I think you can make booty call plans when DTF, just make sure you’re not overly short-term horny in the moment? Unless that’s what you meant by DTF, but that phrase stricks somewhat differently in my mind.
Yeah, that’s not the context I’ve heard DTF used in either.
More like “if I encounter a person who fits a certain criteria and who is into me as well, I will have sexual relations with them with little or no work required on their part”.
Kinda like a person being “on your list” – to use some hot 90s slang.
_Cryptonomicon had the male geek thinking about how it was a lot easier to do math right after masturbating. It spoke to me. A female friend considered the passage weird and TMI.
Yeah, for real. That takes this from “oh god oh no oh no” to just “fun college hijinks”. I was really concerned she was going to do it on her own and blow up their friendship in one of about a million possible ways.
I don’t remember if that’s an in-universe reference.
When I think of freckled DoA girls I think of Becky, Rachel, Malaya, Penny, and Vivian. Of these, only Rachel and Penny are usually drawn with lips.
In any case,without infringing Rule 8 of the FAQ, for the purposes of this discussion I respectfully draw attention to the character who wears dinosaur pajamas and who is the reigning Favorite Character.
Yeah, must be Rachel. During the most recent Kickstarter I remember Willis posting the preview for Rachel’s magnet with the comment “my wife says this is the hottest girl I’ve ever drawn”
I disagree. For me the hottest women in Dumbing of Age are cynical edgelady Rachel, tech wiz Carla and chubby Amber. I could count Penny, but she loses points for being an asshole.
Damn, though, Sal’s on fire here. First getting Malaya out of the way, and then making sure this is something Marcie would want her to do, thus (hopefully) minimizing potential for hurt feelings.
Pity I’m pretty sure the rules of drama (or at least the rules of rom coms) compel one or both of them to realize their feelings for the other are not platonic. Probably at the worst possible time.
Granted, Willis is an infinitely better writer than most rom com writers, but still. That trope’ll hit these two on AO3 sooner or later.
I think Marcie has already realized that her feelings for Sal aren’t completely Platonic, which I’m sure is part of the reason Sal is talking to her about this. (The other part is that Sal is a decent person and a good friend.)
You can donate your whole body to science, including your vagina. A friend of mine held a human vagina in a science lab class once. I wasn’t there, but I imagine it being kind of like those weird slime tubes that were popular when some of us were children.
She dated Carla in Shortpacked. Have we seen her actually show personal attraction to *anyone* in DoA or did she just acknowledge that she and Joe were both hot and so everyone would be jealous if they fucked
I think she is more biromantic heterosexual? Maybe homoromantic heterosexual? Or demibisexual? Like, she dated Carla and Leslie in shortpacked but she broke it up with Leslie because she didn’t feel physical attraction and she state she liked Ultra Car because she wasn’t either.
Yeah, WE may know she’s into girls too, but Marcie doesn’t have any evidence of that. She’s just hoping, since she doesn’t know for sure that Malaya isn’t into girls either.
So just telling Malaya what she wants is probably a bit scarier than it would be otherwise, because to do so she’d have to come out to a potentially straight person (who’d be a lot more likely to react badly)
Well, in the Walkyverse she humped Leslie, Carla, and that guy from a crossover. She might have also Joed Joe, but maybe not…
In any case Walkyverse Malaya and Dumbiverse Malaya are different, so that may not carry through.
The power was inside Sal all along. And now that she’s realized it, hopefully it will last longer than five minutes. S’a question of how long until Malaya catches on to how predictably she’s acting.
*Omnious leaders of the Order Of The Glorious Brethren Of the Illuminated Ones*: “Young Malaya… now that you have come of age, it is time for you to learn your true heritage and responsibility for ushering in the dawn of the new era”.
Malaya: “GAAAAAAWD, You are all such NERDS.”
*Omnious leaders of the Order Of The Glorious Brethren Of the Illuminated Ones*: “…our ways may seem strange for the uninitiated, true, but in time you will learn that our traditions harkens from…”
Malaya: “WhatEVER. I don’t care. I’m off to hang with people who aren’t such losers.” *Walks away, slams door*
*Omnious leaders of the Order Of The Glorious Brethren Of the Illuminated Ones*: “…we are not losers, are we?”
A bit Hellboy meets Mean girls meets the Dan Brown Code
I might have been playing too much Borderlands 2 lately, but for a second, it seemed like it was Maya and the Order of the Impending Storm rather than what was actually written. Picturing Malaya as Maya is quite entertaining.
It is pretty pretentious for Mal to feel like she is an authority on authenticity. Then again, she’s a freshman in college. Not expected to be super wise.
I don’t see Sal as being all that untrue to herself, she’s had some complicated things happen to her, but I don’t think she’s living a lie or anything.
There’s not a single non-Ryan non-Toedad character that bugs me more than Malaya. She’s got the personality of a violent drunk wasp . I can’t decide if I want Marcie to wake up and smell the coffee or if I want this to blow up in her face.
I KNOW! D: This is the equivalent of that old trope where a character in a sitcom hooks up with somebody who’s going to be bad for them with a capital B, but despite all the objections from their friends who can see the truth, the character just ignores it all anyway because they’re blinded by lust. >.<
Gotta say, I’m VERY glad that Sal is actually letting Marcie in on this plan. Given how unoriginal most mainstream romance stuff is, I’ve been conditioned to expect that Sal would just go ahead with the plan without telling her and thus cause Misunderstanding Shenanigans, so I’m very happy that that’s not happening here.
I forget if it was Joyce or Becky but someone suggested to Sal that the best way to get Malaya to commit to Marcie is to pretend to be trying to seduce Marcie, thus inducing jealousy and making Malaya take decisive action.
Because this strip is called ‘Dumbing of Age’, this is a grand strategy that can turning into a violent explosion-in-the-face in any number of ways. However, it appears that Sal hasn’t realised that.
I feel like Marcie’s face has gotten a lot more expressive as we’ve gone on. The ASL users I know all have really great facial expressions because that’s a huge part of their language and culture. Kudos to Willis, I love Marcie in these panels!
Getting randomly assaulted by Malaya… and Mary… and Carla… and Joyce, even if it’s less “assaulted” and more “randomly hugged” seems like something the good people on Campus are starting to take for granted by now.
Malaya thinks EVERYONE is fakey, about everything, all the time, and she holds the entire human race in all-encompassing contempt for it. If it wasn’t this guy, it would be anyone else.
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never go to the grocery store hungry
or make booty call plans when DTF, I guess
I think you can make booty call plans when DTF, just make sure you’re not overly short-term horny in the moment? Unless that’s what you meant by DTF, but that phrase stricks somewhat differently in my mind.
Yeah, that’s not the context I’ve heard DTF used in either.
More like “if I encounter a person who fits a certain criteria and who is into me as well, I will have sexual relations with them with little or no work required on their part”.
Kinda like a person being “on your list” – to use some hot 90s slang.
The last time I heard “DTF”, it was in reference to the IRS, as part of a rap song about doing taxes.
Kinky.
**waggles eyebrows suggestively**
In Japan there is a word “kenjataimu” which roughly translates to post masturbation clarity, maybe that is what Sal is referring to.
Sal, tantric meditation practitioner.
Sounds legit.
Sounds like a great spinoff series.
I had a class mate that claimed that immediately before every exam/performance he’d go to the bathroom and rub one out.
Must have worked, he had some of the highest grades in the year.
I’d be worried about side effects.
Teacher: “OK, everybody, pop quiz!”
Pupil: “… I just got the weirdest boner.”
Sounds like a guy who’d ask his girlfriend to cosplay his high school English teacher and spank him with a wooden ruler.
_Cryptonomicon had the male geek thinking about how it was a lot easier to do math right after masturbating. It spoke to me. A female friend considered the passage weird and TMI.
‘Post-nut Clarity’ is very much a concept in modern English as well.
DTF = Down To Fuck??
Is that a cat smile from Marcie in the last panel?
I once knew a girl who actually smiled like that naturally. It was weirdly creepy.
Cat smile cos she wants that puss.
Oh thank goodness, Sal’s asking for permission. So Marcie WON’T be out of the loop.
Yeah, for real. That takes this from “oh god oh no oh no” to just “fun college hijinks”. I was really concerned she was going to do it on her own and blow up their friendship in one of about a million possible ways.
I’m glad, too, does seem like she’s trying to learn from her mistakes and keep their friendship on the right track.
I was hoping she would too – mostly because I didn’t want them to just leapfrog into another fight.
It’s gone from, “ooooh this bodes poorly” to “ooooh this bodes poorly but it’s gonna be funny”
Yeah, this whole plan will be a lot less terrible if Marcie’s on board the shenanigan wagon.
The sex appeal of Malaya is not to be underestimated.
Or, in Sal’s case – tolerated.
Forget Big-Lips McFreckles. Malaya is the hottest girl Willis has ever drawn.
I’m trying to remember which character was Big-Lips McFreckles.
Joyce, clearly.
Dang, I thought it was Danny.
That would require He of Respectable Penis to be a girl, though. I don’t think guys qualify for “hottest girl” comparisons.
Oh. I thought you were doing an “obviously wrong answer” kinda thing. Hm.
I’ll– I’ll see myself out >.>
I don’t remember if that’s an in-universe reference.
When I think of freckled DoA girls I think of Becky, Rachel, Malaya, Penny, and Vivian. Of these, only Rachel and Penny are usually drawn with lips.
In any case,without infringing Rule 8 of the FAQ, for the purposes of this discussion I respectfully draw attention to the character who wears dinosaur pajamas and who is the reigning Favorite Character.
Don’t Dorothy and Ruth both have freckles?
Ruth yes, Dorothy no.
How is it that I remembered Vivian and forgot Ruth? My brain is weird.
Dorothy also has freckles, as alluded to in this strip that doesn’t feature Dorothy at all.
… And now it’s hitting me that there’s a lot of characters with freckles in this comic.
Hey, it’s Willis’ comic and he can Author Appeal all he wants.
And it’s a right he exercises well!
I thought Dorothy had freckles.
Source: I’m a guy who likes women with glasses and freckles.
The famous beach scene clearly shows Dorothy has freckles.
Yes indeed. I was led astray by the fact that Dorothy isn’t drawn with freckles on her face.
How common is it for people to have freckles on their body, but not their face?
Rachel, maybe?
Yeah, must be Rachel. During the most recent Kickstarter I remember Willis posting the preview for Rachel’s magnet with the comment “my wife says this is the hottest girl I’ve ever drawn”
I disagree. For me the hottest women in Dumbing of Age are cynical edgelady Rachel, tech wiz Carla and chubby Amber. I could count Penny, but she loses points for being an asshole.
Joyce is only sexy when she let’s her sexiness take over, but she is more in the cute category.
Amber is the hottest of the hot. Carla is very pretty, but being ace, her hotness switch goes to zero for me.
Oh thank Cheese, Sal’s getting confirmation first.
Yeah, if she started just hitting on Marcie without letting her in on the plan, that would be very bad.
Looks like Sal’s gonna talk out the plan with Marcie, yay.
Make out the plan, more like.
Huh, that looks new. Is this the first time we’ve seen translated dialogue for Marcie?
Nope: http://www.dumbingofage.com/2018/comic/book-9-comic/01-flyin-to-the-red/evidence/
Aha! Gotcha. My memory totally flaked on that one.
As a rule, Marcie gets captions when her meaning is not otherwise clear.
Example: this very apropos strip.
Or he could be in Central Asian robes and be a Fakir. Just sayin’
*plays Steely Dan’s “Bodhisattva” on the hacked P.A. speakers*
Today’s strip is sponsored by the Artec Leo. When you need the best toy to 3D scan all your other best toys.
Get wrecked, Malaya.
With any luck, that’s exactly what Marcie is intending.
Hilarious, but I still hate Malaya. Marcie can get what she wants, but she could also do better.
I agree, Malaya is a jerk and Marcie should find someone better than her.
Damn, though, Sal’s on fire here. First getting Malaya out of the way, and then making sure this is something Marcie would want her to do, thus (hopefully) minimizing potential for hurt feelings.
Pity I’m pretty sure the rules of drama (or at least the rules of rom coms) compel one or both of them to realize their feelings for the other are not platonic. Probably at the worst possible time.
Granted, Willis is an infinitely better writer than most rom com writers, but still. That trope’ll hit these two on AO3 sooner or later.
I think Marcie has already realized that her feelings for Sal aren’t completely Platonic, which I’m sure is part of the reason Sal is talking to her about this. (The other part is that Sal is a decent person and a good friend.)
It’s like avoiding to shop for food when hungry.
This entire cast is unraveling into anarchy. They’ve all drank the juice, and now there’s no escaping what’s to come.
The drama tag has been pulled!
No wait, that happened a long time ago.
DAER IZ NO ESKAYP
I assume that panel 6 exists as a standalone somewhere, but it’s too late in the evening for me to try to hunt it down.
If it did, I’d have had a much easier time making this gravatar.
Good gravatars are suffering. … Probably.
Is your current grav referencing something specific? I’m curious.
I was re-reading some older strips and got a wild urge to make a second zombie Joyce. The colors are a little bolder than last time.
Good call Sal! Both of these.
Oh well that’s good. Sal gave her a heads up and asked for permission before executing her plan.
Good communication is the most important thing in any relationship.
I’m hoping to get to know Marcie a bit more, she’s pretty fun.
Jesus, it’s not like Malaya is very picky about who she shares her twat with.
Marcie, just tell her what you want.
We’ve seen her fuck exactly one (1) person, and that’s Joe. I don’t think we have a large enough sample size to determine how picky she is.
Also, you can’t share those. Not without some form of undeath.
Sure you can. It’s called donating your uterus to science.
Does that count? I thought the ol’ T-word referred specifically to the bits you can reasonably touch with a pebis.
Fair enough question.
You can donate your whole body to science, including your vagina. A friend of mine held a human vagina in a science lab class once. I wasn’t there, but I imagine it being kind of like those weird slime tubes that were popular when some of us were children.
I’m imagining a translucent tube of skin filled with water and ğłïţťěŕ. Maybe some of that shiny shapes confetti. Why have you conjured this?
Word of God has her as Bi, but I don’t recall her ever showing attraction to girls, or even a hint of attraction.
She dated Carla in Shortpacked. Have we seen her actually show personal attraction to *anyone* in DoA or did she just acknowledge that she and Joe were both hot and so everyone would be jealous if they fucked
She wanted to fuck Joe because she thought Sal was into him. That’s how Sal realized that her acting into Marcie might have a chance.
I don’t recall offhand her showing attraction to anyone, but then again, Malaya gave off some heavy demi vibes imo in Shortpacked.
I think she is more biromantic heterosexual? Maybe homoromantic heterosexual? Or demibisexual? Like, she dated Carla and Leslie in shortpacked but she broke it up with Leslie because she didn’t feel physical attraction and she state she liked Ultra Car because she wasn’t either.
Yeah, WE may know she’s into girls too, but Marcie doesn’t have any evidence of that. She’s just hoping, since she doesn’t know for sure that Malaya isn’t into girls either.
So just telling Malaya what she wants is probably a bit scarier than it would be otherwise, because to do so she’d have to come out to a potentially straight person (who’d be a lot more likely to react badly)
Are you calling Bruce Cockburn a liar?
Well, in the Walkyverse she humped Leslie, Carla, and that guy from a crossover. She might have also Joed Joe, but maybe not…
In any case Walkyverse Malaya and Dumbiverse Malaya are different, so that may not carry through.
Malaya will be so disappointed when she learns that the guy’s appearance turns out to be a true reflection of his complex inner life.
Oh, cool!
Vintage Marcie, now with subtitles.
There’s some cool stuff going on here, but I’m just enjoying how effortlessly Sal made Malaya go away. That’s a game changer!
Agreed! Sal finally figuring out how to deal with Malaya in the most handling-a-three-year-old-way possible is just so funny
The power was inside Sal all along. And now that she’s realized it, hopefully it will last longer than five minutes. S’a question of how long until Malaya catches on to how predictably she’s acting.
Imagine Malaya reading Catcher in the Rye
Imagine catching Malaya in the rye.
It’s obvious Marcie doesn’t like Malaya for her obnoxious personality, but because of something else… cue for Joe to say a sex joke.
Ooh! I know this one! It’s her plump rear, isn’t it?
Marcie likes good plumbing.
Or a good machine with enough space in the back.
I am bad at this.
In parts plump and muscular.
I’m reading Check Please, which is a hoot. In it there is a phrase, Hockey Butt, which as someone in New England I should have learned long ago.
Anyone who does enough skating, of any sort, will have a nicely muscular butt.
Let the Smartening of Age commence!
That would require the characters to realize that the previous generations messed with their future and that they have a lot of responsibilities now.
No, no, Sal. That is plan B
http://www.dumbingofage.com/2016/comic/book-6/04-it-all-returns/amove/
Plan B is the solution to all romance pains.
And post-romance emergencies.
You made me waste coffee. No jokes this good this early, plz.
I love how Sal finally have cracked the Malaya code.
And she did without Professor Langdon and his long speeches about symbols and Dan Brown’s plot twists that turn everything upside down.
You mean Malaya isn’t the descendant of Jesus or whatever and also somehow related to the leaders of the Illuminati? I’m shocked.
*Omnious leaders of the Order Of The Glorious Brethren Of the Illuminated Ones*: “Young Malaya… now that you have come of age, it is time for you to learn your true heritage and responsibility for ushering in the dawn of the new era”.
Malaya: “GAAAAAAWD, You are all such NERDS.”
*Omnious leaders of the Order Of The Glorious Brethren Of the Illuminated Ones*: “…our ways may seem strange for the uninitiated, true, but in time you will learn that our traditions harkens from…”
Malaya: “WhatEVER. I don’t care. I’m off to hang with people who aren’t such losers.” *Walks away, slams door*
*Omnious leaders of the Order Of The Glorious Brethren Of the Illuminated Ones*: “…we are not losers, are we?”
A bit Hellboy meets Mean girls meets the Dan Brown Code
So the Brethern are like the Brethern from Guards Guards? Also, Malaya doesn’t know what cool really is if she ignores magic and secret societies.
There is a non-zero inspiration from Terry Pratchett, yes. 🙂
I might have been playing too much Borderlands 2 lately, but for a second, it seemed like it was Maya and the Order of the Impending Storm rather than what was actually written. Picturing Malaya as Maya is quite entertaining.
You mean that Sal is actually going to try that suggestion out? Oh boy, nothing good is going to come of this!
Meanwhile, Malaya proves that, in the end, she’s just a bully and she’ll do anything to prove her superiority to even random strangers.
At least Sal’s seemingly going to ask Marcie about her opinion of the plan first.
It is pretty pretentious for Mal to feel like she is an authority on authenticity. Then again, she’s a freshman in college. Not expected to be super wise.
I don’t see Sal as being all that untrue to herself, she’s had some complicated things happen to her, but I don’t think she’s living a lie or anything.
Marcie’s sign for “A whole lot” in panel three is the same as the sign for “huge tracts of land”, right?
Say no more, wink wink! Nudge, nudge!
Oops; wrong sketch.
There’s not a single non-Ryan non-Toedad character that bugs me more than Malaya. She’s got the personality of a violent drunk wasp . I can’t decide if I want Marcie to wake up and smell the coffee or if I want this to blow up in her face.
I KNOW! D: This is the equivalent of that old trope where a character in a sitcom hooks up with somebody who’s going to be bad for them with a capital B, but despite all the objections from their friends who can see the truth, the character just ignores it all anyway because they’re blinded by lust. >.<
FWIW, Malaya and Marcie is similar in my mind to Leslie and Alex.
I guess Malaya is more into riding switch on the board?
Please don’t operate electronics with your genitals.
Gotta say, I’m VERY glad that Sal is actually letting Marcie in on this plan. Given how unoriginal most mainstream romance stuff is, I’ve been conditioned to expect that Sal would just go ahead with the plan without telling her and thus cause Misunderstanding Shenanigans, so I’m very happy that that’s not happening here.
What IS this plan that everybody keeps talking about?
I forget if it was Joyce or Becky but someone suggested to Sal that the best way to get Malaya to commit to Marcie is to pretend to be trying to seduce Marcie, thus inducing jealousy and making Malaya take decisive action.
Because this strip is called ‘Dumbing of Age’, this is a grand strategy that can turning into a violent explosion-in-the-face in any number of ways. However, it appears that Sal hasn’t realised that.
Thankfully, letting Marcie in on it minimizes chances of Marcie being hurt by Sal.
Sal doesn’t give a shit if she hurts Malaya.
Both of them, actually, as MM also pointed out below.
It was both of them, simultaneously.
Joyce & Becky are a great double act!
I feel like Marcie’s face has gotten a lot more expressive as we’ve gone on. The ASL users I know all have really great facial expressions because that’s a huge part of their language and culture. Kudos to Willis, I love Marcie in these panels!
Must be hard to be autistic and need to use ASL. Then again, I don’t talk anyway, so…
So some bystander is just standing there, Malaya THINKS he’s “fakey”, and is going to approach him just to harass him.
Dammit, Malaya. You suck.
Sal isn’t off the hook… I know she did it to get Malaya away for a second, but still, she’s started it.
Getting randomly assaulted by Malaya… and Mary… and Carla… and Joyce, even if it’s less “assaulted” and more “randomly hugged” seems like something the good people on Campus are starting to take for granted by now.
And Dina, if you dares to even breath a fact about dinosaurs that is not 100% correct according to the latest scientific news.
Case in point…
http://www.dumbingofage.com/2019/comic/book-9-comic/02-but-the-sun-still-shines/diet/
Malaya thinks EVERYONE is fakey, about everything, all the time, and she holds the entire human race in all-encompassing contempt for it. If it wasn’t this guy, it would be anyone else.
I read Questionable Content as well and for a moment I was convinced Marcie had gotten blue plastic robot arms.