I can’t help but picture Walky fiddling with a bow tie that Jason is tying for him, and Joe looking very confused but fabulous in a huge wedding dress with hairy cleavage and all.
Either that or they’re going to gossip about her and try to make her feel awful about supporting The Evil Lesbian Agenda by helping Becky. But I’m hoping your version is what actually happens.
I guess the ratio might depend on how many managed to finagle their way to attending secular schools where they could be exposed to other ways of thinking.
Considering it comes after “plus,” I don’t think that was the main reason she went to a secular school. Just a bonus that helped convince her parents.
It’s possible that other students also went to secular colleges that their parents had once attended.
In any case, the comparison is being drawn between Becky, who had to go to a Christian school. and Joyce, who didn’t. I don’t think it really implies whether other members had to go or not: it shows Joyce had points in her favor that convinced her parents to allow her attendance, but not that other students couldn’t have similarly convinced their parents. The only thing it really implies is that you do have to have SOME argument, and probably good standing as well, to get off the default option of a Christian university.
Let me rephrase; she didn’t specifically mention anyone other than Becky. I meant that she didn’t establish anyone’s destination university other than herself and Becky.
Oh and also they’d probably say “bad-bottom” or “bad-a-word”. Considering Joyce was the “best socialized” out of her whole group and still couldn’t make herself cuss like a normal person.
How well you fit into the round hole after your corners have been removed by whatever means necessary.
Of course a “group’s norms, values, attitudes, and behaviors” are specific to a group and may not match those of another group. Which is Joyce’s problem, she is stuck between two incompatible realities.
I always interpreted “best socialized” as most likely to be able to not fall apart when alone with none-believers. But, yes, they probably thought she was so devout that she wouldn’t be changed by contact with other ideas and bring back a husband to improve the gene pool. – wait, how do the explain the results of inbreeding, if they do not believe in evolution? Does not believing in evolution also means not believing in genetics? Or is there a way around that one?
Actually, because I was ill I read Enid Blyton’s Mallory Towers books yesterday (first time in English, the German version differs a bit in the originals and you get two vastly different universes in the official German and English follow-ups written by other people). And the originals are all about this school socializing the girls to function in a middle-class’s strictly hierarchical society with added emphasis on sports. Anyone ignoring the hierarchy gets “put into her place”.
The English follow up allows for more real change in people’s behavior-patterns, the German follow ups introduce the idea of emotional social work required of schools where parents fail to provide it.
Well, incest was a taboo in a lot of cultures even before we understood why inbreeding was dangerous. Just, back then people blamed any deformity/genetic illness the baby had on the god(s) punishing the parents for the incest, rather than understanding incest raises the chances of genetic illnesses.
A lot of creationists take the line that God made different “kinds” but also gave Man dominion over Nature. Thus Man can alter the different “kinds” through selective breeding, as part of Man’s dominion over Nature. But you only ever have variation within a “kind.” and you can never have one “kind” changing into another “kind.”
This is why a lot of creationists think they’re being clever when they ask evolutionists to produce a crocoduck – even though a crocoduck is something that would actually disprove the theory of evolution. But to a creationist, “A wolf stays a wolf, and it will never be anything but a wolf” is some disproof of evolution even though, no, that’s actually a core tenant of what evolution is all about. A species that has evolved into something new never stops being part of the class it came from – thus humans are humans, yes, but we’re also hominids and apes and dry-nosed primates and primates and mammals and chordates and animals and eukaryotes.
A new species of wolf is still going to be part of the Canis genus. But creationists either don’t know or willfully ignore how evolution works, and demand that evolution has to produce an example of a wolf turning into a fish or something equally absurd.
Walky, there are times when smart-assery is appropriate, and times when it definitely isn’t. As you very correctly determined, this was definitely an appropriate time. xD
So I guess they can force her to quit school without actually doing anything illegal. If that’s the case then I sure hope she can get some financial aid and student loans.
On the plus side, that would probably give her until the end of the semester or the beginning of next year to figure things out as a lot of schools have you pay up front for classes and housing at the beginning of the semester/year.
oh %@^% i just realized my childhood name of motor mouth because i talked to much might have naught connotations because of this comic. or maybe i have become a pervert and I am just thinking badly about walkys dialogue.
Joyce reminds me of that concept in child development when right before a burst of growth there is a period of regression. I think Joyce knows what’s coming so she’s fighting against it. “Fuck you I want my life to be simple!”
Well not necessarily but it is quite often that hang ups about sexuality like that can be partly due to sexism/hang ups on masculinity- over reliance on traditional gender roles and all that. Or having a fear as a man that another man will treat them as poorly as they treat women. (Even if they don’t realise this).
Oh, you’re right. For some reason I’d thought he had complimented Joe on his shirt and then been worried he’d think he was gay, but it looks like that was ETHAN complimenting WALKY’S shirt.
Also, now that I think about it, Walky went to an LGBT meeting to get free pizza. So I guess he probably never cared too much about appearing gay. Just “girly”.
Walky has always been the best character,
but I wonder
SPOILERS
You know those Facebook posts, that say things like “do you love Jesus”, One like is one prayer!” After Walky went all Cheesy, how much did the general public learn, and are there any Facebook posts with things like “Do you love Walky?” in the Walkyverse?
Someone should tell @damnyouwillis that Optimus Prime will go up for auction at Barrett Jackson Scottsdale. He’s got all that patreon $ and the twins probably weren’t going to college anyways, right?
Hello mood whiplash my old friend
I’ve come to talk to you again
Because Walky humor suddenly appearing
Came upon me while I was bad feeling
And the vision, of the new ship in my brain
Still remains
Within this webcomic
And in the slipshine light I saw
Ten thousand shippers maybe more
People hateficing without twisting
People crossing without matching
People writing slash where everyone is gay
No one would say
Which was the One True Pairing
You know, I appreciate Leslie’s style of teaching, but not with this type of class. She should realize she needs to adjust her teaching style for this particular group of students.
But… but then we wouldn’t get to see Joe and Walky as a married couple. And also Joyce wouldn’t have imagined what it would be like to have a romantic relationship where both partners are equal instead of divided by arbitrary gender roles. (Sure, she says she still believes those gender roles are good, but I think she’s coming around.)
It’s basically only blown up on her once so far. Every other time, she’s been able to use the chaos to make rather impactful lessons on the subject she had already planned to cover.
She’s trying to teach critical thinking to students who’ve never been asked to really think critically about anything before (even in public schools where “critical thinking” is part of the curriculum, most end up teaching “critical thinking” as being “the skill of figuring out what you teacher is most likely to agree with and then making up an argument to go along with it” rather than actually looking at the evidence and coming to a conclusion based on it.
She’s also trying to get them to apply this brand-new skill to an emotionally-fraught subject area. Most of the students have probably never really thought about how society works and whether or not how society treats gender stuff is right or wrong. But they’ve been brought up that This Is The One True Way Of How Things Should Be. So they’re being asked to critically examine beliefs that are probably core to how they view the world, which can be rather distressing.
I would argue that encouraging a controlled level of classroom chaos actually facilitates her aims, because she gets real-life examples of what she’s talking about, and when the kids challenge each others’ beliefs, they force the other to actually think about what they’re parroting, probably for the first time ever.
This is why she encourages even the ignorant students who are probably on remedial-level gender studies topics like Joyce and Joe to speak up and have their say – because getting little parrots genuinely is not Leslie’s aim in this class. Getting every student to actually start thinking about the subject material is.
It’s also a secret teacher knowledge that you can’t force anyone to learn genuinely. You can force them to parrot what they think will get them the best grade, but you can’t force them to actually take away any information they don’t want to.
So all of teaching becomes about getting kids to realize that there are genuinely interesting and relevant aspects to the subject material and make it something that is engaging and impactful.
Leslie is trying to judo every lesson, letting the students create memorable moments and relevance and then following that up with the context that hits home. Even when a student is being actively dismissive, she’s flipped it around with the context of how that student’s actions has negative impact (her pointing out to Joe the “sweet lesbian facts” he was dismissively perving over, noting to Roz how she was talking over a marginalized person to supposedly “speak up for them”).
And we can see the ways in which it’s having more impact on her students than it might otherwise have (especially since her student body is likely coming from more conservative and white backgrounds).
Yeah, it definitely says a lot more about Walky’s views on gender roles than anything, that a real man must always be horny and eager, but how he figures that out, that Ethan must be gay because otherwise he would be all over Joyce like Walky is with Dorothy, well, it comes off to me as “homosexuality exists as a failure to be a real man”, like some dumbshit highschooler insisting that not obsessing over vaginas 24/7 makes you Captain Homo of the S.S. Fabulous Rainbow.
And like, “gay dudes not being interested in women” is kinda fucking obvious, but that’s not really what I thought was behind Walky’s viewpoint.
Hell, the reverse of that is why I was bullied for being a (slur for a gay man) when I was a kid. I wasn’t showing horny attraction and obsession over women and I was visibly uncomfortable with toxic masculinity (because I was trans and ace and didn’t know it at the time), so pretty much everyone assumed that that meant I was gay and since it was now common knowledge, something needed to be done to “correct” that.
Possible. OTOH, he was right and it wasn’t something obvious enough that everyone else was picking up on it.
I don’t think the intent was to show Walky as having screwed up views on gender roles. If so, it was very badly done, because you don’t usually show someone’s poor judgment by making them be right. Especially without follow up.
Near as I can tell, it was meant as another indication Walky’s smarter and more perceptive than he lets on.
Also not necessarily “horny and eager”, but they went beyond the lack of that to physical contact, except when Joyce initiated it and Ethan seemed uncomfortable with that. Walky just summed it up.
There could have been other reasons, of course, but if it was intended as anything other than “Walky picked up on the clues and interpreted them correctly”, that needed to be played up in the story far more than it was.
That Walky feels the need to make that call about a dude dating a survivor of sexual assault, who might have some understandable apprehensions at someone, let alone a guy, initiating physical contact, says enough to me that he isn’t as much of a genius as he thinks he is, and either way, that’s still the point I’m making. Walky decides that, if a dude isn’t acting like how he thinks is masculine enough, then they must be gay.
Besides, Walky is painfully ignorant on sexuality, given how much he teases Joyce over her girlcrush on Dorothy.
The whole “butthole dad shows up to correct his errant daughter with a gun and Joyce interferes with him doing the Lord’s work by calling in a superhero and a juvenile delinquent with a motorcycle and violating the laws of physics and punching him out and curbstomping him and saying naughty words” thing, I think.
It’s funny how she lists it alongside befriending a non-christian and watching godless cartoons. Had to read it twice to pick up what she meant because I was trying to recall something a bit less serious than a school shooting.
If she hadn’t befriended non-Christians and watched godless cartoons, she would not have hid a lesbian from the corrective influence of her father and all of the school shooting would not have needed to happen.
So if her parents get her to unfriend Dorothy and to stop watching Dexter and Monkey Master, chances are she’ll cure or throw out Becky, Becky will return to her home community and the home community including Joyce’s parents will convert her back in time for Ross to leave prison.
No more school shootings required.
In other words: I think you underestimate fundamentalists’ ways of thinking about cause and effect and ailment and cure. Ross is not an isolated madman. He sticks out less from his crowd than you think.
That is 100% a likely way they are interpreting events. I would not at all be surprised if, under the guise of being “worried” and caring, they essentially said something along the lines of blaming her for “escalating a bad situation”, by insisting on clinging to these “unhealthy” friendships at “everyone’s expense”.
Also, can I just highlight how badass Becky is? Because she’s willing to go back to her home community with Joyce this weekend. A community that 100% views her as something that needs to be “fixed” and “prayed for” and may even blame her for her “vile actions against her family” and “showing such disrespect for her father”.
At the very least, she’s going to be weathering a lot of nasty passive-aggressive barbs. And at the worst, she could face violence or something else.
Being willing to risk all that to back up your best buddy requires some ovaries of cold hard steel.
Where did you get the bit about Becky going home as well? I’m asking mostly because I’ve seen multiple people mention this but I don’t recall a line in-comic or a preview panel that confirms this, and I feel like I’m the only person who somehow missed it.
I think the “thing” referred to is Ryan roofing Joyce at the party the first weekend of school. That has always been referred to as the thing that would get Joyce pulled out of school by her parents.
In most cases, I would think you’d be right, but I think this is just stuff that her parents know about, so it’s probably about Toedad’s free firearm demo.
Though it’s not a good sign that Toedad’s rampage is getting the same evasive appellation as her sexual assault. Both are becoming things she wants to never think about again, but can’t stop thinking about.
It’s funny that Walky has taken the (stereotypical) wife role here after giving Joe such shit over owning multiple pairs of shoes (accusations of womanhood & all that). It does fit his character, I just thought it was a funny little throwback, along with showing a touch of growth.
It does. And I think it also reflects Joe’s behavior during the assignment, making unilateral statements and adopting the more masculine role in a heteronormative construction, up to and including a type of “little lady talks too much” joke that Walky brilliantly runs with.
And it’s why I think it’s a really good thing that Joyce switched out, because Joe will be much more likely to notice and reflect on his unconscious behavior in fulfilling these roles when he can’t turn to a “biotruth” bit of blather or a “she beat me up” fully reasonable excuse to explain his falling into that gendered role.
So, I think we’re not only getting some great character growth for Walky, but there’s also the potential of some character growth for Joe as well.
Panel 1: I am so in love with Dorothy’s phrasing at times. This is such a disarming way to bring up an idea that Joyce would normally violently reject without thought if she brought it up directly, as well as to show empathy and humility. Dorothy is going to be a great and potentially transformative politician when she grows up.
Also oof, parents visits as obligation and means to waylay potential badness rather than a desired thing. I remember how much that sucked.
Panel 2: This is what Joyce was terrified in the “don’t change me” outburst. She knows that every stance of morality she takes in opposition and difference to her parents, she gets one step further out, putting her in real danger of slipping out of “oh ho, how Jordan she is” to full bore “we have no daughter” territory.
Also, I’m going to guess by her face here that she had somewhat of a nasty argument/passive-aggressive conversation with her mom following up on her angry Becky message that has her extra hesitant about coming home this weekend.
Panel 3: Dorothy is a good (girl)friend. I know it’ll never happen, but I love how both of them drift naturally into a very homoerotic friendship nonetheless showing each other the care and presence they normally would only have with a very close romantic relationship. It’s enough to make me argue that they may even have a queer-platonic relationship even if it never becomes sexual or romantic.
Panel 5: Reaction 1: Oh, Leslie, you know exactly what you are doing here. And Joe is so focused on not falling for the “obvious trap” that he’s bound to demonstrate all manner of toxicity accidentally that’ll naturally lead to an interesting lesson. Maybe he should have been more focused on actually gaining something from the assignment rather than angrily continuing to try and resist even a single modicum of genuine engagement.
Panel 5 Reaction 2: Ok, yeah, I’m even more convinced that Walky is some flavor of bi. Yes, his joke doesn’t necessitate him being bi any more than his actions would require him to be bi. But the ease at which he continues to lend into these sorts of jokes, this sort of role-play, and “universal” statements like “everyone finds Jacob hot” just makes him glow a bit blue, purple, and pink for me.
Sometimes I see Walky’s ease in joking about homosexuality as evidence that he’s *not* gay or bisexual, or if he is, he’s at least not conflicted about it. He’s confident in his understanding of his sexuality, so he’s not afraid to make jokes about it. *shrug*
Depends. Some dudes take on those kinds of jokes because they’re not concerned with it (I’ve known a few guys like this who used to joke-flirt with everyone around them as just a way of being funny, while also teasing homophobic friends for homophobia). Others use those kinds of jokes as a way to probe their interest – and to probe others reciprocation of that interest. In a kind of, “I’d bang that! Hahah, I’m so funny, of course I’m straight. Unless you’d really like to bang me, would you? because I’d totally bang you.” sort of way.
It’s not so much that a straight person can’t be comfortable with his sexuality and feel confident enough to constantly make queer references with regards to himself.
It’s more that in my experiences, every time I’ve seen someone dance around these types of jokes and references with regards to themselves it’s only been a matter of a few years before they came out as something queer:
“Oh ha ha, I’m so into lesbian culture, I guess I could almost count as an honorary lesbian”
… wait 5 months…
“Hey, everyone, I wanted to tell you all something. I think I might be trans and queer.”
Yeah, it’s the flavor of joke. Straight people who make jokes about their sexuality and aren’t being homophobic jackasses generally make the punchline about homophobia. Questioning people generally make the punchline about themselves being gay, but in kind of a probing way? Like, joke-flirting with someone you find hot, but with the out that if they react badly you can pretend that it’s a joke. Also lets you explore that idea without having to deal with the mental fallout of whether or not it’s real.
Huh. There was a background trigger that alerted me that something was up, but I didn’t realize what it was. I’ll have to remember Dorothy’s approach here. It’s a good and, as you say, disarming opener into landmine topics by pinning potential ignorance on yourself and drawing out the other party to explain their position rationally.
I’d like to think there are straight people out there who are comfortable going flamboyantly gay for a laugh. …I’m not one of them, sadly, but as far as I know Hard Gay from Japan is straight.
I have a friend who’s either straight or heteromantic and ace (I think), and she’s comfortable with jokes. We’ve joke-flirted probably even more than I have with my bi friend, and I don’t think she minds being rad as gay.
Also it shows consideration for the fact that Joyce has a lot going on in her life and head, not all of which Dorothy is familiar with.
Cuz, speaking as a person who’s been there in a lot of situations, there is little that is more guaranteed to get someone who’s a ball of emotions the way Joyce is right now to blow up at them than to make some profoundly ignorant suggestion and pretend that it’s the obvious solution to the problem. Used to happen to me a lot.
And especially when you’re in a shitty situation through either absolutely no or at least very little fault of your own, having someone want to swoop in and fix it all with a “solution” you know damn well is unworkable but you also know damn well they won’t shut up about until you make your already-unbearable situation worse feels a hell of a lot like victim blaming. “You wouldn’t be in this mess if you’d just apply this simple fix.” Heavy implication being that you’re too lazy/stupid/cowardly/immature/etc to have figured this out for yourself, so here let me your Wise Savior help you with it.
The way Dorothy broaches the topic admits right off the get-go that there’s probably more to it than she’s seeing, so what seems like an obvious solution to her might not actually be something that could work for Joyce. Even though her actions are similar (suggesting a way to resolve the situation), the way she’s approached it makes it feel to the recipient completely different. It’s less God-you’re-stupid-here-just-do-this-and-if-you-reject-it-I’m-just-going-to-keep-pressuring-you-until-you-try-it-even-though-you-already-know-it-won’t-work, and more I-am-a-friend-trying-to-help-you-brainstorm-the-least-bad-way-out.
And so often it is victim-blaming. Like, recently I had a lot of contact with a very unpleasant man and one of the douchey things he pulled was when I was talking with a friend about the state of my girlfriend (who’s stuck being abused and in the same house by her terrifying mother for a bit), decided to go on a long “fix it” tangent about how she could easily do all these simple things that he’d totally do in that situation.
I wanted to knock his block off, but instead settled for calmly explaining that yes, she tried all of those, yes, what he was doing was victim-blaming and inappropriate, and oh, hey, just so you know, her therapist has run out of methods to try and get her out, so maybe his ignorant ass wasn’t going to be able to just waltz in and “fix” what wouldn’t occur to our tiny lady brains.
I get the distinct impression that Jordan is the Problem Child of the household. How much is anyone willing to be that “Jordan is too Jordan to want to come,” actually meant “Jordan is a deconvert of some variety and Mom and Dad have cut him out of the family, so he couldn’t come even if he wanted to, but Mom and Dad didn’t tell me, they just told me that he didn’t want to come and framed it as Jordan being the problem child again.” ?
(Full note: I’ve not read any of Willis’ other series so I’m completely unaware of parallels with other series so I don’t know how likely this is from multiverse-Jordan).
Also: Not completely necessary for Joyce to have a nasty argument with her mother to be nervous about one happening – if she’s seen similar stuff happen to her other siblings when they went off to school, she knows what she’s in for if she is too frank in questioning them.
Also also: Who would bet that Jocelyn either is outed or comes out while Joyce is down and then gets kicked out? There’s been enough foreshadowing that something big and bad is going to happen on the family visit, and my money is on Joyce biting her tongue putting on a bubbly facade in a go-along-to-get-along kind of way and so that she’s respecting her parents and frankly because she might judge it less stressful to pretend she hasn’t changed as much as she has…. and then having her attempts at peacekeeping blow up in her face.
I don’t think Jordan is fully disowned, because Joyce’s parents were still smiling when they were calling Joyce “more Jordan”. But I feel that Jordan is dangerously close to that point, which is a passive threat in its own right. One of my best friends got to that Jordan point with his fundie parents and so they would constantly use him as an example to try and bully his sister into line… And it worked because it made her absolutely terrified to come out to them as a lesbian who was already in a cohabitating relationship with her girlfriend.
And yeah, I’ve got a bad sinking feeling that Jocelyne is going to “say something she can never take back” possibly in defense of her sister or because she tries to reach out to her sister and her parents overhear. As Captain Button notes it would be a way to make a bad situation catastrophic in a way that Joyce wouldn’t have prepared for.
Re: JoyDot; not to diss your interpretation, or to say they’re not romantic or queerplatonic, but personally I’d say this particular conversation and Dorothy’s level of care for Joyce in general align with what I’d expect from ‘best friends’, which would not necessarily be romantic or qp.
As I wrote this, I realized I have what I might call ‘queerplatonic’ feelings for my best friends, maybe, though we don’t have explicitly queerplatonic relationships? (I am ‘friend married to one of them)
And I could certainly see them as qp and perhaps romantic. All I really wanted to add to this is that I think this is how besties should act: I can’t speak for chemistry or feelings.
Now I want to twist that into some sort of quantum mechanics version of personal relationships.
Schrödinger’s Girlfriend – When you have a very close relationship but haven’t clarified exactly what kind of relationship it is. Until you collapse the wave function by kissing her.
I am the entertainer
And I know just where I stand
Another English major
And another snark-filled plan
Today I’m your exam-peon
I may have played your parts
But I know the game, you’ll pass/fail my name
And I won’t be here in another year
If my grades don’t make the charts
Walky is not *accidentally* role playing, but does it on purpose (to annoy Joe presumably), whereas the dynamic with Joyce and Joe was no intentional role playing.
(Dorothy probably asked her and Joyce agreed not knowing what to expect, Joe must be doing it for what he assumed were easy credits and the chance to talk about hot lesbians. I dunno about Roz since she apparently studies more about the subject than the teachers)
Roz just THINKS she knows more than the professor, and she’s in the class to rub her self-percieved vast knowledge base in her peers’ faces. Aka the lulz.
I think it’s half this and half that this subject is something she clearly cares enough to research and read up on all she has. Honestly, she’s kinda a tumblr kid. She’s read up on societal oppressions, has listened to life experiences of people who are different, and knows a lot of disparate things and so thinks she’s got the handle on it. But she doesn’t have the life experiences to fully flesh out what those terms really genuinely mean and how one can encounter them in one’s day to day.
And she doesn’t realize that there’s a lot more to it than even the major pieces she’s got. I mean, after all, she’s done so much research, so an introductory class should mostly be review of shit she’s already seen a million times before… right?
To be fair to her, it’s an easy trap to fall into. When you’re well-read on a subject regarding social dynamics, it can be difficult to notice off the bat the difference between having read a lot of things on the subject and having experienced a lot of things on the subject.
And I totally fell into it in my past. There were things I thought I had a good handle on because I read a lot about them, but realized I didn’t know half of what I needed to know about them until I or someone I deeply cared about was directly affected by it. It has a way of bringing those viscerally home.
I think Roz may be also possibly interested in a major in the subject (idk the exact name, it was Gender and Women’s studies at my school, if I recall correctly), and is required to start with the intro-level course, regardless of whether she thinks she needs to take it.
Joyce is back to not having eye contact with Dorothy again 🙁
I’m glad Dorothy told her to text if she wants, it’s a small but important gesture. In a manner, Joyce will have both her ladies with her to see her parents.
Oh yes. Having someone to vent to in a stressful situation is very useful, even if they can’t give any practical help. Not the least because you can say the things to them you want to say to the others, but know you shouldn’t.
You always need a lifeline in these sorts of situations. Someone you can sneakily vent to about what is happening, so you don’t just give in to the gaslighting and assume that what is happening to you is normal and right.
Honestly, Joyce is doing all she can to prepare herself here. She’s bringing a friend who can get her back when needed (Becky) and now she’s got someone she can reach out to when she’s feeling a complete wreck and needs a connection to the outside.
She’ll still get battered and bruised and will probably “say something she can never take back”. But she’s going into it with the tools she’ll need to not be broken by it.
Though the friend is herself a source of the conflict. It’s still support – even if just being there to remind Joyce why she’s going through this, but it’s also a flashpoint.
I really enjoy how, in Walky’s mind, “owning more than one pair of shoes” is incompatible with masculinity coexists with the total freedom of roleplaying an homosexual relationship.
Well clearly they’re not supposed to own more than one pair of shoes each, which frees up some money for the initial investment for the trampoline park.
Walky strikes me as more a Chico type, with your avatarsake Mike as Groucho.
Danny is Zeppo, earnest, upright, and deeply clueless.
But who is Harpo? Marcie, because she doesn’t talk? Dina, for being seriously disconnected from other people’s reality? Carla or Sal, for being irreverent pains in the ass?
(I should stop picking at this analogy before it gets infected.)
I think he would be fantastic at drama. He’s got a lot of natural charisma, he’s got a fantastic body (as noted on by Dorothy), he’s got a disarming humor, and he’s quick with a punchline or an improvisation. He could be a good comedian or comic actor or even a decent stage actor and he’s even got the background with being on camera to draw on.
Shame that to his mom, he’s now “grown-up past the age of child star” and now it’s “time for him to become a doctor”.
In all seriousness, Walky is actually majoring in… “media communication”? Something that has to do with TV, anyway, and could theoretically land him a job in the media industry.
IIRC, he picked that because it was both enough of a “real” career to satisfy his parents and was close enough to what he loves (cartoons and TV in general)
I think his major is telecommunications because that sounds like television. It doesn’t sound like it satisfies his parents though. From family weekend, I’m under the impression that Linda expects that any day now Walky will realize that he wants to go pre med.
It’s a scary thing. Worse still when visits home used to be enriching and made you feel loved and supported and now you realize they’re just a minefield of various microaggressions and awfulness.
Joyce is just starting to realize her parents are toxic and so doesn’t have much of any of the armor or the disconnection to protect herself. And it’s a whole weekend of contact this time rather than just a single afternoon and evening.
On the other hand, if she realizes how horrible is her homelife situation AND manages to say “screw this, I’m getting out of here”, she might find herself in a better situation.
Yeah, it’d be sad and hurtful at first, but in the long run the healthiest thing Joyce can do is to get away from the community she grew up in and live her life as her own.
I am wondering what Joyce’s parents were expecting her to do at IU. Was she supposed be hostile and dismissive like Mary? Only associating with the “good Christians” and avoiding all the sinful people?
Or was she supposed to be friends with them but either aggressively or passive-aggressively keep nudging them away from sin and towards virtue? Which in the long run would likely just make them hostile and dismissive towards her.
Or did they assume nothing had really changed from when they went there in the 1970s-80s when those sorts of people stayed in the closet where you could ignore their existence or at least their sinful habits?
And what should she have done when she found out the truth abut Becky? Throw her out? Play along while calling in Ross? Start preaching and praying with Becky so she could get over her “mistake”?
Regarding with how Joyce was supposed to treat others, I think they expected it to be the last two paragraphs there. Be a shining example of faith for her friends, but also not associate with people like Dorothy. (Someone who openly identifies as atheist seems to be too much of a threat)
Hard to know exactly what they expected her to do about Becky (they seem to only have thought that bringing a gun into the situation was too much though). We might be finding out soon though.
Man, I have the distinct feeling that Joyce might actually start to revert, at least on the surface: go back to her family’s open arms of easy, mindless ignorance and condemnation. They’re GOING to go to church, and I honestly don’t think Joyce has the strength to stand up to her parents for a second time. The only hope is if her “brother” backs her up, but that’s a can of worms all on its own and I don’t see it happening.
No, Joyce is going to be too conflicted and emotionally stressed to hold onto her secular ways. They’re going to mess her up bad.
I don’t think so. Joyce isn’t usually one to back down from doing what she thinks is right.
I’m more concerned for the same reasons that her sister is concerned about getting into an argument with her parents. What happens when neither of them is willing to back down on a point?
Of course, the sermon at church will be on a topic directly relevant to the weekend’s argument, either because someone tipped off the minister*, or just because of the same principle of narrative causality that made Leslie talk about the problems of homeless LGBT youth at such a convenient time.
* Is minister the right word for this variety of Christianity?
Just as a matter of curiosity — the bulk of the cast, being IU freshmen, are generally assumed to be 18 years old. Sarah, being a sophomore, would be a year older. Walkypedia tells us that Faz is 17 at the start of DoA, and Riley (Roz’s younger sister) is 12.
But how about some of the other members of the cast, such as Leslie and Robin de Santo, Joyce’s various siblings, and the parents of the characters? Have they ever been given ages in canon?
I’d assume Leslie and Robin are near their Shortpacked! Ages, which would make them thirty-somethings. Not sure about the rest, but all of Joyce’s siblings are older than her, and her parents have gotta be in their 50’s by now.
We have a definitive lower limit on Robin’s age – 25 is the minimum age in the Constitution for the House of Representatives, though thanks to the shifting year of the comic, we don’t know how much of her term she has served already. I don’t know if her Patreon appearance(s) indicate whether or not this is her first term. Assuming Leslie is a professor and not a graduate student, she is probably in her late twenties, more likely thirties.
I’d forgotten that that part of Leslie’s backstory carried over from the other universe as well – thanks for pointing that bit out. That could have occurred simultaneously with her graduate studies, though. And now I just want to know Leslie’s whole backstory.
I think Ruth said she was twenty at one point, but I’m not sure of the exact strip.
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for richer or poorer
in sickness and in health
with face shut or maw flapping in the wind
Oh so I’m the only one who assumes Walky is making a blowjob joke
what if it’s watersports tho
I don’t think Walky’s kinky enough for watersports, sadly
I suppose if someone asked, he probably would. But he’d be like “this is not what my penis is supposed to be doing right now”
Not the only one.
Blow or rim, it’s all good.
Oh Walky, Never Change.
Walky, Please Change, You’ve Worn Those Pajama Jeans Every Day For Two Weeks
(probably not really, but that does seem like the kind of thing he’d do if he didn’t have dorothy there to at least give him the side-eye)
Walky. Walky never changes.
David Hayter would disagree
Not to mention that *other* thing that they have no idea happened
The thing that would really make them pull her out.
That thing so terrible I have no idea what you’re talking about.
The party where Ryan drugged Joyce.
Wait, then what is “that thing” that she’s talking about?
When Ross kidnapped Becky at gunpoint. Joyce’s parents know about that. That’s the “thing” she mentions in panel 2.
They don’t know about the party and Joyce’s PSTD from it. That is the *other* thing that Lucretiel mentions above.
Tune in next week for more heart wrenching drama with Joyce and Dorothy. Coming up next, the hilarious Walky vs. Joe Hour!
More like “I love Walky”.
Joe: Walky, you have some explaining to do!
If we go with the Everybody loves Raymond format then Joe is basically Raymond’s Brother from the show.
They fight, they bite,
they bite and fight and bite,
fight, fight, fight, bite, bite, bite
The Walky and Joe show!
The movie version:
“I now pronounce you Joe & Walky!”On second thought, nevermind…
Walky is perfect in that last panel, true to his form.
So Walky, who’s the better husband, Joe or Dotty?
Even though he called her “wife” earlier, deep down he knew that was not the case.
That is truer than you can imagine. ^_^
Maybe Walky just wants to be swept off his feet y’know.
If only Joe shared Walky’s enthusiastic approach to the class assignment; specifically his willingness to freely invade someone’s personal space.
I really hope Dorothy can figure out something to say to Joyce to make this trip home easier in some way.
Also, top 10 comments. I’ll take it
“when you get back I will give you all the hugs kisses and snuggles you need”
that might work.
I will love you, and hug you, and squeeze you, and call you Joyce.
i am ulset i get this reference… you get a seal of approval.
Better order more herring then.
Beware of poachers too; apparently, Approvalian Seals are becoming quite rare and have risen in black market trade.
Either that or scare her to death.
Coming soon to slipshine (heh, coming)
Newlyweds: A Walky/Joe Story
I can’t help but picture Walky fiddling with a bow tie that Jason is tying for him, and Joe looking very confused but fabulous in a huge wedding dress with hairy cleavage and all.
If only I was an artist….
Quick, bribe Willis $50 to make this instead of the boring Slipshine stuff!
Thanks for that mental image.
No, really, thanks; it’s a good giggle.
“Hairy Cleavage”: Now tied with “Hate-Filled Noise” for Best Band Name Ever.
God, Walky is having a BLAST with this assignment. I honestly wish we saw more of that instead of…well…Joyce.
Heh.
‘Newlyweds.’
Now I am picturing the all-DoA episode of The Newlywed Game.
Joe & Walky
Joyce & Dorothy
Billie & Ruth
Becky & Dina! COME ON
~~shame~~
I die.
Invincible raptors erupt from my corpse and overrun the world, and all die.
Oh, the Embarrassment!
Invincible you say? Well, then they won’t have to deal with this problem.
@Captain Button:
I love you! Marry me!
most romantic proposal evar
Not doing folding, let’s be clear on that.
Roz & Jen/Sue/Whatever
*plays Streisand and Diamond’s “You Don’t Bring Me Flowers Anymore” on the hacked Muzak*
I was waiting for this storyline to get twisty. Does it need to, in your opinion?
Oh, I suspect you haven’t seen anything yet.
I perform this at karaoke when I can find someone willing to duet/do it with me.
Beautiful song, and an excellent choice.
If I every have the money I am so commissioning the Willis for Joe-Walky make-outs.
Start saving up for the next Kickstarter.
Should be fairly soon considering the web comic is a book-and-a-half ahead of the print comic.
When Joyce gets home, all her home school friends are gonna think she’s all bad-ass!
Either that or they’re going to gossip about her and try to make her feel awful about supporting The Evil Lesbian Agenda by helping Becky. But I’m hoping your version is what actually happens.
A little of both seems probable.
I guess the ratio might depend on how many managed to finagle their way to attending secular schools where they could be exposed to other ways of thinking.
I think Joyce said she’s the only one going to a public secular university? On account of her being the best socialized.
She didn’t mention anyone but Becky, actually.
She didn’t give any names but Becky. That’s not the same thing.
She’s the ‘best socialized of her whole homeschool group’. ‘Best’ and ‘whole’ both require more than two.
Considering it comes after “plus,” I don’t think that was the main reason she went to a secular school. Just a bonus that helped convince her parents.
It’s possible that other students also went to secular colleges that their parents had once attended.
In any case, the comparison is being drawn between Becky, who had to go to a Christian school. and Joyce, who didn’t. I don’t think it really implies whether other members had to go or not: it shows Joyce had points in her favor that convinced her parents to allow her attendance, but not that other students couldn’t have similarly convinced their parents. The only thing it really implies is that you do have to have SOME argument, and probably good standing as well, to get off the default option of a Christian university.
Let me rephrase; she didn’t specifically mention anyone other than Becky. I meant that she didn’t establish anyone’s destination university other than herself and Becky.
Oh and also they’d probably say “bad-bottom” or “bad-a-word”. Considering Joyce was the “best socialized” out of her whole group and still couldn’t make herself cuss like a normal person.
I’ve come to interpret that “best-socialized” as “most effectively brainwashed”.
Especially after meeting Becky, this seems probable.
“Socialized” has different meanings. It amounts to accidental truth-in-advertising.
“Socialization is the process by which people learn characteristics of their group’s norms, values, attitudes, and behaviors.’
“process of inheriting and disseminating norms, customs, values and ideologies…”
Your interpretation is correct.
How well you fit into the round hole after your corners have been removed by whatever means necessary.
Of course a “group’s norms, values, attitudes, and behaviors” are specific to a group and may not match those of another group. Which is Joyce’s problem, she is stuck between two incompatible realities.
Well, one reality and two differing views upon sed reality.
I always interpreted “best socialized” as most likely to be able to not fall apart when alone with none-believers. But, yes, they probably thought she was so devout that she wouldn’t be changed by contact with other ideas and bring back a husband to improve the gene pool. – wait, how do the explain the results of inbreeding, if they do not believe in evolution? Does not believing in evolution also means not believing in genetics? Or is there a way around that one?
Actually, because I was ill I read Enid Blyton’s Mallory Towers books yesterday (first time in English, the German version differs a bit in the originals and you get two vastly different universes in the official German and English follow-ups written by other people). And the originals are all about this school socializing the girls to function in a middle-class’s strictly hierarchical society with added emphasis on sports. Anyone ignoring the hierarchy gets “put into her place”.
The English follow up allows for more real change in people’s behavior-patterns, the German follow ups introduce the idea of emotional social work required of schools where parents fail to provide it.
Well, incest was a taboo in a lot of cultures even before we understood why inbreeding was dangerous. Just, back then people blamed any deformity/genetic illness the baby had on the god(s) punishing the parents for the incest, rather than understanding incest raises the chances of genetic illnesses.
A lot of creationists take the line that God made different “kinds” but also gave Man dominion over Nature. Thus Man can alter the different “kinds” through selective breeding, as part of Man’s dominion over Nature. But you only ever have variation within a “kind.” and you can never have one “kind” changing into another “kind.”
This is why a lot of creationists think they’re being clever when they ask evolutionists to produce a crocoduck – even though a crocoduck is something that would actually disprove the theory of evolution. But to a creationist, “A wolf stays a wolf, and it will never be anything but a wolf” is some disproof of evolution even though, no, that’s actually a core tenant of what evolution is all about. A species that has evolved into something new never stops being part of the class it came from – thus humans are humans, yes, but we’re also hominids and apes and dry-nosed primates and primates and mammals and chordates and animals and eukaryotes.
A new species of wolf is still going to be part of the Canis genus. But creationists either don’t know or willfully ignore how evolution works, and demand that evolution has to produce an example of a wolf turning into a fish or something equally absurd.
The funny thing is, there is something that could be described as a crocoduck: Spinosaurus.
Bad-bottom sounds way worse than bad-ass.
But then, she’ll hit a jukebox and make it play, and they’ll all be cool. 🙂
Depends how many Mary-like people compared to Joyce-like people are in that group.
Surely they will keep them isolated lest the dread infection get passed along.
“what friends”
Oh, Walky.
I don’t even have any words. Just… oh, Walky.
next comic
It’s Walky! (and Joe)
I don’t think I can fully express how much I like Walky right now.
I ship it. All of it.
I hope you can afford all the postage and handling.
Business account!
Bulk rate.
we can get it wholesale
Next-day air?
In the US, if it fits, it ships, for a low flat rate. Although I don’t think these will fit in any of the flat rate boxes.
Then you may need one of these:
https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=container+ship&client=ubuntu&hs=ZHu&channel=fs&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjNu7Lz1ZzKAhUInRoKHScuAEgQ_AUIBygB&biw=1366&bih=641
Or a few of these if you want to get past authorities or are in a real hurry.
Walky as Princess Leia?
Walky is best wife
Does that mean that Sal is even bester wife?
I really can’t see Sal married to Bester. She’d kill him, or he’d mindwipe her.
And she won’t have enough telepath genes.
I did not come here expecting Babylon 5 references but I’m not complaining.
What do you want?
Maybe this will help.
Now what you read was actually a reference to a cult classic called Unhappy Days…
Poor Walky. Being with Joe is like being with a rhinoceros who doesn’t love you anymore.
Walky is going to get the horn very soon.
https://media2.giphy.com/media/37H5XhwrXuHPq/200.gif
Before their relationship was all lovey dovey, but it’s quickly becoming clear that he’s just a Trophy Walky to Joe. V_V
Leslie has an almost evil glint of pending amusement on her face. Let’s hope Walky and Joe don’t disappoint.
She does, doesn’t she.
Yep. She knows that with Joe’s “I’m going to shit on this class” attitude there’s going to be no shortage of material to work with.
Now to watch him stumble into the “trap” he’s busy patting himself on the back about “figuring out”.
Ah, Walky, you troll.
I hope Joyce is going to be alright. But she was short once with a friend so instead she must suffer or something, I’m sure.
Walky, there are times when smart-assery is appropriate, and times when it definitely isn’t. As you very correctly determined, this was definitely an appropriate time. xD
Hells yes, it’s extremely well played on Walky’s part.
The body-language alone is pretty awesome.
I love the way Walky is grabbing Joe’s Bicep.
What if they pull Joyce out of school? :<
I doubt they can legally pull her out of school.
…But they can probably stop paying for school.
So I guess they can force her to quit school without actually doing anything illegal. If that’s the case then I sure hope she can get some financial aid and student loans.
She & Becky can figure that out together! I’m sure Leslie and Dorothy will be happy to help, and Sarah probably knows a lot about it too.
On the plus side, that would probably give her until the end of the semester or the beginning of next year to figure things out as a lot of schools have you pay up front for classes and housing at the beginning of the semester/year.
That’s my impression as to a large part of the reason she’s so nervous about this trip home.
oh %@^% i just realized my childhood name of motor mouth because i talked to much might have naught connotations because of this comic. or maybe i have become a pervert and I am just thinking badly about walkys dialogue.
If you ever feel bad about a nickname, just remember the most famous Watergate informant is forever known as “deep throat”.
Joyce reminds me of that concept in child development when right before a burst of growth there is a period of regression. I think Joyce knows what’s coming so she’s fighting against it. “Fuck you I want my life to be simple!”
Oh hey, I’m in that right now!
I’m 30 tho.
Walky’s having fun.
So I take it the honeymoon magic has run its course now, eh Walky?
After only fifteen minutes!
It was a whirlwind marriage.
Lots of howling and objects flying about?
And screaming. Don’t forget the screaming.
I love how much Walky’s committed to this.
But good jokes take work.
Hey, on the bright side, Walky doesn’t seem to be cripplingly insecure about being seen as gay or girly anymore. I guess he’s making progress too!
I don’t think he ever expressed insecurity about his sexuality, just his masculinity.
This.
Sometimes it’s difficult to remember that they don’t go hand in hand.
I think its because they so frequently do, that when you see one without the other its like seeing a unicorn in the flesh.
Well not necessarily but it is quite often that hang ups about sexuality like that can be partly due to sexism/hang ups on masculinity- over reliance on traditional gender roles and all that. Or having a fear as a man that another man will treat them as poorly as they treat women. (Even if they don’t realise this).
Yup, all of that.
Oh, you’re right. For some reason I’d thought he had complimented Joe on his shirt and then been worried he’d think he was gay, but it looks like that was ETHAN complimenting WALKY’S shirt.
Also, now that I think about it, Walky went to an LGBT meeting to get free pizza. So I guess he probably never cared too much about appearing gay. Just “girly”.
Hoo, boy – I hope Joyce’s visit home doesn’t get too uncomfortable…
…well, I guess you can hope, but – what webcomic have /you/ been reading?
One full of shiny happy people.
Impossible! There’s no such thing in this world. Check on Mars.
This isn’t the comic strip you’re looking for.
And that’s when Walky became best character
Walky has always been the best character,
but I wonder
SPOILERS
You know those Facebook posts, that say things like “do you love Jesus”, One like is one prayer!” After Walky went all Cheesy, how much did the general public learn, and are there any Facebook posts with things like “Do you love Walky?” in the Walkyverse?
Joyce: Who keeps posting these!?
Walky himself.
Someone should tell @damnyouwillis that Optimus Prime will go up for auction at Barrett Jackson Scottsdale. He’s got all that patreon $ and the twins probably weren’t going to college anyways, right?
Why, hello there, mood whiplash.
Good to see that Walky’s enjoying this.
Hello mood whiplash my old friend
I’ve come to talk to you again
Because Walky humor suddenly appearing
Came upon me while I was bad feeling
And the vision, of the new ship in my brain
Still remains
Within this webcomic
And in the slipshine light I saw
Ten thousand shippers maybe more
People hateficing without twisting
People crossing without matching
People writing slash where everyone is gay
No one would say
Which was the One True Pairing
Now that melody haunts me … 😉
You know, I appreciate Leslie’s style of teaching, but not with this type of class. She should realize she needs to adjust her teaching style for this particular group of students.
And I think it’s working just fine. What is your problem with it?
But… but then we wouldn’t get to see Joe and Walky as a married couple. And also Joyce wouldn’t have imagined what it would be like to have a romantic relationship where both partners are equal instead of divided by arbitrary gender roles. (Sure, she says she still believes those gender roles are good, but I think she’s coming around.)
She’s all about subverting the dominant paradigm and all that. No need for a drama tag when you can facilitate classroom shenanigans like these!
So far she’s made her point every class, I don’t see the problem.
It’s basically only blown up on her once so far. Every other time, she’s been able to use the chaos to make rather impactful lessons on the subject she had already planned to cover.
So for her, chaos is a ladder?
She’s trying to teach critical thinking to students who’ve never been asked to really think critically about anything before (even in public schools where “critical thinking” is part of the curriculum, most end up teaching “critical thinking” as being “the skill of figuring out what you teacher is most likely to agree with and then making up an argument to go along with it” rather than actually looking at the evidence and coming to a conclusion based on it.
She’s also trying to get them to apply this brand-new skill to an emotionally-fraught subject area. Most of the students have probably never really thought about how society works and whether or not how society treats gender stuff is right or wrong. But they’ve been brought up that This Is The One True Way Of How Things Should Be. So they’re being asked to critically examine beliefs that are probably core to how they view the world, which can be rather distressing.
I would argue that encouraging a controlled level of classroom chaos actually facilitates her aims, because she gets real-life examples of what she’s talking about, and when the kids challenge each others’ beliefs, they force the other to actually think about what they’re parroting, probably for the first time ever.
This is why she encourages even the ignorant students who are probably on remedial-level gender studies topics like Joyce and Joe to speak up and have their say – because getting little parrots genuinely is not Leslie’s aim in this class. Getting every student to actually start thinking about the subject material is.
This.
It’s also a secret teacher knowledge that you can’t force anyone to learn genuinely. You can force them to parrot what they think will get them the best grade, but you can’t force them to actually take away any information they don’t want to.
So all of teaching becomes about getting kids to realize that there are genuinely interesting and relevant aspects to the subject material and make it something that is engaging and impactful.
Leslie is trying to judo every lesson, letting the students create memorable moments and relevance and then following that up with the context that hits home. Even when a student is being actively dismissive, she’s flipped it around with the context of how that student’s actions has negative impact (her pointing out to Joe the “sweet lesbian facts” he was dismissively perving over, noting to Roz how she was talking over a marginalized person to supposedly “speak up for them”).
And we can see the ways in which it’s having more impact on her students than it might otherwise have (especially since her student body is likely coming from more conservative and white backgrounds).
Cool seeing Walky’s snark overcoming his homophobia.
You do not realize the power of the Snark Side!
I don’t think he ever expressed homophobia in the comic ?
Any reference to a strip where I’m wrong ?
Indeed. He’s a little attached to being stereotypically dudely, but that’s not the same thing.
Yes, it is. In real life, at least. And he is a LOT more than a little hing up on gender stereotypes.
No, it’s not.
If it were ‘if I wanted to fuck chicks, I’d be straight’ wouldn’t be a thing.
There was that one time he figured out Ethan was gay because he wasn’t touchy enough with Joyce.
It says more about his views on masculine gender roles, but it also came off to me as “Homosexuality is about a lack of proper manliness.”
I’d interpreted that as “he isn’t touching her because he isn’t really interested in her body, so he must be gay.”
Which ignores questions of level of sex drive, public standards of behavior and perceptions thereof, etc.
Yeah, it definitely says a lot more about Walky’s views on gender roles than anything, that a real man must always be horny and eager, but how he figures that out, that Ethan must be gay because otherwise he would be all over Joyce like Walky is with Dorothy, well, it comes off to me as “homosexuality exists as a failure to be a real man”, like some dumbshit highschooler insisting that not obsessing over vaginas 24/7 makes you Captain Homo of the S.S. Fabulous Rainbow.
And like, “gay dudes not being interested in women” is kinda fucking obvious, but that’s not really what I thought was behind Walky’s viewpoint.
This.
Hell, the reverse of that is why I was bullied for being a (slur for a gay man) when I was a kid. I wasn’t showing horny attraction and obsession over women and I was visibly uncomfortable with toxic masculinity (because I was trans and ace and didn’t know it at the time), so pretty much everyone assumed that that meant I was gay and since it was now common knowledge, something needed to be done to “correct” that.
Possible. OTOH, he was right and it wasn’t something obvious enough that everyone else was picking up on it.
I don’t think the intent was to show Walky as having screwed up views on gender roles. If so, it was very badly done, because you don’t usually show someone’s poor judgment by making them be right. Especially without follow up.
Near as I can tell, it was meant as another indication Walky’s smarter and more perceptive than he lets on.
Also not necessarily “horny and eager”, but they went beyond the lack of that to physical contact, except when Joyce initiated it and Ethan seemed uncomfortable with that. Walky just summed it up.
There could have been other reasons, of course, but if it was intended as anything other than “Walky picked up on the clues and interpreted them correctly”, that needed to be played up in the story far more than it was.
That Walky feels the need to make that call about a dude dating a survivor of sexual assault, who might have some understandable apprehensions at someone, let alone a guy, initiating physical contact, says enough to me that he isn’t as much of a genius as he thinks he is, and either way, that’s still the point I’m making. Walky decides that, if a dude isn’t acting like how he thinks is masculine enough, then they must be gay.
Besides, Walky is painfully ignorant on sexuality, given how much he teases Joyce over her girlcrush on Dorothy.
Forgive me for being oblivious, but to which “thing” is Joyce referring? I can’t think of one which her parents would know about and be mad about.
Also, love walky in this whole marriage thing!
The whole “butthole dad shows up to correct his errant daughter with a gun and Joyce interferes with him doing the Lord’s work by calling in a superhero and a juvenile delinquent with a motorcycle and violating the laws of physics and punching him out and curbstomping him and saying naughty words” thing, I think.
It’s funny how she lists it alongside befriending a non-christian and watching godless cartoons. Had to read it twice to pick up what she meant because I was trying to recall something a bit less serious than a school shooting.
If she hadn’t befriended non-Christians and watched godless cartoons, she would not have hid a lesbian from the corrective influence of her father and all of the school shooting would not have needed to happen.
So if her parents get her to unfriend Dorothy and to stop watching Dexter and Monkey Master, chances are she’ll cure or throw out Becky, Becky will return to her home community and the home community including Joyce’s parents will convert her back in time for Ross to leave prison.
No more school shootings required.
In other words: I think you underestimate fundamentalists’ ways of thinking about cause and effect and ailment and cure. Ross is not an isolated madman. He sticks out less from his crowd than you think.
That is 100% a likely way they are interpreting events. I would not at all be surprised if, under the guise of being “worried” and caring, they essentially said something along the lines of blaming her for “escalating a bad situation”, by insisting on clinging to these “unhealthy” friendships at “everyone’s expense”.
Also, can I just highlight how badass Becky is? Because she’s willing to go back to her home community with Joyce this weekend. A community that 100% views her as something that needs to be “fixed” and “prayed for” and may even blame her for her “vile actions against her family” and “showing such disrespect for her father”.
At the very least, she’s going to be weathering a lot of nasty passive-aggressive barbs. And at the worst, she could face violence or something else.
Being willing to risk all that to back up your best buddy requires some ovaries of cold hard steel.
Where did you get the bit about Becky going home as well? I’m asking mostly because I’ve seen multiple people mention this but I don’t recall a line in-comic or a preview panel that confirms this, and I feel like I’m the only person who somehow missed it.
It is discussed here on December 5, 2015. Though reading it carefully, it is not definitely said that Becky is going, only that she has offered to.
Thanks. 🙂
“Joyce, I’m sure you were just misunderstanding the situation. that doesn’t sound like Toedad, he’s a godly person.”
I think the “thing” referred to is Ryan roofing Joyce at the party the first weekend of school. That has always been referred to as the thing that would get Joyce pulled out of school by her parents.
In most cases, I would think you’d be right, but I think this is just stuff that her parents know about, so it’s probably about Toedad’s free firearm demo.
Though it’s not a good sign that Toedad’s rampage is getting the same evasive appellation as her sexual assault. Both are becoming things she wants to never think about again, but can’t stop thinking about.
It’s funny that Walky has taken the (stereotypical) wife role here after giving Joe such shit over owning multiple pairs of shoes (accusations of womanhood & all that). It does fit his character, I just thought it was a funny little throwback, along with showing a touch of growth.
It does. And I think it also reflects Joe’s behavior during the assignment, making unilateral statements and adopting the more masculine role in a heteronormative construction, up to and including a type of “little lady talks too much” joke that Walky brilliantly runs with.
And it’s why I think it’s a really good thing that Joyce switched out, because Joe will be much more likely to notice and reflect on his unconscious behavior in fulfilling these roles when he can’t turn to a “biotruth” bit of blather or a “she beat me up” fully reasonable excuse to explain his falling into that gendered role.
So, I think we’re not only getting some great character growth for Walky, but there’s also the potential of some character growth for Joe as well.
Panel 1: I am so in love with Dorothy’s phrasing at times. This is such a disarming way to bring up an idea that Joyce would normally violently reject without thought if she brought it up directly, as well as to show empathy and humility. Dorothy is going to be a great and potentially transformative politician when she grows up.
Also oof, parents visits as obligation and means to waylay potential badness rather than a desired thing. I remember how much that sucked.
Panel 2: This is what Joyce was terrified in the “don’t change me” outburst. She knows that every stance of morality she takes in opposition and difference to her parents, she gets one step further out, putting her in real danger of slipping out of “oh ho, how Jordan she is” to full bore “we have no daughter” territory.
Also, I’m going to guess by her face here that she had somewhat of a nasty argument/passive-aggressive conversation with her mom following up on her angry Becky message that has her extra hesitant about coming home this weekend.
Panel 3: Dorothy is a good (girl)friend. I know it’ll never happen, but I love how both of them drift naturally into a very homoerotic friendship nonetheless showing each other the care and presence they normally would only have with a very close romantic relationship. It’s enough to make me argue that they may even have a queer-platonic relationship even if it never becomes sexual or romantic.
Panel 5: Reaction 1: Oh, Leslie, you know exactly what you are doing here. And Joe is so focused on not falling for the “obvious trap” that he’s bound to demonstrate all manner of toxicity accidentally that’ll naturally lead to an interesting lesson. Maybe he should have been more focused on actually gaining something from the assignment rather than angrily continuing to try and resist even a single modicum of genuine engagement.
Panel 5 Reaction 2: Ok, yeah, I’m even more convinced that Walky is some flavor of bi. Yes, his joke doesn’t necessitate him being bi any more than his actions would require him to be bi. But the ease at which he continues to lend into these sorts of jokes, this sort of role-play, and “universal” statements like “everyone finds Jacob hot” just makes him glow a bit blue, purple, and pink for me.
Sometimes I see Walky’s ease in joking about homosexuality as evidence that he’s *not* gay or bisexual, or if he is, he’s at least not conflicted about it. He’s confident in his understanding of his sexuality, so he’s not afraid to make jokes about it. *shrug*
He seems to have lost a lot of his concern about the “manliness” of his image since he started banging Dorothy.
Depends. Some dudes take on those kinds of jokes because they’re not concerned with it (I’ve known a few guys like this who used to joke-flirt with everyone around them as just a way of being funny, while also teasing homophobic friends for homophobia). Others use those kinds of jokes as a way to probe their interest – and to probe others reciprocation of that interest. In a kind of, “I’d bang that! Hahah, I’m so funny, of course I’m straight.
Unless you’d really like to bang me, would you? because I’d totally bang you.” sort of way.It’s not so much that a straight person can’t be comfortable with his sexuality and feel confident enough to constantly make queer references with regards to himself.
It’s more that in my experiences, every time I’ve seen someone dance around these types of jokes and references with regards to themselves it’s only been a matter of a few years before they came out as something queer:
“Oh ha ha, I’m so into lesbian culture, I guess I could almost count as an honorary lesbian”
… wait 5 months…
“Hey, everyone, I wanted to tell you all something. I think I might be trans and queer.”
Yeah, it’s the flavor of joke. Straight people who make jokes about their sexuality and aren’t being homophobic jackasses generally make the punchline about homophobia. Questioning people generally make the punchline about themselves being gay, but in kind of a probing way? Like, joke-flirting with someone you find hot, but with the out that if they react badly you can pretend that it’s a joke. Also lets you explore that idea without having to deal with the mental fallout of whether or not it’s real.
Huh. There was a background trigger that alerted me that something was up, but I didn’t realize what it was. I’ll have to remember Dorothy’s approach here. It’s a good and, as you say, disarming opener into landmine topics by pinning potential ignorance on yourself and drawing out the other party to explain their position rationally.
I’d like to think there are straight people out there who are comfortable going flamboyantly gay for a laugh. …I’m not one of them, sadly, but as far as I know Hard Gay from Japan is straight.
I have a friend who’s either straight or heteromantic and ace (I think), and she’s comfortable with jokes. We’ve joke-flirted probably even more than I have with my bi friend, and I don’t think she minds being rad as gay.
Is “rad as gay” a typo, or another one of these expression I don’t get because I am a clueless old fart?
Being gay is the raddest thing ever, obviously.
This.
Also it shows consideration for the fact that Joyce has a lot going on in her life and head, not all of which Dorothy is familiar with.
Cuz, speaking as a person who’s been there in a lot of situations, there is little that is more guaranteed to get someone who’s a ball of emotions the way Joyce is right now to blow up at them than to make some profoundly ignorant suggestion and pretend that it’s the obvious solution to the problem. Used to happen to me a lot.
And especially when you’re in a shitty situation through either absolutely no or at least very little fault of your own, having someone want to swoop in and fix it all with a “solution” you know damn well is unworkable but you also know damn well they won’t shut up about until you make your already-unbearable situation worse feels a hell of a lot like victim blaming. “You wouldn’t be in this mess if you’d just apply this simple fix.” Heavy implication being that you’re too lazy/stupid/cowardly/immature/etc to have figured this out for yourself, so here let me your Wise Savior help you with it.
The way Dorothy broaches the topic admits right off the get-go that there’s probably more to it than she’s seeing, so what seems like an obvious solution to her might not actually be something that could work for Joyce. Even though her actions are similar (suggesting a way to resolve the situation), the way she’s approached it makes it feel to the recipient completely different. It’s less God-you’re-stupid-here-just-do-this-and-if-you-reject-it-I’m-just-going-to-keep-pressuring-you-until-you-try-it-even-though-you-already-know-it-won’t-work, and more I-am-a-friend-trying-to-help-you-brainstorm-the-least-bad-way-out.
This.
And so often it is victim-blaming. Like, recently I had a lot of contact with a very unpleasant man and one of the douchey things he pulled was when I was talking with a friend about the state of my girlfriend (who’s stuck being abused and in the same house by her terrifying mother for a bit), decided to go on a long “fix it” tangent about how she could easily do all these simple things that he’d totally do in that situation.
I wanted to knock his block off, but instead settled for calmly explaining that yes, she tried all of those, yes, what he was doing was victim-blaming and inappropriate, and oh, hey, just so you know, her therapist has run out of methods to try and get her out, so maybe his ignorant ass wasn’t going to be able to just waltz in and “fix” what wouldn’t occur to our tiny lady brains.
OH also I was just hit with a thought:
I get the distinct impression that Jordan is the Problem Child of the household. How much is anyone willing to be that “Jordan is too Jordan to want to come,” actually meant “Jordan is a deconvert of some variety and Mom and Dad have cut him out of the family, so he couldn’t come even if he wanted to, but Mom and Dad didn’t tell me, they just told me that he didn’t want to come and framed it as Jordan being the problem child again.” ?
(Full note: I’ve not read any of Willis’ other series so I’m completely unaware of parallels with other series so I don’t know how likely this is from multiverse-Jordan).
Also: Not completely necessary for Joyce to have a nasty argument with her mother to be nervous about one happening – if she’s seen similar stuff happen to her other siblings when they went off to school, she knows what she’s in for if she is too frank in questioning them.
Also also: Who would bet that Jocelyn either is outed or comes out while Joyce is down and then gets kicked out? There’s been enough foreshadowing that something big and bad is going to happen on the family visit, and my money is on Joyce biting her tongue putting on a bubbly facade in a go-along-to-get-along kind of way and so that she’s respecting her parents and frankly because she might judge it less stressful to pretend she hasn’t changed as much as she has…. and then having her attempts at peacekeeping blow up in her face.
I think Jocelyne outing herself or being outed this weekend would make a bad situation catastrophic.
So yeah, probably.
Willis seems to work like Lois McMaster Bujold “What is the worst thing I can do to this character?”
I don’t think Jordan is fully disowned, because Joyce’s parents were still smiling when they were calling Joyce “more Jordan”. But I feel that Jordan is dangerously close to that point, which is a passive threat in its own right. One of my best friends got to that Jordan point with his fundie parents and so they would constantly use him as an example to try and bully his sister into line… And it worked because it made her absolutely terrified to come out to them as a lesbian who was already in a cohabitating relationship with her girlfriend.
And yeah, I’ve got a bad sinking feeling that Jocelyne is going to “say something she can never take back” possibly in defense of her sister or because she tries to reach out to her sister and her parents overhear. As Captain Button notes it would be a way to make a bad situation catastrophic in a way that Joyce wouldn’t have prepared for.
Re: JoyDot; not to diss your interpretation, or to say they’re not romantic or queerplatonic, but personally I’d say this particular conversation and Dorothy’s level of care for Joyce in general align with what I’d expect from ‘best friends’, which would not necessarily be romantic or qp.
As I wrote this, I realized I have what I might call ‘queerplatonic’ feelings for my best friends, maybe, though we don’t have explicitly queerplatonic relationships? (I am ‘friend married to one of them)
And I could certainly see them as qp and perhaps romantic. All I really wanted to add to this is that I think this is how besties should act: I can’t speak for chemistry or feelings.
Yeah, it’s a good bestie relationship and it’s super close, whether it has enough entanglement to be considered queerplatonic or not.
Now I want to twist that into some sort of quantum mechanics version of personal relationships.
Schrödinger’s Girlfriend – When you have a very close relationship but haven’t clarified exactly what kind of relationship it is. Until you collapse the wave function by kissing her.
Leslie’s face says what we’re all thinking: “Oh, this is gonna be good.”
“Here we are now. Entertain us.”
Joe’ll feel stupid and contagious.
A mulatto, an albino, a mosquito, my libido.
Try to figure who’s who in this strip.
(outdated term for mixed race): In this particular strip, that’d have to be Walky.
Albino: Joyce, because according to Sarah and Sal, she’s the whitest person they have ever met.
Libido: That one’s obvious.
Mosquito: Leslie, because no matter what defenses you throw down, she will suck out your internalized bigotries.
Welp Walky’s there so I’m thinking it’ll be more Weird Al than Nirvana.
I am the entertainer
And I know just where I stand
Another English major
And another snark-filled plan
Today I’m your exam-peon
I may have played your parts
But I know the game, you’ll pass/fail my name
And I won’t be here in another year
If my grades don’t make the charts
i’m pretty happy about Dorothy’s continued support. and also about Walky being really into this assignment.
Team Dingus: The honeymoon is over.
Oh gawd, Joe and Walky as a couple would be such a mess, in the best way. I would love it.
I love that despite the ‘no extra points for accidentally roleplaying a married couple’ Walky has kept on doing it anyway.
Walky is not *accidentally* role playing, but does it on purpose (to annoy Joe presumably), whereas the dynamic with Joyce and Joe was no intentional role playing.
Yes, I know. I was quoting Leslie but didn’t make myself clear that I was pretty sure there would be no points for intentional roleplay either.
In my view, she woulnd’t have used the qualifier ‘ unintentional’ if she didn’t want any role playing.
We will see…
I took her comment as more joking about Joyce and Joe’s argument.
Tell me why Joyce is in a Gender Studies class, again?
Requirement for her major: education .
Requirement for her education major, and she probably didn’t expect to be more than a reinforcement of roles she was already ‘good at.’
Same reason Joe and Roz are, for the lulz.
(Dorothy probably asked her and Joyce agreed not knowing what to expect, Joe must be doing it for what he assumed were easy credits and the chance to talk about hot lesbians. I dunno about Roz since she apparently studies more about the subject than the teachers)
Oh right, forgot about her major. I assumed this was an optional class, though.
Roz just THINKS she knows more than the professor, and she’s in the class to rub her self-percieved vast knowledge base in her peers’ faces. Aka the lulz.
I think it’s half this and half that this subject is something she clearly cares enough to research and read up on all she has. Honestly, she’s kinda a tumblr kid. She’s read up on societal oppressions, has listened to life experiences of people who are different, and knows a lot of disparate things and so thinks she’s got the handle on it. But she doesn’t have the life experiences to fully flesh out what those terms really genuinely mean and how one can encounter them in one’s day to day.
And she doesn’t realize that there’s a lot more to it than even the major pieces she’s got. I mean, after all, she’s done so much research, so an introductory class should mostly be review of shit she’s already seen a million times before… right?
To be fair to her, it’s an easy trap to fall into. When you’re well-read on a subject regarding social dynamics, it can be difficult to notice off the bat the difference between having read a lot of things on the subject and having experienced a lot of things on the subject.
And I totally fell into it in my past. There were things I thought I had a good handle on because I read a lot about them, but realized I didn’t know half of what I needed to know about them until I or someone I deeply cared about was directly affected by it. It has a way of bringing those viscerally home.
I think Roz may be also possibly interested in a major in the subject (idk the exact name, it was Gender and Women’s studies at my school, if I recall correctly), and is required to start with the intro-level course, regardless of whether she thinks she needs to take it.
Has Roz’s major been mentioned in-comic?
I think Joe signed up less for the subject matter than the classmate demographic.
Joyce is back to not having eye contact with Dorothy again 🙁
I’m glad Dorothy told her to text if she wants, it’s a small but important gesture. In a manner, Joyce will have both her ladies with her to see her parents.
Oh yes. Having someone to vent to in a stressful situation is very useful, even if they can’t give any practical help. Not the least because you can say the things to them you want to say to the others, but know you shouldn’t.
You always need a lifeline in these sorts of situations. Someone you can sneakily vent to about what is happening, so you don’t just give in to the gaslighting and assume that what is happening to you is normal and right.
Honestly, Joyce is doing all she can to prepare herself here. She’s bringing a friend who can get her back when needed (Becky) and now she’s got someone she can reach out to when she’s feeling a complete wreck and needs a connection to the outside.
She’ll still get battered and bruised and will probably “say something she can never take back”. But she’s going into it with the tools she’ll need to not be broken by it.
Though the friend is herself a source of the conflict. It’s still support – even if just being there to remind Joyce why she’s going through this, but it’s also a flashpoint.
I really enjoy how, in Walky’s mind, “owning more than one pair of shoes” is incompatible with masculinity coexists with the total freedom of roleplaying an homosexual relationship.
As long as there’s no ambiguity.
Because he understands what “roleplaying” means ?
I’ve theorized him as being bi and in the closet for a while, and these last few strips with him and Joe just threw more oil onto that fire.
Walky is canonically pizzasexual. He would suck a dick for free pizza.
Do we want to know what he would do for free McNuggets?
Well clearly they’re not supposed to own more than one pair of shoes each, which frees up some money for the initial investment for the trampoline park.
So Walky’s major could be drama?
I don’t think his mother would agree….But who cares about her opinion, let the man do what he wishes.
Watch cartoons all day and only eat Mac&Cheese ?
Unfortunately, actors do a lot of that.
Walky’s majoring in Groucho Marx.
Now he only needs a moustache and a cigar…
Walky strikes me as more a Chico type, with your avatarsake Mike as Groucho.
Danny is Zeppo, earnest, upright, and deeply clueless.
But who is Harpo? Marcie, because she doesn’t talk? Dina, for being seriously disconnected from other people’s reality? Carla or Sal, for being irreverent pains in the ass?
(I should stop picking at this analogy before it gets infected.)
Becky could be a pretty decent Harpo, if she got into music? Her hair is right and she’s got the same level of childlike enthusiasm for things.
I think he would be fantastic at drama. He’s got a lot of natural charisma, he’s got a fantastic body (as noted on by Dorothy), he’s got a disarming humor, and he’s quick with a punchline or an improvisation. He could be a good comedian or comic actor or even a decent stage actor and he’s even got the background with being on camera to draw on.
Shame that to his mom, he’s now “grown-up past the age of child star” and now it’s “time for him to become a doctor”.
In all seriousness, Walky is actually majoring in… “media communication”? Something that has to do with TV, anyway, and could theoretically land him a job in the media industry.
IIRC, he picked that because it was both enough of a “real” career to satisfy his parents and was close enough to what he loves (cartoons and TV in general)
I think his major is telecommunications because that sounds like television. It doesn’t sound like it satisfies his parents though. From family weekend, I’m under the impression that Linda expects that any day now Walky will realize that he wants to go pre med.
Walky has got to be enjoying it
Joyce visiting her parents and them getting a chance to work their poison on her really scares me. :/
It’s a scary thing. Worse still when visits home used to be enriching and made you feel loved and supported and now you realize they’re just a minefield of various microaggressions and awfulness.
Joyce is just starting to realize her parents are toxic and so doesn’t have much of any of the armor or the disconnection to protect herself. And it’s a whole weekend of contact this time rather than just a single afternoon and evening.
On the other hand, if she realizes how horrible is her homelife situation AND manages to say “screw this, I’m getting out of here”, she might find herself in a better situation.
Yeah, it’d be sad and hurtful at first, but in the long run the healthiest thing Joyce can do is to get away from the community she grew up in and live her life as her own.
He used to love you when you were newlyweds, but then you got addicted to bon-bons, got fat, and started to hate the word “moist”.
He: Once I married someone who was beautiful, and young, and gay, and free. Whatever happened to her?
She: You divorced her and married me.
So I assume Dorothy did figure out the actual meaning of “DON’T CHANGE ME”
Walky stay yourself forever you are best
David Walkerton, ladies and gentlemen! He lives his role-play, sometimes to a disturbing degree!
He’s not roleplaying… he’s just channeling alternate storylines
I WILL GO DOWN WITH THIS SHIP
I think the implication is that it’s Walky going down in this ship.
I just love Dorothy.
She is awesome
We all know it.
I am wondering what Joyce’s parents were expecting her to do at IU. Was she supposed be hostile and dismissive like Mary? Only associating with the “good Christians” and avoiding all the sinful people?
Or was she supposed to be friends with them but either aggressively or passive-aggressively keep nudging them away from sin and towards virtue? Which in the long run would likely just make them hostile and dismissive towards her.
Or did they assume nothing had really changed from when they went there in the 1970s-80s when those sorts of people stayed in the closet where you could ignore their existence or at least their sinful habits?
And what should she have done when she found out the truth abut Becky? Throw her out? Play along while calling in Ross? Start preaching and praying with Becky so she could get over her “mistake”?
Regarding with how Joyce was supposed to treat others, I think they expected it to be the last two paragraphs there. Be a shining example of faith for her friends, but also not associate with people like Dorothy. (Someone who openly identifies as atheist seems to be too much of a threat)
Hard to know exactly what they expected her to do about Becky (they seem to only have thought that bringing a gun into the situation was too much though). We might be finding out soon though.
she was supposed to not change in any meaningful aspect while simultaneously growing up and becoming her own person. obviously.
also if she brought a few of her nonchristian friends home to become christians that’d be great
Now I am having Office Spaceflashbacks.
I suppose Joyce has a point about ‘Facing the music’ after what happened. One hopes her parents are not as doolally as Ross was though.
Walky, I think you’re getting too far into the Role Playing here.
I love Walky here. I love everyone in this strip except Joe. Joe, give me a reason to love you, dammit! 😀
Hairy cleavage?
Man, I have the distinct feeling that Joyce might actually start to revert, at least on the surface: go back to her family’s open arms of easy, mindless ignorance and condemnation. They’re GOING to go to church, and I honestly don’t think Joyce has the strength to stand up to her parents for a second time. The only hope is if her “brother” backs her up, but that’s a can of worms all on its own and I don’t see it happening.
No, Joyce is going to be too conflicted and emotionally stressed to hold onto her secular ways. They’re going to mess her up bad.
I don’t think so. Joyce isn’t usually one to back down from doing what she thinks is right.
I’m more concerned for the same reasons that her sister is concerned about getting into an argument with her parents. What happens when neither of them is willing to back down on a point?
Of course, the sermon at church will be on a topic directly relevant to the weekend’s argument, either because someone tipped off the minister*, or just because of the same principle of narrative causality that made Leslie talk about the problems of homeless LGBT youth at such a convenient time.
* Is minister the right word for this variety of Christianity?
Just as a matter of curiosity — the bulk of the cast, being IU freshmen, are generally assumed to be 18 years old. Sarah, being a sophomore, would be a year older. Walkypedia tells us that Faz is 17 at the start of DoA, and Riley (Roz’s younger sister) is 12.
But how about some of the other members of the cast, such as Leslie and Robin de Santo, Joyce’s various siblings, and the parents of the characters? Have they ever been given ages in canon?
I’d assume Leslie and Robin are near their Shortpacked! Ages, which would make them thirty-somethings. Not sure about the rest, but all of Joyce’s siblings are older than her, and her parents have gotta be in their 50’s by now.
We have a definitive lower limit on Robin’s age – 25 is the minimum age in the Constitution for the House of Representatives, though thanks to the shifting year of the comic, we don’t know how much of her term she has served already. I don’t know if her Patreon appearance(s) indicate whether or not this is her first term. Assuming Leslie is a professor and not a graduate student, she is probably in her late twenties, more likely thirties.
Leslie was also married to a man before she realized she was a lesbian and then “for a while i had to make it on my own”.
So that adds at least a couple of years on to it, so I’d go with thirties somewhere.
Joyce’s parents might only be in their mid-to-late 40s, but 50s is reasonable too.
Ruth must be at least a sophomore, and more likely a junior or senior.
Jason is probably a graduate student in his mid-twenties.
I’d forgotten that that part of Leslie’s backstory carried over from the other universe as well – thanks for pointing that bit out. That could have occurred simultaneously with her graduate studies, though. And now I just want to know Leslie’s whole backstory.
I think Ruth said she was twenty at one point, but I’m not sure of the exact strip.
Robin does refer to her “opponent in this race,” though since her terms are 2 years, that doesn’t really narrow it down much. http://www.dumbingofage.com/2011/comic/book-1/06-yesterday-was-thursday/forgiveness/