As it’s part of her official record, the new hall people and RA will know both that and that she’s supposed to do therapy.
Not slinking in dark corners required.
If they’re not as much of a mess as Chloe, the RA and administration will know, but the other students shouldn’t. That said, gossip, at least about her and Ruth, is almost certain to get around.
Anyway, I doubt everyone knows her name. It’s a big school, and it’s not like she’s the first string quarterback on the football team (was trying to think of someone at least most people at a school like that would know). Still, I think it’d be kind of funny if somehow literally everyone knew here. Even people who have no business knowing her, like professors she’s never had, who teach subjects she’s never even taken a class in.
Indeed it is. Mind you, considering that the song’s lyrics are mainly a litany of stressors that could incite a person to desire getting out of the house to go socialize and possibly drink and what the time period was when the song was written, it’s at least understandable why that was included.
After Stonewall it took quite a few years for the LGBT community to coalesce into a cohesive movement let alone a cohesive community. The early to mid ’80s was, between the AIDS epidemic and various other factors, a time when a lot of previously closeted members of the LGBT community started coming out including a lot of older individuals who, for myriad reasons, had been living a “normal” public lifestyle for years or decades while keeping their sexual and/or gender identity a secret from everyone up to and including their spouse. Regardless of what one thinks of the inclusion of that lyric, it’s rather undeniable that suddenly finding out that one’s long time spouse is trans when one thought they knew everything about that spouse would cause a significant amount of stress, quite possibly on a similar level to what the spouse had been experiencing daily for however long. In this way, it’s not too dissimilar to the reaction one could imagine to other lyrics such as one’s shrink running off to Europe, and not even writing, or one’s third fiancee not showing (that last one is ambiguous mind, as it could imply a pregnancy and possible resultant shotgun wedding or just not showing up to the wedding).
Hardly apologetics, it’s just a rather solid example of how unneeded societal disenfranchisement leads to socially and personally negative consequences on all fronts, which in turn is a topic I don’t get the chance often enough to just let go about without some rather serious nasty implications packed into anything I may say on the topic.
Her first weeks in college has been nothing but a disaster, the kinda positive things she and Ruth managed to build nonewithstanding. Hopefully now she will get the chance to build herself an identity other than “chubby, desperate, former cheerleader who bonks to RA”. Get some new friends (other than Joyce), make a proper start with her schoolwork.
Billie from the beginning of the comic would have had a rough time even without Ruth’s harassment campaign, but this is a new Billie. I think she can do it.
Although, knowing her luck, I kinda assume she will be neighbor with Alice. Escape her drama from college only to be confronted by her drama from high school.
“…but this is a new Billie. I think she can do it.”
Huh. We somehow took two completely different things away from this strip OMG. You’re hopeful Billie may have a better time than her (admittedly rough) debut, while I’m worried this is actually a sign she’ll backslide into her old habits and away from her recent character development. IDK, I guess I’m just nervous because of the way she rebuffed Ruth’s offer to help her move. :C
Yeah, I agree with you. This, even without asking Ruth not to come, but especially in light of it, really feels like Billie’s planning to try to return to Alphatude.
My impression of what Billie is thinking is pretty much the same, but my expectation of what will happen is different. Basically, I expect her to try to act like she did at the start of the year, pushing back on the progress that she doesn’t see as progress. But I expect her to fail at that because she’s not the same person she was then and ultimately won’t be able to mimic it.
I’ve had various times when I’ve been like, “I wish I could be the way in was back whenever.” But I can’t because I’m not, and that’s what I expect Billie to learn. Time’s arrow marches forward, after all.
Oh… yeah, that is a risk as well. I don’t know what is more likely, but it wil be interesting to see what Billie looks like if she finds a sliver of stability.
The only time you should ever care about what someone else is putting on their pizza is when you’re sharing it. Like if jalapenos upset your stomach but your brother says “Fucking deal,” instead of getting half without jalapenos but we’re splitting the fucking pizza 50/50 anyway.
Ssshit, that was supposed to be subtext, not text.
I thought all early replies weresubtext. Whereas now we’ve hit the indentation limit, so what I’m writing is context – instead of replying to you directly I had to reply to your pretext.
Also, since Joyce is not with her, she must have carried that large box with one hand while the other hand was occupied with the suitcase. And I know she’s a head cheerleader, but that still seems a stretch?
But mostly I want to know how she’s going to function without her glasses. I can walk and not bump into objects without glasses, but that’s about it.
I know several people who technically need glasses, or at least should wear ’em, but just walk around with blurry vision all the time cause they don’t like the way their glasses look or whatever. I couldn’t manage without my glasses either so I’ve never understood this but maybe Billie is one of those people who just doesn’t wear them?
Although I don’t think we’ve ever seen Billie walk around for a whole day without her glasses so on second thought I’m thinking it’s either a dramatic gesture and she’s gonna put them back on in a second, or she’s going to try to begin her take two unbespectacled (and may or may not find out she can’t see well enough to do this)
Footnote: I am delighted to find that unbespectacled is a real word and now I want to find excuses to say it in conversation
Hi. I’m one of those people. I should wear glasses, but it’s been about 12 years since I last bought glasses and at the time they cost me about $600 (including eye exam) which I can’t really afford. I don’t drive and can navigate fine on foot without ’em however* so they’re lower priority than most other significant expenses to me. Should I ever decide to get a license again however I’ll need ’em legally even if I could navigate perfectly well to drive safely without.
*I get legibility blur on 1inch text at eight feet, but still see large objects like cars and pedestrians fine up to 70 yards outside fine details like license plates, faces and bumper stickers and can easily recognize and follow road signs (even if I can’t per se always read their text) within 100 feet.
If you have your prescription and a few other measurements you can, at least here in the US, get a decent pair of glasses from a number of websites for less than $50, and even less.
I have that license problem in reverse: it says I need glasses to drive but after eye surgery that’s no longer the case. I’m wondering if I can get the license changed somehow.
Re: Billie. How does one break one’s contact lenses anyway?
In the meantime, you could drive around with glasses with non-prescription lenses, maybe? It’s not like a cop who pulls you over for any other reason (and would see the requirement on your license) is actually going to put on said glasses to check that they are prescription lenses.
More theoretical than anything, actually, as I haven’t been behind a wheel in forever. But as I’m (over)due for an eye exam I thought I’d ask when I’m there.
I’ve always found Billie’s glasses to be a little out of character – assuming she can function without them at all – or with contacts.
Billie’s whole self-image is (or was) built around the head cheerleader role, along with bashing nerds. Stereotypically, glasses are for nerds, not cheerleaders. Now, I know Willis thinks girls with glasses are hot and I’m not going to argue, but I’d expect Billie to be invested enough in the stereotype that she’d try pretty hard to do without them.
First panel shows her holding the box to her chest with her left arm and pulling the suitcase with her right. Probably not a very heavy box, or just not very far between dorm buildings.
No glasses. Billie is taking this very seriously. The only way this could be more serious is if in tomorrow’s comic she took out a knife and gave herself a haircut.
https://imgur.com/a/BSh0g
I’m pretty sure I stole this joke from something but I can’t remember what. Really I just wanted an excuse to draw more church dressed Joyce and Becky.
I buy everything in that sketch (and yesterday’s) except Joyce actually saying the word seduce out loud.
As I wasn’t brought up a proper church-going girl now vastly expanding my world experiences after several weeks in college, I wonder: What is the PG-13 word she’d be likely to use?
The combination of Billie removing her glasses and the “take two” line made me think this was a specific callback to something, and I briefly convinced myself she didn’t wear her glasses when she first showed up in the strip? I had this whole theory for half a minute that Billie associated glasses with “nerds”* and other people she looked down on in high school, prompting her to avoid wearing her own glasses, since she was Cool and Popular and Not Nerdy (*well, maybe she does think glasses are nerdy, but her eyesight took priority I guess). But then (according to my wild theorizing) she began wearing them again in college once she ended up being friends with all these so-called nerds she would’ve ignored or scorned in high school, which helped her get over her hangup about her glasses being nerdy, or nerdiness being shameful. Which made this moment (again, according to my wild theorizing) a return to her high-school ideas of coolness, an attempt to gain acceptance in a new group of people in whatever ways she knows how.
Anyway I checked her early appearances and she always wore her glasses in college so that’s most of that theory out the window, but I do think she might be feeling that she needs to somehow portray herself differently, since take one didn’t turn out so well. Which, I mean, wasn’t because of her glasses, but we all have illogical ideas about what will get people to like us, I suppose.
I’m making this a two-part comment because i didn’t realize i had so many Thoughts and Opinions about Billie’s glasses and it got really long, but I’m tentatively keeping the headcanon that Billie often didn’t wear her glasses in high school even though she probably couldn’t see the board or recognize people halfway down a hallway.
I don’t think glasses are really that big a deal anymore in terms of nerdy connotations (but i dunno, I’m fairly socially oblivious), and I don’t think the other cheerleaders would’ve necessarily cared as much as Billie, but I can imagine her making excuses that cheerleading and whatnot was easier without glasses, and pretending she had better eyesight than she did.
Okay, Billie, go meet your adorable nerd roommate!
(If the glasses removal is a sign that you’re going to try to be cool for Take Two, I…don’t see that going well. Lucy is basically Joyce except her religion is Teen Titans.)
The last couple of these polls I’ve treated as “who do you want to see more focus on” rather than a pure “who do you like best”. I expect that Amber, Becky, Billie, Danny, Dorothy, Joyce and Walky will always remain the most visible characters in DoA and the people most involved in their lives (Joe, Ethan, Ruth, Dina, Sarah, etc) will show up rather frequently with the rest showing up a few times a year at most, so I vote the one who I see as currently the most interesting story wise in each of those with an understanding that Sal, for example, also implies Walky, her parents, Carla, Malaya, Marcie, Danny and Amber and Carla, as another example, also implies Sal, Malaya, Marcie, Joyce, Billie, Ruth and Mary. It’s much easier than trying to pick just three favorites.
Considering there’s a delay between a poll’s appearance and when its results can be tallied, and in between a strip’s writing and its publication, and in between an idea’s forming and its being worked into the plot even before any strips can be written…
ok, nope… probably need to use a duplicate from the higher Unicode range directly “like this” those are U+201C and U+201D copied from a Wikipedia page (/wiki/Quotation_mark#Unicode_code_point_table specifically)
I know I have said it before, Yotomoe, but you have to do a webcomic, you have a seriously good talent for drawing, the world needs to see your skills. Find a writer in search of an artist if you can’t write yourself.
I’ve got an idea I’m working on. If anything it’s OVER-Written. I just suck at stuff like composition and backgrounds. But I did promise a friend I would try to start one before the end of the year.
Take Two is going to involve starting off with everyone in the new hall looking at you funny, Billie, and all your friends are still back at the old hall, and so’s your girlfriend, and….
I hope she realizes this isn’t like high school, where you start over if you move to the next town and change schools. It’s all one big campus. People from all the freshman dorms all have classes together. Rumors and gossip spread.
You can enjoy a character who is not an exceptionally good person, if they’re fun to read about. I voted for Carla, who is much nicer than she lets on, but also fighting for her right not to be held to a higher standard than everybody else. Would she annoy me in real life? She’d certainly try. Do I like reading about her? Absolutely.
I didn’t vote for Ruth in the poll! I still really like her, but she’s dropped down my favorites list due to some changes in my life. Which is a good thing, really.
I hope not. However, she DOES now have the advantage of moving into a new accommodation where she is not as well known. She can start afresh which is, I think, something that she desperately wants.
I do hope that this doesn’t include abandoning all her old contacts and circle.
It really can’t. Narratively it just wouldn’t work. She may try, but she won’t succeed. The story isn’t going to expand to include a whole other floor and Billie isn’t going to drop out of the comic – therefore, she’s still going to stay involved with the rest of the characters.
I read “take two” as Billie seeing this as a chance to shed her queen bee past and be more authentic. Not that she won’t be sarcastic, over the top and boss. But she might try to get along with her roommate. She might be with people who don’t remember her from high school. She might be free fro a toxic past – toxic to her and others she ran into. Having a girlfriend without it being 24/365. She and Ruth were a follie aux deux, with the two of them reinforcing some of the worst in the other. A little distance won’t hurt, from Ruth, Sal and Walky. College can be about re-invention and Billie needs that badly.
You do a second take because the first one wasn’t right, so this one needs to be different.
Does it involve a patent for a phone with a flip-out knife?
I’m sorry, that was rude, I haven’t been on the main page much since that sequence of events (stupidly, I reactivated my Patreon with the expectation that Willis would immediately show is the fall-out of Ryan’s attack). How you been? Hope this good news is great.
Don’t worry, I still haven’t gotten tired of that meme. Also, I really hope that patent isn’t already taken, because I will absolutely go for it. If it already exists, I’m buying one.
As of a little while ago, Randall Munroe came out with the xkcd Phone 6 (the latest entry in his “xkcd Phone” series), which purportedly “never needs sharpening”, so he may be on to you there.
I didn’t vote for either of them, but I suspect it’s that Mary is more fun to hate. Roz can be eye-roll-inducing, but also with the occasional unpleasant lurch as I remember some of my own less skillful activist moments when I was about that age.
Mary’s got a “love to hate” villain vibe to her that some people have, whereas Roz… Roz is kind of sort of supposed to be “good” but is kind of obnoxious. Which she’s called out for, but we haven’t seen much improvement on her end for it. Whereas Mary is terrible and her role is to continue to be terrible.
I see the annual character polls as ‘Best character this year’ instead of ‘Best character ever’. Because if it was the latter Dina would win till the end of time.
What I’m saying is I picked Becky, Ruth, and Danny this time because their arcs this year moved me the most. What say the rest of you?
Sept 20, 2016: Ryan speeds away from Sal and Amazigirl after their teamup at the DeSantos rally.
Ruth, who I voted for, was still in the hospital. Her development as a character has been amazing since then.
I voted for Becky, but a lot of her most notable development had definitely already happened by them (escaped dad, revisited old home, acquired girlfriend). I do definitely like the ‘hacking congressional representative’ development since then.
Danny’s occasionally-cringeworthy but mostly sweet transition into “new Danny” is lovely, but not my favorite. That might change if we see more of him and Ethan. I want good things for both of them, and I think they’d be good for each other. Actually, Amazi/Amber’s arc seems to be setting up some really interesting payoff; we’re just too much in the middle of it to appreciate all of it.
I also voted for Carla. As a secondary character, she hasn’t gotten much of an arc this year, but I like how she’s becoming more three dimensional as we get to know her a bit more. She’s educating well-intentioned allies (like when Billie and Ruth thought Mary had a crush on her), standing up for right to be herself, and doing whatever she wants like the motherf*cking goddess she is.
In a “Favorite character” poll, I will pretty much always vote for Dina because she is sort of a rule 63 me, and I can’t not like a person I identify with more than any other character.
I voted for Jacob because the guy is just such a mensch. I want to be like Jacob when I grow up.
I voted for Becky because I enjoy her boisterous public persona, and I empathize with her private angst.
So, the new ACA repeal attempt reminded me of something: I’ve been a bit busy, so I haven’t been able to read the comments consistently, but has Bluewind chimed in since saying she was going for surgery for her… leg, iirc?
You know, I changed my mind. I kinda think going back to some parts of cheerleader Billie could be good for Billie. Not being a jerk to people, god no, but being social and helping people out. It gave her a confidence boost. While it won’t cure her depression, it might make her feel a little better for a while.
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why does Billie look like she’s about to snap those glasses in half
Maybe she’s giving up her “Clark Kent” identity to become a superhero full-time.
“Why does the new girl keep bumping into walls and tripping over furniture?”
“She kept mumbling something about closure.”
+1
+2
ELECTRIC BOOGALOO
Also, happy belated anniversary to Davs and Mags.
Contacts established?
One joke I always have and always will remember from Family Matters.
During the American Gladiators episode (), Steve is about to compete in The Joust. Waldo, who’s cousin is a gladiator, and the reason Steve and Carl are able to compete against each other, calls up to Steve, “Hey! Where are your glasses?”
Steve calls back. “I don’t need them, I got contacts!”
Waldo replies, “I don’t care who you know, where are your glasses?”
Dangit, I screwed up the HTML… Oh well, it takes you to the correct Youtube clip at least.
Waldo is so amazing. I headcanon him as autistic with a special interest in cooking and learning disabilities.
(Am autistic myself)
Not that it means anything but she looks better without glasses
I disagree, but mostly out of obstiance
Well to be fair its just my opinion but the glasses Billie wears have, at times, made her look like an old women
Pretty sure she’s fine with that since it helps her avoid trouble when she buys booze
I think it’s less the glasses than the expression. She looks so hopeful.
So…how many strips until it all goes wrong?
Depends, does she still think shes superior to nerds?
Does she? I don’t read that expression as hopeful at all.
You can’t be nervous without at least some degree of hope.
One in that storyline, but who knows how many will intervene :v
*IW Danny fumes in your general direction*
I disagree, as a matter of personal taste – everybody looks hotter with glasses.
Not pictured: Billie then untying her ponytail and letting her hair dl that slo-no swish as she bursts through the door.
Light streams in behind her. Everyone looks up from their playing cards. The piano player stops.
Two people in the background:
1st person: “what’s going on?”
2nd person: “shhh, we can’t talk until she starts moving again.”
Also not pictured: Asma passing on a copy of Billie’s face with “Alcoholic” typed above it, to the person running the new hall’s reception desk. :O
They meet in a park, wearing trenchcoats and fedoras. They pretend to feed the birds, and Asma slips over a manila envelope.
I first read this as “they pretend to BE the birds,” which is actually my new headcanon, keeping the rest of your details the same.
“Kaw! Kaw!”
“Chirp chirp?”
“Hey, are- umm… are you guys okay?”
I have assimilated your head canon and taken it as my own. I attempted to resist, but it was too endearing- in the end, resistance was futile.
As it’s part of her official record, the new hall people and RA will know both that and that she’s supposed to do therapy.
Not slinking in dark corners required.
Hmmm, seeing the preview panel for Friday…. 😂
If they’re not as much of a mess as Chloe, the RA and administration will know, but the other students shouldn’t. That said, gossip, at least about her and Ruth, is almost certain to get around.
Uh, he has a name. I believe it’s Forest Counter.
You can’t prove he has a name. Except maybe by ∀-elimination.
How is she doing this with her hair?!
It’s too late Billie. You’re at the campus where everyone knows your name.
And they’re aaaaaaalways glad you ca-
Well, no, that sort of caused a big headache for the administration staff, that’s why they are moving you.
Damn you and your ninja ways.
Anyway, I doubt everyone knows her name. It’s a big school, and it’s not like she’s the first string quarterback on the football team (was trying to think of someone at least most people at a school like that would know). Still, I think it’d be kind of funny if somehow literally everyone knew here. Even people who have no business knowing her, like professors she’s never had, who teach subjects she’s never even taken a class in.
And your husband wants to be a girl…
(seriously, that’s a lyric from the second stanza. Listen to the whole song sometime).
O.O
…for the past thirty years, I have been convinced that that line was from a[I] parody[/I] of the Cheers theme. But lyrics searching says you’re right.
I don’t know anything anymore.
…my kingdom for an edit button or the wisdom to have remembered the markup list directly below.
If your kingdom spent its time coding instead of reenacting Monty Python’s Holy Grail, maybe you wouldn’t need to trade it for an edit button.
(Sarcasm, obviously. I don’t know how you run your kingdom.)
But Holy Grail.
Indeed it is. Mind you, considering that the song’s lyrics are mainly a litany of stressors that could incite a person to desire getting out of the house to go socialize and possibly drink and what the time period was when the song was written, it’s at least understandable why that was included.
After Stonewall it took quite a few years for the LGBT community to coalesce into a cohesive movement let alone a cohesive community. The early to mid ’80s was, between the AIDS epidemic and various other factors, a time when a lot of previously closeted members of the LGBT community started coming out including a lot of older individuals who, for myriad reasons, had been living a “normal” public lifestyle for years or decades while keeping their sexual and/or gender identity a secret from everyone up to and including their spouse. Regardless of what one thinks of the inclusion of that lyric, it’s rather undeniable that suddenly finding out that one’s long time spouse is trans when one thought they knew everything about that spouse would cause a significant amount of stress, quite possibly on a similar level to what the spouse had been experiencing daily for however long. In this way, it’s not too dissimilar to the reaction one could imagine to other lyrics such as one’s shrink running off to Europe, and not even writing, or one’s third fiancee not showing (that last one is ambiguous mind, as it could imply a pregnancy and possible resultant shotgun wedding or just not showing up to the wedding).
That’s a lot of apologetics for a line nobody’s bothered to attack.
Hardly apologetics, it’s just a rather solid example of how unneeded societal disenfranchisement leads to socially and personally negative consequences on all fronts, which in turn is a topic I don’t get the chance often enough to just let go about without some rather serious nasty implications packed into anything I may say on the topic.
Well, sometimes you want to go where everybody knows your name.
You wanna go where megs won’t go, where all the drinks taste the same, you wanna go where ten can’t even say your naaaaaaaame
God bless Billie. She deserves a take two.
Her first weeks in college has been nothing but a disaster, the kinda positive things she and Ruth managed to build nonewithstanding. Hopefully now she will get the chance to build herself an identity other than “chubby, desperate, former cheerleader who bonks to RA”. Get some new friends (other than Joyce), make a proper start with her schoolwork.
Billie from the beginning of the comic would have had a rough time even without Ruth’s harassment campaign, but this is a new Billie. I think she can do it.
Although, knowing her luck, I kinda assume she will be neighbor with Alice. Escape her drama from college only to be confronted by her drama from high school.
“…but this is a new Billie. I think she can do it.”
Huh. We somehow took two completely different things away from this strip OMG. You’re hopeful Billie may have a better time than her (admittedly rough) debut, while I’m worried this is actually a sign she’ll backslide into her old habits and away from her recent character development. IDK, I guess I’m just nervous because of the way she rebuffed Ruth’s offer to help her move. :C
I hope for Billie’s sake your take is right. ;~;
Yeah, I agree with you. This, even without asking Ruth not to come, but especially in light of it, really feels like Billie’s planning to try to return to Alphatude.
My impression of what Billie is thinking is pretty much the same, but my expectation of what will happen is different. Basically, I expect her to try to act like she did at the start of the year, pushing back on the progress that she doesn’t see as progress. But I expect her to fail at that because she’s not the same person she was then and ultimately won’t be able to mimic it.
I’ve had various times when I’ve been like, “I wish I could be the way in was back whenever.” But I can’t because I’m not, and that’s what I expect Billie to learn. Time’s arrow marches forward, after all.
Oh… yeah, that is a risk as well. I don’t know what is more likely, but it wil be interesting to see what Billie looks like if she finds a sliver of stability.
Prediction: 100 comments or less.
What makes you think that? Sunday’s comic got over 100, and I feel like there was less to to discuss with that one than with this.
Well see, NOW I have to comment just to help bump it up. 😛
Sounds fun, but how will we keep relevant while trying to defy predictability…?
Predictability who now?
Pineapple murder.
That’s when people murder you for liking pineapple pizza, right?
Probably how I’m gonna die.
As someone who’s ordered pineapple in a calzone, along with taco beef and cheddar cheese… I sure hope not.
The only time you should ever care about what someone else is putting on their pizza is when you’re sharing it. Like if jalapenos upset your stomach but your brother says “Fucking deal,” instead of getting half without jalapenos but we’re splitting the fucking pizza 50/50 anyway.
Ssshit, that was supposed to be subtext, not text.
I thought all early replies weresubtext. Whereas now we’ve hit the indentation limit, so what I’m writing is context – instead of replying to you directly I had to reply to your pretext.
Oh yeah? Well I’M going to counterbalance you and drive the comment count down!
….. wait….
Ha! You forgot Grav Roulette!
*stands there for a few seconds* “…Aaand that’s a wrap! Great job on set, Billie!”
“Aren’t you from the Method school of acting?”
“We have a method. It’s ‘remember your lines and don’t bump into the furniture!’ ”
–Charles Busch’s Red Scare on Sunset
Does she have contacts? Or does she just not really need her glasses to get around?
Has she been Rick-Perry-ing us the whole time?
Also, since Joyce is not with her, she must have carried that large box with one hand while the other hand was occupied with the suitcase. And I know she’s a head cheerleader, but that still seems a stretch?
But mostly I want to know how she’s going to function without her glasses. I can walk and not bump into objects without glasses, but that’s about it.
Maybe the box is just full of all the things her parents have sent her since she’s been at college.
I know several people who technically need glasses, or at least should wear ’em, but just walk around with blurry vision all the time cause they don’t like the way their glasses look or whatever. I couldn’t manage without my glasses either so I’ve never understood this but maybe Billie is one of those people who just doesn’t wear them?
Although I don’t think we’ve ever seen Billie walk around for a whole day without her glasses so on second thought I’m thinking it’s either a dramatic gesture and she’s gonna put them back on in a second, or she’s going to try to begin her take two unbespectacled (and may or may not find out she can’t see well enough to do this)
Footnote: I am delighted to find that unbespectacled is a real word and now I want to find excuses to say it in conversation
Hi. I’m one of those people. I should wear glasses, but it’s been about 12 years since I last bought glasses and at the time they cost me about $600 (including eye exam) which I can’t really afford. I don’t drive and can navigate fine on foot without ’em however* so they’re lower priority than most other significant expenses to me. Should I ever decide to get a license again however I’ll need ’em legally even if I could navigate perfectly well to drive safely without.
*I get legibility blur on 1inch text at eight feet, but still see large objects like cars and pedestrians fine up to 70 yards outside fine details like license plates, faces and bumper stickers and can easily recognize and follow road signs (even if I can’t per se always read their text) within 100 feet.
If you have your prescription and a few other measurements you can, at least here in the US, get a decent pair of glasses from a number of websites for less than $50, and even less.
I have that license problem in reverse: it says I need glasses to drive but after eye surgery that’s no longer the case. I’m wondering if I can get the license changed somehow.
Re: Billie. How does one break one’s contact lenses anyway?
In the meantime, you could drive around with glasses with non-prescription lenses, maybe? It’s not like a cop who pulls you over for any other reason (and would see the requirement on your license) is actually going to put on said glasses to check that they are prescription lenses.
More theoretical than anything, actually, as I haven’t been behind a wheel in forever. But as I’m (over)due for an eye exam I thought I’d ask when I’m there.
I’ve always found Billie’s glasses to be a little out of character – assuming she can function without them at all – or with contacts.
Billie’s whole self-image is (or was) built around the head cheerleader role, along with bashing nerds. Stereotypically, glasses are for nerds, not cheerleaders. Now, I know Willis thinks girls with glasses are hot and I’m not going to argue, but I’d expect Billie to be invested enough in the stereotype that she’d try pretty hard to do without them.
We never got an with/without glasses view from her pow.
Can be she can do without as long as she’s not driving.
First panel shows her holding the box to her chest with her left arm and pulling the suitcase with her right. Probably not a very heavy box, or just not very far between dorm buildings.
I think Billie needs the glasses, she just wanted to do a dramatic Horatio Caine bit.
I think she’s trying to make a “good first impression” or some scheiße like that
No glasses. Billie is taking this very seriously. The only way this could be more serious is if in tomorrow’s comic she took out a knife and gave herself a haircut.
*a river appears for her to throw her hair in*
You. You know what’s up.
“Made in Earth Kingdom.”
“The other side.”
“Never give up without a fight.”
*quietly disappears into the night via flashback*
What if she took out a phone instead? I hear the bleeding-edge xkcd Phone 6 (or VIII, 10, X, 26, or 1876) never needs sharpening.
Alternatively, the xkcd Phone 5 does have that Supercuts partnership…
Wait. The xkcd Phone 26 never needs sharpening, has maximum strength, and is college-ruled…
…maybe not-Ryan was holding a phone after all!
Mystery solved!
Hit your marks. Watch the way you say your lines and don’t forget that time is money.
end of book N
one week of guest strips
insert damnation of willis here
And all this time she has been Mary in disguise…
“What? No! Leave the glasses on! You stupid morons!”
Basically that was my first reaction upon reading today’s DoA strip.
Yep. And the other one with Danny and Billie where he wants some private time with her in a fitting room. In a glasses store:
https://i.imgur.com/yP7CJit.gif
(PS Couldn’t find in the archives for some reason.)
Okay, the original.
http://joyceandwalky.com/d/20040213.html
they’re Transformer Glasses – the rolling case is a portable Tardis – the box contains seventeen bottles of ardent spirits
“Transformer Glasses”? They transform into glasses full of cheap whiskey?
a spyglass – yesterday was Talk Like A Pirate Day
at least for take 2, she’ll be a better person than she used to be, not saddled with grandoise dreams of being popular like she was in high school
One hopes.
Alternately, she’s seeing this as a second chance to get it right and be popular.
https://imgur.com/a/BSh0g
I’m pretty sure I stole this joke from something but I can’t remember what. Really I just wanted an excuse to draw more church dressed Joyce and Becky.
And to be fair, what excuse for drawing more church dressed Joyce and Becky could ever be considered as bad?
I…i want to hug both of them.
Yes. This grav will suffice. I need to get a Pepsi now. Gotta hide that navel. Although to be fair, I’m not sure my gods care.
I buy everything in that sketch (and yesterday’s) except Joyce actually saying the word seduce out loud.
As I wasn’t brought up a proper church-going girl now vastly expanding my world experiences after several weeks in college, I wonder: What is the PG-13 word she’d be likely to use?
“tempt”?
For those wondering, the first take is here
… and call me in the morning …
This is going to be a spectacle.
Best comment right here. You really reframed the issue.
It just needed to be brought into focus.
Rim shot!
Glassy!
It’s frightening how easily this lens itself to punnage…
Billie: {takes off glasses} Nothing to see here.
As a piercing scream and a guitar solo erupts.
The combination of Billie removing her glasses and the “take two” line made me think this was a specific callback to something, and I briefly convinced myself she didn’t wear her glasses when she first showed up in the strip? I had this whole theory for half a minute that Billie associated glasses with “nerds”* and other people she looked down on in high school, prompting her to avoid wearing her own glasses, since she was Cool and Popular and Not Nerdy (*well, maybe she does think glasses are nerdy, but her eyesight took priority I guess). But then (according to my wild theorizing) she began wearing them again in college once she ended up being friends with all these so-called nerds she would’ve ignored or scorned in high school, which helped her get over her hangup about her glasses being nerdy, or nerdiness being shameful. Which made this moment (again, according to my wild theorizing) a return to her high-school ideas of coolness, an attempt to gain acceptance in a new group of people in whatever ways she knows how.
Anyway I checked her early appearances and she always wore her glasses in college so that’s most of that theory out the window, but I do think she might be feeling that she needs to somehow portray herself differently, since take one didn’t turn out so well. Which, I mean, wasn’t because of her glasses, but we all have illogical ideas about what will get people to like us, I suppose.
I’m making this a two-part comment because i didn’t realize i had so many Thoughts and Opinions about Billie’s glasses and it got really long, but I’m tentatively keeping the headcanon that Billie often didn’t wear her glasses in high school even though she probably couldn’t see the board or recognize people halfway down a hallway.
I don’t think glasses are really that big a deal anymore in terms of nerdy connotations (but i dunno, I’m fairly socially oblivious), and I don’t think the other cheerleaders would’ve necessarily cared as much as Billie, but I can imagine her making excuses that cheerleading and whatnot was easier without glasses, and pretending she had better eyesight than she did.
Her contacts apparently broke just before starting college. Though the real question is, we’re now several weeks into the school year and she has rich parents who believe in buying her love. Why hasn’t she gotten more?
Presumably got caught up with all the shenanigans involved in her dorm.
Okay, Billie, go meet your adorable nerd roommate!
(If the glasses removal is a sign that you’re going to try to be cool for Take Two, I…don’t see that going well. Lucy is basically Joyce except her religion is Teen Titans.)
By the way, the current poll is very difficult.
The last couple of these polls I’ve treated as “who do you want to see more focus on” rather than a pure “who do you like best”. I expect that Amber, Becky, Billie, Danny, Dorothy, Joyce and Walky will always remain the most visible characters in DoA and the people most involved in their lives (Joe, Ethan, Ruth, Dina, Sarah, etc) will show up rather frequently with the rest showing up a few times a year at most, so I vote the one who I see as currently the most interesting story wise in each of those with an understanding that Sal, for example, also implies Walky, her parents, Carla, Malaya, Marcie, Danny and Amber and Carla, as another example, also implies Sal, Malaya, Marcie, Joyce, Billie, Ruth and Mary. It’s much easier than trying to pick just three favorites.
There’s actually a “who do you want to see more of” poll that cycles through occasionally.
Ahhh, but is it acted upon?
Or just a HUGE tease!? 🙂
Considering there’s a delay between a poll’s appearance and when its results can be tallied, and in between a strip’s writing and its publication, and in between an idea’s forming and its being worked into the plot even before any strips can be written…
…I forgot where I was going with this
I can usually pre-plan to put more Carla and Dina in stuff, since, honestly, I know they’re going to win ahead of time.
You can’t put quote marks in alt text! … Actually, you can probably escape them, but I don’t know how to do that and would just use two apostrophes.
You should be able to just replace the quote marks with " (that may need to be &quote for the amphersand to show up)
ok, nope… probably need to use a duplicate from the higher Unicode range directly “like this” those are U+201C and U+201D copied from a Wikipedia page (/wiki/Quotation_mark#Unicode_code_point_table specifically)
You’re still at the same damn school Billie, stop being such a drama queen
Unless, of course, that is your major.
https://imgur.com/a/uh4aF
Ok. One more.
That’s all sorts of adorable!
But I’m not sure it does much to stop Joyce from sending out false positives.
You’ve certainly captured the essence of outgoing Beckyness in her words there. It could only be more Becky if she started that with, “Guess what?…:
I know I have said it before, Yotomoe, but you have to do a webcomic, you have a seriously good talent for drawing, the world needs to see your skills. Find a writer in search of an artist if you can’t write yourself.
I’ve got an idea I’m working on. If anything it’s OVER-Written. I just suck at stuff like composition and backgrounds. But I did promise a friend I would try to start one before the end of the year.
*Suddenly on the edge of my seat.*
I think your friend is my hero…
A promise of regular doses of Yotomoe artwork? Can you thank them for me?
Seriously though, good luck, and I hope to see whatever it is you’ve got cooking!
Go! Go! Yotomoe!
Not gonna lie, at first I didn’t realize that “take” was supposed to be like takes in a film and was wondering what she was taking two of…
what could happen??????????????
Feels, probably.
Oh, Billie. I’m worried about her trying to go back to cheerleader Billie.
And I don’t know if that’d be a good thing or a bad thing.
Dangit, Joyce, Dina is the only person I didn’t vote for that’s cool enough to overtake Carla!
I mean, you’re fun, getting close to awesome, and I haven’t hated you in a long while, but could’ya please stop getting so many votes?
(Kidding though, my opinion is not more right than any of the… 102 people who’ve voted for Joyce so far.)
Take Two is going to involve starting off with everyone in the new hall looking at you funny, Billie, and all your friends are still back at the old hall, and so’s your girlfriend, and….
…. in short, it’s not really Take Two.
…. so now I’m…. skateboard guy? Health Code Reminder Guy? What’s his name, Sayd? Something like that?
…..
….. I got nothing.
You really shouldn’t take out someone’s “i” like that, I believe it’s considered rude.
But spelling “someone” with an “i” is confusing, and being intentionally confusing is ALSO rude.
Sayid.
That’s what they sayid?
Well playid.
I hope she realizes this isn’t like high school, where you start over if you move to the next town and change schools. It’s all one big campus. People from all the freshman dorms all have classes together. Rumors and gossip spread.
I’m surprised, somehow Mary got a single vote in the favorite character poll.
I hope it was a sarcastic vote.
Maybe someone misclicked.
Erm, maybe two people misclicked.
It was Mike.
I’m so glad there are three votes so I don’t have to chose between Joyce and her two ladies.
Who are the two ladies? Becky and Dorothy?
Yup 🙂
So Sarah isn’t one of her ladies?
She is her sister. Subtle difference.
Well, I just voted for Mary. She’s a character I like to dislike.
You can enjoy a character who is not an exceptionally good person, if they’re fun to read about. I voted for Carla, who is much nicer than she lets on, but also fighting for her right not to be held to a higher standard than everybody else. Would she annoy me in real life? She’d certainly try. Do I like reading about her? Absolutely.
“Take two”, a phraze filled with hope and better judments.
Hopefully. Let’s see.. 🙂
Plays Take 5 on the ironic hacked muzak
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vmDDOFXSgAs
I didn’t vote for Ruth in the poll! I still really like her, but she’s dropped down my favorites list due to some changes in my life. Which is a good thing, really.
Also it’s the first time I voted for Dina (or maybe I have before, but I forgot).
Not sure what’s up, but I’m happy you’ve had good changes!
I can gauge my mental health by rewatching Sherlock and tracking whether I identify more with him or Watson.
I’m vaguely surprised that the upside down box doesn’t have its own character tag.
Is it the same box being passed around from situation to situation? That’s my new head-canon. All boxes are as one.
Last panel…
Best Billie I think I’ve seen…
Oh no, is she gonna try to be the “cool, bongoy cheerleader” again?
I hope not. However, she DOES now have the advantage of moving into a new accommodation where she is not as well known. She can start afresh which is, I think, something that she desperately wants.
I do hope that this doesn’t include abandoning all her old contacts and circle.
It really can’t. Narratively it just wouldn’t work. She may try, but she won’t succeed. The story isn’t going to expand to include a whole other floor and Billie isn’t going to drop out of the comic – therefore, she’s still going to stay involved with the rest of the characters.
And hopefully drag Lucy along with her. 🙂
I read “take two” as Billie seeing this as a chance to shed her queen bee past and be more authentic. Not that she won’t be sarcastic, over the top and boss. But she might try to get along with her roommate. She might be with people who don’t remember her from high school. She might be free fro a toxic past – toxic to her and others she ran into. Having a girlfriend without it being 24/365. She and Ruth were a follie aux deux, with the two of them reinforcing some of the worst in the other. A little distance won’t hurt, from Ruth, Sal and Walky. College can be about re-invention and Billie needs that badly.
You do a second take because the first one wasn’t right, so this one needs to be different.
Tentative good news, probably gonna elaborate on that later tonight, for those who enjoy this sort of thing.
Does it involve a patent for a phone with a flip-out knife?
I’m sorry, that was rude, I haven’t been on the main page much since that sequence of events (stupidly, I reactivated my Patreon with the expectation that Willis would immediately show is the fall-out of Ryan’s attack). How you been? Hope this good news is great.
Don’t worry, I still haven’t gotten tired of that meme. Also, I really hope that patent isn’t already taken, because I will absolutely go for it. If it already exists, I’m buying one.
As of a little while ago, Randall Munroe came out with the xkcd Phone 6 (the latest entry in his “xkcd Phone” series), which purportedly “never needs sharpening”, so he may be on to you there.
Yay, good news!!
Mary has more votes than Roz in the poll.
I am terrified.
I didn’t vote for either of them, but I suspect it’s that Mary is more fun to hate. Roz can be eye-roll-inducing, but also with the occasional unpleasant lurch as I remember some of my own less skillful activist moments when I was about that age.
Mary’s got a “love to hate” villain vibe to her that some people have, whereas Roz… Roz is kind of sort of supposed to be “good” but is kind of obnoxious. Which she’s called out for, but we haven’t seen much improvement on her end for it. Whereas Mary is terrible and her role is to continue to be terrible.
I see the annual character polls as ‘Best character this year’ instead of ‘Best character ever’. Because if it was the latter Dina would win till the end of time.
What I’m saying is I picked Becky, Ruth, and Danny this time because their arcs this year moved me the most. What say the rest of you?
Sept 20, 2016: Ryan speeds away from Sal and Amazigirl after their teamup at the DeSantos rally.
Ruth, who I voted for, was still in the hospital. Her development as a character has been amazing since then.
I voted for Becky, but a lot of her most notable development had definitely already happened by them (escaped dad, revisited old home, acquired girlfriend). I do definitely like the ‘hacking congressional representative’ development since then.
Danny’s occasionally-cringeworthy but mostly sweet transition into “new Danny” is lovely, but not my favorite. That might change if we see more of him and Ethan. I want good things for both of them, and I think they’d be good for each other. Actually, Amazi/Amber’s arc seems to be setting up some really interesting payoff; we’re just too much in the middle of it to appreciate all of it.
I also voted for Carla. As a secondary character, she hasn’t gotten much of an arc this year, but I like how she’s becoming more three dimensional as we get to know her a bit more. She’s educating well-intentioned allies (like when Billie and Ruth thought Mary had a crush on her), standing up for right to be herself, and doing whatever she wants like the motherf*cking goddess she is.
In a “Favorite character” poll, I will pretty much always vote for Dina because she is sort of a rule 63 me, and I can’t not like a person I identify with more than any other character.
I voted for Jacob because the guy is just such a mensch. I want to be like Jacob when I grow up.
I voted for Becky because I enjoy her boisterous public persona, and I empathize with her private angst.
Oh, and forgot to include for Carla, justifiably rolling her eyes at the need to constantly educate allies but doing it anyway.
Sorry, supposed to be a response to Badgermole’s question about fav characters)
So, the new ACA repeal attempt reminded me of something: I’ve been a bit busy, so I haven’t been able to read the comments consistently, but has Bluewind chimed in since saying she was going for surgery for her… leg, iirc?
Keep Billie away from any hats or ukuleles until she’s settled in
*brings out banners and placards and begins campaign to bump Jocelyn up higher in the poll*
I already voted for her, but good luck anyway!
*Helps with the banners.*
Well I voted Joe but that doesn’t to be doing much good
You know, I changed my mind. I kinda think going back to some parts of cheerleader Billie could be good for Billie. Not being a jerk to people, god no, but being social and helping people out. It gave her a confidence boost. While it won’t cure her depression, it might make her feel a little better for a while.
She’s trying to disprove Fitzgerald’s dictum that American lives do not have second acts.
Whoa, I think I know that building…