“No Joyce, I meant that you would leave and my laptop would stay here. Security!”
“Rarr.”
After an intense round of negotiations and dinosaur facts, Joyce agrees to depart with a 4TB external hard drive labeled “Vol 1: A-Ae”, with further editions available upon its return.
On the other hand, she’s maturing really fast when you think of it in terms of the progression of time within the comic. It’s been, what, three months? But yeah, I mean, I love this comic, but I don’t disagree with what you said.
Every character in this comic is practically in stasis just because of how glacial the pacing is. Like, in pretty much any other coming of age story the protagonist would not still be displaying the same major flaw after nearly a decade of writing.
especially since we’ve been stuck in this Specific Arc for Joyce for about two actual real world years, with even very large major plot threads like the thing with Jacob that very well could have at least pushed her a to confronting that change, and then it just. Not doing that.
I would like to state for the record that I am not, nor have I previously been, stuck between any combination of teeth in the mouth of any known organism.
Anyway uh…..So how is this going to get resolved this time, is Amber going to mention this to Sal and then Sal is going to kick Walkys door this time and tell him to stop being stupid and make up with his girlfriend?
Yes, how dare she not face the consequences of an action she was snapped and took when she was barely a teen. Heavens knows there haven’t been any consequences to her mental health.
You mean like being forced to fight through PTSD complicated by dissociative disorder in order to talk it through with her victim like mature kinda-adults and mutually comping up with a rational prospective coping mechanism to try out? Because that’s a sensible consequence to have to be forced to face.
A romantic interest is not some prize to be awarded for good behavior or confiscated for bad behavior, and doubly not when he is also part of the support network that’s helping her grow out of the bad behavior in the first place. If Walky leaves over this it’s because he isn’t going to love someone who hurt his sister, REGARDLESS of whether Amber deserves to have bad stuff happen to her.
Actually, I think that Sal will be a bit touched by Walky’s loyalty to her. She hasn’t had much of Walky taking her side in her life and the times he has recently have made her feel better.
…. and then she’ll tell him that she’s made peace with Amber and to go ahead and do whatever with her if that’s what he wants for himself.
I dunno, I really like this moment. Even though Amber and Walky are garbage, Joyce’s point IS valid. They like each other, so despite grade-tampering and sister-stabbing, maybe they can make it work. Or maybe they won’t. Amber tends to beat herself up over the damage she causes (some of it deservedly so) and occasionally needs a reminder that she can have a positive effect on people’s lives.
Except this isn’t really shipping in the normal sense. This started with her realizing Walky was interested in Amber and trying to help out.
It was based on her reading his personal feelings correctly, not just deciding that two random people belonged together.
Unlike some of her previous shipping statements, but with those she didn’t really do anything.
Mind you, her tactics for getting them together were horrible
For life is quite absurd
And death’s the final word
You must always face the curtain with a bow
Forget about your sin
Give the audience a grin
Enjoy it – it’s your last chance anyhow
That said, I’m… decently optimistic. Amber tends to fear the worst, but guessing Walky needs to think, maybe talk to Sal as well.
I am reminded of Duo Maxwell on the topic of Quatre Raberba Winner.
“Oh man, Quatre loves to blame himself for everything if you let him. Sooner or later, he’ll start saying that it’s because of his lack of effort that there’s no air in space.”
I wouldn’t be so sure. The storyline title suggests that lots of things will go wrong, and it will end 15 strips after Valentine’s Day, so it’s likely the climactic scene involves some form of heartbreak. Although I hope that Sal will chat with Walky about Amber, and I’m not sure where that will go. Maybe Sal will ask that he stays with her to keep her from her AG shenanigans, or maybe Sal will warn him that she’s dangerous.
If it were anyone but Joyce, the face in the last panel would be the second most punchable face in the series. The current leader is Faz’s normal face.
It’s already burned her a few times before. The whole train wreck that was her “romance” with Ethan, the one-sided feelings from her best friend from childhood, and everything with that whole incident with a pastor’s son…
But she hasn’t touched rock bottom yet. She will keep repeating this mistake over and over until she realizes love isn’t a magical predestined thing, but something you make with other person over time and with patience and kindness, and that love and lust are two separate yet related things.
Just give her a few minutes Amber, she’s locked in Shipper Mode, all she’s gonna see are hearts and shoujo bubbles for now. She’ll come back to reality in a bit, so just let her dream till then. Just geeeently poke her with a broom handle out the door…
She’s not perceptive enough to listen to the words that are being spoken directly to her at this very moment? I think the term you’re looking for is “She’s very self-absorbed and is more interested in her own preconceptions and fantasies than in real people’s feelings.”
it means Don’t Do What Joyce Is Doing Right Now dude this isn’t a hard leap. There’s thinking two friends would make for a good couple and finding their relationship adorable and even playing matchmaker a lil, and then there’s obsessively organizing every member of your even tangentially defined social circle into a sort of predestined flow chart, ignoring what’s actually happening around you in favor of your own narrative.
Like I struggle with not letting my OCD turn me into a control freak and affecting the people around me and even I’ve never stooped to that level.
Fun fact – the metal band TROJA once made a band T-shirt, and added an umlaut to be cool. Sadly, no one seemed to have told them that TRÖJA is a word for “T-shirt” in Swedish…
this whole reveal would have been much Aye Emm Oh better if it had started by walky seeing amber and sal doing roller derby and deciding he had been dumped for his sister.
Waiting outside the door, because he realized that Walky went to find help rather than just stew in a distressed mental state the rest of the day. He can’t have THAT happening.
k, i’m not gonna judge Joyce ‘cus i have a ship list too (ranked from unlikeliest to “they’re gonna bang any second now”)
walky+amber
mike+ethan
sal+bowtie guy
joyce+joe
DON’T JUDGE ME.
Loading ...
FISSION MAILED!
wait no
SISSION MUCCESS!
Comglaturations! Wou Yon!
YOU’RE WINNER !
A winner is you!
Achievement get!
Lovel Urp!
Shine!
Kol?
Snake, you caused a time paradox
“No Joyce, I meant that you would leave and my laptop would stay here. Security!”
“Rarr.”
After an intense round of negotiations and dinosaur facts, Joyce agrees to depart with a 4TB external hard drive labeled “Vol 1: A-Ae”, with further editions available upon its return.
LOL!
Alternatively:
“We have decided to hire an external security consultant with expertise in cases like this.”
“Yo, Joyce. Have you scared poor Dina with our fundy background? Now, what do you have there… um… oh…”
New round of negotiations. Becky agrees to keep Joyce out of Amber’s hair in exchange for links to the Yuri selection of Amber’s favorite fanfic site.
It’s walky???
I see it too. Either you’re not crazy, or we both are.
Oh good
Did anybody else see the it’s walky strip for today attached to this comic?
I did, but now it’s already gone.
Yep, but now it’s gone.
Yeah, definitely spent too long trying to figure out what it had to do with today’s DoA strip.
Ye, I mean, NO! No, and you can’t prove I did! I’m not going back! You can’t prove a thing!
I know a lawyer.
It’s Walky!
He’s not a …great… lawyer…
But IS IT Walky?
Amber doesn’t yet know the answer.
I’m confused about the old Its Walky! strip being here too…?
Uh, I don’t get it. Assuming there is something to get.
Joyce was so proud of herself she went off with Walky to go yell at a lawyer in New York
Joyce taking away the important info
Am I the only one seeing this? Okay I’m not so special itswalky end game post I guess?
Willis was just flexing on his improvement in comic making.
Only When You Leave I need to love you…
Now Joyce has t leave and make her own journeys to glory.
I was expecting Rolling Stones with “You Can’t Always Get What You Want”
Either it was too obvious (it was namedropped in the comic), or it’s played on the hacked Muzak before.
Every day I find myself liking Joyce less and less.
Yes I know she has growing up to do. But it’s frustrating having a flawed central character remain in stasis for a very very long time.
On the other hand, she’s maturing really fast when you think of it in terms of the progression of time within the comic. It’s been, what, three months? But yeah, I mean, I love this comic, but I don’t disagree with what you said.
One month.
About half that!
We haven’t even hit Halloween, yet!
As near as I can tell, it’s currently October 17 or 18, in the DOA-verse.
Move-in day was the last week of August, so it’s been almost two months.
She hasn’t remained in stasis, she’s one of the most changed characters in the comic. She just hasn’t had a reason to change this specific behaviour.
Also, it’s only been a month and a half. She isn’t going to rewrite eighteen years worth of personality before midterms.
Every character in this comic is practically in stasis just because of how glacial the pacing is. Like, in pretty much any other coming of age story the protagonist would not still be displaying the same major flaw after nearly a decade of writing.
especially since we’ve been stuck in this Specific Arc for Joyce for about two actual real world years, with even very large major plot threads like the thing with Jacob that very well could have at least pushed her a to confronting that change, and then it just. Not doing that.
Joyce isn’t the central character, she only thinks she is. The real central character is Mike.
The real central character is Fuckface.
I stand corrected.
I mean, she managed to read slash-fic. Thats progress, kinda?
LITERATURE.
joyce learn to read the room (and smut)
Something you would never have to say to Mike.
Joyce has recognized smut to be literature. She has learned to read smut.
That’s one out of two. Not so bad, right?
For batting, that’s good.
For general life skills, that’s bad.
Especially if the one she got is smut-reading and the one she missed is room-reading.
Joyce gtfo, seriously the way this girl makes me swing from amused to insanely irritated is unreal.
For real…
Like a piece of sickly sweet taffy stuck between your teeth…
I would like to state for the record that I am not, nor have I previously been, stuck between any combination of teeth in the mouth of any known organism.
The court recognizes your testimony and has been added to the record.
I think the discussion was about your sister, Sickly Sweet, not you.
Same here.
Then imagine how Sarah feels…
Anyway uh…..So how is this going to get resolved this time, is Amber going to mention this to Sal and then Sal is going to kick Walkys door this time and tell him to stop being stupid and make up with his girlfriend?
I really hope not. Amber needs to actually face some consequencesl
Yes, how dare she not face the consequences of an action she was snapped and took when she was barely a teen. Heavens knows there haven’t been any consequences to her mental health.
Where did that extra was come from?
The extra ‘was’ might be accidental but some truth; her snapping wasn’t all on her. In some respects it was something that happened to her.
You mean like being forced to fight through PTSD complicated by dissociative disorder in order to talk it through with her victim like mature kinda-adults and mutually comping up with a rational prospective coping mechanism to try out? Because that’s a sensible consequence to have to be forced to face.
A romantic interest is not some prize to be awarded for good behavior or confiscated for bad behavior, and doubly not when he is also part of the support network that’s helping her grow out of the bad behavior in the first place. If Walky leaves over this it’s because he isn’t going to love someone who hurt his sister, REGARDLESS of whether Amber deserves to have bad stuff happen to her.
Actually, I think that Sal will be a bit touched by Walky’s loyalty to her. She hasn’t had much of Walky taking her side in her life and the times he has recently have made her feel better.
…. and then she’ll tell him that she’s made peace with Amber and to go ahead and do whatever with her if that’s what he wants for himself.
Or…
“If y’all ain’t gonna date’r, then I be plan’n ter step out wit ‘er.” Or how ever the mangling of the language goes.
Maybe Joyce didn’t hear you.
Say it again.
Look her straight in the eyes.
Make your voice loud and monotone.
Hold up a picture of Jacob.
My best guess is Joyce’s brain is still 90% focused on the smut and the remaining 10% is having trouble processing beyond “Yay offline shipping!”
Sometimes I feel like Joyce really needs a smack upside the head.
I dunno, I really like this moment. Even though Amber and Walky are garbage, Joyce’s point IS valid. They like each other, so despite grade-tampering and sister-stabbing, maybe they can make it work. Or maybe they won’t. Amber tends to beat herself up over the damage she causes (some of it deservedly so) and occasionally needs a reminder that she can have a positive effect on people’s lives.
My problem is Joyce’s relentless shipping of people irrespective of their own personal feelings.
but they literally have feelings for each other
Yeah but that was just fortunate this time. She can’t always be lucky in her shipping turning out to be true.
She can, because she’s fictional.
She already failed trying to ship Walky and Billie.
Except this isn’t really shipping in the normal sense. This started with her realizing Walky was interested in Amber and trying to help out.
It was based on her reading his personal feelings correctly, not just deciding that two random people belonged together.
Unlike some of her previous shipping statements, but with those she didn’t really do anything.
Mind you, her tactics for getting them together were horrible
Considering she stated herself that fobbing Walky off on Amber would get him off Dorothy’s case, she’s hardly doing this out of altruiusm.
Fair, though I think it’s clear from her giddiness here that wasn’t her only motivation.
Nor would that be shipping in the usual sense either.
You know what they say, always look on the bright side of life!
For life is quite absurd
And death’s the final word
You must always face the curtain with a bow
Forget about your sin
Give the audience a grin
Enjoy it – it’s your last chance anyhow
*whistles cheerily*
Now I just need Joyce, Walky and Amber tied to crosses and whistling.
Hey maybe if Amber wants Walky back maybe she can boombox the “Your eyes” outside his dorm window.
Um.
She’d need to actually find a boombox first.
I wonder what the present-day equivalent to that boombox scene would be.
The tinny sound of a smartphone speaker shrieking its heart out, or maybe one of those little portable speakers.
Side note: a cassette adapter in a boom box makes a better speaker than just about any Bluetooth speaker or dock I’ve ever heard.
I’m Amber from her last panel on THIS specific strip on my low days, and Joyce on my high ones.
Like, her last panel
Joyce, ohmygod cute.
That said, I’m… decently optimistic. Amber tends to fear the worst, but guessing Walky needs to think, maybe talk to Sal as well.
I am reminded of Duo Maxwell on the topic of Quatre Raberba Winner.
“Oh man, Quatre loves to blame himself for everything if you let him. Sooner or later, he’ll start saying that it’s because of his lack of effort that there’s no air in space.”
I wouldn’t be so sure. The storyline title suggests that lots of things will go wrong, and it will end 15 strips after Valentine’s Day, so it’s likely the climactic scene involves some form of heartbreak. Although I hope that Sal will chat with Walky about Amber, and I’m not sure where that will go. Maybe Sal will ask that he stays with her to keep her from her AG shenanigans, or maybe Sal will warn him that she’s dangerous.
Wait…not tag for Windblade?!
I’ve been wondering when someone would notice the Transformer in the room…
If it were anyone but Joyce, the face in the last panel would be the second most punchable face in the series. The current leader is Faz’s normal face.
Joyce’s naive romanticism is going to be her doom one of these days.
It’s already burned her a few times before. The whole train wreck that was her “romance” with Ethan, the one-sided feelings from her best friend from childhood, and everything with that whole incident with a pastor’s son…
But she hasn’t touched rock bottom yet. She will keep repeating this mistake over and over until she realizes love isn’t a magical predestined thing, but something you make with other person over time and with patience and kindness, and that love and lust are two separate yet related things.
And that last panel is the “why” the “Dope Slap” exists.
Just give her a few minutes Amber, she’s locked in Shipper Mode, all she’s gonna see are hearts and shoujo bubbles for now. She’ll come back to reality in a bit, so just let her dream till then. Just geeeently poke her with a broom handle out the door…
Okay, Joyce being so blissfully ignorant and in her own world without regards for what other people actually feel… it’s not endearing.
She’s blissfully ignorant in part because they WANTED it that way.
Right now she’s simply not perceptive enough / paying enough attention to realize something is wrong, certainly not right away
She’s not perceptive enough to listen to the words that are being spoken directly to her at this very moment? I think the term you’re looking for is “She’s very self-absorbed and is more interested in her own preconceptions and fantasies than in real people’s feelings.”
She wants her ship to sail. This is hardly unusual behaviour, and I’m pretty sure that Amber the fanfic writer will have a lot of sympathy for that.
But sure, it’s annoying when people don’t listen.
Don’t ship real people.
Well, technically …
I knew this comment was coming and I knew it would come from you.
Thank you for thinking of me.
What does “don’t ship real people” even mean?
Is it really completely unacceptable to think two friends would make a good couple?
it means Don’t Do What Joyce Is Doing Right Now dude this isn’t a hard leap. There’s thinking two friends would make for a good couple and finding their relationship adorable and even playing matchmaker a lil, and then there’s obsessively organizing every member of your even tangentially defined social circle into a sort of predestined flow chart, ignoring what’s actually happening around you in favor of your own narrative.
Like I struggle with not letting my OCD turn me into a control freak and affecting the people around me and even I’ve never stooped to that level.
Except what Joyce is doing right now is the first. She didn’t even conceive of this until she saw Walky’s interest.
She’s talked about shipping people before, but I don’t think she’s acted on any of it without some sign they were interested.
Yes it can be quite annoying , talking from experience
Joyce should really have listened to Amber’s last line in the strip. That’s the kind of wisdom she needs to hear and understand.
and this is one of the times I wanna punch Joyce in the face
Squeeee! Indeed. So high on endorphens? or que-sera-sera-tonens? One of them brainy chemicals.
Another successful case for Joyce Brown: Lesbian Lovesleuth
(“Lesbian” only modifies “love” in that descriptor.)
This has been Joyce Brown: Lesbian Love Sleuth in: The Case of the Goofball, the Dark Secret, and the Very Good Literature
(fans of the series would go on to complain that this one contained a minimal amount of lesbians, but it would still sell fairly well overall)
For her biggest fan, that is a constant complaint.
Also way to forget about your initial goal of finding out whether or not math class was canceled.
But this was much more important: It was löööööööööve
I like your use of umlauts.
Umlauts are cool.
I’m a Swede, I’m allowed
Fun fact – the metal band TROJA once made a band T-shirt, and added an umlaut to be cool. Sadly, no one seemed to have told them that TRÖJA is a word for “T-shirt” in Swedish…
So, not really a band t-shirt as much as a labelled t-shirt?
Yup.
An EPICALLY labelled t-shirt, but a labelled t-shirt no less
https://tshirtslayer.com/files-tshirt/styles/shirtview/public/user-21302/82867553b9b75878be605278221e33b4.jpg
hah!
As the poet says, “But sometimes you find if you try you get what you need”.
this whole reveal would have been much Aye Emm Oh better if it had started by walky seeing amber and sal doing roller derby and deciding he had been dumped for his sister.
Joyce is gonna go out and find herself some more, um, “Literature”
Sooo… where is Mike who’ll tell Joyce that the two have been making out since before Joyce even learnt of their affection for each other?
Waiting outside the door, because he realized that Walky went to find help rather than just stew in a distressed mental state the rest of the day. He can’t have THAT happening.
Joyce, baby, priorities.
k, i’m not gonna judge Joyce ‘cus i have a ship list too (ranked from unlikeliest to “they’re gonna bang any second now”)
walky+amber
mike+ethan
sal+bowtie guy
joyce+joe
DON’T JUDGE ME.
See you in 2 years when that joe/joyce slipshine comes out
Is that one of the Takara Windblades on her desk or just one of the RID ones?
oh joyce….
Joyce, just hush.