Just a few more days for folks who live in the United States to order stuff from my store and get it before Christmas! This is your holiday reminder! (Sorry, folks who live Not Here. Make yourselves feel better by remembering your health care system is likely not a murder machine like ours.)
The post office signs say the cut-off date for Before Christmas Delivery for Priority Mail within the United States is the 20th. It’s the 14th now, so you got, like… five days. Five, not six, because you gotta allow me a day to put things in the mail. If you order at 11pm on the 20th, I’m, uh, not gonna get to the post office in time with your stuff. Post office is closed!
(I mean, I guess it could still arrive on time by then, if you’re lucky, it’s just not something you can count on.)
Oh, and if you order a single Dina magnet, those go by stamped mail, not Priority Mail, so those probably won’t arrive in as quickly a manner, so pay mind to that.
END PUBLIC SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT.
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“I DON’T LIKE HER, I HAVEN’T EVEN THROWN A TOY AT HER HEAD”
…
“wait no I did shit”
That makes it official. Now we’ll see if Joyce does a good a job setting him up with Amber as Billie did setting him up with Dorothy.
But I have to admit Walky makes a good petunia.
In this case, I think Walky makes a better whale.
Walky is EXPERT at getting fixed up by his female friends with women he’s already dating.
A+ Foreshadowing Willis.
Damn I completely forgot about that.
“This is my life now.”
*record scratch* Yup, that’s me…
Oh my god, how can she be so persetive lol
Or rather, I’m a bit surprised she’s not trying to get him back with Dorothy ?
Joyce doesn’t want Walky with Dorothy. She wants Dorothy all to herself.
She’s always thought that Dorothy deserved better than Walky and she likes to spend time with Dorothy so it does check out that she’d rather they not get back together. I’m surprised she doesn’t think he moved on too fast though, but then, she also just thinks he has feelings for Amber versus like…already getting together. Joyce is also a sucker for romance so I’m sure she’s convinced herself that Walky and Amber will have truuuuue love.
Joyce insists that Dorothy is too good for Walky, so she doesn’t want that. But someone other than Dorothy and a chance to help someone else get a date? She is all over it.
I just realized that Joyce may be the social equivalent of Glitter.
Annoying, gets everywhere, impossible to remove? Yeah, she does kinda remind me of herpes er, glitter 😛
Because she pulls the same crush denial bs with Jacob, she recognizes it
Persetive?
I am not familiar with that word and couldn’t find a definition either.
Try perspective.
Perceptive…
You wanted a clue less reputation Wally
Loving the Hitchhiker’s reference there.
RELAX
And DON’T PANIC,/strong>.
Well crap. I screwed up the tagging on my big friendly letters.
imo the HTML mess is even more appropriate for HGTTG
So is this quote implying that Walky is Agrajag and Joyce is Arthur Dent?
Well, she certainly isn’t Eccentrica Gallumbits.
Joyce’s shy a breast for Gallumbits. And I always wondered, were they distributed horizontally, vertically, or in a triangle of some fashion?
One on her forehead
Came here to say this.
Read Dumbing of Age for the humour, join the forum to post random adverbs.
I guess Joyce wanting to pair off two nerds and guarantee that Dorothy doesn’t get back with Walky at the same time makes sense but it’s weird to see her so eager to help Walky
also is “blushing up” a midwestern thing???
Also also Joyce and Walky holding hands (in a non-romantic context) is so cute :3
New Zealander here: I’ve heard some older people say it, like, my grandparents generation. It might be an older phrase that has persisted through to Joyce because their family is one that seems like it would follow the “everything your parents do is perfect” mentality.
Woopsie, replied to the wrong comment.
Iowan here: No, it is not. It may be an Indiana thing.
Not something I hear often in Indiana, either.
Also not here in southwestern Ohio. It may be a very localized regional thing or some sort of Joyce thing.
The indiscriminate nouning of verbs is an American English thing.
I don’t think that’s what this is though? What verb is being nouned?
blush has been both verb and noun for centuries. Blushing verb and adjective, I think.
“Blushing up” isn’t common American English, but it’s not really “nouning” either.
I think that particular turn of phrase is used here just because it’s more old-fashioned-y. I wouldn’t hear it in normal conversation, but I could see my grandparents saying it. I think it’s just a reference to Joyce’s innocence.
I really like the phrase actually
We’re talking about a guy who’s so far gotten relationships by throwing toys at the girl’s head, and acknowledging mutual garbagehood.
Dude doesn’t need help. I don’t know why his methods work, but they do.
It’s that caramel sculptured bod mixed with lovable goofiness.
It’s the romantic equivalent of plot armor is what it is.
Technically, both of those involved throwing toys at the girl’s head.
Because he’s fictional.
Gasp!
We should just start calling him Phil Connors.
Phil?!
It’s me, Ned!
Bing!
Walky is confused only because this is not where he thought this conversation was going to go. On the bright side, I look forward to hijinks and hearing how Amber’s first roller derby practice went.
I was about to ask why the hell she’s so into this, and then I remember that she hated him being with Dorothy.
Joyce, just admit you’ve got an exception. It’s okay.
Second time this semester.
“I know, let’s go to the beach and I’ll get her to help bury you in sand!”
I know it’s low-hanging fruit, but the gag is worthy of extending, dammit.
Problem: getting Amber to go to a beach.
She’s a nerd, she has a carefully cultivated jaundicey glow that must be nurtured and protected. It’s part of her nerd cred.
Joyce ALSO loves dressing people up. Admittedly she generally does so with tools already on hand… but I’m sure she can find a full-length wetsuit in Amber’s size… Somehow.
No! Joyce, no! Your Pureflix account has not served you well!
I assumed you were just making a joke. A parody of Netflix, but no, it’s real.
Oh no. I’m well aware. I’m also well aware of the morals involved.
Haha! Love the hover text!
The alt text destroyed me. I am done. Goodbye, sweet mortal coil, I’m off to join the choir invisible.
This is an ex-Ferret!
Be sure to take your towel with you!
There’s no turning this down, might as well go along with it.
Why does the bowl of Petunias thought that? I saw that movie years ago and I still don’t understand that joke. Also, Joyce is going to get a surprise.
Later, it’s revealed that the bowl of petunias is an immortal who has been reincarnated again and again, each time accidentally killed by Arthur Dent.
Right before he learns to fly, right?
It is explained in a later book that the petunias were among many reincarnations of someone who kept dying around Arthur. Normally you don’t remember past lives, but normally it isn’t always the same guy’s fault.
I think that’s why it’s humorous. A bowl of petunias can’t think, as they are a collection of plants and don’t have individual conscious thought, yet alone have group thoughts. The sperm whale falling next to the petunias has a whole journey of self-discovery as it falls to its gory demise, as it had just spawned out of nowhere as well. Then we cut to the petunias and all it thinks is “not again.”
The premise is absurd, the comparison is absurd, and the results leave us with a question that will likely never be answered. It’s funny. Haha.
Also, then you can actually give it a real answer. (I don’t know if I never read the later book or just forgot it)
The answer in this case was that the bowl of petunias was a reincarnation of the whale.
It’s also highly curious, and rather improbable, that the petunias might have experienced something like this before.
(And then later, as others have noted, we get the explanation.)
My understanding is at the time of Adams originally writing that, the joke was a multilayered, and therefore nigh impossible, improbability brought on by the use of the infinite improbability drive that was just some blatant absurdist humor. When Adams wrote the later stories he then expanded it into a whole convoluted backstory that is even more absurdly improbable and thereby even more appealing to the geeks and nerds who largely made up his fanbase throughout his life.
Exactly, the Agrajag stuff was 100% recton for the third book.
The joke for the original, unexplained bit is spelled out by the full paragraph: “Curiously enough, the only thing that went through the mind of the bowl of petunias as it fell was Oh no, not again. Many people have speculated that if we knew exactly why the bowl of petunias had thought that we would know a lot more about the nature of the Universe than we do now.”
The joy was removed from the joke for me by Adams’ unnecessarily dark 5th book.
Ah, yeah, that did kinda suck the fun out of the series for me, too. Pity it was his last entry. I heard the other day that his wife co-authored or gave her blessings for a 6th entry in the trilogy (!), but I don’t know if I want to look into it or not.
That’s pretty much the way I feel about Todd McCaffrey taking over Pern. Mom may have green-lighted it but I just can’t bring myself to give him a try.
Dear god do I feel that… though to be fair I was already cold on even Anne’s books in the series after All the Weyrs of Pern and I always wished she’d just do more Pern historical stuff between the era of the first fall and the modern era along the lines of the Moreta and Nerilka books.
The Pern did vary widely in appeal to me, after the original 2 trilogies. I think Moreta was the first I didn’t care for, though there were some later ones I enjoyed. I only read sporadically after that.
It was written from his outline, and is quite faithful to the original.
Douglas Adams never (ever ever) had a single manuscript for anything. He’d write one, get an idea, rewrite the whole book, get another idea…repeat. Whichever one made it to press was the one he liked the most when his agent asked “So, where’s that next book?”
Though the Hitchhiker’s Guide was originally a radio series, which he later adopted into (mostly) the first two books. Things veered off towards the end, IIRC.
So at least some times, he had a plan. 🙂
This is going to be a flaming garbage can.
I can’t wait.
She’s going to get him to Amber by going in through Dorothy’s room, isn’t she?
Joyce and Walky are best friends forever
Hahahahahaha walky’s a lot like christmas presents: he keeps getting shipped, even by people who don’t want to personally be nice to any of the people who end up with him
Didn’t billie do this with him before? Try and hook him up with someone he was already seeing?
Clearly people just don’t believe Walky can get dates on his own.
I mean, I wouldn’t
Congratulations, Walky. You are Joyce’s new project.
Ah here it goes 😣-
https://youtu.be/4GMIx2x9uNI
HA! Oh, Joyce. Of course you will. PLEASE do. After all, if Walky’s with Amber, he can’t hook up with Dorothy, can he?
(I mean, sure, he can, we’ve already seen polyamory in this dorm, but SHHH WE DON’T TALK ABOUT THAT ANARCHY).
I think Joyce.exe needs another critical system update to expand it’s shipping variables.
Honestly, I’d love to see which flavor of poly those three would end up following. I could see Dorothy/Walky/Amber doing the whole alpha couple/beta couple thing (I’d honestly like to see Joe’s reaction to that. Considering his past and his father’s behavior I could see him being closed minded about such a situation but I could also see him being ok with it so long as it was consensual). I could just as easily see them doing the equitable trinity thing (Joe would absolutely envy Walky there I think). Most other structures of poly relationships are hard to picture all three being ok with.
If we’re still going with both Amber and Dorothy being straight, they could also do a ‘v’ relationship, where both girls are dating Walky but not each other.
“V”s are my favorite poly relationship when dealing with vastly different libidos. The one with the lower libido gets sex on demand, while the other one gets the rest of the week/month. I didn’t get my arms dislocated, and everybody else was happy.
This is like Billie and Dorothy all over again
Oblivious Joyce is oblivious.
Also, terrifying Triangular Smile is terrifying.
If you looked at panel 3 Joyce from the front, I think her Triangle Smile might be in the running for largest ever- it’s stretching wider than her eyes, by the look of it!
As someone who blushed at the mere suggestion of me liking a specific person despite that not actually being the case, I can tell you that “blushing up” is not evidence.
I cannot speak about stammering, tho.
I’ve been known to stammer at business meetings where all I had to do was introduce myself. Me stammering is about as much evidence of anything as me breathing.
I’m always blushing because I want to date everyone.
So when should I pick you up?
My first space yacht shall be named the Omnidaterous Yotomoe in your honor.
…huh.
I just realized something.
Joyce seems to think that romance happens slowly, over weeks(/months), and that people are almost always hesitant to show each other their feelings.
She’s got a bit of an addiction to romantic comedies and other tropey stories, as evidenced by her previously having shipped Billie and Walky due to them being childhood friends and opposites. Though, I think she did eventually accept that wasn’t happening.
Seems a lot different from what she used to be like when a first date or first good impression was enough of a requirement to meet your soulmate. But to be fair I at times feel like romance and love takes time to form too and it does, but I guess since every relationship is different some take different amounts of time.
…..”some say love, it is a river~”
Well, in the stereotypical romance, it’s both. The audience knows from the first meeting that the two are destined to be together, but the couple doesn’t realize it or has obstacles to overcome.
She sees every hint of romance as a sign that this is the one. Now all she has to do is develop it.
This really does make Amber Dorothy 2 huh
Only to the extent that Joyce is Billie 2.
1st panel Joyce is one of her prettiest faaaaaaaces.
joyce doing what joyce does best
meddling in people’s lives without their consent
Well he did say “okay”.
Joyce is adorbs, but so is Walky, frankly.
Joyce seems to be taking Walky immediately rebounding to Amber pretty well. Though I’m sure in her little mind that Walky and Dorothy ever being together in the first place was some strange anomaly that has finally been righted.
I get the feeling she thinks that Walky and Dorothy was just a fleeting thing and not serious which, to be fair to Joyce, isn’t that far off the mark
I cackled.
Joyce holding Walky’s hands is so precious. I want to print it out and frame it.
It’s a shame that the next book title’s origin strip has already been determined because “I Don’t Know What You’re Talking About Your Face is Stupid” would otherwise be in the running.
Adorable Joyce is adorable.
NOT AGAIN
Love what you’re doing here Wills
Gotta love how “getting set up with someone he’s already dating” is now the Thing That Happened to Walky Twice. Now taking bets on who the girlfriend and the setter-upper will be the third time around. 😛
All depends on who Danny dates next. 😛
I don’t think Walky will be into Ethan.
Or his sister, if Willis wants to revisit that relationship.
Danny dates Walky, who will date Danny after Walky breaks up with him, recursive singularity?
They get stuck in a loop where they break up and get together on repeat. Forever.
I have been informed that this is called “marriage”.
…Hopefully minus all the break ups implied in that.
Shit, I guess I’m married, then. Does it count if every breakup lasted less than 24 hours?
@delicious Taffy: only if you always tell all of your friends about the breakup and never mention that things have blown over when you talk to the, next >;->
In that case,
Didn’t Willis say he wouldn’t repeat any walkyverse ships?
Nope.
He said something similar about not retreading old ground, but it wasn’t that absolute.
Ruth and Billie were a thing in the Walkyverse, though a minor, mostly after the fact backstory one, to take the obvious example.
Probably not the big lasting pairs, including this one, unless he can find an entirely different take on them.
Yeah, he said he didn’t want any repeats unless he could find another angle or didn’t like how he initially wrote them. That said, as time goes on, he finds more and more he could write better.
Leslie/Robin got a redo, from a very different angle.
Memory suggests that Walky has shown up to an lgbt curious kind of event with an excuse of free food.
Seconded. Now will Joyce become the “genius” that Billie crowned herself?
There’s a lot of ways Joyce could have reacted to learning about Walky’s interest in Amber, but of course the only thing that matters to her is that someone is in loooove!
(And it has nothing to do with the fact that this means Walky would be with someone who isn’t Dorothy, nosiree)
Someone really needs to sit Joyce down at this point and tell her that trying to ‘help’ is the worst thing she can do! XD
But it’s for looooooooove!
As Jaime says to Cersei, “The things I do for love.”
I’m not sure Joyce is ready for Game of Thrones.
I’m just here for the alt-text. A+
Best alt-text ever.
Joyce: “Now go and get her!”
*Walky
walksgoes up to Amber and they kiss*Joyce: “I AM A GENIUS”
Alternatively,
“She took my arm, I don’t know how it happened”
I’m getting a distinct sense of deja vu
…huh.
That went better than I thought it would.
Too soon? It’s never too soon when true love is at stake!
Happy Claire is appropriate.
😀 better than the angey and upset Claire that was going on when Amber and Sal were fighting.
Suddenly I have an image of a bowl of petunias, falling, with Walky’s bewildered face on it.
(re: alt text)
Cute
This is going to get awkward.
To be fair, it’s already pretty awkward.
Ok. Fine . This is going to get very more awkwarder.
Huh. Autocorrect is nappy with awkwarder as a word.
But not with “happy”, apparently, I presume?
Whatever. I’m using “nappy” as slang for “cool” from now on. It’s a great word! Or dare i even say… a nappy word!
I’d be careful with that.
No, no – “cool” is “nippy”. A “nappy” is often full of shit.
…so, basically I have invented some sort of teenage-baby hybrid slang.
Bagge, please google that term.
Ah. I thought it was just obscene.
I prefer “nipply.” A. it doesn’t offend people of Japanese descent (even though they’re from NIPpon), and B. accurately describes what cold air will do to you sans enough insulation.
And Bagge, Nappy has a secondary meaning beyond diapers.
Wait, “nippy” offends people of Japanese descent? I’ve always heard “a bit nippy” as meaning “it’s a bit cold out”.
It’s used both in that context and as a racial slur. Like how people say “chink in the armor” but also use the first word to be racist assholes. (Though really it’s just “nip” that’s the slur, but I’ve seen people work “nippy” in the same sense.)
I see. Thanks.
Does that mean that Joyce is The Infinite Improbability Drive?
Better that than Agrajag.
Joyce Brown is so cute and girly that you’d need to be hugging her all the time. That makes her boundary issues and, frankly, lack of social common sense all the more jarring.
…for fucks sake.
Joyce, Rule #1 of Shipping: It’s for fun, it’s totally fine if the ship partners don’t hook up, don’t push things.
Well, this isn’t really “shipping”. It’s not like she thought they’d be a good couple and pushed them together. She’s detected Walky’s interest and wants to help.
In her usual trampling over boundaries way, admittedly.
It’s probably less ‘wants to help’ and more ‘ wants to keep Walky away from Dorothy’.
Some of both, I suspect. She’s always happy to conspire with romance.
And cementing the Walky/Dorothy separation is added motivation in this case.
Joyce Brown wants her friends (i.e. everyone she knows) to be happy. She fully believes that to achieve that end, she must be an active and guiding figure in their lives.
Whether Joyce is sincere or insincere, I’m scared for Walky. Also, we’re losing track of the e-mail scandal.
Oh, here it goes again
Am I the only one who thinks he says “Okay” in the same way Saitama in One Punch Man does?
When Joyce becomes a superhero, the villain only needs to say; “Look, there’s a young couple trying to connect, and they need your help!” And then they can go on stealing the plutonium or whatever because Joyce will be off trying to make romance happen.
For Joyce to be a superhero she first needs to stop being a super villain
http://www.dumbingofage.com/2014/comic/book-4/04-the-whiteboard-dong-bandit/cleaning/
Nah, Kaito Kid manages to be both without a hitch.
Nope, she wants to make sure that Walky doesn’t ever come back with Dorothy.
Lol, so true. I’m surprised how Walky is okay with Joyce’s “match making skills”
Walky probably knows enough about strong-willed women from Sal and Billie to know it’s pointless trying to interject, object or complain. He clearly intends to use Arthur Dent’s strategy for coping when events get away from you: Just stand in the background with a mild, passive smile and make it clear by his non-participation that he does not know what is going on or why it’s happening.
He’s also still trying to conceal that they’re actually already something of a couple.
Hitchhikers Guide reference, love it!
Wait, a Hitchhiker’s Guide ref, I thought he was refing One Punch Man (last panel)
…WHO DID IT FIRST?!?!
The Hitchhiker’s reference is the alt-text, not the last panel.
If I were Walky I’d be concerned about the speed lines in panel five: This is a very determined Joyce.
That’s most likely one of the reasons he doesn’t protest in the last panel. It’s much easier to just let Joyce run her course.
Did…did you just do a Saitama reference!?
*genuine slow clap for clever reference use*
Is this the long-awaited return of ?
Is this the long-awaited return of Joyce Brown, Freelance Love Ghost?
https://valdvin.tumblr.com/post/159036677998/joyce-brown-freelance-love-ghost-wraps-up
SHE’S BACK!
What could possibly go wrong, now that Joyce is involved?
“How to launch a ‘ship that’s already at sea.” 2nd edition by Joyce Brown, based on the 1st edition by Jessie Billingsworth
Hitchhiker’s Guide reference FTW!! 😀
nice hitchhiker’s guide reference
Look, Walky, just spell things out very specifically that you don’t want Dorothy to be hurt if you move on too quickly. Joyce will get that and agree with it. Problem solved. … don’t mention that you already have, though.
You might want to try protesting a little more believably there Walky, that was not too convincing.
Oh man, this’ll be just like when Billie got Walk together with Dorothy!
*Walky
also i guess i shouldn’t be surprised that everyone else commented on this before i checked DoA today
*Ahem* welp, that ship has sailed.
She was like “It isn’t Dorothy, and I don’t have to share again! I can do this!”