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.
Edison Rex
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The Messenger
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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.
Dumbing of Age
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Joyce has been homeschooled her entire life until now, when she's suddenly a freshman in college! Things don't go well.
Three Panel Soul
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It's a pretty rigid format but we keep the content loose, you know?
Blindsprings
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Sakana
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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.
Little Tiny Things
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Empowered
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Not Drunk Enough
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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.
Namesake
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There's ghosts at your heels and fairy tale worlds ahead. What do you do? Jump down the rabbit hole!
Barbarous
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A crummy wizard and an anxious monster have to get over themselves and bring order to an apartment building full of misfits.
Sister Claire
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In the troubled aftermath of a great war between Witches and her fellow Nuns, novice Sister Claire just wants a purpose.
Stand Still, Stay Silent
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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.
Augustine
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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
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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
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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.
ARISE, YE SKELETON KING
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Peritale
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A fairy godmother with no magic tries her best to successfully fulfill a Fairytale and win the respect of her peers.
Saint for Rent
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Saint Halliday runs an inn for Time Travelers. Unfortunately, he seems to attract other supernatural "guests," too.
Monster's Garden
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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.
Freakshow
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A festival of broken people, blood flows in the center ring. Come one and come all, to the greatest show in all of Paris.
Guilded Age
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Welcome to the saga of the working-class adventurer! Enjoy the complete story with new annotations daily!
Nigh Heaven & Hell
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Lies Within
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Cyanide & Happiness
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A cute webcomic about fanservice, video games, and... love. Mostly video games, though.
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Ozzie the Vampire
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The Weave
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Angel's Orchard
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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.
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I am not attempting to claim that Stegosaurus is not extinct. I am simply pointing out the inarguable fact that the person above claiming that chicken nuggets are the most delicious dinosaur meat has never tasted roasted Stegosaurus. One should hardly be going around declaring “definitely” the tastiest dinosaur meat when one does not have the experience with potential competing claims.
I would go so far as to say a person who eats roasted Stegosaurus would not even consider chicken nuggets for their top 10 tastiest dinosaur meats list. Because A: they would have tasted a variety of other dinosaurs that you have not, B: they would live in a time well before chicken nuggets exist, and C: they would be extremely fictional. Like more fictional than most fictional people.
It is true they have never tasted roasted stegosaurus but that’s an irrelevant fact. When most dinosaurs are dead, we can only work with what we have and what we have are descendants, like chicken. Ergo, based on the data we DO have and the inherently subjective nature of the question, it is absolutely possible to claim chicken nuggets are the most delicious form of dinosaur meat.
In the words of Judy Collins, “I hope that when I am as old as Malvina Reynolds, I will be as young as she has been all of her life.”
Malvina Reynolds wrote “Little Boxes” in 1962, and her friend Pete Seeger turned it into a hit. She wrote a lot of other songs in that same time period that sadly are still applicable today. “It Isn’t Nice” could be an anthem of the Resist movement.
It is a personal song for me because I grew up on the San Francisco peninsula, and when we drove into SF on 280, my mother would start singing that song as we drove through Daly City, where you can still see the “little boxes on the hillside” that inspired the song.
I think it’s less that she wants to take them than that she wants to further her education. She wants to be a scientist due to Dina igniting her interest in dinosaurs, so it’s not like midterms aren’t an inevitability for her, someday.
Currently, though, she’s couch surfing at Leslie’s and working at Galasso’s, so she has to work her way to where Dina already is. That’s worthy of envy on Becky’s part.
Best place to further your education on your own terms is the library. Right up to the point where you need to ask questions. And then sometimes Google will work.
I was like this in grade 2, when my mum had to fight to let me do multiplication instead of addition, and the resulting compromise was that I could do multiplication worksheets as homework.
a few weeks into grade 3, when the math BS was sorted out and I stared getting real homework, that enthusiasm vanished.
but I still took every chance I could get to mess about on math worksheets instead of doing real work
Huh, I can relate. I was reading at a very early age and had always been ahead of the curve in my classes. By 1st grade I was practicing cursive and I’d completed the entire reading workbook. They wanted to promote me to 3rd grade early on, but my mother wanted me not to rush and be with students my own age. On the one hand, I’m kinda grateful for all the friends I made and still have to this day because of it, but on the other, DANG IT WOMAN, I COULD’VE FINISHED HIGH SCHOOL SOONER! >.</ Although, one of my closest friends did this exact same thing during the middle school years and sadly we lost touch because of it…so yeah, calling a wash on that one :/
I was actually in grade 3 for a couple of weeks when I first came to Canada, then got moved down by a new principal who wanted me with kids my own age.
On the bright side, it got me away from the boy who wouldn’t stop making fun of my accent, but it resulted in me having no respect for boring-ass classes and putting in less effort than walky :p
Yeah, when you don’t have to study, go to class, and take tests, it does seem like something you would want to do.
Every time I watch Larry Crowne, I think, “God, I want to go back to school and study and learn stuff.” Then I think back to my 9 years of college struggles for a 4 year degree and am like, “nevermind.”
I like reading most of my textbooks – mind, they’re almost all about subjects I like so maybe that’s no surprise. But yeah, sometimes past editions are still workable.
I once had a prof who we had to explain to that some professors write their own textbooks and make money off them by making them required. She said, and I quote, ‘Professors who do that should be drawn and quartered!’ A little extreme, imo, but the way she said it and the look on her face were HILARIOUS.
There was a prof at my alma mater who taught the freshman speech course. He not only wrote the textbook, he updated it every term and required the current edition– you not only couldn’t buy a used book, you couldn’t sell your books back at the end of the class because the off-campus bookstores wouldn’t take them.
I signed up for honors program just so I could take the Honors speech section that was NOT taught by him. Instead of overpriced textbooks, a file folder full of photocopy sheets.
To be fair, if you got kicked out of college, your only living parent tried to kidnap/murder you, and were on the verge of homelessness, only protected by a benefactor on (what you assume to be) a limited time span, you’d probably wish you were living through the banal normalcy that all the other kids get to live through.
Honestly, if it came down to it, it wouldn’t have worked since Joyce could have always entered it through the half-bath (and since Dorothy was in the other room, Joyce has easy access to it).
Ouch, panel three hurts. Becky genuinely enjoys learning things, it seems, which makes it even worse that her education was interrupted. And if the comic ends after the first semester, we may never see her get back to officially being a student.
This comic will never end. I probably won’t be around to see it, but in much the same way ‘Family Circle’, ‘Beetle Bailey’, ‘Hi and Lois’, and ‘Hagar the Horrible’ are being carried on by their creators’ offspring, I visualize a time when Willis is in his 70s or 80s (and we’re still a week or so from the end of the first semester) at which he will pass the torch on to one of his sons.
Centuries in the future Willis’ descendants will still be making this comic, and the readers will be anticipating the end of most of the characters’ first year of college.
My first comment originally ended with something along the lines of, “I hope Willis dies first,” but uh. Um.
I remember reading that he was only planning to do the first semester, but I don’t know if that’s accurate; if it is, I hope Willis changes his mind and keeps it going through the first year. I feel like that’s as far as it’d go, though.
Like, “I hope this comic keeps going so long it outlives Willis,” but phrased in a very bad way that my brain spent, like, five solid seconds thinking was acceptable.
The end of the first semester is ~12 RL years away, and it would avoid that problem of how to treat the semester break, timeline-wise. But Willis will be at that awkward stage — too young to retire, old enough to be all holy-fuck-how-do-I-put-two-kids-through-college.
For the 2019/2020 academic year, classes at IU Bloominton begin on Aug 29 and end on May 3. Taking May 3-ish as a reasonable end date, and given that it’s Oct 16 in the current storyline, which I believe is 199 more in-universe days. At the current rate of ~66.76 to 1, I come up with roughly 36-1/2 years.
Which is a few months after Willis’s 75th birthday.
Mind you, that’s only if nothing either forwards or hinders the rate of timeline advance. Let us hope that future generations of Kickstarters continue to back 7-day-a-week strips.
I visualize a time when every star-colony will have its own virtual-Willis-AI producing a local version of the Dumbingverse. Earth will maintain the organic original, with all its limitations, as a historic treasure. Due to the floating time line, no one will ever graduate.
Do we KNOW that Willis and Jaques are not two personalities sharing the same mind? They seem so polar opposites, yet seeing Dina in one comic, and seeing Dora try to reach to Faye to warn her,.. Just seems so Willis-y. Has onyone seen them in a room together?
Nope nope NOPE no repressed feelings here RUN AWAY TO THE GF!
…poor Dina. I know Becky’s trying and means well. I really want them to work out! Their relationship is built on actual mutual interest and respect, dammit.
I am optimistic. It’s not as if Dina is unaware of any lingering attraction being a possibility, since Sarah bluntly fielded the possibility to her when she first started dating Becky, but it’s still going to be something the two will have to work through.
I like to think that Becky’s education with Dinah will help her catch up and be able to attend college at a level that will put her on the road to being a scientist next semester.
Nobody talks like that. That’s the point. She’s being awkward as hell because she feels guilty about still being attracted to Joyce. Once the ‘it hurts itself in its confusion’ happens she runs back to her girlfriend and overcompensates for the guilt by calling her perfect and awesome way too much.
Or just anyone infatuated enough to interpret their partner as being such, and still young and innocent enough to not filter what they say. In short, a fair portion of those teenagers who are having their first relationship, as Becky is.
Also, by this point I don’t think it’s relevant that Becky was on the rebound when these two started dating. The reason that’s a bad idea is that you’re more likely to get involved with someone you aren’t really compatible with or who might take advantage of your vulnerability. These two are a great match and Dina is clearly not taking advantage.
Becky’s residual thirst for Joyce might make her feel guilty but it really isn’t a problem. There’s nothing wrong with finding someone else attractive. It’s your actions that matter.
Dina has a rad gf who shares a lot of her interests and deeply cares about her. She’ll be FINE
In our very bitter and egocentrical world, showering someone with praise is seen as either delusional, or most often, manipulative. Which doesn’t mean that the praise actually is those things, only that outsiders will perceive it as a red flag.
Again, it doesn’t say that much about whoever does it, and more about whoever judges it.
Well, I’m about 99% sure that Joyce isn’t going end up actually queer and date Becky, so I’m not real worried that angle.
There’s always drama in breaking up relationships so anything is possible. Still, even beyond the discarding Dina problem, I’d also rather not have the “rebound relationships aren’t real” thing reinforced.
But boy oh boy… I mean, girl oh girl does she -also- have a thing for Dina! And she’d have a serious, serious thing for Dina even if she wasn’t into Joyce.
Dina has realized religious fundamentalists can take scientific concepts and twist them to fit their religious agenda. Science has become victim of religions, ideologies and racism.
It’s okay and natural (for some) to continue finding other people attractive when they’ve found a significant other for themselves. The question is how those experiencing such feelings honor or betray the trust their partners have in them.
Pretty sure she just has a lock of hair that happens to follow her jawline, and an eye that floats in front of it. I hope this helps you feel less freaked out.
I really hope there’s an explanation next strip for that last panel, ’cause the intent is obscured enough without the confusing grammar.
On another note, it has been such a fresh breeze, seeing Dina obtain the affection and companionship she so desperately craved in the original Walkyverse. Much as it has been seeing Ruth get the support she needs, but Dina and Becky get the extra bonus of being adorbs together.
A security system should A: Keep out people who are not wanted, and B: Allow in people who are wanted.
The correlation between these desired divisions and what the system actually checks for is low. While it is better for a person to have a good answer to what their favorite dinosaur is, both Dina and Amber have friends that don’t, and enemies that either do or can fake it.
That (in conjunction with what Clif noted above) was the intuitive association I initially came to, but the “It is.. THE SYSTEM” bit throws everything off.
Becky needs to fill out a FAFSA and get back to school.
Counterargument: Becky is young enough that she would be considered a dependent on her jailed father whose tax information she would need to apply.
Response to counteragument: People younger than 24 can be considered as independents in special circumstances which can be argued for to the Financial Aid office.
Becky needs a social worker. Can someone connect this girl with some services please? Why hasn’t Leslie put her in touch with …the LGBT resource center on campus? (I looked this up and there is one there.)
The problem is that it is unlikely that Becky knows any of this and who would tell her? Leslie eventually but only if she knew that this was an issue. It seems to me that Becky feels guilty enough about her situation with Leslie right now that it is less likely that she’ll approach her with questions about how to get back into school or be declared emancipated.
I still love how Cerberus had to ask DYW to remove the spy cameras he’d installed in her class room because of how accurately she was portrayed in that strip.
She does, but remember our timescale here. It’s only been about 3 weeks since she left Anderson, less since the happy fun gun times on campus, and she’s found a job and a (somewhat more stable) place to live. She’s been busy.
It’ll be a decade or two of real time before the semester ends and her first chance to get in.
Even if Becky does get her financial aid, she won’t be able to transfer until at least next semester. We’re probably never going to see her in IU. We may, but it’ll be years and years away. She’ll probably apply for it, but she’s not going to IU for at least another couple months.
This fic is glorious and you should feel glorious. Joyce and Dorothy are adorable.
I liked that touch of Carla using words like ‘ain’t’ – seems like she’s been hanging out more with Sal. That’s probably not what you’re going for but it made me smile regardless.
Fuck, though, watching cartoons and holding hands is like 90% of my dates with my boyfriend. We’ve been together for a little over three years so I guess that’s a good idea?
And yes, Joyce. Becky and Dina should’ve taught you science is gay as hell.
Aaaahh thank you, that’s so many comments, thank you!
Most of my responses are on Ao3, but I’ll add here that for a long while I couldn’t think of anything else to title the fic but “Is Science Gay?”, but I got a friend to help convince me that that would be a waste of a fun title. It doesn’t really sum up the fic terribly well, but hey I’ve got it pocketed for later.
Ooooh, later sounds promising! And I hope you’ll forgive me, but I’ll have to steal that idea of Joyce asking her floor mates how they know they’re attracted to someone. It’s just too delicious.
Credit where credit’s due, that idea’s a continuation of that sequence when Joyce went around asking everyone on her floor if they owned a vibrator, because that was just… so great. So very great. That being said, yes, oh my goodness yes, do please steal it, I need more scenes like that yes
I really liked this, a lot. Only critique I have is sometimes it felt like you were being overly descriptive about the characters’ expressions/positions/movements and it broke up dialogue a little. Maybe that’s just me. Really enjoyed it though!
And, nah, I don’t think that’s just you. I spent a ton of time adding, removing, and generally fiddling with descriptive text in an effort to get each line to flow and read the way I wanted it to. But I also kind of felt a constant pressure to add more descriptive text or something? I dunno, maybe I was afraid to let too many lines of dialogue stand alone? I definitely typed and deleted the words “(name) said” a loooot of times.
Basically that criticism is pretty helpful and interesting to me and I’m glad to receive it! Thank you!!!
MY favorite dinosaur is a Utah raptor. Not a Velociraptor those are the size of chickens. I had a dream once where I was attacked by Utah raptors (though I though they were baby T-Rexes at the time. I was rescued by an odd man wearing a really long scarf who appeared out of nowhere in a blue box.
Optimus Prime broke down and cried on the set of "Transformers" (2007) due to the extensive use of green screen filming. He reportedly said, "This is not why I became an actor."
“I’m just going to say it, shame on any of us who throws a trans child under the bus for thinking they’re going to get elected. That child deserves our support. Don’t worry about the pollsters calling it distractions, because we need to be the party of human dignity.”
Minnesota Star Tribune@startribune.com ⋅ 1d
Gov. Tim Walz is doubling down on trans rights — and criticizing members of his party who are retreating — at a time when the issue has become a political lightning rod nationally and back home in Minnesota.
they managed to get the arms and thighs to be different grays, which I wasn't sure they'd be able to do, the way the mold's set up
though maybe they're just producing a lot of extra thighs and/or arms in the wrong colors and throwing those away, i dunno
Minnesota Star Tribune @startribune.com ⋅ 1d
preternia @preternia.com ⋅ 1d
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Becky is no longer confused!
…we hope
alt-text: next, assbutt
I’m still holding out for a strip titled “Cloaca,” but in the mean time enjoy this sweet ass-xkcd strip.
Hmm, i think Willis and Jacques did two strips that would count as that already, starting here.
Thus setting the stage for the long-awaited crossover with Questionable Content. Yes, I know. Dina’s cameo doesn’t count.
Panel one makes it look like Becky just sprinted directly at Dina’s door, and she just happened to open it at the right time.
If she had been running a little behind, there would be a comical hole in the wall shaped exactly like Becky.
The loophole is that people who know dinosaurs can get in
Also people who can bribe her with chicken nuggets.
Birds are dinosaurs, after all.
Chicken nuggets are definitely the tastiest dinosaur meat.
Spoken like someone who’s never had roasted Stegosaurus.
I believe any form of speaking would count for that…
I uh… hate to break this to ya but Stegosaurus is extinct. Anybody who sold you Stegosaurus meat was fooling you >.>
Who says the Stegosaurus vendor didn’t have a time machine?
Who said I purchased it?
I hunt my own stegosaurus in the fields around my house. It tastes a lot like cow.
I am not attempting to claim that Stegosaurus is not extinct. I am simply pointing out the inarguable fact that the person above claiming that chicken nuggets are the most delicious dinosaur meat has never tasted roasted Stegosaurus. One should hardly be going around declaring “definitely” the tastiest dinosaur meat when one does not have the experience with potential competing claims.
I would go so far as to say a person who eats roasted Stegosaurus would not even consider chicken nuggets for their top 10 tastiest dinosaur meats list. Because A: they would have tasted a variety of other dinosaurs that you have not, B: they would live in a time well before chicken nuggets exist, and C: they would be extremely fictional. Like more fictional than most fictional people.
Most people declare something “the tastiest whatever” without having tasted all the other stuff in the same category. It’s just a figure of speech.
Besides this claim is empirically testable. All you need to do is build a time machine.
Technically correct. The best kind of correct!
It is true they have never tasted roasted stegosaurus but that’s an irrelevant fact.
When most dinosaurs are dead, we can only work with what we have and what we have are descendants, like chicken. Ergo, based on the data we DO have and the inherently subjective nature of the question, it is absolutely possible to claim chicken nuggets are the most delicious form of dinosaur meat. 
That’s a feature not a bug
Eight years got us to midterms in the first semester.
Huh, most people I know would actually be happy NOT to take midterms.
Becky has yet to experience the horror.
Yeah, she probably just thinks they’re meant for learning rather than crushing your soul.
That’s a requirement to fit into working life.
If your soul hasn’t been squashed down into a perfect cube shape, how else will it fit in a cubicle?
“And the people in the houses
All went to the university
Where they were put in boxes
And they came out all the same”
Wow! Haven’t heard that one in a LONG time.
Totally appropriate though.
70s?
In the words of Judy Collins, “I hope that when I am as old as Malvina Reynolds, I will be as young as she has been all of her life.”
Malvina Reynolds wrote “Little Boxes” in 1962, and her friend Pete Seeger turned it into a hit. She wrote a lot of other songs in that same time period that sadly are still applicable today. “It Isn’t Nice” could be an anthem of the Resist movement.
It is a personal song for me because I grew up on the San Francisco peninsula, and when we drove into SF on 280, my mother would start singing that song as we drove through Daly City, where you can still see the “little boxes on the hillside” that inspired the song.
I think it’s less that she wants to take them than that she wants to further her education. She wants to be a scientist due to Dina igniting her interest in dinosaurs, so it’s not like midterms aren’t an inevitability for her, someday.
Currently, though, she’s couch surfing at Leslie’s and working at Galasso’s, so she has to work her way to where Dina already is. That’s worthy of envy on Becky’s part.
from her perspective, I mean to say.
Best place to further your education on your own terms is the library. Right up to the point where you need to ask questions. And then sometimes Google will work.
Library computer cookies; my fav.!
Amazong-Oogle cookies are the best, though they have a Musk-y aftertaste…
And all of your moneys.
Most libraries have a reference service, so you can ask questions there too if google isn’t helping
I was like this in grade 2, when my mum had to fight to let me do multiplication instead of addition, and the resulting compromise was that I could do multiplication worksheets as homework.
a few weeks into grade 3, when the math BS was sorted out and I stared getting real homework, that enthusiasm vanished.
but I still took every chance I could get to mess about on math worksheets instead of doing real work
Huh, I can relate. I was reading at a very early age and had always been ahead of the curve in my classes. By 1st grade I was practicing cursive and I’d completed the entire reading workbook. They wanted to promote me to 3rd grade early on, but my mother wanted me not to rush and be with students my own age. On the one hand, I’m kinda grateful for all the friends I made and still have to this day because of it, but on the other, DANG IT WOMAN, I COULD’VE FINISHED HIGH SCHOOL SOONER! >.</ Although, one of my closest friends did this exact same thing during the middle school years and sadly we lost touch because of it…so yeah, calling a wash on that one :/
I was actually in grade 3 for a couple of weeks when I first came to Canada, then got moved down by a new principal who wanted me with kids my own age.
On the bright side, it got me away from the boy who wouldn’t stop making fun of my accent, but it resulted in me having no respect for boring-ass classes and putting in less effort than walky :p
Yeah, when you don’t have to study, go to class, and take tests, it does seem like something you would want to do.
Every time I watch Larry Crowne, I think, “God, I want to go back to school and study and learn stuff.” Then I think back to my 9 years of college struggles for a 4 year degree and am like, “nevermind.”
I think just going to the lectures would be fun! Essays, midterms and exams on the other hand…
Lectures with no exams? Isn’t that basically TED Talks?
At least textbooks depreciate like crazy, so you could probably find used previous-edition copies to read without the homework.
I mean, most are longer, but sure.
I like reading most of my textbooks – mind, they’re almost all about subjects I like so maybe that’s no surprise. But yeah, sometimes past editions are still workable.
I once had a prof who we had to explain to that some professors write their own textbooks and make money off them by making them required. She said, and I quote, ‘Professors who do that should be drawn and quartered!’ A little extreme, imo, but the way she said it and the look on her face were HILARIOUS.
There was a prof at my alma mater who taught the freshman speech course. He not only wrote the textbook, he updated it every term and required the current edition– you not only couldn’t buy a used book, you couldn’t sell your books back at the end of the class because the off-campus bookstores wouldn’t take them.
I signed up for honors program just so I could take the Honors speech section that was NOT taught by him. Instead of overpriced textbooks, a file folder full of photocopy sheets.
Really? I can understand the on campus bookstore not taking them back, but I’d think an off campus bookstore would – or even a used bookstore.
Likely no one else used the textbook for a class, so there would be no demand for it.
Fair enough, most of my textbooks are general books about history so mine can be used for general interest readers.
To be fair, if you got kicked out of college, your only living parent tried to kidnap/murder you, and were on the verge of homelessness, only protected by a benefactor on (what you assume to be) a limited time span, you’d probably wish you were living through the banal normalcy that all the other kids get to live through.
If you run fast enough, maybe you can run away from your feelings.
… nope, doesn’t work.
She can run towards happier feelings though, because that works just fine
Maybe she’s running with her feelings– Joyce got her worked up, so she picked up that feeling like a bucket of blueberries and ran it over to Dina.
everyone knows that you need heelies to escape feelies. Consult Amber and Carla.
Panel four is the shared look I wanted to see out of these two.
*an encore of “Miserlu” is playing on the hacked Muzak*
–“Misirlou”, I meant. I could never get that right. :/
Rock on, Dick Dale.
Miserlu would be this (or variants thereof) https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Rjtm8gFYyiA
The real flaw is the friends we made along the way.
Aww, hooray, it’s Becky and DinaaaAAAAHHHHHH, MIDTERMS!!!
AAAHH!!! Real Midterms!
At least they’re not administered by The Gromble.
I mean, yeah, the system was noooooottttt the most airtight.
And cheer up, Becky! This time you get to study a subject you’re actually interested in!
It kept Joyce out most of the time, which actually seem to be important for Amber since she was the one to barge in most of the time.
I mean, true, but it also let in Sal when Amber very much wanted to be alone.
That ended up working out for the best, but it’s hardly the most airtight system.
Honestly, if it came down to it, it wouldn’t have worked since Joyce could have always entered it through the half-bath (and since Dorothy was in the other room, Joyce has easy access to it).
That’s another problem with it yes.
Ouch, panel three hurts. Becky genuinely enjoys learning things, it seems, which makes it even worse that her education was interrupted. And if the comic ends after the first semester, we may never see her get back to officially being a student.
This comic will never end. I probably won’t be around to see it, but in much the same way ‘Family Circle’, ‘Beetle Bailey’, ‘Hi and Lois’, and ‘Hagar the Horrible’ are being carried on by their creators’ offspring, I visualize a time when Willis is in his 70s or 80s (and we’re still a week or so from the end of the first semester) at which he will pass the torch on to one of his sons.
Centuries in the future Willis’ descendants will still be making this comic, and the readers will be anticipating the end of most of the characters’ first year of college.
My first comment originally ended with something along the lines of, “I hope Willis dies first,” but uh. Um.
I remember reading that he was only planning to do the first semester, but I don’t know if that’s accurate; if it is, I hope Willis changes his mind and keeps it going through the first year. I feel like that’s as far as it’d go, though.
Like, “I hope this comic keeps going so long it outlives Willis,” but phrased in a very bad way that my brain spent, like, five solid seconds thinking was acceptable.
The end of the first semester is ~12 RL years away, and it would avoid that problem of how to treat the semester break, timeline-wise. But Willis will be at that awkward stage — too young to retire, old enough to be all holy-fuck-how-do-I-put-two-kids-through-college.
Anyway, life is uncertain, so eat dessert first.
For the 2019/2020 academic year, classes at IU Bloominton begin on Aug 29 and end on May 3. Taking May 3-ish as a reasonable end date, and given that it’s Oct 16 in the current storyline, which I believe is 199 more in-universe days. At the current rate of ~66.76 to 1, I come up with roughly 36-1/2 years.
Which is a few months after Willis’s 75th birthday.
Mind you, that’s only if nothing either forwards or hinders the rate of timeline advance. Let us hope that future generations of Kickstarters continue to back 7-day-a-week strips.
I visualize a time when Willis is in his head jar and drawing the comic with waldo arms, or an I/O port to the jar.
I visualize a time when every star-colony will have its own virtual-Willis-AI producing a local version of the Dumbingverse. Earth will maintain the organic original, with all its limitations, as a historic treasure. Due to the floating time line, no one will ever graduate.
Yeah, but how many years of buffer will he have by then?
I REALLY wish I could see Becky as a student. I envision something like this
https://questionablecontent.net/view.php?comic=1510
Do we KNOW that Willis and Jaques are not two personalities sharing the same mind? They seem so polar opposites, yet seeing Dina in one comic, and seeing Dora try to reach to Faye to warn her,.. Just seems so Willis-y. Has onyone seen them in a room together?
As a matter of fact, yes, I have indeed seen both of them in the same room.
Midterms at Anderson are easy because Jesus is the answer to everything. Literally.
This was supposed to be a reply to Aeromechanicalace
God+Jesus+Spirit=1 AND 3. Motivate your answer.
#JesusMath
Nope nope NOPE no repressed feelings here RUN AWAY TO THE GF!
…poor Dina. I know Becky’s trying and means well. I really want them to work out! Their relationship is built on actual mutual interest and respect, dammit.
I am optimistic. It’s not as if Dina is unaware of any lingering attraction being a possibility, since Sarah bluntly fielded the possibility to her when she first started dating Becky, but it’s still going to be something the two will have to work through.
*chants* Cute! CUTE! C U T E!!!
(I really really really hope we can get through this arc with their relationship intact. They’re so…cute.)
“Favorite dinosaur?” “You.”
Still the most adorable series of panels anywhere.
I like to think that Becky’s education with Dinah will help her catch up and be able to attend college at a level that will put her on the road to being a scientist next semester.
If not next semester, certainly next year!
oh no dina :C
Someone was in a hurry to see her sweet-ass girlfriend
*Invokes Rule xkcd-37*
And also put distance between herself and leather-clad temptation!
And now I’m reminded that Becky irrirates me. “Number one perfect and adorable girlfriend”? What talks like that?
Also, if you consider that Dina might be Becky’s rebound after Joyce, this kind of proclamations become even more frustrating. Poor Dina… :\
Nobody talks like that. That’s the point. She’s being awkward as hell because she feels guilty about still being attracted to Joyce. Once the ‘it hurts itself in its confusion’ happens she runs back to her girlfriend and overcompensates for the guilt by calling her perfect and awesome way too much.
Somebody with a perfect adorable girlfriend talks like that
Or just anyone infatuated enough to interpret their partner as being such, and still young and innocent enough to not filter what they say. In short, a fair portion of those teenagers who are having their first relationship, as Becky is.
Also, by this point I don’t think it’s relevant that Becky was on the rebound when these two started dating. The reason that’s a bad idea is that you’re more likely to get involved with someone you aren’t really compatible with or who might take advantage of your vulnerability. These two are a great match and Dina is clearly not taking advantage.
Becky’s residual thirst for Joyce might make her feel guilty but it really isn’t a problem. There’s nothing wrong with finding someone else attractive. It’s your actions that matter.
Dina has a rad gf who shares a lot of her interests and deeply cares about her. She’ll be FINE
I say stuff like that to my girlfriend? What’s so odd about it?
In our very bitter and egocentrical world, showering someone with praise is seen as either delusional, or most often, manipulative. Which doesn’t mean that the praise actually is those things, only that outsiders will perceive it as a red flag.
Again, it doesn’t say that much about whoever does it, and more about whoever judges it.
Thank you for pointing that out.
Alright, so I have never been in relatioship and I’m 40 y.o. virgin.
Judge me
My boyfriend talks like that .-.
I talk like that to my wife.
Same. Not all the time, but still. She’s wonderful and needs to be reminded of it now and then.
Please don’t let Dina wind up as the discarded, strategically-unimportant nerd girl in this relationship.
Well, I’m about 99% sure that Joyce isn’t going end up actually queer and date Becky, so I’m not real worried that angle.
There’s always drama in breaking up relationships so anything is possible. Still, even beyond the discarding Dina problem, I’d also rather not have the “rebound relationships aren’t real” thing reinforced.
Look, Becky may still have a thing for Joyce.
But boy oh boy… I mean, girl oh girl does she -also- have a thing for Dina! And she’d have a serious, serious thing for Dina even if she wasn’t into Joyce.
Dina has realized religious fundamentalists can take scientific concepts and twist them to fit their religious agenda. Science has become victim of religions, ideologies and racism.
I was just thinking it was the Internet.
That too. Climate change deniers, incels, alt righters, flat earthers, 4channers, the most toxic elements Tumblr, etc.
It’s okay and natural (for some) to continue finding other people attractive when they’ve found a significant other for themselves. The question is how those experiencing such feelings honor or betray the trust their partners have in them.
Someone get Dina a leather jacket and fingerless gloves. For science*.
*meaning that Becky will do science to her.
Scientific rigor demands multiple testing and samples. Although at this point, they may want to skip peer review.
Becky’s selectively transparent hair is kinda starting to freak me out.
Pretty sure she just has a lock of hair that happens to follow her jawline, and an eye that floats in front of it. I hope this helps you feel less freaked out.
“…I’ll be in
myDina’s bunk”I bet that Becky never thought that she’d be in a position where she’s running away from Joyce!
Except maybe when she came out to Joyce and was super-afraid of the response.
I really hope there’s an explanation next strip for that last panel, ’cause the intent is obscured enough without the confusing grammar.
On another note, it has been such a fresh breeze, seeing Dina obtain the affection and companionship she so desperately craved in the original Walkyverse. Much as it has been seeing Ruth get the support she needs, but Dina and Becky get the extra bonus of being adorbs together.
I’m pretty sure that Dina decided that the system was defective when Walky and Joyce got past her with a bribe box of chicken nuggets.
Chicken nuggets were a perfectly valid answer to “What’s your favorite dinosaur? “
A security system should A: Keep out people who are not wanted, and B: Allow in people who are wanted.
The correlation between these desired divisions and what the system actually checks for is low. While it is better for a person to have a good answer to what their favorite dinosaur is, both Dina and Amber have friends that don’t, and enemies that either do or can fake it.
That (in conjunction with what Clif noted above) was the intuitive association I initially came to, but the “It is.. THE SYSTEM” bit throws everything off.
“I loved your story, except a few things.”
“What things?”
“The plot, the characters, the setting, and the theme.”
Becky needs to fill out a FAFSA and get back to school.
Counterargument: Becky is young enough that she would be considered a dependent on her jailed father whose tax information she would need to apply.
Response to counteragument: People younger than 24 can be considered as independents in special circumstances which can be argued for to the Financial Aid office.
Becky needs a social worker. Can someone connect this girl with some services please? Why hasn’t Leslie put her in touch with …the LGBT resource center on campus? (I looked this up and there is one there.)
The problem is that it is unlikely that Becky knows any of this and who would tell her? Leslie eventually but only if she knew that this was an issue. It seems to me that Becky feels guilty enough about her situation with Leslie right now that it is less likely that she’ll approach her with questions about how to get back into school or be declared emancipated.
It’s probably all in http://www.dumbingofage.com/2017/comic/book-7/03-the-thing-i-was-before/resources-3/ somewhere.
I still love how Cerberus had to ask DYW to remove the spy cameras he’d installed in her class room because of how accurately she was portrayed in that strip.
Cerb is an amazing person and anyone who doesn’t love her is wrong.
She does, but remember our timescale here. It’s only been about 3 weeks since she left Anderson, less since the happy fun gun times on campus, and she’s found a job and a (somewhat more stable) place to live. She’s been busy.
It’ll be a decade or two of real time before the semester ends and her first chance to get in.
Even if Becky does get her financial aid, she won’t be able to transfer until at least next semester. We’re probably never going to see her in IU. We may, but it’ll be years and years away. She’ll probably apply for it, but she’s not going to IU for at least another couple months.
Also, I love your avatar. Michiru’s my favourite character in Sailor Moon.
Or,a s we call it, “Wikipedia”
I could hear Bagge’s “SQUEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE” all the way across the Atlantic Ocean.
That’s fair
I love Becky’s mid-air capture in panel 1.
Sweet ass-midterms.
Said basically no-one ever before.
it’s like having brothers and sisters, only those who don’t fantazise about it.
So I finally finished this dang Joyce/Dorothy fic I’ve been working on for way too long
I even posted it to Ao3 like a dang fool
https://archiveofourown.org/works/18177680
Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m gonna go reclaim my ability to think about literally anything else
(enjoy!)
This fic is glorious and you should feel glorious. Joyce and Dorothy are adorable.
I liked that touch of Carla using words like ‘ain’t’ – seems like she’s been hanging out more with Sal. That’s probably not what you’re going for but it made me smile regardless.
Fuck, though, watching cartoons and holding hands is like 90% of my dates with my boyfriend. We’ve been together for a little over three years so I guess that’s a good idea?
And yes, Joyce. Becky and Dina should’ve taught you science is gay as hell.
Aaaahh thank you, that’s so many comments, thank you!
Most of my responses are on Ao3, but I’ll add here that for a long while I couldn’t think of anything else to title the fic but “Is Science Gay?”, but I got a friend to help convince me that that would be a waste of a fun title. It doesn’t really sum up the fic terribly well, but hey I’ve got it pocketed for later.
Ooooh, later sounds promising! And I hope you’ll forgive me, but I’ll have to steal that idea of Joyce asking her floor mates how they know they’re attracted to someone. It’s just too delicious.
Credit where credit’s due, that idea’s a continuation of that sequence when Joyce went around asking everyone on her floor if they owned a vibrator, because that was just… so great. So very great. That being said, yes, oh my goodness yes, do please steal it, I need more scenes like that yes
Ha! Yeah, okay, that scene was pretty fun. And yeah, me too! ‘Joyce surveys everyone’ is adorable in almost all contexts.
Eeee! Fanfic!
Ah! Thank you!! For the kudos, too!
I really liked this, a lot. Only critique I have is sometimes it felt like you were being overly descriptive about the characters’ expressions/positions/movements and it broke up dialogue a little. Maybe that’s just me. Really enjoyed it though!
Woahmygosh, I’m so glad you enjoyed it!
And, nah, I don’t think that’s just you. I spent a ton of time adding, removing, and generally fiddling with descriptive text in an effort to get each line to flow and read the way I wanted it to. But I also kind of felt a constant pressure to add more descriptive text or something? I dunno, maybe I was afraid to let too many lines of dialogue stand alone? I definitely typed and deleted the words “(name) said” a loooot of times.
Basically that criticism is pretty helpful and interesting to me and I’m glad to receive it! Thank you!!!
If it helps, I have the same problem. I’m awful at narrative – dialogue is my stronger suit. Dialogue tags…oof.
>RUN
Becky got away safely!
“Welcome to our Dinosaur Center!”
MY favorite dinosaur is a Utah raptor. Not a Velociraptor those are the size of chickens. I had a dream once where I was attacked by Utah raptors (though I though they were baby T-Rexes at the time. I was rescued by an odd man wearing a really long scarf who appeared out of nowhere in a blue box.