Iris Black is a self-proclaimed inventor with the curious ability to bring his drawings to life, and yearns to find a space where he can use his powers freely.
Guilded Age
T Campbell, John Waltrip, Florence Machina
Welcome to the saga of the working-class adventurer! Enjoy the complete story with new annotations daily!
Beeserker
TJ Cordes
This comic is about a robot powered by bees, but it's also about the kind of people who think filling a robot with bees is a good idea, and why they're wrong.
Fantomestein
Beka Duke
Desperate for companionship, Frankenstein's Monster pretends to be the Opera Ghost. A grave mistake.
Cyanide & Happiness
Explosm
Satire, dark humor and surreal humor.
Slightly Damned
Chu
Rhea Snaketail returns from the dead, befriending a Demon who falls in love with an Angel. The afterlife ain't what it used to be!
Dumbing of Age
David M Willis
Joyce has been homeschooled her entire life until now, when she's suddenly a freshman in college! Things don't go well.
Namesake
Isa, Meg
There's ghosts at your heels and fairy tale worlds ahead. What do you do? Jump down the rabbit hole!
The Otherknown
Lorian Merriman
Chandra is a 12-year-old accidental time traveler with a reluctant new dad, who happens to be a member of a feared galactic crime syndicate.
Mac Hall
Matt Boyd
The legendary early-aughts webcomic that inspired a wave of webcomic creators.
Paint the Town Red
Windy, Winter Jay Kiakas
Winona runs a werewolf shelter with partner in crime, Odile in the Gothic city of Merlot. One day they take in an injured vampire, and soon unravels many of the dark secrets of Merlot.
2 Slices
RJ Morel
After a case of mistaken identity, will awkward Daisuke find help from excitable Mamo, or will his love life be thrown completely off track?
Blindsprings
Kadi Fedoruk
Tamaura, wrested into a world 300 years in the future, must find a way to save the magic fading from her country.
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I had this idea once for a character called “De Rien Gris.” De Rien Gris isn’t bothered, nothing’s a big deal to him. But his attic-portrait is very bothered indeed.
For all their other antics, Booster never creeped me out. I like them well enough. This however, is the most Patrick Bateman behaviour I’ve seen a cartoon do. Yikes.
After a breakup of a 5 year relationship, I took selfies of myself anytime I was crying or about to cry in situations where I wanted to keep it together – on the bus, waiting for class to start, etc. The act of getting out my phone, and something about seeing myself through a lens, slightly objectifying/othering myself, made it much easier to calm down and stay in control. So I relate pretty hard to booster here
I did let myself be sad and cry, just tried to avoid it while out and about
I mean, don’t all teens/younger ppl have some sociopathic traits before they mature? That’s why middle school is so rough on ppl lol, but i feel like another person in their own psych class would’ve called them out (assuming they aren’t all egomaniacs trying to “one up” each other and diagnosis everyone)
People trying to “one up” each other was my experience with freshman psychology students… Honestly a lot of science students in general… And some people in creative writing… Some college freshman are just brats I guess
As much as they look sad here, I have no sympathy for Booster. Amber asks a good question, do they have any friends? Walky is their roommate and appreciates using their Switch but besides that, who do they have?
Considering their former roommate dead named them I betting no, they don’t have any friends. Maybe their cool with their twin though. So far they seem cool with their sib.
even a shitty person doesn’t deserve to be deadnamed (tho other than their legal/birthname being shown somewhere when they first joined the dorm, i’m not sure how they could purposefully call them the wrong name if they introduced themselves to everyone as ‘booster’ unless they realized they were non binary in the middle of teh semester)
I don’t think it was because Booster was shitty, but I do think it is a sign they struggled to form any social connections at their last dorm wing. If even your roommate is hostile to you it’s a decent sign you’re not doing well socially, cause typically a roommate should have interest in staying in good term with you just to function in their living space. Like Roz tolerates living with Mary despite how awful she is. If Booster was doing worse than Mary something was up. I’m really interested in details for why they transferred now.
Or a sign you’ve got an awful roommate.
Roz isn’t doing poorly socially just because Mary is hostile to her. Roz, who was trying for the RA job just to get away from Mary.
I don’t doubt their roommate was shitty and I was implying that Mary was the social outcast because the entire wing hates her, but Roz has still established a functioning dynamic with her. So has Sal with Malaya. To me that shows they were capable of forming connections with peers outside their dorm. They all have a support network. To me the fact Booster left their wing implies they might have felt more isolated there for some reason. They didn’t have anyone to confide in, challenge their roommate, possibly even their RA was shittier than Ruth. Like imagine if that period where Ruth was blackmailed into ignoring Mary’s transphobic tormenting of Carla except it never got solved. That’s what I’m imaging Booster was dealing with.
Booster is nonbinary and displays a few traits that upset a large subsection of people. Someone being shitty to them (especially by deadnaming them) could easily have absolutely nothing to do with them. I’m sure you didn’t mean it, but this comment reads a little victim-blaming like “if Booster wasn’t struggling to form social connections they wouldn’t have been deadnamed” which, in my experience, is the furthest thing from the truth.
Maybe they also struggle to form social relationships (I do think we can see that’s true), but I definitely don’t think that’s why they were deadnamed. And if it was the excuse their roomie used, it’s still their roomie who is a massive jagoff in that situation, not Booster for struggling with likeability.
I’m not trying to victim blame Boister what I’m trying to say is they didn’t have anyone to support them when it happened. In the comic we’ve seen the wing rally around our cast when bad stuff happens. Like everyone rallying around Billie when she punched Mary for being horrible to Carla, or them all hiding and protecting Becky when she was homeless and on the run from her dad. I don’t think Booster had that at their old dorm wing, which is why they transferred when the dead naming happened. And I’m interested in how it all went down. There is potential for an interesting story there. Other wings probably don’t operate like the one we know.
Unless Booster took pains to scrub their deadname, someone who wants to can often find it. If they have a facefook account, just go look and see what someone called them before they came out. Or take a look at their drivers license since that would have their legal name. Or meet someone who knew them from before coming out who spills the beans. Or maybe the ex-roommate went to high school with them, shared a room because they were friends, but had a falling out. Lots of options.
I just can’t read that sentence without thinking “awww poor thing” rather than as a “gotcha”. Not having friends sucks. Especially if you’re bad at making them.
Momentary happiness and momentary sadness may underline a consistent longing, that, while not a crippling depression may be eating away at them underneath it all. The fact that they felt anything at all from Amber’s comment makes me feel like this did strike a nerve, even if they were able to alleviate it with their craft.
Just cuz I draw dumb shit and make jokes doesn’t mean I’m any less lonely than when I lie awake and wonder if I’m wasting my life.
Oh it definitely got to them. This isn’t a thing they quickly got over. This is a thing they’ve confronted more than once before they’ve gotten good at quickly distracting themselves from.
Booster keeps trying to find the softest spots to needle her, and she doesn’t like it, plus they’ve signaled an interest in pursuing her. Amber doesn’t have to fix that Booster might not have friends, just to establish that she definitely doesn’t want to be one. Finding friends for Booster is ultimately their job, not hers.
She wants to protect Ethan and herself from a person who seems mainly interested and titillated by their discomfort and vulnerability and trauma.
You don’t have to be unfailingly nice to people, especially if they aren’t being nice to you.
There’s a reason why I commented downthread that this felt like the proper start of a character arc for Booster (where everything to this point’s really been more establishing them as a character in the established cast.)
So far, every time they’ve been in a scene except the Season Two introductory storyline (where Walky and then Joyce were introducing them to the hall), it’s either been set in/the hallway outside Walky and their dorm room, or Booster’s been in a common area alone. We’ve yet to see them enter a scene along with another character – even background ones. They just walk on/are sitting eating/whatever, add to the scene, and then someone walks away. Which is probably why they look sad – Amber is right, they don’t, except maybe their twin. (Who may or may not be at school here. If they aren’t going to the same school, then Booster’s alone and missing their closest friend. If they are, then it’s very noticeable that Booster hasn’t been shown hanging out with them at any point.)
Now, maybe they could have other friends from home… but it’s second semester, and we know they were at school last semester because of the previous roommate. The fact that they haven’t made any yet on campus does not suggest great things for their socializing last semester.
Having had a very isolated college experience due to social anxiety and undiagnosed health issues myself, I can sympathize (no, seriously, I have NO MEMORY of my first semester because my Vitamin D levels were so obscenely low and my thyroid was inflamed so basically all my time not in class was sleeping,) but we can also conclude that a fair amount of that isolation is because the psychoanalysis trick is not a great first step for making friends.
don’t think they’ve shown up enough to mention any previous friends, but i imagine they’d either befriend ppl they only find ‘fascinating’, or they had ‘boring/’normal” friends when they were younger who didn’t have any known issues and maybe got bored of them. (i mean everyone can be unique and individualistic but nothing wrong with being an ‘average joe’ that’s from some cookie cutter set personality or so aka ‘basic’ but i imagine the background ppl that blend in with the crowd isn’t what most teens/college age students look for in a friend)
So, then, I was right when I noted that Booster’s ALWAYS been introduced showing up on their own.
And that sure does look like the beginnings of a proper character arc, there. Good! And Joyce potentially picking up an art class might put them in the same buildings around the same times to start some active interacting there. (Also possibilities: Malaya and Mary, both of whom are established enough characters that they easily CAN maintain a subplot but haven’t been present enough that they could really carry one without a main character, either, with so many plotlines demanding attention.) So this could be VERY interesting indeed.
Plus, you know, the default hilarity of Joyce in a life-drawing class. I’m just saying. We could get that, AND Mary’s seething one-sided rivalry with Malaya.
See, I’m game for super pathetic if it means potentially getting a little more development for Malaya, who was set up as the potential hook for a subplot with Mary when we saw them before timeskip. We haven’t seen much of him since.
And more of her may also mean more of Marcie. Which is obviously worth it even to Malaya non-enjoyers, but I’d like to see them maybe pick up some things to be genuinely interested in and those things to get screentime.
Mary’s most interesting when the super mean and super pathetic sides of her are at odds. Even though “Super judgmental Christian” is pretty much her entire character, she always seems like she’s about five seconds from flipping a switch to “Super judgmental Athiest” like how Joyce was for a bit, but a million times worse, because she thinks it’ll make her more popular and Christianity was just an excuse to be mean.
And, if and when it happens, Woke Mary is going to be so fucking funny.
I have been holding off on judging Booster since I figure they’ve been getting set up for their arc. They gotta get some learnin in em before they get to be a kind-of-okay person.
Also, I think Booster and Joyce, and Booster and Malaya would be interesting friend-ships! Like, B is someone who hasn’t already built an expectation about who Joyce is pre-autism-arc and their interest in psychology could make them an ally for her while her patience as someone who also had to learn how to people could help them be less of a dick.
Meanwhile Malaya and Booster (and Carla) together would be a fun lil volcano of egos that could cut them both down to a more palatable size.
(Plus now I have this image in my head of a coversation between J and B that results in a Malaya-esque moment of “wait, am I the aut-y?”
Malaya, Booster, and Carla, the trio I never knew I needed
Not in a dating way, but like, go down to the corner marr, grab some chips, come back at stream the worst B movie they can find, and talk shit about it while Carla relates it back to herself somehow. Love it
You know something? It’s said that IRL people with great natural talent in psychology often have that talent because they had to use it survive in abusive environments.
Makes me wonder if this will be revealed of Booster.
Some people train themselves a lot/take special interest in the art of How To People, so it’s possible. They definitely seem way better at assessing people (even if their assessments are incomplete) than they are at knowing what to do with that information (ie, people do not typically like being psychoanalyzed by a basically-random basically-stranger, so even if you’re reading them right, keep that to yourself or at least be WAY less direct and interested in it.)
But I agree that they’re picking up on and articulating things that I personally would have a much harder time reading, and it is kind of our defining thing that we don’t read social interactions and unspoken cues very well. Could go either way, and I suspect the ‘Any character who sticks around long enough to be a CHARACTER and not a plot function will eventually take on some Willisian traits, and that’s autism all the way down’ principle applies as well.
I think for autistics who have problems reading social interactions and unspoken cues (which may or may not be true of Booster should they turn out to be neurodivergent), it doesn’t mean not being able to do it at all but specifically lacking much of the natural intuition that makes it as easy as breathing for neurotypicals most of the time.
In this vein, there are a lot of autistics I know who you couldn’t clock as one judging by interaction alone because they learned how to use a lot of non-intuitive, systematic thinking to over-compensate, much akin to Marvel’s DareDevil and his hyper-developed senses.
I thought this initially. I see a lot of my younger self in Booster (I’m Aut/DHD). special interests that make up 90% of their character, socially unintuitive and overcompensating through study of people to a WEIRD degree, self awareness aint it, lack of impulse control when it comes to saying what comes to their head… literally all of the last panel…
I learned how to do the nonverbal communication thing by studying body language and psychology all through highschool, had a creepy diary with information about people so I had stuff I could talk to them about (also throw back to Dotty), practiced facial expressions in the mirror/selfie cam, made a grand total of zero friends at my first uni and like 2 at my second uni (that’s 2 friends in 11 years) and I look weirdly like B. Like, I have that outfit. And that hair. And those glasses (except my rats ate them so they’re on elastic which is amazing sensory hack btw).
It could also just be that DW is ND so all their characters get a lil dose of magic but my headcannon sits right with me so I’m sticking to it
This whole interaction has also kinda has the feel of the scenario of being airdropped into a new social environment, figuring out the vibe and social norms of the group, attempting to fit in by imitation and then it backfiring in your face because you don’t have the history/relationship to back it up.
IMO they 100% got all their info on Amber from walky (eg fanfics, walky history, garbage roof) and tried to interact with her on that level. Ditto dialing up the sleaze with Joe. They haven’t earned the friendship points and unlocked that level so it just comes of as creepy and weird.
Yet another inference drawn from personal experience.
like when you copy a nickname for someone from a closer friend and it does Not Land because you don’t have nickname privileges yet. “This is how this person’s friends interact with them, I wanna be friend, therefore behave like friend right?”
scans for me.
Oh wow, seeing this.. I relate a lot to Booster. Not a psych major, and wouldn’t psychoanalyze others- but I’d listen in on conversations so I could try finding common topics with people to make friends… It wasn’t always successful. Only worked once really, and that’s cuz I actually managed to speak. I am unsure if that’s just what people do anyway. Either way, I’m feeling for Booster today.
Yeah, it hasn’t been very successful for me either. I either come across a little too forceful or inappropriate, like I mention something and they are weirded out that I know so much about them. Totally innocent intention, but not well-implemented
I get you… Sometimes I even mentioned a topic way too late and everyone’d look at me confused. Had a habit of writing things in notes because I was too scared to speak haha.
Making friends is hard. I’m suspected maybe Booster’s the messed up one here, and they believe that those are the only type of people who’d accept them in turn. To have that not work out either must suck, hope they learn how to be soocciaalll later… When they figure it out hopefully they’ll let us know, cuz I till have no clue lol
I mean, idk if Booster is considered ‘talented’ in psych so far. Even if their analysis of the other cast/crew is accurate, hasn’t exactly displayed a ‘professional’ attitude
teen moods can flip quickly but at least they seem to display some guilt, maybe they’ll process it and apologize later. or end up bumping into ethan and making things worse unintentionally or so lol
…fuck, I didn’t actually think about it while watching the dumpster burn, but yeah, there is a level on which that could work. Not a healthy one, necessarily, but Ethan would probably be into it.
I’m glad Amber called them out. While booster’s antics made them entertaining as a character at first their interactions with Amber came off as super creepy to me. Hoping this will encourage them to dial it back a bit.
So far I’ve found Booster’s interactions with most of the other characters super creepy. I hope they learn to dial back some of the unwanted psychoanalyzing other people in the future.
if booster was a man, or unnatractive, people would be calling the cops by now.
but booster looks ok, not my favorite look, but ok (not my aesthetic, ya know), so we chalk it up to quirkiness and let it go… until it gets creepy in a dangerous way.
booster calls it research to stalk someone online to learn about them, if booster was some dude named frank we would call it stalking
I feel like this “if roles were switched” logic doesn’t work here because isn’t perceiving trans people as “predatory”/”perverted” a thing? Like, a huge source of transphobia kinda thing?
On the right wing, yes. And on the left, there’s occasionally a resulting reluctance to call out actual toxic behaviors when performed by members of oppressed groups. And this is most often evident when women are the ones who have reason to be concerned.
Sadly, our monkey-brains have a real difficulty comprehending three- (or more-) sided issues. It’s even embodied in such aphorisms as “The enemy of my enemy is my friend.” The quite-right assumption that Tucker Carlson would despise Booster for utterly abhorrent reasons makes us very unwilling to consider that Booster is, in isolation, a creepy stalker with serious consent issues.
Hey does anyone else get the feeling that if Booster became a big shot psychologist they’d be like a television star personality one like Dr.Phil with the same level of respect of a TMZ reporter?
There is time for Booster to grow out of this annoying, unwanted psychoanalysis phase and actually become a creditable and respected psychology professional. They are only 18-19. There’s a reason they’re in college right now. I think they’ll grow out of this.
My mind went to Dr. Phil yesterday when Booster compared Amber and Walky to garbage. Sounded like something a psychologist who professes to help people would say.
def not too late to change but then again dr phil himself is much older (although i’m sure some ppl like him are aware of what they’re doing but don’t care b/c their paycheck outweighs their moral) but let’s hope booster legit wants to help ppl rather than them having selfish motivations
Really? Really?? I made a hyperlink out of this in html and it just didn’t—fucking phone, I guess. BLUH! Here’s the link, Wellerman, sorry for the ramble.
The more of an insane asshole Booster becomes, the faster I find myself warming up to them. Like, they’re crossing the line from “realistic creepy weirdo villain” to “wacky cartoon super-villain” with that sad selfie there.
With this strip Booster finally becomes an interesting character honestly. I am finally interested in seeing more of them. (Before this I was just kind of neutral honestly).
in unrelated everything, as i opened this page there was a Raruurien ad on the right, and i was like “goddammit Hiveworks, why do you keep recommending comics that haven’t updated in years” yet clicked through, just to remind myself of how promising this now-surely-defunct comic was, and lo, there it was: Raruurien has actually just updated.
Just thought i’d plug it, ’cause i made me happy =)
Thank you. Raruurien is excellent, and I was sad that it had not updated – I had given up. The new page is great, but I needed to back up to page 108 (new one is 111) for a panoramic view of the trade centre.
fair.
a few people called this yesterday or earlier- Booster maybe not having any friends.
Enjoying the autism speculation in the comments today- Joyce/Booster autism teamup incoming??
joyce was pretty hesitant to accept booster’s help/went to amber instead, even if she’d rather everyone else but becky be aware within her friend group, i don’t think she’d tell booster she might possibly be neurodivergent, at least not intentionally
Poor, Poor Booster. They are so interested in Amber and probably they have a crush on her. But they seem so unable to stop that horrible psychology major habit to analysing everyone scaring everyone. But it’s interesting that the person (probably) unable to make friends was insulted by the person that wants to distance herself from all her old friends. Maybe Booster now will try to speak with Ethan asking about Amber. I’m sure they will try to become a better person for her.
Booster has all the worst qualities of so many freshman psych majors who’re convinced they have everyone figured out because they’ve read one (1) psych textbook but made even worse because Willis has written that divine knowledge of everyone into them so they’re unerringly accurate
Just for funsies, and because I realized that this list would be a lot shorter than the list of characters who DO come across as autistic, here’s my list of characters who *don’t* strike me immediately as being obviously autistic. (Not saying they aren’t, or that they might not have some other flavor of neurodiversity, more just that they don’t come across as particularly autistic to me personally. YMMV.)
Joe
Raidah
Rachel
Dorothy (a li’l iffy on this one)
Becky (ditto)
Sal
Danny
Jacob
Roz
Asher
Possibly a few others that I can’t think of right now, but for the most part, if they’re in the main cast and they’re not on this list, then my answer is “yes, if they were a real person I’d think they had autism within ten minutes of talking to them.”
How does Sarah not make the list? She has deep trust issues and isn’t healthy, but she hasn’t shone any OCD, coordination problems, or anxiety. (Her housing depends on her scholarship. That’s normal anxiety.)
How is Carla NOT autistic
Mary comes across as the type of autistic person who is really abrasive and IRL would have no friends.
Malaya is a social disaster who would be unbearable in real life and takes pride in it the way only a non-self-aware autistic person could.
I really appreciate how Willis (and also Questionable Content) have their LGBTQ cast have personalities and be people first instead of just inserting them as tropes. If anything, as people have pointed out, Booster is the all-too-real psychology major who doesn’t realize they have Dunning-Kruger trope.
Not sure wheres Boosters narrative is going but that final panel photograph sure does read as a trauma response
Also on a narrative level I like this direction, it feels like we’re finally seeing them as a person being impacted more so than a catalyst. Hopefully see the more vulnerable side of them that sheds some light on why they turn to analysing everyone so intently, especially as it seems like a defence mechanism
Samesies. See the thread I started above — an overview of evidence suggests not only that they may have had to survive in an abusive environment, but that they may also be autistic too.
I’m glad Amber finally said it because it’s something I’ve been thinking every time Booster shows up. I mean, we don’t really see them hanging out with anyone. Every time they interact, they have to start throwing out their analyses of what everyone is thinking or why they are acting the way they are. And now they are also getting into stalker-y territory with snapping pictures of people and tracking down people’s online activity, and then using that to further “analyze” them. (How did they know what smutfic Amber posted? I highly doubt she used her actual name as the author.)
The funny thing is, this all would probably make Booster a lousy therapist, if that is what they are looking to do. Noone is going to be willing to talk to someone who just starts dictating to you what they think your problems are the first time you meet.
Way back when Booster met Amber, Amber said that she prioritises people that leave feedback on her smutfic. Booster then asked Joyce for a link to Amber’s stuff.
As much as I don’t like Booster, the SmutFic thing is one of the more understandable things they’ve done. Still creepy given the context of everything that has gone on here, but them knowing where to find Amber’s smutfic and leaving feedback was an established interaction point for Amber.
To everyone who wanted Mike back, I say again: congratulations, this is what (you said) you wanted. (Or maybe the opposite: remember, “I’m whatever you don’t want me to be.”)
I could also say that I don’t know why you’re upset, but that would be a lie.
Booster is a genuinely insightful glimpse into what it people consider offensive and disturbing. I’m really starting to appreciate the element of uncertainty that they add to an ensemble cast that is otherwise extremely preoccupied with its own issues. Booster’s interest in the group’s dynamic is sincere, but deeply selfish and even cruel. At the same time you don’t really know what they’re thinking yet, so you don’t know if maybe they’re just extremely socially inept. It seems like the biggest possibility and it’s a very humanising one. Booster I think is a very complex and interesting character, for precisely the same reasons I consider them so unpleasant.
Reducing everybody to broad diagnoses and throwing it in their faces to dazzle them with a skill that you think is like mindreading sure it a way to feel in control of all your personal interactions, but i doens’t exactly help you make friends. . .
Booster reminds me of Cole from Dragon Age Inquisition. Cole is a spirit of compassion that’s drawn to the pain in people and tries to help by pointing it out so they can deal with it or he can help them. Only problem is that when confronted by their own hurts they balk at it. Like how many times did Amber and Walky talk about being garbage and have Garbage roof, but Booster says the same thing and Amber flips out on them after some other accurate acknowledgements on her own toxic behavior. A lot of comments saying “yeah Amber’s right” but there is no right or wrong in this situation. Both of these characters have trouble navigating boundaries so this entire interaction is all over the place from Amber writing smutty friend fic to booster giving an on the spot psych eval to Walky and Lucy to Amber. Neither of them thinks this is wrong but the other calls it out. It’s like a tie in sports. All that effort just for no one to feel happy about it.
This comment section is always an insight into what the audience considers acceptable social behavior. Especially considering how recently we saw “people not saying the quiet part out loud is stupid and causes problems” as the punchline of the strip.
Booster only makes people uncomfortable because they’re proving these people are only as good at hiding as the people around them are at being wrapped up in themselves. The moment there’s someone around you actually NOTICING you and all your idiosyncrasies? Suddenly it’s a breach of privacy and being judgmental.
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*replays Dream Daddy for the correct name and dad in the screenshot*
I will get around to playing that one day.
One day.
Dear deific entity my back log…
You can’t selfie your way out of introspection, Booster!
Sure they can. It’s a postmodern take on Dorian Gray, the selfies contain all the evidence of guilt and shame, so Booster doesn’t have to show it.
*full-body shudder/cringe*
… have you ever seen the tv show The Librarians? If not, you should give it a whirl.
Oh my god I love that show! The Dorian Grey episode was fantastic
I had this idea once for a character called “De Rien Gris.” De Rien Gris isn’t bothered, nothing’s a big deal to him. But his attic-portrait is very bothered indeed.
For all their other antics, Booster never creeped me out. I like them well enough. This however, is the most Patrick Bateman behaviour I’ve seen a cartoon do. Yikes.
TELL ‘EM, AMBER!
That’s one reason it was a mistake, sure.
Is Booster a sociopath?…Probably not but this strip raises some flags.
Eh? Like, maybe they just genuinely liked the pic. I can buy this was still a genuine reaction to what she said.
After a breakup of a 5 year relationship, I took selfies of myself anytime I was crying or about to cry in situations where I wanted to keep it together – on the bus, waiting for class to start, etc. The act of getting out my phone, and something about seeing myself through a lens, slightly objectifying/othering myself, made it much easier to calm down and stay in control. So I relate pretty hard to booster here
I did let myself be sad and cry, just tried to avoid it while out and about
I dunno. Lotsa people get lost in enjoying the art they can make while sad. I do.
I more than anything want to get lost in my art again. The art of gamedev, that is. And yourself?
Music
Seems more like they’re learning or at least interested in psychology and misapplying their studies by vaguely diagnosing people.
But are, at least, good enough at it not to validate the concept of sociopathy.
I mean, don’t all teens/younger ppl have some sociopathic traits before they mature? That’s why middle school is so rough on ppl lol, but i feel like another person in their own psych class would’ve called them out (assuming they aren’t all egomaniacs trying to “one up” each other and diagnosis everyone)
That’s a bold assumption to make, of a first year psych class.
People trying to “one up” each other was my experience with freshman psychology students… Honestly a lot of science students in general… And some people in creative writing… Some college freshman are just brats I guess
Eh, comic just needs a pumchline and it is a pretty funny one
I keep going back and forth on whether I like Booster’s lipstick tbh. i like it in the last panel tho so net positive?
As much as they look sad here, I have no sympathy for Booster. Amber asks a good question, do they have any friends? Walky is their roommate and appreciates using their Switch but besides that, who do they have?
Considering their former roommate dead named them I betting no, they don’t have any friends. Maybe their cool with their twin though. So far they seem cool with their sib.
even a shitty person doesn’t deserve to be deadnamed (tho other than their legal/birthname being shown somewhere when they first joined the dorm, i’m not sure how they could purposefully call them the wrong name if they introduced themselves to everyone as ‘booster’ unless they realized they were non binary in the middle of teh semester)
I don’t think it was because Booster was shitty, but I do think it is a sign they struggled to form any social connections at their last dorm wing. If even your roommate is hostile to you it’s a decent sign you’re not doing well socially, cause typically a roommate should have interest in staying in good term with you just to function in their living space. Like Roz tolerates living with Mary despite how awful she is. If Booster was doing worse than Mary something was up. I’m really interested in details for why they transferred now.
Or a sign you’ve got an awful roommate.
Roz isn’t doing poorly socially just because Mary is hostile to her. Roz, who was trying for the RA job just to get away from Mary.
Or see Walky and Mike. Or Malaya and anyone.
I don’t doubt their roommate was shitty and I was implying that Mary was the social outcast because the entire wing hates her, but Roz has still established a functioning dynamic with her. So has Sal with Malaya. To me that shows they were capable of forming connections with peers outside their dorm. They all have a support network. To me the fact Booster left their wing implies they might have felt more isolated there for some reason. They didn’t have anyone to confide in, challenge their roommate, possibly even their RA was shittier than Ruth. Like imagine if that period where Ruth was blackmailed into ignoring Mary’s transphobic tormenting of Carla except it never got solved. That’s what I’m imaging Booster was dealing with.
Booster is nonbinary and displays a few traits that upset a large subsection of people. Someone being shitty to them (especially by deadnaming them) could easily have absolutely nothing to do with them. I’m sure you didn’t mean it, but this comment reads a little victim-blaming like “if Booster wasn’t struggling to form social connections they wouldn’t have been deadnamed” which, in my experience, is the furthest thing from the truth.
Maybe they also struggle to form social relationships (I do think we can see that’s true), but I definitely don’t think that’s why they were deadnamed. And if it was the excuse their roomie used, it’s still their roomie who is a massive jagoff in that situation, not Booster for struggling with likeability.
I’m not trying to victim blame Boister what I’m trying to say is they didn’t have anyone to support them when it happened. In the comic we’ve seen the wing rally around our cast when bad stuff happens. Like everyone rallying around Billie when she punched Mary for being horrible to Carla, or them all hiding and protecting Becky when she was homeless and on the run from her dad. I don’t think Booster had that at their old dorm wing, which is why they transferred when the dead naming happened. And I’m interested in how it all went down. There is potential for an interesting story there. Other wings probably don’t operate like the one we know.
Unless Booster took pains to scrub their deadname, someone who wants to can often find it. If they have a facefook account, just go look and see what someone called them before they came out. Or take a look at their drivers license since that would have their legal name. Or meet someone who knew them from before coming out who spills the beans. Or maybe the ex-roommate went to high school with them, shared a room because they were friends, but had a falling out. Lots of options.
While it doesn’t justify deadnaming, I feel like Booster’s roommate didn’t start with that and began doing it as they grew to despise Booster.
It’s also possible they have friends, just not any at school.
* they’re
I just can’t read that sentence without thinking “awww poor thing” rather than as a “gotcha”. Not having friends sucks. Especially if you’re bad at making them.
I’d feel worse if I thought it actually got under their skin. They felt bad for a second and then seemingly got over it
Momentary happiness and momentary sadness may underline a consistent longing, that, while not a crippling depression may be eating away at them underneath it all. The fact that they felt anything at all from Amber’s comment makes me feel like this did strike a nerve, even if they were able to alleviate it with their craft.
Just cuz I draw dumb shit and make jokes doesn’t mean I’m any less lonely than when I lie awake and wonder if I’m wasting my life.
just keep it inside
learn how to hide
your feelings
Is that what the first line is? I could never make it out.
Seems like they distracted themselves with their photography hobby as an avoidance tactic.
Oh it definitely got to them. This isn’t a thing they quickly got over. This is a thing they’ve confronted more than once before they’ve gotten good at quickly distracting themselves from.
I would be feeling more positive about Amber here if she had acted as though she wants the answer.
Booster keeps trying to find the softest spots to needle her, and she doesn’t like it, plus they’ve signaled an interest in pursuing her. Amber doesn’t have to fix that Booster might not have friends, just to establish that she definitely doesn’t want to be one. Finding friends for Booster is ultimately their job, not hers.
She wants to protect Ethan and herself from a person who seems mainly interested and titillated by their discomfort and vulnerability and trauma.
You don’t have to be unfailingly nice to people, especially if they aren’t being nice to you.
They certainly don’t seem to
There’s a reason why I commented downthread that this felt like the proper start of a character arc for Booster (where everything to this point’s really been more establishing them as a character in the established cast.)
So far, every time they’ve been in a scene except the Season Two introductory storyline (where Walky and then Joyce were introducing them to the hall), it’s either been set in/the hallway outside Walky and their dorm room, or Booster’s been in a common area alone. We’ve yet to see them enter a scene along with another character – even background ones. They just walk on/are sitting eating/whatever, add to the scene, and then someone walks away. Which is probably why they look sad – Amber is right, they don’t, except maybe their twin. (Who may or may not be at school here. If they aren’t going to the same school, then Booster’s alone and missing their closest friend. If they are, then it’s very noticeable that Booster hasn’t been shown hanging out with them at any point.)
Now, maybe they could have other friends from home… but it’s second semester, and we know they were at school last semester because of the previous roommate. The fact that they haven’t made any yet on campus does not suggest great things for their socializing last semester.
Having had a very isolated college experience due to social anxiety and undiagnosed health issues myself, I can sympathize (no, seriously, I have NO MEMORY of my first semester because my Vitamin D levels were so obscenely low and my thyroid was inflamed so basically all my time not in class was sleeping,) but we can also conclude that a fair amount of that isolation is because the psychoanalysis trick is not a great first step for making friends.
don’t think they’ve shown up enough to mention any previous friends, but i imagine they’d either befriend ppl they only find ‘fascinating’, or they had ‘boring/’normal” friends when they were younger who didn’t have any known issues and maybe got bored of them. (i mean everyone can be unique and individualistic but nothing wrong with being an ‘average joe’ that’s from some cookie cutter set personality or so aka ‘basic’ but i imagine the background ppl that blend in with the crowd isn’t what most teens/college age students look for in a friend)
It was definitely a mistake, and Amber probably will not learn from it.
Amber: Now who else would make a good friend for Ethan?
(later)
Amber: Hiiiii, Mary!
Noooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo
no.
Omg please no I will cry
Freeze Frame…Freeze Fra~a~a~ame
Hey, you can’t just say factual information at me like that.
So, then, I was right when I noted that Booster’s ALWAYS been introduced showing up on their own.
And that sure does look like the beginnings of a proper character arc, there. Good! And Joyce potentially picking up an art class might put them in the same buildings around the same times to start some active interacting there. (Also possibilities: Malaya and Mary, both of whom are established enough characters that they easily CAN maintain a subplot but haven’t been present enough that they could really carry one without a main character, either, with so many plotlines demanding attention.) So this could be VERY interesting indeed.
Plus, you know, the default hilarity of Joyce in a life-drawing class. I’m just saying. We could get that, AND Mary’s seething one-sided rivalry with Malaya.
Every Mary subplot is either her being super mean or super pathetic, and I’m so over both.
See, I’m game for super pathetic if it means potentially getting a little more development for Malaya, who was set up as the potential hook for a subplot with Mary when we saw them before timeskip. We haven’t seen much of him since.
And more of her may also mean more of Marcie. Which is obviously worth it even to Malaya non-enjoyers, but I’d like to see them maybe pick up some things to be genuinely interested in and those things to get screentime.
Mary’s most interesting when the super mean and super pathetic sides of her are at odds. Even though “Super judgmental Christian” is pretty much her entire character, she always seems like she’s about five seconds from flipping a switch to “Super judgmental Athiest” like how Joyce was for a bit, but a million times worse, because she thinks it’ll make her more popular and Christianity was just an excuse to be mean.
And, if and when it happens, Woke Mary is going to be so fucking funny.
Eh, we already have Roz…. (And yes, that is pretty much how I view her.)
I have been holding off on judging Booster since I figure they’ve been getting set up for their arc. They gotta get some learnin in em before they get to be a kind-of-okay person.
Also, I think Booster and Joyce, and Booster and Malaya would be interesting friend-ships! Like, B is someone who hasn’t already built an expectation about who Joyce is pre-autism-arc and their interest in psychology could make them an ally for her while her patience as someone who also had to learn how to people could help them be less of a dick.
Meanwhile Malaya and Booster (and Carla) together would be a fun lil volcano of egos that could cut them both down to a more palatable size.
(Plus now I have this image in my head of a coversation between J and B that results in a Malaya-esque moment of “wait, am I the aut-y?”
Malaya, Booster, and Carla, the trio I never knew I needed
Not in a dating way, but like, go down to the corner marr, grab some chips, come back at stream the worst B movie they can find, and talk shit about it while Carla relates it back to herself somehow. Love it
Just realised they also happen to be all the trans characters which is uncomfy
Malaya is trans?
Malaya’s she/they/whatever “obviously way too cool for gender.”
idk how to hyperlink so:
https://www.dumbingofage.com/2020/comic/book-11/01-this-bright-millennium/pronouns/
You know something? It’s said that IRL people with great natural talent in psychology often have that talent because they had to use it survive in abusive environments.
Makes me wonder if this will be revealed of Booster.
Ya know… given my history and talent, you might be onto something.
Yep. I only hate on psych majors because I would have been one had I been more medicated or less autistically obsessed with ancient languages.
You think Booster could be autistic too?
I don’t know- honestly I think Booster has an ease in using the information they understand that makes it less likely, but it’s not impossible
Some people train themselves a lot/take special interest in the art of How To People, so it’s possible. They definitely seem way better at assessing people (even if their assessments are incomplete) than they are at knowing what to do with that information (ie, people do not typically like being psychoanalyzed by a basically-random basically-stranger, so even if you’re reading them right, keep that to yourself or at least be WAY less direct and interested in it.)
But I agree that they’re picking up on and articulating things that I personally would have a much harder time reading, and it is kind of our defining thing that we don’t read social interactions and unspoken cues very well. Could go either way, and I suspect the ‘Any character who sticks around long enough to be a CHARACTER and not a plot function will eventually take on some Willisian traits, and that’s autism all the way down’ principle applies as well.
I think for autistics who have problems reading social interactions and unspoken cues (which may or may not be true of Booster should they turn out to be neurodivergent), it doesn’t mean not being able to do it at all but specifically lacking much of the natural intuition that makes it as easy as breathing for neurotypicals most of the time.
In this vein, there are a lot of autistics I know who you couldn’t clock as one judging by interaction alone because they learned how to use a lot of non-intuitive, systematic thinking to over-compensate, much akin to Marvel’s DareDevil and his hyper-developed senses.
I thought this initially. I see a lot of my younger self in Booster (I’m Aut/DHD). special interests that make up 90% of their character, socially unintuitive and overcompensating through study of people to a WEIRD degree, self awareness aint it, lack of impulse control when it comes to saying what comes to their head… literally all of the last panel…
I learned how to do the nonverbal communication thing by studying body language and psychology all through highschool, had a creepy diary with information about people so I had stuff I could talk to them about (also throw back to Dotty), practiced facial expressions in the mirror/selfie cam, made a grand total of zero friends at my first uni and like 2 at my second uni (that’s 2 friends in 11 years) and I look weirdly like B. Like, I have that outfit. And that hair. And those glasses (except my rats ate them so they’re on elastic which is amazing sensory hack btw).
It could also just be that DW is ND so all their characters get a lil dose of magic but my headcannon sits right with me so I’m sticking to it
This whole interaction has also kinda has the feel of the scenario of being airdropped into a new social environment, figuring out the vibe and social norms of the group, attempting to fit in by imitation and then it backfiring in your face because you don’t have the history/relationship to back it up.
IMO they 100% got all their info on Amber from walky (eg fanfics, walky history, garbage roof) and tried to interact with her on that level. Ditto dialing up the sleaze with Joe. They haven’t earned the friendship points and unlocked that level so it just comes of as creepy and weird.
Yet another inference drawn from personal experience.
like when you copy a nickname for someone from a closer friend and it does Not Land because you don’t have nickname privileges yet. “This is how this person’s friends interact with them, I wanna be friend, therefore behave like friend right?”
scans for me.
Oh wow, seeing this.. I relate a lot to Booster. Not a psych major, and wouldn’t psychoanalyze others- but I’d listen in on conversations so I could try finding common topics with people to make friends… It wasn’t always successful. Only worked once really, and that’s cuz I actually managed to speak. I am unsure if that’s just what people do anyway. Either way, I’m feeling for Booster today.
Yeah, it hasn’t been very successful for me either. I either come across a little too forceful or inappropriate, like I mention something and they are weirded out that I know so much about them. Totally innocent intention, but not well-implemented
I get you… Sometimes I even mentioned a topic way too late and everyone’d look at me confused. Had a habit of writing things in notes because I was too scared to speak haha.
Making friends is hard. I’m suspected maybe Booster’s the messed up one here, and they believe that those are the only type of people who’d accept them in turn. To have that not work out either must suck, hope they learn how to be soocciaalll later… When they figure it out hopefully they’ll let us know, cuz I till have no clue lol
I mean, idk if Booster is considered ‘talented’ in psych so far. Even if their analysis of the other cast/crew is accurate, hasn’t exactly displayed a ‘professional’ attitude
Finding problems is easy, it’s fixing them that takes study.
I guess that’s *a* form of self-reflection.
More like self-medication
teen moods can flip quickly but at least they seem to display some guilt, maybe they’ll process it and apologize later. or end up bumping into ethan and making things worse unintentionally or so lol
Oh my god. You know what, you creepy bastard with the awesome fashion sense, sashay you stay.
Amber’s dressing from the Not Even Wrong collection, I see…
I’m betting Ethan would actually love a relationship with Booster right now.
…fuck, I didn’t actually think about it while watching the dumpster burn, but yeah, there is a level on which that could work. Not a healthy one, necessarily, but Ethan would probably be into it.
I’m glad Amber called them out. While booster’s antics made them entertaining as a character at first their interactions with Amber came off as super creepy to me. Hoping this will encourage them to dial it back a bit.
So far I’ve found Booster’s interactions with most of the other characters super creepy. I hope they learn to dial back some of the unwanted psychoanalyzing other people in the future.
What’s with the digital soviet apparel Keulen? Getting ready to seize the means of Pooh-duction?
They’re going to declare the dictatorship of the ponytariat
Comradship is magical.
That points to a genre of Pony Art that I wish didn’t exist.
MLP-FIM stands for Movimiento de Liberacion des Ponies, Front Internationale Marxiste.
Standing ovation gif.
if booster was a man, or unnatractive, people would be calling the cops by now.
but booster looks ok, not my favorite look, but ok (not my aesthetic, ya know), so we chalk it up to quirkiness and let it go… until it gets creepy in a dangerous way.
booster calls it research to stalk someone online to learn about them, if booster was some dude named frank we would call it stalking
I feel like this “if roles were switched” logic doesn’t work here because isn’t perceiving trans people as “predatory”/”perverted” a thing? Like, a huge source of transphobia kinda thing?
On the right wing, yes. And on the left, there’s occasionally a resulting reluctance to call out actual toxic behaviors when performed by members of oppressed groups. And this is most often evident when women are the ones who have reason to be concerned.
Sadly, our monkey-brains have a real difficulty comprehending three- (or more-) sided issues. It’s even embodied in such aphorisms as “The enemy of my enemy is my friend.” The quite-right assumption that Tucker Carlson would despise Booster for utterly abhorrent reasons makes us very unwilling to consider that Booster is, in isolation, a creepy stalker with serious consent issues.
booster is the kind of character you would never want to meet in real life;
the kind of person that can only seem funny (temporarily) in a comic.
if any of us met a booster in real life we would either ignore the annoying fool, or start walking in the other direction.
Hey does anyone else get the feeling that if Booster became a big shot psychologist they’d be like a television star personality one like Dr.Phil with the same level of respect of a TMZ reporter?
Yes, yes I do
There is time for Booster to grow out of this annoying, unwanted psychoanalysis phase and actually become a creditable and respected psychology professional. They are only 18-19. There’s a reason they’re in college right now. I think they’ll grow out of this.
My mind went to Dr. Phil yesterday when Booster compared Amber and Walky to garbage. Sounded like something a psychologist who professes to help people would say.
def not too late to change but then again dr phil himself is much older (although i’m sure some ppl like him are aware of what they’re doing but don’t care b/c their paycheck outweighs their moral) but let’s hope booster legit wants to help ppl rather than them having selfish motivations
Look, I’m just gonna give a pre-emptive one.
*They
There’s been a surprising lack of people using the wrong pronouns for Booster so far! Two hours in is probably a record, right?
…What the fuck is wrong with this person?
Not a thing. They are perfect the way they are.
NEWS AT 11: Local Pot Furious With Kettle’s Terrible Behavior, Color Schema
Yeah but she’s fucking right though
1.) Debatable
2.) When the pot correctly calls out the kettle on how it’s black, the pot, like the kettle, “is still fuckin’ black”, to quote Jennifer
Well, that was supposed to be a reply, but the formatting is all wonky. Fun!
Source comic for point #2 please?
She’s making the opposite of my point, I realize, but it goes both ways in this equation.
(i.e. Booster is doing a creepy judgy weirdo, sure, but it’s pretty rich to hear this from voyeuristic judgy weirdo Ambs.
I love them both, I’m not hating on Amber, just. Y’know.)
https://www.dumbingofage.com/2013/comic/book-3/03-answers-in-hennessy/pot-kettle/
Really? Really?? I made a hyperlink out of this in html and it just didn’t—fucking phone, I guess. BLUH! Here’s the link, Wellerman, sorry for the ramble.
No worries, and thanks.
It’s my mom’s birthday.
Happy birthday, Yotomom!
Happy b-day, Yotomom!
Tell her I said happy birthday!!! 🥳
Got any plans to celebrate with her?
Can’t. Her new boyfriend took her to Jamaica for her Birthday week.
Hope she enjoys herself, that sounds so fun!!! 🤩
Oh shit she’s here? Well damn send her my best wishes when she comes back and i hope the weather doesn’t disturb her vacation
She said it’s been beautiful so far.
Happy birthday to your mom
Ehhh. Okay. Booster sucks.
They REALLY do, interesting character but god DAMN are they insufferable. Like they’re aware of everyone’s faults by their own.
THANK YOU, AMBER! Spot on.
Yeah Booster is the WORST type of psychology major.
I like Booster but they come off too much like a psychopath.
I was about to come to the comments to say something like this. Undiagnosed anti social personality disorder or something?
…I worry about you, Booster.
booster is gonna be amazigirl’s joker, ain’t they?
We know their ex-roommate sucked, so maybe no?
You could call that picture a Booster Shot. Eh? I’ll shut up now.
The more of an insane asshole Booster becomes, the faster I find myself warming up to them. Like, they’re crossing the line from “realistic creepy weirdo villain” to “wacky cartoon super-villain” with that sad selfie there.
With this strip Booster finally becomes an interesting character honestly. I am finally interested in seeing more of them. (Before this I was just kind of neutral honestly).
I’m still pretty neutral, but at least Booster isn’t totally boring.
God, what a fucking weirdo.
in unrelated everything, as i opened this page there was a Raruurien ad on the right, and i was like “goddammit Hiveworks, why do you keep recommending comics that haven’t updated in years” yet clicked through, just to remind myself of how promising this now-surely-defunct comic was, and lo, there it was: Raruurien has actually just updated.
Just thought i’d plug it, ’cause i made me happy =)
Oh dang, I love Raruurien and was wondering if it would ever update – thanks so much for the heads up!!
Thank you. Raruurien is excellent, and I was sad that it had not updated – I had given up. The new page is great, but I needed to back up to page 108 (new one is 111) for a panoramic view of the trade centre.
fair.
a few people called this yesterday or earlier- Booster maybe not having any friends.
Enjoying the autism speculation in the comments today- Joyce/Booster autism teamup incoming??
joyce was pretty hesitant to accept booster’s help/went to amber instead, even if she’d rather everyone else but becky be aware within her friend group, i don’t think she’d tell booster she might possibly be neurodivergent, at least not intentionally
Poor, Poor Booster. They are so interested in Amber and probably they have a crush on her. But they seem so unable to stop that horrible psychology major habit to analysing everyone scaring everyone. But it’s interesting that the person (probably) unable to make friends was insulted by the person that wants to distance herself from all her old friends. Maybe Booster now will try to speak with Ethan asking about Amber. I’m sure they will try to become a better person for her.
Booster has all the worst qualities of so many freshman psych majors who’re convinced they have everyone figured out because they’ve read one (1) psych textbook but made even worse because Willis has written that divine knowledge of everyone into them so they’re unerringly accurate
This post made by the Weary Neuroscience Majors Who Had to Share a Building With the Psych Department Gang
It’s not at all clear Willis intends them to be unerringly accurate. I’d argue they were wrong about much of what they said yesterday.
You tell ’em, Amber.
Also, gonna add Booster to my list of Obviously Autistic DoA characters.
Just for funsies, and because I realized that this list would be a lot shorter than the list of characters who DO come across as autistic, here’s my list of characters who *don’t* strike me immediately as being obviously autistic. (Not saying they aren’t, or that they might not have some other flavor of neurodiversity, more just that they don’t come across as particularly autistic to me personally. YMMV.)
Joe
Raidah
Rachel
Dorothy (a li’l iffy on this one)
Becky (ditto)
Sal
Danny
Jacob
Roz
Asher
Possibly a few others that I can’t think of right now, but for the most part, if they’re in the main cast and they’re not on this list, then my answer is “yes, if they were a real person I’d think they had autism within ten minutes of talking to them.”
How does Sarah not make the list? She has deep trust issues and isn’t healthy, but she hasn’t shone any OCD, coordination problems, or anxiety. (Her housing depends on her scholarship. That’s normal anxiety.)
Yeah there’s even an unused strip where she says she has too little empathy to be autistic.
Sarah knows too much about autism for someone who isn’t autistic and is and is also pretty socially stunted.
What about Carla, Mary and Malaya?
How is Carla NOT autistic
Mary comes across as the type of autistic person who is really abrasive and IRL would have no friends.
Malaya is a social disaster who would be unbearable in real life and takes pride in it the way only a non-self-aware autistic person could.
i’m kind of curious about the reasoning behind raidah’s addition to this list (genuinely i think it’s interesting)
Ya really think Raidah could be autistic?
I don’t see it, either.
Raidah seems so far like a fairly normal, stuck-up person who isn’t too far off from actual stuck-up rich kids I knew back in high school/college.
I really appreciate how Willis (and also Questionable Content) have their LGBTQ cast have personalities and be people first instead of just inserting them as tropes. If anything, as people have pointed out, Booster is the all-too-real psychology major who doesn’t realize they have Dunning-Kruger trope.
This is such a great comic.
Hard same. Really appreciate how he does this with neurodiversity too
🧠
Amber is 100% correct here. Booster seems like a smug jerk full of themselves.
Not sure wheres Boosters narrative is going but that final panel photograph sure does read as a trauma response
Also on a narrative level I like this direction, it feels like we’re finally seeing them as a person being impacted more so than a catalyst. Hopefully see the more vulnerable side of them that sheds some light on why they turn to analysing everyone so intently, especially as it seems like a defence mechanism
Samesies. See the thread I started above — an overview of evidence suggests not only that they may have had to survive in an abusive environment, but that they may also be autistic too.
Yeah… I mean, taking a picture? It’s a response I hope we can look more into. Technically it wasn’t the last panel, so it’s not just a one off gag!
I’m glad Amber finally said it because it’s something I’ve been thinking every time Booster shows up. I mean, we don’t really see them hanging out with anyone. Every time they interact, they have to start throwing out their analyses of what everyone is thinking or why they are acting the way they are. And now they are also getting into stalker-y territory with snapping pictures of people and tracking down people’s online activity, and then using that to further “analyze” them. (How did they know what smutfic Amber posted? I highly doubt she used her actual name as the author.)
The funny thing is, this all would probably make Booster a lousy therapist, if that is what they are looking to do. Noone is going to be willing to talk to someone who just starts dictating to you what they think your problems are the first time you meet.
Way back when Booster met Amber, Amber said that she prioritises people that leave feedback on her smutfic. Booster then asked Joyce for a link to Amber’s stuff.
As much as I don’t like Booster, the SmutFic thing is one of the more understandable things they’ve done. Still creepy given the context of everything that has gone on here, but them knowing where to find Amber’s smutfic and leaving feedback was an established interaction point for Amber.
Relevant Link: https://www.dumbingofage.com/2020/comic/book-11/01-this-bright-millennium/formed/
Oh no Booster
I feel like they want to make friends but are just very bad at it.
Oh no not that angle Booster you gotta get the MySpace Angle and then apply and black and white filter.
(I forgot that this was my profile pic but this is a… strange coincidence)
To everyone who wanted Mike back, I say again: congratulations, this is what (you said) you wanted. (Or maybe the opposite: remember, “I’m whatever you don’t want me to be.”)
I could also say that I don’t know why you’re upset, but that would be a lie.
I am so full of schadenfreude right now.
Booster is a genuinely insightful glimpse into what it people consider offensive and disturbing. I’m really starting to appreciate the element of uncertainty that they add to an ensemble cast that is otherwise extremely preoccupied with its own issues. Booster’s interest in the group’s dynamic is sincere, but deeply selfish and even cruel. At the same time you don’t really know what they’re thinking yet, so you don’t know if maybe they’re just extremely socially inept. It seems like the biggest possibility and it’s a very humanising one. Booster I think is a very complex and interesting character, for precisely the same reasons I consider them so unpleasant.
Booster the friendly Antagonist, had some very shiny lips, and if you ever saw them, you would never come to grips.
I wonder which character will be the next to get killed off and replaced with an even more flamboyant gay version of themselves.
If we can vote for “moves away and are replaced”, I vote Joe, Dorothy, and Malaya.
Super Lesbian 3 Goddess Evolution Joyce
Reducing everybody to broad diagnoses and throwing it in their faces to dazzle them with a skill that you think is like mindreading sure it a way to feel in control of all your personal interactions, but i doens’t exactly help you make friends. . .
Booster reminds me of Cole from Dragon Age Inquisition. Cole is a spirit of compassion that’s drawn to the pain in people and tries to help by pointing it out so they can deal with it or he can help them. Only problem is that when confronted by their own hurts they balk at it. Like how many times did Amber and Walky talk about being garbage and have Garbage roof, but Booster says the same thing and Amber flips out on them after some other accurate acknowledgements on her own toxic behavior. A lot of comments saying “yeah Amber’s right” but there is no right or wrong in this situation. Both of these characters have trouble navigating boundaries so this entire interaction is all over the place from Amber writing smutty friend fic to booster giving an on the spot psych eval to Walky and Lucy to Amber. Neither of them thinks this is wrong but the other calls it out. It’s like a tie in sports. All that effort just for no one to feel happy about it.
Its taken me awhile but I’m getting some Barney Stinson vibes from Booster.
So
Does booster just not care they make people.uncomfortable or
Of course they care. That’s why it was a sadface.
You know, she ain’t wrong… Booster is kinda judgey, and they definitely came on extremely strong from the word go.
and we even reach the part Joyce join a live class…
This comment section is always an insight into what the audience considers acceptable social behavior. Especially considering how recently we saw “people not saying the quiet part out loud is stupid and causes problems” as the punchline of the strip.
Booster only makes people uncomfortable because they’re proving these people are only as good at hiding as the people around them are at being wrapped up in themselves. The moment there’s someone around you actually NOTICING you and all your idiosyncrasies? Suddenly it’s a breach of privacy and being judgmental.
Nah, it’s more that Booster’s only speed is pointing out the idiosyncrasies. Like, that’s basically all they do, and it is judgmental.
Telling people you’re the smartest person in the room immediately disqualifies you from that position.