True story: my sister got accommodations at university for health issues so did her exams on her own so she could take breaks as needed. She turned up to one with a raging fever. She struggled through half her paper before the invigilator convinced her to go home and reassured her that the professor would understand, she could either redo it or the unfinished part would be ignored, it was fine.
Instead she was marked on what she had done and got 0 on the portion she hadn’t. She’d been well enough to turn up, she was well enough to do the exam.
She also e.g. Was given extensions for a few pieces of coursework after landing in hospital a couple of times. For the exact number of days she had been in hospital. Because you can’t do coursework while ill in hospital but when you’re discharged clearly you are 100% better and ready to go. Whaddaya mean, “convalescence”?
Her department was not very good at making adequate accommodations, really.
I was diagnosed with a chronic illness while at uni, and followed the pattern of: Attend the first 2 weeks of lectures and practicals. Get ill, miss 4 weeks. Check course requirements and turn up to my professors’ drop-in sessions to explain and arrange exemptions for the missed coursework. Go back to bed for 2-3 weeks. Buy the textbooks. Read the course notes and relevant chapters, spending all my waking hours studying for 4-7 days. Sit exams. Collapse and spend the holidays ill, being looked after by my parents. Go back after the holiday and repeat. It wasn’t the greatest experience but my professors were very understanding and accommodating, and I got a useful piece of paper that enabled me to start a career, and met one of my best friends (she was my landlady at one point) and now husband (on a Harry Potter chat forum).
It took me a moment to parse out the end of it. I was reading it that you met one of your best friends (a female who was previously a landlady) and she is not your husband. I got stuck on the casual shift of genders until I figured out that they are two people…
Yeah, between my experiences seeking accommodations on a college campus, my brother’s, and my mom working in academia herself, I’ve got some real horror stories about professors at best Not Getting It and at worst being ableist jerks. (Also, disability support being understaffed to begin with.)
Dead how long?
Almost 18 years.
Did they tell you that you’d been recalled to life?
Yes, they told me so.
May I take you to her, can I show you the way!
Wait, it I saw her too soon, t’would break her heart.**
** C. Dickens, Tale of 2 cities.
I’d be more worried about Dorothy. Walky’s at least having a reasonable reaction to this situation. Dorothy looks like she’s compartmentalizing. That’s often bad.
I think Dorothy is just trying to reason everything, like I have done when bad things happen. It’s not so different from Becky using comedy, or Joyce saying edgy things. Everyone has their way of dealing with pain, but if you can’t keep it together for too long it’s okay to seek help. I think Walky is the one that needs it right now.
If they don’t all get some counseling after this of SOME form or other, I will be damning Willis most loudly. Everyone’s gonna need it. The question is how much they’re holding it together short-term versus trying to bottle it up completely versus just a complete mess.
Dorothy does tend to stress herself out, but she is also smart enough to actually seek a therapist. (As she did after seeing Amber stab Ryan). I think she’ll be fine.
If Amber or Dorothy had ever given any sign of being curious at all, it would certainly make things easier. But as things stand I get the feeling Amber’s No Good, Very Bad Day is about to get the final hit needed to reach Maximum Trauma.
I wonder how this is going to affect Walky long term, because he doesn’t seem like he’ll talk to a professional about this. Dorothy is clearly working through it in some capacity. Maybe she will be able to help him?
I don’t think Dorothy’s really processed it so much as she’s cool under pressure and still has things to do before she stops and her brain catches up. But she DOES see a campus therapist, so she probably does have healthy tools to deal with it once the last of the adrenaline clears out.
I would hope that, if anything made the college demand at least a couple sessions of mandatory counseling, getting kidnapped would… but Amber fucking stabbed a guy who’d threatened her at knifepoint and they apparently didn’t think that merited a professional checkin, so. (It was clearly self-defense! It just as clearly did traumatize Amber in the process!)
Wasn’t Ruth expected to talk to her about that? Or was that Joyce after being threatened with a gun? I can’t see why either of those would be outside the remit of an RA or beyond their training… 🙄
Fifty-seven DoA years have passed. Former President Keener sits in the living room on her estate, and suddenly goes deep into an anxiety panic attack. Her brain finally had time to get through its backlog.
Look, she’s not going to turn in her best work sleep-deprived and coming off *gestures to the morning they have had*. If being kidnapped by your friends’ evil dads, one of whom began murdering the other one in front of you all and succeeded while you escaped, doesn’t get you a no-fuss reschedule on your midterms, what the shit DOES?
(The answer is nothing because most campuses have at least one Tenured Egotistical Fucker who wouldn’t reschedule for you even if you called them from the hospital while actively in labor, but I don’t think they work with freshmen if they can help it. Introductory courses are beneath them.)
I almost died a few months ago. An Uber driver (probably on stimulants) steered across a double yellow into a lane with a full-speed 18 wheeler, and swerved back onto her own side with about half a second to spare.
I’ve thought about the tradeoffs between the risks and rewards of recreational traveling and other optional activities – but I haven’t wondered whether I would have wanted to do anything differently.
Meh. More or less deep is arguable. Some look at their past for regrets. Seems you looked at your future. Looking for the things you would regret not doing But still have time to change rather then looking at the past at things that can’t be changed.
I wonder if that has something to do with instinct versus thinking? In your situation the danger came so fast that I assume your instincts mainly took over, while in Walky’s situation he was in danger for a lot longer and therefore had more time to realize that he could die.
That’s another reason I don’t trust ‘gig economy’ services like Uber and Lyft. If these “independent contractors” had to follow DOT regs for seat time like truckers, they wouldn’t be driving their own cars at all hours hopped up on stimulants, making pocket change after expenses.
Hm. I’m thinking about things like that basically every time I can’t fall asleep. Pondering about past mistakes and how to fix them or how to make it better next time.
I’m not sure whether that’s better or worse.
I swear if Walky tries to get back with Dorothy right now I will!…….Not care because that falls well in character for what I’d expect from him. That being the worst most selfish and immature thing.
Yeah, figures. I don’t want to assume anything yet because Walky has a lot he should regret, but uh timing’s kinda inappropriate at the very least. Could’ve at least given her a day to decompress from almost dying.
The thing is, he was clearly not REMOTELY over Dorothy when he and Amber started getting romantically-leaning, and despite Sal’s blessing they’re both pretty firmly in that whole ‘We can’t! But we want to!’ Forbidden Teenager Thing. I’m not sure he’s going to actively try and get back with her outright right now, but he definitely has a Mess of Unresolved Feelings involving her that could use hashing out if they’re going to keep being friends.
So I wouldn’t say that’s inherently the worst and most immature thing. Ill-advised and messy, but so was kissing Amber so soon after the breakup when he was so hung up on Dorothy, it pretty much GUARANTEED later mess. (THAT was the shortsighted bonehead move here.) Reassessing how Not Over his very recent ex he is after a near-death experience actually makes sense. If he doesn’t actually hit on Dorothy, just says he regrets how things ended up, that’s not an inherently awful move. Just a messy one. If he does… Well, I still get WHY he’d be doing it but seriously, goddamn it Walky stop making the most Teenager romantic choices in the cast.
That said I would hope also that any ‘I think we need to talk about this for real’ comes with a ‘after we’ve slept and maybe also screamed for three hours’ clause because agreed, this is NOT the time for a serious conversation, just a ‘there are still feelings can we hash them out later’ alert.
I am usually like Dorothy in stressful situations, but I understand that people like Walky will feel extremely bad. I guess everyone has different coping mechanisms.
willis writes relationship drama well enough that I’m actually rooting against the characters finding stability- I can’t wait. Let’s triangulate some love, people!
Is he technically with her, though? I don’t remember that they’ve made any sort of commitment with each other. I mean yes, they’ve chilled together and talked about super-personal stuff and had kinda-sex, but are they technically with each other?
They are together enough that people would consider them together or at least I would because if you’re kissing someone and having sex with someone and spending copious amounts of time together and you’re not doing these things with other people and you haven’t said you’re NOT together, then you’ve implied it through your actions that you *are* together even without saying it in words. And if Walky didn’t want it to be seen that way, he would have to communicate that these actions weren’t to be taken as signs of investment and commitment to their relationship or the formation of a romantic relationship (or Amber obviously if she wanted, but I’m highlighting Walky since this strip is focused on him and what he is doing so).
Hoboy, the realisation of what happened finally catches up to him in a way I’m finding eerily familiar. Will it actually push him to self-betterment? I’m not wholly sure, but hopefully he’ll get help in some form or another.
Combine that realization with the contrast of his upbringing compared to Sal’s setting in, and the next chapter looks even more interesting. Shitstorm Linda just got upgraded to Category 4, and she’s about to make landfall.
On the topic of thinking about what one might have done differently:
Most trans* folk that I know think about that a lot.
Should they have come out earlier or later than they did?
Should they have hidden it until someone that they cared about would no longer be hurt?
Should they have hidden it longer at work, or should they have hidden it less at work?
Should they have avoided wearing that gender of clothing the night they got attacked (and since they couldn’t have predicted the attack, transitively this would have meant avoiding that gender of clothing in public) ?
Should they have “tried harder” not to be trans (to be clear, for a lot of trans folk “trying really hard” to not be trans, tends to lead to a meltdown where suddenly they can’t cope anymore and need to transition rather quickly.)
Very very few of the trans people I know go through transition “selfishly”, thinking only of themselves: nearly all of them think very hard about the consequences, but decide that the likely negative consequences are outweighed by their NEED to transition. They actively decide about doing things differently in their lives, mentally reviewing how they have been living and comparing to alternatives. It is a difficult and stressful process for most trans folk.
All these people in the comments who “almost” died because they got a few feet to a few inches way from a speeding vehicle.
Meanwhile I DID die getting hit with a truck going roughly 60 MPH while riding my bicycle home from work. I got a little counselling because I was already PTSD from my effed up childhood and didn’t start having any new nightmares, so getting killed probably didn’t do anything. I got more physical therapy for the leg that almost fell off than I got emotional therapy for almost dying permanently.
I still wish I could have seen the faces of the guys getting ready to put me in the body bag when I told them to be careful because I had a broken femur. Because everyone “knows” that it’s impossible to survive getting thrown 12-16 feet up and over 100 feet horizontally after getting hit by a truck.
Poor Walky… :/ On the one hand, it should be very, very clear to him by now that Dorothy is simply not that into him. I know her type; for her, her career/aspirations will always come first. It’s not that she can’t love other people, but if you are to be in a relationship with that kind of person, you must be prepared to always be second in their list of priorities.
On the other hand, love is not something you can easily just drop and walk away from. I know I pined after my first love something fierce for YEARS afterwards, and part of me still holds her in a special place in my heart.
Funny. I always thought that Dorothy was that into him and while together he tried not to get in the way of her priorities. To the point that he was willing to break up with her to give her more time to study.
Oh don’t get me wrong. Dorothy is DEFINITELY attracted to Walky and there is a very strong physical chemistry between them. But Dorothy’s primary goal in life is to become President (or another similarly high position), and I think it was fairly clear to both of them that Walky would not be able to help her attain that. Indeed, he might even be a burden to her on that journey, as evidenced by the short arc where Walky revealed that he was failing math and Dorothy decided to take time out of her own studies to help tutor him. It’s obvious that Walky does not have the drive or ambition to be Dorothy’s equal partner in such a relationship, and I’m not sure he (or Dorothy) would be happy with him being the supportive, stay-at-home partner who takes care of domestic matters. I get the feeling Dorothy would be most happy with somebody who shares her drive and determination, the two of them spurring each other to ever greater heights of accomplishment through friendly competition. No offense to Walky, but that is definitely not him. XD
And now, the fact that it never occurred to Dorothy that maybe she was wrong to break up with Walky, while it was the first thing that came to mind for him, is clear proof that she has moved on already. As I mentioned earlier, as much as she likes and enjoyed her time together with Walky, relationships will ALWAYS be a secondary concern to someone like Dorothy.
I know just how you feel, Zaxares. It’s been twelve years, more or less, since I was last with her (we lived about 150 miles apart and only saw each other occasionally), but I know there is going to a permanent hole in my heart the size and shape of Katherine.
I kind of hope it isn’t. Walky’s masculinity has always been a bit weird. It would be kind of cool if it didn’t have the “I must fight and protect the women” aspect.
But it would be an interesting subversion of standard masculine tropes (and not out of line with Walky’s weird take on it) to have him just be unashamed to say “I’m not a fighter, so I tried to get out of the way of those good at it.” Especially when those were girls.
One of the positive aspects of masculinity (imho) is that you do fight to protect others
But letting other people fight for you is just…wrong. Walky wouldn’t/couldn’t but Dina (who is smaller than Walky) did, thats shameful especially given that had Walky done something then the kidnapping and van drive wouldn’t have happened
At some point Walky is going to have to decide if he wants to be coward his entire life or if he wants to beome the type of man he thinks he is
Wondering what you might have done differently in a given situation is healthy. It helps you consider what you might do next time.
The main danger of self-doubt and/or reflection is that the sharks, and the bottom feeders who think themselves sharks, around you see that as a weakness to be exploited against you.
“I didn’t die of it, I don’t need to learn anything” is not healthy. Dorothy’s main lesson since move-in day is “What looks good? What looks like leadership?”
Interesting most of you assume Walky’s regret has to do with Dot Sex.
You… might want to reread the panels in the right order before passing judgement on Dorothy here. She says “We survived” in response to “We almost died,” not Walky’s question about regrets. She hasn’t answered that one yet. (I assumed Walky’s regrets were probably Sal-related, but I the more I think about it the more it seems like they’re probably about his non-actions during the kidnapping.)
Dorothy may have made mistakes, but she has generally lived her life very well up to this point and has applied herself to her life goals with great discipline and dedication. There wouldn’t be too much to do different.
Dorothy did have a fulfilling relationship with him. She’s never hinted that she didn’t or that she thought she was settling. He was incredibly supportive of her, more so than I could have been at that age, I suspect. To the point of planning to break up with her, because he worried about distracting her from her studies.
I don’t want her settle either, but I’m also not happy with the apparent angle that ambitious women can’t have the distraction of a romantic relationship.
As I said, there’s no evidence that’s how she saw it. She had a good relationship with him and showed no signs of being unhappy with it, except that it was eating up more of her time than she thought she could spare. No reason to think the same wouldn’t be true with a relationship with someone else.
And I will reiterate that Walky’s behavior in that relationship, especially as it was coming to an end was incredibly mature and supportive. He put her needs first throughout.
Wait a minute. They go through a traumatic experience, and are cut loose that quickly, and on top of that, have to walk all the way back to campus in pjs, slippers and socks? Surely someone would have driven them back to campus, and also got in contact with the university administration to let them know what happened?
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“you’d RATHER have died??”
No midterms then. The dead don’t have to explain low grades in math class to their parents.
But then Linda grabs a resurrection chamber from the Walkyverse and brings Walky back to life just to lecture him.
Talk about a fate worse than death…
Now comes Walky’s big show-stopping musical number.
What? Tap dancing isn’t enough?
He can’t tap dance without shoes!
Soft shoe number then.
No no, not that kinda tap-dancing….dancing on top of a cold water tap. He’s got really good balance dontchaknow. xD
“And Iiiiiiiiiiiiii will always love youuuuuuuu!”
A real show stopper? A show stopping number? Come on?
…something to shock em? to leave em, a-rocking?
And then they ****ed.
Napped?
After they’re done with their cardiovascular exercises, sure.
Aerobic style. The kind of exercise that usually causes heavy breathing
That “probably” is a bit worrying.
If we ever had any doubt beforehand, the current epidemic has amply demonstrated that some professors can be real dicks
True story: my sister got accommodations at university for health issues so did her exams on her own so she could take breaks as needed. She turned up to one with a raging fever. She struggled through half her paper before the invigilator convinced her to go home and reassured her that the professor would understand, she could either redo it or the unfinished part would be ignored, it was fine.
Instead she was marked on what she had done and got 0 on the portion she hadn’t. She’d been well enough to turn up, she was well enough to do the exam.
She also e.g. Was given extensions for a few pieces of coursework after landing in hospital a couple of times. For the exact number of days she had been in hospital. Because you can’t do coursework while ill in hospital but when you’re discharged clearly you are 100% better and ready to go. Whaddaya mean, “convalescence”?
Her department was not very good at making adequate accommodations, really.
I was diagnosed with a chronic illness while at uni, and followed the pattern of: Attend the first 2 weeks of lectures and practicals. Get ill, miss 4 weeks. Check course requirements and turn up to my professors’ drop-in sessions to explain and arrange exemptions for the missed coursework. Go back to bed for 2-3 weeks. Buy the textbooks. Read the course notes and relevant chapters, spending all my waking hours studying for 4-7 days. Sit exams. Collapse and spend the holidays ill, being looked after by my parents. Go back after the holiday and repeat. It wasn’t the greatest experience but my professors were very understanding and accommodating, and I got a useful piece of paper that enabled me to start a career, and met one of my best friends (she was my landlady at one point) and now husband (on a Harry Potter chat forum).
It took me a moment to parse out the end of it. I was reading it that you met one of your best friends (a female who was previously a landlady) and she is not your husband. I got stuck on the casual shift of genders until I figured out that they are two people…
Edit: now your husband
A hyphen to make that “now-husband” would, with hindsight, have improved clarity!
And also the word “both”…
Yeah, between my experiences seeking accommodations on a college campus, my brother’s, and my mom working in academia herself, I’ve got some real horror stories about professors at best Not Getting It and at worst being ableist jerks. (Also, disability support being understaffed to begin with.)
Get this poor baby some therapy
Did you die?
Dorothy: Sadly yes…but I lived!
Dead how long?
Almost 18 years.
Did they tell you that you’d been recalled to life?
Yes, they told me so.
May I take you to her, can I show you the way!
Wait, it I saw her too soon, t’would break her heart.**
** C. Dickens, Tale of 2 cities.
I have a feeling that “I refuse to be traumatized by this” comment from earlier is about to blow up in Walky’s face, in the form of MASSIVE TRAUMA.
I think he deals with trauma in the same way as Becky
Yep. Bury it under layers of snark and goofball until the danger is passed, break down privately where no one can hear you sob.
I’m so glad we know from preview panels we’ll be seeing Linda next storyline. I’ve been storing all this rage at her for later, letting it ferment.
Walky reached his breaking point. He needs help.
Preview panels where? Only found previews of Dorothy and Walky on Tumblr
I believe they were on Twitter, but it was a couple months back when the kidnapping was just ramping up.
Either that, or he wants to get back with Dorothy.
Could be both.
Oh no. I’m worried about Walky 🙁
I’d be more worried about Dorothy. Walky’s at least having a reasonable reaction to this situation. Dorothy looks like she’s compartmentalizing. That’s often bad.
I think Dorothy is just trying to reason everything, like I have done when bad things happen. It’s not so different from Becky using comedy, or Joyce saying edgy things. Everyone has their way of dealing with pain, but if you can’t keep it together for too long it’s okay to seek help. I think Walky is the one that needs it right now.
If they don’t all get some counseling after this of SOME form or other, I will be damning Willis most loudly. Everyone’s gonna need it. The question is how much they’re holding it together short-term versus trying to bottle it up completely versus just a complete mess.
Counseling. Feh. Overrated.
Dorothy is seeing a counselor, or was right before she broke up with Walky
Dorothy does tend to stress herself out, but she is also smart enough to actually seek a therapist. (As she did after seeing Amber stab Ryan). I think she’ll be fine.
Dorothy: Yes, Walkerton, I regret not studying more.
Tbh I think they’re kinda good for each other.
It’s been a while and I still constantly forget that Dorothy and Walky aren’t together anymore whenever I see them together.
I think that may be about to change. (Again.)
Good, they should get back together so that I don’t have to adapt to change.
Amber and Walky 4 Ever.
Dorothy and Walky 5 Ever.
Amber, Dorothy, and Walky 3 Ever.
Conflict and Strife infin8- let the oceans be filled with the wreckage of a billion ships
*coughs* I mean, Walky and Amber 6 ever
I admit I maintain hope for my Walky/Jason ship.
*gazes down on other ships from the bridge of the Space Battleship Joece*
Pathetic.
If Amber or Dorothy had ever given any sign of being curious at all, it would certainly make things easier. But as things stand I get the feeling Amber’s No Good, Very Bad Day is about to get the final hit needed to reach Maximum Trauma.
Joyce and Walky … wait, how would that even work?
Yeah, it often seems like that’s only a SEMME-plausible idea.
BECAUSE THEY’RE PERFECT FOR EACH OTHER!!!!!!!!!! (I’m very cap happy when it comes to this page but it’s implications make me happy!)
Oh-oh!
Walky, do you really want to be the center of a love triangle?
Of course her answer could be “Nope!”
Though Amber might be cool with it.
Well, yeah, it is Amber.
With Amber it already is sort of a threesome.
3.5 some. And We already know the .5 goes both ways.
If Mike’s in there, it could become a really awkward fourgy.
He might be thinking more along the lines of center of a sandwich.
Triangle? What about Joyce?
I’m not sure that whether he wants to be will be the deciding factor.
He’s a communications major who loves to rattle off sitcom tropes. So, yes.
I wonder how this is going to affect Walky long term, because he doesn’t seem like he’ll talk to a professional about this. Dorothy is clearly working through it in some capacity. Maybe she will be able to help him?
I don’t think Dorothy’s really processed it so much as she’s cool under pressure and still has things to do before she stops and her brain catches up. But she DOES see a campus therapist, so she probably does have healthy tools to deal with it once the last of the adrenaline clears out.
I would hope that, if anything made the college demand at least a couple sessions of mandatory counseling, getting kidnapped would… but Amber fucking stabbed a guy who’d threatened her at knifepoint and they apparently didn’t think that merited a professional checkin, so. (It was clearly self-defense! It just as clearly did traumatize Amber in the process!)
Wasn’t Ruth expected to talk to her about that? Or was that Joyce after being threatened with a gun? I can’t see why either of those would be outside the remit of an RA or beyond their training… 🙄
Fifty-seven DoA years have passed. Former President Keener sits in the living room on her estate, and suddenly goes deep into an anxiety panic attack. Her brain finally had time to get through its backlog.
oh. I feel like a lot of feelings that were reserved for Garbage hours are coming out now
I sure hope so!
It’s the lack of sleep.
I’m impressed Sarah still has her slippers. Talents like that are why I like her
When Walky gets Somber things are serious
I hope Dorothy does the right thing and rips out his heart. He’ll recover faster that way.
…
What?
NO, POST-ALMOST-MURDERED SEX!
GET BACK TOGETHER. I KNEW IT WAS WRONG TO ABANDON MY SHIP *puts on captains hat*
Dorothy’s being surprisingly calm about missing midterms.
IMPOSTER!
Look, she’s not going to turn in her best work sleep-deprived and coming off *gestures to the morning they have had*. If being kidnapped by your friends’ evil dads, one of whom began murdering the other one in front of you all and succeeded while you escaped, doesn’t get you a no-fuss reschedule on your midterms, what the shit DOES?
(The answer is nothing because most campuses have at least one Tenured Egotistical Fucker who wouldn’t reschedule for you even if you called them from the hospital while actively in labor, but I don’t think they work with freshmen if they can help it. Introductory courses are beneath them.)
If you had enough strength to push out a baby, you had enough strength to move that pencil, young lady.
If they let you reschedule, you haven’t missed them yet.
*would have played “End Of The Innocence” but somehow all my records with it were run through the office shredder*
Huh. Walky is deeper than I am.
I almost died a few months ago. An Uber driver (probably on stimulants) steered across a double yellow into a lane with a full-speed 18 wheeler, and swerved back onto her own side with about half a second to spare.
I’ve thought about the tradeoffs between the risks and rewards of recreational traveling and other optional activities – but I haven’t wondered whether I would have wanted to do anything differently.
Meh. More or less deep is arguable. Some look at their past for regrets. Seems you looked at your future. Looking for the things you would regret not doing But still have time to change rather then looking at the past at things that can’t be changed.
I wonder if that has something to do with instinct versus thinking? In your situation the danger came so fast that I assume your instincts mainly took over, while in Walky’s situation he was in danger for a lot longer and therefore had more time to realize that he could die.
That’s another reason I don’t trust ‘gig economy’ services like Uber and Lyft. If these “independent contractors” had to follow DOT regs for seat time like truckers, they wouldn’t be driving their own cars at all hours hopped up on stimulants, making pocket change after expenses.
Hm. I’m thinking about things like that basically every time I can’t fall asleep. Pondering about past mistakes and how to fix them or how to make it better next time.
I’m not sure whether that’s better or worse.
Yeah, that’s when my anxiety brain’s most active.
EYES EMOJI.
Walky, move forward. Don’t focus on non-thicc Amber.
You have thicc Dorothy!
I swear if Walky tries to get back with Dorothy right now I will!…….Not care because that falls well in character for what I’d expect from him. That being the worst most selfish and immature thing.
It’s a good thing you don’t care, because I *think* he just did.
Yeah, figures. I don’t want to assume anything yet because Walky has a lot he should regret, but uh timing’s kinda inappropriate at the very least. Could’ve at least given her a day to decompress from almost dying.
It fits with his behaviour of expecting everybody else to look after him so at least hes consistent
You’re not wrong
The thing is, he was clearly not REMOTELY over Dorothy when he and Amber started getting romantically-leaning, and despite Sal’s blessing they’re both pretty firmly in that whole ‘We can’t! But we want to!’ Forbidden Teenager Thing. I’m not sure he’s going to actively try and get back with her outright right now, but he definitely has a Mess of Unresolved Feelings involving her that could use hashing out if they’re going to keep being friends.
So I wouldn’t say that’s inherently the worst and most immature thing. Ill-advised and messy, but so was kissing Amber so soon after the breakup when he was so hung up on Dorothy, it pretty much GUARANTEED later mess. (THAT was the shortsighted bonehead move here.) Reassessing how Not Over his very recent ex he is after a near-death experience actually makes sense. If he doesn’t actually hit on Dorothy, just says he regrets how things ended up, that’s not an inherently awful move. Just a messy one. If he does… Well, I still get WHY he’d be doing it but seriously, goddamn it Walky stop making the most Teenager romantic choices in the cast.
That said I would hope also that any ‘I think we need to talk about this for real’ comes with a ‘after we’ve slept and maybe also screamed for three hours’ clause because agreed, this is NOT the time for a serious conversation, just a ‘there are still feelings can we hash them out later’ alert.
yes to all of the above.
I am usually like Dorothy in stressful situations, but I understand that people like Walky will feel extremely bad. I guess everyone has different coping mechanisms.
Stressful situation over. Time to stop keeping it together.
Stressful situation over. Time to start getting ready for the next stressful situation.
I think “nearly got murdered by my fling’s father” is just a good a reason as any to fuck your ex.
willis writes relationship drama well enough that I’m actually rooting against the characters finding stability- I can’t wait. Let’s triangulate some love, people!
… they’re going to do the we-survived sex thing, aren’t they?
I hope not because I think he’s technically with Amber.
Is he technically with her, though? I don’t remember that they’ve made any sort of commitment with each other. I mean yes, they’ve chilled together and talked about super-personal stuff and had kinda-sex, but are they technically with each other?
They are together enough that people would consider them together or at least I would because if you’re kissing someone and having sex with someone and spending copious amounts of time together and you’re not doing these things with other people and you haven’t said you’re NOT together, then you’ve implied it through your actions that you *are* together even without saying it in words. And if Walky didn’t want it to be seen that way, he would have to communicate that these actions weren’t to be taken as signs of investment and commitment to their relationship or the formation of a romantic relationship (or Amber obviously if she wanted, but I’m highlighting Walky since this strip is focused on him and what he is doing so).
I mean the broke up. They just don’t act like it. Cuz they’re idiots.
Dorothy to Sierra — “You need to leave again.”
Sounds like Walky is, in a very awkward way, suggesting a reprise of Willis’s first Slipshine comic.
I wonder.
I hope that Dorothy jumps on a passing truck and flips him the bird in an homage to when Amazi-Girl escaped her.
WILLIS I STG IF YOU START THIS SHIP BACK UP AGAIN
*puts on captains hat* I’m ready *wipes single tear from eye*
WOW, Walky.
I can’t decide if I’m impressed or aghast, but way to mess things up! Might even be in a good way.
“Yes, Walky. I too feel I should have studied more math. Here, let me help you….”
“WHY DO I ALWAYS END UP STUDYING MATH, HOWEVER STUPID THE SITUATION?!!!”
Heehee.
Pfft, silly alt text: Dorothy *is* wearing shoes…
Wasn’t she getting ready to go running anyway?
Yep 🙂
It seems everyone else is thinking Walkys talking about Dorothy and himself, I thought he was talking about his actions during the kidnapping
I’m guessing I’m very wrong
That was where I was at on it.. let’s hope we don’t get any unnecessary drama. :X
Por que no Los dos?
and I thought it was going to be a whole “I’ve been waiting my life and living off of others” type thing
Pls dont go where i think you are going walkerton
Well, it looks like the Walky/Dorothy ship might not be as sunk as I thought.
Hoboy, the realisation of what happened finally catches up to him in a way I’m finding eerily familiar. Will it actually push him to self-betterment? I’m not wholly sure, but hopefully he’ll get help in some form or another.
Combine that realization with the contrast of his upbringing compared to Sal’s setting in, and the next chapter looks even more interesting. Shitstorm Linda just got upgraded to Category 4, and she’s about to make landfall.
On the topic of thinking about what one might have done differently:
Most trans* folk that I know think about that a lot.
Should they have come out earlier or later than they did?
Should they have hidden it until someone that they cared about would no longer be hurt?
Should they have hidden it longer at work, or should they have hidden it less at work?
Should they have avoided wearing that gender of clothing the night they got attacked (and since they couldn’t have predicted the attack, transitively this would have meant avoiding that gender of clothing in public) ?
Should they have “tried harder” not to be trans (to be clear, for a lot of trans folk “trying really hard” to not be trans, tends to lead to a meltdown where suddenly they can’t cope anymore and need to transition rather quickly.)
Very very few of the trans people I know go through transition “selfishly”, thinking only of themselves: nearly all of them think very hard about the consequences, but decide that the likely negative consequences are outweighed by their NEED to transition. They actively decide about doing things differently in their lives, mentally reviewing how they have been living and comparing to alternatives. It is a difficult and stressful process for most trans folk.
Walky, go find Amber asap.
All these people in the comments who “almost” died because they got a few feet to a few inches way from a speeding vehicle.
Meanwhile I DID die getting hit with a truck going roughly 60 MPH while riding my bicycle home from work. I got a little counselling because I was already PTSD from my effed up childhood and didn’t start having any new nightmares, so getting killed probably didn’t do anything. I got more physical therapy for the leg that almost fell off than I got emotional therapy for almost dying permanently.
I still wish I could have seen the faces of the guys getting ready to put me in the body bag when I told them to be careful because I had a broken femur. Because everyone “knows” that it’s impossible to survive getting thrown 12-16 feet up and over 100 feet horizontally after getting hit by a truck.
Poor Walky… :/ On the one hand, it should be very, very clear to him by now that Dorothy is simply not that into him. I know her type; for her, her career/aspirations will always come first. It’s not that she can’t love other people, but if you are to be in a relationship with that kind of person, you must be prepared to always be second in their list of priorities.
On the other hand, love is not something you can easily just drop and walk away from. I know I pined after my first love something fierce for YEARS afterwards, and part of me still holds her in a special place in my heart.
Funny. I always thought that Dorothy was that into him and while together he tried not to get in the way of her priorities. To the point that he was willing to break up with her to give her more time to study.
Oh don’t get me wrong. Dorothy is DEFINITELY attracted to Walky and there is a very strong physical chemistry between them. But Dorothy’s primary goal in life is to become President (or another similarly high position), and I think it was fairly clear to both of them that Walky would not be able to help her attain that. Indeed, he might even be a burden to her on that journey, as evidenced by the short arc where Walky revealed that he was failing math and Dorothy decided to take time out of her own studies to help tutor him. It’s obvious that Walky does not have the drive or ambition to be Dorothy’s equal partner in such a relationship, and I’m not sure he (or Dorothy) would be happy with him being the supportive, stay-at-home partner who takes care of domestic matters. I get the feeling Dorothy would be most happy with somebody who shares her drive and determination, the two of them spurring each other to ever greater heights of accomplishment through friendly competition. No offense to Walky, but that is definitely not him. XD
And now, the fact that it never occurred to Dorothy that maybe she was wrong to break up with Walky, while it was the first thing that came to mind for him, is clear proof that she has moved on already. As I mentioned earlier, as much as she likes and enjoyed her time together with Walky, relationships will ALWAYS be a secondary concern to someone like Dorothy.
I know just how you feel, Zaxares. It’s been twelve years, more or less, since I was last with her (we lived about 150 miles apart and only saw each other occasionally), but I know there is going to a permanent hole in my heart the size and shape of Katherine.
Walky’s courage failed when it mattered, while his friends stepped up. That is going to be a terrible burden to bear.
Yes, given his previous views on masculinity the knowledge will be even worse for him (as it should be)
I kind of hope it isn’t. Walky’s masculinity has always been a bit weird. It would be kind of cool if it didn’t have the “I must fight and protect the women” aspect.
Not necessarily even the protect women part — just the not be completely incompetent when guarding a prisoner part.
It would be nice to see a little recap of how that went down.
How about fighting to defend yourself or your friends?
Nothing wrong with that.
But it would be an interesting subversion of standard masculine tropes (and not out of line with Walky’s weird take on it) to have him just be unashamed to say “I’m not a fighter, so I tried to get out of the way of those good at it.” Especially when those were girls.
One of the positive aspects of masculinity (imho) is that you do fight to protect others
But letting other people fight for you is just…wrong. Walky wouldn’t/couldn’t but Dina (who is smaller than Walky) did, thats shameful especially given that had Walky done something then the kidnapping and van drive wouldn’t have happened
At some point Walky is going to have to decide if he wants to be coward his entire life or if he wants to beome the type of man he thinks he is
“You mean, like not making friends with the daughter of a murderer? Well, nobody told me Joyce’s mom killed anyone (yet)”
“Don’t worry, you’ll find out her role in this soon enough…”
Walky has regrets! But Dorothy lives with integrity.
Wondering what you might have done differently in a given situation is healthy. It helps you consider what you might do next time.
The main danger of self-doubt and/or reflection is that the sharks, and the bottom feeders who think themselves sharks, around you see that as a weakness to be exploited against you.
“I didn’t die of it, I don’t need to learn anything” is not healthy. Dorothy’s main lesson since move-in day is “What looks good? What looks like leadership?”
Interesting most of you assume Walky’s regret has to do with Dot Sex.
You… might want to reread the panels in the right order before passing judgement on Dorothy here. She says “We survived” in response to “We almost died,” not Walky’s question about regrets. She hasn’t answered that one yet. (I assumed Walky’s regrets were probably Sal-related, but I the more I think about it the more it seems like they’re probably about his non-actions during the kidnapping.)
“we almost died” feel like a callback or reference to something …
Dorothy may have made mistakes, but she has generally lived her life very well up to this point and has applied herself to her life goals with great discipline and dedication. There wouldn’t be too much to do different.
Just seeing the back of Sarah made me momentarily think she was Other Rachel (purple!)
re: alt-text: Overrated.
I think Dorothy/Walky is great, but I am so rooting for Dorothy’s ambition to win out. I don’t want her to settle.
Walky is emotionally still a child, how anyone can expect to have a fulfilling relationship with him is beyond me
Dorothy did have a fulfilling relationship with him. She’s never hinted that she didn’t or that she thought she was settling. He was incredibly supportive of her, more so than I could have been at that age, I suspect. To the point of planning to break up with her, because he worried about distracting her from her studies.
I don’t want her settle either, but I’m also not happy with the apparent angle that ambitious women can’t have the distraction of a romantic relationship.
She absolutely can have a romantic relationship but not with a boy-child (I was going to say man-child but thats giving Walky far too much credit)
As I said, there’s no evidence that’s how she saw it. She had a good relationship with him and showed no signs of being unhappy with it, except that it was eating up more of her time than she thought she could spare. No reason to think the same wouldn’t be true with a relationship with someone else.
And I will reiterate that Walky’s behavior in that relationship, especially as it was coming to an end was incredibly mature and supportive. He put her needs first throughout.
These aren’t mutually exclusive tho
im ngl ive missed dorothy x walky i think they balance each other out well and i think dorothy has pushed walky to make healthier decisions
dorothy is one of my faves i just want her to be happy
Wait a minute. They go through a traumatic experience, and are cut loose that quickly, and on top of that, have to walk all the way back to campus in pjs, slippers and socks? Surely someone would have driven them back to campus, and also got in contact with the university administration to let them know what happened?