Kieran Bright is a college student home for the summer and roped into an online reunion with his old neighborhood friends in the most recent update of their favorite childhood MMORPG.
At least, he was, and that was the idea...
Join Kieran and his friends as they are pulled into another reality that may or may not be real and are forced to confront their own identities, the nature of simulated universes and reality itself.
Barbarous
Ananth Hirsh, Yuko Ota
A crummy wizard and an anxious monster have to get over themselves and bring order to an apartment building full of misfits.
Quick$ilver
Crypto
The flirtatious, directionless, and ever disastrous Luci searches for excitement in a life of crime, and finds himself caught in a web of messy romance and bad blood.
Sister Claire
Yamino
In the troubled aftermath of a great war between Witches and her fellow Nuns, novice Sister Claire just wants a purpose.
Monsterkind
Taylor C
Wallace Foster, a young, bright-eyed human social worker, has his entire world view rocked when he's suddenly relocated into a city primarily inhabited by monsters.
Sleepless Domain
Mary Cagle (Cube Watermelon)
In a world where magical girls and their battles are commonplace, loss has become all too common as well.
The Substitutes
Myisha Haynes
What happens when three roommates accidentally acquire otherworldly and powerful magic weapons destined for someone else?
The Forgotten Order
Christy
A young witch for whom every spell is a misfire finds solace and friendship in her new companion - a cursed doll.
Kochab
Sarah Webb
A YA F/F fantasy comic about Sonya, a lost skier trying to survive a snowy wilderness and find her way back to her village; and Kyra - a fire spirit trying to fix the home that she let fall apart around her.
Beeserker
TJ Cordes
This comic is about a robot powered by bees, but it's also about the kind of people who think filling a robot with bees is a good idea, and why they're wrong.
The Weave
Rennie Kingsley
A young woman pursued by bad luck is witness to the murder of the Fairy Queen of Summer. Can she get to the bottom of this mystery?
Namesake
Isa, Meg
There's ghosts at your heels and fairy tale worlds ahead. What do you do? Jump down the rabbit hole!
Widdershins
Kate Ashwin
A series of light-hearted Victorian-era adventure stories featuring grumpy bounty hunters, accidental thiefkings, and more, in England's magical capital city Widdershins!
Goodbye to Halos
Valerie Halla
Cuddles, gay flirting, weird feelings, and magic-fueled knife fights - it's an adventure across the queer multiverse!
Edison Rex
Chris Roberson
The adventures of the world’s greatest villain who, after defeating his superheroic nemesis, decides that he’s the only one left to defend the world.
Missing Monday
Elle Skinner
Two girls fall in love through a magic door connecting their worlds. When Monday suddenly goes missing, it's up to Foyle to find her. How she's going to navigate an entirely unfamiliar world is another matter.
Nerf Now!!
Josué Pereira
A cute webcomic about fanservice, video games, and... love. Mostly video games, though.
Ride or Die
Mars Heyward
Ride or Die is an LGBTQ webcomic about two street racers who team up with a demon-possessed muscle car in the search for a missing woman, while being hunted by a deadly religious cult.
Astral Aves
Moon Cabal
A fantasy coming-of-age following the adventures of Astra The Black and friends, as they navigate the mysterious world around them. It's politics, adventure, and the supernatural; oh, and crazy hair.
Cassiopeia Quinn
Gunwild, Psudonym
A cute, pantsless thief is pursued across the stars by a buttoned-up military officer in the spacey, laser-filled future.
Lies Within
Lacey
Lysander's aimless and carefree life is turned upside down when he accidentally discovers that the cute boy next door, Simon, is a literal monster
Gzhel Guardian
Atla Hrafney, nushanchel
The Railway World is a complex, mysterious network of trains, towns and mechanical monsters. Leo is a Guardian of one of these towns, and although their burn-out and depression has taken hold of them, they have one last job to finish.
Freakshow
Scotty
A festival of broken people, blood flows in the center ring. Come one and come all, to the greatest show in all of Paris.
Augustine
Winter Jay Kiakas, Windy
August and her ragtag group are just like everyone else, simply surviving in the treacherous Crater... When they stumble into what may be an artifact of the ancient past, their lives are thrown into a much bigger loop as they trifle with bounty hunters, monsters and gods.
Nigh Heaven & Hell
Scotty
Heather Vodihn is on a simple mission: find her father. However she becomes entangled with two strangers with mysterious powers being stalked by a group with bizarre demands. Heather must learn to trust her new traveling companions, even if she is untrustworthy herself.
Little Tiny Things
Clover
What are the little things that move us? The simple joys that warm our bodies and hearts? The micro life of insects that influence our world more than we think? The tiny steps we make everyday to have a happier tomorrow?
The End
August Brown, Cory Brown
Two aliens crash a sci-fi convention and accidentally take seven nerds on an adventure that spans the galaxy!
Aquapunk
Lo
In an underwater world of unknown coordinates, inhabited by aliens, ghosts, and robots, a young member of a warrior underclass is framed for a crime and goes on the run. Little does he know he is part of a grand design that only gods and ancestors could choreograph.
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.
Trying Human
IntroducingEmy
Two women separated by over half a century are brought together by an alien-filled conspiracy involving murder, mystery and romance!
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.
Alexander, The Servant & The Water of Life
Reimena Yee
The 21st century retelling of the life and legends of Alexander the Great.
Star Impact
Jack McGee
A young, energetic woman fights her way up in the world of super-powered boxing after discovering the mighty gloves of her missing idol!
Stand Still, Stay Silent
Minna Sundberg
A few generations after the end of the world, a small, poorly financed research crew is sent out to rediscover whatever is left of the forbidden old world in the south.
Saint for Rent
Ru Xu
Saint Halliday runs an inn for Time Travelers. Unfortunately, he seems to attract other supernatural "guests," too.
Blindsprings
Kadi Fedoruk
Tamaura, wrested into a world 300 years in the future, must find a way to save the magic fading from her country.
Scape
Lauren
Sula has always preferred to forge her own path, but before she knows it, she is pulled into the middle of a civil war between man and monster!
This is Not Fiction
Nicole Mannino
What do you do when the person you're in-love with is an anonymous romance novelist? Get your best friend to hire your worst enemy for help!
Love Not Found
Gina Biggs
Abeille is on a quest to find someone who wants to do it the old-fashioned way in a time when touching has become outdated.
Not Drunk Enough
Tess Stone
Logan Ibarra is possibly the unluckiest repairman in the world. A late night job should not have landed him in the middle of a mad scientist's squabble, but he soon finds himself surrounded by monsters and further madness with little tools to get out.
Headless Bliss
Clover
A story about story-telling, and other metaphysical themes such as Nightmares! (Failed) Teamwork! Comedy! And more!
The Golden Boar
Magnolia Porter Siddell
A young woman joins a group of summoners who call forth Guardian Beasts to protect their isolated magical island. Unfortunately, her Guardian Beast is nothing like she'd imagined, and he's about to change her life, and everything she thought she knew about herself...
Empowered
Adam Warren
A sexy superhero comedy (except when it isn't) about the never-ending struggles of a plucky but very unlucky young superheroine.
Within
Verena Loisel
A young hitman meanders between a reality that seems to happen without him, and his dreams where he is lost in an endless house. When he makes an accidental friend, his world is shaken up and he realizes there are things he can't remember about himself.
Alice and the Nightmare
Misha Krivanek
Alice finally attends University to learn to collect the dreams of humans, meet new friends, and deal with a pesky reflection along the way.
Cyanide & Happiness
Explosm
Satire, dark humor and surreal humor.
The Last Diplomat
Cat Farris
Samma and Tark didn't ask to be stuck together, but now they're partners on the adventure of a lifetime.
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!
Sakana
Mad Rupert
Our heroes must navigate a hazardous dating scene, overcome personal anxieties, and wrangle unruly seafood in order to find love, peace of mind, and a paycheck.
ARISE, YE SKELETON KING
Brian Clevinger, Escher Cattle, Lee Black
A troupe of wandering "adventurers" down to their last silver "acquire" a map only to find the real treasure was the fiend they dug up along the way.
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I don’t think that’s it at all. She’s reacting to the sight of Jennifer’s man kissing some emo dude I’m not sure she knows. Odds are she’s going to go tell Jennifer her boyfriend is cheating on her, or she’s going to try to use it against Jennifer as a power play somehow. I’m just not entirely sure how.
I know it would be speaking too soon, but we hope that this will be a bitter pill of reality for Jennifer and she will finally open her eyes, the truth is that it will be painful.
I think it’s actually less than that. I think it’s more “huh, well, at least if I ever need something I can use, there’s this.” Raidah doesn’t love drama, she loves success, and cohesion within a group that she controls. If nobody is being difficult for her to control, there’s no use for her to waste her ammo weakening the bonds in her social circle, because she sees the strength of her social circle as an asset…as long as she can maintain complete dominance over it.
Smart manipulators exist, and the very thing that’s most dangerous about them, is they don’t cause you as many consistent problems as the average ones…until one day, they outright ruin your life, because it was slightly to their benefit, or even just their convenience.
I could see Radiah casually asking Jennifer about assets whereabouts to she how she responds, Jennifer responds like she like did with Sal about how she expects Asher to come back to her after he’s improved himself for her while Radiah fake nicely mentions seeing him with someone else.
Damn You Otto Korrekt! The ones I really hate are when Otto changes a word after you proof your post and hit >Enter<. And the homophone completely changes the meaning of your post.
Raidah when she tries to talk about Asher: “Oops. Damn autocorrect.”
Walky, probably: “You were talking out loud.”
Jennifer: “Freudian slips are just autocorrect errors of the mind.”
Don Grandpa: “Did someone say something about my asset? Asher. Damnit.”
So what’s the chance that she does tell Jen, Jen finally gets what she seems to want, a boyfriend who isn’t treating her nicely, and this rekindles her wanting Asher, she throws herself at him, he breaks up with Ethan, and Ethan enters the next floor deeper down on the depression express?
I think Ethan might flame the drama in this scenario, and if he’s more depressed while he does it, that’s apparently just going to be even more irresistable to Asher.
The ultimate question for me is a longer term one. If Ethan eventually begins to heal and get happier, will Asher look at Jennifer, who is likely to deteriorate, and get tempted.
I don’t think Asher necessarily wants an emo boy, or depressed project to fix (I read a horrifying Reddit “best of” the other day where a girl lost her sister in a tragic accident, met a seemingly stand-up guy in the aftermath… Only, he was attracted to “broken with grief”-her and when, after a few years, she’d got back to being a mostly happy person who didn’t just drag herself through each day best she could understand the weight of her loss – he tried to break her emotionally again so she’d be hot to him again. It didn’t work, thankfully, but… https://www.reddit.com/r/BestofRedditorUpdates/comments/k28bhb/my_so_27m_of_1_year_destroyed_a_sentimental_item/ – Asher doesn’t give out those vibes!).
I think Ethan is hot, and the fact that he’s depressed means that Asher can help him be a better person which appeals to his want for growth, but that he’d be happy being part of Ethan’s journey to happy, and would be just as cute and adoring watching a happy Ethan fan out over Transformers…
I was VERY cautious about Asher, and I don’t know HOW compartmentalised everything gets with him, but I would like to think he’s genuinely grown since he set Sal up, and doing everything he can to distance himself from his mob ties without getting himself or any loved ones killed.
HEY-LO maybe that’s what the countdown since the last kidnapping is foreshadowing..? Ethan’s gonna be kidnapped again by heavies looking to get Asher back doing his Gramp’s bidding…
Ruth might get to punch an old man in the face for being insanely controlling… That’d be kinda nice for her if it doesn’t have follow up consequences!
I really hope you’re right, but they are young and this is dumbing of age, so they gotta survive Asher’s weakness for fixing it, Jennifer, and all else for them to reach that healthy point intact.
You forget about Jen’s wealthy real estate mogul dad. Granted, I don’t think Raidah’s more than a couple heartbeats away from kicking her to the curb, but the tangential connection to the dean isn’t why she brought Jen into the friend group
Raidah is a ruthless, but also arrogant, social climber. She’s made it clear that she truly despises people who are silly, nerdy, and/or unabashedly passionate about ‘weird’ things, but she’s willing to at least hide her scorn in order to make use of any really valuable social connections they have.
Ethan is ridiculously nerdy, antisocial, unambitious, and just generally embarrassing in almost every way that Raidah cares about. However, he is also EXTREMELY well connected, simply by way of having slept with half of Indiana University’s queer male population.
Oh, how I HOPE Raidah is going to try and make “friends” with Ethan. How the sparks would fly…
If it turns out that Ethan is finally the one to catch Raidah out on her BS publically in a way that finally has Consequences for her, that would be so, so, sweet.
I know the sound effect is supposed to be an evil snake rattle or something similar, but I like to imagine Aku has a team of robots with maracas or those tiny colorful eggs filled with sand following him around for dramatic effect.
I’m actually going to laugh if Raidah actually tries to be a good friend here, like she sees her friend’s boyfriend (as far as she knows at least) kissing on someone else and dutifully tells Jennifer…
Only for Jennifer to start frothing at the mouth with glee that FINALLY there’s some INTERESTING TOXICITY IN THEIR FAILING RELATIONSHIP and now she’s 100% invested in Asher once again, to Raidah’s concern.
Raidah: Your boyfriend’s cheating on you with another guy. I don’t mean to cause any drama but–
Jennifer: Jokes on you, I’m into that shit. The ‘shit’ in this case being drama, not the two guys kissing.
Oh yes I can feel it, I don’t know how but she’s going to try to handle this and it’s going to blow up in her face. She’s trying to assimilate people from Joyce & Sarah’s friend group but will have no clue how to manage herself around the more problematic baggage they have.
Oh, Jennifer would 100% try to “win back” Asher just because he’s actually getting involved with someone else. And after pushing him around so much, I don’t think he’d want to go back to her.
Asher doesn’t appear to be a bad guy, from the surface he seems a good, if somewhat damaged, hotty with a dark and mysterious past, who bested his dark side and the in-laws you will presumably never ever have to meet: a real catch!
The truth is more … complex, but Asher hides it well. Enough that the peaks others get at his darker side can be dismissed as simply fading echoes of his family upbringing.
It now occurs to me you may have meant, Asher has a thing for “I can fix them” cases. In that case you appear to be correct – going from Billy to Ethan is a real out the frying pan into the fire deal. Fortunately, it looks like Asher just maybe made out of monoammonium phosphate.
I did mean the latter, yeah! Asher has a thing for people who have obvious issues. I’m excited to see his relationship with Ethan play out, I missed Ethan a lot, and I have been READY for Jennifer’s reality check and for this friend group to implode since it was first introduced. <3
That’s what he thinks, but Jennifer just put their relationship in some passive-aggressive mean-girl holding pattern to convince him to change. For some reason.
I like it when the antagonists have redeeming qualities. I don’t imagine Raidah sitting around all the time thinking, “how can I cause suffering for the sake of causing suffering.” That’s boring.
What can be interesting is why she decides to do what she will do. If it’s just her trying to figure out what she can do to best use for her own advantage, that’s boring. That’s barely a character.
Seeing someone else’s bad-match relationship dissolve. Maybe she’ll tell Jennifer, knowing she should know, but also knowing that Jennifer and Asher weren’t really going to last. Detached, she watches how the jilted person responds. All the spite she’s been feeling for months seems silly. Childish. Everything feels kind of hollow and tinny, like she’s outside herself, wondering why she’s doing everything she’s doing.
Or indeed whether Jennifer or Ethan is the “more valuable” partner to invite into the group. I wonder how Raidah will interact with Ethan’s self-destructive behaviour – especially after her track record of ignoring that of Sarah’s original room mate (from Sarah’s point of view).
Place your bets on Raidah, folks! She cares so much about loyalty – is she a good friend to Jennifer and telling her Asher is ‘cheating’ on her or is she a ‘good friend’ to Asher and keep this quiet? Or is she a good friend to herself and gonna do whatever keeps her the most connected?
My expectation for a sensible person would be that they don’t say anything until they scout the issue casually, e.g. “Hi Jennifer! No Asher today? You two both coming to the next lunch date?” and seeing how she responds, maybe with a less casual follow up “everything ok between you two?” if it looks like the conversationn about cheating might need to happen.
Be interesting to see what Raidah will actually do (and whether she projects any of her feelings about how Jacob left her onto the situation).
5 e-bucks says she will jump on Ethan like a chimp on a pile of bananas and will try to drag the poor guy into her den of backstabbing (not the fun kind, the political kind).
Political backstabbing can be fun! Especially when backstabbing shifty corrupt politicians! Or some bigshot guy named Julius! Man there was a whole lot of us that pitched in on that one! A true bonding experience if there ever was one.
I’ll take the long shot and say that she doesn’t tell Jennifer about it, but *does* try and be a “good friend” to Asher by gently encouraging him to break up with Ethan and get back together with Jennifer. For his own good, of course!
I mean, the “i’m quite miserable” does seem like it should be a red flag/alarm bell for him/keep a closer eye on ethan rather than just a compliment, other than it just being teenage/young adult ‘snark’ but idk how much asher knows of ethan’s issues versus it just being an ’emo phase’ (wonder if he knew about jen’s ‘suicide pact’ with ruth)
I don’t think that’s an unreasonable read, since Asher has demonstrated attraction to Ethan’s current emo/depressed vibes, but I do think this is more Asher trying to help cheer Ethan up by rebuking his self-deprecation rather than trying to reinforce his misery so he retains the aesthetic
I don’t understand? I mean, seeing your friend cheat on another isn’t great sure, but her seeing them kissing in public wouldn’t rly make her the sympathetic one compared to asher opening up to her about his issues with jen on how he ‘should act’ as a boyfriend as well as developing feelings for ethan
I think Asher was always into men and women, this might be what Amber’s evil dad was holding over him to get his assistance in certain unpleasant events
I think it was the money Asher stole from his mob-kingpin grandfather. Either Blaine was going to tell the mob about the theft, or he was going to tell IU about a student with mob connections. Just my guess, but Asher has mentioned being involved with corruption and that seems a hell of a lot more likely to get results than outing Asher is bi when he’s okay enough with that to openly date guys.
that was my thought too, but Blaine was pretty vague in his threat. https://www.dumbingofage.com/gramps-2/
Like he cooked their books for them, so it’d make sense that he’d know about money stuff. But the way he worded it has me second guessing.
Asher is okay enough with openly dating guys away from the eyes of the mob. That doesn’t prove that he isn’t hiding his sexuality from them. And I can’t imagine the mob is receptive to being queer.
I hate to be in Raidah’s position: seeing my friends, parent or relatives doing some bad for another person, but this person is doing bad for me or for them.
it would be funny if they released it but it was just a cinema painted on the side of a cliff
DiscussingFilm@discussingfilm.bsky.social ⋅ 21h
‘COYOTE VS ACME’ has been officially saved by Ketchup Entertainment, who bought the film for $50M
They plan to give the film a worldwide theatrical release in 2026.
do y'all remember when they found all that tf art in Osamu Tezuka's drawer post-mortem because I think about it often
anyway keep chasing your bliss and draw weird shit, god knows we need that right now
Today in #9ChickweedLane I learned that I have to weigh which is worse: the cartoonist already forgetting what this guy looks like one daily strip later, or that, yes, he's actually meant to be an old man, not a victim to an older cartoonist forgetting what young people look like
Like any average American, I’m for universal basic income and abolishing the police. I can’t get on board with these ultra-leftists calling for the universal hive mind, though!
maura quint@mauraquint.bsky.social ⋅ 1d
going to start calling myself a centrist and then listing all my leftist views as proof, just going to start moving the overton window by force
I've spent the past few days reading through the entire archive of @damnyouwillis.bsky.social's Dumbing of Age and this has been stuck in my head for about 90% of that time.
DiscussingFilm @discussingfilm.bsky.social ⋅ 21h
maura quint @mauraquint.bsky.social ⋅ 1d
Kyle Griffin @kylegriffin1.bsky.social ⋅ 1d
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Comms Open
Raidah be like…
I love that you already had this image ready
I actually thought of it at 12:03 and had to sprint to Photoshop. Only time I’ve ever been grateful that the server clock is borked.
Nice! Even better!
A-rank speed, Doctor. ^^
Damn, nice work.
Some of the best meme edits are made in haste.
We all know how you pulled it off, TIME LORD.
I don’t think that’s it at all. She’s reacting to the sight of Jennifer’s man kissing some emo dude I’m not sure she knows. Odds are she’s going to go tell Jennifer her boyfriend is cheating on her, or she’s going to try to use it against Jennifer as a power play somehow. I’m just not entirely sure how.
I’m sure she’s about the cause some harmful drama and hope to benefit in some way.
I know it would be speaking too soon, but we hope that this will be a bitter pill of reality for Jennifer and she will finally open her eyes, the truth is that it will be painful.
I think it’s actually less than that. I think it’s more “huh, well, at least if I ever need something I can use, there’s this.” Raidah doesn’t love drama, she loves success, and cohesion within a group that she controls. If nobody is being difficult for her to control, there’s no use for her to waste her ammo weakening the bonds in her social circle, because she sees the strength of her social circle as an asset…as long as she can maintain complete dominance over it.
Smart manipulators exist, and the very thing that’s most dangerous about them, is they don’t cause you as many consistent problems as the average ones…until one day, they outright ruin your life, because it was slightly to their benefit, or even just their convenience.
So well put
I could see Radiah casually asking Jennifer about assets whereabouts to she how she responds, Jennifer responds like she like did with Sal about how she expects Asher to come back to her after he’s improved himself for her while Radiah fake nicely mentions seeing him with someone else.
*Ashers whereabouts
Damn You Otto Korrekt! The ones I really hate are when Otto changes a word after you proof your post and hit >Enter<. And the homophone completely changes the meaning of your post.
Raidah when she tries to talk about Asher: “Oops. Damn autocorrect.”
Walky, probably: “You were talking out loud.”
Jennifer: “Freudian slips are just autocorrect errors of the mind.”
Don Grandpa: “Did someone say something about my asset? Asher. Damnit.”
… What if she sees this as him improving himself?
It’s not a game of psychological warfare if you just outright ask about the situation.
Didn’t she date Ethan’s roommate (Jacob)? Am I getting all the roomie situations confused?
Yes, she dated Jacob until his feelings for Joyce made him end it (though he also chose not to date Joyce).
Yeah, there’s a fleeting chance she recognizes Ethan.
So what’s the chance that she does tell Jen, Jen finally gets what she seems to want, a boyfriend who isn’t treating her nicely, and this rekindles her wanting Asher, she throws herself at him, he breaks up with Ethan, and Ethan enters the next floor deeper down on the depression express?
I think Ethan might flame the drama in this scenario, and if he’s more depressed while he does it, that’s apparently just going to be even more irresistable to Asher.
The ultimate question for me is a longer term one. If Ethan eventually begins to heal and get happier, will Asher look at Jennifer, who is likely to deteriorate, and get tempted.
I hope Ethan finally stands up for himself, instead of letting all the other characters’ negativity just happen to him again.
He deserves the catharsis after beating himself up for so long.
I don’t think Asher necessarily wants an emo boy, or depressed project to fix (I read a horrifying Reddit “best of” the other day where a girl lost her sister in a tragic accident, met a seemingly stand-up guy in the aftermath… Only, he was attracted to “broken with grief”-her and when, after a few years, she’d got back to being a mostly happy person who didn’t just drag herself through each day best she could understand the weight of her loss – he tried to break her emotionally again so she’d be hot to him again. It didn’t work, thankfully, but… https://www.reddit.com/r/BestofRedditorUpdates/comments/k28bhb/my_so_27m_of_1_year_destroyed_a_sentimental_item/ – Asher doesn’t give out those vibes!).
I think Ethan is hot, and the fact that he’s depressed means that Asher can help him be a better person which appeals to his want for growth, but that he’d be happy being part of Ethan’s journey to happy, and would be just as cute and adoring watching a happy Ethan fan out over Transformers…
I was VERY cautious about Asher, and I don’t know HOW compartmentalised everything gets with him, but I would like to think he’s genuinely grown since he set Sal up, and doing everything he can to distance himself from his mob ties without getting himself or any loved ones killed.
HEY-LO maybe that’s what the countdown since the last kidnapping is foreshadowing..? Ethan’s gonna be kidnapped again by heavies looking to get Asher back doing his Gramp’s bidding…
Ruth might get to punch an old man in the face for being insanely controlling… That’d be kinda nice for her if it doesn’t have follow up consequences!
I really hope you’re right, but they are young and this is dumbing of age, so they gotta survive Asher’s weakness for fixing it, Jennifer, and all else for them to reach that healthy point intact.
I don’t really see Asher ditching Ethan for Jen in the aftermath. I think the consequences will be far more destructive for Jennifer
Asher seems really not into her bullshit so, doubt
It depends entirely on who’s the better social property to be attached too.
Asher’s a longer time friend, AND he’s got connections.
Billie’s just an Ex cheerleader with a tangential tie to the dean, but not one that’s stable or useful.
She’ll drop Billie in a heartbeat.
You forget about Jen’s wealthy real estate mogul dad. Granted, I don’t think Raidah’s more than a couple heartbeats away from kicking her to the curb, but the tangential connection to the dean isn’t why she brought Jen into the friend group
Whatever she does, it’s almost certain to end badly for everyone involved.
Oh, this would be HILARIOUS.
Raidah is a ruthless, but also arrogant, social climber. She’s made it clear that she truly despises people who are silly, nerdy, and/or unabashedly passionate about ‘weird’ things, but she’s willing to at least hide her scorn in order to make use of any really valuable social connections they have.
Ethan is ridiculously nerdy, antisocial, unambitious, and just generally embarrassing in almost every way that Raidah cares about. However, he is also EXTREMELY well connected, simply by way of having slept with half of Indiana University’s queer male population.
Oh, how I HOPE Raidah is going to try and make “friends” with Ethan. How the sparks would fly…
If it turns out that Ethan is finally the one to catch Raidah out on her BS publically in a way that finally has Consequences for her, that would be so, so, sweet.
Neat
My popcorn is prepared.
Triple Slipshine moment?
I would actually subscribe to slipshine for this one (and read the others while I’m there, why not?)
They say Misery…loves company
So we’ll start a company…and make Misery
oh no.
I know the sound effect is supposed to be an evil snake rattle or something similar, but I like to imagine Aku has a team of robots with maracas or those tiny colorful eggs filled with sand following him around for dramatic effect.
I’m actually going to laugh if Raidah actually tries to be a good friend here, like she sees her friend’s boyfriend (as far as she knows at least) kissing on someone else and dutifully tells Jennifer…
Only for Jennifer to start frothing at the mouth with glee that FINALLY there’s some INTERESTING TOXICITY IN THEIR FAILING RELATIONSHIP and now she’s 100% invested in Asher once again, to Raidah’s concern.
Raidah: Your boyfriend’s cheating on you with another guy. I don’t mean to cause any drama but–
Jennifer: Jokes on you, I’m into that shit. The ‘shit’ in this case being drama, not the two guys kissing.
It will be crazy worth seeing.
Oh yes I can feel it, I don’t know how but she’s going to try to handle this and it’s going to blow up in her face. She’s trying to assimilate people from Joyce & Sarah’s friend group but will have no clue how to manage herself around the more problematic baggage they have.
Oh, Jennifer would 100% try to “win back” Asher just because he’s actually getting involved with someone else. And after pushing him around so much, I don’t think he’d want to go back to her.
I absolutely see this being the catalyst for Raidah kicking Jen out of the group. Either way it’s about to be messy
Her thoughts on Andrew Garfield’s two hunky bisexual friends says she might into that shit, as well.
Stupid HTML: https://www.dumbingofage.com/2012/comic/book-2/05-saturdays-all-right-for-slighting/people/
asher is the ultimate in “i can fix them” i think.
Asher doesn’t appear to be a bad guy, from the surface he seems a good, if somewhat damaged, hotty with a dark and mysterious past, who bested his dark side and the in-laws you will presumably never ever have to meet: a real catch!
The truth is more … complex, but Asher hides it well. Enough that the peaks others get at his darker side can be dismissed as simply fading echoes of his family upbringing.
It now occurs to me you may have meant, Asher has a thing for “I can fix them” cases. In that case you appear to be correct – going from Billy to Ethan is a real out the frying pan into the fire deal. Fortunately, it looks like Asher just maybe made out of monoammonium phosphate.
Eh Ethan is a good guy, he’s just in mourning.
Jennifer has a whole host of issues.
I work with fire extinguishers, and I am delighted that you chose that specific chemical
I don’t work with fire extinguishers, and it was a tasty puzzle.
I did mean the latter, yeah! Asher has a thing for people who have obvious issues. I’m excited to see his relationship with Ethan play out, I missed Ethan a lot, and I have been READY for Jennifer’s reality check and for this friend group to implode since it was first introduced. <3
I dunno, this looks like bad guy behaviour to me.
I’d still say he’s more of an antihero.
The dastardly fiend, receiving a text message.
The rush order on the “get well soon” cake he ordered was done.
why do I get the feeling she’s gonna use this as blackmail on one or both of these guys
We are talking about Raidah, and to be honest it would not be strange if that were to happen.
She’d probably use this against Jennifer for some reason.
She’ll be quickly disappointed it she tries, Asher isn’t hiding anything, he doesn’t have a girlfriend anymore to cheat on.
Well, he’s not hiding anything about this relationship.
That’s what he thinks, but Jennifer just put their relationship in some passive-aggressive mean-girl holding pattern to convince him to change. For some reason.
High drama people are exhausting.
let her TRY
She can ask the last guy’s remains how that worked out.
Mm.
I’m pretty sure Ethan never killed anybody.
How though? They’re being openly affectionate, I don’t think they care if people know
oh my oh my
Ugh….Raidah, well we’ll see how “good a friend” you really are.
Oh this bodes poorly.
ah yes; depression, the most desirable trait.
Life gives you lemons, something something you know
…make life take the lemons back?
hahahahhaa im glad someone knows that reference around here besides me ^^
also you know that feeling when you’re too tired to work but too awake to sleep? that’s me rn and I HATE IT (-_-)
Demand to speak to life’s manager
This will be interesting…and something tells me I’m going to like the results.
go back to joyce and joe
ir desperandem!
across the desert lay the promised land!
Asher looks… really happy here. I mean really happy. I mean sure, he’s getting laid, but this is different.
“No longer dating Jennifer” would certainly put a serious spring into MY step.
“Is that a smile on Asher’s face?” was my first guess.
It took me a few seconds to confirm.
I like it when the antagonists have redeeming qualities. I don’t imagine Raidah sitting around all the time thinking, “how can I cause suffering for the sake of causing suffering.” That’s boring.
The detail here would be how Raidah came to express it, and how she would tell Jennifer.
What can be interesting is why she decides to do what she will do. If it’s just her trying to figure out what she can do to best use for her own advantage, that’s boring. That’s barely a character.
Seeing someone else’s bad-match relationship dissolve. Maybe she’ll tell Jennifer, knowing she should know, but also knowing that Jennifer and Asher weren’t really going to last. Detached, she watches how the jilted person responds. All the spite she’s been feeling for months seems silly. Childish. Everything feels kind of hollow and tinny, like she’s outside herself, wondering why she’s doing everything she’s doing.
I guess we’re about to see who out of Jennifer or Asher is the more valuable “friend” to have around in the group.
Or indeed whether Jennifer or Ethan is the “more valuable” partner to invite into the group. I wonder how Raidah will interact with Ethan’s self-destructive behaviour – especially after her track record of ignoring that of Sarah’s original room mate (from Sarah’s point of view).
Place your bets on Raidah, folks! She cares so much about loyalty – is she a good friend to Jennifer and telling her Asher is ‘cheating’ on her or is she a ‘good friend’ to Asher and keep this quiet? Or is she a good friend to herself and gonna do whatever keeps her the most connected?
The third option is more obvious
My expectation for a sensible person would be that they don’t say anything until they scout the issue casually, e.g. “Hi Jennifer! No Asher today? You two both coming to the next lunch date?” and seeing how she responds, maybe with a less casual follow up “everything ok between you two?” if it looks like the conversationn about cheating might need to happen.
Be interesting to see what Raidah will actually do (and whether she projects any of her feelings about how Jacob left her onto the situation).
5 e-bucks says she will jump on Ethan like a chimp on a pile of bananas and will try to drag the poor guy into her den of backstabbing (not the fun kind, the political kind).
Political backstabbing can be fun! Especially when backstabbing shifty corrupt politicians! Or some bigshot guy named Julius! Man there was a whole lot of us that pitched in on that one! A true bonding experience if there ever was one.
I’ll take the long shot and say that she doesn’t tell Jennifer about it, but *does* try and be a “good friend” to Asher by gently encouraging him to break up with Ethan and get back together with Jennifer. For his own good, of course!
I think she sees the parallels between what happened with her, Jacob, and Joyce.
Ashan? Ether!
Ether for sure.
They are definitely space-high on happiness.
Man, Asher is such a good boyfriend and I really want him to date someone who genuinely appreciates him.
I mean, the “i’m quite miserable” does seem like it should be a red flag/alarm bell for him/keep a closer eye on ethan rather than just a compliment, other than it just being teenage/young adult ‘snark’ but idk how much asher knows of ethan’s issues versus it just being an ’emo phase’ (wonder if he knew about jen’s ‘suicide pact’ with ruth)
I dunno, this has very strong “you’re cute when you’re crying, don’t ever heal.” vibes.
I don’t think that’s an unreasonable read, since Asher has demonstrated attraction to Ethan’s current emo/depressed vibes, but I do think this is more Asher trying to help cheer Ethan up by rebuking his self-deprecation rather than trying to reinforce his misery so he retains the aesthetic
If you told me pre-time skip that I would think Ethan doesn’t deserve Asher, I wouldn’t have believed you. But it’s true
The plot thickens.
Or possibly thinnens.
I don’t think I quite grok the exact social dynamics of these three in particular to know which one.
I don’t give a flying fuck about any of the characters in this strip. What’s Meredith doing, instead?
She’s up on garbage roof polluting.
Polluting what? Is she up there with an antique coal chimney or something?
She smokes weed.
Honestly I think she should do edibles instead, much healthier
In that case, I’m polluting every time I cook food.
Yeah she decided to live the life of Captain Planet Villain
Now I’m just imagining Captain Planet introducing her to edibles and going full on hippee with her <3
Huh… I wonder if you could roll a blunt with his hair as the filling…
joke’s going to be on us, Raidah’s having lunch with Meredith. They’re not networking, they’re in a band together, called Verminous Skumm.
Book 14: Everybody fucks (even more than usual)
One of scant few times Raidah is portrayed as even remotely sympathetic.
I wonder how she will ruin this one!
I deeply sympathise with her habit of eating food for lunch.
At the food court, no less. I kinda miss cafeteria food, mostly because it was some good hangout opportunity.
It’s one of the top three most important meals of the day!
Allegedly
I don’t understand? I mean, seeing your friend cheat on another isn’t great sure, but her seeing them kissing in public wouldn’t rly make her the sympathetic one compared to asher opening up to her about his issues with jen on how he ‘should act’ as a boyfriend as well as developing feelings for ethan
IT’S ABOUT DAMN TIME. WHERE’S THIS SLIPSHINE?
There’s a picture of them fucking on the NSFW Patreon, I hear. It’s not specifically Slipshine, but it’s still smut.
2024: Year of the slipshines
Fr tho they’re so cute together. Wonder how
BillieJennifer feels about it…?Jennifer, you played so hard to get your boyfriend turned to men instead
I think Asher was always into men and women, this might be what Amber’s evil dad was holding over him to get his assistance in certain unpleasant events
I think it was the money Asher stole from his mob-kingpin grandfather. Either Blaine was going to tell the mob about the theft, or he was going to tell IU about a student with mob connections. Just my guess, but Asher has mentioned being involved with corruption and that seems a hell of a lot more likely to get results than outing Asher is bi when he’s okay enough with that to openly date guys.
that was my thought too, but Blaine was pretty vague in his threat. https://www.dumbingofage.com/gramps-2/
Like he cooked their books for them, so it’d make sense that he’d know about money stuff. But the way he worded it has me second guessing.
Asher is okay enough with openly dating guys away from the eyes of the mob. That doesn’t prove that he isn’t hiding his sexuality from them. And I can’t imagine the mob is receptive to being queer.
Jennifer seems to have gotten “Hard to get” and “Hard to want” confused.
I am terrified yet SO excited for what this will bring
Yeah, she totally looks like she ships it.
Uh-oh.
Raidah’s preparing a thermonuclear drama bomb.
And that bomb’s name is Billie. Jennifer is quite familiar with it.
The last time we saw these two was March 3. So, they’ve been going at it for nearly three months! Dang, that’s some stamina!
(I know, I know, DOA time. Let me fantasize, dammit.)
Ethan’s going to be unbearably grimdark now that he has a boyfriend who finds his brooding hot.
“Really? Right in front of my breakfast?”
Ok let’s set up the inevitable Jennifer explosion and/or bender
In this scenario, probably “and”.
I hate to be in Raidah’s position: seeing my friends, parent or relatives doing some bad for another person, but this person is doing bad for me or for them.
Eh, the only thing on her mind right now is probably “Which side should I choose to benefit myself the most.”
tbf i doubt she sees jen as a true friend if she’s telling her to ‘fix this’ rather than “don’t tolerate someone cheating on you/make up with him”
yup, excited for the dramz and all but mostly i wanna say i love the way asher is drawn. so handsome :3
Welp, now someone knows that Asher is screwing around on Jennifer. Just a matter of time before the first cracks into her world begin to take shape.
“someone” “knows” that “Asher” is “screwing around” on “Jennifer”
always happy to have more fujoshi representation in doa