In this scene, the Straights seem to be doing pretty good on the whole. Walky’s venting, but Sal’s fully happy, and Jacob and Lucy are all lovey-dovey still.
all I can think about is Walky’s short lived super hero career ending due to his lack of fitness. I don’t think the softboi has it in him to not just sound angy.
I think Walky could definitely have revved up into being committed to Lucy but the “I love you” thing killed any chance of that stone dead, it freaked him out way too much.
yeah; he had JUST gotten over a messy breakup with Dorothy, and then couldn’t commit. And Lucy was moving way too fast for him, but he was too afraid to make that clear for her.
I still think Dorothy and Walky hooking back up was the least healthy thing for both of them to do. Especially in Walky’s case; he has a lot of growing he needs to do before jumpin into bed with someone again lol
Nah Lucy is way too reserved and boring to be like Joyce now, which is why I disliked her but ironically her saving grace now. She got laid with Jacob yet didn’t go up to everyone yelling “I HAD JACOB INSIDE ME”. I’d rather hang out with Lucy and that’s saying a LOT
Yesterday on the patreon I asked what Joyce really expected Walky’s reaction here to be, and having had time to think about it I think I can hazard a guess at a real answer.
Here we see Joyce occupying essentially the same frame of mind as Walky was seeming to a little while ago: that in spite of their often-vitriolic sniping at each other, they are fundamentally friends. Joyce is now fully-cognizant of the fact that a great deal of her bickering with Walky was in fact a sublimated competition for Dorothy’s attention and affection. Previously, Walky had come out on top, but now Joyce has won! (As she always should have, of course!) There shouldn’t be any bad blood about that, right? It’s just like when he got together with Dorothy and she started spending less time with Joyce, right? To Joyce, there’s nothing different about this as compared to their previous jockeying for Dorothy’s love, except that she’s won this time. No hard feelings, right?
Except, no. No, there are hard feelings. Once again Joyce has run roughshod over another person’s relationship in order to get what she wants. She didn’t even let Dorothy break up with Walky – she ran in, grabbed her, and laughed in Walky’s face. And Walky is supposed to just be okay with that? What, because he made some jokes about how Joyce transparently wanted to much his girlfriend’s carpet? No! This is not the same as their previous bickering. Joyce has been an eager participant in doing Walky wrong and causing him real, genuine emotional harm. And while Walky had previously still been willing to call her a friend, maybe seeing her here, STILL gloating at him, has made him consider that, hey, no, this is bullshit, I don’t have to take this. Joyce still thinks they’re bickering buddies, but that’s not what this is anymore. She has fucked her relationship with Walky, her friend, and unless she pulls her head the hell out of her ass that damage is going to be irreparable. And in the bargain, now everyone in the friend group has to deal with how insufferable she is now. She has broken everything, as Walky says.
My first impression when I was reading today’s strip was that honestly I expected a stronger reaction from Walky. He comes across more as annoyed than angry.
But then I realized that Walky is kind of a Master of avoiding uncomfortable emotional confrontation, so actually processing his emotions into mild snark and sarcasm is pretty in line.
And part of that I think has to do with the fact that he has very little confidence in himself, so even when someone is an asshole to him, he still thinks “yeah I deserved this”.
You know I’ve been wondering why Joyce’s needling of Walky feels more “real” post-protest than their bickering in the past and I think this is exactly. Joyce has crossed a line and is too wrapped up in their real-fake-real competition to notice. I think the real Walky crashout isn’t gonna happen until Dorothy tries to “no hard feelings” him for her own sake.
per the alt text, they’ve been downgraded to “allies”.
I suspect there may be further downgrades, particularly if any of them clearly side with Walky over her.
This isn’t hate, but it is a potentially controversial question: does Sal even really *like* her brother?
I’m being genuine, I don’t remember the archives too well. I keep seeing people say ‘sal should stand up for walky’ and i’m always like ‘but would she?’ Because again; i’ve the prainpower of a root vegetable and I don’t remember
I don’t think Sal ever DISLIKED Walky, he was just living in (probably willing) denial of the reality of the worlds they lived in and their dynamics with their parents. But Walky has shown himself learning, understanding, and even standing up to their parents. And Walky seems to like Sal just fine, even if they are almost entirely-different people. At the very least they clearly love each other, and they’ve been steadily closer since starting college.
I think that Sal and Walky have sibling cordiality, and shared experiences, but really only started getting a little closer when Walky told off their parents for how they treated Sal.
I think people have more expectations of Sal than should apply here. I loved my older brother when he was alive but I didn’t give a shit about his love life. It wasn’t my business. Unless Joyce is a direct threat to Walky this whole thing is entirely his mess to engage with. If he wants Sal’s help he’ll ask for it.
I’m glad walky’s Finally calling joyce on her shit holy fuck. Joyce has become so unlikable for me this arc. Please don’t let them move on after this. Keep up the pressure on her.
Yea, while I hated the cheating I would have gotten over it because they are young, but with everything that has happened after I dont know if Ill ever stop disliking Joyce now. Shes been just so crappy to multiple people and she doesnt seem to care.
He’s still being remarkably nice by not telling everyone exactly how Joyce was a sore winner to him. In any other media the cheating spouses other SO would be a straight up villian for laughing in the face of the person who got cheated on then dumped.
But Joyce’s reaction appears to show she’s unaffected. It probably won’t be until Joe that something occurs to her. What class do they take again? Dina… *and* Becky also share that one… don’t they?
Anyway, she’s being stupid again about sexuality but it wasn’t as obnoxious this time so yay.
I really feel like Joyce has some sort of lack of shame object permanence. If there’s a term for that please share. She just doesn’t have the capacity to think about anyone she’s hurt unless they’re staring directly at her.
I think Walky is the exception. She doesn’t like Walky and I’d even be bold enough to say they aren’t friends. But she also seemed pretty obnoxious around Raidah too, maybe Raidah is also an exception because she’s an enemy, or maybe Joyce is just horrible. I think if Becky or Joe were here she actually would feel guilty.
The only source of shame Joyce respects is her own hang ups. Other people don’t seem to count, even when the thing the gets hung up on is hwo she expects them to act.
It gets in my craw the way Joyce is talking about Dorothy in such an objectifying way — like she’s some prized treasure that Joyce won off of Walky, and not a person with any sort of romantic autonomy. I know this is the Big Romantic OTP Endgame Supership or whatever, but Joyce has a bad habit of dehumanizing Dorothy through pedestaling her and treating her like some kind of Glorious Untouchable Demigoddess at the drop of a hat, which is why I’ve always been leery of the two as a couple; it’s deeply unhealthy, and not in an elevated “drama hurricane” why like Jennifer’s relationships often are but in a terribly mundane, unpleasant to watch way.
Romanticization is not the same as romance, and until Joyce knocks that shit off, Willis is never going to get me to buy in on this ship as Glorious Wedding Bells Endgame, end of.
(And not to be a salty shipper on main, but I would like to point out that part of Joyce and Joe’s chemistry was that they did, in fact, see each other as people, and were far too familiar with each other’s flaws to romanticize the other. Well, Joe did a bit of romanticizing, but he’s also one of the ones who most consistently called Joyce out on her shit, and she very much called him out on his.)
I have my doubts about the stability of their relationship. I think we’ve already seen a pretty big gap between Joyce and Dorothy with how they feel about cheating. Joyce feels entitled too it while Dorothy feels guilty.
It kind of seems to me like Joyce consistently is encouraging Dorothy to not worry about being a good person because she is already perfect. But fundamentally I don’t think that is Dorothy’s style. She doesn’t work to be good because of insecurity, but because she is actually passionate and ambitious.
She’s been through a lot of trauma and had her worldview shaken up, but I don’t think the result is that she gives up on trying to change the world. She might not become president but she sure as heck can still devote herself to making meaningful social change in other ways.
Precisely because of that detail, I’ll continue to give Dorothy the benefit of the doubt, yes, with neutrality.
And she should also apologize to Walky.
NOTE: I’m not saying they should get back together. Yes, it was a ship I loved and that could have gone further. But putting them together wouldn’t feel right for either of them.
Honestly I’m kind of wondering if Joyce and Dorothy are meant to be a long-term thing at all. It’s not sustainable without a lot of growth on Joyce’s part at least, and probably some on Dorothy’s as well. At the very least I expect there to be some rockiness between the two of them soon.
It would be a nice twist if Joyce does start to feel board in her relationship with Dorothy after she stops seeing her as an unobtainable goal, so much of her idea of romance revolves around wanting something she can’t have.
Yeah this is for sure gonna be a problem for them down the line. Every single relationship Dorothy has had has involved some degree of idolizing her. She goes back and forth between trying to avoid it (1st Walky breakup) and using it as a crutch (attempt to rekindle with Walky). I’m curious how she’ll react when she realizes Joyce is using her Dorothy pedestal to justify how she’s treating everyone else.
I’m very glad someone besides Sarah (and I guess Raidah) finally vocalized how poorly Joyce has been behaving in these past several months/two days.
Sadly that person is Walky so I fully doubt she’ll take it very serious. But atleast more people are actually telling her she messed up rather than brushing off what happened.
I wish we could have gotten more than 2 panels of this rather than pivoting to this identity discussion.
Because even when I was 18, I think I had the wherewithall to realize that trying to tell someone how to self-identify is a sucker’s game. That Sal, Lucy, and Jacob, all people who are supposed to be at least relatively socially adroit, feel the need to try and correct Joyce on this is strange to me.
If I had a nickel for every time in this arc I wish Willis went for Doylism over Watsonism, I’d have 2 nickels. Which isn’t a lot, but it’s weird that it happened twice, right?
Lucy has always been willing to correct other people about social categories.
And it’s a good call back because she remembers she tagged her as a lesbian white version of herself at meeting. ( Does she remember that the next line was stay away from Jacob ? )
Everyone else here has Also always corrected ( cult raises) her bout social categories and probably sees it that way.
Joyce is correct in that for once she has more experience. But not enough to see she is bi
It is a little funny how she was claiming she was “Heroically Gay” considering that in practice the only obstacle gayness presented to her getting together with Dorothy where her own internalized self-perceptions.
Which, to be fair, undoubtedly were instilled into her by a homophobic, heteronormative society… but I also think it is worth recognizing that not every gay person experiences the same amount of opposition.
Well I can’t speak for everyone but many people have been reading this for literally a decade or more so it’s partly force of habit and partly hoping that the story will FINALLY take a turn for the better, and they complain because it’s a forum and that’s kind of human nature when a story you’re super invested in goes downhill
Still love Joyce, but she pretty much had that coming from Walky. The idolizing and idealizing of “real” gay people in panel three is pretty unhealthy. And for some reason, the line “You’re just a bunch of straights and Jennifer!” is absolutely hilarious. It’s like she respects that Jennifer doesn’t identify as gay or bi, but she can’t possibly call her straight.
Wow pushback from someone other than Sarah? Actual narrative consequences (in the sense that drama is built on conflict) for Joyce’s impulsive actions? Did I wake up in a parallel universe where Willis DIDN’T write the most milquetoast cheating storyline of all times? But will it actually stick or will it go back to not mattering in the slightest? We’ll continue to keep you informed as this story develops.
Joyce, yer not a genuine gay person. Just a part-time Dorothy-gay person. Don’t listen to them straights there. Go talk to a real life genuine gay. Like Becky. Or Ethan. I’m certain those conversations will be great and light and happy!
I’m glad Walky is atleast standing up for himself instead of ignoring his feelings again. Like this is a shitty situation but by all means this is progess to being more honest about his feelings to others which is a lot better to how he was coping with stuff like this in the past.
I understand your confusion, Walky, but Joyce isn’t actually asking a question here. She’s merely wanting to be assured that no one’s upset at here.
Not that anyone would be! Because she’s done nothing wrong. Absolutely nothing she might have to feel the slightest bit guilty about.
And even if she had, being in True Love justifies anything!
Got it? Good. Glad that’s all settled, and she doesn’t have to think about it any more.
Note presence of two other females that Joyce has expressed physical interest in (Sal – hair; Jennifer – breasts) (and one other male that Joyce has expressed physical interest in (Jacob)).
Was there anyone else? I don’t think so, but memory is like a whatchacallit.
As deathcringe as this strip is, I gotta say, I feel the imposter syndrome part at least. I’ve legally changed my name and 90% of the people I interact with daily are in on the fact that I’m trans and queer but I still find myself thinking “well I’m not able to medically transition yet so I’m basically closeted and living as cishet”.
One of these days I’m gonna just be this old dude all post-GRS and be like well I don’t have a trans symbol sticker on my postapocalyptic cybernetic organs so like, I’m still basically closeted right.
Folks, I’m surprised no one has considered the following scenario: Joyce hasn’t officially broken up with Joe yet, and I suspect she wants to have a foot in both camps (not equally, obviously). So, I think she’ll end up proposing a romantic threesome, which obviously the others aren’t interested in: Dorothy will want an exclusive relationship, while Joe will realize it will never work.
That’s way too much open vulnerability for Joyce. I think she’s bending over backwards to convince herself she didn’t actually do anything wrong cheating because a part of her wants to keep seeing Joe without Dorothy’s knowledge. Or worse, she’s gonna try to fuck him to prove she’s still kinda straight.
I don’t think the latter scenario will happen. She’s too caught up in her queerness, becoming a fundamentalist in that sense, just as she was as a Christian. I’m sorry if I draw the ire of her fans, but that’s exactly the definition of Karen, regardless of her stance.
It’s not that he’s interested; he claims he’d tolerate the situation because he doesn’t want to break off the relationship with Joyce despite the preconditions. The feasibility of it is another matter entirely.
One one hand I can appreciate the experience of feeling like “I shouldn’t claim that Identity, that would be appropriative”. There is a mindset difference between thinking “them” to thinking “us”.
But a big part of it is recognizing that Queerness is not defined by “being the same as all other queer people”. So yeah, Joyce might look at people like Becky and think “I haven’t gone through what people like Becky have gone through. My experience wasn’t like hers. I don’t relate to my sexuality like she does” but fundamentally there is no quintessential queer experiences because there is no single, limited way of being queer.
Yo. Jennifer…..Now is your chance. Ditch these losers, maybe go see what Asma is up to, get ya girl Alice involved. Let’s get that shit going. This group has a expiration date. It will be ashes by next spring. You, Raidah, Alice, Asma. We can make this work. Reboot this whole comic.
FINALLY!! Took so long for Walky to get a chance to say this. The wait for anyone other than Billie (looking at you Sal) to have his back, though, continues. And, hell, even Billie took it pretty easy on Dorothy relative to what we know she has in her.
Also, not that long ago Joyce had that epiphany that changing Jocelyne’s contact name in her phone from “Dumb [Sibling]” just because Jocelyne was trans might be more transphobic than keeping it. How’d we get from that to the “perfect warrior demigods” dumbness?
And Joyce thinking this much of gay people, wonder if that comes from how much she loves Becky?
And yes! Lucy for the win!
Jacob should have known. There’s a whole arc were Joyce wanted to be his girlfriend. Come on dude, use the “b” word, it’s not going to hurt you. 😜
Loading ...
Walky just sayin it like it is
👏🏽👏🏽👏🏽
“A bunch of straights and Jennifer” also qualifies. Waiting for Jennifer’s reaction.
“I’m totally straight, except for that one time… and that other… I should call her…”
Joyce decides that it’s unfair that there’s no word for people like that, and starts designing a Jennifer Pride Flag when she gets back to the dorm.
Naturally, Jennifer loves it.
I think Billie would have loved it. Jennifer insists that she’s straight. (With an asterisk)
Put that Giant Asterisk on the Flag.
It features various Jennifer pride colours and an emblem of a snakelike dragon with her face, feasting on its own tail.
Thank you, Walky!
Now if only anyone else acknowledged that instead of getting immediately sidetracked in a conversation about Joyce’s sexuality
are the straights ok? and Jennifer?
“The Straights Are All Right” – isn’t that a song, by, uhh, that band?
Also:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wcVEDyro2sE
🎶 est-ce que les hétérosexuels vont bien?
Non.
In this scene, the Straights seem to be doing pretty good on the whole. Walky’s venting, but Sal’s fully happy, and Jacob and Lucy are all lovey-dovey still.
Thank god Walky. Keep going. Keep going!
It would have been great to have a bit more passive-aggressive, but it’s something.
No, no, we’ve passed the point of passive aggressive. He needs to be more aggressive! More!
Yes!
all I can think about is Walky’s short lived super hero career ending due to his lack of fitness. I don’t think the softboi has it in him to not just sound angy.
I know, but Walky is just warming up
Jennifer is in a category all her own?
Was this not obvious? 😉
Normal. Jennifer is Normal.
Well, yes, she is perpendicular to a surface at present.
Hail, math clan!
god forbid a woman get a little silly with it!!!
Sometimes you just have sex with your best friend
You’re allowed, like, once.
Hater containment thread, think it’s especially needed today. Kvetch here ⬇️
Walky sayin some stuff about breakin things around Lucy is still very funny.
Lucy was the one who broke things in their relationship.
I don’t think Walky was blameless, he didn’t do enough to stand up to his parents until after it was done.
I’d argue Walky’s heart not bein in it broke the relationship from day one, and Lucy just made it official.
I think Walky could definitely have revved up into being committed to Lucy but the “I love you” thing killed any chance of that stone dead, it freaked him out way too much.
yeah; he had JUST gotten over a messy breakup with Dorothy, and then couldn’t commit. And Lucy was moving way too fast for him, but he was too afraid to make that clear for her.
I still think Dorothy and Walky hooking back up was the least healthy thing for both of them to do. Especially in Walky’s case; he has a lot of growing he needs to do before jumpin into bed with someone again lol
I honestly think even if everything went right Walky and Lucy wouldn’t have lasted. I think he wanted something casual and she wanted forever.
I will continue to use this thread to say I don’t really like Lucy or Jacob. Not really for anything they’ve done here but just in general.
lol
I’m with you on Lucy. Jake’s… okay. Just kinda meh.
You know I used to strongly dislike Lucy, but my hatred for Joyce has made Lucy much more tolerable in comparison
Lucy is just Joyce minus character development and a girl best friend. Joyce now is what Lucy would be if she’d had a better roommate first semester.
Nah Lucy is way too reserved and boring to be like Joyce now, which is why I disliked her but ironically her saving grace now. She got laid with Jacob yet didn’t go up to everyone yelling “I HAD JACOB INSIDE ME”. I’d rather hang out with Lucy and that’s saying a LOT
Yesterday on the patreon I asked what Joyce really expected Walky’s reaction here to be, and having had time to think about it I think I can hazard a guess at a real answer.
Here we see Joyce occupying essentially the same frame of mind as Walky was seeming to a little while ago: that in spite of their often-vitriolic sniping at each other, they are fundamentally friends. Joyce is now fully-cognizant of the fact that a great deal of her bickering with Walky was in fact a sublimated competition for Dorothy’s attention and affection. Previously, Walky had come out on top, but now Joyce has won! (As she always should have, of course!) There shouldn’t be any bad blood about that, right? It’s just like when he got together with Dorothy and she started spending less time with Joyce, right? To Joyce, there’s nothing different about this as compared to their previous jockeying for Dorothy’s love, except that she’s won this time. No hard feelings, right?
Except, no. No, there are hard feelings. Once again Joyce has run roughshod over another person’s relationship in order to get what she wants. She didn’t even let Dorothy break up with Walky – she ran in, grabbed her, and laughed in Walky’s face. And Walky is supposed to just be okay with that? What, because he made some jokes about how Joyce transparently wanted to much his girlfriend’s carpet? No! This is not the same as their previous bickering. Joyce has been an eager participant in doing Walky wrong and causing him real, genuine emotional harm. And while Walky had previously still been willing to call her a friend, maybe seeing her here, STILL gloating at him, has made him consider that, hey, no, this is bullshit, I don’t have to take this. Joyce still thinks they’re bickering buddies, but that’s not what this is anymore. She has fucked her relationship with Walky, her friend, and unless she pulls her head the hell out of her ass that damage is going to be irreparable. And in the bargain, now everyone in the friend group has to deal with how insufferable she is now. She has broken everything, as Walky says.
I really hope that at least one person overtly stops being Joyce’s friend over this and Walky has good reason to be that person.
If this leads into a self-actualized Walky arc, i’ll forgive…not all my gripes, but a lot of ’em
My first impression when I was reading today’s strip was that honestly I expected a stronger reaction from Walky. He comes across more as annoyed than angry.
But then I realized that Walky is kind of a Master of avoiding uncomfortable emotional confrontation, so actually processing his emotions into mild snark and sarcasm is pretty in line.
And part of that I think has to do with the fact that he has very little confidence in himself, so even when someone is an asshole to him, he still thinks “yeah I deserved this”.
I always thought their interaction was just one of tolerance.
But yes, Joyce has always shown that unhealthy obsession with Dorothy.
Now we just have to wait for Joe, Dina, and Becky’s responses.
this, this, a million times this. joyce is a terrible menace to walky
You know I’ve been wondering why Joyce’s needling of Walky feels more “real” post-protest than their bickering in the past and I think this is exactly. Joyce has crossed a line and is too wrapped up in their real-fake-real competition to notice. I think the real Walky crashout isn’t gonna happen until Dorothy tries to “no hard feelings” him for her own sake.
Joyce is even worse than yesterday. She is being extra shitty to her friends.
per the alt text, they’ve been downgraded to “allies”.
I suspect there may be further downgrades, particularly if any of them clearly side with Walky over her.
Joyce has become literally the most annoying character of just about any piece of media I can think of that I consume
Now that I think about it, I think that statement he made to Raidah sounded more like “I’ll take away your title of hateful character.”
This isn’t hate, but it is a potentially controversial question: does Sal even really *like* her brother?
I’m being genuine, I don’t remember the archives too well. I keep seeing people say ‘sal should stand up for walky’ and i’m always like ‘but would she?’ Because again; i’ve the prainpower of a root vegetable and I don’t remember
It’s complicated but they’re definitely closer since the timeskip.
I feel like Walky and Sal have grown closer post-timeskip? Maybe I’m just making assumptions but I feel like they’ve been more on the same page.
I don’t think Sal ever DISLIKED Walky, he was just living in (probably willing) denial of the reality of the worlds they lived in and their dynamics with their parents. But Walky has shown himself learning, understanding, and even standing up to their parents. And Walky seems to like Sal just fine, even if they are almost entirely-different people. At the very least they clearly love each other, and they’ve been steadily closer since starting college.
I think that Sal and Walky have sibling cordiality, and shared experiences, but really only started getting a little closer when Walky told off their parents for how they treated Sal.
I think people have more expectations of Sal than should apply here. I loved my older brother when he was alive but I didn’t give a shit about his love life. It wasn’t my business. Unless Joyce is a direct threat to Walky this whole thing is entirely his mess to engage with. If he wants Sal’s help he’ll ask for it.
I’m glad walky’s Finally calling joyce on her shit holy fuck. Joyce has become so unlikable for me this arc. Please don’t let them move on after this. Keep up the pressure on her.
If walky is somehow presented as being in the wrong for this i will riot
Yea, while I hated the cheating I would have gotten over it because they are young, but with everything that has happened after I dont know if Ill ever stop disliking Joyce now. Shes been just so crappy to multiple people and she doesnt seem to care.
He’s still being remarkably nice by not telling everyone exactly how Joyce was a sore winner to him. In any other media the cheating spouses other SO would be a straight up villian for laughing in the face of the person who got cheated on then dumped.
Seeing Walky’s righteous indignation is great…
But Joyce’s reaction appears to show she’s unaffected. It probably won’t be until Joe that something occurs to her. What class do they take again? Dina… *and* Becky also share that one… don’t they?
Anyway, she’s being stupid again about sexuality but it wasn’t as obnoxious this time so yay.
I really feel like Joyce has some sort of lack of shame object permanence. If there’s a term for that please share. She just doesn’t have the capacity to think about anyone she’s hurt unless they’re staring directly at her.
But he is, and she’s ignoring it!
I think Walky is the exception. She doesn’t like Walky and I’d even be bold enough to say they aren’t friends. But she also seemed pretty obnoxious around Raidah too, maybe Raidah is also an exception because she’s an enemy, or maybe Joyce is just horrible. I think if Becky or Joe were here she actually would feel guilty.
The only source of shame Joyce respects is her own hang ups. Other people don’t seem to count, even when the thing the gets hung up on is hwo she expects them to act.
They take biology and life drawing together.
she’s got so much foot in mouth here she may as well be a sasquatch
Is Sasquatch okay? I didn’t know he was sick. Should I leave chicken soup in the woods?
It gets in my craw the way Joyce is talking about Dorothy in such an objectifying way — like she’s some prized treasure that Joyce won off of Walky, and not a person with any sort of romantic autonomy. I know this is the Big Romantic OTP Endgame Supership or whatever, but Joyce has a bad habit of dehumanizing Dorothy through pedestaling her and treating her like some kind of Glorious Untouchable Demigoddess at the drop of a hat, which is why I’ve always been leery of the two as a couple; it’s deeply unhealthy, and not in an elevated “drama hurricane” why like Jennifer’s relationships often are but in a terribly mundane, unpleasant to watch way.
Romanticization is not the same as romance, and until Joyce knocks that shit off, Willis is never going to get me to buy in on this ship as Glorious Wedding Bells Endgame, end of.
(And not to be a salty shipper on main, but I would like to point out that part of Joyce and Joe’s chemistry was that they did, in fact, see each other as people, and were far too familiar with each other’s flaws to romanticize the other. Well, Joe did a bit of romanticizing, but he’s also one of the ones who most consistently called Joyce out on her shit, and she very much called him out on his.)
Joecy was the best ship in the comic and I will not be accepting questions.
It’s a symptom of how she views things with Wally in terms of a competition, which it was really, and how she’s won it.
Must have be a result of growing up all brothers (or at least thinking she did).)
I have my doubts about the stability of their relationship. I think we’ve already seen a pretty big gap between Joyce and Dorothy with how they feel about cheating. Joyce feels entitled too it while Dorothy feels guilty.
It kind of seems to me like Joyce consistently is encouraging Dorothy to not worry about being a good person because she is already perfect. But fundamentally I don’t think that is Dorothy’s style. She doesn’t work to be good because of insecurity, but because she is actually passionate and ambitious.
She’s been through a lot of trauma and had her worldview shaken up, but I don’t think the result is that she gives up on trying to change the world. She might not become president but she sure as heck can still devote herself to making meaningful social change in other ways.
Precisely because of that detail, I’ll continue to give Dorothy the benefit of the doubt, yes, with neutrality.
And she should also apologize to Walky.
NOTE: I’m not saying they should get back together. Yes, it was a ship I loved and that could have gone further. But putting them together wouldn’t feel right for either of them.
Honestly I’m kind of wondering if Joyce and Dorothy are meant to be a long-term thing at all. It’s not sustainable without a lot of growth on Joyce’s part at least, and probably some on Dorothy’s as well. At the very least I expect there to be some rockiness between the two of them soon.
It would be a nice twist if Joyce does start to feel board in her relationship with Dorothy after she stops seeing her as an unobtainable goal, so much of her idea of romance revolves around wanting something she can’t have.
Hohoho, feed the tension and drama in both of them, and let that help Dorothy realize how Joyce really sees her.
Yeah this is for sure gonna be a problem for them down the line. Every single relationship Dorothy has had has involved some degree of idolizing her. She goes back and forth between trying to avoid it (1st Walky breakup) and using it as a crutch (attempt to rekindle with Walky). I’m curious how she’ll react when she realizes Joyce is using her Dorothy pedestal to justify how she’s treating everyone else.
no way Joyce is having the audacity of asking to shake hands lile that in first panels, without a drop of shame… No, no!
I’m very glad someone besides Sarah (and I guess Raidah) finally vocalized how poorly Joyce has been behaving in these past several months/two days.
Sadly that person is Walky so I fully doubt she’ll take it very serious. But atleast more people are actually telling her she messed up rather than brushing off what happened.
I wish we could have gotten more than 2 panels of this rather than pivoting to this identity discussion.
Because even when I was 18, I think I had the wherewithall to realize that trying to tell someone how to self-identify is a sucker’s game. That Sal, Lucy, and Jacob, all people who are supposed to be at least relatively socially adroit, feel the need to try and correct Joyce on this is strange to me.
If I had a nickel for every time in this arc I wish Willis went for Doylism over Watsonism, I’d have 2 nickels. Which isn’t a lot, but it’s weird that it happened twice, right?
Yeah i worry the pivot is just gon na make joyce covee her ears and go ‘lalala i can’t hear you!!’
Lucy has always been willing to correct other people about social categories.
And it’s a good call back because she remembers she tagged her as a lesbian white version of herself at meeting. ( Does she remember that the next line was stay away from Jacob ? )
Everyone else here has Also always corrected ( cult raises) her bout social categories and probably sees it that way.
Joyce is correct in that for once she has more experience. But not enough to see she is bi
Yeah! Definitely trust a Walky crashout! Even if that was a really light one.
He can find a second wind, i believe in him.
Also jesus, joyce. Idealization is another form of dehumanisation. I know black and white thinking is your big struggle, but.
(This isn’t hate more…mild bemusement.)
I thought she said she won a medal!
Maybe FIFA will give her one.
Rather she got it than the actual twit.
It is a little funny how she was claiming she was “Heroically Gay” considering that in practice the only obstacle gayness presented to her getting together with Dorothy where her own internalized self-perceptions.
Which, to be fair, undoubtedly were instilled into her by a homophobic, heteronormative society… but I also think it is worth recognizing that not every gay person experiences the same amount of opposition.
Thanks to my math B.A from 52 years ago (!!!) I enjoyed that comment
That was supposed to be a reply to Slartibeast
8-)}
I too enjoyed the comment. Felt the need to reply in kind, but my mind failed me.
I think I just felt a laugh again…
*sighs* That’s been a while. Feeling kinda rusty. *coughs out dust*
“Just a bunch of straights and Jennifer” got me, enjoyed this one.
That alt-text is vicious. Joyce at her most insufferable.
GET HER, WALKY.
GET HER.
I think she’s taken now. 😛
Well she should be taken.
Far away 😛
I imagine she has plans after college.
I wish the goblins would take Joyce away… Right Now.
Tyler Cutebiker from Geavity Falls “Get em, get em.:”
This is a great strip.
Indeed. I’m honestly not sure why people come back week after week to complain, but hopefully it keeps the ad view numbers up.
Because kvetching is fun whats not adding up
Well I can’t speak for everyone but many people have been reading this for literally a decade or more so it’s partly force of habit and partly hoping that the story will FINALLY take a turn for the better, and they complain because it’s a forum and that’s kind of human nature when a story you’re super invested in goes downhill
I’ve been reading this comic for 15 years and I’m not going anywhere
Because people can like other parts of the comic and are also allowed to voice their opinion on the part they dont like especially when its the focus?
I have It’s Walky strips on my HD going back to 2002.
Still love Joyce, but she pretty much had that coming from Walky. The idolizing and idealizing of “real” gay people in panel three is pretty unhealthy. And for some reason, the line “You’re just a bunch of straights and Jennifer!” is absolutely hilarious. It’s like she respects that Jennifer doesn’t identify as gay or bi, but she can’t possibly call her straight.
She can just call herself a Jennifer.
Is there an app for Calling Jennifers?
She has to because if Jennifer is “just bi” that means she is too and she can’t be her own special brand of “gay but only for Dorothy” anymore
Worshipping gays as personal warrior demigods is kinda crap. We’re all just people. All fighting for resources and making alliances for common causes.
It’s all incredibly cringy
‘Twas very cringefail
( raises hand slightly….)
Accepting worshippers. Apply within
It’s also kind of weird considering Joyce was just saying “I was heroically gay. I should get a medal. Nothing else should matter more”
Speak for yourself, mortal.
Seriously, did Dorothy literally fuck Joyce’s brains out?
What is the counterpart to “Thinking with your dick”?
thinking with your clit
or tits if you prefer
Cogitation with your vagination
Evidence is mounting…
So was Joyce, apparently.
Nah her brains were always devoted to more important matters. Biblical passages, Calculus. Keeping food from touching each other.
Social categories always eluded her.
Jennifer’s being awfully quiet in the “you had sex with a woman, you’re gay/bi” conversation
Yeah wasn’t she full-on “bisexuality doesn’t exist”? It’s been a while since she’s really been in a storyline hasn’t she?
iirc, she’s not opposed to the idea of bisexuality existing. *she’s* just not bisexual she’s “normal”
They just made up bisexuality for porn. Jennifer is a normal straight girl who has sex with other girls like all normal straight girls.
Exactly.
With all due respect John, Tree Law is important.
I don’t know precisely how it fits in. Maybe a PSA for prelaw.
But I’m sure there’s a branch somewhere
She told her multiple times It doesn’t count when it’s your best friend.
What can she say now that Joyce has fully enacted it? Other than buy matching jackets and turn this into a Best Friends clique
Cheating is bad, but Willis is making the Lord work in making it a mid mistake like any others, and not like a deadly sin. I won’t elaborate, it’s 2AM
Thanks you!
Wow pushback from someone other than Sarah? Actual narrative consequences (in the sense that drama is built on conflict) for Joyce’s impulsive actions? Did I wake up in a parallel universe where Willis DIDN’T write the most milquetoast cheating storyline of all times? But will it actually stick or will it go back to not mattering in the slightest? We’ll continue to keep you informed as this story develops.
And of all the someones, it’s Walky!
(that should totes be a comic title)
And its narrative consequences that Joyce is experiencing, instead of someone else, and it’s for being an AH rather than for being bi.
Joyce, yer not a genuine gay person. Just a part-time Dorothy-gay person. Don’t listen to them straights there. Go talk to a real life genuine gay. Like Becky. Or Ethan. I’m certain those conversations will be great and light and happy!
joyce has some bad foot in mouth disease going
Seriously, she makes me, well known for having foot in mouth disease (a hereditary trait from my mother), look down right tactful.
I know, i love it so much.
She’s been at it for long enough that she’s starting to sound like podiatarian…
I’m glad Walky is atleast standing up for himself instead of ignoring his feelings again. Like this is a shitty situation but by all means this is progess to being more honest about his feelings to others which is a lot better to how he was coping with stuff like this in the past.
I want to believe that this is the starting point for Walky’s character development.
Yikes Joyce this is such a bad look
Love how even in the depths of her own self-bi-erasure Joyce ain’t buying Jennifer’s alleged straightness.
“I learned it from watching you”
…how is she still in the closet to herself after fucking a woman?
I mean, ask Jennifer.
Man I miss Billie and Ruth, them breaking up was probably the thing I dislike the most about the timeskip.
Billie and Ruth and Walky and Amber both broke up at the same time. It’s like my Christmas gift that year was DISAPPOINTMENT.
I like my toxic yuri damnit! But I also liked my “slowly de-toxifying from personal growth yuri” as well!
Toxic Yuri and Dialysis Yuri.
Socks were on. Or maybe they weren’t. I didn’t buy the Slipshine, to be honest.
Best Friends don’t count.
Dorothysexual
A woman. A. s’not like she sampled the entire buffet.
Just ask Jennifer she’ll explain.
I understand your confusion, Walky, but Joyce isn’t actually asking a question here. She’s merely wanting to be assured that no one’s upset at here.
Not that anyone would be! Because she’s done nothing wrong. Absolutely nothing she might have to feel the slightest bit guilty about.
And even if she had, being in True Love justifies anything!
Got it? Good. Glad that’s all settled, and she doesn’t have to think about it any more.
(typo – upset at her.)
She was informing that there were no hard feelings, not asking
Note presence of two other females that Joyce has expressed physical interest in (Sal – hair; Jennifer – breasts) (and one other male that Joyce has expressed physical interest in (Jacob)).
Was there anyone else? I don’t think so, but memory is like a whatchacallit.
Lucy is the only person there that Joyce has never expressed attraction to. (Yes, even Walky, even in this universe.)
Yay Walky called her out
Oh Joyce honey no
As deathcringe as this strip is, I gotta say, I feel the imposter syndrome part at least. I’ve legally changed my name and 90% of the people I interact with daily are in on the fact that I’m trans and queer but I still find myself thinking “well I’m not able to medically transition yet so I’m basically closeted and living as cishet”.
One of these days I’m gonna just be this old dude all post-GRS and be like well I don’t have a trans symbol sticker on my postapocalyptic cybernetic organs so like, I’m still basically closeted right.
As a trans butch who often wonders if their ongoing physical transition is obvious enough to signal queer I feel this in a deep part of my soul
Folks, I’m surprised no one has considered the following scenario: Joyce hasn’t officially broken up with Joe yet, and I suspect she wants to have a foot in both camps (not equally, obviously). So, I think she’ll end up proposing a romantic threesome, which obviously the others aren’t interested in: Dorothy will want an exclusive relationship, while Joe will realize it will never work.
That’s way too much open vulnerability for Joyce. I think she’s bending over backwards to convince herself she didn’t actually do anything wrong cheating because a part of her wants to keep seeing Joe without Dorothy’s knowledge. Or worse, she’s gonna try to fuck him to prove she’s still kinda straight.
I don’t think the latter scenario will happen. She’s too caught up in her queerness, becoming a fundamentalist in that sense, just as she was as a Christian. I’m sorry if I draw the ire of her fans, but that’s exactly the definition of Karen, regardless of her stance.
Joe is interested in that. He suggested it.
It’s not that he’s interested; he claims he’d tolerate the situation because he doesn’t want to break off the relationship with Joyce despite the preconditions. The feasibility of it is another matter entirely.
Dumbing of Age, Book 17: A Bunch of Straights and Jennifer
The perfect freaking title.
Much to recommend it.
One one hand I can appreciate the experience of feeling like “I shouldn’t claim that Identity, that would be appropriative”. There is a mindset difference between thinking “them” to thinking “us”.
But a big part of it is recognizing that Queerness is not defined by “being the same as all other queer people”. So yeah, Joyce might look at people like Becky and think “I haven’t gone through what people like Becky have gone through. My experience wasn’t like hers. I don’t relate to my sexuality like she does” but fundamentally there is no quintessential queer experiences because there is no single, limited way of being queer.
A few
daysminutesstrips back, she was explicitly thinking (out loud) that she hasn’t suffered enough to claim that.*cough*notlikeJesussufferedonthecross
(gosh, where did that come from? she doesn’t believe in that stuff anymore, right?)
Yo. Jennifer…..Now is your chance. Ditch these losers, maybe go see what Asma is up to, get ya girl Alice involved. Let’s get that shit going. This group has a expiration date. It will be ashes by next spring. You, Raidah, Alice, Asma. We can make this work. Reboot this whole comic.
No hard feelings she says. What a piece of work.
Walky’s better than me cuz Joyce would be walking to math class with a broken hand if she tried that shit on me
Thanks Lucy.
FINALLY!! Took so long for Walky to get a chance to say this. The wait for anyone other than Billie (looking at you Sal) to have his back, though, continues. And, hell, even Billie took it pretty easy on Dorothy relative to what we know she has in her.
Also, not that long ago Joyce had that epiphany that changing Jocelyne’s contact name in her phone from “Dumb [Sibling]” just because Jocelyne was trans might be more transphobic than keeping it. How’d we get from that to the “perfect warrior demigods” dumbness?
I cackled at, “A bunch of straights… and Jennifer.” both because I’ve said something obtuse like that before and also been “the Jennifer” in a way.
That last panel is just pure perfect! 🤣
And Joyce thinking this much of gay people, wonder if that comes from how much she loves Becky?
And yes! Lucy for the win!
Jacob should have known. There’s a whole arc were Joyce wanted to be his girlfriend. Come on dude, use the “b” word, it’s not going to hurt you. 😜
AND Jennifer.
God you need to have walky actually call her out this is the most milquetoast response he could have. “You’re a sore winner” like what