In general when people do mouseover stuff without an accompyaning link they use this or this – though I think you can do it with links too. What did you try? test
I did have a kind of cute gay roommate one year, and while we both had suspicions, we never actually came out to each other until years later when we found each other on OKCupid.
I’m not sure it was quite as aggressive as you think it was. Note that in all three panels they are both wearing different clothing? And especially that between panels 2 and 3 Becky somehow goes from shorts to pants. I think that indicates that some time passed between the panels in this flashback. Sure, the book between panels 3 and 4 seems the same, but again the clothing doesn’t, and there’s no indication of clothing on the floor, either. If they got up and carefully stowed their discarded clothes the book would have been stowed as well, right?
I’ll say. Always lock the door when you decide to strangle your roommate, or else they’ll bolt. And buy a tarp and shovel beforehand and separately, you get funny looks when you walk up to the counter with those things together.
i don’t recall rocks from Armageddon Factor, but it has been decades since I’ve seen it. the only rock i clearly recall is the big nasty one Turlough was brandishing in Mawdryn Undead.
Definitely not Dutch — I should know, I am Dutch.
From my admittedly very limited knowledge of North Germanic a.k.a. Scandinavian languages, you can trust Google translate on this one, not just that it’s Norwegian, but also the general sense of the translation.
Not sure why one would post in a language other than English here, but then again, who doesn’t get drunk sometimes? 🙂
I don’t read any languages other than English and a little Spanish, but I have a lot of Dutch items around the house and the spelling of some of the words was similar. But then that’s true of most of the Germanic languages of the Continent. English is a Germanic language, but we have mugged so many other languages for their vocabularies that only a linguist or historian knows that any more.
In lejwocky’s first post, there are exactly three words that could also be Dutch, and two of those are false friends: “en” is the indefinite article in Norwegian, and means “and” in Dutch; “ikke” means “not” in Norwegian, and childishly emphatic “I” in Dutch (think “who wants to go first?” — “ikke, ikke, ikke” is like “me me meeee”; the normal form of “I” is “ik”).
“Kom” is the only one of those words that means the same thing in both Norwegian and Dutch; it means “come”.
It is a lot of fun to decipher these things. It’s a minefield of linguistic false friends, but there are also enough similarities that make it all seem sorta-kinda familiar and connected.
(Also, my dad is a linguist, and his interests did rub off on me, so I may just be a little bit more nerdy about this stuff than others.)
Oh wait, “er” is another Dutch/Norwegian false friend. It means “is” in Norwegian, and non-emphasized “there” in Dutch. (“There” with emphasis is “daar”.)
It’s mainly the laundering instructions printed on the Dutch Army surplus sleeping bag I use, but as the bag was surplussed out in the late ’70s and I have been camping with it since the mid ’90s those instructions are probably moot by now. I got a lot of camping equipment from that particular surplus sale but as I couldn’t read the care instructions and it is coming up on twenty years since I bought the stuff, most of it is pretty much useless now. And mostly illegible.
Translation: “That’s not Becky, it’s some kind of thing (as in something inhuman). It’s pretending to be Becky, it’s not real! COME ON YOU IDIOTS!!
(I am swedish so I am not 100% sure about the last line since I don’t see what “vekk” could mean)
I also read the last line as “GET AWAY FROM THERE, IDIOTS!”. I’m Danish, and ‘vekk’ sounds suspiciously like ‘væk’ which, as Thomas says, means ‘gone/away’.
Not only that, but it’s an automated translation into Norwegian. As a Norwegian, I can understand the meaning, but none of the words are in correct tense or even order.
Based on the flashback, I think Becky was the one that was assimilated. The other girl… kaitlin, took off her glasses and set them beside the bed it seems. Not something you would do if you weren’t expecting it.
Not to mention you get when you hold up two rolls of duct tape and ask, “Which one of these is better at muffling human screams and binding hands and feet?”
Shovel? Amateur. Dispose of the corpse in the nearest convenient body of water; be sure to pierce the abdominal cavity so that it doesn’t float when the organs start to decompose. I swear, what do they teach you kids in school these days?
Which power tools are more dangerous, and how to weaponize drawing implements. And how to calculate the trajectories of all kinds of projectiles, arrows included.
Power tools are overrated, especially chainsaws; too heavy, depends on a functioning power grid, and if someone who has one gets close enough to use it, you’ve probably already lost. Projectiles I’ll grant you, you should be able to weaponize almost anything, and instead of power tools, go with a good basic conditioning program combined with fighting with your basic stick with a pointy end.
Doubtful about the slipshine. I’m not convinced they actually had sex. I think that if a slipshine was in the making, he would’ve made it a little more obvious. I think they probably just made out, and felt each other up.
It’s a Christian college, remember. Crucifix on the doorknob, so people wikll think they’re praying. This will also explain any overheard invocations of the deity.
Actually, since it’s a Protestant/Evangelical, and likely fundamentalist school, a Crucifix would mark them as being closet Catholics, and thus even worse than teh gayz, who at least aren’t usually heretics. Protestants use an unoccupied cross, so they can avoid idolotry, just like the segment of Muslims who bar depiction of the Prophet’s face in art.
She had no cell phone, and Joyce was calling her dorm phone. This also explains why her roommate didn’t answer the phone, because she was probably also kicked out.
Becky, I want you to know that I couldn’t see any of that. You just…started speaking from what sounded like the final part of line of thought you never started.
“It’s girl love. That’s all that’s there
It’s girl love. She’s mine, I’m hers.
There’s a little gayness about it on Becky’s side.
Some ask us about this thing we share
And Joyce nervousely replies
It’s GIRL LOVE
because we’re both not guys.”
Someone in the comments for the last strip actually predicted that Kaitlin would be the cause of all this. There’s only one other strip in which she appears. Kudos to that guy (or girl).
I’ve been probing these comments for stuff like that, and I have never seen it happen. My Patreons are good folk. It’s why I’ve started posting early updates every day — at first I was worried about crossposted spoilers and so only did it occasionally, but since it never happened, I cranked up the frequency and earliness.
(It’s pretty easy to find Kaitlin in the archives — Becky only shows up a handful of times before this storyline, so if you’re digging through them to get a better understanding of her, then there the tag is, plain as day. And that tag’s only been there for about two days anyway, ‘cuz of this. I know my readers got eagle eyes.)
I remember last time I visited that page, I checked to see if Becky’s roommate had a name listed among the tags, since she’s drawn with a bit more detail than I’d expect from a throwaway extra.
She didn’t, so I concluded she couldn’t be important.
Did you put it in and then take it out again? I’m almost positive I spotted it before Becky showed up, but then it wasn’t there and I started to think I’d imagined it.
Y’know, if you wanted us not to notice Kaitlin and her tag, I think you should have used her more. A tag when she’s got only one appearance, immediately before Becky disappears, is suspicious. A tag when she’s appeared in the background of two or three strips and been established as just Becky’s roommate, pay no attention, isn’t.
I have early access now, but I go pretty far to make sure my comments here are based on what is available here, and my predictions based only on that. Often adapted from comments I may have made the day before on Patreon.
That’s one of the reasons I haven’t gotten the early access. I don’t want to be unable to participate in the speculation in the comments.
That early access exists at all has had something of a chilling effect on my speculation, because I don’t want to look stupid in front of people who already know the answer. But after apparently reading Willis’s friggin’ mind a year in advance, I think I’m over that.
The RAs and other dorm staff have keys to get in, although when I lived in a dorm someone had come up with the sweetest hack to get around even that. When the bolt was shot, the thing on the inside that turned the bolt was horizontal, a few inches above the door knob. They found something to wedge in between the knob and the bolt-thingy–I want to say that it was some kind of Star Trek prop, like a communicator or one of those little phasers that was like a TV remote–so that even if someone on the other side had the master key, they wouldn’t be able to turn the cylinder because the inside bolt-thingy was held still. Ingenious.
Man, getting weird, petty vengeance for your crush leaves you blind, don’t it? Most people have to learn the lesson to lock their doors the hard way, not the easy way.
Well if they were just hanging out and then suddenly Kaitlin put the moves on her, they might not have thought about locking the door. Sometimes when you’re in the throws of passion, logic goes out the window.
Bless you for the tagging mechanism, Willis…As often as I may damn you for playing with my emotions so cruelly, you do a lot of little things very very right. (Seriously people, go Patreon this awesome guy).
I mean, I would have hoped that Becky wouldn’t be feeling so doomed if someone else was in the same situation. Maybe stay with Kaitlin’s family or something if she’s been kicked out by her parents.
The lack of that makes me suspicious. Maybe she did turn traitor and promise to “reform” or something.
Oh crap, I didn’t even think of that. I am predisposed to have a vewwwy low opinion of those wascally fundies, and kinda assumed that pre-marital same-sex hanky-pankering would he an automatic expulsion regardless of what she said afterwards, but I dunno.
Becky’s parents likely disowned her after finding out about this. What makes you think Kaitlin’s parents would have reacted that much better? I mean that’s super optimistic to think they’d be at all okay with Becky being anywhere near their daughter. Even if they potentially didn’t disown Kaitlin and even if Kaitlin didn’t turn against Becky they’d probably blame Becky for the whole thing.
Good point. If Kaitlin spoke in favor of helping Becky, Kaitlin’s parents would be even more adamant about keeping them apart. It is human nature to blame others for your own faults or those of your loved ones. “You were a good Christian girl before that red-headed spawn of Satan corrupted you! So no, we are not taking her in!”
Oh, I just read “kicked out” as expelled; bit early to say if either girl’s parents are quite that level of sick bastids. I mean, I know it happens, but not in every single fundie family that has a gay kid in it. BUTT _)_) anyway, the original comment does make more sense by accounting for that possibility.
“Hey check out this phony spellbook! Check it out. This one says that this spell will turn anyone within earshot gay.”
“Dude that’s so bogus! Read it Read it!”
I once found a chatroom where people were seriously discussing finding the Salmacis, a lake in Greek mythology that turned everyone who swam in it gay.
I’m not sure how that would be the case, but it *does* just so happen that my only (at least, non-closeted) lesbian friend from high school was named Kaitlin. She spelled it just that way, too.
A minor bit of setting in Vinge’s “True Names and Other Dangers” is that in The Future, “Jennifer” has become one of those names that sounds as old-fashioned and unhip as Gertrude, Esther, Patience, et al do to us.
Well on the plus side at least Becky doesn’t seem to have any actual issues with her sexuality (with how she personally feels about it) just how the world as a whole has screwed her over because of it. Aww poor Becky (and Kaitlin since I’m assuming she got expelled too).
In kind of a shitty socioeconomic position, though. No job, no house, parents may have disowned her and almost certainly aren’t going to fund her while she’s away…
I’m guessing she’s been over that period of confusion, I’m guessing it’s just cause whoever opened the door outed her and her parents took it badly. Then again all my predictions and theories seem to have been proven wrong lately… I’m gonna guess Joyce totally doesn’t love Becky back and would never even consider going and doing a little good old fashioned tounge grappling back in her room.
I see a few ways this could go-
1- they’re caught, & both kicked out
2- they’re caught, Kaitlyn makes a DEAL, Becky is kicked out
3- they’re caught, Kaitlyn’s parents pull some strings, Becky is kicked out
4- they’re caught, Becky reacts angrily, Becky is kicked out
5… Need I go on? Many possibilities, there are. Let’s wait and see what The Willis delivers.
Given that their clothes change, implying timeskip, and that their skintones are indistinguishable in the flashback, how can you tell who’s on top? We can’t see their hair…
It helps that the classes are on the far side of the bed from their faces. Speaking as one of the bespectacled, I’m typically the one to take them off, and they pretty much always go to the left if that was where I was sitting compared to milady.
Given that their clothes change in each panel, I’m assuming this is a time lapse so who knows. And there’s no reason Kaitlin wouldn’t have been booted as well.
She-Hulk. Jennifer Walters shows up to defend Becky, it backfires when the school admins assume that any woman over six feet tall and muscular must be a lesbian herself.
It further backfires when Jennifer misjdges her own strength momentarily and ends up shattering a 150-year old table when slamming her fist down in anger.
I’m glad to see Becky seems to stand by her sexuality so far. It’d be frustrating to see both her and Ethan act like it’s awful, and Becky will likely help Joyce become more openminded, which Ethan really can’t.
That’s definitely true. I’m thinking (hoping?) that Joyce will see things from Becky’s perspective and decide to break up with Ethan. The only problem would be that she lacks another source of support, but maybe Becky and Amazi girl can be that support?
I’m kinda puzzled as to why people assume being on top necessarily = starting something.
a) They could have started out in a different position, and
b) It’s entirely possible to kiss someone, then lean back to pull them down on top of you.
Who cares who started it? The time lapse between panels 2 and 4 (*) indicates that this wasn’t just some heat-of-the-moment thing; this built up gradually, and was completely consensual. Meaning, it felt right to both of them.
(*) See posts by Oberon and Sluthy, above.
Possible and awesome. Or just lie down and grab their collar, pulling them into a kiss… Really, possibilities are only limited by human imagination. That said, I agree with Thomas64: mutual attraction developed over time.
I remembered Kaitlin! I noticed – by coincidence, while looking for something else completely just before Becky showed up again, actually – that she’d been tagged, and was expecting her to reappear!
I say! It’s like that Japanese series with all those Catholic school girls and their rosaries. Wouldn’t let my daughter watch that stuff: it’d only put bad ideas in her brain.
Have you ever locked 6+ drunk people in a room with a copy of the Bible and a houseplant?
Next thing you know, there’s a drunken orgy going on on one side of the room, and one weirdo making out with the plant on the other.
Becky’s cute as shit, and I love a gross girl, but I can’t say much for her taste in ladies thus far. I hope Kaitlin was a fun lady cuz otherwise I will wag my finger at her lady taste.
I think the ruining Becky’s life part is being done by Becky’s parents. Even if the pre-marital lesbian hanky-panky got Becky expelled, yesterday’s “I have nowhere to go to” sounds like her folks are, shall we say, not super helpful at this juncture.
Seems obvious enough, but she probably grew up in a house where the bedroom doors were never to be locked and never developed the habit we all take for granted when we need privacy.
Interesting… See, I grew up in a house without any locks on the bedroom or bathroom doors in the first place, so this is new to me. That makes sense, the locking being perceived (perhaps not consciously) as an admission of guilt.
Maybe it’s possible that everything happened so fast Becky didn’t have time (at first, then presence of mind later) to think of those things.
Can’t really speak from experience on ‘happen so fast didn’t think of that’ since that would involve a woman being really desperate to even notice that I exist, but I’d have to think something like that would scramble your mind for a few minutes at least.
The Good One, at a guess. I’m gonna theorise that Kaitlin is a more progressive Christian and was talking her through the six or so clobber verses that get used to condemn homosexuality, and how they… basically don’t.
And her navel as an everflowing fountain. The translators in the King James era had a very poor understanding of Hebrew and Aramaic words for anatomy, they translated achilles tendon as “big toe”. There are parts of a woman’s anatomy that generate liquids when stimulated, but I would not place the navel among those parts.
At first I thought the flashback panels were all, like, in one day, a sequence of events. Then I noticed the different clothes in every panel and realized this was a progression over time xD
S:”Like Zoinks, Fred. I think I hear a weird sucking noise.”
F:”It sounds like kissing, Shaggy”
V:”But that’s not possible. The guard said there’s noone but girls in this dorm.”
D:”Jeepers, does that mean…?”
S:”Ri’ll Ret my Ramera, Raggy”
In Mystery Inc it still isn’t out in the open canon, but they do get pretty darn close to stating it, as I understand it. Much more so than previous material, where you really had to chose to read it that way.
According to the series bible Velma is 5 or 6 on the Kinsey scale, which is why she never showed a romantic interest in either Fred or Shaggy. Early shows did not show her as interested in girls either, but only because they never exposed her to her “type”
I always interpreted Shaggy as too obsessed with food and/or terrified of whatever to be attracted to many people, if any. We all know someone too devoted to their hobby/ies to care for sexuality, and/or someone too intimidated by romance to give it a try.
So what they did got her kicked out of school.
That is just not right. Both of them were, at least in Becky’s version, consenting.
Logical, yes, Christian school likely not going to condone it. Justice, no way.
Poor Becky. At least she is not crying about doing it, just getting caught at it.
I do wonder about Doctor, up the thread line.
My (at one time baptist) school had strict curfew for guys being in the girls dorms after a certain hour (pretty early) and weird rules about the door being open. And that was *heterosexual* sex-prevention.
Which I didn’t realize was weird on a campus with maybe ten or so students that were 17 in a state where age of consent is 16. We also had crazy strict porn-blockers on all campus internet that we fought for months to get rid of because they were so strict we had trouble getting on legitimate websites to complete homework.
We weren’t even a Christian school. We had PAST Christian associations.
So yeah. This storyline doesn’t shock me.
I would ask if you went to my school but I’m betting there’s a lot of formerly-baptist colleges out there with those kinda weird rules. Dudes weren’t even ALLOWED in the girls’ dorms certain days, where I went.
Maybe not kicked out of school, but shamed to the point that *ANYWHERE* would be better than there.
The other alternative is that once Becky’s parents found out — and you’ve got to assume that they were notified — they either 1) cut off support, both financial and familial, in which case Becky is on her own and in a real world of hurting; or 2) yanked her out and brought her home in which case Becky is AWOL and on the lam from her parents.
It actually doesn’t make sense as ‘If I had to do it over again’, though.
The sentence used here is a wish to do something she can’t – if I had it – the other sentence is a grudging acceptance of something she could – if I had to.
Probably a regional variation then. Certainly over here in the UK I don’t think I’ve ever heard “If I had it all to do over again”, but “If I had to do it [all over] again” (or “If I could…”) is commonly used without any grudging sense. It’s more normally used when you’re talking about the mistake you’d correct, or the change you’d make with the benefit of hindsight.
…I disagree completely on that interpretation. To me they mean the same thing. Grudging or not would depend on circumstance and inflection, if anything.
‘Having to do it all over again’ implies being required to complete something again. Having it ‘to do over again’ implies having a chance to do it again, hopefully without making the same mistakes.
To everyone: the two phrasings have rather different meanings. The “to do it all” phrasing puts the infinitive “to” in conjunction with the “had”, turning it into the closest thing English has to the past tense of “must”, while the “it all to do” phrasing puts the “it” in conjunction with the “had”, keeping it as the past tense of “have”. The former emphasizes the doing, the latter the having. Furthermore, the “to do it all” phrasing shows regret in the overall action, while “it all to do” phrasing shows regret in just one part of the action.
In other words, yes, Becky liked Kaitlin, and would love to have kept her relationship with her, but is unable to do so because she didn’t lock the door, and that last action is what she regrets.
You know….as much as this must feel really terrible for Becky in the moment, I think she is in a really good place. She won’t be sneaking around her school pretending to be something she’s not, or worse, hiding who she is, and she won’t be harboring or agonizing over a hidden crush for who knows how long. Everything is out in the open. While it is heartbreaking right now, she is in the perfect spot to begin creating a life that pursues and reflects who she is. She’ll find another school, and is free to pursue any relationship she chooses (without some false perception of Joyce or what she thinks they can have preventing her from thks pursuit.) In a weird way….I am actually really excited for her.
Some people only need to step over a line in the sand to come into who they are…..others have to run screaming through a glass door shattering all around them. Both are important, but I tend to admire the glass shatter-ers more.
True, except… she has nowhere to go. I’m guessing her parents know what happened and either (a) she doesn’t feel welcome there or (b) has been kicked out. That is a really bad place to be in. I’m sure Joyce won’t let her live on the streets, but yeah.
Or c) She hasn’t yet spoken to her parents out of shame, and is avoiding them.
In which case it could be that they may not kick her to the curb, just that she fears it.
Given how Willis has treated Joyce’s faith, and balanced that with her relationships with everyone, I’m assuming he’s not depicting all highly religious people as assholes, (Just Joyce’s mom so far.) I’ll hold judgement back on Becky’s parents until I see actual evidence of actions on their part.
It could well be that they are worried about where their daughter has gotten to, and her safety. (Hence the call-screening that Sarah is suspicious of)
Though in any event, what did she think Joyce would do? Keep her hidden in the dorms as a live-in lover, or at least a non-student extra roommate?
with them not allowing her to own a phone and such.
That has been mentioned before…and yet, Joyce has called her at least twice! And both times, she was shown answering on something that looked like a smart phone, not an old Ma Bell dormitory phone.
Except that her parents have likely cut her off, so she’s starting this wonderful new life with a HS degree, no money, no credit, no job history, and no life experience. She has literally no options at this point.
You and carriethedragon make a good point. I was thinking of her emotionally more than practically. I think because she can resolve the practical easier than resolving years of the negative emotional effects if everything was still hidden…but you both are right, that does make it a bit more complicated. Maybe Dorothy’s parents will take her in hehe.
“Becky, You’re in luck. As far as I’ve seen like…70% of the students and faculty here are lesbians. In fact, there’s more boys here who aren’t into girls than girls who aren’t into girls.”
how horrendous would it be to be sexually assaulted by your roommate to realize you’re a lesbian in love with your childhood best friend? but i wouldn’t put it past willis to write that in in another comic
Oh no, no, I was imagining Becky misread the signals and instigated, and the fact that it was not consensual was what got her in more trouble than the other girl. That said, I guess we have no proof that Kaitlin didn’t get kicked out too. You bring up an excellent point- that would be horrific.
Because we’ve already seen Becky kiss a straight girl without her consent once? Though she probably would have been more careful if that were the case with Kaitlin.
I see I worded my comment incorrectly. I thought perhaps Becky misread her roommate’s signals. That’s what I meant by non-consensual- not that her roommate sexually assaulted her.
Pretty sure it was consensual. Becky’s on top so that means she’s the one who went for it, but Kaitlyn is in Becky’s bed and she wouldn’t have been if she didn’t want to be.
I’m not going to assume if what happened was consensual or not, but just because Kaitlin is sitting on Becky’s bed doesn’t mean Kaitlin consents to making out or anything like that. Sitting on a bed isn’t an invitation to do anything.
When I was in the Air Force and lived in the dorms, there wasn’t a lot of space for people to sit. You either sit on the floor, one of two chairs, or one of two beds. Invariably people sat on my bed, or I on theirs–not an invitation to make out, just a matter of small shared living spaces.
The unlocked door got (probably) them both expelled, so before by necessity. Although the expression on Kaitlin’s “What’s so great about Joyce?” face in that strip implies that it’s after she’s started thinking about it.
I was gonna say after, because I took the call as the catalyst for Becky disappearing, but she looks fine in that strip. So I’ll go with before, and go with some sequence like: call, but Becky hasn’t fixated on Joyce yet; then she and Kaitlin together, but are found out; then expulsion / disowning; then Becky thinks of Joyce as her only remaining friend, the only place she can go; then Becky twists herself up to fixating on Joyce (“of course, I’ve always loved her and she’s always loved me, why didn’t I see it before?”). We’ve already seen she’s not too hot with confirmation bias and selective evidence.
Adding Kaitlin to the mix complicates things. Quite possibly their dorm’s version of Mary was involved, but there are still a lot of open questions.
I already posted a comment about this down below, but it’s got to get approved because too many links, so the relevant bit without links: from Becky’s shirt, it looks like panel four of this strip is the same day as Kaitlin’s previous appearance, when Joyce called Becky to tell her she was holding Ethan’s hand in church.
I suspect panel four happened after that, and was directly triggered by it.
Hmm. Becky’s wearing blue pants, not white shorts in the previous strip (as Ray points out) but that now makes me wonder… Is she actually wearing the same outfit today? (White shorts, don’t know what’s under the hoodie.) We know the call was about a week ago, but not when she was caught… Is it possible she literally panicked and ran today / yesterday?
The last time Joyce talked to Becky on the phone was Sunday of Week Three, when she called from church to tell her she was holding Ethan’s hand. First thing in the morning on Wednesday of Week Three, and again later that day, Joyce tried to call Becky, and Becky didn’t answer. I think this is highly suggestive that Becky got expelled sometime between Sunday 3 and Wednesday 3, and the reason she wasn’t answering was because she wasn’t there – Becky doesn’t have a cell phone, just their dorm room phone. (This may also hint that Kaitlin got expelled, too, because even if she’s got her own phone, I don’t think she’d just sit there and let the room phone ring.)
It’s currently Thursday (I think) of Week Four. That makes it more than a week, maybe a week and a half, since Becky went incommunicado. It’s possible that she’s still wearing the same clothes, but if so, it’s not because she just got caught today. (And I think Joyce would’ve noticed if Becky’d been in the same clothes for a week or more. Especially if they were the same clothes she’d been having sex in. Though, I dunno, maybe not being all that hygienic is normal for Becky.)
I think it’s more likely that Becky’s parents took her home and kept her cut off from the outside world for that intervening week, and she’s now run away to the one person in the whole world she knew cared about her.
Having been an RA, I can absolutely see college residential life coordinators putting meat-puppets whose basic function is to snitch on the RAs if they themselves don’t follow the rules. They don’t use them as RAs themselves because they’re very limited in function; instead of attending classes, during the day they all assemble in a small room in the subbasement of the facilities management building, where they glower at each other and mumble “I’m telling” for no particular reason.
After having re-read through the archive due to Becky wonderfulness…can I just say that this comic is great? I mean, at this point it’s my third longest consistently-read webcomic, behind GITP and QC.
“We might have been able to cover it up by explaining that she was just giving me CPR, but the k.d. lang songs playing on loop on her iPod and my roommate’s copy of “Rubyfruit Jungle” on the floor kind of made what we were doing kind of obvious”
Despite the fact that chicks are making out on this page, I can’t stop staring at the discarded book in the third flashback panel and imagining the horrible bleeding paper cut I’d be afraid of receiving if I carelessly dropped one.
But I guess a dripping paper cut is small potatoes compared to the dripping hatchet wounds going on there
I took me a third read-through to realize that the above flashback was three separate days. Either that, or they changed clothes twice while having a conversation.
Hmm. All of which leads to the interesting possibility that Becky isn’t in love with Joyce at all, but just latched onto that as an idea when her mind was scrambling for safety.
Could be, but also possibly started to realize she was gay with her roommate, and also began to realize that is what her feelings for Joyce were. But Joyce wasn’t around, while her roommate was, and it didn’t seem like that would change, so…
Probably no one read it because I posted it so late on yesterday’s strip, but I figured out the timing of Becky going incommunicado. Joyce last talked to Becky on Sunday of Week Three, to tell her she was holding hands with a boy in church. From Becky’s clothes, it looks like panel four of this strip occurs that same day.
So I’m thinking that Becky and Kaitlin gettin’ it on was directly triggered by that call from Joyce, and at least this latest part of the mess probably could have been averted if Becky hadn’t already been kicked out when Joyce tried to call her that second time.
And, ironically, that morning that Joyce tried to call Becky and she wasn’t answering was also the morning that Joyce was freaking out because everyone in college turns gay, possibly including herself.
Nonononono- SOLAR PLEXUS! It will immediately incapacitate her and, with luck, make her see the glory of God (or something) without actually killing her, thereby showing her how wrong she has been and forcing her to grovel for everyone’s forgiveness! MWAHAHAHA!
An inch or two higher and you can snap the xyphoid process off the end of the sternum. With proper technique, it can be driven into the heart for a near-certain kill in one blow.
I like your idea better. Or better yet, kidney punch.
As far as I can tell, Dorothy, Amber, Sal, Sarah, Dina, and, unfortunately, Joyce, are straight (though it’s still possible that the issue with the Joyce/Becky ship isn’t that Joyce isn’t into girls, but that she loves Becky… like a sister, much like Walky is completely oblivious to Billie being the hottest girl in the comic).
The ratio among the minor characters is probably a bit skewed by the inclusion of most of Squad 48, who were basically the “Dear Penthouse, you won’t believe the squad of alien fighters I got assigned to [REDACTED FOR LENGTH AND PG RATING] — Joe” squad in IW!, but there are plenty of them who’ve never shown any sign of being into girls, either: Mary, Rachel, Agatha, Roz, Other Rachel, Asma…
We have seen nothing of Dina’s actual sexual attractions to other humans, and given her level of social skills, I could see her “experimenting” in the sense of control group, double blind, etc.
I probably would have if I weren’t sick and had gotten to the thread earlier before everyone in the world replied to it. Why? Because it’s kind of majorly annoying that I can’t ever introduce someone who isn’t straight or a dude or whatever without someone asking “ARE ALL YOUR CHARACTERS ________??????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????”
Almost every strip where a gay couple/person shows up, someone asks the question “Is everyone in this strip GAY?” I don’t get it! There are tons of people who aren’t gay! And even if they were, who cares?
Notice that the three panels (in flashback) are not continuous, but are meant to show a passage of time and a growing attraction to each other — as evidenced by the fact that Becky and Kaitlin are wearing different outfits in each panel.
HAHA I TOTALLY REMEMBER HER. At the time I thought maybe she was someone who was a real-life person in strip (I remember Willis doing those as rewards in Shortpacked! if you paid a certain amount in a kickstarter you got to be an extra in a comic, not sure if he’s done it here though), as she was in the foreground and was fairly detailed.
But NOPE. Obviously meant she was an important character in two years time
No, not for having sex in this case. In the last scene of that flashback, there were no clothes strewn about. Anderson (which is a real place, BTW) has in its Student Honor Code a prohibition against “homosexual behavior”. So even if they were just caught smoochin’, the school would be booting them.
And this is not a uniform attitude in the US, all you foreigners. Anderson is a very small Christian college, with the emphasis on “Christian”. It can get away with expelling a young lady for pashing another young lady because LGBTQ people are not a protected class as far as discrimination laws are concerned, both nationally and in many individual states. In many states in the US, people can be fired, denied housing, or not allowed in stores or other private property on the basis that they are some flavor of Queer, or at least appear to be so by the person who is (legally) discriminating against them. Anderson is in one of these states, and thus they exercise their loathsome-but-legal right to purge their institution from anyone who looks longingly at the wrong person.
Same here on the EC. While we’ve successfully JUST passed the bill to legalize gay marriage in Florida, there are still those fighting tooth and nail to extend the ban past Jan. 5 the day when it’ll be officially legal.
And this is not a uniform attitude in the US, all you foreigners. Anderson is a very small Christian college, with the emphasis on “Christian”. It can get away with expelling a young lady for pashing another young lady because LGBTQ people are not a protected class as far as discrimination laws are concerned, both nationally and in many individual states.
In theory, private religious schools can even discriminate against protect groups of people if they are willing to go completely private and forgo all government money such as student loans, and possible even give up their tax exempt status. Bob Jones University eventually decided to admit black students rather than pay taxes, but even then they tried to argue that a ban on interracial dating was not racist if it applied to everybody.
Yes. It should also be noted that private Christian colleges (of various sizes) can expel for a lot of other reasons that may or may not make sense. This involves premarital hanky-panky for heterosexual couples, but it can also involve a lot more ridiculous things.
Like, I know my grandmother went to a school that banned DANCING. I’ve looked it up, they have, like, school-sanctioned square dances, that’s it in terms of dances that will not bring about the very moral fabric of their society. I’m pretty sure Becky here could easily have gotten expelled for being in the same room with a man without supervision, or skipping church services/Bible readings/whatever too often (they’re usually mandatory), or watching a movie that was too un-Christian for her. (Read: Probably anything rated above PG, and ESPECIALLY stuff that depicts or refers to sex)
But yes: At the kind of college Becky was going to, she could totally have been expelled for kissing other ladies. She can totally be fired from a job or denied access to places for being into other ladies. Our country’s stance on religious versus personal rights is such that it is A-OK to deny people healthcare coverage because they get insurance through their employer and their employer has a strongly-held moral opposition to whatever thing they need. (Specifically, hormonal birth control, which can be used for a variety of things not including sex, but the floodgate has been opened for things like blood transfusions or antibiotics too because of short-sighted slut-shaming geezers.)
There is an actual law in Illinois that could potentially go through that doctors would be able to deny treating homosexuals.
There is an actual law in Illinois that could potentially go through that doctors would be able to deny treating homosexuals.
Well, if it hasn’t gone through yet, it’s a bill, not a law, and bugfuck crazy legislators introduce bills all the time that have no hope of passing, to make good with their base. And Illinois is one of the states that currently prohibits discrimination in healthcare based on sexual orientation.
I live in Illinois and while I have never heard of such a law I can tell you there is no way in hell such a law would even have a chance of being passed. Illinois may love its laws so much the Missouri is basically Mexico to us, but this state is too liberal for a law like that to make it off the crack job who wrote its desk.
Re: Becky’s circumstance: it looks to me like she had a consensual lesbian relationship with Kaitlin at her christian college and got kicked out and her parents want nothing to do with her now (not sure if it’s the lesbian part or the getting kicked out of college part that her parents disowned her for, maybe both?)
But after reading todays strip I’m now wondering whether or not Becky actually is in love with Joyce or if that confession was supposed to manipulate (for lack of a better word) Joyce into not hating Becky for being into girls . Becky was probably afraid that if she had just told Joyce that she hooked up with her girl roommate and got kicked out of her christian college and her parents won’t have her back home, Joyce would have excommunicated Becky from her life (because as far as Becky knows, Joyce is as bible-thumping as she had been at the start of the series). What brought up this thought is that we’ve now discovered that Becky had a relationship with another girl according to today’s strip, and the thing that she regrets about it is not locking the door. If she would have been able to continue the relationship with Kaitlin, she probably would have, but it’s probably impossible now since their relationship is the very reason they are now in awful places in life. Becky might have not been thinking that much about Joyce at all until she got caught and wound up without a place to go.
Is Becky actually in love with Joyce and what happened in college was just a meaningless hookup that lead to an unfortunate collapse of her world? Or is Becky being manipulative with Joyce’s emotions in a last resort effort to have a place with Joyce? I would like to think the prior, but I don’t really know enough about Becky to tell if she’s being honest or if she’s acting. If she got kicked out of her christian college for something else (I don’t know, watching lesbian porn?) I wouldn’t be so doubting of her character.
It might be that, rather than being kicked out of Anderson, her parents were alerted, refused to pay and disowned her. Not that it would make it any better for poor Becky.
Someone above suggested that the development of a relationship with her roommate is what helped her realize what she’d been feeling about Joyce all along.
I really like the subtle change of clothing through the panels. Missed it the first read, but on second look it makes the whole thing pack a little more punch. An attraction that developed naturally.
also the fact that Becky is wearing the same shorts she wears in the present, which makes me assume she got kicked out with just the clothes on her back and she REALLY has nothing else but her shoes and Joyce right now….poor kid.
I really hope that things turn out well for Kaitlin too. It would make me kind of sad if this is the last we see of her in the comic and I’ll be left worrying about how her parents and (former) friends are treating her. 🙁
I wonder how seriously Joyce will take Becky’s profession of forever love for Joyce, especially now that she’s also confessed that she was swapping spit with her roommate.
Of course, in 1970, Stephen Stills sung a little song about that which said:
“Don’t be angry – don’t be sad
Don’t sit crying over good times you’ve had
There’s a girl right next to you
And she’s just waiting for something to do
Well there’s a rose in a fisted glove
And the eagle flies with the dove
And if you can’t be with the one you love
Love the one you’re with”
If Becky’s parents have in fact disowned her (as opposed to her just being too scared to talk to them), she will need a place to live. And Joyce certainly can’t ask her similarly fundie parents to take her in.
Thus: Joyce will have to make a trip to the campus GSA, LGBT center, or whatever they have, to ask them about local resources for gay kids kicked out by their parents. How fun for her.
If Willis wanted to make this easy for Becky, and for us, he needed only introduce Becky to Dorothy’s boss at the college newspaper (whose name I’ve forgotten). But that’s a HUGE “if” 🙁
*If* Willis wanted to make things easy for Becky, Daisy could have a part-time job, or well-to-do parents, and a place of her own. All we know about her is that she’s single and has a taste for the ladies.
So… is Katlin OK? She is in the same boat as Becky, but they don’t seem to be running away together. I really hope at least on of them have supportive parents.
Also, Joyce is doing what Joyce does – she listens, she comforts and there has not been a shred of judgement yet. She is a good friend.
Could be she’s in the same boat and got split apart. (Becky might have claimed she was going to take the bus home or something, or just split – I doubt the college officials would have let them be around each other while they were being disciplined.) Could be her parents have already taken her home, for good or for ill (man, I am hoping her parents don’t believe in conversion camps, but I would not be surprised). Could be Kaitlin or her parents managed to cut a deal so that she could stay in, probably by throwing Becky under the bus. I don’t THINK that would fly, but if she has good enough connections I could see it.
What I’m betting, though, is that they were both expelled, and Becky fled here before her parents could get her.
The sock on the doorknob would not have helped. Premarital hanky-panky is also a violation of the Anderson Student Honor Code. (For reals!) And since this is a Christian college, there would inevitably be someone who would consider it their righteous duty to stone the sinners, or at least report them to the authorities.
OK, this story line is breaking my heart. Tough enough to discover you are one of the people your pastor warned you about. Even tougher when you are thrown to the wolves because of it.
Could be. All we really know about DoA!Tony is that he’s at least a year above the main cast, son of Dean McHenry, on the football team, doesn’t buy beer for freshmen and doesn’t beat guys up for being gay.
… which isn’t that bad for 3 strips, really. Still, that hair is fairly distinctive.
And I’ve NOW just caught the title of this chapter and I can’t stop hearing that song of the same name from Toy Story 2 and keep from bursting into tears.
Note how Joyce is edging closer. She doesn’t want to trigger Becky to run away again, but she really wants to hug her best friend in times of distress. Awwww.
I’d hoped Kaitlin would come back! I definitely noticed her at least during my rereads of the comic and I had a funny feeling she was involved with Becky’s departure from Anderson, though I hadn’t expected *exactly* this nature of thing.
I am guessing her plan was to hug and kiss her best friend, and talk about what to do about her situation. In other words I am guessing she didn’t have a plan other than finding her best friend, and hoping the world would become a better place.
After her world was shattered, her self identity changed and all the people around her who should support her cast her out she found the one person she knew she loved, she knew would not judge her and she know would love her back – if not as a lover at least as a friend.
As for why she spent a day playing silly mind games and stalling instead of coming clean with Joyce… well, I can’t really blame her for getting one last good day.
As Ethan said – now her sexuality will always be a factor. Always.
I call shenanigans, Becky had a plan.
She was enacting Joyce’s Go-to plan: ‘Fall in Love and everything is solved forever’ ;
—- and it almost worked too, if that meddling Willis hasnt made Joyce straight.
Congratulations to Luzahn for being the second one to call Kaitlin’s involvement…
SUPER congratulations to John to being the first to call it (at least on the first page) and call that they made love as well!
Although I think there were really only two likely ways Kaitlin would be involved with the incident: being the lover or the reporter. So it’s possible Luzahn might have guessed this as well. But second place is first loser, sukka! ..Get it? “Sucka” but spelled like Luz’s Sokka avatar instead of like sucker? No? Sorry.
Not me. I’d noticed that Becky avoided talking about Anderson, but assumed she just didn’t like it there (on account of the lack of Joyce, probably) I didn’t expect big drama. That girl is good at keeping her act together.
Becky and Kaitlin would make a cute couple. Unfortunately, no matter what happens to Becky, the odds of their getting together again… (sigh) Then again, Amber and Sal ended up at the same dorm, so…
I wouldn’t call it go-to solution. It happened once in a situation where she couldn’t see any other good solution. She didn’t insist on calling Joyce’s parents after the rape incident. I’m pretty sure Sarah will be on board with listen to Becky’s wishes and work to find a pragmatic solution.
Calling “calling the parents” Sarah’s go-to solution isn’t really correct? She contacted the parents of an emotionally distressed roommate who was good at putting on a facade of being put together in front of friends.
She didn’t really have many options. The friends didn’t believe her, and the only other options I can think of at college would be an RA or counseling. The RA is dependent on what kind of RA was on her freshman hall, as RAs can range the gamut in proactiveness. Not to mention if Dana had close friends fooled, I can believe the RA would be to. If Sarah had reached out to UofI’s counseling department it may have helped, but it’s just as likely that the facade would have continued there if Dana was even willing to go. (I don’t know much about how counseling departments deal with students reporting distress in their roommate, but I do know about using facades to pretend you’re alright). Contacting Dana’s family seemed to be her best bet.
Sarah says she “had no other choice”. She’s at her wits end, wanting to help her friend and wanting to keep her grades up, but no one believes Sarah when she says that there’s a problem. So she uses her last resort and contacts Dana’s parents. It’s the right decision and the best choice Sarah has. I don’t think there’s any karma to undo and she doesn’t need to learn the lesson of “don’t contact the parents” because that is a shitty lesson to learn. Parents can hurt (see: the Siegals and the Walkertons) but parents can be supportive and helpful (see: the Keeners, Mrs. O’Malley). I’m sure misanthrope Sarah realizes that.
quote from Joel Watson’s site: “Emily and Joel started dating when they were 18 and Joel was living (illegally) in the dorms at her school”. So, if this thing is autobiographical and so, Becky (as Joel’s alter-ego) will live illegally in Joyce’s room, then meet and start dating… um… ehhh…. Jacob? Ethan? Danny!??
Perhaps Ruth will be sympathetic to Becky’s plight, and look through her fingers on it. Ruth is, after all, known for her sympathy and lax style of authority.
I’m inclined to think Becky was still putting on a cheerful front there (and of course it’s suddenly very interesting to try to read her expression in panel 3 – I think she’s looking at Joyce rather than Mary).
Waiting for evidence on my pet theory that Becky, via Kaitlin (today’s panel 3), no longer shares Joyce’s hangups re homosexuality. She certainly doesn’t seem conflicted by it so far.
A lot of people are saying “So her feelings for Joyce weren’t real?”
I think that she didn’t understand her feelings. And when someone presented her with and opportunity to discover who she was, she took it, liked it, and wanted to continue. After she was expelled, she realized that those feelings she’d been having for Joyce weren’t platonic, or feelings that everyone had for their friends. She had a crush. So she went to Joyce, and made up this fake story in her head about how Joyce was also gay. Then she went for it. I think she was hoping Joyce would want to date her, and thus be more willing to let her stay. When that possibility went out the window, Becky was horrified by the rejection, and also the thought that she might not have shelter.
These discussions would only be half as entertaining if there was an edit function 🙂
For the record I’m completely for a three way ship. Elsa and Anna are adorable and Serana is… a voice actress? Who sings Elsa’s Italian voice…. OK, I’m completely for this ship as soon as I have wrapped my poor brain around the forth-wall braking implications.
Maybe Becky could find a church, repent of her “sin”, and call upon the church law of ‘sanctuary’.
Or is that something that is exclusive to Roman Catholicism?
If it helps, I just finished it too. I found out about this site about 3 days ago (2 and a half to be more accurate) and have binge read it all. It sucks now because I have to wait for the next one to be released, rather than just clicking next.
Well you should thank dannyvx on the site funnyjunk, he uploaded the latest 3/4 comics saying how it was rather sad, and gave credit here. Apparently a couple people other than me decided to check it out and are all now hooked 🙂
I hope tomorrows comic elaborates on what happened, because in any christian university I know of, its not a “caught=>kicked out” procedure. there are steps in between, inquiries, counseling, watch list ect. When someone breaks the moralistic rules like that they tend to try to keep the student in school and work with them on the ‘problem’.
I look at those three middle panels and I realize that somewhere out there, in a parallel universe, it just went on like that. Friendly blue panels with happy smiling Becky and Kaitlin exploring their newfound relationship and sexuality and adulthood all in one, without fear of ostracization, without fear of deviating from what is right or proper. It maybe ended with them breaking up, it maybe ended in them staying together, it maybe was the most important thing of their life or just a steppingstone to something else, but it didn’t end with them being thrown out from their new homes.
And then I realize that in the universe DoA takes place there were just three blue panels, and then Becky sitting on some stairs outside a different college in the middle of the night with nowhere else to go.
And then I realize that our real-life universe is much closer to the DoA universe than the happy blue-panel universe.
Anyine consider the double gut punch that Kaitlin was the one who was gonna spill the beans? They got caught somehow, obviously, but what if Kaitlin immediately tried to spin it that Becky was the aggressor and Kaitlin the unwilling victim? Becky would have no choice but to run away.
I used to snog a person in a fundamentalist Christian family. You don’t lock the door, that is SO frowned upon. You close the door and lean up against it. You get very good at hiding behind doors and slipping out unnoticed or teleporting eight feet away with your clothing magically sheveled, or pretending you had the love of your life pinned and was dangling a loogie above said love’s face.
And you break your heart, because no-one should ever have to choose between their family and their partner, and you made the loving decision and you’re sure they’re enjoying their miserable legal heteromarriage that they had to agree to. :melodramatic sobbing:
Aaah I see I was confused by Joyce’s statement that Becky was “..getting one of your own.” and just ass-umed it meant “to her self” rather than “you yourself are also getting a dorm room.” Which I guess makes me the ass.
Thank you for clarifying.
Sorry if I came across as accusatory or like I was playing “Gotcha” it was not my intent. Like Dina I am not always proficient at communicating with the humans. 😉
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only SLIGHTLY more aggressive than my first roomie… not sure how I managed to get through college
Really? Jeez – I thought that was a porn myth. Why did I never end up with an attractive lesbian roomates who wanted to seduce me?
Because Willis isn’t writing the story of your college life.
(Off-topic:) Yay for your Jess gravatar, Plasma!
Jess, eh? Where from?
Apparently I need to brush up on HTML. That link should be mousover text reading “What am I binge-reading this week?”
In general when people do mouseover stuff without an accompyaning link they use this or this – though I think you can do it with links too. What did you try? test
Jess is from the webcomic “Candi“.
Ah, one on my ‘tried it, liked it, lost my spot’ list.
Much obliged.
Half of the webcomics I read end up on my version of that list.
when the list gets long enough you tend to add a column for your spot.
This is why I use Comic Rocket.
(Totally not astroturfing, I promise)
…and for that you should be grateful, actually.
I did have a kind of cute gay roommate one year, and while we both had suspicions, we never actually came out to each other until years later when we found each other on OKCupid.
so you studied when you could have had relations. you must curse your name every day
I’m not sure it was quite as aggressive as you think it was. Note that in all three panels they are both wearing different clothing? And especially that between panels 2 and 3 Becky somehow goes from shorts to pants. I think that indicates that some time passed between the panels in this flashback. Sure, the book between panels 3 and 4 seems the same, but again the clothing doesn’t, and there’s no indication of clothing on the floor, either. If they got up and carefully stowed their discarded clothes the book would have been stowed as well, right?
as in “actually made a move” vs. all hot air
I’ll say. Always lock the door when you decide to strangle your roommate, or else they’ll bolt. And buy a tarp and shovel beforehand and separately, you get funny looks when you walk up to the counter with those things together.
Or am I misinterpreting this strip?
You, uh…you got somethin’ you wanna tell us, Doctor?
Let’s just say there’s a reason I don’t use my school nickname Theta Sigma anymore, and decided to go traveling for a while.
Funny, I thought smashing with a rock was more your style. 😛
**slowclap**
I was not expecting a reference to Armageddon Factor when I read the comments for Dumbing of Age tonight.
Hell that reference went all the way back to “The Tribe Of Gum.”
One was a violent old bastard!
Wibbly-wobbly strangley-wangley.
+1
It’s because people kept mistaking you for a fraternity, right?
i don’t recall rocks from Armageddon Factor, but it has been decades since I’ve seen it. the only rock i clearly recall is the big nasty one Turlough was brandishing in Mawdryn Undead.
No, bunging a rock at something was from “The Abominable Snowmen” while calling the Doctor by the name Theta Sigma was from “The Armageddon Factor.”
He also almost killed someone with a rock in the first ever story. He was kind of an ass back then.
Not like today, no sir. 🙂
Hey, you go to school with the Master, it’s an important survival skill.
He loved it.
apt gravatar is apt (and if Ruth is The Master, who in the DoAverse is The Doctor?)
It’s okay, he’s a time traveler, the murder technically may not have happened yet.
I think they’re just about to demonstrate the guard position from the bottom in regards to BJJ
“Fall atop me, and meet your doom!”
Yeah I’m not sure they’re doing it right but I just can’t put my finger on it…
Naw you’re right on. Becky Assimilated that girl and gained her power. She’s just sad because Joyce is assimilating properly. BECKY NEEDS MORE POWER.
Det er ikke en Becky, det er en slags ting! Det imiterer en Becky, det er ikke virkelig! KOM DERE VEKK IDIOTER!!
Dutch?!? Nope Google says it’s Norwegian.
Definitely not Dutch — I should know, I am Dutch.
From my admittedly very limited knowledge of North Germanic a.k.a. Scandinavian languages, you can trust Google translate on this one, not just that it’s Norwegian, but also the general sense of the translation.
Not sure why one would post in a language other than English here, but then again, who doesn’t get drunk sometimes? 🙂
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6fW_otRmxuk
I don’t read any languages other than English and a little Spanish, but I have a lot of Dutch items around the house and the spelling of some of the words was similar. But then that’s true of most of the Germanic languages of the Continent. English is a Germanic language, but we have mugged so many other languages for their vocabularies that only a linguist or historian knows that any more.
In lejwocky’s first post, there are exactly three words that could also be Dutch, and two of those are false friends: “en” is the indefinite article in Norwegian, and means “and” in Dutch; “ikke” means “not” in Norwegian, and childishly emphatic “I” in Dutch (think “who wants to go first?” — “ikke, ikke, ikke” is like “me me meeee”; the normal form of “I” is “ik”).
“Kom” is the only one of those words that means the same thing in both Norwegian and Dutch; it means “come”.
It is a lot of fun to decipher these things. It’s a minefield of linguistic false friends, but there are also enough similarities that make it all seem sorta-kinda familiar and connected.
(Also, my dad is a linguist, and his interests did rub off on me, so I may just be a little bit more nerdy about this stuff than others.)
Oh wait, “er” is another Dutch/Norwegian false friend. It means “is” in Norwegian, and non-emphasized “there” in Dutch. (“There” with emphasis is “daar”.)
Naw, we’ll be linguistic nerds together.
Awesome stuff. I have taken a few beginning Norwegian classes, I really need to get back to that…
jeg er ikke ost, vennligst ikke spis meg
The one and only thing I know how to say in Norwegian. Even I don’t know why I know how to say this ^<__<^;;
If you’re interested in finding out what the Dutch words mean, on those items you have in your house, let me know, I’ll be happy to translate! 🙂
It’s mainly the laundering instructions printed on the Dutch Army surplus sleeping bag I use, but as the bag was surplussed out in the late ’70s and I have been camping with it since the mid ’90s those instructions are probably moot by now. I got a lot of camping equipment from that particular surplus sale but as I couldn’t read the care instructions and it is coming up on twenty years since I bought the stuff, most of it is pretty much useless now. And mostly illegible.
Translation: “That’s not Becky, it’s some kind of thing (as in something inhuman). It’s pretending to be Becky, it’s not real! COME ON YOU IDIOTS!!
(I am swedish so I am not 100% sure about the last line since I don’t see what “vekk” could mean)
Guessing from similarity to Dutch and German: “vekk” means “away”? As in “get away from there, you idiots”?
I also read the last line as “GET AWAY FROM THERE, IDIOTS!”. I’m Danish, and ‘vekk’ sounds suspiciously like ‘væk’ which, as Thomas says, means ‘gone/away’.
I think they’re referencing The Thing?
this one gets it
Not only that, but it’s an automated translation into Norwegian. As a Norwegian, I can understand the meaning, but none of the words are in correct tense or even order.
Is it assimilate or ass-stimulate?
no one’s asses shall be stimulated as long as I’m around.
Yotomoe: ultimate butt blocker 🙁
Just as long as the Jesus butt-plug isn’t used.
Enol Angus might have something to say about that.
Based on the flashback, I think Becky was the one that was assimilated. The other girl… kaitlin, took off her glasses and set them beside the bed it seems. Not something you would do if you weren’t expecting it.
Wow, you should be a detective
Unless Becky was trying to remove Kaitlin’s eyes… or see her face without glasses. We’d have to dust for fingerprints to be sure who removed them.
That reminded me very strongly of This scene in the hilarious Canadian comedy “Corner Gas”.
Chaos and anarchy, my friend. Chaos and anarchy. XD
Becky: If I had it to do all over again, I definitely…definitely…would’ve done it with you instead, Joyce. <3
Not to mention you get when you hold up two rolls of duct tape and ask, “Which one of these is better at muffling human screams and binding hands and feet?”
Shovel? Amateur. Dispose of the corpse in the nearest convenient body of water; be sure to pierce the abdominal cavity so that it doesn’t float when the organs start to decompose. I swear, what do they teach you kids in school these days?
Which power tools are more dangerous, and how to weaponize drawing implements. And how to calculate the trajectories of all kinds of projectiles, arrows included.
Power tools are overrated, especially chainsaws; too heavy, depends on a functioning power grid, and if someone who has one gets close enough to use it, you’ve probably already lost. Projectiles I’ll grant you, you should be able to weaponize almost anything, and instead of power tools, go with a good basic conditioning program combined with fighting with your basic stick with a pointy end.
+1
KAAAAAAAAAITLIIIIIIIIIIIN!!!!!
Holy Shat…ner!
Yep, got caught fooling around.
Does this mean we will see Kaitlin again in the strip?
Or perhaps a Slipshine pornographique?
Doubtful about the slipshine. I’m not convinced they actually had sex. I think that if a slipshine was in the making, he would’ve made it a little more obvious. I think they probably just made out, and felt each other up.
Well you do know that lesbians can have sex to completion without ever removing any article of clothing, right?
Sock on the door!!! SOCK ON THE DOOR, DAMN IT!!!!
At a Christian university, that just means you are busy praying I think.
So it still sorta works in this context.
She’s praying to Becky? Well, Becky’s my one true goddess.
Well, I imagine there would have been a lot of calling god’s name….
Well, a lot of being down on their knees, at least.
Well, someone’s on their knees. Phwoar!
So, you’re making out…. with Jesus?
I think that would have just brought attention to it.
It’s a Christian college, remember. Crucifix on the doorknob, so people wikll think they’re praying. This will also explain any overheard invocations of the deity.
Well, they might get suspicious when they see Jesus put his hands on his ears and fall off.
Actually, since it’s a Protestant/Evangelical, and likely fundamentalist school, a Crucifix would mark them as being closet Catholics, and thus even worse than teh gayz, who at least aren’t usually heretics. Protestants use an unoccupied cross, so they can avoid idolotry, just like the segment of Muslims who bar depiction of the Prophet’s face in art.
If you’re having sex with your roommate, do you put the sock on the inside of the door?
“…and I’d have done it more often.”
And that explains that.
Why Becky never answered her phone when Joyce was calling?
Pangs of guilt because she had been unfaithful to her one true love?
Nah she was too busy kissing cute girls to answer the phone.
She had no cell phone, and Joyce was calling her dorm phone. This also explains why her roommate didn’t answer the phone, because she was probably also kicked out.
Becky, I want you to know that I couldn’t see any of that. You just…started speaking from what sounded like the final part of line of thought you never started.
And yet it was all I Needed for every last one of my newly formed fantisys.
Becky is this universe’s J.D.
Next strip: “…We’d have to find a whole lotta gnomes.”
Does that make Joyce Turk?
“It’s girl love. That’s all that’s there
It’s girl love. She’s mine, I’m hers.
There’s a little gayness about it on Becky’s side.
Some ask us about this thing we share
And Joyce nervousely replies
It’s GIRL LOVE
because we’re both not guys.”
LOL, nice
No, because in spite of that song they would later have the following exchange:
“We are not gay.”
“Dude, we’re a little gay.”
“…Yeah…”
I think the word they used was Married. Point stands, though.
I’ll be damned. I just checked the youtubes.
“Haha, our kids… Turk, we’re not married.”
“Dude, we’re a little married.”
“I know, I love it <3"
Okay, who’s already clicked the Kaitlin tag?
Definitely the first thing I did.
Someone in the comments for the last strip actually predicted that Kaitlin would be the cause of all this. There’s only one other strip in which she appears. Kudos to that guy (or girl).
Or they have early access. I don’t trust any of the comments anymore, as they could all have spoilers.
I’ve been probing these comments for stuff like that, and I have never seen it happen. My Patreons are good folk. It’s why I’ve started posting early updates every day — at first I was worried about crossposted spoilers and so only did it occasionally, but since it never happened, I cranked up the frequency and earliness.
(It’s pretty easy to find Kaitlin in the archives — Becky only shows up a handful of times before this storyline, so if you’re digging through them to get a better understanding of her, then there the tag is, plain as day. And that tag’s only been there for about two days anyway, ‘cuz of this. I know my readers got eagle eyes.)
I remember last time I visited that page, I checked to see if Becky’s roommate had a name listed among the tags, since she’s drawn with a bit more detail than I’d expect from a throwaway extra.
She didn’t, so I concluded she couldn’t be important.
OOPS!
Did you put it in and then take it out again? I’m almost positive I spotted it before Becky showed up, but then it wasn’t there and I started to think I’d imagined it.
No, it was Becky who put it in and then took it out again.
(I almost put a “that’s what SHE said!” in that comment.)
Then she shook it all about?
Y’know, if you wanted us not to notice Kaitlin and her tag, I think you should have used her more. A tag when she’s got only one appearance, immediately before Becky disappears, is suspicious. A tag when she’s appeared in the background of two or three strips and been established as just Becky’s roommate, pay no attention, isn’t.
Like I said, I put her tag up when this strip went live on Patreon. I was fine with people noticing it then. It was on purpose.
Well, I m going to promptly put my foot in my mouth and sit and read then. Thanks for being awesome!
I have early access now, but I go pretty far to make sure my comments here are based on what is available here, and my predictions based only on that. Often adapted from comments I may have made the day before on Patreon.
That’s one of the reasons I haven’t gotten the early access. I don’t want to be unable to participate in the speculation in the comments.
That early access exists at all has had something of a chilling effect on my speculation, because I don’t want to look stupid in front of people who already know the answer. But after apparently reading Willis’s friggin’ mind a year in advance, I think I’m over that.
(The other reason is that I’m broke.)
Becky clicked it.
And clicked it…and clicked it…
But she clicked it to much….
…and now she’s clicked out.
Becky, you’re an idiot. Even a drunk knows to lock the door.
Billie locks the door of every room she enters, just in case of shenanigans.
Like I said even a “drunk” knows to lock the door
The RAs and other dorm staff have keys to get in, although when I lived in a dorm someone had come up with the sweetest hack to get around even that. When the bolt was shot, the thing on the inside that turned the bolt was horizontal, a few inches above the door knob. They found something to wedge in between the knob and the bolt-thingy–I want to say that it was some kind of Star Trek prop, like a communicator or one of those little phasers that was like a TV remote–so that even if someone on the other side had the master key, they wouldn’t be able to turn the cylinder because the inside bolt-thingy was held still. Ingenious.
Man, getting weird, petty vengeance for your crush leaves you blind, don’t it? Most people have to learn the lesson to lock their doors the hard way, not the easy way.
Well if they were just hanging out and then suddenly Kaitlin put the moves on her, they might not have thought about locking the door. Sometimes when you’re in the throws of passion, logic goes out the window.
And here I was half-expecting a week or two of flashbacks to tell us what happened.
Now THAT’S efficiency!
I don’t think we are done.
What more do we need to know?
Maybe, the thought process that took Becky from, “OMG, I like girls!” to “OMG, I love Joyce!”. That’d be nice.
This isn’t One Piece 😛
I got that joke! I am part of the in-crowd, I am so happy.
Shame on you Becky ! Don’t you know the golden rule live with no regrets.
Yes, but that gets you hit with a truck.
*distant yelling or sobbing*
Locking the door is certainly a valuable life lesson.
Bless you for the tagging mechanism, Willis…As often as I may damn you for playing with my emotions so cruelly, you do a lot of little things very very right. (Seriously people, go Patreon this awesome guy).
I require additional Vespene Gas- er, funds before I contribute to the long list of Patrons I have written down.
Kaitlin!
…Well at least she didn’t betray Becky to the school. Although I have to wonder whether she’s been kicked out as well.
Don’t see how she couldn’t’ve also been
I mean, I would have hoped that Becky wouldn’t be feeling so doomed if someone else was in the same situation. Maybe stay with Kaitlin’s family or something if she’s been kicked out by her parents.
The lack of that makes me suspicious. Maybe she did turn traitor and promise to “reform” or something.
Oh crap, I didn’t even think of that. I am predisposed to have a vewwwy low opinion of those wascally fundies, and kinda assumed that pre-marital same-sex hanky-pankering would he an automatic expulsion regardless of what she said afterwards, but I dunno.
Becky’s parents likely disowned her after finding out about this. What makes you think Kaitlin’s parents would have reacted that much better? I mean that’s super optimistic to think they’d be at all okay with Becky being anywhere near their daughter. Even if they potentially didn’t disown Kaitlin and even if Kaitlin didn’t turn against Becky they’d probably blame Becky for the whole thing.
Good point. If Kaitlin spoke in favor of helping Becky, Kaitlin’s parents would be even more adamant about keeping them apart. It is human nature to blame others for your own faults or those of your loved ones. “You were a good Christian girl before that red-headed spawn of Satan corrupted you! So no, we are not taking her in!”
Oh, I just read “kicked out” as expelled; bit early to say if either girl’s parents are quite that level of sick bastids. I mean, I know it happens, but not in every single fundie family that has a gay kid in it. BUTT _)_) anyway, the original comment does make more sense by accounting for that possibility.
Yeah, I’m afraid it could have been a Winston-Smith-in-Room-101 (from Nineteen Eighty-Four) type of situation.
well, at least she enjoyed herself…..
“Hey check out this phony spellbook! Check it out. This one says that this spell will turn anyone within earshot gay.”
“Dude that’s so bogus! Read it Read it!”
“We was just speakin’ in tongues, honest”
Really closely. That’s how REALLY religious people do it. Face to face.
Face to face.
At the start, maybe.
Definitely getting a flashback from “Darby O’Gill and the Little People” where the woman was standing on the pot of gold wishing the bigot was black…
Finian’s Rainbow, not Darby O’Gill. The former has a distinct lack of young Sean Connery singing.
Finnigan’s Rainbow mention?! My week has been made.
Both movies from before I was born… I saw them both on TV and got the plots mixed up. But yeah, watching James Bond singing was strange…
I once found a chatroom where people were seriously discussing finding the Salmacis, a lake in Greek mythology that turned everyone who swam in it gay.
Hmm, wonder if there is any connection to the pools in China that turn people into other things?
No, those were just curses based on who drowned last in them.
Kaitlin is a very lesbian name.
I can think of a better one.
Leslie Bean?
I’m not sure how that would be the case, but it *does* just so happen that my only (at least, non-closeted) lesbian friend from high school was named Kaitlin. She spelled it just that way, too.
Janey or Muffy are both good lesbian names too.
Does anyone actually name their daughter Muffy?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muffy_Calder
According to that her doctoral adviser’s name is Roy Dyckhoff.
Can’t make this stuff up, people.
People used to give their kids names like Gaylord after all.
Yeah, but the name “Muffy” never contributed to lame jokes in bad De Niro movies.
I’m not sure where I’m going with this anymore.
A minor bit of setting in Vinge’s “True Names and Other Dangers” is that in The Future, “Jennifer” has become one of those names that sounds as old-fashioned and unhip as Gertrude, Esther, Patience, et al do to us.
“Muffy” and “Buffy” are apparently nicknames for Melissa and Elizabeth, respectively. Kids have trouble with long, sibilant names.
Better than naming your child Bambi or Sapphire, they end up being strippers.
As opposed to Leslie Bean?
Well on the plus side at least Becky doesn’t seem to have any actual issues with her sexuality (with how she personally feels about it) just how the world as a whole has screwed her over because of it. Aww poor Becky (and Kaitlin since I’m assuming she got expelled too).
If anything, she seems to be liberated
In kind of a shitty socioeconomic position, though. No job, no house, parents may have disowned her and almost certainly aren’t going to fund her while she’s away…
I’m guessing she’s been over that period of confusion, I’m guessing it’s just cause whoever opened the door outed her and her parents took it badly. Then again all my predictions and theories seem to have been proven wrong lately… I’m gonna guess Joyce totally doesn’t love Becky back and would never even consider going and doing a little good old fashioned tounge grappling back in her room.
Can we note that from the 4th panel, it can completely be taken as Kaitlin started it? Pondering the possibilities.
Also, did Kaitlin get kicked out too?
what makes you think kaitlin started it? becky is the one on top.
Oh. I thought that was Kaitlin on top! Bleh not very good at noticing things.
You sure about that? Becky’s on top. That doesn’t mean Becky started it, but it certainly doesn’t mean that Kaitlin did.
And they BETTER have kicked her out. I couldn’t take that much unfairness in a week.
Yeah, uh, I understand the spirit but still, wishing for people to get kicked out of school really isn’t cool.
Welcome to the world of private institutions with rigorously enforced codes of conduct and behavior, especially in university owned housing.
Oh, dude, I’m only saying that because Becky was kicked out. It’d be unfair if Kaitlin wasn’t as well.
I see a few ways this could go-
1- they’re caught, & both kicked out
2- they’re caught, Kaitlyn makes a DEAL, Becky is kicked out
3- they’re caught, Kaitlyn’s parents pull some strings, Becky is kicked out
4- they’re caught, Becky reacts angrily, Becky is kicked out
5… Need I go on? Many possibilities, there are. Let’s wait and see what The Willis delivers.
Given that their clothes change, implying timeskip, and that their skintones are indistinguishable in the flashback, how can you tell who’s on top? We can’t see their hair…
It helps that the classes are on the far side of the bed from their faces. Speaking as one of the bespectacled, I’m typically the one to take them off, and they pretty much always go to the left if that was where I was sitting compared to milady.
As Various pointed out below, the one on top is identifiable as Becky by freckled legs… And her attire matches the present, too, somewhat worryingly.
Good catch… I missed that.
you can see freckles on becky’s leg in the fourth panel.
Given that their clothes change in each panel, I’m assuming this is a time lapse so who knows. And there’s no reason Kaitlin wouldn’t have been booted as well.
Well, there is one possible reason. And it’s green.
The Hulk? What would the Hulk be doing there?
She-Hulk. Jennifer Walters shows up to defend Becky, it backfires when the school admins assume that any woman over six feet tall and muscular must be a lesbian herself.
It further backfires when Jennifer misjdges her own strength momentarily and ends up shattering a 150-year old table when slamming her fist down in anger.
They are wearing different outfits in each panel, there’s no way to tell who is who in the last panel, or if even it is the first time.
Actually, there is — one of the two of them has freckles and the other doesn’t.
I’m glad to see Becky seems to stand by her sexuality so far. It’d be frustrating to see both her and Ethan act like it’s awful, and Becky will likely help Joyce become more openminded, which Ethan really can’t.
Everyone knows lesbians are awesome. Even Becky.
Joyce still needs to learn this.
Its interesting because if Becky and Dorothy finds out about what Joyce is doing with Ethan She might lose 2 best friends.
That’s definitely true. I’m thinking (hoping?) that Joyce will see things from Becky’s perspective and decide to break up with Ethan. The only problem would be that she lacks another source of support, but maybe Becky and Amazi girl can be that support?
but… but she said she loved Joyce!
and leg freckles betray Becky as the aggressor.
Yeah, I’m mildly disappointed that her sexual discovery wasn’t solely Joyce-inspired, but that would be unfair to Becky.
It seems that Becky’s sexual orientation wasn’t merely… a matter of Joyce ^^
Booooooo
No regrets.
Where did my comment derived from decades of experience with the LGBTQ community go?
I dunno??
I’m kinda puzzled as to why people assume being on top necessarily = starting something.
a) They could have started out in a different position, and
b) It’s entirely possible to kiss someone, then lean back to pull them down on top of you.
Who cares who started it? The time lapse between panels 2 and 4 (*) indicates that this wasn’t just some heat-of-the-moment thing; this built up gradually, and was completely consensual. Meaning, it felt right to both of them.
(*) See posts by Oberon and Sluthy, above.
Possible and awesome. Or just lie down and grab their collar, pulling them into a kiss… Really, possibilities are only limited by human imagination. That said, I agree with Thomas64: mutual attraction developed over time.
Ah, leg freckles ID her as the one on top. Thank you; small screens are bane to spotting details that fine.
See, this is why you put a sock on the door.
At a Christian college? Why not a big sign saying SAPPHIC PRE-MARITAL HANKY-PANKY IN PROGRESS?
(pro-tip to anyone at a Christian College: DO NOT PUT A SOCK ON YOUR DOOR)
Use a coathanger instead…
I remembered Kaitlin! I noticed – by coincidence, while looking for something else completely just before Becky showed up again, actually – that she’d been tagged, and was expecting her to reappear!
You see? You SEE? This is what Bible study leads to: lesbian sex!
… I needed to attend more bible study in high school.
Stop making Bible study sound like a good thing!
I say! It’s like that Japanese series with all those Catholic school girls and their rosaries. Wouldn’t let my daughter watch that stuff: it’d only put bad ideas in her brain.
For all of its’ rep, Maria-sama ga Miteru is pretty straight on the whole. My god, Sei Sato though.
Your God is Sei Satou? Well, why not. “Satou-sama ga Miteru” would probably be a much more interesting show ^^
So The Bible = homosexuality.
FLAWLESS LOGIC!!!!!
Critical Hit!
Gotta remember to put bible study on the list of things that lead to lesbian sex. There goes my Bible study idea!
The Bible also leads to loads of drunken incest, bestiality and other fun stuff.
Watch HBO option a TV series after Game of Thrones ends.
Have you ever locked 6+ drunk people in a room with a copy of the Bible and a houseplant?
Next thing you know, there’s a drunken orgy going on on one side of the room, and one weirdo making out with the plant on the other.
I’d have gotten laid way earlier in life if that were true.
That’s what locks on the doors are for, silly.
Becky’s cute as shit, and I love a gross girl, but I can’t say much for her taste in ladies thus far. I hope Kaitlin was a fun lady cuz otherwise I will wag my finger at her lady taste.
Are you kidding? Kaitlin looks like a young Tina Fey!
Seems to me like she’s gotten pretty good at tasting ladies
And I applaud her for that. She’s had an easier time than I have.
What’s wrong with Kaitlin? She hasn’t even really done anything yet.
Other than RUIN BECKY’S LIIIIIIIIIIIFE!!!!
Sorry…didn’t mean that…still coming down from the emotions high.
I think the ruining Becky’s life part is being done by Becky’s parents. Even if the pre-marital lesbian hanky-panky got Becky expelled, yesterday’s “I have nowhere to go to” sounds like her folks are, shall we say, not super helpful at this juncture.
I’m mostly just joking and criticizing Becky’s taste based off of my own depraved tastes in girls.
Yotome’s taste: Is it Sierra? If yes, good. If no, bad.
Wagging her finger’s what got her in this trouble.
Seems obvious enough, but she probably grew up in a house where the bedroom doors were never to be locked and never developed the habit we all take for granted when we need privacy.
Yeah, that happens. And then you feel like you CAN’T lock it, because the very act is an admission of guilt of some sort.
Interesting… See, I grew up in a house without any locks on the bedroom or bathroom doors in the first place, so this is new to me. That makes sense, the locking being perceived (perhaps not consciously) as an admission of guilt.
Poor kid.
Maybe it’s possible that everything happened so fast Becky didn’t have time (at first, then presence of mind later) to think of those things.
Can’t really speak from experience on ‘happen so fast didn’t think of that’ since that would involve a woman being really desperate to even notice that I exist, but I’d have to think something like that would scramble your mind for a few minutes at least.
What book is she reading?
I need to know, for reasons.
My guess is “The Bible”.
My guess is “Lezzo Beach Babes XII: The Scissors of Destiny”
The Good One, at a guess. I’m gonna theorise that Kaitlin is a more progressive Christian and was talking her through the six or so clobber verses that get used to condemn homosexuality, and how they… basically don’t.
No, the REALLY good book.
So, which part of the Bible got them so hot and bothered? Song of Songs, right?
I would say probably Song of Solomon. It’s a short book, but quite emgaging.
They’re actually the same.
I just glanced at this and misread it as Song of Sodom, which would probably be very different…
It was Isaiah. The best part of the bible. I say that for no particular reason.
LOL
I suppose you could read a fair amount of Isaiah as badass anti-oppressor poetry, in which case, I can dig that.
That’s the one where her hair is like goats and her teeth are like a flock of sheep. So romantic!
And her navel as an everflowing fountain. The translators in the King James era had a very poor understanding of Hebrew and Aramaic words for anatomy, they translated achilles tendon as “big toe”. There are parts of a woman’s anatomy that generate liquids when stimulated, but I would not place the navel among those parts.
Oh King James, you so crazy!
At first I thought the flashback panels were all, like, in one day, a sequence of events. Then I noticed the different clothes in every panel and realized this was a progression over time xD
And we would have gotten away with it too, if it weren’t for those meddling kids, and their dog.
ROOBY-DOODY-DOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!! REEEHEHEHEHEHEHEE!
S:”Like Zoinks, Fred. I think I hear a weird sucking noise.”
F:”It sounds like kissing, Shaggy”
V:”But that’s not possible. The guard said there’s noone but girls in this dorm.”
D:”Jeepers, does that mean…?”
S:”Ri’ll Ret my Ramera, Raggy”
WHERE IS THE LIKE BUTTON?!
We will not switch over To Disqus.
Thanks for that reminder to go a Google search for why Disqus isn’t used here.
…and the December 4, 2014 comments section explains enough, so I’m done with that.
Should have swapped the D and V there. And V has been declared lesbian (not just by the drooling fan girls).
But Velma doesn’t say JEEPERS. Sheesh Opus. Also I don’t know if that’s consistent for ALL VELMAS FOREVER.
Wait, Velma really is supposed to be a lesbian, and not just in my shakily crayoned fan-fiction?
In Mystery Inc it still isn’t out in the open canon, but they do get pretty darn close to stating it, as I understand it. Much more so than previous material, where you really had to chose to read it that way.
According to the series bible Velma is 5 or 6 on the Kinsey scale, which is why she never showed a romantic interest in either Fred or Shaggy. Early shows did not show her as interested in girls either, but only because they never exposed her to her “type”
By that logic, is shaggy gay? He never really showed any interest in anyone but Scooby or Food.
I always interpreted Shaggy as too obsessed with food and/or terrified of whatever to be attracted to many people, if any. We all know someone too devoted to their hobby/ies to care for sexuality, and/or someone too intimidated by romance to give it a try.
Not sure, But he should have laid off the acid,
once his dog started to talk to him
Which series? In Mystery Inc, she was dating Shaggy until Things Happened.
Plenty fanBOYS salivate over Velma too, thank you very much.
Can I go back and vote for Becky being the greatest character 12 million more times? This is killing me here.
Gotta say, the first thing that popped into my mind is the second American Pie, when Jim’s dad walks in on them
Do Christian colleges ban apple pie?
Them and tarts too.
*snort*
No flutes, either.
…I should really watch that movie one of these days.
At least Becky’s eyes are back.
Thank goodness for that.
She has Youngblood disease. Outbreaks occur with XTREME emotions.
Where we’re going she won’t need eyes to see.
So what they did got her kicked out of school.
That is just not right. Both of them were, at least in Becky’s version, consenting.
Logical, yes, Christian school likely not going to condone it. Justice, no way.
Poor Becky. At least she is not crying about doing it, just getting caught at it.
I do wonder about Doctor, up the thread line.
SHHHHH!!! Don’t say that! He’ll teleport to where you live, and based on that comment, WHO KNOWS WHAT’LL HAPPEN?!?
Many a young woman have disappeared whenever he was around…
My (at one time baptist) school had strict curfew for guys being in the girls dorms after a certain hour (pretty early) and weird rules about the door being open. And that was *heterosexual* sex-prevention.
Which I didn’t realize was weird on a campus with maybe ten or so students that were 17 in a state where age of consent is 16. We also had crazy strict porn-blockers on all campus internet that we fought for months to get rid of because they were so strict we had trouble getting on legitimate websites to complete homework.
We weren’t even a Christian school. We had PAST Christian associations.
So yeah. This storyline doesn’t shock me.
I would ask if you went to my school but I’m betting there’s a lot of formerly-baptist colleges out there with those kinda weird rules. Dudes weren’t even ALLOWED in the girls’ dorms certain days, where I went.
I got kicked out of a bible college for looking at porn. Twice. I WAS CURIOUS! >:(
Maybe not kicked out of school, but shamed to the point that *ANYWHERE* would be better than there.
The other alternative is that once Becky’s parents found out — and you’ve got to assume that they were notified — they either 1) cut off support, both financial and familial, in which case Becky is on her own and in a real world of hurting; or 2) yanked her out and brought her home in which case Becky is AWOL and on the lam from her parents.
Well, there goes my “academic problems” alternate theory…
Well, I’m sure macking on the regular didn’t help with academics.
Also there’s something odd about the phrasing of ‘If I had it all to do over again’. Like word order switching shenanigans.
Huh, yeah. I missed that, automatically read it the normal way.
But…that IS the normal way. ‘If I had it all to do over again’ is a very common phrase (and a title of several songs, apparently).
No I’m 99% sure the normal way is ‘if I had to do it all over again’.
No, ‘If I had it all to do over again’ is an extremely common phrase. Seriously. It’s not a mistake.
It may be common, but I’m pretty sure it’s not “correct”, at least from a syntactical point of view.
I have definitely heard it this backwards way before, but yeah, in my experience ‘if I had to do it all over again’ is way more common.
Well, it makes sense either way. I don’t really consider it ‘wrong.’
It actually doesn’t make sense as ‘If I had to do it over again’, though.
The sentence used here is a wish to do something she can’t – if I had it – the other sentence is a grudging acceptance of something she could – if I had to.
Probably a regional variation then. Certainly over here in the UK I don’t think I’ve ever heard “If I had it all to do over again”, but “If I had to do it [all over] again” (or “If I could…”) is commonly used without any grudging sense. It’s more normally used when you’re talking about the mistake you’d correct, or the change you’d make with the benefit of hindsight.
…I disagree completely on that interpretation. To me they mean the same thing. Grudging or not would depend on circumstance and inflection, if anything.
‘Having to do it all over again’ implies being required to complete something again. Having it ‘to do over again’ implies having a chance to do it again, hopefully without making the same mistakes.
This one. This one knows his idioms.
It works both ways.
(The phrasing, that is. We have yet to see about Becky.)
To everyone: the two phrasings have rather different meanings. The “to do it all” phrasing puts the infinitive “to” in conjunction with the “had”, turning it into the closest thing English has to the past tense of “must”, while the “it all to do” phrasing puts the “it” in conjunction with the “had”, keeping it as the past tense of “have”. The former emphasizes the doing, the latter the having. Furthermore, the “to do it all” phrasing shows regret in the overall action, while “it all to do” phrasing shows regret in just one part of the action.
In other words, yes, Becky liked Kaitlin, and would love to have kept her relationship with her, but is unable to do so because she didn’t lock the door, and that last action is what she regrets.
Becky couldn’t catch a break with a Master Ball.
You know….as much as this must feel really terrible for Becky in the moment, I think she is in a really good place. She won’t be sneaking around her school pretending to be something she’s not, or worse, hiding who she is, and she won’t be harboring or agonizing over a hidden crush for who knows how long. Everything is out in the open. While it is heartbreaking right now, she is in the perfect spot to begin creating a life that pursues and reflects who she is. She’ll find another school, and is free to pursue any relationship she chooses (without some false perception of Joyce or what she thinks they can have preventing her from thks pursuit.) In a weird way….I am actually really excited for her.
Some people only need to step over a line in the sand to come into who they are…..others have to run screaming through a glass door shattering all around them. Both are important, but I tend to admire the glass shatter-ers more.
*that pursuit…..dang phone
All very true
True, except… she has nowhere to go. I’m guessing her parents know what happened and either (a) she doesn’t feel welcome there or (b) has been kicked out. That is a really bad place to be in. I’m sure Joyce won’t let her live on the streets, but yeah.
Or c) She hasn’t yet spoken to her parents out of shame, and is avoiding them.
In which case it could be that they may not kick her to the curb, just that she fears it.
Given how Willis has treated Joyce’s faith, and balanced that with her relationships with everyone, I’m assuming he’s not depicting all highly religious people as assholes, (Just Joyce’s mom so far.) I’ll hold judgement back on Becky’s parents until I see actual evidence of actions on their part.
It could well be that they are worried about where their daughter has gotten to, and her safety. (Hence the call-screening that Sarah is suspicious of)
Though in any event, what did she think Joyce would do? Keep her hidden in the dorms as a live-in lover, or at least a non-student extra roommate?
Huh, yes, hasn’t considered that possibility.
*suddenly realises how much fan speculation has been taken as read*
You want an asshole Mom? Try Ethan’s mom Naomi. First, she disrespects Amber by accusing her of being <A HREF="http://www.dumbingofage.com/2013/comic/book-3/04-just-hangin-out-with-my-family/mrss/"such a poor date that she turned Ethan gay. Then, upon finding out that her son has a girlfriend, she tells him to <A HREF="http://www.dumbingofage.com/2013/comic/book-3/04-just-hangin-out-with-my-family/placate/"fuck her … as soon as you possibly can, over and over and over"; and immediately upon meeting said girlfriend (Joyce) makes the snide comment — to her face, yet!! — that “…yeah, you’ll be easy”.
And his father wasn’t a helluvalot better.
I can see I definitely need more practice with my HTML links.
Welcome to the club.
Aw, I had forgotten Saul the Sad. I can’t dislike the guy, he’s hurting himself more than anyone else.
Ehh in J&W Becky’s father was an asshole and that kind of fits with their characterization here with them not allowing her to own a phone and such.
with them not allowing her to own a phone and such.
That has been mentioned before…and yet, Joyce has called her at least twice! And both times, she was shown answering on something that looked like a smart phone, not an old Ma Bell dormitory phone.
It’s a flip phone. No internet/apps/whatever.
http://www.dumbingofage.com/2012/comic/book-2/06-strange-beerfellows/hands/
It’s not a flip phone — it doesn’t fold in half. It’s just a normal cordless phone, from the olden days of yore.
Joyce’s dad and Ethan’s parents may not be quite as bad as Joyce’s mom, but they definitely qualify as assholes in my book.
Yes on the last one.
If Becky was my friend I probably would.
Couchsurfing happens.
Except that her parents have likely cut her off, so she’s starting this wonderful new life with a HS degree, no money, no credit, no job history, and no life experience. She has literally no options at this point.
You and carriethedragon make a good point. I was thinking of her emotionally more than practically. I think because she can resolve the practical easier than resolving years of the negative emotional effects if everything was still hidden…but you both are right, that does make it a bit more complicated. Maybe Dorothy’s parents will take her in hehe.
It wasn’t the making out that got her kicked out. Becky accidentally broke Kaitlin’s expensive glasses and couldn’t afford to pay tuition.
Must have been some of those “recycled” glasses. Those things won’t hurt the ecosystem, but they’ll hurt your wallet.
“Becky, You’re in luck. As far as I’ve seen like…70% of the students and faculty here are lesbians. In fact, there’s more boys here who aren’t into girls than girls who aren’t into girls.”
You’re just mixing up “les be friends” with lesbians.
…..a character from the Candi comics.
Yes indeed, Jess in fact.
Ah Good taste
Indiana, supporting Gay relations since the 70’s
I can’t tell if it was consensual or not. Given the “I would have locked the door,” comment I’m guessing- yes? Anyone want to verify, just in case?
yes. definitely yes.
how horrendous would it be to be sexually assaulted by your roommate to realize you’re a lesbian in love with your childhood best friend?
but i wouldn’t put it past willis to write that in in another comic“becky, what happened?”
“..it’s complicated”
Also, note freckles on thighs, Becky was on top there.
I took too long to type! It’s a tie, then.
note – from her legs, I’m going to guess that Becky’s on top… so there’s a point for the idea that Becky is a willing participant?
Oh no, no, I was imagining Becky misread the signals and instigated, and the fact that it was not consensual was what got her in more trouble than the other girl. That said, I guess we have no proof that Kaitlin didn’t get kicked out too. You bring up an excellent point- that would be horrific.
I’m going to say yes, because she probably wouldn’t admit it otherwise?
We’re assuming Becky instigated it, right? Because she wouldn’t have wanted to lock the door if it was the other way around and nonconsensual.
Plus the chick on top has freckles on her legs.
Becky has freckles on her legs.
Yeah that’s what I was thinking.
I don’t understand what makes you say that it was non-consensual? I see nothing that indicates this whatsoever.
Because we’ve already seen Becky kiss a straight girl without her consent once? Though she probably would have been more careful if that were the case with Kaitlin.
I see I worded my comment incorrectly. I thought perhaps Becky misread her roommate’s signals. That’s what I meant by non-consensual- not that her roommate sexually assaulted her.
Ohh ok, I get you. I still think this all looks super consensual in every meaning of it, but I get what you meant now.
Also I’m currently writing a final paper on sexual assault, so idk- I guess I must have non-con on the brain.
Pretty sure it was consensual. Becky’s on top so that means she’s the one who went for it, but Kaitlyn is in Becky’s bed and she wouldn’t have been if she didn’t want to be.
I’m not going to assume if what happened was consensual or not, but just because Kaitlin is sitting on Becky’s bed doesn’t mean Kaitlin consents to making out or anything like that. Sitting on a bed isn’t an invitation to do anything.
When I was in the Air Force and lived in the dorms, there wasn’t a lot of space for people to sit. You either sit on the floor, one of two chairs, or one of two beds. Invariably people sat on my bed, or I on theirs–not an invitation to make out, just a matter of small shared living spaces.
.. so that strip in 2012 with kaitlin. was that before or after the unlocked door?
The unlocked door got (probably) them both expelled, so before by necessity. Although the expression on Kaitlin’s “What’s so great about Joyce?” face in that strip implies that it’s after she’s started thinking about it.
I was gonna say after, because I took the call as the catalyst for Becky disappearing, but she looks fine in that strip. So I’ll go with before, and go with some sequence like: call, but Becky hasn’t fixated on Joyce yet; then she and Kaitlin together, but are found out; then expulsion / disowning; then Becky thinks of Joyce as her only remaining friend, the only place she can go; then Becky twists herself up to fixating on Joyce (“of course, I’ve always loved her and she’s always loved me, why didn’t I see it before?”). We’ve already seen she’s not too hot with confirmation bias and selective evidence.
Adding Kaitlin to the mix complicates things. Quite possibly their dorm’s version of Mary was involved, but there are still a lot of open questions.
I already posted a comment about this down below, but it’s got to get approved because too many links, so the relevant bit without links: from Becky’s shirt, it looks like panel four of this strip is the same day as Kaitlin’s previous appearance, when Joyce called Becky to tell her she was holding Ethan’s hand in church.
I suspect panel four happened after that, and was directly triggered by it.
Doesn’t look like Becky’s wearing shorts when she gets the call from Joyce, though.
Hmm. Becky’s wearing blue pants, not white shorts in the previous strip (as Ray points out) but that now makes me wonder… Is she actually wearing the same outfit today? (White shorts, don’t know what’s under the hoodie.) We know the call was about a week ago, but not when she was caught… Is it possible she literally panicked and ran today / yesterday?
HTML fail.
The last time Joyce talked to Becky on the phone was Sunday of Week Three, when she called from church to tell her she was holding Ethan’s hand. First thing in the morning on Wednesday of Week Three, and again later that day, Joyce tried to call Becky, and Becky didn’t answer. I think this is highly suggestive that Becky got expelled sometime between Sunday 3 and Wednesday 3, and the reason she wasn’t answering was because she wasn’t there – Becky doesn’t have a cell phone, just their dorm room phone. (This may also hint that Kaitlin got expelled, too, because even if she’s got her own phone, I don’t think she’d just sit there and let the room phone ring.)
It’s currently Thursday (I think) of Week Four. That makes it more than a week, maybe a week and a half, since Becky went incommunicado. It’s possible that she’s still wearing the same clothes, but if so, it’s not because she just got caught today. (And I think Joyce would’ve noticed if Becky’d been in the same clothes for a week or more. Especially if they were the same clothes she’d been having sex in. Though, I dunno, maybe not being all that hygienic is normal for Becky.)
I think it’s more likely that Becky’s parents took her home and kept her cut off from the outside world for that intervening week, and she’s now run away to the one person in the whole world she knew cared about her.
And I still think panel 4 is Sunday after Joyce’s call. Maybe the pants are different because Becky had changed into her pajama bottoms. Or she’s already lost the unnecessary jeans, and that’s what her culture considers normal to wear as underclothing.
Why does a hyperchristian school allow female students to wear pants, let alone shorts?
Not that kind of hyperchristian.
“Their dorm’s version of Mary” put the mental image in my head of actual clones of Mary in every dorm building across the country.
It was terrifying.
Having been an RA, I can absolutely see college residential life coordinators putting meat-puppets whose basic function is to snitch on the RAs if they themselves don’t follow the rules. They don’t use them as RAs themselves because they’re very limited in function; instead of attending classes, during the day they all assemble in a small room in the subbasement of the facilities management building, where they glower at each other and mumble “I’m telling” for no particular reason.
After having re-read through the archive due to Becky wonderfulness…can I just say that this comic is great? I mean, at this point it’s my third longest consistently-read webcomic, behind GITP and QC.
GITP = OOTS?
Yeah, that’d be it. I’ve been broken by too many acronyms.
Those are my top 3 too 🙂 QC, OOTS, and DoA.
OotS’s update schedule leaves me favoring EGS, FiD, & Weregeek.
EGS is way up there, but I started reading it only recently, so I can’t quite put it up with the other three.
Took me a minute to figure those two out…
does that sign say “beck house”
Yep
http://www.dumbingofage.com/category/comic/book-1/03-men-are-from-beck-women-are-from-clark/
http://www.bloomingpedia.org/wiki/Read_Hall
That would be the case, yes.
Number one rule of hanky panky premarital or otherwise: always lock the door.
Number two is to turn on the webcam.
Number 3 is to make sure that the camera is on “record” and not “standby”.
Four is lighting, after all, if you cannot see the money shot, you don’t any money.
BECKY IN THE BECK HOUSE!
(Sorry, just noticed that.)
Huh, that look in the 2012 comic is actually pretty telling
Guess it’s time to re read doa
“We might have been able to cover it up by explaining that she was just giving me CPR, but the k.d. lang songs playing on loop on her iPod and my roommate’s copy of “Rubyfruit Jungle” on the floor kind of made what we were doing kind of obvious”
Despite the fact that chicks are making out on this page, I can’t stop staring at the discarded book in the third flashback panel and imagining the horrible bleeding paper cut I’d be afraid of receiving if I carelessly dropped one.
But I guess a dripping paper cut is small potatoes compared to the dripping hatchet wounds going on there
Sadly, one of the second or third things I thought about that frame was “That’s not how you treat a book!”
I took me a third read-through to realize that the above flashback was three separate days. Either that, or they changed clothes twice while having a conversation.
Hmm. All of which leads to the interesting possibility that Becky isn’t in love with Joyce at all, but just latched onto that as an idea when her mind was scrambling for safety.
+1
Could be, but also possibly started to realize she was gay with her roommate, and also began to realize that is what her feelings for Joyce were. But Joyce wasn’t around, while her roommate was, and it didn’t seem like that would change, so…
Always always always… lock the door when doing something ‘illegal’
You have to have a certain type of mind to think of stuff like that (not a bad type or anything, just that not everyone does).
This song seemed more apropos a couple of days ago, but it took me a while to find it
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=egUQju95vT8
Sounds like someone is going to camp
OOOOO BECKY GOT CAUGHT!
Probably no one read it because I posted it so late on yesterday’s strip, but I figured out the timing of Becky going incommunicado. Joyce last talked to Becky on Sunday of Week Three, to tell her she was holding hands with a boy in church. From Becky’s clothes, it looks like panel four of this strip occurs that same day.
On Wednesday morning, Joyce tried to call Becky to talk to her about Ethan coming out to her, and she didn’t answer.
So I’m thinking that Becky and Kaitlin gettin’ it on was directly triggered by that call from Joyce, and at least this latest part of the mess probably could have been averted if Becky hadn’t already been kicked out when Joyce tried to call her that second time.
And, ironically, that morning that Joyce tried to call Becky and she wasn’t answering was also the morning that Joyce was freaking out because everyone in college turns gay, possibly including herself.
Show of hands. When Mary inevitably tries to out Billie and Ruth in front of everyone, who’s in favor of Becky being the one to punch her in the boob?
Nah, liver shot is best shot.
Just punch her in the face ’til she pukes. It’s a tried and true method.
Nonononono- SOLAR PLEXUS! It will immediately incapacitate her and, with luck, make her see the glory of God (or something) without actually killing her, thereby showing her how wrong she has been and forcing her to grovel for everyone’s forgiveness! MWAHAHAHA!
An inch or two higher and you can snap the xyphoid process off the end of the sternum. With proper technique, it can be driven into the heart for a near-certain kill in one blow.
I like your idea better. Or better yet, kidney punch.
Violence is never the answer, but I am in favor of seeing Joyce take Mary down a peg or two.
Joyce pegging Mary? Now that’s kinky! 😀
Always lock the door.
At the risk of getting banned, do all the women in Willis’ world(s) have lesbian tendencies?
Not really.
Not Conquest.
She and Robin made out.
As far as I can tell, Dorothy, Amber, Sal, Sarah, Dina, and, unfortunately, Joyce, are straight (though it’s still possible that the issue with the Joyce/Becky ship isn’t that Joyce isn’t into girls, but that she loves Becky… like a sister, much like Walky is completely oblivious to Billie being the hottest girl in the comic).
The ratio among the minor characters is probably a bit skewed by the inclusion of most of Squad 48, who were basically the “Dear Penthouse, you won’t believe the squad of alien fighters I got assigned to [REDACTED FOR LENGTH AND PG RATING] — Joe” squad in IW!, but there are plenty of them who’ve never shown any sign of being into girls, either: Mary, Rachel, Agatha, Roz, Other Rachel, Asma…
Dina is Dinosexual thank you very much
Dinah, any kind of -sexual. Sorry, I just don’t see it- OH GOD MY EYES. Brain bleach! I need brain bleach! Velociraptors do not work that way!
In the Walkyverse, she jumped Walky after he decided to act more “mature”.
Also mike, after she got him drunk. And that ended very well.
Very well.
*distant crying in the background*
We have seen nothing of Dina’s actual sexual attractions to other humans, and given her level of social skills, I could see her “experimenting” in the sense of control group, double blind, etc.
That is a fantastic mental image, you have my thanks.
Why would that be ban-worthy?
I guess I meant “deleted”, not banned.
I probably would have if I weren’t sick and had gotten to the thread earlier before everyone in the world replied to it. Why? Because it’s kind of majorly annoying that I can’t ever introduce someone who isn’t straight or a dude or whatever without someone asking “ARE ALL YOUR CHARACTERS ________??????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????”
it’s kind of shitty and makes me hate people
Almost every strip where a gay couple/person shows up, someone asks the question “Is everyone in this strip GAY?” I don’t get it! There are tons of people who aren’t gay! And even if they were, who cares?
Notice that the three panels (in flashback) are not continuous, but are meant to show a passage of time and a growing attraction to each other — as evidenced by the fact that Becky and Kaitlin are wearing different outfits in each panel.
Yep, I noticed that 1 hour and 2 minutes ago.
In defense of Kaitlin, she had no choice. Becky forced her into smooches by being a freckled redhair in a tanktop !
asking for it
HAHA I TOTALLY REMEMBER HER. At the time I thought maybe she was someone who was a real-life person in strip (I remember Willis doing those as rewards in Shortpacked! if you paid a certain amount in a kickstarter you got to be an extra in a comic, not sure if he’s done it here though), as she was in the foreground and was fairly detailed.
But NOPE. Obviously meant she was an important character in two years time
Everything is connected!
It’s time to reread Shortpacked and other comics for extra characters and plots here.
Conspiracy much?
2017: Kaitlin, Everyone’s favorite character
*Checks thread for Slipshine suggestion*
… Yup.
so uh, you get KICKED OUT of college for having sex? that’s pretty much a totalitarian dictature or some shit, what the hell.
In a fundie Christian environment, that’s gonna happen.
scary. i guess those exist in the US, then. brrrrr.
No, not for having sex in this case. In the last scene of that flashback, there were no clothes strewn about. Anderson (which is a real place, BTW) has in its Student Honor Code a prohibition against “homosexual behavior”. So even if they were just caught smoochin’, the school would be booting them.
And this is not a uniform attitude in the US, all you foreigners. Anderson is a very small Christian college, with the emphasis on “Christian”. It can get away with expelling a young lady for pashing another young lady because LGBTQ people are not a protected class as far as discrimination laws are concerned, both nationally and in many individual states. In many states in the US, people can be fired, denied housing, or not allowed in stores or other private property on the basis that they are some flavor of Queer, or at least appear to be so by the person who is (legally) discriminating against them. Anderson is in one of these states, and thus they exercise their loathsome-but-legal right to purge their institution from anyone who looks longingly at the wrong person.
Hold on, seriously? Man, the West Coast has spoiled me – I figured private colleges had carte blanche, but that’s preposterous.
Same here on the EC. While we’ve successfully JUST passed the bill to legalize gay marriage in Florida, there are still those fighting tooth and nail to extend the ban past Jan. 5 the day when it’ll be officially legal.
http://www.theguardian.com/world/interactive/2012/may/08/gay-rights-united-states
Here’s a pretty good visualization of the issue, in both sexuality and gender identity/expression.
And this is not a uniform attitude in the US, all you foreigners. Anderson is a very small Christian college, with the emphasis on “Christian”. It can get away with expelling a young lady for pashing another young lady because LGBTQ people are not a protected class as far as discrimination laws are concerned, both nationally and in many individual states.
In theory, private religious schools can even discriminate against protect groups of people if they are willing to go completely private and forgo all government money such as student loans, and possible even give up their tax exempt status. Bob Jones University eventually decided to admit black students rather than pay taxes, but even then they tried to argue that a ban on interracial dating was not racist if it applied to everybody.
Yes. It should also be noted that private Christian colleges (of various sizes) can expel for a lot of other reasons that may or may not make sense. This involves premarital hanky-panky for heterosexual couples, but it can also involve a lot more ridiculous things.
Like, I know my grandmother went to a school that banned DANCING. I’ve looked it up, they have, like, school-sanctioned square dances, that’s it in terms of dances that will not bring about the very moral fabric of their society. I’m pretty sure Becky here could easily have gotten expelled for being in the same room with a man without supervision, or skipping church services/Bible readings/whatever too often (they’re usually mandatory), or watching a movie that was too un-Christian for her. (Read: Probably anything rated above PG, and ESPECIALLY stuff that depicts or refers to sex)
But yes: At the kind of college Becky was going to, she could totally have been expelled for kissing other ladies. She can totally be fired from a job or denied access to places for being into other ladies. Our country’s stance on religious versus personal rights is such that it is A-OK to deny people healthcare coverage because they get insurance through their employer and their employer has a strongly-held moral opposition to whatever thing they need. (Specifically, hormonal birth control, which can be used for a variety of things not including sex, but the floodgate has been opened for things like blood transfusions or antibiotics too because of short-sighted slut-shaming geezers.)
There is an actual law in Illinois that could potentially go through that doctors would be able to deny treating homosexuals.
AND I HATE THE WORLD.
There is an actual law in Illinois that could potentially go through that doctors would be able to deny treating homosexuals.
Well, if it hasn’t gone through yet, it’s a bill, not a law, and bugfuck crazy legislators introduce bills all the time that have no hope of passing, to make good with their base. And Illinois is one of the states that currently prohibits discrimination in healthcare based on sexual orientation.
I live in Illinois and while I have never heard of such a law I can tell you there is no way in hell such a law would even have a chance of being passed. Illinois may love its laws so much the Missouri is basically Mexico to us, but this state is too liberal for a law like that to make it off the crack job who wrote its desk.
Re: Becky’s circumstance: it looks to me like she had a consensual lesbian relationship with Kaitlin at her christian college and got kicked out and her parents want nothing to do with her now (not sure if it’s the lesbian part or the getting kicked out of college part that her parents disowned her for, maybe both?)
But after reading todays strip I’m now wondering whether or not Becky actually is in love with Joyce or if that confession was supposed to manipulate (for lack of a better word) Joyce into not hating Becky for being into girls . Becky was probably afraid that if she had just told Joyce that she hooked up with her girl roommate and got kicked out of her christian college and her parents won’t have her back home, Joyce would have excommunicated Becky from her life (because as far as Becky knows, Joyce is as bible-thumping as she had been at the start of the series). What brought up this thought is that we’ve now discovered that Becky had a relationship with another girl according to today’s strip, and the thing that she regrets about it is not locking the door. If she would have been able to continue the relationship with Kaitlin, she probably would have, but it’s probably impossible now since their relationship is the very reason they are now in awful places in life. Becky might have not been thinking that much about Joyce at all until she got caught and wound up without a place to go.
Is Becky actually in love with Joyce and what happened in college was just a meaningless hookup that lead to an unfortunate collapse of her world? Or is Becky being manipulative with Joyce’s emotions in a last resort effort to have a place with Joyce? I would like to think the prior, but I don’t really know enough about Becky to tell if she’s being honest or if she’s acting. If she got kicked out of her christian college for something else (I don’t know, watching lesbian porn?) I wouldn’t be so doubting of her character.
Or are people maybe complex enough to not just fall in love once and forever and live happily ever after?
It might be that, rather than being kicked out of Anderson, her parents were alerted, refused to pay and disowned her. Not that it would make it any better for poor Becky.
Someone above suggested that the development of a relationship with her roommate is what helped her realize what she’d been feeling about Joyce all along.
Yep. Exactly like what happened to my favorite teacher back when she was a student.
I really like the subtle change of clothing through the panels. Missed it the first read, but on second look it makes the whole thing pack a little more punch. An attraction that developed naturally.
also the fact that Becky is wearing the same shorts she wears in the present, which makes me assume she got kicked out with just the clothes on her back and she REALLY has nothing else but her shoes and Joyce right now….poor kid.
She didn’t get a change to come out to her family! She got caught then outed! This makes me want to cry 🙁
I really hope that things turn out well for Kaitlin too. It would make me kind of sad if this is the last we see of her in the comic and I’ll be left worrying about how her parents and (former) friends are treating her. 🙁
Same.
I wonder how seriously Joyce will take Becky’s profession of forever love for Joyce, especially now that she’s also confessed that she was swapping spit with her roommate.
Of course, in 1970, Stephen Stills sung a little song about that which said:
“Don’t be angry – don’t be sad
Don’t sit crying over good times you’ve had
There’s a girl right next to you
And she’s just waiting for something to do
Well there’s a rose in a fisted glove
And the eagle flies with the dove
And if you can’t be with the one you love
Love the one you’re with”
I have been hearing that song wrong my entire life.
So … what next?
If Becky’s parents have in fact disowned her (as opposed to her just being too scared to talk to them), she will need a place to live. And Joyce certainly can’t ask her similarly fundie parents to take her in.
Thus: Joyce will have to make a trip to the campus GSA, LGBT center, or whatever they have, to ask them about local resources for gay kids kicked out by their parents. How fun for her.
Should be a learning experience, anyway.
If Willis wanted to make this easy for Becky, and for us, he needed only introduce Becky to Dorothy’s boss at the college newspaper (whose name I’ve forgotten). But that’s a HUGE “if” 🙁
What makes you think Daisy is in a position to support Becky?
She’s older for one.
*If* Willis wanted to make things easy for Becky, Daisy could have a part-time job, or well-to-do parents, and a place of her own. All we know about her is that she’s single and has a taste for the ladies.
So… is Katlin OK? She is in the same boat as Becky, but they don’t seem to be running away together. I really hope at least on of them have supportive parents.
Also, Joyce is doing what Joyce does – she listens, she comforts and there has not been a shred of judgement yet. She is a good friend.
Could be she’s in the same boat and got split apart. (Becky might have claimed she was going to take the bus home or something, or just split – I doubt the college officials would have let them be around each other while they were being disciplined.) Could be her parents have already taken her home, for good or for ill (man, I am hoping her parents don’t believe in conversion camps, but I would not be surprised). Could be Kaitlin or her parents managed to cut a deal so that she could stay in, probably by throwing Becky under the bus. I don’t THINK that would fly, but if she has good enough connections I could see it.
What I’m betting, though, is that they were both expelled, and Becky fled here before her parents could get her.
I just hope things didn’t get too ugly between them, and that Katlin has a Joyce to go to as well.
Oh the feels
I’m guessing Anderson would frown on that sort of thing.
Your avatar makes this a masterpiece of understatement ^^
Becky’s dorm-mates encouraged her to seek out her true love Joyce.
#RoseColoredGlasses
For all the Drama Beckers is going through, I’m really more interested in what Joyce takes away from this.
If she doesn’t take it as the sign from God she asked for, I will be somewhat disappointed with her.
(Unless she goes atheist, but I’m not counting on that.)
So I was, unfortunately, right. Can’t wait for all the comments claiming this is completely unbelievable.
Nope. It’s a real thing. They hold mock trials and everything.
Or at least put a sock on the door knob.
The sock on the doorknob would not have helped. Premarital hanky-panky is also a violation of the Anderson Student Honor Code. (For reals!) And since this is a Christian college, there would inevitably be someone who would consider it their righteous duty to stone the sinners, or at least report them to the authorities.
OK, this story line is breaking my heart. Tough enough to discover you are one of the people your pastor warned you about. Even tougher when you are thrown to the wolves because of it.
Oddly large ratio of freckled redheaded girls who are into girls in this webcomic.
NOT LARGE ENOUGH!
NEVER LARGE ENOUGH!
And more of them need to be wearing glasses.
Wait… in the other comic with Kaitlin, was that Tony hiding behind Joyce and Ethan?
http://www.dumbingofage.com/2012/comic/book-2/06-strange-beerfellows/hands/
Am I the only one seeing this?
Could be. All we really know about DoA!Tony is that he’s at least a year above the main cast, son of Dean McHenry, on the football team, doesn’t buy beer for freshmen and doesn’t beat guys up for being gay.
… which isn’t that bad for 3 strips, really. Still, that hair is fairly distinctive.
We also know that he’s tagged in at least some of his other appearances, but not that one.
And I’ve NOW just caught the title of this chapter and I can’t stop hearing that song of the same name from Toy Story 2 and keep from bursting into tears.
You too, huh?
It doesn’t help that Jessie (from TS2) has red hair.
Note how Joyce is edging closer. She doesn’t want to trigger Becky to run away again, but she really wants to hug her best friend in times of distress. Awwww.
I’d hoped Kaitlin would come back! I definitely noticed her at least during my rereads of the comic and I had a funny feeling she was involved with Becky’s departure from Anderson, though I hadn’t expected *exactly* this nature of thing.
She has fun hair.
I’ve been trying to figure out Beckys plan after confessing to Joyce. Living together in Joyces bunk for the rest of eternity?
I am guessing her plan was to hug and kiss her best friend, and talk about what to do about her situation. In other words I am guessing she didn’t have a plan other than finding her best friend, and hoping the world would become a better place.
Hug, yes, kiss, I don’t think so.
After her world was shattered, her self identity changed and all the people around her who should support her cast her out she found the one person she knew she loved, she knew would not judge her and she know would love her back – if not as a lover at least as a friend.
All in all not a bad plan as plans goes.
As for why she spent a day playing silly mind games and stalling instead of coming clean with Joyce… well, I can’t really blame her for getting one last good day.
As Ethan said – now her sexuality will always be a factor. Always.
I call shenanigans, Becky had a plan.
She was enacting Joyce’s Go-to plan: ‘Fall in Love and everything is solved forever’ ;
—- and it almost worked too, if that meddling Willis hasnt made Joyce straight.
“Same old Joyce”
OK, who called it?
Congratulations to Luzahn for being the second one to call Kaitlin’s involvement…
SUPER congratulations to John to being the first to call it (at least on the first page) and call that they made love as well!
Although I think there were really only two likely ways Kaitlin would be involved with the incident: being the lover or the reporter. So it’s possible Luzahn might have guessed this as well. But second place is first loser, sukka! ..Get it? “Sucka” but spelled like Luz’s Sokka avatar instead of like sucker? No? Sorry.
“Made love” is a bit of an assumption. The last flashback panel showed the book and pillow on the floor and the glasses off, but the clothes still on.
The could have been caught (and expelled for) just kissing.
I’m simultaneously pleased and groaning at the pun so…kudos?
🙂
Sokka would be pleased.
Not me. I’d noticed that Becky avoided talking about Anderson, but assumed she just didn’t like it there (on account of the lack of Joyce, probably) I didn’t expect big drama. That girl is good at keeping her act together.
So this is Becky ‘s first step in becoming modern Batwoman yeah?
Becky and Kaitlin would make a cute couple. Unfortunately, no matter what happens to Becky, the odds of their getting together again… (sigh) Then again, Amber and Sal ended up at the same dorm, so…
I just realized that Becky completely subverts Sarahs go-to solution of calling the parents.
IF Sarah doesnt let Becky stay, she will make her own life difficult with a drama-case Joyce.
This ( Becky ) is Sarahs Chance to undue her previous Karma and guilt over her previous roomate
I wouldn’t call it go-to solution. It happened once in a situation where she couldn’t see any other good solution. She didn’t insist on calling Joyce’s parents after the rape incident. I’m pretty sure Sarah will be on board with listen to Becky’s wishes and work to find a pragmatic solution.
Calling “calling the parents” Sarah’s go-to solution isn’t really correct? She contacted the parents of an emotionally distressed roommate who was good at putting on a facade of being put together in front of friends.
She didn’t really have many options. The friends didn’t believe her, and the only other options I can think of at college would be an RA or counseling. The RA is dependent on what kind of RA was on her freshman hall, as RAs can range the gamut in proactiveness. Not to mention if Dana had close friends fooled, I can believe the RA would be to. If Sarah had reached out to UofI’s counseling department it may have helped, but it’s just as likely that the facade would have continued there if Dana was even willing to go. (I don’t know much about how counseling departments deal with students reporting distress in their roommate, but I do know about using facades to pretend you’re alright). Contacting Dana’s family seemed to be her best bet.
Sarah says she “had no other choice”. She’s at her wits end, wanting to help her friend and wanting to keep her grades up, but no one believes Sarah when she says that there’s a problem. So she uses her last resort and contacts Dana’s parents. It’s the right decision and the best choice Sarah has. I don’t think there’s any karma to undo and she doesn’t need to learn the lesson of “don’t contact the parents” because that is a shitty lesson to learn. Parents can hurt (see: the Siegals and the Walkertons) but parents can be supportive and helpful (see: the Keeners, Mrs. O’Malley). I’m sure misanthrope Sarah realizes that.
CONSPIRACY THEORY TIME
quote from Joel Watson’s site: “Emily and Joel started dating when they were 18 and Joel was living (illegally) in the dorms at her school”. So, if this thing is autobiographical and so, Becky (as Joel’s alter-ego) will live illegally in Joyce’s room, then meet and start dating… um… ehhh…. Jacob? Ethan? Danny!??
YEP, SUCCESSFUL THEORY, THO
Perhaps Ruth will be sympathetic to Becky’s plight, and look through her fingers on it. Ruth is, after all, known for her sympathy and lax style of authority.
Becky and Ruth will exchange Secret Freckly Redhead Illuminatus signs, and then Ruth will give her Billie’s bunk.
BILLIE: “Don’t I get a say in-”
RUTH: “No.”
surprised Becky didn’t get too phased by this: http://www.dumbingofage.com/2014/comic/book-5/01-when-somebody-loved-me/dvr/
I’m inclined to think Becky was still putting on a cheerful front there (and of course it’s suddenly very interesting to try to read her expression in panel 3 – I think she’s looking at Joyce rather than Mary).
Waiting for evidence on my pet theory that Becky, via Kaitlin (today’s panel 3), no longer shares Joyce’s hangups re homosexuality. She certainly doesn’t seem conflicted by it so far.
I’m pretty sure Becky is used to the Mary’s of the world by now. The important thing was to confirm Joyce wasn’t one of them.
Oh gosh don’t bring up changing Ethan.
You know she’s gonna
Just to be clear- Becky appears to be the one on top in the third panel. Look at the freckles on those legs.
A lot of people are saying “So her feelings for Joyce weren’t real?”
I think that she didn’t understand her feelings. And when someone presented her with and opportunity to discover who she was, she took it, liked it, and wanted to continue. After she was expelled, she realized that those feelings she’d been having for Joyce weren’t platonic, or feelings that everyone had for their friends. She had a crush. So she went to Joyce, and made up this fake story in her head about how Joyce was also gay. Then she went for it. I think she was hoping Joyce would want to date her, and thus be more willing to let her stay. When that possibility went out the window, Becky was horrified by the rejection, and also the thought that she might not have shelter.
Exactly
Jupp. Even shippers know you can have feelings for more than one person.
What about my Elseranna(Elsa + Serana + Anna) ship? ;_;
OH GOD DERP IT you said *can* not can’t. 😛 My bad!
These discussions would only be half as entertaining if there was an edit function 🙂
For the record I’m completely for a three way ship. Elsa and Anna are adorable and Serana is… a voice actress? Who sings Elsa’s Italian voice…. OK, I’m completely for this ship as soon as I have wrapped my poor brain around the forth-wall braking implications.
I could see someone shipping Kirk/Shatner, because if there was anyone who would only have eyes for himself, given the opportunity…
Transporter accident/parallel universe/time travel/clone/Trek Tech. Star Trek is easy.
Maybe Becky could find a church, repent of her “sin”, and call upon the church law of ‘sanctuary’.
Or is that something that is exclusive to Roman Catholicism?
RC has such a thing? INB4 becoming RC. 😛
Repenting is a Catholic thing.
Nah, that sort of thing was stopped about 400 years ago.
Glasses? Check.
Sexiness? Check.
Lesbians? Check.
Soul crushing regret and despair? Check.
I’m sensing a pattern here… and I think it’s a good one.
I’ve finally finished the archive trawl, and I have only one thing to say.
Damn you, Willis. Damn you for making me care. D=
If it helps, I just finished it too. I found out about this site about 3 days ago (2 and a half to be more accurate) and have binge read it all. It sucks now because I have to wait for the next one to be released, rather than just clicking next.
Yup. That was two weeks ago for me and now there’s just the horror of endless antici…….pation.
Good to know we are continuing to get new readers! Welcome!
Well you should thank dannyvx on the site funnyjunk, he uploaded the latest 3/4 comics saying how it was rather sad, and gave credit here. Apparently a couple people other than me decided to check it out and are all now hooked 🙂
Also, nice Rocky Horror ref. 😀
Well, we were talking, one thing lead to another, and *SOB* I told her to leave the glasses on! Why didn’t she leave the glasses on?!
…now you know why I had to leave.
I hope tomorrows comic elaborates on what happened, because in any christian university I know of, its not a “caught=>kicked out” procedure. there are steps in between, inquiries, counseling, watch list ect. When someone breaks the moralistic rules like that they tend to try to keep the student in school and work with them on the ‘problem’.
If becky doesn’t regret being with that girl, then what’s up with her being all “joyce you’ve always been my everything”
We don’t know what happened next.
It’s possible, though I hope not, that Kaitlin blamed Becky for the whole thing and “went straight” to stay in school.
I think that Becky only just realized her feelings for Joyce.
I look at those three middle panels and I realize that somewhere out there, in a parallel universe, it just went on like that. Friendly blue panels with happy smiling Becky and Kaitlin exploring their newfound relationship and sexuality and adulthood all in one, without fear of ostracization, without fear of deviating from what is right or proper. It maybe ended with them breaking up, it maybe ended in them staying together, it maybe was the most important thing of their life or just a steppingstone to something else, but it didn’t end with them being thrown out from their new homes.
And then I realize that in the universe DoA takes place there were just three blue panels, and then Becky sitting on some stairs outside a different college in the middle of the night with nowhere else to go.
And then I realize that our real-life universe is much closer to the DoA universe than the happy blue-panel universe.
And then I get sad. And angry.
Stop making the rest of us sad just cause you invisioned a universe where Becky was happy.
Just remember that day by day, we’re moving closer to the blue-panels.
One day all panels will be blue panels. That’s a day worth working for.
Ernest Hemingway once wrote, “The world is all blue panels and worth fighting for.” I agree with the second part.
And then you turn into Batman.
Once again, lesbianism ruins lives.
Kids, don’t do muff
You misspelled “bigotry”.
Anyine consider the double gut punch that Kaitlin was the one who was gonna spill the beans? They got caught somehow, obviously, but what if Kaitlin immediately tried to spin it that Becky was the aggressor and Kaitlin the unwilling victim? Becky would have no choice but to run away.
I was kind of thinking that as well. Especially since with Becky on top it’d probably be pretty possible to do.
Wait there were people thinking Becky just jumped Katlin? It’s pretty obvious those Panels are different days.
Last panel sass is the best. I like you Becky. You can sit right here, in my non-asshole college dorm room, and chill with me.
I used to snog a person in a fundamentalist Christian family. You don’t lock the door, that is SO frowned upon. You close the door and lean up against it. You get very good at hiding behind doors and slipping out unnoticed or teleporting eight feet away with your clothing magically sheveled, or pretending you had the love of your life pinned and was dangling a loogie above said love’s face.
And you break your heart, because no-one should ever have to choose between their family and their partner, and you made the loving decision and you’re sure they’re enjoying their miserable legal heteromarriage that they had to agree to. :melodramatic sobbing:
So I think I found a continuity error (or I missed an important comic) because Becky has a single room. Which generally means no roommate….
http://www.dumbingofage.com/2010/comic/book-1/01-move-in-day/home/
At no point in that linked strip is it indicated that Becky has a single room.
Aaah I see I was confused by Joyce’s statement that Becky was “..getting one of your own.” and just ass-umed it meant “to her self” rather than “you yourself are also getting a dorm room.” Which I guess makes me the ass.
Thank you for clarifying.
Sorry if I came across as accusatory or like I was playing “Gotcha” it was not my intent. Like Dina I am not always proficient at communicating with the humans. 😉
Also I should have said ” it appears she has a single to me.”