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New game! BOLTED 
I feel like Walky has a great capacity for empathy; he’s just not used to exercising it, and is usually too afraid to do so.
(Oh, and hey guys, I’m back. :D)
Also, crying while watching movies is not a universal experience. I cry p much only when I’m tired and disoriented, sadness is just not associated with tears. I’m more likely to cry at a very bad movie than at a very good one…
I’ve cried at a rare and narrow range of movies, and most of them weren’t intended to evoke that reaction.
Me too, I tend to cry at war movies. And not just anti war ones like Grave of the Fireflies.
I usually only cry if I’m not expecting the situation. I’m too familiar with tropes and such to get caught off-guard by a tearjerker moment, in most cases–since I can see it coming, I’m usually prepped when it hits.
There’s this one scene in Pan’s Labyrinth that DID catch me off-guard, on the other hand, and I wound up bawling like a 5-year-old who just saw his puppy get run over.
By contrast I cry at everything, including in anticipation of tropes I see coming a mile a way (to the confusion of other viewers)
Thanks so much for saying this, because I have freaked out so much at stuff like https://xkcd.com/233/ wondering if I had no empathy!
I cry or not mostly based on the presence of sad music… true story
For physical muscles, it’s said that an infant’s muscles are not fully developed.
In order to fully develop the muscles, the infants repeatedly use them.
Repeated use for the purpose of developing something is known as exercise.
So….
I kinda agree then.
Sally doesn’t have a fully developed sense of empathy because he hasn’t exercised it much.
You’re 200% correct about his unexercised empathy. I hope we get more random glimpses, like of him w.r.t Billie.
(“You don’t understand, yesterday she was talking like she wasn’t the best damn thing in the whole world. From her that’s crazy talk!”)
(“Sally” is an autocorrect from “Walky”, right? Because my tablet did that for a long time!)
I get Wally a lot too.
nice callback
Now that’s plotting.
Now this is plotracing.
When’d Mary get that abortion?
Highschool?
How do you relate this strip to Mary and do we actually know she had an abortion? I don’t think so.
Look at the alt-text.
Wasn’t that midway through It’s Walky!, several years after college? We’ll probably have warp drive and an uneasy truce with The Dominion by the time DoA catches up.
I would have loved a week of Dorothy and Walky watching Titanic and Walky questioning all the bad decisions, imagine when he sees the alternate ending
Is that the one with the rapping dog, or the giant octopus?
I think maybe it’s the one were they play a children’s card game on motorcycles.
I was about to mention that those were from the animated Titanic movies
But I suppose Titanic turning into Yu-Gi-Oh 5Ds somehow makes more sense than those trainwrecks
So . . . CLEAR MIND! ACCEL SYNCHRO! SOMETHING SOMETHING JACK ATLAS!
My name is Fruffy and I’m her to say
old biddy shouldn’ta thrown that jewel away
“Note: Fruffy died on his way back to his home planet.”
How It Should Have Ended
How the strip should have ended? “The joke’s on her, because I’m Batman.”
do people actually cry at Titanic? I personally never got emotional over it
I did, and I was an 18 year old guy in a crowd of 18 year old guys. (none of us cried as much as the gang of even “tougher” 14 year old guys just behind us in the theater, though).
People sob. I’d probably cry if I watched it without so much knowledge of what happens.
But, like, I cried in the theater when Hermione altered her parents’ memories, so.
I didn’t cry, but I do find scenes based off real people who died to be very emotional.
for the record I’ve gotten emotional over movies like the Prince of Egypt, the Lion King and Brokeback mountain. So apparently my trend is that it has to be animated or gay
You would probably cry a lot watching Nanoha, then.
Especially in A’s after listening to the Sound Stages… poor Wolkies, poor Reinforce.
I don’t think I’ve ever cried while watching it, though I don’t often cry while watching movies in general.
The key point where people would cry – the band playing “Nearer My God to Thee”, as that reportedly DID happen on the actual Titanic.
Well, they were playing SOMETHING when the ship went down. Reports vary on what it was. Some said it was indeed “Nearer My God to Thee” and others said the band basically went ‘Fuck this, let’s play something fun’ and played popular music of the time.
“Gentlemen, it has been a privilege playing with you tonight.”
The trick for not crying for me was that I’d gotten a large soda, and it was a three hour movie with lots of running water, so by the end I was less focused on the dialogue or plot and more on whether or not my kidneys were going to explode.
Walky would be proud,
Saw it in theaters, cried a lot. I also had read a lot about the Titanic beforehand, so I was very attached to the passengers.
(Spoilers?) When Rose met Jack again in the stairs in front of the beaming Captain and all the lost people, that was emotional and well done.
But the young poor Irish mother telling her kids about Tír na nÓg to keep their spirits up into the end really brought tears to my eyes.
I don’t recall crying over ‘Titanic’, but the “”Hey…Dad? You wanna have a catch?”?” line from ‘Field of Dreams’ will turn on the waterworks every time.
no, but I cried at the end of “Edward Scissorhands”.
Hell, I started crying during the opening titles, during the faux newsreel footage (really just the later departure scene, put through a sepia filter with lots of grain ‘n dust ‘n stuff). All those people happily waving goodbye, with no idea of what awaited them in the middle of the cold Atlantic…
I also cried, several times, this last weekend while watching The Last Jedi.
Basically, I cry a lot. I’m pretty emotional; I got that from my mother. Or from being a Pisces, take your pick.
Did you like it? I’m curious because I’ve heard that it’s pretty terrible.
I enjoyed The Last Jedi. JJ Abrams and the writers were trying to bring back the fact that, at heart, Star Wars is for kids, even ones that are adults. it’s not supposed to be 110% SRS BUSINESS.
Carrying on from StClair’s comment: I teared up at the last two minutes of the film, juxtaposed with an advert that ran just before the movie in my theater. ((Hopefully that’s sufficiently non-spoilery. ))
A lot of the people saying it’s terrible seem to be upset either because it’s very different from what they expected, or because they feel that “feminists ruined Star Wars”.
There were a couple moments where I cringed a bit because it felt a little ham-fisted, but I loved it.
I saw it tonight and I really really liked it! My boyfriend loved it and he uses that word sparingly about fiction. (Give me a little time to digest it, I’m sure I’ll switch to ‘love it’ too).
I thought there were good moments but the fact that (spoilers?). Iran so obviously ships kylo ren and Rey was disgusting. Hopefully Abrams will fix that shit.
*Rian wtf autocorrect
That bad huh?
I did.
Let the record show.that I love me a good weeper, which is what chick flicks were called back in the 30s and 40s. (I feel the need to say I was not yet born then.)
I swallowed pretty hard a couple times, movies don’t generally get to me.
Laughed my ass off at the guy who goes tumbling into the ocean after hitting the propeller, though.
it had music, therefore I cried.
“My girlfriend’s girlfriend”…
heh, I hope he’s shared that joke with Becky. It’s good stuff.
Because Becky would be jealous of Dorothy?
Teasing Joyce and Dorothy is the foundation of a glorious friendship
http://www.dumbingofage.com/2014/comic/book-5/01-when-somebody-loved-me/somebody/
“This is my girlfriend, Dorothy. And this is my girlfriend’s girlfriend, Joyce.”
And now all I’m thinking of is a league of their own “this is my daughter dotty. This is my other daughter. Dotty’s sister.”
“And this is my girlfriend’s girlfriend’s nemesis!” *points at a mirror*
Woah, man, spoilers; I haven’t gotten around to that one yet.
I realize you’re likely joking, but now I’m remembering everyone who considered the ship sinking ‘spoilers’.
I honestly haven’t seen it, but, like…I know how it goes. It’s Titanic.
As far as the ship sinking part, maybe they should have paid more attention in elementary school.
Fair enough.
Yes, there were several people who complained when people talked about the ship sinking – calling it ‘spoilers’. Also people who thought the explorers finding the wreck at the beginning spoiled the end.
Spoiler alert: Jesus dies.
To be fair, I was never gonna read that one anyway.
(if I remember right, it’s worth twenty dollars.)
Yes, he is garbage.
I dunno, alt text, Danny pretended to be someone’s boyfriend while his parents were visiting on-panel!
*plays the “You Don’t Know Jack” song from the Tom Selleck series The Closer (no relation to the later show that became Major Crimes) on the hacked P.A. speakers*
Voice change is srs bsns.
voice change: Oh right, I’m dressed as her. Suppose I shouldn’t blow the secret id.
I squeed when I saw Titanic, I won’t lie.
It’s one of my historical interests. I’ve read waaaaaaayyyyyyy too many books and articles about the Titanic.
The movie’s alright. Not really ground breaking cinema, story wise. But it’s solid enough that I liked the fictional characters. It’s one of the more accurate (fiction) movies regarding what happened too so my nerdy side was tickled.
I thought it was good in that respect, but one of the inaccuracies was a bad one – William Murdoch was turned into a villain who took bribes and shot passengers. They ended up apologizing to his family and donated to his memorial, but not much by that movie’s standards.
Oh god yes. They did that poor crew so so wrong, and Murdoch in particular.
Wait, Dorothy got a girlfriend while I wasn’t looking? Or is he facetiously referring to Joyce?
Joyce.
Yes.
“Facetiously”
http://www.dumbingofage.com/2016/comic/book-7/01-glower-vacuum/warm/
Upside-down Joyce is the friendliest Joyce. That’s the top tier, which I figure has only been reached by Becky and Dorothy.
Upside-down Joyce ain’t particularly friendly…
https://goo.gl/images/7K7ALf
I’m kinda wondering how Walky got from talking about them being garbage to Titanic. I’m missing the connection between those two topics here.
I’m guessing his comment in the fourth panel is an analogy for him and Dotty, from his perspective.
Because Rose jumping in the water was a dumb decision. Jack = Walky flunking math, and he thinks he’s dragging down Dorothy too.
“My girlfriend trying to help me is like her plunging to her doom in the icy cold ocean”.
Walky is very subtle.
it took me a while to figure that out, probably because of the train of thought getting derailed by head alien there
I’m worried about walky now, that’s a really not-good way of looking at things :/ I was hoping this was going to go in a very different direction, but, of *course* this is dumbing of age, they’re not gonna sort things out so easily. :/
also I’m reading hte third stormlight book at the moment and seeing way too many parallells between a certain character from there and here… :/ I reallly hope that they get some damn help soon, it hurts to watch.
Rose should have let Jack drown, because Jack was garbage, apparently.
Dangit I knew I should have refreshed before replying
At least he didn’t start the Billy Zane fan club after seeing it.
Yeah, start the club after watching The Phantom.
YES.
What can I say? I have a soft spot for 90s period piece hero films.
I’m the only person who liked The Shadow, it seems.
No you’re not. My dad and I like it too.
Honestly if Walky watched Titanic then I expected him to rant about how Jack and Rose would both totally fit on the piece of wood or whatever it was.
I know!! It’s like, “Seriously, you couldn’t find a smaller piece of wood to film this scene with so it wouldn’t feel so stupid?”
It was a door
Even Kate Winslet agrees on that point.
First time watching Titanic, I was in college (I was like Joyce before that and lived under a rock.) Anyway, I alternated between laughing my butt off at inopportune moments (because the villain is the doppelganger of someone unpleasant I know irl) and hurling at the overdone sappy romance.
My girlfriend’s girlfriend. Bless.
Is it strange that I’m kind of proud that Walky is aware enough to make that realization about himself in the final panel?
Walky’s pretty self-aware in general, yeah, and pretty great.
I admit that I didn’t particularly like Titanic. Jack and his Italian buddy were the only parts of it I actually liked. And the whole “one true love” type narrative Rose was trying to spin is bullshit because she has a granddaughter, so she obviously ended up loving someone else enough to have kids with them. And then she throws that big gem into the sea when her granddaughter could probably really make use of funds from selling that. And the whole thing is depressing because Rose is very much an example of the historic facts about the Titanic. Rose has a happy ending with the rich asshole trying to marry her committing suicide instead. She also happened to be rich. The upper-deck (and thus upper class) passengers had the highest survival rates while the poorer ones all drowned. It instead leaves me with this taste of “Why should I feel sorry for you? You survived and lived a long happy life. Most of those people you danced with that one time died. I’ll save my sympathy for them.” Plus, she and Jack never got out of that new relationship “honeymoon” period. We have no way of knowing if they would have ended up working out long term. Just, so much about that movie I don’t like.
But how was that guy supposed to give it to Britney Spears if Rose didn’t get rid of it?
Ha! The best.
You don’t necessarily have to love someone to have kids with them. There were plenty of arranged and political marriages throughout history where children resulted despite there being no love lost between the partners.
Or the condom could just break.
I believe Rose is worth sympathy. Just because she survived the sinking, that doesn’t mean she got an automatic happy ending. At the age of 17, she’d endured things that ranged from an abusive fiancé to an almost exploitative mother and an absent father that left her family buried in debt. Let’s not diminish the trauma she must’ve lived with after living through one of humanity’s worst disasters – a tragedy where she lost someone she deeply cared about and actually watched them die slowly right in front of her.
Whether Jack was her “one true love” is irrelevant because it can’t be denied that, even if their relationship collapsed had they both survived, he was still a positive influence in her life and left a huge impact on her surviving years (people often forget that she was suicidal and he quite literally saved her life when they first met). Her status as a “rich girl” is also irrelevant: she wasn’t one of “upper-deck passengers” you mention because she didn’t evacuate the ship with the other rich folks. Like Walky pointed out, she stayed behind even when she didn’t have to (Jack even calls her stupid for doing so) and if she hadn’t been lucky enough to be floating next to the corpse of an officer, she would’ve died along with everyone else. It wasn’t her wealth that saved her – like it saved her mother, for example – but pure luck. And it doesn’t matter anyway because she gave up all her riches (or whatever was left of them) the moment she said her name was ‘Rose Dawson’ in New York City and, even if she hadn’t, she probably would’ve lost everything in 1929.
I… apologise for the wall of text. I didn’t know I cared so much about Titanic.
I agree with all this and would like to add that while she did indeed fall in love again, that doesn’t mean she didn’t have stronger feelings for Jack that were only negated by his death. Or even simply that she wouldn’t have ended up with her husband had Jack lived (possible – like you said, we don’t know. That’s the tragic part – Jack died young and nobody remembers him but Rose, who never got to know him well).
Also, I see a lot of grief about her throwing the necklace away. Sure, she could have given it to her granddaughter, but the necklace is her’s. She can do what she wants with it. If she feels like it belongs with the Titanic as a reminder of that night, that’s her prerogative. Her granddaughter lived in a house on her own paycheque (and possibly a pension or survivor’s fund for the Titanic) so it’s not like her granddaughter is poor or struggling for money.
Last panel makes a better title than “Up here, we can be garbage”
Lotta words for the title. The ends may need to be trimmed off, like a Subway sandwich.
The Chef Dexter action figure!? Walky, you lucky bastard!
Oh, Joyce got played.
Walky, I see where you’re going with this. And don’t.
Sacrificing yourself because you believe the other person will be better without you negates their choice in the matter. Also it doesn’t make them stop caring about you, so it still hurts them and now you look selfish and/or stupid for not thinking of that.
(I know it’s more nuanced than this. I’m just summarizing.)
That’s the thing about you, isn’t it Walky? You really can’t understand why Dorothy would risk herself for you, no matter in which way. You can’t see why a perfect woman like her could find value in you. That’s sad but it really shows just how much self-loathing hides behind that class clown exterior.
Yup.
Anyone from yesterday still think he meant “feel like”, and not “I am“?
He still talks about it like a temporary state. “When I’m being garbage”
If all roomies strips reoccur offscreen during timeskips in Dumbing of Age, are we going to suddenly have Ruth showing up in the hospital with a truck-related neck injury one of these times?
There’s no indication that events in the Walkyverse are being duplicated in the Dumbingverse.
Did you read the alt text?
Alt text = author’s humour and =/= canon
That’s…really not the point being made. The comment was running with the alt text joke. You seemed to miss that. Twice.
Heads up Canadian readers, you should definitely be calling or emailing your reps, bell media, and the CRTC over Bell’s proposal about net neutrality. It’s pretty bad.
Also, USians, you should probably call about the tax bill. Vote is tomorrow.
I’m honestly torn between wanting Walky to shove that action figure up his ass and wanting him to continue talking so he can realize how worthless he is to Dorothy.
I’m pretty sure he knows exactly how worthless he is or more.
Oh. You’re That Guy aren’t you.
Yeah, Willis actually acknowledges him as an influence in writing Dorothy and Walky’s relationship as being ever closer and stronger.
Hey Aggrax, keep going. You’re doing good work.
I’ve always found this sentiment vaguely creepy because you know if Walky and Dorothy were gender flipped nobody would have any problems with the relationship dynamic.
That’s quite the assumption. I’m fairly certain SOMEONE would have a problem with it; it wouldn’t be most people, but it’s not most people now.
It would still bother me because even if they weren’t dating Walky is still a huge load wasting his friends time and effort. Walky now is almost exactly like I was when I started college, except my friends had no tolerance for bullshit and didn’t coddle me from my failings like a baby. If Walky actually gets his head out of his butt and starts being someone worth being in a relationship with, I’ll reconsider my opinion of him
That’s sad, man. Hope you can get past this place one day.
for all X, someone on the internet has a problem with X.
… but I know what you meant, and… don’t have the brain power to imagine the gender flip right now, apparently.
although there’s quite a gender split in the cross-class romance stuff I can remember. like, lost of songs about how a guy will never get the girl because she’s above him, vs cinderella and stuff where the guy marries the girl anyways because True Love (or just because she’s pretty, ugh). maybe a lot of it is because it’s the guy’s status that becomes both their status when they marry, so when the woman is lower-status nothing is lost.
so basically, it’s the damn patriarchy’s fault.
For someone that says they want the best for Dorothy, you sure don’t seem to respect her choices or feelings all that much.
Yay for undevelopped sense of movie empathy.
Is the wind picking up?
Their self-loathing isn’t doing much for the forecast, is it?
It’s worse than that, Walky. If Rose had stayed on the lifeboat, then Jack would have been able to get on that bit of wreckage that kept her alive in the end.
….. not saying that this is analogous to you and Dorothy, of course. But when you’re moping for yourself, you gotta see the worst in an analogy if you’re going to really wallow.
It’s interesting – I’m only a few years older than the kids in this strip, but whenever I mention not having seen titanic to folks my age or older, they tend to be shocked/insist that I Must Watch It Immediately and that I’ve been Deprived Of A Formative Experience.
(I haven’t seen it yet primarily because of the latter reaction – folks getting pushy about a nonessential thing is the best way to make me stop wanting to do it)
I was talking to a 22-year-old person about Titanic the other month, and was like “jeez, I saw it in theatres, and you were like 2 when it came out, I feel old”.
My guess: Amber somehow talks Walky out of his slump (or at least convinces him to try to help Dorothy in as strongly active manner) and even gets a slight insight into the fact that how we perceive ourselves isn’t necessarily objectively accurate. Then, completely unexpectedly, she shifts to Amazi-Girl who asks her: “Well, you helped Walkerton, didn’t you? Aren’t you supposed to be the irredeemable garbage?”
Unlikely. Amazi-Girl’s been pushing bad stuff onto Amber for awhile now. How else can she be the golden alter?
I think Amber’s doing at least as much of that as Amazi-Girl.
Amber’s certainly cooperating, but there’s been no sign of AG trying to shore up Amber’s self-esteem.
His girlfriend’s girlfriend <3!
Also, awww, Walky! ;_;
I’m now even more confused about the Amber/Amazi-Girl divide…
Is Amazi Girl even *here* or is this ‘Just Amber’ in the costume?
(As Amber consciously shifts to Amazi-Girl’s voice, here… which doesn’t really suggest the totally split ‘alter’ which has been suggested recently…)
???
It’s Amber in the costume and imitating The Voice. Typically Amazi-Girl doesn’t have the blush marks on her cheeks.
Ah well, yeah, that’s not confusing at all!
“What up, my name’s David, I’m eighteen years old and I never learned how to fucking do empathy”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KgkBWZXVLyk
Great so!
song. stupid fingers.
I cried when I saw Titanic, but not when Jack died. I cried when the violinists were playing, and they showed the woman reading a story to her children at the bottom of the boat. That’s when I lost it.
Among the parts which got me were the elderly rich couple (Astors?) just taking to their bed, and holding each other, fully clothed, after the outcome was clear.
I’m no longer so young, and my wife and I randomly chat about the far future in an emotional sense. (The DNRs are signed.)
All the riches one could want and they decided they couldn’t live without each other.
That part was actually based on real life! That couple was Isidor and Ida Strauss. Ida was offered a place in a life boat but refused to leave without her husband. Because he was old and she refused to get in the boat otherwise, the officer offered to let Isidor go. He refused to leave as long as women and children were still on board. So she said, “We have been together for many years. Where you go, I go”. She gave her seat in the life boat to her recently hired maid, Ellen Byrd, along with her fur coat (she reasoned she wouldn’t need it anymore). They were last seen together, but in deck chairs, not in bed.
Ellen tried to return the coat to the Strauss’ children (all grown adults by this point) but their oldest daughter refused. She said Ida gave it to Ellen and she should keep it.
So I’m reading this and getting emotional and all, but also I just whispered to myself, “Now that’s a ride-or-die.”
IKR? A lot of Titanic stories are very emotional.
Mrs. Astor actually survived the sinking! Reportedly, he asked to accompany her because she was pregnant but was refused. He asked for the lifeboat number so he could find her later. He almost got into a different one but gave it up to two frightened children, as well as ordering two women onto the last two places on the boat before it took off.
Their dog also died in the sinking, sadly. Reportedly, his wife trusted him to take care of her when she left. In one of the deleted scenes for Titanic, there’s a reference to that – he asks someone if they’d seen his dog because he didn’t want to die alone.
He divided his fortune among his wife and his three children, including the one Madeline was pregnant with. She gave birth to a little boy, John Jacob Astor VI.
I don’t know if anyone’s noticed yet, but she’s still tagged Amber, not Amazi-Girl.
It’s been tagged that way the past couple strips. Discussions have occurred.
I for one am ALL FOR the spinoff comic “Dorothy Is President And Married To Walky And They’re Doing Fine”
https://twitter.com/damnyouwillis/status/943042530530201600
Sign me up!
This will create complications with the AU where Connie is president and Steven (hopefully) grows out of being First Boy.
Gimme gimme gimme
Hmm, reading The New Yorker, I see today is the 20th anniversary of the release of “Titanic”. You did that on purpose, Willis
after reading what walky said … I suddenly realized that not only was Walky right, BUT if rose hadn’t gotten out of the lifeboat, there would have been room on that plank of wood for jack, and he might have survived, therefore rose stole jack’s chance of survival.
I cry at Titanic. Funnily enough, the moment that always brings on the waterworks is the moment Walky is talking about, spesifically when they meet again after Rose jumps back on. These lines: “You’re so stupid, Rose. Why did you do that? Why?” I’m not sure why THAT in particular is what always gets me.
I went quickly to the Chef Dexter Action Figure punchline and needed a couple reads to notice how Walky pulls an incredible turn-around after panel four. He almost opened up there.
Self-aware Walky is the best kind of garbage.
oh oof oh geez oh wow thats a uh how you say big fuckin mood from walky