Regardless, to go from functional to "can't recognize a fountain" in three months seems extreme. Feels like Willis fishing for a cartoony joke in detriment of a more realistic one to me.
That's Dr. Title, thank you!
I assume that this at least somewhat goes under the banner of "Joyce is autobiographical".
Ever Evolving, Ever Adapting
The Wanderer
So Carol and Hank are getting that divorce huh?
Eating a Vanilluxe will give you frostbite.
...eh, bit overdramatic there, Joyce.
The Wanderer
That's almost a triangle smile there
Captionless One
Wendy's does have the best nuggets of any national fast-food chain, it's true.
♭What.
Ahaha, no Becky, she said that Joyce was your best friend. There's an important distinction.
The Wanderer
You'd only be getting eye injections if you had something far more serious than astigmatism
bivalve
"This is going to be extremely painful, Miss Brown.."
http://www.mansionofe.com
C-E-O-3, H-N-I-C
![[up]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/smiles/arrow_up.png "[up]"){kind=icon}
Which she probably doesn't have. She may just be nearsighted.
She's just never noticed because she's also been short-sighted, but now her world's opening up and she's straining to see the long view.
Also she has to see the chalkboard now and not just the kitchen table, I think this has been mentioned in comic. Oh I see how that also works with the metaphor.
Although astigmatism would help explain why it's taken so long for her to realize the issue. Because it interferes with perceiving lines, people who are more astigmatic than near-sighted may not realize their vision is blurry until they try to read something distant, and of course, they may assume it's normal for a while.
The Wanderer
Professional Forum Ninja
Hindsight's 2020.
...I'll see myself out.
"We're all paper, we're all scissors, we're all fightin' with our mirrors, scared we'll never find somebody to love."
R Lee Ermey Looks At YOU
So one disadvantage of the fact that I tended to pop into and out of this comic until about a year ago is that I'm legitimately confused about why A. Needing glasses is such a big deal to Joyce, and more importantly, B. Why Joyce needing glasses is such a big deal to Becky that she's helping Joyce try to cheat the vision test. Is this just an extension of the mostly-in-her-head Becky-vs-Dorothy rivalry where she's compelled to take the opposite side of Dorothy how matter how destructive that position is?
I'm helping!
>Is this just an extension of the mostly-in-her-head Becky-vs-Dorothy rivalry where she's compelled to take the opposite side of Dorothy how matter how destructive that position is?
Yes.
Trouble Cube continues to be a general-purpose forum for those who desire such a thing.
Becky also seems to be under the impression that enabling bad habits is what a good friend should do.
Welcome to Estalia, gentlemen.
Visiting from the Hoag Galaxy
Becky is wearing incredibly thin on me at this point. Like, I absolutely get that joke about how Joyce was the most socialized member of that homeschool group now, because Becky is like, actively sabotaging Joyce's wellbeing as part of a feud that she made up against a person who hasn't done a single thing to antagonize her, and it makes me a little bit curious about how bad the other members of the homeschool group are.
I get that Becky is probably compensating for a lot of really complicated feelings and is trying to make it look like everything's fine, but the jokes about the dynamic between her and Dorothy stopped being funny a while ago. Because at this point, it's Becky antagonizing Dorothy for no real reason, Dorothy just no-selling it and not responding, and everyone else either ignoring it or enabling Becky.
Not Three Laws compliant.
It feels less like active sabotage and more like a misguided attempt to be helpful.
Visiting from the Hoag Galaxy
I would buy that for some of the earlier stuff, but like...Joyce very obviously needs glasses and if Becky somehow succeeded, she would have just set Joyce up for bigger and bigger failure in the future. She's not thinking about consequences at all, and it's really obvious it's a combination of enabling and wanting to get one up on Dorothy.
Becky's a pretty shitty friend, especially in this sequence. Joyce has a lot of hangups, yes, but Becky is feeding into them in a really dangerous way and if Becky isn't shut down and given a reality check, it could potentially lead into something really, really dangerous in the future.
It does not help that Becky literally made up a rivalry and refuses to acknowledge that it's entirely one-sided and that made up rivalry is feeding into her enabling of Joyce because if she has to oppose Dorothy and Dorothy is being the reasonable and logical one, that means Becky needs to have increasingly delusional positions in order to keep it up.
I've seen some of this stuff happen with people IRL and it basically just leads to a huge breakdown of communication and a huge fight because the enabling reached a point that comes off as deranged and completely detached from reality and the consequences finally came to roost. It hits pretty close to home to me.
Edited by Zendervai on Jan 1st 2021 at 1:43:50 PM
Not Three Laws compliant.
I think that could be the point, honestly. To show that Becky isn’t helping, and she’s taking this thing way too far.
Can we please move on from this plotline already? It stopped being fun about ten strips before it started and has now grown into being permanently annoying. Yes, Becky is jealous and irrationally supportive because of it. We get it. Develop something new or move on, please.
Edited by TheLovecraftian on Jan 1st 2021 at 5:32:45 PM
It's possible (source: happened to me) that Joyce has always been this visually impaired, and just never realized it was unusual.
Trouble Cube continues to be a general-purpose forum for those who desire such a thing.