yeah no don’t kid yaself Joyce, Mary ain’t “”lost””, she knows EXACTLY where she is, what it’s about — she went LOOKING for that fascist filth to nod along to because she already fuckin agrees with it (-_-)
also — obligatory reminder that absolutely NOTHING about what’s been happening over in there is okay
Everything leads back to trombone. We rule the world.
Reltzik
Pretty much everyone’s story starts with a bone.
VicMortimer
They can be useful.
Back in elementary school, I tried to play one. I was incredibly bad at it, so bad that I got kicked out of the elementary school band. But before that happened, I had a kid try to hit me with his lunchbox on the playground. I had my trombone in its case, which it turns out is much bigger and heavier than a lunchbox.
It’s funny, I remember that, but I don’t remember what the little shit was bothering me about. Probably religion, I’m a lifelong atheist and grew up in the bible belt, I got told I was going to hell a lot. Public school, so the teachers didn’t dare, but most of the other kids were thoroughly indoctrinated.
CJ
Pankow, District of the City of Berlin, Germany.
Appears in the lyrics of „Sonderzug nach Pankow“ the singer Udo Lindenberg performed in the 1980s to protest the fact he wasn’t allowed to do concerts in the GDR – and basically asking for the Berlin Wall to be taken down.
(Just read around in yesterday’s comments and still busy with lyrics).
I’m still lost. How did the subject of breadcrumbs come up? Was there something about Mary’s sign that I’m missing?
Reread. Got it now. Mary said pinkos. Good thing I caught it before I posted and looked like an idiot. Now no-one will ever have to know.
Airyu
Joyce thought Mary was saying she’s not a “dirty Panko” (panko meaning Japanese bread crumbs). Presumably she had never heard the word “pinko” (I hadn’t either and had to look it up). So Joyce was like, “why does Mary hate Panko (crumbs)”
Yeah… This is the point where if I were in this imaginary world, Mary would be met with “unjustifiable violence” and I would be completely okay with going to jail. You cannot be pro-“Bombing Babies” around me.
She ain’t the most attractive in this scene but there have been moments where I’m like “Damn she’s pretty”
Crow
TBF it would be kind of fucked up if Willis drew the character with bad political beliefs as “uglier” than the other characters
Decidedly Orthogonal
Caw. Ca-caw caw. Tookie tookie.
(He does though. Since he lets us see how ugly they are inside.)
Jon
“George understand. George speak bird!”
“Well, what did he say, George?”
“Bird say, ‘Aw aw! Eee eee! Tookie tookie!'”
Crow
Right, yeah, but I’m talking about physical appearance here
Zaxares
Yeah, tbh, the indoctrination that “only evil people are ugly” is, in hindsight, one of the most messed up things I learned from pop culture growing up. O.o
Hotness is mainly because she’s a young woman with no obvious physical defects. Evil is because she’s a White Christian Nationalist and that’s their brand.
They weren’t providing a universal definition of “Hot”, merely qualifying what may be Mary’s attributes that one finds hot. For being a place where we generally encourage tolerance, I find a knee-jerk judgemental yikes to an honest assessment far more puritanical and concerning than whatever people share about themselves.
I’m okay with the Mike dying stuff, but I do wish things went the route where at one point, they’re reflecting on the awful stuff that happened, and go, “At least Mary fell into that sewer and was never seen again.” “Yeah, at least there’s that.”
I like the thought that Mary is going to wander into the wrong situation because of her overblown sense of self importance, and then from the darkness behind her someone will start talking to her, like a very special episode of Family Ties. And out of the shadows Mike will step, in full color, and as he leads Mary away, they will both fade to washed out before disappearing into the darkness
No visible bra straps and also she could have a backless outfit and still have adequate breast support. I have helped women with revealing cosplay get “street legal”. I’m not sure of the character she was playing, but basically speaking there was nothing in back, nothing above her breasts and not very much under her breasts until her micro miniskirt and briefs.
Wizard
If there’s one thing the internet has taught me, it’s that everything is someone’s fetish. Although rigger’s tape might be a better choice, since it comes off easier.
David Alexander McDonald
Electrical tape.
Can get it in fun colours too.
Danae Jay, Local Gay
Technically speaking there’s a point whenever she’s entering a room, however briefly, where her tits are in there but she isn’t!
Azhrei Vep
Unless she’s carrying something and had to push the door open with her back.
I agree completely. I can’t stand mary, and i wish mike had lived, just to see how things would have played out. Not to mention mike was funnier than mary.
At this point I’d even take nearly* any villain over Mary. As a threatening serious villain representing fundamentalist Christianity, Mary’s just a Temu version of Joyce’s mom. As a silly over the top fun-to-hate villain, she’s never done anything as fun as Amber’s dad setting up a costumed Legion of Doom comprised of evil dads. She used to be a foil to Joyce but really isn’t any more because Joyce has been an atheist for years. Even her niche as “the villain who actually goes to the school” has been taken by Asher. Mary had one (1) non-evil character trait, which did technically make her the most “nuanced” villain by default early on, but Asher is a million billion times more interesting.
I feel like the only reason Mary’s in this comic still is because she was in Roomies. But she’s never getting, like, character development, she’s not a particularly effective antagonist villain, she’s not a funny team rocket villain where she loses in a funny way, and she’s not a foil to Joyce any more. What DOES she do in this comic?
*Incelerator is worse IMO, but that’s another rant
Have you thought that maybe shd is not a villain? Maybe she is just an asshole?
ESM
My problem isn’t that she’s just an asshole, it’s that she’s not actually any good at being an asshole. She doesn’t affect the plot and isn’t funny or interesting, but also she’s not a good base for any of the more likeable characters to bounce off. It’s not like she shows up to be homophobic and then Becky or Carla dunk on her in some epic way so we enjoy seeing Mary get her comeuppance. She just kind of shows up, has bad opinions, refuses to elaborate, and leaves.
Like, really all DoA villains (except Asher, if you count him) are one-dimensional assholes, but every time Toedad showed up he caused the stakes of the comic to escalate wildly into kidnappings and car chases and grappling hooks so even though he’s a one-note asshole his appearance heralded the story getting completely batshit and fun. If Ruth’s granddad shows up you can get excited if you’re a Ruth fan because it means she’s showing up soon too. What does Mary’s appearance herald? Nothing, it’s just us having to look at an asshole together for twenty seconds. I could do that on chat roulette.
Thag Simmons
There is very obviously utility to having a heel who doesn’t massively escalate the stakes just by showing up or demand huge amounts of narrative focus.
clif
Personally, I’m rather looking forward to Zombie ToeDad.
She is, though. She actively tried to kill students to off themselves.
ESM
Mary didn’t try to get Ruth to attempt suicide, or even seem to know that was a possibility. Most of her blackmail was for minor silly shit within the bounds of sitcom assholery that Walky could’ve done. But when Ruth attempted to kill herself, instead of feeling bad about it, Mary doubled down and tried to convince everyone that actually she was right all along and was the hero and everyone should praise her for it. Jennifer was actually willing to let everything slide if Mary behaved going forward (https://www.dumbingofage.com/2016/comic/book-7/01-glower-vacuum/off-limits/), it was the refusal to admit fault that was the final line that got her punched (specifically, the suggestion to blame it all on Carla). THAT was her Rubicon, not the blackmail itself or even the suicide attempt, it was that she refused to change in response to it. She had one final chance to choose between acceptance from the group (or at least tolerance) and her own ego, and she chose her ego.
Mary’s character in early DoA was that she really wanted everyone to like her but couldn’t help but be an asshole. So her trying to get everyone to like her by saying assholishly Ruth was bad and that being the thing that gets her exiled is a *fantastic* ending to her character. Seeing everyone side against with two girls they all mostly hated because they hated Mary more. I legitimately love that storyline and it’s a very satisfying final defeat for Mary that felt like everything she’d done in the comic had led up to it.
The problem is that is *was* an ending, an ultimate defeat for Mary that can never be topped and she just kind of….is still in the comic for some reason? She’s the Emperor Palpatine of Dumbing of Age, just somehow returning over and over because she’s part of the brand without really having any point or reason to exist otherwise. Her story is done. It’s BEEN done for nearly a decade. So why are we still seeing her? I don’t care that she was in Roomies, just let her die.
bridgebrain
Everyone hating mary still being here, while ignoring that it’s the most realistic thing about her character.
People who are terrible and shitty like this don’t just vanish and don’t stay down after a single climactic victory. They just get shittier, and are left alone by people not wanting to stir up drama, allowing them to continue metastasizing. Joyce and Dorothy are here, being insulted and vaguely threatened by her, and just letting it happen, and on the day of a real life nationwide protest against this exact kind of person actively dismantling the government, I’m glad to see it being called out.
thejeff
The question is what’s the other option. It’s not just “not wanting to stir up drama”, there’s not really anything you can do in response to this kind of “being insulted and vaguely threatened” that’ll make them vanish or stay down.
Mary’s already socially isolated. What else can you do, even if wanted to stir up drama?
Nadamás
I am so glad the comments are being completely normal about this sensitive hot button issue.
Decidedly Orthogonal
Very well laid out. The problem of course, is that per the title, this is a tale of people coming of age. Losing people we care about is a part of that, as is confronting assholes.
Unfortunately, just because an asshole is dealt with once, doesn’t mean they go away. It’s certainly convenient when they do, but just as we’re seeing in the real world with fascism, Mary is still here. As it turns out, we don’t get to defeat slavery/confederacy/nazis/jimcrow/fascism/maga/mary once and be done with it.
Teaching kindness is a perpetual effort, and will always be a necessity, because our default state is naïveté.
imagine thinking you can blame anything on Carla who has never been wrong ever. ~<3
Li
Honestly the way you just stroll into this comment section every time Mary shows up to talk about Willis like you think they can’t hear you and whine about how badly written you think Mary is for not conforming to the arc you invented for her where she was once really invested in making people like her.
Couldn’t be me, I’d be too embarrassed by the rudeness. These takes would stay in a DM with likeminded friends, or at least on my own tumblr/bluesky/whatever where I’d have the plausible deniability of imagining I wasn’t ranting on the comic artist’s own front lawn.
447 thoughts on “Counter-protest”
NGPZ
“bread crumbs”???
yeah no don’t kid yaself Joyce, Mary ain’t “”lost””, she knows EXACTLY where she is, what it’s about — she went LOOKING for that fascist filth to nod along to because she already fuckin agrees with it (-_-)
also — obligatory reminder that absolutely NOTHING about what’s been happening over in there is okay
Rabbit
Bread Crumbs= Panko.
Van Jealous
Bread Crumbs = Panko = Pankow = The Trombonist for the group CHICAGO!
BassBone
Everything leads back to trombone. We rule the world.
Reltzik
Pretty much everyone’s story starts with a bone.
VicMortimer
They can be useful.
Back in elementary school, I tried to play one. I was incredibly bad at it, so bad that I got kicked out of the elementary school band. But before that happened, I had a kid try to hit me with his lunchbox on the playground. I had my trombone in its case, which it turns out is much bigger and heavier than a lunchbox.
It’s funny, I remember that, but I don’t remember what the little shit was bothering me about. Probably religion, I’m a lifelong atheist and grew up in the bible belt, I got told I was going to hell a lot. Public school, so the teachers didn’t dare, but most of the other kids were thoroughly indoctrinated.
CJ
Pankow, District of the City of Berlin, Germany.
Appears in the lyrics of „Sonderzug nach Pankow“ the singer Udo Lindenberg performed in the 1980s to protest the fact he wasn’t allowed to do concerts in the GDR – and basically asking for the Berlin Wall to be taken down.
(Just read around in yesterday’s comments and still busy with lyrics).
Needfuldoer
What do bread crumbs have to do with that game from The Price is Right?
Taffy
Nobody will ever admit it, but they put crumbs on some of the pegs, to influence the bounce.
Freezer
On a tangential note: Has anyone ever scored the full $50K on Plinko? Hell, I can’t recall seeing anyone hit the $10K slot more than twice.
Rogue 7
Panko, Japanese bread crumbs.
Cholma
Thank you! I was lost.
clif
I’m still lost. How did the subject of breadcrumbs come up? Was there something about Mary’s sign that I’m missing?
Reread. Got it now. Mary said pinkos. Good thing I caught it before I posted and looked like an idiot. Now no-one will ever have to know.
Airyu
Joyce thought Mary was saying she’s not a “dirty Panko” (panko meaning Japanese bread crumbs). Presumably she had never heard the word “pinko” (I hadn’t either and had to look it up). So Joyce was like, “why does Mary hate Panko (crumbs)”
morleuca
for a very long time
Hexx
Yeah… This is the point where if I were in this imaginary world, Mary would be met with “unjustifiable violence” and I would be completely okay with going to jail. You cannot be pro-“Bombing Babies” around me.
Rabbit
10 minutes off goes crazy
The 25th
Why is she so hot and evil
ZombieKyrik
I don’t find her particularly attractive, but to each their own.
The 25th
She ain’t the most attractive in this scene but there have been moments where I’m like “Damn she’s pretty”
Crow
TBF it would be kind of fucked up if Willis drew the character with bad political beliefs as “uglier” than the other characters
Decidedly Orthogonal
Caw. Ca-caw caw. Tookie tookie.
(He does though. Since he lets us see how ugly they are inside.)
Jon
“George understand. George speak bird!”
“Well, what did he say, George?”
“Bird say, ‘Aw aw! Eee eee! Tookie tookie!'”
Crow
Right, yeah, but I’m talking about physical appearance here
Zaxares
Yeah, tbh, the indoctrination that “only evil people are ugly” is, in hindsight, one of the most messed up things I learned from pop culture growing up. O.o
Astariel
I agree. Mary’s never seemed better looking than ‘pretty plain’ to me.
Benjamin Geiger
I’d argue she’s “conventionally attractive”. Like, a bottle of hair bleach away from an anchor position on Faux News.
NGPZ
Dina can fix that problem >:D
Taffy
I like the thing you’ve said here.
StClair
at the risk of repeating myself: me, Penny.
DJTsurugi
she’s not hot, she’s just a terrible person. ~<3
Opus the Poet
Hotness is mainly because she’s a young woman with no obvious physical defects. Evil is because she’s a White Christian Nationalist and that’s their brand.
Nymph
Yikes to that definition of “hot”.
Decidedly Orthogonal
They weren’t providing a universal definition of “Hot”, merely qualifying what may be Mary’s attributes that one finds hot. For being a place where we generally encourage tolerance, I find a knee-jerk judgemental yikes to an honest assessment far more puritanical and concerning than whatever people share about themselves.
Megan
So much for the tolerant left, unwilling to tolerate
…
Open and active ableism and misogyny.
Decidedly Orthogonal
You do understand that a *single* person’s comment is not representative of an entire swath of the population… right?
Taffy
As you know, one comment equals a billion people.
Megan
??????? what part of what I said are you even referring to?????
Nurts2That
Yikes. Don’t drool over fascists.
ZombieKyrik
I wish Mary had died, and Mike had lived. Anybody else agree?
Yumi
I’m okay with the Mike dying stuff, but I do wish things went the route where at one point, they’re reflecting on the awful stuff that happened, and go, “At least Mary fell into that sewer and was never seen again.” “Yeah, at least there’s that.”
NGPZ
+1
Opus the Poet
???
Purple Floof
That did happen – “And yet, somehow, Mary returned.”
morleuca
I like the thought that Mary is going to wander into the wrong situation because of her overblown sense of self importance, and then from the darkness behind her someone will start talking to her, like a very special episode of Family Ties. And out of the shadows Mike will step, in full color, and as he leads Mary away, they will both fade to washed out before disappearing into the darkness
Taffy
Mary has better tits than Mike did, so I’m fine with how it shook out
3oranges
Mary does not have better tits, because they’re attached to Mary. You never see them unless Mary is in the room.
Taffy
Okay, but duct tape was invented ages ago.
clif
Why would you want to duct tape Mary’s tits?
Taffy
I like the color.
Opus the Poet
No visible bra straps and also she could have a backless outfit and still have adequate breast support. I have helped women with revealing cosplay get “street legal”. I’m not sure of the character she was playing, but basically speaking there was nothing in back, nothing above her breasts and not very much under her breasts until her micro miniskirt and briefs.
Wizard
If there’s one thing the internet has taught me, it’s that everything is someone’s fetish. Although rigger’s tape might be a better choice, since it comes off easier.
David Alexander McDonald
Electrical tape.
Can get it in fun colours too.
Danae Jay, Local Gay
Technically speaking there’s a point whenever she’s entering a room, however briefly, where her tits are in there but she isn’t!
Azhrei Vep
Unless she’s carrying something and had to push the door open with her back.
NGPZ
Malaya’s are much better than Mary’s, just sayin
Steamweed
I’d much rather spend an hour in Malaya’s presence. And zero seconds in Mary’s presence.
Jo_cubstar
Absolutely
P!enapple
I agree completely. I can’t stand mary, and i wish mike had lived, just to see how things would have played out. Not to mention mike was funnier than mary.
DiDi
Honestly, yeah.
ESM
At this point I’d even take nearly* any villain over Mary. As a threatening serious villain representing fundamentalist Christianity, Mary’s just a Temu version of Joyce’s mom. As a silly over the top fun-to-hate villain, she’s never done anything as fun as Amber’s dad setting up a costumed Legion of Doom comprised of evil dads. She used to be a foil to Joyce but really isn’t any more because Joyce has been an atheist for years. Even her niche as “the villain who actually goes to the school” has been taken by Asher. Mary had one (1) non-evil character trait, which did technically make her the most “nuanced” villain by default early on, but Asher is a million billion times more interesting.
I feel like the only reason Mary’s in this comic still is because she was in Roomies. But she’s never getting, like, character development, she’s not a particularly effective antagonist villain, she’s not a funny team rocket villain where she loses in a funny way, and she’s not a foil to Joyce any more. What DOES she do in this comic?
*Incelerator is worse IMO, but that’s another rant
Nadamás
Have you thought that maybe shd is not a villain? Maybe she is just an asshole?
ESM
My problem isn’t that she’s just an asshole, it’s that she’s not actually any good at being an asshole. She doesn’t affect the plot and isn’t funny or interesting, but also she’s not a good base for any of the more likeable characters to bounce off. It’s not like she shows up to be homophobic and then Becky or Carla dunk on her in some epic way so we enjoy seeing Mary get her comeuppance. She just kind of shows up, has bad opinions, refuses to elaborate, and leaves.
Like, really all DoA villains (except Asher, if you count him) are one-dimensional assholes, but every time Toedad showed up he caused the stakes of the comic to escalate wildly into kidnappings and car chases and grappling hooks so even though he’s a one-note asshole his appearance heralded the story getting completely batshit and fun. If Ruth’s granddad shows up you can get excited if you’re a Ruth fan because it means she’s showing up soon too. What does Mary’s appearance herald? Nothing, it’s just us having to look at an asshole together for twenty seconds. I could do that on chat roulette.
Thag Simmons
There is very obviously utility to having a heel who doesn’t massively escalate the stakes just by showing up or demand huge amounts of narrative focus.
clif
Personally, I’m rather looking forward to Zombie ToeDad.
Opus the Poet
+1???
Bryy
She is, though. She actively tried to kill students to off themselves.
ESM
Mary didn’t try to get Ruth to attempt suicide, or even seem to know that was a possibility. Most of her blackmail was for minor silly shit within the bounds of sitcom assholery that Walky could’ve done. But when Ruth attempted to kill herself, instead of feeling bad about it, Mary doubled down and tried to convince everyone that actually she was right all along and was the hero and everyone should praise her for it. Jennifer was actually willing to let everything slide if Mary behaved going forward (https://www.dumbingofage.com/2016/comic/book-7/01-glower-vacuum/off-limits/), it was the refusal to admit fault that was the final line that got her punched (specifically, the suggestion to blame it all on Carla). THAT was her Rubicon, not the blackmail itself or even the suicide attempt, it was that she refused to change in response to it. She had one final chance to choose between acceptance from the group (or at least tolerance) and her own ego, and she chose her ego.
https://www.dumbingofage.com/2016/comic/book-7/01-glower-vacuum/rat/
Mary’s character in early DoA was that she really wanted everyone to like her but couldn’t help but be an asshole. So her trying to get everyone to like her by saying assholishly Ruth was bad and that being the thing that gets her exiled is a *fantastic* ending to her character. Seeing everyone side against with two girls they all mostly hated because they hated Mary more. I legitimately love that storyline and it’s a very satisfying final defeat for Mary that felt like everything she’d done in the comic had led up to it.
The problem is that is *was* an ending, an ultimate defeat for Mary that can never be topped and she just kind of….is still in the comic for some reason? She’s the Emperor Palpatine of Dumbing of Age, just somehow returning over and over because she’s part of the brand without really having any point or reason to exist otherwise. Her story is done. It’s BEEN done for nearly a decade. So why are we still seeing her? I don’t care that she was in Roomies, just let her die.
bridgebrain
Everyone hating mary still being here, while ignoring that it’s the most realistic thing about her character.
People who are terrible and shitty like this don’t just vanish and don’t stay down after a single climactic victory. They just get shittier, and are left alone by people not wanting to stir up drama, allowing them to continue metastasizing. Joyce and Dorothy are here, being insulted and vaguely threatened by her, and just letting it happen, and on the day of a real life nationwide protest against this exact kind of person actively dismantling the government, I’m glad to see it being called out.
thejeff
The question is what’s the other option. It’s not just “not wanting to stir up drama”, there’s not really anything you can do in response to this kind of “being insulted and vaguely threatened” that’ll make them vanish or stay down.
Mary’s already socially isolated. What else can you do, even if wanted to stir up drama?
Nadamás
I am so glad the comments are being completely normal about this sensitive hot button issue.
Decidedly Orthogonal
Very well laid out. The problem of course, is that per the title, this is a tale of people coming of age. Losing people we care about is a part of that, as is confronting assholes.
Unfortunately, just because an asshole is dealt with once, doesn’t mean they go away. It’s certainly convenient when they do, but just as we’re seeing in the real world with fascism, Mary is still here. As it turns out, we don’t get to defeat slavery/confederacy/nazis/jimcrow/fascism/maga/mary once and be done with it.
Teaching kindness is a perpetual effort, and will always be a necessity, because our default state is naïveté.
DJTsurugi
imagine thinking you can blame anything on Carla who has never been wrong ever. ~<3
Li
Honestly the way you just stroll into this comment section every time Mary shows up to talk about Willis like you think they can’t hear you and whine about how badly written you think Mary is for not conforming to the arc you invented for her where she was once really invested in making people like her.
Couldn’t be me, I’d be too embarrassed by the rudeness. These takes would stay in a DM with likeminded friends, or at least on my own tumblr/bluesky/whatever where I’d have the plausible deniability of imagining I wasn’t ranting on the comic artist’s own front lawn.