I tried a Google search for “hot girls who love geeks”.
It told me how to find God’s love.
…
HMH
I mean, you don’t know for sure that God’s not a hot girl. That, and supposedly he loves everybody, or some shit, and that’s a set that inherently includes geeks! I say you two should get brunch, it’s worth a shot.
I mean… he’s not wrong tho? Hot guys get away with creepy shit all the time. Just cause they’re hot. Which is shitty, but it happens that way so much and it sucks.
I know, right? Despite Rachels obvious annoyance and Joes apparent obliviousness, I still feel like he has about a 50 percent chance to be in her bed within a half hour.
James Rye
If only she had replied “You ARE a creep” instead of a sarcastic “how lucky for me”. Joe’s reaction to that would have been so fun.
HMH
I mean, that’s the problem with Schrodinger’s Buff Propositioner: The fact that he’s buff means that you have to be nicer when turning him down, on the off chance that he’s willing to murder you.
And it sucks how our polite suffering through a harassment is treated as tacit support for more of it or somehow a sign of our “unfairness”. It’s like, just let me enjoy my very rare night out because of fucks like you in peace.
Krys Brynhildr
I think part of it is that win or lose, its whats expected so most of the time it doesn’t end up resulting in any serious consequences in the long term.
Meanwhile, behaving like a decent intelligent being who is capable of even basic levels of civility and propriety usually gets twisted into various other sorts of claims?
If someone is told that this is how the “game” is played, but meets with only failure, they’re more likely to start making claims that the odds are being rigged against them or that other people are cheating them out of their perceived “reward” than to actually sit down and analyze the fact that they’ve probably been given information that isn’t actually true…and probably shouldn’t be true either.
Which is also horrible, but it being whats “expected” by all sides is part of what lets people “get away with” that sort of behavior even if they’re not as “successful” with it.
Yup. The system can’t fail, it can only be failed. And if it’s supposed to work all the time and it’s working very rarely, then it must be the fault of all the women who are breaking this perfect system rather than that the system is just an off-putting piece of garbage more about performing a sexist masculinity at other guys by mistreating women.
“Hot” guys also get called on creepy shit all the time. But they are just unbelieving that this could -possibly- be a reaction to them. So it doesn’t matter. Just brush it off, if the chick’s a frigid bongo maybe the next one will be properly grateful….. : -/
LynneB
Also interesting what the autofilter did with the “b” word there….
Deanatay
You must be new here. The ‘bongo’ filter has been around for a while.
Oh, like Jeff Boomhauer on “King of the Hill”. Bobby wanted to learn how to be a hit with the ladies from this beady-eyed mumbler. So he tagged along with him to a women’s shoe store and saw Boomhauer pull a fake salesman’s act by approaching several women with a shoe. Boomhauer annoyed most of the women he tried this with but finally scored a phone number from one of them. Bobby was disgusted to realize that Boomhauer’s supposed success with women was due only to persistence not actual magnetism or charm.
This is actually the approach recommended by one Ivan Vorpatril, though in less creepy terms.
From Captain Vorpatril’s Alliance:
———–
Ivan sat in the dark and contemplated his progress. It was not heartening.
Not that his reputation for success with women was undeserved, but it was due to brains, not luck, and steady allegiance to a few simple rules. The first rule was to go to places where lots of women already in the mood for company had congregated — parties, dances, bars. Although not weddings, because those tended to put the wrong sorts of thoughts in into their heads. Next, try likely prospects till you hit one who smiled back. Next, be amusing, perhaps in a slightly risque but tasteful way, until she laughed. Extra points if the laughter was genuine. Continue ad lib from there. A 10:1 pool of trials to hits was not a problem as long as the original pool contained ten or more prospects to start with. It was simple statistics, as he’d tried to explain to his cousin Miles on more than one occasion.
Agreed. Plenty of others, like Joyce, Walky, Billie, Ruth and Amber, are undergoing painful but necessary character development; it’s time for Joe to do the same.
Why would Joe change? His current behavior still gets him the results he is after often enough to merit staying the course. Until the results start changing, the behavior is going to continue.
Usually by this point the women he approaches either start fawning over him or tell him to fuck off. Rachel just called him out on his Johnny Bravo schtick. He didn’t immediately retreat, she didn’t immediately turn and walk away.
Thor
One undesirable result is not going to change any habitual pattern of behavior. You need a trend of undesirable results to alter behavior, and one positive can undo the lessons of a string of negatives.
We are all the main characters of our own story, and all it takes is one small victory for us to flip the narrative.
I’d say that age and cumulative bad experiences would eventually cure this, but we’ve already seen that the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.
I hope Billie never stops believing Sal is AmaziGirl. Like, even when Amber is found maskless in the park after her full mental-breakdown Billie still thinks it’s just a ploy to hide Sal’s true identity.
In some ways, I’m waiting for Sal to start doing the whole vigilante thing with Amazi-Girl and for Billie to accuse Amber of being (Sal’s vigilante alter-ego). Later on, when it all comes out, I suspect that Walky will enjoy telling Billie that she was as wrong as it was possible to get.
What was that? I’ve only briefly skimmed certain sections of that universe.
Reltzik
((Lotsa Walkyverse spoilers warning))
Joe majored in Engineering in Walkyverse because he liked Transformers. He later became an engineer / mad inventor for SEMME and created Ultra-Car. But he was embarrassed by and refused to admit his geekdom, especially to women he was, erm, courting. This schism between his geek side and his hunk side eventually sabotaged his, erm, romances because he wasn’t willing to be intellectual with the people he was sexual with and vice versa. Eventually he got into an online romance with a fellow engineer and there was a long arc of him waffling and wavering and whining about even meeting her in person coupled with lots of fan speculation about who this unknown person was. (As usual, Willis was trolling us all.)
Dave
IIRC Willis jettisoned the geek in Joe for DoA because Ethan already filled the niche of tall square-jawed Jew who’s into Transformers. Also his Hawaiian shirt, which clearly was the source of his character depth.
SgtWadeyWilson
Isn’t the geek in Walkyverse Joe just… Carla’s dad in this ‘verse?
On a fourth hand, Joe’s appearance is interesting in light of the theory that Ryan’s tailing Dorothy, and its corollary that Joe noticed that. Including the ‘no, just …no’ interaction with Rachel. Walky and Dotty just walked past there… was Ryan about to come by?
405 thoughts on “Hiatus”
Ana Chronistic
o shit shiptease
Reltzik
And we know that Willis doesn’t like to revisit Walkyverse ships.
….. though Grace/Mandy/Sierra are still a thing…
butts
Grace/Mandy/Sierra is the eternal threesome. It spans all universes.
(they’re in every panel of LAWSOME, just a little bit too far to the right)
Emperor Daniel
And more prominently, Ruth/Billie.
Heavensrun
I don’t think he’s ever said that? Just that he doesn’t feel -obligated- to revisit ships.
BBCC
No, he said on tumblr he doesn’t like to revisit ships if he’s satisfied with how he wrote them in Walkyverse.
However, as time goes on, the number of things he feels he could write better increases.
butts
what even is a SEMMF
Emperor Daniel
I dunno, but screw SEMMF.
-Sentinel-
Honestly, I think this strip is about a ship getting torpedoed to the bottom of the Mariana Trench.
geno
It basically started the same way in Walkyverse. Much character development is in Joe’s future.
Ana Chronistic
I’d say this is 90% the way it started in the Walkyverse
all that’s missing is Joe talking to Danny
Jhon
I tried a Google search for “hot girls who love geeks”.
It told me how to find God’s love.
…
HMH
I mean, you don’t know for sure that God’s not a hot girl. That, and supposedly he loves everybody, or some shit, and that’s a set that inherently includes geeks! I say you two should get brunch, it’s worth a shot.
butts
good heavens, if joe were less buff, he might be some kind of CREEP
but he’s hot, so it’s OK
joe you are terrible
TheAnonymousGuy
Did anyone else experience a page crash trying to comment?
Geneseepaws
On an iPad?
CoffeeBurps
I mean… he’s not wrong tho? Hot guys get away with creepy shit all the time. Just cause they’re hot. Which is shitty, but it happens that way so much and it sucks.
butts
that doesn’t make it okay
Eyebrow
I know, right? Despite Rachels obvious annoyance and Joes apparent obliviousness, I still feel like he has about a 50 percent chance to be in her bed within a half hour.
James Rye
If only she had replied “You ARE a creep” instead of a sarcastic “how lucky for me”. Joe’s reaction to that would have been so fun.
HMH
I mean, that’s the problem with Schrodinger’s Buff Propositioner: The fact that he’s buff means that you have to be nicer when turning him down, on the off chance that he’s willing to murder you.
Li
He is wrong. Sexual harassment from hot guys does not feel better. As women keep saying at length but no one seems to believe us.
Li
Like, yes, hot guys “get away with” creepy shit, but so do all guys? The majority of creeps find their behavior pretty reinforced by society.
Cerberus
This. This. So much all of this.
And it sucks how our polite suffering through a harassment is treated as tacit support for more of it or somehow a sign of our “unfairness”. It’s like, just let me enjoy my very rare night out because of fucks like you in peace.
Krys Brynhildr
I think part of it is that win or lose, its whats expected so most of the time it doesn’t end up resulting in any serious consequences in the long term.
Meanwhile, behaving like a decent intelligent being who is capable of even basic levels of civility and propriety usually gets twisted into various other sorts of claims?
If someone is told that this is how the “game” is played, but meets with only failure, they’re more likely to start making claims that the odds are being rigged against them or that other people are cheating them out of their perceived “reward” than to actually sit down and analyze the fact that they’ve probably been given information that isn’t actually true…and probably shouldn’t be true either.
Which is also horrible, but it being whats “expected” by all sides is part of what lets people “get away with” that sort of behavior even if they’re not as “successful” with it.
Cerberus
Yup. The system can’t fail, it can only be failed. And if it’s supposed to work all the time and it’s working very rarely, then it must be the fault of all the women who are breaking this perfect system rather than that the system is just an off-putting piece of garbage more about performing a sexist masculinity at other guys by mistreating women.
LynneB
“Hot” guys also get called on creepy shit all the time. But they are just unbelieving that this could -possibly- be a reaction to them. So it doesn’t matter. Just brush it off, if the chick’s a frigid bongo maybe the next one will be properly grateful….. : -/
LynneB
Also interesting what the autofilter did with the “b” word there….
Deanatay
You must be new here. The ‘bongo’ filter has been around for a while.
Ragingagnostic
Joe isn’t hot. He’s a creepy jerk with a five o’clock shadow. He’s just a trenchcoat and an alley away from being a flasher.
T Campbell
Joe is that guy who knows his approach will get him spurned or disdained nine times out of ten, because for him, the tenth time is worth it.
Ragingagnostic
Oh, like Jeff Boomhauer on “King of the Hill”. Bobby wanted to learn how to be a hit with the ladies from this beady-eyed mumbler. So he tagged along with him to a women’s shoe store and saw Boomhauer pull a fake salesman’s act by approaching several women with a shoe. Boomhauer annoyed most of the women he tried this with but finally scored a phone number from one of them. Bobby was disgusted to realize that Boomhauer’s supposed success with women was due only to persistence not actual magnetism or charm.
foamy
This is actually the approach recommended by one Ivan Vorpatril, though in less creepy terms.
From Captain Vorpatril’s Alliance:
———–
Ivan sat in the dark and contemplated his progress. It was not heartening.
Not that his reputation for success with women was undeserved, but it was due to brains, not luck, and steady allegiance to a few simple rules. The first rule was to go to places where lots of women already in the mood for company had congregated — parties, dances, bars. Although not weddings, because those tended to put the wrong sorts of thoughts in into their heads. Next, try likely prospects till you hit one who smiled back. Next, be amusing, perhaps in a slightly risque but tasteful way, until she laughed. Extra points if the laughter was genuine. Continue ad lib from there. A 10:1 pool of trials to hits was not a problem as long as the original pool contained ten or more prospects to start with. It was simple statistics, as he’d tried to explain to his cousin Miles on more than one occasion.
————————
Wack'd
Why the dancing shouting why the shrieks of pain the lovely music why the smell of burning autumn leaves
Mr. Mendo
Oh Joe, never change! LOL ^_^
Cyrus
No Joe, please change immediately.
Mr. Mendo
To me, Joe’s like the Iron Sheik: so terrible you can’t help but laugh.
But, to each their own.
HMH
D…does Joe actually fuck peoples’ asses to make them humble?
…are any of those people Hulk Hogan?
JOE X HULK HOGAN FOR NEXT SLIPSHINE PLS IT’S BASICALLY CANON NOW
-Sentinel-
Agreed. Plenty of others, like Joyce, Walky, Billie, Ruth and Amber, are undergoing painful but necessary character development; it’s time for Joe to do the same.
Shiro
This, yes please.
Thor
Why would Joe change? His current behavior still gets him the results he is after often enough to merit staying the course. Until the results start changing, the behavior is going to continue.
Needfuldoer
I think the results changed this time.
Usually by this point the women he approaches either start fawning over him or tell him to fuck off. Rachel just called him out on his Johnny Bravo schtick. He didn’t immediately retreat, she didn’t immediately turn and walk away.
Thor
One undesirable result is not going to change any habitual pattern of behavior. You need a trend of undesirable results to alter behavior, and one positive can undo the lessons of a string of negatives.
We are all the main characters of our own story, and all it takes is one small victory for us to flip the narrative.
I’d say that age and cumulative bad experiences would eventually cure this, but we’ve already seen that the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.
AnvilPro
I hope Billie never stops believing Sal is AmaziGirl. Like, even when Amber is found maskless in the park after her full mental-breakdown Billie still thinks it’s just a ploy to hide Sal’s true identity.
TimeLoss
At this point Joe is beginning to edge close to Faz level of unwelcomed advances.
BenRG
More importantly, Faz’s level of total obliviousness!
TimeLoss
I was originally typing a response to this specific post, then stopped and refreshed the page, yet it replied to this post anyways.
showler
My brain (what’s left of it) was trying to put the Sal comment with the Joe/Rachel part of the strip. Very confusing.
Reltzik
Eh. She has her occasional moments of clarity.
zoelogical
it’s like she’s the anti-Lois
BenRG
In some ways, I’m waiting for Sal to start doing the whole vigilante thing with Amazi-Girl and for Billie to accuse Amber of being (Sal’s vigilante alter-ego). Later on, when it all comes out, I suspect that Walky will enjoy telling Billie that she was as wrong as it was possible to get.
Emperor Daniel
Fuck you Joe. Again. And not in the way you’re thinking.
butts
fuck you, Joe
in the least sexual way possible
shadowcell
“but why not just make ten the hottest?”
“…you go to eleven”
Reltzik
“Because 11 is the prime ranking.”
“… so you’re majoring in STEM too?”
Delicious Taffy
What is Joe majoring in?
geno
At the moment probably undecided. It might be a spoiler for his character development if he picks the same major as the old universe
Delicious Taffy
What was that? I’ve only briefly skimmed certain sections of that universe.
Reltzik
((Lotsa Walkyverse spoilers warning))
Joe majored in Engineering in Walkyverse because he liked Transformers. He later became an engineer / mad inventor for SEMME and created Ultra-Car. But he was embarrassed by and refused to admit his geekdom, especially to women he was, erm, courting. This schism between his geek side and his hunk side eventually sabotaged his, erm, romances because he wasn’t willing to be intellectual with the people he was sexual with and vice versa. Eventually he got into an online romance with a fellow engineer and there was a long arc of him waffling and wavering and whining about even meeting her in person coupled with lots of fan speculation about who this unknown person was. (As usual, Willis was trolling us all.)
Dave
IIRC Willis jettisoned the geek in Joe for DoA because Ethan already filled the niche of tall square-jawed Jew who’s into Transformers. Also his Hawaiian shirt, which clearly was the source of his character depth.
SgtWadeyWilson
Isn’t the geek in Walkyverse Joe just… Carla’s dad in this ‘verse?
C.T Phipps
I think the idea Joe can’t be a geek and a dudebro is dumb because there’s plenty of them in RL.
Reltzik
CT: Yup! Oddly enough, the fact that it’s a dumb idea doesn’t stop Joe from embracing it.
wheelpath
On the one hand, good old ship
On the other hand, the comments are going to be on fire tonight
On a third hand, Joe, stop ruining everything
Cephalo the Pod
And on the fourth hand, let go of my hand
DinaWho
On a fourth hand, Joe’s appearance is interesting in light of the theory that Ryan’s tailing Dorothy, and its corollary that Joe noticed that. Including the ‘no, just …no’ interaction with Rachel. Walky and Dotty just walked past there… was Ryan about to come by?
thejeff
They’re back in the dorm, right? I don’t think we need to read too much into characters who live in the dorm showing up in the dorm.
Reltzik
Joe’s not ruining EVERYTHING.
…. Ethan’s fairly unharrassed.
pjeseb
…how long have you had three hands? Do you think you should see a doctor about that?
Guerisso
Is the third hand the pie hand?
Woobie