Characters / Dumbing of Age: Beck Wing

Dumbing of Age: Clark Wing | Beck Wing | Other Students | Non-students

Dumbing of Age characters who live in Beck Wing, the boys' floor of Indiana University's Read Hall dormitory.

Because of the large Ensemble Cast and Switching P.O.V., characters are listed in alphabetical order by full first name.

Booster Sanchez (WARNING: UNMARKED POST-BOOK 10 SPOILERS)

"I just go by Booster. My previous roommate's inability to adhere to that is why I have a new roommate."

Walky's new roommate following Mike's death.

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• All There in the Script: As of February 2021, their last name has been only used on their cast page.
• Brutal Honesty: They're nicer and more eloquent about it than Mike ever was, but during the new semester's floor meeting, they get a surprisingly in-depth read on Ruth, Rachel, Roz, Joyce, Walky, Lucy, and Carla's personal conflicts and bluntly points them all out in front of everyone. They would have continued on to Amber had Ruth not told them to shut up.
• Freaky Is Cool: They are, by their own admission, "into people who're fucked up in the head", which is why they find Ruth, Amber, and Ethan attractive.
• Gentleman Snarker: They can get quite snarky, but they're almost always polite, or rather outwardly polite, when they do so.
• I Take Offense to That Last One: They take Ethan's remark thay they're awful at being a friend very well, but him saying they're also not good at psychology is what they find insulting.
• Sesquipedalian Loquaciousness: Their first meeting with Walky establishes them to be pretty well-spoken, a stark contrast to Mike.
• Sherlock Scan: Booster is able to accurately pick up on the emotional issues and hang-ups of everyone at the floor meeting in great depth, despite being introduced to most of them only a few hours earlier. They explain that this hypervigilance is a byproduct of growing up in a small town while being nonbinary.
• Suspiciously Similar Substitute: To Mike, both visually and in terms of their ability to read people. Their first arc had commenters claiming semi-seriously that they're either Mike with a new identity, or somehow related to him. In-universe, Amber refers to them as "replacement Mike" and Walky apparently thought they were Mike under disguise.
• Tertiary Sexual Characteristics: They look like they wear lipstick, the primary visual cue that they're non-binary. Joyce, as usual, doesn't quite get the clue.
• Walking Spoiler: It's difficult to bring them up without giving away Mike's death since they replace him as Walky's roommate.
• The Watson: Serves the role in the first arc of Book 11, as Joyce and Walky introduce them to the rest of the cast - and by extension, introduce the audience to a large chunk of the post-soft-reboot cast.

Danny Wilcox

"Sweet, I'm either desirable or merely incredibly unthreatening!"

Danny is a timid kind of guy who followed his girlfriend off to college...only to be very quickly dumped by her. He rooms with Joe.

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• Above the Influence: To Joe's disgust, he's not willing to have sex with Billie because while she may be initiating, she's also using it to get her mind off things.
• Adaptational Romance Downgrade: Fell in love with and ended up marrying Billie in the original continuity, whereas here she only attempts a fling with him, which he turns down when he sees that Billie's only using Sex for Solace. Afterward, the two never interact again.
• Amazingly Embarrassing Parents: Dorothy implies that Danny's mother was the one who sent her a photo frame with engraved scripture about the sanctity of marriage, not to mention being incredibly creepy toward her.
• Amicable Exes:
  • After his initial dumping by Dorothy, they eventually reach a level of comfortability where Danny's willing to come to her with his confusion over his sexuality.
  • Amber dumps Danny because she feels like she won't be able to stop herself from abusing him. The fact that Danny continues to support her and be friendly to her in the aftermath causes her some consternation.
• Butt-Monkey: Sometimes his dumb decisions are his own fault, but a lot of it is caused by pure dumb luck—with the biggest example perhaps being starting a friendship with Sal, who he doesn't know Amber is terrified of, while he's already kicking himself for trusting Amber's abusive father not long before. The alt-text puts it succinctly:
  "boy, the cartoonist really hates this kid, huh"
• Distressed Dude: Danny has bad luck with this trope. He was introduced to Amazi-Girl when she rescued him from some jocks. Later, he didn't realize he was being used by Blaine in order to lure Amber out of the campus, and downright became a hostage once Blaine showed his true colors and restrained him physically.
  Joe: Dude, what are you even getting yourself into out there?
• Extreme Doormat: Danny is very bad at asserting himself, and doesn't know how to handle affirmation. He tries to brush off Amber's guilt over nearly calling him a piece of shit in a fit of rage by telling her he's "used to stuff like that". Dorothy broke off their relationship in the first place because of this.
• Fatal Flaw: Danny lacks emotional intelligence, which often causes him to put his foot in his mouth and say exactly the wrong thing. While most of the time he's an Extreme Doormat, whenever he becomes more assertive, he tends to become too assertive, showing No Sympathy to Mike when he falls into a coma while directly conversing with Ethan, and then doubling down when he's called out.
• Geeky Turn-On: Looking at pictures of dinosaurs.
• Has a Type: After being dumped by Dorothy, he immediately goes for Amber. Lampshades were hung.
• Hypocrite: He takes issue with Walky having dated both of his ex-girlfriends. Danny's current girlfriend is Walky's sister. To Danny's credit, he realizes he's being irrational and gets off Walky's back.
• Iconic Outfit:
  • Danny's IU sweatshirt was omnipresent in the Walkyverse, but when Willis redesigned the entire cast for Dumbing of Age he decided hoodies would be specifically Walky's purview. It didn't last.
  • Danny tries to evoke this when he starts wearing a newsboy cap in Book Seven. The few people who notice think it's a fashion disaster. It unceremoniously blows away in the wind at the end of Book Ten.
• Incredibly Lame Fun:
  • According to him, learning the rules can be fun. Sal thinks he's trying to be funny.
  • He also seems to find doing laundry fun as well.
• It's All About Me: Catches a bad case of this when meeting up with Ethan at the hospital, insulting the recently comatose Mike out of the belief that he'd do the same, all the while acting like he deserves as much leeway as Ethan gives Mike despite not knowing them for nearly as long. And he was there to ask Ethan out while he was still grieving over Mike.
• Nice Guy: Deep down he has a kind personality and truly wants to help others. Sadly, most of his attempts at helping are ineffective or backfire horribly. He confides to Sal that he feels useless, and wants to help her because her math problems are simple for him to solve. As he puts it:
  Danny: I've spent the last few days feeling useless, and so I'd really be grateful just for a chance to solve a problem for somebody.
• No Sympathy: Doesn't feel too sorry for Mike's comatose state, believing that if their positions were reversed, Mike would be making fun of him. Ethan, Mike's Childhood Friend, doesn't take well to Danny's callousness.
• Oblivious to Hints: He was one of the only people to not figure out that Ethan's gay, despite a montage of major clues that Amber dropped.
• Odd Friendship: Empathetic and neurotic to a fault when compared to Joe's cavalier disregard for those around him. A "renaissance dork" in contrast to Sal's effortless cool. And a doormat in contrast to Amber's overabundance of assertiveness.
• The Nondescript: Mike gives Ethan shit for crushing on someone so boring. Joyce can't remember who he is until he starts wearing a newsboy hat in Book Seven, at which point she can consistently remember the hat.
• The Power of Love: Subverted: In Book One, Danny thinks this trope might mean Dorothy will reconsider her future to keep them together. Dorothy disagrees.
• Quirky Ukulele: Picks up the ukulele as part of a deliberate attempt to reinvent himself in Book Seven, to the irritation of basically everyone around him besides Sal and Amber.
• Related Differently in the Adaptation: In the Walkyverse Randy was his younger brother and the jock in comparison to his nerd, but in Dumbing of Age he's Danny's older brother and is currently in the millitary.
• Rescue Romance: His relationship with Amazi-Girl started as a result of her saving him from some jocks and later from her father.
• Satellite Love Interest: Discussed. Dorothy dumps him because she's afraid he's going to turn himself into her Satellite Character.
• Sitcom Arch-Nemesis: Discussed, than averted, twice with Walky.
  • While dating Dorothy, Walky's blinkered view of masculinity leads him to determine that, since Danny is his current girlfriend's ex-boyfriend, he and Danny must be mortal enemies. Nothing comes of it.
  • Once Walky has dated both Dorothy and Amber, Danny starts to take it a little bit personally, but quickly realizes he's being ridiculous.
• Took a Level in Badass: Its a particularly slow and subtle one, but after a few months in-universe Danny is much more confident and sure of himself.
• Two-Person Love Triangle: With Amber/Amazi-Girl, prior to him finding out they're one and the same.
• "Well Done, Son" Guy: Mild case. He seems to consider being in a relationship a way to prove to his parents that he's worthwhile.
  Danny: Mom? Dad? I know I screwed things up with Dorothy, but I found someone way better. I won't disappoint you this time!
• Will Not Tell a Lie: He doesn't like lying to others, in no small part because he's just plain bad at it. He's very uncomfortable with "pretending" to date Amber during Freshman Family weekend. Subverted later on as he keeps Amber's identity secret easily.

David "Walky" Walkerton

"He who's tired of fast food is tired of life!"

Sal's twin brother. A very juvenile young man, who may or may not be smarter than he looks. He rooms with Mike.

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• Adaptational Romance Downgrade:
  • His relationship with Dina from the original continuity is cut here, and the two barely interact otherwise, having nothing in common. Word of God even points out that if they did try and date, Dina would then quickly dump him for his open disinterest in paleontology.
  • In the Walkyverse he and Joyce are an Official Couple, whereas here they're Vitriolic Best Buds at best, occasionally verging on being Like Brother and Sister, and at times actively dislike one another, held together only by their mutual friendship with Dorothy.
• Adaptational Dumbass: In It's Walky! it's eventually revealed that he's much more mature and intelligent than others and himself give him credit for, such as secretly being an Honor Roll student, which eventually made him a capable leader. While that's technically still true here...but only up to a point as it's eventually shown that his Honor Roll intelligence only makes him a genius for a high-school graduate, and when presented with more difficult subjects he fails so hard Amber has to hack his grades to prevent him from flunking altogether.
• Adaptational Jerkass: He's gone from a strong-willed if immature goofball of the original continuity to a lazy, spoiled, misogynistic Manchild at the start of the comic. And though Character Development has him inch closer to his original incarnation, he's still prone to accidentally offending people with his self-centeredness.
• Adaptational Wimp: Lack of alien superpowers aside, he comes across as much more pathetic here, looking more gangly and acting more immature, to the point of reacting to getting a crush the same way a pre-teen would.
• All Women Love Shoes: In Book Three he espouses the view that only girls own more than one pair of shoes, and that any man who does so is less of a man because of it. Even Joe thinks this is ridiculous.
• Beautiful All Along: Turns out under his baggy clothes are a tight set of abs and an ass that is, by his own description, "like a playground ball."
• Brilliant, but Lazy: Deliberately takes advanced math courses because high school math, like most things, came easy to him despite his adverse attitude towards studying. Turns out, to his dismay, that his brilliance doesn't scale.
• Chick Magnet: Even though he's far from the most desirable bachelor in the boys dorm, he's managed to charm almost as many girls as Jacob, with Dorothy, Lucy, and Amber all confirmed to have feelings for him. Even Joyce was impressed by how surprisingly toned Walky is under his hoodies.
• Deadpan Snarker: It takes some serious misery to get him to stop joking, as its his primary coping method for basically everything and damn near his only way of communicating with other people. Billie, Joyce, and Jason are favored targets.
  Dorothy: You know who missed classes? James Buchanan. He skipped his classes and the union dissolved.
  Walky: Some would say it was really over the ownership of human beings, but I think you're on to somethin' there.
• Demoted to Extra: Downplayed as he is still a major character, but due to the comic's Ensemble Cast he's not the unquestioned main character like he was in the original Walkyverse.
• Expressive Hair: Just like Sal, when he gets a bad grade his hair instantly poofs up.
• First Friend: In a flashback he's shown to be the first friend Billie ever had, as they both met as preschoolers.
• Geeky Turn-On: Dorothy's love of the Dexter & Monkey Master cartoon acts as a turn-on to him.
• Genius Ditz: His goofball attitude masks a deep emotional intelligence and empathy that means he's often the first to notice when those he cares about are hurting or hiding something. But it's also a completely genuine facet of his personality, on that shoves basic decorum and hygiene way down his list of priorities. Best evidenced with the final two panels of this strip.
  Walky: Yeah [Dorothy knows that Ethan's gay], but she needed you to spell it out for her. Me, I'm just a genius... Are my pants on backwards?
• Has a Type: Like Danny, he went from Dorothy to Amber. This happened much later, however, and Art Evolution meant that those two no longer look like palette-swaps of one another from the neck down.
  Sal: [Amber's] kinda just a shorter, rounder Dorothy.
• He-Man Woman Hater: Very early on, Walky had a childish girls-had-cooties mindset that left him completely unequipped to handle getting his first-ever crush at age eighteen. He's largely grown out of it by Book Two, though he espouses vestigial gender-essentialist viewpoints for a while after.
• Hollywood Atheist: Unlike Dorothy, Walky is much more outspoken and much less tactful around Joyce about his lack of faith, and blatantly tries to mock and insult her for it. This is more to show his own immature childishness than anything.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Mainly because his way of dealing with harsh things is to be as immature as possible, but he does care about his friends. His relationships with Joyce, Billie, and Sal are pretty good proof of that.
• Laser-Guided Karma:
  • After all his jokes about Joyce's favourite show, Hymmel the Humming Hymnel^note A thinly veiled parody of Psalty the Singing Songbook., he's horrified to discover he was in it.
  • Happens again when his Brilliant, but Lazy approach to grades finally catches up to him and he gets an abysmal 26 while Sal actually manages an 83. His reaction is to promptly Eat the Evidence.
• Like Brother and Sister: Has a very sibling-like relationship with Billie. He's actually closer to her than he is to his twin sister Sal.
• Love Makes You Dumb: invoked here. In Books One and Two it was a running gag for Walky to have some variant of that face whenever Dorothy was in the same room.
• Love Revelation Epiphany: He spends a good chunk of time not realizing that Lucy's into him. Once it's spelled out to him by Dorothy, Walky almost immediately realizes the chemistry and makes his move.
• Manchild: He likes cartoons, junk food, Power Rangers and pyjama-jeans.
  Dorothy: Um, Leslie, a boy just threw a toy at my head.
  Leslie: It's probably because he likes you.
  Walky: [crush blush]
  • It ends up being deconstructed, as it becomes increasingly clear as the comic progresses that Walky's immature demeanor is the result of his parents pampering him throughout his childhood, so much so that he walked into college completely unprepared for life on his own, and he knows it. Mike as well thinks it's pretty obvious that Walky has an undiagnosed case of ADHD, further demonstrating how shit a job the Walkertons did at actually parenting him.
• Obfuscating Stupidity: While he's pretty open about his on paper intelligence, he hides his emotional intelligence in order to keep his relationships low-effort. This starts to change when it turns out he has an actual huge blind spot around his relationship with Sal, which motivates him to try harder with people in general.
• Odd Friendship: A lazy lout versus Dorothy's perfectionist, and a content nerd versus Billie's social-climber tendencies. His love of burps and poop and hatred of personal hygiene sets him so far apart from Joyce it'd be a miracle they tolerate each other, if they tolerated each other.
• Official Couple: He comes and he goes. First he dates Dorothy from Book 2 to Book 8, then Amber until sometime after Book 10. As of Book 11, he's currently dating Lucy.
• Old Shame: In-Universe, Walky's stint as a child actor on Hymmel the Humming Hymnal, both because it's embarrassing (besides being the sort of show he vehemently dislikes, Joyce may have been crushing on some of them...) and because it confirms the Parental Favoritism he'd just been vehemently denying to Sal.
• Only Known by Their Nickname: Except to his family, of course, since they're all Walkertons. Sal makes a point of addressing him only as "bro" or, when the circumstances require, "David". Dorothy calls him David when she wants him to be serious.
• Open Mouth, Insert Foot: He's done this a couple times, once by calling Joyce "crazy brainwashed" when she was standing just off-panel, and the other by almost saying "gun to my head" after Becky's dad had taken her hostage with a gun. He at least realized his error before the words left his mouth that time.
• Parenting the Husband: Often finds himself on the other end of this with Dorothy, who prods him to up his game vis-a-vis his hygiene and wardrobe. He eventually becomes self-conscious about how much time and energy he inadvertently demands of Dorothy when she starts tutoring him in math, which prompts them to finally call it quits in Book Eight.
• Polar Opposite Twins: With Sal. Danny eventually needs it pointed out that they're related.
• Progressively Prettier: After the Time Skip, his hidden good looks become less of an Informed Attribute, as he starts reluctantly paying more attention to his fashion sense and hygiene, making him look less gangly and unkempt and much more handsome, to the point that more girls start getting attracted to him.
• Secret-Keeper: Amazi-Girl eventually divulges her secret identity to him, but he barely knows Amber, dulling the moment. It's played straight after that.
• Stepford Snarker: It's subtle, but Walky tends to directly hide how he's really feeling through snark, or distract people from probing deeper.
• What the Hell, Hero?: Walky, believing that Mike faked his death is one thing. Voicing that opinion in the middle of a Halloween party in front of people still grieving his death is another thing entirely.
  Walky: This is supposed to be a fun Halloween party. Can we just please stop being fuckin' sad?!
  Amber: [angrily shoving his ass to the floor] GRANTED.
• Wrong Genre Savvy: He assumes Amazi-Girl secretly works at the school newspaper like Clark Kent.

Ethan Siegel

"Okay, but we're only going to ask you four more times."

Ethan is a friendly gay young man with identity issues. He used to date Amber before he accepted his homosexuality, and also knew Mike in high school.

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• Adaptational Angst Upgrade: In Shortpacked! he was a well-adjusted, not especially flamboyant or hypermasculine gay man and usually the voice of reason, whose biggest struggles were his efforts to launch a stand-up career, trying to find a boyfriend, and occasionally being there for Amber in times of distress. In Dumbing of Age he spent most of his life as Amber's Living Emotional Crutch, which he grows to resent her for after the Time Skip, had to come out as gay right as Amber tried to get together with him and was subsequently rejected by his parents, and after Mike dies, he becomes as depressed, bitter and reclusive as Ruth was at the beginning of the story.
• Age Lift: Downplayed. While most of the characters in DOA are aged down compared to their originals, Ethan was noted to be the oldest of the Shortpacked! cast (minus Galasso and the parents). In DOA Ethan's reverted to be around Amber and Mike's ages while Robin and Leslie are older than him.
• Closet Key: For Danny, who's pole-axed by it, having considered himself straight until that point.
• Clueless Dude Magnet: Oh, yes. In his wing, the only people who have interacted with him on-screen and not found him hot were Jacob and Walky, but he thinks both his nerdy interests and ethnoreligious status makes him unattractive, to the point that Mike has to spell it out for him that they truly do not.
• Coming-Out Story: Ethan comes out to Amber as gay on prom night, and the two of them spent the summer before the comic starts dealing with the fallout from his parents. Once in college, Ethan fears being rejected by men and having his gayness be his only defining trait, and puts himself back in the closet. He finally comes out "for real" in Book Five, his attempts at straightness having become unsustainable for a motley of reasons.
• Cynicism Catalyst: One of his best friends since childhood died for his sake, the last thing Ethan said to him was a dismissive remark, he got kidnapped by the father of his other best friend since childhood, and he had a falling out another one of his close friends in the hospital afterwards. Post-timeskip, it's made rather clear that the experience has broken him.
• Demoted to Extra: Compared to his long-standing tenure as main character of Shortpacked! in the Walkyverse, he's much more part of the ensemble here.
• The Ditherer: Big time. He's reluctant to make his own decisions and tends to follow along with what other people want.
• Emo Teen: In his first appearance post-timeskip he's grown out his hair, wears dark clothing, has visibly lost muscle mass, and is overall far more haggard in appearance due to still being in mourning regarding Mike's death during the timeskip.
• Gayngst:
  • His folks desperately wish he was straight, and his mother did her best to keep him away from Mike when they were children when she noticed Ethan's budding attraction to him. Coming out to them did not go well, and they blamed Amber for "turning" him.
  • Initially, he felt intensely self-conscious about his gayness overriding how he wanted to be seen: as a Transformers and Batman nerd. Dina, who had recently started dating a lady and was still primarily known for being into dinosaurs, helped him through this.
  • He also worried that being a Jew and a nerd would make him undesirable to his mlm peers. Sleeping with Mike in Book Eight gives him the confidence to start playing the field.
• He Is All Grown Up: Amber mentions that he turned "suddenly hot" at 16.
• Hiding Behind Your Bangs: Post-timeskip, he let his hair out a bit and a fringe covers one of his eyes, symbolizing his emotional withdrawal after everything that happened in Book 10.
• Incompatible Orientation:
  • With Amber, his childhood best friend. They started dating in high school and stopped when Ethan finally came out to her, moments before Their First Time on prom night.
  • He starts dating Joyce in Book Two as part of his attempts to put himself back in the closet, but Amber forces him to come out to her. They then keep dating to sublimate their sexual urges. Joyce's evolving attitudes towards gayness pushes him back out of the closet in Book Five.
• Jewish and Nerdy: He mentions having a hard time fitting in before coming out due to his religion and hobbies.
• Lantern Jaw of Justice: Danny has been very complimentary about his chin.
• Nice Jewish Boy: He's a Jewish guy who's friendly and non-confrontational with basically everyone. This has its upsides—it means he's willing to give Sal a second chance after realizing she held him hostage when they were thirteen—and its downsides—he'll take basically endless abuse from Mike.
• Parting-Words Regret: The last thing he ever said to Mike before he died was a sarcastic remark. He regrets this deeply after Mike gives up his life to show him and Amber that he really cares.
• Really Gets Around: Kind of. After Book Eight he starts flirting with the men in his dorm, many of whom are receptive, but it's unclear how many of those hookups were derailed by Ethan's prioritization of nerd trivia.
• Secret-Keeper: Ethan is the only member of the cast who knows that Jocelyne is a trans woman. When the comic starts, he's also the only one who knows Amber is Amazi-Girl.
• Sequel Non-Entity: He was missing for the entire Book 11; his only mention during it was Walky offhandedly claiming he's going through something of an emo phase off-panel. It's especially noticeable since, unlike Billie, his status as this was Foreshadowed by him being the only member of the core cast who didn't get invited up onto garbage roof at the end of Book Ten, showing that he was drifting away from them even before the Time Skip. This was finally averted in Book 12 when Danny spots him in the common lounge with a new look.
• Straight Gay: One of the reasons he tries to reject his homosexuality is the idea that being gay would end swallowing up his identity as his sole defining trait, rather than any of his nerdy hobbies.
• Tall, Dark, and Handsome: He's one of the taller characters, and looks like (in Danny's words) "the love-child of Jake Gyllenhaal and Nightwing". Mike, of all people, tells him that his worries about being "undateable" are unfounded for this exact reason. Becoming an Emo Teen post-timeskip doesn't even spoil this, with Amber noting that "emaciated emo Ethan" is still quite hot, with Danny begrudgingly agreeing with her.
• Troubled, but Cute: His new dark aesthetic and constant surliness has not at all impeded his ability to attract other people.
• Took a Level in Jerkass: Oh boy. If you thought Joyce and Jennifer got bad after the Time Skip, once Ethan has been revealed to have turned into an Emo Teen, he slips into his new shoes a little too comfortably.

Jacob Williams

Ethan's roommate, Joe's new main man and Sarah's pre-law classmate (and lust object).

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• Chick Magnet: Roz has been 'sniffing' around him for a while and Sarah goes almost non-verbal when they first meet, only for Raidah to beat both of them to the punch. After that, it becomes clear that Joyce is developing a crush on him.
• Characterization Marches On: His early appearances as Ethan's roommate mostly involved him snarking at the eccentricities of Ethan's assorted friends and acquaintances, and Sarah and Jacob initially bond over making fun of Joyce behind her back. His friendship with Joyce in Book Seven got the ball rolling on his kinder, more understanding side taking the lead.
• Crusading Lawyer: Aspires to be one of these like his big brother, Harrison, whose many accomplishments include striking an anti-trans law off of Indiana's books.
• Culturally Religious: His own interest in his background is, in his words, "largely academic", though he still attends church. An attempt to tag along freaks out the thoroughly non-denominational Protestant Joyce.
• Distaff Counterpart: Discussed Trope. Becky clocks that his appeal to Joyce springs from him being a buttoned-up, perfectionist law student: essentially, "the biggest Dorothy [she's] ever seen."
• Gentle Giant: Has, to quote Joyce, "huge, powerful arms that could easily crush Sarah, yet would only cradle her gently."
• Mr. Fanservice: Introduced working out while shirtless (which kicked off the "Sexiest Man" poll). This, uh, makes things difficult for Ethan. And for Jacob, too, as it turns out. He finds people only being interested in him for sex dehumanizing.
• Nice Guy: One of the most friendly, pleasant, and understanding people in the series thus far.
• Odd Friendship: He's much more thoughtful about his relationships and respectful to women than Joe, and much more amiable and friendly than Sarah.
• So Beautiful, It's a Curse: Male example. He talked with Joyce about how some people see him as a sexual object and nothing else.
• "Well Done, Son" Guy: Played with: Jacob would like nothing more than for his big brother, Harrison, to be proud of him. Harrison is proud of him, openly, and would really like Jacob to start prioritizing his own happiness.

Joe Rosenthal

"Hey, do you subscribe to my 'do' list's RSS feed?"

Joe is the ultimate ladies' man, with that being first on his mind... and not much else. He's Danny's roommate.

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• Anguished Declaration of Love: To Joyce.
  Joe: God help me, I just like it when you smile at me.
• Beneath the Mask: For all of his womanizing bravado, he doesn't believe any of his flings actually care about him and is in fact terrified of committed relationships for that reason, as he wants to avoid inflicting the pain his mother felt from his father's constant cheating.
• Brutal Honesty: Is definitely not one to mince words, especially when it comes to Danny and Joyce's assorted neuroses.
  Joe: You know I've never been the sort of friend who'd say, "Aw naw, dawg, you're totally strong enough," right?
  Danny: I live in a lot of fantasies.
• Blue-and-Orange Morality: His views on ethical behavior are predicated on, essentially, making sure no one's under any illusions that he cares about them or will do right by them, the idea being that if no one regards him as a moral person they can't be let down when he fucks up. This view is challenged when he learns the hard way that you can't just choose not to form bonds with people, and being dehumanized hurts no matter who's doing it.
• Can't Act Perverted Toward a Love Interest: His burgeoning crush on Joyce has been slowly turning him into a better man.
• Carpet of Virility: Gaston-level chest hair.
• Crazy-Prepared: He always carries an extra sock to hang on a doorknob.
• Culturally Religious: His Judaism has come up casually once or twice, but he seems pretty secular, having not gone to temple since his Bar Mitzvah, and he makes some hay over Amber's family doing Christmas "wrong" when he celebrates with her over the break. That said, it's possible a deeper connection to his faith is in there somewhere...
  Joe: I'm sorry. I'll be better. I thought I was being funny, but I wasn't, and so I'm stopping. Scout's honor. Neder issar.
• Ethical Slut:
  • Joe fancies himself one of these, and superficially it seems to be true. But, on closer examination, it turns out — intentionally or not — he's pretty bad at it, claiming to value consent while clearly not quite understanding what it means. He continues trying to get Joyce in bed during their date long past the point where it's clear she's uncomfortable with it, he needs to be snapped at by Sarah to stop making eyes at her despite her own angry eyes being an unsubtle cue, and his entire list of times it's not okay to have sex with a girl is "when she's drunk" and "when she's crying." His supposed ethics also don't stop him from treating the women around him like objects, keeping an actual list of the women on campus by vague description and hotness rating and distributing it via RSS.
  • As of Book Nine, he finally has a functioning idea of why this behavior is unethical—but finds changing difficult, and returns to his old ways the moment the opportunity for sex arises again.
• Everyone Has Standards: Joe has absolutely no patience for infidelity or breaking up a happy relationship.
• Faux Horrific: His reaction to Danny's choice to take up the ukulele is to act as if it was the worst choice ever.
• Freudian Excuse: His dad cheated on his mom, and Joe took the betrayal his mother felt to heart—but seems to have learned the lesson that dehumanizing women is fine if you don't mislead them into thinking you'll do better. He never outright uses this to justify his own behavior, however, and may not even be cognizant of it.
• Girl on Girl Is Hot: He's made a few offhand comments about being into girls having sex with one another.
• Gym Bunny: Rare heterosexual version. Whatever interest Joe had in fitness prior to college, he now sees it only as a way to stay attractive. When he briefly swears off romantic and sexual relationships, his motivation to stay fit drops to almost nothing.
• Handsome Lech: Is deliberately transparent about his intentions towards woman, irritatingly aggressive, but still physically attractive. He makes a lot of claims about his amazing sex life, but we mostly see women be disgusted with or angry at him. The few we know for a fact have slept with him either do it in spite of his bullshit (Roz) or because of it (Malaya).
• Hidden Depths: His experience with his folks' divorce has given him some insight into relationships, and some of it is even useful. Joyce finds him a great help navigating her messy home life in Book Six, and they bond over their mutual frustration at being told to change. He's also the first to spot Sarah's plan to break up Jacob and Raidah.
• Identical Grandson: "Geez, Joe, your dad is just you with a beard."
• It's All About Me: He can be rather selfish at times. When Danny tries tentatively to bring up his sexuality issues, Joe's response is to point-blank ask if he's gay or not, as he's not interested in "hand-holding" or dealing with feelings.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: He does genuinely care about other people, and has lines he absolutely won't cross. Of the cast, however, he's the most reluctant to own his shit or change his behavior, and generally needs prodding from either Danny or Joyce. He also makes it clear that full consent to sex is a must for him and he will stop if his partner is not ready.
• Ladykiller in Love: Skirt-chaser he may be, he begins developing genuine romantic feelings for Joyce as the comic goes on. He has a hard time processing them because his father's infidelity has disillusioned him to romantic relationships, and he isn't confident Joyce will take his feelings seriously, especially after how badly their date in the first book went. In Book 13, he's able to finally convey his feelings to Joyce, and they end up getting together. Thus far, he's managed to stay completely loyal to her.
• Like Father, Like Son: His father is also a huge lech, though one with a history of cheating that Joe takes issue with.
• Odd Friendship: Danny and Joe's friendship is held together primarily by their childhood bonds—as adults they have basically nothing in common. His only shared interest with Jacob is working out, and Joyce...well, they have something of a mutual interest in each other's Character Development.
• Out of Focus: Has a fairly inauspicious number of appearances between sleeping with Roz in Book One and helping Joyce during her weekend at home in Book Six. He gets his own arc in Book Eight, which seems to have made him a more permanent fixture.
• Perma-Stubble: Thinks it makes him look virile and manly. Booster points out it might be a turn-off for anyone looking for oral sex.
• Person as Verb: He likes turning peoples' names into verbs, most obviously Danny's.
• Really Gets Around: He'd certainly like you to think so. He admits in Book Eight that it's mostly talk.
• Relationship Upgrade: Despite how disastrous their first date went, he gets together with Joyce in Book 13.
• Shirtless Scene: Danny wishes Joe was less comfortable walking around their room in his underwear.
• Unrelated in the Adaptation: Co-created Ultra Car, who eventually became Carla, with Rachel Jackson in the original continuity, and served as her surrogate father. Here Carla is a human who's about the same age as Joe, with different parents.
• Vitriolic Best Buds: He spent a long time being this with Danny, but tries to be more emotionally honest with him after Book Eight. His relationship with Joyce waffles between this and genuine connection, but favors the former.
• What the Hell, Hero?: He tells off Sarah and Joyce for trying to break up Jacob and Raidah.

Mike Warner (BOOK 10 SPOILERS)

"Because I paid your mom a nickel."

Defining the "Sadistic Good" alignment, Mike revels in butting in to help his fellow students with their problems in the most cruel, painful, personally devastating ways possible. He's sharing a room with Walky.

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• Adaptational Nice Guy: In an ironic juxtaposition with how the rest of the cast was adapted, in comparison to his Walkyverse counterpart, this version of him goes much easier on people and doesn't try for Refuge in Audacity. However, whereas Walkyverse Mike typically went for low-hanging fruit in his jerkassery, Dumbiverse Mike is more of a benevolent Manipulative Bastard.
• Adaptational Romance Downgrade: He and Amber don't get together like they do in Shortpacked! due to the former's death.
• Armor-Piercing Question: Delivers one or two, as part of his Jerkass Has a Point routine:
  Mike: (to Walky and Billie) So for the past several weeks, you've said Joyce's sunny routine was annoying and you made fun of her for it. But now that she's dropped it...You want it back?
  Mike: (to Amber) If you really are doomed to follow your parents' pattern, and you're never the one picking the jerks... which of them does that make you?
• Asshole Victim: According to Danny, who doesn't have much sympathy for his comatose state (and eventual death.) Ethan is infuriated that Danny would think Mike deserves to die for being a bit of a prick, and much of his angst after the time-skip stems from how nobody but him cares to remember him for who he truly was.
• Card-Carrying Jerkass: Outright calls himself an "irredeemable one-dimensional troll of a non-person".
• Cheated Angle: The Alt Text doesn't think he's in a position to mock Ethan's hair, as his isn't even three-dimensional.
• Crazy-Prepared: Turns out he keeps files on everybody to be more efficiently insulting.
• Cruel to Be Kind: Pretty much his entire schtick, to the point where he or rather, Amber's hallucination of him says that his entire purpose is to say "mean but correct" things, presumably in the hope of getting people to work their crap out.
• A Day in the Limelight: Book 8 chapter 4 focuses on him and his backstory.
• A Death in the Limelight: After delving into what makes him tick and what shaped his outlook on life, Mike's removed from the plot via a several-story drop, coma, and subsequent death.
• Dead Person Conversation: Amber has been talking with him since he fell to his death.
• Dies Differently In The Adaptation: While Mike did die in the original Walkyverse, he came Back from the Dead thanks to Joyce using a resurrection chamber and went on to be a main character in Shortpacked!. As Dumbing of Age is much closer to reality, Mike's death here is for good.
• Dying Declaration of Love: It's purely platonic, but his last words are an admission that he and Amber were best friends.
• "Facing the Bullets" One-Liner: "Hey, Ball-Peen! I fucked your mom." When the recipient points out that his mom is dead he says "Then you can come watch." and tackles him off a balcony.
• Flat Character: His motivation and background weren't revealed until book 8 chapter 4. This stands in enormous contrast to the effect he has on people and plotlines, to the point that it's easier to think of him as a walking plot device rather than a person.
• The Friend Nobody Likes: The reason Ethan chose not to room with him. Really, pretty much no one properly likes him in-universe, and it is a running mystery why his presence is tolerated so well.
• Heel Realization: Tough Love has him realize his Jerkass Has a Point schtick is disturbingly similar to what Blaine's telling Amber (or Amazi-Girl) while beating the stuffing out of her.
• Heroic Sacrifice: Tackles Blaine off the staircase to save Amber. The strip cuts off to a different arc without showing the damages, leaving his fate ambiguous. Blaine - who's neither reliable nor of sound mind at the time - flip-flops between claiming he's alive but comatose and claiming he's dead, and it's shown afterwards that Mike indeed survived, but fell into a coma, and died (as a flashback revealed) literally seconds after the end of Book 10.
• Hope Spot: After real-life months of waiting, it turned out that he survived his fall, if badly damaged. He then dies during the time-skip.
• Jerkass: Everyone else's character bio goes into some detail on their outlook, history and relationships. Mike's just says he's an asshole and Walky's room-mate.
  Walky: Look, shut up, I'm freakin' out here. Just be helpful for once.
  Mike: Pass.
• Jerkass Has a Point: Mike's MO. No matter what Brutal Honesty or under-handed methods he utilizes to help people confront their problems, he's more often than not on the mark.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: While he still goes out of his way to say things in the most negative way possible, he is far more involved in the emotional affairs of other characters, and his compassion plainer to see. Though because his motivations are so murky, the "gold" is only visible in the effect something he said or did has had. And then there's the whole 'save Amber/Amazi-Girl by tackling Blaine off the balcony' business...
• Love Hurts: It's hinted that Mike has genuine feelings for Ethan, but knows that he'd never return them. When Ethan becomes promiscuous due to Mike boosting his confidence, he seems outright heartbroken.
• Manipulative Bastard: Dumbiverse Mike's modus operandi. The "help" he provides necessarily requires him to have an insight into human nature that goes way beyond what a college freshman typically would, bordering on being some sort of Required Secondary Power. (It's to the degree that, if Amazi-Girl represents Batman's "hard power" aspect, Mike is the "soft power".)
• Nerves of Steel: When threatened by a guy wanting to kill him with a ballpeen hammer, he calmly asks to be struck with a weapon with a less silly name.
• "Not So Different" Remark: Due to similar manipulative tendencies, he sees similarities between himself and Blaine.
• O.O.C. Is Serious Business:
  • After he sleeps with Ethan to boost his confidence and then lets him date other people, he's uncharacteristically touchy. Keep in mind this is a guy that kept his cool even as Blaine announced he's about to kill him with a ballpeen hammer.
  • When being taken to hospital by Amazi-Girl, he tries to say that she was always his best friend. It didn't go unnoticed.
    Amazi-Girl: No! No last words! Those sound like last words! You're being earnest and it's frightening.
• Perpetual Frowner: His default expression is a scowl. He's seen occasionally smiling in flashbacks and, on at least one occasion, when taunting a bad guy.
• Redemption Equals Death: Right after his Heel Realization, he tackles Blaine off the balcony and ends up dying for it.
• Screw the Money, I Have Rules!: Given the choice between money and the chance to punch people (well, just Joe so far), he picks the latter.
• Sink or Swim Mentor: This appears to be Mike's purpose in this universe — rather than just him being a straight up Jerkass, his behaviour seems to be more a subtle way to get people to realize their failings and act on improving them.
• Start of Darkness: He Used to Be a Sweet Kid, up until he found out one of his teachers purposely misgraded Amber's test thinking she couldn't be that smart and had to have cheated, called her out on it, and got slapped for his troubles, then found Amber had ran off in fear. After that he became more manipulative, blackmailing Blaine into behaving himself for Amber's birthday. When Blaine confronted him over allegedly outing him anyway, Mike fired back he didn't do it for Amber, he did it to hurt them both. Afterwards, he orchestrated the firing of the aforementioned teacher by catfishing her, making her think she was entering a relationship with one of his friends, the football player Bret, before flipping on her, then severing ties with Bret.
  Mike: I extorted you into being nice to her because it would torture both of you. If I was doing her a solid, I'd have ordered you to get as far away from her as possible. None are righteous. Not even one. Hell, you want a key to my parents'? Please do your worst.
• Took a Level in Jerkass: In the flashbacks in book 8 chapter 4, he's shown to be rather kind. These days, he's much less so.
• Too Kinky to Torture: Invokes the trope when Amazi-Girl attempts to interrogate him about the Whiteboard Ding-Dong Bandit incident.
• Tough Love: His personal code: though he's quite hard on people for their mistakes, it's (one assumes) coming from a place of wanting them to get their act together and get better. Then he sees Blaine describing what he did as "tough love" and has a Heel Realization.
• Uncertain Doom:
  • After his Heroic Sacrifice, what happens to him after the falls isn't shown. It cuts to the following day, with several dozen strips going by without even a mention of him. Amber assumes he's dead, but Blaine reveals that he's alive but comatose. Yet, Amber thinks he might be lying to use him as leverage. And then a flashback is shown, proving that Mike survived his fall. When Blaine is arrested, it's shown that he was telling the truth about Mike being in a coma.
  • And after the above was revealed, a different instance of this trope kicked in - with the Korean mob aware that Mike might know about some illegal activities they were responsible for, Amber is worried that the cops on their payroll might end up killing him, like they did with Blaine.
• Unwitting Instigator of Doom: His attempt at blackmailing Blaine resulted in Blaine agreeing to drive Amber and Ethan for their field trip. Said drive would lead to them being caught in Sal holding up the convenience store and the incident that both physically scarred Sal and mentally scarred Amber.
• Walking Spoiler: You can't really discuss Mike's moral alignment without taking his actions in Book 10 into account.
• What the Hell, Hero?: Calls Ethan out for dating Joyce despite being gay just to make himself feel better about how messed up things are with Amber.