I enjoy these little protest photos you put up. It is interesting to learn about various world events that I was too young to recall and would not otherwise have known about.
You just got me to stare way too long trying to figure out what kind of place serves coffee cups sliced in half vertically. Pretty sure that’s folded up paper. Regardless, she is definitely NOT pleased.
… yeah, two college kids acting like college kids at a *checks notes* student protest specifically about a plan that made it easier to fire recent graduates from their first job.
Somewhat different circumstances than “two white girls who weren’t even there for the actual protest kissing after the tear gas started at a protest about Bulmeria”.
Big Z
In other words: Oh no, context matters!
Dot
It’s almost like not every protest is the same. You would think Asma essentially handholding DoJo through explaining why the kiss was a bad idea at that venue might illuminate some things for certain people, but alas, we are not so lucky.
Li
I mean. Dorothy and Joyce were also college students acting like college students, and you don’t know why the two people in the linked photo are there.
It’s still a good example of people kissing at protests that aren’t specifically for LGBTQIA+ rights, which was a frequent counterpoint (“it’s different to kiss at a protest where the kissing is part of the protest”).
Li
Like I think there are at least two different conversations happening.
Is kissing at protests where that’s not necessarily appropriate still a thing that happens? Yes. Emotions run high.
Does the fact that it happens mean it’s above criticism, especially in terms of how Willis framed the specific kiss? No.
Big Z
As usual, you’re the voice of reason.
To your points, at least part of the problem is that we KNOW why DoJo were there (i.e, not for the protest because they were protestors) — it might well be reasonable to assume a random person in a protest picture was there for a good reason, and equally while we know little for certain about the kissers in the linked image, they absolutely do NOT stand out as obviously different from either “the mass of protestors” or “the people on whose behalf the protest is”.
(I’d go so far as to say that WE the commentariat is more entitled to be judgy of DoJo than the average DoA character, who may well believe that DoJo are the protesting types.)
Yotomoe
Also metatextually I’m less upset about two real people kissing at a protest than I am a writer putting two people at a protest explicitly so they can kiss.
And Im kinda getting annoyed by the sarcastic “let me post protest photos and then dip” posts. It’s annoying.
Dot
It’s a really obnoxious bit.
Donovan
Given that several of the people they initially starting arguing about this with — and postiposting to spite — are people of color who were critisizingbthe *metatextual context*. It’s. Frustrating.
Gwen
I mean wasn’t it also to kick off Dorothy’s newer political direction, which makes the protest setting quite apt, with her expressly wanting to join in? (I know we haven’t got to that side of things quite yet as she’s had other developments, but given the whole thing about her disillusionment with Yale and becoming president, it’s unlikely that it’s gonna be forgotten about.)
Dot
Also, this is just a random photo from Getty Images, not the headline photo of a news article regarding the 2006 French youth protests – a major complaint in-universe is specifically that the kiss is being used as the face of the protest, which obfuscates the more important details such as the genocide it was organized against, or the disproportionate police response.
In reality, most of the news coverage of the 2006 protests in France focused on three main things: images of solidarity between protesters (i.e. holding hands under the Eiffel Tower), masses of crowds with signs, and the brutality of the police against protesters. Here are a few contemporary news pieces as examples:
In kind of a counterpoint, THAT particular thing we should be judging DAISY for (and we, for the most part, do) — that wasn’t really DoJo’s choice.
Big Z
(which also ties back to my thought that we as readers who know DoJo’s motivations have significantly more cause to judge them than characters in-universe who do not)
Dot
Yup, we know it was entirely Daisy’s fucked-up call, but people in-universe have no way of knowing that Joyce and Dorothy DIDNT do it for attention – and the circumstances make them look very guilty of it to anyone who doesn’t know them!
Dot
The point being, though, that the photo in OP and the photo in-universe are not comparable because of the difference in coverage.
Swerve kvetch: While I am, on paper, fully here for my girl Sarah getting some action with a guy who really likes her for who she is (as she has FIRMLY supplanted the competition as Best Girl), Tony as a character is just not doing it for me, at least not yet. Ever since him and Sarah hit it off, he hasn’t displayed any character traits that don’t seem like they were handpicked to make him as convenient a boyfriend for Sarah as possible, and that’s just not interesting to me. I like romantic relationships between Characters, not between A Character And Their Love Interest.
Maybe we’ll see more of his deep layers now that he’s been promoted to main cast, but right now he just feels like boyfriend-shaped Play-Dough.
can agree; he’s white bread for Sarah, and she is eating it up. But I do wonder what they’re relationship is gonna be like if she wants to go further, but he’s a “no x until y goal” kinda guy.
Or as I was chatting with other below, the possible drama of the whole dean’s son thing and relationship with this protest plot stuff.
In that way I feel like he’s like a male version of Charlie, who I also feel like is a bit shallow in the characterization department. But maybe that’s because one of my favorite parts of getting together is seeing them get together.
They’ve had some cute moments that make me believe in it a bit more. They bounce off each other well, have shared apathy for others (without it seeming like they’re feeding each other’s worst traits), there’s some differences between them so it’s not syrupy.
I can understand feeling like Tony is “too perfect”, but you could have said that about Dina too.
Clif
Nonsense. Dina is just the right amount of perfect.
Yeah, I genuinely haven’t trusted Tony since his first appearance. He’s too judgy about other people, and while Sarah shares that quality she also has a LOT of friends she’s protective of. I think it’s a matter of time before he starts judging (more harshly than he already has) her for keeping these people around or judging these people in a way she has to defend them about.
On the subject of friends, Beef is a bully at minimum and Tony is happy having him around which says enough about his own personal choices that he shouldn’t be judging other people at all. Furthermore, it makes me suspicious that he might be friends with that whole group which, I believe, includes Ryan (someone who wants revenge on this group already).
I never trust people who enter a relationship with someone and immediately start nitpicking their life and laying down clear but unspoken ‘rules’ for behavior they expect. It’s an intimidation tactic, and it feels (to me) like the first line pushed in a long list of lines until he has Sarah isolated and reliant on him in a way that makes her easy to abuse.
Yes, I know a lot of this is based on vibe sand worst-case supposition, but that’s where I’m at with him. He gives me the fucking ick and makes me worried for how he’ll hurt Sarah.
Tan
Decided to take a dive on Beef’s previous appearances
So Beef was with Paul and Other Football Bully Guy Who Doesn’t Have His Own Tag (henceforth OFBG). Beef himself didn’t appear to actually do anything besides an apparently affirmative grunt while smiling in response to Paul, and ran after Amazi-Girl hit OFBG and Paul. This could mean he is every bit the bully himself, or could mean he’s just a follower who goes along with his football crew, or somewhere in between. If more toward the latter, it is for the better that he has fallen in more with Tony who seems to have little tolerance for Paul’s shit
Beef was also at the party where Ryan got gashed, as were Paul and OFBG. There is no particular indication that any of them were there with or interacted with Ryan at that time. Paul is seen getting into a fight and then taken out by Amazi-Girl again in the background while Joyce is meeting Ryan (a detail I don’t think I noticed at the time, see https://www.dumbingofage.com/2011/comic/book-1/06-yesterday-was-thursday/thessalonians/ and the two following strips). Beef is only seen with Roz, so whether he came with Paul and OFBG, or was just generally there is unclear (the host of the party, Ron, appeared to be a football player as well).
Notably, Beef is *not* there when Paul and two other guys get in a fight with Sal and Amazi-Girl in defense of Ryan, nor is he with Paul and OFBG among the kidnapper lackeys. He is in the crowd at the DeSantos rally where Amazi-Girl spots Ryan again, but there’s no indication that he interacts with Ryan and he isn’t wearing a volunteer shirt.
So if we want to give benefit of the doubt, we could say Beef went along with Paul and OFBG early in the schoolyear when they were just guys from the football team, because that’s his social group, but cut away from them as they started getting into the more extreme incel shit. In a real generous interpretation, perhaps Tony even saw that Beef was getting pulled along down a bad path and helped him course-correct.
Or he could be a piece of shit, also totally possible.
Dwampre Scorrigank
I agree that his past associations don’t confirm the assumed negative about him, and I get the same feeling about “pulled down a bad path”.
One thing that’s not clear about Beef is how literal the comic is about his only communicating by grunting. Could just be a trope.
If we take it literally, Beef doesn’t talk around new people (I haven’t seen him conversing alone with non-main-characters). Less literally, it could still be representative of very minimal socializing. Either could indicate some lack of social ability, whether it be social anxiety, talking and smalltalk not coming naturally to him, or even being non-verbal, and those often relate to difficulty learning to navigate various social environments.
So I read one possibility as: Beef is someone who significantly lacks social or interpersonal skills and as a result fell in with a crowd of bullies (who may even have used his social weakness to bully him into running with them). Getting Paul off the team created an opportunity for Tony to step in and try to take him under his wing and keep him out of any more unhealthy situations.
As fair as Tony’s motivations, it’s of course not clear they are perfect. Maybe Tony was put up to it by Dean Pops, because they need Beef on the team. Maybe it’s another way Tony is displaying sensitivity to potential scrutiny (see panel 2 today) and/or worrying about “right living”. Maybe his ideas for how to help Beef include guiding him into some unhealthy pre-conceived notions of “how a person should be”, which Tony might have gotten a lot of himself in his childhood. Or worse – so I’m not trying to say Tony is automatically a saint for it, just that that’s what he might be doing here.
…
On another note I thought panel 2 today was a nice glimpse at Tony’s motivations in life, even though it doesn’t clear up exactly what they are. He may be driven by scrutiny or values or arbitrary rules or worry about potentially screwing up a good thing with a simple mistake or whatever, but he clearly cares or is anxious about doing things the “right” way. I’m curious if that will become a sticking point. Perhaps this ends up getting in the way of his connecting to Sarah or makes her suspicious of him.
Dwampre Scorrigank
Italicization fail, it was just supposed to be the words “need” and “what”
Nymph
So the group he’s friends with does still include Ryan via Paul.
I’m just not as keen to give any of them the benefit of the doubt. I don’t trust Tony (or Beef) and until the story gives me a reason to, I’m going to keep thinking they’re shitty people underneath.
I also just generally don’t like Tony even apart from his friends. He judges a LOT and in ways that sound like the subtle snipes of a controlling partner. I just think he’s not a good guy.
Dot
I’m willing to give Tony the benefit of the doubt just given what I know about him from the Walkyverse. He’s responsible to a fault and extremely fixated on duty and propriety, but in the end he’s a good guy. He had anger issues, but everyone in the Walkyverse had anger issues.
Nymph
I’ve never read Walkyverse, and people here have been a bit different from the way they were seemingly portrayed in Walkyverse. I don’t trust him and I’m just not going to until he does something other than pass weird and unasked for judgements on everyone around him for not being Grown Up Enough. While being buddies with a guy who hangs around a seriously bad crowd.
I’m fine if other people give him the benefit of the doubt, but I definitely will not be doing that.
I don’t mind too much Sarah just getting a little bit of wish fulfillment, as a treat. She’s had a fairly miserable go of it, much self inflicted, but still it’s kinda nice for her to just get to enjoy herself.
It’s also fun for her to be in a new relationship at the same time as Joyce and Dorothy.
But yeah, I agree. Tony is a little flat right now. I’m intrigued about whether this new development will give him a chance to expand!
https://strawpoll.com/eNg6vJXN8gA
It’s been about 24 hours since I posted this and so far the results seem to show that the largest sticking points for people are….
3rd Place.
It’s taking focus from story elements I’m more interested in.
2nd Place.
I really liked Joe/Joyce and am saddened to see them broken up.
1st Place.
I’ve found the two characters uncharacteristically unlikable during this storyline.
Personally I’m a strong Joe/Joyce shipper so the 2nd place answer is probably my most common gripe, but this seems to be the general consensus. As always let me know if you don’t feel represented by the poll, I can always add in an option for ya.
I actually do like Doyce and support women’s wrongs in general but I answered too. Mostly because there’s some stuff around how Dorothy has handled this relationship that I’m hoping gets addressed.
I mean, I do agree with all three of those (and several others I voted for). In general, this storyline needs to end with one of the girls waking up in bed and Bobby Ewing’s in the shower (ngl, I hate that I know about the Dallas season 9 “it was all a dream” twist but here we are).
That 1st place issue is definitely my top one. Joyce especially has swerved into previously unseen levels of selfish obnoxiousness.
Jon
Yeah, Joyce continues in this strip the habit of gleefully proclaiming any and all sexual escapades to whoever will listen. With a veneer of “I’m being BAD and I’m having FUN with it”. Which can be cute in a vacuum but she’s just been doing it at literally every opportunity.
I want to believe that it’s building to something — Joyce’s whole speech about going to hell, in for a penny (RIP) in for a pound, etc — but to be honest, even if it’s building to a conflict for Joyce, it’s still obnoxious as hell.
Dot
I think it’s a little bit of a stretch to call what Joyce is doing in this strip “proclaiming sexual escapades.” All she’s really saying is “Dorothy and I are going to be spending most nights together and we kissed.” That’s pretty innocent, especially in comparison to what she laid on poor Lucy a few strips ago.
Mr D
Joyce is in for a penny, in for a pounding. And she really liked the pounding she got from Dorothy.
Man, Joyce and Dorothy are so much less charming (not that they were very enjoyable before) after doing a reread and seeing Dorothy crashout on Joe because she didn’t think he deserved Joyce over her. The moment Joyce dumped Joe he became a minor character and it’s getting boring when there’s a lot more that could be done here than the two of them being sickeningly sweet together.
Maybe this is going somewhere, but its not like yesterdays strip had an immediate payoff and I’m getting tired of waiting.
326 thoughts on “Unseemly”
Acher4
Joyce and Dorothy and their kiss!??
Oh my!!!
Oh and would you look at that, more Protest – Riot Kisses – Vol. 08737291
https://www.gettyimages.at/detail/nachrichtenfoto/two-people-kiss-as-students-demonstrate-through-the-nachrichtenfoto/57107063
Viva la Revolution! ?
True Survivor
I enjoy these little protest photos you put up. It is interesting to learn about various world events that I was too young to recall and would not otherwise have known about.
Azhrei Vep
Oh, man. I love the lady just to the left of the couple giving them the “Ugh, in front of my coffee?” stank eye.
zepangolynn
You just got me to stare way too long trying to figure out what kind of place serves coffee cups sliced in half vertically. Pretty sure that’s folded up paper. Regardless, she is definitely NOT pleased.
Astariel
Oh man. I hope they were appropriately lectured and shamed for ruining the protest with their self-centeredness. /s
ACAB
yall are so unserious. the world is not a comic strip nor your photoshoot. solidarity to the woman on the left in that photo lmao.
Dot
+1
Big Z
… yeah, two college kids acting like college kids at a *checks notes* student protest specifically about a plan that made it easier to fire recent graduates from their first job.
Somewhat different circumstances than “two white girls who weren’t even there for the actual protest kissing after the tear gas started at a protest about Bulmeria”.
Big Z
In other words: Oh no, context matters!
Dot
It’s almost like not every protest is the same. You would think Asma essentially handholding DoJo through explaining why the kiss was a bad idea at that venue might illuminate some things for certain people, but alas, we are not so lucky.
Li
I mean. Dorothy and Joyce were also college students acting like college students, and you don’t know why the two people in the linked photo are there.
It’s still a good example of people kissing at protests that aren’t specifically for LGBTQIA+ rights, which was a frequent counterpoint (“it’s different to kiss at a protest where the kissing is part of the protest”).
Li
Like I think there are at least two different conversations happening.
Is kissing at protests where that’s not necessarily appropriate still a thing that happens? Yes. Emotions run high.
Does the fact that it happens mean it’s above criticism, especially in terms of how Willis framed the specific kiss? No.
Big Z
As usual, you’re the voice of reason.
To your points, at least part of the problem is that we KNOW why DoJo were there (i.e, not for the protest because they were protestors) — it might well be reasonable to assume a random person in a protest picture was there for a good reason, and equally while we know little for certain about the kissers in the linked image, they absolutely do NOT stand out as obviously different from either “the mass of protestors” or “the people on whose behalf the protest is”.
(I’d go so far as to say that WE the commentariat is more entitled to be judgy of DoJo than the average DoA character, who may well believe that DoJo are the protesting types.)
Yotomoe
Also metatextually I’m less upset about two real people kissing at a protest than I am a writer putting two people at a protest explicitly so they can kiss.
And Im kinda getting annoyed by the sarcastic “let me post protest photos and then dip” posts. It’s annoying.
Dot
It’s a really obnoxious bit.
Donovan
Given that several of the people they initially starting arguing about this with — and postiposting to spite — are people of color who were critisizingbthe *metatextual context*. It’s. Frustrating.
Gwen
I mean wasn’t it also to kick off Dorothy’s newer political direction, which makes the protest setting quite apt, with her expressly wanting to join in? (I know we haven’t got to that side of things quite yet as she’s had other developments, but given the whole thing about her disillusionment with Yale and becoming president, it’s unlikely that it’s gonna be forgotten about.)
Dot
Also, this is just a random photo from Getty Images, not the headline photo of a news article regarding the 2006 French youth protests – a major complaint in-universe is specifically that the kiss is being used as the face of the protest, which obfuscates the more important details such as the genocide it was organized against, or the disproportionate police response.
In reality, most of the news coverage of the 2006 protests in France focused on three main things: images of solidarity between protesters (i.e. holding hands under the Eiffel Tower), masses of crowds with signs, and the brutality of the police against protesters. Here are a few contemporary news pieces as examples:
https://www.rferl.org/a/1067177.html
https://www.nbcnews.com/id/wbna11866627
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2006/mar/28/france
Big Z
In kind of a counterpoint, THAT particular thing we should be judging DAISY for (and we, for the most part, do) — that wasn’t really DoJo’s choice.
Big Z
(which also ties back to my thought that we as readers who know DoJo’s motivations have significantly more cause to judge them than characters in-universe who do not)
Dot
Yup, we know it was entirely Daisy’s fucked-up call, but people in-universe have no way of knowing that Joyce and Dorothy DIDNT do it for attention – and the circumstances make them look very guilty of it to anyone who doesn’t know them!
Dot
The point being, though, that the photo in OP and the photo in-universe are not comparable because of the difference in coverage.
Sirksome
Uh oh. The buffoonery is kicking in.
Pocky
the chicanery, so unseemly.
Effie
The buffoon watch is just over to the left, it says there’s ten months of buffoonery
Clif
Nonsense. Tony has no tolerance for buffoonery.
Run, Tony. Run away!!!
Deanatay
*quickly hides the inflated sheep’s bladders*
Needfuldoer
If they’re not careful, it might snowball into a full-blown shenanigan!
EpochFlame
girlfailure duo
Cholma
Very convincing, you two!
C.T Phipps
Listen, Tony is just trying to find out of they’re gay communist Bulmerian terrorists out to institute theocracy (of the wrong kind)!
Elf grrl
Sarah’s expression in panel 2 is so dang adorable. I’m glad she got a guy whose willing to be patient and honest with her ?
Lee
That’s the opposite of what I got out of that. I think she was hoping for some unseemly behavior.
Shade
That’s my impression too.
Steamweed
Same. Sarah would like some unseemly. Just a little bit.
deliverything
Sarah can have little a unseemliness, as a treat.
Adept
Absolutely. I think Sarah was in the mood for some unseemly behaviour.
jeffepp
And Sarah has no intention of staying with Joe, in case she’s asked. Why do you mention it?
Clif
Well, now you’ve jinxed it.
Dot
Hater containment thread, you know the drill, kvetch here ⬇️
Dot
You said it, Sarah
Pocky
sounding like she was hoping for some unseemly behavior. lol
Elf grrl
I feel Tony might be seeing the cracks in Jorothy’s floundering relationship already
Sirksome
I believe Joyce and Dorothy are buffoons.
Cheshrin
Swerve kvetch: While I am, on paper, fully here for my girl Sarah getting some action with a guy who really likes her for who she is (as she has FIRMLY supplanted the competition as Best Girl), Tony as a character is just not doing it for me, at least not yet. Ever since him and Sarah hit it off, he hasn’t displayed any character traits that don’t seem like they were handpicked to make him as convenient a boyfriend for Sarah as possible, and that’s just not interesting to me. I like romantic relationships between Characters, not between A Character And Their Love Interest.
Maybe we’ll see more of his deep layers now that he’s been promoted to main cast, but right now he just feels like boyfriend-shaped Play-Dough.
Veronica
He’s very serious and…uh…athletic and…hang on, that’s Qui-gon Jin
Donovan
Hear me out — sarah and joe
Donovan
Sarah/joe/dina polycule
I’m a fucking unappreciated-in-my-time genius
Pocky
can agree; he’s white bread for Sarah, and she is eating it up. But I do wonder what they’re relationship is gonna be like if she wants to go further, but he’s a “no x until y goal” kinda guy.
Or as I was chatting with other below, the possible drama of the whole dean’s son thing and relationship with this protest plot stuff.
Yotomoe
In that way I feel like he’s like a male version of Charlie, who I also feel like is a bit shallow in the characterization department. But maybe that’s because one of my favorite parts of getting together is seeing them get together.
Nono
They’ve had some cute moments that make me believe in it a bit more. They bounce off each other well, have shared apathy for others (without it seeming like they’re feeding each other’s worst traits), there’s some differences between them so it’s not syrupy.
I can understand feeling like Tony is “too perfect”, but you could have said that about Dina too.
Clif
Nonsense. Dina is just the right amount of perfect.
Harry Brownhole
To be fair it’s not like I’ve had an extended run.
Clif
What are you running for?
Harry Brownhole
Touchdown I’d guess
Nymph
Yeah, I genuinely haven’t trusted Tony since his first appearance. He’s too judgy about other people, and while Sarah shares that quality she also has a LOT of friends she’s protective of. I think it’s a matter of time before he starts judging (more harshly than he already has) her for keeping these people around or judging these people in a way she has to defend them about.
On the subject of friends, Beef is a bully at minimum and Tony is happy having him around which says enough about his own personal choices that he shouldn’t be judging other people at all. Furthermore, it makes me suspicious that he might be friends with that whole group which, I believe, includes Ryan (someone who wants revenge on this group already).
I never trust people who enter a relationship with someone and immediately start nitpicking their life and laying down clear but unspoken ‘rules’ for behavior they expect. It’s an intimidation tactic, and it feels (to me) like the first line pushed in a long list of lines until he has Sarah isolated and reliant on him in a way that makes her easy to abuse.
Yes, I know a lot of this is based on vibe sand worst-case supposition, but that’s where I’m at with him. He gives me the fucking ick and makes me worried for how he’ll hurt Sarah.
Tan
Decided to take a dive on Beef’s previous appearances
So Beef was with Paul and Other Football Bully Guy Who Doesn’t Have His Own Tag (henceforth OFBG). Beef himself didn’t appear to actually do anything besides an apparently affirmative grunt while smiling in response to Paul, and ran after Amazi-Girl hit OFBG and Paul. This could mean he is every bit the bully himself, or could mean he’s just a follower who goes along with his football crew, or somewhere in between. If more toward the latter, it is for the better that he has fallen in more with Tony who seems to have little tolerance for Paul’s shit
Beef was also at the party where Ryan got gashed, as were Paul and OFBG. There is no particular indication that any of them were there with or interacted with Ryan at that time. Paul is seen getting into a fight and then taken out by Amazi-Girl again in the background while Joyce is meeting Ryan (a detail I don’t think I noticed at the time, see https://www.dumbingofage.com/2011/comic/book-1/06-yesterday-was-thursday/thessalonians/ and the two following strips). Beef is only seen with Roz, so whether he came with Paul and OFBG, or was just generally there is unclear (the host of the party, Ron, appeared to be a football player as well).
Notably, Beef is *not* there when Paul and two other guys get in a fight with Sal and Amazi-Girl in defense of Ryan, nor is he with Paul and OFBG among the kidnapper lackeys. He is in the crowd at the DeSantos rally where Amazi-Girl spots Ryan again, but there’s no indication that he interacts with Ryan and he isn’t wearing a volunteer shirt.
So if we want to give benefit of the doubt, we could say Beef went along with Paul and OFBG early in the schoolyear when they were just guys from the football team, because that’s his social group, but cut away from them as they started getting into the more extreme incel shit. In a real generous interpretation, perhaps Tony even saw that Beef was getting pulled along down a bad path and helped him course-correct.
Or he could be a piece of shit, also totally possible.
Dwampre Scorrigank
I agree that his past associations don’t confirm the assumed negative about him, and I get the same feeling about “pulled down a bad path”.
One thing that’s not clear about Beef is how literal the comic is about his only communicating by grunting. Could just be a trope.
If we take it literally, Beef doesn’t talk around new people (I haven’t seen him conversing alone with non-main-characters). Less literally, it could still be representative of very minimal socializing. Either could indicate some lack of social ability, whether it be social anxiety, talking and smalltalk not coming naturally to him, or even being non-verbal, and those often relate to difficulty learning to navigate various social environments.
So I read one possibility as: Beef is someone who significantly lacks social or interpersonal skills and as a result fell in with a crowd of bullies (who may even have used his social weakness to bully him into running with them). Getting Paul off the team created an opportunity for Tony to step in and try to take him under his wing and keep him out of any more unhealthy situations.
As fair as Tony’s motivations, it’s of course not clear they are perfect. Maybe Tony was put up to it by Dean Pops, because they need Beef on the team. Maybe it’s another way Tony is displaying sensitivity to potential scrutiny (see panel 2 today) and/or worrying about “right living”. Maybe his ideas for how to help Beef include guiding him into some unhealthy pre-conceived notions of “how a person should be”, which Tony might have gotten a lot of himself in his childhood. Or worse – so I’m not trying to say Tony is automatically a saint for it, just that that’s what he might be doing here.
…
On another note I thought panel 2 today was a nice glimpse at Tony’s motivations in life, even though it doesn’t clear up exactly what they are. He may be driven by scrutiny or values or arbitrary rules or worry about potentially screwing up a good thing with a simple mistake or whatever, but he clearly cares or is anxious about doing things the “right” way. I’m curious if that will become a sticking point. Perhaps this ends up getting in the way of his connecting to Sarah or makes her suspicious of him.
Dwampre Scorrigank
Italicization fail, it was just supposed to be the words “need” and “what”
Nymph
So the group he’s friends with does still include Ryan via Paul.
I’m just not as keen to give any of them the benefit of the doubt. I don’t trust Tony (or Beef) and until the story gives me a reason to, I’m going to keep thinking they’re shitty people underneath.
I also just generally don’t like Tony even apart from his friends. He judges a LOT and in ways that sound like the subtle snipes of a controlling partner. I just think he’s not a good guy.
Dot
I’m willing to give Tony the benefit of the doubt just given what I know about him from the Walkyverse. He’s responsible to a fault and extremely fixated on duty and propriety, but in the end he’s a good guy. He had anger issues, but everyone in the Walkyverse had anger issues.
Nymph
I’ve never read Walkyverse, and people here have been a bit different from the way they were seemingly portrayed in Walkyverse. I don’t trust him and I’m just not going to until he does something other than pass weird and unasked for judgements on everyone around him for not being Grown Up Enough. While being buddies with a guy who hangs around a seriously bad crowd.
I’m fine if other people give him the benefit of the doubt, but I definitely will not be doing that.
Dot
I think that’s totally a fair perspective!
Jon
I don’t mind too much Sarah just getting a little bit of wish fulfillment, as a treat. She’s had a fairly miserable go of it, much self inflicted, but still it’s kinda nice for her to just get to enjoy herself.
It’s also fun for her to be in a new relationship at the same time as Joyce and Dorothy.
But yeah, I agree. Tony is a little flat right now. I’m intrigued about whether this new development will give him a chance to expand!
Yotomoe
https://strawpoll.com/eNg6vJXN8gA
It’s been about 24 hours since I posted this and so far the results seem to show that the largest sticking points for people are….
3rd Place.
It’s taking focus from story elements I’m more interested in.
2nd Place.
I really liked Joe/Joyce and am saddened to see them broken up.
1st Place.
I’ve found the two characters uncharacteristically unlikable during this storyline.
Personally I’m a strong Joe/Joyce shipper so the 2nd place answer is probably my most common gripe, but this seems to be the general consensus. As always let me know if you don’t feel represented by the poll, I can always add in an option for ya.
june gloom
I actually do like Doyce and support women’s wrongs in general but I answered too. Mostly because there’s some stuff around how Dorothy has handled this relationship that I’m hoping gets addressed.
Shaith86
I mean, I do agree with all three of those (and several others I voted for). In general, this storyline needs to end with one of the girls waking up in bed and Bobby Ewing’s in the shower (ngl, I hate that I know about the Dallas season 9 “it was all a dream” twist but here we are).
Nyzer
That 1st place issue is definitely my top one. Joyce especially has swerved into previously unseen levels of selfish obnoxiousness.
Jon
Yeah, Joyce continues in this strip the habit of gleefully proclaiming any and all sexual escapades to whoever will listen. With a veneer of “I’m being BAD and I’m having FUN with it”. Which can be cute in a vacuum but she’s just been doing it at literally every opportunity.
I want to believe that it’s building to something — Joyce’s whole speech about going to hell, in for a penny (RIP) in for a pound, etc — but to be honest, even if it’s building to a conflict for Joyce, it’s still obnoxious as hell.
Dot
I think it’s a little bit of a stretch to call what Joyce is doing in this strip “proclaiming sexual escapades.” All she’s really saying is “Dorothy and I are going to be spending most nights together and we kissed.” That’s pretty innocent, especially in comparison to what she laid on poor Lucy a few strips ago.
Mr D
Joyce is in for a penny, in for a pounding. And she really liked the pounding she got from Dorothy.
Tequila Mockingbird
came here just to say that “in for a penny, in for a pounding” is pure poetry. ?
shepsquared
Man, Joyce and Dorothy are so much less charming (not that they were very enjoyable before) after doing a reread and seeing Dorothy crashout on Joe because she didn’t think he deserved Joyce over her. The moment Joyce dumped Joe he became a minor character and it’s getting boring when there’s a lot more that could be done here than the two of them being sickeningly sweet together.
Maybe this is going somewhere, but its not like yesterdays strip had an immediate payoff and I’m getting tired of waiting.