a good summary of his life and his values during Freshmen Family Weekend when Danny’s parents visited him. Their actions/words speak volumes about how they raised him and their expectations of him:

          First, their focus on success is made apparent when his dad praises him for following Dorothy, and that he should hold on to her because she’s “going places”, meaning that she’s on her way to success. Next, his mom’s remark about Dorothy being “a treasure”, which sounds a bit over-analytic, but then again, she could’ve chosen any other word to praise Dorothy that didn’t reference material value, too. Then, after they immediately jump to the conclusion that it was his fault they broke up, when he mentions he has a new girlfriend, his mom’s first question about her is whether or not she’s “better than Dorothy”. Finally, his mom makes that comment telling him “not making up girlfriends to make them feel better”, as if his failure to stay with Dorothy somehow hurt them directly.

          Taking all of these points into account, you can draw the conclusion that Danny was raised to value relationships highly, especially when they’re with someone who has the potential to become very successful, and that while he isn’t discouraged to pursue his own success, Danny’s parents place more emphasis and encouragement towards him chasing successful people instead. When Danny fails to maintain a relationship, his parents see him as failing them too, and any failure in the relationships he’s had are attributed to him. You therefore can say that due to his upbringing, Danny sees his own self-worth and purpose in being in a long-lasting relationship with someone. Does that sound a bit familiar to you?

          Basically, Danny is more comparable to Joyce than anyone else in this comic.

        8. Kerry

          I actually was considering comparing him and Roomies! era Joyce, for that very reason, but I wondered if that might be taking it too far.

          To put it simply, in Roomies!, Joyce meets Danny and becomes obsessed with him, leading to her putting him on a pedestal and idealizing him. She’s essentially a more extreme version of what some Danny-haters accuse of him being (including me at one point, but I’m not sure where I stand now), and that behavior sure isn’t “adorable” (though it’s definitely naive), male or female.

      2. newllend

        Well Blian didn’t hide it that well.

        1. Kirby

          From what we saw of his interactions with Danny, he was careful to not really do anything around him until the end.

        2. John

          It wasn’t that he didn’t do anything, but that he didn’t do anything that he couldn’t explain away. But all of those little irregularities – starting with lurking outside the dorm to ambush Amber’s friends instead of going in to see her, and ending with making Amber walk 2.5 miles in the dark and the rain to meet them in an empty parking lot with no one else around – should have been sending up warning flags, and if Danny had any savvy at all, the sheer number of little irregularities that Blaine needed to explain away should have been a huge warning sign in and of itself.

        3. ninja_jesus

          Danny did get the warning flags, and he did ask questions, but his naivety and his trusting nature led him to believe that Amber’s dad genuinely did have her interests at heart.

    2. JessWitt

      But then he wouldn’t be as interesting to mock.

    3. Spliced

      by staying inside?

    4. nothri

      That’s cause Danny’s big questions are the normal questions we all have to ask ourselves sometimes: is this person we want to be with worth all the baggage and the problems they come with. Granted, their baggage usually isn’t as extreme as Amber’s is, but everybody comes with secrets and everybody is a little bit bruised. When it comes down to it, Danny’s making an amazingly ordinary choice and struggling with the oldest problem a guy has ever struggled with. Do ya hold on or do you let go. And honestly, I don’t have a good answer for him.

  10. Spliced

    People do that to me when they notice I’m over analyzing stuff, except they say “muskrat”

    1. JessWitt

      Muskrat, muskrat, muskrat…

      1. Spliced

        Overuse of the muskrat may cause excessive need of the muskrat as the source of the muskrat is desperately searched for, leading to a muskrat situation.

      2. Opus the Poet

        http://questionablecontent.net/view.php?comic=2302

        1. Charlie B. B.

          I have never understood that QC strip. It isn’t actually talking about over analysis, is it?

    2. nothri

      Hey, if its something you enjoy, why knock it? It might be a case of muskrat love, but who has the right to judge these things?

  11. Wonder Wig

    Next time you’re about to open another person’s can of worms remember kids, “Joe says no.”

    1. nothri

      For once in his life! Ha!

    2. Plasma Mongoose

      Before you open another can of worms, you should read the label first.

    3. Spliced

      “Only you can prevent college drama”

    4. Yotomoe

      NOW I KNOW!
      AND KNOWING IS HALF THE BATTLE.
      GI. JOEEEEEEEEEEE!

  12. Ragnal

    Now watch. Anytime Danny opens his mouth, Joe will magically appear next to him and do just that.

    …except this isn’t the wacky Walkyverse, so…nh…made myself sad.

  13. motorfirebox

    Joe? …Can I sign up for that service?

  14. Rufus Saltus

    And I think we’re all glad for that change in dynamics

    1. Spliced

      As long as it doesn’t lead to JoexDanny, I’m good

  15. Doctor_Who

    “And to make things worse, I now have the sinking suspicion I will never get my 3DS back.”

    1. Yotomoe

      Jokes on her…I’ve got the charger. Oh wait…they sell those…

  16. Idon'tcarenomore

    Danny sees the light.
    Joe finally ‘hears” him.
    Interesting.

  17. Kernanator

    I would pay $10 a month for a “Stop Doing Stupid Shit, You Idiot” service where everytime I started to do something stupid, someone smacked me and said “No”.

    Hell, I wish I’d had that when I was in high school.

    1. Yotomoe

      If I had ordered that in highschool I’d just be getting beat down daily.

    2. Plasma Mongoose

      The side-effects include a possible B&D fetish in your future.

      1. Spliced

        Not sure if downside

        1. Plasma Mongoose

          Unless you have a willing partner, B&D can be a very expensive habit.

      2. Kernanator

        You say that as if I don’t already have one.

        (I don’t)

        1. Plasma Mongoose

          You don’t???

          *le gasp*

        2. Kernanator

          At least, I think I don’t. I’m not sure.

        3. Plasma Mongoose

          If you find yourself saying mistress, master or even mother-superior a lot, then you might have a bad habit.

        4. nothri

          Pity the poor maids and butlers of the world, for they will never know…

    3. newllend

      But that would just take the spice out of life, plus one of my best friends is a real Dumbass and he can’t really take a punch.

    4. Roborat

      If I did that in high school, I would still be paying the debt off.

  18. Sammie1053

    yay, now I can say that for my birthday I got the gift of being able to watch Danny gain self-awareness!

    1. Laseema

      Happy birthday 😀

  19. Nym

    Joe brings the perspective on how little time has really passed here. It is amazing how much has happened in just four weeks.

    1. Spliced

      4 weeks ago I was on the other side of the country facing homelessness. Now I’m in a home I own in the mountains.

      4 weeks be long time.

      1. Clif

        So how did you manage that?

        1. Opus the Poet

          I would imagine moving from California to TN or WV, both of which are currently in a housing market slump. The amount of money that would not even be a down payment in the CA market would be 80-100% of the cost there.

        2. Spliced

          Job offer in Utah, and no one wanted this place because of the freaky layout. I, however, LOVE the freaky layout! MWAHAHAHA

  20. hayesan

    It would be better if he got a good smack across the back of the head instead of on the hand. The direct approach works much better.

  21. AgentKeen

    Yeah Danny, let it go.
    Don’t hold it back anymore.

    1. Kishimobot

      Just turn around and slam the door

      1. Spliced

        while your avatar gets it on with Sal?

      2. Sapphire

        He doesn’t care what they’re going to say

        1. Kiggy

          Let the storm rage oooooooooooooooooon….

          Oops, sorry, got carried over

        2. Stara

          The cold [shoulder] never bothered him anyway.

      3. Roborat

        Everybody do the dinosaur.

        1. Spliced

          For Pony?

  22. Xerxes93

    clearly something is wrong w/ me because i’m thinking that Danny looks kinda adorable in the second panel.

    1. Yotomoe

      Don’t fall for him Xerxes. He will only end up Danning you.

  23. Ridureyu

    He has to stay away. Period. There is no discussion.

  24. GoogerGeiger

    Joe, it’s too late. Danny has already left a huge trail of dannings in his wake.

    1. Spliced

      I just pictured a mixture of Danny standing in the middle of a field of destruction and woe, and Steve Urkle’s Did I Do That?

  25. Reltzik

    That’s right, Joe. Dan has to be taught never to get involved with girls who have abusive-daddy-issues. No guy should ever get involved with girls who have abusive-daddy-issues, ever, except in cases such as yours where they have a magic cock that magically cures all sex- and gender-related problems, in which case, there’s no need to stick around afterwards. Otherwise, such girls should be shunned by the broken-goods pariahs that they are, never encounter any stable male figures in their lives to help offset the unstable figures, and wallow in the misery that their daddies permanently consigned them to.

    1. Sapphire

      As a lady with abuse problems (as you may be too, idk) gotta say that while I did nod along with a lot of what you said and it is FUCKING ANNOYING how often “daddy issues” get used to stamp a girl as broken goods forever and ever, dating someone who has mega issues who has not worked through them at all/gone through any amount of worthwhile therapy is generally a pretty bad idea, for everyone.

    2. Deathjavu

      Well, to be fair, Joe’s position is more “don’t get involved with women ever”.

      1. Deathjavu

        Other than physically, of course.

    3. Kerry

      I don’t really get what you’re saying here. What Joe’s saying here is that four weeks is an awfully short time to get into a serious relationship with any girl, much less anyone with as much baggage as Amber.

      What Amber needs is help, not a boyfriend.

  26. FuryOfFirestorm

    Are we sure that this is really Joe? Every pussy hound like Joe out there knows that girls with daddy issues put out like their vaginas are due to be recalled by the FDA.

    1. Spliced

      na man, just the stripper ones

    2. Reltzik

      This is advice appropriate to wannabe-Joes of less Joeness then the One True Joe. The One True Joe is, appearances to the contrary, a figure of discerning appetites and quite capable of stringing together a series of one night stands even as he capably avoids sticking it in the third rail of emotional baggage.

      …. oh, who am I kidding. He COULD do that, but he don’t discriminate. That would require actually getting to know them first.

    3. Plasma Mongoose

      Besides, you’re better off avoiding sticking your dick into crazy no matter how tempting it might be.

      1. nothri

        Depends on your definition of crazy, really. Yeah, if your dating someone likely to cut you as kiss you or who listens to the voices telling them to set things on fire…you should stop as soon as safety will allow. But I suspect most of us got some screwed up notions in our heads from one moment of bad parenting or another. Lots of those notions we’re not even aware of. What i’m saying is, dating isn’t so much about finding someone “normal” (whatever the hell that even is) and more finding someone whose good outshines their bad, whose crap you can at worst accept and at best help them with, and who will do the same for your flaws.

  27. Tomas

    Joe seems wise beyond his years. Compared to the rest of the cast he’s almost too good to be true.

  28. March

    Seriously, Joe is a total dog, and he knows this is too much shit.

    Danny, the only help you can give is walking Amber to the health offices. If you can’t do that, and only that, unless it’s being genuinely supportive and not the Nice Guy, you need to step away. But before you do, find her friends and tell them she needs to TALK TO A PROFESSIONAL.

    Please. Please be a genuinely nice guy right now, Danny.

    1. Deathjavu

      I love how everyone thinks they know what’s best for Amber after these past few strips. “Danny should just go away! He’ll only make things worse!” “Only therapy will help Amber!”

      I honestly think you could not be more wrong. Isolation is absolutely NOT what Amber needs.

      1. Twirls

        Isolation, no.
        Therapy, yes.

        1. insomniac

          Of course Amber would benefit from therapy. I think the whole cast could probably stand to get some professional help.

          (Hell, Sal is sick of hearing it in-universe.)

        2. Deathjavu

          As Willis said, Jeph Jacques ruined it for everyone. Now that it’s been revealed that therapy is actually an option in webcomics, we all (rightly) suggest that most of the cast could use it.

      2. Kerry

        She doesn’t need romance either. I’m all for Amber getting support from the people around her, but what Danny wants is not something she can (should?) provide.

    2. Belegcam

      Danny does seem to sincerely want to help, as far as I can tell. I don’t think he wants to do this for selfish reasons.

    3. takashid

      What? How are you getting Danny being a “Nice Guy”tm and not genuinely supportive? Are you even reading panel 2 where he says “its not about romance anymore […] i just think she’s got some tough shit to wade through and i wanna help?”…???

    4. n0z3k1ll3r

      You cannot make someone go to therapy if they don’t want to. It doesn’t work. Even if you force them through the door, you can’t get professional help without cooperating, and they won’t.

  29. nothri

    You know, I think your onto something Willis. Back then Danny kept Joe out of trouble. At least when he wasn’t causing fatal collisions.

  30. newllend

    The curse of those who seek love with all their heart, the thing is those people wont obtain it easily, they will find themselves lost in trouble after trouble, day after day in a life filled with traumatic drama…why because they do it to themselves, if you don’t believe well take a good look at our friend Danny and tell that this isn’t possible.

  31. Zap Rowsdower

    No, Joe, you need a little squirt gun to shoot him in the face with, like you use to keep the cat off the kitchen counter.

    It helps to say NO while doing so in a loud but firm voice – or maybe something else negative, like PHOOEY PHOOEY PHOOEY, so he gets the message and doesn’t get confused when you say no in other circumstances.

    A leash might work too.

    1. Lou

      Naa just fill the squirt gun with lemon juice! THERE’S A GOOD PUNCHLINE!

  32. Cragalanch

    Oh Danny. Don’t you know that angst is inevitable in college. INEVITABLE, CRAGALANCH SAYS!

  33. Wack'd

    Man, it’s weird how many people agree with Joe here. It’s true that he’s a smart enough guy to know shit about consent and self-image so forth, but I think viewing him as the voice of reason is a pretty big mistake. I mean, “crying and being drunk are implied nos” is a really basic standards of human decency and not caring about other people’s opinions is a really rote piece of guidance-councilor advice, and yet both of these opinions were met with rousing cheers from the comments section. (I mean, the latter was a response to Walky, for cripes sake. Do we really wanna congratulate the guy for being more insightful than someone who doesn’t seem to have left middle school?)

    I dunno if our perception of the guy as someone who doles out basic, necessary truths is clouding our judgment or what, but this is actually pretty terrible advice. Joe doesn’t seem to be able to tell the difference between being overly emotionally attached for selfish reasons like Danny was with Dorothy and legitimately caring about someone else and wanting to help, which is the state that Danny’s in now. I mean, by all appearances, Danny doesn’t want to help because he wants he and Amber to get back together, he’s legitimately worried about her as a person. The most he personally enters into it is that he doesn’t think he’s the right guy to help her.

    Joe is also, like so much of the comments section, presuming that Blaine, someone who’s been getting away with emotional manipulation for eighteen fucking years, is easy to see through even without all the facts. And that’s not even getting into the fact that, as pointed out above, Joe seems to be saying that no one with this sort of emotional baggage is worthy of romantic attention–but then, Joe doesn’t see romance as worthwhile, period.

    Joe’s philosophy on personal relationships may not be the worst thing in the world, and it makes him happy, but he’s needlessly messianic about it and, at least with Danny, seems to get less tolerant of other people’s connections the further they deviate from his ideal. He–like Danny, and, y’know, the entire rest of the cast–still has a lot of growing up to do.

    1. takashid

      shhhhhhhh Wack’d if you don’t get back in line with the others and start chanting “Danny sucks and everything he does is wrong” the mob here might stone you to death 😛

      (i kid, of course, this is a great post you’ve written up)

    2. Deathjavu

      Eh, the Danny hate has gotten to memetic levels, where it no longer needs to have any basis in what actually happens in the comic. Personally, I hate him a lot less now that he’s demonstrating the capacity for self-awareness.

      I also think people are just amused/fascinated by the idea of someone following someone else around and stopping them when they start to do something wrong. Doubly so in this particular instance since Danny is perceived as always doing wrong, constantly.

    3. Aeyt

      Neither of the characters in question here are to be taken seriously. Danny is the lovable, perpetual blunderer that the audience loves to laugh at and mock. Joe is the jerk that only has love for himself and makes us laugh usual at other characters expense. Putting them into a social situation of this caliber, and making them find their way, is simply part of the enjoyment of the comic. What most of the audience is doing, is being entertained and embracing the story for what it is rather than putting their own expectations on it or taking it very serious at all. It’s similar to television. Why yell at the characters to do anything other than what the writers are making them do? Don’t get angry, or frustrated that the story doesn’t go the way you want, that the characters aren’t portrayed the way you want. Either watch/read and be entertained, or find something else to fill your time with. I hope you haven’t taken offense to this. Just civil discourse.

      1. moby

        But I want to take it seriously. I take it seriously because I care a lot about (some of) the characters. Remember Ruth and Billie? I cried a little bit when the disaster happened. I just love this comic so much, you know??

        I think I understand you, and you might be right about Danny and Joe, but this comic is too dear to my heart to not be serious about it.

      2. Wack'd

        “Don’t get angry, or frustrated that the story doesn’t go the way you want, that the characters aren’t portrayed the way you want.” Except that my problem is that the audience is doing exactly that. The comments section is continually frustrated with Danny for not fixing every problem and presuming he has as much information as the audience.

      3. ninja_jesus

        If that’s how you wish for your comic reading experience to go, then you are free to enjoy it that way. I myself have fun emotionally investing myself in the characters and story of this and other comics because this webcomic, and Danny’s character specifically, is very relatable to my own life and choices that I have made in the past. The feeling of closeness with this comic enhances the experience for myself and others like me, and I think that being an active audience (yelling at the TV) is a far more enjoyable experience than being a passive one (staring at the TV quietly).

    4. Robin

      Where’s the applause button on this thing?

    5. nothri

      To be fair, I was never a big Joe fan from day one. I don’t think he’s making any judgments about Blaine over here…he doesn’t have any information to say anything about it, afterall. I do think he has a serious problem understanding people who don’t live the way he does, so there’s that.

      1. Nono

        Mary has a serious problem understanding people who don’t think the way she does.

        Joe/Mary?

    6. Kerry

      I’m taking what Joe says as advice not necessarily not to involve yourself with anyone with baggage period, but not to enter into a committed relationship with someone so early in your acquaintance with them, especially not with someone who’s in such a precarious state. Of course, I might be giving Joe too much credit.

      I think it’d be totally cool for Danny to stay with Amber and support her as a friend, but I don’t think a romantic relationship is a good idea at the time. Danny seems to understand this, so props to him.

  34. AdInfinitumSpero

    I almost feel like I’m reading a better written version of roomies with these past two comics of joe in his underwear with an 5 oclock shadow

  35. ninja_jesus

    Gotta say, this hits quite close to home. I was Danny in this situation, trying to help my ex out with her personal issues while my grades suffered in high school from 10th to graduation. She had no real friends at her school, so I pretty much served as one of the only people she talked to about her problems. Looking back, it was pretty stressing on me and I did fuck up more than a few times and made things worse for her, but I, like Danny, felt the need to try and help someone I cared about and just went for it. Even though it got rough at times, I believe I was able to do the most for her and be one of the few good things in her life during the 4 years we were together. Eventually we broke up because she was moving off to Canada for college, I didn’t want to hinder her college experience with the burden of keeping a long distance relationship (going between Canada and Hawaii is pretty tough), and in general we were at a place where we didn’t really think of each other romantically anymore. We’re still good friends, though and she even found herself a boyfriend there. 🙂

    So I got a feeling that Danny, just like me, will try to take the hard road and stay with Amber, and stick with her until Amber decides it’s over. He’s got a fierce loyalty that I totally identify with, and the naivety to not know when it’s logically time to stop; and while things will be pretty rough, in the end both he and Amber will come out of it for the better.

  36. Aeyt

    I want someone to walk around with me and prevent my bad decisions. That would be awesome. No more entree envy, no buyers remorse, no morning after pill. Life would be so much simpler.

  37. Evil Midnight Lurker

    All I can see is Dannius Caesar in a parade down the streets of Rome, riding in a chariot, laurel wreath, people throwing rose petals at him, the whole nine yards, with Joe behind him whispering in his ear “Remember thou art stupid.”

    1. MM

      Every king needs his fool. With Danny and Joe, it’s just hard to say who’s who.

  38. caesaria82

    I’m really enjoying Joe in this storyline so far.

  39. Glacirus

    …Completely off topic. But every time I see Joe’s stubble I think to myself (and now comment) He needs to grow that damn beard out. Bearded Joe is awesome Joe.

    1. moby

      Joe becomes Joe’s dad! Finally, Joe’s beard in full cycle.

    2. timemonkey

      NOOOOO, DOA is the last escape from horrible bearded Joe!

  40. Kathleen

    Are these guys even friends anymore? All I feel when these two are together is negativity and tension. I know their relationship has been degrading over time, but seriously…

    dudes need some quality friendship time.

    1. TSB

      Yeah, they really do. Joe told Danny that his emotional needs weren’t being met and Danny’s behavior as a friend was disappointing, if not hurtful (though Joe would never phrase it like that, haha), and Danny doesn’t seem to have reacted to that at all. Danny is trying to work out his problems and Joe is dismissing the premise as irrelevant. I think Danny could benefit from considering things from Joe’s perspective (am I getting overinvolved, etc) but “your problems are stupid” is not a very helpful or compassionate thing to say to your best friend.

      Though, I think it’s ordinary for even the best of friends to have periods where they fight often and can’t seem to get on the same wavelength; unless it goes on for a lot longer or escalates, I wouldn’t call them not friends.

  41. Arturo

    I still maintain people do not like Danny because he does what they probably would in exact the same situation.

    1. Sam

      Nope, people do/did not like Danny because before now, he failed to reflect to any degree. So he kept making mistakes again and again. This is the first time he has truly reflected on things he has done and realised that he made things horribly worse due to blatant stupidity.

      1. ninja_jesus

        I think you’re being a bit harsh on Danny; first of all, he lacked a lot of important information regarding Amber’s situation that would’ve helped him make better decisions, including the fact about Amber’s dad, that she was Amazi-Girl the whole time (more on that below), and that she was using her persona as a way to vent the compartmentalized anger and pain of her childhood. His only mistakes were that he was too trusting of others, and too involved in what he perceived to be a harmless fantasy (which, with no actual evidence shown to him to the contrary at the time, shouldn’t be held against him) and too loyal to the relationship bonds that he forms with people. The mistakes he’s made, as well, did not have any immediate or obvious consequences, and had always ended up either being very vague, as with Danny’s friend-dumping of Amber, or not revealed to him until when the shit hit the fan, as with the confrontation with Amber’s dad.

        As for calling him stupid, I would argue that it is more naivety than stupidity that he suffers from. He isn’t stupid; once he gets all the facts, he can make intelligent decisions. Danny’s just very sheltered and didn’t know about how cruel parents could really be, or how broken Amber really was, or how harmful his actions were — actions that, in any other context, would’ve been alright, or, at the very least, not as heavy of a blunder as it was for dealing with Amber.

        But now he understands that he can’t deal with Amber as though she was a normal girl, because she isn’t, and hopefully now we will see a change for the better in his decision-making.

      2. begbert2

        Danny reflects pretty often. He openly reflected to Amber about his relationship with Amazi-girl (that time in class), and then when she advised that he was treating the relationship as a shallow fantasy he reacted by immediately trying to deepen it and get to know Amazi-girl as a person. Once again Danny defies people’s memory of him.

        I agree with Arturo – people hate Danny because they see him and he’s like themselves, except possibly a touch more upstanding and with even worse luck.

  42. RobHagen

    The Four Faces of Danny in this strip. Awesome!

    1. xKiv

      Every Dan is awesome, every Dan is cool when he’s making a team,
      every Dan is awesome
      in a fantasy~~~.

  43. Crumplepunch

    It would be nice.

  44. Galatine

    Isn’t that what everyone needs, Joe? Isn’t it?

  45. Mo

    See, this is why I can’t figure out why Joe always ends up near the bottom of those “favorite character” surveys.

  46. tukikagami

    I’d love to have him follow me around and smack my hand all day and say no. *achem* I mean, go danny….

  47. Al Schroeder

    How bad do you have to be for JOE to be the watchdog of your behavior?

  48. Robert

    Y’know out of all the things I pictured myself doing this week, seeing Joe give good advice while in his underpants wasn’t really one of them. Thank you Willis for showing me that my weekly planner is worthless.

    1. Paul

      Do you all really think this is good advice?

      1. Sam

        Considering all Joe knows is that Danny was trying to go after a girl and literally nothing else about the situation, his advice is essentially ‘you failed to get the girl, move on, you’ll find someone else to love’ which is all the key points you try to get across to someone after a break up/failed attempt at romance in three fairly simple sentences.

        His advice actually is good because it gets straight to the point, it is just not the correct advice for this situation which seems more obvious to Joe of panel 4 who is like ‘what on earth have you being doing’ than Joe of panel 1 who is like ‘just move on, you’ll get another girl’.

        1. begbert2

          Joe advice is, in order:
          1) You’re stupid and shallow in relationships and none of your relationships are worth anything; discard on and you’ll have a replacement crush in two days flat.

          2) Any relationship that is slightly complicated isn’t worth pursing.

          and of course from yesterday:
          0) All relationships that have any depth or longevity to them all aren’t worth pursuing.

          Joe’s advice is shit.

        2. Plasma Mongoose

          Maybe Joe is a MGTOW…?

        3. nothri

          The fact that he’s only just now trying to actually understand the situation is one reason why I’m saying the advice isn’t good. Expressing some sympathy for the problem and asking a few questions to get an understanding would have been a helpful response to the situation. Throwing out some general advice with an attitude I continue to see as dismissive and slightly contemptuous (I’ve learned not to state my reading as a fact, because we don’t know all Joe’s motivations right now and I’ve certainly been wrong about a character before) is not what I’m calling helpful. I’m continuing to think that Joe is not the right guy to talk to about any of this, especially because their own relationship has kind of been neglected by Danny long enough that it needs some mending and bruised feelings really need to be dealt with.

  49. Maki P

    I know! They’ve reversed or something!

  50. ninja_jesus

    Guys, let’s not forget that Joe’s dad is Dr. Rosenthal, the guy who hit on Sarah and had a sexual rendezvous with Amber’s mom. I surmise that Joe’s problems with romance and love stem from his parents, specifically their divorce, and the reason that he’s so dismissive about Danny’s problems is because he’s still pretty bitter about the whole thing. Joe wants nothing to do with love, I think, because he doesn’t want to end up like his parents, even though he’s already taken to his dad’s behavior. It would explain why he’s so adamant about only keeping things casual.

  51. Tenn

    Re: hovertext.

    “Joe, do you know what consequences are?”

    “*sigh* Yeah, Danny, of course I know! Do you really think I wouldn’t—”

    “No no no, I’m asking! What are consequences?”

  52. Arkantos

    Yes. Why do you even question the need for that?

  53. bunivasal

    Danny’s gone full boyle.

  54. fang

    All the discussion over “are Danny and Joe even friends?” makes me wanna look up that “we are besties forever” refrigerator pic conversation.

  55. GhostWriterL

    I really don’t see why people hate Danny so much. He probably grew up in a household being told how his parents met in highschool and married in college and lived happily ever after, hence his naive idealist fantasy that he and Dorothy would end up that way. When it didn’t, he has tried since to be on friendly terms with her because it would be really painful to cut her out completely, though he’s understandably frustrated when she starts casually dating someone else and is thinking it’s perfectly ok to just show up at his room whenever she wants because she thinks she needs to mother over him… He ends up fascinated by a “super hero” that saves him, much like the typical heroine/love interest in comic books and then tries to move beyond that fantasy and into a real relationship, but ends up confused and frustrated again when another girl hints interest and pretends to be his current girlfriend in front of his parents, despite the fact that he shied away from that possibility after people pointed out “DUDE, SHE LOOKS LIKE YOUR EX” and he thought about it and realized “oh, shit, she does and that’s why I had any interest in her at all”, concluding that he probably shouldn’t pursue it because he didn’t want another “Dorothy incident” to happen and didn’t want to burden Amber with his subconscious expectations of her replacing Dororthy for him. It makes sense to me that he goes for Amazigirl because she is the practical opposite of everything he has known, and since what he has known hasn’t worked out, maybe something different will.

    Then Blaine shows up, tells him there’s reason to be concerned about Amber, and he trusts that in being her father that he’s just a concerned parent looking out for his kid… because that’s what his dad was like, and while Joe’s dad cheated on his mom and probably acted like an arrogant ass, Mr. Rosenthal likely did show appropriate concern and affection for his son when it was important to. Danny had no idea that a parent could be someone like Blaine, because 1) no one told him about Blaine and 2) he’s likely had no real life experiences with anyone like that and his only image of what an abusive person is like is probably the dirty wife-beater undershirt wearing, clearly drunk and slurring, and visibly ugly trope that many media formats use to show their audience a bad, abusive parent. Blaine is the opposite of that in every way, and Danny was completely blindsided.

    So, given all that, and given it’s only been 4 weeks since Danny left his really very sheltered and trouble free life, he’s realizing how little he knows about life and the troubles of other people. He goes to Amber’s room to do the first thing that comes to his mind and try and be there for her only to be told he isn’t wanted. Now he’s going to the one person that, in his eyes, is impervious to emotional pain and turmoil in regards to relationships… aka: Joe.

    Joe has his walls built up and by all accounts seems to be happy with his life of casual encounters and not investing more than the minimum in almost everyone he meets. It makes sense to me that Danny would want guidance and advice on how to keep himself from throwing himself 100% into every possibility, because so far that’s made him miserable. And while Joe is an asshole and isn’t one bit comforting, Danny knows that he can expect the truth from him. No facades. No lies. No ommissions… Just Joe’s observations and conclusions from what he knows of the situation, and his general opinion on what Danny should do to protect himself and avoid things that will likely just drag him down with them.

    So, Danny is growing up, and being forced to do so pretty damn fast regardless of how long this comic has been going on. People forget you’re really only seeing seconds or even just hours out of maybe one entire day per strip, so progress in character development is going to take MONTHS at least. Danny in that regard has already achieved probably 2 years of personal growth, and that has to hurt no matter how beneficial it could possibly be. Joe’s the best friend he has right now because he won’t delude him with bullshit in favor of protecting his feelings.

    Just my take on it.

    1. Kerry

      Actually, from my observation, most people don’t hate Danny (anymore), and a good number quite like him.

  56. Kerry

    Y’know, it just occurred to me that most of my arguments against Danny and Amber becoming a couple* center around Amber’s well-being, but what about Danny’s? It’s quite possible that Amber’s problems might be too much for him in the long run, but I guess we’ll see how it goes.

    *I wouldn’t object to them just being friends.

  57. Nik

    I can’t believe this thread has gone on for hundreds of posts without the word “Bromance” ever being brought up.

    That’s the first word, at least, that came into my mind when I saw the post title…

  58. thelastnerd

    I don’t know anything about 16 years ago, but Danny and Joe’s dynamic is pretty good now.

  59. CaptainRose

    As much as i hate the term bromance its basically the only word i can come up with for Danny and Joe’s relationship

  60. Rose

    I feel like Joe’s suggestion would be legit helpful to danny at this point

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