Yes, that would be epic if Joyce realises now that she does love Becky and gives her a hug and a kiss. <3
"Classes were cancelled forever" – does that mean she dropped out, or did she maybe fail out of her classes, or is she making a metaphor about opening up to Joyce and blowing out?
That seems unlikely considering she’s in love with Joyce, more likely she came out of the closet and her parents took it badly (not all that surprising considering they grounded her for watching Seinfeld), stopped paying for her school and/or kicked her out.
so, if you are in love with someone, and you know that someone will never answer that unrequited love, it is wrong to kiss other people??
nah, man, sorry, she was avoiding Joyce for a reason, and that reason may be that she was trying to get over her, by doing what any other college kid does to get over past relationships
“clasess canceled forever” sounds more what someone would say after being kicked out, sorry.
Guys. She probably NEVER WENT. She never went to college. She told her parents, got kicked out the house, and then bummed around for a few weeks until she could maybe go live with Joyce.
Oh, and if you’re reading this and saying “But what about the Anderson hoodie!”, clearly that’s from when they visited the college ahead of time during high school to scout it out.
Except that the only telephone access she had was via a landline at Anderson, which means that she was there, until she was kicked out, when she stopped answering Joyce’s calls.
A lot of us kinda thought the last panel of yesterdays strip was Joyce’s battle stance, about to unleash the fury of fists upon Sarah the naysayer. But alas, the others were right to think that it was just her “I’m going to run angrily after becky” pose.
Danny and Ethan are both having some serious issues working out their sexuality (also possibly Ruth? I don’t have a slipshine subscription, so I feel like I’m missing bits on that front). While that doesn’t preclude happiness, it’s kind of hard to classify anyone as “happy” when that’s typically a kind of fleeting emotion.
In the same vein, Amber is happy in her relationship, but is definitely struggling with her past and her current problems re: Amazi-Girl.
And can we really call what Mary and Mike are “happy?” Honest question. Does schadenfreude count? And there’s really not much information to work with on Galasso — are his schemes of pizza-based world domination keeping him happy? Is Conquest happy to aid them? Is Leslie content to have her class be massively and irretrievably sidetracked by her students’ freshman drama practically weekly, even if it often relates to gender studies? I don’t know.
TL;DR happiness is weird and complex and you may not have jinxed anyone but only because they were almost all already sort of jinxed by the sheer fact that they are human beings and happiness isn’t binary.
Fair. I did overly simplify the emotional states of many characters. BUT, no characters are emotionally destroyed right now. Confused? Yeah, Danny, Ethan, and Amber certainly fit that mold. Ruth and Billie might fit there, too.
Schadenfreude DEFINITELY counts for Mary and Mike. Their lives and emotional states are made better from the misery of those around them. Different approaches, but I’d call them pretty happy with their lives right now.
Ture, we don’t really know much about Leslie, Galasso, or Conquest. Kind of threw them in there at the last second. I SHOULD have included Jacob, Sal (who is, admittedly, arguable), and Carla (probably). I would include Sarah and Malaya, too, but they’re NEVER happy.
TL;DR I still think I jinxed them. And I’m scared.
Thats a valid viewpoint. But its a really, really, hard thing thing to parse.
Shes open and accepting of it, and a large potential source of good for her.
But it can really be both things.
Its still really, really hard not to be straight in our culture. There are so many negative secondary effects .
Also her sexuality does seem kind of screwed up ,
( Not as a bisexual , or sexual orientation , Shes got that down awesome )
I just mean as a human being.
Sexy-Lesbian-Suicide-Pact, with added Drama Hurricane, that bullies and assaults a woman she’s attracted to , and guilt into a relationship with implied threat of suicide, are not signs of a healthy sexuality. Sometimes bad things in life do turn into positive experiences.
Again just to be clear, I am not against her sexual orientations. Its her sexual expressions which may not be healthy . Co-dependant or not I wish these ladies all the happiness they can find
Well then, we’ll just sick a succubus on him, and threaten to turn him into candy, until he breaks of this slow cycle of sadness and depression forever!
(For whoever gets my reference, you’re totally awesome)
Nice to see someone else thought of Alice Cooper after reading the last panel, even though I can’t rule out the possibility that others may have suppressed the urge to bring it up.
Oh, I assumed that Willis mean to evoke that parallel. It seemed to be the kinda thing he’d do — after all, this is the same guy who quoted “the sun’ll (slip)shine tomorrow” in the promos for the Ruth/Billie porn.
I think it’s a bit much to think that Willis would bring back a character we haven’t heard from since the first ten pages, flesh her out, only to have her kill herself.
I mean, he still gives himself shit for doing that in Roomies, for one, and for two, that’d be like, Brian Clevinger-levels of audience mindfuckery, and I don’t think Willis is capable of that kind of madness yet.
I was also dreading this, but I found it less likely once Joyce found her. I thought, if it happens, it will happen before Joyce talks to her. At least that is my hope.
And it has been said, over and over and over, that Willis has said he will not kill any one DOA, both because he doesn’t want to in general (as said, he isn’t now a huge fan of having done so in Roomies!) and because the other characters would be in the deepest parts of grieve for years and years of our time.
In Joyce’s room? We never saw Becky arrive, so we don’t know what she brought with her, and when she stormed out, she was too distraught to collect her stuff first.
Burning question: did she get kicked out of Anderson, or did she have a meltdown and tore up her student ID or something dramatic like that? Hoping for something fixable, fearing the worst…
Oh wait duh — she came out to her parents didn’t she, who promptly disowned her, and without their support, college is over. The absolute horror scenario, and sadly not at all far-fetched.
Seems likely. I got disowned while in university, and that can very easily lead to the end of your school career (and at that point can leave you with no place else to go). It is possible to get through it with friends (and sweet, sweet student loans), but it’s not easy.
(I graduated in spite of it all. I believe in you, Becky!)
Perhaps her name will be Leslie Bean, who in another world was disowned by her parents for being gay and is currently a teacher at the very school to which Becky has fled.
This actually prompted me to do some research about Anderson and its standing on LGBTQ+ students, and it seems there are actually clubs and communities for such students, now, and they’re much more accepting than you’d think. It’s good to know!
Probably her own family broke their ties with her. Even if it is a Christian college I doubt they would throw somebody out simply for their sexual preferences.
Actually, in some Christian colleges you can get kicked out for watching R-rated movies while being a student (as a breach of the “code of conduct” the school requires all students to live by) so the idea someone might get kicked out for being gay or trans is not actually farfetched.
Source: my memory from when I was basically Joyce in high school and looked at applying to various Christian universities
She basically went AWOL to go find Joyce, who was obviously going to reciprocate her romantic feelings. Joyce then drops out of school and they run away together, leaving their former lives behind.
The whole thing ends with them driving a Thunderbird off the edge of the Grand Canyon to escape the police.
I mean, I can’t see lesbian shenanigans getting her kicked out, if only because of her feelings towards Joyce; I’d assume Becky would try pursuing her first.
Well she could have been mixed up in “one night stands” shenanigans as she was discovering her sexuality and because she thought being with Joyce would be impossible. And then, when all went down and she lost everything, she came back running to her “best friend since childhood/true love” hoping that confessing to Joyce could make everything okay …
Come play Cards Against Randland with us sometime maybe! (see my tumblr sidebar and look for the “#Cards Against Randland” tag – you don’t have to have an account)
Some people do not allow themselves to become emotionally invested in fictional characters. There is a name for such people, that is not repeated in polite or mixed company.
Now that Joyce has caught up with her, I’m feeling about zero gut-punchitude. Not entirely sure why, I assume it’s because she’s verified safe for now?
Nah, it’s not really doing it for me, either. But that’s mostly because I don’t feel like I’ve had enough time to get to know Becky. I can’t connect with a character in only one afternoon. I mean, I feel bad that life is shitting all over her right now, but it’s not something I’m going to cry myself to sleep over, y’know?
This is the internet. People keep exaggering their emotions a hundredfold: They say “LOL” when they mean “made me smile”, they say “Rolling on the floor laughing” when they really mean “it made me give out a chuckle”, and they “I’m crying too much, my tears are a waterfall”, when they really mean “this storyline touches me emotionally”.
So of all the many people in this thread saying that they’re crying, I frankly wouldn’t be surprised if non a single one one of them really has shed a tear. They’re being internetty, they say they are crying just to signal to the author they’re appreciating the storyline.
I have a feeling it’s not a problem with tuition. Probably broke the Honor Code at her Christian school by doing something that involved desiring another woman’s parts.
Most colleges demand payment upfront, so if she was just disowned by her parents she’d have the rest of the semester before the college kicked her out.
Well she did go to jesus school and the only thing jesus hated more than gays are liars, thieves, adulterers, murders, people who don’t serve him, people who use his name in vain, people who forget to keep the sabbath day holy, people who don’t honor their father and mother, people who bear false witness, and people who covet their neighbors wife and oxen.
Regardless of one’s beliefs, I think the point is more about people’s beliefs about what God thinks about gayness than about what God (presuming he exists) actually thinks about gayness.
My point was that those who say things like that (like schools and talking heads, not Yoto) are the ones who should know that they are in conflict with the New Testament.
Okay, soooo nope. Jesus hung out mostly with “sinners”. Because God loves everyone, especially “sinners”. Jesus died to basically wipe the slate clean. Hate the sin love the “sinner”. (Other phrases about God’s love, their are many.)
Seriously, why do so many people ignore the whole “love the sinner but hate the sin” thing? It’s like “hey guys, did you even read that book you’re using as an excuse to hate people, because if you did I think you missed the whole frigging point. Please ask someone to explain to you what the Bible actually teaches and stop making the rest of us, and the guy you supposedly worship, look bad.”
Why? Because that’s not in the Gospels at all is why. (Surprise!) The Gospels say nothing about “hating the sin” — in the Gospel according to John, He says “go now and sin no more” in the context of reminding someone of the consequences of their past behavior, and He always is willing to heal people regardless of anything else.
Don’t be as much of a bigot as Joyce’s parents. Joyce got it right when she told her parents off.
“Look Becky you seem nice but we took some time to pray about it and I’m sorry to say that God wants us to past judgment upon you on behalf and kick you out of this School and in result ruin your life…it’s for the best really.”
Well, now because her lifestyle choices blackened her soul, the school administration was able to brandish crucifixes and drive her from the campus, just like if she were a vampire. Then they all performed the secret Christian Fistbump and went to celebrate with fruit punch and Wonder Bread.
Not totally sinister. He actually has some arguably good motives for some of his shit, though of course he goes about it in the most jerk way possible.
If some of the speculation about why Becky isn’t in Anderson is right, I think Mike could actually help here. Just need to point him in the direction of either Becky’s parents or Anderson.
From the Anderson University handbook, in the list of things a student can be expelled or sanctioned for:
Sexual Misconduct:
Violation of campus standards related to sexual behavior (i.e., pre-marital sexual relations, adultery, actions of a homosexual nature, cohabitation, overnight visitation in the residence of someone of the opposite sex, sexual conduct not believed to be in keeping with university standards)
Inconsistent, oror “just” deep heteronormatve assumptions. No homosexual behavior & no over nighting with other sex people, but no overnighting with same sex folks.
Her parents might have pulled her out. Anyway it is a religious organization, not part of the state or even a regular business, things can be a bit different.
They probably have some weasel-worded code of conduct or something that allows ’em to kick out the gays and so on, for reasons that coincidentally have nothing to do with being gay.
Even if it was the college’s doing, it’s a tough and lengthy stint in court to prove that she was kicked out for being gay, as opposed to being kicked out for any other indistinct non-discriminatory reason.
Well to be honest, Gays are just getting the whole “Equal marriage” thing. I’m not surprised if you COULD kick people out for bein’ gay in this backwards nation.
Not to say that there isn’t a lot of misinformed-ness about the international reality of human rights, etc. (in Yoto’s case, I can’t say I know well enough to say one way or the other), but just because America is better than a lot of other countries doesn’t mean it shouldn’t be criticized or improved upon.
I think it was the ‘gays are just now getting rights’ part that was being criticized. Because America is way behind the curve for the richer parts of the world (Admittedly, America is less and less qualifying there.)
Eh, crime rates have steadily declined since 1992, the gender gaps in jobs and education are gradually narrowing, nerd culture is suddenly cool, and about 35 states legally license same-sex marriage. Gotta keep fighting the good fight. The results are slow to appear, but they’re there.
…Unless you were talking about a country other than the United States. I don’t have as much data on other countries.
I live in one. I can assure you that the US, especially towards the south, is widely viewed as hyper-conservative on a number of social issues compared to the rest of the western world. Plus, lousy with politicised religion (or sanctified politics, perhaps closer to the mark).
In many states, being gay is not a protected class. So, in those states, people can be fired, denied housing, or not allowed in stores or other private property on the basis that they are homosexual. Anderson wouldn’t even have to hide it in weasel words if they are a private institution in one of those states, especially if they are not receiving any Federal funding. They can just put “No homogays!” in their honor code, and that’s that.
well if it is a christian school they likely have something in the paper work akin to a morality clause that says that students will not engage in such and such an activity that is counter to the bible. i know a few of my schools over the years had stuff like that
Section Four: Conduct Expectations
4.10 A student who is found guilty of any of the following acts shall be subject to the maximum sanction of disciplinary probation or lesser sanction authorized by this code.
4.41 Sexual Misconduct: Violation of campus standards related to sexual behavior (i.e., premarital sexual relations, adultery, actions of a homosexual nature, cohabitation, overnight visitation in the residence of someone of the opposite sex, sexual conduct not believed to be in keeping with university standards).
Kinda funny how homosexuality gets its own mention, even though most instances would presumably fall under the premarital hanky-panky category already listed.
“Actions of a homosexual nature” is much broader than “premarital sexual relations.” The latter pretty much means there has to be under-the-pants stuff (at the very least). The former could just as easily refer to making out.
I’m not sure how and to what degree this is enforced, but that’s my reading of it. It allows them to cast a wider net regarding the exclusion of gay folks. Which is interesting, since the Biblical passages people generally refer to when talking about prohibition of homosexuality are pretty damn specific about what’s prohibited– in males, basically buttsex. Other stuff could probably be extrapolated, but I doubt kissing would be a problem. The oft-quoted bit in Romans about lesbianism is much more general, so it could potentially be read as pretty goddamned puritan if the reader so chose.
You know, if you’re willing to take away someone’s education just because they aren’t straight and/or cis and/or whatever. Legally this is technically allowed, but I would be surprised and appalled if they can receive federal funding while maintaining that kind of policy.
I’m pretty sure that buying a k.d. lang album before Ingenue would count. (Oddly, that’s about when she came out, but she also kind of went mainstream.)
They have a policy against racial harassment, and … another policy implementing harassment due to sexual orientation. I wish I could say I was surprised. It’s like they’d heard of hypocrisy, and misunderstood it to mean “hyper-christian”.
Only if the school does not accept any Federal funds, like student loans. Doing that can result in them having to pay back all the Federal Student Loan they accepted. And you know how well that would go over…
Not really. In a lot of places, sexuality is not a protected class, and thus legal to discriminate via regards to it.
On this note I would like to extend a hearty FUCK YOU to former VA attorney general Cucinelli, for trying to pressure colleges to remove sexuality as a protected class.
Yeah…as long the University accepts no Federal money of any form, including small things like FASL. Somehow, I doubt that Anderson’s well-enough endowed to get by without having students take loans out.
So yeah, Becky cried her eyes out?
Sorry.
Trying to stop the sads.
I’m glad Joyce went to find her, but I hope she realizes and keeps in mind, This Mess is Not Her Fault. I’m no Joyce fan. But she does not deserve to take the fall on this one.
Yeah, Becky quit or got thrown out, guess that was pretty obvious from the start.
You’ll never escape, fools! I scribbled all the ink from your permanent markers until they were dead! You’re not so permanent now; are you, Sharpie?!
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAhahahaHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAhahahaHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAhahahaHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAhahahaHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAhahahaHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAhahahaHAHAHA
(For once my Mary avatar comes in handy! Usually it just gives me a sense of repulsion.
I mean…)
AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAhahahahahAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAhahahahahahahahahahahaAHAH
I knew it now she either dropped out or was kicked out. Joyce be a good friend just not “that” kind of friend. Knowing you, you won’t be “that” kind of friend.
I mean, it’s definitely accurate. I’m not sure if I want Becky getting involved in that, especially since I’ve got such a bad feeling about the good ship Billuth’s seaworthiness (somebody please rechristen this ship, I cannot be trusted with the name or the wine bottle).
It’s funny, because to me, just the phrase “experiment and have crazy fun in college” sounds terrible. But that is just my nature, I am personally (not sociopolitically) very conservative/shy/boring/etc 😛
But if her parents are unwilling to give her their tax information even if they have disowned her it would be incredibly difficult for her to apply for state aid, wouldn’t it?
It has been like, a really, really long time since I filled out a FAFSA, but I think you wouldn’t need their details if they are not contributing.
There might be issues if they still try to list her as a dependent, but that would be later, and there is some way you can challenge that. I have no doubt that Dorothy in particular would be willing and able to help figure all that out.
Dorothy, nothing! We’re talking Roz time here. Imagine how much she could embarrass her sister!
(Come to think of it, that’s actually something Roz would get all activist over, Robin or no Robin. Of course, Joyce would have to decide that Roz didn’t have a coven first…)
It’s possible to make it work. Very difficult, but possible. The school will INSIST on parental information even if the parents are unwilling to provide it. I went through the process and I had to go as far as getting my therapist to phone the student loans office, so that she could explain that there was no possible way of getting my parents involved. (Something which I’d already told them repeatedly.)
This is VERY, VERY dependent on your school. My school, I went to the financial aid office with my bank statements showing that I wasn’t getting money from anywhere but my jobs, and told them my parents were unwilling to help with college and I’d like to be considered an independent. They said “Sure thing” and filed me as an independent. Super easy.
Doesn’t matter if they’re willing to pay or not. There’s an “Expected Family Contribution” involved. Whatever they’re deemed able to theoretically pay is deducted from the loan amounts regardless of what they actually pay. You have to be at least 24, an orphan, married, a veteran, or have a (non-spouse) dependent of your own before they stop counting deadbeat parents against you.
An 18 year old not receiving any money from family might get a fair bit in the way of financial aid.
Your parents willingness to help you counts for diddly-squat. So long as they are alive and have any money at all, qualifying for financial aid is extremely difficult.
Whomever came up with that cliche about someone killing their father and mother and throwing themself on the mercy of the court because they were an orphan must have delt with financial aid at some point.
Yeah, I see that now. Just when you think you know how fucked up the country is… I do see on the FAFSA site that you *might* be able to get out of the EFC crap if they are “abusive”, however that is defined. Probably not in a way that would help Becky 🙁
That whole “abusive” thing is crap. My dad beat the hell out of me for 6 years but it wasn’t good enough. When I finally left home I still didn’t qualify for assistance because my mom makes way to much money. So I have to wait until im 24 now.
Actually, there is a financial aid appeals process for when your parents have kicked you out and are unwilling to contribute to your wellbeing in any way. Kids who have been kicked out of their “Christian” homes for being gay have done it. But it’s not easy, especially when you’re homeless because they kicked you out and are having difficulty holding it together because people you thought loved you have done this thing to you, dammit. And then once you manage to get aid and get a dorm room with it, there’s the question of what to do between semesters when the dorms shut down…
At Caltech dorm contracts were continuous and the dorms never shut down; you could live in your room all the time. I was shocked when I learned that IU closes most of the dorms, making international or even just long distance students camp out in lounges for Thanksgiving.
Oh yes, her parents are well off. Dunno if they would care to help though… Maybe Billie could just ask for more spending money 😛
I wonder if Dorothy’s parents might help a bit, they seem really decent. Or heck Walky’s parents. They might be well off, and mostly decent…latent racism aside -_-
Don’t feel too sorry for Becky. Yes, this is a shitty thing that was done to her, but it could also be the starting point of a new and improved life. If she can’t transfer in right away, she can get a full-time job (or a couple of part-time jobs), find a roommate and live somewhere away from the crappy people who do crappy things to her. This will give her a chance to reassess a life that has abruptly changed, and allow her to figure out where she wants to go from here. If she can locate the gay community in town, she can probably also form a new support network of people who understand exactly what she is going through. A challenge is always some kind of opportunity in disguise.
That’s a lot of sudden financial and personal responsibility to suddenly take on.
And if her parents did disown her, it sounds easy just to say they’re crappy people and she needs to find new people, but in reality it doesn’t erase all the other not-crappy things they have done or the good feelings Becky might still have there mixed in with all the hurt and anger and betrayal.
I don’t mean Becky doesn’t have options, or she can’t turn this around, but you’re making this sound a lot easier than it is.
I never said it would be easy. She’s going to have to do a lot of hustling. However, by the time that she has a chance to catch her breath and take stock, I think she’ll be a lot happier sharing a dubious 2BR apartment with 2 other people and working three 15-hour jobs to make ends meet than however she was living before and having to conceal who she is.
That said, I don’t think we are going to have to endure watching the rest of the cast walk by Becky on campus while Becky spends all her time begging for spare change and sleeping in the bushes. Maybe that nice pastor’s son can take her in.
Becky guts the pastor’s son, wears his skin to classes, announces in spring of senior year that he’s transitioning. Everyone wins, although Joyce still finds it problematic, for obvious reasons.
Look, I can’t explain why, but I deal with a lot of LGBTQ+ kids who’ve been kicked out here in the Real World. To say that it’s traumatic and destructive is not sufficient. A lot of these kids — particularly those who come from relatively privileged backgrounds like Becky — have no idea what to do next. They are totally lost and helpless.
They’ve lost *everything* — their identities, their families, their income, their home — and they don’t have any real skills to deal with the world they’re about to enter. They are lucky if they’ve ever held a summer job, and they have no real idea what to do to get by on a sub-minimum wage. They have NO PLACE to sleep; they are *homeless*. They have no assets.
And they are emotionally destroyed. The people who are supposed to love and nurture them have just said “I have no daughter Becky.”
No, this can’t ever be a good thing. It’s a road to a horror show you can’t imagine.
“Billie, Ruth is starting to care about my dorm stowaway again. Can you stock up on whipped cream tonight? K’thanx!” And that’s how Joyce came to be okay with same-sexiness in other people.
Ooooof. Friend of mine was telling me yesterday that he felt Becky had something more dire going on in her life we weren’t being told. Looks like he was right; poor girl’s whole life is falling apart around her. 🙁
Doubt that Timemonkey, but if she moved on someone like she on did Joyce and that person complained or threatened to…then maybe Becky ran rather than face it. She is going to a Christian Collage, maybe rules different.
Besides fearing it being told to her family too. She is same fundy group as Joyce. Becky may be liberal, her family is not.
AAAAH, damnit those strips are hurting so much.
I don’t like Becky’s character much (she’s just meh), but the poor Girl is having such a hard time and I cannot stop from empathizing with her.
PLEASE GET BETTER ! I need her to get better, or else I’m gonna be sad 🙁
Becky is in a Christian College and maybe not same rules. Sure that they are not as tolerant of her as Joyces college is. Only a guess.
And Becky is from same fundy group as Joyce.
If Becky made a move on a roommate at the her school and that student threatened to tell, Becky may have run rather that face it and also keep it from her family, or try to.
She burned her bridges behind her.
No wonder the poor thing is so upset.
I don’t much like her either. She seems pretty manipulative to me and while I feel extremely sorry for her, I still don’t much care for what I’ve seen of her personality. It doesn’t really help that this very weighty plotline is being carried by a character we’ve barely met, with the end result that she feels, to me and right now, more like a walking Very Special Episode than a well-rounded individual in her own right.
I’m sure he does. My problem is, and I’m speaking solely for myself here, that I don’t and what I have seen of her hasn’t really endeared me to her. Thinking on it a little further I’m not sure if that’s because Becky is manipulative or because her introduction was. She’s simply not very rounded right now – she’s bold, spunky and impulsive, yes, but pretty much everything else we know about her we know only because it also applies to Joyce – but she’s clearly a character we as readers are supposed to immediately like so that we can then feel immediately upset when something terrible happens to her a few scenes later. I’m contrary enough to resent that. This might not be such a problem if Willis was a worse writer, but the rest of the main cast are so nuanced and believable and downright warts-and-all real that Becky feels flat by comparison.
Right now the story’s got a Very Special Episode feel to it, in which a kid who’s shown up once or twice is suddenly given a weighty storyline to carry so the main characters don’t have to deal with the fallout. Now, I know for a fact that Willis is a far better writer than that and he’s quite definitely got plans that go way beyond what I can see right now. Still: right now, to me, going by what I can see? This is what it feels like. The end result is that this storyline just doesn’t have the same effect on me that it would if I’d had time to become invested in her as a character. If this had happened to Billie, I’d feel extremely emotionally invested because Billie feels real to me. Becky doesn’t, and that’s where I’m having trouble with her.
Yeah, from the moment she showed up it was clear something was up so I could never tell what was genuine and what was her just going with things until she dropped her bomb.
We really could have benefitted from seeing her more before now.
Nonononononono. Having flashbacks to where my parents kicked me out of the house during Christmas break because I should have lied to them about being gay, but I was so proud and happy and thought they should be happy for me. But they weren’t… they called me child of satan and kicked me out of the house.*
I can’t even imagine what it would be like to grow up with parents like that, but I can sort of imagine what it would’ve been like if my parents suddenly started acting like that. A living nightmare. And given that you thought they would be accepting, maybe that’s what it was like for you. 🙁
Casa de El Poeta is currently home to a Trans* person who was kicked out of her home, is trying to overcome depression from decades of living with the “wrong” body, and has been living in her car. Before that we have put up Pagans who were homeless after coming out of the Broom closet. And we have a crazy cat lady, minus the cats but not the crazy, living here too. So you might say we have a little experience with this situation.
Unfortunately that kind of happens a lot on freshman year. If college is going to tear you down, it’s going to do it before your first semester is over.
Guess she will have to get a job and work her way thru college like lots of us poor slobs. Apply for scholarships and grants and go from there.
Where there is a will, there is a way.
Joyce will help her out I’m sure.
Killing yourself when your life is shitty is bs. It gets better, work thru it.
And not preaching, been there done that. Feel bad for her because I’ve been there. Not exact there, but close enough.
Dude, you’re aware that college tuition is now over $9K/year at *state* universities (check the IU web page if you don’t believe me), and minimum wage of $8/hour for 40 hours a week wouldn’t begin to even start to pay for both tuition and little things like, say, food and shelter, not to mention not leaving any time at all for, like, school? And are you aware that MOST HOMELESS SHELTERS WILL NOT TAKE SINGLE WOMEN? And of the few that do, the vast majority are run by religious organizations and WILL NOT ACCEPT GAY WOMEN? And once she’s past those hurdles, most homeless shelters have far more people needing their services than they can handle? It’s damn hard to get it together when you’re sleeping in an alley in a cardboard box you dragged out of a dumpster. Right now best she could hope for was try for admission at IU and fight the financial aid department for independent status, but she still needs somewhere to live until the next term starts in January. And most of her friends were in that home schooling group so she’s going to spend some time in that cardboard box… unless a miracle happens. Hopefully Willis provides one.
Worse, it gets cold in Bloomington in the fall, and it’s already late September comic time. By the time the next semester starts, it’ll be very cold every night, and it will probably get down to well below 0 on occasion.
I like to imagine that for every scene like this another drama tag is pulled.
Also that there’s a universe FULL of drama tags, where little men are slaves to the drama government, working in drama factories, pulling drama tags day and night on only two chocolate chip cookies an hour.
My fantasy got a little nonsensical towards the end but you get the idea.
While their rules contain passagess about homosexuality, they only forbid “actions of a homosexual nature”. It would be quite a stretch to claim that stating your sexual orientation is an action. But than again you American are weird.
I’ve seen more than once kids with super-repressive upbringings go totally off the rails once they got off to college and out from under the parental thumb. It’s more often been kids from hard-line Catholic families than Protestant fundamentalists, but I think that’s mostly just that I went to college in the Northeast, not the Bible Belt.
Becky’s upbringing seems to have been even stricter than Joyce’s, and she seems to have chafed under it more, to the point that even Christ college probably looked like freedom to her, and unlike Joyce she didn’t have any interest in trying to stick to the rules her parents imposed on her. (And a cynical part of me says that Joyce’s willingness to do that voluntarily is what their youth pastor meant when he said she was “the best-socialized”.)
So I’ve kind of been thinking that once Becky got away from her parents, she cut loose, with some similar-minded kids at Anderson, and had a probably-drunken lesbian encounter with one of the other girls, which triggered both, “Wow, that’s what I should’ve been doing with Joyce,” and, “OMG I had sex with a girl who isn’t Joyce, I cheated on her, she’s going to hate me,” so she hasn’t been answering the phone because she couldn’t handle talking to Joyce until she had a chance to see her in person.
And someone found out about it, and reported it, so per that “sexual misconduct” clause someone posted, she got kicked out.
Or maybe this actually happened a while ago, between the last time they talked (which was Sunday beginning Week 3) and the first time she didn’t answer (can’t find it, sorry), and she hasn’t been answering because her parents pulled her back home and cut off her communications, and now she’s run away because it’s the only way she had to get in touch with anyone who cared about her.
I also notice that Becky’s roommate is tagged now, though she has only the one appearance so far, and I don’t think she was when that strip first went up, so maybe we’re going to get a flashback explanation of the events at Anderson that she’ll appear in. (Maybe Becky banged her.)
Oh, man, I found when Becky went incommunicado. It was between Sunday of Week Three when Joyce called Becky to tell her that she was holding hands with a boy in church, and that strip, which is Wednesday morning of Week Three.
On Tuesday afternoon of Week Three, Ethan came out to Joyce. That’s why she’s trying to call Becky.
My Internets are currently on the events that led to Becky getting kicked out being directly inspired by that first phone call, and she may have been getting unwillingly outed to her family and college at the exact same time that Ethan was outing himself to Joyce.
What immortal hand and eye could frame thy fearful symmetry?
(Eh, it was just Willis.)
Oh, and this latest part of the mess likely could have been averted if Becky hadn’t already been kicked out when Joyce made that second phone call.
Even if we strongly suspected this, it still puts the last few strips in perspective.
Because, if Becky’s got nowhere else to go… THEN went to Joyce, the only person she had left, the girl she’d loved all her life, and kissed her, and got rejected (however nicely)… Oh God. That’s even MORE of a gutpunch. No wonder she broke down crying.
DAAAAMMMNNEEEED YOOOUUUU WIII… Oh, they are talking. They are still friends. They will find a way forward. Thank you Joyce, thank you Becky. You are good people, you will not loose each other in this.
It is worth noting that though Anderson has not (yet) made news for expelling an LGBT student (though as others have pointed out, it is spelled out as an offense in their student code of conduct), other similar universities in the US have: http://thinkprogress.org/lgbt/2013/06/17/2165761/christian-college-gay-debt/
And, unless something changed recently and I wasn’t notified, it’s not against the law in Indiana for a workplace (not sure about school) to discriminate based on sexual orientation or gender identity.
The best part about this page is the juxtaposition of the comic and non-comic elements. First we have the comic about sad Becky. Then below it, we have the NSFW banner showing two girls’ hands entwined in the act of lovemaking, and beside that in big brown letters “ Cancelled“. Where subtext is literally the text below.
I was against Becky at first. She came off a little too perfect, a little too artificial, a perfectly designed wrench to be thrown into all this drama. The fact that these events were premeditated before the story even began really shows. She’s unusually predictable, to the extent that when The Kiss happened, instead of being shocked all I could do was sigh quietly to myself and mutter “Of COURSE she is.”
But why should that matter? I LOVE Becky! Everyone loves Becky! But it didn’t help the nagging feeling that something was just plain wrong about the whole setup. That’s when I realized that I was flashing back to my first encounter with a character from an entirely different webcomic: when Jeph Jacques introduced Claire to Questionable Content. I was completely against her at first, which is odd, since I’ve wanted to see more trans characters since forever. But my gut reaction was still a small sigh and an “Of COURSE she is.” And when I read that he’d wanted to write a trans character for a long time, my heart sank. I don’t mean to suggest that he doesn’t “deserve” to write her; that would be absurd. It’s just that QC is made up of characters on the far ends of various spectrums, and the addition of a trans character made it feel like the cast list was starting to become a checklist. My fear was that she was a trans person first and a character second, another oddball for a cis writer to add to their resume.
All of those fears were, of course, completely unfounded. Shame on me. Claire is now my favorite trans character ever. But I’ve been revisiting a lot of that initial fear and suspicion with the arrival of Becky, and this time, I’ve been determined to keep my mouth shut and figure this out. (One of the most important things I ever learned is the best thing to ask yourself is always “Why did I think that?”) So, soul-searching question: Why does Becky bother me?
I really don’t want to say “too many lesbians”. I am down for lots of lesbians. Possibly it’s simply that I’ve come to expect LGBT characters from this comic, which, to me, is simply saying that I’m not getting my LGBT characters from anywhere but webcomics. Maybe it’s this particular storyline, with its conception four years out of date and sucker punches blatantly telegraphed. Maybe it’s a load of different things, all spinning around this one character who, in a universe so character-driven, stands out for feeling like the plot is moving her rather than the other way around. All I know is that as soon as the first hints were dropped, I was TERRIFIED for Becky – not for this outcome, but that she would be reduced to a plot device first, a lesbian second, and a character a very distant third. (I think that’s why I like this incarnation of Ethan so much, since he struggles with this dilemma in-universe.) Instead of being invested, I was waiting to start rolling my eyes.
And waiting… and waiting…
Dangit, I love Becky.
And once again, the issue has solved itself. Like any person, a character can’t help what their origins are; all that matters is what they do with the time they have. Even if I can’t get it out of my head that Becky’s a plot device, she doesn’t FEEL like a plot device. She feels real. I’ve learned to put more faith in the writers I enjoy, and to always give a new character the benefit of the doubt regardless of the circumstances of their creation. (And no matter how clearly you can see a sucker punch coming, that’s no guarantee that it won’t still knock your teeth out.) And so, all fears assuaged, let me step back in line with the chorus.
You know I know these strips are supposed to make me sad but all I can feel is a profound sense of smugness at how I FUCKIN’ CALLED IT BABY WOOO. *balloons drop from ceiling*
I take back my previous comment about pupils and sclera. You know it’s bad when the eyes are flat out GONE. Poor Becky… rejected, was likely kicked out of school, and that rejection also blinded her. She’s having a really bad day.
I had the worst case scenario in mind, so it’s a bit bittersweet that, while still quite sad for Becky, it’s still a relief that it was Joyce who got to her, instead of who I anticipated.
I’m guessing that we have a bit of backstory of Becky incoming, and as some have speculated in the last couple comics, I think Becky got expelled from Anderson, either from grades or, more likely, “indecency” just for liking who she likes naturally. But the way she says she has nowhere else to go, must also mean her parents must have turned her away as well. While the kiss seemed out of left field at the moment, now it seems clear that Becky only had one final place to turn to; her best friend who she grew up with. Without her, she’d probably just turn into a drifter or other societal outcast, which is a sad but all too common thing that happens to a lot of kids in some hardcore fundamentalist families (not all, but it’s a tragic commonality). Just makes the feels just pile up for poor Becky. 🙁
It’s clear that after The Kiss Reveal, things won’t go back to “normal” as they knew it, but there’s still hope for Joyce and Becky to have a somewhat stabilized status, like “more than a friend, but less than a lover”. I seriously doubt that Joyce would cast her away like her school and (maybe) parents have, especially considering her exposure to atheists and bisexuals, whom she now considers her closest friends.
I don’t believe she was kicked out. I think her parents were killed by aliens, and she is about to join a super-secret organization where superhuman alien abductees with psychological problems fight the aliens. Then she finds out that Joyce is secretly her twin sister and the fight aliens together!
Except that since there are no science fiction elements, the aliens are the Russian mob and the superpowers are no more exagurated that Amazigirl’s skills.
Um, pretty sure that the Russian mob is predominantly white., whatever that may mean.Back when it applied, that whole Red thing was something of a metaphore.
Nothing happened, nothing was skipped. She started to run out of the room after Becky, and then she did so. It was a dramatic fist clench, not a punching fist clench.
What makes you say we get to keep her? All we know is that she says “There’s nowhere else for me to go.” Much of the speculation above–including mine–is reading a lot into that one vague statement. Maybe she just means that it is too late to catch a bus back home and she was planning on bunking with Joyce.
Agh, we all knew it. Still though, I’m super glad Joyce ran out after her right away and didn’t just waste time arguing with Sarah. I just hope Becky doesn’t snap out at Joyce, because right now I think Joyce is doing exactly the right things she needs to do. You guys need to have a long talk!
Willis redeveloping human proportions within his drawing style has become very evident. In today’s strip Joyce and Becky actually look like an adult women.
Hit the “First” button, and the same characters look like they’re four years young- oh.
(Seriously though, the comic’s art is perpetually improving and I like it.)
yeah, the great shift in head size was quite abrupt in fact, and aside from that, you just see better proportions and cleaner lines and such (try zooming in on old stuff vs new stuff). Frankly I remember thinking when DOA started how much David’s art had improved over earlier SP! material and nice it was… now he is far beyond that!
It seem like most webcomics do steadily improve. In print comic strips it seems more common for them to develop a particular style and level and stick with it for consistency or something.
Thanks for those links.
And yes I am always serious about charity.
I think better government social programs are the way to go for a lot of stuff, but I will always donate to the important causes as long as I can. Especially since we *don’t* have a good social support system in this country…
If this were part of the Walkyverse (is that the term for the big combined setting from Roomies through Shortpacked?), I’d not rule that sort of thing out.
Oh god, this reminds me a little too much of my favorite teacher in college, who got kicked out of Christian college back in the day because she got caught making out with a girl.
Nitro is saying that said teacher, back when said teacher was a student, and not yet a teacher, got kicked out of Christian college for having a gay makeout session with another girl. There is no teacher/student boundary being crossed in this story, It’s just a backstory with some old fashioned bigotry in it.
As Heavensrun pointed out, there was no student-teacher boundary being crossed. My teacher was a student at the time, and she got caught making out with another female student.
You mean, she’s going to come out of this a cool, confident, bike-riding badass? Man, I hope so. That’s one of the very few good possible outcomes; probably the best.
For some reason, this particular storyline skyrocketed my emotional investment in DoA.(Don’t get me wrong I was invested in it before, but this is on a whole new level) I think something in my brain snapped. I guess Becky hit just a bit too close to home, and now I am a sobbing mess. So thanks for that Willis.
I’ve found the same thing and have been wondering why. Maybe Becky’s giving off a ‘kid sister’ vibe, or maybe it’s just a case of Break the Cutie, but bravo, Willis.
maybe it’s just a case of Break the Cutie, but bravo, Willis.
The “cutie” being broken in this strip has been Joyce. Broken ideologically, anyway. How long was she at college before she was drawing genitalia on everyone’s whiteboard?
For someone in Joyce’s situation, it’s terrible too. I think she genuinely loves Becky, just obviously “not that way”. The last thing she wants is to hurt Becky.
Yeah… I figured something was fishy, when Becky just showed up without even a phone call. Classes don’t just get cancelled in the Dumbiverse, unless there is some apocalypse involved.
ALSO RELEVANT: I’m sure if you’re a reader here, you understand that people like Joyce’s parents exist and colleges that would expel you for being gay exist, but I just want to drop this link here for those who may be skeptical about this sort of thing. It’s a compilation of my thoughts about a week-long chapel emphasis my former college had on homosexuality, and I must say that it’s just…everything you’d expect from a school that lost their tax-exempt status for insistence on racial discrimination.
My family weren’t fundamentalists. Hell, my mom was the only one in my immediate family who’s actually Christian, and she’s extremely liberal. So I’m not entirely sure how it was that I absorbed the toxic attitude that I had in early adolescence. All I know is that from about age eight to finally realizing I didn’t actually believe in God so much as I was afraid of hell around age thirteen, I was a neurotic mess. Even then, I was starting to realize I might be gay and was absolutely terrified to talk about it. This lasted two more years of bottling it up and being terrified and probably contributed to a lapse into major, borderline-suicidal depression.
When I came out to them? It was a non-issue, apart from how I came out (the evening after I basically blurted it in the middle of a theater company meeting because I literally could not hold it back and felt reasonably sure I was safe there). I was lucky for that.
So I remember being that barely-contained pit of self-loathing and misery, and I can’t imagine how terrifying it would be for the poor kids on that campus. The voices telling me it was Wrong were all in my head and the greater background of society by that point. If they had been all around me like that, and watching so I couldn’t talk to anyone when I desperately needed to and was too scared to reach out… I don’t think I would have just been borderline suicidal by that point. (And your expulsion ordeal sounds absolutely horrific. That is… wow.)
i’m honestly not sure what part of that i should take the most second hand offence from. probably the part where the assholes made you hug them good by. i’m pretty sure i would have reengineered someones dentistry at that point.
Oh…Oh my God. I…I don’t know why I never thought of this. We’ve had same sex couples at my old high school (remember Catholic school run under the Congregation of Christian Brothers…look it up) but we were pretty accepting of it. I don’t recall them ever bashing homosexuality. They explained why it shouldn’t be practiced and why it’s “wrong” by various religious standpoints, not just Christian or Catholic, but never to the extreme of “You’re a heathen and should be punished” or anything like that.
My school was the first to integrate in the South (the deep and dirty South at that) and we have always been accepting of students from an and all walks of life. We never went out of our change anyone unless it was harmful to themselves or others so I’m pretty damn proud to be a graduate from there…sad to see I can’t say the same for others.
I’m so glad they are talking, the can reforge their friendship and give each other the emotional support they dearly need.
But after that there are other issues that need to be addressed. Becky needs help to find somewhere to go, confront her parents, sort out whatever official things needs to be sorted out – maybe enroll at Indiana University, maybe go somewhere else. She needs someone to help her.
If only there was a superhero and a future president out on the grounds at night that could lend a hand.
That’s awesome. Now I DEFINITELY want Dorothy to help Becky through the paperwork while Joyce lends emotional support (and Amaziegirl… stand on a rooftop or something). That would be such a great, supportive scene of good people helping each other out.
– “No Becky, I don’t feel the same – I love you AND STRAWBERRIES just as much.”
– “All I meant, Billie, is that I consider resigning as an RA and see a therapist so I am free to explore our relationship without complications.”
– “Amber’s dad was very protective, so she invented AmazieGirl to sneak out at night and have fun”
Buy your very own Dumbing of age (TM) Rose Colored glasses here. Order now and get a free compliment from Mike.
“Sal was bummed out that she didn’t get the role as cute little mice girl as a kid, but fortunately she got the lead role in a teen drama about connivence store robberies instead.”
I don’t. Oh, I understand wanting to make all the characters happy, but I don’t think that fits Joyce’s characterization, and I do think it’ll make for the most interesting story downstream. If she and Becky don’t get together, Becky’s going to have to come to terms with a number of things about herself, including her sexuality and her impulsiveness, while Joyce is going to also have to come to terms with a number of things about herself, including her responses to homosexuality, her behavior towards Ethan, and how she continues to extend tolerance to other people within her religious viewpoint.
That’d be interesting story-telling.
If they get together, though, then those growth opportunities get swept under the rug.
I think that Joyce owes it to Becky to explain why she’s no longer boy-crazy, though. She needs to talk about that — and Beck needs to come to terms with just how horrible her behavior actually has been.
Why would them getting together remove those growth opportunities?
If they do, I think it will be a long time – for us certainly, but relatively long for them too. Remember how long it was before Robin and Leslie got together in SP!? And how long they were broken up before getting back together?
OK, I’ll grant that a long and painful separation might provide the same level of drama that just not getting together would. I can’t read Willis’ mind, and even if I could, he may not have plotted the story out far enough to know himself, but in either case, I don’t think it fits them very well.
Besides, not only are there no Batman jokes to save in SP!, the drama tag seems to have come pre-pulled in this ‘verse.
Then again, I’m interested in how Willis is going to play the Leslie and Robin story line out here. As in SP!, I just want Leslie to be happy, but I doubt I’ll ever see how that peripheral story out.
Oh, damn… first time comment-er but now I’m really being hit in the feels. Damn you, Willis; you gave us such a high last week then punched us in the guts.
Huh, I just realized something. In this strip, Becky reacts to Joyce’s attitudes about Billie’s behavior with “Same ol’ Joyce”. That’s the sort of thing you’d say if it’s been a long time since you last saw the other person and they prove not to have changed much. It didn’t jump out at the time because it has been a long time…for us, but for them it’s just been a few weeks. You normally wouldn’t expect somebody to change drastically in that time. I think what’s actually happening there is that Becky is confirming to herself that her observations of Joyce are consistent with her belief that Joyce would reciprocate her love.
Of course, she’s overlooking the fact that Joyce implicitly classed “girl-on-girl hanky-panky” among Billie’s “mistakes”, which probably should have been a red flag. But when you’re looking only for confirmation…
It’s likely that Becky is interpreting Joyce’s so over-the-top cliches of matrimonial romance, and disdain for extra-marital hanky-panky, as a badly constructed front; that no one could be that over-the-top goody-goody, and still have friends like hers at college.
Nope. She’s really like that…. Normally that’s a source of this strip’s comedy. Sadly for Becky, it’s not creating comedy, but the other thing.
It may not be her sexuality (or just that by itself) that is why classes are cancelled forever for her.
It could be just not being able to hack college. That triggered the desire to find another path and pursue her up-til-now-hidden love for Joyce. The first semester is way too soon to flunk out, so why not get out of classes another way?
I know, my theory depends on Becky thinking that getting kicked out for sexual preference is less of a shame than just quitting out of a fear of flunking is. We haven’t really seen her parents and seem to be grafting on several layers of prejudice upon them, just based on their religion.
Remember, Becky wasn’t home-schooled or nearly as sheltered as Joyce was.
>Remember, Becky wasn’t home-schooled or nearly as sheltered as Joyce was.
Um, yes she was. She was in Joyce’s church home-school group. The sheltering part seems to have been somewhat less effective on her, but that’s about it.
It’s a well known fact that whenever one of his characters is in danger of being happy, Willis goes to the local animal shelter to glare and curse at puppies and kittens until he gets inspiration on how to make his characters miserable again.
Would Anderson really kick her out for being gay? They have non-christian attendees there as well…but I mean, maybe. Also this IS a fictional world, so the rules could be bent as Willis sees fit. So maybe Anderson kicked her out.
A more likely theory on my part is that she came out to her parents, and they refused to pay for her college, making it so that she couldn’t attend anymore. I have had friends whose parents have held that over their head. “If you don’t do x, I won’t pay for your school.” And if Becky didn’t get any scholarships or grants…well that would be that.
Yknow, Becky did a good job confessing her love. It takes a a lot of guts to do that and at least now she knows instead of being a wussy wart. I mean, obviously, she didn’t took the rejection well, but you have to experience this or you’ll never be healthy mentally.
And oh my god! The comic is in a Becky Joyce sandwich right now! First page
Theory: Becky’s family is actually quite caring and accepting, and she was able to lead a relatively happy life in Anderson while pretending to be straight, but due to a mistake of her own making she tragically doomed herself, probably harming other people around her, and disgracing her parents.
Her sadness at kissing Joyce also comes from the fact that it the fantasy of being with Joyce was the last thing she had to live for, after losing college, friends, and a home. Once that shattered, Becky had to accept that her entire life was made pointless.
Okay, so Sarah suggested that Becky was screening Joyce’s calls in the prior strip. Here’s my guess, which tries to incorporate that hint:
1: Becky in some fashion violated Anderson’s “No Homo” rule. Maybe she just came out publicly, or maybe she kissed a girl (who didn’t like it).
2: Becky got expelled, went running to her lifelong best friend, whom she also realized would make a perfect lifemate because BFFs, right?
3: Upon arrival, she tries to get to the right situation where she can talk with Joyce while no one is around. She commandeers the phone to make certain no one can contact Joyce.
4: Meanwhile, the school notifies her parents of her expulsion and departure from campus.
5: Becky Parents try to call Joyce, call her family (who then try to call Joyce), but the calls get screened by Becky.
All of which means that Becky may–just may be assuming that her parents are going to disown her for lesbian-expulsion, but that this won’t happen (possibly because Joyce sits down with them when they come to pick Becky up and makes it utterly clear how shitty a move that would be, because Joyce Moments of Awesome are too far between at the current time).
so she was expelled from her christian college for being gay? Or her parents disowned her after finding it out? I always assume the worst of the strongly religious…
I keep thinking “Damn you, Willis!!” throughout this comic. It took me until I read the hovertext to release these characters are like his children. I wonder If he ever catches himself saying “Damn me, Willis!!”
I had assumed Becky panicked and dropped out of college, because that’s something I’ve seen happen before, but “There’s nowhere else for me to go” and the comments now have me assuming her parents disowned her. Holy crap, forget college, she might not even have money for food right now. I really hope it’s not that grim – maybe there was a big blowup but her family hasn’t totally abandoned her?
Good luck, Becky. I’m glad you have a friend like Joyce to support you.
So long as Becky’s in the cafeteria, she’s freely able to get food, because you swipe your meal card at the entrance and questions aren’t asked once inside. Joyce would have had it swiped twice to accommodate both herself and Becky. Since Joyce was getting up for ice cream, it can be assumed they all had normal food already.
Must be a lot longer than I have been reading, and while I wasn’t there for say, Roomies! or It’s Walky!, I have been reading SP! since like… I dunno, Second Eaton or something
I found it more enjoyable in Roomies! and early IW!, because all the characters were jerks and deserved their suffering. Though Ruth’s desserts were a little over the top.
Honestly, for everyone blubbering “feels” in the comments, we’re still a step away from a major reveal on top of the current one. I’m going to see how this plays out and then have my feels, gun-jumpers.
Joyce, I’m SUPER proud of you right now. You are reacting to the revelation that your best friend is a lesbian FAR better than I expected (we’re talking many orders of magnitude, here, like the mass of a pebble versus the mass of the Earth). I still maintain that her kissing you was the wrong move, but desperate people make mistakes. Still, I was expecting a homophobic freakout, and here you are being a good friend. Shocked the heck out of me.
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feels
So very many Feels.
Eyes have been replaced by feels
I am now an incorporeal being made entirely of feeeeeeeeeeels.
*Eye am now an incorporeal being made entirely of feeeeeeeeeeels.
So you’re now a feelemental?
What are the stats on a feelemental? or is it all just F’s for Feels…
It’s like a water elemental but salty
It literally feeds on your tears
all these flavors and you choose to be salty… ;-;
Well if your tears are sugary, be my guest
I am become Feels, Destroyer of Hearts and Sinker of ‘ships.
FEELS
FFEELSFEELSLS
FFFEELSFEELSLSFFEELSFEELSLSLS
FFFFEELSFEELSLSFFEELSFEELSLSLSFFFEELSFEELSLSFFEELSFEELSLSLSLS
…
(eventually)
FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFF
…OF COURSE.
*throws hands up in the air in exasperation, then retreats to a corner to sob*
Have no fear. Joyce is now in awesome mode and will make things better somehow.
Just how isn’t clear yet.
With hugs and kisses?
Yes, that would be epic if Joyce realises now that she does love Becky and gives her a hug and a kiss. <3
"Classes were cancelled forever" – does that mean she dropped out, or did she maybe fail out of her classes, or is she making a metaphor about opening up to Joyce and blowing out?
I think it was implied she’s going to a christian college, maybe got outed and expelled.
It was more than implied…she’s still wearing the sweater.
But do Christian colleges really do that? It seems more like something that would happen in a Christian high school…
Yes.
Yes, they do.
Well her liking girls, along with attending a christian college probably didnt go over well…
gonna hazard a guess and say becky kissed a female classmate and the school didn’t like it and she was kicked out
That seems unlikely considering she’s in love with Joyce, more likely she came out of the closet and her parents took it badly (not all that surprising considering they grounded her for watching Seinfeld), stopped paying for her school and/or kicked her out.
so, if you are in love with someone, and you know that someone will never answer that unrequited love, it is wrong to kiss other people??
nah, man, sorry, she was avoiding Joyce for a reason, and that reason may be that she was trying to get over her, by doing what any other college kid does to get over past relationships
“clasess canceled forever” sounds more what someone would say after being kicked out, sorry.
I’ve got the awful feeling that her Christian college kicked her out for being gay.
Guys. She probably NEVER WENT. She never went to college. She told her parents, got kicked out the house, and then bummed around for a few weeks until she could maybe go live with Joyce.
Joyce is all she’s got anymore.
Oh, and if you’re reading this and saying “But what about the Anderson hoodie!”, clearly that’s from when they visited the college ahead of time during high school to scout it out.
Except that the only telephone access she had was via a landline at Anderson, which means that she was there, until she was kicked out, when she stopped answering Joyce’s calls.
…that… is a suspiciously logical argument…
I doubt that happens.
Becky, and some fans, have seen what they wanted to see when it comes to Joyce’s orientation.
m.bison.avi
can’t… post… crying… too much… =…(
No…no words… No words to describe it. Poetry! They… should’ve sent a poet.
Aw shit.
Cheez it! Sarah must of said no Punch.
What punch?
Did you imagine a nonexistent fist fight?
A lot of us kinda thought the last panel of yesterdays strip was Joyce’s battle stance, about to unleash the fury of fists upon Sarah the naysayer. But alas, the others were right to think that it was just her “I’m going to run angrily after becky” pose.
*have
Communist Canada? Meet Nazi Grammarville
in the flesh!
Ohhh becky.
Willis, please make Becky happy again…
This is Dumbing of Age
Nobody is happy.
Dina has to initiate instrumentality first
It all comes tumbling down
tumbling down. tumbling down.
Slight contact shows affection
Well, I dunno, Billie, Ruth, Dorothy, Walky, Mike, Amber, Danny, Ethan, Mary, Leslie, Galasso, and Conquest all seem pretty happy.
And with this comment, I have just jinxed them all. Damn me.
I don’t think Mike could ever really be considered “happy”, as he’s more “in a perpetual state of anger and jerkass-ness.”
Just wait until he gets drunk. 😀
Or someone is available for a nickel…
That is the same thing as happy to him
^THIS^
Mike gets to punch people and destroy their relationships, why wouldn’t he be happy?
Danny and Ethan are both having some serious issues working out their sexuality (also possibly Ruth? I don’t have a slipshine subscription, so I feel like I’m missing bits on that front). While that doesn’t preclude happiness, it’s kind of hard to classify anyone as “happy” when that’s typically a kind of fleeting emotion.
In the same vein, Amber is happy in her relationship, but is definitely struggling with her past and her current problems re: Amazi-Girl.
And can we really call what Mary and Mike are “happy?” Honest question. Does schadenfreude count? And there’s really not much information to work with on Galasso — are his schemes of pizza-based world domination keeping him happy? Is Conquest happy to aid them? Is Leslie content to have her class be massively and irretrievably sidetracked by her students’ freshman drama practically weekly, even if it often relates to gender studies? I don’t know.
TL;DR happiness is weird and complex and you may not have jinxed anyone but only because they were almost all already sort of jinxed by the sheer fact that they are human beings and happiness isn’t binary.
Fair. I did overly simplify the emotional states of many characters. BUT, no characters are emotionally destroyed right now. Confused? Yeah, Danny, Ethan, and Amber certainly fit that mold. Ruth and Billie might fit there, too.
Schadenfreude DEFINITELY counts for Mary and Mike. Their lives and emotional states are made better from the misery of those around them. Different approaches, but I’d call them pretty happy with their lives right now.
Ture, we don’t really know much about Leslie, Galasso, or Conquest. Kind of threw them in there at the last second. I SHOULD have included Jacob, Sal (who is, admittedly, arguable), and Carla (probably). I would include Sarah and Malaya, too, but they’re NEVER happy.
TL;DR I still think I jinxed them. And I’m scared.
I have a subscription, and I think it is ok to say that while Ruth has a lot of issues, they don’t involve her sexuality too much at this point.
Thats a valid viewpoint. But its a really, really, hard thing thing to parse.
Shes open and accepting of it, and a large potential source of good for her.
But it can really be both things.
Its still really, really hard not to be straight in our culture. There are so many negative secondary effects .
Also her sexuality does seem kind of screwed up ,
( Not as a bisexual , or sexual orientation , Shes got that down awesome )
I just mean as a human being.
Sexy-Lesbian-Suicide-Pact, with added Drama Hurricane, that bullies and assaults a woman she’s attracted to , and guilt into a relationship with implied threat of suicide, are not signs of a healthy sexuality. Sometimes bad things in life do turn into positive experiences.
Again just to be clear, I am not against her sexual orientations. Its her sexual expressions which may not be healthy . Co-dependant or not I wish these ladies all the happiness they can find
Well, that’s true. Mostly I meant she wasn’t having personal issues with being bi/attracted to women or similar. The rest… well, as you say.
all i have to say is Schadenfreude definitely counts as happiness,
It’s Dumbing of Age, not Sadding of Age 🙁
That is all we want for Christmas…
There is no Santa. Only the Dumbing of Age Krampus. And he is coming with his whip made of FEELS.
Well then, we’ll just sick a succubus on him, and threaten to turn him into candy, until he breaks of this slow cycle of sadness and depression forever!
(For whoever gets my reference, you’re totally awesome)
Well I don’t know about the succubus part, but the candy bit makes me think of the Kandyman…
Well I don’t know about the succubus part, but the candy bit makes me think of the Kandyman…
I loved that episode! It was so weird.
I really need to rewatch Lost Girl.
THERE IS NO WAR THERE IS ONLY THE HARVEST
Weird. I heard about Krampus for the first time in my life less than a week ago, and now he pops up again in an entirely different context.
Let me guess, Devil’s Panties, right?
Nope. It was a comedy song in not-English about him. I assumed he was made up just for the song until I googled the name.
This comment made me smile, and indeed that is true. 🙂
Don’t worry. I’m sure she will act with integrity and have no regrets. 🙂
-twitch-
I’m shocked that that took 15 hours to finally hook a comment.
ENDLESS SUMMER! YEAH!
Somehow I think the relevant Alice Cooper song would be inappropriately appropriate in this thread.
Nice to see someone else thought of Alice Cooper after reading the last panel, even though I can’t rule out the possibility that others may have suppressed the urge to bring it up.
Oh, I assumed that Willis mean to evoke that parallel. It seemed to be the kinda thing he’d do — after all, this is the same guy who quoted “the sun’ll (slip)shine tomorrow” in the promos for the Ruth/Billie porn.
I just imagined Dina misunderstanding the situation and saying thatm Then joyce and becky start to cry
there is an unnecessary “m” in there
“I just iagined Dina isunderstanding the situation and saying thatm Then joyce and becky start to cry”
You’re welcoe.
Becky can come stay at my house.
ahhh no
Willis no
You better not be taking this where I think you are
Pretty sure he is.
Where exactly do you think he’s taking it. And where’s her stuff?
She swore a vow of poverty, now she’s travelling the world, looking to become a Shaolin monk.
10/10 would watch. “Kung-fu: Ginger Lesbian Boogaloo”
Kung Fu: Flaming Hair of Death, would watch again Two thumbs up.
While on the subject of over the top movie titles, I miss reading the fake movie scripts Patton Oswalt used to write under the name “Erik Blevins.”
I’ll give you a hint. It rhymes with Jews inside.
No. Just no. Please no. The Jewish thing is cool, though, just not the rhyming part.
I’m also dreading this. Especially knowing how (relatively) common it is in that age group.
I think it’s a bit much to think that Willis would bring back a character we haven’t heard from since the first ten pages, flesh her out, only to have her kill herself.
I mean, he still gives himself shit for doing that in Roomies, for one, and for two, that’d be like, Brian Clevinger-levels of audience mindfuckery, and I don’t think Willis is capable of that kind of madness yet.
I haven’t read his other comics, so I’ll take your word on it. I’m happy to hear it though.
Happy to assuage some of your worries.
Suffice to say, Willis is unlikely to have a character commit suicide unless he has an ABSURDLY good reason for doing so.
I was also dreading this, but I found it less likely once Joyce found her. I thought, if it happens, it will happen before Joyce talks to her. At least that is my hope.
And it has been said, over and over and over, that Willis has said he will not kill any one DOA, both because he doesn’t want to in general (as said, he isn’t now a huge fan of having done so in Roomies!) and because the other characters would be in the deepest parts of grieve for years and years of our time.
I did not know this! I mean, it makes sense, but phew! Now I don’t have to keep watching for trucks anymo
OH NO! Flipz was hit by a truck midsentence! We shall be in the deepest parts of grief for years and years of our time.
TWIST
It was Candleja
Wait…never mind…I got it…
In Joyce’s room? We never saw Becky arrive, so we don’t know what she brought with her, and when she stormed out, she was too distraught to collect her stuff first.
Burning question: did she get kicked out of Anderson, or did she have a meltdown and tore up her student ID or something dramatic like that? Hoping for something fixable, fearing the worst…
Oh wait duh — she came out to her parents didn’t she, who promptly disowned her, and without their support, college is over. The absolute horror scenario, and sadly not at all far-fetched.
I’m hoping that’s not it. mostly because it helps to have hope in humanity if there was minus one family that would do that
Oh, you sweet, sweet, innocent, naive bastard. 😉
According to the characterization of her father in J&W there is not much chance of her family being supporting.
Seems likely. I got disowned while in university, and that can very easily lead to the end of your school career (and at that point can leave you with no place else to go). It is possible to get through it with friends (and sweet, sweet student loans), but it’s not easy.
(I graduated in spite of it all. I believe in you, Becky!)
Congratulations. In all sincerity, I’m hoping that Becky meets or is introduced to someone like you.
Perhaps her name will be Leslie Bean, who in another world was disowned by her parents for being gay and is currently a teacher at the very school to which Becky has fled.
I WANT TO BELIEVE
Anderson is a Christian school.
Connect the dots.
This actually prompted me to do some research about Anderson and its standing on LGBTQ+ students, and it seems there are actually clubs and communities for such students, now, and they’re much more accepting than you’d think. It’s good to know!
Oh god what the hell is with my gravatar
Probably her own family broke their ties with her. Even if it is a Christian college I doubt they would throw somebody out simply for their sexual preferences.
Actually, in some Christian colleges you can get kicked out for watching R-rated movies while being a student (as a breach of the “code of conduct” the school requires all students to live by) so the idea someone might get kicked out for being gay or trans is not actually farfetched.
Source: my memory from when I was basically Joyce in high school and looked at applying to various Christian universities
Let me guess. The LGBTQ+ dorm buildings have been built by one of these architects.
That might be what happened. Becky thought she was in a supportive environment at Anderson, it got back to her parents, who cut her off.
She basically went AWOL to go find Joyce, who was obviously going to reciprocate her romantic feelings. Joyce then drops out of school and they run away together, leaving their former lives behind.
The whole thing ends with them driving a Thunderbird off the edge of the Grand Canyon to escape the police.
either kicked out of school for lesbian shenanigans, or straight up disowned by her family.
I’m guessing both.
oh man :(:(:(:(
If it’s just one of them I think it’ll be the latter. Not all Christian colleges have clear anti-gay stances, but her parents seem pretty strict.
I mean, I can’t see lesbian shenanigans getting her kicked out, if only because of her feelings towards Joyce; I’d assume Becky would try pursuing her first.
Well she could have been mixed up in “one night stands” shenanigans as she was discovering her sexuality and because she thought being with Joyce would be impossible. And then, when all went down and she lost everything, she came back running to her “best friend since childhood/true love” hoping that confessing to Joyce could make everything okay …
Seems a reasonable guess
“Becky snaps, rejects Christianity, starts studying Gnostic literature from Egypt, and becomes an expert on coptic Manichean texts?
Slipshine #5?
Poor Becky ;_;
So glad I was right and Joyce went after her. Now go hug her!
It looks like Becky has no eyes and that’s kinda freaking me out a little, negl.
Joyce’s regular Becky has been replaced by an early A Girl and Her Fed character. Let’s see if she notices!
Becky’s eyes were only painted on.
Obviously, she’s been hit by Youngblood disease. Which is why she’s no longer in school, as it’s highly contagious. And EXTREME.
She needs a bunch of pouches, oversized firearms, extremely deformed body type, and no feet to complete that.
AH, you’re referring to YB-LF90s, the so-called Liefeld mutation of the Youngblood virus. Nasty bugger, that one.
hahaha
It’s been said that the eyes are a window to a person’s soul.
Given her current circumstances, I think it’s better that Willis has mercifully drawn the blinds so we can’t see in right now.
She’s a Myrddraal!
http://wot.wikia.com/wiki/Myrddraal
(despite the crap art on that page, Fades look exactly like an ordinary human sans eyes. Oh and a bit on the pale side)
+1 for WoT reference 😉
I’m all about the WoT!
Come play Cards Against Randland with us sometime maybe! (see my tumblr sidebar and look for the “#Cards Against Randland” tag – you don’t have to have an account)
She’s cried them out.
Little Orphan Becky…..
Well alt-text Willis, now you know how we feel when we read these comics.
I think these strips are punching everyone in the gut. So we feel your pain.
Naw man. My guts are fine.
how!!??
Some people do not allow themselves to become emotionally invested in fictional characters. There is a name for such people, that is not repeated in polite or mixed company.
I’ll say it. Mike.
Yeah, poopyheads.
I totally get invested in fictional characters. I’m just not sad about this one.
Same.
Thirded. Becky just hot the drama bomb too soon for me to really care.
Gutpunch is what I call most alcohols.
Now that Joyce has caught up with her, I’m feeling about zero gut-punchitude. Not entirely sure why, I assume it’s because she’s verified safe for now?
STOP THIS STOP THIS RIGHT NOW IT HURTS SO MUCH
Much sadness and feels
I’ve seen too many sad fiction for this to make me sad. I’m an immovable object.
Sometimes I envy you, Yotomoe. This is one of those times.
Have you met the unstoppable force? Can you tell me how that went, I’ve been dying to know what happens.
The funstoppable force, we call it.
And here I was reading comments and thinking that I was the only one who wasn’t moved to tears by this storyline.
Which is strange considering I tend to feel more empathy for fictional characters than I do for real people. Which is just really messed up… =P
Nah, it’s not really doing it for me, either. But that’s mostly because I don’t feel like I’ve had enough time to get to know Becky. I can’t connect with a character in only one afternoon. I mean, I feel bad that life is shitting all over her right now, but it’s not something I’m going to cry myself to sleep over, y’know?
I’m empathetic too but not yet. Becky’s story needs to get pretty sad to get me.
This is the internet. People keep exaggering their emotions a hundredfold: They say “LOL” when they mean “made me smile”, they say “Rolling on the floor laughing” when they really mean “it made me give out a chuckle”, and they “I’m crying too much, my tears are a waterfall”, when they really mean “this storyline touches me emotionally”.
So of all the many people in this thread saying that they’re crying, I frankly wouldn’t be surprised if non a single one one of them really has shed a tear. They’re being internetty, they say they are crying just to signal to the author they’re appreciating the storyline.
What, no, LOL is how you end sentences LOL 😛
I have a feeling it’s not a problem with tuition. Probably broke the Honor Code at her Christian school by doing something that involved desiring another woman’s parts.
It could also be the “parents found out and cut her off” variety of tuition problem.
Most colleges demand payment upfront, so if she was just disowned by her parents she’d have the rest of the semester before the college kicked her out.
The parents reported it to the school maybe? I’m not entirely sure how Christian schools work, but I’d assume they’re nasty enough to do that.
Oh, and no other place to go probably means that she is kicked out of the family home as well.
Who called it?
…Pretty much everyone.
Doesn’t mean we wanted it.
OH NO he’s doing the eyes obscured by hair thing. NOTHING GOOD COMES FROM THAT. ITS ALL OVER MAN.
Game over, man! Game over!
How bad was it, was she like straight up kicked out of the school? What happened!?
Well she did go to jesus school and the only thing jesus hated more than gays are liars, thieves, adulterers, murders, people who don’t serve him, people who use his name in vain, people who forget to keep the sabbath day holy, people who don’t honor their father and mother, people who bear false witness, and people who covet their neighbors wife and oxen.
Jesus still died so all of those listed could go be saved along witht everyone else.
Regardless of one’s beliefs, I think the point is more about people’s beliefs about what God thinks about gayness than about what God (presuming he exists) actually thinks about gayness.
My point was that those who say things like that (like schools and talking heads, not Yoto) are the ones who should know that they are in conflict with the New Testament.
Jesus came back to life. Status quo ante.
“That’s it. I’ll be damned if I’m going to die for your sins again!”
“Fool me once…”
Jesus hated sinners, and avoided their company wherever possible.
Your bible was written differently than mine…
Matthew 15:26
… Jesus hung out with a prostitute…
She WAS a sinner. Now she’s an upstanding lady.
And a tax collector. Back when tax collectors worked freelance and split their collections 50/50 with the government.
Okay, soooo nope. Jesus hung out mostly with “sinners”. Because God loves everyone, especially “sinners”. Jesus died to basically wipe the slate clean. Hate the sin love the “sinner”. (Other phrases about God’s love, their are many.)
I was being facetious. Sorry if that was unclear.
Seriously, why do so many people ignore the whole “love the sinner but hate the sin” thing? It’s like “hey guys, did you even read that book you’re using as an excuse to hate people, because if you did I think you missed the whole frigging point. Please ask someone to explain to you what the Bible actually teaches and stop making the rest of us, and the guy you supposedly worship, look bad.”
Well, people …
Why? Because that’s not in the Gospels at all is why. (Surprise!) The Gospels say nothing about “hating the sin” — in the Gospel according to John, He says “go now and sin no more” in the context of reminding someone of the consequences of their past behavior, and He always is willing to heal people regardless of anything else.
Don’t be as much of a bigot as Joyce’s parents. Joyce got it right when she told her parents off.
“Look Becky you seem nice but we took some time to pray about it and I’m sorry to say that God wants us to past judgment upon you on behalf and kick you out of this School and in result ruin your life…it’s for the best really.”
“Covet their neighbors oxen” Oh man I’m straining to not lol right now.
And the Dutch.
Well, now because her lifestyle choices blackened her soul, the school administration was able to brandish crucifixes and drive her from the campus, just like if she were a vampire. Then they all performed the secret Christian Fistbump and went to celebrate with fruit punch and Wonder Bread.
And they did it all dressed up in their uniform which includes full body white gowns and white hood ghost like mask.
“secret Christian Fistbump”
That’s called the Side-hug.
Yeah, fist bumps are for Secret Muslims.
They might want to rethink that Wonder Bread part. He’s been discovering some lifestyle choices of his own lately.
Someone give this girl a hug.
Like, right now.
Anyone.
Anyone but Mike.
If Mike actually gave her a hug without ulterior motive, that would actually be extremely heartwarming.
Unfortunately, Mike is a giant walking ball of sinister ulterior motives.
Not if he’s drunk…
Not totally sinister. He actually has some arguably good motives for some of his shit, though of course he goes about it in the most jerk way possible.
If some of the speculation about why Becky isn’t in Anderson is right, I think Mike could actually help here. Just need to point him in the direction of either Becky’s parents or Anderson.
*Gives Mike a bus ticket to Anderson, a webcam linked to a Pay-per-view site and several rolls of small coinage.*
I’m sure Joe would be happy to give her a hug. Nudge nudge.
awww shit they kicked her out, didn’t they
broke a school rule about “inappropriate behavior” maybe?
From the Anderson University handbook, in the list of things a student can be expelled or sanctioned for:
Sexual Misconduct:
Violation of campus standards related to sexual behavior (i.e., pre-marital sexual relations, adultery, actions of a homosexual nature, cohabitation, overnight visitation in the residence of someone of the opposite sex, sexual conduct not believed to be in keeping with university standards)
Inconsistent, oror “just” deep heteronormatve assumptions. No homosexual behavior & no over nighting with other sex people, but no overnighting with same sex folks.
Oppsie. No firefighting with same sex.
Nor that neither. Spellchecker is … fascinating.
I firefought with another dude once. Things got… hot. Sweaty, even. We kept it up until great quantities of liquid gushed forth and it was all over.
Don’t worry Willis, we’re all getting gutpunched along with you.
please don’t do this, please, no. It hurts so bad and it only looks like it will get worse.
So, can they really kick you out of school for being gay? That seems like it would have legal ramifications.
Hopefully Becky will find someplace to be happy. And she’ll still have Joyce as a friend.
Her parents might have pulled her out. Anyway it is a religious organization, not part of the state or even a regular business, things can be a bit different.
it seems more likely that her parents found out, probably from school officials, and they pulled her tuition.
They probably have some weasel-worded code of conduct or something that allows ’em to kick out the gays and so on, for reasons that coincidentally have nothing to do with being gay.
Even if it was the college’s doing, it’s a tough and lengthy stint in court to prove that she was kicked out for being gay, as opposed to being kicked out for any other indistinct non-discriminatory reason.
Well to be honest, Gays are just getting the whole “Equal marriage” thing. I’m not surprised if you COULD kick people out for bein’ gay in this backwards nation.
Haven’t traveled to many other nations, have ya?
Doesn’t Make America NOT backwards
Does make your opinion less informed.
Hey, it’s entirely possible for most/all nations to be backward. We’re humans, our standards should be better than that.
Agreed.
Not to say that there isn’t a lot of misinformed-ness about the international reality of human rights, etc. (in Yoto’s case, I can’t say I know well enough to say one way or the other), but just because America is better than a lot of other countries doesn’t mean it shouldn’t be criticized or improved upon.
I think it was the ‘gays are just now getting rights’ part that was being criticized. Because America is way behind the curve for the richer parts of the world (Admittedly, America is less and less qualifying there.)
I think stuff is wrong and backwards. Not in relation to any other place in the world. Just in general.
To me this nation will just get even worse in the next 70 years.
Eh, crime rates have steadily declined since 1992, the gender gaps in jobs and education are gradually narrowing, nerd culture is suddenly cool, and about 35 states legally license same-sex marriage. Gotta keep fighting the good fight. The results are slow to appear, but they’re there.
…Unless you were talking about a country other than the United States. I don’t have as much data on other countries.
socially, things continue to move forward overall. Politically, economically… not looking as good. (some specific exceptions in both of course…)
Economics are also political, given what they inform. I couldn’t say, but it certainly could get worse.
I live in one. I can assure you that the US, especially towards the south, is widely viewed as hyper-conservative on a number of social issues compared to the rest of the western world. Plus, lousy with politicised religion (or sanctified politics, perhaps closer to the mark).
In many states, being gay is not a protected class. So, in those states, people can be fired, denied housing, or not allowed in stores or other private property on the basis that they are homosexual. Anderson wouldn’t even have to hide it in weasel words if they are a private institution in one of those states, especially if they are not receiving any Federal funding. They can just put “No homogays!” in their honor code, and that’s that.
well if it is a christian school they likely have something in the paper work akin to a morality clause that says that students will not engage in such and such an activity that is counter to the bible. i know a few of my schools over the years had stuff like that
Not sure, but I did find this:
http://www.anderson.edu/sites/default/files/migrate/studentlife/handbook.pdf
Section Four: Conduct Expectations
4.10 A student who is found guilty of any of the following acts shall be subject to the maximum sanction of disciplinary probation or lesser sanction authorized by this code.
4.41 Sexual Misconduct: Violation of campus standards related to sexual behavior (i.e., premarital sexual relations, adultery, actions of a homosexual nature, cohabitation, overnight visitation in the residence of someone of the opposite sex, sexual conduct not believed to be in keeping with university standards).
Kinda funny how homosexuality gets its own mention, even though most instances would presumably fall under the premarital hanky-panky category already listed.
I’m guessing public displays of affection are permitted for heterosexual couples but not homosexual ones?
Ugh, I bet you’re right.
“Actions of a homosexual nature” is much broader than “premarital sexual relations.” The latter pretty much means there has to be under-the-pants stuff (at the very least). The former could just as easily refer to making out.
I’m not sure how and to what degree this is enforced, but that’s my reading of it. It allows them to cast a wider net regarding the exclusion of gay folks. Which is interesting, since the Biblical passages people generally refer to when talking about prohibition of homosexuality are pretty damn specific about what’s prohibited– in males, basically buttsex. Other stuff could probably be extrapolated, but I doubt kissing would be a problem. The oft-quoted bit in Romans about lesbianism is much more general, so it could potentially be read as pretty goddamned puritan if the reader so chose.
You know, if you’re willing to take away someone’s education just because they aren’t straight and/or cis and/or whatever. Legally this is technically allowed, but I would be surprised and appalled if they can receive federal funding while maintaining that kind of policy.
Doesn’t the Book bar men laying with men as with women. So it’s about men having vaginal intercourse with each other. I’m a literalist.
I’m pretty sure that buying a k.d. lang album before Ingenue would count. (Oddly, that’s about when she came out, but she also kind of went mainstream.)
I was just about to post this.
They have a policy against racial harassment, and … another policy implementing harassment due to sexual orientation. I wish I could say I was surprised. It’s like they’d heard of hypocrisy, and misunderstood it to mean “hyper-christian”.
“No one is allowed to mess with you for being Gay, but doing gay stuff is against the Lord and we will mess you up if you do it”?
It’s not hypocritical: Dissing teh gays is not racist, and dissing the racists is not gay.
It’s unfair and stupid, but not hypocritical.
Only if the school does not accept any Federal funds, like student loans. Doing that can result in them having to pay back all the Federal Student Loan they accepted. And you know how well that would go over…
Not really. In a lot of places, sexuality is not a protected class, and thus legal to discriminate via regards to it.
On this note I would like to extend a hearty FUCK YOU to former VA attorney general Cucinelli, for trying to pressure colleges to remove sexuality as a protected class.
Yeah…as long the University accepts no Federal money of any form, including small things like FASL. Somehow, I doubt that Anderson’s well-enough endowed to get by without having students take loans out.
A public school can’t, but a private school can have whatever shitty rules in place that suits them.
DAMN YOU WILLIS!
I can’t believe this was the first one in the comments. Seriously, ctrl-f and this is the first one, and it’s halfway down the page…
So yeah, Becky cried her eyes out?
Sorry.
Trying to stop the sads.
I’m glad Joyce went to find her, but I hope she realizes and keeps in mind, This Mess is Not Her Fault. I’m no Joyce fan. But she does not deserve to take the fall on this one.
Yeah, Becky quit or got thrown out, guess that was pretty obvious from the start.
But yes, apart from the eye thing, I’mma join the sad chorus of feels.
well, on the bright side, no Mary. So there’s that.
Oh, great. Now you’ve summoned her.
Uh oh, quick, somebody get me a marker and a stencil in the shape of a dong!
You’ll never escape, fools! I scribbled all the ink from your permanent markers until they were dead! You’re not so permanent now; are you, Sharpie?!
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAhahahaHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAhahahaHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAhahahaHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAhahahaHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAhahahaHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAhahahaHAHAHA
AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAhahahaHAHAHA
Curse you MARY!!!!!!
(For once my Mary avatar comes in handy! Usually it just gives me a sense of repulsion.
I mean…)
AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAhahahahahAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAhahahahahahahahahahahaAHAH
I hope if Mary ever exposes Ruth and Billie the response from everyone else is a big, resounding “So fucking what?”.
Or I hope she gets brutally humiliated. Seriously, fuck Mary.
Why would anyone want to do that, she’s a terrible person.
So she can get pregnant and have an abortion and be proven a huge hypocrite!
Shit! We said her name three times!
so long as we didn’t preface “Bloody” before Mary, I think we’re good.
Mary delenda est
I must say, with all honesty.
Damn.
You.
Willis.
At this point, that’s essentially the mantra of Willis’ fans.
Damn him.
I could set up a script to automatically post “Damn you Willis!” to the comment section at 9:00:01 every night and no one would bat an eye.
DO IT. We must all respond with consecutive “Damn you, Willis” comments. T’WILL BE OUR NIGHTLY RITUAL.
At this point I feel like our sadness is the source of Willis’ power.
Is this the part where Becky becomes autobiographical too? :((( the feels….
Becky is Joel Watson
Now I am picturing Becky with a beard.
Now I’m realising that in panel 4, she kind of is.
Joyce is the beard here.
Yes, that was my point.
Willis got kicked out of college for being a lesbian.
I thought it was for making computer games instead of doing school work.
I thought it was for getting depressed, panicking and forgetting to sign up for classes.
I thought it was when he pledged Delta House.
When they were on double secret probation.
I knew it now she either dropped out or was kicked out. Joyce be a good friend just not “that” kind of friend. Knowing you, you won’t be “that” kind of friend.
I dunno, she’s grown a bit, maybe she won’t go Super Sunday School Teacher on her.
I mean a girlfriend the kind you marry.
…why would “that” kind of friend be bad, exactly?
Your weirdly possessive comments about Joyce ARE getting a bit creepy.
apparently real world Anderson U actually considers homosexuality to be sexual misconduct and forbids it on campus. So fuck those guys.
Oh that’s shitty
I can’t find any instances of students actually getting expelled for it though, so it might be something else
I would, but I’d get kicked out.
Is all sex “sexual misconduct” there?
Probably, but I doubt all sex is equally punishable
I’d expect heterosexual sex within the confines of marriage to be perfectly fine.
They probably meant rape.
TRANS-FER
TRANS-FER
TRANS-FER
TRANS-FER
OPTIMISM ALL THE TIME FOREVER
AND THEN SHE JOINS BILLIE AND RUTH’S SEXY LESBIAN SUICIDE PACT
Aw man. Becky actually getting to experiment and have crazy fun in college would be so awesome
“Sexy lesbian suicide pact.”
“Crazy fun.”
I mean, it’s definitely accurate. I’m not sure if I want Becky getting involved in that, especially since I’ve got such a bad feeling about the good ship Billuth’s seaworthiness (somebody please rechristen this ship, I cannot be trusted with the name or the wine bottle).
I think you’re referring to, “The Good Ship Lessingsworth.”
The problem is probably with the Admin over an RA with a student in her dorm.
Computer dislocated this 🙁
It’s funny, because to me, just the phrase “experiment and have crazy fun in college” sounds terrible. But that is just my nature, I am personally (not sociopolitically) very conservative/shy/boring/etc 😛
How will she pay for classes if it turns out her parents disowned her ?
An 18 year old not receiving any money from family might get a fair bit in the way of financial aid.
But if her parents are unwilling to give her their tax information even if they have disowned her it would be incredibly difficult for her to apply for state aid, wouldn’t it?
It has been like, a really, really long time since I filled out a FAFSA, but I think you wouldn’t need their details if they are not contributing.
There might be issues if they still try to list her as a dependent, but that would be later, and there is some way you can challenge that. I have no doubt that Dorothy in particular would be willing and able to help figure all that out.
Dorothy, nothing! We’re talking Roz time here. Imagine how much she could embarrass her sister!
(Come to think of it, that’s actually something Roz would get all activist over, Robin or no Robin. Of course, Joyce would have to decide that Roz didn’t have a coven first…)
It’s possible to make it work. Very difficult, but possible. The school will INSIST on parental information even if the parents are unwilling to provide it. I went through the process and I had to go as far as getting my therapist to phone the student loans office, so that she could explain that there was no possible way of getting my parents involved. (Something which I’d already told them repeatedly.)
This is VERY, VERY dependent on your school. My school, I went to the financial aid office with my bank statements showing that I wasn’t getting money from anywhere but my jobs, and told them my parents were unwilling to help with college and I’d like to be considered an independent. They said “Sure thing” and filed me as an independent. Super easy.
Doesn’t matter if they’re willing to pay or not. There’s an “Expected Family Contribution” involved. Whatever they’re deemed able to theoretically pay is deducted from the loan amounts regardless of what they actually pay. You have to be at least 24, an orphan, married, a veteran, or have a (non-spouse) dependent of your own before they stop counting deadbeat parents against you.
Really? Damn that’s shitty. Like I said, long, long time since I saw a FAFSA
Well, according to this publication[PDF], Becky could be counted as independent if she can get a letter from a homeless shelter saying so.
An 18 year old not receiving any money from family might get a fair bit in the way of financial aid.
Your parents willingness to help you counts for diddly-squat. So long as they are alive and have any money at all, qualifying for financial aid is extremely difficult.
Whomever came up with that cliche about someone killing their father and mother and throwing themself on the mercy of the court because they were an orphan must have delt with financial aid at some point.
Yeah, I see that now. Just when you think you know how fucked up the country is… I do see on the FAFSA site that you *might* be able to get out of the EFC crap if they are “abusive”, however that is defined. Probably not in a way that would help Becky 🙁
BTW, I subscribe to Rolling Stone. So I know where Willis is going. SIGH.
Hm, the only thing I can think of in regards to RS is not where Willis is going, I am quite sure.
Also, how can Tux be bad? Tux is good!
Well, the story in question had me screaming “How could so-called Christians do that to their own children?!”. It was a pretty grim story :(.
Ah, ok, that is something else. Yeah, probably
That whole “abusive” thing is crap. My dad beat the hell out of me for 6 years but it wasn’t good enough. When I finally left home I still didn’t qualify for assistance because my mom makes way to much money. So I have to wait until im 24 now.
Actually, there is a financial aid appeals process for when your parents have kicked you out and are unwilling to contribute to your wellbeing in any way. Kids who have been kicked out of their “Christian” homes for being gay have done it. But it’s not easy, especially when you’re homeless because they kicked you out and are having difficulty holding it together because people you thought loved you have done this thing to you, dammit. And then once you manage to get aid and get a dorm room with it, there’s the question of what to do between semesters when the dorms shut down…
At Caltech dorm contracts were continuous and the dorms never shut down; you could live in your room all the time. I was shocked when I learned that IU closes most of the dorms, making international or even just long distance students camp out in lounges for Thanksgiving.
Ours (university in another state) did that too–I think that they appealed for other students to “adopt” them for the holidays.
It is possible her family didn’t disown her. that’s not something that always happens.
However she will need money for tuition, and it might be hard to jump over at this time in the term.
However with that last one, our favorite underachiever has some roundabout connections to the Dean….
Hey, don’t forget about our favourite rich alcoholic, who happens to have a thing for redheads with depression…
Or, you know, financial aid and stuff. Whichever sounds less delusional to you.
Oh, maybe Amber can just hack the system and make Becky a full ride scholarship student!
Oh yes, her parents are well off. Dunno if they would care to help though… Maybe Billie could just ask for more spending money 😛
I wonder if Dorothy’s parents might help a bit, they seem really decent. Or heck Walky’s parents. They might be well off, and mostly decent…latent racism aside -_-
SEXY LESBIAN SUICIDE PACT – TO THE RESCUE!!!
Don’t feel too sorry for Becky. Yes, this is a shitty thing that was done to her, but it could also be the starting point of a new and improved life. If she can’t transfer in right away, she can get a full-time job (or a couple of part-time jobs), find a roommate and live somewhere away from the crappy people who do crappy things to her. This will give her a chance to reassess a life that has abruptly changed, and allow her to figure out where she wants to go from here. If she can locate the gay community in town, she can probably also form a new support network of people who understand exactly what she is going through. A challenge is always some kind of opportunity in disguise.
That’s a lot of sudden financial and personal responsibility to suddenly take on.
And if her parents did disown her, it sounds easy just to say they’re crappy people and she needs to find new people, but in reality it doesn’t erase all the other not-crappy things they have done or the good feelings Becky might still have there mixed in with all the hurt and anger and betrayal.
I don’t mean Becky doesn’t have options, or she can’t turn this around, but you’re making this sound a lot easier than it is.
I never said it would be easy. She’s going to have to do a lot of hustling. However, by the time that she has a chance to catch her breath and take stock, I think she’ll be a lot happier sharing a dubious 2BR apartment with 2 other people and working three 15-hour jobs to make ends meet than however she was living before and having to conceal who she is.
That said, I don’t think we are going to have to endure watching the rest of the cast walk by Becky on campus while Becky spends all her time begging for spare change and sleeping in the bushes. Maybe that nice pastor’s son can take her in.
“Maybe that nice pastor’s son can take her in.”
NO.
NO.
WHY WOULD YOU SAY THAT.
I WAS DOING SO WELL WITH THIS
AND THEN YOU SAID THAT
AND NOW EVERYTHING IS HORRIBLE.
YOU MONSTER.
🙂
Look at the face of that rat! Look at it! It’s a face of an EEEEEEEVIVILLLLLL rat!
PLOT TWIST: Becky is Batman and the pastor’s son has an Unfortunate Accident.
Will said accident disfigure his face so that he seems to be smiling constantly?
… I did not think this through.
If said accident involves falling into a dolphin tank, I’m okay with it, even if the dolphins make his face match theirs.
Joyce already got started on one side.
Becky guts the pastor’s son, wears his skin to classes, announces in spring of senior year that he’s transitioning. Everyone wins, although Joyce still finds it problematic, for obvious reasons.
HIDE HER IN JOYCE’S ROOM. SMUGGLE HER FOOD FROM THE CAFETERIA.
PERFECT PLAN.
Sounds crazy, but your *ahem* avatar gives me confidence!
I knew a dude who did that with his girlfriend for two semesters. The RA never had a clue. (About most things, come to think of it.)
That sounds entirely too removed from IU in my opinion. I need Becky as a main cast member!
She could always get a job at Galasso’s.
Working with Conquest.
At which point the comic hits critical lesbian-sex mass, killing everyone.
On second thought, maybe she should look for organisations that help troubled LGBT teens and young adults.
Yeah, that’d probably be safer for everyone.
This!!
Gallasso adopts Becky
Honestly, given everything we’ve seen so far, I’m beginning to think that I.U. IS the gay community in town.
Duh, it’s a university campus. It’s going to be the kernel of any such local organizations.
Ummm….no.
Look, I can’t explain why, but I deal with a lot of LGBTQ+ kids who’ve been kicked out here in the Real World. To say that it’s traumatic and destructive is not sufficient. A lot of these kids — particularly those who come from relatively privileged backgrounds like Becky — have no idea what to do next. They are totally lost and helpless.
They’ve lost *everything* — their identities, their families, their income, their home — and they don’t have any real skills to deal with the world they’re about to enter. They are lucky if they’ve ever held a summer job, and they have no real idea what to do to get by on a sub-minimum wage. They have NO PLACE to sleep; they are *homeless*. They have no assets.
And they are emotionally destroyed. The people who are supposed to love and nurture them have just said “I have no daughter Becky.”
No, this can’t ever be a good thing. It’s a road to a horror show you can’t imagine.
She could possibly crash with Joyce for quite a while … IF they could keep Mary (delenda eat) from narcing.
Less keep Mary from narcing and more keep ruth from caring.
“Billie, Ruth is starting to care about my dorm stowaway again. Can you stock up on whipped cream tonight? K’thanx!” And that’s how Joyce came to be okay with same-sexiness in other people.
Damnit you’re using the old hidden eyes trope.
See, I was thinking she ran away, but….
what if she didn’t.
Aaaaw yis! Time for providing free room and board to your disowned friends against dorm regulations!
☆*✲ﾟ*｡♡☆ COLLEGE ADVENTURES ☆♡ ｡*ﾟ✲*☆
Yaaaaaaaa fuck the the man and the rules of his educational system, Anarchy! Anarchy! Anarchy!
YEAH! We don’t play by your rules, MAN!
Ooooof. Friend of mine was telling me yesterday that he felt Becky had something more dire going on in her life we weren’t being told. Looks like he was right; poor girl’s whole life is falling apart around her. 🙁
She told her parents her plans didn’t she?
Or maybe she stabbed her mom in her face. Like Killua. (If you’re not familiar, watch Hunter X Hunter)
Becky you had better transfer!!
ugh my heart is shattering before my very eyes
http://youtu.be/RLkc1huIBCo
Doubt that Timemonkey, but if she moved on someone like she on did Joyce and that person complained or threatened to…then maybe Becky ran rather than face it. She is going to a Christian Collage, maybe rules different.
Besides fearing it being told to her family too. She is same fundy group as Joyce. Becky may be liberal, her family is not.
AAAAH, damnit those strips are hurting so much.
I don’t like Becky’s character much (she’s just meh), but the poor Girl is having such a hard time and I cannot stop from empathizing with her.
PLEASE GET BETTER ! I need her to get better, or else I’m gonna be sad 🙁
Oh poop.
Poor Becky. Poor, poor Becky.
Major question: is Sarah’s face OK?
If you punch Sarah’s face, you’ll break your fist.
I’m guessing what everyone thought was Joyce winding up for a punch was just her turning to get her shoes on quick so she could run after Becky.
“Joyce….They took…my face!!!!”
Becky is in a Christian College and maybe not same rules. Sure that they are not as tolerant of her as Joyces college is. Only a guess.
And Becky is from same fundy group as Joyce.
If Becky made a move on a roommate at the her school and that student threatened to tell, Becky may have run rather that face it and also keep it from her family, or try to.
She burned her bridges behind her.
No wonder the poor thing is so upset.
You didn’t really make Becky that likeable IMO.
Please examine my reaction to that statement: http://media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m4c97z7vHd1qztbqv.gif
This
Here’s my reaction to that.
http://i.4cdn.org/wsg/1418349926359.gif
This is factually incorrect.
Being completely honest, I kind of hated Becky as soon as her character got some development.
I don’t much like her either. She seems pretty manipulative to me and while I feel extremely sorry for her, I still don’t much care for what I’ve seen of her personality. It doesn’t really help that this very weighty plotline is being carried by a character we’ve barely met, with the end result that she feels, to me and right now, more like a walking Very Special Episode than a well-rounded individual in her own right.
1, I bet that Willis knows a lot about her.
2, just because you don’t know someone doesn’t mean they are hollow.
I’m sure he does. My problem is, and I’m speaking solely for myself here, that I don’t and what I have seen of her hasn’t really endeared me to her. Thinking on it a little further I’m not sure if that’s because Becky is manipulative or because her introduction was. She’s simply not very rounded right now – she’s bold, spunky and impulsive, yes, but pretty much everything else we know about her we know only because it also applies to Joyce – but she’s clearly a character we as readers are supposed to immediately like so that we can then feel immediately upset when something terrible happens to her a few scenes later. I’m contrary enough to resent that. This might not be such a problem if Willis was a worse writer, but the rest of the main cast are so nuanced and believable and downright warts-and-all real that Becky feels flat by comparison.
Right now the story’s got a Very Special Episode feel to it, in which a kid who’s shown up once or twice is suddenly given a weighty storyline to carry so the main characters don’t have to deal with the fallout. Now, I know for a fact that Willis is a far better writer than that and he’s quite definitely got plans that go way beyond what I can see right now. Still: right now, to me, going by what I can see? This is what it feels like. The end result is that this storyline just doesn’t have the same effect on me that it would if I’d had time to become invested in her as a character. If this had happened to Billie, I’d feel extremely emotionally invested because Billie feels real to me. Becky doesn’t, and that’s where I’m having trouble with her.
Yeah, from the moment she showed up it was clear something was up so I could never tell what was genuine and what was her just going with things until she dropped her bomb.
We really could have benefitted from seeing her more before now.
… So, wacky hijinks shall ensue, as Joyce and Sarah try to secretly keep her as a third roommate/pet?
As long as she’s house broken and she doesn’t hump their legs at night.
*cue musical zinger* DA-DA-DA-DADA-DA!!!!!
she said she was potty trained(humor to cope with tragedy)
Billie’s not using her bunk anymore…
Sarah can move there with Sal – Sal is hardly ever around to disturb her studying. And Becky can room with Joyce.
Okay, okay, we’re sad now, we’re sad, just stop punching us, Willis!
WHY WON’T HE STO-HO-HO-HOOOOOOOOPPPP???? *tears*
Uncle !
Uncle !
We said “Uncle” damnit, please stop wedging our feelings already !
I’m not sure if Anderson expelled her or if her parents cut her off and withdrew her from the university.
Either way, Becky does not deserve it Joyce please go hug your best friend
So many feels. Damn you Willis.
Nonononononono. Having flashbacks to where my parents kicked me out of the house during Christmas break because I should have lied to them about being gay, but I was so proud and happy and thought they should be happy for me. But they weren’t… they called me child of satan and kicked me out of the house.*
Come on Becky… please just be sad… 🙁
*Sigh* come here Synnerman *hug*
God I’m sorry. Thats heartbreaking…I hope you’re okay. 🙁
I am so sorry 🙁
You have my sympathies.
🙁
I can’t even imagine what it would be like to grow up with parents like that, but I can sort of imagine what it would’ve been like if my parents suddenly started acting like that. A living nightmare. And given that you thought they would be accepting, maybe that’s what it was like for you. 🙁
Casa de El Poeta is currently home to a Trans* person who was kicked out of her home, is trying to overcome depression from decades of living with the “wrong” body, and has been living in her car. Before that we have put up Pagans who were homeless after coming out of the Broom closet. And we have a crazy cat lady, minus the cats but not the crazy, living here too. So you might say we have a little experience with this situation.
Whatever-passes-for-god bless you, dude(tte)
**Hugs** for you Synnerman! 🙁
So this is actually weird timing for me. I’m a college freshman and one of my best friends at school is flunking out. Too real.
Unfortunately that kind of happens a lot on freshman year. If college is going to tear you down, it’s going to do it before your first semester is over.
Guess she will have to get a job and work her way thru college like lots of us poor slobs. Apply for scholarships and grants and go from there.
Where there is a will, there is a way.
Joyce will help her out I’m sure.
Killing yourself when your life is shitty is bs. It gets better, work thru it.
And not preaching, been there done that. Feel bad for her because I’ve been there. Not exact there, but close enough.
Sounds a great deal like preaching, actually, no lie.
wtf? You expect a sheltered 18 year old to magically be able to provide for herself? Fuck you man.
Dude, you’re aware that college tuition is now over $9K/year at *state* universities (check the IU web page if you don’t believe me), and minimum wage of $8/hour for 40 hours a week wouldn’t begin to even start to pay for both tuition and little things like, say, food and shelter, not to mention not leaving any time at all for, like, school? And are you aware that MOST HOMELESS SHELTERS WILL NOT TAKE SINGLE WOMEN? And of the few that do, the vast majority are run by religious organizations and WILL NOT ACCEPT GAY WOMEN? And once she’s past those hurdles, most homeless shelters have far more people needing their services than they can handle? It’s damn hard to get it together when you’re sleeping in an alley in a cardboard box you dragged out of a dumpster. Right now best she could hope for was try for admission at IU and fight the financial aid department for independent status, but she still needs somewhere to live until the next term starts in January. And most of her friends were in that home schooling group so she’s going to spend some time in that cardboard box… unless a miracle happens. Hopefully Willis provides one.
This.
Worse, it gets cold in Bloomington in the fall, and it’s already late September comic time. By the time the next semester starts, it’ll be very cold every night, and it will probably get down to well below 0 on occasion.
Now where’s Becky going to stay?
I’m kinda assuming joceylin is gonna end up taking her in when she hears about what’s going on. That’s my theory at least.
Joyce, hug Becky ASAP. I don’t like seeing Becky feeling so broken.
I like to imagine that for every scene like this another drama tag is pulled.
Also that there’s a universe FULL of drama tags, where little men are slaves to the drama government, working in drama factories, pulling drama tags day and night on only two chocolate chip cookies an hour.
My fantasy got a little nonsensical towards the end but you get the idea.
This is now head cannon for me.
<a href="Your Text“>Head cannon, you say?
Balls, screwed that up. Was supposed to be: “Head cannon, you say?
Lol, yes. Just like that.
Wait, I understand getting kicked out of a Christian college for being gay.
But, she seriously couldn’t keep it a secret for a whole month?
What the hell happened, exactly?
That’ll be a slipshine-only storyline, I think.
My first though would be coming out to a roommate she thought she could trust, who then reported her.
It seems to have the right amount of tragedy to it.
While their rules contain passagess about homosexuality, they only forbid “actions of a homosexual nature”. It would be quite a stretch to claim that stating your sexual orientation is an action. But than again you American are weird.
Speaking is a free action :/
I think it was when she wore that “Anderson Queer Student Alliance” t-shirt to Sunday prayers. That could have tipped somebody off.
I’ve seen more than once kids with super-repressive upbringings go totally off the rails once they got off to college and out from under the parental thumb. It’s more often been kids from hard-line Catholic families than Protestant fundamentalists, but I think that’s mostly just that I went to college in the Northeast, not the Bible Belt.
Becky’s upbringing seems to have been even stricter than Joyce’s, and she seems to have chafed under it more, to the point that even Christ college probably looked like freedom to her, and unlike Joyce she didn’t have any interest in trying to stick to the rules her parents imposed on her. (And a cynical part of me says that Joyce’s willingness to do that voluntarily is what their youth pastor meant when he said she was “the best-socialized”.)
So I’ve kind of been thinking that once Becky got away from her parents, she cut loose, with some similar-minded kids at Anderson, and had a probably-drunken lesbian encounter with one of the other girls, which triggered both, “Wow, that’s what I should’ve been doing with Joyce,” and, “OMG I had sex with a girl who isn’t Joyce, I cheated on her, she’s going to hate me,” so she hasn’t been answering the phone because she couldn’t handle talking to Joyce until she had a chance to see her in person.
And someone found out about it, and reported it, so per that “sexual misconduct” clause someone posted, she got kicked out.
Or maybe this actually happened a while ago, between the last time they talked (which was Sunday beginning Week 3) and the first time she didn’t answer (can’t find it, sorry), and she hasn’t been answering because her parents pulled her back home and cut off her communications, and now she’s run away because it’s the only way she had to get in touch with anyone who cared about her.
I also notice that Becky’s roommate is tagged now, though she has only the one appearance so far, and I don’t think she was when that strip first went up, so maybe we’re going to get a flashback explanation of the events at Anderson that she’ll appear in. (Maybe Becky banged her.)
Oh, man, I found when Becky went incommunicado. It was between Sunday of Week Three when Joyce called Becky to tell her that she was holding hands with a boy in church, and that strip, which is Wednesday morning of Week Three.
On Tuesday afternoon of Week Three, Ethan came out to Joyce. That’s why she’s trying to call Becky.
My Internets are currently on the events that led to Becky getting kicked out being directly inspired by that first phone call, and she may have been getting unwillingly outed to her family and college at the exact same time that Ethan was outing himself to Joyce.
What immortal hand and eye could frame thy fearful symmetry?
(Eh, it was just Willis.)
Oh, and this latest part of the mess likely could have been averted if Becky hadn’t already been kicked out when Joyce made that second phone call.
That is, incidentally, also the morning that Joyce was freaking out because everyone in college becomes gay.
Maybe it wasn’t the school. Maybe she came out to her family and they pulled funding, LegalSeagull
Even if we strongly suspected this, it still puts the last few strips in perspective.
Because, if Becky’s got nowhere else to go… THEN went to Joyce, the only person she had left, the girl she’d loved all her life, and kissed her, and got rejected (however nicely)… Oh God. That’s even MORE of a gutpunch. No wonder she broke down crying.
Either that or she’s just a big whiner.
no i think its that first one actually
Why not both?
You are such and evil rat. XD
Where did that extra “d” come from? 😛
Not a rat. A bunny. The ears are pushed down and you can’t see the tail in that cropped shot.
no no no no nononononononononono
Just leave me to dieeee
Doubt if she’d be flunking out — too early in the semester yet. I’m thinking it’d have to be some kind of conduct violation thing.
Maybe Becky killed her parents. That would be cool.
and she started roaming the country looking for way macho men and their shirts
So I guess this means she was discovered/outed at her college and kicked out.
Twist that dagger some more, Willis.
DAAAAMMMNNEEEED YOOOUUUU WIII… Oh, they are talking. They are still friends. They will find a way forward. Thank you Joyce, thank you Becky. You are good people, you will not loose each other in this.
im so upset why
It is worth noting that though Anderson has not (yet) made news for expelling an LGBT student (though as others have pointed out, it is spelled out as an offense in their student code of conduct), other similar universities in the US have: http://thinkprogress.org/lgbt/2013/06/17/2165761/christian-college-gay-debt/
And, unless something changed recently and I wasn’t notified, it’s not against the law in Indiana for a workplace (not sure about school) to discriminate based on sexual orientation or gender identity.
The best part about this page is the juxtaposition of the comic and non-comic elements. First we have the comic about sad Becky. Then below it, we have the NSFW banner showing two girls’ hands entwined in the act of lovemaking, and beside that in big brown letters “ Cancelled“. Where subtext is literally the text below.
There we go, new gravatar. This makes this storyline less sad!
Hey, It works! Sokka makes everything better! XD
Beckyrang! You always DO come back!
Yesss it’s working perfectly. =D
Perfect!
Oh look, me last year. Goddammit Willis, I’m going to start crying soon if you keep this up.
all i can think about is how in the hell joyce is going to pass her midterms with such a dramatic first few weeks
I was against Becky at first. She came off a little too perfect, a little too artificial, a perfectly designed wrench to be thrown into all this drama. The fact that these events were premeditated before the story even began really shows. She’s unusually predictable, to the extent that when The Kiss happened, instead of being shocked all I could do was sigh quietly to myself and mutter “Of COURSE she is.”
But why should that matter? I LOVE Becky! Everyone loves Becky! But it didn’t help the nagging feeling that something was just plain wrong about the whole setup. That’s when I realized that I was flashing back to my first encounter with a character from an entirely different webcomic: when Jeph Jacques introduced Claire to Questionable Content. I was completely against her at first, which is odd, since I’ve wanted to see more trans characters since forever. But my gut reaction was still a small sigh and an “Of COURSE she is.” And when I read that he’d wanted to write a trans character for a long time, my heart sank. I don’t mean to suggest that he doesn’t “deserve” to write her; that would be absurd. It’s just that QC is made up of characters on the far ends of various spectrums, and the addition of a trans character made it feel like the cast list was starting to become a checklist. My fear was that she was a trans person first and a character second, another oddball for a cis writer to add to their resume.
All of those fears were, of course, completely unfounded. Shame on me. Claire is now my favorite trans character ever. But I’ve been revisiting a lot of that initial fear and suspicion with the arrival of Becky, and this time, I’ve been determined to keep my mouth shut and figure this out. (One of the most important things I ever learned is the best thing to ask yourself is always “Why did I think that?”) So, soul-searching question: Why does Becky bother me?
I really don’t want to say “too many lesbians”. I am down for lots of lesbians. Possibly it’s simply that I’ve come to expect LGBT characters from this comic, which, to me, is simply saying that I’m not getting my LGBT characters from anywhere but webcomics. Maybe it’s this particular storyline, with its conception four years out of date and sucker punches blatantly telegraphed. Maybe it’s a load of different things, all spinning around this one character who, in a universe so character-driven, stands out for feeling like the plot is moving her rather than the other way around. All I know is that as soon as the first hints were dropped, I was TERRIFIED for Becky – not for this outcome, but that she would be reduced to a plot device first, a lesbian second, and a character a very distant third. (I think that’s why I like this incarnation of Ethan so much, since he struggles with this dilemma in-universe.) Instead of being invested, I was waiting to start rolling my eyes.
And waiting… and waiting…
Dangit, I love Becky.
And once again, the issue has solved itself. Like any person, a character can’t help what their origins are; all that matters is what they do with the time they have. Even if I can’t get it out of my head that Becky’s a plot device, she doesn’t FEEL like a plot device. She feels real. I’ve learned to put more faith in the writers I enjoy, and to always give a new character the benefit of the doubt regardless of the circumstances of their creation. (And no matter how clearly you can see a sucker punch coming, that’s no guarantee that it won’t still knock your teeth out.) And so, all fears assuaged, let me step back in line with the chorus.
*ahem*
BECKY NOOOOOO WHYYYYYYYY *hugs*
…You, uh…you alright there?
Becky avatar hugs!
You know I know these strips are supposed to make me sad but all I can feel is a profound sense of smugness at how I FUCKIN’ CALLED IT BABY WOOO. *balloons drop from ceiling*
Ballons inflated with…despAIR!!!! HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHUHUHUHUHUHUUUUUUUUH*descends into sobs*
Well of course. If they were filled with feelium, they would rise rather than drop.
It is not recommended to inhale the contents of feelium balloons, as your voice will sound like unintelligible sobbing for several minutes afterward.
Please accept this trophy from the Pessimist of the Year Society and a hearty handshake.
i both hate and love that your writing can make me feel this way
I’m so glad Joyce is more concerned about not hurting Becky than being freaked out over having a lesbian for a BFF! <3
This is fairly wrenching. In that it is like being hit with a wrench.
And now, if the Choir of Dumbing Of Age Readers will now join me for our most sacred of hymns:
DAMN YOU WILLIS!
I take back my previous comment about pupils and sclera. You know it’s bad when the eyes are flat out GONE. Poor Becky… rejected, was likely kicked out of school, and that rejection also blinded her. She’s having a really bad day.
I had the worst case scenario in mind, so it’s a bit bittersweet that, while still quite sad for Becky, it’s still a relief that it was Joyce who got to her, instead of who I anticipated.
I’m guessing that we have a bit of backstory of Becky incoming, and as some have speculated in the last couple comics, I think Becky got expelled from Anderson, either from grades or, more likely, “indecency” just for liking who she likes naturally. But the way she says she has nowhere else to go, must also mean her parents must have turned her away as well. While the kiss seemed out of left field at the moment, now it seems clear that Becky only had one final place to turn to; her best friend who she grew up with. Without her, she’d probably just turn into a drifter or other societal outcast, which is a sad but all too common thing that happens to a lot of kids in some hardcore fundamentalist families (not all, but it’s a tragic commonality). Just makes the feels just pile up for poor Becky. 🙁
It’s clear that after The Kiss Reveal, things won’t go back to “normal” as they knew it, but there’s still hope for Joyce and Becky to have a somewhat stabilized status, like “more than a friend, but less than a lover”. I seriously doubt that Joyce would cast her away like her school and (maybe) parents have, especially considering her exposure to atheists and bisexuals, whom she now considers her closest friends.
these feels are real i think she ran away from home and she cant go back to her university cause she could be found there.
Careful there Willis, that’s how Houdini died.
I don’t believe she was kicked out. I think her parents were killed by aliens, and she is about to join a super-secret organization where superhuman alien abductees with psychological problems fight the aliens. Then she finds out that Joyce is secretly her twin sister and the fight aliens together!
Except that since there are no science fiction elements, the aliens are the Russian mob and the superpowers are no more exagurated that Amazigirl’s skills.
Assume edit button and spell-correct.
Or other non white people. Got to be wary of them. . .
😀
Um, pretty sure that the Russian mob is predominantly white., whatever that may mean.Back when it applied, that whole Red thing was something of a metaphore.
I meant to say that without ‘other’. My mistake.
The first thing we need to do now is get Becky out of that Anderson shirt and into an Indiana shirt, or even better a Cutters shirt.
It’d be fine with me if they both got out of their shirts. But not here, it would be cold. Maybe somewhere warm like bed.
Why do I feel we skipped something between yesterdays strip and todays?
What happened to the balled up fist?
Nothing happened, nothing was skipped. She started to run out of the room after Becky, and then she did so. It was a dramatic fist clench, not a punching fist clench.
seriously all the people who were like “is joyce gonna punch sarah???” really confused me. Like what? come on guys
Cosigned.
Man, what a sad and poignant scene.
Anyone mind if I try to spoil it? Trick questions, I don’t care!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ip86XtF-Kok
It’s what we were all thinking.
Yay! Becky’s alive! And Joyce still has a chance to make everything, if not right, as right as it can by under the circumstances.
Geez what’s gonna happen to Becky next?! She gonna be hit by a car and also have cancer?!
Cancer? Naw that is Funky CancerCancer you are thinking of.
The car will also have cancer.
CARLA
NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!
We’re going to need to steel reinforce these fans, because this shit is getting hard to handle.
Willis put up some old-school Joyce and Walky! Becky on his tumblr, FYI
No direct connection to universe, but if you are curious…
http://itswalky.tumblr.com/post/105249308727/was-trying-to-remember-what-becky-was-like-in
Not enough burps/farts. 0/10 would not Becky again.
Meanie!
All Beckys are good Beckys 😀
But they could be GREAT Beckys. If they just applied themselves! Drink a soda. Eat a burrito. Sheeesh.
haha 😀
lol
Eeeeeee, even in the Walkyverse, I just wanna hug Becky forever!
Forever!
….Of course…. No one can ever just be happy, people who are having happy lives that aren’t falling apart don’t exist in webcomics! Silly me
o̶r̶ ̶i̶n̶ ̶l̶i̶f̶e̶. no no no, too pretencious
<<<< Pats Willis on the back.
There there, it will be OK.
There is no way Walky and Dorothy and Amber and Ethan and Joyce are going to let Becky down . ( again )
YES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
We get to keep Becky!!!!!
( If Willis sent her back , we probably wouldnt see her till Christmas-in-Comic in 2024 ! )
I’m sorry Becky, but DOA-God has mysterious ways . Your sadness will be rewarded.
Becky we love you so much , we have to destroy your life to keep you.
I have a lot more Faith in Willis than any “real” god 😀
Seriously though, Willis may rip our hearts out, but *he always puts them back*. Dude doesn’t believe in “bad end”.
I can think of several Walkyverse characters who might wish that were true.
Ahh optimism. When Wilis breaks it it will your tears will be soooo sweet.
What makes you say we get to keep her? All we know is that she says “There’s nowhere else for me to go.” Much of the speculation above–including mine–is reading a lot into that one vague statement. Maybe she just means that it is too late to catch a bus back home and she was planning on bunking with Joyce.
(Bunk, bunk, bunk…)
well…
It’s never too late for bunking !
Agh, we all knew it. Still though, I’m super glad Joyce ran out after her right away and didn’t just waste time arguing with Sarah. I just hope Becky doesn’t snap out at Joyce, because right now I think Joyce is doing exactly the right things she needs to do. You guys need to have a long talk!
Welcome to the Displaced Youth Association, LGBTQ Chapter. WE’RE PRETTY DANG HUGE HAHA *sob*
;_;
Oops, need to fix my autofill on this computer.
Much better.
if you think it’s sad now, just wait to see what willis is probably going to do with dina(since, you know, everybody need a very sad story some time)
Willis redeveloping human proportions within his drawing style has become very evident. In today’s strip Joyce and Becky actually look like an adult women.
Hit the “First” button, and the same characters look like they’re four years young- oh.
(Seriously though, the comic’s art is perpetually improving and I like it.)
yeah, the great shift in head size was quite abrupt in fact, and aside from that, you just see better proportions and cleaner lines and such (try zooming in on old stuff vs new stuff). Frankly I remember thinking when DOA started how much David’s art had improved over earlier SP! material and nice it was… now he is far beyond that!
It seem like most webcomics do steadily improve. In print comic strips it seems more common for them to develop a particular style and level and stick with it for consistency or something.
If I remember correctly, the first four weeks of college actually did feel like four years. 0_o
Hrm, a thought. Anyone know of good charities that help people in this kind of situation (displaced LGBTQA youths and similar)?
I can’t give a lot these days, but I can give some, and I keep a list for when I can give more. I already give to HRC for general equality stuff.
Not exactly what you ask for, but I’ve heard good things about this shelter for Trans* people. https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/trans-housing-now-queens-cottage-shelter. The kickstarter is over but I’m sure there are ways to support them.
The Ali Forney Center in NYC.
If you’re serious, I can provide some links to places. Sadly, there aren’t very many.
Thanks for those links.
And yes I am always serious about charity.
I think better government social programs are the way to go for a lot of stuff, but I will always donate to the important causes as long as I can. Especially since we *don’t* have a good social support system in this country…
and then Joyce tries to hug Becky, but her arms pass through her, as Becky died a week ago.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cLyxmD_UAK4
🙁
Ehh, I’m sure it’s just swamp gas or something.
If this were part of the Walkyverse (is that the term for the big combined setting from Roomies through Shortpacked?), I’d not rule that sort of thing out.
(Yes, the Walkyverse is everything Willis has made EXCEPT for Dumbing of Age)
“…tell ’em Large Marge sent ya!”
Aw, you didn’t have to do that, Willis.
We’re all happy to punch you in the gut whenever you need it. And whenever you don’t.
Sounds messy.Sounds messy. But wouldn’t the decaying zombie smell give it away after an entire week.?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FopyRHHlt3M
Oh god, this reminds me a little too much of my favorite teacher in college, who got kicked out of Christian college back in the day because she got caught making out with a girl.
The feeeeeels.
To clarify, she was of student age at the time.
You mean she was one of *his* students? I’m afraid not only Christian colleges would expel a teacher for that reason.
Who is “his” in your sentence?
Nitro is saying that said teacher, back when said teacher was a student, and not yet a teacher, got kicked out of Christian college for having a gay makeout session with another girl. There is no teacher/student boundary being crossed in this story, It’s just a backstory with some old fashioned bigotry in it.
To play fundamentalist’s advocate, I’m pretty sure a professor having a relationship with their student–adult or not–is a fireable offense in college.
As Heavensrun pointed out, there was no student-teacher boundary being crossed. My teacher was a student at the time, and she got caught making out with another female student.
I swear that reply wasn’t there when I posted that.
Yeah, that’s what I thought I read. Got mixed up ^^u
Noooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo this is even worseeeeeeee than I thought
DAMN YOU WILLIS
Becky is the new Sal?
You mean, she’s going to come out of this a cool, confident, bike-riding badass? Man, I hope so. That’s one of the very few good possible outcomes; probably the best.
her story is probably going to be old ruth styled fall
Becky noooooooooooooooooooooo
I need a hug
And another
And another
Why can’t we have happy lesbians?
For some reason, this particular storyline skyrocketed my emotional investment in DoA.(Don’t get me wrong I was invested in it before, but this is on a whole new level) I think something in my brain snapped. I guess Becky hit just a bit too close to home, and now I am a sobbing mess. So thanks for that Willis.
I’ve found the same thing and have been wondering why. Maybe Becky’s giving off a ‘kid sister’ vibe, or maybe it’s just a case of Break the Cutie, but bravo, Willis.
maybe it’s just a case of Break the Cutie, but bravo, Willis.
The “cutie” being broken in this strip has been Joyce. Broken ideologically, anyway. How long was she at college before she was drawing genitalia on everyone’s whiteboard?
Joyce isn’t being broken, she’s being repaired.
Becky, it seems, is being kicked into the gutter by her family.
Right?
Who’s ready for a feel trip with a side stop of homosexual repression?
This storyline doesn’t give me feels. But then again, nothing gives me feels currently.
I gotta say, Friday’s strip scared me. I’m glad that Joyce ran after Becky.
Very much this
This is the most heartbreaking tale of one-way lesbianism I have ever witnessed
One-way love is can be pretty ugly. At least this is relatively drama and police-free. (So far!)
For someone in Joyce’s situation, it’s terrible too. I think she genuinely loves Becky, just obviously “not that way”. The last thing she wants is to hurt Becky.
pretty sure the word your looking for is unrequited
SCHOOOOOL’S
OUT
FOR
EVAH!
Yeah… I figured something was fishy, when Becky just showed up without even a phone call. Classes don’t just get cancelled in the Dumbiverse, unless there is some apocalypse involved.
Ohhh honey, I KNOW THESE FEELS. Getting expelled from conservative Christian colleges for sexual reasons of any kind SUCKS.
Even worse is if she were also thrown out of her home and is now homeless.
Grr. http://www.rollingstone.com/culture/features/the-forsaken-a-rising-number-of-homeless-gay-teens-are-being-cast-out-by-religious-families-20140903
Just wow
i’m pretty sure that IS what happened.
i wonder if willis, like, feeds of ambient suffering or something.
ALSO RELEVANT: I’m sure if you’re a reader here, you understand that people like Joyce’s parents exist and colleges that would expel you for being gay exist, but I just want to drop this link here for those who may be skeptical about this sort of thing. It’s a compilation of my thoughts about a week-long chapel emphasis my former college had on homosexuality, and I must say that it’s just…everything you’d expect from a school that lost their tax-exempt status for insistence on racial discrimination.
Wow.
My family weren’t fundamentalists. Hell, my mom was the only one in my immediate family who’s actually Christian, and she’s extremely liberal. So I’m not entirely sure how it was that I absorbed the toxic attitude that I had in early adolescence. All I know is that from about age eight to finally realizing I didn’t actually believe in God so much as I was afraid of hell around age thirteen, I was a neurotic mess. Even then, I was starting to realize I might be gay and was absolutely terrified to talk about it. This lasted two more years of bottling it up and being terrified and probably contributed to a lapse into major, borderline-suicidal depression.
When I came out to them? It was a non-issue, apart from how I came out (the evening after I basically blurted it in the middle of a theater company meeting because I literally could not hold it back and felt reasonably sure I was safe there). I was lucky for that.
So I remember being that barely-contained pit of self-loathing and misery, and I can’t imagine how terrifying it would be for the poor kids on that campus. The voices telling me it was Wrong were all in my head and the greater background of society by that point. If they had been all around me like that, and watching so I couldn’t talk to anyone when I desperately needed to and was too scared to reach out… I don’t think I would have just been borderline suicidal by that point. (And your expulsion ordeal sounds absolutely horrific. That is… wow.)
holy shit… that expulsion story. i just-
WHAAAA?
i’m honestly not sure what part of that i should take the most second hand offence from. probably the part where the assholes made you hug them good by. i’m pretty sure i would have reengineered someones dentistry at that point.
Merry Christmas.
She won’t be that. Because she’s already made the point she ain’t that way.
Fuck! I posted in the wrong place. Anyway, Joyce made it clear she’s not that way 2 strips ago.
Oh…Oh my God. I…I don’t know why I never thought of this. We’ve had same sex couples at my old high school (remember Catholic school run under the Congregation of Christian Brothers…look it up) but we were pretty accepting of it. I don’t recall them ever bashing homosexuality. They explained why it shouldn’t be practiced and why it’s “wrong” by various religious standpoints, not just Christian or Catholic, but never to the extreme of “You’re a heathen and should be punished” or anything like that.
My school was the first to integrate in the South (the deep and dirty South at that) and we have always been accepting of students from an and all walks of life. We never went out of our change anyone unless it was harmful to themselves or others so I’m pretty damn proud to be a graduate from there…sad to see I can’t say the same for others.
I wanna give that girl a huuug!
Joyce, give that poor gal a huuuuuuug!
Looking at Becky now breaks my heart. Poor girl…
I’m so glad they are talking, the can reforge their friendship and give each other the emotional support they dearly need.
But after that there are other issues that need to be addressed. Becky needs help to find somewhere to go, confront her parents, sort out whatever official things needs to be sorted out – maybe enroll at Indiana University, maybe go somewhere else. She needs someone to help her.
If only there was a superhero and a future president out on the grounds at night that could lend a hand.
Check it out. They even have a “scholarships and financial support” section.
That’s awesome. Now I DEFINITELY want Dorothy to help Becky through the paperwork while Joyce lends emotional support (and Amaziegirl… stand on a rooftop or something). That would be such a great, supportive scene of good people helping each other out.
I knew a guy who went to Anderson and he was gay. He hung himself in a park in Fort Wayne, Indiana. =(
Terrible situation to be on either side of.
awww… I had a feeling about this. That she either dropped out or was kicked out.
that is an awfully short time to graduate, you go becky
– “No Becky, I don’t feel the same – I love you AND STRAWBERRIES just as much.”
– “All I meant, Billie, is that I consider resigning as an RA and see a therapist so I am free to explore our relationship without complications.”
– “Amber’s dad was very protective, so she invented AmazieGirl to sneak out at night and have fun”
Buy your very own Dumbing of age (TM) Rose Colored glasses here. Order now and get a free compliment from Mike.
“Sal was bummed out that she didn’t get the role as cute little mice girl as a kid, but fortunately she got the lead role in a teen drama about connivence store robberies instead.”
This last one really made me laugh ^^
“Ethan and Joyce are very supportive to each other about saving themselves for marriage.”
That is actually a tempting offer right now.
They are from Mike. There’s a difference between “Rose colored” and “rose colored”.
I have wanted to say so much about this strip for so long, but right now, I’m too upset and all I can say is DAMN YOU WILLIS!!!!!
knew it… parents found out.
Well. hopefully you can sneaky live in the dorm and get scholorships loans to go here!
i want them to be together
Yes
I don’t. Oh, I understand wanting to make all the characters happy, but I don’t think that fits Joyce’s characterization, and I do think it’ll make for the most interesting story downstream. If she and Becky don’t get together, Becky’s going to have to come to terms with a number of things about herself, including her sexuality and her impulsiveness, while Joyce is going to also have to come to terms with a number of things about herself, including her responses to homosexuality, her behavior towards Ethan, and how she continues to extend tolerance to other people within her religious viewpoint.
That’d be interesting story-telling.
If they get together, though, then those growth opportunities get swept under the rug.
I think that Joyce owes it to Becky to explain why she’s no longer boy-crazy, though. She needs to talk about that — and Beck needs to come to terms with just how horrible her behavior actually has been.
Why would them getting together remove those growth opportunities?
If they do, I think it will be a long time – for us certainly, but relatively long for them too. Remember how long it was before Robin and Leslie got together in SP!? And how long they were broken up before getting back together?
OK, I’ll grant that a long and painful separation might provide the same level of drama that just not getting together would. I can’t read Willis’ mind, and even if I could, he may not have plotted the story out far enough to know himself, but in either case, I don’t think it fits them very well.
Besides, not only are there no Batman jokes to save in SP!, the drama tag seems to have come pre-pulled in this ‘verse.
Then again, I’m interested in how Willis is going to play the Leslie and Robin story line out here. As in SP!, I just want Leslie to be happy, but I doubt I’ll ever see how that peripheral story out.
Oh, damn… first time comment-er but now I’m really being hit in the feels. Damn you, Willis; you gave us such a high last week then punched us in the guts.
Welcome, first-time Willis-damner!
Huh, I just realized something. In this strip, Becky reacts to Joyce’s attitudes about Billie’s behavior with “Same ol’ Joyce”. That’s the sort of thing you’d say if it’s been a long time since you last saw the other person and they prove not to have changed much. It didn’t jump out at the time because it has been a long time…for us, but for them it’s just been a few weeks. You normally wouldn’t expect somebody to change drastically in that time. I think what’s actually happening there is that Becky is confirming to herself that her observations of Joyce are consistent with her belief that Joyce would reciprocate her love.
Of course, she’s overlooking the fact that Joyce implicitly classed “girl-on-girl hanky-panky” among Billie’s “mistakes”, which probably should have been a red flag. But when you’re looking only for confirmation…
It’s likely that Becky is interpreting Joyce’s so over-the-top cliches of matrimonial romance, and disdain for extra-marital hanky-panky, as a badly constructed front; that no one could be that over-the-top goody-goody, and still have friends like hers at college.
Nope. She’s really like that…. Normally that’s a source of this strip’s comedy. Sadly for Becky, it’s not creating comedy, but the other thing.
It may not be her sexuality (or just that by itself) that is why classes are cancelled forever for her.
It could be just not being able to hack college. That triggered the desire to find another path and pursue her up-til-now-hidden love for Joyce. The first semester is way too soon to flunk out, so why not get out of classes another way?
I know, my theory depends on Becky thinking that getting kicked out for sexual preference is less of a shame than just quitting out of a fear of flunking is. We haven’t really seen her parents and seem to be grafting on several layers of prejudice upon them, just based on their religion.
Remember, Becky wasn’t home-schooled or nearly as sheltered as Joyce was.
>Remember, Becky wasn’t home-schooled or nearly as sheltered as Joyce was.
Um, yes she was. She was in Joyce’s church home-school group. The sheltering part seems to have been somewhat less effective on her, but that’s about it.
dang, replied in the wrong place the first time.
Why does Willis hate freedom?
It’s not just freedom – he hates love, happiness, and, I think, rainbows, too.
Don’t forget butterflies and puppies.
It’s a well known fact that whenever one of his characters is in danger of being happy, Willis goes to the local animal shelter to glare and curse at puppies and kittens until he gets inspiration on how to make his characters miserable again.
Ominous foreshadowing:
http://www.dumbingofage.com/2014/comic/book-5/01-when-somebody-loved-me/fart-joke/#comment-447464
The “tee-hee” alt text was even more ominous foreshadowing.
I’M NOT CRYING, YOU’RE CRYING.
Would Anderson really kick her out for being gay? They have non-christian attendees there as well…but I mean, maybe. Also this IS a fictional world, so the rules could be bent as Willis sees fit. So maybe Anderson kicked her out.
A more likely theory on my part is that she came out to her parents, and they refused to pay for her college, making it so that she couldn’t attend anymore. I have had friends whose parents have held that over their head. “If you don’t do x, I won’t pay for your school.” And if Becky didn’t get any scholarships or grants…well that would be that.
It’s in their rules, quoted above, that, yeah, they can totally kick you out for being gay. Or at least for doing gay stuff.
Oh shit wow
Yknow, Becky did a good job confessing her love. It takes a a lot of guts to do that and at least now she knows instead of being a wussy wart. I mean, obviously, she didn’t took the rejection well, but you have to experience this or you’ll never be healthy mentally.
And oh my god! The comic is in a Becky Joyce sandwich right now! First page
Theory: Becky’s family is actually quite caring and accepting, and she was able to lead a relatively happy life in Anderson while pretending to be straight, but due to a mistake of her own making she tragically doomed herself, probably harming other people around her, and disgracing her parents.
Her sadness at kissing Joyce also comes from the fact that it the fantasy of being with Joyce was the last thing she had to live for, after losing college, friends, and a home. Once that shattered, Becky had to accept that her entire life was made pointless.
It was all her fault. All of it.
Enough to drive anyone crazy, really.
wat
Nah son Becky’s dad is just the worst.
(Never see her mom)
Yotomoe, we need an alternate ending, STAT.
My first comment ever is to say God damnit the feels. Willis!!!!
Okay, so Sarah suggested that Becky was screening Joyce’s calls in the prior strip. Here’s my guess, which tries to incorporate that hint:
1: Becky in some fashion violated Anderson’s “No Homo” rule. Maybe she just came out publicly, or maybe she kissed a girl (who didn’t like it).
2: Becky got expelled, went running to her lifelong best friend, whom she also realized would make a perfect lifemate because BFFs, right?
3: Upon arrival, she tries to get to the right situation where she can talk with Joyce while no one is around. She commandeers the phone to make certain no one can contact Joyce.
4: Meanwhile, the school notifies her parents of her expulsion and departure from campus.
5: Becky Parents try to call Joyce, call her family (who then try to call Joyce), but the calls get screened by Becky.
All of which means that Becky may–just may be assuming that her parents are going to disown her for lesbian-expulsion, but that this won’t happen (possibly because Joyce sits down with them when they come to pick Becky up and makes it utterly clear how shitty a move that would be, because Joyce Moments of Awesome are too far between at the current time).
God: “THIS WAS NOT MY INTENTION!”
so she was expelled from her christian college for being gay? Or her parents disowned her after finding it out? I always assume the worst of the strongly religious…
Those are my guess too, probably both
I keep thinking “Damn you, Willis!!” throughout this comic. It took me until I read the hovertext to release these characters are like his children. I wonder If he ever catches himself saying “Damn me, Willis!!”
saying it like that makes the slipshines pretty creepy
Poor Becky… I know how she feels. She also seems to be suggesting that her family has disowned her as well…
Ok, I blame Kaitlin. Who is apparently Becky’s (former) roommate.
http://www.dumbingofage.com/2012/comic/book-2/06-strange-beerfellows/hands/
She’s tagged! Why would she be tagged! You’ve ruined everything Kaitlin!
It takes two to tango
wow, Sokka voice totally fits that post, too
…I think it’s corrupted my posting style.
oh snap! I think you’re on to something!
I had assumed Becky panicked and dropped out of college, because that’s something I’ve seen happen before, but “There’s nowhere else for me to go” and the comments now have me assuming her parents disowned her. Holy crap, forget college, she might not even have money for food right now. I really hope it’s not that grim – maybe there was a big blowup but her family hasn’t totally abandoned her?
Good luck, Becky. I’m glad you have a friend like Joyce to support you.
Joyce not letting Becky get ice cream just got a whole lot darker.
DETAILED ANSWER THAT RUINS THE JOKE:
So long as Becky’s in the cafeteria, she’s freely able to get food, because you swipe your meal card at the entrance and questions aren’t asked once inside. Joyce would have had it swiped twice to accommodate both herself and Becky. Since Joyce was getting up for ice cream, it can be assumed they all had normal food already.
There is an ad running that randomly says “yep” while trying to run and agrees with what I’m reading in the comments, and it’s spooky as shit.
I’ve discovered if you read Willis’ comics long enough you start to enjoy his characters suffering.
Must be a lot longer than I have been reading, and while I wasn’t there for say, Roomies! or It’s Walky!, I have been reading SP! since like… I dunno, Second Eaton or something
I found it more enjoyable in Roomies! and early IW!, because all the characters were jerks and deserved their suffering. Though Ruth’s desserts were a little over the top.
(I came in around the FOUR WORD ANNOYING MEME.)
Damn you Willis!
I think Becky having no eyes is foreshadowing something.
Honestly, for everyone blubbering “feels” in the comments, we’re still a step away from a major reveal on top of the current one. I’m going to see how this plays out and then have my feels, gun-jumpers.
And here I am, once again futilely refreshing the page for no reason.
Joyce, I’m SUPER proud of you right now. You are reacting to the revelation that your best friend is a lesbian FAR better than I expected (we’re talking many orders of magnitude, here, like the mass of a pebble versus the mass of the Earth). I still maintain that her kissing you was the wrong move, but desperate people make mistakes. Still, I was expecting a homophobic freakout, and here you are being a good friend. Shocked the heck out of me.
yaaayy for understanding friends
what, WHAT HAPPENED? nooo