For May’s first Dumbing of Age Patreon bonus strip, everyone voted for Mike! So here’s your Mike strip.
seriously what did you expect to happen here
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Jennifer, Daisy, same diff
Waitasec…Freckled redhead with two suspiciously similar love interests, one blonde and sweet, the other dark-haired and kind of a snob?
Ruth is gender-swapped Archie!
I’m just gonna…take a note of that.
Also Jennifer would make a FANTASTIC Veronica.
Wealthy? Check.
Spoiled? Check.
High Maintenance? Check.
I’ve long thought that Bettie & Veronica should hook up and ditch that loser Archie.
It’s the correct opinion to have.
And that would free up Archie to fulfill his destiny and become Mr. Lodge’s poolboy and plaything. You just know Mr. Lodge wants Archie to play with his pool noodle.
I would actually read that comic.
“You think the best way to solve a love triangle is to ignore the vertex.” – Elena Doubleca5t
I prefer my solution to the love triangle equation: poly.
As a romance novelist, it’s fun to set up an obvious love triangle and then entirely subvert it by having everyone get along while the driving force of the plot is something else entirely.
Ah yes, the Jean Grey/Emma Frost ship of the Archie fandom.
which, in my case, is less because of Elena Doubleca5t’s joke, and more because I just really hate Scott and want to see him suffer. Also lesbians.
I know Scott hasn’t done anything to specifically DESERVE being shit on, but I remember not liking him bc anything of the little I’ve seen him in, all he ever seemed to do was
1. JEAN I LOVE U JEAN
or
2. NO JEAN DIED IT SHOULDA BEEN ME I LOVE U 5EVAR JEAN
A while back, I came up with a comic in my head (I’m a writer, not an artist, so I couldn’t draw it) about the other, older triangle involving these characters:
Panel 1: Jean in the background, getting annoyed (with Emma looking on) with Scott and Logan, who are having another of their arguments in the foreground.
Panel 2: Everyone reacting, startled, to Jean suddenly shouting, “Would you just FUCK already?”
Panel 3: Silent beat panel, Jean still looking pissed, Emma mildly surprised at her, and Scott and Logan looking at each other.
Panel 4: Scott and Logan in a passionate embrace.
Except for the Betty and Veronica being identical bodies with a different head thing.
Aw. Even if this date doesn’t work out Ruth at least had a night where someone talked to her!
Booster can work as a second option. js
Booster in Sal’s hands is endgame.
Constants and variables, even without jumping through universes
Canada can’t be an alternate universe. I mean they drive on the correct side of the road and everything.
Can confirm. Upvote +1
That’s just what they want you to believe, driving on the right. But have you considered what that implies. Peace? Order? Good government? Where does it end? Socialized healthcare? QUEBEC?
Poutine for All !!
Not to be that guy, but the joke works better when you say “drive on the right side of the road”…
They kind of have to, given that one town that is literally bisected by the border, as in there’s a road with houses on either side, but you have to walk down the road to the border checkpoint to legally cross the street.
“Everything stays
right where you left it
everything stays
but it still changes”
Feels. Having them.
Hmm… maybe we’ll get something like the Matrix spoon scene in THIS relationship…
“There is no spooning”
“Damn”
I hear the Canadiens use real spoons.
No spooning? Well we might as well tear down our houses and love I the mud, if we’re gonna be fuckin’ savages.
Live in* the mud. Autoincorrect is aggressive today.
Or love in the mud. I mean, I’m game.
But are you in season?
Ew, no. Bugs and glass and needles galore.
Bugs and glass and needles? What kind of mud do they have up there?
Other than frozen, I mean.
Pine needles are the worst. Sticky and tar coated.
Maybe I’ve been in California too long, but that isn’t the type of needles laying on the ground that I thought of
But you said we’d be savages! Now I feel kind of let down.
This is the most disappointing autocorrect retraction I have ever read.
“Love I the mud”, tho? Freudian Autocorrect FTW!
As a Canadian, I feel that, Ruth. And hmm. Looks like Jennifer isn’t the only one who’s still hung up (though Ruth seems more conscious of it)
Not to sound too snarky, but wasn’t that already pretty obvious? I mean, back on the 4/19 strip “Birthday Stuff”, Ruth was lying in bed alone having a “still not used to you not being here” moment, asking the sorts of questions she’d have turned to Billie for
Yes, it was, but it came up again so I bring it up again.
Frickin’ US Smarties just being stupid Rockets.
I’m now imaging Canadians as saying “it’s not Smarty-Science” just before explaining things.
UGH Rockets are the devil.
Rockets are delicious…but at my age the sweetness is a bit much.
and sigh…I can’t even eat Smarties anymore because the candy coating
seems to use wheat flour in it which will make me sick. I prefer Smarties to M&M’s personally…except for M&M Peanuts which are pure evil in their addictiveness.
My thing is dark chocolate M&Ms, which are damn near impossible to find.
I don’t like Rockets which means good news – you can have mine! 😀
Wait, age related sweetness issues. Hmmm.
You can have mine in spirit!
Technically, Smarties is the true name for Rockets, because that what they were called in the US when they were invented (though they did come 12 years after the UK Smarties)
When they became a thing in Canada, the name had to be changed because they already had a candy named Smarties
Also, the British Smarties were named as such in 1937, but have existed since the 1880’s and were originally called “Chocolate Beans”
Because things just weren’t complicated enough already
I wonder why they never rebranded the Smarties for the US market.
Book 12 (?): Everything’s Mostly the Same, But Just Different Enough.
Book 11, but honestly I feel like that’s unironically the best contender for the title so far!
It is repeated in Panel 6 just to allow Willis to use it as title without breaking the title rules.
Take your internet points.
Is that the subtitle for 2021?
It’s the subtitle for the second series of 10 books.
I hope that they at least end up friends out of this, both of them could use a friend.
both of em could use a little vitamin O, just sayin
Not necessarily mutually exclusive, granted…
*has some John Lennon and the Plastic Ono Band playing on the jukebox now*
*for an encore, Leon Russell’s “Stranger In A Strange Land”*
I choose to believe that Leon Russell was Heinlein’s Canadian pen name.
quick, go back to talking about Smarties
“They’re just stupid Rockets! They’re not smart at all.”
I get the feeling we’re not talking about the shelled chocolate brand here…
Everything’s mostly the same, but just different enough.
Seriously considering moving to Canada one of these days.
I’d like to at least have some of their socialized medicine. It’s gotta be better than what we’re stuck with in the US.
Look on the brightside Ruth, you might get laid soon depending on Daisy’s ability to restrain her thirst. Also this relationship, while not off to the strongest start, looks like it could be much healthier.
So, who wants to make predictions on which Slipshine we get first?
When you eat a Smartie, do you eat the red ones last?
Do you eat them by the bowlful? Do you find them under glass?
Do you eat them very slowly or do you eat them very fast?
Must… resist… easy Pulp Fiction Joke!
For anyone who doesn’t know: In Canada Smarties are round bits of milk chocolate covered in a coloured candy shell.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ynk7__yJ6zo
So basically M&Ms?
Slightly more of a graham cracker note with the shell and a bit bigger, but yeah.
Yes, what Americans call Smarties, we call Rockets
, in Canada. It’s very confusing. Lol
For the record – Canadian Smarties taste much better than Rockets. Rockets taste like chalk.
Concur. It’s sugar in pill form, but it tastes pretty terrible.
Smarties are basically M&Ms though.
Pretty much, the shell tastes a little different but they’re very very similar and I usually use M&Ms to explain Smarties to Americans.
Other way around actually
Smarties came first, M&Ms were actually inspired by them
https://wisdombiscuits.com/which-came-first-mms-or-smarties/
I am aware, but if you’re trying to explain Smarties to Americans, it’s the comparison you’ve gotta use. Meet them halfway, y’know?
There’s two slightly different versions of Rocket-Smarties around, too. One has darker granules mixed in and the flavors are a touch stronger. (They’re still the LaCroix of candy, but at least there’s a slightly discernable flavor poking up out of the cornstarch-and-sugar noise floor.)
Because they didn’t make you question your own sanity enough, I guess?
Okay, so chalk and slightly flavoured chalk! 😀
Oddly enough, for this US fan of the pale Smarties sugar pills, is that there will very rarely be a darker-granules pill in a roll, suggesting that both versions are manufactured in the same facility.
Assuming that Canadian Smarties are the same as UK Smarties, then they actually predate M&Ms. And looking it up, it seems that M&Ms were inspired by/copied from M&Ms.
Wanna make it even more confusing? Here in Jamaica i guess we get Smarties from both the US and Canada, so I’ve had many moments going through Halloween candy as a kid and thinking “wait wasn’t this supposed to be an M&Ms thing?”
I’m pretty sure only filthy Americans call them M&Ms. Also they appear in commercials, and are both anthropomorphised and sexualised. There’s an entire episode of a podcast I like that’s dedicated to how hot the Green M&M is, even. It’s on YouTube if you’re morbidly curious and don’t mind extremely foul language.
I’m too chicken for fowl language.
M&Ms are a different product from Canadian Smarties.
They get hickory sticks and ketchup chips up there, too. And Kinder Surprise eggs aren’t banned. I think Canada’s winning the snack war…
I had ketchup chips tonight! They were COVERED in that ketchup powder stuff and it was delicious.
There is also a faint connection between green M&Ms and amphetamines, as set forth in an old TV commercial where the little league slugger credits his success to eating M&Ms just before his at-bat, saying something like “…and when it’s the green ones, I’m going downtown.” (hit a home run)
In real professional baseball, amphetamines were often called ‘greenies’ – their use wasn’t banned until 2006
Who the devil are you calling an American?
It’s quite an old brand, originating from the UK in 1937.
They’re also available in the middle east!
Still, didn’t expect them to be compared to M&Ms. Americans are funny.
Isn’t that what Smarties are everywhere? What ARE Smarties in the USA then?
Bullshit.
Similar to what we call rockets in Canada, but bigger. Like the texture of tums, sugary and a bit sour.
I don’t know what these Canadian “rockets” are either. This is the first time I hear of them.
Basically Rockets are a little round sugar candy. Very sweet and slightly tangy. Comes in a clear plastic wrapped roll and are different colours. Bit of a chalky texture but a Halloween staple here. http://www.rocketscandy.ca/
Ohh, we have these kind of sweets in the UK, too. They usually come in a large mixed bag around Hallowe’en, which tends to make them popular around that season.
Absolutely nothing like Smarties, though! Smarties have a chocolate filling.
Ruth’s line in the third panel about wondering if she even exists, and whether anyone would care if she died, is reminding me a lot of “The Last Roomies! Story Ever, I Promise.”
Is that the one where we find that Ruth faked her own death and is now in witness protection?
Heh, I wish. Not that the actual story is bad, though, mind you.
…We’re not talking about Canada anymore, are we.
(Also, Daisy seems like a great listener; Ruth is doing most of the talking, but she still feels like Daisy is engaging her and opening her up. The two of them seem like they’ll do well together, especially since Ruth needs someone in a good position who can listen to her right now.)
https://imgur.com/a/wgwXLg2
Today’s meal.
I approve wholeheartedly, about the sexytimes at least. Not necessarily the position but whatever gets the job done I guess.
I’m a cowgirl man all the way. i mean I’m a virgin so I don’t know how much I just really like it visually. It is probably aesthetically the sexiest position in my opinion.
Cowgirl Man would be a great superhero. Just saying.
As an adamant fan of hand-holding during Grown-Up Fun Time, thank ya kindly. Although I do agree with you on the topic of cowgirl position, for both aesthetic and athletic reasons.
Thank you, Yotomoe!
I think my favorite detail is the ass waggling. I mean, that’s just crying out for Walky to go “But in missionary, I won’t be able to see that great ass!!!”
It’s funny, I actually redrew her hips like…3 times because I just felt like it has to be an exaggerated pose to look adequately “turned on”.
I think you captured Lucy’s thirst for Walky perfectly.
“Fruitfull”, huh? I mean, she’s quite fruity. And quite full.
Missionary: i sleep
Missionary (with hand holding): real shit
I definitely feel all those 3rd panel things a lot. Being honest I’ve slowly lost my grasp on reality during the pandemic. And in addition I’ve just grown very depressed and misanthropic. o3o I dunno, it’s selfish to say but I hope if I die it ruins someone’s week.
You can only ruin someone’s week by dying only once, whereas by staying alive you can ruin their week again and again. Dying is inefficient.
Wanna start a podcast? It could help stave off some of the worst.
I’ve already got one! Podnami where me and my friends talk about Toonami week to week, Retro Roadtrip where me and my friends watch nostalgic shows from our childhood, and side projects like Podkemon where we watch every pokemon episode and Scooby Movie Crew where we watch every scooby doo movie.
I’m just…too lazy to edit them 😛
Are these up anywhere we could listen?
podnami, podkemon and the 1st season of retro roadtrip are on libsyn under podnami. But everything I have the responsibility for editing I’m way too lazy to do and for that I apologize.
I know how that feels! I hope you get a chance to find your feet again soon.
I really feel for Ruth here…
But I also really want to know more about what happened between her and Rachael.
The previous year’s Halloween.
Ruth is OBVIOUSLY not ready to date. Poor girl. ♥
Ruth will be horrified to find out this is the best date of Daisy’s life.
Horrified, but unsurprised.
I feel so so so bad for Ruth. Her ex asks her to go on a date with ex’s boss to do her a favor, boss is nice and interested in Ruth.
Ruth: ??? How? Why?
I would feel really fucking bad too. Like I’m being pitied, but knowing I’m not actually being pitied and maybe someone likes me, so which is so embarrassing I’d need to do the job myself so I get punished like I *should* be
It’s hot as hell in the summertime, hockey is less popular than football, all the food packaging is in English, everything is in feet, gallons, and pounds, health care costs a fortune, our politicians are more insane, certain words aren’t spelled with those cool extra U’s…
Due tell.
Enogh! I’m throgh with sing all those extraneos “”s throghot the English langage!
Our would yough prefeur I ouverused theum, lieuk thouse Candieuns dou?
Thereh’s sommething abbout addinghe extrha letteurs hthat maykes a languaghe looke moure dignifiedfksdoj.
I get that we all FEEL this way on dates and this is a comedy strip, but seriously: If you’ve been in therapy for months and are still doing shit like this, you need a new therapist.
o3o Therapy isn’t a perfect fix and healing is a process. I feel like it can be more dangerous to imply that if someone is still having issues with their self worth after months of therapy that’s a sign of bad therapy and not just…y’know normal. They’ll end up chasing an idea of therapy that simply doesn’t exist for them.
Strongly agree.
Aye to that.
I said this before some months ago: You won’t always get a therapist who instantly connects with you and helps you overcome all your problems in a few sessions. That’s not a realistic bar to set for a professional.
From what we know, Ruth’s therapist follows standard medical practices, treats her with basic respect, prescribes mild medicine for her, and isn’t trying to cure the gays out of her or anything, which is already like top 40 percentile in USA-land. I wouldn’t roll the dice again on it.
Don’t even get me started on how therapy can fail…
Even though therapists say they’re not there to give advice, a worrying number of them find themselves giving it anyway. And in the process, a portion of them remain glued to a throne they never wanted.
Many pay for life coaches or therapists under the premise that all the thinking is gonna be done for them. But their own thinking is supposed to be the product. That’s the whole point.
Not to mention the fact that all these mental health programs becoming more popular these days are loaded with enough pseudoscience to make me vomit!
Can confirm.
Also….Ruth’s issues go DEEP. It could take years to stop doing things like this. That’s not a sign of a bad therapist, it’s a sign of how severe Ruth’s problems are.
If she gets desperate, she can always go to Dream Corp, LLC.
Did those guys ever successfully cure anyone? I’m really asking I barely remember anything from that show.
Actually, they cured a lot of people, including one with a fear of heights.
Yeah, when a coping mechanism goes back years (like trying to scare people off because your life is currently Not Safe and your abusive guardian will retaliate in some form or other for your having a romantic partner without his permission,) it can in fact take a WHILE to disarm it consistently. I also wouldn’t be shocked if Ruth doesn’t fully trust her therapist with the information that Clint is in fact abusive, since they’re either provided by the school (who he’s manipulated before) or by him, himself (and while that shouldn’t matter with an adult patient, establishing that fact and letting her trust it would be a lengthy process in and of itself.)* That’s neither the therapist’s fault or Ruth’s, because she’s already seen Sir get his way with authority figures even when it was incredibly obvious Ruth was not in a state to be performing RA duties. Why would she believe this time would be any different? It’s hard even for a trauma-informed therapist to undo years of coping mechanisms that are now maladaptive, but it’s especially so when the trauma is ongoing. There’s really only so much that can be done while Howard’s still under Sir’s guardianship.
* She does get paid to be RA, but I sincerely doubt that’s enough to afford a therapist, especially since that’s probably also her safety net to get herself and Howard away from Sir eventually. Unless he’s been taking control of that money for himself.
Plus, it’s been a few months on antidepressants including switching from one to another, so that could likely have gummed up progress as well. Adjustment starting the new meds can take a while to sink in, and depending on how high a dose of the old ones she was on, there could’ve been a taper period.
She hasn’t actually started drinking this evening, which is genuine and serious progress. She’s not assaulting her charges, or letting Dina assault Mary indefinitely, and while she is making threats Becky at least doesn’t take them seriously. Wouldn’t be surprised if other residents consider it joking, as well, since she definitely doesn’t inspire the same terror she did in the early days. But there’s a LOT of issues Ruth needs help unpacking. That’ll take a while, especially since the guardian abuse aspect is ongoing.
I’m not talking about having issues with self worth, I’ve talking about being completely unable to control that and impulsively self sabotaging.
That. Isn’t something a therapist can magically wave away. That goes hand in hand with a coping mechanism going back a long time, and can take years to work over. Plus, self sabotage often comes as a consequence of low self worth. Even with therapy if you’re convinced that you deserve nothing, you’re going to try make sure you have nothing
Agreed.
The comment that kicked this off strikes me as a bit “why aren’t you FIXED yet, what’s WRONG with you?”
Idk there are just so many issues to address
“Wanted, my
best friendgirlfriend not changing so much so fast.”“You ask a lot of questions,” says Ruth, after spouting off four self-directed ones. Whereas in the context of this strip, Daisy has asked, at best, one. And we didn’t get to see it.
Dear Ruth, I do trust that one of your classes has mentioned the term “projection” by now.
As almost always, I could be wrong, but it seems pretty clear that Ruth was answering questions Daisy asked before the strip started. You know, when she didn’t say Ruth’s original answers were trite.
“You ask a lot of questions” is clearly a cover for the fact that Ruth just revealed a lot of personal details and is embarrassed.
In other words, Daisy is kind of Billie but nice – Interested in Ruth because she’s Ruth and not because she adorns her self-delusion of being a edgy, charismatic and dangerous.
Ruth, I think that Howie would care. It’s early days but I’m thinking that Daisy would too.
Hell, of COURSE Billie would care.
Going from Europe to the US for the first time, I found the experience quite similar, but for me it made me more curious than detached. Like, these are the same brands on the shelves, but in way different sizes, or why is there so much ice in a gas station. Mostly like being in a dream. But it’s true I knew all the way through that I wouldn’t have to stay for a long time
Poor Ruth. Bud I’ve to said that the current situation seems more healthy than her precedent experience. Even more sweet. Daisy seems starting to really like her. This is so nice ♡.
This is true. Also American KitKats come in orange wrappers and taste like shit
? KitKat wrappers are red
Maybe that’s why they don’t taste as good. Because they’re a different candy.
I can’t say for sure without looking at the ingredients, but I know that for a lot of American confectionery, they use HFCS (High Fructose Corn Syrup) instead of cane sugar as their sweetener, and it tastes… very different. I won’t say it’s BAD because it’s probably just a case of me growing up on cane sugar sweetened stuff and so eating anything using HFCS just tastes “wrong” on some subliminal level to me.
“Bad” is the right word. America subsidizes corn growers so heavily that HFCS is cheaper than cane sugar here, so all the cheap candy is made with it.
All the cheap everything is made with the stuff. We put it in bread, for frick’s sake.
I’m starting to think, if this date doesn’t crash and burn somehow, that Daisy and Ruth might be a more healthy relationship than Billie and Ruth were.
In honesty, it would be difficult for the relationship to be less healthy than Ruth and Billie, given the assumptions under which the previous relationship began.
Not exactly a high bar.
Hopefully they don’t trip over it.
American Smarties are weird, and probably a crime against nature.
Swedish Smarties are the same as the Canadian ones.
The more things change the more they stay the same
In the old movie “The Goodbye Girl”, Marsha Mason’s character reacts to meeting Richard Dreyfus’ character with, “An actor … another goddam actor,” as if that is her lot in life — to keep meeting the same type of person over and over again.
I sympathize here with Ruth: another goddam journalist.
Maybe Ruth needs more… “journalism”… in her life.
Smarties (American) are the only candy I eat. In Canada, they’re called Rockets and made by the same company. Strong Toronto connection, which makes sense for Ruth, eh?
To me Smarties are basically just a different brand of chocolate M&Ms. That’s not what you call Smarties
in the US, right?
Nope, smarties here are a sorta chalky candy, similar to those Valentine’s day hearts, but a bit more sour?
Our Smarties are the exact same candy Canadians call Rockets. They’re the exact same product, differentiated only by the name on the wrapper. (I think they all come out of the same factories and everything.)
same company, two plants, one in NJ the other in Ontario. Over 1 Billion rolls each year.
Not that I’m a Smarties/Rockets aficionado or anything, but I did watch a video about the making of them.
If I couldn’t get a job with Lindt Chocolates, I’d settle for them 😀
This one hurts. She really misses Jennifer, doesn’t she?
She probably also hates that Billie seems better off.
If anything she seems to be handling things better than Jennifer.
Jennifer is happy and in a relationship she’s enjoying. She’s also purged the influences that were driving her poorly.
I’m glad because I think both have the capacity to be happy, just not with each other.
We have seen Jennifer very superficially – especially the relationship. It’s possible you’re right, but hardly proven.
Certainly about purging her influences.
Just different enough. Touched by a girl, but not Billie. It’s the fucking Matrix.
Maybe she’s found a relationship better than the fake one she had.
i think she wants the “fake one” back.
is it me or have any of these characters went out on an actual social date instead of “come to my room well watch videos or play video games and maybe hook up later? ”
Because almost no one acts as they’ve on a real one
That’s pretty normal for college.
I believe those are dates.
Joyce and Joe, Becky and Dina, Ruth and Jennifer, Danny and Amber with Joyce and Ethan.
Having moved to a different country as well, I definitely feel Ruth here. Though I should note it cuts both ways – some things are better here, some things are worse. All of them are unfamiliar, though.
…………………oh
Oh I get it now.
years ago https://www.dumbingofage.com/2013/comic/book-3/02-guess-whos-coming-to-galassos/blameless/