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David M Willis! @damnyouwillis.bsky.social ⋅ 13h
David M Willis! @damnyouwillis.bsky.social ⋅ 13h
NEANDERTHAL FINGERPRINT! NEANDERTHAL FINGERPRINT! NEANDERTHAL FINGERPRINT! NEANDERTHAL FINGERPRINT! NEANDERTHAL FINGERPRINT! NEANDERTHAL FINGERPRINT! NEANDERTHAL FINGERPRINT! NEANDERTHAL FINGERPRINT! NEANDERTHAL FINGERPRINT! NEANDERTHAL FINGERPRINT! 🤯
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It would be funny if literally EVERYONE ELSE ON CAMPUS BUT JENNINGSWORTH knows it’s Amber
Given the alternative is JB admitting she was wrong, I think that’s a distinct possibility.
The last panel of DoA will be the dawning realization of this on Jennifer and she drops the biggest F-bomb in response.
I mean, that would be awesome to have preserved in perpetuity on the comic’s last page, but only if there was a way to fit Becky shouting that she’s a lesbian in there as well.
Jen yells “FUCK” real loud and Becky pops up to add “The ladies!” or something similar. Totes doable.
Omg best grav roulette for this. 🤩
It’s the last panel because the F-bomb speech bubble covers the entire comic for a week.
You really think the strip will go long enough to show 83 year old Billifer at Amber’s funeral?
Timeskip. We’ll see the same parking lot as the last one, and watch the silver-gray minivan disintegrating decade by decade in the post-apocalyptic hellscape of Indiana after the collapse of industrial civilization.
Then we see an old woman once known as Jennifer, dressed in a mix of crudely tanned leather and ragged synthetic garments scavenged from the ruins of Bloomington and Indianapolis, arriving on muleback to see what’s left of the old college gang one last time…
And Daisy.
HAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA oh my god. Of course Ruth know too
Well yeah, Ruth pretty much called Amber out on it during the whole kidnapping arc. And I imagine she had her suspicions after Amber and Sal had their fight.
Don’t quote me on this, but I think it might have come up during the kidnapping arc for Ruth to figure it out? Could be misremembering though.
Everyone’s remembering correctly. Even if Ruth wasn’t directly told this conversation makes it pretty obvious.
https://www.dumbingofage.com/2020/comic/book-10/03-when-it-crumbles/effect-2/
Wait, I read a little farther on this, and now I remember why this storyline has felt weird. Sal & Walky told Jennifer who Amazi-Girl is. Okay Jennifer…. >.>
in the shock of shocks, it turns out JB doesn’t actually listen to anyone else
Oh shock and horror!
Jennifer’s journalistic instincts for sussing out what’s true and what isn’t appear to be as sharp as a bouncy ball.
Yup, and Jennifer insisted that this didn’t make any sense because Amber was one of the kidnap victims. I think Sal and Walky just gave up at that point.
It’s kind of funny people linking that strip to show how weird it is that she doesn’t know when the whole point of that strip was her rejecting the info
Yeah. And Sal didn’t tell her who Amazigirl is, Walky did. And there’s the problem.
In other news, I might not have gotten my popcorn’s worth earlier but this sequence is making up for it.
Dorothy ratted out Amber/AG to Ruth. https://www.dumbingofage.com/desecrated/
To be fair, some of that strip’s commenters think Ruth had already figured it out, and Dorothy just ratted on them fighting.
Ooookay. So Billifer was told AG’s real identity, and still refuses to believe it. Not the twist I was expecting.
Also known as the Lex Luthor effect.
The Daily Planet: Clark Kent is Superman.
Lex Luther reads: Clark Kent is super, man. *Hmm, I’ve met him, he did seem like a decent fellow”.
Nice to know Ruh was looking.
Oh she really does still think it’s Sal.
Universal constants in Dumbing of Age:
* Joyce will make hilarious faces
* Walky will eat his weight in McNuggets weekly
* Daisy will never get laid
* Jennifer will be wrong
* Jason will make a Bernd das Brot face with every human interaction.
* Robin will drive Lesley mad.
* Carla, Carla, Carla, Carla, Carla, Carla, Carla
That is a reference I did not expect to see today
dumbest girl alive, she’s great
Dumbest girl alive
Acts like smartest
Grass grows, birds fly, the sun shines, and Jennifer is stubbornly wrong.
At this rate Jennifer ain’t never gonna be cut out for real journalism
more like fuckin TMZ 9-9
She can be the news announcer.
No way, tmz are trashy but nobody breaks celebrity news faster. They would absolutely not tolerate this lack of aggressively invasive investigation.
As long as she can sit behind a desk while (mostly) reading a teleprompter and ad-libbing a bit, she can be an anchor.
You mean she is a deadweight that can be tossed. Seems fair.
Every ship she tried to commandeer so far has drifted, though.
It’s not quite as easy as it sounds, and AI slop certainly isn’t ready to do it yet. (Ever listen to that annoyingly chipper TikTok TTS voice for more than two minutes?)
Given that daisy’s ‘in charge’ of it , i wouldn’t be surprised if it’s being run incompently or anyone even bother reading it
And once again the day is SAVED by apathy!
Even if someone directly told Jennifer who Amazi-Girl is she wouldn’t believe a geek like Amber is a superhero (despite it being pretty tropic to comic books). She latched onto Sal because Sal is cool and only cool people matter.
Someone did! https://www.dumbingofage.com/2020/comic/book-10/04-is-a-song-forever/whatnow/
Yaaaay!
I wonder if jen’s gonna take the amazi-girl thing too far with sal and go through her things or whatever and end up getting punched
actually far more likely she ends up making malaya think that sal’s been telling people that she’s amazi-girl to make herself seem cool
So Malaya is one other person who doesn’t know. There’s probably a handful.
Oh god, that is how those two idiots would shake this out.
Of course she will.
I think sal will just be confused and brushed it off. Or malaya trying to take credit, if it not somehow leading to her ‘investigating’ her roller derby team
Good on you, Ruth.
Keyword: Usually.
“Doing journalism” sounds wacky
She has done journalism before! https://www.dumbingofage.com/2012/comic/book-2/02-choosing-my-religion/notsure/
To me it’s the “on” that sounds wacky. These days it’s usually “doing journalism to“.
nothing wrong with physical print but i’m surprised it wouldn’t just turn into some online news letter/update on the official site or so and ppl just sending in stories/tips and daisy/editors just sending through whatever’s approved
Just need Mary to be like, “What are you talking about? It’s Amber.”
Oh Jennifer is gonna make a fool out of herself in front of Sal, more that she had already done multiple times in the past, and I can’t wait to see it. She is so sure she knows something and ready to reject the possibility that she might be wrong.
She must be headed to Danny’s room, because Sal’s room is right next to Amber’s, and Sal’s has the right-handed doorknob, like the door behind Ruth.
Dorothy and Becky are the room next to Amber’s.
They’re the ones who share a bathroom.
I guess it’s possible Sal’s room could be on the other side and not share a bathroom, but I don’t THINK that’s the case.
Sal’s room shares a bathroom with Joyce and Sarah. As far as I’ve figured (and remembered) it’s
[Ruth] [Joyce/Sarah] [Sal/Malaya] [Dorothy/Becky] [Amber-mazigirl/Dina].
There should really be a MAP somewhere on the site.
I don’t think we know where Joyce’s room is in relation to the rest of the hallway but I think Ruth’s is at the end, and shares a wall with Carla’s.
We also know that Roz/Mary’s room is catty-cornered to Sal/Malaya’s (from when Jennifer lived there), and is in between Ruth’s and Sal’s, which means by definition it’s also between it and Joyce’s.
Ruth’s room is the one Roz&Mary’s is catty-cornered to. https://www.dumbingofage.com/2014/comic/book-5/01-when-somebody-loved-me/march/
When Walky was taking Booster on a tour of the wing, they passed by Rachel & Other Rachel’s room, then Agatha, Sierra, Mandy, and Grace’s before coming to Joyce & Sarah’s room. The next room visited was Sal & Malaya’s, then Dina & Amber, then Dorothy & Becky, then the singles at the end of the hallway. It is noted then that Carla’s room and Ruth’s room are both back near the elevators.
My best guess at the moment…. On one side of the hallway, starting from the elevators, is the Rachels, then Roz & Mary, then Joyce & Sarah, then Sal & Malaya, then Dina & Amber, then Becky & Dorothy, then the single. On the other side is Ruth, then Carla, then Agatha, Sierra, Mandy, and Grace in some combination between two rooms joined by half-bath. Then… There should be two more doubles then the single, but the only unaccounted person I can think of is Meredith.
(my belief that Carla’s room is across the hall from Joyce & Sarah’s but closer than Ruth’s is when Amber ducked in there to change into her Amazi-Girl costume during the White Board Ding-Dong Bandit incident: https://www.dumbingofage.com/2014/comic/book-4/04-the-whiteboard-dong-bandit/peener/ )
Dorothy was coming from Amber’s room when she ran into Jennifer.
I have no idea how to make this gel that doesn’t amount to “It’s a joke in a webcomic, loosen up.”
This is what I have for “minimal” room layout, because there’s actually “dozens” of rooms, but the story has a smaller cast than that.
Sunrise side of hall:
Elevator
Showers
Ruth
Carla
Agatha
Guns/ Sierra (officially)mystery double
Joyce/Sarah
Sal/
Jennifer/MalayaAmber/Dina/AG
Dorothy/
Sierra/BeckyForbidden Single.
Mary/Roz are across from the mystery double next to Agatha, cattycorner from both Ruth and Sal
Across from Joyce are Mandy and Grace (and Sierra).
Across from Sal are the Rachels.
Meredith and her roommate (implied Bloodthorn) are in a right opening room.
Sometimes doorknobs switch which side of the door they’re on, though.
I hum the MST3K themesong when I work on my chart.
https://www.dumbingofage.com/callin/ for Rachels’ room across from Sal.
there are some nebulous areas, where the hall lengthens and shortens as art/story/forgetful author dictate. But the four main rooms are: elevators<- Joyce/Sarah – Sal/
Jennifer/Malaya – Amber/Dina/AG – Dorothy/Sierra/Becky -> end of hallway stairsadd “discourage strangers from showing up to where real college kids live”, to reasons for ambiguous layout.
I can’t quite tell, but I think Ruth and Jennifer have a problem with each other.
No idea where it all comes from :V
It’s a mystery for this ages.
They are not even the same height or build. How can an otherwise intelligent person be this intensely wrong?
No, you don’t understand.
She has to be right.
I have to say, I haven’t really seen any signs that she’s otherwise all that intelligent.
She has some advanced specialized knowledge (re. partying too hard), but her brain runs mostly on a deep intuitive understanding of all the people around her (that is usually spectacularly wrong).
According to Sarah, she commands a wealth of helpful knowledge pertaining to terrible and horrific things.
I’m glad to see someone else i have that on common with even if they are fictional.
Remember who we are talking about.
Let’s be honest, Jennifer intelligence is a very fluctuating thing, that changes depending on the topic and the person she is taking to and her mood.
I don’t know if she’s ever gotten a great look at her, for what it’s worth.
Plus she’s at least a bit into the sunk-cost fallacy at this point
So there was the time Amazi-Girl physically carried Jennifer to the elevator and they had a brief conversation (though Amazi-Girl’s back was turned for most of it)
There was also the time Amazi-Girl had broken into Jennifer+Sal’s room and Jennifer shined a flashlight directly in Amazi-Girl’s face. Not exactly the best lighting, and Jennifer was primed to think it was Sal at that time.
And then at the party where Joyce got drugged, Jennifer was right there when Amazi-Girl announced herself and stood out in a brightly lit room. This one I shall link: https://www.dumbingofage.com/2011/comic/book-1/06-yesterday-was-thursday/assistance/ I guess to be generous Jennifer was distracted by Joyce’s state at that particular time?
Sal is basically Batman. And Batman is a master of disguise.
I didn’t mean to imply she was brilliant, but she is a passing grades college student, and she was a head cheerleader as well right? And they are usually vultures about body type and build. NO way you can see the two and think they are the same person. The person saying she is willfully ignorant simply to be “right” probably isn’t far from the truth.
Yeah, don’t interrupt her while she makes this mistake, Ruth.
So she’s obviously wrong about this one, is she wrong about yesterday?
The only thing she got right yesterday was identifying Ruth.
I’m sure Malaya will set her straight.
….
… when I typed that sentence 5 seconds ago, I meant “explain the facts to her”, but now I’m wondering whether it works with whatever pronouns Malaya is using right now. (Last I remember she was still vague on how she wanted to categorize itself.)
I think Malaya is cool with any pronouns, from what I recall when meeting Booster.
“Works with whatever pronouns Malaya is using right now”? Do you mean with Malaya’s gender? Pronouns =/= gender, so it’s kind of unclear. Anyway, Malaya uses she/they/whatever pronouns and they transcend gender.
How many people are even left on this floor who *don’t* know Amazi-Girl’s identity at this point?
Just one.
And she’s just visiting.
She needs one of those erase-everyone’s-memory-of-you spells, like in that movie.
They left it in a previous comic.
I’m not sure if people like Mandy, Grace, Sierra and the Rachels know. But they did know when Becky was in hiding so there’s probably some kinda grapevine.
In a college dorm? Noooo….
Ooh, I betcha wondering how I knew,
That AG shares headspace with you.
You told half the people on this floor,
So it’s no surprise it might have spread to more.
You wear a disguise to hide your face,
But Mandy knows and so does Grace,
Don’cha know that they heard it through the grapevine.
joe, jacob, maybe some other dudes? also booster most likely.
probably some of the secondary characters in the girl’s wing.
Walky told Booster Amber had multiple personalities as soon as they met her. Since Booster is annoyingly good at psychological stuff (if not knowing when it’s appropriate to shut up about it) I wouldn’t be at all surprised if they’ve formed a strong hypothesis as to who the other personality is.
Since Amber hasn’t been arrested, Mary probably doesn’t know.
I’m pretty sure Amazigirl could show up, prove she’s the real Amazigirl, and then take off her mask and Jennifer still wouldn’t realize
“Nice cosplay, dork.”
on one hand Ruth was so close to calling out Jennifer for being wrong about amazigirls identity, on the other good for Ruth for finally walking away from Jennifer’s schemes.
How is she so bad at this lol
The funniest part about this is how Walky straight-up told Jennifer that Amber is Amazi-Girl
https://www.dumbingofage.com/2020/comic/book-10/04-is-a-song-forever/whatnow/
Sal’s amazing ability is being better at sniffing out bullcrap than Jennifer.
Both being stubborn, and refusing to acknowledge info until absolutely forced to accept it is Billie’s/Jennifer’s specialty.
Ruth once again demonstrates why she’s my favorite character.
JENNIFER I SWEAR TO CHRIST I WILL DRESS AMBER AS AMAZIGIRL AND PUT SAL NEXT TO HER AND FORCE YOU TO LOOK AT THEM
Jennifer literally saw Amber dressed up like Amazi-Girl and it didn’t help
https://www.dumbingofage.com/2022/comic/book-12/05-this-was-halloween/doesnt/
I dunno what will at this point
She’ll just wonder how Sal managed to be in two places at the same time.
“I’m seeing double, here. FOUR Sals?!”
still thinks it’s Sal, huh? XD
Amusing notion:
Jennifer confronts Sal: What were you doing at Maxwell Hall?
Sal: Uh, hangin’ out?
[Cut to blue panel of Sal seated just on the other side of the
gargoylegrotesque, headphones on, staring into spaceAmazi-Girl wanders around to that side.
Sal: You jumped down and climbed back up — Ah miss anythin’?
Amazi-Girl: Nothing important. ]
Back to present:
Jennifer shouts: AH-HA! I knew it!
Sal: WTF?
Shit.
Tagbork.
Amusing notion:
Jennifer confronts Sal: What were you doing at Maxwell Hall?
Sal: Uh, hangin’ out?
[Cut to blue panel of Sal seated just on the other side of the grotesque, headphones on, staring into space
Amazi-Girl wanders around to that side.
Sal: You jumped down and climbed back up — Ah miss anythin’?
Amazi-Girl: Nothing important. ]
Back to present:
Jennifer shouts: AH-HA! I knew it!
Sal: WTF?
We got 4 great book titles there!
1. Panel 1: Dumbing of Age: I’m doing journalism
2. Panel 2: Dumbing of Age: Enjoy being usually straight with Amazi-Girl
3. Panel 4: Dumbing of Age: Open your shirt a little wider
4. Panel 6: Dumbing of Age: You know what, I don’t care
The question is whether Jennifer will be able to irritate just Sal or will she be able to make angry Danny and Malaya too in the same time. I hope to see her kicked out of a room again.
Jennifer: Dunning-Kruger incarnate.
pretty much everyone knows who amazi-girl is i had completely forgotten jennifer still thinks its sal. and everyone already knowing makes this so much funnier