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New game! BOLTED 
Barb O. Saur 
YOU HEATHEN
NO LONGER FRIENDS
” . . . it . . . goes up again?”
“no”
BLASPHEMY!
Walky’s flailing arms won’t hide you Ryan
I only noticed him because of your comment.
Where’s Ryan would make for a creepy and depressing Where’s Waldo spin-off.
If he’s out here now, that’s making the “he’s stalking Dorothy” theory a lot more plausible.
Yep.
Hope Amazigirl is on the job.
I hope Amazi-Girl is reading the tags, otherwise she might miss him.
Ew. I hadn’t realized that theory existed. It makes too much sense. :<
MADNESS.
Joe is …..not wrong?
He is, but at the same time, if your solution to spreading yourself too thin is reducing the time you dedicate to relaxation and stress relief, you’re probably not solving the problem.
yeeee
i mean sometimes you just need like…more effective/less time-consuming forms of stress relief, but…not always easy to do
Mmm, but if your needed stress relief time is an hour or two, and you’re spending double that time, then maybe you’re not stress relieving, but avoiding.
(Yes, I’m fully aware I’ve wildly made up numbers here, but the point remains the same: Walky might be spending more time than needed for relaxation’s sake. And Joe, who would know better than I, did say “watch fewer”, not “stop watching”.)
yeee but like the reason you’re avoiding is because the stress is too much for you to handle, which leaves you back in the situation you were to begin with
like that’s half the problem with procrastination among high achievers – the stress they put on themselves increases the stress of their situation and the conflict between their self image and their reality of not Always Being Hot Shit is just a cognitive dissonance that is too much for them to handle because they’ve never been taught how to handle failure. so like: the answer is to go back and learn how to handle failure, not to keep pushing yourself to succeed in a situation where you have not been set up to succeed. and by learning how to handle failure you learn how to succeed, etc
i mean like the answer here is to go back and learn how to handle stress which is…stress relief….but also can be stress-inducing, because it’s not directly handling the cause of the stress
…..circles!!!!!
yup. one thing I learned last week is that while anxiety sometimes identifies valid problems, it is stupendously bad at solutions. like, even worse than anger.
it’s like “hey! listen! there’s too much stress here! quick, add more stress, that’ll fix it!”
if it had its own body, it would be a cat throwing up on the carpet.
*facepalm*
now that I have the tools to find more sensible solutions, I need to train it to let me use them.
(but, it does have a point that I’m too much in the habit of *not* using them)
Oh, I see that motherfucker peeking out of that doorway. Don’t think I fucking can’t.
oh fuck
Shhiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii…
Wait…what?
*re-examines strip*
FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFUUUUUUUU-!
Stalker alert!
Even as much as she’s bummed, Dorothy is handling this a lot better than Walky was.
You talk to your professors. You don’t just start skipping class entirely and pretend the Rapture is happening when called out on it.
Yeah. Invoking The Rapture is going too far
Seriously, Ragnarok is a lot more plausible.
“Oh, shit! Is that giant serpent fighting a deity?!” *Runs away.*
What about becoming British nobility? Is THAT still OK?
At least it doesn’t seem like she plans to jettison /him/ to focus on her grades.
Yet.
If anything, I expect Walky to be the one to suggest that,
If it weren’t for finally talking to Jason he probably would have suggested it in panel 3.
well i mean he’s a much more supportive boyfriend than danny was at that time
I SPOTTED HIM AGAIN. PANEL 4.
AHHHH
Things are serious when you stop using punctuation. In spoken language.
No no no he’s following
Is he looking to get to Joyce?? That’s so terrifying. To think this actually happens to people
Joyce didn’t post his picture.
Nah, all she did was scar his face and drive him off after his unwanted advances. Why would he go after her?
He’s investigating why AG knew him. Obviously when he had AG’s phone, he saw that she’d been messaging about him with someone named Dorothy, and from there it’s not a lot or research to realize that’s probably the Dorothy that writes about AG in the school paper. He tracked her down and is trying to figure out which (I’m sure there’s more than one) of the girls he roofied is ratting him out on social media. He’s probably -hoping- it’s Joyce, because that’d give him a chance to get back at the girl that scarred him.
This is worryingly competent stuff from somebody that is such a total shitbag. Say what you want about Toedad and Blaine, at least they were idiots.
I said it before and I’ll say it again. He’s looking for a chance to Zoe Quinn her.
Who?
Zoe Quinn is a game dev who was thrust into the public eye when their ex-boyfriend, angry over the breakup, decided to stir 4chan into a frenzy and ruin their life under the guise of “ethics in gaming journalism”. It was a whole thing, usually known as Gamergate.
so does this mean his next target is actually danny, to try and get him to post false allegations of dorothy cheating on him
Not strictly that. It doesn’t actually require anybody directly involved with Dotty. Remember that Gamergate wasn’t based on any actual true information, just innuendo and inertia once enough people who wanted to believe it picked it up. The fact that Zoe Quinn’s ex initiated it isn’t really significant outside of being someone who wanted to hurt Zoe Quinn.
Putting on my Herman Kahn hat for a moment, it seems to be the tactic with the highest possible reward for Ryan to employ. Rephrase the narrative from a warning about a potential serial rapist to one about a feminist witch hunt being guided by an overly ambitious hypocrite looking to make a name for herself among social justice warriors on her path into politics.
If he can sell it, he takes her out of the game and gets himself out of the spotlight.
-nod nod-
fair enough!! and i mean it’s not like zoe quinn was the only person to be affected by gamergate at all
Oh, right. I’d almost forgotten about that (somehow ongoing) incident. I really only know about it from the occasional meme and what Jim Sterling has covered.
it was so weird!! but yeah that’s how it all started, an ex-boyfriend of zoe’s posting allegations that she’d* cheated on him. among other things, he said she’d gotten positive press coverage for her game from a reporter she’d been sleeping with. she and the reporter were not in a relationship at the time when the article was published. but like that’s what started the onslaught of harassment and also gamergate. zoe was doxxed and had both rape and death threats sent to her. and so did a number of other female-aligned people in the gaming industry.
and like that’s pretty much why the gamergate line that “well actually it’s about ethics in game journalism” is bullshit, tbh, because nothing about this was done ethically
*zoe identifies as agender, but i can’t find preferred pronouns at the moment.
You are 20067% right, and not only was it not done ethically, it wasn’t about journalism: the howling turdstorm involved targets women, meaning that Zoe (not a journalist) gets attacked at a far higher rate than the actual journalist she’s linked with in the counterfactual nonsense. There are so many examples I am now tired thinking about them.
I’ve been doing some academic writing about all this, so… it’s a bit close to home for me. The upside is I know enough to recommend a good book about what happened and the reasons behind it:
Golding, Dan, and Leena Van Deventer. 2016. “Game Changers: From Minecraft to Misogyny, the Fight for the Future of Videogames.” South Melbourne: VIC Affirm Press.
Then there’s the matter of Anita Sarkeesian – if the criticisms about game reviewers who were basically hired mouthpieces for the industry were the actual complaints and not a smokescreen she would be beloved by Gamergate. Clearly she’s willing to put her own opinion out, even if it’s negative. If the complaints about video games not being taken seriously as an art form weren’t part of the smokescreen it would be much the same – she’s taking them seriously, doing actual literary criticism, etc. Yet Gamergate hates her.
It’s almost like it’s not about that at all, and is instead a cesspool of vile misogyny.
oh wow!! good on you for making academic records.
i remember hearing around the time that because of gamergate keeping physical records of video games was getting a lot less funded precisely because it was so viscerally threatening
Knayt: Yep. Also the fact that they rail against “corruption in games journalism” by attacking the outlets that frequently critique and REVEAL corruption in games journalism. Of course, what they mean by “corruption” is “anything less than slavish praise,” not to mention the whole completely ridiculous idea that it’s possible to have an “objective review,” or that anything is ever outside of politics.
Zoelogical: Thanks! Lots of people are writing on it too, and that book is a good source. I saw the thing about Gamergate destroying game curation too. It’s a problem: there are plenty of academic areas where treating games seriously was making slow, precarious inroads, and now that’s all burned down again due to association with godawful fucksocks.
Unless they’ve said anything else since their coming out, any pronouns are okay but they/them are most accurate
thank you!!!
it’s a little awkward because, like. a lot of what happened to zoe happened because of their perceived femininity. I MEAN doesn’t mean that you can’t use they/them pronouns but like it’s…a lot to explain? and not easy to do gracefully.
or just suck it up and do it and then it becomes graceful, i guess
Looks like they have no preferred pronouns, but consider “they” most accurate: https://thezoequinn.tumblr.com/post/155785701663/a-gender
That was a pretty interesting read. Learning is fun.
thank you!!
I really don’t want to get into this in general, but from what I’ve heard, that particular allegation didn’t even actually come from Gjoni – who described one of the alleged other guys as a journalist but did not suggest any kind of quid pro quo. (Which, the people using this to somehow defend gamergate haven’t seemed to notice, actually means that the “it’s about ethics in journalism” crowd is even more full of crap than they already were – the whole basis for it is out of nowhere.)
huh
bizarre
Oh shit I didn’t even see him
Or maybe Walky’s lackadaisical attitude towards school has rubbed off you, Dorothy?
If that were true she wouldn’t have contacted all of her other professors to see if there was a pattern.
Most people, even those who care about school, would have just seen that as a sign to do better in *that* class. That she cared enough to make sure things were OK in other classes rather than waiting to eventually get graded assignments back means she’s as far as lackadaisical as it gets.
I think if that had happened, we would’ve seen some sign before now.
Was she over-credited? I think it’s likely a case of biting off more than you can chew. She shouldn’t have to study constantly in her free-time.
Um, this IS college, she’s a freshman, with a very ambitious future goal to accomplish – if she’s not spending a large portion of her free time studying, she’s not as ambitious as she wants to think.
to be fair, i got way over-scheduled in college by a bad advisor and ended up taking 18 credits of honors and art courses, both super time-intensive and requiring lots of out of class work, and i had to medically withdraw by the end of the semester. no matter how ambitious and smart you are, sometimes you agree to more than you can handle. high school is so much more structured than college and you get a crash course in time management pretty quickly. i really sympathize with how dorothy’s probably feeling right about now. i’m glad she’s not avoiding the heck out of her classes out of guilt, though, because that is the road to just bombing.
She may have bitten off too many credits in topics that are hard and that she’s not passionate about. I can’t explain why intro to logic is essential or even particularly connected to her big goals or her aptitudes. I wonder if she can.
If Intro to Logic == “Prove someone’s argument is invalid using math”* then it actually makes a lot of sense for someone going into politics to take. Also, being able to spot fallacies is just a good skill in general.
*It was called Critical Thinking at my college so I’m not sure if it’s the same thing.
It might also be a Philosophy class, which is also relevant to Dorothy’s career.
I dunno. It doesn’t seem to be a skill actually possessed by many politicians, from what I can tell.
When you prove someone’s argument invalid using math your audience’s eyes glaze over and they respond to his emotional appeal.
Usually there are very few numbers involved in logic classes – it depends on which department teaches the course but that’s my experience with most classes named “logic”
If she’s planning on the law->politics route she could also be taking it to get a leg up on the LSAT.
I mean, hasn’t this been coming for the entire strip? I mean, when she first announced “I didn’t get into Harvard the first time around, so I’m here until I can transfer”, I read that as foreshadowing that Dorothy’s big arc was going to be learning that no matter how lofty her goals and how hard she works, she’s going to fail and have to learn to reexamine her goals.
I maybe read too much into things.
Thaaaaat doesn’t sound like the kind of thing Willis would do when he’s explicitly said Dorothy’s ambition is not a character flaw. Having her decide her ambition’s unrealistic and give up isn’t much better.
Sorry, I didn’t mean that her ambition is a character flaw.
I just think she’s got her sights set at the absolute tippy top, and she already kinda failed phase 1 – she didn’t get to Harvard.
I haven’t the slightest idea how good a school Indiana is, nor do I have any prior knowledge of the Walkyverse other than something about aliens and a toy store. I’m just saying, this arc has been a long time coming, and it’s been foreshadowed from the very beginning.
The panel 5 flailing arms, with the partial saturation, isn’t used by Willis much. It really gets the speed across!
Slightly concerned for Walky’s arm’s sake that there’s some transparency even in the overlapping section.
Who’s that petspon looking out the foot in the background in panel 4?
Is it Scarface?
He’s in the tags, so definitely.
Yes.
See below comment |
V
I see Walky has lost his fear(? for lack of a better word) of hitting Joe there.
He DARED to suggest Walky STOP WATCHING CARTOONS. Such blasphemy cannot be tolerated.
Fuckin’ Ryan hidin’ in the background like Where’s Waldo.
Yeah I wasn’t sure before but now I think he is following her.
Grea,t so she is being targeted.
*plays the “Overture” theme song to The Bugs Bunny Hour on the hacked P.A. speakers*
Overture? I know every part by heart.
Then you’ll hit the heights.
And oh, what heights you’ll hit.
On with the show, this is iiiiit!
I think he has to go away if we say “Hey Swiper, no swiping!!”
Or, uh, some darker version thereof.
I have a variation in mind, but I’d rather not set anyone off with it.
I hadn’t the stomach to go there either. I like Sam’s far more!
Indeed!
Creeper, no creeping. Creeper, no creeping. Creeper, NO CREEPING. Did it work. Is he gone.
Sam YES
So basically like this, then.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TnpTcrtsN3U
What is “less” cartoons?
A bleak, echoing, cavernous, meaningless existence, cut off from the light of salvation.
Why is Ryan (right?) stalking Dorothy? How did he trace the photo back to her?
If I recall, Dorothy was the one who initially started spreading it via social media.
Uh-oh!
No, AG posted it and told them to find their most intimidating friend (who isn’t Sal) to do the first share. Probably wasn’t Dorothy, though he might recognize her from the party if she did share it after that first person.
Probably because he recognized her from the party or because she writes about AG.
HOW DARE YOU JOE.
Also is fuckin’ Ryan stalking them or something? Someone needs to breaks his knees.
He is. He’s trying to follow Dorothy (who started circulating his photo) until she’s alone and then inflict some sort of violence as retaliation, a way to get her to stop spreading his photo, or both.
I’m hoping Sarah catches him again and puts him in the hospital next to Blaine (I’d hope for the morgue but Word of Willis has already nixed any deaths).
AG started the post. We don’t know who did the first share, but AG told them to get someone intimidating to do it. Dorothy probably has shared it by now, but she was not the poster or the likely first.
If you haven’t seen me and a few others are going to go finish off the Bastard? You up for it?
Okay I seriously doubt Dorothy watches more than a couple of hours of cartoons/tv a week if that. Let her have that one shallow interest.
I think Joe may have been talking to Walky there.
I don’t. Walky had just rattled off a list of activities Dorothy does after Dorothy talked about “superfluous things” she specifically could cut and he’s pointing at Dorothy and clearly looking at her in the last panel.
That was my initial interpretation as well, especially given Walky’s reaction (that and the fact he was the last speaker before Joe). Since Dorothy and Joe are the ones who went to hs together, it does seem at least as plausible for him to be talking to Dorothy instead.
If he’d caught up with them enough to hear the last part of that conversation I think it would be pretty easy for him to figure out what was being talked about. Plus he knows from the blow up after class that Dorothy’s clearly the one going through something currently.
Loose justifications for Dorothy dropping some responsibilities:
Joyce is a trooper. She’ll bounce back!
Walky’s a college fling and a lost cause.
The homeless can feed themselves! They’re the homeless not the foodless.
Journalism? Pffft everyone gets their fake news off facebook and youtube. Print media is dead!
What a cheerful analysis.
To be fair, stopping writing for the college’s newspaper is actually a sound choice in Dorothy’s case. It’s not a /fundamental/ part of her career, she probably can pick it up again later down the road, and it wouldn’t hurt any of her loved ones.
(Although I’m pretty sure the newspaper has a facebook page and/or a website, in regards to the comment about print media)
OK guys. We’ll go around behind Scarface. You flank him, I’ll hide on the other side of the door. When her walks out, I jump him and you guys help restrain him. Remember, we *sarcastic* aren’t *end sarcastic* trying to kill him.
Are you sure we can’t do a “pay evil unto evil” sort of deal? I mean, who knows what he’s got in his pockets…
True! I haven’t let my darker personalities out in a while. Okay then, we’ll all use him as a punching bag. You still need one Taffy? I’ll lend him to you when we’re done
Sh. The comic police may be listening.
Oh, you just meant punching him? Sorry, I meant something else.
Oh, I know what you meant. I’m just offering him to you after we’re done looting his body.
I’ve always wanted to play the Chaotic Evil member of the party.
That’s what we’re here for! To let off some evil!
As soon as I read that, I thought “A ring of invisibility?”
One Ryan to rule them all…
Are you suggesting we…
offer him a SIERRA MIST??
Dammit! Amazi-girls is too busy shagging up on the NSFW page to come get Ryan. Okay then, I’ll have to vibr us in in here absence
Panel 4: I see you creeping you fucker !
What? He’s just concerned about Dorothy’s slipping grades. Like we all are. He’s definitly not potentially targeting her as the source of his picture circulating. How would he even know that? Don’t be paranoid.
Joe! Stop Joe-ing it up!
“Like, 5 minutes less or something.”
“HOW LONG DO YOU THINK AN EPISODE IS? 30 SECONDS?”
-Joe was mauled by a Walkysaurus Rex-
A Walkyraptor, rather
An Indominus Walky to be exact
Elsewhere, Dina is suddenly angry and doesn’t know why.
Ah, Intro to Logic, that explains it. Every smart high schooler goes into college thinking they know all about logic, but they REALLY don’t. I used to grade homework proofs for an intro class, and up until late in the term they were generally abysmal, sometimes completely backwards, and this was a good school. Almost all of these kids had taken calculus in high school, but when it came to proofs they wrote such nonsense before they got the hang of it. And I’m not trying to be down on them; I was in the same boat. What I tell high school students going into these classes is that what they call “showing your work” in calculus and everything prior to calculus is NOT the same as “proving it.”
Dorothy’s smart. Her brain will adjust to this stuff, and it is a mental development you have to go through to really get it, and then she’ll be fine. (Here I am talking about this cartoon character like she’s a real person taking real classes.)
I believe this is the philosophy version of logic, not math.
Logic’s logic, it’s just the applications and notation that vary. From what I could tell you need to go through the same mental hoops to learn formal logic through math-department classes as through philosophy-department classes.
I see. I thought in math, logic tended to focus on deductive. Apparently there’s a bunch of other crap in philosophy.
I am neither a math or philosophy student, clearly.
As someone with a degree in philosophy, I can assure you there is not “a bunch of other crap” >:[
The two key skills for any philosophy class are breaking down an argument into component assumptions and logic, and being able to build a valid argument from the same.
I don’t know about math, but both my philosophy and computer science classes relied used the same same symbolic logic (at least one of my classes even counted towards both majors). Mathematical proofs follow a similar structure.
Math, computer science, and philosophy are all just different forms of applied logic.
I took Logic as a philosophy course, and it was heavy on the symbolic logic – first prepositional, then categorical. Both were heavily mathematical, and it was basically a really easy math class.
I’m referring to other kinds of logic like inductive, as opposed to deductive. Those might very well be in math or computers – as I said, I know jack about most serious stuff in those.
The division of science and philosophy is a modern one, hence why some of the most famous natural scientists in the 17th and 18th century called themselves philosophers. Math and philosophy both rely heavily on deductive logic. In fact, the first thing I learned when I began studying philosophy was that there are no wrong answers, just wrong ways to find them.
Meaning that if you reach a conclusion without using deductive reasoning, you fail at philosophy, whether the conclusion is positive or negative. That doesn’t mean there’s no difference between philosophical logic and mathematical logic, but it’s not as obvious as people might think. It’s better to think of it as two different dialects of the same language, similar enough that if you understand one you’ll understand the other, but if you try to use them the exact same way, you’ll probably stumble a few times.
I thought philosophy also involved stuff like inductive reasoning, or is that stuff you won’t get without deductive first?
“Natural philosophy” is basically what led to what we now call science. It was the study of the properties and laws of the natural world (which in this context included physics, chemistry, biology, etc, not just nature) using logic and reasoning, and eventually experimentation using measuring instruments as technological advances made such things possible.
Like the word “atom” was coined by a Greek philosopher over 2000 years ago, whose name I’m sure I got wrong on a test a one point, but who reasoned that while it might appear to the eye (which was all they had to examine things with) that a piece of matter could be broken down into smaller and smaller pieces ad infinitum, there must be some point where it is no longer possible to split it further.
And unless I’m mistaken, even Isaac Newton would have referred to himself as a natural philosopher rather than a scientist. It’s a fairly modern word.
As for deductive vs inductive reasoning, philosophy and science have about the same amount of use for the latter (some, but for very specific situations), and is built almost exclusively on the former.
Deductive reasoning is where you take some premises, and apply some logical rules to draw a conclusion, like:
– x is a dog
– all dogs are mammals
Therefore, x is a mammal.
With inductive reasoning, you’re basically taking specific facts and generalizing. You can’t actually prove anything with it. It’s more useful for coming up with hypotheses or predictions, which can then be examined with deductive logic.
With inductive reasoning, you might do this:
– I have a pen full of mammals
– This one here is a dog
Therefore, all of animals in the pen are dogs
You don’t actually know that they’re all dogs though, and obviously you’d need more information to prove it, though might lead you to what questions you might need to answer next.
Basically, Sherlock Holmes may use a lot of inductive reasoning, but science and philosophy alike use very little.
I did know that philosophy led to science! That came up in some of my history classes. I honestly did not know the difference between inductive and deductive though, I just came across it when I was seeing what the difference, if any, was between philosophy and math logic. If anything but deductive is for specific situations, that makes sense.
We all talk about cartoon characters as if they are real here.
Th-they’re not?!…….Next you’ll tell me movies aren’t real either!
I have some bad news.
……..What bad news?
Thanks to digital distribution and optical discs, most movies aren’t reel anymore.
[collective moan of dismay]
“Those poor people.”
“By Grapthar’s hammer, by the suns of Warvan, YOU SHALL BE AVENGED!”
Ehhhhhhhhhhhhhhh
The fact that it’s “Intro to Logic” actually makes little sense to me. I also took that class in freshman year of college, and it was… so easy. Just take a true statement, and go step by step to arrive at another true statement. Dorothy has been set up to be the smart person in this comic so it’s baffling to me that that class would present a problem for her.
She might be tripping over history or various theories or something.
idk like. there are some ways in which Dorothy can be very intuitive. so slowing it down and having to go through the steps could easily be hard for her. or maybe it’s just the homework, or they’ve gotten to some more difficult sections or something.
i mean smartness is not the same thing as logical, like thoughtful is not the same thing as meticulous. there are a lot of different types of intelligences!!
…also politics is not a field really known for its logic, i guess; more for its compromises and bridging of divides
At my university, there’s an intro course to logic with a 65% rate of failed exams. The reason for this is because the university insisted on using a name that would attract more students, despite the fact that it was really not suitable for freshmen at all. The people in charge figured that the more who signed up, the more would succeed which would mean more prestige for the university. Go figure.
Alternatively, it could be that she’s like a lot of young people at universities or colleges today (I’m not sure of the difference, we don’t have both in Norway), like I was and every other student I’ve ever talked to. Full of confidence, expecting our good grades that got us accepted and the praise we always got from family to carry us through the same way it did in high school. Then we meet reality, realize we’re too young to know anything academical about anything and that all the times we thought we could surprise our professors with something unique, it was actually mediocre at best. And then, when we had disposed of the illusion that because we thought we knew what a course was about before we attended it, we were ready to learn. At which point it became easy.
I actually loved my intro logic courses. Call me crazy :v
In my experience logic makes maths more complicated by adding in a bunch of words. Also different kinds of logical methods and fallacies get special names whereas in maths “that doesn’t follow” is sufficient. I have a maths degree but I really admire people who can do formal logic and I find philosophers even more admirable. Show me 10 minutes of philosophy and I will have an embarrassing adult tantrum I just do not get it at all :S
A syllogism consists of two premises and a conclusion.
Therefore this is not a syllogism.
What has been said….
…. CANNOT BE UNSAID!
*Looks at the background of Panel 4*
*Halloween theme starts to play in head*
Walky’s studies are ship shape and Bristol fashion.
Dorothy does need to drop something. Also, there’s a lot going on, but she can’t help anyone if she can’t help herself. One the one hand, she is a good friend, but on the other, she needs to stop believing that she absolutely must step in every single time. Walky can get his own tutor – in fact, it’s probably better for his growth to do this himself. She’s been amazing to Joyce, but Joyce is much stronger than she thinks she is.
Is it too late in the semester for her to drop a class? You just know she’s probably got one or two electives she only enrolled in because they sound impressive.
Yes, as confirmed by Jason.
No one has said anything about midterm exams so I’m guessing it’s not to late to withdraw from a class without it being a withdraw fail.
Unfortunately, Jason mentioned it’s too late to drop without penalty
You are correct! Dang it!
So when *are* they going to take mid-term exams? That has to be soon, right? Or is this like asking when they’re going to graduate?
Jacob said they were soon, yes.
So, that 76 wasn’t even on an exam, it was just a quiz? I realize she just said her scores are dipping a little “everywhere”, but it’s hard for me not to roll my eyes a little bit. (And I was a straight-A nerd in college!)
But was being a straight-A student a crucial part of your identity?
Trust me, when you believe being a good student is just supposed to be who you are as a person, that first bad grade is devastating.
Dorothy wanted to become the first female atheist president, and figured she needed top-notch grades from IU to get her into Yale or some other big-name school to get that trophy degree for her résumé/curriculum vitae.
But she needn’t worry. Our current president only has a BS in Economics from Wharton, not Yale, and I’m willing to bet that he didn’t post a 4.0 GPA while he was dodging the draft there either.
Dorothy is a woman. So she very much does need to worry. If this election taught us anything it’s that the most qualified woman in the country will still be less appealing than the least qualified man in the world.
And remember: Trump IS currently president in DOAverse.
Is he? I can’t remember Willis saying anything about that on his tumblr or that being stated or alluded to within the strip itself.
Not according to Willis.
Makes sense, because given the time difference DoA’s world would have to drastically change every few days to keep up with real-world politics.
Actually, explicitly yes according to Willis:
http://www.dumbingofage.com/2017/comic/book-7/03-the-thing-i-was-before/presidential/#comment-1225984
He won’t be mentioned by name as the current president while in office, but the orange turd blossom is their president as well.
Y’know, I was wondering, given the eternal now, if it was Fall 2016 or Fall 2017.
Must be the latter, though if so I dunno how the election-year stuff works :v
You’re right. Thanks, I didn’t see that comment the other day.
*Updates notes about how the DoA timeline works*
Ah, thank you. I hadn’t seen that response. I took him at face value with that tumblr post awhile back cuz I liked the idea of universe without the orange jerk.
And I suppose the comic HAS alluded to his presidency then. The strip “Presidential” makes more sense to me now.
Least qualified who says what people want to hear… Unfortunately politics isn’t about arguments and plans, it’s all about playing on people’s emotions… which explains why there are so many psychopaths up there.
Our male president from a rich family who sucked up to evangelicals hard by Republican standards, sure. Dorothy will be held to higher standards by virtue of her various identities (female, ethnically jewish, atheist), and even if that wasn’t the case she’d have to get through the Democratic primaries first, and the standards are higher there.
It isn’t so much that getting a C on a quiz is bad, but more that getting a C on a quiz she’d expected she aced suggests her self-assessment of how she’s doing is inaccurate (which she’s then confirmed) and she wants to fix it before it becomes a C (or worse) on an exam, which would be bad.
An excellent point! I never stressed about bad grades that I knew were bad (if I didn’t get the topic, it wasn’t crucial and I was passing that was good enough for me) but the shock of a surprisingly bad grade is real. It really makes you lose cofidence because what if all the classes you think are going fine you’re actually failing??? *panic*
Yeah, it is one thing to get a bad grade when you know you didn’t study and/or felt it didn’t go well while you were doing the assignment/quiz/whatever, it’s another to think you aced it and be extremely wrong.
Watching cartoons is necessary self-care.
At least that’s what I tell myself.
Okay, good news and bad news.
Good news:
– She’s not panicking.
– She’s figuring out which activity she can cut.
– Walky has a tutor (albeit, that tutor is Jason so we’ll see how that goes).
Bad news:
– She’s dropping grades everywhere
– She’s got a stalker.
Well, she described them as dipping “a little” so it sounds like this logic class is the only one she got a C in. It’s not great but things aren’t on fire. She got ahead of it becoming a real problem.
A little is still a drop, even if it’s not a crisis mode drop.
That’s crazy-talk, Joe! Oh, and I hope Ryan trips and gets another scar on his face.
I hope he trips, stumbles into the street, and gets hit by a bus.
But then we can’t send him to Hell personally!
Hey I didn’t say the bus had to kill him.
I’ll settle for him being safely dead and having pineapples shoved up his butt by Satan every day.
Solution: drive the bus?
Snipers 1-4, are you in position? Alpha and Gamma Squad, hold fire until I signal. Captains, are your teams clear?
Ok, so did Joe come out here to try to make amends for two days ago (since he apparently didn’t break Ryan like a twig like we were all hoping he would)? Or did he notice some guy (Ryan) acting really shady and decide to make sure Dorothy and Walky weren’t being followed? Or is he just passing them on his way to his next class and has already pushed his behavior from…five to ten minutes in-universe out of his memory? I’m hoping for the second option, I’ll accept the first option, but I’m pretty sure it’s the third option.
Joe is acting a bit protective in panel 5. Maybe the 2nd option. Please… Please… Let it be the 2nd option
Realistically we shouldn’t hope for the conflict to be resolved so fast. Ryan was snuck into the background to seed a future conflict.
Joe.
Joe, joe, joe. You don’t get it.
it’s only monkey master. not like it’s transformers. just cut it.
This is the part where Joe reveals he’s a major Ultracar fan and also was upset that it was canceled, albeit for different reasons than Carla.
This headcanon is strangely appealing to me
Fuck! Don’t think I don’t see you, asshole…
“I have plenty of more superfluous things to cut.”
——————————
Like maybe the stuff that ends up on the Slipshine pages?
No way, she deff needs that for stress relief.
Panel 4, well sh*t he’s following them D:
Walky you sweet precious angel
Panel three made me audibly “AWWW”
whoa, hey, Joe, let’s not go crazy here.
Puh, OK, Dorothy has a reasonable plan to get her workload under control, and it seems like even when she snarled at people while being busy on her phone she wrote emails rather than doubling down on studying (which would have been very unproductive). And most importantly, she can be open to Walky about it.
Even Joe avoids crude remarks about his own or Dorothy’s sex life. I think he’s actually working himself up to a proper excuse. Good on him, if that’s the case.
I had a similar problem when I was a freshman. I had way too many interests and tried to make time for all of them. I was writing for the campus newspaper but I quit because it just wasn’t at all a career interest. That opened up a lot of time for me. TBH Dorothy could do the same.
First off: Good on you, Dorothy, for handling this like a mature adult. I’m proud of you.
Second: Walky is a sweetheart for getting help on his own and making sure. Dorothy knows she doesn’t have to worry about him if she’s having her own troubles. He’s come a long way and I’m proud of him too.
Third, now that I’ve gotten over my mental anguish of him being in this comic arc:
Ryan now knows how it feels to be scared to be outside.
Good.
Also I agree with Walky; taking away a relaxing thing may be bad for Dorothy, considering how much work she already does.
Well, looks like we now know what is Walky’s Berserk Button!
We’ve known that for ages :p
Also people who use tropespeak should be hung by their thumbs and left out for rabid wolves.
Love you too, foamy (!)
Glad to brighten your day
Dorothy is so close doing the right thing here. Power through it and dump his useless butt, it will be better in the long run.
As you can see, Walky is being a terrible influence that she should drop like a hot potato right now. I mean, look at him! Showing concern for her grades? Urging her to take care of herself, even at his expense? That’s . . .
. . . Walk me through why you think dumping him would help?
He’s a leech. Walky is selfish and lazy and the only reason he makes an appearance of caring now is because he realizes that he’s in danger of losing his surrogate caretaker. Dorothy dumped Danny for similar reasons and with a lot fewer problems in her life. It was the right decision then and it’s the right decision now.
No, she dumped Danny because he didn’t respect her or her goals.
Okay I’m no fan of this relationship but I have never gotten the impression they both don’t genuinely care about and respect each other.
I bet you’re a laugh a minute to be with, yeesh. Not everybody is attracted to type-A overachievers.
Yeah, overwork yourself even harder, get into a stressful position, stressful job, stressful career. Keep doing shit that brings nothing but stress and effort and you’ll end up with a heart attack by the time you are 30 something.
Dorothy wants to be president. She wants to be the best person she can be. That’s going to be stressful and trying to take care of a child in an adults body is only going to add to that. If it’s just about physical release there are better ways to get that than with Walky.
And now she is starting to have second thoughts.
What better ways? Yoga and Meditation? Exercising?
With Walky she is getting genuine human contact and interaction. She gets to be “human” and not just an overachieving robot. Roz showed her that she sucks at the whole “Human relationships thing”. She is great at working but not good at connecting with people and Walky is giving her just that.
Life without friends and of only focusing on the goal is mightily exhausting. Friends give you release and support. If she’d cut Walky off what would she have left? Her world would become empty, devoid of genuine human contact. Only contact she’d have would be in pursuit of her goal, treating other people as means to an end.
She does have other friends. Walky isn’t the be-all, end-all, any more than he’s Aggrax’s Goldstein.
True but Walky provided a mostly drama-free fun. Joyce? She has problems. BIG ONES. One of which is currently stalking Dotty. To Joyce Dorothy feels more like a Responsible friend while with Walky she can just kick back and relax.
I’m not sure that she’s having ‘second thoughts’. She’s asking how she can still achieve her pre-existing goals and meet her pre-existing priorities. What is the excess fat she can cut away? This may lead her to a serious re-evaluation of her life but that may not happen for a while and may require her to take a few wrong turnings and realise her mistakes.
There is absolutely no indication that Dorothy uses Walky for ‘physical release’. There are many indications that she is genuinely fond of him.
In the long run, Dorothy will be dead.
Eat Arby’s.
nihilist arby’s. Thats my second favorite twitter to follow next after @sickofwolves
I am really impressed with Walky right now, it’s nice to see that he is capable of acting like a grownup.
Sorta.
If he was being honest. His hatches are far from battened down.
He’s always been capable of it. It’s just hard work and he doesn’t want people to expect it.
How dare you Joe?!?
I kind of have hopes for joe in the upcoming ryan confrontation. Ryan *should be* Joe’s worst enemy. Joe is a cad, but he’s a CONSENSUAL cad, and peeps like Ryan cast peeps like Joe very poorly.
Also he’s surprisingly close with Joyce.
I can see a pretty decent role for him coming up.
Based on some of the preview panels I’ve seen, I’m wondering if it may be Joyce to the rescue with a startled Jacob and Raidah as witnesses.
On the one hand people like Ryan should be and likely are Joes worst enemy. Part of that is I believe he resents his father cheating on his mother. Although that sounds like a whole thing where they are both better off.
On the other hand I wouldn’t blame him for believing Ryan’s interpretation after his date with Joyce.
Ehhhhhhh on Joe’s consent practices, but yes, I imagine even he knows that roofies are not acceptable.
Though he apparently thinks using booze to get a yes is acceptable, so he’s still got work to do.
Oh and his hair went back to normal with just a little smoothing in the first panel.
Shame. I kind of liked it that way.
I just realised what was missing from the comments section. Hopefully things are alright.
If you’re referring to whom I think you are, I hope so as well. She read very rattled (with very good reason) last time. 8(
And I’m once again torn, like I was when Lailah went MIA from the comments section. Like, do you inquire? Is it butting in on other people’s business?
That is the dilemma, yeah. I’ll hold off on making any sort of guess, though, since I’d rather avoid intruding.
She’s on Patreon. She’s okay, last I heard.
Yay. Thanks for the update. 8)
NP. I didn’t want people to worry. I don’t know when she’ll be back on main, but I do know she’s still been on Patreon recently and that, as far as I know, she’s okay.
Good.
Hey, Cerberus – dunno if you’re gonna see this or not, but wanted to let you know I’m thinking about you and hope you’re safe & ok right now. Not used to seeing you missing a couple days in a row – so I hope everything is ok and you’re just super busy.
+1. (I was thinking the same thing but didn’t know how to express it. So, what ischemgeek said.)
Looks like we were all on the same wavelength.
+1! The comments just aren’t the same without you!
+1.
I can’t imagine the comment section the day before yesterday wasn’t part of why she’s not here. She was really raw and people dogpiled her. If she needs a break it wouldn’t surprise me.
Cerb’s sometime gone away for weekends.
I’m not worried yet.
…..
Or I WASN’T UNTIL YOU COMMENTED!
*fretfretfretfretfret*
She was on Patreon yesterday. She was alright, last I heard.
That”s good. As long as she’s just taking a break and is coming back soon as she’s ready. I hope that happebs soon, this forum isn’t the same without her insight filled walls of text.
I don’t know when she’ll be back, but I do know she’s been on Patreon recently and she’s okay, last I heard.
Oh that’s cool then. I am happy she’s taking care of herself wisely.
Same. I’m more concerned because I know she’s been having a hard time lately.
yes!!
i figured there just wasn’t enough happening to comment on but maybe i Was Wrong and honestly there’s always something to comment about
I’m with Walky on this this one. “Fewer cartoons” just doesn’t make any logical sense.
OK I left a comment without reading others. Something happened that I missed. Cerberus I hope you are OK. You seriously inspire me to get out there more for students.
Oh look, Joe found them trying to apologize to Dorothy, just like the horrible person you all think he is.
How dare he!? This outrage will not stand!
Wait, why is trying to apologise horrible?
Pretty sure IllogicalBobcat is being sarcastic here. Let not the Mary avatar deceive you.
Well, you know, other than the part where “trying to apologize” isn’t shown or even really applied.
He does follow them out. That’s really all we know. And then snarks at Dorothy again.
I agree with you on the apology, but that doesn’t *look* like a snark face. How many cartoons DOES Dorothy watch? If she watches, like, 2 hours a day, she could cut that to half.
I seriously doubt she watches that much a day between trying to socialize, meal times, and school work her free time is very limited. Unless she goes to bed late but we know canonically she gets up at like 6 am everyday to run so I’m guessing she must be in bed by 11 every night.
I’ll give him credit when his pattern of behavior changes, not when he apologizes.
I thought he was talking to walky and telling him to watch less cartoons
I didn’t even notice Ryan until I saw the character tags and now I’m even more unnerved.
I hope nothing happens to Dorothy.
Maybe Dorothy will find her fist, and join the punching club.
…. but Joe’s “presidential” comment from two days ago, THAT wasn’t worth slugging him over.
…. Walky’s priorities are just so silly.
If the two events had happened in the opposite order, I suspect the result might have been the same.
he’s not really slugging at him, more just clawing at him like a cat being held in place by its recalcitrant owner
Slap-fight!
Or, uh, one sided slap-fight. I guess that’a not much of a fight.
flail those arms walky!!! they will be effective!
Walky’s priorities: rebuke the guy that makes Dorothy unhappy, hit the guy who suggests she spends less time with him. Makes sense to me!
Nice to see Joe showing some real concern for Dorothy, she probably means more to him then he realises