There are a few new female characters that were pictured on Tumblr a couple months ago: Beatrice, Nash, Rose, and (Carly) Spencer. They were posted along with Billie in tomorrow’s outfit, so I think it’s reasonable that they might be Billie’s new floormates. There were also new shots of Malaya and Lucy, so maybe they’re also floormates.
“It’s the Unknown Avenger, and he’s ON FIRE! Let’s give him a hand, folks. That looks painful! We really should put him out right away, but what a show, huh?”
At our last office Christmas party, someone brought in a couple big Costco cookie platters. Chocolate chip disappeared almost instantly. Soon after, the chocolate/chocolate-chip ran out. White chocolate macadamia held on a little longer, but once those were gone nearly everyone just skipped the platters. Two or three of us out of 100 ever touched the oatmeal raisin. Joke’s on them; we had as many cookies as we wanted, they got one, maybe two.
I have no problem against honestly labeled cookies but sometimes you get a cookie that looks like it has chocolate chips at first and then you now bite into sweet delicious raisin based lies.
Your mind is prepped for one type of goodness and your tastebuds prepare for one type of goodness but it was all a trap.
Also those black raisins that are so popular in the states, especially in cereals, are at best used as aggregate. Almost as bad as those Grape Nut thingies – no relation to grapes or nuts at all, just lies.
Hmm.
It was about the time I moved to Canada that raisins went from “delicious” to “feels like I’m eating a bug”.
I bought a bag of Sun-Maid raisins a year or two ago for some reason, and they actually taste nice, but my aversion to raisins runs too deep to properly enjoy them now.
I couldn’t really tell you why, but while I love a handful of raisins, raisins as an ingredient just don’t work for me. It’s a texture that conflicts with most others I guess.
Maybe because they tend to half-reconstitute themselves when they’re used as ingredients? Cookie raisins are always a bit softer and juicier than the ones straight from the box.
. . . . I mean in some circles threats of casual violence means you care and might actually help but I can understand why that would not work in Ruth’s situation.
Mayhaps go grab a nice cool glass of Sweet Tea? Always calms me the hell down.
What do RAs typically do when their charges act up? Granted, this isn’t actually a situation that would merit punishment, but it made me realize I don’t actually know what kind of power RAs have over their charges. Only ever did the community college thing.
Generally my RAs talked to me at the beginning of the year and trhen we rarely interacted for the rest of the year. One time one of my RAs lost her position because she was found passed out drunk in the bathroom.
I did have a friend who was an RA, and his hall always seemed to be full of drama. But I never got the sense of what power he had over residents as much as what he did to help.
At least in my experience as an RA, that was more or less the case. We did write people up, though.
Sometimes it wasn’t a disciplinary thing – like, if two roommates came to me with a disagreement, but neither was abusing the other or anything serious, the write-up would just be a formality and I’d mediate the argument or something. A mild disciplinary write-up – say, for playing music too loudly – would result in a conversation between the resident and my boss (although it wouldn’t usually even get to that point because as soon as the RA asked a resident to stop doing something, they usually did, so no need for a write-up).
If I had to write someone up for something actually illegal, like alcohol or weed, they might get in trouble with the university conduct board (also if it was alcohol I had to have them dump it in the sink, and if it was an illegal drug it got confiscated by campus security). So, there wasn’t zero power in the position, but it wasn’t crazy authoritative either.
But like, if a resident explicitly asked me to keep an eye on them, especially if I knew they’d recently had a traumatic experience, obviously there wouldn’t be a disciplinary response. I’d probably talk to them and ask them what sort of support they could use and then, obviously depending on what they needed, either provide it myself or connect them with appropriate resources. I’d probably still write it up, but just so my bosses had a record of the resident’s request, not for any sort of consequence type of thing.
In the brief period of time I spent with the whole 4 year thing, the most interaction I had with my RA was signing in at move-in, weekly floor meetings, the occasional email threatening to revoke our whiteboard privileges (that seriously happened), then signing out at the end of spring semester.
Pathetic. Scrawling bile all over the wall just gives the perpetrator temporary catharsis at everyone else’s expense.
Whatever happened to creativity? Add “Weasel Stomping Day” to the calendar! Write “for a good time call” and the dean’s office number in the corner! Draw a line of stickmen doing a Monty Python silly walk across the bottom. Half the fun is watching to see how long it lasts before someone notices and erases your nonsense.
The RA position is, in most schools I know of, sort of like that of a low level mod on a forum. You basically are there to help with any issues those under your care have (usually directing them to existing school resources and deescalating interpersonal tensions before they become an issue), to take care of minor discipline concerns (like say inappropriate door decorations) and to report any serious issues up the chain (in Ruth’s case to ol’ Puddin’ Head) so they can take care of discipline.
RAs really don’t have much power. I doubt they can do much to punish people on their floor besides report them to their higher ups and hope they do something. The RAs I had in college couldn’t even force you to attend floor meetings, so I rarely went to floor meetings after the start of each school year.
I was an RA while I was in college a few years ago.
We were responsible for a ridiculous range of stuff, but the main thing we were supposed to be doing was building community. We did run social events, but the most important thing in my experience was just having conversations with residents, being friendly when we saw them around, and keeping our doors open.
That said, we were also supposed to respond when residents broke rules. The exact response depended on what they were doing, but unless something illegal or blatantly harmful was happening, it was usually just asking them to stop whatever they were doing and then writing them up.
If the write-up was for something serious like alcohol, the resident would go to the university’s conduct system. Something less serious, like roller blading in the hallway, would probably just result in the resident having a conversation with the RD (Chloe equivalent, though mine were awesome).
Write-ups weren’t just for bad behavior, though. They were also to document medical issues (like if anyone got taken away in an ambulance) and issues of concern. If I thought a resident was too stressed I’d probably try to help them manage that myself, but if it seemed really over the top I guess I might write it up and have my RD try to connect the resident with appropriate support.
It was a super wide-ranging job, though, so it’s sort of hard to summarize it.
1: He’s actively looking for Dorothy, so he’s clearly not skipping out on anything.
2: He’s not berating her for being late. He doesn’t even ask what she’s doing. He’s just assuming she was doing something that was important to her, and that’s that. He doesn’t assume she owes him her time or anything. He doesn’t even try to do some goofball snark. He has a simple and understandable concern about her being late to an agreed-upon time for them to meet, but nothing more.
And sure, this is not exactly a high bar to pass per se; but considering how many people in the real world that somehow manages to miss that kind of thing (or even limbo under it), it’s still good to see.
And since he did show up looking for her, I assume no ulterior motives (AKA trying to get out of the whole thing) about letting her take her time to do her thing.
Walky may have the attention of a three-month old kitten when it comes to any math too complex to immediately settle into his brain… But when it comes to Dorothy, he gives her his full, non-threatening attention.
Funny enough, I fully expect that once Walky grasps the core elements of how Calc works and why, he’ll settle back into his prior format until third year when the stuff from one’s major really comes in hard and fast so one has to keep pace with quite a bit and has far less time for most anything other than studying.
Last time we saw Walky, he tried to get a bootstrap lesson from Jason to prepare for Dorothy working with him on his maths. Don’t you think his willingness to skip rather stems from this?
Seems like we are reading the strip very differently.
You talked about how nice he was acting, no pressure, no drama about her being late. And that as he apparently showed up looking for her, you didn’t think he has ulterior motive when telling her to take all the time she needs.
And I pointed out that as far as we know, he has ulterior motives.
Time will tell.
I don’t think his last minute attempt with Jason lead to much as far as his maths is concerned. So I still think he’d rather she had something else to do so she will not catch on that he has been shading the truth about his progress.
Don’t overtly threaten. Just say “hey if you don’t have fun the stress will catch up with you and you could get distracted and get run over by a car” Threaten them with death not caused by you
And, that’s not far off from serious advice, too. The point isn’t to force people, but to point out that the stress is hurting them, both psychologically and by something they value (in Dorothy’s case, scholastically).
That sounds like it’d add to her stress, making it even harder for her to relax. Fear is not a healthy source of motivation.
… Especially here, where it’s one step away from “beatings will continue until morale improves”
Fear is an essential and important feeling (or energy state). What commonly leads to problems is our reaction to it, not fear in its “natural” state which activates us to fight or flight. unfortunately most modern problems cannot be solved by those, hence the trouble with finding a good way to use it.
I did too much grav roulette so I’m stuck like this for a while.
There are healthy forms of fear in the world, but threatening people with scary stories of the horrible consequences their actions will have is not one of them. My mum used it on me regularly and it has done a *lot* of damage. I just uncovered another layer of it this week. 🙁
Greetings player, you are Ruth, a Resident Advisor trying to find alternatives to threats of murder.
“If you don’t go have fun, I will…”
A) “…draw SUCH an unflattering cartoon of you
B) “…do all my farts in you room when you not there”
C) “…Energy Drain you so hard your negative levels will nullify all your skill ranks in Perform (Homework)”
D) “…wait till your Yankee ding-dong pseudo-president legalizes murder, and then what-have-you right in your what-for”
E) “…what-have-you right in your what-for”
I’m really glad Dorothy checks in with someone else, and also that she monitors her own status and has someone check in with her. It’s a shitty situation, but she handles it well.
I doubt Walky is very impressed with Ruth promising to check on Amber or Dorothy. He remembers to well when HE asked her to look after Billie.
Oh crap, what happened to Jason? Are tragically hilarious flashbacks about to ensue?
In all seriousness Dorothy is in no shape to tutor Walky atm. But a destressing talk with her favourite goofball might be just what she needs. Do the right thing, Walkerton.
I think that it’s more likely that Jason and Walky both got thrown out of the pub because of said shouting and screaming at one another. What they didn’t notice was Leslie and Stacy staring at them from the other end of the bar.
someone help me out here: i feel very, very sure that dorothy has said that “stress IS fun” line before, and this is meant to be a dark echo. but i cannot for the life of me remember when or where or with whom this exchange might have happened. is my brain just playing tricks on me?
Poor Ruth! This whole ‘being nice’ thing is a whole new world full of unfamiliar feelings, unfamiliar situations and a whole new lexicon! Can she possibly adapt or will it drive her crazy? 😀
I suddenly can’t remember if it’s a friday or a saturday, but come on Dorothy! Take a break, watch Dexter and Monkeymaster and let your brain switch off for a few hours.
Spencer, I don’t want to come across as a troll or anything but… if you despise DoA so much, why come back? I freely admit that some plots have got me annoyed enough that I haven’t trusted myself to comment and I have contemplated not reading anymore on occasion but have finally decided that things aren’t so bad.
Simply put, in the end, if this comic is a negative experience for you, why come at all?
It’s my fault for not anticipating where we were going next and pre-addressing it. But my answer’s the same as before.
You ain’t done shit to me.
Let me take a moment to elaborate further than usual. I have grown up in a maelstrom of bipolar and borderline and munchausens and self-harm and, honestly, nothing you think you’ve done to me could really compare. What, you don’t like my comic (sometimes)? Occasionally you have a bad day? Look, that’s cool. On my end. You’re not hurting me. I know on your end it’s a shitfire, but you never have to worry about causing me any distress. You can check that worry off forever. Bane quote, for-me-it-was-Tuesday, yadda yadda.
anyway i had another paragraph written which i thought was inspiring but i decided it made too many assumptions which could easily backfire and so just imagine i said something awesome here
Hey, Sir Willis, I am having incredible lag and problems reading the forum, as it keeps scrolling back to the top. I am not sure what the cause is, but I suspect it is the incrediblenewshub.com ads that run here. I don’t know how much control you have over the ads that run, but if you could look into this it would be greatly appreciated.
We know Leslie picked Mindy up at 7:00. We know it’s now 9:20 and Walky has presumably come straight from the bar, which (clues seem to indicate) is the same bar where Leslie and Stacy are or were.
Depending on how far Sweet Grass is from Mindy’s place, and how hard it is to get a seat on Saturday night, I’m guessing Leslie broke off the date at…around 8:00?
That’s one full hour unaccounted for. Was the whole They’re-All-In-The-Same-Bar bit just an unfired Chekhov’s Gun? Did Leslie and Stacy even talk? Has Leslie already walked in on Becky and Dina? Inquiring minds, etc.
Its good Ruth is catching her bad habits (bad habits being violently aggressive) here but probably better that Rachels not here as it would just reinforce Rachels view of Ruth
Okay, so this is a situation. Did Jason prepare Walky enough for what’s to come?
Unrelated (woah surprise), but I’ve actually started serious work on my lesbian superhero character. I asked this on Twitter, but then I remembered it’s too new for people to know about, so I’ll ask here as well. Is it problematic for Mindress’s girlfriend to be physically-disabled in some way? I was considering making her an amputee of some sort, or maybe wheelchair-bound, but I don’t want that to be her Thing. It kinda seems like a majorly uneven power dynamic, with one being superhumanly powerful and all.
well if their power dynamic is rooted in physicality, then yeah I guess its uneven, but most people’s interpersonal relationships aren’t really predicated on physical power? tangentially, one of my close friends is a, like, 6 ft, fully able, gym-training man, and I am a relatively slight lady-person, but that has like NO bearing on our ‘power dynamic’.
Take to TV tropes, see if there are shitty patterns around lesbian couples (for example, be aware of ‘bury your gays’). Then decide if you want to avoid them, subvert them, or envelope them.
As long as she’s a whole character and not a Token Disabled Character, *I* don’t know of any concern.
Oh, Ruth, if you’d’ve just kept the femur-threatening to times when it was clearly a joke out of concern for people, you would’ve been able to keep doing it!
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“Or I’ll, uh… call you names!”
“OooOOOoooo… like what.”
“Like Diapered Dynamo!”
“…the fuck”
“The Femurless Wonder”
“Poindexter McNofun.”
Walky: “How does Ruth know about that!?”
“Remember that time you tried to kill me?”
“Yeah, we really taut you a lesson.”
This is completely off topic, but do you know who that is in your profile pic? I honestly can’t remember.
The image file says it’s Beatrice. There’s a good chance it’s a character we haven’t seen yet. There’s been a few like that in the new Grav batch.
Yup. No comics yet: http://www.dumbingofage.com/tag/beatrice/
Hmm. Maybe she’s Sal’s new roommate. Or Billie’s.
There are a few new female characters that were pictured on Tumblr a couple months ago: Beatrice, Nash, Rose, and (Carly) Spencer. They were posted along with Billie in tomorrow’s outfit, so I think it’s reasonable that they might be Billie’s new floormates. There were also new shots of Malaya and Lucy, so maybe they’re also floormates.
Nice try, but we all know Marys cannot be trusted.
But yeah, seems reasonable.
Malaya and Lucy are roommates. Much to Malaya’s disgust.
I’m so happy we’ll have a second Rose strip. Yay for McAwesome’s employees!
“It’s the Unknown Avenger, and he’s ON FIRE! Let’s give him a hand, folks. That looks painful! We really should put him out right away, but what a show, huh?”
You get a cookie for a Full Throttle reference.
I’d feel awesomer if it hadn’t JUST gotten a Steam release
Ruth should bake chocolate chip cookies for the whole floor, and tell them that if they don’t stay in line the next batch will be oatmeal raisin.
That’ll work.
She’s supposed to stop threatening people not up the ante
Misbehave and everyone gets rewarded!
fuck yeah oatmeal raisin!
Damn straight! Oatmeal raisin is great!
“But I’m allergic to chocolate and gluten-intolerant. Does that mean I SHOULD misbehave?”
I think it just means you can never go to France.
“Wine and cheese are okay?”
So it’s a win-win? If you happen to be able to be good: more cookies, if you screw up, a bit of variety.
Now, if she threatens to burn the cookies…
oatmeal raisin are great I’d have them over chocolate chip any day
that’s right I said it
you disagree? then more chocolate chip for you, more oatmeal raisin for me, good day to you
Oatmeal cookies are the best cookies!
At our last office Christmas party, someone brought in a couple big Costco cookie platters. Chocolate chip disappeared almost instantly. Soon after, the chocolate/chocolate-chip ran out. White chocolate macadamia held on a little longer, but once those were gone nearly everyone just skipped the platters. Two or three of us out of 100 ever touched the oatmeal raisin. Joke’s on them; we had as many cookies as we wanted, they got one, maybe two.
I don’t understand what people have against raisin cookies. I think raisin cookies are awesome!
I have no problem against honestly labeled cookies but sometimes you get a cookie that looks like it has chocolate chips at first and then you now bite into sweet delicious raisin based lies.
Your mind is prepped for one type of goodness and your tastebuds prepare for one type of goodness but it was all a trap.
Well, some people (me included) simply don’t like the taste of zombie grapes. (Or black grapes in general.) That’s one possible reason.
Also those black raisins that are so popular in the states, especially in cereals, are at best used as aggregate. Almost as bad as those Grape Nut thingies – no relation to grapes or nuts at all, just lies.
Hmm.
It was about the time I moved to Canada that raisins went from “delicious” to “feels like I’m eating a bug”.
I bought a bag of Sun-Maid raisins a year or two ago for some reason, and they actually taste nice, but my aversion to raisins runs too deep to properly enjoy them now.
I couldn’t really tell you why, but while I love a handful of raisins, raisins as an ingredient just don’t work for me. It’s a texture that conflicts with most others I guess.
Maybe because they tend to half-reconstitute themselves when they’re used as ingredients? Cookie raisins are always a bit softer and juicier than the ones straight from the box.
But, but I like oatmeal raisin. Looks like I aim to misbehave.
beware the Raisinator
This comment section makes me hungry. First the doughnuts now cookies mmmmmmmmm…
Eye for a cookie.
Them’s the old ways…
“My God, how the cookies roll in”
Ruth is gonna be concerned all over your cold, dead corpse
I’ll give your femurs a good talking to.
In situ or extracted?
That’s telling them, Ruth.
Huh. Arnold. Neat!
. . . . I mean in some circles threats of casual violence means you care and might actually help but I can understand why that would not work in Ruth’s situation.
Mayhaps go grab a nice cool glass of Sweet Tea? Always calms me the hell down.
So long as it ain’t “Granny’s Peach Tea”…
There, I finally got something akin to value out of having seen that abomination…
. . . . I was referring to my own brand of home made sweet tea. What is “Granny’s Peach Tea”?
A piss-poor excuse for a punchline?
Just don’t touch Granny’s Jamaican Iced Tea. That’s made special for her rheumatism [sage nod]
Ruth is…trying.
What do RAs typically do when their charges act up? Granted, this isn’t actually a situation that would merit punishment, but it made me realize I don’t actually know what kind of power RAs have over their charges. Only ever did the community college thing.
Generally my RAs talked to me at the beginning of the year and trhen we rarely interacted for the rest of the year. One time one of my RAs lost her position because she was found passed out drunk in the bathroom.
I did have a friend who was an RA, and his hall always seemed to be full of drama. But I never got the sense of what power he had over residents as much as what he did to help.
I think they can be there for you and give you resources, like a well-connected aquaintance. I don’t think they have any leverage over you.
At least in my experience as an RA, that was more or less the case. We did write people up, though.
Sometimes it wasn’t a disciplinary thing – like, if two roommates came to me with a disagreement, but neither was abusing the other or anything serious, the write-up would just be a formality and I’d mediate the argument or something. A mild disciplinary write-up – say, for playing music too loudly – would result in a conversation between the resident and my boss (although it wouldn’t usually even get to that point because as soon as the RA asked a resident to stop doing something, they usually did, so no need for a write-up).
If I had to write someone up for something actually illegal, like alcohol or weed, they might get in trouble with the university conduct board (also if it was alcohol I had to have them dump it in the sink, and if it was an illegal drug it got confiscated by campus security). So, there wasn’t zero power in the position, but it wasn’t crazy authoritative either.
But like, if a resident explicitly asked me to keep an eye on them, especially if I knew they’d recently had a traumatic experience, obviously there wouldn’t be a disciplinary response. I’d probably talk to them and ask them what sort of support they could use and then, obviously depending on what they needed, either provide it myself or connect them with appropriate resources. I’d probably still write it up, but just so my bosses had a record of the resident’s request, not for any sort of consequence type of thing.
I guess they can write people up?
I was never very clear on what that meant.
“Behave, or I’ll write you up.”
“You wouldn’t dare.”
“Oh yeah?” (furious scribbling) “There. You are now the star of an erotic fanfic featuring Sonic the Hedgehog and a kiddie pool full of egg yolks.”
“No…NOOOOO!”
The last line obviously meant to say:
“Yes…. YESSSSSSSSSS!”
I’d assume write ups would go to their superiors and with enough you’d get kicked out of the dorms.
But what if their superiors don’t like Sonic the Hedgehog?
The number they consider enoug
Gah! Phone keyboard blinked out of existence mid-word!
The rest would’ve been: h would be lower… or maybe higher?
Thanks for the inspiration. I’ve had writer’s block for months, ever since I canceled my Levi/Akuma slashfic.
Come to think of it, I’ve never written any non-MLM fanfiction…
…Multi-Level-Marketing fanfiction? You fiend!
Of course, the insurance company fanfiction works, so….
(If anyone can find part 3, I’d be grateful.)
In the brief period of time I spent with the whole 4 year thing, the most interaction I had with my RA was signing in at move-in, weekly floor meetings, the occasional email threatening to revoke our whiteboard privileges (that seriously happened), then signing out at the end of spring semester.
Revoked your whiteboards eh? Did Joyce go nuts with a permanent marker in your hall to?
Unfortunately no, it was one community whiteboard that a group of idiots decided to write some sexist crap on.
Pathetic. Scrawling bile all over the wall just gives the perpetrator temporary catharsis at everyone else’s expense.
Whatever happened to creativity? Add “Weasel Stomping Day” to the calendar! Write “for a good time call” and the dean’s office number in the corner! Draw a line of stickmen doing a Monty Python silly walk across the bottom. Half the fun is watching to see how long it lasts before someone notices and erases your nonsense.
(Please don’t do those things.)
I’m for all of thesep
I concur.
The RA position is, in most schools I know of, sort of like that of a low level mod on a forum. You basically are there to help with any issues those under your care have (usually directing them to existing school resources and deescalating interpersonal tensions before they become an issue), to take care of minor discipline concerns (like say inappropriate door decorations) and to report any serious issues up the chain (in Ruth’s case to ol’ Puddin’ Head) so they can take care of discipline.
RAs really don’t have much power. I doubt they can do much to punish people on their floor besides report them to their higher ups and hope they do something. The RAs I had in college couldn’t even force you to attend floor meetings, so I rarely went to floor meetings after the start of each school year.
I was an RA while I was in college a few years ago.
We were responsible for a ridiculous range of stuff, but the main thing we were supposed to be doing was building community. We did run social events, but the most important thing in my experience was just having conversations with residents, being friendly when we saw them around, and keeping our doors open.
That said, we were also supposed to respond when residents broke rules. The exact response depended on what they were doing, but unless something illegal or blatantly harmful was happening, it was usually just asking them to stop whatever they were doing and then writing them up.
If the write-up was for something serious like alcohol, the resident would go to the university’s conduct system. Something less serious, like roller blading in the hallway, would probably just result in the resident having a conversation with the RD (Chloe equivalent, though mine were awesome).
Write-ups weren’t just for bad behavior, though. They were also to document medical issues (like if anyone got taken away in an ambulance) and issues of concern. If I thought a resident was too stressed I’d probably try to help them manage that myself, but if it seemed really over the top I guess I might write it up and have my RD try to connect the resident with appropriate support.
It was a super wide-ranging job, though, so it’s sort of hard to summarize it.
Wait, it’s 9:20pm already? This day went by fast.
Y’think? I feel like it’s lasted almost three months!
It’s clearly Becky’s fault for sleeping so late
Alles klaar, Frau Kommissar?
I don’t think anyone’s doing cocaine there, though…
Damn it, panel 3 Dorothy is me all the time. And that’s too much introspection for me tonight, so ffffffffffttttt. *flips table and storms off*
“I’ll… shake my finger at you… SO… HARD…”
“My femurs will shrivel up in shame?”
“Ehh, sure.”
Femur jokes aren’t humurous. As is well known.
Still tickle the funny bone.
Oooooh!
A knee bone can make a femur joke if they want to.
Tibia honest, they can be.
Legs
What’s on the menu!
Ruthful refrains from striking again!
I like Walky’s moment here.
1: He’s actively looking for Dorothy, so he’s clearly not skipping out on anything.
2: He’s not berating her for being late. He doesn’t even ask what she’s doing. He’s just assuming she was doing something that was important to her, and that’s that. He doesn’t assume she owes him her time or anything. He doesn’t even try to do some goofball snark. He has a simple and understandable concern about her being late to an agreed-upon time for them to meet, but nothing more.
And sure, this is not exactly a high bar to pass per se; but considering how many people in the real world that somehow manages to miss that kind of thing (or even limbo under it), it’s still good to see.
And since he did show up looking for her, I assume no ulterior motives (AKA trying to get out of the whole thing) about letting her take her time to do her thing.
Walky may have the attention of a three-month old kitten when it comes to any math too complex to immediately settle into his brain… But when it comes to Dorothy, he gives her his full, non-threatening attention.
True.
I also like Ruth, thinking about others in the moment, and trying to muddle through being supportive even though she has no tools for it.
I think she has some tools for dealing with Amber. Not the greatest ones, but still, she has them.
But she has no tools for dealing with Dorothy.
Ruth has all the spoons! They’ve all been sharpened, though.
Funny enough, I fully expect that once Walky grasps the core elements of how Calc works and why, he’ll settle back into his prior format until third year when the stuff from one’s major really comes in hard and fast so one has to keep pace with quite a bit and has far less time for most anything other than studying.
Why hello thar, analytical chemistry.
Last time we saw Walky, he tried to get a bootstrap lesson from Jason to prepare for Dorothy working with him on his maths. Don’t you think his willingness to skip rather stems from this?
Did you mean his willingness to not skip? Because that’s what I was talking about.
Seems like we are reading the strip very differently.
You talked about how nice he was acting, no pressure, no drama about her being late. And that as he apparently showed up looking for her, you didn’t think he has ulterior motive when telling her to take all the time she needs.
And I pointed out that as far as we know, he has ulterior motives.
Time will tell.
And yet you just mentioned that he also sought out Jason for the specific purpouse of preparing for Dorothy working with him later that night.
I really am confused to how that interprets as “willingness to skip his appointment with Dorothy”.
I don’t think his last minute attempt with Jason lead to much as far as his maths is concerned. So I still think he’d rather she had something else to do so she will not catch on that he has been shading the truth about his progress.
It’s Saturday night. C’mon, Ruth, let the violence out. Saturday night’s all right for fi- *vaudeville hook*
Given enough time, everyone in today’s comic is gonna snap like a twig.
You could have left out “in today’s comic”
RE:Alt-text: Well… I mean, femurs aren’t people so it’s probably ok to threaten them. I guess?
Depends on whether they are still connected to people.
Ruth going to the Morgue or Medical part of the school to threaten some dead femurs as a way to relax?
“Dorothy, if you don’t go have fun, I’ll make you sit down and watch a Leafs game with me.”
Leafs fans already get enough suffering from watching the Leafs, why spread that suffering to the world at large?
Misery loves company.
Satan didn’t play for the Maple Leafs.
Sure played for a lot of other teams however.
Slow down there Satan.
She just said she COULDN’T threaten murder.
Ruth is…trying. There’s effort there. If this keeps up I may eventually open up to the possibility of maybe liking her.
Don’t overtly threaten. Just say “hey if you don’t have fun the stress will catch up with you and you could get distracted and get run over by a car” Threaten them with death not caused by you
Unless you are driving the car…
“Now this is pod racing!” – Ruth, just before running over Dorothy.
And, that’s not far off from serious advice, too. The point isn’t to force people, but to point out that the stress is hurting them, both psychologically and by something they value (in Dorothy’s case, scholastically).
That sounds like it’d add to her stress, making it even harder for her to relax. Fear is not a healthy source of motivation.
… Especially here, where it’s one step away from “beatings will continue until morale improves”
You are sure you have the right grav?
Fear is an essential and important feeling (or energy state). What commonly leads to problems is our reaction to it, not fear in its “natural” state which activates us to fight or flight. unfortunately most modern problems cannot be solved by those, hence the trouble with finding a good way to use it.
I did too much grav roulette so I’m stuck like this for a while.
There are healthy forms of fear in the world, but threatening people with scary stories of the horrible consequences their actions will have is not one of them. My mum used it on me regularly and it has done a *lot* of damage. I just uncovered another layer of it this week. 🙁
You got it girl, you show them who is boss.
A thought just occurred to me: has Ruth always been that much taller than everyone else? Have I just not noticed until now?
She’s standing on top of someone’s unconscious body.
She’s 5 ft 7 sooo… kinda tall
Billie’s 5’7″, and Ruth is a few inches taller than that.
Greetings player, you are Ruth, a Resident Advisor trying to find alternatives to threats of murder.
“If you don’t go have fun, I will…”
A) “…draw SUCH an unflattering cartoon of you
B) “…do all my farts in you room when you not there”
C) “…Energy Drain you so hard your negative levels will nullify all your skill ranks in Perform (Homework)”
D) “…wait till your Yankee ding-dong pseudo-president legalizes murder, and then what-have-you right in your what-for”
E) “…what-have-you right in your what-for”
*clicks on option B*
E) “…what-have-you right in your what-for”
*You are eaten by a Grue*
>reload
>restart
F) Ban Dexter and Monkey Master merchandise on this floor.
I’m really glad Dorothy checks in with someone else, and also that she monitors her own status and has someone check in with her. It’s a shitty situation, but she handles it well.
I doubt Walky is very impressed with Ruth promising to check on Amber or Dorothy. He remembers to well when HE asked her to look after Billie.
and HELL did she look after Billy
wait was that the joke?
More of a callback to Walky’s earlier assessment of Ruth’s performance as an RA
http://www.dumbingofage.com/2016/comic/book-6/04-it-all-returns/labcoats/
Let Ruth Threaten to Murder People Again 2K17
Oh goddamn it I changed the capitalization in my email and now I’m ugly roots girl
Don’t be like me, commenters
Nobody tells me how to live my life.
Oh crap, what happened to Jason? Are tragically hilarious flashbacks about to ensue?
In all seriousness Dorothy is in no shape to tutor Walky atm. But a destressing talk with her favourite goofball might be just what she needs. Do the right thing, Walkerton.
Chances are they just screamed at each other for a couple hours again, then Walky got bored and left.
Appropriate avatar is appropriate.
I think that it’s more likely that Jason and Walky both got thrown out of the pub because of said shouting and screaming at one another. What they didn’t notice was Leslie and Stacy staring at them from the other end of the bar.
someone help me out here: i feel very, very sure that dorothy has said that “stress IS fun” line before, and this is meant to be a dark echo. but i cannot for the life of me remember when or where or with whom this exchange might have happened. is my brain just playing tricks on me?
It took me 50 minutes but I found it! http://www.dumbingofage.com/2016/comic/book-7/01-glower-vacuum/jeez/ I didn’t think of it til I read your comment but you were right, she said it before and this is a dark echo! Good memory~
Oooooh! Well remembered. And this works very well as a dark echo. “Are you having fun yet, Dorothy?”
Poor Ruth! This whole ‘being nice’ thing is a whole new world full of unfamiliar feelings, unfamiliar situations and a whole new lexicon! Can she possibly adapt or will it drive her crazy? 😀
Tonight, Grav Roulette, you have given me…
…. um….
….
….
…. I have no fucking clue.
We’ll try this tomorrow, Grav Roulette, when hopefully you are will present me with a less perplexing offering.
There’s people who know who the future characters are, unfortunately I’m not. Judging from the name this character hasn’t been in the comic yet.
Grav roulette is a weird and wonderful thing.
Willis has posted his master sheet of all the new gravatars.
(ask the Emperor)
It’s the one Willis tweeted a little while back, right? Or am I thinking of something else?
I suddenly can’t remember if it’s a friday or a saturday, but come on Dorothy! Take a break, watch Dexter and Monkeymaster and let your brain switch off for a few hours.
Not a clear shot of Walky, so: Did he “undistinguish” his temples after leaving the pub? If not, does Dorothy like that look on him?
I’m thinking black Sharpie over the silver. Actually shampooing it out seems a lot like personal grooming for Walky.
So… Next will be Amber running into Sal on the roof?
Hmm… Time to spin the grav roulette wheel.
…and…
…let’s see this…
…closer…
…How about this?
How do you play that Roulette-thingy?
Just need to change the capitalization in your email (examples: instead of address@email.com, you can variously type Address@email.com, or adDress@email.com, or ADDress@email.com, or any other combination you can think of).
Each capitalization change will change your gravatar.
Cool! Lemme try!
Gah! not Galasso!
Who this?
So close!
Not so close!
Come on, brunette with glasses!
I don’t think Willis’ avatar is up for grabs.
BILLIE: “It’s Sal!”
ROULETTE
Well, that comment went oddly well with the avatar. I suppose I shall speak in ALL CAPS now.
TREMBLE BEFORE ME, MORTALS
What about us immmortals?
Just quiver a bit.
That only works with a few other games. We would have accepted:
BINGO!
YAHTZEE!
SORRY!
And
BLACKJACK!
“…break a leg”
“Thanks!”
“NO, I mean I’m going to break your leg if you don’t go have fun”
Ruth: “Break a leg”
*cue Dorothy breaking someone’s leg*
Ruth: “I swear I didn’t mean it like that. Honest.”
It’s funny because she used to violently threaten people.
“threaten some femurs, you know you want to”
Ruth has never threatened a femur that didn’t deserve it.
But whatever. This fucking comic is a cesspool for abusive, monstrous, controlling assholes getting a free pass.
Just ban me please.
Well, Blaine, ToeDad and Not Ryan had some measure of comeuppance, so there’s that.
Spencer, I don’t want to come across as a troll or anything but… if you despise DoA so much, why come back? I freely admit that some plots have got me annoyed enough that I haven’t trusted myself to comment and I have contemplated not reading anymore on occasion but have finally decided that things aren’t so bad.
Simply put, in the end, if this comic is a negative experience for you, why come at all?
Sometimes Spencer just has bad days. It’s okay.
He’s trying to make me hate him, but it’s not going to work.
I’m more stubborn than he is.
Just reposting that appropriate image that ValdVin posted yesterday!
Hey, I’m glad one of us coded the link properly.
I’m sorry for all I’ve done to you. You didn’t deserve any of it.
It’s my fault for not anticipating where we were going next and pre-addressing it. But my answer’s the same as before.
You ain’t done shit to me.
Let me take a moment to elaborate further than usual. I have grown up in a maelstrom of bipolar and borderline and munchausens and self-harm and, honestly, nothing you think you’ve done to me could really compare. What, you don’t like my comic (sometimes)? Occasionally you have a bad day? Look, that’s cool. On my end. You’re not hurting me. I know on your end it’s a shitfire, but you never have to worry about causing me any distress. You can check that worry off forever. Bane quote, for-me-it-was-Tuesday, yadda yadda.
anyway i had another paragraph written which i thought was inspiring but i decided it made too many assumptions which could easily backfire and so just imagine i said something awesome here
Thank you for that. I mean that from the bottom of my heart.
“life was so much easier back when I could just rip people’s femurs”
Hey, Sir Willis, I am having incredible lag and problems reading the forum, as it keeps scrolling back to the top. I am not sure what the cause is, but I suspect it is the incrediblenewshub.com ads that run here. I don’t know how much control you have over the ads that run, but if you could look into this it would be greatly appreciated.
I reported it to Hiveworks this afternoon, thanks.
So…timeline questions.
We know Leslie picked Mindy up at 7:00. We know it’s now 9:20 and Walky has presumably come straight from the bar, which (clues seem to indicate) is the same bar where Leslie and Stacy are or were.
Depending on how far Sweet Grass is from Mindy’s place, and how hard it is to get a seat on Saturday night, I’m guessing Leslie broke off the date at…around 8:00?
That’s one full hour unaccounted for. Was the whole They’re-All-In-The-Same-Bar bit just an unfired Chekhov’s Gun? Did Leslie and Stacy even talk? Has Leslie already walked in on Becky and Dina? Inquiring minds, etc.
Its good Ruth is catching her bad habits (bad habits being violently aggressive) here but probably better that Rachels not here as it would just reinforce Rachels view of Ruth
Okay, so this is a situation. Did Jason prepare Walky enough for what’s to come?
Unrelated (woah surprise), but I’ve actually started serious work on my lesbian superhero character. I asked this on Twitter, but then I remembered it’s too new for people to know about, so I’ll ask here as well. Is it problematic for Mindress’s girlfriend to be physically-disabled in some way? I was considering making her an amputee of some sort, or maybe wheelchair-bound, but I don’t want that to be her Thing. It kinda seems like a majorly uneven power dynamic, with one being superhumanly powerful and all.
People here know more than me about these things.
With Walkys attitude and the amount of time given the best teacher in the world couldn’t prepare Walky
Nor should he for that matter
well if their power dynamic is rooted in physicality, then yeah I guess its uneven, but most people’s interpersonal relationships aren’t really predicated on physical power? tangentially, one of my close friends is a, like, 6 ft, fully able, gym-training man, and I am a relatively slight lady-person, but that has like NO bearing on our ‘power dynamic’.
Take to TV tropes, see if there are shitty patterns around lesbian couples (for example, be aware of ‘bury your gays’). Then decide if you want to avoid them, subvert them, or envelope them.
As long as she’s a whole character and not a Token Disabled Character, *I* don’t know of any concern.
Oh, Ruth, if you’d’ve just kept the femur-threatening to times when it was clearly a joke out of concern for people, you would’ve been able to keep doing it!
Well, at least Ruth’s trying? Sorta? Kinda? Badly, but still.
Also, off topic, but if you’re American you should do this (and if you’re not American, share it): https://twitter.com/icalledmyreps/status/885239337394229249
You could casually threaten some lemurs, that’d be fun, right?