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⚧️ Alexandra Merideth Erin [she/her]
I accidentally read that as “a dumb nerd who for fifteen years wrote a fanfiction for Kit Fisto”
haha Kit Fisto tho Lucy’s eating it up
Actually, the odds of Lucy reading the blog at the time are probably pretty good.
i mean with a name like Kit Fisto
Hey now, don’t insult the man!
His proper form of address is Master Fisto, thank you!
Now I want to know what exactly it is about Kit Fisto that Billie loves.
If I know my Star Wars nerds, it’s either the smile, the Star Wars: The Clone Wars show appearances, or his ‘not quite ever made official’ relationship with Aayla Secura.
That one Star Wars Tales comic had my whole FOURTH GRADE CLASS shipping them
You and a decent chunk of the fandom.
Nautolans are cool and like, the grown up version of that neat baby from Men in Black, that helped sell me on Kit Fisto easy.
Kit Fisto is apparently an actual Star Wars character that actually exists. I did not know this.
I did, he’s a nautolan. Think aliens with squid hair.
Best known for his smile and being shirtless for a whole story arc.
I mean, can you blame him? If my torso looked like that, I’d go shirtless all the time too (then again, the gills might get some weird looks).
I googled him and I still have no idea who it is.
Blink-and-you-miss-him character in the movies; significant character in a couple of arcs of the Clone Wars animated series.
Did a lot in the comics too but that was prior to the Clone Wars show – that’s almost certainly what Billie knows him from anyways.
Weirdly, I always *loved* Kit Fisto—and I never saw the show or comics or anything. I just liked his smile, his nice eyes, and the fact that he was the last guy to go down before Mace Windu in the Palpatine fight.
You’re not alone. I knew a guy in my undergrad like that, and my boyfriend was like that (but now he’s started Star Wars: The Clone Wars so he knows more now).
I would recommend the (now non-canon, sigh) book “The Cestus Deception”. Features Kenobi and Kit Fisto going to a planet called Ord Cestus with a few clone troopers on a complicated diplomatic mission.
(I really miss the Clone Wars books that were thrown out in favor of the TV series.)
Today’s strip was sponsored by Tax Slayer, whose spokeswoman is like a Lucy all grown up and matronly…
Ruth’s face
But also, I guess I kinda get it… Kit Fisto has a cool design, especially in the clone wars
What exactly is a Kit Fisto? It sounds like some sort of self-inflicted anal polyp.
https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Kit_Fisto
So what you are saying is, Chaucer was surprisingly close.
Jeez, way to stomp on my line, BBCC
. (But thanks for the reference.)
Sorry, I thought you were seriously asking. xD
Why is there no upvote button? My wife is looking at me as if I were a lunatic (granted, not an uncommon occurrence) due to my gasping laughter. And yeah, I had no idea who that was, either.
I wonder if Billie also saw that one comic panel of Kit Fisto making out with Aayla Secura underwater on Wookiepedia like I did in my childhood
Probably. If she knows enough to know the dude’s name and was writing fanfic, she probably googled him once or twice. Preteen is like 10-12, which for Billie would be 2010-2012. That’s around the time of the Star Wars: The Clone Wars tv show and from there it’s a damn rabbit hole.
You say rabbit hole, I say local gravity well, let’s call a truce; no clones.
Fair enough!
Good for you Billie, you silenced the ‘Awws’ with enough personal backstory to make it a little weird, but at least you are being honest right now, right?
Also why are Lucy’s eyes stars in the last panel?
I assume it’s because Lucy is also nerdy and didn’t realize that she and Billie have a shared interest in fanfiction.
I’m guessing it’s because Billie’s admitting to being a nerd, like Lucy.
She’s got a little ‘Long, Long Ago, In A Galaxy Far, Far Away’ in her eye…
Hey, no shame in that, Billie. Lots of people like Kit Fisto. He’s very popular. He’s awesome, you have taste. You’re one of many. Especially among EU fans, which you totally are since you got into either the Legends or the Disney EU enough to know his name. And you’re a journalism major. I’d be more surprised if you WEREN’T writing stories about your fave.
And it looks like Lucy likes RealPerson!Billie more than AlphaBongoHeadCheerleaderProblemSolver!Billie.
Clone Wars fans would know him too since he headlined several episodes and story arcs. Can’t forget the time he lost his Padawan to Grievous.
That’s part of both EUs and probably also what Billie would know him from.
Among the Jedi Only EU Fans Know, Kit Fisto’s definitely in the solid high tiers. Cool as hell characterization-wise, plus he’s a fish dude, plus his name is Kit Fisto.
Right? He’s extremely popular among EU fans.
So, real talk, who’d she ship him with? My guess is Aayla Secura if she was writing M/F, and I saw someone on patreon saying Plo Koon for M/M.
Wait, Alice was in the SUV with Billie? That explains a lot between them.
I know, right? No wonder she was so upset.
Yeah, that explains it a bit more as Billie didn’t just risk her own life but also Alice’s. They both coulda died and Alice must have walked away from that thinking ‘yikes, that could have gone way worse, drinking and driving is a majorly bad idea actually and I don’t want to be Billie’s Plus One on her passively suicidal journey that could get us both killed’.
and the next time they saw each other, Billie just wanted to pick up where they left off.
NO, BILLIE! Where you left off were where the two of you almost DIED!!! No wonder alice wanted to get away
…wow.
all those things she said about Billie being toxic – she held back!
Seriously. ‘You literally almost KILLED ME and then pretend nothing’s wrong? Go fuck yourself’ would not be out of line there!
I am deeply impressed by Alice’s restraint, honestly.
I’d read a whole story about Billie gaslighting her to get back in her good graces. Slowly manipulating her into forgiveness then TRICKING HER TO REVEAL IT WAS FAKE ALL ALONG!
Oh wait, that’s Billie as Mike.
I wonder if Alice being in the car was a more recent addition to the story. The exchange between her and Billie earlier read more like “they had a falling out over Billie’s self-destructive behavior, and the DUI was the last straw” to me.
It can be both.
Hey, more like Kit Fisting, am I right, Billie?
No? No one? No one at all?
Okay…
Amber might have something for you.
“That’s a bit much”.
Good to know that actual real world shit is the limit for them.
Ruth is seriously regretting her love for Billie, isn’t she
I love her face in that last panel
No, I read that face as, “Oh, now I’ve finally got my response when she makes fun of my hockey team.”
“I now understand why you got so turned on whenever I made a Fist…”
Daaaaaang, Kit Fisto?
My opinion on Billie has just improved vastly.
She’s got taste, what can she say?
Oof, so Alice was in the car crash? I don’t think we knew that before.
We did not. Alice said she cut Billie off for her own safety, after mentioning the wreck and how Billie was rather blasé about it, but didn’t mention that she had actually been *in* it with Billie.
“several of my pre-teen years”
pre-teen stops at 12, ‘several’ should be at least 5, running a fanfiction blog from age 7? Precocious!
Several usually means 3 or 4. Counting age 12, she probably started around 10. I started around then too.
You wrote Kit Fisto fanfic?
None that got posted but yeah, I have several still on my idea list that involved him. The fic that got posted was more like Total Drama Island, Codename: Kids Next Door, the comic series Runaways, etc.
Where I come from, 3 or 4 is a few. Several is 6 or 7. It’s an Appalachian thing.
What about 5? That would be a handful, of course.
Or just a bit of exaggeration. After all, at this point, just two years would still be more than ten percent of her life.
https://xkcd.com/1070/
Panel 5: Why Ruth dumped Billie.
I thought Ruth’s expression in panel 5 is more like, “she’s been there for me, when I needed someone; who’s been there for her?”
Felt like it was more along the lines of “Okay, she is kinda dragging me on the rabbling journey and it is getting out of control…but at least that’s metaphorical! Unlike some of her girlfriends.”
Hey I mean Kit Fisto is pretty cool so…
I am reading these comments and fully realizing how young you all are. I did not go to see the original Star Wars in 1977 as it was advertised as a children’s movie and I was 24 at the time. I did finally see it and I have the original trilogy on Laserdisc.
For the curious I will turn 67 the last day of April. I find Willis’ comics to be entertaining andI hope that I haven’t ruined the joy now that you know an old person likes his work. It made things “uncool” in my youth.
I’m three months younger than you, and ditto. But I did see Star Wars in the theater, once the lines got shorter…
I was 28 and didn’t see it on the first night only because I was running a Science Fiction convention with Analog editor Ben Bova as guest of honor at the time. Saw it soon thereafter, and as soon as that perusing spaceship just kept coming across the screen knew I would see it many more times.
Good to know that at 54 I’m not the oldest reader of this strip! The prequels killed my interest in Star Wars, and I’ve watched the most recent ones just because my kids asked me to (I enjoyed Rogue One tho). I’m sure the fact that I still like the original trilogy (except the second half of Return of the Jedi) is related to the fact of being 12 when the original one came out.
Ah, LaserDisc. I’d like to go back in time and whack Past Me upside his head for being too cheap to buy the LD versions back then. Not that it matters anymore, since my player has been broken for 3+ years, but still.
I bought four players at an audio/video store that went out of business some years ago so that I could have spares!
Everything’s better on LaserDisc!
Whatever happened to the LaserDisc?
At least you don’t have it on CED. George’s edits have nothing on the skipping!
Something’s happened to one of the internal motors. The tray will pop out, and it will load a disc back inside, but it won’t play. I lack the motivation to look at any self-repair videos that are online to try to get it working again.
Your Jason gravatar just makes me read this in Techmoan’s voice.
Also, because I refuse to pass up any excuse to reference Homestar Runner:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NtPUq3sX72M
I just turned 48, which is younger than you, but still old.
My eldest daughter is 44 and she is starting to turn a bit gray, so, yes, welcome to the club! I feel a bit better.
Turning 50 in June, so probably also older than the average reader.
50 in a month.
Apparently, there are many of us over 50 here. Appreciation of the comic transcends age!
The sign of a good writer.
The number of folks over seventy years of age, reading, and commenting hor not commenting) might surprise some folks, … or not, …
I find older readers self selects depending on vocations and avocations.
Heh. You were twice as old as me when Star Wars (I refuse to call it anything else) came out. And I thought I was old for this group.
I am 24 right now and I declare this an ageism free zone. All may rejoice and suffer under the will of the mighty Willis.
I saw it in the theater as a kid. My mother was smitten with Harrison Ford and dragged us to the movie after we got back from camp. No complaints!
okay, this might be inappropriate, but when she said “into a tree with my best friend in it” i pictured her friend in the tree and kinda laughed at the absurdity.
Ruth’s expressions in this strip is a journey.
I mean, to be fair – so is Lucy’s. But that’s a shorter journey than Ruth’s
Panel 1: Go, girl! You tell ’em!
Panel 3: Okay, that might be a bit of an overshare…
Panel 4: Wow. Ok. You.. went there.
Panel 6: WAIT WUT WHO’S KIT FISTO
“Hello new roommate who sleeptalks secret nerd stuff” https://www.dumbingofage.com/2017/comic/book-8/02-this-is-the-way-that-we-love/goodmorningworld/
(fun fact – I found that strip by looking for the Starfire tag)
Yeah, Billie casually dropping Star Wars references makes a lot more sense now.
Good on you for admitting your fanfic blog for Super Nerdy Star Wars fic, Billie! Preteen fanfic is something we should all feel more confident about owning, but we don’t because it’s always terrible oh god why did I write that I was such an embarrassing kid. (And then we burn our old hard drives, just to be sure.)
The rest… um. Oh dear. Dear GOD, Billie, you have needed that therapy you’ve been avoiding. (Is this the first time she’s actually mentioned it to someone who wasn’t already aware of it? I’m pretty sure Walky knows, and I know Ruth knew from the dossier, but. … Hell, is this the first time Billie really talks about it herself at all? I think Ruth led the conversation before.)
It’s so good to see Billie finally being honest about herself and admitting that she’s a nerd instead of trying to pretend and hold onto the cheerleader imagery. Aww, she’s growing up!
Yes, Billie is growing up. … unlike Mike, who, caught freeze-frame, is frozen in time, for all of time. Like Butch Cassidy, and Thelma, Rollerball, Azkaban, 400 Blows, etc.
Still waiting for tonight when Amazigirl returns and has a flashback or enters the hospital room window.
Based on that last panel, Lucy has a new hero and role-model!
“Greetings. FISTO is programmed for your pleasure. Please assume the position.”
Wait, wrong…Fisto. Sorry.
Still my favourite New Vegas prostitute.
[I can’t feel my legs!]
I had to Google that like a damn normcore. I’m so ashamed.
Wow, I am genuinely shocked
I knew a lot of Billie’s tough-girl persona was a shell, but I never would have expected her disdain for popular culture to be a cover up for nerdiness. I didn’t even know who Kit Fisto was until just now. Although, in hindsight, it does explain why Billie willing to use the word Padawan once (I can’t remember when).
And why she knew Lucy was quoting Harry Potter:
https://www.dumbingofage.com/2019/comic/book-9-comic/02-but-the-sun-still-shines/stow/
Well played Billie/Willis.
Whoops, I didn’t mean for that to be a reply to another comment.
Billie have been shown using casual nerdy vocabulary in the past, if I am remember correctly. Wish I could remember the strips she done that though.
She definitely called Joyce her padawan once, than insisted “everyone’s seen Star Wars, it’s not a nerd thing.”
I was random binging, and found said comic. Had to come back to this page to share her inner nerdness was hinted all along.
https://www.dumbingofage.com/2018/comic/book-9-comic/02-but-the-sun-still-shines/padawan/
This was kind of hinted at in Walky/Billie exchanges about how the cheerleader thing changed her. It was implied that they were very close before, and Walky is shown to have been always a nerd.
Kit Fisto is pretty cool, so I can’t fault her for that. Embrace your nerdiness, Billie!
Kit Fisto is cool and all but…you could do better Billie.
This feels like an Exhibit A for something.
And Kit’s tagged, as per tradition.
Is it wrong I hope to see them descend on Billie with wroth and betrayal.
Lucy is the best eh. And the worst.
Look out, Panel 6 Lucy is about to break into all-out Disney Princess song!
*orchestral music in background*
What a magical day
Full of glory and promise
My roomie was bossy
And kinda stand-offy
Until she opened her heart
Now we all know the truth
Kinda more than we wanted
But she’s into Kit Fistah
So she’s my Soul Sistah
Now I can take her to show her
A WHOLE NEW WOOOORRLLL-
*Rose and Nash wrestle her to the ground, administer horse tranquilizer*
Nash: Sorry! She… gets like this, sometimes…
Lucy: DON’T YOU Dare close yer ey-ZZZZZZ
All the points for today. You got them all. Well-Done!
*googles Kit Fisto*
It’s that Jedi who smiled after he killed some drones.
SHE’S OUT OF CONTROL!!! (this work either for Billie confessions and last panel Lucy joyful expression)
Awwww Lucy’s star-eyes! For serious, this is like when I realized the girls next door to me in in my freshman year dorm were also anime nerds. Suddenly, I was hanging out in their room a lot and borrowing/lending DVDs. C:
Our host’s cinematic/comic technique really rules in this strip, with the sequence of Ruth’s reaction faces in the similar Billie/Ruth frames, the reverse shots of the audience in the two unbordered frames showing *their* progression of reactions, and the offscreen-pointing speech balloons showing the exact mid-awwww reaction pivot point (to comic effect).
There are many potential ways to show Billie demystifying herself to the Forest crowd; this way is extraordinarily compact and emotionally rich.
Did Ruth know about Billie’s drunk driving incident?
Also wow I didn’t notice her eyes in the Kit Fisto panel. After googling who he was I did the same thing.
Yes, she says very early on that she had that information as part of her job as resident advisor.
She may not have known that her girlfriend(?) was in the car and left her over it.
“?” because this is the closest Billie’s ever come to acknowledging Alice as her girlfriend, rather than just a best friend she had sex with. In between a lot of bad decisions with alcohol and boys at parties.
Please tell me those fanfics had many fisting puns.
Willis I need this
Better or worse than Marigold’s?
I had to look up Kit Fisto real quick, he was the dude with the tentacle dreadlocks, I remember him from the Clone Wars cartoon, he was pretty badass. He even managed to stand up to General Grievous by dual-wielding. I can see people wanting to write fanfic about him.
The Phases of Ruth:
1st Quarter – “Hell yeah, you tell ’em.”
Half-Ruth – “Aww, that’s kinda sweet.”
Three-Quarter Ruth – “Oh my god, I’m so sorry!”
Full Ruth – “Wait, what?”
Wow.
I’ll tell you something: If the pod people now exclude and shun Billie, I’m going to be so pissed at them.
Lucy’s face and mine match. I never would have guessed.
=O My favourite Jedi!