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Sophia_Nyx 
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Barb O. Saur 
hey, great reminder just when I was starting to get nostalgic about college
Ayup. I remember those nights well.
They were most unpleasant.
As do I; I was living on the tenth floor of a ten floor dorm hall, so every time the fire alarm went off I had to walk down and up ten stories worth of stairs. It was also an older building, so there was no air conditioning making the first two months and the last month or two absolute hell.
Oh this bodes well
I dunno, trying something with that many witnesses and probably first responder arrival isn’t bright.
I suppose someone could pull it several nights in a row just to wear everyone down for finals, but that’s how security camera footage gets checked.
If I was Mike and injured and managed to get to the dorm where my threatened friends were, that might be the fastest way to get everyone’s attention and get an emergency response all at the same time.
Oh no…
So uh, between this and the content warning, I guess I know what’s gonna happen next. Not good stuff!
where is the content warning?
If you hit home and scroll down a little, right beneath the post area for the comic there is a blog post from Willis named ‘Blanket Content Warning’ regarding this chapter.
And considering the title of the storyline as well…
It’s going to be about cookie crumbs.
Well, OBVIOUSLY. I mean just look at this comic. I count one… two… three… FOUR of them. With that kind of content in the first strip of the storyline, a blanket content warning is just basic courtesy.
At least now we can sit back and relax, secure that the blanket content we’ve been warned about is done and past.
Joyce’s blanket makes two appearances so I only count three in this strip. There are likely many more to come. Be on your guard.
This thread is amazing
Any time there’s a strip with a character in their bedroom, we’re likely to see a blanket. I’m sure there will be more blankets in this chapter.
Well, yes, but you can also see Sarah’s in the background of Panel 3, behind Joyce’s socks. Plus Malaya’s and Ruth’s makes 4.
BLANKETS?? *gasp* *covers children’s eyes* Corrupting young minds with… with salacious bedroom content!! I shall write an uncompliementary letter to your editor, sir!
And one of them is a Leafs blanket! The horror!!!
Thank you!
Here it is: blanket content warning. There’s a copy on the main page, too.
I think you mean https://www.dumbingofage.com/2020/blog/blanket-content-warning-for-this-new-storyline/
Oops! Thanks for covering that for me.
I ought to know better than to try HTML where I can’t edit errors.
i gotta say, as someone with ptsd, it’s really great of willis to put in a content warning. it’s not my first rodeo, and i’ve been reading this comic for YEARS, but it’s just…………really, really nice.
i remember when he put the content warning for beths mothers suicide as well, it’s something that willis doesnt have to do and does anyway which makes this comic even better
*plays “Love And Happiness” on the hacked Muzak–but it’s drowned out by the alarm*
I know it’s not the Al Green version, so sue me.
Place your bets for who pulled it. I guess everyone shown in this strip is out of the running.
Except for maybe Fuckface, he’s always got a look that says “Yesssss…according to plan”, so I wouldn’t rule out him being somehow behind it.
Pretty sure it’s one of the Sinister Sires, as part of their plan to do something to Joyce.
That’s too cool a name for them. Wouldn’t want anyone to think they are like the Sinister Six.
How about DoucheDads Inc? Toe & Schmo? My Two Bads?
It’s probably Blaine… but it might also be Amber/AG. We did get the Amber flashback, so it would fit thematically.
Mike also, but someone else already said that.
More like Asher, who would have access to the dorm.
Maybe the batteries in Meredith’s vape exploded.
The Dadholes.
Mike pulled it. This is all a part of his grand re-entrance.
This.
Everyone suspects Mike, Blaine and Toedad, or Fuckface, but nobody considered Tzeench, the architect of fate and master of all schemers.
No one suspects Big Apple either.
Tzeentch is behind every scheme, and therefore is never counted because why bother?
The dark horse candidate is Asher. He doesn’t live in Read, but he might have access to other residence halls. Perhaps this is the inside job Blaine needed from him?
I think we can assume he definitely has access to the other dorms since Amber (mistakenly) told Dorothy that the latter would be safe inside the dorm because they had checked the directory, and therefore thought that Ryan wasn’t a student.
I mean, it could be an actual fire.
A fire alarm pulled due to an actual fire? Nah, that can’t be right.
I’m thinking it may have been Mike.
Even money on some member of Blaine’s cabal or someone who saw an actual fire. Bonus points if it’s someone who saw an actual fire caused by Blaine’s cabal.
Galasso
Walky. He’s in panic, he’s too hot or both.
“If I don’t make it/ know that I loved you all along
Just like sunny days that / we ignore because / we’re all dumb and jaded
And I hope to god I figure out what’s wrong”
I’m sure everything’s fine. We’ve all as a unit moved on passed the death of Mike. Nothing else serious or bad will happen.
Fuckface better not be killed. I would be pissed off.
I’d stop reading. But don’t worry. I know Willis said he broke some rules but he’d never get that dark. Fuckface is immortal.
He . . . he wouldn’t actually kill Fuckface, would he? I mean, I know he put a content warning on the home page, but he can’t have gone that far.
Unfortunately, it seems like we’re gonna have to read the writing on the wall. Fuckface is probably doomed, and it’s gonna be a tough read.
The reptile breathes, and smirks, and shows no fear,
Unlike the readers, quaking in their boots
Who know that nowhere’s safe, especially near
A deadly mobster dad, and one who shoots.
This storyline is perilous enough
Without implicit threats toward harmless pets.
Yet Willis (be Him damned) will make it rough;
His readers wait, and fear how tough it gets.
He didn’t even warn us ere Mike fell.
This arc, it seems, is harder yet to read.
What danger’s waiting, only time will tell –
What triggers He will pull to make us bleed.
Though tragedies galore we look beyond,
If Fuckface dies, some readers will abscond.
Amazing! Where did you pull this from? It reads Shakespear-y, but I don’t recognize it.
It’s the sonnet rhyme scheme and iambic pentameter that make it sound Shakespear-y. What do they teach you youngsters nowdays?
Very nice, Chris.
I wrote it just now. When inspiration strikes, I can bang out a sonnet pretty quickly. Something about “Fuckface is probably doomed” reminded me of a sonnet I wrote near the end of Nimona a few years ago. “Who are we kidding? Life just isn’t fair / If we don’t see her soon, Nimona’s dead…”
Here’s another I just wrote, not very good…
A sonnet’s meter isn’t hard to do.
Just listen for the beats and let words change
So syllables fall where you need them to
By adding and subtracting, or exchange.
A large vocabulary helps with rhyme;
I’ve read a lot, for decades, and it shows.
But if you’re stuck, go back and take your time,
And look for any word that sort of flows.
If inspiration’s powering your work,
The words will out, despite constraining forms.
If frustrated, retrace your steps, don’t shirk;
You’ll find a way to speak within the norms.
Read sonnets, practice meter, practice rhyme,
Learn to rephrase – these skills will come with time.
(I really like rhymezone.com if you’re stuck for a rhyme.)
Offing Fuckface? Willis wouldn’t go that far, would he/
More like Fuckface gets found out and evicted.
Now homeless, he is reduced to begging on street corners for nickles to buy lizard chow. Big apple wins.
Who sells lizard chow to woodpeckers, anyway?
i’M SCARED
You should be. Big apple.
“Here we are in the future and it’s wrong”
“Look at Fuckface; he’s not even singing along.”
Goddammit, Malaya, don’t assume it’s a crank.
In fact actually set a fire. Like a controlled burn. That will get me so fucking hot. Doesn’t even have to be the near the actual dorms just burn some sticks outsid the quad and I will fuck you right then and there. The potential threat of fire really turns me on.
Took me a sec to realize you were speaking in-character as Ruth, and I had some concerns.
I wouldn’t have gotten it if you hadn’t clarified.
What do you take Yotomoe for, some variety of pervert?
I’d say I’m many varieties of pervert, yes.
I was going to say, “Don’t answer that,” but I see I’m too late.
For the record, Yotomoe is the very best kind of pervert. The artistic kind.
Oh. I thought Yotomoe was every kind of pervert.
Yotomoe is 300 tiny perverts in a trenchcoat.
Big apple?
The New York apple magnates.
“Big Apple, 3 AM” is the first level of Turtles in Time, and this strip is titled “Four AM”.
Disappointed that only one other person (so far) appears to have gotten this. Shout out to Confuzor!
Famous Last Words to Fuckface.
Yes. There is a character who won’t make it out alive.
Narrator: It was not just a prank fire alarm.
My thought exactly.
“New to college, I see”
My predictions: 1)Amazi-Gil is moving Amber’s body subconsciously, 2)Blaine is still free!, 3)Mike’s ghost is pranking everyone, or 4)Head Alien is finally here!
Amazi-Gil moves Agatha…
The ghost in
the machineyour mom, for a nickel.It occurs to me, because of events in the real world, not the strip, that it might be impossible to avoid DOA gradually becoming a period piece if really transformative events occur. In 1665 the authorities closed both universities and sent the students home. It could happen again.
Possibly, but wouldn’t not sending the students home in comic prevent it from being a period piece?
As, in comic, it’s still October, it shouldn’t affect the comic until several years from now.
(And sending lots of people who where clustered in one busy place all over the country back to their home towns doesn’t look like a concept to not spread the virus to me. In Germany, break period has been extended but the few people who live in dorms still live there anyways.)
Students are being sent home from dorms in Ontario. At my school they are only letting people stay if they have nowhere else to go.
There’s going to be a time when colleges are closed. The policy might be dumb, but it will be implemented, because the awful adults who run IU in DoA are not unrealistic. It might last a good long while.
When it is over, things probably won’t go back to the old normal. The people and institutions that go through the next year or so might be changed conspicuously. Fashions might change. Politics might become pervasive and highly changed. Economic conditions affecting college students might be very different. The zeitgeist reflected in the last ten years of strips might seem utterly “last decade”.
The time is pretty much now in most places. And it’s a good idea. Colleges are horrible places to shelter and try to stay isolated – you have to interact in large groups to even eat.
There may be some spread sending them home now, but trying to keep them as school just guarantees it’ll sweep through the college populace.
Cultural differences: in Germany, if you get a room in the Studentenwohnheim, it’s your home for as long a you are a student and don‘t decide to move out. Term or no term, no matter which term. Most students don’t live there but in normal apartments, some in shared, some not. So over here, closing down universities means there are no lectures or anything, but closing down dorms is not a thing, it would be making people homeless.
Okay, if this is the beginning of the zombie apocalypse then anything set before the apocalypse will be a period piece by definition. To be honest, even in likely worse case with lots of people dying, I don’t see the pandemic as causing that level of permanent change. Post pandemic China doesn’t look that different and neither will western civilization as a whole.
Seems like something Mike would do.
The optimistic possibility
I misread “I’m in Forest” as “I’m in a forest” and was briefly very confused about Billie’s circumstances.
Me, too. “Forest? As in Dunn Woods? What? Why would she be ther–ohhhh, right, her dorm building!”
To be fair, none of them are out of the woods yet
Needs more diving through rapidly closing firedoors.
because setting off the fire alarm activates the nuclear weapon and the only way to keep it from exploding is to hit the deactivation switch that is in the room that the firedoors are designed to close off.
Shades of the self-destruct cancellation console(s) in “The Andromeda Strain”…?
Alright. Which one of you pulled the drama tag this time?
I remember when I was in university, someone set off a fire alarm by badly cooking popcorn.
Same here. It was almost always someone trying to cook something and burning it when I was in college.
That’s the standard way. Everybody assuming it’s a prank feels weird to me.
Half the fire alarms I have heard go off in dorms went off because of food.
At 4AM?
Yes, I know. College students. But still.
The peak time period for insomnia induced bad cooking!
Usually closer to 1-3am, but yes, absolutely in the middle of the night. Had to stand outside during snow before, also rain, and far more often at night than during the day because that’s when people don’t open windows or stupidly leave the door open a smidge too long and the hallway smoke fire alarm was stupidly right next to the kitchen door!
Or the smoke arm was smartly next to the kitchen because that’s also where a real fire would likely start by that drunk guy down the hall trying to make hot dogs with a Bunsen burner.
The kitchen already had heat detectors inside it. The smoke detector was like 2 inches away from the door outside it which was way too close as any little bit of steam would set it off. It should have been like 2 feet clear of the door so that it would go off if there was an actual fire, not because someone had been making pasta. This is a problem I have had with smoke detectors before in an old house I used to live in too where the smoke detector was so close to the kitchen that it would go off whenever my dad fried an egg. It should be close to the kitchen but never so close that steam from normal daily activities will set it off.
Putting it right outside the kitchen door with no distance between is a great way to annoy people, not protect people. Heat detectors can be right next to them, smoke detectors should have a little bit of distance or you’ll just get false alarms way too often.
Knew someone who microwaved a banana once, just to see what would happen.
Seems like a good thing German dorms usually are off-campus and spread out. Berlin has (or had, i’m not sure if it still exists) one rather large cluster of dorms, but no one every mentioned fire alarms being endemic.
It might just be a modern thing, the fire alarm in the school next to my last workplace tended to get pulled frequently when tests where due.
When I was an undergrad, one time someone set it off by hitting the fire sprinkler with a football. It broke and flooded several rooms on top of the alarm going off.
That or forgetting to put water in their microwavable easymac. It was generally one of those two, 95% of the time. So yeah, it’s a little weird that the first thought is that it’s a prank rather than some moron pulling an all-nighter trying to study and fucking up food.
Too atrocious to be faulty, too timely to be from a sleepwalker
It’s all been done with Rachel, so chances are on the ones who can be up at wee hours
Its “Big Apple 3 AM”
Billie if your dorm doesn’t have a fire alarm then why are you awake at 4am
Maybe withdrawal symptoms, or she messed up her sleep schedule due to learning for midterms, or general college tomfoolery.
(Two of these three happened to me personally.)
I’m assuming Ruth woke her up with a phone call.
Alternately alarms could be going all across campus.
She lives in a building across the parking lot. That’s not that far. And if the alarm is going off loud enough to wake an entire building, I’d assume it’d wake them up too. Besides, if this was a real fire, it would want to wake them up, because it’d be the next building to catch if there was strong winds.
College continues to live up to Sarah’s expectations
My first thought: “Ah, I remember prank fire alarms.”
My second thought: “… Oh crap I bet this is something serious and also not a fire.”
My third thought: “OH NO WILL FUCKFACE GET HURT”
The entire campus could burn to a crisp and Fuckface would be absolutely fine. He’s eternal, like Michigan J. Frog.
I understand that fried lizard tastes like chicken.
Pretty much everything not beef or pork tastes like chicken.
Lamb, mutton, duck…
Or Randy the Bandicoot, from QC.
Also https://ew.com/article/2005/07/25/wbs_frog_mascot/
Not canon. The last thing to air on The WB was him taking a bow.
Flashback.
or it could be a fire
i know this chapter started a few days ago so it’s a little late to say this BUT
thank you willis for giving us a content warning and a timeline for how long the comic may be stressful. as someone with severe anxiety and ptsd, it really means a lot. i wish more people did stuff like this. one of the reasons why this webcomics my favorite is because of how well you treat your readers like me, those of us who have different problems than most.
you’ve done touching stuff like this before, and i’m sure you’ll do it again, but i really want to say this here: thank you
Billie gets tagged just for being a voice on a cellphone?
She’s been tagged as two text messages before.
https://www.dumbingofage.com/2017/comic/book-7/03-the-thing-i-was-before/fuckoff/
I like the consistency of everyone’s phone communication color-coding.
“Golden Dragons, Wooooo”
Okay, who would benefit from having everybody leave the building?
Blain and Toedad because they could sneak into the dorm unseen? But how would that get Becky to them since she doesn’t live in the dorms? Unless… their plan is to kidnap Dina and use her for leverage?
Could it be amazigirl as a quick way to signal for back up?
Or Mike who is somehow still alive? But… maybe only just?
But Willis said this was just the *beginning* of a storyline so how would getting everyone out be just the very first step of something big?
I’m suspicious that in the characters we see waking up, Amber, Dina, Dorothy, and Walky are not included.
Neither are Ethan, Jacob, Sal, Carla, Mary or Rachel.
Of course it’s the very first step of something big. Big apple.
Maybe the evil dads will steal AG’s costume while everybody’s outside and then proceed to blackmail Amber to keep her at bay?
They also could be after Joyce, Dina and anyone who could get in their way
Sure way to drive both Amber and Amazing-Girl over the edge. Will get Amber thrown out of school but I wouldn’t bet much on Blaine’s survival..
Maybe this chapter we’ll finally get that Emergency! crossover.
I choose to believe that Emergency! is a web comic where weekly they have to dive through rapidly closing firedoors because setting off the fire alarm activates the nuclear weapon and the only way to keep it from exploding is to hit the deactivation switch that is in the room that the firedoors are designed to close off, on account of it being a common design flaw.
It was one of Jack Webb’s TV series, and probably his most casual. It was about the budding paramedic program in the Los Angeles fire department in the 1970s, and took place in the same universe as Dragnet and Adam-12. It got all the big action scenes and large warehouse fires.
It spawned a cartoon with the two leads driving their rescue truck, assisted by a group of teenagers running an ambulance for some reason. It also almost spawned its own spinoff about the animal control department, starring Mark Harmon.
I had hoped Chicago Fire was going to be a modern take on this sort of thing when it debuted, but they had to make it a character drama instead…
In today’s episode, Johnny, Roy, and Chet have to break up a clown fight at a skating rink.
Seriously.
It was the inspiration for the paramedic system.
Yeah, someone’s found Mike and done the rational thing (for a late teen) and panicked.
Either that or Ross thinks that Becky is still staying at Read Hall and wants everyone out so he can find her and grab her in the confusion.
I know that if I were prowling through Ambers closet and found Mikes body where Amazigirl statched it, I’d certainly pull the fire alarm.
What is Sarah wearing on her head???
A protective covering akin to a shower cap.
It’s a satin bonnet. Black girls and women use them to protect natural hair styles.
The important thing is that by 4AM, all booty calls were probably wrapped up and not interrupted.
Ok Billie take notes
I’ve got the feeling that the final battle (at least with Ross and Blaine) is about to begin. Probably with a hostage situation that has to be resolved before Amber/Mazie bleeds out.
“resolved”
…
BwhahahahahHAHAHAJAHAHHAHAhahHahaaaaaa. Hooo, hehe hee. ho hoo heee.
Oh that was hahaha hoo, that was , hehe, good. heh.
“I romanticize the stupidest shit” Chapter’s coming out the gate with a good book title possibility.
Fire alarm goes BROOP, apparently.
…joke’s on them Amber actually set her room on fire trying to stay awake, somehow
Hello everybody. This is my first coment on this comic
I have a feeling that toedad is involved in this
Welcome to the comentariate.
Best Character: Whatever, I’ll just sleep in your warm spot. Be sure to be back by 10 for my daily feeding, or I poop in your bed.
Willis making a casual Turtles In Time reference with the alt text.
yay! I’m not the only one that thought it.
But how do we really know it’s 3 am?
Joyce is looking at her phone. Unless something’s very different about it, it presumably has a clock.
3AM is eternal:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZpzpwpCDzEQ
AAAGGHHH!
Okay so in my freshman year I lived in the basement floor, with a fire door at the end. Lazy students heading to the gym would enter the building on the ground floor, go downstairs to our hall, and leave out the fire door instead of going around the building and down the hill.
This would set off the fire alarm. Multiple times a day. But the school wouldn’t do anything about it. I tried to post about it on the school forums and all the replies were “Everyone always does that! You can’t stop us!”
Anyways, I left that school because the entire faculty and student body were the most hateful people on Earth. It was a Christian college, naturally.
If you’re ever in that boat again, report it to the Fire Marsha. Not school security, not on site emerg services, but the [off campus] Fire Marshall. Those folks have POWER and aren’t afraid to exercise is.
Anyone else … thinking this isn’t a prank? I was like “Oh, lol, been there” right up until “You’ll be fine, reptile who is beloved by all” at which point this moved from possible prank/inattentive cooking in the hall kitchen… to actual fire, possibly set by Blaine and/or Toedad…
Yes, that is exactly what I’m thinking.
Im hoping they did it to go in and snoop and the iguana eats their faces.
Iguanas are herbivorous, as Malaya so graciously pointed out.
…doesn’t necessarily mean Fuckface can’t fuck up their faces with his claws, though.
The fire alarms in my dorm do this really annoying thing where, if the power surges or goes out, they’ll start blaring when it comes back on. It happened at like 2am during the orientation period (think hazing but toned way down and no drinking allowed) and I figured it was just the seniors’ way of waking us up
They don’t actually make us leave the building for fire alarms tho, you learn to just roll over and sleep through them. We’re all gonna burn to death one day lol
I need popcorn. The following strips will probably be extremely delicious.
Hey Mr. Iguana. Always nice to see that not-so-friendly face.
FOOLS! It was *I*…
I must have been lucky since I never had to deal with prank fire alarms overnight when I lived in a dorm. However, there was one time when someone was making a clay pot and left it in the kiln overnight and that resulted in an actual fire alarm going off at 2 am.
How narrow Joyce’s bed is!
Less capacious than Dorothy’s.
That’s symbolic, I suppose.
But it’s been (at least) a whole day between the nighttime potential Mike death and this nighttime alarm…
At first I was worried Willis would kill Fuckface but I don’t think he can kill a god
If Fuckface dies, that’s clearly just proof of his divinity