Dumbing of Age Book Twelve

Dumbing of Age

A college webcomic by David Willis
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May 5, 2026

Move on

by David M Willis on January 2, 2022 at 12:01 am
  • 02 – I'll Leave You A Phantom
└ Tags: amber, liz, mike

Discussion (175) ¬

[ Comments RSS ]
  1. Ana Chronistic
    Ana Chronistic
    January 2, 2022 at 12:04 am | #

    hey, she still hasn’t gone

    yay?

    • Ana Chronistic
      Ana Chronistic
      January 2, 2022 at 12:04 am | #

      are we sure her school isn’t just like a block down the street or

      • The Wellerman
        The Wellerman
        January 2, 2022 at 12:07 am | #

        Perhaps there is a very compelling reason she doesn’t WANT to go back soon.

        A very COMPELLING reason. A very BAD reason.

        Willis only knows why. 😧

        • Doctor_Who
          Doctor_Who
          January 2, 2022 at 12:10 am | #

          There’s an EXTREMELY good reason.

          The stores there are out of vanilla coke.

          • The Wellerman
            The Wellerman
            January 2, 2022 at 12:12 am | #

            I was thinking more along the lines of someone or something she wants distance from, like for instance an abusive relationship she’s told nobody about.

          • The Other Mike
            The Other Mike
            January 2, 2022 at 8:00 am | #

            Best reason of all not to go there.

          • Fnord
            Fnord
            January 2, 2022 at 10:40 am | #

            …or perhaps you need to substitute a different four-letter-word beginning with ‘c’ in that statement.

            • Felix
              Felix
              January 3, 2022 at 9:13 am | #

              Cake?

        • fridge_logic
          fridge_logic
          January 2, 2022 at 12:38 am | #

          I thought your “compelling”, “bad” reason was Joe for a minute there (assuming she’s still on the fence about getting laid.

          But reading your second comment, well, if only whether or not to bang Joe was the worst of her problems.

      • AntJ
        AntJ
        January 2, 2022 at 12:14 am | #

        Ball State is in Muncie, which is a couple hours from Bloomington. So maybe she’s crashing here Becky style

        • The Wellerman
          The Wellerman
          January 2, 2022 at 12:29 am | #

          Yeah that’s kind of what I’m thinking too, but even if it is like that, there’s bound to be some key contrasts with the Becky story.

          • Adam Black
            Adam Black
            January 2, 2022 at 2:19 am | #

            Maybe not.

            Maybe she’s play acting Het just like Becky was.
            And was hoping to prove it with Joe.

            Or maybe not.

            • C.T. Phipps
              C.T. Phipps
              January 2, 2022 at 10:18 am | #

              I keep waiting to meet Mary’s parents and find they’re nice liberal Christians horrified by their daughter’s take into racism, homophobia, transphobia, and fundemantalism.

              Sort of like how Mike’s parents are sweet decent people.

            • zee
              zee
              January 2, 2022 at 11:41 am | #

              I doubt we’re gonna retread the same territory. Besides, based on what she said about her friends it doesn’t sound like ball is a Christian school like Anderson

              • Spencer
                Spencer
                January 2, 2022 at 5:15 pm | #

                Yeah, Liz was pretty clear that she’s dealing both with expectations of performative Christianity as well as her peers mocking for it.

                which

                extremely relevant to a certain other character

        • Ana Chronistic
          Ana Chronistic
          January 2, 2022 at 3:35 pm | #

          You sure she goes to Ball and didn’t actually sneak in an application to Downthestreet Insomeshadybackalley College

          or IU IDK

          • King Daniel
            King Daniel
            January 2, 2022 at 4:09 pm | #

            She actually goes to Balles State, it operates out of some dude’s backyard

      • Edwin I Callahan
        Edwin I Callahan
        January 2, 2022 at 7:35 am | #

        Liz Clinton, Fugitive from Justice?

    • Needfuldoer
      Needfuldoer
      January 2, 2022 at 6:11 am | #

      I’m beginning to suspect this alleged “ride” she’s waiting for isn’t going to show up…

    • Decidedly Orthogonal
      Decidedly Orthogonal
      January 2, 2022 at 7:35 am | #

      Nono. Yay is in a different comic… though perhaps they could help us be ride of Liz. Speaking of which, one more point against her. “Move… Move please”!? What appalling behaviour.

      • Deanatay
        Deanatay
        January 2, 2022 at 10:45 am | #

        Well, Amber was lost in a fugue state before we got the “Move please!” from Liz. It’s very likely she’d started with politer terms, and got frustrated when Amber didn’t respond.

        • Ana Chronistic
          Ana Chronistic
          January 2, 2022 at 3:32 pm | #

          She DID say thaaaank you

      • Ana Chronistic
        Ana Chronistic
        January 2, 2022 at 3:34 pm | #

        I didn’t specify Newfriend

        Could be LOTS of Yays around webcomics these days

  2. Nono
    Nono
    January 2, 2022 at 12:06 am | #

    Wasn’t Joe by the door?

    Well this should be fun.

    • alongcameaspider
      alongcameaspider
      January 2, 2022 at 12:12 am | #

      I think by the look on Liz’s face in the last panel she seems him and does not want to explain why she’s still in town

      • C.T. Phipps
        C.T. Phipps
        January 2, 2022 at 10:18 am | #

        Vanilla Coke is why she’s still in town!

    • AntJ
      AntJ
      January 2, 2022 at 12:14 am | #

      Maybe that’s why he didn’t want to go in

  3. CrazyJ
    CrazyJ
    January 2, 2022 at 12:07 am | #

    So Liz got kicked out of her college, didn’t she?

    • Rotunda
      Rotunda
      January 2, 2022 at 12:27 am | #

      We already had that with Becky, and our author likes to think up new situations rather than retread old ones. I think it’s more likely that Liz just doesn’t like Ball State, or found that she couldn’t sustain matching her online image in her real-life community. Right now she’s probably just not sure where she belongs.

  4. Thag simmons
    Thag simmons
    January 2, 2022 at 12:08 am | #

    So is Liz just a permanent addition to the cast at this point? She’s had like three fake out departures

    • Nono
      Nono
      January 2, 2022 at 12:10 am | #

      Maybe her ride really wanted Vanilla Coke.

    • The Wellerman
      The Wellerman
      January 2, 2022 at 12:10 am | #

      Considering the diverse range of frequencies for appearances of characters here, who knows.

    • Johan
      Johan
      January 2, 2022 at 12:11 am | #

      I hope not. She’s a catalyst but too much and everything just explodes.

      • Nono
        Nono
        January 2, 2022 at 12:12 am | #

        If this is Season 2 and Willis is just adding characters like Booster and Liz, I can see it.

        • RedCat
          RedCat
          January 2, 2022 at 7:59 am | #

          I like Booster. I hope we see more of them.

      • The Wellerman
        The Wellerman
        January 2, 2022 at 12:12 am | #

        Have other infrequent characters acted as catalysts as well?

        • Nono
          Nono
          January 2, 2022 at 12:16 am | #

          Booster?

        • Needfuldoer
          Needfuldoer
          January 2, 2022 at 6:13 am | #

          Carol, Linda, Toedead and the Blaine…

    • Dara
      Dara
      January 2, 2022 at 3:34 am | #

      That last panel really looks a lot like a “where the hell is my ride?!” look out the front windows. Whether it’s real or faked, though, is open to every kind of interpretation.

      • thejeff
        thejeff
        January 2, 2022 at 9:20 am | #

        Or a “damn, Joe’s out there”

        Last time we saw her, she walked away from him saying her ride was outside now. I’m starting to wonder about the existence of this ride.

    • Spencer
      Spencer
      January 2, 2022 at 1:06 pm | #

      She’ll probably be gone by tomorrow, as it’s a Sunday and the next chapter is titled Trial and Sarah.

      Liz had to stick around after the end of last chapter, as it was made clear she’s got major baggage of her end and we weren’t gonna send her off without resolving it.

  5. Kensou
    Kensou
    January 2, 2022 at 12:13 am | #

    Sometimes I think I’m the only one who gets anything like a horrible “relive excruciating moments” thing. Thanks Amber.

    • Thag Simmons
      Thag Simmons
      January 2, 2022 at 12:16 am | #

      I think it’s a pretty normal thing. I hope it’s normal, at least.

      • The Wellerman
        The Wellerman
        January 2, 2022 at 12:22 am | #

        Definitely one of MY neurodivergent stripes.

        With me it’s ALWAYS present to some degree, and when it gets really bad, I have to use ALL my fighting spirit to hold it back.

        It for this anxiety radition in my personal galaxy relates to and intensifies obsessive-compulsive tendencies to in turn try to quell that anxiety, and the only way it’s COMPLETELY turned off is when I’m on cannabis.

        • The Wellerman
          The Wellerman
          January 2, 2022 at 12:36 am | #

          At least I think it’s completely turned off. Either that or the effects on my imagination and senses are so powerfully interesting that it pulls me away from the anxiety-obsession-compulsion complex the same way the Earth’s pull of gravity is stronger than the moon’s.

          I dunno.

      • fridge_logic
        fridge_logic
        January 2, 2022 at 12:40 am | #

        It’s normal, just like getting a cough and having asthma are normal. It’s also treatable like asthma!

    • Delicious Taffy
      Delicious Taffy
      January 2, 2022 at 12:32 am | #

      Oh, yours restricts itself to just the excruciating parts? Lucky…

      • The Wellerman
        The Wellerman
        January 2, 2022 at 12:47 am | #

        I’m sorry, was that sarcasm? My detector is kind of buggy.

        • Delicious Taffy
          Delicious Taffy
          January 2, 2022 at 2:29 am | #

          A little bit. The implication is that my own anxiety still latches onto stuff like dropping a toy wrong when I was 8.

          • The Wellerman
            The Wellerman
            January 2, 2022 at 3:01 am | #

            Yeah, mine does that more frequently on top of the excruciating stuff when it gets worse.

          • Needfuldoer
            Needfuldoer
            January 2, 2022 at 6:15 am | #

            Ugh, I hear you. My brain has “Greatest Hits of Embarrassing Cringeworthy Shit Nobody Else Remembers” cued up at all times. :\

            • The Wellerman
              The Wellerman
              January 2, 2022 at 7:34 am | #

              Me too 😣

              Would you like some sympathy via light physical contact?

    • PirateTawnee
      PirateTawnee
      January 2, 2022 at 12:40 am | #

      Just reading about someone else’s makes part of my brain relive my own personal ones, so today’s strip was an absolute JOY to read.

      DYW, in a way you had no way of intending, and could not have done deliberately.

    • Opus the Poet
      Opus the Poet
      January 2, 2022 at 1:48 am | #

      I relive moments from middle school that happened more than 50 years ago, so you’re not the Lone Ranger.

    • milu
      milu
      January 2, 2022 at 9:06 am | #

      Ooh who wants to share some of their greatest hits to borrow Needfuldoer’s phrase?

      A big one of mine is getting a helpful cooking tip from a cashier and, a quirk I’d picked up god knows where that had become automatic, thanking them by doing the namaste gesture. This was a Southeast Asian grocery store. I immediately thought “oh no that will come across as a ridiculous bastardized stereotype of their culture at best, hella racist at worst” and basically ran out of the shop red faced (not that the cashier had any reaction, for all I know they didn’t care)

      I can’t stop thinking about this. I have never returned to that store. I have entirely stopped doing random namaste hands, which is the one positive outcome of this devastating interaction.

      • zee
        zee
        January 2, 2022 at 11:51 am | #

        I was on a class trip visiting a foreign school and we were playing a game, kinda like tag but when you tag someone else, you become a hoard of “it’s” rather than handing off the title. One girl fell to the floor and i think she already got tagged but i didn’t realize, so i was patting her to tag her. And then i realized that i was repeatedly tapping her breast. She was in a really baggy sweater and i wasn’t really looking so i didn’t know. I profusely apologized and she seemed to laugh it off. I just thank God I’m a girl/AFAB bc i don’t think that would have gone as smoothly if i didn’t have the same parts

    • zee
      zee
      January 2, 2022 at 11:44 am | #

      I mean everyone makes jokes about how it happens to them. Gumball had a while episode dedicated to it. It’s like, literally one of the most common subjects of relatable humor

    • StClair
      StClair
      January 2, 2022 at 2:34 pm | #

      “Sometimes, I sit and think about every stupid thing I’ve ever done. All at once.”

      • PirateTawnee
        PirateTawnee
        January 2, 2022 at 10:51 pm | #

        Wow, if I had a brain powerful enough to think of that many at once, there’d be a lot less stupid things to think about. Nice paradox.

  6. Kyrik Michalowski
    Kyrik Michalowski
    January 2, 2022 at 12:14 am | #

    And this is why we don’t talk outloud to our hallucinations, it makes life awkward.

    I say that like I haven’t gotten into a screaming match with mine…. only like 2 or 3 times though.

    • powerpowerpow
      powerpowerpow
      January 2, 2022 at 11:01 am | #

      Makes you wonder. Why’s she talking out loud if he’s in her head? He can hear her either way. Is this accurate to DID or is it just to make storytelling and jokes easier?

      • Kyrik Michalowski
        Kyrik Michalowski
        January 2, 2022 at 3:11 pm | #

        I don’t really know, I generally keep my replies to the hallucination mental only. But sometimes I go off and have to actually say it outloud, screaming or not.

      • Jenn
        Jenn
        January 2, 2022 at 6:09 pm | #

        She knows he’s in her head, too, which makes it all the stranger.

      • thejeff
        thejeff
        January 2, 2022 at 6:33 pm | #

        Her interactions with head-Mike seem very different than those with Amazi-Girl.

        Closer maybe to the one interaction with her internal Blaine figure way back after the Ryan-stabbing.

  7. alongcameaspider
    alongcameaspider
    January 2, 2022 at 12:14 am | #

    So Liz is still here, interesting

    She looks nervous in the last panel so I wonder if she seems Joe and doesn’t want a confrontation over why she’s still in town

    • Amós Batista
      Amós Batista
      January 2, 2022 at 6:39 am | #

      Nervous? She looks tired for me…

      • Needfuldoer
        Needfuldoer
        January 2, 2022 at 8:54 am | #

        Maybe she didn’t sleep last night either, just wandered around campus having an existential crisis.

    • MacareuxMoine
      MacareuxMoine
      January 2, 2022 at 10:09 am | #

      It seems to me, that you managed to make the same typo twice (without copy-pasting?).
      At first I thought it was just an idiom/slang term I didn’t know. But neither LEO nor the Urban Dictionary seem to agree with your use of the word ‘seem’.
      Therefor I concluded that you probably meant to write ‘she sees him/Joe’.

      • alongcameaspider
        alongcameaspider
        January 2, 2022 at 1:35 pm | #

        I think what may have happened was I accidentally hit the “m” on my phone keyboard trying to hit the space bar and wasn’t paying attention enough to notice the typo, and then autocorrect put the space between “seem” and “joe”

    • MacareuxMoine
      MacareuxMoine
      January 2, 2022 at 10:51 am | #

      I can think of three possibilities:
      1. She spotted Joe earlier (while figuring out where the pop was) and is now checking whether he still lurks around the entrance.
      2. She just spotted someone lurking around the entrance and tries to figure out whether it is Joe. (She has no reason to connect him to Amber)
      3. She’s looking out for some not-Joe-related reason, that we don’t know about yet.

      • J. Gawain
        J. Gawain
        January 2, 2022 at 11:40 am | #

        She appears concerned in the last panel. My thought is that she is waiting on a ride that isn’t going to arrive. When she finally gives up on the ride, she will show up at Sarah’s door in tears because the people she though were her friends at college abandoned her here.

  8. Sporky
    Sporky
    January 2, 2022 at 12:15 am | #

    I’m not a huge fan of regular Coke (I’m a Dr Pepper guy) but I actually like Vanilla Coke a lot more, anyone else?

    • Axel_Grease
      Axel_Grease
      January 2, 2022 at 12:20 am | #

      Vanilla Coke is the bomb.

    • Greg
      Greg
      January 2, 2022 at 12:21 am | #

      Not more than regular Coke but I do like Vanilla Coke quite a bit. My treat these days is a glass bottle Mexican Coke but every once in a while I’ll grab a Vanilla Coke and it’s pretty good.

    • Schpoonman
      Schpoonman
      January 2, 2022 at 12:31 am | #

      Of the three colas (if we’re considering DP a cola), same, but while I generally prefer root beer over any of the three, Vanilla Coke and Wild Cherry Pepsi are two stand-outs to me.

      • Delicious Taffy
        Delicious Taffy
        January 2, 2022 at 12:33 am | #

        You’re gonna pick DJ Pepulon as a cola, over Royal Crown?

        • Schpoonman
          Schpoonman
          January 2, 2022 at 1:10 am | #

          “What the hell is Royal Cro–oh, RC.”

          Hey, look, Taco Mayo is not an unpopular fast food chain, but Taco Bell is the internationally-recognizable name.

          • Delicious Taffy
            Delicious Taffy
            January 2, 2022 at 2:30 am | #

            If you out Crown Royal in a Royal Crown, is that an RCCR, a CRRC, an RRCC, or a CCRR?

            • woobie
              woobie
              January 2, 2022 at 4:08 am | #

              Alcohol first. So CRRC Cola.

              • Needfuldoer
                Needfuldoer
                January 2, 2022 at 8:54 am | #

                Cyclic Redundancy Redundancy Check Cola?

                Creedence Clearwater Revival Revival Cola?

    • Amós Batista
      Amós Batista
      January 2, 2022 at 6:40 am | #

      Pass. It taste like Expectorant to me.

      • Decidedly Orthogonal
        Decidedly Orthogonal
        January 2, 2022 at 7:43 am | #

        Seconded. Whatever it is that they’re using for “vanilla” does not taste anything like vanilla.

    • MacareuxMoine
      MacareuxMoine
      January 2, 2022 at 9:53 am | #

      Correct me if I’m wrong, but isn’t ‘vanilla’ a slang term for ‘regular’? 😉

      • brionl
        brionl
        January 2, 2022 at 12:30 pm | #

        It is indeed. But it’s also an actual flavor:

        https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vanilla_extract

      • Delicious Taffy
        Delicious Taffy
        January 2, 2022 at 11:01 pm | #

        Missionary Coke

    • zee
      zee
      January 2, 2022 at 11:54 am | #

      Doesn’t exist in my country .-.
      None of the coke flavors do except like, zero. We’re more a Pepsi people.

    • brionl
      brionl
      January 2, 2022 at 12:29 pm | #

      Well, I don’t really care for vanilla coke. I particularly don’t like cherry cola (or cherry anything for that matter), but I used to love Shasta brand Black Cherry Cola when I was a kid. I still get a six pack of Black Cherry from time to time, but it’s mostly regular ol’ store brand cola for me.

  9. thakoru
    thakoru
    January 2, 2022 at 12:22 am | #

    I’m starting to think we’ve got another Becky situation. Like, probably not exactly, but something’s going on.

    • Raen
      Raen
      January 2, 2022 at 12:27 am | #

      Becky situation?

      • Thag simmons
        Thag simmons
        January 2, 2022 at 12:34 am | #

        A Runaway, for one reason or another.

        I’m not 100% on it yet, still don’t have a motive, but every reappearance of Liz makes it seem a little more likely

      • Schpoonman
        Schpoonman
        January 2, 2022 at 12:36 am | #

        When Becky first showed up after the opening strips it was under the pretense of just being there for a day or so to hang out, before the reveal. Liz was supposed to be gone this time yesterday, and I think most of the commentariat also assumed she’d be gone this morning.

      • Dana
        Dana
        January 2, 2022 at 2:00 am | #

        Nobody puts Baby in the corner.

  10. BBCC
    BBCC
    January 2, 2022 at 12:30 am | #

    Damn, Amber’s relatable in this strip.

  11. newlland(Henryvolt)
    newlland(Henryvolt)
    January 2, 2022 at 12:31 am | #

    My top 3 cokes flavors

    Classics Coke

    Vanilla Coke

    Cherry Coke.

    Who’s is Who’s favorite?

    • Delicious Taffy
      Delicious Taffy
      January 2, 2022 at 12:36 am | #

      I’m partial to that orange one they’ve got.

    • The Wellerman
      The Wellerman
      January 2, 2022 at 12:39 am | #

      Classic Coke has ALWAYS been a favorite, but since last year it’s actually been Cherry.

    • RassilonTDavros
      RassilonTDavros
      January 2, 2022 at 12:55 am | #

      I kinda liked the Cinnamon Coke they released in Winter 2019. Especially with a little Captain Morgan Spiced Rum (or whatever it was my gramps had on hand, I forget).

      • brionl
        brionl
        January 2, 2022 at 12:32 pm | #

        Sometimes when I’m drinking a can of coke, I’ll take a cinnamon Altoid and throw it in the can.

    • Robbie
      Robbie
      January 2, 2022 at 3:16 am | #

      I’m waiting for Sprite Remix to come back

    • Laura
      Laura
      January 2, 2022 at 5:07 am | #

      Mecca Cola, made with cane sugar and not with corn syrup, is amazing.

      Surprisingly, Cuban cola is awful.

    • J. Gawain
      J. Gawain
      January 2, 2022 at 11:43 am | #

      My favorite is “yeah, coke is fine”

    • zee
      zee
      January 2, 2022 at 11:54 am | #

      Dr. Pepper

    • StClair
      StClair
      January 2, 2022 at 2:39 pm | #

      Classic is my caffienated drink of choice. Vanilla is nice, but not worth going out of my way for. Cherry is meh.

  12. bleepbloop
    bleepbloop
    January 2, 2022 at 12:38 am | #

    Starting to think she dropped out hm

  13. JessWitt
    JessWitt
    January 2, 2022 at 12:40 am | #

    Liz is part of the Gravatar cast so I figured she’d be seen slightly more often in the comic.

    Amber is feeling rough right now but Joe’s about to be even more so when Liz finds him.

    • Heather
      Heather
      January 2, 2022 at 6:19 am | #

      Yeah she should at least reach Jason or Ethan levels of appearances but I hope she gets more than that.

  14. RassilonTDavros
    RassilonTDavros
    January 2, 2022 at 12:47 am | #

    One the one hand I like Liz and would love to see her join full time, but on the other hand I’m also really worried about why she hasn’t gone back. I’m wondering if she’s escaping an abusive relationship/friendship of some sort…

  15. Clif
    Clif
    January 2, 2022 at 2:14 am | #

    Where is Liz spending her nights?

    • Rotunda
      Rotunda
      January 2, 2022 at 2:51 am | #

      There has only been one night so far, but we don’t know where she slept. We have not seen any evidence that she was either in Joyce and Sarah’s room or in Joe and Danny’s room.

  16. Adam Black
    Adam Black
    January 2, 2022 at 2:26 am | #

    Amber looks tiny next to Liz.

    Do we know their heights ?

    • Delicious Taffy
      Delicious Taffy
      January 2, 2022 at 2:31 am | #

      Amber is 5’11”, Liz is 6′.

      • CrazyJ
        CrazyJ
        January 2, 2022 at 5:15 am | #

        That can’t be right. There’s some perspective going on in the last panel, but in the second panel they are side by side there’s clearly more than an inch difference between them. Actually Liz looks she’s the same height as (imaginary) Mike.

        • Delicious Taffy
          Delicious Taffy
          January 2, 2022 at 5:47 am | #

          My crummy joke has crashed and burned. See, there’s a running gag in certain corners of the Net where you put two people with significant height differences together, no matter how vast the gap, and claim the shorter person is 5’11” and the taller person is 6′ exactly. The sometimes-spoken reasoning is that #women see any guy under 6′, even if it’s just by an inch, and to them he may as well be an ant, because all women care about is your height. Used ironically, this gag makes fun of people who use it in earnest, and I was hoping y’all would be in the know so I didn’t need to explain it.

          • Heather
            Heather
            January 2, 2022 at 8:31 am | #

            I remember there was a guy online maybe on Reddit or Twitter who admitted he himself was exactly 6ft but saw so many guys irl shorter than him claiming they were (and started to do dumb things like say he must be like 6ft 2 or 3 as if they were doing him a favour) and so decided to claim he was 5ft 11 instead and watch as the other guys spluttered as he of course had effectively had reduced their height too to the “undesirable” zone.

            • Needfuldoer
              Needfuldoer
              January 2, 2022 at 9:04 am | #

              I’ve gotten that before, and I know I’m 5’11.5″ tall. The CDC says 5’9″ is average, and nobody really gives a flying fuck anyway. We don’t live in the world of Invader Zim, your height only affects how often you’re asked to reach things on tall shelves.

              The insecure alpha bro mindset is baffling.

              • J. Gawain
                J. Gawain
                January 2, 2022 at 11:31 am | #

                Height also affects how often you need to duck. I’m average, but my sister is a shorty. The only definition of “duck” she knows quacks.

              • The Wellerman
                The Wellerman
                January 2, 2022 at 3:56 pm | #

                I have nothing relevant to say here, but I’m just SO happy that somebody here remembers Invader Zim after all these years!!! 😊

          • Spencer
            Spencer
            January 2, 2022 at 2:22 pm | #

            i laughed

          • StClair
            StClair
            January 2, 2022 at 2:44 pm | #

            My first association is with broken character scaling in most MMOs, where the standard human male is 6′, which makes trying to create characters with any sort of more realistic height(s) extremely fraught.

            • Delicious Taffy
              Delicious Taffy
              January 2, 2022 at 11:04 pm | #

              My character in Final Fantasy 14 is 7’3″. She big. Watching other people’s cutscenes, I’m always like “Yo, who’s ordered the shrimp?”

    • Heather
      Heather
      January 2, 2022 at 8:27 am | #

      I think Ambers definitely below average height she’s probably something like 5ft or 5ft 1.

      • Needfuldoer
        Needfuldoer
        January 2, 2022 at 9:08 am | #

        She’s slightly shorter than Joyce and Dorothy, and we know Joyce is 5’4″.

        https://www.dumbingofage.com/2020/comic/book-10/04-is-a-song-forever/evacuated/

        • Heather
          Heather
          January 2, 2022 at 9:21 am | #

          Huh probably 5ft 3 then so dead on average for a woman at least where I’m from. Huh. Idk I guess walking around with Joe lately made me think ‘wow so tiny’.

          • zee
            zee
            January 2, 2022 at 11:57 am | #

            Imo anything under 5’5 is gremlin height. 5’3 is also average for my country. We are a short people.

        • King Daniel
          King Daniel
          January 2, 2022 at 10:21 am | #

          On phone, but there’s two strips I’m thinking of where Amber describes herself to Danny as sharing a “five-foot-four meat vehicle” and AG describes herself as “five-foot-five in boots”, respectively.

          • King Daniel
            King Daniel
            January 2, 2022 at 10:27 am | #

            Self-correction: non-costumed meat vehicle is 5’2” https://www.dumbingofage.com/2017/comic/book-7/03-the-thing-i-was-before/find/

            • King Daniel
              King Daniel
              January 2, 2022 at 10:32 am | #

              The costume does indeed increase her height to 5’5” though: https://www.dumbingofage.com/2013/comic/book-3/02-guess-whos-coming-to-galassos/vandals/

  17. Lawzlo
    Lawzlo
    January 2, 2022 at 2:55 am | #

    Great, now I have the “Cat Came Back” song stuck in my head for the next two weeks.

    • Nicoleandmaggie
      Nicoleandmaggie
      January 2, 2022 at 9:21 am | #

      Me too!

    • Rectilinear Propagation
      Rectilinear Propagation
      January 3, 2022 at 4:55 am | #

      Cat Came Back: https://youtu.be/gTLZHoRH394

      It won’t actually help you get the song out your head but at least it will be different? (Also, the little girl insisting that she’s a unicorn in the outtakes is funny.)

      • Rectilinear Propagation
        Rectilinear Propagation
        January 3, 2022 at 8:57 am | #

        Remix, it’s a remix. I don’t know how I missed getting that word in there.

  18. Acher4
    Acher4
    January 2, 2022 at 4:13 am | #

    Yeeeeeeeeep!
    Liz is never leaving. 😛

  19. DarkoNeko
    DarkoNeko
    January 2, 2022 at 4:23 am | #

    whyyyy are you still here

  20. Heather
    Heather
    January 2, 2022 at 5:40 am | #

    Liz honey. I am growing concerned.

    My personal theory right now is that you just don’t want to go back to your terrible sounding so-called friends after your emotional situation with Joe. Like these are the people Liz says treat her like she’s an idiot after all.

    I doubt she can go to them and face further ridicule and abuse if she dared open up to them about her complicated feelings.

    Like Dorothy isn’t perfect sometimes in this Joyce situation but I think she would try and genuinely help her in her feelings of feeling she could have been ‘ruined’ which shows that toxic Christianity still has her brain in its stranglehold. (Might result in some interesting road paths and openings for Becky too come to that which I think have been brought up before by her). Like if Liz was her Joyce you know and she knew this? She’d be concerned for her.

    But like Liz goes to some religious group which has a reputation of being wretched and awful. Does she actually have any real friends? Would they brutally mock her if she showed an ounce of her true vulnerability? Out her to her stepmother? Can Liz trust anyone back at her college?

  21. Rabisch
    Rabisch
    January 2, 2022 at 6:14 am | #

    Mike’s “ghost” is haunting Amber’s head, Liz is haunting the campus and, maybe/very probably, Joe… Say whatever you want, but it’s nice to see two brothers facing a problem somewhere similar in their life at the same time. They can share solutions.

  22. Plaaaa
    Plaaaa
    January 2, 2022 at 6:50 am | #

    What’s with the weird look on her face? Is she coming down from hee men’s multivitamin high?

  23. Daibhid C
    Daibhid C
    January 2, 2022 at 8:00 am | #

    Okay, I get that Mike is in Amber’s head, but in the last panel, why is she in mine?

  24. DarkoNeko
    DarkoNeko
    January 2, 2022 at 8:47 am | #

    Frankly vanilla coke sounds like a very very gross idea. why not strawberry while you’re at it

    • Rectilinear Propagation
      Rectilinear Propagation
      January 3, 2022 at 4:51 am | #

      I think you have to be the kind of person who likes to make floats with vanilla ice cream and Coke.

      I just nostalgia bombed myself because now I’m thinking about how my dad made us floats as kids (with root beer, I don’t like Coke). Do people still make root beer floats?

  25. Keulen
    Keulen
    January 2, 2022 at 8:56 am | #

    Shouldn’t Liz have gone back to her college by now?

    • Harry Johnston
      Harry Johnston
      January 3, 2022 at 1:59 am | #

      We don’t know how much time passed between Liz leaving and Amber starting her conversation with Joe. If it was only a minute or two, Amber and Joe might simply have beaten Liz to the shop. I’m by no means certain this is the case, but it is a possibility.

      • Harry Johnston
        Harry Johnston
        January 3, 2022 at 2:16 am | #

        (Or, more likely, gotten to the shop after Liz arrived but before she found what she was looking for.)

        • Harry Johnston
          Harry Johnston
          January 4, 2022 at 12:34 am | #

          OK, prediction falsified, never mind.

  26. Keulen
    Keulen
    January 2, 2022 at 9:03 am | #

    DoA Book 12: It’s a Good Thing I Don’t Have Social Anxiety or Anything, or I’d Be Reliving This Brief Failure in My Head for the Next 65 Years

  27. Deviant
    Deviant
    January 2, 2022 at 9:08 am | #

    Its strange that she is so aware of her psychology, while at the same time conversing with the hallucination of a diseased friend.

    I’m pretty sure a lot of Ambers symptoms are linked to pretty severe schizophrenia.

    • zee
      zee
      January 2, 2022 at 12:03 pm | #

      Not all hallucinations and severe mental health issues are schizophrenia .-.
      This is like just a symptom of her DID, MAYBE psychotic depression

      • zee
        zee
        January 2, 2022 at 12:03 pm | #

        **likely

    • Tan
      Tan
      January 2, 2022 at 12:34 pm | #

      Being aware of one’s own psychology does not make it just go away.

      • Spencer
        Spencer
        January 2, 2022 at 12:41 pm | #

        yeh

        It’s not at all comforting to learn that your brain is inherently broken as opposed to definitely being correct about how much you hate yourself.

        At least with the latter, you’ve come to a rational conclusion by examining empirical evidence.

        • StClair
          StClair
          January 2, 2022 at 2:51 pm | #

          Yup. I mean, on some level it’s sometimes a comfort to be able to name the thing rather than just being tossed helplessly around by it like a whirlpool. On the other hand, sometimes even after you realize it… you’re still there.

  28. Keulen
    Keulen
    January 2, 2022 at 9:11 am | #

    At least Liz actually tells people to move when they’re in the way of something she wants to buy. I usually just pretend to be looking at something else nearby until the person in the way decides to move and I can what I wanted.

    • brute
      brute
      January 2, 2022 at 10:38 am | #

      same here 🙁

    • Queezle
      Queezle
      January 2, 2022 at 11:27 am | #

      yeah..me too

    • J. Gawain
      J. Gawain
      January 2, 2022 at 11:34 am | #

      I always think about asking them to move, but then the terror of coming off as rude or negative in some way crashes over me. so…yeah… me as well.

    • Spencer
      Spencer
      January 2, 2022 at 1:00 pm | #

      I feel as if this is a degree of polite civility I should embody as a Canadian, and yet I do not.

      I also send my food back in drive-thrus and restaurants should it be done improperly, which I believe to be an action best defined in an alignment chart.

      • milu
        milu
        January 2, 2022 at 1:16 pm | #

        lawful evil?

      • Rani
        Rani
        January 2, 2022 at 1:47 pm | #

        If you tip the server 20% after sending your food back, it’s lawful neutral.

        Even a dime less and it’s straight to hell with you, scum.

        • Spencer
          Spencer
          January 2, 2022 at 2:20 pm | #

          I tip when I feel like it, which is often, granted, just not all the time. Usually I just round up to the nearest five or ten if applicable, since I tend to dine out alone. At worst I’ll throw in a couple books since I used to work the restaurant beat as a dishwasher, and so I like the idea of throwing a little bonus for the unthanked cooks and dishwashers in the back.

          This is a perk of living in a country without the societal-ingrained expectation that tipping is a moral imperative, and where our minimum wage isn’t entirely worthless chump change, just mostly.

  29. Spencer
    Spencer
    January 2, 2022 at 9:34 am | #

    “For me, classes were canceled forever.”

    Not because she’s a lesbian, though, but because she willingly drinks Vanilla Coke.

    It’s stank.

  30. Bagge
    Bagge
    January 2, 2022 at 9:51 am | #

    “Remember that one time you stood in the way in the grocery store? Ooooooooh!” Mind Mike, from now on.

  31. Alaric
    Alaric
    January 2, 2022 at 9:55 am | #

    Is that mouse over text implying that there’s something… FELINE about Liz? Or just that she’s impossible to get rid of? Or both?

  32. nothri
    nothri
    January 2, 2022 at 12:39 pm | #

    Well, to be fair, I am glad this is not Amazi-girl’s true origin story.

  33. Spencer
    Spencer
    January 2, 2022 at 12:55 pm | #

    What if Liz shows up at Macaroni night

  34. Rani
    Rani
    January 2, 2022 at 1:48 pm | #

    I figured it out.

    Liz is OUR alter.

  35. RedCat
    RedCat
    January 2, 2022 at 3:48 pm | #

    Wait. That’s not vanilla coke! That’s cherry!

  36. AlexaSpuds
    AlexaSpuds
    January 2, 2022 at 5:32 pm | #

    hell yeah, Becky 2.0
    except she’s not a lesbian so that’s unfortunate

  37. Sombrero
    Sombrero
    January 2, 2022 at 6:29 pm | #

    Comment section: It’s time to move on, Liz. Move.

    Liz: No.

    • Spencer
      Spencer
      January 2, 2022 at 6:45 pm | #

      Doesn’t matter what the press says. Doesn’t matter what the politicians or the mobs say. Doesn’t matter if the whole country decides that something wrong is something right.

      This nation was founded on one principle above all else: The requirement that we stand up for what we believe, no matter the odds or the consequences. When the mob and the press and the whole world tell you to move, your job is to plant yourself like a tree beside the river of truth, and tell the whole world — “No, YOU move.”

      – Liz Clinton

      • Spencer
        Spencer
        January 2, 2022 at 6:45 pm | #

        (I like Cap well enough but you could put this speech in the mouth of the Red Skull and not change a single line of dialogue)

        • David M Willis
          David M Willis
          January 2, 2022 at 9:59 pm | #

          that speech has always annoyed me because every-fuckin’-body thinks they’re the captain america in this situation and nobody ever thinks they’re the bad guy

          • Spencer
            Spencer
            January 2, 2022 at 10:52 pm | #

            Oh whoops, somehow posted my reply as a regular comment

  38. Spencer
    Spencer
    January 2, 2022 at 10:51 pm | #

    Right???

    Like on one hand, the intended message is one of value; have the conviction to see your ideals through in the face of adversity, but that’s really all the worth it has, and that message is one where the value can be meted out in ways that aren’t “bro just ignore everyone around you and win one for the Gipper.”

    In-universe, it’s Captain America saying he’ll fight for his ideals even though he’s currently fighting against a law that says him and his godly powered buddies aren’t allowed to smash buildings with no consequence (and while this is a bigger “but realism!” issue, Civil War is a story intended to be about that moral greyity). Out of universe, it’s a literal ubermensch declaring that he gets to decide what’s right and wrong on his own and with no oversight. It’s attempting to pass indulgent Great Man fantasies as profound conviction, and it somehow feels more fascist than that time Captain America was an actual Nazi.

    The real joke to Cap nowadays is that they make him so stuck up his ass righteous about everything, either a pillar of moral character or an old fogey who needs the kids to show him how it’s done now, when back in the day he was a firebrand mouthpiece for the traditionally left wing comics beat to talk smack about whatever they felt was wrong about America today. Dude was invented by Jack Kirby and Joe Simon, dudes who hated Nazis so much they drew an anthropomorphized American flag punching Hitler a whole year before Pearl Harbor and got death threats for that from fascist sympathizers who’d call them up and then piss their pants and flee when Kirby walked down there ready to throw hands. You find any noteworthy page of the character before 1990 and it’s probably him being viscerally, angrily loud about decency as a moral requirement of Americans.

    Seriously, you can go on google right now and find panels of comics from, like, the 70s and 80s where he’s screaming at a newspaper that the US needs to leave Latin America alone and that an America that lets a fascist oppress everyone by justifying it as keeping America great is a piece of trash filled with idiots. Captain America is comics’ greatest social justice warrior and I wouldn’t have him another way.

    • The Wellerman
      The Wellerman
      January 2, 2022 at 11:26 pm | #

      “He gets to decide what’s right and wrong on his own and with no oversight. It’s attempting to pass indulgent Great Man fantasies as profound conviction, and it somehow feels more fascist than that time Captain America was an actual Nazi.”

      Basically Stan Smith from American Dad in a nutshell (bourgeoisie prick).

      • Delicious Taffy
        Delicious Taffy
        January 2, 2022 at 11:33 pm | #

        Yeah but with Stan that’s The Joke of the show.

  39. Axel
    Axel
    January 3, 2022 at 12:05 am | #

    maybe it’s my Canadian-ness but who says “move” instead of “excuse me”

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