OH HEY YOU GUYS THE IT’S WALKY! KICKSTARTER FUNDED
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preternia @preternia.com ⋅ 12h
David M Willis! @damnyouwillis.bsky.social ⋅ 3d
Josh Gerstein @joshgerstein.bsky.social ⋅ 1d
Aaron Rupar @atrupar.com ⋅ 2d
Pavel
@spavel.bsky.social ⋅ 11d
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Nash cares about clarity just as much as Carla does
“yeah, there’s a CSCI girl… I hear”
Read Hall: The Lost Light
Forest Hall: The Vis Vitalis
I understood that reference!
I award you 50 internet bucks. They may be spent on the finest of memes.
I didn’t, so I had to Google it, which initially wasn’t helpful, however I finally decided it was transformers related, and not the rock band.
Does that make Billie is Rodimus?
“Does that mean Billie is Rodimus?”
This is what happens when commenting while half asleep.
She’s more Megatron…the late-arriving co-Captain, making up for some horrible mistakes in her past.
I see her as Megatron in her more serious moments, though normally she’s trailcutter with his FIM chip activated
really hit the nail on the head there… mostly.
I’m really kind of intrigued/puzzled by the stereotype of music majors as antisocial head cases. I certainly am not one to be objective about this, but the music majors I knew were all total music nerds and/or serious party animals, with a considerable Venn diagram overlap.
I don’t think the stereotype discussed in this strip is “music majors are antisocial headcases”, but more “those guys at Read Hall are antisocial headcases AND they’re also music majors”.
Well, I’m intrigued/puzzled because nearly everyone in DoA is in Read Hall and the closest thing to “music majoring” we’ve seen is Dan punishing the ukelele.
Yeah, but they only ever go to class when it advances the plot, and that seems to be limited to required humanities courses, so there’s really no way of knowing what anyone is majoring it unless they make a point of mentioning it.
this is an old comment by now, but I can attest most music majors I know (seeing as I am one) are music nerds and/or serious party animals… considering IU has the MAC and the Jacobs SoM, though, they definitely attract a different breed.
One that I actually awkwardly wanna join. Anyhoo.
It’s been, like, a month and these rumors have already started. Even though they have Sal and Amber, I still choose to believe that all the rumors are based around Joyce
Well, maybe not her being anti-social
It’s actually a real life stereotype which has circulated around IU for years.
Pfft, Joyce isn’t a music major!
Are ANY of the cast music majors?
New Danny is! Just listen to his well-honed Ukelele Chords!
Not main cast, but I believe Sayid is. Not sure about anybody else.
In the last Tmonth of comic time, Joe’s sex rating list became campuswide news, Dina got shot at by Becky’s dad, Becky (who is probably presumed to be a student) got kidnapped, Billie got kicked out of the dorm, Roz’s senator sister got into a nationally covered sex scandal, a sex tape of Roz and Joe leaked, Dina captured and tied up Faz, and the RA physically assaulted several students, mostly Mary, before trying to kill herself and being immediately re-instated.
It’s a miracle they haven’t shut down the dorm yet.
Geez, when you put it that way, you’d think last month was a little out of control
It’s been more than a month… also, Ruth never physically assaulted Mary (that I can remember) and also didn’t try to kill herself.
She slapped a sharpie dick onto Mary’s face and maybe some other thing I’m forgetting
Ruth put herself in a situation where she would have died without intervention. You are splitting the tiniest of hairs.
Well, they were going to shut it down, but the news got out about Dina capturing Faz and the world wide outpouring of gratitude kept it open.
What’s with Lucy’s reaction in panel 2? This is seriously bothering her, but why?
Thinking of her last roommate maybe? Or whatever her beef is with cheerleaders?
Either she’s uncomfortable with the way that these people are gossipping about Read Hall (possibly because of previous experience with gossip, maybe connected to her face upon finding out Billie was a cheerleader) or she’s worried about how Billie will react to said gossip. Probably both.
Also, based on these expressions I’m starting to form a headcanon about Lucy that is much less fun than the one I formed about Nash & Co a month or so back.
I’m a bit worried for Lucy. In the Shortpacked! universe, she had her head on her shoulders and generally had everything together. She took on the AmaziGirl mantle not because she had something to prove, but just basically because it was given to her, and why not?
This Lucy… it’s like her cheerfulness is just a mask for bigger insecurities and fears. What on earth happened to you?
probably the same thing the shortpacked lucy recovered from already
….Starfire getting turned into an airheaded sex-crazed bimbo in the comics?
We already knew that Nash was the one most likely to blurt out something offensive and/or inappropriate at the earliest allowable opportunity.
I think she’s having a Malaya flashback
Most likely Lucy is just holding back her internal response, which is, of course, not what Nash is doing
My guess would be that she’s thinking, “Hey, please don’t tell my new roommate that everyone thinks that all of the people that she lived with and bonded with were crazy.” And yes, even though it’s in her head, she’s still saying please.
Maybe she’s actually uncomfortable with how much attention with Billie is getting? Either in a ‘everyone’s gonna ignore me’ way, or ‘back off, she’s MY roommate! My friend!’ way.
If I had to guess, I’d say she’s praying the answer isn’t “Because Lucy’s last roommate kind of treated her poorly.” These people are all really nice and open; I can see them rubbing Malaya entirely the wrong way and Malaya being intensely unpopular. And I can see Lucy being the kind of person who doesn’t want stories, however true, of “well Lucy’s last roommate was an anti-social jerk, even if she had an awesome iguana” getting spread.
People rub Malays the wrong by existing. These girls exist and are nice. Malaya probably wants to lead a crusade against them.
They seem a little overaggressively nice, which can be annoying. But mostly I expect you’re right. It is Malaya.
Malaya does love forming alliances against people. And fighting her way out of huge mistakes.
Well there’s plenty of anti-social headcases, but who are the music majors?
I’m not sure we’ve met any? We know about Computer Science, Communications, Education, Math(?), uh… I’m sure there’s more, but I’m blanking.
None of the cast whose majors we know, are music majors. Where is Willis hiding my peeps?
Music majors are never actually in the dorm. Their entire waking (and sleeping) days are taken up with practice, rehearsal and performance.
When I was in college, I saw a music major in his dorm once. Not, of course, *his* dorm room, and he was only there to get an extra guitar pick someone had, because his last one broke. But for something like 5 minutes, he was *actually* within the confines of the building he was ostensibly living in during the school year. Sure, it’s an isolated event, probably never to repeat in the course of his college career, but it happened, so saying ‘never’ is a bit hyperbolic. Admittedly, that was at that *other* state university, rather than IU.
*plays Foreigner’s “Head Games” on the hacked Muzak*
“Somebody’s Watching Me” by Rockwell seems to fit this strip pretty well too.
Noooo why is Lucy distressed D: Apply hugs until smiling pls
Think Dorothy might be a exception, everyone else eeeeeh.
What’s your problem with Sierra?
She’s pretty darn callous. (At least, her feet are probably calloused.)
Why does everyone assume Dorothy, a workaholic who is incapable of not taking everything onto her own shoulders, is the “stable” one? She seems stable because she is desperate to *be* stable. Her particular brand of self-harm is just the brand that capitalism encourages, so we see her as “normal”.
Maybe it’s because I see ambition in a more innocent light then most normal people do, that in itself sounds bad though that much I realize that but still.
The fact that Dorothy actually went to a therapist on her own volition rather than letting this blow up out of control shows she’s the stable one.
I like this point.
Very few people are 100% mentally healthy their entire life. By and large, the people I know irl whom I’d label as having the best “head on their shoulders” are people who at some point dealt with anxiety, depression, bipolar, or other internal personal challenges proactively– that is, early on, they realized they had a problem with their mood or personality, and decided to seek help and improve in a constructive way.
On the other hand, the people I know (and love!) who seem the least stable or most fragile either dealt with their internal issues in a destructive way (self-medicating with alcohol and drugs, deciding not to care about anything and “checking out” mentally, self-harm), or never dealt with them at all, and they ended up becoming agoraphobic and trapped in their own home or something similar.
Not everyone’s issues are equally severe, but I do think it’s good to see how to positively handle stress and mental health issues, especially since portraying destructive coping mechanisms seems much more common.
I’m not sure that she’s going to a therapist for her stress-related issues, though. She seems resigned to the idea that that stress is inescapable.
I don’t think we even know the majors of most of the people in Read Hall. They can’t all be music majors.
To be fair, we know the majors of most of the people on one floor of one wing of Read Hall. There are apparently 4 wings and 5 floors.
*face of ruth appears in the second-to-last panel*
We haven’t seen ruth in a while, I hope she’s alright.
We saw her pretty recently, with Carla coming in to gloat about Malaya being here. She made the Face Hall of Fame.
Oh yeah, I totally forgot. My memory is swiss cheese sometimes. XD
(still, I worry about her, especially because billie isn’t around for her)
yeah, I’m a little annoyed that Billie isn’t over there having a different kind of fun.
Interestingly enough, I lived in my campus’ equivalent of Read Hall – in that it was fully of music major antisocial headcases. Most of my roommates fit that description to a T.
Meanwhile, the real life parallels between me and Billie continue – I also fit that description, except I wasn’t a music major.
I know exactly one person who majors in music (classical), and who is a very nice, caring and empathic guy – he just can appear to be strange to outsiders as he has his own sense of humour (not stereotypical, that is). So – nothing antisocial there. But from what I heard about him applying for jobs, it seems that “anti-social” is pretty much a common trait in the music business, at least with the people he had to deal with (I’m sure there are more non-anti-social cases out there, but that’s just from my experience).
“Joyce is an education major, for example.”
Lets just say they lack mental health privilege.
Tactful as always, Nash.
Now that I think about it, is their a single music major in Reed Hall that we know about?
Beatrice responding to Billie’s question seems odd given the Deaf hypothesis.
Reading lips is a thing
Deaf don’t mean mute, fam.
Also, there was a silent panel during which Nash might have been signing. Or Rose.
The which what now?
Ah, I see.
Maybe Nash translated it, she’s reading lips, or she has enough residual hearing left to understand one person talking at a time in an otherwise quiet room.
My understanding is some combination of all three
I had a class mate like that, there is also the actress Marlee Martin who played a deaf character on the west wing but would also speak her lines and I believe could read lips.
Not inaccurate…..
Yeah! They’re not all one-note! How can you even be one-note and have that much discord?
Yeah, some of them even know how to strike a chord with others.
They should try to be more harmonious.
They coda, and that would be fine.
As long as they didn’t just segno.
When they harmonize, it’s a major lift.
Aw, wait a minuet, ‘harmonize’ was already in play.
Yeah, you better tone it down. You know, take it down a note. Play it safe.
Dear Glob – give it a rest!
Yes, your music puns have fallen flat. Scale it back, before you get in treble.
In treble? That’s a bassless assertion. I’ve come nowhere near to clearing that bar.
But puns are my forte!
Hallelujah!
Panel 1: Billie thinking of all the reasons she thinks she is not all right.
Given how much bad stuff happens in Reed Hall, you’d think they’d all be music minors instead.
*waits for someone to key in on that pun and then runs for dear punning life*
We tried for music augments but only got diminished, instead.
You should flageolet yourself for that one.
A flat comment BOO!
Sharp crowd in here tonight.
You’re certainly a natural
If they were music minors, it would be accidental.
Well, they are under the legal drinking age.
“Music Major Anti-Social Headcases”? I… er, resemble that remark!
Do you mean like, actually anti social or just asocial. Cuz if it’s the former I implore you to seek counseling
The latter, really.
What’s the difference? First I’ve heard of it.
Antisocial means being opposed to social order, or being antagonistic and hostile. Hence, Antisocial Personality Disorder, aka sociopathy.
Oof, creepy inter-hall prejudice, great.
Okay, quick question for the comments section – Is anyone else having the ad that won’t stop opening tabs every time they come to read the comic or is it just me? I’ve been on the site for about 3 minutes and it has already created 8 new tabs for itself (9 now, it just made one as I was typing this).
Its the one that sits just below the Patreon link on the right. 10 tabs now…
You need to get you some ad-blocker and popup-blocker goodbrother/sister.
_Tools and _Add-ons if you’re using firefox, I assume it’s similarly easy for other web browsers.
There was one the other morning that did that, and tried to upload an .exe file to my Windows machine, twice. My cure: browse webcomic sites with an old android tablet that I reset to factory defaults bimonthly. Or my new Chromebook, ditto.
Can’t say I’ve had much of a problem with pop-up spam, but my CCleaner does tend to pick up substantially more junk to clean up depending on whether or not I’ve come to read DoA. I have also had a few occasions where there’s been an attempt to download suspect programs past my anti-virus system, but the last time that happened was almost a year ago.
TL;DR No, you’re not the only one getting a lot of annoying traffic of some form or another on this site.
Joyce is neither anti-social, nor a headcase; 1/3 BAYBAY!
She’s not a music major either
You could loosely define most of the cast as minor headcases. Dorothy is the only one who willingly sees a therapist
Anti-social is not a stereotype I would associate with music majors, is there some sort of basis for that?
Apparently it’s the real-life stereotype for those from Read Hall.
Music majors might spend hours practicing music alone in a small room instead of hanging out. It can be an introvert thing.
“That’s not music, Martelli, that’s masturbation!”
(ref?)
FAAAAME! I’M GONNA LIVE FOREVER…!
That sounds more asocial. I feel like, or I hope, they’re using the actual definition of antisocial here because that’s a muuuuch better descriptor for the crazy shit that goes down in Read
Yeah my best friend growing up was a music major, in marching band in high school ect but she was the most social person I know (along with all the other band nerds I know). Im very confused.
I think they just mean music majors who are also fucking crazy. Not music majors *are* fucking crazy. Or, not sociable since a lot of people think that’s what antisocial means
To be fair, every television stereotype I’ve seen about musicians portrays them as fucking crazy. “Mozart in the Jungle”? Everybody’s crazy. And everybody’s fucking! Any “documentary” show about a famous musician (a la “Britney and Kevin: Chaotic”) the whole point is to showcase them at their zaniness. And I think there’s a lot of spillover from the theatre major stereotypes, students who care more about ~drama~ than actual craft and so do dramatic, attention-grabbing things a lot.
Most of them are pretty dumb, yeah.
This is an interesting bit of intelligence that Ruth needs to hear. Read Hall is considered the dumping ground for weirdos and/or disruptive students. Maybe we are seeing a seed of an Animal House-style “If we’re going to have this reputation, let’s deserve it!” mindset?
I think Ruth (at least from the beginning of the comic) would take great pride in it. “You are all weirdos. The worst this school can throw at me. And I’m here to keep you in line. Please test me – I dare you.”
“Hey! Carla is an ENGINEERING major. She might upload her mind into a self-driving car at some point.”
And thus the circle will be complete.
Or become an Evil Genius who will make the world of Cars a reality. It’s a flip of a coin with her really.
You know, there is concern about how pedestrians will make “eye contact” with a self-driving car, to know they have been seen before stepping off the kerb. IOTMT giving them eyes just like in the movie “Cars” – steerable by the on-board AI – would be one way to do this. It might also make the vehicles much more people-friendly, and thus boost their acceptance.
Tl;dr – making the world of Cars a reality might actually be a good thing.
Unless cars and their AIs decide that it’s a great idea to get rid of humans… Not too sound Doom-tastic but we are tinkering with creating new sentient life and we might lose control over it very very easily…
And this would be different from our present control over sentient life how?
My point exactly. Humans have so little control over their Own emotions and actions and now are making and arming Another species while automating and slaving their society to the Internet which that other group of beings considers it’s natural environment.
Cars aren’t… AI isn’t… a species. Self driving cars as they currently are aren’t even the kind of thing we would put generalized AI into, and without generalized AI there’s no personality or thought or anything that mimics or is feelings, even when computer technology gets advanced enough to make a personalitied thing.
Claiming we’re making an arming a species to work for us when we make self-driving cars would be like claiming that our leg muscle tissue is on its own a species–sure, it’s alive, it has some kinds of ability to process and react to signals, but your leg isn’t a thinking being on its own. Its information processing abilities are very limited, even though it’s really, really good at the things it does, and in order to do anything it really needs an external source telling it what to do. (That analogy isn’t perfect–most of the stuff that handles balance is in the brain, not the leg–but it’s good enough that you can kind of get what I mean.)
You wouldn’t even be making a personalitied thing if you gave a car LED “eyes” and a camera and programmed a limited AI to identify humans and point its LED eyes at humans it saw. You’d just have an easily anthropomorphised object. Humans are wayyy too prone to anthropomorphizing things that really don’t in any way resemble humans. Or even animals.
Of course I’m exaggerating but we are already step by step moving in that direction. I remember reading about a robot which was programmed to love and care for a human and then started getting jealous and even violent.
We already have semi-autonomous robot planes killing people. How long will it take before people in charge decide that removing humans from warfare completely will be cheaper and then we’ll have robot armies one hack or malfunction from causing human casualties.
Bah, panpsychicism is true! OUR CARS ARE ALREADY PLOTTING AGAINST US!
As opposed to now when the mechanized armies only cause (unintended) human casualties through good old fashioned human error. So much better.
And without an actual source on the jealous robot, I’m going to assume that was fiction.
@thejeff
Better have minimal control than no control at all.
Yeah sorry, I only read about it in passing a couple of years ago and can’t seem to be able to google it up now…
How the heck does a college dorm get a stereotype like that? I mean, it’s absurd on the face of it. Do people think the college identifies the anti-social headcases and deliberately puts them in Read Hall?
I’d say it stems more from the fact that some people love gossiping, and they just need something to catch their attention to form any kind of opinion and rumour, regardless of whether it may be true, might be partly true, or absolutely isn’t true.
As an example: At my part-time workplace, there’s one guy (a trainer) with his own peculiar sense of humour, and just after I started working there, I was asked by other colleagues whether I don’t find him strange, because he works, and then stays for hours after to work-out. And that he himself is a bit strange.
Now, I’m pretty used to (supposedly) “strange” – always considered myself to be in that category (especially as a teen), so I just responded I don’t find him strange – he just seems to like his workplace. Nothing wrong with that.
But there’s obviously talk about how he is strange – when he’s just human with his own personality. In another, more ‘open’ situation (e.g. a campus), him being considered strange could become quite a rumour with different interpretations to it – whatever the people want to believe or want to add to feel in some strange way superior to others.
At least that’s my take on it.
It’s not that absurd. For example, Read Hall self-selects for music majors because it’s located so close to the music buildings. Students might seek out living in a certain dorm building for other factors, as well, such as size of rooms, whether there’s air conditioning, where on campus the building is located, and the gossip about what campus life in a dorm is like, all of which can create a self-fulfilling prophesy of weirdos, depending.
I think it seems silly to those of us who experienced assigned halls. I guess students pick halls in the comic (and presumably IRL some places). That makes more sense.
It can be a bit of both. When I was in college i think the Freshmen were assigned, but Sophomores and up could choose the dorm (within the constraints of availability). I had friends who moved dorms after Freshman year, and some dorms were designated as Freshman dorms.
As for me, I moved into a fraternity house my sophomore year, which its own set of issues!
Can vouch, our Freshman dorm was out in the boonies, Sophomore and up, I chose the one next to the cafeteria
Perspective can be an interesting thing. I knew a certain number of students at my school who thought the dorms were just assigned. Some others seemed to think that only sophmores + got to select their dorms.
The actual truth: anyone could select a dorm, so long as the dorm still had space that you qualified for (mostly smoking versus non, which only mattered if you smoked or checked another box that said you required a non-smoking roommate.) and the dorm manager didn’t have a (non-legally prohibited) issue with you that didn’t quite rise to the level of the dorm authority having an issue with you. But most incoming freshmen who tried picking a dorm only chose one option and waited too long to register. Popular dorms tended to fill up around spring break, most freshmen didn’t choose their dorms until they graduated high school.
Of course, I’ve heard of colleges where there wasn’t even the option to request a dorm, let alone allowing one to specify second and third options. (Which reminds me of the nimrod who thought that listing the same dorm three times would somehow make it more likely that he’d get put there. Not to say anyone who thought that would be a nimrod, just to say this one was.) And there’s even some which will put you in the same dorm as your parent if your parent was a student there…
Also it’s where the performing arts LLC (living learning community) is housed.
Aaah. Dorms at my old college were just assigned more or less randomly (aside from roommate requests) so none of this occurred to me as possibilities
My take on it is that these people seem TOO nice, and I’m waiting for the other shoe (or a bucket of pig’s blood) to drop. On Billie.
I don’t trust a person who laughs when there is nothing to laugh about. Or is good-natured no matter what happens. If it’s that perfect, it’s an act, a phony….
You know, not everyone has to live with a perpetual cloud raining down on them. Not every life is rife with tragedy and soul-crushing adversity.
LIES AND SLANDER
Only in anything written by Joss Whedon.
Or George R.R. Martin.
Yeah, I’m with Eldritch Gentleman on this. There are genuine people like this. I’d be surprised if no one was pretending, but also if no one is genuinely just good-natured.
Being good natured does not make you flawless. I’m sure they have skeletons of some kind. That does not make the attitude fake, though.
Also, sometimes someone hides being depressed or in pain behind a smile and good naturedness rather than behind groomily or snarkily lashing out at the people around them.
to take an example from a tv show. On Teen Wolf, scott seems consistently happy and good natured, but then you realize the poor guy is suffering from huge self esteem issues, is depressed and nigh suicidal. But he’ll still constantly have a smile for everyone around him. Be kind, gentle, and seem happy most of the time. And it’s not like his happiness is fake, it’s that he tries to find joy in whatever moments he can get, and being optimistic and giving people second, third and even fourth chances.
Gallasso suits ya Shemp
Had to read it twice.
Laughed the second time.
Who’s a music major in this comic? Is anyone?
I’d say Mike, he can play people like a fiddle.
Ha! Good one!
I don’t know, something about his tone doesn’t make him seem like one… Joyce would be a good one, she can harp on and on about Dexter and Monkey master. Dorothy? She’s pretty sharp.
…Nah, the jokes are falling flat. Maybe I should give it a rest?
I think the true musician around is Dina. Both Joyce and Becky change their tune instantly whenever she is around. And she can play on the fears of ninja dinosaurs so well.
Oh, yes! Seeing as she’s gone from a minor character to a major one, and how her relationship with Becky is going ac-chord-ing to plan, I’d say she’s found the key to success the dumbiverse!
And she might be able to help tune Amber and Joyce seeing how much discord there is in their hearts.
She DOES know how to play two songs on the piano (and apparently she knows how to play the violin).
http://www.dumbingofage.com/2013/comic/book-3/01-if-the-shoes-split/sheetmusic/
We have the winner! We can now forge our puns into praises.
I remain firmly convinced that if you gave a music major a car, they’d complain about the color.
The cheerleader from M.M.A.S.H.
A true life stereotype believed by actual real world people.
wooooooo…..
Music majors aren’t anti-social, we’re just anti-social to anyone who’s not also a music major. It’s a habit that you just kind of get stuck in when you’re living in a practice room and seeing the same 30 people every day for four years.