Are you the Rachel from THIS universe?
on December 12, 2021 at 1:01 amChapter: Same Planet, Different Dementia
Characters: Joe Rosenthal, Rachel Jackson
Location: Shortpacked!
Me thinking: heyyyyy that’s an Ethan joke, before realizing, oh, right, that’s why I eliminated that characterization redundancy in Joe/Ethan when I started Dumbing of Age.
Joe and Ethan, secretly separated at birth?!
hence this I guess https://www.dumbingofage.com/2015/comic/book-6/01-to-those-whod-ground-me/single-gay-guys/
Maybe Dumbing of Age Joe can get really into Warhammer or something as a replacement
He seriously needs some secret nerditry!
Is he still a mechanical genius?
Honestly, Shortpacked! is the only comic where I can actually buy the idea that these two have a good relationship. In It’s Walky! Joe was a total creep around her, and for most of Joyce and Walky! it wasn’t the real Rachel. I dunno what, but something really clicked into place here.
Absence makes the heart grow fonder, I guess?
It’s definitely the comic which gave Rachel the most attention as a character, both with this and some later stuff with Ultra-Car
**sigh**
I have never liked Rachel.
Panel 3 is why.
Not the time, Rachel. Jeez. And that look – what blazing utter contempt. Way to greet your lost lover.
I dunno. It feels like a nice blast of realism, and also a way for her to get them back on their original footing. “Let’s make sure that our dynamic hasn’t changed.”
I mean, she’s right, but that’s hardly the point…
SHE KNEW WHAT HE WAS WHEN THEY STARTED DATING
I mean, uh, what Rabid Rabbit said
Clearly, alien in robot suit doesn’t count.
I dunno. In some ways I feel it’s a shame that DoA Joe doesn’t have that characteriatic as well. I quite liked “attractive, ultra horndog who was also a massive nerd”. And it’d give him and Ethan something to talk about if they ever shared a scene.
Rachel does seem to appreciate Joe’s insane definitions of masculinity.
Then again, maybe those definitions aren’t that insane. It is manly to own six or seven pairs of shoes, and manhood shouldn’t be so fragile it depends on following dumb little self-made rules.
I was thinking of that strip too. Joe doesn’t seem to have nearly as insane definitions of masculinity in DoA as he did in the Walkyverse.
Yeah, those went to Walky so that we got to pretend, especially in the beginning, that Walky’s weird little rules made him a worse example of toxic masculinity than Joe. Whose only bit of toxic masculinity was how he treated women.
Crying at the loss of a loved one ≠ manly
Crying at the loss of Dinobot = manly
Makes sense.
The main difference is that Joe is saying this as a half-joke/half-coping mechanism. Ethan would’ve genuinely meant it.