bruh that bullshit she gave Dina sounded like it came from of a frickin fortune machine card,
she’s either really full of herself or really THAT stupid 9-9
lilith
i think she is someone who has lived her whole life idolizing heroes and believing that the right words can save the day and is actively going through waves of guilt and identity crises
nadamás
I don’t really think it was that bad.
Armadillo
I both agree and disagree. Joyce’s speech was absolute trash, but I think the thing about it that pisses me off the most is that I can picture people seeing it, following it, and convincing themselves that they’ve done the right thing instead of something that cheapens their future relationships and leads them to treat the people around them like garbage for the sake of their own short-term gratification.
Thankfully I think Dina’s expression following that conversation seems to be implying that she saw through the bullshit. Dina is a smart girl, probably smart enough to know that she shouldn’t entertain the idea of getting back with Becky for so much as a minute unless Becky has done some serious work on herself. Right now she seems like the most likely candidate for giving Joyce a reality check she won’t be able to just brush off.
nadamás
I don’t think it was THAT bad either.
Lys
I thought it was a great speech. Dina should forget about whether her relationship with Becky has the right structure, and focus instead on the fact that she wants her Becky and that the Becky is right there for the taking.
Daibhid C
Maybe she’s a poorly-socialised autie who’s never really had the opportunity to realise how bad she is at communicating? I mean, I’m just guessing here, as a poorly-socialised autie who did quickly realise how bad he was at communicating, and still keeps attempting it.
Needfuldoer
She didn’t even remember to insert a dinosaur fun fact!
/s
(But yeah, that advice was awful.)
Bajja
She is AUTISTIC!!!!
Azhrei Vep
Ah, but you see, impassioned has nothing to do with the originality or the quality of one’s speech. Only the fervor with which it’s delivered. I think that qualified. If she hadn’t started tripping over herself, I’d have given her about three more lines before Joyce started frothing at the mouth.
Dandi Andi
Never fails. The strips that I love the most are always the ones where the comment section will make me feel the worst. And today I didn’t have to read more than three comments for it. The 18 year old, home schooled autistic girl is so fucking stupid because she didn’t articulate herself as well as you’d have liked.
Yotomoe
I mean I’d be more lenient about that stuff if Joyce want a fictional character. She doesnt speak. She has written dialogue. Its not criticizing a girl doing her best giving a student body address. Its questioning the intentions of a writer through which all these ideas are presented.
Dandi Andi
@Yotomoe
.
Try to understand fiction just a little. Yes, Willis is writing this, but they are writing from the perspective of an 18 year old autistic home schooled girl. At least some of us find a great deal of verisimilitude in that depiction. I’m an asking; no, begging; for you to practice a modicum of empathy and understand that you cannot call Joyce stupid without also calling us stupid who relate to her.
Yotomoe
I mean I think Joyce’s speech to Dina was presumptuous, condescending and missed the forest for the trees. She more or less asked Dina to date Becky because she wants Dina to just forgive Becky for almost overtly placing her love for Joyce above her. And it is impossible at this juncture to know if joyce is meant to be wrong or if her writer believes that this is actually a good speech. I think its a bad speech. I wouldn’t go so far as to call Joyce stupid but I understand the frustration with her behavior as of late.
Yotomoe
Also i will go on to say that I relate a TON to walky. As a black boy who loves cartoon and video games who has had his perceived masculinity called into question as well as difficulties in feeling a sense of community with other African americans and often hides his true feelings through a paper thin veneer of jokes and gags….I relate a lot to him
Sometimes hes stupid. Sometimes I am stupid. And somwtimes he does something a lot of people think is stupid that I disagree with.
Dandi Andi
@Yotomoe
Sure. Fine. Was any of that what NGPZ said? Or did NGPZ say “that bullshit she gave Dina sounded like it came from of a frickin fortune machine card,
she’s either really full of herself or really THAT stupid”? Because that’s what I had an issue with and what I was replying to.
NGPZ
to those of you here preaching to “practice empathy towards autistic women”… bruh I’M an autistic barely white-passing woman of color, and so is Dina,
you can have empathy for autistic folk and still recognize that Joyce had no place to lecture Dina about something that was really not her business, especially given it’s Dina’s first breakup and just about the worst day of her life
… ya know what fuck it, that’s all I’m gonna say, I’m done with this conversation, smh
Dandi Andi
@NGPZ
Well as long as it doesn’t bother you, that’s all that matters. Fuck everybody else.
That seems like one of those questions with several hotly debated answers and various hard lines drawn in the proverbial sand. As someone who’s probably not a lesbian or in a position to have wlw sex regardless, I’m going to go with “Only if you’re both men.” as a joke answer.
I want this to blow up in Joyce’s face to prove a point,
like she off and have the nerve to lecture a POC about relationship advice after having cheated herself, like wat even the heck
I don’t get how Dina being poc have anything to do with this???
NGPZ
it just seems to me that the whole deal of Joyce thinkin she can “fix them together again” just condescending as hell to Dina and reeks of savior syndrome honestly
nadamás
I mean i don’t think Joyce is being condescending as much as kind of naive. I don’t personally think race is a factor in this particular scenario.
Psychie
Joyce trying to fix them together again isn’t about a savior complex, it’s about her blaming herself for people she cares about being hurt and wanting to do something about it.
And frankly, I actually completely agree with the reasoning she gave Dina back in January. Becky had a perfectly understandable emotional reaction to what little remains of her worldview shattered in an incredibly painful way, and Dina took all the wrong messages away from that. If Dina is happier with Becky than without, and Becky is happier with Dina than without, and they both want that, the only reason not to even try to sort out the emotional mess and fix things is sheer cowardice and/or laziness. People are far too ready to bail when things get messy, and they don’t even bother trying to communicate, and that’s what happened here, Becky miscommunicated while in a bad emotional state and Dina bailed, Joyce is just advocating that they actually TRY to figure out whether they can still make things work. The situation is not unsalvageable, it just requires a genuine effort to actually communicate and sort out the mess from both parties.
And as the one who is ultimately responsible for the mess in the first place, it is entirely reasonable for Joyce to attempt to be the impetus of it being cleaned up just as she was the impetus of it being created. Trying to clean up your own mess isn’t condescending and it definitely isn’t racist. You know what is, though? Saying Joyce’s points are invalid or that she doesn’t have a right to make them just because she’s white. That is an absurd position to take in this situation and says a heck of a lot more about you and your own attitude and biases than any of the characters involved.
embe13
well said psychie! one of my greatest pet peeves with writing relationships, is the frequency that issues that can should and would be solve with 10 minutes of genuine conversation are presented as apocalyptic unavoidable/insolvable issues (especially when the characters have otherwise been presented with the faculties to understand this fact, these characters are 18-19 year old teenagers so most of them arent going to have the awareness of this so it works)
Yotomoe
What makes it feel like a “Savior Complex” is more vibes. Dina left Becky because Becky implicitly and later explicitly still has a torch for Joyce that makes Dina feel undervalued. And yet nobody validates her feelings, or comiserates with her feelings or even denies how true it is. Their advice is just “Yeah but you should date Becky anyway cuz dating her makes you happy.” without addressing any of the issues she’s facing. Dina being a POC in this scenario is moreso a writing issue sometimes feels louder at times. Once Dina started dating Becky she just sorta became “Becky’s girlfriend”. She very rarely got to do things or have agency or storylines that didn’t directly involve Becky. She just sorta felt like Becky’s plus one. Dina deciding she deserves to be treated better is one of the most significant amounts of narrative agency she’s shown in quite a while and the characters are trying to pull her back into her previous role. It can hit a pretty sour note, especially given the common stereotypes of Asian women’s portrayal.
StClair
I think some of ya are overcomplicating this. Joyce isn’t the one with the savior (or “fixer”) complex – if anything, that’s Dorothy. Joyce is just doing the autism thing (so, speaking from experience here) where something has *changed* in a way she doesn’t like and she wants it to go back to the way it was so it doesn’t bother her. (Though in this case she probably does feel some responsibility to make that happen, since she was the proximate cause of it.)
Psychie
Dina displays agency all the time, though? She asks questions, she takes decisive action, etc. It’s been awhile since I’ve done an archive binge but I’m pretty sure she’s a lot more talkative than she was before she got together with Becky, so by virtue of expressing herself more and making her opinions and observations known she has more agency than when she was just the quiet girl who really likes dinosaurs, because IIRC those were basically the only two personality traits we really had from her because she didn’t get much narrative focus and even when she was on-panel she didn’t talk very much.
And even when she’s with Becky, while she is a much more developed character now, she’s still much quieter than Becky, because we took the character for whom “quiet” is a defining character trait, and the character for whom “loud” is a defining character trait, and put them together. So, yeah, it can be easy for her to feel like “Becky’s plus one” but only if you aren’t actually paying attention to her.
Also, like, if I had a girlfriend, especially one living in the same building as me, I’d spend every waking moment that I possibly could with her unless she specifically wanted or needed space from me. Dina is a very introverted character, she doesn’t tend to socialize much, so she doesn’t do much outside of her room or classes without Becky, and both of them seemed pretty content to just be together as much as possible. I don’t see how that’s taking away from Dina’s agency or a writing issue, because I’ve known tons of couples like that IRL, and as mentioned, that’s part of my ideal for a relationship. So, like, heaven forbid two characters in a relationship want to spend time with their significant others. Guess only the loud one is considered to have a personality or agency.
As for “nobody is addressing her emotions” with regard to her feeling undervalued in the relationship, the only way that CAN be addressed is if she actually TALKS about it to somebody. Yeah, Joyce kinda skipped over addressing the problem directly to proposing a solution, but, like, their entire conversation was like 6-8 panels over two strips, there was a LOT wrong about how she went about dealing with that, I’m not saying she handled it perfectly with no notes, I’m saying the advice she gave is genuinely good and applicable, even if missing a lot of other important stuff, and was clearly coming from a place of trying to fix something she perceives as being her fault, not some vaguely racist “savior complex” BS. Joyce would behave exactly the same way if Dina were white or black or any other race, because Dina’s race doesn’t even remotely factor into Joyce’s motivations or reasoning here.
The point is that Becky made Dina happy when they were together, I don’t think it’s accurate that Becky was still holding the torch for Joyce (it’s one thing to have your heart broken because your lifelong, so far, crush has an incompatible sexuality, it is another thing entirely to learn they actually didn’t, they just didn’t find YOU attractive, you don’t need to still be holding a torch for that to be a massive emotional gut punch, that hurts regardless, and given the context, it makes sense it might cause a lot of regression in Becky’s growth), and even if she was, that doesn’t mean Dina is coming second or is being undervalued. Sure, maybe they can’t work it out, maybe they stay broken up forever, but giving up entirely after one blow out in a really crummy situation for everybody involved is just stupid and childish. I’m not saying Dina needs to immediately forgive Becky and take her back, I’m saying they need to frikkin TALK ABOUT IT when the emotions aren’t so immediate and raw. They’ve had time to process and consider, and they aren’t in the heat of the moment, so odds are both of them would do a much better job of articulating what they are actually feeling, what they actually want, and importantly be in a position to actually LISTEN to the other. You know, actually engage in healthy conflict resolution like adults?
And y’all keep bringing up Dina’s ethnicity, but are we sure DINA cares that she’s Asian? Like, not every non-white person makes being non-white a big part of their personality, some people are content to just be unless and until somebody makes it an issue, I don’t think race is even really on Dina’s radar because being othered for her autism and her interests and being quiet and all that is a way more prevalent part of her daily life, plus I sincerely doubt she feels any more accepted by other Asians than she does anybody else, so why would she feel a sense of community with them? Consider the possibility that you might be projecting your own issues onto this by making it about race when that was literally never a factor in the situation, please. Saying it’s “vibes” is just saying you are basing this entirely off of your own feelings and have absolutely no evidence to support the claim. Awfully convenient to just say people are racist based on “vibes” and not have to worry about needing evidence to be right. Must be nice to be the ultimate arbiter of reality and not need to justify or explain yourself or demonstrate anything to back up your claims.
What colour is Dina? Well, perhaps ethnicity, since skin colour is a few gene loci at most? Isn’t her most noticeable feature of difference neurodivergence (basically intelligence!) which might be a better reason not to ‘lecture’, if that’s what Joyce did, for fear of being condescending.
I guess in real life, one might ask rather than tell!
drs
She has Japanese family names in both universes, though different ones.
I feel like that whole outed on the front page of the paper thing is effectively meaningless. No one but her closest friends even recognize her or Dorothy.
Plus the fact that Joyce and Dorothy had absolutely no say in being outed that way, and I really wish people, especially those close to them like Becky, would stop acting like that was a choice they made and not something that happened TO them.
True that they had no choice, but it’s not like they were going to hide it after the kiss happened. (Though they might have stalled longer because they’re bad at telling people, which almost certainly have had worse consequences.)
Becky, on the other hand, for all her “I’m a lesbian” bravado, was directly outed by her school to her abusive father who kidnapped her for it.
To me, the bigger fact is that virtually all of the friend circle already knew. The only person Joyce wasn’t out to was herself, and I suppose her dad. Can you be closeted if the closet walls are transparent, and there’s a big neon sign overhead reading, “Gay for Dorothy”?
PREDICTION: Joyce will go to Joe to kiss him and just test that she’s only partially gay. The kiss will get intense and lead to sex.
Joyce will feel guilty.
Joe will be horrified that she hasn’t told Dorothy yet about the polyamory pitch and that he’s a cheater.
Does Joe even have seven exes? I feel like his former fuck boy persona was highly exaggerated. We know he’s had sex with like 3 women and so has Danny, Walky is also closing in on those numbers. I wouldn’t label either of them as fuck boys. I’m not even sure who the most sexually experienced member of the group is. Possibly Roz by reputation but that’s all any of this really is. Reputation.
Cbwroses
If we’re talking main characters, I think the highest confirmed is Dorothy with 4, the unnamed person she was with before Danny, Danny, Walky, and now Joyce.
Then there are several confirmed to have 3 lovers: Sal, Danny, Joe (3.5 to 4 depending on how you view his experiences with Joyce), and Jennifer.
Then Amber, Walky, and Ruth are confirmed to have 2 lovers, with the rest having only 1 or are unconfirmed.
Ethan, who I consider to be main character adjacent, seems to have been with 4 guys, I think, as he was with Mike, then I think he got with Finger Guns, then the guy with the prosthetic arm, and then Asher.
And of course, we have Sierra’s polycule in the background.
Sirksome
So seven evil exes is pretty unachievable so far. Just confirmation to me this friend group has not been nearly messy enough for my tastes. If we’re ever gonna have an Avengers style Civil War they need to increase these numbers instead of wasting time I don’t know what they’re even really doing, studying?
Nono
Roz, Penny, Malaya, Joyce as far as confirmed people he’s had sex with.
That said I can believe he’s had more when Danny’s been sexiled about to have a regular couch for it.
Thag Simmons
Also Seven Evil Exes implies relationships a degree more long term than one night stands. Can’t really see Malaya committing herself to bloody vengeance over some guy whose name they’ve probably forgotten
clif
She’d do it in order not to be fakey.
drs
> Roz, Penny, Malaya, Joyce as far as confirmed people he’s had sex with.
And it seems very unlikely that Roz was his first time, or that he had no sex in high school.
Amós Batista
No problem if he have more than 3 exes. Right?
eh, whatever
Joe does not have any exes except, disputably, Joyce. He’s had lots of sex, but Joyce was/is his first relationship.
140 thoughts on “Think about it”
NGPZ
“impassioned speech”? the cringe is just wafting off of her
Thag Simmons
I do think “Impassioned” is a fair adjective to use
Very easy to do something passionately and still not do it very good.
NGPZ
bruh that bullshit she gave Dina sounded like it came from of a frickin fortune machine card,
she’s either really full of herself or really THAT stupid 9-9
lilith
i think she is someone who has lived her whole life idolizing heroes and believing that the right words can save the day and is actively going through waves of guilt and identity crises
nadamás
I don’t really think it was that bad.
Armadillo
I both agree and disagree. Joyce’s speech was absolute trash, but I think the thing about it that pisses me off the most is that I can picture people seeing it, following it, and convincing themselves that they’ve done the right thing instead of something that cheapens their future relationships and leads them to treat the people around them like garbage for the sake of their own short-term gratification.
Thankfully I think Dina’s expression following that conversation seems to be implying that she saw through the bullshit. Dina is a smart girl, probably smart enough to know that she shouldn’t entertain the idea of getting back with Becky for so much as a minute unless Becky has done some serious work on herself. Right now she seems like the most likely candidate for giving Joyce a reality check she won’t be able to just brush off.
nadamás
I don’t think it was THAT bad either.
Lys
I thought it was a great speech. Dina should forget about whether her relationship with Becky has the right structure, and focus instead on the fact that she wants her Becky and that the Becky is right there for the taking.
Daibhid C
Maybe she’s a poorly-socialised autie who’s never really had the opportunity to realise how bad she is at communicating? I mean, I’m just guessing here, as a poorly-socialised autie who did quickly realise how bad he was at communicating, and still keeps attempting it.
Needfuldoer
She didn’t even remember to insert a dinosaur fun fact!
/s
(But yeah, that advice was awful.)
Bajja
She is AUTISTIC!!!!
Azhrei Vep
Ah, but you see, impassioned has nothing to do with the originality or the quality of one’s speech. Only the fervor with which it’s delivered. I think that qualified. If she hadn’t started tripping over herself, I’d have given her about three more lines before Joyce started frothing at the mouth.
Dandi Andi
Never fails. The strips that I love the most are always the ones where the comment section will make me feel the worst. And today I didn’t have to read more than three comments for it. The 18 year old, home schooled autistic girl is so fucking stupid because she didn’t articulate herself as well as you’d have liked.
Yotomoe
I mean I’d be more lenient about that stuff if Joyce want a fictional character. She doesnt speak. She has written dialogue. Its not criticizing a girl doing her best giving a student body address. Its questioning the intentions of a writer through which all these ideas are presented.
Dandi Andi
@Yotomoe
.
Try to understand fiction just a little. Yes, Willis is writing this, but they are writing from the perspective of an 18 year old autistic home schooled girl. At least some of us find a great deal of verisimilitude in that depiction. I’m an asking; no, begging; for you to practice a modicum of empathy and understand that you cannot call Joyce stupid without also calling us stupid who relate to her.
Yotomoe
I mean I think Joyce’s speech to Dina was presumptuous, condescending and missed the forest for the trees. She more or less asked Dina to date Becky because she wants Dina to just forgive Becky for almost overtly placing her love for Joyce above her. And it is impossible at this juncture to know if joyce is meant to be wrong or if her writer believes that this is actually a good speech. I think its a bad speech. I wouldn’t go so far as to call Joyce stupid but I understand the frustration with her behavior as of late.
Yotomoe
Also i will go on to say that I relate a TON to walky. As a black boy who loves cartoon and video games who has had his perceived masculinity called into question as well as difficulties in feeling a sense of community with other African americans and often hides his true feelings through a paper thin veneer of jokes and gags….I relate a lot to him
Sometimes hes stupid. Sometimes I am stupid. And somwtimes he does something a lot of people think is stupid that I disagree with.
Dandi Andi
@Yotomoe
Sure. Fine. Was any of that what NGPZ said? Or did NGPZ say “that bullshit she gave Dina sounded like it came from of a frickin fortune machine card,
she’s either really full of herself or really THAT stupid”? Because that’s what I had an issue with and what I was replying to.
NGPZ
to those of you here preaching to “practice empathy towards autistic women”…
bruh I’M an autistic barely white-passing woman of color, and so is Dina,
you can have empathy for autistic folk and still recognize that Joyce had no place to lecture Dina about something that was really not her business, especially given it’s Dina’s first breakup and just about the worst day of her life
… ya know what fuck it, that’s all I’m gonna say, I’m done with this conversation, smh
Dandi Andi
@NGPZ
Well as long as it doesn’t bother you, that’s all that matters. Fuck everybody else.
Rimwalker55
She’s just a graduate of the Bill Shatner school of drama.
clif
I realized after his space flight that he can still chew the scenery.
Taffy
“Well yeah, but only one of us has had lesbian sex.”
clif
If you are both bi, does it count as lesbian sex?
Taffy
That seems like one of those questions with several hotly debated answers and various hard lines drawn in the proverbial sand. As someone who’s probably not a lesbian or in a position to have wlw sex regardless, I’m going to go with “Only if you’re both men.” as a joke answer.
Doctor_Who
Man, the internet and mass media have made everything so impersonal.
No one informs people they are gay via singing telegram anymore.
Cbwroses
🎼 Dada da da Da DA! I – am – your singing telegram! 🔫
SunflowerBanjo
I should re-watch the Clue movie.
Cbwroses
Everyone should ❤️
embe13
hear hear!!
(we need more christopher lloyd)
Amós Batista
The real reason why Becky felt im love with Joyce.
Dot
If Joyce tries taking credit when Becky and Dina get back together I am going to scream
NGPZ
I want this to blow up in Joyce’s face to prove a point,
like she off and have the nerve to lecture a POC about relationship advice after having cheated herself, like wat even the heck
nadamás
I don’t get how Dina being poc have anything to do with this???
NGPZ
it just seems to me that the whole deal of Joyce thinkin she can “fix them together again” just condescending as hell to Dina and reeks of savior syndrome honestly
nadamás
I mean i don’t think Joyce is being condescending as much as kind of naive. I don’t personally think race is a factor in this particular scenario.
Psychie
Joyce trying to fix them together again isn’t about a savior complex, it’s about her blaming herself for people she cares about being hurt and wanting to do something about it.
And frankly, I actually completely agree with the reasoning she gave Dina back in January. Becky had a perfectly understandable emotional reaction to what little remains of her worldview shattered in an incredibly painful way, and Dina took all the wrong messages away from that. If Dina is happier with Becky than without, and Becky is happier with Dina than without, and they both want that, the only reason not to even try to sort out the emotional mess and fix things is sheer cowardice and/or laziness. People are far too ready to bail when things get messy, and they don’t even bother trying to communicate, and that’s what happened here, Becky miscommunicated while in a bad emotional state and Dina bailed, Joyce is just advocating that they actually TRY to figure out whether they can still make things work. The situation is not unsalvageable, it just requires a genuine effort to actually communicate and sort out the mess from both parties.
And as the one who is ultimately responsible for the mess in the first place, it is entirely reasonable for Joyce to attempt to be the impetus of it being cleaned up just as she was the impetus of it being created. Trying to clean up your own mess isn’t condescending and it definitely isn’t racist. You know what is, though? Saying Joyce’s points are invalid or that she doesn’t have a right to make them just because she’s white. That is an absurd position to take in this situation and says a heck of a lot more about you and your own attitude and biases than any of the characters involved.
embe13
well said psychie! one of my greatest pet peeves with writing relationships, is the frequency that issues that can should and would be solve with 10 minutes of genuine conversation are presented as apocalyptic unavoidable/insolvable issues (especially when the characters have otherwise been presented with the faculties to understand this fact, these characters are 18-19 year old teenagers so most of them arent going to have the awareness of this so it works)
Yotomoe
What makes it feel like a “Savior Complex” is more vibes. Dina left Becky because Becky implicitly and later explicitly still has a torch for Joyce that makes Dina feel undervalued. And yet nobody validates her feelings, or comiserates with her feelings or even denies how true it is. Their advice is just “Yeah but you should date Becky anyway cuz dating her makes you happy.” without addressing any of the issues she’s facing. Dina being a POC in this scenario is moreso a writing issue sometimes feels louder at times. Once Dina started dating Becky she just sorta became “Becky’s girlfriend”. She very rarely got to do things or have agency or storylines that didn’t directly involve Becky. She just sorta felt like Becky’s plus one. Dina deciding she deserves to be treated better is one of the most significant amounts of narrative agency she’s shown in quite a while and the characters are trying to pull her back into her previous role. It can hit a pretty sour note, especially given the common stereotypes of Asian women’s portrayal.
StClair
I think some of ya are overcomplicating this. Joyce isn’t the one with the savior (or “fixer”) complex – if anything, that’s Dorothy. Joyce is just doing the autism thing (so, speaking from experience here) where something has *changed* in a way she doesn’t like and she wants it to go back to the way it was so it doesn’t bother her. (Though in this case she probably does feel some responsibility to make that happen, since she was the proximate cause of it.)
Psychie
Dina displays agency all the time, though? She asks questions, she takes decisive action, etc. It’s been awhile since I’ve done an archive binge but I’m pretty sure she’s a lot more talkative than she was before she got together with Becky, so by virtue of expressing herself more and making her opinions and observations known she has more agency than when she was just the quiet girl who really likes dinosaurs, because IIRC those were basically the only two personality traits we really had from her because she didn’t get much narrative focus and even when she was on-panel she didn’t talk very much.
And even when she’s with Becky, while she is a much more developed character now, she’s still much quieter than Becky, because we took the character for whom “quiet” is a defining character trait, and the character for whom “loud” is a defining character trait, and put them together. So, yeah, it can be easy for her to feel like “Becky’s plus one” but only if you aren’t actually paying attention to her.
Also, like, if I had a girlfriend, especially one living in the same building as me, I’d spend every waking moment that I possibly could with her unless she specifically wanted or needed space from me. Dina is a very introverted character, she doesn’t tend to socialize much, so she doesn’t do much outside of her room or classes without Becky, and both of them seemed pretty content to just be together as much as possible. I don’t see how that’s taking away from Dina’s agency or a writing issue, because I’ve known tons of couples like that IRL, and as mentioned, that’s part of my ideal for a relationship. So, like, heaven forbid two characters in a relationship want to spend time with their significant others. Guess only the loud one is considered to have a personality or agency.
As for “nobody is addressing her emotions” with regard to her feeling undervalued in the relationship, the only way that CAN be addressed is if she actually TALKS about it to somebody. Yeah, Joyce kinda skipped over addressing the problem directly to proposing a solution, but, like, their entire conversation was like 6-8 panels over two strips, there was a LOT wrong about how she went about dealing with that, I’m not saying she handled it perfectly with no notes, I’m saying the advice she gave is genuinely good and applicable, even if missing a lot of other important stuff, and was clearly coming from a place of trying to fix something she perceives as being her fault, not some vaguely racist “savior complex” BS. Joyce would behave exactly the same way if Dina were white or black or any other race, because Dina’s race doesn’t even remotely factor into Joyce’s motivations or reasoning here.
The point is that Becky made Dina happy when they were together, I don’t think it’s accurate that Becky was still holding the torch for Joyce (it’s one thing to have your heart broken because your lifelong, so far, crush has an incompatible sexuality, it is another thing entirely to learn they actually didn’t, they just didn’t find YOU attractive, you don’t need to still be holding a torch for that to be a massive emotional gut punch, that hurts regardless, and given the context, it makes sense it might cause a lot of regression in Becky’s growth), and even if she was, that doesn’t mean Dina is coming second or is being undervalued. Sure, maybe they can’t work it out, maybe they stay broken up forever, but giving up entirely after one blow out in a really crummy situation for everybody involved is just stupid and childish. I’m not saying Dina needs to immediately forgive Becky and take her back, I’m saying they need to frikkin TALK ABOUT IT when the emotions aren’t so immediate and raw. They’ve had time to process and consider, and they aren’t in the heat of the moment, so odds are both of them would do a much better job of articulating what they are actually feeling, what they actually want, and importantly be in a position to actually LISTEN to the other. You know, actually engage in healthy conflict resolution like adults?
And y’all keep bringing up Dina’s ethnicity, but are we sure DINA cares that she’s Asian? Like, not every non-white person makes being non-white a big part of their personality, some people are content to just be unless and until somebody makes it an issue, I don’t think race is even really on Dina’s radar because being othered for her autism and her interests and being quiet and all that is a way more prevalent part of her daily life, plus I sincerely doubt she feels any more accepted by other Asians than she does anybody else, so why would she feel a sense of community with them? Consider the possibility that you might be projecting your own issues onto this by making it about race when that was literally never a factor in the situation, please. Saying it’s “vibes” is just saying you are basing this entirely off of your own feelings and have absolutely no evidence to support the claim. Awfully convenient to just say people are racist based on “vibes” and not have to worry about needing evidence to be right. Must be nice to be the ultimate arbiter of reality and not need to justify or explain yourself or demonstrate anything to back up your claims.
Thing 2
What colour is Dina? Well, perhaps ethnicity, since skin colour is a few gene loci at most? Isn’t her most noticeable feature of difference neurodivergence (basically intelligence!) which might be a better reason not to ‘lecture’, if that’s what Joyce did, for fear of being condescending.
I guess in real life, one might ask rather than tell!
drs
She has Japanese family names in both universes, though different ones.
Lumino
IN FRONT OF THE PERSON SHE CHEATED ON.
Pocky
I mean, to be fair that would be funny. Becky gets to remind Joyce how gay she is, and Joyce gets to remind Becky she helped patch up her romance.
Considering Becky was the one who torpedoed the relationship; I think we could let it slide lol
Dot
Joyce didn’t do shit! She barged in on Dina and gave some terrible advice!
Cassie
Yeah like both of you smooch girls and neither of you is normal about Dorothy. Identical tbh.
Sirksome
I feel like that whole outed on the front page of the paper thing is effectively meaningless. No one but her closest friends even recognize her or Dorothy.
tim gueguen
Not to mention there would be people who assume they’re just pretending to be lesbian to taunt the cops, or make their boyfriends happy.
Psychie
Plus the fact that Joyce and Dorothy had absolutely no say in being outed that way, and I really wish people, especially those close to them like Becky, would stop acting like that was a choice they made and not something that happened TO them.
thejeff
True that they had no choice, but it’s not like they were going to hide it after the kiss happened. (Though they might have stalled longer because they’re bad at telling people, which almost certainly have had worse consequences.)
Becky, on the other hand, for all her “I’m a lesbian” bravado, was directly outed by her school to her abusive father who kidnapped her for it.
Freemage
To me, the bigger fact is that virtually all of the friend circle already knew. The only person Joyce wasn’t out to was herself, and I suppose her dad. Can you be closeted if the closet walls are transparent, and there’s a big neon sign overhead reading, “Gay for Dorothy”?
C.T. Phipps
PREDICTION: Joyce will go to Joe to kiss him and just test that she’s only partially gay. The kiss will get intense and lead to sex.
Joyce will feel guilty.
Joe will be horrified that she hasn’t told Dorothy yet about the polyamory pitch and that he’s a cheater.
Taffy
Damn, I can’t believe Joe would cheat on Dorothy like that.
Thing 2
Well by many people’s standards, Joyce has already cheated on Dorothy like that (tho it doesn’t seem to get mentioned) So why not Joe?
clif
Dorothy didn’t consider it cheating and that’s the operative criteria.
Albi
*Dorothy Voice* Aw fuck, I can believe you’ve done this.
clif
“I’ll never trust you again, Joe.”
CT Phipps
FYI – The partially gay is me saying Joyce’s understanding right now is…incomplete.
Not meant to be accurate.
Doctor_Who
At that point Joyce has to fight Joe’s Seven Evil Exes.
Well, six evil exes and Roz, who just wants to film the other fights.
Sirksome
Does Joe even have seven exes? I feel like his former fuck boy persona was highly exaggerated. We know he’s had sex with like 3 women and so has Danny, Walky is also closing in on those numbers. I wouldn’t label either of them as fuck boys. I’m not even sure who the most sexually experienced member of the group is. Possibly Roz by reputation but that’s all any of this really is. Reputation.
Cbwroses
If we’re talking main characters, I think the highest confirmed is Dorothy with 4, the unnamed person she was with before Danny, Danny, Walky, and now Joyce.
Then there are several confirmed to have 3 lovers: Sal, Danny, Joe (3.5 to 4 depending on how you view his experiences with Joyce), and Jennifer.
Then Amber, Walky, and Ruth are confirmed to have 2 lovers, with the rest having only 1 or are unconfirmed.
Ethan, who I consider to be main character adjacent, seems to have been with 4 guys, I think, as he was with Mike, then I think he got with Finger Guns, then the guy with the prosthetic arm, and then Asher.
And of course, we have Sierra’s polycule in the background.
Sirksome
So seven evil exes is pretty unachievable so far. Just confirmation to me this friend group has not been nearly messy enough for my tastes. If we’re ever gonna have an Avengers style Civil War they need to increase these numbers instead of wasting time I don’t know what they’re even really doing, studying?
Nono
Roz, Penny, Malaya, Joyce as far as confirmed people he’s had sex with.
That said I can believe he’s had more when Danny’s been sexiled about to have a regular couch for it.
Thag Simmons
Also Seven Evil Exes implies relationships a degree more long term than one night stands. Can’t really see Malaya committing herself to bloody vengeance over some guy whose name they’ve probably forgotten
clif
She’d do it in order not to be fakey.
drs
> Roz, Penny, Malaya, Joyce as far as confirmed people he’s had sex with.
And it seems very unlikely that Roz was his first time, or that he had no sex in high school.
Amós Batista
No problem if he have more than 3 exes. Right?
eh, whatever
Joe does not have any exes except, disputably, Joyce. He’s had lots of sex, but Joyce was/is his first relationship.
Sirksome
I really hope this exact thing happens. I’ve been super disappointed so far that the Joyothy situation has not yet burned their friend group to ashes.
nadamás
I don’t really get how it would. Unless they get a flamethrower on a couple discount.
Sirksome
That’s the kind of energy that’s been missing! Let Dina have a flamethrower! Sure Joyce and Dorothy can have one too!
ZombieKyrik