Yeah, about that, people tend to have more flexible boundaries about things like that depending on their degree of familiarity. It’s not “hot guy committing a crime” it’s “date-friend surprise greeting you in the morning”. Some people are actually ok or even cherish such things. It’s a risky play, especially in USA. And Ms Billingsworth doesn’t seem particularly enamoured of it. Though she is not objecting significantly either. 🤷♂️
I’m too tired to look, but isn’t Asher a townie?
Townies aren’t just allowed to walk into student housing. Has nothing to do with their romantic status – it’s a security hazard for the school.
depends on the school and the type of building. in mine you had to sign in only if it was after 11 pm, in my cousins school anyone had to sign in no matter what time or who they were.
At mine there was no sign-in, but your keys would only work for your own dorm. Not to mention he’s not in a common area, he’s in her actual room, which definitely has a lock.
I thought he was a student. Wasn’t that a whole thing where Sal was like “fun fact, he goes here” and that’s why Walky wanted to go and check and see if he was a safe guy now?
I don’t think Jennifer is worried about Asher invading her personal space; she’s uncomfortable about being seen before she’s put herself together. ‘Billie, when she wasn’t hung over, was pretty vain; ‘Jennifer’ is even more so.
I can definitely see why’d you’d say Billie/Jennifer is vain, but fwiw a lot of femme folk feel this way about people seeing them before they feel put together because we’ve been conditioned to believe our natural face and state is somehow offensive to people 🙁
Oh FFS grow up. Normal people do romantic things that don’t involve asking permission every five seconds or descending into a shame spiral of “ZOMG EVERY INTERACTION IS AN ASSAULT!!!”
I don’t trust Asher either – he obviously isn’t as disconnected from his family as he pretends and while every couple has secrets I imagine ‘By the way, I helped a crazy hardware salesman kidnap you and your friends’ is gonna sorta be a deal breaker and not the sort of foundation of trust a good relationship is based on. That said I don’t think Asher has some grand scheme going here and likely legitimately loves Jennifer.
Yeah, I’ve kinda been wondering about that too. I’m honestly not sure where Billie would ultimately fall on that, but I feel like “Get the hell away from me!” has got to be her initial reaction, at least. It’d take a level of mental gymnastics that would put her old cheerleading days to shame to rationalize how he’s still a good match for her after *that* bombshell drops.
Of course, there is another, incredibly dark possibility that just occurred to me. Billie is, as demonstrated before, pretty aware of how terrible some guys can be when it comes to relationships, and so I feel like it wouldn’t be lost on her that a guy with the connections to have someone assassinated can probably have a girlfriend that just broke up with him and may potentially expose said hit job to the authorities assassinated herself if he was feeling bitter enough about it.
Granted, I highly doubt that Asher *would* do that, and maybe Billie would give him the benefit of the doubt on that front as well, but the fact that that possibility even *exists* may be enough motivation for her to stay with him anyway out of fear for her safety, in which case…*hoo boy*.
We should keep in mind that Jennifer/Billie does know that Asher’s Grandfather is Not A Nice Person, at the very least, and that Asher used to be a criminal.
…it’s possible that she knows about his involvement that night. It wouldn’t exactly surprise me to learn that she’d be okay with Blaine getting Suicide By Cop’d, given all the shit he’d done, and Asher seems the sort that could spin that into a sob story about his personal growth.
Putting the sketchy parts of his character aside, I just feel like it’s a little quick to be dropping “love”, everyone has their own emotions and such, but it just feels a little sleazy. Like they’ve been dating maybe 2 months tops and we didn’t see any of it. I have no basis for what they’re relationship is like beyond I guess they’re both hot.
To add to the “likely loves Jennifer” part, we should keep in mind that the last time we saw him, he seemed genuinely concerned that his relationship with Jennifer was causing a rift between her and Sal, even when she was basically cackling maniacally at the idea of Sal being jealous of them.
So I dunno, could be that he’s evil or toxic, but the other side of the relationship doesn’t seem to be too much better in that department, at least as far as appearances are concerned.
Jennifer wasn’t kidnapped that night, she had been transferred to Forrest already. She had some involvement when Blaine weaseled his way into Amber’s room, so she knew who he was but that’s the extent of it.
feels like some ppl would still get bad morning breath after brushing but it might depend , then again with billies previous (current?) drinking issues i imagine she’d be an expert on hiding stuff on her breath by now lol
I tell my friends I love them. Because to me “love” means “If you died, I wouldn’t every be ok with it. I would have to change my lifestyle because of it.” Which sounds morbid but it’s a very powerful emotion.
Nah it’s always been the trope that young couples say “i love you” like a week in. Kind of a funny observation though considering how couples of younger generations are waiting longer to marry
Ruth and Jennifer broke up on Halloween and it’s now January. We don’t know how long she’s been with Asher, and they did already have history. It’s not totally out of the question.
Bourgeois/Bourgeoisie has, since the 17th century, come to mean “owning class” or just “rich people”, I think mainly because that’s how Karl Marx and some of his contemporaries used it.
The 19th century is the 1800s, during which era Marx wrote his contributions to world history.
The 20th century is the 1900s, during which said contributions to world history spawned two of the three worst totalitarian dictatorships in known history*, albeit they shared exceedingly little with him beyond initial starting premises and naming conventions.
It’s ironic that the final of the three worst totalitarian dictatorships in known history was spawned through the intense hatred of Marx’s contributions and the desire to defeat the political movements which had grown from it.
*There’s reasonable arguments to be made that many absolutist monarchs and emperors were just as bad, and even committed atrocities on similar scales of death-counts, and it’s quite probable that Genghis Khan might have made them look like rank amateurs in that regard… But either through proximity in linear time, or through our rather bullheaded belief that we modern humans are somehow ‘better’ than our earlier predecessors, we tend to be in agreement that recent atrocities are to be viewed as worse atrocities committed centuries or even millennia prior.
The two that share very little with Marx beyond starting premises and naming conventions should be trivial to catch; the USSR and PRC. Both of these have committed multiple genocides totalling tens of millions of people. Both of them purport(ed) to be Communist, but neither of them truly follow(ed) communism.
The last is even easier. Nazi Germany, from its inception, was centered around being anti-communist/anti-socialist. Indeed, the early Nazis cut their teeth on fighting (figuratively and literally) against the German Socialist and Communist party members.
This isn’t to exonerate anyone else, least of all America, or Britain, however the known death toll of those three is greater than any other regimes in modern times, at very least greater than any others during the 20th century.
Also, while not intending to get into a whole massive debate here: I might agree that neither the USSR nor the PRC were Marxist for most of their history, but saying that they were never Communist is going full-on into the “No True Scotsman” fallacy. If it shouldn’t be used to call Christians who do awful things “not real Christians”, it shouldn’t be used to call Communists who do awful things “not real Communists”.
(One side of my family comes from the former USSR—from back in the days when it wasn’t yet “the former”—so there’s also that for me personally.)
It really depends on what you mean by “communist”. Politically, both China and Russia are/were ruled by a communist party, both of which barely held any resemblance to Marx’s and Engels’ dually collaborated philosophy.
Economically, no nation in history has ever established communism, which in the works of Marx and Engels entailed that which followed the Communist Principle of Distribution: “From each according to their ability, on to each according to their need”.
In Russia’s socialist command economy, distribution unto each was still according to contribution, and soviet economic planners were quick to point out that this is exactly why they were a socialist economy and not a communist economy. Their goal was to eventually transition to a communist economy, which they said would happen when need could replace contribution in distribution. By the Soviets’ own reckoning, they never made it to being a truly communist economy, because it went through a depression right before their nation’s eventual collapse.
As for China, their government dismantled all socialist economic policies in the 1970s, although the nation as a whole is still very much ruled by a “communist” (Maoist) party.
Yeah, when I at least talk about communist governments, it’s safe to assume that I’m speaking of ideology, not economy. Arguing that the Soviet Union wasn’t a communist government in ideology because their economy never hit the Marxist ideal…it’s the same idea as arguing that since X Megachurch or Priesthood or Member or Organization or whatever “isn’t following the words of Jesus or doing what he would have wanted”, they aren’t True Christians™.
I understand your point being to avoid exonerating world-views that have committed atrocities, and I even rather agree with that viewpoint. However, I would like to make one counter-argument to you.
Ideologically communist nations (which do not and likely cannot exist in reality) are not ruled by a select leader, indeed the leader is of no importance beyond being excellent at the act of leading, and receives no greater accolades than the janitor who cleans his rooms. By contrast totalitarian dictatorships, regardless of spawning ideology, are wholly governed by a select leader, becoming from the moment of inception cults of personality centered around the charismatic strong-man. In the case of the USSR, first Lenin, then Stalin; later leaders didn’t so much rule in their own power as in the memory of these earlier ones. The same with the PRC, with Mao.
Now, for what it’s worth, since you want to make the point that words matter, the name of the People’s Republic of China doesn’t actually use either Socialist or Communist in it’s own title. Are we thus to disregard it as communist as a consequence of that? Of course not, that would be illogical. The original driving ideology of Mao was communism, and the self-claimed goal of the nation was to make the transition to a communist state. But once it became totalitarian, I would argue that only the trappings remained. Had Mao instead chosen to implement a theocratic state with himself as head (either in the role of ‘god on Earth’ or that of ‘representative of god’), then the trappings would have been different, but the total control of the government would have been the same.
Still, I think we are more in agreement than disagreement- those who are entirely pro-Communist/Socialist must contend with the fact that their ideology has spawned states capable of committing grievous atrocities. But of course, so must everyone else.
I hope in 5-10 years it’s a poster of whoever live action Miles Morales is (I figure we’ll see him before Holland gets officially replaced as live action Peter Parker).
Not sure if Asher’s giving me bad vibes here purely because Jennifer is obviously a bit uncomfortable with this, or because we the audience know the dude straight-up called a hit on a man
Probably at least partially the latter, since Joyce sneaking into people’s rooms without their consent to wake them up is pretty much always played for laughs
It’s also interesting how Panel 1 is staged more-or-less identically to the archetypal wakey-wakey Joyce panel, but super-subdued with a calm expression and no exclamation point in the greeting. Similar, but just different enough to be unnerving. It’s kinda uncanny-valley-y.
Haha That’s kinda how I always felt. I mean the mob is bad, of course, but as long as they’re cutting off loose ends and he’s not actively doing anything against or crew he’s honestly in the green.
Not to give Asher too much credit, either, but Blaine was going to get offed eventually, anyway. He was a really obvious liability at that point. Asher probably only hastened the inevitable.
Yeah, like, worst thing Asher did was give ’em a head’s up to turn on the 8 AM news. That’s assuming he actually asked for the hit and didn’t just ask to be told when it was over.
I don’t think killing Blaine was morally wrong, but I do think that Asher primarily killed Blaine to avoid his own secret getting out, which leads me to worry that he might be willing to do the same to other people he knows.
Like yeah, the fact that he’s told Jennifer that he used to be in the mob is a good sign, but I keep waiting for the “oh dear, it seems you’ve seen it” shoe to drop.
Sal’s known for months and he hasn’t done fuck all. I think what he’ll do depends strongly on who knows, how they know and whether or not they plan to find out.
As for killing him to keep his own secret? If that secret gets out, there is a very decent chance Asher ends up dead in a ditch. HE STOLE A MOBSTER’S MONEY.
It’s still suspicious. It’s very convenient for him that he has lots of justification for all his actions, some of which put people in very real and life threatening danger. That’s not okay. I feel like the acceptance of him is only possible because no one died when Asher essentially traded multiple other lives for his own.
That just sounds like another convenient excuse to me.
He didn’t know what Blaine was planning. Blaine said he wasn’t gonna hurt anyone. Honest and trustworthy Blaine LIED to him!
He was only 13. Kids make stupid decisions; we can’t hold him responsible for that. Plus Sal and him have made amends. It’s totally okay now.
It’s the mob. Why not steal a little money on your way out if you can? It’s the mob! He’s basically Robin Hood!
Maybe he was involved in a hit on Blaine, maybe he was just getting a dark confirmation from Galasso’s that his deluxe pizza and sub combo meal was ready. We don’t know! Honest and trustworthy Blaine sucked anyway so who cares right?
Maybe he’s still connected to the mob, we can’t know, but if he is it’s probably because his life is in danger. He stole money from them after all. They’ll kill him for that!
I totally exaggerated on most of these for comedic effect, But you get it. If there’s always a convenient excuse or justification for someone’s questionable acts, maybe they’re just a questionable person. A hot one though! That’s all I’m saying.
Questionable, sure, but I’m not sold on villainous yet. Especially because, c’mon, it’s fucking BLAINE. Again, if Asher helped kill him, all it does is make me wanna give him cookies and beer.
There’s also the caveat that Blaine *himself* also had mob connections. So it’d be far easier for him to out Asher to the mob than it would be for the average person to do so.
I’m still gonna hold off on judging Asher too much until we know his full involvement in Blaine’s hit. As of right now, all we know is that Asher was notified of Blaine’s death.
Also, assuming Asher did order the hit on Blaine, it’s still a pretty big leap to think he’d put a hit out on a another student. A college student dying or going missing would be huge news, especially after the other stuff that’s gone down in-universe this school year. Especially Jennifer, a pretty, (half-)white girl with a rich and well-connected family.
Yeah I’m vividly aware of the double standards when it comes to the comment section where everything a person they don’t like is played very straight and realistic vs. a character they like/indifferent to.
I still recall a commenter bringing up Walky popping into Amber’s room for a silly quip as this awful terrible thing he did despite Becky also doing the same thing in the same strip.
As Billie said though, there’s a protocol which is probably why this comes off as more suspicious. Joyce mostly pops into rooms connected by the shared half bath, and we’ve never seen her go into another wing and pop into a boys room. In fact when she had that opportunity she had Danny the roommate do the wake up routine for her. It’s a subtle but different tone here. It will probably be dismissed by tomorrow though. I doubt it’s something sinister. Just typical Asher getting a free pass for being his hot and untrustworthy self.
Or we could draw the other parallel of Billie breaking into Ruth’s room.
We should also remember, since it’s often forgotten, that Joyce going into other rooms to wake people up was critiqued in the comic and she’s learned from it and stopped.
But what does Jennifer mean by “protocol”. This doesn’t sound like a generic thing – morning breakins are only allowed through the half-bath, but more like some kind of agreement between them.
And honestly, with the “you’re not supposed to see me like this”, it seems tied to Jennifer’s whole pretenses thing. Not supposed to see her until she’s properly made up. Which is a lousy stance in a relationship – which still doesn’t mean he should breach it, cause that’s lousy in itself.
For me, panel 1 is the creepiest. His smile is a little too… assassiny murdery for my liking.
Like, if you replaced his word bubble with the “shush shush shhh” line from every assassin who does that shtick, it would fit his expression perfectly.
I personally think this is super cute (and hope Asher remains on the “okay my family forced me to be involved in something horrible but I’m not cool with it” side of the Chaotic Neutral line).
Aye, the two-panel long make-out session there seems to indicate that Jennifer/Billie is, at most, mildly annoyed by this but otherwise fine.
Sure, future strips could change this view, we’re mid-story, nothing is certain, but I’m comfortable settling for “Dawww, the mob baby’s being a cutie” here :).
Ok so I’m not sure when I’ll get to actually make this, but I had an urge recently that I’ve become OBSESSED with. Don’t know when I’ll get around to it but we’ll see.
But here’s a little teaser… https://imgur.com/a/PAwh8UI
For me I was hesitant to ship it cuz I see Billie and Walkya s basically being siblings. BUUUUUUUUT I also just think their dynamic would be fun soooooooooo. also they’re both hotties
I wonder if this is how people felt when they shipped Eren & Mikasa all these years.
The spark was definitely their at one point for me but I’ve gotten to used to seeimg it as a pseudo sibling dynamic after spending so long thinking it wasn’t happening.
Also, it really does weird me out that the dorm rooms have, you know, physical keys. When I was in college, it was a key card, like in a hotel. And this was in the mid-00’s…
It’s far easier and less conspicuous to just go through when someone else opens the door. For Asher, that means showing up at about the time when Lucy’s schedule takes her out to class. When Lucy comes out, smile, say “Mornin’, Lucy”, catch the door as it swings to, and go in as Lucy is walking away.
I used to have a friend who worked in a “secure” building on a university campus. The bloke whom my friend shared an office with had been attacked with an axe by his girlfriend’s husband, so the university had ramped up security. And it used to drive my friend crazy that when I wanted to call on him I always just strolled into his office, never called him on the intercom from the secure entrance. I could just walk through the door when someone with a key-card opened it.
Easier to do without notice entering a building than a specific room.
In this scenario, when Lucy comes out, Asher’s not some rando walking up at the same moment, but her roomie’s boyfriend obviously here to see her.
Yep. People are very ready to allow things to happen that they think of as normal. The trick is to get dealt with by people’s peripheral attention, and not become the thing that they are paying attention to.
And it’s not as though Asher risks anything if he tries it: if he misses Lucy’s exit he can knock on the door; if Lucy doesn’t just let him pass then he asks her to check with
. . . I wonder what it says about me morally that I don’t have much of a problem with Asher up to this point.
Like calling a hit on Blaine, after Blaine blackmailed and threatened him? Yeah I don’t really have an issue with that.
Him setting Sal up as the fallguy? Yeah that I find morally wrong but he earned back some points by being understanding as to why and how Walky reacted to finding out.
But if he began to be controlling and or . . .well creepy I would start seeing him as the antagonist like so many seem to be waiting for the shoe to drop as it were.
Personally, I don’t even think Asher necessarily called the hit on Blaine – Blaine was fucking dead for that one the moment Gramps found out his money laundering stooge had gotten arrested for KIDNAPPING A CONGRESS MEMBER’S CAMPAIGN MANAGER and she tweeted about it with his name because he bailed out her dad USING HIS REAL NAME, Asher at most got on the mailing list – I do think it’s worrisome that he apparently IS still in contact with active mob members. Either he thinks he’s in way more control of that situation than he actually is, because as monumentally stupid as Blaine’s plan was making his death a guarantee, I still doubt Lester would’ve acted without Gramps’ clearance… or he’s actually back in now. Either way, that’s dangerous for him and everyone else in his orbit.
Like, I don’t even blame Asher for that one necessarily. He was in a very dangerous situation the moment he realized he maybe didn’t want to go along with what the family had planned for him, and as an 18-year-old I can get how ‘steal a ton of money for tuition and go to school IN THE SAME CITY GRAMPS HAS COPS ON THE TAKE’ seemed reasonable… or at least less absurdly bad of an idea as it would be to someone who’s not a teenager. But it’s still an absurdly bad idea, and one that is narratively guaranteed to backfire at some point. At best, he’s falling back on the devil he knows when threatened… which will eventually be a problem, because even if Gramps is willing to forgive Asher when he inevitably finds out about the stolen money, there’s going to be caveats there. At worst, he thinks this situation is one he can totally manage and Lester WOULDN’T pick the guy who’s actually paying him over the boss’s grandkid who wants out. I would not make that bet. (I mean, at ABSOLUTE worst, Asher was lying about leaving at all, stole the money for kicks, and brings the worst of both worlds because he can call on the mob AND will be in for a world of trouble when Gramps inevitably finds out. And is dating Jennifer because her dad’s rich and they want to get a line on him somehow. But that one seems a bit unlikely.)
Imma try this “segmented sleep” thing that was apparently practiced before the industrial revolution, and see if that helps with my neurodivergent, scattery mess of a mind.
If not, a bizarre dream to take my mind off things would be nice too.
In short, I don’t necessarily think Asher’s morally wrong yet, or even necessarily going to be an antagonist (though I REALLY want to know what he’s thinking because there’s so much room between ‘is back with the mob because eh, that didn’t work out’ and ‘thinks he can just make contact with Lester but there will be no consequences and everything is fine’,) but I do think it’s a given he’ll eventually be trouble for the rest of the cast whether he wants to or not. You don’t set up a minor character as the grandson of a mob boss (who another, major character’s evil father worked for,) show him receiving an ominous text immediately after said evil father has been killed by the mob for terminal stupidity, and then cut to him dating another castmember WITHOUT the mob boss thing coming up again. You particularly don’t do that after establishing he stole a significant chunk of change for college tuition FROM said mob boss grandfather. He might be sympathetic when that blows up, but he’s definitely a time bomb of a character all the same.
I can certainly see something about the Grandfather finding out and *convincing* Asher to work off his debt in the family business.
Which . . .would be fair and also the exact thing that Asher was trying to get away from in the first place. But this time with no actual choice in the matter.
And I can see several ways on how that could tie into the rest of the cast.
Especially when he’s dating someone in the main cast.
Someone who, incidentally, has a very rich father who can at least influence town policy. I would not want to be on Asher’s grandfather’s radar if I were Jennifer.
Like, I feel bad for him in that respect, it’s not really his FAULT he didn’t want to work for the mob and this very bad plan seemed like his best option, but you know. Still a ticking bomb who I would prefer NOT to have the cast in the blast radius of, even if he doesn’t want to be.
(It’s also worth noting that, from what we know of Asher – selling out Sal to protect himself, contacting Lester to protect himself from Blaine but also still aiding Blaine’s plan and pulling the fire alarm – he has definitely been portrayed to this point as willing to put someone else in harm’s way to keep himself safe. Nothing personal there, but he comes first. That seems like it might cause problems down the line for other characters as well.)
Blaine brings it up in their conversation, too, so he was definitely telling the truth about ‘grabbing some of Gramps’ money, under the table’ rather than lying to Sal for whatever reason. (This is how Blaine could blackmail him.) While it’s theoretically POSSIBLE he was telling the truth about that but lying about it being for tuition for some reason, I think it’s more likely he wanted out and is finding it harder to escape than he thought.
I believe him when he’s claiming he just wants to start over. But even so I can see the issues he may have dealing with that.
The “Setting up Sal” thing I think all parties have gotten past and the thing with Blaine I feel like was more him throwing Blaine under the buss more than putting a hit out on him since Blaine caused a mess and dragged him into it, someone had to take the fall and it was either Blaine or him.
The only thing I would see would be a problem is the last conversation We had with Sal wondering if how much Billie knows about his past. Her saying he comes from a “rich family” and not a “crime family” doesn’t indicate that she knows or not about the truth. Being with him could involve her in some serious shit and she wouldn’t even know.
Jennifer said she knew his grandfather was dangerous (or something to that effect,) but seems to think he’s a risk more like her own father is (and while I don’t doubt he caused people’s deaths with that bussing out the homeless bit, much less things we don’t know about, there’s a world of difference between ‘has serious influence over politicians’ and ‘mob boss, with cops on his payroll who will definitely kill you if he gives the order.’ Daddingsworth can probably call a hit if he really wanted to, but I doubt he’s in the practice of actually doing it.) I also seriously doubt she knows that he stole tuition money from Gramps – or if she does, hasn’t put the pieces together that that is A LOT OF MONEY to steal from someone who would 100% kill a lackey for it if they WEREN’T family – and that he was in contact with one of Gramps’ dirty cops since starting school. Because a money launderer figured out he’d stolen the money and tried to blackmail him. And then got him involved in kidnapping, among other people, Jennifer’s surrogate brother. And that ended with the launderer dead after murdering two people. And oh yeah, Asher was at minimum notified of said launderer’s death. Jennifer might be pretty dang good at denial, but that one would strain even her ability to pretend everything’s fine.
Asher is definitely a complex character, and one I am not inclined to be too sympathetic for at this time, but I’ll give him this: I’m always intrigued to see him.
Asher suffers from the fact this is a slice of life comic and in another more exaggerated universe would still be a decent guy or love interest with “troubled” applied to him. Like in say a comic book or adventure novel.
But it IS a slice of life comic and he is a MURDERER.
Well, he’s complicit in a murder but he probably didn’t order it and definitely didn’t pull the trigger. That’s still pretty bad though, and frankly regardless of his personal virtues “family are powerful mobsters” is a bit of a dealbreaker
I mean, if you have to come up with technicalities to say why you’re not *technically* a murderer, you really should start finding some moral high ground outside the firing range.
Hell, the argument “The world was worse for Blaine’s presence and is better for his absence” works a hell of a lot better in justifying it than pleading down “murder” to “conspiracy to commit murder”.
If he didn’t order it (definite, a kid who previously recused himself from the “family business” doesn’t have that kind of pull) or ask a family member to do it for him (quite possible, there’s nothing in the comic yet that says he did) or do it himself, then we’re getting into a “sins of the fathers” thing if we’re still holding Blaine’s death over him. For all we know, he could’ve just told Gramps to turn on the TV, maybe mention that he’d been threatened, and that was the whole extent of it.
Remember also that Blaine’s blackmail threat would have put Asher in literal mortal peril. The Mob doesn’t like people who leave and really doesn’t like people who steal large sums from them, and Asher is both.
“For all we know, he could’ve just told Gramps to turn on the TV, maybe mention that he’d been threatened, and that was the whole extent of it.”
That comes awfully close to “Won’t someone rid me of this meddlesome priest” as far as justifications go. He was central enough to Blaine’s murder to get notified that it was done, after all. Even if all he did was go “hey Gramps, Blaine just threatened to blackmail me”, he was aware enough of what would come of that to be culpable.
My totally unsubstantiated guess for how things went was:
– Asher gets blackmailed.
– Asher goes to SOMEONE, probably not Gramps, and says ‘hey one of the money launderers is trying to threaten me into going along with some bizarre revenge scheme of his.’ (Could be Lester, could be a relative he considers more likely to keep his whereabouts secret, could be another intermediary, COULD be Gramps but he’s riskiest.)
– His contact says ‘We’ll take care of it, just go along with things for now and let us know what he specifically wants from you and when it happens.’
– Asher goes on his merry way, knowing ‘take care of it’ has a pretty decent shot of meaning ‘Blaine ends up dead,’ but is probably somewhat inured to the concept already given he had MET one of Gramps’ money launderers enough for them to recognize each other on sight. That suggests he was at least AWARE of precisely what the family business is and what that can imply, though I doubt he’s seen a man murdered before or anything.
– Kidnapping goes down, Asher sends ominous text, the mob makes sure they have one of their cops in position for whatever’s to follow, etc.
– Meanwhile, if everyone in the know WASN’T 100% set on ‘yeah that stooge is dead’ BEFORE said stooge’s name ends up in the morning news, they sure as hell are now. Lester kills Blaine as soon as he has an opportunity to do so.
But I do think Blaine was doomed the moment he got himself arrested even if he HADN’T blackmailed Asher – it was just too big and too stupid to be swept under the rug, there was already one person dead and another comatose, and once it would sink in to Blaine that he was screwed, I think there was a pretty good chance he would have tried to flip and incriminate the mob… and his finances themselves would have done the work even if he hadn’t, especially since his ‘motive’ was not wanting to pay Amber’s tuition. Just, yeah, whatever Asher said to get on the mailing list of ‘your problem is dead,’ I think he knew this was not going to end with Blaine alive. I don’t think he was actively involved in the decisionmaking process, and it was in fact ‘if he tells Gramps I am either dead or at best have no chance of escape’ versus tell someone and Blaine will die, but he’s smart enough to have realized his actions were almost certainly going to lead to Blaine dying. I don’t blame him for that, because he was in fact being blackmailed with implied threat of death into assisting with a VERY DUMB kidnapping scheme from an abusive dickweed with more ego than strategy. Still at least a little complicit in the death. Probably did not have any clue that the kidnapping was going to end in one of Blaine’s accomplices getting murdered, or that Blaine would also contribute to a totally unrelated kid’s death (I don’t think the mobsters knew Mike knew about Blaine’s money laundering. Because if you’re bad enough at covering your tracks a THIRTEEN-YEAR-OLD figured out you’re a money launderer, and your employers know that, you’re a liability for that alone.) I do think Asher might feel bad about that, and for the kids he put in harm’s way, but at the same time justifies it to himself with something like ‘my hands were tied, and I didn’t think he’d be THAT dumb to actually kill someone.’ Besides, he couldn’t have prevented Mike’s death, that’s not on him. Maybe his actions contributed to Ross’s, you know, circumstantially, but Ross was an abusive kidnapper himself so hey, no great loss.
I have to keep wondering if this is a hidden twist by Our Author…
I mean the obvious conclusion of “it’s done” appearing on Asher’s phone back in the day is “Blaine is dead”.
But isn’t this the same time that the other person who could reveal the money laundering evidence also passes away?
Asher probably didn’t directly intend Mike to be done in, but if Gramps is cleaning up loose ends then ensuring the guy didn’t wake up from the coma is a lot less suspicious than “suicide by cop”, and Gramps probably wouldn’t be comfortable unless both sources of information leak were quieted.
I don’t suppose we really know how ruthless (no pun intended) that Asher is. He could be a made man and not even slightly on the outs with the mob, or he could be a friendly guy on a bike having overcome teen misbehavior. But it seems possible he could be a much darker figure and not just a fellow with a troubled background.
A lot of assumptions that Asher just broke into her place and even if so it’s not like he’s the only person pick the lock to the lover place for a quick meet up. I’m sure Jennifer can attest to that given her last relationship.
Maybe it’s the turtleneck doing that for you? For me, he keeps making me think “70s mecha pilot”, like Ryo Nagare from Getter Robo or Tetsuya Tsurugi from Great Mazinger, especially the latter.
Yo, Willis, I know you’re trying to run a business here and all that and that by allowing ads here you are getting something back for it (either a cash payment or cheaper hosting fees, maybe?), and I don’t begrudge you that … but every time I come to the page I get a pop-up ad covers something like 3/4 of the right side of the screen, forcing me to wait until it runs its course and then maybe I can move on. But no, it pops up with another one every so often, or if I move to an earlier page to follow a link then that page goes through the same thing.
Is there some way you can speak to whomever to maybe eliminate that one particularly obnoxious pop-up?
Random tip from a web developer: if you right click and “inspect element” you will see the source code the browser is working from, and you can delete elements on the fly. Try to find the top “container” element. It doesn’t always work with ads, but you never know.
Depends on what their “protocol” is.
Getting into the building is no big deal and I keep being surprised that people think it is. These are dorms. People walk in and out all the time. Plenty of our characters have gone to visit other dorms or been visited and there’s never been any sign of them calling to be let in or anything like that.
The room is more of a problem – though I’ll point at Billie getting into Ruth’s room more than once.
Blaine threatened him into pulling a fire alarm, so then the dorm was evacuated and the cast got kidnapped. Asher’s knowledge of this isn’t totally known and then he had Blaine murdered by that cop.
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yeah um
no
a hot guy committing a crime is still a crime
To be fair, how many times did Billie break into Ruth’s room, again?
Yeah, about that, people tend to have more flexible boundaries about things like that depending on their degree of familiarity. It’s not “hot guy committing a crime” it’s “date-friend surprise greeting you in the morning”. Some people are actually ok or even cherish such things. It’s a risky play, especially in USA. And Ms Billingsworth doesn’t seem particularly enamoured of it. Though she is not objecting significantly either. 🤷♂️
I’m too tired to look, but isn’t Asher a townie?
Townies aren’t just allowed to walk into student housing. Has nothing to do with their romantic status – it’s a security hazard for the school.
He’s a student
And lives in McNutt. Nut. Heh, heh.
we had to sign in everyone who didn’t live in that dorm
so Zaph wouldn’t have to sign in
Asher would
That’s clearly not policy at IU. Pretty rare in American colleges in general, as far as I can tell.
depends on the school and the type of building. in mine you had to sign in only if it was after 11 pm, in my cousins school anyone had to sign in no matter what time or who they were.
At mine there was no sign-in, but your keys would only work for your own dorm. Not to mention he’s not in a common area, he’s in her actual room, which definitely has a lock.
The rooms certainly, it’s just the constant shock that students can get into other dorms that surprises me.
In retrospect tailgating is definitely a thing and prolly what’s happening
Until his gramps says “Back in the Gang with you.” that is….
I thought he was a student. Wasn’t that a whole thing where Sal was like “fun fact, he goes here” and that’s why Walky wanted to go and check and see if he was a safe guy now?
Relevant Strip:
https://www.dumbingofage.com/2019/comic/book-9-comic/03-sometimes-the-sky-was-so-far-away/settled/
You too tired to do some matrix style spoon bending? 🥄😎
BTW Fabulous to see you here again Rose!!! 😊
When you’re on a certain relationship and trust level it’s cute.
When they keep asking who let you in, you fucked up. You are not at the relationship/trust level to do that.
I don’t think Jennifer is worried about Asher invading her personal space; she’s uncomfortable about being seen before she’s put herself together. ‘Billie, when she wasn’t hung over, was pretty vain; ‘Jennifer’ is even more so.
I can definitely see why’d you’d say Billie/Jennifer is vain, but fwiw a lot of femme folk feel this way about people seeing them before they feel put together because we’ve been conditioned to believe our natural face and state is somehow offensive to people 🙁
If we’re confident we’re “Full of ourselves”
If we’re insecure, we’re “vain”
Can’t win either way.
Its not necessarily that they arent at that level, it seems to me that Billifer somewhat appreciates it, and is just worried about security in general
Agreed, but also Lucy letting him in would be a very different level of boundary breaking than, say, him having copied her room key
Thank you for bringing the nuance…although does it really require much nuance to see this?
Nuance seems not to be the default state of american media, so… shrugs. Maybe, I guess?
And this grav is really adding a cringey patronizing top-spin that is **not** intended.
Is it a crime if Lucy let him in, though?
This custom in which college student have to share their bedrooms with strangers is awkward and rather shady.
You say it’s educational?
Oh FFS grow up. Normal people do romantic things that don’t involve asking permission every five seconds or descending into a shame spiral of “ZOMG EVERY INTERACTION IS AN ASSAULT!!!”
It’s a little early for “love” don’t you think? Well it’s not too early for me to say I still don’t trust Asher. That is all.
I don’t trust Asher either – he obviously isn’t as disconnected from his family as he pretends and while every couple has secrets I imagine ‘By the way, I helped a crazy hardware salesman kidnap you and your friends’ is gonna sorta be a deal breaker and not the sort of foundation of trust a good relationship is based on. That said I don’t think Asher has some grand scheme going here and likely legitimately loves Jennifer.
My read on Asher remains that he wants to be a good dude but isn’t very good at it
“Why am I so bad at being GOOD?!” ~Zuko
Maybe the “I also arranged the hit that put that piece of shit out of everyone’s misery” factor will help? Somehow?
I mean, it wouldn’t for me, but Jennifer/Billie’s been in some pretty toxic relationships in the past.
Also, yeah, Asher’s immersed in ugly ass shit, but that doesn’t mean that everything he does is sinister. He could well genuinely care for her.
Yeah, I’ve kinda been wondering about that too. I’m honestly not sure where Billie would ultimately fall on that, but I feel like “Get the hell away from me!” has got to be her initial reaction, at least. It’d take a level of mental gymnastics that would put her old cheerleading days to shame to rationalize how he’s still a good match for her after *that* bombshell drops.
Of course, there is another, incredibly dark possibility that just occurred to me. Billie is, as demonstrated before, pretty aware of how terrible some guys can be when it comes to relationships, and so I feel like it wouldn’t be lost on her that a guy with the connections to have someone assassinated can probably have a girlfriend that just broke up with him and may potentially expose said hit job to the authorities assassinated herself if he was feeling bitter enough about it.
Granted, I highly doubt that Asher *would* do that, and maybe Billie would give him the benefit of the doubt on that front as well, but the fact that that possibility even *exists* may be enough motivation for her to stay with him anyway out of fear for her safety, in which case…*hoo boy*.
Yikes.
We should keep in mind that Jennifer/Billie does know that Asher’s Grandfather is Not A Nice Person, at the very least, and that Asher used to be a criminal.
…it’s possible that she knows about his involvement that night. It wouldn’t exactly surprise me to learn that she’d be okay with Blaine getting Suicide By Cop’d, given all the shit he’d done, and Asher seems the sort that could spin that into a sob story about his personal growth.
Not saying likely. Just a possibility.
Putting the sketchy parts of his character aside, I just feel like it’s a little quick to be dropping “love”, everyone has their own emotions and such, but it just feels a little sleazy. Like they’ve been dating maybe 2 months tops and we didn’t see any of it. I have no basis for what they’re relationship is like beyond I guess they’re both hot.
In fairness, Dorothy also said she loved Walky in less time than that.
They’re 18 and 19. Love happens pretty fast when you don’t have the experience to separate it from infatuation.
To add to the “likely loves Jennifer” part, we should keep in mind that the last time we saw him, he seemed genuinely concerned that his relationship with Jennifer was causing a rift between her and Sal, even when she was basically cackling maniacally at the idea of Sal being jealous of them.
So I dunno, could be that he’s evil or toxic, but the other side of the relationship doesn’t seem to be too much better in that department, at least as far as appearances are concerned.
Jennifer wasn’t kidnapped that night, she had been transferred to Forrest already. She had some involvement when Blaine weaseled his way into Amber’s room, so she knew who he was but that’s the extent of it.
feels like younger ppl say it faster these days, but i’m just thinking of morning breath more than any bedhead /messy clothes lol
Honestly morning breath is the worst lol someone can look just 👌 in the morning, but everyone’s morning breath is nasty lol
Depends on Billie’s oral care routine. You think she’s the type that brushes before bed?
We’re a type?
feels like some ppl would still get bad morning breath after brushing but it might depend , then again with billies previous (current?) drinking issues i imagine she’d be an expert on hiding stuff on her breath by now lol
Brushing before bed does not help with morning breath
Agreed re: morning breath.
I tell my friends I love them. Because to me “love” means “If you died, I wouldn’t every be ok with it. I would have to change my lifestyle because of it.” Which sounds morbid but it’s a very powerful emotion.
Damn that’s real
Nah it’s always been the trope that young couples say “i love you” like a week in. Kind of a funny observation though considering how couples of younger generations are waiting longer to marry
Ruth and Jennifer broke up on Halloween and it’s now January. We don’t know how long she’s been with Asher, and they did already have history. It’s not totally out of the question.
Yeah, Ruth said she loved Jennifer after a comparable amount of time, and we don’t actually know how much history Asher and Jennifer have.
😊 Billy’s body looks so cute without her glasses!
😑 To bad such a repugnant bourgeois brain comes with it.
*plays “Reconstruct” by Photay on Hacked Muzak*
Her brain is of the 18th century French middle-class? I don’t understand.
Bourgeois/Bourgeoisie has, since the 17th century, come to mean “owning class” or just “rich people”, I think mainly because that’s how Karl Marx and some of his contemporaries used it.
*18th Century. I always get centuries mixed up.
*19th century, for that matter.
The 19th century is the 1800s, during which era Marx wrote his contributions to world history.
The 20th century is the 1900s, during which said contributions to world history spawned two of the three worst totalitarian dictatorships in known history*, albeit they shared exceedingly little with him beyond initial starting premises and naming conventions.
It’s ironic that the final of the three worst totalitarian dictatorships in known history was spawned through the intense hatred of Marx’s contributions and the desire to defeat the political movements which had grown from it.
*There’s reasonable arguments to be made that many absolutist monarchs and emperors were just as bad, and even committed atrocities on similar scales of death-counts, and it’s quite probable that Genghis Khan might have made them look like rank amateurs in that regard… But either through proximity in linear time, or through our rather bullheaded belief that we modern humans are somehow ‘better’ than our earlier predecessors, we tend to be in agreement that recent atrocities are to be viewed as worse atrocities committed centuries or even millennia prior.
…which three totalitarian dictatorships are you referring to?
The two that share very little with Marx beyond starting premises and naming conventions should be trivial to catch; the USSR and PRC. Both of these have committed multiple genocides totalling tens of millions of people. Both of them purport(ed) to be Communist, but neither of them truly follow(ed) communism.
The last is even easier. Nazi Germany, from its inception, was centered around being anti-communist/anti-socialist. Indeed, the early Nazis cut their teeth on fighting (figuratively and literally) against the German Socialist and Communist party members.
This isn’t to exonerate anyone else, least of all America, or Britain, however the known death toll of those three is greater than any other regimes in modern times, at very least greater than any others during the 20th century.
But… all three of these began in the 20th century.
As they said: all 20th century. 2 spawned by Marx’s ideas from the 19th. The third centered around opposition to those ideas.
Also, while not intending to get into a whole massive debate here: I might agree that neither the USSR nor the PRC were Marxist for most of their history, but saying that they were never Communist is going full-on into the “No True Scotsman” fallacy. If it shouldn’t be used to call Christians who do awful things “not real Christians”, it shouldn’t be used to call Communists who do awful things “not real Communists”.
(One side of my family comes from the former USSR—from back in the days when it wasn’t yet “the former”—so there’s also that for me personally.)
It really depends on what you mean by “communist”. Politically, both China and Russia are/were ruled by a communist party, both of which barely held any resemblance to Marx’s and Engels’ dually collaborated philosophy.
Economically, no nation in history has ever established communism, which in the works of Marx and Engels entailed that which followed the Communist Principle of Distribution: “From each according to their ability, on to each according to their need”.
In Russia’s socialist command economy, distribution unto each was still according to contribution, and soviet economic planners were quick to point out that this is exactly why they were a socialist economy and not a communist economy. Their goal was to eventually transition to a communist economy, which they said would happen when need could replace contribution in distribution. By the Soviets’ own reckoning, they never made it to being a truly communist economy, because it went through a depression right before their nation’s eventual collapse.
As for China, their government dismantled all socialist economic policies in the 1970s, although the nation as a whole is still very much ruled by a “communist” (Maoist) party.
Yeah, when I at least talk about communist governments, it’s safe to assume that I’m speaking of ideology, not economy. Arguing that the Soviet Union wasn’t a communist government in ideology because their economy never hit the Marxist ideal…it’s the same idea as arguing that since X Megachurch or Priesthood or Member or Organization or whatever “isn’t following the words of Jesus or doing what he would have wanted”, they aren’t True Christians™.
(This was meant to be a reply to The Wellerman above, sorry.)
I understand your point being to avoid exonerating world-views that have committed atrocities, and I even rather agree with that viewpoint. However, I would like to make one counter-argument to you.
Ideologically communist nations (which do not and likely cannot exist in reality) are not ruled by a select leader, indeed the leader is of no importance beyond being excellent at the act of leading, and receives no greater accolades than the janitor who cleans his rooms. By contrast totalitarian dictatorships, regardless of spawning ideology, are wholly governed by a select leader, becoming from the moment of inception cults of personality centered around the charismatic strong-man. In the case of the USSR, first Lenin, then Stalin; later leaders didn’t so much rule in their own power as in the memory of these earlier ones. The same with the PRC, with Mao.
Now, for what it’s worth, since you want to make the point that words matter, the name of the People’s Republic of China doesn’t actually use either Socialist or Communist in it’s own title. Are we thus to disregard it as communist as a consequence of that? Of course not, that would be illogical. The original driving ideology of Mao was communism, and the self-claimed goal of the nation was to make the transition to a communist state. But once it became totalitarian, I would argue that only the trappings remained. Had Mao instead chosen to implement a theocratic state with himself as head (either in the role of ‘god on Earth’ or that of ‘representative of god’), then the trappings would have been different, but the total control of the government would have been the same.
Still, I think we are more in agreement than disagreement- those who are entirely pro-Communist/Socialist must contend with the fact that their ideology has spawned states capable of committing grievous atrocities. But of course, so must everyone else.
Would you argue the same would apply to anarchocommunists?
Oh yeah she’s dating this @@@hole
It’s okay, this is an adult comic. You can say that word.
She’s dating this piehole.
MMM… pie. My favorite is pumpkin pie but I also love apple.
Both of which are objectively inferior to pecan.
Macaroni pie is the best pie. Take your sweet fillings out of here.
Huh, the Tom Holland poster. Does she still have the Andrew Garfield one, or did she replace it?
Or did it change by itself as a natural result of the floating timeline? Has Sal’s DS magically become a Switch?
😊 You’re the timelord, silly! You tell us!
Clearly it regenerated into Tom Holland.
It does correspond to the timeskip and thus the break-up/name-change, so it could actually be an in-universe swap.
I think it’s mainly a floating timeline thing though
I hope in 5-10 years it’s a poster of whoever live action Miles Morales is (I figure we’ll see him before Holland gets officially replaced as live action Peter Parker).
Oh, I thought it was Fonzie. Tom Holland would make more sense.
Not sure if Asher’s giving me bad vibes here purely because Jennifer is obviously a bit uncomfortable with this, or because we the audience know the dude straight-up called a hit on a man
Probably at least partially the latter, since Joyce sneaking into people’s rooms without their consent to wake them up is pretty much always played for laughs
I suspect it’s mainly the mob stuff
It’s also interesting how Panel 1 is staged more-or-less identically to the archetypal wakey-wakey Joyce panel, but super-subdued with a calm expression and no exclamation point in the greeting. Similar, but just different enough to be unnerving. It’s kinda uncanny-valley-y.
Guess we could chalk it up to Uncanny Valley + We know that guy called a hit for why panel 1 seems so…
Off
Eh, he called in the hit on Blaine. That’s a tick in the ‘good guy’ column, surely?
Haha That’s kinda how I always felt. I mean the mob is bad, of course, but as long as they’re cutting off loose ends and he’s not actively doing anything against or crew he’s honestly in the green.
Not to give Asher too much credit, either, but Blaine was going to get offed eventually, anyway. He was a really obvious liability at that point. Asher probably only hastened the inevitable.
Yeah, like, worst thing Asher did was give ’em a head’s up to turn on the 8 AM news. That’s assuming he actually asked for the hit and didn’t just ask to be told when it was over.
Asher’s actual level of involvement in the assassination isn’t even clear, and no matter what he did Blaine was a dead man walking
Yup. He was not long for the world once he started kicking up more trouble for the mob than he was worth.
I don’t think killing Blaine was morally wrong, but I do think that Asher primarily killed Blaine to avoid his own secret getting out, which leads me to worry that he might be willing to do the same to other people he knows.
Like yeah, the fact that he’s told Jennifer that he used to be in the mob is a good sign, but I keep waiting for the “oh dear, it seems you’ve seen it” shoe to drop.
Sal’s known for months and he hasn’t done fuck all. I think what he’ll do depends strongly on who knows, how they know and whether or not they plan to find out.
As for killing him to keep his own secret? If that secret gets out, there is a very decent chance Asher ends up dead in a ditch. HE STOLE A MOBSTER’S MONEY.
It’s still suspicious. It’s very convenient for him that he has lots of justification for all his actions, some of which put people in very real and life threatening danger. That’s not okay. I feel like the acceptance of him is only possible because no one died when Asher essentially traded multiple other lives for his own.
Believing that requires him to have known about the kidnapping specifically. It’s been a while, but I don’t think he knew about that part of the plan.
That just sounds like another convenient excuse to me.
He didn’t know what Blaine was planning. Blaine said he wasn’t gonna hurt anyone. Honest and trustworthy Blaine LIED to him!
He was only 13. Kids make stupid decisions; we can’t hold him responsible for that. Plus Sal and him have made amends. It’s totally okay now.
It’s the mob. Why not steal a little money on your way out if you can? It’s the mob! He’s basically Robin Hood!
Maybe he was involved in a hit on Blaine, maybe he was just getting a dark confirmation from Galasso’s that his deluxe pizza and sub combo meal was ready. We don’t know! Honest and trustworthy Blaine sucked anyway so who cares right?
Maybe he’s still connected to the mob, we can’t know, but if he is it’s probably because his life is in danger. He stole money from them after all. They’ll kill him for that!
I totally exaggerated on most of these for comedic effect, But you get it. If there’s always a convenient excuse or justification for someone’s questionable acts, maybe they’re just a questionable person. A hot one though! That’s all I’m saying.
Questionable, sure, but I’m not sold on villainous yet. Especially because, c’mon, it’s fucking BLAINE. Again, if Asher helped kill him, all it does is make me wanna give him cookies and beer.
That Asher’s family are mobsters wouldn’t be a secret.
No, but his involvement in the kidnapping specifically would be a secret, as would his involvement in Blaine’s death.
Yeah, but Jennifer doesn’t know that bit
There’s also the caveat that Blaine *himself* also had mob connections. So it’d be far easier for him to out Asher to the mob than it would be for the average person to do so.
I’m still gonna hold off on judging Asher too much until we know his full involvement in Blaine’s hit. As of right now, all we know is that Asher was notified of Blaine’s death.
Also, assuming Asher did order the hit on Blaine, it’s still a pretty big leap to think he’d put a hit out on a another student. A college student dying or going missing would be huge news, especially after the other stuff that’s gone down in-universe this school year. Especially Jennifer, a pretty, (half-)white girl with a rich and well-connected family.
Yeah I’m vividly aware of the double standards when it comes to the comment section where everything a person they don’t like is played very straight and realistic vs. a character they like/indifferent to.
I still recall a commenter bringing up Walky popping into Amber’s room for a silly quip as this awful terrible thing he did despite Becky also doing the same thing in the same strip.
As Billie said though, there’s a protocol which is probably why this comes off as more suspicious. Joyce mostly pops into rooms connected by the shared half bath, and we’ve never seen her go into another wing and pop into a boys room. In fact when she had that opportunity she had Danny the roommate do the wake up routine for her. It’s a subtle but different tone here. It will probably be dismissed by tomorrow though. I doubt it’s something sinister. Just typical Asher getting a free pass for being his hot and untrustworthy self.
Or we could draw the other parallel of Billie breaking into Ruth’s room.
We should also remember, since it’s often forgotten, that Joyce going into other rooms to wake people up was critiqued in the comic and she’s learned from it and stopped.
But what does Jennifer mean by “protocol”. This doesn’t sound like a generic thing – morning breakins are only allowed through the half-bath, but more like some kind of agreement between them.
And honestly, with the “you’re not supposed to see me like this”, it seems tied to Jennifer’s whole pretenses thing. Not supposed to see her until she’s properly made up. Which is a lousy stance in a relationship – which still doesn’t mean he should breach it, cause that’s lousy in itself.
I personally read the protocol as being between Jennifer and Lucy regarding who can be let in when.
And that this situation is one of the ‘unacceptable’ situations.
Possible. I still don’t like the “you’re not supposed to see me like this” aspect.
For me, panel 1 is the creepiest. His smile is a little too… assassiny murdery for my liking.
Like, if you replaced his word bubble with the “shush shush shhh” line from every assassin who does that shtick, it would fit his expression perfectly.
You mean like The Reaper from Assassination Classroom?
Yeah, totes on that one.
I was actually thinking of the guy from Sin City.
And, to your comment above, thanks. **wave**
For me it’s a bit of both, and his face in the first panel kinda creeps me out too.
I ended a relationship on the spot over exactly this kind of breach of “protocol”.
Violating a specific boundary would be a big no for me as well.
Damn I agree with Asher though. She is Beautiful. Super Pretty.
I’m simpin.
Jennifer is a gorgeous woman, that’s just how it’s always been.
I personally think this is super cute (and hope Asher remains on the “okay my family forced me to be involved in something horrible but I’m not cool with it” side of the Chaotic Neutral line).
Aye, the two-panel long make-out session there seems to indicate that Jennifer/Billie is, at most, mildly annoyed by this but otherwise fine.
Sure, future strips could change this view, we’re mid-story, nothing is certain, but I’m comfortable settling for “Dawww, the mob baby’s being a cutie” here :).
Ok so I’m not sure when I’ll get to actually make this, but I had an urge recently that I’ve become OBSESSED with. Don’t know when I’ll get around to it but we’ll see.
But here’s a little teaser…
https://imgur.com/a/PAwh8UI
Gotta say, you do a good Billie.
She’s my current “hottest DOA girl” so I really wanna capture her Billiness as best I can.
Oh damn.
And yeah, your character design is spot on. **chef kiss**
I can’t tell how I feel about this pair now a days. I can’t put my finger on it but I just know the clashing feelings are strong and confusing.
Damn it everything about Billie these days just leaves me feeling confused.
For me I was hesitant to ship it cuz I see Billie and Walkya s basically being siblings. BUUUUUUUUT I also just think their dynamic would be fun soooooooooo.
also they’re both hottiesYou said it bruh!
Or should I say, Porn Lord in Training? 😛
I wonder if this is how people felt when they shipped Eren & Mikasa all these years.
The spark was definitely their at one point for me but I’ve gotten to used to seeimg it as a pseudo sibling dynamic after spending so long thinking it wasn’t happening.
That’s weird. It’s a weird pair.
I’m into it, do more.
did he… lockpick the door ?
Wouldn’t shock me.
Also, it really does weird me out that the dorm rooms have, you know, physical keys. When I was in college, it was a key card, like in a hotel. And this was in the mid-00’s…
keycards tend to be pretty awfu, security wise
I mean, sure, but neither are dorm rooms, all told.
Honestly? I’d put money on it.
Not like a ton, because there’s lots that goes on in this comic. But, like, enough so that I could get in a quick “Ha! Called it!”, y’know?
karma is a bongo. Remember Billie lockpicking Ruth’s door?
It’s far easier and less conspicuous to just go through when someone else opens the door. For Asher, that means showing up at about the time when Lucy’s schedule takes her out to class. When Lucy comes out, smile, say “Mornin’, Lucy”, catch the door as it swings to, and go in as Lucy is walking away.
I used to have a friend who worked in a “secure” building on a university campus. The bloke whom my friend shared an office with had been attacked with an axe by his girlfriend’s husband, so the university had ramped up security. And it used to drive my friend crazy that when I wanted to call on him I always just strolled into his office, never called him on the intercom from the secure entrance. I could just walk through the door when someone with a key-card opened it.
Easier to do without notice entering a building than a specific room.
In this scenario, when Lucy comes out, Asher’s not some rando walking up at the same moment, but her roomie’s boyfriend obviously here to see her.
Yep. People are very ready to allow things to happen that they think of as normal. The trick is to get dealt with by people’s peripheral attention, and not become the thing that they are paying attention to.
And it’s not as though Asher risks anything if he tries it: if he misses Lucy’s exit he can knock on the door; if Lucy doesn’t just let him pass then he asks her to check with
Please answer the question dude, sidestepping it makes you incredibly sus.
. . . I wonder what it says about me morally that I don’t have much of a problem with Asher up to this point.
Like calling a hit on Blaine, after Blaine blackmailed and threatened him? Yeah I don’t really have an issue with that.
Him setting Sal up as the fallguy? Yeah that I find morally wrong but he earned back some points by being understanding as to why and how Walky reacted to finding out.
But if he began to be controlling and or . . .well creepy I would start seeing him as the antagonist like so many seem to be waiting for the shoe to drop as it were.
Huh… I forget about the Sal thing, does anyone have a link to that?
https://www.dumbingofage.com/2019/comic/book-9-comic/04-vote-for-robin/trail/
Yeah, he totally did that.
Personally, I don’t even think Asher necessarily called the hit on Blaine – Blaine was fucking dead for that one the moment Gramps found out his money laundering stooge had gotten arrested for KIDNAPPING A CONGRESS MEMBER’S CAMPAIGN MANAGER and she tweeted about it with his name because he bailed out her dad USING HIS REAL NAME, Asher at most got on the mailing list – I do think it’s worrisome that he apparently IS still in contact with active mob members. Either he thinks he’s in way more control of that situation than he actually is, because as monumentally stupid as Blaine’s plan was making his death a guarantee, I still doubt Lester would’ve acted without Gramps’ clearance… or he’s actually back in now. Either way, that’s dangerous for him and everyone else in his orbit.
Like, I don’t even blame Asher for that one necessarily. He was in a very dangerous situation the moment he realized he maybe didn’t want to go along with what the family had planned for him, and as an 18-year-old I can get how ‘steal a ton of money for tuition and go to school IN THE SAME CITY GRAMPS HAS COPS ON THE TAKE’ seemed reasonable… or at least less absurdly bad of an idea as it would be to someone who’s not a teenager. But it’s still an absurdly bad idea, and one that is narratively guaranteed to backfire at some point. At best, he’s falling back on the devil he knows when threatened… which will eventually be a problem, because even if Gramps is willing to forgive Asher when he inevitably finds out about the stolen money, there’s going to be caveats there. At worst, he thinks this situation is one he can totally manage and Lester WOULDN’T pick the guy who’s actually paying him over the boss’s grandkid who wants out. I would not make that bet. (I mean, at ABSOLUTE worst, Asher was lying about leaving at all, stole the money for kicks, and brings the worst of both worlds because he can call on the mob AND will be in for a world of trouble when Gramps inevitably finds out. And is dating Jennifer because her dad’s rich and they want to get a line on him somehow. But that one seems a bit unlikely.)
Great to see you got some of your spoons back Regalli!
Makes me that much happier to see you around here again, with these kilo paragraphs! 😊
More ‘my sleep schedule is currently fucked,’ alas. Tragically, society is diurnal.
Mine too. 😑
Imma try this “segmented sleep” thing that was apparently practiced before the industrial revolution, and see if that helps with my neurodivergent, scattery mess of a mind.
If not, a bizarre dream to take my mind off things would be nice too.
🧠 Have any interesting dreams lately, Regalli?
*plays “Gateway Galaxy” by Koji Kondo*
In short, I don’t necessarily think Asher’s morally wrong yet, or even necessarily going to be an antagonist (though I REALLY want to know what he’s thinking because there’s so much room between ‘is back with the mob because eh, that didn’t work out’ and ‘thinks he can just make contact with Lester but there will be no consequences and everything is fine’,) but I do think it’s a given he’ll eventually be trouble for the rest of the cast whether he wants to or not. You don’t set up a minor character as the grandson of a mob boss (who another, major character’s evil father worked for,) show him receiving an ominous text immediately after said evil father has been killed by the mob for terminal stupidity, and then cut to him dating another castmember WITHOUT the mob boss thing coming up again. You particularly don’t do that after establishing he stole a significant chunk of change for college tuition FROM said mob boss grandfather. He might be sympathetic when that blows up, but he’s definitely a time bomb of a character all the same.
I can certainly see something about the Grandfather finding out and *convincing* Asher to work off his debt in the family business.
Which . . .would be fair and also the exact thing that Asher was trying to get away from in the first place. But this time with no actual choice in the matter.
And I can see several ways on how that could tie into the rest of the cast.
Especially when he’s dating someone in the main cast.
Someone who, incidentally, has a very rich father who can at least influence town policy. I would not want to be on Asher’s grandfather’s radar if I were Jennifer.
Like, I feel bad for him in that respect, it’s not really his FAULT he didn’t want to work for the mob and this very bad plan seemed like his best option, but you know. Still a ticking bomb who I would prefer NOT to have the cast in the blast radius of, even if he doesn’t want to be.
(It’s also worth noting that, from what we know of Asher – selling out Sal to protect himself, contacting Lester to protect himself from Blaine but also still aiding Blaine’s plan and pulling the fire alarm – he has definitely been portrayed to this point as willing to put someone else in harm’s way to keep himself safe. Nothing personal there, but he comes first. That seems like it might cause problems down the line for other characters as well.)
Wait a second right there:
Where does it say he stole the money for tuition?
https://www.dumbingofage.com/2019/comic/book-10/01-birthday-pursuit/wiggly/
Blaine brings it up in their conversation, too, so he was definitely telling the truth about ‘grabbing some of Gramps’ money, under the table’ rather than lying to Sal for whatever reason. (This is how Blaine could blackmail him.) While it’s theoretically POSSIBLE he was telling the truth about that but lying about it being for tuition for some reason, I think it’s more likely he wanted out and is finding it harder to escape than he thought.
I mean I don’t blame him for the Sal thing because he was a child.
And children do stupid things.
I believe him when he’s claiming he just wants to start over. But even so I can see the issues he may have dealing with that.
The “Setting up Sal” thing I think all parties have gotten past and the thing with Blaine I feel like was more him throwing Blaine under the buss more than putting a hit out on him since Blaine caused a mess and dragged him into it, someone had to take the fall and it was either Blaine or him.
The only thing I would see would be a problem is the last conversation We had with Sal wondering if how much Billie knows about his past. Her saying he comes from a “rich family” and not a “crime family” doesn’t indicate that she knows or not about the truth. Being with him could involve her in some serious shit and she wouldn’t even know.
Oh wait she said “powerful” not “ritch” that fits more like she’s aware.
Jennifer said she knew his grandfather was dangerous (or something to that effect,) but seems to think he’s a risk more like her own father is (and while I don’t doubt he caused people’s deaths with that bussing out the homeless bit, much less things we don’t know about, there’s a world of difference between ‘has serious influence over politicians’ and ‘mob boss, with cops on his payroll who will definitely kill you if he gives the order.’ Daddingsworth can probably call a hit if he really wanted to, but I doubt he’s in the practice of actually doing it.) I also seriously doubt she knows that he stole tuition money from Gramps – or if she does, hasn’t put the pieces together that that is A LOT OF MONEY to steal from someone who would 100% kill a lackey for it if they WEREN’T family – and that he was in contact with one of Gramps’ dirty cops since starting school. Because a money launderer figured out he’d stolen the money and tried to blackmail him. And then got him involved in kidnapping, among other people, Jennifer’s surrogate brother. And that ended with the launderer dead after murdering two people. And oh yeah, Asher was at minimum notified of said launderer’s death. Jennifer might be pretty dang good at denial, but that one would strain even her ability to pretend everything’s fine.
He also created the opportunity for Blaine to kidnap a good chunk of the main cast by pulling a fire alarm because he was blackmailed to.
Yeah, no i don’t care about Asher either. I’d need to see more evil intent for him to ping as more than “somewhat sketchy” on my radar
I think he’s okay. He’s made some hard choices due to his family circumstances, but we’ve never seen him hurt someone on a whim like Ryan.
Asher is definitely a complex character, and one I am not inclined to be too sympathetic for at this time, but I’ll give him this: I’m always intrigued to see him.
I really, really want him to be a decent guy on some level, just because like, he’s probably a really interesting character that way.
Asher at least seems to be sincere and well meaning. He’s trying to be good
Asher suffers from the fact this is a slice of life comic and in another more exaggerated universe would still be a decent guy or love interest with “troubled” applied to him. Like in say a comic book or adventure novel.
But it IS a slice of life comic and he is a MURDERER.
Well, he’s complicit in a murder but he probably didn’t order it and definitely didn’t pull the trigger. That’s still pretty bad though, and frankly regardless of his personal virtues “family are powerful mobsters” is a bit of a dealbreaker
I mean, if you have to come up with technicalities to say why you’re not *technically* a murderer, you really should start finding some moral high ground outside the firing range.
Hell, the argument “The world was worse for Blaine’s presence and is better for his absence” works a hell of a lot better in justifying it than pleading down “murder” to “conspiracy to commit murder”.
If he didn’t order it (definite, a kid who previously recused himself from the “family business” doesn’t have that kind of pull) or ask a family member to do it for him (quite possible, there’s nothing in the comic yet that says he did) or do it himself, then we’re getting into a “sins of the fathers” thing if we’re still holding Blaine’s death over him. For all we know, he could’ve just told Gramps to turn on the TV, maybe mention that he’d been threatened, and that was the whole extent of it.
Remember also that Blaine’s blackmail threat would have put Asher in literal mortal peril. The Mob doesn’t like people who leave and really doesn’t like people who steal large sums from them, and Asher is both.
“For all we know, he could’ve just told Gramps to turn on the TV, maybe mention that he’d been threatened, and that was the whole extent of it.”
That comes awfully close to “Won’t someone rid me of this meddlesome priest” as far as justifications go. He was central enough to Blaine’s murder to get notified that it was done, after all. Even if all he did was go “hey Gramps, Blaine just threatened to blackmail me”, he was aware enough of what would come of that to be culpable.
My totally unsubstantiated guess for how things went was:
– Asher gets blackmailed.
– Asher goes to SOMEONE, probably not Gramps, and says ‘hey one of the money launderers is trying to threaten me into going along with some bizarre revenge scheme of his.’ (Could be Lester, could be a relative he considers more likely to keep his whereabouts secret, could be another intermediary, COULD be Gramps but he’s riskiest.)
– His contact says ‘We’ll take care of it, just go along with things for now and let us know what he specifically wants from you and when it happens.’
– Asher goes on his merry way, knowing ‘take care of it’ has a pretty decent shot of meaning ‘Blaine ends up dead,’ but is probably somewhat inured to the concept already given he had MET one of Gramps’ money launderers enough for them to recognize each other on sight. That suggests he was at least AWARE of precisely what the family business is and what that can imply, though I doubt he’s seen a man murdered before or anything.
– Kidnapping goes down, Asher sends ominous text, the mob makes sure they have one of their cops in position for whatever’s to follow, etc.
– Meanwhile, if everyone in the know WASN’T 100% set on ‘yeah that stooge is dead’ BEFORE said stooge’s name ends up in the morning news, they sure as hell are now. Lester kills Blaine as soon as he has an opportunity to do so.
But I do think Blaine was doomed the moment he got himself arrested even if he HADN’T blackmailed Asher – it was just too big and too stupid to be swept under the rug, there was already one person dead and another comatose, and once it would sink in to Blaine that he was screwed, I think there was a pretty good chance he would have tried to flip and incriminate the mob… and his finances themselves would have done the work even if he hadn’t, especially since his ‘motive’ was not wanting to pay Amber’s tuition. Just, yeah, whatever Asher said to get on the mailing list of ‘your problem is dead,’ I think he knew this was not going to end with Blaine alive. I don’t think he was actively involved in the decisionmaking process, and it was in fact ‘if he tells Gramps I am either dead or at best have no chance of escape’ versus tell someone and Blaine will die, but he’s smart enough to have realized his actions were almost certainly going to lead to Blaine dying. I don’t blame him for that, because he was in fact being blackmailed with implied threat of death into assisting with a VERY DUMB kidnapping scheme from an abusive dickweed with more ego than strategy. Still at least a little complicit in the death. Probably did not have any clue that the kidnapping was going to end in one of Blaine’s accomplices getting murdered, or that Blaine would also contribute to a totally unrelated kid’s death (I don’t think the mobsters knew Mike knew about Blaine’s money laundering. Because if you’re bad enough at covering your tracks a THIRTEEN-YEAR-OLD figured out you’re a money launderer, and your employers know that, you’re a liability for that alone.) I do think Asher might feel bad about that, and for the kids he put in harm’s way, but at the same time justifies it to himself with something like ‘my hands were tied, and I didn’t think he’d be THAT dumb to actually kill someone.’ Besides, he couldn’t have prevented Mike’s death, that’s not on him. Maybe his actions contributed to Ross’s, you know, circumstantially, but Ross was an abusive kidnapper himself so hey, no great loss.
I have to keep wondering if this is a hidden twist by Our Author…
I mean the obvious conclusion of “it’s done” appearing on Asher’s phone back in the day is “Blaine is dead”.
But isn’t this the same time that the other person who could reveal the money laundering evidence also passes away?
Asher probably didn’t directly intend Mike to be done in, but if Gramps is cleaning up loose ends then ensuring the guy didn’t wake up from the coma is a lot less suspicious than “suicide by cop”, and Gramps probably wouldn’t be comfortable unless both sources of information leak were quieted.
I don’t suppose we really know how ruthless (no pun intended) that Asher is. He could be a made man and not even slightly on the outs with the mob, or he could be a friendly guy on a bike having overcome teen misbehavior. But it seems possible he could be a much darker figure and not just a fellow with a troubled background.
Good. Dead Blaine is a positive. Making Blaine dead is the best thing anyone in this comic has done.
^ This is my stance too.
A Blaine is not a People.
A lot of assumptions that Asher just broke into her place and even if so it’s not like he’s the only person pick the lock to the lover place for a quick meet up. I’m sure Jennifer can attest to that given her last relationship.
Is it just me, or does anyone else hear him with some kind of Gaelic accent? It kind of moves from Dublin down to Liverpool, and back.
Well, his family is Korean
A handsome Korean guy with a Gaelic accent? Good for Jennifer! – My wife
I’d just been reading him with a generically american accent, but re-reading some of his stuff imagining a Gaelic accent works surprisingly well.
Maybe it’s the turtleneck doing that for you? For me, he keeps making me think “70s mecha pilot”, like Ryo Nagare from Getter Robo or Tetsuya Tsurugi from Great Mazinger, especially the latter.
STONER SUNSHINE
Stoned with a Slipshine!!! 😝
I can see that Tom Holland poster becoming one of Hailee Steinfeld. Or Oscar Isaac.
Well, THIS strip doesn’t further how Billie has a fucked up view of “traditional” relationships at all.
I’m sure that her parents have a totally normal and healthy marriage.
Love has no power here
Get out of here, Doucher. 😛
This Tom Holland somehow look more like James Dean.
Split the difference to have Tom Holland going through a James Dean phase.
*taking a red flag from the drawer slowly*
Nobody in this comments section has ever felt joy.
You didn’t write “Kappa”. So I’ll assume you’re talking the truth.
margeshrug.png
Can’t speak for the others, but joy make me feel really uncomfortable.
I made your mom feel joy, and it only cost me a nickel.
Yeah, nah
“You don’t know what happiness is until you’ve lost it.”
— Conrad Kellog, Fallout 4
It’s true but you shouldn’t say it
I dunno, I think a lot of us felt a lot of joy when Becky and Dina boned.
Yo, Willis, I know you’re trying to run a business here and all that and that by allowing ads here you are getting something back for it (either a cash payment or cheaper hosting fees, maybe?), and I don’t begrudge you that … but every time I come to the page I get a pop-up ad covers something like 3/4 of the right side of the screen, forcing me to wait until it runs its course and then maybe I can move on. But no, it pops up with another one every so often, or if I move to an earlier page to follow a link then that page goes through the same thing.
Is there some way you can speak to whomever to maybe eliminate that one particularly obnoxious pop-up?
yes, it happens to me sometimes. It pop-up almost half of the screen
https://www.dropbox.com/s/3y17jm5kyvd5wlc/example-doa-propaganda.png?dl=0 giving an example.
You gotta report those to Hiveworks. I’ve never had a problem getting an intrusive ad to stop through them.
Hiveworks? I thought DoA.com owner is Willis. (He owns the site source code, the Analytics config, the domains, etc…).
He doesn’t own the ad company though. 🙂
Does AdBlock and pop-up blocker not help with these?
I prefer they fixing this ads than using something that could cut a incoming.
They have that. It’s called Adblocker + Patreon.
Seriously – a dollar a month to all of my favorite content creators, and I adblock with no guilt.
Alternatively, Kickstarter or merch stores can also allow you to fund creators while skipping ads.
Yep! Alternatively, if you can’t spare the money, you can help people make cool video games for the comic! 😉
Random tip from a web developer: if you right click and “inspect element” you will see the source code the browser is working from, and you can delete elements on the fly. Try to find the top “container” element. It doesn’t always work with ads, but you never know.
Use BRAVE BROWSER!!! Show these obnoxious ads who’s boss around here!!! 👿
I’m imagining Billie/Jennifer going on a date to watch Twilight in theatres and going “what the fuck Edward” when he watches Bella in her sleep…
Asher: “By the way, I had to beat the crap of a masked weirdo to enter here. He called himself Moondude or something.”
hmm, not only did he get in the building, which in itself is bad enough. he got in her (bed)room. while she was asleep. not cool, asser, not cool.
Depends on what their “protocol” is.
Getting into the building is no big deal and I keep being surprised that people think it is. These are dorms. People walk in and out all the time. Plenty of our characters have gone to visit other dorms or been visited and there’s never been any sign of them calling to be let in or anything like that.
The room is more of a problem – though I’ll point at Billie getting into Ruth’s room more than once.
I think she actually don’t love him, but it’s just all “protocol”.
Like these people who aways have some partner, only to not to be alone, or to show to other people they always have someone.
And we all know how important optics are to Billiefer.
Tom Holland seems to be looking away from them, not actually watching them smooch.
Asher seems too smart to not know what he’s doing. “Maybe it was love” sounds like “I wanna be coy but also generic.”
Also, red flag. That is all.
I like this guy!
isn’t this the dude that sold them out to whats her names dad?
Blaine threatened him into pulling a fire alarm, so then the dorm was evacuated and the cast got kidnapped. Asher’s knowledge of this isn’t totally known and then he had Blaine murdered by that cop.
I just think he’s neat.
He is neat.
So Jennifer moved from Andrew Garfield to Tom Holland? What is it with this girl and Spider-Men?
I hate how cute they are together.
You’re not alone.
But personally I don’t think it’s NEARLY as cute as her with her past self ala Yotomoe:
https://imgur.com/a/C5QbSE8