I saw Howard Johnson, and not knowing any better thought that you were saying that Howard Johnson taco meat is soo fine!
Matthew Davis
I know for a fact that at least one convenience store next to the Yale campus has a salad bar/buffet. The area goes down in socioeconomic status pretty fast once you leave campus, though. You could probably find tacos pretty easily.
Matthew Davis
And now my comment looks like I obsessively researched the likelihood of tacos near Yale.
Orbit Junkie
Considering your gravatar, that’s okay. I’m sure Dorothy has done lots of obsessive research on Yale and the surrounding area, and thus knows exactly where to get tacos.
GreatContagion
I actually interpreted the comment as stating, essentially, that as the SES in an area declines, the likelihood of Tacos existing in it increase.
Ollie
I used to live in Connecticut. New Haven has a Moes Mexican Grill and a Chipotle and tons of taco trucks along the road by the shore. Walky would make it ok.
Ollie
For the record, all of that is within reasonable walking distance from Yale.
He would have to kick up some decent studying habits unless he tags along, which would be pulling what Danny would have done… which Dorothy has already strongly expressed she DOES NOT want.
I think you hit the nail on the head there. Sometimes, personality makes a big difference. I love Danny, but I also hate him, because he’s very similar to me in a lot of respects, in that his foot is constantly in his mouth. Also, he’s kind of narcissistic, and doesn’t realize it. Walky, however, knows exactly who he is and is okay with it… for now. Anyways, this is all subject to the word of Willis.
begbert2
Danny’s one of the nicest, most caring and considerate males we’ve been introduced to; arguably the *only* one who actually makes being nice and considerate a priority. The level of irritating loveydoveyness seen at the start of the comic was deliberately amped up (to the point of seeming like unreliable narration) and hasn’t resurfaced again. And Dorothy dumped him because she’d been obviously planning to do so for months (because she was leaving him behind for college) and instead of actually doing it she instead developed a mindset where he shouldn’t be that interested in her anyway, and got irritated at him for loving behavior that likely was appreciated the year previously. Oh, and he also made one single comment that pissed her off enough to (finally) end it herself. Yeah. Such a bastard.
People around here like dumping on Danny because Willis maneuvered him into a lot of uncomfortable situations based on him lacking information he had no way of knowing, but in reality if there’s any way Danny is inferior to the other boys in the comic, the only way I can think of is that he lacks the unbelievably sexy abs all of the rest of them share.
lightsabermario
Here, here! Bravo!
Leorale
I strongly agree with all of this (and I would still agree even if you didn’t have the Danny grav).
I don’t think he TOTALLY wanted her to give up her aspirations…. After all, he did make some comment about how after she was president he could hang around the oval office and update the software on her computer.
Perhaps he thought she could become president without going to Yale. (Both Carter and Reagan managed to become president without an Ivy league education.)
Spencer
Comments from Willis would imply that Danny didn’t believe she could become president, and likewise that’s something she’s heard from a lot of people, so hearing it from her boyfriend is probably extra hurtful. Given what Dorothy said after the break-up, it’s probable that Danny figured that her dream to become president was a phase she was going through, and eventually she’d realize it wouldn’t happen.
More importantly, though. I’m kind of sick of the constant back and forth on their break up, and how anytime any we debate on Danny’s character we have to bring it up. They both acted like dicks (Danny’s aforementioned lack of respect for her ambitions, Dorothy not ending things months ago because she couldn’t bring herself to do it), and they’ve moved on. It was four years ago, guys.
Yale rejects plenty of perfect SAT scores. I think the wealth bias comes mostly from the fact that kids who could otherwise be doing some awesome stuff and studying end up working after school. Only around 8%of the class are legacies.
gka
That’s a misleading statistic. Legacies have an approximate 30% acceptance rate, as opposed to non-legacies, whose acceptance is somewhere around 5%.
And, as a personal anecdote – both of my parents are Yale grads, and pretty much the moment when my sister applied, the college called to ask for money. Nothing was given, and she didn’t get in.
Spring
FWIW, only about 3-400 students got a perfect 2400 every year (It’s possible that that number will go up a bit now that we’re back to a 1600 point scale). It’s true that some perfect scores are rejected, but a perfect score with a Yale level GPA is going to be a really rare thing, and they’ll have a pretty great shot at getting in if there isn’t anything wrong with their transcript.
I’m not sure rejecting ‘plenty’ is accurate. The best reference I found is a NYT story saying that “several” students with 2,400s were rejected. If several means 3-7 or so, then that’s still about a 90% admit rate, and it’s likely that some of the several had substandard GPAs.
I’m sure it’s not exactly the same, but I got into Harvard Law with a really unremarkable transcript, but a really good GPA and LSAT score. I can’t imagine schools are that much pickier when admitting 2,000 undergrads than they are when admitting 500 graduate students.
You need to be unique in some way, but it is possible to stand out just by virtue of standardized test scores that literally everyone recognizes are ridiculous as a measure of merit. It’d be great for society if we just got rid of standardized testing as a major factor in school rankings at the very least (although it’d be shitty for me, a thoroughly unimpressive person who is REALLY good at standardized tests).
Yeah, but that fucker was smart enough to be president, which is pretty fucking smart.
Carriethedragon
That’s actually an excellent point. You’ve got to have at least a certain sort of smarts to manage it.
John
More to the point, his daddy was smart enough to be President.
Solenoid
And his daddy before him was a governor.
And people say we don’t have ‘royalty’.
Atomix26
Not quite sure about that.
While a political dynasty may be a powerful thing in terms of connections, having your main role model doing something that important for a living is bound to have an impression.
Willoughby Chase
He knew a lot of smart people. As does his brother.
Mr Ak
*cough* Reagan *cough*
NobodySpecial
He got what’s known as a ‘gentleman’s C’ at school, and wasn’t exactly known for applying himself to anything other than partying. The only smarts I see from him is being born into the right area of the gene pool.
John
He could always apply to the University of New Haven.
No offense to Dotty, but Walky has known her for…what…2 months at most? What’re the odds that this relationship would last? That’s a pretty big life decision for a girl you’ve only known for 1/192 of your life.
Danny followed Dorothy to IU. Walky could potentially go to Yale with her. There’s a subtle but important difference.
Ghola
I would love for someone to explain this difference.
Because I don’t really see much of one. Danny didn’t have a plan for after high school other then “Go with Dorothy” and she hated him for it, now she’s going to magically think walky’s plan of “going with Dorothy” is… better somehow?
Why? Because she might not fall out of love with him before they finish packing to get to Yale?
4th Dimension
The idea is that Walky might grow up a little and realize what he wants in life. Having done that and finally realized what he wants to major, he could realize that Yale is excellent for that. Than that would be killing two birds with one stone. Even if it doesn’t work long term he would not have wasted his education.
The problem with Danny is that he followed Dotty and probably Joe (or maybe Joe in his way followed his main mansince he certanly didn’t have larger aspirations than to bone coeds) to IU even though IU isn’t stellar for getting a degree in computers which are his interest. he put his actual future behind an idealized future that would have never happened with Dorothy.
Vincent
The difference is Dorothy wanted to get rid of Danny by going to IU.
John
For starters, Danny was never going to be going to Yale. He followed Dorothy to IU, but IU’s just a stepping stone on Dorothy’s path to the Presidency, and Danny wasn’t ever going to be taking the next step with her. So, as 4th Dimension says, Danny was sacrificing his own future for a storybook future with Dorothy that was not going to happen, long-term, unless Dorothy sacrificed her future as well. And then he made the mistake of hoping for that aloud, which was the point where Dorothy flipped from, “Trying to let him down easy,” to, “Fuck this, I’m out.”
Walky, on the other hand, has been well-established to be a friggin’ genius, underperforming because he’s a slacker with no study skills. If he were to apply himself, and maybe get some help with this “How do study?” thing from Dorothy, he very well could go to Yale, and that could be a good move for him irrespective of what Dorothy does. He wouldn’t be following Dorothy and hoping she sacrifices her ambition so as not to go farther than he can follow her, he would be beside her doing it with her, and could remain beside her all the way to the White House. And he’s not secretly hoping that she fails and has to stay with him; he has implicit faith that she will be President.
The last time Walky applied himself for Dorothy’s sake it ended up with a dimension hopping genocidal madman amassing an army of teenagers in steampunk goggles.
…
Okay, that’s another .05 priority slot jump for “Read Old Walkyverse.”
Eolirin
That stuff is all part of the Joyce and Walky line; it’s behind a paywall. Takes place after the end of the It’s Walky series.
John
🙁
John
I’m too broke to buy comics, so I’m holding out hope that Willis will decide to continue on through the Joyce & Walky! strips after he gets done the It’s Walky! rerun in four years or so. I don’t think he’s said yet whether he will or not.
Solenoid
Don’t take this as authoritative, but I seem to recall someone saying that Willis has promised that they’ll always be available in some form – and that it will always require first having paid.
But, uh…. It’s of the form “someone said that ____ said”, so I’d be more comfortable if I could find where Willis said it and link that for you.
Eh, Allien overlord did not happen because Walky applied himself, after all after Dorothy incident he went back to his slacker self. The allien stuff happened largely because his mother (at it allways does), Jason’s father and Penny’s boss (of all people) and a gigantic block of cheese.
Because we would totally support a girl who tried to go to a college just to follow a guy she liked.
No. That’s a bad idea. That is like taking a list of your top priorities, setting it on fire, licking the fire, and then doing something that was never on the priority list to begin with. Just don’t
329 thoughts on “L-word”
Jen Aside
or Walky could… I dunno… ALSO go to Yale???
[or would that take actually having to make long-term life decisions]
ColdOnMars
I’m sure Yale has tacos too…
Dreadhawk177
Only the finest tacos.
Plasma Mongoose
But are they butt tacos?
Baf
I’m fairly confident that the ground meat in the tacos contains at least some butt.
Tacos
Exactly how fine are the finest tacos?
Dreadhawk177
Thats how fine:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mpgjuhJiUbs
John
I saw Howard Johnson, and not knowing any better thought that you were saying that Howard Johnson taco meat is soo fine!
Matthew Davis
I know for a fact that at least one convenience store next to the Yale campus has a salad bar/buffet. The area goes down in socioeconomic status pretty fast once you leave campus, though. You could probably find tacos pretty easily.
Matthew Davis
And now my comment looks like I obsessively researched the likelihood of tacos near Yale.
Orbit Junkie
Considering your gravatar, that’s okay. I’m sure Dorothy has done lots of obsessive research on Yale and the surrounding area, and thus knows exactly where to get tacos.
GreatContagion
I actually interpreted the comment as stating, essentially, that as the SES in an area declines, the likelihood of Tacos existing in it increase.
Ollie
I used to live in Connecticut. New Haven has a Moes Mexican Grill and a Chipotle and tons of taco trucks along the road by the shore. Walky would make it ok.
Ollie
For the record, all of that is within reasonable walking distance from Yale.
Ess
He would have to kick up some decent studying habits unless he tags along, which would be pulling what Danny would have done… which Dorothy has already strongly expressed she DOES NOT want.
Dreadhawk177
He could always work as a Taco Bell cook at the cafeteria..
Kris
Yeah that would be pretty hypocritical of her.
John
It’s always possible that Dorothy broke up with Danny because he’s Danny, and not because he solved the long distance “problem.’
grantimusmaximus
I think you hit the nail on the head there. Sometimes, personality makes a big difference. I love Danny, but I also hate him, because he’s very similar to me in a lot of respects, in that his foot is constantly in his mouth. Also, he’s kind of narcissistic, and doesn’t realize it. Walky, however, knows exactly who he is and is okay with it… for now. Anyways, this is all subject to the word of Willis.
begbert2
Danny’s one of the nicest, most caring and considerate males we’ve been introduced to; arguably the *only* one who actually makes being nice and considerate a priority. The level of irritating loveydoveyness seen at the start of the comic was deliberately amped up (to the point of seeming like unreliable narration) and hasn’t resurfaced again. And Dorothy dumped him because she’d been obviously planning to do so for months (because she was leaving him behind for college) and instead of actually doing it she instead developed a mindset where he shouldn’t be that interested in her anyway, and got irritated at him for loving behavior that likely was appreciated the year previously. Oh, and he also made one single comment that pissed her off enough to (finally) end it herself. Yeah. Such a bastard.
People around here like dumping on Danny because Willis maneuvered him into a lot of uncomfortable situations based on him lacking information he had no way of knowing, but in reality if there’s any way Danny is inferior to the other boys in the comic, the only way I can think of is that he lacks the unbelievably sexy abs all of the rest of them share.
lightsabermario
Here, here! Bravo!
Leorale
I strongly agree with all of this (and I would still agree even if you didn’t have the Danny grav).
Airyu
Danny was hoping that Dorothy would give up on her aspirations. http://www.dumbingofage.com/2010/comic/book-1/01-move-in-day/through/ That is not a nice thing to hope for anyone, and particularly not a nice thing to hope for someone you supposedly love.
segnosaur
I don’t think he TOTALLY wanted her to give up her aspirations…. After all, he did make some comment about how after she was president he could hang around the oval office and update the software on her computer.
Perhaps he thought she could become president without going to Yale. (Both Carter and Reagan managed to become president without an Ivy league education.)
Spencer
Comments from Willis would imply that Danny didn’t believe she could become president, and likewise that’s something she’s heard from a lot of people, so hearing it from her boyfriend is probably extra hurtful. Given what Dorothy said after the break-up, it’s probable that Danny figured that her dream to become president was a phase she was going through, and eventually she’d realize it wouldn’t happen.
More importantly, though. I’m kind of sick of the constant back and forth on their break up, and how anytime any we debate on Danny’s character we have to bring it up. They both acted like dicks (Danny’s aforementioned lack of respect for her ambitions, Dorothy not ending things months ago because she couldn’t bring herself to do it), and they’ve moved on. It was four years ago, guys.
Jen Aside
you mean four WEEKS amirite
Doctor_Lantern
You beat me to the exact same comment… Darn it. But I agree… Walky could just go with her.
Carriethedragon
Everybody keeps saying this. I’m pretty sure Yale has damn high standards, y’all.
-Sentinel-
It’s easier if you’re rich.
Some studies have demonstrated that the SAT, despite being standardized, is in fact biased in favor of people from wealthier backgrounds.
GlaceEx
Well that explains why my friend who is just as smart as me did much better on the SAT’she Iis definitely wealthier than me…
Alex
Yale rejects plenty of perfect SAT scores. I think the wealth bias comes mostly from the fact that kids who could otherwise be doing some awesome stuff and studying end up working after school. Only around 8%of the class are legacies.
gka
That’s a misleading statistic. Legacies have an approximate 30% acceptance rate, as opposed to non-legacies, whose acceptance is somewhere around 5%.
And, as a personal anecdote – both of my parents are Yale grads, and pretty much the moment when my sister applied, the college called to ask for money. Nothing was given, and she didn’t get in.
Spring
FWIW, only about 3-400 students got a perfect 2400 every year (It’s possible that that number will go up a bit now that we’re back to a 1600 point scale). It’s true that some perfect scores are rejected, but a perfect score with a Yale level GPA is going to be a really rare thing, and they’ll have a pretty great shot at getting in if there isn’t anything wrong with their transcript.
I’m not sure rejecting ‘plenty’ is accurate. The best reference I found is a NYT story saying that “several” students with 2,400s were rejected. If several means 3-7 or so, then that’s still about a 90% admit rate, and it’s likely that some of the several had substandard GPAs.
I’m sure it’s not exactly the same, but I got into Harvard Law with a really unremarkable transcript, but a really good GPA and LSAT score. I can’t imagine schools are that much pickier when admitting 2,000 undergrads than they are when admitting 500 graduate students.
You need to be unique in some way, but it is possible to stand out just by virtue of standardized test scores that literally everyone recognizes are ridiculous as a measure of merit. It’d be great for society if we just got rid of standardized testing as a major factor in school rankings at the very least (although it’d be shitty for me, a thoroughly unimpressive person who is REALLY good at standardized tests).
Opus the Poet
Might I remind you that GW Bush went to Yale?
John
Yeah, but that fucker was smart enough to be president, which is pretty fucking smart.
Carriethedragon
That’s actually an excellent point. You’ve got to have at least a certain sort of smarts to manage it.
John
More to the point, his daddy was smart enough to be President.
Solenoid
And his daddy before him was a governor.
And people say we don’t have ‘royalty’.
Atomix26
Not quite sure about that.
While a political dynasty may be a powerful thing in terms of connections, having your main role model doing something that important for a living is bound to have an impression.
Willoughby Chase
He knew a lot of smart people. As does his brother.
Mr Ak
*cough* Reagan *cough*
NobodySpecial
He got what’s known as a ‘gentleman’s C’ at school, and wasn’t exactly known for applying himself to anything other than partying. The only smarts I see from him is being born into the right area of the gene pool.
John
He could always apply to the University of New Haven.
Alex
They could meet up at Toad’s each week.
Gigafreak
And pick up extra power-ups with which to help survive the college experience?
mshn224
My alma mater!
Kelly
Walky is probably smart enough to do it though. If he cares enough to do the hard work, or if he would be happy if he did, is another matter.
Aolbain
If people could just randomly go to Yale Dorothy wouldn’t be here.
Jen Aside
Anyone CAN go to Yale, though!
Enrolling in classes is a different thing.
Yotomoe
No offense to Dotty, but Walky has known her for…what…2 months at most? What’re the odds that this relationship would last? That’s a pretty big life decision for a girl you’ve only known for 1/192 of your life.
Seerow
That’s more than .5%! Plenty of time.
grantimusmaximus
One one-ninety tooth! that’s tiny.
Animedingo
Actually it’s only been a month
Rycan
Not even that. It’s been four weeks, or just over a month.
Vincent
It’s called Dumbing of Age for a reason.
caramelundqueer
Yeah because Dorothy was so delighted the last time a boyfriend followed her to college just so he could stay her boyfriend.
John
Or maybe Dorothy realized that she didn’t like Danny and wanted to move on to a more challenging boyfriend.
Jen Aside
yeah, Walky can eat FIFTY McNuggets!
Spencer
Dude, she’s dating Walky “for fun.” That’s like the whole basis of their relationship.
John
Danny followed Dorothy to IU. Walky could potentially go to Yale with her. There’s a subtle but important difference.
Ghola
I would love for someone to explain this difference.
Because I don’t really see much of one. Danny didn’t have a plan for after high school other then “Go with Dorothy” and she hated him for it, now she’s going to magically think walky’s plan of “going with Dorothy” is… better somehow?
Why? Because she might not fall out of love with him before they finish packing to get to Yale?
4th Dimension
The idea is that Walky might grow up a little and realize what he wants in life. Having done that and finally realized what he wants to major, he could realize that Yale is excellent for that. Than that would be killing two birds with one stone. Even if it doesn’t work long term he would not have wasted his education.
The problem with Danny is that he followed Dotty and probably Joe (or maybe Joe in his way followed his main mansince he certanly didn’t have larger aspirations than to bone coeds) to IU even though IU isn’t stellar for getting a degree in computers which are his interest. he put his actual future behind an idealized future that would have never happened with Dorothy.
Vincent
The difference is Dorothy wanted to get rid of Danny by going to IU.
John
For starters, Danny was never going to be going to Yale. He followed Dorothy to IU, but IU’s just a stepping stone on Dorothy’s path to the Presidency, and Danny wasn’t ever going to be taking the next step with her. So, as 4th Dimension says, Danny was sacrificing his own future for a storybook future with Dorothy that was not going to happen, long-term, unless Dorothy sacrificed her future as well. And then he made the mistake of hoping for that aloud, which was the point where Dorothy flipped from, “Trying to let him down easy,” to, “Fuck this, I’m out.”
Walky, on the other hand, has been well-established to be a friggin’ genius, underperforming because he’s a slacker with no study skills. If he were to apply himself, and maybe get some help with this “How do study?” thing from Dorothy, he very well could go to Yale, and that could be a good move for him irrespective of what Dorothy does. He wouldn’t be following Dorothy and hoping she sacrifices her ambition so as not to go farther than he can follow her, he would be beside her doing it with her, and could remain beside her all the way to the White House. And he’s not secretly hoping that she fails and has to stay with him; he has implicit faith that she will be President.
Spencer
The last time Walky applied himself for Dorothy’s sake it ended up with a dimension hopping genocidal madman amassing an army of teenagers in steampunk goggles.
Stick to to the cartoons, Walky.
Disloyal Subject
…
Okay, that’s another .05 priority slot jump for “Read Old Walkyverse.”
Eolirin
That stuff is all part of the Joyce and Walky line; it’s behind a paywall. Takes place after the end of the It’s Walky series.
John
🙁
John
I’m too broke to buy comics, so I’m holding out hope that Willis will decide to continue on through the Joyce & Walky! strips after he gets done the It’s Walky! rerun in four years or so. I don’t think he’s said yet whether he will or not.
Solenoid
Don’t take this as authoritative, but I seem to recall someone saying that Willis has promised that they’ll always be available in some form – and that it will always require first having paid.
But, uh…. It’s of the form “someone said that ____ said”, so I’d be more comfortable if I could find where Willis said it and link that for you.
SDGlyph
Also available as a Patreon reward.
4th Dimension
Eh, Allien overlord did not happen because Walky applied himself, after all after Dorothy incident he went back to his slacker self. The allien stuff happened largely because his mother (at it allways does), Jason’s father and Penny’s boss (of all people) and a gigantic block of cheese.
Masterofbones
Because we would totally support a girl who tried to go to a college just to follow a guy she liked.
No. That’s a bad idea. That is like taking a list of your top priorities, setting it on fire, licking the fire, and then doing something that was never on the priority list to begin with. Just don’t
neeks
Worked out pretty well in “legally blonde”, after all! 😀
No but seriously don’t
Ess