February’s first bonus strip is up at the Dumbing of Age Patreon, and folks voted for Jocelyne! All Patrons can now go check it out.
also if you’re on drip
And, hey, you can also upgrade to seeing tomorrow’s strip a day early every day! That comes in handy sometimes.
Loading ...
yeah, one day I’ll be disappointed to have it confirmed that all my loved ones are mere mortals
or, alternately, that they got to outlive me
DISAPPOINTED
You either die a hero to your family or live long enough to have a stack of their femurs in your murder cave.
Yeah, I don’t know what’s more disconcerting: your parents’ first big health scare, or the first time you realize you’re older they are in your earliest memories.
Yeah, no. The big one is when you realize for the first time that you’re older than they were when they died.
+2
Ruth is taking about Billie isn’t she.
I didn’t even realize until you pointed it out, but judging by her expression in that last bit… dammit, you’re right. 🙁
Yeah, probably. I mean, she’s never had a great opinion of people on average, but in this case… yeah.
Let’s make a club for disappointing families! We can swap stories!
Also known as group therapy!
Feeling bad for Ruth right now, Billy hasn’t been great lately
*Billie
To be fair, she hasn’t been great at many other points in their relationship too.
…is Ruth x Amber going to happen? I’d be happy that Ruth gets someone better than who she’s currently with, but I really want Amber x Walky
Amber has given absolutely no bisexual tendencies so far, so… unlikely?
Is anyone REALLY straight in this comic?
Oh god I hope not. D: They both need someone stable, and neither of them is that.
I’d really hope that Ruth wouldn’t fall for another person under her authority.
or at least not act on it again
I think if Ruth gets caught banging a second girl on her floor even Grandpa Schmuck’s influence might not be enough to save her.
Of course, AmaziGirl isn’t one of her charges, right?
Ruth has never dated Dorothy, so I’m going with no?
Your logic is impeccable.
I don’t think Amber was ever interested in other girls in the other universe, and I’m pretty sure the sexual orientations of characters stayed the same from that continuity to this one.
Can’t they just become friends?
Is it obligatory for Ruth to wear a Leafs shirt when she says that line in panel five?
Well, it IS the official team motto.
It adds gravitas to what she’s saying.
No. It would only be obligatory if she’d said that continually everyone disappoints you.
She also has the option to wear an Arby’s shirt.
Is Arby’s even in Canada?
I have had it stateside and was not impressed at all.
I don’t see it going well here. At best taking the Crispy Cream track with quick public fascination, expansion, and implosion, ending up with maybe one location making a technical presence.
The Arby’s webpage location finder shows 55 Arby’ses in Canada, mostly in Alberta and Ontario.
That aside, I am making reference to Nihilist Arby’s, a popular parody twitter which tweets bleak and pessimistic messages paired with unenthusiastic or backhanded suggestions to eat Arby’s, based on the premise that Arby’s is terrible, but so is life, so you might as well.
Wait. There’s a twitter? I just thought it was a meme.
Yes, there are, at least in Alberta where I live. The impression I have of them is that they are . . . somewhat erratic. The first one I experienced, in Lloydminster, was great, really tasted good, yet several of the ones in Edmonton are awful. It seems the food taste is very location specific, which I find strange for a fast food chain.
We have one where I live too. I LOVE their curly fries.
Love the potato cakes. Like the Arby’s sauce. Their sandwiches, though, range from blah to inedible.
There are at least two here, each in a mall I visit about once a decade. The meat has a certain strange charm… I’m still not sure whether to count it as food, though.
this is the most Maple Leafs comic Ruth has ever been in
‘I’m disappointed in you Amber, you could have thrown that chair at least another couple feet.’
But not in the hallway, or it’d end up on a plaque in Ruth’s room along with Walky’s shoes and other trophies.
Pretty sure she held back. Even when you’re angry you can have a moment of realizing that breaking a window isn’t a great plan.
Besides, she was frustrated and stressed, not angry. One’d assume there’d be less of an urge to thoughtlessly break things, and more of an urge to satisfyingly bounce a chair off the ground.
I expect the chair hit the wall and bounced.
Yeah, looks like it hit the closet door (with a nice, loud, clattery *BANG*).
She’s been practicing with it.
They make a good team.
Not the Leafs. The are mediocre at best. I was in third grade the last time the won the Cup, I’m 60 now…
ruth is perhaps not qualified to give advice on this subject
She is simultaneously the most and least qualified to give advice on this topic.
Is she feeling Envious of Sal and Walky? I mean, their family has their own problems, but since neither of Sal&Walky’s parent’s where outright physically abusive I guess it’s still an improvement.
They can at least work things out.
Meanwhile, Amber has… Faz.
Hey, don’t be like that. She also has…Joe…
Now that really makes things better.
They still have someone else with whom they are determined to always be close. Right now, Amber really would like to have some kind of anchor point in her life.
*plays Jackson Browne’s “Shape of a Heart” on the hacked Muzak*
What, not “Disappointed” by Electronic?
She just noticed the missing USB stick.
That is an interesting possibility
Weirdly, I could ship these two.
I am just picturing the chair-throwing bit from Boondocks now.
I think more of the chair-throwing scenes from “The LEGO Movie.”
I swear the more jocelyn bonus strips we get the more im tempted to support doa on patreon
The cynicism is strong with this one.
Ruth is everyone’s favourite den mother, I dunno what you mean, Willis.
And don’t worry Amber – if you’d kept dating Walky, you’d have found out the Walkerton parents are plenty disappointing in their own special ways!
…That’s not helpful.
Your mom seems pretty nice, if a bit oblivious?
Yeah, I got nothing. Sometimes things just suck to suck.
Ruth studied at the Davan MacIntire School of Counseling.
“Everybody’s disappointing the more you get to know them”
” Which is also a good reason why you should never meet your Heroes.”
. . . That is a completely human reaction from Amber. Disappointment. Anger. Resignation. Perhaps not the healthiest of ways of reacting mind but much better then dressing up as a vigilante.
Also. . . Ruth there is a time for Cynicism. This is not it. This is a shoulder to lean on moment. But you’re trying at least.
Much safer than dressing up as a vigilante superhero. Better, when you can actually carry it off and make others safer? Unconvinced.
Though when you add in the actual disassociation part, that pushes it back into the seriously unhealthy category again.
Fair enough.
“Even yourself?”
“Especially yourself”
Is Ruth saying that about Billie?
Almost certainly.
Who wants to take bets on whether Willis is mean enough to break up two couples in one storyline? 😛
It’s late at night, the storyline is almost over, and Billie is presumably still drunk in her room in Forest, so I’m going with not likely, though Billie could certainly drunk call or drunk text.
Wait, that’s not the question you asked, is it. The question was: is he mean enough? And the answer is yes, hands down.
Lowkey hope so. I like the idea of Ruth finding healing and success on her own, which leaves Billie to focus on her issues.. ideally.
I like that Ruth can specify what was thrown. The sound a chair makes when you throw it is much different from a book, or a pillow, or a
babysecond pillow.stupid tags not closing when i don’t close them
On the bright side, we all get to try to decide what a babysecond pillow is!
Differential diagnosis should be pretty easy in this setting. Beds and desks are pretty much attached to the wall, and apart from chairs and mini-fridges, most throwable stuff wouldn’t make a noise you could hear outside the room. And if you can’t tell the difference in sound between a chair and a mini-fridge, you should get your hearing checked.
Also, you’re less likely to forget the closing tag if you do it immediately after the opening tag, and then put the text between the tags.
Witchcraft, I tell you.
Ruth is just that good, she can not only tell what style of chair has been thrown, just by the sound it makes; but also brand, age fabric pattern and colour.
Good chemistry here. Just don’t start making out, that’d make me upset on *two* existing couples.
This is the origin story of AmaziGirl and Toronto Woman, isn’t it?
Toronto Woman’s not that catchy. Toranado? Canuck Amuck?
IceBlade
Slapshot
The Femur Collector
The Kaladar Castigator
Trannha — this might make more sense in my head, but sort of a mashup of the way people from Toronto pronounce it and piranha.
Trannasaurus Rex!
Note for Ruth: The Raptors are currently at the top of their division. If she’d like to root for a winning team for a change.
I could see that leading to a debate with Dina over if the mascot should add feathers to the design, and if so what color scheme they should go with.
Nah, Ruth’s superhero name is The Maple Leaf.
Billie as the Drama Hurricane, Ruth as the Toronto Tornado.
Those sound more like wrestling names.
Hey! No giving Willis ideas for Slipshines!
Um…why not? Apart from the fact that we don’t want his drawing hand to cramp up again.
Aww, Ruth’s doing well.
By which I mean she’s saying What she does in panel 5 with a sarcastic smile and almost an eyeroll, rather than with an expression suggesting that her next line is going to be “So let’s drink ourselves to death.”
I hope Dina is doing something nice with Becky.
We haven’t seen them in a while. I hope they’re having a good time.
Side eye buddies! This is the beginning of a wunderful ~~friendship~~ something!
gdi
You know what’s the real tragedy in this strip? What Ruth says in panel 5. She’s really too young to be that broken and cynical!
As for Amber, I guess I do understand what’s happened. The Walkerton twins are, in the end, a very close family and Amber would be less than human if she didn’t get a little jealous when she compares it to what she’s got. However, at least some of the distance she has from her mother is due to her own nature. Maybe there’s time to try to fix at least some of her family connections because I think that Stacey and Faz are salvageable links in her life.
I wouldn’t call the Walkerton twins ‘very close’ family, but they’re trying to fix things and I think Amber’s got a very human reaction to that.
I am wondering if she is referring to something else, like maybe that thing with her Dad and the stolen USB stick has just become an issue now?
Eat at Arbys
Eating at Arby’s will kill you.
But, eventually, what won’t?
Eat Arby’s.
“chair throwing is not allowed on this floor”
“Unless it’s at my grandfather. Then it’s a public service.”
Nah, I can’t see her encouraging someone to do that in an area with security cameras. She’ll draw up a map of the campus blind spots and mark the areas her grandfather is more likely to lurk in.
It wasn’t on the floor. It was through the air.
That chair was being a jerk, it deserved it.
Damn arrogant chairs.
Yup, but the Arrogant Worms are great.
Ruth’s chair senses were tingling. she’s thrown enough of them to have that
…I’m worried if this means Faz will be showing up soon. On the one hand, I really feel for him in this universe, I doubt living with those parents is in any way healthy, on the other hand it would probably also mean Ambers dad trying to get back in her life.
I’m pretty sure in my own head that Amazi-Girl’s next adventure will be trying to free Faz and his mother from Blaine’s control. That is going to be a very emotionally-fraught experience and may end up with Amber being in a ‘you broke it, you bought it’ scenario with Faz (especially if, in some misguided act of loyalty, Yuri takes the fall rather than see Blaine busted). There’s no guarantee that Stacey and Richard Rosenthal will be able to help.
Amber having to work for most of her spare hours to support her kid brother whilst also trying to fit in her college would be a valid development of the character’s journey, given her circumstances.
Ruth and Amber are my favorite two characters, and I like seeing them together, but I can’t ship them. It would violate the logic of both characters.
THANK you. Shipping wars make sense when you see people rooting for SalxDanny vs DannyxEthan, or WalkyxDorothy vs WalkyxAmber vs WalkyxLucy, but then completely unrealistic garbage like MaryxCarla or WalkyxJason is posited and I wonder how the shippers are capable of feeding themselves.
Crack ships never hurt anybody!
I have to admit neither of those one appeal to me though.
Walky and Jason had some pretty good bromance occasions, and Walky once joked that he would “go down on a dude” for free pizza. Doesn’t appeal to me either, but I wouldn’t say it’s totally a crack ship.
Unlike MaryxCarla. What is up with that?
It did get teased in canon, much to Carla’s disgust.
Fair enough, but I was mostly referring to Amber/Ruth.
God damn if the Leafs fan ain’t right.
Oh come on Ruth, you were doing so well! Don’t be an enabler.
Don’t get me started, Ruth. Many artists I loop up to end up being jerks, sociopaths, or get criminal charges. This is why I only look up to my family because I already learned their flaws and accept them instead of glorifying them like I did with my “heroes”.
No you gotta look up to fictional characters, that way when they mess up you can tell yourself it never happened, or alternatively you can look up to what they did right while not being okay with what they did wrong.
For example you gotta admire Meowth, I mean not joining a criminal group which abuses his kind, but all the times he helped save the world and teaching himself to read and write with no outside help.
And then they fucked.
What? You know you were all thinking it.
No. No we were not.
* invader Zim voice * YOU LIE! 😛
I’m not judging you for it it’s just that believe it or not my mind on the other hand isn’t always in the gutter….yeah I’m surprised by that too.
Neither is mine, I just like to pretend it is. peoples responses are sometimes hilarious. 😛
With Billie being a bad influence and Ruth relating so much to Amber, are we seeing the beginnings of a love triangle?
Not that I ship them, but it’s interesting that out of all the people involved Ruth and Amber have the most in common, self hate over particular fatherly figures… Let’s add Joe into the mix but not because of self hate but related traumas from childhood and you have a threesome going……
oh god, what am I doing…
I suppose stark cynicism is as valid a foundation for friendship as any.
On the plus side, Amber, at least your mom is about a hundred times better than their’s?
That comparison’s just insulting to Stacey. They’re in completely different leagues of moming that they don’t even rank against each other. 😛
I mean, yeah, Stacey is oblivious and doesn’t understand what Amber’s going through (though tbf, neither does anyone else who sees her far more frequently), but she also risked her life leaving Blaine and has been making it work since then.
Dont worry Amber, Walky has disappointed Sal plenty of times!
And so have their parents! And people who were SUPPOSED to be the responsible adults after she was shipped to Tennessee! 😀
…Why don’t I feel better?
I love how they manage to bond over nihilism in the final panel, if their facial expressions are any clue.