When people walk all over you, you have exactly two choices: either confront them, fight back and make them stop or run away. Even the act of stopping some from walking all over you IS a fight.
That's... not true. There's more to social dynamics than offensive or defensive. This isn't a fight to the death. Joe's found it healthiest for himself to completley disengage, and that's what he's been doing. With his family, and now with Sabah.
Because Joe didnt even ask Survey to do so; it was her own initiative.
As for reaction... literally anything, including just acknowledging how fucked up it was instead of just brushing it aside. For Apeiron The Enigmatic Artificer yes, it wasnt even worth thinking about; for Jozef Duris The College Dropout slash Community Handyman this could've been absolutely devastating.
Because Survey is a good friend, and he thanked her for that.
I will say, Joe didn't seem to have a particularly strong emotional reaction, but that seems to have mainly been driven by him being distracted by her obviously spiraling and her passenger acting up, as highlighted by Tetra.
What exactly is the difference between being attacked and not defending yourself and 'letting people walk over him'. I mean how exactly do you define that phrase that makes it somehow a different thing? I'm sure when Joe was being a doormat in his past, he had all kinds of excuses for why he was just eating it. They are having a stressful day, they didn't mean it like that, they didn't really intend for it to be as bad as it was. That all look pretty familiar? All kinds of excuses for why he shouldn't push back, it would just cause more problems, just make everything worse. The fact that those kind of excuses pretty much line up with his reasons for not doing anything in this chapter is why a lot of people feel like he's falling back into doormat behavior.
Edit: I want to note that I'm not actually sure that Joe should do much different from what he did. Certainly some extreme pushback isn't a good idea, I like some of the comments about Survey maybe pushing her to apologize or otherwise somehow calling Sabah on her bullshit seems viable. But that doesn't change that his actions in this chapter strongly resemble doormat behavior.
Edit2:
Saw this after I posted and I realized it was true. I went back and reread the chapter to be sure and there is no point in the chapter where Joe actually objects or states that he has a problem with Parian attacking him like that. From the get go he was either defending her, or focusing on how her action might hurt Aisha. At no point did he at all acknowledge that he was the main one being attacked. I think this is another reason people, including me at this point, say that he's falling back into doormat behavior.
He didn't let himself actually get hurt? Like, the distance he creates isn't him submitting to Parian and letting her screw him over, he's stopping any further conflict from breaking out. Maybe if he'd never made Survey or Fleet he'd be dealing with that on his own, but he's fortunate to not be alone anymore.
Like, imo the doormat thing would've just been letting Parian talk without interruption, freaking out about how these things keep coming back to bite him in the ass, and then trying to "sort it out" later. That's what early Joe prolly would've done.
And like, to be fair, did he activley intervene? No.
Is he activley defusing the situation? No.
But he doesn't need to, and if anything his involvement would make things worse. More importantly, he
doesn't want to.
Also, does Joe really need to explicitly say "What Sabah did to me is bad"??
"During a discussion of volunteer activities, Parian has raised the topic of your encounter with Sabah." Survey said.
I managed to keep myself from freezing at the news. As my mind spun off to some unpleasant place, I forced myself to reply. "Raised in what context?" I asked.
"A concerningly negative one." She responded. "Though she is not elaborating and is resistant to the matter being investigated."
I didn't know what to make of this. Sure, it wasn't a pleasant encounter, but Sabah had seemed fine when she left. I knew she was upset, but she effectively left on a strong note. I can understand her being upset, but not to the point or raising concerns to her employer. Her cape employer who would then raise them to other people.
"One moment." Survey said. Honestly, I could have just observed what was happening in the room. I probably should have, but I'm not sure I wanted to do that. Setting aside the intrusion it represented, this really wasn't something I wanted to deal with through remote observation.
"What is it?" I asked hopefully.
"Gully has spoken on the matter, likely in reference to details relayed to her by Crystal Pelham and your own interactions." Survey said.
I felt some of my concerns settle, really there were only complicated by the new development. Now it was multiple capes involved with their versions playing out for the people in that room. The rather influential group of people in that room. Even if I effectively owned Uppercrust, this wasn't an entanglement I wanted to deal with.
Once again, I was stuck between my desire to know what was happening and my dread at seeing this mess play out in real time. I took a breath. Survey was on site and would be able to recognize any key information that needed to be communicated.
Joe's clearly immediatley very uncomfortable and anxious.
Then he focuses more on the fact that one of the capes there is riding the edge of her Sechen range really hard, and is on the verge of a second trigger. Given the forces arrayed in that meeting room, to be honest, I get his concern shifting to that detail.
Like, you have Gully's shard, whose prolly been researching Dust. Uppercrust's Shard, whose experienced modification by Apeiron's tech and has seen some of it first hand. Parian's shard, whose been watching Garment for the last while. While only Parian might be second triggering, the nearby shards could totally agree to do some budding for more DATA gathering potential. Also Aisha's shard would get involved, whose experienced modification, seen some tech firsthand, whose host has been popping into a wierd pocket dimension and knows things she shouldn't know, and it might skew the rules a bit and aslo decide to toss in some buds of it's own.
The persona of Jozef Duris The College Dropout, rather than Apeiron, has not responded to Parian's attack yet for good reason - Jozif Duris was not present and should not know about the accusation yet. When the information gets back to him through a regular channel, he should have a chance to respond. But until then, it's properly Survey/Delphine's issue.
That rumour isn't flying beyond those who were in that room, with how strongly it was discredited.
Now, if it did, Jozef Duris would prolly have to react in some manner, but thanks to his friends (and friendly acquantiences, and maybe his luck powers) that's not happening.
A very good point but Joe's reaction suggest that even IF this information reaches him "officially" (though he always has an excuse that Aisha told him that his ex tried to screw him over) he would do absolutely nothing aside from shrugging and saying "It is what it is".
There's only really two channels through which it could reach him "officially"; the general rumor mill, in which case he'd certainly have to deal with it, or through Mrs. Gartenberg telling him, in which case he could thank her for standing up for him and move on.
Speaking more generally, it seems to me the consistent theme that's emerging in a lot of these complaints is that Survey can't be trusted to deal with the matter, and that Joe needs to be Strong and use that strength to... do
something about Parian. Because not being a doormat apparently means being aggressive.
