The Dumbing of Age Book 7 Kickstarter continues! The next stretch goal unlocks Lucy and Malaya character magnets!
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The Dumbing of Age Book 7 Kickstarter continues! The next stretch goal unlocks Lucy and Malaya character magnets!
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but… Ruth has to collect FEMURS
and Jason… needs…
Turkish delight?yeah noIt occurs to me that with the right coloration, Turkish Delight would look an awful lot like Energon cubes.
Pardon me, gonna sign up for a booth a the next Transformers con and make a million bucks.
Oooo, sounds yummy! I’d live some Energon Delight! Any chance of some actual Energon in a batch? Or does it all have to be Human friendly?
Heheh… JaceLess.
(I know, it flies in the faaaaaace of everything we know about them. But since when does that stop a good ship?)
For a nickel. IN YOUR FAAAAAACE!
But… but afternoon boobies are some of the best boobies…
Sky…rockets in flight!
Afternoon delight! 😛
But were the ones Walky saw masked, brown, Nazca, Peruvian, red-, or blue-footed?
Freckled. And that’s a personal fave, if only cos I’m a redhead.
Freckled boobies, freckled boobies…do those count as red-footed?
ALSO: high-resolution photo of a pair of brown boobies, totes NSFW nudity
And a pair of great tits
I clicked on those links knowing what was going to be on the other side, but also sort of hoping that it was an obscure double-prank antijoke to jape certain people who thought they were in on the joke
I can’t read whatever comment you attached to “certain people” because I’m on mobile. 😛
“Ornithologists”
I’ve occasionally wondered why so many slang terms for breasts also refer to birds… Boobies, tits, hooters….
Bustards, hornbills, jacanas, palmchats, motmots, bananaquits…I wonder if Abby Howard ever got closer to unraveling the conspiracy?
Abby Howard and Dina would get along well, I always thought. Well, Abby’s got that whole “human flesh” thing to deal with,but still.
Probably because birds get some AWESOME names, and we want to name things that sound as cool.
Or it may just be that catchy names spread and become memes, and bird names are catchy.
My guess is that it happened like internet memes: there was an original joke, and then people started mixing it up by using different bird species. Technology changes, but people stay the same.
Not to mention slang for girls – chicks, birds, …
Is it particularly surprising when we refer to so many birds as “[color]-breasted”? And the word “bird” itself can be slang for a woman.
Really, it’s the fruit metaphors that are weird.
No Blue Tits? Or Shags
*slow clap*
so. many. options.
https://youtu.be/oYmzdvMoUUA
I knew someone was going to go this way with the jokes.
Dotty, it hasn’t been very fair to you either. You wouldn’t have boinked him if you didn’t have emotional needs you wanted to fulfill.
Point. Walky is doing fairly well at coping though. Much better than he’s doing at math.
Is he? Didn’t he stop any personal maintainance and upkeep until she gave him a reason to do it again?
Yeah, but that’s because he’s an immature slob, not because he was depressed. She makes him want to be better than that, but he isn’t mature enough to want to do it for himself.
Mostly a bit of denial – “See, I’m single again! I can do what I want! This makes me happy!”
Oh man, I am SO here for Ruth and Jason as saltmates.
Yes! The Statler and Waldorf of DoA! 😀
But they aren’t even opposites. Their orthogonal.
That moment when you realize that you carefully spelled orthogonal correctly and misspelled they’re.
You can always blame autocorrect 😃
True.
Speaking of boobs, we have some Ted Nugent and Ozzy Osbourne cuts coming up later on our playlist…
Whoa, I know The Nuge has gone off the deep end into red-ballcap territory, but what did Ozzy do? (Besides all the drugs, anyway.)
I was sorta quoting a DeeJay I’d heard several years ago while on a trip to Kentucky.
washing is for the weak. train your noses to handle anything. 😛
Yup, good preparation for your first kid.
This is the most Jason has found common ground with someone in ages. And that’s kinda depressing.
RuthXJason???
Nnot really. But I can totally see them bonding over their shared “I’m woefully ineffective at my job, but I try really hard” feelings.
Also Ruth is taken. So to speak.
I guess neither of you noticed the Gunnerkrigg URL I linked to, then. 😛
JACELESS
(The characters being in relationships has NEVER stopped shippers before!!)
Limit Break x Survivor
Apropos of the current situation…
While I was hitting the random button waiting for the site to refresh, this came up:
“I’m so lucky to have a happy, goofy boy that I can retreat to when everything else grows complicated.”
Yep. Which in retrospect was kind of shitty of Dorothy. He was hiding it, but it doesn’t mean she wasn’t kind of taking him for granted by treating him like a vacation she could retreat to.
I feel you math man. This is how I accidentally escaped my first threesome… I’m a little obtuse sometime
So that’s your angle.
Not to go off on a tangent, but could that be a sine of how sociable you are? Cos in this case I think sociability would be a relevant factor
They’re both trying so hard.
I’m sorry, but I’m getting stuck on this; was she about to get upset over someone checking out the last of a library book? Is their school so bad that they don’t have multiple copies of required textbooks? And even if it’s something a little more specific to her needs, did she consider that the other person might also need it and would’ve been equally screwed over if she had beaten them to it? Or are there zero online resources for her to utilize, like a true Millennial? Sorry, just think it’s a terrible issue to be the straw that broke the camel’s back, if that’s where this is heading…
Shut up Faz.
…Oh, sorry, I thought you showed up in the last panel. My mistake.
It took me a while to realize the title text was probably about pluralizing maths, not boobies.
The S in “mathematics” is NOT a marker of a plural — it dervies from the Greek adjective ending (mathema -> mathematikos). While I generally prefer British English spelling (which is how I learned it), I must say that the American usage of “math” makes more sense than the British “maths”.
Βut in Greek it’s referred to with the plural -a ending when used as a noun. Μαθηματικά – mathematika.
Huh. I guess I don’t have any idea what a single mathematic would be.
And someone would say “mathematics is hard” rather than “mathematics are hard.”
I guess I was wrong, it’s about boobies.
I’d be far more likely to say “math is hard” than either.
Any I’m pretty sure the title text is about pluralizing “[Fill in current relationship title here]”, not mathematic or boobie.
Is the suggestion of an “open relationship” gonna come up?
Please, no! These two barely have enough time for each other.
Unless… you mean some other definition of “open relationship”?
Walky dates other people while Dorothy is busy? That would be polyamorous but I don’t think it’s an open relationship. That sounds more like mono-poly.
She`s gonna bring Joyce as their official third.
Yeah that’s what I mean: polyamory but poly- sided towards Walky.
Although if Dorothy heavily divests herself of their relationship, it might as well be Walky x other girl which sounds as bad as an overall dumping.
I don’t see it. No real advantage. Walky’s not stressed over this because he could be having sex with someone else if the relationship status was clearer, he’s stressed over it because he cares about his relationship with Dorothy.
More: And you certainly don’t switch to a poly relationship of any kind, because you’re too busy for the one you’ve got. There tends to be a lot more work invested in keeping the larger relationship functioning.
That doesn’t sound like something either of them would feel okay with. They’ll end up bickering over their rules, even on something as simple as free parking. Nobody passes Go and collects $200.
Dorothy is trying to do too much at once, but if she’s gonna drop some of those things it’s probably not a good idea to drop the boyfriend who makes her happy.
I am so confused right now. What hasn’t bern fair to Walky?
That they went on pause? He was planning a full on break up.
That they had sex? It wasn’t like he didn’t want it, but he was also of the understanding prior to that that there would be no more sex in the foreseeable future.
That she’s making the major decisions? She just beat him to it.
That they’ve muddled their current status? It’s been a day. Just un muddle it, set the boundaries, and carry on.
I don’t understand why this feels so serious.
maaybe just wait for them to say that on tomorrow’s page
This is the second strip in a row with this heavy set up.
I expected it to be cleared up today.
But lo and behold, it’s just as heavy.
And that makes me think I’m missing something.
It hasn’t been fair that she is in a relationship with him when he can’t possibly be her lifelong boyfriend/husband. It isn’t fair that she calls all the shots. It isn’t fair that she called a pause, then decided to have sex with him — she almost certainly wouldn’t have allowed him to initiate sex, which makes it a one-sided pause. It isn’t fair that she is letting him think he still has a chance with her by putting the relationship on pause at all, instead of just breaking up like she knows she should probably do. And it isn’t fair that she’s ABOUT to break up with him, after putting him through this roller-coaster. It isn’t fair that she’s going to break up with him when he’s making some sort of effort to improve himself for her. It isn’t fair that he’s the only one who is expected to change himself.
Only one I disagree with is the first one. IIRC she told him she was planning on moving on towards another school, and this was a fun relationship, and he was okay with that. Everything else though? Yeah, she’s been a little self-centered.
I take issue with the “allowed to initiate sex” remark too. Like… both parties consented to this here? There’s nothing one-sided about that; they were both down for it. You raise some other valid points about the relationship but this one is, no offense, a total miss. Maybe this is just me being “oversensitive” as a survivor or something, but something about that statement seemed really gross to me.
I don’t believe that that is quite what he meant, although I definitely see where you’re coming from.
The point being raised, I think, is that Dorothy knows exactly what boundaries she has in mind for their “pause,” as well as the deeper meaning behind it for her. Walky does not. Walky is, frankly, not very bright, and immature on top of that. The boundaries for their pause having not been well-defined, he has no fucking clue what they are and, as in all cases where he’s remotely uncertain, he defers to Dorothy’s judgement. Notice that in the comic where they establish the pause, Dorothy asks if he gets what she means, but they never have a real discussion about it.
Trusting her judgement, he assumes that her initiation of sex is acceptable to her, and if it’s acceptable to her in the framework of the pause, he has no reason to refuse. This muddies the waters of what the pause means, and he’s left even more confused as to what they are and what they are not. She would never have agreed if he had propositioned her, but he doesn’t have the information or even the maturity to question her if *she* initiates it, assuming she has the whole thing figured out. It’s not about the consent to the sex – they both clearly consented – it’s about what the sex means in the context of their “pause.”
Hence his obvious befuddlement here, hence in a broader sense his misbegotten belief their relationship will be “fixed” if he just makes himself “good enough” for her, and hence her belief that none of this has been fair to him.
Walky is bright as well as perceptive.
Don’t confuse immaturity with stupidity.
The biggest issue here though is not his immaturity, but his inexperience. He’s never had a girlfriend before, never been on pause before, never broke up with someone before, and never loved anyone romantically before.
All he has to go on is what Dorothy tells him, what cues he can pick up (like in today’s strip when he knows their status is confusing so he’s not putting a label on it) and tv, which is not ever helpful in this situation, especially with the shows he watches.
That’s fair. He’s an intelligent kid. I would argue that not only is he lacking in experience, but another contributory factor is that he lacks both common sense and instinct control. He just has so many attributes against him for him to be able to handle a situation like what he’s being presented with well.
He’s a very bright lovable lazy goofball and so far this has served him well.
I’m pretty sure Dorothy has little more idea what “pause” meant than Walky did and that having sex during it wasn’t part of the plan. It’s not that Walky didn’t understand it, it’s that, as he correctly figures out after the fact “The pause was a lie!”
This is a pattern with Dorothy and it’s something she needs to work on. She sets these relationship boundaries, based on what she logically and rationally thinks will be good for her and then lets her emotions run right over those boundaries.
This is clearly not just a for-fun relationship, even if she still intends it to be a time limited one. The pause was never going to work, because she’s in love with him. Even the start of the relationship was kind of like that – from “you’re not my type” to a kiss in a day or so.
She needs to understand that she has emotional needs, not just the rational plan she’s laid out.
I think you misunderstood. They mean, if Walky had come up with the idea of having sex, Dorothy would have reacted negatively, and said no, as well as be mad at Walky that he ignored their pause. Her boundaries regarding her studies are very important to her.
It’s not about consent at all, it’s out of the question, I mean, we all read that comic (assuming they mean the one in the elevator).
It’s more about hypocrisy.
In any human relationship there is a disparity of power, at least in different areas. It’s inherent in having a human relationship. In most modern hetrosexual relationships the woman has more power in the timing of intimacy including sex. I would strongly argue that this is as it should be. No hypocrisy involved.
How do women have more power when it comes to deciding sex? The only way I could possibly see your argument is if you’re referring to the stereotype about men “always wanting sex” and women “never” wanting it by comparison, except… That’s just a stereotype. And also ignores that women are still frequently forced into sexual encounters we don’t want in many modern heterosexual relationships. (Men can be as well; anyone can regardless of gender, before anyone jumps on me about that, but that isn’t especially relevant to the statement atm.)
1. They never planned to be together for the rest of their lives.
2. She doesn’t call all the shots. Let’s not forget that Walky broke up with her once over pants. And he was going to break up with her this time as well. As I said, she just spoke up first.
3. It doesn’t really matter if the situation was reversed, she might not have had sex with him. He didn’t mind sex now, and he wasn’t planning to have sex earlier, so there’s nothing unfair about it.
4. Again, Walky was planning a full breakup, no pause. So the pause in and of itself is not unfair to him. As for the idea that she should break up with him, Walky is not the problem with her grades. Finding balance is the problem. Breaking up with him isn’t finding balance. If anything, it’s over correcting.
5. She’s said it hasn’t been fair to him. That implies she’s talking about what she did, not what she’s about to do. And like I said, it should be a simple thing to un muddle this.
It’s not simple to unmuddle, because it’s muddled in Dorothy’s head.
In Dorothy’s head it should be simple to put the relationship on hold for awhile so she can sort out her other problems, then pick up right where they left off. Unimportant things like emotional attachments can just be put aside.
Except it doesn’t work. It doesn’t work for her. She can’t do it, even if she thinks she should. First time they’re together since the “pause” started, they’re jumping each other.
The “simple” way to unmuddle this is to admit that the pause was a mistake, that pushing him away won’t actually help her and for that matter neither will not sleeping, skipping meals and exercise. But that’s hitting directly at Dorothy’s self-image and it will not be easy.
Oh I’ve been in situations in which my head was messed up romantically.
And the solution was usually to look at things from a different perspective, another head space if you will.
I guess my mistake is expecting this to be done quickly. I need to remind myself that they’re teens and it’s only been a day.
Most relationships have a power imbalance. In this one, Dotty has always been calling the shots, from dressing Walky to going on pause, while he thinks she’s perfect and he’s the one who needs to improve so he can “deserve” her. I think Dorothy is realising the power she has in this relationship is unfair. Of course both of them are wrong and this will be healthier if they can accept that Dorothy is also a flawed individual who needs to accept emotional support from Walky rather than be his math tutor/mother surrogate.
She similarly had all the power in her relationship with Danny. She’s necessarily going to seek out guys who understand that they’re not her priority.
Expecting him to ‘get’ anyone else’s needs or concerns or asking him to be more than what he really is.
Actually, I think that the reality is that Dorothy has bit off more than she can chew, academically and is looking for someone or something to blame. She’s decided to blame her intense attraction and emotional link with Walky.
Remains to be seen. I doubt it though. All this could equally be putting the pause on pause.
“Expecting him to ‘get’ anyone else’s needs or concerns or asking him to be more than what he really is.”
This would be the Walky that was planning to break up with her so that he and his problems wouldn’t be a distraction? He may not get her real needs any more than she does, but he’s certainly trying to look out for them.
Someone? Is that a cold, hard *offer* I hear there, Jason?
Pretty sure it isn’t. Fortunately it hasn’t occurred to Dorothy to wonder how Jason is familiar with the state of Walky’s underwear.
Dorothy, if the book is a problem and you can’t find an equivalent text on-line somewhere then your problems are a bit bigger than Walky.
Walky: Duke of Thingly, Baron of Butt-tacos, and Mayor of Awkwardtown.
You may have left out a few. General of the Generically Beige.
Sultan/King of Sculpted Carmel
(I think sculpted carmel is what Dorothy called him to Joyce, but I’m too lazy to actually go back and actually check).
Not to mention she was the one who set the “This is just gonna be fun” setting, then said that she loved him, and then called the pause. Like, it’s not like she did anything wrong. They both fell for each other and she’s never forced anything on him.
He’s just kinda been in the side car of their emotional motorcar ride and that’s rough for a kid who kinda takes things at face value and let’s his desires lead the way.
And both aren’t really dealing well with college. Honestly, she may be in more trouble than him. Failing a math class Freshman year can be a bit less damaging than burning yourself out Freshman year. And while you should never sacrifice your education/ambition for a relationship, especially a new one, it’s not like Dotty’s floundering at all. I think their both really good for each other, but due to the power balance of the relationship, it’s less obvious to most how Walky helps her in their relationship (Except maybe Sierra. She kinda fully sees how off the rail Dotty went without Walky acting as a kind of brake/break). I wanna see them stay together, but I think both not figure out how to deal with deal with their problems (Her overworking and him not working enough) without using the other person.
You may have left out a few. General of the Generically Beige.
And this came out as a new post instead of a reply. Damn it, I’m reposting it as a reply, so pretend that these two messages have been deleted.
The problem is that Dorothy wants fun and love, but she is obsessed with academic success that she is harming herself and Walky, and Walky feels guilt of dragging down Dorothy just because he is the love interest of Dorothy. These two people help each other, but they believe they are harming the other when in reality their only problems are being a control freak and a lazy smartass.
Nice pairing, actually. Both have what are essentially work/life balance issues, just from the opposite ends.
am I the only thinking the line about the book is a stall because walky and jasons there ? because that seems something awfully minor to get worked up over …….
Could be, but as a former college student and current college professor, I can say that sometimes there is ONE BOOK that you desperately need and land up having to put your work on pause if you can’t get it. I don’t know about the fictional college library in DoA, but in my very real college library, people don’t necessary return books on time or at all, and even if they do, then you have to wait until the book is re-shelved…
(I think I’m single-handedly supporting Amazon because so many times it’s just been easier and more efficient to *buy* the dang book than wait for the library to make it available again.)
I love how, by no virtue of her own, Ruth ended up being the sanest person in this conversation.
The missing a book you really need because you napped for an hour is TOO REAL, dang. (esp if you went to college before e-books)
Dorothy and Walky demonstrate why Joyce and Jacob wouldn’t work in that they’re both in two different places with different goals and Walky is considerably less mature mature, like Joyce is compared to Jacob
I think Dorothy’s baggage is why their relationship wouldn’t work.
Oh for sure, its looking like she has a thing for easily manipulated, emotionally immature guys so yeah shes got some baggage to work out (like we all do)
That’s of course assuming that “Dorothy and Walky don’t work”, as opposed to “Dorothy and Walky, like all couples, are not perfect and will have some troubles to overcome.” Especially in drama.
In this situation, while it’s certainly easy to argue that Walky is less mature, the root of the problem is not him, but Dorothy. It’s her overscheduling that’s pushing her to the edge of a breakdown and driving her to push away her support system, including Walky.
I fully expect them to get through this, because I don’t think the point of Dorothy’s arc here is “You need to just focus on school and avoid emotional entanglements.”
Do I wait four weeks for them to return the book, or do I wait between one week and four months for ILL to get it to me?
I just think that, at the moment, Dorothy’s goals are: go to Ivy league school, get into politics, become president whereas Walkys goals seem to be…*cue crickets chirping*
Unless both reassess where they’re at and where they’re going then I don’t expect this relationship to last especially in light of its Walkys first relationship
Yeah, and?
How does that apply to day to day life? Which is far more important to any relationship at this stage.
They’re college freshmen. They support each other. They make each other happy. Walky respects her ambitions, even if his don’t match hers. They’re good for each other.
And, as I said, it’s not Walky’s immaturity or lack of goals that’s causing their current problem.
Apart from Walky failing at math which caused Dorothy to give up some of her, perceived, precious time to help Walky
Basically, if you ask Dorothy that question the answer is, “Work. Work. Work.” So, yes, I foresee dumping.
Dump her Walky before she dumps you!
…winning?
you guys checked shortpacked yet for the april fools comic. pretty damn good yo
Walky’s mind literally runs on comedy tropes, doesn’t it?
Is Jason about to give a detailed explanation of the Sunk Cost Falacy of ‘if we leave now it becomes a problem’?