This comic is about a robot powered by bees, but it's also about the kind of people who think filling a robot with bees is a good idea, and why they're wrong.
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T Campbell, John Waltrip, Florence Machina
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Velinxi
Iris Black is a self-proclaimed inventor with the curious ability to bring his drawings to life, and yearns to find a space where he can use his powers freely.
Dumbing of Age
David M Willis
Joyce has been homeschooled her entire life until now, when she's suddenly a freshman in college! Things don't go well.
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The legendary early-aughts webcomic that inspired a wave of webcomic creators.
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After a case of mistaken identity, will awkward Daisuke find help from excitable Mamo, or will his love life be thrown completely off track?
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Tamaura, wrested into a world 300 years in the future, must find a way to save the magic fading from her country.
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Eventually the system breaks down and Billie & Malaya start dating, eventually being subsumed into the massive polyamorous relationship that now includes one of the voice actors from Dexter & Monkey Master
<syndrome>“And when everyone’s involved in a polyamorous relationship that covers the entire planet and several nearby ones… no one will be.”<syndrome>
If the new hall starts going to her head, she’s bound to come crashing back to reality next time she visits Read Hall, where everybody actually knows her.
Over here, she’s a living legend. They don’t know her, just stories about her.
Actually I really don’t think so. Billie has had an epiphany about what she did wrong in high school, I don’t think she’ll try the exact same thing again, particularly given what she has with Ruth.
This is her chance to rebuild on a healthier foundation. I’m really, really glad she has it.
But she’s standing there basking in it. She may well reject it and rebuild as you suggest, but that’s going to be a struggle for her. She’s being tempted by what she thought she wanted.
She can bask in it and not lord it over other people. In Read, she tried to lord over other people using her high school status as a cudgel. Here’s people are in awe of her already, so she doesn’t need to fight to attain that status.
Yeah if she hadn’t immediately used Ruth as a stepping stool to boost her reputation with these girls I’d be a lot less sure that this was going to be a complete disaster.
That’s definitely the most obvious route this could go and I really hope it doesn’t but like I can’t see any other narratively meaningful direction to take this.
I’d would like (note: ‘like’) to have a bit more faith in Billie. She’ll get a big head, go tell Ruth about it where Ruth immediately gives her a hard dose of truth and straitens her out.
Yep, I can see their relationship ending abruptly and almost anti-climatically very soon. Because while Billy has been there for Ruth through her struggles, I don’t think Billie actually considers herself to have any problems at all that don’t start and end with choosing to be with Ruth.
Now that she has options, she can re-invent herself. Or, moreso, reclaim who she ‘used to be’. And the sort of unconditional love that Ruth requires will be impossible to reconcile with that persona.
I’m pretty sure she is, but it’s not going to be easy for her. That’s the conflict she’s being set up for. And to some extent set up for herself – by rejecting Ruth’s offer to help her move.
I think she’ll come through in the end, but there’s drama on the way.
Their relationship became a relationship, because Billie took Alice’s comment that she was a drama hurricane to heart, and figured she should hook up with Ruth, because they were both poison and shouldn’t be inflicted on other people, but they couldn’t harm each other, because they were already fucked up.
So, no, Billie doesn’t actually see herself as having no problems that don’t stem from Ruth.
Theoretically, you are correct. But if you pay attention to Billie more recently, she doesn’t seem to show an ‘I have a problem’ attitude. Instead it’s turned into more a ‘Ruth has a problem that I have made my problem’, allowing her to conveniently ignore her own issues.
Compared to Ruth, she’s downright functional, so by looking at the contrast, I can see how she would come to the conclusion that she’s perfectly fine.
I know how I feel. I didn’t expect to feel like this, but here I am. I’m happy Billie finally gets appreciation for the self she enjoyed being. Basically, she is allowed to be OK, whichever personality she chooses now, so the question is less loaded. When she will choose Ruth, it won’t be in lack of better options, but a truly autonomous decision. And with part of the bitterness gone, she might find the strength to make friends, study or enjoy her relationship.
This!
Everything sucked for Billie at the beginning of the semester, and while some of it led her down a self-improvement road, most of it just… sucked.
It’s good that it’s changing.
The Willis giveth, and the Willis…you know the drill by now.
Also, apparently everything Billie has fits into one rolling suitcase and one large box? So why did it take her all night to pack?
And her new floormates are putting away all of her stuff, including (one assumes) her underwear and who knows what else? Is this what teh kidz do nowadays?
Listen, Morty, whenever it looks like you’re having a bad day you’re — your not, Morty. It’s all a conspiracy, and every *hic* everything’s gonna fall apart. It’s all gonna crumble around you, Morty. I mean, look at me. I’m a genius. I’m the smartest guy in the universe. And what does it get me? An ungrateful nephew
I mean, I know it will inevitably crash and burn, but right now i’m feeling so pleased that Billie’s finally getting the college experience she wanted to have (for however long it lasts).
In Soviet Russia Positive Reinforcment feels better from having you.
…
Also, you say that as if that is a bad thing comrade. Perhaps you are lacking in revolutionary fervor? For the Proletariat!!!
Ironically enough, as a believer in Liberation Theology, I’m as close as a human being can be to being a member of both. Jesus was a lot closer to Lenin and Marx in his teachings than people like to acknowledge. And the earliest Christians were essential class-conscious communes that strove towards being self-sufficient while providing the poor. And in the First Book of the Acts of the Apostles, the Holy spirit literally strikes a couple dead for trying to practice capitalism while being Christians… I mean, uh, USA USA!!! *whispers* Help they’re spying on me!!
Honestly, if it hadn’t been for the White Russian counter-revolutionaries and Stalin, the Bolsheviks probably wouldn’t have become as bad as what historically happened.
Idea: Browser plugin, that, upon any given Dumbing of Age’s being loaded, scans the comment section for hacked muzak memes and loads YouTube videos of them into a playlist
I guess I’m setting myself up for a “damn you Willis”, but I feel like Billie could actually do okay at Forest. Despite her many bad positions, she’s actually shown herself to do pretty well in a place of leadership/community support. She handled the trash chute problem, she herds Joyce into dressing appropriately for Episcopalian church, she played a big part at keeping Ruth as a functioning RA (despite all of the issues with their relationship). Sure, something bad will happen eventually, but it might not be Billie just falling out with Forest Hall.
Yes!
Billie has proved herself actually good at what she’s used to doing, it just… came with drinking problems and being an emotional wreck.
Sure, her old girlfriend called her a whirlpool of toxicity, but 1) might have been exaggerating to make it easier for herself to cut ties; 2) these girls are not going to be that close to her; 3) she’s genuinely getting better in that department.
The worst thing about Billie’s old life was the part where she established herself as top of the heap by tormenting those she perceived as below her, for example Walky.
I don’t think she’s going to return to that particular habit (except with personally Walky)
Agreed, especially since now she doesn’t really feel like top of the heap compared to anyone.
I think that IF she gets a few days here in stability with this awesome gang and IF Ruth does KINDA OK in her absence, she could do really good and be a well liked part of the community…
…so of course something will fudge it up. My guess is that one of her Forest girls will turn out to be Alice. (And if so I have prepared a preemptive “Damn you Willis”)
I’m thinking all this validation of her original ego-centrism is more gonna result in her feeling like she IS top of the heap compared to everyone and it’s going to bite her in the ass. Like we’ve already got her throwing Ruth under the bus to impress a bunch of strangers and it’s been all of 5 minutes.
I want to respect Nash and Rose and Beatrice, but I also want to ask them why they are swooning over someone just because she has the trappings of an alpha bongo. Didn’t they get enough of alpha bongos in high school?
I don’t think queenbees are necessarily alpha bongos. In my school all the top popular kids were full of good leadership qualities and nice to know. The ‘alpha bonga’ types were several steps down the heirarchy. Personally, I mostly didn’t even know their names
Yeah, it definitely varies by location and the local culture. At least during the time I was in school (mid-’80s through late-’90s) who the popular kids were in a given local school district seemed to depend largely on that district’s socioeconomic status with a strong modification from the background of who lived there.
Yeah, the popular kids* at my high school were all pretty nice people. They didn’t go around like…. bullying unpopular kids or whatever.
*the ones I knew about, anyway. I acknowledge that oblivious high school me, who would eventually grow up into….. uh…. oblivious adult me….. may have missed something.
I might be wrong, but I think they don’t position themselves underneath the head chearleader, and that makes a whole difference. They are confident, they are going through Billie’s stuff. Itvseems to me they are treating her like an equal, who has excelled on some field other than theirs. Time will tell if Im right. Or Willis
It’s not abusive and toxic any longer. It was at the beginning, when it was basically just one-sided bullying, but ever since Billie pullled the fire alarm that particular part of it was over.
And right now I think the relationship is doing Billie a whole lot of good, including grounding her to avoid the traps she’d fallen in previously (i.e. being a hand drum to people she thought were below her)
It’s weird though. Their support is oddly based on them spinning the rumors as if it was Billie who had been kind of toxic and aggressive (“you seduced her?!” “I take what I want.”) and celebrating that. And Billie is running with it because it makes her sound powerful.
Because she’s lying about it to make herself look good, rather than to cover for Ruth?
Because now she has to keep Ruth and her new dorm separate or Ruth’ll explode her bullshit story?
Calling it now, the reason Spencer emphasized “no pets” is because Malaya tried to bring Fuckface the iguana with her to college and shenanigans ensued.
Excuse me while I eat popcorn and wait for the other shoe to drop (whether from billie or from everyone else), because this webcomic makes me perpetually suspicious of happiness. :p
She ends up staying there more and more, causing Ruth to feel worse and worse and spiral deeper into depression but be unable to show it until suddenly she is in hospital for a failed suicide
Her grandfather of course comes in to chide her and gets his comeuppance, but Ruth is left broken and will take years of in comic time to gather even some of the shattered pieces back
:O :O I thought Nash was referring to Malaya as Fuckface. And I’m sure Billie thinks that too. If it’s actually the iguana, then that is pretty awesome. Also explains the “no pets” from Spencer!
Yep…its gonna be so healthy to use your high school accomplishments to ride on in college. People who think they have hit the peak of their life at one point when young really tend to just downhill spiral for their lives
I think some guy named Kearns was pretty popular, and there was a Steve everyone liked who now goes to Notre Dame and is the only one of my classmates I follow on Twitter who’s still actively tweeting. And I think maybe the dickbag who stole my ukulele at the Senior Overnight? I don’t know.
It’s entirely possible that I was popular and didn’t know it. That’s how little attention I (and almost everyone else at the school) payed to that.
It’s been considerably longer for me. I only vaguely remember one guy. I beat him once in a card game and he never forgave me for it. He spent the rest of our interactions trying to beat me only to find I never cared one way or another.
But basically, Yunyun considers herself a rival to one of the main characters, an explosion-obsessed wizard named Megumin, but Megumin has literally zero investment in said rivalry. Yunyun constantly tries to challenge Megumin to a duel in order to surpass her, but not only does Megumin barely seem to care about them, only humoring Yunyun in order to get her off her case, the duels never even have a conclusive ending.
An old friend got married a few months ago, and a bunch of us from high school were in town for the wedding. As we were trying to make brunch reservations for our group of close friends and realizing that the “inner circle” (so to speak) was in the double digits, my best friend turned to me and said “I think we might have been the popular kids”. Which sure was a revelation.
It’s only freshman year, though. If she’s still doing this when she graduates, you’d probably be right. For now, there’s plenty of time to get past that
Is she, perchance, at the Episcopalian church just off campus? With smouldering-hot-tower-of-a-man Jacob and cleavage-dress-is-fine-with-tights Joyce and butchest-duds Becky? And if so, will hijinks ensue?
I knew this, but I forgot when I posted the above:
The church is the Episcopal Church; the people who are members of that church are Episcopalians. I regret the adjectival error, and throw myself on the mercy of what I understand are a very forgiving group of people.
And I still wonder which church Lucy is goes to. If it is not the Episcopal church of the current storyline, then there is yet another Joyce-goes-to-an-outside-her-comfort-zone-church story waiting to be explored.
I think I’ve figured out Rose’s name. (See the Twitter feed for the challenge.). With the help of the Internet Anagram Server, I have discovered that “Rose Xandria Pepper” is an anagram of “Pap error axed penis”.
Clearly Rose had a Pap smear to see if she had the kind of cervical cancer caused by the Human Papilloma Virus. When the test erroneously came back negative, she thought she was clean, and engaged in unprotected sex with a young man. The unfortunate dude caught HPV from her, and it caused cancer of the penis, so that he had to have his penis amputated in order to save his life.
Very dark back story. Anyone who could invent something like this must be a deeply disturbed individual.
She’s way less accidentally-bigoted (from what we see of her at least). I think she’s more of a Sierra, but she’s also somewhat of a shipper, so add in some Becky or Amber (although Sierra may well be a shipper). Actually, I recall that Grace and Mandy were also shippers. As was Joyce…
…everyone in this universe is a shipper. This
explains
everything
*ahem* So as I was saying, it’s too early to draw any Lucy-Joyce parallels.
“But didn’t you make that convoluted headcanon about a polyamorous relationship between Nash, Rose, and Beatrice on literally the first strip the three appeared in together?”
I was thinking more along the lines of “cheerful to a scary level, friendly, and positive churchgoing girl that’s at least somewhat of a geek” than anything else.
Maybe I haven’t been paying much attention to Sierra…while she’s definitely nice, friendly, and goes to church, she’s a lot more chill and kind of a hippy. I don’t think she has much in common with either.
*DOA character is having a mildly good day for once*
Fans: You horrible MONSTER, you’re going to do something terrible to them now AREN’T YOU?? I AM MORE UPSET THAN IF BAD THINGS WERE ACTUALLY HAPPENING.
Wasn’t there a two week time skip much earlier in the comic? I think at the end of it, Walky got a package of very comfy pants. That leads me to believe that mildly good days happened to the characters then, but we weren’t allowed to see them.
It was only a couple of days that were time-skipped. There have been other (and as-long or longer) timeskips as well besides that, such as just before Freshman Family Weekend, after the incident with Toedad, and after Ryan picked a fight he really should’ve thought better of.
I found the strip I was talking about: http://www.dumbingofage.com/2012/comic/book-2/04-time-keeps-on-slippin/year/
I even figured out why I thought it was a two week time skip. Someone commented that the strip ended two weeks into the semester. My mind corrupted it over time that I eventually remembered it as a 2 week time skip. Whoops.
yeah I really wish everyone could just be happy for Billie for once )=
then again if everyone had the same opinion this comment section would be no fun at all
I get the feeling Forest Hall residents are… less likely to have personal histories of trauma? Which would explain their sunny attitudes and general naive enthusiasm. The Read Hall people who are most apathetic, isolated, or dgaf (Ruth, Sarah, Sal, Amber, and Billie herself till recently) are also the ones with some dark stuff in their personal histories and/or current mental illness. Whereas now it seems like Billie’s landed among a bunch of super nice high schoolers.
Yeah, this is not going to be healthy for Billie. This isn’t going to be healthy at all. She’s going to end up having all her worst personal qualities reinforced by her new band of fangirls, isn’t she?
So… All of this strange behavior from the new girls is a setup to do something nasty to Billie? Because otherwise this doesn’t make any sense. But what’s it a setup for?
Worse-case scenario? To enable and encourage all her worst behaviours and then, when she’s burned every bridge with Ruth and the others at Read Hall, have the Forest girls dump her because she’s become too domineering and leave her with nothing but long, hard struggle back up the hill to self-respect.
I’m hoping that, as things deteriorate, Billie will suddenly realise that she’s making the same mistakes again and will consciously take action to reject those opportunities.
Well, this is the intro Billie thought was her due when she started college and didn’t get. I wonder if it will turn stale as she isn’t what she was then.
But, … I don’t get why these girls are reacting like that. They seem much to nice to want to curry favor with a cheerleader.
Did Willis create a bunch of happy characters who are willing to give a new person all the recognition for what they ever were just because they are nice?
If so, no wonder Malaya wanted to switch doorms. She cannot deal with nice people, they don’t feed her gruff.
You did! (Non ironic exclamation point for my history of mucking that up.)
When the Forest denizens started fawning over Billie, it reminded me of Sal’s coolness interrupting Billie’s self-styled arc very nearly on. But I think Malaya hates Sal for almost no reason (the way she dislikes about everyone), whereas Sal and Billie made some progress.
I’m fascinated by the possibility suggested above that Lucy may go to Jacob’s church. I’m just thinking of the pure, crystallised sugar that would be a Joyce/Lucy friendship.
My suspension of disbelief is being stretched to the breaking point by the idea that anyone out of highschool gives a fuck about who the prom queen was or cheerleaders. Like no offense but being popular in highschool is not really a meaningful achievement.
To be fair, the degree to which even actual high-schoolers care about such stuff has got to vary a lot by high school, and that’s not even getting to variation by individual student. I daresay the only cheerleader the folks at my HS cared about was the male one, because he was breaking gender stereotypes yadda yadda.
Assuming they’re all freshmen, they’re all “out of highschool” by a couple of months. Shocking that they haven’t matured much by their second month of college.
Honestly, for the longest time I though the whole “popular kids” cliquey thing you see in American media was a fictional concept because there was just nothing like that in my high school experience.
I want to be happy for Billie getting the reception she wanted all along, but this is making me anxious… ^_^; a bit of a fresh start is good, but Billie acts like these two halls of students will never intersect.
Everyone, didn’t we just END a storyline called “The Thing I Was Before”…? This following on the heels of that just heightens how suspicious this is. This Billie plot is going to be about Ruth + Read Hall “facing the strange.”
The narrative of Ruth as a conquest makes me queasy. I just hope this doesn’t turn out badly for her. It was such a circuitous path for their relationship from “Lots ‘O Nope” to “OK this seems to have become something a bit more constructive and helpful”.
On the one hand, if Ruth and Billie Shah together, the How We Met tale will need to be arrived at.
Elsewise, I don’t know. A frosh bedding a soph, (and not just a one night stand), in a position of power, might be admired by this crew, or a lot of college kids. They may also be busy enough with adjusting to college and not be as forward as Billie’s rep is.
(Waiting to see which years the Forest folks are in.)
I hope it does because if she’s going to treat Ruth like some kind of object behind her back to boost her ego she deserves to face consequences for it. If a bunch of teenagers thinking she’s cool is more important to her than respecting her partner she deserves to get dumped by said partner.
Wouldn’t it be weird if, after all the flattery and smiles Billie’s gotten, that LUCY winds up being the one person who can’t stand her? Maybe she still carries a torch for Malaya, or maybe they just don’t get along.
I’m happy for Billie getting support and admiration and stuff, I hope this doesn’t cause her to revert to her old reckless self though, it’s concerning.
The happiness is nice to see though I don’t think Old Billie coming back will be a threat longer than it takes her finding out that Lucy is queen of the nerds.
Real quick: Is Beatrice signing and the speech bubbles are just to convey what she’s saying without having to spend multiple panels trying to show it, or is she talking? Is she still deaf like in Shortpacked! and just lip reading?
I think she’s deaf here (though I think she was actually mute in SP). Some of the signing in the last couple of strips may have implied some translating?
And then there’s the “whatever you said” in this strip – implying Beatrice missed it.
I still think it’s a reference to Malaya and a callback to SP!, rather than Malaya actually having an iguana on campus. We’ll find out soon, I suppose.
ROSE: So not only all that, but you roomed with Amazi-Girl?
BILLIE: Well she never confirmed it, but I think we both knew the tru-OUCH!
NASH: What’s wrong, Billie?
BILLIE: Nothing, just a little pain. I probably just messed up my back or something moving boxes. It’ll wear off.
*SUDDENLY ROOM STARTS TO SHAKE*
BILLIE: What’s happening? Oh god is that an earthqu-YOWW
*BILLIE starts to swat at herself looking for mosquitoes/biting insects*
BEATRICE, cutting her off: Tell us some more about yourself, Billie!
ROSE, staring creepily forward: Tell us more.
*the room’s back wall is violently ripped away, Rose and Beatrice fly into the void unflinchingly*
NASH, rolling her eyes and speaking with WALKY’s voice: Yeah Billie you’re soooo cool.
SMASH CUT TO WALKY and SAL standing over BILLIE back in Read Hall.
SAL: Ah told him not to pinch you, but ah couldn’t think of any other way to wake you up. It’s almost 2 PM now and ya wouldn’t respond to me yelling.
WALKY smiles cheekily: But I was more than happy to help!
BILLIE punches WALKY.
BILLIE: Fine, whatever. I need to get my crap out of here anyway and move on over to Forest Quad without running into Ruth and making this more awkward than it already is.
SAL and WALKY: Move?
SAL: You just moved in though. And who’s Ruth?
WALKY: Are you feeling alright, Billie?
BILLIE: I feel fine, nerd. And what do you mean “who’s Ruth?” She’s the reason I have to move out before the semester’s over!
WALKY: Over? The semester hasn’t started yet, Billie.
BILLIE: Is that some kind of joke? Because I don’t get it and it’s not funny.
WALKY, concerned: I think you need to sit down and maybe wake up a little more.
BILLIE: And I think you need to go fuck yourself!
*BILLIE stands up to storm out but stops dead upon seeing the walls bare aside from a conveniently placed wall calendar*
WALKY: Billie, you don’t have to go anywhere, class doesn’t start until Monday.
*camera pans over to reveal calendar date: August 16, 2010*
BILLIE staggers backwards into chair muttering: “No… no, it can’t be, it’s not right…” as the camera zooms out from above and we can hear BECKY and JOYCE from strip 1 through the half-bath as the music rises. CUT TO BLACK
I hope this doesn’t lead to messing up her relationship with Ruth. I know it had some unhealthy footing, but I really love them together and think they can be super good for each other.
Wait! Is this universe’s Lucy as nerdy as Walkyverse’s Lucy? Will if drive a wedge between Billie and her? Billie is used to be casually dismissive of nerds, and Lucy could be more sensitive than Walky…
I mean, I can see a nerdy teen girl who is a lot into Disney, Transformers and the Teen Titans cartoon being picked and made fun by Queen Bee Cheerleaders while in High School…
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This will surely not lead to Billie getting a big head again and making her insufferable until everyone hates her more than Malaya
Meanwhile, Malaya will slowly have her arrogance broken down, become more sympathetic, hook up with an RA, and then the cycle will repeat.
Eventually the system breaks down and Billie & Malaya start dating, eventually being subsumed into the massive polyamorous relationship that now includes one of the voice actors from Dexter & Monkey Master
Why only 1? Let the madness begin…
OT7B
<syndrome>“And when everyone’s involved in a polyamorous relationship that covers the entire planet and several nearby ones… no one will be.”<syndrome>
*points out the logical fallacy in that statement*
I mean yeah, I think that was always the joke with Syndrome
When everyone’s super you have Boku no Hero Academia
Such is the natural order of things.
Thus undoing several years (real time) worth of character development. Dammit, Willis
If the new hall starts going to her head, she’s bound to come crashing back to reality next time she visits Read Hall, where everybody actually knows her.
Over here, she’s a living legend. They don’t know her, just stories about her.
Of course, she might get her big head restricted as soon as they start to learn what it’s like to actually live WITH the alleged legend.
At the moment, all they have are stories of awesomeness.
I doubt she’ll be able to live up to those for long.
Oh it’ll be fine. Willis would never do something like that.
…ok I don’t believe that either.
Actually I really don’t think so. Billie has had an epiphany about what she did wrong in high school, I don’t think she’ll try the exact same thing again, particularly given what she has with Ruth.
This is her chance to rebuild on a healthier foundation. I’m really, really glad she has it.
But she’s standing there basking in it. She may well reject it and rebuild as you suggest, but that’s going to be a struggle for her. She’s being tempted by what she thought she wanted.
She can bask in it and not lord it over other people. In Read, she tried to lord over other people using her high school status as a cudgel. Here’s people are in awe of her already, so she doesn’t need to fight to attain that status.
This is a different struggle.
She’s not lording it over them, but she’s building that status by distorting her relationship with Ruth. There’s nowhere good this can go.
Yeah if she hadn’t immediately used Ruth as a stepping stool to boost her reputation with these girls I’d be a lot less sure that this was going to be a complete disaster.
That’s definitely the most obvious route this could go and I really hope it doesn’t but like I can’t see any other narratively meaningful direction to take this.
I’d would like (note: ‘like’) to have a bit more faith in Billie. She’ll get a big head, go tell Ruth about it where Ruth immediately gives her a hard dose of truth and straitens her out.
Give her 48 hours, she’ll forget all about Ruth.
Who’s that?
Babe Ruth, the famous baseball player
I think they typoed Rose?
Yep, I can see their relationship ending abruptly and almost anti-climatically very soon. Because while Billy has been there for Ruth through her struggles, I don’t think Billie actually considers herself to have any problems at all that don’t start and end with choosing to be with Ruth.
Now that she has options, she can re-invent herself. Or, moreso, reclaim who she ‘used to be’. And the sort of unconditional love that Ruth requires will be impossible to reconcile with that persona.
I really, really hope that Billie is better than that.
I’m pretty sure she is, but it’s not going to be easy for her. That’s the conflict she’s being set up for. And to some extent set up for herself – by rejecting Ruth’s offer to help her move.
I think she’ll come through in the end, but there’s drama on the way.
I mean. There’s the whole alcoholism thing.
Yeah, exactly. Billie isn’t through struggling.
Their relationship became a relationship, because Billie took Alice’s comment that she was a drama hurricane to heart, and figured she should hook up with Ruth, because they were both poison and shouldn’t be inflicted on other people, but they couldn’t harm each other, because they were already fucked up.
So, no, Billie doesn’t actually see herself as having no problems that don’t stem from Ruth.
Theoretically, you are correct. But if you pay attention to Billie more recently, she doesn’t seem to show an ‘I have a problem’ attitude. Instead it’s turned into more a ‘Ruth has a problem that I have made my problem’, allowing her to conveniently ignore her own issues.
Compared to Ruth, she’s downright functional, so by looking at the contrast, I can see how she would come to the conclusion that she’s perfectly fine.
And definitely doesn’t have a problem with alcohol. Who doesn’t like an occasional drink?
SUSPICIONS INTENSIFY
watchout, the Willis wrecking balls gotta come any page now.
It never hit so hard, in love
Not sure how I feel about Billie’s ego getting inflated like this
I know how I feel. I didn’t expect to feel like this, but here I am. I’m happy Billie finally gets appreciation for the self she enjoyed being. Basically, she is allowed to be OK, whichever personality she chooses now, so the question is less loaded. When she will choose Ruth, it won’t be in lack of better options, but a truly autonomous decision. And with part of the bitterness gone, she might find the strength to make friends, study or enjoy her relationship.
This!
Everything sucked for Billie at the beginning of the semester, and while some of it led her down a self-improvement road, most of it just… sucked.
It’s good that it’s changing.
Oh, I like that.
The Willis giveth, and the Willis…you know the drill by now.
Also, apparently everything Billie has fits into one rolling suitcase and one large box? So why did it take her all night to pack?
And her new floormates are putting away all of her stuff, including (one assumes) her underwear and who knows what else? Is this what teh kidz do nowadays?
She was optimizing the packing, obviously. Top-tier suitcase Tetris. How else do you think she got it all to fit?
McAwesome’s Hall is pretty great
And we haven’t even seen the waterslides yet.
They’ll miss Malaya’s against-the-rules pet iguana. But not Malaya.
I’d make a joke about a reptile dysfunction, but I know better than to try.
“If your reptile has been rigid for more than 4 hours, please consult your veterinarian.”
Gotta say, I like my new avatar. I know it’s been awhile since I last posted, but I remember not liking whatever it was close to what I have now.
Or bring it inside, cause it is, like, winter.
Who wouldn’t miss Fuckface?
Nobody.
Heh, I love how Nash manages to not QUITE insult Malaya… while making it sound like an insult.
“Sure we will miss her… pet.”
Ha ha; I just thought she was calling Malaya names. I’d forgotten about the lizard entirely!
I like to imagine Malaya fulfilling a Starburns-type role just having the iguana ride on her shoulder.
Fuckface confirmed in DOA
what do you mean? we havent seen the lizard yet
No see the joke is when Nash says “I guess we’ll miss ol’ fuckface” they’re talking about the lizard because they won’t miss Malaya
It might be relevant to the “No pets” thing the RA mentioned, too.
That’s what I was thinking. In fact, that was the line that started my thinking about this.
But what about Chewie?
Yeesh, talk about failing upwards, amirite?
… i kinda wanna be happy for billie, but this comic’s history has trained me to be incredibly suspicious.
<ricksanchez>I have *urp* I have taught you *belch* well, young ffuckin — fucking padawan<ricksanchez>
Aww, jeez, Rick
Listen, Morty, whenever it looks like you’re having a bad day you’re — your not, Morty. It’s all a conspiracy, and every *hic* everything’s gonna fall apart. It’s all gonna crumble around you, Morty. I mean, look at me. I’m a genius. I’m the smartest guy in the universe. And what does it get me? An ungrateful nephew
“Rick, you tried to —”
Shut up Morty, I wasn’t talking to you—
“Then who were you—”
A son-in-law who—
“Listen, I wanna know—”
My ass is wanted in like a zillion dimensions—
“You and I both know that’s your—”
That’s not even a number, that’s how wanted I am—
All I wanted was some goddamn szechuan sauce, is that too much to ask?
“Rick, do you have any idea how scarred I am—”
*shakes Morty* SZECHUAN SAUCE
I mean, I know it will inevitably crash and burn, but right now i’m feeling so pleased that Billie’s finally getting the college experience she wanted to have (for however long it lasts).
Billie’s pose and framing look like they were copied directly from a Soviet worker-hero propaganda poster.
In Soviet Russia Positive Reinforcment feels better from having you.
…
Also, you say that as if that is a bad thing comrade. Perhaps you are lacking in revolutionary fervor? For the Proletariat!!!
I didn’t mean to imply that it was a bad thing. I think this particular pose is awesome.
A lot of Soviet-era art is great art in the service of a horrible ideology. One can take lessons from the art while rejecting the ideology.
There’s a lot of people who’d say the same of the (Catholic) Church. :/
Ironically enough, as a believer in Liberation Theology, I’m as close as a human being can be to being a member of both. Jesus was a lot closer to Lenin and Marx in his teachings than people like to acknowledge. And the earliest Christians were essential class-conscious communes that strove towards being self-sufficient while providing the poor. And in the First Book of the Acts of the Apostles, the Holy spirit literally strikes a couple dead for trying to practice capitalism while being Christians… I mean, uh, USA USA!!! *whispers* Help they’re spying on me!!
Honestly, if it hadn’t been for the White Russian counter-revolutionaries and Stalin, the Bolsheviks probably wouldn’t have become as bad as what historically happened.
TRUE HEROES WORK HARD IN GIGANTIC FACTORIES
I’m deafenitely liking Beatrice more and more.
I see
Hear, hear!
She looks oddly familiar…
http://www.shortpacked.com/comics/1420696025-2012-03-19-mutual.png
I mean yeah most DOA characters are from the Walkyverse
Nash is new, but the rest are from the old continuity.
Apparently DoA finished scraping the bottom of the Walkyverse barrel sometime around when Mindy and Anna were introduced. (Though I’d argue there are still a few characters that haven’t made the jump, even if you don’t count the likes of Ninja Rick, Ronald Reagan, and Donna.)
I mean Ronald Reagan has appeared in Dumbing of Age
Rose called her a “legend”. I will now assume she’s Australian.
…not sure if referring to Malaya or her pet iguana.
Yes.
Seems like a viable enough vocation.
I see no way this could possibly go wrong.
Gilligan cut to the dorm burning down, inexplicably.
Que the ultra strict, militant, anti-lesbian roommate, who hates Billie because she secretly crushed on Fuck face.
Being the “it girl/guy/person” is a hell of a drug and it can’t last forever. I’m still riding that wave, pretending it ain’t all fleeting
Perhaps the hacked muzak might shortly be playing “New Kid in Town”?
“Everybody loves you, so don’t let them down”
Idea: Browser plugin, that, upon any given Dumbing of Age’s being loaded, scans the comment section for hacked muzak memes and loads YouTube videos of them into a playlist
I really want someone to make this happen.
I have now started learning Javascript and HTML for the express purpose of creating this. I’ve already built a Hello World extension.
(FYI it’s an extension, not a plugin — turns out there’s a difference)
maybe thisll last longer than a month
I like to think Malaya flaunted the no pets rule and had her iguana anyway
I like to imagine it’s warming up to Sal right about now (because of her big bug tattoo).
I like to think that Malaya is the reason the RA made a point about NO PETS.
I guess I’m setting myself up for a “damn you Willis”, but I feel like Billie could actually do okay at Forest. Despite her many bad positions, she’s actually shown herself to do pretty well in a place of leadership/community support. She handled the trash chute problem, she herds Joyce into dressing appropriately for Episcopalian church, she played a big part at keeping Ruth as a functioning RA (despite all of the issues with their relationship). Sure, something bad will happen eventually, but it might not be Billie just falling out with Forest Hall.
Yes!
Billie has proved herself actually good at what she’s used to doing, it just… came with drinking problems and being an emotional wreck.
Sure, her old girlfriend called her a whirlpool of toxicity, but 1) might have been exaggerating to make it easier for herself to cut ties; 2) these girls are not going to be that close to her; 3) she’s genuinely getting better in that department.
The worst thing about Billie’s old life was the part where she established herself as top of the heap by tormenting those she perceived as below her, for example Walky.
I don’t think she’s going to return to that particular habit (except with personally Walky)
Agreed, especially since now she doesn’t really feel like top of the heap compared to anyone.
I think that IF she gets a few days here in stability with this awesome gang and IF Ruth does KINDA OK in her absence, she could do really good and be a well liked part of the community…
…so of course something will fudge it up. My guess is that one of her Forest girls will turn out to be Alice. (And if so I have prepared a preemptive “Damn you Willis”)
I’m thinking all this validation of her original ego-centrism is more gonna result in her feeling like she IS top of the heap compared to everyone and it’s going to bite her in the ass. Like we’ve already got her throwing Ruth under the bus to impress a bunch of strangers and it’s been all of 5 minutes.
I love all these girls so much I want to hug them all.
I want to respect Nash and Rose and Beatrice, but I also want to ask them why they are swooning over someone just because she has the trappings of an alpha bongo. Didn’t they get enough of alpha bongos in high school?
I don’t think queenbees are necessarily alpha bongos. In my school all the top popular kids were full of good leadership qualities and nice to know. The ‘alpha bonga’ types were several steps down the heirarchy. Personally, I mostly didn’t even know their names
Yeah, it definitely varies by location and the local culture. At least during the time I was in school (mid-’80s through late-’90s) who the popular kids were in a given local school district seemed to depend largely on that district’s socioeconomic status with a strong modification from the background of who lived there.
Yeah, the popular kids* at my high school were all pretty nice people. They didn’t go around like…. bullying unpopular kids or whatever.
*the ones I knew about, anyway. I acknowledge that oblivious high school me, who would eventually grow up into….. uh…. oblivious adult me….. may have missed something.
I might be wrong, but I think they don’t position themselves underneath the head chearleader, and that makes a whole difference. They are confident, they are going through Billie’s stuff. Itvseems to me they are treating her like an equal, who has excelled on some field other than theirs. Time will tell if Im right. Or Willis
Well they seem nice enough for now, I guess.
I wonder if Nash is calling Malaya Fuckface or if Malaya has her iguana Fuckface in this universe
Both?
Both is good
Plot twist: Malaya is Fuckface in a robotic exoskeleton
Dr Jones, Sr: “We named the iguana ‘Fuckface’…”
“Hi, Fuckface, hi, iguana.”
Nothing but respect for MY cheerleader prom queen!
Considering everything is going out so well at this point I think Doom is coming soon… and not to give science classes as guest lecturer…
Now with this newfound support and confidence, maybe Billie won’t need her abusive and toxic relationship with Ruth anymore?
No, no, no. They’re praising her for all the awful things she’s been trying to move past. This is going to crash and burn.
Well thats what I’d like to see happen but knowing this comic…
No, what she needs are therapy and her pissy red dandelion, not continuing to base her entire sense of self worth on how other people see her
Isn’t “pissy red dandelion” the most Willis-verse pet name imaginable?
It’s not abusive and toxic any longer. It was at the beginning, when it was basically just one-sided bullying, but ever since Billie pullled the fire alarm that particular part of it was over.
And right now I think the relationship is doing Billie a whole lot of good, including grounding her to avoid the traps she’d fallen in previously (i.e. being a hand drum to people she thought were below her)
I agree it’s not abusive anymore. Toxic, on the other hand….
But does Ruth need her supportive and accepting relationship with Billie?
…. well played, Grav Roulette. Well played.
It’s weird though. Their support is oddly based on them spinning the rumors as if it was Billie who had been kind of toxic and aggressive (“you seduced her?!” “I take what I want.”) and celebrating that. And Billie is running with it because it makes her sound powerful.
Yeah, all it takes to get their support is to throw Ruth under the bus and turn back to all the toxic shit from high school.
I don’t really get how this is throwing Ruth under the bus when the truth makes her look a lot worse.
Because she’s lying about it to make herself look good, rather than to cover for Ruth?
Because now she has to keep Ruth and her new dorm separate or Ruth’ll explode her bullshit story?
Thanks for replying to my legitimate query so non-condescendingly!
Ruth? Who’s Ruth? I’m looking forward to the future “Why can’t you just be happy that I’m popular again, Ruth??” line or the equivalent.
Heh, looks like she’s getting something close to what she originally wanted from dorm life in the first place.
Calling it now, the reason Spencer emphasized “no pets” is because Malaya tried to bring Fuckface the iguana with her to college and shenanigans ensued.
Holy crap can I have a better gravatar pls
Would it be better or worse if I tell you that Blowjob Cat is in the grav pool?
Infinitely better.
Yeah, we should start a campaign for that or something.
Mostly something.
I agree, except for the “tried” part
I need a Fuckface avatar.
Somewhere, in an alternate Willisverse, an iguana named ‘Fuckface’ is wondering “Why don’t -I- get a gravatar? Because if Blowjob Cat…”
I also noticed all of them wear glasses so get them back Billie!
When I should go to bed but don’t really want to, sometimes I hit the “Random” button on webcomics. Tonight’s random-comic-is-appropriate offering:
We’re allllllllllll wearin’ glasses
This won’t last.
This is going way too well and it’s making me suspicious for what Willis has planned next.
Excuse me while I eat popcorn and wait for the other shoe to drop (whether from billie or from everyone else), because this webcomic makes me perpetually suspicious of happiness. :p
She ends up staying there more and more, causing Ruth to feel worse and worse and spiral deeper into depression but be unable to show it until suddenly she is in hospital for a failed suicide
Her grandfather of course comes in to chide her and gets his comeuppance, but Ruth is left broken and will take years of in comic time to gather even some of the shattered pieces back
Calling it now
So same ol’, same ol’, then?
Later on we find out Billie is an unwitting star of a small scale Truman type reality show where everyone else is just an actor.
At this stage, I think she would take it.
Oh so it seems like Fuckface the iguana exists in DoA. That’s good to know.
:O :O I thought Nash was referring to Malaya as Fuckface. And I’m sure Billie thinks that too. If it’s actually the iguana, then that is pretty awesome. Also explains the “no pets” from Spencer!
This is going to end horribly, isn’t it?
Also, Billie: have you met Malaya?
She was still in her old room when Malaya walked in.
Yeah, and after that encounter, I can’t imagine why Billie would think that anyone would miss Malaya.
Yep…its gonna be so healthy to use your high school accomplishments to ride on in college. People who think they have hit the peak of their life at one point when young really tend to just downhill spiral for their lives
I vaguely wonder how strongly people like that look forward to high school reunions.
I don’t even remember who was popular at my high school, and I’m a college sophomore
I think some guy named Kearns was pretty popular, and there was a Steve everyone liked who now goes to Notre Dame and is the only one of my classmates I follow on Twitter who’s still actively tweeting. And I think maybe the dickbag who stole my ukulele at the Senior Overnight? I don’t know.
It’s entirely possible that I was popular and didn’t know it. That’s how little attention I (and almost everyone else at the school) payed to that.
Except Steve. Everyone loved Steve.
It’s been considerably longer for me. I only vaguely remember one guy. I beat him once in a card game and he never forgave me for it. He spent the rest of our interactions trying to beat me only to find I never cared one way or another.
So he was literally Yunyun from Konosuba?
I haven’t seen that, sorry.
You should consider it, it’s pretty good.
But basically, Yunyun considers herself a rival to one of the main characters, an explosion-obsessed wizard named Megumin, but Megumin has literally zero investment in said rivalry. Yunyun constantly tries to challenge Megumin to a duel in order to surpass her, but not only does Megumin barely seem to care about them, only humoring Yunyun in order to get her off her case, the duels never even have a conclusive ending.
…..was the game yugioh?
Nope! It was a card game by the name of “Speed”, using the 52 card, 4 suit deck.
An old friend got married a few months ago, and a bunch of us from high school were in town for the wedding. As we were trying to make brunch reservations for our group of close friends and realizing that the “inner circle” (so to speak) was in the double digits, my best friend turned to me and said “I think we might have been the popular kids”. Which sure was a revelation.
everyone is simultaneously the hero of their own story and the underdog.
It’s only freshman year, though. If she’s still doing this when she graduates, you’d probably be right. For now, there’s plenty of time to get past that
Wait a minute!…
Lucy is at church. WHICH CHURCH IS SHE AT?
Is she, perchance, at the Episcopalian church just off campus? With smouldering-hot-tower-of-a-man Jacob and cleavage-dress-is-fine-with-tights Joyce and butchest-duds Becky? And if so, will hijinks ensue?
I knew this, but I forgot when I posted the above:
The church is the Episcopal Church; the people who are members of that church are Episcopalians. I regret the adjectival error, and throw myself on the mercy of what I understand are a very forgiving group of people.
And I still wonder which church Lucy is goes to. If it is not the Episcopal church of the current storyline, then there is yet another Joyce-goes-to-an-outside-her-comfort-zone-church story waiting to be explored.
That church with the hippie bishops.
I think I’ve figured out Rose’s name. (See the Twitter feed for the challenge.). With the help of the Internet Anagram Server, I have discovered that “Rose Xandria Pepper” is an anagram of “Pap error axed penis”.
Clearly Rose had a Pap smear to see if she had the kind of cervical cancer caused by the Human Papilloma Virus. When the test erroneously came back negative, she thought she was clean, and engaged in unprotected sex with a young man. The unfortunate dude caught HPV from her, and it caused cancer of the penis, so that he had to have his penis amputated in order to save his life.
Very dark back story. Anyone who could invent something like this must be a deeply disturbed individual.
Whoever devised this story must be a second unique snowflake.
I knew Lucy was this hall’s version of Joyce!
She’s way less accidentally-bigoted (from what we see of her at least). I think she’s more of a Sierra, but she’s also somewhat of a shipper, so add in some Becky or Amber (although Sierra may well be a shipper). Actually, I recall that Grace and Mandy were also shippers. As was Joyce…
…everyone in this universe is a shipper. This
explains
everything
*ahem* So as I was saying, it’s too early to draw any Lucy-Joyce parallels.
“But didn’t you make that convoluted headcanon about a polyamorous relationship between Nash, Rose, and Beatrice on literally the first strip the three appeared in together?”
Shush.
I was thinking more along the lines of “cheerful to a scary level, friendly, and positive churchgoing girl that’s at least somewhat of a geek” than anything else.
Maybe I haven’t been paying much attention to Sierra…while she’s definitely nice, friendly, and goes to church, she’s a lot more chill and kind of a hippy. I don’t think she has much in common with either.
*DOA character is having a mildly good day for once*
Fans: You horrible MONSTER, you’re going to do something terrible to them now AREN’T YOU?? I AM MORE UPSET THAN IF BAD THINGS WERE ACTUALLY HAPPENING.
ANYWAY, I am also too suspicious to be happy.
Wasn’t there a two week time skip much earlier in the comic? I think at the end of it, Walky got a package of very comfy pants. That leads me to believe that mildly good days happened to the characters then, but we weren’t allowed to see them.
It was only a couple of days that were time-skipped. There have been other (and as-long or longer) timeskips as well besides that, such as just before Freshman Family Weekend, after the incident with Toedad, and after Ryan picked a fight he really should’ve thought better of.
I found the strip I was talking about: http://www.dumbingofage.com/2012/comic/book-2/04-time-keeps-on-slippin/year/
I even figured out why I thought it was a two week time skip. Someone commented that the strip ended two weeks into the semester. My mind corrupted it over time that I eventually remembered it as a 2 week time skip. Whoops.
… I just realized I typed my goddamn name wrong plugging it into this machine. Migraines suck.
This should be a TV Tropes:
The Drama Tag Must Be Pulled
yeah I really wish everyone could just be happy for Billie for once )=
then again if everyone had the same opinion this comment section would be no fun at all
I get the feeling Forest Hall residents are… less likely to have personal histories of trauma? Which would explain their sunny attitudes and general naive enthusiasm. The Read Hall people who are most apathetic, isolated, or dgaf (Ruth, Sarah, Sal, Amber, and Billie herself till recently) are also the ones with some dark stuff in their personal histories and/or current mental illness. Whereas now it seems like Billie’s landed among a bunch of super nice high schoolers.
Sure, it might SEEM that way, but we’ve only met a handful of them.
Imagine if Malaya had shown up to be greeted by Dorothy, Joyce, Agatha and Sierra
Huh. I hadn’t noticed, but Forest Hall does seem to be the campus’s equivalent to McAwesome’s at the moment.
Yay, Lucy’s coming back!
Re the “daaaaaaang” in panel 6: Who broke a sidewall and invited themselves over from QC?
Serious answer: the Whitakers.
Daaaaaaang, you know your way aroudn the archives.
FINALLY Billie is getting the recognition she deserves.
I just want to see which new icon I get.
hmm, not bad, not bad.
Same thing… *rolls dice*
Sweet
Yeah, this is not going to be healthy for Billie. This isn’t going to be healthy at all. She’s going to end up having all her worst personal qualities reinforced by her new band of fangirls, isn’t she?
Signs Point to Yes
I’m afraid of the coming months.
This will only lead to GOOD things! I am certain that nothing but sunshine and rainbows will result in this madness.
So… All of this strange behavior from the new girls is a setup to do something nasty to Billie? Because otherwise this doesn’t make any sense. But what’s it a setup for?
Worse-case scenario? To enable and encourage all her worst behaviours and then, when she’s burned every bridge with Ruth and the others at Read Hall, have the Forest girls dump her because she’s become too domineering and leave her with nothing but long, hard struggle back up the hill to self-respect.
I’m hoping that, as things deteriorate, Billie will suddenly realise that she’s making the same mistakes again and will consciously take action to reject those opportunities.
Make any sense as a narrative or make any sense as in-universe behavior? Cos the latter makes plenty of sense.
Make sense as in I’ve never met humans who talk/act like this.
I may have. But not female, that’s for sure.
Seriously? Go find some nice people. They put there just hard to find. I remember freshman like this both times I sent to college
So, what does Billie want for her second and third wishes?
I imagine being able to date Ruth without repercussions would be one of them.
The people in Billie’s old wing are never going to see here again, are they?
I sincerely hope they don’t start a party and offer her alcohol…
Well, this is the intro Billie thought was her due when she started college and didn’t get. I wonder if it will turn stale as she isn’t what she was then.
But, … I don’t get why these girls are reacting like that. They seem much to nice to want to curry favor with a cheerleader.
Did Willis create a bunch of happy characters who are willing to give a new person all the recognition for what they ever were just because they are nice?
If so, no wonder Malaya wanted to switch doorms. She cannot deal with nice people, they don’t feed her gruff.
Maybe they are just attracted to fame? A lot of people are like that.
I wonder if the Forest girls have seen Sal. It would provide an interesting context to a comment Malaya made a while back. *goes to archive dig*
The line in question is Malaya’s comment about a ‘Sal is awesome’ cult.
(I really hope I got the html right…)
You did! (Non ironic exclamation point for my history of mucking that up.)
When the Forest denizens started fawning over Billie, it reminded me of Sal’s coolness interrupting Billie’s self-styled arc very nearly on. But I think Malaya hates Sal for almost no reason (the way she dislikes about everyone), whereas Sal and Billie made some progress.
http://www.dumbingofage.com/2010/comic/book-1/02-uphill-from-here/coolest/
When I experience moments like this (SO rare), I always wonder what disaster the universe is setting me up for. It’s inevitable.
I’m fascinated by the possibility suggested above that Lucy may go to Jacob’s church. I’m just thinking of the pure, crystallised sugar that would be a Joyce/Lucy friendship.
She slipped and cracked her head on the sidewalk didn’t she? This is all just a coma dream.
“This [horrible string of events] is up to my ankles, but my calves are bone dry! Everything’s coming up Billingsworth!”
I wonder if she’d have appreciated this that much if she started in this building instead.
She’d have been totally insulted that all the peasant nerds were so lame.
My suspension of disbelief is being stretched to the breaking point by the idea that anyone out of highschool gives a fuck about who the prom queen was or cheerleaders. Like no offense but being popular in highschool is not really a meaningful achievement.
It is to people whose maturity level is still stuck in high school, which I think is the whole point here.
To be fair, the degree to which even actual high-schoolers care about such stuff has got to vary a lot by high school, and that’s not even getting to variation by individual student. I daresay the only cheerleader the folks at my HS cared about was the male one, because he was breaking gender stereotypes yadda yadda.
Assuming they’re all freshmen, they’re all “out of highschool” by a couple of months. Shocking that they haven’t matured much by their second month of college.
Honestly, for the longest time I though the whole “popular kids” cliquey thing you see in American media was a fictional concept because there was just nothing like that in my high school experience.
Honestly, I was so far outside of any “popular kids” clique I couldn’t see them from where I sat, so maybe? It was also a long time ago.
It may well be regional or even vary from school to school.
There was definitely some “beating up on the unpopular kids” clique though.
Yeah, this’ll end well.
I want to be happy for Billie getting the reception she wanted all along, but this is making me anxious… ^_^; a bit of a fresh start is good, but Billie acts like these two halls of students will never intersect.
Yeah, that’s where this all goes bad.
Imagine Ruth over here reacting to this version of events.
exactly :< I'm worried how she'll feel if this gets back to her, especially after Billie telling her not to go with her there and all…
Everyone, didn’t we just END a storyline called “The Thing I Was Before”…? This following on the heels of that just heightens how suspicious this is. This Billie plot is going to be about Ruth + Read Hall “facing the strange.”
The narrative of Ruth as a conquest makes me queasy. I just hope this doesn’t turn out badly for her. It was such a circuitous path for their relationship from “Lots ‘O Nope” to “OK this seems to have become something a bit more constructive and helpful”.
On the one hand, if Ruth and Billie Shah together, the How We Met tale will need to be arrived at.
Elsewise, I don’t know. A frosh bedding a soph, (and not just a one night stand), in a position of power, might be admired by this crew, or a lot of college kids. They may also be busy enough with adjusting to college and not be as forward as Billie’s rep is.
(Waiting to see which years the Forest folks are in.)
(Ruth and Billie stay together…predictive.spelling fubbed that up)
I hope it does because if she’s going to treat Ruth like some kind of object behind her back to boost her ego she deserves to face consequences for it. If a bunch of teenagers thinking she’s cool is more important to her than respecting her partner she deserves to get dumped by said partner.
Well, hopefully it won’t be that simple.
Hopefully, it will lead to conflict, which will lead to character growth, rather than simply getting dumped.
Lucy finally confirmed as Billie’s new roomie.
Wouldn’t it be weird if, after all the flattery and smiles Billie’s gotten, that LUCY winds up being the one person who can’t stand her? Maybe she still carries a torch for Malaya, or maybe they just don’t get along.
“LUCY … can’t stand her”
I read these words and I just don’t understand. They make no sense. How could Lucy not like anybody?
I’m happy for Billie getting support and admiration and stuff, I hope this doesn’t cause her to revert to her old reckless self though, it’s concerning.
Is this a Mr. Sack situation? Everything goes great for Billie until she puts her glasses back on?
Oh, I just noticed every single one of them wears glasses.
this is the Frivolesque dorm
…aaand one more webcomic to add to the list of I Wanna Reads.
The happiness is nice to see though I don’t think Old Billie coming back will be a threat longer than it takes her finding out that Lucy is queen of the nerds.
I’ve got a bad feeling about this.
Also, is Beatrice deaf?
Real quick: Is Beatrice signing and the speech bubbles are just to convey what she’s saying without having to spend multiple panels trying to show it, or is she talking? Is she still deaf like in Shortpacked! and just lip reading?
Since he never did that with Marcie, and Nash hasn’t been translating for Billie when they were talking with her…
I think she’s deaf here (though I think she was actually mute in SP). Some of the signing in the last couple of strips may have implied some translating?
And then there’s the “whatever you said” in this strip – implying Beatrice missed it.
Deaf people aren’t necessarily mute, so Beatrice is talking and signing.
Oh definitely! it’s just been rather… ambiguous what’s going on, and she was only ever shown signing in Shortpacked!.
It’s cool that we’re getting some representation of a person who does both and seems to be actually deaf since I think Marcie is just mute.
Say one thing, sign another?
More like “say one thing, sign something which basically carries the concise gist of what you’re saying”.
It appears she’s either deaf or hard of hearing, since she doesn’t appear to have heard what Billie said and Nash has been signing while she speaks.
This is almost too good to be true, isn’t it… :/
If Ruth heard that, I think she’d explode. And probably slap someone across the face.
Good for her self-esteem.
Bad for her development.
Its going to hit the fan any minute now. Just watch.
I love this confirmation that yes, the no pets thing was listed by the R.A. for a reason.
I still think it’s a reference to Malaya and a callback to SP!, rather than Malaya actually having an iguana on campus. We’ll find out soon, I suppose.
ROSE: So not only all that, but you roomed with Amazi-Girl?
BILLIE: Well she never confirmed it, but I think we both knew the tru-OUCH!
NASH: What’s wrong, Billie?
BILLIE: Nothing, just a little pain. I probably just messed up my back or something moving boxes. It’ll wear off.
*SUDDENLY ROOM STARTS TO SHAKE*
BILLIE: What’s happening? Oh god is that an earthqu-YOWW
*BILLIE starts to swat at herself looking for mosquitoes/biting insects*
BEATRICE, cutting her off: Tell us some more about yourself, Billie!
ROSE, staring creepily forward: Tell us more.
*the room’s back wall is violently ripped away, Rose and Beatrice fly into the void unflinchingly*
NASH, rolling her eyes and speaking with WALKY’s voice: Yeah Billie you’re soooo cool.
SMASH CUT TO WALKY and SAL standing over BILLIE back in Read Hall.
SAL: Ah told him not to pinch you, but ah couldn’t think of any other way to wake you up. It’s almost 2 PM now and ya wouldn’t respond to me yelling.
WALKY smiles cheekily: But I was more than happy to help!
BILLIE punches WALKY.
BILLIE: Fine, whatever. I need to get my crap out of here anyway and move on over to Forest Quad without running into Ruth and making this more awkward than it already is.
SAL and WALKY: Move?
SAL: You just moved in though. And who’s Ruth?
WALKY: Are you feeling alright, Billie?
BILLIE: I feel fine, nerd. And what do you mean “who’s Ruth?” She’s the reason I have to move out before the semester’s over!
WALKY: Over? The semester hasn’t started yet, Billie.
BILLIE: Is that some kind of joke? Because I don’t get it and it’s not funny.
WALKY, concerned: I think you need to sit down and maybe wake up a little more.
BILLIE: And I think you need to go fuck yourself!
*BILLIE stands up to storm out but stops dead upon seeing the walls bare aside from a conveniently placed wall calendar*
WALKY: Billie, you don’t have to go anywhere, class doesn’t start until Monday.
*camera pans over to reveal calendar date: August 16, 2010*
BILLIE staggers backwards into chair muttering: “No… no, it can’t be, it’s not right…” as the camera zooms out from above and we can hear BECKY and JOYCE from strip 1 through the half-bath as the music rises. CUT TO BLACK
LOSTi mean DUMBING.They’ll be checking Billie’s underwear and phone gallery the moment she turns her back.
And wtf, is everyone wearing glasses in this wing? (*except* malaya)
It’s symbolic. They’re all impressed with Billie boinking her RA and being a cheerleader because they’re … short-sighted.
I hope this doesn’t lead to messing up her relationship with Ruth. I know it had some unhealthy footing, but I really love them together and think they can be super good for each other.
Wait! Is this universe’s Lucy as nerdy as Walkyverse’s Lucy? Will if drive a wedge between Billie and her? Billie is used to be casually dismissive of nerds, and Lucy could be more sensitive than Walky…
I mean, I can see a nerdy teen girl who is a lot into Disney, Transformers and the Teen Titans cartoon being picked and made fun by Queen Bee Cheerleaders while in High School…
So, wait, this dorm hall is like DoA’s McAwesome’s?