A fairy godmother with no magic tries her best to successfully fulfill a Fairytale and win the respect of her peers.
Augustine
Winter Jay Kiakas, Windy
August and her ragtag group are just like everyone else, simply surviving in the treacherous Crater... When they stumble into what may be an artifact of the ancient past, their lives are thrown into a much bigger loop as they trifle with bounty hunters, monsters and gods.
The Golden Boar
Magnolia Porter Siddell
A young woman joins a group of summoners who call forth Guardian Beasts to protect their isolated magical island. Unfortunately, her Guardian Beast is nothing like she'd imagined, and he's about to change her life, and everything she thought she knew about herself...
Novae
KaiJu
A historical romance with a touch magic and a dash of astronomy. It chronicles the romantic adventures of Sulvain, a sweet tempered necromancer and Raziol, a passionate 17th century astronomer.
Not Drunk Enough
Tess Stone
Logan Ibarra is possibly the unluckiest repairman in the world. A late night job should not have landed him in the middle of a mad scientist's squabble, but he soon finds himself surrounded by monsters and further madness with little tools to get out.
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.
Edison Rex
Chris Roberson
The adventures of the world’s greatest villain who, after defeating his superheroic nemesis, decides that he’s the only one left to defend the world.
Namesake
Isa, Meg
There's ghosts at your heels and fairy tale worlds ahead. What do you do? Jump down the rabbit hole!
Sleepless Domain
Mary Cagle (Cube Watermelon)
In a world where magical girls and their battles are commonplace, loss has become all too common as well.
Nerf Now!!
Josué Pereira
A cute webcomic about fanservice, video games, and... love. Mostly video games, though.
Darkling Bright
Chris Hazelton
Kieran Bright is a college student home for the summer and roped into an online reunion with his old neighborhood friends in the most recent update of their favorite childhood MMORPG.
At least, he was, and that was the idea...
Join Kieran and his friends as they are pulled into another reality that may or may not be real and are forced to confront their own identities, the nature of simulated universes and reality itself.
The Weave
Rennie Kingsley
A young woman pursued by bad luck is witness to the murder of the Fairy Queen of Summer. Can she get to the bottom of this mystery?
Angel's Orchard
Harry Bogosian
After the events in Demon's Mirror, Gerda has accepted her role as a Demon Hunter, and Cezar has traveled back to the Demon City. Demons have existed alongside humans for millennia, so things begin to return to normal. But an impossibly powerful Relic has been taken by one of the Demon Masters, and a silent war enters its final stages.
Saint for Rent
Ru Xu
Saint Halliday runs an inn for Time Travelers. Unfortunately, he seems to attract other supernatural "guests," too.
Nigh Heaven & Hell
Scotty
Heather Vodihn is on a simple mission: find her father. However she becomes entangled with two strangers with mysterious powers being stalked by a group with bizarre demands. Heather must learn to trust her new traveling companions, even if she is untrustworthy herself.
Barbarous
Ananth Hirsh, Yuko Ota
A crummy wizard and an anxious monster have to get over themselves and bring order to an apartment building full of misfits.
Ozzie the Vampire
Eric Lide
Ozzie and her best friend Kimmy are your average everyday normal art students – except one is an immortal vampire with superpowers and the other possesses a magic talking grimoire. Also they have to save their town from a demonic invasion.
Cyanide & Happiness
Explosm
Satire, dark humor and surreal humor.
The Messenger
indui
In a ruin-abound town cursed with bad luck, Kai and Kalla--a young boy and a fledgling dragonbird spirit--take on a quest in hopes the reward will solve all of their problems.
Monster's Garden
Ash G.
Champion pit fighter Kilo Monster was content to spend the rest of his days tending to his quiet garden alone... until he met a curious robot girl and her human family.
Empowered
Adam Warren
A sexy superhero comedy (except when it isn't) about the never-ending struggles of a plucky but very unlucky young superheroine.
Lies Within
Lacey
Lysander's aimless and carefree life is turned upside down when he accidentally discovers that the cute boy next door, Simon, is a literal monster
Three Panel Soul
Matt Boyd, Ian McConville
It's a pretty rigid format but we keep the content loose, you know?
Freakshow
Scotty
A festival of broken people, blood flows in the center ring. Come one and come all, to the greatest show in all of Paris.
Sakana
Mad Rupert
Our heroes must navigate a hazardous dating scene, overcome personal anxieties, and wrangle unruly seafood in order to find love, peace of mind, and a paycheck.
Stand Still, Stay Silent
Minna Sundberg
A few generations after the end of the world, a small, poorly financed research crew is sent out to rediscover whatever is left of the forbidden old world in the south.
ARISE, YE SKELETON KING
Brian Clevinger, Escher Cattle, Lee Black
A troupe of wandering "adventurers" down to their last silver "acquire" a map only to find the real treasure was the fiend they dug up along the way.
Little Tiny Things
Clover
What are the little things that move us? The simple joys that warm our bodies and hearts? The micro life of insects that influence our world more than we think? The tiny steps we make everyday to have a happier tomorrow?
Sister Claire
Yamino
In the troubled aftermath of a great war between Witches and her fellow Nuns, novice Sister Claire just wants a purpose.
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.
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!
Heroes of Thantopolis
Izzy Strontium Hall
A living boy fights to save the City of the Dead.
BOOKMARK Click "Tag Page" to bookmark a page. When you return to the site, click "Goto Tag" to continue where you left off.
BUFFER WATCH
Comics are currently drawn and uploaded through:
So the university is selling their students dining out to big corporations? Don’t these people of sense of community, or at the very least, watched Community?
Most universities are desperate for stopping their financial losses; most of them are losing enrollment. If a for-profit corporate restaurant management or parking lot can bring in money for them, then they’ll do that.
I read the article. I don’t even live in Indiana let alone attend IU and this lowkey bummed me out. They’re replacing unlimited voucher food eateries with flipping Starbucks. I live in California. My street literally has 5 Starbucks on it before you even count the mini Bucks that are in stores. Then it’s closer to a dozen. Bleh. Can’t imagine anything less cool to replace it with. And I drink Starbucks occasionally.
With the money they pay out to stockholders and executives, they could make some gluten free options available, better food and much coffee certainly. Colleges with some kind of hospitality management or business majors often put their students to work/study in their own restaurants.
I’m sorry to hear you’re having such a hard time getting meds, NGPZ!
You’re in Cali, right? Do you have Medi-Cal Medicaid coverage? I’m pretty sure the generics at least are covered. If not, then even out of pocket you can get them relatively cheaply with drug coupons:
walgreens.rxsense.com
If you know a Costco member (or even if you don’t), Costco also has a price comparison tool showing you where to get the cheapest meds:
costco.com/member-prescription-program.html
This telehealth website is really good about helping folks get meds and prescriptions for ADHD. They take insurance and are running a special right now:
helloklarity.com
If you need help signing up for Medi-Cal or discount health insurance, you can do it here:
coveredca.com
Even the brand-name meds occasionally offer coupons, like this one:
jornaypm.com/savings
(I just Googled “California discount drug program”, and apparently there are lots of little prescription cards you can download, too, for assistance with medicine costs.)
For Klarity Health, lotta folks just pay out of pocket for ADHD telehealth psychiatry and counseling, even without insurance. They try to make it affordable for uninsured folks.
Right, but it’s turning a dining hall from somewhere that people with a certain kind of meal card could get an infinite number of meals for scanning their cards whenever they wanted, into somewhere they’ll need to use money they don’t have or limited scan cards that don’t necessarily have enough scans for a full meal three times a day.
I don’t think the fuss in the article is about it being a Starbucks (though I personally am boycotting Starbucks for a number of reasons so would also have preferred literally any other coffee shop getting a chance there instead).
So before it was chain restaurants operating under a pre-purchased eat what you want meal plan approach and now it’s going to be different chain restaurants, but on a limited pre-paid card approach?
Or were they not chain restaurants before, but just laid out as if they were?
I dunno, back when I was in college, it was just all cafeteria style. None of this weird branding or restaurant chain stuff.
Yeah, it definitely seems inconvenient for those in Read. They can still use their unlimited swipes elsewhere, but it seems like the cheapest 7day dining plan (the type I would probably have, equivalent to what I had when I lived on campus) would only give you three combo meal swipes per week…
Plus, while I like poké, I’d definitely want multiple options throughout the week.
When I was at my local college for the second time in the 2000s, the refectory in the main building suddenly included a Costa (British Starbucks). To encourage people to use the Costa, the college-run counters didn’t sell hot drinks at all. But the Costa didn’t have teabags. The process for getting tea involved getting a teabag from the counter, a hot water from Costa and paying … somewhere. And that’s the story of how I discovered I quite like caramel lattes.
Billifer’s more like a trash koala: Her system can’t really tolerate the trash she consumes, but she literally can’t recognize anything else as fulfilling her needs.
Yeah, it’s hard to say how reasonable Jennifer is being — it might also just be that their New Relationship Energy + her own depression is making her irritable over only a couple of incidents — but she is definitely annoyed about it.
On the other hand, I think the last few panels of this comic are a few things coming to a head at once:
– Lucy might not know that it’s specifically the “nonstop boning” that’s irritating Jennifer, but she has definitely picked up on the fact that Jennifer doesn’t like being around her (right now? anymore? who can say what Lucy’s perception is), so she’s surprised by the invite.
– Jennifer wants Alice to see her having friends and being happy
– POSSIBLY: Jennifer’s irritation over the Lucy/Jacob fluff parade was so much the product of her own depression that Alice being willing to be her friend(?) again has boosted Jennifer’s mood so much that… she actually does NOT currently find the prospect of hanging out with Lucy grating, so she’s making this invite sincerely
makes another comment, immediately decides that the third bullet isn’t just possible, but MORE likely than the second bullet
(Jennifer doesn’t look nervous in the fourth panel to me, the way I think she’d look if Lucy’s confusion threatened a “Make Sure Alice Continues to Think I Have Friends” ploy. She just looks blank, like she has completely forgotten her own persistent irritation with Lucy and doesn’t understand why Lucy is surprised to be invited.)
just gotta have walky walk by and put his foot in his mouth , but i guess it would be weird to hear an ex best friend going by a ‘formal ‘first name if they usually go by like their middle name or nickname
And not even wearing her high school colors for a 45th straight day. She’s clearly trying to cultivate something. But new images are hard to maintain for long. Especially when they’re forced.
The Golden Dragons were yellow with blue, right? She’s wearing purple with orange, the opposite colors on the wheel. Definitely on purpose from Willis.
I would get extreme joy out of these three enjoying a meal together as humans who enjoy social interactions for the sake of it while Raidah is forced to watch and punch air forever alone…..Well I guess she has Carl. Is Carl cool? Does Raidah even enjoy him or is he another transactional associate? I know next to nothing about dude.
It’s weird because I can believe Raidah had a legitimate friendship with Dana based on her bitterness at Sarah for reporting her and getting her pulled from school. Carl was Dana’s former boyfriend so I could assume he has an emotional connection to Raidah. They could be real friends, but I really know nothing about him.
a) get replaced by aliens
b) get replaced by a robot Carla made
c) get three years of therapy in one night
d) actually clean up her act and become nice
I suspect she would just like to be seen with Lucy’s tall and handsome boyfriend. But perhaps she is trying to be the person she thinks Alice wants her to be.
I’m not sure what makes you think she’s trying to be seen with Jacob. She’s telling Lucy that if she tags along for food she can also use it as an excuse to see her boyfriend.
You have some interesting reads on these situations.
I think it would be fairly consistent with the Jennifer who obsesses over her social circle being “cool” enough — and, if Jennifer were thinking of Raidah at all right now, she might even want to get lunch with Jacob+Lucy specifically to spite Raidah — buuuuut I don’t think that’s where Jennifer’s head is at.
I’m not sure I even think Jennifer is consciously thinking “I should invite Lucy along because Alice would like to see further evidence of me having friends”.
I kind of think she’s purely riding high on the happiness of having Alice back in her life and it’s making her more generous to everyone and everything in her vicinity, and Jennifer is such a creature of the moment that she has no idea why Lucy is so surprised to be invited to tag alone.
e) Is actually a kind, caring person when she feels happy and secure and lets the mask down, which isn’t often, and in this moment she simply forgot that aloof “Jennifer” wouldn’t have invited Lucy out.
At least, that’s how I’m interpreting that fifth panel. Kind of a slightly surprised “Huh, I guess I am.”
Definitely doesn’t seem to have been done out of some sort of manipulative effort to seem like a better person. Or else I’d expect to see some sort of complimentary buttering her up, or some sort of pleading secret look, or even a tiny bit of stress on panel 5.
And that’s to say… I don’t think it’s C or D, because C implies serious character growth and change, and D implies effort to try to be something she’s not. I’m suggesting that we’re seeing the same Billie that we saw looking out for and being kind to Ruth closer to Halloween, and the same Jennifer that was looking out for Joyce’s best interests when she saw that she clearly needed help with her cycle.
Except, lucys Bf is Raidahs ex . Raidahs who is shunning her.
And he’s the roommate of Ethan who is banging her ex bf.
She can be happily visible to both. And show she’s above any prettiness. The ultimate form of petty. Unbothered. And continue the trend with Joyce. Being public with friends.
I think this would be a more plausible reading of the comic if we’d seen any indications that Raidah has crossed Jennifer’s mind even once she saw Ethan and Asher making out? Or if we’d seen any indications that Asher has crossed her mind since then.
She’s been pretty singularly focused on Alice, and I think it was important and very deliberate that what won Alice over WASN’T, actually, the scheme Jennifer tried to get Joyce involved with — but Alice first being told a very TRUE thing by Joyce and then finding Jennifer a complete mess in Ruth’s dorm room.
Jennifer “pretending” to still go by Billie is pretty much the only penny that needs to drop here? And it’s not like we’re seeing her flopsweat over it. :|a I figured it would probably come out over lunch.
I dunno, I think the overall theme of this right now is “Alice responded to Jennifer being genuine”, and that Jennifer being genuine in her desire to have lunch with Alice, as well as genuine in her desire to invite Lucy to come along — is important for that.
I sort of figure it’s D, with the context that she’s probably riding a bit of a high. Ruth was there for her, Alice is giving her a chance and it seems to be going pretty okay, and she’s doing alright emotionally for now due to that, not even looking annoyed or anything with Lucy here in a way she often would in this situation. It might be less that she’s actively trying, and more that she’s genuinely pretty content at the moment.
I thought this was Alice showing up for the planned lunch, but I may have lost track. If we did miss a lunch it must have been successful, on account of Alice is showing up.
No, no. It’s mandatory to get it. It comes with a few comics you haven’t seen (unless patron), a free magnet and a doodle. But mostly some alternate commentary stuck in here and there. Also reading straight through is a different experience.
I’d love it if Alice gave Billie another chance only for the experience to get increasingly uncomfortable every time they meet someone Billie knows. Her history with Asher would probably be the final straw.
well i think she might’ve passed by asher before but not that theyr’e dating anymore but i don’t think he’d be petty enough to be like “eh she’s gonna give you some bs testing too”
Ruth just played a big role in the reconciliation, so I don’t see her sabotaging it. As for Raidah, it would be great to see more people not giving a shit about Raidah.
The thought occurred to me that Jennifer, to keep up the good impression Joyce left on her behalf could be trying to like, imitate her. IDK how to describe it any other way but i do believe she’s autistic and could shift to masking in a more Joyce-like way not like, FULL Joyce because i don’t think she has the energy for that but i think a more upfront Jennifer could be fun who is trying and often failing to be a better person.
Meanwhile Joyce makes her final descent into full Disaster Bisexual finishing what was started so many years ago…
I definitely feel like she’s Jennifering it up right now by find-replacing aspects of her personality with things that might fit with what people expect of her. And in this instance the ‘what they expect’ is sunny, optimistic, loved, comfortable — so, Joyce.
Lucy is not part of the Raidah ‘friend’ group lunches. She was invited as Walky’s +1 to one breakfast with that group, and to the best of our knowledge has not interacted with them since.
yeah, even without giving a lot of details iw ould’ve expected billiefer to at least text lucy like “reconnected with a friend , trying to be better” or so
me uduring every social interaction (tho idk how genuinine it is coming from jen versus her adding to the count of ‘ppl wanting to hang around her’ lol)
Woah, a wild Billie. Also smart of Lucy to double check, ‘when you’re supposed to politely decline’ is like the worst one to figure out.
And interesting since it doesn’t seem like an example of how she behaved when she was in high school, in that era Im p sure ‘dorky nerd roomie’ wouldnt get a second look.
In the interest of tempting fate: Maybe she’s genuinely doing a lil better.
Both Billie and Ruth seem to be doing better. However, they are both very fragile and it would be easy for the right event to knock either or both of them back. Here’s hoping it doesn’t.
I think Alice probably agrees with me that it’s fine if you don’t want people to call you by your last-nane derived nickname anymore but that it’s kind of odd to insist on the full shebang of your first name when “Jenny” and “Jen” are right there. (Though, this is coming from a “Josh” who associates “Joshua” exclusively with being screamed at as a kid and spent a few years rolling his eyes at my friend’s roommate who insisted on calling her boyfriend “David” when EVERYONE ELSE INCLUDING HIM said “Dave” so it’s hard for me to imagine why anyone would prefer “Jennifer” to “Jenny” – plus I’ve known two awesome lasses named “Jenny” and… honestly never met anyone who preferred “Jennifer.”)
I’ve never felt like a Dave. I kind of associate “Dave” with people who are trying to be friendly but don’t really know me. (My sister’s kids used to call me “Uncle Davey”, which was fine, and my sister herself used to call me “Davva”, but only because it annoyed me.) It’s honestly less weird when people in RL use “Daibhid”, and that’s pretty weird. (Someone at a convention once pronnounced it correctly, and it took me a minute to even realise it was my name.)
Then again, if my name was three syllables, I’d probably shorten it because life’s too short.
I insist on the full shebang of my name every time. It’s four syllables long and people aren’t great at remembering it (for some weird reason, it’s a perfectly average name) but any nicknames at all annoy the shit out of me. Only allowed to loved ones, and only if it’s something cute rather than a shortening of my name.
Jennifer hasn’t told Alice that she’s been asking people to call her “Jennifer” rather than “Billie”, so Alice likely assumes that Lucy’s calling her that despite Jennifer preferring “Billie”.
“Jennifer” appears to be Raidah’s selection, not Ms. Billingsworth’s, in the same way that Raidah insists on calling Walky “David”. I don’t think the parallel to Linda refusing to use her kids’ chosen names could be accidental.
It is, but it’s not surprising that Alice who’s never been told that Jennifer doesn’t use Billie anymore is a little taken aback at her roommate calling her Jennifer.
It’s also interesting that Jennifer hasn’t told Alice that she prefers to be called Jennifer now.
I think Jennifer switched her name because she wanted to have a “clean break” with her past, but she’s since come to realize that the “new Jennifer” really wasn’t that different from her old self after all, so now she might thinking about re-pivoting back to her old self that “was flawed, but there were still people who loved her”.
I suspect it’s more that her reconnection with Alice is fragile and she doesn’t want to stress it by insisting on the name change or just that it’s nostalgic to have Alice call her that?
It is so hard to know if Jennifer is putting a front on with other people because this is so uniquely all she does but she kind of looks…happy here? Not just having a nice day but feeling like things are good?
Yeah… Even I can’t read Jennifer’s face here. XD I can’t tell if she genuinely invited Lucy along because she either wanted to or it was just a spur of the moment thing, or whether she’s doing it because she wants to look more social/affable to Alice (“See, I have lots of new friends!”), or whether she wanted to look more social/affable but secretly wants Lucy to decline because she just said that to SEEM more social/affable.
Or here me out…. She did it to look more social affable AND doesn’t care if Lucy comes along or not as it doesn’t really interfere with basically anything.
This already feels like watching Jennifer step on a rake. Which she left out in the middle of the floor. (IMO everything about this was calculated. After Alice’s comment, Jen was trying to casually show that no really, she’s friendly with her roommate. And Lucy instantly disproved that. So much for Jen’s plans to be seen not just with different friends, but Raidah’s ex too, and somewhere more public than the dorm cafeteria so Raidah will hear about it.)
I don’t think so, buddy. I think she’s just trying to hang out with Alice. Maybe she’s also trying to prove she does have friends who love her, but that’s not a lie so I’m not sure where people are getting the idea that she’s trying some machiavellian thing instead.
I honestly really can’t tell if Jennifer is actually inviting Lucy or if Lucy is right and she IS supposed to politely decline. I guess we’ll find out to what degree she’s back to her old new self now.
I feel like right now Billiefer is so euphoric about having her best friend Alice back that she might have extended a sincere invitation to Lucy without even consciously realizing she was doing it until Lucy pointed it out. And Billiefer has been trying so hard to show Alice that she’s changed, she might have forgotten that she had been intending to fake it.
Loading ...
o3o don’t look now, but Read Eatery closed down a couple months ago
undergoing renovations to become a sushi spot apparently
saw those signs when I visited back in April
means we’re losing Sear No Evil: https://bsky.app/profile/damnyouwillis.bsky.social/post/3lm3sujiozs22
Seriously? That name alone merits keeping it around!
In Bizarro World it’s called Reverse Sear No Evil.
Failing to call the new sushi place Sea No Evil is an L.
+1
+2
So the university is selling their students dining out to big corporations? Don’t these people of sense of community, or at the very least, watched Community?
Probably not. They probably already sold them out to Aramark a decade ago and now Aramark is selling an unprofitable spot to a different corporation.
That’s capitalism baby! everything must be commodified. Everything must have any soul it has scooped out to make space for profits.
Most universities are desperate for stopping their financial losses; most of them are losing enrollment. If a for-profit corporate restaurant management or parking lot can bring in money for them, then they’ll do that.
I read the article. I don’t even live in Indiana let alone attend IU and this lowkey bummed me out. They’re replacing unlimited voucher food eateries with flipping Starbucks. I live in California. My street literally has 5 Starbucks on it before you even count the mini Bucks that are in stores. Then it’s closer to a dozen. Bleh. Can’t imagine anything less cool to replace it with. And I drink Starbucks occasionally.
well I may be biased but if you’re me and live with ADHD that hasn’t been properly medicated in over a year,
caffeine is caffeine 0-0
plus they got decent breakfast sammiches for protein so I can’t complain too much,
but yeah StarBucks places are proliferating like fucking tumbleweeds
With the money they pay out to stockholders and executives, they could make some gluten free options available, better food and much coffee certainly. Colleges with some kind of hospitality management or business majors often put their students to work/study in their own restaurants.
Don’t forget the money they spend on unionbusting.
I’m sorry to hear you’re having such a hard time getting meds, NGPZ!
You’re in Cali, right? Do you have Medi-Cal Medicaid coverage? I’m pretty sure the generics at least are covered. If not, then even out of pocket you can get them relatively cheaply with drug coupons:
walgreens.rxsense.com
If you know a Costco member (or even if you don’t), Costco also has a price comparison tool showing you where to get the cheapest meds:
costco.com/member-prescription-program.html
This telehealth website is really good about helping folks get meds and prescriptions for ADHD. They take insurance and are running a special right now:
helloklarity.com
If you need help signing up for Medi-Cal or discount health insurance, you can do it here:
coveredca.com
Even the brand-name meds occasionally offer coupons, like this one:
jornaypm.com/savings
(I just Googled “California discount drug program”, and apparently there are lots of little prescription cards you can download, too, for assistance with medicine costs.)
I hope this helps!
Best of luck!
(Too many live links get the comment stuck in the moderation zone, so I had to omit the “https://www.” prefixes.)
Much appreciated Laura
Im actually in the process of applying for medical as we speak, hoping for the best for reals
Best of luck!
🧧
For Klarity Health, lotta folks just pay out of pocket for ADHD telehealth psychiatry and counseling, even without insurance. They try to make it affordable for uninsured folks.
+100000000000000000000000
Right, but it’s turning a dining hall from somewhere that people with a certain kind of meal card could get an infinite number of meals for scanning their cards whenever they wanted, into somewhere they’ll need to use money they don’t have or limited scan cards that don’t necessarily have enough scans for a full meal three times a day.
I don’t think the fuss in the article is about it being a Starbucks (though I personally am boycotting Starbucks for a number of reasons so would also have preferred literally any other coffee shop getting a chance there instead).
This is all so weird to me. Guess I’m old.
So before it was chain restaurants operating under a pre-purchased eat what you want meal plan approach and now it’s going to be different chain restaurants, but on a limited pre-paid card approach?
Or were they not chain restaurants before, but just laid out as if they were?
I dunno, back when I was in college, it was just all cafeteria style. None of this weird branding or restaurant chain stuff.
Yeah, it definitely seems inconvenient for those in Read. They can still use their unlimited swipes elsewhere, but it seems like the cheapest 7day dining plan (the type I would probably have, equivalent to what I had when I lived on campus) would only give you three combo meal swipes per week…
Plus, while I like poké, I’d definitely want multiple options throughout the week.
When I was at my local college for the second time in the 2000s, the refectory in the main building suddenly included a Costa (British Starbucks). To encourage people to use the Costa, the college-run counters didn’t sell hot drinks at all. But the Costa didn’t have teabags. The process for getting tea involved getting a teabag from the counter, a hot water from Costa and paying … somewhere. And that’s the story of how I discovered I quite like caramel lattes.
are the food courts that varied? well makes sense for a college but i assume there wouldn’t be too much of a change
tho depending, i guess it makes sense if it’s an empty kitchen space for ppl to rent out or so for multiple choice food court versus one cafeteria
For a lot of colleges, a dining hall is a multiple choice spot. Like where we saw Joyce, Joe, and Jennifer hang out before. https://www.dumbingofage.com/2025/comic/book-15/03-me-and-who-you-say-i-was-yesterday/caliente/
(Also: actual Forest Quad dining hall: https://dining.indiana.edu/locations/dininghalls/forest.html )
It lives on in the comic, like that fourth door on The Stairs.
JOYCE WILL NOT BE HAPPY
Jennifer stocks on the rise while other, newer bisexuals suffer. Ya love to see it!
We’ll see how long she manages to stay on the rise.
For now, i’m just being happy at that second panel of them smiling at each other.
forever
the good times will never end
I’m not one for the stock market, but i could see this goin up.
NO. Now is your time to shine Lucy!
Be the Starfire to her Raven.
I can imagine her sweetly trying to compliment her and it end up backfiring/being a roast lol
Dumbing of Age book 15: What does this social interaction MEAN?
Let’s name the next book after the alt-text for once! xD
billie actually looks cute when she isn’t being awful. hopefully her growing as a person arc continues
She is a trash goblin that craves mess, this can only go well
Amber is a trash goblin that craves mess. Billie is a trash goblin that craves mess… for herself.
Billifer’s more like a trash koala: Her system can’t really tolerate the trash she consumes, but she literally can’t recognize anything else as fulfilling her needs.
Amber is a trash goblin that craves mess. Billie is a chaos goblin who creates mess … mostly for herself.
Rooting for you Billingsworth
Fingers crossed this goes well and Lucy can a) make a couple of new friends b) get a clue that her boyfriend should not live in her dorm room.
@ V other than a couple “sleepovers” has jacob rly been around that much/overstayed his welcome to where it’d be annoying to a roommate?
lmao no. I actually think we’ve only seen a single sleepover, so V’s reaction feels a little dramatic and overstated.
Well, objectively, I can’t say, but the roommate is annoyed.
Yeah, it’s hard to say how reasonable Jennifer is being — it might also just be that their New Relationship Energy + her own depression is making her irritable over only a couple of incidents — but she is definitely annoyed about it.
On the other hand, I think the last few panels of this comic are a few things coming to a head at once:
– Lucy might not know that it’s specifically the “nonstop boning” that’s irritating Jennifer, but she has definitely picked up on the fact that Jennifer doesn’t like being around her (right now? anymore? who can say what Lucy’s perception is), so she’s surprised by the invite.
– Jennifer wants Alice to see her having friends and being happy
– POSSIBLY: Jennifer’s irritation over the Lucy/Jacob fluff parade was so much the product of her own depression that Alice being willing to be her friend(?) again has boosted Jennifer’s mood so much that… she actually does NOT currently find the prospect of hanging out with Lucy grating, so she’s making this invite sincerely
Only time will tell.
makes another comment, immediately decides that the third bullet isn’t just possible, but MORE likely than the second bullet
(Jennifer doesn’t look nervous in the fourth panel to me, the way I think she’d look if Lucy’s confusion threatened a “Make Sure Alice Continues to Think I Have Friends” ploy. She just looks blank, like she has completely forgotten her own persistent irritation with Lucy and doesn’t understand why Lucy is surprised to be invited.)
Alice will have to pick up soon on the reason why she’s “pretty formal”
What is this “Eatery” and why do I have to Read it
just gotta have walky walk by and put his foot in his mouth , but i guess it would be weird to hear an ex best friend going by a ‘formal ‘first name if they usually go by like their middle name or nickname
Lucy: “Am I supposed to politely decline?”
Jennifer: “Yes. Obviously.”
No, no, Jennifer is trying to show Alice that there are people in her life that choose to endure her presence.
i don’t think lucy dislikes billiefer at this moment but prolly not as eager to have lunch with her as she would’ve been at teh start
Well, We get to see Alice, at least. I little. Behind a text bubble.
Like Mike Wazowski!
We can have little a Alice, as a treat
I’m going to say she’s quite a treat! I prefer her to Billiefer by a long ways. Face and figure.
And not even wearing her high school colors for a 45th straight day. She’s clearly trying to cultivate something. But new images are hard to maintain for long. Especially when they’re forced.
The Golden Dragons were yellow with blue, right? She’s wearing purple with orange, the opposite colors on the wheel. Definitely on purpose from Willis.
I would get extreme joy out of these three enjoying a meal together as humans who enjoy social interactions for the sake of it while Raidah is forced to watch and punch air forever alone…..Well I guess she has Carl. Is Carl cool? Does Raidah even enjoy him or is he another transactional associate? I know next to nothing about dude.
Nobody knows anything about Carl.
Carl doesn’t know anything about Carl.
Very good. These three girls and Lucy’s very handsome boyfriend. Let’s hope Sarah can meet them there with her very handsome, connected boyfriend too.
Not sure Raidah has the headspace to fume over Billie and Alice, as it’s occupied with fuming over SaraTonyN.
That said, I wouldn’t mind a few filler comics with just Raidah fuming.
Though the potential for Jennifer introducing Alice to her other new friend Raidah and then Lucy dragging Jacob over to join them is entertaining.
Pretty sure Raidah doesn’t have anything but transactional associates.
It’s weird because I can believe Raidah had a legitimate friendship with Dana based on her bitterness at Sarah for reporting her and getting her pulled from school. Carl was Dana’s former boyfriend so I could assume he has an emotional connection to Raidah. They could be real friends, but I really know nothing about him.
Did Jennifer…
a) get replaced by aliens
b) get replaced by a robot Carla made
c) get three years of therapy in one night
d) actually clean up her act and become nice
Place your bets now!
She’s trying very hard to be the best version of herself for Alice
We’ll see how long she can keep it up
I suspect she would just like to be seen with Lucy’s tall and handsome boyfriend. But perhaps she is trying to be the person she thinks Alice wants her to be.
I’m not sure what makes you think she’s trying to be seen with Jacob. She’s telling Lucy that if she tags along for food she can also use it as an excuse to see her boyfriend.
You have some interesting reads on these situations.
They’re reading the same comic which takes place in a different universe.
I think it would be fairly consistent with the Jennifer who obsesses over her social circle being “cool” enough — and, if Jennifer were thinking of Raidah at all right now, she might even want to get lunch with Jacob+Lucy specifically to spite Raidah — buuuuut I don’t think that’s where Jennifer’s head is at.
I’m not sure I even think Jennifer is consciously thinking “I should invite Lucy along because Alice would like to see further evidence of me having friends”.
I kind of think she’s purely riding high on the happiness of having Alice back in her life and it’s making her more generous to everyone and everything in her vicinity, and Jennifer is such a creature of the moment that she has no idea why Lucy is so surprised to be invited to tag alone.
Well Lucy’s blowing her cover right off the bat. Alice will probably find it weird that Lucy seems unused to Jennifer being nice to her.
I’m going with B because that would be so fucking cool
Agreed. Then we have side story on where the real Billie is.
e) Is actually a kind, caring person when she feels happy and secure and lets the mask down, which isn’t often, and in this moment she simply forgot that aloof “Jennifer” wouldn’t have invited Lucy out.
At least, that’s how I’m interpreting that fifth panel. Kind of a slightly surprised “Huh, I guess I am.”
Definitely doesn’t seem to have been done out of some sort of manipulative effort to seem like a better person. Or else I’d expect to see some sort of complimentary buttering her up, or some sort of pleading secret look, or even a tiny bit of stress on panel 5.
And that’s to say… I don’t think it’s C or D, because C implies serious character growth and change, and D implies effort to try to be something she’s not. I’m suggesting that we’re seeing the same Billie that we saw looking out for and being kind to Ruth closer to Halloween, and the same Jennifer that was looking out for Joyce’s best interests when she saw that she clearly needed help with her cycle.
Except, lucys Bf is Raidahs ex . Raidahs who is shunning her.
And he’s the roommate of Ethan who is banging her ex bf.
She can be happily visible to both. And show she’s above any prettiness. The ultimate form of petty. Unbothered. And continue the trend with Joyce. Being public with friends.
I really REALLY don’t see that supported by the text.
I think this would be a more plausible reading of the comic if we’d seen any indications that Raidah has crossed Jennifer’s mind even once she saw Ethan and Asher making out? Or if we’d seen any indications that Asher has crossed her mind since then.
She’s been pretty singularly focused on Alice, and I think it was important and very deliberate that what won Alice over WASN’T, actually, the scheme Jennifer tried to get Joyce involved with — but Alice first being told a very TRUE thing by Joyce and then finding Jennifer a complete mess in Ruth’s dorm room.
Jennifer “pretending” to still go by Billie is pretty much the only penny that needs to drop here? And it’s not like we’re seeing her flopsweat over it. :|a I figured it would probably come out over lunch.
I dunno, I think the overall theme of this right now is “Alice responded to Jennifer being genuine”, and that Jennifer being genuine in her desire to have lunch with Alice, as well as genuine in her desire to invite Lucy to come along — is important for that.
I sort of figure it’s D, with the context that she’s probably riding a bit of a high. Ruth was there for her, Alice is giving her a chance and it seems to be going pretty okay, and she’s doing alright emotionally for now due to that, not even looking annoyed or anything with Lucy here in a way she often would in this situation. It might be less that she’s actively trying, and more that she’s genuinely pretty content at the moment.
Billie, having a good day? Unpossible!
Let’s go back to watching Dina eat cereal. j/k
Don’t kid about that, we ain’t getting no more Dina strips this storyline
but yet we are getting a Dina plush, so it all evens out 🥲
For me any mention of Dina is good, the plushie is bad because I’m having a hard time paying for food and internet.
I’m scared because we never saw their lunch. That’s a good 3-4 hours we were not privy to.
Why scared?
Because it means shoes.
What does that even mean?
I think it’s the earth saying that “a shoe is about to drop”
It’s a weather report: Cloudy with a chance of high heels.
Shoes, shoes, and more shoes.
I thought this was Alice showing up for the planned lunch, but I may have lost track. If we did miss a lunch it must have been successful, on account of Alice is showing up.
So maybe no shoes is good shoes.
well it’s morning now and alice is still around so i imagine it can’t be that bad
Dumbing of Age Book 15: I Don’t Get It
No, no. It’s mandatory to get it. It comes with a few comics you haven’t seen (unless patron), a free magnet and a doodle. But mostly some alternate commentary stuck in here and there. Also reading straight through is a different experience.
Dumbing of Age Book 15: Get it as Soon as You Can
I’d love it if Alice gave Billie another chance only for the experience to get increasingly uncomfortable every time they meet someone Billie knows. Her history with Asher would probably be the final straw.
well i think she might’ve passed by asher before but not that theyr’e dating anymore but i don’t think he’d be petty enough to be like “eh she’s gonna give you some bs testing too”
I would bet on Ruth or Raidah throwing a spanner into things more than Asher
Ruth just played a big role in the reconciliation, so I don’t see her sabotaging it. As for Raidah, it would be great to see more people not giving a shit about Raidah.
The thought occurred to me that Jennifer, to keep up the good impression Joyce left on her behalf could be trying to like, imitate her. IDK how to describe it any other way but i do believe she’s autistic and could shift to masking in a more Joyce-like way not like, FULL Joyce because i don’t think she has the energy for that but i think a more upfront Jennifer could be fun who is trying and often failing to be a better person.
Meanwhile Joyce makes her final descent into full Disaster Bisexual finishing what was started so many years ago…
I definitely feel like she’s Jennifering it up right now by find-replacing aspects of her personality with things that might fit with what people expect of her. And in this instance the ‘what they expect’ is sunny, optimistic, loved, comfortable — so, Joyce.
Reatery.
“Am I Supposed to Politely Decline?” next book title.
wonder how raidah would react, if this is implying that lucy never hangs out with jen outside of the raidah ‘friend’ group lunches
I think that is very much the point. Especially with Jacob there.
Lucy is not part of the Raidah ‘friend’ group lunches. She was invited as Walky’s +1 to one breakfast with that group, and to the best of our knowledge has not interacted with them since.
Hey, Jennifer’s rockin’ the bi-cut.
It’s a fair question, given how Jennifer acts around her.
yeah, even without giving a lot of details iw ould’ve expected billiefer to at least text lucy like “reconnected with a friend , trying to be better” or so
My favorite dorm in the comic!
me uduring every social interaction (tho idk how genuinine it is coming from jen versus her adding to the count of ‘ppl wanting to hang around her’ lol)
Woah, a wild Billie. Also smart of Lucy to double check, ‘when you’re supposed to politely decline’ is like the worst one to figure out.
And interesting since it doesn’t seem like an example of how she behaved when she was in high school, in that era Im p sure ‘dorky nerd roomie’ wouldnt get a second look.
In the interest of tempting fate: Maybe she’s genuinely doing a lil better.
Both Billie and Ruth seem to be doing better. However, they are both very fragile and it would be easy for the right event to knock either or both of them back. Here’s hoping it doesn’t.
And delightfully/horribly, ‘the right event’ might just be running into each other. Also: Same Hat/Avatar!
It’s interesting to see how Biilie/Jennifer isn’t straining or looking annoyed or anything with the pushback. She truly seems pretty placid right now.
I think Alice probably agrees with me that it’s fine if you don’t want people to call you by your last-nane derived nickname anymore but that it’s kind of odd to insist on the full shebang of your first name when “Jenny” and “Jen” are right there. (Though, this is coming from a “Josh” who associates “Joshua” exclusively with being screamed at as a kid and spent a few years rolling his eyes at my friend’s roommate who insisted on calling her boyfriend “David” when EVERYONE ELSE INCLUDING HIM said “Dave” so it’s hard for me to imagine why anyone would prefer “Jennifer” to “Jenny” – plus I’ve known two awesome lasses named “Jenny” and… honestly never met anyone who preferred “Jennifer.”)
I’ve never felt like a Dave. I kind of associate “Dave” with people who are trying to be friendly but don’t really know me. (My sister’s kids used to call me “Uncle Davey”, which was fine, and my sister herself used to call me “Davva”, but only because it annoyed me.) It’s honestly less weird when people in RL use “Daibhid”, and that’s pretty weird. (Someone at a convention once pronnounced it correctly, and it took me a minute to even realise it was my name.)
Then again, if my name was three syllables, I’d probably shorten it because life’s too short.
Pleased to meet you Dai.
I insist on the full shebang of my name every time. It’s four syllables long and people aren’t great at remembering it (for some weird reason, it’s a perfectly average name) but any nicknames at all annoy the shit out of me. Only allowed to loved ones, and only if it’s something cute rather than a shortening of my name.
Ny yum Pff. No, I can only come up with three syllables.
Four syllables, eh?
Rum-ple-stilt-skin
*furiously scribbling out my name and writing something new in* Nope. It’s not that. It’s something totally different.
Jennifer hasn’t told Alice that she’s been asking people to call her “Jennifer” rather than “Billie”, so Alice likely assumes that Lucy’s calling her that despite Jennifer preferring “Billie”.
“Jennifer” appears to be Raidah’s selection, not Ms. Billingsworth’s, in the same way that Raidah insists on calling Walky “David”. I don’t think the parallel to Linda refusing to use her kids’ chosen names could be accidental.
I think it’s completely reasonable to insist on being called whatever version of your name you prefer.
It is, but it’s not surprising that Alice who’s never been told that Jennifer doesn’t use Billie anymore is a little taken aback at her roommate calling her Jennifer.
It’s also interesting that Jennifer hasn’t told Alice that she prefers to be called Jennifer now.
It’s nice to see Billie/Jennifer like this. Happy, honest, baseline kind… Well-adjusted?
Might take some time for people to get used to, but I’m rooting for them all!
I wonder when she’s gonna tell Alice that she told everyone else to call her Jennifer. Or is she gonna go back to Billie?
I think Jennifer switched her name because she wanted to have a “clean break” with her past, but she’s since come to realize that the “new Jennifer” really wasn’t that different from her old self after all, so now she might thinking about re-pivoting back to her old self that “was flawed, but there were still people who loved her”.
I suspect it’s more that her reconnection with Alice is fragile and she doesn’t want to stress it by insisting on the name change or just that it’s nostalgic to have Alice call her that?
All of these things can true at the same time and I support everyone who has said them!
Whyyy don’t people just have signs over their heads, telling me what social interaction script I should follow??
They do, but the signs are written in invisible ink you need special glasses to read.
Also, no-one understands the language they’re written in.
It is so hard to know if Jennifer is putting a front on with other people because this is so uniquely all she does but she kind of looks…happy here? Not just having a nice day but feeling like things are good?
Yeah… Even I can’t read Jennifer’s face here. XD I can’t tell if she genuinely invited Lucy along because she either wanted to or it was just a spur of the moment thing, or whether she’s doing it because she wants to look more social/affable to Alice (“See, I have lots of new friends!”), or whether she wanted to look more social/affable but secretly wants Lucy to decline because she just said that to SEEM more social/affable.
Or here me out…. She did it to look more social affable AND doesn’t care if Lucy comes along or not as it doesn’t really interfere with basically anything.
Impolitely declining is always an option.
This already feels like watching Jennifer step on a rake. Which she left out in the middle of the floor. (IMO everything about this was calculated. After Alice’s comment, Jen was trying to casually show that no really, she’s friendly with her roommate. And Lucy instantly disproved that. So much for Jen’s plans to be seen not just with different friends, but Raidah’s ex too, and somewhere more public than the dorm cafeteria so Raidah will hear about it.)
(Whoops, didn’t mean for that to be a reply.)
OH, I get it! I get it very well.
It’s a burn. A sick burn to Raidah. And if her ex shows up with Ethan even better. But
I don’t think so, buddy. I think she’s just trying to hang out with Alice. Maybe she’s also trying to prove she does have friends who love her, but that’s not a lie so I’m not sure where people are getting the idea that she’s trying some machiavellian thing instead.
We know Jennifer is Mike and it’s clearly something that Mike would do.
When you’re trying to be social, but the social gears between you and your friends are so rusty…
I honestly really can’t tell if Jennifer is actually inviting Lucy or if Lucy is right and she IS supposed to politely decline. I guess we’ll find out to what degree she’s back to her old new self now.
I’m not sure Jennifer/Billie (Billiefer?) herself even knows.
I kind of feel like right now, it’s legitimately an offer.
I feel like right now Billiefer is so euphoric about having her best friend Alice back that she might have extended a sincere invitation to Lucy without even consciously realizing she was doing it until Lucy pointed it out. And Billiefer has been trying so hard to show Alice that she’s changed, she might have forgotten that she had been intending to fake it.