416

Presidential
Posted on May 6, 2017 by David M Willis

416 thoughts on “Presidential”

  1. Ana Chronistic

    Joe just trumped HillaryDorothy there didn’t he

    …but he apologized, which is currently about as un“presidential” as it gets =/

    1. Ana Chronistic

      (so did he upgrade her tho)

      look Joe, you can redeem yourself by stabbing that dude behind you in the eye with your pointy-ass shirt there

      1. Big Box

        Nah, shirt-stabbing is too boring.

        He needs to German Suplex him over and over until his spine snaps.

        1. Walky_Talky

          Take him to Suplex City, Joe!

        2. Willinwoods

          where the girls are green an’ the grass is pretty

        3. raul

          LOL, thanks for the earworm

      2. Nezumi

        A pointy-ass shirt is definitely preferable to a pointy ass-shirt.

    2. Janine

      And Dorothy’s about as un-Hillary as you can get while staying the same gender, so it fits.

      1. Spring

        I mean, the criticisms of Dorothy when she tried to run for RA are basically the same as the criticisms of Hillary’s personality. Too robotic and systematic, not enough human connection, thinks she deserves it because she’s qualified instead of because people want her.

      2. Spring

        If what you’re saying is that you like Dorothy and don’t like Hillary, that’s fine, but the criticisms of both are common criticisms of women who try to hard and want things too much to be seemly or feminine.

        I’m assuming you’re mostly talking about these personality aspects, because as far as I know, we don’t know anything about Dorothy’s positions on policy issues other than that she and Hillary are both in favor of gay marriage. Foreign and economic policy haven’t been major DoA topics.

      3. Aydr

        …if you don’t think that Hillary Clinton and Dorothy have traits in common, I very seriously question your level of being politically informed. Maybe don’t get your facts from memes.

  2. Black Bumblebee

    OH crap, HE is there.

    1. butts

      yeppers

    2. Grethelwvier

      fuck

    3. StClair

      “ohhhh SHIT”

      – when I got to that last panel

      1. Julez

        SAME

    4. Koms

      Has Joe seen the picture?

      1. Safgaftsa

        Relevant profile

    5. Big Box

      *MGS alert noise*

    6. JayTheBookworm

      *annoying AF klaxon plays on loop*

  3. Kris

    He just walked right by.

    1. TheAnonymousGuy

      AMBER!!!! SAL!!! JOYCE!!!!! ANYONE!!!!!

      1. fillerusername

        Assuming Roz is the last to leave she could potentially walk right into him…

        1. Rukduk

          Ooohhh fffuuuuccckkk…Roz was at the party and the rally and while she probably won’t recognize him he might recognize her that would be bad that would be very bad indeed.

        2. Kris

          I don’t think he would try anything unless he’s desperate. He’s kind of being hunted right now. His picture is circulating, he’s probably trying to lay low. Attacking Roz would bring to much attention as I refuse to believe she wouldn’t fight back in some capacity.

        3. fillerusername

          I don’t think he’d be stupid enough to try anything right now but I would be worried if she gets a good look at him and he is aware she got a good look at him.

        4. fillerusername

          He works for her sister remember? She might not know who he is but I’m very sure that he knows who she is.

        5. BBCC

          And if he knows who she is and who she’s related to, he ought to be running as far in the other direction as his scummy legs can carry him.

        6. fillerusername

          He works for Robin. He absolutely knows who she is.

        7. BBCC

          He was an unpaid intern working one college outreach rally. I’d be very surprised he knew a lot about her. Then again, Roz made the news about a month ago, so.

        8. fillerusername

          Doesn’t Robin like to drag Roz along to her rally’s? He wouldn’t have seen her onstage introduced as Congresswoman Desanto’s little sister? Also the sex tape yes that too.

        9. BBCC

          Robin likes dragging her there, and having her monitored during, but she doesn’t seem to like having her actually on stage. Roz likes to do anti-DeSanto Campaign things on stage (including threatening to kiss girl’s on stage).

        10. fillerusername

          Hmmm, okay. I’ve now gone from 100% certainty that he’d know who she is to more 50/50.

        11. Kryss LaBryn

          Sex tape yes but he probably wouldn’t have been looking at her face there so.

          Mind you, with Joe standing right beside her the odds of her being recognized in the context of the tape go ‘way up…

        12. thejeff

          He’s not laying low. He’s here for a reason. He’s hunting. Probably looking for Joyce.

        13. Reltzik

          I don’t think he has (or thinks he has) any more cause to attack Roz than he does to attack anyone else at that party, save for Joyce, Dorothy, Sarah, Amazi-Girl, and anyone on Amazi-girl’s contact list. And I don’t think Amazi-Girl or Amber have interacted with Roz much.

          I mean, there were dozens of people there. Most of them didn’t get a good look at him and most of them didn’t do anything to piss him off, and that includes Roz.

        14. BBCC

          Sal’s probably on his list too, but if he goes against Sarah, AG, or Sal (or hell, even a sufficiently enraged Joyce), my money ain’t on him.

        15. Reltzik

          Oh, Sal’s definitely on the list. But she wasn’t at the party, so I didn’t have to add her to the qualifications.

          And while I think you’re right about how he’d do in a fair fight against them, I don’t think he’d fight fair. I think he’d open with a blunt object to the back of the head or a chloroform rag to their face or a needle to their wherever before they even knew he was there.

        16. BBCC

          That is a frightening possibility. I’m very worried about Sarah and Joyce running into that. Sal or AG too for some of them – I’d have to bank on their awareness of their surroundings. While Sal’s good at that regarding stalking (she apparently noticed AG following her all day), it’d still be nerve wracking to see if she was fast enough before he came up on her. Or AG for that matter, especially since she doesn’t always keep an eye on her surroundings.

      2. Chris

        GET HIM JOE!!!

        1. fillerusername

          Does Joe know anything about the situation? He could have gotten the mass text.

        2. Chris

          But he knows Ryan drugs people (I hope he knows, anyway) and he is a “wall of man” that could probably beat the shit out of Ryan

        3. fillerusername

          Does he? If he got and read the mass text yeah but I don’t recall anyone informing him of Joyce being drugged by Ryan or the whole Ryan situation. Anyone feel free to let me know if I’m wrong about that. I’m also wondering if he’d read the text if even he would be so insensitive as to have made the comments he did in class very shortly after being informed there’s a potential serial rapist on the loose.

        4. Chris

          Very true. But news spreads, and he might know about Scarface. Hopefully he does

        5. Zatar

          Its also been established that the photo isn’t super high quality so he may not even recognize him. Especially with him dressing differently and keeping his as much of his head hidden as possible.

        6. Flakky

          Rape is obviously not one of Joe’s values. He values consent.

        7. Trolldrool

          According to the Cast page he values consent. According to his actual behaviour he seems to need an education on where the line of consent is drawn. That said, I don’t think he’d hesitate to give Ryan another scar if he suspected Ryan was stalking one of his friends.

        8. thejeff

          He values consent. It’s not entirely clear how picky he is about how he gets that consent.

        9. Flakky

          Trolldrool, are you saying Joe would attack Ryan, because he is big and buff or because you think he’s a brute?
          He didn’t punch Mike for basically assaulting him during his date with Joyce. He just left because he had enough.
          He is levelheaded when it matters.

    2. Optimal Optimus

      I was wondering who that guy was. He seemed to conspicuous to be just any passer-by.

      1. Marsh Maryrose

        Before I looked at the tags I was wondering what young Emperor Palpatine was doing there.

  4. Lauralot

    LOOK IT’S RYAN SOMEONE KICK HIM IN THE FACE WOUND

    1. Kris

      No it’s just one of those times where every background character looks like him as part of Joyce’s trauma. Except Joyce isn’t here and he’s the only one!

      1. Cholma

        That’s not Ryan; it’s just the dude from that game, Watch Dogs! He’s probably hacking Joe’s “Do List” or something.

    2. Chris

      OH FUCK! GET HIM!!! KILL (or capture, but that’s less pleasing) THE ROTTEN BASTARD!!!

    3. Idontcarenomore

      Ryan is listed in the credits.

  5. Danigami

    Oh god…was….was he trying to confirm about Joyce’s classroom?!!!!

    1. foamy

      He’s looking at Dorothy, anyway.

      1. Danigami

        that….makes it worse 8′>

      2. Dr. T

        It looks like he is taking a pic of Dorothy in the fifth panel.

        1. Smiling Cat

          My bet, she’s gonna get the Zoe Quinn treatment.

        2. merbrat

          …and Joe (unwittingly) confirmed her ID.

    2. HumboldtRobin

      Ooooh, I betcha that’s what it is.

    3. Doctor_Who

      That makes it even creepier.

    4. Shiro

      Well, fuck.

    5. Fart Captor

      Thank god for that field trip

    6. zoelogical

      well fuck

  6. Schpoonman

    Fuck you, Joe.

  7. fillerusername

    RYAN

    1. newllend(Henryvolt)

      It’s Paul Ryan Jr ( Some might think that comparing to a straight up rapist is a little harsh, but since his college dream that he’s trying so hard to make a reality is a making a government health care plan that punishes the domestically abused rape victims of America I find it kind of fitting)

      I give no fucks today.

      1. fillerusername

        Paul Ryan crafted a bill that says rape is a preexisting condition and also called rape “just another method of conception.” So, no, you’re not being harsh. You’re being very fair.

        1. Bicycle Bill

          I am ashamed to say that Paul Ryan represents one of the districts in my home state.  I am, however, happy to say that it is not my own district and I can proudly state I have never voted for him.

        2. Whirlwitch

          Shitfuck. Can I be the one who gives that Ryan a scar to match this Ryan’s?

  8. brasca1

    You know I thought Danny was being moody until I read the tag.

  9. Verdande

    Holy shit, good thing Joyce went off with Leslie and Becky

    1. Kris

      See I don’t know if that’s good timing or bad timing. I would much rather have Joyce there, surrounded by friends and an authority figure to easily identify and snatch him up! But at the same time if they were there they’d probably still be in class and he would walk right by. Soooooo opinions?

      1. Fart Captor

        I’m pretty sure it’s good timing. Ryan wasn’t likely to try anything here, for exactly the reasons you mention. It’s much more likely he was going to try to keep out of sight and follow her to her dorm

        1. foamy

          That dorm is filled with people who would eat Ryan alive and I hope we get to see it someday.

        2. BBCC

          Just tell Roz who he is, she’ll bodily throw him out a window herself.

        3. Fart Captor

          “Jesus, don’t eat that”

        4. Deanatay

          “Yeah, man, you are what you eat, you know…”

        5. zoelogical

          cannibalism party!!

        6. foamy

          More properly, a Dormer party.

        7. zoelogical

          ok u win all the awards, everyone else go home, we got a bone to pick between the two of us

        8. Austyn

          ain’t no party like the Donner party ’cause the Donner party don’t stop (until everyone is eaten)

        9. zoelogical

          party like it’s 1996 and you’re stuck on the oregon trail (on the oregon trail) re-enacting things you wished you never learned in history class

      2. missilentmurmur

        I don’t think he’d “walk right by”. I interpret this as him lurking around, waiting for the class to end, and then taking a picture of Dorothy.

  10. butts

    oh jeez it’s a trump reference

    guess we’re past that part of the buffer

    1. lia47

      to be fair it could also be a reference to like 20 or 30 other presidents

  11. brasca1

    Look there’s the resident Sith Lord Darth Roofius.

  12. Emperor Daniel

    DYW.

  13. Keulan

    Holy shit, someone grab Ryan and kick his ass!

  14. Natsu

    Please oh dumbing of age gods have joe punch roofie man in the mouth….

    1. Some1

      Would that count as even evil has standards?

      1. Rukduk

        I’d say yes.

      2. fillerusername

        No because Joe’s a dick sometimes but he’s not evil.

      3. fillerusername

        “Even evil has standards” would be someone like Ryan or idk…Amber’s dad having some kind of moral high ground over someone else.

      4. Jon Rich

        No, more like a Chivalrous Pervert. Joe’s Walkyverse counterpart even has an entry, under “Webcomics.” http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ChivalrousPervert

        Alternately, he could also be a Handsome Lech. But I think he fits the first much better. http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/HandsomeLech

      5. Dark

        Jerk with a Heart of Gold would probably fit better, honestly.

      6. Karishi

        Joe just likes to rate mens’ punchability.
        And Ryan is…
        …Over Nine Thousaaaaand!
        *crushes scouter*

  15. pumacatrun2

    Just turn the comic into Where’s Wyan now.

  16. Mr. Random

    Huh. Dude’s basically in hiding now.
    His life has probably gone to shit.

    1. svata

      Good. He deserves much worse

    2. Shiro

      Good.

    3. butts

      Good. Fuck that guy.

    4. missilentmurmur

      That is an optimistic interpretation. I think he came here in a hoodie especially so he doesnt catch their attention while spying on them. I think he took a picture of Dorothy, too.

  17. TimeLoss

    Ryan appearing in that last panel legitimately startled me. That cannot be good.

    1. Austyn

      same!!!!!!! aaaaaa

  18. Saki

    I see (hopefully soon-to-be) dead people

    1. butts

      dead dickbag walkin’

  19. fillerusername

    I love how prominent that facial scar is. Not so pretty now huh you shitty motherfucker?

    1. Cerberus

      It is definitely fulfilling some major wish-fulfillment for me.

      1. fillerusername

        It does create a certain sense of satisfaction to know that he’s permanently scarred from that night too. Even if it’s just physically. But if Joyce doesn’t get to forget he doesn’t either. He has to remember it every time he looks in the mirror.

        1. Austyn

          yes

    2. zoelogical

      it feels kind of kylo ren-y

      which is very satisfying

    3. Big Box

      It’s a shame rapists don’t have some kind of unified symbol. You know, something that could be carved into their foreheads Inglorious Basterds style.

      1. Council

        I don’t think that would assist in their rehabilitation very much.
        With the possibly necessary factor of ‘it doesn’t excuse what they did’ pointed out, people who committed sexual crimes aren’t generally given the opportunity to turn their life around. Permanent marks carved into their forehead would ensure they forever remain pariahs. And despite the personal discomfort people may have of once-rapists and pedophiles walking around without their knowledge that isn’t a good thing.

        1. btoblake

          The US isn’t into penal codes that teach people how to behave.

          The puritanical approach, where we don’t give decent sex ed, keep experimentation private so we can’t teach teenagers right and wrong, and then punish them for acting incorrectly… That must be the way to go.

  20. carl320

    A wild Ryan appears.

  21. Shiro

    Well gee Joe, if someone tells you you’re being a jackass, and you take that as an opportunity to disparage their entire life goal, should you really be surprised when they get a bit tetchy?

    Also, Ryan is looking as harried and stressed as all rapists should be, at all times, forever. No rest for rapists.

    1. Fart Captor

      I’m afraid I can’t agree. It looks like Ryan probably still has full control of his bladder. Someone aught to fix that.

      1. Shiro

        True. This is like, the minimum of distress rapists should be in at all times, but we can always improve.

    2. foamy

      Re: Joe: Nope, but it looks like this actually broke through to him, so that’s to the good. Getting caught up in the persona you’re presenting and going too far without really realizing it is so very easy to do, and there’s two ways to react: Doubling down or walking back. Joe’s aimed squarely at the latter because he’s capable of empathy, which is, y’know, ultimately the root of being a decent person (see also: Joyce).

      I also think it’s no coincidence that this is being juxtaposed against that fucker Ryan showing up again.

      1. Shiro

        I believe he’s capable of empathy, but I’d like it very much if he exercised it more often.

    3. Reltzik

      Unfortunately, no. While I think you’re correctly gauging his emotional state, Ryan’s ALSO currently in a state where he hopes that violent action against a series of victims can end the source of his stress and harriment. (harryment? harrying? hari kari?) Alternatively, he may at least hope for some sort of satisfaction through that avenue.

      This is not an ideal emotional state for him to be in. It must be rectified immediately. QUASH HIS HOPES!

      1. Deanatay

        The term you seek is, simply, ‘harassment’. Same root.

    4. Mr.Morningstar

      I think Joe was trying to engage in playful banter with Dorothy, you know the type where you and a friend just insult each other with no real ill will but found that he may have gone too far.

      Plus Dorothy herself is in a pretty bad mood today anyway so that didnt help

      1. Li

        I agree that this was Joe’s intent, but for a loooot of people Trump is just not funny. A reminder that he is a confessed sexual assaulter, that he has been accused of rape and child molestation and is currently in a position of serious power because no one cared enough not to vote for him anyway… it’s not funny.

        (And then there’s the prominent Nazi rhetoric among his supporters, KKK rallies where they were all super excited about Trump, direct ties to the Klan in his administration.) (The part where he’s trying to strip the barest of progress we’d made towards healthcare that actually covers people.) (The anti-LGBTQ+ cabinet and legislation he’s literally already tried to pass.) (SO MUCH MORE.) (The rape-y stuff is just what’s especially relevant here, because it is what Joe directly tried to make into a joke.)

        And then there’s also the fact that Trump, this towering shitheel of a man, “won” over a woman who was literally more qualified for the position than any man who’s held it recently.

        Hillary’s loss has to be exceptionally demoralizing for Dorothy. Hillary was an exceptionally politically active young woman, and Dorothy must have wanted to follow in her footsteps or even do better, but she is currently feeling like a failure because of her recent test score, and she’s also got really super depressing evidence that says “someone who was doing better than you at this point just failed”.

        Joe made that into a joke.

        He didn’t mean to. Evidence from past strips say he didn’t even mean to make Trump’s rape-y behavior into a joke. That it was intended to be dark humor about how the current president is a crass piece of trash. But his intentions don’t change how it impacted Dorothy.

        Now, Joe’s dialogue here shows that he expected Dorothy not to be angry. Maybe he just failed to realize that Trump’s becoming president changed the context of dark humor where misogyny is concerned. It also wouldn’t surprise me if Dorothy usually finds these jokes less funny than eyeroll-y, and just hasn’t made that clear enough to Joe in the past.

  22. Fart Captor

    Good for you Dotty. You don’t need to take that shit.

  23. Chris

    C’mon Joe! Get Ryan with that wall of manliness!!!

  24. Rukduk

    Poor Roz. Poor Dorothy. Oh shit it’s Ryan!!!

  25. Passchendaele

    FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU

    *gasp*

    UUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU

    *gasp*

    (I was going to make a comment about how I’ve always liked that Joe has a friendship/acts slightly more decently around Dorothy and how I’m fascinated with his insensitive comments being a crude “it’s just a joke” mentality on his part but) UUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU

    1. zoelogical

      what everybody needs: a reminder that most of your country’s leaders have been misogynists!!!!!

      im gonna barf

  26. Cheshrin

    Joe, you can redeem yourself if you turn around and punch the dude behind you right now. Just. As hard as you can. You’re a solid wall of a man, use that to your advantage and put some power behind your punch. Just- just DO IT. PUNCH HIM.

    1. Chris

      Aw! You one-upped my comment… :\

      Anyways… GET HIM!!!

      1. Dave

        Aim for the scar! That’s his weak point!

        Or just punch his face in general, that’s cool too.

        1. Chris

          Scar to issue is weaker than skin! Reopen his wound!

  27. pjeseb

    “Quick Joe, redeem yourself by kicking the shit out of Ryan!”

    “Who?”

    “The guy behind you who looks like Doctor Doom!”

    “…Who?”

    “ARGH! CURSE YOU COMIC BOOK ILLITERACY!!!”

    1. Amazi-Stool

      Make that
      “Doctor … Who?”

  28. ESM

    I’m not entirely certain what Joe is talking about in panel 2. Is it just a “it’s okay in Trump’s America” type of comment, or is it a reference to something in-comic? Walky’s upset about it, which means he understands it.

    1. Hellespont

      I don’t think Joe feels the need to justify himself. I think he is just digging back at Dorothy for telling him off.

      1. Kris

        But is Joe’s “presidential” comment a direct reference to Donald Trump? Because he is the president and is sexist enough to rate women.

        1. TheKelliestKelly

          Nah, Donald Trump died years ago in the DOA universe

        2. Emperor Daniel

          Citation?

        3. BBCC

          Willis mentioned it on tumblr.

        4. TheKelliestKelly

          I’m glad you remember it too BBCC because I spent probably half an hour combing through Willis’s tumblr to find it and I could not.

        5. TheKelliestKelly

          And you remembering it implies that it’s not a dream or vivid hallucination that I had.

        6. TheKelliestKelly

          It took me like an hour but I found it.

          http://itswalky.tumblr.com/post/157002125027/trump-and-bannon-do-they-remind-you-of-galasso

        7. Deanatay

          Was he torn apart by wild dogs?? PLEASE let it be torn apart by wild dogs…

        8. BBCC

          Ate a bad burrito and blew up iirc.

        9. Loki

          I thought it referred to Dorothy making lists about people when she was running for RA. It’s a “we are not so different, you and I”.

    2. Kris

      Is your icon a reference to Legend of the Hare? That’s comic’s pretty good and I didn’t think many people knew about it.

    3. zoelogical

      honestly most american presidents have been sexist, and attained their position through sexism (that no eligible women were ever in a position to compete). but like especially in consideration of donald trump’s entire…career, which has included owning the Miss America beauty pageant.

      but also like i would assume that this is one of those lines that is vague enough to be reasonably relevant six months ago and prescient six months later from then. because there’s not really a reason for joe to be so cruel to dorothy except, i guess, to assert his masculinity???

    4. Jon Rich

      There might be more to it than this, but here’s what I think is going on:

      Dorothy wants to become President. Walky and Joe both know this. Given Dorothy’s ambitions and general social and political views, it’s a safe assumption that she was pulling for (and, if old enough, voted for) Clinton, and is horrified Trump won. Worse, Trump’s victory probably tore apart a lot of her views about the world. Hillary Clinton is probably a role model for Dorothy: A strong-willed woman who took everything anyone could throw at her. And in Dorothy’s mind (though this is hardly unique to her), someone wth Clinton’s accomplishments and resume should have had no problem beating Trump; the fact that Clinton lost, despite Trump’s complete lack of qualifications, policy knowledge, etc. is a pretty hard blow to Dorothy’s ambitions and the way she thinks the world should work. It only gets even worse when you throw in the fact that Trump ran the most openly misogynistic campaign *at least* since women got the right to vote.

      So mentioning Trump that way rubbed salt in a very tender wound.

      1. Cerberus

        This.

        And it’s especially hard on the younger women, because they are so focused on their futures and to see angry violent misogyny triumph in victory over what could have been a chance to see themselves in the highest office in the land? It’s disheartening.

        And for someone like Dorothy who wants to be a woman president, this last election is even more traumatic for how much it attacks the base supports of the dream she is intending to sacrifice her life for.

      2. Gizen

        I don’t think it’s this, if only because due to the glacial speed with which time moves in DoA, there’s no way the election would have ended yet (seeing as in story time it’s in October still I think?). Hell, I’d wager good money that it’s not even an election year in DoA, considering when it started. So, tempting as it is to try and draw parallels, I don’t actually think this has anything to do with the election. Afterall, while Trump may be both the most recent and also the worst offender, he isn’t the ONLY president in history to be guilty of sexual impropriety.

        1. zoelogical

          it would be a really weird comment to make during obama’s tenure as president tho

          i thought DoA ran on comic book time? so about when it is happening now, but also in the same semester this comic started in

        2. Needfuldoer

          You’re right, DoA is set in “the present”. We saw ‘Wednesday October 6th’, so it appears to be following 2010’s calendar for its days of the week, but it’s not 2010 anymore.

          Then again, it could be a Bill Clinton reference too. Most of the cast would be too young to really remember his presidency, but they would have heard of the Lewinsky scandal (or at least gotten a distorted explanation) by now.

        3. zoelogical

          lol i barely remember bill clinton despite being like…seven the last time he was in office

          but honestly sexual abuse of political power is probably just. really common. like off the top of my head you’ve got jefferson and kennedy.

          https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_federal_political_sex_scandals_in_the_United_States

          and those are just the ones we know about

        4. Cerberus

          DoA is always in the ever-shifting now.

        5. thejeff

          It’s a little awkward with election stuff. It’s October. It’s an election year. Those are both current plot points.
          Is it still before Trump’s election? Or two years after?

          Of course, by the time Robin’s election day actually comes in comic time November, it’ll probably be the 2020 election cycle.

        6. Cerberus

          Yeah, wow, it is. But October 2016 would be almost as disheartening to now given that’s when all the Comey letter stuff went down and the momentum really felt like it was shifting, so I still feel like it could count.

        7. thejeff

          Yeah, I agree. Honestly, it probably works more as a topical reference than thinking too hard about the comics internal timeline. It’s written that way and it works because it’s now. (or ~3 months ago now when Willis wrote it).

        8. Gizen

          My bad, I thought it was a more fictionalized version of the ever-shifting now than it actually is, but Willis pointed out further down in the comments that I was wrong. So, yeah, Joe’s comment is far more heinous than the already shitty comment I thought it was.

  29. newllend(Henryvolt)

    Can’t focus on Joe’s prick comment right now, Scar face might be making his move.

  30. BBCC

    Oh lord have mercy.

    Also, Roz, Leslie has no room to talk – she’s wrapped up classes early because she finished what she wanted to say (and once for arbitrary reasons – ‘nobody could top Robin and the Dean coming in and slut shaming and then shoving Roz back into line’ is not something that might fly well on staff evaluations). If she gives you grief, you know exactly what orifices she can shove that in.

    And eesh, Joe, today is not a good look for you, is it?

    1. fillerusername

      It’s sweet that Roz cares enough to want Leslie to think she took this seriously and she actually did so she deserves the credit.

      1. fillerusername

        Leslie better give her some fucking credit. As in extra credit. Give her a free pass on a pop quiz or something.

      2. Fallingivy

        I mean…according to Robin, Leslie is Roz’s favorite teacher, which makes Leslie pulling this on her even more awful to me.

        1. fillerusername

          I don’t think Leslie realizes just how much respect Roz probably has for her.

        2. Cerberus

          Yeah, it’s really awesome and sweet and Leslie definitely owes Roz a small menagerie of mythical beasts for being put through all this.

        3. Bagge

          And this thing is just so SAD because if Leslie gave her a proper chance, Roz could hold a KILLER class instead of…whatever Leslie thought this would be.

          Rule one of teaching: Encourage the students, don’t put them down.

        4. Cerberus

          *nods intensely* Yes, this. Always, this.

        5. thejeff

          I’m not sure I actually believe that. Could have been just talking Leslie up to reinforce Robin’s interest in her?

        6. Fart Captor

          Roz’s own actions would appear to confirm it

  31. motorfirebox

    Ohshiiiiiiiit it’s Evil Tycho Brahe

    1. Emperor Daniel

      Nah, Tycho Brahe was actually cool.

      1. Bagge

        Dunno, according to the people of Hven he was a bit of a tyrant.

    2. Needfuldoer

      That’s not Ethan BUckley…

  32. Zatar

    God I am so torn between being happy that Ryan looks so pale and terrified like he deserves and being afraid of what he’s going to do.

    1. Woobie

      yeah, what’s he doing with the phone?

      1. Dave

        Survey says: nothing good.

      2. Zatar

        The one less awful possibility is that he’s just looking at his phone and seeing his photo spread. But, chances are its something more sinister.

      3. Bagge

        Playing Pokemon Go. He just took the last Aipom – and that is terrible.

        1. Li

          pedantic correction: this isn’t how Pokemon Go works. If there’s a Pidgey on your screen, it’s on everyone’s screens, and everyone can catch it simultaneously.

        2. Bagge

          When I wrote that post I just knew someone would correct me. I love this comment section 🙂

        3. Li

          <3

      4. Trolldrool

        Personally I just assumed he was terrified of what people were saying about him. On campus social media.

  33. Chris

    Waiting for Ninja Rick to leap into the panel and flying jump kick Scarface and then slash him to pieces with his sword

  34. Sporky

    I didn’t even notice Ryan until I read the comments. Whoops

    Anyways it’s nice to see Joe have some consequences for his bullshit for once… at least ones that aren’t wildly disproportionate like the whole Joyce making Mike punch him in the face thing from way way back

    1. BBCC

      Now all I need is for a girl he grabs from behind to elbow him in his kidneys, and I will be satisfied.

      1. Aviana

        …my memory might be failing, but when has he ever grabbed a girl from behind? I don’t remember one at all, let alone an unwilling elbow jabbing worthy instance.

        1. Amazi-Stool

          BBCC probably referred to this instance.

        2. BBCC

          Did it to Dorothy and Sierra. But yeah, it’s NOT cute or funny when guys (especially big guys) act more physically friendly than they are. Dorothy isn’t happy about it and he doesn’t even KNOW Sierra and has no business grabbing her from behind. Mike does the same thing occasionally, and I am waiting for one of them to grab the wrong person and get elbowed for it. I dunno, someone like Sal or Sarah who will make it clear you do not grab at folks you don’t know.

  35. Pigeon Pollyx

    Tune in tomorrow for the worlds first reverse 4th wall break as I jump into the web comic to personally kick Ryan’s shit in

    1. Chris

      Vibe yourself in! I’ll join you!

      1. SgtWadeyWilson

        I approve of this plan!

        1. Chris

          The Trekkie’s have the wormholes covered

  36. chris73

    I don’t normally suggest movies but this looks incredible, arguably the most important action of WWII and something that will hopefully be done right, the trailer gave me goosebumps

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T7O7BtBnsG4

    1. Li

      …Iunno, after learning that there was all kinds of Jewish resistance during the war including actual rebellions within the concentration camps, parts of history that I was not taught about even in the class I took that focused on Nazi Germany… that is more the kind of story I would like to see being made into a movie right now.

      This movie is all about the allied forces, and the way we keep focusing on the heroic actions we took instead of the extreme delay in response, the antisemitism in our own countries both then and now, the anti-Romani sentiment both then and now, feels like pulling out yet another moment where we can all pat ourselves on the backs for fighting Nazis in a way that really deeply divorces Nazis from the Holocaust.

      And divorces the allies from Nazism.

      like. with the current climate especially I would rather not watch yet another movie where the allied soldiers are the stars in their heroic fight against Hitler. You know?

      1. Rukduk

        A movie about either Warsaw uprising would be amazing quite honestly, and I think there’s a two parter by BBC about the Warsaw Ghetto uprising.

  37. Fallingivy

    Every time I see Ryan’s face it’s like that moment in horror movies where the ghost sort of flickers into view for a split second and you get that brief but intense creepy feeling.

    1. zoelogical

      ye i know he’s everywhere

  38. Delicious Taffy

    JOE TURN AROUND AND TACKLE HIS ASS

  39. boop

    WHAT IS HE DOING ON CAMPUS

    WHAT

    1. Sunny

      Maybe he’s a student.

  40. L!ghtn!ng

    Oh shit…!

  41. L!ghtn!ng

    Me, five minutes ago: who’s that Emperor Palpatine-looking guy in the background of panel 7?

    Me, four and a half minutes ago: Oh, fuuuuuuuu…!

  42. Derek

    I’m actually sort of surprised Dorothy has never called Joe’s shit before. Either he was less…like this in high school or Dorothy keep quiet to keep the peace.

  43. Yotomoe

    Ryan’s late for a Sith Lord meeting.

  44. Yotomoe

    Also I can totally relate to accidentally going too far with a joke and seriously offending someone. It’s a pretty shitty feeling.

    1. Shiro

      And then you apologize, do you not? Instead of…whatever Joe’s doing there.

      1. Yotomoe

        I’d arguably say everything Joe said here, but in reverse order. I definitely want to assess why what I said there would be worse than what I’ve said previously, especially if they have a history of not getting offended by what I say.

        1. Shiro

          …but you apologize first, right? Because that doesn’t come out of his mouth til long after she’s walked away in disgust.

        2. Yotomoe

          I did say reverse order. Yeah definitely starting with Sorry.

  45. Cody Connelly

    Does anyone else hear the Psycho music playing as they read that last panel?

    …

    This isn’t going to end well…

  46. Ardin

    Wait, I don’t get it. What is Joe referring to?

    1. Larathiel

      You’re not the only one wondering that… 🙁

      1. Neeks

        Off the top of my head, Bill Clinton was impeached for [lying about] having an affair [/committing sexual harassment] while in office, and iirc JFK had affairs while in office too (unless that was just a rumour). It’s not unlikely that in the last couple hundred years of the nation’s history we’ve had more than one or two womanizing presidents.

        1. Fart Captor

          He’s referring to Trump being a sleazy, unapologetic misogynist.

          How is that not obvious

        2. neeks

          Trump is canonically dead in the dumbiverse, which is not widely known to those who don’t read willis’s Tumblr (like me, for example, but I do read comments here, and it’s been mentioned a few times). But if he weren’t, while he would certainly be the most recent and egregious example, he would certainly not be the only example of the point Joe was making.

        3. Marsh Maryrose

          Just off the top of my head, there’s FDR and Lucy Mercer, Eisenhower and Kay Summersby, Warren G Harding and who knows how many mistresses, Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemmings, LBJ who famously could not keep his pants on…

          Maybe Joe’s got a point. An awful, awful point.

  47. Grethelwvier

    Welp, Joe, it’s do or die for proving your humanity now. Please let the next thing that happens be Joe seeing Ryan, recognizing him from the picture circling around, and taking action. Even if it takes him a few minutes or isn’t immediately effective. PLEASE let it be. Joe’s a pig for sure, but he’s not a monster, and I think he’s salvageable, and now’s his chance to prove it, and Ryan needs to face real consequences for his actions, and any bit closer we can get to that far more than welcome.

    1. chris73

      I so want this to happen but…its DOA so it probably won’t

      1. Grethelwvier

        I think it’s entirely possible. It’s unlikely to actually solve the problem (because it’s DOA, and because story), but it’s highly unlikely that Ryan is here for nothing to happen (because it’s DOA, and because story). It’s more likely that we’ll get a confrontation with Roz, but Joe is right there, so… It’s also possible that Roz and Joe will end up doing something.

        1. chris73

          Don’t get me wrong I’d love to see Joe smash Ryan but because its what everyone would want to see it means we probably won’t see it

          I’ll be happy to be proven wrong though

        2. Grethelwvier

          Consider; there are other ways to take action. Stealthier ways, that don’t potentially get you charged with assault instead of the fuckface that should be charged with it. (Not likely from Joe, but…)

        3. Grethelwvier

          For example: tweeting a response to the original post “Hey, this guy is at ___ location. (with picture attached) I’m gonna keep tabs on him until someone can send help.”

          Which Joe would actually be in a position to do without severe consequences.

    2. Chris

      Ninja Rick should join Joe. Honestly every good character should circle round him and everyone gets a good punch and quote in

      1. foamy

        Murder on the Orient Express, you think?

        1. Chris

          Yep!

  48. chris73

    Panel 4: The feeling you get when you realize you done messed up bad and hurt one of your friends

    Hopefully he’ll learn from thist

  49. Reltzik

    *on my first read of comic* …. huh, Asma’s here? Okay? Is that a package she’s carrying for Joe? Why is she here and not at the dorms? What?

    *checks tags*

    *looks at panels closer*

    Oooooooooooooh. Fuck.

    1. Danni

      “oh hey, its danny! wait, why is there a sc- oh.”

  50. ProfessorKickAss

    I want to see Sir and Ryan in a room alone, with Sir knowing who Ryan is.
    Yes, Sir is an abusive asshole, but I don’t think he would be on Ryan’s side.

    1. zoelogical

      …Sir was in the army.

      it’s not exactly uncommon for military men to be rapists

      1. zoelogical

        sources, because it feels weird to say stuff like this without citation:

        http://www.womenundersiegeproject.org/blog/entry/why-soldiers-rapeand-when-they-dontin-diagrams
        http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/article/why-the-military-has-a-rape-problem/
        http://www.usccr.gov/pubs/09242013_Statutory_Enforcement_Report_Sexual_Assault_in_the_Military.pdf

      2. StClair

        If you’ve a strong stomach, look up what “the Greatest Generation” did during the occupation of Japan.
        It got so bad that the Japanese government turned over their own collection of sex slaves “comfort women” to the occupation force. When Eleanor Roosevelt found out about that and put a stop to it, the rape statistics went right back up.

        1. zoelogical

          i have a comment under moderation with outside links to stuff in the us army which is…i mean i knew it was bad but i didn’t know how bad. like. people strongly persuaded into not reporting and reporting ruining their careers bad.

          and that is. that is horrifying

        2. Remmington Steele

          Multiple links in a comment always lead to moderation.

        3. zoelogical

          yes, it’s a good policy

    2. Fart Captor

      I don’t think he would care either way.

  51. Danni

    bicycle kick ryan….

  52. Cerberus

    Comic Reactions:

    Hello compartmentalization. Cause holy fuck is this an emotional ride.

    Panel 1: I’m very proud of Roz here. Refusing to put up with it, calling it here, doing what is right by her mental health. She does not owe Leslie a full class period especially as she is not receiving the paycheck for this lesson. And by all accounts she did way better than she had any reasonable expectation to given the lesson plan and how it was tossed to her.

    Cause yeah, this is probably still pressing on her pride, that she can rise to the challenge Leslie set, but there’s a time when trying to cling to that just means putting up with abuse you have no reason to put up with.

    Panel 2: There is a later vile evil, but this? This is still pretty awful. Like, I know I have a lot against Joe, probably more than most as some of the things he hits are buttons that are the most likely to make me go aggro. But it’s not like I enjoy hating the guy or like I enjoy gaining even more reasons to loathe him.

    And this? This is a reason to loathe him. Like, Dorothy’s comment is fair and brief and his little dagger is about as cruel as you can play on someone like Dorothy.

    Like, she’s in our reality now. Where the most talented woman candidate there has ever been was brought down by a relentless campaign of sexism, thus hammering home the idea that there is literally nothing a woman candidate can do to be considered “good enough”. Where people with ovaries’s rights have been under full on assault to the point where many are not sure they’ll be able to do even the most basic reproductive health care for themselves and most aspects of being a person with ovaries are being labeled a pre-existing condition.

    She lives in our world where Donald Trump, child molester, who literally tried to feel up little girls on stage and kiss them against their will, who admitted on a live mic his favorite strategies of sexual assault, who has beaten his wives and very likely molested his daughter. Where this loathsome toad of a man has stolen power making it close enough to steal simply by trading on the violent angry sexism of white folks who could not bear following up a black president with a woman president.

    And as a woman who wants to be president. Where that is her goal above all others in life? This hits the hardest of all. Like, so many of us are broken, but few of us had all that awful plus having the door slammed on their dreams and reinforced with iron chains.

    So this was always going to be a sore, don’t go there spot for her, but beyond that there are like 3 major ways in which this is a low blow even for Joe.

    1) Belittling her ambition and goal, mocking her inability to complete anything “presidential”, which is about the sorest spot Dorothy has, to the point where Danny simply being slightly dismissive of that dream was enough to get her to stop trying to be nice and just dump him and storm off. And Joe knows that part stings for her, because he’s known her for years.

    2) Referencing the theft of Hillary Clinton’s presidency and how shuttered that dream is for her. Which is something that’s going to hit hard.

    3) Referencing Donald Trump to do 1 and 2, setting the heavy insinuation that his frat bro doucheries with regards to his extremely invasive public boner opinion list that he actively shares with everyone he meets for extra awful harassment goodness, is more presidential because of the tumor lump occupying the White House right now.

    Which, no. Fuck anyone who ever does that. Like, this regime is a dictatorship coup. Already folks are being thrown in jail for laughing at them. Already they feel comfortable voting and supporting things that none of their constituents want which is a terrible idea unless you’re not concerned about there being free and fair elections when it come time to matter. Already people are being tortured and murdered in private prisons with conditions so bad folks are starving themselves to death to protest them.

    To be like, well, this pack of rapist nazi-loving abusers shares my proclivities so nyah is majorly fucked up and even more fucked up because as a Jewish individual he must be aware of how much awfulness this regime represents.

    So yeah, I’m with Dorothy, this is not the line, the line is what he crossed ages ago in comic. This is a whole different continent that you do not easily come back from and he would well deserve it if Dorothy decided never to talk to him again.

    1. Yotomoe

      I legitimately didn’t get a “Donald trump” vibe from Joe’s comment. As much as a “presidents are constantly compartmentalizing people, treating them as statistics and just seeing them as a bunch of numbers in order to garner support.”

      Something ROZ herself criticized Dorothy on not too long ago.

      1. BBCC

        That may be what he meant, but in that case Dorothy would be within her rights to point out there is a difference between a public list of girls based on how happy they make his boner, and a list of information on people and the issues they have currently so she can be a good RA for them, which is (typically intended) to be private. Yeah, it was irresponsible for her to whip it out in public to win an argument, but I do believe she’s not dumb enough to make that list intentionally and typically public.

        1. Yotomoe

          I’m not disagreeing it’s not a dick thing to say. I’m just saying I didn’t really get a real world politics vibe from that line.

      2. Cerberus

        I could see that as a 4th fucked up aspect to it. Which hits a sore spot, but definitely not one as inflamed as the others.

        1. Madock345

          Sometimes Cerberus, I wonder if you have any spots that aren’t sore XD

          You do really nice write ups, even if they’re a bit much for me most of the time.

        2. Li

          OK, this seems… needlessly condescending and weird, but she was talking about Dorothy’s sore spots.

        3. Fart Captor

          Seriously. It was practically negging

        4. Cerberus

          I meant Dorothy’s sore spots but okay, cool.

      3. Li

        That reading doesn’t make any sense. If that’s what he meant, then Dorothy HAS been acting very presidential.

        1. Yotomoe

          Sure it does.
          “Isn’t it about as presidential as anything YOU’VE done”

          He’s not implying it’s MORE presidential. He’s saying they’re EQUIVALENT.

        2. li

          That’s not usually how I have heard that turn of phrase used. Usually I have heard it used to say that the other person has accomplished NOTHING, not that the two parties are equal.

    2. StClair

      I love you and/or this.
      Stay strong, please.

    3. Whirlwitch

      Off-topic, but I checked yesterday’s comments to see if there had been a clean-up of the MRA shitpile, and ran into your comment about the evil orange thing’s latest. I avoid US news because it causes bad things for me, but can I offer you an Internet hug? Maybe it’s wrong to ask you to stay strong and pull through conditions that even hearing about impacts my mental health, but you’re awesome and more valuable than all the Asses of Evil combined.

      1. Cerberus

        Thanks.

        It’s… bad. And I don’t blame anyone who doesn’t have to deal with it directly taking a break from tracking it for their mental health. Honestly, I can’t wait until my fiancee is available to snuggle so I can just shut out the world and focus on them holding me for awhile.

        1. ischemgeek

          I had to for a while. Chechnya was the straw.

          Well, to be particular, my family members taking negative action to smack town friends of theirs who are positively gleeful about what is happening in Chechnya then getting upset with me for expecting them to because tolerance apparently means giving people who literally want your kid dead a total pass. Took an internet break for a while.

        2. Li

          Holy shit I am so sorry 🙁

        3. Fart Captor

          That is fucking awful, wtf

        4. Cerberus

          *appropriate gesture of support* Fuck that’s awful.

        5. ischemgeek

          Frankly – for them, not egging it on *is*progress. Just. Yeah.

          Sometimes I get really sick of being expected to kindly hand hold people with terrible beliefs and getting treated like I am the asshole when I am unwilling to debate whether I’m a person.

        6. Chris

          So annoying. I get you. When I heard about Chechnya I didn’t sleep for a few days. Just another place I’ll die for being LGBTIQ. Even worse tortured. Luckily no one I know supported it, but they expected me to, which is so idiotic. They think because I’m white and blonde that I’m a racist supremist

    4. Optimal Optimus

      Cerberus, given a choice between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump, I’m with her. Trump is a monstrous human being. He’s stupid, ignorant, unhinged, misogynistic, homophobic, and malevolent. But Hillary Clinton is not an ideal candidate by any stretch of the imagination. You make it sound like there are no valid reasons for not having voted for her, and that is just not the case.

      1. Yotomoe

        My logic is that every election is the lesser of two evils. It is actually impossible to try to become president and not do awful things and be sort of shitty person. I LOVE Obama but I’m willing to bet he stepped over a LOT of people to get where he did and to do the things he’d done.

        I’d still say Hillary, in my opinion, was by far the lesser evil. Like Comparing Piccolo to Freeza.

        1. Cerberus

          I actually really like that metaphor. Especially as now I have a mental image of Hillary Clinton yelling “DODGE!”

        2. vlademir1

          I could not but laugh at that image. Especially as my mind can’t not put Bill in the role of Gohan for it. That in turn makes me think of timeline for the series and means Trump is Buu, a being who is only so powerful due to special outside influences and wishes to destroy and devour everything he sees because that is his nature which is so apt I also can’t not laugh despite how much our [redacted highly inappropriate for a public space insult] in Chief just makes me even more frustrated and angry at our broken system that could allow him to get where he is.

        3. Yotomoe

          Don’t you dare besmirch Buu’s good name.

      2. Cerberus

        Ugh. Do we really have to do this again?

        Me calling her the most talented woman candidate ever is because she is. No one’s had the pedigree she’s had, the political skills she’s had, the background she’s had.

        Her losing signals to every hopeful that even if you’re the Secretary of State, an accomplished lawyer, a successful activist, and a US senator, all your accomplishments will be discounted to focus on your flaws. It’s devastating.

        Is she perfect? God no. She was flawed as hell. And she had a lot of policy positions I would rather she didn’t. And that’s something she has in common with every other Democratic candidate there has ever been (I’m a tough percussion instrument to please).

        But her losing this particular election and especially by winning by 3 million while everyone dissects her flaws as the open fascist is doing loyalty pledges among his party is pretty sickening and hammers home especially hard for a lot of those who are women.

        Though as an aside, after yesterday, after the fear so many of my loved ones have been in since November, after losing so many rights so quickly when they were on the verge of being expanded and made permanent?

        I’m really struggling to think of what possible good reason anyone could have to still now claim a vote against Hillary Clinton was a good idea in this particular election. And that’s because the despair of what has happened is not something I would wish on any human alive.

        1. Optimal Optimus

          OK, ok, I concede the point. I would have much rather voted for Tulsi Gabbard, but I agree that there was no good reason to vote against Hillary Clinton in this particular election. I usually find you too angry to talk to, but maybe you have good reasons to be angry.

        2. Cerberus

          Right now? Yes, especially right now. I own that. I apologize if it extends or has extended to the point of being harmful to others.

        3. Chris Phoenix

          Angry? yes. “Too angry to talk to”? That’s often said by people who just don’t want to acknowledge the reality that makes people legitimately angry.

          http://www.dumbingofage.com/2016/comic/book-6/03-when-god-closes-the-door/angry-3/
          Own it, full stop. There’s a saying, “If you’re not angry, you’re not paying attention.”

          I don’t think you need to apologize – I’ve been reading your comments for many weeks, and I haven’t seen you say anything harmful. If you make people uncomfortable with clear statements of facts – like “One of my students got raped on camera and my principal attacked the victim” or “several people I care about will die if the recent “health” legislation passes the Senate” – then that’s their problem, not yours.

        4. Li

          This. With the smallest caveat that I know some people find confrontational conversations absolutely unbearable due to anxiety. That is the only sort of situation in which I think this would be a remotely fair comment, and it is still about that hypothetical person’s needs being in conflict with Cerberus’s own very valid needs, rather than Cerberus needing to be “less angry”.

        5. Cerberus

          It’s complicated though… Ugh, I’m going to regret posting this.

          Like, I recognize I’m especially angry at the moment and I’ll always have an alter who operates at pissed off as a default mood. And I really don’t want to be accidentally or even subconsciously emotionally manipulating folks out of feeling safe calling me out when I’m being an asshole, because I need to be called out when I’m being an asshole. I really do. That’s how I get better.

          And I recognize I need to be careful, because I am mentally ill. Like to a ridiculous degree and I’m always scared that that’s going to hurt people if I let it out too much and this is a place where I’m practicing letting myself be a bit more raw and honest about like emotional state stuff which is really new and scary for me.

          And like I get antsy with tone policing especially with regards to anger, because of my ex and how she banned strong emotions of any kind and especially anger in response to really terrible life events (most memorable being when the car guy wanted to circle back and kill me and I got berated for showing signs of being upset about it and also got banned from even talking about it having occurred because “it was all too much for her”, because I ended up having to comfort her mostly over it all).

          Which is deeply unfair to folks here, because they shouldn’t have any loyalty or concern of what fucked up mental health stuff is going on in my head nor should feel pressured out of calling me on my shit because of it, but it’s, I dunno, I’m trying to explain I guess where I’m coming from on this.

          And I’ve been told all my life by culture that having the angry alter makes me dangerous, means I’m going to hurt someone I love, means I’m going to become a killer. But I did so much damage to myself trying to bar my anger in and never express it and that nearly fucked up my integration in really bad ways, so I’m trying to be better about just recognizing and owning and trying not to feel shame about expressing it.

          But I dunno, if a lot of people are seeing something… bad in my behavior because of that anger, I should probably pay attention to that. And hell, maybe even my ex was right and I am dangerous to be allowed to express my full emotional range. I dunno… it’s complicated.

          (/these thoughts like all my thoughts are the jumbled mess of a fucked up person. I really don’t want to be discouraging anyone from calling me out on my shit and I’m so so so sorry if that’s what this feels like and… I dunno, I’m a mess, I’m sorry for hurting any of you or making any of you feel scared to interact with me).

        6. Vulcanodon

          @Cerberus *hugs offered* You are right to post it. Maybe we’d all be less angry if people would stop telling us not to be angry and start being friends and listening to the reasons why we are.

          I just read a newspaper article by a child-rearing expert and Piece Of Shit named John Rosemond, who said “For the most part, a child’s feelings mean nothing except that his feelings, like his behavior, are in need of outside discipline.” Fortunately for my arthritic knuckles, this asshole is nowhere within punching range. Reading it viscerally pissed me off, and no, that can’t be healthy but it is real.

          People keep telling you to dial it down? Where the hell is that dial. How much dangerous anger is the result of emotional exhaustion from constantly policing our own intensity? After having internalized “outside discipline” of emotions life-long.

        7. FactsMatter

          I want to word this very carefully because this is probably intensely personal for you, but I feel like this probably needs to be said.

          You have every right to be angry. Your anger is your own, and no one can police that. However, if you really, truly want people to feel safe calling you out, how you express that anger is a factor. Right now, what I’m seeing is you saying that people have every right to call you out but then following that by talking about how your abusive ex controlled your expression of emotions.

          This especially is a huge red flag to me:
          “But I dunno, if a lot of people are seeing something… bad in my behavior because of that anger, I should probably pay attention to that. And hell, maybe even my ex was right and I am dangerous to be allowed to express my full emotional range.”

          This might make people extremely hesitant to speak up if they’re concerned about something that you say because they might feel like if they do speak up, they’re automatically siding with your ex. That’s a really unfair position to put someone in, where if they speak out about something that you say, that means that they’re endorsing an abuser. That could be especially upsetting to other domestic abuse survivors.

          I want to be clear that I don’t think that you’re doing this deliberately. I think that you do care about not hurting others, and that’s part of why I’m bringing this up. Like you said, sometimes people pointing out mistakes is how you get better.

          How people have been responding to you hasn’t always been that great, and I can understand why you might be reacting a bit defensively in turn. Just in the future, you might want to be really, really careful saying things like this.

        8. Cerberus

          Understood.

        9. Cerberus

          And thank you.

        10. Li

          @FactsMatter

          Really? Really?

          Cerberus says like six times that she did NOT want to put anyone in that position, that everyone has a right to argue with her, to “speak out against something” she says, that she’s afraid of being honest about how tone policing makes her feel, that she’s reluctant and sorry to say any of this…

          … and you come out with “I don’t THINK you’re doing this on purpose but your exact fears are valid and right,” as if you haven’t read anything she said apart from your “red flag”.

          No. No, this didn’t “need to be said”.

          Frankly, no one needs to be able to tone police her. Tone policing is something we can all just avoid doing as general practice, since the high school debate club rules, which are hugely biased towards giving privileged people bonus points for taking provocative positions on issues that don’t affect them, are not real life.

          This was a crummy response, kicking somebody down while they’re literally telling you they’re afraid they’re too mentally ill and abused to be allowed to talk honestly, by telling them they need to even more strictly self-monitor and that it isn’t okay to be honest about being upset even while nearly smothering that honesty with apologies, because mentioning the awful shit they’ve been through and how it informs their response to the world is manipulative?!

          Just. Stop, JFC.

        11. Chris Phoenix

          I’m posting this days late, but let me just say in case anyone reads this that @factsmatter’s post SUCKS. And it’s awfully hard to ignore manipulation on that level of twistedness, but I hope Cerberus was able to.

        12. nightsbridge

          Chill out. You know EXACTLY what she meant. Why are you nitpicking over shit you understand the real gist of? Why are you choosing to tone police NOW, considering she’s just explained why she cannot deal with it?

        13. Vulcanodon

          When Hillary lost, the real cost of sexism came out into the light. Many marginalized people are going to die, and we might all fucking die because a super-qualified woman was pushed aside for a sub-mediocre man.

    5. Gizen

      I may be misremembering, but I’m pretty sure I read Willis say once when someone asked about it that, in the DoA universe, Trump got mauled to death by a pack of rabid squirrels or some equally comical and pathetically fitting end. Combined with the glacial speed of time in DoA (current month is still October I believe?), it would predate any possible election. Hell, Robin is still campaigning afterall. As such I think it’s safe to say that Dorothy lives in a wonderful fantasy world where Hillary losing to Trump ISN’T her horrible reality.

      That said, the existence of Robin and her campaign clearly indicate that even in the absence of Trump, her world is still full of shitty politics/politicians.

      1. Gizen

        Disregard my above post. I was indeed misremembering and Dorothy’s world is exactly as shitty as ours.

    6. zoelogical

      i guess i just wanted to say that i always appreciate how thorough and passionate you are in your analyses here? felt like a good time for it. you write from the heart, and you rarely leave anyone out when there’s justice-ing to be had. when you care about everyone, it’s hard to ever step back or take a rest, because the work is never done. there is always something to be outraged about, always something to be fixed, and right now more than ever. there’s no time to not be angry. there’s no time to let emotions be anything other than what they are. there’s no time to be anything but the most you you can possibly be.

      i really appreciate how much time and thought and effort you put into your posts, how much of yourself you give out to the world here. it’s not an easy thing, but i’m very glad that you do it.

    7. FactsMatter

      Hi,

      Like Yotomoe, I also read this as referring to Dorothy also constantly categorizing people and compartmentalizing people into statistics. (Especially because several commenters have said that Willis has confirmed that Donald Trump is dead in universe; if they’re right, then Joe couldn’t be referring to him.)

      It shows a lot of ignorance on Joe’s part, sure, but he hasn’t exactly been shown to be particularly emotionally sensitive. That said, he also hasn’t been shown to be deliberately malicious, and his character sheet even explicitly states that he values consent. I can’t imagine that he’d lightly reference sexual assault and then not understand why Dorothy was upset.

      On that note, if that is the kind of character Joe is, I’ll probably have to stop reading the comic entirely. As far as I remember, the only two Jewish characters here are Joe and Ethan. I’m already borderline uncomfortable with one being extremely emotionally dense and kind of a creeper while the other used to be so self hating that he tried to magically make himself straight and even went to church with Joyce. Having the first character turn out to be that harmful would be the final straw for me representation wise.

      While we’re on that topic, I’m really uncomfortable with your second to last paragraph. You said:

      “To be like, well, this pack of rapist nazi-loving abusers shares my proclivities so nyah is majorly fucked up and even more fucked up because as a Jewish individual he must be aware of how much awfulness this regime represents.”

      Reading this genuinely made me feel kind of sick. It feels like paying lip service to Joe being Jewish and then aligning him with Nazis anyway. To be honest, I was already kind of uncomfortable yesterday, seeing that one of your posts claimed that Joe invoked a Nazi just to upset Roz. You then followed this by insinuating that Roz should have reacted with violence. (“Roz is a fucking saint for not tackling [Joe] to the ground and beating his face in with that chair behind her.”) Seeing it said that a Jewish man deserves violence for mentioning a Nazi, regardless of context, genuinely makes me panic a bit.

      I did see that later on, you basically admitted that you had forgotten that Joe was Jewish and that you were taking that into account now. Because of that, I didn’t want to say anything in case you had learned. I understand that Jewish issues can be kind of complicated, though, so I wanted to make very clear that this is still a very uncomfortable way to approach the issue. I can understand you being angry at Joe – even assuming the best of Joe, he is kind of a massive idiot when it comes to women – but if I can, I’d ask that you not assume the worst of him when that entails assuming that he’s willing to tolerate or even endorse Nazis.

      1. BBCC

        I’d still say that the compartmentalization is a crappy comparison – Joe makes a skeevy public list of women about how happy or sad they make his boner. Dorothy made a (intended to be private) list of problems people were having so that once she was RA she could address those problems.

        And while Joe does believe he values consent, he’s not always good at that in practice. I would’t lose faith in his ability to learn though, since I have a feeling he’s about to start the first step of that.

        Also, because I love pointing people to representation – Dorothy is also Jewish! Ethnically rather than religiously, but neither Joe nor Ethan seem terribly religious either.

    8. trlkly

      Roz is not the victim. Stop acting like a Trump supporter, who would claim Trump is the victim when he faces consequences.

      Roz gave a full class, if you’d actually paid attention, instead of using your fetish for Roz as an excuse to hate on the LGBT character, acting like Leslie did anything wrong to provide consequences for her fake allyship.

      What sucks is that there is actually some reason to praise Roz a bit, but you have to ruin it with your Roz worship and desire to treat Leslie like people treated Carla or Becky or such.

      And, yes, I’m being harsh because apparently you think saying “fuck you” to people because they diagree with you is okay, so I know I don’t have to not be harsh with you.

      1. trlkly

        Also, this has nothing to do with Trump. Trump does not exist in this universe, as far as we know, and, even if he did, he hasn’t been elected.

        This is about Dorothy feeling like she doesn’t qualify to be president anymore because of her academic problems and shortcomings in helping people. Joe hit a sore spot.

        1. David M Willis

          oh my god

          Okay. People seem to be ganging up on Cerberus, and using as a cudgel the idea that OF COURSE Trump doesn’t exist in this universe, OBVIOUSLY, that willis guy said on a tumblr ask that he was hilariously mauled by raccoons or whatever i forgot what it was.

          When I drew this strip months ago, I put a preview image of the panel with angry Dorothy on Twitter/Tumblr. It was captioned something to the affect of “Dorothy is angrier now that she exists in a post-Trump world” but probably in a jokier way. I repeated this assertion just yesterday as I put up this strip a day earlier for Patreon, which Cerberus reads. So, yeah, she’s only repeating something I’ve said, and everyone’s giving her shit for it. Don’t do that. She’s giving an informed analysis of Dorothy’s response based on author information.

          Hell, I’d say this strip only really exists as a begrudging acknowledgment of this webcomic now existing in a Trump Presidency, and how that’s starting to evolve how the characters think and react to things around them. How it specifically makes Dorothy less idealistic and a little more bitter.

          And how, again, I essentially said this out loud on the Internet and Cerberus read it and is repeating it and now you and a few others are taking a dump on her for being stupid for thinking it was a valid way to view the comic.

          The current President of the United States is always President in Dumbing of Age. I won’t ever name them while they’re currently President, because Sliding Timescale, but that’s how I’ve decided it works. It means I can now mention Obama having once been President, and maybe hopefully before too much longer I can start naming Trump, cross your fingers.

        2. Gizen

          My bad. I either misread or, more likely knowing me, completely misremembered an earlier statement. I had assumed all this time that Robin was serving as an analogue for Trump to specifically spare us having to imagine the real deal in our fiction as well as our reality. Truthfully, specifically because of the sliding timescale, in my mind I was picturing the president in DoA as just some indeterminate shadowy figure of undetermined race/gender/political party.

          Really wish it was possible to edit comments here, I feel dumb now for helping to spread false info.

        3. FactsMatter

          Can you confirm or deny, then, whether you meant for Joe to be making a reference to Trump? I don’t really care about Dorothy’s reaction in that she’s justified in her anger regardless of the context, but I really would like to know whether or not you meant to write a Jewish character sympathizing with a neo-Nazi sympathizer / flat out neo-Nazi government.

        4. David M Willis

          Trump has been quoted: “A woman who is very flat-chested is very hard to be a 10.” That ten-scale rating for women is literally what Joe does, and that is the only aspect of Trump that Joe was referencing. He was not sympathizing with Trump or his entire catalog of shittiness, he was just trying to deflect in an argument.

        5. FactsMatter

          Wonderful.

          So, to review, your Jewish characters are:

          Joe: Apparently a complete sleazebag willing to reference Trump to win arguments
          Joe’s dad (?): Also a complete sleazebag from the little we’ve seen of him
          Ethan’s parents: Judgmental and homophobic
          Ethan: Self hating enough to “date” / make a beard of a fundie-Christian girl and attend church with her
          Dorothy: Has some Jewish ancestry but isn’t religiously or culturally Jewish and only even brought up her heritage to make a point
          (Not that any of the other Jewish characters are shown as really religiously or culturally Jewish either!)

          I hope the rest of the comic goes well, but it’s safe to say that I’m done reading it.

        6. David M Willis

          I can always do better in representing different peoples, and if my Jewish characters aren’t doing it for you, then I won’t say that your distaste is wrong.

          *jots down* make dorothy terrible in some way

        7. Soramke

          Because it’s not like any *real* Jews would ever reference Trump, of course. Should we do a run-down of all the Christian characters now, too? I’ll accept anybody else with flaws, but all the Jews have to be perfect. As a Jew, I appreciate that this comic has more Jews with a wider assortment of personality traits and character flaws than almost any other piece of fiction I’ve read that isn’t specifically focused on Judaism. That’s not to say there’s no room for *more* representation — there could always be a more religious, observant Jew, etc. But that wouldn’t be illustrative of the vast majority of the Jews I know, perhaps even less so than the ones already in the comic. But I guess Willis should strive to portray every possible combination of beliefs and identities and personality traits? Or just the ones that portray your (our) religion and ethnicity in the most positive light?

      2. Fart Captor

        Are you kidding me with this shit trlkly?

        Do you really think hate is the only reason to think someone has made a bad decision?

        Have you seriously never examined your absolutist, retributive view of morality with any honesty at all? Because it seems to lead you to some completely absurd, self-inconsistent bullshit.

      3. JBento

        Yeah, dude. You know what’s up, claiming that Cerberus would never empathise with a LGBTQIAA teacher, and would have no experience in detecting or reason to complain about fake allyship. You picked the EXACT right person to throw those accusations at.

      4. Austyn

        Also why are you comparing people (specifically Cerberus) to a trump supporter when LITERALLY those people want people like she and I ***dead*** what the actual hell mate. You could just as easily say “stop acting like an asshole” to get your inaccurate points across. Although Cerberus is responding 100% reasonably in my opinion, because while Roz is shit around half the time, it was WHOLLY unprofessional to force a FRESHMAN to teach a class of her peers with absolutely no notice.

  53. Tacos

    That last panel… ah… well…. fuck….

  54. Cerberus

    Panels 3 and 4: Yeah, that face. That face is well earned here and I’ve been there with Dorothy, hell, I’m there now. That is the face I have towards Paul Ryan and the other 216 vile murdering bastards right now. That is the face I have had in considering my soon-to-be-former head of school right after I found out he tried to harass the student who had been raped into suicide to cover up his fuck-up.

    And I don’t blame Dorothy for being that done. That was about ninety different extremely sore spots for her being slammed all at once in a relationship that had only really been puttering around on a mutual concern for the well-being of Danny and familiarity.

    And it’s that familiarity that makes it the worst. He knows this is an area he really shouldn’t go into. That this is the thing that would hurt her the most at a time that she’s been clearly already pissed off and stressed out. That by the shifting time frame of now is the day after rape was made a pre-existing condition by the House.

    Panel 5: This here, what Joe is doing. This is why it is important to call out douchey friends when they are being assholes and not write it off as “oh, that’s how they are”. Because when that happens, they get really pissy when you do call them out on saying something awful, because “c’mon, I do this shit all the time”. Using that tacit social support to try and normalize hurt and avoid taking any real ownership of the harm it does.

    And it’s closely aligned with the “I was only kidding” school where certain types of folks believe that if something is a joke then it somehow loses any power to hurt, because joking around equals non-political or non-trading-in-awful-social-attitudes.

    So yeah, in Joe’s mind, he’s just clowning around, silly Joe, because everyone just sighs and doesn’t even bother to engage his crap anymore (because they’ll be harassed like Joyce was for awhile for it if they do). Because the social price of fighting him is more humiliation and “jokes” like this that target the sorest parts imaginable at a time that is crueler than ever to target.

    Also, Joe? Oh, she’s been mad at you before: http://www.dumbingofage.com/2011/comic/book-1/06-yesterday-was-thursday/headline/

    You just thought you were playing a lovely little teasing game among buds and so discounted that anger as not real.

    Ugh. I want Joe to grow up. I want him to reject this nightmare train he’s on. Maybe this is the first much needed cluebat to his temples. Who knows? But what he’s been doing, to play up his masculinity has been awful to everyone who ever made the mistake of falling in his social circle.

    And we know he can do better because we’ve seen it with Joyce. But now we need to see it in meatspace.

    1. foamy

      I agree with most of that, but I don’t think Joe was aware this is a particularly bad time for Dorothy.

      1. Li

        That doesn’t change anything, really.

    2. Heatth

      Joe looked remorseful in the second last panel, so I do hope he starts to realize his awful attitude is pushing people away from him. Joyce, who he seemed to form a connection over the weekend went back to mostly disliking him, and even Danny is starting to become more distant. At some point Joe gotta get a clue.

      1. Cerberus

        I hope so too. I want to see him reach the other side of all this and recognize the harm this sort of performative thing he’s doing is causing to his relationships. And I see flashes of it so I think it will eventually happen, but it’s definitely going to be a matter of when.

  55. AnvilPro

    Joe’s gonna catch Ryan and then he’ll have a pass on all the casual sexism for the rest of college. Or maybe he’ll get to make, like, one joke with only eye rolling and not verbal annoyance

    1. zoelogical

      um

      so if i catch a murderer one time, does that mean i get a free license on stabbing as many people as i want after that???

      1. Delicious Taffy

        Holy shit, is that real? I need to get on this.

        1. zoelogical

          ikr. my social agenda has never been so full!!!

  56. Saaaam

    Toss him down those stairs, Joe

  57. Cerberus

    Okay, we’re doing two passes, because I want to clear out Joe before I get to the much greater evil.

    Panel 6: Yay, an actual apology. That’s needed. Good Joe. Good. But points off by trying to lead with minimizing her anger by implying that it’s due to the “day” rather than the inappropriateness of your comments.

    Panel 7: Mmph, and immediately undercut by this BS. Like, I get the defensiveness. That’s very natural, unfortunately. But well, it’s just not great optics to be like “oh did you just heavily note the inappropriateness of my actions, well, I’m immune to any real recriminations for that because I’m big and beefy and physically stronger than you”.

    And the quickness he turns to that is… disappointing. But yeah, he’ll internalize this and grow or treat it as one more “percussion instruments be ‘crazy'” incident like he did all of Joyce’s responses. I hope the former, because I want to see him grow and not be this anymore.

    Okay, that’s Joe done, let’s focus on the real villain.

    Panels 5-7: HOLY SHIT, RYAN!!!!!!!!!! Like, yay, him in his hoodie with his prominent scar. It’s a nice fulfilling fantasy to see him feeling somewhat hunted because in reality even when publicly accused, that usually just tends to increase sympathy for the rapist rather than create any real problems.

    So it’s nice to dwell in a happy fantasy where a rapist is facing at least some inconveniences to his daily life.

    But, I’m terrified of why he’s here. Because my first thought is that he’s tracked down who was the origin of that social media post and has tracked that down to Dorothy. My second thought is that he had Amazi-girl’s phone with it’s cool phone tracker app on it and there’s a possible chance he swiped it when he was deleting his picture.

    Either way, I’m really worried that he’s tracking down Dorothy for an intentional confrontation, because well, his motions here seem to bear that out. Looking at his phone as if he was tracking something down, going to a classroom that he’s very unlikely to actually need to be going to given that there hasn’t been an awful encounter before today, suddenly looking Dorothy’s way as if he’s suddenly recognizing someone.

    It hints that he has something on Dorothy even if it’s just whatever selfies she posts on social media and potential class schedule. And he clearly is taking something from seeing Dorothy and I doubt he has any positive intent towards her especially if he considers her to “blame” for the outing of his crimes.

    And that terrifies me because folks like that dox and harass and “plan revenges” and I just want all of the cast to be safe.

    So, at long last we get to the real comic reaction:

    EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!

    1. zoelogical

      what i’m really freaked out about re: Ryan is that he could be building a case for why this claim of sexual assault ruined his life, on the chance this goes to court. i mean. doesn’t seem like there’s much proof now, but…that’s the thing that worries me

      1. Cerberus

        Or if he starts threatening to sue on those grounds in order to try and flush out Joyce. Or if he follows and stalks Dorothy until he finds Joyce again.

        Yeah, there’s so much to be terrified by in this revelation.

        1. zoelogical

          yup!!!!!!!!!!

          god it makes me sick to think about what he might want with joyce like. is he an opportunist, or is he obsessive?? he was sure as hell focused on sex for the brief amount of time we had from his perspective. and like he was the dude who assumed she wanted what he wanted – he called her a tease.

          idk rape is usually a power trip but like it’s about being able to take what you want. and this move took away a lot of his power, so, lashing out seems like the next move for him

          fuck

        2. Cerberus

          Panel 4 of this comic makes me heavily nervous about what he has planned for Joyce: http://www.dumbingofage.com/2016/comic/book-7/01-glower-vacuum/satisfied/

          Especially as he sees her as directly responsible for “sending” a superhero after him so I don’t see how he doesn’t assume she’s behind this “latest attempt to destroy his life”. And we’ve already seen him get violent.

        3. zoelogical

          frick. yeah

          yeah he’s very tied up in the dehumanization of women

          yeah

          this is going Nowhere Good

        4. zoelogical

          haha oh god rereading his comics and like fifth panel here:
          http://www.dumbingofage.com/2016/comic/book-7/01-glower-vacuum/decisions/

          that is vindictive as hell

        5. Delicious Taffy

          That’s such a weird fucking thing for a person to say. “You’re jealous nobody wants to drug you.” Like, okay, what? How do you even get that thought in your head, that someone could be jealous of you thinking a woman is so attractive, you just have to drug her? I mean, is that supposed to be flattering?

          And it’s such a weird level of laziness, too. I mean, you clearly have a thing for this person, even if it’s in a very dehumanizing way, but you think talking to them is too much work to get in their pants? But then you turn around and go through all the trouble of preemptively obtaining a drug, slipping it into a drink, and then handing it to her, despite the fact that if she notices, the entire jig is up?

          And then all of this is apparently supposed to be flattering behavior, and all women should want this to happen? This kind of mindset is clearly the product of a diseased brain, and if anyone finds themselves understanding and agreeing with it, they should get some fucking therapy.

          Sorry, hot button.

        6. Tan

          The line of thinking stems from the (VERY OBVIOUSLY WRONG) belief that drugging a woman to have sex with her is an okay thing to do (WHICH IT IS NOT I REALLY WANT TO EMPHASIZE). Once you have that (fucked up) premise and all the (fucked up) baggage that comes with it, then the (fucked up) ‘obvious’ conclusion is that the desire to drug a woman equates to desire to have sex with her, which is positive attention that any woman would want. In fact, the (fucked up) logic goes, it’s -extra- desirous, because he’s willing to go above and beyond ‘merely’ persuading to put in these extra steps of effort.

          It’s the same line of (fucked up) reasoning that has Ryan calling Joyce a “tease” in http://www.dumbingofage.com/2011/comic/book-1/06-yesterday-was-thursday/smash/ for failing to be alone with him so he can rape her.

          It’s not a mental disease. It is absolutely a conscious, willful decision Ryan and too many (which is to say, more than zero) non-fictional men make.

        7. Delicious Taffy

          Alright, so maybe it’s not a mental disease. It’s still a sign of a fucked-up mind that should be set straight.

        8. Li

          @Tan: People also absolutely just say it bald-facedly all the time, though. They absolutely say “you’re just jealous no one wants to rape you”. They claim that feminists all fantasize about being raped but know we are not desirable enough to be raped. This is a real thing that certain segments of the population say, and they do not pretend it would be sex. They use the word ‘rape’ and they still say it.

          Just want that suuuuuper clear.

          @Delicious Taffy: You’re missing the point, though, which is that this kind of thinking (the entitlement and the dehumanization) is not a mental illness. People who are completely neurotypical (mentally “”normal””) say and think these things. Abusive people do not have “abuser’s disease”.

          Part of the reason to avoid this kind of language (“a fucked-up mind”) is that it excuses the behavior by implying that the abuser cannot help themselves*. Another, huge part is that it further stigmatizes the mentally ill as a group, when they’re already — as a group — MUCH more likely to be victims of violence than perpetrators. (And another part is that pushing all behavior we find morally repugnant onto mental illness is a way of distancing ourselves, as neurotypical people, from repugnant behavior. It’s a way of not acknowledging that we all have the capacity for evil.)

          We’ve got that so thoroughly backwards at a society that people will argue it, they’ll try to insist that for example people with APD are more violent than average, but they are literally wrong — the statistics just do not bear it out.

          And this misconception emboldens people to abuse the mentally ill, because “they’re violent” and “they deserve it”, but also because “no one’s going to believe someone with delusions”. Mentally ill people are at a very heightened risk of all forms of abuse, including sexual assault.

          So yeah, fucked-up mind is not the phrase you are looking for.

          It’s a sign of an abuser’s mentality, where a neurotypical person simply decides that what they want matters more than what another person wants. In a misogynistic society, it’s easier to do this with women — there’s a whole school of douchebag thought still insisting that women aren’t as rational, intelligent; that our emotions aren’t as real because we’re not full people.

        9. Delicious Taffy

          Alright, so the way I said it didn’t work. How’s this: If you think drugging a person and fucking them is an alright thing to do, you’re a fucking horrible piece of shit, no matter who you are or what state your mind is in. Is that clear enough? Can anyone really poke a hole in that statement? Drugging people is fucking wrong, and people who do it are fucked.

        10. Cerberus

          CW: victim blaming, sexual assault, sexism

          Taffy- Definitely. It’s a really vile philosophy but scarily common. Especially of late thanks to MRA stuff getting more politically connected, so lots of my friends have encountered these lovely wastes of flesh telling them repeatedly after they’ve mentioned their sexual assault how they should be grateful to have that happen to them as that’s the only way anyone would willingly have sex with them.

          It’s… yeah, it’s a really messed up philosophy and I think it stems from them both viewing women not fully as people and feeling legitimately hard-done by the fact that women are autonomous beings who can say no or leave them instead of robot maid/sex slaves.

          It’s terrifyingly pernicious and I’m not fully sure how we fix it.

        11. Li

          @DF

          I don’t know how that came across, but I wasn’t trying to poke holes in your statement, or accuse you of deliberately saying something mean.

          I was trying to be helpful in more thoroughly illustrating why the core concept is a problem. 🙁 That’s all.

        12. zoelogical

          yeah it’s very…”look at them, making me feel things. they must know that they are making me feel things, it’s their fault for existing and making me feel things. of course they secretly want what i want. all i have to do is take it. even if they don’t want it at first, they’ll get over it and start to like it.”

          to which we say: how dare u exist in my presence

        13. Gesc

          I’m almost certain he’s planning to follow Dorothy (who is about to isolate herself from her friends) and confront her, with very real chances of it going violent.

          Which is a terrible thing. Makes me think we might see either Sal or AG or both interrupting him, but at any rate he could put her in real trouble. He might be also downright stalking her, which isn’t any better.

          Idk everything about him sucks.

        14. Delicious Taffy

          If he managed to corner Dorothy, it would be so goddamn satisfying to see her knock his ass out.

    2. missilentmurmur

      It seems to me that Ryan took a picture.

      1. Anowan

        If he took a picture, maybe he’s attempting to mirror the social media.

        Blurred photo : “Have you seen this girl ? She’s the biggest slut ever and has had sex with everyone on campus”

        “Wow”, says the guy who didn’t believe the rape accusation, “what a slut.”
        “What ?”, says his female friend, “this is obviously someone trying to destroy the reputation of a girl he doesn’t like.”
        “Weren’t you the one who wanted me to believe this rape accusation ?”
        “OK WTF is going on here”, says Sal.

        (OK it doesn’t sound as likely when I write it down.)

        1. Cerberus

          CW: victim blaming, sexual assault

          That… Hopefully Willis doesn’t go there, but that definitely would be something unfortunately true to life (I’m thinking of how most rape survivors who go to court end up having huge public smearing campaigns about how much of a slut they are or one of my ex’s rapists smearing her as a “drunken slut” to all of their mutual friends to try and get ahead of her telling them what happened).

        2. Yumi

          There were a number of reasons I didn’t report (being in denial for a while being a major one), but fear of that happening was definitely part of it.

        3. zoelogical

          -offers hugs?-

        4. Yumi

          Thank you.

    3. BBCC

      Good news, bad news.

      Good news: He can’t track Dorothy from that app. It only tracks AG’s phone.

      Bad news: Not only can he still stalk Dorothy due to her connections to AG, but if he has the app, he can find AG’s phone.

      1. Delicious Taffy

        I was under the impression that the app isn’t on any public store, and AG gave Sal a direct link to a secure download for it. She doesn’t strike me as the type to be careless enough to put it out for public access.

        1. BBCC

          It is indeed a private app, but it only works to track AG’s phone. It was a contingency app in case it was lost or stolen on patrol.

      2. Abel Undercity

        Ryan: “The app says she’s right… here!”

        (Ryan looks around, sees nothing. The hall is empty.)

        (Confused, he looks back down at the phone, as Amazi-Girl drops through the ceiling tiles and proceeds to pound the living dog snot out of him.)

    4. Tan

      I don’t think he’s tracking Dorothy. If he was tracking Dorothy, he’d most likely have her name (if he was going off the contact in Amazi-Girl’s phone, she’d have her name in there; if he’s going off the news article about Amazi-Girl, again name in the by-line) and panel 5 has Joe shouting her name after her, yet Ryan is looking the opposite way in panel 6.

      Honestly, if I didn’t know better, I’d say it seems most like he’s looking at Walky.

      …Actually, maybe I don’t know better. Because Walky does bear a notable resemblance to Sal.

      Perhaps he came looking for Joyce (found her class schedule somehow), but has become distracted by why Walky looks so familiar?

      Or perhaps he just normally walks by this way at this time (it is well before class is supposed to let out, after all) and just has his nose buried in his phone for extra nonchalance.

      Actually my worst case scenario (but also potential-good-can-come-of-it scenario?) is that Joe suddenly latches onto Ryan as a random dude who he expects to take his side, and they get buddy-buddy. Which would pretty inevitably lead to him having an encounter with the greater DoA main cast until someone does recognize him. And beats the crap out of him, one can hope. Perhaps expecting Joe to side with him like the Intern Bros, yet Joe (hopefully??) chooses better?

      It is all very tense-making either way.

      *also sends internet-hugs, because the real-world country*

      1. vlademir1

        I fear you may be right. There are at least two people he could have an interest in walking in that direction. Dorothy, who has known public connections to AG due to the article, and Walky, who looks enough like Sal as to not be coincidental (to the point he could fool HA in the orig universe by wearing her jacket and some seaweed) and presumably has at least some vocal similarity to her (enough to be able to at least get Ryan’s notice) which isn’t uncommon with siblings.

      2. Cerberus

        *accepts hugs* I would like to get off this ride now please.

        And yeah, I hadn’t even thought of that, but he could absolutely be noticing Walky by voice and appearance and making the connection to that girl who interrupted his “victory” a couple of nights ago.

        This is so bad for so many characters potentially and all could lead him back to the dorms where Joyce lives.

  58. JessWitt

    Joe, you may look like a man but you’ve got some mental and emotional maturing to do.

    But wait Scarface is in the building! Why is he in the building?

    1. inqntrol

      Definitely up to no good, and I’m scared to think what he’s planning to do.

  59. Reltzik

    It just occurred to me that there’s another reason for Ryan to be here.

    Yes, he might have gotten Amazi-Girl’s contact list, used it to ID Dorothy, and tracked her to her class via some sort of social media postings.

    OR! He might have gotten Amazi-Girl’s contact list, used it to ID Joyce, and tracked her to her class via some sort of social media postings.

    …… honestly, I think the Dorothy option is scarier, because she hasn’t shown her to be the rage-combatant that Joyce is and also she’s less on her guard. But either possibility is its own distinct form of scary. With Joyce, he’s here to…. well, every option is ugly. With Dorothy, he’s here for photo containment and/or information about Joyce and/or Amazi-Girl. That’s still a lot of bad and even more potential bad, but not nearly as bad as what he’s prepared to do if he’s hunting Joyce.

    1. zoelogical

      JEsus

      all the creepy stalker potential

  60. Bagge

    “Sorry” is a good thing to say.

    Taking the scenic route there… not so much.

    “I’ve always done that” is almost as bad an excuse as “I’m bigger than you”.

    Poor Roz and Dorothy 🙁

    1. Cerberus

      Yeah, I feel bad for them, because I’ve been in that situation where I need to just let something awful wash over me and try and move away from the situation.

      And I think Joe can get better. I think there’s even a part of him that strongly wants to get better, because he actually does genuinely love and want having women in his life who think well of him. But it’s going to require a bit more effort on his part to get there.

  61. Carms

    I first thought that ryan had no rapist-related reason to be here, even if he knew joyce and/or Dorothy were in this class, but then it occurred to me that it’s real easy to tail someone to a place where they might be vulnerable.

    Shit Joe. You’ve been let to get away with a lot of shit. as the people around you grow up, they’re less likely to wave away your bullshit. You’d better grow up with them, or get left behind.

  62. BenRG

    Oh, hello! What’s Ryan doing sneaking around there? If he’s looking for that tutor who was at the campaign rally, I’m afraid that she’s off talking to your boss along with the girl you tried to rape. Doesn’t that sound reassuring?

    Coming into the college proper when everyone is looking for him is amazingly reckless. He’s either stupid or he’s desperate; I’m betting that it’s a combination of both and that makes him dangerous.

    1. Cerberus

      Yeah. It also means he’s likely looking for revenge or to make a threat which does not bode well for any of the main characters in the short term.

  63. NinjaNick

    Walky, before you make a fool of yourself against Joe, just take a few practice swings on punching bag Ryan instead.

  64. lia47

    I always forget which groups of kids went to high school together

  65. chris2315

    This comic is turning into Where’s Waldo, but with a rapist instead of a dude in a striped shirt.

  66. Nenja

    *reads panel*
    *reads panel*
    *reads panel*
    *reads panel*
    *reads panel*
    *reads panel*
    FUCKING HELL IT’S HIM!!

  67. Fire_daws

    Wally, if you’re going to slug someone, slug that guy over there.

    Or better Joe slug that guy.

    1. Zatar

      Or better yet, Literally everyone on panel except Ryan, slug that guy over there.

      1. JBento

        Ryan can slug that guy over there, too. At least we’ll finally know why someone is hitting themselves.

  68. Icalasari

    Wally is also a pretty solid wall of muscle, somehow

    I’m sure he could knock down Joe and hopefully rapist dude at the same time

    1. Zatar

      Wally is pretty tough but I don’t know about Walky.

  69. acher4

    ohnononononon

  70. Arianod

    Everyone’s so presidential today…

  71. Dariu55

    AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA why must they be fighting? They would have seeeeen him!

  72. Tuen

    I don’t know why it took so long to really click that the dude’s name is Ryan. Of course his name is Ryan. Jesus… well. Shit. That’s a little less easy to read.

  73. chris73

    Just imagine if, in the course of your day, a snippet was printed out and digested and poured over

    Bugger that

  74. Rosstifer

    Urg. Joe was this close to mentioning he has ‘binders full of women’, wasn’t he? And walky, if you don’t feel that you could slug Joe, another VERY deserving target just walked in…

  75. Yossarianduck

    Ryan, here absorbing some of the collective hate from Joe.

  76. Mr.Morningstar

    Walky if you wanna slug someone slug the dude with the gash on his face over there

  77. showler

    Walky is kinda reacting to Joe here in the same way that he reacted to Mr. Charisma when he was a kid.

    That doesn’t reflect well on either Walky or Joe.

  78. hof1991

    Panel 6 and 7 might just be someone using a phone, but 5 sure looks like he is taking a photo. Sneaky Willis. We don’t notice him then. By the time we can ID him, the photo is in the past and we go back 2 panels to see that we missed the installation of a plot device.

    There’s a lot of reasons to love Willis, but the narrative structure he is capable of is off the charts and fits like a glove with my reading profile. It’s also something that would be very hard to do in regular print. Compared to most comics, this is like watching the National Theatre do Hamlet instead of the local community theater doing The Odd Couple. Bravo and Damn You Willis.

    1. Delicious Taffy

      Holy fuck, I didn’t even notice him in those other two panels.

  79. Li

    This is such a well-done comic, like. The expressions, the pacing, the way Ryan just slipppppps casually into the background and then you re-read and see with horror that he was sneakily taking a photo of Dorothy in what you thought was just a long shot for the purpose of emphasizing the metaphorical distance between Joe and Dorothy.

    Just, many compliments to Mr. Willis on this one.

  80. Kater

    Panel 5 rings so damn true.

    Like this type of casual misogny happens “all the time” from friends and family. So much that I have to constantly be on the look out for it if I have any hope of calling it out. Otherwise it’s just a nameless bad feeling that I’ll realize 2 days later was caused by sexism. Dorothy is just an 18 year old kid and she’s already better at calling it out than I was at that age. How many times has she looked the other way because she didn’t want to alienate herself further with a long discussion or lose momentum with a teacher or boss? Would she allow herself to get this irritated, that someone as oblivious as Joe notices, if she wasn’t already stressed about school, the RA job and Ryan? I don’t think men realize just how often women keep quiet about sexism or why we do, not just to preserve relationships but to stay safe and slightly sane (starting to feel like a losing battle for me)…
    And then we get the literal rapist in the backround, shadowing Dorothy like the threat of violence shadows marginalized people every damn day.
    Excellent work, (Damn you) Willis.

  81. Trolldrool

    As disgusting as Joe’s behaviour is, the way he responds to Dorothy’s anger is the first sign I’ve seen that he can change. Looking back on my own life there have been numerous times where I’ve only realized something isn’t funny by the reaction of my friends and I think that’s common for a lot of people. It’s easier for people to not care about being offensive if the offended parties are either people they don’t know or care about.

    There’s no better motivator for people like that to stop and actually consider the possibility they’ve done something wrong when it hurts people they genuinely care about and the fact that Joe actually seems to care that Dorothy is hurt gives me hope he’ll eventually become less intolerable, even if it’ll probably take years in real time before we as readers see a significant improvement.

  82. Deanatay

    Panel 7: DoA’s Most Hated?

  83. DarkoNeko

    Looks like a lot of people are having a bad day.

  84. Acebender

    SEIZE HIM

  85. MatsuoTanuki

    *Metal Gear Solid “!” sound effect*

  86. Vulcanodon

    Holy shit… it’s him. Not sure what to hope for, other than several motivated fists converging on his position. Isn’t Sal out looking for AG right now? And it might be a good time for Joe to put some of that testosterone to positive use…

  87. JepMZ

    Couldn’t he just put on make up to cover that up?

  88. Rei

    Unexpected Ryan appearance hit me like a truck.

    I’m just happy right now that Joyce is at Leslie’s place instead of in class so she wouldn’t have to bump into Ryan otherwise. But wow everything is getting super tense.

  89. Tenn

    Weeeeeell, that depends on what you mean by “presidential”; something a president should do or something a president does. If it’s the latter, rating women is apparently very presidential these days. Still, Joe is an asshole and – wait, who’s th– *HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS*

  90. JBento

    The juxtaposition of Joe and Ryan is a good one, as those two are a comparison that floats through my mind often enough.

    Joe is awful, but he always struck me as “educatable.” If someone pointed out to him that using alcohol as a “yes lubricant” is a despicable thing to do, he’d likely be horrified and stop. Ryan, as a contrast, is irredeemable shit – he has no illusions about what he’s doing, and he enjoys it.

    Best case scenario: Ryan, having noticed the argument, tries to recruit Joe to screw Dorothy, at which point Joe realises how so in the dark gray he himself is, pummels the little shit into oblivion, and starts the long and filled with falling-down-the-wagons way to make himself a better person.

    Oh, no, wait, Willis comic – this is going to be a shitshow of Robin-esque proportions, isn’t it?

  91. zoelogical

    okay so *cracks knuckles* PARALLELS

    Robin and Joe are both performative assholes, in that they perform a persona in order to fit certain societal needs. Robin does it for her career; Joe does it socially. Robin thinks it makes her more attractive and vote-able; Joe thinks it makes him more attractive and likely to get ladies to bang him. For both of them, any attention is good attention, whether it’s rage or agreement. but in-comic, Joe tends to get more rage, whereas Robin gets more civil disagreement.

    point of interest: <a href="http://www.dumbingofage.com/2011/comic/book-1/06-yesterday-was-thursday/nethers/&quot; joe and robin's first DoA conversation together. friggin’ priceless.

    Both of them are profiting off of other people’s bigotry in order to achieve their own ends. But it’s interesting to me that Joe and Roz seem to have a long-standing…thing?? like, Joe can probably get with a lot of girls, and ones that won’t question his persona of tough guy, mildly sexist jock charming. I mean, most of what they seem to have in common is liking sex and wanting to have strings-free sex. Which is super fair, I have no arguments with that – but it stops being strings-free when you bring politics into the bedroom. Which Roz did, when she filmed their one-night-stand and posted it on the internet.

    because this is Joe’s public image now! he really can’t hold back from performing being a sex-crazy college kid if he wants to keep continuity with himself. and he’s someone clearly very sensitive to other people’s perceptions of him, to the point that he will deny his own emotions in order to keep up his machismo. and that’s something he’s taken into his relationship with Danny, who (as a fellow guy) is not someone he can emotion with. because ladies are for emotions, I guess, thanks toxic masculinity. He can’t be actually hurt by Roz posting that video on the internet, because that would mean that it had gotten to him, even though it crossed a sexual boundary and he didn’t consent. but he can emotion with Joyce via text after her friend’s assault, which gets through that thick shell of his.

    Robin didn’t really choose to have tabloid reporters taking pictures of her and Leslie kissing, either; but that’s a different sort of consent violation, in that as a politician she invites public scrutiny. It is the sort of thing her constituents probably ought to know, although it would have been better if she could have done it on her own terms. honestly if we could prove that Trump and Putin had actually had a one night stand, I wouldn’t care, it’d be goddamn Christmas. especially given how much harm Trump and Putin have both done to gay people. the person it’s most unfair to is Leslie, who hasn’t chosen a public life but now is thrust into it whether she wants to be or not. She can minimize her part of it from now on, but she’s always going to be that person to powerful people. :/

    back to Robin and Joe: managing scandal is now a huge part of the work invested into their public images, whether in Indiana or on a college campus. it’s a part of their public history. and if they want to be known, they have to figure out a way to keep continuity in that. changing, in the massive way that Leslie and Roz want from Robin and Joyce and Roz want from Joe, creates a ton of cognitive dissonance. not just for Robin and Joe, but for the people who know them and are expecting a certain performance from them. I mean, opinions and first impressions can change, but it’s a lot of work.

    i dunno like. the parallels here between Leslie and Robin and Joe and Roz are kind of a mirrorhouse quadrilateral. Leslie is to Robin as Joe is to Roz in terms of political power differentials, but also Joe is to Robin as Leslie is to Roz in how they handle social politics. which i find to be really interesting! Roz and Leslie pretty much are their politics, the definition of the personal is political. Whereas Joe and Robin refuse to get personal in their politics because it would make them vulnerable, I think.

    the difference is that Joe can apologize when he sees he’s screwed up. Robin’s really not there yet.

    1. Chris73

      These are very good points

      1. zoelogical

        yeah

        it’s weird thinking of Leslie as a Monica Lewinsky

        1. zoelogical

          i mean don’t get me wrong Monica Lewinsky kicks ass now but still

    2. zoelogical

      http://www.dumbingofage.com/2011/comic/book-1/06-yesterday-was-thursday/nethers/

      ugh there’s a link

  92. Black

    Does anyone know just why Dorothy is so hellbent on becoming President someday? She’s dedicating her whole life to this one job that’s decades and several elections away, and for what?

    I know she’s said that she puts a lot of stock in “future happiness” but far as I know nobody who’s become President has ever enjoyed it. On the off-chance she’s able to get elected leader of whatever’s left after Trump, then what?

    What the hell is Dorothy going to do when her 4-8 years are up? A whole life dedicated to getting one job that doesn’t even last a decade, and then that’s it; whether or not she was popular, she’ll never go back into politics (at least I don’t think any former President has ever gone back to be a Senator again), so all that experience and accomplishments will mean little when she’s sitting around at home thinking, “Oh gee, I got to be President!”

    Dorothy really needs to sit down and think about her priorities, especially if she just keeps postponing her happiness for this one job she may never actually get.

    1. Sam

      I think it’s great to have that ambition, that goal in the life. It hasnt been mentioned (probably) in the comic but I am sure she knows that reaching that goal is decades away, if ever. She is smart enough to figure it out.

      I dont know if she is sacrificing her personal happiness to reach that goal. But even if she does, that’s her choice I guess.

    2. zoelogical

      because she wants to be president and thinks she can positively affect the world through that position, presumably the same reason that anyone decent gets into politics, i guess

    3. BBCC

      Considering how old most presidents are, she’d probably be nearing retiring age. She could also go into public speaking, law, journalism, write a book, or teach. Just like Obama’s now doing.

    4. Emperor Norton II

      “I know she’s said that she puts a lot of stock in “future happiness” but far as I know nobody who’s become President has ever enjoyed it”

      I think that this Oatmeal comic could probably explain a lot of things.

      Although Dorothy is slightly different. Matthew Inman is focused on doing the things he does because he finds them interesting, while Dorothy is definitely more into being compelled (which he does touch upon). Compelled to make a difference, compelled to be what she deems a success, compelled to do something that gives her life meaning beyond its existence. Happiness does not really enter into it at this point. It’s the wrong word to use…

      …but she uses it because it’s the quickest way to make people understand.

      Because saying you want a better world… Yeah, that makes people suspicious. It just sounds off-putting and fake. Saying you are compelled, even more so. But tie your actions up with ‘happiness’, and most people are all “Sure, I can get that” and leave her alone.

  93. Sam

    Just realized that the May 4th preview panel didnt actually get put up that day.

    1. David M Willis

      I wrote the Billie/Ruth/Howard sequences after these strips and inserted them later, pushing some of these strips a day or two back.

      1. Sam

        Ohh, wow. Thank you for the response.

  94. quix

    Given the context and theme, I’m guessing Ryan is there semi-randomly and is going to try to commiserate with Joe over “chicks be crazy, yo” and get some limited success, so as to serve for a vehicle for Joe to learn where these sorts of view end.

    /wild speculation

  95. HeySo

    And things were going so well.
    Well, comparative to the norm, anyway.

  96. Orion Fury

    So I was thinking “Why does that guy look so”…read alt-text…”oh gods.”

  97. Sabrine

    YOU KNOW WHAT WOULD BE NICE? IF TODAY WERE PUNCH A RAPIST DAY. LOOK THERE’S ONE NOW!

    1. chris2315

      Every day is Punch a Rapist Day.

      1. Sabrine

        Well in states like Maryland, where rape victims can be legally forced to share custody with their rapist, I’d have to disagree. But I wish.

  98. phildog

    I’ts been a few days, but since nobody said it I will…. LE GASP!

  99. Falling Star

    OH SHIT RYAN

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