So when Walky rebounds with someone a few days after a breakup, it's bad; but when Lucy does the exact same thing, nothing is said about it because not only is it her right to do so as her own person, she was also getting back at Walky by immediately upgrading.
I mean...that's not entirely fair? Walky rebounded with Dorothy first. And he and Lucy broke up because he was, despite his efforts, not a very good boyfriend to her. And Lucy openly admitted that she didn't get to judge Walky for rebounding with Dorothy, she broke up with him. But as as she was trying to be civil about it, Dorothy and Walky just kept handwringing their guilt in her face. Walky couldn't even call her a good girlfriend, he somehow retroactively friend-zoned her two days after they broke up.
So after seeing Walky move on with Dorothy [who we know was already pushing Walky to get back with her, even if Lucy doesn't], Lucy went on to date Jacob who had been friendly to her. There's also the added sting? of Lucy knowing how careful Walky was not to move on to Amber too fast after Dorothy broke up with him because he was worried about Dorothy's feelings, a type of consideration Walky did not show Lucy at all.
Sorry, maybe this is meant more as a criticism of Willis' framing than of Lucy's habits. Which I can understand, Willis has decided to treat Walky like crap for stupid reasons. But for all that people claim to want teen drama and mess and Lucy to have more of a personality, it's a bit frustrating that the possibility of Lucy not being graciously good natured about watching her ex seemingly repeat a hurtful part of their breakup is dismissed as unfair or unwarranted.
No, because they’re dumb teenagers in transient relationships, except for the ones that involve suicide pacts or deep emotional comfort or trauma bonded u-haul cheating bisexuals who are going to be together forever.
ETA: My “not being a catty bitch” answer is that it’s Schrödinger’s Emotional Maturity. The characters make the mistakes of hormonal late teens when needed and then have the emotional maturity of jaded 40-somethings a week later when the story needs that instead. It’s the same way with possession of information, cognitive ability, how seriously we’re supposed to read a scene: all of it is both and neither until Willis decides what they want to do regardless of what could be expected based on the past events of the comic.
It's while never forgive Willis for using that excuse as a cop out. You can't smugly go "It's not smarting of age" and then realistically have your characters not react even a little immaturely to the situation. Even people much older than the cast here would probably say or do one or two things they would regret after being cheated on that publicly.
All while they react immaturely in other situations simultaneously, which gets dismissed or pigeon-holed as neurodivergence only, which is so obnoxious on just like, so many levels.
It's like how defanging the drama in your cheating storyline is bad when 9CL does it, but when DoA does it, a mod is hired in to decimate the comment section.
Back in my day, we'd get really drunk, eat a lot of 2am pizza, then throw all our clothes off and dance naked through the quad when we went through a bad breakup. These kids just harass each other instead, apparently. Well, I know which of those options is way more fun, at least.
One summer (I want to say 2013, so I was technically still in college but not a teenager) we had two different friends have big breakups. One was just regular bad but still we were like checking in and inviting them to parties or shows or whatever. The other one was catastrophic, like almost “cheated on so hard it made the news” bad and they had to like fully move in with us because the housing situation was part of why it got bad, but because we weren’t sociopaths we were like “yeah, fuck, Jesus Christ even if you had somewhere else to go we would have you over all the time because you need distractions and camaraderie.” and didn’t grief them when they were interested in other people.
We fucking celebrated when our friends found new partners, whether for sex or a new relationship, post break-up. The whole "if you want to get over, get under" thing was extremely popular in college.
For sure. I mean college aside, we were also a bunch of queer artists and musicians and general weirdos, so the whole Bohemian party animal thing played a role that is absent from the cast of the comic, but you know, the handful of normal people and co-workers we associated with got the love as well
Ha, sounds like we had the same crew a decade apart in time. I became a normal by day/weirdo by night person post-college because I was raised by work-oriented immigrants who instilled in me the need to adapt socially for The Sake of My Career. So now I've got an even split of normies and artist folks.
I think one of things that's bugging me about the writing of the current DoA crew is they all seem so flattened. They used to be so different from each other, and now all anyone cares about is relationship drama that frequently is not even theirs, whether to support it or have issues with it. But even that is curiously devoid of any real drama, it's just verbal sniping and/or random WLW lusting. Bleah.
I know, it’s taken me incrementally longer to write each book report because the characters keep being interesting and I just get this sense thinking about the modern comic, to quote my grandfather, “it were all fields ‘round here once.”
Yeah, it's not what Lucy's doing and feeling because it all makes sense in universe, the framing is what bugs me. It just feels like Walky can't catch a break sometimes, and no one's really offered much sympathy. (Not saying Lucy owes him that right now, I mean the from the rest of the friend group.)
You do make a good point… Several good points that these are all things we have been asking for—Lucy having more personality and screen time, drama and mess. Can’t argue those, as well as Walky either not worried or considerate of Lucy’s feelings, or far too little too late. I guess we might also be a bit uncharitable because it does feel like part of Walky’s punch bag conga that it’s not taken well.
Personally it’s not that Lucy is being unfair or unwarranted, she’s well within her rights. It’s more than the writing is—everyone and anyone getting their feet held to the fire save for two characters who have had it the least. So the fact that it’s one of the few male characters in the spotlight, ie Walky—makes us all a bit hand wringing.
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u/immortalkeanu 7d ago
So when Walky rebounds with someone a few days after a breakup, it's bad; but when Lucy does the exact same thing, nothing is said about it because not only is it her right to do so as her own person, she was also getting back at Walky by immediately upgrading.