A sexy superhero comedy (except when it isn't) about the never-ending struggles of a plucky but very unlucky young superheroine.
Heart of Gold
Eliot Baum, Viv Tanner
A pianist with failing eyesight seeks out a priest with a miraculous healing touch, drawing him deeper into a world of miracles and curses.
Whomp!
Ronnie
A depressed, portly, hirsute anime fan stumbles through life in the ever-pursuit of chicken nuggets and other life-shortening indulgences.
Anacrine Complex
Sae Cotton
A superhuman heist involving probably too many pigeons than entirely necessary.
Between Failures
Jackie Wohlenhaus
The low stakes adventures of an assorted group of 20 somethings trapped in the declining years of American retail. They are naughty and say lots of swears.
Demon's Mirror
Harry Bogosian
Based loosely off of "The Snow Queen", a story by Hans Christian Andersen, we see things take a different turn as the demons become central characters, and the side characters stick around. Yup, that's the only differences. Enjoy!
Killjoys
Flatw00ds
When two disgraced ex-feds fall backwards into trouble with the clown mafia, getting out in one piece is gonna be no joke!
Clockwork
Chikuto
Cog Kleinschmidt is a diligent, quiet worker at the Mercia Fortress, the world power's leading stronghold. His orderly life is thrown into chaos when an enemy kingdom sends a diplomat for peace talks. This diplomat needs something from Cog - whether he agrees to their terms or not!
Monster Pulse
Magnolia Porter Siddell
Four kids run afoul of a creepy secret organization's experiments, which turn their body parts into fighting monsters. Part sentimental coming-of-age story, part monster-training shonen manga, with just a bit of sci-fi body horror.
Wychwood
Varethane
When Tiara's pyrokinesis is finally noticed, she is captured by a magical research organization for study. If she cooperates, she could be helping to save humanity from a dire threat - but can she trust them?
Far to the North
Allison Shaw
Kelu turns to the monsters of her remote mountain home when her family is held hostage by outsiders.
Sam & Fuzzy
Sam Logan
Troubled by gangster rodents, lovesick vampire stalkers, or confused ninja assassins? Don't panic! Sam and Fuzzy are here to help. (For a reasonable fee.)
Obelisk
Ashley McCammon
In 1908 New York, a young woman struggles to put her life back together in the wake of her father's death - until she discovers a vampire in the shambles of her inheritance.
Awaken
Koti Saavedra/Flipfloppery
Superpowers, monsters and conspiracies. Piras, the spoiled Dameschi heir, fights to recover his identity after becoming a terrorist!
Sunshine Boy
Moosopp
New-kid Kelly is sweet but naive. Luckily, he's got his outgoing neighbor Grey in his corner.
Folklore
Adam Ma, Colin Tan Wei
A superhuman horror story focused on a small band of survivors trying to navigate a war-torn world in the aftermath of the Federation’s collapse.
Tove
Severin
The end of the world is coming, and Tove doesn't want to be a hero, but SOMEONE has to look after her little brother.
Countdown to Countdown
Velinxi
Iris Black is a self-proclaimed inventor with the curious ability to bring his drawings to life, and yearns to find a space where he can use his powers freely.
Goblins
Ellipsis
A fantasy RPG as told through the eyes of the low-level monsters.
No End
Erli, Kromi
A queer romance about people attempting to build lives in a cold, post-apocalyptic world ravaged by hordes of undead.
Drugs & Wires
Mary Safro, Io Black
Dan used to be a VR operator until his brain got fried by malware. Now he's stuck delivering packages in a post-Soviet hellhole all while trying to adjust to his new life and find some answers.
2 Slices
RJ Morel
After a case of mistaken identity, will awkward Daisuke find help from excitable Mamo, or will his love life be thrown completely off track?
Lighter Than Heir
Melissa Albino
A young Volant woman joins the military in an effort to upstage her war-hero father.
Paint the Town Red
Windy, Winter Jay Kiakas
Winona runs a werewolf shelter with partner in crime, Odile in the Gothic city of Merlot. One day they take in an injured vampire, and soon unravels many of the dark secrets of Merlot.
El Goonish Shive
Dan Shive
WARNING: This comic often ignores the Laws of Physics
Come Hell or High Water
Jenny/Star, Mori
Prince Gladimir was never meant to fall for a pirate. Swearing off love for duty, the threat of war propels him back into the Captain’s world of high seas and high stakes. Their relationship could be the thing to save the kingdom of Yvoire - or destroy it.
The Witch Door
Anni K.
Katariina Lehto discovers her neighbor is a witch called Jousia Muotka. Jousia introduces Katariina to the strange people and places beyond the witch door...
Cyanide & Happiness
Explosm
Satire, dark humor and surreal humor.
Star Trip
Gisele Weaver
Jas is a human taken from her home planet on a trip across the galaxy she will never forget.
Patrik the Vampire
Bree Paulsen
Patrik loves to knit, bake, and help his friends while dealing with his own demons... like his thirst for blood because, oh yeah--he's a vampire.
The Lonely Vincent Bellingham
Diana Huh
Vincent is an unkind man looking to disappear, and finds himself in the care of a vampire and her two wicked children.
Go Get a Roomie
Clover
Experience the queer journey of an upbeat hippie and the friendships she makes along the way! A tale of self-discovery and love of many forms.
Knights Errant
J.R. Doyle
Wilfrid's humble quest for revenge becomes bigger and bloodier by the day.
[un]Divine
Ayme
A highschool senior thought giving up his soul for a demon was a good idea. It wasn't.
MASKLESS
kickingshoes
In a world where people can wield the magic of elemental Masks, all Ashe wants to do is help. Maskless and useless, with dreams of fire and smoke on the back of his tongue, he finds himself on a strange, dangerous path to uncovering the secrets of these incredible objects, and the source of the monsters plaguing his home.
Nerf Now!!
Josué Pereira
A cute webcomic about fanservice, video games, and... love. Mostly video games, though.
Wilde Life
Pascalle Lepas
Oscar decided to rent an old haunted house, and that's when things got weird...
The Otherknown
Lorian Merriman
Chandra is a 12-year-old accidental time traveler with a reluctant new dad, who happens to be a member of a feared galactic crime syndicate.
Demon Studies
Miyuli
Four students summon and study potentially dangerous demons within the walls of the mysterious Summerland University.
Hazy London
Scotty
A story about messy relationships. From friendly foes to crazy families. Nothing is black and white, just full of color. But, all colors can get a little hazy...
Real Science Adventures
Brian Clevinger
Spin off stories and other adventures from the world of Atomic Robo!
Lunar Blight
Studio CARTRIDGE, Laura Lee
Lunar Blight is a gothic horror story about an elite knight serving a moon cult who must choose between upholding his honoured duty or condemning everything he’s grown to know.
How to be a Werewolf
Shawn Lenore
Malaya Walters was bitten by a werewolf as a child. After being raised by her human family, she faces the chance to learn what being a werewolf is really like as an adult.
Solstoria
Angelica Maria
After her brother goes missing, Samantha vows to become a Knight and help those around her in the Kingdom of St. Helena.
Shaderunners
Alex Assan, Lin Darrow
A ragtag band of bootleggers open a speakeasy for bottled colour in the greyscale city of Ironwell.
Fairmeadow
Kendra P. / KP
A wayward soldier finds herself in a pacifist commune deep in the wilderness of a war-weary land. Living in isolation brings her closer to those she was sworn to kill than she could ever imagine - but also threatens to tear the place apart.
Girl Genius
Phil Foglio, Kaja Foglio
In a time when the Industrial Revolution has become an all-out war, Mad Science rules the World...with mixed success.
Guilded Age
T Campbell, John Waltrip, Florence Machina
Welcome to the saga of the working-class adventurer! Enjoy the complete story with new annotations daily!
Dumbing of Age
David M Willis
Joyce has been homeschooled her entire life until now, when she's suddenly a freshman in college! Things don't go well.
Atomic Robo
Brian Clevinger, Scott Wegener
The robot punches monsters and bad robots and one time he was a cowboy.
Spinnerette
Krazy Krow, Rocio Zucchi, Pablo Rey
When a lab accident gives Heather Brown spider powers and six arms, she does what any midwest comic geek would do: Become Ohio's #3 superhero!
BOOKMARK Click "Tag Page" to bookmark a page. When you return to the site, click "Goto Tag" to continue where you left off.
BUFFER WATCH
Comics are currently drawn and uploaded through:
This could be fixed with a simple scheduled command to sync the clock to a time standard every few hours. Even if it missed one, or several in a row, it’d still keep the clock within seconds, rather than allow a drift to progress to minutes.
Because every computer keeps an internal clock which necessarily drifts out of sync with the rest of the world because the quartz crystals that are used to keep track of time’s passage aren’t precisely identical and also heat changes their exact frequency. And any imprecision will multiply over time.
The way we solve this is by having extremely reliable clocks that exist in only a few places that can afford them (using cesium atoms), and then a network of lesser authorities that synchronize with them. Then your computer synchronizes with those. But synchronization occurs over a network, and require CPU cycles to process, and both the processing and transmission take a variable, unpredictable amount of time. (There are places on your computer you can go to find out which authority it’s synchronizing to.)
Which means, inevitably, it’s wrong. Usually, the systems we have in place are good enough to make this a non-issue, but whatever’s going on with Willis’s servers is apparently insufficient.
More resources than an HTTP call? More resources than a comment publish?
Even if it took a Whole Second to get the data and update the clock, that’s better than the several minutes of drift that the system has already experienced.
Is it financially better to live with a minor drift that can be updated whenever the system is going to be reset anyway or to pay someone to fix an inconsequential problem? (And by inconsequential, we mean inconsequential to the person who would be paying for it.)
Reminds me of when I was in high school and the time on my bedroom clock, my wrist watch, pocket watch (yeah I wore one, I’m that kind of nerd), and phone clock all drifted in different directions despite the phone clock supposedly being synced to an atomic clock via the internet and all of them being set against each other after one of them was set to an external clock (usually the school clocks since they were the ones that mattered to my situation). I’d set them every couple of months once the drift got to the point where it would start to cause problems. No other clocks I encountered regularly drifted nearly as much as any of the ones in my possession, so I like to think something about me was distorting time in a way that caused the different clocks to drift based on proximity to me.
In my defense, the pocket watch was for fashion and sentimentality, as it had been my grandfather’s and pocket watches are cool, keeping it set at an accurate time was more a matter of pride than practicality since the only times I’d use it to tell time was when I thought it would be funnier to whip out a pocket watch than glance at my wrist watch.
scheduling with sleep instead of the system time. or worse yet, looping a noop a constant number of times that seems to take the right amount of time when you checked it with a stopwatch once.
Dorothy’s on a rapid downward spiral here. There should be a limit to how many bad choices you can make in a single day. She’s at . . . like, 4 already, & the day’s not over.
Oh dear, this is not how I imagined how I imagined Dorothy would deal with her stress. Although I do find it funny that Ruth admits she has a type for some of these actions. I’m not sure whether that says more about Ruth or dating in general.
Also at Joyce’s party. She’s not entirely opposed to drinking.
While Ruth doesn’t seem to yet be as bad as she was, she did get drunk at the bar when she hooked up with Jason and she’s talked about it a few more times. It’s okay now though – it doesn’t interfere with her new medication.
Good news! I’m pretty sure that doing something deeply embarrassing and scandalous in college, and subsequently covering it up, is a presidential rite of passage!
Sure, but even as an RA, it’d probably be frowned upon to have a stash of alcohol as a student, wouldn’t be surprised if the teachers lounge also had an ’emergency stash’ , not that much more acceptable but i can see that being a realistic thing too
Your recent behavior has come off as attractive to not only Jennifer but now Ruth and much as it would have been a gorgeous hot mess, if your behaving in a type of way that would have gotten you into a 3 way with Billie and Ruth like 4 or 5 moths ago you know there’s a problem.
Oh, Dorothy. Dorothy, honey. You need to get therapy or something. *Better* therapy, if the therapy you’re getting is not helping. Alcohol is just not going to help, and it’s especially not going to help you because, let’s be real here – you’re a perfectionist control freak. You’re just going to beat yourself up over all this in the morning.
Methinks doing something “wrong” is the entire point of this. Doesn’t matter that it’s alcohol specifically, although probably a good catalyst to letting go of the perfectionist persona even more.
I honestly have trouble telling of this is Dorothy breaking, or breaking free.
i’d imagine it’d be hard to shop around for therapists unless she has access to a car and willing to drive somewhere to a diff city every weekend or so to talk to them (unless zoom calls are more set up in this time period now)
Sliding timescale means that between the time she finds a new therapist and the time she has her first session, her insurance will have stopped covering zoom therapy.
Admittedly, I havent read them, but based on what i *DO* know about Willis’ old comics, I’ve realized that any ships he doesn’t pursue in Dumbing of Age could just as likely show up in any FUTURE webcomic series….
what im saying is here’s how Ruth x Dorothy can still win…
What’s interesting is that this downward spiral was not caused by Dorothy losing her faith in her ability to become president, but rather a loss of faith in her ability to not commit crimes after becoming president.
Hmm. These two could honestly have a really interesting ship dynamic, given that Ruth’s an authority figure who doesn’t want to be one and Dorothy has just come off a lifetime of wanting to be an authority figure and is now disillusioned. The whole Ruth-is-already-dating-Jason thing could be resolved with a little polyamory, but I doubt the consequences of the whole uneven-power-balance thing is something Ruth would risk again.
…if the “Jennifer is gonna break up with Asher because he’s not a cool badass anymore” crowd are right, I almost wonder if there’s a potential Jennifer/Dorothy bubbling up. Hopefully there won’t be any trucks involved.
So, is this a villain origin story? Lockpicking skills, trauma, good but sent on an evil path, ominous lighting. Amazigirl could use a nemesis, is all I’m saying. And Walky could watch an exes fight.
When she can’t find booze, she’s going to go to 420 roof to see if Meredith is up there. And she is. With Ken and Arnold, who partake occasionally. They have a deep conversation, not as deep as they imagine, but deep enough she starts seeing her life less like a formula aimed at a singular target. She’s comfortable with her new friends, and doesn’t see any of them as a project. Lessons she applies to her other friendships.
And a romance with Arnold buds. pun intended.
I mean, let’s say he fucked Dorothy. Do you think that’d make her feel happy, to have been party to that? I think the damage to her psyche was already done by the time she even came onto him, either result was going to fuck with her.
No no, it’s not because he didn’t fuck her, it’s because he told her she’s just snap back and be herself again while she was showing signs of distress.
Not his fault at all but those words had impact none the less.
Yeah, it’s not his fault at *all*, and that part needs to be stressed. He was only telling Dorothy what she’s always indicated she wants to hear. She’s reaping the harvest of making her productivity her personality, and it *sucks* for her, but blaming Walky isn’t the way. I’m sure OP was being tongue-in-cheek, though.
Did Ruth get blackout curtains or just paint over her window? You know, now that I think about it, probably there’s plywood over them so Jason can’t escape when she locks him up.
I wonder if this character arc is going to lead to Dorothy absolutely erupting at Joyce? It would pay off all the tension that’s been built up between them, and it woud be a hell of a bridge-burning climax. I wonder, if you estrange Dorothy from all her current friends, who would she turn to when she needs someone to talk to? Sarah? Danny?
Also having Dorothy treat Joyce badly would bring a new evolution of the Becky roommate situation, where Becky finally *is* Dorothy’s enemy.
Ooh, maybe! Dorothy’s been bottling up all of her misplaced frustration, so it’s only a matter of time before it breaks through the “everything is fine nothing is the matter” façade.
I’d love for it to be Roz. Roz has always been Dorothy’s most compelling foil–Becky’s antagonism always just felt kind of mean and pointless, while Roz’s is based on fundamentally different but sympathetic ways of seeing the world (organizer vs. activist). I’d love for those two to finally find a truce.
Funny! You should take the A-Bus to the nearest comedy club and do a Kwik Set of one-liners. You’d be a Master at it! (No…I refuse to force feed ‘Schlage’ into this awful retort….:-).
She doesnt even need a console. Hoyoverse just came out with a new game and it’s relatively light compared to honkai and Genshin. That way she could waste all her time and money, AND develop a gambling addiction
Okay Dorothy has made herself attractive through mistakes to Ruth and Billie. Now who’s the last of the hat-trick? Jason or Asher?
Or maybe she could be really mean to someone and Carla would be into it?
Ok, so Joe is considering cocaine and Dorothy is trying out alcoholism? Steadily checking off the list of hobbies that’ll kill ya here, what’s next, base-jumping? Russian roulette? Environmental activism?
While I agree that Joe is definitely serious about the cocaine and he’s most certainly going to take it way too far and get the FBI involved, I don’t think Dorothy actually wants the alcohol.
As far as we know, no? I certainly can’t remember anything like that.
But Walky did say the campus ones were not That Good. And it kinda feels like Dorothy might have PTSD or complex PTSD honestly with the quantity of traumatic events that have occurred in several months and she has been there or connected to many of them and she has likely siphoned a fair bit of pain into herself in trying to support her friends.
And she has been trying to feel normal again, but normal has very clearly shifted by a lot which may be making it harder and now she’s reaching the point of finding it hard to pretend that she is okay.
Yes. She wasn’t telling all her problems to the therapist because she’s afraid that could be reported somewhere and have a negative impact on her study career. She said that during her previous talk with Ruth.
Honestly, I could recall 95% of the time therapists came up, but I don’t think the first one pinged in my brain because the word ‘lying’ isn’t actually used and I don’t consider that lying.
I mean, Dorothy is ultimately allowed to share as much or as little as she wants with a therapist. She isn’t lying to them by not sharing everything.
Omitting stuff isn’t inherently the same as lying, though it can be part of deceit and some lies certainly can be by omission. Everything Dorothy says to the therapist is likely truthful… it just isn’t everything or all of her issues.
Yeah, it’s kinda not remotely a lie if you don’t puke your entire backstory and immediate crises into a therapist’s ear. Or anyone’s, come to think of it.
The “can’t rent a car” thing just isn’t true. It does vary by company and state, but generally being under 25 means you’ll pay an additional fee for the rental, not that you can’t rent one.
(Oldest solid minimum I generally see is 21, and in some states– like where I live– 18 seems common.)
There’s also the possibility that she’s been fully honest, her therapist is doing all they can, and it’s just too much for one person to handle, whether it’s their job or not. Dorothy’s support system currently has way too many yes-men in it, telling her she can pull the moon out of the sky when she’s struggling to tie her shoes, and therapy ain’t magic.
she likely naturally presents herself as normal to a therapist. I’ve always been that way even when knowing academically it isn’t helpful my natural drive would be to present progress and normalcy.
Dorothy’s been slowly breaking down over time and done a pretty good job of not allowing for support.
you’re also not wrong, although I think naturally presenting yourself as normal as you put it wouldn’t override the concerningness in some of the things that she would hopefully be talking about.
Yeah, you’re not wrong, and I’m definitely extrapolating a bit. My comment was based on assumptions and the last thing we heard about her therapist (essentially that she should channel her trauma into productivity, though that was very likely a Dorothy distortion. can’t be certain though, lots of therapists out there that only care whether you’re productive)
So Joyce has handled all the Dorothy has plus family betrayal but Joyce is smiling and Dorothy is ready to break.
Seriously. Trauma isn’t a competitive sport. Life will break you if it can. Hope Ruth gets her to therapy and help. And not self medicating.
Loading ...
Dotty practicing how to become an RA?
*12:10* here, server!
Yeah, the delay is only getting worse. I wonder why it happens. I don’t know enough to have any idea what could be causing it.
Clock drift.
This could be fixed with a simple scheduled command to sync the clock to a time standard every few hours. Even if it missed one, or several in a row, it’d still keep the clock within seconds, rather than allow a drift to progress to minutes.
A couple of other comics have the same issue. It might be a host problem.
A hollow voice says: “NNTP”.
Another volce says: “no you dimwit, that’s NTP.”
Because every computer keeps an internal clock which necessarily drifts out of sync with the rest of the world because the quartz crystals that are used to keep track of time’s passage aren’t precisely identical and also heat changes their exact frequency. And any imprecision will multiply over time.
The way we solve this is by having extremely reliable clocks that exist in only a few places that can afford them (using cesium atoms), and then a network of lesser authorities that synchronize with them. Then your computer synchronizes with those. But synchronization occurs over a network, and require CPU cycles to process, and both the processing and transmission take a variable, unpredictable amount of time. (There are places on your computer you can go to find out which authority it’s synchronizing to.)
Which means, inevitably, it’s wrong. Usually, the systems we have in place are good enough to make this a non-issue, but whatever’s going on with Willis’s servers is apparently insufficient.
Also, time is bullshit.
More resources than an HTTP call? More resources than a comment publish?
Even if it took a Whole Second to get the data and update the clock, that’s better than the several minutes of drift that the system has already experienced.
Better? Depends on what your criteria is.
Is it financially better to live with a minor drift that can be updated whenever the system is going to be reset anyway or to pay someone to fix an inconsequential problem? (And by inconsequential, we mean inconsequential to the person who would be paying for it.)
An HTTP call costs non-zero money. An extra five minutes increases the chance someone will sign up for Patreon.
Reminds me of when I was in high school and the time on my bedroom clock, my wrist watch, pocket watch (yeah I wore one, I’m that kind of nerd), and phone clock all drifted in different directions despite the phone clock supposedly being synced to an atomic clock via the internet and all of them being set against each other after one of them was set to an external clock (usually the school clocks since they were the ones that mattered to my situation). I’d set them every couple of months once the drift got to the point where it would start to cause problems. No other clocks I encountered regularly drifted nearly as much as any of the ones in my possession, so I like to think something about me was distorting time in a way that caused the different clocks to drift based on proximity to me.
You were probably sleepwalking at relativistic speeds but no one would tell you.
I’m pretty sure I’m just metaphysically dense enough to warp spacetime around me, being the Avatar of The Fool and all that.
“A man with one watch always knows what time it is.
A man with two watches is never sure.”
In my defense, the pocket watch was for fashion and sentimentality, as it had been my grandfather’s and pocket watches are cool, keeping it set at an accurate time was more a matter of pride than practicality since the only times I’d use it to tell time was when I thought it would be funnier to whip out a pocket watch than glance at my wrist watch.
scheduling with sleep instead of the system time. or worse yet, looping a noop a constant number of times that seems to take the right amount of time when you checked it with a stopwatch once.
Resident Alcoholic?
Oh no. OH NO. I can’t bare to watch.
*plays “A Grim Fate” from Dragon Ball Z CD*
On the plus side at this rate we are going to get a hell of a drunk confession from Dorothy by Friday
On the negative side, literally everything else.
“i didn’t actually sneeze down a guy’s nose while kissing him in middle school. i just told joyce that to make her feel better”
To WHO though? That’s gonna be the fun part.
My money’s on Tyler. The signs have been there from the start.
It’s got to be Red Herring!
Dotty (on Friday): drunkenly confesses to Ruth that she’s actually in love with Joyce.
Ruth: …well what should I do with THIS information…?
Aw, geez, Dorothy.
Dorothy’s on a rapid downward spiral here. There should be a limit to how many bad choices you can make in a single day. She’s at . . . like, 4 already, & the day’s not over.
She hasn’t propositioned Joe yet.
Oh dear, this is not how I imagined how I imagined Dorothy would deal with her stress. Although I do find it funny that Ruth admits she has a type for some of these actions. I’m not sure whether that says more about Ruth or dating in general.
well, she did get drunk with billie once. dunno if she (ruth) has officially relapsed yet but it’d prolly be best if they had a heart to heart sober.
Also at Joyce’s party. She’s not entirely opposed to drinking.
While Ruth doesn’t seem to yet be as bad as she was, she did get drunk at the bar when she hooked up with Jason and she’s talked about it a few more times. It’s okay now though – it doesn’t interfere with her new medication.
She did do this once before… https://www.dumbingofage.com/2017/comic/book-7/02-everything-youve-ever-wanted/counselor/
As much as I know it isn’t good for her I’m ready to see what all dark Dorothy does
anti-dorothy
Darthy
I’ve waited for a Dorothy character arc for so long and I’m being fed right now
Dorothy is coming for Ruth’s job AGAIN?
How is trying to get drunk on her stash coming for her job?
Because getting drunk and making bad decisions is basically what Ruth does.
Just sounds like college to me.
the position of bony freckled self-loathing poindexter with a drinking problem who’s still hung up on her ex is occupied
Oh, I took it literally. Like meaning her RA job and was very confused, cause getting messed up is not being a very good RA
Good news! I’m pretty sure that doing something deeply embarrassing and scandalous in college, and subsequently covering it up, is a presidential rite of passage!
Since she isn’t 21, Dorothy can’t buy her own booze, right? But is Ruth 21?
Yes, she talked about waiting for her birthday to legally drink a few storylines back.
Sure, but even as an RA, it’d probably be frowned upon to have a stash of alcohol as a student, wouldn’t be surprised if the teachers lounge also had an ’emergency stash’ , not that much more acceptable but i can see that being a realistic thing too
Also, it’s a dry campus.
In theory. I’m not sure that’s ever a thing in practice. Certainly not IU.
It’s a thing as long as you don’t get caught with a ton of booze.
Hmm, Dorothy/Ruth isn’t the next slipshine comic I expected, but I’ll take it.
Yeah. This was not on my Ship-Dar previously, but…
… not gonna lie… I’m kinda into it.
Girls this is no time to practice your Smooth Criminal Lean.
Nice, I didn’t even notice until you pointed it out.
And yet, somehow, it’s simultaneously exactly the right time!
Like in the old Batman TV series?
I mean if not this very moment then when? It’s so fitting
You’ve been hit by
You’ve been struck by
a Dutch crimangle
Nice.
dorothy is an extremely rough criminal
No, Dorothy is smooth from all directions and at all times. Every criminal Dorothy is completely smooth no matter what angle you’re touching her from
So, Dotty are you okay? Are you okay Dotty?
I can think of only one thing to think: Kiss her, Dorothy.
try to get contact drunk
Sha la la la
Don’t be scared
you got the mood prepared
Right there with you, BarerMender.
Dorothy you need to calm the fuck down.
Your recent behavior has come off as attractive to not only Jennifer but now Ruth and much as it would have been a gorgeous hot mess, if your behaving in a type of way that would have gotten you into a 3 way with Billie and Ruth like 4 or 5 moths ago you know there’s a problem.
“BILLIE HAS FALLEN! NOW I, DOROTHY, AM RUTH’S GIRLFRIEND”
You win.
Dorothy having a fling and Billie/Jen finding out about it would be quite a way to get under he skin XD
Billie/Jen is not her lover, she’s just a girl who claims she was the one.
*Jennifer
jennifer is the galvatron to billie’s megatron
It’s certainly an unexpected ship, I’ll say that for it
But hot? Oh, honey.
Oh, Dorothy. Dorothy, honey. You need to get therapy or something. *Better* therapy, if the therapy you’re getting is not helping. Alcohol is just not going to help, and it’s especially not going to help you because, let’s be real here – you’re a perfectionist control freak. You’re just going to beat yourself up over all this in the morning.
dorothy tomorrow morning: “damn i didn’t get drunk as quickly or efficiently as i could. tonight i need to halve the time before i black out”
Of course Dorothy would min-max her depressive spiral.
Methinks doing something “wrong” is the entire point of this. Doesn’t matter that it’s alcohol specifically, although probably a good catalyst to letting go of the perfectionist persona even more.
I honestly have trouble telling of this is Dorothy breaking, or breaking free.
i’d imagine it’d be hard to shop around for therapists unless she has access to a car and willing to drive somewhere to a diff city every weekend or so to talk to them (unless zoom calls are more set up in this time period now)
Sliding timescale means that between the time she finds a new therapist and the time she has her first session, her insurance will have stopped covering zoom therapy.
Oh god yeah. This is the kind of PTSD self-harm spiral that I can relate to way, way too well.
Admittedly, I havent read them, but based on what i *DO* know about Willis’ old comics, I’ve realized that any ships he doesn’t pursue in Dumbing of Age could just as likely show up in any FUTURE webcomic series….
what im saying is here’s how Ruth x Dorothy can still win…
Ship name proposal:
Doruthy
No one knows if DoA will ever end though.
Dorothy is breaking bad! I’m excited to be here for it. It’s been a long time coming.
Oooh, I got a happy Jennifer!
As opposed to normal Billie/Jennifer; savor it while it lasts.
Oooof, this is worrying me. Dorothy, honey, be careful.
What’s interesting is that this downward spiral was not caused by Dorothy losing her faith in her ability to become president, but rather a loss of faith in her ability to not commit crimes after becoming president.
Not that that’s unrealistic or anything.
This is very ominous, the only thing missing is a thunderstorm in the background.
Here: https://rainymood.com/
dorothy/ruth is unexpected but not unwelcome. be fun to see a sketch of lol
There’s always next year’s book Kickstarter.
Or maybe you can bribe Yoto, if you can’t wait.
Hmm. These two could honestly have a really interesting ship dynamic, given that Ruth’s an authority figure who doesn’t want to be one and Dorothy has just come off a lifetime of wanting to be an authority figure and is now disillusioned. The whole Ruth-is-already-dating-Jason thing could be resolved with a little polyamory, but I doubt the consequences of the whole uneven-power-balance thing is something Ruth would risk again.
…if the “Jennifer is gonna break up with Asher because he’s not a cool badass anymore” crowd are right, I almost wonder if there’s a potential Jennifer/Dorothy bubbling up. Hopefully there won’t be any trucks involved.
So, is this a villain origin story? Lockpicking skills, trauma, good but sent on an evil path, ominous lighting. Amazigirl could use a nemesis, is all I’m saying. And Walky could watch an exes fight.
I’d love that. She’d probably be really good at being evil, too. Nobody expects an *organised* villain.
She’d probably not only read the Evil Overlord List but would in fact FOLLOW it.
Dorothy Xanatos.
Flagged your stuff by mistake sorry.
So does this mean Ruth has relapsed?
We already saw Ruth drink with Jason in the bar when Daisy went to the bathroom.
Relapse doesn’t sound right. More like “lapse.”
“I’m not in here coming onto you, you’re in here coming on to me!”
Its only me or its quite bongo move to someone on rehab and ask about alcohol
Ruth’s been drinking again for a while already. I mean, she’s dating the bartender.
She was only off the alcohol because of her medicine and the medicine changed.
Her being an alcoholic is entirely irrelevant. It was just the medication that was the problem.
When she can’t find booze, she’s going to go to 420 roof to see if Meredith is up there. And she is. With Ken and Arnold, who partake occasionally. They have a deep conversation, not as deep as they imagine, but deep enough she starts seeing her life less like a formula aimed at a singular target. She’s comfortable with her new friends, and doesn’t see any of them as a project. Lessons she applies to her other friendships.
And a romance with Arnold buds. pun intended.
That’s a ship I never considerate.
As long as she doesn’t make a shrine to him in the back of her closet.
I wish I wasn’t garbage at lockpicking. Good job at learning new skills, Dorothy.
Yeah I got to admit I’m envious of her ability to adapt, the only other character almost as good at that as her is Jennifer herself.
I blame Walky for part of this mental breakdown, honestly. I mean, it’s mostly not his fault. Mostly.
PTSD baby
I mean, let’s say he fucked Dorothy. Do you think that’d make her feel happy, to have been party to that? I think the damage to her psyche was already done by the time she even came onto him, either result was going to fuck with her.
No no, it’s not because he didn’t fuck her, it’s because he told her she’s just snap back and be herself again while she was showing signs of distress.
Not his fault at all but those words had impact none the less.
Yeah, it’s not his fault at *all*, and that part needs to be stressed. He was only telling Dorothy what she’s always indicated she wants to hear. She’s reaping the harvest of making her productivity her personality, and it *sucks* for her, but blaming Walky isn’t the way. I’m sure OP was being tongue-in-cheek, though.
Wait, what did Walky do to make this his fault?
He stayed loyal to his new girlfriend. Unforgivable.
Yeah, you’d think he’d know better.
Great punchline, but damn.
Did Ruth get blackout curtains or just paint over her window? You know, now that I think about it, probably there’s plywood over them so Jason can’t escape when she locks him up.
I would think the seduction would have to be successful before Dorothy could check Ruth’s box.
I wonder if this character arc is going to lead to Dorothy absolutely erupting at Joyce? It would pay off all the tension that’s been built up between them, and it woud be a hell of a bridge-burning climax. I wonder, if you estrange Dorothy from all her current friends, who would she turn to when she needs someone to talk to? Sarah? Danny?
Also having Dorothy treat Joyce badly would bring a new evolution of the Becky roommate situation, where Becky finally *is* Dorothy’s enemy.
Ooh, maybe! Dorothy’s been bottling up all of her misplaced frustration, so it’s only a matter of time before it breaks through the “everything is fine nothing is the matter” façade.
Crisis aside, she will go into the uttermost West and remain Dorothy.
I’d love for it to be Roz. Roz has always been Dorothy’s most compelling foil–Becky’s antagonism always just felt kind of mean and pointless, while Roz’s is based on fundamentally different but sympathetic ways of seeing the world (organizer vs. activist). I’d love for those two to finally find a truce.
Dorothy, no.
BAD.
“Here, put this black wig on.”
“And stuff these rolled-up shirts under yours.”
“No, too much, now you look like Sal.”
And from thence to the place of execution… and may the Lord have mercy on thy soul.
Dorothy, what are you doing? Cut it out.
No no, let her cook. I wanna see where this is going.
Dorothy going to the dark side! Idk, I’m kinda here for it
Oh heck, it’s Anti-Dorothy.
Dorothy [smokey eyes, sultry voice, leaning towards Ruth]: Oh? So how should I come on to you?
Click outta 1, 2 is binding, some resistance from Dorothy out of 3… “Thiccer thighs?”
Here’s a bottle of juice and a packet of yeast to ease ya. Go nuts.
What does this mean?
If Dotty can’t have Ruth’s hooch, might as well do a more controlled pruno.
Is this a reference
This is the lock picking not-future-president and what we have today is this cheap mass produced dorm room door lock
And ironically,
It’s a Yale lock.
Funny! You should take the A-Bus to the nearest comedy club and do a Kwik Set of one-liners. You’d be a Master at it! (No…I refuse to force feed ‘Schlage’ into this awful retort….:-).
It’s a reference to an amazing YouTube channel that demonstrates just how vulnerable consumer-grade mechanical locks really are.
We have reached Willi’s user image. So, we know it will be a turn point of history.
Wait, so does this mean Anti-Dorothy is going to get supervillainess hair? Is she going to look like 80’s Emma Frost with that severe bob cut?
Dorothy, sweety, you don’t need alcohol to give up on your hopes and dreams, let’s get you a nice Playstation or Xbox.
I hear Charlie has her gaming device back…
Oh great, Ruth on the computer and Robin on my phone. Am I, as an authority figure, doomed to make really bad choices in the near future?
She doesnt even need a console. Hoyoverse just came out with a new game and it’s relatively light compared to honkai and Genshin. That way she could waste all her time and money, AND develop a gambling addiction
Sure, but presumably this alleged game is on a platform of some sort. She’d need that to play it.
Ruth, you know you’re lying in the last panel.
Of all the people within the DoA cast to slip into an alcoholic depression spiral, I was not expecting Dorothy to be one of them.
She’s been barely keeping it together for weeks, and now nobody’s listening to her mom-friending. Her stamina was going to run out eventually.
Oh Dorothy
Okay Dorothy has made herself attractive through mistakes to Ruth and Billie. Now who’s the last of the hat-trick? Jason or Asher?
Or maybe she could be really mean to someone and Carla would be into it?
Maybe she got a scrape and just needs to sanitize it.
…uuuuuh
Ok, so Joe is considering cocaine and Dorothy is trying out alcoholism? Steadily checking off the list of hobbies that’ll kill ya here, what’s next, base-jumping? Russian roulette? Environmental activism?
While I agree that Joe is definitely serious about the cocaine and he’s most certainly going to take it way too far and get the FBI involved, I don’t think Dorothy actually wants the alcohol.
Oh! I see you are neutral and trustworthy as evidenced by the fact that you agree with 50% of my opinions!
I love when charaters are drawn with these half closed eyes, like Ruth in last panel.
Did I read sometime back that Dot was lying to her therapist? Maybe this would be a good time to reconsider that course of action.
As far as we know, no? I certainly can’t remember anything like that.
But Walky did say the campus ones were not That Good. And it kinda feels like Dorothy might have PTSD or complex PTSD honestly with the quantity of traumatic events that have occurred in several months and she has been there or connected to many of them and she has likely siphoned a fair bit of pain into herself in trying to support her friends.
And she has been trying to feel normal again, but normal has very clearly shifted by a lot which may be making it harder and now she’s reaching the point of finding it hard to pretend that she is okay.
Yes. She wasn’t telling all her problems to the therapist because she’s afraid that could be reported somewhere and have a negative impact on her study career. She said that during her previous talk with Ruth.
It’s a buffet, she’s lying to her therapist. https://www.dumbingofage.com/inwithyou/
Walky has heard the therapists there aren’t any good. https://www.dumbingofage.com/herselves/
And therapists aren’t helpful to everybody, in Sal’s experience.
https://www.dumbingofage.com/agoraphobia/
Thank you so much for these source comics, gotta bookmark these and really save some time.
That being said, fingers crossed so hard to the point of bleeding that Dorothy gets addicted to video games instead of booze.
Honestly, I could recall 95% of the time therapists came up, but I don’t think the first one pinged in my brain because the word ‘lying’ isn’t actually used and I don’t consider that lying.
I mean, Dorothy is ultimately allowed to share as much or as little as she wants with a therapist. She isn’t lying to them by not sharing everything.
Omitting stuff isn’t inherently the same as lying, though it can be part of deceit and some lies certainly can be by omission. Everything Dorothy says to the therapist is likely truthful… it just isn’t everything or all of her issues.
Yeah, it’s kinda not remotely a lie if you don’t puke your entire backstory and immediate crises into a therapist’s ear. Or anyone’s, come to think of it.
I was wondering why she didn’t just go to the bar in town but then i remembered 19 is somehow considered underaged in America .-.
For drinking yes, for everything else under the sun no.
I know but for anything is weird
Can’t rent a car until you’re 25.
Can’t be a president until you’re 35!
That one seems fine to me. It’s the lack of ceiling I’m not find of.
The “can’t rent a car” thing just isn’t true. It does vary by company and state, but generally being under 25 means you’ll pay an additional fee for the rental, not that you can’t rent one.
(Oldest solid minimum I generally see is 21, and in some states– like where I live– 18 seems common.)
I have said it before, I will say it again.
Jesus fucking Christ Dorothy, GO TO THERAPY!!!!!!
She already does. Clearly it isn’t helping enough.
Yeah. She should definitely play more video games. Gummies optional but recommended in this case. 🥺
She needs a different therapist, to be more honest with her therapist, or both
There’s also the possibility that she’s been fully honest, her therapist is doing all they can, and it’s just too much for one person to handle, whether it’s their job or not. Dorothy’s support system currently has way too many yes-men in it, telling her she can pull the moon out of the sky when she’s struggling to tie her shoes, and therapy ain’t magic.
Also sometimes you have good friends and a good therapist and shit still sucks.
She needs group therapy. Lying on a couch while several therapists surround her, notepads at the ready.
That’s a nightmarish image. Gross.
she likely naturally presents herself as normal to a therapist. I’ve always been that way even when knowing academically it isn’t helpful my natural drive would be to present progress and normalcy.
Dorothy’s been slowly breaking down over time and done a pretty good job of not allowing for support.
you’re also not wrong, although I think naturally presenting yourself as normal as you put it wouldn’t override the concerningness in some of the things that she would hopefully be talking about.
Yeah, you’re not wrong, and I’m definitely extrapolating a bit. My comment was based on assumptions and the last thing we heard about her therapist (essentially that she should channel her trauma into productivity, though that was very likely a Dorothy distortion. can’t be certain though, lots of therapists out there that only care whether you’re productive)
Whoever had Ruth crushes on Dorothy on their DOA bingo card was right on the money.
So Joyce has handled all the Dorothy has plus family betrayal but Joyce is smiling and Dorothy is ready to break.
Seriously. Trauma isn’t a competitive sport. Life will break you if it can. Hope Ruth gets her to therapy and help. And not self medicating.
Joyce already broke. A few times. Dorothy has just keep repressing things and her needs.
HOORAY, Dorothy finally snapped! The only thing I don’t understand is why she chose Ruth as her first victim.
Ruth isn’t her victim, she’s her mentor. She’s gonna teach Dorothy how to remove femurs and what ear plugs to use to block out the screaming.
Been a while since we’ve seen vivid night coloring