The Dumbing of Age Book 4 Kickstarter just reached yesterday, which means so far we’ve unlocked a buttload of character magnets, including both Ruth and Billie, appropriately(?) enough for today. The next goal is $50k, at which point everybody who pledged for snail-mailable goods gets a free Joyce character magnet! Stuff for nothing!
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Billie sure wants that Leafs dress NOW huh???
(ehh clothes are overrated anyway)
She should see if Joyce is willing to spring for Same-Day Airwolf delivery.
Too bad she won’t actually get that dress. I think it’s been made very clear now anything Leaf belongs to Ruth.
So if Billie has her own sexy Leafs dress, then that means that she belongs to Ruthie too? 😉
Nope, just the dress since contents may vary.
Leafs undies, same challenge.
A tattoo maybe? That could get very very messy.
“So if Billie has her own sexy Leafs dress, then that means that she belongs to Ruthie too?”
Including the fig leaf?
Amen to that.
Yep, ruthless beyond beleaf and goes by the code name Agent Orange.
*Dalek Voice* “EX-FOLI-ATE”
Why didn’t I see that? Ruth is clearly a Dalek!
So Ruthless is now the new Orange Lantern?
… not quite what I had in mind, but it works 🙂
Kids, doncha know? They are blissfully unaware of the “kill everything” defoliant used during the Vietnam War.
Yeah, clothes are over rated. Daniel the Human makes me wear it, something about a “turkey slap” I did or something. All I know is he got pretty angry & brought bigger magnets. I don’t get it, only turkeys I’ve seen are at the shops…
It’s about time this moves forward. It was too peaceful for this comic.
Calm before the storm. Just the calm before the storm.
I feel Mary’s presence nearing.
Lets see, plants dying, smiles fading, happiness turning to a mixture of sadness and disgust; that means its either Mary or my ex girlfriend
who never existedwhat if Mary is your ex girlfriend dun dun duuun!
Mary technically doesn’t exist either, so I think it’s a safe assumption to make.
someone should check to make sure that the fourth wall is still intact.
Wait, a sec… and were good.
Heh.
“You know Billie, maybe you should reconsider not being dressed by 3PM?”
Reference:
http://www.dumbingofage.com/2011/comic/book-1/05-media-rumble/dressed-2/
Maybe she did reconsider her getting dressed policy?
Well, for starters, it just became A LOT more important to get Becky out of the corridor.
I think you’d need the jaws of life to move her from that spot.
Maybe a few buckets too…?
We gotta get out of this page and onto the next one!
That… that is just not okay. I don’t think I’ve ever cringed at a DoA strip so much.
Yeah, I mean is she even wearing underwear?
In a surprise twist we’ll discover Billie’s actually wearing MORE clothing underneath? Girl likes layers.
In a surprise surprise twist, Billie is actually wearing Ruthie’s Leafs’-branded underwear, too…and then Ruthie take THAT off her too! ;D
Aaaand there’s our new Slipshine.
That comment suits Mike’s expression so well.
Also, I’d be really happy if my comment led to a Slipshine strip. 😉
Panties but no bra.
Yyyyyeah, this is totally not cool, Ruth, and totally counterproductive, to boot. Since, it’s a) right up there with ‘banging your residents’ on the ‘things that could get you in trouble’ list, and b) much more likely to make people realize where Billie got the jersey to begin with…
Yeah, Billie creeping into Ruth’s room to change, maybe noticeable by a person or two but hardly a major incident. Ruth taking Billie’s Leaf’s Jersy and leaving her half to all naked in the hallway, that’s the sort of obvious thing that people notice so fast that 5 people see Ruth walking back to her room holding the Jersy that everyone has already noticed Billie wearing. Hell this is the sort of thing that would cause someone to shout out, “Billie who stole your jersey?” and cause everyont to look and see that it was Ruth.
TLDR: WTF how do 5-10 miss somebody in the dorm hall suddenly becoming naked?
Except the animosity between Billie and Ruth is something everyone has witnessed. And that Ruth has stolen clothes from Billie before(the cheerleading uniform). Though I don’t remember if that is common knowledge or not. This would probably be seen as an escalation of previous altercations, rather than post secret-coital shenanigans.
Even then, judging by the way Ruth is looking back in panel 2, I’d say they’ve walked far enough away from everyone(turned a corner or something, most likely) for Billie’s sudden shirtlessness to be immediately noticed.
Agreed. NO matter what the context (and I know this was intended for a ‘classic Ruth’ sort of punchline) taking someone’s clothes in order to publicly humiliate them is actually pretty atrocious. Especially a young woman who’s supposed to be under your care??? Like, Ruth could get triple-fired.
In fairness, Ruth already knows what’s under it, presumably–given what they were just getting up to–so I think it’s fair to assume that Ruth wouldn’t have done that if Billie was now in her undies or worse right now.
Maybe Ruthie just wanted an excuse to rip that shirt off Billie and perform a sex on her up against the corridor wall? 😛
Are you sure Ruth knows what’s under? After all, she didn’t stop Billie leaving the room in the Leafs shirt again, so most likely she didn’t see Billie getting dressed…
Yeah, Ruth is kinda super abusive with anger management issues and worse, does not seem to be making much of an effort to treat her girlfriend much better.
Billie’s terror-stricken face in the last panel of last comic does not say great things on the health of this relationship or its ability to last after the initial NRE phase wears off (which to appease the shippers, will probably be years from now our time)
Yup, there whole relationships is built on a foundation of abuse. Even if they manage to sort out their alcoholism and RA/resident -thing, that will have to change if their relationship will have any chance.
…frankly, I think one part of it is that Ruth is actively trying to push Billie away so she can continue to drift toward her suicide in peace or something like that.
I’m halfway curious what they’re going to be like once the honeymoon phase is over. They can’t be seen together in public, so no traditional dates. They don’t have that much in common outside of alcohol, sex and watching sports. What are they going to do during their downtime? I mean, Billie’s pretty much set the signal that she’s going to be in Ruth’s room every night with her clothes there.
Sports, sex and alcoholism… round here we call that marriage
I hold the “…frankly… ” part of your message to be truth until proven otherwise.
I think that’s pretty much spot on. Part of her wants the relationship, but a larger part wants to use her as a form of self-destruction and wants to be rid of her to make it easier to slide into suicide.
And that last reality, the fact that Billie is putting off her own slow slide into suicidal ideation with codependence and NRE, and the fact that Billie seems to measure her worth in her attractiveness especially to romantic partners all mean that Billie is probably going to fight very hard to “push through” and endure the abuse for much longer than she probably should.
Which maybe Ruth can get her shit together and genuinely improve, but the early signs are definitely concerning.
Knowing Ruth as we do now, a lot of her early behavior makes a disturbing lot of sense from that perspective. She could bully the drunk driver because why the hell not? She could kiss the pretty girl because what’s the worse that could happen? She would be dead soon anyway. And by behaving like that she increased the chance of getting fired and her alcoholism found out, which would make her self destruction more complete.
Then Billie derailed her plan by responding to the attraction and refusing to be pushed away by the abuse. Ooooops.
Of course, it’s not nearly as conscious as I make it out here, and Ruth has many conflicting emotions and drives. But I think a self destruction-driven attitude of “now or never” was part of it.
You know what, being naked and getting yelled at aren’t things to be ashamed of and they don’t stop you from living your life. They would be much easier to handle if people acted like they weren’t a big deal and didn’t reflect on the weakness of the ‘victim’.
When something embarrassing happens, ‘oh no poor you’ is much more judgemental than ‘I hate it when that happens! Can I lend you some pants?’. Saying stuff is unacceptable just makes it harder to accept what happened and move on. Camaraderie and understanding are all anyone really needs.
Being stripped naked in public against your will is embarrassing and humiliating, and also completely fucking illegal, especially when it’s done done by someone you love and trust.
I can’t believe I actually had to type that.
Please tell me you don’t apply that same attitude towards sex.
She doesn’t look scared in that panel to me, just kind of confused, or suspicious.
Par for the course when it comes to Ruth, unfortunately.
Yeah, it’s really, really not okay. I hoped that Ruth would treat Billie better now that they were past their messed up courtship but it looks like it’s not happening.
Billie, this is why you shouldn’t move ALL your clothes to Ruth’s room.
I know, right? I figured she was just moving SOME clothes, not emptying her goddamn closet. Come the hell on.
And here I thought she had a handle on moderation.
Of course, she developed her moderation from her drinking. It’s always kept her from getting too drunk, even at parties or driving… 😛
(I’m guessing you were being sarcastic too?)
Me? Sarcastic? Never.*
* (where “never” = “basically always”)
*plays the Earth, Wind & Fire remake of the Beatles’ “Got To Get You Into My Life” on the Muzak*
what an odd thing to do
It was either that or Bruce Springsteen & The E Street Band’s “Jersey Girl”.
You get used to it.
Stephen, do you have some sort of ability to manipulate local spacetime? Minutes, MINUTES I say after you posted this comment, my fatehr began singing “Got to Get You Into My Life” entirely unprompted.
I fear.
*father.
This comic strip IS a time warp.
It is definitely the superior version.
I think so, IMHO.
Well, I suppose that’s one way to do it.
Ruth already knows that Billie already has a decent set of clothes underneath the jersey.
…or does she?
There is reason to believe she doesn’t wear much under that Jersey…
That or Ruth gets really turned on by fully dressed girls taking off Leafs merchandising.
http://www.dumbingofage.com/2015/comic/book-5/03-the-butterflies-fly-away/sure/
That is one useful but currently nonconsentual slight-of-hand trick.
Didn’t somone do that to Dorothy in one of the other comics?
I think she used 2 hands, but I’ve seen Daniel the Human take off his shirts 1 handed plenty of times. Looks like Ruth’s done it the same way, grab the back of the collar & pull over head, you can tell she grabbed the back cause you can’t see the logo or V neck front…
SLEIGHT-of-hand. The way you said it made me think Ruth has very tiny fingers or something.
Wow, I sure can’t spell late at neight.
While we’re at it, it’s “non-consensual”, just fyi.
She could use nanomachines to make new shirt.
I’ve been playing too much Metal Gear
RULES OF NATURE
Only time my armour does “clothes” is in full battle mode. Other than that, I look all Human. And fully atanomik, atomic, amatonical , fully equipped…
All these secrets, lies and closets
Bad call, Ruth, everyone’s already seen Billie in it. And bad call, Billie, you should keep SOME stuff in your room. No one thought this through, but what else is new?
she’s got Sal’s clothes in her room! =D
wait
She’ll borrow some of Sal’s clothes too, and today will be “Sal Dresses Everyone Day”!
That’s a little too much cool for one campus.
Joyce and Dina are already ahead of the curve
Billie is a bit too much the wrong shape and a bit too-fuller in figure to snake on Sal’s clothes. She might have better luck using the connecting bathroom to beg Joyce for some temps … thought I think they still wouldn’t fit well, they’d be closer match than Sal.
We did have the Joyce dresses everyone day allready didn’t we. So it was about time.
When Sal finally recovers from that hangover, she’ll be quite puzzled to find both closets in her dorm room are empty.
This is going to escalate into some nonsense
Vague, yet probable. You should try your hand at horoscopes.
I dare say it already has.
I wonder if streaking is still a thing in colleges…
Are you kidding me it should be a tradition.
Not so sure about the “should be” part. But if you think it ever won’t be, you don’t know anything about college kids.
In my dorms there was “naked ping pong” which was weird
I think that Rice University has a thing where people run around campus wearing nothing but strategically-placed blobs of shaving cream, and if they come to a glass door or window that goes all the way down to the ground, they press themselves up to it to leave smears of shaving cream behind. Good times!
Well I’m I like where this is going.
Indeed… *Loads up more popcorn…*
How bad this is depends on what she was wearing underneath. She’s walked around in panties and a tank top before so this wouldn’t necessarily arouse suspicion.
Today’s game is Musical Clothes!
Well, poker was mentioned yesterday … so perhaps this is a very aggressive form of strip poker?
I think you’ve got that backwards, buddy.
Admittedly, I’m no expert.
Hey I’m not going to tell Ruth she’s doing it backwards …
I see we have an SFDebris fan in the house. Welcome, brother. Eat, drink, and be merry.
Quick, Becky, LOOK AWAY! Otherwise you may NEVER get out of the hallway!
When did Billie fully move in with Ruth? I don’t recall that. Does she not have any clothes back in her own dorm?
It’s been made evident multiple times that she already moved all her clothes to Ruth’s room. It hasn’t been long, probably like a day.
Guess I need to re-read, thanks
Nope, Becky was just in there and was noting that there wasn’t anything in there.
Crap, I wooshed that I guess. 😡
Well, that’s one way to have a walk of shame…
And revenge on the part of Ruth. Never forget about the revenge. The cornerstone of any healthy relationship.
More like a dash of embarrassment…
…humiliation, and rage.
so long as ruth doesn’t look back and get…distracted, this should end as peacefully as one could hope. should she orpheus it up, this will reach cringe-worthy levels of drama that would make sarah bar her door permanently
And that’s how everyone wound up dressed like Sal.
Did you mean topless or did you mean Billie has to borrow Sal’s clothes?
Would Billie even -fit- in Sal’s clothes?
Sal doesn’t even fit in Sal’s clothes!
On that subject, have we heard anything more on this subject now that Danny knows that Amazi-Girl is Most Definitely Not Sal?
I think they are still bound together by the bonds of maths and Mario-Kart, if that’s what you mean.
+1
Next on Slipshine: Billie walks around campus without a top.
No sex happens.
It is called, “Billie feels very cold.”
I’d be fine with this
I want one more panel.
I want several, but I’d settle for one.
I want a whole nother strip… tease. (Somebody had to say it!)
Ah. That’s where her clothes went.
There is almost some sort of parallelism in Ruth/Billies and Joyce/Becky’s situation. I can’t put my finger on it…
…Ruth, you just put focus on the fact that Billie has YOUR Leafs jersey rather than A Leafs jersey. Smooth.
Well now, that’s one way to be sure Billie starts paying attention to what the Hell she is putting on before she leaves the room.
Becky has the survival instinct of a goldfish. And the common sense also.
How many times does Joyce have to tell here to keep her ass out of the hallways unless absolutely necessary (like going out to find work).
Otherwise she wouldn’t be in this mess in the first place.
Next strip: FedEx gal shows up: “Someone ordered a Leafs dress around here?”
Billie proceeds to strip the FedEx gal.
The FedEx gal refuses to wear the Leafs dress, and leaves the dorm unclad.
Joe, Mike, and Walky all simultaneously appear from around the corners.
Soggies and aliens attack.
..oh, hang on, wrong Willis-verse.
Naa, I’ve seen the Bugs Bunny cartoons, it’s ACME which delivers next second…
Goddammit, Ruth.
Additionally, I like the panel spacing/narrative visual design of this particular comic. Gives the last panel a more jarring, dramatic nature, which I think we can all agree, this comic needs MORE DRAMA. ALL THE DRAMA. DRAMA! *whooshes cape, dashes away*
HEre’s a drama tag.
Naked Billie.
I approve.
I second.
No, no, Ruth, you already tried that.
Depending on what Billie may or may not be wearing under that jersey, things could get pretty bad.
OFFSCREEN FANSERVICE!
Happens all the time. There are oodles of characters in fiction who shower and change clothes that we never see or hear about.
NOOOO!!! GIVE ME PANEL 5!!! I DESERVE THIS!!!
*sigh* Probably cuts to new scene tomorrow… DYW!!!
OH MY
Damn it takei!
Genius, Ruth. Pure genius. There’s no way anyone’s gonna figure out that jersey is yours ^^
Huh. Ruth really is just straight up abusive towards Billie. I was always kind of uncomfortable by their messed up relationship vibe, but publicly stripping you SO tends not to be highly thought of amongst post 1200 AD societies.
Well, being abusive is kind of Ruth’s comedic theme.
This just raises further questions.
…you know, I just saw https://imgur.com/zJBBMcb and given the current storyline, i just HAD to share.
I.
MOTHER.
FUCKING.
CALLED.
IT.
BOOYEAH.
Ruth does not always use her getting-Billie-out-of-that-shirt powers for good.
This is why I don’t actually want Ruth and Billie to work out their problems. Sometimes it’s just better to break up with someone.
Band on the run!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lhn9d7fVL1U
A half-naked Billie in the hallway should distract onlookers from Becky’s presence quite well, I would have thought.
You say, “half-naked”, like Billie’s wearing underwear. Your naivete is adorable.
Appropriate gravatar is appropriate.
…I’m pretty sure that taking off Billie’s clothes in the middle of the hallway makes it MORE obvious you’re in a relationship, Ruth. Not less.
They’re not Billie’s clothes; that’s the point.
Now why did stuff like this never happen when I was in college?
How do you know it didn’t? Spent a lot of time in the girl’s dorm, did we?
Touché
Oh my god Ruth that is beyond not okay. You’re really just going to leave her in her panties in the hall? Or worse…completely naked? What in the fuck?
Well, forceably stripping her does help maintain the public impression of them being in the middle of a feud. Billie steals Ruth’s jersey, Ruth takes it back…publicly…leaving Billie mostly if not fully naked in the hallway. Seems legit.
Now i’m not sure aboutthe legal ramifications of this are but I’m pretty sure that an RA stripping someone and leaving them in a hallway full of peopkle is probably something frowned upon especially if someone was to complain
And hopefully someone will complain because thats a complete abuse of authority (amongst other things) so I hope someone would stick up for Billie
Also its strange to me that there are people on here who seem to approve of this relationship in the first place?
There’s the good, which is Billie’s instinct to try to save Ruth from herself. And the sexual attraction. Some people just choose to overlook the bad, which is a bit like choosing to overlook a mountain.
Oh this is all going to end in tears or worse, but as this is fiction I’m going to enjoy the funny parts of it while they last
Speaking of the Leafs.
The game was damn fun last Saturday night. 🙂
I imagine this being like the way people in the Yakuza game series can rip off their shirt, tie and jacket in one pull.
Well, it took a while, but Willis finally hit my fetish button.
I’m confused, why are Billie’s clothes in Ruth’s room if they’re trying to maintain a secret they’re not together?
So as to carry on sexy times more conveniently.
So as to carry on sexy times more conveniently. It would be even more suspicious if Billy was seen constantly going back and forth between her room and Ruth’s, especially if she changes clothes every trip.
Because it’s not called “Smarting of Age”?
More specifically, Billie doesn’t do half-measures. She didn’t even want to leave Ruth long enough to go to class. She’s moved in completely, partly to guarantee Ruth doesn’t carry out the Sexy Lesbian Suicide Pact without her.
All these lesbian-focused comics lately makes me nearly forget how badly I want an Ethan/Danny Slipshine.
Dammit, I’m pretty sure Amber/Amazi-Girl would be open! Most women seem to have an inner fujoshi.
I’m pretty sure Amber would have a breakdown if she found out she’s dating a guy who’s into dudes for the second time in a row.
Danny’s not exclusively into dudes, IIRC.
Doesn’t have to be a perfectly rational fear in order to trigger a breakdown.
I’m pretty sure Amber would be all about that, as long as he doesn’t cut her out.
So will Billie find being naked in the hallway more or less humiliating than having to pretend that she’s a Leafs fan?
She can always borrow some of Sal’s clothes.
It’s been over a month and I STILL don’t understand this strip.