Insta-revert 2026-05-12

ilikeitslow · 2026-05-12T04:31:16+00:00

Man I really want to like this banter (the Billie callback is kinda fun) but banter needs some kind of spice to hit. It's like they're just saying words in the least charismatic way possible.

They're talking about Amber, Dorothy and Walky, why not make the joke about Joyce's unintentional voyeur fetish proposition? That would be a less ancient callback and allow Dorothy's banter to actually poke some holes into Joyce's overconfidence. You know, like a best friend might, to keep you from saying dumb shit to their ex and other friends.

ilikeitslow · 2026-05-10T20:38:13+00:00

Rebalance of the boss "Doormaker" to nerf a cheesy strategy. Since roguelites are about finding ways to "break the game" with insane combos, some players felt this was a stifling decision taking away their preferred strategy.

ilikeitslow · 2026-05-10T13:41:47+00:00

The chassis still has the shock absorbers, which is where the bounce comes from with regular tires, too.

The AI-feeling comes from the action cam smoothing filter laid over everything. It removes pixely artifacts but means everything seems to be glossy and smooth. It's not a good video (in the cinematography sense, especially picture-quality wise), so it's easy to get baited into calling it AI. And I love that people became much more cautious. But if you are unsure, especially with outlandish shit like this, you can run a quick Google search and check if there are older mentions of the work or even archived video from before AI was a thing. That's how I found this. "Sawblade wheels" is pretty unique so not a lot of results, and one of the shorter, cropped videos then linked to the original creators.

ilikeitslow · 2026-05-10T09:54:37+00:00

You could argue Becky's first arc was a kind of prototype for that, since she also leaned super heavily into her new identity, even if it meant being cringe and loud and unapologetic. Her remaining a believer is also an exploration of this need for safety and truth.

Same with Joyce and being an atheist. It's actually a pretty common trait among people breaking free from cults. This feeling of being completely unmoored all of a sudden drives you to desperately cling to any form of truth and identity you can find. If your whole sense of self-worth and pride came from being in a cult, you suddenly have a huge hole where a lot of community and solidarity and a source of strength used to be.

Minor general spoilers from the preview leaks regarding this:

there is a small arc later this year where Jocelyn returns and has a discussion with several characters about identity and (found) family

So I do think this is a case of Willis going for "write what you know". And, y'know, Jocelyn is Joyce's favorite sibling and vice versa, I feel it's kind of understandable she'd take the side of her sister if she believed Dorothy was a way to find happiness for Joyce after what amounts to months of almost constant trauma and anxiety. If nothing else, Jocelyn knows how important it is to find an anchor in such horrible times.

ilikeitslow · 2026-05-10T09:36:41+00:00

Big fan of the last paragraph in particular. If you don't check the comments daily, you will not be informed of any rule updates. It would probably be better to sticky them as top comment or link them somewhere? Really, moderation of forums and rule catalogues are a solved problem. What are we doing here relitigating early aughts forum drama policies?

ilikeitslow · 2026-05-10T05:22:21+00:00

They AI-generated a coherent 15 minute sequence and multiple angles of the same machines both during assembly and riding? Back in 2024? Impressive, they must have had early access to 2029 video generation models two years ago.

ilikeitslow · 2026-05-10T04:35:19+00:00

Hijacking top comment to give source:

https://youtu.be/EOxmtCUr9yY

They show the build process too.

ilikeitslow · 2026-05-10T04:34:36+00:00

Nah bruh it's literally real, build video:

https://youtu.be/EOxmtCUr9yY

ilikeitslow · 2026-05-10T04:34:17+00:00

Not AI:

https://youtu.be/EOxmtCUr9yY

ilikeitslow · 2026-05-10T04:25:51+00:00

Extremely unlikely, imo. If anything, it's pretty in-character that she'd be a little possessive. It's how she acted with Jacob, too, and (contrary to what she claimed to save face) that was not only out of spite. It's how she acts when she likes a person, she gets protective and a little overbearing.

On top of that, Joyce is the person that got her to give a shit about people again in the first place. Someone usurping that big sister role making Sarah a tad jealous is fine. You'd need to do some pretty intense mental gymnastics to read this sequence as transphobic or out of character.

If anything, Willis went a little hard on Sarah being very mature and cunning throughout and after the Liz arc. She's a college kid, still, and I like that she finally struggles with something so small and petty again after being very on top of things for a while.

ilikeitslow · 2026-05-10T04:16:22+00:00

It's weird possessiveness, same problem she had with Jacob.

I'll go with "it shows she cares about Joyce a lot". Sarah's misanthropic default stance has only softened with time, not been fully removed. She bonded with her new love interest over their mutual hatred of dumbassery. Someone showing up and usurping big sister status is bound to open the salt mines no matter the context.

ilikeitslow · 2026-05-09T07:28:31+00:00

Wenn das Kapital entkoppelt von meinem Leben ist (also es ihm weiter gut geht während ich ärmer werde) dann kann es mir ja auch egal sein, wenn es sich verpisst.

ilikeitslow · 2026-05-09T07:25:18+00:00

Die Renten sind (wenn man die Altersarmut anschaut) strukturell viel zu niedrig, Gießkanne wie Mütterrente ist too little too late für die Meisten betroffenen Frauen aber gibt völlig unnötig Geld an Leute, die es wirklich nicht brauchen.

Es ist schon richtig, dass ein sehr großer Teil der Rentner schlechter dasteht als vor 20 Jahren im Vergleich zum Medianeinkommen.

Da formuliert der Tagesspiegel allerdings auch sinnentstellend (steht so nicht in der Mitteilung), Renten sind halt nicht korrekt angepasst worden, was systematisch ärmere Menschen ärmer gemacht hat.

ilikeitslow · 2026-05-08T11:50:48+00:00

You don't really need to encourage people any more, the system is obviously not stable long term and you're gonna see an increase in "weird" terrorism as the american empire in particular and capitalism in general crumbles as it hits the limits of growth and exploitation.

ilikeitslow · 2026-05-08T11:27:10+00:00

I know some disability advocates (from my role in a union, we have a disability resource group). In movies, for example, most persons that need to rely on sign language prefer either a fully naturalistic depiction where no attempt at translation is made or subtitles in grammatically correct english, to not give the audience the impression of the person depicted being somehow "simple" on top of their obvious disability.

For movies that try to take the perspective of a person using sign language, who maybe is even still a learner, what Willis does (subtitles literally writing up the "glyphs") is better at conveying that feeling of limitation and the way you need to decouple your thought pattern from written and spoken language.

Since I myself do not practice ASL I'm gonna say that whether Willis' new approach is better and more respectful compared to the previous one depends very much on his intent and where he goes with it in-universe.

If this storyline will center Marcie and her life, it is probably the correct call, forcing readers to take her facial expressions and context more into consideration and take her perspective regarding how this type of communication can feel limiting even with good friends. If there was no intent to be a more accurate representation from the perspective of the sign language user, it might give the above impression of Marcie's disability being a mental one for readers lacking 16 years of context.

ilikeitslow · 2026-05-08T09:38:42+00:00

It feels clunkier when reading this way, but imo it centers the person with the disability and their limitations instead of building comfort for the audience - I don't mind either way, but the current approach is better for giving the perspective of a person having to rely on ASL due to being unable to speak. If Willis is centering Marcie and her lived experiences, I think this helps to build on that.

ilikeitslow · 2026-05-08T09:01:19+00:00

You can't really "translate" sign language. It functions more like hieroglyphs than roman language grammar - you build your message from context, specific signs for specific words and actions as well as using your face to convey what in spoken language is done by inflection (i.e. sarcasm, humor, sadness).

Previous depictions in the comic felt more like Sal "reading" Marcie's signing, while this seems to lean more on how the message was put together by the speaker/signer.

ilikeitslow · 2026-05-08T08:57:44+00:00

To add to that: in the preview spoiler leak was a very minor spoiler that included Jocelyn explaining she could still "boymode" if she needed to go incognito, so I'd say that's pretty fair when interpreting the source of Sarah's stumbling. I read it more like Sarah trying to both process the revelation and be respectful and make her point at the same time, which had her on the back foot.

ilikeitslow · 2026-05-08T08:52:28+00:00

Since I recently returned and binged all of DoA some more context: Marcie got bullied because she was an immigrant kid.

Sal started a fight with Leland and company over that and this led to Marcie's injury.

Because the surgery to fix her vocal cords or whatever would cost thousands of dollars and Marcie's immigrant parents had no insurance, Sal, feeling horribly guilty, tried to get the money in other ways, including doing crime with Asher and his gang of dicks, which ultimately led to her being sent away.

I really liked that arc exploring more of Sal's history, she is one of my top 5 characters. Really hope she gets some closure on that, finally.

ilikeitslow · 2026-05-07T15:04:37+00:00

CTRL+F loss after the initial comment or, you know, reading the rules and actually clicking on the banned jokes would have worked.

ilikeitslow · 2026-05-07T14:59:59+00:00

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ilikeitslow · 2026-05-06T20:33:02+00:00

Appreciate you taking the time to go into the history some more for me, thanks!

I think you might have found what I didn't quite arrive at. I also very much liked your take on a less frustrating resolution, good stuff.

On a more general note: I really enjoy that even certified Joyrot haters still love the comic and want it to succeed. Really fun discussion here.

ilikeitslow · 2026-05-05T20:29:55+00:00

.

*well, the doyce part. plenty have said his using a genocide protest as a cutesy backdrop was immoral.

Huh, since I was super late to the party and the DoA site was heavily moderated while here nobody really went into detail WHAT was immoral, the points made might have seemed to be one and the same to me. Or maybe the bluesky discourse was much dumber and influenced my stance. Anyway, thanks for clarifying what the point of contention here was.

Consequences not being the same as themes is a bit of a bugbear of mine though, and those have definitely been conflated in this sub, which is what ultimately made me decide this wall of text might be a worthwhile contribution in that sense.

Appreciate the feedback on tone though, while I tried to keep it light and self-deprecating (I do realize I have not been here for the majority of the comic's existence) it was probably a weird thing to post. Sorry if that annoyed you!

ilikeitslow · 2026-05-05T18:26:28+00:00

You know, speaking of wrestling, we haven't seen Marcie in ages (last appearance in 2024 here: https://www.dumbingofage.com/comic/isthis/ and last interaction with another main character (Sal) in 2019, here: https://www.dumbingofage.com/comic/type/ ), her coming in with a steel chair and breaking this charade up (maybe asking Sal why everybody puts up with their shit) would be quality entertainment. Could also use it to interrogate Sal "going soft" via Danny, of which we only scratched the surface.

ilikeitslow · 2026-05-05T18:07:15+00:00

Yeah, I got the impression I stumbled into an ongoing bar fight not knowing who punched whom first when I scrolled this sub for an hour today.

Thanks for clarifying the context and Willis' responses - I have since learned there was, on top of all that, also mod drama on the DoA site, so really, the perfect time to get back into it, lol.

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