Nonbinary people do fall under the trans umbrella. It’s not like anyone’s really assigned NB at birth, so identifying as such is basically always gonna be different from your assigned gender. Whether or not an individual enby wants to identify as trans is, of course, a personal decision. But they are under the umbrella.
To be fair it kind of sucks to be treated like we’re not welcome under the trans umbrella as a NB, and while this joke is harmless its not helping. (Unfortunately this is an issue at Pride/in the community) And for this NB hearing the joke just reminds me ‘ugh yep that’s right not welcome’.
Its right up there with people being all ‘lol triggered’ kind of?
Could’ve been an honest mistake born of ignorance. Plenty of straight folks read this comic too (I think). Idk, but it might not have been someone trying to exclude you, just someone less-than-ideally educated. Just saying, you needn’t take this as another time someone tried to exclude and invalidate you. I mean, there are shitty legbutts who will do that, but I believe the vast majority of this comic’s readers are tolerant and inclusive. Also they were trying to tell a joke and most jokes don’t leave room for nuance.
OTOH, even if it’s an honest mistake out of ignorance and made as part of a joke, it’s still a reminder that you don’t belong. No malice in it, most likely, but it still just another little bit of pain.
“microaggressions”
A solid plurality of the people I know who read this comic are straight. I don’t know that me and one of the other four people I know read this comic qualify as “plenty of straight folks”, but I assume we’re representative of a plenty big group.
I don’t think they were that off with Joyce. She HAS always been a kind, passionate person and I think she’s had doubts for a long time she didn’t want to acknowledge to herself. She herself wonders if she ever REALLY felt god when she prayed in her dream with Rich Mullins. She’s changed a lot in some ways, but in others, this is who she’s always been, even if part of her might not have wanted to admit it.
There’s always the option where they know, and they just don’t care, because their fun is more important than other people’s feelings. Can’t rule that one out.
This is just the casual regular reminder that people don’t hate Booster because “queer people aren’t allowed to be flawed”, they hate Booster’s characterization because Willis decided to lead in with Booster’s sole characterization being a mean-spirited and almost entirely unchallenged takedown of characters everyone already liked, which predisposed us to dislike them in a way that, say, Billie’s and Joyce’s introductions did not—even though both were very obviously deeply flawed people on their introductions. Billie was repeatedly challenged to make us feel bad for her, while Joyce was introduced in intimate and sympathetic scenes showing her point of view.
Oh, and they both benefited from already being known in other canons thanks to the Willisverse effect.
Jerk characters can be introduced in a way that they’ll be liked by fans, and Willis is very good at that. Sometimes. He’s choosing not to give Booster that benefit.
This isn’t “NB People Have To Be Perfect”. This is “Jerk Characters Don’t Have To Be Hated, So This Is A Choice Willis Seems To Be Making”.
Oh, and we only had to deal with Mike saying, like, one or two lines at a time. So no, Mike and Booster weren’t handled the same. Imagine if the comic had opened and Mike had been given entire scenes where he just mercilessly bullied the entire rest of the cast, instead of just Ethan and Amber, and was the main focus of those scenes.
I don’t even *like* Mike, but he was handled with a lot more subtlety than Booster. Also, everyone in the cast constantly ragged on Booster. Seriously, can we stop acting like we just dislike Booster because “how dare Willis write a flawed queer character” as if Ruth and Billie and Carla aren’t massive fan favorites?
*constantly ragged on Mike. As in, other characters acknowledged Mike was being a jerk in-universe, both explicitly and frequently, and wanted very little to do with him. We might be seeing that starting with Booster, but… well, we’ll see.
Booster’s unsolicited psychoanalysis is like Mike’s snark with the edges rounded over, but they don’t have the benefit of 10-20+ years of being an established character to help make it more palatable. It’s also pretty much the only facet of their personality that we’ve seen in the thirty-odd strips they’ve appeared in so far.
“You guys have been friends for a long time” is a weird note to introduce yourself with, but it’s not really that personal. I’m sure they’ll start digging in a moment.
Good thing that’s not the note they introduced themselves on. They introduced themselves on a spitroasting joke, which is about as perfect a way to introduce oneself as I can imagine.
That’s one of the problems I have with Booster – that they by definition have perfect knowledge of each character (even more than the readers), so their little magic show is (so far, anyway) Willis just using them as an on stage Greek Chorus. But as an onstage character, their knowledge and the way it is presented is far less palatable than if presented by an off-stage chorus. I have no idea where Willis is going with this character, but I certainly hope it is somewhere different than where he is now.
this. even mike’s eye-rolling displays of omniscience could (mostly) be attributed to long periods of observation. this frood just walks up, looks at the painting on your wall, and declares you married the wrong woman. thou shalt not suffer a GMPC to live
though in this particular strip i see none of that. i am not one ten-thousandth as bro as joe but 35 years later i am observably different with friends i made before high school than i am with friends i made after.
Yeah, even most of the other stuff was pretty straightforward from what I recall. A bit of a stretch in some cases, but not much given what they’d already been told and how people were reacting.
Yeah, a lot of what they guessed wasn’t that much of a stretch given how people were acting except Joyce, who they spent a chunk of time with that day with her introducing them to people.
They already missed twice. There’s no reason to credit Billie with changing Ruth when it was the not drinking, meds and therapy that changed Ruth – all of which Billie actively worked against.
And the line about Joyce “becoming who she always was” only hits in the sense that a horoscope can hit by being incredibly vague and generic. In fact, I think I’ve seen that horoscope before. That’s a miss in my book.
I’m just gonna say, sending kids to the principal over this is undermining your own authority as a teacher. It’s like saying that you can’t handle basic classroom discipline and/or kindergarteners.
From what I understand, the little shits will stare at a screen for the hours it takes YouTube to drift from poorly animated, vaguely creepy counting videos to conspiracy theories, but they need constant monitoring to pay attention to a Kindergarten teleconference for more than 5 minutes at a time.
They know their target audience and how to keep them hooked.
Don’t think, just take everything you’re told at face value. Tune into the 24 Hours Hate every morning to make sure you’re up to date on the outrage of the moment and what your opinions about it are supposed to be!
This is why I like grace. It’s fun to sit with a group and see who else doesn’t close their eyes and pray. I’m an atheist, so I sit politely and don’t interrupt, after all I am thankful to my hosts for the meal, but grace lets you learn something about the people at the table that might otherwise not come up during the evenings conversation.
Kinda like living in ancient rome and drawing this in the sand: (
Okay so my Catholic high school didn’t really give a shit if you closed your eyes or not (or even if you prayed, as long as you weren’t an ass to the people who were) so poll time – how’d your schools handle it?
Public school in a small northeast town in the 50’s, as long as you didn’t talk during a minute of silent prayer you were fine. Now messing up the lodge of allegiance, that was serious business.
I got sent to the principle once for refusing to say the pledge of allegiance once, in…2002-ish? Even though I was (and still am) relatively certain there have been lawsuits about that.
No fuss at Catholic school. I vaguely remember that we were expected to have our eyes open during the daily Lord’s Prayer at public school. The only praying I remember at the non-denominational school was singing from “Hymns Ancient and Modern” at weekly assembly, and I don’t think anyone closed their eyes for that because we were expected to read the words as we sang.
Is closing your eyes while praying a Catholic thing or a Christian thing in general? I’m Jewish and I had no idea it was a thing at all until just now. The only prayer in Judaism that I know of that you close your eyes for is the blessing after lighting Shabbat candles.
Most people I knew back when I pretended to be faithful considered the proper minimum for prayer to be closing your eyes and bowing your head a little. Hands clasped in front of you if you’re getting serious about it. All of the above plus kneeling for before bed.
The private elementary school had an interesting division. Every day before recess was religious studies and hebrew (we were Jewish) and after recess was the more secular stuff. To this day I cannot recall a single bit of hebrew, despite learning it from kindergarten to the fourth grade
I don’t love Booster doing reads, but I do love backstory development, so overall, I guess, thanks Booster.
And then, commenting this with the hope that it will encourage me to actually do it: I’m planning to get back into making a fanvideo with Dumbing of Age. I’ve decided to limit it to content from the first semester (or “season one” if we’re thinking of it that way) so as not to have to be concerned about the constantly updating nature of the comic. And also because that’s already a helluva lot material and I’m only really reducing it by a sliver. It’ll take me a while, but as someone who can’t really draw, I hope it will be a decent appreciation of the comic in the way of fanart.
As a bit of self-promotion/to show sort of what I have in mind, here’s a video I made for Gunnerkrigg Court, if anyone wants to check that out. Of course, the DoA one will be different as the two are pretty different comics… but yeah, that’s the basic idea.
Definitely kinda weird at that age – most parents don’t want their six year old put in a position where their teacher is telling them they need to accept another religion or go to hell.
That’s what I would assume. Unimpressive local public schools, no Jewish or secular private school, but the Lutheran school had good stats. (I’d rather be sent to the unimpressive public school in Joe’s position, but six-year-olds don’t always get a choice.)
Yeah. I went to a Catholic school from Year 7 to Year 10, and got to take off to the library for an hour a week during Christian Doctrine lessons. But I had to go to the church twice per year and sit in the pews while everyone else took mass.
Yep, Joe’s Jewish. Maybe his dad (and mom?) transferred him to a Lutheran school that was easier to get to and/or more affordable?
Personal experience, I recall a few Muslim and Protestant students at my grade levels in Catholic elementary school. They were exempted from Mass / communion but still had to attend Christian morals class. The area we lived in didn’t have any secular / non-Catholic schools at the time so I assume their parents had no choice outside of moving elsewhere for the schools they could attend.
Second this—the schools may also just be better. Where I grew up, people of different faiths sent their kids to Catholic school because the area private schools were far better than the public, and the private schools were all Catholic, so that’s where the families who could afford it went (Joe and Danny strike me as upper-middle class, but I could be wrong).
Sometimes you don’t have a choice I was raised Jewish but I grew up in a very rural area and had to goto a Christian school for a little while at least in pre k and kindergarten.
I’ve known a few non Christians (south asian mainly) who sent their kids to catholic public school here because it’s the only publicly funded religious school and they wanted their kids to get comp Cishet abstinence training moral teaching that was at least somewhat in line with their own compared to the libertine general curriculum
My family is Jewish and lots of us have gone to Episcopal schools. My mom, my aunts, and even some of my cousins all ended up at the same ones. It happens sometimes when the public schools in your area are garbage but religious schools are the only available alternative.
I wonder if Booster is going to assume they’ve got chemistry or something, though then again, also possible this results in Booster hitting on one of them or wanting to scope gals with Joe after they attempted to ask Ruth out earlier.
Oops, the Jews-are-secretly-lizard-folk thing is actually a longstanding antisemitic trope. It’s been around since at least the middle ages, with very harmful effect.
I assume you accidentally absorbed it from the culture and didn’t realize what you were playing into. Now you know, so please retire that trope, especially about Jewish characters. Thank you!
Tall Rachel had a similar expression when she tore into Joe in the IT building lobby, but she had a case of Spontaneous Sclera to drive the effect home.
One is a flawed but fundamentally decent guy, the other was one of the people at the origin of a period known as “The European Wars of Religion”, and a raging antisemite, even compared to his contemporaries, and no stranger to the development of Nazism ideology in that matter. So… no?
I honestly can’t tell if Danny is being sarcastic with that last line or not. Does he wish they weren’t friends? Really, do these two have anything in common anymore?
They’ve reached that “old married couple” level of comfort with each other where history is more important than whatever they had in common fifteen years ago.
Yes, he did spout antisemitic stuff. Seems to be he was very much into what the Bible had to say about Jews but at first still proposed a conversion without violence early in his career and later actually began to be very aggressive about them. The German Wikipedia suggests that this might have been a reaction to the fear of having his reforms fail. Unfortunately, these texts were dug out again starting in the late 1800 to give credence to a rising political antisemitism.
Well, not only he did say to burn them, but also he was against yenishes (falsely counted as “zigeuner”) which got more than decimated much later ( source https://core.ac.uk/display/26415978 ). Also he couldn’t not have known about the numerous XIIIth pogroms where the clergy had a strong take (see Basel or Strasburg) or the antisemitic laws edicted by nobility following his teachings.
Regarding the “conversion without violence”, it’s not different from what many charismatics said before, only jews who cease to be jews are considered as possibly human, I can’t see that in a progress in any regard.
That’s the clue that Booster is post-surgery Mike and already knows all these things. Also that they are studying psych so they can help Amber this time around.
This isnt so much a read as seeing the blatantly obvious. Booster’s comments are very similar to several comments I’ve recieved when people have seen me and an old friend of mine interact.
Sometimes non-christian parents still put their kids in Christian schools when they’ve got better test scores or whatever. I think my mom went to a catholic school for a bit as a kid, despite being quite jewish, because the local public school was, like, not good.
Booster, meet Joe and Danny. They’re brothers in almost every recognisable way except genetics.
I’m wondering if Booster admires their bond. After all, coming out is never easy and I wonder if all of Booster’s existing social and familial links may have been strained to differing degrees.
It strikes me that what’s annoying about Booster isn’t even their reading people, so much as their pointing out that that’s what they’re doing. As in the first panel’s “I get that vibe off you,” which is like what they said about Roz (“There’s some real pay attention to me, I’m the middle child energy out of you”).
But Booster insists on highlighting that this is what they’re doing. “Look at me! I’m as insightful as Hannibal Lecter!” Starting to wonder if they’re a middle child as well.
The main problem with Booster is that they are forced to coldstart in their role. Mike had the advantage of starting as one more asshole in an all-assholes cast and then slowly graduating to onstage Greek Chorus in sync with the other characters’ arcs. So I guess it will be some time until we get used to Booster.
I have no problem with Booster and enjoy them as a breath of fresh air compared to other characters who pay precisely zero attention to what’s going on with other people and instead get salty at one another for not doing the most for them.
I understand Booster doesn’t feel as familiar as the other characters in spite of getting very familiar with the other characters via reading their entire reasons for being after short convos, they will have their time to get involved with everyone. I love Booster like I love Dorothy – always right and pretty pedantic but also do really want to operate at the same pace as their peers.
I don’t understand people picking favorites or specifically hating main cast characters, everyone in this comic is reprehensible at one point or the other, that’s kind of the point – everyone is problematic and ignorant and college is one of the major experiences in which we grow into more well-rounded, functional adults.
In the brief time we have seen them Booster has gone from zero to A-hole in five seconds and seemed particularly proud of it. I hate a-holes who get a pass because they are a-holes and they speak “uncomfortable truths”. If they’ve got some sort of redeeming quality to show then maybe I’ll reconsider how I feel about them but until them they are, in all ways, “replacement Mike”.
These are comic characters in a web comic strip. That all of them are at least kinda off center is the point. (A read-life Amber would be her own chapter in the DSM-V.) I do agree Willis does need to do more with Booster than just using them to define (or redefine) the other characters for the reader.
Okay, that Danny and Joe met in religious school is something I guess I missed in all other iterations. And I remember about the drawing of them riding a dragon, in third grade.
Booster’s gonna say something “insightful” and Joe is just gonna shut it down immediately. Probably with an eye roll and that good point from the worst person you know.
(Clarification: Joe is only “the worst person you know” for the joke. There’s way worse people in the comic. And in life.)
You’re not ‘required’ to pray – you can just sit, close your eyes, and have ‘quiet time’, and no one will call you out on it. But God help you if you open your eyes… Yeah, American church schools are their own form of indoctrination…
Separation of church and state means that the STATE cannot promote, endorse, or otherwise force the practice of one particular religion at the expense of all others – as opposed to the good ol’ days in England, where if you weren’t a member of the Anglican Church/Church of England you were a good-for-nothing heathen, pagan, infidel – not that a religious community can’t have their own schools. Nobody is forcing you to support or send your children to a ‘church’ school. They are held to certain standards and must teach certain subjects (like the ability to read and write English or perform arithmetic to a specific proficiency) the same as public schools, and for that reason they are entitled to get some support from the public fund to permit them to do so in order to be certified in the first place. So long as they are able to meet those standards and maintain their certifications, if they want to spend some of their school day on religious indoctrination they are free to do so as well. And if you, as a non-member of their specific Jesus/Yahweh/Buddha/FSM cult, choose to attend their school for whatever reason, you do so with eyes wide open, knowing what you are letting yourself in for.
In Doyle, Sherlock is “deducing” material life history like “you are a sailor” or “your maidservant is sloppy”, not deep psychological probes. Also Sherlock typically spells out his “logic” based on specific observations. Also “Sherlock is an observational genius” is the whole premise.
I don’t recall the Doctor doing the same thing so much, and anyway he is also a supergenius, plus being 1000 years old and literally psychic, in a bullshit narrativium universe. If you don’t want to watch the Doctor talk his way through a Dalek invasion, you shouldn’t be watching.
Booster is a random new character, whose mere existence many of us resent (because of the whole Mike thing), doing unsolicited psych analysis that is preternaturally accurate for no reason, in a mostly realistic and current setting. No one signed up for this.
Admittedly I’ve only seen stuff from NuWho (barring certain old specials and The Movie), but I can’t think of any Sherlock Scanning. They basically just bullshit their way through every encounter.
I admit I’m also into this because my late best friend from grad school could do what Booster does, also with uncanny accuracy, but was polite enough not to do so unless she was asked.
Booster is HALF-charismatic. They consistently express interest in the people around them (good!), but then they don’t seem interested in reserving judgment (bad) even when they might be wrong (really bad) or when making this off-the-cuff read publicly could hurt someone (really really bad).
They’re very much a psych STUDENT, having some of the skills and some of the interest that would lead a person into the field, but also lacking a bunch of training and best-practices that I consider Very Basic.
He and his father are Jewish but pretty casual about it. I think Pop tried introducing Stacy and Amber to Hanukkah, but Joe has recently expressed opinions about the proper celebration of Christmas. Doesn’t seem out of reach for Joe to have been sent to a Lutheran kindergarden because it was close or particularly good. Also I forget what we know about Joe’s mother.
We know nothing of Joe’s mother other than that she didn’t deserve to be cheated on, that she divorced Joe’s dad and she opted not to appear on the parent’s weekend thing. So presumably she is not a serial cheater at the very least as Joe has expressed resentment to his dad and likely sympathises with his mother.
What the everloving fuck is going on with panel 3? It’s like the Aliens chest-bursting scene, but with his eyes trying to burst up into and out of his forehead.. o.O;;;
Now I’m wondering how much of our cast went to public school.
We know Billie, Walky and Sal went to a private school. Becky and Joyce were homeschooled. Now we know Dan and Joe went to private school as well. And Dorothy?
Or is this a distinction between a private kindergarten and public schools for the actual graded school years?
I vaguely regret that my excellent spouse and I met through my less-than-excellent ex
eh, not sure how else it would’ve happened tho
I misread that as “less than excellent sex” and was thinking “wow that’s a heck of a way to meet someone”
But see, it saves the relationship from all kinds of unrealistic expectations.
Perhaps your less than excellent ex primed you to see how excellent your excellent spouse is
One of these days, Booster is going to read someone and be completely wrong.
If you try to read someone incorrectly would you call it a mistranslation?
Mistranslation?? Booster is neither a miss or trans, I don’t get it.
Nonbinary people do fall under the trans umbrella. It’s not like anyone’s really assigned NB at birth, so identifying as such is basically always gonna be different from your assigned gender. Whether or not an individual enby wants to identify as trans is, of course, a personal decision. But they are under the umbrella.
I thought your joke was funny and didn’t warrant a well actually.
This comment made me smirk.
To be fair it kind of sucks to be treated like we’re not welcome under the trans umbrella as a NB, and while this joke is harmless its not helping. (Unfortunately this is an issue at Pride/in the community) And for this NB hearing the joke just reminds me ‘ugh yep that’s right not welcome’.
Its right up there with people being all ‘lol triggered’ kind of?
Could’ve been an honest mistake born of ignorance. Plenty of straight folks read this comic too (I think). Idk, but it might not have been someone trying to exclude you, just someone less-than-ideally educated. Just saying, you needn’t take this as another time someone tried to exclude and invalidate you. I mean, there are shitty legbutts who will do that, but I believe the vast majority of this comic’s readers are tolerant and inclusive. Also they were trying to tell a joke and most jokes don’t leave room for nuance.
I don’t even understand what Yoto’s joke has to do with gender. I thought it was a reading pun.
Yoto’s joke actually works. It’s ktbear’s response claiming Booster isn’t “miss” or “trans” that fails.
OTOH, even if it’s an honest mistake out of ignorance and made as part of a joke, it’s still a reminder that you don’t belong. No malice in it, most likely, but it still just another little bit of pain.
“microaggressions”
A solid plurality of the people I know who read this comic are straight. I don’t know that me and one of the other four people I know read this comic qualify as “plenty of straight folks”, but I assume we’re representative of a plenty big group.
I found it kind of unnecessary, as Booster’s identity doesn’t need to be brought up in completely unrelated conversations.
Dina perhaps.
What do you mean, they were already very obviously incorrect with their assessment of Joyce
I don’t think they were that off with Joyce. She HAS always been a kind, passionate person and I think she’s had doubts for a long time she didn’t want to acknowledge to herself. She herself wonders if she ever REALLY felt god when she prayed in her dream with Rich Mullins. She’s changed a lot in some ways, but in others, this is who she’s always been, even if part of her might not have wanted to admit it.
But Joyce herself commented on how far off they were with her.
She also did it in the final panel where a punchline usually goes, so I think we’re meant to assume that’s more denial.
Scoff. Scoff.
Seriously, was it not clear that Emily was making a joke? I thought it was clear.
The denial runs deep with this Joyce person.
In sandy Egypt, where deNile runs deep.
oof i was enjoying this strip and then you had to remind me of all that
They already are, in assuming most people welcome that sort of unsolicited, drive-by psycholanalysis.
There’s always the option where they know, and they just don’t care, because their fun is more important than other people’s feelings. Can’t rule that one out.
Sounds kind of like what Mike would do, huh.
This is just the casual regular reminder that people don’t hate Booster because “queer people aren’t allowed to be flawed”, they hate Booster’s characterization because Willis decided to lead in with Booster’s sole characterization being a mean-spirited and almost entirely unchallenged takedown of characters everyone already liked, which predisposed us to dislike them in a way that, say, Billie’s and Joyce’s introductions did not—even though both were very obviously deeply flawed people on their introductions. Billie was repeatedly challenged to make us feel bad for her, while Joyce was introduced in intimate and sympathetic scenes showing her point of view.
Oh, and they both benefited from already being known in other canons thanks to the Willisverse effect.
Jerk characters can be introduced in a way that they’ll be liked by fans, and Willis is very good at that. Sometimes. He’s choosing not to give Booster that benefit.
This isn’t “NB People Have To Be Perfect”. This is “Jerk Characters Don’t Have To Be Hated, So This Is A Choice Willis Seems To Be Making”.
Oh, and we only had to deal with Mike saying, like, one or two lines at a time. So no, Mike and Booster weren’t handled the same. Imagine if the comic had opened and Mike had been given entire scenes where he just mercilessly bullied the entire rest of the cast, instead of just Ethan and Amber, and was the main focus of those scenes.
I don’t even *like* Mike, but he was handled with a lot more subtlety than Booster. Also, everyone in the cast constantly ragged on Booster. Seriously, can we stop acting like we just dislike Booster because “how dare Willis write a flawed queer character” as if Ruth and Billie and Carla aren’t massive fan favorites?
*constantly ragged on Mike. As in, other characters acknowledged Mike was being a jerk in-universe, both explicitly and frequently, and wanted very little to do with him. We might be seeing that starting with Booster, but… well, we’ll see.
Booster’s unsolicited psychoanalysis is like Mike’s snark with the edges rounded over, but they don’t have the benefit of 10-20+ years of being an established character to help make it more palatable. It’s also pretty much the only facet of their personality that we’ve seen in the thirty-odd strips they’ve appeared in so far.
“You guys have been friends for a long time” is a weird note to introduce yourself with, but it’s not really that personal. I’m sure they’ll start digging in a moment.
Good thing that’s not the note they introduced themselves on. They introduced themselves on a spitroasting joke, which is about as perfect a way to introduce oneself as I can imagine.
That’s one of the problems I have with Booster – that they by definition have perfect knowledge of each character (even more than the readers), so their little magic show is (so far, anyway) Willis just using them as an on stage Greek Chorus. But as an onstage character, their knowledge and the way it is presented is far less palatable than if presented by an off-stage chorus. I have no idea where Willis is going with this character, but I certainly hope it is somewhere different than where he is now.
this. even mike’s eye-rolling displays of omniscience could (mostly) be attributed to long periods of observation. this frood just walks up, looks at the painting on your wall, and declares you married the wrong woman. thou shalt not suffer a GMPC to live
though in this particular strip i see none of that. i am not one ten-thousandth as bro as joe but 35 years later i am observably different with friends i made before high school than i am with friends i made after.
Yeah, even most of the other stuff was pretty straightforward from what I recall. A bit of a stretch in some cases, but not much given what they’d already been told and how people were reacting.
Yeah, a lot of what they guessed wasn’t that much of a stretch given how people were acting except Joyce, who they spent a chunk of time with that day with her introducing them to people.
They already missed twice. There’s no reason to credit Billie with changing Ruth when it was the not drinking, meds and therapy that changed Ruth – all of which Billie actively worked against.
And the line about Joyce “becoming who she always was” only hits in the sense that a horoscope can hit by being incredibly vague and generic. In fact, I think I’ve seen that horoscope before. That’s a miss in my book.
They weren’t framed that way, which is what matters.
Best Friends forever. I truly value Danny and Joe’s friendship. I seriously do.
Samesies
Obviously because you werent closing your eyes in prayer while watching another kid pray, Danny.
That’s why he got sent to the principal too
Some day he will tell this story and suddenly get that.
I’m just gonna say, sending kids to the principal over this is undermining your own authority as a teacher. It’s like saying that you can’t handle basic classroom discipline and/or kindergarteners.
Have you seen kindergarteners nowadays?
From what I understand, the little shits will stare at a screen for the hours it takes YouTube to drift from poorly animated, vaguely creepy counting videos to conspiracy theories, but they need constant monitoring to pay attention to a Kindergarten teleconference for more than 5 minutes at a time.
Right-wing indoctrination is easier to focus on than basic baby math. Takes less brainpower, too.
They know their target audience and how to keep them hooked.
Don’t think, just take everything you’re told at face value. Tune into the 24 Hours Hate every morning to make sure you’re up to date on the outrage of the moment and what your opinions about it are supposed to be!
24 Hours Hate? Is that what they’re calling Twitter now?
Unless you mean OANN.
You probably meant OANN.
Orange Asshole News Network?
This is why I like grace. It’s fun to sit with a group and see who else doesn’t close their eyes and pray. I’m an atheist, so I sit politely and don’t interrupt, after all I am thankful to my hosts for the meal, but grace lets you learn something about the people at the table that might otherwise not come up during the evenings conversation.
Kinda like living in ancient rome and drawing this in the sand: (
Joe looking vaguely like Asher in the last panel. Danny better not glance back to the right or lunch might get a little awkward.
When you’re nailing a list of grievances to the door and you’re thankful for the suggested method.
If it wasn’t for the invention of the nail the Reformation would have never happened.
Christianity as a whole might have looked a bit different without nails, at the least purely cosmetically.
“Ho, Tacitus! How goes it with the crucifixions?”
“Greetings, Marcus! Not well, I’m afraid. The super glue isn’t holding like I thought it would. We’ll need to think of something else.”
We will need a new cross! Here, chop down a new tree with this herring.
I can’t tell you guys how proud I am to be a minor cog in the DOA commentariate.
Way to exemplify looking on the bright side of death!
Just before you draw your terminal breath!
Okay so my Catholic high school didn’t really give a shit if you closed your eyes or not (or even if you prayed, as long as you weren’t an ass to the people who were) so poll time – how’d your schools handle it?
Same (at two different Catholic elementary schools). Any chance it’s a Lutheran thing? (I genuinely do not know.)
Or maybe the joke is that Danny was sent to the office too because he was annoyingly whining about a nonissue?
Public school in a small northeast town in the 50’s, as long as you didn’t talk during a minute of silent prayer you were fine. Now messing up the lodge of allegiance, that was serious business.
Pledge of allegiance. :-/
I think you’re about to go see the principal.
What? Again?
Why is it, that in my head concept of the Clif’s,
clif – is Big Clif (clif the elder)
and
Clif – is Little Clif (clif the younger)
?
Just wait until I start arguing with myself.
And losing.
I got sent to the principle once for refusing to say the pledge of allegiance once, in…2002-ish? Even though I was (and still am) relatively certain there have been lawsuits about that.
Yes there have, lawsuits that upheld a students constitutional right to freedom of speech, including not speaking.
And I gotta be honest, choosing not to say the pledge of alligiance seems more patriotic than politely rambling along to maintain your cover.
No fuss at Catholic school. I vaguely remember that we were expected to have our eyes open during the daily Lord’s Prayer at public school. The only praying I remember at the non-denominational school was singing from “Hymns Ancient and Modern” at weekly assembly, and I don’t think anyone closed their eyes for that because we were expected to read the words as we sang.
I went to Catholic school for 3 years in the late 60s/early 70s and don’t remember anyone getting in trouble for not closing their eyes during prayer.
Is closing your eyes while praying a Catholic thing or a Christian thing in general? I’m Jewish and I had no idea it was a thing at all until just now. The only prayer in Judaism that I know of that you close your eyes for is the blessing after lighting Shabbat candles.
Most people I knew back when I pretended to be faithful considered the proper minimum for prayer to be closing your eyes and bowing your head a little. Hands clasped in front of you if you’re getting serious about it. All of the above plus kneeling for before bed.
At the infant school I attended, ‘handstogetherandeyesclosed’ was used more or less interchangeably with ‘prayers’.
The private elementary school had an interesting division. Every day before recess was religious studies and hebrew (we were Jewish) and after recess was the more secular stuff. To this day I cannot recall a single bit of hebrew, despite learning it from kindergarten to the fourth grade
school I went to*
It doesn’t seem very kosher to ignore the cabal. You must have real chutzpah.
Public school kid, Lord’s Prayer, out loud, lead by the teacher. Followed by the Pledge of allegiance to Joe McCarthy.
I don’t love Booster doing reads, but I do love backstory development, so overall, I guess, thanks Booster.
And then, commenting this with the hope that it will encourage me to actually do it: I’m planning to get back into making a fanvideo with Dumbing of Age. I’ve decided to limit it to content from the first semester (or “season one” if we’re thinking of it that way) so as not to have to be concerned about the constantly updating nature of the comic. And also because that’s already a helluva lot material and I’m only really reducing it by a sliver. It’ll take me a while, but as someone who can’t really draw, I hope it will be a decent appreciation of the comic in the way of fanart.
As a bit of self-promotion/to show sort of what I have in mind, here’s a video I made for Gunnerkrigg Court, if anyone wants to check that out. Of course, the DoA one will be different as the two are pretty different comics… but yeah, that’s the basic idea.
I’m sure it’ll be great!
Nice.
Does your username Stande for “big black cowboy cock?” I hope it doesm
owo someone’s horny
I can assure you that my user name stands for no such thing. That seems a very odd question.
I hope that your relationship with plastic wrap is emotionally satisfying.
wasn’t replying to you doofus. Also I am a wreck so I doubt anyone would find a relationship with me satisfying in any way
Looks at your channel and sees a bunch of she ra content
A person of culture I see subscribed
the rich danny-joe lore I didn’t know I need until now
I wouldn’t have given it to Booster
Goldafter his first line last strip. I wouldn’t’ve responded at all, likely.Their*
*their
I don’t understand. Is it not established that Joe is Jewish? He was telling Amber about Hanukkah.
You can go to Christian schools without being Christian. I’m sure how cool schools are about that varies, but it happens.
Definitely kinda weird at that age – most parents don’t want their six year old put in a position where their teacher is telling them they need to accept another religion or go to hell.
Maybe the Lutheran school had better test scores or something.
That’s what I would assume. Unimpressive local public schools, no Jewish or secular private school, but the Lutheran school had good stats. (I’d rather be sent to the unimpressive public school in Joe’s position, but six-year-olds don’t always get a choice.)
Yeah. I went to a Catholic school from Year 7 to Year 10, and got to take off to the library for an hour a week during Christian Doctrine lessons. But I had to go to the church twice per year and sit in the pews while everyone else took mass.
My experience is the opposite: I had to take Religous Doctrine classes, but was exempted from mass.
Yep, Joe’s Jewish. Maybe his dad (and mom?) transferred him to a Lutheran school that was easier to get to and/or more affordable?
Personal experience, I recall a few Muslim and Protestant students at my grade levels in Catholic elementary school. They were exempted from Mass / communion but still had to attend Christian morals class. The area we lived in didn’t have any secular / non-Catholic schools at the time so I assume their parents had no choice outside of moving elsewhere for the schools they could attend.
Second this—the schools may also just be better. Where I grew up, people of different faiths sent their kids to Catholic school because the area private schools were far better than the public, and the private schools were all Catholic, so that’s where the families who could afford it went (Joe and Danny strike me as upper-middle class, but I could be wrong).
Sometimes you don’t have a choice I was raised Jewish but I grew up in a very rural area and had to goto a Christian school for a little while at least in pre k and kindergarten.
The Catholic school I attended for a while had Jewish students. The school set good academic standards. It isn’t that unusual.
I’ve known a few non Christians (south asian mainly) who sent their kids to catholic public school here because it’s the only publicly funded religious school and they wanted their kids to get
comp Cishet abstinence trainingmoral teaching that was at least somewhat in line with their own compared to the libertine general curriculumMy family is Jewish and lots of us have gone to Episcopal schools. My mom, my aunts, and even some of my cousins all ended up at the same ones. It happens sometimes when the public schools in your area are garbage but religious schools are the only available alternative.
“No milk & cookies for YOU!”
I wonder if Booster is going to assume they’ve got chemistry or something, though then again, also possible this results in Booster hitting on one of them or wanting to scope gals with Joe after they attempted to ask Ruth out earlier.
Panel 3: Joe becomes a one-eyed monster.
Will Booster be his No-man?
Ha!
Does the placement of Joe’s eye in the third panel look off to anyone else? It’s hitting me square in the uncanny valley.
It DOES seem rather high up on his forehead, doesn’t it?
But if we can have levitating eyebrows, why not a wandering eye or two?
Joe? A wandering eye? That’s absurd.
I was just going to ask why no one else was asking about that. He is getting melt distorted or maybe his lizard folk camouflage is breaking down.
“maybe his lizard folk camouflage is breaking down.”
None of that, please, even as a joke.
Oops, the Jews-are-secretly-lizard-folk thing is actually a longstanding antisemitic trope. It’s been around since at least the middle ages, with very harmful effect.
I assume you accidentally absorbed it from the culture and didn’t realize what you were playing into. Now you know, so please retire that trope, especially about Jewish characters. Thank you!
You assumed wrong.
Oh, in that case, my gentleness was misplaced, and you can fuck right off.
@willis, if you’re reading these comments, looks like we’ve got an antisemite in here.
I think it’s supposed to indicate Joe rolling his eyes.
I read that as he is looking up/rolling his eyes backwards in current/remembered frustration with Danny. The eyeroll continues in the final panel.
What on earth is going on with Joe’s eyes in the third panel?
i think he’s supposed to be rolling them but it’s awkward because there’s no whites of his eyes
We don’t usually see Joe having a high-level discussion.
Ahem. We don’t usually see Joe having a high-brow discussion.
Automangle is strong today.
Tall Rachel had a similar expression when she tore into Joe in the IT building lobby, but she had a case of Spontaneous Sclera to drive the effect home.
Thank you for sharing a term I had to google. The horror is real
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subconjunctival_bleeding
I just meant the whites of her eyes suddenly appeared for one panel. There’s no reason to drag the conversation into body horror…
Is that the “Thanks Obama” of the 16th century?
One is a flawed but fundamentally decent guy, the other was one of the people at the origin of a period known as “The European Wars of Religion”, and a raging antisemite, even compared to his contemporaries, and no stranger to the development of Nazism ideology in that matter. So… no?
Luther was an antisemite.
I’d say you should ask his victims how fundamentally decent Obama was, but of course, they fucking died.
You know, from the drone bombings? The ones he bragged about being “really good” at?
God I love these two dorks together. They’re great
That Roomies nostalgia lol
I honestly can’t tell if Danny is being sarcastic with that last line or not. Does he wish they weren’t friends? Really, do these two have anything in common anymore?
Mario?
They’ve reached that “old married couple” level of comfort with each other where history is more important than whatever they had in common fifteen years ago.
This is what Booster’s trying to get out of them.
This is a very Danny story
Danning it up since kindergarten.
They’re both making ridiculously adorable faces in the last panel and I can’t decide who’s my favorite.
I get the feeling “thanks Martin Luther” is rarely expressed these days due to Luther’s antisemitism.
Also, he took the nobles’ side during the Peasant Revolt and was a huge conservative jerk who referred to rebelling peasants as rabid dogs.
That’s right I’m here to cancel Martin Luther my dad was raised Lutheran NONE OF YOU CAN STOP ME
Can you deny that Martin Luther was one of the greatest composers of all time.
He gave us some great hymns.
(exits humming “Ein feste Burg ist unser Gott”)
You’ve probably never heard any of his best stuff or even known that he wrote great music on account of he’s spent all these years decomposing.
Yay, another reason for me to dislike Martin Luther.
Yes, he did spout antisemitic stuff. Seems to be he was very much into what the Bible had to say about Jews but at first still proposed a conversion without violence early in his career and later actually began to be very aggressive about them. The German Wikipedia suggests that this might have been a reaction to the fear of having his reforms fail. Unfortunately, these texts were dug out again starting in the late 1800 to give credence to a rising political antisemitism.
Well, not only he did say to burn them, but also he was against yenishes (falsely counted as “zigeuner”) which got more than decimated much later ( source https://core.ac.uk/display/26415978 ). Also he couldn’t not have known about the numerous XIIIth pogroms where the clergy had a strong take (see Basel or Strasburg) or the antisemitic laws edicted by nobility following his teachings.
Regarding the “conversion without violence”, it’s not different from what many charismatics said before, only jews who cease to be jews are considered as possibly human, I can’t see that in a progress in any regard.
Oh boy. booster’s reading people and being completely correct. wow. yay. joy. 눈_눈
It’s not like it’s a hard read.
That’s the clue that Booster is post-surgery Mike and already knows all these things. Also that they are studying psych so they can help Amber this time around.
This isnt so much a read as seeing the blatantly obvious. Booster’s comments are very similar to several comments I’ve recieved when people have seen me and an old friend of mine interact.
Ah yes, because looking at those two and saying “you seem like old friends” is such a reach, obviously evidence of their omnipotence
Must be some tough Lutherans in Indiana. I went to a preschool run by a Lutheran church and only got in trouble for cussing.
I thought Joe was Jewish?
But also… Church school was a fucking trip. So glad I only went for 7th grade and had heathen beaten into me before hand.
Sometimes non-christian parents still put their kids in Christian schools when they’ve got better test scores or whatever. I think my mom went to a catholic school for a bit as a kid, despite being quite jewish, because the local public school was, like, not good.
There may have been more Jewish students than Protestants at my Jesuit high school
You had Heathen beaten into you? How did that work?
And which variety of heathen?…
Booster, meet Joe and Danny. They’re brothers in almost every recognisable way except genetics.
I’m wondering if Booster admires their bond. After all, coming out is never easy and I wonder if all of Booster’s existing social and familial links may have been strained to differing degrees.
It strikes me that what’s annoying about Booster isn’t even their reading people, so much as their pointing out that that’s what they’re doing. As in the first panel’s “I get that vibe off you,” which is like what they said about Roz (“There’s some real pay attention to me, I’m the middle child energy out of you”).
Noticing that vibe isn’t anything special. As a reminder, when Jacob first met Danny, he immediately caught on to this dynamic as well: “You guys are a little married, huh.” https://www.dumbingofage.com/2013/comic/book-3/03-answers-in-hennessy/dan-it/
But Booster insists on highlighting that this is what they’re doing. “Look at me! I’m as insightful as Hannibal Lecter!” Starting to wonder if they’re a middle child as well.
As insightful as Hannibal Lecter is definitely going onto my business card.
“I see inside you. I mean that literally, because I’m currently filleting you.”
Ah yes, another revealling interaction over dinner… I mean, -for- dinner.
Heh, today’s QC is oddly on-topic for this comment.
The main problem with Booster is that they are forced to coldstart in their role. Mike had the advantage of starting as one more asshole in an all-assholes cast and then slowly graduating to onstage Greek Chorus in sync with the other characters’ arcs. So I guess it will be some time until we get used to Booster.
I have no problem with Booster and enjoy them as a breath of fresh air compared to other characters who pay precisely zero attention to what’s going on with other people and instead get salty at one another for not doing the most for them.
I understand Booster doesn’t feel as familiar as the other characters in spite of getting very familiar with the other characters via reading their entire reasons for being after short convos, they will have their time to get involved with everyone. I love Booster like I love Dorothy – always right and pretty pedantic but also do really want to operate at the same pace as their peers.
I don’t understand people picking favorites or specifically hating main cast characters, everyone in this comic is reprehensible at one point or the other, that’s kind of the point – everyone is problematic and ignorant and college is one of the major experiences in which we grow into more well-rounded, functional adults.
In the brief time we have seen them Booster has gone from zero to A-hole in five seconds and seemed particularly proud of it. I hate a-holes who get a pass because they are a-holes and they speak “uncomfortable truths”. If they’ve got some sort of redeeming quality to show then maybe I’ll reconsider how I feel about them but until them they are, in all ways, “replacement Mike”.
Booster still analysing everyone out loud
These are comic characters in a web comic strip. That all of them are at least kinda off center is the point. (A read-life Amber would be her own chapter in the DSM-V.) I do agree Willis does need to do more with Booster than just using them to define (or redefine) the other characters for the reader.
Yeah, especially in this scene Booster really feels like they are just there to say “So, tell me about your past!” and transition into that.
Okay, that Danny and Joe met in religious school is something I guess I missed in all other iterations. And I remember about the drawing of them riding a dragon, in third grade.
okay im just gonna say it, are we entirely sure mike didn’t fake his own death to smoothly transition into booster?
Nobody has to get used to the change if they don’t know it’s you.
Booster’s gonna say something “insightful” and Joe is just gonna shut it down immediately. Probably with an eye roll and that good point from the worst person you know.
(Clarification: Joe is only “the worst person you know” for the joke. There’s way worse people in the comic. And in life.)
Danny could only know if his eyes were open.
That’s why he got sent to the office too.
A school where you had to pray… seriously? Only the idea disgusting me!
You’re not ‘required’ to pray – you can just sit, close your eyes, and have ‘quiet time’, and no one will call you out on it. But God help you if you open your eyes… Yeah, American church schools are their own form of indoctrination…
Which kind of throws a monkey wrench into the separation of church and state concept.
Separation of church and state means that the STATE cannot promote, endorse, or otherwise force the practice of one particular religion at the expense of all others – as opposed to the good ol’ days in England, where if you weren’t a member of the Anglican Church/Church of England you were a good-for-nothing heathen, pagan, infidel – not that a religious community can’t have their own schools. Nobody is forcing you to support or send your children to a ‘church’ school. They are held to certain standards and must teach certain subjects (like the ability to read and write English or perform arithmetic to a specific proficiency) the same as public schools, and for that reason they are entitled to get some support from the public fund to permit them to do so in order to be certified in the first place. So long as they are able to meet those standards and maintain their certifications, if they want to spend some of their school day on religious indoctrination they are free to do so as well. And if you, as a non-member of their specific Jesus/Yahweh/Buddha/FSM cult, choose to attend their school for whatever reason, you do so with eyes wide open, knowing what you are letting yourself in for.
Those schools aren’t run by the state.
They are however often funded by the state. At least in part. Which makes things more complicated.
Ah, they’re like an old married couple
Goddamn wish i had friend, fu-
Man, everybody loves it when Holmes and The Doctor do a Sherlock Scan, but when Booster does it, the RAGE goes on and on…
In Doyle, Sherlock is “deducing” material life history like “you are a sailor” or “your maidservant is sloppy”, not deep psychological probes. Also Sherlock typically spells out his “logic” based on specific observations. Also “Sherlock is an observational genius” is the whole premise.
I don’t recall the Doctor doing the same thing so much, and anyway he is also a supergenius, plus being 1000 years old and literally psychic, in a bullshit narrativium universe. If you don’t want to watch the Doctor talk his way through a Dalek invasion, you shouldn’t be watching.
Booster is a random new character, whose mere existence many of us resent (because of the whole Mike thing), doing unsolicited psych analysis that is preternaturally accurate for no reason, in a mostly realistic and current setting. No one signed up for this.
Admittedly I’ve only seen stuff from NuWho (barring certain old specials and The Movie), but I can’t think of any Sherlock Scanning. They basically just bullshit their way through every encounter.
Always a useful life skill. I feel I have much to learn from the Doctor.
It’s very good to have the script writer on your side.
I admit I’m also into this because my late best friend from grad school could do what Booster does, also with uncanny accuracy, but was polite enough not to do so unless she was asked.
Booster is HALF-charismatic. They consistently express interest in the people around them (good!), but then they don’t seem interested in reserving judgment (bad) even when they might be wrong (really bad) or when making this off-the-cuff read publicly could hurt someone (really really bad).
They’re very much a psych STUDENT, having some of the skills and some of the interest that would lead a person into the field, but also lacking a bunch of training and best-practices that I consider Very Basic.
wait, I thought Joe was Jewish? Am I mis-remembering?
He and his father are Jewish but pretty casual about it. I think Pop tried introducing Stacy and Amber to Hanukkah, but Joe has recently expressed opinions about the proper celebration of Christmas. Doesn’t seem out of reach for Joe to have been sent to a Lutheran kindergarden because it was close or particularly good. Also I forget what we know about Joe’s mother.
We know nothing of Joe’s mother other than that she didn’t deserve to be cheated on, that she divorced Joe’s dad and she opted not to appear on the parent’s weekend thing. So presumably she is not a serial cheater at the very least as Joe has expressed resentment to his dad and likely sympathises with his mother.
What the everloving fuck is going on with panel 3? It’s like the Aliens chest-bursting scene, but with his eyes trying to burst up into and out of his forehead.. o.O;;;
Now I’m wondering how much of our cast went to public school.
We know Billie, Walky and Sal went to a private school. Becky and Joyce were homeschooled. Now we know Dan and Joe went to private school as well. And Dorothy?
Or is this a distinction between a private kindergarten and public schools for the actual graded school years?
why does booster KNOW EVERYTHING