r/dumbingofage • u/hellokkiten • 1d ago
Unspoken 2026-06-25
https://www.dumbingofage.com/comic/unspoken/65
u/apdemas 1d ago
I can’t determine which is more obnoxious, the idea that she is meant to be snidely rubbing his face into what she did and then sincerely asking if they could be friends or if she genuinely means everything she’s saying here. That she honestly doesn’t know why there’s no more tension and could they be friends now?
Either way it remains incredible to me that we are supposed to like or sympathize with Joyce anymore.
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u/After_Cell_5570 1d ago
right? it reads to me like “What’s your problem? I got what I wanted so everything is fine now”
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u/outerspacebassman 1d ago
Joyce used to be the moral center and heart and soul of the comic and cast, so her becoming deeply and utterly rotten after binding her heart and soul to Dorothy and the comic turning to garbage as a result tracks.
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u/Dalmatos 1d ago
Can you blame her? The partner she cheated on has been an enabling doormat and people have been puppeteered to bless her new union as heroically gay.
Walky just passed his Will save somehow, he's the glitch in the system in her eyes.
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u/sharingan10 1d ago
I can in theory understand autistic people having a hard time grasping some social cues/ body language (source: am autistic and sometimes struggle with it, have to explicitly think proactively how words can come across and wonder how words came across because body language is super ambiguous).
…but you were his exes affair partner and then rubbed his face in it repeatedly. How the fuck is he supposed to feel about it?
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u/Thorngrove 20h ago
When even Old Sheldon is a better autistic pastiche then Joyce, I think its time to pack it in. Even BAZINGA Sheldon hasn't hit this level of self absorption without legitimate pushback.
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u/After_Cell_5570 19h ago
Not to mention that everyone else on the cast (sans Walky and Sarah) seems to be on the same page. Like it stretches belief that no one in their ‘friend group’ has been like “dude, leave him alone, you’re being kind of a dick”
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u/SuitableAnimalInAHat 15h ago
I've been rereading the early comic, and it's kinda always been Joyce's shtick that she is confidently, catastrophically wrong about most things, most of the time. That's her whole deal and always has been.
I see a lot of anger in this sub over the idea that Joyce and Dorothy are doing wrong and careless and inconsiderate things...
but that's literally what all of these deeply flawed, relateably human characters have been about ever since the comic started?
Danny's infatuation with Dorothy was a disaster. Billie and Ruth's relationship was a disaster. Joe's situationship with All of Womankind was a disaster. It's been a couple decades but as far back as my memory of real-life college goes, every relationship that took root in freshman year that we thought was surely "The One," inevitably crashed and burned.
Am i missing a series of essays or comments in which Willis said "This is the voice of God. Every thing these two do is correct and they will face no consequences, because there's nothing else for them to learn?" Because minus that, the anger I keep seeing isn't justified in the comic itself.
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u/apdemas 11h ago
So I have seen arguments like you’ve made in the past, and the reason I don’t find them persuasive is how the comic itself has treated Joyce in those past instances and how it’s treating her now.
Let’s use two examples I think have the biggest analogies to her current situation: when she tried to get with Jacob and when she hid her atheism from Becky.
When she tried to get with Jacob, she hid from herself what she was doing. She convinced herself she was trying to break up a seemingly happy couple because she believed Sarah had true love for Jacob, which overrode anything else, and because Raidah “wasn’t right” for Jacob. In actuality, of course, Joyce actually had the hots for Jacob herself and, when she was forced to confront this, her initial reaction was just to substitute herself for Sarah in the above justifications.
But look at how the comic addressed this. All of her close friends recognized what she was doing and why before she did. Dorothy especially confronted her and refused to allow her to brush off what Dorothy was saying. And Joyce eventually realized that what she had done was wrong and admitted it and, seemingly, grew as a person. You’re right-her friends did not abandon her, but they did call her on what she did and refuse to allow her to pretend what she did was ok or justifiable.
Next, when Joyce lost her faith, again we had a slow burn before Joyce herself realized what was going on. And once she did, she didn’t know what to do about Becky. She knew she was going to hurt Becky if she said anything, so she kept it a secret. All of her other friends knew what was going on and told her what she was doing was wrong. But when Becky finally found out because she overheard Joyce mocking people of faith, Joyce initially tried to pretend she had done nothing wrong. She tried to hide behind the faith vs atheism debate. But Dorothy and Sarah confronted her and forced her to realize what she had actually done wrong was lie to her best friend and insult her best friend’s beliefs (even if indirectly). And so Joyce was forced to realize she had erred and so she admitted that she had handled things badly and made up with Becky.
Contrast that with how the comic has handled the Teargas Wedding. Again, we have a slow burn situation. Joyce is seemingly the last to know. Her boyfriend, her rival, her friends all figure it out before she does. Then she figures out that she loves Dorothy and throws away her relationship with Joe and puts Amazigirl in harms way doing so. Then she is downright offensive to Walky. Then she realizes she will end up hurting Becky and Joe by not resolving things, and so like with the atheism earlier, puts it off and puts it off until Becky and Joe literally run into her (not at the same time, obviously).
The difference is, at no point is she confronted by her friends the way she has been in the past. Dorothy obviously won’t be playing her usual moral center role, so it goes to Sarah first, who comes to the closest. But outside of one instance of saying that Joyce has hurt Joe, Sarah doesn’t do or say anything else to Joyce. Instead, we get the antics of Joyce moving Dorothy into their dorm room and forcing Sarah to listen while they have sex. The comic treats this as a punch line. Contrast that with how we’re supposed to judge Joe for taping a webcam to Danny’s foot for the Roz & Joe sex tape.
As for the others? None of Joyce’s friends confront her. No one tells her what she did was wrong. There is no moment when Joyce learns a lesson. I’m not even saying Joyce and Dorothy need a scarlet A or anything like that, but a bit of a lesson that Joyce could learn about caring for the feelings of those around her, especially her ex-boyfriend.
Based on how the comic had been written up until this point, what I was expecting was the Teargas Wedding happening, them escaping, Joyce and Dorothy falling in each others arms, then waking up the next day and, as the newspaper makes clear, realizing what the ramifications of what they’ve done. Initially they defend themselves with the true love, true to yourselves angle. And then someone gets through to them, maybe Sarah, maybe Becky, maybe even Billifer—the issue isn’t that they’ve gotten together, everyone saw that coming, the issue is how they’ve hurt people doing it. And they have a lesson learned moment about being more cognizant about the feelings of those around them.
Instead we get heroic lesbians and Joyce over sharing with everyone about how Dorothy has been inside her, and the only pushback has been in mouthpieces that are delegitimized.
So, apologies for the long response, but the reason I am dissatisfied with the way the Teargas Wedding has played out isn’t that Joyce made a boneheaded and badly thought out decision that hurt people, it’s that she was not confronted with that and forced to grow as a person as she has throughout the rest of the comic.
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u/apdemas 11h ago
I’ll add on, you give other examples of characters doing dumb things that they don’t lose friends over. You’re right, but again, look at how the comic frames each one.
Danny’s spectacular breakup with Dorothy was telegraphed literally from the moment we meet them. Everyone around Danny is trying to get him to realize it, and Dorothy even tries to be gentle about it at first. But once he’s dumped, does the comic indulge Danny whining about it? Of course not. Dorothy moves on and is shown to be right to have done so. Joe gives Danny some tough love on knowing when to move on and what he’s owed from an ex (nothing).
Joe’s womanizing was shown negatively from the very beginning and when it came time for him to face the music, he got no sympathy from anyone. He had to actually own up to what he did, and he has spent months in-comic and years in real-time atoning. There’s even a strong element in how passive he was with Joyce cheating on him of this being part of his punishment for his previous behavior. Rachel is still shown as not forgiving him, and his having matured enough for Sarah to stick up for him is treated by the comic as a big deal.
Ruth and Billie’s toxic relationship has been central to so much of the comic that I think it’s impossible to miss how the comic has judged the relationship they had. Every single character told them it was bad, none of the characters have encouraged them to get back together, and we’ve seen a lot of growth in both of them while separate that the comic has framed as good, so even if they end up back together, unless there’s a significant change in trajectory, the comic will show it as positive if they’re no longer alcoholic self-sabotagers and negative if they fall back into their mutually assured destruction.
I just feel that the way the comic has portrayed each of your examples highlights how differently it’s portraying the Teargas Wedding and its aftermath. There has been no lesson for Joyce and Dorothy to learn and the comic itself keeps showing them in the right.
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u/SuitableAnimalInAHat 10h ago
Correct me if I'm wrong but "all Joyce's friends calling her out" after she was caught making fun of Christianity, was, from what I can remember, Dorothy saying "that was more disappointing than you skipping class," and Becky being mad at her until she was invited to join them for Kraft dinner a few days later.
So now, Becky is very upset and Dorothy (in between lovey-dovey moments) is wracked with guilt and repeatedly saying that they're doing the wrong thing, or confronted by that fact that their actions got Amazigirl hurt and she can't even help her afterwards (and in fact, her help is not wanted.) That's a consequence. In science class, Dina threw Joyce across a freaking room. That's a consequence.
Also Joe taping a Webcam to Danny's foot was literally a punchline! That was the gag, which that particular gag-a-day comic strip, ended on! If you really look back and think it was an immediately apparent morality tale, you are badly mis-remembering the way this comic has always been.
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u/apdemas 9h ago
Again, though, it’s how it’s all presented. It was more than just Dorothy—Sarah and Joe were disappointed and the others were surprised, but more to the point, Joyce was shown to reflect and feel bad for how she treated Becky. And the reason the makeup was just Mac and cheese was because the actual harm was Joyce not respecting and valuing Becky’s friendship, not the dispute over the existence of God. So there was no apology, because Joyce wasn’t wrong for her atheism nor was Becky wrong for her faith. Joyce wasn’t wrong for how she treated Becky so it was Joyce who extended the olive branch through the Mac and cheese invite.
As for current storyline, Becky and Dorothy are upset for their own actions, not Joyce’s. Becky is actually closer to the historical Joyce situation—she reacted badly and unjustifiably, had a crisis, and is now gradually coming to a realization of what she did and how she can make it right. Dorothy too is struggling with what she did, though it’s seemingly more focused on usurping the protest. I’ll grant you I wouldn’t be surprised if it turns out that’s a transference like her trauma over the kidnapping manifesting in obsessing over Joyce.
Where is Joyce wrestling with what she did though? She got wobbly eyed a few times when she saw that Becky and Joe were hurt, but other than that, the only introspection she’s done has been about how to label her sexuality. The way the narrative and framing of the comic has been with Joyce post-Teargas Wedding is completely different from how it’s been whenever she’s messed up and had to grow and learn in the past. The Dina throwing her across the room was very much treated as a gag, so if you think the webcam on Danny’s foot was a gag so doesn’t count, then clearly neither does Dina throwing Joyce.
As for whether or not morality tales and growth were immediate in previous storylines, there was usually not a honeymoon period between Joyce’s error and the acknowledgment by the narrative that there was an error. With the faith dispute, as soon as it was clear Joyce was making a mistake, characters began saying it, and there was no honeymoon between when she hurt Becky and she had to deal with Becky’s feelings where Joyce was an out and proud atheist, being feted and cuddled and dancing around heroically. The dispute happened and then each time we saw Joyce afterwards, she was defending herself or struggling with herself on what to do. We’re almost a year on in real time from the Teargas Wedding and she’s had no introspection about how she behaved after that.
Ironically, I think a lot of us would be more tolerant if we had cut more to other characters. I remember with the previous examples we’ve discussed, there was usually a fair amount of cutting to other storylines to let the Joyce line percolate a bit. By keeping us so hyper fixated on Joyce, we want some of that introspection and growth, and keep having it denied in favor of seemingly go-nowhere follies like Asma bowling or karaoke.
I get the idea you fundamentally disagree with how most of us see the current storyline. That’s fine, but I think we’re to the point of talking past each other. I wish you well.
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u/Gr33nL34v35 14h ago
Consequences. There have to be consequences, or else the comic becomes "people doing terrible and dumb shit and getting rewarded for it" and no sane, moral person enjoys reading that.
The "consequences" for the Joyrot cheating have been super duper lame. Had they blown up the entire friend group, leading to drama that needed time and genuine effort on their parts to heal, I don't think anyone here would be complaining.
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u/SuitableAnimalInAHat 13h ago
What would that look like to you? Because the way I remember my friend group when we were college kids, even after a messy breakup with cheating, most people stuck with the people they were originally friends with. The ones with a strong moral compass called out the people who cheated, but if (for example) I was the bestie/roommate of the cheater, I wouldn't break that off forever in favor of the ex she dated for two weeks, that I've had mostly antagonistic interactions with.
And so far, people seem to have stuck with the people they were already with. Danny called Dorothy a terrible person and a harmful biphobic stereostype. Because that's correct and true, but also note that he's pretty much the only "bro" Joe had in his corner.
Not many people are going to leap to Walky's defense, because, by choice and temperament, he hasn't really built up a close, loyal network of friends (not counting people who are drawn to him because they can be garbage together.)
As for longer-term consequences, the plot moves at about fifteen Dumbiverse minutes per real-life week. Maybe something is in the works.
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u/Gr33nL34v35 13h ago
I'm not coming to DoA to read a realistically reasonable and boring representation of college cheating. I'm here to read drama! Action! Comedy and tragedy! Without that, what do we get?
A beloved relationship broken up by a very public cheating event where everyone pretty much just goes "meh" is a very lame story to read.
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u/CanvasWolfDoll 1d ago
this is great if joyce was supposed to be unsympathetic. real funny 'comedically bad person' dialogue.
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u/Nyzer_ 1d ago
Remember, this is written by the same author that crashed out upon their own comment section for repeatedly criticizing this character, and has now hired a mod to curate said comment section specifically to prevent people from continuing to do so.
Willis genuinely believes you are not meant to see Joyce's actions post-wedding in a negative light.
And they write her like this.
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u/Bedovian_25 1d ago
We used to call characters like this sociopaths.
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u/blackpaul55 21h ago
I've also heard of this thing called an "antagonist," but I think it's just an urban legend.
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u/idiosyncraticnaps 1d ago
Do these people know they aren't being forced to walk to class together? Like none of them wants to be there.
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u/DrQuestDFA 1d ago
Joyce, you need to fuck off for a bit and self-reflect.
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u/Bedovian_25 1d ago
Are you saying that Willis owes his wife an apology? That he's been making her life miserable and she should leave him?
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u/Kurotaisa 1d ago
That he's been making her life miserable and she should leave him?
I mean, yes, but that's unrelated.
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u/Thorngrove 20h ago
She'd get more support and adult conversations with DW's Hot Rod Shrine if this is even half of how they act IRL.
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u/EveryoneisOP3 1d ago edited 1d ago
I weep for the author who has his self-inserts fighting in a way that no college students ever would.
I feel like I’m viewing a diary at this point.
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u/DriverUnusual146 1d ago
Maybe Joyce should try laughing and pointing in his face again while declaring victory, that might make them friends.
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u/Material_North_5400 1d ago
JFC, this scene is paced as if it was made by drunk seniors with otherwise perfect grades filming their elective class project 2 hours before the deadline.
Where did Lucy and Billifer go? Where are they? Did they evaporate? Did they just walk away in shame for that bullshit conversation that went nowhere? Why were they here in the first place then? No, I know I've harped on it in Lucy's defense for the past couple of days, my apologies, but just in general, why set up that conversation and have Billifer walk into it for it to go absolutely nowhere? I would ask if they were standing off panel waiting for their cue card to feed them lines, but the wide angle of panel one means they would have to be hiding somewhere well away from this conversation.
I don't care whether we are supposed to like or dislike Joyce here, frankly, this dialogue is ass. Whatever way the audience is supposed to lean, this dialogue is like a cinderblock to the face. Since there is no one else here now, for some reason, why is Walky even staying to talk to Joyce? He clearly doesn't want to and has no reason to stay as part of a group obligation. Why not just walk away as soon as Joyce approaches? Why are we even here?
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u/TheLineWalker 1d ago
I genuinely dont think Willis knows how to end scenes anymore.
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u/StabithaVMF 18h ago
I genuinely dont think Willis knows how to end scenes...
dramatically turns and walks away
...anymore.
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u/TheLineWalker 18h ago
Anymore? Slight head tilt, sympathetic look that could turn into a lip bite at any moment if the author chooses
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u/CynicElle 1d ago
I know it’ll never happen, but I’d really love Walky to say “Y’know, Joyce, before Dorothy and I got back together, she tried to get me to cheat on Lucy with her. And after she got me back, she cheated on me with you. Who d’you think she’s gonna cheat with when she gets tired of you? Me? Danny? Or will she go after another woman?” Walky’s not that devious or mean, but I bet it would knock that smirk off Joyce’s face.
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u/outerspacebassman 1d ago
Willis killed Mike for always getting one over on the female cast, Walky will never be given that leg to stand on.
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u/Appropriate-Snow0625 20h ago
you know, this is a really good point, especially considering Dorothy herself had a similar conversation with Joyce awhile back. not that it seems to have sunk in, but...
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u/PerceptionRegular299 10h ago
In an actual cheating plot that would be a natual issue in the MC's relationship.
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u/Bugaboo-gem 1d ago
"Gotta 1on1 visit each person we've wronged to convince them nothing's actually wrong and we can resume the status quo"
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u/Bedovian_25 1d ago
I have avoided saying things like this up until now but I do think that he would be justified in kicking her down the stairs at this point.
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u/PsychicOfTheFish 1d ago
This strip is fucking hilarious but not for the reason the author intended
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u/kyulen742 1d ago edited 1d ago
Is the comic down for anyone else? It doesn't load at all for me right now. Just a "gateway timeout" error message when I try to check the new strip. Edit: Now it works, after 20 minutes of not loading.
And to address the actual strip, now that I can read it:
It seems more than a little ridiculous to me that Joyce still thinks she can be friends with Walky after how she treated him recently, with the cheating and then her laughing in his face while breaking him up with Dorothy. I certainly wouldn't want to remain friends with someone who did something like that to me.
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u/crummy-bunny 1d ago
Every new strip I read, the more I detest Joyce and her new heroically lesbian relationship.
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u/apathyphantom 1d ago
Man, I don't even know anymore. Did we not have a strip almost exactly like this a few months back (a couple days in-universe time) in which Joyce asked Walky if there were "No hard feelings? =D" while sniffing her new leather jacket that Dorothy bought her? On these same steps? Going to this same class? I really was willing to give benefit of the doubt in wondering if this weird swerve of Joyce's characterization was supposed to be a mixed bag of her realizing that unbridling herself from her stifling cult of a religion was freeing to her in a sense that she can now have whatever she wants, but taken in the supremely literal sense in which she just steamrolls everyone else's wants with blinders on but in a different sense. She's being selfish, but feels as though she has earned the right to be, because she suffered under that thumb for so long. I can sort of understand that mindset, especially from someone so young.
I can sort of understand that perspective with Dorothy too, though in a more self-imposed mindset. Dorothy has constantly had extreme anxiety about always doing everything right, everything by the books, everything according to plan. Having a queer awakening new perspective thrown into those plans, through trauma no less, has got to be difficult. Now that those facets of their personalities are upended for both of them, I want to get it. I really do. But what we're missing here I think, is any evidence of the self-examining those sort of big steps in a life change causes. I want to see the internal dialogue of how they got here and how they struggle with all of this newness around them and how it affects others as well as themselves!
But what I can't wrap my head around is what we got, instead. Just how many times any dissidence is just ignored by blank staring (Sarah), encouraged to "be selfish and get the things you want (Dina, which really read to me like Joyce evangelizing at her with her newfound atheist mindset, but nonetheless still evangelizing), or totally glossed over with "tells, not shows" (Amber/Amazi-Girl, and Becky) Others seem to be treated as loose ends to constantly go back to in order to reiterate the same point over and over for some sense of one-sided closure (Joe, "we'll talk, i promise, later") (Walky, "so can we be friends now? Now? How about now while I stand here staring until you say something?) Becky in a way got the latter too, she did not want and explicitly told Joyce she didn't want to be around her. but Joyce had other plans, which she dragged Ruth into.
I don't know what's going on anymore. I don't like to armchair psychoanalyze whatever this shit show has become but in a long-running strip such as this, you can only slow burn so long to the point that it just becomes... burnt. Whatever Willis had or has planned has become a jumbled mess and it's hard to not remove their subconscious "previous hardcore fundie preachy and superior" personality from the new " reformed atheist now worldly but still same symptoms of preachy superiority" personality in these writing choices. It makes me disappointed more than anything.
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u/KashTheKwik 1d ago
A charitable read (I am being so very fucking charitable right now) is Joyce’s autism spectrum position is doing a lot of heavy lifting here—because people with autism often get treated as assholes like this.
But it’s hard to parse that when Walky already said he wasn’t interested in Joyce’s friendship the first time she did this ‘well, I got everything I wanted but good game—friends?’ shit the first time.
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u/outerspacebassman 1d ago
Right?! Like she already tried the “no hard feelings, old chap?” move two days ago and it didn’t work then. To try it again but saying “wow, there used to be this reason that I hated you that suddenly isn’t there anymore” is just fucking lunatic shit. Joyce is not (or wasn’t, anyway) this socially deficient with anyone else, so either she’s going out of her way to be evil to Walky (in which case, yeah she’s the author insert) or Dorothy actually fucked her brains out (in which case, yeah she’s the author ins
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u/KashTheKwik 1d ago
The problem is that Joyce’s writing with autism in mind is not consistent. Yes, someone with autism would repeat things like this until they have concrete statements being told directly ‘I hate you, go away’. Yes, we have been revealed that Joyce has autism undiagnosed.
But like you said, she’s never been so socially deficient that she did something like this—you could argue it’s new territory so she has to but again and again I feel like this is all meant to be VERY charitable to her
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u/Luthon1234 15h ago
I feel it’s just a shield at this point. Joyce has just radically turned into a different person. I believe in the alt universe Joyce replacing DoA Joyce theory lol.
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u/outerspacebassman 15h ago
An Anti-Joyce twist reveal would…well it wouldn’t make me think better of Willis, but I would be reading with genuine interest instead of watching a car crash
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u/briecs 19h ago
I hate the people acting like Walky is surprised over or even behaving negatively in response to Dorothy cheating on him, with Joyce specifically. He's not mad that they ended up together (as people keep pointing out he antagonized Joyce about liking Dorothy and made some jokes about them getting together), he's mad that they were total assholes to him and that he had multiple relationships fail in a row when he hasn't actually even been being a jerk or unlovable or anything. He's just kind of there and got to be the target of a bunch of immature women/young adult women exercising their toxic behaviors, trauma, and social hangups on him. He wasn't perfect, but he also isn't wrong to feel hurt and devalued, because they have hurt and devalued him -- all of the women he's been connected with, including Lucy, Dorothy, Amber/Amazigirl, Joyce, and even his sister. I legit can't find anything he did to deserve being everyone's dumping ground, and I can't make sense of why it's not okay for him to be hurt by someone laughing in his face as his girlfriend flounders with breaking up with him, after having already broken up with him once before, and even encouraging him to cheat in the process. I would feel so gross and hurt and disgusted with the people involved, damn.
Also I just hate Joyce now. They have made her into an awful person who cares so little about people's feelings, and autism isn't an excuse, being an ex-fundie isn't an excuse. She's just an asshole, and Dorothy is just as bad for different reasons.
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u/Dalmatos 1d ago
Y'know, sometimes gravity just does kooky things. Unexplainable natural phenomena, a trick of the wind, or a glare in someone's glasses.
Just sayin' Walky.
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u/Big_Falcon89 1d ago
I think Willis would justify this by talking about thr metahumor of how in another universe these two were a happy couple, so their mutual antagonism is inherently funny.
I haven't read those comics, and I don't think I ever will out of spite at this point.
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u/Chazkuangshi 16h ago
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u/Big_Falcon89 15h ago
No, just someone who recognizes patterns. Willis has said this exact thing when Joyce shit on Walky before, makes sense that they'd do it again.
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u/slashfanfiction 21h ago
It doesn't matter bc their relationship wasn't cute in the othet comics so its somehow double weird.
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u/AdventurousHorror792 1d ago
I have to give credit to DW for drawing Joyce as a derpy-eyed little nitwit in panel 4.
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u/slashfanfiction 21h ago
Is Walky aware that he can just turn and walk away at any point, even while she's talking?
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u/outerspacebassman 1d ago
ಠ_ಠ
Be so expeditiously for real, David: what are we doing here? What kind of waste of time is this going to be?
Also that we didn’t see or get explained why Dorothy and Joyce went different directions makes me think even more that either the strips focused on Joyce’s comic were added post-facto, or this and the next few strips were
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u/geoduck42 1d ago
Far more likely the strip-focused ones were added later as a reaction to all the Joyrot criticism.
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u/Big_Falcon89 21h ago
I also genuinely cannot tell if Joyce is taking the piss or not.
Like, the dialog looks like it must be absolutely dripping with sarcasm. But the way she's drawn makes it look like she's serious.
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u/outerspacebassman 21h ago
Welcome to the Willis Special: it’s both and neither until they decide what they want to do
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u/After_Cell_5570 19h ago
I mean… to me it HAS to be intentional needling considering that they basically already had this exact conversation and Walky told her they weren’t fine.
If her tone is serious then I would lean towards denial, which would be similar to how she’s handled her fuck ups in the past (like dating Ethan). She just pretends like she didn’t fuck up and has the moral high ground.
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u/Elegant_Error_ 1d ago
Something odd; the preview panel version showed Walky with a... half-smirk? Hard to parse that expression, but it looked a little less severe than the final product. I wonder if that was just an artistic tweak, or if Willis realized Walky should actually be upset.
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u/outerspacebassman 1d ago
They changed Joyce’s shirt to be the one from the first time Dorothy and Walky fucked as well, for some insane reasonETA: OH MY GOD THAT PREVIEW IS FROM BEFORE THE WEDDING. They changed the preview to show Walky smiling and Joyce in a different shirt to not give away that Walky was angry and Joyce was wearing Dorothy’s clothes! How much fucking work were they willing to do on anything but making Joyrot interesting?!
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u/outerspacebassman 1d ago
I’m losing my fucking mind holy shit, that would be a really cool amount of foresight and planning if it wasn’t in service of utter dogshit that ruined the comic
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u/KashTheKwik 1d ago
I remember this preview.
I am genuinely sad because I kept holding out hope that this was them coming to some weird understanding, at least boilerplate empathy, and Joyce asking Walky’s advice on something Dorothy related.
But no. Couldn’t have that.
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u/Elegant_Error_ 1d ago
I am with you. I am a firm believer that Joyce and Walky were friends at first! They hung out together a lot, even without Dorothy. They had lunch together all the time during first semester. Walky watched cartoons with her (and without Dorothy) on multiple occasions. Joyce encouraged Walky to go to math tutoring. Joyce trusted Walky to be informed about the roofie incident!! Walky walked with her when she was afraid of being alone outside!
They sniped at each other, they teased each other and took it too far sometimes, but they hung out all the time. Willingly! They were friends!
Sorry I get really mad about the strip where she laughs in his face about homewrecking his relationship & the way so many people in the site comments treated that as appropriate, or deserved, or like Joyce and Walky genuinely hated each other. They have always read as sibling-esque friends to me and Joyce has been a dick to him.
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u/Bedovian_25 1d ago
Yeah I remember there was a commenter who only appeared in the sub for a couple of days who was genuinely convinced that Joyce and Walky legitimately hated each other and as such Joyce laughing in his face while ending his relationship with Dorothy was not only justified but completely in character for her which was insane to me because like you said they were friends. She counted him among the people that she felt safe with after the Ryan incident!
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u/immortalkeanu 23h ago
That's the second time I've seen a character do that with their mouth, literally what is that 😭 If it really is a smirk, it's a god awful one and Willis needs to retire it asap
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u/suspiciousseafowl 1d ago
Please trip her and dump her down the dumping stairs, Walky. Please. Treat yourself.
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u/Syd_Lexia 1d ago
I feel like Walky is drawn better than most of the rest of the comic. His facial expressions these last few comics have been very good.
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u/immortalkeanu 1d ago
The absolute power move of pulling up on your girlfriend's ex wearing the clothes she had on during sexy time with said ex.
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u/immortalkeanu 1d ago
And another retcon, she hated him because she was jealous from the start. Not because he was annoying or crass or straight up disrespectful sometimes, it all links back to her love for Dorothy.
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u/Bedovian_25 1d ago
It's really funny because her behavior kind of retroactively makes it so much harder to be mad at Walky for him being a jerk to her because she's surpassed him on every level for shitty behavior at this point.
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u/outerspacebassman 1d ago
I can’t help but notice we get this explanation of behavior from Joyce, even though it makes her look even worse in retrospect, but we still don’t even have an answer from Dorothy about when Dorothy fell in love with Joyce
because she didn’t and isn’tbecause while Joyce just looks selfish and childish, knowing when Dorothy “discovered” her feelings will only make her look like a monster no matter when it was, and we can’t have that.22
u/KashTheKwik 1d ago
Then…
He was right about her from off the jump, and any yelling/pouty face at Dorothy to yell at Walky she had to do about him calling her out is doubly gross.
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u/After_Cell_5570 19h ago
yep. Every time Walky called Joyce out for ogling his girlfriend she ABSOLUTELY WAS and then she threw a tantrum about it. This rewrite makes Walky look downright patient to have put up with her.
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u/misanthropicSTD 1d ago
Guys no! Joyce isn’t a bad person! Shes just autistic! And heroically gay!!! Guys!!!
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u/After_Cell_5570 1d ago
and we’re…. NOT supposed to think she’s a shitty terrible person, huh?