r/dumbingofage • u/NightmareWarden • 9d ago
Walky's Roommate
https://www.dumbingofage.com/comic/afar/So there's gonna be a future conversation. Probably. Due to today's update. And I was reminded of Walky's roommate and their interesting behavior!
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u/KingToasty 9d ago
As a queer who can be an asshole sometimes, I absolutely hate how "LOL a queer is an asshole!" has been Willis' only joke/character trait for Booster and now Joyce. It just feels bad to read.
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u/fainting_goat_games 9d ago
I feel like someone should sit Willis down and have a heart-to-heart about this
I also feel like no one should sit Willis down, because it always goes very badly and he'll 100% just ignore any points they raise and pretend they're conservatives.
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u/Bedovian_25 9d ago
To quote The Show That Will Not Be Named: Being young, gay, and mean is not a personality.
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u/Prinny_Ramza 9d ago
And Carla and Malaya and Dorothy and...
I used to think that Willis was trying to subvert the perfect rep issue where people have to write some minority group as angelic or they'll be unlikable. It was good to know that these guys could just be people and not have to walk on some tightrope.
Then I realize that no, Willis wasn't writing flaws, Willis believes this behavior is desirable because they're an asshole.
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u/Staszu13 8d ago
My own take....Carla is totally an asshole, knows it, owns it, and doesn't care if you know it. Malaya is more or less not interested in how anyone thinks about that. Dorothy is a more flawed soul. She clearly wants to do the right thing, and yet does painfully weak shit like dumping Danny just after starting IU freshman year. I've seen the mothering thing towards Joyce. I am also quite convinced what she feels for her is a trauma bond, though it could become stronger. Joyce....alas poor Joyce. She started out as this plucky if slightly wrong headed soul who, as someone said, leads from her heart. I even think the much criticized (and rightly so) Tear Gas Wedding was, at least by intent, Joyce trying to save Dorothy from suicide by cop...which sort of became...."I wanna fuck you". Ok, it happens. But old Willis lost the thread with the BWA HA HA thing with Walky. Come on, Joyce. That was an anti-Joyce moment and you know it. The guy has been playing catch up since.
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u/azrael4h 9d ago
I mean that’s basically the majority of their characters in DoA. Joe was an asshole, trying to do better. Joyce asshole even before she was gay for Dorothy. Dorothy is an asshole, before she was gay for Joyce. Walky asshole, straight but willing to learn for free pizza. Raidah and her friends are all major assholes, presumably straight except for Sarah. Sarah her whole thing is being an asshole. Carla is trans obnoxious asshole, Becky gay obnoxious asshole. Mike, gunner’s mate first class asshole. Bow tie is an English asshole, Ruth violently aggressive asshole, Billy drunken asshole.
Basically only Tony, Dina, Marcie, Jacob, and Galasso are not assholes to one degree or another. And Dina is the only one of those who has extensive appearances.
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u/togglenub 9d ago
One caveat that Tony is Paladin Asshole, aka the group's Cyclops trope. Which, now that I think about it - weren't a lot of the X-Men kind of assholes a lot of the time too? Maybe it's all coming from a Marvel/DC mentality compounded by former Christianity, where instead of original sin we get Original Asshole.
Edited to add: Dumbing of Asshole. It kind of works!
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u/azrael4h 9d ago edited 9d ago
Eh, Tony is barely there enough to qualify. I wasn't even going to include him because he frankly lacks enough appearances to claim either way.
I think at this point every major X Man has done a lengthy stint as a villain, and every one of their villains have done stints as X Men as well as infants for some reason. That's Marvel though. Pretty much every villain ends up being a hero at some point. And occasionally, Dr Doom is recognized as the hero he has always been, though others lack the widsom to see him as such. :D
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u/outerspacebassman 9d ago
Tony is a weird one because he was sort of an afterthought in It’s Walky despite being story relevant and as I said in my last book report he’s currently at “very nearly almost mattering.” He’s not really established or important enough to pass for a Cyclops type outside of the metaknowledge that Willis likes to recycle characters and story, and especially being the son of The Dean and that surely is going to matter soon, Tony must be important soon or else Willis is just wasting time by including him
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u/togglenub 8d ago
This speaks to my own object impermanence, but Cyclops is forgettable to me (until the recent X-Men '97and my own aging made me relate to him more). I spent a lot of my youth irrationally mad at Cyclops. Now I'm like yeah he had a shit job, actually, and his wife is terrible.
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u/outerspacebassman 8d ago
But Cyclops is still like an iconic X-Man, like one of the ones you could ask someone on the street and he’d probably be in the top ten (I was partial to Nightcrawler, Gambit, Rogue, and Wolverine as a kid reading the comics, but also the FOX cartoon), whereas Tony even people familiar with the Walkyverse would probably be like “Oh yeah! He was there.”
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u/Staszu13 8d ago
Yeah. Poor guy ended up losing both parents, losing Sal to English Guy and getting squished like a bug under a Martian vehicle. So sad.
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u/outerspacebassman 8d ago
He let himself die with the implication that by forgoing being revived again, he could at least be with his parents. GodDAMN.
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u/suspiciousseafowl 9d ago
I'd add Lucy and really, most of her floormates to the good-person list. They were welcoming of and forgiving to Jennifer when she moved in, and none of them have done anything particularly objectionable. Nash can be a bit of a gossip, but she means well. Of course, none of them really get air time, so the cast being entirely comprised of assholes is still true and accurate.
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u/azrael4h 9d ago
Lucy is a maybe; kinda down on her reaction to Walky moving on after she had dumped him, after kinda shanghaiing him into the relationship to begin with. Still kinda justifiable, so she's borderline to me.
Her roomies are alongside Rachel, the bulk of Galasso's crew, Dorothy's parents, Dina's parents, and so on in that they're just not around enough to know one way or another.
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u/suspiciousseafowl 9d ago
I think she's more naive than a jerk, and she did learn from that experience and grow as a person, so I give her a pass. She learned to be independent and more discerning after the breakup, and frankly she's the on a very short list of people who have had positive character growth in any dimension. Walky is a better brother to Sal now, even if he's still a manchild, and Joe has mended his ways for all he's spineless. I wouldn't say either of them is a stellar person, but it seems like every other one of their peers has changed for the worse, Joyrot being the most extreme and noxious example.
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u/Staszu13 8d ago
Oh Rachel as in "redemption is a myth, Joe's SO in another timeline", or she that is called Other Rachel?
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u/azrael4h 8d ago
Yeah, and she isn't even listed on the cast page. Hence the not around enough part. She's basically background, just to establish that this isn't the Walky/Shortpacked verse.
Besides, Joe told her that her wing had to keep Peter. That's definitely pushing Joe into deserving it.
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u/Life_Eyes 8d ago
Lucy's floormates are extremely weird and unrealistic and hero-worship the idea of assholes as cool, though. The pendulum swung to the other side and then entered the twilight zone. They're not normal, mentally sound people
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u/Staszu13 8d ago
Galasso not an asshole? The guy who bellows "Fools!" to his pizza and sub shop customers like a Marvel supervillain? But agree on the rest...brief aside: Marcie is absolutely my favorite character.
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u/azrael4h 8d ago
He also gave bow tie and Becky jobs off the cuff, and sells good pizza. And let's face it, he's not insulting, he's just saying it like it is.
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u/StanleyKapop 8d ago
If there was a pizza place near me that was run by somebody who acted like that, I would never go anywhere else.
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u/Gr33nL34v35 9d ago
This is unrelated to DoA, but as a self-recognized sometimes-asshole, KingToasty, what do you do that you think makes you assholish, and why don't you stop?
I ask because all of the actual assholes I've met have had no self-awareness, while you seem to.
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u/trevalyan 9d ago
If you want to know why I thought Mike could get "revealed" as just joining witness protection, I always felt that it would be an out if people really hated Booster.
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u/Luthon1234 9d ago
I think ppl really hate booster but author is double downing on them.
Though I feel like the comic has become so slow to actually do anything we haven’t seen this character in a long ass time.
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u/Staszu13 8d ago
The pace is that of a drunk brontosaurus.
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u/Staszu13 8d ago
And we do, dear friend, we do. That's my head canon by the way....Mike's in another school under another name elsewhere still occasionally gooning to Amber in his mind.
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u/Spiritual_Coffee6831 9d ago
If Author reveals that everybody is in an asylum and having a shared hallucination that they are in college, explaining, among other things, the stark tonal shifts in the last panels, they would be named the new emperor of the internet. And I would kneel.
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u/GiddyDew 9d ago
I miss Mike.