Welcome to the saga of the working-class adventurer! Enjoy the complete story with new annotations daily!
Nerf Now!!
Josué Pereira
A cute webcomic about fanservice, video games, and... love. Mostly video games, though.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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...
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.
Heroes of Thantopolis
Izzy Strontium Hall
A living boy fights to save the City of the Dead.
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?
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?
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.
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.
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.
Cyanide & Happiness
Explosm
Satire, dark humor and surreal humor.
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
Saint for Rent
Ru Xu
Saint Halliday runs an inn for Time Travelers. Unfortunately, he seems to attract other supernatural "guests," too.
Sister Claire
Yamino
In the troubled aftermath of a great war between Witches and her fellow Nuns, novice Sister Claire just wants a purpose.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Peritale
Mari Costa
A fairy godmother with no magic tries her best to successfully fulfill a Fairytale and win the respect of her peers.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Namesake
Isa, Meg
There's ghosts at your heels and fairy tale worlds ahead. What do you do? Jump down the rabbit hole!
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.
Three Panel Soul
Matt Boyd, Ian McConville
It's a pretty rigid format but we keep the content loose, you know?
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Can’t wait to see how those club meetings will go.
Ruth: I declare this Anarchy club m-
Sal: YOU’RE NOT THE BOSS OF ME!
Billie: ANARCHY!
Ruth: meeting o-
Billie: I’m not as drunk as you think I am. Wait.
Sal: See y’alls later. *jumps out window*
There there, baby pieman. *pats pieman’s back*
Pieman: Buuuuuuuuuuuurp!
Me: Great, now I’m deaf in one ear. What’s the hearing equivalent of a monocle? A hearing aid with a top hat or something?
I think the idea is that Ruth will keep watch on Billie. Since Ruth talked about quitting together, I thought it implied that if Billie kept watch over her, she’d keep watch over Billie.
I was an RA. We had spare keys to every room in the building, in case someone locked themselves out, went home for the weekend and didn’t turn off their alarm clock, etc.
Even if she doesn’t have a copy of billie’s key or something, she just told us that she doesn’t need a key, because she can lockpick Billie’s door every time she wants
Ruth is actually a future version of the doctor. She is both female and ginger. everyone is happy.
She doesn’t even need a key to her own room because she just uses the sonic screwdriver.
Someone figure out a way that Ruth uses the psychic paper because i fricking love the psychic paper.
I can totally picture a fanfic/fanart based on this… Billie walks into room. Ruth has headphones on, at computer enthralled in whatever she’s doing. Billie goes to sneak up on her… until she glimpses the screen and hears … Imma stop here
It fails. Instead of convincing them to continue, they decide to kick him out the window. Joe is forced to climb outside the building in order to make kiddy faces at the girls on the upper floors.
There’s a place in NYC called the Way Station which has three Sonic Screwdriver cocktails: 10th, 11th, and River’s Red Setting. The cocktails are here.
I believe that at one point the bartender used a light-up sonic screwdriver to “sonic” the drink when serving but I only heard about that and never seen it myself, so I’m not sure if it’s true.
“I can’t just give you the key to my heart; you have to poke around in there until it opens involuntarily.”
I recommend you see a chiropractor for that hunch, it ain’t gonna help nothin’.
Back when I was a Freshman (n.b.: not at IU), we never locked our dorm room door for about the first two-thirds of the year, until someone finally got too paranoid about security, and we decided to lock our doors after all.
That was the day someone broke in while we were all in classes and stole a bunch of stuff.
In retrospect, the perpetrator (a janitor with a passkey, IIRC) had probably viewed the unlocked door as a sign that someone was home up until that point.
The police eventually caught the guy and got a bunch of our stuff back, but only after the insurance company had replaced my really nice camera and lenses with a not-quite-so-nice camera and lenses. Dammit.
That must have been an older and more trusting time … on moving into our first year dorms (2000/2001 year) one of the first things we were told was to not leave your door open or unlocked unless you had line-of-sight/were within earshot of it and were e.g. just grabbing something from the shared kitchen or in and out of the bathroom… (ie there wouldn’t be time enough for someone from outside to gain access to the corridor, find and enter an unlocked room, grab something valuable and escape). Theft from student bedrooms is a massive problem, apparently – at least in the 21st century (and one presumes the late 90s)… and insurance against it is big business.
However we loosened up a bit when the entry doors gained electronic locks (all the rooms themselves still cylinder locks), as by then we all knew and trusted each other fairly well (…discounting that one guy who got expelled early on for trying to rape his (co-ed) neighbour) and so with less chance of unknowns wandering in we could treat it more like a holiday youth hostel or the like. The worst we personally suffered was someone drunkenly letting in some guys from the floor above who then raided our fridge and stole all the sausages … and a kettle, weirdly.
Careless floormate in my third year did end up losing their laptop, however.
For some reason I never felt that paranoid about the old jalopy I bought for my third year. Often didn’t bother locking it, and certainly not the tailgate (figured it wouldn’t be too hard to climb in through there, break the steering lock and hotwire it if I really needed to, and it wasn’t obvious it was unlocked despite the side doors being locked). Never got touched. Shoulda kept all my stuff in it…
It was older, all right (1979), but I refuse to believe that we were any more trusting back then. Shit was fucked up and shit even then.
We lived in an apartment-style dorm, with four separate bedrooms, a kitchen, living room, and split bathroom. Which meant that if we were each in our rooms, someone could easily walk in the unlocked front door, through the living room and kitchen, and out the back door, without any of us even knowing, if they were quiet (which, of course, college students pretty much never are). Which people occasionally did, to cut through the dorm rather than walking around it (of course, we did it to other similar rooms ourselves at times). But then, we didn’t keep stuff worth stealing out in the living room, for the most part. And no one was really desperate enough to steal our pots and pans.
Of course, if we had been four women, we might well have locked our doors by default. Or maybe not; I don’t recall the female equivalent dorm rooms being particularly hypervigilant in that way (though we would certainly not barge in unannounced to cut through their rooms, that’s for sure).
Better question: Even when they did have metal keys, did none of them have a prominent “do no copy” on them?
Then again, I guess that mattered more before self-service key copying machines became a thing. Thank you everyone for tuning in to today’s episode of “Now I Feel Old.”
Unless that “do not copy” head is on a key blank that’s unusual, there’s not going to be too much hassle getting it copied. Otherwise, how on earth does the owner of a building get the key in the first place?
That was my first thought, too. My dorm room key (and the key to the dorm mailroom) had ‘Do Not Copy’ stamped onto the head, so that if you take it to a copier, they won’t do it. But I didn’t know they have self-serve key-copy machines now since I’ve never gone to have a key made.
Why the balls did I put “frenching” there? I could have used either of the above words, yet I chose frenching. It must be a message from the universe! Get on it, Billie and Ruth!
not exactly, if its something that is a carnal act and is the textbook term for it quotes just make it sound like you dont believe they will/are/have done said thing
I can see it now, Ruth sneaking in through the door in the middle of the night, Sal sneaking in through the window. They look at each other and just agree to pretend neither of them saw anything…
I’m imagining Ruth sneaking in and crawling into bed with Billie while she sleeps. And then Sal coming through the window to find Billie and Ruthless sleeping innocently spooned together with content little smiles on their faces, and just blinking, turning around, and leaving again.
That and Joyce’s reaction to coming in to get Billie up for class and finding them like that…
I heard the best way to quit an addiction is to pick up another one. You know Billie, you wouldn’t be the first one in your dorm to get addicted to some “freckled ass”…
Trust me, I’m a doctor.
Silly Billie, you don’t need to check on her, just move in!
But anyway… it’d be adorable if they became a couple. Also adorable? They stay friends, platonically, since everybody else is guaranteed to go bed-hopping around. Sometimes a good, close friendship can be awesome, too… though I’m betting on a month of in-story time, tops, till they’re a couple. Dumbing Of Age has way too many heterosexuals for a Willis comic!
I was playing around with their full names, and realized that one possible mash-up is Worthless (Billingsworth/Lessick) . . . and that made me sad. Here’s to the self-esteem of both of them!
I really like that Ruth is subtly mentioning the time she broke into Billie’s room and stole a treasured personal belonging in order to damage it and cause emotional pain and yet this is still somehow flirting.
This comic… and my… but you… I’m having difficulty making coherent thoughts. This was just amazingly adorable. This wasn’t what I was expecting at all! Damnit, Willis, you’ve pulled on my feel strings once again!
I’m surprised so many people are commenting about how adorable it is and whatnot. I mean, my first impulse was that Ruth had some kind of ulterior motive or was planning to humiliate Billie somehow or… well, suffice to say, I’m not the most apt when it comes to elabourating my sentiments through text, but I figured she had some kind of devious little plan in mind. But apparently I’m in the minority on that? :v
I think it’s because, with everything that’s happened lately, and with the expressions Ruth shows, it doesn’t come off like she has an ulterior motive; she genuinely wants to quit drinking. It likely also helps that this “quit drinking” arc is something Willis already did with Ruth and Billie, so in many ways it carries a lot of nostalgia in that regard (And hopefully without the same bloody end)
IU does still have metal keys! You have to swipe your ID to get into the building, but your bedroom door gets a regular key. (Also I’m wondering if Ruth even had to pick Billie’s lock – as an RA she can get into anyone’s room she wants to.)
Interesting and complicated. Mr. W. never gives a straight shot. Which leads to some damn fine arcs and a very interesting read.
The two of them have a long way to go, will be interesting to see what develops. I’m thinking it won’t be expected either way. And I agree with the statement that maybe Ruth is keeping an eye on Billie. Ruth will likely quit drinking before Billie does. Ruth knows she has a problem, Billy does too but I don’t think Billie “really” believes she has a problem. Sort of an ‘oh yeah, I can quit anytime” mindset.
Anybody have an idea whether the default gravatar is based on a hash of the “NAME” or a hash of the “EMAIL” or both? I’m just wondering about the likelihood of having the same default avatar when one shares the same displayed name.
This is the first time I’ve seen a name+gravatar collision and I’d be idly curious to know its likelihood.
In other news: David, if you are collecting and displaying insects like you are collecting innuendo, I’d recommend buying some pins instead of the rather prominent nails you drive home. They make it hard to focus on what you want to highlight rather than on the bloody mess you make.
It’s based on a hash of the email. I collided with another John over on BBR (in an odd coincidence, that was with Sarah, too), and switched to my full name to distinguish. Didn’t change the email, and kept the Sarah grav. (Though added gravs and the accompanying reshuffle since has given me Billie over there now, too.)
I’d guess the odds of colliding with someone else you share a name with are roughly 1:[number of random gravatars available], assuming, without knowing the details of the hash, that each possible result has roughly the same probability.
Is it awful that I like Ruth less now? Ruthless was my favorite character, but take the “less” out and she’s just less. That made sense in my head, I swear.
Definitely one of the best (and truest) comments I’ve read. You deserve much more recognition than this meager offering, but it’s all I got. Thank you.
I want to be really happy about this but I don’t know if I can because I fear Ruth will be randomly jerkass to Billie again soon, leaving her once again confused and frustrated.
…And then they make out? Maybe? But even then that would just complicate matters.
I don’t think we’re done with them being at each other’s throats yet, though I hope I’m wrong…
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D’awwwwww they lurv each other
Sexy tiems?
More like fluffy tiems.
Sexy fluffy tiems?
Do want.
Ruth avatar = fitting.
This sequence really shouldn’t be hot, yet it is.
I guess it just cant be helped… wait waht?
They’re in lesbians with each other
aww yiss
Awwww bonding through shared love of disdain for authority.
Soon Sal is gonna want to get in on that.
. . . I’ll be in my bunk.
It’s the Aslan gavatar that really sells it.
And here I thought Firefly’s Jayne grew a beard. And a mane.
A beardier beard?
Silly Nordmann, Beards can’t grow beards!
…
They grow moustaches!
Can’t wait to see how those club meetings will go.
Ruth: I declare this Anarchy club m-
Sal: YOU’RE NOT THE BOSS OF ME!
Billie: ANARCHY!
Ruth: meeting o-
Billie: I’m not as drunk as you think I am. Wait.
Sal: See y’alls later. *jumps out window*
And then, for the heck of it:
“You wanna know how I got these scars?”
And then:
“CHIMICHANGAS!”
Am I smiling? What? No. This is just gas. Willis isn’t making me emotional.
There there, baby pieman. *pats pieman’s back*
Pieman: Buuuuuuuuuuuurp!
Me: Great, now I’m deaf in one ear. What’s the hearing equivalent of a monocle? A hearing aid with a top hat or something?
Ear Trumpet, my good fellow. Stylish, sophisticated, and incredibly collectible.
That is a brilliant idea! Now I can proceed with my plans. Mua-ha-haaa!
Little known fact; Hearts Boxcars collects ear trumpets.
Oh yeah, I got real teary-eyed on that last panel.
you mean WET
Not quite the sexy I was hoping for, but it has potential.
Just try to force the last panel into inuendo.
A baby’s sneeze could push that panel into innuendo.
But it would be a very adorable way to do so.
Um…Chastity belt removal? Damnit my mind went straight to men in tights.
More like nimble fingers, if you know what I mean. Eh? Eh?
(I mean handjobs.)
Call the royal locksmith!
She taught her to pick the lock. . .to her heart.
In her pants.
Her heart in her pants.
You know what they say, the fastest way to a woman’s heart is through her pants!
…
So you’d better learn how to iron pants.
I always heard it was through her rib cage…but mama always said Mr. Krueger was a little off…
Now kiss.
Touch . . . touch boobs.
Dat sexual tension.
… That may well be the first legitimately cute moment these two have had together. This universe, anyway.
Yay!
Both smiling in the same panel!
The universe is about to implode!
Awww It’s the key to her heart/TARDIS.
Are you suggesting hat her heart is bigger on the inside than it is on the outside.
All we really know is that Ruth’s heart grew three sizes today.
Which is why she’s in danger of a heart attack.
Cardiomegaly is a serious issue. Claiming the lives of 7 grinches per year.
viral cardiomegaly?
Wig might be suggesting that Ruth has a blue bOH GOD WHY IS IT BLUE?!
Sexual frustration, maybe?
But… who’s going to hold Billie responsible? Really, no jokes here. She’s just as likely as Ruth to fall off the wagon.
I think the idea is that Ruth will keep watch on Billie. Since Ruth talked about quitting together, I thought it implied that if Billie kept watch over her, she’d keep watch over Billie.
I am guessing the RA can get into any room she wants to.
I was an RA. We had spare keys to every room in the building, in case someone locked themselves out, went home for the weekend and didn’t turn off their alarm clock, etc.
Ruth.
Even if she doesn’t have a copy of billie’s key or something, she just told us that she doesn’t need a key, because she can lockpick Billie’s door every time she wants
Sexitiems imminent
Bah. Ruth’s door lock is only Adept level. Billie can handle it, with just a couple of picks.
Why yes, I did recently download Skyrim Legendary Edition, how did you ever guess?
She’d only need one if she’s at 100. But Billie would never pick so many locks. It’d be an invasion of privacy.
Ruth is actually a future version of the doctor. She is both female and ginger. everyone is happy.
She doesn’t even need a key to her own room because she just uses the sonic screwdriver.
Someone figure out a way that Ruth uses the psychic paper because i fricking love the psychic paper.
It’s her fake ID.
love this!^
But is her sneak skill high enough to avoid detection?
Givin’ her a key to your place already?
Well they did already make out.
Considering the look of Ruth as she says that last line, I think we’ve found Amazi-girl’s supervillains.
In this issue: Amazi-Girl vs. Ruthless and the Alpha bongo!
Holy shit, Ruthless and the Alpha bongo sound like a great super-villain duo.
“…and if you want you can check on me before bed. And during the night. In fact, I’d probably be easier if you just stayed over.” <3
Yeah, but I can dream.
I can totally picture a fanfic/fanart based on this… Billie walks into room. Ruth has headphones on, at computer enthralled in whatever she’s doing. Billie goes to sneak up on her… until she glimpses the screen and hears … Imma stop here
I read that as “Check under the bed” as in check for monsters.
All right, Yotomoe. Roll the dice for monster check.
You encounter a Beholder!…It’s Joe, hoping to “Behold” some girl on girl action.
Joe used bluff. Roll to see if it’s effective.
Does a 13 pass?
Sorry but the base DC is a 15 before modifiers.
It fails. Instead of convincing them to continue, they decide to kick him out the window. Joe is forced to climb outside the building in order to make kiddy faces at the girls on the upper floors.
He climbs out the window to check out the ladies on the upper floors — doesn’t he ever think about the consequences??
*bows before the PUNisher*
This is the first comment I’ve ever red on this site. Ah, those halcyon days, roughly 48h ago.
Taigan one, that is.
Picking locks are also very handy where chasity belts are involved.
If your lock-picking skills are high enough that is.
Takin’ em off is easy. IT’s putting them back on that’s the hard part.
Wait, I thought chastity belts require a lock pick skill of 50 or higher?
I’ve always assumed that!
Or I’ve been seriously screwing up my rolls.
If that is what you have been screwing, you are doing it wrong.
Still sailing the SS JoycexBillie? Or just a comment on chastity belts in general?
What would a chastity belt do that Joyce’s words can’t?
Keep its integrity?
Huh.
Awwww!!! So cute!
Words cannot describe how cute this is. Halp.
And this may be the least dysfunctional they’ve ever been together.
All you need is a screwdriver, a crapload of bobby pins and a magazine on lock-picking.
Alternatively, fire axe.
Or just fire, really.
No Screwdrivers! They gave up drinking!
Sonic Screwdrivers on the other hand…
Unless it’s a wooden lock…
Sonic? Who uses Sonic?? (well, he does, but still…)
Laser Screwdrivers are the way to go!
I’ve always wanted to open up a Sci-Fi bar with a Sonic Screwdriver on the menu.
What would be the Sonic part?
its stirred in a vitamix at high speed
It can be a Screwdriver served in a crystal glass, with good sound.
A squeeze of Blue Hedgehog?
That’s something I try to figure out every so often, but still haven’t come up with a good idea.
Maybe an ultrasonic sound generator used to mix the drink?
Doesn’t need to be complicated. Just something that turns the drink blue.
I thought about that but how do you turn orange juice blue? They’re opposite colors! D:
There’s a place in NYC called the Way Station which has three Sonic Screwdriver cocktails: 10th, 11th, and River’s Red Setting. The cocktails are here.
I believe that at one point the bartender used a light-up sonic screwdriver to “sonic” the drink when serving but I only heard about that and never seen it myself, so I’m not sure if it’s true.
Mentats also help.
As does a nice hat.
Or, in a dorm situation in which you *know* there’s a master key somewhere, making a good old bump key will do.
And hey, Billie now has two keys that fit the same make of lock…
My boner is imminent.
~watches Willis play with dolls of Ruth and Billie making them kiss each other~
Pfff! Willis? Own dolls? In what universe?
Please. They’re called “action figures”.
Really? The rest of us just make them fuck.
SECRET BEST FRIENDS YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAYYYYYYYYYYYY
(secret best friends who sometimes make out, licky-style)
With their penises?
I have yet to test it out in real life, but I have a hunch that a set of lock picks would make a great romantic gift.
“I can’t just give you the key to my heart; you have to poke around in there until it opens involuntarily.”
I recommend you see a chiropractor for that hunch, it ain’t gonna help nothin’.
Well, I gave a set to Vette, and she seemed to like them, so you may be right.
Hmmm. I suspect I may have been too obscure with this joke.
Who has written all of the cutes? It’s Willis!
I’m imagining you holding up Willis like a baby and saying that in a baby voice.
Which is funny, since he’s at least 10 years older than me.
arrg… now me too
I imagined a dog called Willis.
I like that this time we get to see their friendship develop.
My Little Billie: Friendship is Breaking and Entering.
BROTP!!!!
MY EMOTIONS
THEY ARE TOYING WITH
WAKKA WAKKA WAKKA!!
(Oops. Wrong Frank Oz voice)
What do they use for locks in IU these days, key-cards?
Noone locks their door. EVER.
Most of the girls do
Back when I was a Freshman (n.b.: not at IU), we never locked our dorm room door for about the first two-thirds of the year, until someone finally got too paranoid about security, and we decided to lock our doors after all.
That was the day someone broke in while we were all in classes and stole a bunch of stuff.
In retrospect, the perpetrator (a janitor with a passkey, IIRC) had probably viewed the unlocked door as a sign that someone was home up until that point.
The police eventually caught the guy and got a bunch of our stuff back, but only after the insurance company had replaced my really nice camera and lenses with a not-quite-so-nice camera and lenses. Dammit.
That must have been an older and more trusting time … on moving into our first year dorms (2000/2001 year) one of the first things we were told was to not leave your door open or unlocked unless you had line-of-sight/were within earshot of it and were e.g. just grabbing something from the shared kitchen or in and out of the bathroom… (ie there wouldn’t be time enough for someone from outside to gain access to the corridor, find and enter an unlocked room, grab something valuable and escape). Theft from student bedrooms is a massive problem, apparently – at least in the 21st century (and one presumes the late 90s)… and insurance against it is big business.
However we loosened up a bit when the entry doors gained electronic locks (all the rooms themselves still cylinder locks), as by then we all knew and trusted each other fairly well (…discounting that one guy who got expelled early on for trying to rape his (co-ed) neighbour) and so with less chance of unknowns wandering in we could treat it more like a holiday youth hostel or the like. The worst we personally suffered was someone drunkenly letting in some guys from the floor above who then raided our fridge and stole all the sausages … and a kettle, weirdly.
Careless floormate in my third year did end up losing their laptop, however.
For some reason I never felt that paranoid about the old jalopy I bought for my third year. Often didn’t bother locking it, and certainly not the tailgate (figured it wouldn’t be too hard to climb in through there, break the steering lock and hotwire it if I really needed to, and it wasn’t obvious it was unlocked despite the side doors being locked). Never got touched. Shoulda kept all my stuff in it…
It was older, all right (1979), but I refuse to believe that we were any more trusting back then. Shit was fucked up and shit even then.
We lived in an apartment-style dorm, with four separate bedrooms, a kitchen, living room, and split bathroom. Which meant that if we were each in our rooms, someone could easily walk in the unlocked front door, through the living room and kitchen, and out the back door, without any of us even knowing, if they were quiet (which, of course, college students pretty much never are). Which people occasionally did, to cut through the dorm rather than walking around it (of course, we did it to other similar rooms ourselves at times). But then, we didn’t keep stuff worth stealing out in the living room, for the most part. And no one was really desperate enough to steal our pots and pans.
Of course, if we had been four women, we might well have locked our doors by default. Or maybe not; I don’t recall the female equivalent dorm rooms being particularly hypervigilant in that way (though we would certainly not barge in unannounced to cut through their rooms, that’s for sure).
Better question: Even when they did have metal keys, did none of them have a prominent “do no copy” on them?
Then again, I guess that mattered more before self-service key copying machines became a thing. Thank you everyone for tuning in to today’s episode of “Now I Feel Old.”
Unless that “do not copy” head is on a key blank that’s unusual, there’s not going to be too much hassle getting it copied. Otherwise, how on earth does the owner of a building get the key in the first place?
That was my first thought, too. My dorm room key (and the key to the dorm mailroom) had ‘Do Not Copy’ stamped onto the head, so that if you take it to a copier, they won’t do it. But I didn’t know they have self-serve key-copy machines now since I’ve never gone to have a key made.
Many stores competing in the same niche as Wal-mart have them, and nearly all stores in the same niche as Home Depot and Lowe’s have them.
I’ve always liked that you can get the funky painted keys to help tell them apart better.
And then we can make out all licky-style.
Ah – I should add for Dumbing Of Age – only fans, that that is a Shortpacked reference, and is not as dirty as it sounds.
I get that it’s a Shortpacked reference, but I’m pretty sure it is -exactly- as dirty as it sounds.
Fair point.
i always interpreted “licky style”as just frenching
Wait, then how is “licky style” any different from “heavy petting”? Isn’t very compassionate and steamy kissing=frenching?
Why the balls did I put “frenching” there? I could have used either of the above words, yet I chose frenching. It must be a message from the universe! Get on it, Billie and Ruth!
So is Ruth going to keep an eye on Billie, too? She’s already got a key to Billie’s room…
And by “Pick a lock” I mean…pick a lock.
But then we can do sexy things. Like learn how to “pick a lock”
“Picking locks”
“Breaking and entering”
Everything sounds dirty in quotes
Let’s see. “Eat lasagna” , then “make some tofu”, “take a shit”, “make sweaty passionate love”. Yep. All of them.
woah, we both did tofu…what are the odds?
1/06102013
That’s 1/07102013. Even better.
“Hard time”
“Stock Index”
“Fahrvegneugen”
… you may be on to something…
Is…is that an Animaniacs reference? From the Animaniacs movie?
“Eating Tofu”
“Riding Bikes”
“Punching Rabbits”
“Stretching my legs”
we were “Caught in a snowstorm”
“Pulling the fire alarm.”
“Playing with my Monkey Master.”
not exactly, if its something that is a carnal act and is the textbook term for it quotes just make it sound like you dont believe they will/are/have done said thing
“Fucking so hard that Joyce had an orgasm.”
I wonder if Billie realizes the same conditions may apply to her.
She may wake up with a Ruth in her bed. The best thing to wake up to
THE BEST PART OF WAKING UP, IS RUTHLESS IN YOUR BUNK
I can see it now, Ruth sneaking in through the door in the middle of the night, Sal sneaking in through the window. They look at each other and just agree to pretend neither of them saw anything…
I’m imagining Ruth sneaking in and crawling into bed with Billie while she sleeps. And then Sal coming through the window to find Billie and Ruthless sleeping innocently spooned together with content little smiles on their faces, and just blinking, turning around, and leaving again.
That and Joyce’s reaction to coming in to get Billie up for class and finding them like that…
It would be awsome if this ever happened.
It pisses me off that I love this comment so much. So goddamn terrible, and yet….
It could go the other way around as well
are you saying… it can go both ways? **rimshot**
Daaaaaanggg.
Daaaaaanggg.
I’ve never tried it, but I know, theoretically, how to pick a lock.
So do I. Thank you Fallout New Vegas.
You poke a lock-pick into it and wiggle it around until it opens right? Skyrim taught me something!
You take a battleaxe and chop the door open.
…what do you MEAN, the point is to be subtle?!
That’s a relief, I’ve been worried about her, but I REALLY doubt Billie can quit alcohol.
I heard the best way to quit an addiction is to pick up another one. You know Billie, you wouldn’t be the first one in your dorm to get addicted to some “freckled ass”…
Trust me, I’m a doctor.
THIS IS THE BEST THING EVER.
Walky, you’re missing the “OTP” and “Shipping” tags…
Ruth and Billie, sittin’ in a wagon.
I’m getting a little farklempt… tawk amongst yourselves… ;__;
Silly Billie, you don’t need to check on her, just move in!
But anyway… it’d be adorable if they became a couple. Also adorable? They stay friends, platonically, since everybody else is guaranteed to go bed-hopping around. Sometimes a good, close friendship can be awesome, too… though I’m betting on a month of in-story time, tops, till they’re a couple. Dumbing Of Age has way too many heterosexuals for a Willis comic!
It might be cute on the surface, but it’s not like everything’s all better now. They both still have pretty intense issues.
In other news… Man, Ruth is so attractive with developed eyes. ; w ; <3
I don’t usually ship BUT I SHIP THIS HARD
YES so do i *looks around nervously for the heteronormative gestapo*
No worries! They don’t even bother policing Willis’s comics anymore.
Those can’t get in here… there’s a magic lock on the front door that only opens if you have lesbian porn in your heart.
50/50 chance Billie goes to use the key and finds out it’s actually a key specifically made to fit no lock in the dorm.
And the SS Billieruth sails again!
… Hmm. Needs a better ‘ship name.
Psychobillie?
Freakout!
You heard Kamino Neko, ‘shippers. Make it so.
SS Billessik?
SS Rubi?
I was playing around with their full names, and realized that one possible mash-up is Worthless (Billingsworth/Lessick) . . . and that made me sad. Here’s to the self-esteem of both of them!
Worthlesse ?
Ruthifer?
I really like that Ruth is subtly mentioning the time she broke into Billie’s room and stole a treasured personal belonging in order to damage it and cause emotional pain and yet this is still somehow flirting.
Like, no sarcasm, I love it.
Holy shit, I had not prepared myself for these feels. Agh, I don’t know what to do with them. I think I might explode.
*pwof!*
Crap. Now I have to clean this up. Why people can’t hold their feels, I’ll never know…
I am pretty okay with this development. Closest Ruth can come to admitting she was wrong and thanking Billie for saving her life.
Granted, its no angry make out session, but I am pretty okay with it.
This comic… and my… but you… I’m having difficulty making coherent thoughts. This was just amazingly adorable. This wasn’t what I was expecting at all! Damnit, Willis, you’ve pulled on my feel strings once again!
Read Hall still uses metal keys, it’s the dorms on the other side of campus that use those cards
DANG IT I was about to claim firsts on saying that it doesn’t use metal keys no more, too.
(I don’t even know, I just grepped the comments and found no mention of it… before now)
I’m surprised so many people are commenting about how adorable it is and whatnot. I mean, my first impulse was that Ruth had some kind of ulterior motive or was planning to humiliate Billie somehow or… well, suffice to say, I’m not the most apt when it comes to elabourating my sentiments through text, but I figured she had some kind of devious little plan in mind. But apparently I’m in the minority on that? :v
I feel odd for not having too many feels and simply jumping to the PMHP
All aboard!
PMHP?
PREMARITAL HANKY-PANKY!
http://www.dumbingofage.com/2011/comic/book-1/06-yesterday-was-thursday/pmhp/
I think it’s because, with everything that’s happened lately, and with the expressions Ruth shows, it doesn’t come off like she has an ulterior motive; she genuinely wants to quit drinking. It likely also helps that this “quit drinking” arc is something Willis already did with Ruth and Billie, so in many ways it carries a lot of nostalgia in that regard (And hopefully without the same bloody end)
Shrug. Girl almost died. I’ll give her the the benefit of the doubt. Innocent until proven shitty, in my book.
Ok, I teared up with happiness…whether that’s from the nickel I earned or this panel I’m not entirely sure.
the answer is YES.
Given your (randomly selected?) Avatars, I know what you’re spending that nickel on…
IU does still have metal keys! You have to swipe your ID to get into the building, but your bedroom door gets a regular key. (Also I’m wondering if Ruth even had to pick Billie’s lock – as an RA she can get into anyone’s room she wants to.)
Interesting and complicated. Mr. W. never gives a straight shot. Which leads to some damn fine arcs and a very interesting read.
The two of them have a long way to go, will be interesting to see what develops. I’m thinking it won’t be expected either way. And I agree with the statement that maybe Ruth is keeping an eye on Billie. Ruth will likely quit drinking before Billie does. Ruth knows she has a problem, Billy does too but I don’t think Billie “really” believes she has a problem. Sort of an ‘oh yeah, I can quit anytime” mindset.
And thus began the DEADLY ALLIANCE
Suddenly I hear bond music in the background.
Suddenly Ruth has a posh british accent
is it wrong that my mind immediately upon reading your post said Octopussy?
hngh.
…So… many cute… Ruth… faces! *faints from ODing on ecchi-flvored kawaii*
I love you Willis,
thank GOD. i finally have more reason to fangirl.
Shipping at the Shipyard!
I came here to read “D’awwwwww” comments and to write my own. I’m not disappointed.
Sniff So touching. ‘Course, I still want someone to kick Ruth inna Australia…
…but maybe not quite as hard.
Ruth just handed Billie the keys to a shiny new Australia?
I wasn’t aware it was laundry day, though…
omgomgOMG!
I LUV this!
In the words of Peter Griffin: “Now hug… good, good. Now smell her hair a little…”
So this seems too good to be true. Remember who makes this comic.
DAWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW!!!!!
“Or if you want to come over for… y’know… any other reasons…”
*deep breath* *SQUEEEEEE!* *does the gay hands thing*
http://www.shortpacked.com/2010/comic/book-11/01-no-thanks-to-eharmony/giddy/
Nope. Still hate Ruthless.
Awww. FWIENDS.
<3
I like it. They make good friends. This could work out better if they don’t actually end up in a relationship.
Stupid Willis, in IU, everyone’s psychically interfaced with the Hive Key now!
GET with the TIMES!
By the time the gang reach Spring Joke, this comment will be accurate
This was heart warming until the last panel which made me fear for everyone’s safety. Nogfemurs will be safe
Phew, I was really worried for my nogfemurs for a minute.
By “discreetly pick a lock”, she is referring to her vagina.
I am a detective.
Thank you, Captain Hammer.
Anybody have an idea whether the default gravatar is based on a hash of the “NAME” or a hash of the “EMAIL” or both? I’m just wondering about the likelihood of having the same default avatar when one shares the same displayed name.
This is the first time I’ve seen a name+gravatar collision and I’d be idly curious to know its likelihood.
In other news: David, if you are collecting and displaying insects like you are collecting innuendo, I’d recommend buying some pins instead of the rather prominent nails you drive home. They make it hard to focus on what you want to highlight rather than on the bloody mess you make.
It’s based on a hash of the email. I collided with another John over on BBR (in an odd coincidence, that was with Sarah, too), and switched to my full name to distinguish. Didn’t change the email, and kept the Sarah grav. (Though added gravs and the accompanying reshuffle since has given me Billie over there now, too.)
I’d guess the odds of colliding with someone else you share a name with are roughly 1:[number of random gravatars available], assuming, without knowing the details of the hash, that each possible result has roughly the same probability.
It’s never easy to write something heartwarming and not cheesy. Well done, mr Willis.
What a sweet moment!
I don’t trust it.
There she is.
That is, sincerely, one of the sweetest moments I’ve ever seen. The look on Billie’s face sells the whole exchange.
Hindsight is Mad Dog 20/20
Is it awful that I like Ruth less now? Ruthless was my favorite character, but take the “less” out and she’s just less. That made sense in my head, I swear.
Is this how it’s going to be? Bill and Ruth being insanely cute together, like the most perfect couple of supervillains???
I could imagine Harley and Pamela having a similar scene.
Exactly!
Billie and Ruth come to their senses. Now I’m waiting for Joyce, Ethan, Sal, Jason, etc, etc…
She gave her a thing to stick in her hole.
Definitely one of the best (and truest) comments I’ve read. You deserve much more recognition than this meager offering, but it’s all I got. Thank you.
Whaaaaaat.
I want to be really happy about this but I don’t know if I can because I fear Ruth will be randomly jerkass to Billie again soon, leaving her once again confused and frustrated.
…And then they make out? Maybe? But even then that would just complicate matters.
I don’t think we’re done with them being at each other’s throats yet, though I hope I’m wrong…
… D’AAAWWWW YOU WILLIS!
Or something like that.
Everyone is a lesbian for Billie. No. Exceptions.
Even the guys.
ESPECIALLY the guys.
omg… I want them to get married now so bad.
I got all the way to the bottom of the comments and NO ONE has made a “closet key” joke? I am disappointed.
<3
Even though I ship this… I get the feeling Admiral Ackbar’s got something to say.
The Billie/Ruth dynamic is one of my favorites in the whole comic.