Fun “fact”. In my high school the popular mean girl in my class actually did a relationship graph, with who had made out with whom. My sister made copies and pasted it all over school to stir up drama. It was a fun day.
I can see Raidah falling in love with his relationship graphs by just this one phrase being dropped…
Raidah: “You really love graphing and mapping, don’t you?”
Faz: “Faz is best at graphing.”
Raidah: “You’re such an idiot, those skills should be put towards increasing your bottom line.”
Faz: “Faz would increase your bottom line if you’d let Faz have access to your other bottom line.”
Raidah: “You sick little tw…. wait… you’re saying if we’re in a relationship, you’ll put your math skills to work making me rich?”
Faz: “Faz is okay and aroused by this idea.”
Raidah: “Fine… if you can double this penny by the end of the day, and do the same with it every day for the next 4 weeks, by planning the perfect route with your graphs and math and such, we’ll do it and even make it a permanent arrangement.”
Faz: “Faz will do this.”
And you know by the time those four weeks are up, Faz will come back a multi-millionare and have crashed three country’s stock markets to get there…
I have no idea where this characterization of Raidah is coming from, but that’s true of most fan interpretations of Raidah. Fans seems to hate her basically just because Sarah does and Sarah is close to the protagonist.
There’s a lot of side-taking in the Sarah-Raidah feud. Joyce just assumes Sarah is telling the truth that Raidah is a mean, nasty, awful person because why wouldn’t she? Nuance is for PEOPLE WHO DON’T KNOW WHAT’S RIGHT!
Not as shitty as her friend was (said friend dropped the r-word, Raidah called her out), but Raidah was still using clearly patronizing euphemisms for disability to Dina’s face. As someone with firsthand experience, that isn’t much better and the casual ableism was why Dina’s been spying on Raidah for Sarah.
Eh, I don’t know how you can really judge who’s in the right about the whole Raidah/Sahra thing without a lot more information. There is obviously a threshold of misbehavior that would justify Sarah’s involving the authorities, but without being their first hand, it’s hard to say whether or not it was actually met. (It’s subjective anyways.) It did strike me as a red flag that what finally prompted Sarah to act was failing a test, not her roommate hitting a new low.
Sarah was being affected by her roommate’s problems to the point she was in real quantifiable danger of losing her scholarship. She didn’t know how else to help her other than involve her remaining parent. Her roommate’s friends were brushing off her concerns because they didn’t see the extent of it. She was, if anything, getting worse over time. Yes, the final straw came in the form of “I can’t cope with the way this is affecting me” – but if your roommate has gone off the rails to the extent that you are no longer sleeping..?
And please don’t underestimate the impact of sleep deprivation – it is a legitimately effective form of torture. It affects your short term memory and reduces your ability to form long term memories. It causes headaches, dizziness, visual disturbances including hallucinations (can also cause aural hallucinations, and disrupt the ability to process language), reduces one’s ability to concentrate, affects mood (can cause mood swings, hysterical outbursts, depression)…
Also, her roommate was an adult, technically her parents can’t actually make her leave college. They can withdraw financial support and pressure her to leave, but if she really had her life under control and wanted to stay she could have. Most likely she realized things really weren’t going so well.
A lot of commenters suspect that Dana’s family situation is Not Good and that Sarah calling her dad about the weed made it worse. If so, Raidah is hinted to know because she’s still in contact with Dana. Which would go a long way toward justifying Raidah’s vitriol if true. (Especially since Raidah only saw Dana’s mask and doesn’t know/care about how much pressure Sarah was under as a result.)
Raidah’s friend was the one who used the “R” word about Dina. Raidah even told her not to say that. Raidah acted condescending to Dina, and that was wrong. But both Amber and if I remember correctly, Sarah, implied or even said they didn’t want to think about Dina having sex or being in a relationship. That seems a little ableist to me, although maybe it was because of how young Dina looks. (But she’s 18 and they must know that.)
And there was an echo of that in Ruth and Billie. When Carla told the super about Ruth, Billie was angry at Carla because Ruth’s grandfather would get involved.
If – and that’s a great if – Raidah has any information about Dana’s home situation, she hasn’t deigned to give Sarah the facts. She’s just been bongoing and bullying for a full year.
And I don’t see why the Ruth-situation should be comparable. Billie didn’t want to have authority involved because she didn’t think it would help. I doubt she though as far as to how the obviously disgusting person Ruth calls ‘sir’ would be informed. She was drunk and depressed and thinking clearly is not what you do there. And though she was initially angry with Carla, she didn’t persue it. And if you asked her now, i don’t think she would still be angry with Carla.
What seems hard to get under the same hat is that Raidah seems to have been okay with Dana not studying but manipulates Jacob to have him study even more.
Everyone acts as though Raidah’s the sole aggressor. If I recall correctly it was Sarah is escalated to physical violence, not the other way around. Raidah backed out from Joyce’s party rather gracefully too. It’s Sarah who’s activly conspiring to destroy Raidah’s love live and cheerfully daydreams of making Raidah cry.
Yes, Raidah behaved rather gracefully IN FRONT OF JACOB at the event of the party, though she lied through her teeth about Sarah to Jacob directly afterwards. The way she behaved on other occasions when meeting Sarah was going out of her way to warn people she never saw before away from Sarah.
That is bullying and it has been going on for a year.
And now when Sarah has the choice to cut Jacob out of her life because he’s together with Raidah and Raidah is not a safe person to be around if you are Sarah, or cutting Raidah out of Jacobs life, Sarah prefers the latter.
Are you actually going to tell me you would not prefer that if you were in her place?
@thejeff: I don’t remember her doing this, but it actually strengthens my point was: Billie is not going to bully Carla for doing what she did. She communicated about why she though it a bad idea.
Raidah has been bullying Sarah for a year already and we never see her do anything like telling Sarah she has a reason to think that Dana is under duress at her home. So the situations are not comparable.
(And I’m still waiting for any solid indicator that Dana actually IS under duress at home. Several people say they see red flags about this, but though I regocnize plenty of red flags, nothing showed up on my radar. Which doesn’t prove anything but that we do not know.)
Raidah didn’t lie after the party. In face she was actually extremly fair in her summation of Sarah, saying she was toxic to Raidah specifically, and telling Jacob that Sarah attacked her, both of which is true.
We were never really that close but I tried because she seemed like she needed friends. She ended up selling out a close friend of mine/ours who was going through a rough patch. She never admitted she was wrong and I could never forgive her. Since then we were never able to interact without hurting each other. I decided I just needed to stop interacting with her after she punched me.
This is fair assessment of why they can’t get along.
Raidah’s summation does not admit that Raidah did anything to Sarah. It does not even bring up the real issue.
Well, that is very nice summation, but it’s unreasonable to expect people to talk like that in the moment. Raidah just found herself in a very unexpected situation, having to explain her emotional reaction to her rather new boyfriend. She didn’t see it coming and still managed to express her state of mind in concise matter that even managed to address the subjective nature of her opinion. That’s pretty good all things considered and not in the least bit dishonest. You have unreasonable expectation.
Ah, C.T., BBCC, you’re both so right, and I’m hoping this moment with Joe is going to make Joyce realize that her willingness to pursue what is RIGHT lets people take advantage of her.
And that plot point in romantic comedies has always made me so mad. Sends awful messages that adults don’t have the ability to make their own choices/mistakes. :/
True story: my sister had a boyfriend. They went to different universities. He became good friends with a girl there pretty quickly. All her friends told him how perfect they were for each other, what a cute couple they would make, etc. So he cheated on my sister with the other girl, broke up with my sister, they got together…
Aah romance! Aah comedy! Oh no – wait – just a really shoddy way to treat somebody…
Remember that Joyce has been raised on a messed-up image of what romance and appropriate relationships look like. And then add in some ‘if it doesn’t work out then clearly God had other plans’ type rhetoric, most likely. (The fact that Jacob’s Christian and Raidah’s Muslim may well factor into that, at least subconsciously.) This is pretty much normal romcom fucked-uppedness, after all.
It’s spelled “nickel”. “Nickel”, like the metal it was originally made out of. The “nickle” spelling is incorrect unless you’re referring to one of these.
TL:DR, there’s no such coin as a “nickle”, the coin is spelled “nickel”.
If there is no such thing as a costumer, what else do you call someone whose hobbies include making and/or wearing costumes. It’s a perfectly good word and my spellchecker agrees.
So does Needfuldoer’s. Nickle gets caught by spellcheck because it’s not an english word. Costumer IS an english word, though my spellcheck THINKS i misspelled Customer.
Joe tried to hold out, but yeah, Joyce needed to hear it. Guessing it’ll be a Cassandra truth for her, though, maybe she’ll realize he’s right and connect the dots.
Joe, honesty is the best policy but maybe not right now. Granted this might be the only time he has, so Faz might just have to be considered part of the background, as long as they don’t let him go again.
reaching its apex in that golden moment where Oberon turns from the glorious mess that’s just played out in front of him and Looks at Puck, trying to play it innocent (as if):
“What hast thou done?”
(and Puck tries to play it off, like, “why, only what you told me to, my lord…”)
Faz’s continued presence on campus makes me wonder about why he’s here. He dodged Amber’s question about whether Blaine knew he was here and his mom hasn’t been answering her phone, so I’m wondering if they’re fighting or (god forbid) Blaine got violent again.
It could be an official college visit, which Faz managed to escape from the main group of. … Yeah that’s my best optimistic guesses, odds are leaning towards terrible.
There was a second guess there about Blaine being involved to being him there and then fucking off, but I realized there was still a high likelihood of terrible there.
That’s Toedad, Becky’s father and the OTHER Worst Dad Ever. Last we saw Blaine, Amber beat the shit out of him and he lied to the police about it, and I think was hospitalized? Probably been out for a while now though.
I’m still afraid he’s going to turn out to be a horrible parallel to Becky (kicked out due to his sexual identity) and/or Howard (on the run from horrible father) and went to the only person he knows can stand up to Blaine.
What really gets me is that Faz completely lacks inner voice and never feels the need to shut up about anything – yet he is cagey about his reasons for being here.
I wonder if he does keep his inner voice hidden. Its entirely possible that the creepy Faz is the mask. Amber has Amazi-Girl, so it would make sense for Faz to create an identity that people can attribute to him, that keeps him from having to face any of his actual problems.
Hope so too. I don’t want Faz to become sympathetic. Not sure what to do with him if he does. He’d need an entire personality lift and to basically not be Faz.
Also a trickier plotline to resolve than Becky, since Faz is underage and thus would technically be a runaway.
He wouldn’t need to be sympathetic to be in a shitty, undeserved situation. In some ways it would be an even better story. It would give him more depth, but keep his shitty personality and force us to deconstruct how we look at him.
…but I don’t really want to deconstruct him, so I hope that’ not where we are going.
Thank you Joe, for all Joyce’s talk about the importance of treating people like people she sure is treating Jacob and Raidah like pawns in a game. She’s doing things in the same vein as Joe’s list and Not Ryan’s evil, it’s no where near the level of Not Ryan, but it’s on the same spectrum, just like with Joe. Joyce objectifies men by seeing them as faceless marriage material and doesn’t respect who they are, for example Ethan. Her exception is Joe just like his exception is Joyce. She’s getting better, but this is not okay. She’s treating people like dolls she can control, it’s not right.
This is brave of Joe, Joyce is probably one of the only females on campus that can stand his company at the moment and that he took so long to straight up tell her the problem means he knows theres a very good chance that Joyce will get angry at him and end their fledgling friendship yet hes still willing to risk it to try to stop it before it gets worse and people get hurt
Also Joe and Joyces interactions seem to me to be the most realistic and best written of all the cast
I think he’s referring to how Raidah won’t be the only one hurt, especially if Jacob finds out about the manipulation and Joyce realizes she was manipulated.
It might also remind him of his parents’ divorce in some yet to be specified fashion.
What we’ve seen on panel suggests just a mild degradation fetish at most. That’s barely flirting with the edges of BDSM, and it’s rather hard for me to picture her dealing well with most D/s or M/s relationship styles let alone many B&D or S&M practices.
BDSM doesn’t have to involve any hardcore elements to still be BDSM. There’s no line you must meet to qualify, all fetishistic behavior sexual and non sexual belongs.
It has been stated that sexual orientation transfers from the Walkyverse – though there are a few caveats: for example – we only learned here that Danny is bisexual. That was never shown in previous comics.
Carla’s kind of special case, since she was a female humanoid robot who used to be a car. That had to be translated for this more realistic setting. I don’t believe it’s been explicitly stated, but there have certainly been hints that both the homoromantic and asexual aspects carried over.
She straight up said in the Walkyverse that she was homoromantic and ace. That wasn’t part of being a robot and there’s no good reason it shouldn’t cross over.
I’m fairly certain her sex repulsion also crossed over, since she referred to sex as ‘gross things’ and Willis has said that her feelings about sex are why she wouldn’t be in slip shine stuff.
My experience with the Internet’s shipping culture has told me
that a characters own sexual orientation and gender have little
to no influence on who they’re shipped with and why.
Would it be creepy of Carla to use very light (like being allowed to touch her butt occasionally) sexual gratification to convince Faz to do things for her? The answer is yes, also it could lead to a war between Mary and Carla after Mary decides to do the same thing.
Nahh, she’ll probably feel as much shame as whenever she’s allowing herself a lustful thought.
I mean, this is Joyce. Now, we can all agree that what she was trying to accomplish was oh-so-wrong, but here’s the thing: She did it because she thought she was helping a friend*.
To have the table turned and -her- being the target of the switcheroo*… She’d feel like she’d be betraying Sarah. And the last thing she’d want to do in the world would be to betray those she considers her friends.
*Not an excuse, by the way, just to make that clear
**Look, this is what switcheroo means -in this context-, OK?
It Thinks! Never underestimate the cunning of a seemingly non-sentient creature. Imperium underestimated Orks and it ended with Battle Moons hovering over Terra!
But that’s not true. Joyce knows why Joe rated her that, and while it might be because he had a pretty low opinion of her at the time (incase you don’t remember, because she punched him on their date, because she found out he didn’t actually want to date her), he doesn’t anymore. Otherwise they wouldn’t hang out. They might not be friends, but he behaves to differently towards her, and definitely way more respectful than when they first met.
It wasn’t because she found out he didn’t want to date her. That is not why she punched him.
While they did and do have two significantly different ideas of what dating entails (extreme causualness vs extreme seriousness), she (and Mike) punched him because he had roaming/lustful eyes.
You can date someone causally and look at other people. But you can’t do that if you take dating as seriously as Joyce does (and Mike just likes punching people).
I’m not sure that moral fibre is relevant to your standing on Joe’s Fuckability List that seems a bit more nuanced and not incredibly shallow than I’m willing to give him credit for.
You don’t want to do this Faz. You could not commit a sin so grievous that you deserve to be punished thus! 😉 Seriously, when Amber asks her little brother what his day has been like, she’s in for a surprising story or two!
Meanwhile, at last someone has slapped Joyce in the face with the cold fish of reality!
I don’t care I still ship Joe and Joyce! Commenting on this strip I think Joyce in the next strip will not believe Joe cuz she believes the best in people and will not think that Sarah will betray her in this way. I could be wrong but that’s how I feel and she might even get up in Joe’s face about…….his list or something maybe. I don’t think she would be all ragey but I think she might storm off. What do you think? Am I in the right direction or no?
But we do no deserve them. What if they start cooperating? What if they have Children!? Mary is bad enough with that fundie boyfriend of hers. But she can be Worse.
Having read Shortpacked!, I gotta say that this is the best story I’ve ever seen Faz in. Making him younger, out of place, and mostly observing the rest of the cast rather than just being ridiculous on his own really works in this context. Excellent writing.
Actually it was Joyce who pointed out to Joe that getting a zero minus indicated he put more thought into Joyce than any other girl when he compiled that list.
I suspect that’s actually more thought than he put into it, unless he changed that much more recently than I assume (in which case it wouldn’t be a 0-).
She’s a zero minus because she brought Mike on the date to beat him up and joined in herself. I don’t really think that made her a better person, but it certainly seems sufficient for the rating.
Come on, Joe. Let Joyce have this one. She’s clearly way more harmless than she thinks…I think. I think? Either way, you just dropped a truth bomb that was too real. You didn’t need to win that badly, dude.
The shipping chart for the fanfic of Worm titled ‘Silencio’ assumed mammoth, eldritch, incomprehensible dimensions, and broke through into the comments section eventually. The fanfic is still being updated, though it recently came back from a break of a few years.
–Dave, ‘shipping chart’ for a fanfic is basically commentors/fans mimicking what Faz is doing here
ps: silent, triangle mouth faz for HOW many [anls? scared now
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“Faz is confused but still totes wants in on this”
“Faz wonders if this campus is exceptional or typical. Faz is good, either way.”
I for one want to see this relationship graph that Faz draws up.
Like that relationship chart in Bittersweet Candy Bowl
That one is truly exceptional
For reference: https://blasto.enterprises/img/store/itempic_posters_relationship_chart_preview@2x.jpg
Sexiest chart uses violin plots. https://m.xkcd.com/1967/
Faz is excited by them.
Fun “fact”. In my high school the popular mean girl in my class actually did a relationship graph, with who had made out with whom. My sister made copies and pasted it all over school to stir up drama. It was a fun day.
All roads lead to Faz
Faz’s graph would make an interesting bonus strip page for Book 7. 🙂
Half flowchart, half football playbook diagram.
But how do you depicts a multidimensional data structure without resorting to a popup?
heatgraphs
OMG, the gravatar it chose for me for that comment… I’m dying. XD
There’s a 4-years-out-of-date one at http://walkypedia.wikia.com/wiki/File:DoA_Character_Org_Chart.jpg
I don’t know if anyone has done an updated version below,
and I will check after posting, but here’s my not finished
version.
https://i.dbr.ee/HWTt/original_Dumbing-of-Age_-_Character-Cast-Relationship-Model–v001.png
There’s a character missing from both of these, that’s kinda important.
Amazi-Girl definitely needs to be on there.
Before I saw that the symbol meant “in gender studies class” I’m like wait Joyce and Joe are bi?
Do you remember the experiments of giving spiders LSD? That’s what it looks like.
Thank you, Joe.
I second that. Needed to be said.
About time somebody told Joyce.
Yup. Was hoping someone would step up and out at least one layer of the manipulation!
Oh, Faz, you can’t imagine how long it will take. But, there will NEVER be room for you.
I’m trying to figure out the most horrific scenario where he ends up with one of the main characters, and so far it’s either Dorothy or Billie.
Just ONE scenerio? ALL OF THE ABOVE has NOT been ruled out!
Does Lucy count as enough of a main character?
Blowjob Cat is enough of a main character when it comes to relationships Faz should not have.
God no, he’s in front of an elementary school.
And this would impede Faz how?
–Dave, it’s STATUARY RAAAAAPE
Ooooo boy, Lucy x Faz. Lots and lots of ‘x’s until Lucy shorts out completely and kills him. Even Lucy.
He’s going to end up with Mary.
Patreon strip of the month…
Faz x Raidah?
I can see Raidah falling in love with his relationship graphs by just this one phrase being dropped…
Raidah: “You really love graphing and mapping, don’t you?”
Faz: “Faz is best at graphing.”
Raidah: “You’re such an idiot, those skills should be put towards increasing your bottom line.”
Faz: “Faz would increase your bottom line if you’d let Faz have access to your other bottom line.”
Raidah: “You sick little tw…. wait… you’re saying if we’re in a relationship, you’ll put your math skills to work making me rich?”
Faz: “Faz is okay and aroused by this idea.”
Raidah: “Fine… if you can double this penny by the end of the day, and do the same with it every day for the next 4 weeks, by planning the perfect route with your graphs and math and such, we’ll do it and even make it a permanent arrangement.”
Faz: “Faz will do this.”
And you know by the time those four weeks are up, Faz will come back a multi-millionare and have crashed three country’s stock markets to get there…
… those two must never be allowed to meet.
Gah, typo, by one conversation, no phrase.
$2,684,354.56
I have no idea where this characterization of Raidah is coming from, but that’s true of most fan interpretations of Raidah. Fans seems to hate her basically just because Sarah does and Sarah is close to the protagonist.
All I care about is that he said ‘…room for myself” and not ‘…room for Faz’. I’m starting to hope the third-person nonsense is finished.
It’s not. Faz swaps between third and first person all the time.
And the truth is out – but whether Joyce believes Joe, now…
Joe is just trying to stake his claim! He’s jealous! JEALOUS!
Eh, believe or not, she’ll still ask Sarah.
…. with big, trusting eyes.
Sarah will snap like a twig if she busts those out. As would we all.
It’s true.
Most, but not all. I have a little sister who over-abused them as a kid. I have a built-up immunity to puppy-dog eyes.
Righteous guilt has a way of eroding that immunity. Like Sarah is about to find out.
At last, Faz’s ability to produce complex graphs on a whim has its day!
Honestly, I think Joyce would actually be horrified to discover Sarah isn’t trying to break up a couple for a grand romantic gesture but spite.
Agreed! I’ve been a bit baffled that Joyce would even be ok with breaking up a (seemingly) healthy couple to begin with, frankly.
There’s a lot of side-taking in the Sarah-Raidah feud. Joyce just assumes Sarah is telling the truth that Raidah is a mean, nasty, awful person because why wouldn’t she? Nuance is for PEOPLE WHO DON’T KNOW WHAT’S RIGHT!
Raidah didn’t exactly make a good first impression on Joyce, either. I doubt she’s much inclined to give her another chance.
Yeah, Raidah wasn’t going to be high on Joyce’s favorite people list, wasn’t she also shitty to Dina in front of her?
That was in front of Sarah, not Joyce (Joyce was with Billie at the time).
Not as shitty as her friend was (said friend dropped the r-word, Raidah called her out), but Raidah was still using clearly patronizing euphemisms for disability to Dina’s face. As someone with firsthand experience, that isn’t much better and the casual ableism was why Dina’s been spying on Raidah for Sarah.
Eh, I don’t know how you can really judge who’s in the right about the whole Raidah/Sahra thing without a lot more information. There is obviously a threshold of misbehavior that would justify Sarah’s involving the authorities, but without being their first hand, it’s hard to say whether or not it was actually met. (It’s subjective anyways.) It did strike me as a red flag that what finally prompted Sarah to act was failing a test, not her roommate hitting a new low.
Sarah was being affected by her roommate’s problems to the point she was in real quantifiable danger of losing her scholarship. She didn’t know how else to help her other than involve her remaining parent. Her roommate’s friends were brushing off her concerns because they didn’t see the extent of it. She was, if anything, getting worse over time. Yes, the final straw came in the form of “I can’t cope with the way this is affecting me” – but if your roommate has gone off the rails to the extent that you are no longer sleeping..?
And please don’t underestimate the impact of sleep deprivation – it is a legitimately effective form of torture. It affects your short term memory and reduces your ability to form long term memories. It causes headaches, dizziness, visual disturbances including hallucinations (can also cause aural hallucinations, and disrupt the ability to process language), reduces one’s ability to concentrate, affects mood (can cause mood swings, hysterical outbursts, depression)…
Also, her roommate was an adult, technically her parents can’t actually make her leave college. They can withdraw financial support and pressure her to leave, but if she really had her life under control and wanted to stay she could have. Most likely she realized things really weren’t going so well.
Sarah is telling the truth about that. It’s just not why she’s trying to break them up.
A lot of commenters suspect that Dana’s family situation is Not Good and that Sarah calling her dad about the weed made it worse. If so, Raidah is hinted to know because she’s still in contact with Dana. Which would go a long way toward justifying Raidah’s vitriol if true. (Especially since Raidah only saw Dana’s mask and doesn’t know/care about how much pressure Sarah was under as a result.)
..Well, it would contextualize Raidah’s reaction anyways. I’m not sure anything can justify a year of harassing someone.
yeah this. and tbh nothing’s going to redeem her for me after the thing with Dina.
Raidah’s friend was the one who used the “R” word about Dina. Raidah even told her not to say that. Raidah acted condescending to Dina, and that was wrong. But both Amber and if I remember correctly, Sarah, implied or even said they didn’t want to think about Dina having sex or being in a relationship. That seems a little ableist to me, although maybe it was because of how young Dina looks. (But she’s 18 and they must know that.)
And there was an echo of that in Ruth and Billie. When Carla told the super about Ruth, Billie was angry at Carla because Ruth’s grandfather would get involved.
It’s the same situation with Sarah and Raidah.
If – and that’s a great if – Raidah has any information about Dana’s home situation, she hasn’t deigned to give Sarah the facts. She’s just been bongoing and bullying for a full year.
And I don’t see why the Ruth-situation should be comparable. Billie didn’t want to have authority involved because she didn’t think it would help. I doubt she though as far as to how the obviously disgusting person Ruth calls ‘sir’ would be informed. She was drunk and depressed and thinking clearly is not what you do there. And though she was initially angry with Carla, she didn’t persue it. And if you asked her now, i don’t think she would still be angry with Carla.
What seems hard to get under the same hat is that Raidah seems to have been okay with Dana not studying but manipulates Jacob to have him study even more.
Everyone acts as though Raidah’s the sole aggressor. If I recall correctly it was Sarah is escalated to physical violence, not the other way around. Raidah backed out from Joyce’s party rather gracefully too. It’s Sarah who’s activly conspiring to destroy Raidah’s love live and cheerfully daydreams of making Raidah cry.
Yes, Raidah behaved rather gracefully IN FRONT OF JACOB at the event of the party, though she lied through her teeth about Sarah to Jacob directly afterwards. The way she behaved on other occasions when meeting Sarah was going out of her way to warn people she never saw before away from Sarah.
That is bullying and it has been going on for a year.
And now when Sarah has the choice to cut Jacob out of her life because he’s together with Raidah and Raidah is not a safe person to be around if you are Sarah, or cutting Raidah out of Jacobs life, Sarah prefers the latter.
Are you actually going to tell me you would not prefer that if you were in her place?
Billie did tell Carla (after the fact) that Ruth wasn’t safe at home, so she was thinking about Clint while she was yelling at Carla.
@thejeff: I don’t remember her doing this, but it actually strengthens my point was: Billie is not going to bully Carla for doing what she did. She communicated about why she though it a bad idea.
Raidah has been bullying Sarah for a year already and we never see her do anything like telling Sarah she has a reason to think that Dana is under duress at her home. So the situations are not comparable.
(And I’m still waiting for any solid indicator that Dana actually IS under duress at home. Several people say they see red flags about this, but though I regocnize plenty of red flags, nothing showed up on my radar. Which doesn’t prove anything but that we do not know.)
Raidah didn’t lie after the party. In face she was actually extremly fair in her summation of Sarah, saying she was toxic to Raidah specifically, and telling Jacob that Sarah attacked her, both of which is true.
We were never really that close but I tried because she seemed like she needed friends. She ended up selling out a close friend of mine/ours who was going through a rough patch. She never admitted she was wrong and I could never forgive her. Since then we were never able to interact without hurting each other. I decided I just needed to stop interacting with her after she punched me.
This is fair assessment of why they can’t get along.
Raidah’s summation does not admit that Raidah did anything to Sarah. It does not even bring up the real issue.
Well, that is very nice summation, but it’s unreasonable to expect people to talk like that in the moment. Raidah just found herself in a very unexpected situation, having to explain her emotional reaction to her rather new boyfriend. She didn’t see it coming and still managed to express her state of mind in concise matter that even managed to address the subjective nature of her opinion. That’s pretty good all things considered and not in the least bit dishonest. You have unreasonable expectation.
Something something True Love something something Not Meant to Be something something.
Romantic comedies always have the boyfriend engaged to someone horrible and the heroine justified in interfering in their lives!
Ah, C.T., BBCC, you’re both so right, and I’m hoping this moment with Joe is going to make Joyce realize that her willingness to pursue what is RIGHT lets people take advantage of her.
And that plot point in romantic comedies has always made me so mad. Sends awful messages that adults don’t have the ability to make their own choices/mistakes. :/
Yeah, it’s one thing for the boyfriend to break up with his fiancee/girlfriend because he likes a new girl better. It sucks, but it happens.
Except in romances, he usually doesn’t want to until it gets badgered into him by the plot.
True story: my sister had a boyfriend. They went to different universities. He became good friends with a girl there pretty quickly. All her friends told him how perfect they were for each other, what a cute couple they would make, etc. So he cheated on my sister with the other girl, broke up with my sister, they got together…
Aah romance! Aah comedy! Oh no – wait – just a really shoddy way to treat somebody…
Remember that Joyce has been raised on a messed-up image of what romance and appropriate relationships look like. And then add in some ‘if it doesn’t work out then clearly God had other plans’ type rhetoric, most likely. (The fact that Jacob’s Christian and Raidah’s Muslim may well factor into that, at least subconsciously.) This is pretty much normal romcom fucked-uppedness, after all.
Well you can use that rhetoric until marriage after which any problem can be solved by trying harder.
Jacob and Raidah’s faiths very well could factor into Joyce’s thinking. Unconscious, but still.
BOOM, truth bomb dropped!
Joe needed a mike to drop. He should carry one around.
Pretty sure he’d be up to ride Joe.
Usual fee applies, etc.
His hair would make a convenient handhold…
Joe would need a nickle.
Why do people always spell it like that?
Because it’s correct.
It’s spelled “nickel”. “Nickel”, like the metal it was originally made out of. The “nickle” spelling is incorrect unless you’re referring to one of these.
TL:DR, there’s no such coin as a “nickle”, the coin is spelled “nickel”.
thank you.
I know, right? It’s like when people write “costumer” when they mean “customer”.
Unlike “costumer”, “nickle” gets caught by spell-check because it’s not an English word.
This is something I correct every time I check a cousin’s CV for her!! Thankfully she has now started a permanent job!
If there is no such thing as a costumer, what else do you call someone whose hobbies include making and/or wearing costumes. It’s a perfectly good word and my spellchecker agrees.
So does Needfuldoer’s. Nickle gets caught by spellcheck because it’s not an english word. Costumer IS an english word, though my spellcheck THINKS i misspelled Customer.
Both are valid words, but they’re not interchangeable (as the Internet seems to think they are).
Costumer: person who makes costumes.
Customer: person who pays for goods and services.
Costumers can be customers, not all customers are costumers.
just push Faz into the ground cx
(don’t actually push kids into the ground)
He should just pick up Faz and drop him instead. Boom. Fazdrop.
Joe tried to hold out, but yeah, Joyce needed to hear it. Guessing it’ll be a Cassandra truth for her, though, maybe she’ll realize he’s right and connect the dots.
And redouble her efforts to get Sarah and Jacob together!
Oh. Yeep. >__<
Seems like Faz needs a chalkboard to display all there’s connections. Maybe a smart board.
“yet I, faz, will try anyways”
It looks like Joe’s wearing a tank top here.
Joyce looks so shocked. She did NOT expect this plot twist.
Neither did I.
“…. Faz has concluded Faz can be inserted into the local romantic network even if no holes exist.”
I don’t think Joyce is going to believe it and I don’t think she will admit to liking him.
*plays a digitized theme from Ruslan and Ludmilla on a hacked P.A. Speaker in honor of the alt-text*
I overdosed on the “Classic” version.
Are you sure you don’t want to go with Korobeiniki?
Why is Fax trying to get involved in this social circle? Is he so annoying that he has no friends at his own school?
Faz is a high school student. College is like Narnia to most high schoolers when they visit. So much freedom….so few bullies…
To answer your second question: yes.
Will this lead to Sarah/Jacob/Joyce? As it should be? With the mean, nasty, and awful Raidah ruined!
Stay tuned!
That place is in the ‘never gonna happen’ pit, kiddo.
And thank you, Joe. It needed to be said.
Faz is bi so he has many more options!
Joe, honesty is the best policy but maybe not right now. Granted this might be the only time he has, so Faz might just have to be considered part of the background, as long as they don’t let him go again.
…. someone remind me why the romantic shenanigans of Midsummer Night’s Dream are considered convoluted?
Because Midsummer Night’s Dream has the magic “love” flower and Puck keeps getting things wrong.
reaching its apex in that golden moment where Oberon turns from the glorious mess that’s just played out in front of him and Looks at Puck, trying to play it innocent (as if):
“What hast thou done?”
(and Puck tries to play it off, like, “why, only what you told me to, my lord…”)
And the whole of it is like, 5% of the love pentagram of this comic.
That look of disbelief on Joyce’s face. Like, “Hubba wha-?”
Faz’s continued presence on campus makes me wonder about why he’s here. He dodged Amber’s question about whether Blaine knew he was here and his mom hasn’t been answering her phone, so I’m wondering if they’re fighting or (god forbid) Blaine got violent again.
It could be an official college visit, which Faz managed to escape from the main group of. … Yeah that’s my best optimistic guesses, odds are leaning towards terrible.
There was a second guess there about Blaine being involved to being him there and then fucking off, but I realized there was still a high likelihood of terrible there.
Being him there? Yeah clearly I need to sleep.
Isn’t he under arrest? He brought a gun to a college campus and took hostages.
Wrong shitty father. That’s Toedad that you’re referring to. Unless I’m forgetting something.
That’s Toedad, Becky’s father and the OTHER Worst Dad Ever. Last we saw Blaine, Amber beat the shit out of him and he lied to the police about it, and I think was hospitalized? Probably been out for a while now though.
Isn’t Blaine also banned from the campus by restraining order now?
Not sure if it rises to the level of restraining order, but by campus policy, yes.
I’m still afraid he’s going to turn out to be a horrible parallel to Becky (kicked out due to his sexual identity) and/or Howard (on the run from horrible father) and went to the only person he knows can stand up to Blaine.
What really gets me is that Faz completely lacks inner voice and never feels the need to shut up about anything – yet he is cagey about his reasons for being here.
I wonder if he does keep his inner voice hidden. Its entirely possible that the creepy Faz is the mask. Amber has Amazi-Girl, so it would make sense for Faz to create an identity that people can attribute to him, that keeps him from having to face any of his actual problems.
That makes way too much sense, and he wouldn’t be the first insecure young man to hide perceived weaknesses under pick up artist bullshit.
I hope you are wrong.
Hope so too. I don’t want Faz to become sympathetic. Not sure what to do with him if he does. He’d need an entire personality lift and to basically not be Faz.
Also a trickier plotline to resolve than Becky, since Faz is underage and thus would technically be a runaway.
He wouldn’t need to be sympathetic to be in a shitty, undeserved situation. In some ways it would be an even better story. It would give him more depth, but keep his shitty personality and force us to deconstruct how we look at him.
…but I don’t really want to deconstruct him, so I hope that’ not where we are going.
Maybe that’s more what I meant.
I also don’t really want to deal with the reaction to “Faz is a loathsome creep and he’s here fleeing abuse.”
Love dodecahedron.
20 people, each in some kind of relationship with three of the others? That sounds pretty close.
And by rearranging and adding two more relationship arrows each, you can upgrade to a love icosahedron!
–Dave, sadly, after that you either have to get multi-dimensional or start stellating things
Thank you Joe, for all Joyce’s talk about the importance of treating people like people she sure is treating Jacob and Raidah like pawns in a game. She’s doing things in the same vein as Joe’s list and Not Ryan’s evil, it’s no where near the level of Not Ryan, but it’s on the same spectrum, just like with Joe. Joyce objectifies men by seeing them as faceless marriage material and doesn’t respect who they are, for example Ethan. Her exception is Joe just like his exception is Joyce. She’s getting better, but this is not okay. She’s treating people like dolls she can control, it’s not right.
This is brave of Joe, Joyce is probably one of the only females on campus that can stand his company at the moment and that he took so long to straight up tell her the problem means he knows theres a very good chance that Joyce will get angry at him and end their fledgling friendship yet hes still willing to risk it to try to stop it before it gets worse and people get hurt
Also Joe and Joyces interactions seem to me to be the most realistic and best written of all the cast
agreed.
There’s a certain chemistry in their interactions for sure.
I agree, Joe has grown a lot and he’s doing the right thing even though it may hurt him personally.
“Hurting more people than you know”
Does this mean Joe likes Joyce? Please?
I think he’s referring to how Raidah won’t be the only one hurt, especially if Jacob finds out about the manipulation and Joyce realizes she was manipulated.
It might also remind him of his parents’ divorce in some yet to be specified fashion.
Agreed.
I really wanted to see more than Faz for this exchange.
The phrase “get with” sounds so awkward and hokey, and yet I can’t think of a better replacement.
Joyce/Joe is endgame. I can smell it. It smells like…. cool mint.
Broken toe, broken heart.
Pa pa power, pa pa power.
You’re a good friend, Joe.
Finally!
The truth is out! Praise be to Joe, for once.
Faz must always be relevant in any situation or he’ll find it impossible to process what’s going on.
Also I wonder what’s worse, a womanizer or home Wrecker ?
A (knowing) homewrecker. A lot more people get hurt in that situation, especially if there’s kids.
Wait.
Waitwaitwaitwaitwait.
Did.
Did Faz just have a punchline… where he wasn’t the main joke?!
I think that’s the first time I’ve seen that, both in Shortpacked and here!
I love that we get to see his charting in progress.
Secret information involving potential shipping that is said so casually in front of Faz? This won’t end well at all….
I want to see Faz hit on Carla. Then see Carla hit Faz.
Hit Faz? If any two characters belong together its them. I’m shipping Carla and Faz.
Carla likes girls.
And is asexual.
Yup, she’s a homoromantic ace lady.
Also might be into BDSM.
What we’ve seen on panel suggests just a mild degradation fetish at most. That’s barely flirting with the edges of BDSM, and it’s rather hard for me to picture her dealing well with most D/s or M/s relationship styles let alone many B&D or S&M practices.
It’s possible, but it’d have to be a non-sexual one. Carla doesn’t do sex.
True enough but it’s hard to qualify it as anything but BDSM. Maybe BDSM lite?
There are non-sexy BDSM relationships. No need to change the name, just an understanding it’d be a romantic one not a sexy one.
BDSM doesn’t have to involve any hardcore elements to still be BDSM. There’s no line you must meet to qualify, all fetishistic behavior sexual and non sexual belongs.
As long as it’s consensual and risk aware of course.
Was that stated in this comic before, or is sexual preference something that we know transfers one to one from other comics to here?
It has been stated that sexual orientation transfers from the Walkyverse – though there are a few caveats: for example – we only learned here that Danny is bisexual. That was never shown in previous comics.
Carla’s kind of special case, since she was a female humanoid robot who used to be a car. That had to be translated for this more realistic setting. I don’t believe it’s been explicitly stated, but there have certainly been hints that both the homoromantic and asexual aspects carried over.
She straight up said in the Walkyverse that she was homoromantic and ace. That wasn’t part of being a robot and there’s no good reason it shouldn’t cross over.
I’m fairly certain her sex repulsion also crossed over, since she referred to sex as ‘gross things’ and Willis has said that her feelings about sex are why she wouldn’t be in slip shine stuff.
My experience with the Internet’s shipping culture has told me
that a characters own sexual orientation and gender have little
to no influence on who they’re shipped with and why.
Would it be creepy of Carla to use very light (like being allowed to touch her butt occasionally) sexual gratification to convince Faz to do things for her? The answer is yes, also it could lead to a war between Mary and Carla after Mary decides to do the same thing.
Carla has more self respect than that… Mary though
Yeah this cast is kind of a mess. In dating and in general.
Almost as if they are… dumbing of age?
Well, it seems Faz is actually teachable. He referred to himself as “myself” instead of in the third person.
*Beat*
“So you believe that *I* have a real chance with Jacob?”
*Beat*
“No, Faz”
Nahh, she’ll probably feel as much shame as whenever she’s allowing herself a lustful thought.
I mean, this is Joyce. Now, we can all agree that what she was trying to accomplish was oh-so-wrong, but here’s the thing: She did it because she thought she was helping a friend*.
To have the table turned and -her- being the target of the switcheroo*… She’d feel like she’d be betraying Sarah. And the last thing she’d want to do in the world would be to betray those she considers her friends.
*Not an excuse, by the way, just to make that clear
**Look, this is what switcheroo means -in this context-, OK?
Oh no, Faz is learning the weaknesses of everyone around him!
No, that implies a level of social awareness Faz lacks
It Thinks! Never underestimate the cunning of a seemingly non-sentient creature. Imperium underestimated Orks and it ended with Battle Moons hovering over Terra!
Intelligent non sentient beings are dangerous, like internet trolls, bots and Fox News celebrities.
“What I’m doing is wrong? That can’t be, you did a completely unrelated deplorable thing you regret!”
I don’t think that’s what Joyce is saying here. I think it’s more along these lines:
“Joyce, this is wrong, I expected better from you!”
“Big talk coming from a guy whose list indicates he had a pretty low opinion of me.”
Basically I think it boils down to her saying ‘sounds fake but okay’ about him saying he thought she was better than this.
It’s not what Joyce is saying here; it’s what Joe is saying. Nobody has a point.
But that’s not true. Joyce knows why Joe rated her that, and while it might be because he had a pretty low opinion of her at the time (incase you don’t remember, because she punched him on their date, because she found out he didn’t actually want to date her), he doesn’t anymore. Otherwise they wouldn’t hang out. They might not be friends, but he behaves to differently towards her, and definitely way more respectful than when they first met.
It wasn’t because she found out he didn’t want to date her. That is not why she punched him.
While they did and do have two significantly different ideas of what dating entails (extreme causualness vs extreme seriousness), she (and Mike) punched him because he had roaming/lustful eyes.
You can date someone causally and look at other people. But you can’t do that if you take dating as seriously as Joyce does (and Mike just likes punching people).
Thanks for clarifying, I didn’t remember and was too lazy to look it up, since it wasn’t really the point of my… point.
Yes, but that is not what his list indicates and the list is what she’s talking about here.
I’m not sure that moral fibre is relevant to your standing on Joe’s Fuckability List that seems a bit more nuanced and not incredibly shallow than I’m willing to give him credit for.
But it’s not based totally on looks either, since I think Walky established that Joyce isn’t seen as being physically unattractive.
Good god Faz’s triangle mouth is soooo creepy
He never stops grinning. It’s almost too much.
Too much is if he had Joyce’s smile.
You don’t want to do this Faz. You could not commit a sin so grievous that you deserve to be punished thus! 😉 Seriously, when Amber asks her little brother what his day has been like, she’s in for a surprising story or two!
Meanwhile, at last someone has slapped Joyce in the face with the cold fish of reality!
You, all right?! I learned it by watching you!
Faz aside, wow.
This conversation between Joe and Joyce?
The fact they are even bringing this up makes me feel, weird things about their bond.
THANK YOU JOE FOR DOING THE OBVIOUS THING AND OUT RIGHT STATING IT!
Not sarcastic, btw, I am actually glad he pointed it out. Drives me mad when you get the whole nobody says the obvious thing
DUN DUN DUUUUUUUUU-oh no wait this wasn’t a surprise.
“Faz is looking for a vacant spot into which he can insert himself. Any vacant spot will do. Faz is not fussy.”
At this point, Joe and Joyce stuff Faz into a culvert.
“Correction: Faz may be a little fussy.”
“But … I can’t date a straight Christian who believes in waiting! What could I change about him?”
The colour of his skin. 🙁
The first half of Faz’s sentence is all of us.
The second half is… still probably some of us.
“it’s going to end up hurting more people than you think” – subtle confession from Joe? 🙂
aw, Joe … you’re good enough for Jacob! Really!
–Dave, /popcorn
I don’t care I still ship Joe and Joyce! Commenting on this strip I think Joyce in the next strip will not believe Joe cuz she believes the best in people and will not think that Sarah will betray her in this way. I could be wrong but that’s how I feel and she might even get up in Joe’s face about…….his list or something maybe. I don’t think she would be all ragey but I think she might storm off. What do you think? Am I in the right direction or no?
Faz and Mary deserve each other.
But we do no deserve them. What if they start cooperating? What if they have Children!? Mary is bad enough with that fundie boyfriend of hers. But she can be Worse.
Having read Shortpacked!, I gotta say that this is the best story I’ve ever seen Faz in. Making him younger, out of place, and mostly observing the rest of the cast rather than just being ridiculous on his own really works in this context. Excellent writing.
Also! Did anyone else notice that Faz refers to himself in the 3rd person in the last panel? He’s learning!
“Faz feels overwhelming confusion and sexual ardour.”
for once I am in complete agreement with Faz
Faz only has one face, a traingle smile and a wiggly line for an eye, it just adds more to his creep factor
Thank you for saying it, Joe.
the last panel is like this one “uncle Sam wants *you*” poster and I can’t unsee.
I think Joyce misses the point that Joe’s list was about the women in the school that he’d like to, and believes he has a good change to, bang.
Joyce is a “zero negative” exactly BECAUSE she’s a “better person” and Joe realized he had no chance of getting her.
Actually it was Joyce who pointed out to Joe that getting a zero minus indicated he put more thought into Joyce than any other girl when he compiled that list.
I suspect that’s actually more thought than he put into it, unless he changed that much more recently than I assume (in which case it wouldn’t be a 0-).
She’s a zero minus because she brought Mike on the date to beat him up and joined in herself. I don’t really think that made her a better person, but it certainly seems sufficient for the rating.
Yeah, I’m going to go with her being a 0- because she beat him up.
Wasn’t there a relationship chart in shortpacked? The one robin draw up after pulling the drama-tag and continuously updated thereafter
Now I have to look for it…
one hour of searching and reading on and archive binging later:
http://www.shortpacked.com/index.php?id=1312
found it
Come on, Joe. Let Joyce have this one. She’s clearly way more harmless than she thinks…I think. I think? Either way, you just dropped a truth bomb that was too real. You didn’t need to win that badly, dude.
The shipping chart for the fanfic of Worm titled ‘Silencio’ assumed mammoth, eldritch, incomprehensible dimensions, and broke through into the comments section eventually. The fanfic is still being updated, though it recently came back from a break of a few years.
–Dave, ‘shipping chart’ for a fanfic is basically commentors/fans mimicking what Faz is doing here
ps: silent, triangle mouth faz for HOW many [anls? scared now
*panels
–Dave, bah