Welcome to the saga of the working-class adventurer! Enjoy the complete story with new annotations daily!
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.
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.
Nerf Now!!
Josué Pereira
A cute webcomic about fanservice, video games, and... love. Mostly video games, though.
Lies Within
Lacey
Lysander's aimless and carefree life is turned upside down when he accidentally discovers that the cute boy next door, Simon, is a literal monster
Three Panel Soul
Matt Boyd, Ian McConville
It's a pretty rigid format but we keep the content loose, you know?
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.
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.
Peritale
Mari Costa
A fairy godmother with no magic tries her best to successfully fulfill a Fairytale and win the respect of her peers.
Angel's Orchard
Harry Bogosian
After the events in Demon's Mirror, Gerda has accepted her role as a Demon Hunter, and Cezar has traveled back to the Demon City. Demons have existed alongside humans for millennia, so things begin to return to normal. But an impossibly powerful Relic has been taken by one of the Demon Masters, and a silent war enters its final stages.
Saint for Rent
Ru Xu
Saint Halliday runs an inn for Time Travelers. Unfortunately, he seems to attract other supernatural "guests," too.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Cyanide & Happiness
Explosm
Satire, dark humor and surreal humor.
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?
Heroes of Thantopolis
Izzy Strontium Hall
A living boy fights to save the City of the Dead.
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...
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.
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.
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.
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?
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.
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.
Sister Claire
Yamino
In the troubled aftermath of a great war between Witches and her fellow Nuns, novice Sister Claire just wants a purpose.
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.
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.
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.
Blindsprings
Kadi Fedoruk
Tamaura, wrested into a world 300 years in the future, must find a way to save the magic fading from her country.
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I don’t know enough about dinosaurs to be sure but I have heard that some of them were hot-blooded and may have given birth to live young, so it wouldn’t be too much of a stretch if it turned out that there were dino-mammals.
Linneaus originally classified humans as members of a group he called quadripeds (along with all other four limbed animals). People got upset that he called hands feet and did not like the classification. So he invented the category of mammal named for the mammary gland, reasoning hat people could not deny having nursed at their mothers’ teats.
Sauropsida (including all living and extinct reptiles, dinos, birds and some others) split from Synapsids (so-called “mammal-like reptiles”(terrible term), including Dimetrodon, and mammals themselves) something like 300-320 million years ago.
Dinosaurs, as a clade of Sauropsida, showed up about 231 million years ago, meaning they missed out being on the mammal branch by at least 69 million years.
At least some dinos were virtually certain to have been endothermic and tachymetabolic. It is possible that some where not, but evidence for those traits show up in both major dinosaur lineages.
As far as egg laying, we have many dinosaur eggs from many different branches. It may be possible that some gave birth to live young – some snakes do, as do some sharks and others. But they have have eggs that are held internally for a time and then hatch in the womb, before the young are birthed. It is very, very different from the eggless, placental arrangement of most mammals. If any dinosaurs did have live birth it certainly would have been like what snakes and sharks do.
Um, to be a mammal they would have to be descended from mammals. Thus, clearly not dinosaurs. Egg laying mammals only exist because they split off from the rest of the mammalian line before mammals developed live birth and stopped laying eggs. If a line of mammals developed into something similar to a dinosaur it would not be a dinosaur. It would be something with similarities to a dinosaur that is a mammal. Actually… that makes me think of a Rhino!
‘That is not evolution, that is metamorphosis. The development of Caterpie into Butterfree could not make this more clear. I find that the persistent misuse of the terms to be inspiring something in me, which I believe to be an emotion. Perhaps the one called “annoyance”.’
Why? Why must you fuel our hunger for this ship?!?!?!?
JUST THINK OF THE ARTWORK!!!
Pages upon pages of these two attractive disturbed females locked in a gentle embrace while simultaneously insulting one another…. is this what you want?
Also, this is air I am breathing, kitties are fuzzy, science is awesome, and the Nazis were not nice people. Any other questions regarding the blisteringly obvious you want to ask?
well there are naturally hairless kitties, so that drops a chunk of doubt onto the rest of your absolute assertions …… Note: Science is a methodology and the subject or question may not be all that awesome [sadly].
I suspect that Ruth probably re-thefted Billie’s uniform before Billie had her relapse. Ruth’s not nearly accusatory enough to lead me to believe she suspects anything yet.
“What’s this box of moths for?”
“Oh, that’s just for if I find out that that booze in your room isn’t Sal’s. So you’ll have to wait a bit before I give this back.”
Or maybe she’s overlooking it due to mixed and confusing emotions, her desire for Billie overwhelming her desire for sobriety etc. subconsciously though she can’t overlook it, and recriminating behaviour slips through, hence mixed messages…. (Ie welcoming her in, opening up, at the same time telling her she’s not supposed to be there and or threatening to punch her)
Wow, for a long time my grav kept changing from Danny to Danny… I thought it might be a sign, thought it couldn’t get worse, haven’t posted for a while and now I find I’m Mary?
Am I aloud to blame Willis for this? (Or is it just my own damn fault for not doing my own damn grav like all the other cool kids?)
Don’t worry, they wouldn’t fight. They never do; their dynamic is more one of ‘She advances slowly but relentlessly; she flees in panic terror but keeps finding her pursuer inexplicably appearing in front of her wherever she goes’.
Yeah! And they’re actually very nice; they just want to help people. We should give them a nickname to show how helpful they are. Something like ‘aids’.
Was in a crowded fast food place when a seven year old announced that one of the adults had used the C word, by which he meant crap. He went on loudly about the C word for about three minutes before his parents could make him stop. Ahhh. Family.
Blame it on Sal. Everyone knows you can’t maintain a proper southern accent without being drunk. A good buzz is the only reason she doesn’t talk like Jason.
Agreed. Though it might also be that the real guilty one is Willis, and he is guilty of perpetuating that damn “Will they, won’t they” thing that made the X-files so popular and made the Star Wars prequels terrible.
This. Now that Ruth isn’t behaving in a fucked up way – in fact, now that Ruth is providing stability for Billie – a kiss might result in a different outcome. Even back then, Billie kissed for back before pushing Ruth away. Let’s see if Ruth will actually try again though, because it seems like she’s respecting Billie’s perceived rejection like a decent person.
Billie’s been sending a hell of a lot of signals that she might be interested. I mean, there is the fact that Ruth is basically the only person who understands her so she probably does also want to have a real friend, but taking into account that Billie knows Ruth likes her, she does seem to be acting overly friendly.
Billie’s complaint about the kiss was “bongo shouldna shoved me”. She’s never made any complaint about bongo trying to lick her tonsils. If Ruth tried it again without leading off with an elbow to the sternum, I bet she’d get a much more positive response.
I ship them as hard as the next gal, but she said “FUCK OFF.” “bongo shouldna shoved me” was later, regarding her concern for Ruth.
My guess is that Billie reciprocates, but Ruth’s timing was utter shit, what with it being in the middle of Billie’s angst and right after a request for stability; Ruth decided to respond to that with violence then licky-style. That isn’t stability. Maybe if Ruth actually can stick to a caring persona (Or lack thereof, rather) they’ll be okay and there can be lesbian happies that aren’t Leslie’s (who is herself boned anyway). Course, now that I say that, Willis will ensure it does not. damn you, willis!
Oh Christ. When she figures out Billie is still boozing it up she’s gonna….
1. Rip that cheerleading outfit apart piece by piece.
2. Strangle Billie.
3. Rip apart all of Billie’s clothes except the cheerleading outfit.
…..shut up. If I wanna dream this will end in sexy shenangigans and not drama, I’ll go ahead and do that and aint none of you gonna stop me! HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
Willis is not kind enough to give us that joy so soon. It will be weeks, maybe months. But the longer the pain is before it happens, the less likely he is to destroy such a beautiful thing before our eyes. Hopefully.
The readers’ reaction to this phase is a mix of :
Enjoying the teased relationship way too much.
Cursing the Author for being such a tease.
Making Fanfictions in order to cope with the delayed satisfaction.
And what all these reactions do is to create such a huge build up to the Payoff Phase which will go one of the 2 ways: either the payoff is worth it or a huge disappointment(as in Duke Nukem Forever disappointment.)
man, i read through the entire archives last night and almost the entire time i thought Ruth was a singularly horrid person even despite the general vague feeling that there was some arguably morally exculpatory background behind her horridness, and now this arc is happening and my expression is pretty much the same as hers in panel three
i’m not sure why but i think the most fitting thing to say here is DAMN YOU WILLIS
Ruth stole the uniform and vandalized it during the first week or so (she was using it to force Billie/Sal to get their roommate agreement taken care of).
Later, Billie swiped the uniform back a day or so after their ruckus in the hallway, when Amazi-Girl carried Billie off the scene.
Now we find out that since then Ruth (using her master key, no doubt) got back into Billie’s room to retrieve the uniform in order to make repairs; this probably occurred after their heart-to-heart about their drinking problems. But when?
DAMMIT WILLIS, IT’S BEEN OVER THREE YEARS REAL-TIME BUT ONLY MAYBE FIVE WEEKS DUMBIVERSE TIME. WE NEED A TIME-LINE AROUND HERE!!!
Nitpicking here, but Ruth may not have needed her masterkey.
She once told Billie about teaching her how to “discreetly pick a lock”. Which would be way more badass, if a tad less practical.
It’s not even five weeks. This is, I believe, the fourth Sunday. The first Sunday was arrival day. The second Sunday Joyce took Dorothy to church, Billie jumped Danny, and Dorothy kissed Walky. The third Sunday Joyce took Ethan to church, Ruth dropped in on Billie for beer and TV, and Dorothy cast her body into the cragged shame pits of the lustwolves. And the fourth Sunday began with Sal strangling Joyce.
Ruth informed Billie that she was holding the uniform hostage on the first Tuesday.
The brawl where Amazi-Girl spirited Billie away was the first Wednesday.
Billie snuck into Ruth’s room on the first Thursday, and came out of the closet, with her uniform, Ruth’s booze, and blackmail photos, in the wee hours of the morning on the first Friday.
On the second Monday, Sal returned to the room to find Billie drunk and wearing the still-damaged cheerleader uniform (and then Billie tried to put the moves on Sal).
The Kiss was the third Monday night, and then Ruth locked herself in her room for the next two days. (It seemed longer than that…)
The fire alarm, discussion in Ruth’s room, follow-up floor meeting, and Ruth giving Billie the key were all the third Wednesday, and then it was Timeskip With Dorothy until Freshman Family Weekend, which has been the third Saturday and fourth Sunday (today!).
I’m actually working on putting together a spoileriffic timeline, but I’ve only gotten up to the third Sunday so far. I’m pretty sure about the timing of those third-week events, but not 100%.
Since it’s taken three years our time for five weeks of comic time to pass, the only development we’re going to get is slow development. Nothing wrong with that, and we can praise it when it happens.
This is the fastest updating comic I read (and I read quite a lot) and yet it has one of the lowest comictime:realtime ratios. Somehow, though, I don’t mind at all.
If it went at a faster pace we wouldn’t have nearly the same amount of detail and character development. In fact this is probably one of the more realistic ways of writing fantasy since it’s a blow by blow account of just about every moment in the characters’ lives.
Well, considering the medical problems he and his family has been having, among other problems, I consider myself lucky that he is updating at all. Hopefully it will pick back up soon.
Considering he just did a Kickstarter to make a visual novel, I don’t see him getting back to serious work on the comic for years. I understand and am sympathetic about his medical problems, but I do not like the fact that he makes a living on getting funding for projects he will never finish. They still haven’t made, much less shipped, books that people ordered years ago. They haven’t been shipping store orders. AFAICT Fred does about five hours of work a month, but he’ll happily take 300k for a project he’ll never finish when he can’t even update his own comic.
How long has it been in Freefall? 2421 pages in 15 years. Apparently, that’s something like 3 weeks of in-universe time there? And #500 had “a day is just 24 hours, but that one felt like it took a year and 37 weeks to get through”, which would be .. “only” 267 strips?
You know, I feel like David Willis is going to burn this ship to the ground and give both Billie and Ruth different significant others to be with. I don’t know why I feel that way, but it’s the worst-case possibility I can think of. ._.
Oh I can think can think of worse cases than that.
#1: They can’t work out a relationship with each other OR anyone else and and descend into further self destructive behaviors and are miserable for all time.
#2: They get together and are happy, but one of them dies tragically, and the survivor ends up with a vastly inferior new love interest (that’s not even a Roomies reference so much as a Buffy the Vampire Slayer one)
I’m calling it. This ship will continue to sail in smooth waters right up until the moment when they finally kiss again, with mutual consent, at which point Ruth tastes the alcohol on Billie’s breath…
Willis-drawn, regularly-cycling gravatars are assigned to people who don’t already have one. It’s a nice feature that cuts out the subconscious “this person is a SECOND-RATE CITIZEN OF THE INTERNET” effect that a lack of avatar sometimes has.
Three years ago, I hated Ruth, but thought Billie was pretty okay. I posted a comment about not liking Ruth, Mr. Willis responded saying that he’d work on it, and I thought that was pretty cool.
Now, I think Ruth is pretty cool, and I really dislike Billie right now. That’s progress. And good storytelling.
Hah, when I was archive binging a few weeks ago I disliked both, but now Ruth is my favourite and Billie is top 5. How can you dislike Billie after her heroic rescue of Ruth?!
It’s that she’s secretly drinking still. Ruth is putting in all the effort, going through the pain, struggling to be a better person, while Billie is remaining stagnant, and is dishonest about it.
I think Billie’s dishonesty in this one subject is worse than anything Ruth ever did to her.
Now, we all know that men can’t “win over” lesbians (unless said man is Vin Diesel), and it’s disrespectful to the entire lesbian population to suggest otherwise (unless said man is Vin Diesel). Hopefully Willis understands one of the fine points of storytelling, that there is a double standard… lesbian characters should be fully capable of “winning over” straight women…
Billie is bi, no, its not a double standard (don’t further the jerkery gay people go through) if hypothetically a lesbian won over a straight woman” although its dumb and unrealistic, and its still dumb and offensive if the dude were Vin Diesel, who is by no means an avatar of unfettered sexiness at any rate.
Okay, now I want Billie to just be honest with Ruth about her drinking, have Ruth get mad and/or upset, then 7 months from now (irl) we can have the reconciliation, which in the timeline of the comics will be within a week.
Alternately, Billie really DOES stop drinking and we see a panel with her throwing out the booze. I’m good with either.
I know you’ve got this stuff planned out, loaded in the system to auto update and all that jazz (or Huffer, or Tracks….or Cosmos…)…
but PLEASE have these two sit down and TALK about that kiss. I don’t care if they don’t sleep together for another few weeks in comic time, but I really would like to see these two at least address the issue of the elephant in the room.
When do these kids study? Lab reports? Homework? Will all but Dorothy and Dina fail their freshman year? Walky may have been able to skip through high school on talent and power of observation but this is college. (Even if it is Indiana.)
“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 ⋅ 15h
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
Cops are overgrown children cosplaying War, with all the rest of us forced into their stupid, childish game without our consent, consuming vast funds from the public treasury and ruining lives by the hundreds of thousands.
unknown@collie.bsky.social ⋅ 2d
I cannot get over these cops wearing night vision to arrest a dude on a Southwest Airlines flight in broad daylight.
Minnesota Star Tribune @startribune.com ⋅ 15h
preternia @preternia.com ⋅ 16h
unknown @collie.bsky.social ⋅ 2d
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Ruth is being nice. Next thing you know, people will like Danny, and Dina will like mammals.
Now let’s not get CRAZY!
People liking Danny?
Joyce’ll end up an atheist before that happens.
Lesbihonest here, we all know the reeeaaal reason Ruth is being nice
hah Lesbihonest
Best new word ever.
Y’all think this is a new word? Really? ; ;
Hey, Ruth totally has Gaym.
There aren’t many puns you can do with homosexuality, so this might come off as trying too hard.
I like Danny, and I don’t care what anyone thinks. He reminds me of me in a lot of ways, which is unfortunate but I still like him.
I think Dina likes mammals fine, she just doesn’t understand them.
What with their consistent body temperatures and their giving birth to live young. They just don’t make any sense!
And they lack feathers and scales/ They need at least one of those for Dina to care.
How can you be sure that no dinosaurs have ever being mammals?
…what?
I don’t know enough about dinosaurs to be sure but I have heard that some of them were hot-blooded and may have given birth to live young, so it wouldn’t be too much of a stretch if it turned out that there were dino-mammals.
Birds are warmblooded. Birds basically ARE dinosaurs.
Dunno if the live birth thing has ever been confirmed, but there are mammals that lay eggs, so I don’t think it’s the singular determining factor.
Mammals also tend to have mammary glands. Yay for mammaries!
The determining factor is that mammals have mammaries.
o/` Glass of milk, standing in between extinction in the cold and explosive radiating growth… o/`
“hair, three middle ear bones, mammary glands in females, and a neocortex” – WP
o/` So the warm blood flows
Through the large four-chambered heart
Maintaining the very high metabolism rate they have… o/`
Mammal, mammal, their names are called
They raise a paw!
Linneaus originally classified humans as members of a group he called quadripeds (along with all other four limbed animals). People got upset that he called hands feet and did not like the classification. So he invented the category of mammal named for the mammary gland, reasoning hat people could not deny having nursed at their mothers’ teats.
i wouldnt be surprised either considering the info that velociraptors looked more like birds than lizards. Oh and i love the new Catalina avatar.
Doctor_Who, the only ‘mammals’ I know of that lay eggs are both Australian beasties.
Ghostforge, the problem with studying dinosaurs is the lack of any preserved dino bodies since its all just fossils, also Kiitii! ^_^
The platypus lays eggs, but is still a mammal.
A warm-blooded dinosaur that gave birth to live young would not be a mammal. It would be a dinosaur.
Sauropsida (including all living and extinct reptiles, dinos, birds and some others) split from Synapsids (so-called “mammal-like reptiles”(terrible term), including Dimetrodon, and mammals themselves) something like 300-320 million years ago.
Dinosaurs, as a clade of Sauropsida, showed up about 231 million years ago, meaning they missed out being on the mammal branch by at least 69 million years.
At least some dinos were virtually certain to have been endothermic and tachymetabolic. It is possible that some where not, but evidence for those traits show up in both major dinosaur lineages.
As far as egg laying, we have many dinosaur eggs from many different branches. It may be possible that some gave birth to live young – some snakes do, as do some sharks and others. But they have have eggs that are held internally for a time and then hatch in the womb, before the young are birthed. It is very, very different from the eggless, placental arrangement of most mammals. If any dinosaurs did have live birth it certainly would have been like what snakes and sharks do.
^^^ Hi Dina!
Look closely at panel 2.
Billie’s shirt is a shark.
Freshwater sharks can swim up the Ohio river into Indiana.
Um, to be a mammal they would have to be descended from mammals. Thus, clearly not dinosaurs. Egg laying mammals only exist because they split off from the rest of the mammalian line before mammals developed live birth and stopped laying eggs. If a line of mammals developed into something similar to a dinosaur it would not be a dinosaur. It would be something with similarities to a dinosaur that is a mammal. Actually… that makes me think of a Rhino!
It’s a sign of the Apocalypse!
I like Danny…then again, I’m not exactly a people person.
All this will happen the minute mike falls in love with Joyce…..bahahahahahahahah
And when they actually released the missing episodes of Monkey Master.
And when Roz becomes a Nun and Joe becomes a Monk.
I like Danny, He’s like an example of the exact person you don’t want to be.
Ruth is just Adorkable.
Ruth’s giving it another try!
She’ll get into Billie’s pants even if she has to sneak in and do it when Billie’s not around!
Kinky?
You see this is why we need a like button in the comments section.
Not as kinky as stampeding cattle through the Vatican…but what do I know.
What?
Arkadi, watch Blazing Saddles if you’re not easily offended.
That’s a line towards the end.
Welcome to the world of Mel Brooks.
You can thank us later.
They’d be pretty roomy, what with the fact that Billy’s fat.
MORE OVERALL SHORTS
Overalls are like the final boss of denim fashion. If you can manage to look good in them, you’ve conquered the whole level.
I’m afraid that this boss may be unbeatable.
Ain’t nothing hotter than overalls…
*hides torch* Wasn’t me.
A Youngster’s dream.
How many years will it take to get her out of them.
Webcomic years or our years?
Dog years, of course.
Or to get Billie into them. I’m sure they would both find that equally agreeable.
You know what else is mixed? Cocktails!
Woo Catalina avatar.
Ruth is being both tsudere and yandere…….I am both touched and scared
The only dere that matters is Dere-airs (Derrieres)
Dina is kuudere, also nice buns err puns Yoto!
I approve of this pun !
As opposed to Dairy-airs, which are best avoided.
Dear God, we’ve reached “yandere” level, where things start going from loving to crazy instead of the other way around…
Billie better hope that Ruth never goes from yandere to yangire, now that would be bad.
I like this avatar very much
So does Dina, I suspect.
Her hat has evolved.
Pretty sure Pokemon would give Dina conniptions.
‘That is not evolution, that is metamorphosis. The development of Caterpie into Butterfree could not make this more clear. I find that the persistent misuse of the terms to be inspiring something in me, which I believe to be an emotion. Perhaps the one called “annoyance”.’
Aww! :3
… The more I see Ruth’s behaviour, the more I realize that she is pretty much a female version of myself.
Did you steal a dude’s football uniform and kiss him in the hallway?
Close:
Broke an important photo of someone, then I went ninja, took it from her house and fixed it with the magic of scanner + photoshop.
Should we call the cops?
No thanks, I’ve had enough after being chased by a man dressed as a Banana in Pyjama.
TSUN -> DERE
Apparently she lost the tsun with the booze.
Why? Why must you fuel our hunger for this ship?!?!?!?
JUST THINK OF THE ARTWORK!!!
Pages upon pages of these two attractive disturbed females locked in a gentle embrace while simultaneously insulting one another…. is this what you want?
Yes?
Uh, yeah.
Fuck yes.
How was that even a question?
Me thinks it was a rhetorical question.
Hell fucking yes.
Pretty much, yeah.
Of course.
Also, this is air I am breathing, kitties are fuzzy, science is awesome, and the Nazis were not nice people. Any other questions regarding the blisteringly obvious you want to ask?
well there are naturally hairless kitties, so that drops a chunk of doubt onto the rest of your absolute assertions …… Note: Science is a methodology and the subject or question may not be all that awesome [sadly].
Well, thank you captain buzzkill! Yeah, that’s right. You are a superhero now. That’s your name and your power.
So basically you are Danny in tights. I hope you are proud of yourself!
Hell to the yeah.
So very much yes.
Really this whole relationship between Ruth and Billie is basically Mixed Messages: The Musical.
Soon to be followed up with Meaningful Glances: the Movie.
Then five years later Mixed Messages: the Reboot.
Quickly followed by the direct-to-video, schlock horror cult classic Mixed Messages: Reckoning
Finally Ends with Mixed Messages: Electric Boogaloo
Not to be confused with Mixed Massages: [XXXXXX]
Billie’s just mainly worried Ruth saw her with booze bottles.
It’d be fair turnabout, after all.
I suspect that Ruth probably re-thefted Billie’s uniform before Billie had her relapse. Ruth’s not nearly accusatory enough to lead me to believe she suspects anything yet.
“What’s this box of moths for?”
“Oh, that’s just for if I find out that that booze in your room isn’t Sal’s. So you’ll have to wait a bit before I give this back.”
omg i want this to happen
Or maybe she’s overlooking it due to mixed and confusing emotions, her desire for Billie overwhelming her desire for sobriety etc. subconsciously though she can’t overlook it, and recriminating behaviour slips through, hence mixed messages…. (Ie welcoming her in, opening up, at the same time telling her she’s not supposed to be there and or threatening to punch her)
Wow, for a long time my grav kept changing from Danny to Danny… I thought it might be a sign, thought it couldn’t get worse, haven’t posted for a while and now I find I’m Mary?
Am I aloud to blame Willis for this? (Or is it just my own damn fault for not doing my own damn grav like all the other cool kids?)
Mixed messages are the best kind. Best of both worlds.
“Congratulations, you got this high-paying job with several benefits. But your boss doesn’t like you very much, so yeah”
Enjoy your new pool and the water bill that goes with it.
Someone(s) totally called this… Like a year ago.
Also. My heart. Burst. Joy.
Now I hope Billie feels guilty enough to confess.
She doesn’t need to confess. She just needs to stop doing it.
She needs to confess so that they could fight and have make-up sex later.
I can’t take the trauma of them fighting again. It is forbidden!
Don’t worry, they wouldn’t fight. They never do; their dynamic is more one of ‘She advances slowly but relentlessly; she flees in panic terror but keeps finding her pursuer inexplicably appearing in front of her wherever she goes’.
They sure do a lot of punching for a couple that never fights.
Yeah, that works too. BILLIE STOP DRINKING OR YOU’LL MAKE RUTH SAD.
Also, maybe Ruth already *knows*. She was in Billie’s room after all.
Just be happy Ruth is breaking in and not breaking you!
Or breaking you in.
Pretty sure that’s Billie’s end game, really.
I just imagine Ruth as Bane…..don’t know why.
It’s just like that time when Bane shredded Batman’s cape in a fight then snuck into the Batcave to sew it back together again.
Wow, you and I remember Knightfall quite differently.
Wait, did some variant on that actually happen?
He had a disproportionately tiny sewing machine. It was hilarious.
You know what they say about people with large sewing machines?
That they either do a lot of sewing or they work in a sweatshop?
That sounds amazing.
If Ruth doesn’t already know about Billie’s secret drinking, when she finds out, that uniform is gonna end up in an industrial shredder.
With Billie in it.
Really cute here.
I said I would die of the cute if this happened, so.
*ded of cute*
*hopes you’re happy*
Here lies John. He passed on after a tough battle with the cute.
Dot Warner wanted for questioning.
Dot Keener doing the questioning.
I feel like this needs one more statement:
*you monster*
You know, for the sake of completeness.
Cute: The other dreaded C-word.
The first one is…..cat?
Cancer.
I feel sorry for the crustacean. All its names are always related to diseases.
Yeah! And they’re actually very nice; they just want to help people. We should give them a nickname to show how helpful they are. Something like ‘aids’.
I feel bad for the person that caught yabby…
Was in a crowded fast food place when a seven year old announced that one of the adults had used the C word, by which he meant crap. He went on loudly about the C word for about three minutes before his parents could make him stop. Ahhh. Family.
“Thosebottlesyouprobablysawtotallyweren’tmine.”
“What?” “What?”
Blame it on Sal. Everyone knows you can’t maintain a proper southern accent without being drunk. A good buzz is the only reason she doesn’t talk like Jason.
Sal would probably just sip straight moonshine. Beer? Pfft. Vodka? Hah!
And then she’d be unconscious.
The Walkertons are not known for their alcohol tolerance. Joyce could drink them both under the table.
She’s fixing it! Like my broken heart <3
Billie rejected Ruth, but last strip she put her hand on her and keeps checking in on her. I’d say she’s also guilty of mixed messages.
Agreed. Though it might also be that the real guilty one is Willis, and he is guilty of perpetuating that damn “Will they, won’t they” thing that made the X-files so popular and made the Star Wars prequels terrible.
Except there was no “will they, won’t they” in the prequels because we already knew the ending.
Romantic tension can be good, despite knowing the outcome. I read IW! With a big ass banner that had Joyce and Walky! Above it.
She rejected being assaulted and then kissed against her will.
This. Now that Ruth isn’t behaving in a fucked up way – in fact, now that Ruth is providing stability for Billie – a kiss might result in a different outcome. Even back then, Billie kissed for back before pushing Ruth away. Let’s see if Ruth will actually try again though, because it seems like she’s respecting Billie’s perceived rejection like a decent person.
Billie’s been sending a hell of a lot of signals that she might be interested. I mean, there is the fact that Ruth is basically the only person who understands her so she probably does also want to have a real friend, but taking into account that Billie knows Ruth likes her, she does seem to be acting overly friendly.
Billie’s complaint about the kiss was “bongo shouldna shoved me”. She’s never made any complaint about bongo trying to lick her tonsils. If Ruth tried it again without leading off with an elbow to the sternum, I bet she’d get a much more positive response.
I ship them as hard as the next gal, but she said “FUCK OFF.” “bongo shouldna shoved me” was later, regarding her concern for Ruth.
My guess is that Billie reciprocates, but Ruth’s timing was utter shit, what with it being in the middle of Billie’s angst and right after a request for stability; Ruth decided to respond to that with violence then licky-style. That isn’t stability. Maybe if Ruth actually can stick to a caring persona (Or lack thereof, rather) they’ll be okay and there can be lesbian happies that aren’t Leslie’s (who is herself boned anyway). Course, now that I say that, Willis will ensure it does not. damn you, willis!
Clarification: That is to say, if Ruth can just care, with no particular persona attached, they may be okay. Or at least, a consistent persona.
Oh Christ. When she figures out Billie is still boozing it up she’s gonna….
1. Rip that cheerleading outfit apart piece by piece.
2. Strangle Billie.
3. Rip apart all of Billie’s clothes except the cheerleading outfit.
…..shut up. If I wanna dream this will end in sexy shenangigans and not drama, I’ll go ahead and do that and aint none of you gonna stop me! HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
…..I think I should have been in bed ages ago….
Since when does drama automatically not lead to sexy shenanigans? Like, that’s not even true in the Real World, fiction only makes it more likely.
Wait, when did Ruth break into Billie’s room? Does she know Billie’s been drinking?
Breaking and entering is Ruth speak for “I wanna kiss you licky style.”
Of course. What else could it mean?
“I wanna do you 6 ways from Sunday”?
“I wanna have your lesbian babies”?
“I want us to break the bed.”
“I want to do the bedroom tango with you”?
GODDAMMIT KISS HER ALREADY
Willis is not kind enough to give us that joy so soon. It will be weeks, maybe months. But the longer the pain is before it happens, the less likely he is to destroy such a beautiful thing before our eyes. Hopefully.
What we are witnessing is called the “tease phase”. In this phase, the author will pull scenes like this to tease the readers.
The readers’ reaction to this phase is a mix of :
Enjoying the teased relationship way too much.
Cursing the Author for being such a tease.
Making Fanfictions in order to cope with the delayed satisfaction.
And what all these reactions do is to create such a huge build up to the Payoff Phase which will go one of the 2 ways: either the payoff is worth it or a huge disappointment(as in Duke Nukem Forever disappointment.)
Scenes like these to tease the read’s.
Now make out. Make out, dammit.
Also, I read the title in my RSS feed as “Massages” and got my hopes up
man, i read through the entire archives last night and almost the entire time i thought Ruth was a singularly horrid person even despite the general vague feeling that there was some arguably morally exculpatory background behind her horridness, and now this arc is happening and my expression is pretty much the same as hers in panel three
i’m not sure why but i think the most fitting thing to say here is DAMN YOU WILLIS
GUILT, BILLIE.
FEEL THE GUIIIILT.
That gravatar…is that Gillian Seed?
Ruth stole the uniform and vandalized it during the first week or so (she was using it to force Billie/Sal to get their roommate agreement taken care of).
Later, Billie swiped the uniform back a day or so after their ruckus in the hallway, when Amazi-Girl carried Billie off the scene.
Now we find out that since then Ruth (using her master key, no doubt) got back into Billie’s room to retrieve the uniform in order to make repairs; this probably occurred after their heart-to-heart about their drinking problems. But when?
DAMMIT WILLIS, IT’S BEEN OVER THREE YEARS REAL-TIME BUT ONLY MAYBE FIVE WEEKS DUMBIVERSE TIME. WE NEED A TIME-LINE AROUND HERE!!!
Nitpicking here, but Ruth may not have needed her masterkey.
She once told Billie about teaching her how to “discreetly pick a lock”. Which would be way more badass, if a tad less practical.
And Leonou, Ruth did use a master key when she came in to watch TV and drink beer with Billie, so that’s why I mentioned it.
True
It’s not even five weeks. This is, I believe, the fourth Sunday. The first Sunday was arrival day. The second Sunday Joyce took Dorothy to church, Billie jumped Danny, and Dorothy kissed Walky. The third Sunday Joyce took Ethan to church, Ruth dropped in on Billie for beer and TV, and Dorothy cast her body into the cragged shame pits of the lustwolves. And the fourth Sunday began with Sal strangling Joyce.
Ruth informed Billie that she was holding the uniform hostage on the first Tuesday.
The brawl where Amazi-Girl spirited Billie away was the first Wednesday.
Billie snuck into Ruth’s room on the first Thursday, and came out of the closet, with her uniform, Ruth’s booze, and blackmail photos, in the wee hours of the morning on the first Friday.
On the second Monday, Sal returned to the room to find Billie drunk and wearing the still-damaged cheerleader uniform (and then Billie tried to put the moves on Sal).
The Kiss was the third Monday night, and then Ruth locked herself in her room for the next two days. (It seemed longer than that…)
The fire alarm, discussion in Ruth’s room, follow-up floor meeting, and Ruth giving Billie the key were all the third Wednesday, and then it was Timeskip With Dorothy until Freshman Family Weekend, which has been the third Saturday and fourth Sunday (today!).
I’m actually working on putting together a spoileriffic timeline, but I’ve only gotten up to the third Sunday so far. I’m pretty sure about the timing of those third-week events, but not 100%.
Good stuff.
Well, whenever you get it caught up and posted it will be a huge help.
Great avatar for that msg. Locke.
They are getting closer and closer and …. closer…..
Maybe by Christmas.
Unless Ruth finds Billie drinking and kills her.
3 years… but totally worth it…
The Shipping is going crazy over a shirt… it don’t take much does it?
Since it’s taken three years our time for five weeks of comic time to pass, the only development we’re going to get is slow development. Nothing wrong with that, and we can praise it when it happens.
Yeah but this cant go as bad as the Ethan/Joshua fiasco right?
This is the fastest updating comic I read (and I read quite a lot) and yet it has one of the lowest comictime:realtime ratios. Somehow, though, I don’t mind at all.
If it went at a faster pace we wouldn’t have nearly the same amount of detail and character development. In fact this is probably one of the more realistic ways of writing fantasy since it’s a blow by blow account of just about every moment in the characters’ lives.
I can’t follow Megatokyo anymore because it takes four years of updates for an hour of time to pass in the comic.
Although that’s because Fred only updates twice a month.
Well, considering the medical problems he and his family has been having, among other problems, I consider myself lucky that he is updating at all. Hopefully it will pick back up soon.
Considering he just did a Kickstarter to make a visual novel, I don’t see him getting back to serious work on the comic for years. I understand and am sympathetic about his medical problems, but I do not like the fact that he makes a living on getting funding for projects he will never finish. They still haven’t made, much less shipped, books that people ordered years ago. They haven’t been shipping store orders. AFAICT Fred does about five hours of work a month, but he’ll happily take 300k for a project he’ll never finish when he can’t even update his own comic.
Have you read Between Failures? It took some 300 pages to do one day of comic time. I suspect it is the current record holder.
These comments are so confusing to me. How can this much time have passed? How long have I been reading all of these comics, anyway?
I have such a poor sense of time…
How long has it been in Freefall? 2421 pages in 15 years. Apparently, that’s something like 3 weeks of in-universe time there? And #500 had “a day is just 24 hours, but that one felt like it took a year and 37 weeks to get through”, which would be .. “only” 267 strips?
Dude, I’ve seen shipping frenzy between two characters who both never met and never talk to each other.
Vader and Azula OTP
Mordecai and Twilight Sparkle FTW!
Stormtrooper #4,682,593 x Redshirt #735,419 OTP
Ryoma Nagare X Noriko Takaya OTP
That doesn’t mean anything! Jon and Daenerys WILL get together, dammit!
You know, I feel like David Willis is going to burn this ship to the ground and give both Billie and Ruth different significant others to be with. I don’t know why I feel that way, but it’s the worst-case possibility I can think of. ._.
Oh I can think can think of worse cases than that.
#1: They can’t work out a relationship with each other OR anyone else and and descend into further self destructive behaviors and are miserable for all time.
#2: They get together and are happy, but one of them dies tragically, and the survivor ends up with a vastly inferior new love interest (that’s not even a Roomies reference so much as a Buffy the Vampire Slayer one)
Worst: It turns out to be Billie’s wet dream
“overall shorts”? You mean dungarees?
I’m calling it. This ship will continue to sail in smooth waters right up until the moment when they finally kiss again, with mutual consent, at which point Ruth tastes the alcohol on Billie’s breath…
When Ruth realizes that Billie has been cheating on her with Bud, Johnny Walker and Old Grandad.
Your ideas intrigue me and I wish to subscribe to your newsletter.
I also choose to believe that it will survive, but have to put into port.
“it only took three years to get ruth back in overall shorts”
Time well spent, I say.
“So…how about you try it on.”
Can someone explain to me how you get Gravatar to cycle through the Gallery du Willis cause I straight up don’t get it ;_;
Willis-drawn, regularly-cycling gravatars are assigned to people who don’t already have one. It’s a nice feature that cuts out the subconscious “this person is a SECOND-RATE CITIZEN OF THE INTERNET” effect that a lack of avatar sometimes has.
PLEASE STOP BEING CREEPY, RUTH.
…Why is Ruth suddenly so cute?
Why did it take me years to appreciate this character?
That’s because for a long while, Ruth was often dipicted as either awesome or a bongo.
Is that guilt for relapsing and not saying anything about it in panel 3, Billie?
Yeah, I’m really hoping Panel 4 is Billie going, “Man, Ruth’s so appreciative of me going cold turkey with her. Maybe I should actually do that.”
Of course it isn’t, because Willis hates us all and wants us to suffer.
It’s what gets him up in the morning.
Three years ago, I hated Ruth, but thought Billie was pretty okay. I posted a comment about not liking Ruth, Mr. Willis responded saying that he’d work on it, and I thought that was pretty cool.
Now, I think Ruth is pretty cool, and I really dislike Billie right now. That’s progress. And good storytelling.
Hah, when I was archive binging a few weeks ago I disliked both, but now Ruth is my favourite and Billie is top 5. How can you dislike Billie after her heroic rescue of Ruth?!
It’s that she’s secretly drinking still. Ruth is putting in all the effort, going through the pain, struggling to be a better person, while Billie is remaining stagnant, and is dishonest about it.
I think Billie’s dishonesty in this one subject is worse than anything Ruth ever did to her.
They have the perfect relationship.
Such a perfect relationship.
If by “perfect” you mean “entertainingly dysfunctional”, then I agree. What would a slice-of-college-life comic be without drama?
Good?
Now, we all know that men can’t “win over” lesbians (unless said man is Vin Diesel), and it’s disrespectful to the entire lesbian population to suggest otherwise (unless said man is Vin Diesel). Hopefully Willis understands one of the fine points of storytelling, that there is a double standard… lesbian characters should be fully capable of “winning over” straight women…
Plus, Billie is too curvy to be straight. Ba-dum PSSHH.
I don’t see any straight women here. Billie is literally the poster girl for Bisexual Visibility Day. (You can’t spell “Billie” without “Bi”!)
Or even visiBIlity, when we are at it.
Billie is bi, no, its not a double standard (don’t further the jerkery gay people go through) if hypothetically a lesbian won over a straight woman” although its dumb and unrealistic, and its still dumb and offensive if the dude were Vin Diesel, who is by no means an avatar of unfettered sexiness at any rate.
Was just joking. The Vin Diesel thing was a reference to the latest Riddick movie.
THEYRE SO CUTE IM JUST GONNA asdjoi
awwwwwwww
I can’t wait for Billie and Ruth to just hook up.
Okay, now I want Billie to just be honest with Ruth about her drinking, have Ruth get mad and/or upset, then 7 months from now (irl) we can have the reconciliation, which in the timeline of the comics will be within a week.
Alternately, Billie really DOES stop drinking and we see a panel with her throwing out the booze. I’m good with either.
I agree with comment above
Heya Walky-
I know you’ve got this stuff planned out, loaded in the system to auto update and all that jazz (or Huffer, or Tracks….or Cosmos…)…
but PLEASE have these two sit down and TALK about that kiss. I don’t care if they don’t sleep together for another few weeks in comic time, but I really would like to see these two at least address the issue of the elephant in the room.
why would they do that
Yes. Too much sitting and talking, not enough doing.
As part of an occult ritual to please the fanservice gods and ensure a good harvest this year?
Advancing the plot?
Character development?
To keep me from going CRAZY wanting closure on that scene?
When do these kids study? Lab reports? Homework? Will all but Dorothy and Dina fail their freshman year? Walky may have been able to skip through high school on talent and power of observation but this is college. (Even if it is Indiana.)
This has been a really compressed time frame. This past year has been a single weekend in Walky-time.
Not compressed. The opposite of compressed. And not a single weekend either. More like a week. A week vaporized over 10 months.